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FOR THE GNU GENERATION

Android
Install

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on your

Build a smart TV • Automate your home

Run Android apps • Make a car-puter

Make GNOME extensions

Add new features and
functionality to GNOME 3

Adapteva’s founder
introduces us to the
30 +
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$99 Supercomputer of expert
advice

Ultimate office
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The best open source
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Take control with the Swiss
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ALSO INSIDE
» GNOME 3.6: our verdict
» Create a network of RasPis
» What happened to GNU Hurd?
» Improve workflow with login scripts
20 pages of reviews PyCon 2012 ISSUEISSN
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Definitive opinion on Catch up with the
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Welcome
to issue 120 of Linux User & Developer Get
Linux User
Gareth Halfacree has been breaking, fixing,
This issue
Your team of Linux experts…

tinkering and voiding warranties

on electrical items for many
years, without once receiving a
fatal electric shock. This month
Gareth brings us the story of the
$99 supercomputer (pages 48-51)
and reviews the latest release in
network-attached storage.
Joey Bernard is a true renaissance man,
splitting his time between building
furniture, helping researchers with
scientific computing problems
and writing Android apps (when
the kids let him have some time).
This month Joey serves up two
tutorials on server monitoring and
Emacs, on pages 30-33 and 38-41.
Kunal Deo is a veteran open source developer
leading multiple open source
projects. He is also a KDE dev and
has contributed to many projects
including KDE-Solaris, Belenix
and Openmoko. In this issue Kunal
demonstrates how to build GNOME
Shell extensions in his step-by-
step tutorial on pages 52-55.
Jon Masters is a Linux kernel hacker who has
been working on Linux for almost
17 years, since he first attended
university at the age of 13. Jon lives
in Massachusetts and works for a
large enterprise Linux vendor. As
well as running kernelpodcast.org
he keeps us up to date on the Linux
kernel with his column on page 12.
Liam Fraser is the creator of the
RaspberryPiTutorials YouTube
series and is a Linux server
administrator of the Raspberry
Pi Foundation. This month Liam
shows us how to build a network
of Raspberry Pis with centralised
storage. You can find his article
for £4.19
» Install Android on RasPi per issue
» Build GNOME extensions Page 20
» Monitor your home server
» Organise yourself with Emacs
Welcome to the latest edition of Linux User & Developer,
the UK and America’s favourite high-end open source
and Linux magazine.
The clocks have gone back and Christmas is fast
approaching. While we’ve got some special treats lined up
to mark our final issue of 2012 next month, we’ve worked
particularly hard this issue to ensure you’ve got plenty of
projects to keep you out of trouble as the evenings draw in.
The Raspberry Pi owners among you are in particular luck – we’ve
got an eight-page special looking at how to get Android up and
running, starting on page 22. While there’s still plenty of work to do
to get the drivers working smoothly with 3D and media applications,
Android opens up a whole world of new possibilities for your $35
computer and we can’t wait to see what the community does with it
over the coming months.
If you’re feeling particularly adventurous you could join Joey
Bernard over on page 38 as he uses Emacs to create to-do lists. If
you’ve never dabbled with Emacs before, you’ll probably want to do
some extracurricular homework first – even the keyboard shortcuts
can be demanding to the uninitiated.
Finally a quick mention to Parabella, a Kickstarter project that’s
come to be known as ‘the $99 supercomputer’. Check out our
interview with its creator starting on page 48 – it looks like the
Raspberry Pi might have some serious competition…
Russell Barnes, Editor

Get in touch with the team:

starting on page 56.

Rob Zwetsloot studied aerospace engineering

at university, using Python to
model complex simulations and
configuring Linux HTPCs. This issue
Rob reminds us why LibreOffice
linuxuser@imagine-publishing.co.uk
is the greatest office suite in open
source (pages 70-74) and shows Buy online
us how to install Android on the
Raspberry Pi in our cover feature.

Visit us online for more news, opinion, tutorials and reviews:

www.linuxuser.co.uk
3 Issue 120

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Contents
22
Install Android on
the Raspberry Pi
Open up a world of new
apps and projects in
just a few easy steps
OpenSource Tutorials
06 News
The biggest stories from the
open source world
12 Opinions
The latest from our regular
free software columnists
94 Letters
Your views on the magazine
and the open source scene
Features
16 Get on board
with Python
Reporting back from PyCon
22 Install Android on
the Raspberry Pi
A world of new possibilities
42 Where’s the Hurd?
We investigate the true
kernel of the GNU OS
48 Supercomputing for
the masses
We talk to Andreas Olofsson
about Parallella
70 Office suite super-test
Four of the best in open
source go head-to-head
86 Q & A
Your problems solved!
Join us online for more Linux news, opinion and reviews www.linuxuser.co.uk
4 www.linuxuser.co.uk
Reviews
62 Samsung Galaxy
Note 10.1
The Note migrates to the tablet
form factor in fine style
64 Synology DS213air
Synology’s latest small and
home office NAS box
66 Archos 101XS
Archos adds keys to its
latest tablet
68 GNOME 3.6
GNOME moves further down
the path of simplification
70 Office suite group test
30 Monitor your server with tmux Four of the very best open
Remotely check your server in easy steps source suites battle it out
34 Create and manage boot scripts 76 CAINE 3.0
and startup applications We rate the latest build of this
Automate your startup experience penetration-testing distro
38 Make an open source to-do list 78 Ubuntu 12.10
with Emacs We score Canonical on Ubuntu’s
Use Emacs to organise your workflow and new (and controversial) features
take control of your time
Developer tutorials
80 Fractal Design
Define R4
The perfect home server case?
52 Build extensions for the GNOME
desktop environment 82 GNOME Shell Remix
Exploring GNOME 3’s best new capability Ubuntu with GNOME 3 Shell
56 Create a network of
Raspberry Pis
Bring several Pis together on a network
E
UR
with centralised storage and more
On your free disc
AT
FE
96 Cover disc
Test four of the latest distros:
Ubuntu 12.10, Kubuntu
Xubuntu
Lubuntu Subscribe 16 Get on board with Python
today! Linux User’s Richard Smedley reports back
from this year’s PyConUK event. Catch up
20 Save at least 30%
on the shop price. on all the action and learn why Python’s
US customers
can subscribe via
community is one of the best there is.
page 83
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06 News | 12 Opinion | 94 Online

HARDWARE

Google &
Samsung
launch ARM
Chromebook
Entry-level Linux-based laptop takes
■ The Samsung-
manufactured Chromebook
uses an Exynos V ARM-
based processor and runs
aim at the mass market the Linux-based Chrome OS

Samsung has announced another entry in
its Chromebook partnership with Google,
making the move away from x86-based
Intel processors with an ARM-based ultra-
compact device aimed at buyers on a budget –
or, as Google itself would have it, a “computer
for everyone.”
Based on Samsung’s existing Chromebook
platform – a cut-price family of low-power
laptops which use Google’s Chrome OS, based
on the open source Chromium Linux cloud-
powered operating system – the new Samsung
Chromebook replaces the typical lightweight
x86 Intel chip with a dual-core Exynos V ARM-
based processor, a quad-core version of which
can be found in Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S III
Android smartphone.
Running at 1.7GHz, the chip includes a
quad-core ARM Mali-T604 graphics processor
which handles both the HDMI
display connector
and the integrated 11.6-inch 1366x768 display.
Storage is handled by an eMMC 16GB solid-
state storage device – helping the Chromebook
hit a headline-grabbing sub-10-second boot
time – while 2GB of DDR3 memory is included
as standard.
A switch to an ARM processor more
commonly found inside smartphones provides
the Chromebook with impressive battery life,
with around six hours easily available during
web-connected usage. More importantly, the
use of web apps in Chrome OS – which are
rendered through an embedded version of
Google’s Chrome web browser – avoids any
compatibility issues with legacy apps that
normally accompany a shift in architecture.
The specifications aside, Google’s positioning
of the device as a computer for everyone is
interesting indeed. As well as selling the system
through the Google Play marketplace alongside
its Nexus 7 Android tablets, the company
has organised high-street placement for the
Chromebook in major chains throughout the
world – and just in time for Christmas.
In other words, a major brand
is attempting to put Linux
on the laps of millions – and
where Google leads, others
are likely to follow.
Detractors of the
Chromebook project often
point out that it’s not a truly
open platform: like Android,
Google develops Chrome OS
privately and often
includes code which
is not
provided
to the public
under an open
source licence.
Much of the code,
however, is: Chrome
OS itself is based on the open
source Chromium OS, while the embedded
Chrome browser is available as the open source
Chromium project.
For consumers, the cut-price Chromebook
could well be an entry point into Linux as a day-
to-day operating system. For those who know
their way around a shell already, the presence
of a development mode – accessed by holding
Esc, Refresh and Power then pressing Ctrl+D
at the boot screen – provides a way to boot from
external devices, replace the operating system
and turn the Chromebook into a low-cost ARM-
based laptop running almost any Linux-based
operating system.
Google, meanwhile, is positioning the
Samsung Chromebook as the answer to
Windows users’ prayers. “There’s no need to
worry about security updates and maintenance
is easy; all you need to do is charge the battery,”
boasted Google’s Sundar Pichal, senior vice
president of the company’s Chrome division at
the launch. “It just works.”
Without a Linux kernel at the new machine’s
heart, it’s unlikely Pichal would have been able
to make such a declaration.
The new Samsung Chromebook is available
through Google Play, Currys and PC World,
priced at £229.

6 www.linuxuser.co.uk

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News
The latest in the Linux community
OPEN SOURCE

OPEN SOURCE

Canonical hides Ubuntu 13.04

Linux calendar
Android Magazine –
development from the community issue 19

Shuttleworth blames critics for new secretive strategy
Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth has
announced that selected aspects of Ubuntu
13.04, codenamed ‘Raring Ringtail,’ are to
be developed in secret so as not to attract
criticism from the community.
Going against the open source ethos of
transparent development, some new features
to be launched with Ubuntu 13.04 will be kept
under wraps at Canonical’s HQ until the OS is
29 Nov 2012
» www.littlegreenrobot.co.uk
Android Magazine, your best and
not been detailed. Those who are interested can only print source for everything
apply for access, however, with Shuttleworth Android, is coming out today. Check
claiming that Canonical is “happy to engage with out what’s in store over on page 60.
contributing community members that have
established credibility in Ubuntu.” CloudStack
“The skunkworks approach has its Collaboration
detractors,” Shuttleworth admitted in a
statement to the community. “We’ve tried it both
Conference
ways and, in the end, figured out that critics
» The Venetian, Las Vegas, Nevada

30 Nov - 02 Dec 2012

ready for release – a move which appears to
have much to do with community backlash
over the switch to the Canonical-developed
Unity desktop environment and the numerous
glitches and bugs that followed.
Described by Shuttleworth as “a few items
with high ‘tada!’ value,” the precise portions of
the OS which will be hidden until launch have
■ Mark Shuttleworth, seen here on board the
International Space Station, is hiding some
parts of Ubuntu 13.04 from the community
ANDROID
Mozilla opens Firefox
will be critics whether you discuss an idea with » USA
them in advance or not. Working on something » http://collab12.cloudstack.org/
The Apache-run conference will
in a way that lets you refine it till it feels ready
have presentations from the
to go has advantages: you can take time to developers contributing to the
craft something, you can be judged when you’re Apache CloudStack project, as well
ready, you get a lot more punch when you tell admins who are using CloudStack
your story, and you get your name in lights.” to build clouds to scale.
The secretive projects, which Shuttleworth
claims are all “groundbreaking in free
software”, cover areas such as web standards,
cryptography, and aesthetic and performance
improvements, with Canonical keeping each
under close guard until launch and inviting only
pre-vetted members of the Ubuntu community
to help with their development. With Canonical
already under the spotlight for what is seen
as an increasingly negligent attitude to its
community of users and developers, and to the
LISA ’12
open source community in general, this latest » Sheraton San Diego Hotel and
announcement is likely to do little to cool the Marina, San Diego, California
flames gathering against the company. » USA
» h t t p s : // w w w . u s e n i x . o r g /
conference/lisa12
In addition to the wide variety
of topics covered in the LISA ’12
programme, the programme
09-14 Dec 2012

Marketplace on Android committee has created three

Users testing the cutting-edge
build of Firefox for Android,
from the Aurora branch, are
now able to access Mozilla’s
Firefox Marketplace. Designed
as an answer to Google’s Chrome
Store, the Firefox Marketplace
provides free and paid-for
web apps which are designed
specifically for the open source
Firefox browser.
While users have been able to
test the Marketplace on desktop
Firefox releases for some time,
specific conference themes, or
tracks, for those looking to focus
the addition of support in the
Aurora Firefox for Android build on a key subject; these cover the
areas of cloud computing, IPv6 and
marks the first time it has been sysadmin skills.
available on mobile devices.
Sadly, the service is still closed
off from some: Mozilla’s decision
to focus exclusively on developing
for the ARM architecture means
Firefox for Android can’t be
installed on devices with Intel’s
x86-based Atom processor, like ■ Marketplace is now
the Motorola Razr i smartphone. available on Android,
The Aurora build of Firefox is at: providing a new route
www.mozilla.org/mobile/aurora. for installing web apps

7 www.linuxuser.co.uk

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Contact us…
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INDUSTRY

Windows 8 harms user freedom

The recent release of Windows 8 has caused
concern for the leaders of the free software world
The launch of Windows 8 occurred very
recently – Microsoft’s new, one-size-fits-
all operating system for desktop, tablets,
and smartphones. Thanks to the Interface
Formerly Known As Metro, the folks at
Redmond plan to claw back their market share
in the PC space by finally cracking the portable
computing market. Or at least, that’s the idea.
Microsoft is going through the same motions
that Canonical and GNOME have done in recent
years, trying to convince people that their
interfaces are fine for mouse and keyboard
even when the results seem to contradict this.
On the day of launch, Jim Zemlin, executive
director of the Linux Foundation, wrote a blog
CC: www.fsf.org

on how Windows 8’s hybrid approach is too

little too late:
“A lot has changed in the three years since
the last major Windows announcement.
Netbooks were on the rise. The iPad wouldn’t
be introduced for another six months and
Nokia still had the lead for most smartphone
sales in the world… that is no longer the case.
Google’s Android OS only accounted for a
3.9% share of the smartphone market in 2009
(according to Gartner Group);
last year that rose to 64%
of the smartphone
market. In 2011,
smartphones for the
first time outsold PCs
(including tablets). With
hundreds of millions
of those smartphones
running Android, the
consumer market is
fully accustomed to Linux-
based software.”
Zemlin argues that
we are living
somewhat
in a post-
desk top
■ The gnu is a symbol
of software freedom
well into a transition period, and Linux is it’s basically Windows 7 with new surveillance
helping to drive this as the base for Android and ‘features’ and even more restrictions on users’
Chrome OS. freedom. Whether or not Microsoft wants you
“Microsoft is stuck in the liminal space to know it, it’s easy to switch to free software
between the desktop-driven, cost-per- instead of choosing a downgrade to your rights
software licence world they dominated and as a computer user – for example, your rights to
the era we are just now entering: a world know what the system is doing and to change
driven by open source software and services,” behaviours you don’t like. We’re here because
continued Zemlin, pointing out that the price of we want people to know that they don’t have to
Microsoft hardware is up to six times more than buy Windows 8 – this is a great time to upgrade
hardware powered by Linux. He attributes this to free ‘as in freedom’ software.”
to companies like Google not having to spend
so much on R&D, with the Linux kernel and its
estimated $10 billion (£6.2 billion) worth of
development readily available, along with FOSS
such as WebKit.
The Free Software Foundation agrees with
this, and activists set out on the morning of
release to New York’s Microsoft store to hand
out pamphlets to the people braving the cold
to attend the launch event. In it, they warned of
CC: www.fsf.org

world, the dangers of proprietary software:

or at “Microsoft has already spent almost 2 billion
least dollars on slick advertisements to convince
people that Windows 8 will revolutionise the
■ Jim Zemlin believes that way they use computers,” said Libby Reinish, ■ Libby Reinish says that Windows 8 cuts
mobile computing is the future campaigns manager at the FSF. “The fact is, down on user freedom

8 www.linuxuser.co.uk

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News
The latest in the Linux community
OPEN SOURCE

PUBLISHING
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PUBLISHING
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space magazine ever, is out now!
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magazine is available in print and digital
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wonders of space exploration, astronomy
and space science every month, providing in-
depth knowledge from a team of experts on
an amazing array of topics. The magazine is
unlike anything else out there and will appeal to
seasoned space fans and new explorers alike,
with a regular dose of amazing articles, exclusive
interviews and jaw-dropping images.
Inside you’ll find some mind-blowing articles
and features explaining the amazing universe
around us. The latest issue reveals how some of
the biggest explosions in the universe, namely
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OPEN SOURCE

The Linux Foundation obtains UEFI key

Foundation takes action to ensure everybody can continue
using open source operating systems
There have been plenty of valid concerns
regarding the future of computing with regard to
UEFI Secure Boot, mainly with how it will lock out
people wanting to install a Linux distribution. The
Linux Foundation has been following the situation
and has decided to take action by purchasing
a key from Microsoft, and signing its own small
pre-bootloader that will be available to all users of
open source. The Linux Foundation explained the
reasoning behind this move in a blog post:
“The Linux Foundation is committed to giving
users freedom of choice on their platforms.
Conforming to this stance, we have already
published a variety of tools to permit users to
take control of their secure boot platforms by
replacing the Platform Key and managing (or
replacing) the installed Key Exchange Keys…
however, as one of the enablers of the Linux
ecosystem, the Foundation recognises that not
everyone is willing (or able) to do this, so it was
also necessary to find a solution that would
enable people to continue to try out Linux and
other open source operating systems in spite of
the barriers UEFI Secure Boot would place in their
way and without requiring that they understand
how to take control of their platforms. Therefore,
■ The future
we also formulated a technical plan, which is
of firmware
implemented in this pre-bootloader, to allow
interfaces is closed
distributions to continue functioning in a secure
boot environment.”
The source code for the pre-bootloader is
available at the moment without the key, and you
can get it from the Git repo as Loader.c. The Linux
Foundation admits that it will take a little time for
the key and signature to be obtained, but it will ■ The Linux Foundation’s goal is to
announce when it receives one. promote and protect the Linux kernel

OPEN SOURCE

Donate to Canonical
and steer Ubuntu
Users can now tell Canonical
what parts of Ubuntu need
work, for a price
Ubuntu is a free operating system, free as in
speech and as in beer, and Canonical is keen
to reinforce this Richard Stallman ethos as it
announces a new way for users to optionally
contribute to Canonical before they download
the desktop version of Ubuntu. This comes in
the form of real money donations.
It’s not just a fixed donation – there are
eight categories that people can selectively
give money to. This will let Canonical know
which parts of Ubuntu people want improved.
Categories include Unity, performance ■ A screen Ubuntu users may have to get used to
optimisation, hardware support, phone and
tablet versions, support of different Ubuntu the donation page shows up before you can Now that Ubuntu 12.10 is out and more
flavours, and a general tip to Canonical. You download the ISO, and has a recommended people will be downloading the distro, it will be
don’t have to give to each category, though, $2 donation to each category already filled in interesting to see what contributions are made,
and donations start at $1 per category. by default. There’s a link at the bottom of the and what they go towards. You can see the
Obviously you don’t have to make any page to skip it entirely and go straight to the page by selecting Ubuntu Desktop (and then a
contributions if you don’t want to – although download page. version) at: www.ubuntu.com/download.

