Linux

There was a time when I, like many, covered my Linux desktop in all manner of Screenlets, gDesklets and widgets. I grew out of this, but ‘PlexyDesk‘ – a new widget-toting project, may just light those creative fires on my desktop once more…

So what is it?

PlexyDesk is a Qt/QML powered widget space that ‘covers’ the default desktop space with an alternative that, according to its developers, lets you ‘efficiently use your desktop background.’

The app is cross-platform (Windows, OS X and Linux) and works under most desktop environments, such as KDE, GNOME 2, GNOME 3/Shell and Ubuntu Unity.

What can it do?

With the “app” currently in active development there’s not an awful lot to play with just yet, but what is there is more than promising with: -

• Small selection of widgets (clock, photo frame, file browser)
• Some widgets have extra themes – just right-click to switch between them
• Ability to change desktop wallpaper by dragging and dropping an image on to the desktop
• 3D support
• Themepack support for changing themes (QML)
• Drag and drop adding of new widgets

For the more technically interested PlexyDesk has an ‘API for writing data models and C++ widget plugins’ and GLSL shader support. Is it any good?

Plexy isn’t yet complete or stable but the current snapshot feels quite robust, not crashing once during my play with it. Widgets can be freely moved around the desktop although, somewhat annoyingly, none of these can be removed (nor can extra ones added manually.) You can sort of “hide” widgets by double clicking on them, upon which they turn into a semi-transparent square.

The ease of changing background is nifty, as are the different themes some widgets (such as the clock) have when right-clicked on.

Negatives: the ‘File’ widget is a bit slow and cumbersome to navigate, and certainly fails to beat a scatting of icons on the desktop or a smack of the ‘Super’ button to call up the Unity Dash for intuitiveness, and the lack of variety in the widgets will limit the usefulness of PlexyDesk as a replacement for the most ardent of widget fans.

Some extra widgets (many half finished) are available in ‘/usr/share/plexy/themepack/default’. Adding these to the desktop is a matter of dragging and dropping the relevant .qml file from within the relevant folder on to the desktop.

How to Install Plexydesk in Ubuntu

A daily build PPA – which is unstable and unsuitable for users dependent on Ubuntu running smoothly – provides packages for Ubuntu 10.10, 11.04 and 11.10 users. This PPA only contains one package – PlexyDesk – but does pull in a number of Qt dependencies from the main Ubuntu repositories.

To install PlexyDesk in Ubuntu add the following PPA to your Software Sources, update and then install ‘plexydesk’ from the Ubuntu Software Centre: -

• ppa:plexydesk/plexydesk-dailybuild

Plexydesk homepage

What happens when the classic game of Tetris becomes bound to the laws of physics? Not Tetris 2, is what. 

Not Tetris 2 might look like Tetris, play like Tetris and even sound like Tetris but it is not Tetris as you know it.

In this unofficial – and open source, sssh – spin the classic game of blocks becomes adherent to the laws of physics; falling blocks can still be rotated but if do it too quickly or add too much downward motion you’ll end up with a right royal mess: -

The added dimension of Newton and co’s rules only serves to make gameplay more fiendishly fun, and, the easily frustrated amongst you will be happy to know that lines “clear” when ‘sufficiently filled’; you don’t have to be spot on.

Other features

As with the Gameboy classic that ate up a significant chunk of my childhood (yes, I am that old) there are multiplayer options available. Thankfully these don’t require the purchase of an overpriced link cable to enable battle.

The timeless chiptune soundtrack is also present – B-Type ftw – as are options for adjusting the screen colour and size. A fullscreen option is also available.

Download

Not Tetris 2 is available for Windows, Mac and Linux users and can be downloaded from the NotTetris2 mini-site by hitting the fancy button below:

To game requires the installation of the 2D LÖVE game engine in order to play. LÖVE is available to install in Ubuntu 10.04 onwards through the Ubuntu Software Centre.

 With LÖVE installed, extract the .Zip file and double click on the ‘not tetris 2.love‘ file inside the resulting folder.

Thanks to Tushant M

This is the second articles in a series to explain the basics of Ubuntu Development in a way that does not require huge amounts of background and goes through concepts, tools, processes and infrastructure step by step. If you like the article or have questions or found bugs, please leave a comment.

Getting Set Up

There are a number of things you need to do to get started developing for Ubuntu. This article is designed to get your computer set up so that you can start working with packages, and upload your packages to Ubuntu’s hosting platform, Launchpad. Here’s what we’ll cover:

• Installing packaging-related software. This includes:
  • Ubuntu-specific packaging utilities
  • Encryption software so your work can be verified as being done by you
  • Additional encryption software so you can securely transfer files
• Creating and configuring your account on Launchpad
• Setting up your development environment to help you do local builds of packages, interact with other developers, and propose your changes on Launchpad.

Note

It is advisable to do packaging work using the current development version of Ubuntu. Doing so will allow you to test changes in the same environment where those changes will actually be applied and used.

Don’t worry though, the Ubuntu development release wiki page shows a variety of ways to safely use the development release.

Install basic packaging software

There are a number of tools that will make your life as an Ubuntu developer much easier. You will encounter these tools later in this guide. To install most of the tools you will need run this command:

$ sudo apt-get install gnupg pbuilder ubuntu-dev-tools \ bzr-builddeb apt-file

Note: Since Ubuntu 11.10 “Oneiric Ocelot” (or if you have Backports enabled on a currently supported release), the following command will install the above and other tools which are quite common in Ubuntu development:

$ sudo apt-get install packaging-dev

This command will install the following software:

• gnupg – GNU Privacy Guard contains tools you will need to create a cryptographic key with which you will sign files you want to upload to Launchpad.
• pbuilder – a tool to do a reproducible builds of a package in a clean and isolated environment.
• ubuntu-dev-tools (and devscripts, a direct dependency) – a collection of tools that make many packaging tasks easier.
• bzr-builddeb (and bzr, a dependency) – distributed version control with Bazaar, a new way of working with packages for Ubuntu that will make it easy for many developers to collaborate and work on the same code while keeping it trivial to merge each others work.
• apt-file provides an easy way to find the binary package that contains a given file.
• apt-cache (part of the apt package) provides even more information about packages on Ubuntu.

