Linux and the New Year 2008 !!

It is the dawn of yet another new year - the year 2008. I am sure many among us are busy jotting down our obligatory new year resolutions with the hope and desire to rectify our past mistakes and make a fresh start, or not. The rest of us must surely be in party mode and about to welcome the new year with a song and dance.

But what is in store for Linux in this new year ? Will it be relegated into the long forgotten annals of computing history or will it shine forth in all its glory and succeed in taking on the monopolistic might of Microsoft Windows ? I am not going to satisfy my fanboistic urge and say that 2008 is definitely the year of Linux - how much ever I am tempted to say so. But we Linux enthusiasts have a very nice gift in store for us in this new year. That being the release of the brand new KDE 4.0 which has been rebuild using Qt 4.0. KDE 4.0 is set to be released on January 11th 2008.

Other than that, I predict that in 2008, Linux is going to be embraced by an even larger number of computer using populace the world over. The launch of OLPC is going to partly help in this direction. Graphical effects using Compiz would become a standard feature in many Linux distribution. As of this writing, Linux has evolved into a well designed stable and secure operating system with a slew of useful tools bundled with it. And it is only a matter of time before people realize the true value of Linux and Free software and start embracing it with gusto. On that positive note, let me wish all the readers of this blog a very happy and prosperous New Year 2008.

IBM Lotus Symphony Office suite for Linux - free download

IBM has released a beta version of its new Office suite named Symphony and has made it available as a free download. It contains four software namely "Lotus Symphony Documents", "Lotus Symphony Presentations", "Lotus Symphony Spreadsheets" and an integrated web browser. But what should be quite interesting is that IBM has released a Linux version of this office suite too though it works only on Red Hat Enterprise Linux ver 5 and Suse Linux ver 10 for the time being.

I downloaded the Linux version of IBM's Symphony Office suite and I was able to install it without any problem. One of the striking feature of Symphony is that you can Open the document, spreadsheet and presentation files all within the main interface and the files will be opened in tabs which is quite a convenience.

Fig: Welcome page when Symphony starts

Fig: Menu to open new documents

The interface is well designed and built using Eclipse IDE. One of the highlights of Lotus Symphony is that it is based on the Open Document Format (ODF) standard - which means you're not locked into proprietary file formats, software licensing agreements and upgrades. Symphony can open Microsoft Office documents be they MSWord, Excel or Powerpoint files without any problem.

Fig: Document interface of Symphony

But when it is compared to Microsoft Office or even OpenOffice.org, I feel Symphony has a bit more catching up to do. For example, in OpenOffice.org, when you insert an image, you can drag and place it in any location in the document, which I find is a very nice feature. But I was not able to do this in Symphony document. And you cannot open or save encrypted Doc or ODF files nor can you edit or save encrypted macro libraries. More over since Symphony is a free offering from IBM, you can avail of help only from the support forums and not directly from IBM.

The minimum specifications needed to run Symphony are at least 512 MB RAM and 540-750 MB of free disk space. If you are interested, you can download a beta 3 version of Symphony and take it for a run.

Domain name theft - how it is done and steps to prevent it

Let's say you have a sudden insight on a name which is apt for your website and you wish to register this name as a domain name. You fire up your web browser and visit any one of the innumerable sites which help in checking if this particular domain name is available or not and to your absolute delight, nobody has yet registered your domain name.

So you decide to register it as soon as you can take time ... perhaps tomorrow because today you have an official deadline to meet. And the next day when you try to register the same domain name, you find to your dismay that it has already been snapped up by somebody else. How did this happen ? Was this a case of bad luck ? Maybe not. You may be the victim of a rogue company which has picked up your name after they intercepted your search the previous day. In effect the person or entity which has registered your domain name has stolen your domain research. The act of typing the domain name in the wrong place may allow these squatters to register the domain before you.

Jay Westerdal of domaintools.com has written an insightful piece on various precautions you can take while searching for your domain name prior to registering it. These steps help to a certain extent in mitigating domain name theft even before you have laid your hands on it.

