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LXF October 2011
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LXF149
An epic 132 pages of Linux goodness
Inside Ubuntu
Find out what makes Ocelots, Meerkats and Narwhals tick p56
Seed your own cloud
PLUS! 16-PAGE
Work from anywhere
Better than Apple’s iCloud
CODING SECTION Even more proj ects in ournew Cod ing Academy
Sabayon 6 Inside Ubuntu
Stream music to your phone
Run a whole OS remotely
Astronomy News readers
Build your own and take back control: our hands-on guide to working with the web
Braid
Email on all your devices
This cloud is very small
This cloud is far away
Code in C
Keep data available
Also inside…
Android+Linux=win
Free software for smartphones p92
Music Player Daemon
Embedded terminals
Astronomy
Replace your background with CLI magic p82
Sabayon 6
Debian
It’s like Gentoo without tears p22
Opera
James Vasile
We’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe… p50
IS YOUR FREE DVD MISSING?
Speak to your newsagent now!
Floella Benjamin
I talk about the FreedomBox to everybody who will listen
Free media devices ahoy p48
Printed in the UK
Core skills
Better backups
Back up now to head disaster off at the pass
Distro tweaks
Debian upgraded
Tweak the daddy distro and make it work for you
Coding concepts
Learn the building blocks of code whatever your chosen programming language p110
Braid: it’s Top Stuff
Star of Humble Indie Bundle hits Ubuntu software centre p27
What on earth is IPv6?
We’re going to need a bigger internet… p60
Music Player Daemon
Music for geeks
Because it sounds better from a server
www.TuxRadar.com LXF149 OCTOBER 2011
£6.49
Printed in the UK
Issue 149
The #1 source for Linux
Welcome The #1 source for Linux
What we do
We support the open source community by providing a resource of information, and a forum for debate. We help all readers get more from Linux with our tutorial section – we’ve something for everyone! We license all the source code we print in our tutorials section under the GNU GPLv3. We give you the most accurate, unbiased and up-to-date information on all things Linux.
Who we are
This month’s cover feature is all about the new world of cloud computing. We asked our team: why are you excited about the cloud?
Mike Saunders
“I take my computing services like I take my Weißbier: cloudy.Ganz bestimmt.”
Neil Bothwick
“Does this have anything to do with Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy IV? Because if not,I’m not interested.”
Andy Channelle
Andrew Gregory
“All my computers are up in the clouds.By which I mean computer heaven, after I fried them by overclocking.”
Mayank Sharma
“I once tried to look at theWindowsXPTask Manager,and felt like I was in a cloud of utter nonsense.Aaargh.”
David Cartwright
“If I want to know how cloud computing will pan out,should I ask John Kettley?”
“I once hooked up my UNIVAC 418 to myVAX11/780,which kinda made a cloud.I guess.”
Susan Linton
Shashank Sharma
“What happens if you put a computing cloud inside another computing cloud? Is that like dividing by zero?”
“It’s getting boring up there in the clouds.How about we start going downwards instead,to cave computing?”
Efrain HernandezMendoza
“I’m tired of cloudy weather in the UK.How about sunny computing instead?”
Jonathan Roberts
NOTE:Jon uploaded himself to a cloud this month,to createJaaS (Jon as a Service).
Nick Veitch
“I’ve always had my head in the clouds, although I’ve never seen any computers there.”
Bob Moss
“Meh,I was doing cloud computing years ago on my RM Nimbus (get it, nephologists?)”
More than a feeling This month, Mike and I were fortunate enough to be able to make a trip to Portland in the Northwest of the United States. This was for O’Reilly’s open source conference, OSCON, and it’s the fourth time I’ve been able to attend an event that’s typically crammed full of sessions on everything from robotics to cookery. I always come back full of new ideas, which is great. But what I like most is the immense feeling of positivity you get from being with people who love collaborating, tinkering, coding and socialising. That positivity is infectious, and I think, rather unique to our world.You can feel it at local events too, whether that’s a LUG meeting down the pub or at an installfest in the school, and I think it’s one of our community’s best features. It’s this feeling we try hard to represent in both the magazine and in our two-weekly podcast. As Linux moves on from the desktop and OS wars of the past decade, I think it is this goodwill and positivity that will become our strongest asset. Hacking, tinkering, building your own solutions and playing with code, as we have in this issue’s cover feature for instance, are now more popular pastimes than ever. And it’s the awesome combination of free software and Linux that makes it possible. Graham Morrison Editor graham.morrison@futurenet.com
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and get five issues FREE! www.tuxradar.com
October 2011 LXF149 3
Contents She touched my face...
