Ubuntu for Tablets and Smartphones, Just a Geeky Dream?

Although attempts were made to use Ubuntu on phones and tablets, we haven’t got an official release of this OS for mobiles. I saw it run on the Galaxy Tab and it did pretty good and on some smartphones, but it’s quite hard to install and customize on these devices.

But now, it seems the wait is over: Canonical wants to launch Ubuntu straight to the top, right besides Windows Mobile, Apple iOS and Android some time in 2014, with the coming of version 14.04 LTS of Ubuntu, a long time to wait but it has a lot of ground to catch up.

The company announced that the release of this OS that could be integrated with ARM processors, thus making Ubuntu a mobile OS for us to enjoy.

“It’s important for us to reach out to our community on these platforms. So, we’ll embrace the challenge of how to use Ubuntu on smartphones, tablets, and smart screens”

Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth told Vaughan-Nichols.  So there it is: it’s official!

Ubuntu to Unify Smartphones and Tablets

Unlike Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility, Canonical will not offer its own smarphones, but then again, neither did Google in the beginning. Mark Shuttleworth also promised an “uniform update service” through Ubuntu’s One service, thus reducing the possibility of fragmentation, a problem that has occurred with other mobile OS’s such as Android. Another bug the guys at Canonical will have to iron out, is the power management setting, that caused some problems for the 11.04 version, but with 2 more years ahead of them, they will surely find a solution to this issue.

But, until we get to 2014 and the release of Ubuntu 14.04, we could have a look at what has been already done with Ubuntu on the mobile market with some hard work from the Linux OS aficionados, and with help from hardware developers, the progress made promises some cool gadgets in the future, as Shuttleworth suggested:

“Our engagement with the PC market will help bring the results of this work to a huge audience – partnerships with the likes of Dell, HP, Asus, Lenovo, Acer, IBM, Vodafone and more are a gateway to users who want continuous, connected, cross-device computing”

We did get a preview of what Ubuntu could be for media devices, with Ubuntu Unity, an OS capable of unifying all gadgets under one single OS and User Interface, although it has integrated software. To become a player such as Apple and Android, it will need an App Store, keeping this in mind, I’d say this project has a high chance of success. The progress far Ubuntu has to be staggering and the applications awesome. The OS looks great and it will work like a charm.

Battle of the Tablet and Smartphone OS: Android, iOS, Windows Phone and … Ubuntu ?

Although Linux OS is in a disadvantage before iOS, Windows Mobile and Android, due to its lack of applications, not yet being a mainstream OS (it falls under the category of “geek OS”), the biggest problem it faces is the lack of manufacturers willing to invest in Ubuntu powered mobile devices. This was exactly the same problem why Linux didn’t succeed in the first place. Not because the operating system was not as great as Windows or Mac, but because they lacked distribution channels and marketing power.

One of these manufacturers did take a stab in the dark and tried to make Ubuntu powered gadgets, and until now they did a pretty
good job. Despite the fact we don’t see them at any corner, GizChina is trying to integrate these tablets and with some software and hardware upgrades it will certainly succeed.

GizChina has showed us not one, but two tablets running the Ubuntu OS, one with 10” capacitive display and the other with a 9.7” display, both running on the Intel 1.66GHz Atom CPU, 1 Gb DDR memory and an awesome 16GB SSD for storage. We saw then that the Ubuntu OS could handle mobile technology such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi; video cameras capacities and so, an official version of this OS could be a great idea. Also, some Linux lovers installed Ubuntu on tablets and smartphones already, but the integration needs lots of tweaks, and the process itself is laborious, only done by the really gifted geeks.

An Upcoming Battle?

Now, let’s skip forward a couple of years: Microsoft has released Windows 8, maybe some major updates for Windows Mobile 7 and even Windows Mobile 8, Android are announcing their new OS, better than Ice Cream Sandwich (with an equally odd name), Apple have perfected iOS 6 and planing the for the future. The hardware market is full of quad core cell phones and maybe even six or eight core with lots of GB in the DDR3 memory, how will this newcomer in the world of mobile OS’s cope with these mammoths?

The next years will be a continuous battle for Canonical to bring a working, user friendly OS for the users, but, if they succeed, I think people will enjoy and use them. I know I will!

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I want to change my desktop from this:

to this:

While I go on about ‘how to‘, I will also point out why to do these changes. Before I start, let me tell you about the applications you will get with Stock ‘Ubuntu’ and their drawbacks.

1. Gwibber

My heartfelt apologies to Gwibber team, but I personally don’t like their interface one bit. Hence, all the advantages of having a Gwibber service running in background and indicator telling the number of tweets/DM, goes in vain. If anyone can bear with the interface then it indeed is a social network client well integrated with Unity interface (using indicator api).

Alternative: My alternative in this guide is ‘Hotot‘. I prefer it over Gwibber because of 2 reasons:

a) It has a neater interface.
b) I use Facebook as web client instead of desktop

You can get ‘Hotot’ by writing these commands in terminal:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:hotot-team
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install hotot

If you want to remove Gwibber, then write these commands:

$ sudo apt-get remove gwibber gwibber-service

To remove Gwibber from indicator applet follow this command

$ sudo rm -rf /usr/share/indicators/messages/applications/gwibber*

2. Evolution

It is decent enough desktop email client, also well integrated with ‘Ubuntu’, but I found it lagging at times and giving errors while fetching mails for Google imap server. Another problem with the Evolution was its clunky interface.

Alternative: In this guide, alternative Email client is going to be Thunderbird. Ubuntu is going for Thunderbird + Lightning for Oneric (next release of Ubuntu). The reasons for this choice are:

a) Nice UI
b) Fast and responsive

You can get ‘Thunderbird’ by writing these commands in terminal:

$ sudo apt-get install thunderbird xul-ext-lightning xul-ext-gdata-provider xul-ext-calendar-timezones thunderbird-globalmenu thunderbird-gnome-support

You will also need an extension if you want the notifications to be shown properly in unity indicator. You can get it by following these steps:

a) Download ‘Thunderbird Indicator’ from this link http://launchpad.net/libnotify-mozilla/1.1/1.1/+download/thunderbird-indicator-1.1.xpi  (Don’t open this link in Firefox. It will try to install it as extension there. Instead right click on it and save the link)
b) Run this command in terminal

$ sudo apt-get install libnotify-bin

3. Movie Player

As much as I appreciate Cannonical for building such a beautiful OS, I abhor them for choice of applications that come in default with Ubuntu. Same goes for Movie Player. It is the application which I dislike most among all pre-installed ones.

Alternative: VLC is the best alternative when it comes to Linux.

You can get it by writing these commands:

$ sudo apt-get install vlc

4. Banshee

I always thought Rhythmbox was better as compared to Banshee and it was beyond me, why Canonical made such a change. So to replace I began my search for an alternative media organizer / player. Then I stumbled on Clementine. Its amazing media player/organizer and comes with integration to Ubuntu indicators.

You can get it by typing following in terminal:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:riccetn/clementine
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install clementine

Other applications that you need for this guide:

1. Avant Window Navigator: No doubt you have Unity, but I have found that its not sufficient at times. Moving your pointer to the left of the screen can be troublesome. Unity with AWN can be an excellent combination. AWN has lots of applets like ‘menu applet’,'weather applet’ etc. which I found useful.

You can get Avant Window Navigator by writing this code in terminal:

$ sudo apt-get install avant-window-navigator

2. Guake terminal: If you are geeky enough and like terminal, there is no better alternative than Guake terminal. Its a drop-down terminal which shows itself when you press a hot-key. It can be real life saver if you are doing something and need to check terminal on occasion.

You can get it by writing this command:

$ sudo apt-get install guake

These were the applications that would make your life a little easy and make your Linux experience more enjoyable. In my next post I will write about how to customize your Ubuntu install to a degree where it looks like the one in screenshot.

PS: I have not tested all the scripts/commands that I have written here, they are mostly out of my memory. If any of them doesn’t work please tell me in the comments I will update them with the correct ones.

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Operating System (OS) plays a very important role in a desktop or laptop or your mobile phone. It is system software that prepares the ground for playing different applications by effectively translating user commands to be processed on the hardware. It unleashes the hardware’s capability to perform multiple tasks enthusing users all the time. The system will be live as long as the OS is live. The proprietary software from Microsoft, Windows has made its way in the lives of millions of people across the globe. Windows is able to lead the OS market even though there is competition from Mac OS and UNIX based open source software, Ubuntu.

We shall find the pros and cons of Ubuntu 11.04 vis-a-vis Windows 7.

