"Borealis" sound theme

System Sounds

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

7
7.2
Description:

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!

107 comments
Comments/Ratings

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C

SlipStreamScapes

15 years ago

Well, I posted this on kde-look.org but ever since gnome-look.org has been added, the site apparently makes no distinction between KDE and Gnome sound themes. This is likely why you saw it on gnome-look.org as well.

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

I received the same msgs as johnnyICON, but the installation went ahead WITHOUT backing up the previous sound files. So therefore i couldn't run the uninstall script since it couldn't find any backup files.

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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C

SlipStreamScapes

16 years ago

Hi!

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

I i followed your instructions to the letter. I'll try again on my laptop. Doesn't matter if i screw it up there i can always reinstall. About my sound not working, i just created a new user and transfer all my files from the previous one to the new home dir. It took a while but everything is fine now. I'll keep you posted on my progress with your sound theme.

Cheers

Lomi

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siglite

16 years ago

Man, that's a great theme. Nice and subtle. I share a workspace with about 5 developers, and I've had to go without sound themes for months because the default KDE themes are entirely too obnoxious and pose quite a distraction.

This theme is subtle and functional. Works like a charm. Great work.

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C

SlipStreamScapes

16 years ago

Thank you very much for your kind words and compliments! I really do appreciate it!

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

I just installed your theme and LOVE it! This should really be considered for the default theme in KDE 4 or 3.4 (hopefully sounds support will be added into the theme manager at the very least).

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C

SlipStreamScapes

16 years ago

Thank you very much for your kind compliments! :-)

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

i voted. these are awesome.

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johnnyICON

16 years ago

I am new to all this. All steps up until after 4 of the install process worked fine. Here is what I get after the 4th step:

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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C

SlipStreamScapes

16 years ago

Just to let you know as well as anyone else who may encounter similar error. This error apparently happens if you have no previous sound settings saved hance there is nothing to back up. It is also conceivable that some distros keep their sound settings elsewhere but including these files overwrites their settings. In either case if you encounter errors like this one simply ignore them and once the install is finished restart your sound server (artsd in the Kcontrol) and sounds should be all ok.

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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C

SlipStreamScapes

16 years ago

Hi,

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 getting same error. In the install section you clearly say to run sh install.sh as root. Which is it? I've tried running it by doing su, kdesu, sudo, and logged in as root, all unsuccessfully, and clearly running it as a normal user is impossible.

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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C

SlipStreamScapes

16 years ago

Hi,

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

I read your overview before hearing the sounds, and by that I could only expect them to be good, not by taste, but from efficiency side. I had never thought of what could make a sound theme to be good (not on taste's side) and reading your overview I have to say that I completely agree with you. When you think of other OS's sounds, I do not think of something I like, but something that works well mostly because it doesn't even bother me. You've chosen the right direction, I must say. So I downloaded and heared them. Hummmmm. In the beggining I was not overwhelmed, mostly because I just judging them by taste only. And so I did my part of your test. I just let the sounds roll on with my girlfriend present (she's a musician), as she's the most non-geek you can imagine. After a bit I start to hear comments from her part. "What is that you're hearing?" "Oh, that sounds nice" etc. I explain what it is and she asks me to put this theme in her box. So I did. Everytime her computer does something, as it always did, and it makes a sound, I hear her saying "this sound is very nice". It never happened before. And if it wasn't for her comments, I would not think about the sounds at all. Simply brilliant. Thanks!

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C

SlipStreamScapes

16 years ago

Thank you very much for your kind words and compliments! It is always great to hear that there is someone out there who finds my creations useful and appealing!

Best wishes,

Ico

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bfkeats

16 years ago

You need to change the Config files in the ogg tarball from wav to ogg.

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C

SlipStreamScapes

16 years ago

Oops! Thanks a lot for letting me know :-) I will fix that as well as some other minor installer issues in the upcoming release.

Best wishes,

Ico

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euxneks

16 years ago

I would really like it if we could get an exit sound that is similar to 1_1.. =) The sounds with the beat and bass don't really sound like the beat is supposed to be there. However, the startup sound is pure cotton-cloud. I love it.

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C

SlipStreamScapes

16 years ago

Thanks for your feedback!

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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C

SlipStreamScapes

16 years ago

I would really appreciate some comments regarding the Kopete sounds as I am personally not using the application(although I am very much aware of what it stands for), so the comments from someone who has tried the theme and are using Kopete on the daily basis would be much appreciated as that will help me determine what needs to be fixed before the final version is released.

Thanks!

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djworld

16 years ago

[djworld@thalia djworld]$ tar xvjf Borealis_soundtheme-0.3.tar.bz2
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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C

SlipStreamScapes

16 years ago

Fixed!

0.3a is now available (see readme for more info).

Cheers!

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djworld

16 years ago

Great! Now it works, and they are cool sounds. I think I prefer the Startup1_x series instead of the Startup2_x. It would be cool if these sounds were included in KDE. They're much better than the original sounds in KDE.

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C

SlipStreamScapes

16 years ago

Thank you for your kind comments and thoughts!

Best wishes,

Ico

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12345678910
211
product-maker pemartins Jan 08 2018 9 excellent
Excellent sound theme!
product-maker yesuza Dec 03 2017 9 excellent
Great!
product-maker Etemenanki Apr 22 2015 9 excellent
product-maker dfghjk Apr 17 2015 9 excellent
product-maker suther Nov 16 2013 3 bad
product-maker Sweyn78 Aug 24 2012 9 excellent
product-maker indymike Jul 14 2012 9 excellent
product-maker Thev00d00 Oct 26 2011 9 excellent
product-maker pups Mar 11 2011 9 excellent
product-maker gwalchmye Mar 02 2011 9 excellent
product-maker flanello Feb 04 2011 9 excellent
product-maker rascranasingha Jan 09 2011 9 excellent
product-maker Tracerneo Dec 19 2010 3 bad

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0.9a
updated Nov 14 2004
added May 12 2004
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