Jordan Hall » linux

About the cPanel apache_conf Distiller

Jordan Hall — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:56:45 +0000

I’ve recently had to make modifications to a WHM cPanel powered server which involved direct manipulation to the httpd.conf Apache configuration file.

Now, due to the managed element of WHM cPanel systems, it is very likely that any changes made to httpd.conf will be reverted after an automatic WHM cPanel update. To prevent your httpd.conf file being overwritten, you must make use of the cPanel Distiller.

After making your changes, run the distiller with the following command.

/usr/local/cpanel/bin/apache_conf_distiller --update

This will then ensure that your changes are integrated into the templates which WHM cPanel uses to regenerate the httpd.conf file after an automatic update.

I’ve tested this in CentOS specifically, but it should work in any other operating system, such as Red Hat.

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How to SSH Tunnel with the Linux Command Line

Jordan Hall — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 19:09:07 +0000

SSH stands for secure shell and is an encrypted data transfer protocol which is commonly used for Linux server communication. Tunnelling, in the context of computer networking, is the act of creating a link between two systems with one protocol that encapsulates additional protocols within itself.

One of the most simple ways to set up an SSH Tunnel is to make use of the ssh command’s -D argument. This argument allows you to specific a port upon which to listen locally. This causes ssh to act as a local SOCKS proxy server, routing any traffic pointed at this local proxy through the SSH tunnel. More details about the -D argument of ssh is shown below in the form of an extract from ssh’s man page.

-D port

Specifies a local “dynamic” application-level port forwarding. This works by allocating a socket to listen to port on the local side, and whenever a connection is made to this port, the connection is forwarded over the secure channel, and the application protocol is then used to determine where to connect to from the remote machine. Currently the SOCKS4 and SOCKS5 protocols are supported, and ssh will act as a SOCKS server. Only root can forward privileged ports. Dynamic port forwardings can also be specified in the configuration file.

One of the simplest methods to set-up an SSH tunnel, is the following command in a Linux terminal.

ssh -D 8080 username@example.com

This connects to the computer at ‘example.com’ and attempts to authenticate as ‘username’, asking for a password if necessary. When authentication is successful, ssh will act as a SOCKS proxy server on port 8080 as defined in the command. All you then need to do is configure your software (for example, your web browser) to run through a SOCKS proxy at ‘localhost’ or ’127.0.0.1′ on port 8080.

Additional information on SSH tunnelling is available from Wikipedia’s article on tunnelling protocols. Here’s an extract.

To set up an SSH tunnel, one configures an SSH client to forward a specified local port to a port on the remote machine. Once the SSH tunnel has been established, the user can connect to the specified local port to access the network service. The local port need not have the same port number as the remote port.

SSH tunnels provide a means to bypass firewalls that prohibit certain Internet services — so long as a site allows outgoing connections. For example, an organization may prohibit a user from accessing Internet web pages (port 80) directly without passing through the organization’s proxy filter (which provides the organization with a means of monitoring and controlling what the user sees through the web). But users may not wish to have their web traffic monitored or blocked by the organization’s proxy filter. If users can connect to an external SSH server, they can create an SSH tunnel to forward a given port on their local machine to port 80 on a remote web server. To access the remote web server users would point their browser to http://localhost/.

Some SSH clients support dynamic port forwarding that allows the user to create a SOCKS 4/5 proxy. In this case users can configure their applications to use their local SOCKS proxy server. This gives more flexibility than creating an SSH tunnel to a single port as previously described. SOCKS can free the user from the limitations of connecting only to a predefined remote port and server.

Hopefully this will help you set-up quick and easy SSH tunnels when you need them!

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Google Chrome OS Raising Awareness of Open Source Software

Jordan Hall — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:25:01 +0000

I’m quite highly anticipating the release of Google Chrome OS – Google’s net book and appliance cloud operating system. There are a few main reasons behind this.

Simplicity and Openness

Note that I combine the two here. It is very important that both software user friendliness is combined with the nature of free and open source software to prevent device and software simplification becoming a model for restricted development.

