Linux and Life

Emmabuntus review - very disappointing

2013-05-17T06:32:00.000-07:00

2 weeks ago, I got an email from the team of Emmabuntus asking for a review for their distro. I agreed that I will check it soon but I had been very busy then. So today I decided to give Emmabuntus a try.

In case you have never heard about Emmabuntus before, it is a distro based on Xubuntu and according to the email I got, the aim of Emmabuntus is to be user-friendly and light-weight so it can be used on old computers.

First impressions, download and installation

Emmabuntus doesnt have a dedicated website, it uses a page on sourceforge.net for introduction about the distro and hosting the download image files.

Currently, there are 3 image files to download and I picked the latest version which is based on Xubuntu 12.04. The file size is really bigger than my expectation, over 3GB. So if you want to try this distro, make sure you use a DVD or a big enough USB.

I used Unetbootin to create the bootable USB for Emmabuntus. It booted up with no problem and the installation process is just similar to that of Ubuntu or Linux Mint, so new Linux users wont have any trouble to install Emmabuntus. Make sure you select the right keyboard layout before installing because French layout is set by default in Emmabuntus.

The installation took quite long due to the big size of the ISO file.

Emmabuntus desktop

Right after booting up Emmabuntus the first time, you will be ask to select a setting for the Cairo Dock. There are 3 options by default and I picked the second one, called "Simple". After that, the dock will appear and it will be there in the next boot up.

One the default desktop of Emmabuntus, you got a panel on top and Cairo Dock at the bottom. On the top panel there are several applets. And on the Cairo Dock, there are many applications. All your internal partitions will be shown on the desktop by default.

The default wallpaper is bluish, with a quote in French at the top right corner. I think it means " One day, the world will be free!"

Pre-installed applications

Since the ISO file is really big, there are a lot of default applications here, which reaches to the level of redundancy. You have both Firefox and Chromium, 3 music players, several chat clients, 2 video players, many games and educational apps, 4 dictionaries, and many other miscellaneous apps like wikipedia, free software news ... When you click on the Menu on the top panel, each time you hover the mouse on a section, a huge submenu will appear showing a lot of applications.

there are a lot of preinstalled apps for everything

In short, there are a lot of pre-installed applications in Emmabuntus, and many of them were unknown to me before. And this is something I really dislike because I always prefer minimal distros with just some basic preinstalled applications.

Performance and problems

This review is quite short because there are too many bugs that didnt allow me to try anything with Emmabuntus. The most serious bug happened to the keyboard layout. I didnt know what was wrong but half of my laptop keys were malfunctioned. They just gave wrong outputs. I thought something was wrong with my keyboard but after checking with a liveCD of Linux Mint, everything was still fine. So I believe it must be a problem of Emmabuntus. And since I cannot use the keyboard with Emmabuntus, I had to ditch it after several hours of testing.

Another problem with Emmabuntus is that whenever I boot up, there is always a dialog box asking me for the root password for something I dont even know.

One more thing I noticed is that the plymouth image of the bootable USB is still that of Xubuntu. After installing Emmabuntus successfully, the plymouth image will be changed. But in my opinion, it still looks quite ugly. Besides the grub 2 menu still shows Ubuntu instead of Emmabuntus.

Conclusion

Perhaps this is the first time I write a negative review for a Linux distro but I really dont like Emmabuntus. It is just Xubuntu with a lot of redundant pre-installed applications, which make the distro really bloated. Moreover the developing team is too careless and neglectful, they didnt test and double check anything before releasing the distro. So eventually I removed Emmabuntus after 3 hours.

How to navigate in Vim

2013-05-14T07:42:00.000-07:00

Vim is always my favorite text editor. I've been using Vim for over 2 years and still learning it. If you want to use Vim, the first thing you will need to know is how to navigate in Vim, since it is text-based. In this article, I will show you some basic navigation shortcut keys to use in Vim.

1. Basic navigation

The most simple way to navigate around in vim is by using the arrow keys. Another method is use the four key:
- k: move up
- j: move down
- h: to the left
- l: to the right

In case you dont want to press the same key many times, a shortcut method is to use these key with a number. For example, if you want to move the cursor to the right skipping 12 letters, you can just hit "12l" or hit "12" then press the right arrow key.

2. Navigate within a line

If you want to navigate to different position within a line, you have 4 shortcut keys:
- 0: move to the beginning of the line
- ^: to the first character of the line ( not a space)
- $: to the end of the line (space included)
- g_ : to the last character of the line ( there is a hyphen here)

3. Screen navigation

Once you open a text file in Vim, you can navigate in relation to text shown in just the screen, not the entire file. Here are the shortcut keys:

- H: to the first line in the screen
- M: to the middle line in the screen
- L: to the last line in the screen
- Ctrl+f: Jump forward one full screen.
- Ctrl+b: Jump backwards one full screen
- Ctrl+d: Jump forward (down) a half screen
- Ctrl+u: Jump back (up) one half screen

4. Navigate through paragraphs

You can use the 2 following key to navigate through paragraphs in Vim:
- {: to the beginning of a paragraph, you can press it again to move to the next paragraph
- }: to the end of a paragraph, and similarly you can press it many times to move to the next paragraphs

5. Open a file from a specific position

You can open a text file from a specific position with vim. For example, if you want to open a file from line #32, you can use the following command to open it:

 vim +32 / path/to/the/file

You can also open a file from a specific word, for example, to open a file from a certain word, say "Newyork", you can just use the following command:

 vim +/Newyork /path/to/the/file

And vim will open the file with the cursor at the word "Newyork".

6. Some other navigation shortcuts

- N%: Go to the Nth percentage line of the file.
- NG: Go to the Nth line of the file.
- G: to the end of the file.
- g: to the beginning of the file.
- `": to where you were in normal mode last time
- `^: to where you were in insert mode last time

Some tricks with htop

2013-05-04T06:42:00.002-07:00

htop is an ncurses process viewer for Linux. It is somehow similar to top but much better. In this article, I will enumerate several useful tricks with htop. These tricks will be useful for those who work as a sysadmin.

1. Display processes in a tree structure

Displaying process in a tree structure is very useful, it is much easier to identify processes with a tree structure. To enable this view, you can press F5 or the key "t".