Reviews
Sabayon 6 ......................... 22 All the power with less of the pain.
Work from anywhere
Better than Apple’s iCloud
Run a whole OS remotely
Stream music to your phone
Sabayon 6’s slick interface.
Haiku R1 Alpha 3 .............. 24 A unique, open source OS.
Opera 11.50 ....................... 26 Singing to a different tune?
Braid....................................27 Puzzling has never been this fun.
Read email on all your devices
This cloud is far away
This cloud is very small
Keep all your data available
Sync passwords and bookmarks
Take back control of your data p40
Braid. We love it.
Thunderbird 5................... 28 Can Mozilla’s email client keep up with its new rolling release schedule?
Books ................................. 36
Seven Languages in Seven Weeks and a beginners guide to Arduino.
Roundup: News readers p30
What On Earth is... IPv6? p60
Talking heads
There are places where the penalties for speaking out are harsh in ways we cannot imagine. James Vasile on fighting censorship p48 4 LXF149 October 2011
www.linuxformat.com
On your free DVD Sabayon 6 LXDE PCLinuxOS Five great games Space apps and net tools
PLUS: Podcasts, code and guides
p126
Don’t miss...
Subscribe today and get five issues FREE! p66
Tutorials
Linux Strikes Back .............50 Battling to bring free software to the galaxy.
Beginners Road to recovery...............76 Avoid the heartache of a data-loss disaster.
18 Unsung Stars................. 54 The quiet apps that deserve some applause.
Inside Ubuntu...................... 56 The minds behind those bonkers names...
Create snapshots with Back in Time.
Desktop frippery Embedded terminal......... 82
Coding Academy
Bored of the same backdrop? Discover how to embed the terminal in your desktop.
Electronics Arduino .............................. 84
C Primer..................................................102 Roll your own shell and get to grips with C.
Build a laser-accurate speed trap.
Python.....................................................106
Distribution Make Debian useful ........ 88
Build a fancy RSS reader to hoover up your data.
Coding Concepts .................................. 110
Get out the polish and make it shine.
Get lists licked in the first of our new series for newbies.
Android ....................................................112 Make your tilting maze game even more a-maze-ing.
Regulars at a glance News............................. 6 What on Earth is? ....60 Answers ....................118 Mozilla’s vision for the future, plus
IPv6: We’re running out of space!
YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Microsoft’s kernel contributions.
Why current numbers don’t add up.
Problems with Puppy? Jaded by
User groups................14 Sysadmin...................62
Jolicloud? Help is at hand.
Celebrating all things Free and Open
A simple solution to installing
Next month ............. 124
Source with Software Freedom Day.
complex software stacks.
The cards might forecast disaster
Mailserver...................16 Subscriptions ...........66 Have a burning desire to tell us
Never miss an issue and keep your
something? Get it off your chest.
collection complete.
but it’s what we say that matters.
Manage your photos with Shotwell.
Integration Android and Linux ........... 92
After a few introductions, your smartphone and your desktop can be best of friends.
Hardcore MPD: Music maestro....... 96 Carry your tunes in your pocket.
Roundup ....................30 HotPicks ....................68 Avoid information overload – five
Hotter than a chilli sausage straight
news readers reviewed and rated.
off the barbie. Pass the cold beer...
Distrowatch...............38 Back issues .............. 117 Sabayon 6, Toorox and new versions
Didn’t make it to the shops? No
of PCLinuxOS and Mandriva.
problem – buy old mags here.
Our subscriptions team is waiting for your call.
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Share your MPD server online.
October 2011 LXF149 5
Reviews Distribution
Sabayon 6
Graham Morrison thinks he can still manage to make room in his distribution pile for a tasty egg-based Italian dessert. In brief... A full-fat distribution that’s based on Gentoo and yet remains easy to install. Arch is a good alternative, but it’s not as easy to use.