Apple do one of these well – simplicity. Apple products are almost always considered to be highly user-friendly and easy to use for all consumers, taking the iPhone and iPad as the latest examples within the consumer electronics market.

However, Apple has a very closed nature to their software models, especially with the iPhone and iPad, where all application acquisition is restricted to a specific Apple controlled ‘App. Store’ and all application developement is restricted to a Apple controlled SDK (software development kit) which is platforme restricted and incompatible with all platforms other than Apple’s own Mac OS X platform.

Promotion of Open Source Software

Since Google Chrome OS is to based upon a Linux kernel, and use many existing Linux systems, not only will this bring improvements to Linux operating systems as a whole due to Google’s code contributions, but additionally it will bring Linux and, more generally, open source software into the light.

The concepts of Linux and open source software are by no means yet the household names of Microsoft, Windows and Apple. Dependant on how Google Chrome OS is marketed by Google, this release could be a great boom for the promotion of Linux as a whole.

Zero Price Operating System

Since Google intends to release the operating system for free (zero price), it will likely also reduce the apparent worth of paid operating systems, such as the paid offerings by Microsoft (Windows) or Apple (Mac OS X). The increased use of web applications and the Internet to do many daily tasks makes Google Chrome OS perfect for the most common uses of computers today. For these tasks, alternative operating systems hold no significant advantages, whilst the advantages for Microsoft and Apple operating systems now lie specifically in the domain of platform restricted software packages, either in the desktop realm, such as Microsoft Office / Apple iWork or the server realm, such as Microsoft Exchange / Mac OS X server software packages.

Even then, with the growth of multi-platform, online productivity and collaboration tools, such as Google Docs, Google Calendar and Google Mail, these platform restricted ‘offline’ software packages may become redundant as more and more businesses and enterprises rely upon the Internet and cloud based applications and storage.

What do you think? Will Google Chrome OS be a boom for Linux, and will its competitors’ offerings be hurt significantly by its release?

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Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx sees the release of Alpha 2

Jordan Hall — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 13:46:59 +0000

Ubuntu 10.04, currently in development, has hit the second alpha release. As a quite update, here are some of the features you can see in the Alpha 2 release of Ubuntu 10.04.

A new graphical boot screen manager called ‘Plymouth’ which is to replace the currently used xsplash and usplash boot screen systems.
The user menu and power/session locking menus have been split into two distinct icons, marking the first steps into the development of Ubuntu 10.04′s social networking features including the ‘Me Menu’.
Improvements in the manner in which restricted drivers are handled allows you to now have multiple nVidia graphics drivers of different versions installed simultaneously. Activating an individual driver is then only a matter of a few click and a restart.

In terms of application changes, the PiTiVi Video Editor has been added to allow home and professional users to perform various tasks to create new videos or editing existing ones. It comes with a variety of features including different video/audio effects, time-line management, dubbing and the like. A quick screenshot of the PiTiVi video editor is shown below.

Many of the existing default games in Ubuntu are planned to be replaced over the course of the development cycle for Lucid Lynx. gBrainy is the first new game to enter the scene, and is a brain training game, which is essentially a fun and extensible logic, memory and intelligence test. It resembles, it some ways, the brain training exercises and games for the Nintendo DS.

Rhythmbox Music Player, the default music playing application which ships with Ubuntu has seen some usability improvements in the way of a new application indicator. Application indicator’s are a new attempt to standardise and regulate the difference between notification and effective quick access menus for specific applications which require or desire interaction beyond the scope of their main application windows.

On a more heavily technical side, Alpha 2 of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx brings with it the complete removal of ‘hal’, the now legacy hardware abstraction layer. The removal of hal will allow for faster boot up, shut down and improved, speedier resuming from suspend and hibernation mode.

For additional details about Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Alpha 2 and the changes it brings, see the official Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 2 testing page.

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Avatar film rendered with enormous Ubuntu server farm

Jordan Hall — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:56:47 +0000

It turns out that Avatar, the hugely successful science fiction epic film from James Cameron, was rendered using a huge Ubuntu rendering server farm, at Weta Digital.