Popular Unix and Linux forums

One of the best ways of growing a strong community now a days is to start a forum. There are a plethora of forums for Unix and Linux and new ones are coming up all the time. Out of all these, a small section of them have risen to the top by virtue of their dedication and some good luck. Last updated on December 28th 2007

Below are a collection of popular Linux/Unix forums which I found to enjoy a strong community backing.

• Linux Questions.org - One of the foremost Linux forums which has a very strong community following. I may add that it is one of the most active Linux/Unix forums I have come across in recent times.


• Ubuntu Forums - This is yet another forum which is dedicated to a flavor of Linux albeit a very popular one namely Ubuntu.


• Gentoo Forums - This is the official Gentoo forum which enjoy a huge fan following. Gentoo is a flavor of Linux which prides itself in allowing the user (that is you) in configuring each and every aspect of Linux at the time of installation. The gentoo site also hosts a very good forum which apart from being a knowledge resource for Gentoo users is also sure to help the non-gentoo Linux enthusiast.
  


• Freespire Forums - The official Freespire forum. Freespire is a community-driven, Linux-based operating system that combines the best that free, open source software has to offer (community driven, freely distributed, open source code, etc.), but also provides users the choice of including proprietary codecs, drivers and applications as they see fit.


• Linux Forums.org - Claims to have over 90,000 members and 400,000 posts related to GNU/Linux


• HowToForge.com - This is a site which provides detailed guides on all things related to Open Source and Free Software with a strong leaning towards GNU/Linux. It also has a vibrant forum.


• SuSE Forums - A forum dedicated to discussing problems related to SuSE Linux.


• Arch Linux Forums - This is the official Arch Linux forum which provides help in solving a variety of problems related to this particular Linux distribution. [**New**]


• Debian Forums - I couldn't find an official Debian forum. The closest I could find was this one which discusses all problems arising in Debian Linux. It has a good collection of posts.


• LinuxSolved.com - This is a forum which provides help in solving a variety of Linux related problems which includes troubleshooting, configuration tips, howto's and Faq's. It claims to have well over 7000 posts spanning over 2000 topics to its credit. [**New**]


• forums1.itrc.hp.com - This is the gathering place for IT Professionals to solve problems, exchange ideas, and learn lessons from fellow peers who also use the HP IT Resource Center. Managed by Hewlett-Packard, HP engineers participate in all of these forums to share their advice, however, HP does not guarantee a response as these forums are intended as a peer-to-peer resource.


• BSD Forums - A forum dedicated to BSDs


• Unix Forums - A forum with a strong bias for different Unices such as Solaris, HP-UX and AIX. But it features a collection of posts related to Linux too.
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• Open Solaris Forum - This is the official Open Solaris forum.
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• Kernel trap Forum - KernelTrap is a web community devoted to sharing the latest in kernel development news. Their forum has a small number of quality posts on Linux and Unix kernel.

Note to readers: When ever I come across interesting websites related to Linux, I usually bookmark them for future reference. Over a period of time, I have built up an eclectic collection of links related to GNU/Linux or Unix which provide good information. Earlier, I had featured a slice of those links on the right hand column of this blog. I couldn't feature all the links there due to lack of space. Now, with a revamp of the site design, I decided to move them to their own individual pages. This post is the start of a number of such posts.

This article will be updated as and when I come across interesting forums.

Business lost due to Gmail security failure

What would you do when on a fine day you wake up and find that your domain name has been grabbed by a cracker ? And you further learn that perhaps the cracker has used your Gmail account to roll out his misdeeds?

David Airey a graphics designer who had to face this very scenario explains in detail the tribulations he had to go thorough because of loss of traffic to his website.

He also lists a site which explains the Gmail hacking technique in three simple steps.

While Google has plugged this security hole in Gmail, it is always prudent to keep an eye on the filters you have set up in Gmail once in a while. Also my suggestion is never click on a link if you are suspicious about its context.

Better safe than sorry right ?

Update [29 Dec 2007] : David Airey gets back his domain name after a slew of publicity from numerous online media, which is a good thing for David. But it still doesn't clear the air of Gmail's security holes. I hope Google does something about this thing as I still believe that Google's Gmail is the best free email offering one can get in the present scenario. Nothing beats Gmail in the number of features, price and design of the interface.

