
"Borealis" sound theme
Source (link to git-repo or to original if based on someone elses unmodified work): Add the source-code for this project on opencode.net
KDE Sound theme "Borealis"
Version 0.9a (11/14/2004)
by Ivica Ico Bukvic (SlipStreamScapes)
ico at bukvic dot net
http://ico.bukvic.net
http://kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=12584
OVERVIEW
========
The goal of this sound theme is to provide "better feel" through use of the subtle aural notifications. The test I always have in my mind while designing the desktop sounds is to imagine having half-dozen (or more) computer stations in the same office or studio and consider whether their simultaneous use (and resulting desktop sounds) would pose as distraction on users and their productivity. Therefore, in order to minimize the "distraction factor" this theme associates many of the common desktop events with brief, mostly non-pitched, but nonetheless pleasing sound sources (a.k.a. effects).
All of the sounds included have been composed (if applicable), recorded, and mastered by me (although a few of them bear resemblance to other OS's sounds). Some of them are leftovers from my previous compositional and production endeavors, while others are entirely new creations.
All sounds are designed and mixed at CD-quality (stereo, 16-bit, 44.1KHz). Ogg version is distributed as 192Kbit stereo files.
Thank you for your interest!
LICENSE
=======
See below.
FEATURES
========
*Includes sounds for:
*KDE WM
*KDE System Notifications
*Kdevelop
*Kopete
*KDE Sysguard
*KMail
*Konsole
*Proxy configuration
*K3b (missing 1 sound)
*4 startup sounds
*2 exit sounds
*Automated installer and uninstaller (KDE 3.x)
INSTALL
=======
IMPORTANT! installer has been tested only with KDE 3.x series.
Borealis comes with an automated install shellscript making the install a simple 2-step process:
1) Untar the package:
tar -jxvf Borealis_sound_theme-VERSION.tar.bz2
2) Install the theme:
cd Borealis/
su -p
(IMPORTANT! You must do 'su' with the '-p' flag in order to preserve your home dir variable while running as superuser)
sh install.sh
At this point simply follow the on-screen instructions and in a couple moments it should be all ready to go.
Optionally, you may also want to disable animation of minimizing/restoring windows as the theme sounds associated with these actions in my opinion work better when the animation is disabled. You can adjust this setting in the KControl -> LookNFeel -> Window Behavior -> Moving tab -> Animate minimize and Restore option.
UNINSTALL
=========
To uninstall Borealis theme simply use the uninstall.sh script included in the tarball:
sh uninstall.sh
Your votes, comments, and suggestions are most welcome and appreciated. Thanks!
Enjoy!
SlipStreamScapes
15 years ago
That being said, there was someone who posted a comment here mentioning they adapted the theme to Gnome. Try looking through the post archive for more info. I did not add it to the package since they never provided me with the config file for Gnome.
Of course, I always welcome contributions if you are interested in assigning sounds with particular Gnome events (which in itself should not be too difficult) and e-mailing me the config file. This way you can help others also enjoy the theme on their desktop of choice.
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paenil1
16 years ago
Perhaps as a precaution, you should mention to backup the system sounds manually just to make sure.
Oh and another thing, my sound stopped working after i restart my computer. I logged in as different user and it works but now my previous account is un-usable since everytime i log in an error msg pops up over and over and freeze the whole thing. Sorry i couldn't get any more info for you on this but if it helps, I'm running SUSE 9.1 Personal Edition in case you want to try and test your sounds :).
I didn't really get to hear all the sound effects except for the error sound :). But it sounds good. Hope i can get it working later om.
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SlipStreamScapes
16 years ago
I am very sorry to hear that you are having problems. Have you made sure to do "su -p" when you went to install the theme? This is critical to do, otherwise you may have some problems, namely that the permissions to your settings get corrupt.
I was convinced that I fixed the issue that was reported before but since I do not have access to a Suse machine I could not make the necessary tests. It seems that the Suse has a different way of dealing with environment variables when using "su."
The quick fix for this is to do the following:
1) become superuser (su)
2) go to your user's folder (i.e. /home/username)
3) cd to .kde/share/config/ folder
4) type: chown username:username *
Please note that "username" should be replaced with your real username.
This should likely fix your problem. Please let me know if it doesn't, also please feel free to e-mail me directly if necessary.
Best wishes,
Ico
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paenil1
16 years ago
Cheers
Lomi
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siglite
16 years ago
This theme is subtle and functional. Works like a charm. Great work.
