full circle magazine #57 1 contents ^

Full CircleTHE INDEPENDENT MAGAZINE FOR THE UBUNTU LINUX COMMUNITY

ISSUE #57 - January 2012

ful l circle magazine is neither affi l iated with, nor endorsed by, Canonical Ltd.

EENNLLIIGGHHTTEENNMMEENNTT 1177DDIISSTTRROOSS TTOO TTRRYY FFOORR EE1177

full circle magazine #57 2 contents ^

The arti cl es contai ned i n thi s magazi ne are rel eased under the Creati ve Commons Attri buti on-Share Al i ke 3. 0 Unported l i cense.Thi s means you can adapt, copy, di stri bute and transmi t the arti cl es but onl y under the fol l owi ng condi ti ons: You must attri butethe work to the ori gi nal author i n some way (at l east a name, emai l or URL) and to thi s magazi ne by name (' ful l ci rcl e magazi ne' )

and the URL www. ful l ci rcl emagazi ne. org (but not attri bute the arti cl e(s) i n any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). I fyou al ter, transform, or bui l d upon thi s work, you must di stri bute the resul ti ng work under the same, si mi l ar or a compati bl e l i cense.Full Circle magazine is entirely independent of Canonical, the sponsor of the Ubuntu projects, and the views and opinions in themagazine should in no way be assumed to have Canonical endorsement.

Full CircleTHE INDEPENDENT MAGAZINE FOR THE UBUNTU LINUX COMMUNITY

Backup Strategy Pt5 p.12

LibreOffice Pt11 p.10

Try Enlightenment p.07

Encrypted USB Stick p.14

HowTo Opinions

Q&A p.43

Ubuntu Games p.49

Ubuntu Women p.46

Command & Conquer p.05

Varnish Web Cache p.16

Columns

Linux Labs p.21 Review p.34

I Think... p.29

My Opinion p.28

My Story p.27

Letters p.39

My Desktop p.53Linux News p.04

Closing Windows p.25

full circle magazine #57 3 contents ^

EEDDIITTOORRIIAALL

Welcome to the first issue of Full Circle for 2012!

Happy new year! I hope all of you had a great holiday season and that you're ready for moreFull Circle. This month we have an article on Enlightenment17 (aka: E17) and which distroshave, and had, E17. I haven't tried it in quite some time, but I'm tempted to install Bodhi on mylaptop. Oh, and Greg is hoping to return next month with his Python articles. He's a bit busywith real life at the moment. But, fear not, the LibreOffice and Backup articles continue. Thismonth Allan looks at DropBox. Last month we looked at creating a persistent USB stick. Thismonth we take it one step further and create an encrypted USB stick. And if you run a webserver you'll want to take a look at our article on Varnish web cache.

We also have a couple of great games being reviewed and a quick article on how to installand run Minecraft. Disclaimer: Full Circle magazine can not be held responsible for theimmediate lack of real life interaction which inevitably happens after installing Minecraft. Youhave been warned! If in doubt, listen to Alan Pope's comments regarding Minecraft in the latestFull Circle Podcast.

And did you hear the news that Canonical have launched Ubuntu TV? It sounds to me like it'san Ubuntu version of XBMC/Boxee to embed into TV's. Check out the news page for more onthat. I'm sure you'll all be delighted to know that it looks just like Unity.

I also want to thank all of you who wrote to me after I mentioned that I'd received no lettersthroughout December 2011. Suffice it to say that I now have enough letters for severalmonths! Thank you all!

All the best, and keep in touch!Ronnie

ronnie@fullcirclemagazine.org

This magazine was created using :

Full Circle PodcastReleased monthly, each episodecovers all the latest Ubuntu news,opinions, reviews, interviews andlistener feedback. The Side-Pod isa new addition, it's an extra(irregular) short-form podcastwhich is intended to be a branchof the main podcast. It'ssomewhere to put all the generaltechnology and non-Ubuntu stuffthat doesn’t fit in the mainpodcast.

Hosts:Robin CatlingEd HewittDave Wilkins

http://fullcirclemagazine.org

full circle magazine #57 4 contents ^

LLIINNUUXX NNEEWWSS

FC Notifier Update

The Full Circle Notifier is still at1.0.2, but the PPA has beenupdated for Oneric. FCN is a smallapplication that sits in yoursystem tray and will announceissue/podcast releases, and canbe set to download them too! Formore info, see the FCN GoogleGroup: http://goo.gl/4Ob4

EPUB / MOBI

Finally we have both epub andmobi formatted Full Circle onthe downloads page. At themoment it's only FCM#56that's online, but we're hopingto have back issues onlineshortly. If you've any problemswith the epub/mobifiles/formatting you can dropan email to Jens at:mobile@fullcirclemagazine.org

Big thanks to Jens, Oppih andthe beta testers for makingthem a reality.

Ubuntu TVby Robin Catling

Canonical has taken the covers offUbuntu TV, the latest technicalproduct within the Ubuntu brand.Press coverage is synchronisedacross the Consumer ElectronicsShow (CES), selected news titles(PCPro among them) and on theUbuntu websitehttp://www.ubuntu.com/tv.

This is the first public look asUbuntu TV, which, as MarkShuttleworth promised, aims tobroaden the reach of the Ubuntuopen-source operating systembeyond the PC - Ubuntu oneverything tablets; smart-phonesand TVs. Canonical is showing thefirst Ubuntu TV at CES in Las Vegaswith an expectation of the firstUbuntu-powered television on saleby the end of this year. Tellingly,there are no announcements of

partners or deals with any brand-name manufacturers in theseannouncements and CanonicalCEO Jane Silber wouldn't nameany in talks.

Despite Google's renewed push onGoogle TV, it could be seen as adirect response to the rumours ofApple lining up a dramatic nextgeneration of Apple TV. Just howCanonical intends to sit betweenthese two tectonic plates, neitherof which has a track record ofsuccess - yet - appears to rest onconfidence; that devicemanufacturers want an open,neutral platform from a supplierthat doesn't profit its' own brandat their expense.

Although movie streamingservices will be supported as wellas live television broadcasts amajor issue is going to be deals forcontent. In the meanwhile, you canglory in the Ubuntu TV interface,which, as we discussed on thepodcast, could well be the killerapplication for which Unity wasdestined.

Air Force DroneControllers EmbraceLinux

"Lastyear, U.S. militarydrone

control systemswere infectedwith

WindowsUSB worms. Theyseem to

be moving the control systems to

Linuxnow,"said Mikko Hypponen,chief research officer at F-Secure,via Twitter.

As evidence of the apparent shift,he posted pictures of a dronecontrol system from 2009 (theimage was originally published bythe Air Force), which appears tosport a Windows graphical userinterface. For comparison,Hypponen then posted anunclassified slide (above) from a2010 briefing that details Linux asbeing part of a 2011 upgrade.

Source: informationweek.com

full circle magazine #57 5 contents ^

Back in issue #37, I wroteabout configuring an SSHserver on your computer,in order to use it as a

SOCKS proxy. Since I imagine notall that many people want to use itas such, I decided to focus on mysecond-most used command (myfirst-most used command is“pacman” - ArchLinux's solution topackage management). Before Iget into what that command is, I'llbriefly explain why you might beinterested in this solution.Specifically, it lets you syncdirectories and files between twocomputers over the LAN (and, ifproperly configured, over theInternet as well). I use it in order tokeep my music synced between mylaptop and my PC, keep myconfiguration files up-to-date, andto copy anything I need from onedevice to the other. There are a fewchoices of commands you coulduse, two of which would be scp(secure copy), and rsync. I'll befocusing on rsync in this article,because it offers progressinformation, update features, anduseful switches like --ignore-existing.

A few of you may be asking whyI don't just use Dropbox, anexternal hard drive, or a USB stick(for smaller files). The answer isquite simple: Dropbox offers alimited amount of space, and theother options require me toremember to do this regularly. Ifyou have SSH configured on your“sender” (in this case, my PC fromwhich I transfer the files), and anSSH client (no server required) onyour “receiver” (my laptop, in thiscase), then you can easily write asmall script to run a cron (in otherwords, regularly, and without anyinput). If you want to automatethis, you will need to configure SSHto use keys instead of passwords,so that you can access your serverwithout having to input anything.This is fairly simple (using ssh-keygen to create the keys, and thencopying the public key to theserver), and is explained in plentyof places (see the Links sectionbelow for a link to a Wiki).

Once you have SSH configured,it's time to think about how thescript should appear. I won't supply

an example script, simply because Ihaven't implemented a decent oneyet. There are some things youshould take into considerationwhen designing your script, suchas:

The script should only dosomething if you're on your homenetwork (this can be done bychecking the ESSID of yourwireless, or, if you connect yourlaptop to the LAN by cable when athome, checking if eth0 is active, orsimply deciding on a specific timethe script should run). The reasonfor this is because otherwise you'llhave lots of failed SSH connectionswhen doing this in a locationbesides your home network. Irecommend thinking about yourhabits, and finding a solution thatworks best for you. Then write itinto an if-statement in the script.

How many files/directories doyou want to sync, and which onesexactly? You can either hard-codeeach file or directory into thescript, or create a text-based list oflocations on your machines, andthen use a while statement andreadline to handle each line

separately. A few files I wouldrecommend: .bashrc (or your rc filefor the shell you use), .Xdefaults(for terminal colors), Music,Pictures, any configuration files forwindow managers (XMonad, DWM,etc.)

Do you want to update(meaning newest copies of the filesare the ones to keep), or ignorefiles if they already exist on thereceiver (useful for music andpictures), do you need to berecursive (that means following adirectory tree). There are someother useful options to considerthat rsync offers (see the secondsection of this article).

Is the destination folder and thesource folder in the same location?If not, you'll need to keep track ofwhere each file is supposed to go(similar to #2).

Space – do you have enoughspace on your receiver for all thefiles from your sender, and, if not,what are you going to do about it?You can either reduce your list ofsync files, or build a check into the

CCOOMMMMAANNDD && CCOONNQQUUEERRWritten by Lucas Westermann UUssiinngg SSSSHH AAnndd RRssyynncc

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COMMAND & CONQUERscript using df -h to set a limit (i.e.if there are only 9GB left, stopsyncing entirely, and emailyou/prompt you).

Once you've taken these pointsinto consideration, it's time towrite the script. I recommend youhave at least 2 checks in the script(if you're connected to the rightnetwork, and if the sender iscurrently online). The rest of thescript is entirely up to you,including when and how to run it.Back in issue #24, I wrote an articleon cron, and since then have usedplenty of examples, so I will onlybriefly discuss your options. Whenconfiguring the cron job, you caneither dump the script in/etc/cron.hourly, or /etc/cron.daily.The other option is to edit yourcrontab (crontab -e <username>).In the crontab you can then createa line for the script that either runsevery set number of hours/days, orset it to run at a specific time (or aspecific date), and so on. I think ascript that runs once a day is goingto be quite enough for this.

rsync

As you can see from point 3above, rsync offers a lot of checks

to avoid copying more files thannecessary. Some useful ones are:-u (--update): Skips files that arenewer on the receiver--inplace: updates files in-place--append: adds data on to the endsof shorter files-x: Avoid crossing filesystemboundaries (i.e. stick to onepartition)--existing: Do not create new fileson the receiver, only updateexisting files--ignore-existing: Ignore files thatalready exist on receiver--max-size=SIZE: Don't copy anyfiles larger than this (--min-size alsoexists, though less useful in thiscase)--exclude=PATTERN: Excludes anyfile matching the pattern--exclude-from=FILE: Reads thepattern(s) from the file--partial: Keep partially copied files

Some other useful switches forrsync:--delay-updates: Puts updated filesinto place at the very end.-r (--recursive): Follows directorytrees.-d: Copy directories withoutrecursing (by default rsync doesn'tenter any directory at all)-l (--links): Copy symlinks assymlinks

-E (--executability): Keep filesexecutable (useful for scripts)-h: Human-readable sizes andoutput--progress: Display a progress barfor each file

For the full list, check rsync'smanpage.

The basic format for rsynccommands is:

rsync <switches> <source>

<destination>

So, if I wanted to update all filesfrom ~/scripts on my PC with ~/.binon my laptop, I'd write:

rsync ­ru

lswest@127.0.0.1:/home/lswest

/scripts ~/.bin

This will then copy it over.Logically, you'll want to use theactual IP of your PC instead of thelocalhost IP, but this is only anexample.

As we round off this article, I'dlike to make a few notes on off-sitesyncing: Syncing over the Internet,while useful, should be kept to aminimum, simply because thetraffic, while encrypted, will berather large, and might cause

issues with an admin, or any kind ofdata limit you might have. Also, sshkeys are (generally) more securethan passwords, so I highlyrecommend using them whereverpossible.

If there is a large influx ofrequests for an actual examplescript, I will happily deliver it nextmonth. I do, however, recommendyou try writing your own, orcustomize any example scripts youfind to suit your needs. If you're ofthe opinion you'd like one, pleaselet me know in an email (address isbelow). If you have some concretequestions about a script you'rewriting yourself, you're alsowelcome to email me about it.

If anyone has questions,concerns, or simply wants to sharea script they've implemented, feelfree to email me atlswest34@gmail.com. If you doemail me, remember to includeC&C or FCM in the title, so that Idon't overlook it.

Links:https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SSH_Keys#Generating_an_SSH_key_pair

full circle magazine #57 7 contents ^

HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Rich Dennis TTrryy EEnnlliigghhtteennmmeenntt

NOTE: Don’t kernel panic,programmers, Greg will be backwith more Python next month.

In the mean time, you can grabRobin's Python Special Edition:Volume 3 from the FCM site. Itreprints parts 17 to 21, of Greg'sPython series, in one handy PDF.

Enlightenment is one ofmany desktopenvironments availablefor the Linux desktop,

and has been featured in manyUbuntu respins. E16, its firstincarnation, was released byCarsten Haitzler (Rasterman) in1997; its newest version, E17, hasbeen in developmnent since 2000.It is a very lightweight, themeable

window manager built on a set oflibraries (EFL) built to be used increating flexible interfaces for awide range of devices, fromsmartphones to multimonitordesktops. Enlightenment's defaultconfiguration is structured aroundthe Engage dock, the iBarapplication launcher, iBoxminimized window holder, analogclock, laptop battery meter, CPUuseage monitor, and Pager modulethat controls switching betweenvirtual desktops. Shelves,

analogous to panels in GNOME orXFCE, control the placement ofthese individual modules on anyone of up to 2048 virtual desktopsstretched across an 8x8 grid.Enlightenment has gained afollowing among Linux usersbecause of its beautiful, flexible,lightweight interface. Conversely,during its decade-longdevelopment, E17 has never trulyleft beta status and has earned areputation for being difficult toconfigure and prone to crashes andsegfaults, which makes remasters

featuring it particularly attractive.

