The Perfect Desktop - Ubuntu Studio 11.04

This tutorial shows how you can set up an Ubuntu Studio 11.04 desktop that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge.
I want to say first that this is not the only way of setting up such a system. There are many ways of achieving this goal but this is the way I take. I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

1 Preliminary Note

To fully replace a Windows desktop, I want the Ubuntu Studio desktop to have the following software installed:

Graphics:

• The GIMP - free software replacement for Adobe Photoshop
• Shotwell Photo Manager - full-featured personal photo management application for the GNOME desktop
• Google Picasa - application for organizing and editing digital photos

Internet:

• Firefox
• Opera
• Chromium - Google's open-source browser
• Flash Player 10
• FileZilla - multithreaded FTP client
• Thunderbird - email and news client
• Evolution - combines e-mail, calendar, address book, and task list management functions
• aMule - P2P file sharing application
• Transmission BitTorrent Client - Bittorrent client
• Vuze - Java Bittorrent client
• Empathy IM Client - multi-platform instant messaging client
• Skype
• Google Earth
• Xchat IRC - IRC client
• Gwibber Social Client - open-source microblogging client (Twitter, Facebook, etc.)

Office:

• LibreOffice Writer - replacement for Microsoft Word
• LibreOffice Calc - replacement for Microsoft Excel
• Adobe Reader
• GnuCash - double-entry book-keeping personal finance system, similar to Quicken
• Scribus - open source desktop publishing (DTP) application

Sound & Video:

• Amarok - audio player
• Audacity - free, open source, cross platform digital audio editor
• Banshee - audio player, can encode/decode various formats and synchronize music with Apple iPods
• MPlayer - media player (video/audio), supports WMA
• Rhythmbox Music Player - audio player, similar to Apple's iTunes, with support for iPods
• gtkPod - software similar to Apple's iTunes, supports iPod, iPod nano, iPod shuffle, iPod photo, and iPod mini
• XMMS - audio player similar to Winamp
• dvd::rip - full featured DVD copy program
• Kino - free digital video editor
• Sound Juicer CD Extractor - CD ripping tool, supports various audio codecs
• VLC Media Player - media player (video/audio)
• RealPlayer - media player (available for i386 systems only)
• Totem - media player (video/audio)
• Xine - media player, supports various formats; can play DVDs
• Brasero - CD/DVD burning program
• K3B - CD/DVD burning program
• Multimedia Codecs

Programming:

• KompoZer - WYSIWYG HTML editor, similar to Macromedia Dreamweaver, but not as feature-rich (yet)
• Bluefish - text editor, suitable for many programming and markup languages
• Quanta Plus - web development environment, including a WYSIWYG editor

Other:

• VirtualBox OSE- lets you run your old Windows desktop as a virtual machine under your Linux desktop, so you don't have to entirely abandon Windows
• TrueType fonts
• Java
• Read-/Write support for NTFS partitions

Lots of our desired applications are available in the Ubuntu repositories, and some of these applications have been contributed by the Ubuntu community.
As you might have noticed, a few applications are redundant, for example there are two CD/DVD burning applications in my list (Brasero, K3B). If you know which one you like best, you obviously don't need to install the other applications, however if you like choice, then of course you can install both. The same goes for music players like Amarok, Banshee, Rhythmbox, XMMS or browsers (Firefox, Opera, Chromium).
I will use the username falko in this tutorial. Please replace it with your own username.

2 Installing The Base System

The installation of the base system is easy as 1-2-3 because the Ubuntu Studio installer doesn't offer a lot of options to choose from, so you cannot go wrong.
Download the Ubuntu Studio iso image from http://ubuntustudio.org/downloads, burn it onto a DVD, and boot your computer from it. Select your language:

Then select Install Ubuntu Studio:

Choose your language again (?):

Then select your location:

If you've selected an uncommon combination of language and location (like English as the language and Germany as the location, as in my case), the installer might tell you that there is no locale defined for this combination; in this case you have to select the locale manually. I select en_US.UTF-8 here:

Choose a keyboard layout (you will be asked to press a few keys, and the installer will try to detect your keyboard layout based on the keys you pressed):

The installer checks the installation CD, your hardware, and configures the network with DHCP if there is a DHCP server in the network:

You can accept the default hostname or specify your own one:

Please check if the installer detected your time zone correctly. If so, select Yes, otherwise No:

Now you have to partition your hard disk. For simplicity's sake I will create one big partition (with the mount point /) and a little swap partition so I select Guided - use entire disk (of course, the partitioning is totally up to you - if you like, you can create more than just one big partition, and you can also use LVM):

Select the disk that you want to partition:

When you're finished, hit Yes when you're asked Write the changes to disks?:

Afterwards, your new partitions are being created and formatted.

Fedora 15 Boosts Linux Security with Dynamic Firewalls

As the starting point for many IT perimeter defense architectures, the firewall is a critical piece of security technology. In the upcoming, Fedora 15 Linux distribution release, a new dynamic firewall technology will help to improve the critical cornerstone technology for server and desktop users.
Fedora is a Linux community project sponsored by Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) and is set to release Fedora 15 on May 24th. Security improvements are a key focus in the Fedora 15 release with a number of innovations.
"We have better support for encrypted home directories that get mounted when you log in and that goes a long way to help people feel that their data is secure," Jared Smith, Fedora Project Leader told InternetNews.com.

"Most Linux systems use IP tables type firewalls and the problem is that if you want to make a change to the firewall, it's hard to modify on the fly without reloading the entire firewall," Smith said. "Fedora 15 is really the first mainstream operating system to have a dynamic firewall where you can add or change rules and keep the firewall up and responding while you're making changing."
Smith added that the dynamic firewall technology will still need development work, but it is available in Fedora 15 for users to start playing with to see how it works with their environments.
The dynamic firewall isn't just for inbound traffic either. It can also dynamically adjust to the needs of outbound traffic originating behind the firewall.
"One of the cool things about the dynamic firewall in Fedora 15 is that it has a dbus interface, so individual applications can communicate with the firewall," Smith said. "The apps can tell the firewall to open up a port for a period of time and then shut it back down."

                                              

                                                                         
                               

Beta des Firefox 5 mit CSS-Animationen

Nachdem die Mozilla-Entwickler zu einem ähnlichen Versionsmodell wie Google mit seinem Chrome-Browser übergegangen sind, haben sie jetzt die erste Beta des Firefox 5 vorgelegt. In vier Wochen soll bereits die Produktivversion folgen. Größte Neuerung ist die Unterstützung von CSS-Animationen, die andere Browser wie Safari schon länger bieten. Die gleichzeitig erschienene Beta des Firefox 5 für Android kann Do-Not-Track-Header senden – wie die Entwickler schreiben, "als erster mobiler Browser überhaupt".

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Die Beta des Firefox 5 für Android erlaubt das Senden von Do-Not-Track-Headern, die vor dem Protokollieren des Surf-Verhaltens schützen sollen.
Bild: mozilla.com Bei einer CSS-Animation legt der Entwickler ihre Dauer und ihren Namen in den CSS-Regeln für das betreffende HTML-Element fest. Dem mit diesem Namen kombinierten Selektor @keyframes folgen dann Regeln, die Start- und Endpunkt sowie eventuelle Zwischenstadien des Elements beschreiben. Ähnlich wie bei der Browser-Engine Webkit ist allen Attributen noch ein -mozdev- vorangestellt, um sie als nicht endgültig zu kennzeichnen. Die Beispiele auf der Mozilla-Webseite sollten zwar auch mit einem Webkit-Browser funktionieren, ein Tippfehler verhindert dies jedoch: Statt -webkit-animation-duration: slidein; müsste es -webkit-animation-name: slidein; heißen.
Wer einen Beta- oder Aurora-Browser benutzt, kann jetzt leichter zu der jeweiligen anderen Version wechseln. Die Einstellung für den Do-Not-Track-Header haben die Entwickler in "Tools/Options/Privacy" verschoben, wo sie einfacher zu finden sein soll. Mit diesem Header können Anwender Websites signalisieren, dass sie keine Speicherung ihres Surf-Verhaltens wünschen. Ob die Sites darauf reagieren, bleibt ihnen überlassen.
Weitere Änderungen betreffen unter anderem eine Beschleunigung des JSON-Parser und die Unterstützung der click-Methode für alle HTML-Elemente. Letzteres ist in HTML5 vorgesehen. Die Release-Notes führen alle Änderungen auf. Eine Modifikation betrifft unter Umständen Autoren von Erweiterungen: Die Eigenschaft navigator.language enthält nun denselben Wert wie der HTTP-Header Accept-Language. Bislang konnten sich beide Einträge unterscheiden, wobei die Property die Sprache des Browser-GUI bestimmte und der Header die bevorzugte Lokalisierung angezeigter Webseiten. (ck)

How-to: run Chrome OS as a virtual machine

Itching for some Chrome OS? Well, we all are, but you might be a bit disappointed at the fact that while Google has open-sourced its progress on the OS so far, the version that is currently available for download seems eons behind what Google showed off at its event yesterday. Still, if you just have to see it for yourself, the good news is that it's a total breeze to get a virtual machine running. We used a VMWare image that was packaged up by the kind folks at gdgt, and set it up with VMWare Fusion running on a recent model MacBook Pro. Your mileage may vary depending on your particular setup (there's also an image available for the free, cross-platform VirtualBox software), but the principles should remain the same. Check it out on video after the break.

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