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SlipStreamScapes
16 years ago
Time permitting, I am planning on releasing an update soon that will include additional sounds. I will post them as soon as they are ready.
Best wishes,
Ico
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sirtalon
16 years ago
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SlipStreamScapes
16 years ago
As far as I heard there is a slight chance that this theme will be incorporated in one of the future releases of KDE. Of course, you may always encourage developers to include the theme by posting your comments and/or voting here:
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=92238
Thank you very much!
Best wishes,
Ico
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nuka
16 years ago
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johnnyICON
16 years ago
mv: cannot stat `/home/root/.kde/share/config/knotify.eventsrc': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat `/home/root/.kde/share/config/konsole.eventsrc': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat `/home/root/.kde/share/config/kwin.eventsrc': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat `/home/root/.kde/share/config/kdevelop.eventsrc': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat `/home/root/.kde/share/config/kopete.eventsrc': No such file ordirectory
mv: cannot stat `/home/root/.kde/share/config/kmail.eventsrc': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat `/home/root/.kde/share/config/ksysguard.eventsrc': No such fileor directory
mv: cannot stat `/home/root/.kde/share/config/proxyscout.eventsrc': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat `/home/root/.kde/share/config/k3b.eventsrc': No such file or directory
Done.
Copying config files to /home/root/.kde/share/config directory and adjusting permissions...
cp: `/home/root/.kde/share/config/': specified destination directory does not exist
Try `cp --help' for more information.
chown: failed to get attributes of `/home/root/.bashrc': No such file or directory
Step 4 complete.
I am missing files, obviously. How do I fix this?
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SlipStreamScapes
16 years ago
Many thanks to all who reported this problem as well as for providing verbose info that helped find the solution!
Best wishes,
Ico
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SlipStreamScapes
16 years ago
You are likely trying to install this theme as a root (not as su but logged in as root). This should not be necessary as it is unadvisable to use root account for your everyday activity. I have looked into this and have fixed the issue in the upcoming version. Please e-mail me directly and I will send you the fixed version of the installer/uninstaller.
Best wishes,
Ico
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Vlad
16 years ago
I'm not new to linux, but your install system has me baffled. Could you please give a more descriptive method of installing it? Thank you! :)
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SlipStreamScapes
16 years ago
You should install it as a user who will have the theme running as "su" or superuser under that user. This is because as a superuser, the theme needs to be installed in the /usr/share/sounds/Borealis/ folder, while when looking-up your /home directory, your user variable needs to stay untouched, as it will look for the /home/*user_name* folder where it will save all your settings in the .kde subfolder.
I am aware that apparently some distro's have weirdly set environment variables so that even when you are logged in as a user and then running the script as "su" under that user, that your $USER environment variable gets trashed and becomes root. This is hard to track down as apparently there are inconsistencies on particular distros.
Could you please tell me exact steps how you got this error and what distro you are using?
That being said, I am considering moving the install of the whole theme into the /home dir to fix this, so that you don't have to mess with the "su" at all. Although, this will imply that on a multi-user machine you'll have redudant copies of the same files...
Best wishes,
Ico
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henriquemaia
16 years ago
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SlipStreamScapes
16 years ago
Best wishes,
Ico
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bfkeats
16 years ago
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SlipStreamScapes
16 years ago
Best wishes,
Ico
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euxneks
16 years ago
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SlipStreamScapes
16 years ago
I will be making a couple of alternative logout sounds in one of the upcoming releases so hopefully one of those may fit your needs.
As far as the beat stuff is concerned, I feel like the fact there is no "tangible" downbeat is actually for me the most interesting thing regarding that particular version of the sound, but I guess this is purely a matter of opinion.
Anyhow, thanks for your interest!
Best wishes,
Ico
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SlipStreamScapes
16 years ago
Thanks!
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djworld
16 years ago
tar: This doesn't seem to be a tar file
tar: Skipping to the next header
tar: This file contains obsolote base-64 headers
tar: Exit with errors
I can't uncompress the files. I've tried with Ark and with "tar xjvf". I have the version 0.3. Could you take a look at it to see if they are correctly compressed?
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SlipStreamScapes
16 years ago
0.3a is now available (see readme for more info).
Cheers!
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djworld
16 years ago
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SlipStreamScapes
16 years ago
Best wishes,
Ico
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