NEWS
Newsdesk
■
■
Debian Alliance is formed ■ Chinese schools go for the Linux burn ■ Desktop icon project launches
Open Document format boosted in Boston ■ Virtual worlds from Russia ■ Clothes store picks Linux
Debian gets extra oomph
Founder Ian Murdock forms new alliance to pull Debian-based distros together and crack down on release delays
MEMBERS OF THE ALLIANCE
Despite the lack of Ubuntu, the DCC has attracted some big names
Mepis was founded in 2003 with
the intention of creating a distro
that’s easy to use and install. The
product line encompasses
everything from SimplyMepis, a
slimmed-down version
distribution, to the full product
for home and business users.
Sun Wah Linux has just become
one of the largest distributors of
Linux in China thanks to a
landmark deal with the Jiangsu
Provincial Department of
Education to provide over
140,000 Linux desktops.
Knoppix is the pioneering Live
CD distribution created by Klaus
Knopper. Future versions of
Knoppix will use the Debian core
system, which means the
software will also form the basis
of the many Knoppix clones.
Linspire, formally Lindows, is a
commercial Linux distribution
aimed primarily at desktop
users. One of its defining
technologies is Click-N-Run,
which augments Debian’s APT
package management system to
improve the user experience in
areas such as application
installation and security updates.
6 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005
LXF74.news 6
Credativ has offices in the UK,
Germany and Austria and
provides open source consulting
and support services to both the
public and private sector.
Progeny is the company started
by Ian Murdock (the ‘ian’ in
Debian) to provide custom Linux
solutions to businesses. Murdock
is also the leader of the Debian
Core Consortium.
GnuLinEx is run by the regional
government of Extremadura in
Spain. It has almost 90,000
networked desktops serving
200,000 citizens.
The brainchild of Bruce Perens,
UserLinux was set up to provide
a high-quality Linux system that
could be used as a base distro
for other companies, thus easing
the process of software
development and certification.
Xandros rose from the ashes of
Corel Linux, and offers home and
business desktop solutions. It
has a close relationship with
vendors such as CodeWeavers
which supply Windows
compatibility options.
www.linuxformat.co.uk
A collective of concerned
Linux vendors has founded
the Debian Common Core
Alliance to manage the release of
future Debian-based distributions.
The Debian Project was criticised
for the tardy and haphazard release of
Debian 3.1 (Sarge) earlier this year,
and there have been claims that
coders are spending too much time
porting obscure packages to even
more obscure architectures when
they should be concentrating on the
major platforms.
The goal of the alliance is to build
the Debian common core (DCC), a
base distro that would then be used
by vendors including Linspire, Mepis,
Xandros and others as the heart of
their distributions.
The group will also be involved in
marketing and distribution, and will
work towards establishing a
predictable release cycle and
complete compliance with the Linux
Standard Base (LSB) specification. LSB
is seen as vital to the future of free
software, as it ensures a degree of
“THE FIRST DISTRO TO
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE
CORE WAS MEPIS.”
compatibility among disparate Linux
versions and makes it easier to port
applications from one distro to another.
Founder members of the alliance
include Knoppix, Linspire, Credativ,
GnuLinEx, Mepis, Progeny, Sun Wah,
UserLinux and Xandros.
Ian Murdock, who launched the
Debian project in 1993 and is now the
leader of the DCC, said that Debian
will improve its penetration of the
commercial world by aligning around a
common core.
“I’ve talked to a huge number of
companies over the years that tell me
their customers ask about Debian, but
that they don’t know how to respond
because they can’t figure out how to
support it,” he said. “The DCC finally
gives them a way to do that.”
Each vendor will take the core and
add its own elements, depending on
what market sector it is targeting.
Xandros, for example, which sells a
desktop-centric product, will add its
own KDE setup and other resources
such as CodeWeavers’ CrossOver
Office Professional. Linspire, meanwhile,
will take the core and add its
proprietary Click-N-Run technology for
home desktop users.
The alliance’s members hope that
this method of development will
improve interoperability and reduce
the duplication of effort. Members are
also expected to contribute back to
the core product.
The core will give user access to
the usual Debian repositories, and is
also expected to have a high degree
of compatibility with Red Hat’s RPM
package management system.
25/10/05 7:42:49 am

Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province
Jiangsu user
Thousands of Chinese children to learn with Linux at school
The government of Jiangsu
province in China is
undertaking a massive
deployment of Linux. The deal, which
encompasses both hardware and
software, is worth RMB 346 million
(£24 million) is being led by Sun Wah
Linux, a supplier of Linux systems to
business. With the support of six
hardware vendors, Sun Wah will
provide 141,624 machines for use in
schools in the Jiangsu province of
eastern China.
“This project marks the cooperative
effort of Sun Wah Linux and the
Jiangsu government’s use of Linux to
Ian Murdock was dismayed by the
late arrival of Debian Sarge.
The first DCC-compliant code was
released in September, and the first
distribution to take advantage of it was
Mepis, which released a test version
LXF74.news 7
fight against Microsoft’s monopoly in
China,” said Alex Banh, CEO of Sun
Wah Linux. In common with previous
governmental contracts in other
countries, the decision-makers in
Jiangsu opted to support local
hardware vendors. Dell and IBM were
both in contention for contracts but
lost out to Chinese firms.
In addition to software and technical
support for the migration, Sun Wah
Linux will also provide training for staff
to manage the changes. The company
said in a statement that it hoped this
project would enable the creation of a
complete open source education
of its lightweight MepisLite OS at the
end of the month. Warren Woodford,
the founder and president of the
Mepis project, said the eventual aim
was to build Mepis releases with only
DCC-compliant kernels. The MepisLite
release was built on the first beta
version of the DCC software and, as
such, was initially only available on the
x86 platform.
Test versions for other architectures
are expected in the very near future.
Murdock said he expects the final
release to be fully compliant with the
LSB 3.0 specification.
Wot no Ubuntu?
But the DCC has one very notable
absence: Ubuntu. Project leader Mark
Shuttleworth has said that though the
aims of the project are “loft and
laudable” it will slow down the
project’s ability to add features and
polish and will be expensive. “I’m not
prepared to devote scarce resources
www.linuxformat.co.uk
NEWS
Linux desktop
gets Tango-ed
Move to have common icons across open source software
Steven Garrity of the Mozilla Identity
team and Novell’s Jakub Steiner have
announced an ambitious new project
to spruce up the Linux desktop and
move towards a more unified look
for Gnome, KDE and applications
such as the Firefox browser.
The Tango project will bring
together coders and artists to create
a common icon library, complete
with a style guide and a standard
naming specification, and has so far
attracted the attentions of Nat
Friedman from Ximian/Novell,
usability expert Anna Dirks and Trea
McCombs, the founder of desktop
theme source www.themes.org. The Tango website includes
Unusually, the icon themes and advice and guidelines for icon
designers to encourage
colour schemes will be licenced
consistency and clarity.
under a Creative Commons licence
rather than the more usual GPL. also port existing sets to the new
There is a general call for icon naming scheme.
contributors to design new icons and http://tango-project.org
solution that could be exported to the connected to the internet by 2010. As
rest of the country. one of the most industrialised
The Chinese government intends to provinces, Jiangsu (pop. 65 million) is
have 90% of Chinese schools at the forefront of this drive.
to an initiative that I believe will that’s largely because Debian seemed
ultimately fail,” he wrote on the Ubuntu to be faltering for a little while. But
wiki (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ now that Sarge is out there, the real
MarkShuttleworth). “There’s no point momentum is behind Debian.”
here in going into the reasons why I
think the DCC will fail – time will tell. I
would encourage members of the
Ubuntu community to participate in
the DCC discussions if they have time
and are interested. If the DCC
produces good code, we should
merge that into Ubuntu releases, and
it should be easy to do so.”
Ubuntu is the rising star of the
Debian world, but has been growing
increasingly independent from its
parent distro. Back in July this year,
when the alliance was still being
planned, Murdock told ZDnet.com that
he thought Ubuntu was making a
massive mistake. “Debian is
increasingly just another upstream
source for them. Personally, I think this
is a huge mistake on their part. Sure, Alliance rebel: Mark Shuttleworth
they have lots of momentum, but is keeping Ubuntu out of the DCC.
LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 7
25/10/05 7:42:54 am
 NEWS

Michael
Meeks
Michael works for Novell
full-time on developing
OpenOffice.org, and
dislikes herring
Mass communication
US state makes landmark ruling against closed source in the public sector
COMMENT
The state of Massachusetts native MS Office files – but would be stung with licence fees in the

Koper has mandated that

government departments
should only use software capable of
adopt the PDF format instead.
Brian Jones, a program manager
for MS Office, wrote in his blog (http://
future – an idea that Sun moved to
quash immediately. Sun’s chief open
source officer Simon Phipps sent a

cabana opening and exporting documents in

The OpenOffice.org
conference in Slovenia,
held in September on the eve of
the 2.0 release, was great. Held
in the beautiful ancient port
town of Koper, tucked under the
mountains on the Adriatic, it was
well organised and there were
also some pretty interesting
ideas kicked around.
One of the most curious
things was the enthusiasm for
the Open Document format as
an end in itself. It seemed that
politicians and business people
alike could grasp the
open standard formats argument,
and would roll off endless
platitudes about competition
and reducing the digital divide.
Unfortunately, this all tended to
obscure the far more important
but perhaps less tangible free
software message. The most
interesting thing for Novell about
OpenOffice.org is that it gives you
the crucial freedoms we value so
much: to run, study, redistribute
and improve free software. It’s a
shame that others don’t see the
advantages that this would bring.
That aside, some exciting
prototypes were unveiled: the
XUL/UI work that may one day
allow both the UI and the dialog
logic to be separated into user-
tweakable XML/JavaScript (via
the UNO/XPCOM bridge). It was
also wonderful to have Intel’s
involvement announced, and to
see the fruit of its performance
work. Novell was pleasingly well
represented, leading release
engineering, Cairo, 64-bit and
performance work. Finally, it was
great to see Google starting to
get involved in OOo development.
The growing base of substantial
full-time corporate backing
outside Sun/Novell is an
encouraging trend.
non-proprietary formats such as the
Open Document format (supported by
OpenOffice.org, KOffice and AbiWord)
and PDF. The change in the law, due
to be enacted at the start of 2007,
may lead to the complete removal of
Microsoft Office from the public sector
in the state.
Peter Quinn, the information
officer charged with implementing the
change, said the state wasn’t
attempting to railroad users into
adopting one solution over another,
but that legislators were trying to
ensure that users would never be
denied access to their own
data. “All documents we save
must be accessible to
everybody, without having to
use ‘closed’ software to open
them now and in the future.”
He told Desktoplinux.com,
“The world is about open
standards and open source. I
can’t understand why
anybody would want to
continue making closed-
format documents anymore”
Despite being part of the
consortium that devised the
standard, Microsoft said it
has no plans to add support
for the Open Document
format to its next
generation of Office
products – a move that would
allow OpenOffice.org to access
COMING ATTRACTIONS...
★ Open Source Developers’
Conference 2005, December 5–7,
Melbourne, Australia
A list of papers being presented at the
Open Source Developers’ Conference
has been published. Highlights include a
look at the newly released MySQL 5 with
Stewart Smith, a session on Python
game development and a discussion on
the ‘release early, release often’ ethos
and its implications for open source
development. An early Christmas treat
for the community.
www.osdc.com.au
blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archiv
e/2005/08/31/458879.aspx) that
“moving to document formats that are
open, documented, and royalty-free is
actually really valuable” but he was
stunned that the Massachusetts
decision had been made without
officials evaluating the ‘open’ Office12
XML schema – which features a
licence exclusion forbidding its use
with GPL software.
Previously Jones had suggested
that, because Sun owned intellectual
property relating to the Open
Document format (ODF), users could
Massachussetts State House in Boston, where the vote was taken to adopt
non-proprietary document formats in government offices.
★ ApacheCon, December 10–14,
San Diego, USA
This year’s ApacheCon US will feature a
keynote address from author Cory
Doctorow. Other areas of discussion
include the use of Apache in various
industries and the integration of
technologies such as Perl and Python.
http://apachecon.com
note to the OASIS consortium, the
group behind the adoption of Open
Document, saying that “unless you’re
intending to sue Sun in connection
with ODF, you can use the format with
confidence and ignore the FUD.”
The adoption of Open Document
means that companies and
organisations that deal with the state
government will also have to work
within the confines of the format. A
new OpenDocument Fellowship has
been launched to capitalise on the
decision in Massachusetts and
encourage the adoption of the format
in all areas of business.
★ Open Source World Conference,
February 15–17, Málaga, Spain
We’re looking a bit far ahead here so we
don’t have too many details, but the
three-day long Open Source World
Conference is being organised in
conjunction with the regional
governments of Extremadura and
Andalusia and has set itself the goal of
demonstrating the capabilities of Linux
and other open source technologies in
daily life.
www.opensourceworldconference.
com/conferencia_en.html

8 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 www.linuxformat.co.uk

LXF74.news 8 25/10/05 7:42:57 am

 NEWS
SCO v IBM: Is the
end in sight?
IBM drops patent infringement claims in hope of speeding up court case
Executives for IBM have
opted to drop patent
infringement allegations
against SCO in a bid to speed up the
protracted SCO vs IBM case. In August
2003, IBM launched a counter suit
against SCO – which had accused
IBM of illegally contributing Unix code
to Linux – alleging that four SCO
products infringed patents. IBM asked
that SCO be prevented from
distributing the products until the case “IBM can save more money by bringing
was settled.
The case is now set for a February
2007 court date, and IBM still has
Matalan rings up
till savings
Faster, cheaper, more secure tills for the nationwide
clothing retailer, courtesy of open source
Matalan, the UK bargain
clothes retailer, has migrated
its entire electronic point of
sale (EPOS) system – that’s ‘tills’, to
you and I – to run on Linux
after a trial by technology
consultant Capgemini. A
solution based on IBM’s Retail
Environment for SUSE Linux
was tested against a Java
application running on
Windows XPe (the
embedded version of XP)
for two months. In addition
to cash savings, Capgemini’s
study found that the Linux
system was more efficient on
the limited hardware available,
was more flexible in terms of
software management, and was less
of a target for malicious crackers.
10 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005
LXF74.news Sec1:10
eight counterclaims outstanding
including a breach of contract and
violation of the GNU General
Public License.
Pamela Jones, creator and editor of
the Groklaw website (www.groklaw.
net), said that it makes sense for IBM
to drop the patent claims as it is
unlikely SCO would have the cash to
pay any penalties should it be found to
be guilty once the case was concluded.
this farce to an end quickly than it can
possibly get from SCO in damages
from those counterclaims or royalties
Matalan chose an IBM/SUSE solution for
its cash register system.
www.linuxformat.co.uk
from a licensing arrangement… SCO’s
sales have been careening wildly
downward, so IBM has offered to drop
the counterclaims in order to speed
things along.”
In another development that may
speed things along, SCO has been
denied another extensive round of
what’s called discovery. SCO claims
that it needs ‘discovery’ time to
prepare its case and discover the
extent of its adversary’s alleged
wrongdoings. Critics say that it’s simply
a process by which SCO is stalling the
legal proceedings.
■ Sun Microsystems and Google
have joined forces to increase the
uptake of Java and Google Desktop
Search respectively, but have denied
persistent rumours that Google
will offer its own hosted version of
StarOffice over the web. Sun CEO
Scott McNealy and Google’s
Eric Schmidt hosted a joint news
conference to announce the
partnership, which will see Google’s
toolbar piggybacked on to downloads
of Sun’s Java Virtual Machine (JVM).
■ Just to keep the speculation
bubbling, there are a number of
interesting looking projects built on
Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and
XML) that promise to pull traditional
desktop applications into the web
browser. There is Zimbra (www.
zimbra.com) for email, Writely
(www.writely.com) for word
processing, Numsum (www.
numsum.com) for spreadsheet
work and Webnote (www.aypwip.
org/webnote) for note taking. All
of these might make a tantalising
acquisition for a web services
company looking for ways of utilising
all their spare server capacity.
■ RealNetworks has fixed a flaw in
the Linux edition of its RealPlayer
10 audio and video player. The bug,
which also affected the open source
Helixplayer, allowed an intruder
to execute commands on a host
system. Users are being urged to
upgrade their software to 10.0.6.
■ As expected, SUSE used the
LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in
London to launch the boxed edition of
SUSE 10.0, the first of its distributions
to benefit from ‘community exposure’
via the OpenSUSE project (the OSS
version is on our DVD this month).
Spokesman Matt Asay said that
the company would be announcing
partnerships in the future that should
see the return of SUSE to the shelves
of PC World and even Dixons.
■ The movie version of Microsoft’s
top selling game Halo will be made
with a healthy dose of open source
software. The movie will be executive
produced by Peter Jackson and his
partner Fran Walsh, and the special
effects will be created and rendered
on the 1000 dual-processor blade
system installed by IBM in Jackson’s
WETA Digital facility in New Zealand.
■ Schoolchildren the Italian region of
Bolzano returned to their classroom
after the summer break to find their
computers upgraded and running a
combination of Debian and Gnome.
Over 16,000 have been migrated.
25/10/05 7:43:01 am
 NEWS

Russian engine Richard

Cobbett
Florentine telescope

drives to new worlds

builder, physics pioneer
■ The Chinese government has and church worrier. Or
redefined its definition of news to was that Galileo?
encompass blogs, so that these sites
will now come under the watchful
eye of the government’s web filtering COMMENT
Eugene Onegin: the game! Actually, it’s a 3D renderer...

system known as the Great Firewall
of China. Saudi Arabia has also
blocked access to LiveJournal, Flickr
and Blogger accounts.
■ Microsoft’s attempt to enforce its
patent on FAT (file allocation table)
technology has been rejected by the
US Patent and Trademarks Office.
If granted, the patent would have
had significant implications for Linux
vendors and the interoperability
of the two operating systems. The
company may appeal the decision.
■ Nessus, once marketed as an
‘open source vulnerability scanner’
has announced a change of licence
for the third release of the application.
Developer Renaud Deraison says
Nessus 3.0 will continue to be offered
free of charge, but would no longer
be available under the GPL.
■ Autodesk, the developer of 3D
Studio Max, has agreed to acquire
Alias, the company responsible for
industry-standard 3D application
Maya. Don’t expect the name Alias
to last much longer.
■ Firefox has a new offshoot. The
Firemonger project attempts to
bring the benefits of Firefox and
Thunderbird to the sceptic by allowing
users to access both applications
and a range of plugins directly from a
CD without having to install anything
on to the hard disk. The project lives
at www.firemonger.org.
■ The FTLinux course, a primer on
the deployment and use of Linux
that was first published in 1998, has
been released for free at www.
FTLinuxCourse.com. The course
covers installation, programming,
web development and system
administration.
■ A number of Novell, SUSE and
OpenSUSE websites have been
hacked and defaced by a group
calling itself IHS (Iran Hackers
Sabotage). The defacement included
the assertion that it was Iran’s right to
develop nuclear weapons.
Raising pulses through the
gaming world, Unigine is a
new cross-platform 3D
application aimed at games
developers and virtual reality
researchers. Despite being in an early “Unigine always was a cross-platform
stage of development, the engine has
a polished look, and has been
developed to play to the strengths of
programmers raised on C/C++ and
artists familiar with Maya or 3D Studio.
Version 0.33 features modelling
and rendering tools, including a full
skeletal animation module and a
selection of pre-made shaders. Users
can also extend the applications
facilities through the GLShell (GLSH)
scripting language, which the company open source 3D environment designer
claims offers enormous speed
advantages over Perl, Python and LUA. Tomsk, Russia. Zaprgayev is now the
The biggest addition to this version
of the software, however, is a Pre-
computed Radiance Transfer (PRT)
system – also known as spherical
harmonic lighting. This helps to create
realistic light schemes in real time, and “Open source is great fun, but without
is a real step forward for academics
and games developers. In essence, the create a complete, high quality
developer can move global light
sources – a sun for example – in real
time with no performance hit. PRT was the company’s website (http://
recently used in Halo 2.
The engine features real time
physics modelling.
There is a full complement of
modelling options in the
application.
Boring =
Project coordinator Denis Shergin
told LXF that the application had
grown out of an open source project,
and that Linux support has been a
goal since the project was launched.
useful
(Win32/Linux) engine,” he said. “We
use Slackware Linux as a main
development OS, and many people in
our team are involved in open source
projects. We really like the Linux
environment for its transparency and
flexibility.” One of the company’s aims.
Shergin added, is to attract attention to
Linux as a desktop OS.
The application started life as
Frustum (www.frustum.org), an
created by Alexander Zaprgayev in
lead developer at Unigine.
Shergin said that Unigine was
conceived as a commercial application,
but that the company would not
neglect the open source community.
investor support it’s really hard to
solution for this market.”
Demos of Unigine are available from
unigine.com).
It seems standard practice to use
non-standard GUIs in these types
of applications.
The PRT system makes rendering
of real-time images less
processor-intensive.
There’s an old joke – if
Microsoft made cars,
they’d crash twice a day. Ripping
satire, and no mistake. But why
does nobody ever make the
same gags about Google? If
you’re talking unfinished, lazy
software, it’s hard to think of a
more appropriate company to
take shots at. So forgive me, but
here’s a gag of my own: if
Google made cars, you’d get the
engine, the dashboard, and the
fun pink fuzzy dice – while all
the boring bits like
speedometers, petrol tanks and
the windscreen get put on hold
for the foreseeable future.
Just take Gmail. 2GB of
storage? Thanks! Draft saving?
Thanks! Labelling system and
address forging and all the
other interesting stuff? Muchas
gracias, amigos!
It’s just a bit of a shame that
nobody seems interested
enough to make the contacts
feature not royally suck, or to
make deleting mail that you no
longer want any less painful than
hammering a whole watermelon
into your own eye.
Fun coding is all very well,
and Google gets the excitement
of an idea better than almost
anyone – but in long term use,
it’s hard to fight the same
annoyed feelings provoked by so
many open-source programs:
that sometimes you need
someone to sit down and do the
bits that aren’t so much fun,
and that most people probably
won’t notice.
Still, at least they’re all free,
and it’s not as if we’d ever be
totally happy. At least, not until
Google Maps can zoom in close
enough to show you sitting at
your computer, using
Google Maps.

www.linuxformat.co.uk LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 11

LXF74.news Sec2:11 25/10/05 7:43:04 am

 NEWS

Linspire sets course

David
Cartwright
David Cartwright is an IT
consultant who specialises
in providing Linux Systems

for the enterprise

and solutions.

COMMENT

The joy of First schools, now businesses get a taste of Click-N-Run

storage Linspire is turning its

I’ve just found out about
a cool new technology.
Not only that, but the only
company that’s produced a
commercial product using it
(www.coraid.com/products.
htm) has made it compatible
with Linux and various Unixes –
but not Windows (yet). What joy.
This technology is called ATA
over Ethernet, or AoE. Why am I
so excited? Simple: it extends
the concept of low-cost, high-
functionality operating system
software that we’re used to with
Linux into the storage hardware
market. Traditionally, when
you’ve wanted to bolt a big
storage array to a server, the
cost savings of going with Linux
are largely negated by having to
shell out on expensive hardware.
AoE, on the other hand, is
just Ethernet – so you can make
yourself a basic SAN (Storage
Area Network) with a ten quid
Ethernet switch from PC World.
OK, you can’t route packets to
off-site secondary storage, but
nine out of ten of us don’t want
to anyway. And because it’s not
IP (it simply places ATA packets
into Ethernet frames on the
LAN), it can’t be hacked into.
Just when I thought we’d
stopped coming up with new
ideas (networking’s a pretty
innovation-free world these days
now that Ethernet’s reached
gigabit speed) some bright spark
proved me wrong by inventing
AoE. Open source drivers, a spec
that’s simple enough to span
only a few pages and technology
that costs next to nothing to
implement. As more vendors
start to make compatible kit,
this technology is bound to be a
winner: if you want big
storage at sensible prices,
give it a look.
attentions to the burgeoning
enterprise desktop market,
by converting its Click-N-Run software
system into a fully fledged remote
management tool. Linspire
Professional will be based on the
current Linspire Five-O desktop, but
would feature a bespoke Click-N-Run
server for managing identities and
software across a network.
New CEO Kevin Carmony says the
company has been inspired by the
success of Indiana’s Access program,
which is furnishing schools in the state
with 400,000 Linux desktops (see
Open Source Systems Trialled In
Schools, News, LXF72). He told
Computer Business Review that 90%
of schools in the initiative had chosen
Linspire over offerings from Novell.
And the company hopes that the beta
test of Linspire Professional will prove
that it can do the behind the scenes
jobs, too: “I think this is really going to
give Red Hat and Novell a wake-up
call that we can do desktop
management,” said Carmony.
EMBEDDED LINUX NEWS
● Despite the recent ructions in its core
business, Palm is rumoured to be preparing
a new range of Linux-based ‘feature
phones’ before the end of the year. After
launching the Windows-based Treo device
earlier this year, Palm CEO Ed Colligan said
he saw no need for the company to adopt
any other OS. However, Palm’s
employment opportunities website has had
vacancies for Linux engineers over recent
months, and it is also listed as a
customer of embedded Linux provider
Wind River.
● Wind River itself is staking more
of its future on Linux as it
launches a new consumer
electronics version of its
Linux software platform.
The company is claiming
the platform is the industry’s
first ‘commercial grade’ product
Linspire has also announced a
partnership deal with the world’s
largest technology distributor, Ingram
Micros, to sell the complete line of
Linspire products through its network
of US resellers. Carmony said this deal
would see Linux hitting the shelves
Linspire is shaping Click-N-Run as a remote management application.
capable of scaling from handhelds to
network infrastructure. Industry
commentator Chris Lanfear said that Wind
River was responding to the demands of the
market and the growth of Linux in the
embedded space. “While this trend is
driving explosive growth of device software,
for Linux customers, it is exposing a plethora
of new challenges such as unsupported,
forked distributions that are nearly
impossible and extremely costly
to maintain long term,”
he said.
● Nicolas Negroponte’s
ambition to build a $100
PC for use in developing
countries has taken a step
Can this new device bridge
the digital divide?
in places it had never been sold
before. “We’re now able to get
Linspire to more channel partners
whose customers are demanding
affordable, virus-free computing
options,” he said. LXF
forward with the launch of a prototype
device (pictured here). Negroponte, who is
a professor at MIT’s Media Lab, has won
the support of Google, AMD, News Corp
and others to provide devices to countries
such as Brazil, Egypt, China and South
Africa. The governor of Massachusetts, Mitt
Romney, has also committed to providing
the machines to every school pupil in the
state. Negroponte expects to ship 100
million of the wind-up computers every
year once production ramps up.
● Nokia has delayed the introduction of its
770 web pad, suggesting that the device
will now be available in early 2006. The
770 provides roaming web access and
other network functions and will be
marketed as a consumer electronics
device, but there has been speculation that
the company is unsure of how to present
the product to the mass market.

12 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 www.linuxformat.co.uk

LXF74.news Sec2:12 25/10/05 7:43:08 am

 NEWS EXTRA
KDE Community
LINUX FORMAT
EXPOFEST
We go to open source
conferences so you
don’t have to… Here’s
World Summit 2005
our roundup of
three of the year’s
biggest shows.
27 August–4 September, Málaga. Billed as: “The annual conference of KDE developers and contributors.”
LXF man on the ground: George Wright.
Conference survival tip: “Make sure you have a Konqi with you for the boring bits!”
KDE developers and users
from around the world
descended on the University
of Málaga’s computer science
department in early autumn for a
week of learning, schmoozing and
coding. The first two days were set
aside for talks aimed at users and
administrators, and the following two
days for developers and contributors.
The remainder of the conference was
dubbed the coding marathon – a
chance for KDE hackers to come
together and get some serious
development work done.
The overall organiser this year was
Antonio Larossa, one of the core KDE
developers, but in addition to his
commendable efforts, the Linux
Málaga user group put in a good deal
of time to take the lion’s share of the
work. They were exceptionally friendly
and a great asset to the conference.
Though the KDE 3.5 release was
still being worked on, the focus of the
conference was on the next major
release of KDE – version 4.0 – which
promises many improvements, such as
the much-hyped Plasma framework.
Photo by GaÎl Beaudoin
14 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005
LXF74.expos 14
KDE 4.0 development is well under
way in the development repositories
and 3.5 should have just been
released when you read this (there’s
a beta version on our coverdiscs),
so the KDE world is pretty busy at
the moment.
The summit began with a panel of
speakers addressing the conference
attendees. Much of the introduction
was spoken in Spanish, with a
translator, but the gist of it was that
the authorities were very pleased that
the KDE project had chosen Málaga
for the conference this year. And so
were we.
Support from Novell
Immediately afterwards, the users and
developers conference (dubbed
UserConf) kicked off with an opening
talk about the Novell Linux Desktop
operating system. Novell’s support of
KDE was stressed very heavily, as
anticipated, although some of the
default applications have been
replaced by non-KDE programs, such
as OpenOffice.org and Mozilla Firefox.
Pleasingly, Novell placed a lot of
Akademy 2005 group photo. KDE founder Matthias
Ettrich is in the first standing row, far right.
www.linuxformat.co.uk
emphasis on users, showing studies on
the usability of its software.
Throughout UserConf the talks
were scheduled in two parallel streams,
so it was not possible to attend every
one – with the exception of the two
keynote speeches. The second
keynote at UserConf this year was
given by possibly the biggest celebrity
in the Linux world at the moment,
“WE ALL WANTED TO GET
TO ‘BEAUTY AND MAGIC
FOR KDE DEVELOPERS’.”
Mark Shuttleworth. His talk was
entitled ‘Ubuntu and Kubuntu’, which
turned out to be a very inaccurate title
indeed. Instead, Shuttleworth
explained that he wasn’t going to
discuss his flagship distribution at all,
and decided to talk about
collaboration within the open source
community, highlighting issues that he
felt needed fixing.
He was a good speaker, preferring
not to use slides in his presentations
(cue a sigh of relief from the
audience) but rather to talk directly,
initially in front of large projected
photographs from his time in space.
Shuttleworth argued that the open
source community is one of great
collaboration, and that individual work
is no longer a viable option in the
modern age. His talk highlighted a big
problem he sees in the open source
world – the bug tracking system. For
any one package there are several bug
databases, he explained, and no
collaboration between the application’s
maintainer and the distribution. To
conclude, he demonstrated a web-
based system in development that
would allow collaboration between
projects’s databases.
Despite the presentations,
throughout UserConf many of the KDE
developers spent their time in the
hacking rooms, where they worked on
their own projects or brainstormed
together to get things done. Live video
streams were available of all the talks
courtesy of the Fluendo project, and
the finalised video files are now
published on the KDE fileserver, at
http://ktown.kde.org/
akademy2005.
Eirik sells Qt
After the weekend came the
developers and contributors
conference, this time nicknamed
DevConf. The sole keynote was from a
prominent figure in the KDE world:
Eirik Chambe-Eng, one of the
founders of Trolltech. He gave a
keynote speech at last year’s Akademy
24/10/05 12:27:18 pm

TECHNOLOGY CAUSING A STIR AT THE SUMMIT
PLASMA
and there were many references to his
previous talk, but as usual a fair
proportion of the presentation was
figures from surveys showing how
popular Qt is with Trolltech’s
customers. Interestingly, the statistic for
the customers who were either using
open source software or intending to
do so rose, suggesting that open
source is in a more viable position
commercially this year and gaining
enterprise support. Light relief came
from Chambe-Eng showing some
embarrassing photos of Matthias
Ettrich, the founder of the KDE project
and project leader on Qt at Trolltech.
For the developers...
DevConf was much busier than
UserConf and had three, not two,
streams running in parallel in three
rooms. Again, these talks were
recorded on video by the Fluendo
project and uploaded to the KDE file
server. The topics varied quite a bit,
The hacking rooms gave a chance
to work face to face on problems.
LXF74.expos 15
KDE EDUTAINMENT
ranging from multimedia to web
development to graphics.
One presentation that we all wanted
to get to was Zack Rusin’s talk on
‘Beauty and Magic for KDE developers’.
Rusin was recently hired by Trolltech
to work on Exa (his graphics extension
to X.Org), which should give X11 the
sort of graphical capabilities that
Apple users have enjoyed with Mac
OS X. At first his talk had to be
postponed because of incompatibilities
between his laptop and the projector.
The day after DevConf, the organisers
had to set up a video camera on a
projector and filmed the screen
instead of going directly from the
laptop to the projector.
Rusin’s presentation itself was
impressive – while most of the other
speakers used OpenOffice.org or PDF,
Rusin wrote his presentation in C++
using Qt’s Arthur, the highly
accelerated graphics library introduced
in Qt 4. The presentation itself was
visually engaging, with
full 2D rendering of
cogwheels and other
bits of eye candy in
the background.
After the
presentation, Rusin
gave a demonstration
of Exa’s capabilities
and managed to do
all sorts of things
never really seen
before on X11,
including rotating
the screen as if it were a large cube to
change virtual desktop, and placing
www.linuxformat.co.uk
ICECREAM
Zack Rusin, taking a stand against bad software names.
windows on the corners of the cube
and watching scrolling text on them.
When the window was dragged
around it rippled like a flag waving
around, and Rusin also showed the
windows popping up and down when
they received focus. True, there isn’t
much practical use for the things he
was demonstrating, but it certainly
showed off the flexibility and power of
Exa. Rusin emphasised heavily that
Exa is a name not an acronym and
thus does not stand for anything
except “stop making stupid acronyms
that don’t make sense”…
The coding marathon
With DevConf over came a five-day
coding marathon, where KDE
contributors came together to rack
their brains collectively over head-
hurting problems. Several so-called
bird of a feather (BoF) sessions were
organised to discuss various areas of
KDE including education, Plasma,
marketing and all sorts of other things.
The Akademy discussion mailing list
was buzzing with activity organising
the BoFs and some of the newer
projects, such as the KDE
Edutainment project, received
favourable interest from governmental
conference attendees. The hacking
rooms were consistently full, with
many KDE hackers making good use
of the opportunity to work together in
person while they could.
Perhaps the most talked-about
proposed feature of KDE is the much-
hyped Plasma project. Plasma is the
brainchild of KDE developer Aaron
NEWS EXTRA
EXA
Seigo, the current maintainer of the
KDE panel, Kicker. It’s spoken of as
the ultimate panel for any desktop
environment, and will include features
like those found in SuperKaramba, a
palette of scripting tools designed to
give you complete control over your
desktop due to be released with KDE
3.5. Plasma is still very much in the
planning stages, and its core
developers have been tied up working
on Kicker for the 3.5 release, but
expect it to get much more attention
in the months ahead.
A lot of the work done during the
coding marathon was aimed at next
year’s KDE 4.0 release, and many
people took advantage of the local
‘Icecream farm’. Icecream is a
distributed compiling system,
developed by some of the core KDE
developers, which uses massive
parallel computing power on networks
to compile projects. Among its list of
features are the ability to make use of
cross-compilers in multi-architecture
networks and the ability to monitor
the compiling with nifty graphical
monitors. Using Icecream, it was
possible to cut the compile time down
for a KDE module from several hours
to a mere 15 minutes.
After the coding marathon it was
time to say goodbye – to the Linux
Málaga people and to the KDE
developers who had come from all
over the globe to attend. It was a
fantastic event, and we’re looking
forward to seeing some of the
technology we got a sneak preview of
unleashed on to the Linux desktop.
LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 15
24/10/05 12:27:23 pm
 NEWS EXTRA

Brainshare Europe 2005

12–13 September Barcelona. Billed as: “The industry’s premier technical conference.”
LXF man on the ground: Mike Saunders.
Conference survival tip: “Take a phrasebook and a map. If only someone had told me this...”

