Blog Closed

Folks,

as you can see nothing has happened here for a very long time... well, I had moved my blog in 2006, but that other blog was deleted some months ago without me being noticed.
But anyway, I just don't have the time anymore to blog about linux, since I've graduated last year and I'm now teaching at school (provisional teaching with lots and lots of exams as an extra) and I have a million other things to worry about because I love working with the kids. And I hope I can also teach them a great deal about the responsible use of the internet, software, copyright and licensing, FOSS, social software and all that stuff - and hopefully also learn from them, their ideas and their wishes.

Finally, I will buy a new laptop next week (this one's already losing its keys), and don't hit me, but... it's a mac book. I still love linux and I'll never quit using FOSS, but hey, it's a Mac book PRO :-D

So, I thought this might be the appropriate moment to announce my official retirement from Kubuntu, or at least to put my activity on ice for the next two years - until I'm an official teacher with a regular salary and some holidays where I can install the new Kubuntu und play around with it :-)

My special wishes go to all the new linux users out there and of course to the German Kubuntu Team - you are doing a great job, keep it up!

Zerlinna

THIS BLOG HAS MOVED // Shifting to Dapper Drake

Breaking news - I've moved my blog!
\sh proposed to host my blog on his server with serendipity, a great blogger software! Also, this blog here is firstly about Kubuntu Breezy - since Dapper will come out in June I think this is a good moment to shift.
But don't worry - I'm not going to delete this blog, it will stay here and I'll still read all comments and shoutouts and answer them.
But I hope that I can wellcome you all on my new blog at http://zerlinna.blogweb.de!
If you're thinking about shifting too - from breezy to dapper (it's till beta but next week it will be out officially) - you can either just update from breezy or make a fresh install - there is already a little guide with screenshots.

If you want do it by upgrading (I didn't do this, so I don't know how properly it would work - but it's worth a try, just be sure to backup everything before) open your sources.list with kate or kwrite (open your konsole and type this command: sudo kate /etc/apt/sources.list) and replace its content with the one from this site. Save the file and close it.

Then type into the konsole:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

This should upgrade your breezy to dapper (be aware: it's still beta so it's not advised to use it on your production systems. I have to say that I already do and it works great for me - there just no guarantee that it might work).

Report from LinuxTag

Some of you may have asked yourself: what's going on with Zerlinna, where has she gone?
Now it's time to tell you: no, I'm not dead, I was just busy... with LinuxTag.
I've been to LinuxTag last year as a visitor, this time I was there to present Kubuntu at the booth. Now I see such events with new eyes: I see all the work behind the scenes, but also how much fun it can be to work with those nice people.
Of course I was the only woman at the booth - at the beginning I was a bit scared but that changed very quickly because the guys were really cool and we had a great time together.
I finally met Andreas Mueller and Stephan Hermann in person, but also Kenneth Wimer (who made also the great banner for our booth), Raphael Pinson (he hold a speech about kubuntu), Anthony Mercatante, Achim Bohnet, Markus Wimmer and Jonathan Riddell.



We had a lot of visitors at our booth - geeks and non-geeks, but also some corporate clients. For me it was a special pleasure to explain Kubuntu to a few women. I hope that next year there will be even more females.
We had about 1500 Kubuntu CDs one could obtain for free - at the last day they were all gone.
We also sold Kubuntu mugs and stickers for a minimal price - and we had a donation box to cover the expenses of the booth.



Also the social events and the talks with people after the fair were a great experience. I met Till Kamppeter (from linuxprinting.org and Kurt Pfeifle (he's one of the guys behind the very cool application I blogged about - klik).

There were also the meetings about the future of Kubuntu which Mark Shuttleworth had announced previously - an announcement is forthcoming.

One funny story at the end: on friday when I came back from a little break there was a guy waiting for me at the booth. He asked me if I was 'Zerlinna' - and when I affirmed he told me that he was a big fan of my blog and that he wanted to take a picture from me shaking hands with him :-D

All in all I enjoyed LinuxTag very much. Our team gained a lot of experience so that we can even improve for the next year. We'd be pleased to meet you at LinuxTag 2007 at the Kubuntu booth!

German report of linuxTag
Zerlinna's LinuxTag pictures

Statement about protest week from www.kubuntu.de

Here is the actual statement from www.kubuntu.de

Statement about protest week

As from April 20, the site kubuntu.de is online again.
Since our users are very important to us and since our site is an important place for german Kubuntu users, we decided to reactivate kubuntu.de to the benefit of the users. Furthermore, we assure that kubuntu.de will persist in the future. New team members are always welcome.
We hope that all our questions will be clarified soon in order that we can build a roadmap for our further proceeding. Mark Shuttleworth announced meetings and presentations to chart the future of Kubuntu at LinuxTag. Certainly this will help to clarify our questions. This clarification will give us the possibility to comment more precisely. We will publish this comment here some days after LinuxTag.Therefore we ask for our users patience thitherto.

We still think that Kubuntu has huge potential, and we want the KDE distribution Kubuntu to be the number 1 in Europe. Therefore, and for the improvement of KDE, which is already the most popular desktop in Europe, we were and we are still committed.

www.kubuntu.de - the story goes on

Some of you may already have seen it: www.kubuntu.de is back online again.AND - there WILL be a booth at LinuxTag! You can still join in to help - subscribe to the list and also visit the wikipage.
You may ask "why this? Since when? What happened?"
Please be patient - we are working on a statement and it will be published soon at kubuntu.de - and here of course :).
In the meantime enjoy the forums back to life :-)

UPDATE: Announcement from www.kubuntu.de

Today the kubuntu.de - Team posted an update of their announcement on www.kubuntu.de. Discussion as usual at Ubuntu and Kubuntu mailing list.

Kubuntu.de protest week – Update

The linux community received our protest with both, agreement, but also criticism.
We would like to react to those by giving more specific reasons for our protest.

The aim
This website, including the forum, the mailing lists and the respective IRC channels (#kubuntu-de and #kubuntu-de-team) has one aim: to support the community, to offer a platform to the users of Kubuntu and, last but not least, to boost the Kubuntu-project so as to make it an outstanding distribution.

We all from the kubuntu.de - team have poursuited this aim together, but most of the work has been done by Andreas Mueller (amu). He is not only co-founder and unpaid developer of the Kubuntu-project, but he's also hosting this website with current Kubuntu-LiveCDs and he's taking over all the arising expenses himself. Gnoppix, another “baby” of Andreas Mueller, now in possession of Canonical, but still being financed by Andreas.

What we criticise
During our endeavours for Kubuntu, several requests to Canonical were made. All the mails were addressed to Mrs. Jane Silber, CCO of Canonical.
Our concern primarily regards the following subjects, which need - due to the present state of the project - several basic decisions and responses by Canonical :

Developers
Kubuntu needs more paid developers. Even though Canonical says that there is one paid developer for GNOME and one KDE (seb128/jriddell), the rest of the paid developers rather tend to support GNOME. It would be reasonable to pay at least 2-3 more developers to balance, because only providing KDE-packages is not enough.

Status of the project
What is the meaning behind Mark Shuttleworth's commitment, that he wants to make “Kubuntu a 1st class distribution”? Is he stepping back from his former declaration that Kubuntu is a pure community project (http://www.kubuntu.org/announcements/hoary-release.php), and is it planned to integrate Kubuntu permanently into the Canonical support system?

Restricted independence of the project
Kubuntu should be a little more independent as a project. Of course we understand that money has to be made at some point – you can not only spend the money, you need to get it back somehow.
But the decision should be a technical one in the first place, which is geared to special markets (concretely: the SMIME support which is important e.g. in Germany).

Sponsoring
What about having another big sponsor on board? Generally, this could happen.
Is Kubuntu a community project or are there financial interests behind though?

