Ubuntu 10.04 is expected on the first quarter of 2010

The free operating system Ubuntu's next version is expected to come on the mid of April 2010. The name of that version will be Lucid Lynx and It will be having Long Term support by Ubuntu.

Two major following technologies will be expected to implement in the upcoming Lucid Lynx.

1. Gnome 2

Ubuntu 10.04 will use Gnome 2.0 as its desktop environment, with the focus to shift to Gnome 3.0 thereafter.  This means the Lucid Lynx won’t look very different from previous releases, which is a bit unexciting.  But it also substantially simplifies the task of Ubuntu developers, who will have a longer period to prepare for the major changes that will accompany the adoption of Gnome 3.0.  Overall, this is a wise choice.

Shuttleworth anticipates Gnome 3.0’s debut, which should happen with Ubuntu 10.10, to be especially beneficial to users of netbooks and similar devices.  But for the time being, they’ll have to make do with the interfaces currently available.

2. Cloud Computing

The final major point of Shuttleworth’s speech is a continued emphasis on cloud computing, which has been at the forefront of Ubuntu server edition development since the 8.10 release.  Although he didn’t explain specifically how 10.04 will improve upon the cloud infrastructure available in current versions, it’s clear that Canonical expects the cloud to become a cornerstone of Ubuntu’s future on the server.

Investment in the cloud, as I argued a couple weeks ago, is a wise choice.  It will likely prove key to achieving the holy grail of a reliable revenue stream for Canonical, and may help redefine the way that Linux is deployed.

Features:
1. Updated packages

2. Gnome 2

Ubuntu Lucid Alpha 1 includes the latest GNOME desktop environment with a number of great new features.  

3. Linux kernel 2.6.32

4. KDE SC 4.4 beta 1

5. Hal removal

Lucid Alpha 1 sports full removal of the hal package, making Ubuntu faster to boot and faster to resume from suspend.

For further info:

http://www.workswithu.com/2009/09/22/ubuntu-1004-a-closer-look/

http://www.workswithu.com/2009/09/20/atlanta-linux-fest-top-9-ubuntu-highlights/

Installing VLC Player in RHEL5 - R&D

Installing VLC Player in RHEL5 is still a perpetual R&D for me. You can find packages once you get into the vlc player website. But that is not fruitful to install VLC into RHEL5, however you can download the packages that is for our personal and professional R&D.

Packages can be downloaded from the following link, however these have some dependencies.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-redhat.html

So It is not the full solution to install the VLC Player in RHEL5. The problem persists, even if you go for Linux forums.

VLC developers has to provide a proper solution to fix this up.
Anyway try this following link out for your machine, it would be the good R&D in RHEL5.

http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/vlc/

If not try the torrent link for downloadin VLC for Redhat Enterprise Linux.

http://www.picktorrent.com/torrents/28/vlc-player-of-red-hat/

FireStarter for Ubuntu Linux - a free professional firewall

Fire starter is a small utility that is used for restricting the network in a pretty way. It can be installed easily with the following command

$ sudo apt-get install firestarter


It is having the customizable user interface, you can minimize into tray if you need, you can leave it normal otherwise.

Key Features

• Suitable for use on desktops, servers and gateways
• Enables Internet connection sharing
• Allows you to define both inbound and outbound access policy
• Wizard for easily configuring your firewall
• Sets up DHCP for a local network
• Real time firewall events view
• View active network connections, including any traffic routed through the firewall
  

Normally, In professional flavour of Linux ie Redhat Enterprise Linux does not have this type of utility. You can achieve through commands that is used for fixing the firewall priority ie., High, Medium, No firewall.

But In Ubuntu you can fix it easily with simple mouse clicks. You can restrict the network through this utility. Blocking internal network packets as well as blocking external network packets.

You cannot access internet, if you block all packets. This is the good utility to maintain a good network in Ubuntu.

Firewall is the fitering mechanism in one or more network, that is used to handle the incoming and outgoing packets in general.

Redhat Enterprise Linux 5 & Acer 5315 - a perpetual R&D

I installed Redhat Enterprise Linux 5 in my Acer 5315 laptop. But the GUI is not able to configured since the laptop screen is very large one, which is diagonally measured 15 inches. Then the Ethernet card is also not detected. So I cannot move further with this.

I installed Ubuntu 9.04 which works good with all the devices. I am able to use even the integrated camera also.

The GUI problem is related to the screen resolution that can be tolerable professional like me. But the network card detection problem is not normal. I can wake my Acer 5315 up, if the network card works good. Then I can go for further research.

