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Potpourri: Upgrading to ALSA 1.0.20, Quake Live, Intro to vi

Clair Ching — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 03:57:58 +0000

Today let’s look at the following:

vi Introduction

Not all newbies know what vi is. vi happens to be a text editor in Linux and it’s available on the command line. This editor has modes and it could be quite confusing to those who are just starting out. But there are practical reasons for learning vi such as going mouse-less, editing files on a remote Linux machine, and chances are you need to know how to use vi and this will be tested when you take exams for certification.

This guide is easy to follow as you see the commands and what happens because of the screenshots in this guide. It also gives you an idea of what you should expect in the different modes in vi.

Upgrading to Alsa 1.0.20 on Ubuntu Jaunty

ALSA or the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture is what makes us able to hear sounds on our computers by giving sound device drivers for our sound cards. And sometimes we have problems with our sound cards because of much needed upgrades, or sometimes, needed distro upgrades. This guide shows you how to upgrade to the newer ALSA version by compiling it on your computer. It has a step by step guide so don’t worry

Quake Live on Linux

Fan of shooter games? Quake Live is on Linux now. If you look at the home page, you will see the icon of Tux. It’s a 100% free-to-play arena shooter game. Whether you’re a beginner or a pro, you can join. And what’s interesting about it is that you can just play it through a plugin which it will install on your browser. I am not a big fan of shooter games but it really made me curious. If you’re also interested just sign up and then the plugin will be installed automatically for you. Have fun!

Post from: New Linux User

Weekend Reads: Office Suites, Command Line Applications and ioQuake 3

Clair Ching — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 14:38:37 +0000

Eleven is Louder summarizes what office suites are available for us that are open souce software. Of course it has OpenOffice.org in the list. However, it reminds us that Lotus Symphony does exist and that there are other suites like the GNOME Office Suite as well as the KDE Office Suite. I’ve tried using the GNOME Office Suite before but for the sake of compatibility I am using OpenOffice.org especially because I have to collaborate with co-workers on documents. I know that OpenOffice.org is commonly included in various Linux distributions and this blog entry shows you that you have options. No need to feel stuck. Some people think that OpenOffice.org is way too clunky and annoying so other choices could possibly be better for them.

Another blog entry from Eleven is Louder is all about Command-Line Applications and it has an interesting list. It includes the following and more:

rtorrent – for torrent downloads
cdrtools – for burning CDs
cdparanoia – a CD ripper
oleo – a spreadsheet application (I am really amazed that there is one on the command line!)
zgv – a picture viewer with good svga support
hnb – a hierarchical notebook

The last read of the day comes from Tux Arena which talks about the complete guide to configure and customize ioQuake 3 in Linux. For those of you who love first person shooter games, this could be interesting to check out. I was never really into first person shooter games on the computer because I get dizzy just by looking at the screen. Those of you who are fans will appreciate this guide because it has the details on what to do so you could have new maps, weapons, character models, etc. This particular article has screenshots included for better visualization.

I hope you would enjoy these reads!

Post from: New Linux User

List of Guides for Linux Newbies

Clair Ching — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 19:01:18 +0000

Every one of us would need to learn something about Linux and we all go through that ‘newbie’ phase. Here are some sites and blogs that Linux newbies could take a look at and learn from. Using Linux does not need to be so lonely, after all.

The Ultimate Linux Newbie Guide – This website’s blog has various links to articles and guides for Linux users especially newbies. But you could also go straight to their guide for Linux newbies. It even has sections to let you understand what GNOME and KDE are. You could also follow them via the Ultimate Linux Newbie Guide Twitter feed.
Linux Newbie Guide: Shortcuts and Commands – This is a lot of command line stuff that might seem daunting at first but at least it’s all here now. It tells you what the commands are and what they are used for. The explanations are short, and hopefully, they are easier to remember because of that. The writer/s of the guide also includes notes for the ones who are unfamiliar with UNIX.
tuXfiles: the Linux Newbie Help Files, Tutorials and Tips – This guide has different sections that you could check out. Whether it’s about the Linux command line, shortcuts on the keyboard, compiling and installing software and Linux cheat sheets and tips, there’s information about these for Linux newbies. There are explanations that come with the steps that they enumerate in their guides. The explanations about the procedures and concepts will put the newbies at ease. It will also make it clearer if they are doing something wrong or something correctly.

For now, these will be my list of Linux newbie guides. I hope that newbies and not-so-new Linux users will benefit from these guides. After all, there’s something new that we could learn each day.

Post from: New Linux User

Of Percentages

Clair Ching — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:19:40 +0000

The battle between Linux and Windows over the netbook market share has been the hot topic this week. So does Windows really have 96% share? Or is it less than that?

Linux & Windows

Who’s got the actual figures? I don’t. But does it bother me? No, because I believe that it’s way too complicated to base figures on any particular report considering that there might be more factors involved but are not mentioned.

Ah yes. The wonderful world of online news. We get bombarded by all these information but at the end of the day what is the relevance of all these things to new users? That 96% thing of Microsoft might persuade new Linux users to go back to Windows, it might tell them “Hey, you! Go back and join the bandwagon.” But it’s probably not all true. For one thing, I too might look like one of the people who became part of the 96% who have bought Windows-powered netbooks.

In any case, as Linux users those figures will be there whether we make a switch back to Windows or something. And I have to agree that there are some things that users have to overcome to be protective. So whatever that operating system is, it might happen anyway. But developers and advocates of Linux have a long list to overcome. So do we. That’s why we need to keep trying anyway.