ISO-Updates
Is there any problem to integrate patches and security updates into the install- and live-iso's and to provide updates of the iso's after 3 months? Bugs do happen.


Community contribution (portal software)
Except Jonathan Riddell and Andreas Mueller nobody can change the website of kubuntu (kubuntu.org – Andreas has gained his account back now, after more than two months).

If someone can't make packages, that doesn't mean he can't do anything for the project. A lot of volunteers wanted to contribute, but they couldn't because they have no access.

A portal software solve this problem. This software could ideally provide a direct translation (possibly with connection to Rosetta) and at the same time allow the export to the official documentation. We are already working on the realisation of such a portal.

Trademarks
On the site of ubuntuusers.de it is stated that they are the “official german portal of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu and all other Ubuntu derivatives”. None of the concerned party is even known with a nickname on #kubuntu-devel or #kubuntu-de.
There is a contract between Matthias Urlichs, Julius Bloch, Marcus Fischer and Canonical http://static.ubuntu-de.org/cms/files/00/05/52/agreement.pdf) in order to give them the possibility to use the name “Ubuntu” for the association “ubuntu Deutschland e.V.” over which the three preside. The association itself is hosting the portal ubuntuusers.de.
But this contract doesn't entitle “ubuntu Deutschland e.V.” to the names Kubuntu, Xubuntu and to all the other names of ubuntu derivatives.
Therefore we request rectification on the sites of the association as well as on the site of ubuntuusers.de: that they have nothing to do with Kubuntu and other derivatives of Canonical Trademarks and Ubuntu Foundation distributions, since they are only supporting ubuntuusers.de and no other community projects around Ubuntu and its derivatives.

Moreover, there exist some so-called “domaingrabber” in Germany which only want to make profit with the brand Kubuntu. Why are they not admonished and closed?
This is a sensitive area, but instead of declaring Canonical is hiding away from the problems.

Our protest will continue as long as these questions are not clarified.

Announcement on www.kubuntu.de

Today the kubuntu.de - Team posted the following news on their site. Please read it guys and help the Kubuntu-project by sending a message to the Ubuntu and Kubuntu mailing list.

Official statement of kubuntu.de:

This website, including the forum, the mailing lists and the respective IRC channels (#kubuntu-de and #kubuntu-de-team) has one aim: to support the community, to offer a platform to the users of Kubuntu and, last but not least, to boost the Kubuntu-project so as to make it an outstanding distribution.

We all from the kubuntu.de - team have poursuited this aim together, but most of the work has been done by Andreas Müller (amu). He is not only co-founder and unpayed developer of the Kubuntu-project, but he's also hosting this website and he's taking over all the arising expenses.

During our endeavours for Kubuntu, there were made several requests to Canonical (e.g. concerning the status of Kubuntu in comparison with Ubuntu, reactivation of amu's account on kubuntu.org). All those requests are unanswered till today!

Up to now, there is only one payed developer (Jonatha Riddell). Since Canonical ignores all our personal and partly financial engagement until now we have to assume that Canonical is not willing to make Kubuntu a "1st class distribution".

The current status is unfortunately not acceptable at all and it is endangering the continuity and especially the further development of Kubuntu.

Unless all the requests made by Andreas Müller are answered till 15.04.2006

* kubuntu.de ll shut down including its forum and mailing lists
* Amu will stop developing Kubuntu
* there will be no booth at LinuxTag

To clarify the seriousness of the situation, kubuntu.de will be offline for one week beginning as from monday, 10.04.2006.

If you want to help us, please refer to the interational mailing list of Ubuntu and Kubuntu.

The team
Amu (Andreas Müller)
Urmelchen (René Fischer)
Apachelogger (Harald Sitter)
\sh (Stephan Hermann)
emonkey (Carlos Diener)
Zerlinna (Mirjam Wäckerlin)
Czessi (Marcus Czeslinski)
foxx / Janek (Janek Thomaschewski)

Kubuntu on LinuxTag2006

If you've read this post you already know that I recently joined the German Kubuntu-Team.
We're planning to have a Kubuntu booth on LinuxTag 3 – 6 may 2006 in Wiesbaden (Germany), the largest Linux / OSS fair in Europe. Since we don't have enough manpower yet we would appreciate your help on booth duty and organisation. If you want to take part please subscribe to our international events-list: http://kubuntu.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kubuntu-events
If you have questions, you can send me an email to waeckerlin at kubuntu dot de

I'm looking forward to meet you guys at LinuxTag :-)

Let's test: Kubuntu Dapper Flight 6 is out!

There is no official announcement yet, but there are already mirrors where you can download Kubuntu Dapper Flight 6.
If you want to try it out you can just download it from this site. Please use bittorent if possible to relieve the servers. You can find more information about this release in the ubuntu wiki.
Your comments on Dapper are always welcome :-)

Note: It is still an alpha release dedicated to testing, so do not install it on production machines.

Update: KDE 3.5.2

KDE 3.5.2 is now available for Kubuntu!
To update your KDE, type into your Konsole (one line after the other)

wget http://people.ubuntu.com/~jriddell/kubuntu-packages-jriddell-key.gpg
sudo apt-key add kubuntu-packages-jriddell-key.gpg
sudo kate /etc/apt/sources.list

Then add just one of the following lines to your sources.list (make sure the format is like this: deb URL in one line):

deb http://kubuntu.org/packages/kde352 breezy main
deb ftp://bolugftp.uni-bonn.de/pub/kde/stable/3.5.2/kubuntu breezy main
deb http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/stable/3.5.2/kubuntu breezy main
deb http://mirror.cc.columbia.edu/pub/software/kde/stable/3.5.2/kubuntu breezy main

In the konsole again:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Depending on your internet connection it may take a little time :-)

You can more information on kubuntu.org and kde.org

Dual boot on external USB Drive with a BootCD (with Bios not supporting boot from external device)

For Christmas I got a wonderful external USB Drive which I only used for backups until now.
Since I couldn't wait to test Kubuntu Dapper Test 5 I decided to make a dual boot with my Breezy, and to install the new system on my usb drive.
There is a wonderful HowTo do to so here in ubuntuforums.
But you can only use this HowTo if your Bios supports the option "Boot from USB device".
So what do to if it doesn't? No need to be sad, you can just create a boot CD to get your system running on USB.

First step: INSTALLATION
Firstly, you have to install the new system to your usb disk. If you have already a LinuxSystem on your computer, you can use the entire free space on your usb device for ext3, mount point / (except you want to have a special partition for /home, but let's assume you don't), because your first system has already a swap partition. If your first system is NOT a Linux, then you need to create a Swap-Partition, too.
So let's say you install your new Kubuntu to the first partition of your usb device. This means it is on (hd1,0) respectively something like /dev/sda1 (it may differ in your system I'll use this for this post. Make sure that everytime I use /dev/sda1 you use the correct path for your system!).
At the end of the installation process you will be asked where you want to install GRUB. I suggest you don't install it on your first HD (because if you're using Windows maybe you'll have troubles afterwards), better install it on the first partition of your usb Device (usually /dev/sda1). Anyway, you won't be able to boot your new system from Grub due to your bios.

Second step: CREATE THE BOOT CD
The boot cd works like a boot floppy, but since lots of laptops (like mine) don't use floppy anymore, we need a boot cd. To do so is easy.

