Full Circle Magazine - issue 56 EN

full circle magazine #56 1 contents ^

Full CircleTHE INDEPENDENT MAGAZINE FOR THE UBUNTU LINUX COMMUNITY

ISSUE #56 - December 2011

ful l circle magazine is neither affi l iated with, nor endorsed by, Canonical Ltd.

BBIIGGGGEERR IISSSSUUEE WWIITTHH MMOORREE GGAAMMEESS!!

COMPETITION:WIN 100GB OF

SPIDEROAK SPACE!

MULTIWINIA, BOBBY, AND MORE!


The arti cl es contai ned i n thi s magazi ne are rel eased under the Creati ve Commons Attri buti on-Share Al i ke 3. 0 Unported l i cense.Thi s means you can adapt, copy, di stri bute and transmi t the arti cl es but onl y under the fol l owi ng condi ti ons: You must attri butethe work to the ori gi nal author i n some way (at l east a name, emai l or URL) and to thi s magazi ne by name (' ful l ci rcl e magazi ne' )

and the URL www. ful l ci rcl emagazi ne. org (but not attri bute the arti cl e(s) i n any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). I fyou al ter, transform, or bui l d upon thi s work, you must di stri bute the resul ti ng work under the same, si mi l ar or a compati bl e l i cense.Full Circle magazine is entirely independent of Canonical, the sponsor of the Ubuntu projects, and the views and opinions in themagazine should in no way be assumed to have Canonical endorsement.

Full CircleTHE INDEPENDENT MAGAZINE FOR THE UBUNTU LINUX COMMUNITY

Backup Strategy Pt4 p.15

LibreOffice Pt10 p.13

Make 11.10 Look 'Classic' p.08

Persistent USB Stick p.18

HowTo Opinions

Q&A p.47

Ubuntu Games p.50

Ubuntu Women p.54

Command & Conquer p.05

Connect To IRC p.21

Columns

Linux Labs p.27 Review p.41

I Think... p.38

My Opinion p.37

My Story p.34

Letters p.43

My Desktop p.53Linux News p.04

Closing Windows p.30

BACK NEXT MONTH

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


EEDDIITTOORRIIAALL

Welcome to the last issue of Full Circle.

The last of 2011 that is. It's another bumper issue this month with a little bit ofeverything: make a persistent USB stick, create a backup with SpiderOak, LibreOfficeCalc, making 11.10 look 'classic', and how to connect to IRC. Not only that but UbuntuGames has grown to two articles each month, so please welcome Riku and Jennifer as

our regular gamers. Charles has taken over the Linux Labs column and, this month, shows youhow to install XBMC (Xbox Media Centre). I've also added a few other new bits to this issue, butI'll let you find them yourself.

Robin 'Mr. Podcast' Catling makes an appearance with his review of Puppy Linux. Now basedon Lucid Lynx, Puppy is even more relevant to us than in previous incarnations, and if youhaven't tried it yet on your old hardware I definitely recommend it. It's small, lightning fast, andfully equipped for that aging hardware you have lying around gathering dust.

The majority of people voted that they would attend, or would be interested in attending,an FCM IRC meeting each month. I'll try and set something up for January/February 2012 ifpossible. I'll announce a date either in FCM#57 or online via our website mailing list, Facebook,and Google+, so stay tuned!

Don't forget to check out the questionnaire for next month. Fill it in and you could be inwith a chance to win 100GB of cloud space courtesy of SpiderOak. We'll also pick winners fromTwitter and Facebook. See the 'I Think' results pages for more info.

All the best, keep in touch, and I'll see you all in 2012!Ronnie

[email protected]

This magazine was created using :

Full Circle PodcastReleased monthly, each episodecovers all the latest Ubuntu news,opinions, reviews, interviews andlistener feedback. The Side-Pod isa new addition, it's an extra(irregular) short-form podcastwhich is intended to be a branchof the main podcast. It'ssomewhere to put all the generaltechnology and non-Ubuntu stuffthat doesn’t fit in the mainpodcast.

Hosts:Robin CatlingEd HewittDave Wilkins

http://fullcirclemagazine.org

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.scribus.net

http://www.gimp.org

http://www.libreoffice.org

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LLIINNUUXX NNEEWWSS

FC Notifier Update

The Full Circle Notifier is still at1.0.2, but the PPA has beenupdated for Oneric. FCN is a smallapplication that sits in yoursystem tray and will announceissue/podcast releases, and canbe set to download them too!Formore info, see the FCN GoogleGroup: http://goo.gl/4Ob4

Ubuntu 11.10 To PowerNew PC Line

US PC maker CTL [has] announced anew line of Ubuntu-poweredcomputers, beginning with anotebook called the MB40U.

A Dramatic Increase in Speed

Equipped with up to 8GB ofmemory, a second-generation IntelCore i3, i5, or i7 processor, DDR3memory, Bluetooth, andmultimedia buttons, the 14.1-inchMB40U weighs just 4.85 poundsand offers a battery life of up to sixhours. Expanded storage space isavailable through the use of E-SATA.

Source: pcworld.com

Gnome 3 Shell ForkedAs Cinnamon

So why has Gnome 3 been forked[...] ? [It] comes with a completelynew way of using the desktop thatnot everyone will be comfortablewith.

With the release of Linux Mint 12,the Linux Mint developers createdextensions for Gnome 3 thatbrought back a lot of the Gnome 2-style UIs however, there is a limitto how far one can go with justextensions. So the Gnome 3 hasbeen forked, with the intention ofcreating a new desktop similar toGnome 2 but built on top of thetechnically superior Gnome 3.

Source: devworks.thinkdigit.com

Android Drivers To BeIncluded In Linux 3.3Kernel

Android drivers arereturning to theLinux kernel. Kernelmaintainer GregKroah-Hartman hasretrieved the

Android drivers removed from thestaging area of Linux 2.6.33 in thespring of 2010 and put them backinto his development branch forversion 3.3 of the Linux kernel.

The plan is for a Linux 3.3 kernel tobe able to boot on an Androiddevice without further patches –although not all Android patchesare being automatically carriedover to the main developmentbranch. For example, the WakeLockcode, which helps Android devices'batteries last longer but is notnecessary for booting, is notincluded.

Source: h-online.com

Ubuntu Kills Java

Oracle’s Sun Java JDK packages areto be removed from the Ubuntupartner repositories and disabled onusers systems after Larry Ellisonruled that the retiring the‘Operating System DistributorLicense

forJava, meansCanonical no longer

have permission to use it.

The change will affect Ubuntu10.04, 10.10 and 11.04 users only.Those who have ‘sun-java-6' packageinstalled on their system will see itremoved via a future softwareupdate.

Source: fudzilla.com

http://goo.gl/4Ob4


Due to the large interestpresented in this topicby a reader, I've decidedto write another one or

two articles on Vim (including thisone). This month I'll be focusing ona tangible example (file can befound here:http://pastebin.com/EqrfBFhF). I'llcover using visual block mode,some tricks for commenting largenumbers of lines, a couple of tricksfor using the mouse, andcopying/pasting to/from externalprograms from/to Vim. If you'refamiliar with all of these topics, youcan safely skip this article.

Before we begin, I will brieflyexplain what an abundant numberis, so that everyone can roughlyfollow the script. An abundantnumber is a number for which thesum of all factors (a factor is anumber which divides a valuewithout a remainder) is greaterthan the number itself. Example:The factors of 12 are: 1,2,3,4,6; thesum of the factors: 1+2+3+4+6=16;16>12. What the script does issimply calculate which numbers(from a supplied range of numbers)

are abundant, and which are not.The function is part of my solutionto an Euler Project problem.

In order to follow the article, I'dhighly recommend opening a copyof the file from Pastebin in Vim (orGVim) so you can work along.

Area 1 (Commenting)

For those of you who areprogrammers, you'll be familiarwith the concept of commentingout all code besides a smallsegment you want to test, whenthings aren't working. My approachto doing this is to use Visual BlockMode. The steps are as follows(from the beginning of the first lineyou want to comment):

<ctrl>+[v]; [j];

<shift>+[i], [#]; [Esc]

The first step enters VisualBlock mode, the j key acts as adown arrow key, and <shift>+[i]enters insert mode for all selectedlines. After these steps, you thenhit the key for the commentsymbol (in Python's case it's theoctothorpe, a.k.a. hash symbol). Foruncommenting, check Area 2 forDeleting in Visual Block Mode.

The reader who contacted meoffered the following script to dothe same:

" COMMENTING OUT A #

CHARACTER IN BASH SCRIPTS

function! AddDelBashComment()

let char=getline('.')[0]

if char == "#"

s/^#//g

else

s/^/#/g

endif

endfunction

vmap <silent> # :call

AddDelBashComment()<CR>

This script has to be added toyour .vimrc. Once it has beenadded, you can call it in thefollowing way (same process forcommenting and uncommenting):

<ctrl>+[v]//[v]//[V]; [j];

[#]

As you can see, the only thingyou save by doing this is enteringand exiting insert mode (andpossibly having to press the control

CCOOMMMMAANNDD && CCOONNQQUUEERRWritten by Lucas Westermann VVIIMM :: AAddvvaanncceedd EEddiittiinngg

http://pastebin.com/EqrfBFhF


COMMAND & CONQUERkey). I've included this script for thesake of those for whom everykeystroke counts. You will need toadjust the substitute lines for eachcomment character you frequentlyuse. For SQL you would replace ifchar == “#” with if char == “-” ands/^#//g with s/^--//g (same for theother substitution command). Youmust also replace the octothorpein the vmap line, otherwise you'llbe using the same key for multiplefunctions.

Area 2 (Visual BlockMode)

Since we covered inserting inVisual Block Mode in Area 1, I willnot repeat it in this area.

Deleting in Visual Block Mode:

<ctrl>+[v];

[j]//[h]//[l]//[k];

[d]//[x]//[X]

Which key you use in the secondstep is entirely dependent uponwhich direction you want to go(down, left, right, up, respectively).The key in the last step is entirelyup to you, they all do the same.

Yanking (copying) text in Visual

Block mode:

Section of a line:[v]; [h]//[j]//[k]//[l]; [y];

[h]//[j]//[k]//[l];

<ctrl>+[v];

[h]//[j]//[k]//[l];

<shift>+[i]//<shift>+[a];

<ctrl>+[r]+[“]; [Esc]

<shift>+[i] inserts at the start ofthe line/selection, and <shift>+[a]appends to the end of theline/selection.

Copying and pasting an entireline in multiple lines doesn't workwith this method (at least not forme). As such, we won't cover it. Asa side-note: <ctrl>+[r]+[“] works inany insert mode and pastes thecontents of the Vim register (thelocal clipboard).

Area 3 (Mouse usage)

Just a brief tip: If you want tohighlight something in Vim usingVisual Block Mode, hold<shift>+<alt> as you select.

Area 4 (Copying andPasting to/fromexternal programs)

You may have noticed that theyank and paste methods work onlywithin Vim. To copy text from Vimto another program (firefox, forexample), you can select the textwith the mouse and use themiddle-mouse button paste. If,however, you are at anothercomputer that runs a differentoperating system (or lacks thatfunction), you can copy text to thesystem clipboard with:

[v]//[V]; [y];

[h]//[j]//[k]//[l]; [“][+][y]

A quick explanation: you selectthe text you want (first two steps)and then you hit the quotationmarks key (on German keyboardsit's <shift>+[2]), and then the pluskey, and then the y key. Do this oneafter the other, not all at once.Then to paste in the externalprogram, just use <ctrl>+[v], as perusual.

Pasting:

[“][+][p]

That's it. Press those 3 keys andit will paste the clipboard onto theline you have selected (so you mayneed to start a new line if that'swhat you want).

You can also set the clipboardto autoselect, which shouldautomatically copy to the systemclipboard when you highlightsomething, and automaticallypaste from the clipboard when youpress the middle-mouse button.

Area 5 (Extra tips)

Syntax Highlighting:You can enable syntax

highlighting in Vim by using:

:set syntax=on (in Vim

itself)

or

syntax enable (in your

.vimrc)

Hide Vim in the terminal:<ctrl>+[z] will suspend a task

“To copy text fromVim to anotherprogram [...] selectthe text with themouse and use themiddle-mouse buttonpaste.


Lucas has learned all he knows fromrepeatedly breaking his system, thenhaving no other option but todiscover how to fix it. You can emailLucas at: [email protected].

COMMAND & CONQUERinto the background (tested in Zshand Bash). Once you've suspendeda task, you can re-open it using thecommand fg in the terminal.

In keypresses:

<ctrl>+[z]; [f][g][Enter]

Encrypt files with Vim:

vim x <file name>

This command will prompt youfor an encryption key before youview the file (if the file isempty/new, it will then store thepassword you enter).

Viewing History:

[q][:]

This will pull up a list of pastcommands. You can enter thenumber from the list in order topull up the command, or enter [:][q]to quit the list.

Execute system commands fromwithin Vim:

[!](command)

An example:

:w !sudo tee %

This will save the file with sudorights (in case you open a systemfile and made changes beforerealizing you had no rights to savethe file). Vim will ask youafterwards if it ought to re-loadthe file, which you'll want to do.

Vimdiff:Vimdiff is an extended version

of Vim where you can openmultiple files to compare them.

Usage:

vimdiff file1 file2

For horizontal split:

vimdiff o file1 file2

For more information:http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/diff.html

Specify that a Tab is 4 spaces(useful for Python users):

set tabstop=4

Write this into your .vimrc, andany time you press the tab key, itwill actually insert up to 4 spaces.

This should be more than

enough to keep everyone busyuntil next month. If you have anyquestions, comments, or requests,feel free to email me [email protected]. If you doemail me, please be sure to include“C&C” or “FCM” in the subject, sothat I don't overlook it.

My .vimrc file:http://pastebin.com/wv260CJk

I hope you've found this articleto be interesting. I plan to continuealong this path next month. If youhave any questions, comments, orsuggestions, feel free to email meat [email protected]. If you doemail me, please include “FCM” or“C&C” (or, as a regular expression:[fFcC][cC&][mMcC]) in the subjectheader.

The Ubuntu Podcast covers all thelatest news and issues facingUbuntu Linux users and FreeSoftware fans in general. Theshow appeals to the newest userand the oldest coder. Ourdiscussions cover thedevelopment of Ubuntu but aren’toverly technical. We are luckyenough to have some great guestson the show, telling us first handabout the latest excitingdevelopments they are workingon, in a way that we can allunderstand! We also talk aboutthe Ubuntu community and what itgets up to.

The show is presented bymembers of the UK’s Ubuntu Linuxcommunity. Because it is coveredby the Ubuntu Code of Conduct itis suitable for all.

The show is broadcast live everyfortnight on a Tuesday evening(British time) and is available fordownload the following day.

podcast.ubuntu-uk.org



http://pastebin.com/wv260CJk

http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Erick Lance Brunzell MMaakkee 1111..1100 LLooookk ''CCllaassssiicc''

NOTE: Don’t kernel panic,programmers, Greg will be backwith more Python next month.

