Make Tech Easier » Ubuntu

Preview of Kubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

Tavis J. Hampton — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:01:35 +0000

The release of the newest version of Ubuntu is only 10 days away. Many sites, including MakeTechEasier have covered its pending arrival and given you a glimpse of the Beta version. Today we are going to take a look at Kubuntu, the KDE-based version of Ubuntu.

Installation

As with previous Kubuntu versions, you can install it from the desktop of the running live CD. The interface for the installation now follows KDE 4’s Oxygen Air theme and has new graphical representations of several options.

Booting and Login

Booting is faster than ever, and the new KDE Air theme login window is the default.

KDE 4.3

If you have been following my weekly posts, you already know about many of the features new in KDE 4.3. While it has been available in the 9.04 Jaunty backport repositories for some time, it will now be the default KDE version with 9.10. Just to recap, here are some of the features new with KDE 4.3:

New Krunner features and layout

New desktop effects, including the slide back feature
New KDE games, including an Egyptian mummy theme
New system tray that includes an improved notification system
Several new plasma widgets, including one for Google Calendar

OpenOffice.org Integration

In previous versions, OpenOffice integrated with KDE 3 themes or not at all. Now, with OpenOffice.org 3.1, it is well-integrated with KDE 4 widgets and themes.

K3b

One of KDE’s most universally loved applications was one of the last to be ported to KDE 4. Kubuntu includes an early version of K3b that is fully KDE4-based. K3b is a CD and DVD burning program. It is not clear how stable this version is, and I did not have any CDs to test it.

Amarok and Codecs

Kubuntu has long suffered from the codec discrimination that nearly all Linux distributions have endured. Proprietary codecs that cannot be packaged with a free operating system have often left users disgruntled, sometimes even blaming the distribution developers. It has always been relatively easy to install codecs with Kubuntu, but now, starting Amarok will give you a notice that you may want to install certain additional software packages. Check the ones you want and then click “Install Selected“. This is all processed through the new update notifier, which is integrated with Kpackagekit.

Kpackagekit

This is the application installation and management software for Kubuntu. Like its predecessor Adept and the GTK version Synaptic, Kpackagekit relies on apt-get as a backend and uses the repositories listed in Apt’s sources. In Karmic, installation is even easier, and it is fully integrated with the update system and KDE’s notification system.

USB Startup Disk

Kubuntu provides an easy-to-us KDE-based program to create a Kubuntu startup disk.

Web Browser

Kubuntu has always been about options. In fact, the very existence of Kubuntu could be considered an Ubuntu option for a KDE-based distribution. Konqueror is still the default web browser for the latest Kubuntu, but the developers have added some options. For those that want a slim, lightweight, Webkit-based browser, Arora is now in the official repositories. For those die-hard Firefox fans, Kubuntu now includes a handy installation program. When you click “Firefox installation” in the “Internet” menu, you are presented with an installation screen.

Overall, Karmic Koala looks more polished than any previous Kubuntu version and probably any other KDE-based distribution to date. Nevertheless, it is still in Beta at least for another week, and an honest review will have to wait. With this preview, however, you have a glimpse of what is on the horizon.

Preview of Kubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Screenshots Tour of Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10 Beta

Damien — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:14:54 +0000

Yes, after six months down the road, it’s time to gear up for the newly born Ubuntu baby again. This time, Ubuntu 9.10, codenamed Karmic Koala, will be officially released on 29th Oct 2009. We, at MakeTechEasier have not been slacking around. With the release of the 9.10 beta, we have grabbed the LiveCD image, wipe our machines clean and installed the full version onto it. Now, let us present you the screenshots tour (and new features) review of Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10 beta.

New boot screen

The first thing that you will notice is the new splash screen. Unlike all previous splash screens that are in black, it comes with a brown gradient and white font color. It definitely looks much polished and refined than all all its previous reincarnations.

New login screen

No fancy stuff here. The login architecture was rewritten to provide a better integration with the system. Despite the simple design, one good thing here is that you don’t to type in your username anymore. Simply click on the respective user entry and type in the password.

New wallpaper

The default wallpaper is a plain mix of brown and orange color. Nothing fanciful here, but I do feel that it looks much more livelier than its previous iteration.

The best part is at the backend (Preferences -> Appearance) where you can choose from a great selection of newly added wallpapers.

One interesting wallpaper is the Cosmos, that is in fact a series of wallpapers packed into one. Once set, it will automatically change itself every 30 minutes, so you won’t be bored with the same old wallpaper.

There is even a link that brings you to the Gnome art to download more wallpapers.

For those who can’t wait for the release, you can also grab the wallpaper here (5.2MB).

New icon themes

A new icon theme – humanity was introduced in Karmic beta.

Existing user who wanted to install this icon theme can do so via the command:

sudo apt-get install humanity-icon-theme

Addition in the System tray

Long time Ubuntu users will notice the new addition in the System tray. The envelope icon now allows you to access your Empathy and all IM chat in real time. It also acts as a non-obstructive notification center for new incoming mails.

On your Profile button where you click to shut down your computer, you can also use it to update your IM status now.

New software – Ubuntu Software Center

There have been a lot of hearsay about the launching of the iPhone style AppStore for Ubuntu. Now, it is finally here – Ubuntu Software Center.