If your first system is a Linux
I. Just boot. Make sure after boot you have access to the external HD (and your freshly installed system). Then install the package syslinux. In Kubuntu you can just do so with adept (just search for syslinux and install).
II. Make a directory called bootcd (in your konsole: mkdir bootcd). Copy isolinux.bin into your new folder bootcd:

cp /usr/lib/syslinux/isolinux.bin bootcd/isolinux.bin

III.Then copy the kernel image of your new system from /Path_of_your_new_system/boot to bootcd/linux.
In our example the command would be:

cp /media/sda1/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-19-386 bootcd/linux

Of course the number behind vmlinuz depends on the version of the kernel ofr your new system. Just have a look into the /boot folder of your new system an you'll see. The command above does not only copy the file, but also rename the copy to "linux".
IV. Then copy the initrd.img of your new sytem from /boot to bootcd/initrd.img. In our example:

cp /media/sda1/boot/initrd.img-2.6.15-1 bootcd/initrd.img

Here too, replace the number with your kernel and make sure that the copied file is renamed to initrd.img.
V. Then you'll create the isolinux.cfg file. Open kwrite and paste the following line:

DEFAULT linux initrd=initrd.img ro root=(your-root-dev)

(your-root-dev) is the partition where you installed your new system, in our example the line would look like this:

DEFAULT linux initrd=initrd.img ro root=/dev/sda1

Save the file in the bootcd folder.
VI. Now it's time to make the iso. Cd into the directory above bootcd and type this command into your konsole (all in one line without break):

mkisofs -o bootcd.iso -b isolinux.bin -c boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -J -hide-rr-moved -R bootcd/

And - voila - your iso! Burn it to cd and restart your computer.

If your first system is NOT linux
You need a liveCD and a USB-Stick.
For the LiveCD I recommend Knoppix. With Knoppix you can install and even remove programs during a LiveSession (you can also save your settings as an image to a usb-stick) -- and syslinux is even already installed.
Boot Knoppix, then follow the steps as described above, just save the created iso to your usb-stick (the iso will be about 7MB). Then reboot into windows and burn the iso to a cd.

Credits go to: comm[A|n]der and TheDemonInsed from #kubuntu-de, also to the guys from ubuntuforums (Breezy on external HD and Make Ubuntu BootCD).

Delay of Dapper - Official Announcement

15 hours ago, Mark Shuttleworth posted the following text to ubuntuforums.
So NOW it is offical!

Change to release schedule for Ubuntu Dapper
Hi,

June 1st 2006 is the updated release date for Ubuntu Dapper, Desktop
and Server editions, a delay of 6 weeks over the previous release date
of April 20.

The Ubuntu Community Council and Technical Board discussed feedback on
the delay proposal received during two town hall meetings on the
#ubuntu-meeting public IRC channel. After conferring with an absent
colleague they have now unanimously approved the new release schedule,
published here:

* https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DapperReleaseSchedule

The additional time will be used to:

* devote an additional three weeks of bug-fix-only quality assurance
time to the release for the core development team

* integrate the work of the localisation sprint to ensure excellent
out-of-the-box support for Asian languages as well as other
languages for which we are receiving a stream of community
contributions

* devote additional developer time to UI polish that we believe will
make Dapper stand out as a high-quality desktop operating system
for large-scale deployment

* bring the XFCE desktop environment, which has received substantial
community-driven work during this cycle, into the main Ubuntu
repository to improve the usefulness of Ubuntu on lightweight
desktops

* ensure that Dapper will be LSB certified at the time of release

* provide for wider testing of the new Ubuntu server kernels and
server features

* ensure that the new graphical Live CD installer receives very
widespread testing

This is not a general relaxation of the freeze process. While there
are some new features that are being integrated, the general
stabilisation and bug fixing freeze remains in place, with some
specific exceptions.

Progress towards the set of goals identified for Dapper has been truly
excellent, with almost all feature goals already implemented or
available for wide testing 5 weeks ahead of our previous release
date. The current status of all 82 new Dapper features (not counting
new upstream features in this cycle) is listed here:

* https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/dapper/+specs

The extra time will help ensure that Dapper is a robust and reliable
platform for organisations with long-term and large-scale free
software deployments. This is the first release of Ubuntu that will
be supported for 5 years on the server and 3 years on the desktop, and
we believe that this release will help expand the reach of the Ubuntu
and Debian communities substantially.

While the release schedule of Dapper+1 is not finalised, the Technical
Board feels that it will be best to plan for a short release schedule
to return to our regular Gnome + 1 month cycle. This will likely
result in Dapper+1 being released in October 2006.

Thank you to all who participated in the discussion or sent in their
commentary directly to the Technical Board, Community Council and
SABDFL.

--
Mark

--
ubuntu-announce mailing list
ubuntu-announce (AT) lists (DOT) ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/lis...buntu-announce

Delay of Dapper or HowTo create rumours

Truly: Kubuntu Dapper Drake will probably be delayed till first of June. But contrary to some newspages in Germany there is NO official announcement yet.

Sources:
Ubuntu wiki: MeetingSummary, DelayAnnouncements (Draft), Release Schedule

Newspages who announced prematurely and didn't indicate that there was no official announcement yet:
Prolinux
Heise
Golem
and last but not least ubuntuusers (after they had been informed about their error, they changed the title from their news from "Now it's official" to "Now it's for sure").

For all of those whose german skills are not enough to read all those carefully, I'll tell you what impression it all gives: reading this, one could believe that each one has copied from the other without verifying the sources (see above) where it is clearly indicatet that there is NO OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT yet. Though I personally think that in fact Dapper will be delayed (everyone does) the newspages should respect those indications and AT LEAST mention that in their posts. Especially ubuntuusers.de which considers itself as the "official german Portal" for Ubuntu and all its derivates (which I may question highly because there is www.kubuntu.de) should inquire carefully before spreading rumours.

Kubuntu Marketing

Recently I joined the Kubuntu.de - Team. Not for tech-stuff, but for doing marketing :-)
We are currently planning our booth for LinuxTag (3. - 6. May 2006). I created an Kubuntu Flyer (DE / EN). If you want to do some marketing for Kubuntu you can just download and redistribute it!
If you are interested in helping us for LinuxTag (organization and booth duty) just email me: waeckerlin at kubuntu dot de

Install another operating system within your Kubuntu (not dual boot)

Maybe you already tried out my latest post about Qemu or Vmplayer. That was only launching of LiveCDs, but now we go a little further: you can install a complete Operating System WITHIN your Kubuntu Breezy! What you need is:

--> Hard Disk Space (minimum 2GB)

--> Install Disc of another system (another Linux or even Windows, I take linspire as an example. Of course if you take another OS, just replace every "linspire" in this post with the name of the OS you choose)

--> Qemu and Kqemu (Script)

You may wonder what Kqemu is. If you tested to launch LiveCDs you probably noticed how SLOW it is. If you didn't: believe me, it IS really slow. So we need an accelerator: Kqemu (unfortunately not open source, but at least freeware).
If you installed Qemu with apt-get you may encounter little problems to install Kqemu because there's no .deb available.
But some nice guy has created a little script for us. I just changed it a little bit in order you can use the latest version of qemu. Grab the script (with rightclick --> save as) here and save it into a directory of your choice. Then type the following into your konsole:

cd /yourdirectory
chmod a+x insQEMU_v080.sh
sudo ./insQEMU_v080.sh

This will install qemu and kqemu on your system as a .deb file, meaning: you can easily remove it later.
If ever you get error messages read them carefully. If you don't find a solution you can contact me, or even better the original author of the script. You can also open the script with kate (rightclick --> open with kate) and see yourself what causes the error.

Now you've succeeded in installing Qemu and Kqemu, create a new directory for your new OS and cd into it (of course you can make this directory wherever you want, I just made it in my home folder).

mkdir /home/username/vm
cd /home/username/vm

Then create the virtual image for the system:

qemu-img create -f qcow linspire.qcow 5G

Of course you are not obliged to take 5GB. I think 2GB are far enough for Linspire (even for windows I think). I just take 5GB because my HDD is half empty :-)
Note: Even if you take 10GB this does NOT mean that the image does really HAVE the size of 10GB. It just means that your new system is limited up to 10GB - if the new sytem takes only 1,2 GB also the image will only be at 1,2GB.