10 www.linuxuser.co.uk

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OpenSource Your source of Linux news and views
THE KERNEL COLUMN
Jon Masters
Jon Masters summarises the latest goings-on in
the Linux kernel community, including a look at the
features being merged for the upcoming 3.7 release
Jon Masters is a
Linux kernel hacker who
has been working on
Linux for almost 17 years,
since he first attended
university at the age of 13.
Jon lives in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, and works
for a large enterprise Linux
vendor. He publishes
a daily Linux kernel
mailing list summary at
kernelpodcast.org
Linus Torvalds announced the release of
the 3.6 kernel, saying that while the release
did not contain earth-shattering new
architectures or file systems, it did overall
represent “solid progress”. We summarised
some of the new features that landed in Linux
3.6 last issue. With the release of 3.6 came
the traditional opening of the merge window
for 3.7. This is the period of time during which
Linus is willing to pull potentially disruptive
patches (changes) into the kernel. This typically
lasts for two weeks and is followed by a period
of stabilisation, and multiple RC (release
candidate) kernels are made available for
testing. Linus gave a heads-up that he would
be travelling for much of the merge window, but
that didn’t seem to pose much of a problem.
Features pulled in during the merge window
included a brand new architecture (AArch64,
also known as ARMv8 or ‘arm64’ in the kernel
community). This is the latest architecture
revision from ARM, the company that powers
about 90 per cent of all cellphones and has had
its designs shipped in billions of processors
so far this year alone. ARM has traditionally
been an ‘embedded’ architecture. The billions
of ARM-powered processors in use worldwide
are typically found within gadgets, such as
this author’s ‘fitbit’ personal step counter, or in
12 www.linuxuser.co.uk
WorldMags.net
washing machines and automotive control and
entertainment systems. In this context, there
are many different levels of ARM processor,
from the more deeply embedded simpler cores
without the ability to run a full OS, to higher-
end multiprocessor cores running Linux on
Android smartphones.
ARM is known for its focus on low energy, as
well as the licensed nature of the architecture.
ARM doesn’t make processors – it licenses its
designs for use by the many others who do make
processors. Linux has run on suitable 32-bit
ARM-based systems for well over a decade,
and in recent years has gained popularity
as the foundation upon which most Android
devices are built. And over the last few years,
organisations such as Linaro have helped to
drive the development of Linux support for
ARM by bringing together a wider community
of companies and ecosystem players involved.
Over the past few years, a new opportunity has
emerged to take advantage of the low-energy
DNA that drives ARM by using these processors
in server-class systems.
Servers can be 32-bit based, but many
workloads require 64-bit support. That’s where
the new AArch64 ARM architecture comes in.
It brings many new features to ARM, not least
of which is 64-bit addressing. The new support
within the Linux kernel, contained within
arch/arm64 (renamed after community debate
around the original ‘aarch64’ choice of directory)
enables the core architecture features but does
not yet have support for any real processors.
Those will come later. The initial support was
merged after several months of review on
the Linux Kernel Mailing List by upstream
maintainers such as Arnd Bergmann, who is
responsible for many of the de facto standards
required of new architecture code added to Linux.
 WorldMags.net
Another feature pulled into Linux 3.7 is
support for the ‘supervisor mode access
prevention’ on Intel processors. This aims
to prevent kernel code from being able to
compromise the running system, even if it is
exploited by passing bad values in from user
space (such as were done by various example
‘NULL’ pointer kernel exploits several years
ago). By toggling a special bit in the CPU control
registers, the kernel can effectively instruct the
hardware to prevent the kernel from accessing
user space (regular user process) memory
except under explicit control. Therefore various
classes of exploit are removed because even
though the kernel has the power to disable
the protection again, a simple pointer access
to user space cannot simultaneously disable
the SMAP protection, so exploit code has no
straightforward way to use such simple attacks.
One final feature of particular note in 3.7 is the
removal of udev from the critical path of loading
some system firmware. The kernel’s built-in
firmware loader will now always attempt to load
firmware files directly from user space (from
the file system) without invoking udev. Udev
(the user-space device management daemon)
typically handles firmware loading, as well
as device driver requests, and new hardware
device detection, by receiving messages from
the kernel over a special netlink socket and
reacting according to various customisable
rules. Unfortunately, recent changes to udev to
restructure its approach to parallelised loading
of drivers frustrated Linus into having the kernel
handle this itself by default. Udev can still
handle firmware loading, but the kernel will first
attempt to load files itself, from /lib/firmware.
Alignment faults in 3.6
Linux supports many different architectures,
some of which behave quite differently from
the x86 Linus originally used way back in 1991.
In particular, many modern RISC architectures
embrace the notion of simple being better by
having limited support for ‘misaligned’ memory
accesses. On these architectures (such as
ARM), it is not possible to directly perform an
operation on a memory location. Instead, the
architecture behaves in a ‘load store’ fashion
such that all memory locations must be loaded
into a register, then manipulated, then the
result stored back.
“Linus said he would be travelling
for much of the merge window”
n Linus
Torvalds:
the 3.6 kernel
is “solid
progress”
Alignment is a natural property of all data
types. A 4-byte integer value, the default on
many systems, has a natural alignment on a
4-byte memory boundary. So, for example,
attempting to load or store such a value at
an odd-numbered memory address would
be in clear violation of the natural alignment
requirement of this type. Many modern
architectures hide such alignment issues by
having the hardware perform expensive multi-
load operations behind the scenes under such
circumstances, while others will generate an
alignment fault and insist that the programmer
(or the compiler) do the right thing and fix the
underlying code. ARM is one such architecture
that started life with very strict requirements,
and has relaxed more recently.
Modern ARM systems do include (limited)
support for unaligned data access. Though they
are more expensive (in terms of performance
overhead), they are handled behind the scenes.
There are some circumstances under which this
is not possible due to specific instructions being
used. In such cases, the hardware will generate
an ‘alignment fault’, which will be handled by
the kernel. The kernel typically performs a
more expensive version of the intended load
or store ‘transparently’, optionally recording a
warning about the inefficient waste of processor
WorldMags.net
Opinion
The kernel column – Jon Masters
open source
CC. GFDL. Permission of Martin Streicher, Editor-in-Chief, LINUXMAG.com
resources. During this operation, it may make a
call to the kernel’s schedule() algorithm to give
another process time to run. Unfortunately,
there are some situations wherein the scheduler
must not be called. These include certain critical
‘atomic’ parts of the kernel itself. In the case
of Linux 3.6, it appeared as if this required was
being violated, with warnings of ‘scheduling
while atomic’ being emitted.
It ultimately turned out that certain device
drivers were exposing a problem in the
alignment handler. By accessing misaligned IP
header fragments, the driver concerned was
triggering an alignment exception within an
atomic-critical section of kernel code, which
was then resulting in the scheduler being
called from within the alignment handler.
Although the driver was later fixed to improve
performance (by using only aligned data), the
problem with the alignment handler itself did
require fixing to prevent unwanted system
crashes. A patch has been successfully tested
and will be merged.
Finally this month, there has been an
ongoing discussion around ext4 file system
corruption that can occur under very specific
circumstances involving a system crash during
an update to an ext4 file system running with
journal checksums turned on. This is not the
default, and it is a rare situation, but all users are
advised to update their systems.
13 www.linuxuser.co.uk
 WorldMags.net
OpenSource Your source of Linux news and views
THE OPEN SOURCE COLUMN
Throwing away
an iPad
Apple’s latest product launch was
met with disdain from many of its
customers. But why, wonders Simon
Simon Brew is a technology
writer and editor,
working across the
Linux, Windows and
Mac OS X platforms
The Android
fightback?
In the smartphone sector, Android continues
to lead the way over Apple and its iOS-based
products. In tablets, its success has been
less significant, but might there now be signs
that Android-based competitors are making
inroads? Certainly products like the Nexus 7
and – to a lesser extent – the Kindle Fire help.
But there’s a long way to go to topple Apple
and its all-conquering (so far) iPad.
14 www.linuxuser.co.uk
Watching the live reactions to an Apple
announcement rarely tends to expose you to
some of the more considered thoughts on a
product launch. Yet the response to Apple’s
unveiling on 23 October of a pair of new iPad
products was a testament to just how warped
the technology business has become.
Appreciating it’s traditional to bash Apple at
every opportunity, I find myself admiring the firm
in some ways. Granted, its closed gate approach
to computing is something that continually
needs fighting, but its marriage of software and
hardware remains pretty much unparalleled
over the past decade or so.
At Apple’s event in October, though, it sprung
a surprise. It had widely been expected that the
firm would showcase the iPad mini, and that’s
exactly what it did. But then it had something
else up its sleeve: a fourth generation of the
iPad. This was just over half a year after it had
launched the third generation of the iPad to
similar fanfare. And people were not happy.
To paraphrase what, at one stage, was
appearing to be something of a consensus,
the feeling seemed to be ‘but I only bought one
of those half a year ago, and now they’ve gone
and changed’.
So let’s think about that for a second.
What Apple has successfully propagated is a
feeling among its customers and many in the
technology world that you absolutely have to
have the latest and greatest. Notwithstanding
the fact that the original iPad is still doing the
job that it was designed for perfectly well,
there appears to be abject horror in places at
the thought that people will have to upgrade a
product that was only new on the shelves earlier
in the year.
WorldMags.net
■ The mini wasn’t the only new iPad launched
But where did this craving come from? What
new feature does the fourth-generation iPad
possess that the third didn’t, that people can’t
possibly live without? Within minutes of the
announcement, eBay was no doubt filling up
with pretty much brand spanking new iPads,
as the disposal culture of modern technology
continues to take hold.
That in itself is a burgeoning problem. Firms
like Apple like to lock us out of upgrading
products, and even the likes of HTC is now
making phones where you’re not even allowed to
change the battery yourself (when did we start
to accept this insanity as the norm, I continue
to wonder). The ramification of this, longer term,
is that more and more people will just throw
something away after a year, in order to get the
latest model. People will change their phone just
because it’s less hassle than sending it off to get
a new battery put in. That’s madness, isn’t it?
What Apple’s announcement showed is that
you don’t actually need to add that much for
people to instantly decide to spend another
£500 or so on another piece of technology, just
to keep up with the proverbial Joneses. Wouldn’t
it be refreshing, though, if a firm such as Apple,
that has so blazed the trail for persuading
people to replace their technology on an annual
basis, actually made a stand to say enough is
enough. It’ll never happen, but just how long
can the world at large support a culture where
intricate technologies are so disposable?
Looking at the reaction to the aforementioned
Apple launch, it’s going to have to do so for a
great deal longer, sadly…
 WorldMags.net
the Free software column
Raspberry Pi for schools
The Raspberry Pi can be the affordable route
to teaching schoolchildren the lost idea that
computer programming can be fun
As everybody knows by now, the Raspberry
Pi is the perfect geek toy, a credit-card-sized
computer that costs very little and comes with
its own operating system, Raspbian, which is
an optimised reworking of Debian GNU/Linux.
The Raspberry Pi can be plugged into a TV and
a keyboard, and will do most of the useful things
a PC can do. An SD card is used for booting and
storage of data. Raspbian defaults to an LXDE
desktop, and comes with development tools
and most of the basic applications and utilities
for working and playing on a computer. The
Raspberry Pi is also shockingly cheap – $35.
But the interesting part of the Raspberry Pi
Richard Hillesley writes about
art, music, digital rights, is the ambition of its caretakers that it should
Linux and free software for become an ultra-low-cost tool for introducing
a variety of publications schoolchildren to the lost idea that computer
programming can be fun, as it was for the kids
who grew up with the Sinclair QL, ZX Spectrum
or BBC Micro three of four decades ago. The
early home computers were cheap and cheerful,
but you could get inside and look at the source,
take them apart and learn.
Some of the kids who grew up with BBC Basic,
Dungeons & Dragons and Pac-Man became the
first generation of developers to work on Linux
n Programming can be and other free software. Jeremy Allison, for
fun and easy to learn for instance, had a Sinclair QL, which was a 32-bit
schoolchildren, and the
ultra-low-cost Raspberry Pi
is an ideal tool for teaching
WorldMags.net
Opinion
The free software column
open source
machine, even though it had an 8-bit bus. The
source code of the operating system, QDOS, was
included, perfectly legally.
“The assembler source, the commented
source, you could buy and look at, and take
apart and understand,” says Allison. “It was
burnt into ROM, but you could modify it – there
was a company that had disassembled it for me,
legally – and then along came the IBM PC and
Microsoft and crushed all the creativity out of it,
just ground over it with a tank tread.
“So the kids growing up these days don’t know
any of that stuff. They don’t know the basics of
how the thing works. They’ve got black boxes
that rattle because they’re broken, and they
can’t look inside. You can’t learn from that.”
“I want anyone in the world to have the
same opportunities that I had when I was
growing up”, adds Allison. “The early Eighties
was a period of intense creativity in the
computer industry in Britain.”
But ICT in schools went backwards in the UK
and has been locked in to a costly Microsoft-
only world, where children have been educated
as users rather than doers. Lock-in and the
upgrade cycle have resulted in the same
escalating costs that have afflicted other
sectors of the IT industry, forcing increased
expenditure for smaller and smaller returns.
For most children, ICT in schools has been
little more than a training programme for
using Windows and Microsoft Office – useful
for secretaries and filing clerks, but not
helpful for getting to know how the technology
works. A common complaint has been that “no
ICT course has a programming or a systems
module, instead students are taught to be
mere consumers of technology, and operators
of applications.”
Programming can be fun, and the principles
are easy to learn. The Raspberry Pi can be the
affordable route to learning this lesson.
15 www.linuxuser.co.uk
 WorldMags.net
Feature Get on board with Python

Get on board

with Python
From medieval Coventry, via the
classroom, to Africa, and even
operetta and the high seas,
PyConUK represents the best of
the Python community
Despite masterpieces of medieval and 20th Century
architecture, and a fascinating industrial heritage,
Coventry isn’t everyone’s ideal long weekend getaway. That
changed for the last four days of September, when the city
hosted PyConUK – the annual gathering of the country’s
enthusiastic and growing Python community – for the
second time.
Regular readers will know that, while LUD maintains
an even-handed approach to open source languages and
technologies, we find ourselves reporting a lot of cool Python
projects, and it’s increasingly the language of choice for
everything from education and banking to research and big
data. Many programming languages have a strong community
around their use, but Pythonistas seem to have a sense of
belonging – as if they’ve somehow, in finding Python, come
home – that is normally reserved for Lisp programmers, and all
without the smugness occasionally seen in the latter group.
This is a confident community, and one not without a sense
of humour – as you would expect from a language named in
honour of the surreal Monty Python show. Music and fun
were on offer at PyConUK, alongside some serious hacking,
■ Last year’s PyConUK Blitz theme very cool projects and some productive coding in worthy
reappeared as the PyCon poster causes. Let’s start with the cool tech.

16 www.linuxuser.co.uk

WorldMags.net
 WorldMags.net
Slice of Pi
Python is the official programming language of the Raspberry
Pi, and Alex Bradbury – the lead Linux software developer at
the Raspberry Pi Foundation – gave the story so far, and the
challenges ahead. The Raspberry Pi was created as a low-
cost educational tool, but hackers have taken it to their heart,
even running breweries and data centres with it.
The community has contributed many improvements
to the core stack, such as dynamic overclock, and great
software like the 3D Penguins Puzzle game. There’s
much more to be done and Bradbury was frank about
the limitations of the current software while optimistic
about future developments, the possibilities of more edu-
specific software releases and the potential for the Pi in the
developing world.
Shoaib Sufi of the Software Sustainability Institute spoke
of his mission to promote “better software engineering and
management for better research outcomes”. As “software
is everywhere,” and all-pervasive in science, Sufi demands
“better software [to produce] better research.”
Catch up
Videos of most of the PyConUK 2012 sessions, with
synchronised slides, are up on the PyConUK website,
thanks to the dedicated filming by Birmingham LUG’s
Tim Williams:
http://autoview.autotrain.org/course/view.php?id=15
Get involved with creating resources for the next
generation of coders at the Python Edu Google Group:
http://goo.gl/BXBLu
■ Coders and teachers learnt from each other in a rewarding education sprint
■ Simply pass usage to docopt in this familiar form, and your command-line UI is built
WorldMags.net
Get on board with Python
The PyConUK 2012 conference
FEATURE
“We get to introduce free &
open source to a wider
community of children
and older people”
Alex Bradbury, Raspberry Pi Foundation
Intelligent approach
‘Big A, little i’ was a well-illustrated talk by
games programmer Tendayi Mawushe, pleading
the case for more use of AI algorithms by developers.
Software provides a better user experience when programs
display awareness of their context, and with good use of
examples like the familiar farmer/fox/goose/corn puzzle
(represented as states and transitions) and moving blocks
■ Python is the official
games, Mawushe demonstrated making a program give
programming language
answers about its own behaviour by tracing method calls.
of the Raspberry Pi
Various heuristics were examined, giving attendees ideas of
how to bring some AI goodness to their own code.
Dealing with a more mundane annoyance, Vladimir
Keleshev introduced docopt, to “build beautiful command-
line interfaces”. Replacing the current opaque systems with
a mere 384 lines of code, docopt works from simple rules
to allow the program to take the POSIX standard of usage
pattern and turn it into your UI.
As well as the Python reference implementation,
docopt has been implemented in Ruby, CoffeeScript/
CC: @tdobson
■ Stephen Hawkes came up with the Victorian
theme of the publicity – which also extended to a
Gilbert & Sullivan song
17 www.linuxuser.co.uk
 WorldMags.net
Feature Get on board with Python

JavaScript, PHP and Bash, with ports to Lua and a C
code generator on their way.
With so many competing talks on the three tracks,
we’re grateful to the PyConUK organisers for making many of
the talks available as online videos (see ‘Catch up’, page 17).
Those who could only make the weekend missed some
informative sessions on the opening Friday, including the
TiddlyWeb architecture – originally created as an open
source, reference implementation of an HTTP API for server-
side storage of TiddlyWiki tiddlers, the revolutionary one-
page app giving a reusable nonlinear personal web notebook.
Follow the rabbit
Starting with the Alan Perlis quote, “The best book about
programming for the layperson is Alice in Wonderland. But
that’s because the best book about anything for the layperson
is Alice in Wonderland”, programmer and philosopher David
Miller entertained while drawing lessons from the book.
Sarah Mount gave an eloquent summary of the problems of
parallelism and concurrency in Python, and the case for using
Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP). This is an area
of many competing philosophies, and it was good to hear a
knowledgeable opinion put so clearly.
Plenty of space was given for lightning talks over the
two main days, with ‘Lightning Talk Man’ Harald Massa’s
Gesamtkunstwerk of anecdotes to fill each gap as speakers
changed laptops and PowerBook VGA dongles. In these five-
minute sessions, delegates learned about mixing dynamic
and static typing; errors and complexity in finding musical
temperaments; prescons, an effective presentation console
for Python demonstrations; using Python for digital forensics;
and easy roll-outs of your own cloud.
Ask the duck
Further highlights included typing to yourself – an IRC for
one to log your thoughts with timestamps, and even put
them into version control – in a talk that introduced rubber
duck debugging (if you can explain the problem to a rubber
duck, then you’re on the path to understanding: try it!);

n Farmer, grain, goose, fox the AI way – represented as states and transitions n Miss P: bringing Python into the classroom

Teaching the teachers

CC: Alan O’Donohoe

Bringing the education community to the Python community

Making strenuous efforts to reach the teaching meritocracy, sharing of resources and learning
community, the PyCon organisers invited several from the examples of others”, as Tollervey put it.
teachers to attend a special education track at the Following the sprint, and a lightning
conference, led by teacher-turned-coder Nicholas talk by ‘Miss P’ (Carrie Philbin, a Google-
Tollervey. It included introductory Python tuition, certified teacher), there’s now a mailing list
and coders sprinkled around the class to help for Pythonistas who want to contribute to
the teachers with their questions. Hearing of the resources for teaching: http://t.co/M7ViLkcP.
locked-down conditions of schools’ IT, fixed on Additionally, there’s an education summit at
stone-age technology like Internet Explorer 6, was next March’s PyCon in California – https://
a shocking discovery for many of the programmers. us.pycon.org/2013/events/edusummit/ – and,
Groups of programmers worked with teachers according to Philburn, who was a guest at
in a coding sprint to produce educational material the weekend’s Python Software Foundation
around programming tasks including a text-based meeting: “Happily, it looks like an education
game and a maze solver. The event introduced portal will become part of the scope for the n Teachers and coders found common cause
teachers to the “collaboration, debate, openness, redesign of the python.org website.” in the education sprint

18 www.linuxuser.co.uk

WorldMags.net
 WorldMags.net
Get on board with Python
The PyConUK 2012 conference
feature

Evidence for Development
Using Python to deliver effective, evidence-based overseas aid
Much overseas aid is spent inappropriately
– at best wasteful, at worst undermining
local markets and farmers’ self-sufficiency.
Evidence for Development aims to see
that aid gets to where it’s really needed, by
backing evidence-based decisions with an
understanding of local economics “to build
capacity in organisations and institutions
in Africa”, Celia Petty, the project founder,
told Linux User & Developer. “The World
Bank data is problematic”, so the PyConUK
CC: @ntoll
Evidence for Development sprint aimed to
extract something meaningful from it.
“We’re using the technology to apply
household economy methodology”, Petty told
us. This takes a sophisticated view of how
people can meet their food energy needs,
rather than measuring money income alone.
School attendance, lack of access to start-up
capital and many other factors are measured
to see what help people need to achieving
their own economic self-sufficiency.