Brainshare Europe 2005 was

Novell’s venue for bringing
together users, developers
and partners of its software and
services. The blistering late-summer
heat notwithstanding, Novell selected
an excellent location for the show –
the CCIB (Centre Convencions
Internacional Barcelona) right beside
the Mediterranean. On the lower floor
of the building, developers could relax
on beanbags and make good use of
the free wi-fi internet access, while on
the upper floor the Developer Den
proved to be a popular hangout for
hackers and curious users.
On the first day, Jack Messman
(Novell’s chairman and CEO) moved
swiftly through his opening keynote
speech before heading up a press
conference where he was joined by
David Patrick (general manager of the
Linux and open source group), Ron
Hovsepian (president of global field
Novell’s ‘lab staff’ were always on hand
operations) and other Novell big brass.
and filled much of the show floor.
The keynote and press conference
didn’t thrill the crowd with any major
product announcements – after all, per day and two million hits to the explaining that the city faced obstacles both software and hardware. IBM was
everyone knew about OpenSUSE at homepage, these were promising stats but they’re confident that they’ll make proud to show off its eServer xSeries
that point, and the fanfared new for a project that was still finding its it through. When asked what kind of 366 box, a four-way 3U server, while
releases of Zenworks and GroupWise feet. Novell also noted that, at the desktop organisations are migrating to on the smaller end RIM was present
had arrived a few months before. So time, over 500 bugfixes had been Linux, the panel noted fixed-function highlighting its Blackberry devices and
the announcements were more about contributed by the community – not or locked-down machines along with GroupWise integration. Oracle’s stand
Novell’s successes, along with newly bad considering OpenSUSE had only financial services as some of the most was mostly devoted to its Fusion
struck deals with other software been up and running for a month. You promising market segments. Middleware suite, and other show floor
developers. can see the first fruits of the project’s Other announcements made at attendees included Gwava, Fabasoft
OpenSUSE’s impressive progress labours on this month’s cover DVD. Brainshare included significant desktop and EMC. By far the biggest highlight,
was highlighted in the press OpenSUSE and the then-upcoming wins. SEB Eesti Ühispank, the largest though, was Novell’s own megastand in
conference. With 5,000 downloads SUSE 10.0 release featured heavily on bank in Estonia, had adopted Novell the centre, where white-coated ‘lab’
the main show floor too, with users Linux Desktop on its bank teller personnel tempted passers-by into
keen to get hands-on with the new workstations. In Norway, the fiddling with the latest releases: SUSE,
features and updates. municipality of Baerum was in the Extend, EDirectory, Open Enterprise
process of shifting 40 schools from Server, and more.
Zenlightenment Windows to Novell’s desktop offering. But most importantly, the croissants
An important milestone for Zenworks, Meanwhile, Sage announced that its were yummy.
Novell’s system management suite, was Sage Line 500 v5.5 software would be
announced at the press conference – available on SUSE Linux Enterprise QUICK SUMMARY
over 40 million users and the highest Server 9, joining other ERP (enterprise
■ Good progress for OpenSUSE –
ever revenue for the product in the last resource planning) vendors such as many downloads and increasing
quarter. And although Zenworks 7 had Carmen and Jeeves Information community involvement.
been released before the show, Systems in supporting Linux. These ■ Zenworks going strong – good
Novell’s technical team actively gains, while not jaw-droppingly huge, revenues and four million new users
promoted the suite with reflect a growing interest in the OS in the last two years.
demonstrations and presentations from a wide range of markets. ■ Desktop wins – Estonian bank and
aplenty. Also in the press conference, On the main show floor, Novell’s Norwegian schools.
Novell could get a good deal Novell execs fielded questions on the partners and other companies ■ New support – more ERP vendors
selling these big Ns to Nintendo... getting on board.
Munich Linux adoption slowdown, demonstrated their latest releases,

16 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 www.linuxformat.co.uk

LXF74.expos 16 24/10/05 12:27:37 pm


LinuxWorld
Conference and Expo
5–6 October, London. Billed as: “The must-attend event for the Linux and open source community.”
LXF man on the ground: Andy Channelle
Conference survival tip: “Take headache tablets and strong mints”.
If there was one thing that
could be said to define this
year’s London version of the
LinuxWorld Conference and Expo, it
was intent. Exhibitors told us that in
previous years, the show, which is held
annually at Olympia in the west of the
capital, tended to attract visitors with a
vague interest in the products on offer,
but there was very little in the way of...
well... money.
This time things seemed different,
and it wasn’t just the presence of
corporate behemoths such as Sun,
LinuxWorld also saw some pretty
blinged-up Daleks.
Novell and HP – they’ve all been here
before. This time there was a new
breed of visitor: the decision maker.
These men and women (mostly men)
prowled the hall seeking out innovative
open source technologies, and really
took an interest. Staff from Axigen, a
mail server company, made the trip to
London from Romania to demonstrate
their wares, and said that this show
had a focus that even the New York or
German events had failed to muster.
This idea of ‘potential’ didn’t stop at
the gates of the .org pavilion, which
was busier than ever. Jo Harris of the
Karoshi project (www.karoshi.org.
uk) said her hectic work schedule,
LXF74.expos 17
NEWS EXTRA
which seemed to involve shuttling from
Insert lame pun about
Dover to Olympia an insane number of
racks here.
times over two days, was paying off, as
visitors from UK schools had come to
the show specifically seeking out
Karoshi. The software is a network
management system aimed at the
education sector that, since its
inception, has been adopted by several
schools with cost savings, Jo said, in
excess of £80,000 for some users
(more on page 65).
Elsewhere in the .org pavilion, the
Gnome team were proudly displaying
their Linux Format award for Best
Desktop Software, and folks from the
Joomla (www.joomla.org) project
were showing the best way of putting
their ‘legal issues’ behind them by
wowing a constant stream of visitors
with Joomla’s CMS prowess. Also JIVE TALKING
present were KDE, UKUUG, Hula, In the conference area, the biggest choice to our customers.”
Debian, Mozilla Europe and many crowd of each day gathered for the Sun’s Phipps said that, rather than
others. Exhibitors and visitors alike Great Linux Debate, in which luminaries attempting to migrate people to Linux
were pleased to see a little more space from the Linux world (and LXF’s Nick right away, the desktop strategy should
devoted to the .org pavilion this year, Veitch) attempt to shoehorn adverts for be built around a gradual migration:
as it demonstrates an understanding products into their answers before moving to Firefox, OOo and others
that this is where the open source OpenForum’s Graham Taylor could stop before convincing the users of the cost-
them. The award for most blatant plug effectiveness of shifting the entire OS.
community (and its best products) are
went to Simon Phipps of Sun, who kept Mark Spencer, the developer of Gaim
conceived and refined.
mentioning some piece of hardware his and the Asterisk open source telecoms
company had just announced. system, reinforced the need for cross-
Ubuntu on the up The questions from the audience were platform development. “In order to
It’s a useful barometer of the relative the traditional mix of the astute, obvious succeed, we need to offer users
success of a distribution (and a and perplexing with many directed at alternative models for picking up great
desktop environment) to count the proprietary punchbag Nick McGrath software,” he said.
number of machines running it in the from Microsoft.
hall; and by that measurement, McGrath gave some Everyone laughs at
interesting answers in one of Nick’s jokes.
Ubuntu is definitely a distro on the rise.
relation to his
There were more versions of SUSE
company’s need to
running, mainly because Novell had so
‘understand the open
many machines, but if you discount
source development
vendors running their own software, method’ in order to
Ubuntu seemed the most visible. This better compete and
translated into a boost for Gnome, interoperate with it.
which was also on show in the Red Hat He also got the
and Sun exhibitions. For the first time, biggest laughs of the
it appears to have caught up with KDE. day when he said,
Usually as we drift away from these responding to a
question about 2006
shows, two or three people are left in
being the year of the
the hall hoping to blag the last freebie.
desktop, that
But this year, as closing time drew near
“Microsoft is about
on Thursday, the hum of conversation providing freedom of
was hardly diminished. LXF
www.linuxformat.co.uk LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 17
24/10/05 12:27:42 pm
 REVIEWS Ubuntu 5.10
LINUX DISTRIBUTION
Ubuntu 5.10
A compiler upgrade makes this a breezier distro than Hoary. Andy Hudson finds out what else is new.
KEY STUFF
Easy-to-use Debian-based distro.
Also consider Mandriva or OpenSUSE
■ DEVELOPER
The Ubuntu Foundation
■ WEB www.ubuntu.com
■ PRICE Free under GPL
Ubuntu is truly the enigma
of the Linux world. Only
released in October 2004,
you might think it would need time to
build its support base, yet it
consistently wins awards and
frequently tops the DistroWatch.com
rankings. All these accolades point to
one giant achievement: Mark
Shuttleworth’s team have taken
Debian, one Linux distro that you
could hardly call user-friendly, and
given it a human face.
Version 5.10 (codenamed the
Breezy Badger) is the latest release,
and if previous versions are anything
to go by it’s going to be hugely popular.
The Ubuntu Foundation has
worked hard on Ubuntu’s installation,
with the text installer now continuing
to the second stage of the installation.
No longer do you have to watch reams
and reams of text information scrolling
past at lightning pace: instead there’s a
friendly status bar that tells you
exactly where you are up to in the
setup routine and which packages are
currently being worked on.
Also included is a graphical bootup
screen with status messages
appearing below the word ‘Ubuntu’. It’s
a little basic, but better than nothing.
Linux made simple
At first glance, nothing much has
changed from Hoary Hedgehog (5.04).
Gnome 2.12 replaces 2.10, but its
refinements and improvements are
mostly hidden in right-click menus
FEATURES
AT A GLANCE
The helpful, if
somewhat annoying
updates pop-up is a
good move for
reassuring security
conscious users.
24 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005
LXF74.rev_ubuntu 30
ON CD
The chips are down, and Ubuntu holds all the cards (note the Beagle
search tool running). With usability like this, who needs Mac OS X?
and other not immediately apparent
features. If you’re familiar with Ubuntu
you’ll know it makes a lot of choices
for you about which applications are
supplied. As mentioned in our review
of Hoary (LXF68) we believe this
works in Ubuntu’s favour, as it reduces
the feeling of being lost in among all
the options.
The applications immediately
available include OpenOffice.org 2.0
(1.9.125), Evolution 2.4, Gnome’s
BitTorrent client, GnomeMeeting,
Rhythmbox, Totem, Sound Juicer and
Serpentine. This last package allows
mastering of audio CDs from a range
of audio codecs including OGG and
MP3. Those of us in the UK will no
doubt already be taking advantage of
our fair use allowance and Serpentine
will encourage this further.
New instructions
There have been a few improvements
under the hood. Ubuntu now includes
access to GCC 4.0, with the related
benefits that this brings, although the
kernel is still compiled with GCC 3.4.
Breezy uses kernel 2.6.12, but you can
This Add/
Remove
Application tool
is a welcome
simplification
for Synaptic.
www.linuxformat.co.uk
of course roll your own kernel with
specific optimisation flags. The only
thing to watch out for is that Ubuntu
does not ship with any development
tools installed as standard, so you’ll
need to use Synaptic to obtain the
required tools. Unsurprisingly, then,
Mono is not installed by default, but
there are Ubuntu-specific packages
available through Synaptic.
Support for PHP 5 is now included,
although 5.1 is expected to be
released by the time you read this. For
Bluetooth fans, support for keyboards
and mice is available out of the box.
Know thine enemy
With the release of Breezy, Mark
Shuttleworth also let us know the
name of what will become Ubuntu
6.04. It has been christened the
Dapper Duck – dapper because it will
have to be pretty smart to poach
Windows users away from Vista, and
Duck because… it begins with D. In
what might be heard as a battle cry,
Shuttleworth has asked for some real
effort behind 6.04 to lure old XP
users away from Windows.
Easily arrange
and burn any
OGG or MP3 file
to an audio CD
with Serpentine.
“The Ubuntu team have
also done amazing work to
get ACPI working on many
branded laptops, making
this one of the best choices
for Linux on the go.”
This is all very well, but Ubuntu’s
need for everything to ‘just work’
makes us think that Ubuntu is trying
to become more like Apple rather
than Microsoft. Apple’s philosophy is to
provide software that people want to
use rather than tinker with, and it
could be argued that Ubuntu is
mirroring this to a certain degree.
Also interesting is the launch of
the Edubuntu distro, which makes
heavy use of the Linux Terminal Server
Project and is aimed at schools. LTSP
support is now built in to Ubuntu as
standard, and it will be intriguing to
see where they go with this. Most
schools and colleges in the UK are
Microsoft-only, although some do use
Linux for file and print purposes.
There’s a lot riding on Ubuntu in terms
of bringing new users into open source.
All in all, this is a very positive
release. Ubuntu gets better and better
with each update and it will be exciting
to see what the effort promised for
6.04 will produce. LXF
LINUX FORMAT VERDICT
FEATURES 9/10
PERFORMANCE 9/10
EASE OF USE 10/10
DOCUMENTATION 8/10
Solid, easy to use distro that every
Linux user should try, and the pre-supplied
applications are all sensible choices.
RATING 9/10
24/10/05 2:01:47 pm
 REVIEWS Slackware 10.2

LINUX DISTRIBUTION

Slackware Linux 10.2

Pefected by years of evolution or fossilised? Tom Wilkinson digs in to find out.

KEY STUFF
Distribution aimed squarely at
advanced users.
See also: Debian and Gentoo.
■ DEVELOPER Patrick Volkerding
■ WEB www.slackware.com
■ PRICE Free under GPL

With a 1.0 release dating

back to 16 July, 1993,
Slackware is the oldest
surviving Linux distribution. It has had
a steady following over the years
because it provides the most Unix-like
environment of its peer group, and
because it does not try to hide the
complexity of configuration under an
endless tirade of graphical tools (which
can frequently introduce their own
complex oddities).
It is a testament to the abilities of
Patrick Volkerding, Slackware’s lead
developer and near-sole contributor,
that he has been able to keep an
audience and attract new users when
most of the competition have far more
developers working for them.
Back in time
Installing Slackware may, for some
users, be like taking a trip back in time
ten years or so. There is no graphical
interface to the installer at all, making
it look incredibly primitive compared
with Fedora or SUSE’s. Looks aren’t
everything though: the installer does
everything it needs to, and because it
isn’t weighed down with bells and
whistles it copes admirably, regardless
of the specification or age of hardware
it’s run on.
One vestigal feature from days of
yore which isn’t so welcome is the
partitioning method. While the choice
of Cfdisk or Fdisk, both text-mode
partitioners, is more than ample,
there’s no method included for resizing
existing partitions. Depending on your
needs, this might not be a problem,
but some users may need to use a
third-party partitioning tool to prepare
the disk first. It may seem like
Slackware is shooting itself in the foot
by making things difficult for users so
early on, but the process fits in with
Slackware’s strategy of exposing the
user as much as possible to what goes
KDE has supplanted Gnome, though Gnome 2.12 packages are available for Slackware, Slamd64 and Slackintosh.
on under the distro’s skin. Even if you
eventually settle on a distro other than
Slackware, you’ll appreciate how
complex the tasks that most installers
perform for you are.
Once you’ve created the relevant
partitions, the installer will walk
through formatting them and package
selection. Slackware’s packages come
in series, called disk sets. The name,
as you might surmise, is a holdover
from the days before CD-ROM drives
were widespread and software was
distributed on floppies. It’s no longer
possible to install Slackware using such
arcane media, but the name has stuck.
Each set contains a different set of
packages relating to different
functionality. The ‘base’ disk set
contains the bare minimum, and is
the only thing that’s absolutely
necessary to install – which is useful
for putting a tiny installation on a
single-purpose machine.
Slackware’s packaging system is
much simpler than Debian or Red
Hat’s. Essentially, each package is just
a Gzipped set of files, which are
unpacked over the filesystem. While
this can bring the difficulties of using
packages from various sources, it
won’t be a problem for most users.
Additionally there are extra programs
available, including Slackpkg on the
extras disk, which make package
management far more straightforward.
Although these too lack the finesse of
APT or Yum they are admirably robust
and more than up to the job.
One thing that seems a little
anachronistic is the installer offering to
set up a modem. Many may have
moved on to broadband, but for
now at least it’s worth having it as
an option.
Finally the boot loader, Lilo, is
installed. Unlike with previous versions
of Slackware, we had no problems
using it to boot a ReiserFS partition.
It’s good to see that this small but
important niggle has been fixed.
Gnome no-show
Once installed, and rebooted,
Slackware places you at a standard
text-based login prompt. Configuration
of all hardware is up to you, though a
few text-based programs are provided
to assist with this where necessary.
The biggest problem we had was
getting the graphical environment
running, but for most users it will be
enough to just run the X.org
configuration script.
One major change that’s occurred in
the new version of Slackware is that
Gnome is no longer distributed with it
– the only ‘high calorie’ environment
available is KDE. This change is
understandable. There’s a lot of work
involved in maintaining a full
distribution of Gnome for Slackware,
and handing over this responsibility to
third parties makes sense.
There’s nothing to stop you
installing your own version of Gnome,
of course, and it’s well within the
Slackware ethos to do so. The distro
encourages experimentation and
learning more about what’s under the
surface. Give it a try if you want to
know your Linux box inside out. LXF
LINUX FORMAT VERDICT
FEATURES 7/10
PERFORMANCE 9/10
EASE OF USE 4/10
DOCUMENTATION 8/10
If you want to know how things used to be,
or desire to get closer to your kernel,
Slackware should be high on your list.
RATING 7/10

www.linuxformat.co.uk LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 25

LXF74.rev_slack 25 24/10/05 1:22:02 pm

 REVIEWS Cairo
VECTOR GRAPHICS API
The Cairo Graphics Library
Graham Morrison looks at one of Gnome’s capital assets.
KEY STUFF
Scalable vector graphics for widgets
and windows. Also consider: Qt’s
Arthur, OpenVG.
■ VERSION 1.0
■ DEVELOPER The Cairo
Development Team
■ WEB http://cairographics.org
■ PRICE Free under LGPG
Cairo is going to improve the
Linux desktop hugely. It’s an
API that delivers vector-
based rendering, with the potential to
transform all those pixel-based
windows and widgets into beautifully
rendered, fully scalable curves and
lines. Just think of Bezier splines, anti-
aliased text rendering and affine
transformations such as scale, rotate
and shear (probably most familiar to
you through applications such as
Inkscape and Adobe Illustrator.
Because Cairo is an API
(application programming interface),
it’s only useful at the moment for
those who can develop software. The
average Linux user won’t feel the
effects of Cairo until the GUI
applications we rely on are built with it.
To develop software using Cairo,
you’d use a supported programming
language. By default, that’s C. Other
languages are catered for with
bindings, and include Java, Python,
Perl and Ruby, as well as the excellent
Mono and .NET bindings bundled with
the Mono distribution. C++ bindings
are still a work in progress.
The functions contained within the
API are relatively easy to use, but the
Cairo helps Gnome 2.12 to
seamlessly blend colours.
28 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005
LXF74.rev_cairo 28
Cairo can handle more than just rendering primitives. These examples
show it colour compositing with ADD and opaque layering with ATOP.
documentation doesn’t go any further
than providing a minimal framework
for each function. You certainly don’t
need any specialist knowledge, though,
and if you’re familiar with rendering
functions from other APIs, such as
GTK or Qt, this will simply feel like a
natural progression of their simple
geometry. In fact, it’s a little like
moving from Gimp to Scribus. Instead
of dealing with absolute values, you
deal with a cursor that moves relative
to a previous position.
HMS Vectory
Developers using Cairo can make their
graphics totally device-independent,
while at the same time dramatically
improving the quality of the output. It’s
all thanks to vectors: they can be
twisted, scaled and rotated without any
degradation in quality. Device
independence comes from using a
separate back-end for rendering the
output. This first release only officially
supports three back-ends: Xlib for X
Window System output, rendering to
an image file and Win32 for the
Windows platform.
www.linuxformat.co.uk
There are other back-ends that are
perfectly usable, making it almost as
easy to send your output to a PDF or
printer as it is to send it to the screen.
However, the most exciting back-end is
Glitz. Vectors are also used to define
3D graphics, which opens the door to
accelerating many of Cairo’s rendering
functions using OpenGL, and that’s
exactly what Glitz does. It’s the same
principle that drives the eye candy in
OS X, and it’s the combination of Glitz
and Cairo that’s likely to have the
greatest impact on the Linux desktop.
Even if you can’t program, it won’t
be long until you can get your hands
on applications that use Cairo. Gnome
2.12, released in early September,
already takes advantage of it. You only
have to look at the colour selector,
which now shows an extremely
smooth transition from one colour to
another, to see Cairo in action. The
latest release of the Gecko rendering
engine, which will be used by Firefox1.5,
will also use Cairo, and the OpenOffice.
org team at Novell are already putting
a lot of work into Cairo-rendered slide
shows and presentations.
The original 1.0 release of Cairo
had a bug that prevented it from doing
dashed curves, but this has been fixed
in version 1.0.2. Cairo, in fact, is in a
constant state of development, and
these releases are really just
snapshots along the way. At least the
API system calls are now keeping
constant, which is more than could be
said of the pre-1.0 versions.
Free Cairo
Perhaps predictably, Cairo does have a
competitor, in the shape of Qt’s Arthur.
Yes, keeping up the tradition of re-
inventing the wheel, the two most
popular Linux desktops have
implemented two different APIs for
performing almost the same task.
Arthur offers broadly the same
features as Cairo, even as far as
providing an accelerated OpenGL
back-end; but because it is properly
free (Trolltech imposes restrictions on
developers using Arthur) Cairo is far
more suitable for an open desktop.
Cairo is a brilliant idea, brilliantly
executed. The promise of device
independence, along with the
improvement in the quality of graphics
rendered using Cairo, marks a maturity
in the development of the Linux
desktop. SVG (Scalable Vector
Graphics) is going to become
increasingly common, and Cairo can
use it seamlessly.
Cairo will have a profound effect
on the future of the Gnome desktop,
especially using hardware acceleration.
How successful this will be is in the
hands of the developers, but looking
at this first release of Cairo, if there are
problems it won’t be the fault of this
wonderful toolkit. LXF
LINUX FORMAT VERDICT
FEATURES 8/10
PERFORMANCE 8/10
EASE OF USE 7/10
DOCUMENTATION 6/10
This should be the vector graphics API for
every Linux desktop.
RATING 8/10
24/10/05 2:00:40 pm

3D SOFTWARE
Maya 7 Unlimited
If this release was a chance to catch up on features, the suite is all the better for it finds Nick Veitch.
KEY STUFF
3D modelling and rendering software.
Also consider Realsoft 3D and the
free software, POV-Ray.
■ DEVELOPER Alias
■ WEB www.alias.com
■ PRICE £4,899 (or £1,449 for
Complete version)
After trailblazing new features
for so long, it seems that for
this release of the 3D
graphics suite (a simultaneous release
with the Windows version), the Maya
team have stepped back and spent
time looking at the details of how
systems such as text rendering and
polygon primitives work.
For example, it is possible in
version 7 to perform modelling
operations on text, then change the
text afterwards (as has been possible
in some rival programs before). In a
similar vein, you can now scale and
rotate objects with one tool rather
than many. Also falling into the
UNLIMITED’S KEY
NEW FEATURES
■ New polygon primitives
■ Adobe Illustrator support
■ Scene optimiser
■ Full-body IK
■ Dynamic fur
■ Toon shader
■ Cloth enhancements
Character animation is greatly enhanced with full body kinematics.
LXF74.rev_maya 29
category of tools that should always
have existed are some of the new
polygon primitives – it’s amazing that
a helix hasn’t existed before (it might
not be something that gets a lot of
use, but it is handy sometimes).
On to the new new stuff, and
here the changes will be of great
benefit to most artists. Tighter
cooperation with Adobe software
means better support for Photoshop
layers and the ability to subscribe to
Illustrator objects – these can be
directly operated on in the software,
but can also be linked to live files for
easy updates. This is long overdue, but
will be of more use to Windows users
than it will to anyone running Linux.
www.linuxformat.co.uk
REVIEWS Maya 7 Unlimited
Most of the
new features are
in the area of
dynamic and
visual effects.
The new toon
renderer, which emulates hand-drawn
animation cells, is simply the best of
its kind we have seen and works with
any of the render methods. There are
numerous enhancements to cloth
modelling and greater control over fur
and hair, especially when using
dynamic effects such as wind.
Busy interface
We tested the software on the same
hardware under Linux and Windows.
While visually the interface is pretty
identical on both systems and the
render times were the same (if
anything, slightly faster under Linux),
the GUI certainly felt a lot more
sluggish under Linux – it’s hard to say
why, though it’s possibly down to X.org
and the graphics drivers.
The interface is also beginning to
look a little clunky and dated. It is
becoming increasingly obvious that it
is difficult to cram all the tools and
options into the toolbars and menus.
Maya’s system of ‘shelves’ and
operation specific menus and the
object navigation menus try to make it
easier, but often it can take a while to
find the tool you are after.
With each new version, the
learning curve for the user becomes
Left: Complex scenes are a
doddle with Maya’s advanced
modelling tools.
Below: The hair browser is a
new, if not entirely un-live-
without-able feature.
steeper as more functions are
crammed in. This makes it all the more
annoying that the Learning version is
not available on Linux. This is a free
version (aimed at students and
amateurs) for honing your Maya skills.
It’s available under Windows and OS X,
but there are no plans for a similar
offering on Linux.
Nevertheless, with this release,
Maya remains at the forefront for
Linux 3D work, if only because it’s one
of the few 3D systems to support the
platform for anything other than
rendering. As Linux has already taken
over the render farms, though, the
modelling workstations are surely next
on the list. Realsoft already produces a
Linux version of its 3D software, and
bigger names like LightWave and 3ds
may appear before too long... LXF
LINUX FORMAT VERDICT
FEATURES 9/10
PERFORMANCE 9/10
EASE OF USE 6/10
VALUE FOR MONEY 7/10
Still the best professional 3D software
currently available for Linux.
RATING 9/10
LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 29
24/10/05 2:01:25 pm
 REVIEWS SSH Tectia Server

SECURE TERMINAL AND FILE TRANSFER

SSH Tectia Server

The security-conscious Graham Morrison goes shopping for a secure remote shell.

CPU ACTIVITY NETWORK BANDWIDTH

KEY STUFF
Log in to your machine from a
remote location and perform the
same tasks you can locally from the
shell. See also: OpenSSH.
■ DEVELOPER SSH
Communications Security Corp
■ WEB www.ssh.com
■ PRICE £1,439
Where would we be without
the Secure Shell? It’s
version of software that has an open
source alternative. The answer, as with
many similar applications, lies in the
enterprise market. Using an actively
supported, expensive implementation
of SSH developed by a company with
the pedigree and expertise of SSH
Comunications Security gives a
business the assurance that it won’t
get from an open source solution.
There are other advantages with a
paid-for solution: SSH

installed by default with
nearly every distribution, and has
become one of the most essential
tools on your system. Using SSH, you
can connect to your own, familiar
command prompt from a machine
anywhere on the planet. You don’t
need broadband – thanks to the
nature of the text-based interface, you to include just the client, or the client
can get away with the bandwidth of a
smoke signal. But if you’ve got more,
SSH can do other tricks, such as
tunnel a port from a remote machine
or forward an X Windows session. Our
Linux experience wouldn’t be the
same without SSH.
SSH started life as a project
developed by Tatu Ylönen and was
released as open source in 1995.
Ylönen went on to found SSH
Communications Security to further
the development of SSH, which
eventually pushed it into the realm of drop-in replacement for OpenSSH, but
enterprise-based proprietary software. we did experience a few problems
The free version used by most Linux
distributions is called OpenSSH, and
was developed by the OpenBSD team
as an alternative to Ylönen’s SSH.
You may wonder how SSH
Communications Security makes any
money selling a costly and proprietary includes folder and file completion,
KDE uses the SSH protocol for transferring
remote files through FISH.
Communications Security has made
bold claims about the enhanced
security and performance in the latest
incarnation of its SSH Tectia software.
In a change from previous releases,
where all the SSH tools were
combined into a single package, the
new version is available pre-packaged
and the server combined. Packages
are available for both Red Hat and
SUSE’s enterprise Linux offering, as
well as SUSE’s Professional distribution.
SUSE 9.3 and 10 weren’t listed, but we
had no problem installing the included
RPM packages on to our SUSE 10 box
after removing OpenSSH from our
system. We also successfully installed
the RPMs on Mandriva Linux 2006,
after making sure the new binary files
were in the system path.
The packages themselves are a
while using the SSH file transfer tool
SFTP to transfer and receive files with
OpenSSH. The transfer would often
timeout before completion, so it’s
obviously not 100% compatible with
other formats. Interestingly, SFTP
which is sorely missed in
the free version. But the
biggest touted benefit is
performance, surreptitiously
implemented by way of a
bolted-on enhancement to
version 2 of the SSH
protocol. Dubbed G3, this is
the third generation of the
SSH2 protocol implemented
by SSH Communications
Security, and is supposedly
a complete rewrite of the
code base.
AMOUNT
TIME
SSH Tectia is shown below OpenSSH, and in our tests was slightly faster at
the cost of greater CPU usage.
We pitted this third generation
against OpenSSH 4.0, and it is indeed
faster. It transferred a 700MB file
across our network at about 10.1MB/s.
OpenSSH, by comparison, managed
8.3MB/s, but used slightly fewer CPU
cycles. If your business transfers
gigabytes of data using SSH, this is a
significant improvement, but for the
rest of us it’s hardly going to change
the world.
Keep it a secret
Security is obviously the main front on
which the battle between SSH Tectia
and OpenSSH will be fought. Both
implementations are technically very
similar, featuring almost identical
encryption. But when it comes to
ensuring your valuable data can’t be
compromised, OpenSSH can’t compete
with enterprise rhetoric. For example,
SSH Tectia can offer FIPS 140-2
certification, as required by the US
government, and scalable user
authentication. You can also deploy,
update and patch SSH Tectia using
additional management software.
TIME
These are buzzwords that will take
pressure off the typical IT manager,
and avoid the personal responsibility
an open solution often brings.
On a big enough battleground,
this makes SSH Tectia unbeatable.
Technically, you don’t get much for
your money, but in today’s world, you
just can’t buy enough security. That’s
what’s on offer here: an indemnity
policy for a backbone of corporate
communication. Yes, this is a stable,
efficient and effective suite of tools;
but more important than that, it’s
reassuringly expensive. LXF
LINUX FORMAT VERDICT
FEATURES 7/10
PERFORMANCE 6/10
EASE OF USE 6/10
VALUE FOR MONEY 6/10
Expensive SSH for the enterprise with an
authority that can’t be argued against.
RATING 6/10

30 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 www.linuxformat.co.uk

LXF74.rev_ssh Sec1:30 18/10/05 6:50:59 pm

 REVIEWS ThinkFree Office 3

OFFICE SUITE

ThinkFree Office 3
Thinking free, says Alex Cox, means finding an office suite without traditional shackles.

