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Crempel
May 19th, 2010, 09:23 PM
Hi, please let me tell you a short story: A friend of mine with an age old desktop PC and Windows ME was sick of this OS, so I grabbed the opportunity and installed a lightweight distro (PCLinuxOS LXDE) on his machine. That was a year ago and he was happy. When Lubuntu RC came along I tried to change his setup to this distro as it is even faster and has a few other advantages, although PClos is darn good. I failed because the Control Center he had gotten used to was missing! I am aware that this was mentioned in some posts to the "Mint" thread, but indeed, it is a powerful application that is always there, looking the same, no matter whether you use KDE, Gnome, LXDE or whatever.
With the *buntus all the functionality is there, but the apps/programs/appearance change from one DE to the other, and LXDE really does not offer much in that respect.
My question is: Do any of you folks on this forum think it would be a good idea if something like the PCLinuxOS Control Center, which originally was introduced by Mandrake, was available for K/L/X/Ubuntu?
Cheers

chessnerd
May 19th, 2010, 09:37 PM
I think options are always good. The Gnome Control Center is pretty sad and I think a few good Control Panel programs would be welcome in Ubuntu.

I also think that there should be multiple Software Center programs from various distros.

If I were ever to build a distro, its installer would include a "Default Applications" page that would let the user check various programs that they want. The user could choose the desktop environment, web browser, office software, paint program, control panel, software center, and so on. (The page could also be sped up by a few optional full-system configurations that would just check everything for the user.)

Anyway, back to the topic. Yes, I think the PCLinuxOS Control Center should be available for K/X/L/Ubuntu.

gletob
May 19th, 2010, 09:41 PM
Something simmilar is actually already in Ubuntu:
http://ubuntuguide.net/enable-ubuntu-control-center-windows-control-panel-like-interface

And Kubuntu has this through KDE

No I don't think it should be in K/X/Ubuntu

chessnerd
May 19th, 2010, 10:00 PM
Something simmilar is actually already in Ubuntu:
http://ubuntuguide.net/enable-ubuntu-control-center-windows-control-panel-like-interface

This is simply the Gnome Control Center, which isn't very good. All it does is list all of the menu items under Preferences and Administration in a semi-organized fashion. Notice, though, that the majority just get stuck under "System." Network Tools is stuck there, despite there being an "Internet and Network" category. On that subject, there aren't very many categories at all.

This is not a good quality Control Center. The PCLinuxOS one is more advanced. It includes more categories, including sub-categories, a better graphical interface, and doesn't seem to mis-label things as often.

I see no reason why it couldn't/shouldn't be modified for use in Ubuntu.

Screenshot of PCLinuxOS Control Center: http://www.dedoimedo.com/images/computers/2009/pclinuxos-2009-control-center-kde-2.jpg

NormanFLinux
July 24th, 2010, 11:24 PM
There is already a Mandriva-style Ubuntu Control Center available that works across various desktop environments. Its been out for awhile now:

Package files - required dependencies and Ubuntu Control Center can be found here:

http://code.google.com/p/ucc/downloads/list

Upon installation, the Ubuntu Control Center will show up in System Tools.

A screenshot example of how it works can be seen here:


http://www.ubuntugeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Ubuntu-Control-Center-Preview.png

Pretty cool! I like it a lot even though there is a bug that for some unknown reason results in Open Office e-mail merge crashing during software installation.

I have been waiting for a Ubuntu system configuration tool like this one for LONG TIME NOW!!! :D