Writing more in the Earth Alien Series
January 1, 2012
I’ve been working on this most of December. Everything related to the original Earth Alien Trilogy and all of the subsequent content is now in one place. That place is the new earthalien.com now in what I’d call Version 0.2.
There’s a lot more work to do, as I’m planning a podcast consisting mainly of readings from these works, which I hope will be enjoyable in several settings. I also am developing a story arc for the continuing stories in the Earth Alien Series.
The address is earthalien.com and the look is brand new. It’s built with Drupal, and uses a custom sub-theme based on the Marinelli theme.
Writing is an excellent way to keep one’s sanity. Very enjoyable indeed.
mcw
This is FredPod, a podcast about creativity and technology from the Fredericksburg, Virginia area
This podcast is available in MP3 format via iTunes and at marwalk.podomatic.com. You also can get this podcast in the open source Ogg Vorbis format; look for the Ogg Vorbis RSS link on the home page at marwalk.net.
FredPod is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
This is your host, Mark Walker.
Show notes for this podcast are available at marwalk.wordpress.com, under the category Podcast.
Intro
This episode was produced on September 24th, 2011—and today’s topics will include:
Selections from “yum info recent” on the Fedora Linux project.
The Latest from FredLUG.
Today’s feature is “a short collection of thoughts after doing Software Freedom Day 2011.”
And we’ll close with a Creative Commons licensed work by
Canopy, entitled Freedom.
→
FredPod by Mark Caldwell Walker is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
Here are some recently updated items in yum at the Fedora project:
Name : flash-plugin
License : Commercial, and it’s from the adobe-linux-i386 repository
Description : Adobe Flash Plugin 10.3.183.10
: Fully Supported: Mozilla SeaMonkey 1.0+, Firefox 1.5+, Mozilla
: 1.7.13+
Name : google-chrome-beta: google-chrome-stable : google-chrome-unstable
Description : Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.
Name : tor as in The Onion Router
Description : Tor is a connection-based low-latency anonymous communication system. Applications connect to the local Tor proxy using the SOCKS protocol. The local proxy chooses a path through a set of relays, in which each relay knows its predecessor and successor, but not others. Traffic flowing down the circuit is unwrapped by a symmetric key at each relay, which reveals the downstream relay.
:
: Warnings: Tor does no protocol cleaning. That means there is a
danger that application protocols and associated programs can be induced to reveal information about the initiator. Tor depends on Privoxy and similar protocol cleaners to solve this problem. This is alpha code, and is even more likely than released code to have anonymity-spoiling bugs. The present network is very small — this further reduces the strength of the anonymity provided. Tor is not presently suitable for high-stakes anonymity.
→
You can find additional information on these, and many other recently updated packages, by typing yum info recent at the command line.
The Fredericksburg Linux Users Group, FredLUG, meets on the third Monday of each month at the main Library on Caroline Street downtown—meeting time is 7 PM 1900 US Eastern time. FredLUG also meets on the “last-Saturday-of-the-month” at the England Run library branch, which is west of Falmouth in Stafford County. A Google-maps link is in the show notes.
http://maps.google.com/maps/place?q=CRRL+england+run&hl=en&cid=7228995606117168324
Our most recent activity was doing Software Freedom Day on Saturday, September 24th—that was a week later than the International date of September 17th. We decided to avoid a conflicting schedule date with the local Oktoberfest.
→
You can find the Fredericksburg Linux Users Group email list at calypso dot tux dot org (http://calypso.tux.org/mailman/listinfo/fredlug). Feel free to join the list.
Besides the FredLUG email list, you’re also welcome on the IRC channel pound FredLUG on irc dot freenode dot net.
Visit the new Fredlug website at fredlug dot info for more details and resources.
→
Feature
Today’s feature is “a short collection of preliminary thoughts after doing Software Freedom Day 2011.” The banner sent out by Software Freedom International made a difference in the percentage of passers by who stopped to talk with us. In addition to the other SWAG (as in Stuff We All Get) from SFI, we had some T-shirts and DVDs from the Fedora project to give away as well.
Of the people who stopped to talk, here are some immediate observations:
The vast majority had never heard of, or knew very little about, free and open source software. We found ourselves explaining very basic concepts. That there is any alternative at all to Windows or Mac OS was a surprise to quite a few people. But going into the differences between GNU GPL, BSD, Apache, and proprietary licensing was far beyond the scope possible with the time available.
The Live DVDs were popular items, especially as they let people test drive Linux with minimal risk. And if they liked what they saw, they could install it to their hard drive—after saving their data to a safe place.
The Open Disc DVDs were also welcomed, and most people who took disks took both a distro and an Open Disc copy.
Many people only wanted to do the common things that are done with a computer. They mentioned web browsing, email, documents and accounting tasks—all of these are well supported by FOSS. The only exceptions discussed were computer games, most of which are Windows-only—and advanced audio and video editing capabilities beyond that provided by FOSS workhorse apps such as Audacity.
A basic point of confusion we encountered was the difference between a browser and an operating system. Some people answered the question of what OS they were using by saying Firefox or that “E” program to get onto the Internet.
Those not in the Open Source community are naturally puzzled as to why all this matters. One gentleman kept referring to us as “true believers,” and seemed unmoved by concerns about vendor lock-in, price gouging, and patent trolling.
One reason why it matters is that some visitors appeared to be not at the top of the economic food chain. For people in this situation, free and open source has a logically increased appeal. But it also matters as a wise investment for any size company—for example, Google.
One thing was clear at the end of the day—and that was we have much more work to do in articulating and publicizing the personal and business cases for free and open source software.
→
Today’s podcast will close with a Creative Commons licensed work by
Canopy, entitled Freedom, from music.mevio.com. Enjoy.
This episode was produced on July 4th, 2011—Independence Day in the USA. And today’s topics will include:
-
Selections from “yum info recent” on the Fedora Linux project.
-
The Latest from FredLUG.
-
Today’s feature is the Fedora 15 XFCE spin.
-
And we’ll close with a Creative Commons licensed work by
Bravo, Max!, entitled Kiss.
→
FredPod by Mark Caldwell Walker is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
Here are some recently updated items in yum at the Fedora project:
Name : cheese Description : Cheese is a Photobooth-inspired GNOME application for taking pictures and videos from a webcam. It can also apply fancy graphical effects. Name : emacs-git Description : Git version control system support for Emacs. Name : gitk Description : Git revision tree visualiser. Name : gitweb Description : Simple web interface to track changes in git repositories Name : git-all Summary : Meta-package to pull in all git tools Description : Git is a fast, scalable, distributed revision control system with an unusually rich command set that provides both high-level operations and full access to internals. This is a dummy package which brings in all subpackages. Name : gnome-tweak-tool Summary : A tool to customize advanced GNOME 3 options Description : GNOME Tweak Tool is an application for changing the advanced settings of GNOME 3. : : Its Features include: : * Install and switch gnome-shell themes : * Switch gtk/icon/cursor themes : * Switch window manager themes : * and Change the following things: : * The user-interface and titlebar fonts : * Icons in menus and buttons : * Behavior on laptop lid close : * Shell font size : * File manager desktop icons : * Titlebar click action : * Shell clock to show date : * Font hinting and antialiasing Name : gtksourceview3 Summary : A library for viewing source files Description : GtkSourceView is a text widget that extends the standard GTK+ GtkTextView widget. It improves GtkTextView by implementing syntax highlighting and other features typical of a source code editor. : This package contains version 3 of GtkSourceView. The older version 2 is contained in the gtksourceview2 package. Name : ibus Description : IBus means Intelligent Input Bus. It is an input framework for the Linux OS. Name : report Description : A generic problem/bug/incident/error reporting library, that can be configured to deliver a report to a variety of different ticketing systems. Name : rsyslog Summary : Enhanced system logging and kernel message trapping daemon Description : Rsyslog is an enhanced, multi-threaded syslog daemon. It supports MySQL, syslog/TCP, RFC 3195, permitted sender lists, filtering on any message part, and fine grain output format control. It is compatible with stock sysklogd and can be used as a drop-in replacement. Rsyslog is simple to set up, with advanced features suitable for enterprise-class, encryption-protected syslog relay chains. Name : tzdata Summary : Timezone data Description : This package contains data files with rules for various time zones around the world. Name : usbutils Summary : Linux USB utilities Description : This package contains utilities for inspecting devices connected to a USB bus. Name : yelp Description : Yelp is the help browser for the GNOME desktop. It is designed to help you browse all the documentation on your system in one central tool, including traditional man pages, info pages and documentation written in DocBook.
