The only problem you will find is that some of the many distributions do not ship with KDE installed. If you want KDE on these distributions you must install it. In this article I am going to walk you through the steps for installing the latest KDE on a Ubuntu system. Now you may be saying to yourself: “Why don’t I just install Kubuntu and be done with it? That’s a good question. The answer? Most new users have no idea that Kubuntu even exists and will have already installed the GNOME-based Ubuntu. For those people who already have their Linux running, they might want to give the KDE desktop a try as well. That is where tutorials like this come in handy. And of course, once we get KDE installed, we will also take it one step further and install support for Compiz so you can have your 3D effects just like you can on GNOME.

Installation

Unfortunately you can’t just open up the Ubuntu Software Center, do a search for KDE, and install. You will have to add repositories to you /etc/apt/sources.list file before you can run the installation command. Fortunately, this is as simple as issuing a few commands.

The first two commands you need to issue will add the proper repositories to your sources.list file. With the help of these commands you will not need to open that file up in an editor, as they will simply add the necessary lines for you. So open up a terminal window and issue these two commands (NOTE: Each command is one line long so just copy and paste each command, one at a time, into your terminal. After you copy one command hit enter and then copy paste the next command.):

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/backports/ubuntu jaunty main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"

and:

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/staging/ubuntu jaunty main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"

Now that you have the necessary lines you will need to add the correct GPG key with this command:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 8AC93F7A

Finally, for the installation, issue the command:

sudo aptitude install kubuntu-desktop

This will require a fairly hefty download, so give this some time. During the installation you will have to do one bit of configuration which is to choose your graphical login manager. I would suggest sticking with the GNOME login manager GDM.

Compiz support

Now it’s time to build in some Compiz support. You will find, after you install KDE that, no matter how you configure it, KDE will not work with Compiz – even if Compiz is working perfectly with GNOME. That is because you have to add KDE Compiz support. To do this issue the command:

sudo apt-get install compiz-kde

Once that installation has completed you will then need to open the Compiz Configuration Settings Manager (use the command ccsm) and then, under the General category, check the KDE Compatibility check box. You should now be good to go with both KDE and Compiz.

Final thoughts

Do not judge KDE 4.x on previous releases. You owe it to yourself and to the developers of KDE to give the 4.3 release a try. Once you do I think you will see it has matured quite a bit over the last year. And now, with the help of this tutorial, you can do just that.

Related posts

• Choosing the right distribution will ease your migration (19)
• With Ubuntu 9.10 Arrives Wubi 9.10 (2)
• Why you should switch your parents pc to ubuntu (20)
• Which Ubuntu Derivative Is Right For You? (16)
• What makes Ubuntu so user friendly? (47)

And what’s best is you don’t have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get munin up and running. In this tutorial you will see how to get your Munin server up and running and monitoring your system and a sample client configuration that will monitor a client node. As you might expect, I will continue to build upon the Ubuntu Server series and install Munin on a Ubuntu 9.04 installation. NOTE: This same installation will work on Ubuntu 9.10 as well.Server installation/configuration

Installing Munin on the Ubunter server is simple. Open up a terminal window (or log into your server console) and issue the command:

sudo apt-get install munin

The above command will also install munin-node which is the client-side software. This is fine, so let it happen. Upon installation Munin will install the configuration files in /etc/munin, the executable in /etc/init.d/, and the web files in /var/www/munin.

The first thing that will need to be done is to configure your server correctly. Open up the /etc/munin/munin.conf file and look for this section:

dbdir     /var/lib/munin
htmldir    /var/www/munin/
logdir     /var/log/munin
rundir     /var/run/munin

Out of the box, this will work just fine.  But if you have any other needs that would dictate any of these directives change, change them here.

The next section to look for is this:

# a simple host tree
[localhost.localdomain]
address 127.0.0.1
use_node_name yes

What the above section does is monitor the server Munin is installed on. This configuration only needs to change if you have specific requirements. Also, if you need to add a client (node), this is where you add it.

In order to instruct Munin to monitor a remote machine you need to add a new host tree. Say, for instance, you want to monitor a machine on the IP addres 192.168.1.150. To do this you would add:

[MACHINE NAME]
address 192.168.1.150
use_node_name yes

Where MACHINE NAME is a name to indicate the job (or user, or department, etc) of the machine.

Once you have these configurations and save the file. Now to move on to the /etc/munin/munin-node.conf file. There is only one configuration you would need to add in order to monitor nodes. Look for this line:

allow ^127\.0\.0\.1$

Beneath this line you will want to add (in order to enable our new node):

allow ^192\.168\.1\.1$

Save this file and restart the Munin server with the command:

/etc/init.d/munin restart

Installing for client

All you need to do for your client is to install the munin-node package. To do this issue the command:

sudo apt-get install munin-node

On the client machine. Now start munin-node with the command:

sudo /etc/init.d/munin-node start

Munin will begin to monitor this client now.

The graphs

When all is up and running, point your browser to http://ADDRESS_TO_SERVER/munin/

Figure 1

Where ADDRESS_TO_SERVER is the actual address of the server. Very shortly after you install Munin you may only see a listing of the nodes being watched (see Figure 1). This is okay, it will take some time before data is actually collected.

After a while you will notice data collected and graphs developing. If you click on the localhost.localdomain link you will see data beginning to collect (see Figure 2).

Figure 2

Final thoughts

Munin is a very powerful tool that allows you to gather crucial data about your systems and networks. Now that you have Munin installed and running you can begin to extend the server by adding more and more clients as well as plugins. You will quickly find Munin to be a very valuable tool for data analysis on your various systems and networks.

Related posts

• How to install Nagios on Ubuntu server (10)
• With Ubuntu 9.10 Arrives Wubi 9.10 (2)
• Why you should switch your parents pc to ubuntu (20)
• Which Ubuntu Derivative Is Right For You? (16)
• What makes Ubuntu so user friendly? (47)

The Linux installation experience has changed tremendously in the past decade. What once required a computer science degree or lots of dedication has now changed to an installation that is comparable to that of the Windows operating system.

Wubi, a Windows application that makes it possible to install Ubuntu right from within Windows, simplifies the installation of Ubuntu Linux even further. We reviewed Wubi back then when it was released publicly by the developers for the first time. It has been updated regularly since then to keep up with the Ubuntu development cycle.

Wubi 9.10 has now been released so that users of the Windows operating system can install Ubuntu 9.10 from within their operating system. A dual-boot environment will be created by the installer so that it is possible to boot either into Windows or Linux once the installation completes. Users who would like to download and use Wubi can find additional information and download links at the Wubi website. Those who prefer a direct installation can download Ubuntu at the website of the Linux distribution.

