Fire :)

This one made me LOL, and I might actually have ways to use it ^^

Credits and thanks to timelady who posted this xkcd comic on the Ubuntu-Women mailing list :)

A collection of links to Linux commands and scripts tutorials for beginners.

My personal favorite for Linux commands is linux.die.net, specially the man pages. Having to come up with a shell script myself (if I ever make it, I’ll post it here, I promise -_-), I looked around for some good basic tutorials.

Thanks to Omnios who’s linked some of them in a UF thread: Know Your Terminal Commands, Terminal references.
Feel free to add more links to the thread.

• Terminal commands:
  UNIX Tutorial from the Workshop on Molecular Evolution
  Linux commands
  Linux CLI
  The Linux Cookbook: Tips and Techniques for Everyday Use
  Alphabetical Directory of Linux Commands (from O’Reilly’s Linux in a Nutshell)
  An A-Z Index of the Linux BASH command line
• Scripts:
  Writing shell scripts
  Bash Guide for Beginners
  Linux Shell Scripting Tutorial
  SHELLdorado – your UNIX shell scripting resource
  Bourne Shell Programming

Please help identify major gutsy bugs

Henrik started a thread in the Dev Link forum on UF. From his wording:
“What are the most commonly discussed bugs in this forum section? It would be great if we could start on a list here (please list bugs with actual Launchpad bug numbers only and common bugs rather than personal favorites). Thanks!”.

Very nice initiative to get community feedback, please use it and contribute :)

Tim Berners-Lee talks about women in IT

Tim Berners-Lee invented the WorldWideWeb. I like the screenshots of the browser you can find here :)

In a recent article on zdnet.co.uk by Tom Espiner, he points at the “geek culture” that “that disregards the work of capable female engineers, and puts others off entering the profession.”
Interesting reading.

I’d like to point out that “geek culture” is only one of the ingredients to the under-representation of women in IT, or in Sciences in general. I see it also as a social and education issue (link to a related UF thread, with very good points discussed).
Of course, it would help a lot that women involvement/employment/careers gain the same opportunities than the men ones (the other way around is also true), and that women representations shift away from the hot chick/go-go dancer/blond with big boobs objectifications. Our society has to evolve, our education system has to stop renewing the usual stereotypes (all of them, including ethnics and religion, not only regarding gender).
Lots of work ahead!

Thanks to Aurelie who linked that article in the LinuxChix.fr mailing list, and to all the humans who work towards integration, especially within Linux communities.

Palm LifeDrive 4Go and Ubuntu Gutsy

I bought it because it was fully supported by Ubuntu. I used this Palm to sync with all my appointments and as an extra 4Go drive space. But from edgy, there has been an unfortunate regression that has completely borked sync and mount.

• Sync
  I use evolution just because it is handy. I tried Thunderbird + jpilot, but I prefer to have it all in one place.
  To have the LifeDrive sync properly with evolution/gnome-pilot, add a /etc/udev/rules.d/10-custom.rules file containing:

  BUS="usb", SYSFS{product}="Palm Handheld*", KERNEL="ttyUSB*", NAME{ignore_remove}="pilot", MODE="666"

  I also had to add the visor module at the end of /etc/modules

• Mount
  Enable drive mode on the Palm Lifedrive and find your drive device:

  blkid
  /dev/sda1: LABEL="LIFEDRIVE" UUID="1234-5678" TYPE="vfat"

  Then create a mount point, for ex:

  sudo mkdir /mnt/LIFEDRIVE

  Edit /etc/fstab and add the following line at the bottom of the file:

  /dev/sda1       /mnt/LIFEDRIVE    vfat    user,noauto 0 0

This partially works. If I enable drive mode again, or logout/login or reboot (I reboot at least twice a day, this is a laptop), the drive device gets changed. I’m now with /dev/sde1 :D
Would anyone have an idea about what’s going on? Many thanks in advance.

References

PalmDeviceSetup ubuntu wiki page
UF thread
LP bug

Subpixel font rendering in gutsy.

Sorry keybuk, I stole your thread title.
Please test it out and contribute to the UF thread linked below.

gusty upgrade with Xfce desktop:
[UPGRADE] fontconfig 2.4.2-1.2ubuntu1 -> 2.4.2-1.2ubuntu2
[UPGRADE] fontconfig-config 2.4.2-1.2ubuntu1 -> 2.4.2-1.2ubuntu2

None of my previous menu options have changed (quite normal *_*), I’m still happy with my previous config:

:~ $ cat ~/.config/xfce4/Xft.xrdb
Xft.antialias: 1
Xft.hinting: 1
Xft.hintstyle: hintfull
Xft.rgba: rgb

References

Subpixel font rendering in gutsy ubuntu-devel mailing list thread
Freetype changes ubuntu-devel mailing list thread
UF thread

Launchpad: Privacy Policy and Data Retention Statement

You can find it here.
That’s good :)
I had already noticed I could remove my LP account (which I have nooo intention to do). Was it there from the beginning ? I’m not sure.
More transparency, more info to users, I like that \o/

Reference

Launchpad blog

Icon labels styles on the Xfce desktop.

The icon labels, with my Xfce default theme, were plain white, no transparency, not so nice.
This can be changed in the ~/.gtkrc-2.0 file. Here is mine:

style "xfdesktop-icon-view" {
    XfdesktopIconView::label-alpha = 30
    font_name="Sans Bold"

    base[NORMAL] = "#aaccee"
    base[SELECTED] = "#aaccee"
    base[ACTIVE] = "#aaccee"

    fg[NORMAL] = "#ffffff"
    fg[SELECTED] = "#98fc66"
    fg[ACTIVE] = "#d40000"
}
widget_class "*XfdesktopIconView*" style "xfdesktop-icon-view"

You can control the transparency with XfdesktopIconView::label-alpha = x (x = 0 will set a fully transparent label) and play with the font style and color.

References

UF post
Xfce blog article

Fortune!

Enter:

ddate
Today is Boomtime, the 43rd day of Bureaucracy in the YOLD 3173

man ddate and enjoy!

Reference

UF post
Discordian calendar

Ah, les « états d’âme d’une linuxette »

Je vous laisse découvrir qui est l’heureux propriétaire de cette créature de rêves à deux cœur. C’est avec plaisir que je lis ses différents blogs (il y en a trois que je connais), des tribulations et découvertes linuxo-technologiques (la linuxette nouvelle donc) aux magnifiques captures d’écran de bureau (ce blog ne sera plus maitenu, mais les photos sont hébergées dessus) et aux réflexions philosophiques.

C’est sur le forum d’ubuntu-fr que nous avons fait connaissance, j’étais tellement impressio-tourneboulationnée par ses captures d’écran sur E17 ou sawfish.
Note pour moi même : en cherchant le lien pour sawfish, je viens de remarquer que son développement a repris (c’est un des premier WM de GNOME). Hmm… J’espère trouver un peu de temps pour regarder de plus prêt.

Bonnes lectures :)