Others may use them for bragging rights on that new top-of-the-line gaming machine. Whatever your interest, computer benchmarks certainly are fun. However, obtaining system benchmarks can be tedious. In the past, installing benchmarking applications could be expensive or, with some systems, difficult and time consuming.

Phoronix has been providing free and quality benchmarking software for Linux for several years and adding support for other architectures since. Free BSDs, OpenSolaris, and MacOS are among those supported and Windows support is in the pipeline. As nice as these packages are, they still require time and the right software support in order to install and function.

One way to address these inconveniences is to use PTS Desktop Live, a live CD built on Ubuntu containing the test suite which removes any operating system or software requirements for the target machine and avoids having to install any extra software permanently onto your system. Just boot the live CD and you’re ready to go.

The Phoronix Test Suite live CD comes with 52 individual tests and 10 different preconfigured profiles to test the different elements of your system hardware. Profiles, which can be toggled from the menu, are a subset of tests geared toward one particular area such as testing database performance, video encoding, or BSD systems. You can run one test, a subset of tests, or a batch of tests and options.

The point-and-click interface makes obtaining your computer benchmark so easy to do, even for the average Joe. Just in case, an introduction opens at boot with basic information and links to the home site where much more information is found. But no special information is really needed. Just click on the big green “P” on the panel or “Phoronix Test Suite” in the Applications menu under System Tools. At that point merely click on any of the tests to get basic information as to what it benchmarks and then click Install to download and install the test.

Since using Ubuntu as its base, the tools are now delivered as binaries eliminating the need to compile making the process much quicker. The user will be asked if and where to store the results and if they’d like to upload to Global. Remember that this is a live CD and all data will be lost upon shutdown unless moved to a more permanent storage medium. All computer benchmark information is stored in the .phoronix-test-suite directory.

One of the recommended Profiles is Favorites. This is a nice collection of general purpose tests commonly used by Michael Larabel, the founder and lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite. When the test suite is installed, just click the “Run Test” button. When asked what to name this particular test and the Test Identifier, just pick something you’d remember easily.

After completion of the tests, data can be viewed in the included Web browser and displayed in easy-to-read graphs. You can choose to compare the results with other machines listed on the Phoronix Global site and you can upload your results for others to use for comparison or for future reference.

One of my favorite activities is to compare new hardware with old after an upgrade. One of yours might be to show your best friend how much better your machine rocks than his (or vice versa). Remember, the best feature of the Phoronix Test Suite Desktop is the FUN!

What benchmarking tools do YOU use? Let us know all about them in the comments.

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Here are 10 cool innovative Ubuntu linux wallpapers that would appeal to the Ubuntu enthusiasts!

The Dark Ubuntu

Ubuntu Wood Set

Ubuntu Bokeh

Ubuntu Metal

Linux for Robots

I don’t do Windows!

Ubuntu Denim

Ubuntu Poster

The Ubuntu User

Ubuntu vs Windows

Looking for more? Here are a few sources you should check for these kind of wallpapers – DesktopNexus has an awesome collection of Ubuntu Wallpapers. Ubuntu-Art, DeviantArt and Flickr are other sources worthy of a mention.

Having a myriad of favorite wallpapers brings forth another issue – ideally you would want to cycle through them so that you can see them all at one time or another and it also lends that little bit freshness to your desktop. Well changing wallpapers automatically is easy peasy. Try Wallpaper-Tray, its simple and straighforward. You point it to a folder, set the interval after which the wallpaper should be changed and it sets about to its task. If you are looking for something more flashy and feature rich take a look at other wallpaper changers for Linux and choose the one that suits your need.

One great thing about Linux is that you can customize even the slightest of details depending upon how much time you are willing to spend on it. While the result of a custom design would be truly amazing, it requires a fair bit of hacking and time. So you might want to check out how you can browse, download and apply themes right from the Ubuntu desktop. With tons of user contributed wallpapers, themes and icons, you can easily see time flying by when choosing the ultimate look and feel according to your choice.

And when you are done, let us know about it. Which Ubuntu wallpapers, themes, and icon sets are your favorites? We would love to check them out.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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GoblinX began life as one of the strangest looking distros available. With its goblin logo, Halloween colors, gawdy window decorations, and strange wallpapers it surely gave its users a unique experience. Today, GoblinX tries to appear more mainstream, but they still refuse to bow to the tide.

The developers include little that’s not Open Source, which means no proprietary drivers, codecs, or plugins. What they do is provide a nice stable environment with handy applications. Most hardware is detected and auto-configured, but some wireless Ethernet cards may need manual configuration. Fortunately, unlike some distros, they have included Ndiswrapper for those who require Windows drivers to activate their wireless network interface controller in order to access the Internet.  GoblinX includes some graphical configuration tools as well for things like Wireless Protected Access and printer set up.

GoblinX offers several configurations. The most recent release was of their G:Standard. This standard version ships with KDE 4 and applications such as Abiword, Pidgin, KOffice, and MPlayer. Under the hood is Linux 2.6.27.6 and Xorg X Server 1.6.3.  GCC 4.4.3 is installable. Other versions are G:Noblin which features GNOME as the desktop environment, G:Mini which uses Xfce 4, and G:Micro that ships with Fluxbox. While these versions and their source code are free to download, GoblinX developers also produce a version for USB memory sticks with GNOME and a netbook interface similar to Ubuntu Mobile that can be obtained for a nominal fee.

GoblinX G:Mini with Xfce 4

The hard drive installer is relatively easy. The compact nature of the interface limits the options making it easier for the new user.  However, you may need to create a partition first using the included partition manager. The installer does have configurations for options such as user accounts, root password, filesystem, run level, and language.  Running from the live CD has the option to save users’ configuration to a partition or removable media.

The GoblinX partition manager and installer

Being based on Slackware, it inherits Slackware’s package manage system. However, the much more friendly slapt-get and Gslapt graphical front-end are set up with GoblinX repositories and contain many other popular applications such as Firefox and OpenOffice.org.  Gslapt resembles and functions very much like Synaptic.  Find the application, mark it for installation, and click Apply is all there is to it.

The GoblinX package management - Gslapt

With this being a point-0 release, there are a few bugs. For example, the Gslapt package manager has problems completing its tasks at times and OpenOffice.org has dependencies missing from repositories.  These will no doubt be fixed in updates. In the mean time, OpenOffice.org from www.openoffice.org is an easy install and slapt-get at the commandline functions just fine.

slapt-get operates almost like APT.  Whereas with APT one might apt-get install <package name>, with slapt-get one types slapt-get --install <package name>. The other functions are similar as well.  Type slapt-get --help for more.

For those wishing to use Ndiswrapper to extract and format their Windows drivers for their wireless Ethernet cards, the procedure is very simple. First mount your Windows partition, then point Ndiswrapper to the driver .inf file.  So, for example, one might:

1.  mkdir /mnt/sda1
2.  mount -t auto /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
3.  ndiswrapper -i /mnt/sda1/SWSetup/WLAN/bcmwl5.inf

Then to use it simply:

1.  modprobe ndiswrapper

If you have still have difficulties with certain Broadcom chips found in many laptop brands, perhaps try:

1.  echo "blacklist b43" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
2.  echo "blacklist ssb" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
3.  Then reboot your machine.

Another thing many folks may miss is the Adobe Flash Player.  While GoblinX repositories have Gnash, a free Open Source flash player that sometimes doesn’t work real well, many users prefer Adobe.  It’s easy to install as well.

1.  Visit Flash Player download and download the tar.gz format.
2.  tar -zxvf install_flash_player_10_linux.tar.gz
3.  mv libflashplayer.so .mozilla/plugins/

Other than those previously mentioned, very few if any other problems emerged while using GoblinX so far.  In addition, KDE 4 on GoblinX performs rather well, even on a system with only 512 megabytes of RAM.   Whereas GoblinX may not be “install and go” to some standards, it gives the user the choice to use proprietary code other distros may take away. GoblinX is simply a nice distribution derived from a solid code base that offers the user even something better than choice – something different.  And these days, anything different is good.

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For a change, I will be talking about how to uninstall Linux Ubuntu (or other operating systems) from a dual boot windows pc, and still being able to boot into other OS without much work. So let’s get started right away.

Backup your Linux files

It pops up everytime, but backup really is very important. If you have been using your Linux system for some time, chances are you would have created files you wouldn’t want to loose. In such a case, you can boot into Linux, backup your files (check out your Home directory) on an external device or onto a Windows partition.

Alternatively if you somehow managed to mess up and can’t boot into Linux, you can use ext2 IFS which allows you access to your Linux paritions. It can only read ext2 and ext3 filesystems though. If you are using other filesystems, you would have to look around a bit for a similar application. In any case, you can always boot from a Linux live CD to backup files if everything else fails.

Delete Linux Partitions

Next step: delete every Linux partition. That would include everything – boot, swap, home, whatever way you set up your system, it is time to delete all Linux partitions. There are a couple of ways to achieve this, easiest being from within Windows’ Computer Management. You need to:

• Log in to an account with administrative privileges.
• Right click on My Computer, click ‘Manage’.
• Choose ‘Disk Management’ listed under ‘Storage’ and you will see all of your partitions listed there.

Next, you need to identify Linux partitions. The Linux partitions generally don’t have a file system listed with them if Windows doesn’t recognize it, so this can serve as a clue. Other ways can be identifying by size or partition number. You can use partition managers, these are generally better at identifying filesystems. Go ahead, delete the partitions, just make sure you delete the correct ones. Linux is gone and so is GRUB, which allowed you to choose operating system to use at boot time. So currently, you cannot boot into any other operating system, without some help. We are going to fix that soon.

Restore MBR

As we noted, GRUB is gone and so is the ability to boot into Windows. You would now need to boot from the Windows CD/DVD to restore the Master Boot Record. You can also use other Live CDs like one of my absolute favorites and highly recommended HBCD just in case you don’t have Windows installation media handy. Here are the steps:

• Boot from Windows CD/DVD and choose “Repair” when it shows up.

• Choose command prompt on the resulting screen and run the following two commands:
  • bootrec /fixmbr
  • bootrec /fixboot

XP users need to run the recovery console from Windows XP CD and then type fixmbr when at the command prompt.

Reclaim free space

Restart now, remove the CD and you should be able to boot into your Windows installation. Once there, you should go ahead and reclaim the unpartitioned free space which was previously occupied by Linux. Doing so is simple and straight forward:

• Fire up Disk Management as before.
• Right-click on the unparitioned space, choose new partition or new logical drive.
• Specify the size and other options according to your needs and you are done.

The free space should now be accessible from My Computer like any other partition. Alternatively, you can create multiple partitions from the free space or resize existing partitions to suit your needs.You can use utilities like GParted, Easues Partition Master or any one of the many partition managers on HBCD to perform such advanced tasks easily.

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Things have changed a lot over the past few years and there is plenty of eye candy available on the Linux desktop. Today however we are going to look at the gaming side of the spectrum and particularly at applications and resources you can use to find and install Linux games on your box.

Synaptic(or any other) Package Manager

A package manager lists various software that you can install on your computer. As an example the package manager in Ubuntu is called the synaptic package manager and it lists tons of applications you can choose to install from.

You can find it under System > Administration. In the sidebar you will find a special section dedicated to Linux games and amusement. Choose from official, multiverse and universe and you will see the games that are available via the repositories. You might have to enable universe and multiverse repositories from within System > Administration > Software Sources if you don’t see them listed by default.

