full circle magazine - issue 60 en

full circle magazine #60 1 contents ^

Full CircleTHE INDEPENDENT MAGAZINE FOR THE UBUNTU LINUX COMMUNITY

ISSUE #60 - April 2012

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

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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

Prey p.11

LibreOffice Pt14 p.08

Python - Part 32 p.06

GIMP - Beanstalk Pt1 p.14

HowTo Opinions

Q&A p.45

Ubuntu Games p.49

Ubuntu Women p.47

Command & Conquer p.05

Inkscape - Intro p.18

Columns

Linux Labs p.22 Review p.40

I Think... p.38

My Opinion p.34

My Story p.28

Letters p.42

My Desktop p.55Linux News p.04

Closing Windows p.24

Graphics

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


EEDDIITTOORRIIAALL

Welcome to another year of Full Circle!

It's April 2012, and that means Full Circle is five years old this month. Time has certainlyflown by, but I've enjoyed every issue of it, and I've no intention of stopping. Raise yourglasses (of whatever) to another year of Full Circle. Cheers!

Being a birthday edition, I've added a few new things here and there. I'm starting amonthly GIMP series, and I'm joined by Mark Crutch who'll be teaching you Inkscape eachmonth. Our articles join the usual suspects of Python and LibreOffice, and, to round off theHowTo section, we have an article on Prey - which will help you locate a lost/stolenlaptop/phone. I hope you never have to use it. Not only do we have the usual Ubuntu Gamesarticles, but Dougn has submitted some Ubuntu Games news, and will, hopefully, supplymore news as and when he can. Don't feel left out though, as, like I always say, you're morethan welcome to submit your news and articles.

If you're interested in how Full Circle takes shape each month, then have a read of theMy Story I've written. It shows you what we're doing week by week.

As ever, Full Circle isn't just me. I want to say a big thank you to all the people who arethe unseen heroes of each issue. The writers, the proof readers, the translators, and, ofcourse, you, the readers.

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:Robin CatlingEd HewittDave Wilkins

http://fullcirclemagazine.org

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.scribus.net

http://www.gimp.org

http://www.libreoffice.org

http://creativecommons.org/

http://fullcirclemagazine.org


LLIINNUUXX NNEEWWSS

EPUB

Finally, we have mobile editionsof Full Circle on the downloadspage. At the moment, there areonly a couple of issues online,but we're hoping to have backissues online shortly. If you'veany problems with the epubfile/formatting, you can drop anemail to Jens at:[email protected]

Big thanks to Jens, and thebeta testers, for making them areality.

Torvalds Shortlisted for2012 Millennium TechPrize

The Technology AcademyFinland has shortlistedLinus Torvalds for its 2012Millennium Technology

Prize, worth over €1 million(US$1.3 million).

There is one other shortlistedcandidate for this year's prize,Japanese stem-cell researcherShinya Yamanaka.

The prize, awarded every twoyears, has previously honoredother contributors to the field ofinformation technology.

In 2004 Tim Berners-Lee wonthe first Millennium TechnologyPrize for his creation of thetechnology underpinning theworldwide Web.

Source: pcworld.com

HP will certify Ubuntu12.04 on some Proliantservers

LINUX VENDOR Canonicalhas announced that itsupcoming Ubuntu 12.04long term support (LTS)

Linux distribution will be certifiedfor a number of HP's Proliantservers.

HP Proliant servers commandsignificant market share andalthough Linux vendors such as RedHat and Oracle have alreadyreceived certification, Canonical'sUbuntu 12.04 LTS will be the firstversion of Ubuntu to be certified ona number of HP Proliant generation8 servers. As part of HPcertification, Ubuntu 12.04 LTSdrivers and management softwarewill be included as part of HP'sProliant warranty.

Source: theinquirer.net

Ubuntu Linux ComesPreloaded on Two NewLaptops

Buying a computer withLinux preloaded is agreat option in manyways: Not only do you

know everything will “just work,”but you also get your “vote” forLinux officially counted as aconcrete sales statistic, thushelping to paint a more accuratepicture of the free operatingsystem's true market share.

A few weeks ago [...] a newhigh-end Linux laptop fromZaReason that's available [wasreleased] with a variety of Linuxdistributions preinstalled, but thispast weekend two moremoderately priced contendersfrom System76 made their officialdebut. [The Lemur Ultra, and thePangolin Performance.]

Source: pcworld.com

Google Currents

Google Currents has beenreleased worldwide, so install iton your Android/Apple devices,search for 'full circle' (in theapp) and add issues 55-60 toyour app. Or, you can click thelinks on the FCM downloadpage for those issues.



As a follow-up to lastmonth's article, I decidedto supply a few moretips and tricks that mesh

well with previous articles. I'll cover(briefly) how to configure Conkyfor Japanese, a reader's solutionfor ToDo lists, and a useful scriptfor displaying your current terminalcolour scheme.

Displaying Japanese in Conky isfairly simple, and consists of thefollowing three steps:• Override any UTF-8 locale withthe setting “override_utf8_localeyes” (minus the quotes)• Enable XFT (X FreeType) fontsusing the setting “use_xft yes”(minus the quotes)• Then choose a font that supportsthe language, for example: “xftfontVL Gothic:size=10” (minus thequotes).

This is useful if you, forexample, have Japanese in yourToDo list (if it's displayed by conky),in case any of your scripts returnJapanese characters, or if you useJapanese in any other way withinconky.

A reader, John, recentlyexplained his ToDo list setup to me(while suggesting I write the aboveConky tips in an article: done anddone), and I thought it was a veryversatile way to go about it. As I'veexplained in the past, my systemsimply utilizes a python script and afolder of reminder files, meaning Ican update it on-the-fly with anytext editor. The script John uses,however, offers an Anroid andiPhone app, which is a bit easier todo quickly. The script he uses iscalled “todo.txt”, and is written byGina Trapani (her homepage is:http://ginatrapani.org/). Combinedwith the following script (that hefound on the Ubuntu Forums – Iwas unable to find the exactthread, otherwise I'd have linked toit), you can have a nicely formattedlist in Conky. The script is here:http://pastebin.com/FnHGkcXw.Once you've added some items tothe todo.txt file, you need tosimply test the script (and possiblyadjust the path to todo.sh), andthen add it to conky using, forexample, ${execi 60 todo-list}(which runs the script every 60

seconds).

The colours script I use is thelast script on this page:http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Bash-Prompt-HOWTO/x329.html. Itessentially writes the colour codesto the terminal, resulting in a tableof the colours, helping you whenyou're either customizing yourBash prompt, or else when you'retrying to find colours that you like. Isave this script in my scripts folderas “colors” and defined an aliaswithin my .bashrc for “sh$pathToColors” (replace$pathToColors with your actualpath), to save myself having towrite it every time. You can alsocreate a symbolic link in /usr/bin/or add your script folder to your$PATH, but seeing as the colorsonly matter for your terminal, it'ssimply easiest to create an alias.The script looks something like theimage shown right.

For anyone interested in theactual colors I'm using, they can befound here:https://github.com/lswest/dotfiles/blob/master/.Xdefaults

I hope that this information hasbeen useful, and, as always, if youhave any questions, comments, orsuggestions, you can email me [email protected]. If you doemail me, please include “C&C” or“FCM” in the subject line. I've beendebating whether or not I shoulddo an article of C&C on myconfiguration files and favouriteprograms – if any reader isinterested in reading that, pleasesend me an email and let me know.

CCOOMMMMAANNDD && CCOONNQQUUEERRWritten by Lucas Westermann

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].

TTiippss && TTrriicckkss IIII



http://pastebin.com/FnHGkcXw

http://ginatrapani.org/

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Bash-Prompt-HOWTO/x329.html

https://github.com/lswest/dotfiles/blob/master/.Xdefaults


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Greg D. Walters BBeeggiinnnniinngg PPyytthhoonn -- PPaarrtt 3322

I must say, I love my Androidtablet. While I use it every day,it's not yet a replacement formy desktop. And I must also

admit, most of what I use it for ispretty much what everyone usestheirs for: web browsing, listeningto music, watching videos, playinggames, and so on. I try to justify itby having apps that deal withgrocery and todo lists, findingcheap gas, fun things for ourgrandson, etc. It's really a toy forme right now. Why use a fancytouch-screen tablet to do yourgrocery list? Let's face it... it's thecool looks of envy that people giveme in the store when they see merolling the cart down the aisle and Itap my tablet to mark items off thelist. Ahh--- the geek factor RULES!Of course, I can use the back of anold envelope to hold my list. Butthat wouldn't be cool and geeky,now, would it?

Like 99% of geeky married menin the world, I am married to a non-geek woman. A wonderful lovingwoman, to be sure, but a non-geekwho, when I start drooling at thelatest gadget, sighs, and says

something like “Well, if you REALLYthink we need that...”. Then shegives me the same look I give heras she is lovingly fondles the 50thpair of shoes at the store.

In all honesty, it wasn't hard toget the first tablet into our house. Ibought it for my wife while she wasgoing through chemotherapy. Shetried to use a laptop for a while,but the heat and weight onher lap was too muchafter a while. E-bookson a laptop for herwasn't an option,so when she triedto read, she hadto juggle thebook, and thelaptop, and themp3 player. Allwhile being tiedto a recliner withtubes running intoher arm filling herwith nasty chemicals.When I got her thetablet, it was the best of allworlds. She could read an e-book,listen to music, watch a TV show,browse the web, check her E-mail,update her cancer blog, follow her

friends on facebook, and playgames - all on a device that waslight and cool. If she got tired, shecould just slip it off to the sidebetween her and the recliner (orbed when she was home trying toregain strength). MUCH better thana bulky laptop, and book, mp3player, remote control, and more.

As she was gettingpumped full of noxious

chemicals, I wouldcommandeer a

table and chair inthe corner of thetreatmentroom, near apower outlet,and try to workon my six-yearold laptop. In

betweenprojects, I would

do research onAndroid

programming. I foundout that most programming

for Android is done in Java. I hadalmost resigned myself to re-learning Java when I stumbledacross a few tools that allow

Python programming for theAndroid Operating system. One ofthese tools is called “SL4A”. SL4Astands for Scripting Layer forAndroid. That's what we willconcentrate on in the next coupleof articles. We'll really focus ongetting SL4A set up on Android inthis one.

You might ask, why in the worldI would be talking about Androidprogramming in a magazinedesigned for Linux. Well, thesimple reason is that the core ofAndroid is Linux. Everything thatAndroid is, sits on top of Linux!

Many web pages show how toload SL4A into the AndroidEmulator for Desktops. We'll lookat doing that another time, but fornow we'll deal with the Androiddevice itself. To install SL4A onyour Android device, go tohttp://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/; you'll find theinstallation file for SL4A. Don't beabsolutely confused here. There's asquare High Density barcode thatyou tap to download the APK. Besure that you have the “Unknown

http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/


HOWTO - BEGINNING PYTHON 32Sources” option enabled in theApplication settings. It's a quickdownload. Once you have itdownloaded and installed, goahead and find the icon, and tap it.What you will see is a ratherdisappointing black screen saying“Scripts...No matches found”.That's OK. Hit the menu button andselect View. You'll see a menu.Select Interpreters. Then selectmenu again, and select Add. Fromthe next menu, select Python 2.6.2.This should ask you to start abrowser session to downloadPython for Android. Once this isinstalled, select Open. You'll get ascreen menu with the options toInstall, Import Modules, BrowseModules, and Uninstall modules.Select Install. Now Python willdownload and install along withother extra modules. In addition,you'll get some sample scripts.Finally, tap the back button andyou'll see Python 2.6.2 installed inthe interpreters screen. Tap againon the back button and you'll see alist of some sample python scripts.

That's all we are going to do thistime. All I wanted to do is whetyour appetite. Explore Python onAndroid. You might also want tovisit

http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html to get the Android SDK(Software Development Kit) foryour desktop. It includes anAndroid Emulator so you can playalong. Setting up the SDK is reallypretty easy on Linux, so youshouldn't have too much trouble.

“you'll see a ratherdisappointing blackscreen [...] That'sOK.

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.

How to Include Accents from the Keyboardby Barry Smith

I f your Linux system is in French, German, or Spanish, and,therefore, requiring accents, or if, occasionally, you need to useaccents which do not appear in English words, many users do notknow that there is a very easy way to do this from the keyboard.

The following applies to only the UK keyboard.

Acute accentPress Alt Gr + ; (semi-colon) Lift hand then press the desired vowel é

CircumflexPress Alt Gr + ' (apostrophe) Lift hand then press the desired vowel î

Grave accentPress Alt Gr + # (hache) Lift hand then press the desired vowel è

UmlautPress Alt Gr + [ Lift hand then press u ü

ñ - Press Alt Gr + ] Lift hand then press n ñ

œ - Press Shift + Alt Gr Lift hand then press o then press e œThe œ will not appear until after the e is keyed.

To get ¿ and ¡ (inverted exclamation mark) which I use all the time inSpanish before questions, and exclamations, press Alt Gr + Shift,keeping both keys pressed, then hit _ (underscore) for ¿ or hit !(exclamation mark) for ¡.

If you want any of these in capitals, just press Shift before keying inthe letter.

http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

http://www.thedesignatedgeek.net


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Elmer Perry LLiibbrreeOOffffiiccee -- PPaarrtt 1144

While data collection isuseful and helpful indetermining results,or whether goals

were met, charts and graphssimplify data so others can quicklydigest and interpret results. Theart of charts and graphs is wellbeyond the scope of this article,but I will show you how to create achart in Calc, which you could usein Writer or Impress. There aremany predefined charts and graphsavailable in Calc.

We will use a simple collectionof data to create our chart. Thedata represents the boat rentalsfor a six month period. We will usea bar chart to show the relationshipbetween the different types ofboat rentals for each month.

