Boost System Performance (RAM specifically) in Ubuntu using zRam!

I gotta admit that apart from all the criticism, MS Windows Kernel is pretty good at managing memory and system resources. Although the GNU/Linux Kernel is certainly one of the most robust & highly secured ones out there, but sometimes I do feel a bit "sluggish" performance while the Memory gets filled and when it's time to move the data between SWAP (virtual memory, a file, stored on or as a partition in GNU/Linux) to the RAM or vice versa when comparing with the Windows Kernel.

What the heck is "SWAP"?

If you're a bit new to all this hype :)... then SWAP is the temporary storage location that holds programs and other whatnots just before they're loaded into your actual/physical RAM for execution.

Anyhow, apparently there are few solutions for enhancing the performance and one in particular called zRam (successor of a project known as "Compcache", link below) that's integrated into the GNU/Linux Kernel. But the integration is "unofficial" meaning that, it's not included in the Kernel by default (unless the developers manually put it there).

Image via: Compcache (the original project)...

Concerning the Ubuntu users, Ubuntu also does not come it integrated by default but thanks to one of the core developers of the Elementary OS, Sergey Davidoff, not only he has made a PPA which makes the installation a breeze but also has made optimisations of is own which enhances the performance a bit more too!.

In his own words...

"... the result on my desktop with a quad-core CPU and 2Gb of RAM was fantastic:instead of freezing after running out of RAM, the system worked like nothing happened... got almost the same results on a 6-year-old laptop with Pentium M and 1Gb of RAM!...

I've improved the script to automatically adapt to the amount of memory in the system and automatically scale across several CPUs or CPU cores, packaged it in..."

You can install the zRam memory performance optimizer in Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot and 11.04 Natty Narwhal by using the below commands.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:shnatsel/zram

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install zramswap-enabler

Now I used it for very short period thus cannot say much about its performance (it's still in my system, I'm gonna keep it this time :D), so I let you decide that. But after considering Sergey and few others who've used it... it seems worth installing!.

But I'm just wondering whether this could have a somewhat negative effect on computers with lower-end processors (such as Netbooks for instance) since the idea here is to compress some of the data on the RAM and store it within the RAM itself which requires some decent amount of your CPU cycles.

So I'm just wondering it could result in a somewhat, shortened battery life, perhaps. But then again while reading the original "Compache" developers' page, he says...

"Market is now getting flooded with these "lightweight laptops". These are memory constrained but have CPU enough to drive on compressed memory"

So then perhaps after all, it may not has a huge effect on your CPU, unless it's really slow :D. But later if you wanted to remove it... then just open the terminal window and enter the below command to completely un-install it.

sudo apt-get remove zramswap-enabler

Enjoy!.

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Linux Live USB (Pendrive) Creator - Only for Windows

Creating a "Pendrive Linux" version out of your standard ISO disk image is pretty darn easy these days and if all you want is to create a boot-able (+ portable) Ubuntu OS out of your USB Pendrive then Ubuntu comes with a one of its own. But that utility will only work with Ubuntu ISO disk images only.

If all you have is nothing but a MS Windows installed PC and since there's like hundreds of GNU/Linux distributions out there these days, let's also assume that you have no idea of what distribution that you're gonna be trying next ;-) and looking for a utility that lets you create a boot-able Pendrive Linux that supports a massive list of distros +, runs inside Windows, then LiLi (or LinuxLive) USB creator is one of the best that I've come across so far without a doubt.

Main features...

*. A fully opensource utility.

*. As said before supports a massive amounts of distributions such as: Ubuntu (from 8.10 upto the Upcoming 11.10 beta!), Fedora (up to 15 and including the "spins" that includes LXDE, XFCE, KDE, etc), Linux Mint, Cent OS, Chraka Linux, Android x86 project, Mandriva, OpenSUSE, Meego, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Vinux ... seriously guys, you could easily create a book out of the supported distro list!. Read more from this official page.

*. You can add ISO files directly from your HDD, create one on-the-fly using your optical drive or heck, if you have an internet connection, then you can let LiLi let you download one automatically!.

*. Supports both ISO and .IMG disk image extensions (although the IMG is still in beta).

*. You can either completely format your Pendrive or can leave the existing files and create the boot-able environment.

*. Built in virtualization support via VirtualBox: Basically this option lets you boot into the Linux live environment without rebooting your PC (to use feature you'll need a working Internet connection).