Create your GPG key

GPG stands for GNU Privacy Guard and it implements the OpenPGP standard which allows you to sign and encrypt messages and files. This is useful for a number of purposes. In our case it is important that you can sign files with your key so they can be identified as something that you worked on. If you upload a source package to Launchpad, it will only accept the package if it can absolutely determine who uploaded the package.

To generate a new GPG key, run:

$ gpg --gen-key

GPG will first ask you which kind of key you want to generate. Choosing the default (RSA and DSA) is fine. Next it will ask you about the keysize. The default (currently 2048) is fine, but 4096 is more secure. Afterward, it will ask you if you want it to expire the key at some stage. It is safe to say “0”, which means the key will never expire. The last questions will be about your name and email address. Just pick the ones you are going to use for Ubuntu development here, you can add additional email addresses later on. Adding a comment is not necessary. Then you will have to set a passphrase, choose a safe one (a passphrase is just a password which is allowed to include spaces).

Now GPG will create a key for you, which can take a little bit of time; it needs random bytes, so if you give the system some work to do it will be just fine. Move the cursor around, type some paragraphs of random text, load some web page.

Once this is done, you will get a message similar to this one:

pub 4096R/43CDE61D 2010-12-06 Key fingerprint = 5C28 0144 FB08 91C0 2CF3 37AC 6F0B F90F 43CD E61D uid Daniel Holbach <dh@mailempfang.de> sub 4096R/51FBE68C 2010-12-06

In this case 43CDE61D is the key ID.

Next, you need to upload the public part of your key to a keyserver so the world can identify messages and files as yours. To do so, enter:

$ gpg --send-keys <KEY ID>

This will send your key to one keyserver, but a network of keyservers will automatically sync the key between themselves. Once this syncing is complete, your signed public key will be ready to verify your contributions around the world. (Note: if you have no default keyserver set, gpg might need the additional --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com arguments in the command above.)

Create your SSH key

SSH stands for Secure Shell, and it is a protocol that allows you to exchange data in a secure way over a network. It is common to use SSH to access and open a shell on another computer, and to use it to securely transfer files. For our purposes, we will mainly be using SSH to securely upload source packages to Launchpad.

To generate an SSH key, enter:

$ ssh-keygen -t rsa

The default file name usually makes sense, so you can just leave it as it is. For security purposes, it is highly recommended that you use a passphrase.

Set up pbuilder

pbuilder allows you to build packages locally on your machine. It serves a couple of purposes:

• The build will be done in a minimal and clean environment. This helps you make sure your builds succeed in a reproducible way, but without modifying your local system
• There is no need to install all necessary build dependencies locally
• You can set up multiple instances for various Ubuntu and Debian releases

Setting pbuilder up is very easy, run:

$ pbuilder-dist <release> create

where <release> is for example natty, maverick, lucid or in the case of Debian maybe sid. This will take a while as it will download all the necessary packages for a “minimal installation”. These will be cached though.

Get set up to work with Launchpad

With a basic local configuration in place, your next step will be to configure your system to work with Launchpad. This section will focus on the following topics:

• What Launchpad is and creating a Launchpad account
• Uploading your GPG and SSH keys to Launchpad
• Configuring Bazaar to work with Launchpad
• Configuring Bash to work with Bazaar

About Launchpad

Launchpad is the central piece of infrastructure we use in Ubuntu. It not only stores our packages and our code, but also things like translations, bug reports, and information about the people who work on Ubuntu and their team memberships. You will also use Launchpad to publish your proposed fixes, and get other Ubuntu developers to review and sponsor them.

You will need to register with Launchpad and provide a minimal amount of information. This will allow you to download and upload code, submit bug reports, and more.

Besides hosting Ubuntu, Launchpad can host any Free Software project. For more information see the Launchpad Help wiki.

Get a Launchpad account

If you don’t already have a Launchpad account, you can easily create one. If you have a Launchpad account but cannot remember your Launchpad id, you can find this out by going to https://launchpad.net/~ and looking for the part after the ~ in the URL.

Launchpad’s registration process will ask you to choose a display name. It is encouraged for you to use your real name here so that your Ubuntu developer colleagues will be able to get to know you better.

When you register a new account, Launchpad will send you an email with a link you need to open in your browser in order to verify your email address. If you don’t receive it, check in your spam folder.

The new account help page on Launchpad has more information about the process and additional settings you can change.

Upload your GPG key to Launchpad

To find about your GPG fingerprint, run:

$ gpg --fingerprint <email@address.com>

and it will print out something like:

pub 4096R/43CDE61D 2010-12-06 Key fingerprint = 5C28 0144 FB08 91C0 2CF3 37AC 6F0B F90F 43CD E61D uid Daniel Holbach <dh@mailempfang.de> sub 4096R/51FBE68C 2010-12-06

Head to https://launchpad.net/~/+editpgpkeys and copy the “Key fingerprint” into the text box. In the case above this would be 5C28 0144 FB08 91C0 2CF3  37AC 6F0B F90F 43CD E61D. Now click on “Import Key”.

Launchpad will use the fingerprint to check the Ubuntu key server for your key and, if successful, send you an encrypted email asking you to confirm the key import. Check your email account and read the email that Launchpad sent you. If your email client supports OpenPGP encryption, it will prompt you for the password you chose for the key when GPG generated it. Enter the password, then click the link to confirm that the key is yours.

Launchpad encrypts the email, using your public key, so that it can be sure that the key is yours. If your email software does not support OpenPGP encryption, copy the encrypted email’s contents, type gpg in your terminal, then paste the email contents into your terminal window.

Back on the Launchpad website, use the Confirm button and Launchpad will complete the import of your OpenPGP key.

