I’ve written about Spotify on Linux before, however this focused on how to get Spotify links working in Linux, when utilising the the Windows version of Spotify via Wine (a Windows compatibility layer for Linux). As of mid July last year, Spotify for Linux is available natively, but is consider to be a ‘preview’ release. I would suggest this is because the Spotify gang do not wish to officially support Linux, but are likely well aware that there is an ever increasing number of Spotify users who are also using Linux as their primary operating system.

If you want to download Spotify for Linux (the preview release), then you’ll have to head to the Spotify’s secret labs page, add the repository and apt-get the file. It has been packaged for Debian, Ubuntu and Fedora.

Linux posts are by far the most popular. Perhaps this is simply due to the large quantity of Linux related posts I tend to make on this site, although it could be due to the tutorial nature of many of these articles.

Here are the Linux articles which are really ranking highly:

• How to do connection tunnelling via SSH – A reasonably quick and simple tutorial I wrote that briefly explains what SSH tunnelling is and how to make use of it.
• Ubuntu’s Indicator Applet – A now relatively old post which I wrote regarding the indicator applet that came as part of Ubuntu 10.04, and aiding in notifying the user of new email or instant messages and allowed easy response and broadcasting of messages via e-mail, instant messaging or social networks.
• Getting Spotify working in Ubuntu – This post focuses on getting the Windows version of Spotify (a popular streaming music client) working in Ubuntu Linux. This is somewhat irrelevant now however, as Spotify have released a native ‘Linux preview’ version, which tends to work a lot better… ignoring the fact they never made its volume control functional.
• Avatar server farm – Avatar, the film, which I’m sure most readers have seen was rendered with a massive Linux server farm. The server farm’s main rendering machines all ran a version of the Ubuntu. As Ubuntu is my currently preferred distribution of Linux, I figured I would write an article relating to it.

Regarding Internet Explorer, I wrote about an unexpected security feature in Internet Explorer web browser which replaces locally submitted file paths with the unhelpful ‘C:\\fakepath\\’ string. The ‘motivation’ within this post’s title refers to a motivation in the workplace video I posted quite a while ago.

• Internet Explorer’s ‘C:\fakepath\’ security feature – This security feature can easily be worked around for trusted sites via IE’s Internet Options window.
• Motivation within the workplace – An interesting and insightful explanatory video.

I’m not a Windows user primarily. The vast majority of time my computers and laptop boot into Linux, specifically Ubuntu, as of recent. However, I do have several of my machines set-up with both Ubuntu and Windows 7.

One of my major gripes with Windows, which has always been there, is that after a clean reinstall, you have no programs of any real use installed at all. In comparison, a clean install of Ubuntu gives you a graphics editor, photo manager, fully featured e-mail client, personal information management suite and a full office suite. Of course, you now get the Ubuntu Software Centre, which lets you install find and install full size applications with the same ease as using the iPhone App store or Android Marketplace.

Windows has none of this. A brand spanking new Windows install does very little for productivity without a few essential apps installed.

Usually this involves the labourious task of:

1. Manually searching for and/or heading to the website of the program you want to download
2. Finding the current version/build to download, starting the download and waiting for the download to complete
3. Running the installer and waiting for its completion
4. Repeat steps 1 – 3 for every program you wish to install

Recently, I’ve discovered Ninite, which is a fantastic website/program which lets you cut down the above procedure (which could possible take hours) to a quick procedure that takes a few minutes at most. This is how you’d do the above, with Ninite.

1. Go to https://ninite.com/ and select the programs you want to install.
2. Download the installer it generates
3. Run the installer and wait for its completion.

And then you’re done! No repetition, as Ninite cleverly puts the installation of many, many possible programs behind a single simplistic installer.

It supports installation for the most popular web browsers, messaging applications, media players, imaging programs, document editors/viewers, security software (such as anti-virus and anti-malware software), plug-ins (such as Flash and Java), file sharing applications, general utilities and even certain developer/administration tools.

Basically, after every (annoying) reinstall of Windows that I have to do, the first place I’m heading is to Ninite’s website.

As a final note, I’m really hoping they add official graphics drivers to their list of automatically installed items. That would be very useful for a lot of people I know. Suggesting new apps is a feature they offer right at the bottom of the Ninite website.

• 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.

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.

With the currently in development, Ubuntu 10.04, codenamed Lucid Lynx, the development road map is set to take huge advantage of the major social networks. Common social networking actions, such as updating your Facebook status, or sending a Tweet to your friends are set to be integrated directly into the operating system allowing users to keep their friends up-to-date and share information without the need to even open a web browser.

Take a look at the image below. This is a basic mock-up of the new social menu codenamed the ‘Me Menu’, which is aimed to become to a simple, centralised way to manage your social activities. It has options for a user avatar, multiple social networks, instant messaging and microblogging services and the setting and broadcast of custom and preset statuses and microblogs.

This clever menu will link into other social applications, like your instance messaging application. In others words, you set your status in the me menu, and the update is reflected automatically in all your social networks and configured social applications. Related to this, in the diagram above, ‘Chat Accounts…’ will refer to all forms of instant messaging and direct communications, while ‘Broadcast Accounts’ will refer to social networks which allow you to share a status update such as Twitter, Facebook and identi.ca.

The Ubuntu One service will also be integrated into the Me Menu and Ubuntu’s new social infrastructure. This will allow social network information to be synchronised and related to your Ubuntu One login, along with the existing file synchronisation, contact management and note synchronisation services already offered by Ubuntu One.

The Me Menu will be the overall representation of ‘you’ within Ubuntu. If you want more information regarding the Me Menu, which is to become the central social network integrations of Ubuntu, you can take a look at the design specification.

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!

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.

A Lynx - basically just a wild cat

The first alpha version of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx, which will be known as Ubuntu 10.04 LTS  (long-term support) upon release, is now available for download. Want to get it immediately? See the Ubuntu Lucid Lynx alpha download links below.

• 32-bit Desktop Edition – x86 Desktop edition of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Alpha 1
• 64-bit Desktop Edition – AMD64 Desktop edition of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Alpha 1
• 32-bit Server Edition – x86 Server edition of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Alpha 1
• 64-bit Server Edition – AMD64 Server edition of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Alpha 1

If you wish, there are other versions of this alpha available for download. These include the Lucid Lynx alternate install CD for x86 and AMD64 architectures, the ARM platform installation disc and the BitTorrrent files for all Lucid Lynx alpha 1 disc images.

Although Canonical’s servers and the various mirrors have huge bandwidth limits and very little in the way of speed restrictions, I still recommend the use of the BitTorrent files for download of Ubuntu’s disc images as, due to the nature of BitTorrent’s peer-to-peer protocol, downloading Ubuntu via BitTorrent will relieve some strain on the download servers.

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?

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:

• Ubuntu 9.04 (32-bit) Debian Package
• Source Code

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.

“…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.

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?

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.

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.