S
ometimes a distribution does well without particularly innovating. It simply does the job promised without any hassle. Sabayon is one such distribution. It does have unique features, inherited from its Gentoo heritage, and a rather neat package manager, but its most impressive feature is that there’s very little to complain about. There’s a wide selection of installation media, including prebundled desktops, several of which can be selected from the boot menu of the live install medium. And Sabayon even includes its own eccentricities. Listening to music while the system boots is rather surreal, and reminds us of booting Last Ninja on a Commodore 64 in the summer of 1987. But you’ll also find a great update tool, installer and default desktop, and the whole thing appears super-stable.
Getting these elements right isn’t easy, and very few distributions in the top ten do it as well as Sabayon. It may be derived from Gentoo, a source-based distribution that did little to appease the masses, but you can’t tell. This is a distribution that wants to capture your heart rather than leave you gasping for air when a 12-hour compilation process fails.
User friendly
It’s not interested in having a few unique features, or a nicely designed theme. It wants to be used, and it does this by cramming itself full of almost every application you can think of. You can choose to download and install either a Gnome 2.x, KDE, Xfce or LXDE ISO of the distribution, along with various other respins, and each weighs in at around 1.5GB rather than the full DVD ISO. This makes good sense in a
world where you’re more likely to stick with a single desktop and install from a USB stick, rather than a wasted DVD, and desktops can always be added post-install. It also makes sense to remain with classic Gnome, at least until the dust settles around Gnome 3. When you get to it, the installer is excellent and offers just the right level of detail. You’ll only have to answer a few questions, but you’re still allowed to select where you’d like the bootloader installed, for example, rather than assuming you simply want Grub on the MBR of your first drive. It even offers to ignore the many languages if it’s obvious yours is already included, and you can also choose to use the cutting edge ‘btrfs’ for your drives, which is in-line with other very recent distribution releases. There’s no need to worry about Sabayon’s Gentoo provenance, because
The Sabayon Gnome Desktop Classic Gnome
You won’t find any mention of Gnome Shell here. Just a standard old-school Gnome installation, with default panels and packages.
Community support
Live Help links to online IRC forums and documentation.
Application selection
Sabayon makes informed decisions on what applications to install, including Flash, LibreOffice and even a demo of World of Goo.
Chromium browser
The default browser is now Chrome ahead of Firefox, which is the way many similar distributions are going.
Alternative installs
You don’t have to install a Sabayon desktop. From most boot media, you can also create a media hub.
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Flash and proprietary drivers
Good hardware detection will install AMD and Nvidia drivers, along with Compiz, and Flash is installed by default.
Auto updates
Thanks to the community, packages are updated and automatically installed.
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Entropy Store
The front-end to the package manager includes user reviews and categorisation. It’s not quite Mint, but it’s getting there.
Distribution Reviews
Features at a glance
Detailed installer
Like Arch, Sabayon will give you a running commentary on how your install is going.
Boot options
You don’t have to listen to music while booting – it’s just another option to disable.
installation is more like Ubuntu and Mint. We opted for the Gnome desktop install, as this usually has more obvious custom modifications than the alternatives, and the Ubuntu theme continues. The desktop is a standard Gnome variant, with the exception of the themes. They look good to our eyes
“The bottom line is that this is a solid, modern Linux distribution.” and we prefer it to the latest Mint release, for example, although this is obviously down to taste. Like Mint, Sabayon is another great distribution to try if you’re wanting to avoid the upgrade to Gnome 3.0 for as long as possible. It looks good, the locations of all the applications and configuration panels are where you’d expect, and you still get access to all of the latest software. Another impressive feature is the hardware detection. Our Nvidia hardware was automatically detected and the proprietary drivers installed without any further interaction. This also
The package manager includes both screenshots and user reviews of the software it includes.
Bulletin board
Community updates are shown when you launch the package manager.
meant that Sabayon was able to install Compiz for desktop effects as well as the Emerald theme manager for Compiz. This application is often overlooked by other distributions, which is a pity because it’s a great tool for changing the look and feel of your desktop. A small negative was that the laptop brightness control was unnecessary on our desktop installation.