Find more information at https://help.launchpad.net/YourAccount/ImportingYourPGPKey

Upload your SSH key to Launchpad

Open https://launchpad.net/~/+editsshkeys in a web browser, also open ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub in a text editor. This is the public part of your SSH key, so it is safe to share it with Launchpad. Copy the contents of the file and paste them into the text box on the web page that says “Add an SSH key”. Now click “Import Public Key”.

For more information on this process, visit the creating an SSH keypair page on Launchpad.

Configure Bazaar

Bazaar is the tool we use to store code changes in a logical way, to exchange proposed changes and merge them, even if development is done concurrently. It is used for the new Ubuntu Distributed Development method of working with Ubuntu packages.

To tell Bazaar who you are, simply run:

$ bzr whoami "Bob Dobbs <subgenius@example.com>" $ bzr launchpad-login subgenius

whoami will tell Bazaar which name and email address it should use for your commit messages. With launchpad-login you set your Launchpad ID. This way code that you publish in Launchpad will be associated with you.

Note: If you can not remember the ID, go to https://launchpad.net/~ and see where it redirects you. The part after the “~” in the URL is your Launchpad ID.)

Configure your shell

Similar to Bazaar, the Debian/Ubuntu packaging tools need to learn about you as well. Simply open your ~/.bashrc in a text editor and add something like this to the bottom of it:

$ export DEBFULLNAME="Bob Dobbs" $ export DEBEMAIL="subgenius@example.com"

Now save the file and either restart your terminal or run:

$ source ~/.bashrc

(If you do not use the default shell, which is bash, please edit the configuration file for that shell accordingly.)

The H har et interessant intervju med Jeremy Allison, en av hovedpersonene bak Samba. Samba brukes i både Linux og OS X for å dele filer i nettverk, også med Windows-maskiner. Mye av innholdet er nostalgiske tilbakeblikk, men det gir også litt perspektiv på hvor langt man har kommet på mindre enn 15 år, og hvorfor man ikke nødvendigvis må være størst på skrivebordet for å kunne si at fri programvare har lykkes.

les mer

You can have your GTK2 cake and eat it with the following theme – it combines elements for Ubuntu’s default Ambiance theme with the light-tones of Ubuntu’s Radiance theme.

The theme was created by DeviantArt user ~simplygreat, whose previous work includes a dark toolbar mod for Nautilus Elementary.

The theme, which currently lacks a name, is in development and requires the installation of the “Equinox” GTK engine.

Unity users should note that whilst the theme was not designed for the Unity desktop it does work okay under it.

Nautilus-Elementary is required for parts of the theme to display correctly.

Download | simplygreat.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d48s694

Although the Ubuntu 11.10 development cycle has already seen an improvement to Ubuntu’s “aero-snap” feature by way of a throbbing golden effect, an improved and more visually-informative animation could yet find its way into Oneiric before release.

The new effect replaces the ‘coloured outline’ animation currently used in Ubuntu 11.04 and 11.10 beta by fading in a blurred screenshot of the window to be ‘maximised’.

It might sound like a minor cosmetic change but being able to essentially ‘preview’ the effect of the ‘snap’ on the content inside the window before you apply it you can better make a choice about whether or not it will impact or improve your workflow.

The  subtle effect of “fading” the window out when backing away from the edge without releasing the window will help inform you that you’re no longer in danger of activating the ‘snap’ should you release the window.

If you’re still not following – and admittedly it’s an effect better seen than read – hit play on the video below: -

The bug related to this issue has been tagged ‘backlog’. If it doesn’t manage to find a way in to the release of Oneiric in October, the April release of 12.04 should certainly play home to it.

#689792 via Scott on Google+

How many days are left until the release of Ubuntu 11.10? 

If that’s a question you cannot live without knowing the answer to (or if you just want to ramp up some excitement ahead of the release) the following ‘Ubuntu Countdown’ widget for Android devices serves that niche admirably: it counts down the days remaining until the next Ubuntu release.

There are extra options for the tweaker’s amongst you, including two sizes of widgets (1×1 and 2×2), light and dark themes (how very Ubuntu) and the option to set a custom date (maybe you want to count down to the next Beta).

Download

The widget is available to download from Android Marketplace for the always-awesome price of  nothing.

Either snap or click the QR code below to head over to the Android Market to grab the widget.

 

The new Ubuntu Software Centre icon present in Ubuntu 11.10 seems to have few fans – but is it really that bad?

Appreciation of any graphic – be it icon, wallpaper or other – is always going to be a subjective call. And whilst it’s not a general rule that the more people like something the better it is (or vice versa) indications as to the general group taste can often be gleaned from “listening to the masses”.

Why the need for a new icon?

To accompany the Software Centre revamp the Ubuntu Design Team sought to create a new icon based on the brief of “an attractive shopping bag with handles, such as you might get from a high-class department store.”

The icon that was created was this bright beauty:

When compared against the “old” Software Centre icon (pictured below) it’s easy to see which of the two looks more in keeping with the new look of the store. The paper bag of the original infers ’a convenience store of essentials’ rather than ‘a mall of must haves’.

But i’m unconvinced that the new icon conveys the notion of an “App Centre”  – let alone one full of fantastic apps – as well as the one it’s replacing.

For a start the icon is mostly just “plain orange bag”, and at smaller sizes even the “bag” aspect becomes barely legible.Whilst bag = shopping and thusly shopping = apps, it’s just a bit too much bag for such a small icon; the emphasis should be on the “Apps” element.

Then there are the “applications” flying out of the carrier: these look rather obtuse and, unless you were au fait with the stock Humanity/GNOME icons, rather nondescript too.

Jeremy Bicha wrote the following in a bug report filed against the icon (bug #834204), and it made me chuckle: -

When I go shopping, I don’t have stuff floating in the air and a bright white light streaming out of the bag but I may have my bag overflowing because there’s so much good stuff to get and I can only carry a few bags…

It’s a fair point, although I assume the “white light streaming out” aspect is supposed to convey there being a ‘whole world of apps’ inside (i.e. by clicking on) the icon.