*. Also supports USB devices such as portable hard drives it seems (although I din't test that option since I don't have one :/).

Setting up a disk image is pretty simple and straight forward. All you gotta to do is choose/add your image file, then setup the "persistence" (this will be used as a virtual file system to store your file while using the Live USB key) and hit the "create" button. The rest is pretty much automatic.

All these awesome features + a beautiful interface, they all come for free!. Every time you launch it'll look for updates which you should not disable if you want LiLi to get the support for the most latest versions of GNU/Linux distributions.

Once the process completes, if you have enabled "Enable launching LinuxLive in Windows" option then you can try it directly inside Windows (remember, to run a virtual or a Host OS you should have some decent amount of system resources) or can just boot using the Pendrive.

If interested, you can get it from this LiLi USB Home page.

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How to Split Raster Images to a PDF file in Ubuntu Linux?

If you Ubuntu Linux and want to print a poster using a raster image but the image that you have will have to be split into several "pieces" before printing (which you can "attach" later of course), then PosteRazor is an extremely simple yet a very useful tool built for that exact purpose.

It's an cross-platform opesource application thus not only in GNU/Linux but you can use it in MS Windows and Mac OSX as well. Once installed you'll have to load your image file and then follow its "5-step" process and then it'll split your raster image and create a PDF file by using which you can easily print your poster since each page in the PDF contains a "cut" of the original image.

Main features...

*. It's written in the FLTK tool-kit thus uses its own "theming" which doesn't integrate that well under Gnome nor Qt/KDE... but as soon as it gets the job done, who cares!.

*. Once loaded, it'll display information such as the raster image resolution, DPI, size and color type.

*. Supports a huge list of raster images such as: BMP, DDS, Dr. Halo, GIF, ICO, IFF, JBIG, JPEG/JIF, KOALA, LBM, Kodak PhotoCD, PCX, PBM, PGM, PNG, PPM, PhotoShop PSD, Sun RAS, TARGA, TIFF, WBMP, XBM, XPM.

*. A five step wizard type process is involved which lets you: Change the PDF pages size (A4, letter, Tabloid, etc), overlap settings, image splitting, etc.

Well, that's about it actually. When done all that, you can save the split raster image into a PDF which can be sent into printing later.

You can install PosteRazor in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 11.10, 10.10 and 10.04 by using the below command in your Terminal window.

sudo apt-get install posterazor

That's it. Good luck.

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Fast Loading Image Viewer for Ubuntu Linux: Mirage

These days when it comes to image viewers, GNU/Linux has a whole bunch of very competitive ones + if you use Ubuntu, then it comes with an excellent, fully featured image viewer (and a simple editor included) called Shotwell which was so good that it replaced the previous contender F-Spot.

There's certainly nothing wrong with Shotwell... but if you're searching for something loads a bit faster but doesn't come with a lot of features (don't be fooled, it's quite powerful!) then Mirage is a pretty good one.

But before we go further along this road ;-), just remember, if you have a huge list of albums to manage, then this is not the one to go for.

Main features...

*. Uses the GTK+ toolkit that integrates flawlessly with the Ubuntu Unity, Gnome classic desktop and other GTK+ based ones such as LXDE & Xfce (heck, you can even use it under Qt/KDE as well). .

*. Supports a lot of file types (including both raster and vector graphics) such as: png, jpg, svg, xpm, gif, bmp, tiff and many others.

*. Zoom/Out, Flip and Rotate, Full screen and a small thumbnail window to the left, etc. 

*. It may be a simple app yet you can do basic image editing such as : Cropping, Resizing and color changing too.

*. View image properties.

*. Save in different formats.

*. Take screenshots.

*. Rename, Delete pictures.

*. Image pre-loading (which helps to reduce the loading times).

*. Slide-show support.

*. Change between image scaling algorithms.

*. Change thumbnail size and background colors... man, so much for "simplicity" :P.

You can install Mirage in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 11.10, 10.10 and 10.04 by using the below command in your Terminal window.

sudo apt-get install mirage

But remember, unlike with Shotwell or F-Shot, etc Mirage is not built to let you easily handle lots of image libraries (because that's not its purpose). Yet, all you want is a fast loading, pretty simple image viewer that has some useful features, then Mirage is a pretty good looking app nonetheless.