“PyConUK seems to the community and the PSF could go together, with more
local and regional activity. There’s certainly a lot of UK Python
n Doctor Korovic’s
Flying Atomic Squid –
Daniel Pope’s Pygame

have hit the sweet spot

activity already, with regional groups formed at PyConUK 2007
still going strong, programming demo
The conference organisers have gone out of their way to

between technical attract as broad a spectrum of people as possible – from IT

teachers who are new to Python (see ‘Teaching the teachers’,

tell-how and friendly page 18) to core developers – with £100 early-bird tickets and
a budget hotel price offering astonishing value. Combined

community”
Tim Golden
along with a Django-based P2P food market from Transition
Cambridge, SustainableSouk.com, which encourages good-
quality local food by allowing anyone to sell or swap what
they produce.
‘Writing Code for Fun and Profit’ presented the joys of the “side
project”, in this case luzme.com which offers price comparisons
for eBooks. In further pursuit of fun, Nicholas Tollervey and
Ben Croston (whose day job is Python-automated brewing!)
performed a tuba duet of the Sousa march well-known as the
theme tune to Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
The link between musicianship and coding is a well-known
one, but the opening Sunday lightning talk of an energetic
hip-hop rap, screened Pythonically, was a real surprise. More
conventional, but no less delightful, was the PyConUK song
– to the G&S tune used in Tom Lehrer’s Elements song, with
words (Python keywords in fact) by Tollervey and Stephen
Hawkes, who came up with the Victorian theme of this year’s
publicity materials.
Quo vadis?
Saturday had ended with the keynote ‘Remaking the PSF: The
next ten years of Python’ by the Python Software Foundation’s
Van Lindberg, covering the challenges for the language
community and the role of the PSF. As Python has become the
glue language of the movie-making industry, is replacing Perl in
bio-informatics, is beginning to dominate the financial space,
and is finally supplanting Java in the educational world, does it
really matter that it has lost its cool or “underdog edge”?
Lindberg praised the uniqueness of the Python community,
combining “kindness and professionalism”, and outlined where
with this were beginner and intermediate tutorial days, and
sprints that welcomed all levels of ability. There was even a
non-Python track, touring around Coventry’s heritage, for non-
coding partners and offspring.
Future-facing
Despite all this, and despite the speaker list containing some
talented and interesting female programmers, a look around
the venue showed more than 90 per cent of attendees were
male – a continuing problem in IT generally, but particularly
in the free software community. PyConUK, ever ambitious,
is addressing this problem at source, with direct outreach to
schools to increase the numbers going into programming, both
generally and to Python.
The teachers who attended were taken through introductory
Python programming, then paired with Python programmers
for a development sprint for educational resources. Other
education sessions included a session on Turtle, the Python
version of Logo, and some surprisingly sophisticated uses
– such as Sierpinski triangles and Lissajous figures – with
very few lines of code. As well as giving the best introduction
to functions that we’ve heard – “We teach the computer a
new word” – discussion ranged over taking Turtle into the
physical world with Lego Mindstorms, to a planned Arduino/
Raspberry Pi DIY oscilloscope.
John Pinner, Zeth and the rest of the organisational team
were a tireless, friendly and helpful presence throughout the
event. Having organised UK PyCons since 2007, and a past
EuroPython, the organisers are not resting on their laurels –
next year an additional event is planned around sprints aboard
a ship from Plymouth to Santander and back. If you
want to get involved with both a great community and
a fantastic language, all we can say is get on board!

19 www.linuxuser.co.uk

WorldMags.net
 WorldMags.net

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Androidon your
Install

Raspberry Pi
Android ports are
now available for
Raspberry Pi, opening
up a whole new world of
possibilities. Here’s how
to get started…

Advisor
Rob Zwetsloot models
complex systems and
is a web developer
proficient in Python,
Django and PHP. He
loves to experiment
with computing

22 www.linuxuser.co.uk

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WorldMags.net
Install Android on your Raspberry Pi
Projects for smart TV, home automation and an in-car computer
While one of the main reasons for the creation of the
Raspberry Pi was to offer a cheap way for people to get
into programming and using Linux, there are plenty of
people who see it being used as a replacement for other
forms of computing tasks. With the Pi being so small, the
concept of using it for purposes where space is a premium
is definitely not too far-fetched. Its form factor, weight and
low power requirements make it ideal for use in a number
of situations; however, the software may not always be
the best for the task. Where Linux may be lacking, though,
Android is there to cover it.
Android ports to Raspberry Pi have been in the works for
a little while now, but they’ve only just been made a usable
reality thanks to the recent open-sourcing of the VideoCore
GPU driver code. This allows for full hardware acceleration
of Android, something that was previously having to be done
purely by the CPU.
Android can offer a very different experience and
interface than a standard Linux distribution, without having
to obtain custom distros so it’s optimised for a particular
use. This means you can experiment with the sort of
applications you’d want to use Android for without carrying
around multiple SD cards in lieu of wiping them every time.
Thanks to an ever growing development community,
Google recently announced that there had been 25 billion
Android app downloads by the end of September, five
billion up from the number at the end of July, from its
675,000-strong selection. With this rate of expansion, there
are always a number of apps for pretty much anything you’d
want an Android device to do. With access to this range of
possibilities on the Raspberry Pi, you can create a system
that has the advantages of using a mobile, user-friendly
OS, with the price of the Pi. And the addition of more I/O
ports from the Pi can make it fit in better than your standard
Android smartphone.
■ All you need
is a Raspberry
Pi set up and
ready to go!
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FEATURE
There are three types of projects we’re going to cover over
the next few pages: a smart TV, a home automation remote
and an in-car computer. While such distros like XBian and
OpenELEC exist for media centres and home theatre PCs
using the Raspberry Pi, the XBMC apps do not have the
same kind of range as Android. With apps going outside the
concept of plain media watching, and even the inclusion
of Android games, there’s a lot more you can do with an
Android-run smart TV.
For home automation, there are very mature X10 and
Z-Wave remote control apps available on Android that are
optimised for the kind of interface you’d want to use for a
remote control, unlike the mainly mouse-focused tweaking
tools used on Linux distros. Finally, with in-car computers,
the touch-screen optimisations and grid array for apps
allow for easy navigation to music, podcast and other
media apps, as well as plenty of fantastic GPS and satellite
navigation applications native to Android.
Meet Razdroid
The team makes the first project to
get Android on your Pi
Before the release of the VideoCore
drivers, some community members
decided they wanted to have a go
at porting Android to Raspberry Pi,
creating Razdroid. Based mainly on
CyanogenMod, the project got far enough to have a couple
of working ports, only limited by the lack of hardware
acceleration. Since then, the Raspberry Pi Foundation
has created its own ports, and eventually released the
VideoCore driver to make ports of Android and other
software a lot smoother.
23 www.linuxuser.co.uk
 WorldMags.net
Feature Install Android on your Raspberry Pi
It’s easy to install Android…
Follow our step-by-step guide to get up and running
You can put Android on your Raspberry Pi
right now by visiting the Razdroid site at
www.razdroid.net. There are currently a couple
of images, based around both CyanogenMod 7.2
and 9, with different performance capabilities
and app compatibility. The images can be put on
an SD card using the same method as you would
a Linux distro image, and will run from boot
without any extra setup needed.
■ Using a standard dd operation, you can get your Raspberry Pi running Android
Eben Upton
speaks
The co-founder of the
Raspberry Pi Foundation
Without Eben Upton, the Raspberry Pi
would not have been possible. Coming
from a background of computing and
teaching, Upton is currently a technical
director at Broadcom and is responsible
for the overall software and hardware
architecture on the Raspberry Pi.
CC: Jim Killock
24 www.linuxuser.co.uk
If you’re feeling a little more adventurous, you
can compile the images from source instead.
You’ll be able to make changes, updates and
additions as well, if you want to improve the
build. The steps on this page will guide you
through a basic build of CyanogenMod 7.2,
based on Android 2.3, for the Raspberry Pi, using
the same files as the Razdroid image to get
it working.
01 Install libraries
You’ll need to get the necessary
libraries for the build to work:
$ sudo apt-get install git-core
gnupg flex bison gperf build-
essential zip curl libc6-dev
libncurses5-dev:i386 x11proto-core-
dev libx11-dev:i386 libreadline6-
dev:i386 libgl1-mesa-glx:i386
libgl1-mesa-dev g++-multilib mingw32
openjdk-6-jdk tofrodos python-
markdown libxml2-utils xsltproc
zlib1g-dev:i386
$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib/i386-linux-
gnu/mesa/libGL.so.1 /usr/lib/i386-
linux-gnu/libGL.so
When the Raspberry Pi was first created, there were some
very specific goals in mind for the finished product. Thanks
to the way it met these goals, it has blown up as the darling
of hobbyists and other tech enthusiasts for all manner of
projects. To further understand the relationship between
the original goals and this new concept of putting Android
on the Raspberry Pi, we spoke to the co-creator of the
Raspberry Pi himself, Eben Upton.
Upton told us that there had never really been any plans
originally for Android to be supported by the Raspberry
Pi. However, developments in recent times had changed
the view of the Foundation: “A significant minority of our
customers want to see it, so that makes it important to us.”
When the Foundation originally announced it was
working on Android compatibility, it already had a working
prototype. “This implementation uses a different kernel
and VideoCore binary image from the one available on
GitHub,” explained Upton, “which is why we’ve been
keeping quiet about it so far.” This was in late July, and it
took the Foundation a further three months to finally get
the VideoCore drivers open-sourced. Upton told us shortly
before its release why it had been delayed so long: “The
issue around releasing the Broadcom Android version is
that we’d need a separate microcode image for the GPU,
and we really don’t want to fork the community.”
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Install Android on your Raspberry Pi
Projects for smart TV, home automation and an in-car computer
FEATURE

04 Device tree
After the sync has finished, create a
new directory and download the device tree for
your build:
$ mkdir -p ~/android_pi/device/rpi

02 Working directory
We need to download the source to
a folder that we can make executable. First
$ cd ~/android_pi/device/rpi/
$ git clone https://github.com/
Mathijsz/device_rpi.git
create the directory: $ mv device_rpi rpi
$ mkdir ~/bin
Then add it to your path:
$ PATH=~/bin:$PATH 05 Initial setup
Before we do the actual build, we need
to run a little script to properly prepare the
And finally, download and chmod:
source code:
$ curl https://dl-ssl.google.com/dl/
$ cd ~/gingerbread_pi/device/rpi/rpi
googlesource/git-repo/repo > ~/bin/
$ ./initial_setup.sh
repo
$ cd ~/gingerbread_pi
$ chmod a+x ~/bin/repo
This will automatically make the changes.

03 Build environment
Now we’ll make a directory for the
build environment and initialise it for the repo
sync. First:

06
$ mkdir ~/android_pi The build
Then move to it and initialise: We’re now ready to build our Razdroid
$ cd ~/android_pi image. Make sure to do following to start
$ repo init -u git://github. the build:
com/CyanogenMod/android.git -b $ source build/envsetup.sh
gingerbread $ lunch
And finally sync: $ make -j4
$ repo sync -j16 Be aware that this may take a while.

Now the source code has been released, via the ARM ■ The Play Store will
Userland on GitHub, and marks the first time a full ARM- initially be missing
from any ports
based, multimedia SoC has received vendor-provided open-
sourced drivers, and Broadcom is the first company to open
up its mobile GPU drivers in this way. With it, people can get
down to finishing Android ports and starting new ones.
Android is well known as being used on touch-screen
interfaces, but earlier devices included keyboards
and trackballs. While this has gone out of vogue for
smartphones and other handheld devices, for testing out
your Android-powered Pi it would be useful to have this
option. Is it available now, though?
“I’m not aware of any significant challenges in this area.” Finally, one of the main reasons to use Android would be
Upton told us when we asked about traditional inputs. “We to access the huge array of apps. We asked Upton about the
■ The concept
expect most people would use Android with a mouse and issue with Google Play – those into the Android scene of the Raspberry
keyboard, and this seems to be a well-supported option might know that CyanogenMod had to remove this Pi is a spiritual
from ICS (Android 4.0) onward.” from the standard build for legal reasons. Upton successor to the
So with this native mouse and keyboard support, told us there were currently no plans to obtain BBC Micro
you’re going to be able to find a lot more applications for a a licence for the store; however, Android
Raspberry Pi running Android than you could do with even allows you install the APK files
an Android smartphone. On top of that, you will likely get without the store, and these are
the same kind of performance as a Linux distro according usually very easy to obtain.
to Upton: “I would expect them to be very close in terms
of performance. There may be more UI acceleration in
Android, though, which we hope to bring into Linux.”

25 www.linuxuser.co.uk

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Feature Install Android on your Raspberry Pi

Smart TV
configured for easy access to all the installed
software, and using home replacement apps
such as Launcher Pro will allow you to increase
Use your Raspberry Pi to the number of on-screen apps if the stock
make any TV ‘smart’ launcher displays too few for you.
This usage for Android has not gone
Smart TV is a very recent and popular buzzword unnoticed by other people, with a few
for a more advanced media PC running inside companies already on board. Recently, a high-
your TV, which add a whole host of different apps profile Kickstarter project was successfully
as well as being able to stream your content funded, called Pocket TV by Infinitec, which
from around a network. Android itself does not while definitely not the first Android-powered
need any specific apps or skinning to turn it into smart TV device, is notable for running off a USB
a functional smart TV – the display is already stick. Like the Pocket TV, the Raspberry Pi is
capable of running 1080p video without an issue.
The benefits of Android even go beyond the TV,
as Ahmad Zahran, founder of Infinitec, explains:
“[You] get access to all your information,
■ The Raspberry games, TV streaming channels, work
SAFE VESA documents and your entire digital life. You’ll
Mount add-on have all the benefits that you get from carrying
attaches the your smartphone but with the ability to display
Pi to most it on a much bigger screen. Imagine walking
flat-screen TVs
into a meeting and doing a presentation
without a laptop.”
As well as having access to simple
information apps such as the Weather and
Stocks, you can also use Android widgets to
add a news feed or social network streams, and
you can even connect to streaming websites
like Netflix or the BBC iPlayer, as well as
browsing the web.
Once you’ve got your Raspberry Pi set up as an
Android smart TV, you may be wondering where
to put it. Well luckily, there are a few cases out
there that support VESA mounts, the standard
used to attach flat-screen TVs to brackets and
walls. The Raspberry SAFE case by Solarbotics
is just the tool to tuck it out the way.

Game on! to buy and rent games and play them anywhere, thanks to
all the legwork being done in the cloud. Using the OnLive
Android app, you can access these games from your
Why not turn your smart TV into a Android-powered Raspberry Pi and play them directly
games console? on your television without the need for a bulky PC in your
If the buzz around the Ouya is anything to go by, a lot of living room. And it also works out much cheaper than the
people are interested in how to turn Android into a games official OnLive console.
console. With a Raspberry Pi running Android, you’re
already part way there. While you could use a mouse and
keyboard for some games, others will probably work better
with a joypad, and this is where the MOGA controller comes
in. It connects via Bluetooth to Android and is able to ■ The MOGA
control a number of Android games. can also
cradle Android
Get OnLive phones, hence
If Android games don’t really do it for you, how about full- the square
blown PC games? The OnLive streaming service allows you shape

26 www.linuxuser.co.uk

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Install Android on your Raspberry Pi
Projects for smart TV, home automation and an in-car computer
FEATURE

Home
There’s also a problem with running on open
source operating systems. We spoke to an open

automation
There’s no need for costly
official controllers
Using home automation can be fairly simple.
There are a number of different standards used
for achieving it, such as powerline-based X10, or
the RF-controlled Z-Wave products. These are
usually controlled by very expensive remotes and
wall screens, vastly increasing the price over the
hardware you’d need in the first place.
■ Conrad Vassallo has tried a few solutions for
home automation, including some using the Pi
source home automator, Conrad Vassallo, about
the problems he faced even getting it started:
“I did some research on systems that provided
home automation and concluded that Z-Wave
was the best option for me… soon I could control
the lights in my living room with the touch of
a button on a remote control. However, this
was not enough: I wanted to have the system
controlled by timed events and so the quest
for a Z-Wave computer interface was on. First I
bought a ControlThink USB stick, which did work
fine for my needs; however, my home server runs
on CentOS and the ControlThink USB stick was
only supported under Windows. So I had to run
the system on a virtual machine, which was not
the best option on an Intel Atom PC.”
Luckily he was able to get a setup running using
code from the Open Z-Wave project, creating
his own controller out of it – you can obtain the
source code from here: code.google.com/p/
open-zwave-controller/source/checkout.
The benefit of running these Z-Wave systems
is that you can control them using Android apps.
A Raspberry Pi and a small screen to connect it to
cost a lot less than the officially made products
and generally work better for the purpose, as you
can always use the extra Android apps on the
device anyway, whether it’s mounted on a wall or
a small box on your coffee table.
Kitchen computer
The size of a Raspberry Pi allows it to fit in a lot of
spaces – add a touch screen and it takes up very
little room. Putting it in a discreet location like
the corner of a kitchen worktop gives you instant
access to the internet and your home network for
looking up information, such as recipes via the
Epicurious app, or using it to stream music from
your file server while you cook.
Home automation controller
Using your Android-powered Pi to control the
house is fairly simple once you have it up and
running. However, you can make it completely
customisable using software like Open Z-Wave
to set up timed events and remote access using
your Raspberry Pi as the controller.
“When I got my first Raspberry Pi, I thought
it would make the project more interesting
to have a dedicated appliance to control my
lights,” explained Conrad Vassallo, who already
had a fully working solution. “So the next step
was to install SSH, Apache, PHP and MySQL
and my code on the Raspberry Pi. Now my
system was consuming very little power and
performed flawless!”
The system created by Conrad also supports
Android input. “The Raspberry Pi is an excellent
piece of hardware to ‘embed’ systems into. First,
it is very small, silent, green and provides the
services offered by larger, more expensive PCs.”

