full circle magazine #71 1 contents ^

Full CircleTHE INDEPENDENT MAGAZINE FOR THE UBUNTU LINUX COMMUNITY

ISSUE #71 - March 2013

FFuu llll CCii rrccllee MMaaggaazziinnee ii ss nneeii tthheerr aaffffii llii aa tteedd wwii tthh ,, nnoorr eennddoorrsseedd bbyy,, CCaannoonn ii ccaa ll LLttdd ..

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BOOK REVIEW:

USING PERSONAL ANCESTRAL FILE IN WINE

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full circle magazine #71 2 contents ^

The articles contained in this magazine are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Al ike 3.0 Unported l icense.This means you can adapt, copy, distribute and transmit the articles but only under the fol lowing conditions: you must attributethe work to the original author in some way (at least a name, emai l or URL) and to this magazine by name ('Ful l Circle Magazine')

and the URL www.ful lcirclemagazine.org (but not attribute the article(s) in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). I fyou alter, transform, or bui ld upon this work, you must distribute the resulting work under the same, simi lar or a compatible l icense.Full Circle magazine is entirely independent of Canonical, the sponsor of the Ubuntu projects, and the views and opinions in themagazine should in no way be assumed to have Canonical endorsement.

Full CircleTHE INDEPENDENT MAGAZINE FOR THE UBUNTU LINUX COMMUNITY

Using PAF in Wine p.15

LibreOffice - Part 22 p.12

Programming Python 40 p.08

Blender - Part 3 p.22

HowTo Opinions

Q&A p.50

Ubuntu Games p.52

Linux Certified p.53

Command & Conquer p.06

Inkscape - Part 10 p.25

Columns

Linux Labs p.34

Review p.39

Web Dev p.27

My Opinion p.37

My Story p.36

Letters p.47

Ubuntu News p.04

Ask The New Guy p.30

Ubuntu Women p.XX

Graphics Web Dev

BACK NEXT MONTH BACK NEXT MONTH

full circle magazine #71 3 contents ^

EEDDIITTOORRIIAALL

WELCOME TO ANOTHER ISSUE OF FULL CIRCLE!

We have the usual Python, LibreOffice, Inkscape and Blender HowTo's. Joining themthis month is an extensive HowTo on the genealogy app Personal Ancestral File. A

Windows app! Fear not, David O. Rowell shows you how to install it using Wine, then how touse PAF for entering your family history. Yes, Linux has GRAMPS, but there's not much elseshould you need an alternative. Thankfully, PAF works pretty flawlessly using Wine.

No doubt you've all heard about Ubuntu for phones and tablets by now. This month, wehave two articles dealing with just that. First is Lucas (Command and Conquer) whodiscusses what it is. Later in the issue, Copil (Ask The New Guy) mentions it in his roundupof what else Ubuntu has to offer and what its future might hold.

Need something to keep the kids busy over the coming holidays? Check out Copil'sreview of Python For Kids (from No Starch Press). And, if Copil can understand it, your kidswill find it a breeze. Just kidding, Copil! On the subject of reviews, you might like Art'sreview of Chrome OS. Is it even a threat to Windows or OSX? Art thinks so. So much so thatit might even be a threat to our beloved Linux! Speaking of crazy things, I'm hoping that theopinion piece from Knightwise will prompt some discussion (the one from former FCMpodcaster Ed didn't). He even mentions Windows. I told you he was crazy!

As ever, keep sending in your articles, desktop screens, reviews, stories, opinions, andanything else Linux related.

All the best, and keep in touch!Ronnie

ronnie@fullcirclemagazine.org

This magazine was created using :

Full Circle PodcastReleased monthly, each episodecovers all the latest Ubuntu news,opinions, reviews, interviews andlistener feedback. The Side-Pod isa new addition, it's an extra(irregular) short-form podcastwhich is intended to be a branchof the main podcast. It'ssomewhere to put all the generaltechnology and non-Ubuntu stuffthat doesn’t fit in the mainpodcast.

Hosts:• Les Pounder• Tony Hughes• Jon Chamberlain• Oliver Clark

http://fullcirclemagazine.org

full circle magazine #71 4 contents ^

UUBBUUNNTTUU NNEEWWSSWritten by The Ubuntu News Team

UBUNTU UNVEILS TABLET

EXPERIENCE WITH MULTI-TASKING

This week Canonical announcedthe availability of an SDK for

Ubuntu for tablets. Ubuntu fortablets provides manufacturerswith an alternative to Android thatcan be managed with the sametools as Ubuntu server or desktop.Ubuntu for tablets is an elegant,non-fragmented solution thatprovides a secure multi-userexperience.http://www.canonical.com/content/ubuntu-unveils-tablet-experience-multi-tasking

RELEASING THE UBUNTU

TOUCH DEVELOPER PREVIEW

AND SDK ALPHA AND

TAKING UBUNTU TOUCH

DEVELOPER PREVIEW TO

NEW LEVELS

David Planella and DanielHolbach write about the new

Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview

which can be used in the GalaxyNexus, Nexus 4, Nexus 7, andNexus 10 devices. They alsomention the features included aswell as a guide on how tocontribute to the current project.http://developer.ubuntu.com/2013/02/releasing-the-ubuntu-touch-developer-preview-and-sdk-alpha/

http://developer.ubuntu.com/2013/02/taking-ubuntu-touch-to-new-levels/

UBUNTU DEVELOPER

SUMMITS NOW ONLINE AND

EVERY THREE MONTHS

Jono Bacon announces a changeto the Ubuntu Developer

Summit schedule which will beexclusively online and take placeevery three months, writing thatthe “new format of UDS providesan enhanced level of openness andtransparency that is optimized foronline participants.” Baconannounces that the “first onlineUDS will be taking place next weekon March 5th-6th, 2013 from 2pmUTC – 8pm UTC, and the next event

will take place around the sametime as the originally scheduledphysical UDS in Oakland.”http://fridge.ubuntu.com/2013/02/26/ubuntu-developer-summits-now-online-and-every-three-months/

LET'S DISCUSS INTERIM

RELEASES (AND A ROLLING

RELEASE)

Rick Spencer kicks offdiscussion about the Ubuntu

development list of a proposalswhich suggests “dropping non-LTSreleases and move to a rollingrelease plus LTS releases rightnow.”https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2013-February/036537.html

MIR + UNITY QML + UNITY

APIS = UNITY

Olli Ries, Engineering Directorfor Unity and Display Server

at Canonical, announces and sharessome insights about the Mir

display server and Unity QML.According to what Ries calls theirambitious goal, Unity willtransition back to Qt/QML, and Mirwill replace Xserver in 2013.http://fridge.ubuntu.com/2013/03/04/mir-unity-qml-unity-apis-unity/

NOT CONVINCED BY ROLLING

RELEASES

Mark Shuttleworth, respondedto the case of rolling

releases. Shuttleworth expressesthat he is not convinced of the ideaas it injects uncertainty wherecertainty is needed, among otherissues. The proposal rose up againthis year and Shuttleworth allowedthe core engineering team atCanonical to create a “trialballoon” proposal. Shuttleworthnoted that the proposal putforward by Rick Spencer was notfinal action as it was not putforward to the Technical Board andthat, though the CommunityCouncil was briefed on it, they hadnot taken action either.

Shuttleworth indicated that

full circle magazine #71 5 contents ^

UBUNTU NEWSthere were unexpected findings bythe team putting the proposaltogether. The releases, themechanisms for releases, and therelease paradigms all presentedconundrums that needed to beuntangled. Shuttleworth alsoindicated that some expectationsexpressed by stakeholders, such asproviding support for PowerPCarchitecture, were unrealisticbased on the nature of today’sconsumer market.

Beyond that, Shuttleworthcalled for an end to what hetermed as “melodrama” andindicated that the “sky was notfalling.” While noting that therehas been a paradigm shift fromintegration to leadership,Shuttleworth also stated thatthose who feel the need to moveon should not “poison the wellbehind them.” Shuttleworth notedthat there is now - what he calls - aonce-in-a-lifetime opportunity forUbuntu to dominate in theconsumer electronics space, and itis time to strike while the iron ishot.

The post ends with questions totry to steer the discussion backinto debating the rolling releaseproposal prior to it being

submitted to the Technical Boardlater in March.http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1228

13.04 (RARING RINGTAIL)BETA 1 RELEASED!

Stéphane Graber, on behalf ofthe Ubuntu release team,

announces the release of the 13.04(Raring Ringtail) Beta 1.

Beta 1 includes a number ofsoftware updates that are readyfor wider testing. This is an earlyset of images, so you shouldexpect some bugs. For a moredetailed description of the changesin the Beta 1 release and theknown bugs (which can save youthe effort of reporting a duplicatebug, or help you find provenworkarounds), please see:http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/

Full announcement here:https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2013-March/001024.html

UBUNTU GNOME IS

APPROVED AS AN OFFICIAL

FLAVOUR

Tim Lunn announces, on behalfof the Ubuntu GNOME

developers, that their flavour,which “aims to bring a mostly pureGNOME desktop experience toUbuntu.Ubuntu GNOME Remix”has been accepted as an officialflavour by the Ubuntu TechnicalBoard.

Congratulations to the UbuntuGNOME developers!

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-gnome/2013-March/000035.html

MANY THANKS TO THE

UBUNTU NEWS TEAM FOR

THEIR CONTRIBUTION THIS

MONTH.

News this month comes from:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue305

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue306

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue307

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue308

full circle magazine #71 6 contents ^

I originally wanted to write thisarticle on my first impressions

for the developer preview ofUbuntu Touch. However, as Icouldn't get the work-in-progressversion working on my TF101 (AsusTransformer), and as I wasn'twilling to sacrifice my brand newNexus 7's warranty (and data) totest a very basic version of UbuntuTouch, I had to head back to thedrawing board. When sharing mysituation with Ronnie, we endedup having a discussion on whetheror not Ubuntu Touch would bereplacing Android for us. Ronniewas skeptical about it, while I wasfairly open to the idea. Long storyshort, I decided to write up myopinions on why Ubuntu Touchcould be interesting to mobileusers, and why it might notmanage to lure you away fromAndroid. I will be ignoring anyother mobile operating systems, asUbuntu Touch can, at least for themoment, be installed on onlyAndroid devices. For those of youwho were expecting my typicalhow-to articles: they should beback as of the next issue!

WHAT IS UBUNTU TOUCH?

For those of you who missedthe announcements, Ubuntu Touchis a version of Ubuntu beingdeveloped for android-baseddevices with screen sizes between4” and 10” screens. The FurtherReading section has links to theofficial announcement pages. Afew interesting features that theend product is aiming to have areas follows:

• The ability to dock to a keyboard,mouse and screen for a full Ubuntudesktop experience (similar toUbuntu for Android).• The ability toseamlessly movework betweendevices(phone,tablet, TV,desktop).• Utilize theentire screenspace(accomplishedby utilizingswiping in fromedges, and hiding the

interface buttons and options untilrequired).• A lock screen that is “tailored toyou”. Essentially, the lock screenshould display informationrelevant to you based on yourfrequent tasks.•Minimize steps in order to get tothe apps you want. For example,the app tray is revealed by swipingin from the left side, regardless ofwhere you are (even on the lockscreen), allowing you to jumpstraight into the application,instead of having to first unlockand then locate the launcher forthe app.

• Ability to run phone apps(such as

texting/chatting)alongside tablet

apps (mediaapplications,video chat,etc.). This isavailableonly for the

larger screensizes, but

appeals greatlyto me, who is an

avid tiling window

manager user.

There are, of course, manyother features too. However, theseare the ones that had me noddingalong in agreement when theywere presented.

WHAT'S KEEPING YOU ON

ANDROID?

I used an Asus TransformerTF101 for a good couple of years,and only recently replaced it with aGoogle Nexus 7. While I mainlyused either device for productivetasks (checking email, testingwebsites, reading articles or books,and, occasionally, for writing upnotes/articles), I did occasionallyenjoy a game or two. Productivitytasks should be as easilyaccomplished on Ubuntu Touch ason any Ubuntu desktop, or anyAndroid device. The “problem” lieswith those apps that occupy roleswe wouldn't usually associate withdesktops. This includestouchscreen-based games (forexample, the Simpsons TappedOut, Draw Something, or anything

CCOOMMMMAANNDD && CCOONNQQUUEERRWritten by Lucas Westermann

UUbbuunnttuu TToouucchh

full circle magazine #71 7 contents ^

Lucas has learned all he knows fromrepeatedly breaking his system, thenhaving no other option but todiscover how to fix it. You can emailLucas at: lswest34@gmail.com.

of the sort), and any productivityapps that were developed with atouchscreen device in mind. Due tothe fact that Ubuntu Touch isaiming to offer desktopapplications which can be found inUbuntu on a mobile device, manyapplications geared towards themobile will probably be moreerror-prone when the first devicesare released. This is simply due tothe fact that Ubuntu Touch is new,while Android has been around fora number of years now. As such,some apps are more matured, andcould very well cause someadopters to hesitate beforelooking for alternatives in Ubuntu.Canonical is trying to improve thissituation by integrating small-screen support into their API, inthe hopes that developers willstart adding support for UbuntuTouch long before the stablerelease. Ultimately, you can't doanything besides waiting for therelease before deciding whetheror not it's worth it.

Do you have any Android appsyou don't think you could livewithout? Let me know in an email(address in the last paragraph ofthis article).

DOESN'T UBUNTU TOUCH

USE ANDROID?

Ubuntu Touch is based offCyanogenMod 10.1 (jelly bean).However, besides the devicesupport, and the system withwhich Ubuntu is flashed/booted,there isn't a lot left of the ROM.Ubuntu itself is being run from achroot environment the momentall device drivers are loaded fromthe Android framework. Thereasoning for this, I imagine, is thatit enables wider support fordevices, and avoids the need towrite new drivers for every pieceof hardware. I don't see a lot ofpotential downsides with thismethod.

DOES UBUNTU TOUCH HAVE

A FUTURE?

I think it most definitely willcontinue to be developed. If thespeed with which the developerpreview was ported to differentdevices is any indicator, it maygrow very, very quickly. I doubt itwill replace Android, just as WebOS, Windows Phone and iOS failedto eliminate other mobile OSes. Itwill probably carve out a market

share for itself, and be especiallyinteresting to businesses. Thereason for this is the fact that,once enough phones meet therequirements, Ubuntu Touch caneasily be used as a desktop (withthe correct docking tools). It willprobably appeal to thosecompanies who are currentlyassigning each employee a workphone, a work laptop, and/or awork tablet. With Ubuntu Touch,you could issue a phone and adock, and simply fill your officeswith docks, keyboards, mice andmonitors. How feasible this isdepends entirely on the actualimplementation of this desktopfeature in the final product.

CONCLUSION

There is little anyone can say forcertain. However, knowing FOSSdevelopment, we'll be sure to seerapid progress as we approach theestimated late 2013/early 2014release date for Ubuntu Touchdevices. The basic premise, and thefeatures Canonical is trying tointegrate, are both things I amextremely interested in. If they canpull it off, I will definitely be givingthe Ubuntu devices a fair chance.The moment it becomes more

functional (and device support is alittle better), I'll be sure to giveinstalling it on my TF101 anothershot.

As always, I hope at least a fewreaders have found this articleinteresting. If you have an opinionon Ubuntu Touch (or simplyagree/disagree with my opinions),feel free to send me an email atlswest34@gmail.com. Please put“C&C” or “FCM” in the subject, sothat it doesn't get lost in my inbox.

Further Reading

http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/tablet (Tablet page)

http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/phone (Phone page)

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Devices (List of devices and theircurrent port progress)

COMMAND & CONQUER

full circle magazine #71 8 contents ^

HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Greg Walters PPrrooggrraammmmiinngg IInn PPyytthhoonn:: PPtt 4422

Let's assume that you havedecided to create a multimedia

center for your family room. Youhave a dedicated computer for thewonderful program called XBMC.You've spent days ripping yourDVD movies and TV series onto thecomputer. You have done theresearch and named the files thecorrect way. But let's say that oneof your favorite shows is "NCIS,"and you have every episode thatyou can get on DVD. You found aplace that provides the currentepisodes as well. You want to findout what the next episode is andwhen it will be broadcast. Plus, youwant to create a list of all the TVepisodes that you have to impressyour friends.

This is the project we will bestarting this month. Our first taskis to dig through the foldercontaining your TV shows,grabbing the series name, andeach episode – including the nameand season number, and theepisode number. All thisinformation will go into a databasefor easy storage.

According to XBMC, you shouldname each of your tv episode fileslike this:

Tv.Show.Name.SxxExx.Episodename here if youcare.extension

So, let's use the very firstepisode of NCIS as an example. Thefilename for an AVI file would be:

NCIS.S01E01.Yankee White.avi

and the very latest episodewould be:

NCIS.S10E17.Prime Suspect.avi

If you have a show name thathas more than one word, it couldlook like this:

Doctor.Who.2005.S07E04.ThePower of Three.mp4

The directory structure shouldbe as follows:

TVShows2 Broke Girls

Season 1Episode 1Episode 2...

