full circle magazine #72

full circle magazine #72 1 contents ^

Full CircleTHE INDEPENDENT MAGAZINE FOR THE UBUNTU LINUX COMMUNITY

ISSUE #72 - April 2013

FFuu llll CCii rrccllee MMaaggaazziinnee ii ss nneeii tthheerr aaffffii llii aa tteedd wwii tthh ,, nnoorr eennddoorrsseedd bbyy,, CCaannoonn ii ccaa ll LLttdd ..

SSOOLLYYDDXX AANNDD SSOOLLYYDDKK RREEVVIIEEWWEEDD

BOOK REVIEW:

A DEBIAN BASED DISTRO WITH XFCE OR KDE

http://fullcirclemagazine.org


The articles contained in this magazine are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Al ike 3.0 Unported l icense.This means you can adapt, copy, distribute and transmit the articles but only under the fol lowing conditions: you must attributethe work to the original author in some way (at least a name, emai l or URL) and to this magazine by name ('Ful l Circle Magazine')

and the URL www.ful lcirclemagazine.org (but not attribute the article(s) in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). I fyou alter, transform, or bui ld upon this work, you must distribute the resulting work under the same, simi lar or a compatible l icense.Full Circle magazine is entirely independent of Canonical, the sponsor of the Ubuntu projects, and the views and opinions in themagazine should in no way be assumed to have Canonical endorsement.

Full CircleTHE INDEPENDENT MAGAZINE FOR THE UBUNTU LINUX COMMUNITY

Network Settings p.16

LibreOffice p.13

Programming Python p.08

Blender p.19

HowTo Opinions

Q&A p.40

Ubuntu Games p.42

Linux Certified p.44

Command & Conquer p.06

Inkscape p.21

Columns

Linux Labs p.30

Review p.35

Web Dev p.27

My Opinion p.33

My Story p.32

Letters p.38

Ubuntu News p.04

Ask The New Guy p.27

Ubuntu Women p.XX

Graphics Web Dev

BACK NEXT MONTH BACK NEXT MONTH

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


EEDDIITTOORRIIAALL

WELCOME TO ANOTHER ISSUE OF FULL CIRCLE!

That's right, folks. Full Circle is six years old thismonth. Incredible! Never, when I started FCM all those

years ago, did I imagine that it would still be going strong six years later. I can'tstress enough that every issue is created by a team of folks, not just me, so a BIGthanks to all of them. Their names are listed on the last page of every issue and at thetop of each article. My thanks also go out to the many translation teams around theworld.

The one thing I like to do each birthday issue is to have a survey where you, thereaders, can give us your opinion on FCM. What would you like to see more/less of?What do you like/dislike? Full details are on page 38; the survey is at:http://goo.gl/hR7zc.

I'm sure you Python fans will know about the Special Editions that Robin Catling hasbeen putting together (which, by the way, is up to volume six). Well, he's now creating aseries of Special Editions from the LibreOffice series, so, if you've been wanting togather them into one handy dandy issue, volume one is up on the main Full Circle site.The easiest way to find the Special Editions is to use the search box on the site.

Anyway, I shan’t keep you any longer. Enjoy the issue, and please fill in the survey!

All the best, and keep in touch!Ronnie

[email protected]

This magazine was created using :

Full Circle PodcastReleased monthly, each episodecovers all the latest Ubuntu news,opinions, reviews, interviews andlistener feedback. The Side-Pod isa new addition, it's an extra(irregular) short-form podcastwhich is intended to be a branchof the main podcast. It'ssomewhere to put all the generaltechnology and non-Ubuntu stuffthat doesn’t fit in the mainpodcast.

Hosts:• Les Pounder• Tony Hughes• Jon Chamberlain• Oliver Clark


mailto:[email protected]

http://goo.gl/hR7zc

http://www.scribus.net

http://www.gimp.org

http://www.libreoffice.org

http://creativecommons.org/



UUBBUUNNTTUU NNEEWWSSWritten by The Ubuntu News Team

CHANGES IN UBUNTU

RELEASES DECIDED BY THE

UBUNTU TECHNICAL BOARD

The Ubuntu Technical Boardannounce their decision to

change support for non-LTSreleases from 18 to 9 months, andthe adoption of a mechanism toallow users to continuously trackthe development focus withoutexplicitly upgrading from releaseto release.

http://fridge.ubuntu.com/2013/03/19/changes-in-ubuntu-releases-decided-by-the-ubuntu-technical-board/

Also read the follow-up post byRick Spencer, Vice President ofUbuntu Engineering, for hiscomments on the decisions by theUbuntu Technical Board, and howthey will impact users:http://fridge.ubuntu.com/2013/03/19/ubuntu-technical-board-looks-at-shuttleworths-proposal-for-release-management-methodology/

Visit the following articles for

some other takes on theannouncement:

Ubuntu Technical Board MeetingDecisions Regarding The NewRelease Proposals -http://www.webupd8.org/2013/03/ubuntu-technical-board-meeting.html

Ubuntu To Halve Support Windowfor 'Regular' Releases -http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/ubuntu-to-halve-support-window-for-regular-releases

Canonical to halve support forstandard Ubuntu releases -http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/news/canonical-to-halve-support-for-standard-ubuntu-releases

UBUNTU MEMBERSHIP

BOARD CALL FOR

NOMINATIONS

Elizabeth Krumbach, on behalfof the Community Council,

makes a call out for restaffing theMembership Board, which isresponsible for voting new Ubuntumembers. The Membership Board

is in need of 9 Ubuntu Memberswith a good community trackrecord and enough time availablefor meetings once a month.Nominations will be acceptedthrough Friday April 5th at 12:00UTC for ubuntu-membership-boards at lists.ubuntu.com

http://fridge.ubuntu.com/2013/03/22/ubuntu-membership-board-call-for-nominations/

CANONICAL AND CHINESE

STANDARDS BODY

ANNOUNCE UBUNTU

COLLABORATION

The CSIP (China Software andIntegrated Chip Promotions

Centre), National University ofDefense Technology (NUDT) andCanonical join forces to createUbuntu Kylin, a China-focusedUbuntu desktop system. Thisannouncement represents the firststep into the government’s fiveyear plan to promote open sourcesoftware and accelerate thegrowth of the open sourceecosystem within the country.

http://www.canonical.com/content/canonical-and-chinese-standards-body-announce-ubuntu-collaboration

This story has also been covered inthe wider press:

China to create home-grownoperating system -http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21895723

Ubuntu tapped by China fornational operating system -http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/22/china_makes_linux_os_with_canonical_help/

China chooses Ubuntu for anational reference OS coming inApril -http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/23/china-chooses-ubuntu-for-a-national-reference-os-coming-in-april/

Goodbye Windows: China to createhome-grown OS based on Ubuntu -http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/03/goodbye-

http://fridge.ubuntu.com/2013/03/19/changes-in-ubuntu-releases-decided-by-the-ubuntu-technical-board/

http://www.webupd8.org/2013/03/ubuntu-technical-board-meeting.html

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/ubuntu-to-halve-support-window-for-regular-releases

http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/news/canonical-to-halve-support-for-standard-ubuntu-releases

http://fridge.ubuntu.com/2013/03/22/ubuntu-membership-board-call-for-nominations/

http://www.canonical.com/content/canonical-and-chinese-standards-body-announce-ubuntu-collaboration

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21895723

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/22/china_makes_linux_os_with_canonical_help/

http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/23/china-chooses-ubuntu-for-a-national-reference-os-coming-in-april/

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/03/goodbye-windows-china-to-create-home-grown-os-based-on-ubuntu/


UBUNTU NEWSwindows-china-to-create-home-grown-os-based-on-ubuntu/

UBUNTU 8.04 (HARDY

HERON) SERVER, 10.04(LUCID LYNX) DESKTOP AND

11.10 (ONEIRIC OCELOT)REACHING END OF LIFE ON

MAY 9 2013

Adam Conrad, on behalf of theUbuntu Release Team,

announces the formal End of Life(EOL) dates of Ubuntu 8.04 (HardyHeron) server, 10.04 (Lucid Lynx)desktop and 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot)desktop and server.

http://fridge.ubuntu.com/2013/03/29/ubuntu-8-04-hardy-heron-server-10-04-lucid-lynx-desktop-and-11-10-oneiric-ocelot-reaching-end-of-life-on-may-9-2013/

UDS 13.05: UBUNTU’SSECOND ONLINE DEVELOPER

SUMMIT

Michael Hall announces thenext Ubuntu Developer

Summit May 14th-16th, 2013 from14:00 UTC to 20:00 UTC. Heencourages people to register ablueprint and ask the track leads toadd a session for them. He alsooutlines some improvements tothe Google+ Hangouts, theplenaries, the schedule, summitscheduler, and registrationprocesses.

http://mhall119.com/2013/04/uds-13-05-ubuntus-second-online-developer-summit/

NEW UBUNTU MEMBERSHIP

BOARD MEMBERS

Elizabeth Krumbach announcesthe Ubuntu Membership Board

Members approved by the UbuntuCommunity Council. ZhengpengHou, Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre,Jared Norris, Eleanor Chen, andPenelope Stowe are welcomed (orwelcomed back!) into the 1200 UTCMembership Board and IulianUdrea, Javier Lopez, and BenjaminKerensa were welcomed (orwelcomed back!) into the 2200 UTCMembership Board.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2013-April/001777.html

Many Thanks to the Ubuntu NewsTeam for their contribution thismonth.

News this month comes from:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue309




UBUNTU 13.04 RELEASED!

Ubuntu 13.04 continuesUbuntu's proud tradition ofintegrating the latest andgreatest open sourcetechnologies into a high-quality,easy-to-use Linux distribution.This release cycle has seen asignificant push toward dailyquality, which has allowed mostdevelopers and users toparticipate more activelythroughout the cycle, and wefeel this also shows in the finalquality of this release.

Along with performanceimprovements to Unity, updatesto common desktop packages,and updated core and toolchaincomponents, Ubuntu 13.04 alsoincludes the new Friends service,to consolidate all socialnetworking accounts via UbuntuOnline Accounts. Also includedis a tech preview of Upstart'snew user session feature.

Read more about the newfeatures of Ubuntu 13.04 in thefollowing press releases:http://ubunt.eu/1304Server and:http://ubunt.eu/1304Client

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/03/goodbye-windows-china-to-create-home-grown-os-based-on-ubuntu/

http://fridge.ubuntu.com/2013/03/29/ubuntu-8-04-hardy-heron-server-10-04-lucid-lynx-desktop-and-11-10-oneiric-ocelot-reaching-end-of-life-on-may-9-2013/

http://mhall119.com/2013/04/uds-13-05-ubuntus-second-online-developer-summit/

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-news-team/2013-April/001777.html





http://ubunt.eu/1304Server

http://ubunt.eu/1304Client


After my article last month onUbuntu Touch, I received a

relative flurry of responses fromreaders (more so than for anyother article I've ever written). Dueto the response, I thought it mightbe nice to share readers’ responsesin a follow-up article. The firstweekend of April also saw a bigchange in the TF101 Ubuntu Touchpackages, and I was finally able toget the developer preview runningon my tablet. However, as hardlyany functionality exists at thistime, I will save a full-on review fora later date (an official Betarelease, for example).

The first response I receivedwas from a reader who shared hisopinion that Ubuntu Touchabsolutely must have integratedsupport for Google accounts(Google Mail, Google Contacts,Google Calendar (with emphasison the reminders), Google Mapsand Navigation). Upon reading thearticle, I realised I had neglected tomention anything of the sort. Thatbeing said, I imagine Ubuntu willship with some form of mail client(Evolution/Thunderbird). Google

Mail support was very effective ineither of those applications, thelast time I used them. Thunderbirdalso offers the Lightning plug-infor calendars, which works wellwith Google Calendar. There arealso numerous plug-ins forThunderbird that allow the syncingof contacts. As such, I think ithighly unlikely that Ubuntu Touchreleases will be lacking a tool withsimilar features. That leavesGoogle Maps and Navigation. Myfear is that Canonical will decide toinclude some new map/navigationtool, instead of trying to includeGoogle's tried-and-testedapplications. There is always theargument “Google Maps can easilybe accessed through a browser”,but it defeats the purpose of aquick and handy maps tool. At thispoint, all we can do is wait and see.

This same reader also statedthat he wished to see a highlyfunctional/usable keyboard inUbuntu. While I haven't had issueswith the default Androidkeyboards, there seems to be alarge number of Android users whoprefer keyboards such as Swype. In

the reader's case, he mentionedTouchPal's Keyboard, Dialer andContacts app. This does more thanjust replace the keyboard, but alsooffers a custom dialer and contactsapp. His reasoning for why this appis worthwhile was because hefound typing on the typicalAndroid keyboard to be “slow,boring and error-prone”. He foundthe “swipe to type” method ofTouchPal's keyboard much moreintuitive, and, due to the learningalgorithm, less error-prone. Thereader also notes that whileTouchPal's keyboard app offerspredictive features, they areturned off by default, and it's notnecessarily clear how to enablethem. According to a Sprint userguide, sliding right on the spacebar enables predictive typing, andsliding to the left disables it again.

The Dialer and Contacts appsincluded in the TouchPal packageare useful for the reader, becausethe default Contacts app tends tolose data included in the Notessections of contacts when theycontain a lot of text. As the readercreates these Contacts on the PC,

it's impractical to deal with, andTouchPal's Contacts and Dialer app(one shortcut for both tools)apparently does not suffer fromthis limitation, and the reader onceagain finds it more flexible andeasier to use.