The Chart Wizard

The chart wizard allows us toget the basics of our chartcompleted quickly and easily. Infact, sometimes the chart wizard isall you will need to complete yourchart. The wizard is your jumpingoff point for all chart creation.

Before starting the wizard, youneed to highlight the data used forthe chart. You will want to makesure you just highlight the data andtheir labels. Although you canmodify the ranges for the dataseries later, getting it as close aspossible helps Calc to betterrender the final results.

You have two ways tostart the chart wizard.You can click on the chart

wizard icon (shown right) on themain toolbar, or through the menuwith Insert > Chart. The chartwizard consist of four steps. Wewill walk through each of the steps,but it is possible to click the Finishbutton at any time to end thewizard process.

1. Chart Type

The chart type (above) is whereyou select the type of chart youwant to create. For some charttypes, you have the option of 3Deffects, and for others you do not.For our chart, we will select thebasic bar chart. Since we have theoption of 3D effects for a bar chart,we will also check the 3D Lookcheckbox. In the 3D Lookdropdown box, you have theoptions of Realistic or Simple. Thishelps determine the look andshading of the 3D effect. We willuse Realistic. Finally, you can selectdifferent shapes for your dataseries. We will use cylinder. Clickthe Next button to move to thenext step.

2. Data Range

In step two we define the datarange and how Calc will use thedata range to create the chart. Ifwe need to change the range fromwhat we selected, we can type inthe range or select the range fromthe spreadsheet. The small buttonat the end of the data rangetextbox will shrink the wizarddialog so more of your spreadsheetis visible.

We need to tell Calc whetherour data series are defined by rowor column. For our example, weused columns. Also, since weselected the labels as well as thedata, we need to check both First


HOWTO - LIBREOFFICE PART 14

row as label and First column aslabel.

Click the Next button to moveto the next step.

3. Data Series

The third step (below) lets usredefine, add, change the order,and remove data from our dataseries. You will see the data seriesfor the chart defined by their labelin a listbox. You can change the

range of the series much as youcould in the data range step;however, keep in mind, this is onlyfor one set of data and not theentire chart. You can add anotherseries by clicking on the Addbutton. You can remove a series byselecting it and clicking theRemove button. Change the orderof the series by selecting the seriesyou want to move and use the upand down arrow buttons.

We don’t need to changeanything here, so click the Next

button to move to the last step ofthe wizard.

4. Chart Elements

The fourth step (above right) ofthe wizard allows us to definenames for the different parts ofour chart, including title, subtitle,and x and y axis. We can also setthe location of our legend and thegrid for the chart area. For ourchart sample, give it the title“Sample Bar Chart”. We also wantto label our Y-Axis as “Num ofRentals”. Since our X-Axis is themonths of the year, we don’t reallyneed a label for the X-Axis. It isself-explanatory. Set the legend toappear at the bottom, giving ourdata more room to spread out.

We are now finished with theChart Wizard. If you ever need to

revisit any of the steps, you can usethe Back button or select the stepfrom the list on the left. Click theFinish button to complete thewizard and display the chart in yourspreadsheet.

Formatting ChartElements

After creating the chart withthe Chart Wizard, it is possible tochange the elements of the chart.After clicking on finish, you willnotice that the newly created chartis selected and your toolbar haschanged. You have the chartformatting toolbar instead of thestandard edit toolbar. The newtoolbar has a dropdown box whichallows you to select the differentelements you can change. Afterselecting an element from thedropdown, click on the Format


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

Selection button to display thedialog for that element.

There are also buttons forchanging the chart type, anddisplaying the chart grid andlegend. The button with the doublearrow beside the capitol A is usedto scale the text with the chartwhen you resize it. I highlyrecommend this, as it keeps thingsproportional. In addition to thechanges in the toolbar, you will findchanges in the Insert and Formatmenus as well. These changes allowyou to insert and format elementsof your chart.

You can move the chart byclicking and dragging the borders.Resize the chart by clicking anddragging one of the eight handles.If you selected the text scalebutton, the size of the text willscale with the chart as you changeit.

Now, let’s make some changesto our chart. In the dropdown list inthe toolbar, select Chart Title andclick on the Format Selectionbutton. On the Font tab, changethe size to 18 and the style to bold.Click OK. Next, select Chart Areaand click Format Selection. Thechart area is the entire background

of the chart. On the Area tab,select a background color of lightgray. You will notice this changesthe color of our data area as well,but we want the data area to standout. Select Chart from thedropdown list and click FormatSelection. On the Area tab, selectto fill with color and pick white.Since we are using a 3D chart, let’schange the perspective a little:Format > 3D, check the Perspectivecheckbox and change thepercentage to 50%. You will see

this changes the perspective of thechart.

There are other things to do onyour own. Try changing the color ofone of the data series or adjustingthe placement of some of theelements. All can be done throughthe dropdown list, and the Formatand Insert menus. When youdeselect the chart, you are takenback to normal toolbars andmenus. To edit the chart later, just

double-click the chart, and you getthe specialized toolbar and menusback.

We have only touched thesurface of the chart and graphs inCalc, but I encourage you to playaround with the different typesand elements. The type of chartyou use is dependant upon thetype of data you have and theinformation you want to convey.

Next time, we will begin our workin Impress, LibreOffice’spresentation program.

HOWTO - LIBREOFFICE PART 14


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Jürgen Weidner

PPrreeyy

Rest safe. That's theheadline of the Preyproject. If you have lostyour laptop or your

phone, or they were stolen, Preygives you the chance to locatethem anywhere in the world andget them back. Simply thepossibility of locking a stolenlaptop and denying a thief accessto the data is worth thinking about.Prey is currently available for Linux,Mac, and Windows basedcomputers, and Android basedphones. The iPhone and iPad Appsare currently under Apple’s review.

How it works

The location of the lost orstolen computer or phone will betracked by an Internet access, thenearest Wifi access point, or GPS.

Prey will then send us an E-Mail ora SMS, and then we can access ourcomputer remotely with thefollowing options:

• take a snapshot of the currentuser if there is a built-in camera.

• take a snapshot of what he iscurrently doing. With a little luck,it's possible to check out his E-Mail,social network account, orsomething else of evidence.

• hide private Thunderbird orOutlook data and/or delete storedpasswords.

• lock the computer and make itunusable.

• send an alarm sound or show amessage on the display.

Sound interesting? Let's go.

First, visit the Prey website(http://www.preyproject.com/) tocreate an account. After we clickthe Login button, we hit on “Notregistered? Sign up”. Now we canchoose between a free or pay

account. We can register up tothree computers or phones forfree. For more devices, or somespecial services (more reports,permanent tracking, shorterreporting intervals), we can chooseone of their pro offers.

For testing, the free version justsuits us, and we work through theprocedure. After entering ourname, e-mail, country, andpassword, we will receive an e-mailto activate our Prey account.

When that is done, it's time to

install the tiny Prey client on everydevice we want to protect. SinceUbuntu 11.04, we'll find Prey in theUbuntu Software-Center. Install itfrom there, or via Terminal, with

sudo aptget install prey

For older Ubuntu versions,chose the download from theprojects website and install withGdebi. Next thing to do is to openthe Dash. In the category System,we'll find the Prey Configurator.

After opening it, we workthrough the Main Settings.

http://www.preyproject.com/


HOWTO - PREY

First, we decide about theFrequency of reports and actions.This means we set the time-frequency when Prey will awakeafter we’ve raised an alert of a lostdevice, and the number of minutesbetween the single reports we'llreceive, or an action will take place.If you are not in a hurry, the defaultsetting of 20 minutes will be justfine. If necessary, you can changethat later at the Control Panel.

Next we have to think aboutenabling a guest account. This is amust for computers protected witha password to get full remoteaccess.

Wifi autoconnect should beenabled, it allows locating thecomputer if it is near a Wifi accesspoint - whether its new owner isonline or not.

We accept the Reporting modeas recommended.

Because the Prey account isalready created, the last step is totype our login data (e-mail andpassword).

Finished! The unit is registerednow and can be tracked.

The Control Panel

To check out if it works, and tosee which options activate if thedevice is lost, let's surf again topreyproject.com. After we log in,we'll find our registered machine atthe control panel in the categoryDevices.

Before changing something,let's take a closer look at the panel.It is clearly structured in three

groups. The function of everyswitch will be displayed when wemove the mouse over the questionmark beside it. Functions labeledwith a little red pro are availableonly in the pay version.

Let's start with the settings inthe section “Information togather.”

Of course Geo and Network

switches have to be ON. Fornetwork details, it will be useful toswitch on YES to gather activeconnections. If the computerpossesses a WLAN-module, weshould enable the listing of Wifihotspots near the device. To beable to trace the route the currentuser has taken with our equipment,we first need to install the package“traceroute”. We'll find it in theUbuntu repositories, install it in theusual way and activate thisfunction.

Next we can choose to take ascreenshot of what the user isdoing. If we are lucky he is loggedin somewhere where we recognizehis name or something else ofevidence. If there is a built-inwebcam, and we want to take apicture of the person who is usingour property, we shift theWebcam-button to ON.


Under the section “Actions toperform”, currently we don'tchange anything, because thesefunctions will work whether thecomputer is registered as missingor not.

Caution particularly with theSecure button!

At least let's activate theMissing-button, save the changes,and let's see what happens.

When I made this test with myPC, after some minutes I receivedan e-mail which told me that thedevice has been located. At thecontrol panel appeared the firstreport. The current IP, time, OS,and active connections up to theInternet-browser were shown. Itwas all correct so far.

Worth knowing

If a device is announced asmissing, Prey will send us 10reports. The eleventh report willoverwrite the first one and so on.So we see always the ten latestreports (up to 100 in the pro-version).

To prove that we are the legalowners, it's important to notice thecomputer’s or phone’s serialnumbers.

To prevent a thief frominstalling another operatingsystem, we should protect theBIOS with a password, and disablebooting from CD/DVD or otherremovable devices.

To format the HDD, or toremove the Prey-software from ourComputer, a thief needs to knowthe administrator-password.

There is no need to worry aboutupdates for the prey software. Itwill update automatically whennecessary.

The software is open source andcan be checked by everyone.

Prey people say that privacy istheir number one priority, and thatthey gather information only withour permission. But we have to be

aware that we give them at leastthe access to our computers orphones. Even when they promisenever to spy, and never to doanything that might harm us, thereis still a little risk.

This article can only brieflycover the basic essentials of Prey.There is much more to learn about.For further information, especiallyfor details of handling Prey on yourphone, visit the FAQ at theirhomepage. For discussion withother users or the developers,there is a forum and an IRC-channel.

Conclusion

There is no assurance we willget back our property, but we canimprove our chances. I've decidedto keep this little guard on mycomputers. Just the option to lockout a stolen computer persuadesme. By the way, in case of aburglary, maybe the PC will leadme to the thief, and help me getback other stolen property. Whoknows?

For the storage of sensitivedata, I use Cryptkeeper (Ubunturepositories) or a TrueCrypt

container - to keep any possible spyat bay.

URLs of interest:Website of the Prey-projecthttp://www.preyproject.com/Host of the Prey-sourcecodehttps://github.com/prey/prey-bash-clientPrey forumhttps://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/prey-securityPrey IRC-channelhttp://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=preyproject

Editor’s note: There’s also anAndroid version of Prey(https://play.google.com/store/search?q=pname:com.prey), buthaving read the comments, itseems quite easy to defeat.

HOWTO - PREY

https://play.google.com/store/search?q=pname:com.prey

http://www.preyproject.com/

https://github.com/prey/prey-bash-client

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/prey-security

http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=preyproject


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Ronnie Tucker GGIIMMPP -- TThhee BBeeaannssttaallkk PPtt11

In the first of this new GIMPseries, I’m going to try andshow you some intermediatetechniques. In other words,

things that people may think arepossible only with Photoshop. Ifyou’d like to read more about theabsolute basics of GIMP, then Irefer you back to FCM#12-19.While I used an older version ofGIMP in those issues, the layout ofGIMP has changed little in thepassing years.

For ideas, I’m using Photoshoptutorials that are freely availableon the web, and, while not copyingthem step for step, applying theunderlying principles of them toGIMP.

I should also state, for therecord, that I’m using GIMP 2.6. As Iwrite this, a 2.7 version is available,but, it is not entirely compatiblewith the *buntu family, and tryingto install it can give conflicts.

What we’ll be making is shownleft.

Sources:Sky -http://www.2textured.com/index.php/Environment/Skies/skies_0347

YouTube Video showing Pt1 beingmade:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYFTdbzjubg

The Sky Gradient

First thing we need to do iscreate a new image (File > New),

and make it A4 in size, portrait inorientation, and with an X and Yresolution of 80. The default X andY resolution is 300. That’s forprofessional printing, and, itrequires high resolution images assource material, and can slow downeven the hardiest of machines - sowe’ll go with 80 which is more thanadequate for this tutorial.

Select the ‘Blend tool’icon (shown left), and,where it says ‘Shape:’,

choose ‘Radial’ from the drop downmenu. No need to change anything

else for now. For a foregroundcolor, choose a very pale greeny-yellow (RGB = 220, 229, 189). Forthe background, choose a slightlyfaded greeny-yellow (RGB = 133,151, 81).

Next, left click (and hold) in themiddle of the blank image andmove up to the top middle of theimage. Release the mouse buttonand you’ll have a radial fill coveringthe entire canvas.

http://www.2textured.com/index.php/Environment/Skies/skies_0347

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYFTdbzjubg


No, Not The Layers!

Click File>Open, and chooseyour sky image. To quickly get thesky into our main image, we go tothe ‘Layers’ tab and (as shownabove) drag it onto our main image

With the sky now in our mainimage, you can close the openedsky image.