But does the icon sell the “Apps” aspect as well as it could? Judging by other App Centre/Store/marketplace icons it’s conforming an emerging app store mime: -

Proposal

In the big report mentioned above Daniel Planas Armangue presented his proposal for a replacement icon: -

(Daniel’s first language is not English, hence the spelling errors in his image)

His mock-up adds the much-needed “App” association through the badging of ‘tools’ to the front of the shopping bag.Using this iconography is a superior approach to placing an Ubuntu logo – or a plain front – as it tells me the icon is related to “doing stuff” (ergo “applications”) rather than it’s something related to the OS itself.

Sadly the positioning/angle of the bag in Daniel’s design is a bit unfortunate (it resembles a brief case) and the app icons used around the top of the design are more nondescript than the actual icon its proposes to replace.

Which icon do you prefer? How would you approach designing an icon for the Ubuntu Software Centre? Let us know below.

The latest updates to Ubuntu’s default themes in Oneiric have, thankfully, sorted out some of the various issues the Radiance theme when with the new-look Ubuntu Software Centre.

The result is pretty…

…but still not an equal match for that of Ambiance; the gradient just doesn’t seem – no pun intended – as seamless.

Another minor difference brought with the recent update: navigation arrows now use icons from your system theme.

Germany has lifted a 17 year ban restricting the sale of classic video game ‘Doom’ to adults only.

Doom, along with its sequel Doom II, were banned in Germany back in 1994 as authorities considered the game ’likely to harm youth‘ due to ‘drastic portrayals of violence’ within the game.

It’s this high level of violence and gore that has ensured ‘Doom’ continues to feature in lists of the most controversial video games of all time.

“Crude Graphics”

So why the change?

The ‘Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons’ (known as the ‘Bundesprüfstelle‘ in Germany) adjusted the restriction on the sale of Doom following an appeal by the current owner of id Software, the company which originally created the game.

They (the owners of id Software) argued that the ‘crude graphics‘ in the game, when compared to modern gaming, had lessened the impact of the violence in the game. Agreeing in part that this was true, Bundesprüfstelle also felt that the game was now unlikely to be played by children and held ‘a historical interest’ to gamers.

The American version of Doom II, which incorporates levels of Wolfenstein 3D, remains on the controlled list due to the Nazi imagery used throughout the game.

Chocolate Doom

To ‘toast’ the lifting of the ban instructions follow for installing the ‘historically accurate’ Doom port “Chocolate Doom“.

Chocolate Doom remains faithful to the original version as far as possible, opting to shun the addition of extra levels in favour of remaining within the limitations of the original.

Chocolate Doom can be installed on Ubuntu 10.04, 10.10 and 11.04 by adding the following PPA to Software Sources, updating and then install ‘Chocolate Doom’ from the Ubuntu Software Centre: -

• ppa:pmjdebruijn/chocolate-doom-release

 

Chrome has them, Firefox has them and, soon, so will GNOME 3. What am I wittering on about? Web apps.

GNOME Web Apps

The late September release of GNOME 3.2 will provide, amongst others updates and features, a “web application mode” for GNOME’s default web browser ‘Epiphany‘.

The GNOME approach to creating web apps is simple: you save website as a web app via a menu entry or by pressing CTRL+A. Web apps created this way behave just like a traditional app on the GNOME desktop: they can be launched from the Activities overview, pinned to favourites, etc.

GNOME Web apps sport a minimal interface, displaying not a jot more than a title bar and your chosen site.

Neater still, GNOME web apps become independent of Epiphany and run as a separate process: if Epiphany crashes or freezes your web app will remain unaffected.

Web apps are also sandboxed; if you try to follow a link within the web app that goes to a different website or service that link will, instead, open up in Epiphany and thus not affect your web app.

More information on this feature, along with credit for the images used above, can be found @ blogs.gnome.org

Ubuntu friendly wallpaper changing app ‘Wallch‘ has added support for 64bit Ubuntu users in its latest release. 

Wallch – short for Wallpaper Changer – lets you configure when and how to change your wallpaper, and what to change it to; you add as many wallpapers as you like, order them in a queue or have them change at random at a chosen interval.

Other changes in the latest version include a new application icon, updated translations and a fix for the Live Earth wallpaper not changing correctly.

Although all of the changes are to be welcomed, particularly support for 64bit users, there are regressions too. For example, the Unity Quicklist, which contained controls for changing wallpaper from the Unity Launcher, has vanished.

Edit: No it hasn’t. If, like me, you don’t see the Unity Quicklist after installing just log out, log back in and re-pin Wallch to the Launcher.

 Download

Ubuntu 11.04 users willing to upgrade/install the latest release should add the PPA below to their Software Sources, update and then install Wallch from the Ubuntu Software Centre:

• ppa:wallch/wallch-gnome2

Ubuntu 11.10 users can install Wallch from the Ubuntu Software Centre.

The first beta release of Ubuntu 11.10 has been made available for download – but what can you expect to find?

If you’ve been following the development of Ubuntu 11.10 either here on OMG! Ubuntu! or by being brave and testing the various Alpha releases then you won’t find a great many surprises in the recap below – so here’s the download button ;)

But for those new to camp Oneiric Ocelot (that’s the codename for Ubuntu 11.10), here’s a quick look at some of our favourite changes from Ubuntu 11.04 to now.

Do remember that Ubuntu 11.10 is still in development; what you see below is not representative of the final product due mid-October.

Ubuntu 11.10 Beta Installation

The Ubuntu installer remains a straightforward and user-friendly process. A new ‘user photo’ step is presented during the set-up which allows you to choose or take a picture (using your webcam) for use as your user picture. Later on you’ll see just why having a user picture matters…

New login screen

Ubuntu 11.10 now uses a different technology for displaying the login screen called ‘LightDM’. This change has allowed the Ubuntu design team to craft an entirely new greeter fitted out with slick effects and an even slicker look.

