full circle magazine - issue 55 en

full circle magazine #55 1 contents ^

Full CircleTHE INDEPENDENT MAGAZINE FOR THE UBUNTU LINUX COMMUNITY

ISSUE #55 - November 2011

ful l circle magazine is neither affi l iated with, nor endorsed by, Canonical Ltd.

AAUUDDAACCIITTYY BBAASSIICCSS

MY STORY:THE ITALIAN

TRANSLATION TEAM

IIMMPPRROOVVEE YYOOUURR PPOODDCCAASSTT

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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

Backup Strategy Pt3 p.16

LibreOffice Pt9 p.14

Program In Python Pt29 p.07

Audacity Basics p.19

HowTo Opinions

Q&A p.52

Ubuntu Games p.55

Ubuntu Women p.54

Command & Conquer p.05

Quick Home Server p.22

Columns

Linux Labs p.24 Review p.42

I Think... p.39

My Opinion p.38

My Story p.33

Letters p.50

My Desktop p.57Linux News p.04

Closing Windows p.30

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


EEDDIITTOORRIIAALL

Welcome to another issue of Full Circle!

Unfortunately due to work, Mr. Ubuntu Games (Ed Hewitt) has left us, but you, thegood peoples of FCM-land, have stepped up and, after many an email I've not chosena replacement. I've chosen several. This means that, from FCM#56, we'll have atleast two Ubuntu Games articles each month. Even though he didn't send me an

email to tell me he'd left us, I still wish the rascal well.

As the Python series continues to run full steam ahead, LibreOffice returns, and the HowToon backing up your data discusses Deja-Dup which is now installed as standard in 11.10. Wehave that Audacity article you wanted too. Not written by Robin Catling, mind you, but it's stillas good!

BackTrack vs BackBox is the subject up for review. If you're at all interested in IT security, orpenetration, then this is a must read. Art's come up trumps with this whopping eight pagereview.

Closing Windows focuses on the *buntu equivalents of Control Panel and Device Manager. Itseems like Ubuntu makes you jump through hoops to get at, or properly install, a devicemanager look-a-like.

My Story this month is a focus on the FCM Italian Translation Team. How they got started,and with each team member having something to say about the team, or process. Many thanksto them, and the other translation teams around the world. I salute you all.

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:Robin CatlingEd HewittDave Wilkins

http://fullcirclemagazine.org

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.scribus.net

http://www.gimp.org

http://www.libreoffice.org

http://creativecommons.org/



LLIINNUUXX NNEEWWSS

Pay what you want forDarwinia, Multiwinia,DEFCON, and Uplink -- thecomplete catalog from

the British indie studio,Introversion! If you beat theaverage price, you also receiveAquaria and Crayon Physics Deluxe!

This DRM-free collection of gamesworks on Mac, Windows, and Linux,and you can support two worthycharities with your purchase.Download the games instantly fromthe Humble Bundle or redeemthem on Steam.

Darwinia, Aquaria, and CrayonPhysics Deluxe are year-on-year

grand prize winners at the annualIndependent Games Festival,representing the very best indistinctive, engaging gameplay.

http://www.humblebundle.com/

FC Notifier Update

The Full Circle Notifier is still at1.0.2, but the PPA has beenupdated for Oneric. FCN is a smallapplication that sits in yoursystem tray and will announceissue/podcast releases, and canbe set to download them too!Formore info, see the FCN GoogleGroup: http://goo.gl/4Ob4

USB Stick BringsAndroid to PCs, TVs

Stick it [Cotton Candy] intoany device that supportsUSB storage [...] fromthere, you can run Android

inside your desktop, courtesy of aWindows/OSX/Linux-compatibleclient embedded in the device. [...][It] also features an HDMIconnector.

Under its [...] hood, the devicesports a 1.2GHz ARM Cortex A9-based processor (the same basicprocessor architecture you’ll find inthe fastest chips from Apple andNvidia), as well as ARM’s quad-coreMali GPU and 1GB of RAM. It’s animpressive laundry list of specs,and seems more than capable offueling Android 2.3, akaGingerbread, the version of the OSthat comes on the device.

Source: Wired.com

£56 Open-SourceHardware Runs Linux

An open-source hardwaregroup announced a £56(US$89) motherboardthat could be used for

robotics, gaming and medicaldevices.

BeagleBoard's BeagleBone istargeted at the open-sourcehardware community. It runs a fullversion of Linux and a full-featuredweb server. The board is based onTexas Instruments' £3.14 ($5)Sitara AM335x ARM Cortex-A8processor, which can deliver720MHz of performance. TIannounced the processor onMonday.

Source: computerworlduk.com

http://goo.gl/4Ob4




Last month, I wrote a briefintroduction to Gvim/Vim,which I hope to expandupon in this article. I

recently received an email from areader asking me if it was worthlearning your way around Vim ornot. The relevant points in theemail were:a) If you use Windows during thework day, is there even a point tolearning how to use Vim?b) If you don't program much (or atall), is Vim going to be helpful?I sent back quite a long email, but itultimately boiled down to:a) Gvim/Vim have a client forWindows, so you're more thanwelcome to use it there too.b) I find that Vim offers a set offeatures that makes repetitivetasks extremely easy toaccomplish. This is most prominentin coding (i.e. headers, functioncalls, methods, formatting,refactoring, etc.), but if you do anykind of task where you findyourself repeatedly making thesame change to a certain word orto large chunks of text at a time,Vim will definitely make your life alittle easier.

As such, I will be coveringMacros, search/replace, find, and abasic introduction to regularexpressions this month.

Before I begin, please take thefollowing to heart: Use Vim.

By that I mean simply do yourday-to-day tasks in Vim for a weekor so, and once you notice yourselfrepeating a task, do a quick searchonline to find out how to automatethe task (or, at the very least,reduce the number of key strokes).It may slow you down at the start,but it will ultimately cut down onthe time you need. The reason I sayto search online is simply because,in my experience, finding theanswers to questions on your owntends to improve the ability torecall the solution, as opposed togetting the information fed to youfrom someone.

Now, to the article...

Vim offers a lot of features, notall of which will apply to you. Assuch, I recommend skipping overany parts you don't expect to need

or use, in order to reduce theamount of information you need totake in. For all the followingshortcuts, anything in “<>” arevariables that you must decide, andanything in “[]” is a physical key onthe keyboard you must press. Also,unless otherwise specified, allcommands and key presses areentered in the default mode of Vim(the “blank” one).

Macros:

Vim offers the ability to createMacros on-the-fly. This means youcan record a set of commands inVim so that you can easily repeatthem. The basic method is:

[q]<letter><commands>[q]

The [q] key begins the captureof a Macro, which gets saved to theletter you supply. Once you haveentered [q]<letter> you can thenbegin using any of Vim's commandsto make the necessary edits to yourtext. Once finished, hit the q keyagain (outside of any mode). Anexample case could be:

[q][b]

<series of commands>

[q]

This will bind the macro to the“b” key. The way to then execute acommand is to enter “@<letter>”,which in this case would be:

@b

As is the case with anycommand in Vim, you can repeatthe command by appending anumber before it. If you then typed“55@b” instead, it would thenexecute the “b” macro 55 times.Typing “@@” will also re-run thelast macro. If you want to learnmore about Macros, I recommendthe article on the Vim Wiki:http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Macros

Search:

In Vim (and programs similar toVim, like more, less, mutt, etc.), youcan search the text using thefollowing format:

/<term>

The slash tells the program the

CCOOMMMMAANNDD && CCOONNQQUUEERRWritten by Lucas Westermann VVIIMM :: AAddvvaanncceedd FFeeaattuurreess

http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Macros


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].

COMMAND & CONQUERfollowing is a search term (and inVim the entire term including theslash is displayed on the bottom ofthe window). It will then move tothe first occurrence of the word.You can move through the resultsusing [n] to move to the next oneand [shift]+[n] (henceforth referredto as [N]) to move to the previousone.

and Replace:

By default Vim supports regularexpressions. This is extremelyuseful when replacing something(called “substitution” in Vim),because you can match themaximum number of resultspossible. First we'll cover normalsearch and replace behaviour:

:%s/<term>/<replacement>/

This will find the firstoccurrence of <term> and replaceit with <replacement>. If you wantto make this change to alloccurrences, you'll need to changethe command to this:

:%s/<term>/<replacement>/g

So if you wanted to replace alloccurrences of “vim” with “Vim”,your command would read:

:%s/vim/Vim/g

Regular expressions:

With regular expressions, youcould replace all occurrences of“vim, VIM, vIm, viM” with “Vim”using the following command:

:%s/[vV][iI][mM]/Vim/g

As most of you can probablyimagine, anything written in “[]”results in either possibility (orrange of possibilities) beingmatched (henceforth called a set).You may ask yourself “why not putit all in one set?”. If you do it (goahead and try it), you'll notice thatit replaces each letter with theword “Vim” instead of replacingthe entire word. This is because thesquare brackets denote acharacter/position in a word. If youtell it to replace all the letters,without specifying the locationwithin a word (which is done bysplitting it into separate sets ofsquare brackets), it will simplyreplace each letter.

So, if you want to match allupper, lower, and numerical cases,you could use [A-Za-z0-9]. The way

it works is that anything next toeach other is taken as a new series,and anything on the opposite endsof a hyphen is a range. So your 3ranges are: A-Z (capital letters), a-z(lower case letters), and 0-9(numbers). If you want to matchevery single word that begins withthe capital letter “T”, you could useT[a-z]*. The asterisk tells Vim thatthe last set can be repeatedindefinitely. Since we didn't includespace in the set, it will then stop atthe end of a word.

A great number of optionsopens up to you in this way. Youcan run a search for all numbersbetween 1000 and 9999 with [1-9][0-9]\{3\}. In this case, the bracescontain a limiter (i.e. number ofrepetitions of the search termbefore it). You can also supply it asa range. For example [1-9][0-9]\{2,3\} will search for any numberbetween 100 and 9999. You needto escape the braces with thebackslash so that Vim will notinclude them as part of the searchterm.

This is just a brief overview of afew regular expressions. They canbecome a lot more complicated asthey become more advanced. If youwant to learn more, I highly

recommend this Tutorial:http://www.regular-expressions.info/tutorial.html.There are also a number of blogarticles on how to wrap your headaround creating expressions to dowhat you want.

I hope you've found this articleto be interesting. I plan to continuealong this path next month, withan overview of Pentadactyl (a Vim-like interface for Firefox). If youhave any questions, comments, orsuggestions, feel free to email meat [email protected]. If you doemail me, please include “FCM” or“C&C” (or, as a regular expression:[fFcC][cC&][mMcC]) in the subjectheader.


http://www.regular-expressions.info/tutorial.html



HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Greg Walters PPrrooggrraamm IInn PPyytthhoonn -- PPaarrtt 2299

A little while ago, I wasasked to convert aMySQL database toSQLite. Looking around

the web for a quick and easy (andfree) solution, I found nothing thatworked with the current version ofMySQL for me. So I decided to goahead and “roll my own”.

The MySQL Administratorprogram allows you to backup adatabase into a flat text file. ManySQLite browsers allow you to reada flat sql definition file and createthe database from there. However,there are many things that MySQLsupports that SQLite doesn't. Sothis month, we'll write a conversionprogram that reads a MySQL dumpfile and creates a SQLite version.

Let's start by looking at theMySQL dump file. It consists of asection that creates the database,and then sections that create eachtable within the database followedby the data for that table, if it'sincluded in the dump file. (There'san option to export the tableschema(s) only). Shown above rightis an example of one of the create

table sections.

The first thing that we wouldneed to get rid of is in the last line.Everything after the endingparenthesis needs to go away.(SQLite does not support anInnoDB database). In addition tothat, SQLite doesn't support the“PRIMARY KEY” line. In SQLite, weset a primary key by using“INTEGER PRIMARY KEYAUTOINCREMENT” when we definethe field. The other thing thatSQLite doesn't support is the“unsigned” keyword.

When it comes to the data, the“INSERT INTO” statements are alsonon-compatible. The problem hereis that SQLite doesn't allowmultiple inserts within the samestatement. Here's a short examplefrom the MySql dump file. Notice(right) that the end-of-line markeris a semicolon.

We will also ignore anycomment lines, and the CREATEDATABASE and USE statements.Once we have the converted SQLfile, we'll use a program similar to

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `categoriesmain`;

CREATE TABLE `categoriesmain` (

ìdCategoriesMain` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL

auto_increment,

`CatText` char(100) NOT NULL default '',

PRIMARY KEY (ìdCategoriesMain`)

) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=40 DEFAULT

CHARSET=latin1;

INSERT INTO `categoriesmain`

(ìdCategoriesMain`,`CatText`) VALUES

(1,'Appetizer'),

(2,'Snack'),

(3,'Barbecue'),

(4,'Cake'),

(5,'Candy'),

(6,'Beverages');

To make this compatible, we need to change this from a singlestatement format to a series of single statements like this:


(ìdCategoriesMain`,`CatText`) VALUES (1,'Appetizer');


(ìdCategoriesMain`,`CatText`) VALUES (2,'Snack');


(ìdCategoriesMain`,`CatText`) VALUES (3,'Barbecue');


(ìdCategoriesMain`,`CatText`) VALUES (4,'Cake');


(ìdCategoriesMain`,`CatText`) VALUES (5,'Candy');


(ìdCategoriesMain`,`CatText`) VALUES (6,'Beverages');


HOWTO - PROGRAM IN PYTHON - PART 29the public domain program SQLiteDatabase Browser to actually dealwith the process of creating thedatabase, tables, and data.

Let's get started. Start a newproject folder and a new pythonfile. Name it MySQL2SQLite.py.

Shown above right is the importstatement, the class definition, andthe __init__ routine.

This will be a commandlinedriven program, so we'll need tocreate the “if __name__”statement, a command lineargument handler, and a usageroutine (if the user doesn't knowhow to use the program). This goesat the very end of the program. Allother code we create will go abovethis:

def error(message):

print >> sys.stderr,

str(message)

Below is the handler that doesthe printing of the usagestatement.

The DoIt() routine is called if ourprogram is being run stand-alonefrom the command line, which isthe design. However, if we want tokeep this as a library to be includedin another program at anothertime, we can just use the class.Here we set up a number ofvariables to make sure thateverything works correctly. Thecode shown bottom right thenparses the command linearguments passed to our program,and gets things ready for the mainroutines.

#!/usr/bin/env python

#====================================

# MySQL2SQLite.py

#====================================

# IMPORTS

import sys

#====================================

#====================================

# BEGIN CLASS MySQL2SQLite

#====================================

class MySQL2SQLite:

def __init__(self):

self.InputFile = ""

self.OutputFile = ""

self.WriteFile = 0

self.DebugMode = 0

self.SchemaOnly = 0

self.DirectMode = False

def DoIt():

#=======================================

# Setup Variables

#=======================================

SourceFile = ''

OutputFile = ''

Debug = False

Help = False

SchemaOnly = False

#=======================================

if len(sys.argv) == 1:

usage()

else:

for a in sys.argv:

print a

if a.startswith("Infile="):

pos = a.find("=")

SourceFile = a[pos+1:]

elif a.startswith("Outfile="):

pos = a.find("=")

OutputFile = a[pos+1:]

elif a == 'Debug':

Debug = True

elif a == 'SchemaOnly':

SchemaOnly = True

elif a == 'Help' or a == 'H' or a == '?':

Help = True

if Help == True:

usage()

r = MySQL2SQLite()

r.SetUp(SourceFile,OutputFile,Debug,SchemaOnly)

r.DoWork()


When we start the program,we need to provide at least twovariables on the command line.These are the Input file, and theOutput file. We also will providesupport for the user to see whatis happening as the program isrunning, an option to just createthe tables and not stuff the data,and for the user to call for help.Our “normal” command line tostart the program looks like this:

MySQL2SQLite Infile=Foo

Outfile=Bar

where “Foo” is the name ofthe MySQL dump file, and “Bar” isthe name of the SQLite sql filewe want the program to create.

You can also call it like this:

MySQL2SQLite Infile=Foo

Outfile=Bar Debug SchemaOnly

Which will add the option toshow the debug messages and toONLY create the tables and notimport the data.

Finally if the user asks for help,we just go to the usage portion ofthe program.

Before we continue, let's take

another look at how the commandline argument support works.

When a user enters the programname from the command line(terminal), the operating systemkeeps track of the informationentered and passes it to theprogram just in case there are anyoptions entered. If no options (alsocalled arguments) are entered, thenumber of arguments is one, whichis the name of the application - inour case MySQL2SQLite.py. We canaccess these arguments by callingthe sys.arg command. If the count

is greater than one, we will accessthem in a for loop. We will stepthrough the list of arguments andcheck each one. Some programsrequire you to enter the argumentsin a specific order. By using the forloop approach, the arguments canbe entered in any order. If the userdoesn't supply any arguments, oruses the help arguments, we showthe usage screen. Shown above isthe routine for that.