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A Simple Screen Recorder for Ubuntu: Kazam

Screen recording is a great way to reach your audience (especially if you're ugly like me and don't wanna share your "face" :D). For instance, let's say that I wanted to show-off the new features in the upcoming Ubuntu 11.10. Then rather than writing a painfully long article, I can create a simple screen-record of my entire desktop which would explain a lot, easily.

Although if you use Ubuntu, then yet it doesn't come with a one pre-installed (it probably never will since screen recorder is not something that not everyone will use) but I'm pretty sure there are a lot you can find.

But if you've been looking for a very simple screen recorder that does nothing else (you know, without advanced video editing, cropping, etc) then Kazam is an excellent little tool.

Main features...

*. It's written in the GTK+ tool kit and uses the ffmpeg multimedia library for the recordings.

*. You can record both video (from your Computer screen of course) + an audio channel if you wanna add a voice as well.

*. Once you push the "Record" button it'll start to record whatever is on your desktop screen and you can use it's icon that runs in the notification area to Pause or Stop the recording.

*. As said, it doesn't have a video editing function (other than a basic one, more below) but since Ubuntu come with a pretty good one called Pitivi, Kazam will ask you to whether you wanna edit the video using Pitivity or just save it to disk.

You can directly open the recorded video in PiTiVi...

*. Kazam also has a YouTube video uploader (including a basic editor) which you can use to easily upload your content to YouTube and VideoBin services.

*. Saves the recorded multimedia file in .MKV container format.

You can install Kazam in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 10.10 and 10.04 by using the daily unstable PPA channel (the stable channels doesn't have packages for Ubuntu 11.04) + 11.10 is not yet added. Open your terminal window and enter the below commands.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:and471/kazam-daily-builds

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install kazam

So if you're searching for an easy to use, simple screen recorder for Ubuntu, then give a try to Kazam, it's pretty darn good!.

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An Excellent XML Editor for Ubuntu: XML Copy Editor!

When it comes to editing XML files under Ubuntu we can of course use the Gedit text editor. But if you deal with a lot of XML codes, then Gedit is not the kind of the app that's gonna fully satisfy you. Although we cannot blame Gedit since it's primary role is to act as a text editor but for the serious coders, it's just not enough.

In that case if you're looking for a dedicated, fully featured and powerful XML editor that can be used in Ubuntu Linux, then you should try the award winning utility called XML Copy Editor.

Main features...

*. Syntax highlighting.

*. Check for spellings and styles.

*. Show/Hide attributes.

*. Insert: Symbols, elements, entity, etc.

*. Wrap words, folding.

*. Enable/Disable element pane.

*. Find and replace.

*. Excellent dedicated "XML" printing (pretty-print): With, wrapped long lines and highlighted codes, etc.

*. Export the XML files to PDF.

*. Word count and enter commands.

*. Check for well-formedness.

*. Validation DTD, XML Schema, Relax NG, Schematron, etc... are just a few of its main features to mention.

You can install XML Copy Editor in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 11.10, 10.10 and 10.04 by using the below command.

sudo apt-get install xmlcopyeditor

That should do it.

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Comprehensive Disk Cleaner (file system) for Ubuntu: FSlint

When comparing with the proprietary MS Windows file systems, the GNU/Linux file systems have their advantages and disadvantages. For instance, according to the experts, GNU/Linux ones, they don't need to be de-fragmented from time to time as with MS Windows, etc ... but I do feel that still, MS FS are better at loading folders filled with thousands of files or concerning the overall performance (at least in my experience).

But the point is, apart from all these differences, there are few things that are common to almost all the file systems thus you may need to manually configure and "fix" some of those issues (not always necessary though) which not only helps to keep a "healthy" file system but it also helps to free some disk space as well.

In that sense, if you've been searching for a dedicated utility that lets you manually search and find duplicate entries, broken links, empty folders, etc... from a singe GUI (+ an optional command-line interface too), then FSlint is an excellent little utility.

Main features...

*. Find and remove duplicate files/folders.

*. Search for Bad File names (doesn't mean they're corrupted or anything, but you know those naughty file names with non-standard UTF characters/names, etc).

*. Name clashes: find conflicting file/folder names.

*. Temporary files.

*. Bad symbolinks (invalid shortcuts).

*. Find files with missing user IDs.

*. Find empty folders.

*. Non stripped binaries & Redundant white-spaces (not entirely sure that the do to be honest).