KEY STUFF
A Java-based office productivity suite,
now faster and more stable than ever.
Also try KOffice.
■ DEVELOPER Haansoft
■ WEB www.thinkfree.com
■ PRICE $49.95 (download edition)

The concept of single

platform applications is, if
you think about it, pretty
ridiculous. Compiling something for
just one platform stinks of laziness,
and alienates a big part of the world’s
audience. It’s especially difficult to
keep any sort of consistency when
working between operating systems if
you can’t use the same tools. The real
solution is to write efficient portable
code, and Sun’s Java is as good a
method as any.
ThinkFree Office 3 is a Java
implementation of three of the most
widely used office applications ever:
Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
They’re here wholeheartedly copied in
most of their glory. ThinkFree Write,
Calc and Show emulate their ThinkFree Office, eschews the frivolous in favour of the functional, so you should find the features you need.
counterparts closely, with all of the key
features included. If it weren’t already also suggested, meaning that the suite Functions such as creating tables, mistakes, highlights spelling errors,
obvious that ThinkFree is trying to should function on any platform that formatting, spreadsheet calculations and has a full dictionary. It also,
directly target users migrating from runs Java. Compatibility with window and creating new slides feel almost somewhat inevitably, includes a set of
Microsoft, its default file formats are managers isn’t an issue, since the MS- instantaneous. Created for portability, hideous clip-art from the 1980s.
.doc, .xls and .ppt. alike internal interface is entirely this has been tightly coded, and you Always a bonus.
proprietary and generated, like the rest can feel it. All three applications use It can save in PDF format as well
What’s the deal? of the graphics, in Java. the same core interface, and share as Word’s .doc, rich text, plain text and
The deal is that it’s selling for a lot less Naturally this also means that, the same pace. scalable vector filetypes – a limited
than MS Office (the Standard Edition while there is no special allowance selection but one that’s compatible
2003 costing $399, though it made for the system that ThinkFree is Write with just about every other application
includes the email package Outlook), running on, there’s also no complex ThinkFree Write, the word processor, is out there. It’s also fairly adept at
and since the apps are easily portable installation or dependency hell. perfectly adequate for everyday use. opening files created in .doc format
(currently compiled for Linux, Windows, The big surprise is the speed. We It’s an effortlessly useful tool for using other applications, though our
Mac and even in an online version) didn’t think it would be fast, what with generating documents with complex tests showed it couldn’t quite
their familiar air can be made to go the extra layer of operation, but on our formatting, tables, linked objects like reproduce line drawings accurately, nor
even further. Site licensing for schools 3D objects. We also suffered some
is as little as $1 per machine, a lot less issues with responsiveness: at one
than Microsoft is asking. Because the
interface is the same, the skills kids
“THE BIG SURPRISE IS THE point during the writing of this review,
Write seized up completely and
learn here are easily applicable to the SPEED. WE DIDN’T THINK IT refused all keyboard input. Save often
big wide world where MS prevails.
The main thing you’ll need, funnily WOULD BE FAST... BUT IT IS.” to prevent having to test the auto-
recover feature, we suggest.
enough, is Java. Fedora Core is listed
as the recommended distro, and we 3.4GHz Pentium 4 with 512 MB of pictures and line art, hyperlinks, and Calc
can confirm that ThinkFree functions RAM (running Fedora Core 3), it is. footnotes. Write runs quickly, and the Calc is a wonderful spreadsheet. Really.
quite happily once Java has been Scrolling is smooth, screen updating is screen does its best to keep up with It’s not very complex, but it does
installed. SUSE and Turbolinux, on spot on… we have absolutely no even the most fervent typing. It everything so efficiently that it’s a
which Java is installed by default, are complaints with the rendering engine. automatically corrects common pleasure to use. Because it shares the

32 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 www.linuxformat.co.uk

LXF74.rev_tfree 32 24/10/05 12:52:22 pm


SPITTING IMAGE
Similarities between ThinkFree Office and Microsoft Office
POWERPOINT
Show does a really good job with support for the
.ppt format, and works just as well for animations
as static slide shows. it’s even possible to export to
PDF format, not something easily achieved with
Powerpoint at all.
backbone of Write’s structure, it also
shares many of its features, and the
interface is just as quick. Of course, it’s
built like Excel, and the calculation
formatting and such is identical. The
icons, too, are spookily similar. This is a
good thing. The chart function is
almost a direct copy, and it’s great.
Over 300 of Excel’s function types
are supported – the omissions are
mostly from the engineering and
financial groupings - so the vast
majority of worksheets will open.
Crucially though, there is no support
for MS-style macros at all.
While there isn’t an enormous
amount of interaction between the
applications, the graphs you make are
ready to copy and paste directly into
your Write documents or Show
presentations. It’s another case of
ThinkFree Office doing just enough to
make it completely useful.
Write easily handles importing of images and charts, and supplies handles
for simple rotating and resizing.
LXF74.rev_tfree 33
SHOW
Execs are unlikely to panic when faced with Calc’s
familiar interface. It’s the closest clone of the
whole set, which is really saying something. It’s
very unlikely you’ll find an Excel document that
stumps it.
Show
Can PowerPoint do it? Show will most
likely manage it. There is a large
selection of slide transitions to choose
from, and like the rest of the suite,
they run smoothly even on lowly
machines. It translates PowerPoint files
just fine, too, meaning you can take
your presentations cross-platform with
ease. The online version means you
can easily take things cross-platform
even if you’re in a location that doesn’t
have either app installed.
To use the word innovative would
be a bit much in this case, considering
that the whole suite is as derivative as
they come. It’s more clever.
Irksome bits
Clones are bound to shake up some
minor irritations, especially to those
used to the original. Some features
still feel like early versions of their MS
www.linuxformat.co.uk
REVIEWS ThinkFree Office 3
EXCEL
CALC
“This is a smart alternative
to using Microsoft Office
through CrossOver, but
can you live without
OpenOffice.org’s Base?”
or OpenOffice.org counterparts. Write’s
live spellcheck ignores apostrophes,
for example, even when you have
inserted the word from its own right-
click menu. We have to admit we were
expecting a certain number of bugs to
creep in, but it’s nowhere near as bad
as it could have been.
A lot of people aren’t going to like
this. You may be one of them. You
could be spitting and fuming that it’s a
big blatant MS rip-off; that the .doc
format is insecure; or that there’s not
even any support for the OpenOffice.
org OOo format. But this isn’t
OpenOffice.org – that might as well not
exist as far as ThinkFree is concerned.
If OOo had the sort of installed user
base as MS Office, perhaps ThinkFree
would take notice. As it is, the target is
MS users, and the result is something
that isn’t going to make the whole
Linux community happy.
And here’s the scary thing: put
ThinkFree Office up against OpenOffice.
org, and there seems to be little
disparity when they’re performing non-
specialist tasks. If anything ThinkFree
Office approaches Microsoft’s tried
and tested feature set in a more
direct fashion.
One key difference between the
suite and OOo is its lightness – Sun’s
system has long been bemoaned for
its sloth. We tested the boot timings
for the word processors from each
package, and after a clean reboot,
ThinkFree Write took a relatively
speedy 7.4 seconds to load. This is
half of the 14.5 seconds that
OpenOffice Writer took on the same
machine. Allowing ThinkFree’s quick
launcher to load first meant a start
time of just under five seconds, which
we found impressive.
But casually glance at the toolbars
of each of the competing apps and
you’ll see which one has more to offer.
There’s really no comparison between
the wide-reaching scope of OpenOffice.
org, or KOffice come to that, and the
bare bones of ThinkFree Office. It can’t
have escaped your attention that
ThinkFree has fewer separate
applications than the rest, or that
fewer tools have been shoehorned in.
It’s playing the same game, but it
doesn’t quite have a full kit. So, it’s an
office suite in its vest and pants.
Should you bother?
ThinkFree Office is short on fluffy
extraneous features in favour of
streamlining and stability. In many
cases, the simpler interface is actually
an advantage: less stuff you’ll never
use; less bloat; less potential for
getting royally confused, although this
may lead to compatibility issues with
MS ofice. Its familiar interfaces would
make ThinkFree Office a fantastic first
step for Linux newcomers frightened
of accepting a more than mild change.
Yep, as office apps go, this new
version of ThinkFree Office is a serious
choice for everything from a single
system to a whole network rollout. It
works just as well on FC3 as it does
on Windows XP (we tested it on both),
if not better.
It isn’t open, it isn’t free and it
doesn’t even try to be. If you want
some cheap software that apes the
ability of MS Office, in a non-scary,
won’t-have-to-retrain-your-users way
then Haansoft may have the answer
for you. LXF
LINUX FORMAT VERDICT
FEATURES 5/10
PERFORMANCE 7/10
EASE OF USE 9/10
DOCUMENTATION 8/10
Value for money licences and a solid code
base make ThinkFree Office a real
contender. Well worth a try.
RATING 7/10
LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 33
24/10/05 12:52:24 pm
 REVIEWS Books
Learning Unix for Mac OS X Tiger
After years using Macs, Andrew Gregory finally discovers how they work.
KEY STUFF
■ AUTHORS Dave Taylor
■ PUBLISHER O’Reilly
■ ISBN 0-596-00915-1
■ PRICE £13.95
■ PAGES 260
Apple did itself a huge favour
when it chose to base OS X on Unix: it
multitasks properly, it’s fast, and it very
rarely *cough* crashes. The Darwin
Unix core that the rest of Apple’s
flashy OS runs on also did the Linux
community a favour: it’s something
we can use to convert Mac users to
the Linux fold.
While that’s not explicitly the
intention behind Learning Unix For Mac
OS X Tiger, it’s often how it comes
across. The book aims to expose to
the mollycoddled GUI-loving Mac user
the command-line power that lurks
just under the surface.
You’re introduced very early on to
the common Unix commands ls, date
Perl Best Practices
Graham Morrison opens an oyster to find a gem of a book.
KEY STUFF
■ AUTHORS Damian Conway
■ PUBLISHER O’Reilly
■ ISBN 0-596-00173-8
■ PRICE £28.50
■ PAGES 517
Don’t be insulted, but this book’s
premise is that the way you program
is wrong. You probably use a mixture
of instinct, habit and laziness, it says,
and when you’re under pressure you
can multiply the impact of each of
those by ten. Who better than author
Damian Conway to teach us the error
of our ways? He’s a well-known
programmer, works at the heart of
the Perl development process, and in
this book Conway lends his authority
to improve common Perl
programming malpractice.
The book presents a set of 256
recommended coding practices,
organised by topic. Each is summed
up by a Zen-like instruction at the
start: “Consider whether it’s better to
34 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005
LXF74.rev_books Sec1:34
and who – but then the interesting
stuff grinds to a halt. Instead, we get
several pages on how to change your
command prompt from ‘[Mac:~]user%’
to ‘yes, master’. Cue the sound of Mac
users laughing at pathetic Unix geeks
and putting the book quietly back on
the shelf.
As usual with O’Reilly, the
information is all there: once you’re
rewrite than to comment”, “Never
place two statements on the same
line”. They’re concise and easy to read
and you could pick up on any one of
them without having read the one
before, but there is logic in the order.
The first good habit to learn is
code layout because “layout is where
most of the arguments start”, says
Conway. He moves on through
variables, subroutines, error handling
and modules, to name but a few
www.linuxformat.co.uk
familiar with the “command-argument-
filename” syntax used by the shell,
and had a quick explanation of what/
all/ those/ slashes in paths mean,
you’re introduced to the Unix
workhorses – everyday tools like grep,
ssh and FTP. The book even goes
some way to explain the silly names
that crop up. For a system touted as
cutting edge, it’s amusing to learn that
topics, before finishing with testing and
debugging. The main body involves
itself in the intricacies of the Perl
language with things like values and
expressions, or control structures.
There are plenty of worked examples,
and it’s easy to skip to the parts you
may be interested in, whether it’s
Perl’s built-in –functions, or file I/O.
Conway never shies away from
stating how he feels about certain
“bad habits”. When it comes to line
the tar command is named after the
old tape archiver used in the sixties.
Learning... Tiger has plenty of
exercises worked into the text, and you
can read through it with a terminal
open in front of you and really feel as
though you’re learning something new.
The way the information is presented
could be a lot better, but this is
counter-balanced by the excellent
index (which should be pretty good:
this is in effect the fourth edition of
Learning... OS X).
Give this to the Mac user in your
life. As long as they aren’t absolute
newbies, sit back and wait for the
conversion – but be patient.
LINUX FORMAT VERDICT
Not just for Mac users, this is a simple,
practical guide for anyone getting started
with Unix.
RATING 5/10
boundaries for example, we’re told
“consistently using the ‘/m’ on every
regular expression makes Perl’s
behaviour consistently conform to your
unreasonable expressions”. But he
goes a considerable way to explain
what’s wrong with certain approaches
to a problem before trying to change
your ways – rather than simply telling
you that you are wrong. That’s
important if you are going to bother
changing the way you program to his
often more long-winded approach.
This is another O’Reilly book you
can keep at the side of your computer.
Each entry is short enough to read
while your system is booting in the
morning, and after a couple of weeks
you will be a better Perl programmer,
which should please Conway. LXF
LINUX FORMAT VERDICT
A must-have for any Perl aficionado with a
desire to improve.
RATING 8/10
24/10/05 12:31:32 pm
 DISTROWATCH
Distrowatch
This month’s roundup of news from Linux distro development.
WELCOME!
How many times
have you
witnessed (or
even taken part
in) an online
discussion where
each party
Ladislav Bodnar defended their
is a founder,
preferred distro
maintainer, editor
and poured
and janitor of
DistroWatch.com. scorn on
everything else?
We do love our operating systems
and are prepared to prove our
allegiance in passionate arguments
on internet forums.
“IT SEEMS THAT JUST
ABOUT EVERYBO DY
IS BUILDING NEW
DISTRIBUTIONS.”
Having said that, research
indicates that a Linux user is much
more likely to switch allegiance
than, say, a football supporter. If
Manchester United underperforms
one season, its followers dutifully
return the next, hoping for better
things. But users of Linux
distributions are much less
forgiving. The latest release of
Mandriva didn’t work for you? No
problem, you can simply download
and install SUSE, Ubuntu or any
other of the hundreds of
distributions available until you
find the one that makes you feel
proud of your PC once again.
This ever-increasing range of
products, together with new,
amazing ideas, is what makes the
world of Linux distributions so
fascinating. From multi-billion
dollar corporations with hundreds
of well-paid programmers to
penniless students hacking about
in their bedrooms, it seems that
just about everybody is working on
some open source code, writing
applications and building newer,
better distributions.
We haven’t paid enough
attention to this phenomenon, but
this is about to change – welcome
to Distrowatch!
36 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005
LXF74.dwatch 36
A brief history of
Linux distributions
From half a dozen to over 300 in a decade
Welcome to the first
Distrowatch! This is a
new regular section for
the magazine that will keep you up to
date with the latest distro news. We
hope you’ll find it useful for everything
you need to know about your
preferred flavour of Linux.
The concept of a Linux distribution –
a complete operating system with the
Linux kernel, essential GNU packages
and other open source software –
emerged in 1992 from two companies:
Softlanding Linux System and Yggdrasil
Linux. Their early efforts were riddled
with problems, causing frustration to
many users who attempted to install
them on a variety of hardware
configurations, so it was hardly
surprising that they gave rise to a new
breed of Linux distributions. Among
them, Slackware Linux and Debian
GNU/Linux were the most successful.
Slackware was created by Patrick
Volkerding and launched as version 1.0
in July 1993. It is estimated that at its
peak in 1995 Slackware had a market
share of 90% of all Linux installations.
Many other Linux companies made
use of Slackware in those years – a
good example is SUSE Linux, which
started as a company translating
Slackware files into German and
distributing large sets of floppy disks
containing Slackware Linux to
interested users.
Debian GNU/Linux was first
announced in 1993 by Ian Murdock
and, after a slow start, the distribution
quickly became one of the largest
cooperative software development
projects ever created. Many predicted
that this type of development work,
carried out by hundreds of volunteers
www.linuxformat.co.uk
1992 ....... SoftLanding Linux System
1992 ...... Yggdrasil alpha
1993 ...... Slackware Linux 1.0
1995 ...... Red Hat Linux 1.0 ‘Mother’s Day’
1996 ...... Caldera Network Desktop 1.0
1996 ...... SUSE Linux 4.2
1996 ...... Debian 1.1 ‘Buzz’
1998 ...... Mandrake 5.1 ‘Venice’
1999 ...... Corel Linux 1.0
1999 ...... Linux From Scratch 1.0
2001 ..... Knoppix 2.0
2002 ..... Gentoo Linux 1.0
2002 ..... Lindows 1.0
2003 ..... Fedora Core 1 ‘Yarrow’
2004 ..... Ubuntu 4.10 ‘Warty Warthog’
Just some of the landmark Linux releases since 1992.
across the globe who exchange ideas independent applications. Although
and code on the internet, was bound many ideas were floating around at
to disintegrate in chaos and fail the time, it was a new company called
miserably. But the reality surprised the Red Hat, established in 1995, which
sceptics. Debian has not only become brought about a revolution. Its RPM
living proof that unpaid volunteers can package management format was a
accomplish an amazing amount of major breakthrough and, in the
work in an loosely organised following years, it was quickly adopted
environment, it has also become one by several other Linux distributions.
of the most respected and stable Linux
distributions around, with quality The Renaissance
control structures that many The dotcom boom and bust at the
commercial companies can only turn of the century meant big changes
dream of. on the Linux distribution scene.
As the early distributions started Mandrakesoft (renamed to Mandriva
adding more and more software, it was earlier this year) survived financial
clear that much simpler package problems and made some
management was needed for all the fundamental improvements to Red
24/10/05 2:22:33 pm

Hat’s offering, thus becoming one of
the best-loved Linux distributions for
the desktop. But the fortunes of most
other newcomers were not nearly as
favourable – the Debian-based Corel
Linux was abandoned in 2001 after
the company, the first well-known
software firm to make a foray into the
world of Linux development, ran into
financial difficulties. A similar fate
awaited Storm Linux, another
promising Debian-based start-up. And
Caldera Systems, with its innovative
desktop and server distro, turned from
an admired company into a Linux
pariah after it merged with SCO and
began pursuing claims in courts
against Linux and Linux companies.
New blood
Despite these failures, the arrival of
the new century has seen a huge
increase in the number of Linux
distributions as more and more
software developers are discovering
the power and freedom of working
with freely modifiable open source
code. While in early 2000 there were
perhaps two dozen or so distributions,
this number has swelled to over 300
in recent years.
Partly responsible for this enormous
rise was the concept of a Live CD – a
complete operating system that can
be run from a CD or DVD without
installing anything on the hard disk, as
popularised by Knoppix. But many
other ideas were also brought into
spotlight: the concept of building one’s
own distribution by compiling all
source code found a strong following
in Gentoo Linux, while this year has
witnessed the rise of Ubuntu Linux, a
free community distribution sponsored
by a wealthy philanthropist. It’s an
exciting world, and one you can enter
by contributing to or building your own
(see cover feature on page 54).
Patrick Volkerding: the founder
and maintainer of the oldest
surviving Linux distro, Slackware.
LXF74.dwatch 37
Return of the Slack
Slackware Linux 10.2 Simple, secure, reliable and conservative
Slackware Linux is the
first major distribution to
bring out a new release
this autumn. Version 10.2 continues in
the tradition of simplicity and reliability,
rather than offering major new
features, with the only exception being
the introduction of the LinuxThreads
library in Glibc 2.3.5. Although the
package set in Slackware 10.2 is highly
up to date, including X.org 6.8.2, KDE
3.4.2 and XFce 4.2.2, the default
Copycat in the hat
Tao Live A Live CD for Red Hat sysadmins
While the Debian-based
Knoppix has popularised
the concept of Linux Live
CDs to the extent that there are
dozens of Knoppix derivatives for
every taste and purpose, what about
users familiar with one of the other
major distributions? Is there a good
Live CD based on Red Hat or Fedora?
The answer is: yes, of course. Tao
Linux is one of several projects that
www.linuxformat.co.uk
“KERNEL 2.6.13 IS
PROVIDED FOR MORE
ADVENTUROUS FOLKS.”
kernel remains the tried and tested
2.4 series (2.4.31 to be exact).
Patrick Volkerding, Slackware’s
maintainer, believes that anyone using
Linux in mission-critical
production
environments might
prefer to stick with the
2.4 kernel series for
some years to come.
The newer kernel, he
argues in the release
notes, is still under
heavy development
and is not as well-
tested under extreme
conditions as the 2.4
kernel series. However,
Slackware 10.2 also
rebuild source RPM packages from
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) into
what is effectively an RHEL clone, but
without the support contract and the
accompanying price tag. In the
process, the project has also
developed a Live CD, called Tao Live.
Version 4.02 was released in mid-
September and it includes all the
recent security and package updates
issued upstream by Red Hat. Tao Live
boots into a KDE desktop,
with the essential applications
available from the menus.
If you are a Red Hat system
administrator, this could be a
perfect CD to keep handy for
that occasional repair or
rescue job.
http://taolinux.org.
Taoism enthusiast David
Parsley rebuilt RHEL to
share it with others.
DISTROWATCH
provides an optional kernel 2.6.13 for
more adventurous types, who might
prefer its performance enhancements,
especially on less critical desktop
systems.
There is bad news for Gnome fans
– 10.2 is the first Slackware release
since version 4.0 that ships without
Gnome. The decision was made a few
month ago when Volkerding concluded
that third-party projects specialising in
building Gnome packages for
Slackware, such as GWare and
Freerock Gnome, were doing a
marvellous job building the often
complex Gnome binaries. He now
recommends that Gnome users use
one of those two Gnome builds.
■ See page 25 for the full 10.2 review.
LIFE IN THE OPEN
How is SUSE’s online community
getting on?
The opening of SUSE to public
participation (see LXF72) generated a
huge amount of interest among Linux
developers and users. Busy mailing
lists, overloaded download servers
and plenty of quality bug reports all
indicate that SUSE is truly on its way
to become one of the most open (in
terms of being accessible to its users)
distro development projects around.
With the October launch of SUSE
Linux 10.0 behind us, the developers
did not waste any time before
launching the first alpha release of
SUSE 10.1; this will be followed by
three more alpha releases in monthly
intervals, four beta releases in weekly
intervals and a release candidate on
16 February 2006. The final release
of SUSE 10.1 is expected in early
March 2006.
www.opensuse.org
LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 37
24/10/05 2:22:44 pm
 Roundup
Every month we compare tons of software, so you
don’t have to!

RSS READERS
Want the news, the whole news and nothing but the news? Paul Hudson
puts his newspaper down and seeks out the finest RSS readers.
Blogs and news, blogs and
news. Is that all RSS readers
are good for? Yes, pretty
much, but think of the riches!
boingboing.net, alienlovespredator.
com, theonion.com, www.
barbrastreisand.com/news_
statements.html… all the essential
content in the world delivered as easily
as an email.
For something that’s so simple and
yet so important to modern computing,
RSS has a complicated history. It all
began in 1999, when Netscape
created the very first version of RSS
(which stood for RDF Site Syndication)
for the my.netscape.com web portal.
At the same time, a chap called Dave
Winer created his own XML-based
syndication protocol for his site,
Scripting News. From there, Winer and
Netscape collaborated on a modified
version of RSS, which was christened
RSS 0.91 despite being substantially
different from 0.90. RSS now stood for
Rich Site Summary, and started to be
adopted on a wider basis.
That was when things really started
to get crazy. Netscape dropped
development of the format just as it
was taking off, which caused a fork.
On one side, an external group
produced RSS 1.0, based on
Netscape’s original. On the other,
Winer produced RSS 0.92 then RSS
2.0 (now saying that RSS stood for
Really Simple Syndication). Both of
Winer’s apps were based on RSS 0.91
and incompatible with Netscape’s RSS
1.0. All this mess means one thing:
making an RSS reader is no easy task,
and choosing an RSS reader isn’t
much easier. OUR SELECTION
Thankfully, modern RSS readers AT A GLANCE
don’t bother you with all this version
information, they “just work”. But there Akregator .............................. 42
are many other things to consider: Blam ...........................................39
which supports tabbed browsing?
BottomFeeder ....................41
Which lets you find specific news items
quicker and faster than the others? Liferea ...................................... 40
Which has the best features, such as RSSOwl................................... 42
favicons to identify feeds? All this and Snownews .............................39
more we’ve taken into account in Thunderbird ........................ 40
order to find the best…

38 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 www.linuxformat.co.uk

LXF74.round 38 24/10/05 12:31:55 pm


Blam
Disappointing Mono flag bearer.
■ VERSION 1.8.2 ■ WEB http://developer.imendio.com/wiki/Blam
■ PRICE Free under GPL
Despite its immense potential,
Mono has so far only been used to
handle small applications that do one
thing well. Together with Beagle and F-
Spot, Blam is frequently cited as a
great example of what Mono can do,
yet it doesn’t seem to have the
features to back up its position as
poster child. Although Gnome-based
programs are well known for limiting
the number of options available to
users, Blam seems to take this to
extremes. For example, the settings
dialog contains just two options: one
that places new RSS entries at the top
rather than at the bottom, and another
that sets how often feeds should be
auto-refreshed. Individual feed options
are pared down to just the name and
location of the feed, which is poor.
The Blam GUI makes little attempt
to innovate or surprise, adopting the
Snownews
Is good news.
■ VERSION 1.5.7 ■ WEB http://kiza.kcore.de/software/snownews
■ PRICE Free under GPL
As the only command-line RSS
reader in this test, Snownews has no
preconceptions to follow about GUI
design for this type of software. As a
Snownews uses purple to highlight unread RSS entries.
LXF74.round 39
three-pane layout that’s so common
with RSS readers and mail clients
alike: down the left is the list of feeds,
in the upper-right is the list of posts
and in the bottom-right is the content
of an individual entry. Unread items
are marked in a bold font, and the
channel list also prints the number of
unread messages next to each feed.
Three panes, stupid!
You can update all your feeds at once
by clicking the Refresh All button at
the bottom of the channel list, or one
by one by right-clicking on an
individual feed and selecting Refresh.
Each RSS entry is book-ended with
minimal styling to make it look fresh
and interesting if no pictures were
included. This is actually useful,
because the bottom bar contains a
Show In Browser link that opens up
result, there’s no three-pane view, no
tabbed browsing, no fancy pop-up
menus everywhere and certainly no
pretty themes. Instead, you get the
www.linuxformat.co.uk
What the developers call “clean”, we think of as “featureless”.
your Gnome-default web browser to
point to the entry you were reading.
The fact that this app is made
using Mono doesn’t win it any brownie
points, because this really is the most
basic RSS reader you can imagine.
The lack of any sort of configuration
means you either have to work the
way Blam works or use a different
program – there’s no middle ground.
There are also no help files, which is
“THE DOWNSIDE OF NO GUI
IS A LACK OF USABILITY.”
blunt interface we all expect from this
type of tool, with the downside being a
distinct lack of usability. If this were a
text editor, it would be more like Vim
than Nano – lots of power, but you’ll
need to be familiar with the help files
if you want to get the best out of it.
When Snownews first opens you’ll
see a blank screen, waiting for you to
add your RSS feeds. The only clue to
how to add a field is for a small line at
the bottom prompting you to press H
for a help menu. That gives you all the
instructions you need, but it’s a shame
Snownews couldn’t just list the most
common commands rather than hide
them away.
To add a feed, type the exact URL
into the program. Once you’ve done
that Snownews will download, parse
and display it for you straight away.
Master of the keys
Keyboard interaction is important, as
you would expect. The cursor keys
navigate between feeds and between
stories, with the Q key performing the
dual action of going up a level (ie from
ROUNDUP RSS READERS
presumably because this is one
program that’s easy enough to use
that you can do without them.
LINUX FORMAT VERDICT
We could program this ourselves in half
an hour.
RATING 3/10
story to feed, or from feed to feed list)
and also quitting the program. This
means you need to be very careful
how many times you press it – we
accidentally quit out of this program
far more times than we wanted to.
Type-ahead find and the ability to
assign topics to your feeds make it
quite easy to categorise your news,
particularly as you can apply a topic
filter then search within it. Lynx is the
default browser for opening feeds, but
it can be whatever you want, even
something running on X. Perhaps the
best thing about Snownews, though, is
the fact that it’s a first-class console
citizen: all its configuration files are
easily accessible files, and it’s able to
use other command-line programs as
filters for its feeds.
LINUX FORMAT VERDICT
It won’t blow you away, but it’s certainly a
strong gust of wind.
RATING 5/10
LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 39
24/10/05 12:32:02 pm
 ROUNDUP RSS READERS
Liferea
The best option for power users.
■ VERSION 0.9.4 ■ WEB http://liferea.sourceforge.net/
■ PRICE Free under GPL
This may come as some surprise,
but the most feature-laden RSS
reader isn’t KDE-based: it’s Liferea
(“LInux FEed REAder”), and is based
on Gnome. Liferea uses clever defaults
so that you don’t even need to be
aware of most of the options until you
need them. And if you’re itching for
some customisation, you’ve come to
the right place: you can make Liferea
work just as you want it to with only a
few minor tweaks.
We’re back to the three-pane view,
but Liferea improves it by adding
favicon support to the feed list, which
shows the sites’ icons next to their
names. It also has a special
Condensed View option that makes a
feed read more like a guestbook by
having the posts consecutively printed
in full on one page. One glaring
annoyance is that you have to run
Thunderbird
Firefox’s little brother just isn’t ready for RSS.
■ VERSION 1.5 ■ WEB www.mozilla.org
■ PRICE Free under the Mozilla Public License
Firefox is one of the biggest
success stories in the world of free
software, having even managed to
cross over into print advertising in the forward in the mail and news
Thunderbird combines Firefox’s UI goodness with all the usability of Emacs. directly into the bottom-right pane as
40 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005
LXF74.round 40
searches through a special dialog –
there’s no text box that could be
reached from within the main dialog.
Beyond the GUI
Whereas most of the other programs
here allow you to set global options,
Liferea lets you override any of those
options on a feed-by-feed basis. For
example, you might want most of your
Browsing feeds is easy with favicons and the tree-based channel listing.
feeds to be refreshed every ten
minutes or so, but Slashdot to be And now we come to Liferea’s
refreshed every two minutes. Most coolest feature: Vfolders. If you’ve ever
cunningly, you don’t have to use plain used Evolution you’ll know that virtual
old URLs to get your feeds, as Liferea folders are a great way to organise
allows you to use a local command for your data, because they allow you to
the feed. Sound odd? Well, you could create folders that are essentially
use it to point to a script you wrote search results. When you select a
that connects to a server through SSH Vfolder, it matches the rules you set
and downloads the RSS from there. against all the feeds, and displays the
You can also specify conversion filters matches as if they were in that folder.
for feeds that use unusual formats. The rule options aren’t too
department. Mozilla Mail, the base
upon which Thunderbird is built, is
of course a highly advanced email
and messaging client, but it never
really got around to adding much in
the way of RSS support. It’s here
where Thunderbird manages to
distinguish itself from the parent suite
– but only just.
New York Times for a brief moment. While there’s no Blam-style
But its lesser-known cousin, extreme shortage of features here,
Thunderbird, is making baby steps neither is there an abundance. The
key problem with Thunderbird is that
most of it is geared towards collecting
and writing emails, with RSS loosely
tacked on as a “we may as well”
addition. So, the options enable you to
set the default character encoding for
a blog, which is fairly useless.
Furthermore, the GUI for RSS feeds is
just recycled from the main mail-
reading system, so there’s just one GUI
that serves everyone without things
having to move around. It’s a nice idea,
but if you only want to use
Thunderbird as an RSS reader, it gets
annoying to have RSS entries treated
as if they were unformatted emails.
Thunderbird’s clumsy workaround for
this is to set the system to browse to
the live web entry for each post by
default, embedding the Gecko engine
www.linuxformat.co.uk
complicated, but are good enough:
you can filter by item name and body,
feed name and flag and read status.
LINUX FORMAT VERDICT
All the features you want, cleverly tucked
away to keep the interface tidy.
RATING 9/10
if it were a web browser. Yes, this
means that you end up downloading
lots of irrelevant page furniture along
with the news – which, to our minds,
seems to ruin the whole point of RSS
in the first place.
Not quite Firefox
Managing your RSS feeds is painful,
and really highlights the difference
between Firefox and Thunderbird. With
Firefox, the GUIs are always smart,
streamlined and very obvious, even
to relatively new users. With
Thunderbird, be prepared for longer
pop-up menus, frequent multiple-
choice dialog boxes where there’s no
obvious way to close them without
using the window decoration, and a
Search dialog that will scare even the
hardiest of users away. All this makes
sense if you’re using Thunderbird for
your email or Usenet news already,
but we just can’t recommend it as a
stand-alone RSS reader.
LINUX FORMAT VERDICT
A great mail reader, but just doesn’t cut it
as an RSS reader.
RATING 4/10
24/10/05 12:32:06 pm
 ROUNDUP RSS READERS

BottomFeeder
Ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly…
■ VERSION 4.0 ■ WEB www.cincomsmalltalk.com/BottomFeeder
■ PRICE Free under Artistic License

…ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly. Get the
point yet? No, BottomFeeder is not the
most attractive item in this trophy
cabinet of RSS readers, and the
reason is apparent as soon as you visit
the website: it’s written in Smalltalk.
This particular language is deader than
Etruscan, which means the language
bindings for modern graphical toolkits
are somewhat thin on the ground.
BottomFeeder uses what looks like an
early Motif GUI, which puts you off
before you start. Compiling by hand is
somewhat pointless, given that
Smalltalk is interpreted, which means
you can just download binaries and
run them as they are.
Features ahoy!
them. How many? Many many, that’s
how many. Some features seem like
good ideas that we can immediately
put to use, such as the ability to
create instant blog entries based
upon a news entry; some features
seem like good ideas that we could
immediately put to use if we could
just think up a use for them, such as
adding del.icio.us tags to blog entries. Forget the poor design and focus on the features…
And other features probably seemed
like a good idea when the programmer sorting and you’re done)! Back up and with a small, yellow news ticker, where
was typing them in, such as the ability restore your settings and feeds to a the latest feed entries slow march
to impersonate a particularly broken remote FTP server! Surf the web using across your screen.
Mac OS X GUI. The confluence for all the built-in web browser! Nominally
these options is the inevitably huge this last feature is intended to allow
LINUX FORMAT VERDICT
settings dialog, but that’s best avoided. HTML RSS entries to be rendered
If you can live with the properly, but it’s used for external links Pug ugly, but powerful enough that you
mindbogglingly poor GUI, you’ll find a too. One feature we are particularly
could get accustomed to it.

With our patented Anti-Ugly glasses feast of functionality. Create your own fond of is the Slim Mode, which hides RATING 7/10
firmly in place, let’s get down to Amazon feeds at the touch of a button the main GUI away (not a moment too
business. Features: there are many of (specify category, search name and soon, in our opinion) and replaces it

Mandriva GlobeTrotter

Up to 80GB Linux-bootable USB hard drive

Pre-loaded with Mandriva Linux Limited Edition 2005
Automatic hardware detection and storage of profiles
Lightweight, sturdy, portable design

Portable Linux Desktop

Leave your laptop at home—with the LaCie GlobeTrotter 2.0, you can take your Linux desktop anywhere. This lightweight
mobile hard drive comes pre-loaded with a specially tuned version of Mandriva Linux Limited Edition 2005, allowing you
to transform any PC into your own complete work environment.