One of the first Ubuntu respinsto feature Enlightenment as awindow manager and desktopenvironment was OpenGEU (shownabove), initially named Geubuntu.Developed in Italy by Luca DiMarini(TheDarkMaster, who wrote forFCM in the early days) in 2007, therespin's name was changed in 2008to abide by Canonical's restrictionson the use of its trademark – onlyan officially recognized remix canuse Ubuntu in its name. The firstOpenGEU public offering, LunaCrescente, was based on 8.04Intrepid Ibex; the next twoupdates, 8.10 Quarto Di Luna and9.04 Luna Serena were based onthe corresponding Ubuntureleases. As of 2011, the future ofthe distro is uncertain – according

full circle magazine #57 8 contents ^

HOWTO - TRY ENLIGHTENMENTto an update on the website in2010, an updated version ofOpenGEU was supposed to bebased on Debian Testing. Userfeedback on the distro was alwaysextremely favorable, since itsprimary competitor, Elive, wasbased on Debian and charged a feeto download and install.

gOS (shown above right),created by Good OS LLC founderDave Liu in in 2007, was initiallyoffered to the public as "analternative OS with Google Appsand other Web 2.0 apps for themodern user." Version 1.0.1_386came preinstalled on the EverexgPC T2502 sold at WalMart. It was

based on Ubuntu 7.10 GutsyGibbon using E17 for windowmanagement and as a desktopenvironment, and prominentlyfeaturing an Apple-inspiredinterface with Google gadgets inplace of the OSX Dashboard.Because of its reliance onEnlightenment, Ajax technologyand Web 2.0 apps, a typical gOSsystem took up very little hard diskspace (2 GB) and had very modesthardware requirements (a 1 GhZprocessor and 256 MB of RAM). Inreviews of the distro, E17 wascompared very favorably withother Ubuntu respins which usedGNOME or XFCE for its overalllightness, responsiveness, andspeed. As of January 2008 Version2.0.0 beta, codenamed “Rocket”,was offered on Everex's new line ofCloudbook netbooks. Because ofproblems, the next rewrite of gOS,V2 Rocket, eliminated E17 as adesktop environment and windowmanager in favor of GNOME,Compiz Fusion and Avant WindowNavigator; some Enlightenmentcode was retained. By version 3,the last to be offered before thewebsite and blog went offline, gOShad become a generic GNU distro,based on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, GNOME,Web 2.0 and Mozilla Prism

technolog; E17 had beencompletely phased out. As of now,gOS Space and gOS 3.1 Gadgetsare available for download fromLinuxFreedom, but the website isoffline. Forums are still availablefor users interested in the currentpossibilities of this now somewhatdated distribution.

OzOS (shown left) is an Xubuntuderivative created by Ruis Paisutilizing the E17 window manager;it features an elegant desktop andminimal suite of applications. Withits left-centered verticalimplementation of the iBar, ozOSseems to slightly foreshadowGNOME3 – whether that's a goodor bad thing is up to the user todecide. Otherwise, the launchersand iBar take the user to the

typical set of XFCE applications –Thunar as file manager, Xfburn andParole for multimedia, MozillaFirefox. One of its innovations, apt-foo, which allowed browser-basedpackage installation, was found tobe problematic, even after a .debpackage apt-url was installed in theusual fashion through Synaptic.The project's web site,http://www.cafelinux.org/OzOs/, iscurrently inaccessible and notmuch information is available. OnDistrowatch, the distribution'sstatus has been changed fromActive to Dormant.

MoonOS (shown above)is anUbuntu remaster developed byChanrithy Thim in Cambodia.Version 2 “Kachana” was initiallyreleased February 2009, closely

full circle magazine #57 9 contents ^

followed in September of the sameyears with version 3 “Makara”. Thisupdate was based on Karmic Koala9.04, E17 and the Linux 2.6.28kernel – it was a visually uniquerespin and its implementation ofE17 was highly regarded. It alsofeatured, a la Linux Mint,proprietary tools: moonAssistant,moonControl, moonGrub andmoonSoftware. The distrubution iscurrently active, but the latestversion “Neak” has taken a newpath, based on GNOME 2.28 andfeaturing Docky.

Bodhi Linux (shown right) is thecurrent, modern Ubuntu spin basedon E17. Its primary developer, JeffHoogland, launched its first alphaon November 16 2010, after he gotfrustrated reconfiguring E17 on allof his systems. The distro wentthrough four more alpha versions,a beta and four release candidatesbefore Version 1 was released onMarch 26, 2011. Prominentfeatures of the distro include theuse of lightweight apps like theMidori web browser and PCManFMfile manager. Currently at v 1.3,lead developer Hoogland's blogdetails ambitious plans for version2, planned to follow Ubuntu 12.04Precise Pangolin – 64-bit versions

are planned.

Booting into a live session,Bodhi offers seven profiles thatthe user can choose from, Bare,Compositing, Desktop, Laptop,Fancy, Tablet, Tiling. Each profile isoptimized for a certain type of useand a specific user preference –desktop, laptop and tabletobviously tailored to each screenand hardware profile, the othersfor a user's visual or organizationalpreference – less is more, oreffects and eye-candy enabled.After this, a second screen offersthe user a choice of 7 themes.Choosing the Desktop profile andBodhi-detorious theme brings theuser to a spartan but veryresponsive desktop. The softwareselection is limited on the disc, butas developer Hoogland says, “Allthe applications are available fromthe click of a mouse.” Particularlysince one of Bodhi's innovations isa successful implementation of thebrowser-based software installerpreviously mentioned in ozOS.Select Install Software from theleft-click desktop menu of theApplication menu on the bottomshelf, and Midori brings you toBodhi's website, where software iscategorized, previewed and

available to Install Now. Currently,Bodhi is a semi-rolling distribution,requiring clean installs only whennew Ubuntu LTS versions arereleased. According to Hoogland,via the website, a dedicatedpackage manager is “in the works”,after which point Bodhi will be atruly rolling distribution requiringno reinstalls.

E17 has a varied history as anUbuntu desktop environment. In apost of his blog, Thoughts onTechnology, Bodhi developer Jeff

Hoogland gave it fifth place in thelist of commonly known and usedLinux DE's – yes it is beautiful,powerful, flexible, but since it'sstill in beta, be warned, crashesand segfaults can cause headaches.So take on of these remixes andgive them a try if you're interestedin E17. They're all definitely wortha try.

HOWTO - TRY ENLIGHTENMENT

full circle magazine #57 10 contents ^

HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Elmer Perry LLiibbrreeOOffffiiccee -- PPaarrtt 1111

In the last part of this series,we added the data andformulas for our budgetworksheet. The end result,

while functional, is not very prettyor easy to read. Now, we will addsome styles to our spreadsheet tohelp make the worksheet not onlymore pleasant to look at, but easierto read and find specific data. Wewill accomplish this using cellstyles.

Back in part 3 of this series, weused paragraph styles to formatthe paragraphs in our documents.Cell styles are Calc's equivalent toparagraph styles. Cell styles allowus to specify the border, font,background color, font effects,number format, alignment and cellprotection. Styles help to createconsistency throughout thespreadsheet.

Section and ColumnTitle Styles

We'll start by creating styles forour section titles and column titles.Click on the styles icon (above).

Now, we will create a style forour column titles based on theSection style. Basing one style onanother style makes it quick andeasy to just add and change thedifferences between the styles. Inthe Styles and Formattingwindows, right-click on the Sectionstyle and select New. Give the stylethe name “Column Title.” You willnotice that the style is linked to theSection style. If you browsethrough the tabs, you will see allthe settings we made for theSection style are already set. Todistinguish column titles fromsections, we will give them adifferent background color. On theBackground tab, select a suitablelight color for the background, suchas Blue 8.

Applying the Sectionand Column Title Styles

Now, we can apply our two newstyles to cells in our spreadsheet.The sections are “Income ThisPeriod”, “Assets”, and “Expenses”.Select the cells for these items anddouble-click on the Section style inthe Styles and Formatting window.You can select more than one celland apply the style all at once. Forexample, highlight all the columntitles under Income (Source andAmount) and double-click on theColumn Title style. Do the same forthe column titles under the othertwo sections.

Editable, Total, andDate Styles

Editable items are the items inour budget spreadsheet that wewill need to change from use touse. These are most of the cellsunder the column titles, exceptthose that contain formulas - whichare our total cells. We will firstcreate the Editable style and use it

as the link for our Total and Datestyles.

In the Styles and Formattingwindow, right-click on the defaultstyle and select New. Give the newstyle the name “Editable”. On theNumber tab, select currency and

your currency type. Set your fontand font size on the font tab. Isuggest a font size of at least 12points. Make sure the font style isregular (not bold or italic). On theborder tab, create light grayborders on the left and right. Youcan accomplish this by clicking onthe third box under defaults. Makesure that the Protected box isunchecked on the Cell Protectiontab.

Now, we will create the Totalstyles by linking it with the Editablestyle. Right-click on the Editablestyle in the Style and Formatting

full circle magazine #57 11 contents ^

HOWTO - LIBREOFFICE PART 11window, and select New. Onceagain, we are starting with an exactcopy of the style we right-clicked.Name the style “Total”. We willmake changes to distinguish ourtotals from ordinary items. On theFont tab, change the style to bold.On the background tab, select adarker gray color than the lightgray we used for the borders - likegray or gray 40%. Finally, checkProtected on the Cell Protectiontab.

Apply the styles much in thesame manner as we did previously.You will notice that if you apply theEditable style to the date columnunder expenses, you get a strangeresult for your dates (probably####). That's because it wasconverted into currency. Right-clickthe Editable style and create a newstyle named “Dates”. All we needto do here is change the numbertype to Date and select a simplenumeric date style on the Numberstab.

Conditional Formatting

We need a way to break up thebig block of data under theExpenses section. We could justput borders around them, but largegroups of bordered boxes lookdull. Instead, we will highlight allthe even rows with light gray. Wealso want to do this quickly. Forthis we will use conditionalformatting.

ISEVEN(ROW())

With this formula, whateverstyle we choose will only apply tothe even rows. For the cell style,click on the New Style button. Givethe style the name “EditableHighlight” and link it to theEditable style. On the Borders tab,change the border color from lightgray to gray. Move to theBackground tab and change thebackground color to light gray.Click OK to save the changes. Youwill notice the Cell style is nowEditable Highlight. Click OK andyou will see the even number rowsare highlighted in light gray.

Unfortunately, this has the side

effect of changing our dates again,but that is easily fixed by doing thesame thing with the Date style.Select all the dates in the Expensessection. Format > ConditionalFormatting. Once again use theformula ISEVEN(ROW()). Click onthe New Style button and name thenew style “Dates Highlight”. Linkthe style with Dates style. Changethe border color to gray and thebackground to light gray. OK tosave the style, and OK to apply theconditional formatting.

Finishing Touches

Just a few simple things tomake all things even. If you havemore than two items in the Incomesection, you can add the highlightsto it as well using conditionalformatting and the HighlightEditable style. Also, you can rightjustify the “Total Expenses” and“Total Payments” labels at thebottom.

Now, to test run yourspreadsheet. Remember, weprotected the cells we didn't want

to change. Tools >Protect Document >Sheet. You can enter apassword to

password-protect the document,or just click OK to protect itwithout a password. If you try toedit one of the protected cells youwill get a message window sayingthe cell is protected. However, theunprotected cells are easily editedas before. Using cell protection is agood way to keep your formulasfrom getting changed once youhave the spreadsheet set up andworking the way you want it.

In the next part of this series,we will prepare our spreadsheetfor printing by adding a header andfooter to the page, and lookinginto our printing options.

Elmer Perry's history of working, andprogramming, computers involves anApple IIE, adding some Amiga, agenerous helping of DOS andWindows, a dash of Unix, and blendwell with Linux and Ubuntu.

full circle magazine #57 12 contents ^

HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Allan J. Smithie BBaacckkuupp SSttrraatteeggyy -- PPaarrtt 55 :: DDrrooppBBooxx

The Cloud back-up andstorage market is gettingcrowded with new playersoffering ever more

ludicrous amounts of free space,but we couldn't run this serieswithout looking at one of theestablished 'brand names';Dropbox is one of the most popularCloud storage and file sharingprograms, and has built up quite afollowing in the last couple ofyears.

View from the Top

Dropbox is a reliable on-linedata backup service that lets youaccess and share files from almostany computer or mobile device -using native clients or its webinterface. It is one of the few trulyplatform-agnostic services, withclient software for Windows, Mac,and Linux; you'll find a .debpackage for the Dropbox client inthe 11.10 Ubuntu Software Centerfor a painless, one-click install of aclient we can happily report 'justworks.' Add to that mobile clientsfor iPad, iPhone, Android, and

Blackberry, and you can see theDropbox bid for ubiquity acrossdevices that gives it an appealbeyond its competitors. I'd have tosay some of those mobile apps dolook a little thin on functions, butthat's not unique to Dropbox.

From our corner, thecurrent Linux client is amature developmentover previous, ahem,'idiosyncratic' versions,so now the freepackage of 2GB onlinestorage with a highreliability desktop client,collaboration features andcontinuous development, is quitesufficient for home users startingout in the Cloud. By way of anincentive, Dropbox has anattractive referrals programme forincreasing your initial freeallocation from 2GB of free spaceup to a usable 8GB by referringfriends.

Feel the Width

The paid plans (above 2GB) goup to 50GB (Pro 50 at $9.99 a

month) and 100GB (Pro 100 at$19.99 a month). Beyond that,Dropbox will do you a deal on theTeams plan for storage space in theTerrabytes. The paid service attimes looks a bit pricier thancompeting online data backupservices, depending on the current

offers in the market, whilst thehelp and support options

are a little limited. Youcan contact Dropboxsupport only by email atpresent. I'm guessing the

margins are too thin toafford technical and

customer support by chat ortelephone as well. The online HelpCenter is fairly rich, organized bytopic and operating system.Dropbox also hosts a product tour,a forum, and a wiki. That said,turnaround on simple queriesseems to occur within a couple ofhours.

Features

Dropbox was one of the earlyservices to enable 'blind' publiclinks for sharing files over the web,which is one of the things I do

most. You can share individual files,whole folders, or image galleries -that are viewable by anyone, eitherby creating a public link or bysharing them with a controlledgroup. Create the folder thatcontains the items you want toshare, and then enter the emailaddresses to which you want tosend the sharing invitation. Twomore of the Dropbox featuresworth outlining are Versioning andSync.

Anything stored on the Dropboxservers has one-month history –that is, any files deleted can berecovered with the next thirtydays; it's a simple feature for homeusers’ convenience rather than anykind of version-control for writers,programmers or designers. There isunlimited 'versioning,' called Pack-Rat, or Dropbox Rewind forbusinesses, which is a paid add-on.

The Sync feature will help a lotwhen you spread your work acrossmultiple devices. InstallingDropbox on each device registeredwith your account will enable theautomatic synchronize functionwhenever you change, add or

full circle magazine #57 13 contents ^

HOWTO - BACKUP STRATEGY - PART 5delete a file. It's quite flexible inthe choices available:• what to sync - select the foldersyou want to sync• with whom to sync – you selectthe people (using email invitation)with whom you want to sync aparticular folder .

Anything you do on individualmachines can also be managedfrom the web interface, so youdon't need to have a Dropboxclient installed on shared machinesin order to have access to your datawherever you go.

The only negative point I reallyhave against Dropbox is conflictmanagement; I don't mean it's likea war zone, but sometimes youhave issues if different peopleaccess a file at the same time andmodify it. It's a tricky technicalissue in networking and databasesat the best of times, so this is not asurprise 'feature' of a Cloudstorage service, particularly whenDropbox is pushing thecollaborative and sharing side ofoperations.

One thing that isn't supported issycning files outside of thecentralised Dropbox folder. You

can work around this by linking, butwhen other operating systemshave implemented virtual folders('libraries'), we could do with a syncservice that's able to do the same.

Security

This is always the potentialpitfall of the Cloud. Dropbox usesthe SSL Secure Socket Layerprotocol for transfers, andencrypts all files using AES-256before storing them on its servers;anything shared is then madevisible by exception. Public foldersare viewable by anyone who canfind them. Photo gallery links giveaccess to anyone with whom youshare the link to the gallery, butthey cannot access other areas ofyour account.

