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Hull FLOSS SiG Inaugural Event

A fledgling group I pioneered the formation of, Hull FLOSS SiG www.hullfloss.org.uk recently held its very first event.

Since conception, it has been over a year long ardous journey for me in seeing it bear frution. Having heard so many false promises, and after approaching a couple of groups of people for their help/inclusion and their subsequent attempts at plaigarism, I was near to throwing in the towel and giving up all hope. These were disappionting and depressing times for me, especially after the amount of time & effort I'd injected and, even more so when you constantly hear the word "community" bounded around.

Within a few weeks of our offical recognition ie constituiton ratified, the appiontment of Chairperson, Secretary & Treasurer, opening of cosignatary bank account, we have generated quite a buzz in the local & wider community. Our provisional site has seen hits from a number of sources but most noteably the BBC and most recently Microsoft!

Our first event saw us attend the Hull University Freshers Bazaar, on both Sunday 24th & Monday 25th September, were we held an InfoPoint. This was organised within only a week, and saw the committee make use of a dedicated Wiki. Fortunately I'd already secured a number of CDs (OpenCd, KnoppMythTV, Ubuntu, Kubuntu - approx 200 in all) from LugRadio Live event and from Canonical (as part of the Software Freedom Day), so we wasn't short of freebies. Other members had brought their home machines with demo software running, and some nice movies of Open Source projects including XGL/Compiz, Elephants Dream and, a Spread Firefox advert (the Eskimo one).

We saw quite a significant amount of interest as midway through day two, we'd virtually exhausted stocks of CDs. A number of things that made the event a success for me was, the meeting & chatting with new people, an academic employee complimenting me on the website information. The highlight though was when three engineering students returned on day two, to say that despite their initial scepticism they tried the Ubuntu CDs, liked what they saw and thanked us :)

As we are in our infancy we still have a long journey ahead of us. I just hope that we do not lose sight of the future aims & objectives I had in mind, and that we approach our activities in a professional manner.

EP Software Patent War Rears Its Ugly Head (Again!)

A post on Znet "Software patent war ignites again"

informs that despite being derailed last year in a unanimous vote by MEPs, that the European Parliment Software Patent debate is once again raising its ugly head.

This time round it appears that if new measures are approved, of which voting is to take place next month on 10th & 11th October, this debate may possibly be removed from the hands of our elected MEPs!

Sounds like BIG businesses have spat their dummies out as they aren't getting their own way and are trying to influence politics to suit their own interests. I shall be emailing my local MEP to obtain further information and hopefully to have a dialouge with them.

Compiz to fork to Beryl

A recent premature announcment on Compiz.net forum from reports that Compiz, of XGL eyecandy fame, is in the process of forking the project to "Beryl".

"All of the work that had been maintained as the community or 'quinn' tree of compiz has become Beryl. This change is necessitated by the difference in direction and vision of our community as compared with davidr/novell's approach."

"This is intentional, and done because we are NOT creating an "angry fork", we want to make sure to stay out of davidr's way."

A more complete announcment can be found here.

Why the (old womans) name Beryl? A search on Wikipedia shows that Beryl is a gemstone

"It has a vitreous lustre and can be transparent or translucent."

Seems appropriate, although personally I think "compiz-beryl" would have at least maintained some form of continuity thus avoiding confusion within the community.

My Edgy Eft Desktop

Thought I'd place a few screenshots of my Edgy Eft install of Ubuntu. The desktop background image is not the offical image, but one that has been put forward on the web site.

The dark rectangle top right is a shell terminal program called tilda which. The 3D desktop eyecandy that is XGL & Compiz is installed and working :)

In the second screenshot is the Ubuntu System Panel (bottom left), which I believe amongst other features, is in desperate need of a border to make it asthetically pleasing. Top middle blue panel is the Deskbar/Beagle search applet.

MC-808 Editor in WINE

I received the MC-808 sampling groovebox from Roland earlier this week, which was to replace the rusting MC-505 (see previous posting). Unfortunately the wrong AC power cord (3 socket kettle lead) was supplied for the transformer which had a 2 pin (figure of 8) configuration. Also missing was a ferrite core & fixing cable for the USB lead connection. I emailed Roland UK to inform them, their response was they wasn't made aware of this from Japan! It always amazes me that even in this day in age what with electronic communication that companies fail to, communicate. Anyway the following day I received the correct mains lead & the ferrite core.

Included with the kit was a CD with both the driver and editing software for both the windoze & Mac OS X platforms. A friend suggested the possibility that the software may work on Linux under WINE. I'd forgotten about this application as I don't have any need to run any windoze programs. So I decided to give it a go and sure enough it does :)

In the manual that came with the groovebox there is some crucial data missing, namely SysEx (System Exclusive). This is an expansion on the 1980's MIDI protocol to allow synth manufacturers to provide additional parameters to the device. I emailed Roland to request this data, and received a reply that it isn't currently available. As soon as this data becomes available I'll then be able to set about writing a Linux native program to interface with the MC-808.

I've suggested to their R&D department they start to consider producing Linux software for their products, especially as it is becoming a viable alternative operating system within studio environments and the creative arts movement. If they do you heard it here first!

Playing Movie as Desktop Background in XGL

Within an XGL environment you can play movies & screensavers as part of your desktop background, which requires xwinwrap.

I spotted the following bash scripts in the Ubuntu forums, which allows you to play a movie by right clicking on a file in Nautilus file manager and selecting Scripts from the menu. I've extended the start script with Zenity to give a GUI useability.


#!/bin/bash
if
zenity --question --title="Run movie as desktop background?" --text="This script will allow you to play a movie on the desktop within your XGL environment.\n\nClick the OK button and choose the movie from the file selection."
then
xwinwrap -ni -o 0.6 -fs -s -sp -st -b -nf -- mplayer -wid WID "`zenity --file-selection`"
fi


Goodbye MC-505, Hello MC-808

I purchased a Roland MC-505 Groovebox nearly 7 years ago. It soon became the heart of my sonic arsenal due to its useability features, just check out the number of controllers, knobs, sliders, and buttons galore, not forgetting of course the D-Beam infrared control.

One weekend a few buttons rendered useless, then on another power up these buttons worked :) only to find that a further 9 didn't :(

I decided to look under the hood, and was shocked to find that the inside was pitted with rust! This rust was clearly well established as it wasn't limited to the surface, nor was it due to environmental conditions. Around these spots of rust were scuff marks and loss of sheen to the metal, which suggested signs of cleaning off surface rust prior to forming/assembly.

I recently contacted the MD of Roland UK via letter to explain the above, and fully appreciated that the warranty had well expired, and that they aren't a charity but under the circumstances at least I could expect was a replacent base unit and repair as a gesture of goodwill. Well, I received a phone call from the Customer Services Manager earlier this week and was elated to find out that they was prepared to done one better and offered either a free of charge repair which would take over 6 weeks as a replacement base would have to be obtained from Japan, or I could be the proud owner of their brand new MC-808 Sampling Groovebox with the usual warranty attached. Guess what I'm getting on Tuesday? A brand spanking new free of charge MC-808 \o/ Can't wait! :)

XGL/Compiz with Bizarre but Interesting Recursive Effect

This screenshot of my Ubuntu Dapper XGL & Compiz desktop was a result of me tinkering with the parameters in Gset-Compiz.














To recreate the effect, which appears when using the Mac OS X-esque reveal all windows, enable/select the desktop option in the [Scale] plugin.

Toggle Compiz On & Off

I use the following bash script to toggle on & off the compiz effects.

#!/bin/bash
#
# Checks to see if process "compiz.real" is running.

pid=`ps --no-heading -C compiz.real | cut -d "?" -f1`;
if [ -n "$pid" ]; then
zenity --info --text="Turning off XGL Compiz effects. Replacing window thememanager with Metacity.";
kill -9 $pid
metacity --replace &
else
zenity --info --text="Turning on XGL Compiz wibbly wobbly windows effects";
gnome-window-decorator &
compiz --replace gconf transset decoration wobbly fade minimize cube rotate zoom scale move resize place switcher &
fi

I've enhanced the original script by using zenity to display an information window depending on whether compiz effects are turned on or off.

















On the bottom Gnome panel on my desktop I have an XGL icon (red & yellow icon with a white 'X'), which launches the script.

Edgy Repos

I recently downloaded and installed a daily build of Ubuntu Edgy Eft, so I can keep informed of its development, test and try out new features, and inform of any bugs encountered. Here is a few tips you may find useful in getting a basic install of Edgy started.

You need to ensure the correct repositories are listed in the /etc/apt/sources.list file. My install only included the security repos which I edited as below;

$ sudo vi /etc/apt/sourses.list

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy-security main
# deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy-security main
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy-security universe
# deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy-security universe
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy main restricted
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy universe

Network Issues
I also encountered some network issues. The network configuration GUI interface, System>Administration>Networking, was deviod of any setting information, however the bash command ifconfig confirmed the ethernet port was setup.



