Posted 27 Jan 2010 — by Arun
Category Ubuntu
Canonical’s Rick Spencer announced in a mailing list that Yahoo is going to be the default search provider in Firefox starting with Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. The change is due to the revenue sharing pact that Canonical has reached with Yahoo. In other words, Yahoo is paying Ubuntu to increase the traffic for Microsoft’s search engine Bing, which is the search provider for Yahoo and against whom Ubuntu is competing in the desktop and server market.
I’m not totally against the deal. I’m happy as long as Canonical can make money with Ubuntu, so they can pay their developers better and invest more in Ubuntu, but I don’t want Ubuntu to help Bing gain market share in the search market. I would have been much happier if Yahoo was using their own search engine as they used to and Canonical made pact with Yahoo.
Having said that, users can always change their default search provider back to whatever they were using before. The Firefox’s default home page will switch to whatever the default search engine is.
Technorati Tags: Ubuntu 10.04, Lucid Lynx, Google, Firefox, Yahoo, Bing, Microsoft
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Posted 15 Jan 2010 — by Arun
Category Ubuntu
Ubuntu development team has released the 2nd alpha of Ubuntu 10.04, code named Lucid Lynx. It’s still a developmental version, so it’s only for testing purpose. Ubuntu 10.04 contains the following changes:
- Ubuntu Lucid Alpha 2 includes the latest GNOME desktop environment.
- Alpha 2 includes the 2.6.32-10.14 kernel based on 2.6.32.
- Alpha 2 of Kubuntu features the new KDE SC 4.4 RC 1.
- Lucid Alpha 2 sports full removal of the hal package, making Ubuntu faster to boot and faster to resume from suspend.
- The likewise-open package, which provides Active Directory authentication and server support for Linux, has been updated to version 5.4.
- Three different NVIDIA proprietary drivers are currently available: nvidia-current (190.53), nvidia-173, and nvidia-96. It is now possible to install all three of these packages at the same time (although it is only possible to have one configured for use at a time).
- The Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud installer has been vastly improved in order to support alternative installation topologies. UEC components are now automatically discovered and registered, including for complex topologies. Finally, UEC is now powered by Eucalyptus 1.6.2 codebase.
Here are the known issues in alpha2:
- The wacom-tools driver cannot be used with Lucid Alpha 2.
- The notify-osd notification system has “debug mode” turned on to help people find erroneously urgent notifications.
- On video hardware that supports KMS, the live CD sometimes does not reboot successfully, instead displaying the boot logo indefinitely.
- On video hardware that does not support KMS, using the “full disk with encryption” installation option will result in a boot failure because the prompt for the passphrase needed for decrypting the disk will not be shown.
- When running on Ubuntu Server, the plymouth boot splash screen does not exit after the system is booted. To get to a console login after boot, you must press Ctrl-Alt-F1 to switch to VT1.
- Manual partitioning fails in the graphical installer due to a bug in ubiquity: you can select existing partitions to use as targets for installation, but you can neither create new partitions nor delete existing partitions.
- jockey (Ubuntu’s restricted driver manager) doesn’t yet support the new alternatives system used by the nvidia driver packages.
- Because of the new alternatives system, the nvidia installer from NVIDIA’s website currently doesn’t work.
- The fglrx binary driver for ATI video chipsets does not yet support the X server in Lucid.
- Attempting to run 32bit applications which make use of 3D acceleration in a 64bit system will result in a failure.
- Alpha 2 does not include Wubi, the Ubuntu installer for Windows.
You can download alpha2 from here.
Kubuntu 10.04 alpha2 brings KDE SC 4.4. RC1. Here are some of the features that are going to be part of Kubuntu 10.04 that Kubuntu team is working on.
Here are the known issues in Kubuntu 10.04 alpha1:
- Due to the recent changeover to Plymouth, the boot splash shows the Ubuntu logo instead of Kubuntu’s.
- You have to log in twice
- Autologin doesn’t work
- The wallpaper is missing and the panel geometry is funky to work around
You can download Kubuntu 10.04 alpha2 from here.
Technorati Tags: Ubuntu 10.04, alpha2, Kubuntu 10.04, Lucid Lynx, Plymouth, Firefox, KDE, GNOME, Kernel, NVIDIA, ATI
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Ubuntu 10.04
FirefoxNotify is a Firefox addon which integrates Firefox notifications with Linux notification system, which allows Firefox to integrate better with Linux OSes. The addon needs Galago compatible notification server which can be enabled by installing libnotify (if it’s not installed already). Here are the list of dependencies.
- Python
- DBus
- Galago compliant notification daemon (libnotify)
- python’s pynotify package. The debian package should be apt://python-notify
- xdg-utils (for opening files from the notification)
According to the author, If you’re on Ubuntu, you may or may not need the package python-dbus. One bug with the addon is that, if there there are multiple windows open, you will get multiple notifications. It will be fixed in the future.
Source: OMG!Ubuntu.
Technorati Tags: FirefoxNotify, Firefox, Addon, Linux, Ubuntu, Notification, Galago
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Posted 30 Oct 2009 — by Arun
Category Ubuntu
I wanted to give Kubuntu a try in my laptop after I gave it a try and was dissatisfied and removed it when Kubuntu 9.04 was released. There were lots of bugs and for a laptop, using the widget for wireless connection was a pain. I have written about it in my blog post here. KDE underwent a lot of bug fixes and new features since then, so I thought I would download and give it a try. I downloaded Kubuntu 9.10 yesterday and installed it my laptop.