The second email I received wasshort and to the point. The readerfelt the possible lack of Aldiko (ane-reader application), and Kindleapps on Ubuntu Touch would besomething to consider. Now, I'mnot sure Aldiko will beported/available for Ubuntu Touch,but I think Canonical would beremiss if they didn't include someform of Kindle app. Once again,Amazon does allow reading ofKindle books online (“AmazonCloud Reader”), but it's hardly anideal solution. That being said, thelist of dummy applications in theDeveloper Preview does include anAmazon store shortcut, whichmakes me believe Ubuntu will doits best to integrate Amazonservices. I would supply furtherinformation about the appsincluded, but, as the keyboard isn'tworking properly, I can't connect to

CCOOMMMMAANNDD && CCOONNQQUUEERRWritten by Lucas Westermann

UUbbuunnttuu TToouucchh FFoollllooww--uupp


Lucas has learned all he knows fromrepeatedly breaking his system, thenhaving no other option but todiscover how to fix it. You can emailLucas at: [email protected].

the wireless, making nearly everyapp throw “not connected” errors,or disabling those features I'd beinterested in testing.

Lastly, I had a reader explain tome that he wanted to installUbuntu Touch on a SamsungGalaxy S III, but cited the UbuntuWiki page where it was listed as a“work in progress”. So, for anyoneelse who was wonderingsomething similar, I say this: ifyou're willing to give up a perfectlyfunctional device in order to installa pretty much non-functionalDeveloper Preview just to seewhat it looks like, you cangenerally expect any of the Wikipages for your device to includedecent instructions. That beingsaid, Ubuntu Touch is not in analpha, beta, or release candidatestage. It is quite literally asnapshot of their demo device,including multiple accounts youcan't access, a guest account youneed to use, and examples ofapplications they want to include.If, however, you have a second orthird Android device just sittingaround (such as my TF101), thenfeel free to flash it and play arounda little, just don't expect to bebreathing new life into an olddevice (just yet). Lastly, the Wiki

page is split up in this way:

• Working with phablet-flash(official Ubuntu method, containsjust the Galaxy Nexus, and theNexus 4, 7 and 10);• Working, but not available fromcdimage.u.c (unofficial ports,maintained by the community, butfairly functional); and• Work-In-Progress (basically thewaiting point for any port thathasn't yet gottenunlocking/installing instructions,working code or an image).

Unless you want to help debugand develop, Work-In-Progress

devices are probably not worthflashing.

On a completely unrelatednote. After my article on theRocksmith Real Tone Cable forrecording electric guitar, I had areader request an article or two onusing Audacity to record acousticguitar. These articles will happenas soon as I have a working audiointerface available to me, and I willbe covering recording acousticguitar with a microphone, withpickups, electric guitar (direct-in),and with a microphone in front ofthe amp. If all goes well, this willhappen within the next two issues

of FCM. If any musicians out therehave suggestions on audiointerfaces they have had workingwith Ubuntu, or if anyone hasspecific questions they'd like me tocover in the articles, feel free toemail me at [email protected] include the words “FCMGuitar Article” in the subject line,so I can separate them from usualC&C emails.

I hope at least a few peoplehave found the reader responsesuseful and/or interesting! I haddefinitely never heard of theTouchPal Keyboard, Dialer andContacts app. Got any questions?Suggestions? Then feel free toemail me at [email protected] include either “FCM” or“C&C” in the subject line, so itdoesn't get lost in my inbox!

COMMAND & CONQUER






HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Greg Walters PPrrooggrraammmmiinngg IInn PPyytthhoonn:: PPtt 4433

Last time, we started a projectthat would eventually use the

TvRage module that we createdthe month before that. Now wewill continue the project. This timewe will be adding functionality toour program: tweaking thefilename parse routine and addingtwo fields (TvRageId and Status) tothe database. So, let’s jump rightin.

First, we will make the changesto our import lines. For those whoare just joining us, I'll include theones from last time (shown topright).

The lines after ‘import re’ arethe new ones for this time.

The next thing we will do isrewrite the GetSeasonEpisoderoutine. We are going to throw outpretty much everything we did lastmonth, and make it more flexibleacross the possible season/episodeschemes. In this iteration, we willbe able to support the followingschemes...

Series.S00E00

Series.s00e00

Series.S00E00.S00E01

Series.00x00

Series.S0000

Series.0x00

We will also fix any ‘missingleading zero’ issues before wewrite to the database.

Our first pattern tries to catchmulti-episode files. There arevarious naming schemes, but theone we will support is similar to'S01E03.S01E04'. We use thepattern string"(.*)\.s(\d{1,2})e(\d{1,2})\.s(\d{1,2})e(\d{1,2})". This returns (hopefully)five groups which consist of: theseries name (S[1]), season(S[2]),episode number 1 (S[3]), season(S[4]), and episode number 2 (S[5]).Remember that the parens createeach group for returns. In the caseabove, we group anything from thefirst character up to the ".s", thentwo numbers, skip the "e", thentwo numbers, and repeat. So thefilename"Monk.S01E05.S01E06.avi" returns

the following groups...

S[1] = Monk

S[2] = 01

S[3] = 05

S[4] = 01

S[5] = 06

We are using only groups S[1],S[2] and S[3] in this code, but youcan see where we are going withthis. If we find a match, we set avariable named “GoOn” to true.This allows us to know what weshould do after we’ve fallenthrough the various If lines.

So, next page (top right) is thecode for the GetSeasonEpisoderoutine.

When we get to this point,(next page, bottom left) weprepare the show name byremoving any periods in the showname, and then pull the seasonand episode information from thevarious groups, and return them.For the season information, if wehave a pattern like “S00E00”, theseason number will have a leadingzero. However if the pattern is like“xxx”, then the season is assumedto be the first character, and thetrailing two are the episode. Inorder to be forward thinking, wewant to make the season a two-digit number with a leading zero ifneeded.

Next, in our MakeDatabaseroutine, we will change the create

import osfrom os.path import join, getsize, existsimport sysimport apswimport re#------------------------------# NEW LINES START HERE#------------------------------from xml.etree import ElementTree as ETimport urllibimport stringfrom TvRage import TvRage


HOWTO - PROGRAMMING PYTHON Pt43SQL statement to add the two newfields (next page, top).

Again, the only thing that haschanged from last time is the lasttwo field definitions.

In our WalkThePath routine, theonly changes are the lines thatactually insert into the database.This is to support the newstructure. If you remember fromlast time, we pass the folder thatholds our TV files to this routine. Inmy case, there are two folders, soit's set into a list and we use a forloop to pass each into the routine.As we go through the routine, wewalk through each directorylooking for files with extensions of.avi, .mkv, .mp4 and .m4v. When wefind a file that matches, we send itto the GetSeasonEpisode routine.We then check to see if we already

def GetSeasonEpisode(filename):GoOn = Falsefilename = filename.upper()

This is our first pattern check.#Should catch multi episode .S01E01.S01E02 type filenamesresp = re.search(r'(.*)\.s(\d{1,2})e(\d{1,2})\.s(\d{1,2})e(\d{1,2})',filename, re.I)if resp:

showname = resp.group(1)GoOn = True

else:

Our second pattern check looks for SddEdd or sddedd...# Should catch SddEdd or sddedd

resp = re.search(r'(.*).S(\d\d?)E(\d\d?)(\.*)', filename, re.I)if resp:


else:

The next pattern looks for ddxdd.#check for ddxddresp = re.search(r'(.*)\.(\d{1,2})x(\d{1,2})(.*)', filename, re.I)if resp:


else:

This pattern checks for Sdddd.#check for Sddddresp = re.search(r'(.*).S(\d\d)(.\d\d?)' , filename, re.I)if resp:


else:

And finally we try for ddd# Should catch xxxresp = re.search(r'(.*)(\d)(.\d\d?)',filename,re.I)if resp:


if GoOn:shownamelength = len(showname) + 1showname = showname.replace("."," ")season = resp.group(2)if len(season) == 1:

season = "0" + seasonepisode = resp.group(3)ret = [showname,season,episode]return True,ret

else:ret = ["",-1,-1]return False,ret


HOWTO - PROGRAMMING PYTHON Pt43

have it entered into the database,and, if not, we add it. I’m going togive you (top right) only part of theroutine from last month.

The two lines in black are theones that are new this time.

We are already over halfwaydone. Next are some supportroutines that work with ourTvRage routine to fill in thedatabase fields. Our first routineruns after the WalkThePathroutine, and runs through thedatabase, getting the series nameand querying the TvRage server forthe id number. Once we have that,we update the database, then usethat id number to once again queryTvRage to get the current status ofthe series. This status can be "NewSeries", "Returning Series","Canceled", "Ended" and "OnHaitus". The reason we want thisinformation is that, when we go tocheck for new episodes, we don'twant to bother with series thatwon't have any new episodes

because they are cancelled. So,now we have the status and canwrite that to the database (above).

We will pause here in our codeand look at the SQL query we areusing. It’s a bit different fromanything we’ve done before. Thestring is:

SELECT DISTINCT series FROMTvShows WHERE tvrageid = -1

Which says, give me just one

instance of the series name, nomatter how many of them I have,where the field tvrageid is equal to“-1”. If, for example, we have 103episodes of Doctor Who 2005. Byusing the Distinct, I will get backonly one record, assuming that wehaven’t gotten a TvRageID yet.

for x inSeriesCursor.execute(sqlstring):

seriesname = x[0]

searchname =

string.capwords(x[0]," ")

We are using the capwordsroutine from the string library tochange the series name (x[0]) to a“proper case” from the all-uppercase we currently store theshow name in. We do this becauseTvRage expects something otherthat all-uppercase entries, and wewon’t get the results we arelooking for. So the series name“THE MAN FROM UNCLE” will beconverted to “The Man From

def MakeDataBase():# IF the table does not exist, this will create the table.# Otherwise, this will be ignored due to the 'IF NOT EXISTS' clausesql = 'CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS TvShows (pkID INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, Series TEXT, RootPath TEXT, Filename TEXT,

Season TEXT, Episode TEXT, tvrageid TEXT,status TEXT);'cursor.execute(sql)

sqlquery = 'SELECT count(pkid) as rowcount from TvShows where Filename ="%s";' % fl

try:for x in cursor.execute(sqlquery):

rcntr = x[0]if rcntr == 0: # It's not there, so add it

try:sql = 'INSERT INTO TvShows

(Series,RootPath,Filename,Season,Episode,tvrageid) VALUES (?,?,?,?,?,?)'cursor.execute(sql,(showname,root,fl,season,episode,-1))

except:

def WalkTheDatabase():tr = TvRage()SeriesCursor = connection.cursor()sqlstring = "SELECT DISTINCT series FROM TvShows WHERE tvrageid = -1"


HOWTO - PROGRAMMING PYTHON Pt43

Uncle”. We use that in the call toour TvRage Library FindIdByName.This gets the list of matchingshows, and displays them for us topick the best one. Once we pickone, we update the database withthe id number and then call theGetShowStatus routine to get thecurrent show status from TvRage(bottom right).

The UpdateDatabase routine(top) simply uses the series nameas the key to update all the recordswith the proper TvRage ID.

GetShowStatus (above) is alsovery simple. We call theGetShowInfo routine from theTvRage library by passing the id

that we just got to TvRage – to getthe series information. If youremember, there is a lot ofinformation provided about theseries from TvRage, but all we areconcerned about at this point isthe show status. Since everythingis returned in a dictionary, we justlook for the [‘Status’] key. Once wehave it, we update the databasewith that and move on. We are almost done with our

code. We finally add one line to ourmain routine from last month (in

black, below) to call the“WalkTheDatabase” routine afterwe are done getting all our

print("Requesting information on " + searchname)sl = tr.FindIdByName(searchname)which = tr.DisplayShowResult(sl)if which == 0:

print("Nothing found for %s" % seriesname)else:

option = int(which)-1id = sl[option]['ID']UpdateDatabase(seriesname,id)GetShowStatus(seriesname,id)

def UpdateDatabase(seriesname,id):idcursor = connection.cursor()sqlstring = 'UPDATE tvshows SET tvrageid = ' + id + ' WHERE series = "' + seriesname + '"'try:

idcursor.execute(sqlstring)except:

print "error"

def GetShowStatus(seriesname,id):tr = TvRage()idcursor = connection.cursor()dict = tr.GetShowInfo(id)status = dict['Status']sqlstring = 'UPDATE tvshows SET status = "' + status + '" WHERE series = "' + seriesname + '"'try:

idcursor.execute(sqlstring)except:

print "Error"

startfolder = ["/extramedia/tv_files","/media/freeagnt/tv_files_2"]#for cntr in range(0,2):

#WalkThePath(startfolder[cntr])WalkTheDatabase()# Close the cursor and the databasecursor.close()connection.close()print("Finished")

http://pastebin.com/6iw5NQrW


Greg Walters is owner of RainyDaySolutions, LLC, a consulting companyin Aurora, Colorado, and has beenprogramming since 1972. He enjoyscooking, hiking, music, and spendingtime with his family. His website iswww.thedesignatedgeek.net.

HOWTO - PROGRAMMING PYTHON Pt43filenames. Again, I’m going to giveyou only part of the Main routine,just so you can find the correctplace to put the new line.

That’s all our code. Let’smentally go over what happenswhen we run the program.

First, we create the database ifit doesn’t exist.

Next, we walk through thepredefined paths, looking for filesthat have any one of the followingextensions:

.AVI, .MKV, .M4V, .MP4

When we find one, we gothrough and try to parse thefilename looking for a series name,Season number, and episodenumber. We take that informationand put it into a database, if itdoes not already exist there.

Once we are through lookingfor files, we query the databaselooking for series names that don’thave a TvRage ID associated withthem. We then will query theTvRage API and ask for matchingfiles to gather that ID. Each serieswill go through that step once. Thefollowing screenshot shows the

options for, in this case, the tvseries Midsomer Murders.

