Ubuntu - A Rolling Linux Distribution ?

Will Ubuntu switch to a rolling release ? This is the big question that is playing in the minds of Ubuntu users and developers alike.

A rolling release model refers to a continually developing software system. In a rolling release, the user will never have to install a new version of the software. Rather, the updates to the software and the system will be pushed to the user as and when the changes are made.

An example of a Linux distribution that conform to a rolling release is Arch Linux.

Mark Shuttleworth - the founder of Ubuntu - says he is not convinced about rolling releases yet though he is keeping an open mind.

He went on to elaborate on the direction he wishes for Ubuntu in his blog post. Some noteworthy views he aired are as follows.

• Canonical is still undecided on whether to make Ubuntu a rolling release Linux distribution. LTS point release mechanism has been quite successful for Ubuntu and Mark feels this is the way to go when targeting end users. "Rolling releases are not real releases" - says Mark Shuttleworth.
• The real cost of supporting an architecture is way outside the scope of Ubuntu’s non-commercial commitments. Hence Ubuntu support for fringe architectures such as PowerPC may not happen. PowerPC was an officially supported architecture for Ubuntu between versions 4.10 and 6.10. From 7.04 onwards it is a community supported port. 
• The vision that Mark Shuttleworth holds is for Ubuntu to  run on a wide range of consumer devices - not just computers. This includes phones, tablets, PCs and other devices. The idea is for Ubuntu to be a viable alternative and a competitor to the big shots - Android, Chrome, Windows and Apple. This is the goal of the Unity desktop.
•  Put succinctly, he "doesn't want to miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a free and open platform that is THE LEADER across both consumer and enterprise computing".

Ubuntu that runs on your smartphone announced

Now be prepared to buy Ubuntu powered smartphones. Hardly a year back, Canonical had announced "Ubuntu for Android" project which enables high-end Android handsets to run a full fledged Ubuntu Desktop when the phone is connected to a monitor, mouse and keyboard.

Ubuntu 12.10 will have a shopping lens

When Ubuntu 12.10 is shipped in October this year, the Unity interface will include a shopping lens.

A 'lens' is a piece of code that allows you to search for specific information both locally and remotely. Many useful lenses have been created for Unity by various third parties. For instance, you can create a Wikipedia lens that will display search results exclusively from Wikipedia right on your Ubuntu desktop.

Ubuntu Ups the Ante with 12.04 LTS aka Precise Pangolin

Ubuntu 12.04 aka Precise Pangolin has officially been released. This is the next LTS version of Ubuntu. One week back, I had downloaded Ubuntu 12.04 (then in final beta) with an intent to try it out. After I installed it on my machine and started using it, I was very impressed. It is my opinion that the Ubuntu team has pulled off a success here. Unity interface which many people (including yours truly) were eager to banish to the boondocks has made a comeback. It is now simple to use, efficient, and beautiful.

If what I experienced in Ubuntu 12.04 is to be believed, Ubuntu is on the right track in becoming a common peoples operating system.

Ubuntu For Android - Turn Your Android Phone Into An Ubuntu Server

Canonical has unveiled a revolutionary concept called Ubuntu for Android. The idea is for Ubuntu to reside along side Android in your high-end mobile phones thus bringing a complete computing experience to the end user.
Has this stirred your interest ? Then read on...

Top 5 Linux Distributions

As a Linux user, I am sure, you will be interested to know which is the most popular Linux distribution. Till recently, if you go by Distrowatch stats, Ubuntu ruled the roost as the most popular Linux distribution. However, after Ubuntu team made a switch to the Unity interface, its popularity has declined considerably.

Download Ubuntu 11.04 aka Natty Narwal

Ubuntu 11.04 code named Natty Narwhal has been released. Natty (11.04) brings a new desktop experience through the Unity project. Unity delivers a consistent user experience for the desktop and netbook users by redesigning the desktop and incorporating new technologies thus optimizing the experience for touch, consistency and collaboration.