In this tree view, you can collapse or expand a specific process by pressing "+" or "-".

2. Display the setup menu

When you press F2 or "s" , the setup menu will appear, there are big 4 setup menus. In each big menu there are several submenus for you to select.

Meters: change the behavior of the meter bar
Display options: change the display options of htop
Colors: change the color theme
Columns: Choose what column needs to be displayed for the processes in the htop output

3. Change the default update interval

The default update interval of htop is around 1.5 seconds, to change it, you can use the following command to launch htop:

 htop -d n

"n" is in tenths of seconds

4. Kill a process with htop

You can kill a process using htop. From the process list, just select the one you need to kill then press F9. A menu of signal will appear, to kill this process, select "SIGKILL" and hit Enter.

5. Kill multiple processes with htop

You can kill multiple processes with htop by grouping them first then using the SIGKILL signal. To group the processes, just select each process respectively then hit Space. The selected processes will be highlighted in yellow. To kill these processes, just hit F9 then select SIGKILL.

In case you select a wrong process, to un-select it, just hit Space again. To unselect all the selected proceses, just hit "u"

How to manage background jobs

2013-04-24T05:50:00.001-07:00

In the article about the tips to use the command line faster, I mentioned about bringing a command or a script to background if it takes a long time to run. In today's article, I will give some examples in details of how to manage background jobs in Linux.

1. Make a command run in background

If you want to run a command in background, just include an ampersand ("&") at the end of the command.

2. Send a currently running command to background

If you forgot to use the ampersand to run the command in background, you dont have to kill the currently running job then start a new background job. To send a currently running command to background, you will just need to suspend the command first by hitting Ctrl + Z, after that you use the "bg" command to send the job to the background.

3. Bring the background job to foreground

If you dont want to job to run in background anymore, you can just bring it back to foreground by using the "fg" command.

4. Bring a certain background job to foreground

One problem is that, you could run multiple commands or scripts in background and the "fg" command will just bring the most recent background job to the foreground. In case multiple jobs are running in background and you want to bring a certain one to foreground, you will need to check the jobs first. The command you can use to list all the background jobs is "jobs", just run this command and you will get a list of the background jobs.

A sample output of "jobs" will be like this:

 # jobs  
 [1]  Running         bash download-file.sh &  
 [2]- Running         evolution &  
 [3]+ Done            nautilus .

After that, if you want to bring the #2 job to foreground, the command you can use is:

 fg %2

5. Kill a background job

To kill a job running in background is easy, just use any kill command with the job ID number. For example, to kill the #1 job, the command you can use is:

 kill %1

How to disable screen lock in Fuduntu 2013.2

2013-04-21T07:08:00.000-07:00

In Fuduntu 2012.3, the screen lock feature is enabled by default. Here are 2 methods you can use to disable it:

Method 1

On the Gnome menu, go to System > Preferences, scroll down the Preferences list and you will see the Screensaver option. Click it and the Screensaver Preferences window will open, then uncheck the option "Lock screen when screensaver is active" to disable screen lock:

Method 2

You can also use the tweaking too Ailurus to disable screen lock. On the Gnome menu, go to System Tools > Ailurus. On the Ailurus window, scroll down and you will see the screensaver option. Uncheck "Lock screen when screensaver is active" to disable screen lock:

Some command examples of how to use YUM

2013-04-20T06:45:00.001-07:00

Most Linux distros provide a package manager. Debian and its derivatives use apt-get, Arch Linux uses pacman and Fedora uses YUM. YUM stands for "Yellowdog Updater Modified" and just like the other package managers of the other distros, you can use YUM for installing, removing, updating packages ...

In today's article, I will show you some command examples of how to use YUM. This may be helpful for you if you are using Fuduntu, a derivative of Fedora, like me.

1. Install a package

The command to install a package with yum is just like with apt-get:

 yum install packagename

You will need root access to run this command. After you hit enter, yum will ask you to confirm if you really want to this package. If you want to bypass this asking, you can use the option "-y":

 yum -y install packagename

2. Uninstall a package

To uninstall a package with yum, the command is:

 yum remove packagename

And just like with the install command, you will be asked to confirm if you really want to remove the package.

3. Search for a package to install

In case you dont remember the exact name of the package, you can use the following command to search for all the packages that matches the keyword and display it

 yum search keyword

The keyword just needs to be a part of the package name. How long the search process takes and how many packages will be shown after the search depend on the keyword. The more specific the keyword is, the faster the search process will take and the search output will have less packages.

4. Display additional information about a package

If you want to view additional information about a package, you can use the following command:

 yum info packagename

This command will give you a brief list of the description, the current version, the architecture, the size, licenses ... of the packag.

5. Check the installed packages

To get a list of the installed packages on your system, you can use this command:

 yum list installed | less

6. Check the packages which a file belongs to

If you like to know which package a particular file belongs to, you can use this command:

 yum provides /path/to/file

How to get the best out of Pidgin

2013-04-19T07:16:00.001-07:00

Pidgin is a free instant-messaging client that supports a lot of protocols, although better known as a Linux application, Pidgin is free to download and use on Windows as well. Currently, Pidgin is the default chat client of many Linux distros like Mint, Fuduntu, Solus... And on both Linux and Windows, Pidgin can run in your system tray without requiring a browser tab left open, flash when you receive a new message, and be quickly accessed from the taskbar.

Setup accounts

You can use Pidgin to communicate on many networks like MSN (Windows Live Messenger), AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo, ICQ, Facebook and Google Talk and you can combine all these IM accounts in one simple application. So instead of running several different IM clients that display ads and eat up memory, you can just use Pidgin. All your chat contacts across all the networks will be combined into a single buddy list, and all your conversations can be combined into a single tabbed chat window – or multiple windows, if you prefer.

To setup the accounts, just hit Ctrl + A or from the Menu, go to Accounts > Manage Accounts. On the Accounts window, you will the the Add button. Click on it to setup your IM accounts. Just scroll down the protocols section and you will find a lot of networks. You can add as many as you want – and tweak their settings.

Configure buddy list

After you add your IM accounts, all your contacts from all the networks ( except IRC) will be shown in a single buddy list.

