sudo apt-get install lsb-release scrot
wget http://github.com/downloads/djmelik/archey/archey-0.2.8.deb
sudo dpkg -i archey-0.2.8.deb

If you’re running Crunchbang, which at the time of writing this article is using Ubuntu 9.04 as it’s base, you’ll need to get a more up-to-date version of coreutils or else Archey will give you the following error:

user@crunchbang:/usr/bin$ archey
df: unrecognised option '--total'
Try `df --help' for more information.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/archey", line 304, in <module>
    func()
  File "/usr/bin/archey", line 285, in disk_display
    total = p1.splitlines()[-1]
IndexError: list index out of range

Naturally, I’d assume that anyone running a version of Ubuntu that’s 9.04 or older will encounter the same issue. I did not run into it on my Linux Mint 8 box or my Ubuntu 10.10 box. By typing df –version you’ll see that it only has 6.10 included. You’ll want at least version 7 or else your df command will not support the –total flag. So go ahead and download the package and install it:

wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/c/coreutils/coreutils_8.5-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i coreutils_8.5-1_i386.deb

Now when you run Archey it should run as expected, without any errors. Your next step is then to add it to your .bashrc so that it executes each time you open a terminal. Open it up with your favourite text editor and add archey to the end of it an dhten save it. Now every time you open a terminal or SSH into your box you should be presented with something like this:

                          .oyhhs:   User: fettesps
                 ..--.., shhhhhh-   Hostname: fettesps-crunchbang
               -+++++++++`:yyhhyo`  OS: Ubuntu 9.04 i686
          .--  -++++++++/-.-::-`    Kernel: 2.6.28-13-generic
        .::::-   :-----:/+++/++/.   Uptime: 2 days, 4:44
       -:::::-.          .:++++++:  Window Manager: Openbox
  ,,, .:::::-`             .++++++- Shell: Bash
./+++/-`-::-                ./////: Terminal: Xterm
+++++++ .::-                        Packages: 1036
./+++/-`-::-                :yyyyyo CPU: Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU E6300 @ 2.80GHz
  ``` `-::::-`             :yhhhhh: RAM: 266 MB / 497 MB
       -:::::-.         `-ohhhhhh+  Disk: 2.2G / 49G
        .::::-` -o+///+oyhhyyyhy:
         `.--  /yhhhhhhhy+,....
               /hhhhhhhhh-.-:::;
               `.:://::- -:::::;
                         `.-:-'

Enjoy!

This project is also a lockbox, but it does not have a GPS for it to unlock at certain locations, rather it unlocks at certain time periods. The project will be housed in an old cash box I’ve had since I was a kid, and will make use of a DS1302 clock chip to track the time, a servo to unlock the box, a button to query the system to unlock, and a simple piezo buzzer for audio feedback. At this point I am undecided on adding an LCD panel, but I do have an old Nokia screen that I pulled out of my first cell phone. I also need to set up some sort of charging port or just drill a hole for the power adapter to plug into the side of the Arduino, but I’ll worry about that later.

Even though the Protoshield makes things quick and easy I still wanted to draw it out first as up until now the most I’d ever done was create simple circuits with one component at a time. I decided to try out Fritzing as it was free and worked in Linux, though I didn’t expect much with it being in Alpha. Turns out it’s a really solid program that makes designing circuits a breeze.

Here’s a sketch I made of the Arudino + Protoshield, a buzzer, servo, DS1302 clock chip and a crystal. I was quite surprised it had all of the components I needed, with the exception of the clock battery and holder which were strangely absent and the crystal was of a different design than what I had to work with.

I had been playing with it for a couple of nights before I even started playing with the Schematic and PCB screens but couldn’t stop playing with them once I noticed the Autoroute button. The designs aren’t always 100% aesthetically pleasing but it does an impressive job and I love how you watch it figure it out step by step. The Schematic screen will be especially handy later on down the road when I finalize the design and build a bare bones Arduino with just the necessary components.