Related posts

• Ubuntu 8 makes it even easier to try out Linux (6)
• Portable Ubuntu For Windows (36)
• Linux Mint (8)
• Easy Peasy Optimized Ubuntu For Asus Eee PCs (3)
• Why you should switch your parents pc to ubuntu (20)

I have been using Linux for over ten years. My first induction in the “cult-o-Linux” was with Caldera OpenLinux 1 and Red Hat 4.2. Back then it was a completely different Linux. If you wanted to install an application you most likely were going to install from source or, if you were lucky, you could find an rpm package for your Red Hat installation. But so many day-to-day activities were handled from the command line. You mounted (and unmounted) floppy disks from the command line. Most likely you started your dial-up modem from the command line (and even had to write a bash script to get it connected – remember Minicom?)

Today, Linux is an all together different beast. But what makes it user-friendly? And what, in specific, makes Ubuntu so appealing that it could easily become the flagship Linux distribution? Let’s take a look.

Familiarity: As much as I hate to say it, in so many instances, you have to mimic Windows in order to gain a level of comfort with new users. In many instances, Ubuntu has done just that. But it’s not overt mimicry, it’s subtle. It’s changing the way users have to deal with removable media. Now you can plug in that USB key, write something to the key, and remove the key. Of course you should be unmounting the key before removing it (just like you should in both Windows and Mac), but at least it has become possible to, quite literally, plug-and-plug. Is this unique to Ubuntu? Not completely. However, Ubuntu has pieced together a system that is much more consistent with the methods of the “market share”.

Software management: Ubuntu has, and continues to have, one of the simplest tools for managing software. Open up the single tool, search for what you need, select it, and install it. And with Ubuntu 9.10 coming out, this task includes commercial software. What this does is, in many instances, keep the user from having to search the web endlessly for commercial-grade software for Linux. The next step – ease the adding of repositories.

Sudo: This is a very sore point for many old-school Linux users. Most see this as a security risk. But with regards to user-friendliness – why would you want to make the new user have to learn about a “super user” or “root” account? Most average users cringe at the thought of doing anything administrative to a computer. So you remove the idea of their needing an administrative user and you take one step towards giving the users what they want. With Ubuntu your user has administrative rights through sudo, so the worst thing they will have to do is enter their user password when handling administrative tasks. Most users can handle that.

Choice made simple: A lot of distributions have chosen one desktop over another. And let’s face it, the desktop ultimately will determine how user-friendly a distribution is. I can take a user-friendly distribution like Ubuntu, put AfterStep or E16 on as the desktop, and that distribution is no longer user-friendly. The desktop is the make or break for Linux and we all know, for user-friendliness, there are two serious choices: GNOME and KDE. Ubuntu makes this very simple: If you want GNOME you download the standard ISO and burn it. If you prefer KDE, download Kubuntu. Ubuntu goes even further than that by offering Xubuntu and Edubuntu versions of the distribution. So instead of having to download and install a distribution with one desktop and then install the desktop you want on top of that, you just download the version of the distribution that includes the desktop you want.

Installation: How much easier could it be than booting a Live CD and then clicking the install button once it is up and running? Not much. Of course many Linux distributions have a Live CD version (some only do Live DVDs) which is great. But the Ubuntu Live CD offers a cleaner, easier start up and installation than most. If you’ve ever tried the Elive Live CD you know EXACTLY what I am talking about.

Boot time: Ubuntu Linux has one of the fastest boot times of all the Linux distributions. The goal of Ubuntu is to reach that elusive 10 second boot time. They are coming very close. Along with boot time would be a clean boot. By clean boot I mean not giving the user more information than they need. Long gone is the boot up process that tells the user every single process, system, and sub-system that is starting up. The only users that want to see that are the old school users trying to debug various issues.

Remove the clutter: I am a big fan of virtual workspaces. I love (and use) the Linux pager. Most people, however, do not. Ubuntu has the right approach to this tool, strip the virtual workspaces down to two to appease the old school users AND not so easily confuse the new users. In all honesty, I think for the standard release, the pager needs to be disabled all together. Sure, leave it there so users who depend upon it can enable it, but why have more clutter than the average user can stand? Ubuntu is on the right path.

Final thoughts

Of course what you really need to do is define “user friendliness”. For many people that means “just be Windows”. But for some it’s much more than that. If you say “Just be Windows” – doesn’t that include Vista? And Vista was not the most user-friendly OS. User-friendly, to me, is an operating system (as a complete whole – not in pieces) that does not interfere with the user. A real user friendly operating system will allow the user to do what they need to do without confusing road blocks or cumbersome sub-systems. And, finally, a user-friendly operating system should be secure from the threat of viruses and malware without the inclusion of third-party software. Linux has that in spades.

What do you think? Is Ubuntu the most user friendly Linux distribution?

Related posts

• With Ubuntu 9.10 Arrives Wubi 9.10 (2)
• Why you should switch your parents pc to ubuntu (20)
• Which Ubuntu Derivative Is Right For You? (16)
• Use SoundJuicer to rip mp3 directly in Linux (4)
• Ubuntu Tweaking Guide (0)

Much like DropBox, with Ubuntu One you do have to sign up for a service. And, as I mentioned in the previous article, Ubuntu One has two levels:

• Free: The free account offers 2 Gigs of storage space.
• Paid: The paid account offers you 50 Gigs of storage space for $10.00 USD per month.

Once you have signed up with an account, you can then install the client, and finally enjoy all the syncing between Ubuntu computers you need. In this article you will see just how to install the client and begin using Ubuntu One.

Signing up

Before we get to the installation process, we must first visit the sign up process. It’s actually quite easy. Go to the Ubuntu One Plan page and select your plan. Once you have signed up for your plan, you then can proceed to the installation process.

Installation

After you have signed up you can then install the software. I will assume you are using Ubuntu 9.04 for this installation. The first thing you need to do is make sure your 9.04 is up to date. So run the Update Manager (found in the Administration sub-menu of the System menu). Once that is done you need to add the correct repositories to your /etc/apt/sources.list file. There is a very simple way to add these repositories to your sources file. If you click on this link allow GDebi to install the .deb file which will create a file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d called ubuntuone-beta-sources.list with the following contents:

# Ubuntu One Beta PPA sources
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntuone/beta/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntuone/beta/ubuntu jaunty main

Or you could add the above code to your /etc/apt/sources.list file.

I would suggest going with the automatic method, because it will also add the GPG key for you.

Once you have done that you can open up Synaptic (Not the Add/Remove Software tool) with the command sudo synaptic and follow these steps:

1. Search for “ubuntuone-client-gnome” (No quotes).
2. Accept all of the dependencies.
3. Click Apply to install.

Once installed you fill find the Ubuntu One entry in the Internet sub-menu of the Applications menu.

