Hentzenwerke is a family-run publishing company which provides great books about Linux operating system, OpenOffice.org office suite and Visual FoxPro. Currently Whil Hentzen is writing a book about a live Linux distribution, called Knoppix. The book, Knoppix Explained, is going to be published sometime in October 2006. I’m very honoured to be selected as one of the reviewers of the manuscript. It is the first time I’m doing a job like this. Maybe it is a bit similar to beta testing software, and I have a lot of experience with this. With the help of my sister I’ll try to provide as much feedback as possible and help make the book a pleasant read. The first two chapters have just arrived, so I’d better get reading.

Tags: book, books, linux, knoppix, distribution, distributions, open source, free software

Soon after I woke up today I’ve heard a door knock. Who could that be. No one at home is expecting a visit. It turned out that it was a delivery man from FedEx. What is this all about? I haven’t ordered anything recently. It looks like that I got a package. And if it is free, why not. When I opened the package another box was inside. On the box it was written: SUSE Linux 10.1. Then I remembered that a couple of months ago SUSE was asking all the beta testers of the alpha and beta versions for their mailing addresses. And this free retail box of SUSE Linux 10.1 is a thank you present for all of us who helped make this Linux distribution as great as it is. Here is what is in the box that otherwise costs only around €50/$60: 6 CDs, one DVD (both for 32 and 64-bit AMD64 compatible computers) and a 246-page Start-up Guide.

I’ll probably give this box as a birthday or holiday present to someone I know (or don’t know yet). And if you would like to get the same present from SUSE, now is you chance. They have just released version 10.2 Alpha 2 for testing. Download it, find bugs, report them and when openSUSE 10.2 final gets released a delivery man may also be knocking on your door.

Tags: suse, opensuse, linux, operating systems, novell, open source, free software, distributions

Although I think speed and usability are more important than eye-candy, it is still important to a lot of people. I’ve observed that it is especially important to younger people. A friend of my cousin (still in primary school) has installed OpenSUSE (as his first Linux ever) not so long ago. One of his main reasons to install Linux were that he liked it how very nice the icons in KDE were and how you can choose from so many screen savers and themes/decorations. Soon after he installed OpenSUSE he found out about XGL and Compiz and managed to set it up. He was so impressed with the graphical effects that he quickly showed his desktop to other friends. And soon enough my cousin also asked me if I could set it up for him and others were also starting to ask if I could burn them an OpenSUSE DVD and install it on their computers too. So eye-candy is important and can help a lot to spur more interest about Linux.

To get all these nice graphical effects on Linux today you need separate software. All the components to make it happen are slowly getting integrated directly into desktops like KDE or GNOME. And when talking about KDE, they have already started to integrate some needed parts into the code for KDE 4. But unfortunately they don’t have enough of free developers to work on this. So they are looking for developers with enough knowledge about graphics programming, OpenGL and XRender. If you have all these skills and would like to help this great open source desktop, then be sure to read this blog entry by Lubos Lunak and step in touch with KDE developers. The kids will sure thank you a lot. As will many others.

Tags: kde, linux, xgl, compiz, open source, free software, graphics, opengl

On this day the support for the old Windows 9x product line ends with termination of the support for Windows 98 and Windows ME. What this means is that if new security or other issues are discovered you will not get patches to fix it and your computer will be even more vulnerable then it is now. If you are still using one of these older versions of Windows, now is a good time to upgrade the operating system and maybe even the computer itself.

But before you rush into the store and spend a lot of money on possible upgrades, be sure to check an alternative that can save you all this money. Take some time and check out the free (as in costless and as in freedom) operating called Linux. You can download many distributions (different “flavours”) like Mandriva, Kubuntu/Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, openSUSE and many others for free. Some of them can even run directly from CD or DVD (these are called “Live” distributions) so you don’t have to install it on your hard disk. This means you can try them without any worries about accidentally overwriting or deleting your existing files. And yes, a complete office suite comes with all these distributions.

Well this is my advice to you and I think it can’ hurt to try something new. Now it is up to you to do it, see it and decide for yourself.

Tags: windows, linux, operating systems, support, open source, free software, distributions

While updating my local copy of source code from KDE SVN repository and reading the latest issue of KDE Commit Digest (I’ve translated the interface into Slovenian language) I noticed that Harish Kukreja has imported Physiks into the repository. The original name for this Google Summer of Code project was KPhysics (you can read a bit more about it in my previous post), but since many new KDE applications have dropped the K prefix KPhysics was renamed to Physiks. Now I have its code on my hard drive and I will keep my eye on the development so that after the SoC is over I can start to help as quickly as possible and help make Physiks a great tool for physics teachers who will use it to show virtual physical experiments to students.