You've created the image? Fine, now let's install linspire (or whatever OS you chose!).
Put in the install CD and type into your konsole (all in one line without break):

qemu -cdrom /dev/cdrom -hda linspire.qcow -boot d -net nic -net user -m 196 -localtime

(make sure before you're in your vm directory)

"-user -net" is important to have internet access within your new system. "-m 196" is the Set virtual RAM size (megabytes), default is 128 MB, I chose 196.

If you get the message: Could not open '/dev/kqemu' - QEMU acceleration layer not activated then close the qemu window and type into your konsole

modprobe kqemu

Retype the install command (qemu -cdrom.. - see above)
Still got the error message? Close qemu again.
Then type:

sudo rmmod kqemu
sudo insmod /lib/modules/2.6.12-10-386/misc/kqemu.ko

The part "2.6.12-10-386" may vary, depending on your kernel. Just have a look at the directory /lib/modules - if you got more than one directory there, cd into each to see where you can find the /misc directory. This should be the right one then!
Done this, the install command above should work now.

The install may take some time. After the install, qemu will try to boot the new OS itself. Maybe this may fail (was the case for me) - but don't worry. If that happens: just close the qemu window and type the following command into your konsole to launch your new OS:

qemu linspire.qcow -boot c -net nic -net user -m 196 -localtime

Now enjoy!

Some screenshots of my linspire within kubuntu (you can see it's only a window within my system):



Even internet works fine! :D

New Kubuntu Blog (DE)

I'm glad to welcome a new Kubuntu-Blog to the blogosphere:

Amu (kubuntu dev; we're working together for Kubuntu on LinuxTag) has just started out here. Though the blog is in german only, I hope you appreciate it.

Launching LiveCDs with Qemu

I've just come across another solution for launching LiveCDs without burning them.
You can use Qemu (which is preferable because it's OpenSource).
To install it is easy: you can do this with apt-get in your konsole:

sudo apt-get install qemu

To launch the live cd just type into the konsole:

qemu -cdrom YOURLIVECD.iso

Easy, isn't it?

Launching LiveCDs with VMWare

Maybe some of you have already heard about VMware. But what is VMWare?
Very Briefly: It's a software which is able to virtualize another OS within the running OS. If you want to know more about what VMWare is, here you can find further information.

But my goal today is not to explain the details of VMWare, but to provide you some help on the install of the VMPlayer and to show you one nice way to use it:
with VMPlayer it is possible to test liveCDs without burning them.

The steps are as following:
1) Prepare your system
2) Install VMPlayer
3) Download a *.iso-File of a liveCD
4) Create a *.vmx-File in order to
5) Launch the liveCD with Vmplayer

First step: Prepare your system
There are some things you need to take care of before installing VMPlayer: the development header files for your running kernel, the build essential tools and the gcc-3.4 compiler. To install them open a konsole and type

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)
sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install gcc-3.4 g++-3.4

If ever you have problems with this step, check your sources.list.
Maybe you noticed that you already have gcc 4.0 installed on your system. So why do we have to install gcc 3.4? The answer is easy: the default compiler on breezy is gcc 4, but the kernel has been compiled with gcc 3.4. VMPlayer needs the compiler which has been used for the kernel, that's why 3.4 is required. But only installing gcc 3.4 isn't enough: we need to tell the system where to find the needed version of gcc. You can do this just by typing into the konsole:

export CC=/usr/bin/gcc-3.4

(As long as the actual konsole is open, your system will use gcc 3.4. So if you close it before installing VMPlayer, and you open a new konsole, you need to retype this command).

Second step: Install VMPlayer
Luckily for all of us, VMPlayer is Freeware (sadly not OpenSource, but nothing's perfect). You can just download it from www.vmplayer.com. (Of course you could also download VMWareWorkstation - but you will only get a 30-day-eval version after entering your name, email, telephone number and so on.. - so better stick to VMPlayer only for the moment). Make sure you download the *.tar file (the download may take a while since the file is about 34MB).
Save the download in a directory of your choice (e.g. /home/username/apps). Open a konsole and cd into the directory. There you untar the file:

tar zxvf VMware-player-*.tar.gz

A new directory will be created. To install VMPlayer, cd into the directory

cd vmware-player-distrib/

and execute the install file:

sudo ./vmware-install.pl

VMplayer will ask you some questions - I think it's safe to hit enter / say "yes" to all of the questions (for me everything worked fine).

Third step: Download a *.iso-File of a liveCD
Now we need a liveCD.iso. I really want to see how Dapper will be, and that's why I'm downloading Flight CD 4. If you want to do so, here you can find the *.iso which suits for you. (I recommend to download DapperliveCD via torrent, it's pretty fast). Save the *.iso into a directory of your choice.

Forth step: Create a *.vmx-File
The problem is: VMPlayer can't launch *.iso files directly. You need first to create *.vmx file. Doing this is easy, because you can make it online with VMBuilder.
Here is my configuration (it may differ slighty e.g. the directory and the name of your iso, you can choose another name for the file etc.) I enable Ethernet because I want to try out the internet-access too, but you are not obliged to do so.



When you're finished, just click on "Generate VMX File". Copy the output of the following page into an editor (e.g. kate) and save the file as name.vmx (e.g. dapper.vmx).

Fifth step: Launch the liveCD with Vmplayer
Open your konsole and type

vmplayer

VMPlayer will launch and open a window "Open Virtual Machine". Here you can open your *.vmx file (in my case: dapper.vmx). If the *.vmx file is well created (meaning: you put the right path to your iso-file and a correct configuration) it will launch the live-cd in a new window. You can even maximize the window to a full screen in order that you have the perfect virtualization of your liveCD. (If you want to exit the fullscreen-mode press ctrl+alt).

If you want to learn more about VMPlayer on Ubuntu, read the wikipage.

Thanx to ChitleshGoorah for inspiration and help :-)

Sound but no picture? Get Realplayer working for rtsp: streams.

If you followed my little howto Watching Video streams - mms: and rtsp: protocol you maybe encountered the same problem as I did: sometimes Reaplplayer gave me only sound but no picture when streaming.

This problem can be easily solved:

Open RealPlayer choose: "Tools", then "Preferences". In the Preferences window, click the "Transport" tab. Select "Use Specified Transport". There is a button "Configure RTSP" - click it:



The "Transport Settings" window will appear. There you uncheck "Attempt Multicast", "Attempt UDP" and "Attempt TCP", but check "Attempt HTTP".

In the end the "Transport Settings" window will look like this:



Then click "ok" in the "Transport Settings" window, click "apply" and then "ok" in the "Preferences" window to save your changes.

Thanx to Mitch to pointing this solution out to me!

Get GPG Decryption working within Kmail

If you followed my last post and if you have the same problem as I did (decryption fails within Kmail, see post below), here is what I did to solve the problem:

First of all, install gnupg-agent, gnupg2 and pinentry-qt:

sudo apt-get install gnupg-agent gnupg2 pinentry-qt

Then type

sudo kate /home/username/.gnupg/gpg.conf

to open gpg.conf. Look for the line use-agent. Is it commented? If yes, remove the comment (the # sign). Save the file and close it.
End your KDE session. You can do this simply by pressing ctrl alt backspace. This will restart X completely - then login again and see if it's working. Kmail should ask for your passphrase now, and if you remember your passphrase, it will decrypt your emails.

If it's still not working, you have to write a little script which starts your gpg-agent at startup (this was the case for me).
Sounds complicated? Don't worry, it isn't! Because you can simply copy my script and it will work. Just open kate, copy the following lines and save it as gpgagent.sh

#!/bin/bash
eval "$(gpg-agent --daemon)"

#This script is in order to start gpg-agent at startup to
#have the possibility to enter your
#gpg passphrase into kmail (if gpg-agent is not
#running gpg-decryption will fail).