You can install FSlint in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 11.10, 10.10 and 10.04 by using the below command in your Terminal window.

sudo apt-get install fslint

But FSlint also has another very useful feature that shows installed packages and their HDD spaces thus you can even remove them/un-install directly using FSlint and it'll even calculate the dependencies and properly remove them. 

My personally favorite feature...

You can also add/exclude paths. But if you want the maximum controllability then you'll have to run it as the root user but be careful and if you don't know what you're doing, then don't search for duplicate files in the OS core locations for instance (although some folder location are automatically excluded) since it can easily break your entire OS.

Also be careful while searching and removing (even inside your Home folder) duplicate files for instance, if you search within your "Home" folder, some of those ".xml" files may have the same name but they would most probably in different locations thus removing them is not a good thing to do.

But other than that, searching for duplicate files within your manually created folders, etc in Ubuntu (also supports few other distributions), FSlint is an excellent utility. But again, please use it with caution.

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How to Run Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal (Unity) in Acer Aspire One 722 Netbook?

Few days ago suddenly out of nowhere the Acer Aspire one 722 (BZ454 to be precise) fell into my hands :P. It came pre-loaded with MS Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit). But as soon as I got it, I just wanted to try Ubuntu Linux 11.04 in it (obviously). Since, it doesn't have an optical drive, I went with creating a Live Ubuntu USB disk but it did not work!.

Oh it boot the OS alright ... but after displaying the pretty Ubuntu logo, bugger just freezed!. I then search in few forums and realized that others are also having the same issue. I honestly don't know what really is the issue here... but for some reason it just freezes the whole screen.

I also had a bit similar issue with my now old Laptop while I was trying Ubuntu 11.04 using the LiveCD but was able to fix it by first not choosing to run Ubuntu as a live environment but went for the installation straight ahead.

Dudes, I really got in running! :D...

So, since the 722 also comes with a AMD Radeon GPU (which are a bit troublesome with Compiz) I tried the same thing with the Acer Aspire One 722 but when Ubiquity (Ubuntu's live Installer Wizard) was just about to launch itself, again, the Netbook just got stuck, again.

This time I saw the Wi-Fi card is turned on automatically thus I guessed that it might be the Wi-Fi detection problem which is pretty common with GNU/Linux these days.

Anyhow, just out of curiosity, I decided to give it a try, again, and this time, when the USB boot-menu was loaded, I pressed the "F6" button and chose "ACIP-Off" option. The system booted but when it arrived where previously freeze-d, this time I got an error message (except for the stuck-non-informative window as with previous occasions) saying that the installer cannot find a live file-system to operate.

Now, I'm not an expert on how GNU/Linux Live "environments" work. But when I was creating my Boot-able USB disk I choose the option that says "Discarded on shutdown, unless you save them elsewhere".

the second option is not selected by default... but I guess most of us just use it thus this is where I made my mistake (at lest I thin this is the reason)

So, I just thought re-creating a USB disk using the suggested/default settings called "Stored in extra reserved space" which I did and then, plug-in the USB disk and decided to go with the default Ubuntu 11.04 Live environment and guess what?, it worked!. 

Just make sure that you've chosen this one (selected by default)...

Now I'm not entirely sure what's the real cause here, but I've tested this two times and after going for the default settings, now I can use Ubuntu 11.04 in their pretty Unity desktop interface (yep with Compiz running) even after considering the fact that the Acer Aspire One 722 comes with the AMD fusion (APU - Advanced Processing Unit) which is only fully supported in the Kernel 3.0+, but even after without having that Kernel version + the proprietary AMD/ATI drivers... the Aspire One 722 runs pretty decently without any crashing incidents :).

But to be honest, even after considering the power of the included AMD Radeon HD 6250 (256MB dedicated graphics memory, 280Ghz internal clock speed if I'm not mistaken) Unity does feel a little slow since the proprietary AMD/ATI drivers are significantly faster than the open-source drivers, you should install the proprietary drivers if you want the best possible performance out of that GPU.

And also, if you also have this Netbook, then it should be pretty interesting what the upcoming Ubuntu 11.10 could bring from a performance point of view because with 11.10, Canonical is shipping the Kernel 3.0 for the first-time which fully supports the AMD Fusion architecture by default.

Anyhow, the performance even while on the Live USB environment is really good (I'm even writing this post in it!) but it should be even better after installing in the HDD.
 
So, if you're having troubles with trying to run Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal in Acer Aspire One 722 Netbook, then while creating that USB disk, just try the default settings as shown in the third screenshot. Good luck.

