As an initiative of Benjamin Humphrey, in 2009 The Ubuntu Manual sees the first light.

Now after a year of hard work, they release their second edition of a great manual of 168 pages.

Covering from Ubuntu installation to security and troubleshooting, going through hardware and other topics. This is a great guide and a must have for anyone (Individual or company) trying to start with Ubuntu.

If you think you can collaborate with them, see here how to get involved with this project.

It does not matter if you are a beginner or an advanced user, download Ubuntu Manual and start or continue learning.

Ubuntu is dominating the mindshare for desktop distros, but there’s still a place for rivals – even those built on the Ubuntu foundation – to take things in different directions. Mint attempts to create a more polished desktop with a focus on usability and elegance. The core version, like Ubuntu, is based on Gnome, but is accompanied by packages based on other environments – in this case, KDE. But the big question is, can a KDE flavoured Mint do better than Kubuntu? Read on to find out.

Part of the project’s ethos is to have all your hardware work out-of-the-box with no configuration. In most cases, that’s what happens. We had some installation issues, but a search of the web didn’t find anyone else having the same trouble, so we think this was an isolated problem.

The KDE desktop is clean, blue-green and minimal, with just the desktop folder Plasmoid displayed, and a single panel at the base of the screen. Additional Plasmoids and panels can be added using the icon in the top-right.

It’s all very smart and the theme’s carried across other apps, including Firefox, ensuring consistency. There is, of course, the myriad options for customisation that KDE offers as well.

Mint isn’t just about elegant looks. It includes applications that make day-to-day tasks such as backup and software management a smoother experience.

In the main, these are good choices, especially the Backup Tool, which can deal with both files and applications (including their settings), so upgrading is less traumatic. We liked the idea of backporting the tool to previous versions to enable simple upgrades to version 9. While useful, the Backup Tool demands a little too much attention and could do with automation and scheduling options to be truly effective.

Similarly, the software manager gives access to a mass of software, but its reliance on breadcrumbs for navigation makes it less intuitive than Ubuntu’s Software Centre and Synaptic combination. There’s also a serious lack of screenshots on the app install screens, even for common ones such as AbiWord and KWrite.

We're gearing up to record our next podcast, and we want you - yes YOU! - to contribute your views in our Open Ballot section. This time the question is, out of all the changes we've seen in the Linux world in the last year, what's your favourite? If you want to go big and say "all of Fedora 13", or if you want to go small and cite the SSE improvements introduced into Glibc 2.11, we don't mind as long as your stick to our simple rules: keep it short, and use a name other than "Anonymous Penguin."


So, if you want your opinion in our podcast, post a comment below!

True multilib for Arch Linux x86_64

I am happy to announce the availability of the new multilib repository. At this time, it contains wine, skype and flashplugin. Furthermore, a multilib compiler is available.

With the launch of the multilib repository all old 'lib32' packages are being removed from community - the core/extra/community repositories will be "pure 64 bit" again.

If you want to use the new multilib packages (and most desktop or laptop users probably do), add the following lines to your pacman.conf:

It’s raining where I am but the sun is most certainly shining in my head: Gtalk users on Linux can finally use both voice and video chat. Adding such support has been Google’s top video chat request

Head over to Gmail.com/videochat to download the plugin. It’s even packaged up in a neat .deb!

So, why the wait? Google engineer Justin Uberti talks about the trouble the Linux port posed: "This release required significant engineering to develop an all-new video rendering solution and an all-new PulseAudio-based audio handler, along with work to support 64-bit and countless webcam compatibility tests. We spent a lot of effort to make it fully feature-complete, with all the same goodies as the Windows and Mac versions, and we're happy to now support Google voice and video now on all major desktop platforms."

For SUSE or Fedora users wanting a slice of the action fear not - he also says that “[they’re] planning on adding RPM support soon as well.”

Automatically repair Windows Firewall problems, such as Windows fails to start Windows Firewall service (0x5) or Windows remote assistance is not working.

What it fixes...

• Windows Firewall is not the default firewall
• Windows Firewall does not start
• Windows Vista could not start Windows Firewall. Service-specific error 5 (0x5)
• Remote Assistance does not work
• You cannot access shared files and printers

User's $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored. This prevent the default session and language from being saved. File should be owned by user and have 644 permissions. User's $HOME directory must be owned by user and not writable by other users.

