Peng’s links for Saturday, 14 November

That’s right, I’m finally getting another links post written. I’m sorry it took so long. I’ve been trying to run down some bugs, and when I haven’t been on bug hunts things have been simply crazy here in Boston.

I’ve got a couple of things from early this month, but I ended up dropping some of the article I noticed last month because they’re just to old to post. I promise to try to do better and do what I can to get at least a post on every week.

• Alan Pope: A Question of Perspective. There are definitely some complaints about Ubuntu 9.10, and not just the things I wrote about last month. One user even calls the new release a “total fail.” That’s overly harsh IMO, and Alan reminds us of some very important facts about the upgrade.
• Jordi Mas: gbrainy 1.20. Back in June I mentioned this great open source version of those brain training games you see advertised for the Nintendo DS. There’s a new version out and it’s even better than it was before with six new games. It’s available in most major GNU/Linux distros (although it may not be up to date), and there’s even a version for running on Windows. Sorry, Mac users, you need to run an emulator to enjoy it, but at least you don’t need a DS any more to have fun while training your gray matter.
• Martin Pitt: My desktop backup solution. Backing up your system regularly is important, as we all know. Martin didn’t like any of the packaged backup solutions so he came up with his own. He walks us through it, and it’s so simple even my technologically-challenged (late-)wife could have used it.
• Vincent Untz: GNOME 3.0 in September 2010. Vincent has the announcement for the new version of GNOME, as well as what it means for users of GNOME 2.30. Andre Klapper has some links to more info.
• Panji Nushantara: How To Change Windows Key Logo to Ubuntu for Free. It may be a minor detail, but why do GNU/Linux users have to use keyboards with logos for that closed-source OS from Redmond? We don’t have to any longer, thanks to System76.
• Ara Pulido: Ubuntu Testing Team. Think that testing software is a piece of cake? Think it’s too hard? Ara has news for you either way, and yes, even you can help test the next version of Ubuntu.
• Martin Owens, Karmic Art, What the Paintbrush is Saying. Martin has found some great Ubuntu-themed artwork on deviantArt. Check them out, and if you have any you’ve created why not share them as well?
• Risto H. Kurppa: Smile – a great photo show software for Linux. Not only is it easy to use, it gives some damned nice results.
• Miguel de Icaza: The future of Moonlight. Miguel has some updates for us, although it isn’t a software update just yet. If you think you even might want to enjoy Silverlight content Miguel has some good news for you.
• Aurélien Jarno: Thought of the day. It’s a short post, but if you want to see a new feature in a software app you should take the time to read it.
• Colin Watson: Tissue of lies. Some knucklehead has posted that there will be a service pack for Ubuntu 9.10 in this coming spring. (Ubuntu releases new versions every six months, not service packs.) I’m passing it along, not to give the asshat more “ink” but to make sure our readers know it’s just a bunch of malarkey.

That’s it for today. Before I go I want to congratulate Dodgers center fielder Matt Kemp and second baseman Orlando “O-Dawg” Hudson on winning Gold Glove Awards this week. Congrats also go out to outfielders Kemp and Andre Ethier for receiving Silver Slugger Awards this week. I have to wonder if Juan Pierre would be getting honored if only Manny hadn’t been the team’s primary right fielder this year. There are still some awards to be handed out this week so hopefully we’ll have more good news for Chavez Ravine before the month is out.

Counting the Days

Yesterday the Ubuntu devs released Ubuntu 9.10 “Karmic Koala” Beta was Thursday, and after a quick check of the new LiveCD I must say the update looks pretty nice. Just booting in with the LiveCD brought a very nice new feature that I have to write about in the coming days. I saw a message that one of my partitions has a number of errors, something I suspected but hadn’t confirmed yet. You should definitely grab the ISO file and burn the disc yourself to see some of the great improvements coming down the pipeline for us.

You’re also asked to help test some of the new goodies, and we really do need as many people as possible to test the new beta on their own computer since everyone’s computer is different and you may find a problem that nobody else catches. Of course this is a beta release and should not be used on the computer you use for your day-to-day computing tasks. It’s very possible that there’s a really nasty bug out there that may cause some major issues for you, and as much as we’d like to say you won’t find any major bugs we simply can’t promise that. Yet.