I googled a lot on this query. But the the problem persists. Finally I came to that RHEL5 is not for Acer 5315, however I am still doing my R&D on this. Pour your valuable suggestions in this regard.

Boot RHEL from USB

The following steps configure a USB pen drive as a boot medium to start the installation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

1. Attach the USB pen drive to a system which is already running Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
2. Run
dmesg
3. From the dmesg output, identify the device name under which the drive is known to the system.
   Sample messages for a 1 Gb flash disk being recognized as /dev/sdb:
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver... scsi2 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices usb-storage: device found at 5 usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning usbcore: registered new driver usb-storage USB Mass Storage support registered. Vendor: USB 2.0 Model: Flash Disk Rev: 5.00 Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02 SCSI device sdb: 2043904 512-byte hdwr sectors (1046 MB) sdb: Write Protect is off sdb: Mode Sense: 0b 00 00 08 sdb: assuming drive cache: write through SCSI device sdb: 2043904 512-byte hdwr sectors (1046 MB) sdb: Write Protect is off sdb: Mode Sense: 0b 00 00 08 sdb: assuming drive cache: write through sdb: sdb1 sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sdb sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0 usb-storage: device scan complete

4. Note: For the remainder of this article, we will assume this device name to be /dev/sdb. Make sure you adjust the device references in the following steps as per your local situation.
5. At this point, the flash drive is likely to have been automatically mounted by the system. Make sure the flash drive is unmounted. E.g. in nautilus, by right-clicking on the icon for the drive and selecting Unmount Volume.
6. Use fdisk to partition the flash drive as follows:
   
   • There is a single partition.
   • This partition is numbered as 1.
   • Its partition type is set to 'b' (W95 FAT32).
   • It is tagged as bootable.
7. Format the partition created in the previous step as FAT:
mkdos /dev/sdb1
8. Mount the partition:
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt
9. Copy the contents of /RedHat/isolinux/ from the first installation CD/DVD onto the flash drive, i.e. to /mnt.
   Note: the files isolinux.bin, boot.cat and TRANS.TBL are not needed and can thus be removed or deleted.
10. Rename the configuration file:
cd /mnt/; mv isolinux.cfg syslinux.cfg
11. Copy the installer's initial RAM disk /RedHat/images/pxeboot/initrd.img from the first installation CD/DVD onto the flash drive, i.e. to /mnt.
12. Optional step: To configure any boot settings, edit the syslinux.cfg on the USB flash drive. For example to configure the installation to use a kickstart file shared over NFS, specify the following:
linux ks=nfs:://ks.cfg
13. Unmount the flash drive:
umount /dev/sdb1
14. Make the USB flash drive bootable. The flash drive must be unmounted for this to work properly.
syslinux /dev/sdb1
15. Mount the flash drive again:
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt
16. Install GRUB on the USB flash drive:
grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sdb1
17. Verify that the USB flash drive has a /boot/grub directory. If it does not, create the directory manually.
    cd /mnt
    mkdir -p /boot/grub
18. Create the grub.conf file. Below is a sample grub.conf:
    default=0
    timeout=5
    root (hd1,0)
    title Red Hat Enterprise Linux installer
    kernel /vmlinuz
    initrd /initrd.img
19. Copy or confirm the created grub.conf file is on the /boot/grub/ directory of the USB flash drive.
20. Unmount the flash drive:
umount /dev/sdb1
21. At this point, the USB disk should be bootable.
22. Attach the USB disk to the system you wish to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux on.
23. Boot from the USB disk. Refer to the hardware vendor's BIOS documentation for details on changing the order in which devices are checked for booting from.
24. Once you are booted in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux installer, continue with your network installation of your choice.

---------
Courtesy: Redhat.com
Reference: http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-10553

Ubuntu / Google has to fix up Gtalk voice chat issue

There is no proper voice chat available in all Linux flavours generally except IBM Sametime. The search engines' giant Google's Gtalk is also having the issue still with all Linux flavours.

Ubuntu bots and Google lovers eagerly waited for the solution. But still the issue persists with the recent Ubuntu 9.10 also.

This issue has to be set right by Google only not by Ubuntu 9.10 However, Ubuntu has to pour some suggestions, which provides the solution to Google Gtalk team.

The thing has to happened correctly. But when waiting for Ubuntu bots and Google lovers valuable suggestions...

Ubuntu 9.10 available

Ubuntu 9.10 is available in the official Ubuntu website now.

Salient points:

1. Upgrade is recommended.
As per the Ubuntu community up-gradation is advisable. Refer it up for up-gradation: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/upgrading

2. New features
Refer http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/910features for getting new features of the latest Ubuntu.

3. Download link: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu