August 2010 | Ubuntu Dan

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Facebook, Twitter & Ubuntu Lucid Lynx

PCs running Ubuntu will be getting more social thanks to changes that will set the popular Linux distro's look and feel for the next five years.
Lucid Lynx, released last April, will bring social applications like Twitter and Facebook directly into the software, Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth has said in an interview here.

Apparently, the idea is to merge the desktop and online worlds, so people don't have to fire up their browser or a separate application to use their social applications.

Also coming is what Shuttleworth called "new styling" for the Lucid Lynx desktop. He didn't provide further details, but Shuttleworth has been a consistently keen advocate of the need to improve the design, not just the user experience, of Linux through Ubuntu.

"There will be some shiny, new bling on the desktop - we will have some new styling, which is going to be the starting point of another five-year view. We've bee human for the last five years - now we are going to be light oriented," Shuttleworth told Dell's cloud computing evangelist Barton George.

Shuttleworth also promised big changes for the version of Ubuntu targeting netbooks after Lucid Lynx.
Shuttleworth on March 1 will step down as chief executive of Canonical, the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, and take on a more technology oriented role, working on Ubuntu. He said he's putting "a lot of time" into the Ubuntu Netbook Remix, saying it will go through what he called a period of rapid evolution in the next cycle after Lucid Lynx.

He also claimed that Linux - and particularly Ubuntu - is growing on netbooks in the wake of Microsoft's release of Windows 7 and the disappearance of Windows XP.

"There was some speculation around the death of the netbook," Shuttleworth said. "We haven't seen that. With Windows 7 out there, people have a real choice between free software and proprietary software, and it turns out free software is a popular choice.

"The share of Linux on netbooks seems to be growing now that XP's getting downplayed and we want to be right in the thick of that."
He was also optimistic about uptake of Ubuntu on mobile devices like smart books and said he was starting to see innovation around ARM-based devices since the release of Ubuntu 9.4 that officially put the disto on this hardware architecture popular in mobile devices.

Ahead of that, Lucid Lynx will have a "strong focus" on cloud, which as an LTS release is a major milestone. Lucid Lynx will rollout as people put into production the clouds they've built and tested on features that were introduced in Ubuntu last year for users to build Amazon EC2 images on their Linux systems.
You can get the full Shuttleworth experience here.

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Best Wallpaper for Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx

Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) was released on 29 April 2010. One of the major differences with earlier versions was the improvement in graphics.

Now you don’t need to install the complete OS to copy the wallpapers. You can use the link provided to download the zip file with all files and extract with 7zip. Download .tar.gz archive for complete set of files.

I have also collected a few wallpapers below for anyone who may need them. Also, Get Ubuntu Desktop Edition from http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download and install it.

The guys from techdrivein did a nice list of wallpapers over here. I also recommend you visit ClubUbuntu's list of 10 most beautiful themes for Ubuntu here.

Download More Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Wallpapers

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How to Install GNOME 3 (GNOME-Shell) in ubuntu 10.4 Lucid Lynx

GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment) is a desktop environment created for the operating system GNU / Linux Desktop Environment is recognized as the official GNU project. With the announcement of version 3.0 was introduced GNOME-Shell, which integrates various functions into a 'single window. The desktop area is divided into several parts depending on the activities and workspaces is dynamic: you can add or remove workspaces and you can move any applications in different areas of work, as already happens with Compiz.

Now you can see How to install GNOME on Ubuntu 10.4 Lucid Lynx

     First you have to install all the dependencies needed to successfully build and run gnome-shell.

     $ sudo apt-get build-dep gnome-shell

   After installing all the packages necessary steps for installing veritable gnome-shell

     $ sudo apt-get install gnome-shell

Once installed, you can start GNOME-Shell by typing the following command in a terminal:

     $ gnome-shell --replace

GNOME-Shell is still under development and therefore very unstable.
Try it in your Test machine or in a Virtual machine.
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Sunday, August 22, 2010

Next Ubuntu Maverick Meerkat release

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Get the Maverick Meerkat Countdown widget here!

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Install Remastersys in Ubuntu

Remastersys is a tool that can be used to do 2 things with an existing Klikit or Ubuntu or derivative installation.It can make a full system backup including personal data to a live cd or dvd that you can use anywhere and install. It can make a distributable copy you can share with friends. This will not have any of your personal user data in it.

