Update!

Elementary OS Freya Beta 1 has been released for a while so the first and most important thing to do is to run the update manager. To do so, simply type this in Terminal:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

Install Elementary Tweaks

If you like customization then elementary OS might not be the perfect choice for you. Oh wait! We have Elementary Tweaks which is an outstanding tool for customizing your version of elementary OS whether it’s Luna or Freya. It’s such a cool software that I dedicated a whole new page for it in this blog. Check it out here: Elementary Tweaks.

Fix double Google Chrome icon in Plank

If you’ve got a fresh installation of elementary OS and you already installed Google Chrome you might notice that Chrome icons shows up twice on Plank dock. You can fix this easily.

In Terminal, type:

sudo scratch-text-editor /usr/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop

Inside you can see 3 sections like “[Desktop Entry]”, under each add a following line

StartupWMClass=Google-chrome-stable

Then close Chrome, remove icon fron Plank and restart Chrome. Then re-lock icon.

If you will get “Your profile could not be opened correctly” error on browser launch – try to kill all Chrome processes (some background one could lock your profile data) by typing “sudo killall -9 chrome” in Terminal

Change button layout

At the time of writing Elementary Tweaks doesn’t support changing the button layout on Freya. You can still do it by following this excellent tutorial:

http://eos-snippets.blogspot.hu/2014/08/change-button-layout-in-freya-beta-1.html

Dual docks when using 2 monitors

When using two monitors in elementary OS the dock only shows on one monitor. If you prefer Plank to be visible on both of them, follow this great tutoral:

https://heathpaddock.com/?p=761

Install your favourite apps

If you’re new to Linux and find elementary OS lack of some useful apps here’s a tip for my favourite ones. They are available from the Software Center.

Web browser: Google Chrome (get it from google.com/chrome, download the .deb package) or Firefox

Instant Messaging: Pidgin, Skype

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Multimedia: VLC (for videos), Audacious (for MP3)

Plus these apps look native in Freya, they’re really amazing:

Vocal – podcast application

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:nathandyer/vocal-daily sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install vocal

Biride – Twitter client

64 bits

sudo apt-get install gdebi && wget https://github.com/birdieapp/birdie/releases/download/1.1/birdie-granite_1.1.0.r421.pkg20.ubuntu14.04.1_amd64.deb -O birdie64.deb && sudo gdebi birdie64.deb && rm birdie64.deb

32 bits

sudo apt-get install gdebi && wget https://github.com/birdieapp/birdie/releases/download/1.1/birdie-granite_1.1.0.r421.pkg20.ubuntu14.04.1_i386.deb -O birdie32.deb && sudo gdebi birdie32.deb && rm birdie32.deb

Best GTK themes for Freya

1. XGTK

It’s inspired by Mac OS X.

2. Moka Project

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:moka/stable sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install moka-gtk-theme

There’s also some very nice icon themes in this PPA: moka-icon-theme and faba-icon-theme.

3. Numix Project

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:numix/ppa sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install numix-gtk-theme

I also suggest installing it’s beautiful icon themes: numix-icon-theme and numix-icon-theme-circle.