In-car computer multi-touch inputs, the desktop environments themselves

are optimised for mouse and keyboard – at least, the
lightweight ones like LXDE that would run on a carputer.
Fit a Raspberry Pi in your car With Android, that is no longer an issue. As well as a
The main issues usually associated with carputers are fantastic selection of apps for music and podcast playback,
finding a small enough computer with enough power to do you also have the fairly advanced satnav apps like Waze and
the tasks you’d want it to do, and then making sure you have even the native Navigation software. To top it off, there’s
a proper way to actually power the system once it’s in place also a customisable car dock mode that gives you bigger
in your vehicle. On its own, the Raspberry Pi is a solution to buttons and default access to car-friendly apps.
this problem, with the ability to be powered solely from the
cigarette lighter using a USB adaptor that you’d normally
find for phones.
Running Android on top of that makes it the perfect in-car
computer. In the past, even with a touch screen, navigating
around an operating system was tricky, especially
while on the move. While there have been a lot of recent
improvements to the Linux kernel and X for touch and

27 www.linuxuser.co.uk

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 WorldMags.net
Feature
The making of Razdroid
Razdroid was developed by a small team of like-minded
people, eager to test out the Raspberry Pi’s limits. We
spoke to three members of the team, Viktor Warg, Les
de Ridder and Mathijs de Jager, about their involvement
■ The team want to get Roku-style
streaming on the Raspberry Pi
28 www.linuxuser.co.uk
Install Android on your Raspberry Pi
Linux User & Developer: What caused you
guys to start the project in the first place?
Viktor Warg: Well, I had just gotten my
Raspberry Pi and instead of just loading up
Debian as suggested, I started browsing the
forums for something more, well, fun, to run
on it. Stumbled upon the Android thread and
knew instantly that I wanted Android on my Pi.
Started collaborating with Mathijs and Les and
one thing led to another, and here we are!
Les de Ridder: The only real reason I was
interested in doing it was because it hadn’t
been done before. I thought it would be really
nice to be part of something like this, as I had
never done any porting or even embedded
projects before.
What limitations did you experience with the
Raspberry Pi?
VW: The main limitation was the lack of open
source libraries for the VideoCore IV (the Pi’s
GPU) which had put the project in somewhat
of a slumber for a few months. This led to the
fact that we had a fully functional Android
system but lacked the appropriate graphics
libraries to make it hardware accelerated
and thus the response times for the UI were
sluggish at best.
■ The Raspberry Pi Foundation’s successful
attempt at running Android on a Raspberry Pi
WorldMags.net
LdR: Well, mostly Android compatibility issues.
First of all, support for the Pi’s relatively old
CPU was pretty much broken in the then-
available Android sources; Mathijs luckily
managed to fix this. Other limitations were
obviously the RAM: with 256MB, Gingerbread
works, but Ice Cream Sandwich runs… well…
much slower to say the least. This is not only
caused by the RAM, but also by the lack of
hardware graphics acceleration. Android
requires people to build custom accelerated
drivers for its libraries (eg Bionic). We couldn’t
do this at the time when we first built ICS for the
Pi and still cannot, because the drivers’ sources
are sadly closed source.
How challenging was it to build Android for
the Raspberry Pi?
VW: It was quite a challenge at first, seeing as
none of us (as far as I know) had been involved
in similar projects at all. As we progressed (or
didn’t, in some cases), things fell into place,
though. Eventually, I’d venture as far as to
saying that all three of us knew what most
of the issues we faced stemmed from and
how to solve them. One issue we had quite
early was that the Raspberry Pi kernel wasn’t
compatible with some of the patches Android
needed, mainly the IPC-Binder that it relies on
heavily. If I recall correctly, that was solved by
our main kernel guy (Mathijs) after a few days
of brainstorming.
Mathijs de Jager: Another issue was a strange
problem with executables crashing all the
time (‘segfaulting’). After some help from
the #cyanogenmod-dev channel, it turned
out to be a bug regarding the ageing ARMv6
 WorldMags.net
Install Android on your Raspberry Pi
Projects for smart TV, home automation and an in-car computer
FEATURE

“The Pi kernel wasn’t compatible

architecture in the CyanogenMod sources we
used. Additional build flags, almost specific to
the Pi, were needed too. This had us stuck for
quite a while.
with some patches Android needed”
What project ideas do you guys have for a Any future plans for ports or development on is needed. The Broadcom CPU seems to have
finished product? the Pi? it (for example the Roku 2 has Netflix and
LdR: I personally would like to make a build has the same Broadcom CPU), but needs to
MdJ: Netflix on Android on the Pi seems have it enabled. Maybe the Pi Foundation can
that anyone who owns a Pi can use, whether
attractive and I can imagine a lot of people eventually get a licensing thing going, just like
it’s a Model A with limited peripheral support
would want that, but I heard some DRM module the MPEG2-decoding licence.
or a new fancy Model B with 512MB RAM. This
might mean that we would have to remove some
features, but I think that we will be able to find
a good configuration that works for the largest
part of the people who are interested in running
Android on their Pi, suiting as many people
as possible. For people who are interested in
making their own builds, we will supply patches
so they can make their own configuration but
still use our patches for the Pi. I don’t really have
any personal projects, but using it as a Google
TV-like internet player would be nice.

What had you been using the Raspberry Pi for

before Razdroid?

MdJ: Mine had been running as a local web

server for testing.

VW: Nothing at all. I had just gotten my Pi when

I started helping the Razdroid project.

LdR: Not much to be honest. I only had just

received my Pi when I started working on
Razdroid. I was still waiting for my Pi electronics ■ Razdroid is
starter kit to arrive back then, which I later used based mainly on
the CyanogenMod
for learning some basic electronics, like using
Android firmware
resistors, LEDs, transistors etc.

Contribute to Razdroid
Here’s some ways you can help port Android
As Eben Upton said, the Raspberry Pi is about content
creation, and what better way to do this than by getting
in on a project and helping out with the Android port?
Razdroid’s Viktor Warg tells us that the drivers are a
good start, but they need a little more: “We’ve analysed
the libraries and figured out that we need to implement
our own userland gralloc-module, and none of us have
even the slightest idea on where to start on that.”
The best place to start is to visit the Razdroid wiki,
www.razdroid.net,, and check on the current progress.
There’s also an IRC channel, #razdroid on Freenode,
where the developers regularly talk about their current
work, and the entire project is maintained on GitHub.
Of course you can always start your own project,
either by using the official Android source from the
AOSP, modding CyanogenMod, or forking Razdroid.
Happy hacking!

29 www.linuxuser.co.uk

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 WorldMags.net
Tutorial Monitoring your server with tmux
You can monitor the
processes using up memory
on your system with ‘top’
You can monitor the processes
using up CPU cycles on your
system with ‘top’
Monitoring your server
with tmux
With tmux, you can create a monitoring system allowing you to
check on your server remotely and get the perfect overview of
what’s happening. Joey Bernard explains how…
Resources
tmux: http://tmux.sourceforge.net
Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/byobu
Advisor
Joey Bernard As a true renaissance
man, he splits his time between
building furniture, helping
researchers with scientific
computing problems and writing
Android apps. When the kids let
him have some time, that is
30 www.linuxuser.co.uk
There are lots of systems and utilities
available to monitor your system. Many
of these are web-based, or they run as a
client-server system. Unfortunately, there
are several instances where the only allowed
connection to the server of interest is over
SSH. This might be for several reasons, the
least of which being security. In these cases,
you will likely still want some way of easily
monitoring what is going on with your server.
Using tmux, you can create a session which
will run all of your monitoring software and
WorldMags.net
Using ‘tail -f’, you can monitor
log files like /var/log/syslog
You can use ‘watch’ to periodically
run informational programs that
don’t have their own refresh option
keep it running, regardless of whether you
lose your connection or not. This article will
cover the basics of creating such a session,
which you should be able to tune and tweak
to fit your specific requirements. This way,
you can simply log in using any available
SSH connection and see, in an instant, all
of the information that is of interest to you.
Also, since you need to log into the system
over SSH, you don’t need to worry about the
problems of locking down other software,
such as a web server.
 WorldMags.net
Monitoring your server with tmux
Use the terminal multiplexer to view and manage monitoring tools
TUTORIal

n Adding a second top instance

06 Starting top – memory sorted

With a new window, you can start a new
instance of top, sorting it on some other criteria.
One of interest to most system administrators is
which processes are using up memory. To sort the
n The tmux source code is available on SourceForge processes in this way, you will need to enter ‘M’.

01
This may vary for other versions of top, so always
Getting tmux
check your version’s man page. You might also
Tmux originated as part of the
want to change the refresh rate by entering ‘d’ and
OpenBSD system. It should be available in most
setting the number seconds between each display.
distributions. For example, you can get it in

07
Ubuntu with ‘sudo apt-get install tmux’. If you Navigating windows
need the latest and greatest features, you can Now that you have multiple windows, you
download the source code from SourceForge. need to be able to navigate between them. The
simplest way is to use the shortcut navigation keys.

02 Building tmux
The build system uses the usual
‘./configure; make; make install’ steps to build
To move to a specific window, you can use ‘C-b’ and
then the window number. Remember that window
numbering starts at 0. If you simply want to move
n Checking CPU usage with top
tmux. The reason you may want to build your to the next or previous window, use ‘C-b n’ or ‘C-b p’.
own is that many distributions are behind one or
more versions on the software provided by their
respective repositories.
04 Starting top – CPU sorted
One of the things you will be interested
in monitoring is which processes are using up
the most CPU cycles on your server. A good tool
for this is ‘top’. The default when you first start
it is to sort processes based on CPU usage, so
that is fine.

05 Getting a new window

Here we come to one of the features of
tmux; we need to create a new window in this
tmux session. There are two ways to handle this:
first, you can use the shortcut ‘C-b c’, or you can
enter the complete command ‘new-window’. To
n Getting vertically split pane
enter commands, you need to enter ‘C-b :’ and

n Starting up a fresh tmux session

then the command. This will put your current
window into the background and open a new
window in the foreground.
08 Creating new panes
The next great feature of tmux is the
ability to break up windows into panes. This lets

03 Starting tmux
Starting tmux is as simple as typing
‘tmux’ and hitting Enter. Your console will clear
you have multiple programs running in the same
window. To split the current pane horizontally,
use ‘C-b %’ to get two panes, left and right. If
for a split second, and then you will be presented
you wish to split the current pane vertically, you
with a Bash prompt again, along with a status
would use ‘C-b "’.
bar located at the bottom of your screen. This
status bar will contain information about your
current tmux session.

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Tutorial Monitoring your server with tmux
n Tailing the syslog file in a pane (from step 8)
09 Navigating panes
Once you end up with multiple panes, you
need to be able to navigate them. To move to the
next pane in the current window, you would use the
shortcut ‘C-b o’.
You can also rearrange panes within a window.
To swap the current pane with the previous pane,
use the ‘C-b {’ keyboard shortcut. To do so with the
next pane, use ‘C-b }’.
10 Using tail
Now that you have tmux essentials
under your belt, it’s time to add some systems
monitoring. You’ll want to monitor system logs,
and you can do so in multiple panes, giving you an
overall view. For example, navigate to an empty
pane and enter
tail -f /var/log/syslog
in order to get a continually updating view of
system messages.
n Watching dmesg and syslog at the same time
32 www.linuxuser.co.uk
11 Following dmesg
Kernel messages can be followed by
using the program dmesg. The problem is that
it doesn’t do automatic refreshing. You can
accomplish this with ‘watch -n 3 “dmesg | tail
-n 15” ’, where the 3 is the number of seconds
between refreshes, and the 15 is the number of
lines to display.
n Monitoring network connections
12 Network statistics
The next area you will want to monitor is
networking. One utility you can use is netstat. To
see all of the current connections on your server,
you can use ‘netstat -at | grep -v LISTEN’. This is
non-refreshing, so again you will likely want to
pass it to watch in order to get an updating output.
Now that you have tmux essentials
under your belt, it’s time to add some
systems monitoring
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13 Disconnecting tmux
The next powerful feature of tmux is the
ability to take your session and detach it from the
console that you are currently using. To do this,
you can use the shortcut key ‘C-b d’. This puts
tmux into the background, allowing you to logout
of the server if you wish. The great thing is this
also works if your connection simply dies, too.
n Reconnecting to currently
running tmux session
14
Reconnecting tmux
Now that you have a tmux session set up
that is monitoring all of the parts of your server
that you are interested in, you may want to check
in on it. You can log into your server and simply
reattach to the existing tmux session with ‘tmux
attach-session’.
15 Byobu
There is an alternative program
available called Byobu. This program is
actually a wrapper around both tmux and
screen. It provides a prettier interface to
tmux, including a more detailed, two-line
status bar at the bottom of the screen.
This improved status bar will give you more
information, like battery level, CPU frequency
and temperature, and even whether there
are updates available for your system. These
extras are all configurable, and there is even
the option of creating a custom notification.
You should consider checking Byobu out as a
‘tmux+’ option for your monitoring setup.
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n The default Byobu configuration on Ubuntu (from step 15)
16 Naming windows
Once you have your monitoring windows
set up, you will likely want to name them so that
they are easier to manage. You can do so with
the ‘C-b ,’ shortcut. This will rename the current
window, and this new name will appear in the list
at the bottom of the screen.
n Creating a new window called ‘new_win’
17 Configuration files
All of the commands you have used so
far to create your monitoring session manually
can be done automatically through the use of a
configuration file. Each of the shortcuts has an
equivalent long command which can be used in
the configuration file.
n Creating a new window
Monitoring your server with tmux
Use the terminal multiplexer to view and manage monitoring tools
18 Creating windows
To create a new window, you need to add
the line ‘new-window’ to the configuration file.
When you create this new window, you can give
it a target of a current window whose index is
where your new window will be inserted.
n Starting up top
19 Starting top
Another important option to the ‘new-
window’ command is a shell command to
execute upon launching the new window. This is
where you would place the command to start up
‘top’ within your new window.
n Naming your windows
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TUTORIal
20 Naming windows
Naming windows is done through the
option ‘-n NAME’. This is important as it makes
managing the windows easier. This name gets
used to label the window, and it also gets used
when you target a window with some particular
command through the ‘-t TARGET’ option.
n Creating panes with split-window
21
Creating panes
To create a pane, you will need to know
which window you want to do so in. You can use
the ‘split-window’ command, with either the ‘-h’
option for horizontal splitting or ‘-v’ for vertical
splitting. Panes are identified through their
0-based index in the current window.
22 Starting tail in a pane
To start up a program in your new
pane, you can add the command to the end of
your ‘split-window’ tmux command. You can
change this at runtime with the tmux command
‘respawn-pane -k -t TARGET-PANE command’,
which will kill the current process and start up
your new one.
23 Loading a configuration file
After all of this work, you should have
a configuration file that will load your entire
monitoring session. To do so, you can save it
to the default filename ‘~/.tmux.conf’, or you
can save it to another filename and load it with
‘tmux -f filename’.
24 What else can you do?
This has only been a start. You can take
this and add your own monitoring programs
to your tmux session to help in your system
administrator duties. You can now connect to
your system on a whim and see what is going on
in a matter of moments.
33 www.linuxuser.co.uk
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Tutorial Create and manage boot scripts and startup applications

The differences
in update-rc.d
over chkconfig
are explained

Learn how to use Create scripts to start up Automate your boot time by
chkconfig in Red applications using graphical launching browsers, music and
Hat-based distros tools or custom scripts scripts the way you want to

Create and manage boot scripts

and startup applications
Automate your boot time using init scripts to start
programs, services and other functions on multiple
distros and desktop environments
Automating computer tasks is a fantastic hot drink while the whole system loads up, or
way to increase your workflow and simply just like to see your system come to life
productivity. One of the best ways to automate with little interaction on your part.
is to create some init scripts to occur during The process is not the same on different
Advisor boot time, as there are always applications you
tend to start up the moment your system is
distros, though – while Debian-based systems
use one method, other distributions will need
Rob Zwetsloot models
complex systems and ready – whether it’s simply a web browser and another, and in this tutorial we will cover the
is a web developer media player, or an IDE and system monitoring different methods so you can properly apply
proficient in Python, tools. This will be of use whether you’re them. We’ll also show you how to start up
Django and PHP. He
loves to experiment waiting a few moments before your desktop applications automatically in different desktop
with computing environment properly loads, grabbing a quick environments, and run other types of scripts.

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Create & manage boot scripts & startup applications
Customise which programs and services start up at boot time
TUTORIal

01 Understanding rc.d
Debian and Debian-based distros use
the tool update-rc.d to manage init scripts, and
05 About chkconfig
Used by Fedora, openSUSE and other
non-Debian distros, chkconfig is a different
And off:
$ chkconfig --levels 016 {service} off
it’s very simple compared to chkconfig of Fedora tool that manages init scripts, although it works You can also reset them to default with:
and other Red Hat-based distributions. Simply somewhat similarly to update-rc.d. Chkconfig $ chkconfig{service} res
knowing the location of a script or the name of a uses the same concepts of run levels, but they
service means you can add it to boot. are different per machine.

06 Chkconfig service
To add a service using chkconfig using
default values, input the following:
08 Chkconfig remove
You can have a service removed from
boot time and chkconfig’s list by using the
$ chkconfig --add {service}

02 Update rc.d following command:

The default run levels are included in the init script,
Let’s try a simple one to start with. Select $ chkconfig --del {service}
although it will use values from INIT INFO instead if
a service that resides in /etc/init.d/, which should Make sure it’s not a service that will affect
there are some.
be most packages that you’ve installed via the normal boot time before you remove it, though.
repos. To add to startup, use:
$ update-rc.d {service} defaults
The defaults part adds it to specific run levels, 09 Chkconfig list
A great way to manage your boot services
is to use the list command with chkconfig like so:
which govern when programs start during boot.
$ chkconfig --list

03 Debian run levels

Most Linux systems have seven run
This will show all managed services, and whether
or not the services are running at different levels.

07
levels, from 0 to 6, but not all are the same. All You can also specify the service name after ‘--list’
Chkconfig run levels
Debian distros use the following classifications: and get details on only that.
You can specify what levels you want to
0 ..............................................................................Halt
use with the following commands for run:
1......................................................Single User Mode
$ chkconfig --levels 2345 {service} on
2-5 ......... Multi User Mode with Display Manager
6.........................................................................Reboot
Default adds services to start at run levels 2
through 5, and to stop at 0, 1 and 6.

04 Advanced update
As well as being able to add services
to boot using update-rc.d, we can also remove
them with:
$ update-rc.d {service} remove
We can also specify which levels the service
should run at:
$ update-rc.d {service} start 45
stop 01236

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Tutorial Create and manage boot scripts and startup applications
10 Startup applications
For applications and programs to launch
after login, we need to use tools included with
the desktop environments to let us achieve this.
GNOME, KDE, LXDE and Xfce all use different
methods; however, Unity and Cinnamon are the
same as GNOME because they’re based on it.
11 GNOME startup
GNOME uses the gnome-session-
properties tool to add applications to startup.
You can access it by typing ‘gnome-session-
properties’ into the terminal, or by pressing
Alt+F2 to do the same thing. It’s a simple
graphical utility that lets you add, remove, edit
and disable startup programs.
The scripts
for the startup
programs are kept
in the autostart
folder
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12 GNOME startup browser
Let’s simply add Firefox to the list of
startup programs. Enter gnome-session-
hidden folder /.config in the home directory. You
can open it up in a text editor to see the syntax
that the gnome-session-properties uses, and
properties and click on ‘Add’ to bring up the Add edit it from there or create your own.
Program window. Name and comment on it how
you wish, but make sure you add the correct
command to the relevant field – in the case of
Firefox, it launches merely with ‘firefox’.
13 GNOME startup advanced
As the command-line entry is the same
as running Firefox in the terminal, you can also
add extra options to the field – and in this case,
ask it to navigate to a different URL than perhaps
your home address. The syntax is as follows:
firefox http://www.website.com
-option
15 GNOME manual autostart
Let’s do something a bit more advanced
by making a script ourselves. We can use
Some of the options you might want to consider Rhythmbox, say, to have music start up as soon
are things like private, -P for different profiles, as our system has booted. Begin the file like so:
and safe-mode. [Desktop Entry]
Type = Application
Exec =
Hidden = false
NoDisplay = false
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled = true
Name = Play Music
Comment = Play Music
Rhythmbox needs to be started, then controlled
with rhythmbox-client. Our code will look
something like this:
$ rhythmbox-client --play-uri={file
location}
You can also add an external media stream
14 GNOME autostart
The scripts for the startup programs are
kept in the autostart folder, which is usually in the
instead of a file location. It will begin to play from
all music, so you’ll be able to shuffle through all
your music.
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Create & manage boot scripts & startup applications
16 KDE startup
The KDE autostart tool is found in System
Settings>Startup and Shutdown. You can use this
to add and manage init scripts as well as startup
programs. To start, click the ‘Add Program’
button. You can manually search for the program,
or enter its package name. Back to the Firefox
example, you can just put ‘firefox’.
17 KDE startup options
In the properties for the startup entry, the
Application tab gives you more options on how to
name and start up the application, with the ability
to add the same style of terminal options as we
were able to do in GNOME.
Customise which programs and services start up at boot time
TUTORIal
18 KDE advanced startup
The autostart scripts are kept in the same
place as the GNOME ones, /.config/autostart
in the home directory. The syntax to create the
script from scratch is a little different, and allows
you to add icons and detailed info on what the
application supports.
21 Xfce advanced startup
As with the other desktop environments,
Xfce uses the .desktop files. The syntax in this
case is exactly the same as the simple one used
by GNOME, with the NAME, TYPE, EXEC etc fields
to fill in.
22 LXDE autostart
LXDE does not have a simple graphical
tool to help you create startup rules – but it does
use the same .desktop files that we’ve been
19 KDE startup template using on the other distributions, albeit much
Actions = NewWindow;
Categories =
more simply:
[Desktop Entry]
Type = Application
Comment = Exec =
Exec = Make sure to use ‘chmod +x’ on the file before
GenericName = rebooting.
Name =
Path =
StartupNotify = true
Terminal = false
TerminalOptions =
Type = Application
X-KDE-SubstituteUID = false
X-MultipleArgs = false
23 Cross startup
As the .desktop files are similar across
the major desktop environments, if you create
a script in one, it will work in others. They may
not always work between specific desktops,
though, so you’ll have to make sure all the
relevant information is included. KDE also has
an option in the graphical interface that makes
the script only work in KDE, however.
24 The end
Now you know how to have services and
20 Xfce startup
Xfce uses a very similar tool to the
applications run on startup at a system level or
after being logged in. There’s a lot more you can do
one used in GNOME, located in the Settings
Manager under Session and Startup. Clicking
‘add’ will bring up the same sort of dialog box,
with them, and you can find out by experimenting
with the steps in this tutorials, or with terminal
commands and executable shell scripts.
although you’ll have to make sure you know the
command you want to use, or the location of
the program, as there is no search function.
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Tutorial Make an open source to-do list with Emacs

This is where you

place the task states
tracked by Toodledo

Scheduled jobs are Each of the tracked

labelled with the tasks has a ToodledoID
property ‘SCHEDULED:’ and a hash

Make an open source

to-do list with Emacs Advisor
Joey Bernard As a true renaissance
Harness the power of Emacs to organise man, he splits his time between

your work, as well as some options to

building furniture, helping
researchers with scientific
computing problems and writing

track your to-do list when you’re on the go Android apps. When the kids let
him have some time, that is

Resources There are at least as many ways to track tasks

as there are people on the planet. A very
use org-mode to build a to-do list and plan out
the work that you need to do. While this works
Emacs: powerful tool is available in the Emacs editor. great when you are at your desktop, more and
www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ Emacs runs in modes, and behaves differently more often people are on the move. We will also
OrgMode: depending on which mode it is in. Most modes look at how to keep your to-do list with you while
http://orgmode.org are activated when editing files of particular you are out and about. The method is to actually
org-toodledo: types. There are several modes that are useful use the web application Toodledo to act as an
https://github.com/christopherjwhite/ for task planning and tracking. The two most intermediary between Emacs and your mobile
org-toodledo popular modes are planner-el and org-mode. device of choice. This way, you have your choice
In this article, we will look at how to set up and of mobile interface to your task list.