Oh and one more thing, the 11.6 inch display has a a resolution of 1366x768 thus things could look a bit too small for some but thanks to the Ubuntu or the Gnome desktop's DPI settings, I think Ubuntu Linux looks + makes things slightly bigger than the original MS Windows 7 thus Ubuntu is certainly my preferred choice while using this Netbook.

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Boot-Repair-tool for Ubuntu is Updated with Lots of New Features!

Boot-Repair is a bloody excellent little utility that lets you recover your boot-loader configuration (GRUB actually) related settings which seems to be pretty common with MS Windows 7 and Ubuntu users since when you do updates in MS Windows and if the OS core files are updated, then sometimes Windows just update/over-write (errrr :D) MBR thus breaking GRUB boot-loader files, completely or partially.

Although when it was released few months ago some of the advanced options were not shown to the Ubuntu users but I don't know when it happened, but the author has released a new version/updated of Boot-Repair which brings a lot of very useful, advanced features such as ...

*. A simple welcome screen from which now we can choose either:

1. "Recommended Repair": If you choose this option, then you don't have to do anything the Boot-Repair will take care everything for you.

From checking the partition to removing your current installed/broken GRUB to re-installing it... everything is automatic (few minutes ago I successfully reinstalled my GRUB and everything went really well, hey I'm still here!).

2. "Create a Bootinfo Summery": This is another very useful feature. For instance, say that you have a partially installed GRUB, wait!, what the heck does that mean!?

Well lets just say that you have a GRUB menu without anything but a blank screen .... and you went to an online community of Ubuntu experts and the geeks out there asked you whether you could give them a "log-file" related to your current GRUB settings or something similar.

Then you can use this second option that will create a full summary about your GRUB boot-loader and in my case it took like 40-50 seconds. Boot-Repair even uploaded that log-file in the Ubuntu Paste-Bin service which makes sharing it a breeze!.

But if you want additional controllability, then simply click on the "Advanced" button which will let you do things like...

*. Reinstall the GRUB (with or without replacing MBR).

*. Show/Hide the boot-menu after few seconds (that you can define manually).

*. Repair File Systems.

*. Install the GRUB loader into a different location (other than your MBR which is the default location) such as on the Ubuntu 11.04 partition, USB drives, etc.

Don't worry if you don't see your MS Widows 7 or Vista here since it only shows the OS that you're currently running...

*. Add additional initial boot-functions such as ACPI on/off, disable APIC, ATI Readon GPU related settings, etc.

Watch out for Pride! :P...

*. Enable/disable ATA disk support.

*. Restore the original MBR (the one that came with MS Windows which was there before you install Ubuntu). This however will only be available if it's not deleted by the Ubuntu OS installer.

*. Manually edit the GRUB file using a text editor (ahh, the good-old-days :D).

You can install Boot Repair in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot, 10.10 and 10.04 by using the below three command in your Terminal window.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install boot-repair

After installing, you can run it by pressing "Alt" + "F2" keys and entering the below command.

boot-repair

Remember, I think before going into the advanced section, you should try the Recommended option that'll solve many known GRUB boot related problems with Ubuntu 11.04 and MS Windows 7/Vista, etc.

And lastly, please don't try to enable advanced Kernel settings (above mentioned ACPI, etc) unless you know what you're doing.

Update: You can also visit this new official Boot-Repair Ubuntu Wiki-page for more (thanks Yann for the update!).

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Best Optical Disk Image Mounter for Ubuntu: FuriusISOMount!

Making Optical disk image backups is a great way to backup your data (which can really fasten up the process, depending on the content type, etc as well). Although we can view the content of the disk image even without a dedicated mounting software as long as we have a decent archive manager installed but "virtually" mounting the optical disk image is the best way to view the content.

Now, few days ago I did write about an ISO image mounter for Ubuntu, which is really good actually. But it had an apparent disadvantage, that is, it only supports ISO images. But what if you had another type of disk image, say the proprietary Nero images (NRG)?, how can you mount them in Ubuntu?.

The answer is simple, just install this other, aWeSomE disk image mounter called Furius-ISO-Mount and the rest should be taken care of!.

Main features...

*. Supports multiple optical disk image types such as: ISO, IMG, BIN, MDF and NRG.

*. Mount as a FUSE (it's like a virtual file system within the main FS that lets users to "create"/mount virtual file systems without admin privileges) or Loop device.    