On the whole LightDM works as it should, although I did detect some noticeable lag when using it on my netbook. On my desktop the greeter worked well.

Applications

The default application set has been updated and upgraded. You’ll find the following sitting pretty in the beta: -

• GNOME 3 and associated packages (nautilus, eog etc)
• Firefox 7 (beta)
• LibreOffice 3.4.2
• Shotwell photo manager (with hierarchal tags)
• Rewritten Gwibber
• Revamped Ubuntu Software Centre

The Dash

Ubuntu 11.10 builds upon the interface changes introduced in Ubuntu 11.04. Refinements to the Unity interface are apparent: a new look ‘Dash’ ‘triggered’ by a new look launcher-based button are the most visible.

The Dash now has its own window controls, positioned at the top left-hand of the screen, which allow you to maximize the Dash, return it to “half screen” or close it. Fiddly on a touchscreen, but I’ve no need to continually resize the Dash anyway.

In this Beta I experienced a few performance issues with the Dash including lag and weird looking layered icons in search results. If you’re testing don’t expect a perfectly polished performance just yet.

Lenses

‘Lenses’  provide you with a quick way to search for specific files or information. For Ubuntu 11.10 they have been moved from individual items placed on the Unity Launcher and integrated into the Dash itself. From here Lenses can be selected using the “tabbed” strip of icons towards the bottom of the Dash.

The File and Application Lenses have been brought over to the Dash, and a new Music lens added.

All three have various filtering options: -

• Filter Applications by category and Ubuntu Software Centre star rating
• Filter Files by Date created, size or type?
• Filter Music by date or genre

Personally, I haven’t used ‘Genre’ for filtering my music collection since, well ever. The local record shop used to filter by Genre and it was damn annoying…

Star rating filters 

Applications can be searched by star rankings. Am I really going to have a need to solely find 3 and a 1/2 star music? It seems like a neat solution to have, but it’s one seeking a problem to solve, too.

“OH NOES!!1 NO WINDOW CONTROLS!!1″

The most controversial change present in the Beta is the hiding of window controls on maximized window by default.

When an application window is maximized the window controls, to much controversy, hide by default. Although you only need to mouse over top the panel to access them, many early adopters have reacted negatively to the change citing it as ‘unintuitive‘ and potentially confusing to newcomers.

“Oh, you have to move the arrow to the top of the screen [to see Window Controls]. Odd.”

Whilst the “change” is odd, and a bit daft, I’m rather content with it. But to better help guage whether or not it on the fail side of, well, fail, I hijacked some of the family present at my mothers 70th birthday celebration in order to find out what “casual computer users” – 2 of whom use Windows XP, 1 uses Windows 7 and 1 uses OS X – make of the change…

The Task: Using Ubuntu 11.10, I asked them to close a maximised Firefox window. 

After a few titters at comments such as “This version of Windows looks nice/I like the pretty thing on the side/Is this that new ‘My Windows 7?’”  they got down to completing the task.

Result? All managed it – and all fairly quickly.

I was surprising that all managed to complete the simple task – including my 69 year old Auntie. Only one of my guinea pigs ‘went to the top’ of the screen instantly (the mac user). The rest spent a good few seconds sprinting around the screen with the mouse cursor until the buttons revealed themselves. As soon as they saw the buttons they knew what they did and, when asked to repeat the process 30 mins and 1 sherry later, they all remembered exactly where to find the buttons and how to “reveal” them.

Of course, this unscientific study doesn’t prove that this approach is the right one, and with enough time anyone would uncover the window control buttons eventually, ut it does go some way to show that if non-Ubuntu users can adapt fairly quickly to this change then long-term users of the OS can too. It’s a bit odd, but it’s really rather trivial in the end.

Little things that count

Aside from the big, bold and easily noticeable changes come a raft of smaller UI tweaks and fixes that are worth mentioning: -

The Battery Indicator now works. An option to display battery time remaining/until charge on the panel can be toggled through the Battery menu.

The “Device Menu is a new addition, housing a new icon and various new options, including attached devices and system update status

New User Menu with Avatars and Guest user switching: -

Messaging menu with “clear” option lets you acknowledge new tweets, e-mails or IM chats without having to actually open the corresponding app. So simple, yet so welcome.

When launching Banshee through the Sound Menu the ‘Play’ button displays a new rounded loading animation. In Ubuntu 11.04 the Play button would simply ‘pulse’.

This is a guest post from Daniel Holbach, who will be posting updates about Ubuntu Development. (Original Post).

Ubuntu Development Update

The Ubuntu 11.10 release is coming closer and closer. Only six weeks left until release! So how are things looking?

This week Beta 1 will be released and testing efforts are going to ramped up. In two weeks the kernel and the documentation text will be frozen and in three weeks Beta 2 will get out the door. You know what this means: test Oneiric and file bugs. This is a good opportunity to get the last bugs ironed out and 11.10 in tip-top shape.

Another activity a lot developers put time into right now is NBS (Not Built from Source). This is an effort to clean the archive and make sure that there’s no packages that are no longer built by any source. Sometimes this mismatch is caused by packages that haven’t followed a library transition or were didn’t follow an upstream renaming. As you can imagine with several ten thousands of packages this is a hard task to tackle. The current TODO list looks much better than a few weeks ago, but still there’s a few things that need to be done. Unfortunately this is not suitable task for very new contributors, as it often requires adapting portions of the code to a new API, etc.

Related to this, you can see how the number of packages that failed to build was brought down considerably in the last weeks. Congratulations everyone!

There’s still a number of bugs on the radar for Beta 2, but most of them are assigned already, so we’re well on track. If you’re interested in any other aspect of Ubuntu Oneiric, I’d refer you to the oneiric-changes mailing list and the big picture specification status overview instead.