→
You can find additional information on these, and many other recently updated packages, by typing yum info recent at the command line.
FredLUG has moved the location of the “last-Saturday-of-the-month” meetings to the England Run library branch. A Google-maps link is in the show notes.
http://maps.google.com/maps/place?q=CRRL+england+run&hl=en&cid=7228995606117168324
At the recent FredLUG meeting on Saturday, June 25th, Paul Frields shared the presentation he gave at the Southeast Linux Fest entitled “Graduating to GUI—PyGObject for Beginners.” PyGObject emphasizes object oriented programming with Python, and using XML to define the GUI elements.
Paul also introduced PulseCaster, which is a simple PulseAudio-based tool for making podcast interviews. PulseCaster is intentionally bare-bones—focusing primarily on basic recording of VoIP calls. You can yum-install PulseCaster on your Fedora Linux machine, and I’ve already done so on mine.
Links to both the PyGObject presentation and PulseCaster are in the show notes.
http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/presentations/self-2011/
https://fedorahosted.org/pulsecaster/
→
-
You can find the Fredericksburg Linux Users Group email list at http://calypso.tux.org/mailman/listinfo/fredlug. Feel free to join the list.
-
Besides the FredLUG email list, you’re also welcome on the IRC channel pound FredLUG on irc dot freenode dot net.
→
Feature
Today’s feature is the XFCE spin of Fedora 15. Linked in the show notes are the Fedora project page for the XFCE spin, and the XFCE main website. I’ll cover what the project pages say about the XFCE desktop, and then how I’ve implemented it on my Fedora 15 computer.
http://spins.fedoraproject.org/xfce/
The Fedora project describes Spins as alternate versions of Fedora—tailored for various types of users via hand-picked application sets and other customizations. The Fedora Xfce spin showcases the Xfce desktop, which aims to be fast and lightweight, while still being visually appealing and user friendly.
Xfce is a full-fledged desktop using the freedesktop.org standard.
Xfce is further described as a lightweight desktop environment for UNIX-like operating systems. It aims to be fast and low on system resources, while still being visually appealing and user friendly.
Their main website states that XFCE embodies the traditional UNIX philosophy of modularity and re-usability. It consists of a number of components that provide the full functionality one can expect of a modern desktop environment. These are packaged separately, and you can pick among the available packages to create the optimal personal working environment.
Another priority of Xfce is adherence to standards, specifically those defined at freedesktop.org.
Xfce can be installed on several UNIX platforms. It is known to compile on Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, Cygwin and Mac OS X, on x86, PPC, Sparc, and Alpha architectures.
Xfce contains a number of core components for the minimum tasks you’d expect from a desktop environment:
The Window Manager
Manages the placement of windows on the screen, provides window decorations and manages workspaces or virtual desktops.
The Desktop Manager
Sets the background image and provides a root window menu, desktop icons or minimized icons and a windows list.
The Panel, or additional panels you can add, as I’ll describe later
Panels Switch between opened windows, launch applications, switch workspaces and menu plugins to browse applications or directories. The panel is a bar which allows you to have at all times program launchers, panel menus, a clock, a desktop switcher and more. I like the “at all times” feature, which was a major consideration in choosing XFCE.
The Session Manager
Controls the login and power management of the desktop and allows you to store multiple login sessions.
The File Manager
Provides the basic file management features and unique utilities like the bulk renamer.
The Settings Manager
Provides Tools to control the various settings of the desktop—like keyboard shortcuts, appearance, display settings, and similar things.
Beside the basic set of modules, Xfce also provides numerous additional applications and plugins so you can extend your desktop the way you like—for example a terminal emulator, text editor, sound mixer, application finder, image viewer, iCal based calendar and a CD and DVD burning application. You can read more about the modules of Xfce on their projects page.
There also are
Xfce Libraries, which provide additional functions and widgets that ease the development of applications.
Essential Utilities and Scripts that Provide a credits and license dialog, a dialog for launching applications and several important scripts.
A modern terminal emulator, featuring tabs and transparent backgrounds.
There’s also The Mixer, which is a volume control application for the Xfce Desktop Environment. It provides both a volume control plugin for the Xfce Panel and a standalone mixer application. The Mixer supports all audio systems supported by the GStreamer project.
XFCE also has Midori, which is a lightweight web browser. Midori includes
- Full integration with GTK+2.
- Fast rendering with WebKit.
- Tabs, windows and session management.
- Flexibly configurable Web Search.
- User scripts and user styles support.
- Straightforward bookmark management.
- Customizable and extensible interface.
- Extensions written in C.
- Custom context menu actions.
See the XFCE Goodies Project, for other software to add to your XFCE desktop.
What I’ve done to customize the XFCE desktop on my computer is to create a second Panel. Both panels are 25 pixels wide, so they don’t take up much screen space.
One panel is at the top of the screen. On the far left of that panel is the equivalent of a Start button, which is identifiable by the lone icon of a mouse in front of an X—I’ve removed the words to save space. I also keep the launchers for terminal, the mousepad text editor, and the log out dialog in the upper left corner also. In the upper right corner, are the switchers for four separate desktops, the clock displaying digital local time in 24-hour format, and the Network Manager status.
The panel at the bottom of the screen has launchers for my frequently used applications. I launch most everything I use from LibreOffice to Virtual Machine Manager using that customized bottom panel.
One thing about XFCE that might be unexpected for those who’ve never used it before is the location of the user configurations. Instead of dot files in the user’s home directory, XFCE keeps the desktop settings in a directory in /etc/xdg. Therefore, if you want to be able to restore your panel settings and other desktop tweaks, you need to backup the /etc/xdg sub-directories as well as your home directory.
Even with all the discussion about the different desktop environments, one thing remains constant—the command line functions the same in all of them.
→
Today’s podcast will close witha Creative Commons licensed work by
Bravo, Max!, entitled Kiss, from music.mevio.com. Enjoy.
FredPod 110221 – LibreOffice
February 21, 2011
This program was produced on February 21st, 2011. And today’s topics will include:
- Selections from “yum info recent” on the Fedora Linux project.
- The Latest from FredLUG.
- Today’s feature is the Document Foundation’s LibreOffice application.
- And we’ll close with a Creative Commons licensed work by
Ex Norwegian, entitled Smashing Time.
→
FredPod by Mark Caldwell Walker is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
Here are some recently updated items in yum at the Fedora project:
Name : gnucash
Summary : Finance management application
Description : GnuCash is a personal finance manager. A check-book like register GUI allows you to enter and track bank accounts, stocks, income and even currency trades. The interface is designed to be simple and easy to use, but is backed with double-entry accounting principles to ensure balanced books.
Name : google-chrome-beta
Description : The web browser from Google
: Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.
Name : kmod-kqemu
Summary : Metapackage which tracks in kqemu kernel module for newest kernel
Description : This is a meta-package without payload which sole purpose is to require the kqemu kernel module(s) for the newest kernel.
Name : kmod-nvidia
Summary : Metapackage which tracks in nvidia kernel module for newest kernel
License : Redistributable, no modification permitted
Description : This is a meta-package without payload which sole purpose is to require the nvidia kernel module(s) for the newest kernel. to make sure you get it together with a new kernel.
Name : yash
Summary : Yet Another SHell
Description : Yash is a command line shell that conforms to the POSIX.1 (IEEE Std 1003.1, 2008 Edition) standard for the most part.
:
: Yash also has its own features beyond POSIX, such as:
: * global aliases
: * random numbers
: * socket redirections and other special redirections
: * right prompt, and
: * command completion
I yum installed yash and gave it a try. It can be invoked by simply entering yash at the bash shell prompt. A lone user-space dollar sign prompt is then displayed. I could “su” into root, and all seemed to function in a familiar fashion. One interesting thing to try is to invoke bash from yash. What this does is run bash inside of yash which is running inside the default bash shell. That would be worth keeping in mind anytime when invoking a program from another running program. Enter the command pstree | grep -B 1 yash and the interesting and expected result is:
$ pstree | grep -B 1 yash
init |-gnome-terminal-+-bash
| |-bash—yash—bash—yash-+-grep
Hmmm, how many nested programs would you say that is? Not to worry; just enter exit and return multiple times until the original shell window closes.
→
You can find additional information on these, and many other recently updated packages, by typing yum info recent at the command line.
- You can find the Fredericksburg Linux Users Group email list at http://calypso.tux.org/mailman/listinfo/fredlug. Feel free to join the list.
- Besides the FredLUG email list, you’re also welcome on the IRC channel pound FredLUG on irc dot freenode dot net.