I entered (in this case) 1, whichassociates that series with theTvRage ID 4466. That’s enteredinto the database, and we then usethat ID to request the currentstatus for the series, again fromTvRage. In this case, we got back“Returning Series”. This is thenentered into the database and wemove on.

While doing the initial “run”into the database, it will take awhile and require your attention,because each and every seriesneeds to ask about the ID numbermatch. The good news is that thishas to be done only once. If youare “somewhat normal”, you won’thave that many to deal with. I had157 different series to do, so ittook a little while. Since I wascareful when I set up my filenames(checking TvRage andTheTvDB.com for the properwording of the series name), themajority of the searches were the#1 option.

Just to let you know, over halfof the TV series that I have eitherended or have been canceled. Thatshould tell you something about

the age group I fall in.

The full code is, as always,available on PasteBin athttp://pastebin.com/MeuGyKpX

Next time we will continue withthe integration with TvRage. Untilthen have a great month!

Requesting information on Midsomer Murders5 Found------------------------1 - Midsomer Murders - 44662 - Motives and Murders - 313733 - See No Evil: The Moors Murders - 111994 - The Atlanta Child Murders - 264025 - Motives & Murders: Cracking the Case - 33322Enter Selection or 0 to exit ->

http://www.thedesignatedgeek.net

http://pastebin.com/MeuGyKpX


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Elmer Perry LLiibbrreeOOffffiiccee PPtt2255:: FFoorrmmuullaa LLaayyoouutt

As you create more complexformulas in Math, you will

soon discover that things don'talways display the way you wereexpecting. There are a few tricks tomaking formulas display the waywe want them, especially complexformulas. Today, we will look atmany of these tricks to make ourformulas come out right.

GROUP ELEMENTS WITH

BRACKETS

The curly brackets, {}, have aspecial use in formulas. They helpyou to group elements together.Without them you can get adifferent formula than the one youwere expecting. Here are a coupleof examples to show you what Imean.

Enter the following into theformula editor:

2 over x + 1

You will get thefollowing result:

But what if you actually wanted

the x + 1 in the denominator of thefraction? You can use curlybrackets to group the twoelements together.

Enter the same formula in theeditor, but with curly bracketsgrouping the addition:

2 over {x + 1}

You then get theresult you wanted:

Any time the formula doesn'tflow the way you were expecting,you can use curly brackets to groupitems together to make thingscome out right. You will see moreuse of brackets as we workthrough other examples in thisHow-To.

EQUATIONS SPANNING

MORE THAN ONE LINE

Some equations make moresense if they are broken intomultiple lines, or you need to showthe progression of a formulathrough each step to itsconclusion. Doing this all on one

line would make the formuladifficult to read. However, justpressing the Enter key in the editordoes not result in a new line. Inorder to get a new line in theformula, you use the newlineelement.

Editor example:

x over 250 = 5 over 100newline100x = 250(5) newline100x = 1250 newline100x over 100 = 1250 over

100 newlinex = 12.5

Result:

SUM / INTEGRAL LIMITS

The sum and int commands cantake optional parameters to signifythe range of the sum or integral.

The keywords ‘from’ and ‘to’generate the lower and upperrange of these commands. Thefollowing markup demonstrates:

sum from x=0 to x=n f(n) "or "int from x to n f(n+1)

Result:

SCALED BRACKETS

Sometimes, you need a bracketto span more than one line. A goodexample of this is with a matrix. Ifyou just use the bracketcharacters, you get an ugly lookingmatrix.

The markup:

(matrix {x#x+1##y#y+1})

The result:

To get brackets that scale to thesize of our matrix we use themarkup “left (“ and “right )”. Thisresults in a much nicer lookingmatrix.


HOWTO - LIBREOFFICE Pt25The markup:

left(matrix {x#x+1##y#y+1}right)

The result:

To get scalable square bracketsuse “left [“ and “right ]”. To getscalable curly brackets use “leftlbrace” and “right rbrace”. You canfind a full list of all the brackets inthe LibreOffice helpdocumentation.

UNPAIRED BRACKETS

Sometimes, you only need abracket on one side, but not theother. If you don't put a closingbracket, you get an invertedquestion mark and the equationwill look messy. To fix thisproblem, use the mark up “leftnone” or “right none”, dependingon your needs, to indicate you haveno opening or closing bracket.

A good example of this is themathematical definition of theLucas Numbers.

The markup:

L_n = left lbracematrix{2 # if n = 0; ##1 # if n = 1; ##

L_{n-1} + L_{n-2} # if n >1.}right none

The result:

Notice that I ended thedefinition with “right none” to getour definition to show correctly.

ALIGNING ELEMENTS USING

MATRIX

You will notice (in the Lucasnumbers definition) I used a matrixto get everything to line upcorrectly. The matrix command isuseful for this because Mathdoesn't have a command foraligning on a certain element. Withthe matrix command, we can usethe columns and rows to getelements to align the way we wantthem. A good example of this is toget equations to align on theequals sign.

For example:

matrix {3x + 2x # `=` # 45 ##

alignr 6x # `=` # 45}

The result:

You will notice the back tick orgrave ( ` ) marks around the equalssigns. This is necessary becausethe equals sign is a binary operatorand requires an expression on bothsides. The back tick ( ` ) is the smallspace mark in Math. You couldaccomplish the same thing withthe Math symbol for a long space(~) or empty brackets ({}).Remember in a matrix thateverything between the hashes isan independent expression.

You will also notice, in thesecond row, I use the command“alignr” to align the 6x to the rightin its column. Use “alignl” to alignto the left and “alignc” to align tothe center. Center alignment is thedefault, except in a matrix, whichdefaults to left alignment.

TEXT IN A FORMULA

Sometimes, you will need toadd notes or text to your formula.You can add text by enclosing thetext in quotation marks (“”).

Example:

c^2 = a^2 + b^2 newline"The Pythagorean Theorem."

Result:

CHEMICAL FORMULAS

Math was designed formathematical equations, but youcan make chemical formulas, too.Since variables are usually in italics,you will want to turn off the italicsfor variables (explained later).

Example:

matrix {"molecules" # H_2 SO_4 ##"Isotopes" # U lsub 92 lsup

238 ##"Ions" # SO_4^{2-{}}}

Result:

Note the “lsub” and “lsup” inthe isotope formula. The “lsub”makes a left subscript, and the“lsup” makes a left superscript. You


Elmer Perry's history of working,and programming, computersinvolves an Apple IIE, adding someAmiga, a generous helping of DOSand Windows, a dash of Unix, andblend well with Linux and Ubuntu.

HOWTO - LIBREOFFICE Pt25will also need to add some specialdouble arrows to your catalog forchemical formulas.

COLOR, BOLD, AND ITALICS

The color, bold, and italcommands allow you to emphasizecertain parts of your formula. Theyaffect only the elements whichfollow them. To affect moreelements you need to group themtogether with brackets.

Example:

bold color blue c^2 = colorred {a^2 + b^2} newlineital color green "The

Pythagorean Theorem"

Result:

Notice that I put bracketsaround the elements in the squareroot to make them red. Also, forthe c2, I combined color with thebold command. You can choosefrom eight colors: black, white,cyan, magenta, red, blue, green,and yellow.

CHANGING THE FONT AND

FONT SIZE

Sometimes, you will want to usea font or font size other than thedefaults. Format > Fonts brings upthe dialog to change the fonts forvariables, functions, numbers, andtext. You can also set some customfonts here as well. Format > FontSize brings up the dialog for fontsizes. You set the base font, andthen the element sizes are set aspercentages of the base.

CHANGING ELEMENT

SPACING AND ALIGNMENT

Sometimes, it is necessary tochange the spacing and alignmentof the overall formula. Format >Spacing bring up the spacing

dialog. In the Category dropdown,you select the type of elementspacing you want to control. Youset the different spacing for theelements as percentages of theelements width or height,depending on the spacing type.

For example, if we wanted tochange the spacing for thealignment on the equals signs wedid earlier, we would select matrixfrom the category. If we set thecolumn spacing to 0%, theexpressions will butt up againstthe equals sign.

Result:

Format > Alignment brings upthe alignment dialog. Here we canchange the default alignment forthe formula, left, right, or center.

CONCLUSION

All the different options forformatting your formula can seemoverwhelming, but you will get thehang of it with practice. The firstand most important thing toremember is using curly bracketsto group elements in a formula.Look in the Elements dialog or thecontext menu when in doubt abouthow to do something, and youmight want to keep this article onhand as a reference.

Next month, we will discussusing formulas in LibreOfficeWriter.


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Jan Mussche NNeettwwoorrkk SSeettttiinnggss

When you connect yourdesktop, laptop,

printer/scanner, tablet, cellphoneor whatever other device youmight have, to a network, you needto set a few things straight inorder to get connected.

The first choice you make iswhether you use a wired or awireless connection. For the tabletand the cellphone, this choice iseasy: only a wireless connection ispossible.

For the laptop and printer youcan, almost always, choosebetween the two, and for desktopsthe choice is probably madealready, with the presence of theEthernet port and the missingwireless card.

The second choice is how doyou want your device to beconnect to your network. Do youuse the devices (cellphone, tablet,laptop) also on other networks,wifi at the office, school, mall ormaybe even in the train, or is it(desktop, printer/scanner)connected to only your own

private network? When using othernetworks as well, the choice, ifthere is even a choice, is simple:you will use DHCP to set allparameters automatically for aworking connection.

DHCP stands for: Dynamic HostConfiguration Protocol (Seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Host_Configuration_Protocolfor more info about DHCP). Here aDHCP server handles all requestsfor a connection, it hands out theIP address, sets the gateway, andtakes care of the correct DNSaddresses.

Routers have a DHCP server onboard so you can use it very easily.

Using DHCP, the router will giveyour connected device the firstfree address in the range ofaddresses it can use, meaning itmight use a different address eachtime it is connected.

For a desktop, which is placedunder or on your table and whichwill be there till it falls apart, youcan also use the manual “fixed

address” settings. This way, youare in control: you decide whichaddress the computer uses, andyou know it always uses that onesame address.

Both ways have advantages.

When using DHCP, your devicewill almost automatically beconnected to a network when itcomes in range AND you havepermission to connect to it. Youjust need to chose the securityused by the network (if any) andprobably type in a password.

When using a fixed address, youalways know which address it isand you can use this in scripts toaddress the computer.

What do you have to do tosetup a connection?

I will explain this using aKubuntu system. For othersystems, there will be differencesin setting it up, but they will beminor.

When you open the Networkconnection settings, you see whatis shown in the picture above. I usea wired connection, since this is theonly connection the computer has.The connection is called: “Wiredconnection 1”. Now this is just aname, you can use anything youwant here. You can make morethan one connection if you needto, each using its own settings.

Each time the computer isbooted, the connection is switchedon automatically—which makeslife easy.

As you can see, I use the

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Host_Configuration_Protocol


HOWTO - NETWORK SETTINGSAutomatic (DHCP) method ofconnecting to my router. In themiddle of the screen I chose DHCP,and now the other fields forsetting IP address, Subnet maskand Gateway are grayed out. Theydon't need to be filled out sincethe DHCP router takes care ofthem.

In the second picture, I chosethe manual settings and typed thevalues of IP address, Subnet Maskand Gateway.

A few explanations:

• IP address is the address yourdevice gets. It is like your homeaddress. In a network it is used tofind the device.

• The subnet mask is used toorganize your network. It tellswhich addresses can be used bymeans of a filter. In my case thevalue is set to 255.255.255.0. Thismeans when placing this filter ontop of the address, the DHCPserver can use only the addresses192.168.1.0 until 192.168.1.255.Only the part after the last decimalpoint can change. This is caused bythe value “0” in the mask. Mindyou, in this range there are a fewaddresses which will not be usedfor connected devices since theyare used by the network itself.

• The Gateway is the door whichconnects your local privatenetwork to the Internet. It is theaddress for the “inside” part of therouter, the local LAN side of therouter.

On the other side, the WAN sideof the router, the address is the IPaddress your Internet ServiceProvider gave you, either by meansof a fixed or a DHCP address.

Using DHCP (on a privatenetwork) has the big advantagethat you don't need to knowanything about the network, orabout somebody else's network,

when you want to connect to it. Itis not important which address youget, it is not important to knowwhich addresses the network uses.Local networks can use one of acouple of address ranges, eitherthe 192.168.x.x series or the10.10.x.x series. Your devicereceives an IP address and that's it:you're connected. It is notimportant to know which addressit is, what the gateway is—it allworks automatically.

But what if you want to havethe ease of use of the DHCP server,

and still want a fixed address soyou can use that address in scriptswhen connecting to that device?

There is a way, but it dependson your router whether it ispossible to use it.

Some routers can be told thatwhen device X is trying to connect,it always gets the same address, nomatter how few or how manydevices are connected to therouter already.

This is done by means of the


HOWTO - NETWORK SETTINGSMAC address. MAC stands forMedia Access Control. Seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address for more info.

The MAC address is a uniqueaddress for each networkcard/chip, and is stored in the readonly memory of the card, or in thechip which handles network traffic.

There are no two chips/cards inthe world with the same MACaddress. This makes them unique.(However, on most networkhardware, you can spoof a MACaddress, tell it to use an addressyou specify, not what is on thechip.)

Now, how to use the MACaddress? This depends on yourrouter, if it is possible, and, if so,how to do that.

My router, a Cisco LinksysE4200, has the ability of combiningthe MAC address of a connecteddevice to a handed-out IP address.

In the Setup tab you find thesettings for your Internetconnection. As can be seen here, Ihave a DHCP address from myprovider. This means, wheneverthe modem shuts down, I could get

a different IP address from my ISP.Since we are connected 24/7 it willnot happen frequently.

Below that you see the localnetwork setup.

