TuxArena Blog

Marlin File Browser for GNOME - Overview

2011-12-01T17:32:00.003+02:00

Marlin is a relatively new file browser for GNOME somewhat similar with Nautilus when it comes to features, but with a different default interface.

Features
The default interface is divided into a left panel, which provides fast access to bookmarks and common places, the rest of the area being occupied by the file browser itself. The status bar at the bottom shows the name, type, size, date modified and owner of the currently selected file.

These are the main features:

tab support
Nautilus-like location bar
three file view modes: Icon View, List View and Column View
networking support (SSH, FTP, Windows share, HTTP and HTTPS)
customizable toolbar, including toolbar icon size
single click/double click to open file
show hidden files
zoom in/out

Installation in Ubuntu
Marlin is not yet in the Ubuntu official repositories, but a PPA is available. To install it, open a terminal and type in these commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:marlin-devs/marlin-daily
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install marlin

The repository contains versions for Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot and 12.04 Precise Pangolin.

Conclusion
Overall, Marlin gets the job done. It's nothing more, nothing less than what you'd expect from a simple file manager, it blends well in GNOME, and it's pretty lightweight.

Alien Arena 2011 Released - Overview & Screenshots

2010-12-17T08:20:00.002+02:00

Alien Arena 7.50 (a.k.a. Alien Arena 2011) was released yesterday and it comes with several new notable features regarding the physics engine, as well as two new maps, updated player and skins models, new music for various maps, revamped in-game IRC client, as well as several bug fixes and improvements.

Alien Arena is a free, open-source first-person shooter for Linux, Windows and Mac which takes place in retro science-fiction environments, with a fast pace, support for single player and multiplayer games, a host of interesting game modes besides the usual DM or CTF, like Team Core Assault, Deathball, Instagib, Vampire, Regeneration, Low Gravity.

Here are the main new features for this release:
- Ragdoll physics using the Open Dynamics Physics Engine
- two brand new maps, Total Annihilation and Neptune's Lost City
- rewritten in-game IRC client
- updated player and skin models
- fixed LOD meshes for all player models
- faster particle rendering
- True Type Font support
- new music for various maps
- various bug fixes, code cleanups and improvements

New map - Neptune

To compile the Alien Arena source in Debian/Ubuntu, type in a terminal:

sudo apt-get build-dep alien-arena
sudo apt-get install libode-dev
./configure
make
sudo make install

Important notices
The executable is called crx, and it is located in the /usr/local/bin/ directory (if no other path was specified at the command-line to the configure script). To run it type crx in a terminal or press Alt+F2 and type crx followed by Enter in the run box that appears.

The configuration directory for Alien Arena is located in ~/.codered/, where ~ is your home directory (e.g. /home/USER/.codered).

2 Linux Screencasting Applications

2010-12-16T12:05:00.002+02:00

recordMyDesktop - This is a powerful command-line screencasting application which uses open formats to save the obtaining video (Ogg Theora for video and Ogg Vorbis for audio). recordMyDesktop also provides GTK and Qt frontends, for both GNOME and KDE (the Qt version is not included in Ubuntu's repositories, but it can be downloaded from SourceForge).

However, recordMyDesktop seems unable to record sound, the program hanging there so I had to kill it manually. It will successfully record 3D in Ubuntu if 3D effects are enabled. At start I though it was a video related issue, so I looked in the man page and the bugs section specifies that it will not work unless the --full-shots parameter is specified in the command-line. I did it and no result. I also tried changing the --fps option to 8 fps but still no result, with the program hanging there so I had to kill it manually. I used Ubuntu 10.10 with the version of recordMyDesktop which comes in the repositories (which seems to be unmaintained since 2009). However, I gave it a try by disabling sound recording, and it turned out that was the issue. After I googled it, I also tried to change the sound driver to hw:0,0 but again, no results, this time I got an I/O error. Should this have something with the sound driver? Maybe someone knows a workaround for this.

recordMyDesktop

To use it, just type recordmydesktop in a terminal and hit Ctrl+C when done, then wait for the file to be encoded. By default it will save the video in a file called out.ogv, in the current working directory. Options like --fps, --no-cursor, --on-the-fly-encoding or the output filename can also be specified. For example:

recordmydesktop --no-sound --fps 8 --on-the-fly-encoding myfile.ogv

Will encode a video called myfile.ogv of the entire screen, with no sound, using on the fly encoding and a framerate of 8 fps.

To install it in Ubuntu, type in a terminal: sudo apt-get install recordmydesktop

Or, for the graphical frontend: sudo apt-get install gtk-recordmydesktop

The graphical frontend offers a nice graphical configuration window, so some may be more comfortable with this one.

Istanbul - Istanbul is written in Python and it offers a few less features than recordMyDesktop. It allows to select area or window to record, 3D record, enable/disable mouse pointer recording, and choose the size of the video (full, half or quarter width and height). It saves the file as an Ogg Theora video. Again, I had problems with recording sound, I believe I'm doing something wrong here.

To install in Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install istanbul

Istanbul

Another application to include here would be Wink, a freeware software presentation application with ports for both Linux and Windows. Bear in mind though that Wink is not free software. Wink allows to create presentations, include voice recording, explanatory popup boxes, exporting to Flash video. I should also mention the powerful Xvidcap (GTK) and reKordmydesktop (KDE frontend to recordMyDesktop), which, although they don't seem to be maintained anymore, still offer a good amount of features.

Have some more? Please share!

6 Best Linux Terminal Applications

2010-11-30T20:10:00.000+02:00

Guake - Quake-style terminal for GNOME
A Quake-style terminal is a drop-down terminal which can be shown/hidden just like the console in Quake (and most of the first-person shooter games out there), using the press of a key (~ in Quake). Guake is a terminal application written in GTK which uses the F12 keyboard shortcut by default to show or hide it.

Guake - drop-down console for the GNOME desktop environment

Guake features transparency, tabs, tray icon, configurable shortcuts, fullscreen mode and allows you to change terminal size, transparency level, appearance, font size and default shell interpreter.
Homepage

Terminator - feature-rich terminal emulator
Terminator is a powerful terminal application written in Java with support for features like tabs, automatic logging, text drag & drop support, find function, split the current tab horizontally or vertically, profiles, appearance settings (transparency and background image, colours), plugins and configurable keyboard shortcuts. All in all, Terminator is one of the most powerful terminal emulators out there.
Homepage

With features that make it unique, Terminator is a must-try

Konsole - KDE default terminal
Being the default terminal for the K Desktop Environment, Konsole brings usual features like transparency, profiles, notifications, shortcuts, tabs, appearance configuration, but also bookmarks, monitor for silence or activity.
Homepage

Powerful enough, Konsole usually fits most KDE users who need a terminal to blend into the environment

Yakuake - Quake-style terminal for KDE
Yakuake is the terminal of choice for those who use KDE and like the Quake-style approach. Triggered by F12, Yakuake supports tabs, profiles, transparency, resizing, colour and font size configuration, active tab splitting. A very good alternative to Konsole.
Homepage

Yakuake - drop-down terminal for KDE

GNOME Terminal - GNOME default terminal
GNOME Terminal ships by default with the GNOME desktop environment and it features profiles, configurable keyboard shortcuts, tabs, fullscreen mode, find function, transparency effects, background image.

The default GNOME terminal application

GNOME Terminal allows to configure a profile and change appearance settings (including transparency level, background image, colour scheme or terminal fonts), scrollbar, bell and terminal size.

Tilda - Another Quake-style terminal
Tilda is yet another powerful Quake-style terminal written in GTK which uses by default the F1 keyboard shortcut to show/hide it. It features tabs, transparency effects, build-in text and background color schemes, and powerful configuration options. When first started, Tilda will show the configuration window, where you can change behaviour like showing it on taskbar or start it hidden, change the title and the default web browser to open links, change size, position, enable transparency, choose background image and enable animated pulldown, colour schemes, enable/disable thescrollbar, compatibility options and show/hide keybinding (default F1). The animated pulldown looks kind of ugly though (GNOME 2.32 and Tilda 0.9.6). It doesn't seem to include support for changing the console font, maybe I missed it? Otherwise than that, Tilda is a very good alternative to the ones already mentioned.
Homepage

Tilda - an alternative drop-down terminal for GNOME users

10 Alternatives to Default Applications in Ubuntu 10.10

2010-11-30T18:00:00.000+02:00

Music player: Rhythmbox (full review here)
Alternative: Banshee (full review here)
Banshee is a feature-rich collection-oriented player which includes Internet services, cover manager, smart playlists, Last.fm integration, 10-band equalizer, tray icon, ratings, fullscreen mode, track metadata editor, support for radio and podcasts, plugins and play queue, to list only a part of them. The version which comes in Ubuntu Maverick is 1.8.0, but at the time of writing a new development version, 1.9.0, is available on the official website and can be easily installed using the Banshee daily builds PPA at Launchpad.
Runners-up: Exaile, Listen, Audacious, gmusicbrowser, Decibel Audio Player, Quod Libet, Foobnix, DeaDBeeF, Sonata, GMPC

sudo apt-get install banshee

Movie player: Totem
Alternative: GNOME MPlayer
GNOME MPlayer is a GTK frontend to mplayer the popular, cross-platform movie player. GNOME MPlayer is provided by the package gnome-mplayer and can play any file that mplayer supports. It has support for subtitles, playlist, video info, and comes with pretty much enough configuration options.
Runners-up:

sudo apt-get install gnome-mplayer

File manager: Nautilus (full review here)
Alternative: GNOME Commander
It was a tough choice between this and PCManFM, and finally decided to go for the twin-panel one although the latter is a good replacement too. GNOME Commander is a twin-panel file manager with features like search for files/folders, horizontal layout, SMB support, keyboard shortcuts, bookmarks. It doesn't seem to integrate context menus for various file formats, for example adding/extracting to/from an archive.
Runners-up: PCManFM, Thunar, emelFM

sudo apt-get install gnome-commander

Web browser: Firefox
Alternative: Epiphany
Epiphany is a clean and simple GTK web browser that uses the WebKit layout engine. It includes the usual features like privacy management, bookmarks, tabs, history, fullscreen mode.
Runners-up:

sudo apt-get install epiphany-browser

Word processor: OpenOffice.org Writer
Alternative: Abiword
Abiword is for those who need a word processing application, but without the more advanced features the OpenOffice.org Writer includes and also quite lightweight compared to the latter. It provides a simple, easy-to-use interface and has support for the OpenDocument Text format.
Runners-up:

sudo apt-get install abiword

Image viewer: Eye of GNOME
Alternative: gThumb
gThumb supports a wide variety of image formats and comes with decent features for an image viewer, like bookmarks, basic editing tools (rotate, convert to other formats, resize), extensions.
Runners-up: GPicView, GQview, GImageView

sudo apt-get install gthumb

Terminal application: GNOME Terminal
Alternative: Guake
A few days ago I talked about Yakuake, a KDE Quake-style console application. Well, Guake is its counterpart on the Gnome desktop environment. Guake features transparency effects, keyboard shortcuts (F12 to hide/show the terminal), tray icon, tabs (using the Firefox shortcuts to switch - Ctrl+Page Up and Ctrl+Page Down), configuration options.
Runners-up:

sudo apt-get install guake

Text editor: Gedit
Alternative: Geany
Geany is a very powerful text editor which also offers features for programmers. Geany comes with tabbed support, highlighting for various programming languages, indentation support, projects, plugins and a whole range of configuration options. A respectable replacement for Gedit, and also a valid tool among more advanced IDEs like Emacs.
Runners-up: Scribes, SciTE, Leafpad

sudo apt-get install geany

Photo manager: Shotwell
Alternative: F-Spot
What better alternative for Shotwell than the former default photo manager, F-Spot? F-Spot features camera support, importing and exporting images to various services, tags, extensions to name a few.
Runners-up:

sudo apt-get install f-spot

Email client: Evolution
Alternative: Claws Mail
Claws Mail is a highly configurable email client written in GTK with features like address book, support for POP3 or SMTP protocols, external editor, multiple accounts.
Runners-up: Thunderbird (not GTK but integrates well enough)

sudo apt-get install claws-mail

Final notice
All the alternative applications and runners-up were chosen to blend well in the GNOME environment, which means all of them (except for Thunderbird) are GTK-based.

16 Music Players for Linux

2010-11-29T19:52:00.001+02:00

Linux came a long way concerning music players in the last couple of years and if in the past there were only few choices for users - XMMS has to be mentioned here - well, now there are so many players to choose from, and if most share the same features, each one provides an alternative by bringing a new feature or a different interface. This I can tell, can satisfy any user's taste. Without further ado, here are no less than 16 graphical music players for Linux.

Each player (except for the last two) have been reviewed before here at TuxArena and there is a link to the review after the application's name.

Amarok - full review
I don't think Amarok needs an introduction. Every long-time KDE user tested it at least once, and most of KDE users use it as their primary music player, not to mention it comes by default in distributions like Kubuntu, the KDE-based branch of Ubuntu. Amarok is a powerful, collection-oriented player, with an interface which, although loved by some and contested by others, looks very good and offers as much information as it could. It comes with dynamic playlist support, cover manager, Internet services, Last.fm integration, scripting support, Internet radio support, media devices support and much, much more.
Homepage

Amarok - one of the most popular and powerful music players on Linux

Rhythmbox - full review
Rhythmbox is the default audio player in Gnome and Ubuntu implicitly. Among the top features it comes with are the music library, sortable playlists, plugins, local file cover support, Last.fm integration, support for services like Jamendo or Magnatune. Another feature of Rhythmbox is the integration with Ubuntu One Music Store, the service provided by Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu (I don't know if this is Ubuntu-specific only though).
Homepage

Rhythmbox is the default audio player in Gnome

Banshee - full review
Some would recommend Banshee as the first option for replacing Rhythmbox. Banshee integrates in Gnome and it comes with a full set of features, offering a media library, 10-band equalizer, Last.fm integration, cover fetching, playlist support, podcasts and a whole bunch of plugins . Banshee also offers a video library and support for playing movies and video formats. Its only problem seems to be stability though, I had some problems with random crashes and fetching local covers doesn't seem to work (Ubuntu 10.10 and Banshee 1.8.0).
Homepage

Banshee is a full-featured player which also includes video capabilities

Audacious - full review
This is the GTK2 replacement for the now deprecated XMMS. It comes with Winamp 2.x skin support, an interface which resembles the Winamp 2 look and feel, support for covers, an equalizer, and more. Version 2.4 offers two view modes available in the View menu: Gtk interface and the Winamp Classic interface (screenshots below).
Homepage

Audacious is a replacement for XMMS which offers two view modes: Gtk and Winamp Classic

Clementine - full review
For those who complain about the direction Amarok 2 took, Clementine can be a very good alternative to Amarok 1.4. Clementine's goal is a port of Amarok 1.4 to KDE4, and until now it's done a good job. Some of the many features of Amarok 1.4 are not yet implemented, but still Clementine offers sortable playlists, cover manager, equalizer, collection manager, file manager, Last.fm song submission. It still lacks support for scripts though.
Homepage #1
Homepage #2

Clementine aims to be the KDE4 port of Amarok 1.4 and does a pretty good job

Qmmp - full review
I was talking about Audacious being the GTK replacement of XMMS. Well, Qmmp is the Qt replacement for it, making it perfect for KDE users. It resembles the XMMS interface, supports Winamp 2.x skins, it allows plugins.
Homepage #1
Homepage #2

Qmmp - the KDE replacement of XMMS

Listen - full review
Listen is another player for Gnome, and it comes with a clean, well-organised interface as well as support for plugins, Last.fm integration, four display modes (small, normal, full and party mode), lyrics fetching, Wikipedia integration for artist and song info.
Homepage

Listen - typical player for Gnome, featuring a well-organised interface

Exaile - full review
Yet another GTK application, Exaile features music collection, lyrics fetching, file browser, radio support, sortable playlist, device manager, 10-band equalizer, queue, covers support. Exaile is also highly configurable via the Edit -> Preferences menu.
Homepage

Exaile is a feature-rich GTK player offering a good alternative to Rhythmbox or Banshee

Jajuk - full review
Well, when I reviewed Jajuk I was really impressed by this audio player. Jajuk is written in Java and it is a full-featured, top notch player with a neat and intuitive interface. Among the many features of Jajuk there are cover fetching, lyrics, file browser, lots of configuration options, statistics, cover manager, highly configurable interface. In my opinion, a must-try.
Homepage

Written in Java, Jajuk is a feature-full player

Decibel Audio Player - full review
Decibel can be described in one word: minimalist. Written in GTK and aiming to stay simple and intuitive, Decibel can look too simple at first, but don't be confused by that. It still offers enough features one would expect from an audio player and most of Decibel's features are available via plugins (bundled by default in it), so go to Edit->Preferences if you want to take advantage of all the features. It has three view modes (full, playlist, mini), cover fetching support, Last.fm song submission, equalizer, library, Twitter status update plugin. The interface offers a playlist and a file manager, which shows folders in a tree-view mode. Adding music to the playlist may seem at little confusing at first, you can do that by selecting a folder in the combo box to the left of the main window.
Homepage

Decibel can be extended using the plugins included by default

Quod Libet - full review
Another player for Gnome with standard features and a clean, good-looking interface and support for Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MP3, MP4, WAV and WMA formats. Quod Libet offers filters, a whole bunch of plugins (actually the plugins extend Quod Libet's functionality a lot, and there are a lot of them), several view modes.
Homepage

Quod Libet

Guayadeque - full review
I featured Guayadeque in my Linux applications with peculiar names article, and found out in the mean time that Guayadeque is a place in Canary Islands. Guayadeque brings nice features also taking a different approach regarding its interface. Features: radio, Last.fm integration, music library, lyrics, dynamic playlists, podcasts support, file browser, ratings. I think Guayadeque does a great job taking a different approach then most of the players out there.
Homepage

Taking a different approach, Guayadeque is a must try if tired of usual players

Foobnix - full review
Another player for Linux, Foobnix is written in Python and uses the GTK toolkit. It offers the usual equalizer, Last.fm song submission, an online search tool and enough configuration options. The current version in Ubuntu is a little buggy, but other than that Foobnix is a good audio player.
Homepage

Written in PyGTK, Foobnix offers enough features

Goggles Music Manager - full review
Goggles Music Manager is written using the FOX toolkit, a library for designing lightweight applications. It features AlbumArt support, tag editing, smart sorting, drag and drop support, Last.fm and Libre.fm song submission, SQLite database for the music collection, system tray integration.
Homepage

GMM is a lightweight music player written using FOX toolkit

JuK
It looks like most of the players in this review are written in GTK, and those for KDE are only Amarok, Clementine, and JuK. This player offers features like cover manager, history, crossfading or the tag editor. JuK is very good for those who want a lightweight audio player for KDE.
Homepage

JuK - a simple KDE player which has been around for years

DeaDBeeF
DeaDBeeF is a player coming with a compact interface and features like an equalizer, tray integration, plugins, global hotkeys. Among the notable plugins are the OSD or the AlbumArt plugin.
Homepage

DeaDBeeF offers a compact interface and an equalizer

Except for those, there are the client-server oriented ones, like XMMS2 and MPD (with clients such as Sonata or GMPC - for MPD and the ones listed here - for XMMS2), or text user interface players which can run in a terminal, like CMus (review here), mp3blaster or moc (review here).

