Linux Format UK Issue 135 (2010 September)

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What we do » We support the open source community by providing a resource of information, and a

forum

for debate.

» We

help all readers get more from Linux with our tutorial section - we’ve something for everyone!

» We

license

all

the source code we print under the GNU GPLv3.

in

our

tutorials section

» We give you the most accurate, unbiased and up-to-date information on

all

things Linux.

Who we are Firefox

well

is

extensions. brilliant,

known

for its vast

awesome

range of

We asked the team: what’s the most

Firefox vs

magical extension you could ever need?

It’s

Chrome?

not easy being popular - ask just about any

celebrity harassed daily by paparazzi.

Graham

Mike Saunders

Morrison

"AutoStallman.

“Retro

web mode. Adds

It

Neil

BUNK and MARQUEE

‘Linux’

cheerfully prefixes

user,

I

need an extension that

out all references to

tags to every page."

Bothwick

"AsaleetGentoo

seeks

on a page and

tells

them

with ‘GNU/!’

me when Firefox

has finished compiling. Er,

When

Firefox

was the plucky underdog, alpha geeks were happy to stump up cash to buy T-shirts, stickers and even adverts in the New York Times, but now that it has managed to overtake Internet Explorer in a few countries, those

same

geeks are looking for greener pastures. You’d almost think we fear

becoming mainstream!

wait a minute..."

It’s

almost an inevitable part of the software

lifecycle that

added with each new version, but with Firefox itself forking off from the overweight Mozilla codebase it’s

features are

easy to see why there’s a natural fear of time, Google

Andrew Gregory

Andy Channelle

Mendoza

“The ‘UK Threat

"Awrongopinionfilter.lt

“A fake-working-mode

indicator

extension. it

looks

One click and

like

I’m

busy with

the mag, not watching

Mexico fail at football."

is

not scary

enough. want I

it

to send

MI5 round to my house don’t click

I

five

on

it

blocks

every

if

all

pages that

(ie

that

same

Chrome has come out of nowhere, introducing new ideas into the browser space, offering

unparalleled performance

and a super-clean user

that basically gets out of your way as

contain opinions that are wrong

the

a dozen fresh,

Efrain Hernandez-

Level’

bloat. At

interface

much as possible -

even the earliest releases of Firefox would have struggled to

I

don’t agree with.)"

match Chrome’s performance.

seconds!”

But all like

is

not

lost:

Firefox is fighting back,

and so far

it

looks

everyone’s a winner - Firefox is improving,

improving, they’re

Chrome is both open source, and that means the

Linux desktop just keeps getting better! Andy Hudson

NickVeitch

Explorer simulator? Fails

"Firefox? Web? don’t know what that is... just

automatically reports

David Cartwright "How about an

Internet

I

“An

evil

extension.

to render pages, crashes

give

me something that

cute kitten videos

non-stop and gives your

can browse Gopher and

YouTube as illegal

bank details to the

I’m happy."

content.

It

all

on

Mwahahah!"

Russian mafia."

Paul

Hudson

Editor

» [email protected]

Susan Linton

ShashankSharma

‘Tdloveaflamewar

"I

starter.

It

automatically

adds ‘and that’s why my distro

is

better than

yours’ to every text form

want a ZX Spectrum

Bob Moss “It

doesn’t matter to

mode that plays

me. ran away from the

beeping noises and

web after had a really

flashes the border while

harrowing dream about

a page

LOLcats..."

is

loading."

I

I

that you submit.”

www.tuxradar.com

September 2010 LXF13 5

|3

LINUX

FORMAT

Contents which the sweat of our brows

In

is laid

bare for all to enjoy.

rWVSSm %y>v l

Reviews Home Accountz money

Organising your This at least

makes

it

this

22 quite, quite dull.

easy!

Eschalon Book We

is

23

II

Cox from

cage to old-school role-playing game.

release Alex

his

try

Fi refox

vs Chrome Open source is >

Wow!

It’s like

a post-nuclear

the winner

Lord of the Rings but on Linux! ,

Q

24

Eclipse 3.6

The most complicated IDE in the world gets even more features. What do we think?

25

WordPress 3

it a blog? Is a CMS? No, it’s WordPress\ Now with new theme goodness.

Is

.

it

What on Earth is.

before

>

Huginp56

.?

WebM Google’s attempt to

Mctilu;

.

it

Stitch your photos together kill off

gets too big

H.264

and

make something beautiful

p60

The world’s most popular blogging

engine

is

now a CMS

too.

26

Qt Creator 2 The

finest

C++ code editor in

the world.

27

KOffice 2.2 Not the

finest office suite in the world.

Talking heads

(?(? The

NHS

National

OO Programme

for IT

the largest civilian IT project ever

is > Krita, the image-editing app,

is

one of

the better parts of KDE’s office suite.

Nick Veitch, concerned taxpayer p6

4 LXF135 September 2010 1

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September 2010 LXF135

|5

THIS ISSUE: Red Hat » Google CLI » Mandriva » Cisco » Shiva 3D » Pendrivelinux

ENTERPRISE

Red Hat reveals

new cloud services Vendor continues to buck economic trends and

H

the company’s Cloud Business

become the

said that having

leading vendor of cloud computing infrastructure

and services software.

The Red Hat Cloud Foundations

lead the field

in

deployment,

it

demonstrated

unit, it

was time to put that new avenues for

experience into

is

we made

growth. “Just as

designed to help businesses create,

place to run mission-critical

deploy and manage private and public

applications with

clouds based on either ‘infrastructure

Linux, we’re focused

as a service' or ‘platform as a service'

cloud a safe place for enterprise applications,’’

pull

together elements from Red Hat’s

he

Linux a safe

Red Hat Enterprise on making the

said.

“Red Hat

is

at the

forefront of the industry with a broad

operating system, virtualisation and server

could

Linux development and

an entirely new family of products

models. The various packages

portfolio of enterprise cloud solutions,

management tools and

and

is

driving the expansion of the

new users, from developers to

middleware from JBoss, and then

cloud for

marry these to comprehensive

enterprises, with our

documentation, online resources and

offerings available today.”

expanded cloud

a forward-thinking

release

Certified for the future

was

move that would

To support the

enable customers to begin planning their strategies for

systems and

moving beyond

Hat

new product

also expanding

its

infrastructure builders.

range,

Certified

Provider Program to take

local

into the cloud. This

is

in

Red

be

vital.

It’s

partners

NTT Communications and

Through the programme, developers

more

networked future.

new

will

get

full

access to the

latest

Red Hat

disk images created with specific

performance and security optimisations

provide cross-platform certification on

will

last

IBM,

in

enterprise cloud developer Savvis.

looking forward to a

more

and so

interoperability

expanding now to take

The programme

was launched

June

Amazon's Web Services technology.

Foundations

Cloud

involves working across architectures,

in

> Cloud

is aimed at companies

training options.

The company said the

new product lineup.

Scott Crenshaw, vice president of

aving survived the recession with aplomb, Red Hat has

ambitions to

unveils

for cloud

computing, as well as new

updating services designed to allow for

year to

flexible

costs.

resource scaling with lower

Some

of the plans also include

flexible licencing that allows

Desktop and server virtualisation

users to

migrate existing server instances into the cloud infrastructure.

move

Red Hat has intergrated its desktop and server virtualisation

beyond

products with the release of

consolidation to a

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation

pervasive datacenter-wide

2.2.

The company said the

integration of desktop virtualisation

step

in

was an important

improving scalability

and security as more companies start to move away from local installation

and towards

networked solutions.

“As enterprises look to initial

server

more

the solution expands

its

at Savvis, said the

desktop

certification

virtualisation

are looking to us to provide leading scalability and

virtualisation adoption.”

economics,” said Navin Thadani,

The software is certified for Red Hat and Microsoft systems, including Windows 7, and features desktop deployment and management tools.

senior director, virtualisation

business at Red Hat. "Already experiencing traction with server and cloud deployments,

immediate impact on the cloud

computing

industry,

and would

1

www.linuxfonnat.com

give

more businesses access to this new way of working. "Expanding our relationship with

Red Hat

Certified

Red Hat to become a Cloud Provider adds

value to our Savvis of

managed cloud

Symphony

services,

tailored for the enterprise,"

6 LXF135 September 2010

officer

new software and programme would have an

today with the delivery of our

management capabilities to help more customers to break down the barriers to

virtualisation strategy, they

Bryan Doerr, chief technology

reach

portfolio

which are he

said.

Newsdesk SEARCH

Newsbytes

Command line

»

The Eeebuntu

distro,

aimed

netbook users, has put

name behind now called Aurora.

copyright-baiting

and

is

at

its it

control for Google Search giant ups geek cred with CLI app control. or over a

F

Aurera

decade now, the web

has sat atop the internet spoiling users with pretty graphics

its

»

and simple buttons and widgets. Well, finally

Google has seen sense and

away this

stripped

cloud platform based on a

combination of

modern

Ubuntu and

Dell

hardware,

KVM virtualisation.

and given proper users the

interface

command (sort of)

hip,

The Planet has launched a new

line

»

search tools they have

demanded.

The new

series of

command

Debian Lenny has been

updated to version

Eclipse integrated

line

environment

tools for Google services works with a

5.0.5.

The

development

no longer included.

is

Users of Unreal I RCd server

including YouTube, Picasa, Blogger,

»

Google Docs and Calendar.

hackers access to their systems.

small set of

web applications at

available as a (either is

Deb

present

It’s

downloadable package

or Tar) and, as

is

only

fitting,

available only for Linux. This hasn’t,

for

Windows

version from the

Python core.

> The first time you run a service you’ll need to

[email protected]”

The package depends on Python

however, prevented one user from building a

example, would use the following:

google contacts add “Bob R. Todd,

or 2.6 and gdata

>= 1.2.4.

2.5

Installation

instructions are available at http://

The syntax looks fairly familiar. Adding a new contact to your account,

may have

inadvertantly given

The Unreal3.2.8.1.tar.gz

file

on the

UnrealIRCd website had been replaced with a version containing a

anyone

authenticate

backdoor

through your normal browser.

noticing (this version has since

exploit without

been taken down).

code.google.com/p/googlecl/wiki/

software

System Requirements

protection.

In future,

PGP A fix can be found at

will

be signed with

http://fbrams.unrealircd.com/ viewtopic.php?t= 6562.

DISTRIBUTIONS

»

What’s happening to Mandriva?

it

F

Mandriva has been saved from

that recently tried

bankruptcy by the timely

to

intervention of

its

CEO Arnaud

is

API.

for

> Mandriva’s

52% of Linux sales, is

community

its

model

commercial and

Laprevote said that confidentiality

agreements prevented him naming the investors

who had chipped

in to

save

edit

may

a Fedora-like community development testing model.

In

2003, Mandriva

French

legal

protection

filed for

the

equivalent of bankruptcy

agreement with the courts to repay

speculation that Linagora, an open

creditors over a nine-year period.

v

'

1

777.

prove too

expensive for a

company with very

little

money.

»

The SCO vs

Novell case has

been resolved, with the judge

deciding that Novell

owned the

copyrights to Unix and that

and was saved by an

the company, but there has been

lew' Jis

packaging

focus on Red Hat-like subscriptions and

and

obligations.

to involve ditching the

good-looking

boxed

likely

software method of distribution and

find a business

and

DWG files.

plan to

healthy, but Laprevote has apparently

satisfy both

a free version available

reinvigorate the

convinced

will

OS X, with

buy Mandriva,

company, which 10 years ago

company can

coming to

new professional 2D CAD package, is Linux, Windows and Mac

DraftSight, a

grade

industry-standard

accounted

that

MPEG-

The card can handle 16 video

that can read, write

Mandriva community that the

that the

multi-input

first

and 16 ALSA audio streams.

company's finances weren't looking

jittery investors

the

involved.

The

Laprevote. Over recent months,

speculation has grown within the

is

written around the Linux kernel's

»

source specialist

Bluecherry has released what

says

4 hardware compression GPL driver

French distro maker pulls out of bankruptcy spiral at last minute. rench distribution vendor

Video security specialist

its

www.tuxradar.com

had

failed to license

them

SCO

correctly.

September 2010 LXF135

|7

Newsdesk TABLET COMPUTING

Comment

No escaping work New tablet aims to keep you in touch with the office.

Michael

N

Meeks

wherever you go.

etworking specialist Cisco

network hardware market with

PC running Android.

focused tablet

The Cisco Cius

rm

support and a

C/utter-animated goodness, but

built

on the

very latest technologies. This release debuts Evolution Express and a rewritten, beautiful

Banshee-based media player with integrated playback panel. With new ways of interacting with devices, social networking, and messaging

provides an increasingly polished, fast-

booting experience even on cheap hardware.

Another big improvement

this

is

a touchscreen

device with both Wi-Fi and

not only slathered with attractive graphics and

month came

OpenSUSE build service (OBS). It’s used by projects like MeeGo and OpenSUSE for building distributions, by

is

markedly faster, and better

at

client

The Cius has a front-facing camera supporting 720p video streaming and Cisco’s

own Telepresence software.

On the

back, a second

camera

with noise-cancelling microphones.

>

The Cius will dock

providing

how

offers

5MP stills and VGA streaming along

some

into a station

desktop-like functionality.

healthcare professionals advance

patient care;

how

retailers deliver

service experiences to consumers, or It

how

universities deliver world-class

will

come with a docking station, which has USB and DisplayPort connections

education to their students."

and a telephone handset.

openness

of the platform, with a

area of

Development Network set

Tony Bates, senior vice president

and general manager,

enterprise,

The company

its

is

Android developers

how the network is changing the way we live, work, learn

target the device.

and

early 2011

play.

epitomises

This platform can transform

stressing the

new

aside for aspiring and experienced

commercial and small business, Cisco

The Cius

is

and

who want to

expected to go on sale will

in

cost “under $1,000”.

DEVELOPMENT

Shiva

people are packaging for various distributions at http://build.opensuse.org. Naturally, the

3G

desktop

stay connected.

said, "This

companies such as Dell for packaging tools and by various open source projects. The new release brought an improved Web Ul, with better tools for collaborating and merging changes. Perhaps best of all, it also removed the need to authenticate before you could browse, making it far easier to see the goodies

virtual

to enable workers to

with the 2.0 release of

2.0 version

is

pushing further into the non-

i

1.0

Netbook was released -

it

.

the announcement of a business-

This month,

MeeGo

.

3D goes further

Development engine get support for Wii, iPad, Android and WebOS, and a new community site.

using your cluster for shorter build times.

One

of the lesser-known distributions

targets

is

Windows,

it

via cross-compilation

from Linux (of course). My friend Fridrich Strba spent his hack week polishing and packaging Evolution for Windows.

The

slickness of

compiling the Linux way, from pristine source in

the build-service,

is

a huge contrast to the

sad way many commercial Windows apps are created. Often they use a manual, IDE-based

process to build a source tree packed with binary 32-bit

DLLs

of

dubious

tens of libraries pasted

in.

origin, with

Transposing the

granular Linux model to windows, under the watchful eye of the build service, yields a great result:

be

well-maintained

built

Windows apps should

S

is

new

community website to

pull

platforms with its 3D game engine. The company has also added support for new platforms including the Wii,

Android and iPad to

its

already

The company said the growth in platform support was matched by the growth in extensive support package.

its

developer network and that a

community site would help its 22,000 active developers to work and collaborate

CEO

in

Phillip

more

interesting ways.

Belhassen said

it

a pseudo-engineer, semi-colon lover,

and amateur pundit.

was

important to tap into the passion of the

8 LXF135 September 2010

about the power and ease-of-

use of the platform, as well as our single licence program,

we know that we need

www.linuxformat.com

to also have the best resources tools outside of Shiva

developer network. “As more people

on Linux.

Novell OpenOffice.org hacker

3D, has launched a

together developers working across

find out > Michael

toneTrip, the developer of ShiVa

community,” he will

serve to

said.

fulfill

the engine and

and

3D for the

“The new

that need as

site

we grow

show the world what

Shiva can do.”

The package includes a complete SDK, physics engine, a oceans

editor,

terrain

and

path finding and a

graphics engine that can be tailored to the supported devices.

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Newsdesk DESKTOP

Comment

Build your own flash drive distro

^

David Cartwright I

Promiscuous computer users can take their environment wherever they go...

P

had a rather

strange

experience

can create

giving users

distro,

live

a

via

has a new tool that

distributions

from a

wide range of Linux distros with very

support team of a large router manufacturer

ends with

recently (clue: starts with C,

little

effort.

The small Windows package, which

isco).

Manager phone systems in two of the offices look after, and both had the same issue - namely that their clocks were drifting further and further from reality. This puzzled me rather - not least because have Cisco

which has

in

access to their desktop

USB-based

with the tech

I

endrivelinux,

specialised

Call

is

available

from www.pendrivelinux.

com, can create a USB bootable

drive

I

all

I

had to do was stop and restart the

client services

into line,

wasn’t a problem contacting the

We contacted Cisco tech it

so

NTP server.

NTP server (yes,

long and hard, and told us that

it

really

is

a proper

NTP

Windows box not that nasty nearly-NTP protocol Windows uses natively). This was a bit of a puzzler,

server application running on a

because our setups were certified engineering

built

by a

Ubuntu 10.04 netbook

iterations

on

if

will

live

of using

distribution

its

server.

I

mentioned the story to the instructor

and he was incredulous. Of course a Windows server

is fine,

he agreed, since

NTP. think he found I

So here

I

sit,

it

NTP

is

NTP

rather amusing, actually.

wondering to myself how

going to get these phone systems back

I’m

server or proxy features, or

I’d

use those. So

doesn’t run Windows. look...

I

pair of

RHEL 5.0

network management/monitoring boxes data centres. They’ll do

> David

is

an

IT

in

The

office suites,

integrated development environments.

consortium of hardware vendors

the Nintendo Wii

working within the

embedded

which gives

users access to on-demand TV, targetting the higher

end

of the

UK be

will

market

due to the fast processor required to decode the stream. The other bad news is that you’ll need to be running Android

mercy

2.2,

and so may be

of your

Intel,

ARM

a

ecosystem

has banded together to create a new

has launched

service,

on the Samsung,

distribution focused

platform. Freescale, IBM,

ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments are

all

involved

dubbed

in

the non-profit project,

Linaro.

> Bosch Multimedia has a history of

designing Linux-based products for

at the

handset or service

>

In

the

use

in

the driving seat, but has decided

to partner with

week that Apple released

Monta Vista

its

to improve

iPhone

4,

Google announced that

my

Michael Bolle, senior vice president of the Business Unit Automotive Navigation and Infotainment Systems

it

has sailed past 160,000 activations

at Bosch, said MontaVista

per week. Developers were told to

because

in

potential

users towards the end of the year Intel

releases

its

when

port of the mobile

x86 architecture, making more attractive to netbook and smartbook builders.

consultant with a penchant for

LXF135 September 2010

on

web servers and

> Not to be outdone by

iPlayer service for the Android

cross-platform integration, ICT and proper beer.

10

browsers,

from releases on

BBC

for the

nicely.

web

> Following on

expect a further explosion

seem to have a

of tools usable

Packages available include

itself.

much-touted (and right-hand biased)

going to have to dig up something that

Oh

any computer they come across.

time to market on new products.

sync.

in

USB

easier for users to carry

around a collection

ability to

provider to dish out an update.

my network switches don’t have NTP

Sadly

I’m

is

is

Embedded Linux news

platform.

I

it

USB over a

Pendrivelinux site also offers a massive

and iPhone, the

Then last week, went on a training course, and we got to the bit about setting up the time

making

the

For those less adventurous, the

I

a perfectly acceptable platform

is

make changes to the system

do the work. checked with them and they confirmed that NTP is NTP is

of supported distributions

Windows, which can be run from a drive,

The advantage

fully-

according to Cisco’s guidelines.

list

range of software for Linux and

USB

necessary.

CD/DVD

The

long and appears to grow every week.

even download the

partner supplier - so they were perfectly

Windows

>

hard disk data destroyer.

The package drive

gOS,

such as Plop Linux or

team working for a Cisco

qualified to

and

there, or

more specialised rescue

DBAN

the

latest version of

32-, 64-bit

in

required ISO and format your

support. They

was that we were using a Windows

the problem

you want to have the

distributions

clearly

it

with just about anything, whether

or even

on the Cisco boxes and they

would come straight back

thought about

NTP

built

www.linuxformat.com

it

OS

of

its

was chosen

extensive knowledge of

the Linux platform. "For over ten years,

MontaVista has been a pioneer

embedded

the

in

software market with

its

Linux products, support offerings, and ability to deliver

he

said.

complete

solutions,”

Newsdesk

Comment

Hitting the mirrors What’s behind the free software sofa?

MEDIA PLAYER W_C is

most

surely the

useful video

Nick Veitch

playback software on any operating system, so a new version

is

always

worth checking out. VLCl.l ups the

As was

ante by including hardware

waiting

I

acceleration of video streams,

improving performance and

for reducing the drag on other parts of

with large

acceleration of H.264 formats on

and ATI under Linux as

>

well

VLC 1.1 should make much

less of

an impact on system performance.

Excellent

you’ve had problems

if

amounts

my body literally RF waves

of

in

electromagnet (MRI scanners are

lit

up

a giant cool),

I

couldn’t help but overhear a few of the staff

as the usual array of bugfixes. videos on your laptop. Get

1080p Lady Gaga

playing the latest

my

my

appointment to have

your computer. The software features

Nvidia

in

local hospital

it

from

www.videolan.org.

bickering about technical difficulties. Not with

the scanner, thankfully, but something to do with transferring records from one system to

another and forwarding them to

DESKTOP ENVIRONMENT For

some

users, the

has been a traumatic and potentially ill-advised adventure.

Timothy

Pearson was one such person who, with an eye to the strengths of

source, has taken revive

it

open

upon himself to

KDE 3 and make

it

it

largest non-military IT project ever. Started

usable on

You can download the new, old version as a Lucid (10.04) Kubuntu >

Step back

KDE 3.5 on

in

time and upgrade to

Lucid Lynx.

org/Kubuntu/Kde3/Lucid

first

don’t work, and

how come

several of the

original contractors, including Fujitsu,

walked away from the

IMAGE EDITING

could have been funded for 10 years to do the job.

create incredibly complex layered r

things for

New features

like

Layer Groups, support

window management and

of fifths’ crop guide of

and a

collection

>

Gimp 2.7.1 offers a future with

better layer

management.

JAVA WEB SERVER The Apache Software Foundation has released version 7 of the Java

web

server Tomcat.

support

It

features

for Java Servlet 3.0,

Pages (JSP)

2.2,

JavaServer

and Expression

Language (EL) 2.2

new

full

specifications.

release should be

more

it

parts of

new ‘rule

grungy brushes.

fair,

it

isn’t

seems that

that the software

is

just

what the users want or need. The new UK government had said that the project was to be scrapped buggy,

Photoshop CS4 keybindings,

better

To be

A

V?

include big

small changes such as the

have

project. At the current

projected cost of £13 billion, you have to start wondering how many open source coders

Gimp 2.7.1 has been released with a raft of new features to appeal to both Photoshop users and those who artwork.

in

components were due in 2004. When the project was last re-assessed, the deadline was shifted to 2014... There are loads of reasons why various bits 2002, the

the latest generation of computers.

release at https://wiki.kubuntu.

some outside

happens all the time, but it did make one wonder about the billions of pounds that seem to be spent cyclically on inventing new software infrastructures for the NHS. The NHS National Programme for IT is the sure

clinic. I’m

move to KDE 4.x

The

it

it

at least are

isn’t really

expected to go, although

gone quiet on the future of the project for the moment. One can’t help but think that a more open, consensual and peer-reviewed approach would have been sensible. The NHS isn’t a corporation, and its needs (and ours!) reflect that. And at the very least, if open source methods had been used, it would have been a lot easier to fix it - rather like my elbow, hope - than chuck it all away and try things have

I

to start again.

reliable

Tomcat is seeing

with a better user experience and

>

improved performance.

update

in

its first

major

four years.

> Nick

is

the peg-legged ex-captain of the good

ship LXF,

www.tuxradar.com

who now dwells

in his

shed.

September 2010 LXF135

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Linux user groups

United Linux! Meet up with like-minded open source fans - both

below)

is

a

local

but

Join the

group of Linux users or Unix geeks,

Stowell’s note

group meetings, even

on Supercollider (see

if

that’s not every

month.

even need to be Linux-specific. Supercollider example, because

one

it’s

T

for

uninitiated. Yet

someone

with a

little

all

it

all

It

London

doesn’t

held

a perfect

holds together.

of

hurdle that often confuses people and stops

all

Brain share is

why some

make a great if

in

any one

subject could be shared across other groups

A Supercollider devotee could

in

astounded audience.

drum up support for some of these disparate

and technical subjects, and might even regular group meeting of online,

some

sort.

If

make a

difference to them. His

first

day-long

matters to you more than creating It

will

certainly

to

capture.

be very interesting to

Tim

how people have responded

O'Reilly's call to

arms.

www.ukuug.org

a

an enigma

in

in line-noise,”

which sounds

a brave promise to us.

Damian

like

money and

hear the results of what people have

that, “by lunch time, Perl’s

no longer seem

principles

more value than you

promises

will

people to start working on

projects that genuinely

done, and

will

In

the

delve into

some

complex stuff, including code

regex recursion and backtracking control.

It

sounds

like

if

you enter this

session a beginner, you’ll be sure to

flourish into a

these events were

leave as an expert.

A month

you could even get people travelling to

go and learn something they’re interested

Perl. Levelled at

his

with

in.

[email protected]

later,

the

UKUUG

Open Tech 2010. This

informal, low-cost,

is

is

hosting

an

If you’re in London between August and September, visit the UKUUG.

>

one-day conference

Community News Herefordshire shines If

you’re

in

the Hereford area of

Vim): testing

the GUI tools to

and documenting

make sure they

Stowell

work as expected - even

check out the Herefordshire

letter

were coded by a Mac user!

some great

saw the “Help wanted” in LXF133 and dropped us

a line to

let

us know that the

things for the community, such

Supercollider user group could

as the supply of low-cost PCs to

always do with a hand.

local

community groups

through the Community

“Supercollider, the First

programme. Monthly meetings are held on the third of

each month

in

Wednesday

a cafe near the

centre of Hereford, where there’s free Wi-Fi

and parking.

http://bit.ly/cOmKd

14

Super Colliders wanted Ardent Supercollider user Dan

the UK, then you really should

LUG. They’re doing

LXF135 September 2010

awesome

sound synthesis language (see our tutorial

in

LXF128),

users.

Some things that

Some more ambitious on the

wiki

page

if

they

ideas are

for the (sadly

unapproved) Google summer-

ft

of-code Supercollider

S up.rCallldnr

i.

now

Supercollider

Is

10 years

submission: http://tinyurl.

LXFers

Emacs/

more

well melntnlned srte Tor Supercollider can

. Prnn

be Found «t

program.

c'dl

Downloads

com/gsoc-sc3. We recommend

is

always looking for help from

could do: improve the

a

embedding, user-defined assertions,

would

certainly help

It

about

last year, for

is

O’Reilly's plea, early

include working on something that

his

should have a broad appeal.

seriously

audio track, for example, while an Arduino lover could build front of the

it’s

programmers,

afternoon,

create a simple interactive

in

being

who

“work on things that matter." This

Expressions (properly)’, Damian

like

your area.

a robot gerbil

first is

hosted by the

is

Mr Damian Conway, and as

wrapped

regular event for

the expertise

summer. The

mystery wrapped

kind of organised, synchronised,

your user group, especially

announced

Perl

regexes

beginner sessions might

this

in

Entitled ‘Understanding Regular

taking

their interest further.

Which

response to Tim

mid-August and

tutorial

initial

them

hosting two excellent events

involvement

an

that

It’s

that promises talks by people

you might have guessed by

takes to

it

in

he UKUUG, the UK’s Unix and Open Systems User Groups, is

fantastic

experience to

spend 10-20 minutes explaining the basics and how

is

own

its

of those technologies that

appears to be magic to the is

UKUUG for some late summer learning.

doesn’t need to be this way. Dan

it

source software that’s deep enough to warrant

application

internationally.

e normally think of user groups containing

a reminder that there's a great deal of open

break this spell

and

Waterloo Sun

Specialist subjects

W

locally

• Wesleyan nljhtly tu ids of SuperColldtr Sesvtr lor MbiOS X * PwanlMd SxerColdcr Ser-er ry rariB X from. Sfj-cefof pc

.

anyone who’s interested to join the ‘sc-users’ mailing

list

and

discuss.” For further information,

>

Vim/Gedit integration (eg

point your browser

can’t play an instrument,

sending messages to and from

http://bit.ly/bzmwhP

www.linuxformat.com

at:

If

you want to create music, but

Supercollider might be the answer.

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Write to Paul at Linux Format Future Publishing,

ID

Many of software

I’ve

been a subscriber for some

30 Monmouth

BA1

Street, Bath

2BW or [email protected]

month!

Letter of the

time and a constant Linux user for over

two years. use XP

for

I

Netbook jeeps

my work as a software developer in

a laboratory, but never at

home. have a dual -boot system I

with

XP because my daughter

loves iTunes but she ,

is

n 2007, the Asus Eee

quite

my Linux-based XPC downstairs. also have an old Samsung 6000 laptop with 256k memory that

I

happy to use Shuttle

I

PC

seems to have happened

netbooks recently. They have

up notes,

it

was a

drifted

solid-state hard drive instead

looking for replacement

straightforward, reasonably

One such complaint is no decent web

design software. As

it

happens,

it

of

priced and excellent at what it was designed for. I’ve used an Asus EeePC for

‘all’

price

in

because they

basic jeep

blow to the

is

original concept.

speed and

functionality.

all,

in

Windows has, by upped the price

Paul says: Thanks for your email,

support for debugging PHP.

Richard.

NetBeans also ‘keeps out of the way’ with HTML, unlike Bluefish

Hopefully you can, at

some

the future, do a Roundup

of web design software, as

would

like

I

to hear your views on

We last ran a Roundup of

whistles, the

their bells

netbook

is

now,

ED Mint, please! Linux Mint

is

is all

when

a

you want and

you need!

Mike Reed Paul says: You’re absolutely Mike:

right,

come on, netbook

makers - get back to your roots as soon as you can and put Linux to

work as the fast,

operating system

domain

becoming very

light

it is!

your magazine devoted more

the topic -

time to

it’s

hardly a fast-moving

area of development! Rest assured that

we will do another one

future.

in

the

We do occasionally run

standalone reviews when there’s a

the subject.

significant release,

Richard Austin, Barnsley

Bluefish 2.0

in

such as

LXF132.

popular, so

it

high time that

it’s

including adding

it

similar to

Windows ones,

but using only Linux.

web editors in LXF115, so think maybe it’s a bit too soon to revisit I

I

might add.

in

and

all

and have

conditioning and a sat nav,

my

humble opinion, has to be the NetBeans IDE because of its

point

The use

of Microsoft

the screen, so

the best of them

to

VW Golf, which

pretty

but there are times

all

little

the price but a great deal to the

Plus for general work. However,

been looking

a dreadful

Linux contributed very

necessity,

I’ve

into a

or another. This

dramatically. With

use Bluefish

seems that the

may be very air

several years but found that

I

It

known chain of PC stores) now supporting Windows in one sort

the drawback was the size of

is!

brilliant.

(according to a well-

sometimes but prefer Quanta

yes there

original

netbook

software for Windows

that there

original

are

was the jeep the laptop world - simple,

is

shame as the

a

jumped

Linux operating system and a

equivalents.

is

concept for the netbook was

its

and so on. The reason

of a hard disk

This

to

more

expensive laptop. With

my letter is

and purposes, a

makers are trying to turn the

no

frills

for

intents

all

spec of low-price simplicity and

low-cost,

alternative to the

something

away from the

to

laptop - albeit a small one.

Designed as a useful tool

and allowing the user to type

often read of people

with a slightly larger

for surfing the internet

Apache/PH P/ MySQL/ Firefox

I

it

version. However,

quite happily runs Lubuntu/

that

to replace

appeared on the market.

to

I

have played around with a

few mail servers: Axigen,

Communigate, Exchange Scalix ,

your DVD.

and Zimbra are probably the

Tom

best-known ones. have only just

Prendergast, England.

Paul says: We already included Mint on LXF134, LXF129,

LXF121

I

become aware of Zara fa so will probably give

and others before that. What more

There’s so

do you want?

some

it

a bash one day.

much

pretty cool

out there, and

VMware

appliances around too.

AD replacements

E I

just read

about the idea of

Best regards, Peter McCrackan Paul says: think this I

is

that warrants

Exchange/Active Directory

investigation, although

replacements

in

as you can

your July only just into

edition. Errr,

it’s

June here

‘down under’ you

in

an area

some serious

running articles about

maybe you guys don’t June and just ignore it,

know... like

slipping straight through the

summer into July? I

work

in

a Windows shop and

that’s cool; I’m

happy with

that.

But at home I’m a Linux guy and often

16

1

LXF135 September 2010

wonder about setting up a

www.linuxformat.com

> Mint:

better as a distro or as a

sauce? You decide!

Mailserver

imagine test

all

it

such as NetBSD and Haiku OS. We

takes quite a while to

of thoroughness.

I'll

see

if

which you can try all sorts of

can find

I

THREE DISTROS AND SOFTWARE GALORE

have multi-booting discs from

the options with any degree

someone up to the job! As for the dates, magazines are on their own special time zone. Happy Xmas!

distros

from a single boot menu.

ubunl

We have software for Gnome, KDE, developers, syadmins... We have

Same old DVD

I

think that the three

magazine PDFs and more.

most

distros,

If

Edition

1004

23

10.04

quad-booting discs, (j

the

UK can do better than

esoteric projects are

duplicating the contents of each other’s cover disks.

less of the

it

is

ED I

today. Please

Keep

Vatlator

never be list!

it

secret PLUS: KOffice

is

live in

Ubuntu-based operating system using

And much more

a simple

Gnome as its window

I’ll

manager, with the only goal to

say

again:

it

if

internet privacy,

you're a big fan of

up the

you should use

up the app, connected the debugger and said: “There you go, now step through it and

build environment, fired

Mike says: Sameness?

I've just

supply an installable

coverdiscs

Tor active by default for

hide.

anonymous web browsing. Just

idea that only criminals need to

make sense of it.” Sometimes

browse anonymously.

they even managed to find and

last five

(130-134). They have included 23

run the

We've

live cd,

live

cd with

connect to the

Tor even

if

you have nothing to

We need to strip away the

and

given space to such distros as

internet, start Fi refox

Vector, Slitaz, Absolute,

without setting anything up

ED What’s up, docs?

you’re free from censorship!

Regarding Dr Brown’s

CrunchBang and all

Unity.

We explore

sorts of lesser- known projects

Paul says:

I’ve

said

it

before,

fix

and

That always worked, and

about how to set a good

think the

same way. want to

example (LXF133); as somebody

contribute,

who

but

is

comment

a big Linux and open

who

is (I’d like

community must sadly agree with Dr Brown - the open source community does not prioritise

free software documentation.

,

I

think

it

community because

all

it

is)

2010

me (for money, that

we always

let

i I

(

I

Enter

La

o nc

h

I

the ‘new guy’

get

touch with the author

in

and

offer to help,

helping

fix

errors

translating into

become a The

(IVIJJ

Digital

languages.

fields

Deadline for entries

17 Sept 10

Entrepreneur

on the

internet.

2009 winners included

Ecommerce Entrepreneur Nick Brown, Eazyfone Group

With fifteen different categories, you can

Education Entrepreneurs i-education

stake your claim as

one

of the UK’s digital

entrepreneurs of the

Enter your business

existing

digital

pioneers leading their

Dave Boon, Historic Futures Green Entrepreneurs 2009

in

new

Awards seek out the

“Being recognised by the DEA as online entrepreneurs is fantastic for our business”

and

new

documentation, or perhaps even

We helped him or her set

to

is

of a project

documentation such as examples,

of simple

now

documentation. All you have to

entrepreneur of the year

ENTREPRENEUR

UJ

ropes.

it in bold: anyone can help write free software

going to write

that can be by writing

problems to start learning the

the principle!

mm M

n n U U

I’ve

In

so important that I’m

fact, that’s

do

the years of coding

debug a couple It’s

me a clean

Paul says: Anyone can help write

got behind

have anything to hide.

skills,

amount

something back to the

In

you don’t

only have a limited

start

limits contribution.

if

got the

with a willingness to give

hurts our

use Tor- yes, even

I’ve

and good documentation. Regards JarlOstensen

documentation, and

online,

I

I

and

of patience. Just give

to

competent coder

I

you value your privacy

I

OS community could

source fan, and

> If

the bug!

wish the

think) a fairly

i

tutorials

counted up the

different distros to try out.

I

4 snapshot,

2.2, Fi refox

- see index.html for f (til software descriptions

>

documentation, anything but

It is

.

We try to get a good balance of content on our DVDs, but we’re not telepathic: if there’s something you want to see, let us know.

countries with

censorship.

sameness.

,

thought up for people

the-way software,

Chris O’Grady

I

- the

“sameness” will

present to you Vatlator!

who

same, more out-of-

this stifling

light

more

quantity of software (and distros) than

I

on your Christmas card

the variety and

in

maybe

to you, then

LXF

coverdiscs used to be far

wide-ranging

and

Ultra fast uit

perfect Linux flavour for mini laptops and older PCs

masses of software, podcasts and

widely available Linux magazines in

i3

Netbpok#

Editior

podcasts, newbie guides,

ED

ubuntu

ak

£

••

Charlie

l>harks

now

Hodgson

& England fly haflf

at www.digital-entrepreneur.co.uk

Green Entrepreneurs Historic Futures

year 2010.

Proudly sponsored by

UKFCISb

Mailserver

Becta what?

down under

Linux

On Tech Radar today the

In

which we chronicle the efforts to get LXF to - and cheap! - as possible.