Media horde
Software choices are more exciting than the standards you might be expecting. Chromium is the default browser, and LibreOffice 3.3.0 is installed and ready to go. The exception is XBMC, the project that was once Xbox Media Center, but is now a media hub to rival MythTV in its ability to handle various codecs, and even television with the right hardware. It’s a great addition in theory, but as other users have pointed out, at least with the first release, it doesn’t work. It fails to launch while complaining of a missing library. This is probably an easy fix, and hopefully will be sorted by the time you read this, but it’s a pity we weren’t able to test its integration with the desktop. Audacious is the music player, and while we didn’t install KDE, we were mightily impressed that Clementine is the default music player, rather than the all too iTunes-like Amarok. Sabayon has also gone down the fashionable route of branding its package manager, Sulfur, as a ‘store’, despite not actually selling anything. What this really seems to mean is that there’s some kind of categorisation, rating and user feedback, and it wins points by including all of these even if the user reviews are a little sparse. However, we thought the noticeboard bulletin that appears when
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you first launch the application is a brilliant idea. It’s used to inform you of updates and issues, but it makes you feel a real part of the Sabayon community, and we’d love to see more features like this, perhaps with more regular updates. A weekly bulletin would be a great incentive to launch Sulfur for updates, and how about expanding it to include bug bounties or ‘job wanted’ type listings? Sulfur is just the front-end to the real package manager, which is called Entropy in what must surely be an attempt at irony. But it’s also possible to use Portage, the Gentoo package manager that builds from source. This adds a cutting edge power-user feel to the desktop, especially if you want Gentoo’s build flexibility without having to create everything yourself. Desktop links to online documentation are sensible, but we’d prefer to see offline versions too, in case the problem you’re trying to solve is actually connecting to the internet. Sabayon also deserves props for its live help, which is a direct link to its IRC channel where other users seem genuinely happy to help. The bottom line is that this is a solid, modern Linux distribution. It looks good, includes a modern package manager with some unique features and, overall, is stable. New users would find it difficult to distinguish between Sabayon and several higher profile distributions, and that’s a genuine compliment for a project that’s based on Gentoo. It’s like Arch with an easier installer, or Mint with a more home-brew community. The developers have done a great job, and while this release is a little short on innovation and some testing, these are small prices to pay for a distribution that just works. LXF
Verdict Sabayon 6 Developer: Fabio Erculiani and others Web: www.sabayon.org Licence: GPL and others
Features Performance Ease of use Documentation
7/10 8/10 9/10 9/10
A high-quality distribution that’s the best entry point for new Gentoo users.
Rating 8/10 October 2011 LXF149 23
Inside Ubuntu
Jono Bacon, community manager at Ubuntu, takes us behind the scenes.
E
very six months we release a new version of Ubuntu. Each one brings together hundreds of developers, translators, testers and documentation writers to integrate the latest and greatest upstream applications, as well as new and innovative Ubuntu technologies. Building and releasing a new operating system every six months is hectic. Really hectic. However, since 2004, when we founded the project, we’ve striven to get the very best out of everyone who participates in building Ubuntu, ensuring that each release is as good as it can be. This article explains how this organised chaos works and provides an insight into how Ubuntu is put together. Everything is encased in a rigorous release cycle, made up of a series of important milestones, which are always publicly available (the current one can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ OneiricReleaseSchedule). Let’s get started by looking at the start of a new cycle.
Casting the net
Before we even start the new release, and while we’re still putting the finishing touches to the previous version, we start performing a requirements gathering exercise.
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The Ubuntu desktop running Unity. Who knew this much work went into creating it?
The teams at Canonical reach out to different stakeholders and the community to see what the next release should focus on. What new features does Ubuntu need? What problems require fixing? Which use cases should we support? This process results in a laundry list of needs that we start to sort into prioritised areas of focus. At the same time,
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we’re coordinating the structure of the next Ubuntu Developer Summit. This face-to-face event happens a few weeks into the start of every new release cycle. We send almost all of Canonical’s Ubuntu engineers and sponsor a number of key community members to join us. The event is open to everyone, and many business representatives join in as well.
Inside Ubuntu
Ubuntu patches to these packages that transform Debian Unstable into Ubuntu. At this point, we have a developer version of Ubuntu that looks and feels like our last release, but built against the new Debian packages and using our toolchain. Now the real work can begin.
Catch of the day
The Ubuntu community at the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Budapest in May 2011.