• Even though Ubuntu is evolving over a period of years as an open source OS, it was not much successful in desktop line with some exception in deployment in servers and embedded systems. As Ubuntu is free software, you are free to use and distribute. You can customize the OS to the maximum possible extent. The only cost involved in procuring Ubuntu OS is your download time from the site. On the other hand, Windows 7 is to be purchased and there is no chance for customization.
• Comparatively, the boot time with Ubuntu is quicker than Window 7. Ubuntu is faster on both old and new hardware whereas Windows 7 is faster than Vista on old hardware.
• While Ubuntu can detect some hardware peripherals automatically, for some you need to work with command line which will be a tedious process. Almost all device manufacturers will issue a drivers CD, so working with Windows 7 is easy and at the same, Windows 7 has not completely resolved driver issues.
• Coming to multimedia, DVD playing capacity will not come with Ubuntu. It has to be installed separately. Windows 7 fares better with Media Center with its ability to organize pictures, audio and video files.
• For software applications you need to download applications in the lines of iPhone to perform certain operations on Ubuntu. You can download these applications from Osalt. Ubuntu offers Open office for word processing and Gimp, photo editing software. These are open source software. Ubuntu handles mail through ‘Evolution’ client. It is difficult to install Skype or Google Earth by average users in Ubuntu. It has to improve in this aspect. With Windows 7 you need to purchase MS Office or you can install free software, Open Office or Gimp. Outlook works as email client in Windows 7. Windows 7 comes with windows live messenger and Internet Explorer 8.
• Ubuntu comes with Ubuntu software center to add and remove applications. Ubuntu fares well with ‘Cloud Computing’. ‘Ubuntu One Service’ is the free cloud storage offered by Ubuntu. You can save files up to 2 GB on Ubuntu one service. The service is integrated with OS. More space can be availed by pay plans. It is possible to share files which are on cloud storage. User interface of Ubuntu has to improve a lot. It lags behind Mac and Windows. Even though it will be entertaining to use Ubuntu by checking the new stuff released frequently, it is not a stable OS for production purposes. On the other hand, Windows 7 fares well as production software.
• While the learning curve is more with Ubuntu than Windows 7, it offers great security closer to 100% whereas there are so many security issues to be fixed on Windows 7.

Ubuntu 11.1 aka Oneiric Ocelot will be released on 13 October 2011 and would not include the classic GNOME desktop as a fall back to Unity, unlike Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal. Instead, 11.10 will include a 2D version of Unity as a fallback for computers that lack the hardware resources for the Compiz-based 3D version.

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Angry Birds has taken everyone by storm as a great comic game puzzler leaving children and adults outrageously addicted to it. It is all about a host of cute flightless birds intending to destroy all the egg-stealing pigs with a slingshot. The aim is to recover all the nest-stolen eggs by the evil herd of pigs who take shelter in certain structures made of glass, wood, stone, and some other materials. Using a catapult, you have to launch the birds to blow away these hide-outs and pigs, keeping in mind to have some of the birds available along the end of the game. With every level, you earn points and will be rated using starts from zero to three.

This game has gained so much appreciation that it has all that it takes to make for an entertaining addictive game puzzler. Well, it is no wonder that it is getting all the attention from the time it was released for the Apple’s iOS in December 2009. Since then, it has seen many upgrades to its original versions. It was brought to suit many platforms, first on iPhone, then on Android and now for all of its Windows users. Though there is still no sign of an exclusive Linux version of the game, all those Ubuntu users need not worry as there is another way out. You can install the game via Wine and play the addictive game all over again.

A Wine is a compatibility layer translating Windows system calls to Linux native calls, thus allowing those Windows applications to run on your Linux Software. Wine thus gives us the chance to run Windows-only games to run on Linux too. There are upgrades to Wine as well. If you choose to install the new version, there are two methods -

1. Using the Wine PPA – A straightforward way to install on your Ubuntu.
2. Compiling Wine from Source – Though many consider it is unnecessary, but it comes when the PPA repository gets delayed while new updates are done.

Now, you are good to go to install the Rovio’s Angry Birds on Ubuntu. Here is the step-by-step procedure to install and play it on Ubuntu -

1. Buy and Download the Angry Birds for Ubuntu.
2. Extract the file to get the contents you have downloaded on Ubuntu. Some files are to be copied to a particular location.
3. Install Wine PPA on your Ubuntu.
4. Then run your Angry Birds through Wine like any other Windows Application to start the game.

You can buy it for just $4.99 (worth your money) from Intel web store and load it onto your Ubuntu.

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While trying to unravel the depths of Linux operating system, I came across various such posts which included an exhaustive list of applications having various well known Ubuntu apps like Thunderbird, Wine etc. which according to me are very obvious. So going beyond obvious here are 5 applications for Ubuntu which you will appreciate and will enhance your experience with the distro.