The Software Center is not a replacement of the Add/Remove app and Synaptic Package Manger as both of them are still available in Ubuntu Karmic. It is more of an alternative (a much better one) to those who wanted to install applications the easy way. In my opinion, this is by far the easiest and most informative way to source for a free software and get it running in your system.

When you open the Software Center, you don’t see all the apps. Instead, you will find various categories that the apps are grouped into.

Clicking on any of the category will display a list of apps in that category.

Once you found the app that you are interested in, click on it to go to the info page. Here is where you can find the description of the app and its screenshot. At the bottom is the Install button where you can click and get it install on your system.

Does this make you think of iPhone AppStore?

Empathy

For those who are crazy about Pidgin, you are going to be disappointed here. Pidgin will no longer be included in Ubuntu Karmic. Instead, it was replaced by Empathy.

Like Pidgin, Empathy supports various network protocols and allows you to login to various IM networks with one interface. Empathy supports text, voice, video, and file transfers over many different protocols, so you can transfer files over XMPP and local networks and also place voice/video call using SIP, XMPP, Google Talk and MSN.

The GUI is similar to Pidgin, so there is little to get used to.

Ubuntu One

We have previously discussed Ubuntu One and how it could possibly become a dominant force in the online storage arena. In Ubuntu Karmic, Ubuntu One is well-integrated into the system so you can skip the installation and use it straight away.

Signing up is almost instant and the Nautilus integration means you can easily access your files/folders from your Nautilus.

Backend

Enough about the front end, let take a look at the backend.

New bootloader – GRUB 2

You probably won’t notice this at all, but the software that is used to boot up the OS has been upgraded to version 2. This means better scripting support, command-line rescue mode, graphical boot as well as boot from ISO files.

GRUB 2 will only be installed for new installation. Existing users who upgrade their system via the Update Manager will continue to use the legacy GRUB bootloader.

Default Ext4 Filesystem

Ext4 filesystem was introduced in Jaunty. In Karmic, it has graduated to become the default filesystem. Like the GRUB 2 bootloader, the ext4 filsystem will only be applied for new installation. Existing users who are still on Ext3 will remain as Ext3 unless you choose to upgrade to Ext 4 manually.

That’s about all to the new features in Ubuntu Karmic beta. The official release will be on 29th Oct 2009. Are you looking forward to it?

Screenshots Tour of Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10 Beta 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 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)

How to Enable Flash Support in Google Chrome in Ubuntu

Damien — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:29:54 +0000

The Chromium team has released an alpha unstable version of the Google Chrome for Linux and Mac platform. Those who are keen to try out Google Chrome in their Ubuntu machine, but are not willing to run it under wine, you can now grab the deb file and install it in your system.

One of the limitation of Google Chrome in Linux is that it does not support flash. If you intend to use it to watch your favorite YouTube channel, then you are out of luck. Luckily, there is a little trick that you can use to overcome this limitation. If you have installed the Adobe Flash player for your Firefox browser, you can now use the same player to run flash script in Google Chrome.

Installation

If you have not installed Google Chrome (unstable), go to the Chromium dev channel and grab the respective deb file for your system (32-bit and 64-bit). Double click on the deb file to start the installation. The whole process shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes.

Check for Adobe Flash player

If you have previously installed the Adobe Flash Player in your system, you should be able to find the libflashplayer.so file in the /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer directory. However, if you have installed the Flash player via the ubuntu-restricted-extra package, the libflashplayer.so will be located at the /usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin directory instead.

To find out where your libflashplayer.so is located, you might want to do a search in Nautilus.

If you have not installed Flash Player, run the command in your terminal to install it:

sudo apt-get install flashplugin-installer

Installing the Flash plugin

Create a plugins folder in the Google Chrome directory

sudo mkdir /opt/google/chrome/plugins

Copy the libflashplayer.so file to the plugins folder.

sudo cp /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so /opt/google/chrome/plugins

Note: change the source path if your libflashplayer.so file is not located at other location.

Editing the Application menu

Right click at the Application menubar and select “Edit Menus”

Scroll down to find “Internet” on the left pane and select Google Chrome on the right. Click on the Properties button on the right side.

In the Command field, change the command to

/opt/google/chrome/google-chrome --enable-plugins %U

Save and close all the windows.

The flash player should be working in your Google Chrome now.

How to Enable Flash Support in Google Chrome in Ubuntu 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)

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 Remove The Annoying Update manager Pop-up in Ubuntu Jaunty

Damien — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:33:59 +0000

For those who are using Ubuntu Jaunty, you will notice that there is a change in the way the system notifies you to upgrade software. In the past, an icon will appear on the system tray whenever there is new update available. In Ubuntu Jaunty, instead of showing the icon, the update manager will now pop up the window as and when it detects new update. While this is a good way to grab the user attention and get them to upgrade to the latest software version promptly, it can be pretty annoying for many, especially when you are in the midst of your work. To make it worst, if you close it without updating, it will keep on popping up in regular interval until you have upgraded your system.

Luckily, you can turn off this pop up feature easily and switch back to the old icon-appear-at-system-tray mode.

Open up a terminal, type

gconf-editor

This will load up the gconf editor window

Navigate to Apps->Update Notifier. On the right, unchecked the auto_launch box. Close the window.

That’s it.

To recover the auto launch pop up function, simply repeat the above step, but place a check in the auto_launch box.

Alternative method (via the terminal)

If you are just plain lazy, here’s a much easier step.

