Full Circle Magazine - issue 65 EN

full circle magazine #65 1 contents ^

Full CircleTHE INDEPENDENT MAGAZINE FOR THE UBUNTU LINUX COMMUNITY

ISSUE #65 - September 2012

Full Circle Magazine is neither affi l iated with, nor endorsed by, Canonical Ltd.

HHOOWW TTOO UUSSEE EENNCCRRYYPPTTIIOONN

REVIEWUBUNTU MADE EASY

NOSTARCHPRESS

KEEPING YOUR HOME PARTITION SAFE

Ph

oto

:ell

bro

wn

(Fli

ckr.

com

)

http://fullcirclemagazine.org


The articles contained in this magazine are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Al ike 3.0 Unported l icense.This means you can adapt, copy, distribute and transmit the articles but only under the fol lowing conditions: you must attributethe work to the original author in some way (at least a name, emai l or URL) and to this magazine by name ('Ful l Circle Magazine')

and the URL www.ful lcirclemagazine.org (but not attribute the article(s) in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). I fyou alter, transform, or bui ld upon this work, you must distribute the resulting work under the same, simi lar or a compatible l icense.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

Use Encryption p.13

LibreOffice - Part 18 p.10

Python - Part 37 p.06

Kdenlive - Part 2 p.16

HowTo Opinions

Q&A p.51

Ubuntu Games p.54

Ubuntu Women p.XX

Command & Conquer p.04

Inkscape - Part 5 p.18

Columns

Linux Labs p.27

Review p.42

Web Dev p.21

My Opinion p.35

My Story p.32

Letters p.48

Audio Flux p.XX

Ask The New Guy p.24

Closing Windows p.29

BACK NEXT MONTH

Graphics Web Dev

BACK NEXT MONTH

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


EEDDIITTOORRIIAALL

Welcome to another issue of Full Circle!

This month's FCM brings you more Python and LibreOffice, and they areaccompanied with an article on setting up encryption within Ubuntu.Unfortunately, encrypting your partitions can go awry when hibernation kicks in.Fear not, this article explains how to rectify any sleeping issues. With the computer

I mean, not you.

No Starch Press has been kind enough to submit a review copy of Ubuntu Made Easy,which is reviewed this issue. Incidentally, we're open to reviewing anything Linux related,so, if you know of anyone who might be interested in having something reviewed, pleasetell them about us. Not only does it give us something to review (thus, filling pages), but weare quite happy to return the favor by giving the supplier ad space for free. We reach over25,000 people each month who love Ubuntu and Linux, so it's quite worth it.

A couple of (small) changes this month. Please read the 'Write for Full Circle' and'Contribute' pages – as I've updated them with links to the Official Full Circle Style Guideand where you can get Full Circle. Speaking of getting FCM, you can now read all back issuesof Full Circle via Issuu (link is on the Contribute page). This means you can waste work timeby reading FCM without downloading the PDF. Don't worry, the PDF will always be availablefor download, we've no intention of abandoning it.

All the best, and keep in touch!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:• Les Pounder• Tony Hughes• Jon Chamberlain• Oliver Clark


mailto:[email protected]

http://nostarch.com/

http://www.scribus.net

http://www.gimp.org

http://www.libreoffice.org

http://creativecommons.org/



These past few weeks I'vegotten hooked on GuildWars 2, which wasreleased on August 28th.

However, as I'm on vacation, I wasplaced in the position of having torely on Wine.

I tend to prefer running gamesnatively. However, I've gotten itworking fairly well via PlayOnLinux(the only exceptions are theembedded webpages for the BlackLion Trading Company and lookingwith the mouse, both are solvedusing patched versions of Wine).Long story short, if you want toplay the game in Wine, keep onreading. For anyone who isn'taware of it, Guild Wars 2 is aMassively Multiplayer OnlineRoleplaying Game from ArenaNet.It offers 5 different classes, 8professions (called classes in mostMMOs), and features such asdynamic events (as opposed toclasses, these are events thatspawn semi-randomly over themap, giving you a more immersivegame), and a personalized story foreach character you create. Foranyone skeptical about it: I've

started about 8 differentcharacters since the 3rd BetaWeekend event, and each one hashad a significantly different story.The game is buy-to-play (asopposed to free-to-play or pay-to-play). What that means is that onceyou buy the game, you own it andcan play it (like most non-MMOgames). The game is currentlygoing for between 45 and 65€ (60-80 USD).

Versions of Wine I used: 1.5.9-raw3 originally (the raw inputpatch is required to be able torotate the camera via mouse).However, at the time of writing,PlayOnLinux also offers a-guildwars2 series of Wineversions, that include patches forraw input and the embeddedwebpages (see this bug report:http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=27168#c41). I get slightlyfewer FPS with this version of wine(1.5.12-guildwars2), but I haven’tbeen using it for long. There arenumerous versions of -guildwars2patches, so some older versionsmay offer slightly betterperformance. According to the

PlayOnLinux forums, 1.4.1-guildwars2 offers the bestperformance, and 1.5.11 can leadto issues with alsa. Anyone notusing PlayOnLinux can patch theirversion of Wine with thecorresponding patches.

The screenshots were taken atthe highest graphical settingspossible on my laptop, but theywere by no means the maximumsettings available.

The easiest way to set up theWine installation is to usePlayOnLinux, and, after enablingthe testing repository, installing

Guild Wars 2 via the interface. If,however, you dislike usingPlayOnLinux, you simply need todownload the installer and executeit. It will begin a download, roughly10MB, if I remember correctly.Once the download finishes, youmay be greeted by a blackscreen—if this is the case, you'llneed to work blind for a second.The button you need to press is inthe lower-left quadrant of thewindow. It was roughly 1/5th ofthe way from the bottom, and1/5th to 1/6th of the way from theleft of the window for me. It willpop open a new window asking youfor the install location. I wouldn't

CCOOMMMMAANNDD && CCOONNQQUUEERRWritten by Lucas Westermann GGuuiilldd WWaarrss 22 iinn WWiinnee

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=27168#c41


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].

recommend changing the defaultpath too much, but so long as itends up in the correct Wine folder,it shouldn't be an issue. Onceyou've selected the path, hit the“okay” button. In newer versions ofthe installer, the button may bethe direct “install” button, but if itsays “okay” and nothing happens,the install button should be inroughly the same spot as the firstbutton, but on the other side ofthe window.

For anyone not interested infighting with a black screen, youcan easily start the installationfrom a Windows PC, and copy theresulting Guild Wars 2 folder. Italso works in a Virtual Machine. Iwouldn't recommend letting thegame patch in a VM though, sincethe resulting folder can get ratherlarge. Once you've gotten theGw2.exe, Gw2.dat, and Gw2.tmp,you're basically ready to patch yourgame.

In order to patch your game,you'll need to create some sort oflauncher, so that you can pass anargument to Gw2.exe. If you'reusing PlayOnLinux, you can do thisby choosing Configure, and adding-dx9single to the arguments field.This stops the black screen issue

(and also the perpetual connectionattempt). If you're using plain oldWine, you'll just need to eithercreate a .desktop file (I haven'ttested arguments in these sorts offiles, but it should work), or else abash file that looks something likethis:

#!/bin/bash

wine $PATH/Gw2.exe dx9single

This worked for me during thebeta weekends (since then, I'veswitched to PlayOnLinux in orderto have easy access to the raw

input patches). It's alsorecommended that you haved3dx9, gecko, and mono installed.(Though both gecko and monodon't appear to have an impact, it'sbetter to have them and not needthem).

Once your launcher is created,you're all ready to start patching(trust me, it can take a while).Some people report intermittentcrashes of the launcher when usingWine, but I didn't have this issue. Ifyou want to risk leaving itunattended as it downloads, you

can give it a shot, but you mayneed to restart the launcheroccasionally.

Hopefully I've appealed to anyMMO fans with this article. If Ihave, and you'd like to see thesesorts of articles continuing, pleaselet me know (along with any namesof games you'd like to see covered– if I can get it working, I'll cover it).In case you have any questions,comments, or suggestions aboutthis article (or ideas for futurearticles), you can reach me [email protected]. If you doemail me, please include FCM orC&C in the subject line, so I don'toverlook the email. Also, if anyoneis playing Guild Wars 2 and has anysuggestions to make it run better(or want to share some tips/askquestions), you're also welcome toemail me. My home world isGandara, but, thanks to theguesting feature, odds are I shouldbe able to help out just aboutanyone.

COMMAND & CONQUER




HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Greg D. Walters PPrrooggrraammmmiinngg iinn PPyytthhoonn -- PPaarrtt 3377

This month, we’ll finish upthe transposer programthat we wrote in Kivy.Hopefully, you saved the

code from last time, because we’llbe building upon it. If not, grab thecode from FCM#64.

Let’s start by recapping whatwe did last month. We created anapplication that allows for aguitarist to quickly transpose fromone key to the other. The ultimategoal is to be able to run this appnot only on your Linux or Windowsbox, but on an android device as

well. I take mine on my tabletwhenever I go to band practice. Iwas going to deal with packagingour project for Android, but somethings have changed in the methodto do that, so we’ll work on thatnext month.

The app, as we left it last time,looked like that shown below left.

When we are done, it shouldlook like the screen below right.

The first thing you will notice isthat there are blue labels rather

than boring gray ones. The next isthat there are three buttons.Finally the scrollable labels arecloser to the entire width of thewindow. Other than that, it’spretty much (visually) the same.One of the buttons is an “about”button that will pop up simpleinformation, but it explains how tomake a simple popup. One of thebuttons is an exit button. Theother button will swap the labeltext to make it easy to transposefrom piano to guitar or guitar topiano.

Let’s get started by creating a.kv file (above right). This is whatwill give us the colored labels. It’s avery simple file.

#:kivy 1.0

#:import kivy kivy

<BoundedLabel>:

canvas.before:

Color:

rgb: 0, 0, 1

Rectangle:

pos: self.pos

size: self.size


HOWTO - PROGRAMMING IN PYTHON 37The first two lines are required.

They basically say what version ofKivy to expect. Next we create anew type of label called‘BoundedLabel’. The color is setwith RGB values (between 0 and 1,which can be considered as 100percent), and as you can see theblue value is set at 100 percent.We will also create a rectanglewhich is the actual label. Save thisas “transpose.kv”. You must usethe name of the class that will beusing it.

Now that you have thatcompleted, add the following linesjust before the transpose class tothe source file from last time:

class BoundedLabel(Label):

pass

To make it work, all we need is adefinition. Before we go anyfurther, add the following line tothe import section:

from kivy.uix.popup import

Popup

This allows us to create thepopup later on. Now, in theTranspose class, just inside the defbuild routine, place the codeshown above right.

The LoadLabels routine will giveus the colored labels(BoundedLabel) and the swapability. You saw most of this lasttime. We pass a value to the “w”parameter to determine which textis being displayed. Thel=BoundedLabel line is pretty muchthe same line from last time, withthe exception that, this time, weare using a BoundedLabel widgetinstead of a Button widget. TheLoadLabels will mainly be calledfrom the next routine, Swap. Placethis code (shown right) belowLoadLabels.

def LoadLabels(w):

if w == 0:

tex0 = self.text1

tex1 = self.text2

else:

tex0 = self.text3

tex1 = self.text4

for i in range(0,22):

if i <= 12:

if i < 10:

t1 = " " + str(i) + "| "

else:

t1 = str(i) + "| "

t = tex1

else:

t1 = ''

t = ''

l = BoundedLabel(text=t1+t[(i*6):(i*6)+78], size=(780, 35),

size_hint=(None,None),halign='left',

font_name='data/fonts/DroidSansMono.ttf')

s.add_widget(l)

def Swap(instance):

if self.whichway == 0:

self.whichway = 1

btnWhich.text = "Guitar > Piano"

btn1.text = " " + self.text3

s.clear_widgets()

LoadLabels(1)

else:

self.whichway = 0

btnWhich.text = "Piano > Guitar"

btn1.text = " " + self.text1

s.clear_widgets()

LoadLabels(0)


HOWTO - PROGRAMMING IN PYTHON 37

You can see that this routine ispretty self explanatory. We use avariable (self.whichway) todetermine “which way” the labelsare displaying... from Guitar toPiano or Piano to Guitar.

Be sure to save your work atthis point, since we are going to bemaking a lot of changes from hereon.

Replace the lines defining text1and text two with the lines shownabove.

We set self.whichway to 0 whichwill be our default for the swapprocedure. Then we define fourstrings instead of the two we hadlast time. You might notice thatstrings text3 and text4 are simplereversals of text1 and text2.

Now we will tweak the root linedefinition. Change it from...

root =

GridLayout(orientation='verti

cal', spacing=10,

cols=1,rows=3)

to

root =

GridLayout(orientation='verti

cal', spacing=6, cols=1,

rows=4,

row_default_height=40)

We’ve changed the spacingfrom 10 to 6 and set the defaultrow height to 40 pixels. Change thetext for the label (next line) to“text='Transposer Ver 0.8.0'”.Everything else stays the same onthis line.

Now change the buttondefinition line from...

btn1 = Button(text = " " +

text1,size=(680,40),

size_hint=(None,None),

halign='left',

font_name='data/fonts/DroidSa

nsMono.ttf',

padding=(20,20))

to:

btn1 = Button(text = " "

+ self.text1,size=(780,20),

size_hint=(None, None),

halign='left',

font_name='data/fonts/DroidSa

nsMono.ttf',

padding=(20,2),

background_color=[0.39,0.07,.

92,1])

Notice that I’ve changed theformatting of the first definitionfor clarity. The big changes are thesize change from 680,40 to 780,20and the background color for thebutton. Remember, we can changethe background color for buttons,not “standard” labels.

Next, we will define three

AnchorLayout widgets for thethree buttons that we will add inlater. I named them al0(AnchorLayout0), al1 and al2. Wealso add the code for the AboutPopup, and define our buttonsalong with the bind statements.This is shown on the next page, topleft.

Find the “s = GridLayout” lineand change the spacing from 10 to4. Next, add the following lineafter the s.bind line (right beforethe for loop):

LoadLabels(0)

This calls the LoadLabelsroutine with our default “which” of0.

Next, comment out the entirefor loop code. This starts with “for iin range(0,19):” and ends with“s.add_widget(btn)”. We don’tneed this since the LoadLabelsroutine does this for us.

self.whichway=0

self.text1 = " C | B |A#/Bb| A |G#/Ab| G |F#/Gb| F | E |D#/Eb| D |C#/Db| C |"

self.text2 = " C | B |A#/Bb| A |G#/Ab| G |F#/Gb| F | E |D#/Eb| D |C#/Db| C | B |A#/Bb| A |G#/Ab| G |F#/Gb| F | E |D#/Ab| D |C#/Db| C |"

self.text3 = " C |C#/Db| D |D#/Eb| E | F |F#/Gb| G |G#/Ab| A |A#/Bb| B | C |"

self.text4 = " C |C#/Db| D |D#/Eb| E | F |F#/Gb| G |G#/Ab| A |A#/Bb| B | C |C#/Db| D |D#/Eb| E | F |F#/Gb| G |G#/Ab| A |A#/Bb| B | C |C#/Db|"


Greg is the owner of RainyDaySolutions, LLC, a consulting companyin Aurora, Colorado, and has beenprogramming since 1972. He enjoyscooking, hiking, music, and spendingtime with his family. His website iswww.thedesignatedgeek.net.

HOWTO - PROGRAMMING IN PYTHON 37

Now, save your code and try torun it. You should see a deeppurple button at the top, and ourpretty blue BoundLabels. Plus, youwill notice that the BoundLabels inthe scroll window are closertogether, which makes it mucheasier to read.

We are almost through with ourcode, but we still have a few thingsto do. After the “sv = ScrollView”line add the following line...

sv.size = (720, 320)

This sets the size of theScrollView widget to 720 by 320 –which makes it wider within theroot window. Now, before the“return root” line, add the code

shown top right.

Here we add the three buttonsto the AnchorLayout widgets,create a GridLayout to hold theAnchorLayouts, and then finallyadd the AnchorLayouts to theGridLayout.

