[HOW TO] Get the new Notifications on Intrepid

By Stefano Forenza on February 22, 2009

Update: fixed a minor glitch in the how-to, added a troubleshooting section.

Update2: added new dependency to the instructions. Also note that to update your existing version you need to go into its directory, type “bzr pull”, sudo apt-get install libwnck-dev, and recompile.

Hi, Alex Rybicki posted a tutorial about how to get the new Jaunty notifications on Ubuntu Intrepid.

Since the tutorial got some minor detail wrong, I am going post a better version here and take the chance to comment a little bit the new notification system.

Will this mess the system ?

No way, what you’re going to do will just download the source code and start it in place of the existing notification system. Interrupting the program with Ctrl+C, kill, or system restart will bring your beloved old notification system back.

How to install it ?

cd ~
sudo apt-get install bzr gnome-common automake libwnck-dev
bzr branch lp:notify-osd
cd notify-osd
./autogen.sh
make

Now you can start it:

killall notification-daemon ;  /home/[username]/notify-osd/src/notify-osd

..where [username] is your username.

You can interrupt the new notifications system by hitting ctrl+C. That will automatically bring back the old ones.

[the full credit of this tutorial goes to Alex]

If anyone of you figures out a tutorial to make them working on non-debian distributions, let me know, I’ll publish it or link it from here happily.

How to test it ?

A test script is included, which will show a bunch of fake notifications. To test it, open a new terminal window and type:

/home/[username]/notify-osd/src/send-test-notification.sh

Now a the test notifications should show. On the right upper corner of the window.

How to make it default ?

A simple way may be:

gedit ~/.new-notifications.sh

Then paste there this:

#!/bin/bash
killall notification-daemon ;  /home/[username]/notify-osd/src/notify-osd

Then save, exit from gedit and..

chmod +x ~/.new-notifications.sh

Then go in System->Preferences->Sessions and add a new item with /home/[username]/.new-notifications.sh as the launching command.

UPDATE: further troubleshooting

Thanks for everyone’s signalations. If you still experience issues, try the following:

If you’re running a non-Gnome environment (such as KDE), and the thing doesn’t compile, you may need additional dependencies. Try:

sudo apt-get install gnome-common automake libdbus-glib-1-dev libgtk2.0-0
libgtk2.0-dev libgtk2.0-common libgconf2-dev libx11-dev
libnotify-dev libnotify1 libnotify-bin

If you run the program from terminal and you see assertion coming up complaining about icons try this tip from MadsRH.
If some notification come out as an alert-box instead of a notification, it probably means it’s a notification that requires user interaction. Those will come as messagebox. That’s a design choice from canonical.So not a bug, a feature (?!?).

My test and thoughts:

I tried the new notifications using a little python script I developed time ago, which uses libnotify to notify the user about available text snippets to replace what he’s currently typing.

It worked without any change, and quite nicely, I say:

Before:

After:

New notifications

The result is pretty nice. One difference you hardly notice in this pictures, is the position of the dialog box. While my script asks libnotify do display the notification in the right bottom corner of the screen, the new notifications completely ignore that setting.

The second test I did is try changing sound volume, but Gnome kept using the usual way to notify me of the change.

The third test I did is activating the notifications on Banshee.

banshee-notifications

The results leave much to be desidered. The new notifications don’t support action buttons in the bubbles by choice. That’s not bad, but instead of suppressing the buttons they just fallback to normal dialogs.

Plainly said, this sucks. In such cases you’ll get a foreground message box while you’re typing:

screenshot11

Further more, if you don’t close manually all those dialogs, they won’t time out as the old libnotify bubbles:

Multiple annoyances here

Needless to say, I find this choice quite obnoxious. They should have fell back to old notifications, or find some kind of trick (right button or something else) to manage the action bubbles.

This is just going to put pressure on upstreams for nothing, and make ubuntu packages more patchy than ever.

I won’t discuss the choice of not supporting user interaction on the bubbles, but the workaround is sucky at the least.

Conclusions

Is this gonna change radically the way users interact with the desktop ? No. It’s just a small step, and surely not the most needed right now. Just a testing the ground one, as in “Hello upstreams, I’m Canonical, you don’t mind if I mess with your stuff, right ?“. A clever move, from a certain point of view, I say.

As for me, I am going to leave the new notifications as default, since I don’t really use any software that implements the action bubbles and/or doesn’t allow disabling. But if I find any, that will wipe out the new style bubbles in a second.

Need some more desktop eye candy ?

.. or maybe Ear Candy ?

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Posted in ubuntu | Tagged 2012 will be the year of Linux. Ubuntu Pink Pony will pwn Windows, why world sucks and I rock, [HOW TO] get the damn thing working

74 responses to “[HOW TO] Get the new Notifications on Intrepid”

Vadim P.
February 22, 2009 at 8:00 pm | Permalink
I think you veered off the goal of providing instructions a bit.
Stefano Forenza
February 22, 2009 at 8:11 pm | Permalink
What you mean ?
alex
February 22, 2009 at 8:15 pm | Permalink
hey stefan, great guide. you were even more straightforward then i was
im glad you got everything working, and i like your script to make it default.
also, dugg
-alex
Vadim P.
February 22, 2009 at 9:07 pm | Permalink
A howto doesn’t critisize the technology or offer personal opinion. It’s instructions on how to install something, and that’s it
jorge
February 22, 2009 at 9:10 pm | Permalink
The banshee annoying-popus is a known bug and is being worked on.
Stefano Forenza
February 22, 2009 at 9:16 pm | Permalink
@Vadim P.: Good point. I shall have choosen another title maybe. Beside that, I am kinda flooding the planet these days, so making two separate posts wouldn’t have been a good solution.
@jorge: I know that. One of the cons I am pointing on, is the need to patch software to make the new thing to work smoothly. Seems like the ‘easy path’ to me. I really would rather have looked for some better workaround inside the new noticing system, but that’s just me.
Filo
February 23, 2009 at 12:25 pm | Permalink
i get this error:
Running autoconf…
configure.in:45: error: possibly undefined macro: AM_PATH_GTK_2_0
If this token and others are legitimate, please use m4_pattern_allow.
See the Autoconf documentation.
do you know the fix ??
I tried to upgrade automake to 1.10 (with jaunty package) whithout success.
Thanks
Stefano Forenza
February 23, 2009 at 12:39 pm | Permalink
@Filo: as I am not on Jaunty, I can’t reproduce the issue. But grrr.. you’re reminding me about something I wanted to write in the post and simply forgot. As it is a development repository, some revisions may be broken.
To see if that’s the case, delete the branch, then branch it back with:
bzr branch lp:notify-osd -r193
That will pull from launchpad the revision no. 193, which is the one I used for the test.
That *may* solve.
Filo
February 23, 2009 at 1:07 pm | Permalink
I just solved by installing this packages:
libdbus-glib-1-dev libgconf2-dev libgtk2.0-dev
but if i try to run make it doesn’t compile -_-
Stefano Forenza
February 23, 2009 at 1:10 pm | Permalink
I guess you lack further dependencies then. That probably mean you’re on kde, am I wrong ? If so, the road could be still long and steep
Tim
February 23, 2009 at 5:00 pm | Permalink
Hey. Awesome guide, I just an issue. I think
tim@tim-desktop:~$ killall notification-daemon && /home/tim/notify-osd/src/notify-osd
notification-daemon: no process killed
tim@tim-desktop:~$
Stefano Forenza
February 23, 2009 at 5:15 pm | Permalink
Tim: true ! && should be just a ;
Updating the post.
Tim
February 23, 2009 at 6:01 pm | Permalink
It works. Thanks.
One more thing, in the compile steps, you forgot “make” at the end.
Eric Wendelin
February 23, 2009 at 6:36 pm | Permalink
Almost there! When running ./send-test-notification.sh:
./send-test-notification.sh: 3: notify-send: not found
Any ideas?
Stefano Forenza
February 23, 2009 at 6:39 pm | Permalink
Look better, it’s there ! (*blinks*)
Thanks !
Stefano Forenza
February 23, 2009 at 6:45 pm | Permalink
@Eric: try installing libnotify-bin. (sudo apt-get libnotify-bin)
Seems weird to me, but it may be required. Please let me know if it works !
(chances are it’s strictly required only by the test script)
Eric Wendelin
February 23, 2009 at 6:50 pm | Permalink
@Stefano: Yes! That seems to help. I’m now seeing the notifications, but I’m getting this while running ./send-test-notifcation.sh now:
** (notify-osd:30064): CRITICAL **: load_icon: assertion `info’ failed
Either way. Most excellent, thanks!
Elgin Mones
February 23, 2009 at 8:54 pm | Permalink
I get the same error as Eric.
Jean-Francois
February 23, 2009 at 8:57 pm | Permalink
Here is what I get:
jean-francois@jean-francois-desktop:~$ killall notification-daemon ; /home/jean-francois/notify-osd/src/notify-osd
notification-daemon: no process killed
bash: /home/jean-francois/notify-osd/src/notify-osd: No such file or directory
jean-francois@jean-francois-desktop:~$
and if I go into: /home/jean-francois/notify-osd/src/notify-osd there is only a notify-osd.xml file is that it?
Thanks in advance!
Cheers!
Stefano Forenza
February 23, 2009 at 8:59 pm | Permalink
If you refer to the file not found error: sudo apt-get libnotify-bin
If you refer to the CRITICAL assertion then just don’t mind. That’s a notice that will be eventually resolved by the developers, and won’t influence the working of the program at all.
Stefano Forenza
February 23, 2009 at 9:07 pm | Permalink
@Jean-Francois:
“notification-daemon: no process killed”: that’s normal. don’t mind that.
The rest is worrysome, I’d suggest you to delete everything and start again from scratch.
Vadim P.
February 23, 2009 at 9:25 pm | Permalink
Looks like a lot of people are having trouble with this guide.
If you want it easier, just follow the updates: http://macslow.thepimp.net/?p=175 to get them… no compiling.
Sarah
February 23, 2009 at 10:31 pm | Permalink
It won’t let me do the ‘make’ command. Everytime I run ‘./autogen’ I read:
Running aclocal-1.10…
configure.in:45: warning: macro ‘AM_PATH_GTK_2.0′ not foun in library
autoconf…
configure.in:45: possibly undefined macro: AM_PATH_GTK_2_0
If this token and others are legitimate, please use m4 pattern allow. See the Autoconf documentation.
Can anyone help a noob out?
2null » NotifyOSD unter Intrepid
February 23, 2009 at 11:12 pm | Permalink
[...] Get the new Notifications on Intrepid Written by nullnull in: Ubuntu | Schlagworte: Ubuntu [...]
Matthew Bauer
February 24, 2009 at 12:43 am | Permalink
The command for running the notification could be:
killall notification-daemon ; ~/notify-osd/src/notify-osd
That way you don’t have to specify your username.
David
February 24, 2009 at 1:17 am | Permalink
I think a more complete command for step #2 would be:
sudo apt-get -y install bzr gnome-common automake libgtk2.0-dev libgconf2-dev \
libnotify-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev
I’m not certain that this is the complete list of packages which are needed to compile this, but it’s more complete than before. Since having people try to install packages which they already have is harmless, this expanded list is preferrable.
Vlad
February 24, 2009 at 3:08 am | Permalink
I followed all your instructions but when I try to start the new notifications I get an error:
bash: /home/vlad/notify-osd/src/notify-osd: No such file or directory
What happened?
keith
February 24, 2009 at 3:33 am | Permalink
after trudging through the dependencies, i finally got it to work…
$ sudo apt-get install bzr gnome-common automake libdbus-glib-1-dev libgtk2.0-0 libgtk2.0-dev libgtk2.0-common libgconf2-dev libx11-dev libnotify-dev libnotify1 libnotify-bin
$ cd ~/notify-osd
$ ./autogen.sh
$ make
$ killall notification-daemon ; ~/notify-osd/src/notify-osd
only thing i see so far that bothers me is that the notifications default to my second monitor instead of the one in front of me. it doesn’t seem to work “all the time”, yet, either…
Andrew
February 24, 2009 at 4:48 pm | Permalink
I had issues using bzr to get the source but i managed to figure out the direct url and used wget to grab it.
Thanks to the lib advice above I got it compiled but when i try run ./notify-osd (after I’ve killed the notification daemon) i get the following error:
(notify-osd:2823): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:
I’m not using a standard ubuntu distro. I’m running the crunchbang distro so it could very well be related to that.
I’m still using Gnome though so I’m hoping it’s something else.
Enhanced notifications on Intrepid « 0ddn1x: tricks with *nix
February 25, 2009 at 12:42 am | Permalink
[...] Enhanced notifications on Intrepid Filed under: Linux — 0ddn1x @ 2009-02-24 22:42:25 +0000 http://www.stefanoforenza.com/how-to-get-the-new-notifications-on-intrepid/ [...]
Jaymoon
February 25, 2009 at 2:16 am | Permalink
Of the three Ubuntu setups I have, all ranging in various hard ware, and all installed from different versions over the past few years… I still cannot get anything to compile through ‘make’.
No matter what guide I follow, no matter what dependency it asks for, I follow line by line in the guides, and it just doesn’t want to work.
That’s OK, I am a patient man by now to wait for the final release of the new notifications, thanks for your guide and help though.
ubukool
February 25, 2009 at 10:06 am | Permalink
Sarah,
