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Trying Out Ubuntu 10 04 On A Desktop PC Part Two

This blog describes the multimedia playback capabilities (both audio and video) of the standard Ubuntu 10.04 - that is, what this 64-bit OS can play out-of-the-box. Let us start with the audio capabilities first.

Multimedia - Audio Playback

It was obvious from the start that Ubuntu can handle sound - but what format? A quick peek into the /usr/share/sounds directory gave me some answers. The sound file formats that Ubuntu can handle out-of-the-box are .wav and .ogg type files. The wav format is an uncompressed PCM one while the ogg format is a lossy compressed one. Both are free formats and that is the reason they were included on a standard Ubuntu (which has a strict policy regarding non-free or propriety formats - they simply are not included).

A test was carried out by plugging in a USB drive containing several audio and video files of various formats, into the Ubuntu 10.04 PC. The USB drive was recognized by the OS and mounted automatically - an icon for that drive appeared on the desktop. The OS also obligingly open the Nautilus file browser showing the contents of the USB drive. Hovering the cursor over the various audio files on the USB drive, I discovered that Ubuntu can indeed play back wav and ogg type audio files plus it also can play back flac type audio files. This format is a lossless compressed PCM type and it is a free format (flac = free lossless audio codec) - hence it was included in the standard Ubuntu. However, out of the box Ubuntu CANNOT play back mp3, mp4, aac, m4a and ape formatted audio files. Obviously, extra non-free or propriety codecs need to be installed to handle these formats.

A quick check with the official Ubuntu 10.04 document did not help much but checking the community document on restricted formats gave instructions on which package to install in order to get support for the other audio (and video) formats. The package is appropriately named ubuntu-restricted-extras and besides the codecs necessary for play back of the other formats, also includes Microsoft TTF fonts, Java runtime environment, Flash plugin, LAME (to create compressed audio files), and DVD playback. Opening the Synaptic Package Manager, I installed this package - which took a while - mainly due to the downloading of the various TTF fonts from a busy server.

After the ubuntu-restricted-extras package was installed, another test was performed on the other audio files on the USB drive. Hovering the cursor over the files I can now play back mp3, mp4, aac, m4a and ape formatted audio files. This package indeed took care of the most popular audio formats found. By the way, I also found out that the popular Microsoft TrueType fonts (like Times New Roman, Arial, Courier New, etc) were also installed on my system - a big plus and another reason to install this package.

Another audio capability test was then performed - the audio CD playback capability. Inserting an audio CD into the drive resulted in it being recognized and mounted (a icon will appear on the desktop). A message box will also pop-up telling me that I have inserted an audio CD and asked which application to use the CD with - the default is Rhythmbox. Note that I can make this the default action also - however, for this test I accepted the default application by clicking on OK. Rhythmbox, the music management and playback software for GNOME, was launched and I was able to play the CD by clicking on the Play button. The details about the CD (album name, artist, and track/song title) was also displayed. This test confirmed that Ubuntu was indeed capable of handling audio CDs.

Thats it as far as my needs for audio playback on Ubuntu 10.04 goes. In my next blog, I will be describing the video playback capabilities of the OS, so stay tuned.

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Turn Any Photo Into Enscape Content In a Matter of Minutes

With the newly announced partnership between Archvision and Enscape, some interesting possibilities have opened up. If you own both Archvision Dashboard and Enscape, you can rapidly create custom RPC and view it in your Enscape presentations, including in VR.

Overview of the process

You can also read the full media release here.

Heres how to do it:

Edit your image...

Save as PNG with Transparency (I used Irfanview here)

Click Apply / Process...

Then drag and drop to Revit,


Locate it correctly,

and start Enscape...

Enjoy!

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Ubuntu MATE 16 10 Yakkety Yak Gets A Unity HUD Like Searchable Menu

• xprop was replaced with a Python implementation;
• rofi is used instead of dmenu;
• rofi is automatically themed based on the current GTK theme;
• the settings (including configurable keyboard shortcut) are stored in Dconf (org > mate > hud).

sudo apt install mate-hud

via Web Upd8 - Ubuntu / Linux blog http://ift.tt/2au2YLS

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Trying Out Ubuntu 10 04 On A Desktop PC Part One

As mentioned in several of my previous blogs, I use Ubuntu Netbook Remix exclusively on my netbooks (a Lenovo S10-2 and an HP Mini 2140). After playing around with the relatively new UNR 10.04 on the HP, I grew to like the OS - so much so that I decided to install it on a spare PC that I had around (which was mainly used for testing) and play around with it some more. The PC is built around an Asus M2N-E motherboard and the CPU I had installed is an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+. The amount of RAM on the motherboard is 8 GB of DDR2-800. Clearly the 64-bit flavor of Ubuntu 10.04 was the choice of OS here. To top up the hardware, I also installed a ATI HD 4670 video card, a 550W power supply and a 320GB SATA hard disk. The display was an Acer 23 inch wide screen LCD. With all the hardware pieces in place, I ventured into the world of 64-bit Linux computing. This blog and more will describe my journey in that world.