In the past I’ve tried a few other programs such as Eagle and found myself lost. I’m overwhelmed with options and for someone who’s new to the electrical engineering side of things it’s quite scary. Fritzing manages to keep it simple while giving you the power to do what you need to do without all that other crap interfering. Fritzing is an absolute must have if you are doing any sort of work with either the Arduino or Picaxe platform.

This weekend brought to us a new release, a release known as Ubuntu 10.10 or Maverick Meerkat. Ubuntu has always gone of the ‘ease of use’ route, and as a result 10.10 is improving the desktop environment even further, highly optimizing it for both desktops and netbooks. Something important to note is that IBM released at $190 netbook near the time that Ubuntu Netbook Edition was officially announced. This leads many to believe that manufacturers are planning to release Linux optimized netbooks. This is not a new concept, but Ubuntu has done a great job of revolutionizing the Linux market over the past few years. That being said, it’s time to move on to the new features!

Media Player Support

The first thing to take note of is that the previous Release ‘Lucid Lynx’ focused more on the stabilization of an already great Linux Distribution. 10.10 focuses on the improvement of the Gnome Desktop Environment, making it much easier to use. One massive improvement is the Rythmbox media player which can now be minimized to the taskbar. Unlike other media players of it’s type (even in Windows 7), the volume and the current track can be changed through a dropdown window on the taskbar. This means full control over your music without an open window.

Software Center

The improvements to Rythmbox are great, but they pale in comparison to the Ubuntu Software Center. The software center is an extension of the Ubuntu Repositories in which you can download vital software, video games, and various pieces of productivity software. The Software Center has always utilized a Graphical User Interface, but as of 10.04, it has become more user friendly, taking on a more Windows Vista/7  like appearance.

Ubuntu Unity

In the effort to render Ubuntu netbook friendly, the Ubuntu Unity Desktop can be utilized regardless of your screen size. This desktop environment is intended for latops with much smaller screens, and it has received rave reviews from every critic out there.

Shotwell

Shotwell, the followup to F-Spot is capable of importing photos rather easily, and can actually provide an aesthetically pleasing presentation. When you launch Shotwell for the first time you will have the option of importing all of your photos, and while this may take some time, it is certainly worth it.

Painless Installation

As ususal you do have the option to run Linux on Windows if you so desire, which is to say that Linux would occupy the same space as the Windows OS. Though many do not relish the idea of running a *nix OS within an NTFS partition, it is certainly an option for those who would rather try Linux out first without actually creating a partition.

Note that for those who currently have Lucid Lynx installed, 10.10 can be installed as a software update. This can be achieved with the terminal command: sudo update-manager -d. The update will be seamless, and once finished you will have access to all of the existing 10.10 features.

It’s pretty clear that Ubuntu 10.10 will be dominating the open source market, becoming the preferred choice for not only geeks, but basic home users, law enforcement agencies, schools, and even large business entities. It won’t topple the Microsoft Monopoly just yet, but with every release, the day draws near.

Where were you when Ubuntu 10.10 was released?

Lack of interest from the development team: Debian was an excellent server operating system and could even be modified at a desktop solution for those who were truly dedicated, but the development team eventually failed to release any new packages. This update failure would go on to effect updates to the X11 window system and even reduce filesystem support. One great example would be the lack of support for EXT3 which is now the standard for nearly all Linux distributions.

Along with being irritating, this left Debian quite vulnerable to hackers or other individuals that wished to circumvent its once robust infrastructure. This of course was not the only thing that led to the downfall of Debian. Next we will explore the complicated installation process.

Complicated Installation: The installation for Debian has always been text based, and as a result many could not quite figure out how it worked. In addition to that some of the options were downright confusing, ultimately leading to what appeared to be a Russian Roulette type install where success was hit or miss. For power users this was generally no problem, but for those unfamiliar with the operating system or Linux in general, it could be a nightmare.

Luckily there was a revival for the Debian operating system and it came in the form of Ubuntu. This new operating system provided a simple, graphical driven installation that allowed users to easily partition their hard drive (a nightmare in the old days). Though Ubuntu was and is still a fairly amazing operating system, and there are still quite a few arguments regarding Debian vs Ubuntu, there are a few derivatives, one of which is Linux Mint.