The sky image is quitehigh resolution, largerthan we require, so we

need to resize it. Click the ‘Resize’tool (shown left), and click the sky.In the resize window that pops up,you need to make sure that the

little chain link icon is linked. If theicon looks like a broken chain, thenyour sky image will resizedisproportionately and squish.Make the width of the sky about300 wide, and click OK. This givesus some room to play with.

Click the ‘Move’ icon(shown left). Now, leftclick and drag the sky

icon to where you think it looksbest.

TIP: The gradient is one layer andthe sky is another. If we add severalmore layers, it’ll get quiteconfusing. To make things easieryou can double click on a layername and rename it.

Now for some layer magic. Withthe sky layer still selected, click the

drop down menu above the layersand choose ‘Value’.

Color Curve

You’ll now have a greeny sky,but it doesn’t look very dramaticdoes it? With the sky layer stillselected, click Colors > Curves fromthe menu. We’re going to createwhat’s known as an S-curve. The S-curve is a great way of quickly colorcorrecting your photos too. Clicktwo boxes across and two down inthe grid, and drag your mouse upand to the left slightly, and twoboxes in and up from the bottom

HOWTO - GIMP: THE BEANSTALK Pt1



left of the grid, and click and dragdown to the right.

Which will give you an S-curve(shown above) which you shouldplay around with until you get anice dramatic sky with good darks,but not too bright lights.

Let’s finish off this sky andthat’ll do us for this first part of thetutorial.

Layer Mask

Right click on the sky layer, and

from the menu, choose ‘Add LayerMask’ (shown below).

From the window that pops up,choose ‘White (full opacity)’ andclick ‘Add’. You’ll see a box appearnext to your sky thumbnail in thelist of layers.

That box is a thumbnail of thelayer mask. The idea is that if youselect that layer thumbnail, anddraw in black, you’ll erase parts ofthe sky image. Draw over theerased area with white and the skywill reappear. This means you canshow/hide parts of the sky - usingthe mask - without destroying theoriginal sky image. We’ll use themask to fade the sky into thebackground.

Make sure the maskthumbnail is selected, itshould have a white

outline, and click the “Rectangle

Select’ icon (shown below left).Left click and draw a box aroundthe bottom third of the sky.

Now click the ‘Blend Tool’ icon(that we used at the start of thistutorial), but make sure the‘Shape:’ is Linear this time. You’llneed a foreground colour of black,and a background colour of white.With that all set, click and drag justup from the bottom middle of theselected area, to just below the topmiddle of the selected area, andrelease the mouse button.


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


Your sky will now magically fadeinto the background. And since it’sa layer mask, the original sky isuntouched. You can right click onthe layer mask and delete it andthe sky will return to its originalstate.

Next month we’ll add a piece oflandscape below the sky, andmaybe, just maybe, start growingthat beanstalk. Class dismissed!

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://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYFTdbzjubg

http://ronnietucker.co.uk

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


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Mark Crutch IInnkkssccaappee -- TThhee SSVVGG FFiillee FFoorrmmaatt

Imagine giving instructions tosomeone in order for them todraw a picture of a house. Thechances are that you would

describe geometric shapes andtheir relative positions. “Draw a bigred rectangle about half the widthof the page, roughly in the middleand a little wider than it is tall. Nowput a grey triangle on top of itthat’s a little wider so it overhangsat the edges...” The sameinstructions would work for anysize of canvas from a postagestamp to a billboard.

You’ve just imagined the worldof vector graphics.

When you take a photo orcreate an image in GIMP, you’reworking with raster graphics –sometimes called bitmaps (not thesame as the .bmp file format –although that is an example of abitmap graphic). A raster graphic(or bitmap) is essentially a list ofpixel colors, which tells thecomputer to draw a red pixel, thena blue one, then a green one... andso on, pixel-by-pixel, line-by-line,until the last pixel is reached.

Vector graphics, on the otherhand, consist of a series ofinstructions. “Draw a red circle witha radius of 10 units, centered atcoordinates X,Y. Now draw a blueline from the top left corner of thepage to the bottom right.” That redcircle could have a radius of 10inches, or it could be 10 miles,meaning that, unlike raster images,vector graphics can be scaled withno loss of quality.

A small circle scaled up as a bitmap image(above left), and as a vector image (aboveright).

Just as there are many rasterformats – JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP toname just a few – so there are alsomany vector formats. Most of themhave grown from proprietaryapplications, such as AutoCAD’sDWG, or Adobe Illustrator’s AI, but

one in particular is an open format,defined by the W3C – the samestandards body that’s responsiblefor the HTML format that drivesthe web. Vector graphics are, bytheir very nature, scalable – butthat didn’t stop them trying tomake absolutely sure you knowwhat you’re getting with theirformat: they called it “ScalableVector Graphics”, or SVG.

SVG files are plain textcontaining nested collections of

“tags” in a similar manner to HTMLfiles. There's a <circle> tag, a <line>tag, and so on. They can bemodified using any text editor,though as an image becomes moreand more complex it's usuallyeasier to use a drawing program toedit them. Probably the bestknown software for this is Inkscape(www.inkscape.org) which can befound in the repositories of mostLinux distributions, Ubuntuincluded, and is available also forWindows and MacOS. Inkscape


HOWTO - INKSCAPEuses SVG as its primary file format,which makes it a great tool forcreating or editing SVG files, butwhich also places a limitation onthe program's capabilities. Withserious work now underway ondefining version 2.0 of the SVGformat, Inkscape should, hopefully,be able to make some ground onits proprietary competition overthe coming years.

The HTML-like structure of SVGfiles, together with their origins atthe W3C, have made them theofficial standard for vectorgraphics in the web world. It hastaken a long time, but most webbrowsers now natively support SVGfiles, and it's possible to mix themdirectly into HTML files – ideal forinline graphs or maps. Thehierarchical structure of tags is alsoopen to being modified byJavascript in the same way asHTML content, allowing for anyonewith some web development skillsto create interactive graphics. As isoften the case, however, specificsupport varies between browsers,and some more advanced featuresof the SVG format may not displayin the same way in all of them.

So SVG is great for diagrams,interactive charts, and even artistic

works, but it's got one other trickup its sleeve which elevates itbeyond the inherent smoothnessand simplicity of pure vectorgraphics: it also has some supportfor raster images. At the simplestlevel, it's possible to include araster image in an SVG file, thendraw lines and circles over it, or clipit into an odd shape using an SVGpath. But raster images can also beused as fill patterns in SVG files:Inkscape ships with a few of themby default, and I've personally usedthe sand texture (which looks likethe noise or snow on an un-tunedtelevision) to help simulate stone,ash, bricks, and even a cornfield!

Going further still, SVG has aconcept of filters – mathematicaloperations that can be combinedand applied to the rasterised pixelsin your final image. The image isstill made up of vectors, but oncethose vectors have been drawn,filters can create all sorts of grungyraster effects which would usuallyrequire a program like GIMP orPhotoshop. Just look at how a littlefiltering can turn some semi-random vector blobs into anexplosive fireball:

Some simple vector blobs...

...brought to life with some SVGfilters

Whether you want to draw iconsfor an application using Inkscape,graphs for a website usingJavascript, or abstract art using atext editor, SVG is a powerful andflexible format that promises evenmore in the years to come. So graba copy of Inkscape using yourpackage manager and get drawing.

Useful Links:Inkscape: http://www.inkscape.orgInkscape User Forum:http://www.inkscapeforum.comTango SVG Icons:http://tango.freedesktop.org/W3C SVG Working Group:http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/

Next month we'll have our firsttouch of Inkscape. Stay tuned!

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/

http://www.peppertop.com/

http://www.inkscape.org

http://www.inkscapeforum.com

http://tango.freedesktop.org/

http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/


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

Guidelines

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

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

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

Writing

There is no word limit forarticles, but be advised that longarticles may be split across severalissues. In your article, please placewhere you would like a particularimage to be. Please do not use anyformatting in your document.

Images

Images should be no wider than800 pixels, in JPG format, and uselow compression.

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

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

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

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

Non-English Writers

If your native language is notEnglish, don't worry. Write yourarticle, and one of the proof-readers will read it for you andcorrect any grammatical or spellingerrors. Not only are you helping themagazine and the community, butwe'll help you with your English!

REVIEWS

Games/ApplicationsWhen reviewing games/applications please state clearly:

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

HardwareWhen reviewing hardware please state clearly:

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

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

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

[email protected]


https://spideroak.com



https://spideroak.com/mobile



LLIINNUUXX LLAABBWritten by Calogero Bonasia SSeerriiaall CCoonnnneeccttiioonn

The old laptop I got frommy dad features an RS-232 port. So, now that,technically, I had a client

that I could test my RS-232connection with, I ordered a nullmodem cable.

There is no RS-232 outlet on mydesktop computer, but there’s aconnector on the mainboard wherean RS-232 outlet can be attached.The outlet will then cover up a PCIslot.

Several of the programsreferred to below must be installedfrom Software Center, Synaptic, orby using apt-get.

Activating RS-232

Ok, once all the cables were inplace, I tried to access both RS-232ports by reading from themdirectly. They're usually ttyS0 orttyS1, depending on what COM-Port it is.

From the file/proc/tty/driver/serial, informationabout the serial setup can be

obtained, or you could try typing:

setserial q /dev/ttyS0

which might be useful. Usually, theUART Type is 16550A on a standardPC. Mine wasn't working, though.At least not right from the start,when I tried to read the interfacewith:

cat /dev/ttyS0

I got the following error:

cat: /dev/ttyS0: Input/output

error

Obviously, the driver couldn'tactivate the hardware. Reason was,it was deactivated in the BIOS.After activating RS-232 there, itworked well.

As a last action, I added myselfto the uucp group, so I have userpermission to the serial lines. It isnot necessary for the terminalsetup, but a good idea to do so,just for future projects, maybe.

Setting up a terminal

Once the Serial line isconfigured and working properly,it's time to let a terminal run onthat port. This is what I added tomy /etc/inittab:

s0:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty

L 38400 ttyS0

I added it at the top of that file,right below the 'si' statement,

mingetty cannot be used for serialconnections; it cannot be run in aconsole, too. I tried it for testingpurposes, but the console - alongwith your login program - will logyou out, as soon as you log in overyour serial line.

-L means this is a local line, withno carrier signal. 38400 is thestandard speed of a Linux console,


LINUX LAB - SERIAL CONNECTIONit might be a bit high, I was told,but it works well. I tested that withsome higher values as well(115200), and it worked too. I guessit depends on things like cablelength, etc. Last parameter is theserial tty to listen on. The terminaltype can be specified as anadditional parameter at the end ofthe parameter list, vt102, forinstance. This is sometimesrequired, depending on the client.

After finishing editing/etc/inittab, typing:

init q

will make the system re-read/etc/inittab and apply changes. Theagetty should now be listening onttyS0 .

Setting up a client

It's time to establish aconnection and test the serial line. Iuse a laptop that has an RS-232port, so some preliminary setup isrequired. I tried minicom as aterminal program initially, but itturned out not to be the bestclient. It tries to initialize themodem - this lasts quite long, andit doesn't convey ANSI colors. So

the better option is cu, it's part ofthe UUCP-Package.

Oh, and the serial port of thatcomputer has to be accessible aswell, of course.

Once everything was set up, Iestablished the connection:

cu l ttyS0 38400 nostop

Pretty self explanatory, I think.The --nostop option disablesXON/XOFF handling.

Root Access Over ttyS0

In order to become root overthe serial terminal, the tty needs tobe added to /etc/securetty. Iappended ttyS0 to the end of thefile. It is now possible to gain rootaccess over the serial terminal. Theagetty process needs to berestarted to apply changes.

Accessing GRUB overttyS0

To make bootloader accesspossible over ttyS0, some changesto /boot/grub/menu.lst need to bedone. (GRUB is the bootloader Iuse, I suppose LiLo has similar

capabilities.) These are the twolines I added to the top of mymenu.lst :

serial unit=0 speed=38400

word=8 parity=no stop=1

terminal timeout=3 serial

console

The serial command initiatesthe serial terminal option, --unit=0defines our first serial connector, inmy case it's the only one I have onmy machine. I used the standardLinux-Console speed, as well as the

"8N1" connection strategy.

terminal defines the terminalpriorities, first terminal (serial) isthe standard one, the last one isthe secondary terminal (console).

--timeout=3 enables a delay onboth consoles, with a prompt for akeystroke. Depending on whichterminal the key is pressed, thisterminal will be used. If no key ispressed after the timeout, thestandard console (in my case serial)will be used.

Relaying Kernel Outputon Boot

The Kernel accepts multipleconsole options, of which the lastone is the standard console, andthe one that will be used in SingleUser mode. These are my Kerneloptions:

title Fedora Core (2.6.20

1.2316.fc5)

root (hd0,0)

kernel /vmlinuz2.6.20

1.2316.fc5 ro

root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00

rhgb quiet vga=795

console=tty0

console=ttyS0,38400

initrd /initrd2.6.20

1.2316.fc5.img

console=tty0 is the standardconsole located on the machine,i.e. monitor and keyboard.


CCLLOOSSIINNGG WWIINNDDOOWWSS SSoouunndd SSeettttiinnggss

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

Windows XP hasseveral differentways of adjustingyour sound volume.

The easiest and quickest method isby left clicking the small speakericon in your taskbar. This will give

you access to the volume controland, by clicking a box, you canquickly mute your volume. Mutingcan also be done by lowering yourvolume to zero. More in-depthconfiguration is done by using Start> Control Panel > Sounds & AudioDevices.

From this one window you canadjust the volume, choose whichsound devices to use forplayback/recording, and adjustvarious hardware settings.

Kubuntu

Similar to Windows XP, you canclick the speaker icon in the taskbarto gain access to the volume.Clicking the speaker icon in thepopup will mute/unmute thevolume. The device settings can bealtered in K > Application > Settings> System Settings by double-clicking the Multimedia icon in thatSystem Settings window.