→
Feature
Today’s feature is the Document Foundation’s LibreOffice application. The “whys and wherefores” of moving away from OpenOffice.org and creating LibreOffice are addressed in detail at the http://www.DocumentFoundation.org website.
But for now, let’s get straight into LibreOffice, the application.
As of this date, February 21st, 2011, LibreOffice 3.3 Final is the current version; and it’s released under the LGPL-version3 license.
It’s available for Windows; Mac OS X, for both PowerPC and Intel Macs; and also for 32-bit and 64-bit Linux computers in both rpm and deb package formats.
LibreOffice provides six basic applications within its suite of software. Those are:
- Writer, for word processing
- Calc, for spreadsheets
- Impress, for presentations
- Draw, for diagrams and sketches
- Base, a front-end for databases
- and Math, which is a simple equation editor that lets you lay-out and display mathematical type equations quickly in standard written notation. We’ll play around with the Math component of LibreOffice before we’re done today.
Any of those programs can export to PDF format, and Writer, Calc, and Draw can handle scalable vector graphics. SVG is an XML based language specified by the W3C for rich graphical content from one original source.
First, let’s look at the Writer in LibreOffice. For what it’s worth, the show prep for this podcast was done in LibreOffice Writer—on a 64-bit Fedora 14 machine. Although talking about word processing might seem boring at first, I’ve found a lot to love in Writer. I routinely use different fonts, colors, and sizes, as well as bolding, underlining, highlighting, aligning, bulleting, numbering, and block indention features. Tables are easy to construct, adjust, and edit. So are footnotes, line numbering, and word count features. Word count is useful for writing content offline before copying into a space-limited input block on a website. The format painter is very handy, especially when copying in content from different sources with different formatting.
Naturally, LibreOffice complies with the most Open of Open Standards. Writer’s capabilities include an HTML export feature, and it can automatically publish to a wiki in MediaWiki format. The “Export as PDF” feature generates a .pdf file, including production of ISO-standard PDF/A files. As with OpenOffice.org, .docx files can be read and edited by LibreOffice—there are two options to save in the .docx format: One is Microsoft Office 2007 .docx and the other is the Office Open-XML-Text .docx format.
AutoCorrect for spellcheck is an indispensable feature for me.
For further reference material on the many rich features in LibreOffice Writer, the PDF Getting-Started-Guide provides 32 pages of non-fluff information with pictures. For those already used to word processors, LibreOffice Writer should be a natural transition.
LibreOffice Calc has a useful set of features also. I personally have not used all of the spreadsheet capabilities, but I can speak to the ones I have used. Data sort and formula entry are easy to enter and edit. Formatting for dates and numbers, as well as word-wrap in large cells is easily done. In addition to the open standard .ods spreadsheet format, LibreOffice Calc can save in the comma delimited .csv format, the Microsoft .xls and newer xlsx formats, dBase .dbf, and the .dif Data Interchange Format. There’s also export to PDF in Calc. The fonts, colors, and highlighting capabilities are there too. One thing of note about key-mapping on a Mac—the documentation identifies some keystrokes and menu items that are different on a Mac from those used in Windows and Linux—they provide a table with some common substitutions for those specific instructions.
The LibreOffice Impress application has an ample set of features for creating professional presentations. My main experience with Impress was with OpenOffice.org—but upon opening LibreOffice Impress, it’s obvious that development has continued to evolve in a productive way. Graphics importation and editing features are readily accessible, as well as slide transitions and animations. Tables and multimedia features are included, along with provision for speaker notes. File Save-As capabilities include Microsoft .ppt and the newer .pptx formats. Export capabilities cover several common graphics file formats—and remember that Impress can export to PDF as well.
Regarding the LibreOffice Draw application, it might be described as a cross between the Visio-like open source Dia program and the free-style capabilities of the GIMP graphics editor. If you need professional style stencils for engineering or networking drawings, then Dia would be a better program. But for quick construction of creative concepts, LibreOffice Draw is convenient and its output is readily imported into other applications such as Writer. Draw can Save-As an Open format drawing .odg file, or as a Flat-XML .fodg file. In addition to exporting as PDF, Draw also can export to several different graphics file formats.
Although I have not used Base, the database front-end in LibreOffice, it appears to be ready to work with any database in .odb file format. The following feature summary from the Document Foundation website might be helpful:
Base comes configured with the full HSQL relational database engine. It’s an ideal solution for uncomplicated needs, and for people requiring an easy-to-understand, simple-to-use system: the data is stored right inside the Base file, and you also get native support for dBase flat files.
But Base also caters to power users and enterprise requirements, and provides native-support drivers for some of the most-widely employed multi-user database engines: MySQL, Adabas D, MS Access and PostgreSQL. In addition, the built-in support for JDBC- and ODBC-standard drivers allows you to connect to virtually any other existing database engine as well.
And there’s additional descriptive information about the Base application on the Document Foundation website.
Now let’s look at LibreOffice Math. Remember, that’s the simple equation editor that lets you lay-out and display mathematical type equations quickly in standard written notation. The Math application is opened by going to File → New → Formula on the main menu. This opens a separate “Math” window, which consists of an entry window at the bottom, and a display window above it. By going to View → Elements and selecting the checkbox, another separate window appears that displays several types of formula types for entry. Clicking on one of the formula types places a text string representing that formula in the entry window—from there you can enter actual values to replace the question marks. The result is displayed in the window above it.
One must keep in mind that the “Math” application is not a calculator—it’s just a means of rendering a complex formula for entry in a word processor or presentation. Actual calculations are done by Calc, so Math—perhaps better named as “formula display”—is not needed for calculations. Math is useful for creating formula representations for humans to read in a document. Here’s an example: How would you enter the 3rd root of 27 in a word processing document? Math “formula display” to the rescue.
The notation is “nroot{3}{27}=3”
n-root left-curly-brace 3 right-curly-brace left-curly-brace 27
right-curly-brace equals 3
The “n-root” in that is the character string n-r-o-o-t. The display is the mathematical notation for cube-root of 27 with an equal sign followed by a 3.
But you have to know the answer ahead of time—the Math “formula display” application will let you enter erroneous information as well.
The next challenge is how to use your newly rendered formula. In Math, saving the file will only save it as a formula—that’s not much use in a word processing document. So you can export it as a PDF—the only export option. All is not lost. Your options are to open the PDF in the GIMP and export to a standard graphics format, such as jpeg—or to open the PDF with something like InkScape and export it as an SVG. The SVG can then be imported into your word processing document, with all the manipulation capabilities inherent in the SVG format.
A reasonable conclusion from reviewing the LibreOffice suite of applications would be that these are programs worthy of your toolbox. My recommendation is to download, install, and be productive.
→
Today’s podcast will close with a Creative Commons licensed work by
Ex Norwegian, entitled Smashing Time, from music.mevio.com. Enjoy.
FredPod 101218 – Normal Linux on a Pen Drive
December 18, 2010
FredPod Program 101218
This is FredPod, a podcast about creativity and technology from the Fredericksburg, Virginia area
This podcast is available in MP3 format via iTunes and at marwalk.podomatic.com. You also can get this podcast in the open source Ogg Vorbis format; look for the Ogg Vorbis RSS link on the home page at marwalk.net.
FredPod is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
This is your host, Mark Walker.
Show notes for this podcast are available at marwalk.wordpress.com, under the category Podcast.
This program was produced on December 18th, 2010. And today’s topics will include:
Recent releases on SourceForge.
Selections from “yum info recent” on the Fedora Linux project.
The Latest from FredLUG.
Today’s feature is my experiment placing a “normal” linux installation on a 4 GB flash drive.
And we’ll close with a Creative Commons licensed work by
Katy Wehr entitled “Blessing of the Kindling.”
→
FredPod by Mark Caldwell Walker is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
Here are some projects with recent releases on SourceForge (links are in the shownotes):
Web Cable Manager—Simple web based cabling system manager. Room/racks/patch panel and devices are managed in a simple test base web interface.
http://cablemanager.sourceforge.net
gpsbook—GPSBook is a software dedicated to manage display and manipulate GPS traces.
http://gpsbook-team.blogspot.com/
SkypeTab—This program adds tabs to Skype for Linux
http://skypetab.keks-n.net
Q Binary Clock—Q Binary Clock is a platform independent simple binary clock widget. Q Binary Clock was initially started as “Binary Clock” or just “binaryclock” for Fremantle. The source code is available at their website noted in the shownotes: https://garage.maemo.org/projects/binaryclock
http://qbinaryclock.sourceforge.net
→
Here are some recently updated items in yum at the Fedora project:
Name : claws-mail
Description : Claws Mail is an email client (and news reader), based on GTK+, featuring quick response, graceful and sophisticated interface, easy configuration, intuitive operation, abundant features, extensibility
Name : goldendict
Description : Goldendict is a feature-rich dictionary lookup program. The latest release has the following features: Use of WebKit for an accurate articles’ representation; Support of multiple dictionary file formats; Support MediaWiki-based sites to perform search; Scan pop-up functionality.
Name : ibus
Description : IBus means Intelligent Input Bus. It is an input framework for Linux.
Name : k4dirstat
Description : KDirStat (KDE Directory Statistics) is a utility program that sums up disk usage for directory trees – very much like the Unix ‘du’ command. It can also help you clean up used space. K4DirStat is the port to KDE4.
Name : luci
Description : Luci is a web-based high availability administration application built on the TurboGears 2 framework.
Name : selinux-policy-doc
Description : SELinux policy documentation package
Name : thunderbird-lightning
Description : Lightning brings the Sunbird calendar to the popular email client, Mozilla Thunderbird. Since it’s an extension, Lightning is tightly integrated with Thunderbird, allowing it to easily perform email-related calendaring tasks.
Name : xmp
Description : The Extended Module Player, known as XMP, is a modplayer for Unix-like systems that plays over 80 mainstream and obscure module formats from Amiga, Atari, Acorn, Apple IIgs and PC, including Protracker (MOD), Scream Tracker 3 (S3M), Fast Tracker II (XM) and Impulse Tracker (IT) files.
Name : xulrunner “zool-runner”
Description : XULRunner provides the XUL, or zool, Runtime environment for Gecko applications.
[ I see this package show up often in yum updates. ]
Here’s a little further background on this from Wikipedia: the XML User Interface Language, is an XML user interface markup language developed by the Mozilla project. XUL operates in Mozilla cross-platform applications such as Firefox and Flock. The Mozilla Gecko layout engine provides an implementation of XUL used in the Firefox browser.
You can find additional information on these, and many other recently updated packages, by typing yum info recent at the command line.
→
You can find the Fredericksburg Linux Users Group email list at http://calypso.tux.org/mailman/listinfo/fredlug. Feel free to join the list.
Besides the FredLUG email list, you’re also welcome on the IRC channel pound FredLUG on irc dot freenode dot net.
→
Feature
Today’s feature is my experiment placing a “normal” linux installation on a 4 GB flash drive. This is different from the Live CD versions in popular distros that can be updated only through a persistence layer or persistence overlay. Persistence overlays are a nice feature of bootable USB sticks, and they’re great as far as they go. However, they also have limitations that counteract the gains made from persistence.
For example, a persistence overlay does not take advantage of all of the possible space on a flash drive. The size of the overlay must be set at the creation of the USB installation. Also, once the overlay is filled up, it can be reset with a kernel boot option, but all data in it is lost. Furthermore, all updates to the device, not just your data, go into the persistent overlay. This includes package updates, and configuration changes.
The more restricting thing with Live USB sticks is the inability to access the content of the persistent overlay when the device is connected as just a data drive to another running OS. For example, save a file such as mycontent.txt to the device when its onboard OS is booted, and that file will not be accessible after the onboard OS is shut down. Plug in the device as a data drive on another OS, and the mycontent.txt file is nowhere to be found. It’s there alright; just buried and inaccessible inside a wrapper that can be opened normally only by the OS on the Live USB stick.
This features does have its advantages. It sure provides a layer, pardon the pun, of security. And if the onboard system name and other settings were default, then it also would provide a degree of anonymity for network access and private web browsing. In those situations, Live USB is exactly what you want.
So if what you really need is a normal computer on a pen drive, let’s look at some alternatives.
You could always do a normal install with a distro slimmed down by design, such as Puppy Linux or Tiny Core Linux. Chances are if that’s what you needed, you’d be doing that already.
But what if you wanted on your pen drive something more mainstream; something you could keep updated with a familiar tool such as yum or
apt-get? What if you wanted to install linux on a thumb drive that would be logically the same as a regular installation?
That’s exactly what I wanted to try, and here’s how I did it: I used the Fedora 14 i386 install DVD; not the Live CD. I connected the 4 GB USB flash drive to the install machine and booted to the DVD. When the install menu got to the selection of target media, I had to select use the entire disk. Naturally when you do this, you need to be absolutely sure you’re not installing to any hard drives on the machine; I know you knew that, but it’s just an obligatory admonition.
The only install choice that would work for the 4 GB target drive was the last one, which is named “minimal.” The install process proceeded as normal after that. And when it was done and the system rebooted into the USB drive, I got a beautiful black screen of run level 3 command line goodness.
Only the root user is defined at this point, so I logged in as root. You have to any way as there’s some more work to do. For one thing, the minimal installation has no ready wireless capability, so a wired ethernet connection is essential. And I had to reconfigure the eth0 interface each time I booted until I could get Network Manager installed and running. The eth0 configuration can be done the hard way or the easy way.
The hard way is to ifconfig set the IP and netmask, then set the default gateway route, then identify one or more DNS name servers in the /etc/resolv [ without the letter e at the end of resolv ] dot conf file.
The easy way to get networking going is to ifconfig set the IP and netmask, then let dhclient do the gateway and DNS settings. In the beginning you still have to set up the eth0 interface after each reboot, so I just wrote a short script to run the easy way commands whenever I needed to.
Now the fun part, that being updating and getting a destop installed. With a good wired Internet connection I immediately did a yum upgrade—I like to add the –skip-broken option to keep any misconfigured packages from stopping the entire upgrade. Lots of packages to be updated, especially soon after a new release. Unlike with the persistent overlay installations, this update replaced updated files of the same name in their place, instead of taking up precious overlay space with the changes.
Just to be sure I got all the updates, I did a yum clean all, and then a yum makecache. That’s makecache singular, which is different from the Debian style apt-cache gencaches, which is plural. Then I ran yum upgrade again to ensure the system had the latest in the repositories.
As things went along, I frequently did a df disk free check to ensure I wasn’t filling up the 4 GB capacity too fast. The root directory held in there around just over 50% of it’s space. In the end I had about 600 MB of free space after getting a normal gnome desktop working. That’s with the boot partition and the logical volume group that are part of a normal Fedora installation.
But getting there’s half the fun, so back to the set up. There are three more things needed to get a full GUI interface. Those are the Xserver, desktop, and display manager. With the Internet connection functional, these can all be yum installed.
To get X installed with the least amount of typing needed, you enter at your root prompt yum install xorg-x11-* and let it go. This will install a lot of packages, many of which are not needed. That’s okay, even with a 4 GB drive, there’s still enough headroom for this.
To be sure, do a df and check the free space each time. If it’s getting too full, just run
yum erase \*devel\* to remove the development packages; that is unless you’re planning on doing development on your USB booted system. You may or may not need to escape the wildcards with the back slashes.
Next for the desktop. For the GNOME desktop, run
yum install gnome-desktop* and this will install the needed dependencies for the desktop with it.
Now for the display manager. I installed the GDM, as in GNOME Display Manager. To do this, run
yum install gdm* and this will install the packages required for that display manager.
I also ran yum install gnome-session* as this provides management features for the GNOME desktop or GDM login session. It also starts up the other core GNOME components and handles logout and saving the session.
Now to test the GUI. Entering startx at the command line lauched the GNOME desktop. Excellent. A ctrl-alt-backspace kills X. Again, excellent. Entering init 5 at the command line lauched the GNOME desktop again, but I couldn’t go back to the command line from there. That is, except to reboot; and as the inittab was still set to default to run level 3, I had an escape route to basic confguration—if you get stuck in run level 5, it might be a little tricky to do other needed configuration tasks, especiall if you can’t get to a terminal window or any reason.
When comfortable with the configuration, and you can reliably get to a terminal from the desktop, it would be safe to edit inittab to default to run level 5. However, there might be an advantage to leaving the default at the run level 3 command line. Those advantages might include ability to run on very old or otherwise slow hardware, and the additional security of initially having fewer processes and/or network services running.
Now with GNOME installed, I installed Network Manager, by running
yum install NetworkManager. That provided Network Manager functions for the wired ethernet interface, but still no wireless.
So off to find a driver for the wireless adapter in the laptop I was installing to. It turned out that it was Broadcom model that inclued “b43” in its driver name. Putting yum to work again, I ran
yum provides \*b43\* and found the package to install. Again, you may or may not need to escape the wildcards with the back slashes. It might help to pipe that through grep fwwf to list just the firmware related results. Then yum install the driver package—in this case it was a version of b43-openfwwf. After a reboot, you should see a wlan0 interface available. It will take some additional tweaking to get it working, but that’s not unique to a USB booted system.
Large apps, such as OpenOffice.org are not going to be practical for 4 GB. But go to 8 or 16 GB, and more things naturally are possible. The cost of USB drives is dropping to the point that 32 GB thumbdrives are not that expensive anymore. There also there are lighter weight editors that can read open document files; or utilities that convert open document files to text or other simpler format.
When you’re done, you can put your pen drive in your pocket, and update or upgrade it anytime you want to.
→
As it’s winter here in the northern hemisphere, today’s podcast will close with “Blessing of the Kindling;” a Creative Commons licensed work by
Katy Wehr, the name is spelled k-a-t-y w-e-h-r, from music.mevio.com.
This song has what some broadcast DJs call a false ending about 2 and a half minutes into the piece. So be sure not to miss the instrumental part at the end.
Stay warm, and Enjoy.
###
What’s In Your Head?
December 18, 2010
Related to the “what” question, is the “how much” question.
But let us address the “what” question first. In the Gospels, Jesus asked people not so much what they thought of him but who they thought he was. I used to wonder why that mattered; after all, whether something exists, or someone is who they are, is external to what anyone thinks in their human capacity. If something exists and I don’t believe it to be so, then I’m simply wrong. But what we think is important, however, as what we think matters *insomuch as it affects us.* Jesus did not and does not need our approval, or even that we believe him; he, as our Creator, does not need the approval or belief of the created thing.
How does one know then what to think? I think that all the churn and concern on some atheist forums is just so much irrelevant noise. The reason can be summed up as in this passage of the Gospel of Matthew:
12:38 Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from you.
12:39 But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:
12:40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
12:41 The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, one greater than Jonas is here.
12:42 The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, one greater than Solomon is here.
Looking for a sign, translate that as proof, as a prerequisite of believing makes perfect sense when dealing with other humans. Humans require positive identification as part of establishing contracts with one another as proof of their agreements; the purpose of these is to use as testimony against the other in the case of default. Effectually, such proof is required as a counterbalance against the untrustworthiness of other humans; and righty so!
In that context, the proof that humans demand of Jesus is not possible. The limitation is not that of Jesus; it is human limitation that will never allow the human need for proof to be met. No debate with or among believers or atheists will ever be resolved to anyone’s satisfaction. So such discussion is pointless for everyone.
Here’s why. We as humans don’t have the capacity for comprehending the “what” in this area. The reason is we cannot accommodate the “how much” dimension. It’s not going to happen. Consider this other passage from the Gospel of Matthew:
9:16 No man puts a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up takes from the garment, and the tear is made worse.
9:17 Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runs out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.
There are a number of analogies to illustrate this concept, and address the “how much” question. You don’t put gasoline in a diesel engine, or diesel in a gasoline engine. You don’t play a DVD in a CD-only player. You don’t converse with someone who doesn’t share a common language with you. In computer programing, you don’t assign a floating point value to an integer variable. You get the idea; insert here the analogy that is most meaningful to *you.*
It’s not only the type that prevents us from mentally grasping it; it’s also the amount or degree. You don’t tow a locomotive with a lawn mower, but that’s exactly what those who “would see a sign” are demanding be done; and that it be done by they themselves! Pardon the cliché, but that will happen when pigs fly; which will be never, by design of the Almighty! If Jesus exchanged “the kingdom of heaven is like” for “the kingdom of heaven is,” (pardon another cliché) our “heads would explode.”
So what’s the most practical thing for people of all persuasions to do. I say leave the subject alone. Do not concern yourself with what someone else thinks or feels inside. As long as they treat others fairly, that’s as much as one can ask of another human; but we should indeed demand that much of ourselves and others. Consider how much more valuable time would be spent in schools if the curriculum were devoted to learning languages and practical sciences; that instead of making schools a doctrinal and ideological battleground.
And have a Merry Christmas. I can say that on my own blog; I’m a Christian. God bless.
Is it all God’s doing? Just asking.
December 17, 2010
No matter what your cultural/ideological/doctrinal perspective, there’s plenty to confound what would be the perfect order. Let’s look at some of the frustrating situations, and then examine what might possibly be going on.
The state of being aggrieved about something is effectively universal. Here’s a list of a few of the grievances:
- If you’re an economic conservative, you see an unjust effort to redistribute wealth to those who don’t deserve it.
- If you’re an economic progressive, you see an unjust imbalance of privilege and power, and a system fixed to keep it that way and even increase it.
- If you’re a social conservative, you see increasingly pervasive sexual immorality in all media and culture, topped off with more unborn babies being murdered every day.
- If you’re a social progressive, you see a cruel narrow-mindedness and deep seated suspicion of the “other;” this is especially manifested in the genuine hostility toward people who are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT).
- If you’re a believer in American exceptionalism, it’s baffling beyond reason how so many people cannot see the need for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; although certainly not perfect, the USA is a net force for good in the world. WikiLeaks enrages you; these people just don’t get it about the damage they’re doing to this net force for good!
- If you’re one who believes that the net effect of American exceptionalism is not for good, WikiLeaks is an essential force in exposing unsavory acts and intentions; the emperor has been disrobed, and it’s not a pretty sight.
- If you’re part of the mainline political establishment, you’re annoyed by the fringe efforts to influence otherwise sound policy; these include Tea Partiers to the Republicans and Greens to the Democrats.
- If you’re a part of those non-mainline movements, you’re skeptical that anything will change with this perennial business as usual approach by those in power. To conservatives, that means big unions and entrenched liberals. To progressives, that means unmitigated influence of greedy moneyed interests; the faces change but the corruption remains undisturbed.
- If you’re a conservative, you don’t understand why people don’t see that the way to create jobs and get the economy moving again is to remove onerous tax burdens and regulations from businesses.
- If you’re a progressive, you don’t understand why people don’t see the feudal oppression of the worldwide corporate oligarchy.
- If you’re concerned that national security is in peril, the monitoring of all communications and scanning of people at airports are essential and reasonable measures.
- If you’re concerned that civil liberties are in peril, the surveillance society we’re becoming is an ominous development.
- (etc, etc.)
Are you depressed yet?
Is it possible that all these things are happening for a reason? Let me be quick to say that I don’t know. All the things mentioned above are real. The economic downturn is real. The wars are real. Abortion and hate toward LGBT people are real. WikiLeaks and the response to it are real. Terrorists and surveillance measures are real.
Is it possible that God is making things impossible for the middle class for a reason? Does he want us to morph from the consumerist society that we are to a cooperative society where money is not the sole means of wealth?
Those changes may indeed come about, mostly out of necessity. If wages and other income are insufficient to provide a living, then life will carry on by other means.
But that won’t change anything at the fundamental human level. Evil people will develop ways to game the cooperative system, just as they have the current financial one. There will still be deceit, stealing, and injustice. The reason is the state of the human heart.
Consider this passage from the Gospel of Matthew:
13:27 So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? from whence then has it tares?
13:28 He said unto them, An enemy has done this. The servants said unto him, Do you want then that we go and gather them up?
13:29 But he said, No; lest while you gather up the tares, you root up also the wheat with them.
13:30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather you together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
You know where this piece is going. Jesus is the sole answer to any and all evil, everywhere and anytime. And Jesus can enter the hearts of those corporate oligarchs just as much as he can those welfare fraudsters—there’s some wheat among those tares. We’d best get to praying.
FredPod 101128 – Fedora 14
November 28, 2010
FredPod Program 101128
Welcome to FredPod, a podcast about creativity and technology from the Fredericksburg, Virginia area
This podcast is available in MP3 format via iTunes and at marwalk.podomatic.com. You also can get this podcast in the open source Ogg Vorbis format; look for the Ogg Vorbis RSS link on the home page at marwalk.net.
FredPod is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
This is your host, Mark Walker.
Show notes for this podcast are available at marwalk.wordpress.com, under the category Podcast.
This program was produced on November 28th, 2010. And today’s topics will include:
- Recent releases on SourceForge.
- Selections from “yum info recent” on the Fedora Linux project.
- The Latest from FredLUG.
- Today’s feature is Fedora 14, an overview of it’s features and some personal experiences with it.
- And we’ll close with a Creative Commons licensed work by
Dolly heads to Texas entitled “Loves me not .”