I think the mechanism of sharingby email invitation needs somework. The next feature releaseneeds to link Dropbox users byaccount, thereby securing sharingwithin the bounds of Dropboxsecurity. I believe this is how theTeams product works, so this needsto filter down to the consumerlevel.

One thing I found a little

unsettling was the April 2011change to the Dropbox privacypolicy. “We may disclose to partiesoutside Dropbox files stored inyour Dropbox, and informationabout you that we collect, when wehave a good faith belief thatdisclosure is reasonably necessary.”In other words, the encryption keysare known to Dropbox staff. This,too, is not unique to Dropbox, butit should serve as a reminder thatthe convenience of the Cloud maybe offset by the loss of controlover your personal data.

Conclusion

I haven't had to worry too much,

this last year. Dropbox sits quietlyin my notification area, reliablygetting on with the job;background syncing is no trouble, itdoesn't hog my bandwidth whenon-line, and the availability acrossplatforms makes for a break-outexperience, whether at home or atwork.

Allan J. Smithie is a journalist andcommentator based in Dubai. Hisblog, 'No Expert,' is at:http://allanjsmithie.wordpress.com

full circle magazine #57 14 contents ^

HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Kalven Slade CCrreeaattee aann EEnnccrryypptteedd UUSSBB SSttiicckk

Many articles seem tofocus on usingvarious utilities suchas UNetbootin or

Universal USB Installer frompendrivelinux.com, but none ofthese are necessary to installUbuntu on a USB hard disk or flashdrive, and they don't account forthe possibility of losing yourportable OS, which may containpersonal information.

This guide will walk you throughhow to create an encryptedportable OS that will allow you tohave a secure device where you canupdate and store files.

Everything in the documentassumes that you are doing a freshinstall of Ubuntu 10.04.2 (11.10 hasalso been tested to work,) anddoing each step in order. This guidewill also be easier to follow if youdisconnect any other drivesincluding internal ones except theCD/DVD. (If your other driveremains, make sure you place Grubon the correct disk!)

With this being a portable OS,

using Xubuntu will make it fasteron flash drives, and allows it tofunction on computers with lowermemory requirements thanUbuntu.

Encryption will help you secureyour data if you lose or have yourcomputer stolen.

Ubuntu has built in support fortwo types of encryption by default,using the Alternate Install CD: fulldisk encryption, and profile/homeencryption. You can add additionalencryption using TrueCrypt.

A USB flash can be slow(sometimes too slow!); a USB orESATA hard drive will functionmuch better.

Linux, unlike Windows, caneasily be moved from computer tocomputer, and boot from yourportable drive.

Try to stay away from restrictedfeatures like 3d video support onyour portable install.

Boot the Alternate Install CD

for Ubuntu or Xubuntu, and chooseinstall from the menu.

Unless you need to modifysettings, just choose the defaultsfor your language, location,keyboard configuration, host name,and time zone.

Setting up your partitions isvery important, and probably thehardest part to do correctly. Youwant to limit how often the drive isboth read and written to;encryption adds a bit of overhead.EXT3 and EXT4 are too slow, alsohaving a swap space will causespeed issues as well. I have foundthat it is best to create a FAT32Partition for sharing files betweenWindows computers, and usingEXT2 for your Ubuntu install.

Choose manual from thepartition menu. Choose your USBdrive (and not any existingpartitions), and press Enter. It willask you if you want to create anempty partition table on thisdevice. Choose yes.

Below your drive, it should now

be listed as free space. Choose itand create a new partition. Thisnew partition will be your FAT32partition for Windows transfers. Ihave a 16 GB flash drive, andchoose to allocate 3 GB for myFAT32 partition. Make it a Primarypartition, at the beginning of thedisk. Change the file type to FAT32,and mount point to none. Thenchoose done setting up thispartition.

Now we can create the Bootpartition, choose your free spaceagain, and create a new partition,256 MB is good. Make sure youchange from GB (Gigabytes) to MB(Megabytes), or you may not haveenough space for your OS. Make ita Primary Partition at thebeginning of the disk. Change theFile system to EXT2, mount pointto /boot, and bootable flags to on.Now you can choose done settingup this partition.

From the remaining free space,create a new primary partition withPhysical volume for encryption asthe file type, then choose donesetting up this partition.

full circle magazine #57 15 contents ^

HOWTO - CREATE AN ENCRYPTED USB STICK

Choose Configure encryptedvolumes from the menu, yes towrite changes to the disk. ChooseCreate encrypted volumes, choosefinish.

Create a password and verify.

You will now be back to thepartitioner, and you will see a newencrypted volume drive is listed,select the partition (it will will havea file system of EXT4), and pressenter.

Change the file system to EXT2,mount point to /, and choose donesetting up partition.

Choose finish partitioning andwrite changes to disk.

Choose no when you see thewarning about a missing mountpoint for the FAT32 partition andthe missing SWAP partition, thenyes to write changes to the disk.

Continue with the install, do notchoose home directory encryptionfor flash drive installs.

Once installed, run updates, andreboot, then you’re done!

Encryption Info

You can change and addpasswords for your full diskencryption - 8 passwords areallowed, and they are numbered 0-7.

To see which keys are in use:

sudo cryptsetup luksDump

/dev/<drive>

Changing YourPassword

To change your password youwill need to first add a new one,and then remove the old one.

Step 1: Add New Password:

sudo cryptsetup luksAddKey

/dev/<drive>

Enter any passphrase: <yourcurrent password>Enter new passphrase for key slot:Verify passphrase:

Step 2: Remove Old Password:run a dump again to verify key slotadded:

sudo cryptsetup luksDump

/dev/<drive>

sudo cryptsetup luksKillSlot

/dev/<drive> <key slot

number>

Enter any remaining LUKSpassphrase:

Verify removal with another dump:

sudo cryptsetup luksDump

/dev/<drive>

The Ubuntu Podcast covers allthe latest news and issues facingUbuntu Linux users and FreeSoftware fans in general. Theshow appeals to the newest userand the oldest coder. Ourdiscussions cover thedevelopment of Ubuntu butaren’t overly technical. We arelucky enough to have somegreat guests on the show, tellingus first hand about the latestexciting developments they areworking on, in a way that we canall understand! We also talkabout the Ubuntu communityand what it gets up to.

The show is presented bymembers of the UK’s UbuntuLinux community. Because it iscovered by the Ubuntu Code ofConduct it is suitable for all.

The show is broadcast live everyfortnight on a Tuesday evening(British time) and is available fordownload the following day.

podcast.ubuntu-uk.org

full circle magazine #57 16 contents ^

HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Mark Moore UUssee VVaarrnniisshh WWeebb CCaacchhee

If you operate a web server,pay attention. This article willhelp you accelerate your pageloads and provide you with a

more secure network. Varnish is astate of the art web applicationaccelerator. You can operateVarnish on the localhost or use adedicated box. Varnish is extremelyefficient at its job because it wasbuilt specifically to cache webrequests. Unlike Squid and others,Varnish has one job, which it doesvery well - cache.

All requests are passed throughthe Varnish ConfigurationLanguage or regular expressions(regex). Varnish Web Cache usesthe highly flexible Perl CompatibleRegular Expressions (PCRE) regex,which is currently found in highprofile projects such as Apache,PHP, KDE, Postfix, Analog, andNmap. The default configuration isgenerally enough to get you goingwith a basic HTML/CSS drivenwebsite. However, if you operate aContent Management Driven site,or anything with Cookies, you willneed to do some tweaking so thatyou are not caching cookies during

login.

Installing Varnish onUbuntu

As of this writing, the currentVarnish release is 3.0.2. The Ubuntuapt-get repo contains the Varnishpackage, however I would stronglyrecommend using the latest stablerelease at http://varnish-cache.org.Below are 4 simple commands toinput through Terminal, which willadd the Varnish GPG key, add theVarnish software repository, andinstall the latest software version.

curl http://repo.varnish­

cache.org/debian/GPG­key.txt

| apt­key add ­

echo "deb

http://repo.varnish­

cache.org/debian/

$(lsb_release ­s ­c) varnish­

3.0" >>

/etc/apt/sources.list.d/varni

sh.list

apt­get update

apt­get install varnish

Configuring

/etc/default/varnish

The varnish file tells thesoftware how it should storecached files, (Malloc or File), whichport to connect with, and otherprimary details. When you firstinstall Varnish, you will need to editthis file and change line 4 from“START=no” to “START=yes” toenable your cache. All of thedefault values are generallyacceptable. The primarycomponent of your configurationin the varnish file includes theinformation shown in the boxbelow.

The primary configurationoptions include:-a (Varnish listen port (i.e. the portthat the public will use to accesscontent - should be port 80))-T (admin listen port)-f (VCL configuration file location)-S (the secret password file (by

default, a secret file is generated in/etc/varnish/))-s (malloc or file cache storage).

File or Malloc CacheStorage

File storage configures thecache to place less used cachedobjects on hard disk, while morefrequently used data are stored inRAM. Malloc storage keepseverything in RAM. Malloc storagewill always be much faster thandisk. However, if you have to usefile storage, use an SSD as yourstorage medium.

Configuring/etc/varnish/default.vcl

The default.vcl is where you willspend most of your time. Once youhave the /etc/default/varnish file

DAEMON_OPTS="­a :80 \

­T localhost:6082 \

­f /etc/varnish/varnish.conf \

­S /etc/varnish/secret \

­s malloc,3G"

full circle magazine #57 17 contents ^

HOWTO - USE VARNISH WEB CACHEconfigured, you will need to workon your /etc/varnish/default.vcl.One of the first tasks is to define abackend. As I mentioned earlier,

you can use varnish on yourwebserver directly or use it on adedicated box.

If you have Varnish operating ona dedicated box or are using adedicated NIC, the .hostdeclaration will define the LAN IPof your webserver. Otherwise, youwould use the loopback address of127.0.0.1. The .port directive tellsVarnish the Apache listen port.Additional configuration optionsare optional, but give you morecontrol over user activity.

If you use a ContentManagement System (CMS) foryour web content, your VCL willneed fine tuning so that you do notcache Cookies or other items thatshouldn’t be cached during adminsessions.

I recommend visiting this 2-partarticle for configuring yourWordpress VCL at

http://goo.gl/1rlj4 andhttp://goo.gl/HXzg3. If youare using some other CMS,you will need to determinewhat Cookies are used, anddefine them in your VCL. Thetwo aforementioned linksprovide a basic template for

defining Cookies, as you can add orreplace entries fairly easy.

Security and Protection

Varnish can also provide a levelof security to your network bycreating a flexible method of IPblocking and path handlingvariables. For example, if youwanted to block IP addressesbefore they arrive to yourwebserver, simply insert thefollowing regex into your/etc/varnish/default.vcl and reloadVarnish. Blocking IP addresses withVarnish lets you maintain an IPfirewall before it’s too late.

Once you have your VCLconfigured how you want it,validate it using:

varnishd ­C ­f

/etc/varnish/default.vcl

The -C flag prints your VCL ascompiled C# and validates it, whilethe -f flag is the location of yourVCL file.

Configuring Apache forVarnish using

VirtualHost

If you are using Apache’sVirtualHost feature, you need toadd a line in your/etc/apache2/httpd.conf file to letApache know what you are doing.You will need to define the .portnumber that you assigned it inVarnish (e.g. NameVirtualHost*:8500).

backend default {

.host = "10.1.10.55";

.port = "8500";

.connect_timeout = 60s;

.first_byte_timeout = 60s;

.between_bytes_timeout = 60s;

.max_connections = 250; }

# IPs we serve an error page to.

acl forbidden {

"74.123.97.86";

"140.112.121.222";

"184.106.205.36";

"193.188.86.192";

}

sub vcl_recv {

## forbidden

if (client.ip ~ forbidden) {

error 403 "Denied.";

}

}

Varnish can also be used to block access to file

paths.

sub vcl_fetch {

if (req.url ~ "^/w00tw00t") {error 403;}

if (req.url ~ "^/phpmyadmin") {error 403;}

if (req.url ~ "^/PhpMyAdmin") {error 403;}

if (req.url ~ "^/databases") {error 403;}

if (req.url ~ "^/pma") {error 403;}

if (req.url ~ "^/Toata") {error 403;}

}

full circle magazine #57 18 contents ^

A PLEA ON BEHALF OF THEPODCAST PARTY

As you often hear in the podcast, we're callingfor opinion topics for that section of the show.

Instead of us having a rant about whateverstrikes us, why not prompt us with a topic andwatch for the mushroom clouds over thehorizon! It's highly unlikely that the three of uswill agree.

Or, an even more radical thought, send us anopinion by way of a contribution!

You can post comments and opinions on thepodcast page at fullcirclemagazine.org, in ourUbuntu Forums section, or emailpodcast@fullcirclemagazine.org. You can alsosend us a comment by recording an audio clip ofno more than 30 seconds and sending it to thesame address. Comments and audio may beedited for length. Please remember this is afamily-friendly show.

It would be great to have contributors come onthe show and express anopinion in person.

Robin

HOWTO - USE VARNISH WEB CACHE

Next, configure your/etc/apache2/sites-available/domain.com using thetemplate shown right. The portnumber on the first line needs tomatch what you have placed inyour /etc/varnish/default.vclbackend declaration.

Lastly, change the Listendirective in/etc/apache2/ports.conf to matchthe port specified above (e.g.Listen 8500).

Helpful Commands

varnishstat - performance countersand diagnosticsvarnishtop -i rxurl - lists all trafficpassing through your Varnish cachevarnishadm - the Varnishadministrative console, where you

can issue ban commands andothersvarnishd -C -f/etc/varnish/default.vcl - printsyour VCL as compiled C# andvalidates prior to enabling it liveservice varnish reload - reloadsyour VCL without erasing yourcurrent cache.varnishncsa - displays Varnishaccess logs in Apache

References:

https://www.varnish-cache.org/docs/3.0/reference/vcl.html

http://kaanon.com/blog/work/making-wordpress-shine-varnish-caching-system-part-1

https://www.varnish-cache.org/trac/wiki

<VirtualHost *:8500>

ServerName domain.com

ServerAlias www.domain.com

DocumentRoot /var/www/folder

</VirtualHost>

<Directory /var/www/folder/>

Options ­Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews

AllowOverride All

Order allow,deny

allow from all

</Directory>

full circle magazine #57 19 contents ^

HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Ronnie Tucker WWrriittee FFoorr FFuullll CCiirrccllee MMaaggaazziinnee

Guidelines

The single rule for anarticle is that it mustsomehow be linked toUbuntu or one of the

many derivatives of Ubuntu(Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, etc).

Write your article in whicheversoftware you choose. I wouldrecommend LibreOffice, butPLEASE SPELL AND GRAMMARCHECK IT!

Writing

There is no word limit forarticles, but be advised that longarticles may be split across severalissues. In your article, please placewhere you would like a particularimage to be. Please do not use anyformatting in your document.

Images

Images should be no wider than800 pixels, in JPG format, and uselow compression.

If you are writing a review,please follow the guidelines shownhere.

For a more detailed list of thestyle rules and common pitfallsplease refer to:https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuMagazine/Style - in short: US spelling,no l33t speak and no smilies.

When you are ready to submityour article please email it to:articles@fullcirclemagazine.org

If you can't write articles, buthang out in Ubuntu Forums, sendus interesting forum threads thatwe could print.

Non-English Writers

If your native language is notEnglish, don't worry. Write yourarticle, and one of the proof-readers will read it for you andcorrect any grammatical or spellingerrors. Not only are you helping themagazine and the community, butwe'll help you with your English!

REVIEWS

Games/ApplicationsWhen reviewing games/applications please state clearly:

• title of the game• who makes the game• is it free, or a paid download?• where to get it from (give download/homepage URL)• is it Linux native, or did you use Wine?• your marks out of five• a summary with positive and negative points

HardwareWhen reviewing hardware please state clearly:

• make and model of the hardware• what category would you put this hardware into?• any glitches that you may have had while using the hardware?• easy to get the hardware working in Linux?• did you have to use Windows drivers?• marks out of five• a summary with positive and negative points

You don't need to be an expert to write anarticle - write about the games, applicationsand hardware that you use every day.

full circle magazine #57 20 contents ^

https://spideroak.com

full circle magazine #57 21 contents ^

LLIINNUUXX LLAABBWritten by Charles McColm MMaannaa WWoorrlldd SSeerrvveerr OOnn OOlldd HHaarrddwwaarree

Traditionally our family hastwo periods of the yearthat we do a big cleanup -spring cleaning and at the

start of a new year. This year,instead of tossing out our oldAthlon64, I decided to reuse it as adevelopment server for ourexisting MMORPG server. I firstbecame aware of The Mana World(TMW) in late 2007 when the clientsoftware, tmw, appeared in theuniverse repositories of Ubuntu7.10, Gutsy Gibbon. At the time,the TMW client was primitive butquite functional. Over the pastseveral years, the game hasadvanced both on the client andserver side.

The great thing about running aTMW server is that it doesn’trequire a lot of horsepower if youplan on running a small server forfriends and family. We originallyset up our server on a Pentium III1.1 GHz CPU with 256 MB of RAM(mind you the hard drives werelightning fast 15,000 RPM SCSIdrives). This setup was enough tohost 5 simultaneous players overthe Internet on our ADSLconnection. Currently, we host theAuldsbel server on ahyperthreaded Pentium 4 2.8 GHzsystem with 2 GB of RAM, and thatalso runs the front facing webserver. Hosting a web server is

helpful for getting the clientsoftware to show who else isonline, but it’s not necessary to getthe server running.

We used a server install ofUbuntu 10.04 LTS as the base forour server, and used a notebookrunning the client software to testthe configuration. You may want toinstall the server on a desktopversion of Ubuntu if you plan onusing a single machine for theserver and client. The TMW serveris based on the eAthena (newerTMW server software exists that’swritten from scratch, but the mainserver still uses modified eAthenacode) project.

eAthena was originallydeveloped as an open-sourceserver Ragnarok, but TMWdevelopers have done a great jobmodifying it for the Mana Worldclient. To begin, you need to installgit-core, build-essential, flex, andbison:

sudo apt­get install git­core

build­essential flex bison

Next you create a directory tohold the server software, anddownload and build the tmw-easerver software:

mkdir ~/tmw­ea

cd ~/tmw­ea

git clone

git://gitorious.org/tmw­

eathena/mainline.git eathena

git clone ­­recursive

git://gitorious.org/+tmw­

admins/tmw/tmwa­server­

test.git eathena­data

cd eathena

Be patient while git clones therepositories. Depending on whichversion of Ubuntu you’re running,you may run into problems withMake being older than version 3.82(the version developersrecommend you use to make theproject). If you run into problemsmaking the project, run the nextstep:

mkdir ­p

obj/{common,login,char,map,la

dmin,tool}

make

full circle magazine #57 22 contents ^

LINUX LAB - MANA WORLD SERVER

Multiple servers can be runfrom the same point, but the tmw-ea main server binaries should becopied to a standard folder:

sudo cp login­server char­

server map­server ladmin

/usr/local/bin/

The next step is to add git hooksto allow updating of the clientdata. Without this step, you’ll stillbe able to run the server software,you just won’t be able to pullupdates from the git repositories.

cd ../eathena­data

ln ­s ../../git/hooks/post­

merge .git/hooks/

ln ­s

../../../git/hooks/post­merge

client­data/.git/hooks/

The last little bit of setup is tomake the config files, and checkoutclient data and funky music:

cd client­data

git checkout master

cd music

git checkout master

At this point, our server is set

for us to log-in locally. I set up astatic IP for the developmentserver in our Tomato-MLPPPLinksys WRT54L router, andassigned it the same hostname Iassigned the production system.Before we can test the server, wehave to load 3 server processes:the character server, the loginserver, and the map server (theconfiguration files for these threeservers are what we’ll modify laterfor an Internet facing server). Fornow we’ll load the serverexecutables to test the server:

cd ~/tmw­ea/eathena­data

./char­server & ./login­

server & ./map­server &

When you log in to the serverfor the first time, you’ll see thecharacter log-in on the terminalyou launch the server from.

From my notebook I loaded theTMW client:

sudo apt­get install tmw

There are a number of TMWclients. The one in the Ubuntu10.04 repository is a bit dated andfreezes for GM’s when theyentered a room where clients were

logged in. Better to use themanaplus client available fromhttp://manaplus.evolonline.org/ ifyou intend to expose your server tothe rest of the world.

When the TMW client is loaded,click the Custom Server button,and enter the hostname you gaveyour server (or domain-name/dynamic DNS name). At thispoint, we’re just confirming theserver is working locally andsetting ourselves up to be GM -before exposing it to the rest ofthe world.

When the client connects, clickthe register button. Note: youcannot register through the clientif you intend to play on the officialMana World server. On the mainserver, you have to registerthrough the web site, and wait for

approval. On your own server youjust register a username.

The next screen is the charactermanagement screen where youchoose a character. Since this is thefirst time you’ve logged on, all thecharacter slots will be blank.Create a character and assignstatistics on the next screen. Youcan also change hair color and hairstyle. As you might have guessed,one user login can have multiplecharacters.

full circle magazine #57 23 contents ^

LINUX LAB - MANA WORLD SERVER

You want to make sure youcreate a character before invitinganyone else to the server so youcan set the first character to be thegame master (GM). The TMWvariation of eathena storescharacter data in ~/tmw-ea/eathena-data/login/save. Thefile account.txt stores characterinformation. The filegm_accounts.txt is where you setup who will be GM on your server.GM’s and developers normally areassigned special levels. You canfind these levels in the file ~/tmw-ea/eathena-data/world/map/conf/atcommand_local.conf. What’s important is thatyou set yourself up as a level 99GM. If you assign other GMs settheir level to 60 so they havelimited GM power. Thegm_accounts.txt file is formattedin the following fashion:

account_number gm_level

The first user account isnormally assigned a number of2000000. Subsequent accountsincrement the user accountnumber by 1, so the next useraccount created would be2000001. So to make the first useraccount GM we would give the

gm_account.txt the followinginformation:

20000000 99

The ~/tmw-ea/eathena-data/login/save/gm_accounts.txtfile can be modified while you’relogged in to your server. Onceyou’ve given yourself GM level, youcan try some of the GM commands.All GM commands begin with an @symbol. @help will give you a list ofGM commands in the debug tab.The keen-eyed will notice thatmany of the @gm commands scroll

right off the screen. To correct thisproblem we need to adjust theamount of lines available in thechat window of the client software.In the top right corner of the tmwclient software, click the Setupbutton, then click the chat tab, andadjust Limit max lines in chat to120.

GM’s have the power to createitems, spawn monsters, warp toplayers, warp players to otherplaces, even launch an all-outplayer versus player war, so choose

your GMs carefully. GM actions arelogged in a plain text file tmw-ea/eathena-data/world/map/gm.log.year.month (for example tmw-ea/eathena-data/world/map/gm.log.2012.01).We found that looking at the gmlog files from the main server gaveus a better understanding of the@gm commands and how they’reused. Luckily the main server istransparent with their log files, andthey can be viewed online athttp://server.themanaworld.org/gm.

Putting your serveronline

In order to make your serveravailable to everyone on theInternet, you’ll need to punchsome holes in the firewall of yourrouter. In particular, TCP and UDPfor ports 5122, 6122, and 6901.You’ll also need to modify theconfiguration files for the serverexecutables. There are a lot ofconfiguration files, in a few places.The configuration files we want areall suffixed with _local.conf. Inparticular we want to modify thefollowing files:

full circle magazine #57 24 contents ^

Charles is a step-father, husband, andLinux fan who runs a not-for-profitcomputer refurbishing project. Whennot breaking hardware/servers hemaintains a blog athttp://www.charlesmccolm.com/.

LINUX LAB - MANA WORLD SERVER~/tmw­ea/eathena­

data/world/conf/char_local.co

nf

~/tmw­ea/eathena­

data/world/map/conf/map_local

.conf

~/tmw­ea/eathena­

data/login/conf/ladmin_local.

conf

There are 3 variables we wantto set, the IP addresses for thelogin server, the character server,and the map server. If you’re usinga dynamic DNS service, thedynamic DNS name can be used inthe place of the character and mapserver, but you should use yourlocal address for the login server(on our test server we used127.0.0.1 and it worked fine for thelogin server). Note that if your DNSchanges while the server is onlinethe server may be unavailable. OurISP offers a very inexpensive staticIP address, which is what we use inplace of the character and mapserver variables. Ourchar_local.conf looks somethinglike this:

// Comment : Login server IP

login_ip: 127.0.0.1

// Comment : Character server

IP

char_ip: auldsbel.dyndns.org

Similarly our map_local.conf

looks like this:

// Character Server IP

char_ip: auldsbel.dyndns.org

// Map server IP

map_ip: auldsbel.dyndns.org

The ladmin_local.conf file is animportant configuration file usedby the ladmin tool. Using ladmin,the administrator can execute avariety of administrative taskswithout using the client to log in tothe server.

You can find a number of otherconfiguration files in the ~/tmw-

ea/eathena-data/world/map/confdirectory. If you want to havemagic in your world, you’ll want tolook at the magic.conf.templatefile and the build-magic.sh shellscript. The help.txt file in thisdirectory is the same help file thatgets displayed to GMs who issuethe @help command. You will alsolikely want to customize themotd.txt (message of the day) file.

Like a lot of Linux software, theMana World eAthena server ishighly customizable. While you can

run a server identical to the mainserver, you’ll probably want tocustomize your server moreextensively. Good sources forinformation on furthercustomization can be found on theMana World forums, wiki, and inthe How to Develop sections of theMana World web site.

URLs of Interest:The Mana World -http://www.themanaworld.org/TMW Forums -http://forums.themanaworld.org/TMW Wiki -http://wiki.themanaworld.org/How to Develop (& server set-up) -http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/How_to_DevelopAuldsbel TMW server:http://auldsbel.org/

full circle magazine #57 25 contents ^

CCLLOOSSIINNGG WWIINNDDOOWWSS NNeettwwoorrkk && WWiirreelleessss SSeettttiinnggss

Written by:Ronnie Tucker (KDE)Jan Mussche (Gnome)Elizabeth Krumbach (XFCE)Mark Boyajian (LXDE)David Tigue (Unity)

Examining your network orwireless settings in Windows isactually quite confusing, not tomention intimidating. You can seethem by going to the Control Paneland choosing NetworkConnections. What you see isn’texactly user friendly, but I supposeit does the job.

Kubuntu:The network and wireless

settings (above) are availablethrough the System Settingswindow, but a quick short-cut (anda better way to manage it) is theicon in your taskbar (far right) thatlooks like a network plug andsocket. Clicking that gives you quickaccess to not only your settings,but also to find which wirelessnetworks are available to you.

Gnome-Shell:The Gnome-Shell version does

not have such a nice settings-screen .The screens to set andchange the network connectionslook like this:

The settings can be found at:System > Preferences > NetworkConnections, but also top right inthe panel. Here you see an icon

with two anti-parallel arrows. Clickthe icon > Edit Connections. A thirdway is through the Control Center(System Settings) - which can befound in the drop menu connectedto the Shutdown button at the top-right on your screen.

To change a connection, clickthe name of the connection > Editbutton. You will now see a newwindow with 4 TABs. Of these 4TABs, 1 is important and that is the‘IPv4 Settings’ tab - where youselect how your connection needsto operate. The most common wayis to select Automatic (DHCP). Thiscan be done when your computermakes contact with a router with abuild-in DHCP server. The DHCP(Dynamic Host Control Protocol)server generates IP-addresses forall connected computers (which areset to Automatic-DHCP). As can beseen in the next picture, you don’tneed to set anything (Address,

full circle magazine #57 26 contents ^

Netmask, Gateway, DNS server, andSearch domain) yourself, just letthe system handle this.

For a wireless connection, aftersetting things straight, you stillneed to make contact with yourwireless network. For this, right-click the network icon in the toppanel, and choose the network youwant to connect to. If it is a securenetwork, type the password you’veassigned, and you should beconnected in seconds.

Xubuntu:Xubuntu uses the nm-

connection-editor from Gnome, it isavailable for launching throughSettings > Network Connections, orby right-clicking on the networkindicator icon in the top panel andselecting “Edit Connections...”.However, for basic wireless setup,you will want to right-click on thenetwork indicator icon in the toppanel, and simply select thewireless network you wish to

connect to.

Lubuntu:Settings are made in the same

way as described for Gnome-Shell;however, opening the NetworkConnections window is, notsurprisingly, done differently. Theeasiest way is to click on thenetwork icon in the Panel; bydefault it’s on the right-hand side.

Alternatively, you can access itthrough the main menu by clickingSystem Tools > Lubuntu ControlCenter.

From the Control Center, clickthe Network icon.

Once in the NetworkConnections window, you configureyour network settings for Wiredand Wireless (and other)connections as described forGnome-Shell or Ubuntu.

Next month we'll discuss theformatting of media such as USBsticks, hard drives and SD cards.

CLOSING WINDOWS SSUUDDOOKKUU

EASY

HARD

Solutions are on the second last page.

Numbers 1 to 9 are to be filled into the9x9 grid so that every row, everycolumn, and every 3x3 box contains thenumbers 1 through 9.

full circle magazine #57 27 contents ^

MMYY SSTTOORRYYWritten by Charles McColm

My tech journey beganlike many of mygeneration - on aCommodore 64.

August 1983, I became involvedwith BUG, the Barrie Users’ Group,a group then dedicated to hackingCommodore hardware andsoftware. BUG turned me on toBulletin Board Systems (BBS). Itwas hard not to become enchantedby BBS technology: multi-line doorgames, informative forums, andthe System Operator (sysop)breaking in to chat. For severalyears, I ran my own BBS, at firstunder MS DOS, then IBM’s OS/2Warp operating system. Whichbrings up a funny story.

Late 1995, I went to Comdex inToronto, with evaluating bothWindows 95 and OS/2 in mind. Ivisited both booths, and wasstunned by how rude theMicrosofties were. I patientlywaited at their booth to test amachine only to be summarilybooted off. The IBM camp was busytoo, but they were much morepleasant, and not only showed meOS/2 but connected me with a

sysop running OS/2. When I wenthome, I was fired up about OS/2. Iwent to a local computer storewhere it so happened that anotherlocal sysop worked. When I went tobuy OS/2, he vehemently warnedme against buying OS/2 saying Ishould buy Windows 95 when itcame out. Long story short: my BBSwas up and running the sameafternoon, and he never did get hisworking under Windows 95.

It was shortly after I startedrunning OS/2 that my youngestbrother came home fromUniversity with a Slackware LinuxCD. It was interesting, but for somereason that eludes me, I ended upsubscribing to the Walnut CreekFreeBSD CD-ROMs. In a RichardStallman-like fashion, it was aprinter driver that turned me backto Linux.