Australia as fast

“Government claims closing

D Subscribe!

Becta saves £10m" story caught

my interest. As this will remove

In

the central control from schools

been

and

of Linux

local authorities

could

it

recent

occasion the magazine arrived

months there have about the price

letters

newsstand

Format in Australia

and the two-month delay

offer openings for the increased

two days before

in

was due on

it

the UK!

in

With performance

like I

use of Linux and open sources

arrival. Yes,

within education. Could you

frustrated by those aspects

Keep up the good work.

possibly look at this and perhaps

as well as the magazine’s

Jeff Shrowder

what benefits Linux can

rather spotty availability

assist those

in

that the

For

me

it

I

did the sums.

was a

no-brainer:

subscribe.

Ian McNicol

recognise that there are

Paul says: I

It's

out of our remit. bigger,

those for

a very interesting

think

it’s

perhaps a

Some of the

we ran in yesteryear didn’t prove of much interest to our

stories

whom such an

titled

in

not easy.

its

the boxout

I

Last year

my subs cost me

a letter to the

less than

AU$15.40 each

just don’t get

it.

been receiving the

my

my costs will

mag

Europe.

who do

not reside

my letterbox to collect

(currently)

and pay

issue.

charges to do

miles

in

I

can get

it

from

their

greater.

So may Tux smile

upon

who need

all

to be

to savings and

increase their enjoyment of a

my

as

UK

great

locals

,

“Buttons right or wrong”

on the Distrowatch pages of LXF134. A closer inspection revealed that the sizes of

some

of the coloured sectors of the

chart bear no relation to the

percentages reported

in

the

legend. For example the

This chart

It is a past its sellby date and has gone to be recycled into a scattergraph.

>

is

useless chart.

useless. It’s

sector (dark blue)

is

‘I

hate

it’

way over

19%

is

boxes.

supposed to represent

be around

‘I

don’t use Ubuntu’

represent

me to

20% of the area of

the chart but

time

Er...

that's

about

the

all

excuse can give - sorry! I

is

supposed to

I

have read your magazine for

tutorials

1% of respondents!

somebody forget how

ID Hitting the links about two years. With many have tried

I

magazine,

installing

Rob McCallum,

installing a

Paul says: The problem here

a

where we spend our time

deciding which kind of chart

www.linuxformat.com

have

in

your

come across a

Arch for the

it

was

first

new program,

time,

or

trying to helpfully hack the is

cunning disconnect between editorial,

I

hurdle or two, whether

pie

charts are supposed to work?

Northamptonshire

LXF135 September 2010

their

of respondents. Even

sector (light blue) looks to

Did

where they spend

choosing colours and shading

chart but, according to the legend,

conveys the information best, and art,

25% of the total area of the

worse, the

18

those

mag right on time. Jan Boers Cookernup, newsagents. Western Australia

also get

mag almost as soon

all

my savings are even

shown the path

it

less than newsagent’s so.

shoes not

worn out walking

month and do have to walk as far as

be even lower.

to this the time saved,

petrol not used,

not

many

my copy every

get

I

Add is

exchange

rate looks to be even better so

about either the cost or delay of getting the best Linux

others also

letterbox at

issue. This year the

All

the time Aussies complaining

only voiced by us but

AU$13.50 per The current issue, ‘on sale 24 June’ arrived yesterday, the 27th. On one

right

and

editor

is

2!

around. But this complaint

current issue just days after the ‘on sale’ date -

E Chips or mash?

associated legend

is

month there

real time-

Most every

it!

Subscribing has meant that

delivered to

with that pie chart and

I

just don’t get

for the last several years I’ve

afraid.

Something wasn’t quite

saying that,

up-front outlay

little

government-focused

wider readership, I'm

In

I

Stereotypes are a

saver for us.

D Subscribe

Eventually

use of Linux should be greater.

story, but

in

newsagents.

in

education and

who feel

took out a two-year renewal.

> offer.

This could prove beneficial

saving costs

used to be

I

that

wonder that recently

it’s little

kernel

and submit corrections.

With these hurdles, the various authors always assume that their set of instructions/tips/

Mailserver

r workarounds and so on are the

industry standard that

only hurdles people

thousands of organisations

This brings suggestion.

add a

me to my

the end of each

and the

tutorial

around the world

think you should

I

link to

will face.

website?) and read more

more hurdles

information, about

may not have

that the authors

had space to explain and add

magazine

into the

article.

other magazines do

but

this,

I

don’t think you should feel like you are copying. This would be

more

like

can

I

borrowing, such as

you that

tell

B

Joseph Really great place to you should check it out!

many

I

just as well

today as

is

one

was designed.

few standards

it

when

did

offending article and

your authors’ input would be

was me, that

I’ll

have the

dawn! Unless

0 More from Mail

Virginia

Regarding LXF133 and Craig

we

Paul says: The problems describe and help

fix in

Bartlett's letter,

There

the

magazine are genuinely the ones that

we feel

users are most

to encounter. Obviously

likely

we can’t

cover every scenario, but you’re right in saying link to

we could do more to

resources online.

get this changed

in

I’ll

try to

is

Gentoo, though

as pure as the

A sysadmin replies

First off,

congratulations on a

superb publication. surprised at the

I

am

always

amount of

Porthole.

read

it

in

I

is

out there.

In

the case of

other things that

among

is still in

is

an

it

does seem

not avoiding

it

some evil because we don’t

for

the

reason, but just

in

have enough confidence that

back.

I

anything

a

in

of flux right now. We're

“just

words on paper”. Wind on

to the real world in

Android

iPhone

is

in

2010 and

catching up with

the

US

having

left

Windows Mobile dead in the water. Chrome is coming up fast

we write would add Gentoo

on the inside and Google

community and/or

help people do

dropping Windows from

someone will no

something more meaningful with

56k

This

all

real

dial-up

computer

has gone very

(in spite

of only using a

modem) was the

all

the distros

I've

Linux.

an

If

you have a good idea

article, let

for

me know!

desktops with

all

is

its

the

implications that has

on the

general public.

0 Soothsayer Steve

Affordable and

more able

competitors to the iPad run

my father, who

used to connect since Ubuntu

Linux Format January 2008’s

Linux. Even

Studio

Newsdesk had a story called

uses

“Google mobile ambitions”,

becoming cool. I’m not looking for “The Year of Linux” I’m hoping for “The Era of Linux” LL Owen

7.10.

Paul says:

course

magazine, but

huge state

Toorox since then and for

prime time.

development. LDAP

I

substantially to the

John Sherman

Please... of

like

some time

development and not ready for

it’s in

it

have installed and been running

easiest of

LDAP

as

Linux Format, although it

Android on mobile phones proves that Linux works just about anywhere you need it - and looks great, too!

>

not exactly

real thing

you have avoided

well.

LXF133, one of your correspondents claimed

it’s

install

know this because

background

misinformation about Linux there

way to

uses the Gentoo ports tree via

Distrowatch

E

“Gentoo Please

a simple

plague since a mention

future!

it

is.

Randy Cayea Haymarket, ,

it

me know the

Let

writer executed at

valuable to the readers.

a

agree with you:

I

of the

have the forums, but believe I

much

article you're referring to.

on solving the problem

Constitution. Yes, you

as

it is

down exactly

can’t really track

that keeps

US

fire is

an art - it's more cooking with a gas more nuanced than cooking

grill,

or James Madison borrowing

the

wood sport a 5

George McKeown, Montrea/

LDAP

to

Over Wood as

a Sweaty, Smoky Sport Grilling over a

Paul says: Without more specifics

Suffice to say,

Mason

eat,

instinctive than

ideas from John Locke to write

of Rights to

Grilling

IT projects,

and has nothing to do with Linux or Windows.

the Declaration of Independence

Bill

56 mfris

been the

investigation has

which

help prepare a

Jennifer I'm ok

A,

conclusions on a superficial

Thomas Jefferson borrowing

ideas from George

N

management about any project when you base your convincing

downfall of so

know

I

(

*

L

management for over 20

years,

readers can go to (maybe your

many

in

O

in

different flavours. After being in IT

where

like,

used

is

I

really

want to give

Gentoo more coverage

in

the

which Microsoft

in

CEO Steve

Ballmer described the project as

it.

is 81,

Slowly but surely Linux

is

Paul says: definitely agree that I

if

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IN

I

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if

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Steve Ballmer hasn't been the best

in

at

,

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0

making

predictions, but

I

wouldn't count Microsoft out just

SoAE rtitCoSoPT C.OONS

yet

'

- they still have a war chest

of

some $50 billion and a huge, huge number of developers ready to spring into action should the

company ever make up its mind about a new direction. Still, in the meantime Linux is thriving, and we should

all

be grateful for Android,

Chrome and more! EES

www.tuxradar.com

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the latest software and hardware reviewed and rated by our experts

All

GRAHAM MORRISON has just added an improbability layer to his

Meeq sequencer.

Our pick of this month’s releases: Home Accountz

We are geeks

O just

this

ne of the most surprising

in

are

now

tiny applications with

very limited functionality. The tens

thousands of tools, games,

and jokes that

live

and easy to

install,

we can

II...

23

4.

something by

learn

27

KOffice 2.2 Andy Channelle took a

lot

of stick

for slating the previous version, but

he was brave enough to agree to

new version. Has Team KDE redeemed itself?

look at the

for a sequel.

WordPress 3

little

to

compete with desktop applications, yet users are often happy to pay a small fee for them and download them in their thousands. The attraction must be that each is easy to understand, guaranteed to work users,

switching to Qt Creator 2.

on

Android’s Market offer very

could be because

it

the developers used KDevelop

beer tokens.

Eschalon: Book

is

the last version,

They might

The sequel to an Ultima- like RPG game we rather liked last year. Our Alex spent more than 20 hours wading through the world, but we’re not sure he’d accept a commission

revolution

KOffice turns out to be as poor as

designed to save you a few imperial

smartphone

how many people

utilities

of

side-effects of the recent

interested

of

If

popular accounting application

26

Qt Creator 2

22

Impose your own austerity measures using a new version

24

Eclipse Helios

is the perfect chance up on the world’s most popular IDE and one of the most important free software apps

This release to catch

Eschalon: Book

II

28

what seems like an eternity as WordPress 2.x, the best blogging and CMS platform has received a After

major update. But will your layouts and plugins still work?

p23

—

Qt Creator 2 p26

and as Linux

learn a lot

from

this.

App storage The average package repository full

of stuff that, with a

install

is

of

launch icon and an

polish, a nice

easy

little bit

mechanism, could

become just as

popular,

addictive, as the

easily

and

smart phone

As good as Qt Creator is,

equivalents. Various distros have

> Return to the world of isometric gaming,

>

tried to create app-store like

pagan symbolism and poor hygiene.

become a good programmer.

it

can’t help

Graham

interfaces to their repositories, but

they’ve

all

failed.

They need user

need to

reviews, they

offer

screenshots, and they need one-

Our verdict explained

click installation.

The developers behind Osmos, announced that the

six

All

we

(reviewed last issue), recently

weeks they

spent developing the Linux version

review are rated

from 0 to

10, with

demand

well spent.

The spike

in

after the Linux release

Mac and Windows. There’s the demand

was

bigger than for both

applications,

has the All

skill

we need

for

and the community

to satisfy that is

demans.

a package manager

with screenshots and reviews.

[email protected]

10

LINUX

the best

we use to

is

verdict

FORMAT

Stuff award. Only

being highest. The

VueScan

8.6.10

Ed Hamrick

considered for this

Developer:

award - scoring highly isn't enough

Web: www.hamrick.com

usually features,

performance, ease of

by

categories

was time

crowd may receive our prestigious Top

the products that

rate products are

money, but software available without a charge might be rated

the

recommended

on documentation instead of

of the software. In

value for money. Regardless of

this will

the four criteria used,

we always

distribution

some cases

be hand compilation

using GCC, but

$80

(£54, Professional)

Features

When reviewing free software, we will usually use

use and value for

Price:

9/10

itself.

if

Performance Ease of use Documentation

»

There simply

with

it

isn’t

9/10 10/10 9/10 anything to compare

on Linux, or possibly any other

operating system you

may choose.

the developers

give an overall score out of ten.

recommend Autopackages these

Products that stand out from the

will

Rating 9/10

be used instead.

www.tuxradar.com

September 2010 LXF135

|21

Reviews Accounts package

Home Accountz While he was prospecting for the best accounts package home users can buy, Bob Moss struck the motherlode. There’s gold in them thar hills!

R

In brief...

egular readers

will

our review back

in

remember LXF131

(May 2010), where we gave this

» A cross-platform

product’s

accounts package

expensive enterprise cousin Business

designed for

home

more heavyweight and

Accountz a respectable 7/10. Despite

See also: GnuCash.

users.

providing a

terrific

experience for

anyone regardless

of their experience

with business accounts, tax and ledger, lost

it

marks because

tag and

its

failure to

enterprise needs

of

its

£400 price same

address the

many of its

competitors could.

However,

its

and more

lighter

Home

specialised counterpart

Accountz e scapes these

criticisms.

provides only the functionality that absolutely necessary, and

Accountz you need no of

like

prior

Business

knowledge

accounts or banking to take

advantage of everything that

Accountz can

company.

bank statement data all

in

QIF or

import

OFX

days.

difficult

banks and, thanks to

it

platforms.

in

Where Home Accountz

distinguishes

itself

from the other

competing solutions, however,

is

end-user support provided by

its

could do with

Toth

is

itself is

first

very

a

intuitive

screen you encounter

an overview screen that shows you

tree view you can expand, shrink

minimum

ability

of effort.

a

and

your own assets and bank accounts

to create

how

a drop-down

is

no more use

and you can

edit anything very

the date the

Visual

An auto-generated graph

account

of recent transactions

can help you avert

come very

financial disaster.

it

arrived

in.

As you create transactions you notice changes

in

1

LXF135 September 2010

much for the

in

the

Home Accountz is rest of us. E23

www.linuxformat.com

Verdict A

Home Accountz Price: £39.99

Features

8/10

Performance Ease of use Value for money

9/10 9/10 9/10

»

Covers everything home users need and more than justifies the price tag.

will

value over your

detailed overview, with expenditures

22

so though this

not appeal to those

Web: www.accountz.com

into cells or

was made, the payee, the account the money came from and the

finances then this will naturally

very

a tax return at

Developer: Accountz

transaction

spreadsheet to track your

will

FORMAT

menu depending on the

easily. Fields include

you’ve ever used a

package

file

fiscal year,

LINUX

than using a spreadsheet.

Simply enter fixed data

field,

If

Despite

Most home users don’t need to

accounts industry

You can also

period to see a detailed view of

Creating a transaction

Oderkig

KDE 4.

use the right-hand pane to define a time

difficult charity

in

in

look

the overall ease of use and

the end of the

Hip

Paytte*

out of place

monitor a payroll or

iiiia

Intuitive

little

this niggle,

tag.

is

parent

HralaplDf:

that

functionality completely justify the price

previous months.

Fjrdwn

is

Gnome menu, and the app can

current balance automatically. This

customise thanks to the

SA

meaning you

to or have paid in the past.

the

your finances have changed over Docuttcira

etc,

can easily query those you owe money

your expenses, income, net worth and

with the

mnsKibis

also a whole section of the

The only complaint we have

the

Features at a glance

is

name, address, email,

easy to use The

is

payee contact information such as

it

is.

The package

many different

red while income

in

the installer uses the 'Other' section

It’s

being written

There

grows overtime.

than

marked

the usual black on white typeface.

application dedicated to maintaining

We suspect this will no doubt change as Home Account? s userbase

indeed.

Java, operates across

it

being more comprehensive than

using a spreadsheet.”

I

left in

Home Accountz does have a

support forum but

the major high-street

“Creating a transaction

no more

intuitively

who aim to respond within two working

and free

already

is

Home Accountz provides

email support directly to technicians

Home Accountz can

format from

> You can see your transactions over previous months and current balance as soon as you launch Home Accountz. And doesn’t the Java interface look great?

full

Home

offer.

Like the well-known

GnuCash,

It

is

Rating 9/10

Reviews

Eschalon:

Book 2

the kind of strange man who actually enjoys starving to death while fighting rats in a dungeon. A perfect reviewer for this game, then.

Alex Cox

is

In brief...

T

humpy, the most feared

fighter

Everdale. Slaughtered by a rat

in

after 17 consecutive

missed

» Turn-based

swings of

isometric

wizard of Port Kuudad. Could conjure a

roleplaying in fireball classic

80 s form.

Swords, sorcery,

and a whole dead

lot

of

out of thin

air,

managed

but

to

die of severe dehydration while standing

a

right next to

lake.

Mr Sneaks, the

rogue of Wolfenwood, erased from

rats.

Similar to

his cudgel. Paul Daniels,

Sacred

existence after attempting to put on

Gold or Nethack. trousers.

All in

a day’s work.

Eschalon Book II is planted

same

rich

compost as

mulch made up

of

games, shredded

its

in

the

prequel, a

ground up Ultima

AD&D

books, and a

topsoil of interminably turgid fantasy

novels. Its quests are generally of a relatively

standard fare - go there,

that

- padded with almost

lore.

It

game

fits

kill

biblically dull

the mould of an Ultima-style

perfectly, then.

Now this is an RPG: numbers related to 'bludgeoning weapons’ a dark scary dungeon, and 5 hit points to play with.

>

RPG

Being an begins

in

a

sequel, the

game

most predictable manner:

you’ve lost your

memory along with any

trace of the fighting or wizarding

skill

refreshing to see an RPG that leaves the tough choices to you.” “It’s

I

you may have developed

in

the previous

classic balance

seems schoolmistressRPGs

other bugs to be ironed out by the time

quest deliverers have no sense of your

you get your hands on

missions, and the

eligibility for their

game's monsters don’t scale to your level.

This

means you’ll

inevitably

end

of ever returning

an example of

Saving the

game

regularly

is

therefore

turn-based combat, bashing monsters

given the lack of any auto-save feature.

up

who you

in

and what

are

musculature

particularly

your quest to find out is

going on.

Building your character’s isn’t easy.

Eschalon s

Tweak your quest The early game of resources.

combat,

is

is

by a lack

HP regeneration, even out painfully slow,

off

starting a

saving

game rules

don’t expect service

when

you next need a potion.

effect

more

-

it

makes combat

difficult, too.

in

plot

er,

old

the

you

on

fuel for at least a

RPGs, though,

demo

entirely fixed,

is

of potential characters

If

it’s

you're

new to,

worth trying

before you buy. 533

Verdict A

Eschalon Book

II

Games

Web: www.basiliskgames.com

range or

afflicted with a disease.

refreshing to see an

not just a pretty

number

Developer: Basilisk

new character. You

when enemies are

when you're

And it’s

the

FORMAT

system, for example, or you could turn

often rains in Eschalon.

not especially varied,

rare.

could switch off the frankly tedious food

Brewing storms

if

and although the

LINUX

particularly ineffective, outrageously

when

It

huge

as

it

Its

and the

early breed of health potions are

You can mess with the

Weak shopkeepers

is

narrow genre.

couple of runs through.

made tricky

expensive and disappointingly

Are the staff offering you bad prices? Kill them! Just

world

its

offer should give

of

Features at a glance

happy to recommend

no chance

alive.

Book IFs sadistic

Despite Eschalon design, we're

paramount importance,

well

attended by the developer.

up being sent on errands that you have from

though, as

it

forums are bustling and

Basilisk's

of

levelling

We fully expect this and

completely.

of today. To give a simple example,

game. Thus follows a long period of

and

caused the game to segfault and drop

harsh against the more forgiving

It's

RPG that leaves the

Price: $25 (approx £17)

Gameplay

6/10

Graphics Longevity Value for money

8/10

tough choices up to you.

» A solid continuation

The version of Book //we got to play - a relatively early Linux build, granted - had some rather odd bugs, primary of

faint-hearted.

which was one of trickiest to cope with:

5/10

7/10

o/Eschalon’s Ultima -esqi/e mechanics. Not for the

Rating 7/10

deadly trousers. Equipping trousers

www.tuxradar.com

September 2010 LXF135

|23

Reviews IDE

Eclipse 3.6 Once bloated and overrated, Nick Veitch sheds new light on the one development environment that has set out to rule them all. In brief... » All in one open source IDE,

A

t

the end of June each year,

some things have become more or less certain. One of them is that there will be a new release open

of Eclipse, the all-encompassing

especially good for Java. Also

see

source IDE that was spawned by IBM

and given to the world at

NetBeans.

large

Since the 3.x series released

in

2001.

in

2004,

each year has seen a version increment in

what

is

now a

purposeful and

coordinated train of development. This enables to focus on

and

it

one

all

the related projects

big release per year,

brings a kind of dependability

that you don’t often see

the open

in

source world. As well as making to pick the release date, for corporates,

it

is

who have a

it

easier

also helpful

release cycle

>

Now with added

only IDE you

will

Linux support, Eclipse really

ever need. You can even use

is

it

making a play to become the

to build

KDE applications!

they can rely on.

come up with new features, some

This year Eclipse has

some

excellent

which are long overdue - support

for

Git as a repository, increased support

also the

Web apps,

Eclipse anyway, but there

a no-brainer for corporate development “It’s

I

work on Java.”

both

cloud and mobile are well supported

effort

XML. Python

improvements to the Pulsar

mobile Java project.

is

a

lot

sort of total environment

addition of

official

in

more

being expended on creating

some

- hence the

JavaScript support,

including a debugger,

is

supported

via the third-

PyDev plugin (which is neat for making Google App Engine projects). party

and other web

With support for so

extensions both from the Eclipse team

and

third parties, Eclipse

for business

is

a no-brainer

development work on Java,

and more than

authoring improvements.

many different many

Java environments, and so

suitable for

anyone

working on a Java-based project. The

and other web tools, a new ‘Marketplace’ client to make it

for JavaScript

easier to find the plugins you need

and

Not just Java

lure for

One of the preconceptions that people

getting stronger, but

have about Eclipse is that

when

it’s

just a

Java

The C/C++ extensions have

although they haven't been universally

support for the tools Linux developers

updated to support the

popular with Linux developers.

use on a day-to-day basis for languages

latest

Java

soon

been

Features at a glance

Linux desktop. Yes, Eclipse does provide

available for Eclipse since

after the project

was

released,

Part of the reason for this

to integrate

its

is

that

make

projects with a

it

common

Linux development toolchain. Sure, you

could use GCC, but there

use the

win-*). -

Hi fcUce tv Ed psc

1h.11

GNU Autotools or

Valgrind or

Linux developers. Starting last year, the

h*i

Horiiwv rot i.j... Nr v,o

Eclipse Linux Tools project

i

Ed

shhzt

working on an

official

began

plugin to

add

this

Pydev - Python IDE tor Eclipse !» 4 pl-O'1 ll-*t cttidci Dilp.r In Sc u.ctl Pylt lT«iPjtrw'>. r. useb advamcd type iiYctant led.i tfjo u

Pytto.

Maven

Integra tior for Eclipse

lew « *1

iK vl *

6

functionality,

and

this

is

really its first

proper outing.

Find the plugins you need with the all-new marketplace client.

Mobile development Add Pulsar as a plugin or as standalone for mobile

Java development.

supported too. Eclipse now has an official

Fortran plugin to

PHP and

go alongside

Ruby, as well as various

web

technologies including JavaScript and

24 LXF135 September 2010

www.linuxformat.com

but

it

any more than the basic

other than Java.

M3

LINUX FORMAT

Verdict

Eclipse 3.6 (helios) Developer: The Eclipse Foundation Web: www.eclipse.org Licence: Eclipse Public Licence

Features

9/10

Performance Ease of use Documentation

8/10 6/10 7/10

» It isn't quite therefor desktop C++

Of course, other languages are

Marketplace app

also lacks

was no

many of the other tools available to Mylyn

some excellent time-saving tools,

easy

provision for trying to build packages,

Edtw.org.

less clear-cut

Platform project, which has been

IDE.

Eclipse has so far failed to

trt

is

actually

Enterprise Edition specifications, and

* » usMVkvsm

it

comes to developing for the

C/C++ tools. On the Java side, one of the major areas of interest is the Web Tools extra support for Linux

Mytjn

it

web development work is

development, but still a super choice for anyone working with Java.

Rating 8/10

Blogging

client

Reviews

Word Press 3.0 The world’s most popular blogging software has CMS ambitions. Andy Channelle sees whether it’s getting too big for its boots. In brief... » Simple blogging software that’s had

a funny turn and thinks

it’s

a CMS.

See also: Blogger,

W

ordPress

is

probably the

most popular piece

newsfutures

blogging software available, Dashboard

and version 3.0 demonstrates the

in

the

Drupal, Joomla.

If

likes of

Right

Updates

Joomla and Drupal

Akismet Stats

site

&

running

5

Posts

1 Page

11 Categories

Add New

hitting the will

should simply be a case of

Automatic Update

once

and can be accomplished

in

Approved

0

Pending

0 Spam

Tags

Change Theme

Theme Mystique with 9 Widgets

^ Media

You are using WordPress

Unks

you have your database and Webserver set up,

0

Post Tags

New

installations are equally simple,

0

Categories

which

link,

appear on the Dashboard.

Discussion

0 Comments

Posts

Posts

with a recent installation of WordPress, installation

Now

Content

CMS game.

you already have a

Dashboard

fff

Dashboard

ambitions of the development team to take on the

Search Engines Blocked

of

3.0.

Akismet blocks spam from getting to your blog, but there's nothing the

in

your spam queue at

moment.

[0 Pages The blog

a

(~P

Comments

tin)

Appearance

is

currently under the protection of Private WordPress.

couple of minutes. Recent Comments

The Dashboard, where blog configuration and posting are handled,

has been given a

lot

some

polish

more information

single click.

and makes

>

The new dashboard

is

easy to use and benefits from excellent documentation.

available within a

You get the feeling that

you’re working within a dynamic system

system

easier to

is

Drupaf s, making

it

manage than

WordPress 3.0 isn't as

comprehensive as a more mature

simple to create

navigation systems that can be built

I

“The Dashboard makes a lot more information available with one click.”

into

solution such as Drupal or Elgg, but

the theme or added to pages via

widgets.

The views/query options

come close to those available

in

don’t

Drupal,

but they give WordPress the potential to build

more sophisticated experiences.

content authoring. This true

when

is

focused on giving the user the

The WordPress community provides

blogging as easy as possible.

heaps

The

menu

introduction of a comprehensive

system, complete with drag and

extensive

naming, makes

it

the

more elaborate

sites that the usual

In fact,

the

menu

BuddyPress p

I

ugi n

In fact,

the

out of the box

ability to is

- creating

involve running the distribution,

and

would

great to see

Version 3.0 ships with a new,

theme that also has

structure

Hack your CSS

commenting.

The CSS

theme coupled with the CSS

with code hinting, but

editable options.

the guts of a theme.

editor could do

provides easy access to

into

It's

is

logical

editor built

good introduction to CSS

www.tuxradar.com

Verdict

Developer: The WordPress team

Web:

http://wordpress.org

GPL

editing

9/10

Features

8/10

Performance Documentation

9/10

»

the TwentyTen

you’re curious about

management system. 523

Ease of use

the WordPress back-end provides a

pretty if

In fact,

blogging engine or content

Licence:

and comprehensive

TwentyTen

in

WordPress

menu-

and the CSS

The new default theme is widget and menu enabled and contains a lot of user

a

and a great

anyone interested

FORMAT

plenty of

backgrounds and header images. easy to work with, thanks to

make the In all, this is

fantastic piece of software

LINUX

options for widgets, columns,

functional, well designed

minimal.

it

integrated into the core of the system.

friendly

is

this

WordPressMU

it’s

them

learning tool for

use BuddyPress

version. Previously this feature

of

the mechanics of administrating a

the result of one of the in

but the editing needed to

most

CMS could do, including - via

more significant innovations

Features at a glance

possible

Facebook-like social networks.

blogging fayre, with multiple, dynamic

views of your content.

it’s

do almost any job that a more

drop reorganisation and custom possible to create far

create bespoke post categories) don’t yet have a graphical interface available,

functionality.

With a few quick additions to

options such as post types

(which enables the administrator to

simplest experience and making

add

especially

software core, the themes and plugins.

Plugins and widgets of plugins to

is

comes to updating the

it

Some of the that

is

manage and feels more user friendly in both management and

also simpler to

The perfect introduction

10/10 to

and CMS software. We love we want you to love it too.

blogging it,

and

Rating 9/10

web design.

September 2010 LXF13 5

|

25

Reviews IDE

Qt Creator 2.0 A month after the release of KDevelop 4, Graham Morrison

reviews

arch nemesis. But which one’s best? There’s only one way to find

H

In brief...

ot

its

out...

on the heels of KDevelop 4,

and several months before we anticipated, Nokia released

» A development

version 2 of

environment for

Qf development environment. It had been expected

its

groundbreaking

integrated

C++ programmers who use the Qt framework. Also

be part of Qt4.7 which

consider Eclipse,

testing. Instead,

KDevelop 4 or

part of Nokia’s

plain old Kate.

it

is still in

to

alpha

has been released as

Qt SDK 1.0, a

slightly

modified version of Qt that includes a device emulator and support for

MeeGo. You can

also grab

it

as part of

the Qt 4.6.3 package and as a

standalone project. Fortunately, installation

easy.

is

You grab a large binary, make

this

Qt Creator*s debugging capabilities are greatly improved - it can even debug image types by rendering their output to a temporary window.

>

executable, and run

command

line.

user account,

from the

it

you do

If

this

from your

the required

all

files install

automatically, including a link to Creator in

your Desktop

folder. Clicking

on

this

launch the IDE. You won’t even need

will

the Qt development

libraries,

as these

are included by default. Ubuntu users,

we’ve seen, and for the

first

time, can

I

overview of the

some

Ul,

then

move on to

docs.

All

of this

embedded

is

need to

done through the

the

of our 1.x projects

now work

project at a time,

now make a

lot

is

that

more sense

your Qt code using a series of Python

helpers that automatically inspect certain

Qt and standard datatypes.

There are

still

a

number of annoying

design decisions, such as the watch

Qt, to start developing.

using the panel on the left-hand side.

window only appearing

A lot has changed since version 1.0, which now feels more like a prototype than a major release. The new launch

The only problem with

but Creator 2.0 is a massive step up.

is

one

of the best

this is that

never clear which project build

and

The

run.

their well

iii

mult

•

it's

Add

going to is

to use the

new target selector tool, just below the between projects to

Features at a glance

is

solution

build icon. This enables

build, displaying

name beneath the play icon, as

as

letting

l!

M

you choose between

QInac * si|on(QSize(20Q, 200), Qliage: sfanl fill [QColor(2QQ. 10, 33).rqbn

lacks

useful options.

Deluge uses

the System

integration of

Tray to

only a middleweight

when

show

FORMAT

Verdict

Deluge

use.

Version: 1.2.3

“For essential features,

basic

you may have

handled by the main app, but

I

you may have to

UNUX

information.

does work,

It

on resource

pretty light

is

a bad

isn't

It

Website: http://deluge-torrent.org

what many people would consider

essential features

this.

is

be fixed

will

by any means, though

comes to

and

many clients.

in

the software

imminent, so perhaps that

as current speeds and connected or

control uploads

for

downloading has finished. At the time of

The status bar along the bottom

panel.

from the download

directly

there a torrent searching

download speed continues moving after

your current downloads),

interest (say,

file

is

One annoying thing about this

pretty straightforward left

nor

list,

through Deluge

much fuss. There's no option to

launch a

is.

layout of the

installed directly

without

it

desktop of choice

-

example.

for blocklists or scheduling, for

GTKfor

the desktop interface, but

myself get, absolutely soaking wet.

let

to delve

into the plugins.”

» Middle-of-the-road performer, does get

lots

but

it

of development love.

Rating 6/10

KTorrent KDE-based client that uses the

A

pps based on KDE are expected to be

full

Extra functionality

of settings,

options and menus, and this

is

no exception. KTorrent wouldn't easily be mistaken for a

- every

pixel of its

Mac OS X application interface seems to

want to communicate urgent information, or request

be

set. For

those

impart

some

who aren’t frightened

may wish to

useful details, this

terms

is

provided by

and again these show the

micro-management touch. The bandwidth scheduling can be set on a giant calendar, so

if

you want to allow

unlimited uploads on Thursdays only, is

the only client that

KDE app

of old,

will

do

it.

and leaving

it

up to you to work out not.

KTorrent was the only client that

is

managed connections to all the available peers in the time

of the underlying

it

took to

download the

exceeds every other

clocked up the fastest time. Like

player

client here,

lacks the tracker,

it

and UPnP media

honest, the searching too.

is

a

every feature and option to user control

technology, KTorrent easily matches or

for Vuze, as

It’s

much

exposing pretty

whether you need them or

probably no bad thing. In

plugins,

this

some option to

by overt functionality or upset that their application interface

libktorrent library.

except

media

server. To

a

be

bit lacklustre,

test torrents,

and

it

also

some

of the other clients, KTorrent can also

be run

in

a headerless mode, and

includes a built-in

web

> Options,

settings and

more things to twiddle with.

interface.

Although a number of search

which

off

is lazy,

on the respective website,

and not as

qBittorrenfs

effort.

KTorrent has

all

useful as

Aside from that,

the bases covered.

FORMAT

Verdict

KTorrent Version: 4.0

Website: http://ktorrent.org

engines are included, KTorrent just

palms you

UNIIX

I

“KTorrent easily matches or exceeds every client here.” www.tuxradar.com

»

Chock-full offeatures,

spare the

if

you can

effort to configure

them.

Rating 9/10 September 2010 LXF13 5

|31

Roundup BitTorrent clients

Monsoon Just to be different, here’s one with the MonoTorrent

T

his rather simplistic application

started

as an offshoot or

life

As most

of the other clients

we might

here use the libtorrent library,

have expected some performance

were.

CPU

It

most

did hijack

cycles, but also

most

an

individual torrent

Like Vuze

There are

possibility of storing

up

the

and no mention

DHT or

what you want.

Monsoon is a promising project that in some time,

library

Peer

The feed

engine includes filter

Monsoon software

I

follows a very familiar theme, with

LINUX

FORMAT

verdict

options.

Monsoon

has been updated recently.

Version: 0.21 Website: www.monsoon-project.org

hijacked the CPU cycles, but managed a blistering throughput.” “It

supported by MonoTorrent). the

>

subscription

hasn’t had a release

Exchange (although these are

Visually,

some advanced filtering make sure you get exactly

no plugins

scripting,

of

in this

pretty simple to set up.

although the underlying MonoTorrent

file-

handling department. However, there’s

no scheduling, no

it's

options to

different

locations, this client at least serves in

Many

includes a feed subscription.

video podcasts are distributed

test Gust pipping KTorrent).

the basics of features

file.

and KTorrent, Monsoon

up the

With a watch folder for incoming

in

As with

to set various options, including

download

and completed ones

a main

roundup, this does extend to the ability

way, and

active

left,

the middle and a

of the other clients in this

fastest average time for the local

and the

in

a

blistering throughput, clocking

torrents

view

for the selected torrent below.

of the available

managed

down the

list

changing the bandwidth settings for

Monsoon - and there

differences from

sortable

tabbed selection of information screens

natural extension to the

Mono Torrent project - a torrent library written using the Mono implementation of .NET.

categories

library.

» Lacking

in

finesse

and features, but

an aggressive downloader.

Rating 5/10

qBittorrent A Qt-based client with some very nice touches on offer.

T

Far from pointless, though,

his cross-platform client

conforms more or standard “right

less to the

main table

tree,

the

is

search engine. Using a plugin

mechanism

to enable various torrent

panel and detail tabs underneath”

sites,

school of interface design. Only the

amalgamated search strategy that’s

large

and

friendly buttons along the top

show that you're

many of the other clients Although

it

Monsoon or

not using

listed here.

has the impression

being quite minimal, there’s

of

much

goodness hidden under the hood.

subscription section for aiding

buried

away

all

is

good

in

your search term

(and choose a category for more

fill

and watch the screen

up with matches from the supported

sites,

arranged

in

order of seed health.

A great timesaver! It’s

sorts of options

here, but the layout

useful than the one-at-a-

example. Just type

with downloading series or video

podcasts. There are

more

time approach offered by KTorrent, for

specific results) It

supports a sophisticated feed reader/ filter

often

qBittorent implements an

terms

pretty middle-of-the-road of

also the

performance

consumption

in

of resources, but

and easy to follow. On the other hand,

those few extra touches

some tooltips for the many options and

more

settings wouldn't

of

supplied

banned

it

IPs (should

thousands,

it's

slightly

in

somewhat

of features.

useful for general torrenting than

“The amalgamated

you have

the

pointless.

32 LXF135 September 2010

LINUX FORMAT

amount

large

Verdict

qBittorrent Version: 2.2.8

Website:

http://qbittorrent.

sourceforge.net

with a blocklist), though with

these usually numbering

it

Neat searching

options and a

shows the

equivalent of an event log, as well as list

make

>

the likes of Monsoon.

go amiss.

There's a console that

the

in

the tests and

I

search strategy is a great timesaver.” www.linuxformat.com

»

There are a lot of very good things hidden in this simple-looking client

Rating 7/10

BitTorrent clients

Roundup

Torium Good for resource-starved systems, but only as a

F

or lightweight use,

it

come much

lighter

Consuming

less

the average actually

Crucially, encryption is

doesn't

than

this.

memory than

MP3 file, this tiny client can

manage to do a good download

job at reasonable speeds, but

were looking

for bells

and

you

if

whistles,

you

came to the wrong tree. The that's

interface

is

because there aren’t actually that

many features. The single

shows

columns - just enough

a table with six to serve

panel

up the torrent name and the

current speed and progress.