Season 2

...Doctor Who 2005

Season 1...

Season 2...

and so on. Now that we know whatwe will be looking for and where itwill be, let's move on.

A very long time ago, wecreated a program to make adatabase of our MP3 files. Thatwas back in issue #35 I believe,which was part number 9 of thisseries. We used a routine calledWalkThePath to recursively digthrough all the folders from astarting path, and pull out thefilenames that had a ".mp3"extension. We will reuse most ofthat routine and modify it for ourpurposes. In this version, we will belooking for video files that haveone of the following extensions:

.avi

.mkv

.m4v

.mp4

Which are very commonextensions for video files in themedia PC world.

Now we will get started withthe first part of our project. Createa file called "tvfilesearch.py". Besure to save it when we are donethis month, because we will bebuilding on it next month.

Let's start with our imports:

import osfrom os.path import join,getsize, existsimport sysimport apswimport re

As you can see, we areimporting the os, sys and apswlibraries. We've used them allbefore. We are also importing there library to support RegularExpressions. We'll touch on thatquickly this time, but more in thenext article.

Now, let's do our last tworoutines next (next page). All ourother code will go in between theimports and these last tworoutines.

This (next page, bottom right) isour main worker routine. In it, we

full circle magazine #71 9 contents ^

HOWTO - PROGRAMMING PYTHON Pt42create a connection to the SQLitedatabase provided by apsw. Nextwe create a cursor to interact withit. Then we call the MakeDatabaseroutine which will create thedatabase if it doesn't exist.

My TV files are located on twohard drives. So I created a list tohold the path names. If you haveonly one location, you can changethe three lines to be as follows:

startfolder ="/filepath/folder/"

WalkThePath(startfolder)

Next, we create our "standard"if __name__ routine.

#============================if __name__ == '__main__':

main()

Now all the dull stuff is done, sowe can move on the the meat andpotatoes of our project. We'll startwith the MakeDataBase routine(middle right). Put it right after theimports.

We discussed this routinebefore when we dealt with theMP3 scanner, so I'll just remind youthat, in this routine, we check tosee if the table exists, and if not,

we create it.

Now we'll create theWalkThePath routine (right,second from bottom).

When we enter the routine (as

we talked about way back when),we give the filepath that we aregoing to search through. We clearthe showname variable, which wewill use later, and open an errorlog file. Then we let the routine doits thing. We get back from the call(os.walk) a 3-tuple (directory path,directory names, filenames). Thedirectory path is a string which isthe path to the directory, directorynames is a list of the names of

subdirectories in the path, and thefilenames is a list of non-directorynames. We then parse through thelist of filenames, checking to see ifthe filename ends with one of our

target extensions.

for file in [f for f in filesif f.endswith(('.avi','mkv','mp4','m4v'))]:

#=========================================def main():

global connectionglobal cursor# Create the connection and cursor.connection = apsw.Connection("TvShows.db3")cursor = connection.cursor()MakeDataBase()

#=========================================# Set your video media paths#=========================================startfolder = ["/extramedia/tv_files/","/media/freeagnt/tv_files_2/"]for cntr in range(0,2):

WalkThePath(startfolder[cntr])# Close the cursor and the database

cursor.close()connection.close()print("Finished")

#=========================================def MakeDataBase():

# IF the table does not exist, this will create the table.# Otherwise, this will be ignored due to the 'IF NOT EXISTS' clausesql = 'CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS TvShows (pkID INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, Series TEXT,

RootPath TEXT, Filename TEXT, Season TEXT, EPISODE TEXT);'cursor.execute(sql)

#=========================================def WalkThePath(filepath):

showname = ""# Open the error log fileefile = open('errors.log',"w")for root, dirs, files in

os.walk(filepath,topdown=True):

full circle magazine #71 10 contents ^

HOWTO - PROGRAMMING PYTHON Pt42

Now, we split the filename intothe extension and the filename(without the extension). Next, wecall the GetSeasonEpisode routineto pull out the Season/Episodeinformation that is embedded inthe filename, assuming it iscorrectly formatted.

OriginalFilename,ext =os.path.splitext(file)

fl = file

isok,data =GetSeasonEpisode(fl)

GetSeasonEpisode returns aboolean and a list (in this case"data") which holds the name ofthe series, the season, and theepisode numbers. If a filenamedoesn't have the correct format,the "isok" boolean variable (topright) will be false.

Next (middle right), we willcheck to see if the file is in thedatabase. If so, we don't want toduplicate it. We simply check forthe filename. We could go deeperand make sure the path is the sameas well, but for this time, this isenough.

If everything works as it should,the response from the query

should only be a 1 or a 0. If it's a 0,then it's not there, and we willwrite the information to thedatabase. If it is, we just movepast. Notice the Try Exceptcommands above and below. Ifsomething goes wrong, like somecharacter that the databasedoesn't like, it will keep the

program from aborting. We will,however, log the error so we cancheck it out later on.

We are simply inserting a newrecord into the database or writingto the error file.

# Close the log

fileefile.close

# End of WalkThePath

Now, let's look at theGetSeasonEpisode routine.

#=========================================def

if isok:showname = data[0]season = data[1]episode = data[2]print("Season {0} Episode {1}".format(season,episode))

else:print("No Season/EPisode")efile.writelines('---------------------------\n')efile.writelines('{0} has no series/episode information\n'.format(file))efile.writelines('---------------------------\n\n')

sqlquery = 'SELECT count(pkid) as rowcount from TvShows where Filename ="%s";' % fl

try:for x in cursor.execute(sqlquery):

rcntr = x[0]if rcntr == 0: # It's not there, so add it

try:sql = 'INSERT INTO TvShows (Series,RootPath,Filename,Season,Episode)

VALUES (?,?,?,?,?)'cursor.execute(sql,(showname,root,fl,season,episode))

except:print("Error")efile.writelines('---------------------------\n')efile.writelines('Error writing to database...\n')efile.writelines('Filename = {0}\n'.format(file))efile.writelines('---------------------------\n\n')

except:print("Error")

print('Series - {0} File - {1}'.format(showname,file))

full circle magazine #71 11 contents ^

HOWTO - PROGRAMMING PYTHON Pt42GetSeasonEpisode(filename):

filename =filename.upper()

resp =re.search(r'(.*).S\d\dE\d\d(\.*)', filename, re.M|re.I)

The re.search portion of thecode is part of the re library. Ituses a pattern string, and, in thiscase, the filename that we want toparse. The re.M|re.I are parametersthat say that we want to use amultiline type search (re.M)combined with an ignore-case(re.I). As I said earlier, we'll dealwith the regular expressions morenext month, since our routine willmatch only one type ofseries|episode string. As for thesearch pattern we are looking for:".S", followed by two decimalnumbers, followed by anuppercase "E", then two morenumbers, then a period. If ourfilename looked like"tvshow.S01E03.avi", this wouldmatch. However, some peopleencode their shows like this"tvshow.s01e03.avi", or"tvshow.103.avi", which makes itharder to deal with. We'll modifythis routine next month to coverthe majority of the instances. The"r'" allows for a raw string to beused within the search.

Continuing on, the searchreturns a match object that we canlook at. "resp" is a response that isempty if there is no match, and, inthis case, two groups of returnedinformation. The first one will giveus the characters up to the match,and the second including thematch. So, in the case above,group(1) would be "tvshow", andthe second group would be"tvshow.S01E03.". This is specifiedby the parens in the search "(.*)"and "(\.*)".

if resp:showname =

resp.group(1)

We take the show name fromgroup number one. Then we getthe length of that so we can grabthe series and episode string witha substring command.

shownamelength =len(showname) + 1

se =filename[shownamelength:shownamelength+6]

season = se[1:3]episode = se[4:6]

Next, we replace any periods inthe showname with a space – to bemore "Human Readable".

showname =showname.replace("."," ")

We create a list to include theshow name, season and episode,and return it along with the Trueboolean to say things went well.

ret =[showname,season,episode]

return True,ret

Otherwise, if we didn't find amatch, we create our listcontaining no show name and two"-1" numbers, and this getsreturned with a boolean False.

else:ret = ["",-1,-1]return False,ret

That's all the code. Now let'ssee what the output would looklike. Assuming your file structuresare exactly like mine, some of theoutput on the screen would looklike this...

Season 02 Episode 04SELECT count(pkid) asrowcount from TvShows whereFilename ="InSecurity.S02E04.avi";Series - INSECURITY File -InSecurity.S02E04.aviSeason 01 Episode 08SELECT count(pkid) asrowcount from TvShows whereFilename ="Prime.Suspect.US.S01E08.Underwater.avi";Series - PRIME SUSPECT USFile -

Prime.Suspect.US.S01E08.Underwater.avi

and so on. You can shorten theoutput to keep the screen fromdriving you crazy if you would like.As we said earlier, each entry wefind gets put to the database.Something like this:

pkID | Series | Root Path| Filename| Season | Episode

2526 | NCIS |/extramedia/tv_files/NCIS/Season7|NCIS.S07E04.Good.Cop.Bad.Cop.avi | 7 | 4

As always, the full code listing isavailable on PasteBin.com athttp://pastebin.com/txmmagkL

Next time, we will deal withmore Season|Episode formats, anddo some other things to flesh outour program.

See you soon.

Greg Walters is owner of RainyDaySolutions, LLC, a consulting companyin Aurora, Colorado, and has beenprogramming since 1972. He enjoyscooking, hiking, music, and spendingtime with his family. His website iswww.thedesignatedgeek.net.

full circle magazine #71 12 contents ^

HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Elmer Perry LLiibbrreeOOffffiiccee PPtt2244:: IInnttrroo TToo MMaatthh

Have you ever been working ina word processor and needed

to insert a formula into the text?Perhaps you were writing a mathor scientific paper for college, oreven answering a question aboutstatistics. If you need to enteranything beyond elementary math,you will quickly run into formattingissues. LibreOffice overcomes thisproblem by providing us with theMath or Formula module. You canuse the module independently tocreate formulas, or use it directlyin the other modules ofLibreOffice. Today, we will learnhow to enter formulas in the Matheditor, and, in later articles, we willlearn how to use formulas inWriter.

Open a new Math window byclicking on the Formula button onthe LibreOffice Start Center, orthrough the menus with File > New> Formula.

THE FORMULA WINDOW

The formula window has threepieces: the preview pane, theformula editor, and the elements

window. The preview pane at thetop shows you your formula as it iscreated. The formula editor at thebottom is where you enter yourformula. The floating Elementswindow provides you withshortcuts to different formulaelements. Think of the elements asbuilding blocks for creating yourformula.

THREE WAYS TO ENTER

FORMULAS

There are three ways to enter

formulas into the formula editor:through the Elements window,through a context menu, or bydirect entry.

THE ELEMENTS WINDOW

The Elements window is dividedinto two sections. The top sectionis the category section, and thelower section contains theelements in that category. If youselect a category then click on oneof the elements in that category,the program will enter the element

into the editor with <?> asplaceholders for the variables ofthe element. The first placeholderis highlighted. Use the F4 key tomove to the next element. Shift-F4will move backwards through theplaceholders.

To get you familiar with theElements window, I will walk youthrough the steps to write aformula using the Elementswindow. Starting with a newformula window, select theRelations category, then theequals element. <?> = <?> appearsin the formula editor. The first <?>is highlighted. Enter the letter “h”.Press F4 to move to the other <?>.Select the Functions category,then the square root element. The<?> is replaced with sqrt{<?>} andthe placeholder in the brackets ishighlighted. Select theUnary/Binary category, then theaddition element. The programinserts <?> + <?> into the squareroot's brackets. Select the Formatscategory, then the SuperscriptRight element. <?>^{<?>} replacesthe highlighted placeholder. Enterthe letter “a” and press F4 to move

full circle magazine #71 13 contents ^

HOWTO - LIBREOFFICE Pt24to the next placeholder. Enter thethe number “2”. Press F4 to moveto the next placeholder. Select theSuperscript Right from theFormats category. Enter the letter“b” and press F4 to move to thelast placeholder. Enter the number“2”. The final result will look likethis:

and the text in the formula editoris:

h = sqrt{a^{2} + b^{2} }

THE CONTEXT MENU

The context menu (shownbelow right) is much like theElements window. Right-click inthe formula editor, and you get amenu of all the categories. Eachcategory has a submenu of theelements. Click on the element toinsert it into the formula editor.Follow the example above again,but this time use the right-clickcontext menu to create theformula. You should get the sameresults.

DIRECT ENTRY

As you work with Math andlearn the elements, you can enterthe formulas directly in theformula editor. By far, this is thequickest way to enter a formula.Now that you have created theformula twice, using the Elementswindow and context menu, see ifyou can enter it directly into theeditor without using the elementtools. If you need help, justreference the editor text shownabove.

SPECIAL CHARACTERS

You won't find everything youneed in the Elements window andcontext menu. Many equations useGreek characters and othersymbols. LibreOffice Math allowsyou to enter special characters intoyour equation. If you find you need

a special character not listed in thespecial characters, you can evenadd your own.

ADDING GREEK CHARACTERS

Through the menus Tools >Catalog, you can access the Greekletters through the charactersubsets Greek and iGreek. Greek isthe letters in plain text and iGreekis the letters in italics. Just selectthe letter you want and click theInsert button. When finished, clickthe Close button.

For direct entry, type in %followed by the Greek letter name.For example, to get the Greekletter pi, enter %pi. To get theuppercase letter, make the nameuppercase, %PI. To make thecharacter italics, place a lowercase“i” before the letter's name, %ipi.

OTHER SPECIAL

CHARACTERS

Other special characters arefound in Tools > Catalog under theSpecial subset. Select the symbolyou need and click the Insertbutton. As you use and learn thenames of the symbols, you canenter them directly using the %and then the name of the symbol.

NOTE: The lowercase “i” for italicsworks with only the Greek letters.We will discuss inserting italics forother elements in the next How-To.

ADDING SPECIAL

CHARACTERS

If the catalog does not have thespecial character you need, you canadd it to the catalog. One suchcharacter is the prime symbol.Let's add it to our special subset.

Tools > Catalog and select theSpecial symbol set. Click on theEdit button. This bring up the EditSymbol dialog. For the font selectDejaVu Sans, and for the subsetselect General Punctuation. Thesymbol you want is Ux2023. Forthe symbol name type in prime.

full circle magazine #71 14 contents ^

Elmer Perry's history of working,and programming, computersinvolves an Apple IIE, adding someAmiga, a generous helping of DOSand Windows, a dash of Unix, andblend well with Linux and Ubuntu.

HOWTO - LIBREOFFICE Pt24Click the Add and OK buttons. Theprime symbol has now been addedto the Special symbols list. You canuse it by selecting it from thecatalog, or enter it directly bytyping %prime.

CONCLUSIONS

Math allows you to createformulas you can insert into yourdocuments. You have threemethods for entering formulasinto the formula editor: throughthe Elements window, through thecontext menu, and by direct entry.The Elements window and thecontext menu help you to learnhow to enter the differentelements of a formula, but onceyou know how to enter anelement, direct entry is the

quickest way to create a formula.

In the next LibreOffice How-To,we will look at ways to format ourformulas so they look the way youwant them.

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HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by David O. Rowell UUssee PPeerrssoonnaall AAnncceessttrraall FFiillee iinn WWiinnee

If you're interested in genealogy,but don't want all the “features”

found in the latest programs (suchas Gramps), perhaps PersonalAncestral File, PAF, will be yourbest bet. PAF is certainly great forbeginners – thanks to its simpleuncluttered interface, bullet-proofdata handling, and ability to exportseamlessly to just about anyserious genealogy program.

Why am I touting a Windowsprogram in a Ubuntu magazine?Well, Gramps is just too featurerich for many beginners or morecasual researchers. The myriadfeatures and the wealth of placesto record data seem to overwhelmmany would-be users. Theycertainly overwhelm me – and I'vebeen researching family historysince the 90's. Then too, much ofthe richness comes from add-onsubprograms that don't necessarilyupdate along with the mainprogram.

PAF is available at no cost fromthe Family Search website thanksto the generosity of The Church ofJesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,

LDS. No, the Mormons won't try toconvert you or subvert yourresearch, it’s truly free. No stringsattached. PAF 5 will do almostanything that a family historyresearcher needs, and do it well.Furthermore, PAF will not exposeany of your data on the Internet. Itruns strictly on your computer withno Internet connection required.But it’s available only for Windows,so we first need to -

INSTALL WINE

As usual in Linux, there areseveral ways to do this:• Open your distribution's packagemanager – Synaptic PackageManager for Ubuntu andderivatives – click Reload to updatethe database, type “wine” in thesearch box, choose and install thedefault Wine meta-package. Seethe note regarding 'ttf-mscorefonts-installer'.• To install the latest version ofwine directly from the author’ssite, open a browser and navigateto http://www.winehq.org/ , click'Download', select the right binaryfor your distribution (Linux Mint

works well with the Ubuntubinary), and follow theinstructions. Get and then installthe latest stable version.• Open your distribution's SoftwareManager, Software Center orwhatever they call it, search forWine, then choose and install theWine default meta-package. In myexperience, this choice often hasconsiderable difficulty with the'ttf-mscorefonts-installer' – whichis part of Wine.

You may have difficultyinstalling wine when it comes toinstalling 'ttf-mscorefonts-installer'. MS wants you to agreewith their license. This spawns achild window, requesting yourresponse, that you may find hardto see. Once you've agreed andclicked OK, the installer will do itsjob – go get a cuppa!

You'll want to review the“installation and configurationhow-to” when done. Wine willinstall a “Wine” entry on yourmenu. Programs you've installedmay be found there or in an“Other” menu entry.

As an aside, this latest versionshould also allow Ancestral Questand the Windows version of theKindle reader to install.

INSTALL PAF 5.2

Open a browser and navigate tohttp://www.familysearch.org/eng/paf/ Provide any requiredregistration information – LDSwon't spam you – you're safe here.Click to download the latestversion for your language – savethe file in your 'Downloads' folder.

Install the “official” way:• Navigate to your 'Home >Downloads' folder.• Right-click'PAF5EnglishSetup.exe'• Select 'Open With Wine WindowsProgram Loader' from the 'OpenWith' option.• Choose the installer's defaultsand PAF5 should install correctly.Let the installer place a shortcuton the Desktop because the link inthe Wine Menu might not workright!• You will probably want to un-

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HOWTO - USE PERSONAL ANCESTRAL FILE IN WINEselect the 'Use LDS data' blockunless you're a Mormon.

Install the other way:• Open your 'Downloads' folder.• Right-click an empty place andselect 'Open in Terminal'. If youlack that option, open a terminaland navigate to your 'Downloads'folder.• Type 'wine PAF5' and press [Tab].(Upper- and lower-case areimportant here.) The full filenamewill fill-in for you. Press [Enter] andyou're on your way.• Choose the installer's defaultsand PAF5 should install correctly.Let the installer place a shortcuton the Desktop because the link inthe Wine Menu might not workright!• You will probably want to un-select the 'Use LDS data' blockunless you're a Mormon, that is.

WORKING WITH PAF

IF you're the patient sort,reading the “User's Guide” file willhelp you more than this brief note.After installing PAF, the user guidecan be found by using Wine's'Browse c: Drive' to navigate toC:\Program Files\FamilySearch\PAF5. The guide is named

“paf5.pdf”.

For the rest of us: Double-clickthe icon on your desktop and anempty PAF window will open, a'Welcome' window will then openbriefly, followed by another givinguser choices. Your obvious choicehere is 'New'. Choosing 'New' willopen the 'New File' window –where you should give the file ameaningful name and choosewhere to store it.

Give some thought to thestorage location. Maybe you havean existing Home/Genealogyfolder, but it is, or will be, prettycluttered with other information.Perhaps a better choice would beHome/user-name/PAF(z:\home\user-name\PAF in wineterms) folder reserved for the datafile, backups, and a Media folder. Iwouldn't suggest using the Winec:\ drive because it is hard to findexcept when Wine is active. TheNew File dialog will allow you tonavigate back to your home folderand create the PAF folder.

The window will transform intoa blank working screen with themain 'Individual' tab selected. Ontop of that, 'Preferences' will open.

• The first tab open will be whereyou enter your preparer data. Thisdata will be available to the

program so that it can mark thevarious reports it generates. Mightas well fill it in now.• Select the 'General' tab and checkyour choice of boxes. Somesuggested choices are selected inthe example.• If your display is unclear selectthe 'Fonts' tab. The fonts I'veselected are the ones used in thevarious screenshots. This may be anon-issue on your machine.

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HOWTO - USE PERSONAL ANCESTRAL FILE IN WINE• Select the 'Names' tab. I suggestthe selected choices.

• You can return to 'Preferences' atany time by selectingTools>Preferences on the programtoolbar. Some data-entry screenswill also have this screen available.• Click 'OK' to exit 'Preferences'.

PAF's working window will bedisplayed with the main 'Individual'tab selected.

Either right-click in the namefield or click the 'New Person' iconon the program toolbar, and the'Add New Individual' window willopen.

Enter the first person's name inthe order you selected in thepreferences dialog. A smallwindow will open asking you toconfirm that the program “knows”the right surname – it denotessurnames with / /. I generally addthem as I go. Be sure to select thecorrect gender – in any programit’s difficult to fix it later.

Add dates and places asappropriate to this individual. Clickthe small 'S' to the right to enteryour source for the event.

As you use the program and addsources, they will be listed here.You can select a listed source oradd a new one. Select 'New', enterthe source details then click

'Select'.

The 'Edit Source' window willopen; fill in the details for thisspecific source.

Think of the top part of thiswindow as if it were a bibliographicentry, and the bottom as thespecific citation. In the middle is abutton to add the repository(library, web page ...) where youactually found the source. Thebibliographic entry can be reused(think of a book), while the citationis very specific (think pagenumber). I've not been veryrigorous in this example. For asource like that shown, quoting the'Actual Text' in the space providedwould be a fine idea.

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HOWTO - USE PERSONAL ANCESTRAL FILE IN WINE

At some point, click the'Repository' button and fill in thelocation where you found the citedsource.

It is accepted that you will havea personal file where some of yourspecific documents are located.You should create a formalrepository for that.

The five icons to the right?• The one that looks like anotebook and pencil opens the'Notes' window where you can addinformation as you choose. A greatplace to record residences theperson occupied over time - jobs,education, research notes, to-dolists ... If you begin a new line innotes with the tilde '~' followed bya space, that note becomesprivate. You can control whetherthat note is included in GED files orprinted in reports.• The icon that looks like a bookallows you to examine all of thesources cited for that individual.

• The icon looking like a mailenvelope allows you to entercontact information for thatperson.• The camera icon allows you to linkmultimedia to the person. Mypreference here is to create amultimedia folder in the sameplace that the main PAF file islocated. The first picture here willbe the default shown on manyscreens. Cropping and editing acopy here will make the picturemore relevant and it won't mess upthe original. Multimedia does nothave to be a picture – an item couldbe a scan of a birth certificate forinstance.• 'Individual Sources' will open the'Select Source' window allowingyou to add sourcing for theindividual rather than for an event.

Click 'Save' to enter theperson's data into the databaseand return to the main window.

Select the 'Family' tab (shownbelow). A family window will openwith data for the person you justentered highlighted as the'selected' person.

You'll note that the upper rightcorner of the blue selection ismissing. That indicates that theperson has source data or notes.Having multimedia files adds asmall square to the corner.

Click the space for spouse oreither parent, and the New Personscreen will open – you know howto handle that. If multiple spouseshave been added, an 'Other

Marriages' block will appear abovethe spouse block. Clicking thearrow will open a screen allowingyou to exchange the spouses(spice?). If the family you're mainlyinterested in isn't the onedisplayed by default, you can usethe 'Edit>Order Spouses' tool tobring the focus to the spouse sothat you can select which oneappears.

Right-click an empty space inthe 'Children' block and you canselect 'Add Child' – you know howto handle the screen that willopen. If you don't enter thechildren in order, use the'Edit>Order Children' tool toarrange them in oldest to youngestorder.

Right-clicking the 'Marriage'block, and then clicking 'Add', willopen the 'Edit Marriage' screen.

Dates, places, notes andsources are entered in the wayyou've done it already. Note there

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HOWTO - USE PERSONAL ANCESTRAL FILE IN WINEis a box for divorced. Adding aspouse will also open the 'EditMarriage' screen. When there aremultiple spouses a double-headedarrow will appear to the right ofthe appropriate name.

At some time, you will comeacross a GEDCOM file containinginformation you'd like to add toyour data. Ideally it willincorporate sourcing information.BACK-UP your file, then use the'File>Import...' tool to bring it in.I'd suggest closing your workingfile then creating a new file andimporting the GEDCOM into it. Dothis before you even think ofadding it to your main file. Afterimporting a GED into an existingfile a window will open offeringhelp in linking the imported datainto the existing database. Readingit will help avoid really messing upyour hard work! Be especiallycareful in merging informationcontained in both files – it’s not atall unusual to have people withsimilar or even exactly the samename in the same place at thesame time! In Onondaga County,NY, there are apparently twoGeorge Wellington Wilsons – bothborn at roughly the same time!

Select the 'Pedigree' tab. PAF

will generate a five generationpedigree (shown below) for theperson highlighted in the previoustab.

The illustration shows the dataI've entered in my exampledatabase. Note that hovering thecursor on a person drops down alist of more complete information.

I urge you to more fully explorethe functions available from themain toolbar:• You'll want to visit'File>Check/Repair' if you haveproblems especially after a mergesession.• I'd back up using the file'File>Backup...' tool after anysignificant work has been done,and especially before importinganything into the database. PAFwill automatically back up the fileas often as you selected in'Preferences'.• 'File>Print Reports' will open the'Reports and Charts' screen (shownabove) where you can choose toprint several different detailedreports based on your data.

Your default printer should be

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HOWTO - USE PERSONAL ANCESTRAL FILE IN WINEavailable for your use under Wine.You may also have the Linux PDFprinter installed on your system, ittoo should work. PDF Printershould be available from theSoftware Manager or through thePackage Manager; I'd suggestinstalling it.• I recommend that you maintain anotebook of 'Family Group Sheets'for each family.• “Printing” reports to PDF is agreat way to share informationthrough e-mail. Hint – PDF Printerputs its output in a folder'Home/PDF'.• Once in a while, you should visitthe 'Lists' tab to generate a list ofunlinked individuals (people withno family), duplicate individuals(careful here), and 'PossibleProblems'.

The 'Tools' tab contains manyuseful tools:• After importing a GED file youmight use 'Match/Merge' tomerge-in duplicate people.• If you've consistently misspelledyour hometown's name 'GlobalSearch and Replace' is the tool tofix it.• The old naming convention wasto use all caps for surnames.'Change Names to Mixed Case' toolwill fix that.

• And, yes, you can generate thebasic files for a web page using the'Create Web Page' tool.• Can't remember whether old Samwas your fourth cousin or thirdcousin twice removed? The'Relationship Calculator' will helpyou remember.• The 'Date Calculator' is a niftytool that will calculate a birth datefrom a tombstone's 64 y 4 m 23 dinscription. Works the other waytoo.

GENEALOGY HINTS FOR

BEGINNERS:

Before you begin to record yourfamily history, here's some hintsgained from many researcher'sexperience and mistakes.• DO NOT start by trying to findfamily data on the Internet.• Begin by recording what youknow about yourself – your birthdate and place. How did you knowthat? Gather copies of your birthrecord if you don't have it already.In the US, a birth certificate willgenerally include only a minimumof extracted data. Try to get a copyof the actual courthouse journalentries.• Dates are usually entered in day-month-year (08 Jun 2011) format

to avoid confusion. Enter as muchof the date as you know. Someuseful common abbreviations are –cal, Calculated; bef, Before; aft,After; ca, Circa; abt, About; est,Estimated; bet, Between.• Place names are generallyentered in small-to-large order -parish, township or city; county;state; country, e.g. LysanderTownship, Onondaga County, NY,US of A. It is important that placesbe entered as they existed whenthe event took place. Knowing thatwill help in locating primaryrecords. For example, the presentOswego County, NY was formedfrom Oneida and OnondagaCounties in 1816. Hinmansville andits records would have been inOnondaga County in 1810, eventhough it is in Oswego County now.You won't find an 1810 census forOswego County.• I guarantee that you will want torevisit your source data at sometime in the future. Data on theInternet had to come fromsomewhere else. Cite the source ofyour source. In that manner, youhave some assurance of finding thedata even if the site changes. Itmay seem a tedious waste ofeffort to find and record thesource information for your data,but it’s not. Just do it.

• If you're married, record yourspouse's and children's data in thesame way. All this information isrecorded on a 'family group sheet'.Your genealogy program will makeit for you.• Now it’s time to record yourselfas a member of your parents’family. Record your siblings too.Again, secure copies of documentsthat verify the data.• Genealogy isn't just dates andnumbers. Try to flesh out yourknowledge with pictures,recordings, letters, medicalinformation, precious objects andinterviews. Talk to your parentsabout events that have specialmeaning to them. Have themidentify people and places inpictures.• Working backward in time, recordyour parents as members of yourgrandparents’ families. You maybegin to find that documentationis getting hard to find. Recordwhat you know and make a to-dolist for the unknowns. Try to findpictures and get yourgrandparents to talk about thepeople and places in them.• If you don't know a person's nameDO NOT enter unk or unknown –that will bite you, guaranteed! Itype [–?–] and there's no questionthat that’s a symbol – and not a

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HOWTO - USE PERSONAL ANCESTRAL FILE IN WINEname.• Contact your cousins, aunts anduncles. Find out about your familyhistory from “the horse’s mouth”so to speak. One day, my cousinand I looked at each other andrealized that we were 'the oldergeneration'!• Start some sort of filing systemto keep track of the paperdocuments you're gathering. Somefile by person, some by family.Some use notebooks, some usefolders in a file; your choice. But dosomething, or you'll find yourselfstaring at a pile of half-remembered papers! Develop asystem to preserve the names andplaces you've identified in thoseold pictures. I generally use longfilenames.• It is helpful to keep a record ofplaces (books, web sites ...) you'veresearched, what you searched forand what you found. “Nothing” is aperfectly valid and useful fact! Thispractice will help preventsearching again for the same itemin the same place. Of course, thisisn't strictly true in the case ofsearching on the Internet sinceURL's and content vary with time.• At some point, hopefully afteryou've recorded some data foryour grandparents or even greatgrandparents, you will want to

seek further information on theInternet. Learn to develop askeptical attitude toward what youfind – some “researchers” aren't atall careful about what they record.There are even known cases offraud. There's a lot of garbage andcopies of garbage out there. Youwant to get back to hard evidence– original records if they exist.• As a newcomer to genealogy I'dsuggest that you visithttps://www.familysearch.org/learn/getting_started, and workthrough some of the guidesprovided. The Family Search site isprovided by The Church of JesusChrist of Latter-day Saints, theMormons. I understand that familyhistory is very important in theirreligion. LDS have undertakensome very large internationalprojects to digitize original records– much of this work is available foryour research on the Family Searchwebsite at no cost. They also havea worldwide network ofFamilySearch Centers. At theseCenters you can view microfilm ofthese original records and usesome for-fee sites at no cost ontheir computers. Microfilm notfound at a Center can be rentedvery reasonably from their mainlibrary in Salt Lake City. No, I'm notevangelizing here, it’s just that LDS

have generously provided theseservices for our use at no cost andwith no strings attached.• At some time, you will need tovisithttp://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ to consult and register for someof their lists. You'll find a wealth ofbackground information onRootsWeb. RootsWeb is hosted byAncestry, but has remained freeand independent of commercialinfluence.• Other resources includewww.worldgenweb.org, which willlink to www.usgenweb.orgwww.canadagenweb.org and othernational sites. The informationyou'll find here is organizedgeographically and may containinformation you need.• There is a tutorial and otherhelpful guidance athttp://paftutorial.byu.edu/introfh.htm• There is a PAF5-USERS Group athttp://groups.yahoo.com/ with lotsof helpful members who don'tmind helping beginners.• The Silicon Valley ComputerGenealogy Group has a veryhelpful free download section andan online store. They're athttp://www.svpafug.org/• If you can afford it,www.ancestry.com has, probably,

the most complete on-line digitalcontent. Remember the “Who doYou Think You Are?” TV series? Youcan search for events, names orplaces, find and view original andsecondary sources, and participatein online training. ConsideringAncestry's vast content, the priceis reasonable.• Google is your friend even forgenealogy!

I find it hard to rationalize this –I use Linux Mint for my OS, but I'muncomfortable using Gramps – myprimary system is Ancestral Quest(on Wine) – but I'd rather workwith PAF 5 than any of the others.

This brief note should get youwell started on the path tobuilding a good sound familyhistory database. Don't forgetthose sources!

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HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Nicholas Kopakakis BBlleennddeerr -- PPaarrtt 44

Textures and materials are verycrucial. Without them, for

example, what we have created sofar is a grey snowman, with a greynose, grey hands and a grey hat.Not so realistic. So, materials andtextures is a way to add realism tothe look of our models withimages, plain colors, etc.

You must have a material toapply a texture on it (by defaultblender adds a material to yourobjects in order to see theirsurfaces).

So, for this month we willintroduce materials – leavingtextures for next month, as it isimpossible to fit them both in anarticle.

But, before anything else, let’supgrade blender. A new release(2.66a) is available athttp://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/ with a bunch of newfeatures and over 250 bugfixes.

Let’s load the snowman blendfile that we created last month. Ithas to look something like this in

object mode (shown below).

Notice the small icons at theright of your 3D view window. Thefourth icon from the right(highlighted) is the Materials tab.

Select the hat and press theNew button:

Name your material “Hat”. Yourmaterial tab has to look something

like the one shown right.

