UBUNTU

How to run Ubuntu inside Windows using Virtual Machine

2012-01-29T22:29:00.000+05:30

What is Virtual Machine?

A virtual machine (VM) is a "completely isolated guest operating system installation within a normal host operating system".They allow you to run one operating system emulated within another operating system.
In this case :
Guest Operating System: Ubuntu 11.04
Host Operating System : Windows 7

Some of the popular Virtual Machine:

1. VirtualBox (Windows/Mac/Linux, Free): VirtualBox has a loyal following thanks to a combination of a free-as-in-beer price tag, cross-platform support, and a huge number of features that make running and maintaining virtual machines a breeze.
Read More: https://www.virtualbox.org/

2. Parallels (Windows/Mac/Linux, $79.99): Although best known for the Mac version of their virtual machine software, Parallels also runs virtualization on Windows and Linux.
Read More: http://www.parallels.com/

3. Windows Virtual PC(Windows, Free): Compared to the other any-OS-under-the-sun virtual machine applications in this week's Hive Five, Windows Virtual PC is a tame offering. Windows Virtual PC exists solely to emulate other—usually earlier—versions of Windows. If you need to run an app that only works under Windows XP or test software for backwards compatibility with Vista, Windows Virtual Machine has you covered. It's limited, true, but for people working in a strictly Windows environment —and most of the world still is—it gets the job done. Note: Virtual PC is availabls as Virtual PC 2004, Virtual PC 2007, and Windows Virtual PC
Read More : http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/

4. QEMU (Linux, Free) : QEMU is a powerful virtualization tool for Linux machines built upon the back of the KVM system (Kernel-based Virtual Machine).

Read More: http://wiki.qemu.org/Main_Page

5. VMware (Windows/Linux, Basic: Free, Premium: $189): VMware for desktop users comes in two primary flavors: VMware Player and VMware Workstation. VMware Player is a free solution aimed at casual users who need to create and run virtual machines but don't need advanced enterprise-level solutions. VMware Workstation includes all the features of VMWare Player—easy virtual machine creation, hardware optimization, driver-less guest OS printing—and adds in the ability to clone machines, take multiple snapshots of the guest OS, and a replay changes made to the guest OS for testing software and recording the results within the virtual machine. You can read more about VMware Player here and VMware Workstation here.
Read More:
http://www.vmware.com/products/player/
http://www.vmware.com/products/workstation/

How to Run Ubuntu on Virtual Machine ?

Guest Operating System : Ubuntu 11.04
Host Operarting System : Windows 7

Steps
1. Download the ISO file of Ubuntu 11.04 from http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download
2. Download the VirtualBox Sofware for the appropriate Host OS. In our case host operating System: Windows 7

VirtualBox Download Page

3. After Downloading the VirtaulBox Software, install it.

VirtualBox Setup Wizard

4. Open VirtaulBox(Oracle VM). Click on the NEW button.

Virtual Box : Click On NEW Button

5. Click on the NEXT button. Assign a name to the Virtual Machine. Select the appropriate OS and version . In our case give OS as LINUX and Version as Ubuntu.Click on Next Button.

Virtual Machine Name & OS type

6. Select the amount of memory needed for the Virtual Machine according to your RAM size.
Minimum recommended size is 512 MB. Click on Next.

Virtual Machine : Memory allocation

7. If you want to create a VM using old *.vdi , then select "USE EXISTING HARD DISK". Otherwise
select "Create New hard Disk".Click Next Button.

8. Create New Virtual Disk Wizard. Select the appropriate File Type. Click Next Button.

Create new Virtual Disk Wizard

9. Select Fixed Size (as Dynamic size allocation can create problem sometimes). Click next Button and select the appropriate size and Location o.

10. Then click on Create Button.It will take sometime to create the VM.

11. After Completion of the VM , click on Power Off Button to Switch On the button.

12. If you are doing this for the first time, you will get First Run Wizard. Click on Next Button. You need to provide the location of Ubuntu 11.04.iso downloaded by you.

13. Then it will go through the Installation process of Ubuntu 11.04 like any other normal OS installation.
After the installation . It will ask for the reboot of virtual machine(Note : Only virtual machine will be rebooted not your System.)

14. You are ready to go .

All the Best :)

Refrences: 1. http://lifehacker.com/5714966/five-best-virtual-machine-applications

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Alpha 1 Released

2011-12-02T00:47:00.001+05:30

Download:

Ubuntu 12.04 Alpha 1

What's New:

Ubuntu Software Centre adds support for multiple screenshots
New Linux Kernel version 3.2.0-2
Rythmbox as Default Music App
Tomboy, Banshee has been removed

Note: Installing the Alpha release is not recommended due to its early yet rapid developmental stage.

Ubuntu 12.04 : IRC Workshops

2011-11-27T03:31:00.001+05:30

All the IRC Workshops for Ubuntu 12.04 has been planned already, along with spiffy ads to spread around.