Before beginning, pleaseunderstand that I'm nogenius, far from it. Myfocus has been on Classic

(with no effects) only because I'venever cared for Compiz anyway,and, from what I've read, it seemsto be difficult to get it to run in aclassic Oneiric DE. So, if you wantCompiz this is NOT for you, sorry.However I do hope someone elsewill be able to expand on this.

I've tested this quite a bit, butonly with fresh, fully updatedUbuntu Oneiric installs. Yourmileage may vary with installationsthat have other underlyingproblems.

Important warning: Many of thechanges made here can and willbreak Unity, so I highly recommendfirst testing this either in a virtualmachine or a multi-boot. Ipersonally prefer an actual multi-boot but that's just a matter ofchoice.

Another safe way to try thiswould be to create a new useraccount with administrative rights,that way the configuration files youchange will affect only that newaccount. Then, if you decide toapply the changes to your originaluser account, the needed PPA's andpackages will already be installed,so you'll need to complete onlythose steps needed to obtain thedesired configuration. And thenthe new user account could bedeleted.

This guide is almost totallyreliant on copy and pastingcommands into gnome-terminal.Why? Quite simply, not all of thiscan be completed using GUI toolslike Ubuntu Tweak or 'gnome-tweak-tool', and installing 'gnome-tweak-tool' results in installing alarge number of unneededpackages including 'gnome-shell',and my only concern is getting a"classic w/o effects" desktopenvironment (DE) runningefficiently. Should someone care touse either Ubuntu Tweak or'gnome-tweak-tool', I have no

problem with that, I just prefer theCLI.

Also, if I didn't include "sudo" inthe command, then it's not needed,and in rare instances may result inchanged permissions, so please justcopy and paste!

Note: If a "step" can beperformed using Ubuntu Tweakand/or 'gnome-tweak-tool', I willmention it briefly at the end of thatindividual step.

First, take a look below at what Iended up with, and then I'll explainhow I got there.

You'll notice that I prefer onlyone panel at the bottom. I realizesome may want two panels, or oneat the top only, it's purely a matterof preference.

You also need to know that youmust now hold down either Alt keywhile right-clicking on a panel orapplet to be able to edit panelpreferences or to


HOWTO - MAKE 11.10 LOOK 'CLASSIC'add/edit/move/remove moreapplets. That was an intentionalmove by the Gnome devs toprevent people fromunintentionally breaking things.And you also can't just addapplication applets by right-clickingthem and selecting "add to panel"anymore. You must now open the"add-to-panel" window and selectApplication Launcher > Forward,then the window changes and youcan click on the "bullet" to the leftof each category to display and addany app in the menu to the panel:

But let’s also look at PanelProperties settings. Note here thatin Panel Properties > BackgroundI've found that 'Solid color' > Color

> Color name #3F3E39 / Style >Opaque results in vastly improvedappearance of the WorkspaceSwitcher, a picture's worth athousand words:

To be perfectly honest, I nowforget I'm even using Gnome 3most of the time other thanlearning the new keyboardshortcuts which still confuse me. Ido know that Ctrl + Alt + T launchesgnome-terminal, but even it can befiddly. I suspect that the newkeybindings are truly designed forGnome Shell, not the "fallback" DE,which I expect to see disappearaltogether eventually (hopefullynot before the release of PrecisePangolin, though).

Now it's time to move on to howI got there, one step at a time.

Step #1

We simply need to install'gnome-session-fallback' - which isalready in the Ubuntu repos:

sudo aptget install gnome

sessionfallback

Step #2

You'd quickly find that'indicator-applet', 'indicator-applet-complete', and 'indicator-applet-session' are lacking in "Add topanel". You'll really need either'indicator-applet' or 'indicator-applet-complete' to display someof the notifications such as mail,the hardware sensors and/orsystem monitor indicators, and theupdate-notifier. (I personally onlyuse 'indicator-applet', but we allhave individual preferences). So weneed to install Jason Conti's PPA(https://launchpad.net/~jconti/+archive/gnome3), and our firstadditional packages:

sudo addaptrepository

ppa:jconti/gnome3

sudo aptget update

sudo aptget install

indicatorapplet indicator

appletcomplete indicator

appletsession

When that is complete, it's timeto take your first look at the new"classic" DE by simply logging out,then clicking on the "gear" to theright of your user name on thelogin screen, selecting Classic (Noeffects), entering your password,and logging back in. You'llhopefully see this:

Now, before continuing, pleaseunderstand that all of theseadditional steps are optional. Notwo people want the exact samelook, feel, or function out of a DE!This is just what I wanted. Pick and

https://launchpad.net/~jconti/+archive/gnome3


choose to suit your own desires.

Step #3

I quickly realized that the purplebackground of the terminal waskilling my eyes, so, in terminal, Iclicked Edit > Profile Preferences >Colors, and unticked the "Usecolors from system theme" box.Then, in the same window, I clickedon the color block next to"Background color", and used theeyedropper to set the backgroundto white. Ahhhh, much easier onthe eyes.

Step #4

I found the screen lock thingvery annoying, I live alone anddon't like having to enter mypassword every time the screen-"blanker" activates. So you can justgo to System Tools > SystemSettings > Screen, and select Lock =Off. (I call it a screen-"blanker",mostly as a joke, because it hardlyresembles a screensaver any more).

Step #5

Even after setting Lock to Off, Ifound it annoying to have the

screen-"blanker" activate whiletrying to watch videos or such. InGnome 2, I used to be able to use'gnome-inhibit-applet', but it's notavailable in Gnome 3. No worries, Ifound a very good replacement,Caffeine:

https://launchpad.net/~caffeine-developers/+archive/ppa

In my original screenshot, thecaffeine applet shows up next tothe indicator-applet. I find it to be asweet replacement for the old'gnome-inhibit-applet'. Onceinstalled and set up, it allows youto "inhibit" the screen-"blanking", Ithink a picture is worth a thousandwords - so here:

Should you choose to install ityou can set up Caffeine by going toOther > Caffeine preferences.Installation is easy:


ppa:caffeinedevelopers/ppa

sudo aptget update

sudo aptget install caffeine

Note: This works equally well inUnity.

Step #6

In Unity, the update-notifications now show up in theLauncher, but, without theLauncher, we now get nopersistent update notifications.Still, no worries, I got it to show upin either 'indicator-applet' or'indicator-applet-complete' ingnome-panel by running thecommand:

gsettings set

com.ubuntu.updatenotifier

autolaunch false

You can revert that by running:

gsettings set

com.ubuntu.updatenotifier

autolaunch true

Step #7

I really liked using either'gnome-sensors-applet' or'computertemp' to display systemtemps in the panel, but againthey're not available with Gnome 3.Again no worries, HardwareSensors Indicator comes to therescue:

https://launchpad.net/~alexmurray/+archive/indicator-sensors

More about that here:http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=11492701&postcount=4.

To install, just run these threecommands:


ppa:alexmurray/indicator

sensors

sudo aptget update

sudo aptget install

indicatorsensors

It then shows up in SystemTools > Hardware SensorsIndicator. After launching it thefirst time, you must click on thenew "applet" which just says "Noactive sensors", and click on

HOWTO - MAKE 11.10 LOOK 'CLASSIC'

https://launchpad.net/~caffeine-developers/+archive/ppa

https://launchpad.net/~alexmurray/+archive/indicator-sensors

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=11492701&postcount=4


Preferences. From there you canselect which sensors to display, andother options.

Step #8

It's also sometimes nice todisplay CPU and memory usage inthe panel, so here's SystemMonitor Indicator:https://launchpad.net/indicator-sysmonitor

More about it here:http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=11473552&postcount=208.

To install just run these threecommands:


ppa:alexeftimie/ppa

sudo aptget update

sudo aptget install

indicatorsysmonitor

It then shows up in Accessories> System monitor indicator. Do notconfuse it with System Monitor inSystem Tools. I think setting it up isalmost self explanatory.

Step #9

I found the overlay-scrollbars tobe inconsistent and annoying in theclassic DE, so I removed them, butthat was totally a matter ofpreference, and this is one of thosesteps that really seems tosomewhat break Unity! Should youwant to remove them, run:

sudo aptget purge

liboverlayscrollbar0.20

liboverlayscrollbar30.20

overlayscrollbar

Note: You'll likely have to rebootfor that change to fully take effect.

Step #10

At this point I decided thewindow-management buttonsreally needed to be back on theright so I ran:

gconftool2 set

"/apps/metacity/general/butto

n_layout" type string

":minimize,maximize,close"

Note: to restore the defaultsrun:

gconftool2 set

"/apps/metacity/general/butto

n_layout" type string

"close,minimize,maximize:"

Note: This step (#10) can alsobe performed using Ubuntu Tweak.

Step #11

At this point, I'm fairly happy,but the scrollbar color is hard onmy eyes. It's like trying todifferentiate between two shadesof white. I'd really prefer havingthe scrollbars match the dark graypanel or window title-bar with awhite background, but I haven'tbeen able to figure that out yet.The best alternative I've found sofar is changing the metacity andgtk themes this way:


ppa:webupd8team/themes

sudo aptget update

sudo aptget install shiki

colorsmetacitytheme

zukitwodarkgtktheme

gconftool2 s type string

/apps/metacity/general/theme

ShikiColorsMetacity

gsettings set

org.gnome.desktop.interface

gtktheme ZukitwoDark

I found that fairly pleasing tomy eyes (it also replaced thedrastic orange with a nice grayish-

blue, and I like the "retro" look ofthe window management buttons),but if you should decide to revertto the default Ambiance themesjust run:

gconftool2 s type string

/apps/metacity/general/theme

Ambiance

gsettings set


gtktheme Ambiance

Note: Both Ubuntu Tweak and'gnome-tweak-tool' can be used forapplying themes, but NOTinstalling themes.

I'm very open to suggestionsabout theming - this is simply thebest combo I've come up with sofar.

Step #12

I also dislike the missing menuand button icons, so I run:

gsettings set


menushaveicons true

gsettings set


buttonshaveicons true

Note: This step (#12) can also

HOWTO - MAKE 11.10 LOOK 'CLASSIC'

https://launchpad.net/indicator-sysmonitor

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=11473552&postcount=208


HOWTO - MAKE 11.10 LOOK 'CLASSIC'be performed using Ubuntu Tweak.

Step #13

This one is the hardest for me toexplain. By default the Oneiricdesktop is set to NOT display anyicons, but it's possible for thedesktop to display any combinationof these icons/"actors":

Computer

(computericonvisible)

Home

(homeiconvisible)

Network

(networkiconvisible)

Trash

(trashiconvisible)

Mounted volumes

(volumesvisible)

But, to do so, you must first setthe "stage" by running:

gsettings set

org.gnome.desktop.background

showdesktopicons true

But that only sets the stage forthe actors, now you must decidewhich actors you want on thestage. You're now the director.

After running that command,

either reboot, or log out and logback in. When you get back to ablank DE background, decide whatyou want displayed. (Hint, the"true" or "false" at the end of thesecommands is the key):

To show the Computer icon run:gsettings set

org.gnome.nautilus.desktop

computericonvisible true

To hide the Computer icon run:gsettings set


computericonvisible false

To show the Home icon run:gsettings set


homeiconvisible true

To hide the Home icon run:gsettings set


homeiconvisible false

To show the Network icon run:gsettings set


networkiconvisible true

To hide the Network icon run:gsettings set


networkiconvisible false

To show the Trash icon run:gsettings set


trashiconvisible true

To hide the Trash icon run:gsettings set


trashiconvisible false

To show Mounted Volumes run:gsettings set


volumesvisible true

To hide Mounted Volumes run:gsettings set


volumesvisible false

Note: This step can also beperformed using either UbuntuTweak or 'gnome-tweak-tool'.

Step #14

You may or may not find thatyou need to disable the Firefoxand/or Thunderbird global menuadd-ons. It seems to depend on thepanel configuration, but I'm notquite sure. To do so in Firefox, justgo to Tools > Add-ons > GlobalMenu Bar integration, and selectDisable. You'll then be promptedto restart Firefox. I don't useThunderbird, so I can't be sure ofthe specific procedure with it, butI'd think it's similar.

That's it! I hope others willshare their favorite Oneiric classictips and tricks. Maybe someonecan even share how they got classicto run with Compiz since that's notmy thing.


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Elmer Perry LLiibbrreeOOffffiiccee -- PPaarrtt 1100

In part 8 of this series, webegan our work in Calc, andcreated and formatted anincome section for a budget

worksheet. Last month we beganour discussion of functions andformulas. In this part, we willcontinue working on our budgetworksheet, and use formulas andfunctions to do calculations in it.

Setting Up the AssetsSection

If you recall, we had set up asection that contained all of ourincome items in columns A and B.We will begin our Assets section incell D1. Move to that cell and enter“Assets” in it. Select cells D1-G1,and merge and center the cells(Format > Merge Cells > Merge and

Center Cells). In cell D2, enter“Type”. Merge and center this cellwith E2. Enter “Beginning” and“Ending” in cells F2 and G2respectively. In cell D3, enter“Period Income Total,” and merge itwith cell E3 (Format > Merge Cells> Merge Cells). In rows D4-D9,enter the following text in order:Checking Balance, Savings Transfer,Total Expendable, Savings Balance,Retirement Balance, Gross Assets.After entering the text in the cells,go back and merge these cells withtheir adjacent cell in column E (i.e.merge D4 with E4, D5 with E5...).

Initial Calculations forAsset Section

In cell F1, we will place our firstcalculation using the SUM()function. For this cell we need tototal the numbers of column B inour Income section. Enter thisformula in cell F3:

=SUM(B3:B6)

This formula uses the SUM()function to total the numbersentered in cells B3, B4, B5, and B6.

If your Income section containsmore or less income items, adjustthe cell reference given to theSUM() function. If you pull out acalculator and add up the numbers,you will find you get the samenumber as the total calculated byLibreOffice Calc.

In cells F4 and F5, enteramounts for the Checking Balanceand Savings Transfer. In cell F6, wewill need to sum the three amountsabove for the Total Expendableitem, but this time, we will use adifferent method. Select cell F6

and click on the sum button(shown left) in the formulatoolbar. You will notice that

LibreOffice automatically finds thethree amounts above and creates aSUM() function formula with therange inside. Press Enter to acceptthe range.

Enter amounts for the SavingsBalance and Retirement Balance incells F7 and F8. Select cell F9, andclick the sum button in the formulatoolbar. Notice that, once again,Calc has selected the two numbersabove it, but for an accurate totalof the Gross Assets, we need toinclude the Total Expendableamount. Left click and drag toselect the three cells. You shouldnow see the corrected range in theSUM() function. Press Enter toaccept.