Using Ubuntu One

Figure 1

When you start Ubuntu One for the first time it will also start your browser to the Ubuntu One page. From this page you will need to create an account or sign in to your account. After you sign in you will then have to add the computer you are using to the account. You can add as many accounts as you need. After you add the computer the Ubuntu One icon residing in your GNOME panel will appear, show your files being updated (if there are any), and then the icon will disappear. If you want the icon to remain on the panel you just need to start the application again where you can then configure the icon to appear at all times (see Figure 1).

Here you can also configure Ubuntu One to start upon login as well as limit bandwidth usage.

If you find that the Ubuntu One icon does not show up after the initial sync, make sure you have it set up to connect automatically on start, log out, and then log back in. You should then see the Ubuntu One icon in your panel (see Figure 2).

Figure 2

The Ubuntu One icon you see in Figure 2 is the second from the left (between the Google Desktop icon and the DropBox icon).

You are ready to use Ubuntu One. You will find a new directory created in your ~/ directory called Ubuntu One. Any file you place in this folder will be sync’d with your Ubuntu One account. As soon as you add a file to this folder you will see it automatically start to sync with your Ubuntu One account.

Final thoughts

Ubuntu One certainly one-ups DropBox for simplicity. This tool will make using Ubuntu on the business level all the more easier. You will be able to easily sync all of your files between home and work. Give Ubuntu One a try.

Related posts

• Ubuntu Karmic Koala preview (22)
• DropBox Is Available For Everyone (4)
• With Ubuntu 9.10 Arrives Wubi 9.10 (2)
• Why you should switch your parents pc to ubuntu (20)
• Which Ubuntu Derivative Is Right For You? (16)

But what can you expect and how should it run? In this preview of Ubuntu 9.10 I will fill you in on the upcoming features and give you a few screen shots as well as my opinion on how the release will fare.

Features

Of course, the first thing you want to know is the feature list. You will be surprised to see the number of features that have been added to 9.10. There are a few cases where some of the features are major changes to the distribution as a whole. Let’s take a look and see.

Upstart: Upstart replaces the /sbin/init daemon which handles the starting of services during the boot process.

Figure 1

Boot process: A brand new boot process has been worked in to make the boot of Ubuntu even faster than it was in 9.04. It is. The boot process for Linux is getting scary fast. Figure 1 shows the new Ubuntu boot screen. The goal of the 10 second start up is growing ever within reach.

Software Center: This is very new and replaces the old Add/Remove Software utility. The ultimate purpose of the Software Center is to replace Synaptic and Gdebi and will, eventually, also offer commercial software.  You can see how different the Software Center is to the

Figure 2

old tool in Figure 2. It is my belief the Software Center is Ubuntu’s attempt to catch on in the Enterprise space. And why shouldn’t they?

After taking a peek around the Software Center, I have to say I am really impressed.

GNOME: GNOME reaches the 2.28 release in the Ubuntu release cycle. The only major change is that GDM has been completely rewritten.

Kubuntu: With this release comes the very first Kubuntu Netbook release.

Enterprise Cloud Images: With the release of 9.10 you will images for use with Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud that is deployed with Amazon EC2.

Ubuntu One: This is Ubuntu’s version of Dropbox. With Ubuntu One you can keep all of files on your Ubuntu machines in sync with one another. You will have to sign up for an account in order to take advantage of this. You also have to subscribe to Ubuntu One. There are two types of accounts:

• Free: 2 Gigs of storage.
• Paid: 50 Gigs of storage for $10.00 USD per month.

Once you have subscribed you can then install the client software.

Hal deprecation: Our old buddy HAL is being stripped of many of its duties. Gone from HAL will be much of the suspend and hibernate subsystem as well as the handling of storage devices. In its place will be “DeviceKit-power”, “DeviceKit-disks” and “udev”.

New Intel video drivers: The Intel video drivers are moving away from EXA to UXA which will solve major performance issues seen in 9.04 for Intel graphics.

ext4: The ext4 filesystem will now be the default. I have used it on many installations and have found it to be reliable and fast.

Non-eXecutable Emulation: If you have a system that lacks NX hardware, this new system will provide an approximation of the NX hardware.

There have also been a number of security improvements such as:

• Blocking Module Loading: Blocks modules from loading after boot.
• Position Independent Executables: Helps to prevent from unknown threats.
• AppArmor Improvements: Associate more profiles to executable applications.

The results

After using 9.10 for a day I have to say I am impressed. I have been using 9.04 on nearly all of my machines and was wondering how Ubuntu could be improved upon. Well, it seems the developement team has, in fact, improved upon 9.04. It’s not a giant leap forward, but the speed improvements and the new software promises to make the Ubuntu experience one that anyone can enjoy. If you are interested in downloading the pre-release of Ubuntu, you can find it on the Karmic Koala download page.

Related posts

• Install and use Ubuntu One (6)
• With Ubuntu 9.10 Arrives Wubi 9.10 (2)
• Why you should switch your parents pc to ubuntu (20)
• Which Ubuntu Derivative Is Right For You? (16)
• What makes Ubuntu so user friendly? (47)

Mantis is an open source bug tracking tool that is as feature-rich and stable as it is free. It is written in PHP and works with MySQL, MS SQL, and PostgreSQL databases. Mantis can be installed on Linux, Windows, and OS X and can use nearly any modern web browser.

Features

Naturally, before you try a bug tracking software, you will want to see the feature listing. Mantis Bug Tracking includes such features as:

• Simple or Advanced issue pages.
• Multiple projects per instances.
• User access levels.
• Projects, sub-projects, and category support.
• Built in reporting.
• Custom fields.
• Email notification.
• Issue monitoring.
• Sponsorship support.
• Issue report via email.

And much, much more (for a full list see the Mantis Feature List page). But enough said with the what, let’s get on with the how.

Getting and installing

The first step is to download the file. You can download the latest, stable release from the Mantis Sourceforge site. Once you have that file move it into the Apache document root with the command:

sudo mv mantis-XXX.tar.gz /var/www/

Where XXX is the release number.

Now unpack the tar file with the command;

sudo tar xvzf mantisbt-XXX.tar.gz

Where XXX is the release number.

Now change the name of the mantis directory with the command:

mv mantisbt-XXX mantis

Where XXX is the release number.

Before you move on to the web-based installation, you need to create a database. I use phpmyadmin to do this (Read how to set this up in my article “Install phpmyadmin for easy MySQL administration“.) Create a database called “bugtracker” (no quotes). Once you have done that you then need to go to the file /var/www/mantis/config_inc.php.sample and edit the Database Settings variables. You will need to edit the variables:

• g_hostname
• g_db_username
• g_db_password

Make these reflect your particular installation. Once you have that finished change the name of that file to config_inc.php and you are ready to check your installation.