Moving on, once we have parsedthe argument set, we instantiatethe class, call the setup routine,

which fills certain variables andthen call the DoWork routine. We'llstart our class now (which is shownon the next page, bottom right).

This (next page, top right) is thedefinition and the __init__ routine.Here we setup the variables thatwe will need as we go through thecode. Remember that right beforewe call the DoWork routine, we callthe Setup routine. We take ourempty variables and assign thecorrect values to them here. Noticethat there is the ability to not writeto a file, useful for debugging

HOWTO - PROGRAM IN PYTHON - PART 29

def usage():

message = (

'=======================================================================\n'

'MySQL2SQLite A database converter\n'

'Author: Greg Walters\n'

'USAGE:\n'

'MySQL2SQLite Infile=filename [Outfile=filename] [SchemaOnly] [Debug] [HHelp?\n'

' where\n'

' Infile is the MySQL dump file\n'

' Outfile (optional) is the output filename\n'

' (if Outfile is omitted, assumed direct to SQLite\n'

' SchemaOnly (optional) Create Tables, DO NOT IMPORT DATA\n'

' Debug (optional) Turn on debugging messages\n'

' H or Help or ? Show this message\n'

'Copyright (C) 2011 by G.D. Walters\n'

'=======================================================================\n'

)

error(message)

sys.exit(1)

if __name__ == "__main__":

DoIt()


purposes. We also have the abilityto simply write the schema, ordatabase structure, without writingthe data. This is helpful if you aretaking a database and starting anew project without wanting to useany existing data.

We start off by opening the SQLDump file, then setting someinternal scope variables. We alsodefine some strings to save ustyping later on. Then, if we are towrite to an output file, we open itand then we start the entireprocess. We will read each line ofthe input file, process it, andpotentially write it to the output

file. We use a forced whileloop to assist reading eachline, with a break commandwhen there is nothing left inthe input file. We usef.readline() to get the line towork, and assign it to thevariable “line”. Some lines,we can safely ignore. We'llsimply use an if/elifstatement followed by apass statement toaccomplish this (below).

Next we can stopignoring things and actuallydo something. If we have aCreateTable statement,

HOWTO - PROGRAM IN PYTHON - PART 29

#====================================

# BEGIN CLASS MySQL2SQLite

#====================================

class MySQL2SQLite:

def __init__(self):

self.InputFile = ""

self.OutputFile = ""

self.WriteFile = 0

self.DebugMode = 0

self.SchemaOnly = 0

def SetUp(self, In, Out = '', Debug = False, Schema = 0):

self.InputFile = In

if Out == '':

self.writeFile = 0

else:

self.WriteFile = 1

self.OutputFile = Out

if Debug == True:

self.DebugMode = 1

if Schema == 1:

self.SchemaOnly = 1

Now, we'll deal with the DoWork routine, which is where the actual “magic”happens.

def DoWork(self):

f = open(self.InputFile)

print "Starting Process"

cntr = 0

insertmode = 0

CreateTableMode = 0

InsertStart = "INSERT INTO "

AI = "auto_increment"

PK = "PRIMARY KEY "

IPK = " INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT NOT NULL"

CT = "CREATE TABLE "

# Begin

if self.WriteFile == 1:

OutFile = open(self.OutputFile,'w')

while 1:

line = f.readline()

cntr += 1

if not line:

break

# Ignore blank lines, lines that start with

"" or comments (/*!)

if line.startswith(""): #Comments

pass

elif len(line) == 1: # Blank Lines

pass

elif line.startswith("/*!"): # Comments

pass

elif line.startswith("USE"):

#Ignore USE lines

pass

elif line.startswith("CREATE DATABASE "):

pass


HOWTO - PROGRAM IN PYTHON - PART 29we'll start that process. Rememberwe defined CT to be equal to“Create Table”. Here (above right),we set a variable“CreateTableMode” to be equal to1, so we know that's what we aredoing, since each field definition ison a separate line. We then takeour line, remove the carriagereturn, and get that ready to writeto our out file, and, if required,write it.

Now (middle right) we need tostart dealing with each line withinthe create table statements -manipulating each line to keepSQLite happy. There are manythings that SQLite won't deal with.Let's look at a Create Tablestatement from MySQL again.

One thing that SQLite willabsolutely have an issue with is theentire last line after the closingparenthesis. Another is the line justabove that, the Primary Key line.Yet another thing is the unsignedkeyword in the second line. It willtake a bit of code (below) to work

around these issues, but we canmake it happen.

First, (third down on the right)we check to see if the line contains“auto increment”. We will assumethat this will be the primary keyline. While this might be true 98.6%of the time, it won't always be.However, we'll keep itsimple. Next we check tosee if the line starts with “)”. This will signify this is thelast line of the create tablesection. If so, we simply seta string to close the statementproperly in the variable “newline”,turn off the CreateTableModevariable, and, if we are writing tofile, write it out.

Now (bottom right) we use theinformation we found about theauto increment key word. First, westrip the line of any spuriousspaces, then check to see where(we are assuming it is there) thephrase “ int(“ is within the line. Wewill be replacing this with thephrase “ INTEGER PRIMARY KEY

AUTOINCREMENT NOT NULL”.The length ofthe integerdoesn't matterto SQLite. Again,we write it out ifwe should.

elif line.startswith(CT):

CreateTableMode = 1

l1 = len(line)

line = line[:l11]

if self.DebugMode == 1:

print "Starting Create Table"

print line


OutFile.write(line)

CREATE TABLE `categoriesmain` (

`idCategoriesMain` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,

`CatText` char(100) NOT NULL default '',

PRIMARY KEY (`idCategoriesMain`)

) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=40 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

elif CreateTableMode == 1:

# Parse the line...


print "Line to process – {0}".format(line)

p1 = line.find(AI)

if line.startswith(") "):

CreateTableMode = 0


print "Finished Table Create"

newline = ");\n"


OutFile.write(newline)


print "Writing Line {0}".format(newline)

elif p1 != 1:

# Line is primary key line

l = line.strip()

fnpos = l.find(" int(")

if fnpos != 1:

fn = l[:fnpos]

newline = fn + IPK #+ ",\n"


OutFile.write(newline)


print "Writing Line {0}".format(newline)


HOWTO - PROGRAM IN PYTHON - PART 29Now we look for the phrase

“PRIMARY KEY “ within the line.Notice the extra space at the end -that's on purpose. If it arises, weignore the line.

elif

line.strip().startswith(PK):

pass

Now (top right) we look for thephrase “ unsigned “ (again keep theextra spaces) and replace it with ““.

That's the end of the createtable routine. Now (below) wemove on to the insert statementsfor the data. The InsertStartvariable is the phrase “INSERT INTO“. We check for that becauseMySQL allows for multiple insertstatements in a single command,but SQLite does not. We need tomake separate statements for eachblock of data. We set a variablecalled “insertmode” to 1, pull the

“INSERT INTO {Table} {Fieldlist}VALUES (“ into a reusable variable(which I'll call our prelude), andmove on.

Now, we check to see if we areonly supposed to work the schema.If so, we can safely ignore anyportions of the insert statements.If not, we need to deal with them.

elif self.SchemaOnly == 0:

if insertmode == 1:

We check to see if there iseither “');” or “'),” in our line. In thecase of “');”, this would be the lastline in our insert statement set.

posx = line.find("');")

pos1 = line.find("'),")

l1 = line[:pos1]

This line checks for escapedsingle quotes and replaces them.

line =

line.replace("\\'","''")

elif line.find(" unsigned ") != 1:

line = line.replace(" unsigned "," ")

line = line.strip()

l1 = len(line)

line = line[:l11]


OutFile.write("," + line)


print "Writing Line {0}".format(line)

Otherwise, we can deal with the line.

else:

l1 = len(line)

line = line.strip()

line = line[:l14]


print "," + line


OutFile.write("," + line)

elif line.startswith(InsertStart):

if insertmode == 0:

insertmode = 1

# Get tablename and field list here

istatement = line

# Strip CR/LF from istatement line

l = len(istatement)

istatement = istatement[:l2]

if posx != 1:

l1 = line[:posx+3]

insertmode = 0


print istatement + l1

print ""


OutFile.write(istatement + l1+"\n")

Otherwise,wejointhepreludetothevaluestatement and end it with a semicolon.

elif pos1 != 1:

l1 = line[:pos1+2]


print istatement + l1 + ";"


OutFile.write(istatement + l1 + ";\n")


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

HOWTO - PROGRAM IN PYTHON - PART 29If we have a closing statement

(“);”), that is the end of our insertset, and we can create thestatement by joining the prelude tothe actual value statement. This isshown on the previous page,bottom right.

This all works (top right) if thelast value we have in the insertstatement is a quoted string.However, if the last value is anumeric value, we have to dealwith things a bit differently. You'llbe able to pick out what we aredoing here.

Finally, we close our input file,and, if we are writing an outputfile, we close that as well.

f.close()


OutFile.close()

Once you have your convertedfile, you can use SQLite DatabaseBrowser to fill in the databasestructure and data.

This code should work over 90%of the time as is. There might besomethings we missed due toother issues, hence the reason forthe debug mode. However, I'vetested this on multiple files and

had no problems.

As always, the code is up atPasteBin athttp://pastebin.com/cPvzNT7T.

See you next time.

else:


print "Testing line {0}".format(line)

pos1 = line.find("),")

posx = line.find(");")


print "pos1 = {0}, posx = {1}".format(pos1,posx)

if pos1 != 1:

l1 = line[:pos1+1]





else:

insertmode = 0

l1 = line[:posx+1]





http://www.thedesignatedgeek.com

http://pastebin.com/cPvzNT7T


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Elmer Perry LLiibbrreeOOffffiiccee -- PPaarrtt 99

In Part 8, we looked intoformatting our spreadsheetcells to look a certain way, butthe true power of Calc comes

from its ability to calculateformulas using basic math and itsbuilt-in functions. Calc formulas arejust what you think, mathematicalexpressions that use data to createa result. Calc functions give uspredefined calculations anddecision making. With just a littleknowledge of formulas andfunctions, Calc becomes a powerfuldata analysis tool. When entering aformula or function into a cell, yourformula or function must beginwith the = (equals), - (minus), or +(positive) signs.

Arithmetic Operators

Calc has five basic arithmeticoperators:+ (Plus) – add two numberstogether, or as a sign for a number.Ex. =2+5 or +5- (Minus) – subtract one numberfrom another, or negate a number.Ex. =5-2 or -5* (Asterisk) – multiplication. Ex.=2*3

/ (Slash) – division. Ex. =21/7^ (Caret) – exponentiation. Ex.=5^2

Just like in real math, you canuse parentheses to groupexpressions together to createmore complicated formulas. Forexample, if you enter the equation=5-2*3 in a cell, when you press theEnter key, you get -1 for the result.However, if you enter the equation=(5-2)*3 in a cell, you get 9 for theresult when you press the Enterkey. This happens because Calcobeys the rules of precedence. Inthe first equation, themultiplication is done first, as perthe rules, which gives us 5-6, whichequals -1. In the second equation,we change the order of operationby using parentheses. In this case,5-2 is calculated first because ofthe parentheses, giving us 3, and 3x 3 is 9.

Cell References

Hard coding our numbersdoesn't make much sense. Wecould just use a calculator for that.To unleash the power of Calc's

calculating abilities, a reference tothe data in our spreadsheet isneeded. Cell references allows usto use the data within ourspreadsheet in our calculations.Cells are referenced by the columnletter and row number. The firstcell of the first column is A1, thesecond cell of the first column isA2, the first cell of the secondcolumn is B1, the second cell of thesecond column is B2, etc. If weenter 5 in cell A1 and 6 in cell B1,we can enter the equation =A1+B1in any other cell in thespreadsheet, and the result willshow as 11.

In some functions, you will needto reference a range of cells ratherthan just individual cells. Toreference a range of cells, startwith the first cell in the range,followed by a colon (:), and the lastcell in the range. To access the first9 items in the B column, use B1:B9.To access the first 5 items in row 1use A1:E1.

What if you need to referencemultiple rows and columns? Youjust start with the first cell in the

block and end with the last cell inthe block. For example, toreference all the cells in the first 5columns and rows, you would useA1:E5.

MathematicalFunctions

If you need to sum a column ofnumbers, using basic mathematicaloperators could become laboriousvery quickly. Calc provides manyfunctions for mathematiccalculations, from finding the sumof given cells to trigonometryfunctions. These functions speedup your entry of formulas.

SUM() is the bread and butter ofmathematical functions. Thisfunction is used so often, it has itsown button on the functiontoolbar. SUM() can take up to 30numbers or cell referencesbetween parentheses. You can alsouse range references with SUM(),which allows you to quickly total acolumn, row, or range of rows andcolumns. Multiple numbers, cellreferences, or range of cells areseparated by a semicolon (;).


HOWTO - LIBREOFFICE PART 9

SUM() Examples

=SUM(A1;C2;D5) – sum of the threecells

=SUM(2;A1;C5) – sum the number 2with A1 and C5

=SUM(A1:A5) – sum the first fivecells in column A

=SUM(A1:B5) – sum the first fivecells in columns A and B

=SUM(A1:A5;C1:C5) – sum the firstfive cells in columns A and C

Calc provides many othermathematical functions. See theLibreOffice Calc documentation fora complete list, including thetrigonometry functions.

ConditionalCalculations

Sometimes, you only want toperform a calculation when certainconditions are met. A goodexample of this is avoiding divisionby zero. If you try to divide-by-zero,you get an error. The conditionalfunction IF() helps us accomplishthis. The basic syntax of the IF()function is:

IF( Test; ThenValue; ElseValue)

So, if we want to divide A1 byB2, but we want to avoid theoperation if B2 is zero, we coulduse the IF() function:

=IF(B2>0;A1/B2;”Can't div byzero”)

This translates as “If B2 isgreater than 0, divide A1 by B2;else, output the text 'Can't div byzero'.”

Conditional calculations canhelp you avoid errors in yourspreadsheets. Use them any timeyou think problems might pop up,like division-by-zero, or a numbernot being entered.

Comparative Operators

Calc provides six comparativeoperators we can use in our test.= (equal to)> (greater than)< (less than)>= (greater than or equal to)<= (less than or equal to)< > (not equal to)

In addition to the comparativeoperators, we can use the NOT()and AND() functions in our test.

The AND() function allows us totest more than one condition andNOT negates the condition. Thistime, let's make sure neither of thenumbers equal 0:

=IF(AND(NOT(A1=0);NOT(B2=0));

A1/B2; “Can't div by zero”)

In this formula, we make surethan A1 is NOT zero AND B2 is NOTzero before we do our calculation.While this formula shows both theAND() and NOT() functions beingused, a more practical formulawould be:

=IF(AND(A1>0;B2>0);A1/B2;”Can

't div by zero.”)

We have only begun to scratchthe surface of the possibilitiesusing Calc's formulas andfunctions. Next time, we will take alook at some practical uses forsome of these functions.

Elmer Perry's history of working, andprogramming, computers involves anApple IIE, adding some Amiga, agenerous helping of DOS andWindows, a dash of Unix, and blendwell with Linux and Ubuntu.

The Ubuntu Podcast covers all thelatest 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 but aren’toverly technical. We are luckyenough to have some great guestson the show, telling us first handabout the latest excitingdevelopments they are workingon, in a way that we can allunderstand! We also talk aboutthe Ubuntu community and what itgets up to.

The show is presented bymembers of the UK’s Ubuntu Linuxcommunity. Because it is coveredby the Ubuntu Code of Conduct itis 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

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


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Allan J. Smithie BBaacckkuupp SSttrraatteeggyy -- PPaarrtt 33

Last time, we looked at databackup from the top down,strategic level. On to morepractical matters now, how

to back up your data with a'conventional' utility, and wherebetter to start than with the toolalready lined up for the defaultchoice in Ubuntu 11.10 onward:Déjà Dup. This choice has comefrom left-field, in that Déjà Dup'ssimplicity is also its weakness.Clearly, we want to get everyonetaking responsible back-ups oftheir data in the simplest waypossible, but we'll need a more'complete' version of the packagethan is currently on offer. As wetake a look at all the missingfeatures, you'll see why.

Déjà Dup is not particularly new,nor is it revolutionary, being agraphical interface onto thecommand-line backup tool,Duplicity, with the rsync utilityproviding incremental back-ups.Déjà Dup does include dataencryption, network backup usingthe SSH protocol, and access tosome Cloud back-up services.

Déjà Dup is already in theofficial repositories for UbuntuLucid, Maverick and Natty. Install itthrough the Ubuntu SoftwareCenter by searching for 'deja', oruse the old-school terminalcommand:

sudo aptget install Déjàdup

It sets up a menu entry inGnome, under System Tools, whilstUnity users need only press the<Super> key and search yourdesktop for 'Deja' for twolaunchers to appear, Déjà DupBackup Tool and Déjà DupPreferences. As a Gnome desktopapplication, Déjà Dup hasintegration with Nautilus, whichrequires a re-boot after installationto activate.

