While it is possible to download a Linux distribution from a project website or developer homepage right away, it is often more comfortable to download it from the desktop without having to search for the download links and homepage in the first place.

Get Linux is a brand new program for Windows that provides download links and additional information for more than one hundred different Linux distributions. When you start the portable program for the first time you are presented with a list of Linux operating systems on the left side. A search form is available which you can use if you are looking for a particular distribution.

Each Linux version is displayed with its name, the available version, desktop version, file size and country of origin. The description offers a first overview if the selected Linux distribution.

The program furthermore displays a screenshot of the selected distribution and download links for 32-bit and 64-bit editions (if available).

A download progress window is automatically displayed that details the total size, completion status, download speed and time remaining.

You can download a distribution with a single click on the Download button in the program interface. You may want to check out the program settings before you do that, as it allows you to specify the download folder and notification settings.

Get Linux links to the website of the distribution, the project page on Distrowatch and a YouTube search. These links can be used as research starting points.

Get Linux is a handy tool for Windows users who want to download one or multiple Linux distributions to their system. The core benefit the software provides is faster access to those downloads.

Windows users can download the latest version of the application from the project website over at Sourceforge. Get Linux requires the Microsoft .Net Framework 3.5. (via)

When you first download and run YUMI, you will have to pick an USB drive letter from the list of available devices. All other options are grayed out or not visible at all until this is done. It is possible to display a list of all devices by enabling Show All Drives. This can be handy if the USB device is not detected automatically by the software. Caution is advised as selection of the wrong drive letter can result in data loss on the drive.

Once you have selected the USB device you want to store the tools on, you can start selecting individual tools from the now populated list. Linux distributions are displayed at the top, followed by a tools selection. When it comes to Linux, you find popular distributions (and editions) like Fedora, Open Suse, Linux Mint or Ubuntu listed as 32-bit and 64-bit editions.

The troubleshooting tools are divided into Antivirus Tools, System Tools and Other Tools. Included here are among others the AVG, Kaspersky and Avira Antivir Rescue CDs, the backup and partition cloning software Clonezilla, the hard drive data eraser DBAN, Memtest86+ for memory testing or the partitioning tool Parted Magic.

It is furthermore possible to add custom ISO images from the local PC. That’s handy if a required distribution or tool is not included in the program’s listing.

To add a tool or distribution you select it first. You then get the option to download the ISO from the developer site or select it from a local storage device. The download option will open a direct download link in the default web browser. It is then still necessary to select the ISO manually to add it to the USB device.

It may make sense on first run to enable the format drive option to erase previous contents on the drive.

A click on Create will prepare the disk and copy the selected ISO image on it.

Please note that you can only add one distribution or tool to the USB device at a time. You need to repeat the process for every other tool or Linux distribution that you want to add as well. The second issue that I have is that you cannot see if you have enough disk space left on your device. The size of the ISO images is not displayed and neither is the free space on the USB device.

You then need to boot your computer from the USB device to run the tools before the operating system loads.

YUMI makes the creation of a multiboot tool collection relatively easy. The developers need to work on the issues described above. Windows users can download YUMI Multiboot USB Creator from the developer site. The software is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system.

An alternative is Sardu which provides a similar functionality but without the restrictions.

Download and install the latest version of LiLi from the link that follows.

Follow all of the steps in the installer and click Finish at the end. Check the box to “Run LinuxLive USB Creator”. The application will launch and you can get started if you already have the LinuxLive ISO downloaded or on CD/DVD.

If you do not have a Linux ISO downloaded or on CD/DVD, you will need to download the ISO first. There is no need to burn it to a CD or DVD unless you want a hard copy. You can download it to your hard drive and LiLi can access it from there. Not all versions of Linux are compatible with LinuxLive USB Creator. Ubuntu, Knoppix, and LinuxMint are good LinuxLive options. One that works very well with this method is Fedora. A link to download the Fedora ISO is included here. Unlike many of the Linux ISO downloads, this one does not take long to download and is definitely compatible with LiLi. (check out Distrowatch’s list of major distributions for other downloads)

At the LiLi interface, you will find that it is broken down into 5 steps. Just follow the steps in the order listed to install Linux to your USB drive. The first step is to choose the USB drive or other portable USB device for installation.

If the volume is formatted in NTFS, you will later need to format it in FAT32. We will get to that, but you may as well format your USB in FAT32 before starting. In step 2 you will choose whether to use an existing ISO/IMG/Zip file, CD, or tow download an ISO from supported distributors.

LiLi will then check the ISO to ensure that it is a good file and is compatible.

In step 3, you set the amount of space for drive persistence. This is how you will be able to save files and installed programs between reboots. This does take up drive space, but it is well worth it to have the persistence. The larger the capacity of the USB drive, the better if you will be adding many programs and files.

In step 4, enable Launching LinuxLive in Windows and this will download portable VirtualBox to the USB. If the USB drive is already formatted in FAT32, you can leave that box unchecked. If it is formatted in NTFS, check the box to format in FAT32. Click the lightning bolt image in step 5 and the drive will be created. When it is complete, you will see the sign of success:

To use your new LinuxLive key, open Windows Explorer and open the USB drive, double-click VirtualBox\Virtualize_this_key.exe and portable VirtualBox will be launched and your installed version of Linux will open.

They know full well that any modern platform will live or die on the number and quality of the apps available for it and, in order to gain any kind of critical mass on tablets and other mobile devices when it ships next year, Windows 8 will need a good number (we’re talking thousands) of good quality apps in a wide variety of categories sitting ready in the new Windows Store.

