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Chief author, Open Source enthusiast, Web Programmer, and UI/UX Designer.
Sunday, January 8, 2012 at 08:43

Blankon is one of popular ubuntu based distribution that developed by Indonesian Linux Mover Foundation and BlankOn developer team. In their latest release, Blankon (Blankon 7 code name Pattimura) bring something difference that called BlankOn panel.

BlankOn panel is a default application launcher in BlankOn, unlike some alternative menu launcher (MGSE, Mate, Cinnamon, etc) which concentrate its appearance so closed to Gnome 2 look, BlankOn panel give a completely different looks but it's great! see following screenshot.

BlankOn Panel over Ubuntu
BlankOn Panel in Action

Install BlankOn Panel in Ubuntu
Actually, I want to try this a long time ago, but just realized at this time. Before we can install it in ubuntu, we should add following repository to your package list (/etc/apt/source.list).
  • Add BlankOn Repositories
deb http://kambing.ui.ac.id/blankon pattimura main restricted extras extras-restricted
deb-src http://kambing.ui.ac.id/blankon pattimura main restricted extras extras-restricted

deb http://kambing.ui.ac.id/blankon pattimura-security main restricted extras extras-restricted
deb-src http://kambing.ui.ac.id/blankon pattimura-security main restricted extras extras-restricted

deb http://kambing.ui.ac.id/blankon pattimura-updates main restricted extras extras-restricted
deb-src http://kambing.ui.ac.id/blankon pattimura-updates main restricted extras extras-restricted
  • apt-get update - so the repository added completely to your system
  • apt-get install blankon-panel

Running BlankOn Panel in Ubuntu
You can try run BlankOn panel via terminal, by type `blankon-panel`, see the ubuntu logo at the top left corner of your desktop (in a line with gnome panel) there's a way to BlankOn panel.

Once i run it, it was look not so neat, because it's dualism menu with unity launcher and sometimes blankon panel button also overlap with Global Menu so there make it does not visible, but yeah! it was not designed for Ubuntu.
Ubuntu Global Menu

to make it looks more tidy, you can remove the global menu through following:
  • sudo apt-get remove appmenu-gtk3 appmenu-gtk appmenu-qt
  • sudo reboot
if you want to reinstall it do as follows :
  • sudo apt-get install appmenu-gtk3 appmenu-gtk appmenu-qt
  • reboot
if you intend to use it permanently, you can add blankon-panel in your startup application list or even install BlankOn in your desktop.
BlankOn Panel in Startup Application list
You can visit this links to know much about blankOn and BlankOn Panel.