In this buddy list, you can create groups for each network or just a group for some certain persons. And you can just drag and drop the nicks in and out of any group whenever you want. This is very handy in case you have the same contact with the same person on multiple networks or if you have contacts, like in your company, across many networks. You can also create aliases for a contact nick by right clicking on the nick and set the Alias.

Chat

Chatting with pidgin is just quite similar to other chat clients like skype, yahoo messenger, palringo ... You can group all the chat windows into one window with tabs. Or you can just drag the windows around the desktop for easy notice. All the basic features like emoicons, font and color format, attention button ... are also available in Pidgin. The options for viewing chat logs, sending files can be found in the menu at the top of each chatting window.

Settings and Plug-ins

If you hit Ctrl + P, the settings window will open providing you a good amount of control over the way Pidgin works. You can edit a lot of things, from the theme, font and color format, how the window tabs behave, the log files .... here

And if the default setting options are not enough for you, you can use and install new plug-ins to mess around. Just hit Ctrl + U an the plug-ins window will open, from which you can select many plug-ins to use.

How to change the search engine of Chromium in Fuduntu 2013.2

2013-04-17T07:27:00.001-07:00

In Fuduntu 2013.2, DuckDuckGo is used as the default search engine of the Chromium web browser. When somebody uses the search engine, Fuduntu will get a little amount of money from DuckDuckGo. However, since the Fuduntu project will be ended soon, I think there will be no negative effect if we replace the default DuckDuckGo with Google , the more familiar and powerful search engine.

To change the default search engine in Chromium, open the menu window and click on "Settings. On the settings window, scroll down and you will see the Search section, select Google instead of DuckDuckGo:

In case you dont want to remove DuckDuckGo, you can type "!g" before the search term to get the same result from google search. Similarly, use "!i" for image searching, "!b" to use Bing and "!y" to use Yahoo search.

Nearly 33 million Android devices infected with malware in 2012

2013-04-16T05:13:00.003-07:00

Malware on mobile devices grew by 163 percent in 2012, with Android being the platform most targeted, according to a recent report from mobile security provider NQ Mobile. And the problem may get worse in the future, as the bad guys will become more creative and clever to find new ways to break into mobile devices.

This report of NQ found that the number of infected mobile devices in 2012 was nearly 33 million, twice as much as in 2011. The NQ report also found that most of the infected Android devices, over 25%, are from China. The second most infected country is India, with 19.4%, and the third one is Russia, with 17.9%. This could be probably due to the fact that most devices in these countries are cheap products from unreliable manufacturers as only 9.8% of all the infected devices are found in the US. And although 33 million is a big number, it is still very small comparing to the total number of Android users worldwide.

Global Infection Rates

One of the main reasons why the number of infected Android devices is so high is that Android is still a somehow fragmented OS. The end user usually have to wait for months after Google releases a new update, as the update has to go through device manufacturers first. According to NQ, this is a serious problem for security because if a device is not able to receive the latest updates, it may become vulnerable to specific attacks. NQ also blames app-side loading and a younger user base for these high Android malware numbers.

After all, the best way to avoid malware in Android may be to treat your Android device like a Windows PC. For example, it is recommended that you should never click on any suspicious links in an email or on an unfamiliar website. This also applies when a dialogue box pops up and asks to download an app.

Fuduntu comes to end of life

2013-04-16T00:58:00.002-07:00

This is a very disappointing news. While the latest Fuduntu 2013.2 was just released days ago and is really a great distro, yesterday the developers of Fuduntu have announced that the project will be ended very soon.

The news was announced on the official blog of Fuduntu, "“Beginning today, no new features will be implemented. The only exceptions are those features which are already being worked on. We will continue to provide bug and security fixes until the last day of support, however.”

The main reason for the closing of Fuduntu is the lack of support for Gnome 2. According to the blog post, "The team has been striving to bring a stable system to the community and we believe we’ve been able to do that. One of the key aspects of that was using GNOME 2. However, as time has gone by, support for GTK2 has decreased dramatically. With this, apps using GTK2 have been moved to GTK3 and old versions are no longer being maintained for either bugs or security flaws."

And in addition to the Gnome 2 problem, the move of the Linux world to systemd is another problem that Fuduntu has to deal with.And sadly, they do not have enough time and manpower.

Fuduntu was created back in 2010 as a Linux distro based on Fedora but then it was forked afterward. And more recently, with the new releases, Fuduntu has been trying to offer a desktop experience "somewhere between Fedora and Ubuntu". Fuduntu has been loved and praised by a lot of Linux users, including me, for being one of the few distros left still using Gnome 2. Other great things that Fuduntu has is a good-looking default desktop, its stability and a nice collection of pre-installed applications.

But after the recent discussion, the Fuduntu team has ultimately voted to end the project. And 30 September will be the last official date for the distro.

Some tips to use the command line faster

2013-04-15T07:13:00.001-07:00

Everybody knows how powerful the command line is in Linux, especially servers. And if you have to deal with the command line frequently, it is very important to work efficiently and quickly. From my years of experience in Linux, here are some tips I know to work faster with the command line. If you know any other tip, feel free to contribute.

1. Use "!"

If you use the command line a lot, it is very likely that you will run several different commands in a short span of time. And if you want to re-run a command that was just recently used, using "!" is much faster than using the arrow keys to find the command. With "!", you only have to remember the name of the command. For example, if you want to re run the last "vim" command, you just need to typ "!vim" and vim will open the last file without you typing the whole command.

2. Use "!!"

Using "!!" is the best way to re-call the previous command. It is actually faster than using the arrow keys. For example, when you forget to type "sudo" before the previous command, to re-run it with sudo, you just need to type "sudo !!".

Here is an example of using "!!":

3. Use the "history" command

This is the most helpful command IMO, it is used to show the commands you have used. The "history" command will give you a list of the commands and before each command there is an associated number. And to run a certain command, you just need to type "!number". For example, "!123" will run the #123 command in your command history.

Another use of "history" is to find what exact command you had used. For example, to find which files you have moved around with the "mv" command, you can use this command:

 history | grep "mv"

And it will show you a list of all the "mv" commands you had used.