I also hooked up with a smallgroup of individuals looking tocreate a Linux desktop, WCLP, for486DX computers with 16 MB ofRAM and a 500 MB hard drive. Thatproject connected me with anothernot-for-profit project, The Working

Centre’s Computer RecyclingProject. For the past six years, I’vebeen blessed to be the manager ofthat project. In the mid-2000’s, theLinux distribution we started wassurpassed by other projects withsimilar goals. When it came time todecide on a new Linux distributionfor our Linux builds, I went with thehot new thing: Ubuntu 4.10. Sincethat time we haven’t looked back.

Our project is also a part of theMicrosoft Registered Refurbisherprogram. The Working Centre hasfor many years provided computerbasics training and Microsoft Officetraining, so it’s helpful that we alsooffer Microsoft Windows andMicrosoft Office on certainmachines. Microsoft has been verygood to us and kept the cost oflicenses low enough that we canpretty much offer them on par withour Linux systems.

What surprises some is that wesell almost as many Linux machinesas we do Windows machines. Iattribute this to a few factors: evenwith unattended installations, it’sstill often easier for us to install

Linux; Linux is easier for us tosupport because we don’t have todeal with malware as much; Linuxtends to work better with thevariety of hardware we havewithout us having to downloaddrivers separately (printers forexample).

Of course not everything isperfect, so, when someoneconsiders buying an Ubuntu Linuxsystem, we sit them down in frontof a machine, give them a briefoverview about using UbuntuSoftware Centre, Firefox andLibreOffice, and let them decide ifthey feel comfortable enough totry Ubuntu.

Most people are comfortablewhen they learn they can do manyof the same jobs in Ubuntu Linux.Many of the people we work withhaven’t tried Linux before, and I’moften surprised to learn they’re stillrunning Linux months later. Isuppose I shouldn’t be surprised -all Linux really takes is thewillingness to learn and play.

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MMYY OOPPIINNIIOONNWritten by Allan J. Smithie

I got into a conversation withChromebook Enthusiast (CE)over on my blog where wedisagreed on the implications

of the recent Chromebook pricecut. 'CE' wrote:

The Chromebook is a great

conceptas a thin client... for

education, in the classroom,

with Internetaccess, andaccess to

myVDI infrastructure, it’s a very

compelling solution. The total cost

ofownership is reallynice. They’re

also not throwing in the towel just

because the price is dropping.

They’re activelydeveloping new

products, enhancing the operating

system andmanagement systems."

I grant the concept is sound,particularly where theinfrastructure is in place to supportthe Chromebook with reliable,always-on Internet connectivity.You may be right in that theeducation market may save it -- butonly if it achieves momentumthrough market penetration. It hasto reach into education, businessand consumer in order to continue.I recall from my education we had

the RM Nimbus and the BBC Micro,neither of which could resist thehome and business marketdomination of the IBM PC clone.Perhaps that's a bad comparison,but one sector by itself will notguarantee continued sales.

We know that Chromebooks areunder pressure from the tabletmarket, hence the price cut.Tablets are not only 'cool' but dohave sufficient internal storage totake out and about. We knowChromebook owners (Ed Hewitt,reviewing in Full Circle #52) whohave hit the limits of the platformin terms of access and storage, atwhich point they take flak fromfriends and colleagues who thentaunt the embarrassedChromebook owner by saying "youpaid how much for that?"

For sure, Google is not yetpulling out, and, if any company hasthe staying power to develop amature platform, Google is it.However, without manufacturingthe devices itself, Google is relianton the likes of Acer and Samsungto put hardware into hands. How

long they will stay in - if profits,shareholder and market confidencedrop - is a different question.Volume over time enables pricecuts, anything else is at theexpense of margin; the hardwarebusiness is tight on both right now.Conventional workhorse laptopsand shiny tablets-cum-e-readersare the fashionable stars of theday. With public spending cuts, the

education sector has its work cutout to make the case for non-standard kit in 'niche' platforms.Only if the total cost of ownershipis compelling, with the politicoskeeping out of decisions, can theeducation sector stay on board. I'mall for freedom of choice, buteconomics and marketing may yetlose the day for the Chromebook.

““

full circle magazine #57 29 contents ^

II TTHHIINNKK...... The SpiderOak Questionnaire

Last month's question was:

Do you have aSpiderOak account?

Yes 194 30%No 436 68%

Have you heard ofSpiderOak?

Maybe 30 5%Yes 324 51%No 286 45%

Are you a payingcustomer?

Yes 35 5%No 455 71%Considering 96 15%

How do you useSpiderOak?

Professional 191 30%Academic 46 7%Domestic 212 33%Other 191 30%

Are you happy withSpiderOak?

Unknown 369 57%Yes 183 29%No 30 5%Sometimes 60 9%

Rate the application inthe followingcharacteristics -Usability

Poor 9 1%472 74%

So-so 79 12%472 74%

Great! 82 13%

Rate the application inthe followingcharacteristics -Invisibility

Poor 3 0%463 72%

So-so 79 12%463 72%

Great! 97 15%

full circle magazine #57 30 contents ^

I THINK...Rate the application inthe followingcharacteristics -Portability

Poor 5 1%455 71%

So-so 74 12%455 71%

Great! 108 17%

Rate the application inthe followingcharacteristics -Available Space

Poor 14 2%452 70%

So-so 96 15%452 70%

Great! 80 12%

Which platform do yourun SpiderOak on?

Windows 168 45%Mac 56 15%Linux 328 87%

What types ofimportant files do youhave on your computer?

Email 286 56%Pictures 424 83%Music 280 55%Videos 245 48%Financial 324 63%Nothing 36 7%

Have you ever used anyof these backupmethods?

Another internal hard drive271 51%External hard drive

456 86%Thumb drive or flash drive320 61%DVD/CD358 68%Other online backup provider300 57%

Would you recommendSpiderOak to others?

Yes 593 92%No 51 8%

Thomas Morris, Marc Bohets, Lars Biemans,Johnathan Morlock, and one other person who'sstill to reply.

Congratulations to you all, and thanks toSpiderOak for the prizes. Keep your eyes peeled

for more competitions in Full Circle. Assuming I can get prizes.

SpiderOakWinners!

full circle magazine #57 31 contents ^

I THINK...

What are some thingsyou would improve, oradd, to SpiderOak?

A script that would allowfor a file manager(Dolphin, Nautilus, et al)to have right-click "add to

SpiderOak" option.

SpiderOak allows deletingolder versions throughthe command line. I'd liketo see that functionality

put into the GUI.

As a new user it is difficultto tell. Also as a 72 year-old pensioner, anddomestic user, 100GB is

way over the top for my needs -although $50 a year for 50GBwould be ideal for me and manyothers in my position.

I would add a two-stagebackup capability, suchthat synchronizationwould happen both to a

local backup disk on my networkserver AND off-premises atSpiderOak. The directories to bebacked up would default to beingidentical on both services, butthere is no reason to require that

they be identical.

Faster recognition of newfiles and faster syncing toother devices (it canoccasionally take a few

minutes to detect, upload, finalise,and then sync down). Mainly it isjust simply excellent!

Add option to easily clean,for example, all files olderthan date X. Or all"duplicated" files older

than date X, etc.

Picture (and other file)backups on Android.

Make the UI moreintuitive and user-friendly.

Possibility to upload filesvia the web.

This is the first I've heardof this service. Maybe ifyou put yourself out therea bit more, others might

get to know you.

Add an estimated time tocompletion based on thecurrent networkperformance. I have a

slow link, so during backup upload,I need to plan my PC usage byleaving my PC on for a longer time.

The only problem I've hadwith SpiderOak was thatthe size of data beingbacked up on each device

all was counted across all thedevices. I.e. 1GB on Home + 1GB onWork = 2GB in total space used.

Ability to see the files arealready in your directorybefore attempting torestore them after an OS

reinstall.

It should be much easierto share files you have onyour SpiderOak drive.

One of the primaryreasons as to why I amnot specifically using theservices is that it is not

fully compatible with my screenreading software. Unfortunately,being blind, one has got to settlefor the more accessible software.

This month I'd like to pose the question:

If you have a mobile/cell phone,which OS does it use?

To give your tuppence worth go to: http://goo.gl/EWbS2

Closing date for this question is Sunday 19th February 2012.

full circle magazine #57 32 contents ^

full circle magazine #57 33 contents ^

RREEVVIIEEWWWritten by Art Schreckengost

In the past, I've reviewed someunknown Ubuntu derivatives,but recently I came across oneso obscure I'm not quite sure

how I found it.

I'm referring to openArtist 5thIncarnation (oA hereafter), an OSthat has managed to stay hiddeneven though it's been out 3 years(DistroWatch and Wikipedia havezip). About the only information Icould gather was limited to eitherthe website(www.openartisthq.org) or 2009developer posts onBlenderNation.com andBlenderArtists.org.

But this transparency is largelyon purpose as the developer (anAustrian student going by thename cellstorm) has opted to keephis OS underground until he's sureit's ready for wide release.

Based upon 64-bit UbuntuMaverick 10.10, oA packs the Linux2.6.35 kernel with Gnome 2.32desktop as default. 3 versions ofOpenbox are offered as alternatesalong with Hildon, all of which will

be reviewed shortly.

The website is largely a work-in-progress, so forums appearsporadically used while the news-page consists of a one-sentenceentry from February 2011, stating anew version has been released (arevision several months later getsno mention). The download fromthis site links to SourceForge.net,

and shows over 70 downloads perweek (so why such little press?).

Releases, as you may havegathered, get the title of“Incarnation,” and each newversion gets a whole numberinstead of the usual decimal pointsystem. I can find no 1st - instead2nd, 3rd, and 4th Incarnations werereleased in March, June and

December 2009, after which thepace slowed until 5th was issued inFebruary 2011 (with a revision, butno number change, in October).

At 2.9GB, the ISO image mayseem hefty, but this is 1GB lessthan ArtistX and 600MB less thanoA 4th Incarnation, the previousrelease. Recommended HDDallotment is 10GB (it does take 9)but that's for live mode users(using a flash drive withpersistence). Those opting for fullinstallation would be wise toallocate no less than 20GB. I'llexplain why later.

I opted for full installation onmy Acer laptop but there areoddities and warnings to watch for.First, the keyboard defaults to UKsettings, so don't blindly click onthe forward button unless youdesire that (cellstorm is changingthis to US).

Second, pay heed to the pop-upwarning box. Due to someprograms being modified, they willnot work properly - unless “tux” isused as both the user-ID and

ooppeennAArrttiisstt 55tthh IInnccaarrnnaattiioonn

full circle magazine #57 34 contents ^

REVIEW: OPENARTIST 5TH INCARNATIONpassword, at least initially. Enterwhatever you like but the installerautomatically defaults to tux (thepassword can be changed post-installation but the user-ID mustremain tux).

Installation was breezy at 30minutes, but what's reallyimpressive is that the post-installupdates were a minuscule 10MBindicating the latest updates wereslipstreamed into the image.Hallelujah!

By the way, you'll be promptedby the Canonical nag to upgrade to11.04 but don't! I tried it just out ofcuriosity, and it not only failed butcreated an unusable OS.

Unlike Ubuntu, where you'll seea splash screen and have no cluewhat's going on in the background,oA gives users scrolling hardwarechecks for roughly 45 seconds untilthe Gnome desktop appears. Thereis no musical ditty, either.

As for drivers and codecs, let'sjust say if your file won't play oropen, it's defective. There were nohardware issues, and resourceusage was within reason (RAMrarely peaked above 20% of my4GB, and processor stress averaged

20% too, with the occasional spiketo 40%). Compiz settings are dialeddown, which helps, but users canadd all the flaming windows andwobbly menus they desire if theirvideo card will take it. Wirelessworked out of the box, and evenmy video card didn't need adriver (something thatUbuntu usually nails me forafter the first boot).

The desktop designconsists of black andgray sweepspunctuated by theUbuntu circle offriends deadcenter with theoA triple arrowhead logo in thecenter of that (think Mitsubishilogo with arrowheads instead ofdiamonds). Several alternatebackgrounds are availableincluding atomic bomb blast pics(odd for an artistic venture).

Top and bottom panels arethere, with the lower bunkreserved to park minimized apps orbrowser windows. It's the top thatwill catch your eye. To the left aremenu entries for 2D, 3D, AUD, VID,VJ, hardware (represented by avideo card icon) programming(shown as binary code), and

collaboration (two hands clasped)along with the usual main menubutton consisting of the oAarrowhead logo. Clicking on anyone of these causes a menu todrop with the appropriate

programs.

To the right are theubiquitous time, date,

wireless, sound, and batteryicons - with extras for

Guake Terminal, Dropboxand easystroke.

This does makefor crowded real

estate up top, butcellstorm

includes alternate designs in theSwitch Gnome Layout programranging from XP lookalikes andGnome standards to tabletoriented offerings.

After you've got the desktopdesign decision settled, it's time topay a visit to the main menu, butyou had better be prepared.Synaptic Package Manager shows3,400 installed packages along with130 PPA sources while the websitelisting of applications shows 1,400installed.

As a side note, don't be like me

and attempt to print the websiteapplications listing – it's over 30pages.

In short, oA is a packed house.

Let me give fair warning bystating the menu design is at firstawkward.

Opening the main menuproduces the standard Gnomestructure - with major divisionheadings (and a few more), butcellstorm redesigned the sub-menus. Instead of alphabeticallistings, programs are separated byspecific use and put in blocks, eachseparated by a barely visible line.While each block is alphabetized,the sequence starts again for eachblock. As a result you may seeprograms starting with A afterthose starting with M.

For example, Office is brokeninto 9 program blocks I callCreative Writing, LibreOffice, PDFTools, Presentation, SlidePresentation, Mind-Mapping,Home Budgeting, Drawing, andDatabase. Relevant programs arein each block and alphabetizedaccordingly, but first-timers will beconfused since the listing processstarts anew for each block.

full circle magazine #57 35 contents ^

REVIEW: OPENARTIST 5TH INCARNATION

While there is logic in thisdesign (grouping programs by useinstead of alphabetically butrandomly), the dark theme all butobliterates the separator lines, andsince there are no block sub-titles,users will have to play a guessinggame until they get the gist of it.

Changing to a lighter theme didmake the separator lines stand outand that may help some.

An unintended consequence ofprogram blocks is that adding newprograms doesn't guarantee they'llbe placed where you hope (orexpect) and finding existing apps issomething of a chore.

GoldenDict is under Office butDictionary got slapped into Utilitiesand when I installed GoogleChrome the menu heading gottossed in a block containingBitTorrent clients instead of theone reserved for browsers.

This means you'll have to playcat-and-mouse to find programsuntil you adjust to the sequence (Ifound it easier to park app icons onthe desktop or panels).

There is no easy way to changethis menu structure, although youcould go through Main Menu oralacarte and switch programlocations (imagine doing that for1,400 programs!).

Any perceived shortcomings insuch a design are outweighed bycellstorm's inclusion of heavilymodified mouse-over programdescriptions, some of which spanseveral hundred words over severalparagraphs as opposed to the usualUbuntu cryptic one-liners. Mindyou, he has done this for hundredsof programs, and it's really time togive up if you can't figure out whatan app does after reading thesemini-tutorials!

Design features aside, it's timeto discuss what the menu contains.Below is a listing of maybe 5 to10% of the total programs includedin any category (forgive me if Imisspell a few):

2D Graphics: Gimp, Inkscape,Skencil, vectormagic, Shotwell,Picasa, RawTherapee, Darkroom,gThumb, Rapid Photo Downloader,Karbon 14, Xara, DNGConverter,Stop Motion Capture, Agave, F-Spot, Fotowall, Cinepaint, Fotoxx,FontForge, Pixelize, GimPhoto,

Gimp PaintersStudio, ArtRage, DiscWrapper, Pencil, Hugin, Peacock,MyPaint, Krita.