First Use

The main application windowfeatures just two big buttons forBack-up and Restore. Beforeperforming your first back-up,you'll want to set your preferencesusing the Déjà Dup Preferences

launcher, or Edit > Preferencesfrom the main menu. In Déjà DupPreferences, you'll find tabs forStorage, Files, and Schedule.

Storage sets your preferredback-up location, including local,network, and Cloud Storage if youhave either Amazon S3 orRackspace accounts. Déjà Dupprovides a wizard to guide thenovice (or the lazy) throughconfiguration. Also among thechoices are FTP, Windows shares,WebDAV, and SSH. We're coming to

the Cloud as a back-up medium inthe next article, so let's say DéjàDup treats the Cloud as justanother storage location. TheStorage tab is also where youchoose to encrypt data or not,using the .gpg standard.

Files actually sets the foldersthat you wish to include or excludefrom your back-up regime. This isthe weakest part of the program atpresent. It works only at folderlevel - not at file level, so you canadd or remove folders and sub-folders from the set, but notindividual files or file types, say


HOWTO - BACKUP STRATEGY - PART 3

'exlude all *.tmp files.' Moreover,there's no implementation ofincremental back-ups; requestingwhatever files are added orchanged since the last time you ranit, or any key date you might want -such as your last system upgrade,tax-filing date, or your birthday. Allof which is possible in thecommand line tools on which DéjàDup is built and which are presentin just about every other Linuxback-up program such as S-Backup.

Schedule sets the timetable foryour back-ups, and again, this iswhere the current version of DéjàDup is a little disappointing; DéjàDup doesn't (yet) support precisetiming beyond Daily, Weekly,Monthly. I want the choice of 1am,

or 1pm, or whenever I'm not busyat the machine. We're hoping tosee this by the time Ubuntu 11.10is released.

Encryption

There's nothing elaborate inDéjà Dup's encryption; it relies onDuplicity to apply gpg using justthe password you provide. You canstore this in the default Gnomekeyring under your Gnome user ID.This is old-school back-upencryption of the kind we've hadthe last twenty years. Just don'tforget or lose that password if youintend ever to restore your data!

Backup, Backup

Having saved your preferences,you can close this application andfire up the Backup Tool. The big'Backup' button initiates an

immediate back-up. Here, throughthe wizard, you can click throughyour default preferences, oroverride them with customsettings.

What Déjà Dup creates is a back-up set consisting of two files, orthree if you encrypt;the manifest, listing your back-upselection, and named duplicity-inc.20110720T204326Z.to.20110720T210455Z.manifest.gpgthe back-up data file itself, in myexample duplicity-

inc.20110720T204326Z.to.20110720T210455Z.vol1.difftar.gpgthe encryption signature file, inthis case duplicity-inc.20110720T204326Z.to.20110720T210455Z.sigtar.gpg

You can see in the namingconvention, Duplicity identifiesitself, then includes the date-timestamp of the back-up set, in whicheach set is given a sequentialvolume number.

Restoration Drama


Allan J. Smithie is a journalist andcommentator based in Dubai. Hisblog, 'No Expert,' is at:http://allanjsmithie.wordpress.com

HOWTO - BACKUP STRATEGY - PART 3

There is no drama, if all youwant is to restore an entire back-up; just click that big Restorebutton. It will check your back-upfolder for previous back-up sets.Choose to restore one to theoriginal location or to anotherfolder. Anything more selectivethan that, such as choosingincludes, excludes, or date rangesto restore, is not currentlysupported. Roll on the 11.10version.

Yet what we do have is theability to selectively restoreindividual files using the optionadded to the Nautilus right-clickcontext menu – 'Restore to

Previous Version.' Here you canselect single or multiple files, andthe Restore option fires up DéjàDup's Restore program to pull inthe specified files from whicheverback-up set you choose.

Click on a blank area of aNautilus window, and you get anoption in the right-click contextmenu to 'Restore Missing Files,'that is, anything included aspecified back-up set that isn't inthe destination folder now,including multiple selections. It's akind of differential Restore,comparing two of the file lists -backed-up versus current. You canalso Revert to Previous Version,which allows you to recover a file

from a backup set.

Conclusion

Whilst Déjà Dup is a promisinglysimple and effective tool in thoseareas it covers, it's a long way offparity with others such as S-Backupfor Gnome, Nepomuk and Kbackupfor KDE, and only has a subset ofthe rsync features available at thecommand line. In short, Déjà Dup isa hand-held blunt instrument -while we want a remote-controlledlaser-scalpel. Some of the missingfeatures have been spotted indevelopment versions, but thismakes it a long way off our ideal

back-up tool for supporting ourstrategy for incremental,differential, scheduled, andspecific back-up, with local and off-site capability.

Next time, we'll widen ourhorizons again, searching for theideal Cloud back-up solution.

http://allanjsmithie.wordpress.com


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Attila Balazs AAuuddaacciittyy BBaassiiccss

This article aims to showyou some simpletechniques to improve thequality of your voice

recording quickly and cheaply (forfree actually). But first thingsfirst...

The best audio is the one youdon’t have to improve. Somesimple steps you can perform inadvance to maximize quality:• Use quality equipment. Here aresome articles about the equipmentthat great-sounding podcastersuse. You don’t have to spend a lotof money, but definitely stay awayfrom the built-in laptopmicrophone.• Eliminate ambient noise as muchas possible (close windows, drawthe blinds, stop other electronicequipment in the room, etc).• Record each person on a separatechannel - if possible on a computerlocal to them (avoid recordingthrough Skype, GoToMeeting, orother VoIP solutions).• Try keeping the recording volumefor each microphone at the optimallevel – not too low, but alsoavoiding clipping.

After you have the audiorecording there is still a lot you cando, but it is preferable to start outwith the best source material. Forthe example below, I’ll be using theraw recordings from a recent SERadio podcast (shown above):The situation with this recording isas follows:• There are separate audio tracksfor the interviewer andinterviewee (good).• There is background noise on thetracks (easily correctable).• Both persons were picked up byboth microphones (correctable).• The interviewer has some clipping(partially correctable – luckily it’snot the interviewee who hasclipping).

The steps to improve the qualityof this recording are as follows:

First, install the Noise Gateplugin for Audacity, since it

requires program restart (underWindows you have to copy thedownloaded noisegate.ny toC:\Program Files (x86)\Audacity 1.3Beta (Unicode)\Plug-Ins, or to asimilar location; under Linux youhave to place it in/usr/share/audacity). After copyingthe file, you have to close andrestart Audacity. To verify that theplugin was properly installed,check in the Effect menu – youshould see an entry title “Noisegate”.

Now that we have Audacity allset up and the plugin installed, first

split the stereo track into monotracks, since they don’t actuallyrepresent left-right channels butrather two speakers which will bemixed together at the end. For this,click on the arrow after thefilename in the track, and select“Split Stereo to Mono”. Sidenote:some people will prefer to mixdifferent speakers in podcasts withdifferent panning (that is to theleft or to the right). I would adviseagainst this: it is distracting if youare doing something else whilelistening to the podcast (likewalking / jogging / riding a bike /etc). It can also backfire if, for somereason, the listening device ismissing one of the channels (the“damaged headphone” scenario).

The first thing will be to remove


HOWTO - AUDACITY BASICSthe constant background noise(like AC hum for example). To dothis, zoom in (Ctrl + 1) and look forlow volume zones. Select thosezones, and go to Effects –> NoiseRemoval –> Get Noise Profile. Nowselect a zone where the noise ismixed with speech, and test outthe settings (Effect –> NoiseRemoval –> Ok). After the test, youcan use Undo (Ctrl + Z) to roll backthe changes. You should watch forthe noise being removed but alsothe natural sound of the voicebeing preserved (too aggressive ofa noise removal can lead to a“robot voice” effect). If you aresatisfied, you can go ahead andapply it to the entire track. Also,since the noise source mightchange during the recording, youshould at least do a quick scroll tocheck for other low-volume zoneswhich can be a sign of noise. If youfind noise from other sources, youcan use the same steps to removeit.

Now that you have removed thenoise, the next step would be toremove the voices from thechannels they don’t belong to. Thisis where we’ll be using the NoiseGate plugin: since there is aconsiderable level difference

between the wanted audio and theunwanted audio on each channel,we can just declare everythingbelow a certain volume “noise” anduse the plugin to silence it. Acouple of tips:• This needs to be done separatelyfor each channel, since the cutoffvolume will be different.• You can use the “Analyse NoiseLevel” function of the plugin togauge the approximate level of thecutoff volume – this will give youonly an estimate, and you will haveto play around with the settings alittle bit to find the optimalvolume.• Use a “Level reduction” of –100

dB to completely filter out thesound, and an “Attack/Decay” of1000 milliseconds to avoid falsepositives.• As with all the steps, you canexperiment on a smaller portion ofthe audio file (since it is muchquicker) to fine tune the settingsby repeatedly applying the effectwith different parameters andundoing (Ctrl+Z) the result afterevaluation. When the parametersseem right, just select the entiretrack and press Ctrl+R (Repeat lasteffect).

After we’ve finished with bothtracks, we have a better situation(shown above).

Now we will fix the clipping asmuch as possible (a perfect fix isn’tpossible since clipping means thatinformation got lost and theplugins can only “guess” what theinformation might have lookedlike). First, we reduce theamplification of the second track(the one which contains theclipping) by 10 dB as the Clip Fixplugin suggests (Effect > Amplify >–10 dB), after which we use theClip Fix plugin. Unfortunately, thisplugin runs very slowly if we applyit to the entire track at once.Fortunately, we have a reasonableworkaround: select portions of thetrack and apply the plugin to them


individually. After the firstapplication, you can use the“Repeat last effect” shortcut(Ctrl+R) to speed up the operation.Sidenote: it is a good habit to usethe “Find Zero Crossing” functionwhenever you do a selection (theshortcut is Z – so, whenever youselect a portion, just press Zafterwards). This eliminates someweird artifacts when cutting /pasting / silencing part of theaudio, and it might even help whenapplying different effects. Thefixed audio looks like the oneshown below.

Now that all the cleanup stepshave been performed, there is onelast step which is as important asthe cleanup: maximizing theaudible volume withoutintroducing clipping. This is veryimportant because all devices canreduce volume but few of them canincrease it (some exceptions being:the Linux audio stack, and VLC).The easiest way to do this is byusing the Levelator (note: while theLevelator is free – as in beer – anddoes not restrict what you can dowith the output, it is not free as in

freedom if this is a considerationfor you).

To do this, export the audio toWAV (make sure that all tracks areunmuted during export), and runthe Levelator on it. The end resultwill look like the one shown below.

Of course the Levelator isn’tmagic pixie dust either, so here area couple of things to check after ithas been run:• Did it amplify some residual noisewhich wasn’t available in the initialaudio? (if so, you should remove itusing the Noise Removal plugin).• Did it miss segments? (it is rare,but it happens – those segmentsneed to be amplified manually).• It results in “weird” soundingaudio if the recording has beenpreprocessed by a dynamiccompressor – for exampleGoToMeeting has an option toimprove sound quality which usesdynamic compression and thusmakes the recording unsuitable forthe use with Levelator.

That’s it for this rather longarticle. Don’t be discouraged by the

length of the article: after goingover the steps a couple of times, itshouldn’t take longer than 15minutes to process a 2 hourinterview (excluding the cutting /pasting / moving parts around), andyou will gain listeners because ofthe higher production value.

A final note on the outputformats: while during processingyou should always use lossless

formats, the final output format Irecommend is: MP3 at 64 kbpsCBR, Joint Stereo, 22050 MHzsampling rate. I found that this isthe best balance between quality,file size, and compatibility with themost playback devices out there.

HOWTO - AUDACITY BASICS


HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Ken Robson QQuuiicckk HHoommee SSeerrvveerr

My home “server” is theWLX-652 NAS whichis equipped with twoUSB 2.0 ports, built in

BitTorrent client, and supportsNTFS and EXT2/3. It is a simpledevice using an ARM processor andhas its USB ports on the back. Itconsumes about 3 watts in use, andis completely silent.

I have it connected to USB hubs,and from there I share my printer(Canon iP4200) and my USB HDDsto all the machines on the network,and it's flashed with Snake OS(http://code.google.com/p/snake-os/) rather than the default system.This comes with inbuilt cifs(SAMBA), FTP, print, DDNS, SSHand SFTP servers, along withTransmission to use it as a torrentclient. All admin is done via a webpage, which is well set out and easyto navigate. Although forTransmission control I usetransmission-gui. I have my sharedHDDs in external cases connectedto the USB hubs. The machines areconnected via wireless or wired tomy ADSL router, and all the sharesare mounted in fstab using:

//nas/TV /home/ken/TV cifs

guest,user,rw,file_mode=0777,

dir_mode=0777,noserverino 0 0

nas is the name of the “server”TV is one of the shares (containingmy TV episodes to watch)then there is the folder it is sharedto (TV in my home folder)then the type (cifs), andsome “filler” to make it writeableon all the PCs.

Or you can just use Network inNautilus to browse to the shares; Iwanted them automounted when Ilogged in to a PC.

I use the FTP functionality toallow me to save files from myAndroid phone to the server usinga wireless connection. Similarly, theprinter is just connected to usingthe Print Server option in the “Addnew printer” wizard - with theaddress of nas to show all theconnected printers. Then thecorrect driver is installed as normal.

For someone who has severalexternal drives, this is a simple andclean way of sharing them to all

the PCs without needing to sharefolders on the PCs, and allowsthem to be powered and accessibleall the time. The only downside tousing this low-power server is, thenetwork speed is quite LOW.(1Mb/s write and 2Mb/s reading) -however the speed is sufficient tostream 720p movies to my media

player for watching on my TV. Fortransferring large files, I tend toremove them from the NAS andplug directly into the PC to betransferred from. But thecost/power saving make this idealfor my normal workingenvironment.

http://code.google.com/p/snake-os/


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

Guidelines

The single rule for anarticle is that it mustsomehow be linked toUbuntu or one of the

many derivatives of Ubuntu(Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, etc).

Write your article in whicheversoftware you choose. I wouldrecommend OpenOffice, butPLEASE SPELL AND GRAMMARCHECK IT!

Writing

In your article, please indicatewhere you would like a particularimage to be placed. Please do notembed images into your OpenOffice document.

Images

Images should be JPG with lowcompression.

Regarding image sizes: if indoubt, send a full size screengraband we will crop the image.

If you are writing a review,please follow the guidelines shownhere.

For a more detailed list of thestyle rules and common pitfallsplease refer to:https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuMagazine/Style - in short: US spelling,no l33t speak and no smilies.

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

If you can't write articles, buthang out in Ubuntu Forums, sendus interesting forum threads thatwe could print.

Non-English Writers

If your native language is notEnglish, don't worry. Write yourarticle, and one of theproofreaders will read it for youand correct any grammatical orspelling errors. Not only are youhelping the magazine and thecommunity, but we'll help you withyour English!

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.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuMagazine/Style

[email protected]


LLIINNUUXX LLAABBWritten by John D

VVOOIIPP @@ HHoommee

In today's Lab, we are going totalk about VOIP. Probablymost of you have heard aboutVOIP before. This article will

try to explain - in a how-to styledocument - how to install a VOIPsystem at home (meaning“cheap”!).

What is VOIP?

VOIP stands for Voice Over IP.Basically, it means that you'll use atechnology which enables you tohave a phone-style conversation byusing the Internet.

This technology (hardware orsoftware) will sample and convertyour voice into binary data andsend it over the Internet to thecorrespondent you are talkingwith.

Why VOIP?

VOIP is usually cheap and easyto setup at home, once you have anInternet connection. It is often free(with some restriction) – Skype is agood example – Skype to Skype

calls are free, although Skype toregular phone has a small cost.

VOIP is also convenient – if youare connected to the Internet, youcan easily be reached, at the samenumber, even if you are far awayfrom home.

Before we move forward,please get familiarized with thisshort lexicon:PSTN = Public Switched TelephoneNetwork, or a landline phoneDID = Direct Inward Dialing: avirtual phone number, which will belinked to your VOIP SIP addressATA = Analog Telephony Adapter

Get your free SIPaddress

VOIP uses the Internet protocolcalled SIP (Session InitiationProtocol). It is the same analogy asweb pages are rendered throughthe HTTP protocol, or file transfervia FTP.

A SIP address is required in

order to receive calls – sameanalogy as email – without an emailaddress, you cannot get mail.

As with email, SIP addresses canbe subscribed for free or for asmall fee. Just as examples (manymore are available on theInternet!), www.sipsorcery.com,www.antisp.com, or iptel.orgprovide free SIP addresses. Pleasenote that sipsorcery is morecomplicated to set up (typically foradvanced users), although it ismore powerful. Antisip or iptel.orgshould be preferred for beginners.Another option is to get a free SIPaccount with Ekiga.

When you register, you will getyour SIP address and the SIP servername. Also remember yourpassword, it will be required later.