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Make an open source to-do list with Emacs
01 Get Emacs
The first step is to get Emacs installed on
your system. Since Emacs has been around for so
long, it has been ported to almost every system in
existence. On Linux, it should be available in any
distribution you use. This is not usually the latest
version. If you want the latest functionality, you
may want to download the source code.
02 Get org-mode
In any recent version of Emacs, org-mode
is available as part of the bundled modes. This
usually tracks behind the latest version available.
Again, if you want the latest version’s features, you
will need to download and install from source.
03 Initial setup
In order to use the most basic
org-mode functions, you will need to add
Use Emacs and org-toodledo to create a portable to-do list
TUTORIAL
06 Changing task states
Now that you have your tasks and their
workflow defined, it’s time to actually work. As you
get tasks done, you need to change their state.
You can simply edit the tag directly and change the
task state. Or, you can use the keyboard shortcut
‘C-c C-t’ to cycle through the options.
some items to your ‘.emacs’ file. If you installed
from source, you will want to add ‘(require
'org-install)’. Otherwise, you will want to add
‘(require 'org)’. You will also want to add lines to
07
tell Emacs to use org-mode when opening files
Setting deadlines
that end in ‘.org’.
Some tasks have to be done by some
time. You can get org-mode to set and track
deadlines with the keyboard shortcut ‘C-c C-d’. You
can use shortcuts like ‘tue’ for the next Tuesday, or
you can enter the full data and time for a task.
04 First to-do file
Your task list resides in an org file. These
are just plain text files with particular tags which
org-mode uses to decipher things like priorities,
deadlines and contexts. Tasks are started with
asterisks, which identify the level. Subtasks are
identified with an extra asterisk.
08 Scheduling your work
The other time function in org-mode is
scheduling. You can set a date and time for when
05 Setting task states
Your workflow is defined by the states
that your tasks can take. These can be defined
your task should be started by using the keyboard
shortcut ‘C-c C-s’. This will add an extra property
to your task. Schedules and deadlines can also be
either in your ‘.emacs’ file, or in the org file itself. added manually by editing the text.
The states are broken into those states for active
tasks (like TODO) and those for inactive tasks
(like DONE).
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Tutorial Make an open source to-do list with Emacs

09 Setting priorities
Priorities can be set by using the keyboard
shortcut ‘C-c ,’. Or, you can add them manually by
typing ‘[#A]’ or ‘[#B]’ or ‘[#C]’, where A is the highest
priority level and C is the lowest.
12 Looking at your agenda
There are several built-in agenda
functions available. The default agenda view is
iOS and Android, called MobileOrg. This app
can synchronise with your org files via Dropbox,
WebDAV or an SD card.
compiled using the shortcut ‘C-c a a’. This will
give you a list for the week. If you want a list of
all of your to-dos, use ‘C-c a t’. This agenda is
15 Setting up Toodledo
While it is fully functional, some people

10 Estimating effort
Part of planning is estimating how long
each of your tasks will take. You can set this by
setting the effort property with the keyboard
shortcut ‘C-c C-x e’. This effort can be used in
several different functions, including ones you
may write yourself.
interactive, allowing you to edit the tasks involved.
You can also create your own agenda views,
tailored to your workflow.
13 Planning your day
Now that you are able to set deadlines,
schedule tasks and view your agendas, you can
plan out your day’s work and actually get some
things done now. This is the real reason for all task
management systems.
do not like the workflow MobileOrg uses on your
mobile device. There are many different apps
available which provide different layouts and
workflows. Most of these apps synchronise
with various web apps. One popular web app
is Toodledo, and there are several mobile apps
giving you access to your tasks. If you wish to use
this, you will need to synchronise org-mode with
Toodledo. The first step is to go and sign up and
get your Toodledo account. Once you do, you can
get Emacs configured.

11 Adding files to your agenda

Org-mode has the concept of an agenda.
Agenda functions use files include in the agenda
list to calculate the jobs for a given time. You can
add the current open org file to the list with the
shortcut ‘C-c [’. Or you can manually add the files 14 MobileOrg
This will get you working on tasks on
your desktop system, but what if you want to
by editing the values stored in the variable ‘org-
agenda-files’ in your ‘.emacs’ file. go mobile? There is an app, available on both

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Make an open source to-do list with Emacs
This is the real reason for all task
management systems
16
Getting org-toodledo
The project org-toodledo is hosted
on GitHub, where you can download zip files
or grab a copy of the Git repository. Once you
download it, you need to add the directory to
the Emacs search path with ‘(push “/path/to/
org-toodledo” load-path)’. You will also want
to add the variables ‘org-toodledo-userid’ and
‘org-toodledo-password’ to allow access to your
Toodledo account.
17 Patching Emacs
Depending on your version of Emacs,
you may need to patch some of the functions
in the url-http file. If you installed from source,
simply apply the patches before compiling and
installing. If you install from your distribution, you
will only have compiled elisp files. You will need to
download the source files for your version from
the Emacs site, patch the file url_http.el, then
copy it over to the installed location.
18 Initialising a file for Toodledo
The first step is to create and initialise a
file to use for the interface to Toodledo. Create a
new file, open it and run the command ‘A-x org-
toodledo-initialize’. This will log into your Toodledo
account, create a new heading called ‘TASKS’
and do an initial pull of all of the tasks you have
created there.
Use Emacs and org-toodledo to create a portable to-do list
19
Setting task states
Task states need to be synchronised
between Toodledo and your org-mode setup. You
will want to be sure that your org file has all of the
task states from Toodledo. These can be set by
including the line
#+SEQ_TODO: TODO(t) DELEGATED(g)
SOMEDAY(s) WAITING(w) | DONE(d)
CANCELLED(c) REFERENCE(r)
somewhere in your org file.
20 Synchronising
Any time you make changes to your
org file and try to write them, org-toodledo will
ask you whether you want to synchronise to
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TUTORIAL
Toodledo. If you want to force a sync, say at
startup, you can run ‘A-x org-toodledo-sync’.
With Emacs, you can set a keyboard shortcut,
or incorporate this synchronisation into some
other function or trigger.
21 Mapping time properties
There are different time properties,
both in Toodledo and org-mode. This means
that there needs to be some form of mapping.
The org-mode deadline maps to the duedate
and duetime in Toodledo, while the scheduled
value in org-mode maps to the startdate and
starttime in Toodledo.
22 Getting rid of old tasks
You can’t cheat and delete tasks from
your org file. If you do so, then they will reappear
during the next sync. You need to mark them
as done and then synchronise with Toodledo in
order to propagate the change. Once that has
happened, you can archive the done tasks with
the shortcut ‘C-c C-x C-s’.
23 Mobile apps
Now that you’re synchronising to
Toodledo, you can go to your respective app
store and find an app that matches your style
of working on your mobile device. Our personal
choice is DGT, but there are many more to
chose from.
24 Where to now?
This article only covered the most basic
functions available in org-mode. Emacs is
essentially a full running LISP machine, so you
can always change the functionality to match
your own personal workflow. Check out the links
and see what else you can do.
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Feature
The
Hurd
What happened
to the true kernel
of the GNU OS?
Work began on the the Hurd, the true
kernel of the GNU operating system, in
May 1991, but it has yet to materialise
as a production-ready kernel. Richard
Hillesley tells the story…
Although the GNU operating system was first
conceived in 1983 and the Free Software
Foundation (FSF) had first declared an
interest in using the Mach microkernel as
the core of the GNU operating system kernel
as far back as 1987, the sources of the Mach
microkernel – developed at Carnegie Mellon
University (CMU) – weren’t released under
a suitable licence until 1991, by which time
Linus Torvalds had begun his project to write
a UNIX-like kernel for the IBM 386.
If the Linux kernel hadn’t been written when it
was, licensed under the GPLv2 and surrounded
by components of the GNU operating system,
or Linux hadn’t captured the moment and the
imagination of developers, the energy that
gathered around Linux might have gone to the
Hurd and the world might have been a different
42 www.linuxuser.co.uk
The Hurd: the true kernel of the GNU operating system
place. But it wasn’t just the rise of Linux, or the
choice of the Mach microkernel that slowed the
progress of the Hurd.
The design of the Hurd was an attempt
to embody the spirit and promise of the free
software movement in code. As one anonymous
hacker employee of the FSF back in the early days
of the Hurd project, put it: “The sentiment around
the design was, I think it fair to say, somewhat
giddy. The free software movement was (and is)
all about freeing users from subjugation to those
who provide software. The Hurd’s microkernel
architecture and the structure of the daemons
would securely free users from subjugation to
system administrators – each user could securely
invoke a set of daemons to create the operating
environment he or she wished, no special
permissions required.”
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A slightly large closet
Richard Stallman had announced his intention
to write a complete UNIX-like operating system
to be known as GNU, ‘GNU’s Not Unix!’, in
September 1983. The years between 1983 and
the inception of the Hurd were spent writing
the operating system and tools that made the
development of a kernel possible, the editors
and compilers, Bash, Make, Autoconf, Emacs,
GCC, sed, gawk and the command-line tools.
GNU paid for itself through the sale of the
software. In the early days of the Hurd the
FSF employed developers, before “any kind of
data over voice or particularly high bandwidth
connection was commonplace – so that
hacking was over modem connected to text
terminal. Mostly we hacked in a shared office
which, if you saw it, you’d think ‘Wow, that’s
a slightly large closet.’ We were, at that time,
guests of MIT.”
Linus Torvalds had announced the arrival of
“a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t
be big and professional like GNU) for 386(486)
AT clones” on comp.os.minix just a few short
months after work began on the Hurd. Torvalds’
choice of a monolithic kernel was not the choice
of the purists, but provided the quickest route to
a working kernel.
 WorldMags.net
The Hurd: the true kernel of the GNU operating system
The original GNU UNIX-like kernel was supplanted by Linux but is still under development
The appeal of the Linux kernel to the hackers,
hobbyists and academics who swarmed to help
in its development was that it was free software,
available under GPLv2, and ran on the kind of
hardware they had at home. The momentum
was with Linux and the community grew
surprisingly fast. The community made GNU/
Linux what it was, and while work continued
on GNU Hurd, it was at a slower pace. The
community wasn’t coming its way.
An idealistic philosophy
From a user perspective, the Hurd was going
to be a long time coming, and the Linux
developers had slotted Linux into the space
that was meant to be occupied by the Hurd
at the heart of the GNU operating system.
Stallman was initially sceptical. Early versions
of Linux were exclusive to the IBM 386, and
according to Stallman: “We heard that Linux
was not at all portable (this may not be true
today, but that’s what we heard then). And we
heard that Linux was architecturally on a par
with the UNIX kernel; our work was leading to
something much more powerful.”
■ Richard Stallman announced his intention to write
a complete UNIX-like operating system to be known
as GNU, ‘GNU’s Not Unix!’, in September 1983
FEATURE
Linux was dependent on GCC and the
GNU tools, and its profile began to grow as
distributions emerged, and the FSF began to
see Linux as an acceptable, if sub-optimal
and temporary, substitute for the kernel at
the heart of the GNU operating system. As
Stallman was quick to point out: “There is no
operating system called Linux. The OS called
Linux is GNU. Linux is a program – a kernel. A
kernel is one part of an OS, the lowest-level
program in the OS that keeps track of other
programs running, and apportions memory and
processor time among them.”
He insisted that the GNU operating system
with Linux at its heart should be known as
GNU/Linux so that “people understand that
the system exists because of an idealistic
philosophy. Call it Linux and it defeats the
philosophy. It’s a very serious problem. Linux
is not the system. Linux is one piece of it… The
idealistic vision of the GNU project is the reason
we have this system.”
Work continued on the Hurd but it became
obvious that the FSF had chosen a difficult route
in its search for perfection. The microkernel
ALIX – THE TRUE GNU KERNEL
Richard Stallman tells the story that the GNU kernel was not originally
supposed to be called the Hurd.
Its original name was Alix – named after the woman who was
my sweetheart at the time. She, a UNIX system administrator,
had pointed out how her name would fit a common naming pattern for
UNIX system versions; as a joke, she told her friends, ‘Someone should
name a kernel after me.’ I said nothing, but decided to surprise her with
a kernel named Alix.”
It did not stay that way. Michael (now Thomas) Bushnell, the main
developer of the kernel, preferred the name Hurd, and redefined
Alix to refer to a certain part of the kernel – the part that would trap
system calls and handle them by sending messages to Hurd servers.”
Later, Alix and I broke up, and she changed her name;
independently, the Hurd design was changed so that the C
library would send messages directly to servers, and this made the Alix
component disappear from the design.”
But before these things happened, a friend of hers came across
the name Alix in the Hurd source code and mentioned it to her. So
she did have the chance to find a kernel named after her.”
CC: stallman.org (public domain)
Bushnell chose the name Hurd, partly because the Hurd suggested a
herd of GNU, and partly because the Hurd was a recursive acronym for
‘Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons’ and a Hird was a ‘Hurd of Interfaces
Representing Depth’. As Bushnell put it “We have here, to my knowledge,
the first software to be named by a pair of mutually recursive acronyms.”
Thomas Bushnell is still a Debian developer and a Gregorian friar.
43 www.linuxuser.co.uk
WorldMags.net
 WorldMags.net
Feature The Hurd: the true kernel of the GNU operating system

The principle and the promise

CC: James Duncan Davidson/O’Reilly Media

presented a series of problems to overcome, and
people who might have participated had been
diverted to work on Linux, which was usable and
bearing fruit. Despite the criticisms of the likes
of Andy Tanenbaum at the outset of the Linux
project, Torvalds’ choice of a monolithic kernel
for Linux made it easier to arrive at a working free
operating system.
Stallman later admitted, “I take full
responsibility for the technical decision to
develop the GNU kernel based on Mach, a
decision which seems to have been responsible
for the slowness of the development. I thought
using Mach would speed the work by saving us
a large part of the job, but I was wrong.” In latter
■ Michael Tiemann founded Cygnus Solutions years the Hurd has been ported to a variety
and was a GCC developer. Cygnus and of microkernels, from L4 to Coyotos and to
Tiemann encouraged the ECGS breakaway Viengoos, but has never had the community and
from GCC and was a co-founder of the OSI resources that went the way of Linux.
In the late Nineties there was a schism in the
community, symbolised by the ECGS (pronounced
‘eggs’) split of GCC – as an attempt to break
GCC development away from the FSF – and the
founding of the Open Source Initiative (OSI), to
promote a less stringent, or watered down, view of
the possibilities of free software.
“The main differentiation [the OSI] sought
from the FSF is that they would not condemn
proprietary software or describe themselves as a
freedom movement – they sought to emphasise
the economic advantages of having volunteers
do work for no pay.” But in the view of some “their
main purpose upon founding was to attempt to
politically marginalise RMS (a project in which
they’ve had some success).”
An appearance of the Hurd was first promised
in 1994, when Emacs was said to be up and
running, and a release was promised in 2001,
but never materialised. After the port to the L4
microkernel in 2005, Markus Brinkmann was

AT THE
BLEEDING EDGE
Unlike the Linux kernel, which
is monolithic, the Hurd uses a
microkernel, and functionality is
moved out of kernel space and
into userland. The microkernel sits
between the hardware and most
of the activities that are normally
assumed by a monolithic kernel.
Thomas Bushnell, one of the
primary architects of the Hurd
in its earlier days, summarised
the theory in his paper ‘Towards
a New Strategy of OS design’,
written in 1996. “The GNU Hurd,”
he wrote, “is designed to make the
area of system code as limited as
possible. Programs are required
to communicate only with a few
■ A microkernel puts system processes into userland. “Programs are required to
essential parts of the kernel; the communicate only with a few essential parts of the kernel…”
rest of the system is replaceable
dynamically. Users can use the services of arbitrary users.” “It was well understood back daemons rather than syscalls
whatever parts of the remainder In practice, this means that users then,” an anonymous GNU being handled by a monolithic
of the system they want, and do not defer to the superuser employee remembered, “and kernel). Rashid’s work [at
can easily add components for activities like mounting a even a point of discussion in Carnegie Mellon] had suggested
themselves for other users to file system or loading a device academia, that a microkernel that this problem was not so
take advantage of. No mutual driver, which was the case architecture posed some difficult terribly significant after all. And
trust need exist in advance with Linux until recent years, problems for performance so, at least to me, it felt like the
for users to use each other’s since when Linux has begun to (related mostly to a greater GNU project was not only doing
services, nor does the system accumulate microkernel-like number of context switches this shoestring-budget freedom-
become vulnerable by trusting features of its own. as messages pass between fighting hacking, but also leading

44 www.linuxuser.co.uk

WorldMags.net
 WorldMags.net
The Hurd: the true kernel of the GNU operating system
The original GNU UNIX-like kernel was supplanted by Linux but is still under development
feature

n Bruce Perens was a

CC: Manon Anne Ress

Debian project leader,
wrote the Debian Free
Software Guidelines
and founded Software
in The Public Interest
near the bleeding edge of CS
research made practical. Well,
that was the theory, anyway,
and we were mighty proud of
ourselves and generally excited
to be there.”
The Hurd was a remarkable
adventure into the state of
the art of operating system
theory as it existed at that
time. The objective of GNU
was to achieve something
both UNIX-like and something
akin to the operating system
of a Lisp machine, the original
single-user workstation that
had grown out of the hacker
culture of the AI Lab at MIT,
where Stallman had learnt
his craft. “Emacs (with its
Lisp extensibility) was taken
to be a paradigm for how
interactive programs might
promising “we can now easily explore and develop
the system in any way we want,” but was forced to
admit that “with my glibc port, I can already build
simple applications, but most won’t run because
they need a file system or other gimmicks
(like, uhm, fork and exec), and I only have stubs
(dummy functions which always return an error)
for that now.”
In the mid-Nineties Debian arrived on the
scene and through the ‘Debian Guidelines’,
written by Bruce Perens, became the practical
expression and conscience of the free software
movement, while the FSF divested itself of much
of its role in defining and developing the GNU
operating system and put its efforts into the
politics of free software.
Since 1998, Debian GNU/Hurd has been an
active project of the Debian community, who offer
an installation CD and live CD, which can be seen
as the sanctioned version of the current status of
Hurd development, but is still not considered to
be an ‘official’ Debian release. The Hurd is not up
to production quality, and has some limitations
The might have beens
When GNU was first conceived, the obvious solution
was to find a ready-made kernel that was already in the
public domain.
Stallman’s first choice was TRIX, which had been
developed on his home ground at MIT, and is mentioned
in the GNU Manifesto. “An initial kernel exists but many
more features are needed to emulate UNIX,” he wrote
in 1984. “When the kernel and compiler are finished, it
will be possible to distribute a GNU system suitable for
program development.” As late as December 1986, the
GNU developers were “working on the changes needed
to TRIX”, and it wasn’t until the following year that
Stallman began to take an interest in Mach.
Other ideas were mooted, including the use of
Berkeley’s Sprite operating system and the BSD kernel.
“RMS was a very strong believer, wrongly, I think, in a
very greedy algorithm approach to code reuse issues,”
Thomas Bushnell later remembered.
“My first choice was to take the BSD 4.4-Lite release
and make a kernel. I knew the code, I knew how to do it.
It is now perfectly obvious to me that this would have
succeeded splendidly and the world would be a very
different place today. RMS wanted to work together
with people from Berkeley on such an effort. Some of
them were interested, but some seem to have been
deliberately dragging their feet: and the reason now
seems to be that they had the goal of spinning off BSDI.
A GNU based on 4.4-Lite would undercut BSDI.”
As Bushnell describes it, Stallman came to the
conclusion that “Mach is a working kernel. 4.4-Lite is
only partial. We will go with Mach.”
CC: Tjeerd Wiersma

work. Originally, it was even
envisioned that the window
system would be Lisp based.
“One early change to the
original GNU vision occurred
when it became clear that
X11 worked pretty well and
was here to stay and would be
free software. As a practical
matter: just use that.”
on hardware support, but can be usefully run in a
virtual box and is worth a try.
Where once the FSF paid developers to work
on GNU projects, most are now volunteers or
employees of companies paid to work on projects
like GCC. Much of the focus went out of the Hurd
because Linux does the job, and there was no
n The Massachusetts Institute of Technology
burning need for another kernel, but the principle
and the promise have lingered on, and there may
yet be scope for a return to the original vision of
the GNU Hurd.