After much discussion,it has been decided to “focus” the IRC workshops. Instead of one long week it will be clubbed to just three days for each “week” but make the days longer to hit more time zones. So they will be from Tuesday to Thursday.

Open Week will be likely going to move to 30 minute sessions by default (though it can be adjusted), which will mean instructors will have to be more prepared ahead of time. So, less typing wasting time, more time pasting in prepared material and answering user questions.

No change for the Global Jam

Schedule:
Ubuntu 12.04 : Developer Week 31Jan - 2 Feb

Ubuntu 12.04 : Global Jam 2 - 4 Mar
Ubuntu 12.04 : App Developer Week 17- 19 April
Ubuntu 12.04 : Open Week 1-3 May

Ubuntu 12.04 : Developer Week

Ubuntu 12.04 : Global Jam

Ubuntu 12.04 : App Developer Week

Ubuntu 12.04 : Open Week

Ubuntu One dropping CouchDB sync

2011-11-22T01:36:00.001+05:30

Today it was announced that Ubuntu One will be dropping support for CouchDB sync.

John Rowland Lenton in mailing list said

"From the first days of Ubuntu One, before we were even in Ubuntu, we'vehad a structured data storage sync service based around CouchDB.

For the last three years we have worked with the company behind CouchDB to make it scale in the particular ways we need it to scale in our server environment. Our situation is rather unique, and we were unable to resolve some of the issues we came across. We were thus unable to make CouchDB scale up to the millions of users and databases we have in our datacentres, and furthermore we were unable to make it scale down to be a reasonable load on small client machines.

Because of this, we are turning off most of our CouchDB-related efforts. The contacts, notes and playlists databases will continue to exist on our servers to support the related services, but direct external access to the underlying databases will be shut off. Any other databases will be deleted from our servers entirely.

For these same three years we have created and maintained desktopcouch, which is a desktop service (and related library) to access CouchDB more conveniently. Because we are no longer going to pursue CouchDB, we will no longer be developing desktopcouch; in fact, if anybody wants to take over, we'll be happy to work with you to make that official. For the upcoming 12.04 the Ubuntu One packages will not depend on desktopcouch nor couchdb in any way, and we'd recommend the distribution seriously consider whether they want to continue having the package in main, especially if no maintainer shows up.

Because we still believe there is a lot of value to our users in the service we wanted to offer based on CouchDB, we're building something new, based on what we've learned. It's very small, merely a layer of abstraction and the definition of an API that will allow us and others to build what is needed ontop of existing tools. We're calling it U1DB for now, until it comes of age. If you're interested and techincally inclined you can follow our progress on lp:u1db; unfortunately our timing and resources are such that we can only promise the reference python implementation will be ready in time for 12.04, and thus 12.04 will ship without Ubuntu One having a solid story around synchronizing arbitrary structured data."

12.04 Ubuntu Developer Summit Proceedings

2011-11-21T00:45:00.001+05:30

From 31st Oct 2011 – 4th Nov 2011 the Ubuntu Developer Summit took place in Orlando, Florida, USA. Attracting 800attendees from 42 different countries, this mix of Canonical employees, volunteers, upstreams, vendors, and partners engaged in 420 sessions across 9 tracks.

These sessions were used to discuss, design, and plan the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS edition that will be released in April 2012. This post provides a summary of many of the outcomes and decisions finalized at the event.

The Keynote

Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Canonical and Ubuntu and head of Product Strategy at Canonical, provided the opening keynote, first talking about where have been focusing on Ubuntu:

Engaging and embracing developers is important (for Free Software) to bring applications to the Ubuntu platform.
developer.ubuntu.com makes it easy for developers and ISVs to target the Ubuntu platform and it’s large number if users by providing tools, a quick start guide, documentation and a software distribution mechanism through the Apps Portal and the updated Software Center client software.
Ubuntu One is the leading Client Services platform and the now available Windows client attracts more users to the Ubuntu platform.
User Testing is an important driver for Ubuntu to improve usability and make Ubuntu look and feel great (LightDM, AppSwitcher, Music Lens and monospace were called out specifically).
OpenStack became the cloud infrastructure of choice in Ubuntu and administrators can expect a tight integration into the Ubuntu Desktop.
Ubuntu is set to become the preferred cloud platform, as best guest but also as best host.
ARM gains more traction in traditional PC areas, e.g. Data Centers and Ubuntu contributes to the enablement of ARM.
LTS releases are now supported for a period of 5 years, which caters more to the needs of Corporate Customers.
Services in the Cloud will become more important and Ubuntu’s wider cloud offering and specifically JuJudefines Cloud Services as so called Charms, which distill expertise into reusable units.
The demand of Corporate Users is rising and Ubuntu will deliver a reference Corporate Desktop for these large scale deployments.
Power Users will be a focus for the upcoming release, where the same amount of effort that was spent on the general usability of the Ubuntu Desktop will be geared towards the needs of Power Users.