As you can see, there are a lotof things that we can tweak, butwe will introduce the very basics tocreate a kind of realisticenvironment (maybe, in a laterstage of this article-series, we canfocus on materials and texturesexplaining all in detail, but, fornow, feel free to experiment withthose).

Blender gives us a previewwindow where we can inspect the

full circle magazine #71 23 contents ^

HOWTO - BLENDER Pt 4color of our material. Also, on theright, we can change the basicobject that we are previewing (thisdoesn't affect our object at all, buthelps us to understand how thecolor looks – for example onspheres or boxes).

Under Diffuse, there is a whitestrip. Press with your LMB (LeftMouse Button) on it to change thecolor. Select the color of yourchoice from the color wheel, orenter manually the values of Red,Green and Blue below the wheel,or you can use the color picker –well known from other graphicapplications.

You can use the HSV button tochoose your color by HueSaturation and Value, or you canuse the Hexadecimal numbers thatare commonly used on web pagesto specify colors. I personally useonly the RGB values. The valuescan vary from 0 to 1 indicating thepercentage of the color (0.2 = 20%for example).

On the right of the wheel thereis a slider controlling the intensityof the color. If you slide it all theway down we have absolute black.Also notice that values of Red,Green and Blue are all changed to

0.

Under Specular, there is also awhite strip. From there we choosethe color of the reflection onshining objects. For examplechoose for diffuse: color Red =0.015, Green = 0, Blue = 0.24, andfor specular: Red = 0.915, Green =1, Blue = 0.

Also on the preview window,change the basic object to monkey.

Looks like the image below?

NOTE: The monkey of blender isactually a chimpanzee, calledSuzanne. This 3d mode, created byWillem-Paul van Overbruggen, wasintroduced to the blender

community as a test model formaterials, textures, lights, etc. TheSuzanne awards (something likethe Oscars awards) are heldannually for blender artists.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_Award

Now, let’s go back to oursnowman. Reload thesnowman.blend file, select theplane that we use as ground andLMB on the material tab.

Press New to create a newmaterial and rename it from“Material” to “Ground”.

Under Diffuse, press LMB onthe white strip and put the values0.5 for Red and Blue and 0.8 forGreen. On the 3d view window, youcan see that the color of theground changes to a green lookingsurface.

Select one button of thesnowman, and press the newButton on the material tab. Nameit “Button”, and, under Diffuse,color it red (by now you must knowthe way to do that, but, in case youdon't, just put R = 1, G and B to 0):

Now, with your RMB, selectanother button of the snowman.Under the material tab, you cansee the New button that we usedearlier to create a new material.Left of this there is an icon similarto the “materials” one in blender.

Press it and selectButton from the list:

full circle magazine #71 24 contents ^

Nicholas lives and works in Greece.He is working for a post-productionhouse (commercials - films) forseveral years. Three months ago hemigrated to Ubuntu because “itrenders faster”. Blender found himtwo years ago.

HOWTO - BLENDER Pt 4

The materials that we createare stored for later use in theblend file, and many differentobjects can share the samematerial.

Keeping that in mind, creatematerials for the hands, the hat,the nose, and the pipe. Also assignthe Button material to the otherbuttons, or create a new materialfor each button if you like.

For the hat I created a materialwith a Halo behavior – just to makea Saint snowman with two Halos!!!!Very Saint!

You can experiment with theother two kinds of materialsbehavior: Wire and Volume.

For this month, I recommendthat you download and play agame created in blender with theblender game engine. Yo frankie!http://www.yofrankie.org/

Also you can check outblenderguru.com. A site dedicatedto blender, with a lot of tutorialsfor beginner and advanced users,created and hosted by AndrewPrice, a very talented blenderartist. Enjoy.http://www.blenderguru.com

CCOODDEEWWOORRDD

Solutions are on the second last page.

Every number in the grid is 'code' for a letter of the alphabet.Thus the number '2' may correspond to the letter 'L', for instance.All - except the difficult codeword puzzles - come with a fewletters to start you off

Puzzles are copyright, and kindly provided by,The Puzzle Club - www.thepuzzleclub.com

full circle magazine #71 25 contents ^

HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Mark Crutch IInnkkssccaappee -- PPaarrtt 1111

In this instalment, we'll becontinuing our investigation of

Inkscape's text tools. Previously,you learned how to create SVGText (compliant with the SVG 1.1spec, and supported in many otherapplications), and a couple of waysto create Flowed Text (notcompatible with any official SVGspec, so practically restricted touse within Inkscape). Whicheversort of text you use, when the Texttool is selected, you are presentedwith the same Tool Control Bar.Last time, we looked at the lefthalf of this toolbar, where you canselect a font, size, style andjustification.

We used these controls tochoose the settings for an entireblock of text at a time, butInkscape also lets you apply mostof them to individual words orcharacters within a text object. Theobvious use for this is toemphasise particular words bymaking them bold, italic, or boldand italic, but you can also changethe font, size and color of parts ofyour text, should you need to.

To begin with, you need to havesome text to modify. If you'restuck for ideas as to what to type,why not try the Lorem Ipsumextension, which will generateparagraphs of the classic nonsenseLatin text that typesetterstraditionally use as a placeholder.Simply select the Extensions > Text> Lorem Ipsum menu item, picksome values for the three fields,and click Apply. A Flowed Textobject will be created on a newlayer, with its flow box set to thesize of the page. You may want tochange the size of the flow box bydouble-clicking on the text andthen moving the small diamondhandle at the bottom right, or youcould just make it flow into a newobject using the Text > Flow intoFrame menu that we looked at lasttime.

With the Text tool selected,click in the flowed text at the pointthat you would like to place thetext editing cursor (from now on,I'll use the term caret to

differentiate it from the mousecursor or cursor keys on thekeyboard). Alternatively, if theSelect tool is active, you can justdouble click in the flowed text toboth position the caret and switchto the Text tool in one fell swoop.

With the caret happily flashingin the middle of your text, youshould be able to move it aroundusing the cursor keys, just as youwould in a word processor.Pressing the Home and End keyswill jump the caret to the start orend of the current line,

respectively, and holding down theShift key whilst performing any ofthese movements will select theappropriate section of text. Themouse isn't without its uses either:click to immediately position thecaret, or click and drag to select acontiguous section of the text.Double-click to select a word,triple-click to select a whole line.

With a portion of the textselected, it's time to play with thestyle. Start by setting the fill to adifferent color, or perhaps addinga stroke. You can set the stroke-width and join-type using the Filland Stroke dialog, but addingmarkers will have no effect. Otherparts of the dialog affect the textin different ways: you can set analpha level on the fill or stroke togive it some transparency, butchanging the opacity setting hasno effect. If you try to use blur,gradients or patterns, you'll findthe whole text object is affected,rather than just the selectedsection. Setting a dash style on thestroke will also affect the wholetext object, though you won'tnotice it on any words that don't

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HOWTO - INKSCAPE Pt11have a stroke applied.

On the text control bar, you canchange the font for the selection,alter its size, or use the bold anditalic buttons. The justificationbuttons work for only the wholetext object, not individualselections. This does, however,mean that, if you want to left-justify one paragraph and right-justify the next, you'll have to splitthem into separate text objects.Nevertheless, by playing withfonts, fills, strokes and more, youcan easily create some truly awfultext designs.

Now that you've got the hangof positioning the caret andselecting parts of the text, it's time

to investigate the less frequentlyused icons and controls thatremain on the rest of the bar.

The first of these you mayrecognise as Superscript andSubscript. Although you can applythem to an entire text object, theywork best on a selection of just afew characters at a time. They havethe effect of reducing the font sizefor the selection, and adjusting thetext's baseline up or down. Thesize can subsequently be modifiedusing the toolbar, but adjusting theposition isn't so straightforward,so although these buttons areuseful for simple super- and sub-scripts such as chemical formulae,they're not very useful if you wantto finely position your text.

Fine positioning is preciselywhat the next six controls are allabout. The first three work on bothSVG Text and Flowed Text,whereas the last three are disabledfor Flowed Text objects. Theformer all deal with the generalspacing of your text, whereas thelatter allow fine control overindividual characters.

The first of the spacing controlsaffects the spacing between linesin a paragraph of text. The value inhere is multiplied by the font sizein order to produce the finalspacing. You can reduce this as lowas 0, in which case all the lines willbe on top of each other, but itdoesn't allow negative values soyou can't use it as a way to makeyour paragraphs run from bottomto top. Typically it's set to 1.25 fornormal paragraphs, though youmay wish to adjust it for a looser ortighter design. This image showsthree paragraphs of our LoremIpsum text, set to 0.75, 1.25 and2.0 respectively.

The next two controls are usedto set the standard spacingbetween individual letters, and thespacing between words. Thetooltips claim that both these

values are in pixels, but, in myexperience, typing a value directlyinto these – even if your documentis set to use pixels as the defaultunits – results in the value beingconverted to something different.In practice, it's not too great aproblem as it's rare to needspecific values in these fields.More usually you will adjust themup and down to make your text alittle tighter or looser. These fieldswill allow you to enter negativevalues, if you really do want yourtext to run backwards!

The next control is used toadjust horizontal kerning on SVGText. Kerning is the term used todescribe the spacing between twoindividual characters. By adjustingthe kerning, you can arrange forcharacters to slot together a littlemore neatly, giving a morepleasing look to text, with fewerblank areas that can form visual“rivers” of white on a page. Using

full circle magazine #71 27 contents ^

Mark has been using Linux since1994, and uses Inkscape to createtwo webcomics, 'The Greys' and'Monsters, Inked' which can both befound at:http://www.peppertop.com/

HOWTO - INKSCAPE Pt11this field is as simple as placing thecaret between the pair of lettersthat you wish to kern, and thenentering a value to adjust thespacing. Negative values are mostcommonly used, to encourage thesecond character to tuck-in to thewhite space within the shape ofthe first, but you can also use apositive value to force a pair ofcharacters further apart. Thisimage shows the effect on a fewpairs of characters with no kerning,and then with a negative value.

After the Horizontal Kerningcontrol, there's a similar field foradjusting the vertical position ofyour characters. If you simplyposition the caret, then it shiftsthe text from that point to the endof the line up or down.Alternatively you can selectspecific characters or words tolimit its effects – although, if yourselection spans more than oneline, the behaviour can be a littleunexpected. Negative values inthis field will move your textupwards, positive numbers willmove it downwards. Combined

with changing the font size, thiscan give you more fine-grainedcontrol than you get from usingthe Superscript and Subscriptbuttons.

The last of this group ofcontrols lets you rotate individualcharacters, with the value being afigure in degrees. Positive numbersrotate clockwise, negativenumbers counter-clockwise.Placing the caret will cause it torotate just the following character.Selecting some text will rotate theindividual characters of theselection, not the whole selectionas one. It's not possible to selectthe rotation centre, but using theHorizontal Kerning and VerticalShift controls can allow you tocompensate for this if you need to.

In practice, the HorizontalKerning, Vertical Shift andCharacter Rotation controls areoften best adjusted using keyboardshortcuts. Holding ALT while usingthe cursor keys will adjust thekerning and vertical shift, whilstALT-] and ALT-[ can be used forcharacter rotation. The Text >Remove Manual Kerns menu entrywill remove all the HorizontalKerning, Vertical Shift andCharacter Rotation adjustments

for the whole text object, butwon't remove any changes to theline, letter or word spacingcontrols.

The final buttons on the toolbarlet you switch between creatinghorizontal and vertical text. In thelatter case, the individualcharacters are the right way up,but the words run vertically downthe page – as opposed to simplyrotating the text object, in whichcase the characters are alsorotated.

There's one big elephant in theroom which can't go unmentionedwhen discussing text and SVG files:SVG fonts. The SVG specificationincludes a font format where theindividual glyphs are defined usingstandard SVG objects. In theory,this should allow fonts to becreated that contain colour andanimations, and that can bedynamically changed by usingstandard Javascript code in a webbrowser – all while still presentingunderstandable text content tosearch engines.

Although Inkscape contains adedicated interface for creatingSVG fonts, via the Text > SVG FontEditor menu, there are a couple ofreasons why it's probably not

worth using. The first is that theFirefox developers havespecifically rejected the idea ofsupporting SVG fonts, due to theirlack of some layout andinternationalisation features thatare available in other font formats.Their concerns are certainly validfor a general purpose font format,but I think that misses some of theadvantages that SVG fonts canoffer when used in an SVG image,and which no other format can.

An even bigger reason not touse SVG fonts, ironically, isInkscape itself. Although it has aninterface to help create them, ithas no mechanism to actually usethem once they've been created.The Font Editor, therefore, isuseful only if you're creating SVGfonts as an interim step towardsgenerating a TrueType orPostscript font using anapplication such as FontForge.

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HHOOWW--TTOOWritten by Ronnie Tucker WWrriittee FFoorr FFuullll CCiirrccllee MMaaggaazziinnee

GUIDELINES

The single rule for an article isthat it must somehow be

linked to Ubuntu or one of themany derivatives of Ubuntu(Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, etc).

RULES

• There is no word limit for articles,but be advised that long articlesmay be split across several issues.

• For advice, please refer to theOfficial Full Circle Style Guide:http://url.fullcirclemagazine.org/75d471

• Write your article in whicheversoftware you choose, I wouldrecommend LibreOffice, but mostimportantly - PLEASE SPELL ANDGRAMMAR CHECK IT!

• In your article, please indicatewhere you would like a particularimage to be placed by indicatingthe image name in a newparagraph or by embedding theimage in the ODT (Open Office)

document.

• Images should be JPG, no widerthan 800 pixels, and use lowcompression.

• Do not use tables or any type ofbold or italic formatting.

If you are writing a review,please follow these guidelines :

When you are ready to submityour article please email it to:articles@fullcirclemagazine.org

TRANSLATIONS

If you would like to translateFull Circle into your nativelanguage please send an email toronnie@fullcirclemagazine.org andwe will either put you in touch withan existing team, or give youaccess to the raw text to translatefrom. With a completed PDF, youwill be able to upload your file tothe main Full Circle site.

REVIEWS

GAMES/APPLICATIONSWhen reviewing games/applications please state clearly:

• title of the game• who makes the game• is it free, or a paid download?• where to get it from (give download/homepage URL)• is it Linux native, or did you use Wine?• your marks out of five• a summary with positive and negative points

HARDWAREWhen reviewing hardware please state clearly:

• make and model of the hardware• what category would you put this hardware into?• any glitches that you may have had while using the hardware?• easy to get the hardware working in Linux?• did you have to use Windows drivers?• marks out of five• a summary with positive and negative points

You don't need to be an expert to write anarticle - write about the games, applicationsand hardware that you use every day.

full circle magazine #71 29 contents ^

https://spideroak.com

Get 25% off any SpiderOak packagewith the code: FullcirclemagFans

full circle magazine #71 30 contents ^

AASSKK TTHHEE NNEEWW GGUUYYWritten by Copil Yáňez

Hi, everyone! Welcome back toAsk the New Guy!

If you have a simple question,and want an answer that doesn’trequire you to enter yoursuperuser password, contact me atcopil.yanez@gmail.com.

Today’s question is:

Q: Ubuntu seems pretty mature.Most things just work. Is thereanything left to be excitedabout?

A: Well la-dee-da, you poor thing,sitting over there bored out ofyour superior mind. What, yourpygmy giraffes, and your heatedtoilet seats, and your shoes thatare shaped like human feet (andmade from ACTUAL human feet)not exciting enough for you?Maybe if Mark Shuttleworthincluded a free trip to theInternational Space Station withevery install, you’d be less fatiguedby life?

I know how it is. If you’re likeme, you probably approached the

idea of a new OS like a first levelmage on your inaugural dungeoncampaign, exploring dark corners,discovering treasure, gaining XP(experience points), and levelingup as you became more confidentin your abilities.

Eventually, though, you’resitting in a tavern, drinking meadfrom the hollowed out skull of alowland Orc, and huffing drunkenlyas some new explorer stops in fordirections to a nearby dragon’s lair.

“Lookat thish guyoverhere,”

you mumble. “ProbablyneverbeenattackedbyaThroat Leach or

shmelledthe insides ofa deadIce

Lizard. Thinkyou can make itout

here?Idon’t think sho.”Eventuallysomeone calls you a cab.

My point is, sometimes it’s hardto sustain that level of excitement,especially when things are goingright. If you’re trying to figure outhow to get your laptop to see yourwireless router, seeking help froma forum of fellow enthusiasts canbe fun and social. But if everythingworks almost perfectly out of the

box, well, that’s exciting, too, butnot in the same way. And it meansthe community, a great source ofcamaraderie and entertainment,gets bypassed by some new users.

Becoming a power user bringsits own excitement, of course, andmeans you’re likely to encounterand overcome bigger challenges asyou go. But this is Ask-the-New-Guy, not Ask-A-Guy-Who-Knows-What-The-Hell-He’s-Talking-About.So what do average Joes like mehave to look forward to? What’sexciting about Ubuntu other thanthe fact that it just works?

Plenty!

