Posted on

Shuttleworth to invest in enhanced Linux desktop experience

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical and the Ubuntu Project has recently announced to hire a team of developers working on Desktop related applications such as OpenGL, QT, KDE and Gnome in order to improve desktop experience for Linux Users which is in my opinion an essential requirement for Linux to breach some minor barriers in the main stream Linux usage as a true alternative to proprietary Operating Systems like Window and OS X.

Fortunately this development will also boost other Linux Distributions as well and will help other Open Source Operating Systems like BSD competing to the proprietary desktops.

http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/162

Posted on

Analyzing and optimizing netbook boot processes

Bootchart is a tool that monitors and graphs your Linux boot processes. The detailed view will allow you to view CPU and disk usage, as well as the timeframe that certain daemons and modules require. This seems to be an interesting option for Netbooks and optimizing OS startup time.

The analysis can be rendered in png, svg or eps format and are dumped to /var/log/bootchart/

Here is an example from my Acer Aspire One running Ubuntu

bootchart.png

Posted on

Ubuntu on the Aspire one A110L

Ubuntu is up and running properly and the most important devices are running. I had a USB IDE adapter handy so i installed it from the new 8.04.1 CD release.

WiFi will not run out of the box install, here is a quick tutorial to get it running http://wiki.robinward.com/doku.php?id=aao

The install will require some tweaking in order to get everything running nice and smooth. Especially Firefox ist laggy at some time.

I will add some more stuff to the wiki page regarding the UME interface and card reader installation.

Here is a screenshot of ume running in XFCE. As you can see the formatting is a bit buggy

Ubuntu UME

Posted on

Pimp my Shell

Want some color in your shell logins?

There is a package for Ubuntu and Debian (and i suppose for the other Distros) which will automatically generate a color system logo for your shell.

You can install the package using:

apt-get install linuxlogo

Next, write the logo to your motd or issue file using the command

/usr/bin/linux_logo > /etc/motd

Voila

debianlogo.jpg

ubuntu-nb.jpg

Note: This may not work will all types of terminals

Posted on

Backtrack 3 goes final

Backtrack, a security and penetration testing oriented Live Boot Linux Distribution has reached Final Stage in the current verison 3.

The Download consists of CD Images, USB bootable Version (which i am booting off a SD Card on my EEE PC) and vmware Images and contains more than 300 tools used by white hats and black hats as well and will give you an introduction on real world attack methodologies on your IT infrastructure.

http://www.remote-exploit.org/backtrack.html

Posted on

Hardy in 3360×1050… yay

Finally replaced my secondary 19 Inch Display with a second 22 Inch and now running 1680×1050 in twin view.

desktop.png

In case you have problem setting up Twin view with 3d acceleration i highly recommend installing EnvyNG which will download drivers and setup most of the configuration for you.

The final step is to tweak your configuration using nvidia-settings.

In case you have problems with full screen applications (such as games) running centered on both screens you can bind the application to a screen using the meta mode function in your xorg.conf


Option "metamodes" "CRT-0: nvidia-auto-select +0+0, CRT-1: nvidia-auto-select +1680+0; CRT-0: NULL, CRT-1: nvidia-auto-select +0+0"

Adding a NULL value to your option will make sure the application only launches on one screen.

Posted on

To be free or not to be free….

I like open source software… Especially when its cross platform so i can use it on the occasional Windows Sessions.

Many great Programs like Nessus, Gimp, OpenOffice, Firefox and Thunderbird (i could go on forever) have proven that OpenSource can also appeal to Windows users and help them to get rid of proprietary software.

About a month ago i required an irc client for a Windows Machine and since i use Xchat on almost any Linux machine i own (including the EEE PC) i was shocked to receive a notice that my 30 day trial of Xchat has expired and asked me to register for a small fee.

At first i thought this was a joke until i read this on their site:

Q. Why can’t XChat for Windows be free?
A. It’s free to try for the first 30 days! Building XChat for Windows is a difficult process, it requires quite some skill and expertise to accomplish. It takes time, and is by no means automated. This version also has some value added features only for Windows, such as opening irc:// URLs from your web browser in an existing instance of xchat, spell checking and graphical emoticons.

I have no problems donating a small amount of money to support the hard work which i have occasionally done in the past for the Gnome and Gimp projects, but disadvantaging Windows users by making them pay for software every other user can download for free is pretty much restrictive and the above reasons are no argument to really get users into paying for software.

If you ideologically believe in coding and distributing open source software – make sure you treat everyone who wants to use it equally.

Posted on

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS up – Ubuntu site down

Release day is always the same… Hundreds of people asking the same question every 60 seconds on #ubuntu..

Q: “When will it be released?”

A: “In aprox. 42 minutes” 🙂

My first ubuntu server is already up, due to the fact that the release is mostly up before the public announcement…

Everyone else will probably have to wait a few hours to download from the public site or just grab the torrents…

This is my first actual Ubuntu Server install which will compete with my Debian Etch server….

Further infos will be up soon… 🙂

Website: http://www.ubuntu.com

IRC: #ubuntu on FreeNode