5 Must Have Applications for Ubuntu

1. Ubuntu Tweaks:
   Ubuntu Tweaks is probably the most widely known application out of all the other applications in this list. It gives you immense power and control over all the functionalities and settings of the system. It can be considered to an Ubuntu variant of Ultimate Windows Tweaker for Windows7.
2. Clementine:
   Being honest, I spent ages looking for a decent media player which could match it’s counterparts on Windows, and finally my search ended with Clementine. It is inspired by Amarok player for KDE, but loading KDE libraries on Gnome (which comes default with Ubuntu) can make your system clumsy and sometimes cause irritating bugs. Clementine has been on GTK libraries which is perfectly compatible with Gnome and takes about 15 mb of RAM. It has tabbed playlist, awesome context pane which displays informations from Last.fm, premium users can play music directly from Last.fm, can play internet radios and do a lot more.
3. Bleachbit:
   I am sure anyone who are conscious PC users, are aware of operating systems gathering temporary files and thereby becoming slow and sluggish. For Windows there are some applications like CCleaner, TuneUp-Cleaner etc. Bleachbit does the same for Ubuntu. It cleans all the temporary files gathered by various browsers, installers, desktop environments etc.
4. Shutter:
   I know of people complaining about the screenshot application for *nix. There are some nice applications for  Windows and Snag-it is one of them. Though this application is nowhere near to Snag-It, it definitely is one of the best available replacements in Ubuntu. It can capture screenshots, edit them and provides various other annotation options.
5. Gnome-Do:
   Windows 7′s start menu has a very handy option of searching the application and launching, rather than browsing each section and then finding the right application to start. Gnome-do, which is very similar to Launchy but much more advanced, does the same. It can be started with just a hit of a short-cut. It gives a lot more options which is dependent on the application, for instance triggering the bookmark for firefox or posting your status update on twitter.

Feel free to let us know your favorite application(s) as well!

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All you Ubuntu fanboys can forget about the specialty of 10/10/10 as Ubuntu 10.10 Final (codenamed Maverick Meerkat) has been released which is super fast to boot (takes less than 9 seconds) and carries new “Unity” user interface, which is optimized for smaller netbook screens and mobile computing.

The Unity UI offers limited support for touch and a host of new, sleek, larger fonts. Users can, for instance, launch applications from the left bar, display tabs and maximize and minimize applications from touch capable laptops running Ubuntu 10.10.

Ubuntu 10.10 Features

Super easy installation, the incredibly user-friendly Software Center, Ubuntu One’s streaming music, the new Ubuntu font, and the Unity interface for netbooks are just some of the uber-cool features we love in Ubuntu 10.10!

The new default wallpaper isn’t orange anymore and I love it personally. The two themes – Ambiance & Radiance are modified just enough to make them look different and bit more orangey. The Ubuntu Software Center has received a lot of improvements. It now has a Featured Applications and What’s New section.

Download Ubuntu 10.10

The wait for the final version of Ubuntu 10.10 is now over! Head over to Ubuntu.com to download a disk image (or just hit up Update Manager if you’re already running Ubuntu).

Download Ubuntu 10.10

If their website is still acting weird (as it was at the time of writing this post), you can always look for the torrent sources!

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In today’s entertainment centric world, everybody is involved in taking pictures, making videos and lots of other graphics related stuff in their profession as well as daily life. Making family videos and/or professional videos and editing them to carter for one’s need is essential today. There are several tools available for video editing in Microsoft Windows operating system platform, and everyone thinks Linux lacks video editors. Today we’ll clear this misconception and present to you ten of the best video editors available for Ubuntu and other flavors of Linux. Of course all of them are free!

Top 10 Video Editors for Ubuntu Linux

1. Avidemux

Avidemux is a free Linux based video editor designed to perform basic video editing tasks such as cutting, filtering and encoding. It supports multiple video formats such as the popular AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs. The great thing about Avidemux is that it is available not only Linux but for Windows and Mac OS X as well.

2. Cinerrla

A neat tool for Linux, Cinerrla allows users creation and editing of videos, presentations and other moving graphics content with the utmost ease using its friendly UI. The program is extremely light on system resources so can be used to perform big editing tasks.

3. CinePaint

For those who aren’t easy with big proprietary software like Photoshop, Corel and other graphics tools, CinePaint is a one shop stop for their editing needs. It provides scores of features which help user not only create content but to edit it at your will.

4. Jahshaka

Re-invented to the web as the Cinefx project, jahshaka is aimed for professionals who want to get high end visuals and premium video editing at no cost for their organization or work needs. This doesn’t means home users can’t take advantage. They always can.

5. Kino

Kino provides users with easy and reliable digital video editing on videos of various export and import format using a user friendly interface. The software’s latest stable release is 1.3.4.