I’ll try to write my review of at least the LiveCD in the coming days (I’m not sure I’m ready to upgrade my Ubuntu box to 9.10 yet since it is my primary comp and I still have some tasks to complete with 9.04), and I also want to pass along some links to what others are saying about the beta.

With the release of the beta we also have a new countdown available. Unfortunately they still don’t have an option for those of us who can’t use JavaScript so you won’t see the real countdown on the right until someone is kind enough to create a PHP version of the countdown. Thanks to Jeffrey Detras for blogging the new countdown on Ubuntu Weblogs, which is where I saw the countdown has come out.

Mac4Lin gets Subversion support

After much demand from our users and testers, Mac4Lin 1.0 now uses the Subversion (svn) version control system.

What does this mean in plain Engrish, I mean English? It means that rather than having to wait for Anirudh or another member of the Mac4Lin development team to put together an updated testing build for Mac4Lin 1.0 you can now snag the updated files quickly and easily. And as an extra bonus, you can get the internal Mac4Lin 1.0 RC2 that isn’t being made available on our Downloads page. You can also get the latest update of the PDF documentation via Subversion. Mega thanks to whoever made that available, because I know the docs have been updated them since I last touched them and I haven’t updated the PDF yet.

I get updates of the Sonata MPD client via Subversion and it’s a great way to keep up to date with the efforts of the developers.

To get the details you need read Ani’s announcement on the SourceForge Mac4Lin Discussion Forums.

Peng’s links for Friday, 26 February

It’s been a while, hasn’t it. I’ve been marking some things to blog this week but I simply haven’t had the chance to share them so this will be a fairly long post.

• Stafano Forenza: [HOWTO] Get the new Notifications on Intrepid. The release of Ubuntu 9.04 will see some new, and much nicer display of the system notifications. Unfortunately they’re not being met with universal love. Luckily those of us too chicken to start testing the alphas of Ubuntu Jaunty (alpha 5 has just been released) can still play in a corner of the big kids’ pool.
• Morten Welinder: The Gtk+ File Chooser Dialog, Take II. Users of Ubuntu 8.10 have complained quite a bit about the very borked File Chooser dialog (which should be fixed in Ubuntu 9.04), and the current attempts at a new dialog in OpenSuSE 11.1 isn’t making very many friends either. Hopefully we’ll get something that won’t make people stick with the 8.04 LTS release just to have a usable dialog. And yes, I am aware that a dialog is a pretty lame reason to stick with the LTS release, but for users on the fence it could be the deciding factor.
• Karl Bowden: Retheaming Ubuntu – Part 3. Karl has a really nice series on making a new theme for GNOME and Ubuntu.
• Omshivprakash HL: Medibuntu for Jaunty Jackalope. Medibuntu has log been a favored way to get non-free tools and codecs for Ubuntu, and the Platonic blog has easy steps for Jaunty users and testers to get the tools they may need.  (My apologies to the blog owner but I have no clue which name I should use for you so I took the easy way out.)
• Miguel de Icaza: Gnome Do. That wonderful tool that I simply can’t use Ubuntu without has gotten a website update. If you love things shiny you want to check out the new site. And if you use Do you’ll find some great resources for how to make the most of it.
• Christer Edwards: Enable Basic Compositing for Gnome-Do 0.8.x. Gnome Do’s latest update joins AWN in requiring some sort of compositing to work properly. Metacity will let you do it, especially in Ubuntu 9.04, an Christer posts a tutorialthat shows you how, although it will cause issues for Compiz. But first Christer has an easy to follow tutorial on using my favored backup compositor, xcompmgr.
• David Futcher: My Experiences with PulseAudio. PulseAudio is loved by many users but is a thorn in other users’ sides. David relates his experiences, which lead him to believe Ubuntu may have picked it up prematurely.
• Launchpad News: Links to external bug trackers right where you need them. Launchpad has made it much easier for bug reporters to track and file bugs upstream. This has been something long needed and I’m glad to see Launchpad is making it easier to get bugs filed in GNOME, Mozilla, etc.
• Mackenzie Morgan: Ubuntu audio blog. Mackenzie has found a great blog about PulaseAudio and ALSA that isn’t part of Planet Ubuntu, nor is it part of part of Planet GNOME or Planet Debian, but subscribers to the Ubuintu Weblogswill find his posts (along with mine). If  you use audio on your Ubuntu system you should subscribe to Daniel Chen’s blog. I could just link to Daniel’s blog, but I’m going to let Mackenzie give you not only the link but more reasons to read his blog. It will also give you a chance to peruse some of her most excellent posts since I don’t link to every one of them.
• Matt Zimmerman: Random Ubuntu sighting. You’d be surprised some of the places you can find an Ubunutu logo, like the place Matt found it. Martin Albisetti has found an Ubuntu user in a very interesting place.
• Ubuntu QA blog: Totem & Rhythmbox Testing Day! One of the most important parts of getting a new version of Ubuntu ready to rock is the Testing Days where they focus on a particular part of Ubuntu and see what needs to be done for it. On 2 March they’ll look at two of the most popular media players in Ubuntu, so if you have a machine to spare, or some time to download and test a LiveCD, please consider joining the testers.
• Jim Campbell: Xfce is released! Xfce is kind of the less voracious cousin to GNOME and the basis of Xubuntu. If your system can’t handle the demands of Ubuntu or Kubuntu, Xubuntu may be just what you’re looking for.
• Vincent Untz: Getting the GNOME 2.26 release notes ready.Ubuntu 9.04 will use GNOME 2.26 and Vincent is making sure we can understand why it’s better than the current version.