Playdeb (for Debian/Ubuntu based distros)

Playdeb is a gaming repository. They mention Ubuntu specifically but you should be able to use playdeb with other Debian/Ubuntu derivatives just fine.

To use Playdeb you have to install the playdeb package (technically you should be able to install Linux games without the package, but it is a recommended installation to avoid further complications). You can download the package’s deb file or configure the repository. The details are available here.

Once you have installed the required software you are good to go. Browse for games that are available on the playdeb website. There are plenty of them out there. You can browse your favorite genre from amongst fps, education, dungeon, simulation, mmorpg, music, space, action, strategy and more.

Each Linux game listing consists of the necessary details along with a link to a Youtube video.  You can have a look at it to see if you would really like to install the game. If you like a game, installation is super easy and just a click away. Click on the big “Install this now” button and set the ball rolling. Soon the game along with all the dependencies will be downloaded, installed and ready for use.

djl

Inspired by Valve’s steam distribution setup, djl is a game manager for the Linux world. djl is not available in repositories so you would have to take the longer route for installation. Download the tarball from here. Extract the contents, and then run the included djl script. In case you are wondering here is what I mean:

1. tar -xvf <djl tar.gz file name>
2. cd djl
3. sh djl.sh

You would have to specify certain configuration settings the first time you run djl and then you will be able to view the djl game manager. With that out of the way you can browse the repository of about 120 or so games, read about them, view screenshots and install them at the click of a few buttons. You can view recently added and recently updated Linux games from the news tab, join the chat at the djl IRC channel and install plugins to extend djl’s functionality.

You can find hundreds of games that you can install on your Linux machine using the applications mentioned above. If you are a gaming enthusiast chances are you will find one matching your taste.

Have you tried games that are available for Linux, besides the obvious solitaire games? Which ones are your favorite? Let us know in the comments.

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• You don’t have to worry about security, system maintenance and updates.
• A separate, unprivileged account for your kids makes sure that anything they could possible to to the system is limited to one account; if anything goes wrong just delete it and create another one.
• Call of Duty, zombies, and other modern 3D PC games won’t run without additional emulation software and hackery. Safe to say, if your kid manages to play Crysis on a Ubuntu box using just WINE, his future’s looking bright.

Kanagram mixes up the letters of a word, creating an anagram. You have to guess what the mixed up word is. Kanagram is a great children’s Linux program that features several built-in word lists, hints, and a cheat feature which reveals the original word. Kanagram also has a vocabulary editor, so you can make the game be as hard as you want it to be.

Kanagram is cool, but wait until you hear about GCompris. Designed to be the end-all be-all of children’s Linux educational software suites, it has about 100 activities, and an age recommendation of 2-10. It’s got everything you’d want, from reading practice, to science, algebra, drawing, geography quiz and even chess. There are even activities for discovering the computer’s peripherals. When you start the program, GCompris presents the list of activities, and a control bar at the bottom.

Each icon stands for an activity. When the mouse is hovering over it, more information appears: the name, description and author of the activity are displayed in the description area. A click on the icon will lead you to an activity or a menu of activities. GCompris is translated into more than 50 languages.

We’ve all seen the commercial with the kid who likes drawing on the furniture. Oddly enough, his mother is happy about that because she was anxious to test her new Pronto spray. In real life, I think you’d rather install TuxPaint and let the creativity flow freely on the computer screen. It’s recommended for kids aged 3 through 12, it has easy to use interface and a funny penguin that sits in the bottom left and encourages your efforts.

Finally, we’ve got Earth3D, which is very similar to Google Earth and is a great way to teach your kid about geography. Unlike its Google counterpart, Earth3D taps into various map providers and time stamps. You can watch the ice in Greenland melt away before your eyes,  learn country flags and borders.

You can install any of the Ubuntu software discussed in this article by searching for their name in the Synaptic Package Manager, checking the box on the left of its name and clicking ”Apply Changes”. To launch Synaptic, choose System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager.

Most children’s Linux educational software is readily available for other distributions such as Fedora or SuSE, in their respective package managers, so try searching for the application name. We describe the installation process for Ubuntu because it’s the most widely used of the bunch.

You might want to check out some other posts related to Linux, Ubuntu or education, here on MakeUseOf. We have also published the “Newbie’s Getting Started Guide to Linux” ebook.

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Linux Mint, a distribution based on Ubuntu, has won a significant share of users, and represents a better Linux experience for both advanced and first time users. Simple yet effective tweaks, like the Mint Menu, might not appear very impressive at first glance but they affect your daily routines in a positive manner. It’s the same principle that makes Apple software better: an uncanny attention to details and yes, elegance.

Gloria, or version 7, was launched by the development team in June and is based on Ubuntu 9.04 ‘Jaunty Jackalope’. The release schedule for new versions of Linux Mint is tightly linked to Ubuntu’s, with updated versions releasing within 3 months of the official Ubuntu launch date.

The Mint tools, a set of applets or small applications, pre-installed extras and a customized theme package are basically what set Linux Mint apart. Support for MP3s, AVI video files, Java, and proprietary hardware drivers come standard. It’s like buying a tuned card straight from the factory, except Linux Mint is completely free.

The theme looks sleek and attractive, with shades of minty green and black, unlike the brown bliss of its father. You’re going to notice the similarity with the Windows taskbar immediately – the ‘Start’ button, quick launch and tray icons are right where they are supposed to be. The same goes for the windows switching area, there’s no separate bar. This makes for a quick and painless switch for those who would prefer the advantage of running Linux without having to spend a great deal of time adjusting to the UI (User Interface).

The Linux Mint Menu works pretty much like its Windows Vista and 7 counterparts, providing quick access to system locations, applications or configuration panels. If you have many applications installed and forget how the one you needed was called, you had to scroll down alphabetically in Windows, which is quite tedious if you have the bad habit of trying stuff all the time. The Mint Menu makes this experience much better by organizing the application by their category: Office, Internet, Administration, etc. The ‘Filter’ search box also has a leg up; it provides various actions related to your keyword automatically, be it a Google  search, an application or a package you want to install.

Linux Mint Install is another cool applet that replaces the standard Add/Remove Applications feature. Neatly organized in categories, featuring descriptions, ratings and reviews, applications couldn’t be easier to locate and install. It’s considerably simpler than on Windows; select the application, click ‘Install’ and you’re set.  Because Linux Mint is based  on Ubuntu, it’s compatible with the same huge repository of applications.

Mint Update keeps all the software updated with the latest patches for security and performance. Forget about checking Windows Update and then each application individually – Mint Update works with all the applications installed using Mint Install as well as the system packages. It even assigns a number to each update so you can quickly assess its importance and compatibility with your system.

The Control Center, a feature that will look familiar to KDE users, is now available in the default Gnome window manager, aggregating all the available configuration applets – complete with a search bar and categories.

A few more tweaks and applets make Linux Mint great, but they are less important and I’m sure you’ll discover them yourself. Linux Mint comes in both 32bit and 64bit, with KDE, GNOME and XFCE flavors available here. Each version includes the standard array of applications such as Gimp, OpenOffice and Rhythmbox. The Live CD image can be burned to a CD or USB stick and can be booted for testing or performing a permanent installation. A quick start guide can be downloaded for free. You might also want to check out our “Getting Started Guide to Linux”.

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Armed with my faithful MacBook, an internet connection, and a 2GB USB flash disk; I set out on an adventure to bring my daughter’s future netbook alive.

Deciding on the OS

It didn’t take long for me to decide to install Ubuntu on the netbook. Free would be the first reason and familiarity is the second. I’ve tried Ubuntu before and I have the installation CD with me.

As naive as it sounds, some people still think that you can just copy and paste the content of the CD to the USB drive and boot the machine with it. That’s why my first quest is to find out how to transfer the installation ability of the CD to USB as a portable Ubuntu installer - the Mac way of course.

The search ended up with an unexpectedly different result. I found something more interesting: there is a netbook version of Ubuntu called Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR for short) which is designed for the small screen and Intel Atom processor (as most netbooks are). The minimum requirement is 384MB of RAM.

So I choose the nearest download location for me and hit the "Begin Download" button.

Note: If you are wondering whether your netbook is compatible, you can check their list of tested and compatible models, but in general, it should work with most netbook models. Mine is not listed but I’ve discovered no problem so far.

Creating the Portable Ubuntu USB installer

The Ubuntu site has a page describing how to create the USB installer. Basically, you have to get an .IMG version of the Ubuntu installer (UNR is already in IMG format), and then convert it to the USB drive.

Windows users have the luxury of an easy GUI way of converting the IMG with the help of Disk Imager . Ubuntu users has their own Ubuntu ImageWriter. But Mac users and other Linux users have to bear with the geeky command lines method.

The first thing to do to create the portable Ubuntu USB installer using Mac’s Terminal command line is to make the process easier by moving the UNR installer file to the highest position of the folder structure and then changing the name to something shorter like "unr.img" (sans quote). Don’t forget to make sure that there’s no USB drive plugged.

Then follow these steps:

• Type : diskutil list in the Terminal and hit Enter
• Plug in your USB flash disk and repeat step 1
• Compare the result and you’ll have the device node assigned to your flash media. Usually something like "/dev/disk2" (sans quote)



• Type : diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN in the Terminal and hit Enter. You’ll have to replace the /dev/diskN with the device node that you got from step 3. From the picture above you can see that the device node assigned for my USB flash drive is "/dev/disk1" (sans quote)
• Type : sudo dd if=/path/to/downloaded.img of=/dev/diskN bs=1m in the Terminal and hit Enter. But there are several things that you have to change here before you hit Enter:
  - first the /path/to/downloaded.img is the location of the downloaded UNR installer file. As we’ve already taken care of this before, all you’ve got to do is to change the string into /unr.img
  - second, the /dev/diskN is the device node which is the same as step 4
  - and the last, if you see the error line: dd: Invalid number ‘1m’ then you need to change the bs=1m into bs=1M (notice the capital ‘M’)
• Write your password, hit enter, and wait until the process is finished. Please be warned that all the data in the USB drive will be lost.
• Type : diskutil eject /dev/diskN in the Terminal and hit Enter.
• Unplug your USB drive.

Installing UNR in the Netbook

We now come to the climax of the story. I plug the USB drive into the Netbook’s USB port and start the machine. During the booting process, I press the F10 button to go into the booting option, choose to boot from the USB drive, and….the prince and princess live happily ever after.

Every manufacturer might have different settings for this booting menu, so please refer to your machine’s documentation. Another option is to look carefully at the bottom left part of the screen during the beginning of the booting process because usually the booting instructions are written there.

Now the netbook is alive and well, running UNR while my daughter has to continuously ‘compete’ with his father – yours truly – to use the tiny machine. As for me, I am now addicted to the concept of a USB Drive as the OS installation method and will surely try to find out more about it.

Have you tried UNR? Do you know any other method to create an installation USB drive for other OS’s? Share using the comments below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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1. Get lightning fast and clever at the command line

You can use keyboard shortcuts and other command line tricks to make entering commands easier and faster. You might already know about the ‘tab’ key which completes partial commands and even file and directory names.

Here are some other keyboard shortcuts you can use within terminal:

Also don’t forget to check out 4 websites where you can learn cool command line tricks

2. Launch Ubuntu Linux Applications with keyboard

There are two ways you can achieve this:

• Use applications like Launchy or Gnome-Do that make it easier to launch applications by typing a few characters of the application’s name.
• Or you can summon gconf editor (Alt+F2 then type gconf-editor and hit enter), and navigate to apps > metacity > global_keybindings, double click on any of the run_command_N and type in the keyboard shortcut you want to assign to an application then make a mental note of the number N. Then go to apps > metacity > keybinding_commands and double click on command_N (N being the number you used above) and type in the command you want to run. As an example if you wanted to run Firefox you would type in firefox.