Switching To Linux - Tale Of A Former Mac User Who Is Also A Musician

Switching to Linux is easy for most of us. You just have to download and burn a Linux distribution and boot your computer with it. If the Linux distribution you have chosen is a modern one, then you can finish installing it on your machine in 6 steps or less.

However, if you rely on your computer for a living, then you need to do some preparations prior to making the switch. Kim Cascone, an experienced and gifted musician and composer had been using an Apple PowerBook to compose music. When his PowerBook G4 exhibited signs of age, he did a quick fact check and found that he could save as much as $3000 (which includes the machine and the software costs) if he switched to Linux.

Pinguy OS - An Ubuntu Based Linux Distribution on Steroids

Ubuntu has helped spawn umpteen Linux distributions. Pinguy OS is yet another Linux distribution based on Ubuntu (version 10.10 to be exact).

Pinguy OS is targeted at lay persons - people who are going to use Linux for the first time, or those who want an out-of-box working OS.

Cover Thumbnailer - How to install in Ubuntu Linux

Cover Thumbnailer is a small Python script which displays music/video album covers in Nautilus in place of ordinary icons of folders, preview of pictures in a folder and more.

It is similar to what you see in Microsoft Windows 7 where the folder shows a preview of the pictures contained in it.

Avant Window Navigator for Ubuntu Linux

Avant Window Navigator (AWN) is a Mac OS X like panel for the GNOME Desktop. In addition to launchers that can be dragged onto the bar, it features a taskbar that behaves similarly to the Mac OS X dock. The window navigator uses the composite extension for transparency and other effects.

The latest version of Avant Window Navigator - as of this writing - is version 0.4.

Ubuntu One Music Store - An iTunes Equivalent For Linux Users

In the next version of Ubuntu - namely Lucid Lynx, you will find a well integrated Music store in the same lines as Apple's  iTunes for Mac and Windows users. With one major difference namely - Ubuntu One music store will be selling DRM free songs. Each song will use 256 kpbs (or higher) encoding which enhances the quality of the song.

Free Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference

Ubuntu neophytes and gurus alike have cause to rejoice. Here is a gem of a deal - a free ebook on Ubuntu authored by none other than Kier Thomas. The book is divided into seven chapters spanning 170 pages. And it contain a wealth of information right from an introduction to Ubuntu, to installing and configuring it on your machine, coming to grips with the desktop, a lucid explanation of the various system administration tasks you should carry out to maintain your system, and of course the security aspects of Ubuntu which is dealt with in the seventh chapter of this book.

This is a wonderful book which is sure to be a ready pocket reference to all Linux users running Ubuntu on their machine. And true to Keir's class, the language is lucid and to the point. The sapient advice he belts out in this book to many of the common problems faced by Ubuntu users puts this book on a singular level of its own.

While the author has been gracious in providing the ebook as a free download, the real value of this book lies in buying a print edition of the book. As owing to its pocket size (8 x 5.2 x 0.4), it is ideal to carry the book where ever you go without much hassle. You can order a print copy of this book from Amazon for a nominal price of $9.94.

Cool Awn Applets to adorn your Ubuntu Linux Desktop

In the previous article, I explained how to install Avant Window Navigator in Ubuntu Linux (Gutsy Gibbon). By default, it doesn't install any applets. But a dock without any applets is as boring as a desktop without a dock right ?

So here are a couple of AWN applets which I found really interesting. But first the installation ...

Installation of Awn applets

To install these applets you have to enable an additional repository from reacocard. For that open the /etc/apt/sources.list file in your favorite editor and append the following line to it.

#FILE: /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/reacocard-awn/ubuntu gutsy main

Now update the repository and install the following package. NOTE: It is assumed that you have already installed the Avant Window Navigator.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install awn-core-applets-bzr

That is it. Now you can find all the applets in the awn manager which is accessed from GNOME Menu System>Preferences>Awn manager .