In many ways, new and casualusers are the ones who have themost to look forward to over thenext few years. Not only doesUbuntu get better with eachrelease, the project is expandinginto some really exciting areas.

Let’s take a look at what’s onthe Ubuntu horizon.

GAMING

For the longest time, the singlebiggest lament for many users whodidn’t want to make the switch toUbuntu was that there weren’tenough games for it. This wasnever really true, of course, therehave always been decent titles forLinux, and the Ubuntu SoftwareCenter made it criminally easy todownload the best ones.

But Steam, a popular digitaldistribution platform with a deepinventory of gaming titles, wasrecently released for Linux and isavailable from the SoftwareCenter. I believe this is a game-changer (pun totally intendedexactly two seconds after I realizedI had unintentionally made it). By

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downloading the Steam software,you can browse, download, andbuy the ever-growing list of gamesthat work on Linux – includingCounter-Strike and Runner2. Andthis is just the beginning. Valve,the maker of Steam, has promisedto release Left 4 Dead 2 and otherlong-awaited titles in the next fewmonths.

Soon, you too will feel thehorror as Boomer, a bloatedzombie with infectious bile,stumbles into your room lookingfor night-night cuddles.

Some people might argue thatthis is just one more companylooking to make money off Linuxusers with no real love for itsideals. But even putting asideValve’s past support for the Linuxcommunity, that’s just the cynical,eightieth-level mage in themtalking. I believe this willencourage other developers toport their popular free titles overto Linux to engage a whole newcommunity of players.

Gaming isn’t going away andneither is Linux. This is a goodmarriage, more Julie Andrews andBlake Edwards than KimKardashian and Kris Humphries.

UBUNTU ON TABLETS

The biggest surprise atUbuntu’s recent unveiling of itstablet OS was not that it had one,but that the one it exhibitedseemed so polished and close tobeing ready for prime time. Earlypreview versions of heavy-usesoftware like this usually includeseveral blank screens, lots offreezing, and a couple errormessages that say “And then amiracle happens here.” Sure, therewill be growing pains as Ubuntumoves from a developer version tothe end user install, but there’s alot to like here. Take a look for

yourself:http://youtu.be/h384z7Ph0gU.

Be warned, the video involvessome of Mark Shuttleworth’s chesthair, a 70’s-era peace sign beltbuckle, and a weird self-help vibethat may be disturbing to formercult members and recoveringhippies. Mark, talk faster! By. The.Time. . .You. . . .Get. . . . .To. . . .The. .. . . . . . Next. . . .. . .Word. . . . .I. . . . . ... . forget. . . . . what. . .. . . . . . I’m. . . .. . . . . . . .watching.

Tablet and phone devices, in myvery unhumble opinion, are thefuture of computing. Most of usdon’t need a Cray Titan to do all

that web browsing and memowriting we do. (And seriously, wecould probably knock out thememo writing altogether – who areyou writing all those memos to?). Adecent tablet with a goodkeyboard and a fast Internetconnection will handle somethinglike 99% of our needs. It’s likedriving to work. Our averagecommute is something like 32miles round trip, so we don’t need8-mile-per-gallon Ferraris whenElon Musk’s Tesla will do it incarbon-neutral style.

Holy Steaks! The most gloriousfantasy just occurred to me! Whatif Elon Musk got into the Linuxgame, and suddenly you had twosuper-rich brainiacs competingwith each other to come up withsoftware indistinguishable frommagic?! It’d be like two BondVillains battling at the commandline! Can self-aware dishwashers,and nanobots that turn human fatinto gold, be far behind? Theanswer is no. No, they can’t.

UBUNTU TV

If Matthew’s death in theSeason 3 finale of Downton Abbeywas ruined by someone you follow

ASK THE NEW GUY

full circle magazine #71 32 contents ^

on Twitter, then Ubuntu TV wasbuilt for the way you watch TV, asan interactive experience with acommunity component. IfMathew’s death was ruined by meat the start of this paragraph, thenyou need to catch up on yourrecordings more often. C’mon,TiVo is not a license to keep theFireFly series finale in stasis in theunhinged belief that the seriesmight still be picked up for anotherseason. Time-shifting is a privilege,not a right, people!

Imagine you’re watching yourfavorite episode of So You ThinkYou Can Dance? and a commercialcomes on for some kind of hybridbreakfast cereal/pain reliever.Instead of watching a cartoonspinal disk sing about howIbuprophen-O’s arecontraindicated with milk, youswitch over to YouTube and call upclips of Mary Murphy screamingabout the Hot Tamale Train! See?The future is awesome!

If that doesn’t excite you, thenthink about Ubuntu TV giving youthe functionality of a DVR coupledwith integrated social media andaccess to all your media files. It’snot so much a revolution as anevolution of the smart TVs already

on the market mated with yourfavorite operating system. Yes, it’squite possible that Canonical’smaster plan is to combine alldigital products and make themoperable from the mostcomfortable seat in your house. Ifyou see them, buy Ikea –remember, I told you so.

Check out this videohttp://youtu.be/jq_WaOLjdyQwhich champions the idea thatDVRs don’t need to be separateboxes, the functionality can bebuilt directly into the TV. Plus,apparently creepy giant bunniesfigure prominently in our future.

UBUNTU ON PHONES

For my money, Ubuntu’s phoneOS has the potential to be themost disruptive. The firstsmartphone I owned completelychanged the way I interacted withthe Internet and the services Ifound there. Having my favorite OSon my phone, with all thephilosophical and practical changesit brings with it, could have asimilar effect, at least on me.

The phone OS seems to have allthe features you’ve come to expectfrom a smartphone. The thingsthat make it Ubuntu are tweaksfamiliar from the desktop OS – likelens-based search options andcustomizable side panes that giveyou access to frequently-usedprograms and apps.

That apps ecosystem, in myopinion, is what makes this OS agame-changer. All the mostpopular paid apps will likely maketheir way over relatively quicklybecause mortgages on FinnishS&M dungeons don’t come cheap(and don’t tell me you didn’t knowthat’s exactly what Rovio wasdoing with all that avian lootthey’ve been raking in). The moreinteresting apps, however, aremerely gleams in a Linuxdeveloper’s eye right now. I can’twait to see what Linux enthusiastsbring to the phone world. WhenSETI-Phone-Home becomes themost popular app on the Ubuntuphone, and we discover alien lifeshortly thereafter, I want to benamed ambassador to Kepler 22b. Iwill finally be able to say KlaatuBarada Nikto unironically.

And, of course, the Ubuntuphilosophy of doing more with lesswill also be ported to the smallerscreen. If you’ve ever run aperfectly stable and useful Ubuntuinstall on a machine others hadgiven up for dead, you’ll probablyappreciate having all the modernconveniences of a powerfulsmartphone running on a handseta few generations old.

ASK THE NEW GUY

full circle magazine #71 33 contents ^

Copil is an Aztec name that roughlytranslates to “you need my heart forwhat again?” His love of women’sshoes is chronicled atyaconfidential.blogspot.com. Youcan also watch him embarrasshimself on Twitter (@copil).

One of the really interestingthings about the phone OS is that,for many people, this may be theirfirst point of contact for Ubuntu.Once these new users discoverthat the powerful, stable andsecure OS they’re using on theirphones is available also for theirdesktops (and tablets and TVs), thetime of massive Ubuntu take-upcould be upon us.

Check out this video for moreMark Shuttleworth chest hair:http://youtu.be/cpWHJDLsqTU.

There’s also a project to putUbuntu on Android handsets andmake your phone a full-fledgeddesktop by adding a full-sizedkeyboard and monitor. I’m notentirely clear on how the Ubuntuphone OS overlaps with Ubuntu forAndroid, or if that dockingfunctionality is part of the former.But the idea of having one devicethat works like a Transformer,without any Michael Bay quick-cutsto make me dizzy, is prettyappealing.

CONCLUSION

The operative word for all theseOSs seems to be convergence. Any

cloud-based files and servicesshould be available across alldevices along with apps,bookmarks and settings. Andfamiliar functions, like side panesand drawers, should work similarlyon all screens.

What stands in the way of thisseamless Ubuntopia? Not thesoftware, certainly, since itsgreatest strength is that it canbecome whatever its users need itto be. Even if the first versions ofeach OS are mere shadows of theirmature potential, the energeticgive-and-take between Canonicaland the community will produce, asit has so far, a decent compromisebetween competing interests.

More likely, the real challengeswill come from hardwaremanufacturers and existing serviceproviders who have a vestedinterest in keeping existingrevenue streams in place (*cough*wireless carriers *cough*).

The idea of opening the worldof phones, tablets and TVs toneckbeards like me must just scarethe hell out of them. And that maybe the most exciting thing of all.

I know, I know, this is all a littletoo fangirl for some of you. Andforget about Ubuntu hipsters, theones who talk about seeingUbuntu Warty Warthog doing openmic nights at smoky Dublin pubs

back in the late 90’s. They’re notgoing to be happy with this newworld where Ubuntu is as popularas a Happy Meal (albeit muchhealthier).

But the rest of us are likely toenjoy new campaigns andtreasures as we slay dragons andfight orcs in the Sauronic pursuit ofone OS to rule them all!

Good luck and happyUbuntuing!

ASK THE NEW GUY

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LLIINNUUXX LLAABBWritten by Charles McColm CCrruunncchhbbaanngg 1111 oonn aa DDeellll NNeettbbooookk

Several years ago, netbookswere all the rage. I got my Dell

Inspiron Mini 10 (1012) at theheight of the netbook boom. Fortwo days I tried to use theWindows 7 Starter Edition thatcame with the netbook, but, afterremoving all the junkware andmaking a backup to an externalDVD burner, I still found thenetbook extremely slow. I gaveWindows a shot, it didn’t work out,so I tried Ubuntu 10.04 from USB,and the experience was magical.Not only was Ubuntu 10.04significantly faster, it came withsoftware I actually use. It was aneasy decision to erase Windows 7and install Ubuntu.

I already had a notebook, so Ifound myself not really using thenetbook. The small keyboard madeit somewhat difficult to type (longfingers), and looking down isn’tgreat for the neck. So I decided toput the netbook to another use: itbecame our family media centerafter I added a remote control,receiver, a couple of drivesattached via USB and XBMC(formerly known as XBox Media

Center). It served that purpose fora couple of years until I recentlyreplaced it with a desktopmachine. As much as I don’t likecraning my neck down to look atthe netbook, I’d been missing it atthe local Ubuntu hour meetings Ihold each month. My notebook is abit big for the cramped desk spacewhere we have the meetings (thedesk is usually covered with food).

Initially I tried Ubuntu 12.10 onthe netbook. Ubuntu ran on it, butjust barely. Performance was asbad as, if not worse than, Windows7 Starter Edition. I could have tried

Xubuntu or Lubuntu, both of whichrun lighter than Ubuntu 12.10, buta friend suggested I giveCrunchbang a try.

Crunchbang is Debian-based soit shares some of the roots ofUbuntu. Installing it to USB keywasn’t as simple as other Ubuntu-based distributions I’ve installed.Normally, I use the usb-creator-gtkapplication to install distributionsto a USB key, but Crunchbang keptfailing at the bootloader installstage. I ended up unmounting theUSB key, running mkfs.vfat toformat the key, pulling it out and

installing using unetbootin. TheInspiron Mini 10 uses a 64-bit Atomprocessor so I installed the 64-bitversion of Crunchbang.

Once I figured out how to getCrunchbang to the USB key, therest of the installation was verysimilar to a graphical Ubuntuinstall. Crunchbang uses theOpenbox window manager, so it’svery lightweight. The initialinstallation installs a handful ofdesktop programs: Abiword,Gnumeric, Gimp, VLC, XFBurn,gFTP, Transmission and XChat areamong the more commonprograms.

To keep things lean and mean,Crunchbang doesn’t includeLibreOffice, but installingLibreOffice is one of the options ofthe firstboot program that loads ina terminal when Crunchbang bootsfor the first time. The firstbootprogram asks if you want toupdate the system, installdevelopment packages, installOpenSSH server, install a LAMP(Linux Apache MySQL PHP) stack,and install LibreOffice. Though it

full circle magazine #71 35 contents ^

LINUX LABseems very developer-oriented, Istill like Crunchbang for the speed.

One of the Openbox claims isthat it’s infinitely configurable.This does appear to be true, butconfiguration isn’t quite as easy asthe days when Gnome 2 wasactively developed. Part of theOpenbox configuration can befound in Settings > Openbox > GUIConfig Tool the other part inSettings > User Interface Settings.If you want to set the backgroundyou need to use a third menuoption Settings > ChooseWallpaper, and, if you want yourown wallpaper, you’ll need to clickthe Preferences button inNitrogen’s (the wallpaperprogram) UI to add the path to thewallpapers you want to add. Isuppose this could be followingthe UNIX philosophy – one tooldoing one thing really well, but asingle tool to do all three activitieswould be nice for new Linux users.I found Nitrogen to be buggy; itseemed to forget the path addedthe next time I launched it. Thepath remained in the preferences,but the images didn’t show in theNitrogen wallpaper selection.Looking through the variousSettings, you’ll see there are alarge number of configuration

options, almost all of which requireknowing the format of someconfiguration file. While theconfiguration files are welldocumented (and somewhatobvious), it might be a bit much forsomeone new to Linux.

Many of the hot keys that workin Gnome 2, such as Ctrl+Alt+arrowto switch workspaces, work in theOpenbox window manager. WhenCrunchbang first loads, it alsoloads a Conky file that shows somecommon hotkeys to do things likelaunch VLC, control volume, openthe Geany text editor, or launchthe run dialog. The super key(Windows key) based programs aregenerally commonly used

programs like the web browser, aterminal, VLC, and text editor, inaddition to Logout and a couple ofmenus.

From the perspective ofsomeone who doesn’t mind editinga .config file, I really likeCrunchbang. Crunchbang is fast,the super hotkeys make doing themost common tasks easy, it’sbased on Debian, and everythingworked out of the box for me afterthe install (including the wireless).

I’m not quite sure Crunchbangwill appeal to everyone, but, if youdon’t mind doing a bit of editing,and love your system fast,Crunchbang might just be for you.

P.S. if you like conky, the .conkyrcI’m using can be found here:http://charlesmccolm.com/2011/07/10/conky-modded-for-my-notebook/

Charles is a step-father, husband,and Linux fan, who hosts a not-for-profit computer refurbishingproject. When not breakinghardware/servers, he maintains ablog at:http://www.charlesmccolm.com/

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MMYY SSTTOORRYY

I stumbled upon the freesoftware world entirely by

accident. It was around 1999. I wasliving with roommates and one ofthem started a softwaredevelopment course at his college.I had Windows 98 installed on myPC, and an analogue TV Capturecard that refused to work at full-screen, even with all driversupdated and reinstalled!

One day, I saw my roommateplaying around with a brand newsystem on his computer: Red HatLinux. He used the command line alot, typing in a black-and-greenwindow – but still, I wasmesmerized. It seemed very easyto use it, and he claimed it allworked out of the box: no driversnecessary. I asked if I could try iton my own PC. He then revealed tome it is free and no license key isneeded – that last bit made thesale – no more tinkering endlesslyjust to get my PC to work withoutcrashing every 5-10 minutes....

He burned me a copy of the CD.Those were the 14.4 Kbps dial-upmodem days, so downloading

another copy would have delayedme another day or two. I installedit alongside my Windows 98, andtried to see if everything worked.And it did. Well, except my modem,which was a Winmodem. But thatwas easily fixed after searching theInternet, using AltaVista Search inthe pre-Google days.

I started myjourney withcomputers at theage of 13, back inthe mid 80s, witha Commodore64. I used itmostly forgaming, of course,but I even tried toprogram a bit of BASICwith it. I then moved to thePC world using DOS 1.0 and allthrough Window 3.1, Windows 95 (Ieven touched Windows MillenniumEdition for a bit!), so I was nostranger to the command line. Ialways liked to see how thingsworked under the hood, so I feltright at home with my new Linux-based machine. After two weeks –during which I made sure all I

needed works, even my TV Capturecard worked better in Linux – Ibacked up my files, formatted myentire hard drive, and made themove to the Free Software world –and never looked back!

The first Ubuntu I installed wasversion 5.04, back in 2005.

I read up a lot aboutit in the Linux

news sites, and Igrew tired ofKDE at thetime andwanted to trysomething

new. I stuckwith Ubuntu

since then. I triedLiveCD versions of

Fedora now and then,but none of them were as usableand stable as Ubuntu. I also likedthe fact that all new applicationscome out with Ubuntu clients first(eg, Steam by Valve), and the wayit's set up out of the box: the mostpopular applications in eachcategory, and the fact the primaryuser has to use the “sudo”command and is not allowed to log

in as the root user by default. Ithink this strategy saves a lot ofgrief from inexperienced users.Another thing I love about Ubuntu,although controversial, is the Unityinterface. It takes some time to getused to, especially for experiencedLinux users, but once you get usedto it, it is a cinch to use andprevents clutter on the desktop.From my experience, it is easier forcomputer illiterate people tounderstand, once you spend a fewminutes to explain the basic use.They are so used to working withbadly designed User Interfaces, ittakes them a few minutes tounderstand how Ubuntu / Unity issimpler...