Events

Ubuntu Global Jam

Do you have plans for this weekend? No? Excellent! We have one of the coolest events of the whole cycle coming up: Ubuntu Global Jam. Local Community teams around the world are coming together to have a good time on work on Ubuntu directly: translations, bugs, packaging, documentation, testing, documentation – everything goes! Check out the list of participating events to find out where to go, or set up an impromptu event yourself! It will be a bit of last-minute organisation, but still it’ll be worth it and loads of fun!

Ubuntu App Developer Week

Next week (5th-9th September) we will see yet another fantastic Ubuntu App Developer Week happening. If you love Ubuntu and want to develop great apps for it, this is exactly what you’ve been waiting for! Here’s a quick taster of what the event will cover:

• Monday: Making Ubuntu a Target for App Developers, Introducing Bazaar Explorer: Version Control for your Apps, Your App & Launchpad best practice, Publishing Your Apps in the Software Center: the MyApps Portal, Universal GRUB Recovery
• Tuesday: Creating a Grooveshark Scope for the Music Lens, The Making of Unity 2D, Making App Development Easy: Gedit Developer Plugins, Getting Started With Python: a Hello World App, Publishing Your Apps in the Software Center: The App Review Board
• Wednesday: Unity Mail: Webmail Notification on Your Desktop, Launchpad Daily Builds and Rapid Feedback: Writing Recipe Builds, Using the Ubuntu One APIs for Your Apps: An Overview, Supercharging Your Apps with Unity Launcher Integration, Hello Vala: An Introduction to the Vala Language
• Thursday: Creating an App Developer Website: developer.ubuntu.com, Rapid App Development with Quickly, Developing with Freeform Design Surfaces: GooCanvas and PyGame, Practical Ubuntu One Files Integration, Will it Blend? Python Libraries for Desktop Integration
• Friday: Getting A Grip on Your Apps: Multitouch on GTK apps using Libgrip, Making Your App Speak Languages with Launchpad Translations, Making your app appear in the Indicators, Publishing Your Apps in the Software Center: The Business Side, Writing an App with Go.

Isn’t that fantastic? Sign up for the Facebook event and start discussing your app plans!

Things that still need to get done

If you want to get involved in packaging and bug fixing, there’s still a lot of bugs that need to get fixed:

• There’s packages that fail to build.
• Also is the Ubuntu Mozilla team looking for help, so if you’re excited about Mozilla and what’s happening there, join IRC, talk to the guys on #ubuntu-mozillateam on irc.freenode.net.
• And then there’s Security bugs you can take a look at, the team is a friendly bunch and they’re incredibly helpful in getting your patch reviewed.
• Also is the Server team interested in your help: merges from Debian is one possibility, fixing important bugs another.

First timers!

We had two first-time contributors last week! Congratulations to these fine people: Alex Solanos and Gang Wei. Awesome!

New contributor

I had a chat with Oliver Sauder, here’s what he has to say about his experience developing Ubuntu.

Who am I?
Well, I have been an open source and Linux user for quite a while. First few years dual booting Linux with Windows (for different reasons). However, since the first Ubuntu version has been released in 2004 I got rid of Windows altogether in favor of Ubuntu. Since then I haven’t missed any Ubuntu release .

In 2006 I’ve finished my Computer Science degree in Switzerland. Thenceforth working for several companies. First involved in low level programming such as implementing printer drivers and different network protocols in C/C++. From there on moving into the Web sphere and also diving into the world of Java and its surrounding technologies.

All the while long I have been involved in different open source projects, mainly bug fixing but also starting some projects such as Diodon. Unfortunately, as my job is very time consuming I can not spent as much time as I would like to. Hope to change this in the future.

The Ubuntu community:
Working in the Ubuntu community has been a real pleasure. Personally I benefit the most of the code reviews where experienced developers take a look at my changes and give constructive and helpful comments. Thumbs up. Furthermore, questions are allowed; even encouraged, which makes working in the community a pleasant experience.

What could be improved?
Some parts of Ubuntu are very fast moving targets which is great. However, it makes it difficult for occasional contributors to keep up the pace. Therefore good documentation and source code comments are essential.

In comparison to other projects Ubuntu has always had a big amount of good documentation. However it has been a bit cluttered which makes it sometimes difficult to find the right part. Some initiatives to clean up and summarize the documentation have been made which improved the situation a lot (e.g. “Improve packaging guide” to only mention one). Hope to see more of such initiatives in the future.

To close up I’m looking forward contributing more in the Ubuntu community and excited to see where Ubuntu is heading to.

Get Involved

1. Read the Introduction to Ubuntu Development. It’s a short article which will help you understand how Ubuntu is put together, how the infrastructure is used and how we interact with other projects.
2. Follow the instructions in the Getting Set Up article. A few simple commands, a registration at Launchpad and you should have all the tools you need, and you’re ready to go.
3. Check out our instructions for how to fix a bug in Ubuntu, they come with small examples that make it easier to visualise what exactly you need to do.

Find something to work on

Pick a bitesize bug. These are the bugs we think should be easy to fix. Another option is to help out in one of our initiatives.

• Help out with the dh_python2 porting.
• Help out with fixing packages that don’t build anymore.
• Help out with security bugs.
• Help out with NBS (a more advanced task).

In addition to that there are loads more opportunities over at Harvest.

Getting in touch

There are many different ways to contact Ubuntu developers and get your questions answered.

• Be interactive and reach us most immediately: talk to us in #ubuntu-motu on irc.freenode.net.
• Follow mailing lists and get involved in the discussions: ubuntu-devel-announce (announce only, low traffic), ubuntu-devel (high-level discussions), ubuntu-devel-discuss (fairly general developer discussions).
• Stay up to date and follow the ubuntudev account on Facebook, Identi.ca or Twitter.

Kernel.org has been compromised by an intruder gaining root access to parts of their infrastructure which hosts the kernel source code. 

A number of servers have been accessed, apparently via compromised user credentials. The intruder installed several rootkits and monitored user activity.