The Weta Digital server farm or ‘rendering wall’, as they call it, has a disk array capable of storing roughly 2 petabytes of data in total. The individual servers are linked by a 10 gigabits per second networking infrastructure, and in total there are 35,000 cores based in over 4000 Hewlett Packard Blade servers. In the case of Avatar, each minute of rendering equates to approximately 17.28GB of data.

The system is entirely water-cooled, as traditional air and fan cooling systems are not sufficient during near deadline times, due to constant high load on the servers.The photograph below shows the enormous water cooling system cooling a portion of the server farm.

The high power server farm used to render many films computer generated imagery (including Avatar), shown with its advanced water cooling system.

According to Paul Gunn, a systems admistrator at Weta Digital, Ubuntu is at the core of almost all their systems. Ubuntu runs on all of their 3D rendering servers, and at least 90% of all their desktop systems. More detailed information about the Ubuntu powered rendering farm that rendered the CGI of Avatar is available from the Information Management and IT World websites.

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Google Chrome OS – A Simple Explanation

Jordan Hall — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:49:52 +0000

Google have released a very simple explanatory video, aimed at new computer users, detailing their new operating system which is focused around the Google Chrome web browser. If you’ve ever needed to ask, what is the difference between Google Chrome OS and Google Chrome, this video explains the answer in the simplest manner possible.

Google Chrome OS is a basic operating system built upon the Linux kernel. It uses a custom graphical user interface which is based around Google’s very fast web browser, Google Chrome. It does away with most of the regular operating system and application usage paradigms and focuses primarily on the web browser and therefore Google’s primary domains in the computer software marketplace, search and web applications.

This new operating system is initially designed to run on net book style hardware. Google have been in talks with a large variety of hardware companies and aim to have Google Chrome OS powered computers released to consumers before the end of 2010.

As emphasised in the video, Google Chrome OS is designed to almost exclusively utilise web applications and thus almost all data, excluding locally stored caches, is held on the Internet, thus promoting the use of cloud computing for data storage. With Google Mail, Google Docs and Google Calendar, Google already has a formidable cloud based productivity suite in the form of web applications.

It will be very interesting to see how well the open-source Google Chrome OS does and how it helps in the general promotion of alternative open-source operating systems as a whole.

What do you think? Is Google Chrome OS good for Linux?

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How to Mount a Disc Image in Ubuntu Linux

Jordan Hall — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 11:15:42 +0000

So, you’ve recently downloaded an ISO disc image in Ubuntu and want a quick and easy method to mount it as a drive?

Simple. Locate the file within your file browser and give it a right-click, then from the pop-up menu click ‘Open with Archive Mounter’. Archive Mounter is a tool which mounts several types of disc images including ISO format as a virtual drive within the system. This work in a similar manner to Windows based disc image mounting tools such as Daemon tools.

Mounting an ISO disc image with the Ubuntu archive mounter

After clicking, and about a second or two delay, you will see a new icon displayed on the desktop, as shown below. This icon represents the mounted drive and the icon will be named the same as the mounted disk image to allow it to be easily identified.

Icon depicting the mounted disc ISO image as a virtual drive

Hope this helps people wishing to quickly and easily mount disc images in Ubuntu. Of course, you can browse disc images via the ‘Archive Manager’ option within the need the mount the disc image first. Alternatively, you can, of course, burn the disc image via the disc burning software ‘Brasero’ which is installed by default in the most recent Ubuntu releases.

Enjoy!

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OSS – Open-source software and the related freedoms

Jordan Hall — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 10:11:33 +0000

The Open Source Initiative, which works to promote open-source software and ideals

What is open-source software?

Open-source software is software which is under a special type of license in which the source code, which is usually copyrighted, is instead open to all. Specifically, this refers to code which meets the Open Source Definition for code licensing or is released to the public domain, and thus available without any licensing terms.

Why is this good?

Since the source code of open source software is available to all, this allows anyone to modify and adapt software to their needs. It also promotes innovation and reduces the need to ‘reinvent the wheel’ which is present in most proprietary software solutions simply due to the licensing and copyright issues involved.

It is good for businesses, enterprises and consumers as well. A report by the Standish Group states that the adoption of open source software models worldwide has resulted in general savings of approximately $60 billion USD annually to consumers.