For latest news, please visit www.lacie.com/uk

E-mail: info.uk@lacie.com

LXF74.round 41 24/10/05 12:32:08 pm

 ROUNDUP RSS READERS
RSSOwl
Perhaps Java isn’t so bad after all…
■ VERSION 1.1.3 ■ WEB www.rssowl.org
■ PRICE Free under the CPL
We don’t like Java very much
at LXF Towers. It’s slow, closed source
and generally looks nasty. At least,
that’s what we’ve always thought:
RSSOwl has done a lot to change that
point of view. In fact, RSSOwl is fast,
open source and is easily the best-
looking program on test here. The
cleanness of the GUI strikes you
immediately, as Java takes on your
GTK theme and so fits right in. Tabs
are used consistently to keep your
various feeds organised, which
maximises the screen space and also
helps you work quicker. The GUI isn’t
perfect: the Refresh Feeds button
needs to be more prominent, and it
would be helpful if some of the other
icons actually had captions beneath
them as they aren’t very obvious.
In terms of features, RSSOwl is a
few twits short of a too woo. First,
there aren’t many per-feed
Akregator
An RSS reader that Krusty the Klown would love.
■ VERSION 1.1.2 ■ WEB http://akregator.sourceforge.net
■ PRICE Free under GPL
“Aha,” you say, “a ‘K’ in a really
weird place. That must mean…” Yes,
Akregator is the KDE-preferred news
Someone needs to tell the Akregator folks that clashing colours are bad.
42 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005
LXF74.round 42
configuration options. For example,
you can’t set a custom HTTPS
password for a particular feed, as you
can with Liferea. Similar, there’s no
favicon support, so all the feeds look
the same in the channel list. However,
these are small niggles compared with
what RSSOwl does have. This is the
only RSS reader we tested that has
AmphetaRate support built in, which is
a centralised aggregation and
recommendation service. When you
rate a news entry as Fantastic (or OK,
Bad etc), this rating and your others
are used with a Bayesian filter to figure
out what other news might interest
you based on what other people liked.
Multiple export
One useful tool is the option to export
feeds as HTML, RTF or PDF. The PDF
export, for instance, formats the posts
neatly, creates bookmarks for each
reading program. In true KDE style,
Akregator is largely the same as other
tools around it, but its writers took the
www.linuxformat.co.uk
The default selection of RSS feeds is comprehensive enough that you may
never need to add anything to it!
post and automatically opens the
finished product in your preferred PDF
reader for you. You can also create
blog entries from news posts through
a single click, which makes sense
given how common this task is.
The one big problem we found
with RSSOwl is that it doesn’t cache its
feeds by default. Perhaps this is an
option somewhere, but it should be on
by default as without it you find it
time to re-jig the GUI to use i
components and add a few minor
tweaks of their own. The default feed
list is somewhat predictable: Akregator
news, KDE news, more KDE news,
plus some KDE apps news and KDE-
Look news.
Although Akregator’s default
interface uses the stock three-pane
view, the developers have added tabs
to better use screen space. This works
quite well in that external links just get
opened in Konqueror in a fresh tab,
but we had problems following links
some times – almost as if Konqueror
were barred from opening fresh
windows of its own. The screen space
that is cleaned up by the use of tabs is
cunningly spoilt with the inclusion of
eight (count them, eight) menu
options at the top, followed by a three-
button tool bar that is pretty pointless.
A much wiser option would have been
to move those three buttons down into
the left-hand pane so that the right-
hand panes could have moved up and
used more screen space.
Smart search
The bright point in Akregator’s
functionality is the Quick Filter box,
which sits neatly above the article list
deletes its cache every time you
restart, then has to download it all
again. Shame!
LINUX FORMAT VERDICT
Slick, tab-flavoured and not
slow: Java in “not rubbish” shocker!
RATING 8/10
and enables you to run a fast search
on the articles to find a particular term.
This is such a simple thing to
implement, and yet several other
readers on test aren’t so smart.
Another clever feature that is unique
to Akregator is the ability to show the
number of unread news items in its
status bar icon; most other tools here
require you to hover over their icon to
get a tool tip.
However, apart from those two, the
distinct lack of features is quite obvious
and highly surprising to boot. KDE
applications traditionally have features
stuffed in every possible location, with
a Preferences panel a mile long; this
one doesn’t. Sadly, its developers
haven’t turned that to their advantage
with Gnome-like economy and design.
Blam is featureless, but at least it
looks good. Akregator, while not as
low on features as Blam, is not nearly
so easy on the eye.
LINUX FORMAT VERDICT
Neither attractive nor powerful, but
somewhere in the middle of the table.
RATING 6/10
24/10/05 12:32:10 pm
 ROUNDUP RSS READERS

ROUNDUP
THE VERDICT
Seven RSS readers, and only
one can win: Liferea. It has
the right mix of power and
prettiness that makes it suitable for all
types of user. When it comes to the
LIFEREA
crunch, features such as the Vfolder
support and the ability to read feeds
from commands as well as URLs
placed this beyond the reach of its
competitors. Add in the little
OVER TO YOU
Is Thunderbird
Do you use Em
under-rated?
acs
your news as we to read
your breakfast?
on the forums
ll as make
Let us know
at ww
linuxformat.co w.
.uk.
GUI tweaks such as the condensed
view and favicon support, and Liferea
pulls even further ahead, deservedly
winning this roundup. That said, it’s still than Liferea adding PDF export
lacking that extra bit of refinement options any time soon!
that’s necessary to reach true We were surprised that
excellence. We’d particularly like to Thunderbird still treats RSS support
see further edits to the UI to bring in as a last-minute addition rather than
lessons from Akregator and Blam – an integral part of people’s day-to-day
the Refresh All button needs to be lives; even the command line-based
marked more clearly (as in Blam), and Snownews had more thought put into

9/10
an on-hand search box (as in
Akregator) would be useful too.
For the runner up, we’d be hard
pressed to choose anything but
RSSOwl. This surpasses Liferea in many
ways, particularly with juicy social
networking features such as
AmphetaRate support. However, three
things hold it back: the lack of Vfolder
support, the lack of favicons and the
strange lack of caching by default. The
last two are pretty easy to solve, so we
expect RSSOwl to catch up with Liferea
pretty quickly. Adding Vfolder support
Liferea’s condensed view makes it easy to view all your feeds at once. isn’t so easy, but it’s much more likely
it, and was actually a very usable way
to browse the news across a secure
SSH connection.
Last but not least, we’d like to
mention BottomFeeder. We think this
is the dark horse of RSS readers: yes,
the GUI is ugly and very hard to work
around, but that’s something that can
be easily fixed if the developers take a
critical look at it compared with other
news readers. With a radical rethink of
the layout, and keeping all of the
powerful and off-the-wall features it
already has, this could be a real
contender in a few versions’ time. LXF

TABLE OF FEATURES
Reader User Interface System Tray Vfolders Favicons Authentication Feed Sources HTML Renderer Drag and Drop
Akregator Qt Icon, Unread news URL KHTML KDE
Blam GTK Icon URL Gecko Gnome/KDE
BottomFeeder Custom URL Custom
Liferea GTK Icon ✔ ✔ ✔ URL,command,file Gecko Gnome/KDE
RSSOwl Java/SWT/GTK URL Gecko
Snownews Curses ✔ URL Lynx
Thunderbird GTK URL Gecko

www.linuxformat.co.uk LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 43

LXF74.round 43 24/10/05 12:32:13 pm

 HOTPICKS

HotPicks The best new open source software on the planet!

AUDIO CD WRITING TOOL CDs or business cards with 21 minutes.

Mike Saunders

Serpentine
Files are added via the standard GTK
Mike has installed and
tested more apps than dialogs, but you can drag and drop
he’s had hot dinners. them in the playlist to rearrange them.
As you can see. Handily, the playlist doesn’t show
■ VERSION 0.6.3 ■ WEB http://s1x.homelinux.net/projects/serpentine merely the filename but uses tags
Quite often I’m asked about
the selection process for from the files, so you get a lot more
HotPicks – why do I choose info. The burning process sports a little
certain apps and not others? progress bar for further feedback.
The answer is demonstrated
in the graphic below: Disco inferno
Serpentine’s developers have made
the wise decision to use GStreamer as
KS
IC

the multimedia handling back-end,

SOFTWARE

TP
HO

rather than writing their own file filters

GREATNESS
It may be subjective, but I
just pick the best. Simple. If
you know some open source
software that you’d like us to
cover, email me at mike.
saunders@futurenet.co.uk.
HOTPICKS
AT A GLANCE
Conkeror ............................... 45
Eric3 ......................................... 49
KleanSweep ....................... 45
KTorrent ................................ 48
LMMS....................................... 46
Serpentine........................... 44
Singularity ............................47
Sysprof ................................... 48
Ultimate Stunts ................47
Xplanet .................................. 49
LOOK OUT FOR THE
HOTPICKS AWARD
Everything covered in our HotPicks
section is unmissable, but each
month we single out one project for
outstanding
brilliance. Only
the very best
is chosen!
Fear ye not – if you try to overburn a disc, Serpentine pops up a warning.
It's amazing to consider that audio
CDs have been on the market since
1982, yet they're still the primary
means of music distribution today.
Even with the explosion of online
music stores like iTunes (and more
dubious methods such as P2P
networks), CDs show no sign of
budging from shop shelves. Couple
this with the fact that nigh-on every
PC is supplied with a CD burner, and
we can be guaranteed that our familiar
optical discs will be around for many
years to come. Linux CD burning
software is a mixed bunch – the
command-line tools are robust and
flexible, but newcomers prefer the
comfort of a GUI.
Serpentine, already showing solid
progress and maturity, is a relatively
unknown entrant into the world of
audio disc mastering software. Its
primary goals are simplicity, usability
and compatibility; this is not at the
expense of a respectable feature set
that allows it to handle a wealth of
music formats. Because it's written in
Python with GTK as the front-end,
you’ll need PyGTK installed to
configure and run it. Additionally, Gst-
python and Libnautilus-burn-python
“SERPENTINE’S GOALS ARE
SIMPLICITY, COMPATIBILITY
AND USABILITY.”
are also required for the Gnome
integration facilities.
With a compact main window
that’s refreshingly free of clutter,
Serpentine mixes polish and several
neat features. The bottom pane
contains a graphical representation of
space used by your music: a shaded
area of a CD picture indicates at a
glance how much space you have left.
Usefully, you can toggle between a
number of CD formats, from the
standard 74 minutes to single-size
from scratch. Although GStreamer is
capable of much more, Serpentine
uses it to get instant support for a
wide range of music formats including
MP3, OGG, WAV, and FLAC. It can
also open various types of playlist
(M3U, PLS, XSPF) and save the lists
you create for later burning or import
into a music player.
You can drag and drop music files
from Rhythmbox and Nautilus into
Serpentine. Similarly, there’s a GTK#
plugin that enables you to create your
playlist directly in Muine. A sprinkling
of configuration options (writing speed
and post-track gaps among them) is
included, although there’s no
documentation to speak of at present.
That aside, Serpentine excels – it’s
clean, extremely easy to work with,
doesn’t constrict the user and rolls in
plenty of little touches. With Gnome’s
increasing focus on simplicity, these
plus points alone make Serpentine an
ideal candidate for official Gnome app
status, and its coders are striving to
adhere to the Gnome interface
guidelines. If you find other audio CD
burning tools too hasslesome and fluff-
filled, Serpentine is a first-class choice.

44 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 www.linuxformat.co.uk

LXF74.hotpicks 44 25/10/05 7:41:07 am


FILESYSTEM TIDY
KleanSweep
■ VERSION 0.1.5 ■ WEB http://linux.bydg.org/~yogin
Although Linux and other
Unix-like systems are generally
regarded as cleaner than Windows,
if you install lots of new software
your hard drive can fill up with
clutter very quickly. The typical Linux
distribution drops tens of thousands
of files on to your disk during
installation – even more if it’s a
large distro – and after a distro
upgrade, many of these are
rendered pointless. KleanSweep
aims to free up hard drive space by
sifting through your filesystem and
plucking out pointless files.
Binary packages are available for
Debian and SUSE (both of these
binaries are provided on our
coverdisc), but if you’d rather
compile from source you’ll need the
KDE development packages
installed beforehand. In many distros,
these are known as Kdebase-dev,
Kdelibs-dev or similar. Because the
main searching script is written in
Perl, you’ll also need a recent Perl
release. The build process uses
Scons, so just run
./scons and ./scons install (as root)
to build and go.
When started, KleanSweep pops
up a wizard-like dialog,
Usefully, you can step backwards in the cleanup process to try
different settings.
LXF74.hotpicks 45
accompanied by plenty of helpful
text. (If you’re not running it as root,
it notifies you that you can only
clean up files in your home
directory.) KleanSweep lets you
select the type of files to remove:
empty files and directories, broken
symlinks, orphaned packages, dead
menu entries, duplicated files and
more. Additionally, you can specify a
starting point if you only want to
clean up a small area of your
filesystem. Following the scan,
KleanSweep displays a tabbed view
of the results, listing files that were
identified along with their full
filesystem details (permissions,
owner and so on).
A particularly smart feature is
the ability to back up the to-be-
deleted files, so if something goes
wrong on your system after the scan,
you can recover the files. This is very
useful to have – some empty files in
critical system folders, for example,
are still required for proper working
of the OS. If you accidentally delete
one, you can get it back from the
archive KleanSweep produces. On
the whole it’s a small, friendly and
useful tool to keep your system free
of wastage.
www.linuxformat.co.uk
BROWSER MODIFICATION
Conkeror
■ VERSION 0.20 ■ WEB http://conkeror.mozdev.org
Combine Conkeror with the Ratpoison WM (see LXF72’s HotPicks), and
you can say sayonara to the mouse forever! Well, until you run Gimp...
Traditionally, Unix geeks who got
started in the seventies or eighties
hated using anything but the keyboard.
After all, GUIs didn’t become truly
mass-market until the late eighties,
and even today the mouse is grossly
inefficient for some tasks. Nonetheless,
it’s hard to imagine navigating the web
without a mouse (leaving aside the
wonderful Lynx/Links browsers), but
Conkeror hopes to keep your fingers
on the keyboard’s home row while still
giving you the power of Firefox.
It’s easy to get Conkeror running: in
Firefox, open the conkeror-firefox-
0.20.xpi extension file (or if that fails,
grab it from the project’s website) and
it’ll install. You’ll need to have software
installation enabled for this to work –
see Web Features in the Preferences
dialog. Conkeror doesn’t work like a
typical extension, though; you don’t
enable or configure it through the
browser itself, but restart Firefox with
this extra option:
firefox -chrome chrome://conkeror/
content
Initially, it’s alarmingly bare: no
toolbars, no icons, no menus, and not
a lot of anything. The only obvious
change is that links are prefixed by
numbered bubbles, indicating which
numbers you can type to access the
links. This can look rather messy on
some sites. One of Conkeror’s goals is
to ape Emacs as much as possible, so
commands are entered by pressing
Meta-x first (Alt+x) and then typing
the command.
HOTPICKS
You can split windows, search,
enter URLs and perform most actions
available in a normal Firefox session,
all without having to reach over for the
rodent. For diehard Vi(m) fans, there’s
even a mode to emulate the Vi
keybindings rather than the default
Emacs keybindings.
The browser itself performs as
you’d expect it to: Firefox’s rendering
engine (Gecko) does all the work, so
Conkeror is just as fast as Firefox and
supports all ther same standards.
Conkeror even keeps your other
extensions running too.
Conkeror is a fine little project, ideal
for those who like to keep busy on the
keyboard but find Links and Co. too
primitive for their needs. During a
heavy coding session it’s certainly a
help to catch up on news or do a
quick search without taking your hands
off the keyboard. And entertainingly,
the main developer claims that he
doesn’t even own a mouse – just to
make sure Conkeror is pure!
The Emacs-like split screen mode allows
you to view two pages simultaneously.
LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 45
25/10/05 7:41:11 am
 HOTPICKS
MUSIC PRODUCER
LMMS
■ VERSION 0.11
. ■ WEB http://lmms.sourceforge.net
Would the great composers have
written even better music if they had
today’s technology available to assist
them? It’s a question often raised in
music circles, and it’s impossible to
come up with a decent answer. Could
Mozart have made more with a Mac?
Maybe Wagner wanted a word
processor to help with his librettos?
Without question, Bach would have
“LMMS COMES WITH AN
ASSORTMENT OF SAMPLES
AND INSTRUMENTS.”
benefited greatly from a photocopier –
simply to avoid using his wife and
children as scribes. Modern music
software enables you to create almost
any kind of sound, from electropop to
a grand concert hall, and although
Linux hasn’t made massive inroads on
this front just yet, we’re starting to see
a bunch of projects arrive aiming to fill
the gaps.
Thankfully, an abundance of colours and icons brightens up the grey theme.
46 LXF73 DECEMBER 2005
LXF74.hotpicks 46
LMMS, the Linux Multimedia Studio,
has a lofty goal: to be an open source
alternative to FruityLoops, Cubase,
Logic and other major music making
applications. Combining features for
sequencing, synthesizing and sampling
into a single app, LMMS is best used
(according to the developers) on a
1GHz box or faster. You can just about
get away with it on a 500MHz box,
depending on exactly what you want
to do. To compile LMMS from source,
you’ll need the development libraries
and headers for Qt 3.2 or newer, along genre – bass-laden electronic choons
with SDL_sound. Some optional
libraries can be installed for extra
functionality: Libvorbis to handle Ogg ascertaining how it all fits together. In
Vorbis files, and Libalsa if you don’t the Song-Editor sub-window you add
want to use the standard OSS sound
framework. Otherwise, the build
process is the standard ./configure,
make and make install
LMMS sports an excellent initial
setup wizard, using cheerful images
and helpful text to step you through
first-time configuration of the app.
Following this you’re dropped into the
main screen – and you may be
surprised by the design. LMMS uses its
own colour scheme, a soft mixture of
dark greys and blues, on top of the
current Qt theme. If the rest of your
desktop is bright and chock-a-block
with eye candy, LMMS will look
worryingly dark and depressing, but
after some use it’s not a concern.
Cosmetically it oozes polish in every
other respect: there are lots of tooltips,
side panels and ingenious dial widgets
that you spin by moving the mouse
with the mouse button held down.
LMMS’s main window contains all the
sub-windows, such as the song and
bassline editors.
Techno notice
A selection of demo songs are
included to help you get to grips with
LMMS. These are all of the same
– but even if that’s not your preferred
type of music, they’re useful for
and arrange tracks, dragging around
blocks to create the music, while the
Beat+Bassline Editor panel lets you
toggle on multiple samples in a loop.
As a useful bonus, there’s also a
Project Notes box (with support for
different fonts and colours) where you
can jot down quick thoughts or
present text to others who’ll be
loading/editing your work. It all fits
together reassuringly coherently, and if
you’ve got a modicum of music
software experience you’ll be able to
pick it up in minutes.
Naturally, you can import your own
sound samples, but LMMS comes with
an impressive assortment of samples
and instruments. These are organised
into categories – sound-effects, drums,
classical instruments, Latin and more –
and in general, they’re of pretty decent
quality. Having these samples supplied
with LMMS and ready to use is a great
boost to the app, making it more of a
complete music-making solution, even
with its early version number.
Unfortunately, any proper
documentation is notable by its
absence right now; most of the app is
easy to learn, but complete
newcomers would be well served by a
step-by-step tutorial or explanation of
some of the more complex aspects.
Similarly, there’s little in the way of
configuration, just a choice of MIDI
and audio devices, along with buffer
settings to avoid choppy output. None
of this detracts from what is, on the
whole, a hugely impressive piece of
software that’s already more than fit
for use. Many projects suffer from
stability problems or rough-edges in
their early days; not so with LMMS.
The interface is slick, despite the
unchangeable colour scheme, and it
didn’t show any reliability concerns in
our testing. And best of all, it’s easy to
pick up, so you can be knocking out
tunes within minutes. Kudos to the
coders for achieving so much by 0.11 . –
it should be a stellar 1.0 full release.
25/10/05 7:41:15 am

STRATEGY GAME
Singularity
■ VERSION 0.21a ■ WEB www.emhsoft.net/singularity/index.html
Mankind as a whole has many
fears: a giant meteor obliterating the
earth, ‘grey goo’ nanobots consuming
all matter, and Jimmy White retiring
from snooker. And on top of all that,
we have the nagging worry that
someday, somehow, a computer
system will develop its own sense of
existence and seek to destroy
everything in its path. Still, while we
humans continue struggling to make
even the most basic software work
perfectly, a supremely advanced AI
system seems a long way off. But
Singularity tries to show just how bad
things could get...
Thankfully, Singularity isn’t self-
aware enough yet to compile itself
from source, so you’ll need to make
sure you have the dependencies
installed beforehand: these are
Python and the PyGame libraries. If
you have these, running ./Endgame_
DRIVING SIM
Ultimate Stunts
■ VERSION 0561 ■ WEB www.ultimatestunts.nl
According to recent research,
driving a car over a ramp, rolling it
three times and escaping unscathed
generates an even higher Coolocity
Factor than being The Fonz. Serious
Don’t try this stunt at home. Try it on the motorway instead, preferably
with the blissful OutRun music blaring from your speakers.
LXF74.hotpicks 47
Linux in the extracted directory will
pop up the retroishly bland graphics.
Yes, Singularity is about as
visually exciting as a rusty spanner,
but that’s not an issue here. Aside
from the crisp world map, all you’ll
find is blocky text and stock sound-
effects to accompany your clickery
around the game world. Nutshellised,
you play the role of a computer
imitating a human. The goal is to
move from computer to computer
around the planet researching new
technologies, with the ultimate
aim of escaping the planet and then
the universe.
Sounds odd? True, Singularity
can’t be slotted neatly in to any
existing game genre – that’s what
gives it some appeal. There are
elements of strategy as you balance
your cash reserves with the building
of new computers and performing
driving sims have always held some
appeal in the form of competitive
racing and strategy, but all-out flying-
car-fests like Stunt Car Racer hold the
key to on-the-spot fun. Ultimate
www.linuxformat.co.uk
Thankfully, the computers at LXF Towers are well behave KILL ALL
HUMANS KILL ALL HUMANS
research. All the time, you have to
keep tabs on possible detection from
the media and the public as to your
nefarious goals. Via a Frontier-esque
speed-selection panel, you can
accelerate the passage of time to
avoid any long-drawn and boring
episodes of play.
Essentially, you have to play it to
really understand what it all means.
Stunts strives to recreate the DOS
classic Stunts, albeit with more
modern graphics and under an open
source licence.
To build Ultimate Stunts from
source, you won’t need to unravel a
tangle of dependencies – just have
the X and OpenGL development
packages installed before you set off.
SDL is an optional dependency to
enable sound support, although you
can live without it. Once built and
installed, entering ustunts at a terminal
prompt will bring up the main game.
At this early stage, Ultimate
Stunts’s presentation is hardly sock
blow-offingly impressive. The rather
generic pumping soundtrack adds a
little spice to the throwaway textures
and graphical effects, although
strangely, the Ferrari you drive is
orders far more detailed than anything
else in the game. We greatly preferred
teh third-person mode – you get to
see the car react to the terrain so
much better than in first-person mode.
HOTPICKS
HOT GA
ME
S
Games such as Singularity wouldn’t
be commercially viable in the cut-
throat ‘electronic entertainment’
market, but thanks to the whim of
some open source developers, we
get to experience genuinely bizarre
and innovative ideas. Well, until the
Linux kernel thinks it’s alive and starts
ejecting floppies as projectile
weapons...
Currently, the game is supplied
with a handful of racetracks, only
one of which has much interactive
scenery of interest. Using the cursor
keys you can drive around ramps,
tunnels and half-pipes (some
reminiscent of the classic Hard
Drivin’) and send the car hurtling into
the air. If you find that you can’t
change camera angles with the right
Alt key, edit the ultimatestunts.conf
file and switch the ‘shiftup’ and
‘camerachange’ keybindings. Now
you’ll be able to change camera
angle, but not change gear (this isn’t
a problem, as the car is an automatic).
And this is important simply
because the game is much more
entertaining from the outside view.
For the most part, the physics are
fairly convincing and there’s great
satisfaction to be had from pulling off
a particularly virtuosic manoeuvre.
Ultimate Stunts still needs plenty of
work, but already it’s entertaining to
play around with.
LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 47
25/10/05 7:41:17 am
 HOTPICKS

CPU PROFILING TOOL

Sysprof
■ VERSION 1.0 ■ WEB www.daimi.au.dk/~sandmann/sysprof

If you’re a developer with the start up the front-

latest kit (including a stonkingly fast
CPU), it’s often hard to spot sluggish
code which’ll only manifest itself on
older machines. Similarly, if you’re
writing a particularly complicated
app, it’s difficult to identify which
parts of the code are causing
slowdowns – everything gets too
messy. Profiling tools provide some
form of assistance, although in many
cases they require low-level changes
to the system in order to run. Sysprof
hopes to counter this problem: you
don’t need to recompile any libraries
or applications, all it needs is a
kernel module.
You’ll need your kernel sources
installed, or at least the headers for
your running kernel, to build
Sysprof’s module. The minimum
requirement is kernel 2.6.11 with
profiling support enabled. For the
user interface side, you’ll need GTK
2.6 and Libglade 2.5 or newer. Once
these are built, you can insmod or
modprobe the kernel module, then
end by running
sysprof.
Using a three-
pane display,
Sysprof lets you
select a running
process and
determine how
much CPU time
it’s using. There’s
very extraneous
eye candy, which
keeps things
nice and clear:
the alternating
shades in the lists is the closest each of these,
Sysprof gets to looking nice. You’ll information on the amount of CPU Sysprof analysing CPU usage of
the X server.
still need some programming usage is provided, both for the
experience to make use of the function itself and a cumulative total
details – if you’re just trying to find (ie with the other functions called it’s useful nonetheless because it
out why your box is sluggish, the too). Handily, you can sort the lists in doesn’t require you to make any
output won’t be of much use. ascending or descending order, so drastic changes to the OS, or rebuild
Sysprof’s coders have made good you’re not left to hunt down a CPU your libraries and apps – you can
use of a tree widget to expand, hog by hand. apply it to your system as is. Give it a
collapse and navigate around the Although Sysprof isn’t the most try if your current development
functions called by a program. For spectacular profiling tool available, project could do with a tune-up.

BITTORRENT DOWNLOADER ./configure, make and make install more than an embedded KHTML pane
(as root). with quick links to well-known BT

KTorrent KTorrent’s interface pleasingly

■ VERSION 1.1rc1 ■ WEB http://ktorrent.pwsp.net
BitTorrent, the peer-to-peer (P2P)
file distribution system, acquired its
initial popularity as a means to shift
large open source project files such as
ISO images. This was a great boost for
projects that couldn’t afford hefty
hosting fees and they didn’t have to
worry about their servers being
overloaded by unexpected demand
(the dreaded Slashdot effect). Since
then, BitTorrent has reached the
masses, bringing controversy with its
inevitable use for dodgy purposes. Still,
despite claims made by the popular
media, there are plenty of legal uses
for BitTorrent, and KTorrent provides a
KDE front-end to the system.
Helpfully, KTorrent’s developers
have assembled binary packages for
many popular distros, so chances are
you won’t have to go down the source
code route. Still, compiling from source
isn’t taxing – just make sure you have
the relevant KDE development libraries
installed, and enter the regular
combines essential statistics and info,
such as download progress and
seeders/leechers, with a smooth and
manageable UI. It’s much more
approachable than power-users’ apps
such as Azureus. The inbuilt search
feature, while handy to have, is nothing
search engines (such as http://
isohunt.com). Additionally, KTorrent
lets you pick individual files to
download from a .torrent, and create
your own .torrents via a simple GUI.
Other notable features include
upload and download speed capping,
which helps if your net connection is
being used for other tasks, along with
support for UDP trackers. KTorrent can
also preview audio and video files, and
while there’s not much in the way of
documentation at present, the overall
design is coherent and intuitive enough
to pick up quickly.
A handful of configuration options
have been coded in, such as the ability
to add new search engines. It’s not as
versatile as some of the beefier clients
such as Azureus, but this is also
KTorrent’s strength – it’s lean, compact
and lets you grab files without any fuss.
We’d be thoroughly chuffed if it were
adopted as an official KDE app.
KTorrent’s prefs box doesn’t have
too many options to understand –
just the essentials.

48 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 www.linuxformat.co.uk

LXF74.hotpicks 48 25/10/05 7:41:20 am


HotPicks REVISITED
PYTHON IDE
Eric3
■ VERSION 3.7.2 ■ WEB www.die-offenbachs.de/detlev/eric3.html
In LXF51 a couple of years ago we
had a quick look at Eric3 in HotPicks. then, Eric3 has seen plenty of
This Python-integrated development
environment, sporting the most
hideously ugly troll as its mascot,
impressed us with its speed, stability assortment of dependencies installed
and cleanliness – an ideal workplace
for coders. Even with a few missing
features, we found it more than
adequate tool for any Python coder’s
You can disable or resize most panes.
PLANET RENDERING UTILITY
Xplanet
■ VERSION 1.2.0 ■ WEB http://xplanet.
It’s been many, many moons since
we looked at Xplanet – in LXF5 to be
exact – and in those years, our
knowledge of the universe has
continued to expand (as has the
universe itself, of course). The recent
Mars probe projects have delivered
astounding imagery of the red planet,
and fascination with our outside-earth
surroundings continues unabated. But
thanks to Xplanet, you don’t have to
be an Ubuntu founder to get good
views of space – this program provides
detailed renderings of our home
planet and its neighbours.
Because Xplanet has been doing
the rounds for many years, it doesn’t
have a towering stack of
dependencies; just the base X libraries
will do (though you can compile with
Pango to render internationalised text
(use the -pango option to disable this
feature) . Once you’ve built Xplanet, it’s
LXF74.hotpicks 49
armoury. That was version 3.3.1; since
development with new features and
updates galore.
To run Eric3 you’ll need an
first: as it’s written in Python with Qt as
the front-end, you’ll need both of
those along with the PyQt bindings. In
addition, Sip and the QScintilla editing
component are also
required – these are
on our coverdisc and
can be found in
many distros’
repositories. In use,
Eric3 behaves like
any typical IDE, with
code folding, syntax
highlighting, macros,
bookmarks and a
debugger.
Since our earlier
review, Eric3 has
been given a
worth consulting the man page, as it’s
not immediately apparent how
Xplanet works. You can get a quick
view of the earth with:
xplanet -body earth -window
Xplanet has had a complete
rewrite since our coverage years ago.
In the current version, it sports the
ability to render all the well-known
celestial bodies such as Earth,
Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter, Phobos,
Titania and Io. Similarly, you can
apply a variety of projections to the
views, including azimuthal, Mercator
and orthographic.
www.linuxformat.co.uk
thumbs-
upworthy
range of new features
and updates: support for Ruby
projects (with a debugger and
syntax highlighting); a task viewer;
watchpoints; preview of UI files;
improved Windows support;
bookmarks for the file browser;
and a shedload of small bugfixes.
The author has kept up bugfix
releases while the main
development continues in snapshot
releases, a good way to avoid
glitches creeping in.
Most importantly, the new
features haven’t harmed Eric3’s
performance. With Ruby becoming
a more popular language by the
day, Eric3’s new support for Ruby
coders is a major highlight, and
should bring it a wider audience.
The additional facilities and polish
are worth having if you’re running
an older version too.
It might be worth getting some
shots of that big white blob
while it’s still there…
There is a stack of other options
for budding astronomers. If you
know all about declination,
magnitudes and more, you can
tweak and tune the images to
perform almost any view of the
planets. A huge number of settings
are available and you can even set it
to act as a screensaver or display on
the root window as a background
image. Earth-spinningly good. LXF
HOTPICKS
ALSO RELEASED
New and updated software
that also deserves a look...
■ pyNeighborhood – SMB network
browser http://pyneighborhood.sf.net
■ Klavaro 0.9 – Touch-typing tutor
http://klavaro.sourceforge.net/en
■ XArchive 0.1.10-1 – GTK UI for
archiving tools http://xarchive.
sourceforge.net
■ Task Coach 0.47 – To-do list manager
http://members.chello.nl/f.niessink
■ kFlickr 0.2 – Flickr image uploader
for KDE http://kflickr.sourceforge.net
■ PyInstaller1.0
Make Python app executables
http://pyinstaller.hpcf.upr.edu
■ Tersus 0.8 – Visual coding for
enterprise web apps www.tersus.org
■ splax 0.1 – Splash screen generator
and controller www.pancho.dk/splax
■ Vuurmuur 0.5.68 – Firewall creation
utility http://vuurmuur.sourceforge.net
■ Netmonitor 0.4b – Monitor network
interfaces http://netmonitor.
sourceforge.net
■ Raydium 0.680 – Portable 3D game
engine http://raydium.cqfd-corp.org
■ Doodle 0.6.4 – Desktop searching
tool http://gnunet.org/doodle
■ Flamerobin 0.4.0 – Firebird database
administration www.flamerobin.org
■ BMPx 0.11 – Audio player (rewrite of
BMP) www.sosdg.org/~larne/w/BMPx
■ Comix1.0 – PyGTK comic book viewer
http://comix.sourceforge.net
■ SharpMusique1.0 – iTunes shop client
http://nanocrew.net/software/
sharpmusique
LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 49
25/10/05 7:41:23 am
 WHAT ON EARTH Hibernate
What on Earth is...
HIBERNATE?
Want to save time database coding so you can lounge around eating
honey and picking fleas? Of course you do. Scott Douglass can help.
>> Hibernate… isn’t that what bears
do in the winter?
Indeed it is, but instead of napping away those long
winter hours, they’ve been busy coming up with a
fancy new way of storing Java objects in a database.
>> But aren’t databases for storing
data, not objects?
Yes, they are. Usually, you have your data in the
database, but you access it using an API designed
for your database. If you were using Java, which is an
object-oriented language, you would read the data
into a Java object using SQL calls made via Java
Database Connectivity (JDBC) code. You can then
manipulate the Java object and write the data back
into the database, again using SQL and JDBC.
But if you shut down your machine before doing
so, the data held in an object would be lost. Java
objects only exist in the Java virtual machine – Sun
didn’t design Java to write anything to the hard drive;
so it’s objects don’t ‘persist’ across sessions.
“WHAT IF YOU COULD STORE JAVA
OBJECTS IN A DATABASE WITHOUT
TEDIOUS STATEMENTS AND CODE?”
People started asking, what if you could persist
(or store) the Java object directly in the database,
without the need for tedious SQL statements and
JDBC code? This is what Hibernate is for – it
provides object relational mapping (ORM) between
object and database.
>> Excellent. Was it written by
brown bears or grizzlies?
I should come clean about the bear thing: it’s
50 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005
LXF74.woe 50
actually being developed by those wonderful people
at JBoss, and is licensed under the LGPL.
>> Persistence, eh? Isn’t that what
Enterprise Java Beans are for?
Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs) are server-side Java
objects that live in a container in an application
server. Hibernate offers some advantages over EJBs;
specifically a variety of them called entity beans.
The clever thing about entity beans is that they
have a persistent state. There are two ways to
achieve this: container-managed persistence (CMP),
where the J2EE (Java 2, Enterprise Edition)
container manages the state of the bean; and Bean
Managed Persistence (BMP), where the bean
manages its own state.
Unlike CMP, Hibernate enables you to map
several tables to one Java object, or persist several
Java objects into one table. Although this could be
achieved with BMP, it would still require you to create
all the JDBC logic within the bean.
>> So these Java objects have to be
written in a special way – I can’t
just store any old object, can I?
According to Hibernate, yes you can. It allows you to
store just about any Java class designed using
standard Java/object-oriented techniques. This lets
you play to Java’s strengths, including ‘inheritance’,
where you derive one class from one another,
‘composition’ for including data members, and even
grouping classes into a ‘collection’. In essence, you’re
www.linuxformat.co.uk
free to develop Java applications with little concern
for how Hibernate will store your objects.
>> And I won’t have to write lots of
dull JDBC code, you say?
Nope – once you’ve created your Java object and
sorted out your mapping, the code that you need to
store or retrieve an object is fairly minimal compared
with JDBC calls and associated error trapping.
>> Good
What’s this mapping business?
question. Hibernate needs to know
which tables relate to which objects, and to this end
it uses an XML mapping file. You can create one vast
XML file that contains an entry for each object you
wish to persist, but Hibernate also enables you to
create a separate file for each object. This makes for
a set of small files, each with one clear purpose.
>> Having to write out all my
database tables in XML sounds
like just as much work as writing out
those JDBC calls...
If you only have one or two objects that you want to
use with Hibernate, writing out the XML isn’t too big
a chore: the XML is fairly simple. Even if you’re
working with multiple objects, Hibernate has
mechanisms so these files can be auto-generated.
>> Wow! It can make its own
configuration files?
It can, but you need to follow some guidelines when
designing your objects. Nothing too revolutionary,
mind – you just need to create a default
constructor and get/set methods for each field.
In fact, Hibernate even comes with a tool to
generate a database schema or template from
your mapping file. What this means (in theory) is
that if you’ve created a Java object that you want
24/10/05 2:03:11 pm

to persist with Hibernate, you can use the provided
tools to generate the mapping file, and from this, the
database schema.
>> But I still need a container of
some description, right?
Actually no: unlike EJBs, which require a J2EE
application server (JBoss for example), Hibernate
doesn’t require any special environment. This makes
it far more lightweight than EJBs, and suitable for
stand-alone applications.
>> I would have thought that if it
doesn’t use a container, it would
slow everything down.
Apparently not. Although EJBs live inside their own
container they are notoriously slow, and although
Hibernate may take a little longer to start up, it is
regarded as being fairly fast. Hibernate’s developers
claim that it should offer performance gains over
handwritten SQL/JDBC solutions, because of the
Hibernate-generated database queries, which can
implement cacheing and other optimisations.
>> What if I want to do something a
bit more complicated with the
data, and don’t have the primary key
for the object I want to retrieve?
By primary key you are referring to the individual
identifier given to each record, no doubt. Well,
fantastically, instead of writing SQL and making
database calls using JDBC, Hibernate has its own
object query language, HQL (Hibernate Query
Language), which you can use to query the
persistence objects and their properties directly. This
allows for more compact queries than the equivalent
action in SQL, as HQL can use the relationships
stored in the mapping files, instead of having to
LXF74.woe 51
specify them in the query itself. You can use native
SQL directly with Hibernate, but the developers don’t
recommend it.
>> All this seems very nice, but isn’t
it what the new EJB3 standard
does? Why do we need Hibernate when
Sun will soon have something better?
The current EJB standard doesn’t allow for object
relational mapping, but the next incarnation
(EJB3) will include an EJB ORM standard. Obviously
the folks at Sun know what they’re doing, which is
why they have allowed the Hibernate developers to
get involved in the creation of this standard –
apparently Hibernate has influenced the design of
EJB3, you see.
In fact, because Hibernate has the same set of
code requirements as entity beans do when they’re
using transparent persistence, you should be able to
use Hibernate as the entity manager component of
an EJB container – in other words, as the primary
interface used to interact with beans at runtime.
Another point in Hibernate’s favour is that Hibernate
is available now, whereas EJB3 is still going through
a Java Specification Request (JSR). It’s mature, well
tested, and more or less the industry standard.
>> I like the sound of this. How do I
try it out?
You can get it from the coverdisc or download the
latest version from www.hibernate.org.
WHAT ON EARTH Hibernate
Once you’ve got it, it’s simply a case of unpacking
the archive and building with Apache Ant (http://ant.
apache.org – indispensable Java build tool). There
are more detailed instructions on the website.
>> What if I like the idea, but
Hibernate doesn’t fit in with my
current setup – is there any other way
of achieving this?
There are many different object relational mapping
tools available; which one you choose will depend on
your setup and situation. There’s a list comparing
some of them at http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ObjectRe
lationalToolComparison.
Another popular ORM tool products is Object
Relational Bridge (OJB) from the Apache project
(http://db.apache.org/ojb). It’s a bit newer than
Hibernate, but as it’s an Apache product there
should be no problems with support or stability. It
supports multiple persistence APIs, so users can
choose whichever API suits them best. You could
also have a look at TopLink from Oracle (www.
oracle.com/technology/products/ias/toplink/
index.html), which is Oracle’s relational mapping
tool. It’s available as part of the Oracle Application
Server or separately (at a price), and can be used on
Oracle or other databases. LXF
24/10/05 2:03:14 pm
 INTERVIEW JIM JAGIELSKI