The first line (#!/bin/bash) tells you that this is a bash script. The next line (eval "$(gpg-agent --daemon)") is what the script really does: it starts the gpg-agent.
The last four lines with the comments (#) are the explication of what the script does.
Got the script? Ok. But now you have to save it in /home/username/.kde/env in order it is activated at startup. Maybe the folder /env doesn't exist. If this is the case, you can just create the folder:

mkdir /home/username/.kde/env

.
If you wonder why this works: startkde will check the /env folder at startup and run any .sh script which is there. Startkde tells you: "you can define environment variables that will be available to all KDE programs, so this is where you can run agents using e.g. eval `ssh-agent` or eval `gpg-agent --daemon`".

Now check if it's working. You have to logout and login again (KDE must be restarted!).
In my case Kmail finally asked for my passphrase and I was able to decrypt my mails!

If you are still having problems you may have a look at this site.

HowTo integrate your GPG Key in KMail

Maybe you followed my little "HowTo create your own GPG Key with KGPG". Sure then you're a happy owner of gpg-key - but: how do you include it in Kmail?
First of all: open your Kmail. Then choose Settings --> Configure Kmail --> Identities.
Choose the Identity you created the Key for (our example was: johndoe@email.org). Click "Modify". The second Tab "Cryptographie" is the one we need:

Here you should change the "OpenPGP signing key" and the "OpenPGp encryption key". To do so, click "Change". A new window will open which looks like this:

As you can see, Kmail will automatically recognize the key you created before (important: the key you had created must be for the same address in your Kmail Identity! You can add more than one address to your key in kpgp). Select the key and press Enter.
In the end the dialog should look like that (of course you have another number than I do):

Click ok, in the next window first apply and then ok again.
Now signing and encrypting in Kmail should work.
When you write an email, just press the icon for sign (which is the icon at left in the following picture) and/or encrypt (icon at right):


Try if you're able to decrypt messages (show messages somebody sent to you encrypted).
Maybe you'll have the same problem as I had: I couldn't. Kmail just told me "wrong passphrase" without even asking me for it. My next post will tell you more about the problem and its possible solution.

Nice Programs XII: Open Office Quickstarter

If you use OpenOffice very often and you are sick of it starting so slowly, you should try out Open Office Quickstarter.
Just download the oooqs2-1.0.tar.gz file from here. Extract the folder into a directory.
Open a konsole and type

./configure && make && sudo make install

If you get errors like that:
make[3]: *** [index.cache.bz2] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory `/yourdirectory/oooqs2-1.0/doc/de'
make[2]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/yourdirectory/oooqs2-1.0/doc'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/yourdirectory/oooqs2-1.0'
make: *** [all] Error 2

you should replace the "index.docbook" file in /yourdirectory/oooqs2-1.0/doc/de/ with the one in /yourdirectory/oooqs2-1.0/doc/en/. Then try again with configure, make, make install (see above).

To start it type into your konsole: oooqs2
This nice little icon will appear in your taskbar:


Then you can customize it by rightclicking -> Configure OpenOffice.org Quicstarter (e.g. "Start OpenOffice.org Quickstarter at startup").
And of course, with rightclick you can also start directly Oo Base, Calc, Impress etc. :


One last remark: I think this program can be really useful if you use OpenOffice quite often - it may take a lot of memory.

Update: KDE 3.5.1

KDE 3.5.1 is out - here's how you can get it:

Edit your source.list

sudo kwrite /etc/apt/sources.list

and add the line:
deb http://kubuntu.org/packages/kde351 breezy main
Save and close, type into your konsole:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

There are no new features added but a lot of bugfixes, as you can see here

Keep your OpenOffice up-to-date

Yesterday I noticed that I'm not using the newest version of OpenOffice. I was Using Oo 1.9.129 - and not Oo 2.0!
There is an easy way to fix that.

Edit your sources.list

sudo kwrite /etc/apt/sources.list

And add the lines:

## Oo2 final - you can optionally use this one until OOo2 final arrives in backports
deb http://people.ubuntu.com/~doko/OOo2 ./

Type into your konsole:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

(Here you can find a nice post about a recommended sources.list).

Update: Automatix

Automatix for Kubuntu und Ubuntu recently merged so there is now one program for both Kubuntu and Ubuntu. See my updated post about Automatix,
or you just can directly visit the home of Automatix.

HowTo create your own GPG Key with KGPG

To create a gpg key with kubuntu is not a difficult thing to do.
You don't know what a gpg-key is? Then you should have a look at the first three paragraphes of this site. Of course you can also simply follow the howto there! But for people who don't feel very comfortable with the konsole this post may be more appropriate.

The first thing you need is KGpg. Maybe it's already there? Check it in your Kmenu: Utilities --> Encryption Tool (KGpg). (You can also just type "Kgpg" into your konsole and see what happens). If it's not installed yet, you can easily get it with adept (KMenu--> System--> Package Manager (Adept) ) (or in the konsole with sudo apt-get install kgpg)
Now run KGpg. To create your gpg key click "Keys" --> "Generate Key pair"


There you have to fill in your name, your email address and, if you want to, a comment (this can be a Nickname, your occupation etc. - it's going to be added just right after your name) - but you can also leave it blank.


Click ok. Now Kgpg will ask you for a passphrase. To have a good passphrase which you are sure you can remember is very important. A good way to create such a passphrase is to take the first letters of the words from a poem, a song, or just a sentence you created yourself.
The passphrase 99 Ivbwsol O99 Wdwgw O99 Ily is actually part of the song "99" from Toto
(99 I've been waiting so long Oh, 99 Where did we go wrong Oh, 99 I love you). Best is to have upper case AND lower case letters and different numbers (so "99" wouldn't be that good) -- and have some spaces.
Click ok - now the key pair will be generated.



Your key pair (public key and secret key) is created so far - but now you have to upload your public key to a key server. Then people can verify your signature and encrypt messages they want to send you. For uploading your public key click on File--> Key Server Dialog. Then click Export. Choose one of the keyservers listed and the public key you want to export (in our example it is John Doe). Click 'Export' - and you're done, your public key is online.

You can find more information about kgpg here.

Time for a break - create your own South Park character :-)

This post is not really kubuntu related, but I like the idea so much that I decided to write something about it:

If you like playing around a bit during your coffee break, you'll enjoy this for sure!
As you will see you can create your own SouthPark-ish character by choosing different attributes to your "alter ego".

For me, the result looks like this:



I think you would recognise me on the streets now ;-)

As you'll see (and now that's the point we're coming back to Kubuntu a bit) there's no way to save the picture you created (rightclick doesn't work because it's a flash). But there's an easy solution for this. Open your Screen Capture Program (Knsapshot) - you can do this with Menu --> Graphics --> Ksnapshot
or by hitting alt+spacebar and typing Ksnap.. (see two posts below: Katapult). Just take a snapshot of your screen, save it - and after you can cut the picture with the Gimp. (select the picture --> copy selection --> paste as new picture --> save).

Keep your Amarok up-to-date

With the official repos you don't get the newest version of Amarok, but there is an easy way to keep Amarok up-to-date though as I've discovered today on the kubuntu mailinglist.

Open your konsole and type

sudo kwrite /etc/apt/sources.list

And add the following lines to the list:

# Amarok i386 and AMD64 only.
deb http://kubuntu.org/packages/amarok-latest breezy main

Save and close the file. Again in the konsole type:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

This will update your Amarok to version 1.3.8

Experiencing Kubuntu - Katapult

On the kubuntu mailinglist there was a talk about katapult today. Katapult is a really great application who can simplify you life :-) You can launch applications / folders / bookmarks quickly just by typing the first letters of its name within the katapult launcher, e.g. you type OpenO(ffice) and it will launch OpenOffice.



