Make Tech Easier » Linux

Using Kate As a Web Editor

Tavis J. Hampton — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:03:59 +0000

There are many applications out there that provide project-based web development tools and very feature-rich interfaces, but sometimes all you really need is a good text editor. For those times, there are few editors that can stand up to the KDE powerhouse called Kate.

Kate is a multi-document interface (MDI) text editor, available for both KDE 3 and 4. It runs on multiple Linux and Unix-like platforms, Mac OS X, and Windows. It also includes a component called KatePart, which runs inside numerous other KDE applications, including Quanta+ (on KDE 3 only), KWrite, Konqueror, and Kdevelop. Kate provides syntax highlighting for over 120 text formats, making it perfect for whatever programming language you choose.

HTML Editing

Kate will highlight HTML markup and underline errors, particularly when you forget to close a tag. It will also group text within tags, so that you can see what content is where. It will display folding markers, small arrows on the side, that you can use to collapse or expand a tag and its contents. To toggle folding markers, press F9. For that reason, if you are coding in XHTML, make sure to use the XML highlighting rather than HTML. It will then appropriately mark single tags that are not closed with arrows.

To enable XML highlighting:

1. Click Tools in the main menu
2. Navigate to “Highlighting”, “Markup”, and finally to “XML”.

You can also do the same for PHP and other web scripting languages. Kate will generally highlight all of these, so you can usually leave the settings at the default.

Kate includes a dynamic word wrap feature, useful for documents with large amounts of text. Toggle it on or off with F10. Press F11 to toggle line numbers, and you will notice that a wrapped line has symbols indicating that it is still part of the previous line.

Multiple Documents

With Kate, you can edit multiple documents at once. The left-hand column will display the list of currently opened files, and you can move through them by clicking on the file you want to edit, by clicking the forward or back buttons, or by holding the Alt key and pressing the left or right arrow. Control+S will save your current document, and Control+L will save all open documents.

Sessions

Kate has a handy feature called “Sessions” that allows you to pick up work right where you left off the last time you were editing. For example, you might have eight documents for a particular project. Rather than having to open each document one at a time every time you want to work on them, you can save a Kate session that will automatically open those documents when activated. To save a session:

1. Click Sessions
2. Click Save As…
3. Give your session a name.

The next time you want to return to that project, just open the session you saved.

Remote Editing

There are times when you need to edit a document quickly right on the server. While you could SSH into the server and use whatever text editor is available from the command line, you will miss some of the many benefits of Kate. Furthermore, if you have a shared hosting account, you might not even have access to SSH. With Kate, you can open a document live on the server via FTP, SFTP, and any other protocol supported by KDE. To accomplish this, do the following:

1. Login to your web server using the normal method. You can use Dolphin or Konqueror.
2. Navigate to the folder containing the file you want to edit.
3. Right click on the file and open it with Kate.
4. Repeat those steps for multiple files if necessary.

Find

Kate’s find feature is very useful with long documents. To activate it, press Control-F. It will open a dialog at the bottom of the window. You can find each instance individually and scroll through the results with the “Next” and “Previous” buttons, or click “Options” and “Highlight all” to see all results highlighted at once.

Click the arrow on the far right to expand the find dialog further, and it will add a “replace” feature. With it you can find a tag or piece of content and replace every instance of it with something else or nothing at all. Kate will also remember your searches so that you can perform them again by pressing the down arrow on the right side of the search box.

I have only touched the surface of the many features available in Kate. The best way to find out exactly what Kate can offer you is to try it out for yourself. I highly recommend it, not only for KDE users, but for anyone. Kate is available through any Linux distribution that offers KDE.

Using Kate As a Web Editor originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Lancelot: An Alternative KDE Menu

Tavis J. Hampton — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:06:40 +0000

Many KDE 3 users swear by the K menu and would dare anyone to challenge it with something better. Fortunately for those people, KDE 4 retained that menu version as an option. For the rest of us, there are a couple of more robust menus that offer a variety of features. Lancelot is a third-party menu that has now entered into the KDE fold. It is the one I use, and many others have found it pretty useful. In this post, I will present to you some of Lancelot’s features so that you can decide if it is right for you.

Setup

Lancelot is now part of KDE and should be available for installation in any KDE-based distribution (or distributions with the option for full KDE installation). To enable it:

1. Right click on the desktop or panel and click “Unlock Widgets”.
2. Right click on your current menu and click “Remove…”
3. Right click on the desktop and click “Add Widgets”.
4. Drag the Lancelot widget onto the panel.

You will see another widget called “Lancelot Part”, but leave that one alone for now. Like most panel widgets, you can configure it by right-clicking on the icon and clicking “Lancelot Launcher Settings”. “Show categories…” will display a button for each Lancelot category. “Show only menu launcher icon” does just what it says.

One unique feature of Lancelot is the “No-click activation”, which allows you to navigate through the menu without clicking the mouse button. It is in the settings under “Menu” and the “General” tab. To activate an item, move your mouse pointer over the little arrow that appears when you highlight it. In my case, there is apparently something about clicking that feels more manly, so I disabled the “No-click”.

Lancelot Part

I had a very good reason for telling you to leave the Lancelot Part alone. If you were to drag it from the “Add Widgets” dialog, you would find that it does nothing. Any section within a Lancelot category can become a widget, utilizing Lancelot Part. For example, make sure that your widgets are unlocked, and then try dragging the “Places” section from the “Computer” category onto an open area of your desktop. You will now have a handy shortcut menu for all of your bookmarked places.

You can do the same with any of the Lancelot categories. You can also add multiple sections to one Lancelot Part. Just drag a second section onto the current one you just made. It is resizeable and has some configuration settings. In addition, any folder can be made into a Lancelot Part simply by dragging it to the desktop.

Lancelot Search

Lancelot is integrated with Krunner. That means anything the user can search for in Krunner can also be found in Lancelot. That includes applications, nepomuk tags, indexed documents, contacts, bookmarks, and file folders. It will also perform numerous Krunner functions such as the calculator and unit convertor.

Lancelot works very well for those users who like a lot of functionality, and it delievers on its promises. If you are the type who prefers simplicity, however, Lancelot is not for you. The myriad of categories and menu columns can be daunting. Furthermore, I have noticed a slight delay in opening the menu on slower machines, so those of you on netbooks and low-powered desktops will probably prefer a more minimal menu. On my desktop, I enjoy Lancelot in its full glory, and it integrates nicely with KDE’s “Air” Plasma theme. I recommend you give it a try.

Lancelot: An Alternative KDE Menu originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Linux: Access 100+ Games Instantly With DJL

Damien — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 12:13:54 +0000

(Update: The site was up and running when this post was published, but now it seems that it is down for unknown reason.)

(Update: The site is up and running again.)

For those who always feel that gaming is not suitable in Linux OS and it is always an hassle to install and get games to run in Linux platform, then DJL will definitely change the way you think.

Djl is an open-source (GPL licensed) game manager written in Python 2.5 for the GNU/Linux Operating Systems. In short, it is an application that allows you to install/uninstall/manage your games easily. With Djl, you can browse through its repository of 100+ games and install the game you want with a simple click. No longer do you need to worry about game dependencies and all the command lines.

Installation

Download djl installer script. Extract it to your Home folder.

Open a terminal, Install the dependencies

sudo apt-get install python-qt4

Change the file permission

chmod +x ~/djl/djl.sh

Run the scripts

sh ~/djl/djl.sh

Configuration

At the first run, the configuration window will appear. Here is where you can configure the settings such as the installation directory, default browser etc.

Once you are done with the configuration, click Save and it will bring you to the main screen of DJL.

Running DJL

Once you are at the main screen, this is where the fun comes in. In the Repository tab, you can find all the games available in the DJL repository. There are currently about 120 games in the repository and new games are added regularly.

One thing that I like about the interface is that it is well organized. You can even filter the games by the game types and game license.

When you have found the game you like, simply click Install and DJL will take care of the rest.

As soon as the installation is completed, you will find an entry in the Game tab where you can click to start playing.