Written by Amichai Rotman

Amichai has been a computersolutions provider for the last 13years. He specializes in FOSSsolutions in his home town. You canask him anything Ubuntu/Linux byemaiing: support@penguincsc.co.il.

full circle magazine #71 37 contents ^

MMYY OOPPIINNIIOONN

As I’m punching this out on myold but trusty HP Pavilion

DM1, I’m somehow overpoweredby a sense of nostalgia, and …irony.

I remember getting intocomputers years ago, starting outon machines like these, back in thedays when they were home-builtbeige boxes, using a predecessor(or should I say forefather) of theoperating system that is runningtoday. The last couple of years Ihave swayed from that path ofusing a ‘Redmond Based’ operatingsystem on my primary machines infavor of the one created inCupertino. The last year or so, Ihave even moved away from thatone, to start using ‘the penguin’full time. For those of you baffledby my ramblings, I’m a slider. Imove from operating system tooperating system, and use the onethat works for me. From Androidto IOS, from Windows to OSX toLinux … and today .. back toWindows again. The new Windows8 Metro interface was notsomething that stalked in quietlyin the night. The press had seen

this one coming, and had beentooting their horns on how“different” it was from Windows 7.The Redmond company had hadrough times. The ‘Vista disaster’had left its mark, and, even thoughWindows 7 was a decent project,the flame of innovation was lost inBalmer’s ranks. Windows wasgoing the way of the Blackberry …or was it?

Windows 8 brought a unified‘metro’ interface that was radically

different from anything they haddone before. Not only did theylaunch a version for the PC, therewas also a unified interface for themobile world and their own tabletdevice. Microsoft, being Microsoft,did make a simple strategy like thisvery complicated to explain, andpretty soon you had Windows 8Pro, RT and Phone, and we eventhought we would get an oreo-flavored version of the OSsometime later this year.

But never mind all that.Windows 8 is here, and this week Idecided to dive in deep and installit on one of my laptops. Afterpoking it with a stick in a VM on myLinux machine, I was confident (orshould I say ‘Daring’ ) enough to tryout a full install. And I must say, I’mquite impressed with Windows 8.Because it is radically differentfrom anything Microsoft has donethe last couple of years. It is BOLD!The Metro interface takes somegetting used to, and everywhere Ihear people spouting tips andtricks on how to get “past” it andcrawl back to the Start Menu... butI say to you: embrace it. Give it atry for a couple of days, and giveyour human brain (that has beenaccustomed to the Start Buttonapproach for years) a chance toadapt. Because, even beyond the‘in your face’ start menu, theoperating system performs fastenough, and lets you do what youwant to do. So, as a passionate Macand Linux user I dare to say, I likeWindows 8.

And now for me to tell you why.

Written by Knightwise

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MY OPINION

Knightwise is a blogger, andproducer of the Knightwise.compodcast. His website offers hacks,tips and tweaks for cross-platformgeeks. Knightwisemoves with easeacross Linux, OSX, Windows, OIS,Android and more.

Windows 8 has one specificquality that is very VERY importantto an operating system. You hardlyknow it’s there. Once you areworking in your application fullscreen (or in a window), you do notnotice the operating system isthere. When you NEED it, all youneed to hit is the Windows buttonto bring up the menu, or poke thesides of your screen with yourmouse. And the rest is business asusual. Using cross platformapplications like Chrome, Firefox,Thunderbird don’t even give you aclue that there is in fact a‘different’ OS running under thehood than the OSX or Linux flavourof your choice.

So what’s the deal then?

Humankind is geneticallydesigned to gang up on a certainindividual and make fun of him.Microsoft-bashing is SO OLD thatits first instances are now thesubject of historical re-enactmentsat county fairs. It’s easy to bashMicrosoft. We always did, so whynot now? The problem with thisapproach (and the scoffing atanything that is ‘different’) is thefact that it is somewhere based onbias. And bias is a self-inflictedrestriction of personal freedom.

You decide to dislike something (orsomeone) without getting to knowit or him.

A lot of this bias is based on thefear of change. The uproar – whenCanonical decided to go for theUnity interface – has still not dieddown. The rage against Microsoft –because of the Metro interface –will surely echo into eternity. Thereason for this? We are afraid ofchange. We are the generationthat is in the transition betweenthe ‘Classic OS’ with the tiledwindows (not Windows) and thestart buttons. You can find themback in rock-paintings of the veryfirst version of Xerox-OS throughmany versions of both Windowsand Linux. But that ship has sailed.We are going to have to adapt andlearn how to work with ourcomputers differently. The age ofthe “visible” OS is over, and, withthe advent of ‘full screenapplications,’ comes the clearmessage that the OS is but ameans... not a goal.

So, put down your pitchforksand step away from the angry mobto take a good look at Windows 8.A product from a very ‘old’company that has been boldenough to innovate and to change.

To bring something to market thatis not perfect (it has its flaws), butDIFFERENT from the competition.And, in times of economic crisis,that takes balls.

And, before you decide to burnME at the stake for my hereticalsuggestions, let me finish up andget out of here. Computers areabout YOU. They are the enablersof your digital power. They arecoated with the fine slime of anoperating system that shouldfacilitate the smooth interactionbetween you and yourapplications. Your applicationsshould be your toolset to interactwith your data... and whatever youdo with that data should bedirectly tied to whatever personalgoal you have. Nowhere, nowherein this process should you hinderyourself by making an uninformedchoice about why you should notwant to use X or Y. Computers areabout YOU, not about computers.

So, let me slide back to anothercomputer lying around the house.Whether that’s my Macbook Airrunning Ubuntu, my Macbook Prorunning Mountain Lion, I might geta call on my LG Nexus 4 (runningAndroid) or pick up my book whereI left off on my iPad .. I don’t care ..

and neither should you. Windows 8might be your thing, or not (youshould at least try it). As for me, ithas one good quality of a goodoperating system: it is invisible. Inthe end, I forget what device runswhat OS: in the end, it does notmatter anymore.

full circle magazine #71 39 contents ^

BBOOOOKK RREEVVIIEEWWWritten by Copil Yáňez

Publisher: No Starch PressPages: 318Ideal For: Anyone with an interestin programming, no previousknowledge necessary

Writing a book on learning toprogram has got to be

difficult. Most of us think we knowwhat programming entails, right?You type in some goofy-lookingcode that tells your computer whatto do and, voila, Skyrim! How hardcan it be?

Very, it turns out. Even themost basic concepts inprogramming (functions, for

example), require carefulexplanations that nest comfortablywithin one another like codedMatryoshka dolls. Leave out one ofthe dolls and you have anincomplete arrangement and,likely, a non-working program.

Now imagine scaling thatcomplexity down so that a child or,say, yours truly can understand it.Now you’re talking orders ofmagnitude harder than simplyteaching someone how to code.Not only do you have to explainnon-intuitive concepts carefully,you also have to do it in anentertaining way. It’s like apediatric dentist who dresses like aclown to keep her patient fromrunning away in tears at the firstsound of drilling.

Cavity prone kids have Dr. FunnyTooth, and kids interested inprogramming have No StarchPress. Python for Kids basicallydresses up the complexities ofprogramming in a fun package, andtries to keep things light, while stillworking toward a functionalprogram.

I am clearly the rightdemographic for this book. I’m nota kid, but I pretty much eat like ateenager, so it’s almost the samething. Plus, I have no workingknowledge of programming, barelyany knowledge about computers,and only a passing familiarity withthe English language. If Python forKids can teach me to program, it’squite possible it was written by awizard.

The first thing I learned fromthis book was that Python wasnamed after Monty Python, theEnglish comedy troupe. If that’s allI’d learned then the book would beworth its cover price, because ILOVE Monty Python. But thelearning continued, mostlybecause the book is well-written,engaging, and full of simple wordsfor simple people like me.

Installing Python for use withthe book seems like it would bevery straightforward. I say seemsbecause Python came pre-installedin desktop Ubuntu. Woohoo, I’m aprogrammer already!

For non-Ubuntu platforms, thebook offers clear installationinstructions along with screencaps. Another point for No Starch:the screen caps in each chaptertypically looked exactly like what Iwas seeing on my screen. It’s asmall thing, but I always hate itwhen you have to take a momentto make sure you didn’t dosomething wrong because yourpicture doesn’t match up withwhat’s in the book.

I also had to install the latestversion of Idle (which allows you torun Python programs) and thattook about 3 seconds. What istaking so long?! Kidding.

After installing Idle and runningthrough the first few chapters, Ihad my first “Hello World” momentfinished in under 5 minutes. Notbad, especially when you considerthe attention span of the averagekid, which is on par with theattention span of the average doorknob. Source: I’m the father of twokids.

As I progressed through the

PPyytthhoonn FFoorr KKiiddss

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BOOK REVIEWbook, I learned about calls,functions, strings, lists and loops.Each time a concept wasintroduced, I was given a smallsnippet of code to enter, and anexplanation of how it worked. Theonly time something didn’t work asexpected was when I had enteredthe code incorrectly. Since thecode was short and simple, it wasan easy matter of looking throughit to identify the problem.

At this point, allow me to ranton an issue all programming bookshave in common. Why the $#%!aren’t these books spiral bound sothat I can read them comfortablywhile, you know, TYPING ON AKEYBOARD?!

/rant

Within an hour of opening thebook, I was drawing squares usingthe turtle module (which, since itleaves a trail, is really moreaccurately referred to as a snail ora hobo - presumably those aredifferent modules we learn aboutlater).

Each chapter builds on theprevious, and puzzles at the end ofeach chapter test your knowledge.I have to say, these were not

simple recreations of what hadbeen done already but were,themselves, extensions of existingconcepts. I actually got a littleclammy-handed working throughthem, feeling like a high-schoolstudent taking a pop quiz.Thankfully, all the answers areavailable athttp://nostarch.com/pythonforkids

One of the neat things aboutreading beginner programmingbooks is that you start to see theevolution of games. As I readthrough the creation of classes andobjects, and learned aboutfunctions asking for the user toinput information (age, number,

direction, action, etc), I felt like Iwas peeking behind the curtain ofthe earliest text-based dungeon-crawling games I played as a kid.Modern kids, with their Facetubeand their YouBooks and their X-Wiis, probably won’t have thatsense of nostalgia, but maybe theirparents will.

By the end of the book, I had acute little ball-and-paddle game upand running and a rudimentaryunderstanding of the conceptsused in its creation. While I’m notlikely to get called up by RockstarGames to work on Grand TheftAuto VI: Life in Sing-Sing, I do feelcomfortable recommending the

book to interested kids, or pickingup some more beginnerprogramming books for myself.There’s nothing quite like seeingthe simple lines of code createsomething on the screen andknowing how and why it happened.

I only have a few complaintsabout the book and none of themwould keep me fromrecommending it (although theymight be helpful in managingexpectations for potentialreaders).

First, of the games you get toprogram yourself, the first one, aball-and-paddle game, doesn’tmake an appearance until page190. While all the concepts leadingup to the creation of the game areexplained clearly, and make up thebulk of what you’re learning, I feltthe game came a little late. Aneasy fix for anyone interested ingetting the book who thinks thismight be an issue: simplydownload the final version of theball-and-paddle game (availablefree at the publisher’s website),run it, and then take a look at thecode. It will seem like gibberish atfirst, but, as you go through thebook, you’ll start to see howcertain modules and functions

full circle magazine #71 41 contents ^

BOOK REVIEWcould be used to create the game.

Second, while the book says it’sfor kids, it is important to explainto young readers what the bookcan and cannot do. When I showedthe book to my seven year old, hegot very excited and came up witha laundry list of things he wantedto see in the game I wasapparently going to program forhim, none of which I couldaccommodate (with the exceptionof naming the game KitchenConfidential: The Ginsu Offensive -yeah, my kid is weird). If the targetreader has a deep interest inprogramming, and understandsthat the final result will berudimentary by comparison toeven the simplest iPad app shemight be familiar with, ageshouldn’t be an issue. Otherwise,younger kids with unreasonableexpectations and/or shortattention spans are not likely tomake it all the way through thebook without boredom orfrustration.

As a side note, wheneversomeone is ready to pay me towrite a beginner programmingbook using the Diary of a WimpyKid model (basically bathroomhumor and silly cartoons), get in

touch. I have some perfect fartjokes analogies for explaininginherited classes.

Until my spiral bound New YorkTimes Bestseller comes out,Python for Kids is a perfectsubstitute!

Copil is an Aztec name that roughlytranslates to “you need my heart forwhat again?” His love of women’sshoes is chronicled atyaconfidential.blogspot.com. Youcan also watch him embarrasshimself on Twitter (@copil).

1166xx1166 SSUUDDOOKKUU

Solutions are on the second last page.

Numbers 0 to 9 and letters A to F are to be filled into the16x16 grid so that every row, every column, and every4x4 box contains 0 to 9 and A - F.

Puzzles are copyright, and kindly provided by,The Puzzle Club - www.thepuzzleclub.com

full circle magazine #71 42 contents ^

RREEVVIIEEWWWritten by Art Schreckengost

In personal computing, choicesinclude Windows, Apple, or

Linux, while tablets make do withiOS, Android, or RT. However,Google has been working in thebackground for the past coupleyears to polish its Linux/Androidknock-off, Chrome OS.

Overwhelm is not a word you’llfind to describe the early $600Chromebook laptops with theirpuny 16GB flash drives, weak ARMprocessors normally found intablets, and 12-inch screens. Thoseon a budget could opt for the$300+ Chromebox, a desktoplooking suspiciously like a Mac Minibut still packing the small flashdrive, and requiring that a monitor,keyboard and mouse be purchasedseparately.

No, the flurry of interestwouldn’t peak until the release ofthe $200 Acer C7 Chromebook inlate 2012, sporting a beefier(although much maligned) IntelSandy Bridge Celeron processorand a more adequate 320GBspinning hard drive. Same basicscreen size, though.

Since the Acer release saleshave skyrocketed, and finding anew one can be tough (go toGoogle, they still sell them for thelist price instead of the $40 to $50markup seen elsewhere) but I gotmine the old-fashioned way -- gotit from a kid who bought one andgot another for Christmas. Ah, howI love a discount!

But does it live up to the hype?Can Chrome OS be the next bestOS and a serious threat to the bigboys?

Before we get to that question,it would be wise to give a briefhistory of this operating systemand a little background on this sub-$200 laptop.

First there are two versions,both based upon current Googlebrowser offerings. Chromium OS isthe beta testbed that anybody canattempt to run and/or install ontheir computer (have fun, it workson a limited few). Althoughreleases are issued daily, it’spossible to find a dud or two andthey come with zero support and

no guarantees. Those itching togive Chromium OS a shot can go tohttp://chromeos.hexxeh.net/ fordownloads and detailedinstructions.

Chrome OS is the releaseproduct, and isn’t publicallyavailable unless you fork over $200to $600 for the dedicated desktopsor laptops. It comes with dailyupdates (with Chromium you’restuck with what you get, it’s neverupdated), and security featuressuch as data encryption, verifiedlogon and sandboxing.

As for the computer, you’veseen it a million times before fromthe Acer netbook class. Sporting astandard 11.6” glossy screen (allChromebooks, for whateverreason, don’t come any larger), ithas 3 USB ports, no optical drive,HDMI out, wireless (plus anEthernet jack), and the ubiquitousSD card slot. The only Chromeidentifier is the logo on the lid,otherwise it’s similar to theWindows 7 or 8 variation seen instores for at least $100 more.

It’s the operating system thatwarrants the most attention,though.

Pay close attention MS, Appleand Linux (you, too, Android, evenif Google does own you), here’s alesson for all of you in ease andefficiency in 3 easy steps.

1. Turn on the power.2. Choose your wireless signal

or plug in your landline connection.3. Enter your Gmail account

info, or opt for Guest Mode if youdon’t have Gmail yet.

That’s it. All of maybe 2minutes, some of which was spentfishing for my wireless securitycode. Add another few minutes asChrome syncs the info from yourGmail account, and you’re out all of10 minutes.

And what of the reviews thatstate Chrome OS boots in under 10seconds? True, but only for theflash drive models. Those withstandard hard drives will see thattime doubled, but 20 seconds isnothing to gripe about, and is still

CChhrroommee OOSS

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REVIEWbetter than even the muchballyhooed OS X running off aflash drive.

Truly impressive is the recoverytime from deep sleep mode(initiated, as always, by closing thelid on an active session and thenreopening it), which often was lessthan a second! Those interested inshutdown figures will be amazedat times averaging 2 seconds.

How can this machine be soquick? First the OS weighs in at just250MB, which puts it in theflyweight class along with PuppyLinux and the like. Second, theBIOS is locked, prohibiting theintroduction of other operatingsystems. Press F12 all you want atboot, but all it’ll do is ignore you(in normal operation post-boot,F12 brings up the page elementsinfo area). Third, it doesn’t useprograms, it uses apps (more onthis later).