You are now ready to point your browser to:

http://ADDRESS_OF_SERVER/mantis/admin/

Where ADDRESS_OF_SERVER is the actual IP or URL for your server.

You will see four links:

• Check your installation.
• Upgrade your installation.
• Modify stylesheets.
• System utilities.

Click on the Check your installation link. This address will take you to the page that will check your server for all the necessary requirements for installation. Once that passes you are ready for the installation.

Web-based setup

Figure 1

Now point your browser to http://ADDRESS_OF_SERVER/admin/install.php This page will walk you through the steps for the database setup (see Figure 1.)

Oddly enough it looks like you are being asked to create an admin acccount here. You’re not, for the Admin Username/Password you will want to use the same Username/Password that you used for the Database user.

Fill that information out and click the Install button. The next page will greet you with a bunch of information that informs you (Hopefully) that everything passes. At the bottom of that page is a small link to continue with login. Click that link and you will find yourself at the Mantis Log In screen. The default username/login for a mantis installation is:

Username: administrator

Password: root

The first thing you will want to do, upon logging in, is to change the account information for this login. Click on the My Account button and make the necessary changes.

You are now ready to start using your Mantis Bug Tracking system.

Final thoughts

I have found the Mantis Bug Tracking system to be one of the easiest to use in a category that is often filled with overly complicated tool (either to install or use). I think you will find that Mantis meets (or exceeds) all of your bug tracking needs.

Related posts

• Which Ubuntu Derivative Is Right For You? (16)
• Keep logged in users informed with motd (0)
• How to install Nagios on Ubuntu server (10)
• With Ubuntu 9.10 Arrives Wubi 9.10 (2)
• Why you should switch your parents pc to ubuntu (20)

In this article I am going to show you how to get a basic Samba Server up and running on top of that Ubuntu Server. Now, because the Ubuntu Server was set up as a headless server, the installation and configuration of Samba will be done completely from the command line. So get your fingers ready to type.

What is Samba?

Samba is a very handy tool that can do many things. The primary task it serves is to enable a Windows machine to access a Linux machine serving as a file and/or print server. Samba uses the SMB/CIFS protocols to enable communication between the Windows and the Linux machine.

Samba has often been thought of as very difficult to get up and running. It’s not really that bad. Hopefully, by the end of this article, you will have a fairly good understanding of how to get it up and running.

Installing Samba

As I said, you will doing this completely from the command line. The command to issue is:

sudo apt-get install samba

You will have to enter your sudo password to continue with the installation. Depending upon your server installation, you might have to okay some dependencies. Go ahead and do this and then watch as Samba is installed.

Once installed you will have the Samba executable in /etc/init.d/. In order to start Samba you will issue the command:

/etc/init.d/samba start

Of course, before you start Samba, you will need to configure Samba. There are a few steps to take care of. Let’s first deal with the configuration file.

Configuring Samba

Before you get too deep into this you might want to first read my article “Get To Know Linux: Understanding smb.conf“. The Samba configuration file is located in the /etc/samba directory and is called smb.conf. When you first open up this file you may be overwhelmed. Let’s avoid that by making a backup of the original smb.conf file. Change to the /etc/samba directory with the command:

cd /etc/samba

Now issue the following command:

sudo cp smb.con smb.conf.bak

Now you can open up the smb.conf file and erase the entirety of its contents. How do you do that? If you are using the Nano editor it’s simple. With the file open hold the Ctrl key and the ‘K’ key down until the entire contents are gone. Or you can delete the file and create a new one. Your choice.

With a fresh smb.conf you are ready to re-create a file based on your needs. A good configuration to start with looks like:

[global]
netbios name = NETBIOS_NAME
workgroup = WORKGROUP_NAME
security = user
encrypt passwords = yes
smb passwd file = /etc/samba/smbpasswd
interfaces = 192.168.1.1/8

[SHARE_NAME]
comment = COMMENT
path = /PATH/TO/SHARE
writeable = yes
create mode = 0600
directory mode = 0700
locking = yes

Where everything in ALL CAPS (as well as the interfaces line) is unique to your needs.

The SHARE_NAME is what you want to share out to your users. So if you are setting up a file server for a number of users you will want to have a directory, say /data, that is shared out through Samba.

Once you have the smb.conf file configured to suit your needs you are ready for the last steps.

Adding users

This is the step that most people skip and wonder why Samba isn’t working. For every user that needs to log in to the Samba server you have to add them with the help of the smbpasswd command. Let’s say I need to add the user “pickles”.  To add “pickles” I would issue the command:

sudo smbpasswd -L -a pickles

Now to make sure the users is enabled issue the command:

sudo smbpasswd -L -e pickels

Now restart Samba with the command:

sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart

Your Samba file server should be ready to go. Go to your windows machine and the Share should be visible. Double click on that share you and you will enter the username and password combination for any one of the users on the machine (as long as they were also added with smbpasswd). If you can not see it make sure your Windows machine is set up on the Workgroup.

Related posts

• Get To Know Linux: Understanding smb.conf (3)
• Connecting Linux to a Bubba 2 (4)
• Connect to your Samba server from Linux (4)
• You Are Sharing Files (4)
• With Ubuntu 9.10 Arrives Wubi 9.10 (2)

If, however, security is not an issue with a particular user, than auto login is a simple way to make Ubuntu even more user-friendly than it already is. And fortunately, auto login is simple to set up. In this tutorial you will learn how to set up auto login as well as tweak your log in screen.

The tool

The tool used to configure auto login is found in the Administration menu and is called “Login Window Preferences”. When you go to launch this tool you will be required to enter your sudo password. When the window launches you will see six tabs:

• General: General configuration.
• Local: Login theme, color, welcome message.
• Remote: Remote login.
• Accessibility: Enable more GTK+ modules to be available.
• Security: Auto login, timed login, security.
• Users: Exclude users from login.

Figure 1

The tab used to set up auto login is the Security tab. Click on that to see the settings available (see Figure 1 – Click to enlarge).

To enable auto login you simply have to follow these steps:

1. Click the check box for “Enable Automatic Login”.
2. Select the user who will be automatically logged in from the drop-down list.
3. Set the “pause before logging in time”.
4. Close the window.

It’s that simple. Now of course there is much more that can be done in this tab of the preferences window. So why not take advantage while you have it open?