Where can you get Katapult?
You don't need to get it, because it should already be there (with kubuntu)! Just try it out: type katapult into your konsole and see what happens. Of course it's always better to have the newest version. For that you can just download the .deb - file from here. (You can install it with a double click).

How does it work?
You can open katapult by typing "katapult" on the konsole, or with your Kmenu (Applications --> KDE Launcher).You'll see a little icon like that in your system tray:



You can just click on it - and now you type the letters of the program (or folder or bookmark) you want to open.

Instead of clicking on the icon you can just hit alt+space. To configure katapult hit control+c (you change the appearance, shortcuts etc.).

Oh, and yes: Katapult has transparency effects.

Special Characters - "Nodeadkeys"

If you're using a german keyboard you're maybe having problems with the characters é à ã etc. showing as 'e `a ~a. (If you're having the same problem with another language setting maybe the solution will work, too, but I give no warranty).

The only thing you need to do is

sudo kwrite etc/X11/xorg.conf

(of course using Ubuntu you should use gedit instead of kwrite) - look for the Section:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "de"
Option "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys"

And then DELETE the line nodeadkeys (do NOT leave an empty line).
Restart your computer - and you're done.

Nice Programs XI: Digikam

Another post for another nice applications: digiKam.

This program is great to view your pictures and get them organised!
See here how it looks:



Installing it is very easy. Open your Konsole and type:

sudo apt-get install digikam

Of course you can also use adept (or synaptic in Ubuntu).
For first use, click Menu --> Graphics --> Photo Management (digiKam)
Now digiKam will ask you where you have your pictures stored. As default it will propose you /home/name/pictures (e.g. for me: /home/zerlinna/pictures). Of course if your pictures are elsewhere you need to change that (e.g. for me it was: /home/zerlinna/private/pictures).
Now you'll see the miracle of digiKam: it will show all of the pictures and subfolders under the title "My albums". Ok, not so special yet. But the nice thing is: you can add tags to your pictures. In the column at left below your Albums you'll find "My tags". There you can add tags for "people", "events" and "places" - I added friends and family to "people", christmas to "events" and Switzerland, Germany and Strasbourg to "places" (as you can see in the picture below).
If you want to add some photos or folder to the tags, just rightlick them --> add tag
All the photos I tagged with Strasbourg are listed under the tag "Places" Strasbourg now. You can add more than one tag to one photo, meaning: I can list a photo under Strasbourg AND under friends. - Just try it out!

Watching Video streams - mms: and rtsp: protocol

If you succeeded in get working the mplayerplugin and realplayer within firefox (with Automatix or myguide) you maybe noticed that you can't play every video streams though.

If you try to watch videos e.g. on this site you'll see that only the http:// - links are working. If you click on mms: or rtsp: links, you'll either receive an error by firefox ("unknown protocol" or something similar), or, as it was my case, it will try to open the streams with totem - and totem doesn't know how to handle that protocol, meaning: it won't work.

So how can you get the videos working?
With properly installed mplayer and realplayer, you can.

Open your firefox. Type as url: about:config
You'll see something like this picture:



Now just rightclick somwhere into the main window. A little box with options to choose will appear. Choose "new", then "string". Then copy this line into the appearing text field:
network.protocol-handler.app.mms
Into the next text field: /usr/bin/X11/mplayer
Now you do the same thing again, but this time you choose not "string" but "boolean", and the line to copy is: network.protocol-handler.external.mms. Then set "true".

In the end what you've done should look like that:



("Vom Benutzer definiert" means: "defined by user")

Close and restart firefox. Now your firefox will ask you to open your mplayer when clicking on a mms: link. Of course you say "yes" :-). Don't panic if it takes some time to open mplayer - I sometimes had to wait for more than 10sec. But it works.

For rtps the procedure is the same:
Firefox --> about:config --> rightclick --> new --> string --> network.protocol-handler.app.rtsp --> /usr/bin/X11/realplay

Firefox --> about:config --> rightlick --> new --> boolean --> network.protocol-handler.external.rtsp --> true

The lines you've created should look like that:



Close and restart firefox. Now the rtps: streams should be handled by realplayer - this one also make take some time.

Kubuntu Central

There is a new Kubuntu Blog on blogspot.com. It's created by Jonathan Patrick Davies, a Kubuntu Developer and moderator on kubuntuforums.

The Blog is about "Kubuntu news, events, development, online guides from the KGX world" - so have a look and enjoy!

Basic Knowledge II: Repositories and apt

....or what the hell is the sources.list

If you're new to (K)ubuntu (or any debian based Linux distributions) you may ask yourself what those things like "Repository" and "sources.list" are.
If you followed a bit this blog I'm sure you've already come across it :-)

Every (k)ubuntu has its sources list already from the first installation. It's always in this directory:
/etc/apt/sources.list

So it's in the "apt" folder. Apt is a program that helps you installing/removing programs and keeping them up-to-date. (Usually you need internet access doing this - at least for the updates it's indispensible).

Instead of using apt with the konsole (as described below), you can also use its graphical frontend: Synaptic in Ubuntu, Adept in Kubuntu.

The sources.list tells apt from where it can download the programs - from the install cd / dvd, or from different http sites on the internet. At the beginning your sources.list may look more or less like that.
You'll see a lot of lines with # or ## before them.
The sign # means that the line is "commented". If somebody tells you to "uncomment" a line it means: remove the # sign. If you do this, the line is activated (if it's commented, it's inactive).
If a line begins with ## this line is usually a description or help for the user - NOT for the program. Do never uncomment those lines!

You'll also notice that some lines begin (or begin right after the # sign) with "deb" or "deb-src". Those lines shows the origin for the sources and for the packages. They're called Repositories.
If I uncomment the first line of my sources.list
(#deb cdrom:[Ubuntu 5.10 _Breezy Badger_ - Release i386 (20051012)]/ breezy main restricted)
apt will search in my CD ROM for packages to install / uninstall. Of course I need to put in the Install CD, otherwise it'll give me an error.
But since I have internet access I don't use the CD, that's why I commented it.

The final question is of course: which line do you have to comment and which one do you have to uncomment? First of all: whatever you do, do it for both lines: deb and deb-src.
I'd advise to uncomment the repository which ends with "universe multiverse".
Universe multiverse contains software which is unsupported by Ubuntu itself and which may be not under a free licence (like video codecs) but which is very useful. If you use my blog you should always have that repo active.

If you look at my file, I'have uncommented every repos except the CD and the backports. You can comment the backports if you don't need the newest version of programs. If you always want to have the newest version of firefox and other programs, you should uncomment it. You can read in my sources.list that the backports repo would contain software which maybe not extensivly tested - but at ubuntuforums (read here) they tell that it's completely safe to use backports.

Now you know WHAT to do, but maybe you don't know HOW.
Open your konsole and type

sudo kwrite /etc/apt/sources.list

(If you're using GNOME its: sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list). Now you can comment and uncomment the lines - and even add more repos, if you want to.
To have some ideas about the different repos, take at look at those links: Recommended sources.list from ubuntu_demon (with links) and The sources.list generator

Now after you've set up your sources.list you can use it :-)

With the Konsole:

sudo apt-get update

tells apt to get the updated sources.list

sudo apt-get upgrade

makes an upgrade of your whole system

sudo apt-get install Program

Installs a program (of course you have to substitute Program with the name of the program you want to install, e.g. kompose :-)
For more information you can just type

man apt-get

You can get more useful information about apt here.

If you search around a bit for apt, don't be scared if you read a lot about Debian. Since (K)ubuntu is Debian based, both distributions have a lot in common - so both use apt.

Nice Programs X: Kompose

Do you sometimes lose focus of your desktops?
Sometimes, I do.
But there is a very nice program to help you: Kompose.
It shows you all of your desktops in one with the open programs- and you can even jump in right to the program you want to!