LXFtrumps
Jim Jagielski
Unix
Jim was bitten by theadmin.
bug as a student sys d his
pe
Since then he’s dip en
s in a var iet y of op
toe
rce pro jec ts, inc luding
sou
bre ath : Pe rl, PHP,
(deep
, GNU, CGIWrap,
MOVES UK LTD

BIND/named, Xntpd .
an d Ap ac he
FreeBSD
)
44 (six in dog years
AGE erican
Am
NATIONALITY
URTESY: WINNING

UX 11
YEARS USING LIN 11
LA NG UAGE S
PROGRAMMING 8
NUMBER OF PCS + tea
TAKE 3
DAILY COFFEE IN 2
TOP TRUMPS CO

AL S OW NE D
SAND ng to
w people are goi
HE SAYS “Right no
pth than breadth.”
be wanting more de
>> www.linuxformat.co.uk

LXF74.jimjag 52 24/10/05 12:29:15 pm

 INTERVIEW JIM JAGIELSKI

THE LXF
INTERVIEW

With a CV that includes working for

NASA, editing Slashdot and core Apache
development, Jim Jagielski has pretty
much done it all. Who better to ask
about the world’s #1 web server?

im Jagielski has had a LXF: And what’s your role there? Python were like my three and I liked just releases but how Apache was

J
profound effect on the
development of open
source. He’s worked for and
contributed to more high-
profile projects than there
are wildebeest on the plains. We were
lucky enough to bump into him at at
OSCon, and get what Jim described
on his blog as “A great interview.”
LXF: Most people probably
connect you with Apache, but that
doesn’t really tell the whole story
does it? After all, you have worked
on PHP, Perl, FreeBSD, ...
JJ: That’s correct. Probably my biggest
claim to fame, at least within this
ON ZEND:
JJ: In addition to being one of the
core developers on the web server
project, the Tomcat project, and some
of the other projects, I also serve on
the board of directors and I also serve
as the executive vice president and
secretary of the ASF [Apache Software
Foundation]. So I’ve got developer
roles as well as some more
administrative roles.
LXF: Are you actively involved in
any other projects?
JJ: I do love to keep my fingers in PHP,
I really do enjoy that. Unfortunately
most of the development I have been
working on has been focused on the
Ruby but I didn’t want to spend any
time on it. But that’s really changed
now, and I’m finding myself getting
much more interested in becoming a
developer, a low-level developer on
Ruby. So I’ll most probably be working
on doing that kind of quickly.
LXF: Tell us about life on Slashdot.
JJ: There was a point in time when
Slashdot still had the Apache sections,
they still had sections for a lot of open
source environments, BSD for
example, and they were going through
a phase when they actually wanted
people who were in that community to
be the editors for those sections.
being used in external companies or
things like that.
And that was fun, it was a great
time. You’d be surprised at the
number of potential articles that you
could use, and it was very difficult at
times being able to figure out which
one made sense in the environment.
It was tough having to say, “This is
good news, but we’re going to have
to hold it.” And the bad thing about
Slashdot of course is that if it’s two
days old or three days old, it’s old
news, so it was hard trying to limit
the number of good Apache-related
news stories to that environment.
Then of course, once things
changed the Apache section came
more in-house, with internal
Slashdot editors.

“Helping PHP make inroads into corporate LXF: You were also CTO at Zend

America was something that I enjoyed and for a while [a company that sells
PHP solutions to businesses].

I’m very proud of the time I spent there.”
generation, has been Apache. I mean,
I really just started off in the internet.
Apple used to have an operating
system called AUX, and I was the
editor of the FAQ for that. And that
was what got me into open source by
doing porting and stuff like that to it.
ASF, simply because of time restraints.
But I still try to keep commit access to
PHP, and if I see patches within Perl
I’ll send those in as well.
I’m really trying to get more into
the Ruby community. There was a
point in time when PHP, Perl and
So it was my responsibility back
with Slashdot to come up with stories,
of course, but also to be the ‘funnel’
for any Apache-related stories –
things that made sense in the Apache
community, news that the Apache
community wanted to know about. Not
JJ: That was fun. It started off initially
when Zend was looking at creating
an open source advisory board. They
were somewhat concerned about
creating an open source company
around their PHP engine, they were
somewhat afraid about how the PHP
community would respond to it. They
were very smart in knowing that one
of the key features, one of the big >>
success points of any open source

www.linuxformat.co.uk LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 53

LXF74.jimjag 53 24/10/05 12:30:10 pm

 INTERVIEW JIM JAGIELSKI
>> company, is being active and well
known and to really welcome
members in that community, so they
created an open source advisory
board and invited me to be one of the
people on that board.
We had such a good relationship
that they were looking at expanding
their US operations (they were at that
time wholly based in Israel) and they
asked me if I would be interested in
taking over the CTO position of Zend,
and I did. The only unfortunate thing
about it is that I was only there for
about a year or so before Covalent
came and offered me a position that I
simply couldn’t refuse. But I really
enjoyed the freedom and flexibility and
the simplicity that PHP provides, still
to this day, to people who are trying to
create their web applications. It really
is a very easy language to use. So
helping PHP make those inroads into
corporate America was something that
I enjoyed and I’m very proud of the
time I spent there.
LXF: You were at OSCon doing a
talk with Brian Behlendorf on
open source skill building. Give us
a bit of background on that: what
was your goal?
JJ: It was a panel discussion with just
Brian and I on on the panel. I did a
20-minute talk and Brian did a
20-minute talk, then we just had
some Q&A afterwards. But the idea
behind it was that if you really want to
54 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005
LXF74.jimjag 54
use open source in corporate America,
or corporate wherever, what skills do
you need to take the most advantage
of it? Certainly it’s easy, or easier, to be
a user of open source technology and
just consider a non-shrink-wrapped
solution. I need, for example, an
application server. Well, yes, I could
use commercial SDs but I could also
use Tomcat.
But you’re not really not taking
advantage of the capabilities that open
source provides if you’re not building
the internal skillset required to allow
you to adjust the software, patch the
software and so on. If you’re not
looking at the open source technology
ON BUSINESS ADOPTION:
“There is still a mindset within some people
who want to use open source of ‘how can I
do it? What do I need to be afraid of?’.”
as a developer would, then you’re not
able to take the most power out of the
technology. One of the things that
makes open source so successful is
that people can change the code to
scratch various itches.
LXF: Would you say that it was
largely pointy-headed boffins or
bosses in your talk?
www.linuxformat.co.uk
JJ: I think it was actually a good mix
of technical people and business-
oriented people. I think the biggest
problem is that nowadays people are
somewhat curious about how to do
that. They hear horror stories of
companies trying to use open source
technology and not doing it right, or
somehow being persona non grata in
the open source community.
Nobody wants to hear: “Oh, you’re
just leeching off of open source, you’re
not really giving anything back”, and I
think there is still a mindset within
some people who want to use open
source of “how can I do it? What do I
need to be afraid of? In addition to
what skills I need, is it OK for me to
use open source?” And certainly one
of the overriding ideas, especially
within licences such as the Apache
licence, is that in open source you
want the application, you want the
software to be used by as many
people with as wide an audience as
possible. So if you’re ignoring the
potential users out there, whether
they’re a corporate or a small user, if
you’re not sensitive to either real or
perceived restrictions that they see in
using open source, then you’re not
really doing what you want to do,
which is make that software available
to everyone.
There is a lot of education that
needs to go on inside the open source
community to the external people to
make sure they realise that open
source is OK. The struggle used to be,
is open source stable? Is it just
developers drinking beer and hacking
away with no quality control? We’ve
got beyond that point now. Now it’s
much more, we want you to open
source, we want a large community.
LXF: Was it largely about you
going there to share your
experience?
JJ: It was nice because I was able to
straddle that fence as someone who
came up in open source as a
developer, but also I built my own
business – it was called JaguNET Web
Hosting, it was an ISP company – and
I used open source technology
exclusively for that. Then I had my
experience in involvement with Zen
and now Covalent, so I was able to see
how if you’re business-oriented what
those issues are, and if you’re a
developer [what the issues are] –
because that’s another part of the
community, how do you keep the
community up and active. It was really
nice being able to feed off both of
those backgrounds and figure out
what the people needed and provide
those solutions.
LXF: One of the things that
Covalent has done since you got
there is the Enterprise Ready
Server, the ERS. How does that
differ from Apache?
JJ: I think the biggest differentiators
are what we bundle in. ERS is what we
call our framework so it includes the
Apache web server, of course, and
[MySQL, PHP, Perl, Tomcat and
24/10/05 12:30:24 pm
 INTERVIEW JIM JAGIELSKI

support for Access]. I think what’s
important is how we build it, because
obviously we take a lot of time working
out the best compositor flags, things
like that, on how to build Apache to
get the best performance.
If you’re running under Solaris 8
for example it’s a whole serve
compiler fight to get the most, if you’re
running pre-4versus Worker you have
to compile those differently as well.
There are two main ways that Apache
can run, in a threaded or non-
threaded-type environment. So, we
take the time now to really build it
right. And then we run it through our
QA implementation in a lot of different
environments that it could be exposed
to the best way to make sure that it
runs correctly, it runs reliably and
things like that.
ON APACHE 2.2:
“The biggest change will be in the
tons of people saying yes, this would
be very cool. But again, we don’t try to
do anything to make our version of
Apache different from Apache,
because it is Apache.
LXF: Didn’t Covalent spearhead
the 64-bit Apache?
JJ: There is no one really inside the
ASF who spearheaded it. For one
thing, even if there was one particular
person who was the leading force to
do something inside the Apache,
inside the ASF, one of the things that’s
crucial to the ASF is the idea that we
are all equal peers, a meritocracy. So
the idea is that it’s the group itself that
spearhead efforts, not an individual
inside. Even if there was something
that I had – quote – “spearheaded”, I
wouldn’t feel comfortable saying that,
LXF: Covalent originally sponsored
the Open Source Applications Of
Tomorrow, the Apache initiative.
Was that a sneaky way of hiring
for the future?
JJ: No, not really. First of all, even
though the first selection was really
done by Covalent, all the subsequent
selections will be done within the ASF.
What we wanted to do more than
anything else was to ensure the
continued viability of the communities.
And people who are going to college
and learning, taking courses and
whatever, they want to be able to do
that but it’s difficult for them to work
on open source when they also need
to have a part-time job and pay the
fees associated with going to school.
So we thought it would be a great
idea if we could make it easier for
Adding for example load-balancing
capabilities, full internal cacheing for
proxy capability, a lot of features that
would have been nice to have been in
2.0, but will be in 2.2.
LXF: So a lot more stability, a lot
more scalability…
JJ: A lot more scability. The feedback
from external people who are using
it,really big users of Apache, this is
direct feedback: “This is what we need
to take us to the next level.” To keep
Apache, even though we are happy
with the market share, and we don’t
design for market share, but it does
mean we have a responsibility to the
people who are using it. So we need
to ensure that Apache is kept fresh,
current, up to date and anticipate what
the needs and
features are going Go to
to be in the next
www.linuxformat.
co.uk/mag/jagielski.html
couple of years.
to find out more about
And make sure
that Apache is
Jim’s work at the ASF,
Covalent, and the

authentication/authorisation capability. ready to handle

those. LXF
BSD License.

We’re also going to fix the 64-bit issues.”

LXF: Custom build flags on Apache,
though – that sounds like a trade
secret or something.
JJ: Not really. We have never done
any source-level code changes to
Apache. Everything that we’ve added
to Apache has always been either in
how we build it – simple compile flags
– or in extra modules that expand
capability. It used to be that those
modules were proprietary to Covalent,
but we’ve moved away from that.
We’ve been open sourcing all of our
proprietary modules. We just donated
the Covalent FTP module to the ASF,
it’s going to be in the ASF incubator.
It’s still, even now, a product that
we have customers coming specifically
to Covalent for. They are interested in
our FTP server because it has a lot of
neat capabilities, but we realised that
this was software, this was technology
that just screamed to be free, and we
really wanted to have the entire open
source community involved.
During the process you go and you
ask the PFC, the project committee
that the software is going to go into,
which would be the web server project
inside the ASF, is there something
you’re interested in?”, and there were
because it’s just opposite from the way
the ASF works.
LXF: But Covalent as a whole put
some resources into...
JJ: Covalent has put a lot of resources
in, but every kind of capability that
we’ve added, any kind of patches and
the like, have always been donated
back to ASF. It’s crucial to it. I think
most probably in addition to the
64-bit changes inside of Apache and
APR as well (the Apache Portable
Runtime, it’s sort of like the interface
between the web server and the
underlying operating system) a lot of
the 64-bit issues are actually at that
layer rather than with Apache, so
that’s where a lot of the work has
been done.
Certainly we’ve done a lot to help
out on that, and of course on the
testing framework as well. But yes, any
patches that we have ever done,
whether they’re things that we’ve fixed
internally or something that we’ve got
from external customers – “Hey, this is
broken in our environment, can you fix
it?” Well, we’ll fix it for them, release it
as a version of the ERS, but also
report/port it back.
people who are going for advanced
education to not only continue their
education, but also continue
developing open source code.
LXF: More importantly, and this is
the one you’ve been waiting for,
what’s coming up in Apache 2.2?
JJ: I guess probably the biggest
change will be in the authentication/
authorisation capability. The way 2.0
works right now, there really
isn’t a very
streamlined way
to be able to
dissect out
those aspects,
so they had to
be restructured.
We’re also
going to fix the
64-bit issues
Apache 2.2, and
a large number of
bugfixes that we
couldn’t put into 2.0
because they would possibly break the
API. So the biggest thing is thing is
taking it to the next level, adding this
new authentication scheme, and a lot
of changes to the proxy module.

www.linuxformat.co.uk LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 55

LXF74.jimjag 55 24/10/05 12:30:27 pm

 LINUX IN EDUCATION
Students using Linux at
St Ives School, Haslemere.

Learning with Linux

Linux in education is finally taking off. George Wright reports on some of the highest-achieving projects.

L
inux was born to go to school. implications for schools in poor areas. And even non-tailored Linux support. That is changing. There is now
Everything about it, from its So Linux isn’t just being adopted in systems can be suitable for schools a wide range of teaching software,
open, inclusive philosophy to its institutions in France, Germany and and colleges. Tim Fletcher, the games and network solutions available.
friendly penguin mascot to its the US – it’s also being adopted in learning technologies manager at Many have the backing of mainstream,
low costs, holds appeal for Brazil, China, South Africa... Parrs Wood High School in mature Linux projects – of the
college ICT departments, There are other compelling Manchester, says he uses Fedora Core software we’ll look at in this feature,
primary school heads and education reasons to migrate, one being the there because it’s more user-friendly, for example, Edubuntu was spun off
authorities. Especially the low costs bit. possibility that students learn more as well as being cheaper and more from Ubuntu, Skolelinux is based on
For Dennis Fangmann, the principal of about computing with open source. reliable. “Users don’t see the Debian, and so on.
Grace Lutheran School in Sandy, Utah, Like many, Steve Hardogan believes difference, and admins for the most Buoyed by advocacy groups and
it means he is saving an estimated Windows is not ideal for teaching part find it easier to use,” he says. government endorsement of open
$29,000 a year since converting to computing and programming, because
an open source system. it has a price tag and because the
The Grace Lutheran School system code is hidden, “thereby eliminating “THE ENTHUSIASM FOR
was installed by Steve Hardogan,
whose Californian company has been
some of the most significant aspects
of learning that might take place.” Also,BRINGING LINUX INTO
installing thin-client Linux systems in
schools for the last year. From what
some of the teachers and developers
we spoke to for this feature were
EDUCATION IS IMMENSE.”
he’s seen he believes schools can save proponents of constructivist education
up to 75% of their technology – a kind of learning by doing Hardogan would agree that Linux is source, such software is being used by
expenses by switching. The British philosophy that is well-suited to open, low maintenance. “I’ve installed LTSP more and more students around the
Educational Technology Agency has online study through Linux. [Linux Terminal Server Project] in world – while the emergence of
made a more modest estimate that But it doesn’t have to be anything schools from Hawaii to Indiana, and I commercial support for many of them
schools can save 20%–50% of their more than just an operating system. almost never hear from them,” he says. and specialist services like Hardogan’s
ICT costs by adopting free or open The front-ends and administration “It’s kind of spooky!” hints at a new maturity. So, before we
source software (www.becta.org.uk). panels of the latest educational Linux The enthusiasm for bringing Linux go on to look at some projects in
The potential to save on IT costs projects are specifically written to be into education is immense. But more detail, if anyone can think of a
through Linux, with the option to simple and user-friendly, taking into traditionally, there have been two reason why Linux can’t play a major
recycle old hardware and the lack of account that neither teachers nor IT obstacles – a lack of widely available role in education, raise your hand. >>
software licenses, has exciting staff are necessarily Linux hackers. software, and a lack of commercial Anyone? You at the back?

www.linuxformat.co.uk LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 65

LXF74.feat_edu 65 24/10/05 12:28:24 pm

 LINUX IN EDUCATION
>> KDE EDUTAINMENT (ALMOST) TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL
The KDE Edutainment Project was
founded in 2001 by KDE developer
Anne-Marie Mahfouf, who had
become interested in creating high-
quality open source applications that
teachers could use to aid in their
teaching or that students could use
themselves. It quickly grew to be one
of the largest modules in KDE and
although many of the applications
were once stand-alone projects, others
have been built from the ground up as
part of KDE Edu.
The project is a broad one,
targeting children in pre-school right
through to adults in higher education,
and its developers have equally tried
to maintain a variety of applications,
covering the sciences, languages and
humanities. At the lowest level are
game-like applications including
KHangMan, KMessedWords and
KLettres. They are designed to be
colourful, graphical and appealing to
children. Older students in the
MOODLE USING YOUR NOODLE, WEB-STYLE
Launched as version 1.0 in August
2002, Moodle has since made a name
for itself as a useful open source
project for running courses and
managing students’ work online. When
Martin Dougiamas was webmaster at
Curtis University of Technology,
Western Australia, he became
frustrated at the lack of a decent
program or project to help schools and
colleges make the most of the
internet. So he built his own – Moodle.
Moodle runs on PHP and enables
client computers to acces a single
database, usually MySQL. Moodle
includes features for group learning
projects such as tests, forums and
workshops. Students can upload their
assignments and check grades, while
teachers and tutors can be given
privileges to modify courses and enrol
students. The project has proved so
successful that in 2003 Moodle.com
was set up to provide commercial
support and other services to all
organisations using the software.
http://moodle.org
66 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005
LXF74.feat_edu 66
mainstream schooling system can use
programs such as Kalzium (a periodic
table resource) and KLatin (a GCSE
Latin revision tool), as well as more
general purpose revision programs, like
KVocTrain for cramming vocabulary.
In higher education, tools include
KmPlot for mathematicians and
KStars for astronomers.
Mahfouf’s project has exceeded
expectations, not least because being
LET THE GAMES BEGIN
LXF’s very own idiot savant, Paul Hudson, tries out some KDE Edu apps.
KLatin: Romanes eunt Domus.
Even with Qt, learning Latin is
hard work!
HOW PUPILS USE MOODLE
Miles Berry and his kernel hackers of the future
Miles Berry is deputy head of St Ives
School, a 150-strong girls’ prep school in
Haslemere, Surrey. The school has been
running Linux on its servers since 2000,
and recently started to use Moodle.
“We have been piloting the use of
Moodle over the past year for the Year 5
and 6 maths curriculum, and have
become hugely impressed by the
benefits it offers. The model has been to
take the best aspects of classroom
practice, such as access to a range of
resources and the chance to work
collaboratively, and use Moodle and the
internet to make those available to my
pupils in their homes too.
The big pluses have been:
■ The ability to link to online
learning resources.
■ Online assessment, with daily
homework now completed and marked
online, and pupils making corrections to
their work without any further
encouragement than the desire to get
their best possible score.
www.linuxformat.co.uk
part of KDE, Edutainment is shipped
with almost every major distribution,
and thus has quite a large audience.
Crucially, the KDE internationalisation
team has translated the Edu apps into
many languages, and each of the
programs has undergone rigorous bug
testing before being included.
Earlier this year, the Qt Forum held
a programming contest for the best
educational software written with the
KGeography: 0 correct answers out
of 95. We like the wine and the
women, but that’s all we know!
■ The discussion forums – if they have
problems with homework they can now
ask one another, or me (if I’m logged
on).
We’ve also experimented with wikis
for collaborative research or homework,
and this has been a good way of making
students aware of more open and
collaborative working methods. Also, we
have had a couple of long-term
absentees, who used Moodle to keep up
with the class’s work. My statistical
analysis shows that there’s been a small
increase in test scores as a result of
Originally only in English, Moodle
now supports 52 languages.
Qt libraries. The first and second prizes
were taken by KStars and the
geometrics program Kig respectively. In
addition, programming game KTurtle
won the third prize in a Dutch
educational contest, showing the
quality and maturity of the educational
software in KDE Edu.
http://edu.kde.org
KHangMan: Mash letters on your
keyboard until you win, then feel
clever.
Miles Berry is deputy head, maths
teacher and Linux administrator...
using Moodle, and a significant
improvement in pupils’ attitudes and
approaches to work.
From a management perspective,
having lesson plans, interactive
whiteboard files and other resources
available alongside pupil grades has a lot
of potential. We’re also using Moodle on
our internal web server to provide an
intranet homepage and are moving many
of the staff administrative tasks over to
Moodle for this academic year. My pupils
were delighted when some of their
suggestions for improvements to Moodle,
and the occasional bug reports, made it
into a new release.”
24/10/05 12:28:38 pm
 LINUX IN EDUCATION

EDUBUNTU = UBUNTU + LTSP X HOCKEY SOCKS

Mark Shuttleworth is certainly
putting his money to good use. Soon
after the success of the Ubuntu
distribution comes Edubuntu, a new
project started by the Shuttleworth
Foundation to provide a version of
Ubuntu for classroom use. The distro
uses the Linux Terminal Server Project
to provide a thin-client infrastructure to
schools with limited IT funds. Oliver
Grawert, one of the project’s
developers, describes it as “an out-of-
the-box LTSP install with the Gnome
desktop, educational apps and a
handful of servers like MediaWiki,
SchoolTool and Moodle.”
The road map for Edubuntu is
impressive for such a new
project, including such
gems as a content-
filtering proxy
server. As
Edubuntu is based
on the Gnome
graphical desktop
environment, non-Gnome educational
apps will be themed to match the
default style.
One project that Grawert is working
on specifically for the Edubuntu distro
is the Student Control Panel. It is still in
development, but may be included
with Edubuntu as early as its second
release. The idea behind the Student
Control Panel is to give the teacher full
control over their currently logged in
students and the applications they are
running. Teachers will be able to
connect to students’ desktops, killing
apps they’re using or kicking them off
the machine.
The application list for Edubuntu
includes all the applications one would
expect in a normal distribution, and
some more specialised applications,
such as the MonoDevelop integrated
development environment and
Blender, a 3D modelling package.
Probably the most prominent feature,
however, would be a cached, offline
version of Wikipedia for
schools that do not
have an internet
connection. This is still
being considered, but
would be a great asset
to Edubuntu. No
university content is
being considered at
the moment, as the
target age is under
18s, but it could
conceivably appear in the future. An early development version of
www.edubuntu.org the Student Control Panel.
EDUBUNTU ENTHUSIAST
In Virginia, USA, Linux advocate and support team behind the project.
computer science teacher Jeff Elkner I’ve had the opportunity to be
has been trialling a prototype version of directly involved in writing the
Edubuntu at Yorktown High School, and specification for Edubuntu, and I can’t
says he’s loving it. begin to tell you how exciting it is to be
“I’ve been using an LTSP architecture able to have this level of input into what
for three years now, so that isn’t new,” I’m confident will soon be the platform
he says. “What is new is that there is of choice for use in school environments
now formal support and a well-financed around the world.”

SKOLELINUX DEBIAN GOES NORTH

Skolelinux is similar to Edubuntu in
that it’s based on a popular distro – in
this case, Debian. The project began in
2001 when a group of Debian
developers (four friends, some drinks
and one pizza, according to lead
developer Markus Gamenius)
lamented the lack of open source
applications available for students in
Norway, particularly in the local
language. They decided to found
Skolelinux, and with funding from SLX
Debian Labs, tailored a distribution
with an IT platform to meet the needs
of schools in Norway. Today, it is
considered one of the most mature
educational Linux projects.
The Skolelinux community is a
large and active one, with over 120
developers, and their aim is to create
the leading computer solution in
Norwegian schools by the end of
2006. Gamenius says there are 80–
100 Skolelinux test schools in Norway,
and others in Europe, Uganda, Eritrea,
Brazil and China. The project has been
part-funded by the Norwegian ministry
of education and research since 2004.
“The use of open source and standards
gives teachers more freedom in their
choice of methodology and content,”
says Guri Stoklefald, senior adviser, ICT
strategy at the ministry in Oslo. “The
government has not carried out a
systematic survey involving the
reactions of Skolelinux user groups,
but our general impression is that they
are satisfied.”
Schools like it because it’s cheap,
reliable and open. But how does
Skolelinux satisfy parts of education
that other distros don’t reach? First,
administration for Skolelinux is kept as
simple as possible. Most of the
configuration can be done through a
web interface, including adding/
removing users, setting up printers and
controlling system services.
Not only can Skolelinux talk to
Linux clients, but the main server is set
up with Samba so that Windows
clients can access files on the server
storage. It’s a thin-client solution (see
more on page 66) and installation is
simple, too, with very little Skolelinux-
specific code.
As it’s tailored to schools, you’d
expect Skolelinux to have a pretty
education-oriented software selection.
OpenOffice.org is the default office
suite, and the distro is full of individual
applications well-suited to learning:
KStars, GPeriodic, Gimp, Lightspeed…
And undoubtedly, being connected
to the strongly open Debian
community is a great advantage, in
terms of support as well as
collaboration. As the Skolelinux
website says: “With Skolelinux,
modifications and enhancements done
by a school in Norway may benefit
schools in Eritrea – and vice versa.” >>
www.skolelinux.org
“
X
X
KStars, one of the tailored apps
included with Skolelinux.

www.linuxformat.co.uk LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 67

LXF74.feat_edu 67 24/10/05 12:28:42 pm

 LINUX IN EDUCATION

>> KAROSHI WORKAHOLIC NETWORK MANAGER

Started by Paul Sharrad and Jo
Harris, Karoshi is one of the first Linux
projects to offer full-on commercial
support to establishments that use its
software. Karoshi is not a distribution,
but rather a network management
system that runs on top of Mandriva
Linux. It is designed to be easy to use
as well as secure, and draws on
Sharrad and Harris’s experience of
working in schools.
The system is highly scalable, with
a minimum requirement of a single
server (although Sharrad and Harris
recommend that four servers be used
in a network). These servers provide
the basic services for a typical school
network including printing, internet and
multimedia, file storage, email, web
and backup.
One thing that makes Karoshi
Samba or CUPS. The online classroom
(virtual learning environment, or VLE SCHOOLS USING KAROSHI
for short) is provided by Moodle, and Karoshi is expanding out of its south-eastern beginnings,
mail services are provided by Postfix. and now has 15 users including one in the USA.
The servers are made to be as
economical as possible with a cost of
£700 per server and an average setup
time of 30 minutes.
A feature that many schools will be ■ Finborough
pleased to see is a content-filtering School
proxy server, hosted on the Hal server.
With this, filters can be set up on a
per-room basis or site-wide, and allow
■ Albourne CE Primary School
teachers to filter out undesirable ■ Holmer Green ■ Bolney CE Primary School
websites. The fact that it runs on a Senior School
■ Twineham CE Primary School
proxy server means that commonly
accessed pages are cached, which
cuts down on bandwidth costs.
www.karoshi.org.uk
■ Star Charter School ■ Woodlands school

stand out from enterprise Linux Austin, Texas

systems available to schools and
colleges is that it is fully open source –
even the documentation. All the
services are provided by proven and
■ Dover Grammar School for boys
reliable open source packages, such as ■ Swadelands School

ON DEVELOPING FOR SCHOOLS

We spoke to Karoshi’s creators about life in Linux and death by overwork…
LXF: How did Karoshi come about?
Paul Sharrad: I moved from being a
music teacher to being the head of ICT in
various schools. All the schools had the
same problems with lack of reliability
and very high costs. I started using Linux
in my first school as a replacement for a
Novell server and have been using Linux
on the servers ever since. The main
problem has been if I moved to another
school there has not been the expertise
to keep the system running, which was
how the Karoshi project started.
Paul Sharrad: “We have 100%
server uptime at Swadelands.”
Jo Harris: I was an ICT technician in a
school, and was constantly frustrated by
the lack of reliability and due to my
position in the school not being able to
make changes to improve it. I started
working with Paul on Karoshi so that
other schools could use the same
systems that were in place at his school. I
then applied for a job at Dover Grammar
School for Boys who were very keen on
the whole idea and ethos of Karoshi. I
was given permission to replace the
existing setup with Karoshi as soon as I
started work there.
LXF: Why ‘Karoshi’?
JH: Karoshi means death by overwork in
Japanese. It is an oxymoron for anybody
using the project, since all the main work
has been done for you. However,
sometimes it seems very literal to us!
LXF: Are there plans to expand Karoshi
so that there is a desktop Linux for
schools as well as the server back-end?
JH: Dover Grammar School for Boys is
very keen to put in a Linux client.
Software licences can take up a large
part of the school ICT budget and we
have already moved to using open source
software where possible, such as
OpenOffice.org and Gimp.
LXF: What degree of support does
Karoshi offer to its customers?
JH: We provide email, mailing list and
helpdesk support for no charge. This
tends to be the main source of help that
people require. For those that want
telephone support this can be provided
in a support contract. We now have
companies interested in providing full
support to schools that want it.
LXF: Does Karoshi require special training
for network administrators or will those
familiar with Windows systems be able
to learn how to administer it easily?
JH: No specialist training is required in
Linux to use this system and there is no
need for Linux knowledge. As long as
someone has the confidence to install an
operating system they can use this
project. Both myself and Paul use our
sixth form students to test Karoshi and
they can set a server up including
nstalling Linux in around 20 minutes.
LXF: How cost-effective is Karoshi in
comparison with solutions like RM?
Jo Harris: “Karoshi is not written
with Linux experts in mind.”
JH: Karoshi is the open source equivalent
to the RM Connect series. In comparison
Karoshi is cost-free, whereas the basic
RM Connect solution is charged for. With
the Connect 3 series any extra modules
are separately priced; with Karoshi these
modules are included with the system.
PS: At Swadelands School we no longer
use RM and have managed to more than
double the number of client computers
around the school. We have 100% server
uptime and the network is managed by
myself and one technician for over 400
computers. To prove how reliable and
easy Linux and Karoshi can be, we have
one technician in West Sussex looking
after six primary schools, and he started
with three.