Fig: Awn manager GNOME menu

To run an applet, open the "Awn manager" dialog box and in its left pane, click the "Applets" icon. In the right pane, you will find all the applets installed on your system. Select an applet and click the "Activate button". The applet starts running on your Awn dock.

Fig: Awn manager GUI

A few cool AWN applets
Here are a couple of very nice applets which caught my fancy.

Dilbert Cartoon Applet - This applet displays comic strips of popular cartoon characters. At present you have a choice of 5 different strips namely - Dilbert, Peanuts, The born loser, Wizard of ID and Xkcd.com.

Fig: Dilbert applet displaying a comic strip

Main menu applet - This applet provides an alternate menu containing all the applications you will find in the menus on the GNOME panel.

Fig: Main menu applet - I find it more functional

Stack applet - I like this applet very much. It has three layouts namely "Default dialog", "Curved GUI" and "Trasher GUI". The "Trasher GUI" is the same as the "Default dialog" with the exception that in the former, there is a delete button embedded. The "Curved GUI" is what has picked my fancy and makes me think of the dock found in Mac OSX Leopard.

Fig: Click on the stack applet to open a stack of objects.

Terminal applet - What better way to use the dock than embedding a terminal into an applet ? The terminal supports transparency which makes it ultra cool. And you can even choose the terminal you want to embed such as gnome-terminal, konsole, xfce terminal, xterm and so on.

Fig: gnome-terminal embedded in the terminal applet

Weather applet - Would you like to know the weather forecasts for today ? Even better how about the predictions for the next 4 days? Well, you have got your wish in the Weather applet. This applet pulls relevant data from the weather.com website and displays it in a nice pictorial view on your desktop. I was really surprised to find my city covered. Also the weather predictions seem pretty accurate.

Fig: I am always interested in the weather :-)

Fig: The weather map of India

Install Avant Window Navigator (AWN) in Ubuntu Linux

AWN - short for Avant Window Navigator is a dock like bar which sits at the bottom of the screen. It provides similar effects as the Dock in Mac OSX Leopard. The AWN project consists of three main parts namely

1. The Dock
2. AWN window navigator and
3. The shared library 'libawn' which is used to develop applets which enhance the functionality of AWN. The applets can be coded in either 'C' or 'Python' language.
   

Pre-requisites for installing AWN
To install AWN on your Linux machine, it has to meet certain conditions. Them being -

• Xgl or AIGLX installed - in short your computer should be capable of compositing support. This mostly means if you have an Nvidia or ATI video card, you should download and install the proprietary drivers.
• A compositing manager installed. A few examples of compositing managers are Beryl/Compiz/Compiz Fusion, Cairo, Xfce, Metacity, xcompmgr and so on.
  In Ubuntu you can enable compositing manager by clicking System>Preferences> Appearance and then enabling Visual effects from the 'Visual Effects' tab in the Appearance dialog.
  

Fig: Enable Visual effects

Installation

In Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon, the installation of AWN is a two step process. First you have to enable the backports repository which contain the necessary binaries of avant window navigator and related files.

This is done by clicking System>Administration>Software sources on the GNOME panel.

Fig: Click on the Software Sources Menu

It opens the "Software sources" dialog box.

In that click the 'Updates' tab and enable the gutsy-backports option as shown in the figure below :

Fig: Enable gutsy-backports in the Updates tab

Next fire up a terminal and update and install the AWN packages as follows :

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install avant-window-navigator awn-manager 

awn-manager is a GUI tool which allows you to make changes to the look and feel of the AWN dock as well as install and manage applets and themes.

Fig: Avant Window Navigator close-up view

Now that you have installed Avant Window Manager, it is time to take it for a test drive. To start AWN, click GNOME menu Applications>Accessories>Avant Window Navigator.