How does open source make money?

Since the source code of open source software is available for anyone to modify, people often wonder how businesses that utilise open source ideals can make money, since any theoretically distributed software could be legally copied based on the terms of most open source licenses.

For these reasons, a lot of companies which produce open source software offer priced high-level or enterprise level support for their open-source software. This enables them to charge for a service which keeping the software product free, open and able to adapt and innovate along with other open source software. Another example is consumer services, of which is good example is Ubuntu One, a new consumer level service, which allows Ubuntu users to share and synchronise files, contacts and notes using built into the Ubuntu operating system. This service is seamless and the file synchronisation, although only a small part of Ubuntu One, acts in a very similar manner to Dropbox.

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/home/ – Ubuntu Home Directories are world readable by default

Jordan Hall — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:15:33 +0000

I recently discovered Ubuntu has home directory permissions default to world readable. In other words, any unprivileged user, including guests users, are able to access and read the home directory data for any other user. For those who store sensitive information on a multi-user computer, this can be a significant security problem or at least a privacy issue. This default resembles the configuration of a Windows XP or Vista system when the option to make files private is not selected during user creation.

If you feel the default set-up of world readable home directories is not to your liking you can deny other users access to your home directory with one command, as follows:

sudo chmod -R 750 /home/*

This command, when entered, will give other users no access permissions. When browsing via Nautilus or a command prompt, other users attempting to access your home directory will receive an ‘access denied’ error message. This will stop read access, write access and even file listing of your home directory from other users. It should be warned that this restricted configuration could potentially cause issues with programs that attempt to access configuration files in your user directory in an unusual manner (such as when being ran in the name of another user on the system). However, from personal experience I have not encountered any related problems.

If you wish to make this configuration the default for all newly created users, you must reconfigure the ‘adduser’ software package. This can be done very simply by running the following command and selecting ‘No’ when asked whether or not your want world/system readable home directories.

sudo dpkg-reconfigure adduser

It is my opinion that home directories should be set with these permissions and the adduser package should be configured in this manner by default. Researching this as an issue, I have discovered many others also feel this way. For example, see Ubuntu Brainstorm idea #6106 and note the debate in the comments between default configuration versus user choice. Although user choice is always important, surely a more secure/privacy-protecting default which can be changed if required, is the more desirable option?

What do you think? Also, has anyone ever encountered any problems with a non-world readable home directory configuration?

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notify-osd – Changes to Ubuntu 9.04 notifications

Jordan Hall — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:15:33 +0000

Ubuntu 9.04, known during development as Jaunty Jackalope, features a major new notifications system known as ‘notify-osd’. The new notifications are graphically very nice and appealing, however some features are not necessarily desirable to everyone. I came across certain issues with the new notifications system and have made some modifications which I would like to share.

The first issue I came across is that notifications with high textual content often displayed for too short a period of time for them to be fully read and comprehended. The original notify-osd design specification stated that the notifications system would adapt the on-screen time of each notification because upon the number of lines of textual content present. After reviewing the code for notify-osd, it seem this code is not yet implemented on the version of notify-osd which ships with Ubuntu 9.04. Henceforth this is the first modification I made to the package, increasing the display time from 5 seconds to 10 seconds.

The second change was to alter the code such that notifications would display regardless of whether a video was actively playing. With the default set-up, notifications will not be displayed if a video is playing or the notification system deems you to be busy. The disadvantage this presents in its original state, is that even if the notification area (top right) is not obstructed by video playback, such as the situation where a video is being played windowed, rather than full-screen, the notifications will still not be displayed. This behaviour was modified so notifications display regardless of video playback.

Summary of changes to notify-osd:

On-screen notification time doubled from 5 seconds to 10 seconds
‘Do not disturb’ notifications functionality removed so notifications will display regardless of video playback status.

Download links:

I hope this is of benefit to people who are having difficulties with the defaults of notify-osd. At some point, I believe it would be beneficial to remove the existing hard-coding of the delays and other such options, and I may personally take on this task at some point. Please feel free to offer any feedback or ideas in the comments section.