Also check out these Ubuntu keyboard shortcuts you might not know about.

3. Start from wherever you left off

You can make Ubuntu remember the applications you had open when you last logged out, so that when you log back in again you’ll find all those applications running and you can resume right from where you left off.

To achieve this go to System > Preferences > Startup Applications, then go to the options tab and check "Automatically remember running applications when logging out"

4. Create a Separate Ubuntu Linux Home Partition

New versions of Ubuntu arrive every 6 months. Although you can upgrade to the latest version via the update manager, sometimes the upgrade doesn’t work as expected so some users like to do a fresh clean install.

The disadvantage with that of course is that you lose data you had in your home directory. To overcome this you can create a separate Home partition when you are installing Ubuntu, size it according to your requirements and then when you decide to install Ubuntu the next time, simply specify this partition as the Home partition (by choosing /home as the mount point).

All your files and data on the Home partition will be preserved even after a fresh install.

5. Update and Install Ubuntu Linux Software Without Internet Connection

There are lots of way to do this, the easiest of all is to use APTonCD. APTonCD allows you to create CDs and DVD’s containing all the packages you want, which you can then use to install software on computers without an internet connection.

Note that APTonCD requires you to have an internet connection (or downloaded packages) to create the installed media. However once the media is ready you don’t need an internet connection for any of the machines you want to install the software on. Insert the appropriate CD/DVD and use apt-get as you would normally.

6. Install new fonts, Microsoft fonts and improve font rendering

Ubuntu doesn’t offer many choices when it comes to the fonts. However you can easily install new fonts including those from Microsoft like Arial, Verdana, impact and many more. You can use different sites to find the kind of font you are looking for.

7. Use PPAs, Install latest versions of software

There are a lot of steps that a software has to go through before it becomes part of Ubuntu or becomes available through the Ubuntu repositories. While all those steps lend additional stability, it generally means that you don’t get the latest versions of all the software as soon as they are released.

If you like to stay on the cutting edge, you can search for Personal Package Archives for your favorite software on Launchpad and add those to your installation’s software sources. I briefly touched on PPAs and how to use them here. If that seems like too much work, you can also download the latest deb packages and install them by double clicking (you won’t get automatic updates for the software if you install it this way).

Remember you might get into an occasional trouble or two with the latest versions, but mostly it wouldn’t be catastrophic. You can always hop over to the Ubuntu Forums to get quick help.

8. Be the root

The root account is disabled by default on Ubuntu installations, mainly to prevent you from doing something you didn’t intend to do. However if you "promise to be careful" you can enable root account as follows:

1. Type sudo passwd root and provide a root password.
2. Then head on over to System > Administration > Login Window, go to the Security tab and check "Enable local system administrator login"

You should now be able to login as root from the Login prompt. As an alternative you can use "sudo su" to provide your password and get root prompt.

9. Run Windows applications and games

Who wouldn’t like to play Counter Strike on Ubuntu (unless of course you are completely not into it) or perhaps even run Photoshop? Well it is very much possible and here is how to do it.

10. Shorten boot time with profiling

Ubuntu Linux devs have done a great job with the boot time, Jaunty is fast and Karmic is slotted to be even faster. There is however a bit more you can do by profiling your boot. Profiling lets Ubuntu make a list of all the files that are accessed during bootup, it then sorts the files according to how they are stored on your hard disk. So the next time the system is booted, the files would be read faster.

To profile boot you need to follow these steps

• At the grub menu highlight the kernel you boot most often.
• Press e for edit.
• Choose the line starting with kernel and press e again. Now add the word profile to the end of this line. Hit Enter and then press b to boot

Note that while profiling, the system will boot slower this one time, the next time however you should see an improvement. Also keep in mind that all this is machine-dependent and also depends on the arrangement of files on your hard disk, so the difference you see might not be huge, or even nil in some cases.

11. Try out different Ubuntu Linux Desktop Environments and Desktop Managers

If you are looking for something different than the default Gnome interface, you should check out alternative desktop managers that you can use. If it is a complete Desktop Environment you are looking for, KDE4 has come a long way and is now impressively usable and fun. You can do a "sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop" to get KDE.

12. Create a media center or a media server

It would be great if you could easily browse and manage your huge collection of music, videos and pictures. Mesmerized by Windows Media Center’s slick interface? Wait till you see what all cool options you have to turn your Ubuntu system into a media center. You can even access your media collection on your phone, PSP or a different computer if you set up a media server on your Ubuntu machine.

13. Share Firefox profile data with Windows

Many people use Windows and Linux on the same machine. If you are one of them, there would have been times you couldn’t find that bookmark you created or password you stored when you were using Firefox from within Windows. Check out how you can share Firefox profile data across operating systems without syncing it over the web (works best if you have the same version of Firefox in both OS’s). For different computers you can of course use Weave.

14. Customize Nautilus to your liking

Nautilus is the default file manager on Ubuntu. While you may be content with what it does, there is lots more you can make it do. You can use extensions to improve functionality and even add custom functionality to Nautilus

15. Compile your own Kernel

If you can’t find something to keep you busy for the weekend and you have your customization hat on, how about building a kernel to specifically meet your requirements? This is frankly more of a learning experience. Some might say that it enables you to use just the features and drivers you require, but if everything is working fine with the kernel supplied and you don’t have any interest in the Linux kernel, skip ahead this one is not for you.

If however you require some of the experimental features of the kernel, or need it to be compiled in some other special way we say you check out this guide within Ubuntu Documentation.

16. Change Usplash Screen and create a custom splash screen for GRUB

So you didn’t count the last one? Here is another one then. A Usplash screen is Ubuntu text and a logo with a progress bar that you see when you boot up Ubuntu.

If you would like to change that to something more interesting follow these steps. What better way to show your Linux fu than customizing the very first screen that appears? You can create a custom splash screen using one of your photos, GIMP and a little tweaking. Here is the how-to.

Know some more tips or great hacks for Ubuntu Linux users? Sure you do, go ahead let us know about them in the comments.

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StartUp Manager can be used to achieve this easily. You can install StartUp Manager by using your distribution’s package manager. Or check here. Once installed, it can be found under

System > Administration > StartUp Manager.

StartUp Manager can be used to easily customize a number of options that would otherwise require you to get your hands dirty by editing configuration files. As a start, you can change boot options such as the selection timeout and default operating system. If you have multiple operating systems, a useful option here is to make the Last Used operating system as the default choice, which would automatically boot the one you used the last time. Such a setting can be quite handy when you have a clear favorite in terms of operating systems and others are just installed for completeness.

You can also change the display resolution and the color depth if you are experiencing any problems with the display of the main menu. Uncheck “Show bootloader menu” if you don’t want to see the menu, and boot the default operating system each time. “Show bootsplash” can be used to add an image as background to the bootloader menu. We did a complete tutorial on it some time back. “Show text during boot” provides you with textual feedback of what is currently happening in the boot process.

The appearance tab allows you to customize the look of the bootloader menu as well as the Usplash theme. You can add colors to the bootloader menu, pick and choose the ones you like. A Usplash theme governs the progress bar display during the boot process. You can find some Usplash themes here, click on “Manage Usplash themes” and add the one you downloaded, then select the one you like and next time you boot, it would be there to greet you.

That is not all by any stretch of imagination. StartUp Manager allows you to do pretty advanced stuff. You can password-protect the bootloader or only recovery mode entries (a good choice) or the boot options by simply placing a check against the option and specifying the password.

If you are bothered by how cluttered the bootloader gets after a kernel upgrade, you can limit the number of entries from here in. Uncheck “Create boot option for recovery mode” to remove the recovery mode altogether if you are paranoid about someone getting into your system through recovery mode root prompt.

StartUp Manager is a no fuss tool which greatly simplifies tweaking and customizing of bootloader options and helps you manage Grub and Usplash settings easily without having to go in and tinker with the configuration files yourself. What do you think of it? Let us know in the comments.

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Some distros provide you with these icons on the desktop and some don’t. Having the icons on the desktop might be an overkill for the geeks. After all, the Places Menu works just fine. However, I guess new users still want those icons on the desktop (Ubuntu forums would attest to the fact). So, if you are looking to get the Home, Trash or the Computer icons on the desktop, it is very easy. Follow along (works for all Gnome-based distros)

Hit Alt + F2, type in gconf-editor in the dialog box that comes up and hit Enter.

The Configuration Editor will open up. Navigate to Apps > Nautilus > Desktop.

Towards the right side, you will see a set of options. Place a check against the icons you want to see displayed on the desktop. You can display the Computer, Home, Trash and Network icons from in here.

While you are there, you can also tinker with the names. If for example, you want to change the name from “Computer” to “Varun’s Computer”, all you have to do is double-click on computer_icon_name, choose String as the type and then key in the name you want to give to it.

You can also uncheck volumes_visible option if you don’t want the mounted drives to appear on the desktop. I personally loathed them, could never get in terms with where they appear (on top of each other at times) and how to customize their positions.

That’s it! You can customize what to show up on your desktop easily. While you are there, you might look into other options with gconf-editor, it provides an explanation of every option that you select, so you know what you are about to do. In case something goes wrong you can always correct it via the editor or by using the gconftool2 command within the terminal.

Confused or crystal clear? Shoot any questions in the comments!

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Hardinfo is a Linux application. To install Hardinfo, look inside your distribution’s package manager. Ubuntu users can install Hardinfo via the terminal using:

sudo apt-get install hardinfo

Once installed, go ahead and run it. You will be greeted by various parameters towards the left and you can get more information by clicking on them.

The information is broadly classified into 3 categories: The computer, devices and benchmarks. You can get a information summary about your computer or detailed information about the Operating System, Kernel Modules, Filesystems, shared directories, network interfaces, monitors, languages installed and a log of system boots. In addition, you can also get detailed information about the processor, memory, PCI device, USB devices, battery, printers and storage etc.

All this information is neatly organised and you can copy any one of them to the clipboard with the click of a button or generate a report to post on forums for help. You can pick and choose what information is to be included in the report by un-checking the modules you want to exclude.

Hardinfo also provides you with benchmarking that allows you run certain tests and see how well your computer does! Hardinfo benchmarks your CPU with zlib, fibonacci, md5, sha1, blowfish and FPU raytracing tests. It displays the result as well as how other common CPUs performed on the same test.

If you are unsure about how to interpret the results, Hardinfo displays a line towards the bottom – giving you some additional information about the test results. You can also synchronize the benchmark tests with the Hardinfo server to receive updated results for other CPUs and submit your own results if you so please.

Do you know of similar profiling and benchmarking tools? Please recommend them in the comments!

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For those Linux users who have been waiting hard and long for the release of Google Chrome Linux Alpha, there are both a good and bad news for you. The bad news is, Google Chrome for Linux is still not available yet. The good news however, the alpha build is now available for testing, which could be a joy for some Linux geeks.

Last week, Google released the first alpha build (build 3.0.183.1) of Google Chrome for Linux (and Mac). I have tested the Linux version on my Ubuntu machine and compared how it fares against Firefox. It is apparent that there are plenty of features missing, but it also comes with some juice that proved to be a surprise for many.

Warning

On the Chromium developer’s blog, they have stressed that the alpha build is not meant for mainstream public use and should be used only by developers. Being a public user, you are still free to download/install the software, but do bear in mind that many of the features are still missing.

Next step, installation.

Installation

Installing Google Chrome on Ubuntu is very easy. Download the deb file from the Chromium Early Release Channel to your desktop. Double click on the downloaded file to initiate the installation.

When the installation is complete, a warning window regarding the instability of this software will pop up. In the window, you can also opt to help the development of Google Chrome for Linux by sending in the crash reports to Google.

First impression

The very first impression of running Google Chrome Linux on my Ubuntu is that it is very fast.

Whenever I click on the Firefox launcher, I always have to wait for several seconds (at least 10 seconds) for it to load in the background before I get to see the home page. The more extensions I installed, the slower it got.

For Google Chrome, the moment I click on the launcher, the browser loads instantly, almost without any delay. One could argue that Google Chrome doesn’t support any extensions now and most of its features are not available, so it is logical that it loads faster. That could be true, but still, the difference in the speed is enormous.

Other than the boot speed, the speed that it loads a web page, performs a search, accesses URL history, suggests the URL as you type is also much faster than Firefox. And also more intelligent, in my opinion.

We have already covered plenty of Google Chrome features, including the tips and tricks, so I shall not delve into that. Overall, what is working in this alpha build is basic browsing, new tabs, simple tab dragging, search from URL bar, incognito mode and full page zoom.

What is lacking for now?

In short, it is still lacking a whole great list of things. There is no flash support, means you won’t be able to watch any videos on Youtube, no printing, no complex text support, no complex tab dragging (pulling the tab out of the browser window), you can’t change the homepage, little or almost no configuration options in the Options page and many other features that are only partially implemented.

One thing that I also noticed is that the font rendering in Google Chrome is still not up to par with Firefox. In addition, the UI still needs some polishing to make full of the GTK+ theme.

Should you install?

Google has make it clear that this is still an alpha release and should be installed by developers only. I am not a developer, but I am already enjoying the benefits of its speed. For basic browsing (checking mail, reading articles, performing searches in search engines), Google Chrome can do its job well, but for anything that is more complex, you will have to fall back to your native browser. There is no harm in installing it and trying it out for yourselves, I am already using it as my default browser. For complex stuff, I guess I’ll have to stick with Firefox.

Don’t forget that this is only the Linux version. My colleague, Jeffry, will be reviewing its Mac counterpart. Watch out for his article. Will it be better or worse? Find out soon.

What do you think about this alpha release? Did Google do the right thing by releasing such a raw version of their browser? Are you satisfied with it? Let it all out in the comments!

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Installation

Use your distribution’s package manager to install Webmin. Or else you can visit the Webmin downloads page and get the binaries or source-code according to your requirements.

Usage

One installed, you access Webmin via a web-based interface. Just point your browser to Webmin on your machine (https://127.0.0.1:10000), you will be asked for authentication where in you must provide user name and password. If successful, you will see something like:

Webmin is made up of modules, with each module performing a select task. There are modules for viewing system stats, configuring grub, managing firewalls and protocols, configuring servers and a whole lot more (complete list). In addition you can add other modules depending upon your requirements. You can also create your own modules for a particular service or application using the Webmin API and some programming knowledge of course

Sample task

Let’s say you want to manage cron-jobs on your system via webmin. Just log in and click on “Scheduled Cron Jobs” under “System” from the sidebar. You will see a list of all the cron-jobs on your system. You can choose to enable/disable selected jobs, or delete/add jobs or perform other listed functions.

To create a new job click on “Create a new scheduled cron job.” and you will be taken to Create Schediled job screen, where you can specify the commands and options to use as well as specify the time when you want the job to run without have to edit crontab files manually!

Similarly you can perform a whole variety of such tasks, just choose what you want to do from the sidebar and get going. You can configure firewall rules, monitor bandwidth, configure Apache, DNS, mail servers and countless other things.

Mastering Webmin

While it is easy to use Webmin, you might want to check out some resources to help you get a better understanding of how webmin works and how to use it to perform various tasks. Check out the following resources for the same:

• The Book of webmin
• The latest book on Webmin
• Webmin Documentation

Webmin really makes it easy to perform system administration from the cozy confines of your Web Browser. Webmin edits the configuration files as it is and doesn’t store the changes in a centralised database. What does this mean? That making a change with Webmin is as good and as crude (if I may say so) as doing it with vi editor.

Do you know of some other tools you use for configuring your system? Let hear about them in comments!

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• Tweak Ubuntu the Easy Way (16)
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Awesome powers in good hands but as you probably know “with great powers come great responsibilities”, so GRUB allows you to lock down some features and boot entries to allow only the intended users to go through.

When talking of security in computer systems one often needs to analyse the situation one is in and choose the appropriate options. If you have hackers getting physical access to your computer system the GRUB security measures won’t last a second (pretty much nothing would do). Your best bet in such a situation is to keep the hard drive encrypted, or if your hard drive can be password protected, use that option.

However, the majority of us don’t have to worry about hackers with physical access as much as our not-so-computer savvy relatives and friends fiddling around with the system. That is what we have the log in passwords for (they are not secure enough for hackers, trust me!), and that is the situation where you would be wise to make use of GRUB security features.

It is also a good practice to password protect the recovery mode entries as they can be used by any user to gain root access.

GRUB security features allow you to lock down the editing of boot options accessed by pressing the ‘e’ key and they allow you to password protect selected or all boot entries.

Follow the steps below to see how to password protect GRUB entries:

• Fire up the terminal. Type grub and press enter. The prompt would change to something like ‘grub>’.
• Enter md5crypt at the GRUB prompt. Type in the password when prompted for and press enter. The command will return you password encrypted as an md5 hash. You will need this so make a note of it or copy to the clipboard.



• Now we need to edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file. You are advised to make a backup of the file before editing it in case something goes wrong.



• Enter the line password –md5 <the copied md5 string from step 3> before the line that reads: “BEGIN AUTOMAGIC KERNEL LIST” (actually it just needs to come before any of the boot menu entries, so you can write it anywhere as long as it is before them).
• If you save the file at this moment without any further edits you would have locked down interactive editing in GRUB. The administrator or in this case you would have to press ‘p’ key and enter the correct password to access these advanced options.
• If in addition you want to lock down specific menu entries so that anyone without the knowledge of the correct password cannot boot into that operating system you should add the word lock all by itself on a separate line just after the title specification for each entry in the menu.



• The next time anyone tries to select the locked menu entry he/she will be required to enter a password before he/she can boot into the corresponding operating system.
• To lock the recovery mode entries it is best to change the line lockalternative=false to lockalternative=true. This will lock down all future recovery mode entries as well even if you update the kernel.

What security features do you use to secure your system? Have you encrypted your hard drive? Or do you use a BIOS password? Let us know in the comments. Also check out how to add a custom background to GRUB menu

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Three years down the road, even though the Ubuntu team has made changes and improvements to the usplash screen, it is still nowhere close to beautiful. Luckily, a good thing about Linux (and Ubuntu) is that it is fully customizable and you can tweak every single part to your liking. That is to say, even though the default does not come with a beautiful usplash screen, you can still change ubuntu usplash screen to display your favorite image.

Follow the guide below and you’ll be able to change Ubuntu splash screen in no time.

In Ubuntu Intrepid, there is a bug that prevents you from setting your own usplash screen. To overcome this, we will remove the default usplash and install splashy.

Removing the usplash

Open up a terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal) and type the following command to remove the default usplash.

sudo apt-get autoremove usplash

Installing splashy

Download the deb files for your machine:

32-bit: libsplashy1_0.3.10-1_i386.deb, splashy_0.3.10-1_i386.deb

64-bit: libsplashy1-dev_0.3.13-3ubuntu1_amd64.deb, libsplashy1_0.3.13-3ubuntu1_amd64.deb, splashy_0.3.13-3ubuntu1_amd64.deb

Double click the packages to install splashy in your machine.

Back to the terminal,

sudo apt-get install splashy-themes

Download your favorite splashy theme

There are several places where you can find and download beautiful splashy themes. Here are some of them for your references.

• In the /usr/share/splashy/themes folder.
• Gnome-look (Search for ’splashy’ in the search bar)
• Splashy theme page
• KDE-look

Once you have found your favorite theme, download it to your desktop. The file should be in tar.gz format.

(If you are looking to create your own splash themes, here is the full tutorial)

To install the file, type the following command in the terminal.

sudo splashy_config –i /path-to-the-file.tar.gz
sudo splashy_config -s name-of-the-file
sudo update-initramfs -u

To illustrate, assuming that I have downloaded a theme with the name custom-usplash.tar.gz onto my desktop. In my terminal, this is what I type:

sudo splashy_config -i ~/Desktop/custom-usplash.tar.gz
sudo splashy_config -s custom-usplash
sudo update-initramfs -u

It is important to type the command manually. Do not copy from here. WordPress displays the ‘-’ sign differently from the terminal. You might get errors if you copy/paste the command directly from here.

Configuring the kernel entry

In your terminal, type the following command to open the grub menu file

gksu gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

Scroll down till you find the line

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-7-generic root=UUID=82ace599-c240-456a-8df9-96b0b477d00b ro  single

Append the phrase ‘vga=791′ (without the quote) to the end of the line (refer to the image below). Save and close the file.

That’s it. Restart your computer. You should see your favorite usplash in action.

Here are some of the splashy theme screenshots (taken from gnome-look):

Aqua for splashy

Simple bluish for splashy

Ubuntu Glass

Uninstallation

To uninstall splashy and to return the usplash screen to the original setting, type the following in the terminal.

sudo apt-get autoremove splashy splashy-themes
sudo apt-get install usplash

Your usplash screen should now return to the default setting.

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How to install additional Gedit plugins

While Gedit ships with a set of default plugins, you can surely add as many as you like. To install a plugin for Gedit, you must first download it to a local folder and then extract the contents to ‘~/.gnome2/gedit/plugins/’ directory. Also look for a package named “gedit-plugins” in your distribution’s package manager, this package contains some additional plugins for gedit. Once you have installed the plugin you want, you need to enable it via Edit>Preferences and then the Plugins Tab.

And finally here is a list of the top plugins you should definitely check out if you do a lot of text editing:

Align

Lets you arrange blocks of text into columns easily and quickly. Just select the text to be arranged, go to Edit > Align, specify the column separator and presto you have instant columns. No more pressing tabs and arranging text manually!

Auto tab

Autotab detects the indent/space settings in a file and adjusts tabbing accordingly on the fly. Very useful if you have to edit code written by others using different editors.

Browser Preview

Allows you to preview the webpage code you are editing in gedit in different browsers like Firefox, opera, IE, konqueror etc. A dream come true for any web developer.

File Browser (included in default install)

Lets you browse through directories and files in the side pane. Choose the file you want to edit, double click and away she opens in a new tab.

Character Map (included in gedit-plugins)

So you want to type in a different language? Keyboard problems? or do you wonder from where does µtorrent gets its µ? Look no further than the character map plugin. Enable it and you will be able to view the character map in the side pane. Just click on the character you want to insert and it gets inserted in the file.

Class Browser

As the name suggests, this plugin provides you a class browser for browsing source files. You can get an overview of various identifiers used in the code in the gedit side pane once you enable this plugin.