Go back just below the “defSwap” routine and add thefollowing...

def ShowAbout(instance):

popup.open()

That’s it. Save and run the code.If you click on the About button,you will see the simple popup. Justclick anywhere outside of thepopup to make it go away.

Now our code is written. Youcan find the full code athttp://pastebin.com/GftmjENs

Next, we need to create ourandroid package... but that willhave to wait for next time.

If you want to get set up and trypackaging for Android before nextmonth, you should go tohttp://kivy.org/docs/guide/packaging-android.html for the

documentation on this. Be sure tofollow the documentationcarefully.

See you next month.

al0 = AnchorLayout()



popup = Popup(title='About Transposer',

content=Label(text='Written by G.D. Walters'),

size_hint=(None,None),size=(400,400))

btnWhich = Button(text = "Piano > Guitar",

size=(180,40),size_hint=(None,None))

btnWhich.bind(on_release=Swap)

btnAbout = Button(text="About",size=(180,40),

size_hint=(None,None))

btnAbout.bind(on_release=ShowAbout)

btnExit = Button(text="Exit", size=(180,40),

size_hint=(None,None))

btnExit.bind(on_release=exit)

al0.add_widget(btnWhich)

al1.add_widget(btnExit)

al2.add_widget(btnAbout)

bgl = GridLayout(orientation='vertical',

spacing=6, cols=3,rows=1,

row_default_height=40)

bgl.add_widget(al0)

bgl.add_widget(al1)

bgl.add_widget(al2)

http://www.thedesignatedgeek.net

http://pastebin.com/GftmjENs

http://kivy.org/docs/guide/packaging-android.html


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Elmer Perry LLiibbrreeOOffffiiccee PPtt1188

When building apresentation, it isimportant topresent the

information in a pleasing andinformative way. Using slidetransitions provides a visual movefrom one topic to the next, andusing animations helps to informviewers or provide emphasis onthe current point. Overuse oftransitions and animations cancause your presentation to lookless than professional. However,the appropriate use of thesefeatures will give yourpresentation a polished andprofessional appearance.

Slide Transitions

Transitions are the visualchanges made when moving fromone slide to the next. Transitionsprovide a visual clue to theaudience that you are moving to anew topic. In general, you will usethe same transition for all theslides, but, in some cases, you willwant to use a different transitionto show the viewers a change oftopic.

With the slide you want tochange displayed in the main view,select Slide Transition from theTasks pane. The selection listprovides you with a collection ofdifferent slide transitions. If youhave Automatic preview checked atthe bottom of the Slide Transitionpane, you will see a preview of thetransition when you select it orchange its settings.

You can further modify thetransition in the Modify transitionsection of the pane. Speed willchange the rate at which the slideis displayed. Sound lets you play asound with the transition. You canselect a sound from the defaultsprovided, or select your own. Onceyou select a sound, you can selectLoop until next sound. You willrarely have a use for this, but it isthere should you need it.

In the Advance slide section,you set how and when you wantthe slide to advance. On clickmeans the slide will display untilyou click the mouse or press thespace-bar. Automatic after allowsyou to automatically advance the

slide after a set number ofseconds. When selected, you canadjust the number of seconds inthe spinner box.

At the bottom of the pane, youhave three buttons. Apply to AllSlides does what it says; it appliesthe transition to all the slides inthe presentation. Play causes thetransition to run in the main view.Slide Show starts the presentationbeginning with the current slide.

Animations

Animations are similar totransitions, but instead of actingon the slide, it acts on individualobjects in the slide. Animationshelp create emphasis, flow, andvisual interest as you present theobjects on a slide. They keep theaudience aware of the currentsubject, and act as a visual clue tothe presenter.

To create animations, firstselect the slide which you want tocreate animations for. Select theobject(s) you want to animate, andopen the Custom Animations pane


HOWTO - LIBREOFFICE Pt18in the Tasks pane. Click on Add,which opens the animations dialog.Here you can select the animationyou want for the object(s)selected.

Impress provides four differentanimation types:Entrance: These animations play asthe object appears on the page.Emphasis: These animations areused to create emphasis such aschanging colors, blinking, etc.Exit: These animations play as theobject leaves the page.Motion Path: These animationscause the object to follow adefined path.

There is a fifth tab in theanimations dialog related to mediaobjects. They allow you to start,stop, and pause media objects.

Once you have selected youranimation, click OK.

The Effect section of theanimation pane give you the abilityto fine-tune your animation. Startcontrols what event will triggeryour animation. On Click willtrigger the animation when themouse button is clicked or youpress the space-bar. With Previoustriggers the animation when the

animation before it plays. AfterPrevious plays the animation afterthe previous animation. Thesecond control relates directly tothe type of animation you select. Ifit is a motion animation, it asks you

for a direction. If the animationchanges colors, it will asks you fora color. Finally, the Speed controlsthe speed at which the animationplays.


Elmer Perry's history of working,and programming, computersinvolves an Apple IIE, adding someAmiga, a generous helping of DOSand Windows, a dash of Unix, andblend well with Linux and Ubuntu.

HOWTO - LIBREOFFICE Pt18

Animation Example

The real power of animationscomes when you combine them tocreate interesting effects for yourobjects. In our example, the effectwe will create will display items ina list one at a time. As the nextitems displays, the previous onewill gray out. Finally, all the listitems will fade out before the slidetransition.

Create a new slide, and, in the

text area, add four list items.Select all four list items, and clickAdd in the Custom Animationpane. On the Entrance tab, selectFly In and click OK. Select each ofthe animations in the animationspane and set the start to on click,direction to from bottom, and thespeed to a speed that looks goodon your machine.

For the color change effect,select the first three items in thetext area of the slide, and click theAdd button. On the Emphasis tab,select Change Font Color, and clickOK. For each of these three newanimations, change the start towith previous, the color to gray,and the speed to a speed thatlooks good on your machine. Movethe color change animation for thefirst item up using the Changeorder arrows. Move it up under theentrance animation for the seconditem. Move the second changecolor animation up under the thirdentrance animation, and leave thethird color change under thefourth entrance animation.

Finally, we will create the fadefor all the items. Select all four listitems in the slide's text area. Clickon Add in the animation pane. Onthe Exit tab, select Dissolve and

click OK. Set the first exit to starton click and the other three toafter previous. Select a speed forthe dissolve that works for yourmachine.

Test your animations by clickingon Slide Show in the animationpane. If you set everythingcorrectly, each item should fly infrom the bottom and gray outwhen you click the mouse. At theend, all four items should dissolve.

Transitions and animation arekey to creating a professionallooking presentation. If you arecareful to not get carried away,you can create a polished andmemorable presentation for youraudience. Remember that the ideabehind a presentation is to presentyour ideas to your audience, not toimpress them with fancy, overdonetransitions and animations.

The Ubuntu Podcast covers allthe latest 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 butaren’t overly technical. We arelucky enough to have somegreat guests on the show, tellingus first hand about the latestexciting developments they areworking on, in a way that we canall understand! We also talkabout the Ubuntu communityand what it gets up to.

The show is presented bymembers of the UK’s UbuntuLinux community. Because it iscovered by the Ubuntu Code ofConduct it is 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://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Paddy Landau AAdddd EEnnccrryyppttiioonn

When you installedUbuntu, perhaps youdidn’t opt forencryption; or, you

added a user without encryption –but now, you have changed yourmind and want encryption. In otherwords, you (or another user on thecomputer) wants, but does nothave, encryption.

How do you add encryptionafter the event?

Fortunately, this is quite easy.There are three main steps:• Make an encrypted copy of yourfolder.• Remove the original unencryptedfolder.• Encrypt your swap area. (Youneed this last step only the veryfirst time you encrypt, whether itwas during installation orfollowing this how-to.)

I have tested this on UbuntuPrecise 12.04 (fully updated).

Prepare

Due to an existing bug, you willnot be able to log in if yourwallpaper is in the home folder ofthe user to be encrypted. If theuser has customized the wallpaper,please ensure that it is not storedwithin their home folder.

This procedure is safe as itcreates an encrypted copy of yourhome folder. That does mean,however, that you will havesufficient space on your disk. If youdon’t have enough space, pleaseback up your data, delete largefiles (e.g. movies), and restorethem after encryption. (I normallyrecommend that you back up allyour data anyway in case ofaccidental problems.)

Using your favorite packagemanager, install ecryptfs-utils.

Encrypt

In this how-to, I’ve used myname paddy as the user. Pleasereplace it with the user to beencrypted.

Boot into Recovery Mode (when

you boot, press and hold Shift untilyou get the Grub menu. The“recovery mode” is usually thesecond item from the top).

At the Recovery Mode menu,select Drop to root shell prompt.

Enter the following commandsto fix existing bugs.

mount options remount,rw /

mount all

The following commandprompts for your password andmakes an encrypted copy of yourfolder.

ecryptfsmigratehome user

paddy

When it has finished running,you will see some warnings. Ignorethe warnings; but you do need totake a note of the temporaryfolder that it has created. It lookssomething like/home/paddy.ChPzzxqD, but thelast eight characters will berandom. You’ll need it when youFinalize or Revert below.

Enter the following commandto reboot (it may take severalseconds to get going, so bepatient).

reboot now

Finalize

Now, log in normally. Doeseverything work?

If it did not work, skip to Revertbelow.

If it did work, finish up asfollows:

Open a terminal and enter thiscommand. Use the random-character folder that you noted instep 5 in Encrypt.

sudo rm R

/home/paddy.ChPzzxqD

Restore any data that you haddeleted (if any) in Prepare above.

Open a terminal and enter thefollowing command. If you alreadyhad an encrypted user on yoursystem, you can safely skip this


HOWTO - ADD ENCRYPTIONstep.

sudo ecryptfssetupswap

Reboot.

Revert

If your encryption did notsucceed, you’ll need to restoreyour previous setup.

Repeat steps 1–3 from Encryptabove.

Enter the following commandusing your random-characterfolder from step 5 in Encrypt. Youshould not see an error; if you do,ask for help.

ls l /home/paddy.ChPzzxqD

Now revert with the followingcommands.

cd /home

rm R paddy .ecryptfs/paddy

mv paddy.ChPzzxqD paddy

Reboot.

I hope this helps you. If youhave insurmountable problems,please post a query on my thread

on Ubuntu Forums(http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1987630).

Hibernate withEncryption

A number of people havewondered why Ubuntu has noHibernate option any more, andhow to restore it. The reason isencryption. If you have encryption,the swap space is also encrypted,but with a random key. When youhibernate, the data is stored toyour swap space; when youresume, the random key is lost andso the system cannot read theswap space.

To restore hibernation toUbuntu if you do not haveencryption is easy – just performonly steps 6 and 8 in Set uphibernation below.

But if you do have encryption,you need to replace the randomkey for swap with a passphrase ofyour choosing.

Note, however, that every userof the computer will need to knowthat passphrase in order to boot!

I have tested this with Ubuntu12.04 both natively and in VirtualBox. The latter has a problem withdisplaying the screen whenresuming, but the nativeinstallation worked perfectly.

Prepare

Enter the following command.

sudo cryptsetup status

cryptswap1

In the results, you’ll see a lineindicating the device, which lookssomething like /dev/sda1 or/dev/sdb5. This is your swapdevice. Take a note of it, as you’llneed it later.

I always recommend a fullbackup before changing yoursystem.

Set Up Hibernation

Enter the following commands.Ensure you replace /dev/sdXN withyour swap device from Prepareabove. Please take care to typethem in the right order.

sudo swapoff

/dev/mapper/cryptswap1

sudo cryptsetup luksClose


sudo cryptsetup luksFormat

cipher aescbcessiv:sha256

verifypassphrase key

size 256 /dev/sdXN

WARNING!

========

This will overwrite data on

/dev/sda1 irrevocably.

Are you sure? (Type uppercase

yes): YES

Enter LUKS passphrase: [type

your new passphrase]

Verify passphrase: [type your

new passphrase again]

sudo cryptsetup luksOpen

/dev/sdXN cryptswap1

Enter passphrase for /dev/sda1:[type your new passphrase yetagain]

sudo mkswap


sudo swapon all

swapon s

The last command shoulddisplay a filename/dev/cryptswap1.

Using your favorite editor (or

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1987630


HOWTO - ADD ENCRYPTIONyou can press Alt-F2 and entergksudo gedit), edit the file/etc/crypttab. Replace the existingcryptswap1 line as follows(remember to replace /dev/sdXNwith your swap device).

cryptswap1 /dev/sdXN none

luks

Now edit the file/usr/share/initramfs-tools/scripts/local-top/cryptroot.Search for the following line(which should be on line 288, butthat could change over time):

message "cryptsetup: unknown

error setting up device

mapping"

Skip to the next blank line(before FSTYPE='') and insert anew line (remember to replace/dev/sdXN):

/sbin/cryptsetup luksOpen

/dev/sdXN cryptswap1

Edit the file/etc/acpi/hibernate.sh. At the firstblank line, insert the following line.

DEVICE='/dev/mapper/cryptswap

1'

Edit the file /etc/initramfs-

tools/conf.d/resume. Replace theexisting line with:

RESUME=/dev/mapper/cryptswap1

Edit the file /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/com.ubuntu.enable-hibernate.pkla. The file does notalready exist, so you’ll be creatingit. Add the following lines.

[Reenable hibernate by

default]

Identity=unixuser:*

Action=org.freedesktop.upower

.hibernate

ResultActive=yes

Finally, open a terminal andenter the following command.

sudo updateinitramfs u k

all

Reboot.

Using Hibernation

When starting, your machinewill prompt you for your new swappassphrase. Enter it, and youshould continue to a normal login.

If you forget the passphrase,

enter anything. After three failedattempts, the machine willcontinue anyway, but with theswap disabled. Redo this how-to toreset your passphrase.

Now, you will find Hibernate onyour shutdown menu, and you canhibernate! If you wish to hibernate

from the CLI (command lineinterface), use the command:

sudo pmhibernate


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Ronnie Tucker VViiddeeoo EEddiittiinngg WWiitthh KKddeennlliivvee -- PPaarrtt 22

Last time, we joined twoclips with a dissolve (orfading) transition. Thistime, we’ll look at effects.

Transitions allow you to go fromone clip to another; an effect isdone on a particular clip to alter itsappearance.

Add a clip to a project, thenright click on it and have a look atthe effects available in the ‘Add

Effect’ menu.

Effects are grouped accordingto the desired effect. If I chooseAdd Effect > Fun > Old Film andAdd Effect > Fun > Scratchlines,the names of the effects appliedare shown on the preview, and (inthis case) my video will jump andhave imperfections as you’d expectin an old film.

To remove effects, you simplyclick the X above the effect in theeffect properties box beside thelist of clips.

This is the same place you canedit the effect properties to yourliking.

Effects aren’t just for fun,though. Applying Add Effect >Enhancement > Denoiser (orSharpen) allows you to enhancethe look of your clip. The AddEffect > Colour Correction effectswill allow you to fix the brightness,contrast and colors within yourclip.

Although it may seem that Ihaven’t shown much in these twoparts, it’s up to you to experimentwith overlapping clips and tryingout the different transitionsavailable. Same with effects. Trythem out, one at a time, to see


Ronnie is the founder, and editor, ofFull Circle, an official Ubuntumember, and part-time artist whosework can be seen at:http://ronnietucker.co.uk

HOWTO - KDENLIVE Pt 2how they change your clip(s), andin no time you’ll have amazinglooking clips merging into oneanother.

Before finishing out this part,I’d like to show you how to quicklytrim a clip. Let’s say you have yourperfect scene, but before the mainscene, it shows (let’s say) youputting the camera down, andthen, at the end, it shows youpicking the camera up again.Ideally you want to remove theintro and ending from that clip toleave only the steady perfect shot.What you can do is drag the entireclip into the video timeline, thenplay/scrub through the video untilyou find where you want the clip tostart. Stop there. Now, if you hoveryour pointer of the start of the clipyou’ll see a green glowing arrowappear. Drag that over to whereyou want your start to be. You’venow trimmed the junk from thestart.

Now do the same at the end.Voila! The perfect clip.

