Tuxtrix

Ubuntu 12.04 updates (22nd Feb)

noreply@blogger.com (Sayantan Das) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 03:29:00 +0000

A few visual changes have come in post feature freeze in Precise Pangolin daily builds. Lets quickly go through the visible changes noticed after update on 22nd Feb.

1. Volume level indicator:

The volume level indicator can be found inside the sound menu situated on the top panel. In Ubuntu 11.10, the indicator did not have any colour to indicate the sound level. Only the pointer indicated the level. In 12.04 daily build , an orange colour has been introduced along the border while the inside remains black. The screenshots below will give a better understanding.

Ubuntu 11.10 Ubuntu 12.04 daily build

2. Power Settings:

The power settings now sport a coloured indicator to inform about how may hours of battery life is left on a laptop or how much time until charged.

On battery power

Plugged in- charging

3. Appearance settings:

The behaviour settings have changed. The options to reveal the launcher at specific spots has been taken off. Only launcher reveal sensitivity can be changed.

UPDATE: New change spotted on Ubuntu One installer

The Ubuntu One installer now sports a new look.

Please note that these changes may be temporary and may not feature in the final version of the operating system which is due in April 2012.

'Ubuntu for Android'! How cool is that?

noreply@blogger.com (Sayantan Das) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:49:00 +0000

It's time to throw away all the extra stuff in your electronics shelf. No need of starting the pc, waiting to boot up, start sync softwares or use multiple mail clients. All you need now is just a phone, a docking station, keyboard and a monitor.

Introducing 'Ubuntu for Android'. A novel way to manage work stuff on your phone. Use your android phone to make calls and dock it to fire-up and enjoy the goodness of Ubuntu's stable and virus-free operating system. And, if you connect to a TV, enjoy Ubuntu TV! The product will be released with 12.04. A prototype will be available for demonstration at the MWC 2012 next week.

For more info visit this link.

UPDATE: Video of a working prototype of Ubuntu for Android.(Thanks to omgubuntu)

Ubuntu 12.04 is getting a new login sound.

noreply@blogger.com (Sayantan Das) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 03:23:00 +0000

Finally, after years and years of waiting, we might hear a change from the beating drums to something more subtle and modern. The sound theme contest has produced a winner and he will work closely with the Ubuntu design team to incorporate the new login sound in 12.04. In the coming releases after 12.04 all the sounds in Ubuntu will undergo a change.

Play the file below to hear the winning sound.

Calum Pringle expalined in the blog why this sound was chosen as the winner

    It almost spells out U-bun-tu.

    It’s unique and modern, but has a feeling of community within it.

    Its pleasant that it reflects the working of OS, smoother more user friendly

    An idea of a future, dynamism and creativity

    It has a “rich” quality that has generally been part of the Ubuntu soundscape.

    It is unobtrusive and feels like it fits the old “humanity” as well as the new “light” theme.

    It’s distinctive, playful, lively and yet restrained, soothing and modest.

More info can be found here

Interesting changes land in Ubuntu 12.04 daily builds

noreply@blogger.com (Sayantan Das) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 00:13:00 +0000

Today's daily update brings in a few cosmetic changes which are welcome and also a little surprising as well.

1. Sound settings menu

The Valentine's Day update brings back Rhythmbox quick access menu replacing Banshee. The sound settings menu has a few changes as well. The output volume is now at the bottom of the window and is free from tab switches. Input and output tabs have a redesigned look. The hardware selection has been moved to the left and the settings for volume has been moved to the right. There are a few changes to the wordings as well e.g Connector has been renamed Mode, Choose a device for sound output has been renamed Play Sound through. These changes, to me, are good as it clearly states what the setting will do. See the below screenshots for the changes.

Ubuntu 12.04 daily builds Ubuntu 11.10

2. System Settings

The systems settings now sport bigger icons, included new options for privacy settings and has removed software sources settings.

3. LightDM

The wallpaper of LightDM has become a shade darker. The login box has undergone some cosmetic changes as well. The combination of the two has given a better look to the Ubuntu login screen.

The latest updates has brought in some very surprising change. The Ubuntu developers have completely removed gnome screensaver. This means when you lock the screen, the screensaver will not be activated, instead It will go back to the LightDM login screen. This might create a lot of confusion initially.

LibreOffice 3.5 relased

noreply@blogger.com (Sayantan Das) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:37:00 +0000

LibreOffice 3.5, dubbed as "The best free office suite ever!" was released a couple of hours ago. A Valentine's Day gift to open source software lovers, LibreOffice 3.5 is the third major release after the formation of The Document Foundation. This is the first major release where contributions from local associations and communities has been acknowledged. Since its inception 16 months ago, an average of 80 developers have worked on improving LibreOffice and adding new features.

This latest release of LibreOffice 3.5 brings in a host of changes including some visual changes, notable of which are:

Writer

a new built-in Grammar checker for English and several other languages
improved typographical features, for professional looking documents
an interactive word count window, which updates in real time
a new header, footer and page break user interface

Impress / Draw

an improved importer of custom shapes and Smart Art from PPT/PPTX
a feature for embedding multimedia/colour palettes into ODF documents
a new display switch for the presenter’s console
new line ends for improved diagrams
Microsoft Visio import filter

Calc

support for up to 10,000 sheets
a new multi-line input area
new Calc functions conforming to the ODF OpenFormula specifications
better performances when importing files from other office suites
multiple selections in autofilter
unlimited number of rules for conditional formatting

Base

a new integrated PostgreSQL native driver

LibreOffice 3.5 is available from: http://www.libreoffice.org/download

LibreOffice 3.5 Overwiew. (Source: www.libreoffice.org)

Install

If you are using Precise Pangolin alpha build, the updates are headed to your way soon. If, however, you are using Ubuntu 11.10 and earlier versions, download .deb files from the website. Then follow the instructions below.

Remove the existing version first

sudo apt-get remove libreoffice-core

Now, go to the directory where the new .deb files are and install them with the following command

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Unity recognizes wine application icons in precise pangolin (12.04)

noreply@blogger.com (Sayantan Das) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 15:19:00 +0000

Ubuntu developers seem to be working hard to make the Ubuntu experience with Unity as smooth as possible.

After yesterday's update to my Ubuntu 12.04 daily alpha build, I noticed that my Microsoft Office applications installed via Crossover 10, are being correctly recognized on the Unity launcher and also the Unity dash. It came as a pleasant surprise to me!

MS Outlook

Previously, when I used to open MS Word/ Excel or any Wine application, all of the applications would end up using the same icon. It was a nightmare if you had multiple windows open! This seems to have been resolved in the latest update. Unity now uses the native application icons. It also supports drag and drop feature, meaning, you can drag the icon from Unity dash and drop it on the launcher and the application opens up to use the same icon when clicked on. Other improvements include correct Alt+Tab and Alt+` interpretation and correct tool tips.

Correct Atl+` recognition

I hope this change remains permanent until Ubuntu 12.04 is released and is not broken by any new feature addition to Unity.

Unity dash search

MS Powerpoint

MS Excel

Canonical releases Ubuntu Business Desktop Remix Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Sayantan Das) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:13:00 +0000

Mark Shuttleworth released an initial/beta version of Ubuntu Business Desktop Remix today. The Business Desktop Remix is currently based on Ubuntu 11.10.

The first stable version will be available in April 2012, along with 12.04 LTS release. There are are some applications in this release which are covered by EULA and any user wanting to use this release will need to agree to the terms and conditions. So, it may be a deterrent for pure open source fans.

Mark Shuttleworth posted on his blog:

This remix takes the most common changes we’ve observed among institutional users and bundles them into one CD which can be installed directly or used as a basis for further customization. Before anyone gets all worked up and conspiratorial: everything in the remix is available from the standard Software Centre. Packages out, packages in. No secret sauce for customers only; we’re not creating a RHEL, we already have an enterprise-quality release cadence called LTS and we like it just the way it is. This is a convenience for anyone who wants it. Having a common starting point, or booting straight into a business-oriented image makes it easier for institutional users to evaluate Ubuntu Desktop for their specific needs.

Features of the Ubuntu Business Desktop Remix are:

Designed for large-scale corporate deployments of Ubuntu Desktop
Adds the Adobe Flash Plugin, OpenJDK 6 Java runtime environment and other commonly-requested corporate tools
Inspired by the most common changes made by Canonical customers
Removes social networking and file-sharing applications, games and development/admin tools
Pure remix of Ubuntu – uses the standard archives, kernel and updates

Download the Ubuntu Business Desktop Remix here

Google releases Google Chrome 17 and Chrome Beta for Android

noreply@blogger.com (Sayantan Das) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:44:00 +0000

Search giant Google released version 17 of its popular multi-platform web browser, Google Chrome. The latest version boasts a range of features. Notable of them are new extensions APIs, updated Omnibox prerendering, download scanning protection and lots of security fixes and bug fixes.