LinuxMCE - a powerful media center for your family

There are a plethora of Linux powered Media centers available like for instance the MythTV. Now here is another versatile project which goes by the name LinuxMCE.

But unlike MythTV, LinuxMCE is much more than a mere PVR. It combines media and entertainment with a server for music and video. You can automate your home using LinuxMCE such as controlling the lights, your mobile phone and other electronic gadgets. Set up your phone system with video conferencing and even behave like a security system feeding live video to your mobile phone in real time in the advent of a security breach.

More importantly, all the features provided by LinuxMCE are well documented. Since it is based on Kubuntu, it can also be used as a regular Linux PC as well. Check out this interesting video (Approximately 25 min duration) which explains in detail each and every aspect of configuring LinuxMCE to set it up according to your needs.

[Via tech-talk.biz]

NetBSD 4.0 release anouncement

NetBSD is a free, secure, and highly portable Unix-like Open Source operating system available for many platforms, from 64-bit Opteron machines and desktop systems to hand held and embedded devices. While I haven't yet gotten around to trying out NetBSD (I have used FreeBSD and OpenBSD), it is not any lesser in importance than its other counterparts.

In more ways than one, NetBSD has lots of similarities with OpenBSD than with FreeBSD. But NetBSD is said to have a more user friendly installer than OpenBSD, it is available for download as ISO images and it supports the largest variety of devices out there. In fact, NetBSD claims to run on 54 different system architectures featuring 17 machine architectures across 17 distinct CPU families, and is being ported to more.... whew !!

Read the full release announcement, the original mail on mailing list and the changes in ver 4.0.

GNOME Do - a universal launcher for the GNOME Desktop

When ever I have logged in to Windows, there is one program which I use on a regular basis and which I cannot do without. The program is called Launchy. The unique feature of this program is that it helps me to navigate the file system, open applications, visit websites and a lot more by just typing a couple of keys. Launchy runs in the background as a service and is activated when a key combination is pressed. On my machine it is [Alt] + [Space].

Fig: Launchy in action in Windows

In KDE, we have a similar program called Katapult. But if you are a GNOME user then you should check out a recent project which tries to equal or even surpass all the features found in Launchy. The name of the project is "Gnome Do". Simply put, Gnome Do is a launcher ... of applications, web pages, Firefox bookmarks, system config panels, your documents residing on your hard disk and so on. But you can also extend the functionality of Gnome Do using an add-in framework.

Fig: Gnome Do interface

Gnome Do is the brain child of David Siegel who started this project to be submitted to his university as a part of his curriculum. It has been entirely coded using C# and uses Mono. David Siegel claims he was motivated to work on Gnome Do seeing a similar project called Quick Silver on Mac OSX.

I installed "Gnome Do" using the method explained in the official website and the installation was successful. If you are using Ubuntu, then you can download and install the binary instead of compiling the program from source.

Once installed and running, Gnome Do acts as a background process waiting for the specific key press combination from the user. The default key combination is [Win Key] + [Space].

When you press the key combination, Gnome Do will make itself visible and you can start typing. It takes only the first couple of key strokes from the user to zero in on the correct application you wish to launch. For example, if I want to open Gedit text editor, instead of navigating the Gnome menu, I activate Gnome Do and type the first three characters namely 't', 'e'. 'x' and by then Gnome Do has zeroed in on the gedit text editor and all I have to do is press enter to open the text editor.

Fig: Type 't','e','r' and Gnome Do highlights terminal.

When you press the hot key combination and bring Gnome Do to the foreground, you will find two boxes side by side. You can navigate between either of the boxes using the [Tab] key. And while one of the boxes have the focus, if you press the [Down arrow] key, it will open a drop down list which will list alternate actions that can be taken such as opening a terminal in the current location and so on.