The intrusion went unnoticed for almost a month until the kernel.org staff discovered it on August 28th. The staff reassured the community in a blog post on kernel.org, stating that the actual repositories themselves are unaffected.

“While we currently believe that the source code repositories were unaffected, we are in the process of verifying this and taking steps to enhance security across the kernel.org infrastructure.”

So the Linux kernel itself is okay?

Kernel.org explains that the Linux kernel is unaffected in this security breach:

“The Linux community and kernel.org take the security of the kernel.org domain extremely seriously, and are pursuing all avenues to investigate this attack and prevent future ones.

However, it’s also useful to note that the potential damage of cracking kernel.org is far less than typical software repositories. That’s because kernel development takes place using the git distributed revision control system, designed by Linus Torvalds. For each of the nearly 40,000 files in the Linux kernel, a cryptographically secure SHA-1 hash is calculated to uniquely define the exact contents of that file.

Git is designed so that the name of each version of the kernel depends upon the complete development history leading up to that version. Once it is published, it is not possible to change the old versions without it being noticed.”

The staff are taking no risks and have implemented a variety of measures to fix the problem, have notified authorities, and are working on preventing this sort of breach in the future.

They list what they’ve done so far as a response to the security breach:

• We have currently taken boxes off line to do a backup and are in the process of doing complete reinstalls.
• We have notified authorities in the United States and in Europe to assist with the investigation
• We will be doing a full reinstall on all boxes on kernel.org
• We are in the process of doing an analysis on the code within git, and the tarballs to confirm that nothing has been modified

You can read more about the security breach over in the news section on kernel.org.

Thanks to James Stradling | via Twitter

GTK themes are like sports teams: everyone has a favourite. 

I can’t get enough of Ubuntu’s default theme Ambiance, but if you’re bored by the stock style of Ubuntu, the Bisigi Project provide 15 well-thought out themes for easy installation in Ubuntu 10.04, 10.10 and, now, Ubuntu 11.04 too.

All of the themes provided by the Bisigi project come with a GTK theme, wallpaper, Metacity or Emerald window border and theme-specific icons.

For the most part these themes are pretty and cohesive in style. With the Bisigi project having been around for a number of years now some of the themes do show their age a little. Airlines, for example, uses the “old” style ubuntu logo on the Dash button, and the ‘Ubuntu Sunrise’ theme is centred around the colour orange.

Minor quibbles, but quibbles nonetheless.

Download

To install the themes in Ubuntu 11.04 or prior you’ll need to add ’ppa:bisigi/ppa‘ to your Software Sources. After updating, themes can be installed individually through the Ubuntu Software Centre by searching out the theme names (eco-theme, airlines-theme, aquadreams-theme, balanzan-theme, bamboo-zen-theme, ellanna-theme, exotic-theme, showtime-theme, orange-theme, infinity-theme, split-theme, step-into-freedom-theme, tropical-theme, ubuntu-sunrise-theme, wild-shine-theme): -

Alternatively you can install all of the themes – and their various other dependencies, so be warned – by installing the ‘bisigi-themes‘ package.

More than 40 community wallpapers have been shortlisted for inclusion in Ubuntu 11.10.

CD size contraints mean that it is unlikely all 44 wallpapers will ship on the Ubuntu CD. Ubuntu’s Ian Farrell, who oversees the bi-annual wallpaper contest, has said he aims to get as many into the final release on October 13th as possible – so if you have a favourite keep your fingers crossed!

The Ubuntu Community Wallpaper contest is run each cycle and allows users to submit photo and illustrative wallpapers for potential inclusion in Ubuntu by default.

Download

A .zip containing all 44 of the shortlisted wallpapers can be downloaded at bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-wallpapers/+bug/829213

 

This is the first articles in a series to explain the basics of Ubuntu Development in a way that does not require huge amounts of background and goes through concepts, tools, processes and infrastructure step by step. If you like the article or have questions or found bugs, please leave a comment.

Introduction to Ubuntu Development

Ubuntu is made up of thousands of different components, written in many different programming languages. Every component – be it a software library, a tool or a graphical application – is available as a source package. Source packages in most cases consist of two parts: the actual source code and metadata. Metadata includes the dependencies of the package, copyright and licensing information, and instructions on how to build the package. Once this source package is compiled, the build process provides binary packages, which are the .deb files users can install.

Every time a new version of an application is released, or when someone makes a change to the source code that goes into Ubuntu, the source package must be uploaded to Launchpad’s build machines to be compiled. The resulting binary packages then are distributed to the archive and its mirrors in different countries. The URLs in /etc/apt/sources.list point to an archive or mirror. Every day CD images are built for a selection of different Ubuntu flavours. Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Server, Kubuntu and others specify a list of required packages that get on the CD. These CD images are then used for installation tests and provide the feedback for further release planning.

Ubuntu’s development is very much dependent on the current stage of the release cycle. We release a new version of Ubuntu every six months, which is only possible because we have established strict freeze dates. With every freeze date that is reached developers are expected to make fewer, less intrusive changes. Feature Freeze is the first big freeze date after the first half of the cycle has passed. At this stage features must be largely implemented. The rest of the cycle is supposed to be focused on fixing bugs. After that the user interface, then the documentation, the kernel, etc. are frozen, then the beta release is put out which receives a lot of testing. From the beta release onwards, only critical bugs get fixed and a release candidate release is made and if it does not contain any serious problems, it becomes the final release.

Thousands of source packages, billions of lines of code, hundreds of contributors require a lot of communication and planning to maintain high standards of quality. At the beginning of each release cycle we have the Ubuntu Developer Summit where developers and contributors come together to plan the features of the next releases. Every feature is discussed by its stakeholders and a specification is written that contains detailed information about its assumptions, implementation, the necessary changes in other places, how to test it and so on. This is all done in an open and transparent fashion, so even if you can not attend the event in person, you can participate remotely and listen to a streamcast, chat with attendants and subscribe to changes of specifications, so you are always up to date.