Fig: Avant Window Manager menu

Fig: Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon desktop running AWN

A few AWN tips

• To add applications to the AWN dock, just drag and drop icons from the Applications menu or from Nautilus (/usr/share/applications).
• You can right click on the AWN dock and select properties to open the 'Avant Window Manager' dialog where you can change the look and feel of the dock and add additional applets.
  

Conclusion

Finally we Linux users have our very own dock similar to the dock seen in Mac OSX Leopard. While the AWN project is still a work in progress, there are a lot of applets available from the ubiquitous clock to the GMail checker which brings visual joy to the user's desktop. To know about these applets, read the following article.

Ubuntu 7.10 Gusty Gibbon ready for download

Ubuntu 7.10 the latest offering from Canonical, named Gusty Gibbon has been released. This is touted as one of the most important releases ever by Canonical mainly because a number of enhancements have gone into it which were lacking in previous versions.

Some of them being :

• Streamlined Firefox add-on support
• Improved devices support such as Printer, WiFi, Digital Camera, iPod and so on.
• Read write access to Windows NTFS partition by default - In earlier versions you couldn't save files to the NTFS partition.
• 3D Effects are enabled by default - But will be disabled automatically on systems which do not meet the minimum requirements. I think perhaps they might be using Nouveau device drivers.
  
• Novell's Aparmor security has been incorporated. Aparmor is a name based access control which does the same job of selinux but is claimed to be much easier to configure.
• And finally integrated desktop search using Tracker.
  

Of course apart from those listed above, there are a number of subtle changes such as a GUI for XOrg server configuration and so on. All in all, there is a general expectation among Ubuntu users and Linux lovers in general that this release of Ubuntu is going to be one of the best releases so far. I had covered the expected features earlier.

You can download the latest version of Ubuntu namely ver 7.10 Gusty Gibbon from the following location. Or you can also choose from a list of mirrors closest to your geographic location.

As for me, I am off to download Gusty Gibbon to install on my machine. You can look forward to my personal opinion about this much touted release from Canonical soon.

XOrg version 7.3 blueprint for Ubuntu

Ubuntu is fast on its way to achieving full XOrg ver 7.3 integration in its next major release - Gusty Gibbon. Some of the features that one can look forward to in Ubuntu when XOrg 7.3 is fully merged can be put in a nutshell as follows :

• One of the key features of Xorg 7.3 is better monitor autodetection. In integrating 7.3, the Ubuntu team will attempt to leverage this capability for as many graphics cards as possible. For those cards that lack drivers with xrandr support, they will retain the current system.
• Output hotplug, as well as on-the-fly output reconfiguration and mode switching.
• Input hotplug allows hotplugging of input devices, and also adds enhanced support for touchscreens and tablets provided xserver 1.4 is included.
• Better support for multiple input devices.
• A new intel driver replacing i810 and other intel drivers.

Then there is the prospect of a full featured GUI which allows one to edit and change the configuration of the XOrg server. At present if you want to change any aspect of xorg X server, you have to edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file by hand. You can check out the blueprint for the merger of XOrg 7.3 in Ubuntu here.

More details of the xorg GUI including screenshots can be viewed here.

Fig: Dependency tree of XOrg 7.3

Book Review: Ubuntu Hacks

I recently got hold of a very nice book on Ubuntu called Ubuntu Hacks co-authored by three authors - Kyle Rankin, Jonathan Oxer and Bill Childers. This is the latest of the hack series of books published by O'Reilly. They have made available a rough cut version of the book online ahead of schedule which was how I got hold of the book but as of now you can also buy the book in print. Put in a nutshell, this book is a collection of around 100 tips and tricks which the authors choose to call hacks, which explain how to accomplish various tasks in Ubuntu Linux. The so called hacks range from down right ordinary to the other end of the spectrum of doing specialised things.