This, according to Linux Gnome co-creator Miguel de Lcaza is why Linux is doing so badly on the desktop.  In an interview given to Tim Anderson’s IT writing blog…

When you count how many great desktop apps there are on Linux, you can probably name 10. You work really hard, you can probably name 20. We’ve managed to piss off developers every step of the way, breaking APIs all the time.

He also cites the confusion caused by so many completely different distributions of Linux on the desktop as a reason for the platform’s failure to take off in any meaningful way.

To be honest, with Linux on the desktop, the benefits of open source have really played against Linux on the desktop in that we keep breaking things. It is not only incompatibilities between Red Hat, Unbuntu, Suse, but even between the same distribution.  Ubuntu from this week is incompatible with the one nine months ago. And then there are multiple editions, the KDE version, the Gnome edition, the one that is the new launching system.

It’s unusual that only a few short years ago we were all saying that what set one operating system apart from others were factors including ease of use, power and flexibility.  Then along came the iPhone and almost everything changed to the quality and availability of apps, so much so that this has even now become Microsoft’s new focus; this is despite the fact that nobody would ever criticise the Windows desktop platform for ever being short of software.

He was also asked about Windows 8 and said…

They are Microsoft, it’s going to succeed. In three years they are going to have this thing on half a billion computers, so it will be out there.  I have to say, I actually like Windows 8. I am not a Windows user. It’s probably the first time that I would use a Windows machine.

This may be somewhat optimistic as first Microsoft will need to placate business and IT pro users who like the flexibility and power of full desktop apps.  There can be no doubt that he is a man who knows what he’s talking about though.  He still is critical about Windows though where it’s deserved.

Right, and it is needed, they definitely need to fix this mess, a lot of malware, spyware, and the fact that everybody is sysadmin, and has to reinstall their machine every so often.

In the defence of GNU/Linux (which isn’t something I’m often accused of doing) it has a lot going for it with modern distributions, I even have a full chapter devoted to it in my book Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out and will probably do the same for the Windows 8 edition next year.

This opens the Keyboard Preferences dialog in which you can select different language layouts. Click the “Layouts” tab and then click “Add”.

Now the Layout dialog box opens. Scroll through the various different countries and variants to select the desired language layout that you want to set. Keep in mind that you can set multiple languages and the default will not be lost. In this demonstration, we are selecting basic German for the keyboard layout. Select by country to choose any language and then select any applicable variant. Certain countries, such as the United States, can display several different languages. When your selections have been made, click Add and you are able to preview the keyboard layout for that language setting.

You are also able to set the layout by language and set a variant. When you have completed your selections, click Add.

In this case, the keyboard language was set both by country and by language. You can do either one, but the layout may vary somewhat if you do not set by country and by language. This is something you will have to experiment with, as the settings will be different for each country and language. Always view the preview to be sure that it is what you are looking for or at least close to what you are looking for.

Notice that we now have two languages displayed in the Keyboard Preferences. Both are immediately usable and you can add additional languages or simply close the dialog.

Now that multiple languages have been installed, a new icon will be displayed in the System tray. This will be located in the upper-right portion of the screen. An abbreviation of the country for which the keyboard is set is shown here. Click on the icon to reveal the list of languages and to change languages. You may also access Keyboard Preferences here to add more languages.

Click on “Show Current Layout” to preview the keyboard layout for a selected language. Here, the language was switched to German and we get a layout preview.

You can print this layout easily from this screen. At the bottom-right you will see the Print button. Click Print and you have an easy reference to keep beside your keyboard for reference.

To change keyboard shortcuts for switching languages, open the keyboard preferences dialog and click the “Layouts” tab. Now chose the keyboard shortcuts to switch between input languages. For example, check the box next to “Alt+Shift” and this will be the shortcut to change keyboard languages. Choose the shortcut that is most convenient for you.

There are other options in Keyboard Preferences to customize keyboard settings, should you desire to experiment with these. This covers the basics for adding keyboard languages to Ubuntu.

This support will be for Windows enterprise customers who are also running a SUSE machines in conjunction with their Windows boxes.  It’s a good move on the part of Microsoft to avoid upsetting business customers who are already feeling squeezed with extremely tight profit margins and software assurance costs to the Redmond giant.  The move will mean these enterprise customers won’t have to pay for further Linux support.

In a press release Microsoft said…”As IT operating environments become increasingly consumerized, cloud-based and automated, there is an implicit expectation that the underlying technologies from multiple vendors should work together. For this reason, the collaborative relationship between Microsoft and SUSE has come to be viewed as a model for the industry.  The joint Microsoft-SUSE collaboration has served more than 725 customers worldwide across a range of industries, such as manufacturing, oil and gas, healthcare, and financial services.”

“Our collaboration with SUSE not only helps customers to achieve success today, but also seeks to provide them with a solid foundation for tomorrow,” said Sandy Gupta, general manager of the Open Solutions Group at Microsoft. “Through our continued engagement on the technical side, an outstanding support offering from SUSE and our ability to provide mutual IP assurance, we feel confident that we will be able to deliver core value to those running mixed-source IT environments well into the future – and into the cloud.”

This move doesn’t mean that Microsoft will stop complaining about Linux or even stop suing for patent infringement, as these are just what the technology industry does (probably at the request of lawyers needing to justify their sky-high salaries).  It’s further evidence though that, deep down, technology companies around the world are more interested in building better experiences for their customers than they are feathering their own nests.

This is something I have always felt sets the tech world apart from other industries such as finance or energy.  It’s a good move and both Microsoft and Novell should be applauded for working together again.

With a three button mouse, typically people keep the default settings. With a five button mouse, the extra two buttons often go unused. The default is that they typically are used to go back and forward in web browsers and file managers. This is not as handy in other programs. Other functions might be more useful; the user should decided what they need. For example, I would rather use the extra buttons to copy and paste text. Enter btnx.