Document Words Completion

This plugin brings Auto Complete to gedit. While you are typing, this plugin will attempt to complete the current word, based on the words that have appeared previously in the current document. You can configure it to AutoComplete or offer suggestions when you hit Ctrl+Enter

External Tools (included in gedit-plugins)

External tools plugin allows you to add custom entries to the tools menu. The entries can run external commands on the current file. A totally indispensable tool considering what all can be achieved with text files and the Linux command line. Highly recommended if you do any kind of repetitive work on text files.

Sort and Spell Check (included in default install)

What good is a text editor without the ability to check your spellings? Yet most text editors lack this functionality.Enable the Spell plugin to add Spell Check functionality to gedit. The Sort plugin on the other hand allows you to sort elected text. You needn’t use sort/sed/awk to sort the file for you. It can be done right from within gedit

LaTeX Plugin

The LaTeX plugin helps you to write and compile LaTeX code. With features like LaTeX code completion, coupled with the power of other plugins, gedit with LaTeX plugin can greatly simplify your work. The LaTeX plugin can be used for BibTeX bibliographies as well.

Session Saver (included in gedit-plugins)

Session saver allows you to save you current workspace within gedit as it is, so that when you restore a session at a later time you can start right where you left your work.

Snippets (included in default install)

Snippets plugin allows you to insert frequently typed phrases and text by using hotkeys or a shortcode. You can configure your own snippets so that if you type something like MUO it automatically gets substituted with MakeUseOf.com. Snippets is one of my personal favorites and can save you a lot of typing.

Tabs Extend

Adds Firefox like useful features to gedit tabs, including the ability to undo a closed tab, close all other tabs, close all tabs and close tabs to the left of the current tab. Very useful if you are working with a lot of files simultaneously

More?

If you are a programmer who uses text editor every now and then to edit some code, gedit has some awesome plugins to make your work easier. The color picker (gedit-plugins) lets you visually choose a color and insert its hex value into your code,code comment lets you comment/uncomment selected text with a single command, there are plugins to tidy up your HTML, indent code, match braces and then there is the python console and many many more. If you use gedit for general purposes you can explore bookmarks, splitview and directly mail the text file from within gedit with plugins. All these and many more are mentioned on Gnome Live. Some of the links are broken and some plugins don’t work as expected so you might be in for some hit and trial.

What really prompted me to write this article was that many people don’t realise that a program such as gedit (viewed as a simple text editor) can support so many additional functionality via plugins. A reason could be that people hardly care about setting preferences for text editors and the plugins option is buried deep inside preferences. I am curious to know how many of our readers knew about gedit plugins? The geeks would have known for sure, so we can expect some plugin suggestions in the comments too. Which ones are your favorites?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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When opened up, it displays a broad window containing various information about your computer. You can easily add shortcuts to your favorite applications/places, get information about your system resources or include frequently used tools (such as a calculator or reminders). You can either use it as a replacement for the existing menu bar, or as an additional tool to help you do things faster.

The default configuration of USP includes a User Info pane, System Management pane, Applications pane and the Recent Documents pane. The System Management pane provides you with quick access to the Synaptic Package Manager and also the Control Center which contains all the system configuration options.

To add/configure items in the USP, you first have to right-click the mouse and then go to Preferences. The Preferences window contains many options that you can use to configure the USP to your liking.

The Main tab of the Preferences window contains most of the UI configurations for USP. This is also where you can add additional items/plugins to the main display window. USP supports the use of plugins to extend its functionality. The installation package comes with a set of third-party plugins that you can use immediately. These plugins include a calculator, a calendar, a reminder, Firefox bookmarks, system resources, and many other useful stuff.

The image below shows the list of available plugins for USP.

Other than the functionality, USP also allows you to theme it up and beautify it. It uses the same GTK theme as the Gnome system, which means you can check out gnome-look for your favorite theme and use it on your USP.

To install the theme, you have to first install it on your Ubuntu (via System->Preferences->Appearance on the main menu), then specify the name of the theme on the USP’s Preferences window.

Here are some of the screenshots of some of the GTK themes on USP (Note that you can apply the GTK theme to the USP without having to change your system theme).

Installation of Ubuntu-System-Panel

USP is not found in the Ubuntu repository. You will have to grab the code from the developer’s site and install it manually. Luckily, the installation procedure is not too difficult.

First of all, you have to install the subversion and use it to download the latest version of USP onto your computer. In your terminal, type line by line:

sudo apt-get install subversion
svn checkout http://ubuntu-system-panel.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ ubuntu-system-panel
cd ubuntu-system-panel
./usp_update install fresh

If you are running a 64 bit machine, run this extra command:

sudo cp /usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/usp/plugins/_keybind64.so _keybinder.so

That’s it. To place the USP onto your panel, first refresh your panel

killall gnome-panel

Right-click your mouse on the top panel and select Add to Panel. Scroll down the list to find Ubuntu System Panel. Select and add it to the panel.

To uninstall, simply use the following command:

cd ubuntu-system-panel
./usp_update uninstall complete

What other ways do you use to improve the usability in your Ubuntu (Linux)? Any good alternative Gnome application launcher?

Image credit: pinguin_os

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In case you are searching for a good video editor for linux, here are some of the good options that you can use in your Linux machine. Some of them are available for Windows and Mac as well. Do check them out even if you are not using Linux.

1. Avidemux

Avidemux is a free video editor used mainly for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It is often dubbed as the VirtualDub for Linux as it can do many things that VirtualDub can do. It supports many files types, including avi, DVD compatible mpeg files, mp4, asf and even the not-so-common ogm and matroska format.

Some of the useful features of Avidemux include a simple WYSIWYG interface, easy conversion from one format to another, plenty of filtering effects and a built-in subtitles processing capabilities.

2. Cinelerra

Cinelerra is a powerhouse video editing software used by many professionals for high quality video production. Cinelerra does mainly three things: capturing, compositing, and editing. It has a great support for very high-fidelity audio. In addition, it is resolution and frame rate-independent.

What this means is that it can handle all sorts of video resolution, regardless of whether it is standard or high definition (HD), without any issue.

If you are using a high-end graphics card, Cinelerra allows you to preview your edited video in real time without any rendering required. This makes your video editing much more faster, easier and intuitive.

Cinelerra is not updated very frequently. If you are looking for an updated version with more features, you should install the Cinelerra-CV community version instead.

3. FFmpeg

Unknown to many, FFmpeg is the most widely used application in Linux. FFmped is a command line tool that is composed of a collection of open-source libraries. With these sets of libraries, one can easily record, convert and stream digital audio/video in numerous formats. It does not come with a GUI, but it is used by many video players/converters as the backend application.

4. Jashaka

Jahshaka is a software that has not been updated since November 2006. Nevertheless, it is still a powerful video editing application that can turn you into a professional. There are plenty of useful features in Jahshaka. Functions include adding effects in real time, adding animations with unlimited features, paint and design on moving video and working in any video format at any resolution makes it a very versatile and sturdy video editor.

Jahshaka makes use of the OpenLibraries as its backend support. The Openlibraries are a powerful set of C++ libraries that provides its users tools to edit, compose, play media, encode and image process.

Jahshaka is cross platform and available for Linux, Mac and Windows.

5. Kino

Kino is a video editing software mainly for Digital Video (DV). If you take a lot of video shots with your video cam, then Kino is the application that can make life very easy for you.

Kino is a non-linear DV editor for Linux. It is a simple software with some useful functions. You can edit, split, trim, add filters and even publish your video to blip.tv. It supports Firewire and IEEE-1394 and is able to capture video from a Firewire connected DV device.

One of its best features is that it supports a wide variety of video formats (DV over IEEE 1394, Raw DV, DV AVI, still frames, WAV, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4) and you can export your work to any of your preferred formats.

6. LiVES Video Editor

LiVES started off as a Linux Video Editing System, but it is now supported in the various OS’s.

The power of LiVES lies in its ability to mix realtime video performances and non-linear editing in one application. It supports multitrack timelines and enables you to import, edit and mix several video tracks at the same time.

There is a VJ mode that allows VJ to set multiple real time effects during playback. There are also plenty of effects that one can add to your videos.

Overall, LiVES is a simple to use, yet powerful and flexible video editing tool with plenty of customization options.

7) KDEnlive

KDEnlive stands for KDE Non-Linear Video Editor. Started as part of the KDE project, it is also available for various desktop managers in Linux.

At first use, I found KDEnlive surprisingly fast and easy to use. It integrates well with the desktop manager and has an simple interface. Most of the stuff (such as adding effects, adding clips) can be easily done by drag-and-drop action, which makes it very user-friendly.

It supports a wide variety of file formats, as well as a wide range of camcorders and cameras. Like LiVES, it allows multitrack editing of unlimited video and audio tracks. There are some nice effects with KDEnlive such as sepia, grayscale, gamma, inverse color and speed changes. One thing that I like is that the effect is rendered on the fly and you can immediately see the preview to checkout the video effect. This is surely one of the great pieces of software that I would recommend.

In conclusion, there are plenty of video editors out there and all have their own pros and cons. Choosing the best one for you depend on what features you need and the level of your technical skills. Some are good for expert users (Cinelerra) while some are designed for beginners (Kino, KDEnlive). Take your time to review each and every one of them and you will be able to find the best one for you.

Have I missed out any other video editors for Linux?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Ubuntu, by default, does not include the commonly used Microsoft core fonts in its installation. The set of fonts that it uses is not supported in Windows or Mac. This means that if you create a document and send to your partner for editing, he/she will not be able to view it in the way that it was originally formatted. Vice versa, you won’t be able to view the document that your friend sends you in the way that it was formatted, unless he/she is using the same fonts as you.

Luckily, installing the Microsoft core fonts package (and any other new fonts) in Ubuntu is easy. Here’s how you can do it on your own:

Installing Microsoft Core Fonts in Ubuntu Linux

The Microsoft core fonts package consists of the following fonts:

* Andale Mono
* Arial Black
* Arial (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
* Comic Sans MS (Bold)
* Courier New (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
* Georgia (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
* Impact
* Times New Roman (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
* Trebuchet (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
* Verdana (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
* Webdings

To install them, open up your Synaptic Package Manager (System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager). Scroll down till you find msttcorefonts. Check the box beside it and select Mark for Installation. Click Apply at the menubar to install the fonts package.

Alternatively, if you prefer the terminal way, simply type the following command in your terminal.

sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts

Installing new fonts

Installing the Microsoft core fonts package is only the beginning. There will be many occasions where you need to install a new set of fonts for a specific project. Here is how you can do it :

If you are installing the new fonts for personal use and do not want others to have access to them, simply create a .fonts folder in your Home directory and paste all the fonts into it. Here’s the steps:

• 1. Download the fonts (it should be in zipped format)
• 2. Extract the fonts.
• 3. Open nautilus (Places -> Home). Press Ctrl + H to reveal all the hidden files and folders.
• 4. Check if the .fonts folder exist. If not, create the folder and name it .fonts.
• 5. Copy and paste the new font(s) into the .fonts folder.
• 6. Restart your application. The fonts should be available for your use now.

If you want to install system-wide and allow others to use it:

• 1. Create a new folder in your Desktop. Name it newfonts
• 2. Download the new font(s) and extract to the newfonts folder
• 3. Open a terminal
• 4. Key in the command: sudo cp -R ~/Desktop/newfonts /usr/share/fonts. This will copy your new font(s) to the system font folder.
• 5. Restart your application. The new fonts are now available for system-wide use.

If you are using KDE, there is a font installer application that allows you to install new fonts easily.The Font Installer application is found under System Settings.