4. Use Ctrl + R to find the last matching command

Another way to know which command you just used is "Ctrl + R", but unlike the "history" command, "Ctrl + R" show only the last command. For example, if you want to know which file you just move with the most recent "mv" command, you can just hit Ctrl + R then type "mv", and it will show you the most recent "mv" command you just used.

5. Use "pushd", "popd" and "cd-" to switch directories

Typing the whole directory path for "cd" wastes time. You can just use "pushd" or "popd" to switch to and fro between two directories. It is very simple to use "pushd" and "popd". When you are in a certain directory and want to switch to another directory, instead of "cd", you can use "pushd":

 pushd /path/to/new/directory

By using this command, the original directory path will be saved to use with "popd". After finishing work in the new directory, to return to the original directory, just type:

 popd

And another way to go back to the previous directory is use "cd-"

6. Send a job to background with Ctrl + Z and "bg"

Sometimes a command will take long to finish, like when you use the "find" command, its best to just put the work to background. To put a running command to background, you will need to suspend it first. Just hit Ctrl + Z and the running command will be suspended.

After that, type "bg" and this command will be sent to background to run.

4 apps to install in Fuduntu 2013.2

2013-04-14T06:03:00.004-07:00

Although Fuduntu 2013.2 has a nice collection of pre-installed apps to meet most of your daily tasks. There are still some other apps you should install. Here are 4 apps that I installed right after installing Fuduntu.

A music player - DeadBeef

In this new release of Fuduntu, Banshee is removed, leaving VLC alone to handle the media. I dont like using VLC to listen to music so I need a music player. There are of course a myriad of music players I can choose but the chosen one is DeadBeef because it is fast, light and it integrates well with the notification applet on the gnome panel.

To install DeadBeef in Fuduntu, open the terminal and run this command:

 sudo yum install deadbeef

A torrent client - Transmission

I usually use my netbook to download torrents because it consumes less power than the desktop and laptop. And there is no torrent client preinstalled in Fuduntu. My chosen app is the familiar Transmission. To install Transmission in Fuduntu, open the terminal then run:

 sudo yum install transmission

An IRC client - Xchat

I use IRC a lot so an IRC client is a must for me. Although the pre-installed Pidgin can be used for IRC chatting, I dont really like it. Xchat is my favorite IRC client and I think Fuduntu should include Xchat by default since they also have a channel on freenode.

To install Xchat in Fuduntu, you can use this command:

 sudo yum instal xchat

Wine

Some Windows apps still dont have their Linux equivalents, and I use them on a daily basic. So Wine is a must-have app for me.

To install Wine in Fuduntu, use the following command:

 sudo yum instal wine

One thing to edit in Fuduntu 2013.2

2013-04-13T20:02:00.002-07:00

From the gnome menu in Fuduntu 2013.2, if you go to Applications > System Tools, you will see 2 options to launch Cairo Dock with and without OpenGL.

However, there are two issues with these two options.

First, although the two options are supposed to launch Cairo Dock with different backends, they actually act the same. If you click on any of the two options, you will get the same dialog box asking you if you want to enable OpenGL for Cairo Dock:

I checked the commands used for these options and it turned out that the wrong options are used for the commands. The right option to enable OpenGL is "-o" instead of "-A", and the right option to launch Cairo Dock without OpenGL is "-c". By using these two options, the dialog box wont appear to ask you if you want to enable OpenGL.

The second issue is that, if you click any of the two options, a new Cairo Dock will be launched, overlapping the old one and it will eat up your computer's memory.

The solution

Fixing these 2 problems is actually very easy, you just need to change the commands used for the two options in the menu.

The first step is create two simple scripts to launch Cairo Dock with and without OpenGL. Just create two blank scripts with gedit, for the one that launches Cairo Dock without OpenGL, use the following line:

 pkill cairo-dock && cairo-dock -c

And for the script that launches Cairo Dock with OpenGL, you use this line:

 pkill cairo-dock && cairo-dock -o

Then save these two scripts in some folder and make them executable with this command:

 sudo chmod +x name-of-script-1 name-of-script2

The next step is edit the commands. Right click on the gnome menu, you will see the "Edit Menus" option. Click on it and a new window will appear for you to edit the Menu. Scroll down to System Tools and you will see the options to edit. Right click on in and you will see the Properties option to edit the command. On the Launcher Properties window, in the Command box, browse to the script you just created in the first step (make sure you select the right script for each option) and then hit "Close:

And everything is done. From now, when you click on the options to launch Cairo Dock with or without OpenGL, it will be launched immediately without any dialog box and duplicating dock.

Meet UDOO - the Super Pi

2013-04-12T22:18:00.002-07:00

The hype of Raspberry Pi still going strong. But a new single board tiny computer just joined the game and currently raising fund on Kickstarter. It is UDOO ( pronounced "you do") , and it can run both Android and Linux.

UDOO can be considered as a Super Pi because according to the creator, it has the combined power and functionality of 4 Raspberry Pi's and an Arduino.

Here is the hardware spec of UDOO:

Freescale i.MX 6 ARM Cortex-A9 CPU Dua/Quad core 1GHz
Integrated graphics, each processor provides 3 separated accelerators for 2D, OpenGL® ES2.0 3D and OpenVG™
Atmel SAM3X8E ARM Cortex-M3 CPU (same as Arduino Due)
RAM DDR3 1GB
54 Digital I/O + Analog Input (Arduino-compatible R3 1.0 pinout)
HDMI and LVDS + Touch (I2C signals)
Ethernet RJ45 (10/100/1000 MBit)
WiFi Module
Mini USB and Mini USB OTG
USB type A (x2) and USB connector (requires a specific wire)
Analog Audio and Mic
SATA (Only Quad-Core version)
Camera connection
Micro SD (boot device)
Power Supply (5-12V) and External Battery connector

UDOO is an open-source hardware project, all the schematics will be available on the UDOO web site licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license.

UDOO merges different computing worlds in one; each world has its strengths and weaknesses, and all of them are useful today in education as well as DIYand rapid prototyping endeavors. According to the creator, UDOO is easy to use and with a few steps you can start using it and creating your projects with minimum knowledge.

