Another experiment

I stumbled on a very helpful blog earlier today, suggesting that there was a “preload” app in the repository that reduces load times on Ubuntu apps. I’m not getting my hopes up too much – I mean, its not as if things take a long time to load as it is, but its something worth looking at.

The command line is:

sudo apt-get install preload

The blog I found it on is here

Enemy Territory Quake Wars – losing focus

Here’s a tip for anyone trying to play games on Ubuntu. If you’re ever finding your game losing focus – as in, your menu bars keep appearing from behind the game – turn your Compiz effects off.

System/Preferences/Appearance…

Gaming in Ubuntu 64

If you’re running the 64bit version of Ubuntu and are in need of some recreation, you may find yourself running into a few more brick walls that 32bit users, thanks to the lack of 64 bit support in most retail games. However, help is at hand.

There is an “Ubuntu Gamers Arena” which provides guides on how to get these games installed on your system. I’ve personally followed the guide for Wolfenstein Enemy Territory and it is spot on.

Enjoy!

Success!

Blog Entry Poster works great!

Its a simple little app that runs from your desktop. Simply install it from the repository, set it to “self managed wordpress”, give it your username, password and blog URL and away you go.

You’re then greeted with a basic box with which to unload your thoughts. You can add links – but that seems to be about it. If you want to add pictures you have to do that from the website, but hey, its a start. It does check your spelling as well, which is nice.

This is a test

This is a quick test of the Blog Entry Poster in the Ubuntu repository, I’m just seeing if it works!

Ubuntu Studio theme

There is another version of Ubuntu, a mod if you will, designed for the more “creative” among us.  It comes with a bunch of applications depending on which flavour you go for – either image editing, music or video.  You can find out more here.  It sports a “realtime kernel”.  I must be honest I don’t know what that means, but I’m told it isn’t for everyone, especially if you use wifi, due to the way it plays havok with some drivers (I guess…)

What you may be interested in though is the theme.  It gives Ubuntu a charcoal grey look, which is quite attractive and looks a bit more professional than the default theme.  It also replaces the African drum sounds on the login screen with a more tuneful umm…tune.

Being linux, you can have the bits you want and leave the rest, in this case, the theme.  Here’s how:

sudo apt-get install ubuntustudio-look

type that into the command line and wait for it to download.  You’ll then need to go to System, Preferences and then Appearance in the menu’s to enable it.  You’ll find some nice new desktop backgrounds in there too.

KDE

If you are using Ubuntu, you are probably aware of Kubuntu.  Kubuntu is basically Ubuntu but with a different window manager.  Ubuntu uses what they call Gnome and Kubuntu uses KDE.

“What you use” is something that causes much debate in linux circles.  Some will only use Gnome, some will only use KDE.

To the uninitiated, Gnome has its menu items across the top (Applications, Places, System etc), rather like the menu’s in MS Word, whereas KDE uses something that resembles the Start menu in Windows.  Applications written for KDE usually have a “K” shoehorned somewhere into their name too.  Gnome is apparently lighter on resources and some would say a little more basic.  I’m not about to say either way, but did you know you could have both?

A simple command line will install the Kubuntu desktop for you and you can choose between Gnome or KDE on the login screen by pressing F10 or clicking on “Sessions”.

In the terminal type:

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

or, if you are feeling brave and want to try KDE4 (which is still in development and is buggy as hell)

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-kde4-desktop

Its a hefty download, but it’s worth it to have a look and it’ll give you the required libraries to get all of the other KDE applications running in Gnome, such as Amarok.

Pearls of the Ubuntu Repository

Open up the “Add/Remove programs” section of the Ubuntu Applications menu and you’ll be greeted with a daunting array of programs to download.  Luckily(!) they all have vague descriptions of what they are, but I’ll give you a run down of some of the good ones.

….In Graphics….

Flickr Uploader – Got a flickr account?  This is pretty obvious..