Quick Look at 0 A.D. - Free Linux RTS Game

2010-11-27T18:58:00.002+02:00

0 A.D. is an open-source, 3D real time strategy game with an ancient warfare theme, developed by Wildfire Games, and using the Pyrogenesis engine.

0 A.D. started originally as a mod concept for Age of Empires II, but in 2009 Wildfire Games licensed the code under the GPL and announced it will be open-source, available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X.

The game is currently under heavy development, and the latest alpha was released on October 19 2010 (Alpha 2 'Bellerophon') and it currently includes the following features:

- 3D graphics using OpenGL
- 1 civilisation units & buildings
- fog of war
- group movement and basic unit formations
- population limits
- repair command
- minimap
- unit following camera mod
- building rotation keys

Considering it's still in alpha, the game doesn't have yet an AI opponent, however multiplayer works (the in-game manual explains how to play over Internet). Regarding single-player, you can still try the game to see the current features and adjust to the gameplay.

The developers didn't fix a date for the final release, but the final game is expected in 2011 or 2012.

Installation in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat

To try it in Ubuntu, use the 0 A.D. PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:wfg/0ad
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install 0ad

Run the game by typing 0ad in a terminal or press Alt+F2 and type 0ad in the run box that appears.

7 KDE Apps to Get After Installing Kubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat

2010-11-27T17:10:00.000+02:00

Yakuake - Quake-like terminal application - full review
This is a great replacement console for the default Konsole which ships with KDE and implicitly with Kubuntu. The great thing about Yakuake is that is uses a Quake-style show/hide function, which can be accessed by default using the F12 keyboard shortcut. Press F12 to show the terminal, do you work, then hide it again when you don't need it anymore. Yakuake supports profiles (which can be configured the same way like a Konsole profile), global shortcuts, allows to change default size and animation speed, it supports skins, transparency, start-up options (like start with window shown or hidden), transparency. Supported are also multiple tabs, which can be switched by pressing Shift+Right/Left Arrow.
Homepage

sudo apt-get install yakuake

Yakuake 2.9.7

BasKet - powerful notes taking application - full review
BasKet Note Pads is one of the applications that I fell in love with immediately after trying it, ever since it was available only for KDE3. For those who didn't try it yet, BasKet is feature-rich and powerful notes-taking application, but not only. It's not your ordinary notes application, it has much more to it. The workspace can organise your notes in one or more columns, or in custom (free) positions, it supports tags, inserting of images, links, launchers to applications or other disk locations, backup or restore BasKet archives, importing to various notes formats (included here are plain text files, KNotes, Sticky Notes, Tomboy), exporting to HTML file. The configuration window allows to enable/disable the system tray, configure global actions, animate changes in baskets, change the appearance of notes. All in all, if simple is not enough for you and a minimalist application like KNotes doesn't suffice, BasKet is definitely the KDE4 application for it, allowing to build complex projects rather than only text notes.
Homepage

sudo apt-get install basket

BasKet 2.0 Beta

Kdenlive - powerful video editor
Kdenlive is a very powerful video editor for KDE4 which bundles a big number of video editing features. It comes with a wide range video and audio effects, support for camcorders and cameras, multitrack support, exporting to formats like PAL, NTSC, h264.
Homepage

sudo apt-get install kdenlive

Kdenlive 0.7.8

Krusader - full-featured file manager - full review
Ever since the KDE3 days Krusader was usually the first choice when someone would ask for a replacement for Konqueror. Krusader uses by default a twin-panel interface, and ships with all the whistles and bells one would expect from a complete file manager. It includes support for user actions, including creating archives, calculate checksums, split or combine files, mass rename of files, show previews, sort files by various properties, synchronise directories, search, locate, profiles, tabs, shortcuts, sessions, bookmarks. Krusader is also highly configurable.
Homepage

sudo apt-get install krusader

Krusader 2.2.0 Beta

VLC - complete video player
In my opinion there are three major players for KDE: Kaffeine, SMPlayer and VLC, and all three are very good, and this time I chose VLC, one of the most popular movie players out there, and not only on the Linux platform. VLC offers anything you would expect from a media player, support for DVDs and HD formats, ISO DVD images, audio and video settings, bookmarks, subtitles, effects, plugins, playlists, minimal view mode. The preferences window allows to configure and change the way VLC looks and feels, OSD, volume normalization, hotkeys.
Homepage

sudo apt-get install vlc

VLC 1.1.4

digiKam - photo management application
digiKam is the ultimate photo management application for KDE, with support for a wide range of cameras, importing from PicasaWeb, Facebook, SmugMug or a remote computer, and exporting to a variety of services. It organises photos in albums, itoffers image processing tools and effects, and it's highly configurable.
Homepage

sudo apt-get install digikam

DigiKam 1.4.0

Clementine - KDE4 port of Amarok 1.4 - full review
Kubuntu comes with Amarok 2.2.0, but if you're happier with the look and feel of the older Amarok 1.4, Clementine is the perfect replacement. It offers an interface similar to the one of the KDE3 version of Amarok, and currently it integrates a pretty fair amount of features. Clementine comes with a file browser, radio support, Last.fm song submission, sortable playlists, cover manager, equalizer, cross-fading, tray icon integration, OSD, music library. Considering it isn't included in the Ubuntu Maverick repositories, here is a tutorial I've put up a while ago to install it.
Homepage
Tutorial - Install Clementine in Kubuntu 10.10

Clementine 0.3

Goggles Music Manager - Overview and Installation in Ubuntu Maverick

2010-11-26T19:27:00.003+02:00

Goggles Music Manager (or GMM for short) is a music player written using the FOX toolkit, with support for Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MP3, MP4, ASF and Musepack. FOX is a fast toolkit for creating graphical interfaces (another application which I reviewed in the past which uses FOX is Xfe - review here - a file manager for Linux).

Note: If you don't want to read the review you can skip directly to the installation instructions below, which show how to compile and install GMM in the latest Ubuntu release, Maverick Meerkat.

Among the features Goggles comes with are:
- support for AlbumArt - embedded in file or separate image on disk
- tag editing - including support for multiple file editing
- smart sorting
- playlists support - including importing/exporting from/to XSPF, M3U, PLS, CSV
- drag and drop support - KDE and GNOME
- uses xine engine
- configurable user interface, including changing default icons
- Last.fm and Libre.fm support
- Replay gain support

Goggles uses SQLite database for the music collection, and it seems to be very fast when it comes to scanning a music collection, at least compared to most of the other existing players with support for music collection.

Regarding the interface, it's plain and simple:

Goggles Music Manager in Ubuntu 10.10

It also supports a so-called Mini Player, which takes up very little desktop space:

System tray support is included too, and Goggles can be configured to show/hide the tray icon and close the application or just minimize it to tray when the main window close button is clicked.

Drag and drop from Nautilus will also work, and the user will be presented with an importing window for the new files to be added to the playlist.

Goggles successfully fetched all the local album covers, however showing them is disabled by default, so you have to set it in Preferences and restart the application.

The playlist can be sorted using various criteria, and the columns can be shown/hidden and rearranged in a different order.

The Preferences window allows to configure the Last.fm and Libre.fm accounts, although when switching from one another in the drop down list the account username and password seem to be lost so you will have to enter them again. Here you can also customise the tray icon, control buttons location (top or bottom), appearance and audio driver to use.

Installation in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat

Follow these steps:

1. Download the source
Get the source code from the official Google Code page, here (direct link here). At the time of writing the version is 0.11.5, for which this tutorial was made.

2. Uncompress the package
Open up the Terminal and make sure the current working directory is the one where you saved the archive (use pwd and cd to view the current directory and to navigate to your downloads directory e.g. cd; cd Downloads) and uncompress the source tarball using the following command:

tar -xjf gogglesmm-0.11.5.tar.bz2

3. Install the needed dependencies
Type the following two commands:

sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install libfox-1.6-dev libsqlite3-dev libghc6-curl-dev libtag1-dev libxine-dev libdbus-1-dev

The first command will install the tools needed to compile the application, while the second fetches and installs the development packages of various libraries needed by GMM.

4. Install GMM
Type the following commands:

./configure
make
sudo make install

This should be all. To run Goggles, just type gogglesmm in a terminal or press Alt+F2 and type gogglesmm in the run box that appears.

Alternate installation prefix
Alternately, you can specify an installation prefix and install as normal user:

./configure --prefix=/home/USER/usr
make
make install

In which case you will need to include /home/USER/usr (or the prefix of your choice and replacing USER with your username) in your $PATH, by editing the file ~/.bashrc and adding a line like this:

export PATH=/home/USER/usr:$PATH

Then issue:

. ~/.bashrc

Clementine 0.5: New and Improved KDE4 Port of Amarok 1.4

2010-09-26T19:35:00.002+03:00

Clementine is a port to KDE4 of one of the most beloved music players on Linux, Amarok 1.4. The latest release brings several new features, including iPod, MTP and USB mass storage disks support, queue manager, support for Wii Remote to control it, and numerous bug fixes to already existing features.

Clementine 0.5 in Kubuntu 10.10 Maverick Beta

Clementine brings the same Amarok 1.4 interface to KDE4, looking good and very familiar. Here is how it looks like:

The main features of Clementine are:
- music library
- powerful playlist
- file browser
- Internet services
- iPod, MTP and USB mass storage disks support
- local cover or Internet cover fetching support
- cover manager
- queue manager
- 10-band equalizer
- customizable OSD (on-screen display)
- projectM vizualizations
- support for transcoding audio files
- 5 analyzers
- system tray integration

As I already mentioned, the interface resembles the one of Amarok 1.4, with the same widget styles and menus. To the left there are four tabs through which the user can access the music library, the file browser, the Internet services or the Devices. The main part of the window is occupied by the playlist itself, while the cover is displayed at the bottom left corner, with the option to show small or larger sizes of the cover.

The media library organizes the music by artists, albums and songs, and allows you to drag and drop any of these items to the playlist. The playlist shows by default the title, artist, album, song length and track number, but you can show as many columns as you want and sort the playlist using any of these.

Clementine also brings the well-known cover manager, which looks exactly like the one in Amarok 1.4:

Clementine cover manager

The playlist shuffle mode allows to shuffle by album too, not only by song, and the repeating mode allows to repeat the current song, album or the whole playlist.

Clementine implements the projectM music visualizer, which features tons of visualizations, and which allows to change the framerate and quality (the highest settings would allow 60 fps using 1024x1024 resolution). In addition to these, Clementine offers control buttons in the visualization window too:

Clementine features projectM visualizations

Regarding Internet services, Clementine offers Last.fm integration and song submission, SomaFM and Magnatune support, and custom radio streams.

The Preferences window allows configuration of cross-fading, replay gain, tray icon, global keyboard shortcuts (also, running in GNOME will allow to use GNOME's shortcuts), OSD (which can be configured to show a Clementine OSD or a specific desktop environment OSD), Wii Remote, Last.fm account, Magnatune account and music library directories.

On-Screen Display and Preferences

Conclusion
If you are unsatisfied with the direction Amarok 2.x took and can't live without Amarok 1.4, then you have two choice. Either stay with it, or try Clementine, which has the advantage that it integrates good with the desktop. Although it still lacks several features (lyrics support, Wikipedia integration or smart playlists come to my mind just now), Clementine is almost the perfect replacement for Amarok 1.4 on KDE4. And even though it may not offer everything now, keep an open eye on it because it will surely implement new features in versions to come.

Homepage #1
Homepage #2
Homepage #3

Shotwell - The New Photo Manager in Ubuntu 10.10

2010-09-26T17:18:00.001+03:00

As many of you already know, Shotwell will replace F-Spot in the next Ubuntu release, Maverick Meerkat, which is scheduled for October 10. Shotwell is a GTK photo management application which organizes your photos in a collection, allows them to be tagged and rated, and more.

Shotwell 0.7.2 in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat Beta

This article is about Shotwell 0.7.2, the latest release, which is included now on the beta release of Ubuntu Maverick. Here are its most important features:

- import photos from F-Spot or from a folder
- view detailed meta info about photos
- set ratings and tags
- filter images
- preview all images, view photos as slideshow, view in fullscreen mode
- sort photos by title, date or rating
- edit in external image editor
- publish photos to Facebook, Flickr or Picasa Web Albums

Publishing to Facebook

- export photos to JPEG or PNG, with the possibility to rescale them

Exporting photos

Shotwell will also organize photos using the so-called "events", sorting them depending on the date they were taken.

Very Nice Music Player for GNOME: Decibel Audio Player

2010-09-26T16:04:00.003+03:00

Decibel is a music player built in GTK which takes a different approach when it comes to the way features are implemented, and that is, Decibel uses only plug-ins which can be enabled or disabled on demand. This makes it either a pretty featured player, or a very simple and basic one, depending on which plug-ins you need enabled.

Decibel integrates well in GNOME and follows its HIG

The first thing I liked after opening Decibel was its slogan, which goes "...And Music for All" (Metallica anyone?)

The interface is clean and simple, and according to the official website, it follows the GNOME HIG (human interface guidelines). To the left there is a tree view listing files and folders which can be be added to the playlist. It also includes three view modes, full mode (shows everything), playlist mode (shows only the playlist), and mini mode (shows only control buttons, cover - if enabled, artist, title and album).

The Mini Mode

Although Decibel may seem simple at first, this is because all the plug-ins (except the File Explorer) are disabled by default. You can turn Decibel into a pretty powerful player by turning these on. Here is a list of the plug-ins (which can be accessed via the Edit->Preferences menu item) bundled with Decibel:

- Audio CD: plays audio discs
- AudioScrobbler: submit music you listen to Last.fm
- Covers: show album covers
- Desktop Notification: it is an OSD (on-screen display) to show when the track changes

Desktop Notification

- Equalizer: 10-band equalizer (no presets at the moment)
- File Explorer - browse through files and folders and add them to the playlist
- Instant Messenger Status: allows to set what you're listening to in your status message, with a configurable message (e.g. ♫ {artist} - {album} ♫); I tested it with Pidgin and it works, for Empathy it didn't seem to work though
- Library: organizes music by tags
- ReplayGain: normalize volume
- Status File: generates a text file with the current status
- Status Icon: system tray integration (not configurable)
- Twitter: update the status of your Twitter account

Plug-ins and the equalizer

To install Decibel in Ubuntu, type sudo apt-get install decibel-audio-player in a terminal.

Decibel is very nice, and its strong point is definitely its modularity, allowing you to turn it from a basic player into a more complex one.

Krita - The KDE Answer to GIMP

2010-09-26T14:21:00.000+03:00

I was recently browsing through various Linux news sites and bumped into this article, a taste of a comic done in Krita, the KDE painting and image editor application, which is part of the KOffice suite. Now I rarely use image editors, and I'm totally untalented at it, but when I do, I use GIMP for basic cropping, coloring or other simple stuff. Anyway, I remembered I only tried Krita once, in KDE 3, and I was a little dissatisfied with it (can't remember exactly why), so at the time I decided to stay with GIMP. This is why this article brought Krita again in my attention, so I decided to give it a spin and see how it looks like.

In this overview I'm going to talk about Krita 2.2.2, which comes included in the Ubuntu 10.10 Beta repositories. Being a full-fledged image editor, Krita comes with many tools and features needed by an image manipulation program, and to list a few.
- support for various file formats, including PNG, JPEG, BMP, PDF or TIFF
- selection and painting tools which include various shapes like line, rectangle, ellipse, in addition to freehand paint
- many brush engines
- filters: raindrops, blur, sharpen, mosaic, to list a few

In addition to these, Krita allows you to change brightness/contrast, rescale, crop and rotate images, export the result to various image formats or PDF, take advantage of the split-window option, or work with layers.

