Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.

Update: Jupiter has been discontinued. I suggest trying TLP instead.

Jupiter

Jupiter is an applet written in Mono designed for netbooks and laptops that you can use to switch between maximum and high performance and power saving mode, change the resolution and orientation, enable or disable the bluetooth, touchpad, WiFi and so on. If you own an Asus EeePC, there's also a separate package that adds support for Asus Super Hybrid Engine (SHE) as well as some other EeePC tweaks.


Jupiter 0.0.50 was released today (along with jupiter-support-eee 0.13), bringing some updates for new Linux Kernels as well as a fix for the restore mode on boot.

Andrew @ Fuduntu also tried to add a script to the latest Jupiter so that it whitelists itself on installation to the Ubuntu 11.04 systray (as you know, only a few applications are allowed to use the systray in Ubuntu 11.04) but there were some complications so the package was released without this script.

As a work-around for the Jupiter not showing up in the Ubuntu 11.04 systray, I've modified the package so that the first time you run Jupiter, it automatically whitelists itself for the Ubuntu systray. This change is only for Ubuntu 11.04 of course. So to whitelist Jupiter, all you have to do is run it from the Ubuntu menu (Dash), then log out and log back in (it doesn't work without this).

This isn't the ideal way to "fix" the Unity systray issue for Jupiter, but not everybody using the Jupiter WebUpd8 PPA reads WebUpd8 so this should get Jupiter working for everybody.



Install Jupiter in Ubuntu


As usual, Jupiter is available in our Jupiter PPA for Ubuntu 11.04, 10.10 and 10.04. Add the PPA and install Jupiter using the following commands (for any laptop/netbook):
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/jupiter
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install jupiter

If you own Asus EeePC, also install jupiter-support-eee - required for SHE (Super Hybrid Engine):
sudo apt-get install jupiter-support-eee

If you run Ubuntu 11.04 (with Unity), remember to run Jupiter from the menu, then log out and log back in or else Jupiter won't show up on your panel!