Post from: New Linux User

References on using the GIMP

Clair Ching — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:37:40 +0000

The GIMP is usually installed as the graphics editing tool in Linux distributions. You might be looking for ways to use it and you might have tried it already and thought it felt really weird. It’s because it’s different from the default graphics app in Windows which is Paint. It has more features than Paint.

gimp-tutorials.com – A website which compiles various tutorials (shown in a frame within the page) which could help you create borders around your images or create a header image for your blog.
Gimpology – The site is like Gimp-tutorials but it doesn’t show the tutorial on the page itself but it gives the link to the original site. You could submit your tutorials and you just need to sign up in order for you to do that. Two tutorials I skimmed and found interesting are: on GIMP hotkeys and how to add radiance to photos of people.
Gimp Talk – The forum has a section for tutorials. Check it out.
Gimp User Group – Another forum with tutorials. There are even thumbnails on the index so that you know what kind of effects you could add to images.
gimp-tutorials.net – If you’re more interested in brushes and filters, you might want to check this out. Another lovely thing about this site is the downloads section if you want more scripts and gradients.

Other essential references:

Itching to try out the tutorials? Run GIMP and have fun!

Post from: New Linux User

PCQuest gives a list of useful free and open source apps

Clair Ching — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 15:21:44 +0000

Wondering what free and open source apps to use? PCQuest gives a useful list, categorizing the applications you might need for your day to day computing or running your business. If you’ve enjoyed using Linux and the various applications that you got via your package manager, you might be interested in a whole lot more.

To help you get started, check out this list: The Complete Guide to Open Source and Free Software.

Post from: New Linux User

A day with Vym mindmapping tool

Clair Ching — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 15:04:35 +0000

I’ve been looking for tools to help me think about my work. Apart from a text file with the outline of ideas that I have, I want to check out mindmapping tools as well. I saw a package named Vym and tried it out. Even if it’s just been a day, I wasn’t happy with it. I’d stick with Freemind. Why? Here are the reasons why:

The menu of Freemind seems more intuitive than that of Vym. What are xlinks? It’s not easy for a first time user. In Freemind you create branches/nodes easily and you could easily remove them too. I got confused with the terms in Vym.
The Vym note editor gets me confused about what I should do. I want to create a mindmap. I couldn’t easily find out how to use the note editor though it is potentially very useful for stuff like adding very long descriptive text about various items I need to discuss.
They could both export their files to OpenOffice.org though. So that’s one thing that Vym has going for it. It could make your mindmap into a presentation without you having to fiddle around with the outline itself.

Maybe I got a little too impatient with Vym. But reading about it makes me think that Vym is a useful app but maybe it’s not for me.

Have you tried using Vym? What’s your verdict?

Post from: New Linux User

Faster boot-up time on Linux

Clair Ching — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 18:34:41 +0000

The key: hibernate.

For those with laptops, you probably see the option to hibernate a lot. The question is: Do you use it?

I didn’t use hibernate before because it was problematic on the laptop I had before. But now, the laptop I have and the Linux distro I am using seem to be compatible and so I put my laptop in hibernate mode when I go home from the office, etc. It already saves me boot-up time as it is (especially since there’s an fsck done every 30 times that the drive is mounted and unmounted). Thanks to Rom of HackItLinux, I read an article that shows how hibernate gives a faster boot-up time.

This requires some kernel tweaks which I am personally not very comfortable with. I’d have to ask a more experienced Linux user to help me out. I will blog about it when I am done. Hopefully I will get it right or else.

Post from: New Linux User

Inklite: Simplified Inkscape?

Clair Ching — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 18:17:51 +0000

If you’ve been wondering if there’s a lite version of Inkscape, there’s a possibility that there might be one in the future. Bryce Harrington blogged about keeping the toolbars simple and changing some settings. He also noticed that the dialog boxes appear bigger so it will probably look smaller when they implement it in Inklite.

A snippet from his blog entry on Inklite:

The main challenge was the aux toolbar – I think we’ll need JonCruz’s toolbar rework (which missed 0.46 but will definitely be in for 0.47); I just hacked it down. Deciding what to keep in the left toolbox was a tough choice, but I think I kept the most useful tools; the paint bucket would be the next on the chopping block, but I understand kids love it, so it just made it.

You’ll note I turned off the scrollbars, ruler, and color palette – this was trivial to do via the menus, and could be turned back on as desired.

Sounds like it’s going to be a dream come true for those who love using ultraportables with low resolution screens, and also for those who are newbies who might have found Inkscape bit intimidating.

Post from: New Linux User

Linux user interface design tools

Clair Ching — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:13:43 +0000

Trying to come up with a good user interface is not an easy task. But I need to. And what could I use on Linux so I could make suggestions for the improvement of a web app’s user interface?

Some of you might be dependent on things like Photoshop or Illustrator — maybe even Powerpoint — to convey your message. As for me, I personally prefer it lo-fi: pencil and paper! But there are times that it simply isn’t enough so I am looking for other means to do that.

In terms of creating wireframes, Denim would work, I think. You could just indicate the main sections on the page, where the links are, and even create a site map for your reference. But there’s one drawback: you can’t always show all the interactions you want, especially for those funky inline AJAX or Javascript magic.

I find the GIMP a bit difficult to use when it comes to graphical mock-ups. Maybe the combination of the wireframes from Denim and CSS editing via the Firefox web developer toolbar might do the trick so that your teammates could easily visualize the colors of the page.

I am still looking for other options. But right now, these are the ones that seem feasible to use for me.

Post from: New Linux User