If

swarm diagrams, you’ll need to grab a crayon and draw them yourself. You can get some additional info on the loaded torrents by right-clicking them and choosing Properties, which does at least

(although

that

limits, it’s likely

hard to find peers

it

DHT is actually implemented)

as more and more clients default to at

an encrypted

connection. Of course, there are

many other features you may miss, but Torium does manage to fetch and seed torrents with a degree of

competence, so the basics are there. If

you absolutely must have a torrent

client

on some

really, very,

extremely

resource- restricted device, this might just

work out for you, but the

modern

features

means that

lack of

> Torium is

very light on

LINUX

both resources

Torium

it’s

unlikely to function well for anything

but the most popularly seeded

and download

Version: 0.4.2

files.

Website: http://bithack.se/projects/ torium

There's a

banned

menu

IP

list,

“If

list.

option for loading a

but

it

doesn't actually

I

seem to do anything.

» Lightweight in

you were looking for bells and whistles, you came to the wrong tree.”

locations, as

as view the current peer

verdict

and features.

enable you to manipulate

priorities

well

list.

imposed bandwidth you might find

you were

expecting fancy graphs or graphical

on the

As this

is one of the ways many clients get around ISP-

missing feature

least preferring

pretty stark, but

last resort.

the extreme, at the

expense of missing crucial features.

Rating 3/10

Transmission How do you make something easy to use and packed with features?

Y

ou have to put

some sort of become the

in

special effort to

default (and thus, automatically

most popular)

torrent client for Ubuntu.

transfers.

A simple

updating progress

bar and transfer speed readout has all

you need to know, though

to be said that the

lists

it

+

/uld

—

Hi

,

came

of streamlining everything it

In it

so simple that

some

it’s

in

the guise

and making

to

make

do the very specific thing

you wanted to do, which

is

always the

if

Another plus point for Transmission is

overhead. Like it

some of the

others here,

can also be run as a headless

web

client

with an optional

the point of foolproofery. There doesn't

Transmissions pared-down resources

other repsects, Transmission

up to

is

date with support for proxying,

all

the

DHT/PEX and magnet technology as well as LAN peer latest

detection, encryption

The

client

and

mean

it

will

easily

Transmission

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-

Down

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of

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of

simple - unless

you have too

simple

is

Ljrfc

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-

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nenKve

> Transmission is

lots of

fixes

Magrut

Vtpfy Local Data

on an embedded

development mode, with

changes and

11

5*1 locution

full-on

If

H Con

is still in

being added regularly.

UNIIX FORMAT

many torrents.

what you want, look no

further than this.

Verdict

Transmission Version: 2.0

Website: www.transmissionbt.com

blocklists.

use interface. The scrolling main window shows either all torrents, active

downloads and paused

-

interface.

set-top box or NAS.

has a friendly and easy-to-

torrents, seeds,

rf f.O rrci-r rlni p»rr?

the focus on reducing the resource

case when applications are simplified to

seem to be any form of control over how many torrents are active at a time, which is a shame because this is a good way of fine-tweaking performance. In

3?

you're dealing with

lots of torrents.

hard to go wrong.

instances, this does also

difficult

unmanageable

fropcities-

do become OcMikiiiftrij lrc Vuze isn’t

some areas,

in

palms you

effectively just

using

downloading speed, even with the

it

KTorrent shines

real-world factors,

internet, latency issues

may be

up automatic times when

example, fine-tune the number of

important not to read too

In

remove some

such

it’s

clients

at [email protected]

Table of features Name

Deluge

KTorrent

Monsoon

qBittorrent

Torium

Transmission

Vuze

Version

1.2.3

4

0.21

2.2.8

0.4.2

2.0

4.4.0.6

Web

http://delugetorrent.org

http:// ktorrent.org

www.monsoon-

WWW.

http://bithack.

WWW.

project.org

qbittorrent.org

se/projects/ torium

transmissionbt.com

http://azureus. sourceforge.net

Toolkit

GTK

KDE

Mono/GTK

Qt

GTK

GTK

Java/GTK

PEX

X

[1]

Yes

DHT

X

[2]

Yes

Magnet

X

X

Yes

X

Yes

Limit-scheduling

via plugin

via plugin

X

X

Yes

Playback

X

via plugin

X

X

Encryption

X

X

Prioritising

Yes

Scripting

via plugin

X

X

X

X

Auto-shutdown

X

X

X

X

X

IP filter

via plugin

Search

X

Memory (in

test)

CPU Time

Memory [1],[2]:

[4]

(idle)

via plugin

yes [3]

X

Yes Yes yes

X

No

X

yes

21MB

42.5MB

68.5MB

24MB

7.8MB

14.5MB

119MB

28%

26%

68%

20%

25%

18%

24%

172 seconds

110 seconds

108 seconds

165 seconds

184 seconds

123 seconds

439 seconds

17.5MB

35.5MB

13.1MB

11MB

5.1MB

7.4MB

95MB

Support claimed, but didn't seem to work [3]: Didn't work on test system, but media files will play

in

default system app

anyway [4]: Tine taken to download our four test torrents

www.tuxradar.com

September 2010 LXF13 5 |35

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Distrowatch

a

This month’s roundup of news from the vaults of Linux distro development SUSAN LINTON is

owner/

operator of machineSdOrg.

Meerkat forces Ubuntu 10.10 Users’ appetites whetted by early

Peace out

F push.

f

or Linux geeks this

the season to be the big

It

is

-

jolly

summer distro PCLOS

started with

2010 and

will

OpenSUSE

end with

11.3. In

planning reports from the latest Ubuntu release.

U

and

his

buntu 10.04 was no before Mark Shuttleworth

before Lucid Lynx

was released

codename

be Maverick Meerkat. Shortly

a wonderful time of

year for distro hoppers.

all

come with latest

of these distros

common. Each

their original tools

features to

and

team would not migrate to

Developer Summit, more details

a recent kernel, the

Many add

would

Gnome Shell 3.0 for Maverick. However, at the May Ubuntu

desktops and updated

software.

of version 10.10

afterward, Shuttleworth stated that his

While everyone has their

lots in

it

had been decided that the

its

and Mandriva releasing their

have

Rhytmbo* playing

merry band were making

offspring, Slackware, Fedora,

favourite,

Rhytmbox not running

plans for their next release. Even

between

we’ve had Ubuntu and

latest. It’s

Typical case.

Minimal case:no playec* integrated

sooner out the door

utilities

make them even more

IT'S

A MOCKUP

emerged. Reports stated that the

new watchword ‘Design',

in

Maverick was

and that the

chief goal

>

Soon

Sound Menu appeared, Ubuntu P submitted mock-ups demonstrating the possibilities.

after sketches for the Unified

artists Daniel

version’s

was to improve the first-

some

decoration instead of the window

Rhythm box will remain the

speculation as to the future

manager) with a laundry

music

emphasis on the differences

appearance and operation

problems that would

played out by infighting

Ubuntu. One of the

between users, each arguing

Shuttleworth outlined plans for

announcements came as

the merits of their favourite

Window

Me Menu

and disparaging the

as they have inevitably been

to

user experience, leading to

we’ve seen

useful. In the past

rest.

called).

of

posts by

first

Indicators (or windicators,

The

idea

is

of

is

this

year things

going to see

some

bit different.

Chromium will be supported. The

Games menu may see some

as message

changes, but no specifics have

confirmation notifications,

seeing less

insults.

I

What’s going on? Has the Earth spun off

its

is

taking hold.

smartphones are getting

Many

desktop

is

all

the

believe the

dead. Or could

it

be

that Linux users have just

discovered that Linux

and

fighting

themselves

you

think,

is

Linux

among is

silly?What do

Dear Readers? Are

the fanboys growing up? [email protected]

get a

new

History tab as well as a ‘featured applications’ gallery.

Underneath, Maverick will use a 2.6.35 version kernel working

status bar with windicators and a

character counters for the text

temporary overlay status bar on

area,

the right-hand side of the

with remote services.

title

38 LXF135 September 2010

bar

(where the window control

much like in Some indicators

and

applet

will

also see

The sound

some major

the “Unified Sound Menu,"

in 10.10.

allow users to control

all

it

apps through the menu instead just the

level

and saved

status.

Several developers from the

KDE camp have spoken

out

against these client-side

fact,

it

system volume

will

and

Some application decisions made already too.

have been

www.linuxforniat.com

of

add features such as

item-specific options.

decorations (so called because

root.

level. In

play control buttons, playlists,

point

in

may run as normal

sound

online status, progress indicators,

some

the future,

rootless

X

upcoming X.org implementations

will

volume

At

Ubuntu may see a

server. For security reasons,

Dubbed

improvements

Google Chrome.

being mooted for 10.10 include

1.9 snapshot.

faster synchronisations

buttons used to be)

the application controls the

i

will

with X.org 1.8 server or perhaps a

Other believe that

focus.

developers have spoken out against client-side decorations.”

Ubuntu

yet.

Software Centre

axis?

Some may say that cloud computing

KDE

“Several

I”m seeing less

“fanboyism.” I’m seeing less fighting. I’m

be the default web browser, but

been decided

seem to a

default

ShotwellwlW

manager. Firefox will continue to

The

well.

What’s new? But

player, but

replace F-Spot as the photo

result.

Less controversial

new features such

to replace the

list

This

is

a

bit

user instead of

complicated on

several layers, so users

see this

until 11.04.

may not

What has been

Meerkat

approved

for

Originally

planned only for the

CD, btrfs

is

now in the

is btrfs.

as an user-install option.

www.ubuntu.com

live

blueprints

Distrowatch

The future’s green

Full

OpenSUSE 11.3 Minor version

Fedora 14 Developers ask for more more user feedback early on.

update bring major version goodies.

T

he next version of

OpenSUSE

is

partition can't

up

firing

Kernel

smoothly, with very few major is

will

now allow

eases the set up of RAID arrays.

until release.

This development cycle has gone

issues. While 11.3

be mounted or

partitioner

cloning of disk layouts, which

rockets and counting

down the seconds

The

read.

its

Mode Setting will now

be available for all

a minor

Intel

and

ATI, Nvidia

graphics chips, and Nouveau

be the default Nvidia Xdriver.

version update, there are plenty of

will

fresh goodies for users to love.

Grub 2 and Upstart are included

OpenSUSE 11.3 will

as options, and mkirttrid will

ship with

Linux kernel 2.6.34 and

Zypperand

improved power saving features,

files.

two new filesystems and tons

much-desired

new drivers. While available

to set

the

it

btrfs

in 11.2, 11.3

up

is

the

of

was

new

ability to

install

to continue even

remove

Gnome 2.30.1, and be joined by an

if

supported

a

feel,

put off by the

but

things did or did not go during the

some were

number

awaiting after the

of

Fedora 13 developmental cycle. They've decided to prolong the

updates a few

install just

feedback-gathering period after

sources other than the mailing

automagic printer setup, but

such as the forums, Identica and

some spoke

Twitter.

of the painfully slow

users

HAL

The

developers and eager testers, listing

(it’s

earning a

around Ubuntu camps.

It's

as

is

may appreciate that

August. The roll

Gnome live CD.

attractive

and

to

and GCC4.5.

the >

www.opensuse.org

The

installer

Hit

a simple idea

D U D D

main fevtovJtvnv:

some Gufw firewall

intuitive interface.

configuration quick,

easy and painless. The centralised location will

save

lots of

will

on 14 October. Unless

final

up,

go

release should

gold on 26 October.

saw some changes and

streamlining with Fedora 13.

http://fedoraproject.org

list distro

pages on DistroWatch.com,

May (average hits per day)

Number of hits

Distro

to organise the

make system

beta

something major crops

buzz

Mandriva’s renowned control centre, the is

first

out on 21 September

follow

Borrowing the layout and appearance from goal

String

on 3 August

with a release candidate to use,

11.3 will include

Hi

one

will fall

with an alpha released on 17

configuration tools of Ubuntu and

in

at that time

The Software

Ubuntu

lot of

third-party utilities such as the

well.

Freeze

and sometimes those turn out to be the best ones. His idea

be branched

will

from Rawhide

developer Benjamim Gois is

will

submission deadline on 27 July.

Robert Laughlin).

7 April-7

lldefonso da Silva

key milestones. Planning

continue through feature-

after physics professor

The 10 most visited project by

release cycle has been

completely removed from

3.2.1

for

posted for the benefit of

first

codename,

announced as Laughlin

Ubuntu Control Centre A small

more visible

contributions be

those wishing to participate.

next release, with one of the

list,

also suggested that

part Fedora users were pleased.

Firefox 3.6.4, OpenOffice.org

been dropped. Look, green!

include

desktop. However, for the most

Gnome

missing.

OpenSUSE

finally

was

Fedora 14

Whatever desktop you

Being long since deprecated,

It

will

Qt and GTKl.x will be the

has

1,

some stated guidelines for artwork

boot and poor performance of the

enjoy the

is

now

alpha

everyone praised the new

on-demand package installation when a file or package

and

days following release. Almost

named

officially

will

The first meeting of the design team mostly discussed how well

largely

positive reviews. Folks liked

decisions, the

Xfce 4.6.1 will

LXDEon the DVD. KDE

users

May to

Planning has started on the

On the desktop, KDE 4.4.3,

in

survive

edora 13 was released at the end of

the look and

after

software packages are removed.

non-fatal storage failures, allowing

the

Yast will have the

ability to

unneeded dependencies

enables users

at install. Also

installer

now

be able to copy needed firmware

its

F

steam ahead

time and effort over

Ubuntu’s currently chaotic System Menu.

Tasks are grouped by categories providing convenient and easy-to-find

you’ll find

Configure Proprietary Drivers,

Sound Configuration and Setup firewall configuration,

Printers.

A

Network Connections,

Bluetooth Configuration are

some

of the

modules organised under Network and Internet. The System entry brings up things like Time and Date and Default Applications.

under Software Manager include Ubuntu

Under Personal Settings is Login Screen, Instant Messaging Accounts, Ubuntu One,

Software Centre, Manage Software Sources,

and such.

System Updater, and Upgrade to Latest Development Release. Under Hardware

this software that

access. For example, available modules

will

Some

include

it

users are so excited about

they are hoping Ubuntu

as early as Maverick Meerkat.

D 0 D 0 D

Ubuntu

3,527



Fedora

1,617



PCLinuxOS

1,429



Linux Mint

1,383



OpenSUSE

1.217



Lubuntu

1,051

Debian

1,038

* 4

Mandriva

973

4*

Arch

768

Sabayon

766

» DistroWatch.com monitors the popularity of distributions

based on the number of visits to each

of

its

distro-specific pages. While these figures don’t represent

the actual

install

base,

were hot during each

www.tuxradar.com

* 4

it’s

an indicator

of

which distros

specific time period.

E3

September 2010 LXF135 39 |

Firefox

The darling of free software is facing a threat, and ffTfiiiTTr!T¥Tl5>Tninvestigat it’s from a former ally.

F

some spectacular

irefox is the open source project your nonopen source friends are most likely to have heard of. It’s also the one they’re most likely

static,

to have used. In fact, Firefox has brought

source browser has been able to go from zero to

open source

into the light of

getting coverage alongside

the usual technology

This

it’s

of

its

own

slogans,

enabled us to ‘take

back the

web’.

become such

“After

is

Google’s Chrome,

built

It’s

initial

some

spectacular growth, the Firefox

this

to.

a dominant force online that site builders can

Internet Explorer is no longer the only browser,

means

with

7%

of slowing

down.

many of the same

Linux users

finally

have access to an

unabridged version of the web on their desktops.

40 LXF135 September 2010

It

now has to

environment where

an easy target

www.linuxformat.com

is

comprehensive plan

just the

learn to

it’s

at the watering hole, just

development, and

However,

the browser yet. This period.

and

Firefox’s

Google has a wide and for

Chrome’s future.

mission has stalled.”

no longer ignore Firefox rendering compatibility as they used

year has been

motivations that drove

same time,

using the language of

one

success, the Firefox last

and things are about to get worse. A competing open

and systems. At the

initial

market share, and doesn’t show any sign

mainstream attention,

all

But after

mission has stalled. Growth over the

it’s

not over for

end of the honeymoon

adapt and evolve

in

an

not the only open source browser

and Internet Explorer is no longer

for destruction.

Firefox _

Mozilla Firefox

View

Edit

File

Bookmarks

History

Help

Tools

http

:

n

//www. n u xfo rmat .co m I

Google

v-

i

*

The story so The preamble to

S

tarting

life in

Firefox’s next great adventure.

2002, Firefox was the antidote to what

authors saw as the bloated,

Mozilla’s Application Suite. Mozilla inherited a lot of

community. As a

its

result,

it

found

still its

not Linux.

Netscape, a

ally

company that needed to monetise the browser and different

Phoenix 1.0 works in Windows, but

>

its

feature creep of

full-fat,

appearance and aesthetic from close

assert

far...

it

very

satisfy a

difficult

to

own independence.

Frustrated, Blake Ross

and pruned

and David Hyatt copied Mozilla

functionality, while a colleague,

Ben Goodger,

took what he saw as a dysfunctional user interface and turned

it

into the

make

minimal theme that helped

Firefox

Phoenix 1.0 such a success. The release notes proclaimed, “

Phoenix is not your father’s Mozilla browser.

fast

It’s

a lean and

browser that doesn't skimp on features.”

Phoenix was enough of a success that Mozilla decided to

push the browser forward as an

months followed

a “long,

according to Goodger, but Firefox 1.0 was released,

official project.

finally,

The next 18

Chrome sent out shockwaves because

all-consuming road,”

difficult,

on November 9 2004,

and the world

done a

Firefox, reinventing a

feature creep.

rejoiced.

It’s

fast, light

majority of websites.

Ascendency Firefox's

to

its

growth

is

as

it’s

essentially

minimal interface

in

the face of

and very compatible with the vast

Combine this with

its

makers’ insider

knowledge on how to enhance Google application

much thanks to

its

circumstance as

features and foresight. During those early years,

it

is

it

was

able to take advantage of Microsoft’s poor Internet Explorer security record, as well as

its

reticence

in

browser. This led Firefox on a trajectory that

now gives all

of

well.

it’s

easy to see why

By May 2010, Chrome had captured

it’s

done

7% of worldwide

browser users. While usage data doesn’t yet suggest these users have switched from Firefox, they’re certainly potential

updating the

almost a third of the browser market, and nearly

performance and searching, and so

Firefox users

it

it

who’ve found a better

back and keeping

at

alternative.

It’s

winning

loyalty that’s the challenge for Firefox.

»

the expense of various versions of Internet Explorer. Firefox has helped bring

anti-phishing protection

But more importantly,

it’s

allowed non-technical, non-Linux

people understand what open source software

can do. Firefox is free

for

How things look on Wikimedia

tabbed browsing, extensions,

and genuine security to everyone.

all

users,

is

and what

it

and works on a massive

variety of platforms.

Google Firefox

used to enjoy an excellent relationship with Google,

thanks to the fact that about

90% of Mozilla’s revenue is

generated from Google being the browser’s default search

became strained when Google its own open source browser and released the first version for Windows in September 2008. What’s interesting about Chrome is that there are two

engine. But the pairing

announced plans to create

versions of

it.

It’s

the

official

available as a binary. But

Google product and

because

it

relies

is

only

on so many free

software libraries - including WebKit Portable Runtime and

SQLite - Google also releases the source code under a project

it

calls

Chromium. When

built, this is identical

Chrome, with a few exceptions: the

to

logo’s different, there’s

no

auto-updater and no usage statistics are sent to Google.

www.tuxradar.com

September 2010 LXF135

|41

Firefox Mozilla File

View

Edit

Bookmarks

History

v

Help

Tools

http://www.tuxradar.com

*

Chrome

Firefox vs

How are the two browsers different, and how are they the same? o understand why two major browsers are competing

same space, it’s important to see how they And you can only do that with a proper comparison. Last month, we ran our comprehensive Roundup of web browsers, and we don’t want to go over the same old ground. We gave Firefox an excellent score of 9/10, for the differ.

reflecting

its

long-term

reconfigurability. This

reliability, relative

speed and

a score that’d usually win a Roundup,

is

Chrome also in the running, it wasn’t to be. We gave Chrome an outstanding 10/10, and it subsequently won our award for the best web browser on Linux. but with

JavaScript The most

cited reason for

Chrome being chosen over

is its

speed. Since

that

Chrome has changed most browser can

fast a

release,

its

feel.

This

it’s

is,

users’ expectations of

in part,

lot

advanced

features,

how

>

because websites are

more complicated, filling every

becoming a crevice with

Firefox

not an exaggeration to say

it

You can test out your browser’s capabilities, and compare with others, using the SunSpider benchmark.

available

and because most other web

the language to provide functionality. But then, so does the

browsers pre-date the web 2.0 revolution that’s taken so

rest of the

many of our desktop-bound

some

applications into the cloud.

most of this online interaction was through Chrome development team went all-out to

The

Realising that

JavaScript, the

make

its

JavaScript performance revolutionary.

they upgraded the user experience for every

In

doing

version of

lines of

Chrome caused

doesn’t add

JavaScript code.

a storm

when in

it

was

the

SunSpider JavaScript benchmark, and 35 times faster than

so,

Internet Explorer

site

feature-rich cloud applications rely heavily

first

site left that

through a few

revealed to be almost twice as fast as Firefox 3.0.1

based on JavaScript code. Google obviously had a vested interest -

many of its own

web. There’s hardly a

usability logic

engine,

on

7.

This

was

all

thanks to

its

V8 JavaScript

and while benchmarks are always contentious

because they place

unrealistic loads

on browsers, most

WebKit vs Gecko After you get past a certain threshold, the isn’t just

about speed.

It’s

W web

about how pages are

rendered, and both Firefox and

Chrome use

Netscape. As a result of

its

longevity,

life

at

Gecko is

often accused of being complex and inefficient.

WebKit is the young pretender that started out as KDE’S

HTML layer before Apple for a year or two.

decided to drop

modifications on to a server,

its

high-profile

it’s

now used

web browsers -

it

several

including Apple's

Safari and the latest version of well as in

in

main

justification for sticking

There’s no doubt Mozilla has a deep

committed to include an

more

its

future.

Recent enhancements

Ogg decoder, an OpenGL layer and,

importantly, Google’s

Konqueror- as

products from Nokia, Palm, Bitstream

WebM

video codec,

little

In

of how they both render pages, the may be subjective, but you can see how

terms

quality

both engines are dealing with the evolving

HTML 5 specification. After the release of version four,

Chrome became one of the first

tests that judge a browser’s coherence. In the

efficient it’s

than

far less

final test, for instance,

Chrome scored 100/100.

complex. This has led to the Mozilla foundation

Firefox 3.6.3, by comparison, scored 94/100.

fending off requests to switch

This disparity

42 LXF135 September 2010

its

browser’s

from each.

seems to be

more

and

Gecko can only manage to support two It’s rapidly changing, though, and Gecko does include features such as drag and drop, which WebKit has yet to implement fully.

while

reason to stick with an older technology.

browsers to pass the Acidl, Acid2 and Acid3

lightweight, clean

HTML 5

elements and 20 of the 28 form elements,

which was added to Gecko 1.9.3. But without

and Adobe. WebKit is widely considered to be Gecko, but more importantly,

having different capabilities. WebKit, for

example, supports 12 of the 24 basic

control.

users feeling the advantage, there

When

borrowed the code

WebKit was born, and

Gecko being

understanding of the technology, and seems

different engines. Firefox uses Gecko, the

longstanding layout layer that started

Tenderer, with the

with

is

a result of the layout engines

www.linuxformat.com

>

Both Chrome and Firefox outperform IE in

the Acid 3 test, but

Chrome is

better.

Firefox _

Firefox

n

Google

when they used Chrome.

people could

feel

SunSpider

an interesting attempt to mimic many

is

the difference

:r

different

real-world scenarios, including decompression, encryption,

general mathematics and sting handling.

woven

their own JavaScript new engine called TraceMonkey.

responded with

Firefox developers

optimisations,

into a

This added something called Trace Trees to the original

SpiderMonkey engine, and improved performance by looking through the code for compiled. V8,

much

common

paths, which were then pre-

comparison, attempts to pre-compile as

in

as possible by turning JavaScript into machine code

code when

rather than byte

it's first

executed, and handles

the dynamic nature of JavaScript by patching the

through

speak

runtime system.

its

It’s

inline

code

complicated, but the results

for themselves.

We ran

Chrome 5.0.370 against each them has

Firefox 3.6.3 and

other with SunSpider 0.9, and the gap between

grown. Firefox completed the tests

in

1,475.1ms while ,

Chrome took just 444.5ms - almost three times faster than the speed

it

attained on

its

shows that users

of both browsers

a

have benefited from the

used

one

in all

when

it

example

result, there’s

comes to

including

it

and we

toolkit

built

of

what open

never been any

as a default browser

From KDE, the

Linux use, Chrome’s use of

Gnome

same without any alterations that make Firefox look the

will

“Firefox is deeply ingrained with Linux, and we often consider the project to be one of our own.”

it

Gnome environment. Toolbars, menus,

requesters and themes

modification.

is

same programmers’ result, can feel more

using GTK, the

used to create Gnome. As a

integrated within the

says makes sense. Without the long-standing tradition of

own; one of the

but the most ardent KDE-based distributions. This

because Firefox is

file

sensibilities,

of our

flagships we’re proud to herald as an

hesitation

was the the lead developer for Firefox Chrome project, but what he

before taking to the helm of the

deeply ingrained with Linux

source can achieve. As a

a foreign accent”. Instead, they

GTK for the user-interface. This is slightly ironic

considering Goodger

is

final

integration

and

GTK has been able to forgo

strike out

on

its

application looks different to both

own. As a

result,

.3

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the default

theme

feel of

choices, but

the

Gnome and KDE, and

consequently alienates neither. The theming engine '

borders enabled,

avoided cross-platform toolkits because applications that use

both promising improvements for the future.

Desktop integration

Chrome looks

familiar with the

system bar and

them end up “speaking with

Firefox

)

a

feel

As Chrome developer Ben Goodger explained, Google

competition to build a screaming JavaScript engine. They’re

often consider the project to be

and can

rough around the edges. But not as rough as Chrome

Chrome, which

original

application are purely cosmetic,

like

little

can sometimes seem.

debut. However, Firefox also

peformed much better than the

KDE

look

Gnome,

is

reflected as

more

one

Chrome can be coerced

of

into a

5WJ0 I

wide range of

Google

skins.

Most noticeable, however,

window to make top GoofltfSwrch

cm Fwins Lucky

is

the lack of top

This

title bar.

because Chrome has repositioned page tabs to the top

title

better use of the available real estate.

is

of the

The

bar usually gives you responsibility over your

desktop’s window manager, the part that controls where the

windows go and how their borders are drawn. Chrome usurps Mwosina Praqumra;

Busim-ls

Sownm

the window manager by hiding

it

windows behave

its own Ul to why the browser’s

and pushing

the edge of the borderless window. This slightly differently to

is

those of your native

desktop and why, especially when compositing I

CM'fle tHfCkqinra drupe

can be

less stable

than

provide the option to re-instate the >

Chrome

is

the default

many new fans, and is used as browser on many netbook distributions. winning over

selecting

is

Firefox. Linux versions of

www.tuxradar.com

in

it

window border by

Use System Bar and Borders from the

menu that appears

enabled,

Chrome right-click

the space after the tab view.

»

September 2010 LXF135

|43

\

Firefox

B

Mozilla

View

Edit

File

Bookmarks

History

V

Help

lools

http://www.linuxformat.com

* Security and stability The most important feature for a browser don’t see: security.

is

all

of

one that users

and purchasing information, music,

email, messages, banking photos...

is

A typical browser session might shuttle

which could be at

where open source

risk

if

a leak springs up. This

really shines, with

both Firefox and

Chrome offering up their sources for scrutiny. As a they harbour very few surprises. But perfection into so

many

it’s

lines of code,

result,

impossible to build

and both browsers

will

need updating as and when problems are discovered. Firefox takes a wonderfully

publishing a severity. In

the

open approach

to security by

of vulnerabilities, coloured according to their

list

first

four

which 13 were judged

months

critical.

of this year, there

were 25,

of

There’s even a security blog

which often responds to users' concerns and media reports. At the time of this issue going to

I

print,

it

included an overview

8 has now closed many of the security and feature gaps that initially made Firefox so appealing.

> Internet Explorer

“Firefox takes the wonderful open approach to security by

medium

publishing vulnerabilities.”

development teams are happy to work together.

of the

new

plugin-checker extension and

updated to warn users about which has

itself

had recent and very

The Chromium security you’ll

need to delve

how

vulnerabilities in visible

although most of these issues occurred within

There are also signs that both Mozilla and Google’s

Mozilla that discovered

it’s

an important bug

engine, for example - no doubt

been

Adobe’s Flash,

their

in

and

forums to discover

new

was

quest to speed up

their

own JavaScript engine. And both

Its

Chrome’s V8

in

projects offer bug-

hunting incentives. Google and Mozilla offer

problems.

portal isn’t quite as open,

into the security

risk,

WebKit rather than the wider Chrome application.

$500 for every

security problem discovered, although Mozilla has a

slight

advantage: you also get a

T-shirt.

what’s going on. This reflects a desire to keep vulnerabilities discreet, not

The

one to hide what could be serious security

risks.

update, released at the beginning of June,

last stable

fixed nine serious vulnerabilities

and two problems judged as

Threads When problems do slip through,

it’s

other pages you have open that’s

have 10 tabs open

in

Firefox and

Chrome’s ability to

won

it

supporters.

you open a new page with a

broken Flash animation, you lose everything.

Chrome's multi-process running

One

Extensions Manager and choose

of the best Firefox extensions

we’ve seen

is

HTTPS Everywhere -

offers functionality that

it

Chrome can't

which You’ll

sites will

still

always use HTTPS.

need to be careful on

HTTPS can be

currently can’t match. Developed by

insecure networks, as

the Electronic Frontier Foundation

broken and spoofed, but that’s a far

and the Tor

more arduous task than simply

Project, the extension

ensures you use an

HTTPS

running Wireshark, so don’t panic.

an

read

it.

You might think intercepting

is

a specialist task, but anyone

in

the

be replaced with

it’s

even Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 includes

an

do

so.

offer to re-open the tabs

project, but

Firefox

had long ago

it’s

The best

it

Firefox

hasn’t,

you were using when you It

does have

its

own

‘sandbox’

the peer-review process, which has been

installed

through the

However, there

A brilliantly simple idea enables HTTPS connections for many sites.

>

is

plugins

now

some good

run within their

Chrome. This removes one

in

official site.

news. With the release of

Firefox 3.6.4, a version of the browser that 3.7,

and

can manage

running for more than three years, that ensures quality

add-ons

HTTPS Everywhere is

browser, click Preferences

will

access ones running within other sandboxes.

straightforward (see https://eff.org/

https-everywhere). Restart your

If

almost impossible for a process running within a sandbox to

relaunch a crashed application.

such as Wireshark.

to

doesn’t affect the

This approach also has a positive effect on security, as

is

see your messages using only a tool

itself

keeps each tab

Aw snap’ message, and you can reload the page or give up.

currently has no plans to

running a wireless access point can

Installation of

it

assimilated one of Chrome’s best features. But

and

data

it

entire application. Instead, the tab view

When

browsers and remote sites so that traffic

Chrome, only

an isolated process known as a sandbox.

window sandboxing, you may think

encrypts data between

people can’t intercept your

in

with which

abilities,

something crashes within a sandbox,

connection as often as possible.

HTTPS

In

the current tab stops responding. This feature owes

HTTPS Everywhere

shield

you

If

own

of the

was destined

to be

processes, as they do

in

most common causes for

Firefox Firefox

Hv

v

an application-wide crash, but

doesn’t stretch to

it

web pages Nokia N900 Review Linux Action Show! Jupiter Broadcasting

I

|

and won’t help you with a poorly written Flash

application. File

"O

Embedded media Listening to

paid-for portals that

let

web

n?

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|7 LinuxAclionShowBPI 1G-720p-4mbpa....

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h

v

"if

now many and many more

such instances, spawning

in

HTML 5’s specification

products such as RealPlayer. But

the rendering

in

^

v

Tools

browser would be expected to

launch an external application

embeds this ability

&

Bookmarks

History

browser. There are

you stream movies,

HTML 5, a

for music. Before

View

Edit

v [§] Mosi Visited

I

music and watching videos have become

essential functions of your

Google |

layer. Firefox

has been at

the forefront of this revolution, embracing free formats such

as

Ogg Vorbis and Theora. You

Vorbis music a

file,

for

new window and

MP3 file,

only need to click on an

example, and

played back automatically. Click on an

by comparison, and Firefox will go back to asking

which external application you’d This

is

move away from

like

to use to

like

a feature that’s going to

important, with sites

the

become

HTML 5.

of Engineering at Mozilla puts

making video a

“this

it,

But

it’s

also going to be

As Mike Shaver, VP

modern

problem facing Firefox in a

specific

dominated by patent-encumbered codecs ones used by YouTube and Vimeo - H.264.

In

H.264

is

is illegal

it

is

it

and very much look forward to us separately - towards that end.”

it

is

not legal to use or

Killer Despite

distributing

over the internet or broadcasting

it

H.264 content

is

only

in

WebM seems to have momentum, with grow

it

Chrome,

Firefox

into a position

and

Google gave

this that's likely to

happens, Firefox will be

not, Linux users will

online content. But

still

it’s

in

have to

also a

in

its

little

doubt that Google developed Chrome to satisfy

its

own agenda. With

own

its

operating system just around the corner

and a serious foothold it

needed

its

in

own

the mobile portal to the

one that could present Google’s applications

the best

It’s

light.

Firefox doesn’t have those

a browser that’s been developed to bring the possible.

As stated on

its

it

own web

should always put

no matter what temptations are placed

users

first,

While

Chrome is based on open

end

source,

when she discovered

of April,

in

it’s

a long

at

its feet.

way from

like Mozilla.

on additional packages to collaboration,

like

anything

just

something

else.

best

“Non-profit organisations

can make mistakes. They can be boring and If

it

a botanical garden

seeing wasn’t a tourist honeypot but a

non-profit organisation

If

the best-possible position.

chance for greater

at the

she was interested

inclusion

the licence’s language.

rely

be a foundation of

Mozilla’s future growth. There’s

Mitchell Baker, Chair of the Mozilla Foundation, said

WebM a new licence to remove ambiguity

and decouple copyright patents

WebM

announced

one

being as open as Firefox.

where

going to be a big part of Firefox 4, and

Mozilla hacker Robert O’Callahan

in

future, there’s

and opportunity on the web”. This means

H.264 support becomes a non-issue?

after

external codecs.

page, Firefox has a mission to “promote openness, innovation

WebM or the often-criticised Ogg Theora.

is

full-featured,

Chrome can’t compete with: freedom.

web to as many people as

effect until

open format, and that means

to use a truly

and tools

restraints.

the end of 2010.” [This has since been extended to 2016.]

WebM

web with

working - together and

and the

this talk of function

online world,

over the airwaves requires

for free-to-the-viewer internet delivery

Regardless,

Embedded

feature

all

aspect of Firefox that

the consent of the MPEG-LA, and the current fee exemption

will

all

I

produces or consumes H.264-

IE9 pledging support, but

>

a patented technology,

encoded content. Indeed, even

is

believe that

future, not

share our desire to have a

market,

solution

much

many others

“Despite talk of function and future, there’s one aspect Chrome can’t compete with: freedom.”

The

very

videos are the

It’s

either Google’s

"I

Google (both the Chrome and YouTube teams), Vimeo and high-performance, unencumbered, natively-integrated video,

the

to use without paying licence fees to

the MPEG-LA. Without such a licence, distribute software that

like

not currently a suitable technology

many countries,

meaning that

as Michael Shaver wrote recently:

in

He then

web”.

future

“For Mozilla,

it.

an important step

is

the

first-class citizen of

goes on to describe the

open

increasingly

Vimeo and YouTube already making

Flash to

a particularly tough challenge for Firefox.

choice.

Ogg

be embedded within

will

it

ineffective just

But the chance that the whole thing was

dumb designed to get

money felt much, much

www.tuxradar.com

lower.”

It’s

the

people there to extract

same for

Mozilla.

September 2010 LXF135

|45

Firefox

8

Mozilla

View

Edit

File

Bookmarks

History

A

Help

Tools

http://tinyurl.com/manky-munkey

*

The future of

Firefox

4 is due later this year. We find out what it’s going to offer.

Firefox

The

Firefox team has a lot to think about,

much time. plans for

it

Firefox

4 is due

were outlined

Mike Beltzner,

in

in

and they don't have

November, and many

May

Firefox's director.

Firefox

in a web presentation by He asked, firstly, who uses

the browser? Apparently, there’s a

updates

will

occur

interruptions

between early

split

use a sleek theme. Early mock-ups look very

will

Chrome. Reading the

of the

Security

in

details, there’ll

the background,

“The

word in the plan was

first

list

but there wasn’t an all-out

‘fast’,

adopters, mainstream users and developers, and the

them

all

o

the

will

show you your

manager shows a correspond to a

list

relationship

of websites, with a

site’s capabilities.

customise pop-up blocks. But while privacy for data

new

you don’t

explicitly share, Firefox

may be an

issue

4 is going to have

your favourite websites and even open tabs.

HTML 5 There’s been a

lot of

work on the

HTML 5 rendering layer, and

multi-touch gestures sound exciting. There’s also been

progress on animation with

CSS 3 transitions, along with a

new remote JavaScript debugger,

profile

manager and

of Firefox 4

Firefox

You can keep online services,

such as your email,

in

the

^

same

^

tab position no matter where

you launch

it

in

I

Mozilla.org

-

Home

jflPwttlfioSa

I

x

of...

oQ

Mozilla Firefox Startjfe*<

Tl* Planet

Mozilla

i

the order of

tabs you have open.