Tags: physics, kphysics, physiks, education, open source, free software, linux, kde, google summer of code, soc

After quite some time I’ve visited digg.com today and the first thing I could see was that they have redesigned the site. I immediately checked it out in Konqueror web browser and I’m happy to see that the site now works in it. The most interesting story on digg.com was about something called GLS³ (or GLScube). This is short for GNU/Linux Semantic Storage System. It brings a new way of finding data on your computer. In addition to sorting it by location you can now also tag data and quickly find it by content, description, relation or some other meta-data. There are videos of it on the site which show some of the features in action. The system is open source (released under the GPL license) and I can’t wait to see it integrated into desktop environments like KDE and GNOME.

Tags: linux, filesystem, open source, free software, digg.com, konqueror

It looks like we’ll be getting another free electronic magazine for Linux. It is dedicated to Mandriva Linux distribution and is called Mandriva Linux Inside. There will be no schedule or deadlines for publishing new issues. It will all depend on the amount of articles submitted by Mandriva community. This includes Mandriva employees and users. So if you have any great ideas for a contribution, start writing. Proposals for improvements and new articles are also welcome. See editorial of the first issue for e-mail of Gaël Duval who started this project.

Free download of the magazine:
Mandriva Linux Inside – Issue 1 – February 2006 | ED2K

Tags: magazines, mandriva

During the presentation of their upcoming Linux Desktop 10 at Solutions Linux conference in Paris, Novell showed some very interesting and good looking visual effects that Xgl brings to the Linux desktop. I especially like the visual task switcher which displays the actual contents of windows. You can even see the video actually playing in the thumbnail of the window. 3D cube for switching among virtual desktops is also very nice. You can get the videos from Linux Edge.

Update: For some more information you can also see the official Novell page:
Novell Raises the Bar for the Linux Desktop

Update 2: Another movie of Xgl / Compiz in action (11m 43s, 58 MiB)

Tags: novell, desktop, x.org, xgl, opengl, graphics

I’m a regular reader of two free electronic magazines: TUX Magazine (perfect for new Linux users) and Free Software Magazine (all about free and open source software). They both come in PDF and are made professionally. I’ve already talked about them here on this blog: TUX and FSM. A couple of days ago I found another high quality free magazine: O3 Magazine. This is how publishers describe it:

The focus of O3 is on the use of Free and Open Source (FOSS) software in Enterprise Data Networking environments. Some articles in O3 will introduce open source solutions, while some are designed to demonstrate how to integrate open source solutions with leading Enterprise Data Networking hardware from a wide variety of vendors.

After reading the first two issues I added it to the list of regularly read magazines right away.

In February 2006 issue of TUX you can read about: getting Linux onto desktops and everywhere else, Hydrogen, OpenOffice.org 2.0 Impress, KDE Instant Messaging, OpenOffice.org 2.0 Base, Neverball, Mozilla Firefox 1.5 and OpenOffice.org 2.0 Math.

In January, February 2006 issue of Free Software Magazine: what’s free about free software, X Window System, browsers for Mac OS X, GRUB, Debian GNU/Linux, convincing management to approve free software, political campaigning using the Internet, 64 Studo, free matter economy and how free software liberated Venezuela.

And in January 2006 issue of O3: Linux and the IBM zSeries mainframes, networking the IBM zSeries, Grsecurity, Real time streaming protocol (RTSP), Load Balancing IDS, Deploying Localized Web Services and dNMS.

You can download these magazines from here:
TUX Magazine | ED2K
Free Software Magazine | ED2K
O3 Magazine | ED2K

Tags: magazines, free software, open source, administration, enterprise, networking

About an hour ago version 3.5.1 of K Desktop Environment (KDE for short) was released. This is mainly a bugfix release and it also has updated translations and localizations. Slovenian translation finally made it past the magic 90% mark. For more information about KDE 3.5.1 read the release announcement and the changelog. Now let’s see how long it takes until it gets unmasked in Gentoo portage

In addition to the new release, a new web page was launched, SpreadKDE.org. A lot of inspiration came from the well known Spread Firefox page. I hope many KDE users gather around it and start promoting KDE more passionately. The world has to know about this excellent desktop.

Tags: kde, desktop, marketing

At the end of the last year a lot of open source developers got very mad at Novell, because they took the source code of Xgl and started working on it behind the closed doors. Critics argued that this is not the right way to do it and that they should just do everything in public.

It looks like people at Novell listened and I’m glad to see that David Reveman released the latest Xgl code to public. There are a lot of changes in this code. It is restructured to support drivers other than nVidia propriatery ones, there is some support for Xvideo extension and many bug fixes and enhancements. David is also working on an OpenGL compositing manager named compiz. He is planing to release it at XDevConf in February. More information is available in this announcement.

I hope that this incident brought more attention to Xgl and that now developers focus on nothing else but open and active development. Can’t wait to see how future Linux desktops like KDE 4 will use all the power of hardware accelerated OpenGL drawing that Xgl will bring.

Tags: linux, x.org, xgl, opengl, graphics

Introduction to part 2

It looks like the first part of my KDE 3.5 previews was extremely popular. Much more than I could ever anticipated. I even got Slashdotted. Anyway, here is the second part of the look into the KDE’s near future. Enjoy the tour!