Mark then moved on introduce what he referred toas The Ubuntu Vision:

The Ubuntu mission of Linux for Human Beings cannot end at the Desktop but needs to take into account the devices that will be used by Human Beings in the years to come.
Ubuntu will power tablets, phones, TVs and smart screens from the car to the office kitchen by LTS 14.04.
Unity will be the coherent user interface for all these devices.
Ubuntu powered personal computing platforms will connect seamlessly to Desktop, Server and Cloud.
Ubuntu’s personal Cloud – Ubuntu One – will deliver, share and synchronize data and content between Ubuntu powered devices and other devices that are supported by Ubuntu One.

See the video of the keynote.

Track Summaries

Throughout the 400+ sessions there was a huge amount of content, projects, proposals and plans discussed. Here is a summary of each of the core outcomes in each of the tracks. If you want a finer-grained level of detail, you can read all the blueprints and work items.

Desktop

LTS release with continued focus on quality, performance and stability over new features.
Focused plans on specific areas including Multi-monitor support, boot speed, text-free boot and power consumption.
Priority focus on stable platform.
Discussed which versions of software to ship and support in LTS including X.org and GNOME.
Details were discussed around system-config-printer, using Unity-Greeter as lock screen, Unity configuration (design TBD) and Unity-Greeter enhancements.

Server and Cloud

This is an LTS, so we will concentrate on improving stabilization and reliability, prioritizing production ready features, and building out a robust test infrastructure.
We will integrate the next OpenStack release, Essex, and work with the project itself around improving automated test efforts.
Streamline and simplify the Ubuntu Cloud install experience.
Improve Orchestra to deliver a better experience for provisioning, deploying, hosting, managing, and orchestrating enterprise data center infrastructure services.
Build on our ARM Server rollout in 11.10, with a focus on ensuring we have the necessary support for anticipated hardware and targeted workloads.
Continue to develop Juju, making it ready for production-ready deployments, by adding support for features such as co-located services, as well as closing open bugs blocking deployments.
Build up the collection of Charms for Juju as well the community of Charmers.

Foundations

We will push the envelope on python versions, and try to get at least one application from the desktop CD fully ported to python3 for precise.
We will work with the desktop team to improve the boot experience and ensure that the desktop is always free of text error messages on boot, shutdown, and suspend/resume.
We’ll work with the kernel team to investigate making boot even faster, by dropping or minimizing the initramfs in the common case.
We will do a better job of collecting information from all our users about problems, instead of just early-adopters, by implementing an actual crash database.
And we’ll have a huge focus on things we need for a 5-year LTS: cleaning up our DNS handling, cleaning up friendly recovery, robust IPv6 support, continued polish on upstart, and usable CD images every day to help keep the velocity of development high throughout the cycle.
We might switch to 64-bit CDs by default depending on the outcome of investigations this cycle.

Hardware

Use the v3.2 kernel.
Merge the amd64 generic and server flavors.
Investigate dropping i386 non-pae flavor.
Investigate dropping 32bit non-smp powerpc flavor.
Investigate providing an armhf flavor.
Help community to support a -lowlatency kernel.
Ubuntu Kernel Delta Review.
Proposed disabling and then dropping aufs.
Ubuntu Kernel Config Review (just some of the bigger highlights).
Move ext2 to be enabled as a module, rather than builtin.
Build in SATA_AHCI.
Build in XEN_BLKDEV_FRONTEND and XEN_NETDEV_FRONTEND.
Investigate enabling DYNAMIC_DEBUG.
Ubuntu Kernel Power Management.
Investigate power management improvements for the kernel.
LTS backport kernels.
Will be shipped by default on the 12.04.2 point release.
LTS backports kernels only supported for 18mo life cycle.

Community

Great discussions around the Ubuntu Vision and Televisions, Tablets, and Phones. Many ideas were shared and fleshed out. Mailing lists will be set up soon to continue those discussions.
We successfully ran our first Ubuntu Leadership Mini Sprint and reviewed many of the points raised in a community survey with a series of outcomes.
We had some great discussions around continuing to build the Ubuntu app developer programme, the next iteration of developer.ubuntu.com, and how to continue to improve Qt integration in Ubuntu.
We discussed how to better recognize community contributions and put some plans in place for encouraging the frequency in how people thank each other as well a syndicated set of posts to encourage this culture.
Daniel Holbach is creating a developer advisory board to help refine and grow developer and packaging participation in Ubuntu.
We had some great discussions for better design team collaboration. We created the concept of experience teams, the Ayatana mailing list will be closed and other lists set up to better facilitate discussion.
We reviewed our community governance and agreed to propose that governors cannot sit on more than one council at a time.
The Application Review Board has been expanded and a set of bottlenecks were reviewed. The group also proposed time limits on responses and when automated packaging can be used.
The loco.ubuntu.com team agreed to implement Locale based teams and discussed some other minor refinements.

Design

We conducted some design sessions during UDS to help community members with design and to promote design thinking. This effort continues informally.
We communicated benchmark user testing results.
We brainstormed ways to involve the community in design and research with a commitment from the design team to provide guidance and support

Security

As an LTS, primary focus is on making the release supportable in terms of maintenance and security updates
Focus on testing and quality of team owned projects such as AppArmor, ecryptfs, ufw and general OS hardening.
Support Server and Cloud LXC containers work via AppArmor
Support via Apparmor the Application Review Board, Foundations and developer.ubuntu.com goals surrounding application confinement

ARM

LTS release for the first time on ARM
Bringing up ARMhf (hard float) Archive as that will result in between a 2% – 10% better thoughput on both Desktop and Server. ARMel archive will be support for at least 12.04 but not as LTS.
Focus is on ARM Server, with the release of 11.10 ARM server on Panda as proof of concept, will test and stabilize ARM server on real hardware.
Drop initrds if possible: while initiated by the ARM team, the dropping of initrds (or rather the use of a minimal in-kernel initrd) will happen for all arches. Full initrds will only be used if actually needed which should speed up booting a lot.
The ARM bootloader handling tool “flash-kernel” will finally be refactored, this will gain us a hardware database which we can re-use in other tools as a nice sideeffect
ARM QA (server and client) will see a lot more automation, even on actual bare metal, not only in virtual machines.
Ubuntu ARM and Linaro will work closer together. Many sore points and duplicated work between the two teams have been/will be solved.
Virt. will ship with LXC, KVM will be researched and improved by ARM and will be incorporated by team into Ubuntu as its ready.

Other

We reviewed the release processes used in Oneiric and brainstormed ways we could make the overhead of managing the release (meetings, reports, etc. ) more efficient for Ubuntu and the recognized derivatives in Precise. Clarification on what was meant to be a recognized derivative flavor, and what it meant to be LTS was discussed.
The release schedule for 12.04 (Precise Pangolin) LTS was reviewed and some adjustments were planned based on the feedback.
We looked at ways of improving the defect analysis processes, metrics that would be useful, and infrastructure to support doing the prioritized defect analysis.
The underlying bug life cycle was revisited with the Launchpad team. The developer survey results on bug states and usage were reviewed, and steps towards articulating and unifying the bug state transitions in use with different Ubuntu teams were discussed.
The documentation team and news team members started brainstorming some improvements they’d like to see in Precise.
Ubuntu Studio team will be aiming to incorporate a low-latency kernel by default to support audio work.
Edubuntu team is targeting to become an LTS release in 12.04, and will be applying to the Technical Board, and working on tasks to support this and future roadmaps.
Kubuntu team had discussions on improving support for muon, filesharing, accessibility, CJK languages, and documentation. A new Kubuntu Active CD based on Plasma Active is being planned.
Lubuntu team will be focusing on improving the user experience in this release, as well as furthering some of the technology transitions in progress.

This article has been copied from planet Ubuntu

New [Precise] linux kernel version (3.2.0-1.1) Has been Uploaded

2011-11-20T23:16:00.001+05:30

A new Precise linux kernel has been uploaded. Now the version has been changed to 3.2. This is the first kernel upload based on the 3.2 kernel.

Highlights of this upload include:

rebase to v3.2-rc2
Consolidated amd64 server flavour into generic
armhf — enable armhf and create the first flavours
Enable CONFIG_EXT2_FS=m
Build in CONFIG_SATA_AHCI=y
Built-in xen-netfront and xen-blkfront
Support for additional ALPS touchpads
Updated seccomp patch set

The full changelog can be found at:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/3.2.0-1.1

Firefox 8 Officially Released

2011-11-09T19:21:00.000+05:30

Firefox 8 Officially Released

Firefox 8 might have been ‘out in the wild’ for a few days, but today marks itsofficial release.

Ubuntu 11.04 and 11.10 will automatically upgrade to Firefox 8 at some point in the coming days – no PPAs or downloads necessary.

What’s new?

Firefox 8, which aside from nudging the open-source browser a step closer to the version number of Internet Explorer (and trying to keep pace with Google Chrome’s), includes a handful of new features and notable changes: -

Twitter search engine installed by default
Third-party add-ons are disabled by default
A new ‘add-on selection dialog’ allows to verify add-ons on upgrading
Tabs can be loaded ‘on demand’, improving start-up times
HTML5 context menu support, improved memory management, and various stability fixes also feature.
Download

Ubuntu 11.04 and 11.10 users do not need to download or add any PPAs in order to get the update: just keep an eye on update manager over the next day or so to upgrade.

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and 10.10 users can install/upgrade to Firefox 8 by adding theMozilla Stable Release PPA to their Software Sources. (Note that at the time of writing these builds are pending publication, so will be available very shortly.)

ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable

Release Schedule Draft Of Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

2011-10-31T14:33:00.000+05:30

Draft: Release Schedule Of Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin)

Know More About Time based Release : https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TimeBasedReleases

Five-year Long Term Support (LTS) for Ubuntu 12.04

2011-10-25T23:52:00.000+05:30

Canonical today announced it would be extending the support and maintenance period for its upcoming Long Term Support (LTS) release of Ubuntu for desktop users from three years to five years. The move comes in response to increasing demand for Ubuntu desktops in corporate environments where longer maintenance periods are the norm. It brings the desktop product into line with Ubuntu Server which continues with five years of support for LTS releases.

The first two years of the LTS period will benefit businesses by including hardware updates (through regular point releases) allowing them to keep up to date with the latest hardware upgrades. Maintenance updates will continue for a further three years. Businesses can now rely on always running an LTS version regardless of their hardware refresh rate.

Ubuntu's fourth LTS release comes at a time when the product has seen unprecedented uptake at a large scale in a variety of businesses. Qualcomm, the City of Munich, LVM have all spoken recently of their use of Ubuntu at large scale.

Upcoming Ubuntu Desktop Release's Team Support Period

2011-10-25T23:47:00.000+05:30

Upcoming Ubuntu Desktop Release's Team Support Period

Ubuntu : update-apt-xapi takes lot of cpu usage

2011-10-18T22:20:00.000+05:30

Problem : The process "update-apt-xapi" causes increase in CPU utilization to 100%

There are 2 ways to check this problem :

1. One is to go to the System Monitor and click on the Processes tab. Sort by %CPU Used and the offending process should pop to the top.

2. The other way is to executed a terminal and type “top” w/o the quotes. Top is a great little application that lists the top users of CPU time, plus gives a bunch of great info at the top of the terminal screen like total uptime, CPU info, process statistic

What is update-apt-xapi?

The actual name of the package is "update-apt-xapian-index". It helps in maintaing an index of packages, and this helps speed up searching for packages in Synaptic, and possibly in other package managers as well.

Solutions :

There are 3 possible solution to solve this problem :

Note: Use method 2 and 3 only if 1 does not works.

1. Edit /etc/cron.weekly/apt-xapian-index

This method will do following things :

a) Run process with the lowest system priority.

b) Update the index and not built it again (faster)

i) sudo gedit /etc/cron.weekly/apt-xapian-index

ii) replace the line
nice $IONICE -c3 $CMD --quiet
by

nice -n 19 $IONICE -c 3 $CMD --update --quiet

iii) Save And exit And you are done.

In depth detail of changing cron file can be found here:(Not important)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cron is a utility for scheduling tasks to run at certain times. System tasks run weekly are, unsurprisingly, stored in the /etc/cron.weekly directory. You can also set up personal tasks to run pretty much whenever you want. For that, have a look at man crontab.

Looking at the internals of the code we're using here, the first line, the "crunchbang" line (#!), tells the system what executable to use to run the contents -- in this case, /bin/sh, or your basic shell.

The next two lines establish two shorthand variables. Variables in shell scripts are generally defined in ALL CAPS for easy readability. This is more of a best practice than any hard-and-fast requirement. When referenced later in the script, the variable names are prefixed with a $. Here, CMD is simply shorthand for the path to the update-apt-xapian-index binary, and IONICE is shorthand for the path to the ionice utility for getting or setting a process's I/O scheduling class and priority.

In the if statements, the -x checks to see if the next argument exists, so if [ -x $CMD ] will check to see if /usr/sbin/update-apt-xapian-index exists in the filesystem.

nice -n is basically how you assign a priority to a process. An important caveat, however, is that nice is just that -- a high nice value (up to a maximum of -n 19) means the process is nice and gets out of the way, and a low nice value (down to a minimum of -n -20) means the process is *not* nice and barges to the front of the line to be the first to use system resources. Niceness defaults to 10 if not otherwise specified, and apparently the default update-apt-xapian-index setup does not specify any value.

ionice is new in this fix. It works along similar lines, affecting a process's input/output niceness, only using the flag -c for "class". The ionice man page describes -c:

Quote:
-c class
The scheduling class. 0 for none, 1 for real time, 2 for best-effort, 3 for idle.
Finally, we have the two options passed to update-apt-xapian-index itself, --update and --quiet. --quiet just tells it to not generate much text, only outputting for fatal errors, which makes sense for a background process. --update is new here in this fix together with the nice value and the ionice prioritization, and is a real kicker: it tellsupdate-apt-xapian-index to only update those items in the index that have actually changed. This seems like a no-brainer, since the index includes *every* package installed in the system, but unfortunately the default update-apt-xapian-index setup in a fresh install of Jaunty, Karmic, or Lucid all leave this option out, meaning thatupdate-apt-xapian-index will rebuild the ENTIRE package index every time it runs. No wonder it eats up so much memory and CPU time! With --update, it should take much less resources and much less time.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Making the weekly update script non-executable

It turns out that it installs itself to run weekly by adding a script to /etc/cron.weekly/. That’s easy to fix simply by making the script non-executable through file permission change:

sudo chmod 644 /etc/cron.weekly/apt-xapian-index

3. Remove update-apt-xapi package

sudo apt-get autoremove --purge apt-xapian-index

sudo apt-get autoremove --purge

Note : Purging apt-xapian-index causes the quick search feature in Synaptic to become inoperative.

What's new in Ubuntu 11.10?

2011-10-14T05:39:00.000+05:30

The release of Ubuntu 11.10 includes some enhancements to make Ubuntu experience even more enjoyable.

Ubuntu Software Centre

The Ubuntu Software Centre gives you instant access to thousands of apps. With the Ubuntu 11.10 redesign, you can see the top-rated apps, compare apps by rating and user reviews, keep track of what you’ve installed, and sync your apps between all your Ubuntu computers.

The Launcher

It’s pretty hard to miss the launcher that sits on the left-hand side of your screen. It’s designed to make getting to your favourite tools and applications quick and easy. You can hide and reveal it, add and remove applications and bookmarks, and keep track of your open windows.

The Dash

When you click on the Ubuntu logo in the top-left corner of the launcher, the new dash will appear. It’s another simple way to get to your shortcuts and search for other applications and programs. So you can get fast access to your email, music, pictures and much more. And you can se

Application switching

Ubuntu 11.10 gives you a really easy way to manage multiple windows and applications. You can use Alt + Tab and Alt + Grave to switch between applications or application windows. No more cramping multiple

Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) released

2011-10-14T05:29:00.000+05:30

Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) released!!

Ubuntu 11.10, code-named “Oneiric Ocelot” has been released on 13 Octobor. 11.10 continues Ubuntu’s proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution.

WHAT's NEW in Ubuntu 11.10

For PC users, Ubuntu 11.10 supports laptops, desktops and netbooks with a unified look and feel based on an updated version of the desktop shell called “Unity”, which introduces specialized “Lenses"
Finding and installing software using the Ubuntu Software Centre is now easier thanks to improvements in speed, search functionality enhancements, and usability improvements. Aside from update on the performance side, it’s also more aesthetically appealing.
Ubuntu Server 11.10 has made it much easier to provision, deploy, host, manage, and orchestrate enterprise data centre infrastructure services with the introduction of “Orchestra”.
The Juju technical preview allows service developers to describe the deployment and scaling requirements of their applications, in order to simplify and enhance the dialogue between developers and operations teams.
For those working on the ARM architecture, a technical preview is also provided for the ARM server.
Standard maintenance updates will be provided for Ubuntu 11.10 for 18 months, through April 2013.
Ubuntu is now available in 38 languages. For a list of available languages and detailed translation statistics for these and other languages, see : http://people.canonical.com/~dpm/stats/ubuntu-11.10-translation-stats.html

UBUNTU 11.10 FLAVOR'S

Ubuntu 11.10 is the base for the newest 11.10 iterations of Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, Mythbuntu, Ubuntu Studio, and our newest addition to this release cycle, Lubuntu!

Kubuntu: http://kubuntu.org/news/11.10-release
Xubuntu: http://xubuntu.org/news/11.10-release
Edubuntu http://edubuntu.org/news/11.10-release
Mythbuntu: http://mythbuntu.org/11.10/release
Ubuntu Studio: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio/11.10release_notes
Lubuntu: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu/Announcement/11.10

Ubuntu 11.10 is also now available on two new ARM community-supported ports.

AC100 (Toshiba Tegra 2 Netbook): https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ARM/TEGRA/AC100
MX5 (Freescale i.MX53 QuickStart): https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ARM/MX5

HOW TO DOWNLOAD UBUNTU ?
In order to download Ubuntu 11.10, visit: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download

UPGRADING UBUNTU 11.04 TO 11.10
Users of Ubuntu 11.04 will be offered an automatic upgrade to 11.10 via Update Manager. For further information about upgrading, see: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/upgrade

RELEASE NOTES
Release notes, which document caveats, workarounds for known issues, as well as more in-depth notes
on the release itself are available at: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes

BUG's & PROBLEMS

If you have a question, or if you think you may have found a bug but aren’t sure, you can try asking in any of the following places:

#ubuntu on irc.freenode.net
http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/
http://askubuntu.com/

Ubuntu 12.04 will be known as the "Precise Pangolin"

2011-10-12T01:12:00.000+05:30

So, what will be our mascot for 12.04 LTS?

Continuing with the alphabetic Series : Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal), Ubuntu 11.10(Oneiric Ocelot)

& now with 'P' letter.

Mark Shuttleworth , Ubuntu Founder, has announced that the codename for Ubuntu 12.04 will be 'Precise Pangolin'.

Mark Writes

Let’s ask the question differently – what are we trying to convey? 12.04 is an LTS.So we want it to be tough and long-lasting, reliable, solid as a rock and well defended. It’s also going to be the face of Ubuntu for large deployments for a long time, so we want it to have no loose ends, we want it to be coherent, neat.