And just like Raspberry Pi, the goals of UDOO are:

Develop an innovative product for a growing market
Give a new vision to the educational framework: the idea is to train up a new generation of engineers, designers and software developers skilled in digital technology: physical computing, multi-media arts, interactive arts, IoT...
Boost up the DIY world
Offer a low cost embedded platform for interactive art with powerful tools: Processing, OpenCV, PureData, openFramework
Provide companies with a great tool for fast prototyping

The fund raising campaign for UDOO was launched on KickStarter 3 days ago but it has met the goal already with over 350 backers and counting. You can check about UDOO on KickStarter and perhaps give money to support this project. UDOO has the real potential to be a big technology hit in the future IMO.

You can also read more about UDOO on it official website.

Fuduntu 2013.2 review

2013-04-12T07:35:00.000-07:00

I havent tried any new distro for months. So on the occasion that a new version of Fuduntu got released, I decided to download then install it on my Samsung netbook. As a matter of fact, I had used an older version of Fuduntu last year and somehow liked it. However a problem occurred that the downloading speed was terribly slow back then, it just took me forever to upgrade system and install new packages. So I had to ditch Fuduntu for Linux Mint and havent tried Fuduntu again since then. But after installing and using the new Fuduntu for over a day, I can say that it is different now with many improvements.

Fuduntu review - Download and install

There is nothing much to say here. To download Fuduntu, just visit the official website to select the ISO file and downloading method. I downloaded the full version whose ISO file is over 1GB , so you will need a DVD or a big enough USB to install Fuduntu. ( There is also a Lite version but the ISO is still over 800MB) After booting up with the live USB, I got directly into the live desktop. The live desktop was clean with an install button. There was also a welcome dialog box with several links.

Installing Fuduntu is easy, fast and simple. If you have installed Ubuntu or Mint before, you can install Fuduntu without troubles. The interface is different but all the steps are similar.

After 10 or perhaps 15 minutes, the install process finished. I restarted my netbook to enjoy the full experience with Fuduntu 2013.2.

Fuduntu review - Look and feel

Comparing to the 2012 version, the default desktop of this version of Fuduntu is quite the same. It is still the traditional Gnome 2 desktop. The most easy-to-notice change must be the wallpaper, it is a nice pic of a butterfly now. There are also other nice wallpapers included by default.

At the top of the desktop is a gnome panel with some basic applets, the gnome menu on the left and the notification and calendar applets on the right. At the bottom is Cairo Dock. I personally prefer AWN of the 2012 version but it is no big deal here. Generally, the default desktop of Fuduntu looks like that of MacOS.

The default theme and icons of Fuduntu are still the same. It is the famous Faenza icon set and a light, easy to the eye GTK theme. There are also several other themes and icon sets, just right click on the desktop and you will see the option for changing the look of the desktop.

There is a new tweaking application in this version of Fuduntu. It is Ailurus. To launch it, from the gnome menu, you go to Applications > System Tools. Ailurus offers a lot of tweaking options. It is perhaps similar to Ubuntu Tweak IMO:

Pre-installed applications

The biggest change in this version of Fuduntu is the pre-installed apps. Besides the tweaking tool Ailurus which I just mentioned above, there are several other new pre-installed applications in Fuduntu 2013.2.

Instead of using web-based solutions, there are many desktop applications in Fuduntu now. The dying Thunderbird is the email client ( it was just a button to launch Chromium to gmail.com in the old version). And the full LibreOffice package is there to replace Google Docs. You now also have GIMP for graphic work.

And Fuduntu 2013.2 also has a collection of simple games by default. There are 15 simple games like Solitaire, Sodoku, Mines... for you to play in Fuduntu 2013.2. It is a very good point since other popular distros like Ubuntu and Mint dont offer pre-installed games. You just need to click "Applications" on the gnome menu and you will see the Games section.

There are also several applications that got removed in this new version of Fuduntu. The most prominent one is the trademarked Jupiter applet. At first I thought the Jupiter applet will only show up when the netbook runs on battery but after I switched to using the battery, only the battery icon on the gnome panel appeared and no thunder flash. So I guess Jupiter got removed in this version of Fuduntu. I dont know the reason why.

Another app that got removed is Banshee, so VLC is the only pre-installed tool to handle media now.

Besides the new and removed apps, you still have the old ones like Chromium, Pidgin, VLC, Shotwell, Remmina, Cheese ... for the basic tasks. Codecs and Flash are pre-installed in Fuduntu so you will have no problems to watch youtube videos and listen to music here.

On the official site of Fuduntu, gaming on steam is mentioned but I didnt test it since I installed it on my netbook.

Performance

Since Fuduntu uses the good old Gnome 2, it plays nicely with hardware resource. At idle, it only eats up around 160MB / 2GB of RAM of my netbook. There is no issue with the CPUs, sound and graphic either. I also notice that there is an option to look for proprietary drivers ( System > Administration), although I didnt test this option since my netbook doesnt have any dedicated hardware.

Fuduntu 2013.2 has several minor, but important, changes in system settings. First of all, after the fresh install, you will be ask to enable the use of sudo for the normal user. By doing so, you can perform tasks as root just by typing "sudo" before the commands in the terminal.

The other change is that you wont be asked for password when mounting internal partitions. Last year, I mentioned this issue in a post and Fewt noticed and perhaps thats how this change happened. It's really nice to see developers care and listen to the feedback of users.

And last but not least, there is a huge improvement in the download speed. As I have said before, the sluggish download speed was the only reason why I ditched Fuduntu 2012. Therefore the very first thing I did after installing Fuduntu 2013.2 was upgrading the system and it ran well and fast. I also installed some new applications, Deadbeef, Xchat, Transmission and Firefox and everything was good. So Im pleased and thats why this review is written.

Conclusion

Currently, I have nothing to complain. I love the Gnome 2 desktop. The default desktop looks nice and neat. The pre-installed applications are nice enough and installing new apps is also easy and simple. And I havent encountered any performance issue so far. So in conclusion, Fuduntu 2013.2 works nicely for me and Im stilling using it.

VLC not allowed to support Blu-ray disc playback in France

2013-04-11T17:45:00.001-07:00

Recently, VideoLAN, the team behind the opensource video player VLC, has been informed by HADOPI - The anti-piracy organization in France- that VLC is not allowed to support Blu-ray disc playback in France unless they got the permission from Sony.

Since version 2.0, experimental Blu-ray support has been a feature of VLC. However, playback of disc protected by AACS (Advanced Access Content System) is not supported. VLC also does not support of BD+ discs because Sony, the developer of the Blu-ray copy protection, only provide encryption keys to licensees.

According to the French law for intellectual property, companies are allowed to ask government organisations, in this case HADOPI, for permission if important information that is essential for interoperability is withheld from them. And the French anti-piracy organisation decided that VideoLAN will have to ask Sony for the permission and they are not allowed to get information from decompiling or reverse engineering of the code. And because Sony only gives encryption keys to licensees, VideoLAN wont be able to get a license from Sony for Blu-ray playback, as they would need to opensource up the code.

From L'Informaticien.

Best apps to boost your Android devices performance

2013-04-11T07:58:00.000-07:00

In today’s fast paced world, we don’t have time for anything to slow us down. We constantly rely on our technology to help us get through the day. Whether it’s a way to get directions, emergency, mobile games or just a plain old phone call, smartphones are one of the leading and most developed tech we have. Unfortunately smartphones constantly get bogged down by old apps that continue to run in the background, which slows your device way down.

If you think your smartphone has been lacking a bit of speed since you bought it, than you should definitely check out these apps to give that old smartphone a boost!

SD Maid

SD Maid is intended for use on a rooted device, but offers limited functionality on non-rooted devices. This free app works by deleting individual app data like crash reports and logs, from old apps you might not use anymore. You can also sweep all your apps clean with the “clean all” function.

Other features of SD Maid include Explorer which allows you to pick through your Android files, App Control which lets you freeze/reset/remove downloaded and system apps, and the ability to see the largest files that hog up the most room.

There’s also a paid version of the app ($2.25) known as SD Maid Pro, which offers a couple more features.

Check and download SD Maid and SD Maid Pro on Google Play.

Clean Master

Clean Master is the all in one Android app that promises to clear your devices cache, unused files, search history and more! Highlighted features of Clean Master include History Eraser, which erases cache and other residual files which could remove hundreds of MB of data, Task Killer, which kills apps running in the background, and App Manager which includes a one-click app uninstaller and backup assistant.

The app is free and is definitely one of the most popular and well rated apps to choose from.

Check and download Clean Master on Google Play.

Android Assistant

This is a great all in one maintenance app that offers eighteen great features all bundled up into one app. Features include Process Manager, Cache Cleaner, System Clean, Save Battery and much more! All in all Android Assistant really lends a helping hand in preserving battery life, as well as offering up a potential speed boost to a bogged down handset.
There is also an ad-free version of Android Assistant for the cost of $1.99.

Check and download Android Assistant on Google Play.

System Tuner

System Tuner is another maintenance/monitoring app, but this one claims to be the lowest consuming app of the genre. It offers great features like the ability to record and monitor your smartphone’s activities, extended task killer, Application Manager, and a CPU Manager for rooted Android devices.

The app is free and has a great following, it’s definitely worth a look at if you’re looking for a good system monitoring app!

Download System Tuner now from Google Play.

Cache Clear

This app is definitely for those who are big-time internet users. The sole purpose of the app is to mop up all the existing cache to optimize your smartphone experience, but also includes other features such as trace clear and auto clear, which will clear things like browsing history, Gmail, Google Maps and more.

If you’re that hardcore internet user on the go, looking to clear that cache for some extra privacy or potential speed boost, this app is for you.

Check and download Cache Clear.

1Tap Cleaner

As the title suggests, this app offers users a fast and simple way of clearing all cache, history, call log, and text messages with just one tap. The app can improve your smartphone’s speed and space by clearing up all that built up search history.

Other cool features of 1Tap Cleaner include the ability to auto-clear cache and history on specified intervals, and view apps by cache, code, data, size or name. A great app that’s free and helps maintain your device by keeping it clean!

Check and download 1Tap Cleaner.

Gemini App Manager

A simple app that can do what most others can do, clear cache, batch uninstall apps, kill all or kill individual processes. With this app it really comes down to preference, although you’ll have the added feature of showing app abilities and info, which tells you which apps can make out-going calls/send SMS/use camera/or find your location through GPS.

Find Gemini App Manager for free on Google Play. You’ll also be able to move apps to your SD-card, which can really free up some space on the device.

Check and download Gemini App Manager.

Juice Defender

It’s the app that claims over 7,000,000 downloads, just by simply extending battery life! Juice Defender carefully monitors your Android device for the most battery-consuming functions, like WiFi and 3G/4G speeds. The app also lets you fully customize functionality of your device, which will allow for disabling/enabling connectivity of certain apps, or disabling certain apps when battery runs low.

This great app is free to download and is backed by millions of downloads and over 200,000 ratings. Try it today!

Download Juice Defender from Google Play.

Memory Booster

This app is specifically designed to tackle and manage your smartphone’s RAM, allowing your device to run more efficiently. Memory Booster works by recovering memory leaks in poorly designed apps. The app also includes other features including Memory status monitor, One-click quick boost, and Auto boost in background.

Memory Booster is the app for you if you suspect possible RAM leakage from your device.

Find Memory Booster for free on Google Play.

AppMgr III (App 2 SD)

This app is somewhat self-explanatory, it enables you to move apps to either internal or external storage, allowing for more apps on your device! App 2 SD also gives you the ability to hide system apps, batch-uninstall apps, batch-clear app cache, 1-tap clear all cache and more.

The app has almost reached 100,000 downloads, and is really a great app-management app. The app is free with a $1.99 paid version if you’re interested.

Download the free version and the paid version of AppMgr III.

About the author:

This article is written by Jacob Staggs. He is a freelance writer and have a big interest in technology, especially Android smartphones. He loves to write and share his knowledge of smartphones and gadgets across the world. You can find him at my blog for a chance to win a free smartphone, or just get the latest smartphone related news!

Underwater vehicle with a Pi brain

2013-04-10T08:16:00.005-07:00

Seems with Raspberry Pi, creativity sees no limit. Recently, a group of National University of Singapore engineering undergraduates has created an autonomous underwater vehicle, with the help of the Pi for memory-intensive functions and Arduino for precise control. And they call it "Coconut Pi".