The ‘Audio CD’ tab lets youconfigure encoding/decoding ofaudio CDs (MP3, OGG, etc.) whilethe ‘Phonon’ tab is where the audio

devices can be configured. The‘Device Preference’ tab at the topof the window lets you choosewhich hardware to use forplayback, recording, and videorecording (webcam usually).

The ‘Audio Hardware Setup’ tabis where you can choose a sound

profile, configure devices, and eventest your speakers for properplacement.

Clicking ‘Apply’ will accept yourcurrent settings, and clicking‘Overview’ will take you back to theSystem Settings main window.


Gnome-Shell

The Gnome-Shell has a similarprogram, although not as extensiveas in KDE. It can be reached byclicking: System > Preferences >Sound, or clicking on theloudspeaker in the top panel andchoosing “Sound Preferences”.

The sound preferences windowhas 5 tabs: Sound effects,Hardware, Input, Output, andApplications.

No matter which TAB you use,on top of the window is always the

master volume bar, together withthe tick box to Mute the sound. Themaster volume can be set here, canbe set by clicking the loudspeakericon in the top panel, or by simplyplacing your mouse over theloudspeaker icon and use thescroll-wheel.

For sound effects, you canchose either “No sounds” or“Ubuntu” as your sound theme. Analert sound can be chosenseparately - which makes the soundtheme change into “Custom”. Thealerts have a separate volume bar.

On the next tab, Hardware, youcan choose which hardware youwant to use, and change thesetting for the loudspeakers tomatch the ones you have.

On the third tab, Input, it ispossible to choose yourmicrophone - should you havemore than one. Also the volumecan be changed here.

The output tab is similar to theprevious one - with the differencethat here you can select your outdevice, and set the balancebetween left and right.

The 5th tab, Applications, showsinformation about currently usedprograms. Here the volume foreach program can be changed.

LXDE

Volume control in LXDE canmost easily be adjusted by clickingthe speaker icon on the right-handside (default location) of the panel.Clicking this icon will open a slidercontrol that can be dragged up ordown to adjust the volumeaccordingly. There is also a “Mute”check box; click in this box to mutethe volume - independent of thevolume slider setting. By default,this box is unchecked.

For more granular control overvolume and gain settings, you useAlsamixer (the default application).Open Alsamixer from the LubuntuControl Center (from the MainMenu select: System Tools >

CLOSING WINDOWS


Lubuntu Control Center) by clickingthe “sound” icon.

Alsamixer looks “primitive”compared with other GUI soundcontrol applications, but it ischosen as the default because it isvery “lightweight”, which is whatLXDE is all about. There are otherapps. You can choose to installfrom the LXDE repositories thatlook more “finished” (such asgnome-alsamixer, shown below),but they require more overhead.

As you can see, Gnome AlsaMixer has the same functionality asAlsamixer, but looks a little “nicer”.

That said, they both do the samejob in much the same way, butAlsamixer does it using a lot lesssystem resources, and on oldermachines this can make asignificant difference inperformance.

Since Alsamixer is the defaultLXDE master volume controller, wewill focus on that. Also, it differsfrom other “GUI” apps (such asGnome Alsa Mixer) in that it cannotbe operated with a mouse; youmust use the keyboard (howquaint!). This is a surprisinglysimple and efficient application. At

the top of the window you’ll findthe name of the currently selectedsound card, the name of the soundchipset in use, the currentlyselected view (the default is“playback”), and detailedinformation about the currentlyselected item (volume, device, orgain control). There is also a “key”defining the operation of severalfunction keys and the “Esc” key;using these keys gives you accessto help, system information andsound card selection, as well asexiting the program.

By default, the “playback”volumes are displayed. You candisplay the Capture gain controlsby pressing the F4 key. All controlscan be displayed by pressing the F5key. Each control has a name (at

the bottom of the window),immediately above which is a pairof numbers (each representing thepercent volume per channel - leftand right, respectively), and avertical “bar” that is “filled” to apercent that corresponds to thepercent volume setting.

To select a control, press theright (or left) arrow key on thekeyboard. To increase or decreasethe volume for the selectedcontrol, press the up or downarrow keys, respectively. If thecontrol you select governs multipleavailable devices (such asmicrophones), pressing theup/down arrow keys will changethe selected device (rather thanaltering the volume, which is aseparate control). When you aredone making

CLOSING WINDOWS


CLOSING WINDOWSadjustments/selections, press the“Esc” key to close the program.

Xfce

By default, you can open themost basic volume control inXubuntu by clicking on the speakericon in the top right hand side ofyour panel.

The first selection on the menuis “Mute” which you can select tomute your sound. Once muted, alittle red “x” will show up on yourspeaker in the panel. To unmuteyou can open the menu again andinstead of “Mute” you will see“Unmute” and you just select that.

The volume scrollbar in this menucan be used to directly adjust theMaster volume.

For more control than just yourmain volume, select “SoundSettings...” from that menu, thiswill launch the xfce4-mixer.

If you don’t see any controls

coming up automatically, click on“Select Controls...” to selectadditional controls that you may beable to manipulate for your card.From this menu you can adjust thesound levels, click on the speakericon under the levels to mute anycontrols, and click on the link iconunder the levels to adjust the leftand right speakers independently.You may also click on the “Soundcard:” dropdown at the top tochange settings for other audiocards, if you have them) andsettings for microphones.

Unity

If you need to makeadjustments to the main volume inUnity you can either hover over thespeaker icon in the top left and useyour scroll wheel to make thevolume go up and down, or you canclick the icon to see the volumeslider and adjust it from there.

When you click on the speaker icon,you will see the mute button, themain volume slider, buttons foryour music apps (the default in12.04 will be Rhythmbox), andSound Settings. Clicking on ‘SoundSettings...’ will open a windowwhere you can make more in-depthsound changes. It defaults to the‘Sound Effects’ tab where you canchange the default sound-effecttheme, and change the AlertVolume. Also you will notice thereis a volume slider at the top of thiswindow labelled ‘Output Volume’,this is the same as the main volumeslider. Now, if you look at the tabson that window, you will see fourmore tabs other than the default‘Sound Effects’ tab. The ‘Hardware’tab will allow you to change whichsound device (if your computer hasmore than one) to use, and it willalso allow you to change thesettings for the selected device.You will also notice a button thatsays ‘Test Speakers’. Guess whatthat one does? The next tab is‘Input’, and within this tab you canchange the input volume,

Next month we’ll discussadding/removing software, PPA’s,and .deb files.


MMYY SSTTOORRYYWritten by Joe Berry

On a day-to-day basis, Ihave two laptops open.One is a Windows XPbox that belongs to my

company. I use it for all my businessrequirements, mostly softwaredevelopment and work-relatedemail. I used to keep personal filesand applications on that samelaptop, but ever since my companyhad to re-image that laptop due tothe operating system gettingfouled up, I decided it would bebest to keep my work and personalactivities on separate machines.

My personal laptop is a ratherlow-end Toshiba box (SatelliteA205-S5843) with 2GB of memorywhich I purchased for under $400 acouple of years ago. I am currentlyrunning Ubuntu 11.10 on it. Otherthan Skype not showing videoinput from a USB-connectedwebcam, everything on thatcomputer seems to work wellenough.

While I have installed manydifferent software packages onthis laptop, there are only a fewapplications that I use on a day-to-

day basis which make my life quitecomfortable and productive. Thisarticle describes thoseapplications, what they do, andhow and why I use them.

Password Gorilla

Protecting passwords can be alaborious task. It is a well knownfact that using the same passwordon multiple websites is dangerous.If the password is revealed, ahacker will have access to amultitude of your websites, somethat you undoubtedly will forget tochange. But remembering manypasswords, especially goodpasswords, is not easy. There are anumber of password managementapplications that keep track of usernames, passwords, and URLs forthe sites that you have subscribedto.

On the Windows side, I havealways been a fan of an app calledPassword Safe, originally writtenby the cryptology expert, BruceSchneier(http://www.schneier.com/), andnow an open-source application.

There may be better, more user-friendly apps out there, but I amcertain there are no passwordmanagement apps that are moresecure than Password Safe. Whenlooking for a similar sort ofapplication for Ubuntu, I stumbledacross Password Gorilla, anapplication with a databasecompatible with Password Safe,written in Python. Given apassword database created inPassword Safe, it can be openedand modified with PasswordGorilla, and vice versa. Theadvantage to this feature will beapparent shortly (see Dropboxbelow).

When the application is firststarted up, a database is created.Access to the database is, ofcourse, via a password. I suggestthat a really good password beused. Personally, I use a shortsentence in a foreign languagetransliterated into English letters. Ikeep my passwords segregatedinto folders: bank accounts, creditcards, entertainment (such asYouTube, Pandora), purchasing(such as Amazon, Ebay), news (such

as Washington Post, Wall StreetJournal), and of course computers(such as Full Circle Magazine,SourceForge, VMware). If you reallywant to use impossible-to-breakpasswords, Password Gorilla evenoffers the option to create randompasswords for you to use forspecific websites. One additionalnice feature is that Password Safeis also available for Android smart-phones.

DoIt

For those of you familiar withthe GTD philosophy, DoIt is anapplication that implements theconcept. GTD stands for GettingThings Done, based on the book ofthe same name written by DavidAllen. At its simplest, DoItmaintains lists of things to do - tasklists, if you will. Tasks canoptionally be organized by contextor by project. Tasks can bescheduled or not. It's a veryflexible system and quite intuitiveeven if you haven't read thereference book (but reading thebook will help you manage andorganize your life).

http://www.schneier.com


MY STORY

The bad news is that there is nonative Linux version of DoIt. Thegood news is that it works out-of-the-box via Wine. No special wineoptions are required and theprogram works quite quickly on mylaptop. There is also a web-basedversion of the app (accessible viahttp://doit.im), and even anAndroid version. They allsynchronize nicely with each other.DoIt is probably the first program Irun every morning, preparing mefor the day's tasks.

Evernote

One of the most popularprograms around is Evernote. Fromtheir website: “Evernotemakes iteasyto rememberthings big and

small from youreveryday life using

yourcomputer, phone, tablet, and

theweb.” I use it for keeping notesabout everything. I have a folderfor work notes, and a separatefolder for personal stuff. I alsohave a folder where I keep credit-card and bank statements that Ihave downloaded as pdf files.What's really cool is that I cansearch my notes (including the pdffiles I attached) for any text.

Entire web pages can be savedusing Evernote browser extensions.This includes text, links, andimages. If you're an MS Outlookuser (yes, that's a Windowsproduct), then Evernote's Outlookextension can automaticallycapture all or part of any email.Similar to DoIt, there is,unfortunately, no native Linuxversion of Evernote available. But,similar to DoIt, Evernote installsand runs easily through Wine.There are also web and Androidversions of Evernote.

Moneydance

Once upon a time I was a user ofthe very popular personal financialsoftware called Quicken forWindows. I used it for a number ofyears until, one day, the softwarenotified me that I needed todownload (and purchase) anupgrade version as my version wastoo old. As I had already beenmoving my personal computeractivities to Ubuntu Linux, Idecided to look for a good, free,financial package that would runon Windows and Linux. I looked ata number of different packages butnone of them held my interest. Inthe end, I opted to spend some

http://doit.im


MY STORYmoney and bought a commercialproduct. I cannot recall what Ispent originally on Moneydance,but today it costs $49.99 (they alsoaccept Euros and British pounds).The product works on Linux,MacOS, and Windows boxes (it'swritten in Java). I originally usedMoneydance on a Windows laptop.When I switched to Linux, I onlyhad to install the software on myUbuntu machine (no extra cost forswitching platforms), and copy mydata files. It worked flawlessly.Today, I use Moneydance tomanage my checking accounts,credit-card accounts, andinvestment accounts. I'm quitehappy with the product; theyupdate it fairly regularly.

Manilla

Unfortunately, Manilla isavailable only for users in the USA(or who have financial accountsbased out of the USA). This is aweb-only based product, and so isplatform neutral. Since theirwebsite says it so much better thanI can, here is what they say theproduct does: “Manilla gathers allof the information you need tomanage your bills and otherimportant accounts, and puts it in

one easy, organized overview,available 24/7. With one password,Manilla also lets you know whenanything is coming due withautomatic reminders. Say goodbyeto hassles and late fees!”.

Before Manilla, here is how Ihandled my credit-card, utility, andother bills: A bill would come in themail (or via email). I would note theamount owed and when the “payby” date was. My note wouldcontain the bill account, amount,and “pay by” minus approximately7 days. I would then use DoIt (seeabove) to note that I have to payone or more bills by the date that Inoted. It was clumsy but it worked.Then my wife and I built a secondhome in the mountains of Maine(where I tend to work from as muchas possible). Now, I had theproblem of having to forward mymail periodically. Just rememberthis: the best definition of theword “oxymoron” is the U.S. PostalService. Too often, I would end uppaying late fees. The mail wouldn'tarrive on time, or I would forget tonote the amount and date of whenthe bill was due. Manilla has mademy life a lot easier.

The scary thing about Manilla isthat you have to trust them, as you

obviously have to give them yourusername and password - alongwith the answers to any and allchallenge questions to all of youraccounts. It doesn't work with all ofmy accounts (there are still 3accounts I need to managemanually). But they now track mymortgage payments, all my credit-cards, gas, phone and electricutility bills (both homes), as well asmy checking and saving accountstatements.

What's really nice is that thestatements or bills from each ofthese accounts can be storedindefinitely on their site. I nolonger need to keep a paper copyin my file drawer. Nevertheless, Idecided not to take advantage ofthis feature. I download all accountstatements (as pdf files) and storethem inside of Evernote. By havingan unique Evernote tag for eachaccount, I can conveniently see allstatements for a particular accountwith one click of the mouse.