AptonCD - Create a backup of all the packages you have installed using apt-get

Consider this scenario... You are interested in installing GNU/Linux on your machine. Assuming you already have the latest version burned on to a CD, it is a simple affair of popping the CD into your CD drive and starting the instalation. But once the installation is done and finished, you will most certainly want to install additional software apart from the ones bundled with the CD. And if you are using a Debian based Linux distribution such as Ubuntu, you will be using the apt-get method. Over a period of time you would have installed a number of additional software including any packages satisfying their dependencies as well as upgraded some of the software to the most recent version.

The problem occurs when you decide to re-install Linux on your machine. You are forced to start all over again, downloading additional software using apt-get. Personally, I have re-installed Debian or a Debian based Linux distribution umpteen times on my machine. And each time I have wished there was a simple way of backing up the packages which I have previously downloaded and installed via apt-get.

A good samaritan has pointed out to a unique project named AptonCD which allows one to create a CD image (ISO) of all the packages downloaded via apt-get or even the packages in a given repository.

On Ubuntu for instance, you can install it using the command:

# sudo apt-get install aptoncd

Once it is installed, you will find a Gnome menu entry at the location System -> Administration -> AptonCD. Clicking on it opens a GUI which will aid in the creation of an ISO image of all the packages stored in the /var/cache/apt/archives directory and any other files which are needed. You can also run aptoncd from the command line to start the AptonCD program.

So how do you use the program ?

It is simple really, the GUI has two tabs namely Create and Restore. The Create tab has a single button which when clicked copies all the necessary packages from the /var/cache/ directory and displays it in a pop up dialog. Here you get to decide if you need to add any additional packages stored in an alternate location or remove some of the already selected packages. There is also an option to set the target media as a CD or DVD and the location where you want to save the resultant image.

Fig: The create tab has just a single button

Fig: Selectively include the packages using this dialog

Once the choices are made, the program creates the necessary CD/DVD image and saves it in the location you had chosen. Now you can either store it in a different location or burn it to a CD/DVD.

Fig: Restore tab allows you to restore from backup

The Restore tab of the AptonCD GUI contain three buttons each catering to a specific purpose. This tab allows you to -

• Restore all packages available from an AptonCD media (read it as CD or DVD) on to the computer.
• Restore packages from an AptonCD ISO image previously generated and stored locally.
• Add a CD/DVD created as a repository for apt-get, aptitude or synaptic. Which means the program adds the necessary lines of code required in the /etc/apt/sources.list file which will enable you to use apt-get or any similar program to install the software on the CD.
  

I found this program really convenient to use not only when I re-install Ubuntu but also when I want to install the same set of programs on a different machine.

One thing it lacks is a way to automatically download the packages from a remote repository and create a CD/DVD image. But then this software is still in its beta stage and hopefully we can see more features built into it in coming years.

The AptonCD project is the brain child of Rafael who's first language (I believe) is Portuguese. Not surprisingly, I found the help files bundled with the project to require a bit more work as in the present form, they are just place holders for the required documentation. But he has done a remarkable job on the software itself and in its current form, it works flawlessly.

Is Ubuntu and Debian on ideological cross roads ? - Mark Shuttleworth clarifies

A couple of weeks ago, one of Debian's most active developer Matthew Garrett threw down the towel and called it quits protesting against the Debian's rather strong democratic culture of having a free for all discussion about any decision making pertaining to Debian making him intensely irritable and unhappy. He went on to compare Debian's lack of civility and slowness in decision-making with the more structured way in which decisions are taken at Ubuntu.

On the backdrop of Matthew's exit from Debian, Mark Shuttleworth himself has chosen to respond to and clarify Ubuntu's position in relation with Debian on his blog.

And his opinion is that Ubuntu (and many other Linux distributions based on Debian) can never survive without Debian.

He goes on to state that Debian's chief strengths is its uncompromising emphasis on free software. He dwells on some of the short comings of the way Debian is managed and believes that at the end of the day, some introspection is healthy and that Debian will benefit from the discussion.