10.13.10
Links 13/10/2010: Augen Tablet, LibreOffice 3.3.0 Beta 2
Contents
GNU/Linux
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Software Scam
Okay, glad you came back! Now, what’s my point? Simple. With Linux, the operating system, drivers, and software are all FREE! Let me repeat that. Linux and all Linux software is FREE!
There’s no need to try and hunt down a piece of “unbelievably low priced” software in order to save a few bucks. We can all understand how some people, during these tough economic times, buy a piece of software because the price was to good to be true. Well, too good to be true is often a scam. The scammer gets your money and leaves you hanging there with nothing.
You should also be wary of extremely low priced software because it could contain a virus or piece of malware which could compromise a Windows system.
Avoid all this. Just get Linux. Linux has thousands of software applications that do everything from graphics editing to desktop publishing to spreadsheets, to video editing…the list goes on and on! And it’s all available free of charge. (Well, you can always choose to donate to any of the Linux projects.)
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Big business go big on Linux
These businesses are moving to Linux far faster than they are to Windows or Unix.
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Applications
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mtr: Linux Network Diagnostic Tool
In using Ubuntu at my place of work, I’ve become aware of tools I didn’t know existed. I found a nifty little tool a while ago that I’ve been meaning to write about. It’s called ‘mtr’ and it stands for My Traceroute.
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Instructionals/Technical
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Installing Debian on the Plug Computer
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How To Upgrade Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) To 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) (Desktop & Server)
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How To Get A Quake Like Terminal Under Gnome Using Terminator
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Fix for GPG error: http://extras.ubuntu.com maverick Release
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Multimedia (MP3, MPEG-4, AVI, DiVX, etc.) support in Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat )
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6 Expect Script Examples to Expect the Unexpected (With Hello World)
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Snippet: How to Add UbuntuOne Indicator to Your Ubuntu Panel
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HowTo: Use Bash Parameter Substitution Like A Pro
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Ubuntu 10.10 manual disk partitioning guide
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Shell scripting for system administrators: beyond the basics
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Booting to ISO images from a USB key
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Getting Plymouth on openSUSE
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Configure Logitech G Series Keyboards In Ubuntu With Gnome15, Now Available In A PPA
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The 10 Cleverest Ways to Use Linux to Fix Your Windows PC
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How to set up an OpenVPN server
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Games
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Crystal Architect
A reader pointed out (many moons ago – sorry!) Crystal Architect, an IDE for creating Linux games:
CrystalArchitect is a software that helps you create your 3D worlds in a fluent and cooperative way.
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Heroes of Newerth Keys
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Distributions
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The Ubuntu way (or what I miss about Gentoo)
I switched to Ubuntu Linux not long ago after running Gentoo Linux for years. Here’s my first post on the switch, and a mention of a great Ubuntu manual. Now while it has worked very nicely almost out-of-the-box, I’ve also come across a bug or two (for instance – the main panels would sometimes not appear after boot-up). Nothing I couldn’t fix in a few seconds, but still. Anyhow, a new version of the OS (10.10) just came out a few days ago so I figured I’d go ahead and run the upgrade.
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PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family
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Screencasting in Mandriva
I ended up using recordMyDesktop with the qt frontend, both of which were in the standard Mandriva repositories. You can select an area of the screen to record via the main window, but there is also a tray icon. Initiating a recording from the tray icon seems to always grab the whole screen, regardless of what is selected.
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Red Hat Family
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Chapel Hill & & Red Hat partner to support community kids
That’s where George knew Red Hat could step in and help. An avid cyclist himself, George was planning a team building event for 24 team members from Red Hat’s Facilities team from the United States, Canada and South America. He realized he could combine a great event for his team with a chance to give back to the community.
“Red Hat encourages its associates to actively participate in the communities where they live, work and play,” said George. “As a long-time member of the Y, I saw a great opportunity for Red Hat to give back to the Triangle community and partner with the Y to improve the lives of local children while also building positive bonds and encouraging teamwork across members of Red Hat’s Americas Facilities team.”
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Aviation company uses Red Hat virtualisation to keep cabin crew in the clouds
Aviation company Jeppesen has chosen to standardise its business-critical software build systems for its crew and fleet optimisation software on Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation.
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Red Hat near Support
New York, October 12th (TradersHuddle.com) – Shares of Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT) are trading very close to calculated support at $37.33 with current price action closing at just $38.41 places the stock price near levels where traders will start paying attention.
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Debian Family
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Canonical/Ubuntu
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Medibuntu updated for Ubuntu 10.10
The Medibuntu developers have updated their repository with additional multimedia packages for the current Maverick Meerkat release of Ubuntu, version 10.10 which was released last Sunday. Medibuntu, an acronym for “Multimedia, Entertainment & Distractions In Ubuntu”, is a repository of packages that can’t be included in the default Ubuntu distributions for legal reasons, such as copyright, licenses or patents.
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Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 213
In this issue we cover:
* Invitation to Ubuntu Open Week – October 11 -15, 2010
* Ubuntu 10.10 is Released
* Kubuntu, Mythbuntu, Edubuntu
* 10.10 10:10:10 – thank you and Happy Maverick Day!