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Mono – Ubuntu Technical Board – Position on Mono and the integration of applications

Jordan Hall — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:15:33 +0000

I recently received the an e-mail from Scott James Remnant on behalf of the Ubuntu Technical Board, regarding their Position on Mono. Here is an extract.

“…the Ubuntu Technical Board sees no reason to exclude Mono or applications based upon it from the archive, or from the default installation set.

Since the Mono stack is already a dependency of the default installation set for many remixes of Ubuntu, including the Desktop Edition, there is no reason to consider a dependency on Mono as an issue when suggesting applications for the default set.”

Since the Mono stack is already default in the most common remix of Ubuntu (the Desktop Edition, based on download statistics), it makes sense that the official position should reflect this. One of the main curiousities is that the release of this statement brings up, is why it was released. Fingers point towards to obviously new Mono based C# application being released as default packages in Ubuntu. Perhaps one of these applications will be Banshee as a replacement for Rhythmbox, which is a replacement continually discussed on Ubuntu Forums with each new release.

One of the main concerns of using and including more C# programs in the default Ubuntuinstallation is the software patents Microsoft hold. If Microsoft were to force all free implementatons of C# to discontinue, we would suddenly loose the ability to (legally) use such applications. Although we would be able to use, manipulate, and distribute the code for these applications, interpretation of a free C# implementation (and more specifically, the use of the implementation) could be that which is deemed illegal. This would have the effect of taking a bite out of the software library until these programs are rewritten in any other language which does not require the use of Mono.

Relying on Mono and C# is very risky due to the Microsoft held software patents. The substantial risks have been discussed siginificantly by others also stating why you should not use C# due in part to the Mono reliance. Although there is a convinience associated with C# programming, I’d personally rather not take the risk for any project I’d want to make public and usable by others in case it was suddenly unable to be used in my prefered operating system.

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Ubuntu 100 Paper Cuts Usability Initiative – Professional focus on one hundred usability issues within the Ubuntu operating system

Jordan Hall — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:15:33 +0000

For those who haven’t heard, Ubuntu’s One Hundred Paper Cuts is an initiative of sorts, to fix 100 minor usability bugs in Ubuntu (and Kubuntu). It is being working through over a period of 10 weeks with 10 bugs scheduled to be fixed in each one week long milestone. These ‘paper cuts’ are described as usability bugs that are easily fixed by developers and are issues that would likely be encountered by a new Ubuntu user on their first day of use. The paper cuts initiative is primarily focusing on the specific usability issues with the Ubuntu Desktop Edition, but several bugs also apply to, or have been specifically reported against Kubuntu components which will also be worked upon.

This initiative is great, not necessarily in implementation (although I do applaud those working on it directly), but in planning and mode of thought. It shows that Ubuntu really is striving to become the most usable and user-friendly distribution available. Some of the usability issues are very simple problems that are easily fixed, making them ideal to be defined as paper cuts. For example, the unexpected scrolling through available workspaces, a simple mis-leading tooltip, a proposed change of the file manager’s (Nautilus’) default toolbar layout or even an issue as simple as shipping more or less screensavers by default. Almost all of these usability bugs are incredibly simple fixes, in many cases (such as the ‘unexpected scrolling through available workspaces’ issue, the fix was a simple toggle of an existing boolean value. For the most part, these bugs have had much more time dedicated to discussion of the issue, and its intended resolution from dedicated community members, that the time required to fix them.

I personally think that this is fantastic way to tackle all the small issues with Ubuntu that can really annoy first-time users, but do not concern the more experienced or seasoned users of Ubuntu. It looks from the Launchpad interface for One Hundred Paper Cuts, that this initiative will be continued into further releases of Ubuntu. Hopefully, this is the case and not only will each release have more features, speed and stability, but also an ever increasing usability factor for new Ubuntu users.

There is plenty more information regarding 100 Paper Cuts, its initial progress and integration/planning for Kubuntu. Please comment and tell me, what do you think of the initiative? Do you think it should continue with each new release of Ubuntu, and should there be more focus on the core product Ubuntu, or should it be split more equally with Kubuntu and Xubuntu?