68 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 www.linuxformat.co.uk

LXF74.feat_edu 68 24/10/05 12:28:47 pm

 LINUX IN EDUCATION

WHAT NEXT?
To many, open source seems
instinctively ‘right’ for education.
“Sharing knowledge and contributing
to the wider community are values
that most teachers believe in,” explains
John Ingleby, the secretary of the
group Schoolforge-UK. But just as in
business, Linux still needs advocacy
and great support if it is to get
widespread acceptance in schools.
Where educational Linux might be
more fortunate than enterprise Linux is
in government backing. We saw that
the Skolelinux distribution is being
part-funded by the Norwegian
coalition of groups pushing for open
standards and resources in education.
Schoolforge-UK was set up in May
2003, and recently held the FLOSSIE
(FLOSS In Education) conference in
Bolton, inspired by a recent
government report showing that
schools and colleges could increase
the returns on their IT budgets by
using open source software as an
alternative to commercial software.
There were presentations on
Moodle, Karoshi and assistive
technology software, case studies from
open source converts, strategies to get
meet each other and visit the
exhibitions. We rated it “could do
GCompris is one of the promising
better” in terms of numbers, and it was new apps on this month’s coverdisc.
agreed that we will market future
events much more aggressively,” says schools will be able to benefit from
Ingleby. It is hoped that with open source software, and given the
organisations such as Schoolforge-UK dedication of projects such as KDE
backing the adaptation of open source Edu and Edubuntu, this is likely to
software inside schools, many more happen sooner rather than later. LXF
GET INVOLVED
How parents, teachers, students and Linux advocates can help.
■ Persuade people who are new to Linux to try a Live CD distro – or to try out some
of the education apps on the coverdisc.

government, and this is a familiar story.
In LXF72 alone we reported on two
large initiatives to get Linux into
schools in Indiana, USA, and Auvergne,
France, and both projects were driven
by local government. Awards and
official endorsement can also help
individual projects, like those award-
winning KDE apps or Moodle, which is
being evaluated by Becta for use by
the Government Department for
Education and Skills.
Outside official channels, Linux
user groups and communities are
playing an active role; bodies like the
Schoolforge project, an international
from zero to Linux and a couple of
general talks on Linux in education by
event sponsor IBM. Developer Ian
Lynch described the ‘International
Grades in Office Technology’
certificates, which can be taken at just
about any age and complement the
national curriculum. They are designed
to be independent of proprietary
software, and so they are designed
with OpenOffice.org in mind.
Expect more to come from groups
like Schoolforge-UK. “We rated the
FLOSSIE Conference highly successful
in terms of the speakers, the venue,
the debates, and the opportunities to
■ Join an email discussion group or mailing list. In the UK, visit http://groups.google.
com/group/sf-uk-discuss. Elsewhere, try www.schoolforge.net/sfdiscuss.php.
■ Encourage purchasing decision makers at your school to consider Linux – perhaps
show them any government guidelines on adopting open source.
■ Teachers can try out an open and collaborative approach to schoolwork – the idea
of sharing work and learning together is the key to open source projects.
■ Visit the websites of some of the education projects you’ve read about here, and
see if they need help in development, documentation or translation.
■: Ask your local LUG to adopt a school and set up a web server for them with some
student-friendly web-based applications to show them the potential of Linux.
■ Donate your computer equipment to schools – try your LUG or seek out individual
projects, such as www.tuxlab.org.za/partners/sponsor_join.htm in South Africa.
■ Help the Moodle team raise the price of a stand at the BETT show in January. Visit
www.helpusgettobett.com/?page_id=17.

THIN CLIENTS – BACK FOR THE FUTURE

Parents and teachers would be forgiven
for asking what the thin-client systems
used by Edubuntu, Skolelinux and others
are. After the days of the men in white
coats being the sole practitioners of
computing, but before the days of the PC
desktop, all computing was client–server
oriented. Typically there was one central
computer, more often than not a
mainframe or minicomputer, and as many
dumb terminals as necessary. The
terminals were really just serial devices –
keyboards for typing in character data,
and simple screens for displaying it.
Everyone was happy.
The advent of the microcomputer, and
the potential for a fully-fledged
computer on every desk certainly put
immense potential and power in the
hands of the user. But it also created a
lot of problems – ask any sysadmin.
Most of these centre around the fact
that, all of a sudden, the user became
king and could do what they wanted –
install software, connect peripherals,
even take apart the computer and add or
remove components!
Thin-client computing is a model that
allows a return to the more efficient,
The internet
centrally administered model, while
delivering the power and functionality
Main server
the user needs. As before, the thin client
computers connect to a central server,
which is usually joined on the network by Router
other services and devices, or can also
incorporate other functionality. Users’
individual files, mail, settings and so on
are stored here, so it doesn’t matter
what terminal they use or what room
they are in. The client hardware itself is
Network Thin client
the only change. They are in effect printer server
desktop computers, but slimmed down
to the minimum required – a processor, Workstation
memory, graphics chip, connectors and
often a small amount of on-board
storage for application software or
perhaps Java engine and embedded
browser. Often they don’t even have any
moving parts! Centralising all the services
and data makes for easier administration,
better security and cheaper running
costs. And that all makes thin-client
Thin client Thin client
systems particularly well suited to
schools and colleges. Thin-client systems allow a system to have many end users at a low cost.

www.linuxformat.co.uk LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 69

LXF74.feat_edu 69 24/10/05 12:28:52 pm

 INTERVIEW ANDREW MORTON

THE LXF

INTERVIEW

“I wish Linus had used

CVS from day one”
Top kernel maintainer Andrew Morton
talks exclusively about the latest
development process and the need
for increased quality control.

70 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 www.linuxformat.co.uk

LXF74.morton 70 25/10/05 2:02:56 pm

 INTERVIEW ANDREW MORTON

LXF: You think it’s fairly LXF: It obviously sped things up

permanent then?
AM: I expect so, yes. The cost of
migration probably exceeds any
benefit they’ll get from going to
something else.
LXF: Do you think it was a good
thing to have had that time in
BitKeeper, or should they have
stuck with CVS?
AM: Well, we never even used CVS.
Before BitKeeper we basically weren’t
using anything – just a bunch of
patches sitting on Linus’s hard drive
and it uploaded occasionally. We had
no tracking of what had gone in the
kernel at all. Which I always thought
was pretty poor form; I wish Linus had
used CVS from day one. He hates CVS, change pressure on the kernel now is
he has real problems with it, but for
just a simple linear evolving model I
think CVS would have done the job
and at least we would have had some
tracking history.
I think the main thing BitKeeper
LXFtrumps brought is it got Linus using something, to have done something. Yes, we
Andrew Morton and even if we used one of the free
The official kernel revision control systems I think we
maintainer for the would have been 90% of the way
2.6
Linux tree, and full-ti there. Obviously BitKeeper at the time
kernel developer thr me
ough was probably the best version control
OSDL, Andrew is a
lon
time member of the g-
UK LTD
quite a lot in terms of how fast
things get turned around.
AM: That’s what people say... It may
have made it easier for Linus to merge
things, yes, although he thinks it’s
because you resist the temptation to
put all of the patches on and read
them too closely – it makes him trust
the people who are sending him
things more than he did previously. If
Greg [Kroah-Hartman] sends him
“please pull this bunch of patches”, he’ll
just trust Greg and pull it. Back in the
old days he’d have felt the need to
read through every line or something
like that, so it’s a rather indirect
productivity gain we’ve got from it!
Whatever we’ve been using, the
massive. The size of the development
team is so much bigger, so many more
people doing development and several
years more skilled than they used to
be, so the rate of change has gone
through the roof. We would have had
could probably take the current rate of
change even if Linus was still just
doing patch and tar and upload it
without any version control at all, but
fortunately we don’t have to do that.

system available and it certainly suited

circle of kernel code inner our development model well. I also LXF: You say the number of
rs.
MOVES

AGE was very uncomfortable with using developers involved is much

0x2E
NATIONALITY BitKeeper, obviously because of the greater now. But it seems pretty
Australian
URTESY: WINNING

YEARS USING LINUX

10 licensing and proprietary issues, but I apparent that the change log for
PROG. LANGUAGES
Declining could live with it. It was better than each release is getting larger. I
NUMBER OF PCS
20 having nothing. My main game is looked through quickly and 2.6.2
DAILY COFFEE INTAK
E 4 cups improving the kernel, not getting was 287K, 2.6.4 was 322K, 2.6.6
SANDALS OWNED
TOP TRUMPS CO

HE SAY 0 involved with... religious issues. was 487K, 2.6.8 was 883K, 2.6.10
S “That model of doi
big releases every two ng the really I always expected it to come to was 1.5MB...
or three years was
just not workable” tears, I always expected the wheels AM: Although they are all incremental,
would fall off the BitKeeper thing. It but yes.
came a little bit more abruptly than I
expected, but we recovered pretty well. LXF: Is that the speed of
We didn’t take a dent, really, and we’re development picking up?
still going. AM: To some extent yes. Also, those
releases were further apart in time –

W
hen you meet discussed the move away from LXF: Did BitKeeper act to show the we’ve been slowing down a bit lately in
the maintainer of BitKeeper, bugfixing and and the need wider kernel development the releases. But no [development] is
the 2.6 Linux to increase the turnaround speed of community how things could be, not slowing down.
kernel, asking Linux kernels. and that’s why you’re now using
him to sit on a Git rather than going back to LXF: I noticed now in your change
large inflatable LXF: The move to BitKeeper emails and patch files? Did logs there’s “signed off by”. What
chair and answer questions probably annoyed a lot of people, BitKeeper bring you so many caused that?
isn’t what most people would do. For particularly the FSF. And then benefits that people realised they AM: Well, it’s sort of f allout from
us, though, Andrew Morton is second [Andrew] Tridgell’s work sort of can’t live without it? some of the SCO silliness. People
only to Linus Torvalds in the Linux food moved off BitMover again and on AM: Oh, yes, we couldn’t live without wanted us to have some way of
chain, and so was able to provide an to Git, which may only be [version control] and we shouldn’t basically being able to demonstrate
invaluable insight into the inner temporary itself. have lived without it before BitKeeper where a piece of code came from.
workings of development. We AM: No, I would imagine Git’s going came along. Everybody downstream This is something we thought >>
accosted him at OSCon 2005, and to stick. very much appreciates it. independently was not a bad thing, so

www.linuxformat.co.uk LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 71

LXF74.morton 71 25/10/05 2:03:08 pm

 INTERVIEW ANDREW MORTON
>> we’d know who to blame when it went
wrong, basically. So we adopted a very
simple convention that anybody who
had had any involvement in the
development of a patch would just
add their moniker to the bottom.
“Signed off by” implies that they have
read and agreed with the Developer’s
Certificate of Origin, which is in the
kernel documentation tree.
LXF: So it’s not necessarily looking
at the quality of the code; it’s
really just saying “I believe they
wrote this themselves”?
AM: Yes, certainly that. “It’s
unencumbered, I wrote it myself, I’m
certifying that I didn’t nick it from
UnixWare or anything like that.” And
then each person who handles the
patch will typically add a Signed Off By.
There is an Ackd By as well these days
LXF: What’s that?
AM: Ackd, acknowledged by. It’s for
somebody that’s used the code but it
didn’t pass through their hands, they
didn’t alter it. Generally it’s for top-
level maintainers to say they’ve
hacked the patch, they’ve reviewed it.
LXF: The development model of
stable 2.6 versions seems to have
changed too. Last year the
conclusion was that it wouldn’t
always be stable and it was up to
the distro makers to make it stable.
AM: To some extent, yes.
72 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005
LXF74.morton 72
LXF: And now there’s this two-
week change window that came in
– it’s just been announced in fact.
AM: Well, that was basically my fault! I
went on a big rant at the kernel
summit about that. The problem we’re
having at present is that I don’t think
the kernel quality is as high as it
should be. We’re getting quite a few
regressions sneaking into each release.
The way the model is supposed to
work – and maybe my problem is that
I never told anybody this – is that the
day Linus releases 2.6.13, all the
subsystem maintainers, and there are
probably 50, 60, 70 of them, should
ON BUGFIXES:
“Sometimes you have to
shame maintainers into it.”
merge all their stuff within, ideally, the
next week. Massive patch bombing
happens in the release’s first week.
Then in the following week I merge
all the stuff I’ve been buffering up in
my tree. And then we’ve got a four-
week window when we do stabilisation,
performance testing, bugfixing and so
on. While that’s happening people are
working on the new features for the
next cycle. So we’re pipelining
development for the next cycle with
fixing regressions in the current cycle.
That’s how I’d like to see it happen.
www.linuxformat.co.uk
But what is in fact happening is
that people are just coming up with
massive great big merges anywhere in
this window. Just in this cycle we had a
large sound driver merge a week ago,
probably four weeks after it was
released in 2.6.12. That’s bad timing,
because that massive drop of new
code has lost out on four weeks of
stability testing. What we want to do is
encourage the subsystem maintainers
to coordinate their major merges
more closely with the kernel cycle.
LXF: You said that the amount of
work coming in to the kernel
definitely isn’t slowing down, it’s
speeding up. But the length
between releases is lengthening. Is
the slowdown the result of there
being lots of kernel maintainers,
submitting patches willy nilly?
AM: Mainly it’s because we get a
whole bunch of stuff and then we
need a certain amount of time to
stabilise it, see the bug reports, see
some of the bugs at least get resolved,
and what’s happening is that because
code is coming in late it is obviously
taking us longer to do that. If we get a
massive SCSI merger at Week 5, we
can’t release a stable kernel in Week 6
– we need to give it time to settle down.
LXF: Did you actually have a
planned turnaround time for
kernel releases?
AM: No, we release it when it looks
good, basically, but a lot of people
want us to accelerate. I think we’re up
to two, two-and-a-half months now,
and that’s probably a bit longer than
people want. I’d like to keep it under
two months.
LXF: When Torvalds announced
recently that he was switching to
PowerPC full time, he said that he
thought the Power 5 and the
AMD64 were the two most
relevant architectures. Would you
agree with that, for Linux?
AM: Um, yes, I think obviously x86 is
not where it’s at nowadays; x86-64 is.
People have read a lot more
significance into Linus’s desktop
machine than is actually there. I think
he probably uses it because it’s quiet –
he has this thing about noisy
machines. I don’t think that’s a
particularly significant thing really. He
still has x86 boxes around to test
things on.
LXF: He lives in Portland now,
doesn’t he – you can’t live that far
away from him, compared with
the old days?
AM: Actually we used to be about 20
minutes apart. He was in San Jose and
I was in Palo Alto. We only ever met
twice in those days.
LXF: In terms of things that
have a buzz about them,
Xen being one of them, and
Inotify, which has just gone
into 2.6.13, which things do
you find interesting?
AM: Well, Xen is obviously
something that a lot of people want. I
tend not to think about roadmaps too
much, because it’s just whatever
people want to send. The decision-
making about what goes into the
kernel tends to be distributed. Linus
and I don’t sit there and say, “Hey, we
need x, y and z by the third quarter in
2005.”
Instead, if some particular group
has some particular requirement in
the kernel they’ll put the resources
behind it and they’ll do the work. So
25/10/05 2:03:22 pm
 INTERVIEW ANDREW MORTON

it’s a push rather than a pull model in
that sense.
But what’s in the future?
Filesystem and user space I guess we
should get in soon. Some people
would like to see that. Oracle clustered
filesystem [OCFS] we’ll put into 2.6.14.
The whole clustering issue is the big
one. We’ve had trouble for a number
of years with getting clustering
structure into the kernel.
There are a whole bunch of
clustering projects out there but they
all seem to have gone off in totally
different direct ions and development
teams don’t seem to be able to find
any common ground so we just
haven’t been moving forward on that.
But OCFS appears to be a complete
solution and looks OK, so I have no
problem merging that in the kernel.
I’m not sure that things like Red Hat’s
ON KERNEL QUALITY:
“We’re getting quite a few
regressions sneaking into
hacking away at my stupid patch
management script.
LXF: Aren’t you spending 12–14
hours a day hacking the kernel?
AM: Yes, merging and testing and
fixing patches. Reviewing patches.
Communicating with other developers
on design issues. And I spend quite a
lot of time with bugs as well.
LXF: Fixing bugs?
AM: It’s more a matter of giving a bug
some attention. Often people come up
with a bug report, and a bug report is
a valuable thing but it’ll drop on the
floor, so I feel I need to enter in a
dialogue with the reporter to get some
more information and generally try
and get the person who really owns
that code involved in the problem.
Particularly at this point in the kernel
LXF: Is that almost because some
of the maintainers only do any
actual maintaining out of respect
for you?
AM: Well, sometimes you have to
shame them into it, frankly! Mainly you
have to have sympathy with them. The
great majority of bugs we have are at
the driver level, and maintainers can’t
reproduce the bugs. That’s the whole
problem I have in the kernel. So you
need to enter in some long
complicated dialogue with the reporter
of the bug to attempt to resolve what’s
happening, and send them patches
and additional de-bug patches and get
them to do x, y and z. Debug by
remote control. So they’re all pretty
tough to solve.
LXF: Are there other things you’d
like to be working on, other
projects that interest you?
AM: I get a bit tired of not writing any
code any more; I guess at some point
in time, particularly if I start feeling
that I’m not performing as well as
the project deserves, I’ll
want to carry on being the 2.6
maintainer, or would you rather
migrate that to someone else who
wants to look after it so you can
push on to 2.8?
AM: We’ll cross that bridge when we
come to it. A lot of it will depend on
our reasons for having branched off
2.7; I’m not sure what they would be at
this time. One reason we might decide
to do it is because we’re simply not
happy with the quality that we’re
getting in 2.6. But as I say I still think
we can make a lot of adjustments to
our 2.6 processes.
LXF: Can you see
yourself doing this Go to
www.linuxformat.
for a long time?
co.uk/mag/morton.html
AM: Probably, I
for Andrew’s ruminations on
guess I’ll continue Novell’s hiring practices
doing Linux in some and the continuing saga
capacity for the rest of the 2.7 tree.
of my career. LXF

each release.” migrate my functions to

somebody else and go and sit
in a hole somewhere and work
on my own little corner of the
GFS and distributed lock manager will cycle – we’re at rc5 now – it’s all kernel again.
have such an easy path. bugfixing, no feature work.
What else… I don’t know, in answer LXF: You’re really at the
to your question! Whatever people LXF: So it’s almost marketing bugs, forefront of the Linux kernel at
send me. promoting them… the moment. So when 2.7
AM: To some extent, yes, as well as becomes a reality, would you
LXF: Is your -mm tree quite a long social engineering.
way from the actual true, officially
published kernel?
AM: It varies. Largely it’s the kernel as
it will be in a few month’s time, minus
quite a bit. So I pull all the various
development trees into my kernel for
testing purposes, and also various new
features I’ll line up in my kernel, and
probably take them down to Linus
when I think they’re ready to go.
So at times, yes, it can diverge a lot.
In terms of patch size it can, I mean
it’s got the Reiser 4 filesystem, that’s
2MB in one hit, and various other
features. They make very little impact
on the kernel overall, effectively
they’re just an add-on on the side, but
it makes the patch big.

LXF: So what are you personally

working on right now? Do you still
use any DDE, for example?
AM: I’m afraid I do. I haven’t done any
user space stuff for a long time, just

LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 73

LXF74.morton 73 25/10/05 2:03:25 pm

 TUTORIAL First Steps: Organise your filesystem

FIRST STEPS LINUX BEGINNERS SERIES

Filesystem Organise your

partitions and folders
How to set your machine up so that you’ll always know where to find any piece of information, photo,
song or document. Andy Channelle is your guide to control-freakery.

Everyone loses some data at some point: a picture, your personal files as well as configuration settings, and it’s then
LAST document, address or vital soundfile. It’s a fact of a laborious process to set up your new system to work just as

TIME
Buzzword fever took over, as
we looked at instant
messaging, Skype, IRC and
Google Talk. If you missed the
issue, call 0870 837 4773 or
+44 1858 438795 for
overseas orders.
computer life that most people have come to accept –
wrongly. Regular backups, for example, are one way of ensuring
that any lost data be retrieved without much fuss. But how can
we make sure that we don’t lose a file in the first place?
Like many things, it comes down to being organised, which
means designing a file structure that takes into account the
ways in which we use a computer; and – and this is the tricky
bit – making sure that we always drop, rip, save and import files
into the correct folders.
The first thing to consider, and the first part of this tutorial, is
how to partition your drive. Dividing your filesystem into two or
more partitions is one of the best ways of keeping in control of
your data. It’s common practice to reformat the entire hard
drive when installing a new version of Linux, but this wipes all
the old one did. However, if you go the trouble of putting your
home directory on a separate partition, all this hassle can be
avoided. Simply reformat the partition that contains the
operating system, and leave all your files and settings safely
intact in your home partition.
The (slightly) bad news is that, if you already have a fully
configured Linux system with /home on the main partition (also
known as / or the root partition) then the only really practical
way to do this is to back everything up and reinstall Linux with
a new set of partitions. This could either be a blessing or a
curse, depending how much stuff you’ve accumulated in your /
home directory. But either way, don’t worry – this is not as
scary as it sounds. I’ll step you through the process, using
Mandriva Linux 2006.

76 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 www.linuxformat.co.uk

LXF74.tut_begin 76 25/10/05 7:43:37 am

 TUTORIAL First Steps: Organise your filesystem

PART 1 – REINSTALL LINUX TO MAKE A SEPARATE /HOME PARTITION

Warning: this process will DESTROY all the data on your computer. Make a complete backup of your precious documents, photos and anything else before you
start the installation. LXF can’t take responsibility for lost stuff, and we can’t retrieve documents from formatted disks. Back up now.

1 2

Reboot and find the partition manager
Once you’ve backed up, reboot with the Linux installation CD, and go through the
bootup sequence until you come to the partition manager. This is where you
decide if the Linux system will live beside an already installed Windows partition,
use the current partition setup or create a new scheme. In this screen shot,
Mandriva is addressing a small and unused hard disk. To install on to a
completely blank hard drive, select Clear All from the tools along the bottom of
the screen. WARNING! This will destroy all your data – so back up first. You can
also select each partition in turn and opt to remove it or edit it.
Set up your three partitions
Select the disk to be partitioned and hit Auto Allocate. This will create three
partitions by default: / (root), /home, and /swap as a sort of overflow. Most
other distros will create two partitions – / and swap – so you will need to add a
third using either Ext3 or ReiserFS, accessed as /home. You don’t have to
accept the Auto Allocate partitions just as they are. To adjust them, select one of
the planned partitions with the mouse and use the Resize option that appears in
the Actions box on the left-hand side of the window. The root partition should be
at least 2GB in size, but if you have the space I would recommend 8–10GB. The
swap partition needs to be approximately twice the PC’s
RAM, and the rest can be used for /home.

REPARTITION WITHOUT MANDRIVA

3
SUSE comes with its own partitioning
utility, found under System > Partitioner
in the Yast configuration tool. It’s not
that easy to use, and only really worth
considering for a fresh install.
The most comprehensive partitioning
tool (and also the most difficult to use)
is Parted. This is a command line tool for
creating, destroying, resizing, checking
and copying partitions. Luckily, there are
a few graphical front-ends to this
monstrous tool, the most popular of
which is called QtParted. If you’ve ever
used Partition Magic on Windows,
QtParted will feel familiar. It provides a
horizontal box that represents your hard
disk, with each partition coloured in to
indicate how much data it’s holding. You
then drag each coloured partition to
resize and create new blocks.
Find Parted, QtParted and GParted
(for Gnome) on the coverdisc.

Set the mount point

When you create a separate /home partition, it must be mounted as such. From
the main screen, select the partition to be edited and choose the Mount option
from the Actions section. In the resulting dialog box there is a drop-down list
containing the most common set of mount points. Select the /home option. If
you are installing Linux alongside Windows you can use this space to make sure
that the Windows partition is automatically mounted on bootup. Select the
Windows partition, hit the Mount button and choose /mnt/windows from the
drop-down list.

QtParted takes its inspiration from Partition Magic on Windows.

>>

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 TUTORIAL First Steps: Organise your filesystem

>> Check the setup before confirming

4
Here is the result. From the automatic setup created in Step 2, the root partition
has been shrunk slightly, swap has been moved along and a new /home
partition created to house the previously backed-up documents. This is the
whole point of the exercise: when you come to reinstall or upgrade the Linux
system, you can simply select Use Existing Partitions and make sure /home isn’t
set to format. That way, once the system is reinstalled, the documents, mail and
other files will be exactly as you left them.
If you’re happy with everything, you’ve reached the critical step; the point of
no return. When you click Done and hit the OK button, the selected hard disk
will be completely erased and a new partition table will be written. So this is a
good time to make sure that you really have backed all your files up. Once this is
done, the installation will continue.

PART 2 – STRUCTURE YOUR DATA

After you’ve created a separate partition for /home, the

QUICK TIPS
■ If you’re using a computer
on a network, it’s worthwhile
making /Shared available to
users on your network. If
you’re still dual booting, it
could even be sited on a
Windows partition.
■ To keep items in folders
private, it is possible to save
documents from many Linux
applications, including
OpenOffice.org, in an
encrypted format so that
anyone attempting to access
the file would need to input
the right password before it
was opened.
first level in the file structure is the users’ own directory. A Linux
system (like other Unixes) is a multi-user operating system:
everyone who uses the computer can have their own account
that can be configured right down to the desktop image.
Moreover, each user has a folder inside /home labelled with
their username. You can set up user accounts at install time or
post-install, though you will need root privileges to do the latter.
We have three users to add (Rita, Sue and Bob) and each of
these will have their own password. I’ve always found it useful to
add an extra account – and I usually do this with a very simple
password – called Shared, which I use to store documents or
files that every user might need to access. Of course, this isn’t
the place to store file downloads from your bank, but it makes
the perfect repository for digital photos, music and video files,
as it saves wasting storage space by replicating files. The /
Shared folder will be set up in a similar way to the user folders,
though with different permissions (see Read, Write And Execute
Simplified box, far right).
So we should have four user directories (Rita, Sue, Bob and
Shared), which can now be populated with subdirectories for
storing various files. We’ll start with the /Shared folder.
This is going to have three subdirectories: Music, Photos
and Dropbox. The first two are obviously going to hold music
and photos, but the third is going to be a space where the three
Setting permissions in KDE is as simple as selecting options
from a drop-down list.
The /Shared folder should look something like this.
users can drop files for each other – so if Rita wanted Sue to
check over a piece of written work, she could drop it into
/Dropbox and it would be accessible by all.
To make /Shared universally accessible you will have to
adjust the permissions for the directory. You may find that
/Shared is set by default as read-only for other users, so we’ll
have to change the permissions as the root (or super) user. This
is possible by opening either Konqueror or Nautilus in Superuser
mode, which should be under the K menu or Gnome panel in
the System > File Manager section. Once the file manager has
opened, navigate to /home, right-click on the Shared icon and
select the Properties option. Under the Permissions tab, set
each option so that Owner and Group can view and modify
content. Also ensure that the option marked Only Owner Can
Rename And Delete Folder Content is not selected, but that
Apply Changes To All Subfolders And Their Content is.
Hit the OK button and close down the superuser file
manager. You should now be able to open a normal file
manager, access the Shared directory and add, remove and
manage files within it from any account. We are creating three
directories. Right-click anywhere in the directory window, select
Create New > Folder... and enter Music as the name. Do the
same for the Photos and Dropbox folders.
The next stage is to add some symbolic links (often
shortened to ‘symlinks’) to each user’s directory so they can
access the folders within /Shared as though they were part of
their /home directory. To do this, go into one of the user
accounts and open up the file manager. Now right-click

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 TUTORIAL First Steps: Organise your filesystem

anywhere within the main window and select Create New > Link
To Location (URL)... to open the symlink dialog. Then use the
Browse button (with the small file icon on it) to open a file
selector and choose the /home/Shared/Dropbox folder. Once
this is accepted, right-click on the newly arrived icon and select
Properties again, but this time click on the big icon image to
open the icon browser where you can select an image
appropriate for each user.
Now when Rita double-clicks on this icon it will open up the
Dropbox folder within /Shared. She can open and save things
normally in this folder and can also simply drop files in there so
they are accessible to Sue and Bob.
Create links to /Shared/Music and /Shared/Photos to
ensure Rita can also access the other content too.
I want some privacy
By default, Rita’s /home directory will be accessible to the
other users on the system, though only she can change or
delete the content of any of her folders. Of course, she can
save documents into /Shared if she wants to let Sue and Bob
read and amend them – but what if she wants to keep some
files to herself?
Once again, permissions can be used to restrict Sue and
Bob from browsing into sensitive areas. In the Rita account,
create a new directory and call it Private (or even PRIVATE) and
give it a nice icon. Right-click on the resulting icon and select
Properties. You can set the Permissions tab so that only the
owner can read and write to the directory; other users are
forbidden.
So now we have a directory structure which links to a shared
folder and a private folder to keep all our secret stuff. All that’s
left is to set up sensible folders for what you might call ‘local’
content – word-processing files, pictures, downloads and so on.
The best way to make sure the system doesn’t become
cluttered is to go for sensible divisions in the structure of your
home directory (and to always make sure you use the schema
you’ve set up). At the very least, you will need folders for
Documents, Downloads, Apps, Archive and Junk.
■ Documents For work in progress and documents you know
you’ll need in the near future.
■ Downloads This will probably end up full of .tar.gz and RPM
files, sounds, desktop wallpaper and other assorted stuff. Take
care to clean it out occasionally.
■ Apps Some applications are distributed as static binaries. If
you’re the only user who needs access to them, you can store
them in here. If you wanted to follow traditional Unix naming
you could call this one bin.
■ Archive When a job or piece of work is finished and
discarded, shove it in here. At the end of the month, turn
the whole thing into a zip file and burn it to a CD – no more
backup hassles.
■ Junk This is a paranoid step, but Junk is the space I use
before Trash – which is a prelude to unrecoverable loss. At NEXT
any given time, the /Junk folder will contain three months
of zips from /Archive and other assorted bits of nonsense. MONTH
We’ll look at ways of accessing
When it hits 4GB I burn the directory to a DVD and move
the contents to Trash. your files over a local network
And that’s it! An organised way of working awaits... LXF (from any machine) and over
the internet.

READ, WRITE AND EXECUTE SIMPLIFIED

Access state File
Read The user can open and view
the contents of the file. No
changes can be made. Many
system files you encounter
will be configured to allow
users read-only access.
Write The user can read and edit
the contents of a file. The
owner should have these
privileges by default for
most documents in your
home directory.
Execute This permission is used for
applications or executable
binaries.
Folder
A listing of the folder contents
can be displayed either
through a file manager or CLI
command such as ls.
Folder contents can be
displayed, moved and deleted.
In a multi-user system it is
sensible to deny other users
write access to your home
directory.
A folder can be have execute
permissions if it needs to be
accessed by an application or
script.
When talking about Linux file permissions, each file has three
possible states: read, write and execute. These states are user-
specific, which means that the permissions may change depending
upon who is attempting to access a file or folder. In our Rita, Sue,
Bob and Shared setup, for example, when Sue is trying to access /
Sue she will have read and write access, but if Bob attempted to
access it he would only have the option to view the content.
Permissions can also be expressed as r (read), w (write), x
(execute) and - (deny) and these will be displayed as a nine
character text string in some file managers. It’s easy to break this
down into three sets of three to cover owner, group and others as
we did above. In the scheme rwxrw-r--, the owner can read, write
and execute; members of the group can read and write; and
everyone else can only read.

Some hardened hackers might try to baffle you with numbers, but
Number Read Write Execute
number permissions are really quite easy – especially if you have a
0 handy table stuck to the wall above your computer. Each set of
permissions is given a numerical value.
1 ✔
Our /Shared directory above would have the permissions 777,
2 ✔ because it allows full, unadulterated access to the owner, the
3 ✔ ✔ group – that is, all the other registered users – and everyone else.
Rita’s
4 ✔ /PRIVATE directory (when viewed by Rita herself) would be set to
5 ✔ ✔ 700 or, in terms of a text string, rwx------.

6 ✔ ✔

7 ✔ ✔ ✔

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 TUTORIAL Gambas

BASIC PROGRAMMING

Gambas Tips and tricks

PART 4 In his final tutorial of the series, king of the GUIs Dr Mark Alexander Bain hands over his
secrets to this Visual Basic-alike language.
Over the last couple of months we’ve looked at into the same module. You might put everything to do with
LAST different aspects of programming with Gambas. This databases, say, into a module entitled ‘Data’.

TIME
Part three in LXF73 was all
about maximum application
building for minimum effort.
If you missed the issue, call
0870 8374773 or +44 1858
438795 for overseas orders.
month I want to look at all those little tips and tricks
that are very useful but don’t really fit in with anything else.
We’ll be building a complete config editor, putting my Gambas
secrets into action along the way.
Always have an escape route
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: before you do anything
else, add a way of exiting your new Gambas-coded form cleanly.
Either add a button or a menu item with the code
ME.Close
Don’t forget dependencies when
reusing modules and classes
If you do reuse code that you’ve already written, don’t forget to
add any dependencies that the code may have. If you have
written a module for database connections you will have to add
the gb.db component, and so on.

■ Two Gambas
projects
containing
demo code

Even if you do nothing else with a form, make sure that

you can close it.

Group your work into modules

When you are writing a new function or subroutine, always think
about moving it into a module. This will mean that you can
easily make it available to any other applications you might have
to write. Name your modules sensibly – Module1 and Module2
might seem OK at first, but they soon become unmanageable. If you add an existing piece of code remember to add any
At the same time, try to put similar functions and subroutines required components.