Purpose of the study
This research study is being conducted by Don Davis and Iffat Jabeen, graduate students at Texas State University-San Marcos. The purpose of this research is to examine the role and possible benefits of legitimate peripheral participation and learning in the Gnu/Linux FOSS community.

Procedure
The questionnaire consists of approximately 20 questions and will take about 5-10 minutes. Questions will include details about your participation in Gnu/Linux FOSS community and your own personal views and feelings about Gnu/Linux and learning. Demographic information will only be collected and used for classification purposes.

Risks/Discomforts
There are no foreseeable potential physical or psychological risks associated with participation in the online survey or interview.

Benefits
There are no direct benefits for participants. Nevertheless, your participation will help researchers learn more about issues related to Gnu/Linux and learning. This study will possibly benefit society by providing improved insight into learning and the educational process. Results of this study may draw attention to promising educational methodology which may promote a more meaningful and effective teaching of technology through participation in FOSS communities.

Confidentiality
All information provided will remain confidential and will only be reported as group data. All identifying information will remain anonymous and will not be recorded in any form.

a. Before detaching fbcon, do

vbetool vbemode save > <vesa state file>

vbetool vbestate save > <vesa state file>

Which services would you like to allow the internet to connect to?
Everything (no firewall) -----> why is this the default??
Web server
Domain Name Server
SSH server
FTP server
Mail server
Pop and Imap server
NFS server
Windows Files Sharing
Cups server
MySQL server
Echo request
Network services autodiscovery (zeroconf and slp)
BitTorrent

We're gearing up to record a new episode of our great Linux podcast, and you - yes, you! - get to have a say. The question we're asking is this: if you had the resources, what single thing would you change? Would you merge KDE and Gnome? Would you introduce a new package manager? (eek!) Would you find all mentions of "Linux" and replace it with GNU/Linux?

If you'd like your views read out on our podcast, please post your answer below. Make sure you include a name, and please avoid running off a large list - pick one thing and one thing only!

"The vulnerability exists because Windows incorrectly parses shortcuts in such a way that malicious code may be executed when the user clicks the displayed icon of a specially crafted shortcut. This vulnerability is most likely to be exploited through removable drives."

"signatures in up-to-date versions of Microsoft Security Essentials, Microsoft Forefront Client Security, Windows Live OneCare, the Forefront Threat Management Gateway, and the Windows Live Safety Platform protect customers against the Stuxnet malware."

Times are still tough out there, but our needs and desires don't always flag just because the economy does. If an accident or an equipment failure has punched an unexpected hole in your computing life, you may be in need of a system—any system—to fill it. Or maybe you've discovered that your family just needs one more box to use as a Web terminal to keep the more powerful systems free more often. Whatever the circumstance, you may be tempted to drop $500 or even more on one of the cheaper, pre-fab models you can find at Costco, Wal-Mart, or from one of the major manufacturers. But once you've factored in all the attendant costs, taxes, and shipping, you could be spending a lot more than you planned—and that's something to avoid, especially when every penny counts.

Even if you need a computer right away, there are plenty of good reasons to build one rather than buy one. You control the parts, so you get exactly what you need at the price you can best afford. You're assured of being able to upgrade any (or all) of the pieces later, when you have more money to spend. And, perhaps most importantly, you get the satisfaction of doing it yourself and maintaining complete control over it from the very instant you open the boxes. No matter how little you want to drop, building your own computer is still the best way to go.

So we asked ourselves: What's the lowest point at which these two goals could intersect? If we needed a simple computer right away, and wanted to spend as little as possible, what could we build? We knew we wanted to aim low, almost ridiculously low—so we decided on what seemed like almost an unthinkable total: $200, which would include everything needed for the base computer itself (but not counting the monitor, keyboard, and mouse, or tax and shipping charges).

This article first appeared in November, 2009.

Conventional wisdom has it that if you want to make use of "the cloud," you've got to use someone else's service -- Amazon's EC2, Google's clouds, and so on. Canonical, through its new edition of Ubuntu Server, has set out to change all that. Instead of using someone else's cloud, it's now possible to set up your own cloud -- to create your own elastic computing environment, run your own applications on it, and even connect it to Amazon EC2 and migrate it outwards if need be.

Let's face it: any script kiddie with a pair of pliers can put Red Hat on a Compaq, his mom's toaster, or even the family dog. But nothing earns you geek points like installing Linux on a dead badger. So if you really want to earn your wizard hat, just read the following instructions, and soon your friends will think you're slick as caffeinated soap........