Plugins

Even though it is a simple game manager, DJL allows its users to install plugins to increase its functionality. While I have no use for most of the plugins, it is good to know that such stuffs exist. Plugins such as the Unreal Tournament 2004 stats could be useful for Unreal fans.

If you are not a gamer, or that you are contented with just playing with Gnometrics, then this is not for you. Other than that, this is really an awesome piece of software.

Linux: Access 100+ Games Instantly With DJL originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Linux: Improve Your Battery Life With PowerTOP

Damien — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 03:10:58 +0000

There are plenty of things that I love about Linux, but when it comes to maximizing battery life performance, there is very little to desire. On the frontend, you might be running very few applications, but unknown to you, there are actually plenty of applications running in the backend that are quietly draining away your battery. Compiz, workspace, dock are few such examples. As a result, a battery that used to last 3 hours can only last for 2 hours (or less) now.

So what can you do about it?

PowerTOP is an application that allows you to view information about programs that are misbehaving while your computer is idle. With this information, you can then make changes and optimize your computer to squeeze more juice out of your laptop battery.

Installation

For Ubuntu and Debian based system

sudo apt-get install powertop

or simply click here to install

Running PowerTOP

In the terminal, type

sudo powertop

PowerTOP runs itself inside the terminal, so don’t expect a fanciful GUI here.

On the top of the screen, you can see the two columns showing the C-states and P-states.

The C-state refers to the idle state where your CPU is not doing anything. The higher C-state the CPU is running at, the better it is.

On the other hand, the P-state shows the operational state, or the frequency the CPU is running at most of the time. The lower frequency the CPU runs, the lesser power it will require. From the screenshot above, you can see that my laptop is running at C3 and 800MHz most of the time. (More info on the C-states and P-states can be found here)

At the bottom half is where you can see the applications that are actively running in the background. The number of wakeup refers to the number of time the application refreshes itself to check for instruction. The fewer wakeup an application makes, the better it is.

PowerTOP Suggestions

It is pretty useless if you know the cause of the problem, but not the solution to it. One thing that impresses me in PowerTOP is that it provides improvement suggestions as well as the instruction to implement the solution. It even comes with a shortcut key for those who are not familiar with the command line.

For example, in my laptop, PowerTOP detects that the USB drive is taking up plenty of resources and it suggested me to enable the USB auto-suspend mode. Even though I have completely no idea on how to do that in the terminal, I can simply press U on my keyboard and get PowerTOP to do the job for me.

Isn’t that cool!

Once you have resolved one issue, PowerTOP will continue to prompt you for the next issue, until it resolves all the issues that it can find.

Conclusion

If you are already power-managing your laptop, PowerTOP might not be able to improve your battery life to a great extent, but for those casual users who have paid no attention to such detail in the past, I am sure PowerTOP will be able to help you to get the most out of your battery; provided your battery is still functional.

Linux: Improve Your Battery Life With PowerTOP originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Easily Mount Your iPhone As An External Drive in Ubuntu

Damien — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:27:35 +0000

For those who own an iPhone/iPod Touch and at the same time is an Ubuntu (or Linux) users, here’s is a good news. You can now easily mount your iPhone in your Ubuntu without having to jailbreak your phone.

In the past, the dirty but effective way to access the iPhone from your Linux system is via SSH. This requires you to jailbreak your phone and it voids the warranty. With iFuse, you can now mount your iPhone/iPod Touch under Linux with just a USB cable. You can also view/edit/cut/copy/paste the file just like any USB disk drive.

Installation

Open up your terminal, type the following to open up your APT sources file

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Insert the following lines to the end of the file

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/jonabeck/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/jonabeck/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

The above is assuming that you are using Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty). For any other version, simply replace the jaunty by the respective version name (hardy, intrepid, karmic etc)

Save and close the file.

Back in the terminal:

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com F0876AC9
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ifuse

Once the installation is done, connect your iPhone to your computer via the USB cable.

Open up your Nautilus. You should see the iPhone/iPod entry at the side pane. This show that it is already mounted in your system.

Click on the entry to view the filesystem.

Things that you can do

1. View/copy/download photos.

You can now manage the photos that you have taken with your iPhone without iTunes.

2. Create folders, upload/download files

You can now use your iPhone as a USB drive and use it for file storage. To allow confusion/conflict with the other system files, it is best to create a custom folder (and name it My Folder) and store all your files there.

3. Managing address book/calendar (upcoming)

Work is underway to sync the contact data with Conduit.

What you cannot do now

Manage your music database

Apple uses a cryptographic signing algorithm to encrypt all the music files. While you can access the music folder, there is no way that you can transfer your music over and get it to work in your iPhone.

Note:
1. iFuse is not Ubuntu-specific app. It works for most Linux distro as well.

2. Mac users can also use iPhoneDisk to achieve similar functionality.

How to Easily Mount Your iPhone As An External Drive in Ubuntu originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Configure Custom Shortcuts in KDE

Tavis J. Hampton — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:00:29 +0000

Perhaps Mac users know this better than anyone else. Shortcut keys do exactly what they say, give you shortcuts, saving you time. On my previous computer, my “C” key had worn off the keyboard because I spent so much time copying with “Ctrl-C” rather than going to the menu each time to select “copy”. Whether you are starting an application or cycling through virtual desktops, Linux users tend to love shortcut keys just as much.

In KDE, shortcut keys are customizable for each and every application, and you can also customize global shortcuts that affect the desktop, window manager, command interface, and other features. What follows is a brief guide to using KDE shortcuts, but first I am going to press “Ctrl-S” to save my work.

Global Shortcuts

1. To start the KDE shortcut configuration, find System Settings in the menu, or press “Alt-F2″, type “systemsettings“, and press enter.

2. Click “Keyboard & Mouse” in the Computer Administration section.

3. Click “Global Keyboard Shortcuts“.

4. Select the KDE component you wish to edit. For example, select “Run Command Interface” to edit Krunner settings.

5. Click on an action, and it will expand a section showing you the default shortcut and the option to make a custom one.

6. Select “Custom” and then click the button next to it.

7. It will then wait for you to press a key or keystroke combination. If the shortcut is already assigned, it will warn you about that. Otherwise, it will assign the new shortcut key.

8. Click Apply.

Application Shortcuts

Another handy shortcut feature of KDE is that you can assign shortcuts to an application or command. The example I am going to demonstrate solved a problem for me. I have a Mac Pro, but I Linux on it as my main OS. The CD-ROM/DVD drive has no button to open it. That is controlled by the keyboard, which worked fine when I used an Apple keyboard. When I got tired of the Apple keyboard and bought one I liked better, I needed to assign a key for opening the CD tray.

1. Right click on the K-Menu icon on the panel.

2. Click “Menu Editor”

3. Find the application you want to edit or click the “new” button to add a new command (For new commands, follow the normal procedures for adding a command to the menu).

4. Click the “Advanced” tab.

5. Where it says “Current shortcut key”, click the button next to it.

6. Enter the key combination you want. For my eject command, I used “Fn-F10″.

7. Click “Save”.

Finally, whenever you are in a KDE application, you can assign shortcuts by doing the following:

1. In the application’s menu, click “Settings”.

2. Click “Configure Shortcuts”.

With application shortcuts, you have the option of assigning alternates so that two different shortcuts can execute an action. You can also assign a global shortcut to an application that will work even when another application has focus. For example, you can set media controls, such as volume, to be controlled even when you are not in KMix. You can export any of your shortcut settings and import them on another computer, giving you the ultimate flexibility. Now press the shortcut to bookmark MakeTechEasier.com, and enjoy.

How to Configure Custom Shortcuts in KDE originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Install and Use Ubuntu Netbook Remix

Joshua Price — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:06:47 +0000

As time goes on, netbooks are getting more and more popular. These small, cheap, portable computers are gaining popularity in situations where you want the flexibility of a laptop, but don’t need the raw power or price tag of a high-end machine. Some come with Windows, some come with Linux. Unfortunately, the pre-installed Linux on some netbooks can be lacking in quality and features. For those who aren’t satisfied with the default OS on their netbook, Ubuntu has created Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

As the name implies, it’s Ubuntu with some tweaks to make the size and speed of the OS more appropriate to the hardware you’ll find in your average netbook. The most noticable difference is that they’ve completely re-skinned the standard Gnome desktop into something more closely resembling Gnome Shell than the Gnome you’re used to.