Here’s a nice tip, and somethingfor you to play around with untilnext time. Many video shots arehandheld and quite shaky. Rightclick on a clip (in your top leftwindow), and choose Stabilize >Videostab. It can take some time tocomplete (a little progress bar willappear over the clip thumbnail), sodo it only on short clips for now.

If there’s anything you’d like tosee covered in this series, pleasedrop me an email at:[email protected].

Next month, we’ll add sometitles to our video.

1166xx1166 SSUUDDOOKKUU

Solutions are on the second last page.

Numbers 0 to 9 and letters A to F are to be filled into the16x16 grid so that every row, every column, and every4x4 box contains 0 to 9 and A - F.

Puzzles are copyright, and kindly provided by,The Puzzle Club - www.thepuzzleclub.com

http://ronnietucker.co.uk


http://www.thepuzzleclub.com


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Mark Crutch IInnkkssccaappee -- PPaarrtt 55

Last month, I introducedthe Fill and Stroke dialogas a method for settingflat colors or patterns on

your objects. The SVG specificationalso allows for gradients to beused, but, unfortunately, describesonly two types: linear and radial. Ifyou've used gradients in othergraphics programs, you may beused to far more variety, butInkscape is bound by thelimitations of the SVG specificationso, for now at least, two gradienttypes are all you have. Inkscape hasseparate buttons for these in theFill and Stroke Paint tabs of thedialog: as you mightexpect, one looks like alinear gradient:

and the other looks like aradial gradient:

Whichever one you choose,you'll be faced with the same userinterface within the dialog (aboveright).

The first item is a pop-up list ofthe gradients that already existwithin your document. The

currently selected gradient, at thetop of the list, will be the new onethat you're in the process ofcreating. If you prefer to use anexisting gradient, then you cansimply select another one from thelist. Each gradient gets given auser-unfriendly name, such as the“linearGradient3791” in thescreenshot. Unfortunately,Inkscape doesn't provide apractical user interface formodifying this name, so, once youhave more than a handful of

gradients in a document, it canquickly become an unwieldy listwhich gives little indication ofwhere each one is used in yourimage.

Your new gradient will alwaystake the same basic form: it has astart color which is set to a fullyopaque version of your current fillcolor (or to black if there is no fillcolor set), and it has an end colorwhich is the same as the start color– but with its alpha value set tozero. The result is a gradientrunning from an opaque color to atransparent color which runs fromleft to right for a linear gradient,and from the center outwards for aradial gradient:

If you double-click on yourobject – so that you enter editingmode and can see the smallhandles we've explored in previous

articles – you'll also find that twoor three new handles haveappeared, joined by lines andindicating the start and end pointsof your gradients as square andcircular handles respectively. Youcan drag these handles around –even outside the boundary of yourobject – in order to change theposition and angle of yourgradient. For radial gradients, thetwo end points can be movedindependently, allowing you tohave circular or elliptical gradients.

When you click on one of thegradient handles, you'll notice thatthe Fill and Stroke dialog switchesback to the Flat Color mode, withthe selected color also reflected inthe swatches in the bottom-leftcorner of the main Inskcapewindow. The color you can see isthat of the selected end point of


HOWTO - INKSCAPE Pt5your gradient, and you can changeit in any of the ways we'vediscussed previously. Try selectingthe transparent end, clicking onanother color swatch, and thenplaying with the opacity slider orthe “O” spin-box. This approachlets you create gradients thatchange smoothly between any twocolors.

A gradient with two colors is allwell and good, but what happens ifyou want three, four, or a wholerainbow? You could create multipleobjects, each with a part of theoverall gradient, but that quicklygets complex and unwieldy. Inpractice the answer is simpler thanyou might think – we just createmore handles on our gradients.Instead of a start and end handle,we'll have one or more in themiddle as well. These handles eachdefine a particular color in thegradient, and are usually referredto as “stops”.

To add a new stop to a gradient

we need to make it clear toInkscape that we want to edit thegradient rather than theobject itself, by selectingthe Gradient tool:

from the toolbox (or bypressing “g” or CTRL-F1). Now it'spossible to double-click on the linethat joins your existing stops inorder to add a new stop. It willdefault to the color and opacity atthat point on the line, so the visualappearance of your object won'tchange – but now that the newstop exists, you can select it andchange its color. You can also dragstops along the line, crowdingthem together for a sharptransition between colors, orspreading them out for somethingmore gradual. Very quickly, it'seasy to create garish multi-coloredgradients, although more subtlecolor changes between stops willoften give a better artistic effect.

While the Gradient tool isactive, you can still move the endstops to modify the size and angleof the gradient. When you're done,just select your object using theSelect tool in order to return to thefamiliar view of the Fill and Strokedialog with the gradient in place. Auseful shortcut for this step is tojust hit the space-bar. In mostcases, this will toggle between thecurrent tool and the Select tool,switching back and forth with eachpress.

Let's go back to a simplergradient with only two stops. Thequick way to do that is to switchyour fill to Flat Color, and thenback to a gradient again, returningyou to the default arrangement ofa fade from opaque to transparent– centered on your object. The Filland Stroke dialog should look likethe first image in this article oncemore, giving us a chance to explorethe remaining options on thescreen.

The Duplicate button is almostself explanatory. It duplicateswhichever gradient is currentlyselected in the pop-up menu, andapplies the duplicate to thecurrently selected object. That lastpoint is important – it means that

you can happily change the stopcolors and positions in theduplicated gradient withoutaffecting any objects that use theoriginal version. As such, it can be aconvenient starting point if youalready have a gradient that's closeto the one you need, but not quiteperfect.

The Edit… button we'll comeback to shortly.

The Repeat pop-up is used todefine what happens beyond thestart and end stops of yourgradient. The default setting is“none”, in which case the areabefore the start handle will take onthe same color as the start handleitself, and the area beyond the endhandle will likewise take on thecolor of the end stop. Both theother settings repeat the gradient:“reflected” causes the gradient toreverse for each repeat, giving asmooth transition that cycles asStart-End, End-Start, Start-End,End-Start…; “direct” uses thegradient as it stands, giving a moreabrupt cycle of Start-End, Start-End, Start-End, Start-End… As isoften the case, a picturedemonstrating this makes far moresense than a textual description, sohere are three pairs of gradients


Mark has been using Linux since1994, and uses Inkscape to createtwo webcomics, 'The Greys' and'Monsters, Inked' which can both befound at:http://www.peppertop.com/

HOWTO - INKSCAPE Pt5demonstrating “none,” “reflected”and “direct” modes using thegradients shown in the top pair:

Now we'll return to that Edit…button. If you click it, you'll bringup a gradient editor window. Thisis an alternative interface forediting gradients: you can add andremove stops, change theirposition within the gradient, andalter their colors – exactly thesame features that are available byediting using the Gradient tool onthe canvas except that the editorwon't help you to change theposition and angle of yourgradients within your objects. The

gradient editor dialog has beenofficially deprecated though, andwill likely be removed in a futurerelease in favor of some additionsto the on-canvas editing, so I won'tgo into any more detail about it.

Throughout this article I'vetalked about editing the fill. Butyou can also apply a gradient toyour object's stroke. Here we havetwo thick-stroked rectangles, onewith a linear gradient for thestroke, and the other with a radialgradient:

Being able to use a gradient forthe stroke can be a usefulworkaround for one of SVG's (andtherefore Inkscape's) limitations:strokes are always a fixed width.This restriction makes it difficult todraw lines that taper out, but usinga stroke that fades to transparentcan often give a similar visualeffect, especially with thin lines:

There is one feature that cropsup when using both fill and strokegradients which can sometimesfeel more like a bug: Inkscape likesto 'help' by snapping the handlesof gradients together so that youcan manipulate them as one. In thisexample, I've drawn a square witha yellow fill and blue stroke, thenclicked the linear gradient buttonsin the Fill and Stroke dialog. Itlooks like there'sonly one pair ofgradient handles,but that's becauseone set is on top ofthe other.

If you wish to modify just the fillor the stroke gradient, the obviousthing to do would be to grab thevisible handles and move them outof the way to reveal the secondpair below, right? If you try that,you'll find that Inkscape'spropensity forsnapping gradienthandles togethermeans that bothsets of handlesmove as one.

The solution to this conundrumis simply to hold the SHIFT buttonas you drag the handles around.

This will let youseparate them, andprevent themsnapping backtogether if they gettoo close to oneanother.

Now that you can creategradients, perhaps it's time toreplace the simple blurred shadingon your snowman with some radialgradients, to give him a little moredepth. Don't forget lineargradients for his nose, arms, hatand pipe.As afinishingtouch, anicelyshaded skyis usuallymoreinterestingthan a flatplane.

http://www.peppertop.com/


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Michael R. Youngblood WWeebb DDeevv -- CCRRUUDD

What is a CRUD? CRUDis an acronym forCreate, Remove,Update, and Display:

the main basic premise for any app.

Remember, a program is just away to create, edit, and displaydata. It really doesn’t matter if it isan office app, or even a game, all itis doing is taking data inputed, andeither creating, removing, orupdating the current sets of data.

To start off we need an idea.We could go with the usualsuspects: to-do lists, recipes, andshopping lists. I was thinking ofsomething a little more specific toUbuntu, an app that tells usversions of Ubuntu. This is an ideathat has plenty of possibilities togrow with, so let’s get started.

Side note: if you are havingtroubles choosing a good texteditor to code with, I would like tosuggest my favorite. Sublime Text2 is a very feature-packed andstable editor and I tend to have alot of fun with it. I also rely on it alot. Here is a URL to a quick review

I did a while back, if you areinterested in reading more aboutit:http://www.aliendev.com/programming/review-sublime-text-2

First we need to think about theinformation that we need to keep.The version number and names aregood enough to start off with. Nowthat we know what we are going todo, we need to get set up... Createyour working folder; I’m going tocall mine FCM-UbuntuVers. Insideof that, create your css, images, js,and js/libs folders. Now createsome blank files: index.html in theroot, style.cssin css, andmain.js in thejs folder.Below is ascreenshot ofthe directorymap to giveyou the bigpicture.

Now, we can get to somecoding. I like to start out with mystandard HTML5 template. Thetemplate is pretty straightforward

assuming you have even a littleexperience with HTML5. First thereis the doctype, with the value ofjust html telling the documentobject that it is, you guessed it,HTML5. There is a UTF-8declaration, title tag, some metadata, stylesheet call, the body ofthe HTML, our header, article, andfooter tags, and of course the mainjs call.

Next we are going to add abasic form, making sure to includeid’s, placeholders, value, and nameattributes. We also want to includelabels for good practice. The fullHTML example is at:http://pastebin.com/TtReQAWb.

Now that we have our HTML,we need to make sure we addsomething to test the CSS and JSfiles that we are including withinthe HTML. This task is easy enough,just include a line per file like so:

main.js

alert(‘JS included’);

style.css

footer { color: #ccc; }

Now, it is time to view the setupin your web browser. Notice thepopup alert telling you the JS wasincluded. For the CSS test, directyour attention to the footer. Thecolor of the text should be a lightgray.

Now that we are all set, prepareyourself. Next month, we will goover the code more closely.Cheers!

Michael Youngblood has been in theindustry of web design anddevelopment for 13 years. He hasbeen working for a world widewireless tech corp for six years and isworking on his bachelor’s of sciencein mobile development.

http://www.aliendev.com/programming/review-sublime-text-2

http://pastebin.com/TtReQAWb


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).

Rules

• There is no word limit for articles,but be advised that long articlesmay be split across several issues.

• For advice, please refer to theOfficial Full Circle Style Guide:http://url.fullcirclemagazine.org/75d471

• Write your article in whicheversoftware you choose, I wouldrecommend LibreOffice, but mostimportantly - PLEASE SPELL ANDGRAMMAR CHECK IT!

• In your article, please indicatewhere you would like a particularimage to be placed by indicatingthe image name in a newparagraph or by embedding the

image in the ODT (Open Office)document.

• Images should be JPG, no widerthan 800 pixels, and use lowcompression.

• Do not use tables or any type ofbold or italic formatting.

If you are writing a review,please follow these guidelines :

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

Translations

If you would like to translateFull Circle into your nativelanguage please send an email [email protected] andwe will either put you in touch withan existing team, or give youaccess to the raw text to translatefrom. With a completed PDF, youwill be able to upload your file tothe main Full Circle site.

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.

UPDATED!

http://url.fullcirclemagazine.org/75d471




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Get 25% off any SpiderOak packagewith the code: FullcirclemagFans



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AASSKK TTHHEE NNEEWW GGUUYYWritten by Copil Yáňez

Hi, everyone! Welcomeback to Ask the NewGuy! If you’re new toUbuntu, thinking about

switching to Linux, or needsomething explained to you likeyou’re five, look no further. Sendyour (simple) questions to me [email protected] and I’ll domy best to answer them.

Today I’m going to answer aquestion a lot of new users,including myself, ask uponboarding the good ship Ubuntu:

Q: What the hell is a commandline?!

For many of us, the commandline is kinda daunting. Oh, who am Ikidding, it’s foreboding and scary.

I mean look at it, just sittingthere, staring at you with its onegood eye, blinking away. Waiting.

Even so, you can’t swing apenguin around here withouthitting someone going on and onabout pipe this and chown that. Ifthe command line is so spooky,

why do so many seemingly sanepeople use it? It’s as if the Linuxcommunity is populated by clichehorror movie characters, the kindwho hear knife-y type sounds inthe basement and go investigate intheir Pajama Pants instead ofcalling the police.

I mean, what are command lineusers getting out of the experience(other than re-living their MatthewBroderick War Games fantasies)?After all, Ubuntu is so user-friendly.Need to open a program? Just clicka few menus and you’re there.Better yet, under Unity, just typethe program’s name and watchicons appear as if by magic andthen click the one you want.

This user-friendliness gives rise

to the second most commonreaction to the command linebesides screaming Bloody Maryand losing bowel control. Newusers who are not scared of thecommand line think it’s, well,boooooring.

Try to explain to a reluctantnew user how cool the commandline is. It’s a little like trying toexplain Mutually AssuredDestruction to a modern teenager.They can tell it means somethingto you because your face is all redand that vein on your forehead isabout to pop. But as soon as youleave the room, they jump onTwitter:

ZOMGguise, dorkparents r

dorkz!Dadtriedto explain

something calledGorbachev& Iwas

all “LAME!”andhewasall “M.A.D.!”

#who’sMADnow?

You want to shake them and say“We were scared, son! Duck andcover was a thing!” But, of course,it all just seems so quaint to them.

Well, it turns out the commandline is not nearly as scary as somethink, nor is it the digitalequivalent of a Matlock rerun, ofinterest only to the old timers.

It’s actually useful to new usersand even more so for those whospend a little time gettingcomfortable with it.

But let’s back up and start witha definition. On second thought,forget that. I just looked it up andthere was talk about CLIs, oldteleprinter machines, somethingcalled TTY, shells, and then Inoticed the Google Doodle wasStar Trek and, well, I gotdistracted.

Let’s just say the command lineis a place where you type

“


commands. Then, when you pressENTER, stuff happens.

Boom. Checkmate, Wikipedia.

Okay, so how do you use it?

In the same way that the bestcamera for you isn’t the mostexpensive one – it’s the one you’llactually use – the best way to usethe command line is in a way thatencourages you to keep using it.

When I initially looked intousing the command line, it was likedating a spider women: lots ofanxiety and a very real fear I mightdie.

Then I decided to try it only onrelatively simple or repetitive tasksuntil I became more comfortablewith it.

For example, I use thecommand line in the same way Iuse keyboard shortcuts like ctrl-xand ctrl-v. I cut and paste so often,using menus would interrupt myworkflow and slow things down.

What’s a common task you cantry doing at the command line toget you comfortable using it? Myguess is you open the same

browser every time you log ontoyour computer. Let’s start there.

Go to your Ubuntu desktop (orwhatever flavor Linux you’rerunning, this should work on mostinstalls).

Press ctrl-alt-t. You should seesomething like this.

Remember him, the creeper?Don’t panic, I went back andchecked with his exes. Turns outhe’s not a creeper, he’s just shyaround people.