In your terminal, type the following command:

gconftool -s --type bool /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch false

To recover:

gconftool -s --type bool /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch true

How to Remove The Annoying Update manager Pop-up in Ubuntu Jaunty originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Ubuntu: How to Mount iso, Bin And Cue Files Directly From Nautilus

Damien — Sat, 23 May 2009 12:23:33 +0000

We have covered the easy way to mount iso images in Windows. This time round, we are going to cover the easy way to mount an iso, bin or cue file in Ubuntu without having to hit the terminal every time.

With the use of fuesiso and nautilus-actions, we can easily create an option in Nautilus to mount the CD images right from the context menu (mouse right click).

Here it goes:

First, install fuseiso and nautilus actions

sudo apt-get install fuseiso nautilus-actions
sudo usermod -a -G fuse username

Change the username to your login name

Logout and back in.

Download the userisomount.sh script to your home folder.

Copy it to /usr/local/bin/ folder and make it executable.

sudo mv ~/userisomount.sh /usr/local/bin/
sudo chown root:fuse /usr/local/bin/userisomount.sh
sudo chmod 754 /usr/local/bin/userisomount.sh

Download the Nautilus Actions Schemas for MOUNTING and UNMOUNTING disk images.

If you are using Ubuntu Jaunty, do the following:

1. Open the MOUNTING and UNMOUNTING schemas with gedit

2. Locate the line with the code 1.1

3. Replace it with 2.0

4. Save and close the files.

Open up Nautilus Actions Configuration (System->Preferences->Nautilus Actions Configuration). Import the two files into Nautilus Actions.

Save and close Nautilus Actions.

In your terminal, restart Nautilus

killall nautilus

You should be able to find a Mount Disk Image on the context menu of your Nautilus now.

To mount a iso, bin or cue file, simply right click and choose Mount Disk Image from the menu.

Reference: Ubuntu community documentation

Ubuntu: How to Mount iso, Bin And Cue Files Directly From Nautilus originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Restore Ctrl + Alt + BackSpace In Ubuntu Jaunty

Damien — Sun, 17 May 2009 13:31:31 +0000

In most Linux distro (including Ubuntu), the keyboard combo Ctrl + Alt + Backspace is often used as a shortcut key to restart X. However, in Ubuntu Jaunty, this keyboard shortcut was disabled, “to reduce issues experienced by users who accidentally trigger the key combo”, as quoted by Ubuntu.

I don’t know how many people will find this a welcome improvement in Ubuntu. Personally, this has caused me a lot of inconvenience as I always depend on it to get myself out of a nasty crash.

For those who wanted to restore back the Ctrl + Alt + Backspace combo, here’s the way:

Install dontzap

sudo apt-get install dontzap

Disable dontzap

sudo dontzap --disable

Restart your computer

That’s it. You can restart your X using Ctrl + Alt + Backspace now.

How to Restore Ctrl + Alt + BackSpace In Ubuntu Jaunty originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Ubuntu: Two Ways to Keep A Clean Desktop Without Affecting Your Efficiency

Damien — Wed, 06 May 2009 12:10:55 +0000

I love placing all the shortcut icons and files on my Desktop because it allows me to access to my data quickly and save me the trouble of searching for it in Nautilus.

On the other hand, I also have a passion for clean desktop. I have a huge collection of beautiful wallpapers and I love to set my desktop to rotate the wallpaper every 30 minutes. It is my source of inspiration and seeing the beautiful wallpaper allows me to relax whenever I am too stress out from my work.

Apparently, having a lot of desktop shortcuts and a clean beautiful desktop together is not quite possible. I need a solution, a method that allows me to clean up my Desktop, yet allows me to access to my shortcut icons and files quickly.

1st Method: Toying with the gconf-editor

Nautilus is the app that is in charge of rendering the desktop icons. By configuring the relevant entry in gconf-editor, you can get Nautilus to show/hide the desktop icons. (I will not go into the detail here)

Ivy.fr has come up with a script that allows you to toggle on/off the desktop icons. Here is the modified version.

Open a text editor and paste the following code into it:

#!/bin/bash
if ( `gconftool --get /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop` == "true" ) then
gconftool --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop \
--type boolean false
else
gconftool --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop \
--type boolean true
fi
# EOF

Save the file as ToggleDesktop.sh and place it in your Home folder.

On your file manager, right click on the ToggleDesktop.sh file and select Properties. Select to the Permissions tab and make the file executable.

Now, whenever you click on the script, it will hide/show the desktop icons.

You can also drag and drop the script to the panel for easy access.

The limitation

While this method seems like a good way to show/hide your desktop icons, it comes with some limitations:

1) Once you have toggled the desktop icons off, you’ll have totally no control over the desktop. You won’t be able to access the context menu (via right-click) and you won’t be able to change the wallpaper. If you are using a wallpaper changing app (such as Drapes), it will no longer work.

2) This is not stable and it could cause the Nautilus to crash occasionally. The problem is, when Nautilus crashed, it does not show any error message. You will have completely no knowledge that it has crashed.

3) Hiding your desktop icon is fast, but getting them to display again will have a time lag (of about 1 second).

2nd Method: Using Compiz and a lightweight file manager

The second method is an idea that I have come up on my own that allows me to maintain a clean desktop and at the same time have quick access to my data. It makes use of Compiz widget layer and a lightweight File Manager.