At the Ubuntu Developer Summit we have 14 tracks covering different themes and we schedule open discussion sessions for the various areas of focus. The goal of every session is to discuss the topic, and make and document decisions and assigned actions in public blueprints. These are web pages that we use to track the work on the features in an open and transparent way. You can see the interface at http://status.ubuntu.com for the next Ubuntu release. The first task we need to tackle in a new cycle is getting the toolchain finalised. The toolchain is the core set of developer tools used to build software for the release. This deep and dirty low-level work is performed first, and then we synchronise the Debian Unstable archive with this toolchain. This effectively builds all Debian packages
against the toolchain, so we have Debian Unstable in our Ubuntu developer repository. When this sync is complete, Ubuntu developers start applying the hundreds of
Over the following months, the developer community starts working on the features and goals agreed upon at the Ubuntu Developer Summit. Progress is made every day: developers triage and prioritise bugs, fix them, and upload fixes to the archive. New features are developed, packaged and uploaded, as well. Each day, when an Ubuntu developer wakes up, he or she will update their system to pull in the latest packages, and then start work on their features and bugs. Typically, this workflow involves looking at the current bug list and at the highest priority bugs and resolving those, while working on the feature goals for the cycle. This feature work often involves cherry-picking specific features from upstreams that are of interest, or creating the code for these new features and building them into the release.
Engineering success Canonical is a large company and has many different teams, and the one that builds Ubuntu is called Ubuntu Engineering. This team is led by Rick Spencer, the Ubuntu engineering director. It’s then divided into the following: Kernel (Pete Graner) Ensures the hardware “just works”. Desktop (Jason Warner) Manages X.org, Unity, LibreOffice, Gnome, Firefox and more. Foundations (Steve Langasek) Works on the pieces between the kernel and the desktop, such as the toolchain.
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Server (Robbie Williamson) Focuses on the Ubuntu cloud components, different types of workloads, Ensemble and more. Community (Jono Bacon) Works to grow the Ubuntu community, build best practice and governance, and manage scale, bottlenecks and community initiatives. Security (Jamie Strandboge) Identifies security issues across new and existing versions, and releases fixes to Ubuntu users. They’re supported by technical architect Allison Randal and release manager Kate Stewart.
October 2011 LXF149 57
Inside Ubuntu
An important piece of this is the new development work that goes into the Ayatana project with Unity, the indicators and other innovative desktop functionality. This work is broken into two primary teams: the Design team designs the functionality based around user needs, and the Desktop team uses these designs to write the code to implement them.
Regular releases
When the Desktop Experience team make a release, they send the code to the Ubuntu Desktop Engineering team, who then package it and upload it to the archive, where everyone can run and test the new code. In each release, we strive to have a new Desktop Experience team release at least once a week (usually Thursday). This weekly deadline has been useful for regular progress. Throughout this period, we release development versions of Ubuntu that we encourage the community to test, file bugs on and help improve. Alpha 1 is shortly after the new release cycle opens and includes the new Debian packages with merges included. Alpha 2 is when you typically start seeing significant new features. Alpha 3 is usually released a few months before the final Alpha and just before Feature Freeze.
Keeping track If you want to keep up-to-date with what’s going on in the Ubuntu world, there are a few important websites you should point your browser at: http://planet.ubuntu.com A constantly updating collection of blog entries from Ubuntu contributors. http://cloud.ubuntu.com Daily news updates on Ubuntu on the public, private and personal cloud.
At Feature Freeze, we lock the release down so no big new features are allowed in and all developer time is focused instead on refining what’s already there. This milestone effectively switches gear from cramming in new and untested features to building quality into what we already have.
The big freeze
Shortly after comes the User Interface Freeze, which is designed to lock down the visual changes. This typically includes theming alterations, Unity changes and other visual components. While this is a freeze we strive to maintain, we’ve often struggled to get everything finalised by this date and sometimes it slips a little. Nonetheless, the User Interface Freeze again latches the team into an even more qualityfocused mindset and those with an interest in Ubuntu’s UI now switch to fixing bugs.