Example

Let's imagine you registered theaccount “tux” (without the quotes!)• your sipsorcery address will besip:[email protected], registeredon the server sipsorcery.com• your antisip address will be

sip:[email protected], registeredon the server sip.antip.com

Place and Receive SIPphone calls

Now that we have a SIP address,we can place and receive SIP phonecalls, either by using VOIPsoftware, or a VOIP hardwaredevice. Please note here that wewill be placing and receiving SIPphone calls, not PSTN (more onPSTN and VOIP later).

Softphones

Let's start by using software toplace / receive our VOIP calls. Manyopen-source VOIP programs areavailable for Linux, examples areEkiga (http://ekiga.org) orLinphone(http://www.linphone.org/) - bothavailable in the Ubunturepositories. In case you are aWindows user, Blink(http://icanblink.com/) is a goodexample.

To setup Ekiga with your antisip

http://ekiga.org

http://www.linphone.org/

http://icanblink.com/


LINUX LAB - VOIP @ HOMEaccount, proceed as follows:• Start Ekiga and close the accountwizard if you already have a SIPaccount. Go to the menu Edit >Accounts and then “Add a SIPaccount”:

• Key in your information• Name is for display only• Registrar is the SIP server name• user and Authentication user isyour SIP account• key in the password you choseduring SIP registration• Make sure the checkbox “EnableAccount” is checked, otherwiseEkiga will not connect this user.

If everything went fine, youshould see Ekiga getting connectedto the SIP server.

Now that you are connected to

the SIP server, you can place otherSIP phone calls. A good idea is tostart with a test call:

Music test > sip:[email protected](should just play music)

Echo test > sip:[email protected](will repeat everything you say)

What's next?

You may find what we didinteresting, but you may also notbe that much impressed since whatwe accomplished so far is preciselywhat Skype already does.

While this is not totally true –after all we have used only Open-source software (which Skype isnot) now the fun really begins forus. We will now call our SIP accountwith a real phone number!

DID or Virtual PhoneNumber

A DID is a Virtual Phone numberwhich will be linked to your SIPaccount.

How does this work?

When you sign-up for a DID(free service or not), you will key inyour SIP information (SIP account,password, and SIP server), and youwill be provided with a phonenumber. When this phone numberis called, it will call the SIP accountprovided when you signed up forthe service – if your computer isconnected to the SIP account with

your softphone, your computer willring!

The beauty of this setup is thecost – you can be called for theprice of a local call by the personcalling you.

Example

Let's imagine you live in Europeand your relatives, living in the US,would like to call you for cheap (orfree). You can subscribe for a DIDin the US (so you'll get a US phonenumber) and link it to your SIPaccount. When your relatives willcall your US phone number, yourSIP account will ring (yourcomputer in Europe) – and yourrelatives will be charged for a USphone call rather than anInternational phone call. Pleasenote to inform your relatives aboutthe time zone difference,otherwise you may be called in themiddle of the night!!!

How to get a DID?

First, consider the countrywhere you would like to get a DID.

Second, would you like to get afree or paid DID? Since there is no


LINUX LAB - VOIP @ HOMEfree lunch, a free DID has somestrings attached – usually, a freeDID is lost if it is not used at leastonce a month.

By using a search engine on theInternet, you'll find many DIDoffers. As an example, this linkhttp://wiki.sipsorcery.com/mw/index.php?title=DID_Providersprovides a great list of DIDproviders in different countries.

Example

I personally needed a DID in theUS, so I chose this website:http://www.ipkall.com/

When you sign-up, you'll have tofill in the items shown below.

• Account type: SIP (we are dealingwith SIP accounts in this article,

right?)• Area code – these are the first 3digits of your future US number –pick the city of your most frequentcallers• SIP username: from our SIPaccount > sip:[email protected]• Hostname: from our SIP account >sip.antisip.com• Email: probably self-explanatory ifyou read this article• Password: password for yourIPKall account

You'll then get a virtual USphone number in your email. Whenthis phone number is called, it willring the SIP accountsip:[email protected]. If you areconnected to your SIP account witha softphone, your computer shouldring.

What's next?

Getting the call on thecomputer is nice, the next step is toget the call on a phone (and/or thecomputer at the same time).

How does this work?

We'll need a VOIP ATA device –the VOIP device has a processorwhich samples your voice (analogsound) and converts your voice intoa binary sequence. This binary blobis then sent via the Internet, usingthe SIP protocol, to the person whoreceives the call.

In our example, I'll now explainhow to setup the Linksys PAP2 ATAdevice. Please note that the setupis very similar for other devices (ex:Grandstream HandyTone 286).

Please proceed as follows:• Connect your VOIP ATA device to

the Internet (probably to yourrouter) and plug your phone in tothe device. Tip – make sure yourrouter's firewall does not block SIP,otherwise nothing will work!• Power the ATA device, and findthe IP address assigned to thedevice from your router.• Using a web browser, connect tothe VOIP ATA device (ex:http://192.168.1.111).• Click on “Admin Login” and “Line1”.

http://wiki.sipsorcery.com/mw/index.php?title=DID_Providers

http://www.ipkall.com/


LINUX LAB - VOIP @ HOMEThen key in your SIP account

information.• Do not change the SIP Port, it isvery likely using the standard(5060).• Proxy is the SIP server (ex:sipsorcery.com or sip.antisip.com).• Display name: I'll assume this oneis self-explanatory.• User ID: your SIP user ID (ex: tux –without server or domain name).• Password: the password of yourSIP account.

Congratulations - if you call theDID we have set up before - fromanother line (for example your cellphone), the phone connected tothe VOIP ATA device should ring!

<Big Fat DISCLAIMER>

This setup does NOT

support calls to emergency

numbers (ex: 911 in North

America), and therefore

should not be used as full

replacement of a PSTN

phone</Big Fat DISCLAIMER>

For advanced users,more than 1 DIDnumber

In case you have not noticed,ipkall.com is extremely flexiblesince when we signed-on for a DID,we have keyed in the SIP accountthe DID was bound to.

Most DID providers (free or not)usually provide the DID numberand a SIP account connected to theDID.

Example – let's suppose wewould like to have a DID in the US(provider is sip.tux-telecom-usa.com), another in France(provider is sip.tux-telecom-fr.com),and another in Romania (provideris sip.tux-telecom-ro.com). In theATA device, we can specify only oneSIP account, so we have a bit of aproblem.

The solution will be provided bya SIP aggregator. On the SIPaggregator website, we will:• create a SIP account hosted bythe aggregator• create a connection to each DID• link each DID connection to theSIP account created above in #1• connect the VOIP ATA device tothe SIP account created above in#1

As a result, when any of theDIDs is called, the call will beforwarded to the SIP accountcreated on the aggregator, which islinked to your ATA VOIP device, andthe ATA VOIP device will ring!

Demonstration on howto make this setup

The SIP aggregator I personallyuse is www.sipsorcery.com – it isfree for basic use (1 DID) with a feefor more than 1 DID:• Register on www.sipsorcery.com• Once registered, get a free SIPaccount (go to “SIP Accounts”, clickon “+”).

This is the account that must beused in your ATA VOIP device.• Click on “SIP Providers”, and clickon “+” to add all the DID SIPaccounts. Please note that 1 SIPaccount is free (for 1 DID), there isa fee for more than 1 DID• Provider name: this is the namewhich will show in the list ofservers.• username: the username whichwas provided to you when yousigned-on for the DID (ex: tux).• password: the password whichwas provided to you when you

http://www.sipsorcery.com


LINUX LAB - VOIP @ HOMEsigned-on for the DID (ex: secret).• server: servername which wasprovided to you when you signed-on for the DID (ex: sip.tux-telecom-fr.com).• Register: the check-box should bechecked, otherwise when you get acall, your sipsorcery account willnot be called.

Once you have added the SIPaccount, check a few seconds laterfor the list “SIP Provider Binding”(you may need to use the refresh

button a few times). If the column“Register” shows “True” - youshould be all set. Otherwise checkthe login / password and try again.

You can now test that all worksfine – take another phone (forexample your cell phone), and callthe DID you just bound to youraccount – the phone connected tothe ATA VOIP device should nowring.

To summarize – by using the SIPaggregator, you can have as manyDIDs as you wish, and link them toyour ATA VOIP device. It isextremely useful if you have to getcalls from different countries – bycreating a DID in each of thosecountries, the party calling you willpay only for local communication(many times it will even be free).

Additional tips forsipsorcery.com

sipsorcery.com has a greatdebugging tool – you can trace anyincoming or outgoing call. The onlycaveat is that the debugger runsonly in … Silverlight. Yes, I know –it runs only in Microsoft Windows,but still – if you get into troubleand need to debug, the debuggingconsole is really outstanding.

In order to be able to use thedebugger, when you logon tosipsorcery.com, you should use the“Silverlight logon” link.

For super-advancedusers, outgoing calls

So far we have discussed onlyabout incoming calls – there is a

good reason – outgoing calls aremore complicated … and not free!

Think about incoming calls forjust a minute: when somebody callsa DID, it hits the server of the DIDprovider - which just forwards thecall via the Internet to your SIPaccount. Since the provider alreadypays for Internet access, thisservice has “virtually” no additionalcost. Of course, if the bandwidthgets overloaded, the providerwon't accept new subscribers orwill enforce other limitations.

Outgoing calls are another story– when you call a number, it is noteasy to know if it is a PSTN, cell,VOIP number, or other (ex:international call). Please note that“not easy” doesn't meantechnically impossible, butprobably harder to determine rightaway (I am not an expert on thistopic though).

In any event, for the reasonsdescribed above, outgoing calls areusually not free.

As an example, you could sign-up for a VOIP service where youwould pay a fee for outgoing calls(either per call or a lump sum for

the month). I won't give anyexamples here, there are reallymany available on the web. If yousubscribe to any of theseproviders, you'll notice thatincoming calls are free!

I don't know how it is in othercountries, but in the lucky eventyou live in the US, and if you have agmail account, you can subscribefor google-voice (for free). Rightnow (2011), google-voice offersfree phone calls in North America –on all phones (PSTN, VOIP, cellphones, etc …). Please note thatfree is for 2011, I have not heardanything for 2012 yet.

How to set up outgoingcalls?

There are several types ofoutgoing calls:• to a SIP number (ex:sip:[email protected])• to a PSTN (could be VOIP, landlineor cell – ex: 111-222-3333 for theUS)

Outgoing calls to a SIPnumber (usingsipsorcery.com)


LINUX LAB - VOIP @ HOMEI'll explain here how to setup

outgoing calls to a SIP number insipsorcery.com. I'll assume that youhave already set up your sipsorceryaccount, as explained at thebeginning of this article:• Edit your sipsorcery account andmake sure the “Out Dial Plan” is setto default.• Go to the “Dial Plans” folder andedit the default script.

The scripts are in Ruby on Rails –even if you are not familiar withRuby, tweaking and enhancing anexisting script is pretty easy if youare familiar with Linux scripting.

An example script is shown right– I'll not go into details since thescript has many comments (thisscript is heavily inspired from MikeTelis' Simple Dial Plan).

From the script, calling tuxrequires you to key in *1# on yourphone (the # sign is the equivalentof “enter” for the computer).

The reason we had to use aspeed dial is that we cannot key insip addresses on a phone (just tryto find the @ sign on a phone keypad!), this is why we need to setupa speed dial for SIP accounts.

Free outgoing callsusing Google-Voice

If you are lucky enough to live inthe US, you can place free calls tothe US and Canada with Google-Voice (GV). GV works great on acomputer; we would like to use ourATA VOIP device with our GVaccount. This is possible with asipsorcery.com script – it is MikeTelis’ Simple Dial Plan

In order to make this scriptwork, you will need:• a GV account (including a GV DIDnumber)• a DID (ex: from IPKall)

Next steps:

Once you have this scriptworking properly, you can think ofa few enhancements – for examplecall forwarding. Let's imagine youare traveling, and you would like toget all the calls placed on your SIPaccount on your cell phone – well,this is definitely possible – youcould hard code your cell phonenumber in the script, for allincoming calls using GV to call yourcell phone. Cool stuff!

Conclusion:

VOIP is a proven technology,which is thriving in today's market(home and business) thanks todemocratization of cheap Internetbandwidth.

In addition, VOIP is easy to setup (I hope this article is the proof!),cheap (a VOIP ATA device costs lessthan $50), high quality sound, andflexible (call forwarding and voice-mail available in one mouse click).

SPEED_DIAL = { # my speed dial numbers

'*1' => '[email protected]', # Tux

}

begin

if sys.Out # outbound call

num = req.URI.User.to_s # Get a string copy of the number to dial

num = SPEED_DIAL[num] || num # Substitute with speed dial entry, if any

if num =~ /@/ # Make sure we have an @ sign

sys.Log "**URI DIAL** > #{num}"

sys.Dial num # URI dialing

else

sys.Log "Error not supoprted" # No @ sign not calling a SIP number

but probably calling a PSTN

end

else # sys.Out

# Do nothing script should not be called for Dial in

end

rescue

sys.Log("** Error: " + $!) unless $!.to_s =~ /Thread was being aborted./

end


CCLLOOSSIINNGG WWIINNDDOOWWSS CCoonnttrrooll PPaanneell // DDeevviiccee MMaannaaggeerrWritten by:Ronnie Tucker (KDE)Jan Mussche (Gnome)Elizabeth Krumbach (XFCE)Mark Boyajian (LXDE)David Tigue (Unity)

The one part of Windowsthat is used just as muchas, if not more than, MyComputer, is the Control

Panel. The Control Panel is whereyou configure your Windows, andsome hardware, settings.

Control Panel

All *buntu’s have their ownversion of Control Panel. In Ubuntu(Gnome), it’s called Control Center,and in Natty it is installed - but itdoes not show up in the menus.Either you start it from a terminal,or you have to add an entry in themenus.

From a terminal:• choose Applications > Accessories> Terminal.• In the terminal, type: gnome-control-center• Hint: After choosing Applications

> Accessories, right-click Terminaland choose “Add this launcher topanel” to have it available at alltimes.Adding an entry to the menus:• Choose System > Preferences >Main Menu• In the left column, choose menuSystem Tools. On the right-handside, you will see all the items in thismenu.• Click button “New item”• For Name, you can fill in: “ControlCenter”• for Command, it will be “gnome-control-center”• and for Comment, you can use:“Control center for Gnome Desktop”

Only the Command field isimportant, the others are just textsto help you find it. Make sure to typeentries without the quotes.

• Click OK, and you will see a newitem in the menu. Close this window.• Open menu Application > SystemTools > Control Center.

In Unity, it’s located under theicon resembling a gear, in the topleft-hand corner of your screen. Clickon the gear, and navigate down to

Ubuntu (Classic)

Lubuntu

Xubuntu

Kubuntu

Ubuntu (Unity)

Windows XP


system settings. Once you click onsystem settings, a window willappear with all your ‘Control Panel’type settings within it. In Kubuntu,it’s called System Settings, and canbe found under K > Applications >Settings > System Settings. It’ssometimes found at the top of K >Favorites too. In Lubuntu, it’s calledLubuntu Control Center, and it’s atMenu > System Tools; however, tokeep Lubuntu as “light” as possibleduring the initial install, thisapplication is not installed bydefault because all the systemsettings can be easily accessedfrom the menu system without theControl Center application.Fortunately, the excellent softwareinstaller/manager makes it easy toselect and install the ControlCenter, which very nicely gives youaccess to all the primary systemcontrol in one place. Xubuntu callsit Settings Manager, and it can befound via the main menu (themouse icon) and under Settings.Needless to say, since each desktopflavour is different, the layout andsettings available are different.One thing that’s similar among alldesktops is that to configureanything you’ll be asked to enteryour root (or administrator)password. This is to preventunauthorised tweaking. Always

keep your root password safe!

Device Manager

Another crucial part ofWindows is its Device Manager. Inhere, you’ll see a list of all availablehardware, and if it’s working ornot. The Device Manager lets youselect pieces of hardware,diagnose problems, and install newdrivers, amongst other things.Linux differs quite a bit here sinceit doesn’t use drivers as such, but,thankfully, Linux has superbhardware recognition. There areexceptions to the rule though.Some hardware manufacturers arewhat Linux users call ‘proprietary’ -this means that they aren’t veryopen to sharing theirdocumentation with developers,and that makes it very difficult fordevelopers to get some hardwareworking in Linux. Like I say though,thankfully it’s becoming quite rarenow.

To see what hardware you havewhile using Ubuntu (Gnome), youhave to install a program first. Thiscan be done in a few ways, likeeverything in Linux:

The Terminal way:• Choose Applications >

CLOSING WINDOWS

Kubuntu Ubuntu (Classic)

Lubuntu Ubuntu (Unity)

Xubuntu Windows XP


CLOSING WINDOWSAccessories > Terminal, or click theterminal icon in your panel

• In the Terminal type:

sudo aptget install gnome

devicemanager

You will be asked for yourpassword. Type it and press Enter.(Password will not be shown onscreen)

The Synaptic way:• Choose System > Administration >Synaptic, and type your passwordwhen asked• In the small search field on top,start typing: gnome-device-manager• When you type slowly, you willsee the contents of the list change.The correct program will show upafter having typed just a fewcharacters.• Click with the right mouse buttonon the name of the program. Asmall box appears in which youselect “Mark for Installation”.• Now click on the Apply icon in theToolbar, and, in the summarywindow which pops up, click Applyagain.• Hint: when installing software,tick the selection button toautomatically close the windowafter the installation.

