Oneiric - On Love & Leaving

The Register's Scott Gilbertson has reviewed Oneiric Ocelot and, whilst Gilbertson is balanced in his appraisal, it's not entirely flattering!

Gilberson concludes:

"The message of 11.10 seems pretty clear: Unity is here and you're either going to love it or leave it. While Unity is clearly improving - and getting faster - it remains a departure from the old GNOME interface that isn't going to please everyone."

It's worth mentioning that 11.10 is still in beta stage, but the fact is that Gilbertson is right and I for one have decided that I really don't like Unity. The problem is that I'm not completely enamoured with GNOME 3 either, so I've been searching for an alternative. At the moment, the favourite candidate to replace my 10.04 setup is the KDE desktop: however, I'm not even sure that it will by running on an Ubuntu OS!

OpenSUSE is about to be installed on the Inspiron 1501.

Sources & References:

• The Register: No pain, some gain: Ubuntu Oneiric Ocelot examined - Scott Gilbertson (6th September 2011)
• GNOME 3: Home
• KDE: Home
• OpenSUSE: Home

Just How Much?

So, just how much does the British Government spend on software?

The answer is...

...It doesn't know!

Well, that may be overstating the facts: many departments do seem to know and the numbers are astonishing! Furthermore, some departments refused to release details (implying that the information is available) "on the grounds that it would cost too much" [to collate] - you have to wonder that a Government department (presumably accountable to the Public) doesn't already know the answer!

Sources & References:

• BBC News (Technology): Can Whitehall open up to open source?

Multiple Live CDs on a Single USB Startup Disk

Recently, I tried out a Live USB for the first time. It's a great way of installing a Linux-based operating system or simply trying one out before committing to an installation. In fact, I liked the idea of a convenient, reusable medium for testing new distros so much, that I purchased a new USB drive in order to keep a copy of Kubuntu to hand.

Whilst I didn't put a great deal of effort into my search, the smallest thumb-drive that I found was 4GB - that's an enormous drive for a c.700mb image file and I started wondering whether I could put multiple images on a single usb stick - it turns out that sundar_ima has already thought of the idea and produced a fantastic utility called MultibootUSB.

Put simply, MultiBootUSB is:

"... a shell script which allows user to install multiple Linux Distros in to USB drive / Pendrive / Flash drive and able to boot from it."

And it works!

You can find some great instructions for installing MultiBootUSB at pendrivelinux.com, so I won't use up space replicating them here. However, it might be useful to point out a couple of things to watch out for if you want to use this application.

After installation, make sure that the thumb-drive is mounted in the /media/ directory before starting the application - I know that it sounds obvious, but check anyway! The easiest way is to plug-in the drive and click on the icon in the Places sidebar in Nautilus or Dolphin. When the drive is mounted, you can find the application (in Kubuntu) via the Applications > Utilities menu.

When you want to add a new image to an existing MultiBootUSB, you'll still receive a warning that "Grub2 will be installed in the MBR!" - don't worry, this will not overwrite or delete any existing images on the drive. Select the drive from the device list and click the confirm button to access the Multisystem menu.

Don't Worry - This Won't delete existing Images!

If you are installing OpenSUSE, be patient: it seems to take much longer to install to the pendrive than Ubuntu-based distros.

The Main Window Listing the Installed Images

A really nice feature is the test function in the Multisystem menu: you can test using either QEMU or Virtualbox.

Test Drive Your Thumbdrive!

So far, I've put four images on my 4GB drive (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Mint, & OpenSuse) and still have 1.1GB free! For those who want to explore the vast world of Linux distros, take a look at DistroWatch for some ideas about other bootable offerings.

Sources & References:

• Sourceforge: MultibootUSB
• Ubuntu Forums: MultiBootUSB (Thread Started 26/06/2010 by sundar_ima)
• Pendrivelinux.com: MultiSystem - Create a MultiBoot USB from Linux
• DistroWatch.com: Home
• QEMU Wiki: Home
• Virtalbox: Home

Installing Ubuntu One on Kubuntu

Ubuntu One is easy to install on Kubuntu: open Konsole and type:

sudo apt-get install ubuntuone-control-panel-gtk

This command will install the following six packages

1. python-ubuntuone-client
2. python-ubuntuone-control-panel
3. python-ubuntuone-storageprotocol
4. ubuntuone-client
5. ubuntuone-control-panel
6. ubuntuone-control-panel-gtk

Alternatively, search for ubuntuone-control-panel-gtk in KPackageKit and install Ubuntu One from the software manager.

Sources & References:

• Ubuntu One: Ask Ubuntu Question 58983

Some Days...

Today has been fairly challenging for me insofar as technology is concerned.

My first surprise was an email from Facebook telling me that

"A new unknown device logged into your Facebook account (Thursday, 01 September 2011 at 15:51)"

- well, I was at work at ten-to-four yesterday afternoon, so I know that it wasn't me! Strangely, my daughter also got a similar message, so it's entirely possible that this is a false alarm, but I don't take chances with security: time to change passwords.

Of course, the problem with a potential account compromise is that any infiltrator may have gained access via one of the email accounts associated with the account, so I also changed my email account passwords - or at least, I tried to change my email account passwords! It seems that one of my email account providers only accepts passwords between 8 & 16 characters long and only those that contain letters and (at least) one number - that's only a 95 bit password and not particularly secure! Doubtless, had I bothered to read these instructions, my task would have been so much simpler, but I was too busy trying to convince the dialog to accept a 210 bit password that contained all manner of characters.

Any way, I sorted it all out eventually and then decided to delete my Facebook account. It's too high in maintenance costs for my tastes and, notwithstanding its latest moves to secure users' privacy, it often plays fast and loose with users' personal details. When I came to post a quick note here to let people know that my account was in the process of being deleted, I got another surprise:

Opera Upgrade

It seems that blogger doesn't support Opera 11.51!

Any way, I'm leaving Facebook and, if my friends need to know what I'm up to, I can be contacted via Karmic Odyssey. As for my intended post (on enabling Kubuntu's Desktop Effects on unsupported video cards), that'll have to wait until another day!

Sources & References:

• Schneier on Security: Facebook Privacy Guide

Wallpaper of the Month - 6400

Since upgrading to Kubuntu 11.04 on my DELL Inspiron 6400, I've been struggling to get the look & feel right: trying to find my way round a new desktop environment, getting stuff to work, and trying to find something pleasing to look at has not been easy!

To cap it all, I haven't found the Plasma themes to be particularly intuitive and I haven't come across a wallpaper that has really called to me for a while. So, I thought that I'd see what one of my photographs looked like as the background for my new set up.

Photo Credit: John (Jogga) Dexter

For those interested, the picture is of Fairy Glen on the Conwy River, near Betws-y-Coed (Conwy). It was taken using a Canon PowerShot S3 IS (Lanscape Easy Mode - literally, point & click!).

Actually, I'm quite pleased and this picture might make it through the month. With Autumn fast approaching, I'm planning a return trip to get a shot of the leaves turning to those beautiful pre-winter hues.

Sources & References:

• Wikipedia: Betws-y-Coed

Quick Tip - Installing Plasma Themes from .tar

If you download a Plasma theme as a .tar package, you can install it by extracting the package to the ~/.kde/share/apps/desktoptheme/ directory.

Restart the Desktop Theme application (System Settings > Workspace Appearance > Desktop Theme) to access and apply your new theme.

Sources & References:

• None