Unlike the above method, the idea here is not to hide your desktop icons, but to create a folder to store all your Desktop icons/files and make it into a widget where you can access it easily.

The lightweight file manager that I use is Thunar. It will work too if you use Rox-Filer or PCManFM. I avoided using Nautilus as it is the default file manager in Gnome and I don’t want it to mess up my system.

Instructions

1) Create a folder in your Home directory and name it Desktop_Folder.

2) Move all your desktop shortcuts and files to this folder. In the future, this will be the folder where you place all your shortcuts and files that you want to have quick access to.

3) Install Thunar and CompizConfig Settings Manager

sudo apt-get install thunar compizconfig-settings-manager

4) Open up Compiz Config Manager (System-> Preferences->CompizConfig Settings Manager)

5) Go to the Widget Layer section. Click on the Behavior tab.

Enter the following in the Widget Windows field

title=Desktop_Folder – File Manager & class=Thunar

6) Click on the General tab, on the third row of “Toggle Widget Display”, configure the screen corner to activate the widget. For me, I chose the bottom right corner.

(Check out this article for more detail on setting any applications to be a widget in Ubuntu)

7) Close Compiz Settings Manager. Go to System->Preferences-> Sessions (or Startup Applications if you are using Jaunty). Create a new entry and enter the following:

Name: Thunar
Command: thunar /home/your_username/Desktop_Folder

That’s it. Whenever you startup your computer, Thunar will load up with the Desktop_Folder directory and hide itself behind the screen (in the widget layer). Whenever you need to access your files, simply point your mouse to the bottom right corner of the screen to display Thunar. There you will find all your shortcuts and files.

Let me know if these two methods work for you. If you have any other ways to keep a clean desktop without affecting your efficiency, do let me know in the comments.

Image credit: indra-wahyudi

Ubuntu: Two Ways to Keep A Clean Desktop Without Affecting Your Efficiency originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

10 Useful Ubuntu-related Sites You Should Bookmark

Damien — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 13:06:54 +0000

We have arrived at the last part of the Ubuntu Jaunty series. If you have missed the first four part, here are the links:

First part – What’s new in Ubuntu 9.04
Second part – How to upgrade from ext3 to ext4 without formatting the hard disk
Third part – 9 things you need to install after installing Ubuntu Jaunty
Fourth part – Download Ubuntu Installation guide and cheatsheet

In the fifth and the last part of the series, we are going to recommend to you some of the useful Ubuntu-related websites that you should bookmark and reference to regularly.

1) Ubuntuforums

Needless to say, the best place to go for Ubuntu support is none other than the popular Ubuntu Forums. This is the only place where you can find all kind of advices, tips and tricks, hacks and solutions related to Ubuntu. If there is a Ubuntu-related problem that you can’t solve, most likely it has already been discussed in the forums. Simply do a search in the forums or post your question and you will receive plenty of help from the community.

2) Ubuntu Guide

As its name implies, UbuntuGuide is a wiki where you can find plenty of guide, tips and tricks for Ubuntu. It covers information from Ubuntu Dapper to Jaunty and is available in multiple languages. While UbuntuForums is a great means to get solutions for your problems, UbuntuGuide is the place to go to find new tricks and apply them in your system.

3) Ubuntu Hardware Support List

While Ubuntu supports a wide range of devices, there are still times when you can’t get a particular hardware to work. The Hardware Support page shows a hardware compatibility list that you can refer to before you make any hardware purchase. This hardware support page is maintained by the community and anyone can add/modify the entry.

4) Ubuntu Documentation

It is no doubt that Ubuntu is an easy to use and user-friendly distro. However, if you are still having difficulties navigating around and get it to perform simple daily tasks, you can head on to Ubuntu Documentation and read about everything you need to know about Ubuntu. It won’t make you an expert, but at least it can help you to get started (and perhaps show your friends how geeky you are).

5) Launchpad

Launchpad is the place for you to discover new open-source applications or retrieve source code/installation instruction for third party apps that are not found in the Ubuntu repositories.

6) Gnome-look.org

If you love eye-candy, beautiful wallpapers, login screen, splash screen and everything about your Ubuntu system, then gnome-look.org is the place to visit. It contains a great collection of artworks and themes contributed by the community. They are free to download and use.

Kubuntu and Xubuntu users can check out kde-look.org and xfce-look.org respectively.

7) Ubuntu Brainstorm

Ubuntu Brainstorm is a Digg-like site where you can submit your ideas/suggestions/stuffs to be included in future version of Ubuntu and let others vote for it. Popular ideas (those that received a lot of votes) are reviewed by the Ubuntu team and possibly include them in the future release.

8) Full Circle Magazine

Full Circle Magazine is the only website that is dedicated to publish a free Ubuntu magazine (in pdf format) every month. Being a loyal subscriber, I have found their magazines very informative, yet doesn’t get too technical in detail. It is great for new users who wanted to learn more about Ubuntu.

9) Ubuntu Seach Engine

A Google custom search engine dedicated to search only Ubuntu-related stuffs. Currently it indexes 169 Ubuntu-related sites, including UbuntuForums, Ubuntu Wiki and Ubuntu Guide.

Other dedicated Ubuntu search engine that you can go to include Ubuntu-Search and Ubuntu Wire.

10) Planet Ubuntu

Planet Ubuntu is a blog written and updated regularly by Ubuntu developers and contributors. This is where you can get the latest and updated news about your system.