The Software Center way:• Choose Application > UbuntuSoftware Center• In the search field top-right, type:gnome-device-manager, and, againafter a few characters, the programis found.• Click the name of the programand it is marked. On the far right,you see a button Install. Click it,and the program will be installed -after you type your password.

The Device-Manager shows upin menu Application > SystemTools.

For Unity, like with most otherversions, you have several ways toview this type of information. Hereis one way - although not veryintuitive - you get to it by clickingon the ‘Dash Home’ button andtyping ‘System’. You will notice anicon labeled ‘System Monitoring’,and one labeled ‘System Info’. Theyboth give you some informationthat is similar, so feel free toexplore both, but what you arelooking for is the devices - so clickon ‘System Monitoring’. Then clickthe ‘File Systems’ systems tab.Here are a couple of other ways tosee this type of information - but

with more detailed info. Try this: inthe ‘Dash Home’ type ‘Disk’. Thereyou will see two more icons named‘Disk Utility’ and ‘Disk UsageAnalyzer’. They both can be veryuseful. Take some time now andopen both of them and have a lookaround. Be careful, the ‘Disk Utility’application gives you access toformat the hard drive, and I’mwilling to bet you don’t want to dothat. ‘Disk Usage Analyzer’, on theother hand, won’t allow you todestroy the hard drive, but it willallow you to see exactly what isusing up your hard drive’s preciousspace. Kubuntu has KInfoCentre;it’s found at K > Applications >System > Info Centre. By default,Lubuntu uses the SystemInformation utility which is at Menu> System Tools > System Profilerand Benchmark. As with theControl Center, you can easilyinstall the gnome-device-manager -which will provide much of thesame information as the SystemInformation screen but organizeddifferently and with greater detail.Once installed, it can be openedfrom Menu > System Tools > DeviceManager. Xubuntu also uses thegnome-device-manager which isinstalled as outlined above, andthen shows up under Mouse >System > Device Manager.

Most Linux device managerequivalents are just displaying a listof what you have in your machine,they won’t let you tinker with thehardware. Hardware configurationis usually done in the equivalent ofcontrol panel (see above) - as Linuxwill want to see your rootpassword before letting youconfigure anything. Entering yourroot/admin password all the timemay seem annoying, but it keepsyour hardware (and software) safe,secure, and stable!

Next issue, we’ll discuss moving,renaming, and finding files, aswell as the sometimes confusingmethods of deleting/restoringfiles.

“Entering yourroot/admin password[...] may seemannoying, but itkeeps your hardware(and software) safe,secure, and stable!


MMYY SSTTOORRYYWritten by The Italian Translation Team

First of all we would like tothank Ronnie and hisentire team for allowingthe Italian FCM team to

write about this wonderfulmagazine. Let's start by saying thatour team was born with the firstappearance of FCM on the web,and immediately joined the projectof the Italian community ofUbuntu. We are now an officialproject of the Italian LoCo team.During these years, the groupproceeded to translate, edit, andpaginate FCM - using a dedicatedsection of the official Italian wiki,where some members post draftsof the translations, and othersrevise them; when the article isready to be imported into Scribus,other members proceed to insertthem, and in order to do this, theyuse a shared folder of a cloudservice.

To coordinate itself, the teammakes massive use of the mailinglist, especially now where, with theadvent of smart phones andtablets, many can also beconnected via portable devices andrespond quickly to a discussion on

the mailing list.

Every day, the team also usesthe Freenode IRC channel(#ubuntu-it-fcm – come and visitour channel, you will be welcome!),where many people meet and alsotalk to coordinate the project - andhave the opportunity to exchange afew jokes; joking helps to workbetter! However, the IRC also helpsto involve new members to thegroup allowing a full socializationwithin the group.

In the past year, the group lost abit of energy to the point thattwelve issues of the magazineseparated the International editionand the Italian one. In June, 2011,with an enormous force of will, thegroup decided to reset the gapbetween the two editions: in onlythree months, it translated,reviewed, and published thirteenissues! Now, the Italian team canproudly say that it has all thenumbers available in its language,special issues included! Actally, wehave an extra number, an Italian-only issue with a collection of pastarticles.

Among our new projects, maywe introduce you to the e-Pubversion (a version for E-bookreaders) and the Audio Bookversion (an audio version of themagazine where the translatorsread the articles using their ownvoices); the latter version is inadvanced development stage, andshortly we will be able to offer it toall, but bearing in mind especiallythose people who are visuallyimpaired: the world of GNU/Linux,Ubuntu, and Open Source ingeneral must be accessible to all.

And now let's listen to some ofthe contributors of the Italian FCMgroup, who want to spread a bit ofthe energy, spirit, harmony, andcohesion that made it possible forus to stay updated.

And remember:FCM Italia ROCKS!

Translators say...

My collaboration withthe Italian FCM groupstarted about a yearand an half ago (April

2010), and doubtless it was theexperience that made me decide todefinitively switch to Ubuntu,leaving once and for all that otherOS.

Since I’m not very skilled at IT,I've always had some doubt in todefinitively switch to Linux, but theUbuntu community was very usefulto me, and so, one day, I decided todo the 'big jump'.

So, considering that I'vereceived a lot from the othermembers of the community, Idecided that I would have to repay,and browsing the huge ItalianUbuntu community, I came acrossthe FCM group. I've never heardabout Full Circle Magazine beforethen, so I've downloaded someissues and I felt in loveimmediately, and I decided that Ialso wanted to give my little helpto this precious work, that is to themagazine translation.

TThhee IIttaalliiaann TTrraannssllaattiioonn TTeeaamm


That's how I met this wonderfulgroup of people who areenthusiastic and always full of newideas, who have made the FCMItalian group the first in the world(and I'm very proud about this).

I love this group, and I'll neverleave it.

“But...there's one more thing”(quote): FCM Italia ROCKS! (assomeone in our group is used tosaying)

Cristiano Luinetti(aka Palombo)

I would like to introduce you tothe world of the true face ofFCM Italy. But it is almostimpossible in a few lines, and

even less so to those who are notfamiliar with our work. A group ofpeople united, close-knit, coherent,strong, trusting each other,friendly, devoted to teamwork,always ready for new challenges.Helping in coordinating thisamazing group has been for me apersonal growth, assessment ofpersonal skills and of the groupskills. In short, I gave a little of mytime to this group, but I can saythat I have received back all that Ihave given multiplied by onethousand. Thanks Guys, thanks

Ubuntu-It, thanks FCM Italy.

Marco Buono(aka newlife)

Some years ago, along witha friend, I decided to startthe translation of the FCMInternational magazine

"Full Circle", and created a group ofItalian translators on the UbuntuWiki.

After the release of the firstthree translated numbers, wereceived an invitation to bring thisproject within the Italian LoCoTeam, creating the 'FCM Group'.Since then, the translation of themagazine has greatly improvedthanks to the significantcontribution of all the friends whohave been part of this group. Hereall the tricks, techniques, andmethods used today to translate,revise, and reformat this beautifulmagazine were born. The rest ofwhat has been done is ... history!

Paolo Garbin(aka paolettopn)

I ’ve been an FCM fan since itfirst appeared. So, I’verecommended it to each of myfriends or relatives that I

successfully persuaded to tryUbuntu. A friend of mine, for whomI installed Ubuntu 11.04, said tome: “All I’m reading in FCM isinteresting, but completelydifferent from what is installed onmy PC” (the last FCM translated toItalian was #39, more or less). Hewas using 11.04, but he wasreading about 10.04. Thatexperience pushed me to join theItalian FCM translation team (agreat team) to avoid havingsomeone again tell what myfriend had said.

Fabrizio Nicastro(bifslacko)

I 've been a member of theItalian translation team fora fewmonths,

when I finallydecided tocontribute to theUbuntuCommunity insome way. Istarted readingFCM on a friend’srecommendation,but I oftencomplain aboutthe Italiantranslators

because our releases were spit outreally slowly. Then I said "Why notbecome a member and helpthem?", and, in a few days, I startedto translate for FCM Italy. It didn'ttake a long time to settle into a sofriendly atmosphere like this, madeof many willing and competentpeople. Looking back, I'm glad tohave become a member just in timefor the final sprint that has alignedus with International releases. Nowthat the sprint has come to an end,

MY STORY - THE ITALIAN TRANSLATION TEAM


I think my days will be a little moreempty.

Anyway, guys, I think people likethis are good for the spirit ofUbuntu and FOSS philosophy.

Giuseppe D'Andrea(intruder)

I always read every issue ofFCM with great pleasure, sothat, a few months ago, Idecided to join the Italian

translation group. I believe that, inaddition to the fact that themagazine is excellent, the 'FCMItaly' group is a group of reallyamazing people with whom youwork well. It's also a pleasure totalk with them, and joke a little,and turn away from the boredomof our days. Making yourself usefuland fun: you can do it joining FCMItaly!

Irene Bontà(sharkbait)

I started contributing to theFCM Italian translation someyears ago, because I thought itwas a good idea, and I wished

Italian people could find someinteresting stuff in it. Now, I'mdoing my little contribution, but

the other guys are doing verygood, and FCM is now better thanever.

Dario Cavedon(iced)

I havestartedtocollabor

ate since#37 (even ifI read itbefore). Atfirst, thereason waskeeping myEnglish trained,testing, andlearning new things,doing something good,a present for me and otherpeople, to collaborate on a sharedproject. FCM is a great example ofhow fantastic it is for people todeeply and professionally developtogether a project for free. Today,the FCM Italian group is my nextdegree thesis. At least I'll give it toall, you have earned this.

Davide Miceli

Translating themagazine is myway of sayingthanks to the FCM

team, your work will beappreciated even by

people speaking adifferent

language.

Filling thegap was anecessity, and abet, at thesame time,

since outdatedarticles are so

unattractive. Wewon the bet and

now let's keep thepace!

Gianluca Santoro(aka Geekluca)

I still remember very wellwhen, in 2007, I was involvedin the activities of the “GruppoFCM”. Since then, I never

stopped working for the magazine,having in mind only to spread thefree software culture. But whatstill amazes me is that I don't knowif the group has received morefrom me, or whether I was gettingmore from the group. By the way -

thank you, Gruppo FCM!

Aldo Latino(aka aldolat)

Sometimes it can bedifficult to leave thecomfortable land ofproprietary software to

jump into the world of freesoftware: I made up my mind aboutthree years ago, switchin’ toUbuntu just to become a greatadmirer of this OS - with fiverecruits (at least) as assets! And,once I was in, the next logical stepcouldn’t be nothing but giving, insome way, my contribution: andsince I don’t know anything aboutcomputers or programming, thechoice was simple: I joined theawesome FCM translation group!And my gratification is to knowthat, if today we reached this goal,even if in a small way, it’s thanks tome too!

Roald De Tino

When we first startedtalking about asprint to recover lostground, I

remembered a phrase from W.Churchill: “A pessimist sees thedifficulty in every opportunity; an



optimist sees the opportunity inevery difficulty”. Obviously, thepath was not easy, but, with thegreat dedication of all members ofthe group which I am honored tobe part of, finally we got ouropportunity.

Giuseppe Calà(gcala)

I am a new Linux user, and,after several experiences withdifferent distros, I found inUbuntu, more than a valuable

alternative to Microsoft’s world.Why does the Community impressme so? The philosophy on which itis based! Not only the Freeware,but also the Sharing value.

Some time ago I discovered FullCircle Magazine and I noticed thatthe Italian Translations werebehind compared to the Englishissues. So I decided to give ahelping hand with translations, andgive a contribution to theCommunity, hoping that more andmore people will have theopportunity to discover and learnabout the huge capabilities ofLinux and Freeware. What can I sayabout FCM Italy? I am so proud ofbeing in because there is awonderful atmosphere that makes

it such a real great Family!

Francesco Cargiuli

I am happy to join thiswonderful group whereeveryone is willing to help.This sprint - we set this goal -

was the driving force that led us tobe even more dedicated and active,which at first I did not perceive. Inaddition to knowing each other andworking together, we offer alllovers of Linux in Italy an open,free, and up-to-date magazine.What more can one get out of life?Last but not least ... Thanks to thewhole group FCM!

Alessandro Losavio(aka alo21)

Despite the progressmade in recent years, itis undeniable that thefree software world is

still semi-unknown to many of thepeople who use a PC. Manycontinue to use proprietary

software - not by choice but due tolack of information. In my smallway, I converted my family and mygirlfriend’s family to Ubuntu – it's afirst step, especially todemonstrate that new things canbe absorbed well within traditionalcontexts. Being part of thetranslation group of FCM seemed agreat way to use my skills to servea common goal. The strength ofthe community is empowered bythe fact that everyone can helpout, according to their abilities.

Giulio Tani

I am a guy who has been usingLinux (Ubuntu) for a long time.Honestly, it's not so wellknown in Italy, no one knows

the word “open-source”. I tried toconvert all schools, especially mine(ITIS), to Ubuntu because it's aspecial Operating System, free ofcharge, up-to-date, and does notneed anti-virus... It's completelysafe without fear of any intrusion...But these schools apparently did

not want to believe. After usingUbuntu one day, I asked myself:"Why not help the Italiancommunity of Ubuntu?" So Istarted as a joke. I started with thegroup Ubuntu-test. They welcomedme with open arms and thenswitched to Ubuntu-promotion. Forhealth reasons, I was forced severaltimes to be away for long periods,but I always returned to the openarms that welcomed me(something to envy... you couldonly dream of this behaviour inother environments :D) But now Iam also on Ubuntu-it-fcm. Iintegrated myself in this nice,warm and welcoming group!Together we do a good job, and I'mproud to give my little contributiontoo! Good Job Guys!

Only one last thing .. THANKYOU VERY MUCH WITH ALL MYHEART, GROUP FCM <3

Mirko Pizii(aka hallino1)

I learned about Ubuntu froman article in a magazinespecializing in computers, Iopened my browser to see the

Ubuntu WebSite. After browsingthe pages of the site, I found thisproject FCM. I am a fan of open



source software and freeware, andI like to test software to find anyproblems, I also like to improve thequality of translations from Englishinto Italian. I joined FCM Italy toreview the articles of the magazineto make them more professional,but also to not present to ourreaders any typos.

Riccardo Vianello.

What can I say that isspecial, if I have onlyrecently joined thisgreat group? I have

always followed them as anobserver, and their beautiful andprecise work has made me take theleap as if to say: I want to be withthem!!..... and I immediatelyenrolled in the group! I activelyparticipate in the group-test, but Iwant to make my contribution inmy ability even here, because theUbuntu Community also deserves itand these guys too! Their spirit ofcooperation is very high ..... so I'mthere!! Congratulations to thewhole group FCM!

Antonio Allegretti(aka Tiranno)

My personal “FCMstory” started at thevery moment when Ibegan to use Ubuntu

6.10 Edgy Eft, and it quicklyoverwhelmed me. Wow, 5 yearshave already passed! I was lookingfor an OS I wanted to use insteadof Windows, and a friend of mine(who already collaborated withFCM), introduced me to Ubuntuand the Ubuntu-it community.Since then, as it delighted me, mydesire to collaborate and share theUbuntu Philosophy grew. But alas!I'm not a programmer, so the onlyway to collaborate was working asa translator for a review orsomething similar, a good way tokeep my English trained, and returnback my enthusiasm to thecommunity! The same friend ofmine then introduced to me thisgroup, and FCM entered into mylife. We translated all the issues,but, as happens to volunteers, westarted to withdraw, and it wasfrustrating sometimes to translatearticles talking about software onwhich development was alreadystopped! But many stories have ahappy ending, and the superheroesof FCM Italy, helped by new vitalforces, reached their goal!

Marco Letizia(aka letissier85)

I t has been more than 2 yearsnow since I joined the FCMItalian team. At that time, Iwas starting my migration to

Ubuntu, and I wanted to contributeto the community and keeppracticing my English. Myexperience was great, the peopleare awesome, and, during theseyears, more and more peoplejoined us. I’m proud of being partof this group, which was able toreach a great goal: translate all theissues so far. I would like to thankmy fellow translators, and wishthem good luck. We rock guys!

Luigi Di Gaetano

From The Editor

I'd like to take thisopportunity to thank all thetranslation teams aroundthe world who work so hard

to bring Full Circle to theirnative language.

To all those who wonder ifFCM will ever be in theirlanguage? Well, you have tostart the team yourself. If youdo, drop me an email([email protected])and I'll give you access to theplain text, Scribus files, and helpwherever I can.