→
Here are some projects with recent releases on SourceForge (links are in the shownotes):
- Stop Motion Capture—Stop Motion Capture animates a video from single frames. It uses your digi cam to capture these photos. Furthermore it contains various technologies, such as onion skin, bluescreen or export.
http://smcapture.sourceforge.net - eXtended Screenshot—This is a nice Windows and Linux screenshot tool for make, edit, share and exchange screenshots between people via the internet. This tool oriented for QA testers, programmers, designers, sales managers, support centers and other people.
http://xscreenshot.com/
- NomNom—NomNom is an application for downloading videos from Youtube and other similar video websites that require Adobe Flash to view the video content. Video streaming or downloading can be started simply by dropping an URL onto the application window.
http://nomnom.googlecode.com/
- Mercury Live DVD—Mercury is an acronym for Malware EnumeRation, CaptURe, and AnalYsis. A live DVD based on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS containing a variety of honeypot technologies and malware analysis features.
http://mercurylivedvd.sourceforge.net
→
Here are some recently updated items in yum at the Fedora project:
Name : evince
URL : http://projects.gnome.org/evince/
Description : Evince is simple multi-page document viewer. It can display and
: print Portable Document Format (PDF), PostScript (PS) and
: Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) files. When supported by the
: document format, evince allows searching for text, copying text to
: the clipboard, hypertext navigation, table-of-contents bookmarks
: and editing of forms.
:
: Support for other document formats such as DVI and DJVU can be
: added by installing additional backends.
Name : fedora-easy-karma
Summary : Fedora update feedback made easy
URL : https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_Easy_Karma
Description : Fedora-easy-karma helps you to easily and fast provide feedback
: for all testing updates that you have currently installed.
Name : geany
Summary : A fast and lightweight IDE using GTK2
URL : http://www.geany.org/
Description : Geany is a small and fast integrated development enviroment with
: basic features and few dependencies to other packages or Desktop
: Environments.
:
: Some features:
: – Syntax highlighting
: – Code completion
: – Code folding
: – Construct completion/snippets
: – Auto-closing of XML and HTML tags
: – Call tips
: – Support for Many languages like C, Java, PHP, HTML, Python,
: Perl, Pascal
: – symbol lists and symbol name auto-completion
: – Code navigation
: – Simple project management
: – Plugin interface
Name : geoclue
URL : http://geoclue.freedesktop.org/
Description : Geoclue is a modular geoinformation service built on top of the
: D-Bus messaging system. The goal of the Geoclue project is to make
: creating location-aware applications as simple as possible.
Name : man-db
Summary : Database cached manual pager suite
URL : http://www.nongnu.org/man-db/
Description : The man-db package includes five tools for browsing man-pages:
: man, whatis, apropos, manpath and lexgrog. man preformats and
: displays manual pages. whatis searches the manual page names.
: apropos searches the manual page names and descriptions. manpath
: determines search path for manual pages. lexgrog directly reads
: header information in manual pages.
Name : openjpeg
Summary : JPEG 2000 command line tools
URL : http://www.openjpeg.org/
Description : OpenJPEG is an open-source JPEG 2000 codec written in C. It has
: been developed in order to promote the use of JPEG 2000, the new
: still-image compression standard from the Joint Photographic
: Experts Group (JPEG).
Name : openssh
Summary : An open source implementation of SSH protocol versions 1 and 2
URL : http://www.openssh.com/portable.html
Description : SSH (Secure SHell) is a program for logging into and executing
: commands on a remote machine. SSH is intended to replace rlogin
: and rsh, and to provide secure encrypted communications between
: two untrusted hosts over an insecure network. X11 connections and
: arbitrary TCP/IP ports can also be forwarded over the secure
: channel.
:
: OpenSSH is OpenBSD’s version of the last free version of SSH,
: bringing it up to date in terms of security and features.
:
: This package includes the core files necessary for both the
: OpenSSH client and server. To make this package useful, you should
: also install openssh-clients, openssh-server, or both.
Name : policycoreutils
Summary : SELinux policy core utilities
URL : http://www.selinuxproject.org
Description : Security-enhanced Linux is a feature of the Linux® kernel and a
: number of utilities with enhanced security functionality designed
: to add mandatory access controls to Linux. The Security-enhanced
: Linux kernel contains new architectural components originally
: developed to improve the security of the Flask operating system.
: These architectural components provide general support for the
: enforcement of many kinds of mandatory access control policies,
: including those based on the concepts of Type Enforcement®,
: Role-based Access Control, and Multi-level Security.
:
: policycoreutils contains the policy core utilities that are
: required for basic operation of a SELinux system. These utilities
: include load_policy to load policies, setfiles to label
: filesystems, newrole to switch roles, and run_init to run
: /etc/init.d scripts in the proper context.
Name : policycoreutils-gui
Summary : SELinux configuration GUI
URL : http://www.selinuxproject.org
Description : system-config-selinux is a utility for managing the SELinux
: environment
Name : policycoreutils-newrole
Summary : The newrole application for RBAC/MLS as in Role based access control on multi-level secure sytems
URL : http://www.selinuxproject.org
Description : RBAC/MLS policy machines require the SELinux utility “newrole” as a way of changing the role or level of a logged in user.
Name : xorg-x11-server-Xdmx
Summary : Distributed Multihead X Server and utilities
URL : http://www.x.org
Description : Xdmx is proxy X server that provides multi-head support for
: multiple displays attached to different machines (each of which is
: running a typical X server). When Xinerama is used with Xdmx, the
: multiple displays on multiple machines are presented to the user
: as a single unified screen. A simple application for Xdmx would
: be to provide multi-head support using two desktop machines, each
: of which has a single display device attached to it. A complex
: application for Xdmx would be to unify a 4 by 4 grid of 1280×1024
: displays (each attached to one of 16 computers) into a unified
: 5120×4096 display. Now, that’s getting the big picture!
→
You can find additional information on these, and many other recently updated packages, by typing yum info recent at the command line.
The Fredericksburg Linux Users Group, will be meeting primarily online for the rest of the calendar year. We are working on a new website, which we hope to have online in the near future.
- You can find the FredLUG email list at http://calypso.tux.org/mailman/listinfo/fredlug. Feel free to join the list.
- Besides the FredLUG email list, you’re also welcome on the IRC channel pound FredLUG on irc dot freenode dot net.
→
Today’s feature is Fedora 14, an overview of it’s features and some personal experiences with it.
[ Source of info includes:
From the fedoraproject.org website, the following are major features for Fedora 14:
- Spice – as in The Simple Protocol for Independent Computing Environments. Spice aims to provide a complete open source solution for interaction with virtualized desktops and provides high-quality remote access to QEMU virtual machines. The Spice project deals with both the virtualized devices and the front-end.
Currently, the SPICE project’s main focus is to provide high-quality remote access to QEMU virtual machines. SPICE is used for client-server communication. Spice adds a QXL, as in (XML Query Language), display device to QEMU and provides drivers for this device for both X and Windows.
Features supported in the protocol are:
- Accelerated 2D graphics
- “Hardware” cursor support
- Audio playing
- Audio recording
- Image compression, both lossless and lossy (for WAN support)
- Video detection with MJpeg streaming
- Encryption
- Client side mouse pointer support
- Drivers for: X, Windows (xp, vista, win7)
Red Hat acquired Spice together with kvm when it aqcuired Qumranet, and has invested significant effort into opening it up, cleaning up dependencies, etc.
- Mobility options – This release includes software from the MeeGo™ project which is designed to support platforms such as netbooks, nettops, and various embedded devices.
- Amazon EC2 – For the first time since Fedora 8, Fedora will release on the EC2 cloud. This incorporate kernel patch to allow upstream kernels to work on the EC2 infrastructure
- D Compiler – Support for D, a systems programming language. Its focus is on combining the power and high performance of C and C++ with the programmer productivity of modern languages like Ruby and Python.
Some other features include:
- Updating Perl to version 5.12,
- Python to version 2.7,
- Boost to version 1.44, which provides peer-reviewed portable C++ source libraries
- Netbeans to version 6.9, which is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Java and other languages
- KDE to version 4.5,
- Eclipse to the Helios Release. Fedoraproject.org notes that many Eclipse projects release annually in June. The 2010 version of this simultaneous release is known as “Helios” and is made up of about 39 projects and 33 million lines of code. The foundation of these projects is the Eclipse project itself, producing the Eclipse SDK which contains the Eclipse Platform, the Eclipse Java Development Tools (JDT), and the Eclipse Plugin Development Environment (PDE).
This Fedora feature encompasses the updating of the Eclipse packages in Fedora to be their Helios versions. Note that not all “eclipse-*” packages in Fedora are hosted at eclipse.org, which coordinates the simultaneous release so this feature does not include them (notable examples include PyDev which is shipped in Fedora as eclipse-pydev).
