make your gnome like windows 7

Well I know alot of you have already downloaded the new Windows 7 Beta, I took the liberty of doing just the same as all of you already have, the only difference is I did with with entirely different motives. I had a good look at it, and I must be honest, its far better than Vista, possibly even better than XP, but thats not why I have made this post.

first : 1. Download Win7 Transformation Pack for Ubuntu

2. and downlowd WallpaperPack

The reason I got on to this was to show the world what I have done with it, and lo behond, look in the images below to see:

Now that seems like not much, until I tell you that that is NOT Windows 7, infact, you will find that it is Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex, so how did I do it? Thats what this is about.

The Window Theme
Firstly I installed emerald in the terminal: “sudo apt-get install emerald”. From there I went into the Control Centre, found the Sessions settings and added “emerald –replace” to it, so that it started with Ubuntu.

Then you will need to install a theme for it, now the theme I installed is custom created using images from TrueTransparency for XP.

I will upload the created theme when my webhost comes back online…

You install the emerald theme by opening the Emerald Theme Manager in your Control Centre and clicking on “Import” before finding the .emerald file.

The GTK Theme
Again, a custom created theme by me, using some of the images from the aero-clone theme (which will suffice for now if you cannot download my one). You install by placing the folder in the /home/USER/.themes/ .

The Icons
Again, the icons are also custom made (or taken from Windows 7 itself), however if you cannot download my icons then you should get the aero icons which I could not find the link for anywhere but I am sure are on Gnome-look.org somewhere.

The Desktop Wallpaper
The desktop wallpaper (also taken from Windows 7) can be found here:

The “StartBar”
The startbar at first is quite simple, it is a single 40pixel high Gnome-Panel, with the time, notification area and volume control on the right, thats where the basic stuff simplifies.

Firstly I am using QuickLounge for the quicklaunch icons, then I am using TaskDock for the Icon only window list. For the bar itself I am setting the background to be the following image: StartbarImage This should add a certain level of “transparency” to the bar. If you are not using my custom gtk theme, this is where you might notice a rather ugly difference.

Secondly. for the showdesktop button I use the following image: ShowDesktop
It is simply a launcher, which points to the file: /bin/bash /home/USERNAME/showdesk.sh

You will now create that file, with the following inside it:
#!/bin/bash cat showdesk.macro | xmacroplay “:0.0″

In the same folder, create “showdesk.macro”, with this in it:
KeyStrPress Control_L KeyStrPress Alt_L KeyStrPress d KeyStrRelease d KeyStrRelease Alt_L KeyStrRelease Control_L

You also need to install xmacro to get this to function, so “
apt-get install xmacro” in the terminal.

The Start Button
This part explains how I created my start button. First you will need to download GnoMenu from Gnome-Look.org. Then you will need my set of themes.

Congratulations, if I didnt miss anything out, you now have a fully working replica of Microsofts Windows 7 on your Ubuntu 8.10 machine.

A download link for all of the needed files in a 7zip archieve is on its way, look here for an edit with it.

EDIT: Very Kindly offered by David, the webmaster of http://www.tulinux.org/
We now have download links which should be a little more permenant:

Download GnoMenu Files

Please use these download links only if the above fail: Download