6. LiVES

LiVES is a video editing tool for Linux with an additional functionality to perform as a Video Jockey software as well for Linux operating system. It not only supports making and editing videos but also has feature-set suitable for use by Video Jockeys (VJs) around the world.

7. recordMyDesktop

Have you ever used popular desktop recording software on Microsoft Windows like the famous ‘Demo Builder’? If yes, then recordMyDesktop will provide you the same functionality on Linux flavors i.e. recording GUI sessions and then enabling users to edit them with ease.

8. Slideshow Creator

Not truly a video editing software, but Slideshow Creator helps you transform your static content i.e. Microsoft PowerPoint presentations into high quality DVD slide show which can bbe run on any media player across Linux and Windows. It provides set of features for enhancing and breaking the images and other graphics editing tools

9. Vivia

One of the friendliest tools for video editing and DVD making is Vivia and is available for both Linux and Microsoft Windows. It has a unique Multi-cam editing mode which allows editing of multiple scenes recorded using different cameras simultaneously and can add multiple movies in a single project.

10. Kdenlive

An open source video editor for Linux, Kdenlive serves it purpose well. It has numerous video editing features such as cutting, copy-paste, split pasting and graining which help users edit their videos completely under control. Also it supports a variety of formats and has a nice UI.

This is a guest post by Hammad Saleem who blogs at iTechMax, a blog about software, technology, Blogging tips and tricks. You can also share your tips by writing a guest article at TechPP.

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Lighttpd is a secure web server, which is faster when compared to Apache. We will show here how you can install Lighttpd on an Ubuntu 9.10 server with PHP5 support (through FastCGI) and MySQL support.

In this tutorial we have used hostname as server1.example.com with the IP address 192.168.0.100. They maybe different for you.

The first thing you need to do is to login as root. You can login as root in Ubuntu Linux by typing in the terminal:

sudo su

Installing MySQL 5:

In the terminal type:

aptitude install mysql-server mysql-client

You will be asked to provide a password for MySQL user “root“. The same password will be valid for the user root@localhost as well as root@server1.example.com .

Installing Lighttpd on Ubuntu 9.10:

Lighttpd is already available as a pre-configured package in Ubuntu 9.10, so we can install it through terminal very easily. Type in the terminal:

aptitude install lighttpd

Now open your web browser and type http://192.168.0.100, and you should see the Lighttpd placeholder page:

The default document folder of Lighttpd for user root is /var/www/ on Ubuntu, and the configuration file is /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf. Additional configurations are stored in files which are situated in the /etc/lighttpd/conf-available/ directory.

Installing PHP5

To enable PHP5 in Lighttpd, you will have to  modify the configuration file /etc/php5/cgi/php.ini. To edit it, type in the terminal:

vi /etc/php5/cgi/php.ini

Scroll down to the end of this file and add this line at the end of file:

cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1

To enable the FastCGI configuration (which is stored in /etc/lighttpd/conf-available/10-fastcgi.conf), run the following command:

lighttpd-enable-mod fastcgi

To reload the server for changes to take place, type in the terminal:

/etc/init.d/lighttpd force-reload

Installing MySQL 5 support:

To get MySQL support in PHP, we can install the php5-mysql package. But it is a good idea to install some other PHP5 modules together with MySQL as well, as you might need them for your applications. You can search for available PHP5 modules by typing in the terminal:

aptitude search php5

Based on some of the packages that you select, you can install them with MySQL by typing in the terminal:

aptitude install php5-mysql php5-curl php5-gd php5-idn php-pear php5-imagick php5-imap php5-mcrypt php5-memcache php5-mhash php5-ming php5-ps php5-pspell php5-recode php5-snmp php5-sqlite php5-tidy php5-xmlrpc php5-xsl php5-json

Now, again restart Lighttpd by typing:

/etc/init.d/lighttpd restart

Testing your web server and PHP:

The document root for the default web server is /var/www. We will now create a small PHP file (info.php) in that directory and call it in a browser. The file will display lots of useful details about our PHP installation, such as the installed PHP version.

To create this file, type in the terminal:

vi /var/www/info.php

Now type this code into this file:

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

Save the file and close the terminal.

Now we call this file in a browser by typing  http://192.168.0.100/info.php

As you see in the screenshot, PHP5 is working fine, and it is working through FastCGI, as shown in the Server API line. If you scroll further down, you will see all modules that are already enabled in PHP5.Now, your web server is ready for working.

Hope this tutorial helps you in setting up a light and fast as well as a faster web server in Ubuntu 9.10. For more such tutorials, keep hooked onto TechPP.

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