After downloading the ISO image of the DVD, I burned it to a disc and used it for the installation. The actual installation was painless - the only unusual item of note is that I partitioned the hard disk manually and used ext3 filesystem instead of the default ext4. I also used my normal (normal for me, that is) partitioning scheme - i.e., a small boot partition, the root partition, a swap partition and a home partition. The reason for using the ext3 filesystem was mentioned also in my previous blog - it enables me to backup or clone my hard disk using the Arconis Home 2010 software, which at the moment can only handle ext3 type filesystem.

The first boot-up went without any problem and after logging in, was presented with the purple-colored desktop. The first thing I did was to change the screen desktop background to a more pleasing one - right-clicking on the desktop and selecting Change Desktop Background, I was presented with several choices. I selected Maraetai before sunrise as my background - at least it does not hurt my eyes as much as the default! :)

The second thing I did was un-mute my sound system, which, for some reason or other, the Ubuntu team decided to initially start off muted. I also adjusted the volume level sliders to a reasonable value. Note that the Sound Preference dialog box that appears upon clicking it, do not have the option to test the sound levels - a shortcoming which I urge the Ubuntu team to fix.

The next (and somewhat irritating) thing I fixed is the placement of the windows control (maximize, minimize and close) buttons from the top left side of the windows to the usual (and familiar) top right side.

As with my previous installation of UNR 10.04 on my HP netbook, I was prompted to update my system and it also indicated that propriety drivers were available for my system. Putting aside the drivers for the time being, I updated the system via the Update Manager - which took a while since there was a fair amount of updates that needed to be applied. Once completed a re-boot was required - this was done and the system restarted - this time it was accompanied with the Ubuntu startup sound.

The Firefox Browser

The first software I tried out on the Ubuntu 10.04 was the default web browser that come with it - the Firefox. I started it and changed my home page to news.google.com.my and then checked the installed plugins by executing about:plugins via the address bar. All the necessary multimedia and java plugins were installed except Shockwave flash-player and pdf-reader plugins.

The Shockwave flash-player plugin package (named flashplugin-nonfree) can be installed using the Synaptic Package Manager but note that this is a 32-bit plugin - the 64-bit one is still in beta and was not included in the standard installation of Ubuntu 10.04. As it is a 32-bit package, there was a lot of dependencies for it - the major ones being nspluginwrapper and ia32-libs. These are required to make the 32-bit plugin work on 64-bit Ubuntu. A lot of work to get one plugin to work - I just wish Adobe would get the 64-bit one working as soon as possible. However, the plugin worked - I verified it by playing a YouTube movie (my favorite HQ movie of Sarah Brighman singing Harem). The command about:plugins also verified that the shockwave flash is indeed installed.

The pdf-reader plugin, on the other hand, is not such a simple package to install. First the lucid partner repository need to enabled - this is done by editing the /etc/apt/sources.list file (as root) and un-commenting the two lines for the lucid partner repository. Then the Synaptic Package Manager need to be restarted and the package database refreshed by clicking on the Reload button. Alternatively, the command sudo aptitude update can be run from a console. Then a search for acroread need to be done and once found that package need to be installed. Note that this will also install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader and if you choose so, make it the default pdf type file reader. Once the plugin (and reader) has been installed, the Firefox browser has to re-started. The command about:plugins has also to be executed to verify that the pdf plugin is indeed installed - which in my case, was. In order to test the plugin I used a web page containing a pdf test document and it verified that the installed plugin worked. However, for some strange reason, the Acrobat Reader was not listed in the Applications menu list. Loggin out and then back in solved this - Acrobat Reader 9 was now listed in Applications -> Office.

Next I installed some extra essential (to me!) plugins - Adblock Plus, Download Statusbar, Webmail Notifier and Yoono (a social neworking app to mintor my twitter and facebook account). Once these were installed I now have the Firefox browser that I can use productively. In fact, I use the same setup for my netbooks and my Windows 7 workstations. Later I get my bookmarks synchronized across all my computers. I wonder if there is an application that will allow me to do so.

Next, I will check out the multimedia capabilities of Ubuntu 10.04 ... stay tuned.

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Turning vision into a reality

Taken from The Hindu.
We seldom spare a thought for the simplest of things that could be within our reach but remain out of our mind.

For instance, how many of us knew that the annual cost of educating a visually challenged student at an Indian University (including lodging and boarding at the University hostel) is same as the cheapest iPad 3.