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 TUTORIAL Gambas

Try optional and default values for TRY conn.Open

inputs to functions and subroutines IF ERROR THEN
As you write code you’ll often write functions and subroutines message (“Cannot Open Database. Error = “ & Error.Text)
that need no input. This, for example, is a simple database END IF
connection subroutine (don’t try this one – it’s a cut-down END
version for discussion only!). This time the application won’t crash if there is a problem
PUBLIC conn AS NEW Connection connecting to the database. It will just display a message and
PUBLIC SUB make_connection() then continue working quite happily – without using the
WITH conn database, of course.
.Host = “localhost”
END WITH Use properties
conn.Open Normally you can just set and read the value of a parameter.
END However, the property variable has some additional functionality
This subroutine would only work for the localhost, because associated with it that makes it very useful. This is a function
that’s what’s been hard-coded in. But it is possible to write the (_Read) and a subroutine (_Write). So here’s the quiz for today,
subroutine so that the host name is passed to it: kids: guess when they run?
PUBLIC SUB make_connection(hostName AS String) Here’s the definition for a host name property:
WITH conn PUBLIC PROPERTY Host AS String
.Host = hostName PRIVATE localHost AS String
END WITH PRIVATE FUNCTION Host_Read() AS String
conn.Open IF (localHost = “”) THEN
END localhost = “localhost”
The host name is no longer hard-coded, but must be sent to END IF
the subroutine every time it’s run. In fact, your application would RETURN localHost
now crash if you tried running it and then calling the subroutine END
without a suitable input such as PRIVATE SUB Host_Write(ipHost AS String)
make_connection(“localhost”) localHost = ipHost
You can, however, have the best of both worlds by using an END
optional parameter and giving it a default value, like so: Notice that the only public element is Host; everything else
PUBLIC SUB make_connection(OPTIONAL hostName AS is private and therefore invisible to the user. You may also
String = “localhost)
WITH conn
.Host = hostName
END WITH
“LEARN HOW TO HANDLE
END
conn.Open ERRORS THEN ALLOW THE USER
This time the subroutine will work if you supply it with a host TO CARRY ON WITH TASKS.”
name and if you don’t (in which case it will assume that you
want to use the localhost). notice that the Host_Read function sets a default value for the
Host property.
Catch errors – and stop your
application crashing Learn command line options
If you were to try adding that last bit of code to an application In this Gambas tutorial series, all parameter values (such as
and then running it, the application would crash. This is because database names and user IDs) have been hard-coded into the
we haven’t supplied enough parameters to the conn object: it programs. But you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to: if
also needs a database type, a database name, a user name and the input variables are likely to change you can supply them to
a password. the application from the command line. You will, of course,
It’s not particularly nice having your program crashing all the need some code to handle them.
time over trivial matters like this. It’s much better to handle the Anything that you send to a Gambas application is known as
errors, inform your user, and then exit cleanly, or to allow the an argument, and is loaded into an array called Application.
user to carry on with tasks that they are still able to do. For this, Args. Here’s a simple demonstration, which would have to be
you could use the TRY statement. Here’s the complete placed in the startup module:
database connection subroutine with error handling and default PUBLIC SUB Main()
input parameters: input_variables_1
PUBLIC SUB make_connection(OPTIONAL dbname AS String END
= “customers”, OPTIONAL dbtype AS String = “mysql”, PRIVATE SUB input_variables_1()
OPTIONAL dbhost AS String = “localhost”, OPTIONAL DIM i AS Integer
dbusername AS String = “bainm” OPTIONAL dbpassword AS FOR i = 1 TO application.Args.count
String = “mypassword”) IF (Application.Args[i]) THEN
WITH conn message (Application.Args[i])
.Type = dbtype END IF
.Host = dbhost NEXT
.Login = dbusername END
.Password = dbpassword If you then created an executable and ran it from a console
.Name = dbname
END WITH
with some arguments tagged on, the application would display
a series of message boxes, each containing an argument. It’s
>>

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 TUTORIAL Gambas
>>
COMPULSORY
CLICHÉ...
My apologies for including
this example, but it is part of
my contract that I include at
least one ‘Hello World’ for
every series of articles. It’s
apparently one of the new
European directives.
82 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005
LXF74.tut_gambas 82
not the most useful application in the word, but it does give you
a good idea of how the parameters are handled.
This next example is a little more useful – it expects you to
supply two values (in the right order), and then loads them into
global variables.
PUBLIC TargetUrl AS String
PUBLIC Database AS String
PUBLIC SUB Main()
input_variables_2
message (TargetUrl & “ “ & Database)
END
PRIVATE SUB input_variables_2()
TargetUrl = Application.Args[1]
Database = Application.Args[2]
It’s a graphical language, but Gambas can also be used to
END write command-line programs.
As I said, the variables must be entered in the right order.
But if you use flags the order doesn’t matter, thus:
PUBLIC TargetUrl AS String the INPUT statement:
PUBLIC Database AS String PUBLIC SUB Main()
PUBLIC SUB Main() DIM m AS Float
input_variables_3 m=doMultiply()
message (TargetUrl & “ “ & Database) PRINT m
END END
PRIVATE SUB input_variables_3() PRIVATE FUNCTION doMultiply() AS Float
DIM i AS Integer DIM x AS Float
DIM j AS Integer DIM y AS Float
FOR i = 1 TO Application.Args.Count PRINT “Enter x:”
SELECT CASE Application.Args[i] INPUT x
CASE “-u” PRINT “Enter y:”
TargetUrl=Application.Args[i+1] INPUT y
CASE “-d” RETURN x*y
Database=Application.Args[i+1] END
END SELECT
NEXT Change from a terminal project to a
END graphical one (and vice versa)
This time you could type myapp -u /localhost -d mysql or When Gambas asks if you’d like to create a graphical or a
myapp -d mysql -u /localhost and it wouldn’t matter, you terminal project, you may ask what the difference is between
would get the same result. the two. The answer is a single Gambas component: gb.qt.
Simply, if you enable gb.qt in a terminal project then it
Run Gambas without the GUI becomes a graphical project. And if you disable gb.qt in a
You may have realised something from the previous tip: you graphical project it becomes a terminal project.
don’t have to use Gambas just for GUIs. You can also build Easy as that.
terminal (or command line) applications. In fact, when you
create a new Gambas project you are given the option of Extract information from files
building either a graphical project (which is the default) or a In previous tutorials we’ve looked at how to access databases,
terminal one. but here’s how to access a file. All you have to do is open a file
If you do create a terminal project you will find that there is in one of four ways: read, write, create and append. It’s fairly
no Forms folder – you don’t need one, of course, as there’s no obvious what each method will do, although it’s worth clarifying
GUI. But because there is no visual output device you will need the difference between write and create. Write will empty and
to write to the standard output. Here is the obligatory ‘Hello then write to an existing file. Create will make a new file if it
World’ application: doesn’t exist, or act like write if it does. Here’s a nice example:
PUBLIC SUB Main() DIM lLine AS String
sayHello DIM pFile AS File
END OPEN “/etc/passwd” FOR READ AS #pFile
PRIVATE SUB sayHello() WHILE NOT Eof(pFile)
PRINT “Hello World” LINE INPUT #pFile, lLine
END PRINT lLine
The terminal applications can use all of the Gambas WEND
components. Apart from the graphical ones, that is. CLOSE #pFile
Here, the /etc/passwd file is read and it’s contents displayed.
Try INPUT to send information to a
terminal application Make the most of Gambas
We’ve already seen how to use command line options with dynamic arrays
Gambas. These work with graphical and terminal projects. If In fact, Gambas arrays are always dynamic, so that tip title is a
you’re using a GUI you’ll obviously also have text boxes to input little misleading. Anyway, let’s spend a little time looking at how
data. However, if you’re using only terminal input you can use to use them. Definition is easy:
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24/10/05 12:52:55 pm
 TUTORIAL Gambas

DIM mArray AS NEW String[] Consider this:

This creates an empty array with no elements. Since it
contains no elements (yet) you can’t assign any values. For
instance,
mArray[0]=”some data”
would cause an ‘out of bounds’ error. Instead you must use the
Add statement:
mArray.Add(“some data”)
This will tag an element on to the end of the array. However,
you can also insert elements at the start of the array:
mArray.Add(“put this on the first line”,0)
You can also insert the element anywhere in an existing
array. If you have an array with ten elements, the line
mArray.Add(“in the middle”,4)
will add an element at index 4 (don’t forget the first index
number is 0). You will now have an array containing 11
elements. No doubt someone will immediately try
=mArray.Add(“to see what happens”,1004)
Gambas will sensibly just tag it on to the end of the array.
Quickly measure arrays
And talking about the number of elements, how do you find out
how big an array is? Quite easily, actually. Gambas gives an
array two properties: count and length. They both do the same
job and return the number of elements with mArray.Count
and mArray.Length.
You can use either one to step through the array:
DIM mArray AS NEW String[]
DIM i AS Integer
FOR i = 1 TO 10
mArray.Add(i)
NEXT
FOR i = 1 TO mArray.Count
message(mArray[i-1])
NEXT
This code simply creates an array with ten elements and
then displays the contents of each element in a message box.
You may wonder why I’ve used i-1 for the index number
instead of i. As I mentioned before the array index starts at 0
and therefore the ten elements are numbered 0-9 and not 1-10.
If you don’t like that method then you could use
FOR i = 0 TO mArray.Count - 1
message(mArray[i])
NEXT
This time we start at index 0 and stop at mArray.Count - 1,
that is, index number 9 (since mArray.Count will be 10).
Adding multiple elements
Now, I know what you’re going to say: you don’t want to add
elements one at a time, you want to create the array and then
write to the elements as you wish. No problem:
DIM mArray AS NEW String[]
mArray.Resize(10)
mArray[5] = “some info”
In this example I created an array, set it to have ten
elements (using the Resize method), and then set the contents
of the sixth element (please note how I have manfully resisted
the temptation to use the fifth element).
As a matter of interest you can also make the array smaller
by using either Resize or Remove. Resize is quite obvious and
Remove simply works in reverse to Add, so it can remove the
end element or delete a given index.
Array of tips
There are a few very nice methods that you may find useful
when you’re using Gambas arrays. The first of these is Sort.
DIM mArray AS NEW Integer[]
DIM i AS Integer Using delimiters
FOR i = 1 TO 10 If you are saving data to a file
mArray.Add(i) you’ll need a delimiter to
NEXT separate sections of data. The
mArray.Sort(gb.Descent) comma is a common one but
PRINT (mArray[0]) it’s best to avoid it, because if
mArray.Sort(gb.Ascent) someone types a comma as
they are entering data you’ve
PRINT (mArray[0])
suddenly got an extra field in
This code loads a ten-element array with the numbers 1 to
your database. Try to use
10. It then sorts them in descending order and then ascending something less common such
order before printing out the values 10 and then 1. You may find as the pipe (|).
it interesting to change the array definition to String[] and run
it again. This time the values 9 and 1 will be printed out. Why?
Gambas carries out a numerical sort on the integer type but an
alphanumerical search on strings.
The second array method to consider is Reverse. Guess
what that does? The last array method that I’m going to look at
is Find. Do you need an explanation? Probably not. Let’s just
work through an example instead:
DIM nArray AS NEW String[]
DIM dArray AS NEW String[]
DIM lArray AS NEW String[]
DIM lLine AS String
DIM pFile AS File
OPEN “/etc/passwd” FOR READ AS #pFile
WHILE NOT Eof(pFile)
LINE INPUT #pFile, lLine
lArray = Split (lLine,”:”)
nArray.Add(lArray[0])
dArray.Add(lArray[5])
WEND
CLOSE #pFile
PRINT dArray[nArray.Find(System.User)]
The code builds on the file read code that we looked at
earlier. This time the username and home directories from the
/etc/passwd file are loaded into arrays. Finally the usernames
are searched for the application user’s ID, and this is then used
to display the relevant home directory.
There’s one particular piece of code to notice: lArray =
Split (lLine,”:”). This takes a string (lLine), splits it according to
a delimiter (in this case ‘:’ but see Quick Tip box, above, for
more) and then loads it into an array (lArray).
Saving user options
We’ve seen how a Gambas application can accept command
line options. This can enable a user to specify how the
application operates, but does mean that the details have to be
re-entered every time the application is started. How can this The accumulative result of
all these tips: a complete
be done automatically? The key is to create a config file that (but simple) config editor.
the application runs every time it starts. The application could
then contain a set of default settings that could be overwritten
by the details in the file (if it exists).
AND FOR MY LAST TIP...
You’ll find the complete code for the program recommend you put in comments
we’ve been building in this tutorial on the everywhere. What you do while you’re sitting
coverdisc. It pulls together all of the tips and coding may seem very logical, but come back
tricks that I’ve discussed and shows you just in a month or two and suddenly you won’t be
how easily Gambas can carry out quite able to understand what you were thinking at
complex tasks. the time. Mind you, that’s probably true of
And a final tip? Document everything that most of life. Well, at least now you’ve got
you do. This tip isn’t just for Gambas, either. I’d Gambas to ease life just that little bit. LXF

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 TUTORIAL Inkscape
VECTOR GRAPHICS
Inkscape Master gradients
PART 1 Doing graphics in a good vector editor is not only practical; it’s also a lot of fun.
Dmitry Kirsanov shows you some advanced Inkscape techniques.
Everyone seems to be talking about Inkscape these
days. Not only has it risen quickly to the position of the
vector graphics editor for Linux, it is also getting
noticed on Windows and Macs too. And why wouldn’t it, being
the only completely free vector editor of its level on any
platform? The growth of SVG (Inkscape’s native format and a
W3C standard), in particular its support in the forthcoming
Firefox 1.5, is a factor as well.
Inkscape is still quite young and developing very fast. In less
than two years of existence, Inkscape has had seven major
releases, each one delivering an abundance of new features
and usability improvements. The latest release to date, 0.42, is
no exception; in fact, it’s the biggest Inkscape release so far, with
hundreds of major and minor improvements of all kinds.
Many novices who start using Inkscape face a double
challenge. Not only is the program itself new, but the concept
on which it operates – vector graphics – is also unfamiliar to
many people whose graphics experience is limited to bitmap
graphics (most often in programs such as Gimp or Photoshop).
Luckily, learning to work (and eventually think) in vector
graphics is usually easy and natural. The basic idea is that (just
like in the real world) everything is composed of objects, and
84 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 www.linuxformat.co.uk
LXF74.tut_ink 84
you can select these objects to transform them or change their
properties. In fact, editing vector images requires less black
magic than editing bitmaps, because objects remember what
they are and are willing to tell you what you can do to them.
The basics of Inkscape are covered in the interactive SVG
tutorials that come with Inkscape itself (in the Help > Tutorials
menu). I especially recommend the Basic tutorial as the first
step for newcomers; when done with it, you will know the basic
terms and will be able to create simple but useful graphics.
There were also a number of Inkscape overviews and tutorials in
magazines and on the Web, but most of them only cover the
bare essentials of the program.
This series of Inkscape tutorials will demonstrate some of the
more powerful and less documented features recently
introduced into the software. This tutorial explains one of the
most important new features in 0.42: the Gradient tool.
Gradients are essential. They are the easiest way to jazz up
that lifeless flat look that vector objects have by default. Master
designers can create amazingly photorealistic art using nothing
but carefully laid-out gradients. We’ll cover the basic techniques
of gradient creation and editing; then on page 88 we’ll look at
how they can be used to create professional-quality images.
26/10/05 4:36:29 pm
 TUTORIAL Inkscape

PART 1 – GETTING TO KNOW THE GRADIENT TOOL

1 2 INSTALLING
INKSCAPE
Most Linux distributions
include Inkscape these days,
but usually it’s not the latest
version. You can get Inkscape
0.42 (the version used in this
tutorial) from the coverdisc,
or download it from
www.inkscape.org.

Drag to create a gradient Drag gradient handles

A gradient is a smooth transition between two or more colours.
In SVG, ‘colour’ also includes alpha (transparency); this means
that you can, for example, make a gradient from opaque red to
transparent red (this is what the Gradient tool creates by default).
Just select (or draw) an object, switch to the Gradient tool and
drag across the object. Here, we’ve applied a gradient to a solid
yellow object, creating a transition from opaque to transparent.
As you can see, the gradient is visualised by two square
‘handles’ connected by a line. The line between them is the
direction of the gradient; by moving the handles around, you can
freely change the direction, position, and length of the colour
transition. Here, both handles have been moved so that the
gradient is vertical and spans the entire object. The gradient
repaints itself as you drag a handle – very convenient!

3 4

Colour the handles Create an elliptical gradient

You can assign any colour and/or level of transparency to the
selected end of gradient, in the same way you would change the
style of an object. The Fill And Stroke dialog, the Swatches, or
the Dropper tool all work as you’d expect. When a handle is
selected (blue), clicking with the Dropper tool will blend that
end of the gradient into the clicked area. To deselect the handle,
press Esc once; another Esc will deselect the object.
You can create elliptical gradients with the toggle button in the
Controls bar (above the canvas). Ensure the button is pressed,
and drag again with the same object selected. This time an
elliptical gradient for the selected object will be created. If the
selected object already had some gradient, the new one will use
the old gradient’s colours; otherwise, the default opaque-to- >>
transparent gradient will be created from the object’s colour.

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 TUTORIAL Inkscape
>> 5
QUICK TIPS
■ Gradient handles are
editable not only in the
Gradient tool, but also in
the Node tool and in all
shape tools (Rectangle,
Ellipse, Star and Spiral).
■ Watch the status bar: it
always displays useful
information on the
selected gradient handle
and the object(s) it
belongs to.
■ The Vacuum defs
command in the File menu
removes any leftover
gradient definitions that
may be lingering in your
document. It’s a good way
to tidy things up and
reduce the document size
a bit.
86 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005
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Edit an elliptical gradient
All three handles of an elliptical gradient – the centre and the
two perpendicular radii – can be dragged freely in any direction.
This makes it possible to move, stretch, squeeze, or rotate a
radial gradient. By the way, if you happen to need a symmetric
linear gradient with a bell-curve profile, the easiest way to do
this is via an elliptic gradient with one radius much longer than
the other, as demonstrated by the bottom rectangle.
7 8
Draw gradient on the stroke
Apart from the fill (interior) of an object, gradient can also be
applied to an object’s stroke (outline). Here, the rectangle has
an elliptical yellow-to-transparent gradient on its fill and a linear
black-to-transparent gradient on its stroke. Both gradients’s
handles are displayed simultaneously; a visible difference
between them is that the stroke gradients use greenish
connecting lines between the handles, while fill gradients use
blue lines.
www.linuxformat.co.uk
6
Tweak elliptical gradient focus
A radial gradient also has a fourth, normally hidden, handle: the
focus. This is the point where the gradient’s central colour is at
its purest and thickest; normally it is merged together with the
central handle and moves with it, but you can separate them by
dragging away from the central handle with Shift. The focus
handle is shown as an “X”. To merge it back, just drag it close
enough to the central handle and it will snap into position.
Merge and separate handles
The handles of any selected objects can be merged together.
Dragging a merged handle will affect several gradients at once.
For example, you can merge the centres of two objects’ elliptical
gradients (A), merge an elliptical handle with another object’s
linear handle (B), or merge the fill and stroke handles of the
same object (D). When you drag to create a new gradient with
several objects selected, you get what looks and acts like a
single gradient applied to multiple objects, but is in fact many
gradients, with the handles of all gradients merged together (as
in C in this illustration).
26/10/05 4:36:53 pm
 TUTORIAL Inkscape

9 10 PROFILING A
GRADIENT
One gradient feature lacking
in Inkscape is gradient
profiles; that is, a way to
make the transition between
colours accelerating or
decelerating (shifted towards
one end of the gradient)
instead of monotonic. But it’s
not really fair to blame the
Inkscape team for this: this
feature is missing from the
SVG 1.1 that Inkscape
implements. You can,
however, emulate a gradient
profile by adding several
middle stops into a gradient
and shifting them slightly
from their default positions
(without changing the colours
in the gradient).

Snap handles Go beyond the handles

To make editing easier, all gradient handles ‘snap’ to the edges
of the object’s bounding box, its central axes, and their
continuations (shown by blue dotted lines in this illustration).
This makes it easy to place a gradient handle exactly where you
want it. Another useful shortcut is dragging handles with Ctrl to
snap the gradient angle (that is, limit it to horizontal, vertical,
and 15 degree increments in between).
Outside of the gradient’s colour transition, the object’s fill or
stroke is by default painted by the flat colour of the
corresponding gradient end. This is changeable, however. With
that object (but not any handle) selected, go to the Fill And
Stroke dialog and in the Repeat list (A) select either Reflected
(C) or Direct (D) instead of the default None (B). With this, you
can easily create various striped patterns on objects.

11 12

Choose a gradient definition Create multi-stop gradients

The set of colour/transparency values that a gradient uses is
called its definition. Any gradient you create or edit adds its
definition to the list of all gradient definitions in the document,
and you can easily give any gradient a different definition. Just
select it from the drop-down list in the Controls bar; it will be
assigned to the gradient(s) of the selected object or objects.
There’s no way to save and reuse gradient definitions across
documents yet, but this is planned for a future release. There’s
also no way to rename a gradient – we’re stuck with its default
numeric name for now!
The Edit button next to the gradient definitions list opens the
Gradient Editor window (another way to open it is to double-
click on any gradient handle). This window is currently the only
way to create multi-stop gradients – gradients with more than
two colours. Click the Add Stop button to create a new stop in
the middle of a gradient, then adjust the position of the new
stop by dragging the Offset slider and set colour/transparency
for it. Here, a semitransparent yellow stop was inserted in the
middle of an opaque red-to-blue gradient. >>

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 TUTORIAL Inkscape
>> PART 2 – PUTTING GRADIENT TECHNIQUES INTO PRACTICE
The layered water drop
Designers often overlay several objects with semi-transparent
gradients. This image is actually a group of six objects with
various elliptical gradients. Use Alt+click or Alt+Ctrl+click to
examine what layers make up a composite image like this;
watch the status bar for the description of the currently selected
object, and leave the Fill And Stroke dialog open to see its style.
NEXT
MONTH
We’ll look at one
Shading by ellipses
Sometimes you don’t even need to edit gradients to get the
of the most powerful result you need. Here, to get from A to C, the Gradient tool was
Inkscape features:
only used twice: to create opaque-to-transparent elliptical
clones.
gradients on two ellipses, one white and one black (B). Then, a
total of 29 clones (linked copies) of these shader ellipses,
variously scaled and rotated, were used to add depth and
expressiveness to the cartoon face.
88 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 www.linuxformat.co.uk
LXF74.tut_ink 88
Feathering edges with gradients
If you want to fade out or ‘feather’ the edge of an object, you
don’t have to apply a colour-to-transparent gradient to it. An
overlay object in the same colour as the background with an
opaque-to-transparent gradient is often much easier to create
and maintain. In this example, four gradient overlays on the
edges of a bitmap feather it out on a white background.
Glass half-full!
For a final example, consider how this intricate semi-transparent
glass was done (it’s a public domain image from
www.openclipart.org, a highly recommended resource for
designers). It consists of 12 objects with various linear and radial
gradients. Note that some handles are merged, the bottom
shadow objects use eccentric foci (A), and the rim of the glass
is made with a gradient on stroke (B). LXF
26/10/05 4:37:03 pm
 TUTORIAL Emacs
ADVANCED EMACS TEXT EDITING SERIES
Emacs Fun with extensions
PART 1 All work and no play makes Biagio Lucini a dull boy – time to lighten up.
Did I ever mention that Emacs is extensible? To clear
any doubt, I’ll say it here: Emacs is extensible. And
just to be sure that you got the point, let me repeat it:
Emacs is extensible.
Yes, just as it’s possible to run a global crime ring while
never leaving your underground cave lair, it’s quite possible to
browse the web, play games and listen to La Traviata without
leaving your favourite text editor. To put this to the test, in this
instalment we will take a look at the top ten Emacs extensions
not distributed with the editor (the selection is entirely
subjective), leaving in our wake the widespread belief that
Emacs is just a text editor. The Loading Simple Extensions box,
right, gives brief instructions on how to make them work (more
details will follow in the next instalment). Most are Elisp files
(.el), the language in which most of Emacs is coded.
So what are we waiting for? Let the fun begin!
Calculator.el
WEB: www.barzilay.org/misc/calculator.el
CATEGORY: Utilities
One of my favourite Unix tools is the simple but powerful
command line-based calculator Bc. Still, until I discovered this
extension, I had to leave Emacs and switch to an Xterm
whenever I needed to use it. Now I can have the numbers
displayed right in my editor.
To call the calculator function, it is just matter of executing
M-x calculator <RETURN>
Then, you can start to add, subtract, multiply
and so on. The results will be displayed in a
dedicated buffer.
Coffee.el
WEB: http://purl.org/net/emarsden/home/
downloads
CATEGORY: Amusements
Of course Emacs can brew coffee! Sceptical?
Then load this extension and run
M-x coffee
Answer the questions (using Tab will display
the available options), go to the coffee
machine and collect your deserved hourly
dose of caffeine. Warning: the required
What other editor enables you to play RFC2324-compliant coffee machine (see
games between coding sessions? ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2324.txt) is not
90 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 www.linuxformat.co.uk
LXF74.tut_emacs 90
provided. You will also need W3 installed on your system (ftp://
ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/emacs-w3).
Dict-web.el
WEB: http://purl.org/net/emarsden/home/downloads
CATEGORY: Utilities
Are you ever unsure of the meaning of an obscure word? This
will happen to you more often than it should if, like me, you are
not a native English speaker and have to deal with the
comments of a magazine’s production editor every month. The
solution? This very nice Emacs extension. Select a word in the
buffer, then type
M-x dict
You will be prompted for a word to enter; the one you selected
will be the default. Press Enter and an explanation of the word
will pop up. Since this extension uses www.dict.org, you will
need to be connected to the internet, and more than that, the
Emacs web browser W3 (ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/
emacs-w3) needs to be installed.
Emacs-wget
WEB: http://pop-club.hp.infoseek.co.jp/emacs/emacs-
wget
CATEGORY: Internet
Wget is a favourite old command-line tool for retrieving
websites. Hang on a minute, did I say command line? Sorry, I
meant Emacs. If you don’t believe me, try this extension. Once
it is correctly set up, execute
M-x wget
and enter the URL to retrieve. Not only does wget correctly
work from within Emacs, but the output displayed in the
minibuffer is also identical to that of the shell.
Erc.el
WEB: http://sourceforge.net/projects/erc
CATEGORY: Internet
Emacs as an IRC client? Why not? Install this extension, then
add to your .emacs file the lines
(require ‘erc-auto)
(autoload ‘erc “erc”)
and execute
M-x erc-server-select
The data that needs to be inserted should be familiar if you’re a
habitual user of this network.
24/10/05 1:22:23 pm
 TUTORIAL Emacs

Links.el QUICK TIP

WEB: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-emacs- ■ To bind the function
sources/2002-01/msg00017.html myfunction to a key
CATEGORY: Internet combination (C-q, say), run
This extension transforms Emacs in a web browser, using Links M-x global-set-key <ENTER>
as an engine (hence Links must be installed on your system). C-q <ENTER> myfunction
After loading the extension, from a buffer, try Now every time the key
M-x links-browse-url combination C-q is pressed,
myfunction is executed.
At the prompt, specify a web address, such as www.
linuxformat.co.uk. This will show the website content on a ■ By default, Emacs
new Xterm. If you want the content displayed in a dedicated extensions are stored in
/usr/local/share/emacs/21.4/
Emacs buffer, replace links-browse-url with links-browse-url-
lisp and its subdirectories
within-buffer. Now the content of the website is editable, but
(this applies if you installed
you can’t follow the hyperlinks. Emacs from source). A listing
in those directories will
Mldonkey.el After all that work, Emacs will even make you a coffee. indicate which extensions are
WEB: www.physik.fu-berlin.de/~dhansen/mldonkey already available.
CATEGORY: File sharing ■ Instructions on how to use
File sharing is a revolutionary concept of recent years that has Nero.el an extension are provided in
met the enthusiastic consensus of the users. Although accused WEB: www.ma.utexas.edu/~jcorneli/a/elisp/nero.el the first lines of its .el files in
of aiding piracy, there are many cases in which its use is CATEGORY: Internet the form of comments (lines
perfectly legal, and here we want to refer exclusively to those. Do you like Lynx more than Links? And do you think that starting with ;;).
Before BitTorrent received its deserved success, one of the you should be able to browse a website from within your ■ Many default Emacs
most used platforms was eDonkey. MlDonkey is a popular Emacs buffer? Then nero.el is the extension you are looking extensions are directly
interface for eDonkey on Linux. But MlDonkey is also able to for. For instance, accessible from the Tools
access other networks and supports other protocols – M-x nero-browse-url <ENTER> www.distrowatch.com <ENTER> menu. Tools > Games > Tetris
will transform our editor into
including the aforementioned BitTorrent. will keep you current with the latest news in the distro world,
the favourite puzzle game.
If you are looking for an alternative way of keeping track of all from inside your editor.
your MlDonkey downloads, why don’t you give mldonkey.el a ■ Debian Sarge users can
try? Aside from monitoring, this extension is particularly useful Ssh.el install some nice additions by
apt-getting the package
for controlling the core of the application. Handle with care WEB: ftp://ftp.splode.com/pub/users/friedman/emacs-lisp/ssh.el
emacs-goodies-el.
and read the instructions carefully before using it. CATEGORY: Networking
■ Emacs and XEmacs come
This is very simple to use. Just execute
with different extensions
Monk M-x ssh <ENTER> myusername@myhost.com
installed by default. Third-
WEB: www.asahi-net.or.jp/~pi9s-nnb/monk and insert the password. You will be connected to myhost.
party extensions sometimes
CATEGORY: Multimedia com in an Emacs buffer. One caveat: the password you will depend on other other
Ultimately if we want to win over all users to Emacs, we should type in will be echoed in clear, so use it only when no one can pre-installed extensions.
also provide decent multimedia applications. One that definitely watch you. Just remember that Emacs
fits in this category is Monk. This is a front-end for various and XEmacs will have
command line multimedia applications (including Ogg123, Just the beginning… different extensions.
Timidity and Mpg123). To use it, install the extension, add One of the zillion hilarious jokes about Emacs says that our
(autoload ‘monk “monk” nil t) editor “is a good operating system, but Unix has more
to your .emacs, open a new Emacs window and run applications”. Is that really still the case? Just take a look at the
M-x monk Elisp catalogue at www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/sje30/
Insert the name of a playable file (including the path) and relax. emacs/ell.html, and you will realise that there is hardly an YOUR FEEDBACK
If you just hit Return, monk will attempt to play an audio CD. aspect of Linux that can’t be accessed from within Emacs. True, I’d welcome your comments
Don’t forget to insert one! the interface doesn’t have any of the bells and whistles of on this series and any Emacs
modern desktop environments, but we’re proved the point that questions. Send them either
Emacs is one of the most versatile and useful apps out there. to lxf.letters@linuxformat.
LOADING SIMPLE EXTENSIONS Try it for yourself: load a bunch of extensions that cover your co.uk or directly to me at
most-used tasks, open an Emacs windows and try to do biagio.lucini@gmail.com.
Emacs comes packed with several Elisp extensions that cover
everything without leaving it. Need SSH? Execute C-x 2, move
many aspects of text editing and interfacing with command-line
tools. Its initialisation routines take care of loading the default to the lower buffer and open SSH with the command M-x ssh.
extensions. But how can the editor know about the third-party Need another application? Just superimpose another buffer.
extensions that we are using in this series? If the extension Don’t need a task any longer? Kill the corresponding buffer.
consists of a single self-contained file the easiest way is to execute Thanks to the Emacs telepathy.el extensions I know
M-x load-file <ENTER> /path/to/file
For instance, suppose that we put all our favourite extensions in a
what you’re thinking: this is really cool and will gain me
several geek points, but what’s the point in 2005 when NEXT
directory called elisp below our home. To load the Nero extension,
we’d need to execute
M-x load-file <ENTER> ~/elisp/nero.el
fully fledged desktop environments shine all around us?
Well, several times in my tutorials I have been saying that MONTH
Pre-installed extensions,
everything is possible with Emacs, and I decided that the
Some extensions might require external tools. For instance, nero. adding new ones and how to
time had come to prove it to you. Now, if Emacs is a fair
el, used in the above example, makes use of the Lynx web enforce Emacs to load a
browser, which should obviously be installed for this extension to IRC client, a nice web browser and a reasonable SSH
particular extension.
work at all. client, can you imagine how far ahead of the pack it is
when it comes to text editing? LXF

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LXF74.tut_emacs 91 24/10/05 1:22:27 pm

 TUTORIAL PHP
SCRIPT PROGRAMMING
PHP Grokking the Google API
Ha-ha thisaway, ha-ha thataway - Paul Hudson picks up some SOAP for the first time
in years and gets jiggy with WSDL.
LAST
TIME
Scripts in LXF73 showed the
speed-enhancing wonder of
PHP 5.1’s new toy, PDO. If
you missed the issue, call
0870 837 4773 or +44 1858
438 795 for overseas orders.
S download that, then save it in your script directory. Now create
■ Because SOAP and WSDL
use XML, you can just dive in
and read them by hand,
rather than relying on PHP to
parse them.
■ PHP can also set up SOAP
servers, but you’ll find
dragons there.
■ When creating your
SoapClient object, you can
pass in special options as an
array in the second
parameter, such as the SOAP
version to use.
■ If you don’t want to bother
with WSDL, it is still possible
to use SOAP by using the
_ _ soapCall() function and
telling it the name of the
function to call.
92 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005
LXF74.tut_php 92
Ostagazuzulum! No, that’s not me mashing my
keyboard randomly or indeed me sneezing into
OpenOffice.org. Back in the nineties, the British
Broadcasting Corporation produced a marvellous program for
kids called Wizbit. It was about a large, yellow magic hat
(Wizbit) who could fly around and do magic. Surreal, I know.
Wizbit had two catchphrases: “Ostagazuzulum” (his magic word
to Make Things Happen), and “Think about it”, which is what
he’d say when he presented the audience with a puzzle they
needed to solve.
Of course, we all know that any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable from magic, so this month we’re
going to be doing some tricks of our own: we’re going to use
SOAP, WSDL, XML and Web Services to magically conjure up
all sorts of neat things. Yes, I know I just used four buzzwords in
succession, but never fear: I’m going to explain what they do
and why we need them, and you’ll be eager to get started,
capiche? Say “Yes, Paul!”
The props
So, the first of the four key ingredients to our magic is SOAP,
which stands for Simple Object Access Protocol. This is a
lightweight protocol for exchanging information over HTTP, and
means we can send a query to a server and receive back
usable information. WSDL stands for Web Service Definition
Language (pronounce it “Wiz-dull” – not, uncoincidentally,
dissimilar to “Wizbit”), and it describes the interfaces available
for you to use with SOAP.
XML you already know, but here it’s being used for the
SOAP and WSDL so that all the data is easily parsed on both
ends. When you combine them all, you have Web Services: we
can query a server to see what it can do, send it data, receive
back the results and print them to the screen.
Now, think about it: what kinds of things might we want to
query on the web? Well, a number of possibilities spring to
mind: we could query Amazon to read its database of products,
we could pull up share price information for companies or we
could do something more fun like querying Google. No one
cares about book sales and share prices are for weenies, which
www.linuxformat.co.uk
leaves Google. So friends, in this tutorial we will use PHP and
Web Services to send queries to Google and use the results in
our scripts. This isn’t exactly making an elephant disappear, but I
defy anyone to say that Google isn’t powered by pixies…
Google opens its system to Web Services only if you have
registered with them for an account. Go to www.google.com/
apis and click Create Account to sort this out – you may need
to use a fresh email address if it refuses to sign you up. Once
you have an account, you’ll be emailed a developer key that
allows you 1,000 Google queries every day. Put that in a safe
place, as you’ll need it later.
A beginner’s trick
Put on your magicians hat and get ready to make some magic.
We’re going to be using the SOAP extension from PHP 5 to
read the Google WSDL file, then use that data to send a query
off to Google. The WSDL file for Google is available from
http://api.google.com/GoogleSearch.wsdl – go and
the file google1.php, and type in the following:
<?php
$soap = new SoapClient(‘GoogleSearch.wsdl’);
var_dump($result = $soap->__getFunctions());
?>
Only two lines, but you’ll find this kickstarts your entry into
the world of Web Services. The first line creates a new
SoapClient object, which is what we’ll be using to send and
receive data. The constructor for this class takes a WSDL
definition file that tells it what functions can be used and what
parameters you can pass in; we give it the Google API WSDL
file so that it loads the Google functions for us. Line two calls
the _ _ getFunctions() magic function. This returns an array of
the functions available to our new SOAP object, and you’ll get
output like this:
array(3) {
[0]=>
string(54) “base64Binary doGetCachedPage(string $key,
string $url)”
[1]=>
24/10/05 1:22:48 pm
 TUTORIAL PHP

string(56) “string doSpellingSuggestion(string $key, string here because the descriptive names (eg $output_encoding)
$phrase)” makes it clear how the function works. The return value from FOUR COOL
[2]=> doGoogleSearch() is a class that contains a variety of WEB SERVICES
string(178) “GoogleSearchResult doGoogleSearch(string information, so what that script does is just print it out so you TO TRY…
$key, string $q, int $start, int $maxResults, boolean $filter, get an idea what Google lets us play with.
■ Amazon
string $restrict, boolean $safeSearch, string $lr, string $ie, Here’s part of the output: If book sales floats your boat,
string $oe)” stdClass Object go to www.amazon.com/gp/
} ( aws/landing.html and check
That reads just like PHP function prototypes. For example, [estimatedTotalResultsCount] => 2290 out Amazon.com’s
the second function is called doSpellingSuggestion, it takes [resultElements] => Array e-commerce service.
two parameters ($key and $phrase, both strings), and returns ( ■ eBay
a string. We’re interested in the third function, [0] => stdClass Object Link in to the world’s most
doGoogleSearch(). As you can see, it takes quite a few ( popular auction marketplace
parameters, several of which are named rather obscurely. Here’s [URL] => http://www.hudzilla.org/php/index.php using SOAP and WSDL:
what they all mean: [snippet] => <b>Hudzilla</b>.org - the homepage of http://developer.ebay.com
■ $key This is the unique developer key Google assigned to Paul Hudson ■ Flickr
you for your personal use. You shouldn’t share this with others, [title] => Practical PHP Programming Want to learn how to query
as this key has only 1,000 searches a day. [cachedSize] => 68k your online photo blog?
Check out the instructions at
■ $q This is the query you want to send to Google. )
www.flickr.com/services/api
■ $start The point at which you want the results to start. For You’ll get a lot more data back from your query, but in print
example, setting this to 1,000 would skip the first 1,000 results. every second counts so we’ve printed only the first 12 lines. We ■ Yahoo
Go shopping, check air fares,
■ $maxResults The maximum number of results you want get estimatedTotalResultsCount, then a resultElements
and draw on Yahoo! maps all
returned. Note that Google limits this to ten, which means you array containing each of the results. Our query asked for only
from one developer network:
need to use the $start parameter and multiple calls to get five results (see the $max_results variable), which means we’ll
http://developer.yahoo.net
more than ten results to your query. get no more than five results in the resultElements array.
■ $filter Should Google ignore multiple hits from the same These are ordered numerically, so the first hit is at index 0, the
site, or multiple similar hits from different sites? second hit will be at index 1, and so on. For each result we have
■ $restrict Should Google restrict your search to a certain a URL, a title (the HTML <title> tag for the page), a snippet (the
category or country? first few words from the page’s body text) and the size of the
■ $safeSearch Do you want to return adult content? page in Google’s cache. With a bit of brainpower, we can loop
■ $lr Allows you to set a language restriction. our way through the returned array, and output the results in a
■ $ie Used to set the input encoding. This is ignored now, so neatly formatted way:
set it to be blank. print “Search for $query complete - {$result->estimatedTo
■ $oe Used to set the output encoding. This is also ignored talResultsCount} estimated results.\n”;
now, so set it to be blank. foreach($result->resultElements as $search_result) {
Yes, it requires quite a few parameters to be able to call print “ {$search_result->title}\n”;
such a simple function, but it’s great to have all that flexibility print “ {$search_result->URL}\n”;
available to you. Now, let’s try using it… print “ “ . strip_tags(htmlspecialchars_decode($search_
result->snippet)) . “\n\n”;
Hudzilla out of the hat }
With the all-powerful doGoogleSearch() at our fingertips, Most of that’s quite
here’s some new code to try out: obvious, with the exception
<?php being the last line that gets
$soap = new SoapClient(‘GoogleSearch.wsdl’); printed. Google returns its
$key = “YourSpecialGoogleKeyHere”; data ready to be printed into
$query = “Hudzilla”; a web browser, which means, for
$start = 0; example, that it highlights search terms
$max_results = 5; in bold. Some websites also use
$filter = false; characters like &gt;, so we change
$restrict = “”; them to their non-HTML equivalent
$safe_search = false; (>, in this case), then strip out any
$language_restrict = “”; HTML tags so it’s suitable for printing on
$input_encoding = “”; the command line.
$output_encoding = “”; Go ahead and run the script now, shout “Ostagazuzulum!”
$result = $soap->doGoogleSearch($key, $query, $start, to the mystery of those in the cubicles around you, and
$max_results, $filter, $restrict, $safe_search, $language_
restrict, $input_encoding, $output_encoding);
you’ll see output like this:
Search for Hudzilla complete - 2340 estimated results. NEXT
if (is_soap_fault($result)) {
print “Your query failed: {$result->faultstring}\n”;
Practical PHP Programming
http://www.hudzilla.org/php/index.php MONTH
Next month we’re going to
} else { Hudzilla.org - the homepage of Paul Hudson
expand our linguistic horizons
print_r( $result ); I think you’ll agree that was remarkably easy. The
and discover the mystery of
} power of WSDL means you don’t need to know what
multi-byte strings.
?> functionality Google offers you; the power of SOAP
This time I’ve used variables to store all the parts of the means you don’t need to care how data is sent or
SOAP call. Obviously this isn’t needed: in your own scripts, you received, and the power of PHP means we can do it all
can just place the values directly into the call. I’ve used variables in just a few lines. That’s magic! LXF

www.linuxformat.co.uk LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 93

LXF74.tut_php 93 24/10/05 1:22:54 pm

 ANSWERS

Answers
If you really are stuck and the HOWTOs yield no good result, why not write in?
Our resident experts will answer even your most complicated problems.