What other sites do you visit for your Ubuntu needs?

Image credit: Kartihksn

10 Useful Ubuntu-related Sites You Should Bookmark originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Download Ubuntu Installation Guide and Cheatsheet Now

Damien — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:00:47 +0000

Today is the big day you have been waiting for, the day where Ubuntu 9.04 is released. I hope you have successfully downloaded the LiveCD and installed it on your system.

For those who have difficulties installing or migrating to Ubuntu, we thought this would be a good time to bring a nice little cheat sheet/installation guide for all MakeTechEasier readers.

Ubuntu Installation Guide

In this step-by-step installation guide, MakeTechEasier’s writer – Sharninder (geekyninja.com) will hold your hand through the whole installation process. Be it a fresh installation, upgrade from previous Ubuntu version or installing in your Windows OS, you won’t feel lost with this guide around.

Ubuntu Cheatsheet

In addition, Sharninder also comes out with a bash command cheatsheet that you can refer to it quickly and easily. There is no need for you to hunt high and low for that particular command now.

Don’t wait anymore! Download the Ubuntu 9.04 Installation Guide and Cheatsheet now, at no cost at all.

Download Ubuntu Installation Guide and Cheatsheet Now originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How To Upgrade From Ext3 To Ext4 Without Formatting The Hard Disk

Damien — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:21:52 +0000

Yesterday, we have discussed some of the new features in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty. In that article, I did mention that the new filesystem – ext4 is stable, fast and backward compatible with ext2 and ext3. Today, we will look at how you can upgrade your existing ext3 filesystem to ext4 without reformating your hard disk.

Disclaimer: Anything that deals with the filesystem hack always involve certain risks. While we have tested it out and get it working on our systems, there is no guarantee that it will work for you. We shall not be responsible for any data loss or hard disk crash. Before you try this, please remember to BACKUP your system and important files.

Step 1: Upgrade your existing Ubuntu

First for all, upgrade your existing Ubuntu to Ubuntu 9.04. You can skip this step if you have already upgraded to Ubuntu 9.04.

Press Alt + F2 on your keyboard and type in

update-manager -d

The Update Manager will appear. Click on the Upgrade button.

Depending on your Internet connection, the upgrade could last for several hours.

At the same time, proceed to Ubuntu website and download the Ubuntu 9.04 LiveCD iso.

After you have downloaded the LiveCD, burn it into a CD or use the USB Startup Disk Creator (System -> Administration -> USB Startup Disk Creator) to create a bootable USB drive.

Once the system completes the upgrading, restart your computer and play around with it to make sure that it is working fine in your system.

When you are happy with the result, reboot the computer again, this time boot into your LiveCD.

Step 2: Upgrading to Ext4

Go to System->Partition Editor. This will show all the partition in your hard disk. Record down the filesystem ID of the partition that you want to convert to ext4.

Close the Partition Editor. Open a terminal, type the following:

sudo tune2fs -O extents,uninit_bg,dir_index /dev/XXXX

Replace XXXX by the filesystem ID that you have recorded just now.

Once that is done, type the following to fixed your partition:

sudo fsck -pf /dev/XXXX

Don’t forget to replace XXXX with your filesystem ID.

Mount your filesystem

sudo mount -t ext4 /dev/XXXX /mnt

Open the fstab file:

gksu gedit /mnt/etc/fstab

and change the ext3 entry to ext4. Save and exit.

Back to the terminal, we need to reinstall the grub bootloader.

sudo grub-install /dev/XXX

This time, replace the XXX by the filesystem without the number. For example, sudo grub-install /dev/sda

Close the terminal and restart the computer. Reboot into ubuntu 9.04.

In the terminal, type

df -T

You should see your filesystem mounted as ext4 now

That’s all. Enjoy!

How To Upgrade From Ext3 To Ext4 Without Formatting The Hard Disk originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

What’s New In Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

Damien — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:16:56 +0000

23^rd April 2009 is the day when Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope will be released. I am sure many of you have already marked down the date and prepare yourselves for the launch.

I have been using Ubuntu 9.04 since the beta release and I must admit that I am really impressed with it. Not only is it faster, it is also more stable, user-friendly and definitely more elegant.

To better prepare all of you for Ubuntu Jaunty, I will be publishing a 5-part series, covering tips and tricks and some points to take note when dealing with Ubuntu Jaunty. This series will be published every day, for the next 5 days.

For the first part of the series, we are going to look at the new features of Ubuntu Jaunty and why is it a must-have for existing (and future) Ubuntu users.

Kernel

The kernel is not a part of the system that we meddle with everyday, but it is the most important part that determines how well your system runs. In 9.04, the the 2.6.28-11.37 kernel based on 2.6.28.8 was used. In simple term, this kernel supports Ext 4 filesystem, has a better memory management , provide better disk shock protection and many more useful features that you won’t see it in the frontend.

