After arriving at his office, Ahmad elaborated that after Samba installation, internet access becomes limited. We couldn’t figure the solution, and decided to start a fresh install.

For more photos, please check out our album here.

And of course what is a linuxNUS gathering without good coffee and pizza? We help ourselves while Centos installed.

After installation, the internet worked. Yipee! And we got Samba working flawlessly too after a bit of tinkering plus trial and error. But unfortunately, installing Samba killed the net connection We threw every trick in the book that we knew… but sad to say we couldn’t really resolve the issue.

But then again, it was good to meet for the alumni and the present members to meet. And some of the more junior members did learn quite a bit Oh, and free pizza and coffee

So without further ado…

It so happened that this period sees me in “let’s make things look Vista-ish!” mood, so purists will have to bear with me I am pretty happy with the extent to which I was able to reproduce Aero-Vista’s glassy feel though, especially considering the fact that both my Compiz reflection and blur plugins refuse to work.

And since nobody told me that it’s supposed be a ONE screenshot post, I’m gonna flaunt a good deal moar - after all, you can never do a Linux desktop justice with only one screeny.

More screenies after the cut. Warning : they’re huge!

As a final note, while its cool to Vista-ify or Mac-ify your desktop every now and then, its usually more fun and rewarding to try for something more unique. For example, I once achieved a very satisfying result with trying for a Ubuntu-ish look by theming everything in black and shades of polished orange. The point is that if you are willing to spend some time experimenting with the theming mechanisms, it’s really not difficult to synthesize something that looks like no other familiar system, that looks impressive and awesome all the same. Your creativity is the limit.

Have fun!

Awwwwwwwwww…..Cute toddler spotted! Source: ThinkGeek

I just read that someone had actually named their little bundle of joy… wait for it…. “Linux“. Nothing wrong with that. It just made me recall my lecturer for organic chemistry gossiping about how some of his peers had named their children after organic compounds and elements even. I wonder if anyone will be naming their kids after Linux distros. *Imagines* “Hello Ubuntu, you are so cuttteeeeeeeeeeee!”

On a related note, check out the baby man page at The Linux and Unix Menagerie.

Not enough of Linux babies yet? Get some shirts from ThinkGeek and transform your nearest toodler into a Linux icon

A quick check on the wubi website, showed that the only the installer for Ubuntu 8.04.1 is available for download, despite that the latest 8.10 (codenamed Intrepid) beta has already been released on 2nd Oct. I was sorely disappointed, and was sore enough to rant at Ubuntu Forums. Thankfully, I found out here that it is possible to install Intrepid beta using a snapshot of Wubi minefield. And off I went to download Wubi-8.10-rev510.exe.

The installation is pretty idiot proof. Just double click on the downloaded executable and fill in the details before clicking install:

Next choose when to reboot:

Upon rebooting, there will be a black selection menu showing the choice of windows and Ubuntu to boot into. And there I had it, an Ubuntu system

Removal of an Wubi installation is pretty simple. Just go to Control Panel and remove Ubuntu. Done! No more messing of MBRs unless you still want to setup a dual boot

Sounds simple enough and raving to try? Check out the FAQ before you proceed. And feel free to drop by #linuxnus if you need any help. Or just drop by for some chatter Once again, the guide is on our wiki.

PS. While this post may be a bit newbie, I will be writing another post over the weekend that is more advanced over the weekend. So stay tuned.

All images are from http://wubi-installer.org.

This is Lu Feng signing in to kick off the guest blogger series on linuxNUS.org. Basically we will have one guest blogger contributing at least one article each week. So yours truly had started writing this since Wednesday but only had time to finish this today. I will hand over to the next guest blogger on Monday.

Contrary to popular belief, I am actually not an SoC or Comp Engin student. Yours truly is actually a Life Sciences Major :o. I am the living testimony of how far Linux has come today in terms of usability, since I had absolutely no programming/geek background whn I first started off.

In a nutshell, my venture into Linux, started after my Windows installation crashed for the x_th time in 2005. And I decided that I had enough of crashes. So I decided to try out Linux. You can find me active in the linuxNUS mailing list, forums and irc channel (ie #linuxnus on irc.freenode.net)

I have just graduated from NUS. Currently, I just working at TYLER Projects. It’s a pretty nice place to work in The working hours are pretty flexible. And today my boss called me to join in a DOTA game during my working hours. I also am pleased to have a lot of freedom to do my own stuff, like chatting away on IM or Facebooking away :p (I hope I get a raise for writing this :p)

Currently, I am doing some PR work and might be coding my 1st Facebook app if my boss thinks I got the cut for it. *Keeps fingers crossed*.