*. Image checksum support (MD5 & SH1 algorithms supported): Heck, this tool even lets you check for errors.

*. Burn your disk images to actual optical disks (using either Brasero or Nautilus).

*. Drag-n-Drop support.

*. And unmount. 

You can install furius-iso-mount in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 11.10, 10.10 and 10.04 by using the below command in your Terminal window.

sudo apt-get install furiusisomount

Now, whenever you want to mount more than a singe optical disk image type that you backup earlier in Ubuntu, just launch "Furius" and mount the hell out of it! :D. 

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A File Type Editor for Ubuntu: assoGiate

assoGiate is actually a file type editor for the Gnome desktop but since the Ubuntu Unity desktop still uses a lot of Gnome technologies (especially Nautilus as the file management utility), we can use it under Ubuntu for editing/adding new file types with ease nonetheless.

Anyhow, every time you install a new application (say in Gnome desktop) and if that newly installed utility comes with a file types of its own which is not presented in the OS, then it manually registers those file types thus these applications are rarely needed for the newbies But...

... assoGiate is intended for the system administrators who want to manually change the configuration of the file types in Gnome/Ubuntu (or in any GNU/Linux distribution that uses Gnome), but of course dudes (ladies included :D) like you and me also can use it to play around the system settings (yikes!) a little bit as well.

Main features...

*. Search for the default file-types.

*. Edit the already consisting ones.

*. Add a New file type with Categories, related types, file names (also known as "extensions"), XML elements and other advanced options such as changing priority values, etc are also included.

*. Switch between User and System database (system database is only "shown" if you run it with administrative privileges).

*. Remove existing types (only available in the administrative mode).

*. Import/export the database... are the main features to mention.

You can install assoGiate in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 10.10 and 10.04 by using the below command.

sudo apt-get install assogiate

That's it, be safe ;-).

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Advanced Multi Touch Gesture Recognizer for Ubuntu: Touchégg

It was Apple who "invented" the idea (after they bought the company that really invented it) of Multi touch Gesture Recognizing feature first. Although it was first came out with the iPhone's touchscreen based, but later they integrated it to the Trackpads of their Laptops or Ultrabooks such as Mac Book Air which received a lot of positive feedback from users.

Anyhow, the Multi Touch gestures can be implemented on Trackpads or any similar devices by using main two methods.

1. Embedding it into the BIOS of the Trackpad: This I think is the best methods since we don't have to install any software to enabled the multi-gestures thus it's software/platform independent, somewhat (since the BIOS coded software should be familiar with the OS when it comes to resizing, zooming, etc. But there's is a standard for Multi-gestures thus Max OSX, Ubuntu 10.10 and after and MS Windows fully support it by default) + these hardware integrated devices tend to performs better than the software based ones.

2. Using a dedicated software: This is the only hope for us with a never Trackpads/touchscreens that support this feature but want more control over its functions, etc.

Anyhow if you use Ubuntu Linux and looking for a utility which enables you to do all those nerdy gesture stuff with more advanced features..., then Touchégg is something that's worth looking into.

Main features...

*. Manually add/define a huge list touch-gesture related functions such as: Maximizing, minimizing, show the desktop, horizontal/vertical scrolling, launch the execute a command window, close a window, hove a window, resize a window, etc.

*. Supports up to 5 fingers!. So nothing is wasted :D.

*. Tap and Pinch support. 

*. Works with a lot of window managers such as Compiz, KWin, Metacity, etc.

*. Manually change the "Tap & Hold" time sensitivity.

That's basically about it when it comes to features. 

Touchégg is actually a "portion" of a bigger project called egg Window manager (that supports multi-questers by default). You can install Touchégg in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 10.10 and 10.04 by first downloading the ".deb" packages from this download page.

But no matter what Ubuntu version that you use, you gotta install two separate files that include both the command-line core files + the GUI window. For instance, if you use 11.04 Natty, then

1. Get the command-line, "engine" from here first.

2. After the installation (just double click on the downloaded file and follow the on screen details), download the GUI from here and install it too.

After you've installed the both of the packages press "Alt" + "F2" keys on your keyboard and put the below command into the window and then you should be greeted with the configuration window by using which you can setup the multi-touch gestures for both the Trackpad or the touch-sensitive screen, etc with ease in Ubuntu!.

touchegg-gui

But remember, as said before, some older trackpads do not support the multi gesture recognition thus (as with my case) even if you install this, you won't be able to use the functions.