Rejected send message, 1 matched rules; type="method_call", sender=":1.31" (uid=1000 pid=3440 comm="exo-mount) interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume" member="Mount" error name="(unset)" requested_reply=0 destination="org.freedesktop.Hal" (uid=0 pid=1865 comm="/usr/sbin/hald)).

As part of regular update of our Antimalware technology to address the latest in the threat landscape, the Microsoft Antimalware Team is planning to release a new antimalware engine on 15 July 2010.

Affected products: Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE), Forefront Client Security (FCS)
Engine Version will be in the range of 1.1.600X.0

Today, it was announced that Sunbelt Software has been acquired by GFI Software. The new combined entity will provide a wide range of security and infrastructure software solutions, both on-premise and in the cloud.

First, let me say that we’re thrilled to be part of the GFI team. Throughout our discussions and interactions with GFI, we have been continually impressed with their dedication to quality, customer service and superior performance throughout the company. Both companies are similar in their attitudes and practices with regard to customer service, product quality, strategic vision, organizational styles and culture.

Finally, after weeks of uncertainty, we've just received a press release from Mandriva, and we're pasting it verbatim so you can read the news for yourselves. Let us know what you think this all means.

Mandriva restructures to establish European leadership

Paris, 7th July 2010 - Mandriva is one of the cornerstones of Open Source, a technological pioneer offering the sole independent Linux distribution on the European market. Nevertheless the company has been faced with a mounting financial challenge for several years due in part to its size and lack of a clear publishing strategy.

Mandriva also plays a strategic role in the Paris Saclay innovative ecosystem centred on the Pole System@tic Paris Region and Cap Digital. The company is involved in a dozen R&D projects in partnership with some 60 research and industrial laboratories working on themes such as the semantic desktop, Linux Real Time distribution, shared infrastructures or cloud computing.

This explains why a group of entrepreneurs, associated with the founding investors, has drawn up an ambitious industrial plan with the aim of saving from bankrupty and relaunching the company. Mandriva finds itself at the heart of a European assembly of Open Source software players which will occur in the coming monthes. IF Research parent company of the european software editor Wallix will lead this operation. Mandriva is thus at the heart of a business combination that will take place in Europe next month among several players involved in free software. In France, IF Research, parent company of the software editor Wallix will accompany Mandriva to conduct these operations........................

We regret to announce that our Google scraper may have to be permanently retired, thanks to a change at Google. It depends on whether Google is willing to restore the simple interface that we've been scraping since Scroogle started five years ago. Actually, we've been using that interface for scraping since Google-Watch.org began in 2002.

This interface (here's a sample from years ago) was remarkably stable all that time. During those eight years there were only about five changes that required some programming adjustments. Also, this interface was available at every Google data center in exactly the same form, which allowed us to use 700 IP addresses for Google.

That interface was at www.google.com/ie but on May 10, 2010 they took it down and inserted a redirect to /toolbar/ie8/sidebar.html. It used to have a search box, and the results it showed were generic during that entire time. It didn't show the snippets unless you moused-over the links it produced (they were there for our program, so that was okay), and it has never had any ads. Our impression was that these results were from Google's basic algorithms, and that extra features and ads were added on top of these generic results. Three years ago Google launched "Universal Search," which meant that they added results from other Google services on their pages. But this simple interface we were using was not affected at all.

Now that interface is gone. It is not possible to continue Scroogle unless we have a simple interface that is stable. Google's main consumer-oriented interface that they want everyone to use is too complex, and changes too frequently, to make our scraping operation possible.

Over the next few days we will attempt to contact Google and determine whether the old interface is gone as a matter of policy at Google, or if they simply have it hidden somewhere and will tell us where it is so that we can continue to use it.

Thank you for your support during these past five years. Check back in a week or so; if we don't hear from Google by next week, I think we can all assume that Google would rather have no Scroogle, and no privacy for searchers, at all.

— Daniel Brandt, Public Information Research, scroogle AT lavabit.com

• "Product editions will stay untouched. Freeware edition will not end of course.
  
• Website remains on www.online-armor.com, but we'll have to move everything away from tallemu.* domains soon.
  