Desktop Manager

For Ubuntu, the latest Gnome 2.26 is included as the main desktop manager. Gnome 2.26 comes with plenty of improvements. The more notable ones include:

Brasero as the default disc burning utility in Nautilus
Improved handling of multiple monitors
Evolution now supports Microsoft Outlook Personal Folders (PST files) including E-mail, contacts, appointments, tasks and journal entries. It also added support for the Microsoft Exchange’s MAPI protocol, which makes Evolution’s integration with hosting Exchange servers a much easier task.
Movie player now comes with several more new plugins such as sutbitle downloader, video disc recorder and Jamendo

Ext4 Filesystem

Ubuntu 9.04 officially supports the Ext4 filesystem. In case you are not aware, Ext4 has a bigger files support (supports volume up to 1 exabytes and file of size 16 terabytes), backward compatible, making it possible to mount ext3 and ext2 filesystems as ext4 and a faster filesystem checking.

While the default filesystem in Ubuntu Jaunty is still ext3, there is an option to format your hard disk to ext4 during the installation process. Those who are adventurous enough can try it out. For your information, I have reformated my system to ext4 and it works great.

Software

Open Office 3.0

Open Office 3.0 did not make it in time for the previous 8.10 release. This time, OpenOffice 3.0.1 was included as the default office suite in Ubuntu 9.04.

Session Manager renamed as Startup Applications

Previously, if you need to make changes to the startup applications, you need to go to the Session Manager and add/delete the entries. In Ubuntu 9.04, the Session Manager is renamed as Startup Applications, probably to avoid confusion and provide more clarity to new users.

Computer Janitor

This application is a new inclusion in Ubuntu. What it does is to help you find and remove software packages you might not need anymore. It also suggests configuration changes that might benefit you.

Look and Feel

There have been a lot of improvement on the look and feel in this version.

New usplash screen

New login screen

New notification style

New default wallpapers

Even though the background color is still the dull brown, they are definitely a radical change from the previous series of wallpapers.

New desktop themes

Dust theme

Dust Sand theme

New Wave theme

Speed

If there is anything that I am extremely impress with this new release, it must be the fast boot-up speed. The boot up (and shut down) speed is much faster. If you have installed Ubuntu 9.04 in ext4 format, enable automatic login and disable most startup applications, you should be able to boot up to your desktop in less than 18 seconds, as experimented by Matt Cutts. That is really fast!

Ubuntu 9.04 will be released on 23rd April 2009. You can download the LiveCD from the download site. To upgrade your current version of Ubuntu, simply run the following command in the terminal:

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Even though the Ubuntu site stated that the beta and RC release are not meant to use on production machine, I have installed and tested them out and they both work fine on my computer. For those who can’t wait for the actual release, you might want to upgrade to the RC version. One thing though, do remember to run the Update Manager everyday to get the latest software update.

Image credit: notebooknotes

What’s New In Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How To Auto-mount Your NTFS Partition In Ubuntu

Damien — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:31:34 +0000

If you are dualbooting Windows and Ubuntu on your computer, you will know that you can easily read and write to your NTFS partition from your Ubuntu desktop. One thing though, your Ubuntu does not automount the NTFS partition by default. Everytime you need to access the NTFS partition, you have to first go to your Nautilus and click on the NTFS drive (and enter your password) to mount it before you can access it.

A good way to workaround this is to make your Ubuntu automount your NTFS partition upon booting up. While this can be easily fixed by changing the fstab file, it involves hitting the terminal and edit the root file, which maybe a big turn off for newbies and it could possibly crash your system if it is not handled properly.

To fix this issue the simpler way, we can install the application PySDM and access the storage device manager with a simple to use and user-friendly interface.

PySDM is a Storage Device Manager that allows full customization of hard disk mountpoints without manually access to fstab. It also allows the creation of udev rules for dynamic configuration of storage devices

Installation

The package pysdm is found in the Ubuntu repository. You can easily install it via the Synaptic Package Manager (System -> Administration -> Synaptic package Manager). Alternatively, for those who prefer the apt-get way, here’s the command:

sudo apt-get install pysdm

Better still, click this link to install pysdm in your Ubuntu system.

Usage

Once installed, go to System -> Administration -> Storage Device Manager.

You will find your all your partitions listed on the left pane of the window.

The partitions are labelled in the sda1, sda2, sda3, etc format. To identify which entry is your NTFS partition, highlight each entry and check the Type field on the right pane. This will tell you the filesystem of that partition.

Once you have located your NTFS partition, click on the Assistant button.

Check the box The File system is mounted at boot time.

Uncheck the box Mount file system in read only mode.

Click OK to close the Assistant window, follow by Apply to save the changes. Restart your computer, your NTFS partition should automount by itself upon booting up.

How To Auto-mount Your NTFS Partition In Ubuntu originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How To Control Your CPU Frequency In Ubuntu

Damien — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:16:44 +0000

Needless to say, conserving your battery power is the most important task when you are on the move with your laptop. Other than disabling all unused programs by shutting down them during the startup, one of the great way to save battery power is to reduce the running frequency of your CPU. The slower frequency the CPU runs, the less power it consumes.

In your Ubuntu, you can easily switch your CPU frequency via the CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor Gnome-applets.

On the top panel of your desktop, right click your mouse and select “Add to Panel”

In the window that open, scroll down and look for the entry “CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor“. Select the entry and click the Add button to add to the panel.

You should see something like this:

Next, open up your terminal and type:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure gnome-applets

You will see the following screen.

Select OK

When prompt if you want to start with root privilege, select Yes.

This will bring you back to your terminal.

Now back to your CPU frequency scaling applet on the top panel, when you click on the icon, it will display a list of frequency that you can choose from. There are also various modes that you can use to allow the system to auto-control the frequency of your CPU.