E 'ITER

•

FIR E

FOX

•

THUNDE RBIR

O LEARN ABOUT MOZILLA

Movable tab bar The

list

of tabs

can be moved

OUR COMMUNITY

from the top to the bottom border of the window.

OUR PROJECTS

mozilla.org

OUR CAUSES

Movable menus The menu bar class as the

is

now

in

the

same

bookmarks bar and

can be enabled and moved according to preference. fifin Mnpj

o Multi-touch

Sandboxed add-ons

A

You can

lot of

work seems to have

been done to make the

HTML 5

and

rendering engine work well with

will

multi-touch gestures.

session with

46 LXF135 September 2010 1

restart,

install if

Minimal design The new

add-ons without a

an add-on crashes,

it

no longer take the entire browser it.

a

designed to help you share

social aspect, with features

s

Application tabs

You

equally.

It was no surprise that the first word in the plan was ‘fast’. What was interesting was that there wasn’t an all-out race for benchmark dominance; it was more to do with what the user sees. Beltzner gave an example of how a progress meter’s design might affect how speed is perceived. As a result,

Our best-guess mockup

far,

of permissions that

more version of the browser has to cater for

So

could choose to disable geolocation data, for example, or

benchmark dominance.”

race for

I

site.

be no startup

restart.

also important. There’s going to be a

permissions manager that with a

there’ll

and add-ons won’t need a

is

like

be no modal dialogues,

default

theme

Privacy controls is

now sleek,

Customise popup blocking, cookie

simple and minimal, with a dramatically

knowledge and personal information

reduced number of buttons

sharing on a per-site basis using the

and status

bar.

www.linuxformat.com

in

the toolbar

Permissions Manager.

new

Firefox Firefox

•JJv Google

WebGL - all interactive

As

part of Mozilla’s new web standard to bring 3D graphics to web pages, as tried by VRML.

well as the rhetoric

JavaScript

is

about the interface

being overhauled. The

|

moz

]

moz method

|

moz method+ tracing

|

google v8

I

apple nitro

I

moz w/o

I

nitro

w/o JIT

|

moz

fv

w/o JIT

I

moz

fv

method JIT

tracing JIT

JIT

inferring speed,

new engine

is

called

JaegerMonkey, and attempts to improve some of SpiderMonkey/ s clever trace routines with simpler, more efficient

codes that compile

overanalysis. This

perfect for cases

is

JIT

entire subroutines without

don’t work because an application

in

which trace routines

isn’t repetitive

enough.

At the end of May, David Mandelin, a Mozilla programmer responsible for JavaScript development, announced that

JaegerMonkey was doubled

it’s

at the half-way point. Results indicate that

although benchmarks say V8 and Apple’s Nitro.

efficiency,

its

slower than Google’s

But speed

isn’t just

about

profiles to

and JavaScript.

Ul

asked the Reddit community

it’s still

Mozilla’s

for their multi-minute launch

improve speed and, hopefully, image.

Competition The

how

real test is

Firefox

is

going to adapt to a market that’s

> www.arewefast

embedded and locked-down devices that won’t necessarily make things easy for people who want Google’s Chrome OS is a prime example. It’s a to use being dominated by

yet.com shows

benchmark results for

it.

complete operating system

There’s a similar situation ruled

itself

around Chrome.

that’s built in

Firefox 4.

the mobile market. Mozilla

out of the iPhone, stating that Apple

made

it

too

hard to create a competing browser, and Apple hasn’t relented on

no browsers

its

rule,

Android’s a different story, and

iPhone competitor. As a a mobile version of

becoming the only

It

real

been trying to create

result, Mozilla’s

browser.

its

other than to allow Opera.

is

released an early-Alpha

version for Android, Fennec, at the end of April, which had

most

of the

desktop features, including add-on support. But

clear that there’s a lot of

it’s

work to

going to fare against Chrome. Mozilla

to boost co-operation

P fi

know how

pragmatic.

conflict.

Firefox

It

wants

Beltzner said,

it

to win

it

hasn’t been

us,

it.”

skill,

financing and

in this

community to succeed.

position before; for years, Firefox has

been the standard open source browser. But competition good.

If

Mozilla really

beneficiaries

in

wants to win, that makes us

a contest that

may transform

is

all

Linux.

ES

Installing nightly builds fl-Eji.-iii-v

'it

±

If README |3

and play down

is

in

Mozilla has the

But

do.

Regardless of plans, most users want to is

“We watch our competitors and our competitors watch and we are

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know anything about programming to

when the fix for the bug has been

is

as simple as translating an English word into

produced and uploaded to the main code base.

translator;

» Fix Released When the bugfix has been

the language of your choice.

users (most typically

then

I

the Importance

is

field: this is

This information indicates

it.

needs to be

» Critical

fixed.

in

loss risk, set

bug that causes

to the

a

is

good

significantly affect the ability to

I

in

the

first

has translations enabled

the Translations button

Preferred Languages

like

main translations page,

selected and

to translate into.

click

and

in

tick

Now go

back

the language that you

combo box select

Untranslated

show all items that need a translation. Now enter the new translation into the New Translation Items, which

option.

issues that don’t

use the software, this

click

Now click Choose

which languages you would

the software, this

engineers!

and within an hour had 10

part, find a project that

to this.

» Low For unimportant problems and good

To take

functionality or involves a security or data-

it

is

different translations available.

the project.

significant

If

in

translations

(such as Ubuntu), and then

» High Very disruptive bugs should be set to this. » Medium a bug is causing a significantly noticeable problem

call for

Answers

a great place to convert

your users into support

massive.

I

bug

urgently the

has the following options:

a serious

If it’s

regressions

It

how

is

uploaded an application that wrote to Launchpad,

announced a

a very important

any bug report and you should take great care when

changing

it’s

The Launchpad translations community

the latest release of the software),

set to this.

it’s

Next part of

in

released to

contribute as a

is

box.

will

Be sure to preserve any

additional

symbols or formatting

when adding your translation.

a

setting.

» Wishlist Many bugs will

Wrapping things up

be reported as feature requests

and you should mark them as this.

Launchpad

» Undecided

and we’ve only just covered the tip of the iceberg. Throughout

Use this

if

you’re unsure which of the above

each

options to use. Finally, there’s

the bug

is

the Assigned To

assigned to

if

field,

which indicates who

a developer has chosen to take care

Underneath the yellow table

discussions are

is

listed in

a hugely powerful development environment

of the core

components

that we’ve introduced today are

a rich wealth of features and capabilities for helping your

communities thrive and

build great software.

I

recommend

you continue your journey and take a look at https://edge.

of producing a solution.

takes place. Everyone

is

is

welcome

where the bug conversation to participate

chronological order.

important word of advice

is

and the

One

launchpad. net/+tour to explore many didn't

pretty

to

let

have space for

in this article.

of the features

we

Have fun and don’t forget

us know about your projects! E33

that you should never post a

comment that essentially says, "This bug affects me too”. Alternatively, at the top of the

Affect

You?

link

-

click

bug report

mark that

it

does indeed

Finally,

if

you’re especially interested

report and would

like

is

a Does This Bug

the yellow button to the right of

it

affect you.

to keep

comments that are added to

In in

a particular

bug

click

the Subscribe button

in

with

it,

Translations

is

component we're going to take a look at is the Translations feature, known as Rosetta. With any project final

it,

that uses the standard gettext translations

in

framework for enabling

code can be imported, and Rosetta provides a

simple interface to allow anyone to contribute a translation.

What’s wonderful about this feature

is

it

also provides

developers have created other

interfaces that use

back-end.

The

interface,

a Python programming library and,

the right sidebar to be emailed updates and changes.

Ground Control adds simple

addition to Launchpad’s powerful

web-based

up to date with changes and it,

The desktop as your IDE

to

One

Launchpad as the

of the

most

interesting

Ground Control by Martins Owens,

available at http://ground-control.

org.

Ground Control provides

integration of built into

manager

Launchpad and Bazaar

the the Nautilus f\\e in

Gnome.

buttons to a directory view to

let

changes, all

fix

Nautilus

bugs and other features,

without ever touching a

line.

in

you check out branches, upload

Ground Control was

command

originally

designed for a non-technical

documentation collaboration group

in

the Ubuntu community, and together with the

Launchpad web

provides a fantastic

interface

it

way to

collaborate on projects.

that you don't have to

www.tuxradar.com

September 2010 LXF135

|

55

Hugin

how

always better! Guest reality enhancer Nathan Sanders show you to stitch dozens of photos into one huge image using Hugin.

More

is

A

is worth a thousand words; a good panorama is worth a thousand pictures. The most beautiful scenes in nature just won’t fit into your digicam's viewfinder. If you can’t squeeze the whole mountain into the frame or if you can’t

hesitate to shoot handheld: an ordinary tripod won’t

picture

necessarily be helpful, since you are aiming to rotate

around the camera lens rather than the body.

» Don’t be shy with your field of view. You'll crop of the edges of your panorama, so

see the forest for the trees, the cross-platform photostitching application

Hugin is just what you need. Use

improve on your camera's resolution and

field of

features of interest are well within the frame. it

to

view by

» Time your photos carefully, since objects moving between shots could produce strange results. A swaying tree branch

merging many photos into one.

might produce a minor misalignment

Actively developed since 2003, Hugin

is

a wxWidgets

point,

front-end for a suite of open source panoramic photography

GPL and available compiled for many Linux and BSD distributions, Windows, and Mac OS X.

tools.

It’s

licensed under the

once per frame

off

your old

digital

install

together any set of overlapping images, but

you’ll

if

your panorama. Hugin

will

you’ll

minimise seams between photos

mode to

if

Hugin will open the JPEG or TIFF images output by most

stitch

get better

digital

cameras, as well as

PNG and HDR files.

RAW images, though, you’ll

you follow these photography guidelines:

» Overhang each photo by about 30% to guarantee that you have plenty of common features to help you align the

If

you shot

need to convert them before you

get started.

To introduce you to Hugin,

we'll

walk you through the

image. Since the edges of your photos are vulnerable to

production of two panoramas.

First,

aberrations, larger overlaps can improve uniformity.

panorama composed

few photos and, second, a

» Move the camera as little as possible between shots to minimise parallax error

in

the

final

you

hold the white balance

and exposure constant between shots.

Hugin from the Hugin can

results

in

use your camera's manual

camera,

used as a control

automatically correct for the errors of the casual

photographer,

Dust

if

and a car driving through your scene could show up

» Even though the stitching process in

Taking pictures LXFDVD and follow along with this tutorial.

probably want to

make sure the

planet' stitched

more

composition. Don’t

of just a

a simple one-row ‘little

from three rows of images and posing a few

challenges.

Panoramic projections Remember child

looking at Mercator

maps

as a

and concluding that Greenland was

roughly the size of South America? Using the

wrong

projection can distort features

panorama, so

scroll

Hugin’s preview

The

in

your

through the options

in

window and choose wisely!

default projection, equirectangular, simply

and longitude to an xy grid -

maps

latitude

this

usually appropriate for long, skinny

is

56 LXF135 September 2010 1

panoramas. The

rectilinear projection

is

just

what a pinhole camera would produce and similar to what your eyes see, but leaves the edges of a wide field looking stretched out. The fisheye projection produces the

same

name. Equirectangular panini preserves vertical

and

radial lines,

which gives a great

sense of perspective to architectural scenes.

www.linuxformat.com

Just a few of

Hugin’s 19 panoramic projections applied to a 120 degree scene.

From top to bottom:

same

distinctive look as the lens type of the

>

equirectangular, rectilinear, fisheye,

and equirectangular panini.

Hugin

w A I

Ble

Pjfienir-iA

praaa Assistant

Ttitili

Ramcml

delp

Jfew

Ed't

01c

- 19 — A a

images

i

Camera and Lens

Crop

Control Points

1

Optimize-

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individual images.-

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Camera and Lens Crop Control Points Optimizer Exposure

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D Load your images

Align the photos

To begin, open Hugin select the Images tab and drag and drop your photos in. You want Hugin to sort through your images and line them up how they were in the real world. To do that, it needs to know the points that each of your images have in common: control points. If you don’t mind stepping into a patent quagmire, you can find a variety of tools that integrate with Hugin to automatically generate control points. If you have one installed, just click Create control points. ,

s»

u

aal |

GpHntzer exposure |

|

the drop-down

menus to

them out as far as

load

possible.

When you’re done,

tab, select Positions (incremental, starting

down menu, and

hit

switch to the Optimiser

from anchor) from the drop-

Optimise Now.

attener |

|

l_^j

|4-*».50S0Jpa

D One last tweak

Take a peek Preview panorama button on the toolbar to get a quick look at your panorama now that your images are lined up. If you don't like what you see, click on the Straighten button on the Fast Preview toolbar Hit the Fast

to automatically centre,

zoom to fit and straighten

out your row of

images. We’ve used the Crop button to shave off the ragged edges of this panorama. To see how well your images are aligned, select Difference in

mode drop-down menu at the bottom of the preview window and then mouse over an overlap. The overlap will appear black if the agreement is perfect, but you'll see coloured outlines if it’s a bit off.

the Blend

Use two adjacent photos and then click on an identical feature in each image and click Add to create the control point. Aim to add at least five control points per image pair and try to spread identify control points manually, switch to the Control Points tab.

a

Control Ports

Crcp |

To

You may still be able to see seams even though the images are lined up perfectly. This is due to slight differences in the white balance and exposure. To fix these issues, turn to the Exposure tab, choose the 'Low Dynamic Range, Variable White Balance' preset from the drop-down menu and hit Optimise Now. To see the results in the preview window, make sure you enable Photometries on the toolbar. Finally, open the Stitcher tab and click Calculate Optimal Size to set the output resolution. You can choose JPEG, PNG or TIFF output with varying compression under File formats. When you’re fully satisfied, click on Stitch Now.

www.tuxradar.com

September 2010 LXF135 57 |

Hugin

Step by step:

A little planet

[Preview Options

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:

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Blend mode:

normal

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|

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normal

|

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left

Bend mode

D Bad control points

El Stereographic projection full

Stcrcographic

1

J

323.0x305.1 1

three

A

Open the

Fast Preview and click Photometries on the toolbar.

on any image,

If

the colour

photometric parameters by hand. Use the Identify button on the preview window toolbar to determine what its image number is. On the Camera and Lens tab, select the culprit image and open the Photometric tab at the bottom. Modify the Exposure (EV) value to change its brightness, and the Red and Blue multipliers to is

off

try modifying

its

When you're done, open the Stitcher tab and pick an output size. You can output at the full resolution of your photos but be prepared for it to take hours, even on a modern machine. alter its colour.

www.linuxforniat.com

Hugin

S

titching enlarges the field of view of

you're remiss

if

you don't

your camera, but your

similarly enlarge

camera's colourspace. High dynamic range (HDR)

imaging enables you to capture the details

and the glittering sunlight all

at once.

the shadows

in

To try

it

out, consult

your camera's manual to learn how to manually vary the

exposure

level of

your photos. For every photo you would

have taken for a normal panorama, try to take at least three

an HDR panorama. HDR panorama with Hugin, you only need to change a few steps in your workflow. When you turn to the at different exposure levels for

To stitch your

exposure

choose High Dynamic Range, Fixed Exposure

tab,

from the drop-down menu. To check on your progress, choose the Preview panorama button from the toolbar. This

menu

Output drop-down

window that will

HDR

that the

at the

HDR output. Beware

give you a peek at the

preview uses a simple logarithmic display that's

meant for checking which regions have The

step

last

Merging Hugin

detail preserved,

And Blended Panorama

is

to

check

HDR

option under

output an

OpenEXR file that

includes

all

information from your photos at every exposure this

but

panorama.

HDR panorama

producing an

in

final

Hugin makes corrections to make all your images blend perfectly.

sure

the Stitcher tab before you click on Stitch Now.

in

will

an

is

bottom of this preview

won’t look nearly as pretty as the

the Merged

slower

is

than the OpenGL-accelerated Fast Preview, but there

image may have a

monitor or

Open your HDR panorama

in

it

without

panorama by hand, just by

some

Luminance HDR an ,

open source, cross-platform tone mapping program

Imagine trying to construct a

Since

dynamic range than your

you won’t be able to view

printer,

processing.

far larger

the colour

level.

to

JPEG or other low dynamic range (LDR) file. Tone mapping involves a calculation to assign colours to the convert

it

pixels in

your image according to one of a variety of different

to a

laying

down

a few printed photos on a table and shifting

them around to

While this

is all

them

line

that’s strictly

up.

needed

to

produce a panorama, Hugin does an awful

more. The

lot

business

is

order of

first

geometric correction.

When

operator algorithms. Experiment with different operators to

you selected Everything

produce the most

Optimiser tab, you were instructing Hugin to do far more to

realistic

reproduction of your scene, or

ratchet up the contrast to render a bizarre circus of colours.

align

your images than

in

the

just sort

Hugin determined the exact

Pretty colours Even

if

where

you were unable to shoot images at varying exposures,

Hugin can

still

help you get the

most out

of your colourspace.

it

had previously

Hugin's

them out on the table.

field of

relied

First

view of your images,

on the

corrections do

information from

Exif

your camera. Next, Hugin corrects for

radial lens distortion

using a third-order polynomial model.

Finally,

determines a vector that indicates how

Exposure Fusion

centre of the

CCD deviates from the centre of the lens (the

optical axis).

Each image

in

the Stitcher tab before clicking Stitch

Instead of merging the input photos into an

HDR

image,

parameters before

If

just

one of your photos

underexposed and the adjacent shots look help you preserve as

much

detail

is

better,

over- or

Enfuse can

as possible.

pixels the

plugin.

It

is

able to

errors by virtue of the Enblend

Enblend uses a multiresolution spline algorithm to

up seams between images.

transition line roughly its

pillars.

corrected according to these

smooth over many alignment polish

job

stitching.

With or without this series of corrections, Hugin

Enfuse simply gives weight to the best-exposed areas during the stitching process.

is

terrific

of fixing the

on these

Simply check the Fused And Blended Panorama box under

Now. This turns on Enfuse, Hugin's exposure fusion engine.

a

alignment error

Hugin

many

advanced geometric

First

a

identifies

it

down the centre of the

overlap, doing

best to avoid features that differ (such as a car driving by).

then blends the images together across that

wide brush for smoothly varying features

one

like

line,

using a

sky and a tight

for sharply varying features like grass.

It’s

not enough to align the features of your images,

though; the colours must match up, too. Hugin begins

its

photometric corrections by recalculating the exposure for

each image to optimise their brightness

examines the brightness gradients

levels.

determine three vignetting correction terms. for variable white balance in the

calculate optimal red

optimisation, the

and blue

Exposure

levels for

camera response

Next Hugin

of overlapping If

tab,

images to

you optimise Hugin will also

each image. One

last

curve, normalises the

colourspace of the panorama.

Now that you can stitch images

a pro,

your camera

From top to bottom: normal panorama, enfused panorama, HDR panorama, HDR panorama with high-

be your paintbrush! With panoramic photography and Hugin,

contrast tone mapping. At right: detail views.

you can capture any scene, no matter how

>

www.tuxradar.com

like

let

big.

M3

September 2010 LXF135

|

59

What on Earth WebM

What on Earth is

WebM?

Bob Moss explains how Google’s new patent-free codec could soon make on to a web browser near you. it

So...

what

A codec

is

a codec exactly?

is

a piece of software or a

encode or decode

physical device that can

audio or video data. There are

sounds bad, but in

it

MPEG-LA is the authority

codecs around, with MP3, Ogg Theora and

already supported

DivX among them. They capture audio or visual

Adobe

and convert

input

it

‘container format’.

It’s

worth doing

saving raw binary data (usually a

sound) takes up a huge amount

because

this

Flash,

in all

the main browsers and

Wav file for

and DivX movies.

MPEG-LA has promised

having H.264

period where no-one

one of these ‘codecs’ then?

WebM

is

a container for two

called Vorbis,

is

which

if

Google gets

remains under a free

licence.

why isn’t everyone using VP8 then? VP8 is still a fairly new codec, meaning it

HTML 5

For the free software community, yes.

exactly,

WebM

doesn’t have widespread support just yet.

the

Is

One

WebM

So,

quality.

of disk space,

standard a bad thing?

Not

that

is

meaning that even

licensing,

sued,

has the advantage of hardware-acceleration,

which vastly improves playback

we can compress this to certain levels much quality. Container formats you may be familiar with are MP3, Ogg

codecs.

see

typically

decouples patent licensing from copyright

is

and also had widespread support

but

is

something you

is

General Public Licence v3 and Apache

Licence v2. The difference

charge of

without losing too

So WebM

GNU

from hardware companies. This means H.264

a compressed

into

in

enforcing the patents behind H.264. This

kinds of

all

is MPEG-LA and why want to attack everyone?

Hang on, what does

you’ll

have

royalties, after that,

free to

do

so. This

in

pledged to support

WebM

their

in

browsers

and Adobe will be adding support to

Though

a few years’ grace

Player software.

be pursued for

will

all

However, Mozilla and Opera have already

Moovida,

support

the patent-holders are

If

you’ll also

will

its

Flash

you use Miro, VLC or be pleased to hear that

be heading your way too.

would mean that any free

software with encoding or decoding support

Fair

enough! So what are the key

VP8 and H.264?

come across you’ve ever tried to convert your MP3s or rip CD audio as Ogg files and, as you

for

can probably guess,

software being developed, free software not

between the two for visual or audio

being able to provide playback support for

usually unnoticeable for the

high-quality video legally or even existing free

hardware acceleration

software disappearing.

hardware acceleration, then inevitably H.264

if

content. Vorbis is

widely used

Does

is

in

this

this deals with audio

and

patent-

royalty-free

and

the Linux world.

mean

it’s

litigation.

the case of Vorbis, that

exciting part of

WebM

called

WebM

VP8 that

is

isn't

differences between

and could face

necessarily the use

handles the video side of the

container.

VP8

patent issues?

plugged, the patent issue

Google

itself is

the patent holder for VP8 after

If

you use

now. Once the support gap will

is

be the overriding

between the two codecs.

purchase of On2 (the codec developer)

its

result has added a ‘patent promise' WebM's OSI-approved free licence that

WebM

be available on devices other

and as a

Will

to

than the desktop?

for

Yes.

The plan with hardware partnerships

is

try to create a consistent experience across

did video content?

would mean that any software could provide

different devices of varying

as good as the competing (and non-free)

H.264 format,

it’s

nowhere near as

backers.

The

because

if

latter

is

an important

point,

MPEG -LA were to pursue a

patent

case against Theora, they wouldn’t have the financial

backing to fight

escaped

litigation

this blessing

is

so

far

it.

Theora has

through obscurity, but

also a curse, as

companies

won't adopt a format that has the potential to

them sued.

60 LXF135 September 2010

full

support for the format without facing the

In

the

Which OSI-approved licence does

approved by the Open Source

body that checks to see truly ‘free’

and ‘open

if

Initiative (OSI),

free licences are

source’. This

is

in

the

event of Google being pursued for patent royalties,

grades of hardware.

sees patent rights revoked. This

www.linuxforxnat.com

WebM will

is

all

be able to play

already the case with

be arriving on these

platforms to remain competitive.

a

So how

long can

I

expect to wait for

hardware acceleration?

The major advantage

also

enclosed with a ‘patent promise’ that,

same videos. This

H.264, and

WebM use? WebM uses a BSD-style licence that has been

to

theory, your smartphone, tablet, laptop,

desktop and netbook should

possibility of legal action.

well-

supported and doesn't have big-money

1

difference

a factor.

royalties for the container’s existence. This

does, but the compression-to-quality ratio

get

isn't right

is

so widely supported where

So how does WebM go about avoiding

anyone using the codec won’t be pursued

isn’t

it’s

isn't

quality

end user when

But thought that Ogg Theora already I

It

Aside from the patent issue, the difference

This could lead to less free playback

shines because

indeed true. The

new patent-free codec

of Vorbis, however, but a

liable

technology we’ve

had the whole time? In

H.264 would be

for

a longer head start and

is

H.264

is

that

it's

had

therefore already

supported on most hardware platforms. However, thanks to Google's general aura,

WebM What on Earth we've already seen AMD, various ARM chip

will

makers and Broadcom pledge support. Nvidia

QuickTime

is

also considering adding to support to

system-on-chip Tegra platform, while

promised to also support

it

once

see widespread adoption. This early stages for

it

end

in

starts to

the

hardware support, but VP8

the next few months,

if

the

same codecs for same

order to achieve the

not by the

»

Does VP8 need a

encoder?

There’s no single encoder or decoder that

VP8 requires. FFmpeg is supported for VP8 playback, and

Windows users will

available for DirectShow.

nature of the

find filters

Thanks to the open

VP8 codec and

software development

of this year.

specific

kit

its

associated

»

if

I’m using another

operating system and find myself stuck

along with

Firefox,

Opera and Chrome

supporting VP8 out of the box.

Internet Explorer doesn’t natively support

WebM, but so long as you have the Vorbis and VP8 codecs installed on your machine, WebM still

be playable. Safari users

I

like

So where can watch I

right

viewing

WebM content

now then?

your enthusiasm!

we mentioned

weren't yet released and

the beta stages,

still in

but should be stable enough for general use by the time you read version of

»

This I

this.

The VP8-compatible

VLC should be a full

release.

you want to

sounds excellent! Where can more information?

all

find

http://bit.ly/dpKOnS or view the

technical details about entry.

If

start

WebM content right away, you can sign

It

WebM via

its

latest

Wikipedia

You can also follow progress at the

project’s website

(www.webmproject.org) or

On2’s website at www.on2.com, 523

s a container

for i

versions of the three browsers

via

»

supported browser builds from that

page. At the time of writing, VP8-compatible

You can view the demonstration at Google I/O

with Internet Explorer or Safari?

content should

www.youtube.com/html5 and download one

(SDK) we should see

a wide range of VP8 players and encoders,

What about

HTML 5 beta version of YouTube at

up the the result.

of the

has

support on the software side should be available

install in

its

Intel

is still in

need to

two codecs

a high-quality open video format for the web Its

KJm.

TO

Video files

#

play

W.

directly in

your web browser

It's

100% free

W

and open-source W, u- XV A

using

HTML 5 -i

No

r

plugins

required

www.tuxradar.com

September 2010 LXF135

|61

Dr Brown’s Administeria

Dr Chris Brown

Esoteric system administration goodness from the impenetrable bowels of the server room.

The Doctor provides Linux training, authoring and consultancy. He finds his PhD in particle physics to be of no help in this work at all.

down

Drilling

H

ow

long

is

the coastline of Great

Britain? According to the

Ordnance Survey, it’s 11,073 miles. The UK Coast Guide website says 7,760. There’s no right answer, of course;

depends on the scale and what

of the

it

map you

use

wiggliness you drape your

level of

tape measure around. I

mention

by way of comparison with

this

comes who “How many days

the equally ill-defined question that

up time and again

for

deliver Linux training:

those of us

does this course need?” - which

“How much

translates to

is

about Linux?” For most of that

we

enough

learn

Ubuntu Tweak Change the settings you’ve always wanted to, but could never figure out how.

really

there to

know

us, the reality

is

to get our jobs done,

and no more.

T

he

Gnome desktop

customisable. As a

those people

who

is

endlessly

rule, I'm

Danger, Will Robinson!

not one of

fusses over their

The Source Centre screen of Ubuntu Tweak provides a quick and easy checkbox approach to adding PPAs (Personal Package

choice of background wallpaper, or has to

make their window borders exactly the

Layers of knowledge

shade

of pink

However much you

colour

scheme on my Ubuntu 10.04

learn

about Linux

right

(though admit did change the I

I

Archives) to your

desktop),

but one thing

there’s almost always another layer of detail

below the one you’re

fractals?

that. For

It’s like

at.

Remember

example, there’s a

well-known network reconnaisance tool called

Nmap.

In

could describe

default behaviour

manager screen displays a

Now,

a training context, you

it

in

a couple of sentences,

do a one-minute demo, and move

on.

like

you could give examples of Nmap's two

Ubuntu Tweak

jgj

^

book on the subject written by Gordon

jjjj)

Lyon (who

is

Application Center

PPA’s author to run his log in)

you

list

I

will,

468 pages

it’s

P3

probably enough to keep

for a

whole week of rainy

^ 21

commentary on 6th Edition Unix published way back in 1976, John Lions In his

configure

own

scripts as root

packages.

sorts of things that (in

all

cases) there

can

Canonical,

configure

to keep

provides,

I

tell)

in its efforts

not provide any

way to

the standard distribution.

in I

most

no easy, graphical way to

is

It

have to say, a rather eclectic mix of

configuration options, spanning a wide range of areas, not just

this. I'm

Gnome.

For example, you can:

Auto

Programs

Compiz

Gnome setting in the GConfdatabase with

Settings

one was I

course, that you

Settings

Window Manager Settings

know

what the

relevant

setting

called.

(this

particularly interested

was the

in).

» Turn off the dialog that confirms logout and shutdown

Gconftool, provided, of

Desktop icon Settings

GNOME

combinations to start applications).

» Disable the user list in GDM

configure every Start

» Define up to 12 keyboard shortcuts (hotkey

aware that you can

Desktop

summer days.

install his

I

account

Session control

you going

when you

So was dismayed

configure

Source Center

^ Startup

improbable

this

but don’t

of valid

Update Manager

Nmap security scanner). At an

you do

Package Cleaner

Source Editor

also the original author of the

display

where you

if

you’re effectively giving permission for that

things simple, does

Applications

of the

if

login screen.

to discover that (as far as

techniques, which might take an hour or

hand out copies

paranoid

the idea of exposing a

dozen host discovery and scanning two. Or you could

me

names on the

Or

was that the

(the screen

of software

of user accounts.

list

call

about the

really didn't like

I

list

Do be aware, that

repositories.

actions.

» Change the way that file are

shown and

set

in

permissions

the Nautilus f\\e

Personal

observed: “The whole documentation

is

not j||

unreasonably transportable

in

a student’s

,

Default Folder Locations

Manage

Scripts

All

Manage "templates

briefcase.”

(And he was

documents or

printed out on paper, not a

USB stick.) As

countered

in

[

referring to

Shortcut

CD

Commands

System

is

of which leads

me to Ubuntu Tweak, an application that

running on battery power.

» Change the computer's host name.

Advanced Powemnanager Sett...

Kernighan and Pike aptly

their book,

The Unix

{

fixed in recent versions.”

Computer Details

provides an easy,

Hie Type Manager

graphical

way to

a >

Ubuntu -tweaks menus gives you some idea

of the range of settings that you can tweak.

62 LXF135 September 2010

This

isn’t

systematic

Nautilus Settings

Programming Environment “This has been

i

properties window.

» Set how much the display dims when

www.linuxformat.com

feel for

meant as an exhaustive or

list,

comprehensive do, visit

just

some examples to give you

the tool's potential. For a more list

of

what Ubuntu Tweak can

http://ubuntu-tweak.com.

Dr Brown’s Administeria

RRDtool Round-robin database tool Get yourself a comprehensive solution to storing, processing and graphing time-series data.

S It

hould you have ever used any application on Linux

Energiemix

how something

that produces graphs showing

changes over time, chances are you’ve used RRDtool.

combines two

things: a specialised

database for storing

time series data, and a way to generate

pretty,

browsable

graphs from that information. RRDtool comes from Tobi Oetiker (http://oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool) and

is

the database

number of applications that graph

that underpins a large

performance, system load, resource usage, network

o

traffic,

Do 12:00

network latency, temperature, wind speed... the

RRDtool is not a database tables

and

relations.

It's

in

list

goes on.

the usual sense of storing

specialised for storing and

processing measurements that are generated at regular intervals of time. For example,

I

in

where the readings are actually stored. Each

is

number

specified

RRA is calculated by combining a

of individual

measurements using one of - for example the

several pre-defined consolidation functions

average, the

minimum

readings are

known as consolidated data

or the

number of CDPs that can be created.

it's initially

When all

maximum. These combined stored

in

points (CDPs).

Thus, each day,

week

it

the

The

RRA is fixed when RRA are filled,

an

slots in the

it

simply cycles round, overwriting the oldest data. This

behaviour that earns

name Round-Robin

RRA holds data for a fixed span

is

the

I

of time (perhaps a

temperature database that calculates the average from 10 individual

measurements

(so that

I

get a

have a

fairly

the past In

Fr 04:00

Fr 00:00

00

Fr 08:00

.

the

I

>

fine-grained chart of temperature variation over

week (1008

addition,

multiplied by 10 minutes

is

minimum from 60 data

one week).

RRA that calculates points (so that get a CDP every I

me a chart that's less

fine-grained but reaches back over a year. to create a third

I

A classic

RRDtool graph, where multiple independent measurements are plotted, each

might choose to define an

hour) and keeps 8,760 of them, giving

might also choose

in its

own

colour.

RRA for the maximum temperature. You can

see that the storage capacity of this database

determined at the time

it's

created.

is

My example

fixed,

and

can store

1,008 + 8,760 + 8,760 = 18,528 CDPs.

As mentioned

earlier,

I

measurements at taken

RRA for my greenhouse

could define an

I

Database.

or year) that's defined up-front.

For example,

:

min 14.5 max 55. 7 min 14. 6 max 46. 4 min 603. Dm max 57. 7 min 0 0 max 8. 2 min 3. 8 max 9. 0 min 9. 0 max 32, 7

my greenhouse

once a minute. We define a number of round-robin archives reading that goes into an

:

could define a database that

expects a new reading of the temperature

(RRAs), which

Do

Do 16 00

Heizung Vorlauf Heizung Rucklauf Helligkeit Verbrauch Erdgas Aussent emperatu r Ve rbrauch St rom

these databases expect to be fed

regular intervals.

If

measurements

aren't

when expected (maybe the computer responsible to

the measurements

Unknown

in

is

switched

off

)

they are marked as

the database.

CDP every 10

minutes) and keeps 1008 of them so that, at any one time,

What goes in must come out. We’ve talked about putting data but what about getting

it

in

to an

out? Well,

it’s

RRDtool database,

possible to

dump

out

the contents as text (for example to transfer the database to

another computer) but

it’s

much more

interesting to create a

These can be created as PNG

files, or as SVG or EPS or PDF, so you can include them on a website to be viewed in the user's web browser, or paste them into that

nice graph.

research report you’re writing in

in

OOo. The graphing features

RRDtool offer immense flexibility - take a look at the

screenshot gallery at http://oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool/gallery to get

an idea

of

what you can do.

commands to create an RRDtool

There are Linux >

Again, multiple graphs are displayed, this time as areas

stacked on top of each other so you can see the

database (rrdcreate), to add individual measurements to

it

(rrdupdate), to generate a graph (mdgraph), and other

total.

administrative functions.

manually from the

What’s a round robin?

familiarisation) or

So you could

command

you could

line (for

drive

RRDtool

testing or

build a real application

around

it

using a shell script. Alternatively, you can do these things

Those red-breasted

when

I

worms unearth become almost spherical in

birds that eat the

little

dig the veg plot

in

spring

their gluttony, but they are not the

here.

A round

around a

robin

circle,

none may be

as

was a

if

is

round robins referred to

was signed by people

petition that

from within other scripting languages - there are language bindings for

Perl,

Python, Ruby,

TCP or

PHP.

You can download the source tarball from http://oss. oetiker.ch/rrdtool/pub along with

links to pre-built binaries

along the spokes of a wheel, so that

identified as a ringleader.

sorts of things since,

them

I

and the concept

of cycling round

It’s

come to mean

for AIX,

HP-UX,

Solaris, Debian,

RHEL, Fedora, Windows, and

all

common to all of

and coming back to the beginning.

even NetWare. You

you can

install

it

may find

in

your distro’s repositories so

with your usual package

Happy graphing!

www.tuxradar.com

management tools.

»

September 2010 LXF135

|

63

Dr Brown’s Administeria

Copying stuff Duplication Following the old Perl mantra of “there is more than one way to do it”, we discover a surprising number of ways to copy a file.

M

y tutorial this month is a real back-to-basics affair, and also one of the most mundane topics I've covered.

about copying

It's

and

Let's begin at

most basic

the beginning, with the cp

looks

it

$ cp source-file the

I

final

its

name of an existing one command. The

the

is

JPEG images

files in

list

For such a basic

my images

into

directory:

images

~joe/images/*.jpg

The

command. At

generated using wildcard expansion. For example,

is

options.

necessary,

destination-file

argument to cp

could copy joe's

$ cp

strictly

like this:

directory you can copy multiple of files

There are more

take a look at half a dozen of them.

we'll

If

stuff.

you might think

tools for copying stuff than

command, cp has a surprising number of

mention three:

I’ll

-r (recursive)

option copies directories recursively.

This option lets you copy an entire subtree of the filesystem.

> You could always copy files using the GUI, but that’s no good if you’re working remotely on a headless server.

For example, after doing this:

$ cp you'll

tree

/boot

-r

end up with a complete copy

in

of the

/boot

that you’re copying to a remote machine.

directory

name “images”

your current directory.

The

-a (archive) option preserves the attributes of the

original

file

made as

as

root,

preserved.

If

much

as possible. For example,

is

made

The -b (backup) option if

you copy over a

that already exists.

The

backup

~

have a

will

appended

to the

tells

You can use

with cp, but

its

will

be

cp

-a option implies

to keep a

backup

you can

on the

server.

third-party copies, file

well

as pushing

when both the source file and the

I

is

scp supports a

one

option

of the strangest animals in the Linux world.”

is in

(-r)

preserve

recursive

and an option to

file

attributes (-p).

There's also an option (-C) to

compress the data as

it's

being transmitted, though

make

main use

installed

an account on them.

“The dd command

to

SSHD daemon

and running on the remote machines, and you need to have

of the

cp's big it

way

are remote.