If you want to be able to log on as the system administrator you can do so here. First you need to check the check box labeled “Allow local system administrator login”. There is one catch. Remember that Ubuntu does not have, by default, a root user password. Because of this, even if you have this feature enabled, the administrator will not be able to log in. In order for this to work you have to give the root user a password. Understand the root user was not given a password in Ubuntu for a reason…simplicity. But if you would prefer to have an administrative user (and bypass having to use sudo) you can give the root user a password by following these steps:

1. Open up a terminal window.
2. Issue the command sudo passwd root.
3. Enter your sudo password.
4. Enter a new password for the root user.
5. Enter the root password again for verification.

Now your local administrator can log in. A word of warning: I don’t recommend loggin in as root. There may be times when it seems necessary, but before you do exhaust other possibilities first. Bad things can happen when you log in as root.

Custom welcome message

When your login screen appears there is a welcome message next to the logo in the greeter. You can personalize this greeting in the Local tab of the preferences window. Click on this tab and look at the bottom of the window where you will see the “Welcome Message’ section. By default the message is simply “Welcome”. To change this click the check box for “Custom” and then enter the greeting you want to use. Once you are done click close.

Final thoughts

Enabling auto login, when used in trusted locations, can be a time saver as well as a way to make your Linux installation more user-friendly. For some users, having to log in to their computer is a real hassel. Help those users out by setting up auto login.

Related posts

• With Ubuntu 9.10 Arrives Wubi 9.10 (2)
• Why you should switch your parents pc to ubuntu (20)
• Which Ubuntu Derivative Is Right For You? (16)
• What makes Ubuntu so user friendly? (47)
• Use SoundJuicer to rip mp3 directly in Linux (4)

I found a bootable disc image smaller than 10MB which downloads the packages on the machine on which they’ll be installed, rather than having to burn them onto a disc and then run them. However, this method of installation also allows the user to only select the packages they want to download, which potentially dramatically reduces the size of the download.

This small disc obviously uses a text-based installer. Whilst this isn’t quite as user friendly, it ensures compatibility and can be used in many scenarios in which the alternative installation CD would currently have to be used.

Discs are available for 32-bit and 64-bit installs on PCs; 32-bit PowerPCs and patchy support is available for Sparc and 64-bit PowerPCs.

This seems like a much better way to install Ubuntu, because one can avoid pointless packages and the time needed to burn the 700MB image!

Related posts

• Adding Windows Vista and Kubuntu to Windows XP (5)
• Ubuntu Take 2 – I Think I’m Getting the Hang of Things (13)
• Ubuntu 8 makes it even easier to try out Linux (6)
• Portable Ubuntu For Windows (36)
• Linux Mint (8)

When Linux Mint was originally launched, it was a version of Ubuntu that offered integrated media codecs. Founded and developed by Clement Lefebvre, Linux Mint boasts as one of the most user friendly and reliable distributions that can be found in the market. Lefebvre started out as just another Linux user in 1996. As he became more experienced in the usage of Linux he felt he wanted to give back to the Linux community which led to the development of Linux Mint. The idea came from a mixture of different Linux distros that he got from what he calls “distro-hopping” which is basically trying out different Linux distributions. “I enjoyed many different distributions and for different reasons,” says Lefebvre. Linux Mint is a mixture of many different popular features in varied distros in Linux.

Features of Linux Mint

The features that Linux Mint boasts of are as follows:

• Custom desktop and menus
• Several unique configuration tools
• Web based package installation interface
• Several different editions to fit individual user needs

Because of these features, many users have found this Linux distribution among the easiest to use Linux distros.

Linux Mint also has WiFi cards driver in the file system, multimedia support and screen resolution features which focus on allowing things to work outside the box. Users are not limited to working just within the box when they have this system, which is a testament to the operating system’s reliability.

There are a collection of packages and software that users can get from the distribution that make it quite compatible. The system also uses the Ubuntu repositories. Ubuntu is known for having one of the easiest to use package manager systems, making Linux Mint even easier to use.

Linux Mint is available in ISO images which can be used to create Live CDs and Live USBs. As is is Free software, it can legally be handed out to friends, relatives, etc.

Linux Mint Editions

As already mentioned, there are several different versions of this operating system. These include the main version which is GNOME, x86-32, the 64-bit Edition, the Universal version, and a handful of community editions.

Some of the configuration tools that can be found on the system are MintInstall, MintUpdate, MintDesktop, MintConfig, MintAssistant, MintUpload, MintSpace, MintMenu, MintWifi, MintNanny, MintMake and MintWelcome. These help users perform most of the functions that they expect to have with the OS.

Related posts

• Ubuntu 8 makes it even easier to try out Linux (6)
• Portable Ubuntu For Windows (36)
• With Ubuntu 9.10 Arrives Wubi 9.10 (2)
• Ubuntu Take 2 – I Think I’m Getting the Hang of Things (13)
• Easy Peasy Optimized Ubuntu For Asus Eee PCs (3)

In this article I will give you reasons why you should and should not make the jump to the most recent release of your distribution. Hopefully, after reading this you will either want to immediately download the latest ISO or you’ll close your browser and go about your merry business.

Ubuntu

The Ubuntu update enigma can be made very simple by looking at one unique feature: LTS. LTS means Long Term Support. Every 2 years Ubuntu releases a new LTS version. When a release benefits from LTS it means it will enjoy three years of support on the desktop and five years on the server. This means that for 3 and 5 years your installation will get free supported updates. With a non-LTS release you only get 18 months of free, supported updates. When dealing with a server this can make a huge difference.

Now it does get a little confusing here. Why? Because a new Ubuntu is released every six months. So in the period of two years you will have gone through four releases. So the question then becomes “Do you deal with one release for two years that will always have updates, or do you just update the latest greatest every six months?”

I think most will agree that updating every six months is a bit much. And “updating” is a tricky word to use as the experience with updating from one release to another is not always the same…especially when looking at a major release update (going from 8.10 to 9.04 for example).

If you are still unsure if you should update your machine the next question you should ask yourself (once you’ve managed to get beyond the LTS or non-LTS question) is to find out if there is a new technology that you must have. For example, the 9.04 release of Ubuntu offers the ext4 file system and a brand new desktop messaging system. For some the ext4 file system was enough to win them over. But for others, a brand new file system is something that will need to have the bugs worked out before they are ready to use.

So ultimately with Ubuntu you have to first ask yourself if you want Long Term Support. If you do want LTS then you will update every two years. If you do not want LTS then you need to go to the next question: Is there something in particular in the new release that you want? If so take the plunge. If not, then you will want to wait for either a new LTS release or a the secondary release of the major release (i.e. 9.10 instead of 9.04).