And sponsored by RS Components, a seller of Raspberry Pi, team Coconut Pi took third place in the Singapore Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Challenge 2013. In this competition, the vehicle had to be able to identify and follow a black line and surface upon detecting a yellow floating ring. In order to do so, Raspberry Pi was used to control a webcam, whose function is to detect the obstacles and send the signals back to the Pi.

Of course, together with Raspberry Pi and Arduino, there are also other components that made up Coconut Pi. The vehicle is equipped with gyroscopes, accelerometers and magnetometers, as well as pressure and flow sensors. And to make Coconut Pi waterproof, a cheap Lock&Lock was used as the cover.

After the competition, the team has no other plans for the Coconut Pi but they said they may dismantle it for future robotics projects. But anyway, its really another awesome thing create with Raspberry Pi.

Read more about Coconut Pi

Some useful Chrome links

2013-04-09T17:09:00.002-07:00

To change the settings and access certain features of Chrome / Chromium, the common way is click the Wrench icon at the top right corner. However, Chrome/ Chromium has many other features that arent available in the menu. You can access these features only by using the chrome:// links.

Here are several useful chrome:// links that you should know, to use these chrome links, you just need to type the links in the address box.

1. chrome://dns

This link displays the list of hostnames for which the browser will prefetch the DNS records:

2. chrome://memory, chrome://memory-redirect

Both these links are the same, if you use "chrome://memory", it will be redirected to "chrome://memory-redirect". This will display the memory used by all the web browsers you are using, including other browsers than Chrome/ Chromium. This also display all the process related to browser with their PID, process name, and the memory it takes.

3. chrome://net-internals

You can use this link to capture network events generated by the browser, this link displays all networking related information. There are many useful options, like DNS, Proxy, Sockets ...

4. chrome://sync-internals

This link shows everything about the chrome sync feature, including the Sync URL used by Google, and sync statistics.

5. chrome://quota-internals

This shows how much of disk space used by the browser.

6. chrome://flags

By using this link, you can enable some of the experimental features that are hidden in Chrome/ Chromium. But you will get a warning when accessing to them because they are just experimental features. Try these features at your own risk, some may work, some may cause problems.

7. other links to access common features

You can use the links to access the common features in the Wrench menu as well. To access the settings menu, use:

 chrome://settings/

To access the downloads page, use:

 chrome://downloads

To access the bookmarks, use:

 chrome://bookmarks

To access browsing history:

 chrome://history

To access the add-ons page:

 chrome://extensions

Note: To know about all the chrome links, you can use:

 chrome://about

Meet Mantis, a 2-ton robot with a Linux brain

2013-04-09T00:41:00.003-07:00

If you have read the article about 8 awesome things created with Raspberry Pi, I believe you will love the spider robot, Charlotte. But today, I stumbled upon a very cool video on Youtube about another robot, Mantis. Compared to Charlotte, Mantis is way bigger, taller and can do more awesome things. And of course, as the article title suggests, it is controlled by a PC/104 module stack running embedded Linux.

The creator of Mantis is Matt Denton, who has a passion for special effects and animatronics for many years. And in case you dont know, he also supervised creature performance systems” used to produce numerous animatronic characters in the Harry Potter series, including Voldemort, Fawkes, Buckbeak, the Hippogriff, the Werewolf, dragons, a hexapod walking creature, and underwater dummies and fish.

Matt first introduced Mantis in 2008 but it was smaller then. But then he came up with the idea of building a giant hexapod robot, which could be remotely piloted wirelessly, or driven directly from an on-board seat.

Then from 2009 to 2012 with a lot of designing, building, and testing, the current working version of Mantis finally came to life last summer. Here are some images of Mantis in live action:

And here is the said video on youtube about Mantis:

Here is the specs of Mantis, or Mantis Hexapod Walking Machine as full name:

- Weight: 1.8 tons
- Height: 2.8 meters
- Power pack: 2.2 liter turbo diesel
- Top speed: ~ 1km/ h
- Working envelope: 5 meters
- Piloted from on-board, or remotely driven via a WiFi link
- Controlled by an embedded Linux PC

About the Linux brain of Mantis:

The brain of Mantis is the HexEngine (HE) box containing the HexaPod’s core engine control system. It will receive commands from the Operator Interface and send back the feedback. The Operator Interface is run on Windows CE though. The HE also transmits commands to various other HexaPod systems using Ethernet and WiFi.

Anyway, thats the best description I can make since everything here is way beyond my level of knowledge and comprehension. To read more about Mantis, you can directly check the official website of Micromagic System.

Tips to avoid Android spyware

2013-04-08T03:38:00.002-07:00

If you own an Android the chances are you’ve heard, or experienced, one horror story after another about data theft and privacy invasion that comes as first nature to malware meant for Android phones. Android spyware is nothing new and the platform is home to a plethora of cell phone spy apps. There are apps that will pretend to be games (like the Drop.dialer fiasco earlier this year) and steal your information and cost you a buck load of money you never knew you were spending, and then there are apps that other people can use to spy on you, using your own phone. Sure the Jelly Bean is slated to slash all security issues to pieces, but just because it’s coming out doesn’t mean your phone will be compatible with it – unless you can easily jump from one phone to another.

Most advice starts by telling Android users to be afraid… be very afraid of Android spyware. Of course if you’re smart about it there’s no reason for you to suffer at the hand of disastrous malware.

Do some digging

There are barely any obscure weird apps that can suit only a few people. There’s a plethora of apps available for a plethora of usages. If you do a little bit of homework you can easily find out which ones are good at what you do and which ones aren’t. If you find an app you like then spend a little time getting to know it better, peek into its reviews, which serve the same purpose dirty laundry does. If you find something off about the app then steer clear. Make sure you go through a good number of reviews and not just a handful because reviews can be rigged by developers at times (which is also why opting for an app created by a well known developer is a better idea). Don’t just randomly download whatever pretty apps you find – be smart about what you’re putting into your phone.