But what is Linux Mint? Other than being a clone of Ubuntu and a bit green, what are its features? The most noteable feature is that it IS green and it does provide a very nice aesthetic alternative to Ubuntu. The other thing to take note if is that as of 2008 Linux Mint began to share the same development and release cycle as Ubuntu, which is to say that it adopted the same version numbers (month and year) as Ubuntu.

At this point you might be wondering just what the difference is, and there is one difference that tends to sway many people from the thought of actually using Linux Mint. That difference of course is that Linux Mint does not use the same repositories as Ubuntu. This seems like an inconvenience when you consider that the majority of Debian based distros use the same packages.

To put it quite simply, Linux Mint is Ubuntu for the Linux Purist. That is to say that the repositories are filled with open source software.
There was a time when Linux was quite literally nothing but open source, but as more and more developers took an interest in the open source scene, proprietary software began to pop up, the first of which was Cedega (WINE with DirectX). Later on other developers such as Adobe would follow, and their involvement in the open source scene would cause arguments, debates, and even turmoil due to individuals who believed the open source community should remain open source.

Like its Ubuntu sibling, this Debian variation focuses largely on user friendliness. It allows a user to test out the operating system with the Live CD first, and if it seems suitable it can be installed via a shortcut on the desktop. The installer will deal with hard drive partitioning, going so far as to clearly mark any partitions you may wish to avoid.

There are a few pieces of software that were developed specifically by Linux Mint for it’s users. For instance you have the software manager which will permit you to run .mint files which are exclusive to the Linux Mint operating system. Though it could probably be an easy workaround, .mint compatibility is a serious argument in the Linux mint vs Ubuntu argument.

That being said, this distro is useful for just about anyone from the power user to the standard everyday office user. There are other alternatives to Linux Mint however, some of which are not based on Debian at all. Naturally you will have the Fedora alternative, and you will undoubtedly have the option of using something like Slackware if you happen to be a power user. That being said there are a number of different distributions for you to check out, and there is without a doubt one out there that will give you the satisfaction you crave in open source software. Only time will tell which operating system you choose to utilize, just know that Linux Mint is without a doubt one of the better choices for everyone.

Download Linux Mint: Debian Edition

Ubuntu is already known for being a fast-booting Linux-based operating system, but its developers have taken it to a whole new level. According to founder Mark Shuttleworth’s most recent blog post, the new “desktop experience codebase” called Unity will give all future versions of Ubuntu greater speed and a fresh new look in terms of desktop configuration. The goal is to give users access to the apps they like to run more often. In Monday’s blog post, Shuttleworth says, “the web is the key, and there may be a few complementary capabilities like media playback, messaging, games, and the ability to connect to local devices like printers and cameras and pluggable media.”

Continue Reading…

Last week saw the release of version 10.04 of Ubuntu Linux, also known as “Lucid Lynx”. This latest version of Canonical’s popular Linux distribution includes a number of improvements over this already incredibly user friendly operating system. Ubuntu has a well-deserved reputation as being one of the easiest Linux distributions to install, if not necessarily the easiest to configure, at least for Linux newcomers. However, there are plenty of new features included in Lucid Lynx which will help attract new users and enhancements which will appeal to long time Linux users and win some converts from other popular distributions like Mandriva, Mint and SuSe.

So What’s New In Lucid Lynx?

One thing which some users have noticed about the latest release of Ubuntu is that supports many iPhone devices out of the box – while this feature hasn’t been heavily promoted by Canonical, it seems that at least for the moment, iPhone users will be able to transfer files to and from their phone and PC with ease. However, this could change with the next iPhone firmware upgrade, so if you’re truly committed to your iPhone you may eventually need to install some other (free) software to manage this mobile device with Ubuntu Linux.