The router has the address192.168.1.1, with a subnet mask of255.255.255.0, meaning addresses192.168.1.1 – 192.168.1.255 can beused.

DHCP Server is enabled,because I want to make it easy fordevices to connect to the network.DHCP is using the addresses192.168.1.100 – 192.168.1.199 (100addresses, this should be enough

for my wife and me).

In this section of the setup, youfind the button DHCP Reservation.This is the one to use if you want tocombine DHCP with fixedaddresses.

When clicking the button youwill see the next picture, which is apart of the total screen whichshows up.

In here you see a table withconnected devices, their assignedIP address, their MAC addressesand buttons to remove them fromthe list.

Give your device a name whichis easy to remember, choose an IPaddress, find the MAC address thedevice uses, and add it here on thispage. (This is done in another partof the page, which is not shownhere.) Save your settings.

Reboot your device and checkthe IP address it received. It shouldmatch the entry in the table.

Now you have the best of bothworlds, and the ease of using aDHCP server, and the fact yourdevices always use the same fixedIP addresses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Nicholas Kopakakis BBlleennddeerr -- PPaarrtt 55

Having a lousy model is notsomething that you want for

your models, of course, but, as agood friend of mine (andexperienced 3D artist) told me:“you can save a lousy model withgood texturing.”

This month, I will try to explainthe very basics of texturing (thetruth is that I know the verybasics). There are a lot of booksout there describing texturingtechniques—as textures are a veryimportant matter for 3D modeling.

Low poly is a polygon mesh in3D computer graphics that has arelatively small number ofpolygons. We usually use low polymodels for performance reasons,in real-time applications such asgames.

High poly models are usuallyused for animated movies or highdetail pictures, in conditions, ingeneral, where we don't have real-time performance restrictions.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_poly)

I will give you an example tomake it more clear what texturesare and what they are capable of.

In the image below, we have asphere with a plane, andilluminated by 3 lights.

Next, we have the sameobjects, but this time with texturesand image mapping to create thesurface filling on earth.

Next, we have the same objectswith different textures on them.

And, finally, we have ball ofaluminum foil garbage on a beach(very sad).

For the last picture I used animage for the sand, and, for thefoil, the cloud texture with somenormal map displacement.

But enough with the examples.Let’s load our snowman.blend file.

Select the three spheres (body)of our snowman, and press Ctrl+Jto Join the three meshes to one.Name it “body” under the object

tab.

Now, go to the material tab andpress the New button to create amaterial for the body of oursnowman.

Name the material with aunique name—for example,“body_Material”.

Next, press the tab next to thematerial tab called Textures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_poly


Nicholas lives and works in Greece.He has worked for a post-productionhouse for several years and migratedto Ubuntu because “it rendersfaster.” You can email him at:[email protected]

HOWTO - BLENDER Pt 5

Press New to create a newtexture. Name it body_Texture, orwhatever you like.

Find a picture of snow to use asa texture. There is a veryinteresting site that I use a lot athttp://www.cgtextures.com. Youcan register and have access tothousands of images that you canuse as a texture (with the freeregistration you can download upto 15MB of images per month.Download the low resolutionimages and you will be just fine).For our snowman, I downloadedthe image Snow0041_5_S.jpg.

Under the type button, selectimage or movie.

Then press Open under theImage section, and navigate toyour file system to select yourimage.

Under the Mapping section,select Sphere for the Projectionand leave Coordinates as it is(Generated).

Under the Influence section,tick on Emit and put the value-0.800 to light up your image alittle, and, under Geometry, tickNormal and enter 4 for value togive a hard surface feeling.

Leave the rest to default, orexperiment with them to see whatyou get (remember thatexperimenting is one of the threethings that you need to masterblender, the other two arepractice!).

Now, for the ground, here’swhat I have done (of course, youcan use an image instead). Icreated a texture from the typeClouds, adjusting some of thesettings.

with these settings:

Finish the snowman by creatingand applying textures to the restof the meshes (hands, nose,mouth, etc.)

Feel free to send me yourcreations of the snowman projectat [email protected], and I'llpresent the best here at Full CircleMagazine.

Next month, I'll introduce youto the Cycles render engine—avery powerful renderer that hasbeen included with the blenderdistribution ever since version2.64. Also, we will start a newproject. Send me your ideas.

For this month, I have a gamecalled Dead Cyborg created byEndre Barath(http://www.deadcyborg.com).Another game created with theblender game engine. Enjoy!


http://www.cgtextures.com


http://www.deadcyborg.com


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Mark Crutch IInnkkssccaappee -- PPaarrtt 1122

Creating images, diagrams anddrawings in Inkscape is all very

well, but, at some point, you arelikely to need them in a formatother than Inkscape's ownvariation of SVG. Inkscape hasmany import and export formats,with the exact selection dependingon various external applications aswell. In this article I will introducethe most common and most usefulformats, generally found in the fileformat popup of the File > SaveAs... dialog. Let's start with a verycommon file type amongstInkscape users: SVG.

You may not have given muchthought to SVG as an exportformat, other than knowing thatit's Inkscape's default file type. YetInkscape actually offers sixvariations of SVG in its Save As...dialog, each making differenttrade-offs between file size andcontent. The first, simply referredto as “Inkscape SVG”, is thestandard Inkscape format, and isthe one you should probably use tostore the master copies of yourInkscape drawings. It preserves allthe Inkscape-specific data, which is

great for use as a master format,but does mean that the file size islarge, and it's saving a lot ofinformation that most otherapplications won't understand.

If the size of the file is yourmain concern, but you still want topreserve the Inkscape-specificdata, then you should use“Compressed Inkscape SVG”. Thishas an svgz file extension, and isthe same as a standard InkscapeSVG file, but compressed using theGzip algorithm. This can typicallyreduce the file size by fifty percentor more. Compressed files aremore prone to data loss if the filebecomes corrupted, andsometimes won't display inapplications that are otherwisehappy to render SVG files. Someweb browsers won't render themwhen loaded as local files, despitebeing happy to accept them whenissued from a web server.

Most other applications won'tunderstand the Inkscape-specificdata in an SVG file, so you can alsosave a version with this strippedout. This is the “Plain SVG” option,

and its Gzipped counterpart,“Compressed Plain SVG”. Thesewill save you a few bytes andproduce a purer version of the SVGthat can be easier to work with ifyou subsequently have to edit thefile by hand, or if you want to use iton a site like Wikipedia—wheresimple SVG files are favoured overapplication-specific versions.Although this might appear to bean ideal format for serving on theweb, it does remove <script>elements, which limits its appealfor some web content.

If you really want to removeevery redundant byte from yourfiles, then the “Optimised SVG”option (below right) is the one togo for. This runs the outputthrough a Python script called“scour” which is also available as astand-alone application. Itpresents a dialog to let you fine-tune the optimisations it willperform, and can take a while torun if the file is complex.

Getting the best out of Scourrelies on some knowledge aboutthe structure of SVG files. There's


HOWTO - INKSCAPE Pt12no compressed version of the“Optimised SVG” format availablefrom within Inkscape's save dialog,but you can manually Gzip theresultant SVG file for the sameeffect.

The final SVG format is“Compressed Inkscape SVG withmedia”. This actually creates a zipfile (not Gzip) which contains anInkscape SVG file, plus copies ofany linked media. The linked mediaare typically bitmap images thathave been added to a drawing, butnot embedded. Adding bitmapgraphics is a subject we'll becovering later in this series. Thisformat is useful for transferring anInkscape drawing, and all its linkedmedia, to another machine, but,ironically, it can't be opened by acopy of Inkscape on the receivingend. Instead, the zip file has to bedecompressed, and only then canthe included SVG file be opened.

As a comparison between thesizes of these SVG variants, I saveda copy of the snowman drawingfrom part nine of this series ineach format. I also did the samefor one of my longer comic strips.The “Compressed Optimised SVG”was manually compressed using“gzip -9 filename.svg” to give the

best compression, and thefilename extension then changedfrom “svg.gz” to “svgz”. Finally Ialso exported both files to PNGformat to show the difference(shown above) in size betweenbitmap and vector graphics.

As you can see, the differencesbecome more significant as thecomplexity and size of the imageincrease; however, we're stilltalking about relatively smallsavings in these days of multi-terabyte hard drives. Saving plain,optimised or compressed files isgenerally only worth doing if youhave a specific reason orrequirement – such as wanting tohand edit the files, or use them ona site like Wikipedia. If you've gotplenty of space on your web server,it's not even worth compressingyour files for online use: insteadensure that your web serversoftware is configured to gzip thedata on the fly. In my own case, I

use compressed Inkscape formatfor the files that can bedownloaded from my website –with over 200 comics available todownload, it helps keep storagecosts down – but I use theuncompressed Inkscape formatwhen storing files locally.

After SVG, the most commonexport format is probably PNG.This is a bitmap format that can beviewed by almost all web browsersand graphics programs. It's theonly standard bitmap format thatInkscape can export to, so if youwant to convert your image to aJPEG, TIFF, Windows BMP file or

any other type of bitmap graphicyour first step will be to create aPNG and then convert it in anotherapplication.

A very common—andunderstandable—mistake that newInkscape users make is to use the“Cairo PNG” option from the File >Save As... dialog. Unfortunately,this is almost never the right wayto create PNGs, as it doesn'tsupport transparency or filters.Instead you should use the File >Export Bitmap... menu entry, whichwill open the PNG export dialog.

The four buttons at the top ofthe dialog are handy shortcuts forchoosing what part of your imageyou would like to export: the wholepage, a rectangle large enough toenclose the whole drawing – whichcould be larger or smaller than thepage, a rectangle large enough toenclose all the objects youcurrently have selected, or a

Format Snowman ComicInkscape SVG 172KB 849KBPlain SVG 154KB 769KBOptimised SVG 133KB 504KBCompressed Inkscape SVG 93KB 274KBCompressed plain SVG 90KB 261KBCompressed Optimised SVG 87KB 209KBPNG exported at 90dpi 211KB 1400KB


HOWTO - INKSCAPE Pt12custom rectangle whose size is setby the x0, x1, y0 and y1coordinates. You can also specify acustom rectangle using x0, y0,Width and Height, in which casethe x1 and y1 figures will beupdated automatically.

Usually everything that's visibleon screen and which lies within thespecified rectangle is exported. Ifyou want only the selected objector group exported, without anybackground elements, you cancheck the “Hide all exceptselected” box at the bottom of thedialog. If you have more than oneobject or group selected, you canuse the “Batch export” checkboxto save each of them to a separatefile.

The “Bitmap Size” part of thedialog allows you to set the Widthand Height of the PNG file that willbe created. Alternatively, you canset the “dots per inch” or “dpi”,which will also change the Widthand Height fields. Increasing thedpi will produce a file that is larger,with more pixels; reducing the dpiwill result in a smaller file withfewer pixels. 90dpi is usually goodfor web graphics, but you mightwant to use 300dpi for a file that isgoing to be printed. If you want it

printed twice as large, use 600dpiinstead, or 150dpi for half the size.The rule here is the same as with adigital camera: more pixels equalsmore detail, but a bigger file size.

The last part of this dialog, the“Filename” section, is a littledeceptive. You can type a path andname, although whatever nameyou use, Inkscape will alwaysproduce a PNG file. Alternatively,you can click on the “Browse...”button to bring up a file selector.The catch with this is that the fileselector has a “Save” button whichdoesn't actually save the file.Instead it simply puts the selectedpath and filename into the“Filename” field, but the imageisn't actually created on disk untilyou click the “Export” button.Exporting is usually quite fast, butcan take a while for large dpivalues, or if the image containscomplex filters.

Moving back to the “Save As...”file selector, the “PortableDocument Format”, “Postscript”and “Encapsulated Postscript”options are all variations on atheme. These are most usefulwhen creating files for a printbureau, as they often expect toreceive these “industry standard”

formats. They all present a verysimilar looking dialog in which toset a few options.

The most important options are“Convert texts to paths” and“Rasterise filter effects”. Theformer will automatically convertyour text objects into paths withinthe exported file, which preventsproblems caused by using fonts onyour machine that aren't presenton the target machine. None ofthese formats support the filtereffects – including the simple blur– that SVG offers, so if you don'tchoose to “rasterise” these, thecorresponding objects will simplybe omitted from the file.Rasterising consists of creating abitmap version of the filteredcontent, so, much like the ExportBitmap dialog, there's a setting forthe dpi. Once again a high value inhere will produce more detail inthe output file. If you're creating a

PDF to view on a computer screen,then 90dpi may be sufficient, but,if you want a high quality print, oryou expect your readers to zoomin, you should probably set thishigher.

An alternative way to create aPDF for a print bureau is to importyour SVG file into Scribus and usethat to generate the PDF file.Unfortunately, Scribus doesn'tsupport all of Inkscape's SVGfeatures, so this approach may notwork for more complex drawings.My experience has been that it'soften easiest to simply export ahigh resolution PNG file and let theprint bureau deal with getting itinto a suitable format for theirsystems. The downside of thisapproach, other than the large fileyou'll need to create, is that yourvectors are rasterized prematurely,so you probably won't get thesmoothest possible output. Forsmall items, that may not matter,but, if your plan is to createposters or billboards, it can makeall the difference. Inkscape's PNGfiles are all in RGB format, andsome particularly fussy bureausmay complain that they wantCMYK files. Even if they're happyto work with PNG files, do makesure you get a proof from them


Mark has been using Linux since1994, and uses Inkscape to createtwo webcomics, 'The Greys' and'Monsters, Inked' which can both befound at:http://www.peppertop.com/

HOWTO - INKSCAPE Pt12first to check that the colors arewhat you expect.

There are a variety of otherexport formats available in theSave As... file selector, servingvarious niches. Each has its ownlimitations on what Inkscape andSVG features can be successfullyrepresented. For more detailsabout many of these formats readthe Exporting Files section ofTavmjong Bah's excellent Inkscapemanual (link at the end of thearticle). Given the target audienceof Full Circle Magazine, though,there's one more format thatshould be discussed: “GIMP XCFmaintaining layers”.

This export format is availableonly if GIMP can be found in thesystem path. For most Linuxsystems, this will be doneautomatically if you install theapplication using your packagemanager, or if it's installed as partof the default installation. Onceit's available to you, selecting itwill present a dialog with a fewoptions for the export.

The “Save Guides” and “SaveGrid” options will include anyInkscape guides, and the firstrectangular grid, as their GIMPcounterparts. We haven't talkedabout guides and grids yet in thisseries, but, if you've stumbledacross them on your own, theseoptions might be useful. Inpractice, the guides may be useful,but the grid will appear muchdenser in The GIMP than in theoriginal Inkscape file, and can evenbe so dense as to obscure theimage entirely! The “SaveBackground” option is also aproblem as it applies the documentbackground color (set in File >Document Properties... withinInkscape) to every single layer,rather than just creating a singlebackground layer. In practice,therefore, I would suggest leavingat least the latter two optionsunchecked unless you have aparticular reason to do otherwise.

Loading the resultant XCF fileinto The GIMP will produce exactlywhat you expect – a bitmaprepresentation of your Inkscapefile with each of the Inkscapelayers present in a correspondingGIMP layer... almost.Unfortunately, any sub-layers are

automatically rendered into theparent layer, rather than remainingas separate layers in The GIMP. Ifyou want to keep your sub-layersseparate, you'll need to promotethem to top-level layers before youexport the file. The images createdby this export option are fixed at90dpi – if you want a differentsized image then you have to scalethe objects within Inkscape first.

An alternative to creating anXCF file from Inkscape is to insteadload an SVG file directly into TheGIMP. This will not preserve anylayers, flattening the image downto a single layer instead. Somemore advanced SVG features, orInkscape-specific additions, maynot render correctly. Loading anSVG file into The GIMP does,however, let you set the size of therendered bitmap

The “Import paths” option willcreate a GIMP path for each objectin your SVG file. This can be useful

if you wish to convert one or morepaths into a selection in order tolimit the scope of your GIMP edits.Generally, it's worth checking thisbox – you can simply ignore thepaths if you don't need them, but,having them available can makesome editing tasks a lot easier. The“Merge imported paths” option isless useful. It creates a path foreach object in the SVG file, thenmerges them all into a single path.Given that you can combinemultiple paths into a singleselection within The GIMP, leavingthem separate still allows you tocreate a single unified path if youneed to.

LINKS:Scour: https://launchpad.net/scour

“Exporting Files” in the Inkscapemanual:http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/File-Export.html

http://www.peppertop.com/

https://launchpad.net/scour

http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/File-Export.html


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Ronnie Tucker WWrriittee FFoorr FFuullll CCiirrccllee MMaaggaazziinnee

GUIDELINES

The single rule for an article isthat it must somehow be

linked to Ubuntu or one of themany derivatives of Ubuntu(Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, etc).

RULES

• There is no word limit for articles,but be advised that long articlesmay be split across several issues.

• For advice, please refer to theOfficial Full Circle Style Guide:http://url.fullcirclemagazine.org/75d471

• Write your article in whicheversoftware you choose, I wouldrecommend LibreOffice, but mostimportantly - PLEASE SPELL ANDGRAMMAR CHECK IT!

• In your article, please indicatewhere you would like a particularimage to be placed by indicatingthe image name in a newparagraph or by embedding theimage in the ODT (Open Office)

document.

• Images should be JPG, no widerthan 800 pixels, and use lowcompression.

• Do not use tables or any type ofbold or italic formatting.

If you are writing a review,please follow these guidelines :

When you are ready to submityour article please email it to:[email protected]

TRANSLATIONS

If you would like to translateFull Circle into your nativelanguage please send an email [email protected] andwe will either put you in touch withan existing team, or give youaccess to the raw text to translatefrom. With a completed PDF, youwill be able to upload your file tothe main Full Circle site.

REVIEWS

GAMES/APPLICATIONSWhen reviewing games/applications please state clearly:

• title of the game• who makes the game• is it free, or a paid download?• where to get it from (give download/homepage URL)• is it Linux native, or did you use Wine?• your marks out of five• a summary with positive and negative points

HARDWAREWhen reviewing hardware please state clearly:

• make and model of the hardware• what category would you put this hardware into?• any glitches that you may have had while using the hardware?• easy to get the hardware working in Linux?• did you have to use Windows drivers?• marks out of five• a summary with positive and negative points

You don't need to be an expert to write anarticle - write about the games, applicationsand hardware that you use every day.

http://url.fullcirclemagazine.org/75d471




https://spideroak.com

Get 25% off any SpiderOak packagewith the code: FullcirclemagFans



https://spideroak.com/mobile



AASSKK TTHHEE NNEEWW GGUUYYWritten by Copil Yáňez

Hi, everyone! Welcome back toAsk the New Guy!

If you have a simple question,and want an answer that doesn’trequire you to know the differencebetween Mir (the display server)and Mir (the Russian spacestation), contact me [email protected].

Today’s question is:

Q: I want to run Ubuntu on alaptop but can’t afford one withall the bells and whistles. Can yourecommend one?

A: Well, your first problem is thatyou’re looking for a laptop withbells and whistles. What are you, asteampunk accountant? The onlypeople selling laptops with bellsand whistles have names likeMistress Infinity and live in thewondrous City of Neverling, wherethe Kittenmen pilot steam-powered dirigibles in their fightagainst The Omnicult. But if that’swhere you’re shopping for laptops,remember it’s rude not to haggle.AND DON’T BUY THE EXTENDED

WARRANTY!

For the rest of you, finding alaptop that works with Ubuntu issurprisingly easy. Ubuntu’sminimum requirements weredetermined during the Dark Ages,when copy/paste meant asking aFranciscan monk to cut up anilluminated manuscript. Ubuntushould run comfortably onanything with a 1 GHz processor, 1GB of RAM and around 8 GB ofhard drive space. Pretty sure yourtoaster has that. If not, ask around.Some of your friends probablyhave computers more than fouryears old with better specs thanthe minimum. Currently, thoselaptops are being used as hipstercoasters. Tell your friends you’vestarted a non-profit that turns oldcomputer equipment into bracesfor crooked-toothed ocelots. Invery short order, you’ll have, like,six almost-new Dells ready to beresurrected.

If that isn’t an option (becauseyou don’t put quotes around theword “ethics” like I do), you mightbe tempted to ask one of your

super-tech-savvy friends for help.DON’T DO IT! Ubuntu seems tobring out the weird in somepeople. You’ll tell your friend youneed a laptop and ask forsuggestions. Your friend will thentell you why you’re all wrong andwhy laptops are on the way out.The REAL action is in DIY smallform factor PCs with custom 3D-printed enclosures and a roll-your-own distro that launches to aterminal window on startup. Ugh.If he or she starts talking aboutembedding Ubuntu in a soda can ora belt, run for your life. Your friendbelongs to a unique subset ofcomputer users known as BDSMGeeks. These people are happyonly when their homegrownsystems make them miserable.Still, BDSM Geeks are better thanBSD Geeks. OH, SNAP!

Let’s see, so far I’ve suggestedyou acquire a laptop under falsepretenses, and then I invented asadist geek culture to make fun ofhard-core enthusiasts who are justas happy running a different distroever hour, on the hour. I’m makingfriends right and left but I still

haven’t given you a decentsuggestion for your own laptopneeds.

Let’s remedy that.

There are plenty of laptops, injust about every price range, thatwill run Ubuntu comfortably, moreif you are open to gettingsomething used or refurbished.The biggest determining factor, inmy opinion, is how you’ll use yourlaptop. For most of us, we don’tneed a desktop replacement, wejust need something for webbrowsing, email, chat, and theoccasional strongly worded letterto the dry cleaner who keepsruining our shirts. The idealmachine can run Ubuntu without



stuttering, has decent battery life,and doesn’t require you to sellplasma for the next year to makepayments.

Lots of laptops fit the bill but,for my money, the mostinteresting player right now is theGoogle Chromebook.

Huh? Isn’t that a Chrome OSmachine?

It is. But bear with me and you’llsee why I think this is one of themost interesting values out there.

Let’s look at the specs of theSamsung Chromebook:

• 11.6’’ (1366x768) display• 0.7 inches thin – 2.42 lbs / 1.1 kg• Over 6.5 hours of battery• Samsung Exynos 5 Dual Processor• 100 GB Google Drive CloudStorage with 16GB Solid StateDrive• Built-in dual band Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n• VGA Camera• 1 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB 2.0• HDMI Port• Bluetooth 3.0™ Compatible

All of this is kinda interestingand inexpensive at $249. Not

exactly an impulse purchase, but itdoesn’t require a visit to a loanofficer, either.

What really makes this aninteresting purchase—one Icouldn’t pass up—is that you canrun Ubuntu on it.

Whaaaaaaaat?!

Oh, yeah.

Here’s what I love about theLinux community. When I startedlooking for ways to run Ubuntu onthe Samsung Chromebook, Icouldn’t find one. I found TWO!Both will give you stock Ubuntu(with a few limitations), and allowyou to switch back over to theinstalled ChromeOS whenever youwant.

It’s easy, it works and it turns a$249 browser-based laptop intosomething far more intriguing.

Purchasing the laptop was easy.I used Amazon but you can gothrough the Google Play Store oreven pick one up at Best Buy. Inever quite understood “unboxingvideos”, so I won’t provide onehere. It’s just too much likestripping, and I feel weird about

chanting “Take it off, take it ALLOFF!” to a laptop. YMMV.

The design is sleek and light.The chicklet keyboard feels a bitthin but it is full-sized andcomfortable. The screen won’t winany awards but I watched theopening of Top Gun via Netflix, andsuddenly had the urge to playbeach volleyball. The browser isfast and responsive, and opened allmy favorite web pages quickly. Allof this was on the Chrome OS,which seems well suited to thetypical user needs I mentionedabove (email, browsing, wordprocessing).

But this is an Ubuntu magazine,so let’s get Ubunting!

I mentioned there are two waysto run Ubuntu. One is calledChrUbuntu and the other is calledCrouton.

I chose ChrUbuntu because theinstalled base seemed deeper.More people means more places toturn when I run into trouble. I’mlike the John Dillinger of Ubuntuenthusiasts; I always need an exitstrategy. $249 isn’t a king’sransom, but, if I brick the machine,I’ll have to explain to my wife why I

bought a $249 hipster coasterwhen we could have just borrowedone from a friend.

I followed the instructions here:http://chromeos-cr48.blogspot.com/2012/10/arm-chrubuntu-1204-alpha-1-now.html

I read them through a coupletimes before attempting theinstall, and made sure I typed ineverything exactly as it appearedon the page. Note that this workswith the Samsung Chromebookand that there are differentinstructions for the Acer model.

Basically, you put theChromebook into Developer Modeand then run a script that loads themodified Ubuntu distro onto eitherthe internal drive, a USB drive, oran SD card.

It is no false modesty to say thiswas drop dead simple. I followedthe instructions for loadingChrUbuntu onto the internal SSDdrive, and everything ran asadvertised. All told, it took abouttwenty minutes from discoveringChrUbuntu to seeing the familiarapp ribbon along the left.

Here’s how Ubuntu 12.04 looks

ASK THE NEW GUY

http://chromeos-cr48.blogspot.com/2012/10/arm-chrubuntu-1204-alpha-1-now.html


Copil is an Aztec name that roughlytranslates to “you need my heart forwhat again?” His love of women’sshoes is chronicled atyaconfidential.blogspot.com. Youcan also watch him embarrasshimself on Twitter (@copil).

running on the SamsungChromebook. Sexy, right?

So how does it run?

If you’re hoping for a balls-to-the-wall overclocker’s wet dream,you’re going to be sorelydisappointed. Actually, if your wetdreams involve processors, you’reprobably already disappointed.Just saying, this is a stripped downlaptop running a non-standard OS.Expectation management is thegame here.

The two main things that don’twork out of the box are sound andFlash. There are fixes for both butit does require some work at thecommand line. Also, the trackpaddoesn’t work as smoothly as itdoes on the Chrome OS side. Aftera while, I knew to use the fleshy

pad of my finger (instead of thefingertip) to move my cursoraround. I am hoping this gets fixedsoon but it didn’t keep me fromusing the machine.

Another negative, there’s nographics acceleration. Videos runfairly well in a smaller window, butexpanding them to full-screenresults in an unwatchable stutter.This isn’t the machine you use ifyou’re editing the new Star Warsmovie for Disney. Unless youintend to have Jar-Jar in it, in whichcase, this is TOTALLY the rightmachine to edit that movie.

That said, the experience wasn’tunpleasant, and using my newChrUbuntu install worked perfectlywell for surfing the web, sendingemails, and opening worddocuments. That last bit wasaccomplished by downloadingLibreOffice from the UbuntuSoftware Center. Not all programswork with ChrUbuntu (Dropbox isunavailable, for example), but I washappy to see this one does.

Another plus is that theSamsung uses a 16GB solid statedrive. You have to split thatbetween the two OSs, but onceyou install ChrUbuntu, you have a

silent Linux laptop with decentbattery life.

Probably the biggest downsideI’ve found so far is that switchingbetween OSs is a pain. You can’tchoose one or the other at startup,you have to choose a default usinga (for me) non-intuitive terminalcommand. The new OS starts onreboot. This isn’t a big deal, but itdoes keep you from jumping fromone to the other as needed.