Setting Up theExpenses Section

We will come back to the Assetssection to do some morecalculations once we get theExpenses section set up. In cellA11, enter “Expenses”. Merge and


HOWTO - LIBREOFFICE PART 9center the cells A11-G11. In cellA12-E12, enter the following textin the cells: Type, Due, Amt Due,Amt Pay, and Notes. Merge andcenter the cells E12-G12. Thisbecomes our header row for thissection.

In cell A13, enter “Savings”, andin cell A14 enter “Retirement”.These two expenses will representdeposits into these two accounts,and we will use them in our finalcalculations in the Assets section.Beginning with cell A15, and goingdown the A column, enter otherexpenses like Food, Fuel,Mortgage, Phone, etc. In columns Band C, enter due dates and dueamounts for all the items youentered in the Expenses section.Select a few of the items and putpayment amounts in the D column.Merge the E, F, and G rows for eachof the items.

Formulas in theExpenses Section

In the cell below the last item(column A), enter “TotalExpenses:”, and merge it withcolumn B on that row. Select thecell in column C for that row. Clickthe sum button in the formula

toolbar. Calc should select all theamounts in the Amt Due column.Press Enter. In the D column of thesame row, type “Total Payments”and merge it with column E on thesame row. Select column F of thesame row and click the sum buttonon the formula toolbar. This timeCalc jumps all the way up to thelast amount in our Assets section,but this is not what we want. Thishappens because this is the firstnumber Calc found in the column.Select the numbers in the Amt Paycolumn of the section to changethe range. Press Enter.

Final Calculations forthe Asset Section

Going back to the Assetssection, we will use some of thenumbers in the Expenses section todo a few more calculations. Selectcell G6. This is the total for ourexpendable income after allpayments have been made. Enterthe formula:

=F6F##

where ## is the row number wherethe total payments is calculated.

For the ending balance on our

savings account, we need to takethe beginning total, add thedeposit, and subtract the transfer.If you put the Savings as your firstitem in the Expenses section, theformula will look like this:

=F7+D13F5

For the Retirement endingbalance, we just need to add thedeposit. If you added Retirementas the second item in the Expensessection, the formula will be:

=F8+D14

Finally, we will make the finaladjustment to the Gross Assets bysummingthe threenumbersin the Gcolumn.Select G9,and clickthe sumbutton intheformulatoolbar.Calcshouldselect thethreenumbers

we need. Press Enter.

Our budget spreadsheet is nowcomplete, but it doesn't look verypretty. Next time, we will formatour spreadsheet using styles.

Elmer Perry's history of working, andprogramming, computers involves anApple IIE, adding some Amiga, agenerous helping of DOS andWindows, a dash of Unix, and blendwell with Linux and Ubuntu.


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Allan J. Smithie BBaacckkuupp SSttrraatteeggyy -- PPaarrtt 44 :: SSppiiddeerrOOaakk

In previous installments, we'vetalked about the features wewant in a Cloud Back-upservice; this time we're going

to try SpiderOak to see how itmeasures up. According to themarketing puff onwww.spideroak.com:

"SpiderOakprovides an easy, secure,

andconsolidatedfree online backup,

sync, sharing, access andstorage

solution forWindows, MacOSX, and

Linux(Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora &

openSUSE)"

Remember this is a hostedservice with its own client software

- built around a particular securityand cross-platform model. Youdon't get a choice of storagelocations or hosts.

You can try SpiderOak yourselfon the SpiderOak 2GB Free plan,which offers 2GB of on-line storagefree for life. This is probablyenough to trial the service, andmaybe store some essentials suchas your unfinished novel and In-box. The next step is a SpiderOakPlus Account that goes from 100GBup to whatever you can afford. Theprice is $10 per month per 100GBincrement, or pay yearly and getthe 100GB increment for $100. Beaware that tipping over 100.1GB isstill the whole $20 a month. I won'taddress performance other than tosay that SpiderOak software andremote storage runs respectablyup and down a domesticbroadband connection for bothbackup and restore. That said, I amnot using it to backup an entirehard drive, only selected folders.

Software

You can install the SpiderOak

client on as manycomputers as youlike and you can becompletely cross-platform. Settingthe password forencryption is builtinto the installer,which is a rapid,guided process.

SpiderOaktakes data securityvery seriously;data is encryptedand transmittedover a secureconnection, alayered approach using acombination of 2048-byte RSA and256-bit AES which encrypts the fileand folder names, so evenSpiderOak employees can't tellwhat you have backed up. Ofcourse, if you forget yourpassword, nobody can access yourdata. A quirk of SpiderOak'ssecurity is that any files you backupon one machine are visible on anyother machine that uses the sameaccount (with the same SpiderOakaccount password). Perhaps

consider one SpiderOak accountfor your personal files, withanother account for your familycomputers, thus avoiding anyembarrassment.

Decide for yourself whether theSpiderOak software looksfashionably 'retro' or just a bitclunky. There is a lot going on -with tabs and, in effect, sub-tabsgrouping functions together.

The Status tab provides plentyof information regarding

http://www.spideroak.com


HOWTO - BACKUP STRATEGY - PART 4connection, backups, sync andshares, and your current queue.The Back Up tab is just a place foryou to specify what files you wouldlike to include in a backup. Eachcategory on the selection listcorresponds to a folder on yourcomputer - even 'Desktop'. Thebottom bar gauges how much ofyour cloud storage allocation yourselection will occupy, color-codedby folder, so you can see whattakes most space.

The View tab is the heart ofdefining what is selected for back-up down to the file level, alongwith the version history.

The Schedule tab provides asimple one-stop control for Backup

Sync and Share - either to afrequency or to a specific day andhour.

Version Master

SpiderOak understands versioncontrol. Your first backup set is afull set; for subsequent backups ofthe same defined set, only theincremental changes of the backupset are transmitted, so it won'tmassively compromise yourstorage limit to hold severalversions of files. If you do breachyour limit, you can manually deleteold versions. SpiderOak providesversion history with no time limit,so if you alter or delete a file youcan 'roll back' to an earlier version,

even after months or years.However, don't confuse backupwith file-sharing. SpiderOak is likemost of the syncing services in thatchanges are synchronized instantlyand in real-time, so that anyaccidental change you make whileon-line will automatically sync tothe server.

Merge andSync

The merge functionis where SpiderOakscores for ease of useand utility.

Merge does a one-time merge of all thefiles in any folders on

your SpiderOak network. Youchoose the source folders,followed by a destination folderinto which the software shouldmerge them. SpiderOak will workout what's the most recent data ofthe two sources, and output a listfor your review before it carriesout the merge. This is nothingradically original so much as aneffective packaging of what weused to call diff-scripts with Cloudcommunications, all wrapped in aneffective user interface.


Allan J. Smithie is a journalist andcommentator based in Dubai. Hisblog, 'No Expert,' is at:http://allanjsmithie.wordpress.com

HOWTO - BACKUP STRATEGY - PART 4

The Sync page is where you setwhich folders remain syncedbetween your computers, whereany number of tools across PC,Mac, and mobile carry out this kindof operation reliably these days; itjust happens that SpiderOak is thatbit prettier

Share

It's a much-abused word, thesedays; 'share'. Not only doesSpiderOak run across multiplecomputers, its public sharingservice is implemented though"Share Rooms". These are virtualfolders which are password-protected, and through which youcan share your data with anyoneyou like. A change made to adefined synchronization set on anycomputer running SpiderOakautomatically triggers thosechanges to be published to theshare room. Access to theShareRoom is in one of two ways:

• by entering your ShareID andunique RoomKey on the SpiderOakhomepage using the 'Share Login',or• by emailing out the Shareroomlink to guests.

SpiderOak creates an on-linephoto album when sharing photos.Like Dropbox's public links, it worksfine for posting a few selectedimages, but it's no substitute forthe full range of gallery tools inservices like Picasa andPhotobucket.

As well as the dedicated clientsfor Linux, Mac, Windows, andAndroid, there's a browser-basedSpiderOak web-application. Youcan't upload files from the browser,but you can download any file orwhole folder as a zip file, which issaved in your Downloads folder,with a date-time stamp appendedto the file-name, giving you much-needed version controlinformation.

Conclusion

Place your bets on whetherSpiderOak will be around as anindependent service under itscurrent name in a few months. It's

an effective service, with a feature-rich client, from a small company -just the thing that biggercompanies buy up. Balancingfeatures against simplicity, it doescater for most things you need in aCloud back-up.

Have a look at the questionairefor next month's 'I Think' for achance to win one of five 100GBSpiderOak storage packs!

http://allanjsmithie.wordpress.com


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Art Shreckengost CCrreeaattee aa PPeerrssiisstteenntt UUSSBB SSttiicckk

Bootable flash drives(often produced byUNetbootin) offer usersthe option of having a

portable operating system (OS).However, session changes cannotbe saved, nor can the OS ever beupdated. This has provedproblematic, especially in light ofrecent Ubuntu updates for securitypatches.

An option is to use a persistentflash drive, i.e. a drive designed toaccept changes that are saved forfuture use. Unfortunately,UNetbootin does not offerpersistence yet.

Pendrivelinux.com(www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/) offersUniversal USB Installer (hereafterreferred to as Installer), and it’sdesigned to create persistent Linuxdrives that not only boot to livemode but also save updates andother changes to a flash drive.

This includes drivers, codecs,updates, security patches,programs, music files, and

documents. Anything changedduring a session is saved back tothe flash drive - unless you indicateotherwise (an option to ignorechanges is offered).

Installer is unique in that itdoesn’t need installation butinstead works off the desktop icon(it’s just 900KB), but it has one flawin being a Windows-only program.

The real curiosity is that it doesload and work via Wine, butInstaller cannot recognize flashdrives unless they are listed by theWindows letter system, somethingUbuntu (and Linux in general) doesnot use. Take my word and don’tbother using Installer with Wine -since the end result is nothing butdisappointment.

Bummer. Guess I can’t complainsince it’s a free program, but,unless you have XP or 7 running ina VM or dual boot, you’d betterplan on borrowing time off afriend’s PC.

Fire up the program and you’llget a dialog pop-up that doesn’t

look like much until you tick thebox to open what reads like a Linuxfamily tree. Best as I can figure,roughly 70 versions are listed here- ranging from sub-200MB guppiesto 4GB monsters.

Ubuntu is heavily recognizedwith 9.x to 11.10 versions - alongwith similar offerings for Xubuntu,Lubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu,Remix, Rescue Remix, and Server.Rounding out these mainlyCanonical choices you’ll also seeMythbuntu, Linux Mint (4 varieties),BackTrack (3 choices), or Debian (4editions).

Installer goes beyond Ubuntu,though, and offers choices rangefrom operating systems torecovery discs, penetration testers,and anti-virus programs (some forWindows, too).

In the drop down list, you’ll alsofind Acronis Rescue, ArchBang,ArchLinux, ArtistX, AVG Antivirus,Avira, BitDefender, Blackbuntu,CentOS, Clonezilla Maverick,CrunchBang, Dbau, DSL, DrWeb,Dynebolic, EasyPeasy, EEEbuntu,

Feather Linux, Fedora, Finnix,FreeDOS, Gentoo, gOS, GParted,Jolicloud (now JoliOS), Hiren’sBoot CD, Kaperksy Rescue Disk,Knoppix, Linux for Kids, Macbuntu,Mandriva, MCNLive, Panda Safe,Parted Magic, PCLinuxOS,Peppermint Linux OS, Ping, Pinguy,PloP, Puppy Linux (4 versions),Redo Backup, Rin, RIP Linux, Runt,Sabayon, Simply Mepis, SLAX,SLiTaz, T(A)ils, TinyCore, UltimateBoot CD, Ultimate Edition Lite,Linux XP Lite, Wifiway, xPUD,XBMC, YlmF, and Zenwalk.

Forgive me if I missed a coupleor misspelled others, but it’sapparent nearly every Linux anddesktop variation has arepresentative in this groupsomewhere.

Can’t find your favorite? Anoption at the bottom allows forthose not listed, and I understandsome techies have managed to useInstaller to create bootableWindows XP versions, although I’msure Microsoft’s attorneys arereally interested in thatdevelopment.

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/


HOWTO - CREATE A PERSISTENT USB STICK

Since this is an Ubuntu-basedpublication, I’ll stick with thosevariations.

Lesson number one – don’teven think of using that 1GB flashdrive you’ve had hanging around inthe desk. If base Ubuntu is pushing800MB, that leaves no more than200MB for storage - and that’s notmuch. And if you plan on using oneof the big boys like ArtistX orUltimate Edition, you can plan onusing a much larger flash drivesince they start at 3GB.

Consider 2GB the minimum forbase Ubuntu, but don’t go over8GB. Installer limits persistencespace to 4GB, so even the largestOS plus persistence won’t exceed8GB.

Size is not the onlyconsideration, though. Users thatcomputer hop are best served byi386 32-bit versions. 64-bitvarieties limit you to thatprocessor, while a 32-bit OS willwork on just about any computerout there.

Lesson number two – someonline tutorials are out-of-date. A

new version of Installer was issuedin early April, 2011, so much of theinformation online from beforethat month is now outdated.

For example, some of thesesources state CD/DVD or flashcard-based .iso images can be used byInstaller as the source code;however, I could never get these towork. Don’t know if it’s a programtick, or something changed withthe newest version, but Installerwould not recognize anything forme unless it was downloaded bythe program.

That isn’t necessarily bad at all.Installer reaches out to the OS ofchoice website and drags the .isoimage back for you. Let’s berealistic and admit not all websitesare created equal, and somedevelopers put more flash in theirsites than they do their OS. It maytake a little while but it beatsplaying hide-and-go-seek with aburied OS.

Now that you’ve seen whatInstaller looks like, it’s time to goclose up and personal with what itcan do. There are 4 progressivesteps, i.e. each step cannot beaccessed until the previous one is

completed successfully.

You will see:

Step 1: Linux distributionselection. Pick the version desiredfrom the massive listing Imentioned earlier. Installer willaccess the Internet if the “LocaleISO Selected” box is not ticked.Opting for an OS not listed meansyou’ll have to point Installer to theURL, but, in any case, expect a waitas the OS is downloaded.

Step 2: Here Installer locatesthe .iso image. By default, it pointsto what it just downloaded. If not,there is a browse button to help italong.

Step 3: Flash drive (final

destination) selection. It defaultsto the inserted flash drive. FAT32 isused, and, if you don’t know howyour drive is set, count on using“Check this box if you want toformat the Drive”.

Make sure Installer picks yourintended drive letter! Having thewrong selection can and will deleteeverything on that drive!

Step 4: Persistence allocation.This doesn’t appear until step 3 iscompleted. The newest Installerversion from April 2011 picks theremaining flash drive space, up to4GB.

Earlier versions require users topick persistence space, and thiscaused confusion since persistence


is independent of OS size. Usershad to know OS size along withdrive size to determinepersistence, and choosing thewrong figure could create a fatalerror.

The only problem with thissystem is that it lacks feedback.You have to assume how much ofthe flash drive is reserved forpersistence, and there is no way oftelling until after the first boot. Iused an 8GB flash drive that neverpresented a problem since Installeralways took 4GB irrespective of OSsize.

