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Feisty Feedback - Free For All

Posted: March 30th, 2007, 5:22am MYT by carthik

I installed Feisty Beta on my main laptop and I must say it is very impressive. In fact, I am more impressed with Feisty than any other release so far, especially when it comes to making life easier for new linux users and non-geek users. More than once, I was pleasantly surprised by the detail that seems to have gone into making life easier for regular desktop users, and this includes the documentation. Another thing I noticed was that on the IRC channels, there seem to be a lot less people complaining about random problems with Feisty. I still remember how busy #ubuntu+1 used to be after a beta release in the past. Since I don’t have any quantitative information, this has to remain a subjective observation for now.

Oh and yes, the rule that states that the busy-ness of a blogger’s life is inversely proportional to the frequency of blog posts is true I have ideas for a couple of posts, and an interview, on my mind for about 2 weeks now. Wish I had the time and peace-of-mind to share it with all of you.

I am maintaining a log of the features in Feisty that impressed me most. I decided to completely reinstall Feisty on the laptop, since upgrading never gives one a very good view of what life is like for someone who is installing Ubuntu from a specific release. I will try and summarize what others like about Feisty too. To help me with that, please let me know what your experiences have been with Feisty so far.

What do you love about it?
and more importantly,
What do you dislike most?

Extra points for originality, and for not repeating what other commenters have said
Watch this space for more. See you in a day or two!
Freedom Is the Addiction, Ubuntu the Gateway Drug

Posted: March 21st, 2007, 3:09pm MYT by carthik

It’s Ubuntu’s fault, really. If I hadn’t gotten started on the free software ride, I wouldn’t have any compunctions about stolen music. What’s 300 stolen albums when you’ve collected $2000+ in stolen software?

–K Mandla.

After using Ubuntu long enough, I too don’t see the need to use pirated software on Windows. I still use Windows XP at work/school. I get it for free, legally, from school. When that stops I will have to stop using it. On XP, I use The GIMP, VLC media player, and a host of other free alternatives. Life is good, light and joyful with free software.
Saving Sound Volume Levels Across Reboots

Posted: March 20th, 2007, 9:13pm MYT by carthik
I have a weird problem with a desktop where the volume settings for PCM, Microphone etc are all set to mute when I restart the machine. I then have to use the alsamixer command line tool to set the volumes to desired levels. This annoyed the hell out of me.

Finally I found a solution to this problem. So, if your computer has a volume memory problem, the following might be useful.

To set the volume and other sound settings to your desired level and save the settings, do the following:
1. Delete the /etc/asound.conf file if it exists - Read Daniel’s Comment Below
2. Use the alsamixer command to set the various volume levels etc
3. Save the settings by using the command: $sudo alsactl store
And that is it!

Another tip I read on lifehacker: This works to suppress the volume when you boot up a laptop in a place where it is not supposed to annoy others — think library, seminar, conference…. Take an old, non-usable headphone, and snip off the wire just above the jack that plugs in to the speaker output of the computer. Plug this into your laptop before you boot up to prevent annoying people with the startup sounds as the computer boots up! It is a simple solution to a serious problem.
Ubuntu’s New Website

Posted: March 18th, 2007, 6:33am MYT by carthik

Ubuntu’s new website is the talk of the town.
Color me impressed!

To read more about the creation of the new design, visit Matt Nuzum’s article on the redesign of the website.

The decision was difficult. We finally chose Drupal. They have excellent documentation, the cms is easy to extend through modules, they have a responsive security team and it’s easy to learn to edit and add content…each server can now handling(sic) 5,000 to 6,000 simul connections.

Congrats to Matt, the sysadmins and Canonical for a job well done!

Also, interestingly enough, I found that ubuntusucks.com redirects one to ubuntu.com. Talk about pre-emptive measures!
Daylight Savings Time & Linux Boxes

Posted: March 11th, 2007, 9:43am MYT by carthik

Sort of late, but since its never too late, head over to Daniel’s blog for the lowdown on how to make sure your linux box knows that we humans have decided to change the length of days.

Daniel’s Blog is a must-read for me. He’s also one of the leading motors behind the fridge - he seems to sniff out Ubuntu-related news much better than anyone else.

When you are at his blog, make sure you whine a little about Ubuntu/Linux. I wonder if Daniel intends to produce a summary of all the whines. If he is, then he better be prepared to spend some time on it. I remember creating the List of Ubuntu Blogs - especially how freaking long it took.
Using sshfs to Access Remote Directories in Windows

Posted: March 6th, 2007, 6:50am MYT by carthik

I had a tough time deciding on a title for this post/article (”in” Windows or “on” Windows? I give up!).

J Wynia writes in to share a method to how to access remote directories, such as those on your web server through sshfs on Windows. Actually that’s not the full story.

The full story is:
1) Install Ubuntu in a virtual machine in Windows
2) Setup sshfs and use that mount your remote directory
3) Setup the sshfs-mount as a Samba share
4) Access said Samba share from Windows

Tin foil hat people keep away! Also, the author mentions troubles with his Ensim server administration software (which he worked around). Folks who use cPanel or some other server control panel might have some trouble too.

So head over to the article already!

My old article on mounting remote directories using sshfs is what prompted J Wynia to write it.
Sylpheed-Claws is Claws Mail

Posted: March 4th, 2007, 9:40am MYT by carthik

Sylpheed-Claws, the email client for Linux has a new name - Claws Mail.

Though this is not exactly news (the earliest “official” announcement I can find is from December 04, 2006), I just came across the news today.

I have been a sylpheed-claws Claws Mail user ever since I tried it for the first time. There is no email client that fit my needs the way Claws did. Claws’ beauty lies in its speed — of start up, synchornizing and in general, of all operations. The sensibility of the software surprised me, since it provided those features that I wanted most and felt the lack of earlier. You can “harvest” email addresses from a folder full of emails, and so many other small things that I forget. Never, ever has it crashed on me, which is more than I can say of other clients.

In fact, many times over the last few months, I have thought of writing down what exactly makes Claws superior, in my opinion. I held back since it could be some work to make notes, now that I am used to Claws. I still use Thunderbird on a Windows XP machine occasionally. It has been ages since I used Evolution, which I found heavy, slow and sometimes unresponsive. If you guys are interested, I can start keeping notes and publish an article introducing claws(though it really needs no introduction. )