This is probably the right timeto mention the other solution,called Crouton. Crouton offerssomething called a chrootenvironment. Basically, you’rerunning Ubuntu using theunderlying Chrome OS. Thetechnical details were lost on me,but one reason I’m going to give ita try soon is that switchingbetween OSs is a simple matter ofhitting CRTL-ALT-SHIFT-FORWARD.

The most promising aspect ofthese solutions is that they’re intheir infancy. ChrUbuntu is stableand much of it works out of thebox. Yes, the Samsung is optimizedto use the Chrome OS side. Sobattery life and user experienceare going to be less than optimalright now. But the community is

already working on fixes for themost common issues. It’s likely thatthis is the worst it will ever be,meaning, the future looks prettybright.

As a huge Ubuntu fan, Isometimes get a little tired offeeling like a computing hobo,using hand-me-downs andmachines held together withchewing gum. Even though one ofthe benefits of using Ubuntu isbeing able to run it on almostanything, it’s nice to get a newpiece of kit every once in a while.

If you’ve been looking for a newlaptop, include the GoogleChromebooks in your search. Theymight not be perfect for yourneeds, but they work well enoughthat they deserve to be in the mix.

Whatever you choose, goodluck and happy Ubuntuing!

ASK THE NEW GUY

http://yaconfidential.blogspot.com


LLIINNUUXX LLAABBWritten by Charles McColm SSoonnyy’’ss DDaasshh HHIIDD--CC1100//TTXX

Sony’s Dash HID-C10/TX is awifi-enabled touch-screen

Home Information Device (HID).Our device came in as a donationto our local computer reuseproject. We were excited becausewe discovered the device was acollaboration between Sony andChumby. In Issue #62, I wroteabout my effort to create a Twitterscreen based on a small device I’dseen at our local hackerspace. Thatdevice was an original Linux-basedChumby.

Setup of the HID-C10 requires awireless network and a PC tocomplete theactivation/registration process.Initially when we attempted to setup our HID-C10, the setup failed.We looked up the code the HID-C10 gave – which suggested wecontact Sony. It was after-hours sowe put the device away. The nextday we booted the device andsetup continued without problems.We were able to register our HID-C10 using one of our Linuxworkstations, and the registrationseemed to take on the device, but,when we went to add new apps,

we kept getting a Load failed,unable to load catalog. As a result,we weren’t able to add newapplications. Despite our deviceregistering, we believe the accountwe set up didn’t get associatedcorrectly with our registration, andsubsequently we couldn’t addapps.

We checked the Sony Dash website (link below) – where the HID-C10 is one of two Dashes featuredthere – to see if there was asolution. The site had severalsuggestions ranging fromunplugging the device to doing anormal restore, but none of the

solutions helped us get theapplications catalog loaded. TheHID-C10 purportedly supportedChumby applications, but, sadly,Chumby itself went out of businessin December, 2011. Volunteersmaintained the Chumby sitethrough funding from a successionof companies, but funding ceasedFebruary, 2013. One volunteermade an effort to acquire theassets of Cumby in January, 2013,with the intention of continuingthe service, but the short time leftin existing funding made it difficultto continue maintaining theservice as it was before. This mighthave been the reason applications

weren’t working on our Dash,except for a blurb on the web sitewhich indicated all service for theDash was now through Sony.

Sony appears to have keptmany of the Chumby applicationsfor the Dash alive. Some third-party developers still appeared tobe providing updates for theirapplications until early 2013. Thatsaid, a lot of the applications didn’tseem to have the polish you’dexpect from the Ubuntu softwarecenter, Android market, or otherapp store. So what did work?

Pressing the left side of thesnooze button brings up a toolbar.Clicking menu brings up a sidemenu showing clock & weather,Themes and Apps, Video, Music,Photo, and System sub-menus. Ofthe menu options, only the Appsportion didn’t work. We were ableto change themes, play videothrough Youtube, eHow, Wired’sWhat’s Next in Tech (to name a fewof the sources), music throughSlacker Radio (wife loved the LatinSalsa channel), but not Shoutcastor blue octy radio (which we figure


LINUX LABis due to Chumby being out ofservice and the volunteer site athalf-mast). Photos can bedisplayed from a USB flash drive orthrough the Photobucket onlineservice.

Various reviews we looked atslagged the HID-C10 as a glorifiedalarm clock and knocked it for thelack of applications. Compared tomost Android-driven cell phones(even old ones running Android2.3), the Dash’s applicationcollection is pretty small.Thankfully, the alarm clock portionactually did work. We were able toset and store an alarm to wake uson particular days at particulartimes. We found the videoplayback to be quite good. Betterquality videos show up crisply onthe HID-C10. We also found Slackerradio streamed without anyinterruptions. Once we changedthe theme of the HID-C10, it felt abit more useful because the themewe started with concentrated onapps rather than what was pre-installed.

The HID-C10 features a hiddenside output for headphones and aside input for a USB flash drive.The top has a large snooze button,the left side of which brings up the

on-screen menu. The top alsofeatures a couple of volumebuttons. The Dash is powered by acorded plug and doesn’t supportbatteries, so, despite the wirelessradio inside, it’s not a completelywireless device. We saw the devicemore as a kitchen appliance forplaying music and video whilepreparing food rather than a slickhackable device.

The Dash features achronometer which is a bit oddsince the device isn’t really thekind of thing you’d carry around,and the shape isn’t conducive tostanding on its top or sides.Perhaps the most tragic flaw of the

Dash is the fact that service for it isavailable only in the United Statesand Canada. Again, we thoughtthis was strange since the Dash issuppose to be an Internet-connected device.

We didn’t get a chance to talkto Sony before this review wasdue, but that’s our next step. Itappears the Dash should beworking and that Sony is stillproviding limited support for thedevice. Sadly, they closeddeveloper support as of February2013, which means third partydevelopers and open sourcedevelopers can no longer updatetheir apps for the Dash, effectively

rendering it obsolete. Despite thisapparent obsolescence, and thetrouble with maintaining Chumby,the Chumby forums appear quiteactive. As a reuse and refurbishingproject, we hope someone comesalong and supports the parentvolunteer Chumby revival projectto allow free software developersto continue making these devicesuseful.

USEFUL LINKS:Sony’s Dash support site:https://dash.dash.sel.sony.com/Sony’s larger community forums:http://community.sony.com/Chumby Company Site:http://www.chumby.com/Chumby forums:http://forum.chumby.com/Chumby wiki:http://wiki.blueocty.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

Charles is a step-father, husband,and Linux fan, who hosts a not-for-profit computer refurbishingproject. When not breakinghardware/servers, he maintains ablog at:http://www.charlesmccolm.com/

http://www.charlesmccolm.com/

https://dash.dash.sel.sony.com/

http://community.sony.com/

http://www.chumby.com/

http://forum.chumby.com/

http://wiki.blueocty.com/index.php?title=Main_Page


MMYY SSTTOORRYY

My first introduction to Unixwas in 1979. The company I

was working for at the time gotthe PWB (Programmer'sWorkbench) version to experimentwith. We needed this for its abilityto do remote job entry to the IBMmainframe. I just loved thesimplicity of Unix on the surface,but also loved the powerful beast(maybe a grue?) lying beneath thesurface.

For the next 18 months welearned about Unix andprogramming in C. It was a greattime.

In late 1980, I got an offer fromanother company for a muchbetter opportunity. I left the Unixenvironment. I've always had someregrets about leaving: from apersonal angle, leaving somethingI enjoyed working with, and, on theprofessional side, wondering whatpaths my career would have taken.(Would it have been worse orbetter?)

Through the 1980's, Iconsidered Unix variants Coherent

and Xenix. The AT&T PC7300 wouldhave been my ideal choice but itwas around $5,500.00.

I eventually succumbed to thecorporate standards, and adoptedMicrosoft Windows and officeproducts to maintaincompatibility.

In 1995,while at alocalcomputershow, Icameacross afellowsellingSlackwareLinux. I hadheard of Linuxfrom a friendwho still worked atmy original company. Ibought a copy and installed it onan extra drive in my computer.Unlike today’s Linux distros, onceinstalled, you had to go through aseries of screens to configure thekernel for your hardware and otheroptions, and recompile the kernel.

Even after using Windows foryears, I was having a great time.

The various window managersat the time were rough. I settledon FVWM (F Virtual WindowManager). It worked fine, but you

had to edit a configurationfile to add any

applications to it.

I played withvariousdistributionsover the yearsas they cameout. I usedRed Hat,

Caldera, Corel,etc. I

eventuallysettled on SuSE,

and was using Linuxfull-time, delving into

Windows when I needed tofor something with a clientcompany.

In 2002, I decided to jump to anApple iBook (no flames please). Iliked it, but still wasn't giving up onLinux. When Ubuntu came around,

I looked into and followed it. Linuxsupport for Apple hardware at thetime was not very good. It wasn'tuntil 10.04 that I was able to installit on a spare drive on my MacBookwith almost no issues. My MacBookwas starting to develop anoverheating problem, which wasminor when running OS X but wasworse under Linux. It was enoughto see that I could use it for myday-to-day needs.

These days, I am one of themany IT professionals forced towork in a lousy job due to a lack ofwork in my area of expertise. Myidea is to try to build a smallbusiness—installing andsupporting Ubuntu for ordinarypeople who are fed up with virusesand spyware, or who have decenthardware but still can't run thelatest and greatest versions ofWindows. Not an easy goal, but Ifeel it is worth trying. To this end, Iwas able to get a new Acercomputer, and I am runningQuantal Quetzal and loving it.

Written by Vince Du Beau


MMYY OOPPIINNIIOONN

With time to let the dustsettle and reflect on the

bust-up between Canonical andsome parts of the Ubuntucommunity, what can we really sayabout the state of relationsbetween the sponsor and itscontributors?

Last month, Canonical causedsome upset by unveiling its ProjectX, the new compositing andrendering engine, Mir, turningaway from Wayland, which MarkShuttleworth had been supportingfor the best part of two years.

Mir will be a substantialtechnical prop for Ubuntu acrossdevices and platforms, asCanonical seeks commonality ofcode and toolkits for development.However, not only is Mir lookingsomewhat proprietary, but thenature of the announcement, andthe revelation that Mir wasdeveloped under wraps for ninemonths, has caused some frictionwithin the community—to say theleast.

Suddenly, the Ubuntu Council,

project leaders anddevelopers—basically anyoneoutside the hallowed portals ofCanonical—have to question whatthey are and aren't “allowed” tocontribute, and whether or notthat contribution has any value orplace in the increasinglycentralised and less Open SourceUbuntu OS. Community Councilmember Elizabeth Krumbach askedthat very question in a veryreasonable blog post.

With one notable projectleader, Jonathan Ridell, effectivelyresigning his Ubuntu Memberstatus, Shuttleworth then madethings worse by going on theattack instead of taking it on thechin—accusing Ridell of 'divisiveleadership.' Call it toy-throwing orblatant hypocrisy, this may godown as the 'Benevolent Dictatorfor Life's shark-jumping moment,proving that the words'benevolent' and 'dictator' simplycannot sit side-by-side.

Now join the dots to anotherannouncement which went out lastmonth.

No one doubts Canonical'sambition and drive to get Ubuntuonto as many devices as possible,even to the extent of working withthe Chinese state. Canonical isworking with the Chineseregulators to get a version ofUbuntu certified for public use. Fornow, let's just say that howeveryou try to dress that up, softwarefreedom and the People's Republicof China do NOT go together.

What this adds up to is adouble-whammy ofdisappointment if you weremarching behind Canonical as abeneficent flag-bearer forcommunity-driven developmentand software freedom.

At the risk of repeating myself,however, I'd like to emphasise thatCanonical is a commercial entity.Although it has a long way to go toreach the level of Oracle Corp in itssingle-minded pursuit of the dollar,as a commercial venture, Canonicalneeds to get product out toconsumers to make money.

It was unfortunate that Randall

Ross, in attempting to explain andexcuse Canonical's behavior,likened Ubuntu to a multi-stagerocket in which we all play a part inreaching for the stars. I sayunfortunate because manycontributors chose to see theirefforts jettisoned with the boosterrockets as the Canonical commandmodule blasts onward to newworlds.

Whether or not Canonical'sApple-esque attempt to build itsown controlled and exclusiveframework for Ubuntu succeeds,whether or not the rocketshipreaches its destination, the rest ofus have to accept that acommercial sponsor reserves theright to put its money where itchooses. You can follow themoney, or go with the community.That's just the way it is.

Written by Robin Catling


BBOOOOKK RREEVVIIEEWWWritten by Ronnie Tucker

Publisher: No Starch PressPages: 676January 2013, 676 pp.ISBN: 978-1-59327-383-5http://nostarch.com/gimp

If you’ve always wanted a fullmanual for GIMP, then The Book

of GIMP is about as close as you’llget. Covering GIMP 2.8 and almostevery feature of it, you’ll be a GIMPmaster in no time.

The book starts with learningthe basics, such as the screenlayout (single window FTW!),opening and resizing images, usinglayers, and how to use a graphics

tablet in GIMP. After that, it’s intothe deep end with photographretouching stuff like cloning, colorcorrection, and restoration.“Drawing and Illustration” comesnext, including using thepaint/pencil tools, shapes, fills andmuch more. “Logos and Textures”is a short chapter which is followedby composite photography, whereyou’ll combine several photos intoone. Chapter 6 even coversanimation in GIMP which I wassurprised to see. Same with usingGIMP to design a website (Chapter8).

Having survived Part One,you’re thrust into Part Two, whichgoes into the features of GIMP inmore depth—such as showing youlayer masks, layer blending modes,tools, and filters. Even dipping intothings like scanning, installingplug-ins (such as the awesomeG’MIC) and then customizing yourGIMP interface.