Keep it legal

Do you own a customized Android? By that I mean were you one of the smart folk who think it’s a good idea to void your warranty and root your Android? If you think that was a good idea, you’re oh so very wrong. The best way to give malware a free pass to do whatever it pleases, and potentially open yourself up to the beautiful world of stealth apps i.e. cell phone spy apps. You could have an app track everything down to the pictures you take, the calls you make, the texts you send etc. Apps like these can even track your location through your GPS. You’re not doing anyone any favors by rooting your Android, unless you’re a tech genius in which case malware would be the least of your problems, wouldn’t it? Probably not.

Don’t stray for the official store

The Play Store is the place to be if you want to avoid most, not all, malicious apps. Google doesn’t have such a good track record with ridding the store of malware and spyware; however, it does have the Bouncer in place and to a large extent that does mean that it is actively looking for and removing apps that can harm you. And while most would scoff at the idea that Google is doing anything to rid the Android platform of malware the reality is that with the JellyBean they’ve proved that they are making an effort – however effective it maybe is up for debate.

Whatchya doin’ there?

Ask your apps that question. Go through the permissions before you download an app. If it’s a game and it’s asking you for permissions to make calls, access your texts, access your GPS then something maybe off. The problem with Android is that you can’t manually control the permissions that are allotted to your apps (unlike the scorned BlackBerry which is ironically still the most secure platform around). Most users don’t give permissions a second thought, but you would be amazed at the kind of information apps ask to indulge in. Even if you’ve brought on an app that isn’t malicious, the data that it collects can be stolen by another malware based app. So you need to really look at what you’re allowing apps to do on your phone.

About the Guest Author:
This article is written by Jessica, she is a tech writer. Her work on mobistealth web application for monitoring has received great appreciation from readers who look to her keep themselves updated with the latest news regarding mobile apps. Her writings also help users who wish to take sneak peeks inside the mobile industry.

Google, Red Hat, Blackberry and EarthLink against 'patent trolls'

2013-04-07T21:20:00.001-07:00

"Patent trolling" is a real problem to tech corporations nowadays. It means that to compete with other companies, some technology companies will sell patents to licensing and intellectual property firms, legally enforcing the patents they have bought. After that, these property firms will take the targeted companies to court action for the patents. And the companies selling the patent will hide behind the property firms, they cannot be countersued as they don't stand to make money from court action.

Recently, 4 big technology companies, Google, Red Hat, Blackberry and Earthlink have sent comments to the Federal Trade Commission, calling for action against 'patent trolls'. The 4 tech companies blame 'patent trolls' for hampering innovation and reducing competition.

According to the comments, the number of court cases filled today by patent trolls is 4 times more than that in 2005, and they account for almost 2/3 of all parent litigation. Also according to Google, the main victims of patent troll court action are small and medium sized companies. Last year, the toll that US companies had to take because of paten trolls was $80 billion in direct and indirect costs.

To reduce assertions and litigation from the trolls, and increase freedom while respecting legit intellectual property claims, Google has proposed multi-party royalty-free patent licensing. Recently, Google has promised not to sue open source projects using its registered intellectual property.

However, Google is also known for using the patent troll tactic against competitors. In 2011, Google gave HTC, the mobile maker from Taiwan, 5 patents to assert against Apple. But this move failed last year when a judge disallowed it. Last month, Google appealed a ruling by a US district court judge that limited the injunctive relief available to the company if Apple were to refuse to pay license fees to it.

How to reset Kindle Fire HD to default factory settings

2013-04-07T17:57:00.005-07:00

The Kindle Fire HD is a great tablet. However, things can go wrong if you install too many applications from other sources than Amazon's. In this case, you will need to reset it to the default factory settings. You will also need to reset your Kindle Fire HD if you want to sell or gift it to somebody else. This will erase the data and account stored in the tablet. Things you have bought from Amazon, like books, movies ... are still stored in the Amazon server tied to your Amazon account.

Here is how to reset Kindle Fire HD to default factory settings:

On the top of the screen, swipe down to find the menu bar, then click on "More":

A new menu will appear, you go to the "Device" section:

At the end of the Device menu, you will see the option "Reset to Factory Defaults":

Just click on it and a dialog box will appear, asking you if you want to do the factory data reset. Just click on "Erase Everything" and wait for the reset process to run. It will take some minutes, depending on how much data need to be erased.

After the erasing process is done, your Kindle Fire HD is just like a brand new one now. If you want to register again, just go through the initial set up process again.

About the Guest Author:
This article is written by Neil, a geek whose head looks like a broom. He is the Editor-in-Charge of CompuTimes, a website about technology news and gadget reviews

Check Cyrus : DIY open source 3D printer

2013-04-07T04:47:00.002-07:00

3D printer is a technology trend now and a guy from UK just created one for his own, he named it Cyrus and is currently fund-raising for it on KickStarter.

But Cyrus is really different from the other 3D printers. What you will love about Cyrus is that all the components can be obtained easily with affordable price.

- The core of Cyrus is Extruder, an open source 3D printer project that already got funded successfully on KickStarter.
- The frame is also a successfully funded project on KickStarter, Makerbeam.
- All the other parts can be easily found in any hardware store

In short, Cyrus is much more affordable than the 3D printers made by big manufacturers. Here is a comparison chart between Cyrus and a 3D printer with the same specs:

And if you are wonder what the quality of the output products is, just take a look at what were made by Cyrus:

Nvidia's 3D Tegra driver now open sourced

2013-04-06T05:27:00.002-07:00

Seems after getting the middle finger from Linus Torvalds for its hardware support and lack of open-source drivers, Nvidia has started to care more about the Linux users. Most recently, the GPU manufacturer has open-sourced its 3D Tegra driver code.

A series of code updates was released by developers from Avionics Designs, a partner of Nvidia. This code update will allow drivers for Linux systems running the Tegra system to take advantages of the Nvidia's platform's 3D capabilities. And it will be made available in a series of three patches available through GitHub, according to Thierry Reding from Avionics Designs.

He also wrote: " This small series of patches adds support for the 3D engine found on Nvidia Tegra SoCs"

"A couple of things still need to be done before this can be merged, though"

Anyway, this is a really good news for the Linux community. Last year, in a public conference, Linus Torvalds called Nvidia "the single worst company" and gave a middle finder. With its current efforts, perhaps Nvidia deserves a praise from the Linux community now.