Lesson number three – nocurrent Ubuntu based OS exceeds4GB, far as I know. That means an8GB flash drive is safe for any OS inthis category since the fattestversion plus 4GB persistence willnot exceed flash drive capacity.

Once everything is set, clickCreate, and take a break. You won’thave to wait more than 5 to 15minutes before seeing thesuccessful completion notification.

Testing is merely a matter ofresetting the BIOS on a computerto boot from the persistent drive. If

all goes well, the Ubuntu menushould appear with the first optionbeing “Run Ubuntu from this USB”.

Some reviewers havecomplained that boot times aresluggish but this isn’t totally true.The first boot requires users toinput keyboard style, language,time zone, etc, but once thatinformation is saved, future boottimes are within standard live-mode parameters (base Ubuntu10.10 came up within 1 minute).

Keep in mind you are operatingfrom a flash drive, so lag time isinevitable as programs areaccessed, but flash drives are stillquicker than comparable DVDversions.

Another thing to remember isthat changes will result in garbagefile accumulation. Dead kernels andupdate files will still hang around,so plan on using Computer Janitoror Ubuntu Tweak to get rid ofthose - or your drive will fill upquicker than you realize.

This is where Disk UsageAnalyzer comes into play. Be sureto check it often since there is nofeedback on remaining drive space,

and you don’t want to find out toolate that all your effort cannot besaved because insufficient spaceexists. If you lack that program,right click the desktop icon or file,and get remaining spaceinformation.

Once the command to shutdown is given, users are asked tosave or ignore changes made, andthe computer shuts down just like alive mode CD/DVD would.

Now for the question that I’msure a few are itching to ask. Is fullinstallation still an option, and willchanges made to the original drivetransfer?

The “Install Ubuntu x.xx” icon ison the desktop, and everythingyou’ve added, deleted. orotherwise changed in pastsessions, will still be there just asyou left it earlier. Full installation isthe same as using a live-modeCD/DVD.

No program is faultless, butcomputer hoppers will have torealize that no two computers arethe same. Using the drive onvarious units means parametershave to be changed for each. For

example, wireless codes are notthe same, but I did discover thatInstaller can save multiple codecs,drivers, and even wifi passwords,for various computers, and willadjust itself as it recognizes them.

Ah, but there is anotherquestion some have asked. CanInstaller create a multi-bootpersistent flash drive?

No, it’s a one-OS program, butits cousin, Yumi (Your UniversalMultiboot Installer) will. It’soffered on the same website, but Ican’t comment on it yet – that’s mynext experiment (although myinitial peek shows it to be Installerwith the added capability ofcreating multiple partitions on oneflash drive).

Using a 5-diamond ratingsystem, I’d give Installer 4 - basedupon its ease of use, extensive OSlisting, program design, and endresults. I dropped it a point forbeing a Windows only program,and for having a flash driverecognition system that, althoughbetter than originally designed,still doesn’t tell users how muchstorage space they have until afterthe initial boot.

HOWTO - CREATE A PERSISTENT USB STICK


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Chris Rheinherren CCoonnnneecctt TToo IIRRCC

IRC stands for Internet RelayChat. It's the oldest, largest,and most well-establishedtext-based chat system on the

Internet. It’s also quite popular,and used world-wide. Only webbrowsing and email are used morethan IRC. At any given time, thereare nearly 800,000 users accessingthe various IRC networks.

In order to connect to IRC, youneed an IRC client. Just like youneed a web browser to surf theweb, it serves the same purpose: aprogram that allows you to accessthe service. There are a number ofdifferent options available, thereare GUI based clients such as X-Chat, Konversation, and an IRCplug-in for Pidgin. Also there areterminal clients such as IRSSI andothers. X-Chat and Pidgin areprimarily used on GNOME andUnity, while Konversation is part ofthe KDE desktop environment. Butfeel free to use whichever you feelmore comfortable with. I use theterminal IRSSI myself, and, fromtime to time, use the IRC functionbuilt into Pidgin. There are alsoweb-based clients.

When you run your IRC client forthe first time, the first thing to dois tell it what nickname you want touse. How you do it will depend onwhat client you choose.

In general, on IRC, you areallowed to use any nick you'd like -as long as no one else is using it atthe same time. However, onFreenode (and many othernetworks), it is possible to registeryour nick so that you are the onlyuser allowed to use it. To do this,type:

/msg nickserv register

<password> <email address>

For example: /msg nickservregister foo [email protected]

Then, every time you log in withthat nick, the first thing you shoulddo is type:

/msg nickserv identify

<password>

For example: /msg nickservidentify foo.

Registering your nickname isuseful for several reasons, here are

a few. Sometimes, due to certainconditions on the Internet, you getdisconnected from the server,reconnect, and find that your nickis still in use. In other words, yougot disconnected, but the serverhasn't found out yet and thinksyour old connection is still active. Ifyou haven't registered the nick,you'll have to wait for the oldconnection to die (which could takea while), but if you've registeredyour nick, you can take theinitiative and have it killed. To killoff a "ghost" like that, use theghost-kill command:

/msg nickserv ghost <nick>

<password>

with the ghost's nick and yourpassword in the appropriateplaces. This will cause NickServ toforce that connection to terminate,allowing you to change your nickback (with /nick) and go about yourbusiness.

Also the network where yournick is registered will keep thename reserved just for you oranyone who has the password. How

long it is kept reserved varies fromnetwork to network, however.

If you forget to identify for yournick, NickServ may change yournick. However, there is usually atime delay that prevents rapid nickchanges - just wait a few secondsto change your nick again.Remember that you will still haveto identify once you've changedthe nick, otherwise NickServ willgive you the boot again. To changeyour nick, use the /nick command.

Now you can connect to IRC.There are several different IRCnetworks, each with their quirks.The one I spend most of my timeon, and the one I have the mostexperience with, is theOtherWorlders network.OtherWorlders is a small networkprimarily aimed at the paper-and-pencil gamer community, so if youplay D&D and other RPGs, then itmay be something you shouldcheck out. Its connection address isirc.otherworlders.org

Additionally, there are the BIG 4networks of Undernet


HOWTO - CONNECT TO IRC(irc.undernet.org), Quakenet(irc.quakenet.org), Dalnet(irc.dal.net), and IRCNet(irc.ircnet.org). There is alsoFreenode (irc.freenode.org) whichis the home to many open sourceprojects and related chats. All ofthe official Ubuntu chats arelocated on Freenode, including thechat for Full Circle Magazine.

On IRC, chatrooms are calledChannels, and generally begin withthe # sign, such as#fullcirclemagazine. Since IRC isbased solely on text, all commandsare entered via the keyboard. Thefirst important command is join,this allows you to join a channel, orcreate a new one if it doesn’talready exist. In order for theserver to know that you haveissued a command instead ofwanting to send text to the currentwindow, all commands are prefixedwith a forward slash: /

So to join our#fullcirclemagazine chat onFreenode after we connect, thecommand is:

/join #fullcirclemagazine

Once in the channel, you can goahead and talk! Anything you type

in the channel is sent once you hitEnter, unless it is prefixed with theforward slash to indicate it is acommand being sent to the server.

If you start your message withthe word /me, it will broadcast yourmessage in the third person (this isused for emotes and actions): forexample, if I (nick = Bynw) type:

/me does jumping jacks

it will show up in the channel as:

* Bynw does jumping jacks

...and sometimes in a differentcolor depending on the client.(Note: be sure you write youractions in the third person, insteadof falling back on the first person,since it's supposed to be describingsomething you're doing as if theother people in the channel areseeing it. It's a common mistake towrite something like "/me goes outto get myself a drink", which wouldshow up in-channel in my case as "*Bynw goes out to get myself adrink", which sounds awkward)

To change your nickname, youuse the /nick command. The nextword after /nick becomes your newnick: e.g., if I want to show that I'll

be away from the computer for awhile, I'd type:

/nick Bynwafk

to change my nick to Bynw-afk(AFK stands for "Away FromKeyboard").

If you want to join anotherchannel, use /join. Put the channelname after /join, like this:

/join #fullcirclemagazine

If the channel doesn't exist yet,it will be created and you will be itsoperator.

If somebody is bothering you,most clients have an /ignorecommand. To prevent anymessages from a specific user fromshowing up in your client, type/ignore followed by the nick of theoffending party.

If you ever want to leave achannel, you use /part. Put thename of the channel after /part: toleave #fullcirclemagazine, you'dtype:

/part #fullcirclemagazine

If you want, you add a message

after the channel name, which willshow up as a "parting message".This doesn’t make you leave IRC ordisconnect from the server ornetwork, however, only the specificchannel. You can be in multiplechannels at the same time.

If you want to log off, you use/quit. You don't have to typeanything after /quit, but like /partyou can add a message if you like.

Finally, /help is implemented inmost clients as a way to access helppages. It also allows you to specifywhat you want help on by addingparameters to /help. For example,to get help on the /ignorecommand, you'd type:

/help ignore

In the list of users on thechannel, some are prefixed with an@, ~ or & and usually show up atthe top of the list. In other clients,these may show as different typesof icons. These are the channeloperators, commonly calledchanops or just ops. The ops runthe channel - they can kick peopleout, ban people from entering,change the channel's modes (howit behaves), and more. They'rethere to keep the channel running


HOWTO - CONNECT TO IRCsmoothly. Those that have the ~ infront of their names are higherranking channel ops, usually thechannel owners, while those withthe @ sign are channel hosts.

On some channels, you'll seesome users with a + sign in front oftheir nicks. This is called "voice",and it's really only meaningful onmoderated channels (channels withthe mode "m" set), where it meansthat they are allowed to speak. Onunmoderated channels, it's usuallyjust there for show, or to designatesome special status about the user.

Both users and channels havedifferent modes available. Theseare designated by different flagsgiven to a channel or nick. Most IRCnetworks now automatically set allusers on connect to +i which is the“invisible” mode. This prevents youfrom showing up in lists of all userson the network. So, to talk to you,somebody either has to join achannel you happen to be on oralready know your nick. If you havethis mode set, you are much lesslikely to get random messagesfrom people you don't know askingyou if you want to chat. You canturn it on by typing "/mode +i" andoff with "/mode -i". It's nice tohave.

Other user modes exist, butsome are reserved for admins andIRC operators (called IRCops, oropers, these folks help run thenetwork, but unlike the adminsthey don't have physical access tothe servers). You won't be able toset these on yourself, and they'rereally not that interesting toanyone who isn't running the showanyway.

When you're in a channel, yourclient shows a bunch of characterslike "+nrtu" in the title bar alongwith the name of the channel andthe topic. These are channelmodes, which give the channelspecial characteristics. They canonly be set by the ops

+i - invite-only. To enter thischannel, an op has to have invitedyou in with the /invite command.

+k - key. To enter this channel,you need to add a special passwordafter the channel name when usingthe /join command.

+l - limit. No more than a certainnumber of users are allowed intothe channel at a time. The numberitself appears after the list ofmodes.

+m - moderated channel. Onlyops and voices can speak, everyone

else is muted.+n - no outsider messages. Only

users in the channel can speak onit. Almost all channels have thismode set. Setting this mode is oneof the first things most people dowhen they form a channel.

+p - private. The channel doesshow up in a list of channels (the/list command) but the topiccannot be viewed from the list.

+r - registered. The channel hasbeen registered with ChanServ.(This can be set only by ChanServ,not normal users)

+s - secret. The channel doesn’tshow up in a list of channels (the/list command) or in the /WHOIS<nick> info, which lists thechannels a given user is in.

+t - Topics set by ops. When thisis set, only ops can set thechanneltopic. If it's not set, thenany user in the channel can set thetopic with the /topic command.Like +n, almost all channels havethis.

As well as these general modes,there are a few that affect specificusers. These don't show up in thelist of modes:

+o gives a user op status,+ v gives a user voice,+b bans a user (prevents them

from entering the channel or, if

they are in the channel, preventsthem from speaking).

ChanServ, along with its partnerNickServ (and others - dependingon the network) is a program thatruns on the network with specialprivileges. Its job is to maintainchannels that have been registeredwith it. It automatically gives ops tothe channel founder and to otherusers designated by the founder.

To get more info on theservices, type:

/msg nickserv help

/msg chanserv help

/msg <otherservname> help

As well as chatting on channels,it's possible to chat privately withindividual users. Most GUI basedclients do allow you to double-clickon a user's nick in the list of nameson a channel to open a newwindow for chatting with thatperson. You can also type:

/msg <nick> <message>

on any client. On most clients,each private chat usually gets itsown window.

Sometimes a bunch of users will


HOWTO - CONNECT TO IRCseem to all quit at once with thesame quit message. Whathappened is that their server haslost contact with your server. Thisis called a "netsplit", since it splitsthe IRC network into two pieces.The strange quit message isactually the addresses of the twoservers that lost contact.

If someone suddenly loosestheir connection to the server, thenthey may quit with the message of“connection reset by peer” … orsystem generated quit messagessuch as “ping timeout”, thishappens, again, if your connectiondies and the server issues a ping toyour connection to see if it is stillactive and doesn’t get a reply back.

Installing the variouschat clients for IRC.

All of them are available inUbuntu's repositories. Just use theUbuntu Software Center, terminalapt-get, or other packagemanagement software of yourchoice, in order to install X-Chat,Konversation, IRSSI, or Pidgin andits IRC addons.

With Pidgin, it also best toinstall the IRC extras plugins - IRC

helper and IRC more at the veryleast. For Pidgin, go to Accounts >Add and choose IRC. On the Basictab, choose your username, that isyour Nick on IRC. For server, put inirc.freenode.org (to get toFreenode, or whatever networkyou want to connect to is fine).There are other options on theAdvanced tab, but we can look atthose another time. And go aheadand click Add. You willautomatically be connected toFreenode, but will be outside of achannel at this point. If you get anykind of a message about NickServasking for your password and youhaven't registered yet, then youwill need to choose another nickwith the /nick command.

You can use the Join a Chatoption under Buddies in Pidgin tojoin the #fullcirclemagazinechannel. From here you can chataway with all of us.

For IRSSI, it’s a bit morecomplicated, since there is no GUIand everything is done via theterminal. But still, you start theapplication, connect to a server ofyour choice, then join a channel soyou can chat away. There are morecomplexities and you should readits documentation for them.

A few other features of IRC are:CTCP (client to client protocol)

isn’t used much. But it’s good totest for lag on a connection using/ctcp ping nick or #channel andthere are a few other commandsthat may be available dependingon the client you use. Check outyour client’s help file for those.

It's possible to trade files overIRC using a feature called DCC(which stands for Direct ClientConnection). Most GUI basedclients have menus and otheroptions to make this task easier.DCC is fairly convenient andtrustworthy for moderately-sizedfiles like text, graphics, or shortsounds. For longer files like movies,you'll want to use another meansof transmission. Remember this isIRC … Internet Relay Chat - not filetransfer.