3D Graphics: Blender 2.5 and 2.4,Houdini, Lodepaint, shaderlink,shaderdesigner, 3Delight,freestyle, Luxrender, Pantograph,Yararay, Librecad, Helios,DraftSight, Sweet Home 3D,Blender Game Engine, MeshLab,Wings3D, ArtofIllusion.

Audio: Aqualung, Audacious,Amarok, Mixxx, aquaduo, Audacity,Patchage, Traverso, PsychoSynth,Hydrogen, Jackbeat, Qutesound,darksnow, Shoutcast, DeaDBeef,VLC, Banshee, Stretch Player,Renoise, SLTV, Oscilloscope,Flumotion, Ardour, Rosegarden,Jokosher, Ableton Live.

Video: Cinelerra, OpenShot, Pitivi,Handbrake, DeVeDe, 2ManDVD,k9copy, make.tv, OGMRip, AcidRip,dvdisaster, Videoporama,Webcamstudio, Wxcam, GimpAnimation, Avidemux.

VJ: Veejay, freej, freemix, fluxus.

Hardware: Arduino, Fritzing,LightControl, Wacom ControlPanel, Wiican.

Collaboration: Chandler, Nixnote,AbiWord, Helga, DrawPile,Dropbox, celtx.

Internet: Midori, Firefox,Thunderbird, utorrent, Minitube,JBidwatcher, Bid-O-Matic, Pidgin,Skype, Google Earth, GoogleGadgets, Nicotine, Chromium,Opera, RSS Owl.

Office: Storybook, BookWrite,TextRoom, Planner, OpenProj,GanttProject, Time Tracer, InstallLibreOffice, AbiWord, TaskJuggler,PDF Mod, Impress!ve, iFreeBudget,HomeBank, PyCAD, LyX DocumentProcessor.

Programming: Qt Creator,Komodo-Edit, gedit, Aptana Studio,Python 2.6 and 3.1, BlueGriffon,Bluefish, Amaya, Thingamablog.

Utilities: Gscrot, Parcellite,Searchmonkey, Furious ISO Mount,Screenlets

Games: Yo Frankie!, Secret MarioChronicles, dji Game Manager,SuperTuxKart, atanks

System (Control Center): UbuntuOne, Wireshark, aircrack-ng,Gparted, Brasero, K3b, TurbojetCD/DVD, Lacie 4L Lightscribe, ISO

full circle magazine #57 36 contents ^

REVIEW: OPENARTIST 5TH INCARNATIONMaster, Furious ISO Mount,UNetbootin, mintUpdate,BleachBit, Ubuntu Tweak, conky,Remastersys, Clonezilla,luckyBackup, Firestarter, VidaliaTor GUI, Seahorse, RamDefrag,Guake Terminal, EasystrokeMouseGestures.

While this may appearimpressive, what's reallyastounding is that another 1,000+apps are not listed above!

Naturally, there is a sense ofredundancy in having this manyprograms, but they are there andusers have the option of usingwhat they want and ignoring oruninstalling the rest.

The beauty of oA is thatprograms cover a wide range ofcategories and are not all artist-oriented. Most menu categoriesare well stocked, and some oddsecurity apps are in the mix such asWireshark and aircrack-ng. EvenFirefox has the Scroogle Scraperadd-on that cloaks web searches.Must be underground artists outthere enjoying wireless codecracking - while remaininganonymous.

But there is a bit of hocus-pocus

in the menu. Not all of what yousee is actually there.

Although not an accurate count,nearly 60 programs have eithergray question marks or white boxeswith blue borders as icons, andthese designate recommended butnot installed programs (only one,LibreOffice, had “Install” in thetitle, the rest were just markedwith icons). According to thewebsite, these were not installeddue to space or licensing issues(the design of icons for these

programs also varied. Some gotquestion marks, while others sawthe blue and white boxes - so I canonly guess each computerinterprets the icons differently).

Clicking on one of these“programs-to-be” initiates aprocess in which a terminal windowopens to execute an automatic apt-get install command. There is nouser interaction in most casesbeyond this – just sit back andwatch the show.

While some are small and takelittle time, others are humongous.Ableton Live was 620MB todownload, and took 900MB onceinstalled, and a few others tippedthe scales at 100MB+. When all wassaid and done, I saw my HDD usageballoon from 9GB to nearly 16GB,which is why I'd recommend no lessthan 20GB if you plan a fullinstallation. Those opting to usepersistence via a USB drive hadbetter plan on buying the largeststick available.

Would it be simpler to make alist of affected programs andperform a one-time bulk downloadvia Synaptic Package Manager?

Sounds great, but it's not quitethat easy. Some of these programsare not listed in the repositories,and a couple (like virtualdub andavisynth) are Windows programsdesigned to work in Wine. Try ifyou like but I seriously doubt it willshave much time off theprocedure.

How long did it take me toinstall these apps? Roughly 8 hoursover 2 days. Of course there isnothing to say you must installthese, but it's nice to know theyare available should the need arise.

full circle magazine #57 37 contents ^

There were a couple ofinstallation failures, such asRemastersys and LibreOffice, butthese turned out to be siteproblems or links pointing to out-of-date versions (the former hasbeen discontinued while the latterapparently changed versions). Inboth cases, I merely found otheroutlets and got the programs fromthere.

In most behemoths like oA, youcan expect a raft of programs thatdon't work, but I had just onefailure to cooperate, and thatbelonged to mintUpdate (it had astroke during a repository updateso I switched to Ubuntu Tweak andnever had a problem again). Theseare not cellstorm problems, so I'mnot going to ding him there.

Those preferring other thanGnome have four desktop choices-- Hildon, Openbox, Ardour, andBlender (the last two beingOpenbox variations that autostartthe listed program).

Originally designed for Nokiadevices using the Maemo.org OS,cellstorm admits Hildon is anexperiment at this time and, quite

frankly, it never worked for me.Consisting of a black backgroundwith a settings icon in the rightcorner, users will soon discover thisicon disappears if a mouse clickcomes remotely close, and the onlyway out is Ctrl, Alt and backspace.

Unless you like playing “chasethe disappearing icon”, pass onHildon.

Openbox has the standarddesktop or variations that openeither Ardour or Blenderautomatically (but the underlyingdesktop is still Openbox). Nomatter the choice, Openboxoperated much quicker thanGnome once booted (LibreOfficescooted to an open page in lessthan 5 seconds compared to 15 inGnome); however, it was no quickerfrom a cold boot than Gnome(indicating it's the hardware checksthat are dragging the processdown). Logging out of Gnome toOpenbox was a different story.Once your password is entered andokay is clicked, the ready desktopappears within 2 seconds.

Curiously, CPU usage inOpenbox was an almost non-existent 2% on average - with rarespikes above 5% - but RAM stayed

at 14% at idle - with spikes to 25%(higher than Gnome).

The Openbox menu structure isdifferent than Gnome's, and that'sboth good and bad. The “block”style program listing is there, butthe icons and separator lines aregone, and the theme goes to whiteletters on a black background. Forwhatever reason, I found thiseasier to comprehend than theGnome version, but there is a slighthitch. Since there are no icons inOpenbox (just program titles),

users have no way of knowingwhich programs are not yetinstalled until they click and seethe terminal box.

I'd recommend starting withGnome until the programs-to-beare installed, and then switch overto Openbox for the fasterinterface.

At this point, some areundoubtedly itching to ask how oAcompares with ArtistX, the otherUbuntu based distro for theartistically inclined.

REVIEW: OPENARTIST 5TH INCARNATION

full circle magazine #57 38 contents ^

While ArtistX may be betterknown (they rate a DistroWatchmention), it's limited to 32-bit,admits to being Ubuntu with aboatload of unmodified repositoryprograms, and stacks the deck withartistic apps to the detriment ofother categories (such as deletingthe Games entry completely).

Given enough time andbandwidth, just about anybody cantake base Ubuntu and pack enoughprograms to create an ArtistXclone. I seriously doubt many can

create an oA knock-off, though,especially since some of theprograms are for Windows, madeto work in Ubuntu or heavilymodified from what you'd normallyexpect.

I let several friends test oA forjust over a month, and most cameto the same conclusion – oA is apowerhouse packed with programsyou just won't find anywhere else.True, it's a little quirky, and takessome getting used to, but that'spart of the fun.

The truth remains that oA ispacked to the rafters withprograms, many of which are not tobe found in any other Ubuntuderivative. Packing a Windowscomputer with apps like these - andyou can count on draining yourbank account quickly.

This isn't to say it's all roses withoA. Sure, you can install the OS,and ignore all the programs-to-be,but why? If you want somethingready-made, go with plain Ubuntuor the lighter-weight ArtistX. If youwant something unique, and yetstable, go with oA. Chances areyou'll be the only one in yourneighborhood (and possibly state)with this OS.

Okay, the menu design isinitially awkward, some menuprograms aren't there until youforce the issue (never saw thatbefore), and OS documentationoutside of the website is nearlynon-existent (CIA classifiedmissions get more coverage thanoA), but remember you can't getthat shiny pearl without shuckingquite a few ugly oysters.

Even with all the designpeculiarities, I didn't have anybodygive up on it (one user even cloned

my hard drive thinking there wasno way they could get it all forfree), and I heard just a couplecomplaints (mainly about the menudesign and slow boot times).

Helping matters greatly iscellstorm's forum participation viathe oA website. The forums mayhave sporadic usage, but if youpost a question he responds withina day, and seems more than willingto assist those having problems(making me wonder why oA isn'tbetter known).

Given a few changes, mainly tostructure and some procedures, oAcould jump up in the pack tobecome a known entity instead ofbeing the ghost it currently is.

REVIEW: OPENARTIST 5TH INCARNATION

full circle magazine #57 39 contents ^

LLEETTTTEERRSSEvery month we like to publish some of the emails we receive. If you would like tosubmit a letter for publication, compliment or complaint, please email it to:letters@fullcirclemagazine.org. PLEASE NOTE: some letters may be edited for space.

Connecting The Garmin

To download data from aDatalogger-GPS WintecWBT 100 under Ubuntu:

sudo gpsbabel ­t ­w ­i

wbt,erase ­f /dev/ttyUSB0 ­o

gpx ­F out.gpx

Remove and replace thebatteries from your Garmin,connect the USB cable, and turnthe GPS on while connected toyour PC. Now type:

lsusb

You should see something like:

>> Bus 004 Device 002: ID

091e:0003 Garmin

International GPSmap (various

models)

which means the Garmin has beenfound. Otherwise disconnect andreconnect.

To download track data fromyour GPS map Garmin 60CSx underUbuntu, type:

sudo gpsbabel ­t ­w ­i garmin

­f usb: ­o gpx ­F out.gpx

To upload way points and trackdata made using the Visugpx site,type:

sudo gpsbabel ­t ­i gpx ­f

trace.gpx ­o garmin ­F usb:

Laurent Aldon

Ctrl + Alt + Del

I have a question. One of thethings I like about Windows isthe "Windows button + E"combo that brings up Explorer.

Is there a similar thing in Ubuntu?And, while we are at it, is theresomething similar to the everpopular Ctrl-Alt-Del?

These are really small beefs,and I can't sufficiently thankanyone who has done anything tofurther the Linux cause over theyears. Every time I use GIMP orOpenOffice, I feel like I am pullinga fast one on the rest of the world.

Geoff Coleman

Gord says:(Thanks to Roy in the Ubuntu LinuxYahoo Group)http://www.ubuntu-unleashed.com/2011/04/complete-list-of-ubuntu-unity-shortcut.html

http://askubuntu.com/questions/28086/what-are-unitys-keyboard-and-mouse-shortcuts

http://www.techdrivein.com/2011/04/31-useful-ubuntu-1104-unity.html

Screensavers andThemes

I no longer have any Windowscomputers at all. I love Linuxand the open sourcemovement in general. I am still

only an intermediate user (theterminal annoys me), so I'm not asknowledgeable as some. But, Ihave noticed a change in 11.10 and

Join us on:

facebook.com/fullcirclemagazine

twitter.com/#!/fullcirclemag

linkedin.com/company/full-circle-magazine

ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=270

goo. gl /FRTM l

full circle magazine #57 40 contents ^

LETTERSthe 12.04 alpha of Ubuntu thatcertain "intermediate" user typethings are missing. Screensaversare completely gone, and thestartup application menu is empty -with no obvious way of showingthe list that used to show in the oldreleases. I even tried launching itfrom the terminal with sudo, but itstill doesn't make any difference.And the inability to change thecolors of Gnome themes reallyticks me off!

Is this just temporary as weswitch to GTK3, or something userslike me need to get used to?

Clem

Gord says: this page hasinstructions:http://www.addictivetips.com/ubuntu-linux-tips/how-to-activate-screen-saver-in-ubuntu-11-10/

Movin’ On Up

As I sit down to write thisletter, I cannot help tothink that Mr.Shuttleworth had good

intentions with Unity and Ubuntu. I

sense that the community felt aloss when they realized thatUbuntu was being sacrificed forcommercial interests. Perhaps, theidea was to create a tablet ormobile centric distribution?Elimination of the Ubuntu NetbookEdition represented, in my opinion,a leap that the community was notready to make.

What options do we have? Thereare plenty of distributions available- such as Fedora, OpenSuse or Arch.However, instead of any of those,let’s consider another distributioncloser to home. Back in May of2011, Lubuntu was officiallyrecognized as an Ubuntuderivative. I tested Lubuntu andfound that it is trim andlightweight, just like Ubuntu usedto be. If you intend on switchingaway from Ubuntu because of thisUnity debacle, I suggest givingLubuntu or another derivative a trybefore completely leaving us. Ithink that you will find loyalty and

community is still a part of theCanonical values, even if it looks abit off right now.

Mark Moore

I have been using Linux forabout a year now, and haveused only Mint10+KDE andKubuntu 11.10. (Now Gnome,

Ubuntu,) I recently found out that Icould add extra desktopenvironments. From my loginscreen I can choose from KDE,Ubuntu, Gnome, Gnome Classic,Cairo, and a few others for lowgraphics mode.

On to my question. I have beenreading all the hate letters aboutUnity the desktop - "Not a big fanmyself," and the complicatedmethods of changing it back toGnome. Why don't users downloadanother desktop environment? Arethere any cons about doing this?

I have seen some minorblending of the two Kubuntu &Ubuntu, such as Ubuntu programsand icons, but nothing bad that I’veseen.

Rob

Nvidia Woes

I love Linux, but the one thingthat prevents me from using itis my Nvidia card. It comeswith Optimus, and my laptop

doesn't have a switch to turnOptimus off. I tried Bumblebee andIronhide (or whatever it's called),and neither worked. Nvidia needsto step it up and help out Linux.

Ben

full circle magazine #57 41 contents ^

PPUUZZZZLLEESSIf you would like to submit a puzzle for publication, pleaseemail it to: letters@fullcirclemagazine.org. Solutions are onthe second last page of this issue. No peeking!

by Dave Mawdsley

The solutions to all the puzzles are on thesecond last page of this issue. No peeking!