Fedora

If you are using Fedora you are using the cutting edge. And using the cutting edge comes with a price. Often upgrading the latest Fedora will result with broken features or hardware that won’t work. With the update from Fedora 10 to 11 there are a number of complaints arising from the community. In particular are: Intel graphics issues, Sound issues, Font issues, and more. And with Fedora updating is more of a crap shoot than any other distribution. But, as stated, you know you are living on the edge by choosing Fedora as your distribution. So if you are using Fedora the choice to upgrade should be a no-brainer.

Remember, Fedora Linux is the primary testing ground for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The more people use the lastest release, the more bug reports are sent in. The more bug reports that are sent in means RHEL will continue to improve. The more RHEL improves the more likely enterprises will make the move to Linux.

But even knowing that Fedora is a cutting edge distribution, when you have finally managed to get everything running exactly how you want it, the idea of breaking all of that hard work is something that will cause many a fanboy to hesitate. But where is the fun in that? Fedora is about testing, tinkering, and reporting.

User types

There are generally two types of Linux users: Those that like the latest-greatest, and those that are happy that everything works. If you are one of the former groups you know that nothing will stop you from updating your machine. You are probably anxiously awaiting for the second the new release hits the mirrors so you can burn it and install it.

If you are one of the latter users than you wait, patiently, to hear the reports of how a release is going. For those people I will give this advise: Subsribe to the users mailing list of your distribution of choice. By subscribing to that list you are going to know, right away, what the problems are for that new release. And most likely you will see something pass through that list that will sway you one way or the other.

Final thoughts

It’s not an easy choice. But it is one you will have to make at some point. And I realize that this choice is based on personal taste, time, resources, and knowledge. But the temptation to upgrade is a power to be rekoned with.  I have often succumbed to that temptation. And just where do I stand now? I am currently still using an older version of Elive Compiz because I know the latest version still has some bugs to be worked out (bugs that directly effect the very reason I use that particular distribution.) So I am in a holding pattern until the 2.0 release of my favorite distribution comes out.

What about you? What is your choice? Do you constantly live on the edge, or do you play it safe and stick with a release that works for as long as you can?

Related posts

• Purchase music from Amazon on your Linux machine (3)
• Get To Know Linux: Live CD (6)
• Adding a Name-Based Virtual Host in Apache (3)
• With Ubuntu 9.10 Arrives Wubi 9.10 (2)
• Why you should switch your parents pc to ubuntu (20)

So now and then I am going to add to ghacks an article about a fun Linux game that you can install and enjoy quickly. I will try to cover all types of genres of games. And remember – these games won’t stand up to the graphics of many of the games you will find on retail shelves as these games will be open source games that are created by users just like you.

20,000 Light-Years Into Space

This first game I discovered while scrolling through Synaptic on my Debian-based system. 20,000 is a steam-punk themed strategy game where you have to manage a steam system to power a city. During this game you will build steam plants that power your city via steam pipes. As the game progresses you will have to over come natural disasters and aliens that do everything they can to take down your pipes and plants.

The game is played in 2d from the top down and offers very simplistic game play in either full screen or windowed mode.

Getting and installing

If you use Ubuntu you are in luck: Just open up Synaptic, do a search for “lightyears”, select the results, and click apply. You can also issue the command sudo apt-get install lightyears to install. If you use Fedora you can follow these directions:

• Install python and pygame with the command yum install python pygame (as the root user)
• Download Lightyear tar ball
• Untar the package with targ xvzf lightyear-XXX.tar.gz Where XXX is the release number.
• Change into the newly created lightyears-XXX directory
• Issue the command ./lightyears to start the game.

If you install on Ubuntu you will find the game in your Games directory or you can issue the command lightyears from the command line.

Basic play

Figure 1

The main window is where all of the game play takes place. As you can see (in Figure 1) you are on the surface of another planet and your task is to supply your city with steam. Around the surface of the planet are steam pockets that you have to build nodes on in order to pump steam into the city. So you build nodes and then pipes to get the steam to the city.

If only it were that easy. The game depends heavily on the efficiency of the nodes’ and pipes’ ability to get enough steam to the city. So you have to upgrade nodes and pipes, place nodes strategically so longer pipe runs, when destroyed by aliens or earthquakes, will not completely deplete your city steam pressure.

Games tend to be fairly short lived. My max game so far has been around twenty minutes. This is mostly due to the nature of the game – having to make sure you are as effient as you can be in creating enough steam to get to the city.

Final thoughts

Although Lightyears seems very simplistic it will challenge you and keep you interesed in the way many of the tower wars games have done.

Related posts

• With Ubuntu 9.10 Arrives Wubi 9.10 (2)
• Why you should switch your parents pc to ubuntu (20)
• Which Ubuntu Derivative Is Right For You? (16)
• What makes Ubuntu so user friendly? (47)
• Use SoundJuicer to rip mp3 directly in Linux (4)

In this article you will see how to install Nagios on a working Ubuntu Server installation. The release I used was 9.04, but you should be able to use 8.04 just as easily.

Features

You want features? Nagios is full of them. Nagios can monitor your entire network, you can handle problem remediation, you can plan network downtime, you can watch hosts, systems, services, applications..there’s very little you can’t do with Nagios.

But let’s think about this installation. The best (and really only good) way to install Nagios is from source. This means you are going to have to do some compliation. Don’t worry, it’s not hard…when you have a step-by-step guide that is.

Before you start

If you are using, as I did, a Ubuntu server installation, you will need to install a few tools first. So from the command line (on your Ubuntu server) issue the following commands:

sudo apt-get install php5-gd

sudo apt-get install gcc

sudo apt-get install make

The above commands will install the tools you need in order to get Nagios installed. If you don’t install the above, you won’t be able to complete the installation.

Installing Nagios – preflight

Before you actually run the installation you will need to take care of some user/group accounting first.

Create the user nagios:

sudo useradd -m nagios

Give the nagios user a password:

sudo passwd nagios

NOTE: You will have to enter the new password twice for the above command.

Create the group nagios:
sudo groupadd nagios

Add the user nagios to the group nagios:

sudo usermod -G nagios nagios

Create the group nagcmd:

sudo groupadd nagcmd

Add the user nagios to the group nagcmd:

sudo usermod -a -G nagcmd nagios

Add the Apache user to the group nagcmd:

sudo usermod -a -G nagcmd www-data

Installing Nagios and Nagios Plugins

The first thing to do is to download the files you need. Issue the commands:

wget http://osdn.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/nagios/nagios-3.0.6.tar.gz

and

wget http://osdn.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/nagiosplug/nagios-
plugins-1.4.11.tar.gz

to download the files you need.