- Sugar to version 0.90, which is used for the One Laptop Per Child project that provides powerful learning environment for young children. This version of Sugar includes an enhanced activity set to provide an stable demo environment for Sugar, as well as an environment for developers. Users curious about the Sugar interface can test out Sugar on an existing Fedora system by selecting the Sugar environment from their display manager.
Developers interested in working on the Sugar interface or writing activities can have a development platform without needing an XO laptop.
Other features included in Fedora 14 are these:
- Update of Erlang to the upstream R14 release. Erlang is a general-purpose concurrent programming language and runtime system. It supports hot swapping, thus code can be changed without stopping a system. While threads are considered a complicated and error-prone topic in most languages, Erlang provides language-level features for creating and managing processes with the aim of simplifying concurrent programming. Though all concurrency is explicit in Erlang, processes communicate using message passing instead of shared variables, which removes the need for locks.
- An easy-to-use fully-featured IPMI server management utility. That’s IPMI as in Intelligent Platform Management Interface
- Another feature of interest to system administrators is Fedora 14′s implementation of systemd, which is System and Session Manager. Systemd is a next-generation replacement for Upstart and System V init. Turn this feature on with just a few simple commands, and experience improvements such as parallel and on-demand starting of services, faster boot times, and the ability to track processes, daemons, sockets, and even take snapshots of your system state.
I have upgraded my three Fedora 13 machines to Fedora 14. The 32-bit laptop I have upgraded with no problem at all. One of my 64-bit machine needed some tweaking before the X-server would start, but it’s functioning perfectly now.
My other 64-bit Fedora machine would not upgrade directly. It complained that my two-disk logical volume had bad metadata. That’s not a disaster for me, as I have a nightly cron job on that machine that backs up my home directory and some other folders. So for that machine I did a fresh install, created an identical user name, and copied my home directory from the latest backup. I decided to reinstall my apps fresh from the yum repositories. The interesting part was trying to restore my configurations. Specifically important were the data and configurations for the Thunderbird address book, gnupg, and the history and bookmarks for Firefox, and Chrome. Finding the particular “dot” files used for Firefox was a particular adventure. My bash prompt also changed from the familiar user name and path to a more cryptic line that said “bash-4.1.”
But it all turned out well, as I’m recording and producing this podcast on that machine right now.
Like car models, Linux users have their favorite distros. Mine is Fedora. I’ve tried Ubuntu, Debian, Mint, SuSe, and some others. But I keep coming back to Fedora. Life is good. I’m sure whatever you’re using, it’s good for you too.
→
Today’s podcast will close with a Creative Commons licensed work by Dolly heads to Texas entitled ”Loves me not;” from Mevio’s Music Alley. Check it out at ‘music.mevio.com’.”
Enjoy.
→
Thanks for joining us for today’s FredPod podcast.
This is Mark Walker.
Enjoy life, and we’ll talk with you next time.
FredPod 101011 – OpenDisc
October 11, 2010
http://marwalk.podomatic.com/
This program was produced on October 11th, 2010. And today’s topics will include:
- Recent releases on SourceForge.
- Selections from “yum info recent” on the Fedora Linux project.
- The Latest from FredLUG, including a humorous sound bite from
Software Freedom Day 2010. - Today’s feature is the OpenDisc project. We’ll look at some of the apps and utilities you can yum install on your Fedora machine.
- And we’ll close with a Creative Commons licensed work by the
Josh Estrada Project entitled “Down and Blue.”
→
FredPod by Mark Caldwell Walker is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
Here are some projects with recent releases on SourceForge :
- Goanna Assignment Organizer—Goanna is an organization assistant for class assignments, research papers, and other writing projects. Goanna helps you manage multiple assignments or projects in an easy-to-use user interface.
http://goanna-org.sourceforge.net - Claibu—Open Source Web Applications that combines Cloud Computing and
e-Books.
http://claibu.sourceforge.net - cwtbk—A free Morse (CW) decoder for Unix-like systems (and Windows).
Uses the SDL framework—as in Simple DirectMedia Layer—for graphics.
http://cwtbk.sourceforge.net
- PrivacyFRONT—which is a Linux only graphical frontend for the GPG encryption and security tools. The software provides an easy way to manage key pairs and encrypt, decrypt, and sign files and emails.
http://gpgprivacyfront.sourceforge.net - GEODOC—this is a document management and sharing system for the scientific community. Users can also search and share documents from various projects across its network without a web server. It can be ran under MacOS, Linux and Windows.
http://geodoc.sourceforge.net
→
Here are some recently updated items in yum at the Fedora project:
libpath_utils Utility functions to manipulate filesystem pathnames publican Publican is a DocBook publication system, not just a DocBook processing tool. It’s used by the Fedora Docs project. As well as ensuring your DocBook XML is valid, publican works to ensure your XML is up to publishable standard. rubygem-rerun Launches an app, and restarts it whenever the filesystem changes sssd as in System Security Services Daemon Provides a set of daemons to manage access to remote directories and authentication mechanisms. It provides an NSS and PAM interface toward the system and a pluggable backend system to connect to multiple different account sources. It is also the basis to provide client auditing and policy services for projects like FreeIPA. sssd-client, which is SSSD Client libraries for NSS—as in Name Service Switch—and PAM—as in Pluggable Authentication Module. Sssd-client provides the libraries needed by the PAM and NSS stacks to connect to the SSSD service.
→
You can find additional information on these, and many other recently updated packages, by typing yum info recent at the command line.
The Fredericksburg Linux Users Group, meets on the third Monday and last Saturday of each month. The meetings take place at the main Library in Fredericksburg, Virginia, on Caroline Street in Meeting Room 2:
- You can find the FredLUG calendar by going to Google Groups and searching on F-r-e-d-L-U-G. Near the top of the page is a link to the Google calendar containing the meeting schedule. Feel free to import the .ics calendar files from the Files section into your own calendar.
- Besides the FredLUG Google Group, you’re also welcome on the IRC channel pound FredLUG on irc dot freenode dot net.
We in FredLUG had a great time on Software Freedom Day this year. While telling people about the advantages of FOSS, we enjoyed the worldwide solidarity of that worthy cause. So to share some of the fun, travel back with us now to Fredericksburg, Virginia, September 18, 2010, and enjoy this little impromptu skit that took place at our location.
skit.flac
→
Today’s feature item is look at some of the OpenDisc apps and utilities.
The following are programs on the OpenDisc you can yum install on your Fedora machine.
The first category is Design
Blender is an advanced 3D graphics modeling program capable of producing high quality animations, performing rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback. It is the only 3D creation suite which allows the artist to model, texture, animate, render, and export the finished product in a package less than 10 MB. Blender natively exports to a multitude of 3D formats such as VRML, Cal3d, AC3D.
Dia can be used to draw a variety of diagrams to suit your needs, such as entity-relationship models, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and simple circuits.
The GIMP (or GNU Image Manipulation Program) is suitable for those wanting to manipulate digital photographs, design and export graphics for the web, convert images from one file format to another, or even produce complex high-resolution compositions for print.
Inkscape is an easy to use vector graphics editor that uses the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. Supported SVG features include shapes, paths, text, markers, clones, alpha blending, transforms, gradients, patterns, and grouping.
Nvu is a fully featured What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) web page editor, enabling you to create compelling web pages without having to devote months to learning HTML. Nvu includes an integrated FTP site manager, a style sheet editor, tabbed workspaces, and all the features you’ve come to expect from a fully-featured web page editor.
Scribus is a professional desktop publishing application, with a combination of “press-ready” output and new approaches to page layout. With it you can create just about anything you can imagine, from brochures, magazines, bulletins, and even books!
Tux Paint is a free drawing program designed for young children (aged three and up). It has a simple, easy-to-use interface, fun sound effects, and an encouraging cartoon mascot who helps guide children as they use the program. It provides a blank canvas and a variety of drawing tools to help your child be creative.
The next category is Internet
Azureus is a powerful BitTorrent protocol client. It comes bundled with many invaluable features for both beginners and advanced users, such as multiple torrent support, speed limiting, fast resuming and more.
FileZilla is a fast and reliable FTP client and server with lots of useful features and an intuitive interface. Features include upload/download resume, site manager, keep-alive system, SSL and SFTP support, and a flexible file queuing system.
HTTrack is an easy-to-use offline web browser utility. It allows you to download a web site from the Internet to a local directory on your computer, building a perfect mirror for your personal use. Simply open a page of the website in your browser, and you can browse the site from link to link, as if you were viewing it online. HTTrack can also update an existing mirrored site, and resume interrupted downloads.
Pigdin is an Internet Messenging (chat) client that enables you to chat with others in real time using any supported network, including AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC and Jabber. Pigdin can be simultaneously connected to several networks, so if you have contacts on different networks you can talk to them all at the same time, from one easy to use program.