When starting Krita for the first time, it will ask you to choose the size and color model for the default template (just like probably 90% of the KDE applications, I had to resize the window and widgets inside it in order to get a good screenshot, but this is off topic).

I mentioned some of the good parts of Krita. Now, I don't know if this is only me, but when applying an effect I got a preview on the image, but after closing the window the image wasn't modified. I tried the Apply and Close button too, but same result. After this, Krita crashed. This happened without exception many times.

Final thoughts: Krita is nice, but it currently crashes a lot. It's frustrating to hit apply to an effect and then watch the program crash, and I think this needs a lot of working, because at the time being, it's in an almost unusable state. Other than that, Krita is a decent replacement to GIMP (or it will be, as soon as they get the crashes fixed), especially if you want an application to integrate well with your KDE desktop.

Collection of 18 Popular APT & DPKG Tips for Debian and Ubuntu

2010-09-20T22:49:00.005+03:00

This is a guide containing the most popular and useful ways of using the APT and DPKG commands, and it applies to both Ubuntu and Debian (and their derivatives). I mentioned where super user privileges are required, the ones without a mention can be executed as normal user. If you're using Ubuntu, precede a command with sudo in order to gain root privileges (and enter your user password); on Debian, type su, enter the root password, and then type in the commands as shown below.

dpkg -L package_name
This command will show what files package_name installed on your computer. Notice that this works only for already installed packages. Example:

embryo@debian:~$ dpkg -L vorbis-tools
/.
/usr
/usr/bin
/usr/bin/ogg123

apt-get build-dep package_name
(needs root privileges)
This is a very useful command, which will install all the development libraries needed by an application. So if you need to compile a newer version of a program than the one included in the repositories, use this command to fetch the dependencies. Notice that the libraries installed will be for the current version coming with the repositories, so you may need to install additional libraries if needed. However, this usually works for most of the applications. Example:

apt-get build-dep wesnoth

This will fetch all the development packages needed for Wesnoth. Keep in mind that your sources repositories must be enabled (they are enabled by default in Ubuntu).

apt-get clean (and apt-get autoclean)
(needs root privileges)
This command will remove the archives installed on your system. Whenever you install a package, it is downloaded and the DEB package is kept inside the /var/cache/apt/archives/ directory. This command removes those packages, freeing up space.

apt-get clean
apt-get autoclean

Regarding apt-get autoclean: this command will remove only the archives which are no longer available in the repositories, and will keep the ones which are currently available. Helpful if you want to get rid of old archives which have been updated, but still want to keep the upgraded ones just in case. To see how much space the archive occupy, use du -h (the -h argument stands for human readable, so it will show sizes in human readable format):

du -h /var/cache/apt/archives/

apt-cache show package_name
Will show information about any package in the repository. You only have to type in the name of it, not the entire name and version. Example:

embryo@debian:~$ apt-cache show vorbis-tools
Package: vorbis-tools
Priority: optional
Section: sound
Installed-Size: 580
...

apt-cache search pattern
Will search and list all the packages which contain pattern in their name or in their description. You can pipe this with grep for more relevant results:

embryo@debian:~$ apt-cache search gnome terminal|grep terminal
gmfsk - MFSK, RTTY and other digital mode terminal for HF/amateur radio
gnome-terminal-data - Data files for the GNOME terminal emulator
gnome-terminal - The GNOME 2 terminal emulator application

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
(needs root privileges)
This is a one-liner to update your packages list and upgrade your system. Since it requires root privileges, if your distribution is Ubuntu use sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade. Notice that the second command (after the double ampersand) is executed only if the first one was successful, so if fetching any of the lists fails, the second command will not be executed. If you're running a testing or beta release, use instead the following:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

This will fetch updates even if they depend on newer packages.

dpkg --get-selections
This command will list all the packages installed on a system using the package manager. Example:

embryo@debian:~$ dpkg --get-selections
acpi-support-base install
acpid install
adduser install
akregator install
...

dpkg -S filename
Will list the packages which install filename. Example:

embryo@debian:~$ dpkg -S oggenc
vorbis-tools: /usr/share/man/man1/oggenc.1.gz
vorbis-tools: /usr/bin/oggenc
embryo@debian:~$

apt-get autoremove
(needs root privileges)
This command will remove unnecessary packages (e.g. orphaned packages), which are no longer needed by any of the packages installed in the system. This happens often after you uninstall a certain application, and its dependencies still remain installed on the system. Use this command to get rid of them.

apt-cache dump
This command will list every package in the cache.

apt-cache depends package_name
A very useful command which lists every dependency a package has, including recommended packages.

embryo@debian:~$ apt-cache depends vorbis-tools
vorbis-tools
Depends: libao2
Depends: libc6
Depends: libcurl3-gnutls
...

apt-cache rdepends package_name
Will show dependencies in reversed order, that is, it will list all the packages which depend on the specified package.

apt-cache rdepends mplayer

apt-cache policy package_name
This will list the repository in which a package is located. In Ubuntu, there are four such repositories: main, restricted, universe and multiverse. Debian has main, contrib and non-free. There is a certain policy for each package, and depending on that, the package is included in one of the specified repositories.

apt-cache policy amarok
apt-cache policy sun-java6-jre

apt-cache showsrc package_name
Will show information about a package source.

apt-get -f install
(needs root privileges)
Will try to fix broken dependencies. This usually comes in handy if you try to manually install a DEB package without installing first its dependencies. Run apt-get -f install to fix the missing dependencies and try to install the package again.

apt-cdrom add
(needs root privileges)
Will add a CD ROM to your sources, so you can install packages from it. This command is mostly useful if you have some ISO images, which you don't want to burn to a CD. In order to scan the ISO images, use:

apt-cdrom -d=/cdrom add

This will mount the ISO image inside the /cdrom directory, and then add its contents to the sources.list. Notice that the /cdrom directory has to be empty. You can use any empty directory for this:

apt-cdrom -d=/home/USER/mydir

dpkg -c local_file.deb
The -c argument tells dpkg to list the contents of a DEB package. Example:

embryo@debian:~$ dpkg -c google-chrome-stable_current_i386.deb
...
drwxr-xr-x root/root 0 2010-07-30 23:54 ./usr/share/man/man1/
-rwxr-xr-x root/root 3098 2010-07-30 23:54 ./usr/share/man/man1/google-chrome.1
lrwxrwxrwx root/root 0 2010-07-30 23:54 ./usr/bin/google-chrome -> /opt/google/chrome/google-chrome

dpkg -f local_file.deb
This shows the control file for a binary package. A control file is a file which provides information to the package manager about dependencies, maintainer, homepage, description, and more.

embryo@debian:~$ dpkg -f google-chrome-stable_current_i386.deb
Package: google-chrome-stable
Version: 5.0.375.126-r53802
...

These are the most popular uses of APT and DPKG. Have some more? Please, share them!

Yet Another Music Player for Linux: Foobnix

2010-09-20T21:10:00.004+03:00

When it comes to music players, Linux evolved heavily during the last three or four years, and new players are announced on a regular basis. I remember that in 2006, when I was starting up with Linux, there were only a few applications to choose from, like Amarok, Rhythmbox, Listen or XMMS, and a few more less popular and not so full-featured. But times have changed and now the Linux platform benefits from players of all kinds: there are replacements for XMMS for both GNOME and KDE (Audacious and Qmmp), collection-oriented players like Amarok, Banshee, Exaile or Rhythmbox. There are less-known players like Quod Libet, Guayadeque or Jajuk, or the client-server oriented ones like MPD. And the ones I just listed are only the ones which came to my mind at the moment. Some would say having so many players for a single task is a bad thing, but I say it's not. Having enough options to choose from is a great advantage. If you don't like one style, try the next player, if you don't like its approach either, try the next one, and so on.

Considering that over time I reviewed probably over 80% of the players available out there, it's time to get in touch with a new one, namely, Foobnix.

Foobnix is a pretty basic player written in GTK which takes a somewhat different approach organizing the music collection. That is, it organizes the music found in the selected directories in a tree structure. Take a look at the screenshot below:

The screenshot shows the usual Foobnix interface, having the playlist on the right side and the music organized in a tree-like structure to the left. Another thing to notice is the simple and clean organization of the widgets, especially how the menu bar and the control buttons are organized on a single level, at the top of the player window.

Here are some of the features which come with Foobnix:
- tree-like music list
- online music search panel
- lyrics fetching
- album cover fetching
- info panel
- Last.fm song submission
- tray integration, clicking the tray icon shows the user control buttons, including previous and next track
- global hotkeys support
- online radios support

Lyrics and info panels

Foobnix looks pretty good. I think the widget spacing needs a little more attention though, because having the lyrics or info panel enabled will put the top of them over the title of the currently playing song, but other than that, it's a very clean and pretty intuitive interface. Also, the option to change the disc cover size in the Preferences window doesn't seem to work.

Regarding features, it currently can't compare with players which offer all the bells and whistles, but it looks promising if development continues.

The only big problem I encountered with Foobnix was regarding several application freezes when performing certain actions, like using the online music search function. Right-clicking the tray icon will show the control buttons, but to make it go away you have to press the OK button, which is not quite a feature. Let's hope these coding problems will be soon solved.

All in all, it's not necessarily a 'must-try' application, and it has a fair share of bugs, but it can fit enough users who will like how the music is organized, or the clean, plain interface.

What Makes Debian One of the Most Popular Distros Out There: 5 Good Reasons

2010-09-19T01:07:00.003+03:00

Debian is one of the oldest and most popular distributions among the Linux users. There are probably hundreds of distributions which are based on Debian, or others which are based on distributions which in turn are based on Debian. Although I'm not a Debian developer, I use it for over two years or so, and slowly got to love this OS.

This is not a 'Debian is better than X' article, it's just about Debian alone. So, let's proceed and see what makes Debian so popular and loved among the Linux users.

Stability. I know as a Debian or Ubuntu (or why not, some other distribution) user you probably heard this a million times. But yes, stability. Debian is renowned for the fact that its 'stable' version is always released only if all known critical bugs have been fixed and it's been stripped from most of the ones with a lower priority. When you install Debian stable you have the certitude that it will not give you a headache, that it is secure and that all the tools and daemons will work the right way. There is a reason for which Debian is used by so many web hosting companies as their preferred Linux distribution for their servers.

Huge community. From a user's point of view, especially a tech-oriented one, having enough persons from which at least one will know the answer is a blessing. There are the Debian mailing lists, the IRC channels (both the official OFTC one and the Freenode one), the forums. And why not say it, UbuntuForums.org does a great job too in helping Debian. How's that?, you may ask. Well, Ubuntu is so popular and used by so many people that on the online forums you can get a straight, good answer to a question in minutes. And since Ubuntu is based on Debian, over 90% of the questions which apply for Ubuntu will apply for Debian too.

Good documentation. I'm talking here books and books of official online documentation. We have the Debian Wiki, we have powerful manuals written by professionals, and to list some, here are the New Maintainers' Guide, the Debian Policy Manual or the Debian Packing Manual.To say nothing about all the third-party help sites, news sites, blogs and articles referring to Debian. This makes Debian a very rich-documented distribution, and knowing help is out there if you do a little reading is a key aspect for any user.

Debian Free Software Guidelines. The social contract is a major aspect which affected how Debian developed and continues to be developed. Debian is one of the distributions which follow a very specific code from which there is no straying. Debian will always be 100% free, it will be open, it will fulfill the community needs and it will respect the free software standards.

Debian fits perfectly both as desktop or as web server. With high security and stability standards, Debian makes the perfect fit for a web server. But Debian comes with over 17,000 from which a huge amount is made by GUI applications, desktop environments and many other user-friendly tools.

And the list goes on. The true power of Debian lies not only in the few points I listed here, but in its users and mentality. Software done this way will always be there, because it relies on an entire community to survive, and as long as the community is there, then so is Debian. A proof to this is that Debian has been around almost since the beginning of Linux, in 1993, when Ian Murdock, founder of Debian, announced the availability of Debian on August 16, and together with Slackware or Red Hat, it is at the top of the pyramid regarding tradition in the Linux world.

How-To: Install Dillo Web Browser in Ubuntu Maverick Beta

2010-09-19T00:23:00.001+03:00

Dillo is a simplistic, minimal web browser built using the FLTK2 (Fast Light Toolkit) library, designed especially for a minimal load on resources. It is used successfully by various distributions out there that aim to stay small and fast (the last time I checked it was included in Damn Small Linux for example).

Dillo 2.2 - the minimalist and fast web browser for Linux

I decided to make a review of Dillo (in the past I reviewed version 2.0 here) but realized that currently Dillo is not included in the Ubuntu Maverick repositories. So this is why I set out to make first a short how-to on how to install it in Maverick. Considering you will also need to compile and install FLTK2 in order to compile Dillo (because the repositories include FLTK 1.1, but not FLTK 2.0), we will use a DEB package to install it. Just follow the steps below.

Download the DEB package from the Dillo PPA archive (direct link) and save it somewhere on your hard disk. Now open a terminal, make sure the currently working directory is the one where you saved it (use the pwd command to print the working directory) and type:

sudo dpkg -i dillo_2.2-0+dillo1~karmic1_i386.deb

That's it! To start Dillo, press Alt+F2 and type dillo in the run box that appears.

Note: This tutorial probably applies for older Ubuntu releases too.

KDocker: Dock Any Application in the System Tray in KDE, GNOME & Xfce

2010-09-18T22:21:00.004+03:00

I bet at one point or another you felt you missed the system tray integration feature in some application, be it xterm, an audio player, a file manager or any other program. Well, KDocker is just the thing which comes to help: a simple, yet practical docking application built for KDE4 (older KDE3 version can be found here), but not only. Let me tell you how to use this program in a productive and useful manner.

KDocker 4.3 docking an xterm instance

KDocker is a docking application for KDE4 which allows you to dock any application in the system tray. The great thing about KDocker is that it works not only in KDE, but also in GNOME, Xfce and other window managers which are compliant with the NET WM standard.

The project is hosted on Launchpad, being actively developed, with the latest version (4.4) released earlier this year, on July 17. To install it in Ubuntu, type in a terminal sudo apt-get install kdocker, then launch it by pressing Alt+F2 and typing kdocker in the run dialogue window that appears.

Here's how to use: first, start it, then select the window which you want to dock. Below is a screenshot of xterm docked in the system tray using KDocker:

Here are several options KDocker provides besides only docking applications:
- it allows to skip the taskbar or the pager (so the application is not shown on the taskbar/pager)
- make the window sticky
- iconify when minimized/obscured or focus is lost or on close
- show a balloon when the window title changes

KDocker options

Now, one of the real uses KDocker provides is the ability to run it as a command, e.g. kdocker application_name and eventually create a desktop shortcut to this command, or make it start at the login. For example, creating a desktop shortcut in KDE to automatically start Konsole and put it in the system tray can be done like this:

First, create a file on the desktop (well, on the Desktop Folder widget actually) called anything.desktop (or whatever name you like, but with the .desktop extension). Put the following content in it:

[Desktop Entry]
Exec=kdocker konsole
Icon=konsole
Name=Konsole (Docked)
Type=Application
Comment=Console

Create a .desktop launcher to anything you want to dock

And save the file. Now, you can click that desktop shortcut to launch Konsole in the system tray.

Let's say you want to launch a terminal-based application inside Konsole, which should be docked in the system tray. The example that follows is for Midnight Commander, the powerful file manager with a text user interface:

[Desktop Entry]
Exec=kdocker konsole -e mc
Icon=konsole
Name=Konsole (Docked)
Type=Application
Comment=Console

The -e argument tells Konsole to execute the command mc after starting.

Launching Midnight Commander in Konsole and docking it in the system tray

Have some more uses for KDocker? Please share in the comments below.

Banshee 1.7.5 Review in Ubuntu Maverick Beta

2010-09-18T21:12:00.003+03:00

Being actively developed, feature-rich, providing access to several useful Internet services and with a pretty decent media library, Banshee has a pretty fair share of users, and it is definitely a powerful music player not to be ignored.

Although Banshee includes support for both audio and video files, and comes with a video library too, its well-known and popular for its music playing capabilities rather than video playback.

Banshee 1.7.5 in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Beta

The version I'm going to talk about is 1.7.5 (for some reason I couldn't get 1.7.6 to compile in Ubuntu 10.10 Beta - if you can help, I'd be grateful), released on September 1, 2010, which ships in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Beta.

Banshee improved a lot since the last time I reviewed it, which was over an year ago, back when the version was 1.6 beta. For those who never tried it, here are the main features:

- music library
- support for podcasts
- Internet radio support
- smart playlists
- integrated access to Amazon MP3 store
- Last.fm song submission and Last.fm radio (since the Last.fm radio service became paid a while ago, you will need to have a subscriber account for the radio to work)
- fast access to Miro guide, a website which allows to search and download videos
- cover fetching from the Internet
- system tray support, with a nice mouse-over info report and the ability to control Banshee by right-clicking the tray icon (this includes rating the currently playing song, play next or previous, pause, repeat or shuffle)
- built using GTK2, so it blends well into the GNOME browser

Just a mention about the Amazon MP3 store: it looks like by default either the geo IP detection is not working properly or Germany is selected. To change this, go to Edit->Preferences, click the Source Specific tab in the window that appears, select the Amazon MP3 Store entry in the Source list box, and then select the desired country:

Banshee allows the user to configure several aspects, like gapless playback (to get rid of the short gap on track change), collection organization, services, and enable/disable various extensions. Which are actually quite impressing: Banshee includes Wikipedia extension, Audio CD extension, Internet radio, Podcasts, iPod support, Last.fm, Mini Mode and Notification, these to only list a few. The Mini Mode is quite a delight actually, for those who need just a small window, so it doesn't take up to the whole desktop space:

Banshee in Mini Mode

Smart playlists, the 5-star rating system and the tag editor are another pluses for this great player.

