Ubuntu 9.10 - Karmic Koala RC released

Steve Langasek has announced the availability of the one and only release candidate for Ubuntu 9.10, code name "Karmic Koala": "The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the Release Candidate for Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop and Server editions, Ubuntu 9.10 Server for UEC and EC2, and the Ubuntu Netbook Remix. We consider this release candidate to be complete, stable, and suitable for testing by any user. Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop edition improves on the work of 9.04 to get you going faster, with improved start-up times and a streamlined boot experience."

Get RC 9.10 images here:
Ubuntu 9.10 RC 32bit
Ubuntu 9.10 RC 64bit

Full circle magazine issue 29

Full Circle is a free, independent, magazine dedicated to the Ubuntu family of Linux operating systems. Each month, it contains helpful how-to articles and reader submitted stories. Besides Ubuntu other flavours of *buntu are being mentioned in the articles such as Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu... Here are the main topics included in 29-th issue:

• Command and Conquer
• How-To: Program in Python – Part 3, LAMP Server – Part 2, Virtual Private Networking.
• My Story – One Man’s Journey, and Walk With Ubuntu.
• Review – Kompozer.
• MOTU Interview – Iulian Udrea.
• Top 5 – Physics Games.
• Ubuntu Games, as well as all the usual goodness!
  

Get this and all other issues from fullcircle webpage: http://fullcirclemagazine.org/

Funny login message with fortune

Fortune is a nice piece of code that prints out a random epigram. Epigrams are divided into several categories. To make it print an epigram upon logging in the console, we need to install it first:

sudo apt-get install fortune

As per step 2, we need to add this to ~/.bashrc file
if [ -x /usr/games/fortune ]; then /usr/games/fortune -s fi

Now, every time you log in to your console you will see some funny text as a welcome message generated by fortune like:
You are a very redundant person, that's what kind of person you are.

Or like this:
You will be run over by a bus.

Access your Box.net account as a folder in ubuntu

Box.net is offering 1GB of free space for your storage. It is also a great substitution for micro$oft sharepoint. I wanted to access the box.net account directly from my Desktop. To accomplish that I have created a launcher on the Desktop. To create a box.net free account visit http://box.net/ to check the howto proceed with reading :)

At first install davfs2 support by typing:
$ sudo apt-get install davfs2

Create a file (this will be a launcher icon) on yout desktop by typing in console. You can use any editor you like, my fave is vi so I will use that:
$ vi ~/Desktop/Box.desktop

Paste this thing into the Box.desktop file:
#!/usr/bin/env xdg-open

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Version=1.0
Type=Link
Icon[en_US]=gnome-panel-launcher
Name[en_US]=Box
URL=dav://www.box.net/dav
Name=Box
Icon=/usr/share/icons/Human/48x48/places/folder-remote.png

Now just doubleclick on the desktop icon. You will be prompted for login and password. You can make ubuntu remember your password by selecting remember password forever. You can also edit file /etc/davfs2/secrets to store your password and login there.

Creating fancy server message with figlet

Every time you log in to the server you can see a message that is shown on the terminal. The message comes from the file /etc/motd (message of the day). If you want the users to notice your message, you can make it a little bit fancy :) You can use figlet to do that. Figlet can create multiple types of ascii text messages in nice font. More about this tool is available on http://www.figlet.org/

To install figlet type in command prompt: sudo apt-get install figlet

Now, to create Fancy server name text and center it horizontally (as image shows), use this command:
$ figlet -f block -c "Fancy server name" > /etc/motd

You can use more types of fonts specified with -f option, but only one at a time. To list a directory with available figlet fonts use:
$ figlet -I2

Remove external media with Ejecter

Ejecter is an utility to safely, easily remove external media. A simple menu that sits in the system notification area, providing you a quick way to unmount external peripherals such as usb pendrives, cd/dvd, external hard disks and so.

To install ejecter on ubuntu type in console: sudo apt-get install ejecter
To check more info about ejecter go to homepage: https://launchpad.net/ejecter

Red notebook personal diary and journal

RedNotebook is a graphical diary and journal helping you keep track of notes and thoughts. It includes a calendar navigation, customizable templates, export functionality and word clouds. You can also format, tag and search your entries.

To install it type in console: sudo apt-get install rednotebook

Red notebook includes theese features (author promissed more functions later) :

• Enter text for individual days and navigate using a fancy calendar
• Add Categories to days and fill them with content
• Tag your entries
• Format your text bold, italic or underlined
• Insert Images, files and links to websites
• Links and mail addresses are recognized automatically
• (Live) Search
• Automatic saving
• Backup to zip archive
• Word Clouds with most often used words and tags
• Templates for each weekday and arbitrarily named ones
• Export the journal to HTML, Latex or plain text
• Graphical preferences dialog
• You can have multiple journals
• RedNotebook is open source software, you are free to use and redistribute it under the terms of the GPL
• The data is stored in plain text files, no database is needed

Check the homepage at http://digitaldump.wordpress.com/projects/rednotebook/