For this to work, you need the

-r.

home

files in this

from remote machines. You can even do

pull files

destination

As

file

cp’s big brother is

is

using a normal account, the

name.

scp (secure copy) brother.

the copy

the original ownership and timestamps

the copy

copy will be owned by that account. The

original

if

directory

The directory

interpreted relative to james’s

is

my experience

copies just as you can

local

copying

files

to or

from remote

this is

more

if

likely

to slow things

down than speed them

in

LAN

you’re copying across a reasonable fast

up.

machines using an encrypted SSH connection. Atypical

command

might look

rsync

like this:

$ scp \jpg [email protected]:images

rsync

[email protected]. corn’s password:

be used

storml.jpg sunsetl.jpg

100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

is

primarily a (to

197.7KB/S

00:00

command for everyday use”. So we can

135.2KB/S

00:00

make

files

defaults to whatever user I’m logged

Notice the colon - this

is

in

I

leave that part

as on the

off,

it

tells

use

it

trivially

scp

it

to

But rsyncs main claim to fame

is

as a remote

tool. Its delta-transfer

substantially reduces the

amount

algorithm

of data sent over the

network by sending only the differences between the source

and the

existing files

in

the destination. This makes

it

tell

syntax

is

very similar to scp.

I

can copy

my entire

Format article archive to a remote server

Linux

like this:

$ rsync -av Linux-Format-Articles servera.example.com:

How many more command-line tools can you think of that can be persuaded to simply copy we’ll print

files? Let

us know and

the most inventive suggestions.

...

a long

list

of

file

names appeared here

bytes/sec

www.linuxformat.com

...

sent 68556777 bytes received 14403 bytes 5079346.67

total size is

64 LXF135 September 2010

it

“make that filesystem over there look exactly like this one it will do so very efficiently. Its command

over here" and

The copycat challenge

can

rsync source-file destination-file

great tool for backups and mirroring. Essentially you

client).

the key piece of syntax that

though

local file copies:

the account I'm using on the server

(if

tool,

page) as “an improved copy

135KB

synchronisation

thegirls.jpg

man

198KB

190KB 190-lKB/s 00:00 57KB 56.9KB/S 00:00 UNIX_highlighter.jpg 80KB 80.1KB/S 00:00 This copies my JPEG files into the images directory on the machine servera.example.com. Here, james is the name of teachingl.jpg

remote sychronisation

quote the

68497001 speedup

is

1.00

a

Dr Brown’s Administeria

If

txt)

save the

I

file

I'm writing right

now (it’s called copying,

and repeat the rsync command,

instantaneously since

it

What’s in a name?

completes almost

only transmits the differences:

it

dc/ takes its

$ rsync -av Linux-Format-Articles servera.example.com: sending incremental

file list

command

Linux Format Articles/sysadmin-lxfl35/ I

sent 21426 bytes received 161 bytes 4797.11 bytes/sec

When it

68497303 speedup

is

making backups

rsync to a

where

it

stands for

comes from the same

place.

It

looked something

like this:

DD DSN=FOOBAR.DATA.QSAM0080,DISP=OLD,KEEP have repressed most of my memories of struggling with JCL in my paper-

I

lines of

JCL right than the 200

I

more trouble getting the

usually had

lines of Fortran that followed.

a printed error report (understand that

I

had to wait

half a

day

of

I’d

USB memory stick

is

half-

typically get

turnaround time

comma in line 3”. Many a time I’ve wondered why, the computer knew there was a comma missing, couldn’t just pretend was there

for this) saying “missing

if

it

not an industrial strength backup tool, but

via

think

dozen

3173.08

copying to remote machines, rsync can use SSH, or

itself is

line,

tape-and-punched-card student days.

can connect to the rsyncd daemon. rsync by

control language,

//QSAM0080

Linux Format Articles/sysadmin-lxfl35/copying.txt

total size is

name from an IBM mainframe job

“data definition”. The strange syntax, which sits so uncomfortably on the Linux

and get on with

a fine

it

it.

solution for individual professional users.

aimed

features are clearly

wget

at migrating data

between the

Unix/Linux and traditional IBM mainframe worlds. But

wget is a command-line, non- interactive tool

HTTP or HTTPS

from a URL, using FTP,

for

file

perhaps the most useful feature of dd is that you can control

is

the block sizes

copying a

protocols.

The file

written to the current directory. Here's an example:

output

file will

in

which the input

file will

be read and the

be written, and you can specify how many

makes for various

$ wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ls-lR.gz

blocks to copy. This

--20 10-06- 14 13:47:53- http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/

For example you can create a

ls-lR.gz

$ dd if=/dev/zero of=allzeros

Resolving archive.ubuntu.com... 91.189.88.46, 91.189.88.30,

1+0 records in

interesting possibilities.

1MB file full of zeros bs=lM count=l

like this:

1+0 records out

Connecting to archive.ubuntu.coml91. 189.88.461:80...

(1.0 MB) copied, 0.00476925 s, 220 MB/s we write a single 1MB block. The syntactic style if=/

1048576 bytes

connected.

Here,

HTTP request

sent, awaiting response...

200

OK

dev/zero to specify a

Length: 9190681 (8.8M) [application/x-gzip]

things

Saving

keep you informed

to: Ts-lR.gz’

=

100%[ 763K/s

=>]

9,190,681

it.

this

to follow links in

(yes,

it’s

-r

again) which

HTML pages, effectively recreating a

the directory structure of the original

case the content

would copy content

is

very useful

into

wget

-r

the directory archive.ubuntu.com

is

a website from

discussed this month, wget

- you can use

unidirectional

push. However, there

is

tool.

It’s

it

to pull

a tool called wput,

if

is

files

to

make

$ tar

the only one

one

you’re interested.

of the strangest

animals

has a weird syntax and a weird feature

Linux world.

It

make simple copies,

to

’

it

/dev/sdal

into

a

file:

s,

54.7

MB/s

cf

tar.

copy it’s

utility

cf

archiving tool than a copy

However, by piping out of and into taryou

copy file hierarchies around. The trick

to

is

to

as the output or input filename, which you can use terwrite to

-

I

copy

its

standard output or read from standard

my Linux Format article folder into /tmp:

Linux-Format-Articles/

Using a similar technique

$ tar

party might be considered a

more an

-

source-dir

I

files

to

1

(cd /tmp; tar xf

we can

-)

pipe through an

SSH

remote systems:

ssh servera.example.com

-

Bet you hadn’t thought of that! 223

surely

can use

it

at the

connection and copy

but not to

dd weirdness is

it

input. Here,

tar xf

The dd command

called

specify

within a script, or on a server without a browser installed.

that

partition

123346944 bytes (123 MB) copied, 2.2557

can use

only works properly for static sites,

between these days. Nonetheless, wget

far

I’ve

dd s desire to how fast did

1+1 records out

My final arrival

when you need to grab files from

Of the tools

copied and

as a disk cloning tool. Here, for example,

gatecrasher, because

and take a very long time! which are few and

it

Gatecrashing the party

For example:

$ wget http://archive.ubuntu.com

practice

it

how much

site. In

copied into a top-level directory

is

named after the site.

In

You can also use

of

1+1 records in

wget also has a recursive option

local replica of

very non- Linux and totally defeats

$ sudo dd if=/dev/sdal of=sdal -image bs=64M

Ts-lR.gz’ saved

-

[9190681/9190681]

it

file is

filename wildcard expansion. Notice

we capture an image of the

in 12s

2010-06-14 13:48:05 (758 KB/s)

tells

like

in

set.

the

You

like this:

$ dd if=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-22-generic of=foo

7886+1 records in 7886+1 records out

4037792 bytes but that

is

(4.0

MB)

copied, 0.0290523

rather missing the point.

It

s,

139

MB/s

can make various

improbable data conversions along the way. For example,

it

>

can convert text from lower to upper case (or vice versa), and it

can convert between ASCII and EBCDIC character sets.

(EBCDIC stands for Extended Binary Coded Decimal Information

Code and

is

and not used by anyone it

can pad text

lines

a character code invented by IBM else).

It

you shouldn’t shake sticks at

can swap alternate bytes, and

out to a fixed length.

More penguins

than you can shake a stick at. But then,

Some of these

penguins.

www.tuxradar.com

September 2010 LXF135

|

65

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September 2010 LXF135

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The best new open source software on the planet

LXFHotPicks

Nick Veitch When compiling HotPicks,

Eagle Mode » Rakarrack » jGnash » Knitter » Dfeta » Scribus » VirtualBox OSE » Widelands »SDL Sopwith » Pybag » BleachBit

Nick

makes frequent use of Curses. Tell us your favourite programming language at the usual address.

Desktop environment/file manager

Mode

Eagle

Web http://eaglemode.sourceforge.net

Version 0.78.0

A clicking

re

for

you?

enough

controls before you’re competent

enough to navigate from one

too easy just

It’s all

need

really

practise for a few hours with the

life

of a challenge

on icons on a desktop,

What you into the

you finding that modern

just isn’t

is

a paradigm

there’s plenty of

shift

about zooming

panning around Well, step

in

everything

forward Eagle Mode.

fitting into

you’ll

currently

zoom

in

in

The eagle is known for its incredible eyesight, but humans will have to zoom right in to read those files.

>

is

focus.

on a directory

comforts of your desktop environment,

and you

Eagle

either.

to see the level

or

you want. Both the mouse and

KDE

if

Mode can

you

prefer,

run atop

Gnome

to

may need to

it if

you

really

and

you'll slowly

into

There's no need for a picture viewer

want to get the full

Eagle

Mode interface

in

Mode because you can just keep ,

zooming

in

big as

Exploring the Eagle

files,

previews for compatible media types.

but you’re going to

immersive experience. Try zooming

of

see them resolve themselves

have to give up the whole display area

cursor keys are required to navigate the scalable display, and you

Use the

You don’t have to eschew the cosy

see

A toolbar and your complete

merely have to

follows:

keys to change the which object

out far enough

filespace are displayed there,

of detail

A

workspace sees

from the default screen and there).

The basics are as

mouse wheel to zoom in and out, hold the scroll button down and move the mouse to pan about, and use the cursor

the eye of an

zoom

eagle (seriously,

him

help you on your way.

and out and

frantically.

radical redesign of the

documentation on the

website, complete with diagrams, to

world of a scalable, vector-

oriented environment where the action is all

part of the

filesystem to another. Thankfully,

isn't it?

to an

in

you

image file

until it's

as

like.

More tricks It

isn’t just

a

file

manager either. There

are scalable applications available too,

such as a

Main tools The main menu You can zoom

tools lurk

in for

more

up

here. eullnle^ullnicks‘1

eullnick evilnicl

File rrrv-p-

Quick access zoomable

some

zooming

detail.

est.ogg

Shortcut keys to

fluntitled sc .

File

I

2019-35- 31

2010-03-19

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untitled. scf

of the

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test sch

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H:

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r~

77.H87137

everyone

Media

files

like.

Read

Eagle

can be played

This

OGG file

a visualisation as

it

is

in situ

if

showing

plays.

For text

files,

Ubuntu,

binary

RPM for Fedora

for Slax, ebuild for

you don't need a

zoom

it.

live in until

ISO image on there to download,

so you’ll probably have no need to build this

68 LXF135 September 2010

for

Gentoo and Sabayon. There’s also a

viewer. Simply

you can read

on

it.

Mode is available in

and Suse, an LZM

me

his take

concept has obviously got something going for

packages

O Here and now

illusion that

want to adopt

attracted a reasonable fan base, so the

eulnUfck evllnick!

you

will

a zoomable user interface (ZUI), but

for playing file.

on the globe on the clock

previous releases have already

r~ 21129 '

o Context sensitivity

in

The author is under no ‘

;:

evil nick evilnick^

the highlighted media

Mandelbrot viewer,

||

evilnick nvilnicl Forget the feeling,

This release includes plenty of

new

effects

including dual flange, convolotron,

done to a

pretty

it

can now

much the same

all

be

effect

on

computer (possibly also assembled

in

for a

few years on Linux. Making

use of the excellent Jack sound architecture,

following for

it’s

its

amazing ease

until

upsampling, a simplified

nothing short of a

features, but to be honest, they’re just

as cool to mess around with too.

is

Rakarrack is already available as a

multi-tap delay

full

board, so you can reproduce

quality of output

all

and

Where the

package

“This release includes

The main panel

plenty of effects and

the knobs and sliders

for the built-in effects,

twiddle

library format,

Jack connection and a host of

attracted quite a

of use.

simply lays out

Have No Name. There may be many readers who have very specific ideas about how to use all these Streets

and a vocoder, changes to the

waveshapers. The new echotron

the Far East). Rakarrack has been

around

shuffle

and you can

you get the

right

improvements to

sound

how about once more with insane

of reverb? Rakarrack, step forward...

and improvements to try,

pedals and expensive electronics from

the Far East, but the modern age has heralded an era where

amounts

for a couple of distros, but for

some reason or other, these packages are way out of date. you want to build If

Rakarrack yourself,

you’ll

development packages libsndfile

try.”

need the

for FLTK, Jack,

and libsamplerate. So long as

you’ve got these,

it

should build cleanly.

Personal finance tool

jGnash Web http://jgnash.sourceforge.net

Version 2.35

K

eeping a close eye on your

set

become dramatically more important in recent years, so it’s always nice to come across some software that offers to do some of the heavy lifting for you. This finances has

self-contained

up accounts with

different

currencies. Reporting facilities are excellent, so

you can draw

how much you spend on

, 1*1

even a tool to help print cheques.

deeper than you need

whole

surprisingly fast, easy

accounts,

doddle to use. This

fill it.

is

it

to,

but

> Set reminders in

on the eye and a

a cross-platform

Java app, but the settings support all sorts of themes, so you can

importing those ever so handy or .csv

files

by

X|if,

joxf

you may have downloaded

from your bank. These neatly fill up

them to, a glance how poor

whichever accounts you

and you can see you

at

tie

look at if

that

make

it

home on the Gnome desktop,

makes you

be a

in

HotPicks, so a few of you

little

unfamiliar

how to

may

run them.

like

many, has been

distributed as a Java archive (.jar

file).

There’s no need to decompress this

by adding the

it

-jar

file,

directly with Java just

switch

like so:

/usr/java/jrel.6.0_20/bin/java -jar

jgnash2.jar

The annoying thing about jGnash is

are.

As well as standard current accounts and savings deposits, you can enter information for stocks and

investment accounts.

This one,

you can execute

happier.

We don’t tend to feature many Java apps

jGnash to help you keep track of your

finances. That way, you won’t forget what’s in the bank.

Information can be entered directly thankfully,

3

iSHBSKHSS

it’s

from the keyboard,

or,

CHK.rn.il

PfJ-

jGnash probably goes further and

app will construct a

tree, full of possible

and then

export details of your exports. There’s

database and automatically build a ready and waiting for you to

pie charts of

pies,

If

you’re an

international globetrotter,

you can even

“jGnash is surprisingly fast, easy on the eye and a doddle to use.” www.tuxradar.com

that

it's

very specific about what

version of Java

it’ll

play ball with. Put

simply, anything other than the official

Sun

1.6 release

is likely

to cause

you

some problems.

September 2010 LXF135 69 1

LXFHotPicks

Knitting visualiser

Knitter Version 0.5.3

A

Web

http://knitter.sourceforge.net

an OpenGL display area and four

you a knitter? Yes, know

re

I

yo

u re

'

No,

read ng Linux Format

different rendering

i

said "knitter", not "nutter”

I

-

only see

we already know where you stand on

but

that score. Anyway, having previously

in

featured cross-stitching applications HotPicks,

See your work

touch to claim their hobby had

software available. That

may be so,

chosen implements,

be noted that they're a

bit

imagination department to

it

should

lacking

when

it

the

comes

make it actually shows them

being knitted

in

front of

OpenGL. Tap

in

your pattern, and watch

in

> This is not a

and although

rudimentary,

map

complete neural

of Mike’s brain,

it’s

a

simple knitting swatch. Easy mistake to make, though.

it's

and yarn

good

cabling looks good, or that those

diamond patterns

you can tap away your

make amendments and re-render the display to make sure your

like

someone trying to type

half

a keyboard, but no doubt

a maternity hospital. With

it

makes it.

WX toolkit and

Knitter relies on the

“Knitter actually shows your patterns being knitted in front of you.”

little

Lisp with

who know about

sense to those

pattern, or

its

it

your socks

perfectly. Knitting notation looks a

pattern.

you’re familiar with knitting

instructions,

in

counterpoint the rows of stockinette

effect.

The lower panel displays the If

glorious

the invisible needles deftly weaving

in

fairly

of the finished object to

out of the ether, faster than a roomful of grannies

useful,

piece. Adjustable needle size

own

Knitter doesn't just help you

you

is

quite easy to get a feel for the finished

still

in

naming said software.

your patterns,

display

width enable you to customise the look

although, ever wary of the pointiness of their

The 3D

the controls are

more advanced, technically - and therefore geekier -

significantly

detailed

how the whole thing hangs together

simulated gravity.

in

some craft types from the

other school of threaded fabrication got in

modes, you can not

how different stitches work,

OpenGL extensions, so you’ll need

both

if

you want to compile

it

from

A binary distribution is also available, but your mileage may vary scratch.

here.

We found

it

worked

Ubuntu, but not Fedora

fine

on

13.

Disk utility

Dfeta Version

Web http://cade.datamax.bg/away/dfeta

1.0

F 1

Flit

felt

vici.

fcrniliul

Help

[evilnick@localhast -]$ dfeta sample /root/.gvfs /bin/df* Permission denied [/dev/sda3] data, 17 samples [/] data, 17 samples (tmpfs] data. 17 samples [/dev/shi*] data, 17 samples [/dev/sdal] data, 17 samples (/boot] data, 17 samples [evilnlck@localhost -]$ dfeta /bin/df; /root/.gvf s' Permission denied Device Mount point j Estimate full at /dev/sda3 Wed Jun 23 2010 / tmpfs /dev/shm [never] /dev/sdal /boot j never] [evllnlck@loealhost -]$ |

1

nr

-

'

:

B

eing able to see into the future

‘predict the date of

your own death'

would be quite handy. Apart

websites, but not as scary. Even

from clearing your gambling

you’re not an IT person responsible for

if

’

:

|

debts and predicting the scripts for

providing storage, this handy

Doctor Who, you'd know when the

is

optimum time to expand your RAID

empty the trash and

little

tool

a nice nagging aid to remind you to recycle

Full in

[

|

|

|

|

|

j

j

j

j

j

12 Hours, [n/a] [n/a]

21 minutes ago

|

more often.

array would be. This delightful tool can’t help

little

line

Get

at

Obviously, for this to work, you need to

command

you with the 11.30

Kempston, or whether that ginger girl

make

will

but is

it

can

it

to the Christmas special,

you when your hard

tell

going to be

change your before you

OK,

full.

but

life,

it

it

drive

might not

could be useful

embark on a major photo

it

sample you

right

regularly.

take, the

The more samples

more accurate

the ongoing averages.

decide to run stored data

it

is

file is

then

tells

you the specific date on

more room.

70

does a few sums and

will tell

It’s like

you there’s no

one of those

LXF135 September 2010

because

it’s

pretty fast

you don’t even know

happening. The best idea

does keep backups (which leads to

is

a

nice aid to remind you to empty the trash.” www.linuxformat.com

to install

it

is

appropriate on your

system) and execute a Cron job. Once a

day

“This handy tool

is

and

it's

your path (/usr/local/bin/ or

wherever

prophesising over

simple. Dfeta

fullness of your drive at

which your disk

painless,

in

it

regular intervals,

time). But

How often you

up to you, but the

some self-fulfilling

is

becomes,

pretty small, although

download every single Linux distro.

The concept

keeps an eye on how quickly you’re filling your does some maths and predicts when it’ll be full.

drive up,

since temporary blips are ironed out of

scanning exercise or decide to

samples the

it

> Dfeta

is

probably enough, but you

make

up your own mind as to how many data

files

you want

in

The only remaining conundrum

how to pronounce

it.

bitty

-/.dfeta. is

DeeEff EeeTeeAy?

Def-Eatah? Dee-Fetah?

Hmmm...

LXFHotPicks

DTP software

Scribus Version

W history.

one

e

Web www.scribus.net

1.3.7

first

featured Scribus as an

up-and-coming project back

it's

examples

of the very best

source office software. a year since

we

last

gone on

gave

(LXF124), and although

terms

of

it

in

a

full

of features,

review

lot

this

of

perennial problems with

problems with the operations,

reliability of

and various

little

bits

is still

>

As

well as great graphics handling, Scribus has a rendered

unmatched

quality of the results. Various

made to tweak

files,

and the tools

text fields,

tools

1.4),

last six

and more,

months making sure the PDF engine up

to scratch

meddlesome

directly into

One word

checkboxes and so on) are

one of the very best examples of open

the

“It’s

or seven is

external

such as Gnuplot, Latex and your documents.

of caution

-

you’re using

if

the stable version of Scribus

the developers have

spent most of the

Linux software. Also, the

Lilypond to render formulae, graphs

for

release (working towards the eventual release of

in

new text rendering boxes use

PDF output to generate version

1.5-compatible

a development

and more.

text tool for inserting formulae, music notation

generating interactive PDFs (buttons,

pieces that just didn’t work as they should. While this

If

still

be surprised by the power of the tools

the

and

available online

your needs are more modest, you'll

additions have been

undo

it's

www.linuxformat.cauk/archives.

and

There were massive

stability.

using only Scribus and other

open source tools at

development release series has

been

Pro power We created a four-page feature back in LXF96

work has been going on under the hood.

One of the

the features needed to

open

that time

an awful

all

into Linux

be impressed.

design professional publications.

many huge changes

there haven’t been in

to be

been nearly

It’s

you haven't delved before, you’ll likely

Scribus has

the mists of HotPicks

in

Since then,

If

DTP

Pick

file

new version It's

and sorting out those

(1.3.3.x),

format has changed and the is

no longer file-compatible.

probably easier to maintain two

versions of Scribus rather than ditch

source office software.”

bugs.

all

your old documents just

yet.

Virtualisation tool

VirtualBox Version 3.2.6

H

USB

such

take control of

as scanners, disc writers or whatever

machines.

the

18 months or so, to the point

in

where setting up a trivial.

alternative

has had a Originally

is

leaps

and bounds

virtual

machine

is

VirtualBox. This project

bit of

a complicated history.

developed by InnoTek,

it

peripherals,

you choose to attach.

in

The other open source

acquired by Sun, which has

was

now been

Great performance In

terms

a mature

of other features, VirtualBox is

and

featureful competitor for

KVM. The straightforward easy setup make if

it

interface

a doddle to use, and

you have enough system resources to

donate your guest OS,

it’s

hard to

the meantime, two versions of

than a

real one.

additions kernel modules, supplied for

source variant and the more familiar

running Linux guests,

open source one we’re talking about

set

The only differences

really are in

it

distros

and

OSE is great for messing around with new

for building loads of experimental software.

easy to

up a networking and graphical

environment for your virtual machine,

the graphics capability. The closed

source version uses proprietary code for RDP, while the

uses a standard display.

has

open source one

VNC server for the

The proprietary version also

USB

control, enabling the guest to

Clr«

tell

the software have emerged - a closed

here.

> VirtualBox

The extra guest

make

9®

0&

and

you’re using a virtual machine rather

sold to Oracle. In

“v'

fans of virt-manageranb the

KVM/QEmu virtual

*

U

ere at Linux Format, we’re big

come on

pretty

©

Web www.virtualbox.org

They've last

OSE

and the settings are so straightforward you’ll hardly

need to consult the

extensive documentation. Get an disc

to create a virtual machine.

There

isn’t

much

point in building

yourself unless you have

hard to tell you’re using a virtual machine rather than a real one.” “It’s

www.tuxradar.com

install

image ready and follow the wizard

are available for

and are kept

all

it

Packages

the major distros

ruthlessly

the time you read

to.

this,

up to date. By

you should be

able to fetch this without any trouble

using your package manager.

September 2010 LXF135

1

71

LXFHotPicks

HotGames Entertainment apps HotPicks

game

Settlers-like

Widelands Web http://launchpad.net/widelands

Version 15

game featured

his

T

HotPicks

in

some improvements in the interim. Last time we looked at the game was promising but had a few too many show-stopping bugs. This it,

time,

a

it’s

lot

more

in

isn’t

point

game - the tutorial campaign

is

prefer the slower pace

intense

micro-management

type of games, but fast

and what order you should construct

type of game.

If

pretty

II,

good idea

you should have a

your

based on Settlers and anyone who’s titles should feel right at home.

of these

you’re looking for

fantastic

enough

if

buildings of

game to

play both

of the bit of

menus could

work,

it’s

look

and fun to

at,

single-player

in

a networked

some

mode or as

game

Widelands has also moved to a

new home at Launchpad. This makes

a

a

bit

and

easier for developers

users alike to get hold of the latest

“Eventually, you’ll be able to create the pinnacle of civilisation.”

workers scurry around

build

is

played one of the classic

it

on. Build

trying to deliver things. Eventually,

you

and

> Widelands

action, this isn’t that

probably do with a

make pathways, then watch

little

if

like

already, since that’s

what the game’s based things,

and furious

Although

you’ve ever played the old

classic Settlers

the

Some

gamers

basics of the different building types

in.

as

to, fuels

a very involved game, rather

merely there to help you learn the

them

are, but,

those old versions of Settlers.

in

delving into the background plot of

the

you

war machine to greater glory.

It’s still

much

too

logistics expert

Napoleon once alluded

Nice and steady

the

graphics and sound.

There

ham

sandwich. This not only shows what a

and has

playable,

some great improvements

be able to create

different types, you'll

the pinnacle of civilisation - a

been

before, but there have

builds.

There are also binaries

available for

most

of the builds,

though these aren’t guaranteed to

work on

Linux distributions.

all

Flight simulator

SMI

SDL Sopwith Web http://sdl-sopwith.sourceforge.net

Version 17.3

mr

i

T

his

may

not exactly be a

flight

magenta with cyan not be tolerated

simulator, but a trip into a

in

piping,

a lawful, clean and

when men were men and flew wood and

good

canvas machines through the

Flying school

simpler, kinder time

soaring with the eagles, and

air,

now and

In

the

who should

universe.

2D

miBw^

realm of Sopwith, the most

down

again pausing to drop explosives on

important key to

remember

anything that upset them.

arrow, which

your plane so you can

Sopwith

is

a re-invention of an

fly right

early classic. Think Microsoft Flight

Simulator, but with

and without any dials

and

guns and bombs,

of those tedious

controls, or

Or many graphics

at

Sopwith, everything

3D graphics. comprised

and

cyan with magenta piping, and

must combat the hideous and

72 1

LXF135 September 2010

Chocks away! Now, where’s the the bomb-release

on the

switch again?

colourful dust as you’re shot

>

trial

player

stall.

You have an

supply of weaponry, and no Pull

back

evil

stick,

experience the surge of

acceleration, then explode into

you don’t want to

If

you

by

find the

you can play the

fire,

“Think Microsoft Flight Simulator, but with

that’ll

ineptitude.

guns and bombs.” www.linuxformat.com

controls to

On

fire

single-

harm you

later levels,

missiles

and dodge return life

down.

bit like

mode where, on the first

the only thing

own

combat a

need complete mastery

of

magenta. The player takes on the role of

without being upside

one’s expecting you to land.

blocks of garish colour taken from a palette of black, white, cyan

left

the

down. As with any plane, the steeper the angle of climb, the slower it’ll go -

infinite

all really. In

is

to

rolls

is

your

you

of the

and bombs

fire. In

WWII, the

expectancy of an RAF

around 87

level,

is

pilot

was

flying hours. In Sopwith,

87 seconds

is

good

going.

LXFHotPicks

File synchroniser

Also released

Pybag

New and updated software that also deserves a look... ED

Version

0.3.1

Web http://pybag.sourceforge.net

Worker 2.178

A twin-panel file manager, now with more accurate volume statistics. www.boomerangsworld.de/worker

Y it's

the

ou

may well think this is some

transport his lunch, but

there. You’ll get a

on computer

form

in fact,

B,

and

on some

USB stick, SD card or MP3 How do you manage to have the

latest files available to are,

files

of

player.

you wherever you

without getting into a massive and

possibly devastating tangle with which file

to

copy where

One

to copy the actual pybag.py file to the

removable media

more cunning than that. You know drill - you have files on computer A,

files

is

mechanism Mike uses to

your data on a secret RAID array

Pybag. This

satellite.

little

deprive you of

in

utility

Now from the

menu,

File

choose Add Root to add the directory on the

local

machine you wish to sync.

Next, de-select Emulation

Mode and

choose Synchronise from the menu to copy the

files

to your ‘bag’ directory.

A comprehensive filter section and of trouble, but

should keep

you may need to

to get the

most out

of

> It’s possibly little

a

confusing,

but Pybags a useful

still

little

Python app.

02.0 mouse clicks for those

ED Clickity

Simulate

with limited hand use.

http://sourceforge.net/apps/ mediawiki/clickity ED

since the

Cdrtools 3.0

A major update to

interface can look confusing to begin with.

trees, in a tree-

won't

managing the synchronisations for you. There are loads of options here -

maybe a few too many,

notes about based jotter.

> Jot

it.

which by

file is

note-taker.

http://bhepple.freeshell.org/gjots

remove the

will

confusion over which

A simple tree-based

study the documentation thoroughly

a

Or you could use

Python

0 Gjots 2.3

from

the location, which you

initialising

should do.

you out

all

it

much space on your

and

target drives

and run

conflict resolution options

first?

solution might be to store

geostationary

first

message about

Linux disc burning,

including dual-layer

The important thing to remember

DVD and

Blu-ray.

http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/

cdrecord.html

Disk cleaner

ED

Untangle 7.31

Turn a Linux box into a network

gateway with pluggable modules. www.untangle.com

BleachBit Version 0.8.0 Web http://bleachbit.sourceforge.net

B

leach

kills

99.9%

of

improved and now supports a

known

We often wonder unknown ones. We

more Chrome

lot

germs. Dead.

specific applications, including

about the

(and Chromium), OpenOffice.org,

wonder while we're going through our

Skype, Pidgin and a host of other tools.

home folders trying to find files to delete to save space. We wonder while

there’s always a nagging

we're cleaning browser cookies too.

might be wiping something important.

New 2- in-1

BleachBit roots through

your filesystem and destroys it

to) anything that’s

around past

its

(if

you ask

and a

lot

of

those helpful but sometimes dangerous cookies, saved passwords

and the

as easy to use as ever, though

doubt that you

like.

get your networking mess, get Untangle to help.

> Don’t

files

about to be deleted, but that sort of

quick and easy. trial

run and

A good

idea

it

is

ED

being to

own, but

do a

make sure the filters only want them to. 533

in

protecting your accounts,

it

all

can also

days

of

in

the rubbish

that’s built up.

files.

The best open source network www.wi reshark.org Arista 0.93 A simple-to-use transcoder

sniffer.

ED

utility.

www.transcoder.org ED

Mission

An

We’ve featured BleachBit in HotPicks before, way back

some

space by wiping

save a surprising amount of disk space.

foolishly optimistic

Reclaim

valuable disk

one swoop - aside from

022

EDWireshark L4.0rd

>

mode or a cleaner of their much easier to clear

everything

a

www.rcO.org.uk/mairix

pick up the stuff you

it's

Mairix

Index and search mailbox

Most browsers now include some sort of privacy

in

You can, of course, check through the

undermines the point about

been hanging

sell-by date,

It’s

X LO

excellent sideways-scrolling

shoot- 'em-up game.

the

http://missionx.sourceforge.net http:,

LXF117.

Since then, the software’s been

www.tuxradar.com

September 2010 LXF135 73 1

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Linux Format today!

Tutorials Turn on, log

and

in

let

our experts help

MIKE SAUNDERS wears shades while browsing the web for added coolness... even at night!

9|

make you a smarter Linux user

This month learn how to...

Which browser? ’m going to say something that

I I’ve

may result love

used

that

it

a few grumbles:

in

and loved

Firefox,

was Phoenix, and

4 with

(ugh) Netscape

Motif chunkiness. But gets

it

I

Google Chrome. For years

right in

the

all

it.

Before

Mozilla,

all

of

its

and

lovely ..

With gestures, the rodent you hold

areas that

much more Andy Channelle also

every day can be so

matter.

It

strives to provide a large,

productive.

spacious view of the web, keeping

explores the Shotwell photo manager.

panels and controls to a minimum. points out insecure

dodgy

and

web

Not checking

off

your to-do

..

Gnome 3.0 is coming! Try out the

list?

Grand plans never being realised? Bob Moss knows how you feel, and

swish

shows you the

lain

new desktop

interface

and get a

glimpse of the future with the help of

solution with Planner.

Gray and the mighty

apt-get.

It

potentially

sites without trampling

over your

80 Get the new Gnome 84

Make mice do more 76 Plan your projects

Chrome just

little

all

experience.

Zzzzzooooommmm! But above

fast.

all, it’s

scorch ingly

fast.

I

still

Screamingly, can’t believe

how quickly it loads (cold start) on myXubuntu box. JavaScript performance

is

superb

too.

Still,

Test speed ...86

Script pics....88

Master Bash...92

how fast really is your Linux box? Bob Moss

Editing pictures at the

If

command

introduces Bonnie++ and

Shashank Sharma gone

on the way to writing

Phoronix Test Suite, two

completely insane? No,

scripts.

4 is coming round the corner and may give Chrome a run for its

Just

money -

Firefox

I

really

Firefox team

hope

it

If

the

can adopt some of the

interface features

match

so.

in

CPU-stressing,

Gnome and

memory

maxing benchmarkers.

with equally zippy speed,

because

line

it’s

- has

command

Cluttered, unorganised

mailboxes are

you’re well

line,

than you might think...

terrified

by

the raw power of Procmail.

Shashank Sharma shows

Nick Veitch

shows you how to check for files and directories.

more useful

Move mail ....96

you’re a dab hand at the

you how to harness

it

make

easier.

life

457 times

and

I

may well be tempted back into the

Tip of the month:

land of the fox. Failing that, there’s

On the disk

always Links, or Telnet to port 80.

[email protected]

Labelling disks used to be

common

Of course, that involved a floppy

practice.

memory devices

use,

you can give the

filesystem a label, for example

disk, a

some smudged was often associated with exchanging Amiga game copies at school. Nowadays we use anonymous USB sticks and

Then the card will be mounted at /media/ Music, making it instantly clear what is on it. Cameras sometimes apply a label when they

memory cards that give no clue as to their

format a card, but

Give your Linux skills a boost with our command

when you plug one it’s usually mounted somewhere like /media/ disk, which isn’t very helpful when you want to know what’s on there. This is because the kernel doesn’t know

one, which

line special.

what the disk

On sale now!

possible to give a label to a filesystem.

crookedly stuck-on label and

Expand your Linux knowledge raeMs

fixes

felt-tip

hacks advjcc

EVOWIHMGmiMEDTa.,

pen, and

contents. Even

is

it,

called. Thankfully

though,

formatting a FAT filesystem, which most

www.tuxradar.com

it

is

When

mkfs.vfat -n Music /dev/sdbl

cards.

As

it

isn’t is

card format

it

best to

it,

is

the

same

too helpful let

if

label for

each

you have multiple

the device using the

the above method won’t work,

but you can apply a label to an existing filesystem with dosfslabel /dev/sdbl photosl If

you run the

but no

label,

command with a device name

it

will

show you the

existing label.

September 2010 LXF135 75 1

Steps Beginner-level tutorials for users dipping their toes into Linux First

Mouse: Expand much more than just point, click and scroll. Andy Channelle reveals some of the other nifty things you can do with your desktop friend. Mice can do

>

Change the settings

for your

mouse

if

you have problems

double-clicking at the default speed.

monitor and the mouse seems sluggish. Use the up/down

arrows to change the speed, with the larger number meaning

have to move the mouse less to have a more

you'll

exaggerated

The

effect. Hit

Apply to make the change.

Point Threshold value defines

how far the active area

extends around the pointer. Increasing this

T

he mouse was revolutionary, but

familiarity with

it

has

some of its magical properties. We’re make you marvel at the things you can do with your mouse in KDE. Most of what we’ll be doing here is accessed through the KDE System Setting dialogs, which you taken away

desktop

going to

your

get to by opening the KPanel and choosing

Our

System

expert

Administration and then Keyboard

Mouse

Andy Andy seems to his first steps in

Under the General

tab, click

Computer

if

here,

open

and reversing the

your mouse wheel. of the

decent selection of new cursor themes at www.kde-look.org

When you find one you New Theme button to

under the Xll Mouse Themes section.

select the

downloaded

appear

in

the

list

archive.

The new theme

and can be selected

Now click the Advanced tab. dialog,

so

you’ll

Begin by speeding up the desktop. This can be handy

if

(or

themes)

the normal way.

figures, but in

is

it’s

you’re

and make the mouse here, the longer

at the

clicks are

bottom

quicker. Higher

is

you

seen as a double-click.

useful to scroll

numbers mean

documents or

faster scrolling.

Keyboard substitute It’s

also possible to

long strings of text, but

KDE icon

entry

in

Kvkbd

and,

it

can be useful

in

to

some

in

entering

some situations.

the search bar at the top of the

or virtual keyboard. You'll get a single

the panel. Select this to start the virtual keyboard.

Depending on how your desktop keyboard desktop

in,

isn’t ideal for

will

or,

latter, click

is

configured, the

appear either on the bottom-right of the

if it's

minimised,

in

the System Tray.