Preparing USB Media

Since many netbooks have no CD/DVD drives, you’ll need a USB thumb drive (1GB minimum) to perform the installation. The second thing you’ll need is the image file that we’ll be putting on the thumb drive, which can be downloaded here. The requirements for UNR list an Intel Atom processor for CPU, however I am writing this from UNR running on a Core 2 Duo so it seems the Atom is the “minimum” CPU, not necessarily the only supported type.

Installation will proceed in 2 steps. First, we put the live image on the USB stick (using Linux, Windows, or Mac) then we insert the USB stick into the netbook and install to the netbook’s hard drive. The USB stick is the temporary storage, replacing the CDROM in a typical Linux install.

Linux – Ubuntu

If you’re copying the image file to the USB drive from an Ubuntu system, you need the usb-imagewriter package. Ubuntu users can install it from the repositories with apt-get/aptitude/synaptic like any other package. With apt-get, it would look like:

sudo apt-get install usb-imagewriter

or simply click here to install it in your computer.

Once installed run the program from Applications -> Accessories -> Image Writer.

Choose the image file downloaded earlier, and the device it’ll write to (your USB drive). THIS WILL WIPE ANY DATA CURRENTLY ON THE USB DRIVE. Click Write when ready. Once it’s done, you’re ready to plug the thumb drive into the netbook and proceed to the Installation section.

Details for writing the image from other operating systems can be found at the Ubuntu Netbook Remix website.

Booting UNR

Once the image file has been written to the drive, it’s time to take it to your netbook. Shut down the netbook, plug in our newly formatted drive, and turn it back on. On some netbooks, you may need to manually specify that you want to boot from the USB drive instead of the netbook’s internal storage. If this is the case, you can normally set the boot order in the netbook’s BIOS settings. Some even have a option when first started, that says something like “Press F12 for boot menu”.

Running UNR

Here’s what we’ve all been waiting for. Once booted, you won’t see the normal Gnome desktop. Instead, you’ll get a custom desktop menu system devised specifically for UNR. Regular MakeTechEasier readers will immediately notice the resemblance between UNR’s menu system and that of Gnome Shell.

Your normal panel on top has been replaced by a black bar containing some of the items normally seen in Gnome’s panel, such as the Network Manager, clock, and power management applet.

When you run any app from the new menu system, it will automatically be maximized to fill the entire screen. Instead of having a box for each running application filling up the panel, UNR gives each app an icon next to the menu button, and the rest of the screen space is used for the title bar of the currently active (maximized) window. Here, for example, is my top bar while running Firefox, Rhythmbox, and The Gimp.

Some whitespace in the titlebar was removed to avoid shrinking the image and losing clarity.

You may also notice in the full screenshot that all my storage devices were detected and are listed along with Home, Music, Documents, etc on the right hand section of the menu screen. This is roughly the equivalent of the Places menu on a normal Gnome installation. At the bottom of that last is the Quit/Shutdown button which is normally found in the top-right corner of a typical Ubuntu system.

A nice feature of UNR is the very first menu section, Favorites. As the name implies, this holds your most frequently used applications. As someone who despises the traditional hierarchical menu system, I appreciate anything that speeds up and simplifies the act of finding and running my favorite apps. The only thing I found lacking in the left pane’s menu setup is a Run box, allowing me to type in the name of my preferred command instead of hunting through menus.

Installing UNR to Netbook Hard Drive

UNR uses the standard Ubuntu installer, which can be found in the Favorites menu. The process for installing from USB to hard drive should be no different than any other Ubuntu installation, which we’ve covered here before. You do not need to install UNR to the hard drive in order to use it, you can simply boot from the USB stick any time you like if you want to run UNR, however there are a few drawbacks to this. For one, any changes you make are not persistent. Next time you reboot, any changes made the the files on the USB drive will be reverted back to their original state. This means no (useful) software upgrades, and no persistent settings and preferences. Each boot on to your USB drive will be like the first.

Caveats

I had a few complaints about the UNR menu-driven interface. For starters is the auto-maximization of pretty much any application. I can see how, in theory, the small screen on your average netbook would mean you’d only want one app on screen at a time, however that’s not always the case in practice. You still have the option of right-clicking the titlebar and choosing “Unmaximize” to drop a window into normal mode, but then you have a semi-transparent version of the menu sitting behind all your apps, giving it a cluttered look.

The biggest drawback, to me, was the lack of multiple workspaces. I use these “virtual desktops” extensively, and so far I haven’t found a way to enable them on UNR. I suppose the idea behind UNR’s interface is that people will generally only be running a few full screen apps like web browser and email, due to the low power of your average netbook. That’s another thing that sounds fine in theory, but has caused me frustrations when attempting to use UNR as a desktop system.

Finally, there’s the issue with multi-windowed apps, such as The Gimp. I briefly mentioned above that whenever an app is NOT maximized, you can see a semi-transparent menu floating on your desktop. While not a real problem, I find this very annoying as it makes my workspace feel cluttered and disorganized.

Conclusion

As far as the real guts of the system, UNR is roughly the same as any Ubuntu installation, with approximately the same set of software and whatever pros and cons they provide. Regarding the interface, I wasn’t particularly impressed. Some of the design choices seem good at first, but over time have caused me some frustrations. I suppose, though, that if you’re using UNR exactly as intended (light use, small amount of full-screen apps) it could provide a cozy, simple setup that sure beats some of the pre-installed operating systems many manufacturers provide (I’m looking at you, Xandros). Perhaps in the next iteration of UNR, some kinks will be better worked out and the UNR interface will more closely match the clever design we’ve seen in projects like Gnome Shell.

How to Install and Use Ubuntu Netbook Remix originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Jolicloud – The Innovative OS For The Web-Centric Crowd

Damien — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:56:32 +0000

For those who are sick of using Windows XP on their netbook and wanted to try out a netbook-efficient and more user friendly OS, then Jolicloud could well be the one heading to your netbook.

Jolicloud is a new Linux distro based on the Ubuntu Netbook Remix, but specifically optimized for netbook devices. What make it stands out from the rest is its Web services that delivers a whole new Web-centric experience to its users (we will discuss more on that later).

Jolicloud is currently at closed alpha testing stage and only offer download on an invitation basis. The download is a LiveCD installer of around 600MB, distributed in iso format. You will have to use a USB creator software to mount the iso file on a USB drive before you can use it to install on a netbook.

When you first boot up the OS, you will see a Ubuntu-like grub splash screen.

Similarly, on the home screen, you will find the familiar UNR user interface.

On further exploration, you will also find that many of the standard software suite found in UNR (like Open Office, GIMP, Rhythmbox) are no longer available. Even Ubuntu signature app installer: Synaptic Package Manger, is missing. There is a good reason for that. Jolicloud stripped out all the heavy-duty and redundant applications in the system and allows you to customize fully what applications you want in your computer.

This is also where Jolicloud Web Services plays its part.

Click on the My Jolicloud icon (or the Get Started icon in Favorites tab) to launch Jolicloud Web Services. This is basically a Mozilla Prism application that connects you to the Jolicloud server.

Jolicloud Dashboard

This is essentially the starting point of your Jolicloud Web-centric experience. The dashboard contains news information and notification of the software update for your netbook.

Jolicloud Application

The application panel functions just like the iPhone App Store where you can choose the applications you want and install it in your netbook, easily and quickly. You are not restricted to install only desktop based application. Most of the popular web-based apps such as Google docs, Zoho office, YouTube can also be installed in your system (basically they are just customized build of Prism). Who says you need to know command line to install applications in Linux?