45 www.linuxuser.co.uk

WorldMags.net
 WorldMags.net
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Add new features and functionality
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Supercomputing
for the masses
We talk to Andreas Olofsson,
founder and CEO of Adapteva,
about Parallella
Page 48

“Our goal is that this is

going to be as successful
as the Raspberry Pi”

Build a network
of Raspberry Pis
Bring many RasPis
together with centralised
storage and authentication
Page 56

47 www.linuxuser.co.uk

WorldMags.net
 WorldMags.net
Feature Supercomputing for the masses

Andreas Olofsson is a man who knows

his chips. Educated at the University of
Pennsylvania, where he gained a BA in Physics,

We talk to Andreas Olofsson, founder a BS in Electrical Engineering and an MS in

the same discipline, Olofsson worked for

and chief executive of Adapteva, semiconductor giant Analog Devices for nearly
a decade designing highly parallel digital

about his company’s project to signal processors (DSPs).

Growing tired of working for someone else,

create a $99 many-core pocket-sized Olofsson would leave Analog Devices in 2008
– bringing a few of his colleagues along with

supercomputer: Parallella him – to found Adapteva, a privately held

semiconductor company of just five people.

19.05mm
■ Adapteva’s latest Epiphany-IV ■ Andreas Olofsson, founder and chief
processor packs 64 800MHz RISC executive of Adapteva, wants to bring
cores into a tiny, low-power package supercomputing to everyone

48 www.linuxuser.co.uk

WorldMags.net
 WorldMags.net
“A processor architecture is only
as strong as its community”
Adapteva might be small, but the firm has a big
aim in mind: to revolutionise the semiconductor
industry with its extremely low-power yet highly
parallel processor architecture.
Since successfully raising Series A funding
in 2009, Adapteva has launched a series of
remarkable chips based around its Epiphany
highly parallel architecture, including the
Epiphany-III 16-core chip and its bigger brother
the Epiphany-IV 64-core chip. Despite drawing
around 2W under load, the chips promise masses
of power for parallel processing tasks – and to
prove it, Olofsson is looking to sell a miniature
‘supercomputer’ based around his design to
anyone who wants it, for just $99 (around £62
excluding taxes.)
Dubbed Parallella, the board mates a dual-
core ARM-based Cortex-A9 processor with
an Epiphany-based co-processor. The result,
Olofsson claims, is a device no larger than the
highly successful Raspberry Pi, but with the sort
of processing power that has people sitting up
and taking notice.
Seeking $750,000 of cash on the crowd-
funding platform Kickstarter for his project,
Olofsson promises to release all the details
of the Parallella project – board design, chip
documentation and compiler source code –
under permissive open source licences.
Supercomputing for the masses
The $99 pocket-sized supercomputer is on its way
But why?
LUD: What makes the Epiphany architecture
your company builds special, compared to
existing architectures such as x86 and ARM?
Andreas Olofsson: “We don’t run an operating
system, but we are really good at real-time
processing, maths acceleration, and the kind
of thing that the ARM and Intel processors can’t
handle today very energy efficiently. We’ve been
building chips over the last few years, four chips
so far, and the latest one came out this summer:
the 28nm, 64-core Epiphany-IV.
“It’s a 64-core co-processor that’s going to sit
next to an ARM or Intel host, running at 800MHz,
consuming less than 2W for the full chip. That’s
about 50GHz of CPU performance – that’s the
way we like to count it, because it’s 64 real RISC
[reduced instruction set computing] cores that
can run a lot of different applications written in
C or C++ that are being launched from the host.
“One interesting application was the OpenCV
library, which is a very popular computer vision
library developed by Intel over the years. We
took that library and ran it on an x86 processor
for face detection. Then we took the inner
kernel of the face detection and brought it over
to our platform, and started accelerating it
and running it at much, much lower power. So
basically let the OpenCV machine vision library
■ Adapteva’s Epiphany architecture promises
much, but Olofsson admits it needs the support
WorldMags.net
FEATURE
do all the camera interface and everything like
that, all the high-level application, and then we
do the brute-force acceleration.
“If I go through what we’ve done over the last
year, besides getting the 28nm chip out and
verifying it and having it work, it’s really working
on our platform, working on our compiler, our
debuggers (we put out an OpenCL compiler to
allow people to do parallel programming very
easily on our platform) and then also building
our board offering portfolio to our partners.
So, really, the last year has all been about beta
customers, early adopters, to get to the point
where now we’re ready to bring it to the mass
developer audience.”
What made you decide to launch a
Kickstarter project (the first semiconductor
firm to do so) offering a highly parallel
development board for just $99?
“Until today, our kits have cost thousands
of dollars and we’ve had hundreds of people
interested in our technology, but they couldn’t
afford it. We feel that if we can make it priced at
$99 for a parallel computer, now that should be
cheap enough that anybody could have it.
“A processor architecture is only as strong
as its community. That’s been shown time
after time: if you can’t get a few thousand users
involved in your architecture, to build software
and infrastructure, you’re going to have a very
of the development community to succeed
49 www.linuxuser.co.uk
 WorldMags.net
Feature Supercomputing for the masses
hard time surviving – especially with parallel
computing where you’re up against the old
way of doing things, the old software ways, the
single-threaded way. We feel that we have a
technology which is very compelling from an
energy efficiency standpoint, but if we really
want to have long-term success we need to grow
our community very quickly, and it can be very
hard to do that if we keep the price very high.
“We’re never going to get the volume up selling
onesies and twosies to R&D labs. We really
need a bigger audience. One of our biggest
development costs is mask sets: at 28nm,
they’re millions of dollars, at 65nm they’re
hundreds of thousands of dollars. If we can
get, through the Kickstarter project, some pre-
purchases, we can use those pre-purchases to
basically buy mask sets and bring the cost of the
chip down to something very, very attractive.
”We just needed some kind of platform to do
the launch on, and [Kickstarter is] going to be a
way for collecting people’s orders. I think they’ve
done a great job of setting that up, they’re a good
escrow platform, but it wouldn’t be the only one.
For us, it’s easy to use, we don’t have to worry
about payment. For us it’s the contract: the all-
or-nothing kind of funding really works for us,
because the only way we can pull off this project
is if we get certain funding levels. For example,
to get the $99 16-core version, we would need to
raise $750,000 to make that and to not lose a lot
of money per board shipped, and it’s that kind of
all-or-nothing – people can give their credit-card
numbers safely and know that they won’t be
charged unless we hit our funding goal.”
The $99 price point you’re targeting is
extremely competitive. How sustainable
■ The prototype Parallella board – which
uses an external Epiphany daughterboard
– already runs Ubuntu Linux
50 www.linuxuser.co.uk
“The reason I’m an engineer is to
build stuff that other people use ”
do you think that is? – is that something
you’re going to be able to stick to after the
Kickstarter project has finished and maintain
as a product?
“With the right manufacturing partners,
absolutely. It comes back to our silicon-area
efficiency: we are extremely small, in terms of
our chip size. Our 64-core processor, at 28nm,
is only 10mm² – so that’s about 3.5mm by
3.5mm. Compare that to large GPUs and large
microprocessors, which are hundreds of square
millimetres… Just imagine: they’re hundreds of
square millimetres, and what they sell for or cost
to manufacture, and we’re only ten.
“The majority of the cost of a chip is the
silicon cost. So we know that we have a very
cost-competitive solution. We have a pretty
good track record of delivering on time and
within budget, but it’s a challenge to bring a
product to market for $99 and ship it in high
volume. If this is a huge success, finding the
manufacturing partner that can produce in
those kinds of volumes and committing to that
very quickly is our plan.”
Why is it so important to you that the
Parallella board is priced within the reach of
the mass market?
“For me, personally, the reason I’m an
engineer is to build stuff that other people use
– that’s the dream of a chip designer, that you
build a platform and it’s a blank canvas, and
then other people will make amazing things with
that. That’s the reason we’re doing it.
“Our big goal is that this is going to be as
WorldMags.net
successful as the Raspberry Pi. That’s the
end-goal. But addressing a different market,
obviously. We’re not at $35 or $25, we’re at $99,
but with vastly more performance.”
One of your target markets for the Parallella
is education, much like the Raspberry Pi. How
important is it that universities teach the
next generation of programmers to harness
the parallel processing capabilities found in
modern hardware?
“I think it’s a huge challenge and problem right
now. I mean, everybody knows that the future’s
parallel. What GPUs are showing, and what
we are showing, is that parallel’s not even the
future – it’s now. There are massively parallel
systems right now that could give a huge boost
to applications, but there’s nobody who has
the energy and the know-how to rewrite a lot of
applications for that.
“In the future, it’s just going to get worse.
Single-threaded processors are saturating, and
I think there is agreement on that, so you need to
go to heterogeneous computing, and to do that
you need to educate from scratch all the new
programmers who come out. The curriculum
needs to change immediately, because we’re
losing time.
“All the people out there who are experts
at single-threaded programming and who
maybe haven’t taken the plunge to parallel
programming, they need to be educated and
retrained and gotten up to speed. It’s a big
context switch for the mind, to go from serial to
parallel programming, and really the only way
■ Olofsson has a
plan for turning
the high-price
prototype into a
pocket-size and
pocket-friendly
product
 WorldMags.net
Supercomputing for the masses
The $99 pocket-sized supercomputer is on its way
FEATURE

Parallella Tech Specs

CPU: .................................................................... Xilinx Zynq dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 at 1GHz
Co-Processor: ...................................Epiphany-III 16-core ($99) or Epiphany-IV 64-core ($199)
RAM: ......................................................................................................................... 1GB LPDDR2
USB: ..............................................................................................................................2x USB 2.0
Video: ...............................................................................................................................1x HDMI
Storage: ...................................................................................................................microSD card
Networking: .......................................................................................................Gigabit Ethernet
Additional Connectivity: .................................................2x 48-Pin GPIO expansion connectors
Power Input: ..................................................................................... 1x micro-USB or 5V DC jack
Power Draw: ....................................................................................................... <5W (estimated)
Actual Size: ....................................................................................................... 86.36 x 53.34mm

■ Olofsson wants the Parallella to be

“as successful as the Raspberry Pi”

to get fundamentally higher speed-ups is to

rewrite your program code from scratch. There’s
really no magic bullet.”
If programs needs to be rewritten to take
advantage of the Epiphany co-processor, can
you see the Parallella board appealing to a
mass-market outside developers looking to
experiment with the architecture?
“It’s a little bit chicken-and-egg. Obviously,
once the development community is there,
there is going to be the software to do all kinds of
things. The platform itself is going to have a dual-
core Cortex-A9 on it running, initially, Ubuntu –
so it is a fully fledged computer, shipping.
“To use the power of our co-processor,
for that people are going to have to develop
software applications. One of the things we
can envision is maybe early adopters will buy
the platform as part of the Kickstarter project,
but that there won’t be any software to run on it
yet – so they’re going to have to wait until some
of the developers develop the software, but
they’re still going to have a platform that’s going
to be great, it just won’t have the full offering of
software on it.
“People are going to get a board shipping, and
when they get it it’s going to be a computer. It just
won’t have the really flashy, high-performance
applications that will come later. There are lots
of cheap platforms out there running dual-core
A9s, so that’s not the reason they’re going to
buy our platform. People are going to be excited
about our platform because of the openness,
because of the parallel computing, and that’s
still something that needs more development.”
You’ve mentioned the advantage of
openness – could you elaborate on your plans
to open up the Epiphany platform as part of the
Parallella project?
“Part of enabling the community is – if this
project works and if it gets funding – we’re going
to be opening up all documentation. No more
secrets about what our architecture and chip can
do. All the software development tools are going
to be open-sourced and given away for free, so
that’s kind of what we give to the community. If the
community wants to give back, well, you know, we
hope they will take the platform and open-source
their software and show off what they can do with
it, but that’s up to them.
“If you look at companies that traditionally
have a very broad horizontal following, lots
of markets – companies like Altera, Xilinx,
Texas Instruments, and to some extent Analog
Devices – they’re selling to lots of small
customers, and they’ve done very well doing
that. The applications that have come out of that
are very innovative.
“BeagleBoard, PandaBoard, Arduino are
examples of [open] platforms with very big
followings, and I would urge any semiconductor
company to open up their platform as much as
possible. Why not? It really only hurts the end-
user community to close up the platforms and
keep it secret. Some of the companies do that
because it’s very competitive, right? It’s a dogfight
between different chip companies to eke out a

“Our big goal is that this is going

profit, but it doesn’t help the end-user at all.”
For details on Parallella, including a video of
a prototype running Ubuntu, visit the project’s

to be as successful as the Kickstarter page at http://tinyurl.com/parallella.

Raspberry Pi”

51 www.linuxuser.co.uk

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Tutorial Build extensions for the GNOME desktop environment

The top bar holds

common utility items
such as Activities, Date
Time and User Options

This shows all the running

windows and desktops
at a glance, including any
notifications if required

This sidebar acts as the dock

for starting the applications
launcher or opening the
applications or shortcuts
which are placed on it

All the notifications are

displayed in this area at the
bottom of the screen

Build extensions for the

GNOME desktop environment
Advisor
Kunal Deo is a veteran open source developer.
Currently he is leading two open
source projects: WinOpen64 and KUN
Wiki. He is also a KDE developer. He
has contributed to many open source
projects, including KDE-Solaris,
Belenix and Openmoko
Resources
Modern Linux distribution
(like Ubuntu, openSUSE or Fedora)
GNOME 3.2 or above
GNOME Shell Integration plug-in
Among many new features in GNOME 3,
the most exciting one is the ability to build
extensions. Here’s how it’s done…
The GNOME 3 desktop environment
represents a dramatic shift from the
traditional desktop metaphor. The key
element in this redesign is GNOME Shell.
It provides core user interface functions
that are essential to the GNOME 3 user
experience, such as switching windows and
launching applications. It also provides core
user interface components such as the panel,
activities window and message tray.
GNOME Shell extensions are small plug-ins
(pieces of code) that can add, remove or modify
GNOME Shell features. These extensions exist
outside the GNOME design and development
process and therefore provide a great deal of
independence for what you can do. You also
don’t need to learn full GNOME source code
in order build extensions. Heck, you do not
even need to know C or C++ to build GNOME
Shell extensions (unlike the core GNOME
components), as GNOME Shell extensions are
written in JavaScript.
In this tutorial we will be building a GNOME
Shell extension called LUD Volume Control
Extender. The tutorial will demonstrate how
easy it is modify the core the GNOME feature
while keeping the entire experience coherent
with the rest of the GNOME system.

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Build extensions for the GNOME desktop environment
■ Synaptic Package Manager showing the
gnome-shell-extensions package installed
01 Preparing the development
environment
First and foremost, make sure you have
installed the latest version of GNOME 3 – at
the time of writing, this is version 3.6, so we’ve
used that. While this tutorial should also work
with future versions of GNOME 3, sometimes
compatibility may break. The same goes for
earlier versions as well.
To get started, you will also need to install the
following packages:
gnome-shell-extensions: Installing this official
package will make sure that your system is ready
for GNOME Shell extensions.
gnome-tweak-tool: The GNOME Tweak Tool
allows the adjustment of several advanced
GNOME options that can’t be configured
in GNOME-control-center. While it is not
mandatory for development, it comes in very
handy for managing GNOME extensions.
On Ubuntu (12.10) systems, you can install
these packages as follows…
Add the GNOME 3 repository :
$ sudo add-apt-repository
ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3
Run the following command to install
GNOME 3 and all the required packages:
$ sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-
tool gnome-shell-extensions
For other distributions, please consult your
distro’s documentation.
02 Creating extension LUD Volume
Control Extender
GNOME Shell comes with a tool called
gnome-shell-extension-tool. This tool can be
used to create extensions. Let’s start off by
using this command:
$ gnome-shell-extension-tool
--create-extension
You will be asked for some basic information
about the extension:
Name: LUD Volume Control Extender
Description: LUD example to demonstrate
How to create a volume control extender GNOME Shell extension
GNOME Shell extensions.
UUID: LUDVolCtrlExt@kunaldeo.gmail.com
As of now, a working extension has been
created for you in the following directory:
$HOME/.local/share/gnome-shell/
extensions/ LUDVolCtrlExt@kunaldeo.
gmail.com
Note that the system-wide extensions are
kept in /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions.
■ Hello World extension in action
03
Running the newly
created extension
The extension we have just created is not just
a stub, but actually a working Hello World
example. Let’s run it. To do this you will need
to restart the GNOME Shell. Press Alt+F2,
then type ‘r’ in the console and hit Enter. You
will notice a small gears icon appearing on the
panel. Clicking on it will flash ‘Hello World’ on
the centre of the screen.
You can also enable a Shell extension using
the GNOME Tweak Tool:
$ gnome-tweak-tool
Go to Shell Extensions. You will see that our
newly created extension ‘LUD Volume Control
Extender’ is listed there. Turn it ON to load it.
■ GNOME Tweak Tool with LUD Volume
Control Extender turned on
04
Inside a GNOME Shell extension
Let’s look what is inside the extension.
metadata.json : This file holds the metadata for
the extension. It contains information such as
the compatible shell-version the extension will
work with, UUID, name and the description of
the extension.
metada.json
{
WorldMags.net
TUTORIAL
“shell-version”: [“3.6.1”],
“uuid”: “ HYPERLINK
“mailto:LUDVolCtrlExt@kunaldeo.
gmail.com” LUDVolCtrlExt@kunaldeo.
gmail.com”,
“name”: “LUD Volume Control
Extender”,
“description”: “LUD
Example to demonstrate GNOME Shell
Extensions”
}
stylesheet.css : This file contains the CSS
for the extension, which in turn controls the
extension’s look and feel.
extension.js : This is the main JavaScript file
which holds the main code for the extension.
This file must have a function called init(), which
acts as the entry point (analogous to many other
development environments) of the extension.
05
Examining Hello World
Our Hello World extension demonstrates
some very important functions of Shell extensions,
such as putting an icon on the panel, responding to
a click event and displaying a message.
Before we go about building our own
extension, let’s look in more detail at how this
basic extension works.
extension.js starts with the following import
statements:
extension.js
const St = imports.gi.St;
const Main = imports.ui.main;
const Tweener = imports.ui.tweener;
The top-level import ‘gi’ stands for GObject-
introspection. It is a middleware layer between C
libraries (using GObject) and language bindings;
in this case it is JavaScript. Its main purpose
is to collect and extend the API metadata for
GObject-based libraries.
The other top-level import, ‘ui’, refers to user
interface components. In this case we are using
main and tweener. Tweener is a class used to
create tweenings and other transitions using
ActionScript.
Let’s take a look at the init function now
(explanations are added in the form of
comments):
extension.js
function init() {
We are creating a simple container with one actor.
button = new St.Bin({ style_class:
‘panel-button’,
reactive: true,
can_focus: true,
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Tutorial Build extensions for the GNOME desktop environment