We’ve told the story of the cloud in previous releases, and that comes to fruition in 12.04 with the first LTS that supports both the cloud guest, and cloud infrastructure, across ARM and x86 architectures. We’ve also told the story of Unity in previous releases, and that comes to fruition in a fast, lean interface that works well across clients both thick and thin. 12.04 is going to be a lot more than all that, but for the full reveal, you’ll need to wait till UDS! Nevertheless, we can take reliability, precision, and polish as a given.
Balancing all of those options, I think we have just the right mix in our designated mascot for 12.04 LTS. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Precise Pangolin.
Now, I’ve recently spent a few hours tracking a pangolin through the Kalahari. I can vouch for their precision – there wasn’t an ant hill in the valley that he missed. Their scales are a wonder of detail and quite the fashion statement. I can also vouch for their toughness; pangolin’s regularly survive encounters with lions. All in all, a perfect fit. There’s no sassier character, and no more cheerful digger, anywhere in those desert plains. If you want a plucky partner, the pangolin’s your match. Let’s pack light for a wonderful adventure together.

Reference: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/784

Ubuntu 11.10 Beta 2 ScreenShots

2011-09-24T14:54:00.000+05:30

Ubuntu 11.10 : Dashboard - Transparent Control with Bigger Icons

Ubuntu 11.10 : Dashboard - Search Files & Folders

Ubuntu 11.10 : Dashboard - Search Applications

Ubuntu 11.10 : Workspace Switcher

Ubuntu 11.10 : Nautilus File Manager

Ubuntu 11.10 : Software Center

Ubuntu 11.10 : Progress Bar Of Update Manger

Ubuntu 11.10 : Alt Tab window with Shelf Like Icons at Corner

Ubuntu 11.10 : Preview of Original Window (in Alt Tab window)while holding Alt For long time

UBuntu 11.10 : Colourful Message Notifier

Ubuntu 11.10 : Update Manger, System Setting , Startup Application & Display Setting option

UBUNTU 11.10( ONEIRIC OCELOT) BETA 2 has been Released

2011-09-24T01:01:00.000+05:30

Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot beta 2 is available for download after 1 day delay.

Download Link:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/OneiricOcelot/TechnicalOverview/Beta2#Download_the_Beta_2 http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/oneiric/beta-2/

Those who have been using Ubuntu 11.10 Beta 1 are not required to download the new BETA but can get updated to BETA 2 using normal updates.

Updating Packages behind prxy server in UBUNTU 11.10

2011-09-23T23:32:00.001+05:30

Problem : apt-get , Update Manager not able to download packages behind college/comapny proxy server.

Note : Sometimes there may be connection failure because of busy servers. So Please be patient during new Ubuntu release

Solution :

1) Open the Terminal and type the following command
sudo gedit /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/02proxy

Note : 01proxy file is not present earlier.

2) Type the following line(in red) in the file:
Acquire::http::Proxy “http://yourusername:yourpassword@yourproxy:yourport″;

Acquire::http::Proxy "http://foss:3189";

3) Save the file and your problem is solved.

Waiting for jockey-backend to exit

2011-09-22T23:51:00.000+05:30

Problem: While Updating Packages,
i) Getting "Waiting for jockey-backend to exit" in Update Manager. &
ii) Getting "Unable to get exclusive lock" , while updating using apt-get update
iii) Updating Cache problem

What is jockey-backend ?

Jockey is a tool for installing third-party hardware drivers.

Jockey provides the infrastructure and the user interface for finding and installing third-party drivers which are applicable to the computer. This includes drivers which are added or updated after the release of a distribution, or drivers which cannot be included into the distribution for various reasons (CD space limitation, licensing problems, etc.).

Solution :
You only need jockey for enabling restricted drivers, afterwards you can safely disable it.

Open Terminal and type following commands:

1) To get into root mode
sudo -i

2) To check the process id of jockey
ps -e | grep jockey

Output: 2982 pts/0 00:00:00 jockey

remember the process id(2982)

3)Type the following to stop/kill the process

sudo kill -9 [process_id]

sudo kill -9 2982

No Synaptic Package Manager in Ubuntu 11.10

2011-09-22T17:58:00.000+05:30

‘Synaptic Package Manager’ tool has been dropped from the latest builds of Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot.

The removal of Synaptic Package Manager have been planned since the inception of the Ubuntu Software Centre. Many of the advanced features Synaptic currently provides are ear-marked for inclusion in the Ubuntu Software Centre.

Well, I really don't like SOFTWARE CENTER as it takes forever to start up and it doesn't list all packages. I mostly use Synaptic and apt-get for installing packages.

So I have installed Synaptic package from the repository.

sudo apt-get install synaptic

Installing C/C++ plugin(or CDT) in Eclipse

2011-09-19T00:32:00.000+05:30

Problem : Eclipse does not have C/C++ project by default.

Solution:
Install Eclipse CDT (C/C++ Development Tooling)from Synaptic Manager or Terminal

1) Install the package eclipse-cdt
sudo apt-get install eclipse-cdt

What is CDT ?
The CDT Project provides a fully functional C and C++ Integrated Development Environment based on the Eclipse platform. Features include: support for project creation and managed build for various toolchains, standard make build, source navigation, various source knowledge tools, such as type hierarchy, call graph, include browser, macro definition browser, code editor with syntax highlighting, folding and hyperlink navigation, source code refactoring and code generation, visual debugging tools, including memory, registers, and disassembly viewer

Refrences:
http://www.eclipse.org/cdt/

Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric) Release Schedule

2011-09-12T16:03:00.000+05:30

Comapre File Line By Line

2011-08-30T21:11:00.000+05:30

1. Check whether tool "diff" is installed in your system by typing "diff" in terminal.
If the output is similar to the below one then diff tool is not installed in your system

diff: missing operand after `diff'
diff: Try `diff --help' for more information.