Sometimes a picture is better than a thousand words:



So you can see all of my four desktops with the open programs. You can just click into a program (here e.g. OpenOffice, Inkscape, KCalc and so on) or also into a desktop of your choice.
Once started, Kompose stays minimized in the system tray, so if you want to use it again, you can just click the icon and you don't have to restart the whole program again. There is even a shortcut by default: hopefully you have the useless windows button on your keybord, now we can give it a value: clicking it and the tab button at the same time will open kompose (only if it's already running in your system tray of course).
You have also the possibilities to show your desktops 1) ungrouped 2) grouped by virtual desktops 3) current virtual desktop - and to configure kompose and its shortcuts by rightclicking the icon in your system tray. Just try it out :-)

To install Kompose you just have to type

sudo apt-get install kompose

into your konsole, or, if you don't like to use the Konsole, just open adept and search for kompose, click "install" then "commit changes". Usually there shouldn't be any dependency problems (I hadn't).

PS: Remember to use this guide you have to enable the universe / multiverse repository (I'll explain that in my next post).

Kubuntu Automatix

Updated: 24.02.2006

Note: You can get a more detailed HowTo, further information, troubleshooting and always the newest version of Automatix here. (This post may be a little outdatet - check the date of the last Update on top of this post).

There are great news for Kubuntu users!

There's now also Automatix for Kubuntu!
But what is Automatix?

Automatix is a superb program who is able to save you a lot of work and trouble.
No more strugglin around the firefox plugins, audio/video codecs, skype installation and other things (you'll find the whole list at the end of this post).

BUT: It's only for Kubuntu/Xubuntu/Ubuntu Breezy x86 users There is none for PPC (power pc) and AMD64 users: you can try it, but it may not work.

I've already tested the skype and the opera installation, and both worked fine!

To install Automatix, make sure that you don't have Synpatic/Adept running, open your Konsole and type (one line after each other --except "wget" has to be typed together with url in one line --, press enter after each line)

sudo apt-get remove automatix-kubuntu
sudo apt-get install xterm libglade2-0 libgnomecanvas2-0
wget http://kambing.vlsm.org/ubuntu/pool/main/z/zenity/zenity_2.12.1-0ubuntu1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i zenity_2.12.1-0ubuntu1_i386.deb
wget http://www.beerorkid.com/automatix/automatix_5.5-2_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i automatix_5.5-2_i386.deb

Start Automatix from your KMenu --> System --> Graphical Installer Script for KDE (Automatix-Kubuntu). If you don't see Automatix there, logout of your KDE and login again.

And this is how Automatix looks like:



If you tried to install other apps with Automatix, I'd be happy if you could give me a feedback if it worked (especially the firefox plugins).

Here the list of things Automatix can do:

Capabilities:
1) Installs multimedia codecs
2) Installs all Firefox plugins (java, flash, etc) (except Adobe reader and mplayer)
3) Installs RAR, ACE and UNRAR archive support
4) Installs skype
5) Installs Acrobat reader 7 and firefox plugin for the same.
6) Installs Gnomebaker (CD/DVD burning s/w for GNOME)
7) Installs gftp (FTP client for GNOME with ssh capability)
8) Installs Amule (File sharing program)
9) Installs Frostwire (GPL clone of Limewire)
10) Installs multimedia editors (Audacity (audio), Kino (video), EasyTag (ID3))
11) Installs DVD (dvdrip) ripper
12) Installs Mplayer and mplayerplug-in version 3.05 for Firefox
13) Installs totem-xine, Realplayer, VLC and Beep Media Player (with docklet)
14) Installs Opera Browser
15) Installs Debian Menu (shows all installed applications) (this kills and restarts your gnome-panel without warning u but its a completely harmless operation!)
16) Installs Bittornado and Azureus (Bittorrent clients)
17) Installs Avidemux (Video editing tool) (New version 2.1.0)
18) Enables Numlock on (turns numlock on Gnome startup)
19) Installs Programming Tools (Anjuta (C/C++ IDE), Bluefish (HTML editor) and Screem (Web Development Env.))
20) Install GnomePPP (Graphical Dial up connection tool)
21) Installs MS true type fonts
22) Configures ctrl-alt-del to start gnome-system-monitor (aka windows)
23) Installs Streamripper and Streamtuner
24) Installs NON-FREE audio and dvd codecs
25) Installs ndisgtk (WiFi configurator Graphical user interface)
26) Upgrades Open Office to 2.0 (final version), installs openoffice clipart and installs OO2 thumbnailer. (no support for AMD64 and ppc packages)
27) Adds 3 nautilus scripts (open any file with gedit as root; open a nautilus window as root in any folder; open gnome search tool in any folder (Right click in a nautilus window and look under "scripts")
28) Installs SUN'S JAVA JRE version 1.5
29) Installs SUN'S JAVA JDK version 1.5
30) Installs wine (u need to run winecfg manually after installation)
31) Enables ejection of CD when CDROM drive button is pressed.
32) Installs AMSN 0.95 (MSN client with webcam support)
33*) Installs firestarter (GNOME firewall frontend) and adds firestarter to GNOME startup
34*) installs gdesklets (GNOME eyecandy) and adds gdesklets to GNOME startup
35*) Gamepads (Makes USB gamepads work)
36*) Turns DMA ON on Intel and AMD machines (needs a restart)
37*) NVIDIA cards (Detects Nvidia cards and installs drivers) (Needs a restart)
38*) Adds midi capability to your Ubuntu box (test by playing a midi file with timidity or pmidi from terminal)
39*) Installs Firefox 1.5.0.1 and its plugins(themes and extensions are not retained, bookmarks need to be copied from backup folder)
40*) Installs Mozilla-Thunderbird 1.5 (US-only version) (no support for non-US-english language packs and enigmail)
41*) Fixes Gnome sound related issues (ALSA and ESD config) (needs a restart) (ONLY FOR GNOME! NOT TO BE USED ON KDE/XFCE)

* --> These options require manual intervention and clicking. Please stand by!

PLEASE DO NOT INSTALL (24) IF YOU ARE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. IT IS ILLEGAL TO DO SO.

Please note: Options 33 to 39 require manual intervention and clicking and hence have been taken to the end. The first 32 options install without any user input (if u choose to install them).


Thanks to boilerhouse for pointing the Kubuntu Automatix release out to me!

Update: Setting up Firefox Java

I've updated my Firefox guide - you can use it now to get the latest java (sun) JDK 5.0 Update 6.

Here you can find the guide.

You can also use Automatix (see the post above) it maybe easier though I haven't tried it out yet for the firefox plugins.

Making your KDE look nicer (Transparency)

Maybe you've already been told that there are transparency effects on KDE (meaning: if you open a window you can still see the background behind and, if it's not a pseudo transparency, other windows , icons etc. which are behind).
I have this kind of effect on my menu panel as you can see on the screenshot below:



To do that is very easy: just open in your system settings -> Appearance -> Style -> Effects
Then set 'Make translucent' on Menu effect. In the 'Menu translucency type' choose 'XRender Blend'. Now you can set the transparency as you like it by moving the bar of the 'Menu opacity': the lower it is, the more transparent your menu panel will be - and the higher it is, the less transparent your menu bar will be.



With KDE 3.5 it is also possible to have all menu bars transparent (and other effects) with composite. But it is not very stable and it takes a LOT of memory. On my laptop it looked wonderful but it freezed the whole system after some seconds. If you want to try it out though there you should have a look here.

Kubuntu worldwide!

If you want to meet other Kubuntu users and take part of the community, just join in here!

Happy new year!

Nice Programs IX: Kompile

I've been told about another very useful application: If you want to install programs from source (see the post below), Kompile will simplify your life: you can just install the source files by rightclicking them (action -- automatic package install / automatic package uninstall).

Here you can have little look at it (sorry, my kde is in german!)