$ ifconfig

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
inet addr:xx.xx.xx.15 Bcast:xx.xx.xx.255 Mask:255.xx.xx.xx
inet6 addr: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:167517 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:111091 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:244521123 (233.1 MiB) TX bytes:8510005 (8.1 MiB)
Base address:0xe800 Memory:fbfe0000-fc000000

I checked the DNS addresses in /etc/resolv.conf

$ sudo vi /etc/resolv.conf
nameserver 208.67.222.222 # openDNS
nameserver 208.67.220.220 # openDNS


OpenOffice won't upgrade
Having resolved the above and running a dist-upgrade I encountered the following error;

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Failed
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
openoffice.org-l10n-en-gb: Conflicts: openoffice.org-core (>= 2.0.3) but 2.0.3-3ubuntu3 is to be installed
openoffice.org-l10n-en-za: Conflicts: openoffice.org-core (>= 2.0.3) but 2.0.3-3ubuntu3 is to be installed
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.

The following forced removal and install of the openoffice.org and related packages was recommended on the Edgy forum here

$ sudo apt-get -f remove openoffice.org* oooqs-kde python-uno
$ sudo apt-get install openoffice.org python-uno

Next I performed the repos update and then dist-upgrade :)

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Back from LugRadio Live 2006 Event

Literally just got back from LugRadio Live event in Wolverhampton. What a action packed weekend! These guys rock! Met some familar faces and some new.

First I gotta thank Sheepeatingtaz for giving us a lift from Goole to Wolverhampton, also Chris and his father for giving us a lift from Hull to Goole.

I'm pretty knackered from the event, especially as I didn't sleep for 36 hours before going, and having only a few hours of broken sleep on the floor of Sheepeatingtaz's room. I was gonna be roughing it in a sleeping bag in a park close by, but the heavens opened up and poured down just as we left the event.

Need sleep, must sleep, sleep, sleeeeeeep.

Edgy Eft Knot 1

The development downloads of Ubuntu Edgy Eft is available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/. Each progressive development issue will be known as a "Knot", which is the position assumed by newt's during copulation. There is also a discussion forum for Edgy Eft development which can be found here.

I downloaded Knot 1 image ealier today and burnt it to CD. Been a development distro I initially tried to install as a virtual machine using VMServer, but the initial burn had errors due to a dodgy disc and hence wouldn't install. Having re-burnt the CD I installed it again via VMServer, here is a screenshot of it booting. I wasn't able to perform a docked install in VMServer, so I decided to install it on a spare 10 gig hard drive partition. This method proved more successful, except that it hasn't detected my ethernet card, which a few other people on the forum have discovered. I'm hoping to resolve this next week after getting some tips from the Ubuntu developers attending the LugRadio Live event this weekend.

Safer, Faster, Smarter - OpenDNS

There is a new free (as in beer) DNS service provided by OpenDNS, which is safer, faster and smarter than your existing DNS. The service provides safety by blocking phishing sites that attempt to steal your personal information and displays a "blocked" page. In addition they also boast about their size of cache, which increases speed. The service is also smarter by correcting common typo/spelling mistakes in the address bar.

"Not to brag, but OpenDNS caches are really big."

I've altered my DNS settings from my existing ISP DNS addresses to their respective OpenDNS IP addresses; primary 208.67.222.222, secondary 208.67.220.220 and tested them by visiting http://welcome.opendns.com which confirms whether you are using their service.

Urban Exploring Triangle Valley

Yesterday, Alan, Spike & Daisy took me on an urban exploration to an area known as Triangle Valley (GoogleEarth co-rds - Lat:53°44'54.23"N, Long:0°23'31.21"W). I gotta admit, way back in my youth I used to go urban exploring but haven't done so since. I really enjoyed the trek. The day was extremely hot, plenty of blue sky and brilliant sunshine, with a warm zephyr.

The area sits in the middle of some service railtracks, totally overgrown and secluded. To get there we cut through some waste ground which used to be alloments, and found some red currant, black currant, rasberry bushes and later found some cherry tree's all ripe, so we sampled the delights of nature by having ourselves a fruit medley, yummy!