So in short, this application is only for those of you geeks, who already have a multi-gesture supported device but just lacks a dedicated software (one that gives you better control over actually, since Ubuntu does support it by default as far as I know) to do that for you under Ubuntu (or GNU/Linux in general)!.  

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Fast Loading PDF Reader for Ubuntu: ePDFView

Ubuntu Linux (Unity desktop included) comes with a built in PDF viewer called Evince (more than a PDF viewer, a document viewer actually) which loads fast and does its job quite well.

But if you're looking for PDF reader that loads even faster (not by a huge margin, slightly faster) + that doesn't depend on Gnome desktop libraries as with Evince... then ePDFView a pretty good utility.

Main features...

*. A very basic/simple GUI (one of the reasons behind that speed, I guess).

*. Search for Text.

*. Switch between the Scroll or the Text selection modes (although while I used it, I couldn't select text at all. I was able to select the text but as soon as I let go of the left-mouse button, the text got unselected!).

*. Show/Hide the PDF index.

*. Send to Print.

*. Save as a Copy.

*. Rotate, zoom-in/out, Full screen, etc.

*. Tool-bar (which includes the above mentioned tools + next/previous page tools, etc).

*. Change the Web Browser that opens the URL links inside the PDF content.

That's about it for the features actually. So, don't hope for a shi* load of features since it's not the idea behind ePDFView. According to the developers, they just wanted create a fast loading, resources friendly PDF viewer that has very little dependencies.

You can install epdfview in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 11.10, 10.10 and 10.04 by using the below command in your Terminal window.

sudo apt-get install epdfview

Again, this is certainly not the best but if you have a "thing" for speed ;-), then ePDFview deserves giving a try (except for that above mentioned Text related, bug which can make it pretty useless for some, especially if you want to copy the content to a separate text file).

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PDF Split and Merge Utility for Ubuntu Linux: PDF Sam

If you deal with a lot of PDF files under Ubuntu and all you want is nothing but to extract certain pages... then you don't need PDF Sam, PDFMod should do it for you. But if you want more control over your PDF documents (meaning both split and merging with advanced features) then PDF Sam is a pretty good utility.

PDF Sam is an open source application written in Java and needs the Java virtual environment to run. It comes with two versions (both open source). One version is completely free (the one that I'm using) but for the commercial version (they called it enhanced version), for that you'll have to pay some fee.

There's no "fee limits", even a single dollar will do it! OR you can download the enhanced versions's source code and compile it for free as well.

Not the best looking GUI... but it gets the job done!...

But the enhanced version has its own features such as the ability to encrypt or decrypt PDF files, add a front-page, etc. But for simple split/merger needs, the free version is more than enough. 

Main features...

*. Split PDF files with following options (few to mention):

Split the source file into single pages, manually define the starting page, split after a certain pages (1/2/ any page numbers) or use bookmarks as split points, change the output file meta data (Acrobat 6/7/8 or use the source meta data), change the output file location, etc.

You can add more than one PDF file to the list.

*. Merge is pretty simple actually.

You just locate/add your files to the list and then change few settings such as the above mentioned meta-data version, destination (enable "PDF documents contain forms" option if needed) and hit the "Run" button.

*. Play alert sounds (don't think it worked in my Ubuntu 11.04 though).

*. Few languages supported.

Although default GUI is pretty darn ugly :D, I changed it using the "Settings" section (you'll have to re-start the app to apply the changes) and after that PDF Sam used the default GTK theme (an older version of the GTK actually) and it looked much nicer afterward.

You can install PDF Sam in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal (perhaps in 10.10 and 10.04) by using the below command in your Terminal window.

sudo apt-get install pdfsam

That's it.

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Ubuntu Gets a Remastered 5.1 Surround Log-in Sound!

If you have installed a 5.1 Surround Sound system on your computer that happens to be running Ubuntu Linux instead of MS Windows :D, then wouldn't it be nice if you could make/add an awesome 5.1 surround log-in sound?.

I mean, of course you can find a 5.1 audio file but wouldn't it make everything so much better if we somehow find a re-mastered 5.1 version of the current official Ubuntu Log-in sound?. Well, thanks to Dustin Kirkland (an Ubuntu core developer and an active member of the Ubuntu Server development staff), we now actually have a re-mastered, official 5.1 surround sound for Ubuntu!.