Sure, we could just shove theraw text through GoogleTranslate and pull it out as atranslated edition, but(unfortunately) I don't have thetime to do more than oneedition, and no doubt (good as itis) Google Translate wouldmangle the translationsomehow. So, it's up to you (thereaders) to translate each issue.

All the best!Ronnie




MMYY OOPPIINNIIOONNWritten by Alexander Salomon

My first Linux wasUbuntu 9.10. I had anold computer whichneeded a

replacement and I was looking fora cheap and secure alternative inorder to surf the Internet, checkmy mails, do some easycalculations, write letters, and soon.

I was running Firefox at thattime, and I thought that OpenSource could be an alternative toWindows. After some research, Ichoose Ubuntu, which I installedwith Wubi in order to try it out.What should I say - it worked. Withsome support fromUbuntuusers.de, everythingworked well. I bought an old P4 forvery little money (less than € 30, -),bought a second 500 GB HDD, twoadditional GB of RAM, a cheapNvidia graphic card, and even a TVCard, and I got everything runningfor less than € 200,-, currently withUbuntu 10.10.

So far - so good, I can do what Iinitially wanted to do, and we couldstop here with the success story.

However, when I take a secondlook, I need to admit that somethings do NOT work. They are notessential, but it makes life hard.• I’m running a Garmin navigationsystem with a lifetime mapsupdate. I did not find a way toupdate the device underLinux. Maybe there is one,but I spent so manyhours in research – I’mtired of it.• Next device thatdoesn’t work is myGarmin Forerunner 50.It transfers the dataabout my workouts viaANT+ technology to thecomputer. Unfortunately,not under Linux.• My wife’s Ipod – I got it to worksomehow but it’s not very smooth.Synchronizing songs is always apain.• I tried to convert some videosfrom Apple’s .mov format to .avi. Iwas unable to get it to work underLinux with WinFF or VLC. Under XPit works just fine with the sameprograms!• Compare OpenOffice or

LibreOffice with the MS product.There are worlds between them.Don’t get me wrong, the opensource programs do what theyneed to do, and the developershave done a great job – but in aprofessional environment I don’twant to miss my Excel. The open

source programs are about 10years behind. That’s just a

fact.

These are just a fewexamples why Linux willnever have more thanprobably 2-3% share inthe developed world

(EU/US/Japan).

At the end, I’m runningXP and Ubuntu on two HDD on

my computer. But honestly,although Ubuntu is great, my 10-year-old XP can do most of thethings better than my one-year-oldUbuntu.

As long as no “Linux-Company”(Canonical, Red Hat…) sitstogether with Nokia, Apple, Canon,Samsung, Garmin, TomTom (I couldgo on and on and on …) defining

standards to get peripheralequipment to run, most people willreturn to Apple or Windows in thelong term.

The “dummy user” has not theknowledge and time to spendhours to get the equipment to run.

Linux really had the potential toplay a significant role in theoperating system market, but Idon’t see any working strategy toestablish it alongside Windows andApple – which is a pity.

That’s just my meanderingthought about open source. Itworks great in an isolatedenvironment - unfortunately notmore.

I will stick with Linux, I like thelook and feel, and I feel moresecure when surfing the internet,but I cannot give up my Windows(which I wanted to do initially).

Anyhow, keep writing the FullCircle Magazine. I love it.


II TTHHIINNKK...... Did you update your current install,or do a fresh install?

Last month's question was:

Why did you upgradeinstead of a freshinstall?

to mantain apps and users

It keeps all my installedprograms and files

Didn't want to risk losing anyof my data and/or settings as Ihave in the past

Retains my preferred setup,plus previous upgrades have

always failed so keep trying.

Fresh 11.10 install doesn'twork on my laptop.

I want to see if this timeupgrade works for me

Wanted to know how it wouldgo, if it had failed, a freshinstall would always have been

an option. Went perfectly, ofcourse, as this ZaReason laptopwas made for Linux

If you did a fresh install,

why did you notupgrade?

Ubuntu upgrades always causeproblems. Its easier to startfresh and move files back in

from an external drive. Have tokeep good notes of the tweaksthough.

Keeps the system faster, and it’scleaner old style!

Less clutter, less contradictingconfig files

I never upgrade OSs

To avoid unexpected bugs anderrors.

I have heard the horror storieshow things go wrong afterupgrading. A fresh install

seems to be the easy way to avoidall problems.

I love a clean fresh setup. Ihave a separate /homepartition, so I can always

install fresh.

It takes about 20 minutes todo a fresh install vs. 2 hoursfor an update

Trust issues - it failedmiserably in the past

Upgrade takes longer & doesnot always work.

To avoid problems of differentsoftware versions and to getrid of clutter. Past experience

has proved to me that a freshinstall is most trouble-free option.

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A PLEA ON BEHALF OF THEPODCAST PARTY

As you often hear in the podcast, we're callingfor opinion topics for that section of the show.

Instead of us having a rant about whateverstrikes us, why not prompt us with a topic andwatch for the mushroom clouds over thehorizon! It's highly unlikely that the three of uswill agree.

Or, an even more radical thought, send us anopinion by way of a contribution!

You can post comments and opinions on thepodcast page at fullcirclemagazine.org, in ourUbuntu Forums section, or [email protected]. You can alsosend us a comment by recording an audio clip ofno more than 30 seconds and sending it to thesame address. Comments and audio may beedited for length. Please remember this is afamily-friendly show.

It would be great to have contributors come onthe show and express anopinion in person.

Robin

I THINK...

found Ubuntu Remix andGnome3!

If you're not upgrading,why not?

Still on 10.10, happy there.Waiting for Unity to mature in12.04

I do not like Unity, and I do notlike the fact that I can't chooseGnome when upgrading or

doing a fresh install. If I have to Iwill move to another distro to haveGnome.

Because of Unity, moved toMint

No choice of desktop -switched to Debian Squeeze.

I don't like Unity or thedirection Ubuntu is going. I'vemoved to Mint 10, but also

looking at Mint Debian Edition.

I stick with the LTS releases -less drama.

LTS installs only; I do changerepositories to have latest,e.g., LibreOffice, Firefox, etc.

I finally have 11.04 configuredthe way I want it. I don't seethat 11.10 offers enough for

me to change.

Perfectly happy with Gnome 2,upgrading from 9.04 to 10.04was a bad experience

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The question I'd like to pose for FCM#56 is:

Would you join the FCM team on IRC for aninformal meeting once a month?

To give your answer, go to: http://goo.gl/BEuYb

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http://goo.gl/BEuYb


http://www.ubuntu-user.com/subscribe-now/

http://www.ubuntu-user.com/subscribe-now/


RREEVVIIEEWWWritten by Art Schreckengost

For many years, the onlychoice for IT securitypersonnel when it came topenetration tests

(sometimes called pentesting) wasto pick BackTrack Linux or createtheir own modified OS.

Just over a year ago, useroptions broadened with theintroduction of BackBox, anUbuntu based OS (as BackTrack is,too) from Italy which may be heirapparent to the pentesting throne.

On the surface, both appearsimilar and they are in severalrespects, but there are radicaldifferences between them, so ahead-to-head comparison may bemerited.

History and UnderlyingBase

BackTrack is from Switzerland,and was created in 2006 with themerger of two Knoppix based OSs,Whax and Auditor SecurityCollection. A switch from Knoppixto Slax based live-CD distributions

lasted until 2009 - when anotherchange to Ubuntu resulted inBackTrack 4. BackTrack 5Revolution based on Ubuntu 10.04LTS (Lucid Lynx) was released inMay, 2011, and August, 2011 sawthe release of the current version,BackTrack 5 R1, also based onLucid.

Backbox comes from Italy, and,prior to 2010, it really didn't havemuch of a track record, at least notonline. Other than scant mentionsof version 1 (RC and then beta),even distrowatch.com doesn'tmention anything until version 2was released in September, 2011.The current version, BackBox 2, isbased on Ubuntu 11.04 NattyNarwhal - which is an upgrade fromversions 1.x which were based on10.04 like BackTrack.

Website

BackTrack's website (backtrack-linux.org) is best described aseclectic. With a motto of thequieter you become the more youare able to hear, and a wiki pagelabeled The Ninjas Guide to

BackTrack, one can only imaginewhat's lurking in the shadows, anda sense of paranoia about beingwatched might surface. Probablynot helping is a design consistingof flames in the background - as ifto tell users they may burn forusing this OS.

Dig far enough into the website,and you'll find a litany ofinstructional courses offered in“offensive security” - almost allrequiring students to pentest andattack actual systems in acontrolled environment. Whilesome are free, they appear to belead-ins for the more costly andextensive training scenarios. Myfavorite course is the 5-day ventureoffered in St. Kitts, Caribbean, but,at $4,000, that's a little out of mywallet's range.

Those wishing to skip all thepages can jump to offensive-security.com to get right to thecourses; however, the website isnearly identical to links off themain BackTrack page, and, since ithas the .com suffix, it's quiteapparent the goal is sales. It could

be argued that many developerspitch paraphernalia on theirwebsites, but most of it won'trequire a second mortgage.

Forums appear to becomprehensive, with sometutorials sprinkled liberallythroughout, but you'll have tosearch through hundreds, if notthousands, of entries to find whatyou need.

BackBox is a little different intheir website. Mainly in English,about half of the forum contentsare in Italian - so if you needinformation there, use yourbrowser's translation extension. Inaddition, there are 3 pages ofvideo instructions that containlittle or no dialog (just follow whatis shown), but brush up on yourItalian because the on-screenversion of the OS is in thatlanguage (sort of odd since thescreenshots show an American flagsitting in the panel).

Unlike BackTrack, BackBoxdoesn't sell instructional materials- although I did find it curious that

BBaacckkTTrraacckk vvss BBaacckkBBooxx

http://backtrack-linux.org

http://backtrack-linux.org

http://offensive-security.com

http://offensive-security.com


REVIEW: BACKTRACK VS BACKBOXit has Google links to other Linuxdistributions including Suse (sort oflike a Ford dealer pushing Chevys).

The forums are puny comparedto BackTrack, but this OS is only ayear old, and it’s trying to build afan base. Since some of thesecurity-based programs are thesame or nearly identical to thoseoffered by BackTrack, users couldjump the fence and visit thecompetition's forums, if necessary.

It appears there may have beenan Italian site athttp://backbox.opensoluzioni.it/,but I couldn't get it to load, and aquick search shows it may havebeen discontinued for thepredominantly English version.

OS Size and Options

BackBox (right) packs twodesktops as standard, Xfce, andBackBox Session - a modified Xfcedesign with a bottom dock, toppanel, and more sophisticatedbackground design than standardXfce. In early 2011, it appears aFluxbox package was offered but Icouldn't determine if it applies tothe current version (Fluxbox hadsome teething problems with more

than just this OS and may havebeen pulled).

32-bit and 64-bit options at913MB and 945MB, respectively,are offered, but not in the samedownload, so users have to makean initial choice or take timeburning both.

BackTrack offers Gnome andKDE as desktop options - alongwith 32 and 64-bit configurations,

but instead of combining Gnomeand KDE in the same package, theyare split so users wanting to test allvarieties would have to download 4packages.

No matter which version youchoose, the image is near or at2GB.

Upgrade From EarlierVersions?

Even though both OS are basedon Ubuntu, the upgrade process isnot the same as going to UpdateManager and stepping up to thenext available version. Yes, you cando that for the underlying codebase, but what could happen to thespecialized security software?

BackTrack doesn't offer anupgrade option, and even statessuch on their website. Thosewanting to upgrade from oneversion to the next must do a freshinstallation. At least they don't pickany bones about it, but theupsetting issue is that once a newversion is issued, all support forprevious issues ceasesimmediately. The underlying codemay still be supported by Ubuntu,but all the security relatedprograms will no longer have anysupport.

Although I can't verify such on apersonal basis, I have heard from acouple of users that attempting toupdate the underlying Ubuntucode from 10.04 to 11.04 can provefatal to some of the securityprograms. Do an upgrade at yourown peril!

BackBox really doesn't addressthe issue on its website, but an

http://backbox.opensoluzioni.it/


REVIEW: BACKTRACK VS BACKBOXemail from the developer, RaffaeleForte, states users should also do anew install over attempting anupgrade. Only time will tell iffuture Ubuntu upgrades upset theapple cart, but, since all worksquite fine in Natty, it can only beassumed the usual updates (asopposed to full blown upgrade)won't hurt anything.

Best idea for either OS? Breakout aptoncd and get busy backingup those programs you want tokeep, and hope the securityoriented programs you like are stillthere once the new installation iscompleted.

Installation

Both OSes offer live mode, andthe ability to use persistence viaUSB flash drive. Unless you needportability, these modes are oftennot preferred because they areslow.

The real test is full installation,and this can sometimes be fraughtwith unnecessary perils.

BackTrack (right) is unique inthis respect in that all users mustsign in as root. As a result, the

usual Ubuntu installer method islacking since there is no user ID orpassword collected – the OS isinstalled and that's that. About theonly input involved is determiningthe amount of hard drive space touse.

From DVD in to final restarttook roughly 30 minutes, or aboutthe average amount of time for anUbuntu installation.

BackBox is classic Ubiquity andinstallation was a ratherspectacular 17 minutes. By thetime I turned around to make asandwich it was completed.

Hardware recognition wassuperb in both - with the onlydriver location necessary beingthat for my ATI/AMD graphics card.Wireless worked like a charm in

either OS, although you'll have toread on about the snafu withfinding connection information inBackTrack.

Updates were equal with about200MB waiting post-installation -which is good for BackTrack sinceit's based on last year's Ubuntubase.

Hard drive space was typicalwith DVD contents expanding100% once unpacked. BackTrackrecommends 10GB hard drivespace, while BackBox posts 2GB.BackTrack is more in line withreality, and it appears BackBox isusing outdated or overly optimisticspecs which wouldn't give enoughwiggle room - especially for thosepreferring to use persistent drives.

Login Protocol

Just when you thought you'dnever hear of the root/toorprocedure again, it's back!

BackTrack lives up to its nameby using that procedure here -although users can change thepassword after installation (or ifusing persistence on a USB drive).Live mode users are stuck with it.


REVIEW: BACKTRACK VS BACKBOX

Unfortunately, the OS comeswith no instructions, but new usersdon't have to worry – if it senses noattempts to enter root and toor, itswitches to another page whereusers are told to enter “startx” tofire up the GUI.

Best as I can tell, BackTrackoffers no option to use thestandard Ubuntu protocol of userID and password. You're in as rootand that's all there is to that,although the password can bechanged from toor once booted.

Possibly because of the Gnomedesktop, boot times were oftensomewhat dismal with 1 to 1.5minutes being the norm (part ofwhich was taken up entering rootspecs mentioned above).

If you're looking for a colorfulsplash screen, forget it. BackTrackgoes to verbose mode for the loginprocess.

BackBox uses the usual Ubuntuuser ID and password and requiressuch during installation. Xfce reallyshines here - with cold boot timesoften less than 30 seconds even tothe slightly busier BackBox Session

version of Xfce.

Much like BackTrack, there is nosplash screen in BackBox, and newusers may initially be put off bywhat they don't see. In short, ablack screen with a flashing cursoris all that greets the user, and eventhat disappears after a few seconds- leaving just the blank screen untilthe desktop opens. At first, Ithought the installation had failedand nearly powered down.

Is one login protocol any betterthan the other? That's subject tointerpretation - although mostaccounts I've reviewed state thatsigning in as root is inviting troublesince any mistakes or missteps canlead to the OS crashing. Fact is,anybody using root in live modecan merely do a forced reboot andbe back to square one - but thoseusing a persistent USB system maybe doomed, since changes,including mistakes, are saved.

Desktop

BackBox is Xfce with amodification called BackBoxsession that adds a dock and toppanel to the usual rat logo on abland background. It doesn't offer

Gnome or KDE as standard likeBackTrack; however, that's notnecessarily bad.

The desktop design, in keepingwith Xfce tradition, is minimalistic,but not lacking artistic thought,with a medium gray backgroundand a sweeping blue ribbon goingthrough the center. In the middleof it all is a stylized “BackBoxLinux” heading in which the Bs aremade to look like 3s (3ack3ox).Below that heading is anotherstating “Flexible PenetrationTesting Distribution”. If you don'tlike that, you have your choice ofroughly 10 alternatives, but mostcenter around the Xfce rat logo, soplan on adding your own unless youlike desktop rodents.

There is the Xfce dock at thebottom, but look quickly because itdisappears as soon as the desktopappears (right click the dock to killautohide in options). It contains afew icons for Internet (aka Firefox),a mail reader, among others, butthe one that's interesting is Vidalia.Not the onion, mind you, but theprogram that acts as a graphicalfront-end for Tor.

That's not a misprint of Thor bythe way, it is Tor, a program used to

cover your tracks by redirectingyour traces, to the point thatsurveillance is tough. Good thing,too, since some of the includedprograms I'll discuss later are bestleft unknown. The Firefox versionincluded has Vidalia installed bydefault, and activation is by clickingthe onion icon to the left of theURL field. (In one check it showed Iwas from the Ukraine when I was afew miles away in central Florida).