Not every single change can be discussed in a meeting though, particularly because Ubuntu relies on changes that are done in other projects. That is why contributors to Ubuntu constantly stay in touch. Most teams or projects use dedicated mailing lists to avoid too much unrelated noise. For more immediate coordination, developers and contributers use Internet Relay Chat (IRC). All discussions are open and public.

Another important tool regarding communication is bug reports. Whenever a defect is found in a package or piece of infrastructure, a bug report is filed in Launchpad. All information is collected in that report and its importance, status and assignee updated when necessary. This makes it an effective tool to stay on top of bugs in a package or project and organise the workload.

Most of the software available through Ubuntu is not written by Ubuntu developers themselves. Most of it is written by developers of other Open Source projects and then integrated into Ubuntu. These projects are called “Upstreams”, because their source code flows into Ubuntu, where we “just” integrate it. The relationship to Upstreams is critically important to Ubuntu. It is not just code that Ubuntu gets from Upstreams, but it is also that Upstreams get users, bug reports and patches from Ubuntu (and other distributions).

The most important Upstream for Ubuntu is Debian. Debian is the distribution that Ubuntu is based on and many of the design decisions regarding the packaging infrastructure are made there. Traditionally, Debian has always had dedicated maintainers for every single package or dedicated maintenance teams. In Ubuntu there are teams that have an interest in a subset of packages too, and naturally every developer has a special area of expertise, but participation (and upload rights) generally is open to everyone who demonstrates ability and willingness.

Getting a change into Ubuntu as a new contributor is not as daunting as it seems and can be a very rewarding experience. It is not only about learning something new and exciting, but also about sharing the solution and solving a problem for millions of users out there.

Open Source Development happens in a distributed world with different goals and different areas of focus. For example there might be the case that a particular Upstream might be interested in working on a new big feature while Ubuntu, because of the tight release schedule, might be interested in shipping a solid version with just an additional bug fix. That is why we make use of “Distributed Development”, where code is being worked on in various branches that are merged with each other after code reviews and sufficient discussion.

In the example mentioned above it would make sense to ship Ubuntu with the existing version of the project, add the bugfix, get it into Upstream for their next release and ship that (if suitable) in the next Ubuntu release. It would be the best possible compromise and a situation where everybody wins.

To fix a bug in Ubuntu, you would first get the source code for the package, then work on the fix, document it so it is easy to understand for other developers and users, then build the package to test it. After you have tested it, you can easily propose the change to be included in the current Ubuntu development release. A developer with upload rights will review it for you and then get it integrated into Ubuntu.

When trying to find a solution it is usually a good idea to check with Upstream and see if the problem (or a possible solution) is known already and, if not, do your best to make the solution a concerted effort.

Additional steps might involve getting the change backported to an older, still supported version of Ubuntu and forwarding it to Upstream.

The most important requirements for success in Ubuntu development are: having a knack for “making things work again,” not being afraid to read documentation and ask questions, being a team player and enjoying some detective work.

Good places to ask your questions are ubuntu-motu-mentors@lists.ubuntu.com and #ubuntu-motu on irc.freenode.net. You will easily find a lot of new friends and people with the same passion that you have: making the world a better place by making better Open Source software.

Update: Here’s Part 2 of Introduction to Ubuntu Development.

The latest version of photo-management application Shotwell – which added hierarchal tags and BMP support - has been “backported” to Ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10. 

Martin Wimpress is the awesome individual who maintains and packages Shotwell in a PPA for Ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10 users.

Why? He explains:-

I created this PPA because I run Lucid at home and wanted the new version of Shotwell. Sadly, Yorba aren’t going to provide new Shotwell packages for Lucid due to the reasons discussed in the following ticket

How to Install Shotwell 0.11 on Ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10

Installing/upgrading to Shotwell 0.11 in Lucid and Maverick requires the addition of two PPAs: Martin’s Shotwell PPA and the GStreamer PPA. If you’re interested as to why this is now the case you can refer to this ticket, other wise you can move on to installing.

Open a new Terminal window and enter each of the following lines separately, hitting the enter/return ket after each and putting in your password where required:

•  sudo apt-add-repository ppa:flexiondotorg/shotwell
•  sudo apt-add-repository ppa:gstreamer-developers/ppa
•  sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
•  sudo apt-get install shotwell

You can now open Shotwell via the Applications > Graphics sub-menu.

Edit: There appears to be a package conflict at the present time, so hold off on upgrading just yet. 

Thanks to Martin

Have you tried an Ubuntu cola?

It might sound like an odd question, but if you’re British, Swedish, Norwegian, Belgian, Irish or French then there’s every possibility you have…

Ubuntu Cola

Jolly big disclaimer time: Ubuntu cola is not related to, endorsed by or otherwise connected to the operating system or Canonical. 

Ubuntu Cola was the first UK ‘cola’ to be badged with the ‘Fairtrade’ logo thanks to its use of Fairtrade sugar from co-operatives in Malawi and Zambia. 15% from the sale of each can goes directly to the African communities that help make it, via the Ubuntu Africa Programme.

Whilst I’ve known about Ubuntu Cola almost as long as the operating system itself, little did I know that this legendary drink (as no-one else is calling it) is not only available to buy in my own country but created here.

Where to Buy

Ubuntu Cola can be purchased in various independent, ethical and whole food retailers around Europe and select cities in the USA. See the official site to find a stockist near you.

Several online websites also carry the drink, including ethicalsuperstore.com and thedrinkshop.com.

For UK users the easiest place to find a can is in “upmarket” supermarket chain Waitrose, where a can of the good stuff costs 60p – a single penny more than a can of “proper” Coca Cola.

If any kind of Cola is going to taste nice, it’s going to be Ubuntu Cola, right?

Ubuntu Cola | Waitrose

Have you tried Ubuntu Cola? What did you think? Let us know in the commen-toes below-ha…

Super thanks to Jamie Luckett