Okay, so what are we lookingat? It’s called a terminal windowand blah, blah, blah. Who cares? Allyou need to know for now is thatthe flashing cursor is where youtype your commands. All thegibberish before the cursor doesn’treally matter either. Time enoughto explore that stuff later if you’restill interested. For now let’s keepit super simple.

So you’ve got a window like theone above and that blinking cursor

insists you do something or it’s justgoing to cross its arms and stare atyou (his exes says he does thatsometimes, too—totally harmless).

Let’s give it something to do.Type:

firefox

and press ENTER.

What happened?

If a Firefox browser windowopened, pat yourself on the backand buy yourself that pair of suedepeek-a-boo toe Louboutins you’vealways wanted. You’re a commandline user now, time to rewardyourself!

Okay, so you’re thinking, “Wait,that took longer than double-clicking my browser icon or findingit on a menu.”

Maybe. But now try this. Closethe terminal window. Firefoxshould close with it.

Type ctrl-alt-t again. When theterminal window returns and youget the blinking cursor, press theup arrow key on your keyboard.The word firefox will magically

appear! Press ENTER. Firefox isback! You’re a rock star!

The command line rememberswhat you did last. So, even longstrings of commands can be calledup instantly and run without evertaking your fingers off thekeyboard.

Admittedly, this is a verysimplistic example. You canexperiment with other commandslike ls (lists the contents of thedirectory you’re in) or cd filename(switches you to the directory youspecify). When you decide youwant to try something at thecommand line (like download andinstall a program), just type whatyou want to do into a searchengine and you’ll typically find atutorial to help. Or send me anemail and I’ll help if I can.

The point is, start with thingsthat are useful to you and that arewithin your comfort zone, and thenmove to more complex commandsas you gain confidence.

Think of the command line asthe $107,000 Nissan GT-R sportscar we all get with every Ubuntuinstall (if you haven’t received yourcar yet, get in touch with Mark

ASK THE NEW GUY


Shuttleworth right away). It’sincredibly powerful, somewhatdangerous if used incorrectly, andit can be a beast to handle. Usingthe command line to run simple,repetitive tasks is the equivalentof toggling LAUNCH CONTROL onthe GT-R to keep you fromsplattering yourself all over thepavement.

Once you feel morecomfortable you can switch thetoggle to STUPID FAST and floorthe accelerator!

Look, I’m not proselytizing here.I’ll be the first to tell you to stayaway from the command line if itjust doesn’t add value to yourcomputing experience, or, worseyet, sours you on Ubuntu or Linux.But, sometimes fear ormisperception keeps us fromlearning simple, useful commands.Start with these and you’re morelikely to keep using the commandline in the future.

I hope this has encouraged youto take a plunge into the commandline if you haven’t experienced italready. Very soon you’ll be pipingand chowning like a boss!*

* I have no idea what pipe andchown do but they sound mildlypornographic so I’m willing to givethem a try.

If you have a simple questionand want an answer that doesn’tlook like a nuclear reactorschematic, contact me [email protected].

ASK THE NEW GUY

Copil is an Aztec name that roughlytranslates to “you need my heart forwhat again?” His love of women’sshoes is chronicled atyaconfidential.blogspot.com. Youcan also watch him embarrasshimself on Twitter (@copil).

CCOODDEEWWOORRDD

Solutions are on the second last page.

Every number in the grid is 'code' for a letter of the alphabet.Thus the number '2' may correspond to the letter 'L', for instance.All - except the difficult codeword puzzles - come with a fewletters to start you off

Puzzles are copyright, and kindly provided by,The Puzzle Club - www.thepuzzleclub.com

http://yaconfidential.blogspot.com




LLIINNUUXX LLAABBWritten by Charles McColm KKwwaarrttzzllaabb MMaakkeerrssppaaccee

In issues #62 and #64 I wroteabout Tweet Screen, a twitterpicture frame I created usingan aging Celeron-based

notebook and a picture frame. Theframe was inspired by a smallerTwitter screen I saw at a Kitchener,Ontario, Canada makerspace,Kwartzlab.

Kwartzlab membership foranytime access is $50/month, butthe group holds an open night tothe public every Tuesday night andoften holds other open events onSaturdays (such as an Ubunturelease party or global bug jam).

Kwartzlab is over 3000 squarefeet of maker goodness. In themain meeting space/wifi lounge,the group has severalworkstations, soldering benches,an array of screwdrivers andsmaller tools, as well as a numberof measurement instruments.

Off to the left of the space,barely visible in the photo belowleft is a computer running RepRapMendel software on Ubuntu Linux,which controls a 3D printer. Theyellow spool feeding the printer ispolylactide (PLA), a kind ofpolyester made from renewable

resources. Kwartzlab membershave used the printer to fabricateparts for other projects andmodels.

Visible next to the 3D printerare several examples of laser

etched pictures (plus a smallTardis) etched/cut on the space’slarge laser cutter. Designs areinputted into a notebook, thensent to the cutter. The etchingcutting process can take a longtime depending on what’s being


LINUX LABcreated so time is typically bookedon the laser cutter.

Member Mark Pitcher was thefirst to show me some of theprojects he’s been working on.

Mark has owned several midi-sequencers in the past, but wantedsomething more portable, so hestarted putting together a coupleof ideas for mini-midi sequencers,one of which is arduino driven. Healso showed me an older electronicdrum kit he’s been in the processof restoring and an arduino-driventripod mount that rotates atprogrammable intervals for

panoramic photography.

Kwartzlab has an artist inresidence every month. This monthTracy Fewster was exhibiting heracrylic work and took the time totalk with me about how shebecame an artist, and to giveadvice for aspiring artists. Tracy’sjourney into the art world beganand almost ended with a teachertelling her that her artwork wassubstandard. Determination andlove of what she was doing droveTracy to continue developing herpassion. Tracy suggests readingabout art, continuouslyinvestigating different techniques,

and searching the Internet toclarify anything that isn’t clear, is agood way to improve.

Shortly after talking with Tracy,the room got called to order for apresentation by Eva Bodahelyi, avisitor from a Guelph, Ontario,makerspace called Diyode, onLaser etching. Kwartzlab membershave cut and etched a fair amountof art (including a 3D model of aTardis), but Eva has refined theetching technique usingPhotoShop and GIMP so moredetailed pictures can be printed.

On open nights Kwartzlabencourages people to bringprojects they want to work on.Besides the laser cutter, 3Dprinter, and various measurementtools, Kwartzlab has a whole backroom full of other machiningequipment. Among the equipmentis a CNC router which member DonLiebold hacked together using acontroller, dremel, and a man-sizedold tape storage unit. Also amongthe available equipment arewelding systems, a centrifuge, 2band saws, a table saw, 2 drillpresses, a belt sander, routingtable, and a radial saw. This toollist covers only the basics. Kwartlabis always adding equipment andimproving the space.

Subsequent to my visit atKwartzlab, I met member DarcyCasselman at an Ubuntu Hourevent. Darcy brought me up tospeed on the Kwartzlab Twitterscreen, actually a Chumby devicerunning the Chumby Twitter plug-in.

Thanks to all the Kwartzlabmembers for talking with me andfor being so generous by allowingFull Circle Magazine to displaythem and their maker projects andworks of art.

More details about Kwartzlab canbe found on their web site at:http://www.kwartzlab.ca/The Diyode maker space alsomaintains a web presence:http://www.diyode.com/

Charles is a step-father, husband,and Linux fan, who hosts a not-for-profit computer refurbishingproject. When not breakinghardware/servers, he maintains ablog at:http://www.charlesmccolm.com/

http://www.kwartzlab.ca/

http://www.diyode.com/

http://www.charlesmccolm.com/


CCLLOOSSIINNGG WWIINNDDOOWWSS MMaappppiinngg AA NNeettwwoorrkk DDrriivvee

Written by:Ronnie Tucker (KDE)Jan Mussche (Gnome)Elizabeth Krumbach (XFCE)Mark Boyajian (LXDE)

Rarely will anyone wantto continually type anetworked folder byname, and this is where

network drive mapping comes inhandy. In Windows XP you canassign an unused drive letter to afolder on the network. In theexample above\\storage01\sharename (a folderon the network) will become W: in

My Computer. A similar thing canbe done in most *buntu distros.

Kubuntu

Drive mapping in Kubuntu isquite easy. Simply browse throughyour network until you find a folderyou would like a shortcut to. Rightclick on the folder and choose “Addto places”.

Your folder will show on the listin the left panel. The globesignifies a network item.

You can remove the item fromthe list by right clicking on it andchoosing “Remove entry...”.

You can use this handy trick as asidebar shortcut for almost anyfolder local or networked.

Gnome-Shell

In Gnome-Shell this worksalmost the same. First, find thefolder or disk you want to mount inNautilus, then right-click it andchoose Mount. The mounted folderwill now appear in the left columnin Nautilus. From there you canchoose it as if it were a local folder.When you want to un-mount it, justright-click on the mounted folder inthe left panel of Nautilus andchoose un-mount.

This is nice, but needs to bedone every time you boot yourcomputer since the mount won’tlast. For a sticky mount you have touse the /etc/fstab file. In this file alldisks and folders which need to bemounted during boot are listed. Anormal samba way of mounting a


network disk or folder is:

//192.168.1.1/BackUp

/home/jan/shares/BackUp

cifs

rw,username=guest,password=,u

id=1000,iocharset=utf8,codepa

ge=unicode,unicode 0 0

Red part: address of networkfolder in your networkBlue part: address of local mountpointGrey part: cifs is synonym for thesamba protocolOrange part: options you want toadd. These options work for guest-access with read-writepermissions.

Be careful when editing thisfile. It is a system file and can beedited only by root. This should tellyou enough. Once damaged youwill have a really bad time fixing itagain. So, make a copy first beforeyou start editing.

It goes without saying that thefolder you want to mount shouldbe shared on the network. This canbe done like this:

As root, open the file

/etc/samba/smb.conf in gedit. Thisis the file on the other computer,the one with the folder you wantto look into. When this is aWindows computer then it is onlynecessary to add the computer tothe same network as your Linuxcomputer.

Make sure the following itemsare in the smb.conf file.

[global]

workgroup = “Networkname you

use”

netbios name = “Computername”

[HomeJan] # Name of

shared folder

path = /home/jan/ # full

path

guest ok = yes # guest

login without credentials is

allowed

writable = yes #

guests are allowed to write

The [global] section is writtenonce at the beginning of the file,the shared folder part needs to bewritten here for every folder youwant to share – of course withdifferent share name and path.

Reboot both systems, where itis mandatory to boot the one withthe shared folder first. This way,

when the other computer bootsand the file fstab is being read, theshared folder is present and can bebooted. Should you boot the othercomputer first, no worries. Open aterminal and type:

sudo mount a

Now fstab will be read againand all folders will be booted.

Xubuntu

In Xubuntu, you can accessnetworked drives via the Thunarfile manager by going to“Network” in the left hand paneland navigating to the share.

You can then click on and dragthe share or specific directory youwish to map over to the left handpanel. This will map the location tothe panel for the duration of yoursession.

Lubuntu

To “map” a network drive inLubuntu, you use the file manager,PCManFM. For the purposes of thisexercise, it is assumed that youalready have access to the networkdrive you want to map. With the

CLOSING WINDOWS


file manager open, enter theaddress of the network drive youwant to access so that you areconnected to it.

Once you are connected to thedrive you want to map, from themenu bar in the file managerselect Bookmarks > Add ToBookmarks.

You are then prompted for aname for the bookmark.

The “bookmark”, in this case, isthe name you wish to assign to thenetwork drive to which you areattached.

Click the OK button and thenetwork drive will be mapped to

the name you provided in thedialog box.

The “bookmark” to the drivewill appear in the left pane of thefile manager.

Each time you boot intoLubuntu, the system will respondto this “bookmark” by attemptingto connect to the drive to which itpoints. If the drive is found, thenclicking on this “bookmark” willdisplay the contents of thenetwork drive.

You can rename or remove thebookmark by right-clicking it andselecting the desired function.Renaming the bookmark does notaffect its ability to connect to thenetwork drive you specified.

Next month we'll look at fileassociations. If a file is associatedwith an application then the OSwill automatically load theapplication and open the filewhen you open the file.

CLOSING WINDOWS

Ubuntu Needs You

Future Of The Papercuts Project

The Hundred Papercuts project isvitally important to Ubuntu. As well asfocusing on the minor/trivial bugs thatdevelopers typically triage down theback of the desk, it provides a point ofentry for new contributors to learn theprocesses involved in Ubuntudevelopment, get to grips with thetools and find their way around thecode without getting in over theirheads.

The initial drive and enthusiasm withwhich the project kicked off during theKarmic cycle was all but faded into thenight, putting that value at risk. Withthe help of the remaining contributors,the Ubuntu Desktop team and thecommunity at large, this plan willbreath new life into what should bethe crown jewel in communityinvolvement in Ubuntu.

Discussion of ideas is taking place onthe Papercuts Ninja mailing list. Youcan sign up to this list by joining thePapercuts Ninja team on Launchpad.

The document is not, by any stretch ofthe imagination, complete. It willevolve over time with input fromvarious parts of the community until aclear and concise plan for reviving thepapercuts project is established.

More information is available at:https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FutureOfThePapercutsProject

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FutureOfThePapercutsProject


MMYY SSTTOORRYYWritten by Theo van Oosten

When I got my firstdiode and resistorfrom my fatherwhen I was 11 years

old, it was clear what I was goingto be when I grew up. I tinkeredabout with all kinds of electronicsincluding logic circuits from theTexas Instruments 74LS00 familychips (does anybody rememberthose?). At the university,somebody told me aboutsomething called a microprocessor.There was the Intel 8080, theMotorola 6800, and a new kind: theZilog Z80 at a whopping 2.5 MHz!The Z80A runs even at 4 MHz !Wow….

So I build my own computerfrom parts, with an enormousamount of memory: 16 K bytes.Dynamic memory of course, if Iwanted to use static memory Icould get only 4 Kbyte at the sameprice. Sensitive stuff though,dynamic memory. Without refresh,it could remember what I put in itfor only a few seconds. I was happyto use an EPROM (ErasableProgrammable Read Only Memory)to contain the OS, because a hard

disk costs as much as a new car,and even the new 8 inch floppydrive costs a month salary. So Iused a compact cassette drive toact as a floppy, slow, but it worked.Programming was done by hand in(hexadecimal) machine code, so Iknew everything there is to knowabout the Z80, even theundocumented instructions! Imade my own version of CP/M, thepredecessor of DOS, fromspecifications. I impressed all thepeople around me with myprintouts – did I have a print shop?But the screen was text only.

Then the world changed. At firstthere was the Atari 1040ST(Motorola 68000 processorat 16 MHz), and laterthe Atari Falcon(Motorola 68030processor at32 MHz) witha beautifulgraphicalinterface(likeWindowshas, yearslater).

Microsoft DOS and later Windowswas rubbish (and it still is), so Irefused to use it. But Atari wentbust, and in the shops you couldbuy programs only for Windows, soat last I caved and I bought me a PCwith Windows 98.

A few years before that (1984), Igot a job at a very largesteelmaking company where Ilearned to program a veryadvanced type of computer, theDigital Equipment Corporation(DEC) PDP 11 with the RSX 4.5operating system. I got this jobbecause I had written programs inmachine code, and they justbought a $100,000 program,

written in machine code,which needed to be

altered to fit theirneeds.

These PDP11’s wereprogrammedin a high levelprogramming

languagecalled RTL2 (I

do not think you

have ever heard of it). Later, weswitched to the DEC VAX with theOpenVMS operating system, andstarted programming in Pascal. Itbecame a lot easier then. We arestill using these computers, 25years later! Why? Because they doNOT crash, and viruses do notexist. At one tim,e we decided toreboot one of our VAX’s because ithad been running flawlessly for 2.5years and we were not sure if itwould reboot correctly after a(rare) crash (never happened), sowe wanted to do the reboot at ourconvenience, without the pressurefrom production. Of course,without any problem.