A Crossword Puzzle of Python & Maths

full circle magazine #57 42 contents ^

PUZZLES

Across

1 You might be free to work here (11)4 Messaging protocol in a circle (3)6 Test drive a Linux distro using this (6)8 Mixed up, bad, at sea? Try organizing your information in this (8)10 If you use Linux on your mobile, you're probably using this OS (7)13 A twisted lamprey is a versatile media player (7)14 Character encoding scheme (5)18 An interface for Windows users (3)19 Manifestation of a browser (8)20 They are likely to use 16 down (6)

Down2 Mutant FTP solution (9)3 Instant messaging in derived language? (6)5 If you like the terminal, this is the interface for you! (3)7 Vigorous, energetic, text editor (3)8 Linux philosophy, according to Torvalds (2,2,8)9 Berkeley UNIX? (3)11 Package manager related to a part of a neural network? (8)12 As clear as a Lynx (5)15 Temporary storage scattered in a catechism (5)16 Alcoholic emulator (4)17 Log on as this if you are new to a computer (5)

The solutions to all the puzzles are on thesecond last page of this issue. No peeking!

CRYPTIC CROSSWORD by Ilavenil Thirumavalavan

full circle magazine #57 43 contents ^

QQ&&AACompiled by Gord Campbell

If you have Ubuntu-related questions, email them to:questions@fullcirclemagazine.org, and Gord will answer them in a futureissue. Please include as much information as you can about your problem.

Q How can I uninstall aprogram?

A Go to the softwarecentre, search for thename of the application,select it, and click the

"uninstall" button.

Q How can I install iplist(aka IpBlock) in 11.10.

A Use pgl instead, thesuccessor ofmoblock/blockcontrol/mobloquer.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/peerguardian/

Q I have lost my password.How can I log on?

A (Thanks to bcbc in theUbuntu Forums.) Boot inrecovery mode. Youmight need to select the

third option, "Remountread/write". Then select "root shellprompt." It will put you at acommand prompt, type:

passwd [userid]

where [userid] is your userid. In mycase, it's gord. Enter your newpassword twice, then it should sayyour password was updated. Enterthe command:

exit

Select "Resume normal boot,"and you should be able to use thepassword you just created.

Those of you concerned aboutsecurity should note that thismethod provides anyone (who hasphysical access to your computer)complete access to all theprograms and unencrypted data.

Q Will MicrosoftOffice

Professional 2010 workunder Wine?

A Yes, with Wine version1.32. See this for fullinstructions:http://ubuntuforums.org

/showthread.php?t=1885051

Q Running DVDstyler failswith a segmentation faultin Ubuntu 11.10.

A (Thanks to RattusNorvegicus in theUbuntu Forums) It worksfine under Gnome

Classic.

full circle magazine #57 44 contents ^

Q & A

Q Using Ubuntu 11.10, howcan I get my Firefoxbookmarks over to a newmachine? They've taken

out the Backup/Restore using a.json file.

A Open "Show AllBookmarks." Now, moveyour mouse up to theleft half of the top panel,

and "import and backup" willappear.

Q I installed Xubuntu 11.10on my desktop. In livemode, it showed my harddrive partitions on the

desktop as icons, but, onceinstalled, the mounted partitionsare not shown on the desktop.Why?

A The LiveCD is run fromCD or USB, so hard diskpartitions are viewed asexternal. For a hard disk-

based OS, partitions are internal.Only external media appear on thedesktop.

Q As far as I can make out,Oneiric does not workwith Intel GMA500 video?

A Have a look athttp://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=11356431&postcount=4605

Q Is Avidemux available inthe Ubuntu 11.10repositories yet? It wasn'twhen 11.10 was first

released.

A (Thanks to linuxman94in the Ubuntu Forums)Yes, it is. For futurereference, you can check

what repos packages are in bysearching inhttp://packages.ubuntu.com. Notethat you might need to searchthrough all three of oneiric, oneiric-updates, and oneiric-backports.

Q I am trying to installDrupal. "sudo apt-getinstall drupal7" said thepackage is not found.

A Even the latest versionof Ubuntu still hasDrupal6 in itsrepositories, while 7.10

is available at drupal.org.

Q I have a hot new systemwith an MSI Z68A-G45(UEFI) motherboard andi7-2600k CPU. Several

versions of Ubuntu all hang at thesame place early on in the boot,just after detecting USB pen driveor USB hid, when booting from CD.

A (Thanks to Trevelyon inthe Ubuntu Forums) Iused the nomodesetnoacpi options and the

installation CD comes up. Also hadto add them (after installation) toboot from the SSD.

Q I downloaded the Ubuntu10.04.3 32-bit desktopISO, then used StartupDisk Creator to make a

bootable USB stick to installUbuntu on several othercomputers. When I boot from it, Iget "Boot Error" on a blank blackscreen.

A Try using Unetbootin tocreate your USB stick,and if that fails, burn aCD.

Q I'm using Ubuntu 11.10. Irecently installed gtkpodto upload songs to myclassic iPod. When I open

gtkpod, it just has a blank screen -the iPod is nowhere to be found. Itshows up in the places list and theaudacious music player.

A (Thanks to sasasas inthe Ubuntu Forums) Iinstalled Amarok.GTKpod would have

been nice as it has the ability toremove duplicates.

full circle magazine #57 45 contents ^

Tips and TechniquesNew Technology, 2012 Edition

New technology alwayscauses disruptions, andUEFI (Unified ExtensibleFirmware Interface) is

no exception. For now, UEFIappears to be replacing orsupplementing the BIOS on high-end desktop systems, but you canexpect it to spread throughout theindustry over the next couple ofyears. If you're thinking of buying anew computer, you should check onthe current state of support for itsvarious features before you buy.

UEFI supports hard drives largerthan 2 TB, and brings graphics andthe mouse to the power-oninterface. It also opens up a lot ofpotential for the future, which wasnot possible with the 16-bit, 1 MBlimits of the BIOS. The large harddrives use another new technology,GUID (Globally Unique Identifier)

Partition Table, or GPT, instead ofthe old MBR partition table.

The other hot new technology isSolid State "Disks" (SSD), whichcause their own disruptions.

The combination led AnttiKirjavainen, who logs on asUbutuxer, to ask this question inthe Ubuntu Forums: "is it possibleto get Ubuntu 11.10 or 12.04 toboot from an SSD connected to anAsus P8H61-I motherboard?" Threedays later, he posted the solution!

In his first post, Kirjavainenexplained that he could boot froma USB stick, and install Ubuntu ontothe SSD, but when he booted theinstalled system it yielded a blackscreen with a blinking cursor.

Oldfred, Zensov and Robgillcommented on the question, thenKirjavainen gave the solution. In his(slightly edited) words:

1) GPT partitioning seemed tobe a problem for the Ubuntuinstaller. I took the SSD out of thePC, plugged it into another PC witha SATA-to-USB adapter, and createda normal partition table on itwithout any of the non-workingGPT crap. I created the partitions

as follows (with cfdisk, gpartedalso works):

1: FAT 32 partition for the EFIbootloader. I set this to 500 MBsize and formatted it withmkfs.vfat.2: / (root) partition (ext4).3: /home partition (ext4).

I use no swap on computers likethis, that have 16 to 32 GB of RAM.

2) I kept the SSD plugged to theother PC with the SATA-to-USBadapter and mounted the bootpartition. I created a folderefi/grub under it with thecommand "mkdir -p efi/grub".

3) Now the disk was ready forinstallation. I put the SSD back inthe new PC, booted up Ubuntuinstallation from the USB stick andinstalled it as usual, formatting /and /home as ext4 in the process.

SUCCESS!!!

The PC boots in about 10-15seconds, as you'd expect from anSSD. The network card on thismotherboard works on Ubuntu11.10 out-of-the-box as well. 10.04doesn't seem to recognise it, 11.04I'm not sure.

My advice to others readingUbuntu's EFI/UEFI instructions:

Do NOT start recompiling Grubor other more complicated stuff. Itis completely unnecessary.

The instructions are outdatedfor 11.10 and just creating the FATpartition with a folder efi/grub isenough for Ubuntu toautomatically recognise and installthe bootloader there. Ubuntu11.10 already has a working GRUBfor EFI systems, you do NOT needto compile one yourself, at leastnot for the Asus EZ.

So, in short: create thepartitions on a non-EFI system,mkdir 2 folders and install. If I onlyknew from the start that it was thissimple....

Q & A

After a long career in the computerindustry, including a stint as editor ofComputing Canada and ComputerDealer News, Gord is now more-or-less retired.

full circle magazine #57 46 contents ^

UUBBUUNNTTUU WWOOMMEENNWritten by Elizabeth Krumbach GGeemmaa GGoommeezz--SSoollaannoo

Elizabeth Krumbach: Can you tellus a little about yourself?

Gema Gomez-Solano (above): Ilove good software and computers.When I was at high school, and Iwatched the film Sneakers, Idecided to become a ComputerEngineer. I admired thosecomputer wizards who could doalmost anything with a keyboard. Ireally wanted to be part of a groupthat could do cool things withtechnology, no matter howcomplicated.

I studied Computer Engineering inBarcelona, Spain; a Masterequivalent degree at the CataloniaPolytechnic University. Afterfinishing university, I was hired by asecurity company in Barcelona todo security audits andassessments.

In 2004, given my securitybackground, I was offered a role inLondon as a Test Engineer atSymbian within the security team.This was my first time working atan English company, and in aninternational environment. We hadteams in the UK and India, and laterin China. Testing an operatingsystem was one of the mostcomplex and enlighteningexperiences of my career. I grew asa tester and as a QA engineerduring the first years there. Thesecurity team moved to Cambridgeand I decided to stay in Londondoing integration testing withinthe kernel team.

Then, in 2007, Symbian decidedthey wanted to build a strongSystem Test team, and offered methe Technology Architect position

for that team. We built atechnically strong test team whochanged the quality of the OSvisibly and for good. It felt great tosee that project develop after allthe battles that we had to fight tomake it happen.

Then Nokia took over Symbian, andannounced it was going to becomeopen-source. After spending 9months helping the team tointegrate in the new organisation, Idecided to take some time off torethink my career to find the nextchallenge. I had seen the teamgrow and establish itself as asmoothly running testing team, somy job there felt done and I waseager to find a new project that Icould help develop and build.

As my next challenge I took up anopportunity to join VMware inLondon. I did API testing for almosta year with them but it didn't reallyfeel like the challenge I had beenseeking. So I kept trying to findwhat I was looking for, and that'show I came across Canonical andthe Ubuntu project. It was anoperating system; it was in need of

testing if it was to become thepredominant OS. And, mostimportantly, it was a chance tocollaborate with a greatcommunity from around the globe.This opportunity got my attentioninstantly, and, when I was offeredthe QA Engineer position, I didn'thesitate.

Five months and one UDS down theline, it still feels good and lots ofthings are starting to happenwithin the Canonical Platform QAteam and within the community interms of QA. I enjoy seeing how mywork has a direct impact on asystem used by millions worldwide.I would like to see Ubuntu becomethe operating system everyoneuses and that comes with everycomputer that is sold. Mostimportantly, I personally would liketo see the QA work that we aredoing for Ubuntu become a defacto standard in terms of qualityassurance and good testingpractices.

EK: How and when did you first getinvolved with open-source?

full circle magazine #57 47 contents ^

GG: The first time I thought aboutopen-source as a way of makingsoftware was when I was toldSymbian was becoming open-source. We had to think about howto make our code available toeveryone, as well as keeping thecontinuous integration and testingof the code going. That was thefirst time I really thought about theconcept of open-source, andrealised how powerful the idea is.

My partner has been a developer ofan open-source project, DragonflyBSD, for some time now. I haveseen him work on that project, andinteract with its community, foryears. He tried to convince me todo testing for them - but I was sobusy with my day-to-day work that Inever had enough quality time todedicate to that.

So my first real taste of open-source, and being part of acommunity, has been withCanonical and the Ubuntu Project. Iam learning to work with thecommunity and to bounce ideasback and forth until they becomework items and get implemented.Initially, the QA list felt somewhatlifeless, and the community was abit stuck on what it was doing. Notmuch collaboration was going on

so we split some of the tasks ourteam was doing this cycle, andmade them available to thecommunity. We've raised theawareness of testing, and plenty ofcommunity members have startedto collaborate with us, and a lot ofdiscussions are going on at themoment regarding the future ofQA in Ubuntu. All geared towardstaking the quality of Ubuntu to thenext level.

I have also started talking to theMozilla QA team regarding a testcase management tool (CaseConductor) they are creating thatwe would like to use for Ubuntu aswell. They are keen oncollaborating, and would like togather requirements from us sothat the tool is fit for purpose forUbuntu, too. We will soon beinvolved in beta-testing and othercollaboration with the Mozilla teamon this tool. So inter-communitycollaboration is something I amexploring at the moment.

EK: What is your role within theUbuntu Project?

GG: I started working for thePlatform QA team at Canonicalback in August, and I have beenwatching the project during thefinal stages of Oneiric Ocelot aswell as learning more about Linuxand the community.

I wrote a high level strategy ofwhat I think needs to happen in thecoming 2 years for our qualitylevels to rise significantly. The planwas well received at themanagement team, and we got agreen light to start implementingit. I have since moved to be thetechnical lead of the Platform QAteam. We are currently working onputting the right tools in place sothat developers can act on theimportant defects as soon as theyare found. The Daily ISO testing isalready following this principle,and its quality is improvingnoticeably as we speak. We arekeeping track of the defects wefind as part of our testing efforts,and of the defects we didn't findbut are found later in thedevelopment cycle, so that we canimprove the testing of futurereleases. Our overall aim is to builda solid automated testing suite assoon as we have the basics in place.

We changed the format of the

meeting to make it more QAfocussed, splitting it from the BugControl meeting. Now both groupshave different times to meet anddiscuss their issues and progress,and we have a set of tasks thatcommunity members arecontributing to, with the aim ofimproving the quality of Ubuntu. Iam driving and coordinating thiseffort at the moment, but this isnot going to be my focus goingforward since there will be a QACommunity Coordinator withwhom my team will collaborateclosely and I will be just one morecommunity contributor. The QAPlatform team will be helpingshape the testing effort and tryingto make every little effort aworthwhile contribution to thewhole. Historically, there has beenlittle leadership in the QA front,and we are trying to bring goodpractices from the industry to theopen-source community toimprove the situation.

EK: Do you have any suggestionsfor others who are looking to getinvolved with Ubuntu and open-source in general?

GG: I think open-source is anunstoppable force that is driven bya huge worldwide community. I'd

UBUNTU WOMEN

full circle magazine #57 48 contents ^

say the first step is to figure outwhat you want to do with your freetime, then choose a project thatyou'd like to contribute to and seeif they are in need of any of yourskills; odds are they are. If you are adeveloper but do not want to writecode in your free time, you mightenjoy reviewing code or beta-testing a product to find problems,or triaging some bugs. Maybe youare good at languages and want tocontribute by translating thesoftware.

Or if you enjoy breaking software,and would like to do qualityassurance and testing of aparticular product, and you areprepared to join a very dynamicand challenging environment, I'dlike to see an email from you onour ubuntu-qa@lists.ubuntu.comlist (it's open to anyone:https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-qa ).

We are in the process of gatheringas much help as we can get. Thetasks that are being worked on atthe moment at the communitylevel for Precise are available onthe wiki:https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/TasksPrecise

The QA Team for Ubuntu has aweekly gathering. Feel free toattend our weekly meeting and askquestions so that you get to knowthe team and what each one of usis doing. It takes place everyWednesday at 17:00 UTC in#ubuntu-meeting on freenode. Weare thrilled to see new peopleshow up and contribute. Theagenda for the meetings, anddetails and logs of past meetings,are available here:https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/Meetings

UBUNTU WOMEN

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At the heart of our networkinginfrastructure is state-of-the-art BGP4routing that offers optimal datadelivery and automatic multihomedfailover between our outstandingproviders. Customers may rest assuredthat we only use the highest quality ofbandwidth; our policy is to pay more for the best of breed providersand because we buy in bulk this doesn't impact our extremelycompetitive pricing.

