Tag: linux

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New features in Ubuntu Hardy Heron (due in 20 days)

Though the main focus of the upcoming release of Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron) is for long term support and bug fixes of existing features, Hardy Heron still packs quite a few notable features to look forward to :

Wubi and umenu

Installation without creating a separate partition for Ubuntu Linux is made easier with Wubi! Inserting Ubuntu CDROM will display a start up application which enables you to install Ubuntu on your windows partition using a loopback device.

wubi ubuntu installer

umenu ubuntu installer using wubi

After installation, Ubuntu will be added as one of bootable operating system in your Windows boot menu.

Install Ubuntu without the need to repartition, format and hassle.

Fine-grained User Permission Control
Ubuntu Hardy Heron integrates PolicyKit on administrative user interfaces. This allows you to have better control over user access on specific administrative task. For example, you can assign privilege for one user to access network controls but not software installation.

PolicyKit in Hardy Heron

Easy to use host-based firewall
The new Ubuntu release, Hardy Heron also includes ufw (uncomplicated firewall) that is easy to setup and use by end users without bothering network admnistrators.

New default bittorrent downloader
Transmission replaced Gnome Bittorrrent as the default bittorrent downloader in Ubuntu Hardy Heron LTS. Transmission is a lightweight bittorrent client with automatic banning feature and protocol encryption.

transmission.jpg

Additionally, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS also includes GNOME 2.22 and Firefox 3 Beta, which is better integrated with GNOME desktop environment. I’m looking forward for the next Ubuntu release, due on April 24th, 2008, that is three weeks from now!

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exifprobe – easiest way to get GPS location from JPEG files

I’ve seen few photos taken from a GPS capable camera and the photo can be traced back to its original location using photo-navigation capable GPS devices.

These GPS coordinates are stored inside JPEG files which comforms to EXIF specification (using GPS IFD). However, I found out the f-spot photo manager while capable of reading EXIF metadata from JPEG, it can’t display the GPS coordinates properly upon reading the JPEG files.

Gunung Jerai Camping Spot

This is rather annoying to me as I can’t possibly know the location where the photo was taken.

exifprobe to the rescue
Fortunately there is exifprobe. A CLI tool which able to display GPS coordinate on JPEG files among other things. The displayed coordinate from EXIF probe are in this format

degree, minute, second

so this output 

Latitude                    = 5,47,39
Longitude                   = 100,24,10

would become 5° 47′ 39″ N, 100° 24′ 10″ E which you can enter on google maps to get its location.

Easy isnt it

p/s: btw, The location is within Gunung Jerai camping area where it is a popular camping spot for locals and tourists in Kedah (Malaysia).

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403 Forbidden during Ubuntu Gutsy Security Update

Some of you may encounter the message 403 Forbidden during Ubuntu Gutsy Security update, especially when you does your update using “sudo apt-get upgrade”.

The message was displayed because the Ubuntu team deliberately block security updates from the server side following reports that the updates are breaking xorg-server package (this very same incident also happened last year, during Dapper release).

Thankfully the issue has been handled by the Ubuntu team, and now you can continue updating your computer without any interruption or side effects from installing the security updates.

Was Ubuntu the only distro affected by this problem?
Credit to enforcer, now I know there are several other distro (OpenSuSE, Gentoo, Debian) besides Ubuntu that experienced this problem.

Should I install any security updates ?
It highly advisable to install security updates whenever they are available from the update server. Failure of doing so may expose your system to various security holes and vulnerability which can lead to your system being compromised by malicious party.

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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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Tango Icons Theme on Nokia Symbian Phone

I know, I know. Tango icons has been done to the death on websites, documents, presentations and as Desktop icons. This is due to the popularity of Tango icons itself. and thanks to the liberal Creative Commons license, everybody is free to use the icons (without paying royalty) as long as they give credits (attribution) to the Tango icon project.

Checkout this cool Symbian Series 60 theme. It almost made your phone looks like its running a Linux based operating system, does it?

s60-tango-app-grid1.png

This theme can be downloaded from Tango Symbian60 Theme website and is available for Noka Symbian Series 60 2nd and 3rd Edition.

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Clonezilla – Open Source Partition & Disk Cloning Solution

Clonezilla is a free and open source harddisk cloning tool with partition cloning capability. Clonezilla sets itself aparts from similar similar disk cloning solutions like Symantec Ghost and PartImage as it is able to massively clone a lot of computers simultaneously with the help of a DRBL server.

clonezilla.png

Clonezilla is also a flexible tool as it can be used to clone computer individually without the need of of a DRBL server. Clonezilla is able to save space by cloning only used blocks on the disk on computers with supported filesystem (ext2, ext3, reiserfs, xfs, jfs,vfat,ntfs). Cloning unsupported filesystem is also made possible with sector-by-sector copy functionality offered by this remarkable tool.

Get CloneZilla (Live CD) now for your hard disk cloning solutions