Better Font Rendering

Now that you have installed your favorite fonts in your system, here’s a simple trick to improve the font rendering and make it look nicer.

Open up your Appearance configuration page (System -> Preferences -> Appearance)

Click on the Fonts tab. Under the Rendering section, check on the subpixel smoothing button.

You should notice the differences immediately.

If you are using Ubuntu 8.04 or an earlier version, this is what you need to do:

Type in the following command in the terminal

sudo ln -sf /etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-autohint.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/

Logout and login again. You should see a noticeable difference in the font rendering.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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In this case, you will have to consider using an alternative lightweight desktop manager for your Linux. Here are 8 of the best lightweight desktop managers that I personally use and recommend.

1. XFCE

Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment for unix-like operating systems. It aims to be fast and lightweight, while still being visually appealing and easy to use. It is based on the GTK2+ toolkit which is the same as Gnome, so if you have always been a Gnome user, you will find some of the design and icons very familiar in Xfce.

A good thing about Xfce is that it is as fully customizable as both Gnome and KDE. The full Xfce package is split up into several projects , each for different parts of the desktop. You can either install the full package to make use of its full functionality, or only install the components you need to reduce the burden placed on the hardware. In addition, you can easily customize every single part of the Xfce package to create the best looking desktop for your daily use.

2. Enlightenment

Enlightenment is the lightweight desktop manager that I like the most. It is revolutionary, visually appealing and extremely easy to use. While most lightweight managers strip out all the graphical effects to reduce the hardware requirement, Enlightenment does the opposite. You will be amazed how it can make everything run so smoothly and gracefully, even if it is running on a low-end PC.

When you first log in, you will be surprised to find that there are no menubar, panel or icons in Enlightenment. All you have is a blank canvas and a pager at the bottom of the screen. To access your menu, you simply click anywhere on the canvas. Shift your mouse around or scroll your mouse wheel and you will see the visual effect of the window minimizing to the pager. It may be difficult to get used to the interface at first, but once you are used to it, you won’t want to use any other desktop manager anymore.

3. FVWM-Crystal

If you like eye-candy, then I am sure you will like FVWM-Crystal too. FVWM-Crystal is based on the FVWM window manager. It retains the flexible and highly configurable traits of FVWM and has added plenty of improvement to the interface. What results is a cool interface with semi-transparent windows and lots of eye-candy.

Among all the lightweight desktop managers, FVWM-Crystal have the fastest speed, be it in booting up or loading applications. It also integrates well with XMMS, XMMS2, MPD, Quod Libet and cdcd. If you are looking for a fast, pretty desktop manager that can link to your music server easily, then FVWM-Crystal is clearly the choice.

4. LXDE

Being someone who has experience in Gnome and KDE, I have found LXDE extremely easy to use. The reason being, LXDE is simply a lightweight version of Gnome and KDE combined together. You have a KDE look-alike bottom panel and Gnome-style interface, so there really nothing new that you need to learn here. If you have a low-end PC and do not want to deviate too much away from Gnome or KDE, then LXDE would be a good alternative.

5. IceWM

IceWM is simple and highly configurable. All the settings are stored as plain text files in the user’s home directory, making it easy to customize and configure the settings.

In case you are concerned about the Windows 95 lookalike interface, IceWm is also fully themeable. You can apply your favorite theme and make it look like Windows Vista, Mac OS X or whatever design you want.

6. Fluxbox

Fluxbox is considered a minimalist desktop manager as it has minimal graphical support with only a taskbar in the whole desktop. You don’t see any menubar around, but you can easily access the menu by right-clicking your mouse. The interface is fully themeable and most of the settings are controlled by text files which can be edited easily.

7. Window Maker

Window Maker is one of the few desktop managers that offers a graphical tool to configure the system setting. Wprefs (the graphical tool) is easy to use. It eliminates the use of plain text files and ensures that any users, be it a newbie or a seasoned Linux user, can configure and customize the settings easily.

Like Fluxbox, Window Maker is also a minimalist desktop manager. There are only four icons on the whole desktop. One of them is to access the terminal while the other is to open the Wprefs. To access the main menu, you just have to right-click your mouse and the menu will appear.

8. AfterStep

Originally based on the look and feel of the NeXTStep interface, AfterStep provides its users with a consistent, clean, and elegant desktop that can run on any low end PC. As the same as other lightweight desktop managers, it is fast, stable, easy to use and easy to configure.

The above mentioned lightweight desktop managers are the ones I use and recommend. There are plenty of other desktop managers out there. Which one do you use? If your favorite is not in the above list, which one do you recommend?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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You can easily install any of these apps using the ‘Add/Remove Applications’ from the upper panel.

1. Midori

Midori is a web browser that uses the well-known WebKit rendering engine, providing quite a speed bump from Firefox and standards complying page rendering. Midori is currently packaged into Xubuntu and features include tabs, bookmarks and customizable search engine box. The browser is extensible via Javascript.

2. gDesklets

gDesklets is a platform for widgets, tiny applets sitting on your desktop in a symbiotic relationship of eye candy and usefulness. You can populate your desktop with status meters, icon bars, weather sensors and news tickers.

I managed to configure gDesklets to emulate the OS X Dashboard feature in addition to the standard placement on the desktop.

3. AcidRip

AcidRip is a GTK application for ripping and encoding DVD’s. It neatly wraps MPlayer and MEncoder, which I think is pretty handy, seeing as MPlayer is by far the best bit of video playing kit around for Linux.

As well as creating a simple Graphical Interface for those nervous of the MEncoders command line interface, it also automates the entire process.

4. Cheese Webcam Booth

Cheese is a Photobooth-inspired GNOME application for taking pictures and videos from a webcam. It also includes fancy graphical effects based on the gstreamer-backend.

5. Gmount-iso

Gmount-iso is a small tool written using PyGTK and Glade. It allows you to easily mount your CD images.

6. KGRUBEditor

A tool to view and edit the menu.lst file of the GRUB boot manager. It offers many features and it is the perfect solution for those who want to change the way GRUB works, without messing with the menu.lst file.

7. Flickr Uploader

Postr is a small app that lets you upload photographs to Flickr, with tight integration into the GNOME desktop.

8. DOS Emulator

DOSEMU stands for DOS Emulation, and allows you to run DOS and many DOS programs, including many DPMI applications such as DOOM and Windows 3.1, under Linux.

Features include:

• word size and addressing modes of the iAPX86 processor family’s “real mode,” while still running within the full protected mode environment
• simulate a hardware environment over which DOS programs are accustomed to having control.
• provides DOS services through native Linux services; dosemu can provide a virtual hard disk drive which is actually a Linux directory hierarchy.

9. E-book reader

FBReader is an e-book reader with a lot of great features:

• supports several open e-book formats: fb2, html, chm, plucker, palmdoc, ztxt, tcr (psion text), rtf, oeb, openreader, non-DRM’ed mobipocket, plain text, epub
• reads directly from tar, zip, gzip, bzip2 archives (you can have several books in one archive)
• supports a structured view of your e-book collection
• automatically determines encodings
• automatically generates a table of contents
• keeps the last open book and the last read positions for all open books between runs
• automatic hyphenation (patterns for several languages are included)

10. HomeBank

HomeBank is a fast, simple and easy to use program to manage your bank accounts. It differs from gnucash for the better look and feel, and for the faster start-up speed. It has a lot of features such as easy analysis with graphical charts (statistics, budget, overdrawn, car cost), multi-accounts support, budget management, reminders, import from OFX/QFX-CSV files, visual status of operations. It is based on GTK2.

Let’s hear some other interesting, less-known Linux apps in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Let’s take a look at some of the options you have and then we will have a brief look at what the new things are and the anticipated additions to Ubuntu Intrepid as well as where we can find them.

If you are new to Ubuntu

1. Download the flavor according to your choice. (The Intrepid images might not show until they are officially released on 30th October 2008, in that case visit here).

2. Run the installer. You can either completely wipe away all your data, configure a dual boot system or even install Ubuntu just like you install any other software in Windows. Whatever you choose to do, remember to take a backup of all your important files.

Updating your Ubuntu Installation

If you are using 8.04 (Hardy) then you can update directly to 8.10 (Intrepid). In other cases you should follow a sequential upgrade path and not skip any of the releases (unless you are on a LTS release).

1. “Backup important files”. Although the upgrades preserve your data and settings, it’s always wise to backup at least your home directory in case Murphy’s law comes into play. This includes copying (or tar-ring) the desired files to an external drive or a server some place safe. If you plan to do incremental backups in future as well then use something like rsync to help you out. (Backup Tutorial)

2. Make sure your system is up to date. This means that you should have applied all the available updates for your present version of Ubuntu (these updates are different from the actual upgrade. So be careful you don’t skip this step).

3. Read the Release Notes to find out if there are some issues and possible workarounds and to know what’s the new release all about.

4. Upgrade by running the Update Manager (Note that before 30th October you will have to run ‘update-manager –devel-release’ to let it know you want to install the developmental release)

Points to Keep in Mind When Upgrading / Downloading

If you are keen to upgrade or don’t want to spend time downloading the image/upgrade when the majority of users are also doing the same then you can download and use the Release Candidate. A release candidate is the closest you can get to the real thing, basically if no more bugs are found till the official release then RC would essentially be the same as the actual release.

If you want to be absolutely certain that you don’t miss anything, you can use jigdo to download the ISO and then update the downloaded ISO when the final release becomes available.

Jigdo or JIGsaw Download is a download manager that makes downloading of large files easier. In our context we will be using it to compare two images and then download only those packages that are new in the recent image available on the servers. This means that if you are totally paranoid to have the latest image but don’t want to download it all over again after you have downloaded the Release Candidate then Jigdo is for you.

See how to update ubuntu images using jigdo. However, this step is not necessary if you are not burning Intrepid to a disc because if something is updated in the final release it will most likely trickle down to you via software updates.

If you are actually downloading on the D-Day then you should consider using BitTorrent for your downloads. Not only is it faster but it also reduces burden on the servers.

If you decide to go against BitTorrent for some reason, then choose the server closest to your location when you download the image. If you are upgrading via the update-manager, then this has most likely already been taken care of.

Things to check out in Ubuntu Intrepid

Here are a couple of things that are new and you might want to check them out as soon as you log into Intrepid for the first time!

An alternate Dark Theme

There was a lot of hype over the Artwork overhaul in Intrepid. While its not a complete revamp that we all hoped for, there are some changes nevertheless. First and foremost, Intrepid will come with a Dark Theme. It will not be applied by default.

Where to find: System > Preferences > Appearance

Guest Sessions

Intrepid introduces Guest Sessions, which can be accessed via the user switcher applet. Guest sessions allow you to do basic things like surfing the web, email etc. However they don’t allow any modification to the system.

Excellent for allowing access to “guests” on your system without having to worry about data and settings.

Where to find: User Switcher Applet generally on the top panel

Encrypted private directory

Considering your data to be secure with just a login password? Think again.

Anyone with a live CD can mount the file systems and not only have a look at but can also walk way with your data. BIOS password gives some additional security but how about encryption? Intrepid includes a ~/Private directory. All the files you put in here will be encrypted. How to set up private directory and what all to include in it?

Where to find: ~/Private

Improved Network Manager

Network Manager now bundles up all types of network connections including Wired, wireless, DSL, VPN in one central management tool.

Nautilus Tabs and Eject Icons

Nautilus the default file manager/ file browser gets Tabs. Allows you to open multiple folders as tabs without too much cluttering. Also the devices listed in the left pane get Eject icons when supported.