Thunderbird

For email, in my opinion, this isthe best product available on theUbuntu platform. I won't reallydiscuss it much as so much

information is available aboutThunderbird. When I originallystarted using Ubuntu, my firstemail client was Thunderbird. Somany articles spoke of thewonderful features of Evolution, Idecided to give that program a try.I stuck with it for almost sixmonths. In the end, the frustrationfactor was too high, and I switchedback to Thunderbird. It's notperfect, but I use it for a significantamount of time each day, for bothemail activity as well as for readingRSS/ATOM feeds.

Dropbox

This is such a cool app! It runson Linux, Windows, Macs, andsmart-phones. You define a special“dropbox” folder, and placewhatever content you want intothe folder. This can includepictures, documents, music, etc.Dropbox automaticallysynchronizes the equivalent folderon each computer that hasDropbox installed on it. Forexample, whenever I purchase anebook, I place that book in a sub-folder of dropbox called “books”. Ican then read that book from anyof my computers including myDroid-X smart-phone. This way, I

http://www.uielinux.org/myunity

https://launchpad.net/~myunity


MY STORYalways keep my library with me.

I also have a separate folderwherein I store the Password Safe /Password Gorilla database. So if Iadd a new entry on my personalcomputer, it will be automaticallyupdated and made available on mywork computer. Note that Dropboxis not inherently safe from pryingeyes. I would not store anypersonal information in myDropbox folder that is notencrypted by me. For example, Iwould not store my Moneydancedatabase in Dropbox. There is alsoa limit as to how much you canstore for free. By default, the limitis, I believe, 2GB. If you get otherpeople to sign up, that amount willincrease. For $99/year, you get50GB.

Zotero

I've been using Zotero forseveral years now. Zotero is aplugin for Firefox, Chrome andSafari, that captures any and allinformation about a web page. Anew version of the application runsas a stand-alone program on allplatforms, including Linux. As theirwebsite says, “Zotero collects allyour research in a single,

searchable interface. You can addPDFs, images, audio and video files,snapshots of web pages, and reallyanything else. Zotero automaticallyindexes the full-text content ofyour library, enabling you to findexactly what you're looking forwith just a few keystrokes.” Ifrequently snapshot news articlesusing Zotero, knowing that thearticles will soon-enough disappearfrom the hosting news site, andthis will be the only way to keepcopies of those articles.

Six months ago, I discoveredEvernote. Personally, I'm in a bit ofa quandary, not really knowing if itstill makes sense to use bothZotero and Evernote or not.They're both high-qualityapplications, and I'll leave it to thereader to decide which if not bothapplications to use.

In summary, the aboveprograms (in addition to Firefox)probably represent well over 90%of what I do with my Ubuntu-powered laptop. I hope at least oneof these applications has piquedyour interest and will also makeyour life a bit easier.

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://www.thepuzzleclub.com


MMYY SSTTOORRYYWritten by Ronnie Tucker

Since I can’t give away freeparty hats, or slices ofcake, I thought I’d spend apage (or three) showing

the process of how an issue of FCMis made.

Week 1 - The Deadline

Usually the first (or second)Sunday of the month is the writers’deadline for the regular folks. But,roughly two weeks before thedeadline, I send out my first nag-mail reminding writers about thedeadline. I’m pretty sure it’signored, but I do it anyway.

One week before deadline, Isend out another nag-mail tellingthe authors that time’s getting on.I’m pretty sure they ignore this onetoo, but I can’t prove it. As timepasses, I’ll start to get articlescoming in. Not so much a gush,more of a trickle.

I have to compile: I Think,Letters, Editorial, My Desktop,Closing Windows (just the Windowsand KDE parts), and now the GIMPtutorial.

Then, two days before deadlineis my final nag-mail. It’s aroundabout this time that the writersstart panicking and email me their

finest excuses about how the dogate their laptop, or somethingsimilar.

Week 2 - TheProofreading

Once I have all the articles, I putthem in a folder on Google Docsand set the proof-readers loose onthem. It’s usually messy, and it’shere that they catch who’s usingUK spelling instead of US spelling

(usually me), and who still doesn’tunderstand how to properly use acomma (me again).

One week after releasing theproof-readers, they’ll have poredover the articles, fixed all thespelling snafus and grammaticalgoofs, and tweaked any sentencesthat need clarification.

At this point I invite Jens andthe translation teams to the

http://www.schneier.com


MY STORYGoogle Docs folder so that Jenscan begin making the epub editionand the translators can begintranslating the text while I’mmaking the PDF. Speaking ofwhich...

Week 3 - The Scribus

This is where Scribus comes intoplay, and I lose my entire weekend.I usually copy last month’s Scribusfolder, rename it, and use it as atemplate for the new issue.

I always start by editing theissue number, month, and yearfirst, then start from Command &Conquer and work my way throughthe issue removing the old text,adding the new text, insertingimages, formatting text, andgenerally trying to make things

look pretty along the way.

Along the way, I’ll take a restfrom Scribus and head over to theGoogle Currents Producer pageand import the articles fromGoogle Docs into a GoogleCurrents edition. This doesn’t taketoo long (couple of hours at most),and, once it’s done, I can queue itup for release on a particular dateand time.

Once I have a 90-95% completePDF, I upload it to Crocodoc, andinvite the proof-readers to a gameof spot-the-inevitable-mistakesthat I’ve introduced along the way.They’ll highlight text/sectionswhich they see as needing fixes,and I’ll make those correctionsbefore releasing the PDF.

Week 4 - The Release

Once the PDF is 100% complete,and (hopefully!) free of errors, I’llupload it to the FCM site andannounce it to the world. First viathe mailing list, which I hope you’veall signed up for. Then, I’ll informthe Ubuntu News mailing list of thenew arrival, which they put in theUbuntu Weekly News. I thenannounce it on Facebook, Google+,Twitter, and on our Ubuntu Forums

section.

Once that’s done, there’s stillwork to do. I have to package upthe Scribus files and put them outfor our beloved translators to grab.By this time, they’ll have most ofthe text translated and begin theirside of things, Jens will be busywith the epub, and I’ll go to GoogleDocs, create a new folder, and thewhole process begins again...


MMYY OOPPIINNIIOONNWritten by Art Schreckengost

Canonical has announcedplans to have Ubuntu 14.xready for tablets andsmartphones by 2014 but

could that be too late? Are tabletsa fad - much like PDAs and assortedmini electronics from the recentpast?

First, let me define tablet forthe purposes of this discussion. I'mgoing to omit the iPad since it usesthe Apple iOS in lieu of Android.I'm also going to ignore tabletsbased on Windows 7 since that's afull OS and not a truncated versionof something else (plus I know ofjust one tablet that actually runs it,and that's the Acer Iconia W500that comes with a detachablekeyboard making it a netbookminus the screen hinges).

That pretty much leaves theAndroid based devices, most ofwhich sport 1:1 netbook specs(1GHz processor mated to 1GBRAM).

So do tablets look like a fad tome?

First you have the issue ofinconsistency, to wit:

• Care to guess what version aparticular tablet carries? Doesn'tmatter the price or size, chancesare even the person or store sellingit has no clue. You might find anexpensive tablet packing 2.3Gingerbread while the inexpensiveoffering has 4.0 Ice CreamSandwich. My favorite? TheSylvania tablet being sold by a localstore that originally came with 2.xbut, somewhere down the line, hada sticker placed over that part ofthe box with just “Android” beinglisted for the OS (you could still seethe 2.x entry through the sticker,though).

• Peripheral acceptance. Somecome with USB connections andcard readers, some don't. Betterlook before you buy, and don'tassume that USB can be used totransfer files to your tablet. Somedo, some don't.

• Wherefore art thou app store?Does your tablet of choice comewith the Google Android app store

or does it come with the one fromouter Mongolia? Good question,and something you're not going tofind out until opening the box. Buya Nook Tablet or Kindle Fire, andyou may soon discover that bothuse proprietary app storescharging more than Android's forthe same apps (and both will trytheir level best to keep users fromsidestepping to the Androidversion).

• On the topic of app stores, it maybe best to state at this point thatapps are not programs, they arewannabes. An app that can openWord documents and do minoredits cannot be considered a fullword processor. What office suitesI've seen and used through variousstores are pale comparisons toeven LibreOffice (which hopes tohave a tablet offering sometimethis year).

• Pricing. I have a netbook with thespecs mentioned earlier - althoughit does have a 250GB HDD. I'll sendit to you for $500 if you'reinterested. Too high? Then, whywould you consider a tablet with

the same basic specs plus aminuscule flash drive (usually 10GBor less) a great deal at the sameprice? Think about it. Even the Fireand Nook Tablet, at $200 to $250,are priced in netbook territory, yetpack puny flash drives (and theNook reduces their version to 1GBwith the other 8GB reserved forNook apps or books).

• All the configuration allowance ofa cinder block brick. Come to thinkof it, I can at least paint the brick,but doing anything with a tablet isforbidden. Want more RAM? Buy acomputer. Battery weak? Few allowfor a change by the user. Want toswap Ubuntu for the OS? Checkaround and you'll discover most ofthese are locked tighter than FortKnox. On reflection, tablets areconsistent in this area. Oops,wrong category.

• How about screen resolution andsimilar considerations? I've seensmall 7-inch versions with sparklingscreens and great video capability,while some of the 10-inchers sportarchaic resolutions similar to theWindows 95 era and couldn't play a


MY OPINIONYouTube video if their lifedepended upon it.

• Then you have the posers such asthe Nook Tablet and Kindle Fire.Are they tablets or not? More notthan anything else, these areessentially e-readers pimped withbrowsers and with limited functionotherwise. Don't believe me? Buyone and see how much flexibilityyou have.

And these problems are just thetip. As with any new software ortechnology, there are initialteething problems, but Android hasshown an ugly side mainly becauseGoogle released the source code toeverybody - without any guidelines.

Oh, and did I mention thatAndroid has really never gottenover the fact they started as asmartphone OS? Most of the appsyou'll see were designed assmartphone time killers whilewaiting for a plane or bus.

Think I'm being overly critical?Being retired, I have an ampleamount of time on my hands androutinely visit local retail stores. Assuch, I've gotten to know the clerksin various electronics sections andwas mildly shocked to discover that

Android tablets sold during theBlack Friday specials had a returnrate after the holidays of almost50%. That's right, nearly half of thetablets sold were returned with thevast majority being sent back fornot performing to customerexpectations.

Meanwhile, the debate rageson. Will tablets progress farenough in the evolutionary chain tosurvive or will they go the way ofprevious but now doomed techno-wizardry?

Maybe the answer will comesooner than we know. Microsoft isset to release Windows 8 in the lastquarter of 2012, and it’s quiteobvious it’s designed for the tabletcrowd.

For those that haven't testedthe free previews, it's actually theWindows 7 Metro UI smartphoneOS mated to 7 Home Premium.Microsoft proudly proclaims howfast 8 boots, and it does get up andrunning in 15 seconds, but it'ssmoke and mirrors. While 8 is readyto rock and roll, 7 is still grindingaway for another minute or so inthe background (and that was onmy 2.2GHz dual core processorwith 8GB RAM – imagine it on a 1:1

tablet).

But 8 has its own share ofproblems:

• It swallows about 12GB of HDDspace once installed. Consideringthe average Android tablet I'vereviewed has around 10GB, you cansee the space issue. Problem is,cranking up the flash drive spacealso means dishing out someserious $ since SSD prices stillhaven't come down to less than $1per GB.

• Efficiency is still an issue.Windows 8 is a facade pasted overWindows 7, so resource usage isstill a tick heavy. On my 2.2GHznotebook running 8GB RAM, itroutinely swallowed 20% at idle.With tablets packing just 1GB RAMon average, you can see thepotential for sluggish performance(which is why many netbooks comewith 7 Starter since it dispenseswith the excess baggage that eatsRAM).

• Software compatibility isquestionable. At this time, 8 runsapps while 7 runs programs. As aresult, you have OS schizophreniawhere the desktops flip back andforth depending upon what's open

(app or program).

All of this tells me you're notgoing to find 8 residing on yourcheaper tablets. In fact, the currentAcer Iconia with Windows 7 runsabout $550, and has just 2GB RAMmated to a 1GHz dual core AMD C-50 processor and 32GB SSD.Meanwhile the Compaq CQ-57laptop with the same base specsplus a 250GB HDD and keyboard,runs just $250. Not only that, butthe Compaq's hard drive, RAM andbattery can all be swapped out forbetter options (both are sold atwalmart.com by the way).

Sure, it packs a pound or somore than the Acer tablet, but Ialso get the extra weight of $300plus tax in my pocket.

Now we're back to Canonicaland their decision to make Ubuntua tablet OS with limited flexibility.Is this going to be a wise decision?

To be truthful, Ubuntu is asecondary OS for most users whohave suddenly discovered theiroriginal OS has bought the farm.Others, like me, are in the minorityby using Ubuntu as their main OS(and blowing off Windows even ona new PC). Other than this, Ubuntu


MY OPINIONhasn't exactly knocked the socksoff the mainstream computingpublic. Care to remember the Delldebacle in which Ubuntu wasoffered as a primary OS in lieu ofWindows? I know of absolutelynobody who bought one of these,nor have I seen any for sale on thesecondary market.

But Canonical's decision to gotablet has met with less thanspectacular customer approval aswitnessed by the latestDistrowatch ratings showingUbuntu losing its top spot to LinuxMint, by a comfortable margin.

Why? Ubuntu has gone tooffering Unity as the one and onlydesktop option, although usershave the option of adding another,like Xfce, Gnome, Cinnamon,Enlightenment, etc - unlikeWindows or Android.