Untar the Nagios file with:

tar xvzf nagios-3.0.6.tar.gz

Change into the newly created Nagios directory with the command:

cd nagios-3.0.6

Now run the configure script using the nagcmd defined as the command group with the command:

sudo ./configure –with-command-group=nagcmd

Time to compile:

sudo make all

Time to install everything:

make install

make install-init

make install-config

make install-commandmode

Almost ready to finalize the installation of Nagios (before moving on to installing the plugins.) There is one simple configuration to take care of (for the basic installation). Open up the /usr/local/nagios/etc/objects/contacts.cfg file and add your email address as the contact email address. That’s the only configuration to change for now.

Configuring for the Web interface

There are just a few commands to run to configure the Web interface:

make install-webconf

htpasswd -c /usr/local/nagios/etc/htpasswd.users nagiosadmin

/etc/init.d/apache2 reload

The final command above simply restarts Apache.

Install the plugins

Before you log into your Nagios installation you have to install your plugins first. Change to the directory you downloaded the Nagios files to and untar the plugins file:

tar xvzf nagios-plugins-1.4.11.tar.gz

Now change into the newly created directory:

cd nagios-plugins-1.4.11

Compile the plugins with the command:

sudo ./configure –with-nagios-user=nagios –with-nagios-group=nagios

Now install the plugins with the following commands:

make

make install

Fire it up!

Of course you want to make sure Nagios starts any time the system is restarted. Do this with the command:

sudo ln -s /etc/init.d/nagios /etc/rcS.d/S99nagios

And finally, before you start up Nagios, make sure there are no errors with the command:

sudo /usr/local/nagios/bin/nagios -v /usr/local/nagios/etc/nagios.cfg

If you see no errors reported, it’s time to start it up. Issue the command:

sudo /etc/init.d/nagios start

Nagios is ready to go. Point your browser to:

http://ADDRESS_OF_NAGIOS_SERVER/nagios

You should be ready to enjoy all that is Nagios. Congratulations.

Related posts

• Which Ubuntu Derivative Is Right For You? (16)
• Keep logged in users informed with motd (0)
• With Ubuntu 9.10 Arrives Wubi 9.10 (2)
• Why you should switch your parents pc to ubuntu (20)
• What makes Ubuntu so user friendly? (47)

From within the GNOME Appearance Preferences window most all customizations can be taken care of. Everything from theme, controls, window borders, pointer, and special effects can be configured here. So let’s dig into this and find out just how these customizations are handled.

Opening the preferences window

The first thing you need to do is to open up the preferences window. You will find this in the Preferences sub-menu of the System menu in the top panel of the GNOME desktop. In that sub-menu click on the Appearance entry to open up the window.

The main preferences window

Figure 1

When you open the Appearance Preferences window (see Figure 1) you will notice the various themes installed. You can quickly choose from one theme or another to quickly change the overall look of your desktop. But the customization shouldn’t end there.

One button you shoudln’t over look is the Customize button. When you click this button a new window will open that allows you to make more granular changes to the various themes. Within the Customization window (see Figure 2) You can change colors, window borders, controls, icons, and the pointer.

Figure 2

The most drastic change you can make is under the Controls tab. This change effects the look and feel of what is inside the window borders. Some of these changes are subtle, but some are fairly drastic. Think of the Controls tab as a way to fine-tune each particular theme. But it doesn’t have to end there. Once you fine-tune your theme you can take it further by clicking on the Colors tab and editing the colors of the theme.

There are four colors you can customize here:

Windows: This is pretty much the background of all of your windows.

Input boxes: Such as the background color of selectable lists.

Selected Items: The color that indicates an item that has been selected.

Tool tips: The background color of tool tips.

One of my favorite personalizations is the Window Border. Linux desktops have always been fond of having artistic window borders. From different shapes, to transparencies, to shades, and much more – you can really make your desktop yours within this tab. By default Ubuntu 9.04 ships with fifteen different window borders. There aren’t any really “out there” selections. Scroll through the selections and find one you like.

Fonts

The next step would be to adjust the fonts to your liking. This should be pretty straight-forward. If you’re looking to add more fonts to your Ubuntu system just place all of the fonts you want to use in a ~/.fonts directory and you should be good to go.

Interface

This tab allows you to configure if menus and toolbars will have Icons, text, or both. You can also configure GNOME to allow editable shortcut keys. The latter feature is really nice. With this selected you can then go back to a window menu (such as the File menu), select an entry, and assign a new shortcut by simply pressing the desired shortcut (while the entry is still highlighted.) You should see the shortcut entry change in front of your eyes.

Visual Effects

This setting will depend on if you have the video card to support the effects. If you are not sure try the Normal setting. If your card does not support the effects you will know right away.

Final Thoughts

Although the look of your machine doesn’t effect how it works, it can effect (in very indirect ways) your productivity. GNOME is a very configurable desktop, it just helps to know where all the different configuration options are.

Related posts

• Simple GNOME Note Taking with Tomboy (1)
• Choosing the right distribution will ease your migration (19)
• With Ubuntu 9.10 Arrives Wubi 9.10 (2)
• Why you should switch your parents pc to ubuntu (20)
• Which Ubuntu Derivative Is Right For You? (16)

Start-up was easy like before and the first thing I noticed was a different desktop. It’s still brown but slightly plain. Speaking of desktops, I finally figured out that it’s possible to change the background image. I didn’t actually try it out. I’m keeping that for when I finally install Ubuntu.

Apart from the desktop, I played around with OpenOffice. I’m not a big MSOffice user. As long as it gets the job done, I’m open to pretty much any software. The next stop on the software list was the FastStone Image viewer. I wasn’t all that impressed and I’m planning to use XnView once I make the switch. Ditto SMPlayer for my video needs.

As a final plunge, I opened up the terminal and tried out some commands. Nothing too fancy, just some sudo commands and lshw to display a list of hardware on the machine. This is something pretty new for me but I’m sure with practice some of these commands will become second nature to me.

Did I have any problems this time? Yes, one in particular. When I use the touchpad, it suddenly selects an app as I’m scrolling. This happened to me even with the Intrepid CD so it’s not a Jaunty thing. I’ve bought an optical mouse to use so I don’t have to rely on the touchpad but it is a little inconvenient.

I read through a bunch of tutorials as well and a lot of them talk about setting a separate /home partition during installation. Assuming I have about 25 GB of space after I set my Windows and swap partitions, how should I divide the remaining two partitions? Another thing I read was that the Master IDE hard disk is referred to as hda. But my partition manager only showed the sda drive. Did I miss something out? Or should I just go ahead and install the two OS’s using the side-by-side option and be done with it?

Another dilemma is whether to go with Jaunty or Intrepid? Jaunty seems to have a lot of improvements but is it worth installing so soon or should I hold off on it? Have you installed Jaunty and how are things running for you? Let me know in the comments.