Again, it seems to me that fetching local covers doesn't work properly (or maybe it is not a feature at all?) I tried to open a video file, play it, pause it after a while and then hit the play button ago. At this point instead of continuing the video Banshee started to play the song that was playing before opening the video. In my sole opinion (and this is not only Banshee-specific), having a single button for play/pause is not the best idea. I also bumped into a balloon message reading "Please move your music to /home/embryo/Music" and changing the music directory in the preferences didn't make it go away. I think this is a little inappropriate, since I like my music where it is (and that is not /home/embryo/Music). This has also been reported as a bug on for Maverick here.

Other than that: I found Banshee's usability far greater than some other audio players. Believe me or not, over 50% of the music players for Linux that I tested didn't have a keyboard shortcut to focus the track search field. Banshee uses Alt+S for this.

Playing a video

To conclude, Banshee's state is currently as it has always been in the past two years or so: a very good player, pretty stable now, with a lot of features, which can be a the perfect replacement for other GNOME collection-oriented players, like Rhythmbox.

Guide to Using Finch - Terminal-Based Chat Client

2010-09-18T18:13:00.003+03:00

Finch is a TUI (text user interface) IM client for Linux which uses libpurple, the same library on which the GNOME IM client Pidgin is based on. Usually, if you have Pidgin installed, you should have Finch too, unless Pidgin was compiled with the text interface option disabled. In addition to this, Finch supports every protocol that Pidgin supports, and even though it is a terminal-based application, it offers enough configuration options, and more can be done using the .gntrc configuration file, which is discussed later in this guide. If not, installing the latest Finch release, even from source, should be easy.

To install it in Ubuntu, open a terminal and type sudo apt-get install finch or use the Ubuntu Software Centre to search for it and install it. On Debian, you can install the older version from the repositories, or use this guide to compile and install the latest version. Yahoo! for example changed its protocol, so the version which comes included in Debian Lenny is not able to connect to it.

A little about installing as a normal user, using a different prefix. I have Pidgin (and Finch for that matter) 2.7.3 installed in Debian Lenny under the /home/embryo/usr prefix, so my binaries are located in /home/embryo/usr/bin/ and the manual pages in /home/embryo/usr/share/man/man1/finch.1/ and /home/embryo/usr/share/man/pidgin.1/ respectively. So in order to launch them I need to include the first path into my $PATH variable. To do so, edit your ~/.bashrc file using a text editor, and add this line at the end:

export PATH=$PATH:/home/USER/usr/bin

Replace USER with your username (and the full path if your prefix was different). Now, I don't know if there is another workaround for this, but i noticed that man finch or man pidgin do not work after installing in a different path than the standard ones. The manual pages for them actually exist, but in the directory /home/embryo/usr/share/man/man1/. So, to access them, use these commands:

man -l /home/USER/usr/share/man/man1/finch.1
man -l /home/USER/usr/share/man/man1pidgin.1

The -l argument tells man to open a manual page (and format it) for a custom file provided by the user.

Now that Finch is properly installed, let's get to work. First, type finch in a console to fire it up:

Navigation
Finch is built using the ncurses toolkit, which is a library designed especially to built text user interfaces. To navigate in a Finch window, use Tab to focus the next widget (option, tickbox, button), Shift+Tab to focus the previous one, Space in order to tick/untick an option, and Enter to 'click' a button. You will also need to press Esc to exit from menus such as the Actions menu.

The first time it starts, Finch automatically opens the accounts window, so you can now select the Add button and press Enter. In the window that appears - New Account - use the arrows to select the desired protocol, and then use Tab to navigate to the next field, fill it in with your data, and so on:

Creating a new Yahoo! account

Next, save your newly created account. Now, to close the Accounts window, press Alt+C. You should be now able to see your contact lists since Finch will try to automatically connect to the protocol you specified.

New mail notification

Now, before moving on to configure Finch, first let me list the most important keyboard shortcuts which are useful to navigate, customize and use this application.

Moving around

Alt+Q - just so you know this quits Finch, getting back to console

Alt+A - opens the Actions menu, which contains everything you need to configure Finch: accounts, buddy lists, file transfers, plugins, sounds, preferences and statuses; use the Esc key to close this menu when you're done

Alt+C - closes the currently opened window

Alt+N - switch to the next window; you will need this to switch between chats, and other openend windows

Alt+P - switch to the previous window

Moving and resizing windows
There are two important shortcuts here, which will help you to:

1. Move windows in Finch
For this, use the Alt+M keyboard shortcut. This will highlight the currently selected window so you will be able to use the arrow keys in order to move it anywhere inside the terminal; use Esc to deselect it when you're done.

2. Resize windows in Finch
Press Alt+R in order to highlight the currently selected window, then use the arrow keys to resize it; press Esc to deselect it when you're done.

Configuring Finch
To configure Finch, press Alt+A, which will open the Actions menu. Here you can edit accounts, enable/disable plugins or configure general Finch preferences. For now we will focus on the the Preferences entry:

As you can see, you can configure the:
- Buddy List - to turn on/off showing idle times or offline buddies
- Conversations - to show timestamps or notify buddies when you are typing them a new message
- Logging - the log format, which can be plain text or HTML (formatted), also which types of events to log
- Idle - which will report idle time based only on the last time you typed something in Finch (anywhere in Finch) or since the last message you send; also the number of minutes before becoming idle

Configure this to your liking. A little more about configuration options: they are kept in the same directory for both Finch and Pidgin, and changes done to one of them affect the other. The configuration files and the logs can be found inside the ~/.purple/ directory, where ~ is your home directory. Notice that .purple is a hidden directory, so make sure that your file manager will list those (or use ls -a in console to view them).

Plugins
Finch comes bundled with several useful plugins, like Buddy Notes, TinyURL or the Log Reader:

To open the above window, press Alt+A and go to the the Plugins entry. Configure those as you wish.

The ~/.gntrc file
This file allows you to configure Finch in more detail, including colors for its interface, re-binding keys, change keys for various Finch actions, and even enable mouse support.

Here's how to enable mouse support. Open up a text editor and edit (or create if it doesn't already exist - and it probably won't) the ~/.gntrc file:

nano ~/.gntrc # or gedit ~/.gntrc

Next, add the following lines in this file, then save it:

[general]
mouse = 1

This is all. Notice that if the file is already created, you should find the section [general] and set the mouse option to 1 (true). Although the manual page says the mouse support is still experimental, I found no issues with it. However, manipulating Finch actually seems harder with a mouse after using it exclusively from the keyboard.

Why use Finch at all?
Well, don't if you want avatars and all the beauty a graphical client offers! Use Pidgin, Empathy, Kopete or something else! But if you need for some reason (speed, lack of memory etc) a terminal-based application for instant messaging, then give Finch a try.

This should be all for today. I hope you'll enjoy Finch as much as I do!

Further reading
Don't forget man finch - it has all the info you need (and more about all the ~/.gntrc file, which couldn't be covered in this guide). The official homepage and guide:
Using Finch
Finch homepage

Two Free Linux Civilization-Like Games: Freeciv and FreeCol

2010-09-18T15:23:00.003+03:00

While most of the proprietary games get all the attention on Windows, on Linux it's the other way around. Of course, this is because we're stuck with only few choices for mainly any type of game, from arcade to shooters or strategies. But there are good, if not great, alternatives in Linux.

Today I will overview two Linux games which are a very good alternative to the famous Civilization series from Windows, Freeciv and FreeCol. They are both open-source, free, and usually come included with every distribution.

Freeciv
Freeciv is based on the client/server model, so the server is started automatically when you start a new game. It provides two different client interfaces: GTK2 and SDL (see below on how to install and launch).

Freeciv 2.2.1

To install in Ubuntu, type in a terminal either one of the following commands:

sudo apt-get install freeciv-client-gtk2 # (for the GTK client) sudo apt-get install freeciv-client-sdl # (for the SDL client)

To launch the game, press Alt+F2 and type freeciv in the run dialogue that appears or go to Applications->Games->Freeciv. If you installed both packages (even though there is no need to do it), to launch it either type freeciv-gtk2 or freeciv-sdl.

Starting a new game

Picking a nation

The SDL client allows you to run the game in window mode and fullscreen and to change the resolution.

SDL client

GTK2 client - in-game screenshot

Freeciv Homepage
Freeciv FAQ
Freeciv Forum

FreeCol
FreeCol is written in Java, so it has a slower interface, but other than that, it looks and behaves great. Freecol resembles the Colonization game, under the slogan 'the Colonization of America' but having better graphics and being actively developed. FreeCol runs in fullscreen but it doesn't steal control from the window manager, so it allows you to use Alt+Tab in order to access your other opened applications.

Installation in Ubuntu. Just type sudo apt-get install freecol in a terminal. The version included in the Maverick Beta repositories is 0.9.2.

FreeCol homepage
FreeCol forum

A Different Way to Manage Your Linux Desktop: GNOME Shell Looks Promising

2010-09-18T02:44:00.000+03:00

GNOME Shell is a window manager designed specifically for the upcoming GNOME 3 desktop, with the intention of offering a rather different way of interacting with the desktop, providing a workspace which hardly resembles the classic desktops.

Currently under heavy development, GNOME Shell is included in Ubuntu 10.10 Beta and it currently looks like this:

GNOME Shell in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Beta

The main feature that jumps into attention is the way of organizing and listing opened windows, just like the fast web access from Opera, for example. GNOME Shell also offers virtual desktops.

As you can see, GNOME Shell offers the user easy access to applications, places and devices, a way of searching applications or documents and recently accessed items.

You can switch between the Activities mode (where you can visualize all your opened applications and access more) and the normal way of working by clicking on the top-left Activities button, or just pointing your mouse cursor in the top-left corner.

Accessing your applications

If you want to quit GNOME Shell and return back to your usual GNOME desktop, open a terminal and type the following two commands:

compiz --replace &
gnome-panel restart &

If you don't have desktop effects enabled, use metacity --replace& instead of compiz --replace&.

To install GNOME Shell in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Beta, type in a terminal sudo apt-get install gnome-shell, and then to start it type gnome-shell --replace in order to replace your current window manager.

GNOME Shell definitely looks good and from a usability point of view, it really has a lot of potential, especially if we keep in mind that it's not finished yet, so more features will come.

Miro Review - Great Internet HD Video Player

2010-09-16T21:32:00.000+03:00

Miro is a free, open-source video player with ports for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X, designed especially for watching HD videos. Miro bundles over 6000 Internet TV shows and video podcasts, and allows you to download each of them to your computer, so you can watch them without the need of an Internet connection.

In this review I will talk about the latest version of Miro available to date, 3.0.3, as it comes with the Ubuntu 10.10 Beta repositories.

Among the video formats supported by Miro are AVI, WMV, MOV, Ogg Theora, MKV or MPEG. Miro also includes support for subtitles. But Miro was not created to be the usual movie player, it was created having HD Internet TV in mind.

The first time you fire up Miro, a wizard will appear asking you if you want to enable opening Miro at start-up and if you want to let him scan local folders for video content. Here's how the main window of Miro looks like:

As you can see, it includes a mini web browser which points at https://www.miroguide.com/, a place from which you can start searching for videos on the web, view lists of HD video shows or watch the most popular ones.

Miro also includes integrated video search, and allows you to download and view the selected videos:

Another feature of Miro is the media library, where you can organize video and audio files and manage your downloads. In addition to these, Miro offers a BitTorrent client with search capabilities and several audio and video feeds, like the default Global Pulse or Wildlife Highlights, which contains awesome wildlife videos in HD format. You can also create playlists of your content in Miro.

Wildlife Highlights

Regarding preferences, Miro allows you to configure thing such:
- system tray integration
- control how feeds are handled
- configure the BitTorrent client
- watch certain directories for changes and show them in the media library

As a final conclusion, Miro is just great firstly because of the awesome HD movie feeds it provides. However, as a movie player it does not offer the more advanced options dedicated movie players provide, like video and audio effects, support for DVDs, etc. But this is not the case, since Miro's goal is not to do these things, but to offer a great way of watching online videos.

Tutorial: Install Clementine Music Player in Kubuntu 10.10 Maverick Beta

2010-09-16T19:55:00.000+03:00

Clementine is a KDE4 port of the beloved music player Amarok 1.4. Although Clementine still needs work done in order to reach Amarok's functionality - like support for scripts, or for example I couldn't get it to add a whole music directory to the playlist - is there a way to do it? - it comes with pretty decent features up to now:

- equalizer
- Last.fm song submission, love/ban buttons
- music library
- file browser
- radio support
- cover manager

Installing Clementine in Kubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat Beta
We will use the packages in the Clementine PPA in order to install it on Maverick. Fire up a terminal and type:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:riccetn/clementine

This command will add the Clementine PPA repository inside your /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ directory.

Notice that the current version in the PPA is 0.3. If you already have an older version of Clementine installed on your system, it is best to remove it first:

sudo apt-get remove --purge clementine

Now update the packages list:

sudo apt-get update

And finally, install Clementine by typing:

sudo apt-get install clementine

And you're done! To start it up, press Alt+F2 and type clementine followed by Enter.

Cover manager

Clementine Homepage
Clementine at Google Code
Clementine PPA at Launchpad.net

Pretty Damn Good Audio Player: Guayadeque

2010-09-16T18:59:00.002+03:00

Yesterday I put up an article about peculiar application names in Linux, and Guayadeque was on that list. But how about seeing what this application has to offer as a music player, besides a pretty funny spelling.

Guayadeque 0.2.7 in Ubuntu 10.10 Beta

Guayadeque is built using the wxWidgets toolkit, a popular C++ library designed for writing graphical applications, and is included in the Ubuntu Maverick repositories. Let me list some of the major features Guayadeque offers:

- 10-band equalizer, including presets
- sortable playlists with column attributes which can be added or removed
- music library, which show artists, albums with covers and labels
- static and dynamic playlists
- support for online radios
- Last.fm integration and song submission
- lyrics support
- podcast support
- album browser with covers and various album information
- file browser
- crossfade effect
- fullscreen mode

Last.fm integration

Guayadeque comes with an interface mainly divided in two parts: the left one contains the now playing widget, and the right side, taking most of the space, which is divided in tabs, each tab containing one of the following items: library, radio, Last.fm, lyrics, playlists, podcasts, browser, files. This tab approach makes the interface look pretty clean and uncluttered.

Album browser

Guayadeque also allows you to change the size of its interface widgets and then save the layout as a local file, so you can create several such files and load them depending on your current preference.

Scanning the music collection took around three minutes and a half for a collection of 6000+ FLAC and Ogg Vorbis files on my Core 2 Duo 1.8 GHz, using Guayadeque 0.2.7 in Ubuntu 10.10 Beta. Not very slow, nor fast, just around the middle.

Lyrics tab

Although there is a huge number of audio players for Linux to choose from, only a few of them are full-featured, embedding all their features in a fashion that will please the audiophile who wants to have access to all the information regarding his music collection, and also pleasing the user who only wants to get music out of his PC as fast as possible and without any hassle. Guayadeque may be just the right player for this, being a very nice surprise, even though not many people heard about it.

Wesnoth 1.9 Brings Awesome New Features

2010-09-16T17:44:00.005+03:00

There is no question Battle for Wesnoth is the most played turn-based strategy game on the Linux platform, being probably the most polished, full-featured and addictive game in its category. In this article I will talk about development release 1.9, plans for the upcoming 2.0 release and the brand new features offered at the time of writing. For users who will want to try this game for the first time, keep in mind that the version reviewed here is a development version, that means it will be buggy and incomplete, with a lot of features stripped down or not working. Try the stable, 1.8.4 version instead.

Wesnoth 1.9.1 development release - main window

Battle for Wesnoth gained a great deal of popularity due to many factors: it has great single player and multiplayer support (including campaigns, skirmish games vs AI for SP and online or hot seat modes for multi player), great 2D unit graphics and portraits, a gamestyle which borrows a lot of good concepts from other games, but also brings in new ideas, powerful community which contributes greatly to improving and writing various add-ons. There are also countless other features Wesnoth provides: background music licensed under a free license, support for many languages, possibility to create new maps, units, game modes, eras, terrains etc using WML (the Wesnoth Markup Language - which, by the way, is pretty easy to use and learn), configurable hotkeys, and it can be run in fullscreen or windowed mode.

In the past I have reviewed Wesnoth 1.6, and in the mean time a new stable version was released, 1.8, which also brought new campaigns and many other improvements, especially at the lobby, general game speed and unit portraits.

However, the release I'm going to talk about is development release 1.9.1, which was uploaded to SourceForge just a few days ago. 1.9 sounds very promising, especially since it will turn into Wesnoth 2.0 once it gets full-featured and stable.

Notice the new terrain changes

Currently, only a few new features are visible, like the selection hexagon which looks very neat now compared to the one in previous versions, which used a terrain-highlight style. Also, the graphical cursor is now enabled by default.

Another nice change can be observed in the several new terrains, which are more polished and blend better one in another.

The networking code has been completely rewritten, which is finally great news, because there were always connection issues in the past versions, especially with client disconnects.