Where to find: Just fire up Nautilus (Open any folder)

USB Live Disk Creator

The tool allows you to create a bootable USB stick. Just fire it up, choose the device and that’s it. As easy as that, no more Googling and workarounds.

Where to find: System > Administration > Create Startup Disk

System Cleaner

No fuss tool to help remove packages that you no longer need. Provides an intuitive list of all the packages that are installed all in one place and lets you take appropriate actions.

Where to find: Applications > System Tools > System Cleaner

“Last successful boot” recovery entry

On each successful boot, Intrepid will retain a copy of your running kernel and make it available from the boot loader as a “Last successful boot” option. This makes it possible for old kernel packages to be safely auto-removed by the package manager, instead of being kept indefinitely.

DKMS

Allows kernel drivers to be automatically rebuilt when new kernels are released.

Some not so obvious changes

Persistent Permissions: When asked for a password you can choose to remember the password and never be asked again in the session.

Access BBC content and High Quality Youtube videos with Totem

X.Org 7.04: With the new release, most users will be able to operate with an empty xorg.conf, letting the OS detect and choose the proper driver, and detect monitor resolutions and input devices automatically, without requiring user input.

File Roller now supports ALZ, RZIP, CAB and TAR.7Z file types as well.

Linux Kernel 2.6.27-7

Did I miss something that you found interesting in Intrepid? Have you already installed Intrepid or are you waiting for the actual release? Lets us know in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Other than a file browser, Nautilus also comes with a good list of capabilities that you can use right off the context menu. If you are using Ubuntu 8.04, you will find that you can easily encrypt a file, sign a document or even share files/folders with others over the Samba network, with just a simple right-click on the mouse. If that is not enough for you, you can also install additional nautilus extensions to increase its functionality.

Below I have listed 6 useful extensions and scripts that you can use to power up your Nautilus.

1. nautilus- gksu

If you hate the way that Linux restricts your user privileges and access to certain files, then nautilus-gksu is the easiest way to get yourself out of it. “Nautilus-gksu” adds a “Open as administrator” entry in the context menu. When you need to open any files with root permission, you just have to right-click on the file, select “Open as Administrator” and you will be able to read/edit/modify the file.

(In Ubuntu, type sudo apt-get install nautilus-gksu in the terminal to install)

2. nautilus-actions

“Nautilus-action” allows you to define custom actions or commands for certain file types or files with names matching your description. There are plenty of things that you can do with “nautilus-action”, such as adding an audio file to the queue in Rhythmbox music player or send a particular picture to your friends via Evolution.

In one of my tutorials at Make Tech Easier, I make use of “nautilus-actions” to place a ’shred’ command in the context menu. When I want to wipe off a confidential file from my hard disk completely, I can simply right-click and select ’shred’.

You can also check out the Ubuntu forum for more things that you can do with “nautilus-actions”

(In Ubuntu, type sudo apt-get install nautilus-actions in the terminal to install)

3. nautilus-wallpaper

Sometimes you might come across an image that you like so much and decide to make it your wallpaper. Instead of going through all the processes just to change the wallpaper on your desktop, you can quickly change your wallpaper with “nautilus-wallpaper”. All it takes is only a right-click and select “Set as Wallpaper”.

(In Ubuntu, type sudo apt-get install nautilus-wallpaper in the terminal to install)

4. Nautilus-image-converter

When I first checked out this extension, I thought that it would convert an image from one format to another (i.e convert from jpg to png). I was wrong. This extension does not convert the image format. Instead, it allows you to mass resize or rotate images. Though not what I really thought it was, it is still an useful extension. Imagine the time wasted on opening the GIMP image editor, opening the file, selecting the image resize function, then saving the file.

Now you can select a bunch of image files, right-click the mouse, select “Resize image” and that’s it. There are pre-defined image sizes that you can choose from, and if none suits your criteria, you can even set your own image width and height. The same goes for rotate image function.

(In Ubuntu, type sudo apt-get install nautilus-image-converter in the terminal to install)

5. nautilus-dropbox

If you have read our previous review of Dropbox, you will know that the ‘killer’ factor that it has over other competitors is that it provides a desktop client for all platforms and you can easily backup your files with simple drag and drop.

In Linux, the desktop client is actually a Nautilus extension. The “nautilus-dropbox” extension creates a folder in your Home folder. Whenever you drag and drop a file/folder into the Dropbox folder, it will automatically sync with the online server and make sure your files/folders are safely backed up.

I am not sure if the 1GB storage space is enough for you, but I am sure that this “nautilus-dropbox” extension will make your backup a painless process.

(To install nautilus-dropbox, download the deb file from GetDropBox.com)

6. Nautilus-script-audio-convert

This is not a nautilus extension, but a widely used nautilus script. If you frequently work with audio files of mp3, wav or even flac format, then this audio convert script will be useful to you. You can easily convert your audio files from one format to another.

Note: You will need to install the necessary audio codecs before you can convert the audio files to the format you want.

(In Ubuntu, type sudo apt-get install nautilus-script-audio-convert in the terminal to install)

What is your favorite nautilus extensions and scripts?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Let’s face it, no matter which operating system you are using, you got to surf the web. It seems like a good idea if your browser automatically knew what you had bookmarked on the other operating system and you don’t have to customize your settings, passwords and search pages all over again.

Well if you use Firefox, and want to achieve something like this, then read on:

The Profile Manager

Firefox geeks may already know this but just to be on the same page, let me tell you that a profile manager exists for Firefox. The profile manager can be accessed by typing “firefox.exe -profilemanager” on Windows and “firefox -profilemanager” on linux systems. We are going to use this profile manager and Firefox profiles to accomplish our task.

The Steps

1. Let’s assume we are using Firefox from within Windows XP and want to be able to access our bookmarks and settings from within Ubuntu. (If it’s other way round, read ahead, only minor changes are required).

2. Take a note of these locations, we will be using them in steps that follow.

- Windows XP : C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\xxxxxxxx.default\
- Windows Vista : C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\xxxxxxxx.default\
- Ubuntu / Other Distros : ~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx.default

where xxxxxxxx refers to a random string, username to you windows user name and ~ to you Linux home directory

3. Make sure that the profile directory in Windows XP as mentioned on step 2 is accessible from within Ubuntu. This should not be a problem as modern Linux systems have read write access to almost any file system that is used by Windows.

4. Now boot into Ubuntu, open terminal and type: “firefox -profilemanager”

5. Click create new profile, a wizard appears, give the profile a name, click next and when prompted to choose a directory, choose the Windows XP directory for your profile as found from Step 2.





6. Click Finish and you are done. You will now have access to all the add-ons you installed, the bookmarks and other settings!

Variations

I want to do this the other way round Ubuntu to XP?

No problem, everything is the same except you have to make the Linux File System accessible from within Windows. This is easy to achieve using the freeware Ext2fsd. Once you do this, create a new profile for Firefox in XP and point it to the Firefox directory on Ubuntu / other distros. (refer Step 2)

I want to do this between XP and Vista ?

Still no problem, I already mentioned the location for the Firefox directory on Windows Vista. Just use that location and create a new Firefox profile on either operating system that points to the other.

What if I have a dual boot of Vista and Ubuntu ?

Same steps, just use the respective directories.

How can I get more creative?

If you have a home network, and you switch between computers you can share the profile directory on the network and obtain the same results.

How about sharing the profile over the internet ?

Well you can use the same method and share the profile directory over the internet as well, however this may not be the best solution. Try looking into Weave (Make Use Of article), or sync your bookmarks using Foxmarks (this will only sync bookmarks).

Any other Profile hacks?

Well not really, just a mention that if the browser is the mainstay of your work and you do a lot of work online and you don’t want to lose your customizations and bookmarks then you can backup your profile directory, just in case something goes wrong.

Also try using different profiles for different types of work you need the browser for. This way you don’t clutter up your browser with too many add-ons and this also avoids some problems. Like for example I use different profiles for developing sites in which I have installed Firebug, Web Developer Tool bar and similar add-ons, and I use a different profile for the casual – fun – entertainment browsing!

Have you used the Profile Manager creatively in a way that I forgot to mention? Why not share it with the world? Write it up in the comments.

(By) Varun Kashyap, who blogs about such interesting tip, tweaks and hacks on TechCrazy Blog

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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For those who are not familiar with Linux, Ubuntu is one of the most popular and most widely used Linux distributions.

Over the years that I have used Ubuntu, other than the usual Ctrl + C (copy) and Ctrl + V (paste) shortcuts, I have discovered quite a number of keyboard shortcuts that are very useful, but seldom used by many. If you are looking for more keyboard shortcuts to add to your collection, I am sure you will be able to find some new tricks here.

1. Switch to the next/previous workspace

If you make use of the workspace very frequently, you can easily switch between different workspaces by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Left/Right Arrow. The Left key brings you to the previous workspace while the Right key brings you to the next adjacent. If you have enabled Compiz, you can even get it to show all the workspace by pressing Super + E on the keyboard.

2. Move the current window to another workspace

By pressing Shift+ Ctrl + Alt + Left/Right Arrow, you can easily move your current window to another workspace in the specified direction. This keyboard shortcut works very well with the one mentioned above. If you have the habit of opening many applications/windows when doing your work, but don’t like to see your desktop and menubar cluttered with all the application windows, you can use this shortcut key to move your applications to another workspace and get your desktop organized.

3. Show the desktop

Ctrl + Alt + D enables you to quickly minimize all windows and give focus to the desktop. When all windows are minimized, this shortcut can also maximize all the windows to their previous state.

4. Keyboard shortcut for the mouse right-click

In most applications, you can always right-click on the mouse to access the options menu. On the keyboard, you can simply press Shift + F10 to achieve this ‘right-click‘ effect

5. Restart session and recover from crashes

There are very few instances where Ubuntu will crash totally. But if it does, you can press Ctrl + Alt + Backspace to restart the session, and 90% of the time, it will recover from the crashes.

6. Lock the screen quickly

If you need to leave your workstation for a while, you can quickly lock up your screen by pressing Ctrl + Alt + L and prevent unauthorized access by others.

7. Switch between windows in the reverse direction

Alt + Tab is a common shortcut key that allow you to switch between open windows. But do you know that by including the ‘Shift‘ button, you can reverse the windows switching direction? This is useful when you press Alt + Tab too fast and passed the window that you want to switch to. Simply press down the ‘Shift‘ button to go back to the previous window in the switch cycle.

8. Move windows with arrow keys

Press Alt+F7 to activate the Move window function and use any arrows key (up, down, left, right) to move the window around the screen.

9. Show hidden files

Most of the time, you won’t need to view the hidden files in your home folder, but in the event that you need to, you can press Ctrl + H inside the Nautilus (the file manager for Ubuntu) to show all hidden files.

10. Show file properties without right-clicking the mouse

The conventional way to view a file/folder properties is to right-click the mouse and select ‘Properties‘. Now you can just press Alt + Enter to get the Properties window to appear.

Of course, this is only the tip of the iceberg. If you want more shortcuts and not only for Ubuntu but also for Gmail, Google Search, Firefox and other programs then go straight to our Cheat Sheets Page. There are 9 PDF cheat sheets there for you to download.

(By) Damien Oh is an all-out technology geek who loves to tweak and hack various operating systems to make life easier. Check out his blog at MakeTechEasier.com where he shares all the tips, tricks and tutorials.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Well the solution is screen actions. Linux offers a variety of ways to get the screen actions going. Here are two ways to get screen actions on your Ubuntu desktop (this will work for other distros as well. Menus and names may vary):

Using Compiz Fusion

I am assuming you have Compiz Fusion. Else you can install it via Synaptic.