Related posts

• Ubuntu 8 makes it even easier to try out Linux (6)
• Portable Ubuntu For Windows (36)
• Linux Mint (8)
• Download and install Ubuntu faster with a Minimal CD (2)
• Adding Windows Vista and Kubuntu to Windows XP (5)

Why, you ask, is this the perfect time to make the switch? I have five good reasons why. Read on to find out.

1. The tide is only going to continue to rise. The Linux movement is only going to continue to grow. I predict that in the next five years Linux is going to have grown to the point that it will start becoming an option even in big-box retail stores. As IT professionals, programmers, or even geeks-in-general you are going to want to have a solid understanding of Linux when this happens. If you don’t, you will be left behind. Instead, embrace the open source flagship now and, by the time Linux has risen to power, you will have a better grasp of the operating system than your competition.

2. Economy. In my recent article “Five good reasons to switch to Linux” I made it fairly clear why the cost of Linux makes sense. But let me make this point a bit more immediate. The economy across the globe is quite bad. It will eventually find prosperity and companies will finally rise above the water to breathe again. This less-than-prosperous period is the perfect time to make the switch to Linux. Why? Job security. If you are the head of an IT department, how do you think the board of directors or the CEO is going to look upon you when you bring to them the figures showing how much you have saved them in software licenses? You’re going to look quite the genius and it might save you from getting that fateful call to HR to hand your your pink slip.

Add to that the savings over time and, when you do float back above water, you will have saved enough money to put towards some new hires, or some new iron.

3. Microsoft is making up for another mistake. How many times are you going to read that sentence? The reports and reviews for Windows 7 are pretty much all positive. Isn’t that to be expected after Vista? With the exception of Windows ME, Vista was the worst operating system Microsoft has released. They knew they had to recover from that with a hit. If they didn’t, they were doomed. But is this going to be the last time? No. Because Vista is so bad, now is the perfect time to make the switch to show your users what a real operating system, with real power, is. Once they see the stability and speed of, say, Ubuntu over Vista they will welcome it with open arms. No more slowing down, no more UAC.

4. Ubuntu 9.04. I will be writing up a review of this newest release of Ubuntu very soon. But I can safely say, after less than 24 hours of use, that this release might well be the slickest operating system release I have ever seen. Introducting new users to this particular version of Linux will not only prove to them that Linux is a viable solution, they might finally see that Linux is the BEST solution. Ubuntu 9.04 is really that good.

5. What’s the next big virus? Can you answer that question? If not, can you say, with 100% certainty, your anti-virus software will protect you and your data from whatever is about to come down the pipeline? If you were using Linux that certainty would certainly be much closer to 100% than it is now with Windows. And you’re willing to risk that mission-critical data why? Malware, spyware, viruses, worms, trojans – they are only going to continue coming. And every time they do you have to hope the makers of your protection have pushed the definitions out to your machine to keep you safe. With Linux you’re not going to have to worry about that right now. But the longer you wait to make the change, the greater your chances that you will be the next victim of whatever malicious code is next in line.

So, what are you waiting for? Games? Photoshop? Linux is here and it’s only going to continue to grow. Now is the perfect time to either make the switch or add Linux to your arsenal of tools. Don’t get left behind.

Related posts

• Thoughts on Linux migration (16)
• With Ubuntu 9.10 Arrives Wubi 9.10 (2)
• Why you should switch your parents pc to ubuntu (20)
• Which Ubuntu Derivative Is Right For You? (16)
• What makes Ubuntu so user friendly? (47)

Some of these improvements will be very obvious to the users and some of them will not. In this article I will detail the major changes so you can decide if this update is for you.

Ext4

This will be the first release to support the extension 4 file system. This support is option (as 9.04 will default to ext3). The biggest advantage to ext4 is the support for larger volumes (up to 1 exabyte) and larger files (16 terabytes). There are other improvements that ext4 regarding allocation. Both pre-allocation and delayed allocation have been added. These improvements deal with how space is allocated for files. The former will boost performance for systems like streaming media and databases. The latter will improve fragmentation.

Depending upon user feedback, ext4 may become the default in 9.10.

Cloud computing

With the release of 9.04, cloud computing will become much easier with the help of Eucalyptus. This application will allow you to test and deploy your own clouds matching Amazon EC2 API.

GNOME 2.26.0

The latest release of GNOME will bring some positive changes to the desktop. The Brasero CD burning utility will bring probably the easiest CD burning ever to the Linux desktop. The latest GNOME will also be able to handle multiple monitors much better thanks to gnome-display-properties.

X.org

Probably the one issue that will excite people the most is that a number of card drivers have been transitioned to free. Also many improvements to the ATI drivers as well. One important improvement here is the use of EXA acceleration. One 3D bug that caught me off guard was a mismatch between the kernel and fglrx that rendered 3D non-existent for NVidia drivers…this has been fixed. 3D performance in 9.04 should be greatly improved for all supported video chip sets.

Boot time

Ubuntu is slowly creeping toward its promise of a 20 second boot time. I have actually seen Ubuntu 9.04 (with a solid state hard drive) boot up in 17.4 seconds. Of course the solid state drive is an unfair advantage over most mortal computers. But 17.4 seconds! Ubuntu is doing something right with their boot process.

Kernel

A number of kernel bug fixes have been applied. Particular to this release are numerous USB fixes, PCI subsystem fixes, and firewire fixes. These improvements will be a real boost to multimedia usage on Linux.

More architecture support

As of 9.04 ubuntu will now support ARM processors. This will be a large step in further gaining ground in the netbook market. This is also significant with Freescale releasing a sub-$200.00 ARM-based netbook in the near future.

Overall

Ubuntu has been called on one major issue: Performance. A drastic decline in performance has been noticed from 7.04 to 8.10. This has been one of the major focal points for the Ubuntu development team. To resolve this issue Ubuntu has focused their efforts on a kernel and process level. Hopefully this will result in serious improvements in performance and reliability.

It is my feeling? that this release will be a typical .04 Ubuntu release with a few areas that will very possibly draw in non-Linux users. In particular the file system size limitations and the boot times will draw a more tech-savvy crowd (especially to the server release) and the drastic 3D improvements will draw more end users in.

The most important choice for a 9.04 installation will be to use ext4 or not. If you are installing on a production machine you should probably avoid this file system. But I wouldn’t hestitate to install 9.04 with the ext 4 file system on SOME machine – just to see how much it improves over all performance.

Related posts

• With Ubuntu 9.10 Arrives Wubi 9.10 (2)
• Why you should switch your parents pc to ubuntu (20)
• Which Ubuntu Derivative Is Right For You? (16)
• What makes Ubuntu so user friendly? (47)
• Use SoundJuicer to rip mp3 directly in Linux (4)