Unity may be great for tablets inwhich program options are limited,but it has severe shortcomingswhen used on computers with a lotof programs. When I tested Unity -with openArtist packing over 1,000programs - I was mildly amusedwhile the Applications areasuffered a stroke attempting toload icons and headings for all

these programs. And that was on afull computer, not some tablet.

Meanwhile the once faithful areflocking to other camps.

Pardon the pun, but I haven'tseen this much disunity sinceWindows issued Vista.

Then you have the issue ofCanonical's corporate policy of notoffering proprietary codecs anddrivers, while others just don'tseem to care. This might beunderstandable if it wasn't for thefact that when you attempt to playvideos or music in Ubuntu, itimmediately offers to downloadwhat it considers offensive tobegin with.

Meanwhile Linux Mint (andothers) just include the drivers andcodecs right from the start.

But Canonical is going fullsteam into the tablet arena, andeven recently introduced asmartphone app that can runUbuntu, albeit a reduced versionthat must be run on an attachedmonitor via a dock (be realistic –smartphone screens barely runAndroid let alone Ubuntu).

And the Distrowatch numbersjust keep fading.

I've seen this happen beforewhen developers have failed toseek customer guidance.Remember theLindows/Linspire/Freespire fiascowhere some group thoughtcustomers would flock to an OSthat offered limited possibilitiesand a software download systemcalled CNR (Click and Run) - whichwas better titled Cut and Run sincemost of the listings wereoverpriced and outdated? Don'tworry, few do, and it's best left tothe discarded OS graveyard alongwith Corel's WordPerfect OS (whichwas free but only if you bought the$40 book that had the DVDincluded), or the infamous K-Martand Walmart computers that ranawful internet services on archaicspecs.

In Canonical's favor, though, is asecondary issue that manyprobably don't know. Ubuntu isincredibly popular in Europeancountries where smartphonesoutsell computers by a widemargin, mainly due to high VAT(value added tax) figures that canadd 20% to the price of newtechnology (meanwhile the

average sales tax in the U.S. issomewhere way south of 10%, withCalifornia jacking up thepercentage). For these users, thetablet is king because its lowerprice means less in the way oftaxes.

It's up to Canonical at this pointto choose their path wisely, and Ihaven't seen that recently.Abandoning Gnome and KDE forjust Unity is proving to be anunwise decision, and it may be timeto consider going back to offeringmore than just one dinner on themenu. Unless tablets improvequickly, I'm afraid it could becurtains for that technology in thenear future.


MMYY OOPPIINNIIOONNWritten by J.D. McCay

A Google search for thenewest version ofGnome's desktopenvironment will bring

up Gnome's website, Gnome'sWikipedia page, images of Gnome,etc. But, after scrolling past theobvious results, one can't help butnotice the slew of slurs againstGnome 3. A trip to any Linux blog,forum, or opinion page, will revealthe vast numbers of Linux userswho simply can't stand it. They sayit's unusable. They say they wantGnome 2.x back. They threaten toswitch to XFCE. In fact, perhaps thenicest thing I have read on the webabout Gnome's new interface isthat it, “at least handles betterthan Unity.” Every now and then,after reading one of these blogposts about how Gnome 2 was somuch better than Gnome 3, I logout of my current session, and logback in to Gnome Classic. Maybethe rest of the Internet is right, andI've just forgotten how greatGnome 2 was. Maybe I really will bemore productive using a tried-and-true desktop environment.

The old way:Here I am back in 2010. The first

thing I need to do is open up thearticle that I am writing. I move mymouse up to the places menu,scroll down until I see mydocuments folder, double click onmy articles folder, double click ona_case_for_gnome_3.odt. Now, Iwant to verify that Gnome 3 cameout in 2011. My memory's not thatgreat, you know. So I move myhands from the keyboard back tothe trackpad, go up to theapplications menu, scroll down tothe internet section, and scroll overto Chromium. Back to thekeyboard, type wikipedia.org. Backto the trackpad, click on the opendocument, back to the keyboard...

Wait, I just remembered that Iwas expecting an email. Back tothe trackpad, Applications >Internet > Thunderbird. Hmm,Larry hasn't emailed me back yet,so I'll just send him a reminder.Back to the keyboard. Once I'vefinished, I'll start working on thatarticle. Back to the trackpad, andthen back to the keyboard again.

I wonder if Larry is online for achat. Back to the trackpad. Sureenough, he's online. Back to thekeyboard. He wants me to emailhim “Document X.” Back to thetrackpad.

The new way:By now, I'm thoroughly

frustrated with my computer, andall the wasted motions fromkeyboard to trackpad and backagain. So I log back into GnomeShell and type:

Super > a case for... > Enter.Super > larry > Enter.Super > thu... > Enter.

What would have taken aconsiderable amount of effort inGnome 2.x took a few keystrokes inGnome 3. Switching back and forthbetween the article and Larry'semail would have meant switchingback and forth between thekeyboard and the trackpad severaltimes. In Gnome 3, my hands neverleave the keys. It's like keyboardshortcuts on steroids. I don't evenhave to remember whether myemail client is open or not. If it's

not open, all I do is start typing“Thunderbird” to open it. If it'salready open, I still just have tostart typing “Thunderbird.”

I guess the case that I'm tryingto make is this: If you love thekeyboard (and I'm guessing you do,otherwise you wouldn't be a Linuxuser), then I think you'll loveGnome 3. If you want to havemultiple applications running atthe same time, and want to switchback and forth between themquickly and easily, you'll be right athome with Gnome 3.

Not sure whether you're akeyboard connoisseur or not?Here's a test. When you use a menuitem in an application, do you makea note of whether it has a keyboardshortcut? When choosing from alist of “auto-suggests” in a searchengine, do you instinctively moveto the Tab key? If so, then I have apretty good feeling that you aregoing to like Gnome 3. Give it a try,and keep those fingers on thekeyboard where they belong. Theydon't call it “Home Row” fornothing, you know.


II TTHHIINNKK...... Ubuntu 12.04 will be released on the26th of April. Will you be upgrading?

Last month's question was:

Ubuntu 12.04 will bereleased on the 26th ofApril. Will you beupgrading?

Maybe 40 9%Yes 329 75%No 71 16%

If not, why not?

I'll do a clean installinstead. It is faster andcleaner than building onthe foundations of a

three-year-old system.

I'll wait a little bit for theearly adopters to hit thewall.

Printer and Wifi may notwork.

Not sure if the pae kernelwill install on my IntelSingle-Core Centrinolaptop.

I've given up with Ubuntubecause of Unity. Icurrently run Mint 10 asmy main distro, but I've

been playing with Mint 12 with

Cinnamon. Looking forward to Mint13.

Still not sure about thenew Unity, and tired ofhaving to reinstall driverson every major upgrade.

Fedora or Linux Mint arelooking like betterchoices.

I usually give it a fewmonths before taking theupgrade plunge.

My 10.04 system is stable.Thank you.

GNOME3 and Unity don'tsupport my dualmonitors.

I dislike the "possibilities"given with Gnome 3. It's ahuge step back.

Dislike direction Ubuntu isgoing, Changing distro.

Not sure my oldercomputer can take it.

This month Jennifer (Ubuntu Games) would like to ask:

With the recent boom of Kickstartergames, have you donated to the creativecause, or do you prefer to wait and see?

To give your tuppence worth go to: http://goo.gl/RPoJu

Closing date for this question is Sunday 13th May 2012.

http://goo.gl/RPoJu


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

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


RREEVVIIEEWWWritten by Mohammad Kamil Nadeem

Ubuntu, or, for thatmatter, GNU/Linux, isreally an excellentoption for almost every

job that computers may be usedfor (far better than Windows orMacOS) but gaming is one platformwhere we are indeed lacking whenit comes to a totally modern OSexperience.

Luckily, progress is being made,and many game developers(especially Indie game developers)are realizing the available Linuxmarket, and our readiness to payfor it, has already been provenmany a time on Humble Bundlereleases where the average Linuxuser’s payment is always thehighest. Today, we’re looking atDesura.

What is Desura?

”Desura is a communitydriven

digitaldistribution service for

gamers, putting the bestgames,

mods, anddownloadable content

from developers atgamers’

fingertips, readyto buyandplay.”as

stated onhttp://www.desura.com/about . Sohow does one get Desura onUbuntu and its derivative? Simplygo tohttp://www.desura.com/install andclick on Install Desura for Linux. Itwill download an archive, “desura-i686.tar.gz” in my case. Extract and

read the README file, which willprovide you information oninstallation and other relatedsubjects. Once you have installedthe Desura game client, run it, andyou will be asked to login. If youhave an existing Desura account,login with that, or register a newone, as it is a fairly simple process.

Log in, and you are off to installinggames - both free and paid. In thegame section, you will meet someold friends like “Neverball”,“Warsow”, “Xonotic”(which is a forkof Nexuiz), “Alien Arena,” andothers. Also in attendance are toprated paid games. Just to name afew: “Braid”, “World of Goo”,

DDeessuurraa

http://www.desura.com/about

http://www.desura.com/install


REVIEW: DESURA“Crayon Physics Deluxe”,“VVVVVV” (if you have troublepronouncing it just say V 6 times),“Trine”, “Frozen Synapse,” andmany more. I installed three gamesfrom Desura: “M.A.R.S - ARidiculous Shooter”, “Vertigo” and“Smokin' Guns” (all of them arefree). I have personally taken quitea liking to “Smokin' Guns” as itrecreates the "Old West's" greatatmosphere. It does lack

graphically in comparison to yourmodern shooters, but what it lacksin graphics it makes up for in thesheer exciting gameplay. The gamehas two modes, Single andMultiplayer.

Multiplayer is where the gameearns its money, just join any of themany servers present and jumpstraight into action. My favoritegame types are “Deathmatch”,

“Teamplay” and “Bank Robbery”.The games can be launched fromthe client itself, or from theinstallation folder - as they areinstalled locally. Desura is alsoabout the community, and thereyou can interact with fellowgamers , make friends, join groups,and read fellow users’ reviews.Finally, there is also a Developmentsection where developers canrelease their games, do Beta

Testing and other developerrelated stuff.

Go ahead, install it, have fun. Ifyou are playing “Smokin' Guns” andsome “MKN” hurls dynamite at you,chances are it will be me.

Good• Major step in making Linuxattractive to gamers• Easy Installation• Is a social medium• Great integration with theUbuntu desktop.

Bad• The game titles available forLinux are less in comparison toWindows.

http://www.bodhilinux.com


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

Ubuntu Salesman

I have been using Ubuntu forthe past year. I absolutely havenothing bad to say about it atall. If anything, I try my hardest

to "sell" it to everyone I meet.People in my workplace know that Ilove playing with computers, sothey always come to me withquestions. How do I speed up mycomputer? What is a goodantivirus? Why does this alwayshappen? My answer: You needUbuntu. Or something along thatline anyway. I even went as far asselling my "proprietary" mediaplayer, and buying one that workswith Linux. I will never go back tothe "Dark Side", I will always try tofind a way around my computerissues...in Ubuntu.

Matt

Hibernation

I've been a long time Ubuntufan until recently. No, this isn'ta Unity hate mail, though I'mindifferent to it. My

aggravation is hibernation. The lastfew releases stink! Every time I putmy lid down the PC never recovers.It's a hard shutdown to get it back.

I've switched to openSuse Linux12.1, and have had NO issues. It'smore technical oriented to use, andthe command line is different, butit's a solid distro. I'd rather be onUbuntu.

I wonder if others have had thesame issue?

Matt Whittaker

Gord says: didyoumake anyattempt to fix this?Providing the

brandandmodel ofyourlaptop is a

start. IwouldGoogle: laptop-model

suspendsolved(Closing the lid

shouldsuspend, nothibernate.)

Gripes

I thought I would share someof my gripes with you aboutLinux in general.

I've been using Linux for over 5years now, and I like to share myLinux knowledge and get newpeople on board, but it is gettingharder all the time. The Linuxcommunity spends all its effortsdeveloping new User Interfaces,and fighting over them, when whatwe need is support for the thingspeople really want, like: videosupport for MSN and Yahoo, andsupport for iPods out of the box.Everyone it seems has an iPod,which Linux does not fare wellwith.

I really love linux, but the lack ofsupport for these things will doomthis OS.

Rob

Gord says: http://ubuntu-install.blogspot.ca/2011/04/connect-ipad-and-ipod-with-ubuntu.html

MS Exchange

I read the article about the useof mail in combination with MSexchange. At my office theyare using exchange in the

cloud (office365). The existingplugins are incompatible with thisversion.

After a very long search, I foundDavMail. From the site(http://sourceforge.net/projects/davmail/): DavMail is aPOP/IMAP/SMTP/Caldav/Carddav/LDAP gateway allowing users to useany mail client with Exchange, evenfrom the internet through OutlookWeb Access, on any platform,tested on MacOSX, Linux, andWindows

I now use davmail, and I havealmost nothing to complain about.

Join us on:

facebook.com/fullcirclemagazine

twitter.com/#!/fullcirclemag

linkedin.com/company/full-circle-magazine

ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=270

goo.gl/FRTMl


http://facebook.com/fullcirclemagazine

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

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

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

http://goo.gl/FRTMl

http://ubuntu-install.blogspot.ca/2011/04/connect-ipad-and-ipod-with-ubuntu.html

http://sourceforge.net/projects/davmail/


LETTERSI wonder why I never read about itbefore.

Martin Stolk

More E17

Art Schreckengostsupplied a nice review ofBodhi Linux, but had amajor omission. He

stated that he knew of only oneother distro using E17 and Ubuntu.He missed the nicest distro outthere (yes, my opinion), MacPup528. MacPup uses E17, and is basedon LuPu (Lucid Puppy, based onUbuntu Lucid Lynx).

I have tried Bodhi and agreethat the learning curve is there,and is a reason to rate Bodhi downa notch. There is no such learningcurve to MacPup 528. I hope he

tries it.