The new feature introduced, a "preemptive rendering" feature, that will automatically begin loading and rendering a page in the background while the user is typing the address in the omnibox, has already been available for Google Search for the last few weeks.

The new Chrome also introduces scanning for downloaded items for .exe and .msi files. If the downloaded file information is not sufficiently available, then Chrome will search Google for more information.

UPDATE: A new update just noticed in Chrome 17 for Ubuntu, window buttons which were present on the top left side have now been taken off to keep a consistent look with the global menu.
Ubuntu users will get automatic upgrade to the latest one in the coming days. If you do not want to wait, download the latest package from the Google Chrome downloads page at https://www.google.com/chrome

Google also released a beta version of its Chrome browser for Android. However, it is currently available only for ICS version of Android (4.0). Initial testing of the browser in Android 4.0 suggests that its fast and lightweight but still it needs some work on the scrolling.

It has been made clear that Chrome on Android will not be preinstalled with Flash. It will use HTML5 and is going to probably replace the current stock browser in future Android releases.

To download Google Chrome beta for Android go to http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/android/ or search in android market or snap up the QR code below.

LibreOffice 3.5 RC3 released

noreply@blogger.com (Sayantan Das) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:02:00 +0000

The upcoming major release of the popular opensource office suite, LibreOffice 3.5 saw an RC release yesterday. This is the third and last RC release before the final release sometime this week. This release also contains a few fixes over RC2. For the full list of fixes follow the link here.

You can download the 3.5 RC3 release builds from http://www.libreoffice.org/download/pre-releases/.

Please note, the RC release is not fit for mission critical production systems.

Linux gamers spending the most ... Windows users the least!!

noreply@blogger.com (Sayantan Das) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:34:00 +0000

This may sound shocking however, according to the latest live statistics from The Humble Bundle, an average Linux gamer is spending the most (at the time of writing), a high of $8.01 against the average of $5.94 spending. The Mac OS X users are spending an average of $6.81. Windows users, shockingly are spending a paltry $5.38, the lowest of all three.

You can get the live stats at http://www.humblebundle.com/

The Humble Bundle .. now for Android

noreply@blogger.com (Sayantan Das) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:30:00 +0000

The DRM free Humble Bundle project has been relaunched, now for Android! This time, four games, Anomaly: Warzone Earth, Osmos, and EDGE are being bundled together.

The incentive? If you pay more than the average price, you also get the indie classic World of Goo! Also, you will get the games for all four platforms! Android, Mac, Windows and Linux!

But do hurry! Time's ticking!

New version of Openshot video editor released

noreply@blogger.com (Sayantan Das) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:29:00 +0000

Popular opensource video editing software, Openshot released version 1.4.1 today. According to the developers, it is a full featured release instead of a minor bug fix release. The main highlights of this release are:

New 3D animation (wireframe text)
New Titles (gold)
New Effects (fish eye)
New Animation Presets
Support for Blender 2.6.X
Localization fixes (seg faults, audio volume, rotation effect)
UI bugs (disappearing icons using some GTK themes)
Improved Help Manual
Improved Title UI (interactive font list)
Improved Precision (clip length, default image length)
Tons of bug fixes!

Full list of bug report can be accessed here.

Installation

Openshot can be found in Ubuntu repositories. However, you can install the latest version of Openshot using the ppa below.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openshot.developers/ppa

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install openshot frei0r-plugins

Uninstall

If you wish to remove the ppa and choose to stay with the stable version from ubuntu repositories the type the following command:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge
sudo ppa-purge ppa:openshot.developers/ppa

HUD: Unity's awesome bar!

noreply@blogger.com (Sayantan Das) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:10:00 +0000

HUD or Heads UP Display is an intelligent search bar in Ubuntu, unveiled by Mark Shuttleworth today, which promises to search anything under the sun! Well, sort of!! Actually, HUD is the new search bar which will enhance finding of menu and submenu items . It will replace the existing global menu and integrate into the search bar of Unity.

This is the HUD. It’s a way for you to express your intent and have the application respond appropriately. We think of it as “beyond interface”, it’s the “intenterface”. This concept of “intent-driven interface” has been a primary theme of our work in the Unity shell, with dash search as a first class experience pioneered in Unity. Now we are bringing the same vision to the application, in a way which is completely compatible with existing applications and menus.