Jolicloud Settings – the social media stuff

The Settings panel is where you can follow other Jolicloud’s members (in Twitter style) and get update on what they are installing in their system. One thing though, for those who are concerned with their privacy, (unfortunately) I have not found a way to prevent others from following you. I strongly hope that Jolicloud can fix this up and allow more privacy control to the users.

Conclusion

For an OS that is still in alpha testing, Jolicloud is impressive. Surely there are plenty of bugs still need to be sorted out, but for the simple, yet user-friendly and easy to use interface, it really worth the praise.

Things that I hope to see improvement in future release:

1) Privacy control for the end-users
2) Support for a wider range of netbooks (currently it only works on certain models)
3) Better hardware support

Have you tried out Jolicloud? If not, apply for the invitation code here.

Jolicloud – The Innovative OS For The Web-Centric Crowd originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Use Digikam to Export Photos to Flickr, PicasaWeb, and Facebook

Tavis J. Hampton — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:23:58 +0000

Digikam is a free and open source photo management software package for KDE. Many KDE-based Linux distributions either come with Digikam installed or have it available in their repositories. With Digikam, you can import photos from your digital camera or flash memory, organize and tag them, rate them, edit them, and export them to various services or custom galleries.

Three popular services that Digikam can handle are Flickr, PicasaWeb, and Facebook. The first two are social photo sites, and the last is a social networking site. All three support photo plugins used by Digikam. This makes uploading photos quick, easy, and painless.

I am operating under the assumption that you already have accounts on the services you want to use. If not, you will need to register and activate whichever accounts you want before you proceed.

Preparing Digikam Photos

If you are preparing to use Digikam for the first time, you need to tell it where your photos are stored. When you first start it, it will pop up a window asking for your pictures directory. Once selected, it will remember that selection and always work within that directory until you change it.

Flickr

To export your photos to Flick, do the following:

1. Select the album and images you wish to upload.
2. Click “Export” in the menu
3. Click “Export to Flickr”
4. It will open your web browser and ask you to login to Flickr. If you are already logged in, you can skip this step.
5. After you are logged in, go back to Digikam and click “Yes”.
6. Under “Upload Options” you can select a PhotoSet or create a new one.
7. Create tags or check “Use Host Application Tags” to use your Digikam/KDE tags.
8. Select any other options you want and then click “Start Uploading”.

PicasaWeb

Google offers a Linux download for their Picasa software, but it is not native Linux software and does not integrate well into the rest of KDE like Digikam. Fortunately, you can still upload pictures to your PicasaWeb account without using Picasa desktop software. To export your photos to PicasaWeb, do the following:

1. Select the album and images you wish to upload.
2. Click “Export” in the menu
3. Click “Export to PicasaWeb”
4. It will open your web browser and ask for your Google login. If you are already logged in, go back to Digikam.
5. Click “Yes”.
6. Choose the album you want to use or create a new one.
7. Add tags for the images or click “Export Application Tags” to use Digikam’s.
8. Click “Start Uploading”

Facebook

People who use Facebook often want to share their photos, and Facebook has a complete photo album component with albums, tags, and other common features. By default it relies on a Java-based upload application that does run well on Linux from my experience. To use Digikam to upload Facebook photos, do the following:

1. Select the album and images you wish to upload.
2. Click “Export” in the menu
3. Click “Export to Facebook”
4. It will open your web browser and ask for your Facebook login. If you are already logged in, Facebook will tell you that you can close the window and return to Digikam.
5. Back in Digikam, click “Yes” in the dialog box.
6. Choose an album, select “auto create”, or click “New Album” to make a new one.
7. Click “Start Upload”.

There are other plugins for Gallery (free software that you can install on your own website), and SmugMug (which requires a paid account). You can also use Digikam to create a static HTML gallery for use online or offline.

Regardless of the service you choose, once you have it setup in Digikam, you can easily upload new photos whenever you take them. With KDE 4, tags and ratings carry over into other applications, integrating your user experience both locally and on the web.

How to Use Digikam to Export Photos to Flickr, PicasaWeb, and Facebook originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

8 Useful and Interesting Bash Prompts

Joshua Price — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:00:27 +0000

Many people don’t think of their command prompt as a particularly useful thing, or even pay it much attention. To me, this is a bit of a shame, as a useful prompt can change the way you use the command line. Well I’ve scoured the Interwebs looking for the best, most useful, or sometimes most amusing bash prompts. Here, in no particular order, are the ones I’d be most likely to use on my computers.

Note – to use any of these prompts, you can copy & paste the “PS1=” line directly into your terminal. To make the change permanent, paste the line to the end of your ~/.bashrc file.

1. Show Happy face upon successful execution

This prompt is probably the most amusing one on the list, but remains useful. The idea is that as long as your commands execute successfully, your prompt shows a happy face. Any time a command fails, it shows a sad face instead.

Example:

Code:

PS1="\`if [ \$? = 0 ]; then echo \[\e[33m\]^_^\[\e[0m\]; else echo \[\e[31m\]O_O\[\e[0m\]; fi\`[\u@\h:\w]\\$ "

2.Change color on bad command

Here’s one of my favorites. This prompt has it all. Like above, the prompt changes color if your last command failed to run successfully, but it also shortens long paths and contains the bash history number of each command for easy retrieval.

Example:

Code:

PROMPT_COMMAND='PS1="\[\033[0;33m\][\!]\`if [[ \$? = "0" ]]; then echo "\\[\\033[32m\\]"; else echo "\\[\\033[31m\\]"; fi\`[\u.\h: \`if [[ `pwd|wc -c|tr -d " "` > 18 ]]; then echo "\\W"; else echo "\\w"; fi\`]\$\[\033[0m\] "; echo -ne "\033]0;`hostname -s`:`pwd`\007"'

3. Multi lines prompt

If you’re the type who wants to pack your prompt full of information, then here’s the one for you. This one is a multi-line prompt containing date/time, full path, user and host, active terminal, even file count and space usage.
Example:

Code:

PS1="\n\[\033[35m\]\$(/bin/date)\n\[\033[32m\]\w\n\[\033[1;31m\]\u@\h: \[\033[1;34m\]\$(/usr/bin/tty | /bin/sed -e 's:/dev/::'): \[\033[1;36m\]\$(/bin/ls -1 | /usr/bin/wc -l | /bin/sed 's: ::g') files \[\033[1;33m\]\$(/bin/ls -lah | /bin/grep -m 1 total | /bin/sed 's/total //')b\[\033[0m\] -> \[\033[0m\]"

4. Color manage your prompt

There’s nothing particularly fancy about this prompt, other than the good use of color to separate the different pieces of information. As you can see, it provides time, username, hostname, and current directory. Fairly minimal but useful.

Example:

Code:

PS1="\[\033[35m\]\t\[\033[m\]-\[\033[36m\]\u\[\033[m\]@\[\033[32m\]\h:\[\033[33;1m\]\w\[\033[m\]\$ "

5. Show full path

This one’s a nice, clean, minimal 2-line prompt (plus a blank line at the top). You’ve got your full path at the first line and pretty much just the username at the bottom. If you want to remove the blank line at the start of every prompt, just take out the first “\n”.

Example:

Code:

PS1="[\[\033[32m\]\w]\[\033[0m\]\n\[\033[1;36m\]\u\[\033[1;33m\]-> \[\033[0m\]"

6. Show background job count

Another nifty 2-liner, but this one’s got some info we haven’t used before. The first line is the normal user@host, with full path. On the second line we’ve got history number and a count of the jobs running in the background.

Example:

Code:

PS1='\[\e[1;32m\]\u@\H:\[\e[m\] \[\e[1;37m\]\w\[\e[m\]\n\[\e[1;33m\]hist:\! \[\e[0;33m\] \[\e[1;31m\]jobs:\j \$\[\e[m\] '

7. Display directory information

A very elegant and nice looking prompt design. With this one we’ve got user/host, number of jobs, and date/time on the top line. Below that is current directory along with number of files in that directory and their disk usage.