Another reason for the quickboot time can be attributed towhat you see post-boot, mainly anabbreviated desktop consisting ofa background image and twotaskbars at the bottom. The leftone is called “launcher” andconsists of app icons. To the right

is an area for wireless signal,battery life, and the time. Inaddition, the photo chosen by theuser is also displayed at the farright bottom and this acts as amenu for settings when clicked.

While additional icons can beadded to the launcher, the rightone is set with no adjustmentsallowed. In fact, other thanchanging position and allowing forautohide, there is nothing else tobe done with either taskbar.

At this point one should noticethat Chrome OS didn’t get its namefrom the metal coating, that honorcomes from the only nativeprogram included -- the Chromebrowser. Everything else youchoose to add is an app that worksin that browser.

Open Chrome (first time userswill get a blank page), and click thelink in the lower right corner forthe Web Store. That opens a bevyof apps under various categories.Click on any one of these and theoption to “Add to Chrome”appears. Click on that and it’sinstalled, or is it?

Actually, no. Unlike yourAndroid tablet where apps are

either installed or held in thecloud, Chrome OS apps are merelyicons that link to websites. Nothingis physically installed other thanthe linked icons. Those desiring toinstall and run programs likeMicrosoft Office, Quicken, Skype,etc, will be dismayed to discoverprograms don’t work -- Chrome is itin that respect; however, there areworkarounds for some programsand that’ll be discussed shortly.

Might explain why my harddrive space never decreased.

Expect more of the same withperipheral devices, too. USB flashand hard drives work fine alongwith some (but not all) DVDplayers and mice, but you can kissyour standard printers and DVDburners goodbye -- no drivers andno way of installing them.

But there are other curiosities,too. For example:

• Apps are thrown into the Appslibrary as they are installed, notalphabetically. After a couplehundred entries it became soconfusing I had to install yetanother app (Simple Launcher) toput everything in order (anotherhint to Google -- correct this issue).

Also, unlike the Chrome browserused in Apple, Microsoft, and Linuxsystems, this version does not listinstalled apps when a blank page isopened -- everything goes into theApps library. If you see an onlinescreenshot with app icons on thedesktop outside of the browser,that’s an older version (apparentlydiscontinued probably because itrequired the browser to beminimized in order to see apps).

• Google recommends creating arecovery flash drive (a 2GB unit willdo) and there’s a reason. ShouldChrome OS die, the only other wayto get a copy of the recovery file isto go online, something that maybe a tad difficult if yourChromebook won’t boot and youdon’t have another computer.There is no buying a DVD orbumming someone’s flash drivesince the recovery files differ fromone unit to another; however,Google is more than happy to giveyou a copy for later use.

• The included Chrome browser isnearly identical to what you’reprobably using now, but it doeshave subtle differences. Pinningtabs (right clicking to reduce themto ¼ size and leaving thempermanently in the windows area

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REVIEWfor future use) doesn’t work here.Pin all the tabs you like but they’llbe gone at next boot (Google isworking on this one). Theminimize/maximize/close buttonsfound in most other browsersdon’t exist here, at least nottogether. Maximize pulls multipleduties, but you wouldn’t know thatby just looking, and the only way toexpose the other options is bydoing a mouseover at which timeseveral choices are presented(move window right or left,minimize, restore, and go back).

• Like the idea of a Recycle Bin,trash can, or whatever your currentOS calls the place to hold deletedfiles? Well, there is a slight benthere. There is no trash receptaclein Chrome OS itself, it’s in theGoogle Drive online. I’ve seenmany complaints about theinability to retrieve deleted files,but these users apparently don’tknow its location; however, it isodd that it doesn’t exist in the OSbut in the cloud.

• There are thousands of appsavailable in the Web Store, butmany of them are repeats, just likein any other app store I’ve seen.Hardly scientific, but I’d be willingto bet that nearly a third are

repeats with different names. Yetother apps linked to websitesoffering a boatload of additionalapps in addition to the one Iinitially picked, so I guess it allevens out.

• One could assume that if it’s inthe Web Store, it should work inChrome OS; however, that’s notthe case. Much like Linux andAndroid, what you see is notalways what you get.

• Updating is done in thebackground like Windows, and thisprocess may produce a noticeableslowdown in system operations.Since there is no warning aboutbackground issues, it’s easy toblame a bad connection when suchmay not be the case. Rarelyhappens, but it’s an aggravationwhen it does.

So, if nearly everything is cloudbased, does that mean yourChromebook is a brick if noconnection is available?

Contrary to other reviews I’veread, not true at all. Go to:https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/collection/offline_enabled?utm_source=chrome-ntp-icon, and you’ll find roughly 500

apps that can be run withouthaving an active connection (but,of course, you have to have anactive connection to get apps thatwork without one -- how ironic).

So, if you can’t run programs,and you’re limited to apps, how doyou perform basic office functionssuch as word processing?

Enter Google Drive, a poorman’s version of MS Office. Thosebuying new Chrome OS devices get100GB storage space free for 2years (at $5 monthly as the normalfee, that represents a savings of$120), and with that comes a seriesof online programs (or are theyapps, too?) to handle officefunctions. This includes GoogleDocs, Sheets, Slides, Forms andDrawings, all self-explanatory innaming (nobody can accuse Googleof wasting marketing funds onprogram titles).

These are worthy competitorsto the likes of LibreOffice, and docontain most of the basicfunctions, with the majordifference being the method ofsaving files. For example, insteadof the usual .doc you might find inWord, Docs uses .gdoc, but filesdownloaded away from the Google

drive can be reset to formatsincluding .docx, .txt, .rtf, and even.odt (normally associated withopen document formats used byLibreOffice Writer).

Word of warning, though.Google Drive’s office offeringscannot open Open Document(.odt) files. I found this out when Icreated a review in Docs,downloaded it as .odt and thendecided to go back for editing onlyto discover Docs couldn’t open itagain.

One good point about GoogleDrive is that you can set theparameters to allow for offlineediting, with any changes madewithout an internet connectionbeing uploaded the next time oneis present. It does have a tick inthat spreadsheets and drawingscan only be viewed, but notaltered; yet documents andpresentations can be changed.

For those tethered toLibreOffice, there is the rollAppapp which installs a link towww.rollapp.com (any OS can usethis site). Pay a visit and you’ll begreeted by nearly all of theprograms normally found in nearlyall Ubuntu variants, even games,

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REVIEWbut there is a price to pay. Sincethese are actual programsattempting to operate in a browserwindow, there is some lag (I couldouttype the cursor), but I got usedto it.

What of music and video files?Take your choice of Play Movies orPlay Music, and, while either one isas plain as beige paint, they areinstant (less than 2 seconds fromclick to play), and do an admirablejob even if controls are limited tovolume, rewind, reverse, andstop/play. The only failureexperienced on my end was aninability to play .flv files, but thoseare easily converted to mp3 ormp4 and then played.

Chances are if you look longand hard enough in the Web Store,you’ll find something to replaceyour favorite program. ForFacebook and Skype, thatreplacement was imo messenger(all lower case), and, for Quicken orMS Money, the Finance41 app willprobably do the trick (for thoseneeding just a checkbook, thereare several nice templates inSheets in Google Drive).

Carrying the minimalisttradition forward, Chrome OS calls

its file manager Files, but the nameisn’t the only thing lacking pizzazz.Opening Files presents the userwith a gray box consisting of twofolders marked Downloads andGoogle Drive.

What about Pictures,Documents, Videos, and the like?Sorry, no folders for them, nor canyou add any to the Files areadirectly. The only option is to addsubfolders to either Downloads orGoogle Drive, or insert a flash driveor SD card at which point a newfolder is created.

In short, anything you downloador add to your computer from flashor other external drives goes toDownloads, never mind the factyou may not have downloaded anyof it. Anything you want shifted tothe cloud goes to Google Drive(yes, you can use Dropbox,Spideroak, and others, too). End ofstory.

Ah, but now for the bizarreaspect of Chrome OS -- printing.Unlike wired, wireless ornetworked printing formats, thisOS uses Google Cloud Print, asystem in which your files are sentto a server that eventuallyconnects to your wireless cloud-

aware printer and finishes the job.

Notice the word eventually. Inmy testing of two documents (bothjust one sentence) one took nearly5 minutes to finally print, and theother took almost an hour.Checking online, I discovered somecomplaints that jobs were delayednearly a day before finally printing.Welcome to server based printing –where you’re at the mercy ofsomebody’s server in Timbuktu.

Not only that, but this OS issnotty about the printers it’ll playnice with. Go tohttp://www.google.com/cloudprint/learn/printers.html# for a currentand extremely limited listing.Unless you have one of thesehanging around, the only otheroption is to have a Windows, Appleor Linux computer with theChrome browser installed in whichcase it can be set to accept yourChrome OS documents for printing(not as complicated as it sounds).

Finally, what of reviews thatstate Ubuntu 12.04 can run quitefine on this unit? No fiction thereand it does work, but be aware ofthe limitations.

Essentially, you’ll need roughly

3 hours of your time (most ofwhich is spent downloading aspecial version of Ubuntu just forChrome OS), and a thoroughreview of the tutorial athttp://liliputing.com/2012/11/how-to-install-ubuntu-12-04-on-the-199-acer-c7-chromebook.html.

If all goes well, you getChrUbuntu, an Ubuntu variant inwhich user ID and password are setto “user”. Otherwise, the onlymajor difference is the method ofintroduction. Since Chrome OSdoesn’t allow for USB or opticaldrive booting, this OS is strictly a“download and immediatelyinstall” affair.

The other limitation has to dowith the locked BIOS. With no dual-booting allowed, users have tochoose early-on which OS theydesire at boot, and there is noswitching back and forth withoutdoing a reboot. In fact, to go fromone OS to the next requires codeentry before shutting down, and,while it’s just one line, it’s not aseasy as keying in “switch toChrUbuntu” (see the websitementioned early).

The good in doing this? Ubunturuns quicker on the Chromebook

full circle magazine #71 46 contents ^

REVIEWthan on my dual core i3 pushing8GB RAM. You also now haveprograms instead of apps, soonline access isn’t as critical, and,since the computer’s hardware isgeneric, everything (sound, video,etc) works perfectly.

The bad? You will have toremember to key in Ctrl + D atevery boot to bypass the ChromeOS checker and if you ever desireto return to Chrome OS byreinstating the checker, it may verywell blow off the Ubuntu partition.If you forget to do the keystrokeabove, Chrome OS takes anadditional 25 seconds or so lookingfor its boot order before giving upand going to Ubuntu.

So, what’s the final verdict?

If ever a threat to Apple, MS orLinux existed, this is it.

First, you get a $200 computerwith decent specs that can beupgraded. If that doesn’t cornerthe market, I don’t know what will.Cripes, you can’t get a decenttablet for that price, and, if youwant a keyboard, that’ll cost evenmore.

Second, it’s fast. Fast to boot,

and fast to operate, even if appsare only as good as the websiteposting them. When I tested theMS Windows 8 RT tablet, I wasappalled at the lethargic nature ofoperations and equalled shockedby the $600 price tag. Chrome OSis a blessing by comparison.

Third, Google Drive and itsoffice suite are a real threat, and Ican see a day when it couldseriously hurt Microsoft’s Officeoffering (especially since the priceis free).

Further complicating mattersfor the competition is thepersistent rumor that Google mayactually establish Androidcompatibility opening up anothermillion or so apps for general use.To mix fruit metaphors, that’llreally upset the apple cart.

But this isn’t to say it’s allpeachy with Chrome OS. It’s fastand relatively easy to use (myneighbor still swears trying todecipher Windows 8 but he caughton to Chrome OS quickly), but itstill doesn’t use programs, andmany may find the offlinecapabilities somewhat lacking. Inaddition, the one major thing itlacks is the ability to handle virtual

machines. Unless you jumpthrough hoops to add Ubuntu,you’re pretty much stuck with whatyou see. No testing of anythingelse -- period.

In addition, Google has takenwhat I call the “Atari” position.Those who may remember theoriginal Atari gaming systems fromthe 80s know they died becausethe company made the systemsbut ignored those making thegames. Quality control became areal issue with many games beingabsolute garbage. Apps are greatwhen they do what they aresupposed to, but since Google’sinterest is in the OS, and not whatyou run on the app websites,quality control is somewhat lackingin this respect. Much like Android,most of the apps are good to greatbut those that are awful can reallyruin your day: a couple haveinduced page freezing.

This means it’s not quite up tostandard computer replacementyet, but it may be quickly.Remember that many laughed atthe pre-Google Android, and gotcaught off-guard when it nearlycreamed the equivalent MS MetroUI, and Chrome OS could prove tobe the next big breakout.

Although I rarely recommendcomputers, and usuallyconcentrate on the operatingsystems, I can see no reason not toget this inexpensive Chromebook.If you can find another $200 laptopthat isn’t a beater, refurbished, orforeign junk posing as a computer,let me know.

Overall, I give Chrome OS andthe Acer C7 a solid 4 out of 5 stars.

full circle magazine #71 47 contents ^

LLEETTTTEERRSSIf you would like to submit a letter for publication, complimentor complaint, please email it to: letters@fullcirclemagazine.org.PLEASE NOTE: some letters may be edited for space.

WHERE IS FOSS?

Apps for sale everywhere.Google Play, Apple's App

Store, and now Ubuntu SoftwareCentre. Now, I have nothingagainst paying for a very goodapplication, and I also realize thatit takes a lot of time and effort tocreate an application. But, thereare a lot of applications out therethat shouldn't cost a cent. Now justlook at Ubuntu Software Centreand the number of applicationsthat aren't free that have sprungup over the last year. My challengeto the developers out there whowant to create great programs forUbuntu and the soon-to-be Ubuntuphone is: Keep it free and Keep itopen. Then people will want to useUbuntu over other devices.

Chris Love

CRON + GUI

I read Jeremy Boden's interestingarticle on cron, a useful and

sometimes under-appreciated tool.For those who prefer to use GUI

editors rather than vi or nano,readers may be interested to knowhow to do this. As Jeremy alreadywrote, the way to edit cron is:

crontab -e

However, you can change thedefault editor to a GUI one asfollows:

VISUAL=gedit crontab -e

You can replace gedit withleafpad, or whatever yourpreferred editor is. Or, you can setVISUAL in your .bashrc file to makethis permanent and avoid havingto type it each time.

The two find commands as usedcan also be simplified to avoidusing the -exec option, as follows.

find ~/.thumbnails -type f-atime +7 -delete

find ~/.thumbnails -type f-atime +7 -ls | more

You could substitute -print for-ls in the second command –depending on how you prefer theoutput. In certain cases, the

commands as shown are safer thanthe original, although this isunlikely to happen in thethumbnails folder.

Paddy Landau

SOLYDXK

I saw your facebook post theother day, and downloaded

SolydK to try it out.

I am not a Linux guru, but I dolike trying new Distros. I have beenusing various Linux distrosexclusively for the last 3 years(hint, NO Windows). I think Solyd isa great distro. I am using the liveversion on my home-built desktop,after trying it out on my Toshibalaptop (which worked great).

I like it so much I planned toinstall it alongside my Zorin 6,which has not impressed me much.Zorin 6 doesn't seem that muchdifferent from version 5, so I waslooking for something new.

One thing that really appeals to

Join us on:

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ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=270

goo.gl/FRTMl

FULL CIRCLE NEEDS YOU!

Without reader inputFull Circle would be an

empty PDF file (which I don'tthink many people would findparticularly interesting). Weare always looking for articles,reviews, anything! Even smallthings like letters and desktopscreens help fill the magazine.

See page 29 to read our basicguidelines. Follow those andyou're almost guaranteedsuccess.

Have a look at the last page (ofany issue) to get the details ofwhere to send yourcontributions.

full circle magazine #71 48 contents ^

Full Circle PodcastEpisode 33, WithAdded Horsepower

Your hosts:• Les Pounder• Tony Hughes• Jon Chamberlain• Oliver Clarkand Freaky Clown

from theBlackpool (UK) LUGhttp://blackpool.lug.org.uk

In this episode we are joinedby Freaky Clown, we talkabout the Ubuntu Phonerelease, Linux peripheralsand some events.

LETTERSme is the fact that, when I hoverover a file, I get a lot more infothan any Ubuntu version I've tried.

I have six old Windows virusinfected hard drives that havemusic I want to keep. I used therecovery disk to get what ended upbeing recovered files with notmuch info on them. A different andmuch, much better info with Solyd.

I read today that, on March 1st,SolydK is coming out with anotherversion. I will happily use the liveversion till March 1st at which timeIll install it on my hard drive nextto Zorin 6, and, hopefully, replaceit. I'm not badmouthing anyUbuntu distro, but am hoping thebest for SolydXK.

Dennis McClellan

Ronnie says: Checknextmonth’sFCMfora full reviewofSolydXK

from long-time reviewerArt.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I have been reading thismagazine for many years now

and I keep older issues on mylaptop for reference.

But...sometimes, I want to readagain an article about somethingspecific I remember having read ina former issue. Finding the articleagain in my collection of FCM issueis... very tedious and timeconsuming!