I would very much like for you toinclude contact information onauthors, unless they do not wish tobe contacted. I've published a fewarticles on online magazines, andwish the magazine would have sentme the feedback, or feedbackwould have been submitteddirectly to me.

Gerald L. "Moss" Bliss

Ronnie says: Ifanyone needs tocontactawriter, drop me an email. I

always pass along anyfeedback Iget

foran author.

Directory Opus

In FCM#59 the letters sectionhad an entry on DirectoryOpus, asking for a similarfilemanager for Linux. I think

Ranger (below left) is what thewriter wants:http://ranger.nongnu.org/.

Ludo Beckers

Looks Familiar

This Canpolbabies Tricolourwater teether "Steeringwheel" (below) looks like a

Babybuntu (if it really existed)logo!

I'm thinking "Ubuntu for milkteeth" instead of "Ubuntu forhuman beings".

Evgeny Kozlov.

http://ranger.nongnu.org/


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

The solutions to all the puzzles are on thesecond last page of this issue. No peeking!

Clues:

Across2 Motorcycle on filth in this multilevel game (4,4)4 Unreeling, Nom unravels a free MMORPG (6,6)6 Fire eater's story's a little funny fantasy at several levels (6,5)10 A bone in your leg or a pretty old fantasy game (5)11 Substitute a text adventure interpreter (7)13 Juggle rocker tick for a game set beyond our world (4,6)15 Long race or game trilogy (8)16 Shake a popular game - 4 versions out so far (5)17 Stadium not closed for a first person shooting game (9)

Down1 Twisted fortunes have ported a lot of games to Linux (8)3 Snorkel garden has a multiplayer game in its infancy (6)5 These games have lots of people shooting at the same time (6)7 A boy, not Mr. Allan Poe, rescues his father in this 2D platform game (5)8 Imagine armored vehicles, play this online multiplayer game (5,5)9 Plan your own city using this simulator! (7)12 This game engine is a-one in arabic (5,3)14 You'll love this if you like rogue and Tolkien (5)

Crossword by Ilavenil Thirumavalavan



QQ&&AACompiled by Gord Campbell

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

Q Is the classic Gnomedesktop available inUbuntu 12.04?

A Yes, install gnome-panel, logout, click thegear in the Greeterwindow and select

"GNOME Classic". You will probablyalso want to install CCSM,CompizConfig Settings Manager.

Q My laptop has Intel andNvidia video adaptors. Iunderstand somethingcalled Bumblebee can

extend the battery life, by lettingme disable the Nvidia adaptor. Howcan I install it in Ubuntu 12.04?

A (Thanks to rodpott inthe Ubuntu Forums)Open a terminal andenter these commands:

sudo aptaddrepository

ppa:bumblebee/stable

sudo aptget update

sudo aptget install

bumblebee bumblebeenvidia

sudo usermod a G bumblebee

USERNAME

(where you enter the usernameyou log on with.) You can confirmthat it's installed by running:

optirun glxspheres

To use the Nvidia adapter with aspecific program, precede theprogram name with "optirun." Forexample, "optirun vlc" for the VLCmedia player.

Q What tools Can I use tomonitor client computerson my network?

A Try ntop.

Q My jpeg files in nautilusare just displaying as ablank black box instead ofa thumbnail of the actual

image.

A In Nautilus, selectEdit/Preferences. Clickon the Preview tab,change the "Only for

files smaller than" value.

Q I upgraded to a GeForce520GT video card, andinstalled the drivers OK,but my second monitor is

ignored.

A Run NVIDIA X ServerSettings, and go into XServer DisplayConfiguration.

Q I restarted Xubuntu11.10 and Conky, that wasalways on the right side,now has moved to the

left side.

A (Thanks to wojox in theUbuntu Forums) Change:

own_window noto: own_window yes

Q I have Ubuntu 11.10desktop edition set up asa server. I want to run it"headless," no screen,

mouse, or keyboard. When I try tocontrol it using VNC, the resolutionis too low.

A (Thanks to Cancelor inthe Ubuntu Forums) Seethis message thread:http://ubuntuforums.org

/showthread.php?t=1929145

Q How can I keep up todate with Ubuntu?

A Subscribe to the UbuntuWeekly Newsletter:https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu

-news

Q How can I save directly toa network drive fromwithin an application?


http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1929145

https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-news


Q & A

A You just need to do thisonce: make sure your filemanager is set to displayhidden files. In your

Home folder, scroll down to .gvfs,and right-click on it. Select "MakeLink." The Link will not be hidden,drag it onto your desktop.

After making sure the networkdrive is mounted, from yourapplication's save dialoguenavigate to Desktop, select "Link to.gvfs" and the network drive willappear in it. One more double-clickand you can save.

Q I'm building a newcomputer, but I'mkeeping the hard drivesthat I have now. Do I need

to reinstall Ubuntu?

A (Thanks to QIII in theUbuntu Forums)Disable/remove all thirdparty drivers prior to

shutting down for the last time.Backup everything. It is a persistentmyth that this "just works". I havehad it work most of the time, but Ihave also had it fail.

Q I just built a hometheatre PC (HTPC) with anIntel Atom 330 (1.6GHz,dual-core) and NVIDIA

ION graphics processor. I believedthat this machine should play1080p no problem, but it lags oneven 720p, and I get tearing withregular xvid playback.

A (Thanks to Michael37 inthe Ubuntu Forums) Tryxbmc. I have an AcerAspire Revo 3600 (dual-

core Atom 330 and Nvidia Ion). Idon't have any problems playing1080p content. I am using the v190driver and VDPAU acceleration.http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Installing_XBMC_for_Linux

Two Tips andTechniquesDay and Night

I'm currently evaluating whatversion or distro of Linux I willmove to this spring. Even tome, my parameters are

amusing. Here is perhaps the mostunusual.

In Ubuntu 10.10, I have been

using an applet called f.lux, and Ilike it a lot. It's not very exciting: atdusk, it reduces the brightness ofmy display, and makes it warmer. Atdawn, it brightens my screen, andmakes it cooler. No big deal, but itenhances my computer usage.

Of course, determining "dusk"and "dawn" requires knowing mylatitude and longitude.Fortunately, Google Maps give methat information.

Sharing Simplified

On average, I try one newversion or distro of Linux a month.One of the features I always try, isto set up a shared folder, and toaccess shared folders on othercomputers. It always works, so Idon't understand why people havetrouble with this feature.

To create a shared folder on anydistro which uses Nautilus as its filemanager, I create a folder called"shared". In Nautilus, I right-clickand select "sharing options." I clickon "Share this folder," "Allowothers to create and delete files inthis folder", and "Guest access."Then I click on "Create Share." Alldone.

Depending on the distro, I amprompted to install Samba, thenstart again.

To access shared folders onother computers, I start the filemanager. I select, "BrowseNetwork." I double-click on acomputer name, then on a sharedfolder. At this point, I can copy orpaste files. It all "just works."

In Kubuntu, with the Dolphinfile manager, I take the same steps,although the details are slightlydifferent.

My wife is Chinese, so sherequires the QQ video-conferencing software -- whichworks only under Windows. When Iconnect to her Windows 7 Ultimatecomputer, I am prompted to entera Windows username andpassword. No problem.

In the past three years, I havenever edited a configuration file. Ihave never used the Terminal foranything to do with folder sharing.It has always "Just Worked." If yourexperience is different, and youknow why, I would like to hear fromyou.

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Installing_XBMC_for_Linux


UUBBUUNNTTUU WWOOMMEENNWritten by Cheri Francis CCaarreeeerr DDaayyss

The Ubuntu Women projectstarted Career Days inSeptember of 2011 inorder to help women in

our community learn more abouttechnical careers related toFree/Open Source Software.

The inspiration behind CareerDays was the lack of actual day-to-day information about varioustechnical jobs. I wanted to hearpersonal stories from women intechnical (or tech related) jobs toget a feel for what the jobs reallyentailed.

The following are excerpts andsome details from the first threesessions by women in ourcommunity who have stepped upto share details about their careers:

Elizabeth Krumbach, LinuxSystems Administrator

“A sysadmin is prettymuch

learning all the time;

technologies change

rapidly, the open source

tools available are ever-expanding,

andthe needsofcustomers change

overtime.”

• What does a SystemsAdministrator do? A sysadmin maybe called upon to help select andprovision hardware, or work withpeers and management toengineer solutions to computingproblems or changing expectationswithin a company.

• What kind of training does aSystems Administrator need? Somepeople go to school, others are selftaught by running their ownservers at home or for their ownlocal organizations or projects.There are even Ubuntu trainingopportunities, more details can befound here:http://www.ubuntu.com/support/training

• On a day-to-day basis, she mayfind herself working on:configuration of firewalls,mailservers, webservers,monitoring, content filteringsystems, and high-availability (HA)virtualized clusters

More at: http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/CareerDays/LinuxSyste

msAdministrator

Jane Silber, Developer turnedCEO

“I joinedasa s/wengineer,

movedin to team

management roles, and

eventuallybecameVPof

the company.”

• Interest in computing began inhigh school, she majored inMath/Comp Sci, and joined asoftware startup after graduation.

• She built a development careerwith jobs over the years in Japan,Washington DC, London, and more,before becoming a manager, and,eventually, CEO

• In many/most people's careers,there is a pivotal "stretch job" - thejob that really pushes you beyondwhat you've done before. If shewere to offer advice, it would be tobe open-minded, to look for thestretch roles if that's what youwant, to remember that you don'thave to have done everythingbefore.

More at: http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/CareerDays/ProgrammerToCEO

Amber Graner, CommunityManager

“Iusually just smile, and

remindthem justbecause I

don'twrite code doesn't

mean that Iam not

technical. Nordoes itmean Iam not

capable ofunderstandorlearning

the concepts andprocesses behind

FOSS, nordoes itmean I can'tget

involvedandmake a difference.”

• She got to test all the latestautomation that was beingdeveloped for the intelligenceagencies (from '89-'93). Not onlythat, she helped test J-Stars aswell, as it replaced the older SLARtechnology during the First GulfWar. (Note: for her efforts intesting technology (J-STARS/SLAR)in deep attack missions during thefirst Gulf War, she was awarded aBronze Star). It was also in theArmy where she was firstintroduced to Unix, then Linux, viaslackware - through some testingthat the 82nd Airborne Division

http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/CareerDays/LinuxSystemsAdministrator

http://www.ubuntu.com/support/training

http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/CareerDays/ProgrammerToCEO


CCOODDEEWWOORRDD

Solutions are on the second last page.

Every number in the codewords grid is 'code' for a letter of thealphabet. At the end you should have a different letter in eachnumbered box, and a word in English in each of the horizontaland vertical runs on the codeword grid.

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

UBUNTU WOMENwas experimenting with.

• Ubuntu Women Project memberand author of several Drupalbooks, Emma Jane Hogbin told heronce: "Don't thinkeveryonewhojoins an open source projecthas to

become a developer. Use the skills

you have, learn the ones youwant,

andjustbe yourself."AWESOMEadvice.

• Don't discount any of yourexperience - regardless of whetheryou got a paycheck to do it or youvolunteered. Work is workregardless of whether you candeposit money for having done thework.

More at: http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/CareerDays/CommunityManager

Our amazing presenters havealso committed to being availablefor follow-up questions related totheir area of expertise, sodefinitely check out the logs andask any questions that come up!

If you’re interested in gettinginvolved, please see the UbuntuWomen Career Days wiki page athttp://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/CareerDays or email

me, Cheri Francis, [email protected].

While it is particularly inspiringto participants for the presentersto be women, these sessions areopen to the whole community, andyou don’t need to be a woman toattend or present.


http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/CareerDays/CommunityManager

http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/CareerDays



UUBBUUNNTTUU GGAAMMEESSWritten by Dougn Redhammer NNEEWWSS

I don’t know if you havenoticed but there seems tohave been an influx of gamesfor Linux being announced at

the start of April. First off, thereare three (well two for certain, andone a maybe) via the donationcrowdfunding service Kickstarterwhich helped out Novacut. Wehave Tim Schaffers’s point-and-clickadventure game "Double FineAdventure" (not sure if it’s beengiven a new name)http://kck.st/A9k3jH. It comes outfor most major OSs: Mac, Linux,Windows, and Android, and, I think,IOS - thanks to the $3 million itraised via Kickstarter.

Next up is Brian Fargo's(founder of Interplay) RPG,Wasteland 2, http://kck.st/yDcMry.This raised an impressive$2.1million with 7 days stillremaining. This will be availableacross Mac, Linux, and Windows,when complete.

Finally, there’s the ShadowrunPc game, for now simply called"Shadowrun Returns" by JordanWiseman (creator of Battletech,

Crimson Skies, etc)http://kck.st/HgUlMj. Initially, thiswas supposed to also have supportfor Mac, Linux, and Windows, but,even though they have met andsurpassed their Kickstarter goal,the game will be available for onlyMac and Windows upon launch.They have said "maybe" they’ll do aLinux release after launch, usuallywhen game devs have said thisthey mean never, for example thefolks behind both Bastion andMagicka promised DRM-freeversions of their games and"maybe" a Linux port. Both of themhave yet to appear. At least thefolks behind Trine delivered ontheir promise for a Linux and DRM-free version of their game (stillwaiting on a Trine 2 Linux version).

We also have a fan-made WingCommander which is officiallyendorsed by EA, which has a Mac,Linux (promised to be releasedshortly), and WIndows version. It’scalled "The Darkest Dawn"http://www.wcsaga.com/downloads/files/releases.html. The onlyproblem being that EA is known forgiving its support, and then, mere

moments later, turning around andpulling it, causing fan projects tobe shut down. There was a King'sQuest fan project that suffered thisfate. EA gave its consent, and then,mere days before the game was tobe released, pulled that consent. Ibelieve public outcry/bad publicityeventually made them change theirmind.