After working there for 28years, I expected programming tobecome more functional versustechnical, but what happened?Microsoft happened. They havetaken over the world, we areprogramming in C again (back intotime), and the computers have tobe rebooted at least every month,if only to update bad operatingsystem programs and the virusprotection.


MY STORYWhen I caved and started to use

Windows, I was looking around foran alternative. At the university Iwas using Unix, but that lookedunusable. There was also Linux,with RedHat and otherdistributions, but it looked harderto work with than Windows. The“read me first” documentation wasseveral hundred pages long. At alarge computer conference, I wasoffered a free CD with somethingnew, named Ubuntu. I never heardof it before, and the CD lay aroundon my desk for years without beingused. But the name Ubuntu keptcoming back in the media, and,when there was an “introductionparty” (everybody loves a goodparty) for Ubuntu 10.04 Long TermSupport, I decided that it was timeto learn more about it. Well, itwasn’t a real party, but everywherethere were happy looking facesand I was impressed with what Isaw. Especially Virtualbox got myattention. When I left, I got a FREECD with Ubuntu on it. How can itbe FREE? Even the CD itself musthave cost a lot of money toproduce – especially that largenumber of CD's. But I learned thatUbuntu is more than an operatingsystem. It is part of a community inwhich people do things for others,gladly, without asking for payment

of any kind, although a thank younote is appreciated.

I installed a dual-boot and wassurprised with the short time ittook (15 minutes instead of awhole day, no motherboard driversneeded, etc.). When I tried tochange the visual effects, it toldme it did not have the drivers to dothat (bummer). And then it asked:“shall I get it for you?”. Yes, ofcourse! All done.

But I needed a lot of time to getused to the Ubuntu way. And I alsoneeded to get things done, so Iwent back to using Windows. I

tried several times, whenever I hadthe time to play around (full job,single parent, girlfriend an hourdrive away), but I gave up when Ibought a new CPU/motherboardand Ubuntu refused to work on thenew CPU. But I did keep Googlingabout Ubuntu, and found an ISO-file with Ubuntu 10.04.2 on theUbuntu website. Later I realisedthat I could expect this, as 10.04 isa LTS version, and my new CPU didnot exist when 10.04 was created,so it needed to be updated.

At this moment, I am using11.10 because I wanted to programin Pascal, and 10.04 did not have

Lazarus/FreePascal in itsrepository. The rare Windowsprograms for which there are nosuitable Linux replacement (yet)are running in (each his own)VirtualBox virtual computer.

Everything beautiful andperfect? Unfortunately…. no. Inthe early days of Ubuntu, therewere bugs in the programs andeven in the kernel. But as timeprogressed, things got better.Bugs were fixed, the kernelbecame more stable, thingsbecame more intuitive toaccomplish (GUI instead ofterminal…). But then there wasUnity. All kinds of things didn’twork any more, and the internetwas filled with people telling theworld this was wrong. To start aprogram you need to know andtype its name instead of selectingit from a list with a mouse click, asin Windows. If I would be aWindows convert, I would walkaway and never look back. Whatare the people behind Ubuntuthinking? In a forum about creatingdesktop icons to start a program,one of the developers of Unityreplied with “It’s only 50% ready,the next version will haveeverything fixed”. My reply wasthat “if it is not ready, do not


MY STORYdistribute it. To beat Windows,Ubuntu can not afford to be lessthan perfect.” Then the“liboverlay_scrollbar”. Lazarus wasnot adapted to it yet, and I got allkinds of crazy errors. Thanks to theLazarus forum it was fixed within aday (try that on Windows!!!!), but itshows that new things areintroduced not as an option, butobligatory. That is “not done” in anopen software environment.

Did they forget that the USERhas to be in control? Change thedesktop to his needs and taste,and get things done withoutlooking for hours for a way to do itor having to type commands in aterminal, or even change settingsin system files with great risk ofbreaking his system. As a systemdesigner (I have created a lot ofhuman-machine interfaces, driversand applications), and end-user atthe same time, it is my opinion thatthe look and feel of a desktopshould be adjustable and notdepend on the “engine” that isused to activate/display it. Itshould be intuitive, so I can use itwithout having to read manuals.For example: If I want to changethe background, I must be able tosimply right-click on an empty partof the screen and get an interface

to specify my wishes (like onWindows). In Ubuntu, I have tobrowse through tons of programsto find an application that iscapable of doing many differentthings, among them theadjustment of the screen. A veryannoying behaviour I came acrossis the fact that the border of awindow is by default only one pixelwide. Just try to click on it withyour mouse to grab it and move itto resize the window! On averagethat takes me three tries, with (if

you “miss-click” outside thewindow) the chance of theunwanted effect of the windowbelow it popping up (or even doingsomething unwillingly if a buttonwas in that place). There arethemes with thicker border lines,but there are only a few availableafter installation, and finding asuitable one on the Internet is veryhard, because of the choices,choices, CHOICES you get. It maybe an advantage of open softwarethat you have so much to choose

from, but too many choices isequally as bad as only a fewchoices.

But everything is not lost yet.Once the people behind Ubuntugive us back the choice of the lookand feel of the desktop, we canstart again telling people who useWindows how great Ubuntu is, andoffer them a stable and reliableplatform that looks and feels likeWindows, but is not. In themeantime I will use Gnome classic.


MMYY OOPPIINNIIOONNWritten by Kevin B. O'Brien

The words we use todescribe what we do canmatter a lot in how we inthe FOSS community

think about what we do. Onceupon a time, there was FreeSoftware, as defined by RichardStallman in the famous FourFreedoms:• The freedom to run the program,for any purpose (freedom 0).• The freedom to study how theprogram works, and change it so itdoes your computing as you wish(freedom 1). Access to the sourcecode is a precondition for this.• The freedom to redistributecopies so you can help yourneighbor (freedom 2).• The freedom to distribute copiesof your modified versions to others(freedom 3). By doing this you cangive the whole community achance to benefit from yourchanges. Access to the source codeis a precondition for this.

Now, I happen to be a bigsupporter of this. I love the idea ofFree Software. And I have noticedthat some people I greatly respect,such as Jon ‘maddog’ Hall, are

always careful to refer to it as FreeSoftware. Nonetheless, there areproblems with this terminology. Ifyou have been around FOSS forvery long, you have noticed thatthe word “free” admits of severalmeanings, one of which has to withthe cost. And that was never thepoint in FOSS. There is nothing inthe definition of FOSS or in theGPL that says you are prohibitedfrom charging for your software.And, because of the ambiguity in“free,” we have to be careful to use“Free As In Freedom” to denotewhat Stallman meant by the FourFreedoms, as distinct from “FreeAs In Beer” to denote lack of amonetary price.

A later term was developedcalled Open Source, which put thefocus on making the source codefreely available. Now, it is clearfrom the Four Freedoms abovethat this is essential to FreeSoftware, so I am not sure just howbig a difference this makes. But ifyou want to explain to the averageuser why any of this matters, youhave to acknowledge that theaverage user really doesn’t care if

the source code is available sincethey can never imagine themselvestrying to modify the code. In pointof fact, I would expect that it ishighly likely that I will go to mygrave without ever attempting tomodify the code of any software Iuse. I am not a programmer, and Idon’t have any desire to be one. Ilike programmers, some of my bestfriends are programmers, and theworld is undoubtedly a betterplace because of programmers,but I don’t think that is my role inFOSS. So I don’t have a stronginterest in looking at the sourcecode. And to you in the back withyour hand up, I agree that it wouldbe silly to buy a car that had thehood welded shut, but I don’trepair my own cars either. Instead Isupport the economy by helping amechanic to earn a semi-honestliving.

The term I have adopted forthis purpose is to call what we do“Community-Supported Software,”because I think that puts theemphasis where it more properlybelongs, at least for some uses. Ifwe value this software, I think we

all have a responsibility to supportit in whatever way we can. Somedo that as programmers, but therest of us have a role to play. And Iwant to explore some of thoseoptions (and maybe motivate somepeople to get involved). Because Ithink it is true that freedom isnever free. It requires all of us totake part in defending andsupporting it.

Bug Hunting

I’ve already mentioned thatFree Software should moreproperly be considered“Community-Supported” software,and I said I would come back todiscuss just what that means.

There are lots of ways forsomeone to support FreeSoftware, but one of the mostimportant is by submitting bugs tothe developers. Remember thatthese fine people are creatingwonderful software with minimalbudgets, and that means theycannot possibly test their softwareunder all possible conditions. Manyof us (myself included) build our


MY OPINIONown computers out of parts wemix and match, everyone installstheir own custom blend ofsoftware, etc. Under thecircumstances, you have to expectthat we will stumble overproblems that no one knew about.And the only way they can getfixed and the software improvedfor everyone is by filing bugs. Thisis how the developers getinformed about the problems, andis step one to fixing them.

The first place to look for filingbugs is with your distro. The majordistros tend to have online bug-tracking mechanisms of some kind,and they will have specificdirections on how to file a bug.They may decide that it should goupstream (i.e. the bug is in apackage that they included butdon’t directly support), but it isreally never wrong to start withthe distro. If you want to readmore about this, a good place tostart is at LinuxCareeer.com. Notehow they start off their discussion:

Linuxdistributions, andOpen Source

software in general, are, before

anything, communityefforts. Every

distribution lists somewhere on its

websiteways to contribute to and

help the effort. Andit’s quite an

effort too, which programmers

provide forfree, working in their

spare time. One recurrent theme on

each ofthose “howto contribute”

documents is “Submitbugswhen

found,”although the exactwording

maydiffer.

This site gives more specificinstructions for Ubuntu, Mint,Fedora, Debian, and openSUSE. Butif you use some other distro, justgo to the site of the distro and youwill be certain to find how they doit. Or Google for the name of thedistro and the phrase “filing bugs”and you will probably get thereright away.

Now, aside from the specificmechanics of submitting a bug foryour distro, there are some generalthings that are important to anygood bug report, and you shouldlearn to look for these:• Did anything just change? Did youjust add a new video card, forinstance? If you change to adifferent video card, does thataffect the problem? Did you justinstall new software? Did you justupdate something? Can you rollback the change and try again?Knowing the answers to thesequestions can be very important indetermining where the problem

lies.• What were you doing when theproblem occurred? Is itreproducible, i.e. if you do thesame things again, do you get theexact same problem? Again, a veryimportant piece of information fortracking down the bug.• Do you have any log data to addto the report? Get to know wherethis data lives, and how to accessit. For instance, dmesg is a greatsource of information. Justincluding this file in your bugreport can be useful, but evenbetter is finding out how to pullout the relevant details first.• Check to see if this bug hasalready been submitted. If so, youmay be able to add on to thereport as an additional case of thesame bug. Even better, if youlearned how to get goodinformation, you can improve theoriginal bug report to the pointwhere the developers can actuallywork on it. When you look at howbugs are submitted, a largenumber of them cannot be workedon because there is no usefulinformation. Learn to make yoursuseful. Also, you may discover thatthe bug has already been fixed,and all you need to do is updateyour software. That is pretty good,right?

Here is an example of oneproblem I had. The softwarepackage in question was Miro,which downloads and plays videosfrom the Web, which for me ismostly video podcasts. And I use itevery day, so this problemmattered to me. I had justupgraded my distro to the newestversion, and suddenly Miro wouldnot play any of my videos. Ichecked and I could play them inother software, but I wanted Miroto work for me again. I alsochecked on another computer withthe same distro version, and hadthe exact same problem. So I fileda bug in two places, one with thedistro, the other with Miro itself. Igot a reply from a developer onthe Miro project within hours, andhe said that he had tried that exactdistro version and had noproblems. So there was probably


MY OPINIONsome combination of softwarethat I tended to use that didsomething unexpected. He askedme to grab a log file from Miro,and send it to him. I did so, andagain he wrote back promptlypointing out a couple of lines inthe log file, and saying that itlooked like I was missing a criticalpackage. I checked, and it lookedlike this package was on mysystem, but I removed it,reinstalled it, and then Miroworked properly again. I think thiscounts as a very good outcome.

When you create good bugreports, you help yourself and youhelp others. And that is a big partof what it means to haveCommunity-Supported Software.

Documentation

In my day job,I am a ProjectManager, and one of the things Iconstantly try to get is gooddocumentation. I hope I have evenproduced a little of it myself. Butthere is no topic on which I getmore resistance than on creatinggood documentation. No one everhas time to create it, but somehowthey find the resources to pay theprice when they don’t have it. If

getting good documentation ishard in the corporate world, howabout in the Free Software world?It is equally difficult. I can’t tell youhow many times I have tried toaccess the Help system for one ofmy KDE applications only to get anerror that says there is no Helpmaterial available. You really feelsometimes like you are being told“We wrote it, now you figure outwhat to do with it.” And part of thereason is that we don’t alwaysthink about it properly (in myopinion).

I would start by distinguishingbetween two kinds ofdocumentation: technical, and end-user. Technical documentation, asthe name implies, is the sort ofthing that the developers couldprovide if they chose to do so. Thiscould get to the very deepest levelof code documentation, but even ifit lives at a somewhat higher level,it is not end-user documentation.And the question of whether iteven exists remains. Developerslike developing, but they generallydon’t like documenting. And inFree Software many of thesepeople are volunteers.

But the topic of end-userdocumentation takes us in a

different direction, and one wherepeople with the right skills can bevery helpful. It can also be a littlefrustrating. I recall one experienceI had where I offered to helpcreate end-user documentation foran application. When I asked to seewhat they had, the response was“We don’t have anything, that iswhat we want you to do.” Now Ilike to think I am a good writer, andI know I have been praised at workfor the documentation I havewritten, but any writer needssomething to start with. At work, Ican make the technical people sitdown with me, answer myquestions, and so on. And youreally need something like that todo good documentation. Goodtechnical documentation can getyou started, but to do good end-user documentation you will needto have some kind of access to thedevelopers. And if the folks on theproject you want to help don’tunderstand this, you need toexplain it to them. They may wantsomeone to come along and justmagically make something happenwithout anyone else on the projectbeing involved, but that is just notfeasible. Good documentation is agroup effort, really.

In writing for the end-user, you

need to be able to think a littledifferently. End-users are, by-and-large, not technical. There can beexceptions to this rule, but this is agood starting place for writing themost useful documentation. Andthe best way to do this is bythinking of “stories”. The Agilecommunity tends to do a good jobof this in terms of softwaredevelopment, but you need tocarry this into documentation aswell. You could write a book on thistopic, and I don’t have that kind ofspace here so I will be somewhatmore brief. Stories in this contextmeans picturing a typical user ofsome kind, and imagining how theymight try to use the software. Whois this person? Be specific – givethis person a name, an age, a sex, abackground. The better you do this– the better able you will be to getinto this person’s skin and seethings the way they do. Then lookat some questions they mighthave.

WhywouldIwant to use this

software?

Whatdo Ihope to accomplish here?

WouldIuse this infrequently, or

daily?


MY OPINIONWouldIuse this alone, orwith other

software?

And that is just a few of thequestions you might want to ask atthe beginning. By answering them,you set a direction for what youwant to do. And if you can beginhere, and you can write outanswers that end-users can makesense of, you can make aninvaluable contribution to FreeSoftware.

One last note is abouttranslating documentation. Freesoftware is international in scope,and often the people who need itmost also need it in their ownlanguage. If you can translate thedocumentation, that is also amuch-needed contribution. Manyprojects are looking for help withthis aspect of the documentation.Just offer to help.

The “M” Word

And by that I mean Money.

As I mentioned previously,when we talk about Free Software,the emphasis ought to be onfreedom, not on price. The factthat so much Free Software is also

free of purchase is great. It offerspeople who cannot affordexpensive proprietary software achance to use comparablesoftware that can improve theirlives, their businesses, and theirsocieties. But, at the same time,it does require somemoney to produce thesoftware. Whilethere are caseswhere thefinancialsupport comesfrominterestedcompanieswho mayassign theirstaff asdevelopersor provideserver space(andcompanies likeRed Hat andIBM provide a lotof support thisway), there are also alot of smaller projectsthat need help. And someactivities that are important arenot supported by corporations atall, but instead must rely onindividuals to provide this support.I would never suggest you stop

feeding your kids to do this, butthe reality is that most users ofFree Software in the US andEurope (for example) could easilyafford to make some contributions.And I want to suggest some ways

you can do this.