More about Konqueror

Let me continue with Konqueror. Search bar (comes with kdeaddons package) now has the possibility to select the desired search engine from a dropdown menu similar to the one in Firefox. To select which engines are available in the menu you simply put a check mark before its name in the Web Shortcuts settings dialog.

During the past two weeks a new del.icio.us bookmarks panel made into KDE 3.5. del.icio.us is a special online social bookmarks managing system and now you can do many of the tasks directly from within Konqueror. If you would like to use it, first make sure you have Navigation Panel open (enable it under Window menu or press F9). Then right click on an empty spot under existing tabs and select the new panel from Add New submenu.

File properties dialog got a new Preview tab, which I don’t find as handy as the preview in the tooltip you get when you hold the mouse over some file.

KSysGuard

KSysGuard is a very nice and quite powerfull system monitoring utility. Process table used to take quite a long time to start up but now loads a lot faster (almost instantly). It also has a new search bar at the top so you can quickly filter out the desired processes. The Kill Process dialog now shows you the PIDs and names of the processes you are about to terminate.

Smooth Blend

While Plastik remains the default a new window decoration theme has been added to kdeartwork package. It’s called Smooth Blend and what I like about it is that you can set the titlebar hight, frame width and button size. This is how it looks by default:

SuperKaramba

Another piece of software that got included into the official KDE package (kdeutils) is SuperKaramba. Those of you who like eyecandy probably know it already. It puts some really nice looking widgets (themes) on the desktop. Widgets can show various information like your local weather, system information and music you are currently playing.

I’ve discovered some problems while using it. It happens frequently that when you download a theme using the integrated Get New Stuff system the theme doesn’t even get installed and doesn’t show in the configuration window. Sometimes you also get several entries. One is named correctly and others are just names of the different languages in which the same theme you just downloaded is available in. This is mostly the problem of theme packaging. But normal users probably don’t know this and will get confused and they will just think SuperKaramba is buggy and not polished enough. So it would be great if developers and theme authors could work together to solve this problem.

KCalc

KDE calculator has improved display showing current angle mode and base. I guess the statusbar where the same information is duplicated can now be removed or used for some other info. A few new constants were added and some corrected. Arbitrary precision using GNU Multiple Precision Arithmetic Library is under development.

End of part 2

This concludes the second part of KDE 3.5 previews. More words and pictures will come again in about two weeks. Until then you can also take a look at Artwork for KDE 3.5 forum at KDE-Artists.org where people from all around the world contribute to the looks of the next KDE version. The main theme is going to be a wave. And don’t forget about aKademy 2005 in Málaga, Spain.

Translations and derivative works

Hebrew by Uri Sharf
Slovenian by Jure Repinc

Tags: kde, desktop, konqueror, superkaramba, linux

Ste naveličani Windowsov, virusov, črvov in dragih licenc? Potem je mogoče že srajni čas, da poskusite nekaj varnejšega, novega, drugačnega in povrhu vsega še brezplačnega. Pridružite se nam 12. avgusta 2005 na osnovni šoli Sava Kladnika v Sevnici, kjer boste lahko preizkusili operacijski sistem Linux in o njem izvedeli vse, kar vas bo zanimalo. Na vas bo čakalo 15 računalnikov in dva mentorja. Vstop je prost, za domov pa boste prejeli tudi brezplačno zgoščenko s prostim operacijskim sistemom Linux. Za dodatne informacije se obrnite na Martina Herwega.

Issue 5 of TUX Magazine is out. In August 2005 edition you can read these topics:

• P2P

• Drawing Upon the Community
• An Evolution of Linux Distributions
• Letters
• Q&A with Mango Parfait

• How to Use the OpenOffice.org Calc Spreadsheet, Part II

• Guarddog Firewall Configuration
• Introduction to Quanta
• Dancing with Windows
• A Matter of Choice (or Selections, That Is)

• Linspire Is Filled with Linspiration
• Gadget Guy: Snap Snap!
• digiKam
• Impress
• Planner
• XChat

The download is available from magazine’s home page, using ED2K links or BitTorrent.

Tags: tux, magazine, linux, free software, open source

Let me remind you there is less then a month until the beginning of the 2nd international Linux training camp, which starts on 20th and ends on 27th August here in Bohinj, Slovenia. Last year’s Red Hat Summer Camp was a huge success. For this year Red Hat and Housing prepared a program with 4 different tracks to choose from: Pingo Linux (for beginners and people new to Linux), RH300 with RH302 (get certified for RHCE), RH133 (Enterprise Linux System Administration) and Lab track (MySQL, PHP, firewall). In addition to learning about Linux, each track includes sport activities (adrenalin park, canyoning, rafting…). I hope you come and visit us here in beautiful Triglav National Park.

Tags: linux, training, red hat, summer, camp, bohinj, slovenia