• Forum remains, but moved to support.online-armor.com

Which kind of benefits does Emsisoft expect from the deal then? As part of a much larger development team (8 at Emsisoft so far), OA development can progress faster. Sharing knowledge internally is a very important factor for speed and quality of the produced software.

• With the existing marketing and sales force at Emsisoft, we want to spread the name about OA much more. It's a great product, winning tests, but we need to tell everybody about it to make it grow.
  
  
• On the long run, we have plans to create some kind of a suite product. It's gonna be a completely new product most likely. But things are not finally decided yet."

# Entry for /fs1/eddie
//fs1/eddie /home/eddielib/SMB cifs uid=500,rw,noatime,username=eddie,password=password,workgroup=WORKGROUP,ip=192.1
68.1.2 0 0

Nano supports syntax highlighting. Nano supports text justification. And yet, Nano is so much easier than Emacs or Vim. Discover the hidden power of this versatile command line text editor - you may never want to go back to the GUI again! Oh, and it's well worth knowing a great CLI text editor too - if you end up at the shell prompt with X not working, you'll need a backup plan. Here are the tricks, tips and shortcuts you need to know...

Nano is a great command-line text editor for a number of reasons:

It's small, lightweight and is included in most distributions;
It's easy to use and gives plenty of on-screen feedback;
It includes many power-user features to compete with Vi(m) and Emacs.
Nano runs in text mode at the command line; this may prompt you to think: "Why would I want to learn a text mode editor? Kate, Gedit and FooEdit 2000 do everything I need to on my desktop." Well, firstly, all regular Linux users and administrators should be well-versed in a command line editor. If something goes wrong with the X Window System, for example, you'll end up at a CLI prompt and your skills will be essential for editing config files.

Secondly, if you set up a Linux machine as a server, it almost certainly won't include X or any kind of graphical tools, so you'll be using a text mode editor frequently. Learning some core skills beyond simply opening and saving files can make you work much more productively, so that's what we'll be looking at here.

As for a quick history, Elm was a Unix email client dating back to the late 80s. Then came Pine, which some users said was an acronym for 'Pine Is Not Elm'. Pico was Pine's text editor, but wasn't totally free software by the GNU definition. So Tip, (Tip Isn't Pico), was created and later renamed to Nano, (Nano's ANOther editor). Fun, eh?............

Ever wanted to upload a folder full of photos to Picasa from a command prompt? We did, a lot, last summer. It made us want to say:

So we wrote a program to do that, and a whole lot more.

GoogleCL is a command-line utility that provides access to various Google services. It streamlines tasks such as posting to a Blogger blog, adding events to Calendar, or editing documents on Google Docs.

For example:

GoogleCL is a pure Python application that uses the Python gdata libraries to make Google Data API calls from the command line.
The project is geared towards Linux. Google offers a Linux .deb package and a tar archive for download.

Linux support for the WinTV-HVR-1250 and WinTV-HVR-1800:
Linux support for the WinTV-HVR-1250 and WinTV-HVR-1800 is in the current kernel 2.6.25 release.

╔═ comhack@Venus 01:12 PM
╚═══ ~-> ls /lib/firmware/
3com cis ess mts_gsm.fw rt73.bin v4l-cx23885-avcore-01.fw
acenic cpia2 intelliport2.bin myricom sb16 v4l-cx23885-enc.fw
adaptec cxgb3 kaweth ositech sun vicam
advansys dabusb keyspan qlogic tehuti whiteheat.fw
atmsar11.fw dsp56k keyspan_pda r128 ti_3410.fw whiteheat_loader.fw
av7110 e100 korg radeon ti_5052.fw yam
bnx2 edgeport matrox rt2561.bin tigon yamaha
bnx2x-e1-5.2.7.0.fw emi26 mts_cdma.fw rt2561s.bin tr_smctr.bin zd1211
bnx2x-e1h-5.2.7.0.fw emi62 mts_edge.fw rt2661.bin ttusb-budget

