I came across early today with this nice post (pt-br), where nq6 shows up his recent artwork cover for Ubuntu and APTonCD discs.

The Ubuntu covers has tags and is written in Brazilian Portuguese, so you will see phrases such like “Linux para seres humanos”. The text makes reference to our community resources, pointing to the website, forums, etc. However, anyone can use the covers as some of it is almost language-independent.

I couldn’t quite believe when I saw which is part of the set two awesome APTonCD covers. So you can create your installation disc using aptoncd, burn it and print this beautiful cover to stick on your disc. This is great for having with you the additional disc to install applications in your friend’s computer and so forth.

I’ll ask Fred (the creator) to make some covers more ‘language-independent’ then more people can use it. I’ll post them here latter.

I like that

Avant Window Navigator is really cool, but now it is even better.

To turn your awn this way, get the latest version from svn - there are packages available for Ubuntu Feisty and instructions how to use the repositories.

Open the gconf-editor and change the following keys/values:

/apps/avant-window-navigator/bar/bar_angle to 45
and
/apps/avant-window-navigator/bar/icon_offset to 18

Restart the avant-window-navigator.

Further information: http://njpatel.blogspot.com

Many people around the globe have been discussed why Ubuntu, and GNU/Linux in general, can(’t) became the world’s most used operating system. There are several reasons on favour and lot more against. I do not want to list many, just this one, that in my opinion may be the largest one:
Education: I cant avoid quoting Morpheus, from The Matrix:

The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you’re inside, you look around. What do you see?
Business people, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy.
You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inure, so hopelessly dependant on the system, that they will fight to protect it.

Morpheus know what he was talking about (not really, actually was Larry & Andy who did). And that is true.
There is a (operational?) system, and there is a monopoly around it. It’s not company’s that develops that system the fault (at least not completely), neither the users of that system. The majority of that users still using this system because they don’t know the options, because someone, someday, met the system and since them they use it.

Say to someone who have been used the MS Windows for the last ten years that he/she needs to change for a free alternative because it will be better for him/her, it won’t help, most likely he will laugh of you (in some cases they might be mad, indeed). As Morpheus properly said, they are so hopelessly dependant on that system, that will fight to protect it.

And so…?

“If my Windows box just works, why sould I change it?” Try to convince and show the reasons why GNU/Linux is better and how to switch in a painless way as possible. A good start point would be reading and understanding the content of sites such as
http://www.getgnulinux.org
http://www.whylinuxisbetter.net
http://www.reichel.net/opensource/linuxtop10.html

Even if the people think Windows is better, they must know the alternatives, and why not get knowing the free ones? I’m pretty sure that if 50% of the computer users of the world know GNU/Linux (know = being used a modern distribution for some hours or enough time to make an opinion), the Linux would has today at least 30% of the desktop market.

The Linux has changed! GNU/Linux is not like it was five years ago (when I started off) and the people must know that. The Linux desktop is ready, right now, and shouldn’t be considered as a project anymore.

GNU/Linux should be taught in the schools. The kids are the future. If you have the chance to choose teaching a kid or a old man, choose the kid, they will probably learn effortless, and will be much more easy for you.

The business of tomorrow are owned by them, as well the education, technology and everything.
The system is ready, are the people who aren’t. But it is relatively easy to fix if they want to.

Wine-Doors is what we would call a Windows Package Manager for Linux, who uses Windows are not used with the install/remove scheme of Linux programs, what we call Package Management.

Wine-Doors is a graphical interface that allows you to install applications originally made for Windows in a Linux system (in your Ubuntu box, por exemple). It uses the well known Wine to install the programs that are fetch automatically from a repository from the Internet. It’s very alike with apt-get, just like the gnome-app-install and synaptic (both apt-get’s front-end) that gets a package and calls dpkg (wine, in this case) to install the application.

Unfortunately for some unknown reason some people still needing to use some applications that are only in its plenty of functionality on versions for MS Windows (fortunately this is not my case), but I’m not going to discuss it here. But with wine-doors the fetching, installation and configuration of these programs is made automatically almost without any user intervention.

The interface remembers the gnome-app-install, where all you need to do is select the application, mark for installation and apply the changes. After installed, a shortcut for the program will be installed on the GNOME’s applications menu according its category (accessories, games, sound & video, etc.). You also will be able to upgrade and remove the application trough wine-doors interface (and again, yes, just like apt-get/synaptic).