07
x_fill: true, @code excerpt: extension.js Building the UI
y_fill: false, // in this function we are removing Instead of designing our own volume
track_hover: true }); the actor text from the stage control, we will be relying on the one provided
Setting up the icon for the container: function _hideHello() { by GNOME Shell. We will be using the same icon
let icon = new St.Icon({ icon_name: Main.uiGroup.remove_actor(text); and for the most part we will also keep all its
‘system-run-symbolic’, text = null; existing functionality.
style_class: ‘system-status-icon’ } extension.js
}); // The following functions are Building a pop-up menu for the Extended
button.set_child(icon); called when you enable or disable Volume Control:
Setting up the event handler for button- the extension. AdvPopupSwitchMenuItem.prototype = {
press event: function enable() { __proto__: PopupMenu.
button.connect(‘button-press-event’, Main.panel._rightBox.insert_ PopupSwitchMenuItem.prototype,
_showHello); child_at_index(button, 0); _init: function(text, active,
} } gicon, params) {
Now, let’s look at the event handler: function disable() { PopupMenu.PopupSwitchMenuItem.
extension.js Main.panel._rightBox.remove_ prototype._init.call(
function _showHello() { child(button); this,
if (!text) { } “ “ + text + “ “,
//St.Label is a widget for As mentioned before, the style active,
displaying text. Note that the style helloworld-label is defined in the params
assigned to it ‘helloworld-label’ separate CSS file called stylesheet. );
//is defined in the stylesheet.css css . This is your typical CSS style this._icon = new St.Icon({
file. sheet and reuse your existing web gicon: gicon,
text = new St.Label({ style_ skills in this CSS. style_class: “adv-volume-icon”
class: ‘helloworld-label’, text: @code:stylesheet.css });
“Hello, world!” }); .helloworld-label { Here we are rebuilding the switch:
//Here we are adding the actor text font-size: 36px; this.removeActor(this._statusBin);
to the stage. Items on the stage are font-weight: bold; this.removeActor(this.label)
called actors. color: #ffffff; The following container contains the various UI
Main.uiGroup.add_ background-color: elements for the new volume control:
actor(text); rgba(10,10,10,0.7); let labelBox = new
} border-radius: 5px; St.BoxLayout({vertical: false});
text.opacity = 255; padding: .5em; labelBox.add(this._icon,
// Here we are calculating the } {expand: false, x_fill: false, x_
position to display the text.
let monitor = Main. Building LUD Volume align: St.Align.START});
labelBox.add(this.label,
layoutManager.primaryMonitor;
text.set_position(Math.
Control Extender {expand: false, x_fill: false, x_
align: St.Align.START});
floor(monitor.width / 2 - text.width
/ 2),
Math.floor(monitor.height /
06 Setting up libraries
Now that we are acquainted with the
basics of GNOME extensions, it’s time to build
labelBox.add(this._statusBin,
{expand: true, x_fill: true, x_
align: St.Align.END});
2 - text.height / 2)); our LUD Volume Control Extender. this.addActor(labelBox, {span:
//Here we are defining the animation Let’s start with the libraries we will be using: -1, expand: true });
which will be used while displaying extension.js }
the text Clutter is a popular GNOME UI toolkit: }
//Note that we are calling function const Clutter = imports.gi.Clutter;
_hideHello at the end of the
animation.
In the following statement we are importing
GNOME Volume Control library: 08 Setting up the Volume Control
Mixer and Sound Streams
In this step we will setting up the new Volume
Tweener.addTween(text, const Gvc = imports.gi.Gvc;
Standard GNOME Widgets: Control Mixer and Sound Streams.
{ opacity: 0,
const St = imports.gi.St; extension.js
time: 2,
Provide support for pop-up menus: Set up the mixer and audio output controls:
transition: ‘easeOutQuad’,
onComplete: _hideHello }); const PopupMenu = imports. AdvMixer.prototype = {
} ui.popupMenu; _init: function(mixer) {

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Build extensions for the GNOME desktop environment
How to create a volume control extender GNOME Shell extension
TUTORIAL

this._mixer = mixer; You will notice that there is now a small arrow
this._control = mixer._control; after Volume which, when clicked, allows you to Top GNOME Shell
this._separator = new PopupMenu. switch to various audio output devices (if available). productivity extensions
You now have the ability to see which If you are taking a hit on your productivity
PopupSeparatorMenuItem();
applications are using the sound output, and you because of how GNOME 3 works, don’t worry.
this._items = {};
get the volume controls for each of them. You Here’s a list of the top extensions which will
this._outputs = {};
can also mute individual applications using the make your life much easier with GNOME 3…
this._outputMenu = new PopupMenu.
ON/OFF toggle. Official GNOME Shell Extensions: Most
PopupSubMenuMenuItem(_(“Volume”));
of the powerful productivity enhancement
this._mixer.menu.
extensions are part of the official gnome-
addMenuItem(this._separator, 1);
shell-extensions package. In Debian-based
this._streamAddedId = this._
distributions you can install it using the
control.connect(
command ‘sudo apt-get install gnome-shell-
“stream-added”,
extensions’. These extensions are installed in
Lang.bind(this, this._streamAdded)
/usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions.
);
this._streamRemovedId = this._ The most useful ones are:
control.connect( AlternateTab: AlternateTab is a replacement
“stream-removed”, for Alt-Tab that allows you to cycle between
Lang.bind(this, this._streamRemoved) windows, and does not group by application.
); ■ Default volume control Applications Menu: It provides a good old
this._defaultSinkChangedId = GNOME 2.x-style application launcher.
this._control.connect( Dock: This provides an additional (and
“default-sink-changed”, permanent) dock for GNOME, which displays
Lang.bind(this, this._ favourite and running applications.
defaultSinkChanged)
Removable Drive Menu: This one provides a
);
status menu for accessing and unmounting
You can find the rest of the code for step 8 at
removable drives.
www.linuxuser.co.uk/tutorials/tutorialfiles.

09
Places: Adds a system status menu for
Enable and disable extension
quickly navigating to places in the system.
methods
In the ‘enable’ function we are creating a new Workspace Indicator: This extension allows
instance of AdvMixer, putting it in the panel you to experience the multiple desktops
where the volume control is present. the good old way. It puts an indicator on the
extension.js panel indicating which workspace you are in,
function enable() { and gives you the possibility of switching to
if (Main.panel.statusArea[‘volume’] ■ LUD Volume Control Extender in action another one.
&& !advMixer) { Changing GNOME Jump Lists: This extension puts the most
advMixer = new AdvMixer(Main.panel. As you can see, with the LUD Volume Control recent of favourite documents within direct
statusArea[“volume”]); Extender we have made a significant change reach of the application itself: just right-click
} in the existing GNOME Shell volume control. on a launcher to view files and launch them in
} It almost feels like it is not an extension, but the application.
function disable() { something which is actually built into the Find more GNOME Shell extensions at:
if (advMixer) { GNOME system. That is the beauty of GNOME https://extensions.gnome.org/
advMixer.destroy(); Shell extensions, and they exist for a very good
advMixer = null; reason. When GNOME 3 was released, a lot of
} people hated the way it worked but still liked the
} elegance and simplicity that it offered. So they

10 LUD Volume Control Extender wanted a way to make changes to the GNOME
in action Shell while keeping the overall experience intact.
After making the changes, press Alt+F2, then GNOME Shell extensions provided that way.
type ‘r’ in the console and hit Enter to restart
GNOME Shell. This will reload the extension with
Credit where credit’s due:
The LUD Volume Controller Extender ■ Applications Menu extensions in action
the latest changes.
uses the code from Harry Karvonen’s
You will notice that there are no new icons this
AdvancedVolumeMixer project located at
time. Click on the Volume icon and you will notice
http://repo.or.cz/w/AdvancedVolumeMixer.git
some subtle differences.

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Tutorial Building a network of Raspberry Pis

The Network
Information Services An external storage
and Network File device connected
System server to the server to
providing centralised periodically back
authentication and file up each user’s files
storage to the clients

A network switch
connecting each
device to the network

The client Raspberry

Pis that all use the
same master image
and pull the rest of
the data from the
server, making it very
easy to add more or
replace an SD card
should it get broken

Building a network
of Raspberry Pis
Learn how to set up a network of Raspberry Pis
with centralised authentication and file storage
Advisor In this tutorial, we’ll learn to set up a Network
Information Services server on a Raspberry Pi
writing that to two SD cards. Note that we’ll be
making a master SD card for the clients which can
Liam Fraser is the creator that centralises some of the configuration of then be written to the rest of the SD cards, so only
of the RaspberryPi Tutorials
YouTube series and volunteers as Linux systems. This includes user accounts. This write the image to two of them.
a Linux server administrator for means that we can set up users on the Raspberry The instructions for flashing an image to an
the Raspberry Pi Foundation Pi server and have them available on each SD card can be found at www.linuxuser.co.uk/
client Raspberry Pi. This arrangement would tutorials/how-to-set-up-raspberry-pi/. You will
Resources be useful in a classroom situation where there
were a number of Raspberry Pis shared between
only need to go up to the step where you write
the image to the SD card. Note that you will have
At least 2 Raspberry Pis classes. Each child would have a username and to adapt the instructions slightly for using the
with appropriate peripherals password, and they would have access to all latest Raspbian image rather than the Debian
(Note that the server Raspberry Pi will of their files from any Raspberry Pi once they one. The image that we used was 2012-09-18-
only need a power and Ethernet cable have logged in. One big advantage of this is that wheezy-raspbian.zip.
connected once configured)
each user’s files can be backed up from a single We are going to assume that you are plugging
SD card place. We’ll also be giving some examples of the Raspberry Pis into an existing network
Computer software that could be used in a classroom on the with DHCP, a protocol for handing out network
Network switch Raspberry Pi. settings to devices that connect to said network.
We’ll be using the latest Raspbian image as the This way, they can get access to the internet for
Ethernet cable operating system for both our Raspberry Pi server installing packages and other useful things such
Storage device and Raspberry Pi clients, so we’ll need to start by as teaching resources.

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01 Initial configuration of the server
Raspberry Pi
Connect a keyboard, mouse, Ethernet cable,
monitor and, lastly, power to your server
Raspberry Pi. Raspbian will boot and a
configuration menu will be displayed. You
need to select the option to expand_rootfs to
make sure that you’re using the entire space of
the SD card. You should definitely change the
password for the pi user so that no one can log
into your server with the standard credentials
of Username: pi and Password: raspberry. Then
change the memory split to 240MiB for ARM and
16MiB for the VideoCore. Finally, enable SSH,
then select ‘Finish’. Select ‘Yes’ to reboot now.
02 Fire up your Linux computer
Now that we have enabled SSH on the
server Raspberry Pi, we can configure it remotely
using SSH as long as your Linux computer is on the
same network (if not, connect it now). We might
as well make sure that SSH works now for when
a monitor is no longer needed. During the boot
process of Raspbian, a message will be displayed
with the current IP address of the Pi. Open up a
terminal on your Linux computer and type ‘ssh pi@
[your Pi’s IP address]’. Type ‘yes’ when asked if you
want to connect and then enter the new password
that you set. You are now logged into your server Pi.
03 Setting up a static IP address
We highly recommend assigning a
static IP to your server Raspberry Pi because
you, and more importantly the client Raspberry
Pis, will always know where to find it on the
network. We’ll need to find out a couple of
things about your current network setup before
setting a static IP. You can use the commands
‘ifconfig eth0’ and ‘ip route show’ to do this.
We’ve included the important output from our
commands below so that you can see what to
do with each value. Now that we have found out
things about your network, such as your current
IP address, the network mask and so on, we can
set up a static IP address.
Use the command
sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces
to edit the networking configuration file. Use the
Building a network of Raspberry Pis
Create a Pi network with centralised authentication and file storage
arrows to navigate and start by deleting the line
‘iface eth0 inet dhcp’. Then replace it with lines
similar to the following:
iface eth0 inet static
address 172.17.173.249
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 172.17.173.1
Make sure that the IP address you assign to
your Raspberry Pi server isn’t taken. You’ll want
to discuss this with your network administrator
if you have one, but it’s usually safe to assume
that the address the device had already won’t
be taken. You’ll also want to note down that IP
address for future usage.
Save the changes in nano using the key
combination Ctrl+O followed by Enter. You can
exit nano using Ctrl+X.
You might notice that we haven’t done
anything about the DNS server. DNS is used to
resolve hostnames such as google.co.uk to an
IP address. The IP address of the DNS server is
stored in /etc/resolv.conf and will not change
value after changing to a static IP address.
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ ifconfig eth0
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet
HWaddr xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
inet addr:172.17.173.249
Bcast:172.17.173.255
Mask:255.255.255.0
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ ip route show
default via 172.17.173.1 dev eth0
172.17.173.0/24 dev eth0
proto kernel scope link src
172.17.173.249
04 Restart the server Pi
Restart the server Pi so that the
networking changes we just made can take
place. Log back in using SSH and the new IP
address that you chose.
05
Installing the required packages
for an NFS server
NFS stands for Network File System, and is what
we’ll use to share each user’s home directory.
Run the command
sudo apt-get update
to update the package lists on the device,
followed by
sudo apt-get install nfs-kernel-
server nfs-common rpcbind
to install the packages required for an NFS
server. You’ll probably get a message like ‘[warn]
Not starting NFS kernel daemon: no exports....
(warning)’. This is just telling us that the NFS
server hasn’t started because we haven’t set it
up to share (export) any directories yet.
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TUTORIAL
06 Exporting directories
Add the line
/home *(rw,sync)
to the end of /etc/exports using nano. The line
means share the /home directory with everyone,
permitting read and write access. Although
this sounds insecure, other users will only get
read access to directories that aren’t their own
and therefore won’t be able to delete or change
files. NFS requires rpcbind, so you need to start
that before NFS. Rpcbind doesn’t start on boot
by default on Raspbian, but we want it to. You
can do this using the command ‘sudo update-
rc.d rpcbind enable’. You can start them both
immediately using the following commands:
sudo /etc/init.d/rpcbind start
sudo /etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server
start
07 Installing NIS
NIS stands for Network Information
Services and used to be called Yellow Pages,
or yp for short. Many of the services and
directories still have ‘yp’ in the name. Use the
command ‘sudo apt-get install nis’ to install
Network Information Services. Accept any
extra packages that may be required. You will
now be taken to the package configuration
screen for NIS. It will start by asking you to
enter an NIS domain. This can be anything you
like, but we’re calling ours raspberrypi. Once
you have set that, NIS will continue to install
and then the NIS services will attempt to start.
This will take a few minutes and fail, so don’t
worry when that happens. We need to do more
configuration before it will work.
08
Configuring NIS
We need to do a few things before our
NIS server will work. The first thing we need to
do is open up /etc/default/nis with nano as we
do in the usual way. Make sure you prefix the
nano command with sudo because we need root
privileges to edit each of these files. You need to
change the line
NISSERVER=false
to
NISSERVER=master
and also change the line
NISCLIENT=true
to
NISCLIENT=false
Save the changes and then exit nano. We then
need to edit
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Tutorial Building a network of Raspberry Pis
/var/yp/Makefile
and change the line
ALL = passwd group hosts rpc
services netid protocols netgrp
to
ALL = passwd shadow group hosts rpc
services netid protocols netgrp
The password file on Linux contains a list of
users and various information about them such
as their home directory and the User & Group
IDs. We need to add the shadow file to the list
because that file stores the password hashes for
each user. We also need to change the line
MINGID=1000 to MINGID=0
because we’ll be adding our NIS users to system
groups such as audio so that they can play
sound. The next step is to change the server’s
hostname by editing the /etc/hostname file.
We’re going to change our hostname from
raspberrypi to nismaster. We then need to
change /etc/hosts to complete the hostname
change, as well as add an extra line. We need
to do this because servers running NIS are
added by name rather than their IP address.
You’ll see this shortly. Plus, we should be able to
differentiate the NIS server from all of the other
Raspberry Pis anyway. Change the line
127.0.1.1 raspberrypi
to
127.0.1.1 [your new hostname]
You’ll also need to add a new line for the IP
address of the NIS server in the form:
[IP address] [hostname].[NIS domain]
[hostname]
09 Initialising the NIS master
database
Before anything else, restart the Pi using sudo init 6
to let the hostname change take place. Reconnect
once the Pi has booted back up. Run the command
sudo /usr/lib/yp/ypinit -m
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and then press Ctrl + D followed by Enter. We can
now start the NIS server using the command
sudo /etc/init.d/nis start
10 Adding a new user
All users are added on the NIS server. You
can use the command ‘sudo adduser [username]’
to do this, and then fill in the extra information
required interactively. The NIS databases are
updated automatically after adding a new user.
We now need to add the new user to some groups
so they can do things like play audio and so on.
You can do this with the command ‘sudo usermod
-a -G audio,video,plugdev,games,users,netdev,
input [username]’. We have now made more
changes to the user and will have to rebuild the
NIS database manually using:
cd /var/yp
sudo make
You can use the command ‘sudo passwd
[username]’ on the NIS server as the pi user to
change the password of a user. You will have to
rebuild the database again after doing this.
11 Preparing the client
We’re pretty much done with the NIS
server for now, so it’s time to start working
on a client image. Connect up the second
Raspberry Pi and insert the SD card with the
fresh Raspbian image on. Raspi-config will
show as it did when we configured the server.
The only option you need to use is the one to
expand_rootfs and then select ‘Finish’. Select
‘Yes’ to reboot now.
12 Logging in and installing required
packages
Log in with the standard credentials of
Username: pi and Password: raspberry and
then run the command ‘sudo apt-get update’ to
update the package list on the device. Install the
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required packages for NFS and NIS clients using
the command ‘sudo apt-get install nis rpcbind
nfs-common’. The NIS domain configuration
screen will show as before, so just set this to
whatever you set it to the first time. As before,
the system will fail to start the NIS because we
need to do extra configuration, including setting
rpcbind to start at boot using the command
‘sudo update-rc.d rpcbind enable’. We’re going to
need rpcbind shortly so we might as well start it
now using ‘sudo /etc/init.d/rpcbind start’.
13 Mounting the server’s home
directory
It’s now time to mount the server’s home directory
as our own. We want to do this at every boot,
so we’ll put an entry in /etc/fstab to make it
permanent. Open /etc/fstab in nano and add a
line in the following format to the end of the file:
[server ip]:/home /home nfs defaults
0 0
You can now save the changes and use the
command ‘sudo mount -a’ to mount each entry in
the /etc/fstab file, therefore mounting the servers
home directory as the clients. If you run ‘ls /home’
you’ll see the home directory of the test user we
created before and also the pi user on the server.
pi@raspberrypi /home $ cat /etc/
fstab
proc /proc proc
defaults 0 0
/dev/mmcblk0p1 /boot vfat
defaults 0 2
/dev/mmcblk0p2 / ext4
defaults,noatime 0 1
# a swapfile is not a swap
partition, so no using swapon|off
from here on, use dphys-swapfile
swap[on|off] for that
172.17.173.249:/home /home nfs
defaults 0 0
pi@raspberrypi /home $ ls /home
pi testuser1
14 Becoming an NIS client
You need to open up /etc/yp.conf in nano
(remember to use sudo) and add the lines:
ypserver [server ip address]
domain [nis domain] server [server
hostname]
You also need to edit the /etc/nsswitch.conf file
to look like ours. Once you’ve done that, you can
reboot the client using the command ‘sudo init 6’.
 WorldMags.net
Linux has a bunch of educational
software, ideal for the classroom
15 Log in with a user from the NIS server
Wait for the client to boot up and then
try to log in with the pi user. Remember we
didn’t change the password of the pi user
when we set up the client? We are now going to
be logging in with the pi user from the server,
so the password will be different.
The nice thing about this is that the Pi is still
operable with the standard credentials when
there is no network cable connected or the
server is down. However, it will complain a lot
during the boot process and still won’t be able
to access the home directory on the server.
16 Installing packages on the client
Linux has a bunch of fantastic
educational software that would be ideal for
use in a classroom. We’re going to recommend
a few programs that would be good to include
on the master client image. There is already a
pretty good collection that comes with the base
Raspbian image, but we can definitely add more.
We’re going to install the following software:
AbiWord – A basic word processor
Gnumeric – A basic spreadsheet program
GCompris – Children’s educational software
bundle
Building a network of Raspberry Pis
Create a Pi network with centralised authentication and file storage
Galculator – Scientific calculator
TuxMath – Maths tutor for kids
Tux Paint – Children’s drawing program
You can install all of this software at once
using ‘sudo apt-get install abiword gnumeric
gcompris galculator tuxmath tuxpaint’. This may
take a while. Once it’s finished, you can type
‘startx’ to load the LXDE desktop environment
and have a play around everything on there.
Have a go at logging in as the test user also.
One problem will be that there are no desktop
icons because they are only set for the pi user.
The programs will still be there in the start menu
anyway. When logging out, the users need to log
out of LXDE so that they go back to the console
and then type ‘logout’.
17 Duplicating the card
Before continuing, shut down the client
Pi by switching to the pi user using ‘su pi’ and
then typing ‘sudo init 0’. Everything on Linux is
seen as a file. Because of this, we can simply use
a combination of the cat command and pipes to
duplicate the SD card. Switch to the root user
on your Linux computer using the command
‘su root’. Use the output of ‘fdisk -l | grep Disk’
to find the path of the SD card. Ours is /dev/
WorldMags.net
TUTORIAL
mmcblk0. You can back up the card using the
command ‘cat /dev/mmcblk0 > nisclient.img’
and restore the backup to a different card using
‘cat nisclient.img > /dev/mmcblk0’ once you have
taken the original card out.
18 Preparing a disk to be used as a
backup area
The instructions for preparing an external disk
to be used as a backup area can be found here:
www.linuxuser.co.uk/features/build-a-file-
server-with-the-raspberry-pi. Use steps 09 to
11 to do this.
19 Backing up the server
One of the main advantages to having
central file storage is that everything can be
backed up from one place. More importantly,
files that are deleted can be restored. We’ll be
using rsync to perform the backups, so you’ll
need to install that using the command ‘sudo
apt-get install rsync’. We’re going to assume that
you’ve set up your backup area in /mnt/data.
We’ll be using the command
sudo rsync -avP /home /mnt/data
to perform the backups. The switches mean
the following:
a – preserve the permissions and other
properties of the file
v – show verbose output
P – show progress
This command syncs any changes from /home
to /mnt/data, but will not get rid of any files that
are deleted from the /home directory. Rsync is
very efficient: only the changes made to a file are
copied over, rather than a new file. We want to run
this command regularly, say once an hour or so,
so we’ll add it to cron. Cron is a daemon that runs
commands at specific intervals according to each
user’s crontab. You can edit the pi user’s crontab
using the command ‘crontab -e’. Add the following
line to the end of the crontab file:
0 * * * * ‘sudo rsync -avP /home /
mnt/data’
The crontab file takes lines in the format:
minutes hours day-of-month month day-of-
week. The above line tells the cron daemon to
run the command in at the start of each hour.
Save the changes as you usually would in nano.
20 That’s it!
We now have a central authentication
and file storage area that gets backed up, as
well as a master image for the client Raspberry
Pis filled with useful software. Enjoy!
59 www.linuxuser.co.uk
 WorldMags.net