Example:

Code:

PS1="\n\[\e[30;1m\]\[\016\]l\[\017\](\[\e[34;1m\]\u@\h\[\e[30;1m\])-(\[\e[34;1m\]\j\[\e[30;1m\])-(\[\e[34;1m\]\@ \d\[\e[30;1m\])->\[\e[30;1m\]\n\[\016\]m\[\017\]-(\[\[\e[32;1m\]\w\[\e[30;1m\])-(\[\e[32;1m\]\$(/bin/ls -1 | /usr/bin/wc -l | /bin/sed 's: ::g') files, \$(/bin/ls -lah | /bin/grep -m 1 total | /bin/sed 's/total //')b\[\e[30;1m\])--> \[\e[0m\]"

8. My Prompt

And finally, the prompt I personally like to use. It’s a modification of #7, changed to take up less space and include only the information I most want in my prompt. I like the two-line style as it lets me see the full path without reducing the space for my actual commands.

Example:

Code:

PS1="\n\[\e[32;1m\](\[\e[37;1m\]\u\[\e[32;1m\])-(\[\e[37;1m\]jobs:\j\[\e[32;1m\])-(\[\e[37;1m\]\w\[\e[32;1m\])\n(\[\[\e[37;1m\]! \!\[\e[32;1m\])-> \[\e[0m\]"

If you’d like to share your prompt, please do so in the comments below.

8 Useful and Interesting Bash Prompts originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Use ‘remote:/’ KIO and KNetAttach

Tavis J. Hampton — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:20:17 +0000

In my post two weeks ago, I introduced you to KDE’s KIO slaves and gave you a brief overview of the services they offer. One of the KIO protocols is remote:/, which relies on KNetAttach to create virtual network folders. With it, you can create folders for the following services:

1. WebFolder (webdav)
2. FTP
3. Microsoft Windows network drive (using Samba)
4. Secure shell (ssh)

Each one has its slightly unique features and requirements, and in this post, you will learn about each one.

There are two ways to start KNetAttach. One, which we already discussed, is to go to remote:/ in Dolphin or Konqueror. Then, simply click on Add Network Folder. The other method is to press Alt-F2, type “knetattach” and press Enter.

WebFolder

WebFolder relies on WebDAV, which allows you to create and use web-based folders. Many remote file storage services rely on this technology. To connect to a web folder:

1. Select WebFolder from the “Add Network Folder” list and click “Next“.
2. Give it a name; something you will only use for identification.
3. Enter your username.
4. For Server, it is usually a full web address like http://webdav.yourdomain.com
5. Enter a folder name only if required by your host.
6. Check “use encryption” if HTTPS is available.
7. Check “create an icon for this remote folder” to use the connection again in the future.
8. Click “Save and Connect“.

It will prompt you for your password. If you elect to save your password, it is a good idea to use Kwallet, which is enabled by default.

FTP and SSH

Connecting to FTP is nearly identical to other connection methods.

1. Give the connection a name.
2. Enter the username (Often, this is a full email address if you use shared hosting. Check with your host). If it is public FTP, usually the username is “anonymous”.
3. Enter the server (Usually just the domain name, like suchandsuch.com or ftp.suchandsuch.com).
4. Only change the port if specified by your host. 21 is the default.
5. Click “Save and Connect“.

The only difference with SSH is usually the port number. In addition to connecting to remote hosts for a website, this is a good method to use for connecting two Linux computers on a local network for file transfer. Just make sure that both hosts have openssh server installed.

Microsoft Windows network drive

For a connection to Windows, you will need Samba running and configured on your computer. If you are unsure what server information to use, navigate to remote:/ and then click on “Samba Shares“. It will show you the current windows shares on your network. When you click “Save and Connect“, it will prompt you for a username and password only if the samba share requires it.

Network Services

There is a button in the remote:/ section called “Network Services”, and it allows you to connect to zeroconf services. The idea behind zeroconf (zero configuration) is to connect to networked computers, printers, and various devices without any expert configuration. Linux uses a free implementation called Avahi. Many distributions enable the avahi daemon by default. It allows you to quickly discover and connect to FTP, Samba, HTTP, CUPS, and other protocols.

The remote:/ KIO combined with KNetAttach provides users with a full networking experience. Once you are connected to one of the above-mentioned services, you can navigate through them just as you would through folders and files on your own computer. You can drag and drop, copy and paste, and even delete all in real time. When you are finished, just close the tab or window.

How to Use ‘remote:/’ KIO and KNetAttach originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Find Free Linux Ebooks and Courseware

Joshua Price — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:11:22 +0000

Like it or not, with Linux comes advocacy. There are a lot of people out there who like to spread the love in whatever ways they can. One nice side effect of this is the abundance of free Linux related information available to anyone. That’s good for us, as we’ll be covering just how to find all this great material.

Certainly not all Linux books are free (just ask Tim O’Reilly) but the nature of Linux means that the “spirit of freeness” tends to surround more than just the operating system. Some of the websites listed below offer full length dead-tree versions of the same books, the purchasing of which could be a great way to support these organizations. Without further delay, here are a few of the sites I’d recommend for anyone wanting to hone their Lin-jitsu.

1. OnlineComputerBooks.com

This site doesn’t so much host ebooks as link to them. There’s a VAST collection linked from here on all computer related topics from web design to hardware repair to systems administration. This is one of the first places I go when looking for good Linux books.

2. Scribd.com

Scribd describes itself as a “social publishing company”. The idea here is that any aspiring author can upload their book and have it accessible to everyone. I’ve found several high-quality Linux related ebooks here. Another interesting note about Scribd is that they use their own custom made book viewing system called iPaper. It resembles a PDF reader or presentation program built into a web browser. I’ve had both good and bad experiences with iPaper but it does give the site and the books a distinctive feel.

Here’s a shot of Scribd’s iPaper in action:

3. The Linux Documentation Project

We’ve touched on LDP a bit in the past but it certainly deserves a mention here. If there’s one place online to go when it comes to Linux documentation, this is it. According to the website,

LDP is a loosely knit team of volunteers who provide documentation for many aspects of Linux. There are several forms of documentation: Guides, HOWTOs, man pages, and FAQs.

4. Textbook Revolution

Textbook Revolution has a wide range of textbooks available on many topics, including Linux programming and other IT subjects. The interesting thing about Textbook Revolution is that it’s created by students.

Textbook Revolution is a student-run site dedicated to increasing the use of free educational materials by teachers and professors. We want to get these materials into classrooms. Our approach is to bring all of the free textbooks we can find together in one place, review them, and let the best rise to the top and find their way into the hands of students in classrooms around the world.

Courseware

Compared to ebooks, there’s not as much out there for Linux courseware. There are, however, several places that have related courseware available. Some of the places I’ll list here have Linux specific courses, while others are more general UNIX or other IT.

5. MIT

As can be expected, MIT has some great courseware available for free online. It includes assignments, syllabus, textbooks, the works.

6. Cornell University/arXiv.org

Links to a resonable collection of course related materials, books, and papers. From arXiv you can find info on subjects like cryptography or Asymptotically Optimal Assignments In Ordinal Evaluations of Proposals, whatever that may be.

7. Open University

The Open University refers to itself as “the United Kingdom’s only university dedicated to distance learning.” They’ve got a pretty good collection of materials available on the website on a variety of topics. The courseware includes exercises and course summaries. There’s not much here specifically Linux related, but what is there is well organized and easy to sort through.

Have you come across any other useful sites for Linux ebooks and courseware? Let us know in the comments.

How to Find Free Linux Ebooks and Courseware originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Configure File Associations in KDE

Tavis J. Hampton — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:34:29 +0000

Many Linux users, even the newest ones, love Linux because it is highly customizable. KDE in particular is one desktop environment that is very easy and fun to customize. Whether you want three panels and a rotating slideshow of wallpaper photos from your vacation in Peru, or simply want to make sure text files always open in your favorite text editor, KDE can deliver. One important customization features is file association.

In KDE file associations allow you to specify what actions occur when you click on various file types. They also offer alternate actions and embedding preferences. KDE provides an extensive list of media types to configure, all with default settings, although you can easily add more when necessary. In addition, KDE also has a separate settings component for certain default application types.