OUR EXPERTS You have 0 messages

Whatever your question, we can
answer it. From installation and
modem woes to network admin,
we will get the answer for you –
just fire off a letter or email and it'll
all be taken care of.
Having run a small
ISP and produced
coverdiscs for
Linux Format,
Neil Bothwick
describes himself
as a Linux jack-of-all-trades.
Hans Huberland
is Rackspace
Managed Hosting’s
Linux expert and a
real-life system
administrator on
call for your questions.
Send your questions for our experts to:
Linux Format, Future Publishing,
30 Monmouth Street, Bath BA1 2BW
or email: lxf.answers@futurenet.co.uk.
Got a sysadmin query? Send it to Hans
at sysadminqa@rackspace.co.uk.
Submission advice
● Please be sure to include any relevant
details of your system. “I can't get X to
work” doesn't really mean anything to us if
we don’t know things like what version of
X you are trying to run or what hardware
you are running on.
Q
I tried to review
/var/log/messages and
found the file to be
empty. Listing the
contents of /var/log I found
/var/log/messages to be dated two
days ago while /var/log/messages.1
was dated today. I created a few
entries using logger and saw that
my messages were in fact being
written to /var/log/messages.1.
I rebooted the system and from
then on new entries were being
written to /var/log/messages. I have
checked the Syslog configuration at
/etc/syslog.conf and confirmed that
messages were meant to be written /etc/cron.daily/logrotate, while Use Synaptic to install any software
to /var/log/messages. Am I /etc/logrotate.conf and the included you want, including missing
overlooking something? I run Red /etc/logrotate.d/* files dictate which libraries for SuperTux (below).
Hat Enterprise Linux 4. logs are to be rotated and how often.
Dave E Inspecting the logrotate
On Unix filesystems, ‘inodes’ configuration file illustrates how, after
A describe the type,
permissions, ownership,
timestamps and the data
that make up a file. In fact, the
filename is just a link in a directory
log files are renamed, new log files
are to be recreated. Also, /etc/
logrotate.d/syslog dictates that
Syslogd is to be restarted to reload
the configuration while closing and
to the inode as identified by its reopening all log files for append.
inode number. This last step must have failed, and
The Syslog daemon, Syslogd, is Syslogd kept on appending to the
responsible for the entries written to inode linked by /var/log/messages Obviously I am missing
/var/log/messages. Using lsof, it is the last time Syslogd had been something. But what?
possible to determine the inode that properly restarted. Rebooting restarts Bruno Van Bogaert
corresponded to /var/log/messages Syslog, which is why the issue was, on You are missing the SDL_

● Be specific about your problem. Things like

“it doesn't work” or “I get an error” aren’t
all that helpful. In what way does
when you started Syslogd, like this:
syslogd 3579 root 1w REG 3,5
926461 7898395 /var/log/
this occasion, resolved. HH

Run, SuperTux, run! A image library. This is used

often in games; so often
that we have it in the

something not work? What were you
expecting to happen? What does the error
message actually say?
● Please remember that the people who
write this magazine are NOT the authors
or developers of Linux, any particular
package or distro. Sometimes the people
responsible for software have more
information available on websites etc. Try
reading the documentation!
We will try to answer all questions. If we don't
answer yours specifically, you'll probably find
we've answered one just like it. We can't
really reply to all your questions.
messages
Calling ls with -lai includes the
inode number in the listing, giving
7898395 -rw------- 1 root root
933307 Sep 14 20:13 /var/log/
messages
It follows that Syslogd will keep on
writing to the same inode regardless
of any link name change, be it a
rename or a deletion.
The link /var/log/messages should
have been rotated to /var/log/
messages.1 by Logrotate. Under Red
Hat ES 4, logrotate is run daily as
specified by the crontab entry
Q
I have just installed
Debian 3.1 and
everything seems OK.
But then I tried to install
the game SuperTux that came with
your LXF71 DVD using the
Autopackage installation.
Everything seemed to work, but
now when I try to start it up I get
the following message:
bruno@tux:~$ supertux
supertux: error while loading shared
libraries: libSDL_image-1.2.so.0:
cannot open shared object file: No
such file or directory
Essentials directory of the DVD,
although not as a Debian package.
The easiest way to install this (or
almost any other package) is to run
Synaptic by selecting System >
Package Manager (Synaptic Package
Manager) from the K menu, click on
Search and type sdl-image. Tick the
box by the package and click Apply to
install it. SuperTux should now run.
If you ever have another program
complain about a missing file, go to
http://packages.debian.org and
follow the link to Search The Contents
Of Packages. This page is so useful it

94 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 www.linuxformat.co.uk

LXF74.answr 94 25/10/05 7:40:22 am


deserves a bookmark even if you don’t
use Debian, as it provides a good clue
as to which package would contain a
particular file in any Linux distribution.
NB
Stardate 2005.8.2
Q
I’m running a box with
SUSE 8.2 (yes, I know –
it’s very old) and Xampp
[the Apache distro]. How
I can get Xampp’s log files into the
log rotation possibilities of SUSE?
They are growing and growing.
From the forums
I take it from your question
A
that you already have
Logrotate running and
successfully rotating other
log files, which are normally
configured in /etc/logrotate.d. You
need to add a file to this directory for
each set of log files you want to rotate.
Yes, SUSE 8.2 is rather old; and you
do not say which version of Xampp
you are using, but this configuration
file will rotate the logs for Apache 2 if
they are stored in /var/log/apache2:
/var/log/apache2/*log {
missingok
notifempty
sharedscripts
postrotate
/etc/init.d/apache2 reload > /dev/null
2>&1 || true
endscript
Save this as /etc/logrotate.d/
apache2, and the logs should be
rotated the next time your machine
runs Logrotate (usually on a daily Cron
job). The options are documented fully
A QUICK REFERENCE TO:
Hardware drivers can be a real pain for
Linux users. If the manufacturer does not
release the specifications of its hardware,
it can be difficult, if not impossible, to
reverse engineer the information needed
to write a driver.
True, a few manufacturers are
enlightened enough to release Linux
drivers or information, but most are
content with ensuring their product
works with Windows.
While it would be nice to be able to
boycott such hardware, there’s not much
you can do if your laptop’s integrated
wireless card has no Linux driver –
returning the laptop is rarely an option.
NdisWrapper is a driver wrapper that
cleverly emulates the Windows Network
Driver Interface Specification for wireless
drivers, so that it can run the Windows
driver that came with the card. Most
LXF74.answr 95
in the Logrotate man page.
The first line specifies the files to
be rotated; the next two lines cause
logrotate to move on if the log file is
missing or empty; sharedscripts
means that the prerotate (not used
here) and postrotate functions are
run once for all files matching the
pattern, instead of once for each file.
The postrotate section specifies the
action to be taken after rotation. In
this case, it reloads Apache’s
configuration, which causes Apache to
release its locks on the old files and
start logging to new files.
You may need to change the path
to the log files, and you might also
have to replace /etc/init.d/apache2
reload with apache2ctl restart or
apachectl restart. You can also add
options to this file to set how often the
logs are rotated and how many
rotations are given.
Otherwise the defaults will be used
(four rotations given once a week). For
example, the lines
daily
rotate 7
will rotate the logs daily and keep the
last seven logs. NB
Transfer corruption
Q
We are getting very
strange corruptions
whenever we download
files bigger than 100MB
on to a new server running Red Hat
Enterprise Linux ES 3. The files
download to the server without
reporting any errors, but the MD5
checksum of the downloaded file
NDISWRAPPER
distros include NdisWrapper, or you can
get it from http://ndiswrapper.
sourceforge.net. Install it using your
distro’s package manager, then load in
the Windows driver. Look on the CD that
came with the card for the INF file that
corresponds to your card, and load it as
root with
ndiswrapper -i /path/to/driver.inf
You can check that it is correctly
loaded and available to NdisWrapper with
ndiswrapper -l
Now it’s possible to load the driver at
any time with
modprobe ndiswrapper
Add NdisWrapper to whichever file
your distro uses for loading modules at
startup. This varies between distros:
Mandriva uses /etc/modules, SUSE uses
one file for each module in /etc/modules.
d and Gentoo uses /etc/modules.
www.linuxformat.co.uk
ALL ABOUT RACKSPACE
LXF Sysadmin
Answers – in
association
with Rackspace
Managed
Hosting
When it comes to managed hosting
Rackspace is unique. We are the only
hosting company to guarantee 100%
network uptime and we will even
pledge to replace faulty hardware (let’s
face it, it does happen) within an hour.
As you would expect from Red Hat’s
only Advanced Hosting partner you will
receive Fanatical SupportTM and instant
emergency response from fully-
qualified level three technicians,
available 24 hours a day, 365 days a
year. No answering machines, no
diversions, no silly on-hold messages.
All our customer platforms are
housed in state-of-the-art, secure data
centres and can be fully customised to
meet any requirement. A dedicated
account manager is allocated to you at
does not match that of the source.
My colleagues argue that this is a
hardware failure, but the vendor
insists that this is not the case. We
have looked through /var/log/
messages and dmesg for signs of
errors but could not find any.
As an act of goodwill, the single
You can see what is happening
with your wireless card with
NdisMonitor, available from
http://ndismonitor.sourceforge.net.
autoload. Your distro’s documentation
should tell you the correct approach.
ANSWERS
the outset and will remain on your
account. All Rackspace employees are
committed to ensuring customer
satisfaction, and they will not rest until
a client problem is resolved.
Since Rackspace was established in
1998, it has specialised in managed
hosting – nothing else. We’re not an ISP,
we don’t sell domain names, and we
won’t offer website design – all we do
is managed hosting. As a result, we do it
very well and 97% of our customers
would happily recommend us.
For information on how we can
improve your web hosting, please
contact us at www.rackspace.co.uk
and ask any questions you have about
the ultimate managed hosting service.
See page 98 for Rackspace’s star letter.
IDE disk and associated cables have
been replaced and the operating
system re-installed without any
errors. However, on downloading
massive attachments we started
experiencing the same errors. We
are very confused.
Raphael
I have come across a very
A similar situation just once.
The issue was inconclusively
diagnosed as a faulty
motherboard, potentially the onboard
IDE controller. To rule out any transfer
issues we transferred the file over SSH
(SCP or SFTP). With the issue still
present a 512MB file of random data
was generated locally:
$ openssl rand 536870912 -out
testdata.0
The generated file was then copied
over another four times to create a
test sample:
$ for FOO in 1 2 3 4; do cp -v
testdata.0 testdata.${FOO}; done
The MD5 checksum for the five
‘theoretically identical’ files was
computed and compared:
$ md5sum testdata.?
In this case the MD5 checksums
did not match. As in your case, the
disk was replaced but the problem >>
was reproduced. However, when the
LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 95
25/10/05 7:40:27 am
 ANSWERS
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS USERS & SUPERUSERS
FAQ I’ve just installed Linux
for the first time. Why
did I have to create two users?
One of those users was the root user
(or superuser), which should be used
only for administration. The other was
a normal user for general system use.
FAQ Can’t I administer the
system as myself?
Linux uses file permissions to control
who owns each file or directory and
who can read or write to it. Each user
has their own home directory, where
they do as they please, creating and
deleting files to their heart’s content.
Elsewhere, each user is allowed to
read files and run programs, but not
change or delete them. This provides
safety and security. When you’re
logged in as a normal user you can’t
accidentally delete system files, and
even executing a malicious email
attachment won’t harm the system,
because a normal user does not have
the permissions that the virus needs
to damage your system. When you
really do need admin access, say to
install a program, switch to the root
user until the job is done, then switch
right back.
>> motherboard was swapped the
problem went away.
The Kernel-utils package on ES 3
provides the Smart Monitoring
Daemon, which can monitor the ‘Self-
Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting
Technology’ system built into most
modern-day ATA drives. Using Smart
it may be possible to single out a
failing disk before it actually commits
suicide. You could also try disabling
DMA and repeating the process:
# /sbin/hdparm -d0 /dev/hda
HH
Distro in a distro
Q
I would like to find a way
to use two distros at the
same time without
rebooting. Is there a
program that allows a user to boot
up another distro when already in
another? For example, if I had a
dual boot PC running distro A with
distro B installed on a separate
partition, would there be a way to
boot up a distro B session while
96 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005
LXF74.answr 96
KDE (above) and Gnome
(right) allow you to
automatically log one
user in at startup.
FAQ Why not work as the
root user all the time to
avoid this hassle?
The root user can do things that can
be dangerous to the system. This
applies not only to anything you do
directly as root, but also to anything
done by any program run as root. If
you are running as root, so are your
mail program and web browser.
FAQ What are the benefits of
Live CDs?
You can run them anywhere, on any
computer capable of booting from a
CD. Want to buy a new laptop? Boot it
running distro A? If so, would there
be any issues such as latency and
responsiveness?
Fred Quintana
There are several options for
A this, most of which involve
some sort of emulation.
Which one you choose
depends on how much effort you want
to put into it, and whether you want to
spend any money!
The easiest, and most expensive,
solution is the commercial VMware
Workstation 5, which received a
favourable review in LXF68. Although
often perceived as a means of
running Windows on Linux, or vice
versa, it is very good for Linux on
Linux and is how I test software on
various distros. The VMware website is
at www.vmware.com. This is a
virtual machine that does not try to
emulate a processor, so it achieves
near native speeds.
The next alternative is Qemu. This
started life as a processor emulator,
but there is an accelerator module
www.linuxformat.co.uk
from a Knoppix CD to see
whether all its hardware is
recognised and configured – an
instant Linux compatibility test.
Live CDs are also
useful for disaster
recovery and
other
maintenance. If
you made a
mistake editing a
critical file and
your
computer won’t
start up, boot a Live CD and fix the
damage. If you want to swap your hard
disk for a larger model, connect both
and boot from MEPIS to prepare the
new disk and copy over all your data.
FAQ So I need to log out and
log in again as root
when I need to install a
program or similar? That
sounds a lot of trouble.
You don’t need to log out, nor should
you ever log into the full desktop as
root (some distros are configured to
prevent this): you only need to run the
individual program as root. Many
programs are already set up this way. If
Installing Fedora Core into Qemu (which is running on Gentoo) gives you
two distros without dual booting.
available now, which turns it into a
VMware-like virtual machine when
emulating a PC on a PC. It’s slower
than VMware, even with the
accelerator, but it is free, and could be
you try to run SUSE’s Yast system
configuration tool or the Mandriva
Control Center, you will be asked for
the root password. For any other
program, open a terminal, type su,
give the password and run the
program by typing its name.
FAQ I am the only person
using this computer.
Do I really need to log in
every time?
Most distros now have an option to
automatically log in a specific user
(not root!), which is convenient if you
are the only user of your computer
(see illustration, left). If you use the
KDE desktop, you can set this in the
System Administration > Login
Manager part of the KDE Control
Centre. Gnome users should select
Desktop > System Settings > Login
Screen from the main menu bar and
enable Automatic Login on the
General tab. Think twice about
enabling this on a laptop: if the
computer is lost or stolen, anyone
switching it on will have access to your
emails and other private information.
Asking for the password each time
gives some protection against this..
ideal for your needs. Qemu is available
from http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/
qemu. Qemu is open source, but the
accelerator module is only free as in
beer (it’s proprietary).
>>
25/10/05 7:40:29 am

A MANDRIVA SPECIAL... SPECIAL!
Down with updates
Q
I’ve been trying to
install Mandriva from
the LXF Mandriva
Special. It loaded and it
runs but I cannot add the updates
disc. I’ve followed the instructions
in the magazine, attempting to
load it in via the Mandriva Control
Center and RPM. When it scans the
disc it reports errors and gives the
following message: ‘Unable to add
medium, errors reported:
...copying failed’.
From the LXF forums
What’s happening is that
A the updates disc is failing
to load the GPG key for
the updates packages. All
packages are signed with a GPG key
so you can verify that they’re
genuine. The error occurs because
the file containing the key is not
where the Mandriva Software
Manager expects it to be. Despite the
message, the updates CD has been
added. If you go into the Mandriva
Software Installer (click on the box
icon with the green plus symbol) and
select All Packages, By Update
Availability. You will see that the
updates are indeed available for
installation. However, when you try to
install any of them, you’ll get a
warning that their signatures cannot
be verified, because of the missing
GPG key. Just this once, it is safe to
install them: the packages on the CD
are indeed the official ones.
The GPG key is on the updates
CD, so to do to get rid of this error
you can mount the updates CD,
open a terminal and type
su <root password>
rpm --import /mnt/cdrom/main_
updates/media_info/pubkey
You should be returned to a
command prompt after typing the
rpm command. If you get an error
message, it will probably be because
the updates CD is not mounted on
/mnt/cdrom. Make sure you can
view the contents of the CD before
running this command.
Once the update CD and
signature are set up, you can install
the updates themselves from the
Software Installer, as described above.
You need the section marked Look
At Installable Software... to get the
updates from the CD – the section
LXF74.answr 97
marked Look At Available Updates...
is for online updates. NB
Partitions squeeze
Q
I’m running Mandrake
10.1 on one of the
partitions of my PC. I
bought the LXF
Mandriva Special with the Mandriva
discs and started installation. At
the third disc a dialogue box
appeared stating that there is
insufficient room to complete the
installation. I am totally stuck, as I
can’t get back to Mandrake – it’s
just a black screen.
Anonymous
A
You have not given us a
great deal of information
to go on, but there are a
few possible causes for
the symptoms you describe. Are
you trying to perform an update or
a new installation? If it’s an update,
the installer should just replace
your existing software with newer
versions, so the space
requirements would be about the
same. If it’s a new installation, the
installer should reformat your
partition (assuming you told it to
install on the same partition that
contained Mandrake 10.1) before
starting to install the software.
I suspect that this partition is
fairly small – probably only just
large enough to hold your previous
system – and Mandriva is trying to
install more or larger packages.
Your first priority is to get your
system working again. I suggest
you run the installer and select
To get the Updates CD working fully, add the Mandriva GPG key.
www.linuxformat.co.uk
ANSWERS
only the minimum
number of
packages. The
bottom of the
package selection
window shows
how much space
your selected
packages will
occupy. Make
sure that this is
less than the size
of your root
partition – keep
well under to be
on the safe side.
Once Mandriva
is running you
can easily
install any
extra packages you need
from the Mandriva Control Center. console to install. Am I doing
An alternative is to use the something wrong? I keep getting
custom partitioning option during error messages when I try to
installation, and resize your other install, like Libstdc++.so.5 issues. I
partitions to leave more room for have been told that the problem
Mandriva. NB has to do with dependencies but I
really don’t get it.
Install for all Neil Dexter
Q
I successfully installed The basic RPM system is
Mandriva Linux from
your LXF Mandriva
Special alongside
Windows. As you said in the
magazine, I have found myself
A quite… well, basic. It will
identify dependencies, but
not actually do anything
about them (a dependency is where
one piece of software requires
getting frustrated with all the new another in order to run). The software
things to learn. But I am sticking you are installing needs version 5 of
with it! the Libstdc++ (standard C++) library.
The one thing I am really You could go searching for an RPM
struggling with is installing of this, install that and then chase
software. I can’t get to grips with the next dependency, but Mandriva’s
RPMs/binary packages or using the installer will take care of all of this for
you. If the package you are installing
is on the Mandriva discs, you’re better
off using the Mandriva Control Center
to install it from there. This will install
the RPM package you want plus any
dependencies.
Even if you have downloaded a
separate RPM from somewhere else,
you can still use Mandriva’s
dependency handling by using its
urpmi command instead of the basic
RPM. For example:
sh armyops230-linux.run
The sh is needed because these
installers are in fact shell scripts.
Because Linux does not allow you to
arbitrarily execute files, you can’t just
run it by typing its name as you
would with a Windows .exe file. NB
LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005 97
25/10/05 7:40:32 am
 ANSWERS
>> A lad inSane
Q
I recently converted my
small graphic art studio
to a GNU/Linux-only
environment and wiped
my main system clean of Windows,
replacing it with Fedora Core 4. I
have an abundance of open source
graphic software tools – Blender,
Gimp, Sodipodi, Inkscape, KIconEdit,
Qcad and more – which have served
me well and should continue to do
so. However, I have an HP Scanjet
2300c (USB), which until recently
was unsupported by stable Sane
back-ends. A few days ago, updated
versions of those back-ends
WIN A NEUROS DIGITAL AUDIOCOMPUTER
with Rackspace Managed Hosting
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Every month, the best question
related to systems administration
that a LXF reader sends in wins a
prize. This month you have the
chance to win the life-enhancing
Neuros MP3 digital audio computer.
With a Neuros, you can manage
all the music stored on your PC.
Create play lists. Delete songs. Get
new files, thanks to the Neuros
Synchronisation Manager. No more
getting stuck in front of the PC to
make changes – do it all on the
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Then use its NeuroCast feature to
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★ STAR QUESTION WINNER!
This issue's lucky winner is C Mantle – your new Neuros digital audiocomputer will be with you shortly!
FTP or SSH?
Q
As a design agency
receiving artwork and
other raw material by
email and through the
post on CD and DVD, we were
considering teaching our clients to
upload material to us on to a
co-located server running Fedora
Core 4.
At first we were considering
implementing a web-based
application. However, after much
deliberation we saw the light and
are now considering using FTP.
98 LXF74 CHRISTMAS 2005
LXF74.answr 98
(Genesys) came out which do
support this scanner. I’ve tried to
download the correct RPM to
replace my existing back-ends, but
no matter what I do, I can’t get it
installed or my scanner working.
Joshua
You don’t say exactly what
A your problem is – whether
it is with installation or
configuring the scanner. The
version of Sane that supports this
scanner is quite new, and hasn’t yet
made it into the main Fedora Core 4
package list. There is a package in
their development repository, at
http://download.fedora.redhat.
com/pub/fedora/linux/core/
NeuroCast automatically scans the
FM radio dial for an available
frequency and broadcasts using all-
digital stereo encoding, just like
broadcast towers used by
professional radio stations.
The Neuros has many recording
capabilities that make it a robust tool
for the recording hobbyist. The
device includes an on-board
microphone, perfect for the quick
memo or recorded lecture. It has
line-in recording capabilities and you
can record to MP3 or WAV, with a
choice of seven recording qualities.
Neuros also features a built-in
FM radio with five preset buttons so
Our primary concern is security:
we don’t want to give our clients
access to other clients’ uploads.
However, the sysadmin who
originally provisioned the server
advised us to upload our website
over SSH rather than FTP, claiming
that SSH is much more secure.
What is your opinion?
C Mantle
Fedora Core 4 ships with
A Vsftpd, which is a robust
FTP server that makes
chrooting users a breeze.
Chrooting means that the user will
www.linuxformat.co.uk
development/i386/Fedora/RPMS/
sane-backends-1.0.16-1.i386.rpm,
although the version number may
have increased by the time you read
this. However, this requires a later
version of Glibc, also available from the
development repository, which may
break other software. Using a
development version of such a critical
library on a production system is not a
good idea, so you need to install the
latest Sane from source, replacing the
RPM version. Do this as root.
rpm --erase --nodeps sane-
backends
rpm --install --justdb /media/cdrom/
Fedora/RPMS/sane-backends-1.0.15-
9.i386.rpm
WIN!
you can play your favourite
stations with one click,
just like on your
car stereo.
Tempting, isn’t it?
You know what to do:
email sysadminqa@
rackspace.co.uk.
be tied down to their home directory
and no other. To enable FTP
chrooting, uncomment the following
two lines from /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.
conf:
chroot_list_enable=YES
chroot_list_file=/etc/vsftpd.chroot_
list
The list of FTP chrooted files
should be in the file /etc/vsftpd.
chroot_list.
Also, as you would not want to
give FTP users shell access to your
server, /bin/false should be
specified as the shell when creating
tar xzf sane-backends-1.0.16.tar.gz
cd sane-backends-1.0.16
./configure prefix=/usr
make
make install
The rpm commands remove the
existing Sane files, but also send a
message to the RPM database to
make it think that the files are still
there. Without this step, an update
may try to install the ‘missing’ files,
replacing your new Sane with an older
version. Doing it this way means that
when the newer version is released as
an RPM, your system will be updated
as normal. NB
the users:
# useradd -s /bin/false -m -k /dev/
null someuser
If you’re adamant about using
SSH rather than FTP, you can install
scponly to enable users to scp or sftp
into the server without having the
right to interactively ssh into the
server. The scponly project lives at
www.sublimation.org/scponly.
Installation is well documented in the
Install file included in the tarball.
Scponly users can also be chrooted,
making the installation marginally
more complex. HH
25/10/05 7:40:37 am

Stealthy surfing
Q Q
I have set up the firewall
in the Mandriva Control
Center by unchecking all
boxes, which should stop
anything getting through.
I then went to Steve Gibson’s
Shields Up! site (https://grc.com/x/
ne.dll?bh0bkyd2) and ran the
Common Ports test. Everything was
then ‘stealthed’ apart from port 113
(IDENT). This was using my Alcatel
SpeedTouch USB modem.
However, if I connect using my
Netgear combined router/firewall,
everything is stealthed, including
port 113. So how do I configure
Shorewall to stealth port 113 when
using the SpeedTouch?
I know there are arguments that
port 113 shouldn’t drop network
packets as this can cause problems,
but I use the router for hours on
end and never experience any
connection slowdowns, even
though it does stealth this port.
And of course, if you reject
packets, crackers know that your
computer exists…
From the LXF forums
You have discovered the
A disadvantage of GUI control
panels: you can only control
the options for which a
button has been provided. As you hint
at, Mandriva uses Shorewall as its
firewall, Shorewall is a capable system
with a lot of options, but the Control
Center barely scratches the surface. To
make Shorewall stealth port 113, you’ll
need to edit the file /etc/shorewall/
rules as root.
Immediately before the last line,
add the following:
DROP net fw tcp 113
Now go into the System > Enable
Or Disable Services part of the
Control Center, stop Shorewall, then
start it again to load your new settings.
Go back to Shields Up! and you
should find port 113
is stealthed.
If you want
more control over your
firewall settings than the
Mandriva Control Center
offers but do not want to delve
into Shorewall’s rules, you may
find Guarddog (www.simonzone.
com/software/guarddog) more
suitable. Both of the programs are
front-ends to build rules for the Linux
kernel’s own firewalling, but
Guarddog does it through a GUI.
The choice is yours. NB
LXF74.answr 99
A quick tweak of the Shorewall configuration files is all it takes for
Mandriva’s firewall to make your computer invisible to the internet.
What hardware?
Q
We’ve rented a number
of dedicated Linux
servers from a hosting
company. I’ve confirmed
that the disk and memory allocated
are as requested, but have been
denied physical access to the data
centre. How can we verify what
make and model of components
have been used within our servers?
This is a requirement set by our
external consultants as part of our
disaster recovery programs.
Ron J
As the kernel boots up,
A polling the system’s
hardware and loading the
appropriate
www.linuxformat.co.uk
modules, there’s usually a wealth of
information output to the console. You
can retrieve this information by
dumping the kernel’s ring buffer using
dmesg.
The kernel can be further queried
by manually inspecting /proc, the
interface to kernel data structures. Of
particular interest are:
■ /proc/cpuinfo CPU information.
■ /proc/ide/ IDE bus and disc
information.
■ /proc/scsi/ All SCSI devices.
■ /proc/ioports Registered IO port
regions.
■ /proc/pci PCI buses, installed
devices and drivers.
The utility
Lspci displays
information
about PCI buses
and what is
connected to them. This
is often sufficient to identify the
likes of VGA, network and SCSI
adapters.
For more about BIOS and
motherboards, visit the Dmidecode
project at www.nongnu.org/
dmidecode. Assuming your BIOS
follows the SMBIOS/DMI standard
you may be able to list the
system manufacturer,
model name and
BIOS version.
Finally, Red Hat
Enterprise Linux
includes the Kudzu library
for hardware discovery and
configuration. It is possible to
call Kudzu to probe and report on
the installed hardware. Invoking as
kudzu -s -p initiates a ‘non-disruptive’
poll without modifying any existing
configurations. HH
ANSWERS
Looking for a laptop
Which ‘notebooks’ (the
things that used to be
called laptops) are best
suited for running Linux?
I’m looking to buy a machine and
will only be able to afford a one-off,
so it will have to be a little forward-
looking in terms of hardware, even
if the software has some catching
up to do. I know that I want a
64-bit processor and systems, but I
also know that I must be able to
afford it! I also need to know if
there are any worthwhile speech
recognition programs in Linux – I
had a stroke recently and am
getting tired of one-finger typing!
A Whitaker
Until you mentioned 64-bit,
A I was going to recommend
an IBM ThinkPad. IBM
notebooks are built to last
and have good Linux compatibility.
However, they all currently use the
Intel Mobile Celeron processor range.
The difficulty with recommending a
specific computer is that it is the
individual components that are the
source of compatibility frustrations. I
could tell you to buy a Milliard
Gargantuan, only to find that Milliard
Inc have changed the wireless
networking chip to one that doesn’t
have a Linux driver.
Your best option is to try out
various notebooks with a Live CS
distro. As you are looking for a 64-bit
computer, I would recommend either
Ubuntu or Kubuntu, depending on
whether you prefer Gnome or KDE.
They both have 64-bit versions and
you can download them from www.
ubuntulinux.org. Trying the
computer out is doubly important in
view of your physical restrictions.
There appears to be very little
available in the way of usable voice
recognition software for Linux. IBM
discontinued ViaVoice a few years ago,
the last version was bundled with
Mandrake 8.1. There are some other
projects, but none of them are really
ready for the end-user’s desktop yet.
CVoiceControl (www.kiecza.net/
daniel/linux) will allow you to control
your computer with commands, but
text input is not currently practical.
You could cut down on your typing
by using a keyboard with plenty of
extra keys and using KHotkeys or
Xbindkeys to assign commonly used
commands or phrases to these keys.
Most distros support using a second
keyboard with a laptop. NB LXF
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