QTPFSGUI – Not the most catchy name I’ve ever seen, but this is a useful tool for creating HDR images

Rawstudio – This will let you adjust the settings for any RAW images you’ve taken, including adjusting the exposure level.  You can export them as enormous TIFF files if you are so inclined.

…In Internet…

Deluge Bit-torrent client – Probably the best bit-torrent app available. Reminds me of U-torrent (Windows) in many ways.  Essential for getting new linux distro’s as they appear.

X-chat – an IRC client that is easy to use – perfect for getting real-time linux support, although not so useful if your problem involves your internet connection…

…In Sound & Video…

Hydrogen – feed the drummer in you with this funky drum machine – essential for any musician who needs to keep time or is fed up of trying to keep their band’s drummer interested.

Amarok – this is a KDE app, so you may need to download some extra libraries to get it working but so far it is the best music player I’ve found.  It works with an ipod if you have one, downloads podcasts and manages your music as well.

…In system tools…

NTFS Configuration tool – allows you to auto-mount NTFS drives, such as the ones you use with Windows…a great time-saver.

…in Games…

Pingus! – This will appear after you’ve added the Medibuntu repository to your software sources list, but its a great Lemmings clone, but with penguins rather than lemmings.  It also has a level editor, for the budding modder in you.

The Medibuntu Repository

The first thing to do when you have finished setting up your new Ubuntu installation is to add the Medibuntu repository.  The “official” guide on how to do it is here

Within it you’ll find the codecs you need for all the popular media formats, such as MP3, DivX etc as well as Google Earth and Skype etc

The reason why they are not included by default is because Ubuntu is open source through and through and some of these codecs as well as Google Earth and Skype are not!  As the website says, they’ve been left out for “legal” reasons.  They’re not illegal to use though and are very useful, so go get them!

There are different command lines for different versions of Ubuntu and different ones again for 32bit & 64 bit and I’m not patient enough to paste them all in here!

Ubuntu 8.04

After a few months of using Gutsy Gibbon (7.10), the arrival of Hardy Heron (8.04) was something I actually looked forward to – something that hadn’t happened since the arrival of Vista.  The main difference here was one cost £300 and the other was free – go figure.

Well, on launch day I waited patiently for the torrent to download (little did I know my broadband connection was faulty and running at a 10th of the speed it should have been) and quickly burned it to a CD.  In the meantime the auto-updater informed me that a Distro upgrade was available so I thought I’d try that in the hope of retaining most of my settings.

After much flapping and also downloading the “alternative installer” to compensate for the comically slow net connection, 7 hours later it had finished.

Well, the quiet splash worked – first time I’d ever seen it, sound worked, graphics drivers installed without fuss everything seemed to be working.  To cap it all, most of my existing applications remained in place – the ones that had released new versions that is.  VMware server had vanished but I can live with that.

Aside from the subtle but important improvements mentioned above, there are a few nice features bundled with the system, although you have to dig deep to find them.

Uncomplicated firewall

This is switched off by default and has no graphical interface, instead works with some simple commands in “terminal”

Usage: ufw COMMAND

Commands:
enable                           Enables the firewall
disable                           Disables the firewall
default ARG                     set default policy to ALLOW or DENY
logging ARG                    set logging to ON or OFF
allow|deny RULE             allow or deny RULE
delete allow|deny RULE    delete the allow/deny RULE
status                           show firewall status
version                          display version information

So to enable it, type

sudo ufw enable

Easy.

KVM

This is a virtual machine app, well the guts of it at least.  You need to download a couple of programs from the Ubuntu repository to actually get a new VM up and running, but this is just a case of typing:

sudo apt-get install virt-manager libvirt-bin kvm

in the terminal window.  When you run Virtual Machine manager it’ll prompt you to add yourself to the permissions before you can proceed, but it’ll give you the command line you need.

I was able to get Pupply Linux running in a virtual machine quite successfully, but although it says it can use ISO files by extracting the contents as is goes, it failed each and every time.  You need to burn the ISO’s to CD’s and let it run them.

Aside from these two the repositories are as packed as ever and I’ll give a run down of some of the best ones.