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At this point in the cycle we’re ready to put out a first beta release and all hands are on deck to test, review and prioritise the bugs that are reported, and fix them. In this phase, all the engineering managers and community leaders focus on getting prioritised bug lists together. We can never fix all the bugs, so we focus our efforts on the most critical areas to ensure we deliver the best possible user experience. Shortly after the first beta release, we provide a kernel freeze to reduce the risk of hardware regressions, and we also have a String Freeze when we don’t accept any more changes to the translatable pieces of the system. After these freezes are complete, we release our second and final beta, bang the drum to encourage people to test it and encourage users to file bugs for problems they see. We continue to review these reports and prioritise them. The goal now is about fixing as many as we can before the Final Freeze. After a few final bits of buffing up, we kick out the new release and everyone in the Ubuntu community sleeps for an entire weekend. A few days later, we start all over again…
The U Team
Community spirit If you’re interested in participating in the Ubuntu community, there are two primary resources: IRC and Mailing Lists. IRC The Ubuntu community uses Internet Relay Chat (IRC) heavily on the Freenode network, and these are some of the main channels you should join: #ubuntu-devel This is the primary development channel. #ubuntu-locoteams Ubuntu user groups. #ubuntu-classroom Weekly tuition and training sessions. #ubuntu-community-team Community growth discussion. #ubuntu-server Server-related discussion. #ubuntu-ensemble Ensemble-related cloud deployment and management technology.
www.ubuntu-news.org A place to find regular news and updates from across the Ubuntu project. www.omgubuntu.co.uk Not an official Ubuntu website, but provides timely updates from around the Ubuntu universe. Finally, if you’d like to dig deeper and find out what progress is being made on specific features and goals for the next Ubuntu release, visit http://status.ubuntu.com.
#ubuntu-doc The Documentation team. #ubuntu-women Making Ubuntu both safe and welcoming. #ubuntu-news Goings-on in the community. Mailing Lists Email discussion lists are a key part of how the community discusses and debates ideas and features. Some of the key mailing lists include: ubuntu-devel The primary development list (accessible to approved developers). ubuntu-devel-discuss A development discussion list open to all. loco-contacts Local Ubuntu user group talk. ubuntu-desktop Desktop-related discussion. ubuntu-server Dedicated to server and cloud-related discussion. For a full list of the available Ubuntu mailing lists, see https://lists.ubuntu.com.
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So far we’ve focused on the development of Ubuntu, but there are many teams who are working around the clock while all of this is going on. The Information Services team runs the different servers and build farms, and so on, while the Engineering Managers provide governance and handle day-to-day decisions in the community (see Ubuntu Governance box, above right). Other important teams include: Web team Prepares www. ubuntu.com for the new release, creates product showcases, prepares for the beta, and puts the professional sheen and face of Ubuntu across our web resources. Communications team Creates marketing materials, prepares the press for the beta and final releases, organises press calls, and liaises with different news outlets about features and interviews.
Inside Ubuntu
Ubuntu governance The Ubuntu project is very open and transparent, and it’s always been important to us to provide the opportunity for leaders to help shape the focus and direction of the project, and how it’s governed. Here’s how our system of governance works: At the top of the tree are the Community Council and Technical Board. The Community Council provides decision making and dispute resolution around community process and policy issues. Examples of this include how people become Ubuntu Members, how the other councils operate, and the discussion and evaluation of complaints.
Design team Works on Ubuntu itself, preparing visual assets for the web teams, the CD covers and brochures, and so on. Admin team Coordinates venues, travel and resources for the different sprints and rallies we run throughout the cycle and for the Ubuntu Developer Summit. Finally, my team, the Community team, organises learning weeks throughout the cycle (including Ubuntu Open Week, Ubuntu Developer Week, Ubuntu Community Week, Ubuntu Cloud Days and Ubuntu App Developer Week). We also arrange worldwide events such as the Ubuntu Global Jam, Release Parties and more.
On the horizon
To provide some context, let’s get a feel for what you can expect in the Ubuntu 11.10 release, scheduled for 13 October. These plans were discussed and agreed upon at the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Budapest, Hungary, back in May. As ever, you can track the progress at http://status.ubuntu.com. Key features include:
The Technical Board provides leadership around technical policy in the project, although not over what software and features we decide to include in the release (Ubuntu developers make those decisions). As an example of the kind of leadership it offers, the Technical Board presides over controversial technologies such as Mono, toolchain changes, and other nuts and bolts decisions. Mark Shuttleworth appears at the top of the tree because he has a power of veto that’s designed to break deadlocks. He rarely needs to use it, though, because council members are usually able to reach an agreement.