Features of Gnome Do

• All applications in your Gnome menu are indexed.
• Supports an add-in framework so it is easy to write and extend the functionality of Gnome Do to suit your needs via pieces of code called add-ins. You can find a couple of add-ins at do.davebsd.com/addins. You have to place the add-ins in ~/.do/addins and restart Gnome Do.
• It keeps track of your Firefox bookmarks so you can start typing the first few letters of a bookmark and Gnome Do will open the webpage for you.
• Type an English word and it will open Gnome dictionary to give you the meaning of the word.
• You can open any file or folder in your home directory by typing the first few letters of their name and pressing enter. For example, to open my home folder, I press the hotkey combination and type 'r', 'a', 'v' and Gnome Do will open my home folder.
  

Humor : Correlation between drug dealers and geeks

Who knew there was a correlation between a drug dealer and a geek. Now that I think of it, there are striking similarities between the two divergent groups that makes me ponder about how geeky I could be without hazarding an association with drug dealers. Ha ha.

If you don't know what I am talking about then you should definitely read the following article.

Steps to install gOS on Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon

I am sure by now you have heard of the gPC loaded with gOS via various news sources. For those in the dark, gPC stands for green PC which is a sub $200 PC which comes loaded with a customized version of Ubuntu known as gOS or in popular parlance called Google OS.

If you look carefully, you will find that gOS is a customized version of Enlightenment desktop and contain links to popular online services like the Google docs, Gmail, Facebook, Blogger and so on. All that a user of gOS has to do to access these online applications is, ensure his machine is connected to the Internet and double click on the respective icons. Of course apart from these online services, gOS also contain almost all applications that are standard fare in any Linux distribution.

Here is the interesting part... it is possible to install gOS on your Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon Linux machine by following a couple of simple steps. In other words you can install the heavily customized enlightenment window manager which is the base of the gOS using the following steps...

Fig: gOS desktop running in Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon

Fig: About gOS dialog box

First open up your /etc/apt/sources.list file which lists all the repositories and append the following two lines to it.

$ sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list

# FILE: /etc/apt/sources.list
...
# Adding gOS repositories
deb http://packages.thinkgos.com/gos/ painful main
deb-src http://packages.thinkgos.com/gos/ painful main

In the terminal enter the command to import the public key of the repository so that the signatures could be verified as follows :

# wget http://www.thinkgos.com/files/gos_repo_key.asc
# sudo apt-key add gos_repo_key.asc

Next update your apt cache database using the command :

$ sudo apt-get update

To install the necessary files which will allow you to run gOS on Ubuntu, run the following apt-get command :

$ sudo apt-get install greenos-desktop

I already had enlightenment (e17) window manager (WM) installed on my Ubuntu machine so it was a mere 11 MB download for me. If you do not have enlightenment WM, then apt-get will have to download and install that too which could hike your download size by around 35 MB.

Once installed, you can select gOS/Enlightenment from sessions option in your login screen.

Fig: gOS module settings dialog box

It is worth noting that the gOS that is thus installed is devoid of the Google branding namely the desktop icons to Google services; which are conspicuous in their absence. So the name gOS in this case could be a misnomer.

Having used gOS for some time now, I am sufficiently impressed on the color and theme preferences. While I found the default theme of Enlightenment not that good, I find the gOS theme quite elegant and pleasing to the eyes. At the same time you also get all the features that are available in Enlightenment which includes transparency, shadows, animation on the desktop and many usability features which can make your desktop experience all the more comfortable and productive.

Is Microsoft really scared of Linux

Today I fired up Google search and without any particular reason typed in the search term "About Linux". And here is a snapshot of the search results. What is worth noting is the sponsored link "About Linux" - the third one from top - which is by none other than Microsoft and it goes on to say why Windows server environment is more secure than Linux....

Fig: Microsoft propaganda against Linux

Now having seen this, I was left with a smile on my face because obviously the top Microsoft Execs are spending sleepless nights thinking about the inroads that Linux has made especially in the server arena. Most number of websites and databases that are hosted on the net run on a server powered by a Linux distribution. And with the support enjoyed by Linux from industry leaders of the likes of IBM, it is no wonder that Microsoft has been forced to resort to advertisement to persuade the section of people who are interested in trying out Linux to their side.