A lone panel sits up top with theusual icons, with the onlyexception being the BackBox logoin the left corner acting as a mainmenu button. Xfce also allowsaccess to most of the main menuvia a left click anywhere on thedesktop.

BackTrack is also artisticallydesigned, and the desktop designis eye catching. Consisting of ablack and red mixture with whatappears to be a galloping horsewith a flowing mane in thebackground, the only thingbreaking the design is the logo“<<back|track 5” (you've got toadmire the rewind symbols), and“the quieter you become the moreyou are able to hear” statement(look closely since it nearly blendsin with the background).



I didn't get a chance to test theKDE desktop, so I can onlycomment on Gnome. Since this isbased on Lucid 10.04 instead ofNatty, there is no Unity option.

Beyond aesthetics, the desktopmay look like every other Gnomedesign you've seen, but this isdeceiving. Sure, you get the usualtri-entry menu system in the leftcorner (Applications, Places, andSystem), and you'll also see theusual speaker icon along with date,time, and log out to the right, but acouple of things are missing.

Find a screenshot and take agander before guessing.

Give up? No wireless or networkconnection icons, and the username is gone from the right side.The missing name is obvious sinceyou're signed in as root, but thenetwork icon is something of amystery. Yes, wireless and Ethernetboth work, but BackTrack hasdumped the icon as some sort ofsecretive measure to keep pryingeyes from knowing(?).

So how do you know you'reconnected? Go to Internet under

the main menu, and find Wicd, andit'll advise you of wirelessconnections, and use Ubuntu'snetwork manager for the Ethernetportion.

And now for the curiosity thathas everybody scratching theirhead.

After one week of usingBackBox, I opted to log out to testXfce, and was surprised to seeGnome Classic and Unity listed asoptions. BackBox doesn't comewith these two as standard, nor didI purposely install them.Somewhere in one of the updates,Gnome and Unity were slipped in;however, both were bare-bonebasic without any visual pizazz -which means they didn't come fromthe developer, who, as it turns out,is just as confused as I am on thisoddity.

But there is one issue I findsomewhat contradictory in bothOSes: if these are supposed to bestealthy and secretive, then why doboth have desktop designs that canbe spotted half a mile away? True,you can change them, but thoseopting for live mode withoutpersistence will have that clue popup every time they boot.

Standard Programs

Let's be honest and admit theaverage Linux user is not going topick either of these OSes as a mainversion for home computer usage.These are designed for specialistsin security, or for hackers whoshould know better; however, eventhese persons like listening tomusic, playing the occasional game,or cranking out a newsletter.

There is no doubt thatBackTrack has more initialprograms than BackBox but that issomewhat misleading in the longterm.

What you'll see, for the mostpart, is Disk Usage Analyzer, geditText Editor, Terminal, TakeScreenshot, Wbar, xpdf, Firefox,Wicd, Zenmap, Dictionary,Keepnote, UNetbootin, SoundRecorder, Wine, plus a scant fewothers.

BackBox is even lighter, withAbiword, Firefox, Vidalia, Tor,Sound Recorder, Transmission,ThunderBird, Pidgin, Bleachbit,Geany, Parole Media Player, plus afew others. This is really a barecupboard.

Adding Programs is discussedlater, but make sure you read itbecause the results are somewhatunbelievable for one of the OS.

Security BasedPrograms

There is no doubt BackTrackwins in this category - with wellover 100 included programs, someof which I've never heard of.



And therein is a problem. Thewebsite gives little information ofwhat is in there, so you'll have totry it for yourself to find out, andvarious online sources give figuresranging from 100 to 200 programs -so it's tough to tell what the actualfigure is.

For the most part, you findthese under the area markedBackTrack on the main menu -which has subcategories forInformation Gathering,Vulnerability Assessment,Exploitation Tools, PrivilegeEscalation, Maintaining Access,Reverse Engineering, RFID Tools,Stress Testing, Forensics, ReportingTools, Services, and Miscellaneous.

Each one of these categoriesbreaks down into yet morecategories listing programs galoreto keep the most mischievouscomputer geek busy. While I couldlist them all, the total number israther amazing, and must totalover 100 as some menu categoriescascade out to sub-sub-categories.

BackBox is somewhat similar,just with fewer programs and amenu heading of Auditing. Here

you'll find VulnerabilityAssessment, Forensic Analysis,VOIP Analysis, InformationGathering, Exploitation, PrivilegeEscalation, Maintaining Access, andStress Tools.

Each of these categoriesbranches out to yet other sub-headings which give a listing ofprograms that can best bedescribed as scary. Why do I believesome of these programs aresuspect? Instead of the usualcolorful assortment of icons, theseall get skull and crossbonesinsignia, and various warnings popup prior to usage.

BackBox is forthcoming withwhat their OS packs, just go tohttp://wiki.backbox.org/index.php/Category:Tools_list to find a listing.

Secondary Security

Compared to BackTrack,BackBox seems to be a slacker inthis department - although that'ssubject to debate.

Other than deleting musicalnotes and other sounds, along withincluding Vidalia/Tor in Firefox, Icouldn't see much else. Something

else may be there, but I just haven'tseen it yet. It seems to be standardUbuntu in all other respects (thewebsite gives hints on how to addmore security oriented Firefoxextensions, but I use Chrome).

For those unfamiliar withVidalia/Tor, this is a Firefox add-onthat covers Internet tracks duringusage by redirecting users all overthe globe.

As a test, I had a friend see if hecould identify what OS I was usingwhile online. BackBox did drop theball here since it readily identifieditself as “BackBox Linux 2”, but Tormade it appear like I was from theUkraine when I was still parked incentral Florida.

BackTrack takes the oppositepath, and goes full hog on keepingthe outside from knowing what youdo. Not only is opening music gone,even password asterisks areblocked so eavesdroppers can't seethe number of characters - but theheight of craziness is the completelack of wireless or Ethernet iconson the desktop, apparently to keepother eyes from noticing you'reweb surfing (since some of thesecurity programs use a browser tooperate, this'll be evident anyway).

Online, it identifies itself asUbuntu 10.04, with no other clue.Since Tor isn't activated unlessusers add it, my IP address wasreadily apparent.

Probably the most aggravatingBackTrack security feature is theinclusion of NoScript in Firefox.Until it's trained on what pages it'llaccept, you can pretty much beguaranteed your page probablywon't open unless you turn it offvia the icon next to the URL, orremember to accept new pages asthey open. New users willundoubtedly be stymied until theylearn this, and the procedure wasrequired for each and every site Ivisited (turning it off is good forone site at a time, and uninstallingthe extension is the only way todispose of it).

While both seem to beinterested in user security, I find itodd that both have artistic desktopdesigns that all but send up signalflares as advertising, and BackTrackhas an initial verbose mode that iseasily recognizable. Pity the poortech stuck with live mode sincehe'll have to live with telltale signs.

http://wiki.backbox.org/index.php/Category:Tools_list


REVIEW: BACKTRACK VS BACKBOXAnd before you state this isn't a

problem, let me give you anexample. While testing BackTrackat my local library, another techiebehind me spotted the on-screenverbiage, and blurted out, “Whatversion of BT are you using?”

So much for stealth in thisdepartment.

Adding Programs

BackBox has Synaptic PackageManager and Ubuntu SoftwareCenter, and users, of course, canutilize apt-get. Anything that worksin Ubuntu will work here, andadding outside repositories is nosweat.

Although appearing somewhatlimited, software sources arecomprehensive - with two sourcesjust for BackBox software, and,oddly enough, one link foropenSUSE.

For those interested more in thesecurity programs and artworkthan the OS itself, the source canbe added to standard Ubuntu via:

deb

http://ppa.launchpad.net/back

box/two/ubuntu natty main.

BackTrack offers apt-get only,and goes as far as completelyremoving Synaptic and UbuntuSoftware Center - meaning bothhave to be installed or users arestuck using terminal commands(which I had to use to installSynaptic so I could eventually getsome programs).

No big deal, you say? Read on.

Since BackTrack users aresigned in as root, some newlyinstalled programs may not work. Aprime example is Google Chrome.It refuses to open in root, as didOpera, so my chances of usinganother browser just got shotdown. After a while it gotfrustrating - since nearly 50% ofwhat I installed wouldn't work inroot.

Much like BackBox, BackTrackutilizes their software package forthe security oriented apps, and

users wanting the programswithout the OS can add the source(deb http://archive.offensive-security.com); however, keep inmind that this OS is based uponLucid Lynx, and those using Nattymay experience issues withprograms working.

Stability and ResourceUsage

Since both are based on Ubuntu,just different versions, stability isall but guaranteed - but BackBox'suse of Xfce made for quicker andsmoother operation. Other thanthe snafu with Gnome and Unitycreeping in without my knowledge,everything worked when I asked itto.

Resource usage was incrediblylight - with processor rates rarelyspiking above 5%, and RAM usageseemingly content parking itselfaround 8 to 10%. In fact, neither

category ever seemed to get“excited” about much of anything,no matter what I opened or did.

BackTrack with Gnome was alsoa pleasant operational experience -just a bit slower than Xfce torespond and boot, and this alsoshowed in resource depletion withRAM and processor rates beingnearly twice as high on the samecomputer - with occasional spikesto the red line.

During one week of abusivetesting, I never experienced an OSfailure or crash. Quite impressive.

Other Quirks and FinalComments

This article consists of mypersonal observations concerningmy testing of both OSes during themonth of September, 2011.

First, these are not yourgrandma's OS - unless the old ladydid covert work for the NSA at onetime. Both BackTrack and BackBoxcontain seriously dangeroussoftware that can get users introuble.

How much so? Using Aircrack-ng


REVIEW: BACKTRACK VS BACKBOX(available in both OS), I had mypersonal wireless code crackedwithin a half hour, and most of thattime was spent trying to followyoutube instructions whileentering instructions. Truth is, thisprogram can do the task in around10 minutes on a bad day.

Had I performed that operationon a corporate wireless system itwould be called corporateespionage, and would probably netme 5 to 10 in the federal pen (andthat's where you'll really find outwhat penetration testing is).

Second, 99% of the includedsecurity programs for either OSrequire nothing short of anadvanced degree in physics todecipher. Even with tutorial help, Ihave no idea what some of themdo other than produce prodigiousamounts of on-screen gibberish -and I'm no computer novice.

So, the question really is, wouldthe average user find much use ineither OS?

No. Joe Average would havelittle use for such software, but,truthfully, it's a hoot to play with,just make sure you play nicely withfriends. Just like that nice

Doberman down the street, thereis only so much ear tugging you cando before the fangs come out.

Fact is, the security softwareincluded is for Ethical Hackers, akaWhite Hats, in the corporate world,and students in that area ofexpertise. Beyond that, theusefulness elludes me, and, if Iwant to swipe a signal, I'll go toMcDonald's and use their freewireless before I attempt to stealmy neighbor's.

Now for the final analysis.Which one would I choose?

For my answer I went to fellowstudents and hackers, and let themgive me comments.

Although many were impressedby BackTrack, they found it difficultto use, and downrightuncooperative when it came toadded program acceptance. Theyalso found it odd that wireless andEthernet icons were gone, andseveral discovered what I did – if asignal drops, you won't know ituntil a webpage doesn't load.

The biggest gripe? Having to useapt-get to install programs - oftenrequiring searches to discover the

proper command line for a givenapp.

The second most commoncomplaint was about a lack oftraining for many of the securityoriented programs, that oftenresulted in having to find tutorialsonline for assistance.

They also agreed that runningas root is just inviting a mistake - asone discovered when they didsomething to their networkconnection and it never workedagain.

BackBox fared better in that itwas rated as easier to use, andmuch more cooperative when itcame to adding programs thatwould work. Reviewers appreciatedthe inclusion of Synaptic PackageManager and Ubuntu SoftwareCenter, and they generally liked theXfce desktop.

But it was the desktop that alsogarnered the most complaints.Seems the dock is a front, anddoesn't work the way you mightthink. Clicking on an icon doesopen the program, but nothingchanges in the dock to indicatewhat's in use. For example, usingthe icon to open Firefox does just

that - but, if you minimize thewindow, it goes to the top panel –there is nothing in the dock toindicate it's still open. Forget to gotopside to maximize, and click thedock icon again, and it opens a newwindow, not the active one.

As with BackTrack, difficulty inunderstanding some of thesecurity oriented software was alsomentioned, but many agreed thewebsite tutorials did help.

As a result, I would have to givethe nod to BackBox. Yes, it doesn'thave all the security features ofBackTrack, but those can be addedlater if necessary. It just worked asan OS without being overlyrestrictive; Xfce was brisk andmuch quicker than Gnome, and thewebsite isn't geared to pushinghighly priced security training atthe expense of instructions.

BackBox is much moreaccommodating to users withlimited expertise; the educationalaides won't require hocking thefamily car to pay tuition, andprograms are easy to add as longas they normally would work inUbuntu.


LLEETTTTEERRSSEvery month we like to publish some of the emails we receive. If you would like tosubmit a letter for publication, compliment or complaint, please email it to:[email protected]. PLEASE NOTE: some letters may be edited for space.

Ubuntu Classic

Have you told the readershow easy it is to revertback to the classic viewin Ubuntu 11.04?

At the login, click other. It willask for the new user ID. Just typein your user ID, and, at the bottomof the screen, you can select theclassic view, and then enter yourpassword, and, presto, you havethe old friendly classic view.

James Bainter

Yes, we have printedaminor

variation on this. - Ed.

Easy Install

I have a method for installing adifferent version of Ubuntu orits derivatives. I gave up doingupgrades a couple years ago

when they became unreliable. I doonly fresh installs now, so thismethod works for upgrading ordowngrading your computer.

The first thing I do is to backupall my files that I want to keep. I donot use a backup tool, I just copy allthe files to an external device. Inmy case, it is a 150GB hard drive.

After that is done, I compile alist of all the applications and filesthat I have added and wish to keepas well. To do this, I open Gedit andlist all the applications and files inalphabetical order, separating eachone with a space.

At the start of the list I type:

sudo aptget install

followed by a space.

Be sure to use the names of theapplications and files that are usedto open them from the terminal.Be sure to copy this to your backupfile so you will have it to use later.

With that’s all done, it is time toinstall the version that you wish tohave on your computer. After thatis done, boot into your system andopen the terminal and your list ofapps. Copy and paste the entire list

into the terminal, and press enter.If there are any errors in any of thenames, the terminal will let youknow. The terminal will ask you ifyou wish to continue, enter y andpress enter. This could take a whileso it would be a good time toconfigure your desktop to yourdesires.

Every time I install a newapplication, I add it to my list sothat when it comes time to changemy system the list is ready to go.

I have been using Ubuntu on mynotebook computer for five and ahalf years, and truly love it. It iseasy to use, fast, and easilyconfigured to fit my tastes.Unfortunately, Ubuntu is going in adirection with Unity that I cannotfollow. Unity does not allow me todo what I do as easily as Gnome 2.x.Lucid Lynx is probably going to bethe last Ubuntu version that thiscomputer will ever see. I will stilluse Linux - as Windows and Appleare not options for me.

Jim Barber

WaveMaker

For Bob Nelson: you mightwant to try WaveMaker --http://www.wavemaker.com/product/

It’s a cross platform RAD toolthat builds a HTML enabledapplication in record time. Linuxbinaries are available. Provide theright environment, LAMP, and youmight have a close proximity toyour old application.

John McGinnis

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LETTERS

A Convert

I work as a volunteer at a localcommunity centre due tobeing made redundant lastyear.

They had a Windows 2003Server and Windows XPworkstations. They were moving toa new location, but the companythat installed it could notremember the domain adminpassword. We could move theserver but we could not access thefiles at the new location due to theserver using Sharepoint.

All attempts failed trying to usepassword clearing software, so, asa last resort, I installed Ubuntu as aparallel OS. Logging into Ubuntu, Iwas able to see and copy all theshared files and folders.

We then re-installed the Serveras a fresh install - with passwordrecorded by them.

I have being playing withUbuntu for only a few weeks aspart of my Open University T155Linux: an introduction course. Ihave now installed it on a fewdesktops and an old laptop, and I

am really impressed.

I am a true convert – and nowspreading the word.

Mark Sellars

Triple/Quad Boot?

Ubuntu is the first choicefor almost all windowsconverts. But afterspending some time

with Linux, and getting yourselfdipped into Linux culture, manypeople are simply just not satisfiedwith only one Linux Distro.

Can you please explain tripleboot / quad boot with onewindows XP / 7, and other two areUbuntu and any other distro likeMint or Debain OS, or any otherdistro (may be Lubuntu) of yourchoice.

Can you also explain manualpartitioning. Once you get a gripon manual partitioning, the fear ofinstallation will go away. So endusers like me can upgrade it to thelatest versions.

A fresh install is a good option,

because Ubuntu keeps changingdefault apps. So, after a successfulupgrade, you have many softwaresfor one application like music.