The installation was fine though I got some errors when the Live CD booted and shutdown. The new installer looked promising, but it needs some fine tuning. My laptop’s default resolution is 1680*1050 and the installer was using a lower resolution. This resulted in installer text/options etc. overlapping in some cases. One example is, when you create a username and password, you’ll see 3 or 4 options at the bottom on how you want to login. The 3rd option which encrypts your home directory wasn’t clear.
Once installed, the boot process was very fast. It’s faster than Ubuntu/Kubuntu 9.04. The old network manager is back and auto starts, so that’s good. Though I could click the network manager icon and select create a network and select the wireless network I want, I think it’s not as user friendly as Ubuntu. It would be nice if it could give you the available networks directly rather than going through a set of clicks.
Plasma got lots of widgets including some for social networking like Twitter, Facebook etc. It has more widgets now than the screen allows. It’s getting much better. The other thing I like in KDE is the ease of installing and changing themes and wallpapers. You can just right click the desktop, select desktop settings and you will see an option there to get new themes and wallpapers.
Konqueror is getting better, but I don’t feel comfortable with it as much as Firefox. Kubuntu prompted me to install additional plugins for Konqueror to play video and other stuff, which is good. I thought I would give Arora a try since it was the default browser in the alpha stages of Kubuntu 9.10 before they went back to Konqueror. Arora starts pretty fast, but I’m not sure if it loads pages faster than Firefox or not. It also lacks the amount of extensions that Firefox offers including security related ones. For Firefox fans, there is an option in the internet menu that will install Firefox if you need.
I used it only for 10 minutes and it impressed me. I would like to use it little more and see if I’m comfortable continuing it. I believe KDE team and Kubuntu team are making a good progress compared to the amount of support they get.
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When I opened Firefox today, I saw a pop up from Firefox that informed me that it has disabled the Windows Presentation Foundation plugin and I have to restart Firefox to disable it completely. I wasn’t sure what it was, but went ahead and restarted Firefox. I then stumbled upon this news in ComputerWorld that Microsoft silently slipped a plugin into Firefox without user authorization and that left the browser open to attacks. I’m not sure if Microsoft assumes that if you use Windows, they can do whatever they want to without user approval? I think it’s not enough for them deliver products full of security holes. They want to create security holes in other products too.
Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Computer World, Firefox, Windows Presentation Foundation
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Google has introduced a new app called Google Sidewiki, which you can install in Firefox or Internet Explorer as part of the Google toolbar. It lets you discuss any webpage out there with others – by adding messages in a side bar displayed on a given page.
If there is no message for a website, the Sidewiki icon will be gray. If someone left a message for a webpage you are visiting, then Sidewiki will turn yellow. The message can be voted for usefulness, can be reported as spam or can be shared. Other than just showing Sidewiki comments, Google also links out to related content found on the web.
Writing a new entry opens up a subject and comment field. Additionally, you can highlight a part of the page you’re on to comment specifically on that part. I haven’t tried this since I have to install the toolbar to access it. Let me know your comments.
Source: Google Blogoscoped.
Technorati Tags: Google, Sidewiki, Google Toolbar, Firefox, Internet Explorer
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Posted 17 Sep 2009 — by Arun
Category News
Firefox, Skype and OpenOffice are finally cracking Microsoft’s monopoly in the browser, instant messaging and Office software suite. According to InfoWorld, exo.preformance.network, which tracks the actual usage and configurations of thousands of PCs around the world, reported that Firefox is being used in 50.6% of the PCs and Skype became the most widely used instant messaging client and OpenOffice adoption is 50% higher in Europe and Asia than in U.S.
It’s a good news and would finally make Microsoft deliver better products if they want to compete. I also read this morning that Google Docs is giving serious challenge to Microsoft Office in workplace. The survey reported that 1 in 5 companies reported that Google Docs is widely used in their workplace. It’s a good sign and I hope more companies will look into other options before they decide to pay a high price to Microsoft. We use Firefox for browsing, Thunderbird as email client and GMail for emails in our office.
Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Firefox, Thunderbird, Skype, OpenOffice, GMail
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Posted 26 Aug 2009 — by Arun
Category Ubuntu
I had this problem only with Nvidia cards. I didn’t have this issue with ATI card in my laptop. Whenever I clicked the fullscreen box in youtube, firefox would crash. After I surfed through Ubuntu forum, I found a solution. This is what I did to fix the issue.
Depending on which version of Firefox you are using, the location of the file might change. If you are using the default Firefox that came with Ubuntu 9.04, the location most probably is /usr/lib/firefox. I have installed Firefox 3.5 and I’m using that, so my Firefox’s location was /usr/lib/firefox-3.5.2. All you have to do is open a terminal (Application -> Accessories -> Terminal) and type
sudo gedit /usr/lib/firefox-3.5.2/firefox.sh
If your Firefox’s location is /usr/lib/firefox, then type
sudo gedit /usr/lib/firefox/firefox.sh
Once the file is opened, add export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libGL.so.1 in the 2nd line. Leave the first line as it is. Your file should look something like below:
#!/bin/sh
export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libGL.so.1
# Firefox launcher containing a Profile migration helper for
# temporary profiles used during alpha and beta phases.
………………….
Save the file and exit the text editor. Restart Firefox (if it’s already open) and try it. It should work.
Technorati Tags: Ubuntu 9.04, Firefox, Youtube
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You might have read my earlier post about Quake Live’s announcement about Linux support. Linux is now officially supported by Quake Live. I’m not sure if any other browser is supported in Linux other than Firefox, but it should work with Firefox.
Technorati Tags: Quake Live, Linux, Firefox
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