"my life be like oooooh  aaaaaaah, oooooooh " ;-)...

Although I don't have a 5.1 system thus I haven't tested it (because I can't! :/) but Dustin is kind enough to provide us with a PPA channel which makes the installation is A breeze!.

So, as a result, you can install the 5.1 log-in sound in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 11.10, 10.10 and 10.04 by using the below commands.

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:kirkland/sound

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-sounds

Now, log-out of the system and re-login and if everything went well then you should hear it:

Starting off with the center speaker, going towards the front left and right channels then going into the back left/right speakers while the bongo rocking the hell out of your world using your Sub Woofer!. Enjoy!.

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Ubuntu Forums Introduces a New User Permission Policy

Anyone who're familiar with Ubuntu Linux knows about Ubuntu Forums. If you don't, then it's a pretty awesome community, filled with dudes and dudies who're sharing their knowledge and helping the Ubuntu newbies on solving various Ubuntu related issues (driver installations, troubleshooting, commands and new applications, etc).

To show you how big the community is, currently they have a registered user database of 1,427,121 users! (with  95,754 of active users). But managing the community is not that easy, especially considering the community expansion + not everyone who register at Ubuntu Forums have the same good intentions (yep, apparently there seems to be massive "SPAM campaigns" going on too :D, not funny though).

So as a result, Isabelle Duchatelle, one of the UF council members, in her personal blog yesterday announced that from now on, the newly registered users will not be able to change their profile information (such as links, etc) until they've posted at lest 50 posts. This actually makes sense and according to her own words in the UF announcement thread...

"... We will be taking away profile customization from users having less than 50 posts. We are quite sorry about that, but currently it takes at least one hour from 2-3 persons, each day, to clean profile spam. New users register only to fill the account with spam links, pics and things... we are quite tired of spending so much human resources on so little interesting tasks"

If you're a new UF users, then you don't have to worry about anything because as soon as you have 50 or more posts in UF, the system will automatically update your user permissions thus you'll be able to add/change your profile information. But since it's an automated task, which updates the database once an hour, Isabelle says that there could be small delays but you should see your permissions updated within 1 hour at max.

You can read more from this Official announcement thread in Ubuntu Forums.

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A Professional Digital Painting Software for Ubuntu Linux: MyPaint!

If you're looking for one of the best digital painting applications for Ubuntu, then there aren't that many which can beat GIMP for what it does. But if you're looking for a bit simpler yet a powerful and professional painting software that has a somewhat different characteristic to it (more later), then MyPaint is something that's totally worth giving a shot :).

According to the developer of MyPaint, it's designed for pressure sensitive Tablet PC type devices + puts a lot of "weight" on digital brush strokes, which makes it an excellent dedicated painting application rather than a usual image editor.

Welcome to the world of the "damaged bird!", ;-)... Original image by : Nicobou from deviantart.

 Main features...

*. As mentioned above, it's all about brush-strokes with MyPaint and you get a hell lot of 'em by default such as:

Sponge, Pen, Charcoal, Marker, AirBrush, Spray, Dry Brush, Rounded, ink_blot, Erasers and Blur brushes (of different types) are just a fraction of the brushes that you'll get!.

*. If you want to create a brush of your own, then you can use the built in "Brush Editor" which basically lets you define a new one using changing "Opacity", "Hardness", "Speed filter", etc values.

*. Import a brush package with ease.

*. A basic image layer support (add/remove, change opacity, merge layers, add a background, etc).

*. Save images as: PNG, JPEG, Multiple PNG transparent and Open-Raster formats.

*. Unlimited canvas size thanks to the Raster image support.

*. Also available for MS Windows platform as well. 

*. Edit pressure settings for Tablet or if you have a similar Touch sensitive gadget.

*. Change the colors of your brushes + pick colors from the color piker tool from your current image... are among the main features.

As said, the GUI is pretty simple and is not filled with options because MyPaint only emphasize on creating amazingly beautiful digital graphics rather than a fully featured image manipulator such as the GIMP, Pencil or Inkscape for instance. 

Anyhow, you can install MyPaint in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 11.10 and 10.10 by using the below command in your Terminal window.

sudo apt-get install mypaint

Also remember to have a look at the excellent documentation of MyPaint which includes tutorials on how to use this amazing, digital painting software to create beautiful looking artwork in Ubuntu Linux. Enjoy!.

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