You can also use DCC to chat.The main difference betweenregular private chat and DCC chatis that DCC chat, once started, isindependent of the IRC networkitself - even if the entire IRCnetwork crashes, or one or both ofthe people chatting disconnectfrom the server, the chat will beunaffected.

DCC works by trading IPaddresses, then creating a directconnection between the twocomputers that bypasses IRCcompletely.

I hope to start monthly IRC chatssometime in early 2012. I’ll senda message to those of you who’vesubscribed via the FCM site, andvia Facebook and Google+. Feelfree to experiment with your IRCclient using the FCM chat room. Ihope to see you there! - Ed


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Ronnie Tucker WWrriittee FFoorr FFuullll CCiirrccllee MMaaggaazziinnee

Guidelines

The single rule for anarticle is that it mustsomehow be linked toUbuntu or one of the

many derivatives of Ubuntu(Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, etc).

Write your article in whicheversoftware you choose. I wouldrecommend OpenOffice, butPLEASE SPELL AND GRAMMARCHECK IT!

Writing

In your article, please indicatewhere you would like a particularimage to be placed. Please do notembed images into your OpenOffice document.

Images

Images should be JPG with lowcompression.

Regarding image sizes: if indoubt, send a full size screengraband we will crop the image.

If you are writing a review,please follow the guidelines shownhere.

For a more detailed list of thestyle rules and common pitfallsplease refer to:https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuMagazine/Style - in short: US spelling,no l33t speak and no smilies.

When you are ready to submityour article please email it to:[email protected]

If you can't write articles, buthang out in Ubuntu Forums, sendus interesting forum threads thatwe could print.

Non-English Writers

If your native language is notEnglish, don't worry. Write yourarticle, and one of theproofreaders will read it for youand correct any grammatical orspelling errors. Not only are youhelping the magazine and thecommunity, but we'll help you withyour English!

REVIEWS

Games/ApplicationsWhen reviewing games/applications please state clearly:

• title of the game• who makes the game• is it free, or a paid download?• where to get it from (give download/homepage URL)• is it Linux native, or did you use Wine?• your marks out of five• a summary with positive and negative points

HardwareWhen reviewing hardware please state clearly:

• make and model of the hardware• what category would you put this hardware into?• any glitches that you may have had while using the hardware?• easy to get the hardware working in Linux?• did you have to use Windows drivers?• marks out of five• a summary with positive and negative points

You don't need to be an expert to write anarticle - write about the games, applicationsand hardware that you use every day.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuMagazine/Style

[email protected]


https://spideroak.com



https://spideroak.com/mobile



LLIINNUUXX LLAABBWritten by Charles McColm XXBBMMCC ((XXbbooxx MMeeddiiaa CCeennttrree))

Every year, around thistime, my wife and I arenormally invited to a fewparties. This year we

decided we wanted to stay home -and host a few parties. We wantedan all-in-one entertainmentsolution that we could quicklyswitch between music, movies forthe children (or children in us), andpictures. A number of pre-packaged multimedia solutionsexist out there, but we wanted theflexibility of open-source. Wedecided to create our own XBMC -XBMC Media Center (formerlyknown as XBox Media Center)

system.

XBMC will run on mosthardware that runs Ubuntu 10.04or later. If you want to decode highdefinition video, a dual-coreprocessor is stronglyrecommended. Since we'redecoding video, a good video cardis also recommended. Those thingssaid, my wife and I opted for theportability and elegance of a DellInspiron Mini 1012 netbook over ahigh-powered but clunky lookingPC sitting beside our television. I'dmentioned the project to a friendwhose company just bought abunch of HP computers that came

complete with HP media centerinfrared remote controls and USBinfrared receivers. In the past,we've connected a wirelesskeyboard to our media systems,but a remote control is muchfriendlier and takes up a lot lessspace.

We ran XBMC for some time onUbuntu 11.04, but arrived at apoint where it was crashing daily.This may have been due to the Intelvideo chip inside our Mini, whichhas been causing grief for a lot ofpeople lately. One solution is touse VESA drivers, but it's not reallya solution for a media center, so webacked up and installed Ubuntu10.04 LTS and haven't had aproblem since.

Installing XBMC is relativelyeasy on Ubuntu 10.04 or later. In aterminal, type the following 5commands:

sudo aptget install python

softwareproperties pkg

config


ppa:teamxbmc

sudo aptget update

sudo aptget install xbmc

xbmcstandalone

sudo aptget update

The second command adds thePPA (repository) for XBMC on mostversions of Ubuntu. Unfortunately,it seems the team has yet to makean Oneiric branch, so, if you'reusing Ubuntu 11.10, try adding thefollowing repository:

sudo aptaddrepository

ppa:nathan

renniewaldock/xbmcstable

Again, we find XBMC on 11.10unstable, but that doesn't meanyou'll have the same experience ifyou're using an NVidia or ATI videocard. Nvidia card owners shouldadd VDPAU hardware acceleration:

sudo aptget install

libvdpau1 nvidia185libvdpau

The last step is adding supportfor remote controls. While XBMCworked out of box with our HPremote control, I found some ofthe buttons were not working


LINUX LAB - XBMCcorrectly, so I installed lirc support:

sudo aptget install lirc

On the remote selection screen,I chose the Windows Media CenterTransceivers/Remotes (all). Thisselection was all we needed to doto get most of the other buttonson the remote working perfectly.

Now, it's time to run XBMC forthe first time, and add your media.The XBMC main menu is dividedinto 6 menu options: weather,pictures, music, videos, programs,and system. Adding media to XBMCis just a matter of adding the mediato the right area. For each ofpictures, music, and videos,navigate to the appropriate menuoption and press ok/select on yourremote. Without any media addedyou'll see a couple of options - Add-ons and Add source. Select Addsource, then browse to the areawhere your media is stored, give ita name, and click OK to accept thechoice. You can have multiplesources for the same media. Todifferentiate sources, simply givethe source a different name. Forexample, you might have picturesfrom last Christmas and an officeparty (a good mix with the rightmusic).

Once you have all your mediaimported, the party can reallybegin. XBMC, like a lot of othergreat open-source software,supports a myriad of options, skins,and plug-ins. One of the options Ilike most is the ability to viewcontent in a variety of ways.Pressing the left arrow button onthe remote control brings up a sidepanel that lets you choose the viewand sort method. The misc optionslets you hide watched content,filter content, and hide fanart -among other things. But theseviews don't look so great withoutcover art. To add cover art to newcontent, select the content and hitthe info button on the remote.

XBMC can also automatically fetchcover art by System > Video >Library > Update library on startup.XBMC can also autofetch cover artfor music much the same way byselecting System > Music > Libraryand Update library on startup.

One of the more confoundingproblems we ran into was gettingthe weather correct. We set ourlocation to Waterloo, Ontario(Canada), but kept gettingFahrenheit. To make the switch toCelsius, we needed to set theRegion under System > Appearance> International to Canada. We alsoran into a problem where theweather.com default seemed tostop working. We managed to fix

this by changing the weathersource in the System > Weathermenu to Weather Plus (which wefound by clicking the Get Morebutton at the bottom of the sourcescreen). Not exactly party material,but useful to know for thosehaving problems getting weatherworking.

What is cool for a party is theability to play music and run a slideshow of photos from all thosecrazy office parties – and it's easyto do. First, cue up music byselecting the music folder youwant to play. Incidentally, if youpress the right arrow on theremote while in the music folder,you can set music to repeat or playrandomly. Next, press the Picturesbutton on the remote control,navigate to the pictures source youwant, and hit Play. A photo slideshow starts with a small rectanglein the bottom left cornerdisplaying information about thesong currently playing.

The same technique works ifyou want to check the weather orcheck out your video collection.XBMC is smart enough not to playmusic and movies at the sametime. It's either music or movies,


Charles......

LINUX LAB - XBMCyou can't play both the same wayyou can play music and pictures atthe same time.

XBMC is great at recognizingmovies, but XBMC also recognizestelevision programs. When namingtelevision series include the seasonand episode. For example: The ITCrowd s02e03 (The IT CrowdSeason 2, Episode 3, way betterthan The Office if you ask me). IfXBMC doesn't recognize a movie ortelevision show, try variations onthe name. If you're really stuck, tryto find the program onthetvdb.com or themoviedb.org(sources XBMC draws on).

We've covered only a tiny set ofXBMC's capabilities. Video add-onslet you stream television andmovies from different sources likeYoutube, Yahoo video, the CartoonNetwork, CNet, JupiterBroadcasting, and the InternetArchive - to name a few. Music add-

ons include streaming fromsources like Grooveshark, TWiT,NPR, ListenLiveEU (which has over600 stations listed), andSoundCloud. Also be sure to checkout the add-ons under thePrograms main menu to check yourGmail account, post your videowatching habits to Gomiso, ordownload extra fan generatedartwork from thetvdb.com andthemoviedb.org. Combine XBMCwith the Transmission bittorrentclient and Flexget, and you canscript the download of a lot ofcontent.

The only thing left is to put outthe food, crank up the volume, andparty.

Important Links:http://www.xbmc.org/http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=HOW-TO:Install_XBMC_on_Ubuntu/http://www.themoviedb.org/http://www.thetvdb.com/

http://www.xbmc.org/

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=HOW-TO:Install_XBMC_on_Ubuntu/

http://www.themoviedb.org/

http://www.thetvdb.com/


CCLLOOSSIINNGG WWIINNDDOOWWSS CCoonnttrrooll PPaanneell // DDeevviiccee MMaannaaggeerrWritten by:Ronnie Tucker (KDE)Jan Mussche (Gnome)Elizabeth Krumbach (XFCE)Mark Boyajian (LXDE)David Tigue (Unity)

This month, we’ll discussthe moving, copying, andrenaming of files. We’llalso take a quick look at

how to delete a file, and (should amistake occur) undeleting (orrestoring) a deleted file.

Moving / Copying A File

First, a quick distinction: movinga file will physically shift thatfile/folder to another place.Copying will place a copy of thefile/folder in another place, butkeep the original where it is.

Windows

You can move/copy a file inseveral different ways. The first isby selecting (left-clicking) on thefile/folder and choosing ‘Move To...’or ‘Copy To...’ from the Edit menu inthe main menu bar. To put the file

somewhere, you navigate to thelocation using the “Move Items” or“Copy Items” window, and click the‘Move’ or ‘Copy’ button, respectively.Kubuntu does this in a similar way.

Kubuntu

Right-clicking a file(s) or folder(s)reveals a pop-up menu with all file-handling options.

You can also move/copy a file bydragging and dropping it fromwindow to window. Windows XPrequires you to hold down theControl-key while you release theleft button to move a file/folder.Simply dragging a file/folder toanother location will copy the file.Kubuntu does this too, but it alsohas a unique feature in that, whenyou drop the file with no keyspressed, a menu will pop up askingyou if you want to move/copy thefile.

Ubuntu (Classic)

Lubuntu

Xubuntu

Kubuntu

Ubuntu (Unity)

Windows XP


Gnome-Shell

In Gnome, things are more orless the same as in Windows andKubuntu. The Nautilus file manageruses a menu, available with theright mouse-click, with items likecut and copy. It’s also possible tojust drag and drop files/folders totheir new locations. Whether thefile/folder is moved or copieddepends on the use of the Shift orControl-key, or on the source anddestination locations:• If the source and destination is onthe same disk-partition, thendragging and dropping a file/folderwill move it, the original file/folderis no longer in its original location.• If they are on two differentpartitions, or disks, then a copy willbe made. This is visible by means ofa little plus sign on the hand thatdrags the file/folder.

Unity

Ubuntu has based Unity onGnome Shell—Gnome 3.x is thebase system—so things are done inmuch the same manner. Unity, likeGnome Shell, uses Nautilus as thefile manager, so, to move a file, youcan right-click on the file and select‘Cut’. Now navigate to the locationyou want to place the file, and

right-click in the white-space of thefolder and select ‘Paste’. To copy afile, use the same method asbefore, but, instead, click ‘Copy’ onthe original file. You can also usethe drag/drop method. As inGnome Shell, you should rememberthat if the file/folder is located onthe same partition, the file will bemoved by default, and, if it is ondifferent partitions, it will becopied.

Lubuntu

Lubuntu is similar, but withsome minor differences. When youselect a file(s) or folder(s) and thenright-click, a context menu isrevealed with the “usual” filehandling options, though there isno “Move” option in this menu.

To “Move” a file/folder usingthis menu, you first have to “Cut”the file, then navigate to thedestination and “Paste” it; however,the File Manager Edit menu doesprovide “Move To...” and “CopyTo...” options which function asdescribed above for MS Windows.

Xubuntu

In Xubuntu, when you click on afile and drag it to another Thunar

File Manager window, it will movethe file, and holding down “Shift”when you click and drag the file willdo the same. If you wish to copythe file, you can right click on thefilename and select “Copy”, and inthe new directory you’ll right click,and select “Paste” to paste thecopied file.

Renaming A File

In all variants, this is done byright-clicking the file you want torename, and choosing ‘Rename’.

Gnome, KDE, and LXDE all havea nice renaming feature, which is,that after right-clicking the file andchoosing ‘Rename’, only the file-name is selected, you’ll see thatthe file-extension (if present) is notselected. So, when you want torename a picture from your camera(IMG_0001.JPG) into House-on-the-beach.JPG, you can just starttyping without worrying aboutaccidentally changing the file-extension as it will not be deletedor renamed: a JPG will still be aJPG. This is different fromWindows where you have to becareful not to erase the fileextension.

Deleting A File

A file that is deleted is not goneforever—it’s sitting in a specialplace where the file can berestored. The only time a deletedfile can not be restored is when theWaste-bin (or equivalent) isemptied. After the Waste-bin isemptied the file is gone forever.

Windows

Deleting a file is, like renaming,done using the right-click menumentioned earlier. Or, you can draga file/folder to the ‘Trash Can’ iconthat’s on your XP desktop.

Kubuntu

Kubuntu has no desktop iconfor its ‘Waste-bin.’ However, thereis a Trash Can directory that isdisplayed by default in the FileManager, and any file(s)/folder(s)can be dragged to it for “disposal”.Likewise, any files/folders that aredeleted (either from the menu orby pressing the Delete key on thekeyboard) are placed in the TrashCan by default, but you can stillright-click a file to choose Delete,or use the ‘Add Widget’ item (byright-clicking on the

CLOSING WINDOWS


CLOSING WINDOWSdesktop/taskbar) to add a Waste-bin icon.

Gnome-Shell

Gnome-Shell has a Waste-bin,called Trash, on the right side of thelower panel. All the normal ways ofdeleting a file work here: Del onkeyboard, right-click and selectMove to Trash, dragging the file tothe Trash-bin.

Another option (similar to theUnity notes below re adding Deleteto the right-click menu) is the keycombination Shift-Delete. Thisbypasses the Trash, and, onceconfirmed, the file will be gone forever. So be very careful using this.