Now follow these steps to get screen actions

• Install Simple Compizconfig-settings-manager. You can do this by issuing the following command at the terminal sudo apt-get install simple-ccsm
• Go to System > Preferences > Simple Compiz Config Settings Manager



• Choose the edges tab. Click on any area marked as read and choose the action you wish to perform on moving mouse to that particular edge/area of the screen.

You can also do this from CompizConfig settings manager (ccsm) if you have it installed and don’t want to install the simple compizconfig settings manager (yes I know, the names are quite a handful). To do it via ccsm visit the bindings tab for scale, expo, rotate cube and your shift switcher plugins and there you will find an option to specify the “hot-areas” from where you want the effects to be triggered from.

Using Brightside

Compiz Fusion provides you a way to get screen actions, but it is not necessarily the best way. For one it allows you to trigger effects and viewport switches only. Another application for creating screen actions is Brightside. To use Brightside, follow these steps:

• Install Brightside by issuing the following command: sudo apt-get install brightside
• After installation completes enter brightside-properties at the terminal.
• The following window appears. Enable screen actions as you like. You can create actions for all for corners and screen edges as well. You can mute volume, start screensaver, prevent screensaver from starting, enter DPSM standby, suspend or off mode, toggle show desktop.

There is one last thing that you can do that alone makes Brightside a killer. It’s the ability to run custom commands on any of the corners. This opens up a wide variety of possibilities. You can connect and disconnect internet connections, shutdown, restart, open terminals and what not. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination here!

If you use both the methods you will have each area performing two actions! Carefully planning this might prove useful but if you see things you didn’t expect to see make sure you are not using both the methods!

Do you like the concept of screen actions? Do you use some other applications? What do KDE users do? (When I was using KDE way back, it used to be in Control Center, Desktop -> Window Behavior, “Advanced” tab -> “Active Desktop Borders”) Is it still the same in KDE 4.x ?

(By) Varun Kashyap – A programmer, tech enthusiast, blogger who strongly believes in open source. Visit his TechCrazy Blog where he blogs about latest on the web, tech tips, tweaks and hacks!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Boxee is basically XBMC on steroids because it has social networking features so that you can view what your friends are watching and listening to on Boxee, as well as plugins that are written in Python so you can really customize Boxee a lot. Boxee also gas a skinning engine so if you get bored of the default look of Boxee then you can always download other skins or make your own.

Get on Boxee

Because Boxee is still in alpha there is a very limited amount of invitations that they’re going to give out so the best thing to do is to get to Boxee.tv as soon as you can and enter your email address so that you can get on Boxee as soon as possible.

Once you’re emailed your invitation and go to their website you’ll be asked to enter a few details such as username, email, etc and it shouldn’t take anymore than 20 seconds to complete. After you’ve signed up you’ll be logged into your account.

The first thing that you will see when you login is a feed of your friends. Within the feed you will see the latest movies that they have watched and the latest music that they have listened too. If they rated it and liked it a thumb up will appear but if they didn’t like it then a thumb down will appear on the feed next to that movie or song. Whatever they listened to or watched will also linked to the imdb or last.fm page depending on if its a movie or music.

Under the Profile page is information about movies you’ve watched and music you’ve listened too.
The Friends page displays all your friends and also allows you to invite and add new friends.
Under the account page you can change your personal information and who you want to share your information with such as the world, your friends or nobody. Here you can also change your picture that is displayed throughout your profile.

At the bottom of the account page you have services. Here you can enter your twitter, friend feed and tumblr information and decide what information to share.
With these services you can twit, post and share.

Download and Installing Boxee

To download Boxee simply press the Download Boxee link once you’ve logged into your account then choose either the Mac OS X version or the Ubuntu Linux version. Support for Windows will most likely be added soon.
If you want to see the code behind Boxee then just simply download the source from the download page and play about with it.
If you’re on a broadband connection then Boxee should download fairly quickly as its only 30mb. The OS X version downloads as a package so you double click the package and click agree then click next then once the installation has finished Boxee will be in the Applications folder.

Using Boxee

When you first load up Boxee you will be presented with a window like the one shown above. From here enter your username and password for Boxee and you’ll be logged in.

This is what Boxee will look like the first time you login. In the top right corner is the weather and the time. Down the left side is what’s new, video, music, pictures, profile, downloads, settings and exit.

The main content that you see is the what’s new content and this is videos and music that your friends have recently listened too and watched.

When you select Video and hit enter you’ll see two more options My Videos and Internet Videos.
My Videos are movies that you have on your computer locally and Internet Videos are videos that a streamed from the internet and updated automatically via an RSS feed.
When you load up the Internet Videos for the first time the RSS feeds for sites that are there is blip.tv, CNN, Revision3, Cnet and Youtube.

For music it is the same but for the music streaming websites its jamendo, muxtape, shoutcast, bbc, last.fm and NPR. You can also listen to music that is on your computer or in your iTunes library.

Pictures allows you to look at pictures that you have on your computer or you can search for pictures on Picasa and Flickr.

Under Profile you can see the latest content that you and your friends have viewed on Boxee.

Downloads allows you to view content that you’re currently downloading.

Under the Settings tab you have options for video, music, pictures, network, appearance, system, media sources, general and the credits of the people who made Boxee.

I think that Boxee is a really good media player and that it is a lot better than Front Row.

Want An Invite?

If you want to give Boxee a try we’re giving out invites to the first 20 people who ask for them in the comments.

[rating=5]

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Not exactly, in fact that kind of image is starting to fade away somewhat as Linux distros such as Ubuntu gain traction and mind share with each new release.

OK so Linux still has a market share closer to 1.5%. However things are beginning to change. Linux has never before been so easy to try. Here’s three ways you can install Linux on your computer.

1. Linux on a ‘Live Disk’

Each distribution can now be downloaded as a ‘Live Disk‘, a disk which will run Linux straight from the CD as if it were an installed operating system.

This is perhaps the best way you can try Linux for the first time as it allows you to play around with the OS without having to worry about your data, or partitioning or screwing something up.

The disadvantage is that the OS will run fairly slowly and you will not get much idea of the performance or flexibility of Linux.

Live disks are included with every Linux distribution, and are also provided on the cover of just about any computing and PC magazine. Looking over at my shelf I can see Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, gOS Rocket and Linux Mint on the cover disks of several magazines.

2. Run Linux using Virtual PC

Again, this is just another way to have a bit of a look and play around with Linux in a contained area with no danger of destroying your computer or anything. Microsoft provides Virtual PC 2007 as a free download and can run most distros, although you will perhaps need to find some fairly simple workaround’s for a few.

Again, the disadvantage is performance, both for the Virtual Machine and the host machine which has to lend system resources. The advantage I guess is that you will not have to burn an actual disk in order to try Linux out – the virtual machine can simply mount an ISO file.

3. Install Ubuntu using the Wubi installer

Lastly you can try Linux, Ubuntu specifically, using a special installer called ‘Wubi’. Mackenzie covered Wubi in detail here. Blake also briefly mentioned it in his article here.

Wubi installs Ubuntu as a file on your Windows System. It can be uninstalled like any other program and runs as if you were using a separate system partition. The only disadvantage is that hibernation mode does not work.

The set-up is laughably simple; all you have to do is get Wubi from here and start it up. Wubi is actually included in Ubuntu as of version 8.04 and is an installation option when using a Live disk.

Here are the options you will be presented with:

Pretty simple huh?

You can either download the Ubuntu file, or use a existing ISO image you have previously downloaded. To use a existing file simply place it in the same folder as the Wubi program.

After installing you will have to reset your computer. It’s crucial you reset ‘cleanly’, that means no turning the computer off impatiently, pulling the plug out the all etc. If you do, booting into Ubuntu may fail.

If all is successful you’ll be given a new option upon startup to choose either your previous OS, or Ubuntu:

Booting into Ubuntu will complete the installation and prepare your hard drive for the OS. A final reboot and everything should be working fine, choosing Ubuntu from the boot screen should now load up the OS and you can play around to your heart’s content.

It’s totally risk free, the worst that can happen is that for some other reason the installation fails. I’m sorry but I can’t help you there, simply boot back into Windows and uninstall Wubi through the Add/Remove programs panel.

If this occurs try installing a couple of times. There is a chance it will succeed the second time.

Hopefully this will give you the incentive to try out Linux for yourself!

(By) Wez is a student studying computers, also does programming and video tutorials and writes about technology, software and websites, check out his blog @ www.TheTutorialBlog.com

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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But there are some drawbacks to installing with Wubi. For one thing, you can’t suspend or hibernate to save power, which you could do if you had the regular install (i.e. burned and booted from the CD). Also, because Wubi doesn’t get its own partition, it actually uses the Windows boot loader to boot from a disk image of a Linux partition on your Windows drive; this results in slightly reduced disk speed and a dependence on the Windows boot loader (you can’t ditch Windows entirely and run Ubuntu as your main OS). So, Wubi may be good for people who want to test Ubuntu, but once you’ve decided to use it on a regular basis, Wubi probably won’t cut it.

Burning a CD can take a while, getting a CD shipped takes an even bigger while, and a friend who can lend you a disk might be hard to find. So, the other option is to use UNetbootin. UNetbootin can either download the contents of the Ubuntu Live CD (or CDs for other distros) or use an already downloaded CD image and put it onto a flash drive. It then makes your flash drive bootable, and makes it behave just like a regular Ubuntu CD.

Download UNetbootin here, insert your flash drive, and run the program you downloaded.

Where it says ‘distribution’, drop down the menu and choose Ubuntu (or whatever distro you want, if you prefer something else). If you already downloaded the CD image, then instead choose the disk image option and point it to the disk image you downloaded. At the bottom, choose your drive from the drop down (if it doesn’t show up in the list, make sure the type is set to flash drive, that your flash drive is plugged in, and that other programs like a file manager can open it—if it still doesn’t show, try closing and re-opening UNetbootin). Then hit OK and let the program work its magic. Once it’s done, head to the next step.

Now, this will only work if your machine can boot from an USB (most can). To do this: Reboot your PC, and either open the BIOS with whatever key it says (F2 on mine) and change the first boot device to an USB flash, or get a one-time boot menu (F12 on mine) and choose USB flash. It will open up just like the Live CD would. Then choose whatever language you want and start the installation. Make sure you know what partition you’re going to use: the setup will give you a partition manager to manage the partitions, but it’s a good idea to already know which disk you want to use, how much free space it has for a new partition, et cetera. Once you’re done, you can wipe the flash drive and use it for whatever you’d normally use it for (you couldn’t do that with a CD unless it was a CD-RW, but those are more expensive and aren’t as good for data quality).

If you already have a Wubi-installed operating system, you can use LVPM to upgrade it to a regular installation, but I won’t get into all the details here (maybe in a later post, but there’s a pretty thorough guide at the project page).

So there you go, a full Linux installation without having to burn a single CD, with all the features and performance.

If you have any questions or problems, leave a comment or if you know something better than UNetbootin, be sure to let us know in the comments too.

(By) Blake Elias is a computer addict, constantly learning about new technologies and figuring out ways to do things better. He writes about his thoughts and activities regarding Linux, Google, useful programs, web development and computers in general on his personal blog, The New Geek. He can be contacted at blake[at]makeuseof.com

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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