I have a few more links but I’ll save those for another post. Have a most excellent weekend!

Catch GNOME Do 0.8 being silly

Tuesday’s links post included news that GNOME Do 0.8 has reached alpha stage and since then I found an easy way to get it. The GNOME Do team has added a new PPA on Launchpad for GNOME Do testers that will probably be the easiest way to get testing builds of GNOME Do 0.8 and keep them up to date. To get them you want to add these two lines to your /etc/apt/sources.list file

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/do-testers/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/do-testers/ubuntu intrepid main

Now update your package list with

sudo apt-get update

If you already have GNOME Do installed you should get a notification from the Update Manager that you have updates to install, but if you don’t have Do installed yet just run this from your terminal:

sudo apt-get install gnome-do

That will install not only GNOME Do but also the plugins as well. Once they’re installed you can simply run gnome-do to launch it.

But GNOME Do 0.8 can get silly in version 0.7.95.1 (the second alpha release of GNOME Do 0.8). I had an issue where none of my launchers were available in Do so I had to use my menus just to be able to run Synaptic or even Sonata, the two apps I run most often. I posted a question about it on the Do support thread on the Ubuntu Forums and davidsiegel was kind enough to promptly ask me to run gnome-do --debug and post the output. When I ran that I saw that a link that I had created to a post on the Ubuntu Forums was causing problems so I moved it to a folder away from my desktop, restarted Do and saw that I could once again launch apps from Do.

I did notice that the Do icon shows up in the notification tray regardless of what I had set in the preferences dialog, but someone had already filed a bug for it. There’s also a problem with the Files and Folders plugin, but I think what I’m seeing is covered by one of two bugs already filed.

There is one very cool thing I’m seeing in Do 0.8, and I found it when I was reading my RSS feeds the other day. When I set Do to use the Docky theme I saw this on the bottom of my screen:

Yes, Do is now available as a dock, but it’s nowhere near as configurable as something like AWN, which you may notice behind the Do dock. Go ahead and play with it, but if you need to figure out how to get Do back to another theme simply use your trigger keys (usually Super (aka the Windows key)+space) or click on the first icon to get Do ready for your input, then start typing GNOME Do Preferences. When it offers that option simply go into the Appearance tab and select a different theme. I’m really liking the Nouveau theme, myself, especially when I change the background color and opacity, as you can see on the right. It still needs some work, but this is good for now.

I do have sone suggestion for you. I’d stay away from the Read Help Documentation (man) plugin. When I enabled it I got options to read the manuals for several apps before getting anywhere near the launcher for the app I wanted to run.

Peng’s links for Wednesday, 12 November

• Obey Arthur Liu: Aptitude 0.5.0 (aka Aptitude-gtk) released. If you love using Aptitude for installing software on Linux you may want to check out the version that has been released in Debian Experimental.
• Richard Hull: Slowly but surely. I’m helping with the 1.0 release of the Mac4Lin Transformation Pack, and Richard’s working on a native theme for getting GTK+ on Mac OSX. If you’re an OSX user you should check out Richard’s blog and his screenshots.
• Scott Kitterman: Please be nice on the mail lists. Mailing lists are great ways to keep up with what’s going on in the tech community, but some folks on the ubuntu-devel-discuss list have been rude enough that it’s scaring off some devs. If you’re on that list, or any mail list for that matter, please don’t be an asshat to the others on the list. The user you chase off may be just the person who can help with something you’ve been wanting for ages.

That’s a lid, although we may get a second release candidate for Mac4Lin soon and if (or should I say when) we do I’ll write a post to let y’all know about it.

Peng’s links for Friday, 7 November

• Emanuele Gentili: nUbuntu 8.10 Alpha Release is out. nUbuntu is an Ubuntu-based security distro, and if you’re willing to help test it you can snag the alpha.
• Northsider: Ubuntu Logo. Firefox fans have been putting the logo everywhere, including in the middle of some oats in Oregon, but a user of the Ubuntu Forums has stumbled across a pic of the Ubuntu logo in an unexpected place.
• Steven Harms: Creative open sources their driver. Creative Labs has released the source code for their X-Fi driver under the GNU GPLv2. Good on ya, Creative!
• Mike Hommey: Another tool to mount virtual disk images. There’s a new tool for mounting virtual disks, but the news isn’t as good as you might think.
• Behdad Esfahbod: Improving Login Time, Part 2: gnome-settings-daemon fixed. The GNOME devs are working on getting the boot time down and they’ve posted a progress report. Warning: A lot of the post is technospeak so you may end up asking if any of the post is food.
• Ara Pulido: Are you running Hardy? Join us in a new testing day! Not everyone is upgrading to Ubuntu Intrepid since Hardy is a long-term support (LTS) release. If you’re one sticking with Hardy there’s an Ubuntu Testing Day on Monday and the devs would love you to join them in testing some new ISO images.
• Linux-Watch.com: Microsoft breaks HotMail for Linux users? Linux users are having trouble using and creating new HotMail accounts. Could Microsoft be showing it’s noncompetitive side again?
• Dustin Kirkland: VP-Elect Joe Biden is responsible for Open Source Email Encryption? We all know that Al Gore supposedly invented the Interweb, and it looks like the Obama campaign used Ubuntu (which I meant to blog a while back), but it looks like Senator Biden actually had a hand in getting open source encryption tools in widespread use.
• John Goerzen: Search for Backup Tools. A member of Planet Debian takes an other shot at looking for backup software. If you’re looking for some you should read his post, which provides some nice info on the options available. And while you’re at his blog you should definitely read his post about “memorable moments.”
• Vincent Tunru: Ubuntu from your flash drive – easier than ever before. If you find yourself wanting to use a flash drive for carrying around your documents you may also want to put your preferred OS on it as well. You may not always be able to use it (you can’t boot from it on computers at the Boston Public Library, for example) but it will be very handy for those times when you can use it.
• LinuxDevices.com: Voting-machine firm sued for GPL violations. Those silly folks over at PES (a subsidiary of Diebold) have been sued for including the Ghostscript Postscript interpreter without complying with the terms of the GPL. Woops!

An Intrepid update

Using the intrepid-proposed repository, I’ve finally managed to get not only WINE and my video card working properly under Intrepid (thanks in part to updates to not only the Nvidia 96 legacy drivers but also jockey, which is the new front end for managing drivers), they also put out an update to gnome-pilot that let me properly sync my PDA again. I had been having to kill gpilot-applet and gpilotd not only to be able to sync my PDA but also after syncing to keep gpilotd from going crazy with my CPU.