If it’s

the

the icon to bring up the main keyboard. You can

move this around by clicking and dragging anywhere on

simple

interface that isn't a key. You

are at the top.

you're using a very large

in

make the mouse stand

a non-visual

mouse movement across your

month We saved files

76 LXF135 September 2010

in

Unusually, this

need to work with

enough. The three things we’re interested

1

The option

panel, type

will

double-click speed

may find that two single

Click the

Install

if

you’re not very dexterous with

degree, for the keyboard. Note that this

pointers. To choose one, select it from the list and hit The change should happen immediately. You'll find a

and use the

useful

have to double-click. Increase this too much, though, and you

Apply.

it

is

objects on the

manage. The higher the number

system

download

if

makes

the Double-Click Interval value can be used

down the

easier to

in

like,

it

such as switching the

you're a left-hander, choosing whether to

Under Cursor Theme, you can change the look

technology since the advent of the Dragon 32.

Last

feel bigger. Similarly,

web pages

in

mouser because

click finger,

to slow

& Mouse, then select

folders with a single- or double-click,

and has

Computer >

the left-hand pane.

scrolling direction of

free software

been interested

in

buttons

have been taking

forever,

Settings.

There are basic options

Channelle

not a precise

dragging the red section

can be entered and then

the cloud and set up www.linuxformat.com

in

To use, simply click the

the

can also resize the keyboard by

the lower-right of the interface.

mouse

click the

into

some space where text

keys to type. The keyboard

KDE keyboard

shortcuts.

First Steps Tutorial

horizons

its

remain above every other window, meaning

will

available.

The

always

it's

icon below the Minimise button (the red cross

at the top-right) features a small

spanner icon and

will

open

up a configuration menu that enables you to dock the keyboard to the lower edge of the window, lock

change the font on the keys or below this

will

reveal the

it

position,

in

The

quit the application.

icon

numeric keypad.

Mouse Gestures You can also assume some keyboard

system

called

Mouse

for instance, the

commands

using a

Gestures. This enables you to control,

Back and Forward buttons on the Konqueror

web browser without needing to let go of your mouse. This system might be somewhat confusing you didn’t know it was on, so the KDE developers have sensibly left it switched if

by

off

Use mouse gestures to define new ways of controlling your computer’s web browser. >

default.

To enable

Mouse

Settings and, under

Gestures, go back to the main System

Computer Administration,

appears.

select the

defined, covering things such as taking a screen grab

press Print Screen.

Some gestures will

they won’t be enabled

initially.

if

Remember that simple gestures are most

because something complicated

Input Actions icon. There are a few input actions already

be

will

Finally, there's

KDE’s useful Hot Corners feature, which

enables you to launch

Begin by clicking the Gestures

commands simply

mouse at one corner of the screen. This

the Input Actions window by clicking the Settings button near

screensaver, but

the bottom of the window.

careful

Once you’ve selected Gestures, press Apply before moving to the actual gesture definitions,

will

be ignored otherwise.

disclosure icon. Select

gesture associated with

it.

of the actions in the

left

mouse

one

point

In

most cases, you

start at the lightest

and then move to the darkest

Finally,

you can

the Trigger tab and drawing a

by selecting the

new gesture

in

Edit

Now from the

choose the Screen Edges

icon. In

and a sen/ice menu

If

will

appear with a

Show Desktop

you have Compiz working, there

will

or Present

be

some

green

edit the action itself by selecting the Action

edit the gesture

of options,

options from there too. Es3

blue.

tab and defining the keyboard shortcut the gesture relates

You can also

list

of these buttons

Windows.

you

look under the Trigger tab, there’s a visual representation of

the motion.

To access this feature, go back to the System Settings

range of options available, such as if

most

small radio buttons on each corner and edge. Click on any

button, sliding

but

useful for starting a

you're not the

if

the centre of the window, you’ll see an image of a screen with

to see the

mouse to the left and releasing. You’ll see the move written in the Comment tab,

can be annoying

by resting the

is

mouse user in the world.

subsequent

For instance, the Konqueror back

button can be called by clicking the the

list

it

screen and select the Desktop entry.

because your changes

Now click the Konqueror Gestures

one

useful,

remember

and to perform.

you

already be defined, but

button. Note that you can get back to this screen from within

on

difficult to

button

Trackpads

to.

in

the box that

If

you’re working on a laptop, you’ll see

a Touchpad section.

options

will

computer, but In

The

available

vary depending on your we’ll

look at the basics.

the General tab, you’ll see an

option to enable or disable the trackpad, information and a slider to set touch sensitivity. In

the Scrolling section, you

may find

options to enable multi-touch scrolling,

> Trackpads are configurable too.

horizontal scrolling, coasting (kinetic) scrolling

The virtual keyboard is pretty good for kiosk-type computers, where a real one might not be suitable.

>

If

you missed

last issue Call

and

can also define multi-touch gestures,

sliders to define the

sensitivity of the tool.

location-based taps (such as tapping

Under Tapping options, you can switch off tapping altogether, which

the top-right corner to simulate a

quite useful

if

is

you’re heavy-handed. You

0870 837 4773 www.tuxradar.com

or

right-

and set the double-click time, as you would with a mouse. click)

+44 1858 438795. September 2010 LXF13 5

|

77

Tutorial First Steps

Shotwell: Photo Need help organising your summer snaps? Then Shotwell could be for you.

T

he time of year has

come again when the

days, beaches, festivals

and a ton

events. Getting a handle on this

brilliant picture is it

of other photogenic

mass of digital data

as important as taking good shots

know

light is at its

best and fingers hover over shutter buttons at sports

the

in

first

place,

only as good as a rubbish one

if

is

almost

because a

you don't

exists.

In this tutorial,

we're going to

and play with

install

new kid on the photo management block that seems likely to replace F-Spot in many Gnome-based distros Shotwell, the

over the coming year. We’ll look at organisation through events, favourites

and tags and then walk through the

process of making your pictures look great and ready for

exposure to the whole world - or just your family. Fedora and Ubuntu users can

install

their respective

package managers, but

this instance to

open up a terminal and

For Fedora 12

and

13,

you can type

distro (10.04/Lucid Lynx)

get

can

install

it's

actually simpler

install

pkcon

in

Ubuntu users working with the

while

the software through in

install shotwell,

by typing sudo apt-

install in

Karmic,

with the following

you'll

command:

with

sudo apt-get

because the which

RPM

is

be prompted to add some content

> Import and navigating to a files into

folder

full

of images,

the main Shotwell window

camera and importing directly from there. Once you’ve imported images, you’ll see two new entries

in

install

on OpenSUSE

is

finally

macro

level.

your images as a giant

is

where you manage your

Select the top entry to see

gallery,

all

organised with the most

recent images at the top.

shotwell

slightly

the left-hand pane, which

library at the

then update with sudo apt-get update, and then

Installing

File

dragging and dropping

have to add a new repository

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yorba/ppa

install

run, you’ll

to your library. This can be accomplished by either going to

or connecting a

install shotwell.

To

On the first

through that.

it

latest version of the it

> If you have an image that you don’t want to see but don’t want to remove, use Hide to take it out of the library.

more problematic

distribution doesn't have a

package

a Shotwell dependency. However, there

for libgee, is

a Shotwell

package available through http://software.opensuse.

oig. After this installs, you'll then have to

install

libgee from

Information station In this

mode, you can double-click an image to see a

version of gallery.

it,

and then double-click again

to get

big

back to the

At the base of the navigation pane you'll see

some

source: http://download.gnomex>ig/sources/

information culled from the Exit part of your photograph,

libgee/0.5/libgee-0.5.0.tar.bz2

which

In all of

the above cases,

you’ll

have a new entry under the

Graphics section of your applications panel once you’ve

give you details such as the date

will

resolution

and geographical

was taken,

its

location of the shot.

The second entry

finished installing.

it

and sometimes information about the exposure

in

the navigation pane

will

say Events.

Select this option to see your collection of images divided into Events,

based on the day they were taken. Double-click

an event to see the images within. You can also see events tree view

the

if

you want by

in

a

clicking the disclosure icon (+) next to

label.

Events can be organised from the main screen. For instance,

you

may have a

batch of holiday photos that are

from the same vacation but have been divided Events because you took together, select the >

first

subsequent events.

Use the Events

and choose Merge

section to

event, then hold Shift

Now

into various

different days. To join

right-click

and

click

any of the selected events

into

an event you'll

find a small

your images by

Slideshow button at the base of the screen. Select

date or event.

a full-screen slideshow of the images

in

this to

www.linuxformat.com

see

that section.

Never miss another issue Subscribe to the #1 source for Linux on page 78 LXF135 September 2010

them any

Event(s).

Whenever you go

navigate through

them on

66.

First Steps Tutorial

management Step by step: Editing and uploading a library With the

favourite photo-sharing

site,

D Find your image

Tag your pictures

Use the Events or Photos option to see your collection. Select a single image by clicking on it with the left mouse button; select a continuous range by clicking the first and then

make many noncontinuous selections using Ctrl+click. You can deselect the whole lot or individual pictures by Shift+clicking the last; or

re-clicking

on them

in

the

same way.

D Crop an image Cropping

is

some

you do it right. Select Crop from the Tools menu and begin to move one edge or corner of the crop box. The grid that appears corresponds to the ‘rule of thirds’, which is a useful compositional tool. You can also constrain the crop aspect ratio by selecting of the presets

While Events are cool,

it's

sometimes better

Tags to organise groups of pictures. With your selections made, right-click one of the images and choose Add Tags. Categorise your pictures by typing in descriptive tags separated by commas. When you hit OK, you’ll see the text added to the image and the tags appear in the navigation pane. to create

IH Export to file

an art and Shot well gives you

tools to help

one

crop and even upload images to your Shotwell is a one-stop shop for snappers.

ability to tag, categorise, edit,

from the drop-down

list

at

With a collection of images selected, go into File > Export to open the export dialog. Here

you can define the quality of the JPEG output (the higher the quality, the bigger the files)

and choose to have the images resampled to a different size. Hit OK and then define the location for the export. Click Save to save new copies of the images.

El Edit

the image

Double-click an image to preview and edit

it

in

mode. At the base of the window are five tools that enable you to make simple edits on the image. To fix problems with exposure or white balance, select the Adjust option and full-screen

then use the various sliders to edit the image. You can undo changes made here and even use

Photo > Revert to go

right

back to the

original.

D Publish to the web It’s also possible to upload images to Flickr, Facebook or Picasa from within Shotwell. Select the images you want to upload, then choose File > Publish and choose the service to upload to from the drop-down menu. You’ll be prompted to sign in or create an account before the images are resized (if this is necessary) and uploaded to your space. 233

the bottom of the window.

Next month

Build a

database with Kexi and sync your data with an Android. www.tuxradar.com

September 2010 LXF13 5

|

79

Project management Take the stress out of your big jobs with free software

Work

Projects:

Bob Moss show you how to manage your projects using free tools on the web and the Linux desktop. Snowed under with work? Then

let

20th-century music, but the techniques used here could be applied to anything you plan to create.

The first tool utility

available

you run

it

we'll

in all

window

you

me some tasks

When you first

run Tasque you

will

be glad to hear that

be asked where you wish

will

to sync your tasks. Users of the Milk

if

remain available so you can

will

it

when your tasks are complete!

Track

will

called Tasque, a lightweight

is

you should notice a tray icon appear. Even

close Tasque s main tick off

encounter

mainstream package managers. When

web service Remember The

this

supported by Tasque, but

is

new

only be able to edit existing tasks rather than add

ones due to

restrictions

imposed by the

service. However, the

application also supports Evolution, so any tasks created either

in

package can be managed by both applications, or you

can allow TasqueXo keep selecting ‘Local

File’

own

its

local

copy

of things

by

from the drop-down menu.

Adding a task could not be simpler. You can

left-click

on

the tray icon to open up the Tasque window, type ‘Send Report' into the top-right then click on Add.

you wish to add

If

a deadline for your task, simply left-click to the right of the

given task and select the date from the drop-down that

A

ny large project (and

many small ones) can be

daunting from the outset.

All

completed. However, you

Our expert

organised,

has created

Many of the problems

Tasks

be glad to know that the world

inherent

in

you can minimise (or

Whether you're

in

Our next tool

the right tools

studying for his computer science

write a student essay, working out the order

degree course.

need to be done and when can help you achieve your goals a reasonable time frame

example

will

and

which things

perfectly within budget.

a local copy of your project

like

Our

you get them. Simply

New

before clicking on ‘Retrieve

which you can then drop down a

When you

create a

left-click

specific

in

boxes to save content

offline,

or

Evolution, select ‘Google’

option. To in

from the drop-

instead of the usual default list all

the available calendars

your Gmail account, ensure you have

typed

in

your full Google account user

80 LXF135 September 2010 1

distributions

and are

Edit

and when

on the icon and select Create In

Search

file

the top-right you can

He

i

All

for

Motes

d

v

Search:

I'

clear.

|

case scnsitri*

1

Note

Last

Changed a

List’.

list

Send Report

si

tetendiy. I3:SS

of

[ lift

make

gjKit

from now on

1^ Search

V Uric

sa**

& s

From now on

Send Report

down

identical

notebook you have created

your calendars. You can then check the

new calendar

has been completed.

the background. These two

Note, then type into the note.

move your note to a

be prompted for a password, after

Google Calendar and sync Evolution for use offline.

in

Ubuntu and Fedora, are almost

a name

it

Gnome tray for mainstream

1

You’ll

to

show

Gnote, which can be best described as

|v

enough, you can keep an online copy on it

is

like

Simply check

invaluable for keeping snippets of information as in

be a project plan to produce a report about

isn’t

be separated under headings

Tomboy without Mono running

A date on the net If

will

are already on the

garden shed or need to in

change colour as the deadline slowly

the box next to a given task to

even eradicate) them.

plotting to build a

will

approaches and

project planning are

rare cases

we think we can create a more realistic

'Overdue', ‘Today’, ‘Tomorrow’ ‘Next 7 days’, etc.

its

inevitable, but with effective organisation using

time

between coding things and

product

own solutions to keep and you too can use them for your own projects.

of free software

Bob Moss

will

final

if

report from our investigation this quickly, or a

date could be a week or two.

wrong, whether going over-budget, taking longer

than expected or simply never getting the

splits his

emerges. This could be today

kinds of things could go

the selected calendar the default, then click

on

OK to apply your changes. You

can follow similar steps to import your Google contacts

«n

ftmveeibfr to gr«t Burt «iffi 0 arm? rn)m J!0W Ch. Ask Hike with this irweatinMion because it’s haul on my

to (itjw slay DMlj

The cnirnterits from Butt gathersch has been a reaily

moment

at

into Evolution in the

‘Contacts’ section of the mail client.

www.linuxformat.com

mage

ms Hint Any aay ‘now tfrs could really alfecc me

investigation

> If you love to take notes with Tomboy but hate the thought of using Mono, Gnote is your new best friend.

Project

management Tutorial

smarter V

Tbsque

All (3)

[New

TJ

|

_

D

v

Add

task... ]

Today 2

Interview Burt Backerach

6/15 -Today [

Tomorrow -

Team-building exercises

Next 7 Days •

6/16

-

Tomorrow

6/17

-

Thu

6/18

•

Fri

6/19 -Sat

Assess wtetter further action must be taken

6/20

-

Sun

6/21

-

Mon

6/22

-

in 1

week

No Date Choose Dat

> To organise a quick and easy to-do list you could do a worse than use the lightweight and intuitive Tasque.

Evolutions calendar installed >

Where previously addresses were needed.

made

it

Evolution has

on

left.

Then

Calendar.

feature

killer

is

that you can highlight text

and

click

is

useful

click

real

click If

in this

regard as

click

on Calendar

is

in

on the left-pane and select Create

this doesn’t

work with your

already use.

the bottom-

New

particular distribution

on the arrow next to New Event on the

far-left of

toolbar above the left-hand pane and create a

on Link to

it

mainstream distributions and ready to

Simply launch Evolution and

extremely simple to import Google calendars.

your project (which you do with the same menu). Gnote’s

all

lot

the

new calendar

be named Investigation’ and contain a

create a

new note with that text as the heading. All text that is same as the heading within the same notebook will link to that note. This means that your snippets of information

from

the

task such as ‘Interview Burt Bacharach’ to continue the

“Failing to plan

musical theme. Create a task by simply right-clicking on the

planning to

associate with each other, so you no longer have to trawl your

relevant date

hard drive looking for quick notes you

be useful with our music

made

in Gedit.

investigation, as notes

during interviews and research on the

This

here. This could

its

start

and end date

and any further details you wish to add.

can be taken

web that can later be we could link some

There

you

are,

however, downsides to this very easy approach.

one task so that

than expected, the

collated together for our final report, so

If

speech from an interviewee's views to the facts behind them.

other tasks do not adjust accordingly to allow extra time,

and write-ups

will

it

lasts longer

it

of a project

is

timing,

because we

need to work out when particular tasks such as research, interviews

alter

meaning you have to move each task individually by that same increase in duration. Also, is hard to track costs and who is doing what (if your project is collaborative). For this reason, a true project management tool is required, and this

Right on schedule Another important aspect

Heed these words!

and selecting ‘Create Appointment'. Here you

can set the title of the appointment,

will

is

fail”.

be started and completed

by.

»

covered overleaf.

is

Communication is key An

emerges with how team members communicate with each other. The usual method is to use email as you can send the same message to multiple recipients and target them at specific project members. However, with this approach there is no guarantee that issue that inevitably

collaborative projects

someone email

in

One instant

If

is

is

going to respond to their

a timely manner, or at

all.

Empathy, as you tend to get quick

the real thing and you can explain

responses and things can be discussed

decisions you

in real

has to be taken with

can be very

this

approach, as

difficult to sift

conversations to find

it

through group

who made what

decisions and why.

finally,

you could

use Google Wave for discussion and variety of

ways

to

communicate with

other people collaborating with you on a

Ekiga to keep

They each come with their pros it’s up to you to decide which approach best suits your project.

in

contact with individuals

messaging

minutes of these meetings as you would

you missed

require that everyone involved has a

good broadband. And

conferencing software such as Skype or or hold group meetings. You can keep

such as

people

collaboration. In short, there are a

You could also use VoIP or video

solution could be to use an client

made to the

involved directly, though this does

time. Unfortunately, great care

last issue Call

project.

and cons, and

0870 837 4773 www.tuxradar.com

or

+44 1858 438795. September 2010 LXF135

|81

management

Tutorial Project

Work

Planner:

management with

Start your engines for in-depth project

P

roject

management tools

will

find that tools

such

When you three panes

combination, these tools can provide a very powerful solution.

options,

Windows users

still

be familiar with Microsoft Project for

will likely

and thankfully the Linux-based solutions

provide an interface.

If

you haven't

tried

The tool we

made

will

cover

is

called Planner,

which

is

installed in

it easy to import Google

Fedora by default under the guise of Project Manager’

Calendars.

Applications > Office. Users of other mainstream distributions

in

this

month's coverdisc.

launch Planner for the

first

the main window. The

in

time you should find

far-left

pane

offers four

named ‘Gantt’, ‘Task’, ‘Resources' and ‘Resource

Usage’ (Gantt

open by default). The middle pane

is

is

where

tasks can be added, edited, removed and subdivided.

any such package

before then you are reading the right tutorial!

has

package manager or on

come in handy for notetaking and tracking your own workload. This means that, in as Gnote and Tasque will

this kind of thing,

> Evolution

should find Planner in their usual distribution repositories and

provide you with a huge

degree of flexibility, though you

Planner.

Finally,

the right-hand pane

is

a pictorial representation of

how long those tasks will take and when they will be executed, to give you an idea of how long the project is likely to take. This

is

a Gantt chart, and uses coloured bars along a timeline

how tasks interact, how long they will take and when they will be executed in a way that makes much more

to denote

sense than reading the middle pane alone.

Make work To create your

task, right-click the middle

first

pane and

select ‘Insert Task’.

Now double-click on the blank name field

and name

Planning Stages’ You

of this,

left

it

‘Initial

and

this

will

important because

is

notice a 1’ to the

is

it

the unique

identifier for that particular task.

Now double-click default,

and

under ‘Work’. Here you

will

means that one day has been

this

that task. You can change this to

one working week

‘lh’

for

one

see

‘Id’

by

allocated to

hour, or ‘lw’ for

(or five days).

Now create a new task named ‘Interview stage’. You will notice the identifier

your first task. but the

if

It

is

is

labelled

‘2’,

but

it

appears underneath

possible to do two tasks at the

same time,

you want the second task to only be completed after

first

then you need to

‘Edit Task’.

then choose your ‘OK’ to confirm,

first

former and select click

on

and

‘Add’

task from the options available. Click

and you should notice that your second task

has shifted to the linking the

right-click the

Under the ‘Predecessors’ tab

right.

Also there should

two tasks together to

reflect

now be an arrow

your changes.

You have just created a task dependency, because task

must now be completed before task 2 can proceed.

Head in the clouds

decide to change the duration of your

second The

have an application on the

ability to

desktop syncing to the cloud in

many areas, If

useful

in

an

on the move then you

apps and data.

However, there

is

you have been

popular,

Google Calendar

in

the world on

bypass these

client applications

theory,

you could even

and

manage your whole project using online tools, but then you come across the

82 LXF135 September 2010 i

> For

when only a dedicated

later.

With your

first

most

These provide you with very

similar

functionality to the offline equivalents,

resources to tasks or allocate

In

tasks into smaller sub-tasks to

micro-manage resources

and management.

but you

a browser anywhere

task then the

for scheduling

for task

syncing most of your data to the cloud,

in

split large

easily

first

length of time.

and within these you have

you can simply use the existing services

any machine.

you can

more

same

services stack up

of online applications are the

Google Tasks

another way.

fact that

how do cloud

Finally,

forward by the

will

miss the

ability to allocate

responsibility to particular people. will

also be unable to ensure that

task follows another

in

You

one

a logical fashion

as you would with a dedicated project

management app such as

project

management

Planner.

www.linuxformat.com

1

you

against our client apps? Google’s suite

is

have no access to your lovingly crafted

Thanks to the

internet connection.

So,

you use a machine

office or a laptop

client

usual caveat that you need a constant

but the main

disadvantage to such a setup portability.

is

will shift

If

application will do, Planner is a totally capable solution.

management Tutorial

Project

through a task You can create and allocate resources, and micromanagers will love the ability to link alternative calendars.

>

>

Name this task

task right-click and select ‘Create Sub-Task'. ‘Consultation’

and leave

it

allocated with Id'. You

that the main task’s time total

time of

all

will

depend on each

other.

sub-task being complete.

If

all is

typing

can simply

in

the duration

click

in this

and

is

well

then the task as a

way

dependent on the

you are completing a personal

liking,

you

and drag the right-hand edge of each task

in

the right-hand pane to alter the size and therefore the length of time

you expect a given task to take to complete.

now define tasks such as ‘Research’ and subsections

like

‘Burt Bacharach’ ‘Rock

We can

split this into

and

Roll’

used by checking the total cost

etc

smaller

in

order

it.

project, but

This

will

be

‘O'

may be more

if

in

some situations where you need to buy materials or pay for work to be done.

Once you have completed

not to your

is

is

it.

task to reflect the costs associated with

whole should now have a duration of three days. If

how each resource

that’s associated with

next to the resources you have chosen to allocate to a given

total

they each

You could now create another sub-task

that’s called ‘Allocate Work’ lasts ‘2d’ first

if

a simple job to review

notice

will

be the same as the

the sub-tasks you create combined

It’s

and each task

you can monitor when

this,

resources are being used over the course of the project by

Usage from the left-hand pane, and you

selecting Resource

can see a breakdown of which tasks are allocated to which resources and for

how much by clicking on Tasks. You can

also edit the status of each task from the Gantt Chart or Task

windows

how much

to view

progress has been

made towards

If

Planner doesn’t

take your fancy,

why not try out to complete our musical report project.

completing the objective as a percentage.

Chandler? You find

Manage resources A resource

is

anything that

complete your project,

is

Collaboration

available to

on. Anything

allocating to a given task that incurs

some

called a resource. To create one, click in

helpful to

people working on your

project. This includes

computers used and so

you and

you are

You’ll

on the Resources option

resource

Now

is

called

and assign a

return to your Gantt chart, right-click on a task all

in

and

the boxes

org or on

this

month’s coverdisc.

come into their own because make up for with their

features they

By far and away the best tool

time.

It

for collaborating

on projects

Google Wave, because

is

threads up and discuss individual points

ability to split

cost.

then on Assign Resources. You can then check

lack

and sharing content however

what that

about

collaboration and sharing features.

the left-hand pane, right-click on the middle-pane and

select Insert Resource. You can then define

all

simply replacing desktop applications. Google Docs and

what they

will

at http://

chandlerproject.

be glad to know that cloud services are not

Microsoft Office Online really

kind of cost can be

it

shines

in

of

its

in real

particular with mind-clouding exercises

where any contribution can be expanded on by another team

member in

time resulting

real

of ideas very quickly.

made and

reverted

wave you have the

Changes

in real

in

you gaining a huge number

to

time.

documents can

also be

As the owner of any given

right to restrict

permissions as necessary

and veto any changes.

And

finally,

when

comes to working on the actual

it

product you could also check out versioning systems to see

changes each Subscribers projects at to

member makes and

will

find

our tutorial on

revert as necessary.

SVN

for

www.linuxformatxom. These

manage any

project,

non-code

tools can

whether that's a new piece

be used

of

software you are developing, a report on the effects of acid

Maximise your resources by monitoring what you are using over the course of the project and when.

>

rain in

Upper

Silesia or

even an elaborate plot to renovate

your house. EES

Never miss another issue Subscribe to the #1 source for Linux on page www.tuxradar.com

66.

September 2010 LXF13 5 |83

Desktop Get the inside view on what’s happening in

Gnome 3.0

Gnome 3.0: A Want to try Gnome’s attempt at refreshing the GUI? With Gnome Shell and the help of lain Gray you can, without abandoning your current install. Enter this

command to add the

relevant PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ricotz/testing This adds the appropriate lines to the sources.list key. Install the

and the

file

new interface with:

sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get

install

gnome-shell

Now you can

start a

temporary spawn of the new GUI

with:

gnome-shell -replace

Where’s the bling? At

first

you won’t see anything

different

from a stock Ubuntu

desktop apart from the lack of the bottom panel. The upper panel

is

black and has, from right to

left;

user logged

in,

network connection, volume control, the embedded quicklaunch icons.

In

the middle

is

the day and time (click on this

and an animated calender appears), and on the indicator of

which app has mouse focus

so standard, but

it's

in

left

Activities button that holds the

fundamental differences

in

there’s

an

the window. So far

key to the

Gnome 3.0.

The traditionalist will want to

click

on the Activities to

mouse gesture into the top-left System or Windows button, or Alt+Fl all

access, but a sweeping corner, pushing the

have the same

A

With OS X and Windows 7 giving the masses a new look and feel and KDE having a complete re-write, only Gnome was left tweaking and twiddling and perhaps resting on the laurels of Compiz to give us its eye with

Our

candy.

expert

respond to

lain

Gray is a

engineer

in

industry.

He has

the

It's

it.

taken over 18 months for the

KDE 4, and the first

heavy-development

The testing

control systems oil

install

of a

Gnome

Foundation to

impressions of the

Gnome 3.0 do

new front-end

still-in-

usually requires a fresh

or a test machine, but on your current

install

Gnome

has a couple of methods to try the new interface out

flavours of Linux

without (much) fear of trashing your current

install.

The activities When

activated, the

in

anger

Ee don’t

recommend you use a virtual machine to try the new Gnome, Gnome Shell requires the full power of the 3D graphics card. We also recommend Ubuntu as the easiest system to

main window sweeps back from your

focus with the activities side panel taking up around a quarter of the width of the screen.

There are now four options.

» Find The ‘find’ box works in a similar way to Gnome-Do: when you

enter partial

available choices

not disappoint.

used various almost exclusively since 2001.

effect.

ny modern PC uses a GUI to enable us to interact

will

document

or application

» Applications The Applications section

is initially

minimal, but learns from your actions. This to by right-clicking an Favourites. This

forgotten

is

names the

appear.

list

very

can be added

app icon and selecting Add To

not yet sticky, and the favourites are

when the shell

is

stopped and restarted. There

is

an

as

try

Gnome

Shell,

because

its

system

of personal

package

archives (PPAs).

Whether you're if

installing natively

on on a

you have a system running Compiz then

file

its

virtual

machine,

configuration

needs a minor tweak:

sudo gedit /usr/bin/compiz

On the

last line

change

it

to the following, which

comments

out the fallback respawn into Metacity.

${COMPIZ_BIN_PATH}${COMPIZ_NAME} $COMPIZ_ OPTIONS “$@” $COMPIZ_PLUGINS # exec II

$FALLBACKWM $FALLBACKWM_OPTIONS

> Initially the differences are hard to spot.

Never miss another issue Subscribe to the #1 source for Linux on page 84 LXF135 September 2010

www.linuxformat.com

66.

Gnome 3

Tutorial

new Gnome? arrow that further expands the selection, though at this stage in

development this

contain

all

organised

is

not very well organised.

It

doesn’t

the apps installed, for example, though in

it

is

alphabetical order.

» Places & Devices The

& Devices section is a

Places

Gnome menu.

replication of the Places

menu

» Recent

the Recent Items section, which

shows

all

Items Next

is

in

the current

the document, pictures and videos that the user

has opened. within email

It

includes the temporary items

and downloaded from the

sometimes broken. This section

links are

opened from

and therefore the

net,

continually updates,

and unfortunately still needs some work.

Message The

in

a tray

shell interfaces well with the

area

in

Gnome apps, with

standard

the Empathy IM client instantly docking

the quick-launch

in

the upper panel. Other apps, such as HandBrake, also

use this area to inform the user of information.

The app that best

Gnome 3

links with

Gnome’s preferred music

player.

by Rhythm box,

is

As well as docking

in

the

quick-launch area, Rhythmbox uses the the bottom of the

Gnome

screen to show the currently playing track. area the Message Tray, and

if

you

flick

the

mouse

calls this

Gnome 3.0 gives the

into the

user interface a

new

lease of

life,

but

> I

lower-right corner the

Rhythmbox icon

will

over this and the currently playing song

is

pop

up;

mouse

people are mostly resistant to change and there are niggles (primarily, for us, the organisation of the

displayed with a

Next button to move the

“At first you won’t see anything different from a stock Ubuntu desktop.”

playlist forward. Testing this

Amarok shows that it only plays nice with Gnomebiased applications as

KDE's music player

menu)

that,

if

they're not

sorted out prior to release to the will

mainstream

distros,

cause problems.

doesn’t happen and

If

this

it's

released into the wild too

in

Gnome users will

be

feeling as short-changed as the

early,

Wide view

KDE community did when KDE 4 was first released. That’s unlikely though; knowing the Gnome developers' love of slow and steady improvements we can look forward to a smooth,

When opening or starting a document or application, a will

suffice

used desk space. applications choice.

is

though

this will

A much more

to drag the

app

all

open

controllable

it

up

in

the

slick

last

left

desktop for the future. ES3

>

Announcing,

in this

case, an

update from Rhythmbox.

way to open new

icon into a userspace of your

When the Activities side

back your focus and

those

apps to be as

the centre of the screen.

double-click

all

applications?

useable as the current

with

announces as before

some

Now where did put

panel

is

activated

it

draws

desk spaces are viewable. Apps that

are currently open can be dragged from and to any of the available

desk spaces.

If

a fresh desk space

required the -/+

is

buttons on the bottom-right increase and decrease the

number available. The number of desk spaces maxes out at 16, but even at this amount a description below each app is still

readable and the experience

still

useable.

A button

at the

bottom-left of the deskspaces can be used to toggle from a tiled

arrangement to a

wall view, similar to the

Being bleeding edge software there are

There are minor

stability issues

Compiz wall.

some

See The Light (Album Version) by Green Day from 21st Century Breakdown

issues.

with a few crashes, which can

lead to Metacity being respawned with missing panels.

happens, start a terminal with Alt+F2 and restart

If

j|

you missed

If

this

Gnome 3.

last issue Call

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or

+44 1858 438795. September 2010 LXF135 |85

Hardware: Test Are your upgrades and tweaks really boosting the performance of your setup? Bob Moss can help you find out by using benchmarks. can reduce the number of read/write operations that need to be run and thus increase performance.

The first tool mentioned

(subscribers

will

and

website),

is

use

we'll

the infamous hdparm.

is

our ‘Power up Linux' feature

this in

find the feature

available to

package managers. A

little-

in

We briefly

LXF124

on the Linux Format

download from most

known

distribution

hdparm

feature of

can give you a concise guide to how fast your drive entering just one

hdparm

line in

is

is

that

it

after

the terminal:

-Tt /dev/hda

Remember to replace /dev/hda with your drive location. The command will show you how much data was

output of the read

in

a fixed time

limit,

followed by a reflection of that speed

per second. The cached-read figure should faster

speed than the one below, and the

direct read

access

show

latter

is

a

much

aimed as a

test.

Deeper details However,

if

you'll find

you prefer even more accuracy and

Bonnie++

managers.

It's

in

almost

all

distribution

a very flexible tool indeed,

you only need to enter the following

detail,

and to get

line in

then

package it

running

a terminal:

bonnie-H- /dev/hda

A

Again, substitute

made a software tweak, and not noticed an improvement, you may have found yourself

test will take longer than the previous one,

a PC, or

in

wondering whether the whole exercise was worth

Our

community has thousands

expert

analyse things

Bob Moss time between coding

things and

studying for his computer science

degree course.

like

CPU

of different tools

speed,

movie and your broadband latency - and extremely high

These

level of

accuracy and

all

second

and tests to

how fast you can

of

your

which

expected, since Bonnie++ reads and writes a ‘unintelligently’ (with direct disk access),

it.

This doesn’t need to be the case. The free software

splits his

/dev/hda for the name

ny time you’ve ever replaced a hardware component

at the

test using

drive. This is

to

be

file

then performs a

your hard drive cache. The details you get

end are much more extensive and, thanks to the

render a

with an

detail.

details alone don’t solve the problem, but

benchmarking can. For those who haven’t tried involves taking a

measurement before and

it,

after

this

you make a

change. You can then use the two results to compare

how

your tweak affected things. You could use benchmarking for a broader range of information, but, for our purposes,

comparing before and You may prefer to ‘What

is

after results

sufficient.

a good benchmark?' box opposite to gain a truly

objective result, but this tutorial tests

is

stick to the principles set out in the

will

cover

how to execute

on your hardware and monitor how your system

is

working so you can perform your own analysis and evaluate

which areas of your system could do with a boost. We'll

use hard disk testing as our example. The primary

concerns here are the filesystem and the speed at which the platters rotate, since these dictate Internal buffers

If

you missed

86 LXF135 September 2010

your read and write speed.

can also affect performance, because they

last issue Call

>

If

0870 837 4773 www.linuxfonnat.com

terminal instructions don’t do

on a graph

or

is

it

for you, a wiggly line

a sufficient replacement.

+44 1858 438795.

Benchmarking Tutorial

performance 15

))

Bonnie++

>

bob@lacalhost:'-

'

View

Edit

File

Help

Terminal

Bonnie++

will

[bob@localhost ~]$ bonnie++ -d /home/bob Writing a byte at a time... done Writing intelligently, .done Rewriting. .done Reading a byte at a time... done Reading intelligently. .done start 'em. .done, .done. .done. .done. .done. Create files in sequential order. .done. Stat files in sequential order. .done. Delete files in sequential order. .done. Create files in random order. .done. Stat files in random order. .done. Delete files in random order. .done. Version 1.96 Sequential Output Sequential Input- --Ran Concurrency 1 -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite- -Per Chr- --Block-- --See Machine Size K/sec %CP K/see %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %cp K/sec %cp /sec 89.4 localhost.locald 6G 42 39 18123 7 7307 5 693 82 15808 3 2828ms 193ms 3506ms 7248ms Latency 127B»S 1970 Random Create Version 1.96 Sequential Create localhost.localdoma -create-- --Read--- -Delete-- -create-- --Read--- -Dele files /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec ^CP /sec %CP /sec 5828 61 +++++ +++ 6821 16 4806 56 +++++ +++ 25083 16 297ms Latency 46473us 3691us 228ms 926us 1B96 1.96,1. 96, localhost localdomain ,1, 1276784667,66, ,42.39, 18123,7,7367 ,5.693,8 08,3,89.4,4,16, ,, ,5828, 61, +++++, +++,6821, 16, 4886, 56,+++++, +++,25683, 57, 358 248ms 2828ms 193ms, 1278ms, 1976ms 46473US 3691us ,228ms 297ms, 926us 1896us [bob@localhost -]$ | ,

put your

filesystem

through

its

paces

.

.

.

,

detailed analysis

.

.

.

.

and provide a

.

of the results.

.

.

.

.

.

.

,

,

,

> Like the Microsoft Task

processes and

kill

,

,

,

,

Manager you can view running ;

them from

here.

To

list all

the possible tests you can run,

try:

phoronix-test-suite list-tests

workout

it

and simply replace

gives your drive, includes latency figures or the

time taken for file reads, creation and deletions completed

However, Bonnie++

isn’t just restricted to

which

for

Benchmark tests aren’t designed

to take If

they

all

day!

last longer

than 30 minutes,

phoronix-test-suite run audio-encoding

run,

is

encode speed,

will

we need the following command:

monitoring the

You can set the number of times the test

see various

a given scenario. Our example

in

involve having a look at testing audio

a variety of ways.

entire drive.

list-tests with list-suites to

options to run every test

in

consider adjusting

the size of

files

used

in

the test and the

number of them

used.

take a

will

It

little

bonnie++ into your terminal to see the vast number of options Bonnie++ offers to put your hard drive

generic

through

container formats.

but once

Just type

its

paces.

it’s

Ferocious Pheronix testing your hard drive isn’t

Pheronix Test Suite.

It’s

managers, but there

is

run from your

available by default in

a caveat.

