We are going to take a quick look to all those important news that were published during this week:

• OpenOffice.org 3.0 RC3 was published. Even though it was supposed to be published at the end of September, it seems that they want to fix some issues by this time. So we have to wait until…
• Yesterday was also published Ubuntu 8.10 beta (there is nothing important to say, except the horrible wallpaper that they set as default, download it). Novell released the second beta of OpenSUSE 11.1 as well (download it).
• Gentoo team decided to cancel 2008.1 release, so until 2009 we won’t see another big release.
• A courious new: a hackers kernel team achieve to boot a linux on an EeePC in only 5 seconds!
• There is a new KDE release, the 4.1.2, that fix a problem removing files (now is faster).
• And The Gimp 2.6 was also released, and it came with a lot of changes: now the menu bar is not on the drawing tools window, developers changed it to a new window. The result is: Gimp is approaching its aspect to Photoshop (on Mac). It is possible to have it on Ubuntu Hardy using the getdeb repository.

I can’t understand why, after many releases, usb support is not working by default on GNU/Linux when using VirtualBox. Also, the way to enable it is different for each distribution.

In Fedora 9, the way to enable it is:

1. Create a “usb” group.

Go to System > Administration > Users and groups. Then click on “Add group” and create a gropu named “usb” with ID 502 (usually is that ID by default).

2. Add this line to fstab.

Just open a terminal, log in as a root and edit fstab (using gedit, for example) and add this line:
none /sys/bus/usb/drivers usbfs devgid=502,devmode=664 0 0

3. Add your user to that group and re-mount the file system:
gpasswd -a your_user usb
mount -a

4. Restart VirtualBox and check if the usb is working now. If not, try restarting the system.

Here is the guide to do the same in Fedora 8.

• Source | Stuff

When we want to obtain the code (or just the color) that is in our desktop (can be on firefox, or simply on other application) we can try different ways to obtain it:

1. Calling Homer Simpson and ask him which color he think that the color in question is.

2. Opening The Gimp, double click to the color, and there is an option to catch whichever color on the screen.

3. Using Gcolor2. Gcolor2 is a small application that allows us to catch whichever color on the screen. It is basically the same as The Gimp do, but gcolor2 is faster. Also, gcolor2 remember all colors that we caught.

Gcolor2 can be found in almost all repositories of all the GNU/Linux distributions.

Mandriva 2009 beta was released yesterday. Among all the changes that we can find, there is one kind of interesting: the new installer.

As openSUSE did, the Mandriva team decided to improve the installation program and now it is really cool. About package versions, this beta updates OpenOffice.org to version 3.0 beta (they hope that the final OOo release will be published at the same time as Mandriva 2009 will do).

Also, it includes the atl1e driver used by several new Asus Eee models; Firefox 2 is completely removed from the repositories and now we only can find Firefox 3; it includes the last version of KDE 4.1, which is the default desktop and the official Mandriva theme, Ia Ora, is further integrated into KDE 4 in this release.

• Link | Release announcement | Release notes
• Download | Mandriva 2009 Beta DVD

I’ve looking for information about configuring Fedora 9 on a MacBookPro and I didn’t find anything (just a shame). For that reason I’d like to resume the main steps to configure the basic things that a normal user would need.

• Installation

There is nothing important to remark. First we have to install rEFit on MacOSX. Download the lastest version of Fedora (at this moment, Fedora 9), put the cd in the drive and restart the computer. The installation will start and we only have to follow the typical steps: create two partitions at minimum (firts it’ll be necessary to reduce the mac partition and the create one partition for the base system and the other one for swap). Anaconda will install the bootloader at /dev/sdax, and that’s alright; don’t select the MBR because it won’t work.

• Graphic driver

At this moment, the last fglrx version is the 8.7 and it is not compatible with Xorg 7.4. but it seems that the radeonhd testing driver works fine and it can run Compiz. It is necessary to add the update-testing repositories and install the radeonhd module:
yum --enablerepo=updates-testing install xorg-x11-drv-radeonhd
yum --enablerepo=updates-testing update

Once updated, it is necessary to edit the xorg.conf file and add some lines. Just look this one. Then restart the computer and go to System > Preferences > Look&Feel > Desktop Effects and enable them. It will work perfectly (at least it worked for me).