Using Btnx

To install btnx, search for it in Ubuntu’s Software Center (found in the Application menu). Alternatively, you can install it from the command line.

sudo apt-get install btnx

Now you can access btnx from:

Applications > System Tools > btnx

This will bring up a GUI dialog box for you to configure you mouse. From here, click “Detect mouse & buttons” and follow the steps. It will have you test your mouse and label the buttons. Don’t forget to add your scroll wheel. It is an extra step compared to manufacturers’ software, but it only takes a minute or two. Next, click on the “Buttons” tab to configure what each button does. Usually, it is the extra mouse buttons that are the best to customize, but any can be changed.

In this case, I set the keycode on “Button-1″ (named by me) to “C” and the modifier to “Ctrl.” Since this is just a case of simulating “ctrl+c” to copy something, left or right control keys are irrelevant. Naturally, I set the “Button-2″ as “ctrl-v” for paste. Page Up & Page Down would also make sense. Options are not limited to key combinations. Programs and other buttons can be set as well. A wide array of functions are available for someone to choose from.

Make sure to click the “Enabled” check box. To apply the changes, restart btnx from the “Configurations” tab. If a change does not seem to be taking place, try restarting btnx or your computer.

Note: The homepage and the help files were not available. For clarification and program details, use the man pages from the Wayback Machine.

Problems and Issues

In tests, while the remapping worked, a curious side effect evolved: the buttons now work as both copy & paste and forward & back. This made them useless in websites. Further research lead to a fix: xinput. The program will let you swap or disable mouse buttons, among other things. It should come with Ubuntu and other types of Linux, but it can be installed from the terminal:

sudo apt-get install xinput

Once installed, you need to use it to list and show devices:

xinput list

You should see your pointing device listed. Look for your manufacturer’s name. If the name appears twice, then you need to use the “id” number in place of the name. Once you have found this information, you can disable the extra button functionality with the following line:

xinput set-button-map “Your mouse name” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 0 0

Now, your mouse should work as intended. Btnx will still know you are pressing the buttons, so the remap will still work. If you have problems, try running through “Detect mouse & buttons” again to make sure they were set correctly. Note: You may have to do this each time you customize the buttons.

Closing

It took some time to find the answers, but I now have perfectly functional copy & paste buttons on my trackball. These solutions where found in the forums at ubuntuforums and pinoygeek. With luck, you will not have the problems that I ran into. If you do, I hope this article saves you the trouble of having to research the solution. Please feel free to share how you remap your mouse in the comments.

The Nul Folder

The nul folder is designed to make it easy to get rid of output. In the days of the command line interface, where everything was text on a screen, you might not want to see some (or any) information from a command. In this case, you could redirect that output to the nul folder. If you moved a file to a nul folder, then it would be deleted. With GUIs and the Trash Can / Recycle Bin, this is not as useful as it once was; it is mostly there for legacy support. That does not mean we cannot find new uses for it.

Note: In Windows, you cannot create a folder with “nul” as the name, but you can create a nul folder on Dropbox’s website.

A Linux Only Folder

The nul folder can exist on a Linux system. There is a similar feature in Linux, but it only exists in one place: /dev/null (and is a file rather than a folder). Since nul is a valid folder in this case, and it can exist on the web access, then you can use it to store files. It is impossible for the folder to show up in Windows, but Dropbox will not penalize Linux. Any files stored there will only available via Linux or the web access. It still will affect your quota, but it can save you hard drive space on Windows.

You could have nul as a top level folder and a hierarchy under it. Everything inside it would be organized but only exist in Linux. That includes subfolders and files within them.

Some Non-Linux Uses

Even if you do not use Linux, you could still use this trick for other purposes. On example is akin to a secret folder. The only way to access it would be from the website. From there, files could be copied and moved in and out of the secret folder as needed. The files would never show up on the computer. Another would be as an cloud recycle bin. Moving a file from a normal folder to a nul folder (from the web access) would delete it from the hard drive but not from Dropbox.

A Note of Caution

It is doubtful that this is an intended feature. It is more likely that this is an interoperability quirk. Dropbox has to work with multiple operating systems that work in different ways. Dropbox may alter the methods it employs or a bug may come into play unnoticed. The more information you store in a nul folder, the bigger the risk you take.

Another thing to consider is that this method may work with “con”, “aux”, “prn”, and other device files too. Those are more legacy devices that cannot be folders on a Windows computer. If you want files to be available in Windows and Linux, do not call the folder any reserved name.

(Okay, there really is a way to create these folders, but we do not recommend it.)

What About Macs?

I did not have a Macintosh computer to test this trick on. Since Macs are so similar to Linux, my guess is that you could make a Linux/Mac only folder. In other words, Windows is always the odd man out. Hopefully some of our Mac users will give this a try and let us know.

Naturally, you jump on your computer, open up a terminal window, and start throwing out sudo apt-get install commands left and right to play with new applications. But wait: Error messages start flying back saying that you profile is not included as a sudoer.

Well, not exactly. If the first time you attempt to operate as root on a recently installed system and the system spouts back something about your profile not having sufficient privileges to carry out the task, it means that you properly installed the distro.

The fact is that you (probably) do not want to be operating as supervisor all the time. It can be dangerous, and far too often it leads to system meltdowns at the worst possible times. While not having to insert a password before any administrative task can be helpful a lot of the time, using root as a primary account leaves your computer exposed to user stupidity – and plain dumb mistakes happen to the best of us.