Experimenting inside virtualboxis always preferable. But recentwindows converts do not knowabout virtualbox.

Currently, I am dual booting XPand Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

Sujal

Non-PrintingCharacters

I am also having trouble withGarmin GPS and would alsoappreciate any ideas. I tried avirtual Windows XP box (using

VirtualBox) but even that wouldn'twork. And of course GarminHelpdesk are worse than useless.

In the Q&A section, there was aquestion about finding non-printing characters inLibreOffice/OpenOffice. I havefound the extension "alternativefind and replace" from ThomasBilek to be very helpful with this.

John

Ubuntu DeveloperSummit

If you are like me then youspent some time participatingremotely in UDS-P over thepast week. I was pretty

impressed by the goals that MarkShuttleworth announced for 14.04and even more I was delighted tosee such a great turnout. I'mhopeful in the future I may be ableto travel to physically participate ina UDS because I think the breadthof information you get to take backis well worth the trip not tomention the Ubuntu Communitynetworking opportunities.

Benjamin Kerensa


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 Is there any way to havethe "classical" gnomeuser interface withUbuntu 11.10?

A No, but you can comeclose. I used SoftwareCentre to install SynapticPackage Manager. In

Synaptic, I searched for "gnome-panel," and installed it. Severaldependencies were installed at thesame time. When I rebooted, at thelogon screen I clicked on the gear,to the right of my username, andselected GNOME Classic. It's notexactly the same as the interface inUbuntu 10.10, but it's similar.

Q How to compile and runlex program in ubuntu10.04? I have installedflez and yacc and have

also compiled file with -lfl option,but it shows an undefinedreference to yywrap.

A Just use SynapticPackage Manager toinstall flex.

Q I've installed the latestversion of Ubuntu. Whatnow?

Ahttp://debianhelp.wordpress.com/2011/09/12/to-do-list-after-installing-

ubuntu-11-10-aka-oneiric-ocelot/

Q I have been reading, andapparently I need to addmyself to the scannerGroup. How can I do that

in Ubuntu 11.10?

A Previous releasesincluded a niceapplication called Usersand Groups. Defective

thinking led to this being cut backto just User Accounts. There arecommand-line solutions, butAsus701user in the Ubuntu Forumshas a better answer: install gnome-system-tools, which includes goodold Users and Groups.

Q How can I speed up myweb browsing?

A Enter the Terminalcommand:

gksudo gedit

/etc/samba/smb.conf

Find the line which begins: name

resolve order

Move the word "host," so itreads: name resolve order= lmhosts

wins bcasthost

Q Can I use Ubuntu todevelop Android apps?

A Yes, Ubuntu is anexcellent platform fordeveloping Androidapplications. The

Software Development Kit is

available athttp://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

Q When I upgraded myWubi install, the boottime became outrageous.Suggestions?

A Two suggestions, whichyou probably won't betoo thrilled about. Wubiis really intended to let

people evaluate Ubuntu, withoutmaking significant changes to theirsystem. So suggestion number 1 is:shrink a partition on your harddrive, and install Ubuntu into thatspace. You need to be very carefulwhen installing, so you only formatthe new partition you will becreating.

The second suggestion is: don'tupgrade, install from scratch. Thisis a lot easier if you have a rootpartition (/) and a Home partition.You'll spend 15 minutes figuringout how to do that, and an extra 15minutes during installation to


http://debianhelp.wordpress.com/2011/09/12/to-do-list-after-installing-ubuntu-11-10-aka-oneiric-ocelot/

http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html


Q & Adouble-check that you have it right,but it's worth the effort.

And, of course, always makesure you have backup. Hard drivesfail, so even if you aren't messingaround with your system, all yourdata could disappear at anymoment.

Tips and techniques

FSOSS

Last month, I presented"Comparing Unity andGnome 3" at the FreeSoftware and Open Source

Symposium (FSOSS) / LinuxfestToronto.

My sub-title was, "Smartphoneson your desktop," which is just amild exaggeration. I suggested thatUnity, as implemented in Ubuntu11.10, is a little more polished andcomplete than Gnome 3.2, asimplemented in Opensuse 11.4.However, Opensuse has the edgewhen it comes to accessibility. Thenet-net: I am using 11.10 on mylaptop, and I plan to switch toUbuntu 12.04 with Unity on my

primary, desktop computer.

Just to see more options, I havealso installed Kubuntu 11.10 on mylaptop.

I attended several otherpresentations. The mostinteresting was about deployingOLPCs (One Laptop Per Child) inKenya. Apparently, seven familiesin Toronto are involved in an effortwhich has changed two schools,and is being expanded to fourothers. Biggest surprise: the typicalshepherd in Kenya uses hiscellphone to text back and forthwith his family. They said the datanetwork was much better thanwhat they have experienced inCanada.

On the first trip to Kenya, theyarrived with a solar array and fourcomputers, and the solar array wascompletely overwhelmed by noon-day sun at the equator, 2,000 feetabove sea level. After spending aday whining and kickingmalfunctioning equipment, theyfound a solar engineer 20 milesdown the road, who came in andfixed that part of the problem.They used a cell device to create alocal Wifi hot spot, and connected

the computers to it. The schoolshave very few text books, which donot hold up well in the localconditions. Having access to theresources of the Internet made ahuge change in the school.

The first school wound upgetting 40 OLPCs, two of whichhave succumbed to theenvironment over three years. TheOLPC can be used in brightsunshine, which makes a bigdifference in Kenya.

I got the impression from thetalk that deploying smallcomputers is mostly about bringingthem to the site, setting up what isneeded, and showing teachers andstudents how to use them. Raising$5,000 and shipping 25 OLPCs tosome remote school doesn'tactually do anything helpful in thereal world. Better to spend $4,000on airfare for three people to

deliver 5 OLPCs, and provide a lotof on-site help and setup.

The other wonderfulpresentation was "When youcannot be there -- remote accessand collaboration," by Raul Suarez.In 50 minutes, he went from Telnetto SSH, VNC and Webconferencing, with a few otherapproaches thrown in for goodmeasure. There's an online versionof his presentation athttp://kwlug.org/node/667

This was probably the mostsophisticated presentation I haveever seen which was not backed bythe resources of a major vendor.

The conference itself featuredsuperb organization, but it needsmore publicity.


UUBBUUNNTTUU WWOOMMEENNWritten by Elizabeth Krumbach PPrroojjeecctt GGooaallss ffoorr PPrreecciissee

In our last article for Full CircleMagazine, we discussed thepersonal goals from the newlyelected leadership team of the

Ubuntu Women project. On theheels of the Ubuntu DeveloperSummit in Orlando, Florida, I’d nowlike to talk about some of the keygoals the team has for the nextUbuntu release cycle.

1. Mentoring program

This is an area that all three ofour leaders strongly identifiedwith, and the team is stillcommitted to. Our project hasalways had some kind of mentoringprogram in place, starting with avery rigid program, and movinginto the very informalinfrastructure we have now wherewe collaboratively mentor newmembers and each other asquestions arise in our resourcespace, whether this be on themailing list, chat, or direct requestsfor guidance sent to our leadershipteam. In this cycle, Amber Granerwants to continue her work withfollowing up the existingmentoring programs in the Open

Source world to see what we canlearn from them and whatresources we can share.

2. Websitedevelopment

Our primary website still has avery old theme and dated look toit. We’re in the process ofmigrating the site to be all-wiki -with a select number of pageswhich will be editable only byadministrators. Our hope is thatthis will invite more updates to ourcontent, and, in general, get ourbranding more firmly in place.

3. Improve ourrecommendations forteams

I feel the project is good atmentoring women who alreadyhave an interest in Open Sourceand are now ready to take the nextsteps, but we haven’t done muchoutreach to other teams within thewider Ubuntu community to helpthem attract more women to theirteams. We have a short page of

“Best Practices” for in-personevents - based largely on an olderdocument “How-to EncourageWomen in Linux,” but, in thecurrent form, our own documentneeds a lot of work to add morepractical ways to make a projectwelcoming to everyone andgenerally read in a more positivelight.

4. Broadly identify ourtarget audience andcome up with strategies

Finally, we have a few newcontributors to the project and oneof them suggested that we comeup with broad targets for thosewe’re trying to reach out to withour project, and then come up withspecific strategies targeted toward

those women. In our collaborationsession at the Ubuntu DeveloperSummit, we briefly outlined thefollowing groups:• already using Ubuntu but not yetcontributing• already using Open Source butnot Ubuntu• friends and family of Ubuntucontributors• have a need for technology butno direct exposure to Open Sourceyet.

We’re excited about all of theseprojects, and it’s been veryinspiring to be a part of a team thatnot only has folks dedicated to ourwork, but is constantly growing tobring in new people with freshideas to further our goals.


UUBBUUNNTTUU GGAAMMEESSWritten by Riku Järvinen FFrroozzeenn SSyynnaappssee

Frozen Synapse is a turn-based strategy game byMode7 games, and it hasreceived rave reviews

since it was originally released inMay 2011. In October, the HumbleFrozen Synapse Bundle waslaunched, including FS, along withTrauma and SpaceChem. This wasan opportunity to get the gameand a ton of extras at a nominalprice: If you paid more than theaverage (that is, about six dollars),the bundle also included the gamesof the Humble Frozenbyte Bundlesold earlier this year (and threesoundtracks... a bargain alright).

In many ways, my firstencounter with FS brought to mindthe Rainbow Six games I playedmany years back, but in asomewhat more simple setting -since the graphics were essentially2-dimensional and the cameraangle was fixed.

It suffices to say that FS is allabout how you can, in the sense oflogical thought, outsmart youropponent. There are two teamsfighting, and both have units with

different abilities (such asmovement, and battle engagementspeed), and weapons of terror(machine gun, shotgun, sniper,grenade launcher, and rocketlauncher). The battle takes place ina rectangular maze of blue wallstructures, some of which are full-height and others half-height. Thehalf-height walls can be used asshelters; units can dock behindthem to avoid enemy fire, andattack while standing up. The unitsare shown as simple uni-color

human-form figures, green versusred in the standard case.

Before commencing battle,there is a planning stage: onesimulates the movements of units(one can also simulate theopponent!), while developing aworking strategy. When thedecisions are made, the outcomeresolves: units act according totheir orders, moving, firing, tryingto survive five seconds of intensivecombat, after which the next

planning stage takes place. Thiscycle is repeated as long as neitherof the teams has completed theirobjective, given before any actiontakes place.

Whether to go all-out offensive,or to defend territory, is by nomeans an easy decision - whichdepends solely on the goal to beachieved. In addition to the ‘’plainand simple’’ extermination mode,one can rescue hostages, defendareas, or “hold the line” for as longas is necessary.

Installation andgameplay

The installation is relativelystraightforward: just CHMOD thebin file to an executable, and run itto start the installer. It creates asubdirectory called frozensynapsein the directory to be specified.There you find the runnable filenamed Frozensynapse (run the filewith ./ command).

Once started, a login screenappears where you can create anaccount for the multiplayer, or


UBUNTU GAMES - FROZEN SYNAPSEsimply choose to play offline in arandom skirmish or campaignmode. I suggest creating theaccount and starting multiplayer assoon as you are familiar with thebasic controls since many of the“cool tricks” cannot be learnedanywhere else. For the basics,there’s a tutorial which is easy tofollow. There’s also a collection ofadditional tutorial videos on theFrozen Synapse websitehttp://goo.gl/qGbsm.

I’m more of an online gamer, so Iconsider the beauty of FrozenSynapse to lie in multiplayer mode.The offline campaign mode hasreceived positive reviewselsewhere which I will not repeathere. The thing in multiplayer is tosign up for a collection of battlesgoing on at the same time, andparticipating currently on a gamewhere there is action, i.e. not towaste time waiting for an hour ortwo for the other players’decisions. Normally, people on theservers spend a lot of timeplanning their moves, and I got myass kicked big time in the first fewfights. Relatively simple-lookingbattles may take many hours, whileplayers are concurrently occupiedin possibly dozens of differentscenarios.

While Frozen Synapse triumphsin the area of gameplay and music,it loses some points due to themodest graphics. Nevertheless, inthe heat of battle, one quicklyforgets eye-candy andconcentrates on the winningstrategy. Come to think of it, thesimple but elegant nature of thegraphics - along with the blueishtheme and soundtrack packed withquality electronic music - createsan unique, futuristic, atmosphere.

I play Frozen Synapse on mylaptop (an HP Elitebook 8460p)with an additional 19” LED display.The specs are Core i7 2620QM 2.7GHz, AMD Radeon HD 6470, 4 GBDDR3 1333 MHz, 128 GB SSD, andUbuntu 11.10 . While playing withmaximum resolution and bestgraphics options, there was somelag which is probably due to myinadequate graphics card.

Frozen Synapse can bepurchased from their website(http://www.frozensynapse.com/)at a price of 24.99 $, which includesan extra free copy you can give to afriend. For 10 $ more, a sword-fighting game calledDeterminance, a soundtrack of FS,

and a cd (in mp3) are added to thebundle.

Conclusions

For someone beginning FrozenSynapse multiplayer, I suggestgoing through the tutorial andrunning a few skirmish battles. Youprobably get smoked a few times,but that’s the fastest way to learn.Once prepared, login and meet thereal challenge! Here’s a summary ofthe things I considered good or badin relation to FS multiplayer mode.

Good:• the sum of the parts (gameplayidea, music, theme) creates acharacteristic feeling

• packed with tons of relativelysimple properties that togethercreate complex combat situations• multiplayer action is intriguing,and could very well become aclassic.

Bad:• graphics could be more accurateand beautiful• some crashes on Ubuntu 11.10while uploading videos to Youtube,and some other minorcompatibility issues

score: 9/10

http://goo.gl/qGbsm

http://www.frozensynapse.com/


MMYY DDEESSKKTTOOPP

My desktop is a tribute for the legend of heavy-metal ,Dimebag Darrel l . I 'm using a Mike Capprotti drawingabout this legendary guitar player.

I 'm using Cairo-Dock for taskbar and shortcurts.

My specs: Acer Aspire 3050-1458, AMD Sempron3500+ 1.8 GHz, 1,5GB RAM, and 80 GB.

Marcelo Goulart

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.

This is my desktop. I l ike it clean and simple.

I am running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, with Docky (bottom &left-hand side docks, auto-hide), and panel on top (auto-hide). Wal lpaper is ubuntu-black - can't rememberwhere it came from. Screenlets are circle clock, andthree ring sensors showing hard drive space.

I 've been using Ubuntu since '05, loving the progress.

Roy Jensen



MY DESKTOP

The wal lpaper, a picture I took of a leaf bug. Thetheme is cal led Bamboo-zen created by Zgegbal l . Ia lso use Zgegbal l 's icons - it’s cal led ubuntu-sunrise.There are 5 screenlets, Calender with no back, A clock,a bul ls eye, which I just have because I think it looksnice. The word of the day to stay up on my vocab, CPUusage, and, last but not least, the Cairo-Dock.

The green gives me an earthly feel .

System Specs:Ubuntu 10.04 (lucid) running on my Del lxps one, with an Intel Core(TM) dual processor 2.3Ghz,4GBs of ram, 300GB Harddrive space.

Deon Ragin

My desktop runs Ubuntu 10.04, with Plusonewal lpaper from deviantART, and Awoken l ight themefrom gnome-looks. I have removed the bottom paneland replaced it with AWN dock. I 've been usingUbuntu since Gutsy, and I use my computer mainlyfor web and software development as a freelancer.

System specs:Intel Celeron 2.3GHz1GB RAM80 GB HDD18.5 inch LCD screen at 1360x768 resolution.

Bijay Chamling


HHOOWW TTOO CCOONNTTRRIIBBUUTTEE

We are always looking for new articles to include in Full Circle. For articleguidelines, ideas, and for issue translation, please see our wiki:http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuMagazinePlease email your articles to: [email protected]

Full Circle Team

Editor - Ronnie [email protected] - Rob [email protected] Mgr - Robert [email protected] - Robin [email protected]

Editing & Proofreading

Mike KennedyLucas WestermannGord Campbell

Our thanks go out to Canonical, themany translation teams around theworld and to Thorsten Wilms for thecurrent Full Circle logo.

If you would like to submit news, email it to: [email protected]

Send your comments or Linux experiences to: [email protected]

Hardware/software reviews should be sent to: [email protected]

Questions for Q&A should go to: [email protected]

Desktop screens should be emailed to: [email protected]

... or you can visit our forum via: www.fullcirclemagazine.org

Deadline for Issue #56:Sunday 11th Dec. 2011.

Release date for issue #56:Friday 30th Dec. 2011.FULL CIRCLE NEEDS YOU!

A magazine isn't a magazine without articles and Full Circle is no exception. We needyour Opinions, Desktops and Stories. We also need Reviews (games, apps &hardware), How-To articles (on any K/X/Ubuntu subject) and any questions, orsuggestions, you may have.Send them to: [email protected]

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