• Webcam (iSight)

After trying a lot of ways to set it up, finally I was successful. What I did:

1. Install the package isight-firmware-tools from the package manager.

2. Download the AppleUSBVideoSupport and extract it:
ift-extract --apple-driver AppleUSBVideoSupport

3. Edit your xorg.conf and copy this Module section:
Section "Module"
Load "synaptics"
Load "extmod"
Load "dbe"
Load "glx"
Load "xtrap"
Load "dri"
Load "GLcore"
Load "record"
EndSection

4. Restart the computer and if you are lucky, it will work (try with Skype, Cheese or Ekiga)

• Keyboard

For me, it works well. I missed up the AltGr and Del keys. The way to fix it is too easy. Go to System > Preferences > Keyboard. On the Layout Options tab, select “Third Level Choosers” and check “Press Right Win-key to choose 3rd level” (this key is the right apple on the keyboard).

To add a Del key, for example we can use the next key after the right apple. Create a text file as ~/.xmodmap containing the following text:

keycode 108 = Delete

And run xmodmap each time you start GNOME. Go to System > Preferences > Personal > Sessions and add this command:
xmodmap /home/your_user/.xmodmap

• Network

If you use the ethernet, maybe it is not interesting for you to configure the wireless card. However, it’s always good to set it up thinking about future situations. First of all, install development software (gcc, make, etc.). To do that, just go to System->Administration->Install/Remove Software and then, search for those programs (it’s kind of crappy because if you search for “make” it will appear a lot of results, so you have to find it by alphabetic order).

Once installed, it’s time to download the lastest madwifi drivers. Unpack them in your preferred folder, open a terminal and go to that folder. Then, compile it:
make
make install (the second line as a root)

Next time you restart the computer, the wifi will be active. Each time you upgrade the kernel, it is necessary to compile the driver again.

From here, the next points are basically for either computer. It is just configuring multimedia codecs and other basic stuff.

• Multimedia codecs

First it’s necessary to add the livna repository. To do it, just type as a root in a terminal:
rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-9.rpm
rpm --import http://rpm.livna.org/RPM-LIVNA-GPG-KEY

And then, install codecs:
yum install gstreamer-plugins-good gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-plugins-ugly
yum install libdvdcss libdvdread libdvdnav lsdvd libdvbpsi
yum install ffmpeg ffmpeg-compat libmatroska xvidcore

To install flash (always as a root):
rpm -Uvh http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/adobe-release/adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm
yum install flash-plugin
mozilla-plugin-config -i -g -v

The last command is to register the plugin (it is not always necessary).

There is other easier way to install all multimedia codecs and other interesting software. In the Fedora Forums you can find more information about it.

__

Well, at this moment this is enough. I will add more tips later.

It’s been three years since the free web operating system EyeOS was released. Now, more than 200,000 users are using it. It was developed by Catalan programmers in Olesa de Montserrat (Catalonia) and they are going to open up new centers in France and in the U.S.

EyeOS is basically a free desktop environment that works through the web navigator. We can try (and normally use it) from the official web because they offer us the necessary space and tools to do it. On the other hand, we can choose download and install it in our own server.

In the basic package, we can find some office programs, games, feeds reader, etc. Also, there are some extensions or other applications developed by third parties that can be downloaded and installed from eyeApps.org and from the public server.

After three years, EyeOS has became the most popular web operating system and it is improved each release. Each day, 300 or 400 people sign up on the free server and every week more than 1,000,000 people visit the web.

Don’t know EyeOS?… Try it!!

• Link | EyeOS is 3!

Carlos Castro is one of the main reasons for which LinEX, the first regional Spanish GNU/Linux distribution, became a reference all around the world (there is a documentary in EuroNews).

LinEX was developed with the support (monetary support) of the Extremadura Government (in Spain) and a couple of years later was introduced in all the schools. At this moment, LinEX is being implemented in hospitals, administration buildings, etc. Also, LinEX was installed in some banks in Colombia.