Ok, so you don’t want to be root all the time, but you obviously need to be able to carry out administrative tasks from time to time – like when you want to do something as simple as installing a new program. So how do you add your profile to the sudoer file?

It’s actually very easy. First, open up a terminal window (probably the one that yelled at you for having insufficient privileges in the first place). For this tutorial let’s pretend your username is alpha, so every time you see alpha substitute in your general user profile. Go ahead and type is “su” on the first line and hit enter. You will be prompted for your password – go ahead and supply it.

Next, you need to give yourself permission to edit the sudoers file. Type

Then click enter again. Now you can go in and add yourself to the list. Type

And then go ahead and click enter again. Congratulations, you’re now on the list. Before we leave, we want to reset the permissions of the sudoer file by typing

chmod -w /etc/sudoers

Click enter again, type “exit”, press enter again, and then type “exit” one more time to leave the terminal window. And that’s it! Your profile has now been added to the list of those with administrative privileges.

While it is not a difficult procedure, it is one that is easily forgotten. Once you have given yourself sudo privileges you can give them to other Linux users as well, whether you have multiple profiles set up for other users on your computer or even different profiles for different tasks.

Update:

Edit: A number of people have responded to this post raising very justified concerns about configuring sudo in this manner. While it is perfectly safe if you are careful about every change you make, a mistake in configuring sudo can lead to bad problems down the line. As a safeguard, many people prefer editing the sudo file through the visudo command, which, if sudo has not yet been configured, must be accessed when logged in as root. To do so, login as root, open a terminal and type:

visudo

At the bottom of the new series of characters is a line that reads:

#includedir /etc/sudoers.d

To enable a user full access to sudo, simply type:

Press Ctrl+X to exit the program and click Y to save a backup buffer file on your way out just in case things go wrong.

Two ways to address the same problem – This method simply provides a failsafe.

One fun change you can make is customizing your desktop in a pretty unique way – by changing the background image every so often automatically. While some programs exist to help you with this task, there is absolutely no reason why you cannot do it yourself with a few simple commands. Before long you can have your entire vacation album scrolling behind your open windows, changing photos every five, ten, or thirty minutes – it’s entirely up to you.

To begin, open a terminal window and open a new text file:

gksu gedit

You are going to insert a line of commands into this file, which you will later turn into a shell script. The function of each line is outlined below; you only need to copy and paste the big block of text further down. The individual explanations are so you can customize the code to fit your needs.

picsfolder=”/media/documents/photosfordesktop”

This line points to whatever folder holds the photos you want scrolling in the background. Be sure to change it to whatever folder holds yours.

cd $picsfolder

This changes the current directory to the new folder full of pictures.

files=(././.jpg)

This creates an array out of all your photos, allowing them to be mixed up for display later.

N=${#files[@]}

This simply identifies the number of pictures in the new array.

((N=RANDOM%N))

This chooses a random photo from those you made available.

randomfile=`echo ${files[$N]} | cut –characters=”1 2” –complement`

This identifies the name of the specific photo chosen.

Gconfigtool-2 -t str –set /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename “$picsfolder$randomfile”

This sets the desktop with your new (temporary) photo as the background.

Now, take all those commands, put together below, and copy and paste them into the text editor you opened earlier:

picsfolder=”/media/documents/photosfordesktop”
cd $picsfolder
files=(././.jpg)
N=${#files[@]}
((N=RANDOM%N))
randomfile=`echo ${files[$N]} | cut –characters=”1 2” –compliment`
Gconfigtool-2 -t str –set /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename “$picsfolder$randomfile”

Save your text document as /bin/timedwallpaper.sh and exit the text editor. Everything is ready – now you just need to tell your computer to do it. For this next part your distribution needs to have “cron” installed, a program which typically comes pre-packaged. To make sure you have it, type

sudo apt-get install cron

Once you have ensured it is installed, type

crontab -e

At the bottom start a new line and type

*/5 * * * * timedwallpaper.sh

This sets the time between pictures at five minutes. Change the number to whatever you see fit. Arrow down to the next blank line, and then type

@reboot timedwallpaper.sh

After that, press Control+x, then y, and finally enter. Exit the terminal and you are good to go. Not only will your script run however often you program it to, it will now reset each time you start your computer as well. Enjoy the scenery!

Many people are fond of that last one, but it isn’t really all that easy to do. Most people employ the help of little programs for things like that, but the software used to embed the terminal is rarely updated to new versions of various distros.

One, however, has stayed intact, and this tutorial will help you through the process of putting the terminal right where we all need it – on the desktop.

First of all, you need to create a new Terminal profile that will run under the parameters you will set later. Open up your Terminal, then go to File, New Profile, type “Transparency” (without the quotes) as the title, and then click Create.

This creates the profile necessary to continue. You now need to fix a few settings. Under Title and Command, change the initial title to Transparency and select Keep Initial Title in the drop down menu. Select transparent under the Background tab, and set it to be as (you guessed it) transparent as you like. Some people prefer completely clear, but make sure the font color will stand out against your existing desktop background.

Next you want to download the program that will make all this possible. In your terminal, type:

sudo apt-get install devilspie

Next, you need to create a configuration file for your profile:

mkdir ~/.devilspie
gedit ~/.devilspie/Transparency.ds

Then take the following piece of code and pasted it in Transparency.ds:

( if
( matches ( window_name ) "Transparency" )
( begin
( set_workspace 4 )
( undecorate )
( skip_pager )
( skip_tasklist )
( geometry "890x694+178+58" )
( below )
( pin )
( println "match" )
)
)


Almost there! Now all you need to do is make sure that your computer opens a Terminal window in this manner each time it boots. Under System Settings open Startup Applications. First, click add, and under command, type:

devilspie -a

Then click enter. Click add again, and under command type:

gnome-terminal –window-with-profile=Transparency

That’s all there is to it. Reboot your system, and when it comes back up you should find a handy terminal window built right into your desktop, ready to work at whatever you desire.