But DO NOT try to install Kompile from source / with the deb-file from kde-apps (except if you're willing to spend a lot of time...).

It's better to do the following:

Open your konsole, type:

sudo kwrite /etc/apt/sources.list

A new window with your sources.list will open. Add at the end of the document the following lines:

## archive.kubuntu.de / archive.czessi.net
## unofficially repository powered by Czessi.net and Kubuntu Germany

deb http://archive.kubuntu.de/ breezy stable stable-updates
deb-src http://archive.kubuntu.de/ breezy stable stable-updates

Save the file and close Kwrite. Type into your konsole:

wget http://archive.kubuntu.de/kczessi.gpg
sudo apt-key add kczessi.gpg
sudo apt-get update

This will fetch the gpg-key for the new repositories and update your list.

Now you can just easily

sudo apt-get install kompile

Basic Knowledge I: Install programs from source

I decided to include some basic knowledge into my blog - not everything (I never could do that, and there's already a lot of information about this stuff on the net) -- but some things I had problems with at the beginning because it wasn't easy to find explanations on the net.
One thing like that was: What means "install a program from source" and: "how do I do that"?

To install a program from source means you have to install the application from a file which has the ending .tar /.tar.gz / tar.bz / .tar.bz2 and not .deb !
.deb files are really easy to install: you just download the file, click, and then "install".

Install from source is a little bit more complicated, but not very hard though.

You just have to follow these steps:

Download the file into a directory (p.ex.: /home/zerlinna/). Then you need to unpack the file (all the endings named above are endings for compressed files - that's why we need first to decompress them). You can do this by rightclicking on the file: "Extract here". Now there'll be a folder (usually named after the program).

Open your konsole and go into the directory of this folder, p.ex:

cd /home/zerlinna/program

Then you need to configure it first:

./configure

If you get no errors, congratulations! You can move on to the next step. If you got errors, check them carefully. They tell you if you need to install other programs / libraries etc. first.
After configure, type

make

and after that

sudo make install

This command requires your password.
All of these three commands can take a lot of time (depending on the application you want to install) - don't worry if you have a lot of incomprehensible letters flooding on your konsole :-)

Now you can install programs from source.
If you think: "There must be an easier way to do that!" you are completely right: there is, just have a look at the post above: "Nice Programs IX: Kompile".

Nice Programs IIX: Tellico

Tellico is a very nice little tool for your collections: you can handle your recipes, books, videos, cds, dvds.. - whatever you like.
Just open adept (system panel -- system -- adept), search for tellico and install it.
Of course the installation also works with the konsole and apt-get:

sudo apt-get install tellico

.

You can get screenshots and more information on tellico on kde-apps.

Nice Programs VII: Inkscape

Another nice tool for your Computer is Inkscape. You can easily create vectorgraphics with it (like the little penguin you can see at right side of this blog). Just install it and play around a bit.
To install:

sudo apt-get install inkscape

Instead of Inskcape you can also use Krita which comes with KDE. For me, Inkscape was easier to use at first sight but Krita seems to offer a lot of features, too.

For more information on Inkscape visit its homepage or wikipedia.

Nice Programs VI: Yakuake

If you have already accustomed yourself to use the konsole this application could be very useful for you. It's yakuake, and it emulates a konsole which is always on top of your desktop and - if you configure it suitably - will retract when it looses focus.

Here two screenshots of mine:






Installing yakuake ist very easy: you can just do it with adept (system panel - system - adept) or also using your konsole:

sudo apt-get install yakuake

After installing it, open the program (system panel - system - yakuake). A little window will appear at the top left of your screen telling that yakuake has been successfully started and that you can use it with F12. So just try it out and press F12. At the bottom right of the yakuake window you can change properties and options (like: retract when loose focus).

For more screenshots and other information visit the yakuake website

Nice Programs V: Skype

Who doesn't know the famous VoIP-application skype?
If you do and you use Kubuntu, you maybe experienced some problems. At least for me, I couldn't install it with this file due to dependencies. If you're having the same problem, you can use skype with the skype.cmg with klik (how to get klik: see beyond).
Just open this site with your konqueror: klik://skype. Follow the instructions - and voila: your skype!

UPDATE: Skype is also available on Automatix - for me it worked just fine!

Nice Programs IV: Klik!

"klik" is actually a program to install other programs. Or, better: it is a program to RUN other programs withouth installing it!
This can be very useful, p.ex. if there is a program you can't install due to dependencies. (Like skype, see above).

So how do you get klik?

wget klik.atekon.de/client/install -O -|sh

If ever it gives you errors, just follow the instructions. Then you can download and use the *.cmg - files. You can get those files and more information about klik from here.

KDE 3.5 for breezy

To update your KDE to the version 3.5 you have to add the suitable repository to your apt sources.list. Since the packages are signed you first have to add the key.

wget http://people.ubuntu.com/~jriddell/kubuntu-packages-jriddell-key.gpg
sudo apt-key add kubuntu-packages-jriddell-key.gpg

Then:

sudo kwrite /etc/apt/sources.list

This will open your souces.list with kwrite. Add the line:
deb http://kubuntu.org/packages/kde35 breezy main to the list, save it and close kwrite. Then type into your konsole:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

If ever you have problems with dependencies, use adept: Full Upgrade --> Preview Changes(NOT Commit Changes!) here you can see which programs would be removed and you can chose if you want them to be removed or not. After you've made sure not to remove important things (like your kubuntu-desktop) except they will be replaced by a newer version, click on "commit changes".

Nice Programs III: K Menu Gnome

If you installed both KDE and Gnome, then I'm sure you have a mess with your submenus. To correct that you can install a nice little application called "K Menu Gnome" (using KDE).
You can download it from here as a .deb file (which you can install with kpackage).

If you install a newer version of kde you have to reinstall K Menu Gnome after.

Nice Programs II: Superkaramba

Superkaramba is a very nice tool that allows you to change your desktop (only KDE) by adding interactive eye-candy. You can display the weather-forecast on your desktop, your rss-feeds, control your music player (amarok, xmms..), control your CPU-usage and so on..

I don't recommend to download Superkaramba with adept or apt-get because the package may be a little old already.

So download the version 0.37-RC1 of Superkaramba from here (scroll down and click on: "0.37-RC1 - Most recent source code"). Downoad the file from a server near by.
Rightlick on the downloaded archive and uncompress it (a new folder named superkaramba-0.37-RC1 will be created).
Open a Konsole.

cd yourdirectory/superkaramba-0.37-RC1

(of course "yourdirectory" has to be replaced with the directory where the new folder is in, p.ex. /home/zerlinna/programs)

Now you have to compile it. Don't worry, it's easy.Type one after the other:

./configure
make
sudo make install

If ever you receive error messages when you type ./configure, read them carefully. ./configure tells you if there are libraries missing on your system. If ever it tells you something's missing (like gcc or python etc.) you can download them with adept (see previous post). Make sure you have the newest version.

After "make install" the installation of superkaramba itself is complete. To add applications on your desktop, open superkaramba and click on "Get New Stuff". Now you can choose and enjoy!

Here you can find more about Superkaramba.

A very nice and famous theme is "liquid weather". After having installed superkaramba, just download it from a mirror on this site, move it into a directory and doubleclick it (while superkaramba is running). If ever it's not working, run superkaramba from the konsole and see which errors you get.

Nice Programs I: Nvu

If you want to create your own website and you don't know very well html, NVU should be your choice. It's similar to progams like Frontpage, Dreamweaver etc. on Windows.
It's pretty easy to use and tough you have lots of possibilities.

Installing it on Kubuntu is very easy:

Open adept (system panel --> symstem --> adept) and search for nvu, klick the "install" button, then on the "commit changes" button.

Voila!

To open Nvu: system panel --> Developement --> Nvu.