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Firefox – How to easily install Mozilla Firefox 3.5 on Ubuntu 9.04

Jordan Hall — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:15:33 +0000

The general update policy of Ubuntu states that application versions will be kept stable during each Ubuntu release other than in exceptional cases. Obviously security patches are still applied when available. This does mean however, with the recent release of Firefox 3.5 that Ubuntu users will have to wait until Ubuntu 9.10 until officially receiving Firefox 3.5.

However, Firefox 3.5 is available in Ubuntu 9.04′s software repository by the package name of ‘firefox-3.5′. The application is named Shiretoko, which does not sound very ‘Firefox’ but is in fact Mozilla’s internal development name for Firefox 3.5. To install the firefox-3.5 package in Ubuntu 9.04, just click here, run the command below or install the package via Synaptic Package Manager (found in System -> Administration).

sudo apt-get install firefox-3.5

Although most users who have installed software via the command line will already realise this, the use of ‘sudo’ to elevate the command to superuser privileges will prompt you for your user password prior to installation.

After installation, you’ll find Firefox 3.5 available under Applications -> Internet -> Shiretoko, or can be executed via the command ‘firefox-3.5′. If you wish to make Firefox 3.5 your default web browse under Ubuntu 9.04, first open Preferred Applications which can be found under System -> Preferences. Under ‘Web Browser’ (on the ‘Internet’ tab) select ‘Custom’ and then enter the command below in the ‘Command’ box.

firefox-3.5 %s

Now, all new links clicked should open Firefox 3.5 / Shiretoko instead of the previous default.

The inspiration for the article was the many discussions I’ve already had with users regarding how to install the latest version of firefox in Ubuntu 9.04 and also discussions regarding the gerneal update policy of update, i.e. the lack of backporting of popular applications. This is great for stability, can be mean reduced functionality and in the case of the Firefox, performance, in which Firefox 3.5 heavily out performs Firefox 3.0. However, discussion of update policies and release cycles is another topic entirely.

I hope this basic installation guide comes as a help to those users who want Firefox 3.5 in Ubuntu 9.04. Feel free to discuss below, and add comments regarding any alternate installation methods or even your thoughts on whether or not Firefox 3.5 should have been ‘officially’ backported to Ubuntu 9.04.

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Linux – A simple explanation of Linux and Linux-based operating systems

Jordan Hall — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:15:33 +0000

Linux is a general term to describe operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Linux is best known for its use in servers (most often web servers) and integrated devices, especially network equipment such as routers, managed switches and such.

However, Linux has, quite recently, gained a significant boost as a desktop operating system. This increase in popularity of Linux on the desktop can be said to be partly due to the rise of the Ubuntu Linux distribution. In addition, the increase in the use of low power personal computers, such as netbooks, has also prompted an increase in the use of Linux systems. Some netbooks are now being shipped with stripped down, simplified Linux operating systems, to enable faster boot times and reduced power consumption, resulting in lower battery consumption over time on these smaller computing devices.

Another advantage of Linux systems is their relatively low vulnerability to malicious software such as viruses and spyware, when comparing to Microsoft Windows based systems. This is one of the major reasons, amongst others, that Linux is used on many servers and the advantage is becoming more and more evident as desktop adoption of Linux becomes more prevalent.

One of the major incentives of Linux on the desktop is true customisability. Since, as a general rule, all the code used in the majority of Linux desktop environment is open-source, it can essentially be modified precisely to the end-user’s liking. Of course, for most users, reprogramming their desktop environment entirely is not an option, and thus most desktop environments and their provide many options customisable via configuration files or more commonly a graphical configuration utility of some kind.

This is a very broad introduction of what Linux is, and due to that aim, it contains very little in the way of details or specifics. I have written more articles and several tutorials regarding Linux systems in the Ubuntu / Linux section of my website, which you are free to read.

More general information about Linux is available from the Linux Wikipedia article or if interested in specific Linux distributions, visit the DistroWatch website. My personally recommended and regularly used Linux distribution is Ubuntu, which is generally considered fine for new users and experts alike.