Part Three (the finale) isinteresting in that it gives somegood information on how thehuman eye works regarding vision,

perception and colorrepresentation. I thought that wasa nice touch.

I really can’t fault The Book ofGIMP. It’s well laid out, tells youexactly where you need to go inthe menus (for example: Image:Edit > Copy), gives you thekeyboard shortcut where possible,and has plenty of screenshots ofwhere you’re going. The book iscertainly no short read as it’s abouttwo inches thick with almost 700pages! Of course, if you buy thebook from No Starch Press (thepublishers) they also give youaccess to a digital (PDF) copy ofthe book, which is nice.

If I had to pick one down-side, itwould be that some examples lookquite amateurish and simplistic(such as combining photographs tocreate something completelyunrealistic), but I suppose thisbook is for beginners and notthose who want to create the nextskin perfect magazine cover.

BBooookk OOff GGIIMMPP

TABLE OF CONTENTS

IntroductionI. Learning GIMP1. Getting Started2. Photograph Retouching3. Drawing and Illustration4. Logos and Textures5. Composite Photography6. Animation7. Image Preprocessing8. Designing a WebsiteII. GIMP Reference Manual9. The GIMP Interface10. Display11. Layers12. Color13. Selections14. Masks15. Drawing Tools16. Transformation Tools17. Filters18. Animation Tools19. Obtaining and Printing Images20. Image Formats21. Scripts and Plug-ins22. Customizing GIMPIII. AppendicesA. Vision and Image RepresentationB. Tips and Hints for Selected ExercisesC. ResourcesD. Frequently Asked QuestionsE. Installing GIMPF. Batch Processing

http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-s/#specs

http://nostarch.com/gimp


RREEVVIIEEWWWritten by Art Schreckengost

Ever hear of SolydX or SolydKor the conjoined SolydXK?

You can stop scratching yourhead, these aren’t cereals or high-fiber colon cleansers. The first twoare Debian based distributionswith Xfce and KDE as desktopchoices. At 950 MB and 1.4 GBrespectively, these are just slightlylarger than the Debian parent thatbore them.

Still doesn’t ring a bell? Well,they are new (early 2013 or so),and, other than a sparse website athttp://solydxk.com, there reallyisn’t much to indicate they reallyexist. Perform an online search andyou’ll see results highlighting awindow tinting company, theactual website, and a couple notesthat no such words exist (in thatorder, I might add).

And what of SolydXK? It’s ateaser that exists in name only atthis point. It’s X or K but not XKquite yet, although I see no reasonyou couldn’t install Xfce and thenadd KDE or vice versa.

Lack of history aside, I was ableto get an .iso image of each for atry in my Virtualbox setup.

While the installer is moreaesthetically pleasing thanUbuntu’s, some may find itconfusing when it comes time topick the root partition and relatedformat. If that sounds a little outof your league, there is a helpfultutorial at

http://solydxk.com/community/tutorials/#software.

Even with the usual Virtualboxbottleneck and slowdowns,installation was not bad at roughly20 to 30 minutes for either. Noupdates awaited me, and this Iattribute to the Debianunderpinnings and theyouthfulness of the OS itself(about 3 months old when I got it).

Footprints were relatively low atless than 10 GB for either, onceinstalled.

In what has to be a rarity, all myhardware was recognized and Iexperienced no problems withvideo, audio, or anythingelse—since nearly every codec ordriver you’d need is already there.If it won’t play or open, chances areyour files are woefully outdated.

As for desktop designs, you geteither the very basic Xfce or thesomewhat more grandiose KDE. Ifyou didn’t catch the hints, I’mreferring to Xfce’s rather bland“here it is, take it or leave it” 2Dqualities, or KDE’s “add enoughwidgets and you’ll never see thatdesktop again” design issues.

In base form, both looksomewhat alike with similarbackgrounds and bottom taskbars.Probably to aid users inidentification, there is a big X or Kin the titles of each, good thingsince they are nearlyindistinguishable otherwise. Take alook at the screenshots and you’ll

SSoollyyddXXKK

http://solydxk.com

http://solydxk.com/community/tutorials/#software


REVIEWsee what I’m referring to.

That’s it folks. Other than theubiquitous KDE musical ditty uponopening (Xfce has no suchannouncement), you’d be hardpressed to tell the difference,although KDE aficionados wouldspot the standard transparentwindow and widget menuimmediately. Taskbars for both arethe same layout, too, with themenu to the left and systeminformation parked to the right. Asthe adage goes, if it ain’t brokedon’t fix it.

About the only other indicatorof one over the other is KDE’sbetter clarity and brightness. Xfcelooked downright dull incomparison, but it is a lightweightdesktop design with a minimum offlash.

Normally, I’d steer users withlimited resources to the Xfceplatform since it usually performsmuch faster than the fatter KDEoffering; however, that’s not thecase here. In fact, it wasn’t reallyclose. KDE was a good 5 secondsfaster to boot—even after addingdesktop widgets that wouldnormally cause it to crawl.However, I don’t consider Xfce’s

average boot time of 30 secondsanything to laugh about, especiallygiven that’s in Virtualbox.

Being lightweight usually comeswith a price, and that’s often aspartan menu with equally spartantools, but that isn’t the situationhere.

A partial listing is shown in thetable bottom right.

While boot times weredefinitely different between thetwo, there was no discernibledifference in performance beyondthat. Both were equally quick inopening programs and files, savingdocuments, etc. If nothing else,either version of Solyd was quitefast once booted, even when usingLive mode in Virtualbox.

About the only bottleneck Iencountered was the evertroublesome Software Manager,which resembles the UbuntuSoftware Center—minus thebranding and Canonicalcommercial offerings. It frequentlydid spooky things like flutter in andout during program installation, orjust lock up for no good reason. Onthe other hand, the old standby,Synaptic Package Manager,


REVIEWperformed like a champ.

So, would I recommend eitherone? All depends upon what you’reafter. Those looking for a stableDebian based distribution will bewell served here, but being plaincan lead to problems.

First, it doesn’t stand out fromthe crowd. Remove the name andartistic logs and it could beconfused with a couple dozenofferings I’ve reviewed over theyears. The base programs are justthat—base. It has no specialty,such as Peppermint OS and theirCloud-based programming, nordoes it appeal to a segment, suchas ArtistX or openArtist—twodistros with a bevy of programsgeared to A/V artists.

Second, is it going to survive orbecome relegated to the dustbinof history? Take a look atDistrowatch, and, once you getpast the top 50, you’ll see a fewhundred more releases that justnever made the popularity polls

even though they are quitecapable.

But there is no faulting the OSitself. It has never failed to work,and I have yet to induce a crash(and believe me, I do try hard). Itjust needs to be polished a bitmore with some excitement added.Mind you, don’t go all CadillacCimaron on it, just add somepizzazz (Google that Cadillac, if thename doesn’t ring a bell, and you’llsee what I mean).

With all these factorsconsidered I give SolydX andSolydK 3 out of 5 stars.

Full Circle PodcastEpisode 33, WithAdded Horsepower

Your hosts:• Les Pounder• Tony Hughes• Jon Chamberlain• Oliver Clarkand Freaky Clown

from theBlackpool (UK) LUGhttp://blackpool.lug.org.uk

In this episode we are joinedby Freaky Clown, we talkabout the Ubuntu Phonerelease, Linux peripheralsand some events.

The Ubuntu Podcast covers allthe latest news and issues facingUbuntu Linux users and FreeSoftware fans in general. Theshow appeals to the newest userand the oldest coder. Ourdiscussions cover thedevelopment of Ubuntu butaren’t overly technical. We arelucky enough to have somegreat guests on the show, tellingus first hand about the latestexciting developments they areworking on, in a way that we canall understand! We also talkabout the Ubuntu communityand what it gets up to.

The show is presented bymembers of the UK’s UbuntuLinux community. Because it iscovered by the Ubuntu Code ofConduct it is suitable for all.

The show is broadcast live everyfortnight on a Tuesday evening(British time) and is available fordownload the following day.

podcast.ubuntu-uk.org

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/collection/offline_enabled?utm_source=chrome-ntp-icon

http://blackpool.lug.org.uk


http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/


LLEETTTTEERRSSIf you would like to submit a letter for publication, complimentor complaint, please email it to: [email protected] NOTE: some letters may be edited for space.

CINNAMON MINT

I'm sure you've seen enoughcomplaints from people who

don't like the constant fiddlingwith the user interface for Ubuntu.I won't rehash those arguments.Instead, I will point out that Mint isone of the top Debiandistributions, and ask if the reasonmight be a consistent userinterface?

Ubuntu could reclaim its placeat the top, and satisfy those whowant a consistent user interface,by creating a desktop.conf filewhich would store the user'schoice for backdrop, desktoptheme, and all the other elementsof the look-and-feel which I couldadapt to, but I don't want to haveto adapt to.

Come May, 10.04 LTS will beexpiring, and I'm planning to go toCinnamon Mint. I'd rather stay withUbuntu, but only if they quitforcing a new user interface on me.

Thomas M. "Toad" Brooks

Join us on:

facebook.com/fullcirclemagazine

twitter.com/#!/fullcirclemag

linkedin.com/company/full-circle-magazine

ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=270

goo.gl/FRTMl

FULL CIRCLE NEEDS YOU!

Without reader inputFull Circle would be an

empty PDF file (which I don'tthink many people would findparticularly interesting). Weare always looking for articles,reviews, anything! Even smallthings like letters and desktopscreens help fill the magazine.

See page 25 to read our basicguidelines. Follow those andyou're almost guaranteedsuccess.

Have a look at the last page (ofany issue) to get the details ofwhere to send yourcontributions.

FULL CIRCLE READER SURVEY 2013

It's that time of the year again folks. That timewhere we offer you, the readers, a say in thefuture of Full Circle.

All we ask is that you fill in as much detail asyou can on the survey we've written up athttp://goo.gl/hR7zc

That's it!

We'll gather together the data and present ourfindings in a future issue of Full Circle for all to see.


http://facebook.com/fullcirclemagazine

https://twitter.com/#!/fullcirclemag

http://linkedin.com/company/full-circle-magazine

http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=270

http://goo.gl/FRTMl

http://goo.gl/hR7zc

http://goo.gl/hR7zc


QQ&&AACompiled by Gord Campbell

If you have Ubuntu-related questions, email them to:[email protected], and Gord will answer them in a futureissue. Please include as much information as you can about your problem.

Q When I delete a file inDropbox, is it really gone

forever, everywhere?

A No! Jens (FCM MobileEdition) pointed out that if

you log on to the Dropbox webinterface, and open the folderwhere the file used to reside, youcan click on an icon labelled "Showdeleted files." If you right-click on adeleted file, you get the option torestore it. I have yet to figure outhow long it remains there.

Q When I open Home Folderfrom the Unity Launcher, the

left side panel (Devices, Computer,Network) is missing. How do I getthis to display again?

A (Thanks to DuckHook in theUbuntu Forums) Press <F9> to

toggle the sidebar.

Q What does “long termsupport” mean to the average

user?

A (Thanks to cortman in theUbuntu Forums) As far as

Ubuntu/Canonical is concerned, itmeans they'll provide securityupdates and bug fixes for thatversion for an extended period.Beginning with 12.04, that periodis five years for Ubuntu Desktop.Also note that beginning with13.04, "standard" releases will besupported for nine months.

Q What is Mir?

Ahttp://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/canonical-announce-custom-display-server-mir-not-wayland-not-xhttps://wiki.ubuntu.com/MirSpec

Q I just tried hardinfo, and whileit provides lots of information,

it doesn't have the level of detailthat I want.

A If you want a detaileddescription of your hardware,

open Terminal and paste this

command:

sudo lshw -html >Desktop/myconfig.htm

If you double-click onmyconfig.htm, it should open inyour browser, and give you a nicelyformatted report about yourhardware.

Q Is there a way to enableautomatic login when I didn't

select it at installation?

A If you click on the dash andtype login, do you see "login

window" as something you canrun? If so, select the Security tab,and "Enable Automatic Login" is acheckbox item.

Or, it might be under "UserAccounts", where you click on"Unlock", provide your password,then flip the "automatic logon"switch.

Q Is there an equivalentprogram to Sysprep for

Windows? I want to set up systemswhich are ready to use, then wheneach end-user powers up thecomputer for the first time, hewould be asked to provide ausername, password, etc.

A (Thanks to Cheesemill in theUbuntu Forums) When you

boot the installation media, hitSHIFT to get to the installationmenu, then hit F4 and select 'OEMInstall'. When Ubuntu has finishedbooting, install the system asusual, you will be prompted for atemporary username andpassword.

When installation has finished,boot the system and log on withthe temporary username andpassword you created earlier; youcan now make any otheralterations to the system that youwant, for example getting updatesand installing extra software.(Corporate wallpaper!) Whenyou're all done, just double-click onthe 'Prepare for shipping to enduser' icon on the desktop and thenshut down the machine. You cantake an image of the drive, and


http://askubuntu.com/questions/265644/dual-boot-surface-pro-with-ubuntu

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/canonical-announce-custom-display-server-mir-not-wayland-not-x https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MirSpec


Q & Ainstall that on as many computersas you want.

Q I recently installed Xubuntu,but I like Nautilus better than

Thunar, so I installed Nautilus. Nowwhat?

A (Thanks to LewisTM in theUbuntu Forums) Go to

Settings -> Preferred Applications-> Utilities, and set the FileManager to Nautilus.

Q I received an email whichcaused Evolution version 3.2.3

to go into a CPU loop. I can't evendelete it!

A You can fix the email. Setyour file manager to show

hidden folders, and navigate to.local/share/evolution/mail/local/cur

Each email message is a file.The time and date on the file willnot match the email's time anddate exactly, but it should get youclose. Open the file in Gedit, andfind the first thing which is notsimple text. Delete from there tothe end, restart Evolution, and youshould be able to delete the

message.