Read more �

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Try Fira Sans A Free Font Family Commissioned By Mozilla

"Complimenting Erik Spiekermann for Fira Sans, his latest typeface, seems a little like telling the Iron Chef that he really knows how to cook. Yeah. Duh. We might even ask whether Fira has an unfair advantage over other fonts from 2013, because it�s built on the adamantium-plated skeleton of FF Meta, which Spiekermann has had 25+ years to polish (see also FF Meta Serif and FF Unit)".

- Matthew Butterick on Typographica.org

Try Fira Sans

- to install the fonts system-wide:

sudo mkdir -p /usr/share/fonts/truetype/FiraSans
sudo mkdir -p /usr/share/fonts/opentype/FiraSans
sudo cp ~/Fira*/WEB/*.ttf /usr/share/fonts/truetype/FiraSans/
sudo cp ~/Fira*/OTF/Fira* /usr/share/fonts/opentype/FiraSans/

- to install Fira Sans / Fira Mono for your user only:

mkdir -p ~/.fonts/FiraSans
cp ~/Fira*/WEB/*.ttf ~/.fonts/FiraSans/
cp ~/Fira*/OTF/Fira* ~/.fonts/FiraSans/

Then, update the font cache:

sudo fc-cache -f -v

Also see: Easily Download And Install Google Web Fonts In Ubuntu With TypeCatcher

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Ubuntu Studio Theme a cool looking theme for your Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon 7 10

Continuing my previous article about giving your Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon 7.10 new look , I came across another impressive theme this was Ubuntu Studio theme . Now I have used Ubuntu Studio previously and was quite impressed by its default theme but well it never occurred to me that we could install that theme on plain vanilla Ubuntu 7.10 , then I came across piece of instruction on installing it and well decided to reproduce the instructions in more simplified way on my blog .

So here are complete instructions on giving your Ubuntu 7.10 cool looks with Ubuntu Studio Theme .



Open up terminal window from (Application -> Accessories -> Terminal )



Firstly we install Ubuntu Studio theme for GTK and Metacity , by issuing the following command in the terminal window :

sudo apt-get install ubuntustudio-theme

Now we install Ubuntu Studio GDM theme with the following command issued in the terminal window :

sudo apt-get install ubuntustudio-gdm-theme

Now we install Ubuntu Studio Icon theme with the following command :

sudo apt-get install ubuntustudio-icon-theme

and finally we install couple of really cool Ubuntu Studio wallpapers with the following command in the terminal window :

sudo apt-get install ubuntustudio-wallpapers

After completing the above steps , you need to apply the newly installed theme to do so go to ( System -> Preferences -> Appearance ) and Select ubuntustudio in the dialog box displayed :




Now we need to change wall papers too , you can do so by selecting the Background tab of the above Appearance dialog box . Now you will see the new wall paper that have been installed select the one that charms you most though i like this one which i have highlighted in the screen shot below .



Finally after completing all the above steps , the Ubuntu studio theme should be properly installed . This is how my desktop looks after installing the ubuntu studio theme :


Now Ubuntu Studio Theme is really impressive and does give a fresh look to your Ubuntu Gutsy Desktop .


Article Written by : Ambuj Varshney (blogambuj@gmail.com)
For Desktop on Linux Blog , http://linuxondesktop.blogspot.com

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Try Vocal A Podcast Manager Designed For elementary OS

Other Vocal features include:

• you can assign custom skip intervals for the skip forward and backwards buttons, useful if for instance youve missed something or to jump past an advertisement;
• episode position saving, you can can easily start an episode from where you left off;
• supports library import/export (can import from iTunes, gPodder, etc.).

Download Vocal

If you encounter bugs, report them @ Launchpad.

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True Facts For A Successful Life

Real Facts of Life � Presentation Transcript

1. Facts About life

2. Dont compare yourself with any one in this world If you compare, you are insulting yourself

3. No one will manufacture a lock without a key similarly God wont give problems without solutions.

4. Life laughs at you when you are unhappy ... Life smiles at you when you are happy... Life salutes you when you make others happy...

5. Every successful person has a painful story Accept the pain and get ready for success.

6. Easy is to judge the mistakes of others. Difficult is to recognize our own mistakes It is easier to protect your feet with slippers than to cover the earth with carpet .

7. No one can go back and change a bad beginning But anyone can start now and create a successful ending

8. If a problem can be solved, no need to worry about it If a problem cannot be solved what is the use of worrying?

9. � Changing the Face" can change nothing But "Facing the Change" can change everything Dont complain about others ; Change yourself if you want peace.

10. Mistakes are painful when they happen. But years later collection of mistakes is called experience which leads to success .

11. Be bold when you loose and be calm when you win Heated gold becomes ornament Beaten copper becomes wires Depleted stone becomes statue So the more pain you get in life you become more valuable


12. Thankyou

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