To begin with,most of the Free

Softwareprojects have a

Web page.And if you

go to theWeb pageyou willprobablyseesomethinglike a

PayPalbutton to

make adonation. My

rule of thumbis that if I use

the software a lotI ought to support it

financially. I havealways felt this way,

going back to the days of“shareware”. Shareware used to be“try before you buy” softwareproduced generally byindependent developers who let

you use the software free-of-charge, but asked you to registerand pay for it if you liked it. Whileundoubtedly some number ofpeople simply used the softwareand ignored the obligation to payfor it, it was clear to me (and manyothers) that, if the developerscould not get paid for theirtrouble, they would stop makinguseful software. Now that I amfirmly in the Free Software camp, Ifeel the same way: if we don’tmake sure our developers aresupported, they will go do otherthings. They also need to eat, theyalso have families, they need topay their bills.

I will give a few examples frommy own experience just toillustrate how easy it is to do this ifyou are sensitive to the issue. Irealize this may look like I amtrying to make myself look good,but I don’t think I am any betterthan anyone else, I just don’t haveanyone else’s examples handy rightnow.• The first example is a projectcalled Miro(http://www.getmiro.com/), whichproduces software to downloadvideos from the Internet and playthem. I subscribe to a lot of videopodcasts, as well as a few YouTube

http://www.getmiro.com/


MY OPINIONchannels, and this is how I do it.And I use this software every day,so it is a good candidate forsupport. About a year ago theywere looking to sign up people in afund-raising drive called “Adopt aline of code”, for which you wouldpay $4 per month through PayPal.It looked good to me, so I signedup. After all, I get far more than $4per month of benefit from thissoftware and have come to rely onit every day.• I also am a KDE user on all of mycomputers. A few months back, Isaw a post from one of thedevelopers, Sebastian Trueg(http://trueg.wordpress.com/),that he needed to raise money tosupport himself so he couldcontinue his work on KDE. Unlikesome of the developers, he had nocorporate paycheck supporting hisKDE work. Well, I use KDE everyday, I rely on it, and I clicked thePayPal button for a donation (Mymemory is that I gave him $10, nota huge amount, but I hope thatamong all of the KDE users heraised enough money to keepworking.)• My particular distro of choice isKubuntu, and, again, I use it everyday. I don’t think Canonical reallyneeds my donations to keep going,but they base their work on

Debian, so when I saw afundraising drive to write andpublish the Debian SystemAdministrator’s Handbook, Ipledged a small amount (again, Ithink it was $10 or so. For me, $10is the amount I can casually donatewithout worrying about paying myown bills.)

Another form of support youcan give is by joining some of theNon-Profit charitable organizationsthat support Free Software. Thereare a number of them, but I willnote a few. First is the FreeSoftware Foundation(http://www.fsf.org/). This was set

up by Richard Stallman, and is theone organization on my list that isdirectly focused on defending oursoftware freedoms. This is thegroup that promotes the GPLlicense. Because my own freedomis very important to me, I am proudto say that I am a member. This is alittle more expensive than mydonations above, at $10 permonth, but I’m glad to do it.Another group that you cansupport through a membership isThe Linux Foundation(http://www.linuxfoundation.org/).This group pays the salary of LinusTorvalds (and just announced thatthey are supporting Greg Kroah-

Hartman), so if the Linux Kernel isyour thing this would be a goodthing to join. Individualmemberships are $99 per year.Next I want to mention the LinuxFund (http://www.linuxfund.org/).They raise money through whatare called “Affinity Cards”, i.e.credit cards with a logo of yourfavorite group. You many haveseen these before to supportsports teams or universities, butyou can support Free Software.And despite that name “LinuxFund” they also support BSD,which is Free Software by anydefinition. All you need to do issign up for a credit card throughthem and a small part of yourpurchases goes to support theproject you choose.

The last one I would like tomention is the Software FreedomConservancy(http://sfconservancy.org/). This isa non-profit group headed byBradley Kuhn that helps a lot ofprojects. Essentially, they providethe legal structure to enablesmaller projects to raise moneywhile the SFC handles theadministrative overhead. Bradleywas formerly at the Free SoftwareFoundation, and is still the mostactive person in defending the

http://trueg.wordpress.com/

http://www.fsf.org

http://www.linuxfund.org/

http://sfconservancy.org/


IT HAS RETURNED!

The Full CirclePodcast Returns!

It may be a new team ofpodcasters, but the formatwill be the same.

We'll be talking about FullCircle Magazine, news,reviews and interviews.

Your new team is:• Les Pounder• Tony Hughes• Jon Chamberlain• Oliver Clark

All are members of theBlackpool (UK) LUGhttp://blackpool.lug.org.uk

Debut episode isavailable from theFCM homepage.

MY OPINIONGPL, so this is a name you may wellhave heard before. But at SFC he isdirectly helping all of theseprojects. Current member projectsinclude Amarok, Git, Samba, andWine. I’m guessing at least a few ofthose projects produce softwareyou use, so you can help them outwith a donation.

Getting Involved

We have explored some of theways everyone can support FreeSoftware, such as by filing bugs,writing documentation, and byproviding financial support. I wantto wrap it up by exploring whatmay be the best way of all to getstarted, and this is to get involved.Join a group. Help out.

The first place you might wishto look at is your local Linux UserGroup (LUG). This is where you canmeet people in your communitywho also are interested in FreeSoftware. You might think thatonly Linux gets discussed there,but I’d bet you would be surprised.I know my local LUG has speakerscovering a wide range of topics inFree Software. Last month welearned about Sourceforge, forinstance, which supports a bunch

of different Free Softwareprojects. LUGs also providecommunity outreach, such as bydoing install fests and bycooperating with local schools andorganizations. I always suggest topeople that this is the first place togo both to get help and to getinvolved.

The next place you might wantto look into is with your Linuxdistro of choice. Mine is Kubuntu,which is a variant on Ubuntu thatuses the KDE desktop. So I havejoined my Ubuntu LocalCommunity (i.e. LoCo), which in mycase is Michigan in the US. Thisgroup organizes Bug Jams, wherepeople get together to file andwork on bugs. And they organizerelease parties twice a year whennew releases come out. I know thatFedora has what they call theFedora Ambassadors program, andmany other distros haveopportunities to get involved. Youhave only to ask.

Finally, I am going to mentionthe various Linux and FreeSoftware conferences. I aminvolved with one called OhioLinuxFest, where I am the Publicitydirector. I just finished writing apage for our web site

(https://ohiolinux.org/node/187)where I listed 8 major positions weare trying to fill, as well as a bunchof day-of-event positions forvolunteers. If you have never beeninvolved with an event like this,you might not realize just howmuch work is involved in makingthe magic happen each year. But itis hard work, and every one ofthem is looking for volunteers tohelp put it on. And this issomething you can do even if youdon’t feel like you can file bugs orwrite documentation, or you don’thave the money to providefinancial support. You can alwaysprovide help at these events.Chances are there is one not toofar from you.

What really matters, though, isthat you make a contribution ofsome kind. As we said when westarted this series of posts, FreeSoftware means Community-supported Software. When it stopsgetting community support, it dies.If you value Free Software, thenyou have a responsibility tosupport it in one way or another.My role here is to give you ideas onhow you can do that.

http://blackpool.lug.org.uk


https://ohiolinux.org/node/187


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

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


BBOOOOKK RREEVVIIEEWWWritten by Ronnie Tucker

July 2012, 480 pp.ISBN: 978-1-59327-425-2http://nostarch.com/ubuntumadeeasy

The first two chapters of“Ubuntu Made Easy”begin by explaining whatLinux is, how to try

Ubuntu (yes, the book comes witha Live CD), and, if you like it, how toinstall Ubuntu. There are plenty ofscreenshots showing every step ofthe way.

With Ubuntu installed, the bookthen explains how the desktopworks. This is particularly useful

especially withUbuntu now usingUnity rather than thetraditional Windowsstyle desktop with‘start’ buttonequivalent, taskbarand such-like. Unity issure to fox newusers.

Chapter five goesinto great detailabout gettingconnected to theInternet – whether itbe via a modernwireless router orserial cable modem.It even shows aphoto of a serialport. How quaint! Itthen explainsbrowsers, emailclients, microblogging and textchatting.

From there it gets down to thenitty-gritty of installing andupdating apps with the UbuntuSoftware Center. Keep your eyeout for Full Circle Magazine

popping up in a couple ofscreenshots. Before moving on,the book discusses the UpdateManager and adding repositories.A nice touch was the authorstaking the time to explain theadding of PPAs.

The next chapter is abouthousekeeping with Nautilus,burning CD/DVD discs and usingUSB storage devices. Nothing tooin-depth, but still handy for gettingpeople to do backups.

We’re not even half way

UUbbuunnttuu MMaaddee EEaassyy

CONTENTS:Chapter 1: Becoming a Penguinista - Welcome to the World of LinuxChapter 2: Wading and Diving - Running and (If You Like) Installing UbuntuChapter 3: A New Place to Call Home - Getting to Know the DesktopChapter 4: More than Webbed Feet - Connecting to the InternetChapter 5: Slipping and Sliding - Exploring the Internet, Linux StyleChapter 6: Rounding Out the Bird - Downloading, Installing, and Updating Programs the Easy WayChapter 7: A Tidy Nest - File and Disk Handling in UbuntuChapter 8: Simple Kitten Ways - Getting to Know the Linux Terminal and Command LineChapter 9: Dressing Up the Bird - Customizing the Look and Feel of Your SystemChapter 10: Gutenbird - Setting Up and Using Your Printer and ScannerChapter 11: Polyglot Penguins - Linux Speaks Your LanguageChapter 12: Penguins at Work - Getting Down to Business in LinuxChapter 13: Right-Brain Penguins - Linux Does ArtChapter 14: Tux Rocks - Music a la LinuxChapter 15: Pluggin' in the Penguin - Ubuntu and Your iPod, iPhone, and Other Digital Media DevicesChapter 16: Couch Penguins - Video and DVD Playback in UbuntuChapter 17: Feathered Flippers - Linux GamingChapter 18: Sweet Home Antarctica - Linux Around the HouseChapter 19: Penguins at the Gates - Working with Ubuntu in a Windows WorldChapter 20: Defending the Nest - SecurityChapter 21: A Colony of Penguins - The Ubuntu CommunityChapter 22: Wounded Wings - Fixing Common ProblemsAppendix A: Installing Ubuntu from a USB Flash DriveAppendix B: Ubuntu Desktop CDs for AMD64 UsersAppendix C: Manually Partitioning Your Hard DiskAppendix D: Resources

http://nostarch.com/ubuntumadeeasy


REVIEWthrough the book and we’regetting terminal commands? Hangon, installing pyWings via terminal?But we’ve not even touched onoffice/graphics/media stuff yet!Only after doing complex terminalstuff does it explain how to changethe desktop wallpaper whichseems a bit backwards.

After installing a printer andchanging the localization we get toplay with LibreOffice. It does agood job of explaining thedifferent parts that make up theoffice suite, and quickly explainshow to use each part.

At the halfway mark the bookbegins explaining how to importphotos from digital cameras andhow to go about getting imagespublished online. Although,Facebook for publishing photos?Why not Flickr or something moresuited to photographs? Next, aftersome GIMP talk, comes audio withRhythmbox and the ripping ofaudio CDs. When the bookdiscusses the connection ofAndroid devices I did like how itmentioned the current trend ofusing MTP (rather than the old USBstorage option) explaining that asof 12.04 MTP is much moreAndroid friendly. Several pages on

and we find that some Appledevices fare just as badly withHFS+ formatting which doesn’t getalong well with the Linux kernel.

After video playback we enterinto the realm of Linux games.Several titles are mentioned fromvarious genres.

It’s inevitable that, at somepoint, your Linux machine willcome into contact with a Windowsmachine. Chapter 19 explains howto mount Windows drives andtouches upon installing and usingWine.

Heading into the final straight,the book discusses the communityand how to get help. A big thanksto No Starch Press for includingFull Circle Magazine in its list ofnewsworthy sites. Definitely anhonor!

The final chapters show what todo if your Ubuntu comes a cropperand you need some assistance or,worse still, safe mode.

I like the information that’scontained in “Ubuntu Made Easy,”but I’m not sure that it’s a goodidea to begin with trying to explainwhat Linux/Ubuntu is. I think a

better starting point would havebeen explaining how to try Ubuntu;then, later on, explaining whatLinux is after the user has tried it.The other chapters are great, butmaybe a little rearrangementwould have been in order. I’dprobably have told people how tohook up Apple/Android devicesand use the office apps beforeteaching them about installingpyWings via the command line.

Definitely a great book forbeginners, but you’ll probablyhave to explain to them not topanic about the early mentions ofthe terminal.

Many thanks to No Starch Pressfor the review copy of “UbuntuMade Easy.” Please support NoStarch by buying their books via:http://nostarch.com

http://gpodder.org/

http://nostarch.com

http://nostarch.com


RREEVVIIEEWWWritten by Robin Catling

With the release of12.04, we're in afortunate position;there's a growing

user base, a healthy usercommunity, and a lot of highlyintelligent people working on andwriting about Ubuntu. There areeven some very thick and quiteexpensive printed books on thesubject. But in keeping with thefree and Open Source ethos, wedecided to take a look at some ofthe free publications you can getto help you and your Ubunturecruits along the way.

Muktware's UbuntuManual - 12.04 LTS -First Edition

http://www.muktware.com/articles/3556/muktware-ubuntu-manual

This manual is intended forusers new to Ubuntu coming fromother operating systems, and alsousers who are upgrading fromUbuntu 10.04 LTS. It is a manualproduced by the community forthe community. Therefore, it isavailable free of charge, and isdistributed under the CC-BY-SA 3.0license.

It covers all elements of theUbuntu world – starting withpreparing your computer forinstallation and using Ubuntu, toadvanced topics. It guides a newuser into the world of Ubuntu. Anentire chapter devoted to workingwith Ubuntu effectively coverssome of the key features ofUbuntu 12.04 like VirtualWorkspaces, Unity Desktop, SpreadView, and Switching betweenapplications.

From a site described as an'Open Source Magazine', the teamat www.muktware.com have puttogether an Ubuntu manual whichyou can get directly from theUbuntu Software Centre!

Released under the CreativeCommons license, by a team forwhom English appears not to betheir first language, Muktware'sUbuntu Manual is another attemptto produce a manual for new users.Like all the beginners’ manuals, itdoes the right thing in principle,opening with About Ubuntu, WhyUbuntu, Who is behind Ubuntu,Ubuntu Releases, Contributing toUbuntu.

In practice, the chances are, ifyou've got it, you know a lot ofthis, or you've been recommendedit and don't give a monkey’s, or youjust want to get on with it. Why cannobody produce a fly-leaf PDFpage with a little info graphic, andthe hot links to skip to the sectionyou want – in this case Chapter 4on page 11, Obtaining Ubuntufollowed by Chapter 5, Installing?

Part II, Using Ubuntu, gets intoits stride, with an overview of theUnity desktop, the Launcher, andHUD. The manual has some slightlystrange page layouts and breaksand eccentric captioning. It's not aparticularly great explanation ofthe HUD either. The SoftwareCentre is much better explained,with warnings in the appropriateplaces.

Next, there's a whole section onTerminal Basics. This is well writtenand presented content, but I'm oftwo minds about terminal use.Who is the audience for thismanual? Do you stick to describingthe graphical interface – after allyou can do 95% of common tasksvia Nautilus – including settingordinary permissions. Or do youacknowledge there are quickerways for the technicallycompetent, and live in the realworld where the Linux terminalstill exists? Taking that secondoption, Terminal Basics is donewell.

The next section is aboutPerforming Basic Tasks, which it

MMaannuuaall LLaabboorr

http://www.muktware.com/articles/3556/muktware-ubuntu-manual


REVIEWcovers very, very briefly in a veryrandom order – Micro-blogging,playing media, the Office suite,connecting and configuringInternet, Printing, email, webbrowsing, file sharing and games.