Unity

In Unity, there is a Trash icon inthe bottom left-hand corner of thedock. You can delete files in acouple of different ways. In the filemanager, there is a Trash folder onthe left-hand side. You can click afile and drag it in to the Trashfolder, or drag it to the ‘Trash’ iconon the dock. Also, you can right-click on it and select ‘Move toTrash’. You may also want to look inthe preferences in the file manager(Nautilus), you can select Edit >

Preferences, and, under the the‘Behavior’ tab at the very bottom isa check-mark to add a ‘Delete’option to the right click menu thatwill remove the file completely -bypassing the Trash. You will not beable to recover this file by restoringit from the Trash, so be very carefulif using this option.

Lubuntu

Lubuntu also has no “Trash Can”icon on the desktop; but has a Trashfolder that is always visible in theFile Manager. Right-clicking theTrash folder opens one menuoption: “Empty Trash”. You can alsoselect specific files/folders in theTrash and permanently deletethem—by showing the pop-upmenu (right-click) and selectingDelete.

Xubuntu

Xubuntu also has a Waste-bincalled Trash; it is located on theDesktop and also in the right-handside of the bottom panel bydefault.

Restoring A File

Kubuntu

Kubuntu Ubuntu (Classic)

Lubuntu Ubuntu (Unity)

Xubuntu Windows XP


If the waste-bin has not beenemptied, you can click itsicon/name and view the contents

Gnome-Shell

In Gnome you can do the sameas in KDE, or, after selecting thefile(s)/folder(s) you want torestore, click the button “Restoreselected items” on top of theframe.

Unity

Unity works in the same way asGnome Shell and KDE. Open theTrash, right-click on the file, andclick ‘Restore’, or you can click the‘Restore Selected Items’ button.

Lubuntu

You can either drag and dropthe file back to somewhere, orright-click it and choose to‘Restore’ it.

Xubuntu

In Xubuntu, you do the same asin Kubuntu, a “Restore” option is inthe right-click menu.

Next month we’ll look at networkand wifi controls.

CLOSING WINDOWS

Kubuntu Ubuntu (Classic)

Lubuntu Ubuntu (Unity)

Xubuntu Windows XP

SSUUDDOOKKUU

EASY

HARD

Solutions are on the second last page.

Numbers 1 to 9 are to be filled into the 9x9grid so that every row, every column, and every3x3 box contains the numbers 1 through 9.


MMYY SSTTOORRYYWritten by Maurice Knopp

I first got in touch with Ubuntuout of curiosity (and lack ofWindows licenses) in 2005 withthe 5.04 Hoary Hedgehog

release. I installed it on mymother’s old Pentium III – 600 MHz.In the following weeks, Ubuntubegan to emerge as my primaryoperating system, and I finallyinstalled it on my own machine.

Penguin in the Office –Why would one do that?

In 2007, I worked for a largemedia company located inLuxembourg to develop a softwarecomponent which can processvideo signals and feed it to thevideo encoder ffmpeg. The finalsystem should be run on a Linuxserver due to issues of stability,reliability, and cost savings. So, fordevelopment ease, I began to usethe Linux machine I was developingon for day-to-day office tasks aswell. It was the time of Feisty Fawn(7.04) and Gutsy Gibbon (7.10). So, Iwas keen enough to install a Linuxdesktop machine within a companywhich had around 450 Windows XP

boxes, Windows infrastructure, andWindows people all around, withzero Linux office usage.

In summer 2010, I startedworking for a large publishinghouse in Germany - heavily focusedon Java development around acontent management system. Tomy surprise, the whole dev teamalready used Ubuntu when Iarrived. Why do you do that?“Speed!We can'tbearVista....”Now,I've been using Ubuntu since dayone for development and officetasks, and I'm happy with it eversince.

Setup of your box

Back in 2007, I chose the 32-bitversion (x86) for installation on thedesktop machine because, backthen, you encountered far lessproblems, especially with browserplugins such as Adobe flash. Today,these kinds of issues are mostlysolved, and I would recommendinstalling the 64-bit version(x86_64) on any computer which isnot older than three years and hasa 64-bit processor.

Once installed, in a couple inminutes, you can install most of thesoftware you'll ever need from the“Ubuntu Software Center” (used tobe called “Synaptic”) which is basedon the integrated packagemanagement system. E-MailClient(s), Browser(s), and InstantMessaging software is alreadyinstalled out of the box.

For the Pros: Just search all ofthe software you want to install,and save the package list to a textfile. You can now install anyamount of fresh machines andissue the command “sudo apt-getinstall <loooong list of packages,space separated>”. This way, youkind of “clone” your setup multiple

times. Compare this to browsingthe web, downloading severalsoftware (components) fromseveral websites, and manuallyinstalling several setup.exe's,leading to several reboots.... Yeah, Iknow you can script Windowsinstallations as well, but, in myopinion, you'll have to put in farmore effort.

Office work

Mail

So, let’s get to integration ofyour fresh box into the Windowsnetwork. Like most companies, theones I work(ed) for used thefamous MS Exchange Server - in

AA PPeenngguuiinn IInn TThhee OOffffiiccee??


connection with the Outlook Clientfor mail exchange and schedulingtasks. I've read that Evolution,which is installed out of the box(only on Ubuntu versions prior to11.10, but it may be installedmanually in later versions), also canhandle Exchange servers. This isexactly what I needed! So Isearched the web and found aGerman tutorial(http://www.msexchangefaq.de/clients/evolution.htm) which explainsthe necessary steps to configureEvolution with Exchange Server.The Novell documentation forEvolution may also be a goodsource for help on this topic(http://www.novell.com/documentation/nld/index.html?page=/documentation/nld/evolution/data/front.html). I managed to successfullyget Evolution running on myexisting Exchange 2003 mailaccount.

However, I've done some webresearch, and I was not able to getExchange 2007 and above workingeven with the most recent versionof Evolution. I now use the IMAPsupport built into Exchange Serverto send and receive mails, whichworks quite well. You might have toask your administrators to enableIMAP on Exchange Server. I receive

a LOT of mail per day, andotherwise I had to answer thewhole bunch over the ExchangeWeb Interface known as “OutlookWeb Access”. Though being able toconnect to my mail account, I didn'tquite figure out how to access theaddress book. That’s sad, but I havethe habit of just “replying” towhoever wrote me. So, I can livewithout the exchange addressbook and build up my own localone, but it would be nice if I couldfigure out how to configure thisone day.

One drawback occurred in thecourse of the last Ubuntu update.Before 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot, I wasable to accept or decline meetingrequests from within Evolution,which then would automaticallyput the appointments into mycalendar. This feature seems to bebroken with 11.10, so I have to loginto the Outlook web interface toreply and to do scheduling.

Shared Folders

Next thing, most companieshave a BIG shared network drive inthe office. Every file which isrelated to a running project or is ofpublic interest, will just getdumped on the network drive insome folder. All Windows machines

can access this drive, and read orcreate their own files. So, as onecan imagine, it was very importantto me to get access to this driveand continue working on theshared files. I tried to determinethe IP of the file server machineand access it from nautilus bypressing CTRL+L and enteringsmb://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx wherexxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP of the file-machine. In the popup mask, justenter your Windows-logincredentials. You should see allshared folders on the machine, andjust have to right-click on thedesired folder and choose “connectto this server” from the context-menu. DONE! The folder is addedto your favorite bar on the left,and, from all nautilus instances,you can now access the sharedfolder as easy as your home or anyother folder! Hey, that’s evencooler than navigating to “MyComputer” on the desktop andthen chose your shared networkdrive or searching the “NetworkNeighborhood”.

When pushing or pulling filesfrom Apple machines, I tend to usethe command line utilities. SSH toconnect to a remote machine(apple or linux), or SCP to push orpull files to or from a remote fruit

flavored box.

Also, most recent cloud storagecompanies like “Dropbox”, withclients for all major OSs, startedgaining ground and becomingmore and more popular. We'reusing Dropbox with clients forWindows, mac, and Linux, withoutproblems.

Office

Interoperability between MSOffice and OpenOffice / NeoOffice(OO / NO) has been very importantto me because I regularly get thesekinds of documents. So, it isnecessary for the Windows guysthat I stick to their format (*.doc or*.xls). I guess, for all people whowant to do some collaborativework, the point of compatibility isone of the most important ones. Asfar as I can tell, there were no realproblems concerning reading andwriting files in the proprietary MSdocument formats. I have to admitthat the most complex documentsthat I tested contained a maximumof thirty pages with a few imagesand some tables. So, compatibilitymay become worse if you have tocreate more complex documents.

MY STORY - A PENGUIN IN THE OFFICE?

http://www.msexchangefaq.de/clients/evolution.htm

http://www.novell.com/documentation/nld/index.html?page=/documentation/nld/evolution/data/front.html


The functions of OO / NO coverall the needs I had so far. Createdocuments with a table ofcontents, footmarks, (floating)images, ..... I did not miss anyfunction in OO / NO that I knewfrom MS Office. The only thing thatis lightyears ahead in MS Office isthe spell checker, which is reallyhelpful.

Printer

This has been no real issue atall. Once I had correctlydetermined the IP and the modelof my office network printer, I hadno real problems in printing largedocuments. Professional officeprinters mostly support Postscriptdrivers and should therefore be

compatible. Anyway, you might notsee all available options andcapabilities of your printer withinthe printing dialogue because ofdriver limitations. For me, this wasnot a real problem but I'd like alsoto point out that I don't print outvery much.

Miscellaneous

There might be some othertasks you have to do today withyour Windows box like updatingsoftware. This is just a breeze withUbuntu's update mechanism, and agreat time saver.

Instant messaging, like I saidbefore, comes out of the box withad-free versions capable of using

all of the major IM-networks. Youcan even install Skype with oneclick in the Ubuntu software center.I tend to use Jabber.

Back in 2007, I had to install thegraphics driver by myself on myworkstation computers. In thelatest version of Ubuntu you onlyhave to choose the proprietarygraphics driver for ATI or NVIDIA,do a reboot, and everything shouldbe working fine.

I listen to music, burn DVDs /CDs, and use a dual monitorconfiguration with no driverproblems. This was different whenI started using Ubuntu back in2005.

Conclusion

Ubuntu is mature enough to beused in most office environments!Unless you use Microsoft Outlookextensively with all advancedfeatures, or you have to use “justthis” program which doesn't have aLinux version, you can try to set upa Linux office box. I recommendusing an old machine side by side(if your company allows), and to domore and more tasks on the Linuxmachine. You will benefit in terms

of knowledge and getting to knowanother software world. Runningan entire office box based on Linuxis possible.

I would be very interested inyour thoughts, just drop me emailat [email protected] You mightalso want to visit my sitewww.maknesium.de (partly English/ German).

MY STORY - A PENGUIN IN THE OFFICE


http://www.maknesium.de


MMYY OOPPIINNIIOONNWritten by David Bissett

I have used Linux as my mainoperating system for over ayear now. I have tried variousflavours over the years -

OpenSuse and Mandriva, forexample - before settling onUbuntu. The reason for this choicewas mainly based on the relativestability (in my limited experienceat the time of making the choice),available support via many onlineforums, and ease of use for theaverage user. Unfortunately, I stillhave a need for some Windowsapplications, so, though I do useone or two in Wine, I also haveWindows XP in a virtual machine onmy main desktop. Mostapplications used on a daily basisare, however, native Linux. Themain desktop machine, a self-build,runs Ubuntu; a second, lower spec,machine operates with Xubuntu;while the laptop used by my wifehas the Ubuntu variant, Linux Mint.

Linux installs easily, and it canbe argued that if the main use isgoing to be Internet, email, music,with a bit of office-like work, then amachine loaded with a flavour ofLinux would be a better choice for

most people than Windows. Thisdoes not, however, mean there areno problems.

Some of these problems centrearound the thing that is often heldup as a virtue - choice. Perhaps oneof the biggest choices is theflavour of Linux to use - Debian-based with deb installablepackages, or Red Hat with rpmpackages. That isn't the end,though, as it is then necessary tochoose the desktop to use. This ismore than simply choosing thelook - as many applications havebeen developed specifically for onedesktop or the other. Usually, theywill work in any Linux environment.

This leads on to the chosenapplications. I've been tryingChrome, Chromium, and Opera.LibreOffice has taken the place ofOpenOffice, and I have just startedusing Tweetdeck in GoogleChrome. For photos, there is onlyone choice - Digikam. I have triedShotwell, which is OK, but I won'tuse it until it is possible to orderthe photos the way Digikam does.Digikam works OK under Gnome

and Unity, but undoubtedly worksbetter under KDE, and is the mainreason I have considered KDE as adesktop.

Banshee is the app used formusic and podcasts, a Gnomeapplication. This does everythingneeded. Neither Amarok norRhythmbox cover everythingneeded in the way Banshee does,so there is no real choice.

There are some other, moresubtle differences between KDEand Gnome (when consideringthese differences, many commentsmade about Gnome also apply toUnity. It should also be noted thatthis is referring to Gnome 3.x).Gnome remembers the state of thenum lock key, which is really usefulas I frequently use the number keypad section of the keyboard. In myexperience, KDE doesn't do this.Using a USB headset is alsoextremely easy under Gnome asyou can easily switch between thespeakers and headset with a coupleof clicks of the mouse (this isn'teven very easy in Windows, at leastXP). While this may be possible in

KDE, it isn't very easy or intuitive.Simply plugging the headset indoesn't work in my experience, theuse of a USB headset is rather hitor miss, but excellent in Gnomeand Unity.

It has to be admitted that KDElooks great, and would bepreferred if only Gnomeapplications would respond as wellin this environment as they dounder Gnome, and the couple ofsignificant niggles above wereaddressed. As it is, the only viableoption for me is to go for Gnomeor Unity, and switch to KDE when Ithink it might be preferable.

Linux is a great platform, andthe various versions of Ubuntu aregreat implementations, but, ifgreater take-up is to beencouraged, there should be moreconsideration of the non-expertuser - remember, users aren’tnecessarily interested in tinkeringunder the bonnet. It would alsobenefit the cause if there wasgreater collaboration between themajor desktops to ensure bettercross-compatibility.


II TTHHIINNKK...... Would you join us (FCM) on IRC fora meeting once a month?

Last month's question was:

Would you join us (FCM) on IRCfor a meeting once a month?

Maybe... 32%Yes, definitely! 36%Nah, not my kinda thing 15%Yes, but I'm not sure... 17%

Which day suits you best?

Monday 34%Tuesday 30%Wednesday 35%Thursday 34%Friday 32%Saturday 52%Sunday 56%

And which times (in GMT)suit you best?

6 - 7pm (GMT) 32%7 - 8pm (GMT) 35%9 - 10pm (GMT) 40%10 - 11pm (GMT) 26%11pm - 12 (GMT) 31%

And which week of the monthsuits you?

first week 79%second week 67%third week 64%fourth week 60%


A PLEA ON BEHALF OF THEPODCAST PARTY

As you often hear in the podcast, we're callingfor opinion topics for that section of the show.