If you want to request an article about any Linux or open-source software topic, feel free to make your request in the comments section below. Also, any constructive criticism or general on-topic discussion is entirely welcome.

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Spotify – How to get Spotify links to work in Linux

Jordan Hall — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:15:33 +0000

Getting Spotify’s links to work in Linux is pretty simple. At the time of writing this, there is no native Linux Spotify client available, and these instructions assume you are using the Windows version of Spotify via Wine.

If you are unsure as to what Spotify is exactly, stop right there and read what I have written about Spotify.

These instructions refer to getting ‘spotify://’ links to function, as expected, within Firefox. To do, this we will create a basic script to launch Spotify via Wine and then we will modify Firefox settings in order to make it correctly handle the Spotify protocol.

First, create a new file in your home directory, calling it ‘spotify.sh’ or a name of equal meaning.
Paste the following code in to this file. This code launches Spotify (providing it is installed in the default directory) via Wine, and passes through the first argument, in this case, the spotify URL data.

#!/bin/bash

wine “$HOME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Spotify/spotify.exe” /uri “$1″
Make the newly created script executable (i.e. give it the executable permission), which can be done using the following command or if using a file manager such as Nautilus, via the Properties window.

chmod +x spotify.sh
Add the following two values to Firefox. This can be done be opening Firefox and typing ‘about:config’ into the address bar, clicking past the warning message if necessary, and right clicking the central area and choosing ‘new’ from the pop-up menu then choosing the type of value you wish to create.

Type: string

Name: network.protocol-handler.app.spotify

Value: /home/username/spotify.sh

(Replace ‘username’ in the value above with the username you use to login to your Linux system)

Type: boolean

Name: network.protocol-handler.external.spotify

Value: true

After following these instructions, you should be able to click ‘spotify://’ links within Firefox, and have Spotify open (within Wine) to the relevant track, album, artist or playlist. Enjoy and feel free to use the comments sections below!

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Wine – Wine is not an emulator – it is a Windows compatibility layer

Jordan Hall — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:15:33 +0000

Wine is essentially a Windows compatibility layer for Linux, allowing Linux users to run Windows applications in a much more direct manner than full operating system virtualisation. More information about Wine is to come shortly.

If you wish, you can visit the official Wine website to get more details about this excellent free piece of software and download instructions.

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Uptime – How to find out how long your computer has been on – the uptime

Jordan Hall — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:15:33 +0000

In Windows, you can find your uptime via one of the following two methods commands. To enter these commands open a command prompt from the Start Menu or just execute cmd.exe

systeminfo | find “Up Time”
net statistics server (Note that this command displays actually shows the last boot time from which the uptime can be calculated)
Uptime (This command is not included in the operating system, but is an uptime utility provided by Microsoft)

Also, it is worth noting that Windows Server 2003 systems and above record their uptime in the System event log at midnight every night, as Event ID 6013. See the screenshot below from a Windows Server 2003 uptime event.

In Mac OS X, Linux, Unix and other Unix-like operating systems, simply enter the following command into any terminal and the current system load values and uptime will be displayed.

uptime

In OpenVMS systems, the following command provides the system uptime.

show system /noprocess

Hope this helps you find the uptime of your system regardless of the running operating system, be it Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Unix or any other system.

If you know uptime commands specific to any other operating systems not listed, please use the comments system and I will update this article accordingly. Of course, feel free to post your uptime(s) as well – a good bit of competition is always healthy!

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10/GUI – Reinventing desktop human-computer interaction

Jordan Hall — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:15:33 +0000

“Over a quarter-century ago, Xerox introduced the modern graphical user interface paradigm we today take for granted.
That it has endured is a testament to the genius of its design. But the industry is now at a crossroads: New technologies promise higher-bandwidth interaction, but have yet to find a truly viable implementation.
10/GUI aims to bridge this gap by rethinking the desktop to leverage technology in an intuitive and powerful way.”

From the 10/GUI website

The 10/GUI project’s concept video (as shown above) is described as aiming to inform, inspire, and start discussions. It is a indeed, a fascinating concept. The ideas behind increasing the input bandwidth of direct interaction is very unique, considering most similar ideas work only to increase the visual options available graphically to the end-user, rather than to increase the number of controls with which the end-user can simultaneously interact.