Unity fit and finish Ubuntu 11.04 delivered the first Unity desktop environment. In 11.10 the focus is on fit and finish, fixing reported bugs and improving on some areas of the interface. You’ll see some new features, but the focus will be very much on quality. Ensemble A hugely compelling cloud deployment and management tool for making the deployment and scaling of cloud services a matter of a few commands. Ubuntu Server 11.10 will ship Ensemble as a key component and we’re working to grow the availability of Ensemble formulas for popular server applications. Thunderbird replacing Evolution Although the final decision will be made later in the release cycle, work is ongoing to replace the Evolution email and calendar application with Mozilla Thunderbird. Work is currently going
Track your progress at http://status.ubuntu.com.
into building Unity support into Thunderbird and ensuring that the application is fully integrated. Qt The popular toolkit will be available in a default Ubuntu installation, thus opening up the available application and developer pool significantly to Qt developers. Qt is a powerful toolkit and firstclass support will continue to make Ubuntu a strong developer platform. Developer story We’ll continue to refine with a new release of Ubuntu Developer Platform, http:// developer.ubuntu.com, to reflect the different application development opportunities open to developers.
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Underneath these two primary bodies are domain-specific councils that focus on Forums, IRC and Ubuntu LoCo Teams (local Ubuntu user groups). There are also boards that evaluate Ubuntu Membership applications (these are localised to Europe, the Americas and Asia), as well as a board that assesses new developer applications. Importantly, anyone and everyone is welcome to apply to be on these boards, and it’s by no means restricted to Canonical staff; in fact, every board has more non-Canonical members. We believe this is critically important in operating an open and transparent community.
Worth the work
While we cram a huge amount into every release cycle, the organised chaos approach that the team has managed to carve out has resulted in a series of predictable releases of the distribution. In fact, since the formation of the Ubuntu project back in 2004, we’ve only ever delayed a release once – and that was a planned delay designed to accommodate the first long term support (LTS) release of the distro. While it’s an intense process, it’s also incredibly rewarding and what makes it so are the phenomenal people who pour their heart and soul into every release. Release plans, freezes, milestones and other essential elements would be nothing if it weren’t for these incredible people. Some of you will love Ubuntu, and some will love another distro, but irrespective of your views, few could fail to be inspired by so many moving parts working together on something they believe in. LXF
October 2011 LXF149 59
Tutorial Podcasting Linux terminal Keep the terminal at
your fingertips with this custom setup
Compiz: Embed Bored with looking at the same old wallpaper? Add the terminal to your backdrop as David Hayward shows you how to embed it into your desktop.
Terminal profiles are great for adding a spark to your desktop. Use these tabs to set them up.
of the terminal and how to create an executable file. If not, don’t worry too much, because we’ve added some screenshots and tried to include as much of the text and code as possible. So here goes.
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Our expert David Hayward has worked in IT for far, far too long. He built the first Linux lab at the University of East Anglia, using Corel Linux and lots of coffee.
hy do we use Linux? Is it because of the security, or the speed and functionality? Is it because it’s free and represents a great two-fingered salute to the corporate giant that is Microsoft? Or is it just because we enjoy being different and having total control over our beloved desktop? Whatever it is that draws you to Linux, you have to admit that the customisation of the operating system is one of its endearing features. We all love a little eye candy from time to time and nothing gives us Linux users more joy than seeing green-faced Windows users drool at the special effects that we can run within our operating systems. Videos and images of rotating 3D desktop cubes have enabled the Linux user to grin smugly for many years, so with that in mind, let’s add one more feature that’s sure to stir the seething cauldron of those who are unwilling to fall under the spell of Linux. Let’s embed the terminal onto the desktop, so it becomes a part of the wallpaper. Why? Well, why not?