Gnome menu,

A GUI

should

but the library

it

of writing. This

is

disappointing, but the

of Pheronix Test Suite

is still

command

to

on hadn’t

at the line

how fast a

the test to

something better suited to your

this

package to

find out detailed

using:

version

is

only the tip of the iceberg

when

it

comes

measuring your current system’s performance and

identifying areas for potential

number

time

of free tools

and

improvement. There’s a huge

utilities

available out there, so

over to you to experiment and tweak your

maximum

useful to us.

run,

hardware setup.

you can use

This tutorial

on top and

relies

been updated to work with modern distributions

results for

first

phoronix-test-suite system-info

try out

most package sit

the tests on the

complete you should see

system information by

enough then you could

install

WAV file has been encoded to a number of different

Finally,

If

time to

it’s

own setup for

performance. 53

What is a good benchmark? Let’s

say someone

tells

you, "An

Intel

Core 2 Solo processor compiles Firefox

from source

10% faster.” There are we

Next, there are certain things that aren’t really

fashion.

comparable

in

an objective

When you're benchmarking for

Finally, stick to tools for

the platform

you’re currently using. As per the above point,

any benchmark results you got

performance, you should be simply

from Windows tools can’t be compared

know which processor this is being compared to and which version of the

tweaking one thing on nearly identical systems - for instance, finding out

against

source package

whether

differently.

several issues with this. Firstly,

is

don’t

being used for the

Benchmark tests should be

profiling

your kernel actually

Linux,

benchmark

results

you get

in

because the systems work Using different tools means

decreases boot time or not. Checking to

any difference between your before and

repeatable and you should have

see whether Linux boots faster than

after results could

extensive details about the before and

Windows

benchmarking algorithms rather than

test.

after conditions to

compare

easily

results.

really

is

a fun test to

try,

but

it

isn’t

the aim of benchmarking.

an actual boost

in

be down to the performance.

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66.

September 2010 LXF13 5

|87

ImageMagick: Use the power of the command line to enhance your images

ImageMagick: so keen on the command line that he even edits needs Gimp or Photoshop when you have the shell?

Shashank Sharma

Who

images there.

is

Make sure you delete intermediary images, or your hard

>

disk will

convert

fill

up

really quickly.

[OPTIONS]

file

[OPTIONS]

file.

many options for us to go man page for details. A simple

Convert supports too so refer to

its

into here,

convert picture.jpg converted.png

command

is all

it

takes to convert an image to a different

format. You can just as easily resize images with the

W

their graphical counterparts?

command

imagine using the

It’s

certainly hard to

line for

image

processing, something that’s obviously a graphical domain.

Yet,

50% resized.png

convert picture.jpg -resize

hen should you choose command-line tools over

we’re here to

command. Here, the resize option tells convert to scale the image down 50% and save it in a new file called resized.png. Notice how we downsized and converted the file format all in one go!

show you how adeptly you can manipulate

Our

images from the CLI using ImageMagick, a

expert

command-line

applications.

It

The

co/7 ve/t too also I

supports

pixel

sampling, so

this:

convert -sample 80x60 image.jpg thumb.jpg

suite of

can be used to create a thumbnail of 80x60

allows a myriad of operations

pixels.

The

such as converting images between formats, basic drawing

-sample option also supports percentages, so you can also

Sharma

and simple image editing such as cropping, adding

use the

has been writing about free

images, creating

Shashank

3D

effects to

masterpieces and even animation.

Although no one can deny the merits of command-line

software for over four years for

tools

various places,

advantage of using ImageMagick. Most writeups about

including Linux,

com. He's

also

the co-author of Apress's Beginning Fedora.

when

it

comes to batch

its

ideal

Drawing with convert

on system

vast feature set, ImageMagick

can replace whatever graphical equivalent you’re using now.

The

first

tool

called convert.

It

instead of specifying an exact size.

processing, that's not the sole

command-line tools mention how they are low on resources, but with

from the ImageMagick set that

we’ll

use

is

can be used to change images between

various formats and for performing basic operations such as

In

addition to editing images, convert can also be used to

draw various shapes and

but

installed

the -draw

you don't have

if

it

you can

easily install

distributions software repositories.

terminal

window and

When

let's

it’s

using your

installed,

put ImageMagick to

using convert the the ,

Once

it

open a

test.

commands must adhere to

you missed

88 LXF135 September 2010

last issue Call

You can use convert to draw

option.

is

-draw ‘ coordinates’ full

command will

convert -size 80x80 -draw

look

like this

‘line 20,20, 60,70’

line_draw.png

we first use the -size option to tell convert that we want an image 80 pixels wide and 80 pixels high. The two sets Here,

of coordinates respectively for

0870 837 4773 www.linuxformat.com

and polygons using

The format when using the

our shape,

in this

case a

denote the start and end points line.

convert -size 200x100 xc:green

the following format:

If

command

-draw option So, the

by default on most distributions,

text.

curves, ellipses, rectangles, lines, circles

cropping or resizing images.

ImageMagick is

command 30%x30% big.jpg thumb.jpg

convert -sample

or

The command:

backgrounding

+44 1858 438795.

ImageMagick Tutorial

Image editing

^ ImageMagick 6.6.2

creates a rectangular image of green colour with a size of

200x100

pixels.

We can now draw shapes on to

it

like this:

convert background. png -draw ‘rectangle 0,0 30,100’ -draw ‘rectangle 170,0,200,100’

image.png

This draws two rectangles on to our

image, and

we

backgrounding

store the final version as image.png.

When

drawing rectangles, the two sets of coordinates denote the upper-left

and the lower

using the

-fill

option,

convert image.png

corner respectively.

right

You can specify a colour

shapes you're drawing

for the

like so:

-fill

png The -stroke option can

blue -draw

similarly

‘circle

100,50 100,80’

final,

be used to specify the

boundary colour for the drawn shapes. Apart from the regular shapes, convert can also be used to

draw a rectangle with rounded corners, convert -size 120x60 xc:wheat

-fill

blue -stroke wheat -draw

“roundrectangle 25,10 95,50 20,12” roundrect.png

The third

set of coordinates

in

this

case are used to specify

the width and height of the corners.

>

convert,

and then add these to your images for a more

professional look, as we’ll discuss

Order, order!

convert -background wheat

ImageMagick utilities are very

particular

the various options. Here’s a simple overall settings

rule:

about the order of options that provide

come in order they should take effect. So, using the last command to draw a circle as an example, we use -fill before we draw the otherwise convert

black and ignore the

fill

will

draw the

circle in

the default

logos. In fact,

This code block above

command, broken the end of each

Here

utility called

Display.

\

56 label:Design

line tells

so

it’s

you can create text designs using

It,

however is not as good as the CLI

\

tools.

actually just a single convert

is

into parts

easier to read. (The

\ at

convert that there's more to come.)

we use the -background and

-fill

options to specify the

colour of the text as well as the image background. The -font

we use the

label: tag,

which

is

the quickest

way to

finally

create text

using convert.

The canvas ([T

the next section,

and -pointsize options describe the text features, and

option.

You can also create textual designs with convert- think

2D text

in

orange

label.tiff

need to come first. These generally include

the size of the image and such. The other options

circle,

-font Helvetica -pointsize

-fill

ImageMagick

has a graphical

-fill

Comman X

is

generated based on the -background and

colour settings and

is

sized to

match the drawn

text.

You

type the text you wish to create immediately after label:

Ima^e Ma^ick

without leaving blank space.

ImageMagick: compl

When creating text designs with more than one word, you must wrap the

File

Edit

View Transform

Enhance Effects

_d Id Id Id Id Id

label: ’Text

text in single quotes, like so:

Designs with convert’ label_multiword.tiff

Since label: creates the canvas to match the text can’t dictate the position of the text.

If

you

left-align

-format switch

Edit

collection of

if

you have a large

images to convert:

mogrify -format

tiff

it

would make

sized thumbnails of multiple images:

JPG

careful,

however as

this

If

you

you have

to use a different format for the

You can also use mogrify to create same-

Be

originals,

command PNG thumbnails of all your

thumbnails. For instance, this

*.png

mogrify -sample 80x60 *.jpg

Take an image. Rotate it 180. Take some text. Rotate 180. Put all of it together and you get a card.

»

overwrite your existing images!

wish to preserve the

Miscellany

>

or

Batch processing with mogrify You can use IM’s mogrify utility with the

Image

size,

you wish to

command will

files:

mogrify -format png -sample

10%xl0%

*-jpg

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66.

September 2010 LXF13 5

|89

Tutorial ImageMagick

> image.png textonimage.png

centrally align text, use the -size option to create a large

canvas and the -gravity option to set the position of the text: convert -background wheat Use the command

convert

-size

200x200 -pointsize 88

-fill

orange

-font Courier \

-gravity center

font

I

two

to the text overlays

When you're working with

of

supported fonts.

can be

limiting,

since

can't

it

long lines of text, using label:

word wrap and

text

the dimensions specified using the -size option. cases, you can use caption:

in

convert -background black

-fill

200x

-pointsize 88 -size

label: ’Long string of text that

The only -size option.

In

label:

such

it

restrict

text

caption.tiff

and caption:

is in

the

canvas

will

be large enough to

Additionally,

if

lines

the height of the canvas, you

can write a message that can run

into

many lines and the

fit it all.

you don't define a point

size

when

writing

your message, ImageMagick will automatically adjust the font size to

fit

is

non-standard

installed in a

complete path to

name and

in

it

the

command above

Bob’s your uncle.

is

because

depending on the image composition and your

needs to be to encompass the many

we don’t

directory, type the

you don’t need to use the -draw option. This

\

\

When working with caption: you only specify the

of text. Since

colour and

on your images.

the font you wish to use

instead of just the font

width and not the height. This enables convertto create a

canvas as big as

fill

You can experiment with

Unless you have good reason to write text on your image,

red -font Courier

word wraps’

between

difference

may overflow

If

place of label:

-gravity center

different font,

different text.

the -stroke and -strokewidth options to add more character

\

-list

grep Font

list

command, we've used

point size for the

label: ’Aligned Text’ label.tiff for a

In this

into the specified -size of the image.

colour, the

you add to the image might not be readable at

alternate

is

all.

The

to use label: with which you can place text at the

command:

top or bottom of your image with this

convert image.png -background white label: ’Some Text’

-append label.png

command, ImageMagick first creates the text label in memory and later adds on to the image.png file. The -append switch tells convert that we want the text to In this

it

be placed at the bottom of the image. the text

will

be added to the

+swap switch to

the

If

you use -i-append,

right of the image.

reorder the images. The

You can use

command

convert image.png -background: white label: ’Some Text’

Adding text to images Now that we’ve

discussed

+swap -append

how you can

create labels,

about adding them to your images? You can do

ways -

either write

it

onto the image

directly,

image using the techniques discussed

in

how

this in

two

This

trial

and

involved.

error

placed at the

You can also overlay existing images on to other images using the composite

utility like

so:

textonimage.png

first

in

turn.

technique requires the use of convert and -draw:

‘text

-fill

yellow -pointsize 35

100,250 “The Party 2009’”

command tells

Other image effects

coordinates. You can even use the rest of the options

we

discussed above such as -gravity and -stroke and also add

convert -font helvetica

> -draw >

‘text

‘text

-fill

one command:

yellow -pointsize 35

100,250 “The Party 2009’”

-font courier

> -draw

in

-fill

green -pointsize 25

150,300 “Boring”’

we use the -geometry option to specify where we

\

convert to draw the text at the given

text to different positions

Here,

want the text.png image to overlay on image.png.

\

> image.png textonimage.png

there’s a lot of

is

it.

discuss both methods

> -draw

position of text

added below

composite -geometry +90+140 text.png image.png

convert -font helvetica

on images is not as easy as you may think -

is

and then annotate that image on to the main image. We’ll

The

> Getting the

top and then image.png

or create an

the section above

label.png

reorders the two images such that the text

If

you’ve ever seen an artists work, before she puts

colours, you’ll appreciate the charcoal effect.

following

see \

if

command on one the images

you can't appreciate the genius

in

the

in

final

Use the

your collection and

of the -charcoal effect:

convert -charcoal 2 flowers.png drawing.png

The -charcoal options accepts a numerical value

\

that

denotes the amount of charcoal you want to use for the

\

effect. Just

\

as fascinating

is

the pencil effect, which

is

a blend

of various techniques.

One

of the

most popular effects

exposed photographs. This

is

is

brightening under-

done using the -sigmoidal-

contrast option, which increases the contrast without

Be

affecting the bright areas in the image. this

though, as you

may end up with a

careful

when using

highly pixellated image:

convert dark.png -sigmoidal-contrast 2,0% bright.png

This option accepts two values - contrast and mid-point.

The contrast value defines how much

to increase the

contrast. You can use the +sigmodial-contrast option to

decrease the contrast of an image.

many different 3D image. The steps involve adding blur and shade to the 2D image. Your images need to go through

transformations before you

finally

get a

The command convert -size 400x400 xc:black

-fill

white -draw

‘circle

195,190 228,295’ circle.png gives us a basic shape. We're going to text to the

image to create a 2D

convert circle.png

-fill

add some colour and

circle,

bluw -draw

‘color 0,0 reset’ \

> circle.png +matte -compose CopyOpacity -composite >

-font Helvetica -pointsize

40

-fill

red

\

> -gravity center -annotate 0x0 “Logo” 2Dcircle.png

90 LXF135 September 2010 1

www.linuxformat.com

\

ImageMagick Tutorial

Sharing images as PDFs The convert utility lets you to put all your images into one neatly organised PDF file, one image per page, with

command:

a single

convert *jpg allinone.pdf

Convert also

lets

you extract

all

PDF

the images from a

and you can use the %d format specifier (much like the printf format specified in C language) to name the

file,

image

resulting

files,

convert allinone.pdf image_%03d.tiff

%d means a decimal number, and the 0 that follows it means you want leading zeroes in the file name. The 3 after the 0 specifies how many digits the total value should use. So, %03d will create files named image_001.tiff, image_002.tiff and so on.

You can also run the

command without the %d

operator: convert will automatically

numbers to the

append unique

filename,

convert allinone.pdf img.png Is

img*

img.png.O img.png. 1 img.png.2

> In

the

of the

first line

command

the image blue, reset recolours

all

another image. As already mentioned, +clone

above, we’ve recoloured

make

the pixels beginning with

the specified coordinates. The CopyOpacity argument with the

-compose

option copies the transparency channel of the

source image on to the destination image.

working

2D

We now have a

will

leave us with heavily bevelled

The sigma value describes how much you want the image

to

spread (appear rounded) and the radius defines the area of

if

to modify our images to

they are placed under a

light

and dark areas

source.

make

it

seem as

We do this twice to our will

of our image, creating a

shadow,

is

> +swap >

\(

light.png

\(

We now need to overlay these

dark, png

> +swap

\( -i-clone

-threshold

In

the

100% \)

the +clone option

first line,

image

animate

is

animate utility

through If

images run animate

limited to testing, since

is

can’t save the animations. This animation all

will

it

quickly blur

the three GIF files.

you need to pause on an image before moving to the

in

It

sets the time pause

units of 100th of a second.

will

spend four seconds on each image.

will

only run once.

If

The command

Still,

the animation

you want the animation to run many

satisfied with it

The -gravity option

your animation, you can use the

to disk.

Choose the extension

for

your animation - .gif if you wish to use the animation on website and .mpeg or .avi you want to play them on a

\) \

your

used to make a copy is

media If

used to define the white

threshold of the image. The -threshold option

a

in line

which to

three

lay out

animation it’s

will

change

the animation and

its

constituent images:

ball.gif

-page +112+35

ball.gif \

> -delay 10 -page +151+20

ball.gif

-page +62+132

ball.gif \

-fill

gray

> -insert 0

-fill

do now

that's left to

is

create

-flatten

\

> -loop 0 boouncing_ball.gif

it:

\( -i-clone

beige

or newer.

size

> -delay 50 -page +132+62

>

in

best to create a canvas on

speaking, -threshold defines the opacity of our image.

convert 3D.png

is

player.

convert -delay 0 -size 200x150 xc:wheat

a background for

append

only available

ImageMagick 64.7-1

similarly defines the black threshold of the image. Loosely

All

with

the constituting images of your animation are of

according to each. Therefore,

image.

for alignment

if

different dimensions, the

3D

swirl.

l.gif 2.gif 3.gif

of the

image. The -threshold option

This gives us a

and add effects such as wave and

so

like

then used to add the rand() mathematical function to the is

just a series of

is

this easily using the

animations carefully depending on the intended audience for

\

the image sequence. The -fx option

in

You can do

convert utility to save

> -compose Over -composite highlighting

of the last

an animation

basic,

Once you’re

\) \

\) \

-compose CopyOpacity -composite

-i-matte

logo into the

times over, use the -loop option.

-fx ‘rand()’ -threshold -1

-compose CopyOpacity -composite

-i-matte

3D

it

animate -delay 400 framel.gif frame2.gif frame3.gif

often used with the -shade

\( -i-clone

most

between images

two images to form our shaded image, convert

places our

it

next one, use the -delay option.

convert blurred.png -shade 90x180 -normalize dark.png

switch to enhance the contrast.

transform images

the current image sequence and places

after the other.

command,

define the

convert blurred.png -shade 90x0 -normalize light.png

The -normalize switch

its

one

The use

pixels.

blurred image, from the top and bottom. This bright

in

display can

image.

final

At

The -blur option expects two values - [radius]x[sigma].

is

also be used to

Animated images

blurred.png

The next step

you don’t

we must use blur,

convert basic. png -blur 0x4 -blur 0x4 -blur 0x4 -blur 0x4

operation for spreading

if

utility

background created with the rand() function, -insert takes

at the given index. In this case,

Using the -shade option

the sequence;

in

The graphical

used to

use this switch, your final image would only show the the last image

image.

images. To smooth the bevelled edges,

-i-matte

a copy of the last image

is

-tint

-fx ‘rand()’ -i-matte

120

-shade 120x45

We can specify where to place the

image on the canvas using

the -page option. The -delay option can be used to specify

\) \

how

3D_background.png

We’ve created a beige-tinted background

\

for

our

3D

image, but you can alternately place your 3D image over

long each image

the next image

in

will

remain on screen before

we move to

the sequence and you can also define the

pause between loops using the -pause option. BS3

www.tuxradar.com

September 2010 LXF135

|91

»

Bash Hack your way around Linux to save time and make life easier

Bash: Fast and Making useful

easy. Nick Veitch invites you to have a the first part of our new programming series.

yourself, in

scripts

is

Bash

You might try: > „.

w e= i

” position

Is

-1

*.png

-rw-rw-r-. 1 evilnick evilnick 2450 -rw-rw-r--. 1 evilnick evilnick

Gotcha! The wildcard *

background

^

repe^ P

***“' absolute -

d

.

4

part of the

^

» Project code

-

isn’t

command -

part of the Is

it's

Bash shell. Bash interprets your command, sees

the wildcard and replaces

0 top P os ;ckgroucd b image 2P

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2450 Jun 29 12:55 b.png

it

with values that match. So, you

Bash script! One of the benefits of knowing a more about Bash scripting and the way the

are writing a

-position*

little bit

environment works

is

that you’ll be able to look at the

problem above and do something just a

more >ls

little bit

cleverer

and

useful:

-1

*.{gif,png,jpg}

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2450 Jun 29 12:55

a.png

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2450 Jun 29 12:55

b.png

-rw-rw-r--. 1 evilnick evilnick

3486 Jun 29 12:56

x.jpg

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3486 Jun 29 12:56

y.jpg

Jun 29 12:56

z.gif

happened there? That's just one

of the

-rw-rw-r-. 1 evilnick evilnick 19273

What on

common

earth

little

tricks you'll find in

Bash scripts,

called a

bracket expansion. Basically, Bash resolves the content of the bracket as whatever individual

Y

command >

Our Nick Veitch best

something work to Bash it.

is

is

a

scripts

you use, when

grows

in

We might

the

little

neater,

larger,

it’s

line in it

a

bashl.sh b.png

Bash script. No.

it. It

just

and

you

employ that trick

line, is this:

a.txt

features,

way to make

hazard a guess that one

Now you

Yes,

one

believes that the

to expand the

Is

a.png

expert

most frequent

of the

will

I

-

it’s

just that

it

only has

doesn't use any of Bash's special helpful

executes a simple

command to

current directory. Not convinced? Let’s do a

Say you were adventurous, and wanted

to

bit

list

list

are

obviously,

will

in

in

if

your

save time and

In this

case, the effect

list

of potential files

effort,

and now you can

future scripts.

no doubt about why learning a

scripting can be very useful,

b.txt c.txt x.jpg y.jpg z.gif

really

before (or after), plus each

command to be Is -I *.gif *.jpg *.png. not have saved much space, but our command

is

ou can already write Bash scripts - they just aren't very complicated ones.

came

element inside the brackets.

let’s

take a

little

bit of

Bash

pause to

is. The shell environment is just - an environment - a stage or a framework within which

consider what Bash actually that

the

more then.

the long version

of the directory:

>

Is

-1

total

4

-rw-rw-r--. 1 evilnick evilnick

2450 Jun 29 12:55

a.png

-rw-rw-r--. 1 evilnick evilnick

2868 Jun 29 12:55

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151

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223

Jun 29 12:55

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Jun 29 12:56

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3486 Jun 29 12:56

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19273 Jun 29 12:56

z.gif

Aren't Is

you

list all

the image

files.

‘switch’,

detail.

Now,

bashl.

b.png b.txt c.txt

an option to the

let’s

say you

>

If

you’re taking this seriously you should pick a text

editor that you’re comfortable with. Emacs,

How would you go about it?

month We rounded off our Python

92 LXF135 September 2010 1

You have used a

command that delivers more

wanted to

Last

clever!

Jun 29 12:49

series with a

www.linuxforniat.com

Vi,

Kate all have syntax colouring for Bash, which

Gedit and is

a bonus

programming opus.

Bash Tutorial

simple scripts > echo $foo+l

ploppy+1 > foo=”ls” > echo $foo Is

> foo=”$foo

-al”

> echo $foo Is -al

> echo

‘$foo’

$foo

> echo “$foo” Is -al

> $foo *.png

There are plenty of scipts dotted all over your Linux box. Take a look in /etc/init.d to get a few examples of how some system services are controlled. >

-rw-rw-r-. 1 evilnick evilnick

2450 Jun 29 12:55

a.png

-rw-rw-r-. 1 evilnick evilnick

2450 Jun 29 12:55

b.png

The first thing to note putting the name,

commands can do their thing. Nearly every command you ever execute that actually does something

spaces on either side

your usual

independent from the

commands would Hidden as

is

it

but without the

shell,

shell,

letters or

Gnome/

which to execute commands. Line and

in

humble Bash scripts

slave

away when you

computer to bring up the network, mount

there are a

the background doing

defined by just

Bash will get

names must start

error. Variable

that variables are

you

variables

may wish to

upper case. However,

all

and environmental

use,

which are

all

upper case,

so you can often avoid conflict by using lower case letters

in

»

your own variables.

your

devices, start

the hidden tasks that keep your

all

is

lot of built-in

variables that lines of

open the window manager, and many keep running

services, in

start

is

value. Don't put

underscores.

Convention

KDE/other GUI, the shell is vital to the running of our computer - it wouldn’t even start up without a shell environment

its

with a letter or an underscore, and can contain numbers,

these

have no context within which to operate.

behind the veneer of your swanky

that a variable

of the equals sign or

confused and give you an

is

is

and equals sign and

Cool tricks with keys

operating system running.

There are

Do more Many people will tell you that Bash is good enough for simple when comes to important

tasks, but doesn’t really cut

is

it

true that

it

is

a

little

it

harder and more long-winded to use

the Bash approach (not to mention a

lot less intelligible),

it

is

we will be looking at some of these uses in a future tutorial. As for why you might want to do such a thing when you could easily use Python or PHP, sometimes Bash is

all

you have.

that practically no version of Linux,

We have already said

embedded

or otherwise,

comes without Bash or a Bash like environment, so it’s handy to know just what is possible even with the most -

basic

of tools.

we would do we were looking at a programming language, is how variables are The

first

thing

we should

look

at,

as

memorise the ones you

basically just one: a string. However, the string

HOME Cursor up Cursor Down Ctrl+R

Emacstext

editor,

so

less

if

think you’ll use:

is

Consider this short exercise:

of the

line.

command. command.

Retrieves the previous Retrieves the next

Searches history

for the last

command

command from

Ctrl+O

Executes the found

Ctrl+L

Clears the screen.

Ctrl+U

Clears the content of the

line

Ctrl+K

Clears the content of the

line after

Ctrl+C

Sends the SIGINT usually terminate

Ctrl+Z

is

very

Moves the cursor to the beginning Moves the cursor to the line end.

including the

specified characters.

if

used. You can forget about different types as, there

versatile.

more or

you know that already, you have an advantage. Here are a few of the more useful ones - at least try and

END

by no means impossible, and

well,

shortcuts you can use with Bash, and they

it

throwing networking capability into the mix. While

stuff like

many keyboard

follow the shortcut keys used for the

Alt+F

Alt+B

> foo=”ploppy”

Alt+Del

> echo $foo

Alt+D

Ctrl+R.

up to the

cursor.

the cursor.

signal to the current task,

which

will

it.

Sends the SIGTSTP signal to the current task, which will suspend it. (you can use the fg command to resume it). To return to it later you can enter fg [‘process name or job id’]. Moves the cursor forward one word in the line. Moves the cursor backwards one word in the line. Cuts the word before the cursor. Cuts the word after the cursor.

pioppy

If

you missed

last issue Call

0870 837 4773 www.tuxradar.com

or

+44 1858 438795. September 2010 LXF135 93 |

Tutorial

Bash

As the adds the

variable

'+1'

is

a string, setting

it

$ character

Inside double quotes, placing the

variable

to something +1, just

name will cause the variable's value to be expanded.

Inside single quotes though, substitution, so

rather handy, because

is

you can store and execute It

pays to get

it

is

a

comparator

which means ‘not equal

!=,

So clearly

“).

here,

if

and the

means

script skips to the

comparison.

commands from variables, as we

If

the value

is

fi

is

case we're using the to'

(and can also be

the user ID

is

same as

the

that for the root variable, the value inside the brackets

literal string.

You can also leave out the quotes altogether to have the variable expanded. This

inside the square brackets. In this

written “ -ne

Bash doesn’t do any

you just get back the

ordinary user. The IF statement

first

standard comparison construct, the value to be acted upon

front of a

in

501 for the

usually

We will cover arithmetic shortly.

to the string.

is

false

statement, the end of the

not equal, execution skips to the

we get a message and the script halts. Apart from some reserved values (0-2, 126-165, and 255)

lines following ten,

see at the end of that sequence.

into the habit of

there are no hard and fast rules about exit codes. By

ending your script with an exit

0

if

everything has

gone well. When you

Something slightly useful Before

we get bogged down

too

in

have a look at something that might be

start stringing

script.

Here

is

convention 77

much more detail,

slightly useful in

a complete script you can run at

is often used for ‘Permission Denied’-type you can make up your own - as long as you

errors, but

let's

remember what they mean.

a

home that

So, this script doesn't

do anything, but

it

could be the start

scripts together, exit

conditions are

important.

shows some

variables doing

things. This

code needs to

be typed

to a text editor,

in

“We have discovered that you know more about Bash

saved as exampleLsh, and then executed from the with the

shell

I

command bash

something that does.

is

reasonably secure -

variable

from Bash

normally, but

is

it

more

useful as a test before the

exampleLsh:

script

might do

#!/bin/bash

something that needs root permissions to work successfully.

ROOT_UID=0 ERROR_PERMISSION=77 if “$UID” != “$ROOT_UID”

there are

[

Bash also supports the else and

constructions, and

elif

some special comparators as well. This small

checks whether a particular directory

]

It

you can't change the UID

you think.”

scripting than

of

exists

script

and outputs

something sensible

then

echo “You must run exit

this script as root”

#!/bin/bash

$ERROR_PERMISSION

CHECKDIR- ’examples”

fi

exit 0

The first

if

line starts

characters

# and

instructs the shell

!.

with what

This

is

it

it

was

The Bash homepage links to

this rather useful

manual,

if

you

ever get stuck.

just a

line

else

In

short terms,

it

echo “examples directory does not is

way of making the script execute. On to more

interesting

exit 0

The could access the

environmental variables through Bash? UID

is

one

of

those

which contains the user ID (as a numeric value) of

www.gnu.org/ software/bash/

the user running the Bash shell. This value

manual.

depending on the type

of Linux

is

exist!”

fi

bits...

Remember we said that you variables,

echo “examples directory exists”

that

is

if it

]

then

should be actually passed to the

executable indicated by the following path. >

comment

called that

$CHECKDIR

-d

[

often called a ‘shebang’; the

a special type of

from which

executed as a command,

is

0 for root, and

-d inside the square brackets

is

if

argument

the directory name, which

is

a directory exists

passed using a

in

a special operator

the filesystem. The next

that checks

in this

case

we have

See the boxout above-right for some

variable.

other useful comparisons.

system you're running,

Going loopy We have already seen the standard comparison construction. There is another common structure that we are used to dealing with

when we are programming - the

different types of loops in Bash, but the

often

is

the

for...

da.,

done type

to construct this rather

you might have used: for (( i = 0 i < 10 i++ ;

;

like

of loop.

you would

loop.

one you

in

It

C

is

There are

will

see most

possible

in

Bash

or other languages

))

do echo

$i

done Like

Python though, Bash typically

of values

-

in

generating that iterate

iterates

through a

list

the example above, the inner brackets are list.

You

will

more commonly see loops that

through an array or a

list

generated from other values.

For example: for

i

in $( Is

)

do

Never miss another issue Subscribe to the #1 source for Linux on page 94 LXF135 September 2010

www.linuxformat.com

66.

Bash Tutorial

echo

$i

Other useful comparisons

done

Bash evaluates what case

this

it

is

is

inside the brackets as always.

In

command, so Bash executes it and creates a which we then iterate over. We will cover

a

Stick these inside your comparison brackets for

more about arrays (which dimensional, and more

in

like

Bash are

a python

but you most probably will see

actually one-

list

object)

them used

in

the future,

exists

[ [

> echo $array[l] [

becky[l] [

True True True True True True

> echo ${array[l]} -N SFILE]

[

True

was

> echo ${array[@]}

[SFILEl

becky tabitha sue

SFILE2

-nt

other special actions

$FILE

exists

and has been modified since

exists exists exists

exists exists

it

last read. if

SFILE2, or

> do > echo

if

exists

and is a directory. and is a regular file. and is a symbolic link. and is readable. and has a size greater than zero. and is writable. and is executable. and is owned by the effective

exists

$FILE1 has been changed more recently than if SFILEl exists and SFILE2 does not. True if SFILEl is older than SFILE2, or is SFILE2 exists and SFILEl does not. True if SFILEl and SFILE2 refer to the same file.

...True

]...

in ${array[@]}

i

ID.

exists.

if

> echo $array

for

user

if

True

[

tabitha

True

True

-d

[

becky

$FILE $FILE if $FILE if $FILE if $FILE if $FILE if $FILE if $FILE if SFILE

-a

[ [

like this:

$FILE ] $FILE ] -f $FILE ] -h $FILE ] -r $FILE ] -s $FILE ] -w $FILE ] -x SFILE ] -0 SFILE ]

[

> array=(becky tabitha sue)

>

some

of the results,

list

[

SFILEl -ot SFILE2

]

[

SFILEl

SFILE2

]

$i

> done

-ef

becky tabitha

Then we use an

sue Did you spot the gotcha? Look again: square brackets are

used to

for referencing the array

by index values, but Bash

know that just because you put [1] at the end of something mean to index the way around that is to put

that you

it.

everything that relates to the variable

make sure

the $, to

special value that in

curly brackets after

gets processed as a single

element (and the index starts

first

the

it

in

access the array without an index, you

try to

so

isn't

expands to

all

at 0).

will

entity.

in

is

a

the array,

construction to check whether the

place to return a

use the

list

of the

chmod ugo+x

bit

#!/bin/bash

png

their destination.

Currently, this

script,

command will get in

file in

so you can run

it

bash command. its

working directory

when you execute /usr/sbin or somewhere else in the the filespace

it.

command path, and call from wherever you like. So, we have discovered so far that you know more about it

we have discovered together to do something useful. This short script, when run on a directory, will find all the image files of a certain type and relocate them to their own directory called images: put the few things

filetypes=( jpg

on the

directly without using the

You could save the

Made of win

in

sortimage.sh

This sets the execute

from wherever you are

Now to

matching files, and then we just

mv command to put them

When you save the file, run the command:

we use to generate

list.

it.

The first loop iterates through the elements of the array. The start of the second loop executes the Is command in

you

just get the

The [@] index

the values stored

the for loop at the end, that’s what

If

if...

destination exists, or else create

Bash scripting than you

and how to use variables and

we will be

looking at

integrating

and running external commands through Bash,

and adding

interactivity to

backup

gif

think,

the basic structures of a script. Next time

scripts.

your programs as we build our own

See you then! EES

IMGDIR-’images” if

$IMGDIR

-d

[

]

then

echo “directory already

exists, continuing...”

else

mkdir $IMGDIR fi

for type in ${filetypes[@]}

do for

i

in $( Is *.$type

)

do echo

“this file $i is

being moved”

mv $i $IMGDIR done done exit

0

There are more compact ways to do see what’s going on when the code

have

made an

this,

is

array to store the filetypes

Next month

but

it

is

structured

easier to like this.

We

we want to capture.

Find out

>

You don’t need much more than a terminal window to create Bash scripts. it up nicely so it is easy to read, and create a directory to experiment in.

Set

howto manipulate system commands and www.tuxradar.com

pipes.

September 2010 LXF13 5 95 |

Hardcore Linux Challenge yourself with advanced projects for power users

Procmail: Email Once again frolicking in the glittering paradise of the command line, Shashank Sharma announces Procmail as the perfect mail filtering solution.

0

linuxlala@linuxlala-GCFD: File

fdit

view

~

-

/v

>

Help

Terminal

|

-Resent) ?» -To ):(,*[ th Z] )? cc licenses£Usts\ ibiblio\ org pracnail: Locking 'Vhane/linuxlala/Hail/lists/CC.lock' procnail: Assigning "LASTFOLDER=/hone/Um]xlala/Mflil/Usts/CC B procnail: Opening 'Vhone/linuxlala/Hail/lists/CC" procnail: Acquiring kernel-lock pracnail: Unlocking "/hone/linuxlala/Hail/lists/CC. tack' procnail: Notified comsat: Unuxlala05754469:/home/Unuxlala/Nall/U5ts/CC B rue Jun 22 20:56:37 2610 .a Subject: Re; (cc-licenses) Alex Bosworth; 'Creative Connons Is Broke*" Folder: /honc/linuxlala/Hail/lists/CC 5151 pracnail : [22677) Tue Jun 22 2fl:5Q:3B 2010 pracnail: No natch on “'‘Fron: .Mlinuxlala\£yahoo\.co\.in|gcckybodhi@gn*ail\.ccm}“ pracnail: Hatch on "{ A (?)cc-licenseseiistsV.ibibUo\ .orgpracnail: Locking "/hone/linuxlala/Hail/lists/CC. lack' cnail; Assigning LASTFQLPER=/hone/lHiuxlala/Hall/llsn/CC H pracnail: Opening "/hone/linuxlala/Hail/lists/CC" procnail: Acquiring kernel-lock pracnail: Unlocking "/hone/linuxlala/Hail/lists/CC. lock" procnail: Notified comsat: "Unuxlala?575962e:/home/llnuxldla/Nail/Usts/CC" Tuc Jun 22 20:56:38 2010 Fran linuxlala Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] Alex Bosworth: 'Creative Coanons Is Broken" Folder: /hone/linuxlala/Hail/lists/CC 41W -

1

-

.

.

•,

:

l,

LINUX

O >

The procmail.log file will inform you what folder each mail dropped into so you can search it for misplaced emails.

is

movies and music, most geeks were happy sharing Procmail recipes, and you can

web

search. Your recipes

will

still

grow and change with time but

looking at what other people are using Procmail for

you to process your emails

their

find these with a simple

enable

will

better.

Depending on your setup, you may need to create a he need for a committed mail

T

directly proportional to the in

number

your inbox. Procmail is a powerful email processing

that you can use to sort emails based on any

rules.

You can have incoming messages sorted

Our

folders based

message the sender, creating rules

on preset

criteria

etc.

and the

ability to

directory. This

into various

has been writing about free

easily discard

mail

filter.

configuration

it

can

distributions carry

including Linux, also

the co-author of Apress's Beginning Fedora.

bother you:

it’s

easily install

it

On

it

on a default

installation.

But don’t

root-owned

in

let

Retrieval

many different tools and

Last

and

in

line tools

are governed by

the /etc/ directory. However,

directories. This

is

why tools

like

Procmail

specific configuration files

those messages. Fetchmail and Gmail both support

POP

when downloading messages from Gmail so that filter

the messages for us.

your

home

directory.

Each

in

configuring Fetchmail to interface with your is

to create a .fetcmailrc

file in

your

user ‘[email protected]’ with password ‘typepasshere’

of the rules in

Mutt, the

step

home directory. Open a text editor and type in this code: poll pop.gmail.com with proto POP3 and options no dns is ‘user’

are called recipes. Long before people were sharing

month We geeked out with

first

remote mail account

your mailbox depending on the configuration.