Advanced Topics then goes offthe rails a bit, installing alternativedesktops actually describes onlyone – Gnome Shell. Does anyonerun Gnome Shell on Ubuntu? Anynew users?

Working Effectively UsingUbuntu then talks aboutWorkspaces. Surely this belongs inan earlier section? Switchingbetween applications, perhaps?Next comes Customising Ubuntu,which demonstrates the scope andambition of this manual – installinglenses and scopes, third partyapplications, and customising theappearance. The Privacy Manageralso gets a mention. Part III,Getting Help contains pointers tovarious forums, wikis andnewletters.

As a free "manual produced bythe community for thecommunity," it is an excellenteffort; time and experience maywell suggest to the team somebetter ways of doing things.

Ubuntu, An AbsoluteBeginners Guideby Courtney Loo, edited by JustinPot

http://courtneyloo.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/ubuntu-an-absolute-beginners-guide/

You can tell when a technologyis becoming popular when thegeneral tech press starts producingmaterial for it:

Ubuntu is a free/libre, open-

source computeroperating system,

with 20million usersworldwide. But

it’s also so much more than that: it is

an ethos, a collaborative project,

and, firstandforemost, Ubuntu is a

communityofpeople.

Ifyou’re reading this guide,

you’re probably interestedin moving

awayfrom proprietaryoperating

systems such asWindowsandMac

OSX; perhaps you’ve already

installedUbuntu on yourcomputer

butare not surewhere to start.

Honestly, these manuals arestarting to drive me crazy. How canso many people get this so wrong?Take a tip from a good marketingdepartment. Grab the viewer fromthe get-go; show, tell, sell. Givethem pictures, colour. Give themthe gee-whizz..

They don't want a historylesson. They don't need Sociology-101. They need answers. What is it,why do I need it, why is it so muchbetter than what I'm using now?

Courtney Loo's manual is only32 pages long. Less than half thatis the material that should be in AnAbsolute Beginners Guide.

It begins with the classicmistake; What is it, the UbuntuPhilosophy, How can it be free.Jokingly referring to Linux, thedreaded L-word, it tries todemystify and explain Linux.

Meanwhile, I'm still waiting...

Chapter 3, Ubuntu Releases, isan entirely unnecessary historylesson in a horrible looking pagefull of version numbers, codenames and releases. BORED! CUT!!!

Page 10: Installing. Finally!Different ways of installing Ubuntuis quite a useful run-down; via ISO,USB stick, Dual-boot, co-existingwith Windows and Mac, or throughWubi. Better!

Chapter 5 is Support andCommunity. Hang on, I haven'tseen any of it yet! You haven'tshown me? Why do I care aboutother free documentation andLaunchpad Answers?

Chapter 6, page 16: GettingStarted with Unity. Except itdoesn't. "Before Unity There WasGNOME: A Little Bit Of History"NOOO!!! I don't CARE!!! I don't givea rat’s-tail about Gnome and itsFisher-Price foot-print logo. This isChapter 6! GET ON WITH IT!!!

Page 17 finally shows me anddescribes Ubuntu Unity. The nextfew pages are dense (morewhitespace here, please), andfinally give me some decent

http://courtneyloo.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/ubuntu-an-absolute-beginners-guide/


REVIEWinformation about Ubuntu, Unity,the Dash, navigating and pinning.Section 7 is entitled UbuntuApplications (How Do I...?); updateMy Computer, Install Software andApplications, download, surf,manage photos, listen to music.

Now here's a thing. The firstitem in Further Reading is anarticle on MakeUseOf.com: UbuntuRestricted Extras: The First ThingYou Should Install on Ubuntu. Loo'sListening to Music section doesn'tmention this. If you've got .MP3music files, this is the first thingyou want to know. But it doesn't.This is in the footnotes to a guidewhich stops on page 30. I'm anAbsolute Beginner and you'vedone little more than tease...

The Makeuseof guide appearsto have been written to a housestyle under a restrictive brief (anda proprietary licence!). While I likeelements of the writing style,there is quite a number of thingswrong with this guide. RC

Ubuntu Manual Project:Getting Started withUbuntu 12.04

http://ubuntu-manual.org/

Getting Started with Ubuntu12.04 is a comprehensivebeginners guide for the Ubuntuoperating system. It is writtenunder an open source license, andis free for you to download, read,modify and share.

The manual will help youbecome familiar with everydaytasks such as surfing the web,listening to music, and scanningdocuments. With an emphasis oneasy to follow instructions, it issuitable for all levels ofexperience.

The project homepage actuallydoes a good job of describing andreviewing the manual for me:

• Easy to understand – our manualhas step-by-step instructions and isjargon-free (mostly)• A picture is worth a thousandwords – lots of screen-shots toshow you how to do tasks (cool)• Progressive learning curve – startwith the basics, and learn as youwork through each chapter• Dozens of languages – translatedinto more than 52 languages,including localized screen-shots• CC-BY-SA licensing – download,modify, reproduce, and share asmuch as you like• Printer friendly – we have aversion optimized for printing tosave the trees• Troubleshooting section – to helpyou solve common Ubuntuproblems quickly

Now, the title is GettingStarted. Unfortunately, the team isstill committing the same error Ipointed out for the very firstedition. There's too much boringstuff at the beginning.Intellectually important stuff;ethically important stuff. Butboring. Why does it need to be thefirst section? Even if you call itPrologue: Welcome, UbuntuPhilosophy, A brief history ofUbuntu, Is Ubuntu right for you(this I like), Contact details, About

the team, Conventions used in thisbook (useful).

With the section on Installation,the quality begins to showthrough. This is a proper step-by-step guide with the right pictures.

The Desktop section hassidebars and definitions andillustrations, and works throughthe things you need to know in theright order; Unity, Launcher, Dash,Managing Windows, Workspaces,file manager, searching,customising, accessibility.

Working with Ubuntu is acomprehensive section almost 50pages long, working through thestandard applications. Importantly,it addresses the subject of codecsfor playing different mediaformats.

There's a section on hardware –an area in which a lot of computerusers get stuck in “Driver Hell,”setting up and configuring variousdevices. Displays, printers,cameras, sound, scanning are allcovered in sufficient depth to getthrough common configuration.

Software Management thengoes through installing and

http://ubuntu-manual.org/


REVIEWmaintaining the software stack onyour machine, the SoftwareCentre, and the mechanics ofpackage installs. It mentions theterminal, but doesn't go into anydetail. Security is outlined –covering firewalls, permissions,users and groups. There's a shortbut sweet section onTroubleshooting. FindingAdditional Help is a good list ofsources.

At the back, where it belongs,the Open Source Licence isincluded in full. There's also adecent glossary.

Criticisms? I have very few asthe Ubuntu Manual is now amature publication. Yes, it could dowith a few more pictures, if only torelieve some of the pages that arequite bland and text-heavy. Thesidebar text is in far too small atypeface so you can miss somereally useful snippets.

Simplify Your Life: the"Unity OrientationGuide" Revised

http://ubuntu-za.org/sites/default/files/unity-5-10-0-final-pdf.pdf

With the release of UbuntuLinux 12.04 LTS, the UbuntuVancouver Local Community(UVLC) has updated its guide to theUnity desktop. The fully revised"Unity Orientation Guide,"formerly "Simplify Your Life withUbuntu Unity", is publicly availableand deserves to be easier to find.

To quote editor-in-chief andUbuntu Buzz Generator RandallRoss:• If you're new to Ubuntu, or Unity,or both, it's definitely worth a read.• If you've just installed Ubuntu12.04 LTS, then this guide is foryou.• If you doubt that Unity ispowerful and useful, we think thisguide just might sway your opinion.

No matter what your familiarityis with Ubuntu, please share thisguide with your neighbours,friends, and family members,especially those on the other sideof the chasm!

It's another stand-out job by theVancouver team to produce astraight-forward guide on atechnical subject (I know, I've donethem, including a Unity Guide forFull Circle Magazine). Plaudits goto managing editor CharleneTessier and the team of guesteditors/proof-readers from UbuntuVancouver.

On first glance, the UnityOrientation Guide is a lighter andmuch faster read than the original.It's geared towards those learningand experiencing the Ubuntu Unityinterface for the first time. Itsfocus is getting you orientedquickly, and thus allowing you toget on with your day-o-daycomputer tasks.

This is more tightly focusedthan the other guides here, since itassumes you already have Ubuntuwith Unity installed, and so gets onwith the job. Using very simplepage layouts with lots of whitespace, the instructions are

unfailingly clear and concise.

It does what it says on the coverfor the most part, although I wasinitially confused to find theexplanation of the Unity HUD(Head Up Display) at the back,feeling it really ought to go nearthe front just after the descriptionof the Unity Dash. After all, theHUD is a much trumpeted featureof 12.04. Then the thinking becameclear – the HUD is the labour-saverwhen you are in applications, sothe guide talks about applicationsfirst.

This is a well structured, welldesigned team effort. I heartilyrecommend it.

Conclusion

Overall I still think theVancouver team book, UnityOrientation Guide strikes the bestbalance of style and content, butthe Ubuntu Manual is the largerreference work and a good one atthat.

http://ubuntu-za.org/sites/default/files/unity-5-10-0-final-pdf.pdf


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.

If Looks Could Kill

I am a fan of MS office justbecause of its looks, except Ido all my work on LibreOffice.MS office gives me some

frustrating experience every time Itry to do something incrediblewith it. Looks can be deceptive butLooks kill. MS office is one of thereason why most of my friends arenot switching to Ubuntu.LibreOffice needs a grandmakeover of its UI to create a firstimpression... love at first sight asyou may call it! But LibreOfficedevelopers do not have muchresources for such a grandmakeover in near future. AsLibreOffice is now the defaultoffice suite for Ubuntu, I thinkCanonical should foster theLibreOffice project. LibreOffice is amuch better office suite than evenMS office. Leave alone the UI, afew little tweaks like HUDintegration at deeper level andcloud support with Ubuntu Onemay take it way ahead of MSoffice.

Uttamv

FVWM FTW!

I read about Alan Ward's article(Linux Lab - Making *buntu12.04 Boot Faster) in FCM#63.At the end of his article he

showed his desktop, which isFVWM (F Virtual Window Manager)in nature. Is it possible to give astep-by-step instruction to installFVWM from an Ubuntu 12.04command-line-system?

JP

Alan Replied:

Both FVWM (the simpleversion) and FVWM-crystal (a bit morebeautiful) are in the

Ubuntu repositories, moreprecisely in the universe section.So all you need to do, at thecommand line, is:

sudo bash

aptget update

aptget install fvwmcrystal

(or "apt-get install fvwm" if youonly want FVWM )

and you should be good to go.Alternatively, any graphicalsoftware installer such as Synapticshould also find them for you.

You then log out of yoursession, and should find the fvwmentries have been created in thedisplay manager list of desktopsessions. For example, in lightdm:

As for configuration, there isnot too much information to befound on the Web. The Gentooguide on FVWM is about the mostcomprehensive I have seen so far:http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/FVWM/Configuration

Alan Ward

Simple Solutions

I started using Ubuntu back in2006 with Edgy Eft. It alwayshas been and always will be agreat Operating System. I

support Ubuntu and what it standsfor. It is great to see Canonicalworking hard to satisfy thedemands of users who use touch-screen devices such as tablets,smart-phones and All-in-one PCs.

I installed Ubuntu 12.04 a fewweeks back on my 15.3” laptop,

Join us on:

facebook.com/fullcirclemagazine

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ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=270

goo.gl/FRTMl


http://facebook.com/fullcirclemagazine

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

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http://goo.gl/FRTMl

http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/FVWM/Configuration


LETTERSbut I, like many other desktopusers, found Unity counter-productive and limited inconfigure-ability. I have sinceinstalled Xubuntu due to theclassic and simple style of the userinterface that so many Linux usersare used to. I would love to still useUbuntu because of its goodreliability and support. I knowthere is gnome-fallback, but I thinkwe need a better long-termanswer for the many desktop usersout there.

I want to share my own solutionto this dividing issue. My answer:When the user installs Ubuntu forthe first time, the user is askedwhat type of device they use.Options could include: Tablet andAll-in-one PC = Unity Interface, andDesktop = Gnome Interface. Ibelieve work should be done inboth interfaces to keep Ubuntuusers happy and content. Also,once Ubuntu is installed, thereshould be more options to allowgreater configure-ability, and, ofcourse, an option to bring back theclassic menu we have all grownused to. It also makes me wonderhow many businesses are going tocope, since from what I have read,most of the computers in theworld are office PCs. Maybe I'm a

dreamer; I believe not. If Canonicalwants its desktop and power usersback, they need to have options forall users, not just a 'one-fits-all'approach. Simple. The next fewyears are going to be veryinteresting in regard to the futuredevelopment of the user interfaceon computer devices.

Chris Love

No Kthanks

I recently tried Kubuntu 12.04,and read some reviews on it,and found out they were right:Kubuntu is rather bare-bones,

and takes a lot of tweaking to getjust right. After getting frustratedwith the bloated-feeling Kubuntu, Itried PCLinuxOS KDE and found itto run faster and smoother on thesame hardware – mostly due tohow it was set up. To top it off, themouse wheel actually worked inPCLinuxOS when it didn't inKubuntu. I am more at home withGnome than KDE, so anything tomake using the really nice DE easyto get into is always a plus. MaybeI'll try Kubuntu again once it hassome bug fixes done, but, for now,

I'll stick with Gnome on my Ubuntusetup, and play with KDE when themood strikes me with PCLinuxOS.

Don


Register Now & Save 20% with code FULLCIR

http://velocityconf.com


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 Is there a way to havemore choice ofwallpapers than the onesincluded in Ubuntu

12.04?

A Yes! My favorite websites for gettinginteresting wallpaperare National Geographic

and Flightaware.

Let's say you have downloadedlions.jpg into your Pictures folder.Right-click on an empty area ofyour desktop, and select "ChangeDesktop Background." A windowwill pop up with wallpaperthumbnails on the right side. Clickon "+" below the thumbnails. Afile-manager window will appear,click on "Pictures" on the left sideof the window. Find "lions.jpg" inthe list, select it and click on"Open." Close the "Appearance"window and you are done.

Q Ubuntu 12.04 is perfectas long as I can access theSynaptic PackageManager more easily.

A Open Synaptic, and,after entering thepassword, the icon willappear in the launcher.

Right-click the icon and select lockto launcher.

Q Am having some issueswith LibreOffice Present.Working in a corporateenvironment, the users

on the LAN can open mypresentation on their Windows 7machines running Office (I assume2010), but can't read the slides.The backgrounds come throughbut no text. Am saving a .pptx.

A Save as .ppt

Q I need to figure outwhere some files are.

A See this guide:https://help.ubuntu.com/community/find. Here'san example: I know I

have some files which begin with"qa" in my Documents folder orsub-folders. I open Terminal andenter this command:

find Documents name 'qa*'

Q New HP p7-1108p withWindows 7 alreadyinstalled. Setting up DualBoot w/Ubuntu 12.04.

Initially it worked fine. Aftergetting most everything tweaked, Imade the mistake of using theComputer Janitor. After reboot, Iget: error: invalid archindependent ELF magic. grubrescue

A (Thanks to Oldfred inthe Ubuntu Forums) See:https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

Q I have installedOpenClipArt fromUbuntu Software Center,but how to use it, and

where are they?

A They are in subfoldersof/usr/share/openclipart.To use them, run

LibreOffice Writer and click onTools/Gallery. The variouscontributors appear on the left,select one to see the clipart thatperson has contributed.

Q How can I make mylaptop run cooler?

A One approach is toinstall Jupiter. See:http://www.ubuntubuzz.com/2012/04/fix-laptop-

overheating-problem-in.html. Thepage doesn't tell you that youshould log out and back in againafter installing Jupiter. Then youcan select "power saving mode".On my laptop, the difference is 8


https://help.ubuntu.com/community/find

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

http://www.ubuntubuzz.com/2012/04/fix-laptop-overheating-problem-in.html


Q & Ato 15 degrees.