If the configuration listed here does not quite work for you, experiment with the code you pasted in Transparency.ds under “geometry”. Those are the parameters the system uses to place the box. Of course, you can always fiddle with the color and transparency settings assigned to the profile by going to the Terminal and clicking on Edit, then Profile Preferences.

This neat, quick little quick little fix will be of interest to your Linux inclined friends and make Windows users wonder why they can’t do the same thing.

The Acer laptop comes without optical drive, which means that I have to install Linux from an USB device. But how do you get the Linux installation files on the USB device and ensure that Linux can be booted and installed from the device?

I remembered that I have reviewed UNetBootin, the Universal Netboot Installer, in 2008. The program is still around and updated regularly to include popular Linux distributions.

A friend recommended a similar program called Universal USB Installer which offered a similar functionality. And since I have not reviewed that program yet, I made the decision to use that program to install Linux on my notebook.

Preparing the USB device

Universal USB Installer is a portable application for Microsoft Windows operating system. Just run it to open the configuration screen. Everything is handled on that screen. Make sure you plug in your USB stick before you start the program, as it will not be recognized by the program otherwise. The stick needs to have a size of at least 2 Gigabytes. It should also be reasonably fast as the copying and installation may take a long time or fail if it is to slow.

You start by selecting one of the available Linux distributions from the pulldown menu under Step 1. Available are the latest stable releases of Ubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint, Open Suse and a couple dozen more.

You can select to download the ISO from the project homepage, or select an existing ISO image from the local hard drive. Downloads were processed in Microsoft Internet Explorer, even though that was not the default web browser on my computer system.

You select the usb flash drive letter under step 3. Only removable drives are displayed by default. You can override that option to display all drives but that is usually not recommended as installation on a local hard drive may break the installed operating system on those drives.

It is recommended to format the drive which will erase all contents stored on it before the Linux distribution is copied to it. Persistent file size is only necessary if you plan to run the Linux system from USB stick. Since my intention was to install it on the notebook, I did not need to configure that storage.

Installation of the Linux distribution on the device takes time, especially if the device is not that fast. A progress bar indicates the remaining time and the current state of the copying process.

Using the Linux distribution on USB

Now that Linux has been installed on the USB device, you can make use of it in two different ways. You can plug it into any computer to run Linux directly from the device, or use it to install Linux on that computer. One thing that you probably need to do is to enter the BIOS setup to change the boot order. The notebook’s hard drive is usually the first boot device, and you need to change that so that your USB device comes first and the hard drive second.

The loader of the selected Linux distribution is displayed once you have made the boot order change. It is then just a matter of selecting to Install the Linux distribution on the hard drive, or run it from USB device.

Verdict

The process of copying Linux to an USB device has been pleasant. It took less than five minutes to download and copy all relevant files on the USB device. The first USB stick that I tried caused a problem during installation, probably because it was not fast enough. The second USB stick that I tried was faster and installation commenced without further problems.

Users who want to install Linux on a netbook without optical device can use the Universal USB Installer to do that comfortably. The program is constantly updated with new Linux releases. A download is provided at the developer website. that has been linked above in the article.

So why do I have this bad feeling in the pit of my stomach that whatever Microsoft deliver next year won’t be good enough?  Microsoft tout the features of Windows 7, its stability and reliability almost to excess.  Certainly it’s the most stable, reliable and dependable operating system the company has ever produced.

Windows 8, when it finally arrives, will no doubt be even more reliable, stable and dependable than even Windows 7 is capable of being.  Then there’s been all the tablet talk in the last year or so.  Google rushed a new version of its Android OS out of the door, Steve Ballmer has said that the next version of Windows will be tablet friendly and the world is looking forward to all that.

If we look at the, now mature, smartphone market though what do we see?  Probably the biggest and most popular smartphone OS out there at the moment, Google’s Android, is still based around a desktop with widgets on it.  Indeed its handsets still come with a cursor you can move around.  This is a good example I feel that no matter how good this particular smartphone OS might be, its still a step behind its users.

If you look back historically for instance to the days of MS DOS and Windows 1.  By the time Windows and Mac OS were first released, users had already been clamoring for a GUI OS with alternatives such as DesqView and GEM rising to fill the temporary gap.  With almost every OS the world has seen it’s been a step behind its users.

But surely this is the problem, as new technology comes along we find more and more innovative uses for it and so the technology keeps getting left behind.  Operating systems suffer from this problem even more.  Look at Windows.  The current version is leagues behind where its users want it to be.  Only now are Microsoft taking features such as tablet functionality and System on a Chip seriously.  All the companies responsible for hardware and operating systems are staying one step behind their users.  There’s one exception to this however and that’s Apple.

Apple are the only technology company that’s being proactive and trying to anticipate what its users will want to do in the coming years.  It’s this forward-thinking attitude that have put the company firmly in the lead, and that will keep it there until anybody else is brave enough to catch up.  Nintendo and Microsoft have both achieved this to a lesser degree in recent years with innovative new ways to interact with their games consoles.  These innovations aside though there’s very little that’s staying ahead of the users of modern technology.

So where does this leave any OS?  If you look at any of the desktop operating systems, OS X, GNU/Linux and Windows, they’re all currently playing catch up with their users.  Now smartphone and tablet operating systems are doing the same with Google and Microsoft rushing to finish products they should really have brought to market a couple of years ago.