In Spain, people have to pay a “canon” each time that they buy an electronic product. At the beginning, it was just for cds, but now Spaniards have to pay a canon when they buy cell phones, printers, computers and even for the broadband. All this was because of the Spanish Government (at this moment the PSOE, they are supposed socialists, in theory, but not always in practice) who wanted to compensate those artists who were “losing money” because of piracy.

Carlos Castro criticised this “canon” a lot because it is completely unjust: people have to pay indiscriminately because at this moment it is impossible to differentiate who is practising piracy and who is not. He said:

“…to try to reach the government with the sole support of that mediocre artists class that don’t know how to live without subsidies and grants is a shame. Most people don’t agree with those speculators who call themselves “progressives”…”

These critics where deprived of authority by the Extremadura Government (that was forced to do by the Spainish central Government), and finally, Castro decided to leave his position in the project on his own.

The SGAE (a Spanish artists association) earned up to 500.000€ (about 660.000$) due to LinEX sales (for each cd that LinEX made, 0.30 cents of € was for the SGAE because all cd’s are taxed, even when it’s sure that they are not going to be used for piracy).

Now, Carlos Castro’s blog is closed and he’s gone. And we all would like to know what is going to happen with the most important free software movement in Spain without the main ideologist.

Two days ago, a friend of mine who discovered GNU/Linux more or less some days before, tried to install Ubuntu on his father’s computer. The problem was that it wasn’t only his father’s computer, it was property of the school where he works.

He started Ubuntu on the graphical mode and when the installation program was reducing the windows partition something went wrong and the system blocked itself. My friend was scared, so he rebooted the computer, started the text installation and installed Ubuntu on the “new partition” (yes, even though the partitioning tool seemed to fail, after in the text installation there was a new partition like if the process had finished well).

After the installation, there was no Windows option in the Grub menu, so the windows partition was broken after all. We tried using testdisk to recover the partition table, but it didn’t work. Therefore, we had to look for another solution: recover files from the disk.

Foremost

Foremost is the tool we used to recover the files. It usually can be installed using the distribution repositories. Also, there are so many live distributions such as RipLinux prepared for all these recovering tasks.

One thing else that we need to recover our files is an usb disk where the recovered files will be saved. It is important to note that you should not write to the failed disk, because it can overwrite existant data in case of lost files.

To use foremost is really easy. It works searching by extension, so we have to specify the extension we want to look for and where we want to save the recovered data. When we connect an usb disk, the system usually mounts it at /media/disk (or similar), so that’s the place where we are saving our recovered data. Note that the usb disk have to be empty.

With all this, here is the command we have to execute in the terminal (as a root or using sudo if you can):

sudo foremost -t extension -i /dev/sdx -o /media/disk

As you can see, the extension have to be that one that we need (doc, ppt, pdf, wmv, avi, mpg, jpg, png, etc.). /dev/sdx represents the hard disk where we want to search to recover the files and /media/disk represents the place where the recovered data will be saved.

You will see that the recovered files have no name, just numbers (for example 123532423.doc). That means that we will have to open each one of them to see what is inside.

More information about recovering data in the Ubuntu Wiki.

Free Software can also help us writing novels. StorYBook is a tool created in order to make easier the hard task that writing novels is: it is complicated to safe in our memory every thing that happen in the story, all the elements, etc.

StoryBook helps us to make it easy. When we open the program, we can choose among 3 views:

• The Chronological View shows the scenes sorted by date.
• The Manage Chapters and Scenes view shows all chapters and their assigned scenes. Scenes can be moved and renumbered by Drag-and-Drop.
• The Book View shows all chapters and their assigned scenes sorted by chapter and scene numbers, as you would read it in the final book.

Also, we can organize strands and strand links, characters, locations, chapters, parts, information related with the scenes, etc. The program allows us to adjust the view we need among those we commented before, and saves automatically (instant save) our story (we don’t have to do anything).

