How to Enable the 'Activate Linux' Watermark Notification in the Linux Desktop | Linux UK

Takeaway: The "Activate Windows" watermark has been ported to Linux.　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　

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2022-03-16

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2022-05-20

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> > The "Activate Windows" watermark has been ported to Linux. > > >

The "Activate Windows" watermark has been ported to Linux.

In order to prevent piracy of the Windows operating system, the Microsoft development team came up with a solution: place an activation watermark in the corner of Windows until the user legally purchases a license and activates it.

If your PC is running a pirated copy of Windows, you should have noticed the "Activate Windows" watermark notification in the lower right corner, as shown in the image below.

"Activate Windows" notification

Fortunately, Linux users never receive such notifications. Because GNU/Linux is a completely free and open source operating system, released under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Anyone can run, study, modify, and redistribute Linux source code, and even sell copies of the modified code, as long as they use the same license.

Linux is open source, so you can really do anything with Linux that you can't do on a proprietary operating system.

You can do a lot of things in Linux. You can build and run almost anything under Linux , whether it's a fun project or an enterprise-level application. You can even add an "Activate Linux" watermark.

What is "Activate Linux"?

A few days ago, I noticed an interesting project called "Activate Linux". It's very similar to the "Activate Windows" notice you see in unlicensed Windows operating systems.

The developers of "Activate Linux" have recreated the "Activate Windows" notification watermark for Linux using Xlib and cairo in C.

It will display a watermark on your Linux desktop and notify you to go into the settings to activate your Linux distribution! It's cool, isn't it?

Enable the "Activate Linux" watermark

The activate-linux project has become very popular in a short time. Within a few days, it has been packaged for many popular Linux distributions such as Arch Linux, openSUSE and Ubuntu.

Arch Linux

AUR 🔗 aur.archlinux.org has included activate-linux. So you can use Paru 🔗 ostechnix.com or Yay 🔗 ostechnix.com to install activate-linux application in Arch Linux and its derivatives EndeavourOS and Manjaro Linux.

$ paru -S activate-linux

or

$ yay -S activate-linux

openSUSE

OBS 🔗 software.opensuse.org contains Activate-linux.

If you are using the openSUSE Tumbleweed version, please run the following commands one by one to install activate-linux:

$ sudozypper addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:WoMspace/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/home:WoMspace.repo

$ sudozypper refresh

$ sudozypper install activate-linux

For openSUSE Factory ARM edition, run the following command:

$ sudozypper addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:WoMspace/openSUSE_Factory_ARM/home:WoMspace.repo

$ sudozypper refresh

$ sudozypper install activate-linux

Ubuntu

activate-linux has a PPA for Ubuntu and its derivatives such as Pop!_OS.

$ sudoadd-apt-repository ppa:edd/misc

$ sudoapt update

$ sudoapt install activate-linux

After the installation is complete, just execute the following command in the terminal to get it running:

$ activate-linux

You will now see the "Activate Linux" watermark notification in the corner of your desktop, just like in an unauthorized copy of Windows.

"Activate Linux" watermark on desktop

take it easy! It is harmless. To cancel the display, you can return to the terminal and press CTRL+C to terminate the activate-linux command.

I tested it on Ubuntu 22.04 GNOME version. It works out of the box in Wayland.

"Activating Linux" is a very interesting and useless project I've come across in a while. I think this will make every Linux user who just switched from Windows have a more comfortable experience!

related resources

> > GitHub repository for "Activate Linux" 🔗 github.com > > >

GitHub repository for "Activate Linux" 🔗 github.com

via: https://ostechnix.com/activate-linux/

Author: sk Topic: lkxed Translator: lkxed Proofreading: wxy

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