Depending on the configuration of your laptop, most Intel and AMD CPU are set to be Ondemand mode, which means it will run at the lowest frequency unless you are doing intensive tasks that require the extra power. However, when you are on your battery, it is best to set to Powersave mode so that it will always run at the lowest frequency.

What other ways do you use to save your battery power?

How To Control Your CPU Frequency In Ubuntu originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How To Install Aptana Studio In Ubuntu Intrepid

Damien — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:14:18 +0000

For those who have read my review of Aptana and wish to install it in Ubuntu 8.10, here is how you can do so. While the installation is not as straightforward as it should be, the overall process is not that difficult either.

The instruction below is meant for 32-bit machine. If you are using a 64 bit machine, you’ll have to install Eclipse with the Aptana plugin.

1. Download Aptana for Linux

2. Unzip the Aptana tar file to your Home folder.

3. Install the dependencies:

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin xulrunner

4. Open up a text editor and paste the following lines to the file.

#!/bin/bash
export MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME=/usr/lib/xulrunner
/home/damien/aptana/AptanaStudio  #filepath to Aptana folder

Change the filepath to the location where you place the Aptana folder. Save the file as runAptana.sh in the Aptana folder.

5. Right-click on the runAptana.sh file and select Properties. Go to the Permissions tab. Check the box “Allow executing file as program”

That’s it. Whenever you want to run Aptana, simply double click on the runAptana.sh file.

Creating Desktop and Menubar shortcut (Optional)

You can also create a shortcut on your desktop or the menubar so that you can easily access it when you want to use it.

- Right-click on the menubar and select Edit Menus

- On the left pane, scroll down till you find the Programming entry. Click on it.

- On the right, click on the “New Item” button. Enter the following:

For the Aptana icon, you can either use your own icon, or download the official iconset here

Close all the windows. You should be able to find the Aptana launcher in Applications->Programming->Aptana.

To create a desktop shortcut, simply drag the Aptana launcher from the menubar to the desktop. If you are using any dock applications, you can also drag and drop the launcher to the dock.

Didn’t I say it is easy?

How To Install Aptana Studio In Ubuntu Intrepid originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How To Edit Your Screensaver Settings In Ubuntu Intrepid

Damien — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 13:34:00 +0000

If you have attempted to tamper with your screensaver in Ubuntu, you will know that other than selecting the screensaver, there is nothing you can do about it. The default Gnome-Screensaver in your system does not allow you to change any of the screensaver’s setting. If you are looking to make the ball rotate slower, or to get it to display a different line of text, you’ll have no luck there.

On the other hand, the popular XScreenSaver gives you more choices of screensavers and also allows you to change the setting and configure it to your liking.

While we can easily replace gnome-screensaver with XScreensaver (with some simple hack), it might not be a great idea after all since Gnome-Screensaver is tightly integrated with the Gnome desktop and allows you to lock the computer screen and recover the computer from sleep. Replacing it with xscreensaver might break these stuffs and cause them not to work properly.

In Ubuntu Intrepid, you can actually integrate XScreenSaver and Gnome-Screensaver together without breaking the system.

Install XScreenSaver and all the extra screensavers

sudo apt-get install xscreensaver xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl-extra

Now, on your System -> Preferences, you should see two entries of Screensaver. The first one is referring to xscreensaver set up while the second refers to the gnome-screensaver.

To avoid confusion, we are going to change the name of the entry.

Right-click on the menu bar and select ‘Edit-Menus‘. On the left pane, navigate to the System -> Preferences section. On the right pane, scroll down untill you locate the two Screensaver entries. Select the first Screensaver entry and click the Properties button.

Under the name, change it to XScreensaver.

Close all the windows.

Next, go to System->Preferences->XScreensaver.

When XScreensaver loads up, it will detect that Gnome-screensaver is running and prompts you to switch it off. Click Cancel. We don’t want to make XScreensaver the default screensaver program as it will cause some of the system functions (like lock-screen) to break.

On the main window of XScreensaver, pick the screensaver you want to edit and change the setting via the Settings button.

When you are done editing the screensaver. Close the XScreensaver window.

Load Gnome-screensaver (System->Preferences->Screensaver). Select the screensaver that you have just edited and make it the default screensaver.

That’s it. Your screen should now show the updated Screensaver everytime it runs.

Several points to note

Whenever you want to change the setting of the screensaver, use XScreensaver.
Whenever you want to change the system screensaver, use Gnome-Screensaver.
If you accidentally clicked the OK button and allow XScreensaver to stop the Gnome-screensaver daemon and set XScreensaver to run, you can simply log out and log in again to restore it to the default setting.

How To Edit Your Screensaver Settings In Ubuntu Intrepid originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

The Ultimate Guide To Manage Your Audio/Video Files In Linux

Damien — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:20:03 +0000

Have you ever come across a situation where you wanted to convert a video from one format to another in your Linux machine and you have absolutely no idea how to do it? What about playing DVD on Ubuntu or rip your favorite VCD to mpeg file?

Below, I have come up with a great list of software that you can use to handle your video/audio files in Linux. All the software listed are compatible with any of the Linux distros out there. The installation instructions and screenshots are based on Ubuntu, so if you are on a different distro, you will have to change the command accordingly.

Handling VideoCD

Play VCD in Linux

Basically, most, if not all, multimedia players out there are able to play VideoCD. Personally, I would recommend using VLC since that is the only multimedia player you ever need to play all kind of audio/video files.