Default Applications

Some users only need to configure a few default applications and are really not concerned with specific file types. To access these settings, do the following:

1. Click the K-menu

2. Start System Settings (or press Alt-F2 and type System Settings)

3. In the “Personal” section, click “Default Applications”

4. Choose the application type you want to configure. For example: Web Browser.

5. The first setting will essentially open all web content in Konqueror. If you use another browser, such as Firefox, click on “in the following browser:”..

6. Click on the “…” next to the text box.

7. Find your application, and click on it.

8. Click Apply.

You can repeat the same steps for any application type listed. Some of them, like File Manager, have a list of file managers you can choose, or you can pick another not in the list. You can even select a different window manager, if you prefer something with more desktop effects like Compiz, or something slimmer like Openbox.

File Associations

You can find the File Associations configuration in System Settings in the Advanced tab. It displays a tree view of known file types, listed under several categories, such as audio, image, video, and text. It also has a search box if you know exactly what you want to configure. Before you begin making changes, make sure you test the file types you want to use in your application. Nothing is worse than having to go back and reconfigure numerous file types.

For the purposes of this example, we will set the default video player that we want to use for most video types. By default, KDE 4 ships with a video player called Dragon Player. It uses the Phonon backend, which relies on either Xine or Gstreamer, and is easy to use. Dragon Player, however, is nowhere nearly as robust as Kaffeine from KDE 3, and it is like a child’s toy compared to more advanced players like KMplayer, SMplayer, or VLC. Therefore, one of the first things I would do on a new install is change the default video player by taking the following steps:

1. Click the plus next to “video” to expand its contents.

2. Starting scrolling through the list for video types you want to change.

3. Select a type, such as “quicktime”. It will show you the file patterns that it uses (such as *.mov and *.qt).

4. Under “Application Preference Order”, find your favorite video player. If you cannot find yours in the list, click “Add…” and find yours from the menu provided.

5. Select your video player and click “Move Up” repeatedly until it is at the top. The order of other players will be the order they appear when you right click on that video type. You can change that order however you like.

6. If you are also configuring Konquerer, click the “Embedding” tab and select the embedded player you want to play the file. This will apply to sites such as Apple Trailers, which requires an embedded Quicktime player.

When you are satisfied, click “Apply”. Look through the list of files and find any other types you want to configure. You might want to also click “Add…” at the bottom to add a new file type. Once you have all the file associations configured, be sure to test them to make sure they work as expected. With those tasks completed, you will be a few steps closer to complete customization heaven.

How to Configure File Associations in KDE originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Run 32-bit Apps in 64-bit Linux

Tavis J. Hampton — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:00:51 +0000

Most Linux distributions have 64-bit versions for x86_64 processors, such as the AMD Athlon II or the Intel Xeon. Since these distributions maintain their own package repositories, they usually provide binary packages for all of their supported applications. If you are completely content with your out-of-box Linux installation, you may never need to run a 32-bit program.

Some commercial Linux software, particularly games, only provide 32-bit versions. In these rare cases, you will need to configure your 64-bit machine to run 32-bit software.

Install the 32-bit libraries

Because x86_64 processors are designed over x86 technology, they are still able to support 32-bit programs without any hardware emulation, like what you would need to run x86 programs in a PowerPC or Sparc environment. In Linux, all you need to do is install the necessary software libraries to run the 32-bit software. Fortunately, many Linux distributions package these libraries for you. In Ubuntu, for example, the package is called ia32-libs. To install it, just open a terminal window and type:

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

You can also install it graphically from within Synaptic or Kpackagekit on Kubuntu.

Once installed, applications like Skype and games like World of Padman should work without further configuration.

GTK Issues

When running 32-bit programs in a 64-bit environment, Ubuntu still looks for the default GTK engines. This will cause you to receive an error such as this: “wrong ELF class”. This type of error can be particularly annoying in applications like Chromium, the new open source version of the Google Chrome browser.

Ubuntu does actually install the default 32-bit version of the GTK engines in /usr/lib32/gtk-2.0, but what I discovered in my case was that GTK themes like the one I was using, qtcurve, were not found in this directory. The result was really ugly GTK programs.

The quick solution was to do the following:

1. Find the 32-bit package of the theme you are using. In my case, I searched ubuntu packages.

2. Download the package and extract its contents like you would a normal compressed file.

3. Find the library file for the theme. For qtcurve it was found at ~/download-directory/usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/engines/libqtcurve.so.

4. Copy the library to the lib32 directory:

sudo cp ~/download-directory/usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/engines/libqtcurve.so /usr/lib32/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/engines/

For Chromium this was all that was required because the Chromium startup script was already configured to look in /usr/lib32/gtk-2.0. If the startup script of the program you are running does not look there but instead looks to /usr/lib/gtk-2.0, you will need to modify the startup script or export an environment variable before starting it by opening a terminal window and typing:

export GTK_PATH=/usr/lib32/gtk-2.0
command-to-start-app

If there is no startup script for the program, you could create one with the above environment variable set.

If All Else Fails

I have found some applications, such as Boxee, refuse to behave nicely in a 64-bit environment under any normal circumstances, even with ia32-libs installed. The only viable alternative besides chucking your 64-bit machine or chucking the software is to run it in a chroot environment. This literally installs an entire 32-bit version of your operating system within a directory on your computer. It will take more space than simply installing a few libraries, but it ensures that all of the 32-bit components, including 3D graphics kernel modules, are installed.

You can read a guide to setting up a 32-bit chroot on Ubuntu Forums.

How to Run 32-bit Apps in 64-bit Linux originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Set Special Window Settings with KWin

Tavis J. Hampton — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:13:11 +0000

KWin is a free and open source window manager and is the default in KDE. It is a powerful, highly customizable window manager with a plethora of both aesthetic and nuts and bolts features. With the release of KDE 4, the developers added 3D desktop effects, but they also carried over many customization features from KDE 3. Here are some of the window-specific settings that you can use in KWin.

There are two ways to access Window Specific Settings. One is to right click on the title bar of the window you want to configure, click “Advanced“, and click “Special Window Settings“. The other is to start System Settings, click the “Window Behavior” button, and then click “Window-Specific“. From there just click “New…” to make a new rule. In the second method you will have to manually specify the name of the window or click “Detect Window Properties” and click on the window you want to configure.

Geometry

You can set the exact size, position, desktop, and state of your window. For example, when you start Konsole, you might want it to always be a window of “800,600″ size and want it to start on Desktop 2.

1.Tick the “Size” box and from the drop-down menu, select “Apply Initially“.

2. Tick the “Desktop” box, select “Apply Initially“, and then select “2:Desktop 2“.

3. Click OK.

There numerous possibilities just under the geometry tab. Play around with them and let us know your results.

Preferences

Keep above allows you to set a window to always be above other windows. Skip taskbar means that your window will not appear in the taskbar like normal windows. With Closeable, you can enable the close button on a window that might not normally allow it.

Workarounds

These settings override some default settings for your specific window. They are useful if you experience problems in a particular application because of global settings. For example, “Ignore requested geometry” will cause KWin to ignore the X geometry that an application expects. ”Maximum size” will prevent a window from getting any larger than the size you specify, something that might be useful for a netbook. “Block global shortcuts” is handy if you have an application (especially a non-KDE one) that has shortcuts that conflict with KDE global settings.

Kiosk

Here is an example of how you can put all of these features together. If you have children, run a library or run some other public place with computer terminals, you might want Firefox or another application to start fullscreen without any window manager features.

1. Right click on the window’s title bar, select Advanced, and click “Special Application Settings…”

2. Select the “Geometry” tab.

3. Tick “Fullscreen” and select “Force“.

4. Click the “Preferences” tab.

5. Tick “Skip taskbar” and select “Force“.

6. Tick “No border” and select “Force“.

The result will be a borderless, fullscreen window that is not accessible from the taskbar. If you do need to access the window’s settings, simply press “Alt-F3″ to bring up the window manager menu. KWin will let you select whole classes or types of windows to configure. If you want all dialogs to have the same functions, you can customize it to follow your whims.