The 2.1.2 version has been published some days ago. One of the most interesting new features is the possibility to export to PDF. StorYBook works under GNU/Linux, Windows and Mac (programmed on java) and is GPL.

Despite the considerable advances that the free software has made in the last years in its «market share» in different fields in informatics, only in a few of this fields free software has the supremacy. One of these is the field of web servers.

Sure enough, Apache, a free web server, is one of the most used and, probably, free software alternatives in conjoint are more used than its privative equivalences. Free software has proved that is the best alternative to manage the software that servers needed, but free software also provides good tools to compose them.

In fact, it is possible to build almost any kind of website using free software. Those people who were accustomed to use visual publishers to build webpages, such as Dreamweaver, will be happy to know the existence of kompoZer. Mozilla created an application to create webs as easily as write a rich text document. This application was named Mozilla Composer and was integrated in the Internet suite that now is known as Mozilla Seamonkey. This software package is no longer maintained by Mozilla, but for a community of developers that forked it, and so Mozilla Composer is not currently being updated at all.

Then, Linspire, a free software company, sponsored a sort of continuation of the Mozilla Composer, that was named NVU. NVU neither has been updated since September of 2006, so a group of programmers has made kompoZer, that basically is a new version made from the last published version of NVU with the correction of all the bugs that they found. In spite of all the problems in the long development progress, kompoZer is a very useful tool to create simple websites without HTML knowledge, and is good to edit them without complications.

Nowadays, however, many users are looking for something a bit more complex. Such as a blog software. There are several alternatives that allow to make blogs easily, some of them were created many years ago, are very mature and have a lot of support in forums because a lot of people are using them (such as Wordpress); other just begin its development (such as Gesbit); others were privative and have switched to free software (such as MovableType). Between all these, we will focus the comment in Wordpress, cause it is perhaps the most used.

Once installed, Wordpress allows you to manage a blog and it is simple and comfortable. It Includes an intuitive administration dashboard to such effect. Any detail has been covered by the programmers: there is an option to upload and manage images easily, to include links to other blogs, to order categories for posts, etc. Also it is possible to write «Pages», that is to say, entries that are not in chronological order, for example the legal warning, the prvacity policy or other texts that have to be permanent visible.

You can also use free software if you look for even more complete solutions. For example, if we want to create a website for an association, probably we will need to include a forum, a place to upload documents, a space for news, etc. It’s not necessary to say that developing all this from the very beginning would be outrageous. We can use free software alternatives that already exists, for example PHP-Nuke, PostNuke, Drupal or Joomla.

PHP-Nuke Is free software that allows the creation of «portals» or «spaces for communities» very easily. Once installed, it has got an internal searcher, news, documents and articles module, a forum and a basic stats service (among another things). All his functionalities are expansible thanks to its modular structure and to the  quantity of free modules that can be found on the internet.

From PHP-Nuke was developed PostNuke, a software with strength similitudes and some differences, such as a more complex system of permission management to users (the systems of permission management is used to specify who can see each content). So the security is improved.

Besides these alternatives commented, Drupal and Joomla are programs that also can be used for this same task, very mature and with a big community, which has allowed them grow in popularity recently. As of today, when Drupal and Joomla are probably more used than PHP-Nuke and PostNuke.

However, maybe you need only a complement for your web, such as a forum (no a complete solution for communities like those that we already have commented) or any tool that allow you to edit texts collaboratively, such as happens in Wikipedia. The software will allow you to do this, respectively, phpBB and MediaWiki.

phpBB is the ideal tool to made a forum. The administrator can choose if it is necessary that the visitors register to take part in discussions and, in general, can select the options that believes most convenient from a very extensive list of options. The participants can attach to their contributions a small text or photos as a footer, that helps to identify them.

MediaWiki is the software that is used by the Wikipedia and, therefore, one of the best alternatives to write texts collaboratively. It includes control tools to ensure that amongst the people who take part in the writing process, there is always good faith and no malicious user damages the work.

You will need neither privative software to edit your graphics for your web: with GIMP or Krita free image editors you will do a good job. To sum up: they are many high-quality free tools that can serve to make websites.