In Debian-based Linux distro,

sudo apt-get install vlc

Create VCD

CD burner software such as Brasero and K3b are capable of creating VCD or SVCD on the fly.

For K3b, you have to make sure that the source file is in mpeg format. There is no restriction in Brasero.

Ripping video from VCD

The easiest way to rip a VCD movie to mpeg format is via K3b.

Install K3b

sudo apt-get install k3b

Open up the K3b and go to Tools -> Rip Video CD

Alternatively, VLC also allows you to transcode the VCD movie into another format.

Open the VLC. Click on Media->Convert/Save.

For more detailed instruction, check out how to easily transcode media files with VLC

The command line way

If you prefer the command line way of doing thing, here is the instruction.

sudo apt-get install vcdimager

Insert the VCD to the CD-ROM

In the terminal, type

vcdxrip -C

Note that the C in the above command is a Capital C.

This will instruct vcdxrip to rip the movie from the VCD in the CD-ROM.

Extracting audio from VCD

Using the VLC method, you can easily rip the audio file from the VCD.

Under the Convert/Save option, click on the Audio Codec tab and check the Audio box. If you are converting to mp3, select MP3 from the dropdown box, else select the format that you want to convert to. Input the file name (with the extension) and click Save.

Handling DVD

Watching DVD in Linux (particularly Ubuntu)

Ubuntu does not allow you to play DVD movie due to legal and technical restrictions. You have to install the ubuntu-restricted-extra package and run the libdvdread3 installer script. Check the tutorial for detailed instruction.

Rip DVD

For ripping DVD, I personally use Handbrake. It comes with several preset profiles, including iPhone and PS3, that you can use to quickly rip the DVD into your desired format.

To install handbrake, download the deb file here.

Another software that you can use is AcidRip. It is packed with useful features, but arranged in a messy way. I have quite a hard way navigating through the options. One good thing about this software is that it is included in the repo, so you can easily install it clicking here or by using the command:

sudo apt-get install acidrip

(Note: To rip DVD, your computer must first be able to support DVD playback. Refer to the above instruction to enable DVD playback in your Linux machine.)

Create DVD (DVD authoring)

If you are looking to create your own DVD with menu, chapters, subtitles etc, two of the best software that I have tried are DeVeDe and Mandvd. Personally I prefer ManDVD as it gives you more customization options and a detail walkthrough of the whole DVD creation process. However, if you are looking for a software that you can use quickly without much configuration, then DeVeDe is the one to go for.

To install ManDVD, download and install the deb file from GetDeb.

To install DeVeDe, click here, or in the terminal

sudo apt-get install devede

One good thing about DeVeDe is that you can also use it to create VCD as well.

Handling Video Files

Converting from one format to another

Both Handbrake and VLC are able to convert your video files from one format to another, but if you are looking for a small application just for converting videos, you might want to try out Winff. This is a small frontend GUI for the FFMPEG library and will work with most file formats.

Installation instructions for the various distro can be found here.

Editing video files

Avidemux, Kino and KDEnlive are three great video editing software that are both powerful and easy to use. Avidemux is Gnome-based while Kino and KDEnlive are KDE-based.

Subtitle editor

For those who wanted to create your own subtitles for your video files, Gnome-subtitles and Aegisub are two simple software you can use to edit your own subtitles. Gnome-Subtitles is a simple and lightweight application for simple subtitles creation and editing. Aegisub provides more functionality such as subtitles dragging, scaling and rotating. There is even a karaoke template that you can apply to your music video.

Inserting subtitles to your video files

There are two ways that you can use to insert subtitles into video files: Softsub and Hardsub.

Softsub are separate instructions, usually a specially marked up text with time stamps to be displayed during playback and it is usually controlled on the player side. Hardsub is when the subtitle text is irreversibly merged in original video frames, and so no special equipment or software is required for playback.

Quoted from Wikipedia

For Softsub, VLC has a feature that allows you to load a separate subtitles files while watching the video. In VLC, go to Tools-> Preferences. At the left bottom under the Show Settings, click All. At the left pane, go to Video->Subtitles/OSD. On the right pane, input the location of the subtitles file into the field Use Subtitles File.

For Hardsub, you can use Avidemux to embed the subtitles file into the video.

In Avidemux, first load the video file. Next, go to Video->FIlters. On the left pane, select Subtitles. Choose the appropriate subtitle option and add it to the Active Filter pane.

Update: On the main screen, you have to select a video encoder before the subtitle filter can take effect. Thanks to J.M for reminding.

Handling Audio files

Extracting Audio CD

In Gnome, the SoundJuicer does a good job in converting your audio CD to the format you want. In Ubuntu, if you want to extract your CD to MP3 or Flac format, you will have to first install the required codecs.

Alternatively, you can also use K3b to rip audio CD.

Creating audio CD

Brasero and K3b can achieve this task easily. Select the Create audio CD option and drag and drop your music files into the container. It will automatically convert them to audio CD format.

Converting audio files from one format to another

I have previously covered Sound-converter which is a great software that supports conversion to most audio formats.

Editing audio files

Needless to say, Audacity is the best candidate for this. You can also use it to convert audio files from one format to another.

What else have I left out?

The Ultimate Guide To Manage Your Audio/Video Files In Linux originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)