Installing Rainlendar

Last post I did was a review of Rainlendar, and I said it could be a bit tricky to install cause it was a pain for me. Anywho when like I ever have problems I run to Qunu. On Qunu a nice person by the name of isaac_j87 was there to help me.... So here we go.

To install it normally, if you don't run into any problems you should first download it from here. After you download it you need to extract it, then you will have a directory called; "rainlendar2". In there there will be a file named, "rainlendar2". Now first try installing it, and see if it will work for you. To get it to run you just need to run the rainlendar2 file. Which I like to do from terminal so If it doesn't work I can see any errors. So I cd into the rainlendar2 directory then ran"

./rainlendar2

Now of course after I did this it did not work.....and I did not get any errors in my terminal output. So that is when I went to Qunu, and met isaac_j87 who I can not thank enough for helping me out!

So here is the fix for what went wrong with us. First you need to navigate to your home folder, and look in the directory called ".config" which is a hidden directory, so if you want to see it I know on Ubuntu you just pres, ctr+h on the keyboard while in your home directory and all your hidden files becoem visible. Now while in the ".config" directory you should see a ".rainlendar" directory if you already tried starting Rainlendar like I stated above. In this directory there should be a file or two called something like:

Rainlendar2-mike

and maybe;

Rainlendar2-root

Your first one probably ill not say mike, but your user name. Next make a copy of the Rainlendar2-"your user name" and paste it in the same directory as the other two. Next you will wan't to re-name the pasted file, "rainlendar2.ini". And make sure that is lowercase....

Now it should kind of work....So go back to the original Rainlendar2 directory and run the .bin again with ./rainlendar2 and you will probably get an error but the calendar should be working....the error I got was something like this (but if this does not happen scroll down and go to my note):

/home/mike/.config/.rainlendar/rainlendar2.ini', line 1: '=' expected.

So now lets fix this error. So type this into terminal but replace mike with your user name:

gedit /home/mike/.config/.rainlendar2

This will open gedit and you need to look at the text in this file. The second line of the file should say, [default] or something along those lines and right above it there should be a number....delete the number then save and close, and try running rainlendar again. Now it should work again but without that error. Congratulations you now have yourself a great desktop calendar to stay organized.

Note:

If you tried all of the above and it still didn't work your an unlucky fellow like I was. If after the file copy and name change it still doesn't run, then open up your .ini file in a text editor. See if it says anything... mine said this:

㘱㜶4

and nothing else....so after this we were stuck and I was frustrated so, I just opened up my .rainlendar directory and cleared all the contents...but make sure you are in the .rainlendar2 not the rainlendar2you want the one located in the .config directory. I just wiped out everything that was in it, so it was now just an empty directory. Then I tried running the ./rainlendar2 again in terminal and it then created the two files I mentioned before, and I copied it again and changed its name, and repeated all and bam it now worked! Go figure who know what happened....but it fixed it. If after all this it still don't work post a comment on your situation, and we can try and help you out.

Install Screenlets 0.0.8

So I already posted a review about Screenlets here, and I said maybe I would get around to how to install it and run it so I guess I should do that. So here it goes.... First go here, and download the source. They give one way to install it with like make install but the readme in the file has another way which I will elaborate more on this post, and I will go into how to run screenlets, cause to my knowledge un-like the last release there is no gui for launching screenlets.

So once you got the source downloaded move it to what ever directory you like, I like to do things from the home directory but it's your choice. Next extract it, the easy way is to right click it and choose extract. No open a terminal and cd into that screenlets-0.0.8 directory. Once in it run this command:

sudo python setup.py install

That should install it and yippy skippy, that was easy. So now lets get screenlets up and running. So you could do this by command line, but I think its easier and quicker to point and click, so open your file manager and navigate to the screenlets directory. Once in Navigate to:

screenlets-0.0.8/src/share/screenlets

Once in there you will see a bunch of directories which are all the screenlets you have installed, mine looks like this:



Ok so now that I put the picture in it looks to blurry to read, so sorry about that, but you get the general idea. SO next navigate into the directory of the screenlet you want to launch it do this: Click on the icon that say the screenletsname.py and bam your screenlet shall be up on the desktop, but please make sure you have a composite manager running before you do this, because then they won't look so pretty.

Now just repeat that for each screenlet you want running. If the screenlet ran and is working go have fun and stop reading this, if your screenlet didn't come up when u you clicked the .py file then read on.

So if your reading this that sucks for you, heheh just kidding, I think I know how to solve your problem with some easy magic. Right clcik the .py file and click and click properties. Then click the permissions tab and make sure the "allow executing file blah blah blah" is checked.

Now re-click the .py and your screeenlet should come up! If it doesn't then sorry you will have to share some details with us to help you....

Install Giver; Easy file Sharing on Linux

This is a guide on how to install Giver, and easy file sharing program for Linux. Sometime after writing this post I will post a review of Giver, for you all to. First things first open a terminal and type this:

sudo apt-get install mercurial

Next input this into terminal:

hg clone http://hg.circular-chaos.org/notify-sharp

Now depending on where you were in terminal you should have a Notify-Sharp directory in your home folder. So next in terminal:

cd notify-sharp/

Now we are inside the Notify-Sharp directory. OK at this point I got stuck I didn't know what to do, there was no config file or automake or anything....I am still some what new to Linux, so i got help....so I went over to Qunu and started to chat with the users BlackShift who helped me out a lot. So now in the Notify-Sharp directory type these commands in this order:

autoscan

automake --add-missing

autoreconf

Now you should have a config file in the Notify-Sharp Directory. But before you run ./configure we need to install mono, which we do like this, so in the same terminal type these commands:

sudo apt-get install mono

sudo apt-get install mono-devel

sudo apt-get install libmono-dev

sudo apt-get install mono-gmcs

sudo apt-get install monodoc

Ok now mono is installed and we can now try and configure Notify-Sharp. Now after all that we can finally do a configure, so next in terminal do:

./configure

Next we type these two commands in this order into terminal:

make

sudo make install

(Just a quick note, BlackShift points out if your make failes try: sudo apt-get install libmono-cairo2.0-cil and then make again)

So now we got all that out of the way and Notify-Sharp is finally installed...now lets move on to what we really actually wanted to install, Giver!!! SO first you need to go download Giver from here. Then extract it to the directory you want it in and cd into it via terminal. Now in terminal once in the giver directory try:

./configure

make

sudo make install

Now hopefully you got zero errors and it installed. It should be located in Applications>Internet>Giver

Update:

Ok so mine wouldn't start, and BlackShift helped me out a bit and I did this in terminal:

export MONO_PATH=/usr/local/lib/mono/notify-sharp

and then I ran giver again and now it works!!! Now I will install it on another computer, and will test it out and write a review!! Thanks so much to BlackShift, I couldn't have figured this out on my own. Now If your giver won't start like mine, I will try and get black shift to post a comment explaining how he figured out what to do.