Posted by Calixte Pictet | 0 comments
Linux App: Ailurus
If you’re like me, you can never stand the default interface provided to you by your vendor or OS manufacturer. I hate Windows’ “Start” button, the lack of an organized menu for applications, the lack of the “scale windows” feature (called “expose” on Mac OS), etc. I hate the mac OS interface for the lack of a comprehensive application menu, the missing “maximize” feature (that all other modern desktops have) and other things.
The Linux World is not perfect either. GNOME doesn’t have acceptable window previews, no scale mode either, and is missing a lot in terms of application UI. KDE has a very stupid “K menu” (in my opinion) that looks like the Windows “Start menu” gone wrong. The good thing about Linux desktops is that they are extremely configurable. You can add the Compiz-Fusion window manager and effects to both GNOME and KDE, and switch from these desktops to Xfce or even Enlightenment, FluxBox or others at any given time in the click of a button. You can also configure things withing your desktop. That’s even very easy on some desktops, bot others like GNOME don’t give you access to all your settings.
Outside of the desktop domain, there are a lot of things that are pre-configured in the way that pleases your OS vendor, but it might not be exactly what you need or want. Changing all these settings can be a drag, and are generally much to complicated for the average user. That’s where Ailurus comes in.
A short introduction to Ailurus
According to it’s developers, the first goal of Ailurus is to make Linux easier to use for newcomers, eliminating certain difficulties in finding the right application, configuring their desktop or even cleaning up their system. Ailurus also hopes to promote popular open-source software, including those in official repositories and other which are “elegant” but who haven’t entered the official repository yet.
Ailurus is a cross-Linux-distribution application published under the GPL copyleft license.
Features
Ailurus has a lot of diverse functions. Here’s a short list of the major ones.
- Display Linux skills
Ailurus can teach you how to use Linux. It has a “tip of the day feature” where it teaches you some dbsic commad-line functions of Linux. It also links you to several useful sources such as the Ubuntu/Kubuntu configuration guide.
- Install popular software
Ailurus includes a small Software Center -like interface in which it presents you with popular aps you may want to install.
- Change GNOME settings
GNOME doesn’t seem very configureable as-is, but there are a lot of setting with which you can tinker, and most of them are included in Ailurus’ GUI.
- Display hardware information
You probably already have one pre-installed with your distribution, but it doesn’t hurt to have it here too.
- Enable some third party repositories1
Adding repositories on your Linux desktop can be hard for newbe users or the non-techies, so a GUI interface that proposes a small list of repositories is not unwelcome.
- Clean apt/yum cache, backup and recover apt/yum status1
System information
The first button, tagged “System,” provides the user with system information. The interface used is the classical tree-like view that you’ll find on most tools in Linux and even in Windows XP. I’m not going to complain much: it’s simple and gives you all the hardware information you might need and expect (Motherboard, BiOS, CPU, battery, etc.) as well as software information such as uptime and kernel version. I was slightly disapointed not to have a specific, maybe a tad more inovative interface for this feature. When using it, we have the impression that it was added just because the developpers felt it should be, and not because they were making some task simpler for the user. In that sense, they were not completely wrong. I like having this sort of tool next to my other system settings because it really makes system information easier to find.
System settings
Probably the most used feature of Ailurus is the “System Settings” tab, situated second to the left. This tab contains a variety of pages that will help you configure anything from some useful Firefox settings to the position of the title-bar windows. All the user needs to do is to click on the menu enty of his choice and select the settings he wants to change. This is surely my favorite feature in the whole application.
Not only does it feel like you have all the settings you’d like to tinker in the same place, but setting I never new existed become point-and-click. An example that illustrates this well is the “Memory” settings. Or should I say “setting”? This entry has only one setting; the rate at which their computer swaps memory from the RAM to the hard drive’s “swap space.”
This can be useful for people who multi-task between applications a lot (these people would want to lower this setting as loading their unused apps from the SWAP space is more lengthy than fetching it from the RAM) or people who like to have a lot of apps in the background that they use very little (who should set it higher).
Other settings that users might appreciate a lot are the title-bar button positions or the desktop icon settings.
Installing software and repository settings
This includes two sections: “Install Software”and “Fastest Repository”. The first one is rather straight forward. “The Install software” section resembles the Ubuntu Software Center or any other APT/Yum/Pacman GUI. It provides you with a list of applications that are automatically downloaded and installed in a few clicks. Ailurus’s software list is by no means complete. 
It is, however, a nice list of popular software that the new user should consider downloading. But Ailurus provides even more simplicity for the user: it gives a one-click solution for the user to install useful tools like the Flash plugin, multi-media codecs, hardware drivers and more. All you have to do is click on the “Quickly install popular software” button and then click “OK” when the window pops up.
Ailurus also gives you the option to add several useful repositories–such as Chromium’s beta channel or Cairo-dock’s repository–by a simple point-and-click solution similar to that used to install applications.
The “Fastest Repository” section is exactly the same as another setting that you can find in the default “Software Sources” tool.
Recover APT, Clean Up and Computer Doctor
Ailurus also includes other very handy features. such as Recover APT. Basically, this tool keeps track of software that is added and removed and recovers snapshots you have manually made from any date, using a very basic UI. This is handy if you often try to use new software as you won’t need to worry about messing your system up. Ailurus lacks in this domain, however. The system is not configureable at all and is limited only to applications. You won’t able to use it to back up your documents or settings. If that’s what you want to do, I’d recommend you to try another solution such as Back In Time.
The “Clean Up” section is more complete. It offers options such as reclaiming the disk buffer cache memory as well as the APT (package manager) and thumbnail image cache. There is even a tool to remove the unused software configuration files. All in all, I like this part of Ailurus. I find it handy for quickly cleaning up the computer and getting extra space on the hard drive. However, the multitude of buttons may confuse or scare new users away. This particular part of the app should absolutely be cleaned up and reorganized. Ironic isn’t it?
The “Computer Doctor” is a useful tool too. It automatically detects “errors” in your system and gives you a one-click solution to solve the problem, as well as giving you recommendations such as the option to query you before you delete more than three files in BASH so as to avoid errors.
Learning about Linux
Ailurus is not just a tool to help you with the plethora of settings on your Linux machine. It’s also supposed to help you learn about Linux and improve your “Linux skills”. So as to reach this goal, the program provides you useful command-line tips through a “Tip of the Day” system that can be activated when Ailurus or GNOME starts. What’s more, hovering your mouse pointer above any item shows you the command that is used. This is a very practical no-stress solution to learning how to change your computer’s settings through the CLI.
General overview
Overall, Ailurus is an incredibly handy tool. On the minus side, it often looks inconsistent, if not downright ugly. The user is not always sure where to find every feature, and the organisation seems not very well thought-out, sometimes even random. Nonetheless, it’s very handy tool that doesn’t consider it’s users to be idiots and teaches them to become independent from itself. Whatever your level of geekiness, you’ll be pleased by the tools provided.
Ailurus is aimed at teaching new Linux users (less than a month of experience with Linux) about their system and how to tinker it. In that, it is excellent. But it does much more. Some more experienced Linux users might probably appreciate this tool a lot, and even people who might not absolutely want to learn the interior workings of their computers might love this app.
Installation
On Ubuntu and derivatives, just copy and paste the following lines in your terminal:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ailurus
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ailurus
Alternatively, you can download the source the .deb package from the project’s Google Code page. Other packages for Fedora and other operating systems are available on the same page
Contact the author via email
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1 These features are only available to Ubuntu and Fedora users.