Mark Shuttleworth

The project is still at a very nascent stage and is available for testing only. There will be a lot of addition/ removals of features, e.g. integration of voice navigation.

From the initial demos of the application I feel it will make it extremely difficult for novice users to find any menu items. And, it will also annoy users who does not like to use the keyboard to find stuff.

Below is a video showing a working demo.

Installation

If you want to test HUD on your system, use the following repository. Please remember, it will replace your current unity search bar.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:unity-team/hud

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Uninstall

If you do not like HUD, you can remove it by the following commands:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge (if you dont have ppa-purge)

sudo ppa-purge ppa:unity-team/hud

Please share your thoughts on HUD!

Cinnamon 1.2: Bye bye Gnome Shell; Hello Gnome 2

noreply@blogger.com (Sayantan Das) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:55:00 +0000

We covered Cinnamon desktop 1.0 a few weeks back. Yesterday's release of version 1.2 has taken us by surprise. We were not expecting another stable release until next month!

Nevertheless, a good desktop is always welcome! This release is a major release for Cinnamon as it removes all dependencies of mutter and hence moves away further from Gnome Shell. On the other hand it starts to resemble Gnome 2 layout even more.

Major changes in this release of Cinnamon includes :

2 new animation plugins
30 transition styles

a brand new cinnamon settings menu to change basic settings
3 desktop layouts ( traditional, flipped, classic)

5 new applets
improved main menu
130 bug fixes

Changes under the hood

Cinnamon now uses its own window manager (Muffin forks and replaces Mutter in Cinnamon 1.2)
Cinnamon is no longer compatible with Gnome Shell themes. It is possible however for a theme to define styles for both Gnome Shell and Cinnamon and to be compatible with both desktops.
Newly open windows are focused by default (instead of appearing in the back with an annoying “Your window is ready” notification)
Closing windows on an empty workspace no longer triggers the overview.
The overview was replaced by a desktop Scale plugin (similar to the old Compiz Scale). In future release, this plugin will be associated with CTRL+ALT+DOWN and a new Expo plugin will be mapped to CTRL+ALT+UP.

Installation

Ubuntu PPA

The Ubuntu ppa for Cinnamon is not yet updated. However, it is better to keep the ppa added for easy future upgrades.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:merlwiz79/cinnamon-ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install cinnamon muffin

Direct Download

You can download individual .deb files and install by double clicking on the .deb files. You would need all the files listed below to install Cinnamon.

Cinnamon ( 32bit | 64 bit )

Muffins ( .tar.gz file . it includes all the files )

CLI command

sudo dpkg -i cinnamon_1.2*.deb *muffin*.deb

Uninstalling

If you do not like Cinnamon, you can uninstall the ppa using the following command.

sudo ppa-purge

ppa:merlwiz79/cinnamon-ppa

If you have installed only the .deb files then

sudo apt-get remove --purge cinnamon muffin

sudo apt-get autoremove --purge

How to add optirun mode to applications in unity launcher

noreply@blogger.com (Sayantan Das) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 14:55:00 +0000

Some users are terrified of the terminal and some simply do not want to type on the keyboard to launch an application. However, if your laptop has a hybrid graphics card and you want to make use of it by installing bumblebee, you would need to get your hands dirty!

Firefox launcher with optirun mode

However, there is a way to get past the terminal. If you are running the program from the unity launcher, just add the command to the unity launcher. It needs a little bit of work.

1. Choose the program you want to run using optirun. In this case we take the example of Google Chrome.

2. Go to ~/.local/share/applications

cd ~/.local/share/applications

gedit google-chrome.desktop

Add Optirun to X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts so that it looks like this:

X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts=Optirun;NewWindow;Incognito;

now add the following lines right below X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts

[Optirun Shortcut Group]

Name=Optirun Mode

Exec=optirun google-chrome

TargetEnvironment=Unity

3.Save the file.

4. Open file manager and navigate to ~/.local/share/applications. ".local" is a hidden folder under your home folder. You can view the hidden folders by pressing Ctrl+H.

5. Once you locate the google-chrome.desktop file, drag it to the launcher.

6. Now you will be able to launch optirun mode in Google Chrome by right clicking on the Google Chrome icon as shown in the screenshot .