Also, a new campaign is available, called 'Dead Water' and including 13 merfolk intermediate scenarios.

Dead Water campaign

Another thing about campaigns: the story at the beginning of each campaign includes now Back and Forward buttons, alongside the classic Skip button. This is surely useful if you missed some part and want to read it again.

Back and forward buttons

I'm going to talk a little about a new, very useful feature: the planning mode. Codenamed 'Whiteboard', the planning mode was developed as a GSoC 2010 project and allows you to test visually possible moves, including recruiting, attacking and recalling and check the best enemy moves for the new layout. This let's you see 'what would happen if I'd do this'. To enable the planning mode, use Shift+P or go to Actions and tick the Toggle planning mode option. To execute the planning mode, press X, to delete it, press H, and to reorder actions use PG_UP/PG_DOWN.

Considering it is still in a testing phase and there is more to add until released, I won't talk about bugs or other technical problems found. However, I'll mention here just one drawback: Wesnoth 1.9 is very slow at the moment, but hopefully this will get improved with time.

What can I say in the end? I'm a dedicated Wesnoth user and I can't wait until this turns out into a brand new and stable 2.0 release.

Nautilus Review in Ubuntu 10.10 Beta

2010-09-16T16:01:00.000+03:00

There is always a lot of debate whether which file manager is the 'best' for the Linux desktop. Some would argue for Dolphin because they are KDE users, or Dolphin because it's KDE but also offers a more simplistic interface, other prefer GNOME and use Nautilus, and still, some will like Krusader because of the many features or PCManFM for it's simplicity, or Midnight Commander due to its TUI interface. So, even though you may have heard this many times before, I'm going to repeat: the best application for a specific user is the one which fits him better and helps him get the work done, in an easy fashion.

Nautilus 2.31.92 running in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Beta

However, this article is not a comparison of file managers. Today I will review Nautilus, the default file manager in the GNOME desktop environment and also in the Ubuntu distribution. The version which I'm talking about here is 2.31.92, as it currently comes in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat Beta, with all the updates to date.

Nautilus didn't get through spectacular changes in years, at least not concerning the interface, but that's actually a good thing considering it aims to keep a pretty simple interface which can be intuitive and easily accessible even for a person who is not used to a computer.

Nautilus comes with various features, including tabs (it was a long time to wait until Nautilus integrated tab support), context menu for compressing files and folders, integration with Ubuntu One allowing you to share, synchronize and publish your local files or folders, previews, bookmarks and file emblems.

To the left it has a panel though which you can go fast to places like File System (root), Trash, Windows Network, but here you can also add custom locations, which will also be displayed in Open File or Save As dialogs.

Regarding view modes and sorting options: Nautilus can show items as icons, list or in a compact view, can zoom in and out, and it can sort by name, size, type, modification date and even emblems (you can set this in the Preferences).

The Preferences module allows you to set the sorting rule, show or hide hidden files, change the default zoom level, set single or double click to open files or folders, change how previews work, handle media and show hide attributes used by the view list mode.

Integrated terminal
A lot of fuss has been around lately about a Nautilus add-on to integrate a terminal which stays synchronized with the current directory. Here's how to install it in Ubuntu:

Open a terminal and type:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:flozz/flozz

This will add the PPA repository FLOZz to your sources (/etc/apt/sources.list.d/flozz-flozz-maverick.list). Next, type:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nautilus-terminal

Restart Nautilus using the following two commands (in terminal):

nautilus -q
nautilus &

Nautilus integrated terminal

Nautilus has been here for years, and it will surely continue to do so. It fits perfectly in GNOME and provides the user with enough features to get the work done.

Add GMail in Thunderbird on Linux

2010-09-16T15:17:00.002+03:00

Thunderbird is a powerful and popular email client from Mozilla which integrates a full set of great features.

If you want to access your GMail account directly from Thunderbird, follow the steps below.

Fire up Thunderbird, then go to File->New->Mail Account. Fill in the fields with your GMail details:

Then click Next. In the following window that appears, you can replace the Incoming and Outgoing servers by pressing the Edit button, and replace them with imap.gmail.com and smtp.gmail.com respectively. Also, make sure the selected protocol is IMAP (under the password field, where the two radio buttons are IMAP and POP).

Now click Create Account and this should be it. You can now use Thunderbird to access your GMail account.

Linux Applications With Peculiar Names

2010-09-16T01:48:00.002+03:00

I'm sure most of us were put before in the situation of discovering a new great application, but had to stop and try to figure out how to actually read and spell its name letter by letter.

I'm not going to talk about the codenames of the Ubuntu releases (or the Wesnoth computer generated unit names for that matter), instead here are several applications which I found to have a funny name and/or give a real headache when trying to read or pronounce them the first time. I'm sure the persons who speak the language from which these names were borrowed don't have a problem with it, but the rest of us find these at least a little strange.

Guayadeque - (I hope I spelled this right) - This is a music player using wxWidgets which integrates well in GNOME. According to the description on the SourceForge project page, Guayadeque aims to be intuitive, easy to use and fast even for huge music collections. Don't ask me where the name comes from, because I don't know. If someone could enlighten me, please do so. Guayadeque comes with a pretty rich set of features, including music library, Last.fm song submission, lyrics fetching, cover fetching, podcast support, fullscreen mode, system tray integration.

Guayadeque

Kazehakase - Kazehakase is a web browser which uses the WebKit or Gecko layout engines, with its name coming from Japanese, apparently having no actual meaning. The browser features tabbed browsing, mouse gestures and customizable UI menus.

DeaDBeeF - Yet another music player for Linux with a strange, if not even a little creepy name, DeaDBeeF comes with a clean and simple interface which can be organized in tabs, includes radio support, tag editing, cover fetching, a nice equalizer, audio scrobbler, global hotkeys. Most of the features are supported via plugins.

Pidgin - I agree, while this one's not 'strange' in the true meaning of the word, it's a clever matching, and the same goes for RSSOwl, an RSS and Atom feed reader for Linux.

abcde - It's not the alphabet, but A Better CD Encoder. abcde is a frontend to cdparanoia, and allows you to encode audio CDs to formats like FLAC, Ogg Vorbis or MP3 in command-line mode.

Yakuake - This is a drop-down terminal for KDE which can be hidden/showed just like the console in games like Quake, by using the F12 keyboard shortcut.

Yakuake

Along with those listed above, there used to be a time when any application in KDE (the KDE3 days) had one capital K in their names (well, actually the tradition continues today, but with a few more exceptions now). Take KRegExpEditor for example.

I'm sure I can't cover all of them, because there are so many. Have some more applications with peculiar names which you'd like to share here? Please do so in the comments below.

Tutorial: Compile and Install GIMP 2.6.10 in Debian 5.0 Lenny

2010-09-15T17:08:00.001+03:00

In this tutorial I will show how to compile from source and install in Debian Lenny the latest release of GIMP, the most powerful image manipulation application currently available for Linux.

First of all, Debian Lenny comes with GIMP 2.4.7 in the repositories, so if you have it installed, you should remove it first:

apt-get remove --purge gimp
apt-get autoremove --purge

Next, install the dependencies needed to compile GIMP 2.6.10:

apt-get build-dep gimp
apt-get install libbabl-0.0-0-dev libgegl-0.0-dev

Next, download the GIMP 2.6.10 source tarball from the GIMP FTP site and then uncompress it:

tar -xjf gimp-2.6.10.tar.bz2

Now change the working directory to gimp-2.6.10 and issue these commands:

./configure
make
make install

GIMP 2.6.10 in Debian Lenny

The last one as root. If you want to install GIMP as a normal user, specify a different prefix to the configure script:

./configure --prefix=/home/USER/usr
make
make install

There is no need to be root when issuing make install this time.

First-Person Shooter Game for Linux: Warsow Review

2010-09-15T01:12:00.001+03:00

It's been a while since I last reviewed a shooter game for Linux, and one of them was World of Padman (reviewed here), which was a cartoon-like, funny first-person shooter. Well, the same goes for Warsow, the game I'm going to talk about in this article. Every graphical aspect of Warsow indicates we're dealing with a cartoon-like universe, from the character models to weapons and maps.

Warsow 0.5

Warsow is a free, open-source game providing a fast-paced gameplay and taking place in a futuristic, cartoon-like world. The game features several popular game modes which are characteristic to almost any FPS, but also some particular ones. To list them: Capture the Flag (CTF), Free for All (FFA), Team Deathmatch (TDM), Clan Arena, Instagib, Race and Duel. Three new game modes have been introduced in version 0.5, the last release of Warsow: Team Domination, Headhunt, Bomb & Defuse.

You can play online joining one of the servers in the servers list or you can play a local game. The good thing about local games is that Warsow implements bot support. First start a game and then press ~ to open the console and type: g_numbots NUMBER_OF_BOTS e.g.:

g_numbots 6

This will add 6 bots to the game.

There are a lot of online servers, and you can find players at any time. Playing online increases considerably the fun, especially since there are a lot of custom maps, for example the remake of the Quake 3 map DM17 below:

Players of games like Unreal Tournament, Urban Terror or Enemy Territory will be thrilled to see that Warsow offers the so-called 'trickjumps' too, which usually require skill and time to learn. Here they are called 'walljumps', and can be combined with several other techniques, like quick acceleration (dash), dodging, unlimited acceleration on ramps (ramp slide) or double dash jump. These combined can make the difference between a truly skilled player and the average gamer.

Warsow comes with some nice background music, and the sounds seem like they're taken from an animation movie for kids, which makes it really funny.

Warsow can run in fullscreen or windowed mode, and provides a lot of options to setup the player, configure the graphics, sound, voice messages and keyboard controls.

Along with the features mentioned above, Warsow also provides a dedicated scripting system, called AngelScript, which provides the community with ways of developing new maps and mods.

According to an updated posted on September 5 on the official Warsow blog, the next version, 0.55, will feature several new maps, a tutorial map, a new chat console and a new crosshair featuring a damage indicator in a Quake Live style.

Conclusion
Final thoughts: Warsow is a lot, I mean a *lot* of fun. It's very fast-paced, giving the impression that you're racing around and fraggin', doesn't need an expensive video card to play (runs very well on my Core 2 Duo 1.8 GHz, 1 GB RAM and nVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS), comes with both single player and multi player support and offers many interesting modes beside the well-known ones. So, if you haven't tried it yet, don't hesitate to do it now.

Official website
Download Warsow
FAQ - you really need to read this is you want to learn how to master Warsow

Audio Player Review: Qmmp

2010-09-14T21:26:00.001+03:00

Qmmp (Qt Multimedia Player) is a Qt-based audio player for Linux which resembles the appearance of XMMS (and Audacious for that matter), so users of these two players which want to have a player which integrates well in KDE will probably want to give it a try.

Qmmp 0.4.1 running in Kubuntu Maverick Meerkat Beta

The features of Qmmp include:
- support for various audio formats, including Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MP3, WAV or WMA
- visualizations
- XMMS and Winamp 2.x skin support
- 10-band equalizer
- stream support
- lyrics support
- CUE support
- Last.fm song submission

Qmmp uses mplayer for audio output and presents an interface very similar to the one of XMMS or Winamp 2.x for Windows, supporting their skins too. The options Qmmp offers, and also the keyboard shortcuts are the same with the ones used by Winamp (e.g. J to open the Jump To Track window, C to Play/Pause the current song, V to stop playing and so on).

Jump to track using J

Qmmp has a 10-band equalizer, comes with an analyzer plugin, and allows you to configure several aspects, including change the font face and size for playlist and player windows, double the size of the player window, change transparency for the main window, playlist and equalizer window, edit track tags, show pop-up information.

Analyzer plugin

In addition to these, Qmmpcan fetch local album covers and bundles a decent number of plugins which can prove very useful. Some of them:

- Audio CD plugin
- Cover Manager plugin
- Global Hotkey plugin
- Lyrics plugin (the version included in the version which I tested - 0.4.1 - doesn't seem to work)
- Scrobbler plugin (supports Last.fm and Libre.fm)
- Status Icon plugin

Transparency and plugins

Final conclusion: if you like XMMS and use KDE, then Qmmp can be a perfect choice. On the other hand, for those used with collection-oriented players like Amarok will probably not like this player.

Tip of the Day: Take a Screenshot in Command-Line

2010-09-14T01:05:00.002+03:00

In this short tutorial I'll show how to take a screenshot in Linux using the command-line utility import.

import is a tool included in the ImageMagick suite, which you can install in Ubuntu by typing sudo apt-get install imagemagick in a terminal. import lets you take a snapshot of your entire screen, a single window or a region of the screen.

For example, to take a screenshot of a single window, you would type in a terminal:

import filename.png

And then move the mouse cursor and click the desired window. This will not include the window borders, so in order to take a snapshot of a window including its border, use:

import -border filename.png

You can use various extensions for your output image by specifying them in the output file parameter (e.g. import output_file.jpg or import output_file.bmp).

To take a screenshot of the entire screen or a region, type:

import filename.png

And then select with your mouse the region which you want to save.

For arguments which can be passed to import, read man import or the help on the official website.

A Quick Look at Shutter 0.86.4 - Powerful Desktop Screenshot Application

2010-09-13T21:34:00.001+03:00

Shutter is probably the most powerful screenshot application for Linux, and the main reason for this is that it comes with tons of configuration options for the final process of taking a simple screenshot. And why not, considering there are people out there who need to take a screenshot of a single window or a desktop region instead of fullscreen only, like the GNOME default screenshot program. Of course, there is KSnapshot which offers these two options too, but that's where similarities stop.

Shutter 0.86.4 in Ubuntu Maverick Meerkat Beta

Shutter has much more to offer than the usual screenshot program. It allows you to take the screenshot of the fullscreen, selection (press Enter after selecting the rectangular area to take the screenshot), window, menu, tooltip, and it also provides a changeable delay from when you give the command until the actual screenshot is taken. You can print the image on-the-fly directly from shutter, without the need to open an external image viewer.

Shutter even comes with a basic image editor, and allows you to run effects plugins via the Screenshot->Run a plugin... menu entry. To open the editor go to Screenshot->Edit. Here you can use rudimentary paint tools like drawing lines or shapes, but you can also export the result to any popular image format and even to a SVG or PDF file.

Integrated image editor

At first I thought Shutter cannot take a screenshot of itself, because it hides itself automatically to clear the screen, but there is an option in the Preferences to disable this behaviour.

Speaking of preferences, this is Shutter's real strong point. It comes with probably every configuration option imaginable. To list some of them:
- can save screenshots as PNG, JPG or BMP
- it allows to configure the default name for screenshots, arranging them by default as $name_%NNN (where NNN is 001, 002 and so on)
- include or exclude the mouse cursor
- zoom into the selected region
- include or exclude window decorations
- show or hide the main window after taking a screenshot
- integrate in the system tray
- pop-up notifications
- bind keys in GNOME

Currently, Ubuntu 10.10 Beta comes with Shutter 0.86.3 but you can install the latest release from here. To install the version which ships in the repositories, type in a terminal sudo apt-get install shutter or use the Applications->Ubuntu Software Center application for a graphical installation.

How-To: Set Up KMail With GMail and IMAP

2010-09-13T19:59:00.003+03:00

According to Wikipedia, IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol), together with POP is one of the most popular protocols for email retrieval. In this short tutorial I will show you how to set up KMail (the default email client in KDE4 and also most - if not all - distributions which ship it, like Kubuntu) with a GMail account, using IMAP as a protocol.

Here are a few steps easy to follow:

1. Login to the GMail account
After logging in to GMail, click on Settings on the upper-right corner, and then click on the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab. Tick the Enable IMAP option in the IMAP Access section, and then click the Save Changes button.

2. Fire up KMail
Press Alt+F2 and type kmail in the run box that appears. KMail should start, so if a first-run wizard appears, just close it.

3. Configure KMail to use IMAP settings for your GMail account
In KMail, go to Settings->Configure KMail... and click on the Accounts tab.

In the Receiving tab, click the Add... button on the right and then tick the IMAP option in the pop-up window that appears. Next click OK:

Now, a window with IMAP details should appear. Enter the following data:
Account name: you can leave this to the default value, IMAP Account
Incoming mail server: imap.gmail.com
Port: leave this to the default port 143
Login: your GMail account (e.g. myemail@gmail.com)
Password: your email (GMail) password

Do not close this window for now. Go to the Security tab and select the Use SSL for secure mail download radio button. This will use encryption for transferring your emails. Click OK, then Apply in the main configuration window.

This should be all. This part takes care about incoming emails via your GMail account.

For outgoing email, go again to Settings->Configure KMail... and then click on the Sending tab. Next, click Add..., check the SMTP account type in the window that appears, give it a name and click the Create and Configure button. Fill in the Outgoing mail server field with smtp.gmail.com and then click OK:

Your GMail account is now synchronized and you can now access it directly in KMail

Awesome Music Player That Rocks: Jajuk

2010-09-13T17:53:00.002+03:00

Jajuk is a free, cross-platform music player available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X, written in Java. I never used Jajuk before, so I tested it for the first time today, an I'm really impressed. Let me explain.

Jajuk 1.9 RC2 running in Kubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat

Introduction
The version I'm going to talk about is 1.9 RC2, which is the version currently included in Ubuntu 10.10 Beta. Jajuk is written in Java and it uses the mplayer engine for playing audio files, and comes with a full set of features, most of them reviewed here.

First, the interface...
I must say, the interface of Jajuk is really cool and will probably fit any person who likes to have the widgets and layouts organized in a different way from the default. Why is that? Well, first of all Jajuk offers tabs (which actually look like some kind of sub-windows) for each different item, like: different tab for playlist, cover, lyrics etc. These sub-windows can be moved around, minimized/restored, and even organized in tabs. This is very powerful and very useful in my opinion. Take a look at these screenshots, which show Jajuk's GUI organized in various modes:

Every possible widget in Jajuk has a pop-up tooltip, so it will be easy to figure out what everything does. Also, the icons are very appealing, making Jajuk a pleasant experience to use.

Full-featured
Let me quickly list some of the features which are present in almost any decent audio player for Linux out there, and also in Jajuk:

- Jajuk offers a playlist which can be sorted depending on many factors, like artist, title, duration, genre etc
- lyrics fetching from the Internet
- cover fetching (including detecting covers from the local directory where the current playing file is located); covers can be displayed in many sizes
- Wikipedia information about the currently playing artist, album and song
- Last.fm song submission
- file browser
- Audio CD player
- collection statistics
- web radios
- ratings

Cover (album) manager

Jajuk doesn't include a graphical way to configure an equalizer, but according to the info that I could find on the official website here, you can pass arguments to mplayer to configure an equalizer. To do that, go to the Config tab on the left tab, click the Advanced tab, and fill in the Mplayer arguments field, for example:

-af equalizer=0:0:0:0:0:-1:-1:-1:-1:-1

The Wikipedia information allows you to change the locale, and can show artist, album, or song information, however it has one frustrating downside: it's very, very slow when scrolling up and down the page. Other than that, it rocks!

One more nice feature is the Stats tab: it uses a visual approach to show how the collection size changed from one month to another, total numbers of tracks played each month, percentage of genres or disk space occupied by the music collection.

The official website offers RPM and DEB installers, as well as Java multiplatform installers for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. To install it in Ubuntu, just type in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install jajuk

Or use the Applications -> Ubuntu Software Center. Also, Jajuk can be tried live on the official website.

Configuration
The Preferences tab is pretty rich and offers the user the possibility to change the way it behaves, providing ways to:

- set the application language (included are English, French, Galician, German, Greek, Korean, Russian and Spanish)
- change the cross fade duration, limit for best of playlist
- set the system tray settings
- change the font size of the UI (this is a great feature in my opinion)
- what to do (play) at the start-up of the application
- change the collection encoding, configuration path
- change/add names for what covers you want Jajuk to detect in local folders
- set your Last.fm submission information
- change the history duration for ratings

Later edit: Adding new music files to the collection may be a little confusing at the beginning. To do this, go to the Configuration->Device Wizard menu entry and select the music collection folder in the pop-up window that appears. This will append the selected folder to the music collection, and you can find your music folders by clicking on the Files tab to the left of the main window.

Conclusion
One word: amazing! Jajuk truly rocks. I can't remember exactly when was the last time I tested an application for the last time and got so positively impressed. It has a powerful interface, it's full-featured, it's well organized and stable, it's intuitive and configurable. If you haven't tried it yet, it's definitely the time to do so, because I think it can really make a lot of converts among the Linux users who use another audio players.

Pluses
- one of the biggest pluses: configurable interface
- lots of features
- lots of configuration options

Minuses
- as every Java-based application, the GUI is pretty slow
- lack of a graphical equalizer

More screenshots

The stats tab offers various information about the collection in a visual way

File browser and the Preferences tab

Wikipedia information

TORCS Review - The Open Racing Car Simulator for Linux

2010-09-13T15:06:00.000+03:00

As the title suggests, TORCS is a free and open-source racing simulator available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. I'll list here some of its features:

- 3D graphics using OpenGL
- 42 different car models
- 30 racing tracks
- 6 racing types
- different camera angles

Torcs 1.3.1

The graphics are a little old, but the racing experience is pretty neat. TORCS comes only with single player mode, offering several racing modes, like Quick Race, Non-Championship Race, Endurance Race, Championship, Challenge Race and Practice.

The official website offers links to several more tracks, cars and robots (AI drivers), like this or this. You can install these new tracks and car models by downloading and extracting the archive for each, and then copying the tracks in:

/usr/share/games/torcs/cars/ (for cars)
/usr/share/games/torcs/tracks/road/ (for road tracks)
/usr/share/games/torcs/tracks/oval/ (for oval tracks)
/usr/share/games/torcs/tracks/dirt/ (for dirt tracks)

Replace the path with the one where TORCS is installed if you compiled it manually and used a different installation prefix.

One of the beautiful features that really impressed me is the possibility to increase or decrease how the time passes. For example, pressing Shift++ (Shift and +) will increase the time, and thus making the speed look like it has doubled or tripled. To go back to normal time, just press the - (minus) key. The feeling is amazing!

I encountered crashes (output in console was segmentation fault) several times when starting a new race, I guess this is a small problem, but it does not happen often. Hopefully this will be fixed in 1.3.2.

Overall, TORCS is pretty decent for a racing simulator, with one minus being the old graphics, but otherwise, it can keep you busy for hours.

Free RTS Game for Linux: Warzone 2100

2010-09-12T18:53:00.001+03:00

Warzone 2100 is a free, open-source real-time strategy game available for Linux, Windows and Mac. This game was originally closed-source, developed by Pumpkin Studios and published by Eidos Interactive in 1999, but in 2004 it was officially licensed under the GNU GPL.

The latest version is 2.3.4, released earlier this year, on August 12. Let me list some of its features:

- single player and multi player modes
- 3D graphics engine, allowing the use of a 3D camera and angle rotation
- tons of units and upgrades to choose from
- allows fully customisable units

The battles take place in an apocalyptic future, after the world was destroyed by nuclear missiles. The game comes bundled with only a few over a dozen maps, but the official website offers many more, which can be easily installed.

The game can run in fullscreen or windowed mode, and allows to configure the difficulty level, graphics performance items like screen shake, fog, or shadows, and it also provides a way to change the keyboard bindings for all the available actions. There is also an independent random map generator for Warzone 2100 called Diorama, available for download at this website.

The game offers a somewhat different gameplay compared to other RTS names, offering the player the possibility to completely customise the units, by choosing from a very wide number of different upgrades with different purposes. For example, you can build up a combat vehicle by choosing from the types of wheels, turrets, and these can be upgraded after you reach a certain level of development, which can be acquired after building several Research Centers and doing manual upgrades. Same goes for defensive structures like walls or towers.

Viewing the world from a different angle

To install it in Ubuntu, just type sudo apt-get install warzone2100 in a terminal, or use the Applications -> Ubuntu Software Center graphical installer.

Considering Linux really lacks native RTS games that can match the ones available for Windows, Warzone 2100 is a pretty decent alternative for those of us who need to run Windows games in Wine.

Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat Beta - Overview & Screenshots

2010-09-12T10:24:00.002+03:00

We're less than one month until the next Ubuntu release, 10.10. Maverick Meerkat, as it is codenamed, is scheduled for release on October 10, 2010, and, as always, Canonical put out a beta calling for users to test-drive it and report problems and bugs.

Here's what Ubuntu 10.10 has to offer:
- Linux kernel 2.6.35
- GNOME 2.31, including Nautilus as a file manager, Rhythmbox as a music player, Totem as the default video player, Empathy Instant Messaging client
- OpenOffice 3.2 suite, including the Writer, Spreadsheet, Presentation and Drawing, (doesn't that Oracle logo look awkward when the splash-screen appears?)
- Mozilla Firefox 3.6.9
- Evolution 2.30 email client

Also, Shotwell has replaced F-Spot as the default photo manager.

Shotwell 0.7.1 - the new photo manager in Ubuntu 10.10

I made a clean, fresh installation of the beta and performed a through sudo apt-get dist-upgrade, in order to make sure all the packages benefit from the latest fixes and improvements. Here's how a usual Ubuntu 10.10 Beta desktop looks like:

Ubuntu 10.10 Beta with Ubuntu Software Center; notice the theme used is 'Ambiance', a dark theme keeping the characteristic brownish style

All the screenshots were taken using the Normal desktop effects option.

GNOME Terminal using the transparency effect

I don't know if it's me but Rhythmbox seems to get harder to use from version to version. I couldn't get it to list my music files, not in the media library, nor in the playlist.

Rhythmbox 0.13.1 music player

The help center has some font displaying issues, which will hopefully get fixed by the time Ubuntu final will be released

Totem movie player

The System->Preferences menu allows to customise aspects like appearance, edit the applications to be shown in the menu, change the screensaver, configure keyboard, mouse etc.

Ubuntu Preferences menu

Changing GNOME theme

Firefox 3.6.9 - Ubuntu comes with the latest version of the powerful Firefox web browser

As final impressions, Maverick Meerkat seems promising: it's pretty stable and it surely looks like a usual Ubuntu release, nothing more or less. Some bugs still have to be fixed and the theme makes the Firefox menu entries to be unreadable.

Google Launched Real Time Search

2010-09-12T09:03:00.001+03:00

On September 8th Google launched instant search, a service which displays real time results from discussions on social networks, like Twitter or Facebook.

The service provides the options to customise the location from which the updates come from, very useful if you need to quickly find out something about a particular event in that region.

AcetoneISO: Easily mount CD/DVD Images in Linux

2010-09-12T08:28:00.001+03:00

AcetoneISO is an application that uses Fuse (Filesystem in Userspace) in order to mount ISO, NRG, BIN, MDF, IMG and various other disk images.

AcetoneISO 2.2.2 in Kubuntu

Among the nice features AcetoneISO provides are:

- integration with KDE, GNOME, Xfce and LXDE (by integrating with the default file managers of these desktop environments - Dolphin, Nautilus, Thunar and PCManFM)
- support to mount ISO, NRG, BIN, MDF and IMG images
- convert different types of images to ISO
- extract image content to a directory
- generate ISO image from folder or the CD/DVD drives
- system tray integration

By default, AcetoneISO creates empty directories in $HOME/virtual_drives/, in which it mounts the images. You can browse these directories to access the contents of any mounted disk image.

AcetoneISO also uses mencoder (which will have to be installed manually, since it's only a 'suggest' dependency - at least in Ubuntu) in order to rip DVDs to Xvid, download YouTube videos, or convert FLV videos to AVI, or extract audio from a video file, for which you will have to manually install ffmpeg.

I noticed that AcetoneISO crashes with a segmentation fault when trying to use one of the options 'Erase CD-RW' or 'Erase DVD+RW' and there is no disk in the drive.

The configuration dialogue allows you to set up a disk image database, select which video player to use for playing DVD images or enable and disable the system tray.

Except for the few bugs (and the occasional crashes), AcetoneISO may be a good choice for those who like GUI more than the command line.

Amarok 2.3.2 Beta 1 Review

2010-09-11T23:10:00.001+03:00

Well, well, well, guess who's back! It's been over seven months since i last published an article here at TuxArena, but now we're back on track and kicking! The series of reviews continues today with an article about one of the most popular audio player out there (and why not admit it, even controversial). I'm talking Amarok here.

The version tested is the 2.3.2 Beta 1 release, put out earlier this year, running on top of Kubuntu 10.10 Beta. Amarok improved a lot since I last took a look at it (I'm still using KDE 3.5 with the old - but stable - Debian Lenny).

First of all, let's have a look at the interface:

Amarok 2.3.2 Beta playing

Amarok also provides a so-called Slim Toolbar which arranges the upper side containing the Play/Pause, Next/Previous Track buttons in a more compact way:

Among the good features Amarok comes with:
- Equalizer
- Powerful collection management system (although the playlist is a little buggy)
- Scripts
- Lyrics, Wikipedia, & several more widgets
- Cover manager and fetching system
- Online music sources
- File browser
- Podcasts support
- Bookmarks
- On-Screen Display
- Fadeout feature

Minuses compared to the 1.4 version are lack of statistics, stability (it's less stable and reliable - it's one of the players which at the moment can ruin your listening experience by crashing or making other surprises). I'm sorry to say this as an Amarok fan and promoter, but this is the truth as I see it.

Scanning the collection is very fast in 2.3.2, and I was really impressed to see that in less than four minutes Amarok successfully scanned a collection of almost 9000 audio files (Ogg and FLAC formats only), and populated the playlist in a little over 1 minute with all of them. That's on my Core 2 Duo 1.8 GHz.

The problem with the playlist is that Amarok still has issues with categorizing songs which are part of a compilation by different artists, and this results in a messy playlist. I talked about this probably over one year ago, but it seems it hasn't been fixed not even until today. Also, it fails to correctly fetch album covers which are in the same directory with the songs from an album. This is frustrating and pretty much... amateurish. I mean, it's been over two years now!

The playlist can get messy - Amarok still has issues with organizing albums which are compilations with more than one artist

The configuration window allows to customise general settings, like enabling/disabling the system tray or the OSD, select which web services you want to have listed in the left panel, show moodbar or configuring an external MySQL database for the music collection.

The second time I started Amarok it jumped from a song to another, refusing to play any sound. I had to kill it in Konsole. The output was something like "amarok(2735): couldn't create slave: "Unable to create io-slave:
klauncher said: Unknown protocol ''." I really don't know whether this is Amarok's fault, or Phonon's. This happened after hitting Ctrl+J to jump to the search box and typing an artist in there, then Enter. Amarok refused to play any more songs after this, even after restarting the X Server and logging back in. If someone can help me with that, I'd be truly thankful.

Of course, I have to mention again that this is only a beta, and it was tested in a beta distribution too (I guess by this time we all know about the quality of Kubuntu releases).

Overall, Amarok 2.3.2 has powerful features, and it surely looks like a lot of work has been put in it (well, except for the playlist problems), but thing is, a lot of people still prefer the older 1.4.10 player, which is rock-solid compared to its KDE 4 port.

Pluses:
+ Equalizer with presets
+ collection manager
+ Wikipedia and lyrics widgets

Minuses
- still needs more features
- lack of stability

How-To: Install Finch 2.6.5 in Debian Lenny

2010-01-27T13:01:00.000+02:00

Finch is a powerful text user interface instant messaging client based on libpurple, and it comes included in the Pidgin source, the popular GNOME IM client. Finch supports various protocols, including AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo and IRC.

The version which ships in Debian Lenny is rather old (2.4.3), so in order to install the latest release of Finch in Debian Lenny (which, at the time of writing is 2.6.5), just follow the next steps:

Make sure the sources repositories are enabled, so that the needed development libraries are available. That is, a line like the following should be available in the /etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb-src http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free

As root, update the packages list:

apt-get update

And install the development libraries:

apt-get build-dep finch

Next, download the Pidgin source code (which also includes Finch source) from the official website (direct link here), uncompress it:

tar -xjf pidgin-2.6.5.tar.bz2

Change the current working directory to pidgin-2.6.5 and compile and install it using:

./configure --disable-gtkui --disable-vv --disable-nm

The --disable-gtkui switch will not build the GTK interface, and the other two will disable voice/video support and NetworkManager support.

Now issue the usual:

make
make install

The last one as root. Alternately, you can install Finch as a local user, by specifying an install prefix:

./configure --prefix=/home/USER/usr --disable-gtkui --disable-vv --disable-nm
make
make install

In this case, make install should be run as normal user. Replace USER with your username and make sure /home/USER/usr/bin is included in your $PATH variable. Run Finch by typing finch at the command-line.

Pidgin 2.6.5 running in a terminal

How-To: Install Firefox 3.6 in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic

2010-01-22T20:55:00.001+02:00

Firefox 3.6 was released yesterday, after over six months since the last major release, version 3.5. Firefox 3.6 ships with versions for over 70 languages, support for Personas, an add-on allowing you to change the appearance of the tab bar and choose from thousands of themes, improvements to the open video support (like the fullscreen mode), improved JavaScript performance and start-up time, support for the new DOM and HTML5 specs.

This is a short tutorial which will show how to install Firefox 3.6 in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala from the Mozilla Daily PPA.

First, open the terminal and add the necessary repository addresses to your /etc/apt/sources.list file:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Or, for a GUI editor:

gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following two lines:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu karmic main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu karmic main

Notice that the second line is only needed if you plan to fetch the source code for Firefox. Make sure to save the file and proceed to the next step.

Now, add the trusted key for this repository:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 247510BE

Update your packages list:

sudo apt-get update

Remove the current Firefox installation:

sudo apt-get remove --purge firefox

And now install version 3.6:

sudo apt-get install firefox-3.6

Now you may want to create a new profile for the new 3.6 version. To do this, run Firefox with the -P parameter:

firefox -P

To run two different instances of Firefox and different profiles you can use:

firefox --no-remote -P

digiKam 1.1 Planned for the End of January 2010

2009-12-28T18:21:00.001+02:00

Only a few days have passed since digiKam 1.0 was released to the delight of its users, and the developers already announced that version 1.1 will be available by the end of January 2009. According to the official announcement, digiKam 1.1 will be a bugfix release to the stable 1.x series.

digiKam is a powerful, open-source photo management application for KDE 4, which has support for various image manipulation plugins, importing or exporting photos, and organising your entire photographies in collections sorted by albums.

The announcement also asks for digiKam users to submit splash screens for the next version of digiKam. From the article: "So, time has come to find the ideal splash-screens to go with it. Now is your chance to join the ranks of the precious few who have had their artwork associated with a release of digiKam!"

For compiling and installing digiKam in Ubuntu 9.10 see this post.

3 Wonderful Open-Source Games to Install After Installing Ubuntu

2009-12-28T12:32:00.005+02:00

Battle for Wesnoth
Battle for Wesnoth is one of the most popular turn-based strategy games for Linux, if not the most popular. Completely free and open-source, it provides both singleplayer campaigns, as well as online multiplayer, hotseat or LAN support. The game takes place over various maps composed from hexes, and in each hex a unit at a time can be deployed. The player has to take advantage of various terrain types (which increase or decrease defence), use wisely the types of attack and abilities each unit has. Wesnoth currently comes with 6 factions (Loyalists, Rebels, Knalgan Alliance, Undead, Northerners and Drakes), but the add-on server has a whole bunch of custom eras and new factions.

Wesnoth 1.6.5

Scripting is handled in Wesnoth by WML, the Wesnoth Markup Language, which allows for building entire scenarios and campaigns.

Wesnoth is in a continuous change, with every new release bringing more features and gameplay innovation. The current stable release is 1.6.5, but soon 1.8 will be out, and it will include new unit portraits, WML (Wesnoth Markup Language) improvements, updated campaigns and more. 1.8 will also allow the user to directly upload user-made campaigns and scenario from in-game add-ons menu.

Dark Forecast, one of the most popular survival maps

To install Wesnoth in Ubuntu, type in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install wesnoth

SuperTux
SuperTux is a 2D jump and run Mario clone, with the difference that it uses its own maps, enemies, and the main character is... you guessed, Tux, the story taking place in Antarctica. It is licensed under the GPL and it is free of charge. SuperTux has very nice graphics, especially since it has support for software and OpenGL rendering, 26 levels and 9 types of enemies.

Except for the official website, there is also a fansite for SuperTux, with screenshots, user-made maps and a forum.

SuperTux 0.3.1

To Install SuperTux in Ubuntu, type in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install supertux

World of Padman
When it comes to Linux shooter games, there isn't only one choice. Games like Nexuiz, OpenArena or Sauerbraten were a good fit here too, but I decided upon World of Padman.

Based on the Quake 3 engine, World of Padman is a fun, cartoon-style first-person shooter with maps, weapons and characters inspired from the Padman series. It features nice, colourful graphics, popular modes like FFA, TDM or CTF, and weapons which will definitely make you laugh the first time you'll see them.

World of Padman

Although it is not included in the repositories, WoP can be easily installed like this:

- download the Linux installer and Linux patch installer from here
- make them executables:

chmod 755 padman.run
chmod 755 wop_patch_1_2.run

- and install both of them, padman.run (or worldofpadman.run, depending on the name of the file) first, and then wop_patch_1_2.run:

./padman.run
./wop_patch_1_2.run

Updated: Jan 2, 2010

RSSOwl 2.0.1 Review - Feature-Rich Feed Reader for Linux

2009-12-27T11:59:00.002+02:00

Written in Java, RSSOwl is a powerful feed reader for Linux, with support for RSS, RDF and Atom feeds, with a lot of features and customisation options.

Licensed under the Eclipse Public License, RSSOwl includes features like:

- tabbed browsing
- three view modes: classic, vertical and newspaper
- possibility to share news to popular social networks like Twitter, Reddit, Digg, StumbleUpon, Technorati or Delicious
- labels
- notifications
- news filters
- add-on support
- importing and exporting feeds and feed preferences
- system tray integration (via the Tools -> Preferences -> View menu)

And these features aren't all the features RSSOwl can offer.

RSSOwl 2.0.1 in Ubuntu

By default, RSSOwl opens with a typical interface to feed reader applications, with the feeds list to the left and the web browser tabs to the right (classic view), but this can be changed from the View -> Layout menu. The other two view modes are Vertical View (which will split the news widget to the left and the browser to the right) and Newspaper View (which will list both the news title and the feed content in the same widget).

Newspaper view mode

The 'import' function allows the user to import feeds from a file or website, but it also includes the possibility to import recommended feeds, and, more useful, feeds which match user-specified tags from pre-defined news websites, like Google or Yahoo News. I'm not sure which is the service providing these feed lists, but they are definitely useful:

Generated feeds for 'linux'

Importing feeds from various websites

The 'export' function allows not only to export feeds, but also preferences and labels.

RSSOwl also allows to search the news feeds, and it supports wildcards like ? or * for a more powerful search. The fullscreen mode (F11) is also available.

The configuration window allows to customise the internal browser, feeds (update interval, sorting, display method, when to delete old news), notifications, labels, sharing and view modes. RSSOwl can also be integrated in the system tray.

One of the minuses I could catch was that RSSOwl will fail to fetch and display feeds which contain some invalid code, although other feed readers like Akregator or Liferea show them.

Sharing news - many popular networks are supported

Except for refusing to fetch certain feeds (which can be a big minus), RSSOwl is a complete and powerful feed application who deserves a try and easily competes with readers like Akregator or Liferea.

Official website
Install RSSOwl 2.0.1 in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic: See this article

How-To: Install RSSOwl 2.0.1 in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic

2009-12-26T19:13:00.000+02:00

RSSOwl is a feature-rich RSS feed reader written in Java. To install the latest release in Ubuntu 9.10, follow the instructions below:

RSSOwl 2.0.1 running in Ubuntu

Edit your /etc/apt/sources.list:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

And add the following line:

deb http://packages.rssowl.org/ubuntu karmic main

Save the file (Ctrl+O), exit (Ctrl+X) and then add this repository's key to the trusted keys:

wget -q http://packages.rssowl.org/project/rene.moser.pubkey -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Update the packages list:

sudo apt-get update

And install RSSOwl:

sudo apt-get install rssowl

This is it. To remove RSSOwl from your Ubuntu box use:

sudo apt-get remove --purge rssowl

How-To: Install Flash Player 10.1 Beta 2 in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

2009-12-26T18:20:00.000+02:00

Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta 2 was released earlier this year, on December 17 at the Adobe MAX 2009. This release comes with several new features and numerous bug fixes.

To install Flash Player 10.1 Beta 2 in Ubuntu 9.10, just follow the steps below:

First, remove your existing Flash plugin. Do this depending on whether you installed Flash from the repositories or manually. If you installed Flash from the Ubuntu repositories, typing:

sudo apt-get remove --purge flashplugin-installer

should remove your current installation of Flash. If Flash was installed manually, the plugin should be located in the ~/.mozilla/plugins directory, where ~ is the home directory. So, to remove it:

rm -f ~/.mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so

Next, download the archive for the new Flash player from here (direct link here), or alternately you can type in a terminal:

wget http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/flashplayer10_1_p2_linux_121709.tar.gz

Make sure the current working directory is the one where you saved the archive and uncompress it:

tar -xzf flashplayer10_1_p2_linux_121709.tar.gz

Next, create the ~/.mozilla/plugins directory (if it doesn't already exist):

mkdir -p ~/.mozilla/plugins

And copy the plugin inside it:

cp install_flash_player_10_linux/libflashplayer.so ~/.mozilla/plugins

Now restart Firefox and this should be all.

Full Review: Nexuiz 2.5.2 - Free First-Person Shooter for Linux

2009-12-26T17:55:00.001+02:00

Nexuiz is one of the most popular shooter games which emerged after the open-sourcing of the Quake 3 engine, featuring a fast-paced game style and several game modes, like the popular DM or CTF. Nexuiz is a free, GPL-licensed, first-person shooter developed online by the Internet-based team Alientrap, and it comes with ports for Linux, Windows and Mac.

Nexuiz 2.5.2

Ever since it was launched, in May 2005, Nexuiz went through a lot of changes and evolved with every release. The 2.5 series bring many improvements, featuring new graphics, new maps and an even faster gameplay. The latest version is 2.5.2, a bug-fix release to the stable 2.5 release. To test the latest Nexuiz, download the Zip archive from the official website (direct link here), uncompress it, and then run the binary specific to your OS (the archive includes binaries for Linux, as well as Windows and Mac).

Nexuiz - choosing the player model

Nexuiz 2.5 offers a futuristic interface, with fast access to settings and other configuration options. One of the nice things which bumped out when configuring the keys was that Nexuiz allows for switching between fullscreen and windowed mode just by pressing a key, even if the game is running. Older versions of Nexuiz used Shift+Esc in order to open the console, but it looks like in 2.5 you can use the classic ` key.

The server browser

Besides multiplayer, Nexuiz also includes support for bots and a singleplayer campaign. It comes with 15 player models, 13 weapons and 24 official maps, music and original character and weapon sounds.

Nexuiz will run smoothly on older machines at 1024x768, but you will need a decent video card to enjoy it on higher resolutions at a steady framerate. However, lowering texture details and particle details will help if you have an older video card and CPU.

Overall, I think Alientrap is doing a great job by continuously developing this game, which became one of the favourite FPS games for Linux users, together with other well-known names like OpenArena or Tremulous.

10 Most Popular Tips in 2009

2009-12-26T16:40:00.000+02:00

Following the most popular TuxArena articles in 2009 post, here are the 10 most popular tips published here at TuxArena in 2009:

1. Install Adobe Flash Player 10 in Debian (for 32-bit architecture only)
A tutorial on how to manually install Flash Player in Debian Lenny.

2. Split APE Files Using a CUE File
A tutorial which shows how to manipulate APE (Monkey's Audio) files, and how to split them depending on the info found in a CUE file.

3. Convert MKV to AVI using mencoder
This is a short tip which has a one-liner showing how to convert MKV-encoded videos to xvid.

4. Easily Close a Port in Linux
Tip which shows how to close ports in Linux.

5. Convert OGV to FLV Using ffmpeg
How to convert OGV (the free Theora video format) to Flash Video.

6. Use lm-sensors to Monitor Your Hardware
Tutorial on how to install and use the lm-sensors utility to monitor CPU temperature, voltages and more.

7. Split FLAC or WAV Files Using a CUE File
Tutorial which shows how to use cuebreakpoints and shnsplit tools to split FLAC or WAV when a CUE file is available.

8. Easily Start a Dedicated Urban Terror Server
How to start a dedicated server for the popular Urban Terror game.

9. Convert AC3 to WAV Using MPlayer
One-liner on how to convert AC3 audio to WAV with mplayer.

10. Make a Memory Usage Script
Tutorial which shows a practical Bash script for memory usage.

How-To: Post to Twitter from Command-Line

2009-12-26T15:08:00.004+02:00

This is a short tutorial explaining how to post to Twitter using command-line in Linux, without needing to even open up your web browser.

First, install the curl package:

sudo apt-get install curl

Next, create a script anywhere in your $PATH, for example twitter.sh inside ~/bin, where ~ is your home directory (make sure ~/bin is included in your $PATH variable, in case echo $PATH doesn't return it, edit ~/.bashrc and add a line like this: export PATH=/home/USER/bin/:$PATH).

The script twitter.sh should contain the following:

#!/bin/bash
curl -u USER:PASS -d status="$*" http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml > /dev/null
echo "Message sent!"

Replace USER and PASS with your Twitter username and password, and then make the script executable:

chmod 755 ~/bin/twitter.sh

And now test it:

twitter.sh Hello, world! This is a test.

So just use it as:

twitter.sh YOUR MESSAGE

This should be all. Have a look at the screenshots below:

Running the twitter.sh script

10 Useful Linux Commands

2009-12-25T15:43:00.001+02:00

Here's a list of 10 commands which may come handy when using the command line in Linux:

Search for all files modified in the last N days containing a specific text in their name

find DIR -mtime -N -name "*TEXT*"

For example:

find ~ -mtime -5 -name "*log*"

Will display all the files modified in the past 5 days which include the text 'log' in their filename.

Determine which processes use the most memory

ps aux | sort -nk 4 | tail

Will show the first 10 processes which use the most memory, using ascendant sorting. Alternately:

ps aux | sort -nrk 4 | head

Will show the first 10 processes using most memory, using descendent sorting.

Output of ps aux | sort -nrk 4 | head

Display the username which is currently logged in

whoami

Show date using format modifiers

date +"%H:%M:%S"

Will output time in format HOUR:MINUTE:SECOND. You can use any format specifiers explained in the man page. The double quotes are required in case you need to use spaces.

Showing date in format month, day year

Show info about a specific user

finger $USER

Output of finger $USER

Show disk usage separately for each partition

df -h

The -h switch will tell df to show human-readable sizes (KB, MB and GB when it is the case)

df -B 1K

Will show sizes in kilobytes.

Show which modules are loaded

lsmod

Add or remove a module to/from the Linux kernel

Insert a module:

modprobe MODULE

Remove a module:

modprobe -r MODULE

Search for a file using locate

locate FILENAME

Will search the locate database (created with updatedb) for any path or file which contains FILENAME.

Change the encoding of a text file

iconv -f INITIAL_ENCODING -t DESIRED_ENCODING filename

For example:

iconv -f ISO-8859-16 -t UTF-8 myfile.txt

Will change the encoding of myfile.txt from ISO-8859-16 (Romanian) to UTF-8.

Round-Up: Most Popular TuxArena Articles in 2009

2009-12-25T12:51:00.001+02:00

Since it's Christmas and 2010 is knocking at the door, it's time to put up a round-up of the most popular articles published at TuxArena in 2009. This post is divided in two parts: a list of most popular tutorials and a list of most popular reviews (selected exclusively by number of views according to Google Analytics, from which I made a selection). Of course, it's not 100% accurate, considering some articles were published earlier this year (thus having more page views than newer articles), but it is, however, a good way to choose the articles without making a subjective, by-hand selection.

In 2009, two of TuxArena articles hit Digg.com (3 Ways to Record Your Linux Desktop and Top 10 KDE4 Applications).

Most popular tutorials

How-To: Install Firefox 3.5 in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

3 Ways to Install Latest Wine in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

3 Ways to Record Your Linux Desktop

3 Tweaks to Speed Up Firefox 3 and Free Memory

4 Ways to Create CD/DVD ISO Images in Ubuntu

How-To: Install KDE 4.3 in Ubuntu/Kubuntu 9.04

How-To: Compile and Install XMMS in Ubuntu 9.04

How-To: Install VLC 1.0 from the Ubuntu PPA Repository

How-To: Install OpenOffice.org 3.1 in Debian Lenny

6 Bash Productivity Tips

Most popular reviews

Kubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala (Alpha 4) Overview & Screenshots

An Early Look at Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala - Overview & Screenshots

Kubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope Overview & Screenshots

Top 10 Applications to Install After Installing Ubuntu

10 File Managers for Linux

KDE 4.3 RC1 in Kubuntu 9.04 - Overview & Screenshots

Top 10 KDE4 Applications

First-Person Shooter Games for Linux III: Urban Terror

10 Essential Applications Included in Kubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

5 Best Applications to Rip and Transcode DVDs in Linux

Tip of the Day: Format C Code Using Indent

2009-12-23T19:55:00.000+02:00

Indent is a powerful application developed by the GNU project, designed to format and change the appearance of C code. Indent will insert or delete whitespace characters to make your C code easier to read. It supports several code styles, including:
- GNU indent style (which is the default, or indent -gnu)
- Kernighan & Ritchie indent style (invoked with indent -kr)
- original Berkeley indent style (invoked with indent -orig)

Thus, to indent a C source file using the Kernighan & Ritchie style, one would use:

indent -kr source.c

Have a look at the screenshots below:

Original, wrongfully formatted source code

Same code, formatted using indent source.c (using default GNU style)

Same code, formatted with the Kernighan & Ritchie style (with indent -kr source.c)

Notice that indent is developed to work with C code, not C++; also, it will try to cope with invalid code too.

WordPress 2.9 Released!

2009-12-23T14:19:00.001+02:00

The popular web publishing platform reached today version 2.9 (see official announcement) and it comes with notable new features and a whole bunch of bug fixes. WordPress is one of the most popular, open-source platforms for blogging, and also the platform of choice for many people who need a complete content management system.

The highlights of this release, codenamed 'Carmen', include:

- global undo (or 'trash') feature, which eliminates the messages asking if you want to delete each comment or post, and instead sends those into the trash
- a built-in image editor which offers basic image manipulation functions, like edit, crop, rotate, flip or image scaling
- batch plugin updates, which allows for updating several plugins at once, and also verify if the plugins are compatible with new WordPress releases
- video embeds only by pasting a URL which will turn into embed code, with support for YouTube, Daily Motion and Google Video to mention a few

WordPress 2.9 also comes with a large number of many smaller features and bug fixes.

Listen Review - Alternative Music Player for GNOME

2009-12-23T13:10:00.003+02:00

There is a huge number of audio players for GNOME which strive to offer as many features as possible, with Banshee, Exaile or Rhythmbox currently being the most popular for this matter. Since features like easy access to lyrics, Wikipedia information or collection management are a must-have for a complex audio player, it looks like Listen makes no exception regarding those either.

Listen 0.6.3 in Ubuntu Karmic

The version I'm going to talk about in this review is the latest, 0.6.3, which was released on July 30, 2009.

Listen is written in Python using the GTK toolkit, and it features a simple and organised interface, providing fast access to information related to the currently playing song, like lyrics, Wikipedia artist's page, concerts and Last.fm info.

The library is divided into five sections:
- Music, which will show available artists and albums
- Podcast, for managing and listening to podcasts
- Last.fm Station, allowing you to listen to Last.fm radio
- Filesystem, a file browser
- Webradio, a collection of Internet radio stations

Listen offers drag-and-drop support, and besides the usual sorting, the playlist font can also be changed. One of the minuses is that the playlist cannot be sorted by full path or filename.

Playlist - allows for font to be changed

Among the notable features of Listen are: Last.fm song submission, support for podcasts, Internet radio, OSD (on-screen display), Wikipedia info and lyrics fetching, upcoming concerts, cover fetching (either from the local directory or from Amazon.com), tags lookup, tag editing, support for plugins, song queue, system tray integration, visualizations. Most of these come with the bundled plugins.

Context view

An interesting option is the ability to set custom web service filters, which will be skipped when performing web queries. For example, you can add here information which you don't want to be searched for, like cd 1, cd 2 etc.

Listen 0.6.3 preferences

Listen also provides no fewer than four view modes: small, normal, full display and party mode, and the latter is practically a fullscreen mode.

Regarding plugins, Listen comes by default with several useful ones, like:
- a 10-band equalizer
- PidginStatus, which will show the song you're listening to as your Pidgin status message
- a visualization plugin
- Last.fm events, to retrieve upcoming concerts for a band from Last.fm
- Jamendo and Magnatune integration

Installation in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

There is a PPA available for the latest Listen release, and to use it add the following two lines inside your /etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/listen-devel/ppa/ubuntu karmic main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/listen-devel/ppa/ubuntu karmic main

Next, add the trusted key for this PPA:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys AA832887

Update the packages list:

sudo apt-get update

And install Listen:

sudo apt-get install listen

Official website
Listen on Launchpad

How-To: Change GRUB Splash Image (For GRUB Legacy)

2009-12-22T00:54:00.001+02:00

Although GRUB 2 replaced the older GRUB 0.9x (currently known as 'GRUB Legacy'), the latter still is the default boot loader on some distributions, like Debian 5.0 for example.

The splash screen for GRUB Legacy is an XPM image which appears as a background when you select which OS to boot. For those who are tired of the default splash screen, here is a short tutorial on how to change it.

First, download some splash screens from here (or Google some). Each splash screen comes as an XPM image archived as a Gzip file. Once you downloaded the desired splash images, copy them inside the /boot/ directory, or create symbolic links in this directory which will point to the actual location of the files. For example, if you downloaded the file tenerife.xpm.gz inside your home directory, you can type as root (and replace USER with the actual username):

cp /home/USER/tenerife.xpm.gz /boot/

Or, to create a symbolic link to it:

ln -s /home/USER/tenerife.xpm.gz /boot/grub/tenerife.xpm.gz

In Ubuntu (pre-Karmic releases, since Karmic uses GRUB 2 by default), use one of those, with the user password:

sudo cp ~/tenerife.xpm.gz /boot/grub/

Or:

sudo ln -s ~/tenerife.xpm.gz /boot/grub/tenerife.xpm.gz

The next step is to edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file, and tell it to use the newly downloaded splash image. For this, add a line which looks like this inside the file mentioned earlier (don't forget to edit it with root privileges):

splashimage (hd0,0)/boot/tenerife.xpm.gz

This will tell GRUB to search for the file tenerife.xpm.gz on the first partition of the first hard drive. Save the file and restart the computer.

How-To: Install Exaile 3.0.1 in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

2009-09-11T17:01:00.004+03:00

Exaile 3.0.1 was released on 6 September and it is a bugfix for the stable 3.0 series. To get it in Ubuntu Jaunty, follow the steps below:

Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and add the following two lines (the second one is needed only if you want the sources too):

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/exaile-devel/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/exaile-devel/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Make sure to save the file and add the trusted key:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 43CBFCC0

Next, update the source packages:

sudo apt-get update

To install Exaile 3.0.1, issue the following command in a terminal application:

sudo apt-get install exaile

This should be all. Run Exaile by typing Alt+F2 and entering exaile in the run box that appears.

Flagfox: Firefox Add-on to Show the Country of the Current Server

2009-09-11T16:23:00.000+03:00

Flagfox is a small Firefox add-on which will display a flag of the country where the server of the current website is located. Flagfox will show the current server IP, the hostname, country, city, local time, postal code and even latitude and longitude of the location.

Flagfox 3.3.15

Flagfox can be configured to show the flag and additional information in the address bar or the status bar (left or right), open information in a new tab or window, and define a custom action for middle-clicking on the country flag icon.

Preferences

Middle-clicking on the flag icon will perform a whois, copy the IP address or open an additional tab with Wikipedia information about the selected country, depending on how you set this action in the Flagfox preferences window.

Custom actions are also supported, the default action (if enabled) will look for pages indexed by Google of the current website. For example, using the default action for this address will return these search results.

Install Flagfox from the Firefox add-ons page
Flagfox homepage

How-To: Install Amarok 2.2 Beta 1 from the Kubuntu Beta Backports

2009-09-06T14:51:00.002+03:00

The first beta of Amarok 2.2, codenamed 'Crystal Clear', was released on September 4 and packages are available for Kubuntu 9.04 Jaunty from the Kubuntu Beta Backports.

Amarok 2.2 Beta 1 comes with a huge number of bug fixes and many improvements and new features. To list some of them:
- new videoclip applet
- new photo applet
- improved browser layout to the left
- widgets can now be arranged differently from default
- ratings
- support for audio CDs
- the playlist offers multi-level sorting now
Those are only the highlights though, to see the full announcement and changelog read this.

To install Amarok 2.2 Beta 1 in Kubuntu/Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope just follow the instructions below:

First, edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file with your favourite text editor, e.g.:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Or:

kdesudo kate /etc/apt/sources.list

Next, add the following two lines:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/beta/ubuntu karmic main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/beta/ubuntu karmic main

Make sure to save the file and then add the trusted key for this repository:

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

Now update your package lists:

sudo apt-get update

Eventually, remove your existing Amarok installation:

sudo apt-get remove --purge amarok
sudo apt-get autoremove --purge

And now install the latest Amarok:

sudo apt-get install amarok

This should be all. Run Amarok 2.2 Beta 1 by pressing Alt+F2 and typing amarok in KRunner.

How-To: Install OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

2009-09-05T13:47:00.000+03:00

OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 was released a few days ago, bringing many bug fixes to the stable 3.1 series. One of the ways to get it on Jaunty is to use the Launchpad.net PPA for OpenOffice.org Scribblers which recently packaged it for Ubuntu Jaunty and included it in their repositories.

To install the latest release using command-line, just use the instructions below:

First, edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file and enter your user password:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following two lines (the second one is not necessary, unless you want the sources to be available too):

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/openoffice-pkgs/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/openoffice-pkgs/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Add the trusted key for these repositories:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 247D1CFF

Update the packages lists:

sudo apt-get update

You can eventually remove your existing OpenOffice installation by using the following two commands:

sudo apt-get remove --purge openoffice.org
sudo apt-get autoremove --purge

This will also remove system-wide configuration files.

Now, install OpenOffice.org 3.1.1:

sudo apt-get install openoffice.org

This should be all. You can run it by pressing Alt+F2 and typing openoffice in the run box.

New Version of Skype Released with PulseAudio Support and Numerous Improvements

2009-08-31T14:23:00.000+03:00

A new version of Skype for Linux was released the other day, bringing new features and a lot of improvements and bug fixes. Skype 2.1.0.47 comes packaged for distributions like Ubuntu (both 8.04 and 8.10), Debian Lenny, Fedora Core 9 and 10+ and openSUSE. Dynamically and statically linked binaries are also available from the official website.

Among the new features Skype 2.1.0.47 comes with are:
- PulseAudio support
- SILK audio codec
- SMS sending support
- high quality video support
- contact groups
- chat picture for group conversations
- contact labels and tags
- many bug fixes and improvements

To install Skype in Ubuntu or in Debian just follow the instructions in this article.

7 Reasons to Use Debian

2009-08-30T22:07:00.002+03:00

1. Stable
Any application needs time to be used and tested enough time in order to make it stable. One of the greatest goals of Debian is stability. It's released when it's ready and applications included in the repositories have enough time to be tested through.

2. Debian offers stable, old stable, testing, *and* sid
Why should this be an advantage? First, because there is a stable release, which will fit both desktops and servers. Since Debian stable releases happen rarely, software can get a little old. So any can get to choose 'testing', which is tagged that way because applications are tested more but they are still usable. Sid is bleeding edge, which means applications get in usually as soon as they are released, so you get the newest software only by installing a testing weekly snapshot and upgrading. Considering the stable and old stable offer software which has been tested and stripped for critical bugs, testing usually proves to be the perfect alternative for a user who wants to use up-to-date tools and applications, which include the latest features.

3. The DFSG
Maybe this doesn't say much just when you see it, but Debian has been around since 1993 and it still is as it was. Although the social contract changed a little over the years, it still retained it's originality. It's open, it's free, it follows the GPL entirely, it respects the community needs.

4. Debian is one of the oldest distributions
Although this doesn't necessarily make you wise, take a look at Debian: it's been up for over 15 years and there are a lot of distributions out there who take and eventually expand Debian's work, take Ubuntu or DSL for example.

5. Very rich documentation
Except for the official documentation, there are hundreds of respectable websites which provide Debian tutorials and general documentation. There is usually no problem which can't be solved in Debian or at least which hasn't somewhere an answer.

6. Many distributions are based on Debian
Debian offers a solid base and a powerful system of managing software. Distributions like Ubuntu and DSL use the APT packaging system, which was invented by Debian for easier management of installed software. In turn, everything user-friendly or useful from Ubuntu will get eventually into Debian.

7. Great community
Being one of the oldest distributions out there, Debian has a strong community. Take the IRC channels, both on Freenode and OFTC, take all the Debian-dedicated forums or the mailing lists, consider that there are gurus out there who worked with Debian for years and they will usually offer support and share knowledge.

ChatZilla: Powerful IRC Client for Firefox

2009-08-30T21:25:00.001+03:00

ChatZilla is an IRC client built as a Firefox add-on and providing enough features to use it just like any other standalone IRC client. ChatZilla will fit best as an IRC client when you don't want to use a separate application for getting on IRC.

ChatZilla 0.9.85

The interface resembles the classic user list and chat window appearance, making it intuitive and using the usual Firefox shortcuts for common tasks like switching tabs or closing the current chat window.

The first time it starts, ChatZilla will offer the basic information to start using it, like the needed commands to get help, links to get started with IRC, a FAQ and links to connect directly to one of the many popular networks like Freenode, QuakeNet, EFNet, IRCNet, Dalnet or Undernet.

ChatZilla provides direct support to essential IRC commands for talking with the IRC server and it comes with detailed help for each and every command. Aliases are also supported in ChatZilla so you can define your own shortcut for any command and ease common tasks like a login command or sending a specific message to a channel or a private conversation. DCC is also supported and file transfers are possible in ChatZilla just like in any other IRC client.

Regarding configurability, ChatZilla offers all the friendly-client options, like automatic reconnecting, rejoin when kicked, character encoding, quit message, proxy type, enabled automatically by Firefox, away message, default usermode when connecting, logs. Except for specific IRC settings, ChatZilla also allows to configure appearance settings like fonts or showing a header, add custom aliases, automatically load any custom created Java scripts, text formatting and support for mIRC colours.

ChatZilla preferences

Considering most of the time we're using a web browser, using ChatZilla over some other IRC client should be OK, especially if you don't want to open some additional application. Although not by far as powerful as standalone clients like Irssi or XChat, ChatZilla will make the perfect choice for getting and using IRC, especially when working with Firefox all the time is needed.
ChatZilla homepage
Install ChatZilla from the Firefox add-ons page

Top 7 Xfce Applications

2009-08-24T16:33:00.001+03:00

Over the years Xfce gained a reputation of being a lightweight alternative for the two major desktop environments on Linux, KDE and GNOME. This comes from the fact that Xfce usually uses less resources, comes with applications which offer basic functionality and clean, simple interfaces, and the general performance of Xfce is better, at least when it comes to memory cost, than both KDE or GNOME. Xubuntu uses Xfce and very often it is recommended for older hardware which can't handle the latest releases of Ubuntu or Kubuntu.

Xfce 4.6.1 desktop environment

In this article I will overview 7 essential applications for the Xfce desktop environment, including screenshots, most popular features, strong and weak points.

1. File manager: Thunar (full review here)
Thunar is the default file manager in Xfce. It comes with a simple interface (just like any other Xfce application), side panel, configurable location selector (if you want the typical location bar to appear in the toolbar), possibility to sort items, zoom in/out, three view modes (icons, detailed list, compact list), and image previews. Thunar is simpler than Nautilus, but in turn it will consume less resources. It offers basic configuration options but it will get the job done, especially if you only need to do basic file browsing and management.

Thunar 1.0.1

2. Web browser: Midori
I think trying Midori for the first time will give the exact same feeling as trying Epiphany. It features the usual interface of simple browser, offering enough options to make it a simple, yet useful web browser. Midori uses the powerful WebKit rendering engine, so it will successfully support any web page out there that WebKit supports. Midori comes with extension support, bookmarks, history, encodings, zooming web pages in or out, source viewer and fullscreen mode. It also supports tabs (a must have) and it includes a speed dial page by default when opening a new tab for fast access to your favourite web pages.

Midori 0.1.9

Regarding configurability, Midori is pretty rich in options: except for the usual ones like homepage or start-up routine, it allows spell-checking, enabling/disabling showing images, scripts, interface, external applications, proxy, privacy and even appearance settings.

3. CD/DVD burner: Xfburn
The burning application in Xfce offers quite the usual features basic GNOME burners have. It provides a drag and drop interface using a tree file viewer and a file browser, it supports burning CDs, DVDs, ISO images, creation of audio CDs and that's all there is to it. Very simple and easy-to-use, without any additional options. Xfburn is very well suited if you're looking for a minimal, less resource-hungry application for burning discs.

Xfburn 0.4.2

4. Audio & video player: Xfmedia
Xfmedia is the default media player which comes with Xfce, based on the Xine engine and capable of playing any audio or video format that Xine supports. Xfmedia offers a basic interface which is best fit for playing audio files, but Xine makes it possible to play videos and movies too.

5. Image viewer: Ristretto
Ristretto comes with one of the most simple interfaces an image viewer could have, dividing the interface into two places: a widget showing the image (in full size or zoomed in or out) and a thumbnail preview bar, which can be relocated or hidden on demand via the View -> Thumbnail Viewer menu entry. Preferences window allows the user to customise the slideshow options, image cache size, background colour and scaling. Fullscreen mode and rotating images is also available.

Ristretto 0.0.22

6. Text editor: Mousepad
In the same fashion as the other Xfce applications, Mousepad offers a basic text editor, stripped from advanced features like syntax highlighting, spell-checking or any of the features advanced text editors have. Mousepad, as the name suggests, is just a simple text editor, fast to edit configuration files or any other text file. The features it provides are font selection, line number, auto-indent and word wrap.

Mousepad 0.2.16

7. Terminal application: Xfce Terminal
Since any productive Linux user will need the terminal for making things faster, the Xfce Terminal will prove a good replacement for applications like xterm, Konsole or GNOME Terminal, especially if you strive for simplicity. The Xfce4 Terminal allows you to configure its appearance, background image, font, colours, shortcuts. It even supports tabs, which is very useful when you need more than one instance opened.

Xfce4 Terminal 0.4.0

How-To: Install Pidgin 2.6.1 in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty from a Launchpad PPA

2009-08-24T13:11:00.000+03:00

Pidgin 2.6.0 was made available a few days ago, on August 19, 2009, and today Pidgin 2.6.1 was released as a bug fix version to the new stable 2.6 series. Among the features and improvements which come with 2.6.0 are:

- several changes and bug fixes in libpurple, the library used by Pidgin for its various chat protocols
- various DNS fixes
- AIM and ICQ fixes
- Gadu-Gadu fixes
- MSN new features, like support for receiving audio clips, support for receiving handwritten messages, many other fixes
- lots of XMPP fixes and improvements, like voice and video support with Jingle or the Service Discovery Browser plugin
- Yahoo! fixes and improvements
- Finch and the Pidgin GTK+ Theme control plugin also received improvements

To install Pidgin 2.6.1 in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope from the Pidgin developers PPA on Launchpad, just follow the instructions below:

First of all, edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file with your favourite text editor (e.g. sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list or gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list) and add the following two lines:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/pidgin-developers/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/pidgin-developers/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Next, make sure to save the file (Ctrl+O followed by Ctrl+X in Nano) and add the trusted key for this repository:

gpg --keyserver http://keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys A1F196A8
gpg --export A1F196A8 | sudo apt-key add -

Now, update the packages lists:

sudo apt-get update

The next step is to uninstall your currently Pidgin installation:

sudo apt-get remove --purge pidgin

And the next step is just to install Pidgin 2.6.1 from the newly added repositories:

sudo apt-get install pidgin

This should be all.

How-To: Install RSSOwl 2.0 in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic and 9.04 Jaunty

2009-08-24T00:11:00.000+03:00

RSSOwl is a powerful feed reader application for Linux licensed under the Eclipse Public License and written in Java. To get it up and running in Ubuntu, all you have to do is follow the few steps below:

Install the unzip and sun-java6-bin packages:

sudo apt-get install unzip sun-java6-bin

With your user password. Next, download the .zip package from the official website (direct link here). Unzip it either graphically from Nautilus or issuing the command below in a terminal, making sure the current working directory is the one where you saved the rssowl-2.0-M9.linux.gtk.x86.zip file:

unzip rssowl-2.0-M9.linux.gtk.x86.zip

What you have now is an rssowl directory, which you can copy anywhere in your home directory.

To run RSSOwl, just run the script RSSOwl inside the rssowl directory:

./RSSOwl

Alternately, you can make a desktop shortcut to it. That's all.