Part of the wallpaper
For this how-to we’re using Linux Mint 10, purely because that’s what’s on our system at the moment. Having Compiz already bundled also makes the process a little easier – and not everyone is willing to update to the latest offerings from the Linux community. We’re also going to assume, which is always a dangerous thing, that you have a working and installed version of Linux with Gnome; that you have the Compiz packages installed and running; and that you have a decent working knowledge
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Set up a profile
We’re going to embed the terminal onto the desktop wallpaper, without any borders or title bars and without the use of any third-party applications (other than Compiz); in other words, using Ubuntu’s terminal profile and Compiz. Firstly, open a terminal and click File > New Profile. Enter a name for the new profile (David in this case). This will be the named profile you call when using the Compiz settings. Click Create when you’re ready. In the Profile Settings window, under the General tab, untick Show Menubar By Default In New Terminals. Next, in the Title and Command tab, click on the dropdown box next to When Terminal Commands Set Their Own Titles and select Keep Initial Title. In the Initial Title bar, type the name of your profile. This will specify that any new terminals that are started will be launched with the profile and the new initial title. The drop-down list specifies how to handle the set titles (see image above). The next step is to click on the Background tab, untick Use Background Settings From System Theme and then select Transparent Background, moving the slider all the way over to None. Although this is pretty self-explanatory, it just means that the terminal will appear to be a part of the desktop wallpaper. In the Scrolling tab, use the drop-down box to go to Disabled for the Scrollbar Is option. This will disable the scrollbar on the default right of the terminal screen. Click Close to finish the terminal profile setup and enter the
Linux terminal Tutorial
the terminal Control Centre and CompizConfig Settings Manager. Click on the General Options icon and untick Hide Skip Taskbar Windows. This option will disable hiding windows not in the taskbar when entering the show desktop mode. Click Back when you’re ready and scroll down to the Effects section. Make sure that the Window Decoration effect is ticked and enabled, then click on the icon. In the Decoration windows box, type: (any) & !(title=David) replacing the David with whatever you named your terminal profile as. This clarifies what windows should be decorated, specifically the terminal profile window named David. Click Back when you’re done and scroll down to the Window Management section. Make sure that the Window Rules plugin is ticked and enabled, and click on the icon. Type this piece of code: title=David (again substituting David with your profile name) in the following text boxes: Skip taskbar Skip pager Below Sticky Non-movable windows Non-resizable windows Non-minimisable windows Non-maximisable windows Non-closable windows The above will determine the state and properties of the terminal window, making sure that it remains a static fixture to the desktop wallpaper. Click on Back when you’re done, exit Compiz and return to your desktop. Now all you need to do is run the profile and declare the dimensions of the terminal on the desktop. Press Alt+F2 to open the Run Application window and type in the following: gnome-terminal --window-with-profile=David --geometry 80x45+250+75 & Click on Run when you’ve typed in the command and, hey presto, you should now have the terminal built into – or, more accurately, onto – the desktop. Type Exit to quit the desktop terminal and experiment with the size and position of the
Other tasty terminals If you just want to go down the easy road of having a terminal embedded onto your desktop, then open up your package manager and search for Guake terminal. This pull-down Quakeinspired terminal defaults with 100% transparency
and with a simple hit of the F12 key can be hidden again if necessary. It features everything you’d expect from a decent Gnome terminal, as well as some good configuration options that are just asking to be played around with.
terminal by altering the 80x45+250+75 values. Don’t forget to again substitute the David value for your own profile name.
A 3D desktop cube shows off the final effect.
Make it permanent
If you want to make this a permanent feature when you start up Linux, you’ll need to create a basic executable script that will initialise the run command after the Compiz services have started. To do this, use your favourite text editor (Gedit, for example) and create a file called something like deskterm.sh, then add the following lines of code: #!/bin/bash sleep 25 && gnome-terminal --window-with-profile=David --geometry 80x45+250+75 & Change the sleep time to whatever you prefer and what works best with your system – and you can always copy and paste the experimented values for your terminal from the Run Application window you entered earlier. Save the file and exit the text editor. Make the newly created file executable by opening a terminal and typing in: chmod +x deskterm.sh (changing the name of the file to the one that you created). Go to the Control Centre and click Startup Applications. Click Add when the Preferences window pops up and enter a name for the file you created – Deskterm, for instance – followed by the command, browse to the deskterm.sh file then enter a comment (if you want). Click on Add when you’re done, make sure the Deskterm command is ticked in the list of startup programs and click Close. Restart your system and, all going well, you should now have a fully working terminal as part of the desktop wallpaper on every desktop workspace. Typing Exit will close down the terminal, so you’ll have to run the executable again if you want the embedded terminal to reappear. And finally, why do we do this? Because we’re Linux users and we can! LXF
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