GNU General Public License has been atlast updated to version 3 after nearly a year of drafts and lot of arguments. It was release yesterday - which is also the release date of Apple’s iPhone. The final text of GPLv3 is accompanied with a rationale document explaining the few changes since the “Last Call” draft. The final text of LGPLv3 is available as well. The GPL FAQ has already been updated with additional information and will be improved over the next few weeks. AGPLv3, FDLv2, and SFDL are still being revised.
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Google has brought another app over to linux. Google Desktop which is brings the power of Google search to your personal files, is now available for linux. It is really nice to see that it doesn’t run on a emulated layer(wine) like picasa or maps instead requires glibc 2.3.2+, gtk+ 2.2.0+.
Google Desktop for linux has various features like:
- Quick Search box: Just press ctrl twice and you get the quick search box.
- Search your Gmail and web history: Allows you to search your email and history even if you are offline as the index is stored on your computer
- Many file types: Searches your Gmail, text, source code, PDF, postscript, html, Thunderbird mail, OO.o documents, images, music, man and info pages, files and folder names. Phew!
- Familiar results: The search result is same as your regular Google search result
- Smart indexing: Indexes the files automatically
- Google integration: If you search for something on the web, it will show related information present on your harddisk too
- File Versioning: Creates cached copies(snapshots) of your files - so you can get previous versions of files or even accidentally deleted data (now someone must complain about it)
- Multi-Language support: Supports multiple languages based on the language setting.
You can download Google Desktop for linux .deb / .rpm or there are information which gives clear steps to install on your favourite distro.
If you want to use the latest snapshot of Beryl, Compiz, OpenCompositing Compiz Tools and Plugins, Emerald, kiba-dock on your Ubuntu Feisty, then you should add Treviño’s repositories. Once you add these repositories, you can install them by using apt-get.
Edit your /etc/apt/sources.list file and add the following to it.
deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb feisty eyecandy deb-src http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb feisty eyecandy
After you do that, update your packages and then install your required package.
Recording screencasts in Linux was a difficult problem faced by many users. recordmyDesktop is a command line tool to record screencasts and it has a GTK and a qt based frontend to make it easy for newbies. RecordMyDesktop can be tweaked to your hearts content by changing the sound and video quality, frames captured per second, mouse cursor style, compression, and whether to record the current window or the entire desktop.
Ubuntu users can install recordMyDesktop and gtk-recordMyDesktop with:
sudo apt-get install recordmydesktop gtk-recordmydesktopOther distro users too can use their package management tool to install it.
A start-up located in the French Alps near Grenoble is readying a tiny ARM-based Linux single-board computer (SBC) in a USB key form-factor. Calao, based in Sant Martin le Vinoux, is also readying a tiny Linux SBC designed to plug into QIL (quad in-line) IC sockets.
Calao’s USB-9260 USB key-sized SBC measures 3.3 x 1.4 inches (85 x 36 mm). It is based on an Atmel AT91SAM9260 processor, an SoC (system-on-chip) powered by an ARM926EJ-S core clocked at 190MHz. The SoC targets “advanced applications such as GPS application processors,” according to Atmel.
The tiny USB key SBC has 64MB of SDRAM and 256MB of NAND flash. I/O includes a USB 2.0 device port, a 10/100 Ethernet port, and a pair of USB 2.0 host ports. The device also offers a 50-pin expansion interface, although the company has not published the pinout, nor announced any specific daughterboards.
The Calao boards will come pre-installed with the open-source U-Boot bootloader and Linux 2.6-series kernels. GNU toolchains also appear to be available from the company.
[From LinuxDevices]
I am a fan of GNU Emacs, the second most popular programmers’ editor (after vi) and was till now using the old Emacs 21 version which doesn’t have great font. But now Emacs has a XFont backend which makes possible to use good looking fonts, like Bitstream Vera Sans Mono. I wanted to install this on my Ubuntu Fiesty and managed to do it with the emacs-snapshot packages by Alexandre Vassalotti.
Here is how you too can install Emacs Snapshot on your Ubuntu.
- First add the following lines to your /etc/sources.list file
deb http://debs.peadrop.com feisty backports deb-src http://debs.peadrop.com feisty backports - Then add the GPG key to the key database.
wget --quiet http://debs.peadrop.com/DD385D79.gpg -O - | sudo apt-key add - - Then update and install the following packages. These are only for the 32bit version of Ubuntu.
sudo aptitude update sudo aptitude install emacs-snapshot-gtk emacs-snapshot-el - Then you have to specify which font you want to use in the Xresources file.
echo "Emacs.font: Monospace-10" >> ~/.Xresources xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources
This will do the magic and now you can enjoy the cool looking emacs. And also thank Alexandre Vassalotti for the nice packages.
Installing Beryl (the cool 3D desktop videos you see on youtube) in Feisty is super easy now. This is made possible because of the restricted drivers manager with which you can install non-free drivers for NVidia cards easily. Follow these instructions and you can easily have a cool looking Ubuntu desktop.
- First update your system by typing in the terminal
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade - Then you need to add a repository to your sources.list file.
Type$ gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list
Add this line to the end of the file and save it.deb http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org feisty main - Then type this in your terminal
$ wget http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org/root@lupine.me.uk.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add - - Then update your system.
$ sudo apt-get update - Install the latest Nvidia drivers
$ sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx
$ sudo nvidia-xconfig --add-argb-glx-visuals --composite - Restart your X by pressing ctrl+alt+backspace
- Install Beryl and emerald themes
$ sudo apt-get install beryl emerald-themes beryl-manager - You can now run beryl by typing beryl-manager in the run application box by pressing alt+f2
- To make beryl start automatically every time you login,
goto System -> Preferences -> Sessions
In Startup Programs -> New add beryl-manager.
Just found through this post by Technofreak, where a simple(ok, that is not simple), onliner on your terminal will show you the top 10 commands used recently.
$ history | awk '{print $2}' | awk 'BEGIN {FS="|"}{print $1}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -n | tail | sort -nr
This on my system shows up
82 cd
63 ls
51 sudo
51 screen
18 ps
17 irssi
15 python
14 svn
12 irb
11 uptime
Full Circle is an e-magazine run by the Ubuntu community that covers the world of Ubuntu, open source, and technology. The Issue 1 is out now which has various tutorials, interviews, reviews unlike issue 0 which was a special preview edition containing the history of Ubuntu distros.
Currently there is only the english version with other languages coming out soon. This issue includes:
- Installing Ubuntu Feisty Fawn
- Howtos: Linux directory structure, MythTV, Scribus, and more
- Interview with Deluge BitTorrent Client developer
- News, reviews and more.
You can also contribute to the magazine on the wiki into various categories.
Movable Type, the most popular installable platform written in perl has decided to go open source. Wordpress stole most of the popularity and fame because it is open sourced and has a huge community behind it. Movable Type has also decided to enjoy the benifits of open sourced software and announced the open source project along with the launch of the MT 4 Beta.
Movable Type Open Source, or MTOS, is the open source project that will consist of a GPL-licensed version of Movable Type 4.0, to be released in Q3 2007, and resources for the already large community of Movable Type developers, hosted at www.movabletype.org/opensource. Also the website states that they wouldn’t be abandoning the commericial licensed version of the software.
It is good to see a solid blogging platform come out into the public with the source code. You can download the beta version of MT4 to try the new features. The website says that it is easy to install and get started, which was a problem with the previous versions.