Aside from these window-specific settings, KWin has a broad range of generation settings for focus stealing prevention, shading, shortcuts, desktop effects, and much more. Try them out, find what you like, and enjoy!

How to Set Special Window Settings with KWin originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Install Ubuntu in Windows

Joshua Price — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:25:09 +0000

Here at MakeTechEasier, we’ve touched on Wubi here and there but have never really gone into detail on exactly what it can do and how it works. According to the website,

Wubi is an officially supported Ubuntu installer for Windows users that can bring you to the Linux world with a single click. Wubi allows you to install and uninstall Ubuntu as any other Windows application, in a simple and safe way…

That sums it up pretty well. You can use your Windows (98, 2000, XP, Vista) Control Panel to add/remove it as easily as any other Windows app.

The key thing about Wubi (Windows based Ubuntu Installer) is that you do not have to do any partitioning. It simply creates a file in Windows that both systems treat as if it’s a separate partition. You can choose the size of that file when you install.

In Windows, download the Wubi installer here. The initial options can be set at the main screen.

When choosing the drive to host your new Ubuntu installation, try to pick your C drive if possible. I’ve had nothing but bad luck trying to run a Wubi installation from a drive partition other than the one running Windows. Also, when it comes the deciding how much space to allocate to Ubuntu, I wouldn’t suggest going much below 20Gb if you plan to get much done.

Note the Desktop Environment option in the lower left corner. With Wubi, you have the option of four versions of Ubuntu:

Ubuntu – With GNOME, the standard option
Kubuntu – With KDE, a more “Windowsy” desktop
Xubuntu – With XFCE, more lightweight than GNOME or KDE
Mythbuntu – A PVR system using MythTV and XFCE

Once you’re ready to install, you’ll have to wait for the full ISO to download.

How it works

While we’re waiting for the download, we might as well go over exactly what’s happening. Instead of creating a partition to hold Linux and all its files, Wubi creates a loop device inside a file (typically C:\Ubuntu\disks\root.disk), which Windows treats as if it was a separate partition or hard drive.

When you boot the computer, you’ll see the Windows bootloader asking which OS to boot. If you choose Ubuntu, the Windows bootloader opens the file Wubi created earlier, and the Linux inside thinks it’s running on a typical Linux partition.

Finishing Up

I found that doing the Ubuntu 9.04 install over Wubi was quite comfortable and clear. I’ve suggested Wubi to a few potential converts, and I think I’ll continue to do so. In particular, I like how easy Wubi makes it to choose which of the various Ubuntu flavors to install. I think that makes it a little easier for people to try out something they’d otherwise never think to download. I look forward to seeing what the developers come up with in the future.

How to Install Ubuntu in Windows originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

A Hands on and Review of Ubuntu One

Damien — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 12:00:18 +0000

Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu) has recently released a beta version of their online file syncing service – UbuntuOne for public testing. This file syncing service is similar to the popular Dropbox service and it allows you to share and sync file across different computers.

In this tutorial, we are going to take a quick look at its functionality and how you can install UbuntuOne in your Ubuntu machine.

First of all, before you can install the application on your computer, you need to request for an invitation code from Ubuntu. If you have a Launchpad.net account, simply login to UbuntuOne and request your invitation code, else it will prompt you to register a Launchpad account.

Secondly, your computer has to be LInux-based, specifically Ubuntu Jaunty. The application does not work on Windows or Mac. If you are using other Linux distro, or older version of Ubuntu, use it at your own risk.

The application for the invitation code can take up to 3 days. Once you have received the code (via email), you can click on the link to activate your account. Here is also where you select the subscription plan. Currently, UbuntuOne offers a free 2GB storage plan and a 10GB plan for US$10 per month.

Installation

If you are using Ubuntu Jaunty, the installation will be a breeze.

1. On the installation page, download the PPA to your desktop. Double click to install the PPA onto your computer.

2. Next, click on the Install button to install the ubuntuone-client package.

The installation make use of the pre-installed apturl package to install the application onto your computer. For some reasons that the Install button does not work (either you don’t have apturl package installed or you are using a non-Firefox browser), you can still install the application via the terminal:

sudo apt-get install ubuntuone-client-gnome

3. Once the installation is done, go to Applications->Internet->Ubuntu One. This will load the application (and the system tray icon) and bring up a webpage that asks you for permission to access your computer.

You have to click on the “Add This Computer” and grant it permission to access your computer before you can start using it. If you are not comfortable with this, click Cancel and forget about using Ubuntu One in your computer.

4. Open your Nautilus folder. You should now see a Ubuntu One folder in your home directory. In the folder, you will find two sub-folders: My Files and Shared With Me. The My Files folder is for you to store and sync your files/folders online while the Shared With Me folder will show files that are shared with you by others. When you shared your files with others, those files will appear in their Shared With Me folder too.

5. At any point of time, you can also manage your files via the Web interface.

Review

At the moment, Ubuntu One only offers simple file storage/synchronization/sharing with others. Those are the basic stuffs that most online file storage services provide, so there is nothing special about it. In addition, Ubuntu One only supports Ubuntu Jaunty, which makes people wonder if it is really worth the time and effort to download and try it.

Well, the real value of Ubuntu One does not lies in the file storage/synchronization. This is only the first step. The real objective is to be able to synchronize your computer application data and preferences and to be able to control the whole computer online. Imagine the scenario where you installed all the Firefox extension in one machine and it syncs and imports itself automatically to the other machine that also have Ubuntu One installed. When you access the other computer, you can use your Firefox immediately without having to reinstall all the extensions.

Being an application that have access to your computer and holds your data online, it also means that you could possibly control your computer (such as screen sharing or remote access) right from the Web. I am not sure if Canonical is implementing this, but a WebOS that holds all your application data and preferences is highly possibly with the Ubuntu One architecture.

As Ubuntu One opens itself to third party developers in the future, we will start to see more and more applications that make use of the sharing/synchronization services. While Ubuntu One does not support multiple OS platforms, it is also highly possible that third-party developers can do it by integrating the underlying components (or via WebDAV) with a platform specific shell.

Conclusion

Ubuntu One is still at beta mode and there are plenty of things that are not on par with other online storage solution such as Dropbox. However, with the vision of Ubuntu One and as Ubuntu become more and more popular, I won’t be surprised to see Ubuntu One becoming a major force in the file and data management arena in the near future.

What do you think?

A Hands on and Review of Ubuntu One originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Getting Started with Pardus Linux

Joshua Price — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Pardus is a Linux distribution created and maintained by Scientific & Technological Research Council of Turkey. There’s certainly no shortage of customized and special-purpose Linux distributions available, but Pardus is unique in several ways. Today, instead of covering the usual aspects of an operating system like installation and included software, I’m going to cover the aspects of Pardus that make it so interesting.

One important note before we get too far – if you decide to install Pardus, make sure you hit F2 at the first bootup screen to set the language, unless you want your system in Turkish.

The version tested here is Pardus 2009 RC2

Kaptan

The first thing you’ll see on a new Pardus installation is Kaptan, a desktop config tool. It allows you to set things like desktop theme, wallpaper, mouse preferences, and menu style. I found this to be a useful tool for getting everything off on the right foot. Like all the custom Pardus applications I’ve seen so far, it’s oddly beautiful for something so maroon.

My only complaint about Kaptan was that at one point it brings you to a config screen for Smolt, without ever telling you what Smolt is or what it’s supposed to be doing. Everything else is clear and intuitive.

PiSi

One of the things that initially got me interested in Pardus was the the developers seem to share my affinity for the Python programming language. The Pardus developers used Python extensively in building the system, most notably in the package manager PiSi.

PiSi (pronounced pee-see) is the custom-built package manager for Pardus. it’s got all the features of a modern package manager, including things like dependency resolution, CLI and GUI interface, search functions and online repositories. The command line interface provides all the usual options, such as

pisi search package_name

to search for a package and

pisi install package_name

to install it.