Install Remastersys in Ubuntu
The Remastersys repository needs to be added to your /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list
Paste the following into the sources.list:
# Remastersys
deb http://www.remastersys.klikit-linux.com/repository remastersys/
Save and exit the file.
Update the source list using the following command
sudo apt-get update
Install remastersys using the following command
sudo apt-get install remastersys
This will complete the installation

Using Remastersys
In order to learn how you can use remastersys, run
sudo remastersys

remastersys Syntax
sudo remastersys backup|clean|dist [cdfs|iso] [filename.iso]

remastersys Examples
1) to make a livecd/dvd backup of your system
sudo remastersys backup
2) to make a livecd/dvd backup and call the iso custom.iso
sudo remastersys backup custom.iso
3) to clean up temporary files of remastersys
sudo remastersys clean
4) to make a distributable livecd/dvd of your system
sudo remastersys dist
5) to make a distributable livecd/dvd filesystem only
sudo remastersys dist cdfs
6) to make a distributable iso named custom.iso but only if the cdfs is already present
sudo remastersys dist iso custom.iso
cdfs and iso options should only be used if you wish to modify something on the cd before the iso is created. An example of this would be to modify the isolinux portion of the livecd/dvd

Creating An ISO Image
To create an iso image

of your installation, simply run
sudo remastersys dist
This will create an iso image called customdist.iso in the /home/remastersys directory. The dist option makes that your personal folder (e.g. /home/ruchi) will not be included in the iso image. You might have to insert your Ubuntu installation CD during the process.

This is how the end of the process looks:
[...]
92.16% done, estimate finish Wed DEC 28 15:31:25 2007
93.39% done, estimate finish Wed DEC 28 15:31:25 2007
94.62% done, estimate finish Wed DEC 28 15:31:24 2007
95.85% done, estimate finish Wed DEC 28 15:31:24 2007
97.08% done, estimate finish Wed DEC 28 15:31:25 2007
98.31% done, estimate finish Wed DEC 28 15:31:25 2007
99.54% done, estimate finish Wed DEC 28 15:31:25 2007
Total translation table size: 2048
Total rockridge attributes bytes: 3950
Total directory bytes: 9094
Path table size(bytes): 54
Max brk space used 0
406890 extents written (794 MB)
/home/remastersys/customdist.iso is ready to be burned or tested in a virtual machine.
Check the size and if it is larger than 700MB you will need to burn it to a dvd
796M /home/remastersys/customdist.iso

Clean Up
After you’ve burnt the iso image onto a CD/DVD, you can run
sudo remastersys clean
to remove all temporary file created during the iso generation as well as the /home/remastersys directory.

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Transform Your Stock Ubuntu 10.04 Install into a Fully Operational Battle Station Operating System

How-To: Transform Your Stock Ubuntu 10.04 Install into a Fully Operational Battle Station Operating System

r3dux | May 13, 2010

I used to upgrade my Ubuntu distros after each release cycle, but it was never a very pleasant experience… There’d always be mismatched packages and configs, legacy cruft left lying around filling up my root partition, and all sorts of mismatch woes – so I ditched that for separate partitions for my root folder and home folders, and now wipe the root folder with the newest release as and when it’s out.
Because I’ve done this a couple of times over the last few years, I feel I’m getting pretty good at getting the machine up & running with everything I need at a pretty fast pace: maybe a day for all the core stuff, another to tweak the vast majority of everything so I have it as I want, and then just bits and pieces as they come up. This time, I thought I’d make a list of all the things I install (yes, I know you can automatically generate a list of installed packages) – because I also wanted to note why I install ‘em, you know, what are they good for, so the next time I install a fresh system I can just grab it all even quicker.
Now, a stock/standard Ubuntu distro is a pretty good thing – but it doesn’t come with everything you need, so with that in mind, I’d like to present a list of things that I think you also need, and that once you have in place you’ll be able to do most anything you need with your system with just a few clicks. Before you do any of this, it’s a good idea to open up System | Administration | Software Sources and enable the restricted, universe and multiverse repositories as shown below:
Ubuntu Software Sources

With that done, here’s the list of things you’ll likely want to have installed in no particular-order, and only roughly sectioned off into classes (system, sound & media, social networking etc.):