That was the time when people wanted these features, right back at the beginning.  Unfortunately unless and until the big technology and software companies realise that the consumer is now ahead of them, no operating system will ever be good enough.

Let’s take a look at the installation and use of gpodder, so you can better organize your podcasts.

Features

In case you’re wondering, gpodder has a nice listing of features:

• iPod, MP3 player and mobile phone support
• RSS, Atom, YouTube and Soundcloud feeds
• Easy to use interface
• gpodder.net integration.
• GUI and command line interface
• Open Source and Free Software (GPL v3 or later)

Installation

Gpodder will be found on nearly every Linux distribution and can be found on the standard repositories. Because of this, gpodder is as simple to install as:

1. Open up the Add/Remove Software tool (such as Synaptic).
2. Search for “gpodder” (no quotes).
3. Mark gpodder for installation.
4. Click Apply to install.

Once installed, you will find the gpodder application in Applications > Sound & Video.

First run

Figure 1

Upon first running gpodder you will be greeted by a welcome screen where you can do one of two things: Select from a sample list of podcasts or download your subscriptions from gpodder.net. In order to download subscriptions from gpodder.net you have to have an account (it’s free). If you don’t already have a gpodder.net account, don’t worry, you can add that account to gpodder later. So, if you are without an account, just click “Choose from list of sample podcasts”. Once you click that button you will be presented with a short list of sample podcasts (see Figure 1). After you select the samples, click Add and the podcasts you selected will be added.

Once you are in gpodder, and you have your gpodder.net account, you can click on Podcasts > Preferences and then, in the gpodder.net tab, enter your account information.

Once you have gpodder associated with your account, you will need to have podcasts added to your account (through the gpodder.net site).

Figure 2

Of course you can also add podcasts via URL. To do this you must first locate the url of the podcast you want to add. Say you want to add ESPN’s Pardon The Interruption. For that the url would be http://espn.go.com/espnradio/feeds/rss/podcast.xml?id=2406595. To add that url click Subscriptions > Add podcast via url. When the new window opens, paste the url into the text area and click Add. If there are any new podcasts you will be prompted for downloading. As you can see, in Figure 2, your podcasts are a conveniently listed and dated so you can listed to them accordingly.

To listen to a podcast select the podcast and then click Play. The default mp3 player will open to play your podcast.

Final thoughts

Yes, you can play podcasts through numerous different applications, but gpodder is one of the best of the single-minded applications available.

Wget can do a lot of things browsers can not do, which makes it an incredibly valuable tool for users who do a lot of downloading. Wget can even re-connect and finish a download if a connection is dropped. Let’s take a look and see how to make best use of this very powerful tool.

Installation

Installation for wget is very simple, as it will be found in the standard repositories. You can install wget from either the command line (such as yum install wget or sudo apt-get install wget) or you can also install wget from the Add/Remove Applications tool (Ubuntu Software Center, PackageKit, Synaptic, etc) by doing the following:

1. Open the tool.
2. Search for “wget” (no quotes).
3. Mark for installation.
4. Apply.

Usage

Remember, wget is a command line only tool (although there are front-ends available) so you will need to either be working from within a terminal window or logged onto a virtual terminal. Now that you have the right tool open, let’s see how wget can help you.

The basic usage is:

wget ADDRESS_TO_FILE

Where ADDRESS_TO_FILE is the actual address (URL or IP) to the file you want to download.

The above will download a single file to your hard drive. Now, what if you have a need to do an recursive downloading? For example there is an entire directory of files you need to download. To do recursive downloading on a remote directory the command would be:

wget -r ADDRESS_TO_DIRECTORY/DIRECTORY

The above command will download a directory hierarchy that matches the hierarchy downloaded from. In other words, within the directory you ran the wget command, you will find (using the above as an example) a newly created directory called ADDRESS_TO_DIRECTORY. Within that directory will be all of the subdirectories you downloaded.

If you don’t want to download the hierarchy, just the files, you would add the -nd switch like so:

wget -r -nd ADDRESS_TO_DIRECTORY/DIRECTORY

Now the only thing that will download is the files contained within DIRECTORY.

What if the address or directory you are downloading requires a username and password? You can pass that along with the wget command like so:

wget -r -nd --user=USERNAME --password=PASSWORD ADDRESS_TO_DIRECTORY/DIRECTORY

Where USERNAME is the required username, PASSWORD is the required password, ADDRESS_TO_DIRECTORY is the address and DIRECTORY is the directory containing the files.

Now, if you want to run wget in the background (so you don’t have to be logged in) you would issue the command as such:

wget -bqc ADDRESS_TO_FILE/FILE

Where ADDRESS_TO_FILE is the address containing the file and FILE is the file name to be downloaded.

Final thoughts

You will find wget to be one of the more useful tools in your Linux toolkit. And once you start using it you will never look back.

For most users, vi offers too much with too little help. To that end, tools like Gvim were created. Gvim is a strange amalgamation of a standard text-based file editor and a graphical file editor. Its half vi half gedit. Let’s take a look at how this editor can help you out.

Installation

The installation of Gvim is simple. I will demonstrate in Ubuntu. Since Gvim is found in the standard repositories, you can follow these steps:

1. Open up a terminal window.
2. Issue the command sudo apt-get install gvim.
3. Type your sudo password and hit Enter.
4. Allow the installation to complete.

You can find Gvim in the Ubuntu Software Center (or the Add/Remove Software tool for your distribution), but since Gvim is a text-based editor, why not install from command line?

After the installation is complete, you will be surprise to not find a menu entry for Gvim. So to start up Gvim hit Alt-F2 and enter the command gvim in the run dialog. When the application starts, you will see a nice hybrid tool that will make using vi much easier.

