Ubuntu Tweak Blog

Ubuntu Tweak 0.4.9 released: Manage your sources more easily!

September 12th, 2009 | by TualatriX |

After more than one month’s development, Ubuntu Tweak 0.4.9 is  finally released!

Whatever you’re using Hardy, Intrepid, Jaunty or the latest development Karmic, Ubuntu Tweak will give  you improved user experience with Sources and Applications!

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Separated Source List

By enabling more and more third-party sources, what does your sources.list look like? I think it become hard to read and manage, right?

OK, with Ubuntu Tweak 0.4.9, you will have a more manageable way with Third Party Sources. By default, Ubuntu Tweak will save the third party sources into its own file under /etc/apt/sources.list.d/

When you open the Source Editor, Ubuntu Tweak will show you the main sources.list in the window.

And you can select the drop down menu to view or edit the other list files. They are stored in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/.

It will keep the sources.list more clean, right?

If you don’t like use “Separated Sources”, you can also disable in the “Preferences Dialog”.

Powerful Third-Party Sources

First, a lot of PPA has been added, they are: aMule, Google Testing Repository, GmChess (Chinese Chess), Smplayer Testing, GIMP Testing, Back In Time (Backup tool), Geany, SpiceBird, Moblin Testing, PlayOnLinux, RedNotebook, Breathe Icon Theme, Qt, Mono, Exaile, Clutter, Ubuntu X Unstable, Gloobus……

Wow, so many new stuff there!

Then a notification will be displayed when you enable a source.

The most improvement is here:

After you click the “refresh” to update and the operation finish, a convenient dialog will display.

With this dialog, you will know what new applications can be installed and what updates can be applied.

You needn’t go Add/Remove or open the Update Manager any more!

Add/Remove can install Theme

Add/Remove isn’t for install application only, you can install the beautiful themes too!

At now there’re only four themes(You need to enable the theme sources), I will add more themes in the future.

Improved PolicyKit mechanism

To be a robust and security application, Ubuntu Tweak imporved its dbus and policykit mechanism. Now the daemon is written in C with full PolicyKit support.

Only the authenticated policykit request can invoke the dbus method.

So the “Power User Mode” will looks like this, you can set the “Remember authorization”, “For ever” or “For this session only”.

Interesting Application with Ubuntu Tweak

As you know, A lot of new Sources and Applications shiped with Ubuntu Tweak 0.4.9. You can install and use them easily.

The most recommend application is Gloobus Preview. With the gloobus PPA, you can make your GNOME Desktop with the powerful preview feature: just select the file, then press the “Space” key, the preview window will display immediately!

The screenshot shows a preview with Ubuntu Tweak’s source code, Yes, with Syntax Highlights!

Important Notes

From this version, Ubuntu Tweak has different package for i386 and amd64. So when you download the package, please get the right package. Of course, the recommend way is to update with the Source.

Looking forward to Ubuntu Tweak 0.5

There’s no doubt the Ubuntu Tweak 0.4.9 is the final version of 0.4.x series, except the fix release of  0.4.x.

The next series will be 0.5, I’ve talked about the 0.5 at Ubuntu Tweak 0.4.8 released: improved PPA

Now, I will show you the new website will come along with Ubuntu Tweak 0.5. Here is the draft design of the website:

The website will be an important part of the future Ubuntu Tweak. All the App and Source data will available on-line, and sync the data with Desktop application. You can always use the update-to-date application data without updating Ubuntu Tweak.

So it will be a big project,  the progress is slow but under control. Fortunately, my friend help me to design the front-end of the website, I can focus on the core part.

I hope the first version of Ubuntu Tweak 0.5 and the new website will come soon.

If you like Ubuntu Tweak, and hope it will come as soon as possible, please consider to make donations. We need your help!

Downloads for Ubuntu Tweak 0.4.9

OK, you must can’t wait to use it now. Just update through apt-get update. Or visit the link to download the deb package to suit your system.

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu-tweak/0.4.x/0.4.9

Enjoy!