One thing I particularly like about PiSi is the quality output it provides. If a package fails to install, you get clear output telling you why. When it does install, you get nicely formatted output (with color!) telling you all about the installation. Here, for example, is the output I got when I told PiSi to install my favorite video player, VLC.

It’s a little verbose, but I think quite useful. Particularly the use of color, which is something I’ve always liked about Gentoo’s emerge. That kind of clear, useful, detailed output is what I wish I could have in all package managers. Kudos to PiSi for that one!

The only downside I’ve encountered so far (and it is a big one) is the comparitively small amount of software available in Pardus’s PiSi repositories. It’s got about 2,000 packages, and many of the things I’ve tried to install have not been available. It’s not a huge project, and relatively new in the world of Linux distros, so a lack of packages is somewhat understandable. Still, having more software available would go a long way toward making Pardus a top-notch distro.

Package Manager

After covering PiSi, there’s not a whole lot to say about Package Manager, which is the graphical front-end to PiSi. It provides a browsable, searchable interface to the software available to PiSi. If you’ve ever used Synaptic, the default package GUI for Ubuntu, you’ll be right at home in Package Manager.

Network Manager

This was one thing that was a bit of a problem for me. After my initial install, I was surprised to see my network wasn’t up. This certainly wasn’t the first Linux ever run on that machine so there should be no driver issues. Even trying to bring it up manually at the command line came up with little success.

Then, I ran the Pardus Network Manager tool, and after creating a “profile” for my NIC, everything was up and running. Perhaps it was just the chipset on that machine (a common Intel chipset), but I hope not everyone would have to manually configure a network interface to get basic connection.

Firewall

Pardus continues the overall habit of clarity and simplicity with the Firewall utility. It should be familiar to anyone who’s used Windows firewalls like ZoneAlarm.

For some reason I have not yet figured out, the Firewall utility does not seem to recognize my keystrokes. All other applications take whatever typing I give them, but none of the text boxes in Firewall Manager seem to realize that I’m typing.

Conclusion

Overall I was surprised and impressed by Pardus. Surprised because it’s not a name you hear very often in news or conversation, and impressed by the clean, clear, clever design. To me, the real gem was PiSi. As a long time APT fan I have high expectations in a package manager, and so far PiSi hasn’t let me down, its even shown me a few things I wish other package managers could do. Pardus is really slick right now, and I’m betting it will only get better.

There’s certainly room for improvement, particularly with the Network and Firewall Managers, but the system itself is beautiful and well designed. I’m not quite ready to use Pardus as my main operating system, but in another release or two I think it could give the giants like Ubuntu a real run for their money.

For anyone who IS curious about the non-original included software, some notable packages are:

Kernel 2.6.30.1
KDE 4.2.4
Firefox 3.5
OpenOffice 3.1
Gimp 2.6.6
Xorg 1.6.2
Python 2.6.2

Getting Started with Pardus Linux originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Upgrade Ubuntu Without Rebooting with Ksplice

Sharninder — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 11:32:16 +0000

Don’t you hate it when you’re in the middle of something important and the operating system keeps bugging you to reboot your computer, just because an important security update was installed ?

I hate it and I’m sure the guys behind Ksplice hated it too. They hated it so much that they decided to do something about it and developed Uptrack.

Uptrack is a software updater which works in much the same way as Ubuntu’s default update manager, with the exception of one important step. Uptrack doesn’t require the computer to be rebooted after an update has been installed. Ksplice, the company behind Uptrack, has developed a technology which lets a running program, even the kernel, be upgraded without the need for a reboot.

Isn’t that awesome ?

Installing Uptrack on your Ubuntu 9.04 system is quite easy as you’ll see.

First of all, Request for an access key from Ksplice’s website. Enter your email address and you’ll recieve the key by email within a couple of minutes.

Now, you should add the Ksplice repository to APT, so that you can use apt in the future to update Ksplice also.

In your terminal, type the following command to open up the Apt sources list.

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ksplice.list

Add the following lines to the file.

deb http://www.ksplice.com/apt jaunty ksplice
deb-src http://www.ksplice.com/apt jaunty ksplice

Save and close the file. Now, run the following commands on the terminal:

sudo wget https://www.ksplice.com/apt/ksplice-archive.asc
sudo apt-key add ksplice-archive.asc
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install uptrack

The first command downloads the PGP key for the repository and the second command adds it to the list of keys trusted by APT. This will make sure that apt doesn’t complain everytime you download something from the ksplice repository.

The second commands refreshes the local APT repository and the third command installs uptrack. The key that Ksplice emailed you earlier, will be required now, so make sure you have that handy. Uptrack has a default CLI which can be used to manage updates, but if you’re the GUI kind, run the following command to install the uptrack-manager GUI for uptrack.

sudo aptitude install uptrack-manager

Once uptrack-manager is installed, you’ll see an icon in the taskbar which is Uptrack’s way of letting the user know if and when new kernel updates are available.

The ‘K‘ icon with the red warning means that there are updates available for your system. To view the updates that are available, just click on the icon.

To install the updates shown on the screen, just click “Install all updates“. Uptrack runs via cron to periodically check for new updates but if you want to manually check for updates, you can click on the “Check” button to do that.

That’s all. You can now say Goodbye to all the schedules reboots that you had to do earlier everytime a software update came through.

How to Upgrade Ubuntu Without Rebooting with Ksplice originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Record Skype Calls in Linux

Tavis J. Hampton — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:26:39 +0000

Skype is a proprietary voice over Internet application that allows you to call other Skype users or real telephone lines. If you happen to use Skype for business or some other important calls that you might want to record, you will need additional software.

There are several ways to record inbound and outbound audio in Linux, but Skype Call Recorder (SCR) is specifically designed for Skype. It is a free and open-source application with which you can record calls in MP3, Ogg Vorbis, or WAV format. It supports manual and automatic recording, which can be configured for specific callers.

Installation

Go to the Skype Call Recorder website.
Scroll to the download area on the main page. Packages are available for Ubuntu (x86 and x86_64), Debian, Asus Eee PC (running Xandros), RPM-based (x86 and x86_64), Arch Linux, a Gentoo ebuild and a source code tarball.
Download and install the Skype Call Recorder package for your system. It should then appear in your application menu.

Preparation

Start Skype.
Open your application launcher menu and start Skype Call Recorder. If you cannot find it, you can manually start it by running the command “skype-call-recorder“.
Skype should pop up a window saying “A program “SkypeCallRecorder” is trying to connect to Skype”. Click “Yes“. If you want, you may also check “Remember this selection”.
Right click on the new icon in your system tray area and click “Preferences“.
Select whether you want it to automatically record every call, ask before recording, or not at all. From this tab you can also edit “per-caller recording”.
Click the “File Names” tab and select the folder where you want SKR to save your files.
Click the “File Format” tab and select the format you prefer. Ogg Vorbis is an open format and less lossy than MP3, but MP3 is more widely available for playback on portable devices. WAV will be uncompressed but will produce a large file if you have long calls. You can raise the MP3 bitrate to improve quality.
When you are satisfied with your preferences, click “Close”.

Making a call

Assuming you have already used Skype, your audio mixer settings should be ready to record calls. If not, you need to make sure you have “mic” or microphone set to record and that “capture” is enabled. To test it, you can use a regular sound recorder to record your own voice.

Start a Skype call the way you normally would. Click on a contact or enter a number.
The call will ring as it normally does, but when the person on the other end answers, a window will appear asking you if you would like to continue recording. Select “Yes“, and your call will now be recorded until you hang up.
After you end the call, check the folder you specified for your phone call file. You should be able to listen to it in whatever music player you prefer.

That is all it takes to record your Skype calls. Anytime you want to record calls, it will be configured and ready to go.

*Note: Please be advised that it is illegal in some countries to record calls without the consent of the other party. Even if it is not in your country, it is considered ethical by most people to inform the other person that you are recording them.

How to Record Skype Calls in Linux originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

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