However, "power saving mode"also means "low performancemode". When I play a 480P videoon youtube, the video is verychoppy.

Q I have Dell E220WF andAcer AL2216W monitorsconnected to the on-board Radeon HD 6550D

video adapter on my computer.The Acer is connected by a VGAcable, the Dell by a DVI to VGAconnector. Nothing appears on theAcer.

A Replace the DVI to VGAwith a regular DVI cable.

Q I don't use DHCP on myLAN, everything is set towork with static IP. Can Iset an HP K8600dn

wireless printer to work with staticIP on Ubuntu?

A The printer has a built-inweb server forconfiguration. AllowDHCP, then find what

address the printer has: open yourfile manager, and click on "browsenetwork." The result should be alist of the names of all the deviceson your network. To translate thename into an IP address, use thiscommand:

nmblookup [name of device]

Enter the IP address into yourbrowser's address bar. One of theprinter's configuration options isto set a static IP address. Then youcan disable DHCP again.

Q Can I run the Windowspicture-viewer, Irfanview,in Ubuntu?

A You will need to installand configure Wine first.After you downloadIrfanview, the easiest

way to install it is through thecommand line:

cd Downloads

wine iview433_setup.exe

This assumes that the file is inyour Downloads folder, and thatyou downloaded version 4.33.

If you select "put shortcut ondesktop" during installation, youwill get a useful shortcut. You willprobably want to install plugins,such as exif from Tucows. (With theexif plugin, you can go from animage with GPS data, to thelocation in Google Maps, with acouple of clicks via "GeoHackWiki".)

Q I use “Photo Sharing” inMSN Messenger. Is thereany way to do this inUbuntu?

A Not really. There areseveral Linux programswhich support MSNchatting, but the only

way to get Photo Sharing would beto install Windows in a virtualmachine such as VirtualBox, thenuse MSN Messenger from there.

Q My entire systemsuddenly went read-onlyon me, and then itrefused to boot up. I used

a live CD to mount my partitionsand backup some files and gotmultiple cases of:File shrank by xxxxxxx bytes;

padding with zeros

and

Cannot stat: Input/output

error

I have a full backup on anexternal drive.

A Sorry, it's time to buy anew hard drive. Youshould be proud ofyourself for having a


After a long career in the computerindustry, including a stint as editor ofComputing Canada and ComputerDealer News, Gord is now more-or-less retired.

Q & Abackup, all too often we see: "buthow can I get back all my familypictures from the last decade."

Q I just upgraded from10.04 to 12.04.1 usingthe online upgrademethod. An icon for

Firefox appears twice on the iconlist on the left side, but neitherone will actually start Firefox.

A (Thanks to Roy in theYahoo Ubuntu LinuxGroup.) RenameFirefox's settings folder.

Run the Nautilus file manager, andpress Ctrl-H to show hidden files.Find .mozilla and (right-click)rename it to mozilla.old. Firefoxshould run, and it will rebuild thefolder. You should be able toimport your bookmarks frommozilla.old.

Two Tips andTechniques

QQ?

Oh, darn. My Chinesewife requires a terribleprogram called QQ,which runs only under

Windows. "Terrible," because itcompletely takes over thecomputer, a maximum resourcehog. "Requires," because all herfriends -- and her grandson -- use it.Why? Because itsvideoconferencing is superb, trulystate-of-the-art. We have a 12-hourtime difference to China, so everymorning, she gets up early tovideo-chat with her friends inChina, and with her grandson.

Now comes Ubuntu 12.10,Quantal Quetzal, sometimesknown as "QQ" in the UbuntuForums. I see a post labelled, "QQproblem [solved]" and I think,"finally, I can eliminate Windows."Nope. Just wishful thinking on mypart.

Bug Reporting

This should be simple: Iwanted to report a bug inthe Evolution email client.

First, I went to the Evolutionweb site, which is part ofprojects.gnome.org. Right there, itsaid, "Help us improve Evolution byreporting bugs to Bugzilla, our bugtracking system."

As it turns out, I had previouslysigned up with Bugzilla. However,when I tried to login with thatemail address and password, it saidit had never heard of me. I assumeit removes users who are inactivefor some period of time.

I signed up again, and thatworked perfectly. I could login toBugzilla. Well, no, I couldn't. Ientered my email address andpassword, and up popped awindows labelled "MozzillaPersona". When I entered the emailaddress I had previouslyregistered, it said, "choose a newpassword". Then it objectedbecause my password was tooshort. When I entered a longerpassword, it appeared to sign me

in, but took me to a web pagewhich offered no useful options.

I tried again. The result thistime? "We are very sorry. There hasbeen an error!"

At this point, I am ready to giveup on Evolution. Thunderbird, herewe come! Users shouldn't have toput up with this kind of crap.


UUBBUUNNTTUU GGAAMMEESSWritten by Oscar Rivera

Humble Indie Bundle V,which was released onFriday June 1, 2012,may be the best Bundle

for Linux users to date. The newBundle brought with it manywelcome changes that were longoverdue. These changes are nottoo “humble” by any means. Forbeginners, the download process isnot only fast, but also extremelyeasy. The quality of the games issecond to none when compared toother Humble Bundle releases. Thegameplay for all releases is limitedonly by your hardware and not bythe software. Last but not least,the buying process hasn’t changeda bit, it is as simple as simple canbe, and you can still name yourown price.

Purchase, Downloadand Installation

You can no longer purchaseHumble Bundle V, but, for the firsttime ever, if you are using Ubuntu,downloading the Humble Bundlewas as easy as 1-2-3. After makingthe purchase at whatever price youdecided, you received an email

with a link that took you to thedownload page. At the downloadpage you chose how to downloadyour Humble Bundle. For the firsttime ever, thanks to Canonical, ifyou are using Ubuntu you couldclick a button that said “Downloadfor Ubuntu”. By clicking theUbuntu button, you were basicallyallowing the games to bedownloaded through the UbuntuSoftware Center. At the time ofthis writing (June 2012), all of thegames were available to bedownloaded through the SoftwareCenter, except for Psychonauts,which was available to downloadonly through the Humble Bundledownload page. With theexception of Psychonauts, I had allof the games installed in mysystem in less than 30 minutes! Itdoesn’t get any faster than that.

Amnesia: The DarkDescent

As far as the games themselves,the selection this time around wasas good as it gets. My personalfavorite is Amnesia: The DarkDescent – which has been

favorably received ever since itsoriginal release for the PC asevidenced by its rating of 9.25 (outof 10) in Game Informer magazine.The graphics are among the bestI’ve seen in recent years. However,what makes this game a must-havefor any true Linux gamer lies in theway it scares you like no othergame can. The first time you playthe game, when you are goingthrough the setup process, thegame recommends a couple ofthings for better enjoyment. First,it is recommended that you play ina dark room, with the lights off andthe graphics set as dark as you canhave them while still maintainingvisibility. Second, it isrecommended that you play with

headphones turned up loud. Last,but definitely not least, it isrecommended that you play tohave fun rather than to beat thegame, in other words you areencouraged to explore as much asyou can. The last recommendation,I must admit, is the hardest tofollow due in great part to the fearyou acquire very early in the game,that prevents you from opening adoor or turning down a darkcorner. The last thing you want todo is explore because the gamesucks you in so much that all youreally want is to get a little bit ofyour long lost sanity back. Unlikeother horror games, you have zeroweapons at your disposal; instead,you are constantly either running

HHuummbbllee IInnddiiee BBuunnddllee VV


UBUNTU GAMESaway or looking for good places tohide, while at the same timestaying away from the lightbecause the light brings aboutinsanity. No other game I have everplayed has stirred emotions in theway that Amnesia has, and, afterplaying this game, all other so-called Horror games seem like afamily trip to Disneyland. Thegame is rated M for Mature.

Bastion

If you happened to pay morethan the average amount for theHumble Indie Bundle, you alsoreceived Bastion, the 2011 gamedeveloped by Supergiant Games.Much like Amnesia, Bastion alsofared well among game critics andfans alike. Like Amnesia, theprotagonist wakes up to get re-acquainted with a mysterious yetfamiliar world. However, thesimilarities end there. Bastion is avery colorful and fun game to play,in which you don’t mind exploringat all. It received an ESRB rating ofE10+, but it is definitely not forkids only, but rather a game that

can literally be enjoyed by anyone,no matter how old or young atheart. Bastion is an action RPG inwhich you play The Kid who mustexplore a floating island and battleall sorts of creatures in order torestore peace to the land.Throughout the game there aremany weapons and skills toacquire; however, The Kid can carryonly two weapons and one specialskill at a time, which areinterchangeable and upgradable.One aspect that is unique toBastion is the way the game isnarrated by one of the game’s non-playable characters. The narrationis actually pretty fun to listen to,

and often funny. Not only do theupcoming challenges affect thenarration, but so do your choices aswell as your playing style.Originally the game was releasedfor Xbox Live Arcade, but we in theLinux world are now fortunate tobe able to play this game in oursystem and enjoy the fantasy-likecolorful graphics, superbsoundtrack, instinct drivencontrols, and fascinating storylinethat Bastion has to offer.

Limbo

Much like Bastion, Limbo wasoriginally exclusively released forthe Xbox Live Arcade in 2010 but,as of May 2012, the game has beenmade available for the Linuxplatform, just in time to bereleased with the Humble IndieBundle V. Limbo is the first gameever developed by Playdead. Limbois a 2D side-scrolling puzzle-platformer that is entirely in blackand white from beginning to end.Very much like Amnesia andBastion, in Limbo you wake up in arather foreign and definitelyviolent world. Also, much the sameas Amnesia, in Limbo the maincharacter has no weapon at all.Instead, you must solve manypuzzles to survive, sometimesrelying on your surroundings todefeat your enemies. When youfail to solve the puzzles, the boyoften suffers a very graphicallyviolent death. Although black andwhite, the artwork is one of thedefining aspects of Limbo. Playingit feels almost as if you werewatching an old, silent, black andwhite movie in a rundown theaterwith a projector that might needreplacement soon. The puzzlesrange from easy to extremely hard

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1684781151/legends-of-eisenwald


UBUNTU GAMESto solve. However, the game ishighly addictive and can be solvedin under 15 hours. Once you start,it’s pretty hard to put it down. Thecontrols are pretty standard andstraightforward. The boy in thegame can move only from left toright, jump, and grab things –whether it’s a rope, a box, or acanoe. The game uses a veryminimalistic approach in allaspects, from sound and graphicsto controls and storyline. From thebeginning of the game until thevery end, the only thing you knowis that the boy is on a quest to findhis sister. Due to the oftengruesome death sequences, youcan’t help to wonder why the gamereceived an ESRB rating of Tinstead of M. Perhaps if the gamewere in color and you could see thered blood, the game might havegotten the Mature ESRB rating.

Other games andConclusion

At the time of this writing therewere eight games available thatwere all part of the Humble Indie

Bundle V. Originally, the gamesincluded with the Bundle wereAmnesia, Limbo, Superbrothers:Sword and Sorcery, Psychonauts,and Bastion if you paid above theaverage amount of money paid atthe time of purchase. Then, onJune 7th, three other games wereadded to those people who hadpaid more than the average. Thesegames are Braid, Super Meat Boy,and Lone Survivor. Perhaps theother games will be reviewed in anupcoming FCM issue.

Overall, the release of theHumble Indie Bundle V has been a

great success. In its first 15 hoursafter being released, the Bundlehad already sold more copies thanthe previous best selling Bundlewhich was Humble Indie Bundle IV.At the time of this writing, theHumble Indie Bundle V had sold522,042 copies and counting. Eversince the Humble Indie Bundle 1,Linux buyers have paid, on average,more than Windows and Macbuyers. It could be this factor thathas led to such great andsignificant progress to Linuxgaming as a whole. It isundoubtedly hard to deny that theLinux community is willing to

spend money to play video games,and lots of video game companieshave taken notice of this fact. Notonly have independent companiesprofited from Humble Indie Bundlesales, but also there have beentalks lately of establishing a Linuxport for Steam, thus makingavailable a whole new world ofvideo games for those of us wholove Linux gaming.

For the most recent bundle see:www.humblebundle.com

http://www.humblebundle.com


MMYY DDEESSKKTTOOPP

Here is my desktop with a dynamicscreen generated from a shell scriptwith conky. I have an ASUS F50Q with4 GB of memory, a Dual Core IntelPentium T3400 at 1.6 GHz, a harddisk of 320 GB, and Ubuntu 12.04Precise Pangolin.

I use the theme Radiance and Faenzafor icons. I use the dock cairo-dock(without opengl).

Mamadou Sow

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 my desktop - Ubuntu 32-bit with Lucid. PC Lenovo H310- Intel Dual Core 3.0 GHz CPU, 1 GB RAM and 500 GB HardDrive.

The screen of the Screen Widget Less, New Wave theme ofGnome 2.

The other OS is 32-bit Linux Mint Maya with Cinnamon - whichis the primary operating system of the machine.

Trong Dũng Võ



MY DESKTOP

I started using Ubuntu 4 monthsago, and I think I am addicted to itnow. I love Ubuntu because it ismine, I can change everything hereor even remake it for myself; I useconky, Gimp, stellarium, chromium,pidgin, and ... many other softwarethat are available for Ubuntu.

My system:CPU: Intel core i5RAM: 4 GBGraphics: nvidia 630M (2 GB)OS: Ubuntu (12.04)

SaMaN

I started using Ubuntu sinceApril 2012 as the Precise versionreleased. Below are thespecifications of my Laptop PC.

Model: Sony Vaio VGN-FW248JOS: Ubuntu 12.04 LTSProcessor: Intel Core2Duo CPUP8400 @ 2.26 GHzHDD: 250 GBRAM: 4 GB

I love Freedom, Free Software,and, last but not least,GNU/Linux distributions.

Navid Emami


PUZZLE SOLUTIONS

CO

DE

WO

RD

Codeword and 16x16 Suduko puzzles arecopyright, and kindly provided by, The PuzzleClub - www.thepuzzleclub.com

SU

DO

KU



HHOOWW TTOO CCOONNTTRRIIBBUUTTEEFull Circle Team

Editor - Ronnie [email protected] - Rob [email protected] - Les Pounder & [email protected]

Editing & Proofreading

Mike Kennedy, Lucas Westermann,Gord Campbell, Robert Orsino,Josh Hertel, Bert Jerred

Our thanks go to Canonical, the manytranslation teams around the worldand Thorsten Wilms for the FCM logo.

FULL CIRCLE NEEDS YOU!A magazine isn't a magazine without articles and Full Circle is noexception. We need your opinions, desktops, stories, how-to's,reviews, and anything else you want to tell your fellow *buntu users.Send your articles to: [email protected]

We are always looking for new articles to include in Full Circle. For help and adviceplease see the Official Full Circle Style Guide: http://url.fullcirclemagazine.org/75d471

Send your comments or Linux experiences to: [email protected]/software reviews should be sent to: [email protected] for Q&A should go to: [email protected] screens should be emailed to: [email protected]... or you can visit our forum via: fullcirclemagazine.org

FCM#66Deadline:Sunday 07th Oct. 2012.Release:Friday 26th Oct. 2012.

EPUB Format - Recent editions of Full Circle have a link to the epub file on the downloads page. If you have any problems withthe epub file, you can drop an email to: [email protected]

Google Currents - Install the Google Currents app on your Android/Apple devices, search for 'full circle' (within the app) andyou'll be able to add issues 55+. Or, you can click the links on the FCM download pages.

Ubuntu Software Centre - You can get FCM via the Ubuntu Software Centre: https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/. Search for 'fullcircle', choose an issue, and click the download button.

Issuu - You can read Full Circle online via Issuu: http://issuu.com/fullcirclemagazine. Please share and rate FCM as it helps tospread the word about FCM and Ubuntu Linux.

Ubuntu One - You can now have an issue delivered to your free Ubuntu One space by clicking the 'Send to Ubuntu One' buttonwhich is available on issues 51+.

Getting Full Circle Magazine:





http://url.fullcirclemagazine.org/75d471

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






https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/

http://issuu.com/fullcirclemagazine