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full circle magazine #57 49 contents ^

UUBBUUNNTTUU GGAAMMEESSWritten by Riku Järvinen CCrraayyoonn PPhhyyssiiccss DDeelluuxxee

This month we take a lookat a game that also haspotential as a scienceteaching tool in

comprehensive schools. Some timeago, I grabbed Humble Bundle 3,including Crayon Physics Deluxe - athoroughly planned collection ofphysics puzzles you solve bydrawing different shapes. As I’malso a student of physics, I wasintrigued to test the realism of thegame. It turned out to be prettymuch what I expected -- and more.Plus, it was created by the Finnishgame developer Petri Purho ofKloonigames.

Installation & Overview

There was no trouble gettingthe game going, I just downloadedthe .deb file and installed it with:

sudo dpkg ­i package_name.deb

The minimum requirements, at1 GHz, 512 MB RAM, and 128 MBgraphics RAM, are easily met (if indoubt, you can download the demoat http://www.crayonphysics.comto test your specs). When you start

Crayon, you are asked to registerfor additional features but this isnot obligatory.

Because of the really calm musicand bright-coloured graphics, myfirst impression was that this isprobably a game for children orsomething. The levels seemed veryeasy, and I hacked through forty ofthem before realizing I hadcompletely missed the point.Crayon is about elegance. Not onlyis it enough to find a solution to aproblem: it must be “a good one”,i.e. meaning not to drawunnecessary objects. To completeeach level perfectly, you have tocome up with three different ones:elegant, old school, and awesome.The awesome solution issomething you can choose freelyamong the ones you havedeveloped to solve the problem.

Gameplay & Features

Basically, you control a pen withyour mouse, and draw objects ofvarious dimensions to createdynamical movement. In eachproblem, your goal is to move a ball

in such a manner that it will collidewith a star, or, in some cases,multiple stars in one run. You cancheat by clicking on the ball to giveit a small initial movement boost;this is not allowed in propersolutions. Actually, you can gofurther and realize that by addingobjects beneath the ball youincrease the potential energy (theenergy associated with “higher

ground” that is readilytransformable to movement) ofthe ball, thus having an “infinite”supply of energy (in practice, theenergy is limited by the height ofthe screen). Once you notice thislittle trick, there is no point infinding just some solution: it has tobe a reasonable one, using theproperties of the laws of physicsinstead of “faking energy”.

full circle magazine #57 50 contents ^

Riku Järvinen (rierjarv) is a CS majorstudent from Finland who delves intothe Linux and Open Source gamingworld once in a while.

UBUNTU GAMES - CRAYON PHYSICS DELUXEAs for the gameplay itself,

everything works as it should.Controls are introduced along theway so there is no need for aseparate tutorial. Physicsmodelling is good. Only one slightproblem occurs when you havemultiple objects very close to oneanother. If you try to delete aspecific one, another mightaccidentally disappear. This is not areal problem, though, if you play bythe rules, in which case you needonly a few objects for a goodsolution.

The rotating castle problem andits solution are presented. Thehuge green-colored “arm” dragsthe bridge down, and gives the balla movement boost towards thestar. Most solutions, like this one,are developed by making smalladjustments to known solutions (ofcourse, in the beginning there areno “known solutions”, so you haveto create one).

The offline game alone has over70 levels to provide tens of hoursof excitement, if one commits to

find all the elegant solutionswithout extra help. Registrationgives access to extra content, andthere is also a level editor forcreating custom physics models ofone’s own. Some of the levelstowards the end are very, verydifficult: I noticed that my physicsbackground did not help me much.In one custom scenario, a rocket isused to guide the path of the ball.A rocket is one of the standardcomponents of Crayon Physics.

Crayon Physics as ateaching and learningtool

I started my university studiesto become a physics teacher, and,as far as my experience can tell,this game would be an awesometool in comprehensive school. Itmakes Newton’s laws become realthrough meaningful experiences,not just some non-living graphs intextbooks (which, by definition, areboring: games aren’t). This isimportant, since the scientificresearch in physics education hasshown students experience clearconceptual difficulties dealing with“real physics” (as opposed toproblem-solving skills, which still

could be excellent).

If I was to teach school physicsnow, I would contact the developerfor a permission to use the gameduring lessons.

Where to get it

If you did not catch the HumbleBundle, Crayon Physics Deluxe canbe bought at the Developer’swebsitehttp://www.crayonphysics.com.Although a bit pricey comparedwith the Bundle, it’s still a goodchoice. I’d recommend it to anyoneinto puzzles and physics!

full circle magazine #57 51 contents ^

J amestown: Legend of theLost Colony is theknockout debut from FinalForm Games. This top-

down shooter takes what we allknow and love from classicshooters and gives it a refresh -with imaginative storytelling andamazing graphics. The solidgameplay is the cherry on top thatmakes this recent Humble IndieBundle feature a great addition toany gamer’s collection.

Jamestown takes place in the17th century as the British battlefor survival on colonial Mars. Youbegin your journey as an escapedconvict from the Tower of Londonen route to the Lost Colony ofRoanoke. Your mission is to clearyour name by way of heroic deeds,which leads you to the EasternFrontier - where John Smith helpsto defend the colony from theallied Spanish/Martian troops.

There are four ships available -Beam, Gunner, Charge, andBomber. Your first ship is the basic,yet still capable, Beam. On thekeyboard, Z is the main attack and

X is the special attack. In this case,a beam can quickly eliminate largerand stronger enemies compared tothe standard Z attack. Enemies thatare killed drop gold coins - whichhelp fill your vaunt meter, whichactivates a shield for a short periodof time and is quite helpful whenthere is an incoming barrage ofenemies. The vaunt, which isactivated by pressing the space bar,also gives you a bonus that booststhat level's star rating.

After completing a level, thereis an in-depth breakdown of yourperformance such as enemiesdestroyed and highest combo.After a few stages of battle, youcan head to the shop and spendthat hard earned gold to unlockitems like ships, challenge packs,and various game modes. Overall,the controls and gameplay are verysolid and smooth; there were nonoticeable glitches or bugs, andthe controls were comfortable onboth mouse and keyboard.

The graphics and soundtrack arean integral part of most games, butFinal Form did an impeccable job

with the quality of the stagedesign, music, and sound effects.The detail and care put into thelush pixel environments give it apolished look, and Chileancomposer Francisco Cerda createda beautiful soundtrack tocomplement it. These elements arewhat really set Jamestown apartfrom other top-down shooters onthe market today.

Overall, Jamestown is a ton offun to play, especially with a coupleof friends in co-op mode. The shopitems and challenge packs add tothe replay value, and the graphicsand soundtrack enhance theexperience of this classic shooter

with a twist. Jamestown isavailable for $9.99 athttp://www.finalformgames.com/jamestown/.

Pros: quality graphics/sound,replay value, innovative story

Cons: none

UUBBUUNNTTUU GGAAMMEESSWritten by Jennifer Roger

JJaammeessttoowwnn

Jennifer is a fine arts student fromthe Chicago-land area. You can findher on Google+ or follow @missjendieon Twitter.

full circle magazine #57 52 contents ^

UUBBUUNNTTUU GGAAMMEESSWritten by Peter Liwyj IInnssttaalllliinngg MMiinneeccrraafftt

This article assumes youhave Ubuntu installed andready to go, and you’resitting looking at a Unity

desktop [I’ll add Kubuntu noteswhere I can - Ed].

First, you need a 3D videodriver. On your nice new Unitydesktop, which is probablyconfusing you, click on "Dashhome" on the top left of the Unitydesktop.

At the bottom of the screenyou'll see some icons. Click on thePencil/Pen/Ruler icon.

Top left of the next screen,you'll see "Additional Drivers." Thisis for your video card, and perhaps

other things. (For Kubuntu, click K> Applications > System >Additional Drivers). Select anappropriate video driver, then clickon "Activate." Enter your passwordin the box that pops up. Let thedriver download and install. You’llprobably have to reboot to loadthe drivers. The little gear shape atthe top right of the Unity desktophas the shutdown option in it.

Now it’s time to install Java. Ifyou previously installed the“restricted extras,” you probablyhave it already. If not, click on the"Ubuntu Software Centre." It startsout as the 5th icon up on the leftside of the Unity desktop, looks likea shopping bag. (In Kubuntu, it’s K> Applications > System > Muon

Software Centre.)

Search for "Java."

You'll get several options, youwant "OpenJDK6 Java runtime"(not seven - you want JDK six).Install it.

Go to Minecraft.net anddownload the minecraft.jar file bysaving it on your desktop, orwherever you like. First, open it inyour favorite archive manager, andpoke around. You're looking for thefavicon.png file. It's a picture of aMinecraft block, save a copy of itsomewhere out of the way forlater.

Go back to your minecraft.jarfile, right click on it, and select‘properties’ at the bottom of themenu. In the BASIC tab, click on thepicture and navigate to thefavicon.png you saved earlier. Inthe PERMISSIONS tab, check the"allow executing this file as aprogram" (“Is Executable” inKubuntu) check box, and in theOPEN WITH tab (In Kubuntu youget this by right-clicking the file

and selecting “Open With...”), andselect OpenJDK Java 6 runtime -and make it default while you'rethere.

TIP: You can also enter:

java ­jar

as the starting application to the‘open with’ window in Kubuntu.You can also create a desktop‘widget’ shortcut to the jar file inKubuntu.

That's it! Run Minecraft, it'lldownload what it needs, and go.

I have it running at about 50 to80 frames per second at 1024 X768 resolution...on a 32 inchToshiba TV! The 3D analglaph ismind-blowing, by the way... I wasafraid of the depth at first (heightsmake me nervous), and those holesinto the bedrock gave me thewillies!

Your system may vary slightly ora great deal, but that's how I gotmine going perfectly.

full circle magazine #57 53 contents ^

MMYY DDEESSKKTTOOPP

Having tried Unity and Gnome 3 from a live environment, andnot liking either all that well, I decided to look into alternatives.

This shows XFCE 4.8 running on top of Linux Mint 11. I've movedthe 'bottom panel' to the left side (it’s usually set to auto-hide),and the 'top panel' to the bottom, like Mint does it. XFCEalready has its Menu where Mint Gnome would have it.

The Thunar file manager window shows that I can access myWindows 7 files. Desktop settings are available as shown. I canplay videos. In the back you can see Amazon's Kindle bookreader, running on Wine.

Dave Rowell

Your chance to show the world your desktop or PC. Email your screenshots andphotos to: misc@fullcirclemagazine.org and include a brief paragraph about yourdesktop, your PC's specs and any other interesting tidbits about your setup.

I like simplicity and functionality, so here is my 11.04 classicdesktop. I'm running Ubuntu on my laptop from 10.04. Youcan see Docky here, and my favorite UboIconsTheme fromhttp://gnome-look.org. Find my wallpaper on deviantart,thanks Apofiss (http://apofiss.deviantart.com) for his(her) art.

For me, there is no problem that can't be solved with Ubuntu.My laptop is budget-priced:Processor: AMD Athlon II Dual-core N350 2.4GHzRAM 2GBResolution 1366x768Laptop HP G62

Aleksandr Palchenko

full circle magazine #57 54 contents ^

MY DESKTOP

Hi, My name is Tarun. This is my Dell Inspiron laptop. I runUbuntu 11.04 (natty) on my laptop, I3 processor, 4 GB Ram, and1 GB ATI Radeon graphic card. I like my desktop simple andsober - with no icons on the desktop. The only thing I don’t likeis Gnome's panel, so I removed the panel and installed AWNwindow manager. The calender and clock are screenlets.

I also maintain a blog with my friend on various tips and trickson looks and various other Linux and Android stuff:http://www.tricksfind.in/

This blog may be good for people interested in Linux. Pleasepost comments, as we are continuously working on improvingour blog.

Tarun

My desktop is running Xubuntu 11.10, 64-bit. I record TVshows and movies using Freevo (1.90), and edit photoswith Gimp. The background is a picture I took at SealRock beach in San Francisco, USA.

My computer is a ZaReason Strata 9660CPU specs: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz4 GB of ramIntel wifi-5300AMD Radeon Graphics card 256GB memory

Philip Raymond

full circle magazine #57 55 contents ^

MY DESKTOP - BONUS

I built a new computer to runLinux on, beginning with a lovelylittle Lian Li case. I took thesepictures on two different days. Ihad a bad mobo and returned it. Itook one of the pics with a soundcard but it doesn’t fit because it’sold PCI and not PCI-E.

I am going to add a sound cardin the future but don’t know whichone. I was looking at an ASUS cardbut someone wrote it has issues

with live recording - if you need torecord a guitar, and keep it in syncwith another track, you’re out ofluck.

I also have my computerconnected to my stereo - with Bosespeakers, and kick-ass woofers, andalso high-end Audio Technicaheadphones! They are insane andhave huge range. The onboardaudio isn't the best and hasdistortion.

I use Linux Fedora 16 andOpenSUSE. I'm currently buildingmy own distro calledmemorysticky_OS ormemorysticky_Linux - you canpronounce the "underscore" if youwant - any way is fine!

I am also purchasing a custom-built Unicomp Spacesaver model Mkeyboard, with buckling springswitches and control key with nocaps lock -- and also with customcolors to hopefully match my

distro. It’s PS/2, and will, mostlikely, have n-key rollover whichmeans any amount of keys pressedsimultaneously will activate. USBsupports only 6-key rollover max.Many cheap keyboards have 2 key.Originally, I bought it with the DasKeyboard Pro, with cherry mx blueswitches, but the enter key failedafter just a week. I got an RMA(Return Materials Authorization),and returned it for good.

Nicholas J Ferrulli

full circle magazine #57 56 contents ^

PUZZLE SOLUTIONS

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HA

RD

full circle magazine #57 57 contents ^

HHOOWW TTOO CCOONNTTRRIIBBUUTTEE

We are always looking for new articles to include in Full Circle. For articleguidelines, ideas, and for issue translation, please see our wiki:http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuMagazinePlease email your articles to: articles@fullcirclemagazine.org

Full Circle Team

Editor - Ronnie Tuckerronnie@fullcirclemagazine.orgWebmaster - Rob Kerfiaadmin@fullcirclemagazine.orgComms Mgr - Robert Clipshammrmonday@fullcirclemagazine.orgPodcast - Robin Catlingpodcast@fullcirclemagazine.org

Editing & Proofreading

Mike KennedyLucas WestermannGord Campbell

Our thanks go out to Canonical, themany translation teams around theworld and to Thorsten Wilms for thecurrent Full Circle logo.

If you would like to submit news, email it to: news@fullcirclemagazine.org

Send your comments or Linux experiences to: letters@fullcirclemagazine.org

Hardware/software reviews should be sent to: reviews@fullcirclemagazine.org

Questions for Q&A should go to: questions@fullcirclemagazine.org

Desktop screens should be emailed to: misc@fullcirclemagazine.org

... or you can visit our forum via: www.fullcirclemagazine.org

Deadline for FCM#57:Sunday 05th Feb. 2012.

Release date for FCM#57:Friday 24th Feb. 2012.FULL CIRCLE NEEDS YOU!

A magazine isn't a magazine without articles and Full Circle is no exception. We needyour Opinions, Desktops and Stories. We also need Reviews (games, apps &hardware), How-To articles (on any K/X/Ubuntu subject) and any questions, orsuggestions, you may have.Send them to: articles@fullcirclemagazine.org