Taoism of open source

I found an interesting article on linux.com about taoism of open source.

Ubuntu Gutsy's fully automatic printer installation kicks ass!

I tried the Ubuntu 7.10 Beta... I booted the Live CD and plugged in my pinter, after a few seconds a popup like the following appeared (without any interaction) and my printer was fully operable!:)

Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon

Ok, I tried it on my laptop... it wasn't a long test because my cdrom sucks but I have good feeling about it, first of all the custom kernel era seems to end for me because it supports my ZyXEL ZyAir G-202 wireless USB stick, and this was the cause why I had to make my own kernel.:)

I am thinking about upgrading at the weekend...

Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon" Beta is out

Ubuntu 7.10 on the desktop features a cutting-edge graphical experience with composited desktop effects, fully automated printer installation, and superior support for Firefox browser plugins.

• Compiz Fusion: This innovative compositing window manager enables 3-D desktop effects that let users work with, and see, their desktops in completely new ways.


• Printer installation: In GNOME, printers are automatically configured for use as soon as they are connected.


• Free Flash support with Gnash: Ubuntu 7.10 leads the pack with a preview of this Flash browser plugin. Although still actively in development and not yet fully supported by Ubuntu, Gnash gives a glimpse into the future of free Flash, bringing partial Flash support to 64-bit desktop systems.


• Automated Firefox plugin installation: Beyond the addition of Gnash, Firefox in Ubuntu now supports automatic installation of popular plugins through the standard Ubuntu package repositories, for a richer web-browsing experience with the integrated security support of the rest of the Ubuntu system.

Get it from http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/gutsybeta!

Lockpicking -- an interesting hobby

You feelin' safe behind your closed door? Or you feel that your chained and locked bike or laptop is unstealable? If you answer yes, and don't want me to prove the opposite stop reading now, if you are brave read on.:)

I am interested on lockpicking... I always loved to see those lockpicking scenes in movies. Why? I thought always like: "Is it really so easy? Can I do that?".

I googled a bit, and found interesting artickles about that. First of all the MIT Guide to Lock Picking.

If you want to make your own tools here is a video that may help.

Have you heard about bump keys? And the technique that can open almost every door within a few seconds? Check this video out. You like it? Read this artickle!

For other interesting reading check out Toool's (The Open Organisation Of Lockpickers) webpage.

Uboontu the Ubuntu Search Engine

The Ubuntu search engine has moved to uboontu.com.

CPU Frequency Scaling

I fired up my CPU frequency scaling yesterday. It wasn't a big deal.

I had to load the following modules: cpufreq_ondemand, cpufreq_conservative, cpufreq_stats ,cpufreq_userspace, freq_table and p4-clockmods (I have a Mobile Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.00GHz processor, if you have other you have to change the p4-clockmods to something from /lib/modules/ ... your kernel version ... /kernel/arch/ ... your arch ... /kernel/cpu/cpufreq).
I don't know why it isn't loaded by default, so I added these to /etc/modules.

And finally I added the CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor applet to my panel, to be able to control it and check the frequency.

Send radio signals with your monitor

If you have a CRT monitor and Linux, you can listen your mp3 files vroadcasted by your monitor! You can do this with Tempest for Eliza.

Ubuntu Search

Ubuntu Search | Find everything about Ubuntu Linux in all official resources

Afterworld

I found a SciFi series on YouTube, called Afterworld.

"Afterworld is about a man - Russell Shoemaker - who awakens to discover that more than 99.9% of the population has disappeared, and that all technology has mysteriously shut down. As clues surface of a larger conspiracy afoot, Russ is determined to make it home to Seattle in the hopes that his family is still alive. He embarks on a journey that will change his life - and the fate of the world's - forever."

Here is it's YouTube page. (You can watch the shows from here whenever country you live in.)

Content-aware image resizing again

You may remember my post about Seam carving: content-aware image resizing. The good news that there is a GIMP plugin for that!:) The original post about this check out Hackszine.com and grab them from here.

Ubuntu umount bug

Yup, I hit another bug: #85424.

If you got the errror: "Failed to unmount drive" where the detailed message is "Cannot remove directory", you should try removing the HAL mtabs from /media with:

sudo rm /media/.hal*

About Debian

'So the only major distribution I’ve never used has actually been Debian, exactly because that has traditionally been harder to install. Which sounds kind of strange, since Debian is also considered to be the “hard-core technical” distribution, but that’s literally exactly what I personally do not want in a distro. I’ll take the nice ones with simple installers etc, because to me, that’s the whole and only point of using a distribution in the first place.'
-- Linus Torvalds

How to make a custom Ubuntu Live CD

My brtoher bought a new computer, hi wants to install Ubuntu. This makes me happy!:) So I help him. The default Ubuntu CD doesn't support the machine's ethernet card, so I was looked around for the solution. It will a custom live CD. I found this guide how to make it, it is a bit old but still works: Customizing a (K)Ubuntu 6.04 Linux Live CD.

Pendrive

Yesterday I lost or someone have stolen my 4G pendrive.:(

After hibernate wireless can't connect

So it seems that I hit many Ubuntu bugs these days.... this is another. I discovered that after hibernate sometimes my network-manger can't connect to my wireless network. I found bug #69426 and the solution. If you have the same problem add networking to the /etc/default/acpi-support file's STOP_SERVICES line.

Ubuntu logout hanging

I had troubles with logout in Ubuntu. It hanged with only the wallpaper visible, the mouse moved but nothing more, and had to restart when it come. After a bit googling I found Bug #38915 and the solution.
I had to set true the AlwaysRestartServer variable in /etc/X11/gdm/gdm.conf.

After solving the bug, but because this is just a temporary solution, I wrote a small script to log all usefull informations when the hanging comes, and started to play a bit. You will not beleive... I wasn't able to reproduce the hanging.... grrrr....

Update: I finally could reproduce the error and collect the information. So I sent the bugreport.:)

Ubuntu + Digg = UbuntuHQ

UbuntuHQ is a Digg like website where you can write small articles, news and others can vote on it if they like it so the most voted can get a better place on the webpage.

September: Ubuntu Month Of Screencasts

Ubuntu Month of Screencasts is a mad plan concocted by the Screencast Team to produce one full length screencast per day for the whole of one month.

The goal is that each video will go into one subject in some depth, to help educate new users about Ubuntu. They will cover a wide range of topics which should answer some questions that new users to Ubuntu often ask. The goal is to get a new user from "zero to hero" in one month.

Each screencast will be made available through the Ubuntu Screencast site in three sizes and two formats (OGG and Flash).