Instead of us having a rant about whateverstrikes us, why not prompt us with a topic andwatch for the mushroom clouds over thehorizon! It's highly unlikely that the three of uswill agree.

Or, an even more radical thought, send us anopinion by way of a contribution!

You can post comments and opinions on thepodcast page at fullcirclemagazine.org, in ourUbuntu Forums section, or [email protected]. You can alsosend us a comment by recording an audio clip ofno more than 30 seconds and sending it to thesame address. Comments and audio may beedited for length. Please remember this is afamily-friendly show.

It would be great to have contributors come onthe show and express anopinion in person.

Robin

I THINK...What is IRC ? And how can Ijoin it ? [see this month’sHowTo - Ed]

Well, why not? FCM might findmy writing skills impressiveand useful.

Would love to interact with theFCM Commune...

Will we be able to discussLinux questions, or onlyquestions related to the

magazine? [anything! - Ed]

I hope it isn't just for experts. [Ihope not, I’m no expert! - Ed]

I like the idea... we all run diffdistro's, so better feedback on

those from users.

Not sure what the purposewould be, but it sounds cool.

Don't know that I couldcontribute but I'd sure listenin, so to speak!

Let me know what time isdecided upon. [read on - Ed]

What does an IRC chat allowthat can't be found in, say,sending suggestions by email?

[real-time feedback - Ed]

Could the sessions be archived,especially for those in WesternUSA & Canada? [I’ll get the chat

logs posted to our wiki page - Ed]

““

““

This month we have a short questionnaire sponsored bySpiderOak. By entering you could win 100GB of space onSpiderOak. The questions are at: http://goo.gl/ewc1O. If you donot wish to enter the competition simply leave the email box blank.

Alternatively, post a message on Twitter with the hashtag#IwantSpiderOak, or you can reply to our SpiderOak post on ourFacebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/fullcirclemagazine.We’ll choose one winner from Twitter, one from Facebook, andthree from the questionnaire.

Competition closes on Friday 20th January 2012, and the winnerswill be announced in FCM#57. Good luck!

““

““

““

““

““

““

““

““

““



http://goo.gl/ewc1O

http://www.facebook.com/fullcirclemagazine


http://www.ubuntu-user.com/subscribe-now/

http://www.ubuntu-user.com/subscribe-now/


RREEVVIIEEWWWritten by Robin Catling

Puppy Linux was designedas one of those small,light-weight, Linuxdistributions, intended

primarily for lower specificationhardware - whilst still providing afull suite of applications andutilities for a usable desktopenvironment. Frugal withresources, it was blindingly quick.

Lucid Puppy 5.2.5 is not thelatest release, dating from April 2,2011 (the latest, 5.2.8, may be alittle too bleeding edge for reallyold kit). The download is a 126MB.ISO image file - which I decidedwas worth a road-test on anotherwise obsolete AMD chip-and-main-board combination from1999.

Puppy Linux 5.2.5 is basedprimarily on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS“Lucid Lynx,” but there's a mixtureof utilities provided using the'Woof' build system, such as a laterversion of the e2fsprogs file-system utilities from Ubuntu 11.04“Natty Narwhal.” Puppy 5.2.5 usesversion 2.6.33.2 of the Linux kernel,and, thanks to that build system,

Woof, it can take binaries of otherpopular distributions andincorporate them into new Puppyreleases, among them manycomponents from Ubuntu such asshared libraries and someapplications. This may havesomething to do with Puppy risingto number 9 in the Linux chart onDistrowatch. Compatibility withUbuntu packages notwithstanding,

the spirit of the Puppy remainsindependent.

Puppy is bootable from justabout any media, includingLiveCDs, zip disks, USB drives, andhard drives. It does a reasonablejob of automatically detectingmost hardware. However, be waryof installing on Ext4 formattedpartitions. Ext4 is not fully

supported in Puppy, as the buglists show.

Puppy's small size makes it agood candidate to install onto USBmemory sticks, with the ability tosave any personalized settings andinstalled software. At boot-time,Puppy loads into RAM, which freesup the boot device for other uses,and makes for a very fast system.On most systems, in fact, boot timeis just 30 to 40 seconds, even on myold Pentium-II clone.

The pragmatic mish-mash ofPuppy's interface and tools helpsprovide the high performance.Puppy uses JWM and OpenBoxwith FBPanel, all known for theirminimal resource requirements.Many of the tools are console-based or have very simple 1990'sstyle low-res control decks. Theyare easy to use, but it does feel likea step back in time.

Otherwise, Puppy ships withlots of smaller but usefulapplications for a light-weight butfunctional desktop. There's theGnumeric spreadsheet, Osmo

PPuuppppyy LLiinnuuxx


REVIEW: PUPPY LINUXpersonal organizer, HomeBankmoney management, Abiword, anda selection of applications forphoto and image management,text editors, and media player.Slypheed is the default mail clientand Dillo the browser. See what Imean? Step back in time.

Using the JWM WindowsManager, the desktop is a riot ofcolorful, Fisher-Price style icons.The standard start-up sound is afriendly bark. More themes areavailable, and more programs are

available through the PuppyPackage Manager or using theQuickPet alternative packagemanager.

If you don't find what you wantin the Lucid Puppy repository, theUbuntu repositories can be usedwith one tick-box. QuickPetprovides a one-click alternative toinstall programs such as Firefox,Pidgin, and LibreOffice, althoughthe performance of these wastardy to say the least. I haven'tpersuaded Open Office Writer to

run at all on my two test-beds.

The miracle of Puppy is that itresurrected an old Pentium-II eraAMD-based machine with only256Mb of memory. Desktopperformance was good, when theequivalent Ubuntu live CD's for11.04, 10.10 and 10.04 failed torun, owing to modern kernelconstraints, much less installlocally. The screen-shot is of thatmachine happily running Puppy,and much faster than it ranWindows XP.

Where it surprisingly failed is inVirtualbox, where the Puppy LiveCD managed to run badly, andinstall to a virtual disk a versionwhich still won't boot despite muchremedial work.

Puppy remains a bit of a mixedbag. I could run it on currenthardware - but I'm not sure I'dwant to suggest it as an alternativeto anyone but a bold tinkererfamiliar with Linux distributions; asa fall-back on old kit, you can doworse than take the Puppy for awalk. Ouch. Sorry.

Puppy Linux official home page:http://puppylinux.com/Puppy Linux official wiki:http://puppylinux.org/wikka/HomePage

http://puppylinux.com/

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/HomePage

http://puppylinux.com/


LLEETTTTEERRSSEvery month we like to publish some of the emails we receive. If you would like tosubmit a letter for publication, compliment or complaint, please email it to:[email protected]. PLEASE NOTE: some letters may be edited for space.

Correction

In the HowTo article by JesseAviles, “Ubuntu For Business &Education – Pt. 3” (Full Circleissue 54, page19), the RPN

expressions appear to me to beincorrect, at least when I checkthem on my HP 12c.

The operators used in theexpressions are binary operators,using two inputs (not three) fromthe stack. For the multiplicationoperations, they must be donetwice to obtain the correctanswers:

15 5 div 7 + 20 3 x x = 60015 5 div 20 3 x x 7 + = 187

I checked the Wiki reference,which confirms this binary natureof the operators.

Edward Owen

Mint Menu

I find that some of the strangeproblems that I've complainedabout are related to odditieswith the Mint menu app. I sure

hope that they fix them with Mint12!

That may well be the source ofthe problem that LeRoux (FCM#52)mentioned with Office onWine/Mint 11. If that's the case, heshould be able to manually build ashortcut by navigating to the .exefile (it should run from there), andworking backwards. I know that theWine shortcuts do work underXfce.

Oh, and the login app GDM(?) ishardwired to right handed mice -the source of one of mycomplaints. I've requested a fixfrom the developer's list.

David O. Rowell

Closing Windows

Re: Ubuntu Control Center.

“In Ubuntu (Gnome), it’s calledControlCenter, andin Natty it is

installed- but itdoes not showup in

themenus.”

I can see it in 11.10; look on thetop bar on the extreme right in thepull-down where you log off. It isthe first item.

Andrew Ampers Taylor

Ubuntu Youth

The other day I came acrossTux Math from Tux4kids.It is an educational gamewhich teaches the kids to

calculate. The various levels startwith learning the numbers,additions up to 10, 20 100, samewith subtraction, multiplication,and division. My 7-year-old sonreally enjoys the game, so I startedto look for more.

This brings me to the topic ofthis email. It would be nice to havea column for kids. Not only with

Join us on:

facebook.com/fullcirclemagazine

twitter.com/#!/fullcirclemag

linkedin.com/company/full-circle-magazine

ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=270

goo. gl /FRTM l


http://facebook.com/fullcirclemagazine

https://twitter.com/#!/fullcirclemag

http://linkedin.com/company/full-circle-magazine

http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=270

http://facebook.com/http://goo.gl/FRTMl


LETTERSeducational games, but also secureaccess to the Internet. I rememberan article about proxying theInternet access for kids. I will haveto check this when the time comes.

I would greatly appreciate sucha column, perhaps spontaneously;I'm not looking for this kind ofsoftware, but when I read about it Ithink it could interest my sons.

Frank Bommeli

Thanks forthe idea Frank. We

usedto have an UbuntuYouth

column a couple ofyears ago, but

thewritervanished. Anyone out

therewant to restartUbuntuYouth,

orstartUbuntuKids? - Ed.

Primary Age

You asked what wethought was the averageage of Ubuntu users was.On reflection, reading

your letters, I would say possiblylate primary school age to earlysecondary school age.

I derive this information fromthe churlish and petty complaintsfrom people who are totally unable

to grasp a new technology such asUnity.

Now I thought it was people ofmy age (in my seventies) who wereunable to adapt to change and toadapt to new ideas withtechnology, rather than youngchildren who are supposed to workit out quicker than us old farts?

I took to Unity as a duck takes towater. And, I have had no problemswith it. This is perhaps why I find itso difficult to believe the youngeramongst us cannot grasp it?

So what does an old geezer likeme use Linux for? Not just forbrowsing the web and writingoccasional letters. I use it forrunning a newspaper in NorfLunnon.

We use it for writing articles, forediting photographs, and forsorting out our website using thenew version of Drupal contentmanagement software.

I use 11.10 in my Netbookalready, and will change to 11.10on my business desktop as soon asit rolls out. You just would notbelieve the number of programs Iuse on my 64-bit home desktop -

with 8gigs of RAM and threeseparate 1TB hard drives (two ofthem external).

Andrew Ampers Taylor

MySQL to SQLite

I am not sure if this is the rightplace to write to you regarding acomment on one of the articlesfrom Full Circle Magazine, Issue55.The article is called How-ToProgram in Pyton - Part 29, writtenby Greg Walters. He states there:"A littlewhile ago, IwasaskedtoconvertaMySQL database to

SQLite. Looking aroundtheweb for

a quickandeasy(andfree) solution, I

foundnothing thatworkedwith the

currentversion ofMySQL forme."

This is not true. I am a BusinessIntelligence developer and on adaily bases I use ETL tools. I amworking with Pentaho DataIntegration Tool (Kettle) CE(Community edition)(http://kettle.pentaho.com/). It is afull open source product and it isvery mature. It has the ability totransport/transform data from anytype of source to any other type ofsource. The sources can be any

type of Database as well asspreadsheets or XML. Of courseMySQL and SQLite are among theoptions. I am currently using thetool in Ubuntu 11.10 and WindowsXP. Maybe at some point I couldwrite a how-to article about ETL-ing.

Rolland J. Sovarszki

Thanks forthe info Rolland, I've

passeditalong to Greg. And, yes, do

feel free towrite an article about

ETL-ing. - Ed

LTS

In FCM#54, you quoted PCWorld as saying, "PrecisePangolin ... will be Ubuntu'sfourth Long Term Support

(LTS) release, with a full three yearsof support."

In fact, starting with 12.04,desktop LTS releases will besupported for five years. There aresome limitations, though;hardware updates will be for thefirst two years only.

Paddy Landau

http://kettle.pentaho.com/


PPUUZZZZLLEESSIf you would like to submit a puzzle for publication, pleaseemail it to: [email protected]. Solutions are onthe second last page of this issue. No peeking!

by Dave Mawdsley

The solution to all the puzzles is on the secondlast page of this issue. No peeking!

A Crossword Puzzle of Bash Commands



PUZZLES

Across1 The center of the Linux OS (6)3 Bootloader's food (4)6 Precise scaly anteater which we'll get to see in

April (8)7 It's not UNIX! (3)8/8D Lively rabbit with horns widely seen a couple of

years back (6,9)11/19 Intellectual Timon? (8,7)16 Several universes? Just a repository (10)17 Open source software is not free ____. (4)19 See 1120 A lightweight 3D design and animation tool (7)

Down1 If you don't like Gnome, you just might like this (3)2 Cat-like, sharp-eyed, lucid! (4)4 A desktop with integrity (5)5 OS initiator and kernel developer in violin user? (5)7 It's free, but it gives Photoshop a run for its

money (4)8 See 8 Across9 Our own little penguin (3)10 A Linux user isn't worried about it (5)12 Repository of everything (8)13 Garden ornament or desktop environment? (5)14 The OS Ubuntu is based on (6)15 Enhance multi-window management using this

Japanese folding screen (5)18 Use LEXAR to flip this (3)

The solution to all the puzzles is on the secondlast page of this issue. No peeking!

CRYPTIC CROSSWORD by Ilavenil Thirumavalavan


QQ&&AACompiled by Gord Campbell

If you have Ubuntu-related questions, email them to:[email protected], and Gord will answer them in a futureissue. Please include as much information as you can about your problem.

Q How can I customizeGnome Classic?

A There's a lengthy how-to here:http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1886

799

Q I have a system based onthe AMD AthlonProcessor 2650e, and Iinstalled the Nvidia

graphic driver. When I start asecond application, performance isterrible!

A Remove the Nvidiagraphic driver. Anotheruser with a similarproblem discovered that

Ubuntu automagically installed theolder 173 nvidia drivers, andswitching to a later driver causedvery poor performance withmultiple applications.

Q I have a .mkv file Ineeded to convert for anipad. When I use defaultvalues with ffmpeg, it

gives an error message.

A (Thanks to andrew.46 inthe Ubuntu Forums) Trythis command:

ffmpeg i

/media/Warehouse/Movies/input

.mkv vcodec copy acodec

libfaac ar 44100 ab 128k

~/output.mp4

For this to succeed you willneed to follow part C ofFakeOutdoorsman's guide, to allowaac encoding with libfaac. This willset up ffmpeg with the requiredcodecs.http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1117283

Q I'm trying to make abootable USB withunetbootin, the USB hasbeen formatted with

NTFS as that is required. Theproblem is that the USB doesn't

show up in unetbootin (I can mountit and see it in fdisk).