╔═ comhack@Venus 06:53 PM
╚═══ ~-> dmesg | grep cx23885
cx23885 driver version 0.0.2 loaded
cx23885 0000:05:00.0: PCI INT A -> Link[LNED] -> GSI 19 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
cx23885[0]: Your board isn't known (yet) to the driver.
cx23885[0]: Try to pick one of the existing card configs via
cx23885[0]: card=<n> insmod option. Updating to the latest
cx23885[0]: version might help as well.
cx23885[0]: Here is a list of valid choices for the card=<n> insmod option:
cx23885[0]: card=0 -> UNKNOWN/GENERIC
cx23885[0]: card=1 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1800lp
cx23885[0]: card=2 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1800
cx23885[0]: card=3 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1250
cx23885[0]: card=4 -> DViCO FusionHDTV5 Express
cx23885[0]: card=5 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1500Q
cx23885[0]: card=6 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1500
cx23885[0]: card=7 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1200
cx23885[0]: card=8 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1700
cx23885[0]: card=9 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1400
cx23885[0]: card=10 -> DViCO FusionHDTV7 Dual Express
cx23885[0]: card=11 -> DViCO FusionHDTV DVB-T Dual Express
cx23885[0]: card=12 -> Leadtek Winfast PxDVR3200 H
cx23885[0]: card=13 -> Compro VideoMate E650F
cx23885[0]: card=14 -> TurboSight TBS 6920
cx23885[0]: card=15 -> TeVii S470
cx23885[0]: card=16 -> DVBWorld DVB-S2 2005
cx23885[0]: card=17 -> NetUP Dual DVB-S2 CI
cx23885[0]: card=18 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1270
cx23885[0]: card=19 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1275
cx23885[0]: card=20 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1255
cx23885[0]: card=21 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1210
cx23885[0]: card=22 -> Mygica X8506 DMB-TH
cx23885[0]: card=23 -> Magic-Pro ProHDTV Extreme 2
cx23885[0]: card=24 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1850
cx23885[0]: card=25 -> Compro VideoMate E800
cx23885[0]: card=26 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1290
cx23885[0]: card=27 -> Mygica X8558 PRO DMB-TH
cx23885[0]: card=28 -> LEADTEK WinFast PxTV1200
CORE cx23885[0]: subsystem: 0070:2259, board: UNKNOWN/GENERIC [card=0,autodetected]
cx23885_dev_checkrevision() Hardware revision = 0xd0
cx23885[0]/0: found at 0000:05:00.0, rev: 4, irq: 19, latency: 0, mmio: 0xfe800000
cx23885 0000:05:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
IRQ 19/cx23885[0]: IRQF_DISABLED is not guaranteed on shared IRQs
cx23885 0000:05:00.0: PCI INT A disabled

╔═ comhack@Venus 06:53 PM
╚═══ ~-> dmesg | grep cx23885
cx23885 driver version 0.0.2 loaded
cx23885 0000:05:00.0: PCI INT A -> Link[LNED] -> GSI 19 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
CORE cx23885[0]: subsystem: 0070:2259, board: Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1250 [card=3,insmod option]
cx23885[0]: warning: unknown hauppauge model #0
cx23885[0]: hauppauge eeprom: model=0
cx23885_dvb_register() allocating 1 frontend(s)
cx23885[0]: cx23885 based dvb card
cx23885[0]: frontend initialization failed
cx23885_dvb_register() dvb_register failed err = -1
cx23885_dev_setup() Failed to register dvb on VID_C
cx23885_dev_checkrevision() Hardware revision = 0xd0
cx23885[0]/0: found at 0000:05:00.0, rev: 4, irq: 19, latency: 0, mmio: 0xfe800000
cx23885 0000:05:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
IRQ 19/cx23885[0]: IRQF_DISABLED is not guaranteed on shared IRQs

E: dpkg was interrupted . You must run sudo dpkg --configuration -a to correct the problem

E: _cache -> open() failed please report

what exactly is this?

This is a public place to paste things (primarily configurations and source code), but it is really open to pretty much any text format. The idea is to paste large items here when talking online to someone, or even when holding a phone conversation to paste the little things that are hard to explain.

This is very embarrassing...

We found out that the Unreal3.2.8.1.tar.gz file on our mirrors has been replaced quite a while ago with a version with a backdoor (trojan) in it.
This backdoor allows a person to execute ANY command with the privileges of the user running the ircd. The backdoor can be executed regardless of any user
restrictions (so even if you have passworded server or hub that doesn't allow any users in).

It appears the replacement of the .tar.gz occurred in November 2009 (at least on some mirrors). It seems nobody noticed it until now.

Unreal IRC is an Internet relay chat platform. I don't have any numbers on the total downloads since November of 2009, but it seems safe to assume there are a lot of Linux systems out there compromised by a backdoor Trojan.