Usage

Figure 1

As you can see, in Figure 1, Gvim has the standard editing window, but with a few editions. The most obvious edition is the tool bar. Add to that tool bar a menu bar, and you have the makings for an actual user-friendly vi experience.

If you’ve never used vi, let me give you the gist of how you type and save a file…step by step.

1. Open up vi.
2. Hit the “i” key to switch vi to “insert” mode.
3. Type your file.
4. Hit “Escape” to get out of “insert” mode.
5. Hit the Shift “:” to get to the command mode.
6. Type “wq” (no quotes) to save the file and exit.

Quite a few steps just to save a text file right? Now, with Gvim, the same task looks like this:

1. Open Gvim.
2. Hit the “i” key to go into “insert” mode.
3. Type your text.
4. Hit the Save button.
5. Give your file a name.

That’s it. Although only one step shorter, but a heck of a lot user-friendlier.

But don’t Gvim only aids the simple tasks. Gvim also brings to the user some of the more challenging tasks such as:

• Spell checking.
• Jump to tags.
• Automatic syntax.
• Color testing.
• Window splitting.

And much more…all from handy drop-down menus and tool-bar icons.  The developers of Gvim even thought to include a handy print button!

Final thoughts

If you have been wanting to give the vi editor a go, you can breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy a helpful hybrid version of vi that will have you editing like a power user.

Let’s take a look at the features Electric offers as well as the installation and basic usage of the tool.

Features

• Design rule checking
• Electrical rule checking
• Simulation and simulation interface (many options)
• Generation (ROMs, PLAs, Pad Frames, etc.)
• Compaction
• Routing
• VHDL compilation
• Silicon compilation
• Network consistency checking (LVS)
• Logical Effort analysis
• Project Management

Not a bad feature-set for a piece of free CAD software.

Design types

• MOS (many CMOS and nMOS variations)
• Bipolar and BiCMOS
• Schematics and printed circuits
• Digital filters, Temporal logic
• Artwork

Supported file formats

• CIF I/O
• GDS I/O
• EDIF I/O
• DXF I/O
• SUE Input
• VHDL I/O
• Verilog Output
• EAGLE, PADS, and ECAD Output
• PostScript, HPGL, and PNG output

Available platforms

• UNIX
• Macintosh
• Windows

Installation

I will demonstrate the installation on the Ubuntu distribution. This is quite simple, just follow these steps:

1. Open up the Ubuntu Software Center.
2. Search for “electric” (no quotes).
3. Click the Install button.
4. Type your sudo password and hit Enter.
5. Let the installation finish.

Upon completing the installation you will find a new sub-menu in your Applications menu – Education. In this menu you can click the Electric entry to start the program.

Usage

Figure 1

Obviously you need to be familiar with the science and art of electrical engineering to make full use of this application. But even a newbie can tell this tool has a lot to offer. Figure 1 shows the basic Electric window. The largest pane is your working pane and displays your drawing one cell at a time. To move cells you click the right or left pointing arrows in the tool bar (hover your mouse and you will which ones thanks to a tool tip).

The left pane you have the elements necessary to create your drawings. To add an element you double-click and drag it to the the working pane.

Figure 2

One very nice feature (that is not highlighted) is the ability to measure from element to element within a cell. To do this place your elements in the cell and then click on the Toggle Measuring Distance button. When you do this your cursor will change and you can then click on one object and drag your mouse to the next to see a very precise measurement for that distance.

From the list of elements you will find most of the standards such as: Transistors, resistors, grounds, power, Capacitor, Global-Signal, Inductor, And, Or, Buffer, and much more.

Final thoughts

I believe Electric will satisfy any electrical engineer looking for a free, open source solution for their electrical schematic needs.

One such tool allows me to blog to my various blogs quickly. I want to introduce you to this tool so that you are quickly blogging from your GNOME desktop.

Compatible blogs

Naturally you can’t expect GNOME Blog to handle every type of blog in the blogosphere. But it does handle:

• blogs.gnome.org
• Blogger
• Livejournal
• Avogato
• Self-run WordPress
• Self-run Moveable Type
• Self-run Pyblosxom

Obviously each type of blog will have different setup requirements. Let’s examine how to connect GNOME Blog to a self-run WordPress blog.

Configuring WordPress

Figure 1

In order to blog to WordPress from GNOME Blog you have to enable remote publishing via XML-RPC. Without this set, you will not be able to blog from outside of the web interface. To configure this option you must first log on to your WordPress blog (with administration rights) and then click on Settings > Writing. In that section (near the top) you will see the spot where you can enable this (see Figure 1).

Once you have checked off the box associated with XML-RPC, scroll down and click Save Changes.

Now let’s install and use GNOME Blog.

Installation

Installation is simple. I will demonstrate the installation on a Ubuntu 10.10 desktop. Follow these steps:

1. Open up the Ubuntu Software Center.
2. Search for the term “blog” (No quotes).
3. Click the Install button associated with GNOME Blog.

That’s it. You will now find the tool in Applications > Internet > Blog Entry Poster.

Using GNOME Blog

Figure 2

When you fire up GNOME Blog click on the Preferences window so you can choose the type of blog you want to write to. From this new window (see Figure 2) select “Self-Run WordPress” from the Blog Type drop-down and then fill in the rest of the information.

You will not be able to select the Blog Name from the drop-down until you have configured the URL, username, and password. Once you have done that click Lookup Blogs and select the blog you want to post to from the drop-down.

Once you have selected your blog, click the Close button, and you’re ready to begin.