Freely Available In The Ubuntu Repositories
Package Name	Why Install It?
System / Developer / Essential
ubuntu-restricted-extras	Meta-suite of proprietary software including the Flash plugin, DVD decoding libraries etc.
build-essentials	Tools to compile your own/open-source projects
eclipse	Multi-Language IDE – coding is good.
codeblocks	Another multi-language IDE, I’ve not used it too much as yet, but I hear good things about it…
subversion	Version control tool. Useful to checkout code trunks and compile open-source projects yourself
scons	Python-based build system – req’d to compile SCons-based projects (More info: http://www.scons.org/wiki/FrequentlyAskedQuestions)
guake	Quake-style terminal access for gnome. Awesome stuff. Change the keybindings for copy and paste to Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V for usabilities sake.
nautilus-open-terminal	Nautilus script that adds functionality to allow you to right-click on a folder and open a terminal at that point, saves you cd-ing all the way into long paths.
php5	It’s PHP. Version 5. Drags in apache2 with it.
deskbar	Search applet for the panel – finds your programs in the menu, amongst a hundred other things. I really couldn’t live without this.
Utility / Office / Comms
thunderbird	Thunderbird 3, my email client o’ choice. I’d written a guide for installing it in Ubuntu 9.10, but it’s in the repos in 10.04, so that’s now obsolete…
p7zip-full	7zip archiver. Better compression than zip and a completely open format.
pidgin	Multi-chat-format-client (MSN, AOL, YahooMessenger etc.) I don’t like the packed-in empathy client too much…
pidgin-plugin-pack	Additional plugins for pidgin.
xchat	IRC (Internet Relay Chat) client
Audio / Video
audacity	Very good audio editor
ripperx	Decent audio CD ripper, use with LAME. Also, it’s the only ripper I’ve found that doesn’t randomly fall over if it doesn’t like a CD… Warning: The current version (v2.7.2) has two bugs which are kinda scuppering it: it doesn’t add ID3 tags to tracks ripped beyond track 10, and it crashes at the end of each disc rip =/ It might be better to use something else for the time being, but I really don’t like SoundJuicer or anything, so I just run MusicBrainz Picard (package name: picard) on any folder of MP3s ripped from a disc to fix up the tags after ripping.
lame	The best mp3 codec to rip audio with. Use high quality VBR and the results are superb.
soundconverter	Easily convert audio files between formats.
pautils	PulseAudio utils, stream choosers, volume controls etc.
gpodder	Really good podcast client for gnome: subscribe to Linux Outlaws, This Week in Tech (TWiT) etc..
mplayer	Useful to get data to transcode .avi files to to DVDs (see this article if you’re interested).
ccsm	Compiz config settings manager – lets you tweak your compiz effects in countless ways…
compiz-fusion-plugins-extra	Additional effects for compiz
fusionicon	A system tray icon for accessing compiz related settings and switching/reloading window managers. Best to set it to autorun on boot through System \| Preferences \| Startup Applications.
python-sexy	Library used by compiz to extend Gtk widget functionality (read more: http://www.chipx86.com/w/index.php/Libsexy)
gnome-colors	Additional icon themes – more choice is never a bad thing.
screenlets	Widget system for the gnome desktop. Grab some more screenlets from here if you like (the NVidia and FuriousMoon screenlets are useful/pretty respectively).
gimp	The GNU Image Manipulation Program, which isn’t included on the CD for the first time this release..
gimp-plugin-registry	Useful GIMP plugins, including “Save for Web…”, which is a daily-use tool for me…
cheese	Mess around w/ your webcam
camera-monitor	A panel applet which indicates when your webcam is switched on – so you’ll know if anybody else is messing around with your webcam!
blender	3D modelling package. I WILL learn how to use it this year, fo’ real!
povray	An old-school but excellent ray-tracer (creates images by back-tracing light rays from geometry), always good for a mess around. Get povray-examples and povray-docs while you’re at it.
cbrpager	A simple comic viewer for gnome
Administration / Files / Network
gadmin	A suit of GUIs to administrate things on your system (proftpd, apache, squid etc.)
proftpd	FTP server, requires a fair bit of configuration, but I’ve written pretty solid article on it here if you’re interested in hosting files on your own FTP server..
filezilla	An excellent FTP client to connect to FTP servers.
sabnzbdplus	A really good news group client – download stuff with far more peace of mind than using torrents. I’ve also written a guide for downloading stuff from newsgroups which you can find here if you’re that way inclined…
pypar2	Tool to repair broken/corrupted/incomplete rar files using PAR(ity) files. Use with sabnazbdplus as and when needed.
transmission	An excellent bit-torrent client. Don’t forget to: Enable the block list & update it, change encryption settings from “preferred” to “required”, and disable DHT peer exchange (here’s why: http://forums.phoenixlabs.org/showthread.php?t=15324)
dosbox	A legacy PC emulator – run old DOS software if you need to. I use it to fire up ScreamTracker 3 occasionally.

There’s a few other things you might want which aren’t in the standard Ubuntu respositories, too. Such as:

Not Available In The Ubuntu Repositories
Application Name	Why Install It?	Get From
webmin	Tool to administrate your system through a web interface either locally or over the web. Either restrict administration to be from the local network or make your passwords strong if you allow external access from teh Internets!	http://www.webmin.com/
google-earth	Gaze longingly at home, and the pyramids, and other neat stuff on this blue/green sphere.	http://earth.google.com/
google-picassa	Nice image organiser/basic photo adjustment tool. Can categorise images by faces (poorly) too! [I had to install this from the commandline for some reason. Used: sudo gdebi ./picassa-3_0-blah-blah.deb to install]	http://picasa.google.com/linux/
virtualbox	Virtualisation software so you can run stuff like XP/Vista/Windows 7 from virtually from within Linux. Get this from Sun rather than the OSE (Open Source Edition) in the repositories if you want USB support.	http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
handbrake	Simple and yet powerful DVD ripper/video transcoder with a decent GUI. If you’re ripping a DVD just point it at the top level directory of the DVD and hit Open for it to pull in all the .vob files for you. Update: Don’t bother installing version 0.9.4 on Ubuntu 10.04 – it’s broken. Build yourself a working version from the freshest source using this guide!	http://handbrake.fr/
nautilus elementary	Nice transparency effects for Nautilus	http://www.webupd8.org/2010/04/install-nautilus-elementary-230-via-ppa.html
ubuntu tweak	Tweak ubuntu like a mother-b	http://ubuntu-tweak.com/

You might not need some of that stuff, but for me it turns a good basic install into the real deal that does everything I need. And I absolutely love it