* Asia-Oceania RMB Positions Available
* Something New and Beautiful: Ubuntu, distilled, in type
* Ubuntu Fridge: We’re moving!
* Forum Code of Conduct Updated
* Ubuntu Stats
* LoCo News
* Ubuntu on ARM, the best since sliced bread
* … and we’re live
* Multi-touch at UDS-N in Orlando, October 25th-29th
* In The Press
* In The Blogosphere
* Ubuntu in the Cloud
* Interview with Leann Ogasawara
* Canonical to expand cooperation with PC vendors
* TurnKey community development contest: let the judging begin!
* Featured Podcasts
* Weekly Ubuntu Development Team Meetings
* Monthly Team Reports: September 2010
* Upcoming Meetings and Events
* Updates and Security
* UWN Sneak Peek -
System76 Linux netbooks to stick with Ubuntu 10.04 for now
Canonical released the latest version of Ubuntu Linux this weekend, to much fanfare. But while Ubuntu 10.10 is the latest… not everyone is convinced it’s the greatest. Linux computer system builders System76 has decided it wont’t be offering netbooks with Ubuntu 10.10. Instead, the company’s Starling Netbook will continue to ship with Ubuntu 10.04.
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Install Mplayer and Multimedia Codecs (libdvdcss2,w32codecs,w64codecs) in Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat)
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Devices/Embedded
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Pogoplug media server adds Wi-Fi
Cloud Engines announced a new version of its Marvell Plug Computer-based Pogoplug NAS and media-sharing device. The Pogoplug Pro adds one major new feature — built-in 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi — and features Pogoplug software enhancements added in recent months, including Android 2.1 and iPad apps as well as cloud-based printing support.
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Sub-notebooks
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Tablets
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Augen Tablet Will Dual-Boot Ubuntu and Android
Hard on the heels of the news last week of Acer’s dual-booting netbooks, Augen has announced that one of its six forthcoming tablets will run both Android and Ubuntu.
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Free Software/Open Source
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Oracle
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Findbar [OOo 3.3]
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Behind-the-scenes DataPilot improvements in 3.3 Beta
Everyone who’s interested in DataPilot in Calc has probably already seen the new pop-up window for sorting and item selection.
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LibreOffice 3.3.0 Beta 2 released
The second beta of the newly-forked, community-backed OpenOffice competitor LibreOffice has been released.
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OpenOffice liberated
One change I loved: LibreOffice finally has an honest-to-goodness Title Case function that enables you to capitalize the start of every word in a highlighted phrase. Long available on MS Word, this useful function has been long absent from OpenOffice.org, probably, I suspect, due to sheer obstinacy on the part of the original project managers. The willingness of the new foundation to change rapidly is both encouraging and exciting. Besides, doesn’t LibreOffice sound so much cooler than OpenOffice.org?
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Oracle VM VirtualBox 3.2.10 Adds Support for Ubuntu 10.10 and Fedora 14
Oracle’s VM VirtualBox 3.2.10 has been released. The update is a small release focusing on bug-fixing. However, the latest update brings support for a couple of the most popular and the most recent Linux distributions available, Ubuntu 10.10 and Fedora 14.
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Licensing
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GPL violation reports in HTC G2 Android phone
There have been various reports and blog posts about HTC again committing copyright infringement by not fulfilling the GPLv2 license conditions in their latest Android phone, the G2.
While at this point I haven’t studied the situation enough in order to confirm or deny any actual violations, let me state this: The number of GPL Violation reports/allegations that we receive at gpl-violations.org on HTC by far outnumber the reports that we have ever received about any other case or company.
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Leftovers
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Duke Nukem Forever developer interview
Just over year ago, it looked as though the world had seen the last of Duke Nukem. The cigar-chomping, gun-totin’ shooter icon who once towered above the FPS genre looked set for the dustbins of history after developer 3D Realms shut down and laid of its staff due to funding issues. The demise of Duke Nukem Forever didn’t raise too many eyebrows. After all, this was a game that had been in development for the better part of 13 years, so the announcement by the game’s publisher, Take Two, that it was never going to see the light of day wasn’t too hard to believe.
Clip of the Day
How to Choose Strong Passwords
Credit: TinyOgg
twitter said,
October 13, 2010 at 7:43 am
SJVN has an interesting take on the old 1% canard.
He’s half right, GNU/Linux is a weak litmus test of technical adeptness, so 100% of technically adept people are using it. GNU/Linux costs nothing, works with almost all hardware and offers all sorts of features and performance that can’t be found in the same combination anywhere else. IT people who have ignored gnu/linux have a problem that’s more emotional than technical. While it’s wise to be careful of cutting edge software, especially new versions of non free software like Vista, gnu/linux desktops have been mature for more than a decade and there is no reason to avoid stable distributions. Irrational handicaps are the hallmark of those who can’t or won’t adapt.
Conversely, Windows use and recommendation is a sign of irrational incompetence. Honest people who have used both have to conclude that free software is better for all but a few special cases where patents hold users captive in legacy applications. People who recommend one over the other without serious study should not be trusted, especially while we see users of both older and newer versions of Windows slaughtered by system instability, malware and viruses.