Reaching Triangle Valley we found a nice tranquil spot to sat down to chillout and cracked open some beers (we was responsible and didn't leave our trash). Spike went off on his own exploration, brought back a stick (btw Spike is a dog). The vandal even ripped off a branch from a dead bush lol

A fun day! :)

I'll (Hopefully) Be Going To LugRadio Live 2006

That time of the year is fast approaching for LugRadio Live 2006. I'll hopefully be going if I can sort out transport as funds are pretty tight. Accomadation isn't going to be much of an issue as I'll take my sleeping bag and get some kip in the park which is real close by, and judging by GoogleEarth it looks a nice spot :)

Wibbly Wobbly Windows (aka XGL) on SuSE 10.1

Here's how I got XGL working on SuSE 10.1 running Nvidia GeForce4 MX 440 with minimum fuss;

With Yast2 make sure the following are installed on your system;
kernel-sources, gcc, make, xgl, compiz, cairo (libsvg, libsvg-cairo)

Download the appropriate proprietary Nvidia drivers from www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html
Install the downloaded driver by running from shell (logout or kill your X session);

sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-8762-pkg1.run

Once the driver is installed, configure X.org to load the driver with the following;

sax2 -r -m 0=nvidia

Assuming all of the above went smoothly launch X and you should now have an XGL environment running with wibbly wobbly windows etc...

Once installed, the settings for XGL can be found through the menu system
Desktop > Control Centre > Desktop Effects Settings

have fun :)

Beta release of Ubuntu 6.06

A beta release of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Dapper Drake has been announced Announcing Beta release of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS and is available from http://releases.ubuntu.com/6.06/.

In addition to the above, the codename for Dapper+1 was announced by Mark Shuttleworth, and is "The Edgy Eft".

And here's why. Edgy is all about cutting edge, perhaps bleeding edge,brand new code and infrastructure. It will be the right time to bring in some seriously interesting but definitely edgy new technologies which lay the groundwork for the next wave of Ubuntu development.

An Eft is a youthful newt, going through its first exploration of the rocky territory just outside the stream. And that's exactly what we hope the development team will do with Ubuntu during the Edgy cycle - explore slightly unfamiliar and uncharted territory that is perhaps a little out of the mainstream.

So dream a little about Xen for virtualisation, Xgl/AIGLX and other wonderful wobbly window bits, the goodness of Network Manager, a first flirt with multiarch support for true mixed 32-bit and 64-bit computing on AMD64, the interesting possibilities of the SMART package manager... and other pieces of infrastructure which have appeared tantalisingly on the horizon.announcement in full

Novell Linux vs. Window$ Report

During one of our surf sessions, a friend Daisy pointed me to the following Novell report on the Linux v Window$ debate Linux vs. Windows: Why more companies are choosing to operate Linux versus Windows in the enterprise

Whilst it is somewhat biased from Novell's marketing perspective, this report is well presented, honest and goes some distance in aleviating the misinformation on Microsoft$ "Get The Facts" FUD campaign.

GNOME 2.14 Released

The ever popular GNOME desktop environment offically released version 2.14, release Notes.

This release has had a major overhaul to enhance features to both end-user and administrators alike, of which there are too many to mention in this blog, more details.

With all of these improvements combined with the forthcoming release of Ubuntu Dapper Drake, things are looking promising for a wider adoption of Linux as a desktop operating system.

HullLUG breaches the UK and EU Data Protection Acts?

I performed a recent search here on Blogger.com for my local linux user group, namely Hull LUG and was amazed when I spotted the following

HULL Linux User Group breaches the UK and EU Data Protection Acts

This has raised a number questions which I've posted to the group . I'm hoping that this matter is fully addressed and looked into as it is damaging publicity for the group.

Dapper Drake Flight 4

I recently downloaded the development release of Ubuntu's Dapper Drake. The download had a few hicups, firstly the server must have been getting hammered due to high traffic as the download was painfully slow. At approx 27% of the download my ISP decided to cut my connection!

Having reconnected I attempted to resume the download in Firefox, but this didn't take effect which was annoying. Just in case I encountered any other unwanted disconnects I decided on using Downloader For X, which is available from the Universe repository. To install simply sudo apt-get install d4x

After approx 12hrs of downloading, I burned the CD image, and got it installed. It was well worth the wait :)

What struck me the most was the improved usability making it more appealing as a desktop ready distro. Even better is watching the development slowly improve, on an almost daily basis, through the Update Manager notifications.

I'm truly impressed with what is already on offer with Dapper and look forward to seeing the offical release, which I understand has been delayed by 6 weeks in order to, (forgive the pun but I couldn't resist) "plump up its feathers".