Q I have Ubuntu 12.04 installedon a Panasonic Toughbook CF-

29 with a built-in GPS device. TheGPS device does not show up inlshw.

A (Thanks to xraynetcontrol inthe Ubuntu Forums) (Gord

says: The GPS appears to be a serialdevice attached to what MS-DOScalls a COM port.) I needed to addmyself to the "dialout" group. I didthat by entering this into theterminal, and then rebooting thebox:

sudo adduser (name) dialout

sudo dpkg-reconfigure gpsd

Since my laptop has an actualserial port on the back, I guessedthat the GPS receiver was in serialslot 2, so I entered ttyS2, and kepteverything else as a default.

So, enter:

stty -F /dev/ttyS2 ispeed4800 && cat </dev/ttys2xgpscgps

It took about 5 minutes to get a

2D lock on me, as I was inside. Iclosed out the terminals andlaunched a variety of GPSprograms like GPSDrive, FoxTrotand Viking. All worked as expected.

TIPS AND TECHNIQUESYou want to run a web server?

I frequently see questions frompeople who want to set up a

website running on a homecomputer, typically stated as, "I setup a website on my computer, butit doesn't work. Please help."

Instead of saying, "it doesn'twork," tell us exactly what youhave done and what happens as aresult. For example:

I have confirmed that my ISPallows customers to run a webserver. (Many don't, so that's theend of it!)

I have purchased the static IPaddress 1.2.3.4 from my ISP. (It'spossible to run a web site withouta static IP address, but you'regetting into "how to build a pocketwatch in 394 easy steps" territory.Hint: dyndns.)

I have purchased the domainiamtank.com from the registrarSomereg, and have pointed it to1.2.3.4 (probably the easiest step).

My server is set up with a staticIP address on my LAN, and it is192.168.1.32 (See last month'sQ&A for setting up a static IPaddress on your LAN.)

I have set up my router toforward port 80 to 192.168.1.32(The router's manual will tell youhow.)

I am running Apache on myserver, and other computers on theLAN get the web page when Ienter 192.168.1.32 into a browseraddress bar.

Actually, if you have done allthose things, it should work.

Be specific! Don't saymydomain.com, tell us your actualdomain name, tell us your IPaddress.

There is a lot of information on theInternet. For example, 30 secondson Google revealed this page:http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/php/how-to-setup-a-dedicated-web-server-for-free/

http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/php/how-to-setup-a-dedicated-web-server-for-free/


UUBBUUNNTTUU GGAAMMEESSWritten by Jennifer Roger

Steam (Valve’s very successfulgame client) has been around

for a while, but it’s been only a fewmonths since Ubuntu users havehad the pleasure of getting anofficial client. Now Linux gamerscan get in on the democraticservice known as Greenlight.Steam’s Greenlight allowsdevelopers to submit theirgames—so that players may up-vote the games they want to see inthe Steam store. So which gamesstand out the most? Here are mytop-ten picks of Linux gameswaiting for the Greenlight onSteam.

C-WARS

C-Wars is a fast-paced real-timestrategy game that draws from afew different styles. Years after a

devastating nuclear war, survivorstake refuge on the Moon—only todiscover an unknown substance isturning humans into zombies. Youand your companions must fightanother battle to save the newcivilization from extinction.

TRACE VECTOR

With fast-paced gameplay andlots of neon colors, Trace Vectorreinvents the retro arcade game bycombining old school vectorgraphics with simple gameplaythat progressively becomes morechallenging. Players must navigatetheir ship through windinggeometric levels, while collectingfuel to stay the course. With actionand puzzle elements, Trace Vectorlooks to be an addicting blast fromthe past with a modern twist.

DELVERDelver is a first person

roguelike with some innovativeideas. It draws inspiration fromgames like Ultima Underworld, andcombines traditional elements of aroguelike, but the gameplay andgraphics give it a new twist.Although still in development,there are already lots of greatfeatures with more to come, suchas character classes and a dungeonlevel editor.

FORCED

Battle through gladiator-styletrials in this tactical co-op RPG.Forced highlights the cooperativeaspect with features like the SpiritMentor which challenges playersto work together to control an

extra party member with specialabilities and an ethereal form. Thetrick is that they must becontrolled simultaneously, soteamwork is a must. Of coursethere are also epic boss battlesand plenty of skills to unlock asyou fight your way through over 30trials in the game. To give it a tryand join the online beta, visitforcedthegame.com

AEON COMMAND

Aeon Command is a strategywarfare game set in a space battlebetween three factions of AeonNebula. Choose between theAlliance, Exiles, and Cyborgs in thestruggle for control of the AeonNebula. Each faction has its owndistinct abilities, ships, andcampaign with eight missions.There are also skirmish modes, andmultiplayer, along with numerousupgrades to help improve yourfleet.

TToopp 1100 GGrreeeennlliigghhtt GGaammeess


Jennifer is a writer, gamer and geek,hailing from the Chicagoland area.You can follow her on Twitter@missjendie or visit her website atindiegeekery.com.

UBUNTU GAMES

LEGEND OF DUNGEON

Robot Loves Kitty’s latestproject, Legend of Dungeon, is aroguelike dungeon crawler thatdares players to embark on adangerous mission to retrieve amysterious treasure from the 26thfloor of a dungeon. You, and up tothree companions, are on a questto do what no one else has donebefore—find the fabled treasureand successfully return from yourjourney. Legend of Dungeonfeatures randomized dungeonsand various puzzle elements for anadded challenge. The game iscurrently in its alpha stage andavailable to demo atrobotloveskitty.com/LoD/

SENTINEL

Sentinel is a gorgeous towerdefense game with interactivemusic elements. The game is set ona sequencer grid as you activatedifferent new parts of thesoundtrack in time with the music,all while adding defenses anddestroying enemies. Inspired byother music games like Rez andLumines, the creators of Sentinelhave found a beautiful new way toplay a tower defense game.

HAMMERWATCH

Fans of the Gauntlet series willlove Hammerwatch, a fast-pacedhack and slash action adventurefrom Jochum Skoglund and NiklasMyrberg. There are four characterclasses to choose from as youbattle through hordes of enemiesand solve puzzles within CastleHammerwatch. In addition to asingle player campaign, players canplay with up three friends in localco-op or online multiplayer. Thereare a total of twelve levels dividedamong four acts, but if you’re

looking for even more battles andloot, there is also mod support toedit and create your own levels. Ademo of the beta is available forfree at hammerwatch.com

CHASM

It can be difficult to draw from alot of different things and do itwell, but Chasm is a game thatsuccessfully blends many differentelements to create an innovativegameplay experience. Part 2D sidescrolling platformer and partaction RPG, you play as a wearysoldier heading home from a longwar. While passing through amining town, you discover that itscitizens have accidentallyawakened an ancient evil.Supernatural forces have trappedyou in the town, and now you mustbattle to escape and return homesafely. With gorgeous graphics andan engaging story, Chasm looks tobe a game to keep an eye on.

LEGENDS OF AETHEREUS

Gamers looking for highlydynamic gameplay and epic worldwill be thrilled to try Legends ofAethereus. Set in a world after theThird Great Skyfall, you mustbattle to help restore peace andbanish the evil that vies for power.With three unique classes (officer,astrographer, and inventor), youcan play the single playercampaign or engage in PVE or PVParena battles. In addition toexploring a lush, beautiful world,depth and customization is acentral theme with the game. Theaddition of a crafting system addsvast combinations of customizableitems, and the statue and bannercreators allow you to personalizeyour city-state. Legends ofAethereus is currently in beta.

http://indiegeekery.com


LLIINNUUXX CCEERRTTIIFFIIEEDDWritten by Richard Philip Witt

Richard Philip Witt, 30, living inSwitzerland. I’ve been using Ubuntudesktop and server for roughly 2years. But only for the basics. Now Iwant to discover its capabilities. Anymentors out there? Email me:[email protected].

Call me pernickety, but when Iuse ls, I prefer my files listed

vertically not horizontally. Most ofthe time anyway. ls -1 listsvertically, one file or folder perline. (I’m salivating as I write.); but Idon’t want to write ls -1 each time.So what can I do? Use the aliasfunction. It's very simple, and alsoon the LPIC 1 Exam 101 syllabus.*alias forms new commands ormodifies existing commands, thelatter relevant here. But first:which aliases (aliai?) already exist?

rpwitt@rpwitt-laptop:~/Documents/programming$ alias...alias l='ls -CF'alias la='ls -A'alias ll='ls -alF'alias ls='ls --color=auto'

In my case (Ubuntu 12.04 LTS),ls comes preset with the alias 'ls --color=auto', which, as far as I know,assigns different texts colours todirectories, files, symlinks and thelike. Hence, it was all the morepertinent for me to check theexisting aliases before making anychanges. Assigning a new aliaswould overwrite this existing one,

losing my colour coded files andfolders, and most probablythrowing me into some deep funkfor the weekend.

To have one file or folder perline yet keep the colour coding:

(N.B. Although not alwaysnecessary, it’s good practice to setyour alias commands insideapostrophes)

alias ls='ls -1 --color=auto'

Execute the command.

rpwitt@rpwitt-laptop:~/Documents/programming$ lsc_programming.pdflfs.pdfLinuxAdm.pdflinux_nutshell.pdflpic.pdfnand2tetrisprog_interface.pdfshell_scripting.pdf

And there she blows.

But wait! It's not enough. I wantto have my nand2tetris folder (verycool little learning project) at thetop of that list. In fact, I always

want my folders listed first. A quickconsultation under ls --helpinforms me that ls --group-directories-first will get the jobdone. I can have all I would havehoped (and still do ever hope) for.If only I wouldn’t have to type thatpesky addendum to each lscommand: --group-directories-first.

alias saves the day again.

alias ls='ls -1 --color=auto--group-directories-first'

rpwitt@rpwitt-laptop:~/Documents/programming$ lsnand2tetrisc_programming.pdflfs.pdf...

It's a beautiful sight.

*The alias command is a part ofLPIC learning statement 1.105.1,Customize and use the shellenvironment. (weight: 4)



MMYY DDEESSKKTTOOPP

I'd like to submit this screenshot from our main desktopcomputer running Voyager Linux 12.04 (based on Xubuntu),Xfce, Docky, and a customized Conky.

David Burke

Your chance to show the world your desktop or PC. Email your screenshots andphotos to: [email protected] and include a brief paragraph about yourdesktop, your PC's specs and any other interesting tidbits about your setup.

My current setup could be described as low-key, with coldcolors and little visual clutter to hamper me at my work. It isactually the Xubuntu 12.10 XFCE4 desktop with a fewmodifications: docky at the bottom, conky discretely at workto the right, and a beautiful mist-themed wallpaper below. Ituses only 230 MB of RAM at startup.

Alan Ward


http://www.gothicwalpapers.com


MY DESKTOP

This is my recent KDE desktop in Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS. You can seeconky, rainlendar 2.10, and covergloobus as a music widget.

Operating System: Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTSDesktop Environment: KDE 4.8.5Icons: KFaenzaCPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 3.02 GHzRAM: 2 GBHDD: 500 GB

Maikel

My main computer is an ASUS X57VM50VN notebook withan Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 processor, 4GB of RAM, and anVIDIA GeForce 9650m graphics card. I bought thatmachine in 2009. I run Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS and gnome3with some shell extensions such as weather, updates,another user menu, and so on. As you can see on thepicture, I run conky, displaying some information on mysystem and network. The background image is a picture Ihave taken in the valley of the river Pockau near the villageAnsprung in Saxony.

E. Frank Sandig


HHOOWW TTOO CCOONNTTRRIIBBUUTTEEFull Circle Team

Editor - Ronnie [email protected] - Rob [email protected] - Les Pounder & [email protected]

Editing & Proofreading

Mike Kennedy, Lucas Westermann,Gord Campbell, Robert Orsino,Josh Hertel, Bert Jerred

Our thanks go to Canonical, the manytranslation teams around the worldand Thorsten Wilms for the FCM logo.

FULL CIRCLE NEEDS YOU!A magazine isn't a magazine without articles and Full Circle is noexception. We need your opinions, desktops, stories, how-to's,reviews, and anything else you want to tell your fellow *buntu users.Send your articles to: [email protected]

We are always looking for new articles to include in Full Circle. For help and adviceplease see the Official Full Circle Style Guide: http://url.fullcirclemagazine.org/75d471

Send your comments or Linux experiences to: [email protected]/software reviews should be sent to: [email protected] for Q&A should go to: [email protected] screens should be emailed to: [email protected]... or you can visit our forum via: fullcirclemagazine.org

FCM#73Deadline:Sunday 12th May 2013.Release:Friday 31st May 2013.

EPUB Format - Recent editions of Full Circle have a link to the epub file on the downloads page. If you have any problems withthe epub file, you can drop an email to: [email protected]

Google Currents - Install the Google Currents app on your Android/Apple devices, search for 'full circle' (within the app) andyou'll be able to add issues 55+. Or, you can click the links on the FCM download pages.

Ubuntu Software Centre - You can get FCM via the Ubuntu Software Centre: https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/. Search for 'fullcircle', choose an issue, and click the download button.

Issuu - You can read Full Circle online via Issuu: http://issuu.com/fullcirclemagazine. Please share and rate FCM as it helps tospread the word about FCM and Ubuntu Linux.

Ubuntu One - You can now have an issue delivered to your free Ubuntu One space by clicking the 'Send to Ubuntu One' buttonwhich is available on issues 51+.

Getting Full Circle Magazine:





http://url.fullcirclemagazine.org/75d471

http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=270






https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/

http://issuu.com/fullcirclemagazine


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