I almost forgot about theupcoming RPG Age of Decadenceby Iron Tower Studiohttp://www.irontowerstudio.com/that is now taking pre-orders. Theyhave announced that the game willbe across Mac, Linux, and Windows.

There's even a playable beta, notsure if it’s available for Linux yetthough.

There are more crowdfundinggame efforts on Kickstarter rightnow where the developers arepromising Mac and Linux ports. Thefact that Double Fine more thanexceeded its goal by millions mayhave something to do with this. Ieither don't really know muchabout the folks behind them, orthey are out of my preferred gamegenres. For example there aresome FPS and RTS games seekingfunding.

http://kck.st/A9k3jH

http://kck.st/yDcMry

http://kck.st/HgUlMj

http://www.wcsaga.com/downloads/files/releases.html

http://www.irontowerstudio.com/


UUBBUUNNTTUU GGAAMMEESSWritten by Riku Järvinen SSNNEESS EEmmuullaattoonn PPtt22

Let us continue ourexploration on bsnes(http://www.byuu.org/bsnes), an emulator striving

for perfection when it comes torealism in playing snes games. Inthe last edition of Full Circle, wediscussed installation, rompurification, basic settings and firstimpressions. I recommend you toread that article before proceedinginto details presented shortly. Thismonth, we focus on different bsnesprofiles and the manual editing ofconfiguration files for precisetuning. Chrono Trigger is used as asample game. We address somekey points of the bsnes user guide,which can be read athttp://www.byuu.org/bsnes/user-guide/.

Bsnes not working afteran update?

If you used the methoddescribed in FCM#59 to installbsnes (the workaround with .debfiles), you might have noticed that,after an upgrade to version 0.87,bsnes fails to start. The reason forthis is largely unknown at the time

of writing. However, there is asimple solution: just downgradeback to 0.84 and stay there.Hopefully this annoying bug will befixed in Precise 12.04.

Profiles

Bsnes has three modes(profiles) of operation: accuracy,compatibility, and performance.Accuracy is intended for relativelynew high-end machines, and,according to the bsnes homepage,it is “almost twice as slow as thecompatibility profile”. However, inpractice, the differences betweenprofiles are small, and it’s difficultto determine which one is which -unless you look very carefully (seefigures below: the first one is foraccuracy, second for compatibility,and third for performance). Asdefault, bsnes starts incompatibility mode. Accuracy andperformance modes can belaunched by navigating into/usr/games and running the filesbsnes-accuracy or bsnes-performance.

I decided to use the

compatibility profile mainlybecause my rig with E6750processor, 4GB ram and 8800 gtsgraphics card was not up to thetask of running accuracy mode.Therefore, all details presentedbelow are tested for thecompatibility profile only.

Configuration files

The bsnes user guide isprobably thorough enough formost users. Nevertheless, moreadvanced tuning is possible bymanually editing the configuration

files located in ~/.config/bsnes.Also, once you have customizedthe files, you can back them up forlater use or to another machine,making the configuration portable.If you place the files in the samedirectory where the bsnesexecutable is located (that is,/usr/games in Ubuntu 11.10 32-bit),bsnes automatically uses thosefiles.

I use VIM (http://vim.org) forediting, and highly recommend itfor any power-user or professionalworking in the field. There’s a

http://www.byuu.org/bsnes

http://www.byuu.org/bsnes/user-guide/

http://vim.org


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

UBUNTU GAMES - SNES EMULATIONtutorial series on VIM starting inFCM #54 which I find quitecomprehensive. However, if youdon’t want to spend weeks gettingused to VIM logic, any text editor(e.g. gedit) will do just fine.

• The geometry filegeometry.cfg can be used to adjustwindow positions (see figurebelow). If you experience problemswith disappearing windows, deletethis file and run bsnes again.

• Inputs are defined in input.cfg.At the end of the file, there’s a list

of shortcut keys for saving states,full screen mode, pause, reset, etc,which you can customize. Too badthere’s (at least not yet) noshortcut for loading a cartridge.Hopefully in the near future...

• bsnes reads the rom file pathsfrom paths.cfg which can beindividually customized fordifferent file types (i.e. you cansave your snes and nes roms indifferent directories).

• settings.cfg essentially has thesame information for generalsettings as the graphical user

interface, and also some extras. Forinstance, you can add a videoshader for better image quality byspecifying the option:Video::Shader =

“/home/%USERNAME%/.config/bsn

es/shader/HQ2x.OpenGL.shader”

The same thing can beaccomplished from Settings ->Video Shader -> HQ2x.

Note: do not edit config files whilerunning bsnes. This might causeunexpected behaviour and loss ofunsaved game data.

Final verdict on bsnes

As the program is clearly still indevelopment, it is perhaps a bitunfair to call this ‘’final’’. All in all,bsnes gets the job done well. Theexperience resembles authenticsnes in a way that is uncommon formost emulators. The only drawback

is the extensive use of computerresources. You must have an up-to-date machine to run the accuracyprofile without glitches or tearingof sound effects. Luckily, thequality of emulation is also verygood for compatibility andperformance profiles, so you don’tnecessarily need to upgrade justfor playing snes.


It’s pretty safe to assume mostgamers have playedFrozenbyte’s fantasy side-scroller, Trine and Trine 2 on

Xbox Live, PC, or Mac. But, now,open-source gamers can get it onthe physics-based platformingexperience too. Frozenbytereleased Trine 2 for Linux in earlyApril of this year, online co-opincluded! With the recent releaseof the Linux version, I was curiousas to how the whole portingexperience went for the staff atFrozenbyte. Jukka Kokkonen (LeadLinux Coder) and Mikael Haveri(PR) were kind enough to answersome questions for the FCMcommunity.

How does your mindset differwhen working with Linux asopposed to other platforms?Jukka Kokkonen, Lead LinuxCoder (JK)

There probably isn't that muchof a difference when working forLinux as opposed to otherplatforms. But there perhaps issome level of thought present thatLinux probably isn't the usual

gaming platform, and, as such,we're more likely to encountervarious issues along the way.Despite how well we get it workingon the development computers,there are probably going to bemuch more of those random cases,where the game refuses to workproperly for some player - so moresupport requirement for the Linuxversion was to be expected.However, we are also hopeful thatthe Linux community is probablyquite adept in solving these kind ofissues, and thus we expected thisto balance out the issues to someextent.

We would really have hoped toget it working "out-of-the-box" asmuch as possible for every Linuxuser - but a bit sceptical that itwould be a feasible target. At least

my personal experiences with Linuxare that it still requires a little bitof do-it-yourself attitude - muchless than it used to be 10 years ago,though.

A good example of theseunforeseen issues is that the diskand network performance of myLinux work computer keptrandomly going totally down to themuds. Kernel logs helped pinpointthe issue a bit, but I never figuredout the exact reason, it was eithera hardware issue or a Linux kernelissue. And after some Googling, Ifound a kernel workaround for it.Unfortunately, it would haverequired compiling a customkernel. Now, I've done that before,nothing new there, but this time Ifelt a bit lazy and decided that justrebooting the computer every time

it glitched was the easier wayaround. This just goes to show, thateven today, one can expect toencounter some unexpected issueson Linux, but also, the solutions tothe issues can often be found, assomeone has already come acrossit and figured it out.

When and how was thedecision made to work on theLinux version? Mikael Haveri, PR(MH)

We teamed up with the HumbleBundle guys for the first-evercompany specific bundle, whichwas very well received. This alsostrengthened our belief in theLinux community, and made usrealize that there is a definitemarket that we should cater to.Since we had to have Linuxversions for the bundle, at first itwas our priority just to create themfor the campaign. Now, after thatexperience, I'm pretty sure theLinux versions of all the futuregames will follow more closelyafter the releases on otherplatforms.

UUBBUUNNTTUU GGAAMMEESSWritten by Jennifer Roger TTrriinnee 22 QQ&&AA


UBUNTU GAMES - TRINE 2 Q&AHow was the overall process

porting the game? (JK)

On specific parts, it was quiteeasy. On some parts, there werelittle surprises, like not having theaudio middleware available onLinux. The fact that we already hadthe code in a basically compile-ready condition for the gcctoolchain made things easier. Sowe didn't have to start fixing somecompile issue trivialities. Also,because we had the Mac OS X portdone, which also used things likeSDL and OpenGL, the transitionfrom that implementation to theLinux implementation was quiteeasy. For example, the baseOpenGL renderer port on Linuxwas up and running in about a dayor two when we used the MacOpenGL renderer as a base. Ofcourse there were some bugs toiron out, and tweaking to be done,etc, so it took much more thanthose few days to get the wholething ready for release.

Was there anything that reallysurprised you guys while workingwith this port? (JK)

There were no major surprises, Ithink. A little bit of a surprise washow little time porting of some

things took (such as the OpenGLrenderer or some other parts ofthe code), mainly since those couldbe easily converted from theexisting Mac port. But then again,there were some surprises that hadthe opposite effect on the time forporting, like the audio middlewarenot being available on Linux. If wewould have had to do some codemodules for the port from thescratch, like the OpenGL renderer,

things might have been different.

Then there was, of course, allthe random issues caused bydifferent Linux distributions havinga little bit of different libraries,window managers, etc. But, thesedidn't really surprise us. Though weperhaps couldn't anticipate whatall of those little issues would be,we did know that there would besuch. So far, the initial reports from

users already show that therecertainly are all kinds of smallissues, mostly focused on theissues caused by the differencesbetween the desktop windowmanagers - but luckily, we've hadno major issues so far. There's beennothing that we couldn't fix - or atleast somehow have a workaroundpast the issues, with the helpfulhints from the other Linux userswho have already figured out how


UBUNTU GAMES - TRINE 2 Q&Ato apply some workaround.

What were your personalexperiences with Linux prior toTrine 2’s port? (JK)

Personally, my experiences withLinux before the Trine 2 port werethat I do have a Linux serverrunning at my home, but I'm notreally using it as my primarydesktop computer. I've also worked

for a couple of years on web portaltechnology back in the day, andthat was basically all Linuxdevelopment. I've also done someminimal freeware games, some ofwhich I also ported to Linux - butthis was more than 10 years ago.For the rest of the programmerswho were involved in the Linuxport, most of them I think have hadat least some level of contact withLinux or other Unix systems during

their university studies.

Are you guys planning onreleasing your future games onLinux as well? (JK + MH)

From a technical point of view, Isee no problem here. As we alreadyhave the engine ported on Linux,and assuming we'll continue to useour own engine for the nextgames, most of the porting work

has already been done regardingLinux. (So I guess it mostly comesto the the expected sales andeconomics on the platform really.)

It is great fun to port to Linuxfrom the perspective that it is sucha proactive community - makingour efforts easier and more fun.But, from an economic perspective,it all depends on the amount ofLinux copies we sell and how themarket grows. Although everythingis looking good so far, it is yet to beseen how far the Linux gamemarket will grow.

You can get Trine 2 for Linux athttp://www.trine2.com. Thestandard edition, which includes aSteam key, is available for $14.99.For $10 more you can get thecollector’s edition, with some nicebonus items such as a digitalartbook and original soundtrack. Ahuge thanks to Jukka and Mikaelfor their time!

http://www.trine2.com


MMYY DDEESSKKTTOOPP

I am using Ubuntu 11.10 on an HP Mini 110 Netbook. Theinterface is a customized Gnome, by following the "How-To"given in FCM#56.

I am finally feeling happy after making my Ubuntu look"classic". The end result is simple and lovely. The wallpaper isone of the preloaded set from Oneiric. I have removed extrapanels, and made it look something like Windows.

All of my friends now think that I have applied some themeto my Windows OS.

Murali Krishna

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.

For those users who want to preserve the look and feel ofUbuntu with GNOME 2.x, I provide this desktop. Xubuntuwith the original wallpaper from Oneiric (you can download itfrom: http://media.cdn.ubuntu-de.org/wiki/attachments/22/39/1110goneiric.jpg).

The font is Ubuntu (Regular), size 11 (Settings Manager >Appearance > Fonts)The Title font is Ubuntu (Bold), size 11 (Settings Manager >Window Manager > Style).The Theme is greybird (it's default in Xubuntu 11.10).The Icons-Theme is Humanity (Settings Manager >Appearance > Icons)

Martin


http://media.cdn.ubuntu-de.org/wiki/attachments/22/39/1110goneiric.jpg


MY DESKTOP

Upon taking a required "Intro to Linux" class for my degree, Irecently had the opportunity to try out Ubuntu. Afterlearning the Linux command line, and getting comfortablewith another OS other than Windows, I fell in love withUbuntu. Now I run Ubuntu as my main OS, and occasionallyuse a Microsoft OS in my Virtual Machine.

Distribution: Sn0wl1nux/Ubuntu 11.04 nattyDesktop Environment: GNOME 2.32.1Platform: i686CPU: AMD Turion II Dual-Core Mobile M520RAM: 4 GB

David Darr

My desktop is Ubuntu 10.04 with ambiance theme,screenlets, system monitor, and sensor applet in upperpanel. I use my computer mostly for web browsing.

I've been using Ubuntu since Hoary, and I dual-boot withWindows XP - only to get a better picture from my analog tvtuner card.

System specs:AMD Barton 2500+, 1.5 GB RAM, 120 GB HDD, and a 19" CRTscreen at 1280x1024 resolution

gorski


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



HHOOWW TTOO CCOONNTTRRIIBBUUTTEE

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

Full Circle Team

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

Editing & Proofreading

Mike KennedyLucas WestermannGord CampbellRobert Orsino

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

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

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

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

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

Desktop screens should be emailed to: [email protected]

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

Deadline for FCM#61:Sunday 06th May 2012.

Release date for FCM#61:Friday 25th May 2012.FULL CIRCLE NEEDS YOU!

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

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