The new version uses the 2.6.33 version of the Linux kernel, meaning that most onboard and peripheral hardware devices should be supported from the get-go; this is a distribution known for good hardware support out of the box, saving newcomers a lot of frustration trying to get soundcards and video to work properly, something which any old hands at Linux systems reading this will know about all too well. However, for the vast majority of users, the hardware support will be completely transparent – all you’ll likely notice is how quickly the base system installs (around 25 minutes on most machines) and how quickly the system boots up, even compared to Ubuntu’s already exemplary performance in that department.

Features which are more likely to interest the average PC user include Lucid Lynx’s easy integration with Twitter, Facebook and other social media and social networking platforms, with a “MeMenu” built into Ubuntu’s Gnome 2.30 desktop. As usual with Ubuntu, Gnome is the default desktop manager with this version, though users who prefer KDE, FVWM, IceWM or any other desktop can download and install these options through Ubuntu’s user-friendly software management tool.

The software manager is in fact one area where Ubuntu 10.04 really shines. Ubuntu’s software installation and removal tool is much easier to use than many competing distributions, largely due to its Debian-based heritage. If you’ve ever spent an afternoon cursing the developer of RPM software packages, you’ll definitely enjoy the way that Ubuntu handles package dependencies for the user, downloading additional software as needed. Updates are also a snap, as users have come to expect of this newbie friendly distribution – and there is an enormous variety of free software available for this system, ranging from office productivity packages to games, multimedia players and editors and much more besides.

So is Ubuntu 10.04 worth a try? If you’re a fan of Debian based systems or already use Ubuntu, absolutely – and unless you’re tied to Windows due to work or proprietary software, it’s well worth checking out; a live CD is available for free, so you can give the system a try and install it if you find Lucid Lynx to be a good match for the way you use your PC.

I am one of those people who loves a clean desktop, I hate it when files and up scattered upon it and do not like how some icons are “glued” to the desktop by default in every operating system. So when I went to remove these icons from my desktop I found that I couldn’t just delete them as I had expected. I even tried doing it through the terminal, expecting to find symlinks in the ~/Desktop/ directory but it was empty. At that point I figured I’d have to bust out the gconf-editor, having done so in the past to remove the mounted drives from the desktop. It turns out there is a more simple solution in Linux Mint.

After digging around I found the Desktop Configuration Tool. If you are using the MintMenu then you can find it under

• MintMenu
• Preferences
• Desktop Configuration Tool

Once it is loaded you will see that it is a very simple utility, on your first tab all you have to do is uncheck Computer, Home, and Mounted Volumes. From there just click Apply and close the window, and you’re done!

The first thing you’ll need to do is tweak your xorg.conf file, before doing that you should backup your existing configuration. In the event that you make a mistake you can restore it by restoring it in your terminal.

sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak

Now that you’ve created a backup, open xorg.conf in your favourite text editor.

sudo pico /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Look for a section named “InputDevice” or create it if it does not exist.

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
    Driver "synaptics"
    Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
    Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
    Option "HorizScrollDelta" "0"
    Option "SHMConfig" "on"
EndSection

The line you want to pay attention to here is the one regarding SHMConfig, this will disable the trackpad while typing. But you’re not quite done yet. Next hit Alt+F2 which will give you the Run Application dialog. Enter the following command and hit Run:

/usr/bin/syndaemon -d -t -i 2

Afterwards, restart your display manager by holding Alt and hitting Backspace. Your keypad is now disabled!

First open up your sources file in your favourite editor:

sudo pico /etc/apt/sources.list

Then add the following source:

deb http://deb.opera.com/opera/ stable non-free

Next you’ll need to add the GPG Key:

wget -O - http://deb.opera.com/archive.key
sudo apt-key add -

Now you can install Opera using apt:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install opera

In the event that you get The following packages cannot be authenticated as a warning, you will also need to run this command:

sudo apt-get install debian-archive-keyring

From there just run the install command again, and you should have Opera up and running in a few minutes.

If you run into any issues, or need help installing any plugins, I would recommend checking out the Community Documentation.