96 LXF135 September 2010

home

Retrieving mail The

Procmaifs filtering actions are governed by the

file

files

Procmail can

messages from a remote account. Procmail is an MDA, and is responsible for getting the messages sorted and

the

stored

your

Agent (MRA) and a Mail User Agent

retrieve

file in

files

in

incoming messages to Procmail.

home directories.

protocol

MUAs are email clients such as Mutt or Thunderbird. MRAs are programs like Fetchmail or Getmail that you use to

.procmailrc

all

IMAP, but we’re going to configure Fetchmail to use the

(MUA).

into

their

filter

technologies at play. These include Mail Delivery Agent

(MDA), Mail

pipe

messages from a Gmail account and then use Procmailto

this

distro’s software repositories.

a typical mail server there are

email

For our purposes, we’ll be using Fetchmail to retrieve

very stable and popular too, and you can

from your

and save the file as .forward

will

and Fetchmail allow users to create

Since Procmail is no longer actively developed, only a few

various places,

all

your mailbox. Type

regular users don’t have the permissions or privileges to edit

Plus,

spam and messages with executable attachments and makes for a perfect auto-responder.

software for over four years for

in

Most configurable command

of a

run multiple rules on

messages make Procmail a very precise

com. He's

into a text editor

of regular expressions for

Sharma

too to ensure Procmail gets to handle

l/usr/bin/procmail

number of

such as the subject

The use

file

messages before they land

of emails that land

utility

expert Shashank

.forward

filtering solution is

here

options keep ssl sslcertck sslcertpath ‘/etc/ssl/certs’

command-line email

www.linuxformat.com

client.

Procmail Tutorial

power up mda This

» Procmail 3.22

%T

‘/usr/bin/procmail -d

about the extent of what Fetchmail requires from you.

is

You may additionally need to enable

POP forwarding on your

remote account (you have to for Gmail and similar services).

The first two lines are actually just one, we've split them to make easier to read. These just tell Fetchmail to poll the [email protected] or [email protected] account and drop the mail on to the local user. In the third line we have a number of options. The first, keep, tells Fetchmail to not

Ju* »

v

option, Fetchmail will delete

messages

it

lists

from the remote account

Con-figuration

all

Path:

line in

the code block tells Fetchmailto

[J Calendars

incoming messages to Procmail.

all

There are two ways you can automate Fetchmail to look

up and

retrieve

to

new messages from your mail

—

* Memos

Q

account. The

add the

fiance)

.

LX

daemon 300

set

>

to the top of the "/.fetchmailrc

line

Fetchmail check for

The other method Run crontab

75

* * *

into the silent

*

-e

file.

This

will

make

The next step

new messages every five minutes (300

seconds). Use your discretion is

to set

in

setting

up a timed lookup.

up a Cron job to run Fetchmail.

from the terminal and type

crontab

file.

all

five

minutes

in

progress and status messages

all

So, use the

710 or

it

to be not

more than

chmod command to change the

710.

permission to

file

by

command

messages

within this

filtered

by Procmail.

mkdir -/Mail/new

mkdir -/Mail/lists/fedora-devel mkdir

-/Mail/lists/ debian-legal

rules for sorting

~/.procmailrc

all

file

incoming messages. At

its

must contain the following

most

basic, the

information:

SHELL=/bin/bash

fetchmail -vk

from a terminal. This -v option)

to read

We are now ready to populate our ~/.procmailrc file with

-/.fetchmailrc

You can test your ~/.fetchmailrc configuration running the

Mbox mailbox

file

mkdir -/Mail/lists/gnome

lesser, like so:

chmod 710

Procmail to

the

mkdir -/Mail

mkdir -/Mail/lists

~/.fetchmailrc file and requires

We want

messages to the ~/Mail directory and so

mkdir -/Mail/family

about the permissions of the

Evolution to use

you must create

create additional directories.

Fetchmaihs very

strict

lists,

unique directories for each of them.

we’ll

Fetchmail will run every

and mailing

You can

configure

But before you start creating rules for sorting emails

friends, families

deliver

/usr/bin/fetchmail -s

mode, which means

recipes.

from

to inform Procmail of our various filtering

is

be suppressed and not displayed on standard output.

will

0Mail

downloads. The rest of the options concern SSL

The final

encryption.

first is

Of Be* et=

0 learning 0

messages from the remote account. Without this

delete

route

Q revolution 0 Family 0 “Promltechr... .

*

it

will

and messages

run Fetchmail in verbose will

mode (the

not be deleted from the remote

account. You don’t need to use the -k option (keep),

if

it’s

PATH=/usr/sbin:/usr/bin

MAILDIR=$HOME/Mail DEFAULT=$MAILDIR/new

When

running

silent

mode (the-s

in

option), Fetchmail

already a part of your -/.fetchmailrc

LOGFILE=$HOME/procmail.log

file.

will still

Garnish with regex Regular expressions (regexes) are an integral part of the

-/.procmailrc

When used decisively, they can make much more effective. The following recipe

can be used to search the message body

for a

phrase and

move the message to the specified folder.

[0-9]+

Wassup

necessary for Procmail to do

Procmail encounters the phrase ‘wassup’ preceded by

will

If

its

MAILDIR

work.

working directory for Procma//and within

is

the

identifies the directory

move the message

where

all

mail

will

be stored. Any mail that

addressed by any of our recipes lands

above code snippet, we then define a all its

in

the body of a message,

into the silly folder.

you missed

last issue Call

you

in

into

file

isn't

DEFAULT.

for

In

the

Procmail to

logging and debugging information using the

variable. Setting

VERBOSE as yes ensures that

Procmail keeps a detailed log of

one or more numbers anywhere it

messages.

actual error

The above are just variables that contain information

LOGILE

$MAILDIR/silly If

VERBOSE=yes

record

:0B: *

all

file.

your recipes that then

report

LOG-’”

its activity,

and

this

can aid

debugging your recipes.

The PATH programs

it

variable specifies

where Procmail can

may need to use as part of a

0870 837 4773 www.tuxradar.com

or

find

any

recipe. For instance,

»

+44 1858 438795. September 2010 LXF135

|97

Tutorial Procmail

if

you need your music player to play a specific file soon as

you receive that job

Each

offer

.

or recipient, the subject of the

rules

Once

message

a

message or even the message

you can get Procmail to perform a number

such as move the message

of actions

other address,

make sure you there recipe

@ and the

are no false positives.

check the From and Subject

will

The following before

field

:0: *

into a folder, reply to the sender,

some

forward the message to

used before the

performing an action on matched messages.

selected based on your defined

is

is

the email address, as these two are restricted keywords.

You can even perform multiple checks on message to

matching rules to select messages. These include the sender

content.

in

your recipes can contain any number of patten-

of

\ symbol

Also notice that the

you were waiting for.

A Subject:.*techrepublic

A From:[email protected]

etc.

$MAILDIR/lists/techrepublic

Anatomy of a

recipe

There are three parts to

all

So far we’ve discussed some

Procmail recipes.

begin with a colon character^). The next

recipes

All

must

you’re using

an

MRAsuch as

Procmail what action to take should

finally

the third

find a

message that matches the

line tells

if

you wish to forward

it

you can use

need

it

yourself,

this recipe:

* forward French lessons

rules in a recipe.

if

messages regarding

all

French lessons to a friend and also keep a copy of

contains the conditions or rules for matching messages, and If

example,

be. For

line after this

basic recipes but you can

simultaneously perform two operation on a message

to a friend

Fetchmailio retrieve

messages, you don’t

*

need a .forward to route

#and

:0:

file

A From:.*(linuxlala\@yahoo\.co\.inlgeekybodhi@gmail\.com)

on to Procmail.

This recipe instructs Procmailto match against the condition (second into the family directory.

The "From

is

line following

incoming mail

all

:0 c

rules begin with a * character.

The

!

and "Subject

the action

line is

line.

More

learning }

Here we use a nested block (enclosed

often than not, action lines just instruct Procmail what folder to drop

messages

Notice the

|

of an action

into.

symbol

in

the condition

line

above?

It

should

be used when you want to add multiple checks to a condition. In this

we want to check

case,

against the

"From

multiple email addresses

condition. So,

all

be delivered

into the

The order of recipes important.

All

order

until

the "/.procmailrc

a match

message matches the conditions acted upon. This So,

if

any

of

is

is

in

file is

a recipe,

why the default recipe

first in

the -/.procmailrc

You don’t need to type

in

word

anywhere

recipes

the

in

this

the block.

is

it

is

the

immediately

last

on the

recipe that

first

we can’t

list.

file will

be acted upon

case

is

in

if

the parent recipe

In

the

is

true.

is

matching the Subject

true.

The

line for

the

it.

first

action, the

That

is, if

we

in

either of the

c flag

will

is

used to

only run through

don’t use the c flag,

run the mail through the second recipe. The bang

the mail to the specified address.

(!)

we want to forward

before the email address indicates that

Finally,

the second recipe

in

the block delivers the mail to the learning directory.

line like we did above. you've already defined $MAILDIR variable, just typing family instead of If

$MAILDIR/family be dropped

is

enough.

All

matched messages would

into the relevant folder

whether you type

Handling The

recipes.

the complete path of the folder

the action

still

very

found. However, once a

and the message will never get to any of the other

in

in

‘French’

braces) instead

your messages match more than one recipe, the

recipe listed

the

which are used only

parent recipe

copy the message. Typically, a message

incoming messages are matched against the

listed recipes in

it,

in

This block enables us to put multiple recipes

line.

We don't have any condition statements

family folder.

in

within

messages from

[email protected] and from [email protected] will

[email protected]

:0

macros that facilitate matching messages. the condition

A Subject:.*(French)

{

and move the matches

line)

a built-in Procmail macro. "To_

are similar built-in

The

:0 *

$MAILDIR/family

messages

also keep a copy

in

the complete path or just the folder name.

spam

definition of

spam

or junk

messages can vary from

person to person. find PPT attachments offensive, so they I

are always discarded. Also ignored are

subject

in all in

caps,

like this

messages with the

recipe below:

:0 *

A Subject: [A-Z]

/dev/null

Another method

is

to create either a whitelist of

known

and trusted addresses and then you only keep messages

Choosing a mailbox

from these

* Check There are two options to choose from

when deciding a mailbox format. These are mbox and maildir. For our examples in this tutorial,

we’ve used an mbox-

type mailbox, specified -/.procmailrc as Mail and

in

MAILDIR=$HOME/

DEFAULT=$MAILDIR/new.

Had we put

The mbox-type mailbox stores all messages as plain text in a single file. Within the

file,

the beginning of a

message is indicated by a From string and there’s a blank line at the end of

:0: *

? formail -x”From” -x”From:” -x”Sender:” -x”X-Sender:”

-x”Reply-To:” -x”Retum-Path” -x”To:”

egrep

-i -f

$MAILDIR/trusted

on the other hand stores

us a maildir type.

directories as needed.

I

$HOME/.trusted

In this recipe,

Maildir

messages in a separate file per message within the cur, new and tmp directories, moving messages between

a trailing slash at the end

your mailbox:

the message.

$HOME/Mail/ and $MAILDIR/new/ it would have given

in

of the path, as in

in

my whitelist

headers, pipe

them

we use

Formail to extract only the specified

them on to the egrep utility, which then matches

against the addresses listed

an external

utility

in

the .trusted

file.

Formail is

used to process messages and extract

information from within the

message headers.

In

our recipe,

the information extracted by Formail is ‘piped’ to egrep. The

Never miss another issue Subscribe to the #1 source for Linux on page 98 LXF135 September 2010

www.linuxformat.com

66.

Procmail Tutorial

-/.trusted -i

file

contains a

switch to egrep

of

list

You can alternately create a

and create a recipe them.

In

to delete

all

trusted addresses and the

blacklist of

known offenders

messages

originating

directing

locking, so start

from

File

with

messages to a

of

to a

can’t be rescued or

file,

you don't need :

0

configure Procmailto hook up with SpamAssassin,

case

you’ll

need to

install

configure Procmail.

/etc/procmailrc

Once

file

*

I

to

in

which

create the lock again.

condition in size,

it’s

to route

installed, all

size.

This

save us

on

to If

will

line

look for

type

prevent

all

overhead.

message.

original

messages that are

most spam messages are

some

less

In

then 256kb in

messages from being inspected and In the third line, we pass the message

-/.procmail rc

it

will

rewrite

its

Subject

field to

!

!

#

in

a

if

make sure no message

is

you can look through

you want. Save the .vacation

vacation.lock



If

sender’s address not in cache, send

ehc

:0

(formail -rA”Precedence: junk”

\

This

Set an autoresponder

;

\

\

/usr/lib/sendmail -oi

I

may seem

-t

daunting, but

if

you break

the

in

first

recipe ensures three things.

We then

auto -res ponder,

have three condition

known as vacation response or auto-reply. This relies on the vacation utility and its not already installed on your

that auto-reply

system, you should do so now.

The second

also

if

*

.*for

is

two parts

first recipe.

First,

the

W

The h means search headers

and the c tells Procmail to keep a copy its

into

it

actually very straightforward. Let's look at the

it’s

The Whc

wrongly identified as spam.

of Procmail is

am

“I

return. Cheers!”

auto-reply recipe:

waits for a return from Formail.

A very widely used feature

I

and

Store sender’s address in vacation.cache

message to /dev/null but

local directory that

directory

formail -rD 8192 vacation.cache

I

)

it

home

when

read your message

more complex,

cat ^/.vacation

just as easily direct the

best to keep

try to

A X-Loop: [email protected]

*

I

A X-Spam-Status:.*Yes

it's

will

A FROM_DAEMON

*

file:

spam

to

will

I

we need to now create an

.*for

your

file in

-A”X-Loop: [email protected]”

You could

it

and then

include

:0H: *

exists,

# mail containing vacation message.

it

you can now add the following recipe to your

So,

*

#

SpamAssassin.

spam tag.

at a time.

your message. Your message could be a simple

in

Whc:

:0

the

usually quite small

SpamAssassin identifies any of the messages

encounters as spam,

file

we need to create a

indicates to Procmail that this

and may modify the

we

the lock

incoming messages to

SpamAssassin

the colon

line,

since

file

file. If

wait for a period of time

SpamAssassin before you can

or something

in

writing recipes, begin

written to the

file:

filter

message to any file. The :0: file locking where Procmail determines what file the message is being written to and creates

a lock

< 256000

a

need to

locking, since Procmail isn’t

invokes automatic

:0:.

/usr/bin/spamc

is

when

file

The concluding colon ensures that only one message gets by tying

on vacation.

The fw

a

this,

all

writing the

up to mess up the mailbox format. To

fw

recipe

use

file

prevent

you use the recipe to forward

external application, you don’t

the two messages getting mixed

Next, create a .vacation

#Send message

If

matching emails, or to pipe them to an

:.

SpamAssassin.

:0

a feature of Procmail that

When this happens, there’s a

file.

risk of

you wish to be even more thorough with spam, you can

If

is

messages from being corrupted on delivery. Imagine Procmail delivering two messages simultaneously

lost forever. Also, since

your recipe with a :0 instead of a

locking

protects

messages to /dev/null,

remember that these messages

reviewed at a later stage - they are you're not writing these

file

messages to /dev/null instead

direct the

$MAILDIR/trusted. When

When to use file locking

case-insensitive.

the recipe, just replace the .trusted

.spammers and please

all

makes matches

lines.

of the

The

message.

first

makes sure

sent to mails that are sent to your address

The number following the



:

in

a recipe indicates is

there to prevent your auto-reply being sent to

mailing-lists * !

A FROM_DAEMON line is to

!

avoid auto-reply to emails that you

in

a

file

line,

automatically,

but you

we instruct

still

need

to write :0 for

A X-Loop: [email protected] the next

is

now calculated

send to yourself

In

number of

actions. This

and the third *

the

compatibility.

Formail to store sender's address

called vacation.cache.

The next recipe begins with :0ehc. The e guarantees that this recipe

is

executed only

if

the

first

recipe returns a

message that says the vacationxache file doesn’t contain the sender’s address. .vacation

the

When reading emails using Mutt you can press c to change between the mailboxes your emails are sorted

Sendmail to send the

address

man

is in

the cache, no auto-reply

will

into.

hills!

be sent. Refer

procmailex as well as the Procmail man page for

more information about auto-responders, then

>

Next month Run to the

instruct

The two recipes here ensure that senders don’t receive same auto-reply for each email they send to us. Once

their

to

We then

message to the sender.

relax into a

spam-free

life.

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back and

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101

Answers Got a question about open source? Whatever your

This month we answer questions on:

email

level,

to [email protected] for a solution.

it

speed up the boot process by not mounting any unnecessary hardware.

0

We

Remastersys Backup

Please Select which option you would like?

D Custom USB

E

Leaving

applications available,

0 Netbook

booting

0 Boot from an

typically

compiling

,

a basic

and a simple

movie player (currently VLC) and, of course, a

monitoring

a printer Disk transfer

OOo

picture viewer

0 Encryption 0 Webcam

invisible disk

0 Transferring

need limited

also only

MS

B Secure moving

browser (currently I've

trawled

Firefox).

Pick

Info

Backup

Backup Complete System

Dlst

Make

a Distributable

copy to share with friends

Distcdfs

Make

a Distributable

copy cd filesystem only

Distiso

Make

a Distributable iso

including user Data

file

only

Modify

Modify the remastersys conlig

Clean

Remove temporary

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About Remastersys Backup

Quit

Quit Remastersys Backup

-

•

both cdfs and iso

good

will

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the cc

cd filesystem must have been completed already

-

customize options

file to

files

my back issues

and picked up some very useful stuff from there,

Custom USB stick

i

but

We need to create bootable copies of Linux on USB

Q:



its

the third step above before

either fairly simple or

rather messy, depending

this,

Otherwise, you need to load the kernel and

good as a boot drive. Is there any way to boot Linux from the second drive? Dave Belton

the

live

is

drive

- 10MB

is

enough - and, using the

Grub config file

When

a system boots

stagel from the looks

in

config

it

first

the

first

place.

loads the Grub

in

a symlink.

sudo

its

probably

sudo

directory to the

.

boot

in

/boot by

Now

reboot and try again.

As the config

need to look at the Grub documentation

The usual cause

refers to kernels as

/boot/vmlinuz-xyz when yours are now at

of

such a

init

scripts or recompile the kernel

SATA card compiled we

instead of as a module, neither of which

sudo

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CD

after booting the live

For one,

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being loaded, you’ll need to

isn’t

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information

failure is incorrectly

specifying the path to the config or kernel.

in,

critical

Grub

fails,

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to translate these into meaningful messages.

root=/dev/sdbl

hack the

in

running:

tends to give terse numeric error messages, so

with the driver for your

leader

MBR to use the kernel

grub-install /dev/sda

the module

^

/boot

type:

Grub in the

set

and configs

you'll

of:

link -s

Then

and make sure

will

read something along the lines

which then loads /sbin/init from the

distro’s root partition. You're reaching the first

it

Change

and

partition

live

partition. Edit the

this directory

points to your larger disk, so

files.

kernel,

you could do what many distros do and create

that the root parameter on the kernel line

MBR of the first disk, this then

/boot/grub for the next stage and The Grub menu then loads the

/vmlinuz-xyz, you could change every entry, or

CD, copy the contents of the boot directory

have been able to

in

is in

/boot. Create a small ext2 partition on the IDE

from your large disk onto this

it

which

easy to do because everything you need

CD clearly contains the driver or you wouldn't install to

disk,

love the not-too-minimal user

Anyway, the one thing that

like is

that

I

printer through the I

also can’t find

is

it

I

my

can't get the driver for

automated

online.

routine,

and

What’s interesting

that this isn’t the case with the last two

versions of Linux Mint, both being able to find the driver first thing in the live CD.

Where are the drivers stored

in

CUPS, and

can simply extract the driver from a I

Mint to Patrick

CD

live

my installed Crunchbang? Buddeberg Copying a driver file from one

A‘

another

isn’t

a

good

idea.

It

distro to

may be

incompatible with the software on the

may require other files.

second computer or

it

A better approach

to see which driver

in

is

Mint, then convince

same

driver.

is

used

Crunchbang to use the

The reason Crunchbang

is

»

not

September 2010 LXF135

1

103

Answers

using the correct driver

automatic detection not too

likely,

is

may be that the

fancy,

not working, which

or that the correct driver

is

giving

is

and use the older drive OS - the extra space

for the

you room to play with

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simply not included as part of the standard installation. In that case,

installing

running the printer configuration again. There’s a driver for this printer

the

in

one.

Crunchbang does not include this

whereas Linux Mint does,

default installation,

so the solution

gu ten print

is

in its

Crunchbang, then run the

in

printer configuration again

Printer Settings

and select the

MULTIPASS-MP500 driver up automatically.

CUPS directly

if it

Alternatively,

>

put a

V

is

Clonezilla

one. After copying, you

image

file

new ones,

you can set up

bootloader. Boot from the CD, start Clonezilla

is

that

hard drive and you should be able to boot

can also copy the

and select the Device-Device option followed

am asking I

want to

my box and

it

you want the

the time use

let Clonezilla do its stuff. more work but gives the Partition the new drive

bootloader cloned and

The

probably impossible, but

drive into

tell

third choice

greatest

flexibility.

is

manually using GPartedor

Set up

similar.

80GB drive onto it, including the OS.

/swap and /home being

do a

direct

I

have a

sounds too simple just to

copy operation. Any suggestions

would be very much appreciated. The hard drive

I

have

mind

in

is in

use

in

my other

machine and would simply be screwed into its new home and have all its files erased. Catgate, from the forums You have three main options here. The first,

OS for

an extra

and simplest,

at

all. If

there

drive, there's

room

in

the case

no reason why you

a good choice here. The best

from a

live

fraught with

possible I

to

the

slowly. After

live

sudo

to buy a

start using a Linux laptop in

my

Most of the clients work for are using Windows and the Office applications,

so to

I

I

my documents either

need to convert

PDF or to MS format without

functionality of the

losing the

document.

Theo Rowaan The short answer

is

yes.

The long

answer depends on which Windows applications you need to use.

makes things appear

work faster when they’re

is

situation?

pitfalls,

You can add -v to the options to watch the progress, something that

240GB

any other partitioning scheme that takes your

is

rsync -ax /mnt/oldhome/ /mnt/newhome/

more

/home partition, or

this is

if

Can

my

new laptop one without Windows and Office.

My intention

rsync -ax /mnt/oldroot/ /mnt/newroot/

down, remove the

You could set up the whole of

way to do

my job and most of

MS Office applications

and several other applications related to work.

so mount your partitions and copy with:

don't have plans for the older drive), giving you in total.

copy the

CD - trying to copy system files

from a running system

cannot have both connected (provided you

the second drive as a large

to

contents of each partition manually - rsync is

copy the

to not

is

is

a reasonable

minimum. Then you would have

use a laptop with Windows XP

I

professional for

whatever partitioning scheme you want, with

it

B Leaving the dark side

Beginners menu. Select the source and destination disks,

new drive. GM

safely into your

the

in

transfer the entire contents of the existing

suspicion that

can be used to back up a hard drive to an it directly to another disk.

or to copy

GParted to resize

partitions, or create

The advantage of

I’m not sure why.

160GB hard

80GB drive to the first half of the

it

I

wlttrjifc

fti

and

using Clonezilla

what

W last Jen.

copy your

Clonezilla will indeed

by the Disk To Local Disk option

feel that

I

wir

name

part of the

doesn’t pick this

H

lb rerk

tJCanwi)



on to the new

to use the extra space.

D Disk transfer

^ ^

is

implies a byte-for-byte copy,

160GB

foomatic-db-

to install

,

use Clonezilla to make a copy of the old drive

Gutenprint (formerly Gimp-print) collection of drivers.

The second option

matter of

just a

it's

the appropriate driver package and

TBiW 1?U

I

l*> tjil to stovi •h&fi ift

other distros.

actually working

they

If

are the standard Office ones, there are Linux equivalents: OpenOffice.org instead of Office

,

Gimp instead

of

MS

Photoshop and so

OpenOffice.org can save documents

in

on.

the

formats or export them

copying everything, power

various Microsoft

file

80GB drive and

to PDF, so there’s

no problem there. Internet

boot from

CD again. Open a terminal and

run:

usage

is

at least as

to install the bootloader to the new,

now only,

excellent

good on Linux as on

Chromium are both web browsers that are available on

Windows:

grub-install /dev/sda

Firefox and

l ulWSon

Winner!

This month’s winner

D Secure moving l’m running

Q but

trying to

Ubuntu 10.04 and

move /home to

partition.

It’s all

a

am

new

set up and ready,

my home directory is encrypted, so

copying

files

work.

there any easy

Is

Ideally,

I

across using rsync doesn’t

would

like

way

to keep

directory encrypted on the

Can

I

just

of doing this?

is

touch with us to claim your new camera!

Ubuntu uses ecryptfs

way to transfer everything

its

home

encryption at the filesystem

from a

it

encrypts individual

within a directory, so

(and their

files

you end up with

a normal directory that’s apparently gibberish. Then, ecryptfs

is

layer.

full

of

used to mount

that encrypted directory on another another

/home/user

in this

case,

and

You don’t want to copy the contents of your

directory

is

mounted, and you can’t unmount

across easily?

your

home directory while you’re

logged

This

makes the task

in

rather tricky

www.linuxformat.com

live

partition

easily log directly into the

The simplest option

is

to boot

CD. Mount your original root

home partition and /home with rsync

and your new

copy the contents

of

:

rsync -archive /mnt/oldpartition/home/

in.

Ubuntu,

/

mnt/newpartition/

done this and edited /etc/fstab mount the new home, reboot from the hard disk, check that you’re using the new

After you’ve to

home directory directly, only the encrypted files, but these are hidden when your home

Jaymac, from the forums

104 LXF135 September 2010

where you can’t root account.

everything appears normal.

partition.

for

directory encryption. This doesn’t use

new

copy everything except the

there a

in

directory,

rsync and then set up the encryption again or

Instead,

names)

Jaymac. Get

my home

Private folder and the ecryptfs folder using

later,

A

is

home

partition

and that

all

your

files

are

present and correct. Then reboot back into the live

CD and delete the contents home directory, but not

of the original

the directory to

itself

mount the new

or you won’t be able partition.

NB

Answers

both platforms (as in

is

OpenOffice.org). With this

these programs on Windows, to see

what you want, before switching to

if

they do

you're running a

Linux.

table listing the

Linux and there

in

most popular one

is

machine,

virtual

Windows OS

full it

will

inside the

a

it.

painfully slow.

you use

may not

in

Linux. Just bear in

and

point?)

number of choices. Firstly, you can dual boot, which means you have a Linux distribution and Windows installed on the same computer and choose which to use when you boot the

new operating system

All

the standard distros’ installers

make room for both

quite a

lot,

on a Linux desktop and

number of

distros.

is

included with a large

known

that are

to

list

of

C it

GCC is good at cross-

setting this

up

is

also a

them to work

of work, although

lot

www.kegel.com/

the crosstool script from

crosstool eases the process.

As for getting your sound working, that should function out of the box.

unreasonable to assume that

compilers

devices

looks to be a

like

printers

hardware should be

them working.

will

may be

It

all

external

work, but internal

as soon as you turn

fine

on, otherwise the product

is

it

faulty. Printing is

network rather than trying to plug your printer

I

can't use Git

Can you please help?

into the Ubisurfer.

Elliott

programs

Small devices

like this

of

memory and

It’s

everything else, including specific printer

not

handled by the computer serving

low-powered CPU, but the lack

drivers,

storage space. Compiling

the printer.

software usually requires a

fairly large

That way, you only have to

worry about generic printing support because

aren't really

suitable for compiling software. just the

Windows

on

best accomplished by doing so across the

John

you can use VirtualBox ( also

it

offers -

work and are supported,

included with most distros) to run a

to cross-compile

This also applies to the uClibc that BusyBox

for a small price. Alternatively,

can't get

I

rather complex matter to get

to run

Crossover Office

a variant of Wine that has a

is

one architecture on another. However,

having

my Ubisurfer

on

There are various (mini)

(www.codeweavers.com/products/cxlinux) is

like Tar,

advertised on the web, but

(well,

Windows programs

device

compiling - building software intended for

I

Windows program, Wine is actually)

programs,

them.

another computer. The architecture doesn’t

problems with downloading

BusyBox netbook.

that you have to reboot to switch. For the

some

GM

am

and

for

for a world of

The best way to compile software for an

due to an apparent lack of a C compiler. Because of this, can’t get my printer, sound, CD-ROM and so on functioning yet.

menu. This works well, with the disadvantage

emulation software that enables

Linux,

space

would be heading

embedded

take time to learn to use a

new to

l'm

Q

will

embedded

the library

pain trying to build software on this device.

what would be the

effectively.

really

have to be the same;

operating systems and set up a dual boot

occasional

You

Embedded compiler

detect an existing Windows installation, repartition the drive to

will

it

like

installed software, nor the

mind that

not Windows and does things

is

be a suitable equivalent, which leaves you with

machine.

have problems

header files needed to compile against the

differently (otherwise,

a

you got a compiler

approaches, with their use of dual booting

Linux

particularly

software, there

if

still

system won't have things

what they need

If

Even

common for people to use a mixture of these

org/wiki/Linux_software_equivalent_to_

Windows

SD

You could use an

compiling packages because an

It’s

decreasing as they gain familiarity with doing

specialised

other.

working, you would

Questions wiki at http://wiki.linuxquestions.

Windows_software

one or the

card as extra storage, but this would be

run just about any

Windows software you can throw at

the Linux

in

of

is

not quite as convenient as Wine, but because

Most Windows programs and tasks have equivalent programs

machine on your Linux desktop. This

virtual

may prefer to start using some of

mind, you

is

CUPS on

amount

If

you have a working printer using

»

a Linux desktop system, edit

Frequently asked questions...

WPA

» My house

» What is WPA? WPA is the more secure successor to WEP encryption.

be safe, right? Wrong! Although your laptop may

» OK, thanks for that concise explanation, but

WPA (Wi-Fi is

what

is it?

Protected Access)

a system to ensure the privacy

of data transmitted over

your

I

need

Unless you

accessing your system

network

access point instead of their own (this happens - it’s how a lot of

in all

rooms, so

I

should

run unsecured networks) but

access point beyond a certain

won’t prevent anyone with a desire

may be A wireless card with an antenna will have a much greater

to hack your connection.

distance, other hardware

able

>

range. Suitably

» Do need WPA hardware?

can give huge increases

in

If

your company

want

someone reading your confidential

wired network, where your data

files

really

from the car park?

broadcasts your data hundreds of

» Since you mentioned it earlier, what is WEP? WEP is Wired Equivalent Privacy.

metres

This

means that anyone with a

laptop

with a wireless card could read

your data as easily as

if

they were

plugged into your network’s hub.

as WEP. device,

If

it

only

supports WEP.

secure wireless networking. While it’s

a

lot

all, it is

better than no security at

not that

difficult to crack.

may stop your neighbour

It

» suppose have to read man pages and HOWTOs and edit configuration files to use WPA I

I

with Linux?

» How about software? You need WPA support at two the device drivers, which

most have; and a separate program to implement WPA. The most popular program for this is wpa_supplicant, which should

come with your distro and

was the previous attempt to

managing wireless connections.

WPA as well

you have an older

you may find

levels: in

never leaves the security of the

every direction. This

new wireless network cards and

access points support

range.

certainly do. Unlike a traditional

in

All

uses a wireless network with weak

do you

Network Manager is an option,

but Wicd also does a good job of

I

enhanced systems

(or no) security,

computers, wireless networking

it

to.

shielded bunker, you almost

lengths of wire connecting your

people discover their neighbours

not be able to lock on to your

with your laptop. a cave, or a

when they

accidentally connect to your

This

it?

live in

my laptop

doesn’t even connect to the

may not worry you if you only use Wi-Fi at home to get online

wireless networks.

» Do

is big,

j

available

is

from http://hostap.

epitest.fi/wpa_supplicant. This is

the program that handles key

negotiation and authentication.

You certainly could do that living

your

life

if

through Vim really

turns you on. Fortunately, there are graphical configuration tools that

make things quite

a

bit easier.

The most advanced of these is probably Gnome’s Network Manager (www.gnome.org/ projects/NetworkManager) Although

it’s

a

Gnome

project,

there are front-ends available for

KDE and other desktops.

J www.tuxradar.com

September 2010 LXF13 5

1

105

Answers

/etc/cups/cupsd.conf and ensure that

directories, the

it

encrypted data

©©

*

contains these

lines:

is

©LOCAL Browsing On BrowseAllow ©LOCAL These tell

CUPS to

should be able to print

your encrypted data

USB flash

drives

GPRS

USB CD or

would be

It

CD and

live

look at your

directory - the

easier,

SD

Places

card as an external drive wipes out the size

PH

c.'Mebcim-sbvf!iK I

on*

I

Wl ling lor iKtMUKt.. I

D Preload library

BA quick test

B Copy the applet

you see get_cam _image errors when you try to view the webcam, you need to preload the V4L1 compatibility library.

Go to http://localhost:8888 in your browser to see the webcam image is

The properties window in Synaptic shows where the applet is installed, copy it to your Apache web directory, usually /var/www.

D Tweak the HTML

B Add a script

To change the image size or playback rate, tweak the settings in webcam.html. You can also add explanatory text here.

Put the

If

if

shown. This

script,

still

image tests the

B Watch from outside

command and all

make

it

server.

the options

in

a

executable and then you can

start the server

from

its

icon.

www.tuxradar.com

Forward port 80 to the computer running webcam from anywhere, but set up access control. ES

the server to view the

September 2010 LXF13 5

1

107

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the background. For

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istros

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you use Ubuntu, you'll

to use the distro, as this

you use Slackware,

the fantastic Slackware Book, which

If

is

you’ll find this

geared towards

on the

installation,

installation.

It

assumes

that

and that you’re not

Ultimately, Slackware

explained

LXFDVD

in

assumes that you

know what you're doing with your

more.

it’s full

and

files.

Linux

of

it’s

It

is

taken

in

In

X Window System and

true Slackware tradition,

obscure jokes and references,

a really entertaining

become a full-on

way to more

Linux guru. For

information see www.slackware.com.

the selection, testing and

Future Publishing can

accept no responsibility for disruption and/or loss to

your data or your computer system that

may occur

while using this disc, the programs or the data on

it.

You

are strongly advised to have up-to-date, verified

backups of

all

your important

files.

Please read individual licences for terms of use.

Defective discs In

the unlikely event of your Linux Format coverdisc being

in

any way defective, please

our support site at

visit

www.linuxformat.com/dvdsupport assistance.

If

reader support team, telephone

110

LXF135 September 2010

for further

member of our +44 (0) 1225 822743.

you would prefer to

talk to a

> Slackware’s installer runs in text

www.linuxformat.com

the

describes

any new software.

DVD software,

in

system configuration,

networking, the

much

you know your way around the scared of editing configuration

is

Distros/Slackware section as

slackbook-2.0.pdf.

line

one to

cover the installation

We’ll not

process

intermediate and advanced Linux users,

the job of

first

run a reliable and up-to-date virus checking program on

While every care

and

not just copy

start the installer.

scripts are

with an Ncurses text- based tool doing

command

the following:

installation of

the

CD-Rs. (Note that you need to burn

the discs, boot from the

you'll learn Linux.”

NOTICE! free before duplication.

"If

learn Ubuntu.

Important

viruses,

The boot

ar.

and everything makes sense. As the

are almost entirely based on the

make

in

supplied as three

Once you have

them without having to fuss around

about as pure a Linux

is

as you can get without going

known

on the

“Slackware is geared towards intermediate and advanced Linux users.”

longest running Linux flavour. Having

»

so you can explore

bliss.

these as direct

staying power of Slackware, the world’s

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come to

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and tweaks

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latest release of

mode, but

it’s

easy enough to navigate.

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DVD

softwai

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HomeBank, K3b

KOffice,

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is

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a funny old app.

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and

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our review on page

flaws,

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final

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Let HomeBank show how

you are missing any dependencies

have been disappointed that

hugely

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design

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case

install

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today arguably the most

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software from

built

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it’s

tar xfvz homebank-4.3.tar.gz

polished personal finance application.

years, starting

you’ve

If

cd homebank-4.3

the Desktop

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software.

source before,

its

section of the DVD.

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from the

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disc

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source code

file

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install

homebank-4.3.tar.gz

LXFDVD to your home directory, and

the powerful (but lumbering)

seems to be

bugfixes.

To

them

install

in

your

them.)

this

month

is

similar to previous releases,

some

such as support

big highlight of the

Desktop section

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big

new features,

for Blu-ray drives

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can read Ada, C,

have the BitTorrent clients covered

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page 30 's Roundup.

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find out

how the

and

is

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aware

blank lines -

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calculates purely on

against the competition; so we've

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included a development snapshot of

features.

the upcoming 4.0 release on the DVD.

for a

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supports syntax highlighting

wide range of languages, a multi-

pane layout and in-app compiler output

the dev-preview folder inside

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distro that

the finest free software

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your

titles.

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PC from the LXFDVD

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compare two

suicide in Pingus.

your

mountain and collecting

desktop. Along the bottom

fish.

a panel containing

of

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arena to collect objects,

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on the

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in

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how

much they differ in their source code.

some high-speed

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good features of an

IDE, without the bloat.

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www.tuxradar.com

penguin, sliding

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ball

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racing japes, try Extreme

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different versions

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more

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fun, right-click

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titles,

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sample the faster performance and improved

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the resulting directory and run

firefox.

Linux Gamers Live

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settings by copying .mozilla (in your

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something here

everyone to

for

try.

September 2010 LXF135

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/

On the disc The world’s most popular

distro

-

mobile form!

in

Linux distribution

Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.04

G

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package

spec Linux box? Love Ubuntu

Edition

but finding

it

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bit

too

much for

your reduced resolution display or

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limited

banks? Or perhaps you're

way to go. Here are the recommended system requirements: » 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU » 512MB RAM

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» 4GB hard drive space

just looking for a fast, light Linux distro

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support, a great selection of software

chips too.

and a

experience: because Netbook Edition

slick,

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Some

netbooks include their Linux, but

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it

running smoothly on older

The main thing

computing, without

all

whistles of desktop OSes,

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D Boot Boot your PC from the LXFDVD and select your language. Then you’ll reach this boot menu - just hit Enter to proceed.

112

LXF135 September 2010

in

netbook's internal drive, follow the steps

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standard for netbook

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software. Click

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