SeaMonkey is an all-in-one internet suite which uses the same engine as Firefox and Thunderbird, and also includes a newsgroup client, an internet relay chat (or IRC) client, and a flexible HTML editor.
Like the Firefox web browser, the best reason to start using SeaMonkey is its enhanced security. Built with your security in mind from the start, SeaMonkey keeps your computer safe from malicious spyware by not loading harmful ActiveX controls, and a comprehensive set of privacy tools to keep your online activity private and your computer safe.
Thunderbird is a modern email client with features such as intelligent spam filters, a built-in spell checker, a range of themes and customisable layout.
The final category is Multimedia
Audacity is a sound editing program which can record, playback, and mix sounds or apply effects using a variety of filters.
Audacity lets you edit your sounds using Cut, Copy and Paste (with unlimited Undo) and mix multiple tracks together. I’m using Audacity now to produce FredPod.
Celestia is a simulation of the entire universe, based on currently known astronomical information.
Stellarium is a planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. Just set your local co-ordinates (or choose to look at the sky from any other place or time on Earth!) and you’re treated to a natural and accurate view of the night’s sky.
The VLC media player supports numerous audio and video file-types out of the box, so you don’t have to download individual software to play most media files. You can also encode media to a variety of formats, and streaming support for audio and video over the internet/networks is also available.
→
Today’s podcast will close with a Creative Commons licensed work by the Josh Estrada Project entitled “Down and Blue,” from Mevio’s Music Alley. Check it out at ‘music.mevio.com’”
Enjoy.
FredPod 100906 – Mixxx DJ App
September 8, 2010
This program was produced on September 6th, 2010. And today’s topics will include:
- Recent releases on SourceForge.
- Selections from “yum info recent” on the Fedora Linux project.
- The Latest from FredLUG, including our updated plans for
Software Freedom Day and afterward.
- Today’s feature is Mixxx, the open source DJ app that provides professional functionality.
- And we’ll close with a Creative Commons licensed work by the
Sarah Mac Band entitled “Not Done Yet.”
→
Here are some projects with recent releases on SourceForge:
- Html Bookmark Compare—Lists and compares two html bookmark files (as defined by firefox) side by side and notes the similarities and the differences in a colored list through the GUI environment.
http://bookmarkcompare.sourceforge.net/ - OpenAPC—(that’s APC as in Advanced Process Control) OpenAPC is an extensive and multi-platform visualisation, process control and HMI application—as in (human machine Interface)—that supports many different devices via an open plug-in interface. Beside a visual GUI editor a debugger is part of the package.
http://www.openapc.com/
→
Here are some recently updated items in yum at the Fedora project:
-
aespipe aespipe is an encryption tool that reads from standard input and writes to standard output. It uses the AES (Rijndael) cipher. It can be used as an encryption filter, to create and restore encrypted tar/cpio backup archives and to read/write and convert loop-AES compatible encrypted images. aespipe can be used for non-destructive in-place encryption of existing disk partitions for use with the loop-AES encrypted loop-back kernel module.
-
google-chrome-stable The web browser from Google Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier. I know several people who like the chrome browser a lot—if you haven’t yet, give it a try and see what you think.
→
You can find additional information on these, and many other recently updated packages, by typing yum info recent at the command line.
The Fredericksburg Linux Users Group, meets on the third Monday and last Saturday of each month. The meetings take place at the main Library in Fredericksburg, Virginia, on Caroline Street in Meeting Room 2:
- You can find the FredLUG calendar by going to Google Groups and searching on F-r-e-d-L-U-G. Near the top of the page is a link to the Google calendar containing the meeting schedule. Feel free to import the .ics calendar files from the Files section into your own calendar.
- Besides the FredLUG Google Group, you’re also welcome on the IRC channel pound FredLUG on irc dot freenode dot net.
For Software Freedom Day, a.k.a. SFD, we in FredLUG are doing something different this year, and plans have changed since the last FredPod episode. To celebrate Free and Open Source Software, a.k.a. FOSS, our current plans include:
- Having a table with demos of FOSS outside Colonial Cupcakes at 611 Caroline Street. SFD coincides with a local Oktoberfest celebration, and Colonial Cupcakes is in the area of this seasonal merriment.
- We’ll have Fedora and Ubuntu live CDs, as well as copies of OpenDisc, for the taking; and we hope most of those will be tried out when they get home.
- The artistic talent in FredLUG, has prepared promotional and informational materials, for distribution before and after the event. See our current materials in the Files area of the FredLUG Google Group. Many of us will be wearing T-shirts with a graphic of Tux holding a mug of beer and a cupcake to further sweeten the occasion; we hope the T-shirts will serve as icebreakers allowing us to strike up conversations and promote FOSS.
- We’ll have a secondary back-up location in our usual Meeting Room 2 at the Library. The Library is at the opposite end old town on Caroline Street from
Colonial Cupcakes in Fredericksburg, and we’ll have directions to Colonial Cupcakes for those who stop by the Library.
As a follow-up to SFD, we’ll have an InstallFest the following Saturday, September 25th. Anyone whose interest was sparked at SFD the week before, will receive personalized help installing Linux on their computer. We’ll have plenty of install media, and a kickstart server for rapid network installs.
So, if you like cupcakes and free and open source software—and who doesn’t?—stop by to see us at Colonial Cupcakes on Saturday, September 18th, to indulge your taste buds and digital sweet tooth.
→
Feature
Today’s feature item is look at Mixxx (that’s with 3 x’s), the open source DJ app that provides professional functionality. When you have a chance, take a look at the project’s main site at www.mixxx.org. You can yum-install Mixxx from the rpmfusion-free repository.
The Mixxx webstie provides this brief characterization of the software:
-
-
Complete DJ Solution
Mixxx is a complete package for amateur and professional DJs alike, providing everything you need to create live mixes.
-
New to Djing? They ask.
No problem, they say – Mixxx can run without any extra hardware, and is fully functional replacement for a traditional “turntables and mixer” DJ setup.
-
Experienced DJ? They ask.
-
Mixxx supports advanced features like comprehensive MIDI controller support, vinyl control, and multi-core CPU support.
The Mixxx software has many features to recommend it; among them are:
- Parallel waveform displays
- Waveform summaries
- MP3, OGG, WAVE, and FLAC playback
- Pitch-independent time stretch; you might recall the FredPod episode from May 2010 on the SoX utility, and this is very similar functionality.
- Vinyl emulation
- BPM detection and estimation
- Supports several MIDI controllers.
- Multichannel soundcard support (playback and capture)
- Multiple soundcard support
- Cross-platform (Windows XP and Vista, Mac OS X, Linux)
- Adjustable EQ shelves
- Crossfader curve control
- Skinnable interface with extra skins bundled
- Advanced MIDI scripting engine
- Adjustable pitch range
- Multi-core CPU support
- 24-bit/96000 Hz playback and capture
Mixxx has two parallel players, which you can play at the same time, or keep one player cued to fade the next song over an ending one. It also can be set to play automatically the next song in a play queue for semi-unattended operation.
Each player has controls, that appear as rotary icons that are controlled by clicking and moving the mouse up and down the vertical axis. Those controls are:
- Overall gain for that player, and separate gain controls for High, Mid, and Low frequencies.
- There also are rotary flanger controls for Depth, Delay, and Period. If you’re not familiar with flanging, there’s a good audio demo of it on wikipedia; you can reach it by searching “flanging” on wikipedia or by going to the link in the show notes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_recordings_with_a_flanging_effect
There also are slider switch icons for each channel. Those are labeled “volume” and “tempo.” The volume slider works similar to the overall gain rotary control. The tempo control controls the Pitch-independent time stretch mentioned earlier. The player volume control defaults to the max setting, while the tempo control defaults to the center, that is “no change,” setting.
There is a separate set of controls for master-out. Those are rotary controls for master volume and master balance. There are two rotary controls for headphone output: One for headphone volume and one for mix of headphone and main audio in the headphone output.
A slider control allows fading between the two players to provide greater transition control from one player to the other.
To load a song into a player, just right-click it and select load in Player 1 or 2. The text search for an artist or title works very well.
Among the options to be selected, is the ability to see the time remaining instead of the time played.
For the more advanced features of Mixxx, the manual should be very helpful.
And, oh by the way, don’t forget to rock out!
→
Today’s podcast will close with a Creative Commons licensed work by the Sarah Mac Band entitled “Not Done Yet,“ from Mevio’s Music Alley. Check it out at ‘music.mevio.com’”