A Fromhttp://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ "If your USBdrive doesn't show up,

reformat it as FAT32." (see image)

Q What are some ofthe alternatives toUnity in Ubuntu11.10?

A See this web page:http://maketecheasier.com/5-alternatives-to-

unity-in-ubuntu-oneiric/2011/10/27

Q I'm using 11.10 withUnity. When I load aCD, its contentsopen in the file

manager, and the CD alsoappears in the launcher. Iwant it to appear only in thelauncher.

A Go to the top-rightcorner and click SystemSettings. Select"Removable Media."

Check the box, "Never prompt orstart programs on mediainsertion."


http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1886799

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1117283

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

http://maketecheasier.com/5-alternatives-to-unity-in-ubuntu-oneiric/2011/10/27


Q & A

Q In Oneiric, I close the lidon my laptop, and itSuspends. I open it, and itasks for my password. I

just want it to resume, withoutasking for my password.

A Run this command:

gsettings set

org.gnome.desktop.lockdown

disablelockscreen 'true'

Q Any other suggestionsfor tweaking Oneiric?

Ahttp://www.webupd8.org/2011/10/things-to-tweak-after-installing-

ubuntu.html

Q I'm trying to connect tomy headless server withSSH using "authorizedkeys," but it doesn't work,

because my home folder isencrypted.

A This page describes aworkaround:https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SSH/OpenS

SH/Keys#Troubleshooting

Q In Ubuntu 11.04 or 11.10,the backlight doesn'tcome on, on my laptop. Ithas a Mobile Intel 4 Series

Express Chipset Family graphicscontroller. An external monitorworks fine.

A See this web page:http://linux-on-acer-aspire-5732z.blogspot.com/201

1/06/backlight-workaround-for-linux-mint-11.html

Q I installed Ubuntu 11.10in a dual-boot on aThinkpad X120. Theinstall went smoothly, but

when I reboot, the system bootsstraight into Windows without aGrub menu.

A (Thanks tosubstanceneil in theUbuntu Forums) Change

the bios to allow a non-EFI boot,and install again.

Q Is there any english-arabic and arabic-englishdictionary?

A (Thanks to yoramdavidin the Ubuntu Forums)You can use GoldenDictwith babylon.bgl files.

(all free). Goldendict is in therepositories, and you can Googlebabylon.bgl.

Q How can I create acustom login screen forUbuntu 11.10?

A To change thebackground:http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/09/tool-

change-lightdm-wallpaper-ubuntu-11-10/

For an amusing, extremeexample of changing the loginscreen:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8nm4NpaVXE&feature=player_em

bedded

Q I'm trying to learn how touse a utility like scandisc,is there one I candownload from the

software center?

A The system will run thisautomatically aboutevery 30 boots.

Q I replaced my ATI RadeonHD 4770 video card withan Nvidia GTX 560 Ti.When I boot Ubuntu

10.10 64-bit, it goes straight to acommand line, with no GUI.

A (Thanks to papibe andemilywind in the UbuntuForums) First, renamethe Xorg configuration

file with this command:

sudo mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf

/etc/X11/xorg.conf.ATI

Then reboot, and you shouldhave a GUI. Since your video card isso new, you will need to get a videodriver from an unusual repository.Run this command:

http://www.webupd8.org/2011/10/things-to-tweak-after-installing-ubuntu.html

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SSH/OpenSSH/Keys#Troubleshooting

http://linux-on-acer-aspire-5732z.blogspot.com/2011/06/backlight-workaround-for-linux-mint-11.html

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/09/tool-change-lightdm-wallpaper-ubuntu-11-10/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8nm4NpaVXE&feature=player_embedded



ppa:ubuntuxswat/xupdates

Then this one:

sudo aptget update

Then you can search for nvidia-graphics-drivers. At the moment,the latest driver is version285.05.09.

Tips and TechniquesA Retro Distro

Some people don't like theway Ubuntu's userinterface has changed inrecent versions, and a

person from Rome, known aslucazade in the Ubuntu Forums,has done something about it.

The Italian has produced adistro called FreezyLinux. It'sbased on Ubuntu 11.10 and Gnome3.2. As I am writing this, it's stillclassified as a beta. It's too big for aCD, but might fit on a 1 GB flashdrive. All those things may changeby the time you read this. Thehome page is:http://freezylinux.altervista.org/

What has lucazade produced?There's a single panel on thebottom of the screen, withhierarchical menus, just like Ubuntuhad before Unity came into thepicture. Windows have minimize,maximize and closebuttons on the top-right.The distro includesChromium as its webbrowser, Rhythmbox forplaying music, Synapticfor installing programs,Dropbox for cloudstorage and GIMP forediting images. Cheesewebcam booth isincluded.

Upon loading, Freezytakes 370 MB lessmemory than Ubuntu11.10 on my laptop. I haveonly run it from apersistent flash drive, butit seems to be prettysnappy.

The downsides? Mylaptop runs hotter than

normal under Freezy. This got alittle better when I installedFancontrol from the Ubunturepositories, but it was still hot.The distro includes no games. I'mever so slightly nervous about

running a distro which wasproduced by one person.

Even though Freezy _looks_ likeolder versions of Ubuntu, it's basedon the latest Gnome. That means itwon't run those old applets, amongother things. Still, if you want to goon a trip down memory lane, it's anoption you can consider.

Q & A

http://freezylinux.altervista.org/


UUBBUUNNTTUU GGAAMMEESSWritten by Riku Järvinen MMuullttiiwwiinniiaa

Hi everybody! The gamefor review this month isMultiwinia(http://goo.gl/yaV0B), a

real-time strategy experience byIntroversion. Maybe you’ve heardabout Darwinia (an RTS publishedback in 2005); this is the sequel,introducing new gaming ideas.

Background Story &Gameplay

The world of Darwinia is avirtual theme park running inside acomputer network. It was createdby a computer genius called Dr.Sepulveda, who combined decadesworth of genetic research to createsentient, evolving life forms: theDarwinians. In the original game,these little two-dimensionalfellows are overrun by an evilcomputer virus, taking over themain systems and forcingDarwinians to face evident doom.With some help from Sepulveda,the viral infection is beaten andstatus quo ultimately restored.

However, as time flies,Darwinians evolve into more

independent and aggressivebeings. They form tribes and beginto fight over the land’s resources.In this new era, they’re calledMultiwinians, a far cry from thepeaceful, law-abiding entities theyonce were. Great battles rage all

over Darwinia, consuming manydigital lives and creating fear...

Still, Multiwinians cannotmanage by themselves, and theyneed someone to guide theiractions. In addition to simpleannihilation, the game has

strategic battle modes such asCapture The Statue and RocketRiot, in which you need to focusalso on protecting your assets andplanning some sort of a strategyfor different phases of the game. Ifind this appealing since too manyof today’s RTS’s simply feature the

http://goo.gl/yaV0B


Riku Järvinen (rierjarv) is a CS majorstudent from Finland who delves intothe Linux and Open Source gamingworld once in a while.

UBUNTU GAMES - MULTIWINIAarmament phase and the all-outattack, leaving little in between.Nevertheless, there could be someimprovement, because manyscenarios just end up in a hugedemolition match, no matter whatthe actual mission is.

I very much liked the fact thatMultiwinia is easy to dig into.Controls are standard, and thereare two tutorials covering most ofthe essential feats. Anyways, thereal trick is to be fast: scenariosusually last less than ten minutes,

and reinforcement troops need tobe deployed at once when they areavailable. Battle efficiency can beenhanced by creating formationsof troops led by officers, buildinggun turrets, using transportationvehicles, and taking advantage ofpowerful custom weaponry.

Since Multiwinia was originallyreleased in 2008, the minimumrequirements are not too bad: a 2.0GHz processor, 512 MB RAM, 32MB video card, and 60 MB of diskspace. Yet, surprisingly, I

experienced a noticeable slow-down on my Ubuntu 11.10 laptop(2.7 GHz Core i7, Radeon 6470 1GB, 4 GB DDR3, SSD), playing withthe highest settings on an external27” Full HD screen and 1080presolution. With lower settingsthere was no problem.

Conclusions

While Multiwinia is certainlynoticeable among RTS games, andhas a characteristic idea forgameplay, it loses much in its

repetitive nature. Participating infierce, lightning-fast battles ofhundreds of troops is cool, but,after a few days of intensivegaming, one likely loses interest. Ihad high hopes for the multiplayer,but the servers are not very active.Summing it up, Multiwinia isprobably a good game whenplayed once in a while, hackingthrough a couple of scenarios in aburst.

Good:-easy to learn; challenging to

master; intuitive set of basiccontrols-nice background story-decent gameplay - even on a low-

end machine

Bad:-repetitive nature of things

regardless of the game mode-inactive servers for multiplayer-the tutorial is not as thorough as

in Darwinia

Points: 7 / 10


Bobby is a physics-basedspace adventuredeveloped by NooskewlGames. Your goal is to

maneuver Bobby the Bulletthroughout each level to knock thegreen balls into the red spiral.Once you eliminate all of the balls,the red portal turns green, invitingyou to warp to the next zone. Youare awarded stars after completingeach level, and are graded on howquickly you complete them.

The controls are quite simple –change directions with the arrowkeys, and propel Bobby using thespace bar. Although the game

mechanics are simple, the realchallenge lies in the precision andtiming. One over-zealous push ofthe space bar will send him flyinginto the portal, thus restarting thelevel if the green balls aren'tcleared yet!

Aesthetically, Bobby is fun andvivid with plenty of arcadenostalgia. The graphics are clearand smooth, and there were nonoticeable glitches or frame rateissues when tested on Oneiric11.10. The music and sound effectsare also of good quality, and setthe mood for a nice session ofclassic gaming. The premise is simple – knock the green balls into

the portal to advance to the nextstage. But the simplicity of thegame is what makes it so charmingand addicting.

You can download a free demofrom Nooskewl's website, orpurchase all 75 levels athttps://www.nooskewl.com/buy_bobby.html for only $0.99. Bobby isalso available for purchase in theUbuntu Software Center.

Good:• fun and addictive• soundtrack

Bad:• can be frustrating• some over-sensitive controls

Score: 9/10

UUBBUUNNTTUU GGAAMMEESSWritten by Jennifer Roger BBoobbbbyy

Jeniffer Rogers ..........

https://www.nooskewl.com/buy_bobby.html


MMYY DDEESSKKTTOOPP

This is the desktop I currently have on the Linux Mintinstallation on my laptop. It's the standard desktopbackground, complete with several icons for the programs Iuse most. At the bottom you see Cairo dock with Mint-styleicons, sorted in launchers, applets, and running applications.

My system is a Samsung R730 17.3" laptop with a P6100 Core2 Duo CPU, 4GB RAM and 500GB hard disk. The monitor is16:9 with 1600x900 pixels.It's simple but nice, just like me.

DeMus

Your chance to show the world your desktop or PC. Email your screenshots andphotos to: [email protected] and include a brief paragraph about yourdesktop, your PC's specs and any other interesting tidbits about your setup.

This is Ubuntu 11.10, 64-bit, running on my EeePC 1005PX withIntel Atom N450 @ 1.6GHz and 2GB RAM. I'm using Gnome-Shell instead of Unity. The theme Ambiance Blue is installed,and the icon theme is Faenza. Gnome Shell Weather Extensionis installed as per the following guide, which is also theconfiguration tool for all of this desktop; gnome-tweak-tools:http://www.webupd8.org/2011/10/install-gnome-shell-weather-extension.html#more. My wallpaper is a photo I tookfrom Gothenburg City on a summer night.

Barbara Hohensee


http://www.webupd8.org/2011/10/install-gnome-shell-weather-extension.html#more


MY DESKTOP

My computer is an Intel Core i7 2600 (4 Cores) @ 3.4 GHz, and 4GB of RAM. I'm running Kubuntu 11.10. The plasma theme isthe default Air theme, and the colour scheme is "Penguin".What makes my desktop attractive (to me) is the widget style,Oxygen Transparent, configured with a hint of transparency.

Also of note is the fact that I've given all the folders in myHome directory custom icons. Most of them are from the DarkGlass Reworked Icon set. Despite being mostly for aesthetics, Ifind it surprisingly productive. It's easy to find my usual folders.And when I put something temporary in my Home Directory,the plain blue stands out, and I'm more inclined to workthrough the file/folder and delete it, or relocate to itspermanent residence inside one of the other folders.

Stephan Goosen

This is my desktop.

I am a student and also a novice to Ubuntu. My desktoplooks so cool in a green and black combo. I am a Tamil. Ourregion always looks so cool with green paddies, so I choosethis paddy wallpaper for my desk. I added some screenlets,and Cairo Dock increases the charm.

My cpu is a dual core @1.6 GHz, 1 GB RAM.

Manimaran G


MY DESKTOP - BONUS

Inside this cheap Asus VentoA2 chassis is where the FullCircle magic happens.

Inside it beats an Intel Core 2Quad CPU seated on an Abit IP35Pro XE motherboard which has atotal of 4GB of RAM. I have two oldhard drives, a 55GB one which Irarely use, and the other is 114GB

which I use forbackups. My mainhard drive, which sits on my desk, is1TB. It holds the entire archive ofFCM in both Scribus, and PDF,format. But, then again, so doesthe Ubuntu wiki.

Display is driven by an NvidiaGeForce 9400 GT. Out of thepicture is my Netgear router which

gives me wirelessInternet throughout thehouse, handy for all myother widgets andgadgets.

And yes, I do have a hard drivehanging out the side of my PC allthe time.

Feel free to send in photos ofyour PC [email protected].

Ronnie



PUZZLE SOLUTIONS

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HHOOWW TTOO CCOONNTTRRIIBBUUTTEE

We are always looking for new articles to include in Full Circle. For articleguidelines, ideas, and for issue translation, please see our wiki:http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuMagazinePlease email your articles to: [email protected]

Full Circle Team

Editor - Ronnie [email protected] - Rob [email protected] Mgr - Robert [email protected] - Robin [email protected]

Editing & Proofreading

Mike KennedyLucas WestermannGord Campbell

Our thanks go out to Canonical, themany translation teams around theworld and to Thorsten Wilms for thecurrent Full Circle logo.

If you would like to submit news, email it to: [email protected]

Send your comments or Linux experiences to: [email protected]

Hardware/software reviews should be sent to: [email protected]

Questions for Q&A should go to: [email protected]

Desktop screens should be emailed to: [email protected]

... or you can visit our forum via: www.fullcirclemagazine.org

Deadline for Issue #57:Sunday 08th Jan. 2012.

Release date for issue #57:Friday 27th Jan. 2012.FULL CIRCLE NEEDS YOU!

A magazine isn't a magazine without articles and Full Circle is no exception. We needyour Opinions, Desktops and Stories. We also need Reviews (games, apps &hardware), How-To articles (on any K/X/Ubuntu subject) and any questions, orsuggestions, you may have.Send them to: [email protected]

http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuMagazine

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Documents

Full Circle Magazine - issue 56 EN