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Alberto Milone: Call for testing: NVIDIA drivers and nvidia-settings in Intrepid

As I posted last week, Nvidia came out with beta drivers for the older Nvidia graphics cards that hopefully would fix the issues we’re currently experiencing with Ubuntu Intrepid, but that we should hold off until Alberto Milone, the developer of EnvyNG, was able to create packages of the new drivers. Early this morning I got notices from the Intrepid Changes list that Alberto’s packages were accepted.

There are now 71.86.07 and 96.43.09 drivers available in the intrepid-proposed repository and if you’re running *ubuntu 8.10 and need the 97 or 96 drivers please help test them. To enable them go to System > Administration > Software Sources > Updates and make sure you have the Pre-released updates (intrepid-proposed) box checked, then run an update and snag the updated drivers for your system. (CLI instructions for enabling the repo is available on the Ubuntu Wiki.) If you’re like me and got the drivers directly from Nvidia you’ll need to go into Synaptic, select the drivers, then force the version to the one intrepid-proposed. That will show an earlier version than what you’re using, but it’s also the one we need tested.

Once you have the drivers updated (or downgraded if you had the Nvidia beta drivers) then restart your system and see what happens. Chances are good that it will work for you, but whether they do or not please post a comment on this Launchpad bug, along with which driver you’re using, so they can get an idea of whether or not the bugs have truly been fixed for a majority of the testers.

Alberto’s also packaged a new version of nvidia-settings (i.e. Nvidia’s control panel) that hopefully fixed a bug that can cause major segfault crashes. if you can try the new version on intrepid-proposed please provide some feedback on this bug report.

Once you’ve installed the newer versions from intrepid-proposed you can go ahead and disable that repo unless you want to help test updates for other apps.

The new drivers work well enough for me that I’m able to run Compiz, so long as I don’t try to enable the rotating cube effect in CompizConfig Settings Manager. I’m still having some trouble with invisible fonts in WINE, but it looks like that may in fact be due to a different Nvidia regression that affects KDE3 apps (but not KDE4) but also WINE. I’ve subscribed to that bug so I can get updates on the work to munch the bug.

You can get some additional information on Alberto’s call for testing on his blog.

Before you make the jump to Intrepid…

Since I’ve been helping get Mac4Lin version 1.0 ready to ship I’ve been holding off from upgrading to Ubuntu 8.10 so I could make sure things were ready on that end, including helping with updating the docs. Unfortunately we’ve had some issues crop up with Intrepid that once of us will have to make the upgrade so we can try to check them out. Crazy penguin that I am, I’ve volunteered to make the jump since I had been wanting to do it anyway.

Of course with any major upgrade like this the first thing I’m doing is to make some backups. I knew I had linked to a page with things you need to make sure you to before upgrading Ubuntu, and it turns out it was Caspar Clemens Mierau, someone who I’ve linked to on several occasions in the last few months, wrote the post I was trying to remember. Even though it was a list of things to do before upgrading to Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron,  the information in that page hasn’t lost a bid of validity with in the last six months.

Before you run update-manager -d, any even before you run update-manager –devel-release check the Intrepid release notes one more time to make sure of the known issues in the new version, then pop on over to Casper’s site and read Having a Hardy day – Ten steps helping you not to have a hard time upgrading. You may even want to print out a hard copy of it so you can have a copy to refer to while you’re getting ready for the upgrade.

Ubuntu Tutorials help you get ready for Intrepid

as of the day the post was written

Christer Edwards over at the Ubuntu Tutorials website has started doing a series of posts on getting you ready to upgrade or install Ubuntu Intrepid, especially since the Release Candidate is due out tomorrow.

Yesterday’s first installment looked at network upgrades, first checking to make sure your desktop system is as up to date as possible under Hardy and then starting the move to Ubuntu 8.10.

Today’s post hasn’t gone online as of this writing, but now’s the time to subscribe to Christer’s RSS or ATOM feed so you can get the updates automatically. Just remember, this gets you software currently undergoing development testing. While the big bugs should be squashed by now there’s no guarantee that you won’t have an issue. Before you apply any of the upgrades to Intrepid make sure you read the release notes so you can see if any of the known issues will apply to you, as well as any workarounds you may need to perform. The hair you save may come from your own head.