That is why I had this idea: howabout building a compilation of allarticles published, let's say on ayearly basis. The list could besorted out by themes, making iteasy to find the specific FCM issuecontaining that article.

Gilles Tournier

Ronnie says: Goodidea, butwebeatyou to it. At the top ofthe FCM

site is a button marked'Table of

Contents'which links to:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuMag

azine/FullIssueIndex. It's notbang

up-to-date, but it's close!Gordhas

also just releasedaGoogle Docs file

which lists all how-to's andeven

questions answeredsince the

beginning of(FullCircle) time:

http://goo.gl/C6JiI.

The Ubuntu Podcast covers allthe latest news and issues facingUbuntu Linux users and FreeSoftware fans in general. Theshow appeals to the newest userand the oldest coder. Ourdiscussions cover thedevelopment of Ubuntu butaren’t overly technical. We arelucky enough to have somegreat guests on the show, tellingus first hand about the latestexciting developments they areworking on, in a way that we canall understand! We also talkabout the Ubuntu communityand what it gets up to.

The show is presented bymembers of the UK’s UbuntuLinux community. Because it iscovered by the Ubuntu Code ofConduct it is suitable for all.

The show is broadcast live everyfortnight on a Tuesday evening(British time) and is available fordownload the following day.

podcast.ubuntu-uk.org

full circle magazine #71 49 contents ^

full circle magazine #71 50 contents ^

QQ&&AACompiled by Gord Campbell

If you have Ubuntu-related questions, email them to:questions@fullcirclemagazine.org, and Gord will answer them in a futureissue. Please include as much information as you can about your problem.

Q Is there a guide to Ubuntu onthe new UEFI motherboards?

A Yes:https://help.ubuntu.com/com

munity/UEFI

Note that the starting point is64-bit Ubuntu, versions 12.10 or12.04.2 -- and the point two isimportant.

Q Can I run the latest AdobeFlash plugin on an old Athlon

XP CPU?

A (Thanks to Troon2 in theUbuntu Forums) No, the

plugin requires a CPU instructionset extension called SSE2, whichthe Athlon XP does not include. Ifyou can find version 10.2 of theplugin, it should work.

Q How can I download the"Ubuntu Desktop Manual" so

that I can get a printout?

A (Thanks to deadflowr in theUbuntu Forums) You can use

the print option for UbuntuManual:http://ubuntu-manual.org/downloads

Q We have a network whichincludes Mint 12 and 13, and

Windows XP and 7. The Mint 12computer has a printer attached,how can we use that printer fromthe other computers?

A There's an excellent writeupin the community docs:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NetworkPrintingWithUbuntu

When I went through it, theonly discrepancy I found was thatmy shared printers appeared aftera few seconds in the Windows "adda printer" dialogue. The authorcalls that a miracle!

Q I'm building a high-performance computer, what

size SSD do I need?

A If you will also have a harddrive, 120 GB should be more

than enough. Even if you dual-bootwith Windows, it should be happywith 80 GB, and then use 40 GB for/, and put /home on the hard drive.If you don't plan to have a harddrive, the important factor is howmuch media (pictures, songs andvideos) you expect to have. Iconsume a lot of media; my Musicand Pictures folders contain about15 GB each, but my Videos folder,and sub-folders, is over 200 GB.

Q How can I run Ubuntu from aUSB stick without the

shopping lens? I have tried a"persistent" stick, and it's veryslow.

A Install Ubuntu onto the stick,formatted as EXT2. You might

also want to use "noatime," asexplained here:http://tldp.org/LDP/solrhe/Securing-Optimizing-Linux-RH-Edition-v1.3/chap6sec73.html

Then, of course, turn off theshopping lens: sudo apt-getremove unity-lens-shopping

Q My goal is to install theoriginal Tomb Raider game

that I have on CD, and that runs onboth Windows 95 and MS-DOS. Itried to install it under WINE, butthe window immediately closed.

A (Thanks to ibjsb4 in theUbuntu Forums) For old DOS

games, use DOSbox, it's in thesoftware center.

Q I am using ClamAvwith LinuxMint 14 and have just run it on

some old files that were producedusing Windows MS Word. ClamAvfound viruses in 3 files, and it letsyou quarantine or delete the filebut not to repair it. My question is,are there no Linux Viruses that weshould worry about?

A There was one Linux trojanmentioned in the news a few

issues back, and there was afollow-up describing how toensure it can not be installed onyour system. (FCM#67, Q&A)

ClamAV searches for Windowsmalware, so you avoid the

full circle magazine #71 51 contents ^

Q & Aembarrassment of infecting yourfriends. Also, a lot of people runmail servers on Linux, withWindows clients. To the best of myknowledge, Word viruses can notinfect a Linux system.

There are mixed opinions aboutJava. I'm no expert, but it appearsthat Java is inherently insecure;many experts suggest removing itfrom your system. However, thatmeans some web sites don't work.I have it installed on my system,and visit sites which use it. Notethat Java is not the same asJavascript, which is OK.

I am convinced that the biggestdanger is responding to fakeemails. If you get an unexpectedemail, hover over any links, and youwill find they don't go where theysay they will.

Q How can I run the Shrew SoftVPN client in Ubuntu 12.10?

A See post 4 of this thread:http://ubuntuforums.org/sho

wthread.php?t=2078420

Q How can I findKeyboard/Mouse serial

number or information throughterminal?

A This is from a source whoshould know: "keyboards do

not, as a rule, communicate aboutwhat they are to the computer."Mice are even worse.

Q What do you sages use forautomatic backup of your

systems?

A Good question! I don't use anautomatic backup.

Somewhere around here, I have a250 GB hard drive which containsmy historical "good stuff." I don'tbother with backup of downloadedvideos; if they all disappeared, Iwould say, "oh, well." I useDropbox for the stuff I'm currentlyworking on, which means it getssynched to my other computers.

The downside of Dropbox: if Idelete a file, it gets deletedeverywhere.

TIPS AND TECHNIQUESSo Easy

Sometime around 2006, Icouldn't resist buying a

Lexmark X1240 multi-functionprinter/scanner at Walmart, forabout $60 (Canadian) if memoryserves. It was connected to the XPmachine, and worked fine.However, it had the usual problemof ink cartridges drying out whenyou don't print much, so by 2009 itbecame a scanner, and I bought anetworked Brother laser printerWITH NO INK CARTRIDGES.

Soon after getting the X1240, Imoved to Ubuntu. When Iupgraded my wife to a newercomputer running Windows 7, Icouldn't find the driver disc for theLexmark. OK, go online, I stillcouldn't find the drivers. (I laterfound not just the drivers, but allthe software which was includedwith the multi-function unit -- butit took several tries.)

Today I wanted to scansomething, so I decided to try theLexmark. I connected it to mycomputer, turned it on, Linux said,"a Lexmark 1200 series hasappeared." The ink cartridges havebeen dry for years, so I wasn't ableto test that it can actually print,but I could run "simple scan" andscan documents to my heart'scontent. Total setup time, 30seconds to plug in the power cordand the USB cable.

The Lexmark software had anOCR option, which Simple Scandoesn't include. However, thereare a couple of programs I coulduse to go from image to text, if Iever need to.

Everything should work thiseasily.

full circle magazine #71 52 contents ^

Jennifer is a fine arts student fromthe Chicagoland area. You can follow@missjendie on Twitter or visit herblog at missjendie.com.

UUBBUUNNTTUU GGAAMMEESSWritten by Jennifer Roger

It’s safe to say that most gamesrequire a certain degree of skill

and precision, but KRUNCH is agame that takes it up a notch, ortwo... or three. KRUNCH is thedebut from LeGrudge & Rugged inwhich your goal is to navigatethrough deadly obstacles and findthe exit as quickly as you can. Itgets more challenging andfrustrating as you progress, but it’salways rewarding once you doadvance. KRUNCH certainlydemands precision and speed, but,without a little patience, you’ll findyourself hacked in half orelectrocuted in no time.

Oh, speaking of time, yourhealth gauge gradually decreases

so you’re never without a sense ofurgency. There is a speed boost tohelp you outrun enemies, but thisdrains your life faster, and it’slimited to a certain amount that isreserved strictly for health. In mostlevels, monsters are an infrequentnuisance that offer a slow demiserather than an abrupt end likeother obstacles.

Never be too certain thatyou've made it through a levelunscathed. There are sometimesunpleasant surprises that awaityou. And don't bother trying tohide in a safe spot, because thereare none in KRUNCH. You cannever let your guard down; onlytiming, precision, and quickthinking will help you survive a

level. But death is certain in thisgame, and it’s not shy aboutreminding you either. Each timeyou die, the following screentaunts you with stats like howmany times you've died in a certainamount of time and in whatmanner.

Keyboard controls are simpleand intuitive, but, since you’retechnically floating, there is anadded element of movement.Overdoing it with the space-keycan send you flying into danger.There’s little room for error soeven subtle movements can haveyou bouncing into a wall of spikes.Luckily, the game supportsgamepads which does add a levelof smoothness to the controls andworked perfectly with myAfterglow controller and Xpadder.

Aesthetically, KRUNCH isextremely polished and well done.It has great retro graphics, but thesoundtrack is what really stood outfor me. The tracks provide theintensity and urgency throughoutthe stages to keep up the flow ofthe game. The music and sounds

are never intrusive or annoying andalways fit the mood of the level.

Overall, KRUNCH proves to beengaging, fast paced, andrewarding – even after dyingcountless times. With over 100levels, boss battles, andleaderboards, there is a lot ofcontent packed into the game forextra replayability. KRUNCH isavailable now for Windows, Mac,and Linux, athttp://krunchgame.com/. You canpurchase the game only for $9.99,or you can get the game andsoundtrack for $13.99.

Pros: Challenging yet rewarding,great soundtrackCons: Sensitive controls

KKRRUUNNCCHH

full circle magazine #71 53 contents ^

LLIINNUUXX CCEERRTTIIFFIIEEDDWritten by Richard Philip Witt

Richard Philip Witt, 30, living inSwitzerland. I’ve been using Ubuntudesktop and server for roughly 2years. But only for the basics. Now Iwant to discover its capabilities. Anymentors out there? Email me:chilledwinston2@hotmail.com.

Let's face it, when done poorly,learning can be very dull

indeed. My uninspired flashcardapproach had been slowing myprogress and, last month, broughtit to a grinding halt. Hence mymissing article from FCM#70. As ithappens, this in itself is quiteironic; I initially decided to writemonthly articles to act as a check,to discipline myself to covermaterial in order to be able toreport on it. Needless to say, itfailed, but at the same time itforced me to rethink my approachto learning, and the tentativesolution came in the form of 'Linuxfrom Scratch'.

PROWESS

To cover it briefly, as the namesuggests, Linux from Scratch (LFS)is a guide to building your ownlinux distribution from the groundup. What I've realised is that sexy ismotivating (yes engineering anoperating system is sexy). As theadage goes: "If you want to build aship, don't drum up the men togather wood, divide the work, and

give orders. Instead, teach them toyearn for the vast and endless sea."

Before you can build your LFSoperating system, you mustpartition off about 10-15GB.* Thistask brought about a great deal ofLPIC-relevant learning (LinuxProfessional InstituteCertification). I learned how to usethe fdisk and parted commandsand to interpret their outputs.Output interpretation requires abasic understanding of filesystems. This partition-taskfocussed my reading, and hereLPIC-relevant texts are valuable.They give plenty of backgroundinformation and clearly explain the

command and its options. There's asecond salient point here. Withinthe confines of my everydayUbuntu-ing (reading email, playingchess, internet, FCM, watchingfilms), I would never come topartition a hard drive. It justwouldn't enter my horizon, andarbitrarily exploring partitioningseems abstract and contrived. Onthe other hand, when I successfullypartition my hard drive for my ownoperating system, I gain a sense ofachievement. In short, LPIC isdesigned to train up SystemAdmins: it's a professionalqualification. Until command-lineLPIC training materials exist,making use of LFS to learn about

partitioning and filesystems is apragmatic option.

*I haven't successfully created thepartition yet. When I installed Ubuntu12.04 LTS, I created one huge ext4partition (110GB), and one swap partition(10GB). I never thought I'd need topartition further. Another lesson learned.

full circle magazine #71 54 contents ^

MMYY DDEESSKKTTOOPP

This is my desktop screenshot. As you can see, my desktopuses Cairo Dock at the bottom and Conky on the right.

OS: Ubuntu 12.10 (quantal) 32-bit Kernel Linux 3.5.0-21-genericGNOME 3.6.0Processor: Intel Core i3-2100 CPU @ 3.10GHz x 2Memory: 3.9 GiBTheme: Mac-os-x-themeCursor theme: Macbuntu-Xii-CursorIcon theme: MatrilineareGTK+Theme: Mac-os-x-theme

Halidi Doank

Your chance to show the world your desktop or PC. Email your screenshots andphotos to: misc@fullcirclemagazine.org and include a brief paragraph about yourdesktop, your PC's specs and any other interesting tidbits about your setup.

Greetings from Ecuador!I'm new to Linux. Just started last September with Ubuntu12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) after Windows 7 crashed. I'm stilllearning the basics but honestly I can say I'm feeling satisfied.My laptop is much faster than before.

My specs:Laptop: Dell Inspiron with UnityMemory: 2 GBProcessor: Intel® Core™ i3 CPU M 380 @ 2.53GHZ x 2Graphics: Intel® Ironlake MobileDisk: 313.1 GB

Francisco J. Robles

full circle magazine #71 55 contents ^

MY DESKTOP

Long time reader; first time contributor.

I have been using Ubuntu since 7.04, and, apart from a brief spellwith Bodhi (which I loved, but which required a little moremaintenance than I like), have been an Ubuntu user all that time.

I have used the BUUF icon set almost as long. It is beautiful, andit makes Unity look a little less glib and a little more homely. Ifound the wallpaper on Deviant art, and have stuck with it eventhough it's designed for Lucid Lynx and I'm now on 12:10. I lovethe texture of it, and the Ubuntu circle has never looked morebeautiful.

It's not flashy, but this is my desktop, and it feels like home.

Peter Mason

I run Ubuntu 12.04 on my laptop ASUS A42N. It uses LXDEand Metacity for window manager. Why did I chooseMetacity? Because I think it has 'more colors' than thedefault LXDE's Openbox.

gtk theme : AmbianceMetacity : Ambiance SquaredIcons: Faenza

Husni Amri

full circle magazine #71 56 contents ^

PUZZLE SOLUTIONS

CO

DE

WO

RD

Codeword and 16x16 Suduko puzzles arecopyright, and kindly provided by, The PuzzleClub - www.thepuzzleclub.com

SU

DO

KU

full circle magazine #71 57 contents ^

HHOOWW TTOO CCOONNTTRRIIBBUUTTEEFull Circle Team

Editor - Ronnie Tuckerronnie@fullcirclemagazine.orgWebmaster - Rob Kerfiaadmin@fullcirclemagazine.orgPodcast - Les Pounder & Co.podcast@fullcirclemagazine.org

Editing & Proofreading

Mike Kennedy, Lucas Westermann,Gord Campbell, Robert Orsino,Josh Hertel, Bert Jerred

Our thanks go to Canonical, the manytranslation teams around the worldand Thorsten Wilms for the FCM logo.

FULL CIRCLE NEEDS YOU!A magazine isn't a magazine without articles and Full Circle is noexception. We need your opinions, desktops, stories, how-to's,reviews, and anything else you want to tell your fellow *buntu users.Send your articles to: articles@fullcirclemagazine.org

We are always looking for new articles to include in Full Circle. For help and adviceplease see the Official Full Circle Style Guide: http://url.fullcirclemagazine.org/75d471

Send your comments or Linux experiences to: letters@fullcirclemagazine.orgHardware/software reviews should be sent to: reviews@fullcirclemagazine.orgQuestions for Q&A should go to: questions@fullcirclemagazine.orgDesktop screens should be emailed to: misc@fullcirclemagazine.org... or you can visit our forum via: fullcirclemagazine.org

FCM#72Deadline:Sunday 07th Apr. 2013.Release:Friday 26th Apr. 2013.

EPUB Format - Recent editions of Full Circle have a link to the epub file on the downloads page. If you have any problems withthe epub file, you can drop an email to: mobile@fullcirclemagazine.org

Google Currents - Install the Google Currents app on your Android/Apple devices, search for 'full circle' (within the app) andyou'll be able to add issues 55+. Or, you can click the links on the FCM download pages.

Ubuntu Software Centre - You can get FCM via the Ubuntu Software Centre: https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/. Search for 'fullcircle', choose an issue, and click the download button.

Issuu - You can read Full Circle online via Issuu: http://issuu.com/fullcirclemagazine. Please share and rate FCM as it helps tospread the word about FCM and Ubuntu Linux.

Ubuntu One - You can now have an issue delivered to your free Ubuntu One space by clicking the 'Send to Ubuntu One' buttonwhich is available on issues 51+.

Getting Full Circle Magazine: