This guide works for the gnome desktop manager (used by Ubuntu and other Linux distributions).

First we go to Gnome-looks. This is a large collection of themes and other artwork that can be used to make gnome look any which way you like. From there we select and download a theme. Since many people have asked what theme I use, I chose my theme, SlicknesS-black, for the example. Once we’ve downloaded our theme and saved it to the desktop, we will then extract it to the desktop.

Once it is extracted, in the terminal we enter the following commands to copy the theme files to the shared theme directory (where the themes manager looks for it) and change the permissions to make it available to all users of the computer:

$ sudo cp -r $HOME/Desktop/SlicknesS-black /usr/share/themes
$ sudo chmod 755 /usr/share/themes/SlicknesS-black/Sluckness-black.jpg

Remember, file and directory names are case-sensitive in Linux, so be careful to use the correct case.

Next we open the theme manager (in this case System -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Themes) and we should see our new theme listed there!

For Ubuntu users only - you may notice if you choose to install SlicknesS-black an error that states the engine “ubuntulooks” is not found. If that is the case enter the following command in the terminal to install the missing theme engine:

$ sudo apt-get install gtk2-engines-ubuntulooks

Enjoy your new theme!

(The wallpapers I use can be found at beautifulfractals and are available under the Creative Commons license)

From CCSM under Desktop click to enable Desktop Cube (and then disable Desktop Wall), and enable Rotate Cube. Under Effects enable Cube Reflection and Deformation (and resolve the conflict by disabling Next Slide) and 3D Windows.

Now we click on Desktop Cube and then the Appearance tab, and click on Skydome (Skydome is the image displayed behind the cube, on the “sky”). From here we click on the first checkbox to enable the background, and then Skydome Image to browse to the picture we want to use. Note - if you click “Animate Skydome” the background image will rotate when you rotate the cube.

Going then to Cube Reflection and Deformation and choose Appearance. Here we’ll set the top and bottom images, or “caps.” Just click New and browse to the images wanted, and you can then remove the default images by clicking on them then clicking Delete. Then we choose the Reflection tab and click on the Reflection Mode, then Distance. Next we choose the Deformation tab and then Sphere for a spherical “cube,” Cylinder for a cylindrical one, and None for a normal cube. Note - Aspect ratio will make your sphere look more round or more squished (oblong?) depending on what you put there.

CTRL-ALT-leftmousebutton is the default for rotating your sphere.

Next we will install the compiz-fusion-plugins-unsupported. Open up a terminal and enter the following command:

$ sudo aptitude install compiz-fusion-plugins-unsupported

When that is done enter CCSM and enable Snow under Extras, for a little freezing fun. Super/Windowskey-f3 starts and stops the snow falling.

Have fun!

For a more practical usage via a proper UI, you can check out KDE Accessibility package which comes with KTTSmgr a front-end GUI manager for festival with very extensive options and kmouth a GUI for text to speech.

KTTS Manager

Kmouth

I probably would have never known about the state of TTS application for Linux if I didn’t have to research for a disable friend and I was a bit surprised to learn that it doesn’t come installed by default. Do any of you rely on any accessibility application on Linux systems? If so, how would you compare it with OSX and Vista Accessibility options?

Here’s how you get started:

We need enable Compiz by going to System->Preferences->Appearance->Visual Effects and select the “Extra” radio button.

You can install Compiz settings manager from the terminal…

$ sudo aptitude install compizconfig-settings-manager

or install it from synaptic.

You can access Compiz Settings Manager from: System-> Preferences-> CCSM

Here first we click Enhanced Desktop Zoom and show where we can remap the keys. To zoom (we demonstrate the zoom here as well as using it to show the command line when we install ccsm) the default is super+mouse wheel (super is usually mapped to the Windows key for US keyboards).

Next we click the Animations Add-On, and show what is available, enabling it.

Then onward to animations, and show how to add animations to the random effects pool, and how to turn on random animations. If we don’t select any animations from the pool, the random animations will be from the entire list.

And voila, all the desktop affects you could ever ask for! I’m going to put Compiz in a few sections and next week I’ll be touching base on the aspects of functionality, such as multiple window managing, desktop switching and window thumbnail previews!

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[ Note: In order to use Compiz Fusion and most of its advanced effects you will need a reasonably decent Graphics Card. Most of these effects and CCSM can be used is all Linux Distro, but here only Ubuntu is used as an example. ]

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First we need to install several libraries, including libdvdcss2 (for help installing this see my previous video here). Then we install a DVD ripper (I chose Thoggen because it is quick and easy). And that’s it, you can rip away to your heart’s content!

Thoggen: http://thoggen.net/
HandbrakeGTK: http://handbrake.fr/

The DVD ripping program I chose was Thoggen for its ease of use and simplicity. It automatically rips the DVD to .OGM (Ogg media) format. VLC and other media players should be able to play this without a problem, but if you need help installing codecs install ffmpeg (see my video here where I explain it) as it contains a whole codec library. Other DVD ripping programs can save to other formats, so feel free to install and use the ripper of your choice.

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**In the United States it is illegal to break the encryption on encrypted DVDs. It violates the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), specifically the anti-circumvention provisions. So while copying your DVDs and keeping a copy can be considered fair use, the act of breaking the encryption using this guide is illegal in the US, so please only do this if you live in a country where you won’t be breaking any laws by doing this!