If you want to install it, I recommend this package for Ubuntu Feisty provided by GetDeb.net.
The comparison points with APT-GET, gnome-app-install, synaptic, etc. are numerous:

• The fetching based on repositories;
• Has the packages list (packlist.xml.gz like Packages.gz);
• Has a local database to catalogue the packages installed, available and with upgrade candidate
• Ahh, and many other things…

Currently in its ‘repositories’ are already many applications available for installation. When you run wine-doors for the first time you can install:

• Visual C++ Libraries;
• Firefox (???);
• Internet Explorer 6;
• Opera 9 (???);
• Quicktime 7;
• Winamp5;
• Windows Media Player;
• DVD Decrypter;
• Dreamweaver 8;
• Flash 8;
• Eudora;

And even some games:

• Soldat;
• Prey;
• Steam;
• Half Life 2;
• World of Warcraft
• Warcraft I;
• Call of Duty;
• DirectX 9;

And also some fonts and libraries.

In the wine-doors site you can get more information, downloads, screenshots and documentation.

[*PS1: Not all applications I’ve installed had their icons created in the gnome menu;
PS2: The option ‘more info…’ do not seems to do anything, at least for me]

We have a lot of graphical tools for package management in Ubuntu, I’d say we have the best ones (apt, synaptic, gdebi, gnome-app-install, update-manager, as well its equivalents for QT/KDE). To install an application via gnome-app-install (Applications > Add/Remove…) is a piece of cake.

How could it be easier? I’ll give you a practical example:

To install aMule, click on the following icon:

OK, didn’t work? It’s because it is a new feature that is being implemented for, most likely, Gutsy (by mvo and the -core-dev) .

With this new feature it will be possible to install applications just by clicking in a link that point to a new apt:// protocol, it will call a dialog asking if the user really wants to install that package, if yes the superuser password will be asked and the package will be installed. It’s simple like that

Use cases:

• John has posted a question at the UbuntuForums telling that he can’t uncompress a .rar file using File Roller, and you perfectly knows that all John need to do is install the package ‘unrar’, so you go there and reply by saying:

apt://unrar

John will click on that link and then, after agreeing and putting his sudo password, the package will be installed getting rid with John’s trouble.

• To make easier the task of installing common used applications, you can put in your blog a link to the visitors install all the packages you recommend, all of those is found in the Ubuntu’s repos.:

apt://amule,banshee,brasero,tilda,mplayer,vlc,aptoncd

• Actually there are a lot of things you can do with that feature, mentioning them all will be waste of time. Let your mind fly.

It will also let you to specify a alternative repository (temporally) which is not in the user’s sources.list to install a specific package. More or less like that:

apt+http://archive.canonical.com?package=acroread?dist=feisty?section=commercial

It will install the package acroread for ubuntu feisty of the section ‘commercial’ from the ‘archive.canonical.com’ repository. Note that the syntax is basically the same found at the sources.list. The existing repositories that follow the Debian standard will be able to be used for the apt:// protocol.

You will also be able to specify a minimum version to be installed with the URL parameter ?minversion=0.1, to install the version 0.1 or more.

Security:

Some may think that this feature will be a security risk, but I’m going to tell you why it’s not: When the user click on the link apt://amule they are calling the package manager (synaptic) to install a package that are already available in your sources.list and is properly signed by a known keyfile/keyring, it’s like typing a sudo apt-get install amule. That package will be installed only if the key can be authenticated. If the package is part of a official Ubuntu repository it won’t be a problem, otherwise it will be need to specify the key on the URL and the user will must to accept it.

Notice that this is not a .deb file that is being parsed, it’s a named package, which differs from the use of gdebi (open with gdebi), for example.

How it works:

The functioning of this tool is as simple as its idea. If you are interested in testing this new feature and are already testing the Ubuntu Gutsy, all you need to do is to install the package ‘apturl‘ from universe repository. For those normal people who do not want to test gutsy yet, I made this package for Ubuntu Feisty and Debian Etch. After installed, you can try it by clicking on the amule logo at the begin of the post, or just use the apturl binary to play stand-alone.

This feature still in development and test stage you might use by your own risk. Some of the features mentioned here may not be implemented yet.

For now, it works only with Firefox. But other web browsers will be supported too.

apturl_0.0+bzr20070709_all.deb
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