The video displays many graphical user interface controls with which we are already familiar, such as the scrollbar. With a multi-touch, or equivilent system of controls, where there are multiple points of interactions, many of these old control concepts may become redundant. In some cases, such as with the ‘kinetic’ scrolling/zooming present in many new touch-screen mobile phones (for example, the Apple iPhone, Nokia N97 and HTC Hero), this is already very much the case, and the older controls, that are retaining, are often done so only for familiarity and legacy purposes.

The hardware technology for the concept shown in the 10/GUI concept video is already possible, being an effective multi-touch sensitive panel without a screen. The only aspects that missing are the development of such a device, the writing of driver software for the portrayed multi-touch device, and a window manager built and configured to deal with the concepts. In many ways, the interfaces built for small screen net-books, in which all active windows are forcibly maximised to the full size of the screen (as in the Ubuntu net-book remix), is the closest we currently have to the 10/GUI concept.

What are your thoughts on 10/GUI? Also, what about the general future of human to computer interaction? Will we stick to the regular keyboard and mouse way of interacting while the graphical user interface remains in flux, or will there be huge developments in new interaction devices, such as the multi-touch system the 10/GUI concept proposes?

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Ubuntu 9.10 Release

Jordan Hall — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:11:05 +0000

Ubuntu 9.10, the user-friendly, free, Linux-based operating system, is to be released tomorrow (the 29th of October 2009). Canonical, Ubuntu’s corporate sponsor, states that Ubuntu 9.10, codenamed Karmic Koala, ‘puts the user at the heart of its new design’, and being an Ubuntu user myself for about three years and a Linux user for significantly longer, I can certainly agree.

Having been a tester of Ubuntu 9.10 during its development, I can tell you that Ubuntu 9.10 will feature the following upon its release.

E-mail and Chat Features – Ubuntu 9.10 will feature a built-in instant messenging client, Empathy, which can connect to many of the most popular instant messaging services, including Yahoo, Gmail (Google Talk), MSN (Windows Live), Jabber, AOL, QQ and many more. In addition to instant messaging, the latest version of the e-mail and personal information management program, Evolution, is included. Evolution can manage your contacts, e-mail, schedule, tasks and memos – all for free.

Internet – Ubuntu 9.10 ships will the very latest version of Mozilla Firefox, which is much faster and excellent for browsing modern websites and web applications which are heavy on dynamic client-side content, such as Javascript. Complex web pages such as Facebook, Google Maps and others will load and work lightning fast.

Music and videos – Music and videos are managed with ease in Ubuntu 9.10. Simply plug in your iPod, PSP, MP3 or MP4 player and use the built-in media player, Rhytmbox, to download, store, buy and play your music collection. Ubuntu 9.10 can play many video formats with no problems and anything it can not play it will offer to download and install the required codecs automatically, and for free.

Office and productivity – Word processing, spreadsheets or presentations can all be handled by the latest version of OpenOffice.org which is including in the latest version of Ubuntu. OpenOffice is compatible with all other office applications including, but not limited to, Microsoft Office.

Store, share and synchronise – Ubuntu 9.10 features integrated ‘Ubuntu One’ service, which allows you to easily and seamlessly synchronise your contacts, notes, files and folders between all your Ubuntu computers. Even if you are on a computer running Mac or Windows you can still access all your files online, meaning you’ll never be at computer without your files.

Software centre – The brand new software centre for this version of Ubuntu allows you to download and install thousands of free and open-source applications automatically with only 2 or 3 clicks.

Gaming – Linux-based systems are generally not well known for their gaming prowess. However, Ubuntu 9.10 ships with the ability to download over 400 fun games directly from the built-in software centre. All these games are still completely free and installable with only a few clicks.

This latest version of Ubuntu provides advantages for both business workstations and home user desktops. Although not mentioned in this article so far, for enterprises and small home/offices, the server edition of Ubuntu 9.10 is also released tomorrow alongside the desktop edition.

For more information about Ubuntu, visit the official Ubuntu website.

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