Myths, Lies and Truths about the Linux Kernel

It is really surprising how the Linux kernel has evolved from a mere hacker's project to a robust, stable and device friendly piece of software. At one time it was imperative that one fire up a terminal and tinker with the underlying code or at least type a series of commands to get even simple things working such as burning a CD or playing music and so on.

But now most Linux distributions have become so easy to install and use that even your grandmother could do these tasks with little help and without ever touching a terminal. The plug and play devices have become truly Plug and play and works flawlessly - be they USB devices, Ethernet cards, sound cards and what not. There is very good support for most hardware devices you find in the market baring a few. It also helped that many IT behemoths of the likes of IBM have taken active interest at Linux and have been pouring in money and developers in promoting and sustaining the project.

To underline the advances made by Linux kernel, here is a very good slide show which spells out the Myths, Lies and Truths about the Linux kernel, prepared by Greg Kroah of Novell SuSE Labs.

RHCE study guide for Red Hat Enterprise Linux ver 5

There are numerous certifications around. Almost all software giants who have well entrenched software products have rolled out a certification exam of their product - be it Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and others.

At one time, certifications were touted (at least in India) as a sure fire way to land a job in the IT sector. Many certifications such as those of Cisco are still valued and a CCNA, CCNP or CCIE has great value. Of course you might find a number of paper CCNA's around - ie those who have passed the exam by merely mugging up the question dumps provided by the training institute and no hands on experience on a router to show for it but I have heard that you cannot easily pass the CCNP and higher certifications of Cisco without solid knowledge about the networking concepts and hands on experience on Cisco hardware. On the other hand, Microsoft certifications does not seem to have retained this same level of credibility.

On the Linux front, there are a number of entities who have rolled out certifications. The most popular and well known among them being Red Hat which provides its RHCT, RHCE, RHCA certifications. What makes Red Hat's certification unique is that it is a completely hands on examination monitored by a Red Hat employee. And if you are a Linux enthusiast and aspiring to make it into the Linux world then an RHCE would definitely give you a great push as many corporate houses who make use of Linux invariably use Red Hat enterprise Linux.

Scott M has compiled an exhaustive list of questions and their solutions which he has encountered while taking his RHCE examination. I find these questions to provide great insight into what to expect in a RHCE examination.

KDE 4.0 to be Released in January

KDE 4.0 is finally going to be released some time in January - the current specified date is January 11th 2008 but I am willing to wait longer as long as the final release is as stable as the current stable version aka KDE 3.x. Now it might seem that KDE team is procrastinating the official release indefinitely. But I think all things said and done, it is much better for the project to take its own time and correct all the bugs in KDE 4.0 in its present form especially pertaining to the UI instead of trying to keep up with the deadline.

I recently tried the KDE 4.0 beta RC1 release packaged as a Debian Live CD and my experience as far as the user interface is a bit disappointing. Lets not get this wrong. KDE 4.0 for me is one of the most fascinating happenings in the Linux world. But in its current form, I faced the following glitches :

Sound was not working properly, some of the widgets could not be closed, then the sluggishness of the user interface is not something to feel ecstatic about. It has been officially told that the panel provided is not the final one.

On the positive side, I do like the new KDE menu which has had drastic design changes. It does take a bit of getting used to but the search bar on top of the menu makes accessing programs many layers deep much easier than in KDE 3.x. Dolphin file manager is quite good and Konqueror is even better than before. And then, most of the important changes in KDE 4.0 has been under the hood so to speak and these changes will definitely maintain KDE 4.0's lead as a cutting edge cross platform Desktop for many years to come.

BASH tips and tricks

Ever since I started using Linux, BASH has been the shell of my choice. Though I have used numerous other shells like Korn Shell, Bourne shell (which is the default shell in Unix), C shell and so on. Bash is actually an acronym for Bourne Again SHell.

Richard Bradshaw who is a teacher at a school in United Kingdom has put together a page detailing some of the common annoyances he has encountered while using BASH and ways of overcoming them.

As a recap, do take a look at some of the previous articles related to BASH shell on this blog such as ...

BASH shell shortcuts,
10 seconds guide to BASH scripting,
BASH completion,
Making your BASH scripts user friendly,
Quick editing of a command and
BASH FAQ ... just to name a few.