Tag: free software

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FunPidgin – a fork of Pidgin Instant Messenger

I found out today that Pidgin project has been forked, using the name FunPidgin. In addition of the stock Pidgin features, FunPidgin offers :

  • “Text area manual sizing” a plugin by Artemy Kapitula that allows manual resizing of the entry area
  • An option to set the size of the buddy icons displayed in the chat window.
  • An option to let the window manager place new windows.
  • Two different ways of seeing that your buddies are typing.
  • An optional send button for Tablet PC users

I’m not going to elaborate the reason behind the fork as you can read it on the internet. But personally I think FunPidgin wouldn’t last long if they continue to make major changes from its parent project.

Currently FunPidgin is available from FunPidgin Sourceforge Project Website

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Get Free Software Stickers for your computer!

Tired of having Windows XP/Vista logo stickers on your Linux computer ? Now you can tear away those stickers and replace it with one included in the Free Software Stickers book.

Filled with hundreds of creative sticker design, the Free Software Stickers lets you announce to the world that you are using Free Software operated computer.

fsf_book.jpg

The book is a must-have for all Linux and Free Software geeks around the world. It has a collection of distro related stickers including Debian, SUSE, Slackware, Gentoo, Ubuntu, Fedora, kubuntu, Red Hat and various other non-Linux Free Software.

How do I get the sticker book ?

As with the spirit of Free Software, the sticker book is available for free through the internet. What you need to do is to select which sticker you want to put on your computer, and print it out using a self-adhesive photographic paper, which is easily obtainable from computer shops.

fsf_stickers_tn.jpg

There you go, a great way to impress your friends at any Linux user group or FOSS-UG meetup!

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How to find fastest Debian apt-get mirrors with netselect-apt

Using the nearest server to your location does not guarantee that you will get faster connection speed, other factors such as network congestions, faulty routers and bandwidth may affect the speed of your software installations.

Thus it is best to update the sources.lst file from time to time to keep updated with the fastest mirror to you, to ensure faster software installation and updates on your computer.

Generally there are two ways to do this, one is by using Synaptic to check for the fastest mirror (works for Ubuntu too!) and secondly by using netselect-apt (currently does not work for Ubuntu).

How to get fastest apt-get mirror with netselect-apt (Debian)

Firstly you need to install netselect-apt. then just run the command by typing “netselect-apt distribution name” to get the fastest mirror. Append -n switch, if you want to include the non-free repository too

Example :
# netselect-apt lenny

Example (non-free repos) :
# netselect-apt -n lenny

The application will test each apt-get mirrors it could find on debian.org site and perform some connection to estimate its speed. At the end of the test, the fastest mirror will be selected and used in the /etc/apt/sources.lst file.

Nice, but does it work on Ubuntu?
Note that although Ubuntu has netselect-apt, the application is currently broken under Ubuntu
( as of Gutsy Gibbon ). Ubuntu users should try the Synaptic method instead.