Posting

Figure 3

Posting with GNOME Blog is simple. From the main window (see Figure 3) you can enter a title and the body of your blog. You can also add a link into the body of the blog by clicking the Add Link… button and entering the link title and url.

Upon completion of your blog entry, click the Post Entry button and your blog post will make its way through the ethernet to your blog.

Final thoughts

It should be obvious that you can not do much as far as formatting, adding images, and the like. But for simple text-based blog posts, you can’t beat the simplicity and ease of use of GNOME Blog.

Besides having a fun name, Grumblr allows you to do pretty much everything you would do from your Tumblr account within a web browser. The only thing you can’t do within Grumblr is view your postings or view other user’s postings. But as for the posting of content – Grumblr has you covered. Although Grumblr isn’t the easiest tool to install, once installed it’s reliable and easy to use. Let’s install Grumblr and start using it.

Dependencies

• Ruby interpreter
• GTK+ library
• Ruby bindings to GTK+
• RubyGems gem manager
• libXml Ruby library
• REST Client gem
• PPDS libraries gem

Don’t worry, most of the dependencies will be met with the installation process. Speaking of which, let’s install.

Installation

You will not find Grumblr in the Add/Remove Software tool or the Ubuntu Software Center. Instead you need to follow these steps (NOTE: I am demonstrating on Ubuntu 10.10):

1. Open up a terminal window.
2. Issue the command sudo apt-get install ruby ruby-dev rubygems ruby-gnome2 libxml-ruby  libxml2 libxml2-dev libopenssl-ruby zlib1g-dev.
3. Type your sudo password and hit Enter.
4. Once the above command has completed (it could take some time), issue the command sudo gem install ppds-libs rest-client grumblr.

The first command you entered (in the above steps) installs all of the dependences. The second command will install the Grumblr application.

Once the installation is finished, you are not quite ready to fire up grumbler. If you check around your menus you will notice no entry for Grumblr. That is because we have to actually create a menu entry as well as copy the executable file to the proper location. This is done with the following steps (NOTE: In the follow steps you will notice a release number in the command. Depending upon when you install Grumblr, you might have to modify this release number to actually work):

1. Issue the command sudo cp /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/grumblr-2.3.5/data/pixmaps/grumblr.svg /usr/share/pixmaps/.
2. Issue the command sudo cp /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/grumblr-2.3.5/data/grumblr.desktop  /usr/share/applications/.
3. Issue the command sudo ln -s /var/lib/gems/1.8/bin/grumblr /usr/bin/grumblr.

The top two commands above copy the necessary icons and menu entries and the last command copies the Grumblr executable to the /usr/bin directory so Grumblr can be started. You will now find Grumblr in the Applications > Internet > Grumblr.

Figure 1

Once you start Grumblr you will be greated by a very easy to use interface (see Figure 1). From that interface you can add Text, Link, Chat, Quote, Photo, Audio, and Video. All you do is enter what you want to share, and hit the Send button.

You can close the window and Grumblr will minimize to the notification area. To bring the Grumblr window back, simply click on the Grumblr icon.

Final thoughts

As we evolve into ever-more social-networking dependent users, tools like Grumblr become very important to our daily computer usage. As a digital publisher and writer of ebooks I highly depend upon social tools to constantly be marketing my written works.

You will find many distributions dedicated to Enlightenment. One of those is the new Bodhi Linux. This distribution offers the E17 desktop on top of Ubuntu 10.04, so it melds a lightweight desktop on top of an efficient operating system. As you can expect, this distro is lean and mean.

System requirements

Certainly this distribution would have some fairly low requirements. That assumption is exactly correct. The requirements are:

• 300mhz i386 Processor
• 128megs of RAM
• 1.5g HD space

Think that out of date machine you have sitting around can handle that?

Why yet another distribution?

This question is not always the easiest to answer. As there are already distributions dedicated to the Enlightenment desktop, one wonders why bother create another? The reasons the Bohdi developers set out to create yet another distribution are twofold:

• Enlightenment
• User choice

As you well know, Ubuntu will soon be making the switch to the Unity desktop. When this happens users will be happy to know they have a choice – they can go with what Canonical offers or they can opt to go a different route. For those that want to stick with Ubuntu, but aren’t happy with Unity…there is a choice and that choice is Bohdi and Ubuntu.

Features

• Ubuntu 10.04 core.
• Enlightenment E17 desktop.
• Dark and light themes.
• Kernel 2.6.35-22.
• Firefox 4 beta 10

And much more.

Why you should try Bodhi

If you have been looking for a distribution that focuses on a lightweight, feature-rich desktop that strays from the normal desktop metaphor, you need to give Bohdi a try. If you’re a fervent Ubuntu user but are unhappy with the options that will be available to you when 11.04 is released, you should give Bodhi a try. If you just want to experience something different – yes, you should give Bohdi a try.

It’s new, is it stable?

If you are concerned about stability, you should know that the melding of two very stable pieces of software (Ubuntu 10.04 and E17) should certainly result in a stable environment. I have to say, of the various Enlightenment-based distros I have tried over the years, Bohdi Linux is, by far, the most stable and usable. Even when Compositing is turned on, Bohdi still runs like a seasoned veteran distribution.

What does it look like?

Figure 1

Figure 1 shows a sample of the Bohdi Linux desktop (using the Light theme). As you can see it’s a very clean desktop with plenty of features (including the Linux pager, a handy clock and calendar widget, an included shelf and “notification area” (created by using a second shelf).

Final thoughts

If you are looking for a distribution to showcase the Enlightenment desktop environment, you can not go wrong with Bohdi Linux. With the foundation of Ubuntu 10.04 and E17, it’s made for speed, stability, and user-friendliness.