Google Chrome launcher with optirun mode

The same method can be applied to other applications which has a launcher icon or a desktop icon.

Gnome Pie reaches 0.4!

noreply@blogger.com (Sayantan Das) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 00:17:00 +0000

Gnome Pie, the new , innovative circular menu reached version 0.4. Two important changes were made to the new version.

Gtk 3 port

Gtk3 port is an important step forward as most distributions have started shipping Gnome 3 or Unity. Hence the application looks more native in Unity and Gnome3.

Gnome-Pie menu

According to the developer, "When configuring, Gnome-Pie automatically detects whether the GTK3 development files are installed. If so, it will use them..".

New settings menu

Settings Menu

The new settings menu is a major overhaul when compared to its previous version. It was rewritten from scratch. Now, it offers editing the pies with preview; very intuitive.

Gnome Pie in action

Gnome-Pie 0.4 from Simon Schneegans on Vimeo.

Installation
There is a PPA with a recent version of Gnome-Pie. If you simply want to test it, it's very easy to install:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:simonschneegans/testing

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnome-pie

Uninstall
If you want to remove gnome-pie and the ppa, type the following in an open terminal
sudo ppa-purge ppa:simonschneegans/testing

Bumblebee to the rescue of Optimus!!

noreply@blogger.com (Sayantan Das) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 23:01:00 +0000

Seems like we are watching the "Transformers" movie (starring Shia LeBeouf and Megan Fox)! Bumblebee has come to the rescue of the great Optimus Prime!

logo courtesy: Nvidia

Although Transformers was a work of fiction, something similar has come true in real life. Nvidia's Optimus technology is finally getting support on Linux via the bumblebee project!

Optimus? Bumblebee?

GREAT BATTERY LIFE AND GREAT PERFORMANCE. IT'S THAT SIMPLE.

NVIDIA® Optimus™ technology intelligently optimizes your notebook PC, providing the outstanding graphics performance you need, when you need it, all the while extending battery life for longer enjoyment.

Nvidia Website

In simple words :

Nvidia Optimus is an optimization technology created by Nvidia to save battery life by automatically switching the power of the graphics processing unit (GPU) off when it is not needed and switching it on when needed again. The technology mainly targets mobile PCs such as notebooks.When the GPU power is off, the driver redirects graphics commands to the integrated graphics chip (e.g. Intel GMA). Currently only Windows 7 is officially supported, however the open source project Bumblebee brings support to Linux.

Wikipedia

After months of development, Bumblebee has a new release available; version 3.0 was released on the Ubuntu ppa approximately eight hours ago. There were speculations that the project was dead. All the rumours were quashed with the release of the new version. The developers are saying this is a much improved and more stable release. The code the been rewritten in C.

Features of this new release are :

bbswitch power management, allows for fast and reliable power switching which also survives suspend
vga_switcheroo power management is supported but only available for nouveau.
by default the card is switched off if no optirun program is using it.
Better detection of errors as well as reporting those to the user running optirun.
Automatically detect the correct PCI Bus ID, removing the need for manual configuration.
recovery from drivers getting loaded while the card is off which would result in "No such device" errors (nvidia).
Standard autotools build system, allowing for better dependency checking and a more comfortable way to install/uninstall the program.
manual pages for optirun (a client) and bumblebeed (the daemon/server)
optirun --status will now show the current status of Bumblebee and the secondary GPU on your system.
Includes example initscripts for SysV init, systemd and Upstart.

You can view the full release notes here.

The project is still under heavy development. As for now, if you wish to make use of the Nvidia graphics card, you need to run the application from the terminal eg.

optirun firefox
optirun google-chrome

The project wiki can be viewed at https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/wiki.

Installation

Installation instructions for Ubuntu based distributions (Also available at

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bumblebee) :

Open a terminal and enter the commands below.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bumblebee/stable

If you are on Ubuntu 11.04 or older versions of Ubuntu and want newer drivers (recommended) than the ones available in the official repos, run:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates

sudo apt-get update

Install Bumblebee using the proprietary nvidia driver:

sudo apt-get install bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia

sudo usermod -a -G bumblebee $USER (change $USER to your username)

sudo reboot

If you intend to run 32-bit programs like Wine and using Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric or later, install 32-bit libraries with:

sudo apt-get install virtualgl-libs:i386 libgl1-mesa-glx:i386 libc6:i386

Difference in performance?

We have a Nvidia Optimus graphics card powered laptop and we were able to make a quick frame test after installing bumblebee.

Frames measurement using Nvidia Optimus graphics card

~$ optirun glxspheres
Polygons in scene: 62464
Visual ID of window: 0x21
Context is Direct
OpenGL Renderer: GeForce 310M/PCI/SSE2
107.483984 frames/sec - 119.952126 Mpixels/sec
102.987323 frames/sec - 114.933852 Mpixels/sec
100.554701 frames/sec - 112.219046 Mpixels/sec
106.141690 frames/sec - 118.454126 Mpixels/sec
108.439915 frames/sec - 121.018945 Mpixels/sec
125.309435 frames/sec - 139.845330 Mpixels/sec
173.557035 frames/sec - 193.689652 Mpixels/sec

Frames measurement without the use of Nvidia graphics card(Using Intel graphics card)

~$ glxspheres

Polygons in scene: 62464

Visual ID of window: 0x93

Context is Direct

OpenGL Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Ironlake Mobile

20.397656 frames/sec - 22.763784 Mpixels/sec

19.941670 frames/sec - 22.254904 Mpixels/sec

19.958508 frames/sec - 22.273695 Mpixels/sec

19.950185 frames/sec - 22.264407 Mpixels/sec

19.952660 frames/sec - 22.267168 Mpixels/sec

As you can see, when using Nvidia, the frame rates shoots up to 100+ compared to when using Intel grahics.

Future releases will support a gui based launcher which will make it easier to launch applications which will make use of the Nvidia graphics card.

Uninstall

If you did not like Bumblebee or may have run into issues while installing it, you can uninstall it by the following method:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge

sudo ppa-purge ppa:bumblebee/stable

Libreoffice releases new beta and stable builds

noreply@blogger.com (Sayantan Das) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 09:39:00 +0000

A flurry of releases have been announced by the developers of LibreOffice in the last two days. First of them is a release for the current stable branch 3.4. The new version is 3.4.5 , released on the 16th of January. There are no new features but an array of bugs have be quashed. For a detailed list of bug fixes please follow the link here.

The second stable release was for the 3.3 branch . Released today, there were minor fixes in the release. Release notes for this release can be found here.

The upcoming major release 3.5 also saw a beta release yesterday. This is the third beta release and contains a series of bug fixes and regression fixes as well. For the full list of fixes follow the link here.

If you want to download the stable releases, you can download from the link below.

LibreOffice 3.3.4 and 3.4.5 : http://www.libreoffice.org/download/

You can download the 3.5 beta3 release from http://www.libreoffice.org/download/pre-releases/.

Please note, the beta release is not fit for mission critical production systems.

Cinnamon: Gnome-Shell with a twist

noreply@blogger.com (Tuxtrix S) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:27:00 +0000

As we continue with the intense debate of Gnome Shell vs Unity, which is more user (un)friendly, a new fork of Gnome 3 released by Linux Mint lead developer and founder is quietly gaining stability and maturity.

The Cinnamon Desktop

Cinnamon, that's the name of the fork, was released with Linux Mint as Mint Gnome Shell Extensions. It was then merely a few extensions on top of Gnome Shell. On December 22, 2011, Clement Lefebvre officially released the new desktop based on Gnome 3 christening it Cinnamon.

Cinnamon is an interesting project. It tries to cash in on the goodness of Gnome 3 while keeping the simple desktop layout of Gnome 2. All those avid drop down menu users can now use the new Gnome 3 and stop complaining about loss of productivity.

Traditional menu

The Cinnamon desktop is a clean interface. On logon, is presented with a lower panel with all the tray icons on the right and a menu on the left. The default desktop theme is a theme based on the default Gnome Shell theme, Adwaita.

The application menu is a recreated Linux Mint menu present in gnome 2 . It houses a favourites bar on the left and a search bar on to quickly search for applications and system settings options apart from the regular application categories. Right clicking on the icons in the menu will open options to either send the icon to the desktop, panel or the favourites bar.

On the panel , quick launchers are available for Show Desktop, Firefox, Terminal and File Manager by default. Others can be added by right clicking application icons from the menu. Cinnamon is still at an early stage of development, so options to add items to the panel by right clicking is missing.

Window selector

As you can see from the picture on the left, the window picker from Gnome Shell is still present in Cinnamon, which I really liked. I think that is one of my favourites of Gnome Shell. I will be really disappointed if this option is removed from future versions of Cinnamon. The window picker can be activated by moving the mouse to the top left hand corner of the screen where an infinity icon is present.

Theme selector

The Cinnamon desktop also supports themes and they can be selected easily from the themes menu. It also supports switching of multiple desktops and also supports all unity indicator items. All the indicators that can be seen in the screenshots are Ubuntu Unity indicators.

Cinnamon can be downloaded from githut repositories. Although it is at a nascent stage, the desktop is exceptionally stable. I was able to take screenshots, write a whole document and play some videos without a single visual glitch or a crash. According to me this fork holds great promise if developed properly.

To download click the link below https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/downloads or copy paste the url in your browser.

Remastersys 3.0 for Ubuntu 11.10 released

noreply@blogger.com (Sayantan Das) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 11:10:00 +0000

Popular remastering software, Remastersys, which was discontinued a few months ago has been revived and a new release has been added to the repository. The current release is 3.0 and supports 10.04, 10.10, 11.04 and 11.10 versions of Ubuntu and all its derivative operating systems.

UPDATE: As you can see from the screenshots, remastersys 3.0 has gone through as major overhaul in terms of UI, thus making it easier for users to change the settings.

To download the latest version of the software simply visit http://www.remastersys.com/repository/lucid/

on your browser and download the software. If you want to add the repository to your list of repositories then follow the steps.

1. Open Software Sources by pressing Alt+F2 and typing software-properties-gtk

2. Add deb http://www.remastersys.com/repository lucid/ to the list

And then update the repositories. Be Sure to uncheck the sources repository of remastersys (as shown below in the screenshot) as it will keep throwing up errors.

Once repositories are updated, install remastersys from Ubuntu Software Centre .

For command line :

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install remastersys

Happy new year everyone!!

noreply@blogger.com (Sayantan Das) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 12:11:00 +0000

As 2011 comes to an end, we look forward for better news from Linux and Open Source community in 2012. I take this opportunity to wish all of our readers a Very Happy New Year . May 2012 be a great year for you and all your loved ones and for Linux as well!! Enjoy!!

Codeweaver's Crossover does the job!

noreply@blogger.com (Sayantan Das) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 14:50:00 +0000

Recently I downloaded the latest trial version of Codeweavers Crossover 10 after getting seriously frustrated with Wine. The recent updates of wine broke my MS Office installation so many times that I nearly went back to Windows !!

Moreover, I was so tired of Evolution not working with MS Exchange and all those organisations who refuse to give up MS Exchange as their mail servers!

I had to look for an alternative. I had three choices; 1. Buy a Mac. 2. Go back to the Virus World i.e. Windows or 3. Use Codeweaver's Crossover Linux.

I couldn't afford to buy a Mac! Too expensive! And I like to stay away from virus infection. They are such a pain! So, I decided to try Crossover 10.

The installation was easy; downloaded the 30 day trial version and installed it within my home directory.

After installation I encountered a minor but serious issue. The Unity Dash does not like Crossover! The application does not show up in the applications list. If you search for it, it shows up icons without any text, and the icons do no respond to clicks. So, anyone who is using Unity without Classic Menu Indicator or Gnome-pie Menus is out of luck!

No text below the icons

Luckily I had both installed, so I navigated to Crossover Menu and fired up the interface for installing windows applications. The interface is very confusing for a novice user. It is also not very visually pleasing. One advice if I can give to the devs is to improve the UI.

After getting past the initial hurdle, I selected Microsoft Office 2007 from the supported applications list. I selected the location for the installer file and clicked Install to start the installation.

The installer automatically creates a bottle called Microsoft Office 2007 and downloads all the required fonts and install .Net executables before the installation. After that the installer automatically continues with the MS Office Installation. You will have to enter the serial number for the product to complete the installation.

Once the installation was complete, I compared the installation with MS Word installed in Wine, and I was surprised to see the difference in font rendering, stability and handling of files. Crossover Linux clearly handled the large files very efficiently and the fonts looked much crisper than in Wine.

I was most impressed because MS Outlook 2007 runs flawlessly in Crossover Linux 10. I setup my MS Exchange account and now I can send and receive emails just as I do it in Windows. I can fireup Outlook from my menu without any crashes and all MS Office files automatically now open with Office instead of Libre Office.

If you have noticed, due to exclusion of Evolution, currently there is not default calendar application for Ubuntu 11.10. If you look in the default applications, it is set to Text Editor ( gedit). I think this is seriously lame. The Ubuntu devs could have atleast synced it with Thunderbird Lightning. Now, Outlook takes care of that.

As you can see from the screenshot, the MS Outlook 2007 is performing perfectly fine, retrieving and sending emails.

It can also archive emails and can import .pst files without a hitch.

Running MS Office is very essential for me unlike many others. And no, I cannot use LibreOffice just becasue the formatting goes so horribly wrong for a .docx document. For a 40 page document, it is beyond repair! I just dont have the time. And Evolution is painfully slow, doesn't work most of the time.

I have not played any games using Crossover and I dont think I can any time soon. All I needed is MS Office to work flawlessly and it does. I am happy about it. The last time I used Crossover was in 2008 when it was on version 7.0 and I must say the support of applications has improved drastically since then. I might get one of these Crossover applications soon!

Backing up your important folders in easy steps

noreply@blogger.com (Sayantan Das) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 12:02:00 +0000

The latest release of Ubuntu, 11.10, includes a very simple yet powerful backup tool, Deja Dup, to backup your important stuff like Documents, Pictures , Music and Videos. It is a good practice to back up your daily work to avoid any mishaps. Although there is a 0.01% chance of virus infection on Ubuntu but you cannot rule out hard drive crash or an accidental deletion of folders. Backed up data comes in handy then.

Here is a quick graphical tour on how to setup the backup. Go to the system settings from the power menu situated at the top right hand corner of your screen.

Select Backup from the System Settings window.

System Settings

Select the folders you want to back up. Remember, by default the user's home folder is backed up. If you have multiple users, use the "+" sign in the "Folders to backup" section to add other users.

If you do no want to backup every folder , like a lot of hidden folders, and the Downloads and the Wastebasket used the "Folders to ignore" section to add.

You can view the hidden files by pressing Ctrl+H on your keyboard or by selecting "Show Hidden Files" by right clicking.

You can select the location where the backup will be made. You can use an external hard drive or another partition of your computer.

Choose the frequency of backups. Ideally it should be a daily backup if you are doing important stuff on your machine every day.

Click Backup Now to start backup or schedule an automatic backup

Overview Screen showing Backup and Restore options

Restoring backup files is as easy as setting up the backup. Click Restore from the overview screen (shown above).

If you have backed up regularly or weekly you will be presented with the list of available dates when the backup was done. As you can see in the screenshot below, weekly backups going back one month is available for restore. Select the best suited date and click forward.

Select the location of the folder from where the backup will be made.

You can restore the file to its original location or you can restore it to a specific folder.

Review your settings in the summary screen and click Restore to start the restoration process.

Alternatives

Cloud sync: Ubuntu One cloud sync, which comes free with the OS. If you have less than 5 GB of data, it is an ideal contender.

Dropbox: Another cloud sync service. Max storage capactity 2GB + 8GB (on referrals).

HTC Flyer finally updated to Honeycomb (Android 3.2)!

noreply@blogger.com (Sayantan Das) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 20:15:00 +0000

Although the news of Android 3.2 hitting the HTC Flyer has been flying around since the first week of December, our HTC Flyer finally got an update from HTC today (probably a Christmas gift! ). The update went smoothly and the tablet is now running Android 3.2 . After the upgrade, the tablet's four touch buttons have been disabled (this information is available in the update notification). The default Honeycomb home and back buttons are in operation. The digital pen works as usual. However, after the upgrade, the tablet feels a bit sluggish. Not sure if its the same for everyone, but will keep a close watch on how it performs in the next few days. Here are the screenshots for you to enjoy.

Update Notification

Portrait Mode after upgrade

Preview of homescreens

Landscape Mode

Software information confirming Android 3.2

LibreOffice 3.5 beta 1 released

noreply@blogger.com (Tuxtrix S) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:49:00 +0000

The Document Foundation (TDF) has made the first beta of LibreOffice 3.5 available for testing. This release will be followed by a RC1 release in late January . At the moment this office suite is recommended only for testing purposes. The 3.5 release will be a major release with a lot of changed planned to be incorporated in the release, notable of the lot being improved importing of Microsoft Visio files.

The more stable 3.4 series also saw the release of 3.4.5 RC1 . This release is also a test release and should not be used for "mission-critical" purposes.

Downloads for both releases are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/download/pre-releases/