I’ve been a fan of the Avant Window Navigator launchbar in Ubuntu since it’s wee days, and have been promoting it’s glory since my first install.  Today a friend asked, “Now that AWN is all grown up and has all those new applets, how can I get me some?”  here’s my answer.

Prepping: remove your old install of AWN. I haven’t tried any updating process, and if you’ve been using AWN since 7.04 or earlier, i’d just remove it all.

Lets install the gooness!

1st off, if you are using ubuntu with a windows-manager capable of supporting transparency (e.g. compiz, e.g he default fancy animation stuff that has been in use since Fiesty Fawn)  and you are not using AWN; where have you been?

you need to add these to your repository list (under System>Administration>Synaptic Package Manager>Third Party Sources) and add each line, one at a time.

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/awn-testing/ubuntu hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/awn-testing/ubuntu hardy main

2nd, once you’ve reloaded your app list, close out of Synaptic Package Manager (because this next step is faster from the Terminal) and run the following command in the terminal.

sudo apt-get install awn-manager-trunk awn-extras-applets-trunk

Happy birthday to you!

For a more thorough guide with pictures Go Here!