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Time for another poll. :)

I have been thinking about Ubuntu One a lot lately and I really like the whole concept of saving system configurations on the cloud (which it will eventually evolve in to from simple storage) and being able to sync into your new computer or recovering from a lost machine. Even if you don’t take those things in to consideration, a simple storage system is not so bad even though a better storage system already exists (dropbox).

Also the question of where Ubuntu (or Desktop OS in general) are heading to in the near future. Even though I have a lot of respect for RMS I find myself disagreeing with him in many things, including his views about Cloud computing and storage.

Anyways, fell free to vote on the poll (sidebar, RSS readers will need to visit the website) and share your thoughts in the comments.

1) BackTrack: Backtrack is the most widely known pen-test distribution out there. The latest release (4 Beta) has been ported to Debian/Ubuntu from Slackware and now can be installed locally as a full distribution and tools can be updated using Backtrack repositories. Backtrack includes more than 300+ security tools.

2) Knoppix STD: As the name suggests this distribution is based on Knoppix and STD stands for Security Tools Distribution. This distribution didn’t get any update (like most pen-test distros) in a long time and might not work on some new hardwares but they have a fairly good collection of tools. xfce fluxbox is used for desktop environment.

3) nUbuntu: Based on Ubuntu and fluxbox, nUbuntu is a fairly new and active pen-test distribution. They have partnered with an Italian IT security company for future nUbuntu certification and training.

4) Network Security Toolkit: NST is a Fedora based Live distribution and unlike some other pen-test distro NST can be used under virtual machine without any network configuration problems (from my experience). NST also have a unique Web User Interface to access tools and manage configurations.

5) PEENTO: A Gentoo based pen-test live cd (you could have guessed) that actually looks very nice. They are using Enlightenment for DE and has quite a few unique pen-test tools including GPU based cracking software pyrit.

There used to be a time when there were a lot of active pen-test projects out there, but eventually most of them died off from lack of updates. Notably Auditor, WHAX ( later merged in to backtrack), PHLAK to name a few. Which pen-test live cd do you use or tried before?

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Anyone who has tried to convert multimedia files in Windows knows how challenging it can be. There are a ton of different programs out there to do it, but most of them either leave a watermark in your video, lower the resolution of your video, or both, unless you pay hundreds of dollars. ffmpeg can do this for you quickly, conveniently, and completely free - and can even be used in Windows! This video was created for Ubuntu, but will work for most Linux distributions, and the code you learn here to convert a file can be applied to the Windows version as well, though Windows’ scripting language is different so you will need to adjust the batch conversion script.

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Single File Conversion

sudo apt-get install ffmpeg

ffmpeg -formats (lists all available formats based on the currently installed codecs, to be used with -vcodec, -acodec, and -f)

ffmpeg -i inputfilename.ext -vcodec wmv2 -sameq -acodec wmav2 -f asf outfile.asf

ffmpeg - start ffmpeg
(-i inputfilename.ext - tells ffmpeg the file name and extension from which to convert)
(-vcodec wmv2 - use video codec wmv2)
(-sameq - use same video quality as source file)
(-acodec wmav2 - use audio codec wmav2)
(-f asf - choose output format, sometimes known as a container, in this case asf)

Bonus Batch Conversion

sudo touch convert.sh (here we use touch to create a blank file, not always necessary to do that rather than through a text editor but it is safer with permissions and such)

gksu gedit convert.sh (this is only available for gnome desktops, i.e. ubuntu and the like, so you can tell people to use whatever text editor they like)

sudo chmod 0777 convert.sh (like last time, chmod changes file or directory permissions, in this case giving access to everyone to read, write, execute the script)

./convert.sh (runs the script convert.sh on files in the /Videos directory)

ls (ls -l lists all files and directories plus permissions)

script:

for f in *.MOV; do ffmpeg -i “$f” -vcodec wmv2 -sameq -acodec wmav2 “${f%.MOV}.asf”; done

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Some of you might know that Ubuntu recently launched a beta online storage service called “Ubuntu One”. This service looks very similar to what other popular online storage service like dropbox already does, except that Ubuntu One (pro service) is more expensive than Dropbox and the fact that dropbox client already supports Linux very well that it makes little sense to use Ubuntu One as an online storage service. Unless you consider these facts:

1) More than just backup: Online storage and file sync is just one aspect of what Ubuntu One will be about. Although it is still in the early stage, eventually the goal of Ubuntu One is to be able to integrate with applications so that you can backup / store / retrieve application-specific information and share with other computers (or users) if you want. Something very similar to what OSX already does with MobileME.
 

2) Cloud is the future: RMS may not like it but the future of desktop OS will be a form of collaboration between cloud services and desktop clients. So it makes little sense for popular Linux distributions like Ubuntu to be left out of this evolutionary change other OS will be eventually embracing in a major way. We need more ways to appeal Linux distributions to new users and take proactive steps to be in sync with the ways people use computers.
 
3) Funds for future Ubuntu development: Perhaps most important (to me) is that Canonical is looking for ways to generate funds for future development of Ubuntu. As Ubuntu grows in popularity so does the cost of keeping things running smoothly. You can only raise so much money by selling cups, t-shirts and from donations or providing paid support services. Ubuntu is still supported by funds from Mark Shuttleworth with an initial “emergency” fund of $10 million. If Ubuntu One paid service gets enough members it will generate a source of funds for future developments of Ubuntu. If you ask me this is a win-win for everyone.

What do you think of Ubuntu One? Are you willing to pay $10 per month (10GB) for Ubuntu One which will also help fund future developments of Ubuntu?

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