Try installing the dependencies that keith listed above. The problem is you don’t have GTK 2.0, but if you run the first command that keith gave, you will be able to install it and it might work
ubukool
February 25, 2009 at 10:11 am | Permalink
I typed ‘make’ and it didn’t work. I typed ‘sudo make’ and it seemed to be working until it spewed out all these errors:
test-withlib.c:31:30: error: libnotify/notify.h: No such file or directory
cc1: warnings being treated as errors
test-withlib.c: In function ‘test_withlib_get_server_information’:
test-withlib.c:51: error: implicit declaration of function ‘notify_init’
test-withlib.c:52: error: implicit declaration of function ‘notify_get_server_info’
test-withlib.c: In function ‘test_withlib_get_server_caps’:
test-withlib.c:67: error: implicit declaration of function ‘notify_get_server_caps’
test-withlib.c:67: error: assignment makes pointer from integer without a cast
test-withlib.c: In function ‘test_withlib_show_notification’:
test-withlib.c:85: error: ‘NotifyNotification’ undeclared (first use in this function)
test-withlib.c:85: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
test-withlib.c:85: error: for each function it appears in.)
test-withlib.c:85: error: ‘n’ undeclared (first use in this function)
test-withlib.c:89: error: implicit declaration of function ‘notify_notification_new’
test-withlib.c:92: error: implicit declaration of function ‘notify_notification_show’
test-withlib.c: In function ‘test_withlib_update_notification’:
test-withlib.c:101: error: ‘NotifyNotification’ undeclared (first use in this function)
test-withlib.c:101: error: ‘n’ undeclared (first use in this function)
test-withlib.c:113: error: implicit declaration of function ‘notify_notification_update’
test-withlib.c: In function ‘test_withlib_pass_icon_data’:
test-withlib.c:128: error: ‘NotifyNotification’ undeclared (first use in this function)
test-withlib.c:128: error: ‘n’ undeclared (first use in this function)
test-withlib.c:129: error: ‘GdkPixbuf’ undeclared (first use in this function)
test-withlib.c:129: error: ‘pixbuf’ undeclared (first use in this function)
test-withlib.c:135: error: implicit declaration of function ‘gdk_pixbuf_new_from_file_at_scale’
test-withlib.c:137: error: implicit declaration of function ‘notify_notification_set_icon_from_pixbuf’
test-withlib.c: In function ‘test_withlib_priority’:
test-withlib.c:150: error: ‘NotifyNotification’ undeclared (first use in this function)
test-withlib.c:150: error: ‘n1’ undeclared (first use in this function)
test-withlib.c:150: error: ‘n2’ undeclared (first use in this function)
test-withlib.c:150: error: left-hand operand of comma expression has no effect
test-withlib.c:150: error: ‘n3’ undeclared (first use in this function)
test-withlib.c:150: error: left-hand operand of comma expression has no effect
test-withlib.c:150: error: ‘n4’ undeclared (first use in this function)
test-withlib.c:150: error: left-hand operand of comma expression has no effect
test-withlib.c:164: error: implicit declaration of function ‘notify_notification_set_hint_string’
test-withlib.c:169: error: implicit declaration of function ‘notify_notification_set_urgency’
test-withlib.c:169: error: ‘NOTIFY_URGENCY_CRITICAL’ undeclared (first use in this function)
test-withlib.c: At top level:
test-withlib.c:185: error: expected ‘)’ before ‘*’ token
test-withlib.c: In function ‘test_withlib_actions’:
test-withlib.c:196: error: ‘NotifyNotification’ undeclared (first use in this function)
test-withlib.c:196: error: ‘n1’ undeclared (first use in this function)
test-withlib.c:201: error: implicit declaration of function ‘notify_notification_add_action’
test-withlib.c:204: error: ‘NotifyActionCallback’ undeclared (first use in this function)
test-withlib.c:204: error: expected ‘)’ before ‘callback’
test-withlib.c: In function ‘test_withlib_close_notification’:
test-withlib.c:218: error: ‘NotifyNotification’ undeclared (first use in this function)
test-withlib.c:218: error: ‘n’ undeclared (first use in this function)
test-withlib.c:231: error: implicit declaration of function ‘notify_notification_close’
test-withlib.c: In function ‘test_withlib_append_hint’:
test-withlib.c:243: error: ‘NotifyNotification’ undeclared (first use in this function)
test-withlib.c:243: error: ‘n’ undeclared (first use in this function)
test-withlib.c: In function ‘test_withlib_swallow_markup’:
test-withlib.c:285: error: ‘NotifyNotification’ undeclared (first use in this function)
test-withlib.c:285: error: ‘n’ undeclared (first use in this function)
make[2]: *** [test_modules-test-withlib.o] Error 1
Help!!!
Planeta jakilinux.org » Instalacja nowych powiadomień w Ubuntu 8.10
February 26, 2009 at 1:07 am | Permalink
[...] http://www.stefanoforenza.com, [...]
Ryan
February 26, 2009 at 3:18 am | Permalink
I get the same errors as ubukool… I’m stuck =(
Vadim P.
February 26, 2009 at 2:59 pm | Permalink
So skip the error prone manual compilation method, and just get the update via Synaptic: http://macslow.thepimp.net/?p=175 (see comments).
x0r
February 27, 2009 at 4:56 am | Permalink
very cool. once i added all dependencies, it worked like a charm
ubukool
February 27, 2009 at 9:24 am | Permalink
@ Vadim P,
yes, but the update via synaptic is for Jaunty only, isn’t it? I looked for notify-osd in the Intrepid repositories and there’s nothing.
Omar
February 27, 2009 at 1:30 pm | Permalink
When I tried to enter the “make” command, it gave me this error:
make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop.
Vadim P.
February 27, 2009 at 3:34 pm | Permalink
Yes, because it -just- came out. It also won’t be backported because most apps in Intrepid simply don’t support it / do their notifications properly as they should.
Peng’s links for Friday, 26 February « I’m Just an Avatar
February 27, 2009 at 7:42 pm | Permalink
[...] Forenza: [HOWTO] Get the new Notifications on Intrepid. The release of Ubuntu 9.04 will see some new, and much nicer display of the system notifications. [...]
Rishi
March 1, 2009 at 3:53 am | Permalink
Ubukool and Ryan… make sure libnotify-dev is installed:
sudo apt-get install libnotify-dev
ubukool
March 1, 2009 at 9:26 am | Permalink
Dear Rishi,
Thanks for coming to the rescue, it works a treat now!
ukblacknight
March 2, 2009 at 8:43 pm | Permalink
I managed to install it after installing some extra dependencies, but I’m getting these messages when I ran the test script:
** (notify-osd:1300): CRITICAL **: load_icon: assertion `info’ failed
** (notify-osd:1300): CRITICAL **: load_icon: assertion `info’ failed
** (notify-osd:1300): WARNING **: bubble_recalc_size(): WARNING, no layout!!!
** (notify-osd:1300): CRITICAL **: load_icon: assertion `info’ failed
** (notify-osd:1300): CRITICAL **: load_icon: assertion `info’ failed
** (notify-osd:1300): WARNING **: WARNING: No layout defined!!!
It seems to be working with mixed results. Sometimes notifications from emesene show in the new notifications, whilst sometimes they appear windowed like Banshee in the how-to. Anyone else getting these errors?
Stefano Forenza
March 2, 2009 at 9:19 pm | Permalink
Ok, thank you very much everyone.
I’ve been away (traveling to France) in the days when many help request were made, but it’s nice to see some help came from other readers.
@ukblacknight: i’ve added a troubleshooting section in the article. Look there for the link to a tip that may solve your problem.
ukblacknight
March 3, 2009 at 2:34 pm | Permalink
@Stefano: The link you provided as part of the troubleshooting doesn’t seem to do much for me, there’s no content on the page! It doesn’t seem to be a major problem anyway as most applications tend to be using the new notifications fine
ukblacknight
March 3, 2009 at 6:58 pm | Permalink
Actually, it’s working now. Thanks for that! To those who have looked at that link and can’t find your index file, you need to save your current theme first if you haven’t already. Then, you’ll find it under ~/.themes/[name_of_theme]/index.theme.
Gabe
March 7, 2009 at 5:33 am | Permalink
You’ll need to do:
apt-get install build-essential libgtk2.0-dev libgconf2-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev libnotify-dev
before running autogen.
If you want to do a proper local install, do:
autogen –prefix=/usr/local && make && sudo make install
This will install the binary in /usr/local/libexec
or use checkinstall to make a .deb
Jinx-Wolf
March 22, 2009 at 7:34 pm | Permalink
I know this is much later in development, which is probably why I can no longer get it to work, but I just want to point out that this tutorial is NOT working for me.
from the ./autgen.sh:
[
checking for WNCK... configure: error: Package requirements (libwnck-1.0) were not met:
No package 'libwnck-1.0' found
]
I’ve tried installing ever dependency stated here and from the other tutorial.
Stefano Forenza
March 22, 2009 at 7:37 pm | Permalink
@Jinx-Wolf: Have you tried to sudo apt-get install libwnck ?
Nice packages offerings popup. I’d try: sudo apt-get install libwnck-dev