Till my next post….

The first article, Learn 10 good UNIX usage habits , we learn how to define an entire directory tree using a single-line command , how to execute one command only if another one succeeds , and how to properly use grep .

In the second, Learn 10 more good UNIX usage habits , we learn about file name , and command history expansion, directory navigation using pushd and popd , and also the handy utilities of curl and awk , along with a quick primer on regular expressions .

And yes, while the article does say "UNIX" instead of "Linux", most of the tips are usable on both platforms, since the utilities involved are common between the two. The articles also do take note when certain tips are shell specific, such as the file-name completion tip in the second article. The default shell in most Linux distributions is bash , so unless you’ve specifically changed your default shell, following the instructions for bash should keep you safe.

And if you haven’t already gotten your hands dirty with the command line (Konsole, for KDE users, and GNOME Terminal for, well, the GNOME people), here’s your chance to dive in with these handy tips.

Data (by popular search terms) from Google collated by Royal Pingdom reveals that Linux is more popular in the East and developing countries (probably due to cost?). Surprisingly, the United States isn’t top 5 for any of the 8 distributions researched.

How about Singapore?

Well, according to Google statistics, search terms from Singapore involving Linux have sadly been declining since 2004 (which has also been true for many other countries).

Read more about it from Royal Pingdom.

Quoting from a recent article on Ars.Technica, researchers have found that up to 1.3% of web pages are altered in transit between the server and the requesting client. Not all the modifications are malicious though, the article notes. Some ISPs modify the page either by removing extra white space in the page, or further compressing images, thereby reducing bandwidth used and decreasing wait times. Alternatively, some service providers take the opportunity to serve ads instead.

In 2007 (I think), some folks from the University of Washington and the International Computer Science Institute put up a page to test if pages loaded from various domains were edited while passing through through the ‘tubes. Enter the UW CSE and ICSI Web Integrity Checker.

Here’s quoting their results so far:

• 50,171 unique IP addresses visited the page.
• 657 IP addresses reported modified pages (1.3%).
• 70% of the modifications where caused by client-side proxy software, such as ad blockers and popup blockers.
• 46 IP addresses reported changes that were caused by an ISP, such as injected advertisements and modifications to reduce network traffic.
• 125 IP addresses were using proxies that caused them to be vulnerable to cross site scripting attacks.
• 3 IP addresses were affected by adware or worms.

I’m curious as to how this test would fare in Singapore. Are our local providers editing the pages we request on the fly? So here’s what, just for fun,

1. Perform the test by visiting the page
2. Then, visit this page on the linuxNUS Opensource Wiki to record your results

Let us know how it went!

If not, here’s what you missed.

Sun held it’s Open Source Day at COM1 on Friday, as part of the Sun Technology Outreach programme.

On the kind invite of organisers, Wee Yeh and Neng Giin, linuxNUS set up a booth at the event to showcase Fedora 8 (along with Compiz Fusion goodies =). Thanks to Eugene, we also had nice printed Fedora DVDs to hand out to the crowd that dropped by our booth.

Our showcase comprised mainly of Compiz-Fusion demos, productivity suites (Microsoft Office-on-WINE and OpenOffice.org), and the nifty virtualisation of Nexenta within the recently Sun-acquired Innotek VirtualBox. And indeed, while the audience had their productivity (and compatibility!) doubts resolved, and admired the flexibility of running an OS-within-an-OS, we have to say honestly, that the Compiz-Fusion demos were the star of the show.

We need to thank the organisers of the Sun NUS Open Source Day for inviting linuxNUS to set up a booth there, for it gave us quite a bit of publicity. And I’m not kidding when I say people have come up to me after watching the demos at the booth saying that they’ve fallen in love with Linux. Really! It’s true!

And if you’re one of those who came by our booth to say hi on Friday and pick up a Fedora DVD, here are a few links to get you started (if you haven’t found your way around already =)

• Our Yahoo! Mailing List
• linuxNUS Open Source Wiki
• linuxNUS Forums
• #linuxnus on irc.freenode.net
  

Planet LUGS is an aggregation of a number of blogs from members in Singapore’s Open Source scene. Ranging from professionals in certain large companies, to your average student on the street, Planet LUGS collects their voices and brings them to you in one nice, easy read.

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