2. If the tool diff is not installed, install it using synaptic or terminal(sudo apt-get install diff)

3. Type the following command in the terminal

diff filename1 filename2

The above command will print the difference between the two files on the screen.
You can also direct the output to another file using following command.

diff filename1 filename2 >> filename3

You can also ignore case of file contents using follwoing command

diff -i --ignore-case filename1 filename2 >>filename3
4. For more options of diff
Type(in terminal) :

man diff

Fixing GPG Keys in UBUNTU

2011-08-30T20:41:00.000+05:30

NOTE: Your hexadecimal numbers may be different then mine, so make sure to use the hexadecimals numbers in your error, not mine.

W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net jaunty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 6D975C4791E7EE5E
W: A error occurred during the signature verification. The repository is not updated and the previous index files will be used.GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net jaunty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 5A9BF3BB4E5E17B5

W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net jaunty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 7FB8BEE0A1F196A8
W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-da...jaunty/Release
W: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

The fix for this is to re-download the keys using the hexidecimal numbers given in the error .
Type this command into the terminal ("Applications > Accessories > Terminal" OR press "Ctrl-Alt-Del")
Code:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys

And then add the hexadecimal numbers to the command (again, these are my keys from my error. Make sure to use your own):

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 6D975C4791E7EE5E 5A9BF3BB4E5E17B5 7FB8BEE0A1F196A8"

The output should look like this:

"gpg: requesting key 437D05B5 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com"

NOTE: Your hexadecimal numbers may be different then mine, so make sure to use the hexadecimals numbers in your error, not mine.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1221323

Configuring Codeblocks to compile Gtk based programs

2011-02-06T15:31:00.000+05:30

Problem: Getting "ERROR: gtk/gtk.h: No such file or directory" while trying to compile code using Gtk library.

Information: The problem with above error is that the code which you have written asks to insert gtk/gtk.h contents, but the preprocessor is unable to find that file. The compiler goes through the search path defined by your IDE and could not find the file.
This problem can come when either your system does not contain these files and/or the search path is not defined properly.To solve the first issue, you need to download the Gtk+-2.0 development package. Then add search path to find the gtk.h file.
Once you have done this, expect it to work as far as compiling process. The linker will then complain about "undefined references". This will indicate that the compiler correctly understood the name and prototypes of all the functions, but now the linker cannot actually find the libraries (actual already compiled libraries) that contain those functions.
At this point, you will have to find the setting in your IDE that dictates which libraries you are linking against. Then you need to add search path to find the necessary libraries in LIKER option.
To help in searching path a toll called pkg-config can be used.pkg-config will automatically look for the Gtk libraries and will provide an easy mechanism to compile the Gtk programs.

Steps:
1) Downloading the gtk+-2.0 development package:
   Open the synaptic manager and install the 'libgtk2.0-dev' package from it.
2)
  2.1) If you want to compile the code from the terminal type the following command(in red color)
   gcc `pkg-config --cflags --libs gtk+-2.0` 1.c -o hello to compile the .c file

   There should not be any error after this.

2.2) Configuring Code::blocks
   I set up options globally since I wanted to use codeblocks just to practice gtk.
   Go to Settings->Compilers and Debuggers and added:
   To edit compiler search path, go to Other options in compiler setting and add this
   `pkg-config --cflags gtk+-2.0 `

   To edit linker search path, go to Other link options inlinker setting and add this
   `pkg-config --libs gtk+-2.0 `

   Note : bactick`` substitues its output before executing the whole command

Screenshots :

Compiler setting

Linker Setting:

References :
Information about compiling GTK+ applications-- : http://library.gnome.org/devel/gtk/stable/gtk-compiling.html
Codeblok configuration(Commnet no #3) : http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=498306
More information about compilers and linker (Read first comment of Moschops) : http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/beginner/34141/

My first Gtk based C program

2011-01-31T11:35:00.000+05:30

Information: GTk+ is a C Library used to build graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Although Gtk is written in C, but can be binded with other languages like C++, Python and C#.
To learn Gtk, I found gnome document library to be a great place.The tutorial are explained in detail and provide a great platform for the beginners to start using Gtk.

Code:

#include<gtk/gtk.h>

int main(int argc,char *argv[])

{

    GtkWidget *window;

    gtk_init(&argc,&argv);

    window=gtk_window_new(GTK_WINDOW_TOPLEVEL);
    gtk_widget_show(window);

    gtk_main();

    return 0;
}

Screenshot:

Source: http://library.gnome.org/devel/gtk-tutorial/2.90/c39.html