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Review index
Essential kit, software and resources for the open source scene
REVIEWS

Hardware
62 Samsung Galaxy
Note 10.1
The Note migrates to the tablet
form factor in fine style

64 Synology DS213air
Synology’s latest small and
home office network-attached
storage box
66 Archos 101XS
Archos adds keys to its
latest tablet

80 Fractal Design
Define R4
Possibly the perfect home
“It’s possible to server case

configure the DS213air How we review

without even connecting Our experts thoroughly test
the kit and grade it using the
a network cable” following criteria

Synology DS213air
Avoid at all costs

A designer/developer’s bad day

Good but could do better

Software Books Get this. It won’t disappoint

68 GNOME 3.6 85 The latest Linux
reads dissected
GNOME moves further down
the path of simplification Software or hardware nirvana

70 Office suite group test

Four of the very best open
source suites go head-to-head

76 CAINE 3.0
We rate the latest build of this
penetration-testing distro

78 Ubuntu 12.10
We score Canonical on Ubuntu’s
new (and controversial) features

82 GNOME Shell Remix

Still running 12.04, this release
seeks to fix several problems

61 www.linuxuser.co.uk

WorldMags.net
 WorldMags.net
Review Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

tablet

Samsung Galaxy
Note 10.1£389.99
The Note is not just a pocket-sized offering – the range
now has a ten-inch version. It’s rather stunning too…

Technical specs
Operating system Android 4.0
Processor 1.4GHz quad-core
Memory 2GB RAM
Storage 16GB internal
Dimensions 257.8 x 175.3 x 8.9mm
Weight 580g
Display size 10.1-inch
Display resolution 1280 x 800 pixels
Expansion slot microSD

Samsung’s Galaxy Note proved such a surprise
Pros Cons
The stylus is Lower resolution hit that the company has not only produced a
improved; the than we’d like; follow-up handset but also a spin-off in the
tablet is super- stylus will
powerful; great turn some off; form of a full-sized tablet. As a Note it does
specification with proprietary include a pen for scribbling on the screen, but
lots of memory connectors
other than that, it is not really a companion
device to its smaller ‘phablet’ brother. While that is unique, the
Note 10.1 has plenty of competition, not least from Samsung
itself with the similarly specced (and much cheaper) Galaxy
Tab 2. Has the company gone crazy by splitting its own market
in this way, or is it ensuring that it has devices for every need?
Well, that rather depends on whether the Galaxy Note meets
a need. We aren’t so sure about that. For all the goodness of
the pen-based input, it is still limited – and we aren’t sure we’d
actually use it a great deal after the initial excitement. Others
will disagree, we’re sure.
The stylus sits in a housing on the chassis and you can use
it all of the time. Tapping icons with its nib has the same effect
as patting them with a fingertip, and you can sweep with the
stylus too – for example, on the unlock screen.
Not all apps support the stylus, though. A sidebar showing
those that do appears when you extract the pen. The list is
small: S Note, S Planner, Crayon Physics, PS Touch and Polaris
Office. These variously let you make notes, manage your diary,
play a physics-based game, draw and edit images and create
Office files. There’s handwriting recognition in the Notes app.
You’ll find other pen-supporting apps for download, too.
It’s all very similar to the Galaxy Note II, except that it runs a
slightly older version of the software, including the Ice Cream
Sandwich operating system rather than Jelly Bean.
There are a couple of other goodies on board. You can split-
screen some apps, viewing two at the same time. But the

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Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
Large-screen Android tablet with stylus
REVIEW

A suite of apps is Some apps are capable A stylus sits in a

With a quad-core included specially of being used side-by- housing on the
processor and 2GB for use with the side, two at a time. The chassis, ready to be
of RAM, this tablet stylus, and you can selection is limited, but popped out and used
seems to fly along download more it’s a nice idea at any moment

The core specifications are strong, with Android 4.0 driven

by a 1.4GHz quad-core processor and a very generous 2GB of
RAM in support. That’s double the amount of RAM we’ve seen
even in top-end devices, and it must be part of the reason
the Galaxy Note 10.1 seems to fly. There is 16GB of storage,
plus a microSD slot for adding more. It’s irritating that there’s
no HDMI output – you need to use an optional extra adaptor
for the proprietary mains connector to get HDMI. And that Also
connector also doubles as the USB link. That will no doubt
disappoint people who have standardised to USB, though at
consider
least Samsung does provide the cable.
On the other hand, Samsung includes an infrared port and
an app, Peel Smart Remote, which lets you control IR devices
such as your TV. It’s an old-fashioned idea being given a new
selection is small. Web browser, video player, Polaris Office, lease of life and we like it.
gallery, email and S Note are the full set. Asus Transformer Pad
TF300
You can also take advantage of the same pop-out video £399
player that we saw on the Samsung Galaxy S III. In this larger So how does the Samsung The Transformer Pad offers
a great keyboard and screen
screen it is a much more interesting proposition. Galaxy Note 10.1 compare to the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1? combo and has consistently
Physically the Galaxy Note 10.1 and Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 are We’ve noted the design similarities. The 16GB non-3G scored highly for quality
and technical capabilities.
very similar to look at. They share the same front-mounted version can currently be found online for around £389, If you’re likely to be working
speaker grilles and silver outer frame. Samsung hasn’t while the non-3G Galaxy Tab II is marketed at around on documents, the physical
keyboard will make your life
worked really hard to make the Galaxy Note 10.1 look very £289. Ultimately, the Note 10.1 is Samsung’s best much easier.
different. Build quality is reasonable but there is a little flex in tablet yet, and a better product than the Tab 2, but www.asus.com
the backplate and its plastic might be prone to scratching, so with a not inconsiderable price difference. It’s up to
a case will be necessary. you to compare specs and consider whether you really
The screen delivers 1280x800 pixels when others (eg the need a pen with your tablet.
Transformer Pad Infinity from Asus) offer 1920x1200, while Sandra Vogel
the much smaller-screened Note II has 1280x720 and is much More
crisper for it. But it is bright and most definitely clear enough information
for everyday working. www.samsung.co.uk

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 WorldMags.net
Review Synology DS213air

The Wi-Fi
capabilities of
the DS213air are
fully integrated,
with a front-facing The Synology logo
status LED and no doubles as an air
antenna in sight intake vent, but
fails to muffle the
sound of internal
hard drives

The front-mounted
power button
provides a safe
shutdown if held
for four seconds Sturdy rubber feet
keep the DS213air
stable, but there’s
no option to lay the
unit on its side

STORAGE

Synology DS213air£250
Synology’s latest small and home office Synology has forgotten the components. Its plastic chassis
– which is secured by two screws in the rear – slides apart to

network-attached storage box packs reveal the hard drive bays, and it’s immediately clear why the
box is so light: aside from a single motherboard and the SATA II

Wi-Fi capabilities, but is that enough to backplane, there is barely anything to the DS213air’s internals.
Hidden in the packaging is one of the reasons for such

justify the high-end price tag? a spartan interior: unlike Synology’s larger NAS units, the
DS213air has a laptop-style external power supply, which
terminates in a DC plug rather than accepting an IEC mains
power input. It’s a disappointment, as the black power brick
Built around the same dual-bay chassis as spoils the DS213air’s clean white aesthetics, but at least it’s
Pros Cons the existing DS213, the DS213air NAS unit compact and includes a generous length of cable.
Compact, The thin plastic
lightweight and casing fails to upgrades its predecessor with 802.11b/g/n Setting up the DS213air is as easy as screwing the drives
with a near-silent mute sound from
fan, plus the the hard drives;
wireless networking. While this is limited to into place – both 3.5” and 2.5” hard drives are supported, with
built-in Wi-Fi is external PSU is 2.4GHz only, it certainly helps to expand the the device accepting up to 4GB drives – using the provided
extremely versatile disappointing
device’s capabilities. screws, sliding the plastic casing back together and then
The compact dimensions of the device are placing two final screws in the rear. Connect the external
impressive enough, but it’s the weight that is most surprising: power brick to the DS213air and a mains socket, hit the power
pick up the DS213air and you’d be forgiven for thinking button and you’re off.

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 WorldMags.net
Synology DS213air
Network-attached storage with Wi-Fi
REVIEW

Technical specs
Operating system Synology DiskStation Manager 4.1
(proprietary Linux-based OS)
Processor Intel Atom 1.6GHz
Memory 256MB DDR3 (not upgradeable)
Dimensions 165 x 100 x 225.5mm
Weight 940g (excluding drives)
Drive Bays 2x SATA II (non-hotswap)
Wired networking 1x Gigabit Ethernet
Wireless networking 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi (2.4GHz only)
Expansion 2x USB 3.0
The large fan spins near-
silently – a claimed 19dBA –
but provides excellent airflow
through the case Also
USB 3.0 ports provide high-
consider
speed access to external drives,
next to a Gigabit Ethernet port

The Wi-Fi can be configured with

a single press of this button on
WPS-equipped networks Netgear ReadyNAS
Duo
£90
A Kensington slot is included Larger than the compact
to provide physical security DS213air, the Netgear
ReadyNAS Duo is
against theft significantly cheaper and
includes the same basic
file-sharing functionality and
support for secure file access
via the internet. There’s
no wireless connectivity,
This does reveal the first flaw in the design: the thin same DSM software being shared between Synology’s high- however, and it lacks
plastic casing, while sleek, provides little insulation for hard- end units – which include 2GB of RAM – and the little home Synology’s excellent DSM
operating system.
drive noise. Although the integrated fan is near-silent, at a office boxes, it’s all to easy to get carried away and watch www.netgear.co.uk
claimed 19dBA, those with ‘clicky’ drives may find themselves system performance suffer.
positioning the DS213air as far away as possible. For simple NAS services, however, the DS213air performs
It’s possible to configure the DS213air without ever well and its wireless functionality allows it to act as an
connecting a network cable. By default, the device sets up a access point or even a router when connected to a WAN
public wireless network called DiskStation, providing access Ethernet connection – perfect if flashing boxes are taking
to its configuration settings through any web browser. If you over the office.
do connect a network cable, the DS213air configures itself as With its high price tag, however, it comes hard to
a wireless access point. Sadly, there’s no encryption on the recommend. A microserver is roughly the same price and HP ProLiant Turion
Microserver
connection by default, leaving your network open to intruders much more flexible, although buyers don’t get the benefit of £250
until you’ve finished configuration and have switched on WPA Synology’s excellent DSM software. (£150 after cashback)
Roughly the same price as
or WPA2 encryption. the DS213air, the HP ProLiant
When configured, the system provides the same functionality is a fully fledged server in a
compact box. Powered by a
as any other Synology DSM-based NAS – apart from the The DS213air is certainly 1.5GHz dual-core processor
wireless functionality. The main interface is clean and tidy, with a capable and compact device, with very flexible and 2GB of RAM, the server
includes four drive bays and
browser-based GUI control making it easy for newcomers. integrated Wi-Fi, and Synology’s DiskStation Manager comes with a 250GB drive
Synology boxes excel in their flexibility. As well as network improves with every release. With only 256MB of RAM, to get you started. HP also
offers £100 cashback on each
storage functionality over numerous protocols, the system though, many advanced DSM features perform poorly microserver purchased.
provides a Package Centre for installing additional software and the high price tag makes it a difficult sell over www.hp.com
including virtual private network (VPN) servers, the Asterisk similar – but wired – devices from Netgear and HP.
Voice over IP (VoIP) server and even the popular Moodle Gareth Halfacree
courseware server. More
With just 256MB of RAM, though, you need to be careful information
how many of these packages you run at any one time. With the www.synology.co.uk

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 WorldMags.net
Review Archos 101 XS

Android 4.0 is on board at

launch, and an update to
Android 4.1 is promised
before the end of the year

There’s no back-facing
camera, but a small
front-facing one sits on the
screen bezel and is good
enough for video chat

The device comes with its own

keyboard section, and magnets
help keep the two parts together
when they’re being used and
when the keyboard is doubling
up as a screen cover

The coverboard houses

a reasonable-quality
keyboard that doubles
up as a protective case
when not in use

TABLET

Archos 101 XS £299.99

Archos takes aim at the Asus Transformer range with this
Android-powered tablet-keyboard combo
Archos has been making screen-only devices
Pros Cons for a very long time (we’re talking pre-iPad).
More affordable Less powerful than
than most other its competition; The firm has also had a long history of working
keyboard tablets; doesn’t bundle all
Android 4.1 by cables; magnets with Android – with, admittedly, mixed results.
Christmas; office aren’t secure Usually Archos sticks to the consumer end of
software included enough for travel
things, happy to push the media side of what its
tablets can do, keeping the devices simple.
With the 101 XS, Archos has taken a different tack. For one
thing, it comes with a coverboard – a keyboard that doubles
up as a cover for the screen when it’s not in use. And Archos
bundles a copy of Office Suite Pro too. While sadly proprietary
software, it does mean the Archos 101 XS could be attractive
as a less expensive rival for the popular Asus Transformer
range we’ve been reviewing in recent months. At £299 the
Archos 101 XS can’t rival the Transformers for build quality or
power, of course, but what’s on offer might prove to be good
enough for the everyman.
The build is certainly attractive. The silver and white chassis
to the tablet has a neat appearance, one of the best Archos
devices we’ve seen, though it has to be said that the silver
parts are metal and scratch fairly easily.
There’s no back-facing camera, but we’ve never really been
convinced tablets need high-quality back-mounted cameras.
The front camera ought to be enough for most of your needs.
The coverboard attaches to the main unit via a proprietary
connector and is held in place by strong magnets and a

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Archos 101 XS
Android tablet with keyboard
REVIEW

Technical specs
Operating system Android 4.0
Processor 1.5MHz dual-core
Memory 1GB RAM
Storage 16GB internal
Dimensions 273 x 170 x 8mm (tablet)
273 x 170 x 5mm (coverboard)
Weight 600g (200g coverboard)
Display size 10.1-inch
Display resolution 1280 x 800 pixels
Expansion slot microSD

foldout stand. The overall effect is that the tablet sits at There’s a microSD card slot on one of the short edges too,
a good viewing angle and feels fairly sturdy. When not in making it really easy to double – and more – the built-in 16GB
use, more magnets around the coverboard’s edge hold it of storage quickly and affordably.
onto the tablet, thereby protecting the screen. We found The screen is good, but by no means the best. The 10.1”
that it slipped out of alignment fairly easily, though, so you display with its 1280x800 pixel resolution is the same as we’ve
will still probably need a separate carrying case for better seen on the 7-inch Nexus 7, and it can be beaten in a tablet its
Also
travel protection.
The keys are quite small, but relatively comfortable to use.
own size, but we found it an amply comfortable experience.
Archos has not left its media-friendly roots behind consider
The minimal amount of travel for the keys means it never completely. Of course, the Archos 101 XS handles movies and
threatens to completely replace your laptop in the way a sound efficiently, and the music and video apps have been
Transformer does. There are plenty of Android-specific keys tweaked to include a carousel of album covers and movie
such as Menu, Home, and recent apps, as well as dedicated thumbnails for you to sweep through. A wide range of video
keys for media playback, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi toggles, not to formats are supported too.
mention screen brightness and audio volume.
The keyboard has been well thought out and mixes Samsung Galaxy
in really well with the screen, providing for a satisfying In all, then, a decent Note 10.1
experience all-round. package at a fair price. The design puts a different spin £389.99
Reviewed over pages 62-63
Archos has been clever enough not only to build in Android 4 on a concept we’ve seen before and the performance this very issue, the new
but also to promise an upgrade to Android 4.1 before the is acceptable if not groundbreaking. Users after a 10.1” Note is an impressive
offering. With a stylus instead
calendar year is out. Behind the screen you’ll find a dual-core tablet to function as a real laptop alternative will still of a physical keyboard, the
1.5GHz processor supported by 1GB of RAM. There are far be better off looking at the various Asus models, but choice between them comes
down to which you’d likely
quicker devices around, but what’s on offer is more than good those seeking a to enhance a traditional tablet with use more.
enough for the kinds of tasks you’ll be doing. a physical keyboard for more casual use should be www.samsung.co.uk
It is good to see HDMI output here, albeit in mini socket more than happy.
format and Archos doesn’t bundle an adaptor. The micro-USB Sandra Vogel
port features USB Host, so you could attach external More
peripherals – again, you will need to provide your own information
adaptor, though. www.archos.com

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 WorldMags.net
Review GNOME 3.6

n Putting a lot of
necessary functions
into the activities
overlay slows down
your workflow

desktop environment The release of GNOME 3 was just over 18 months ago, and
it’s been an interesting time to say the least for the desktop

GNOME 3.6
environment and its users. With complaints centring
around usability and the abandoning of the traditional
desktop metaphor, the GNOME project says it’s taking this
user feedback to heart, returning oft requested features
such as the power button on the user bar in the brand
new GNOME 3.6.
The latest version of the GNOME Shell There are things that GNOME 3 does do well, though – and
3.6 carries on this tradition. Keyboard navigation is pretty great,
is here. Has it addressed the concerns allowing you to press whatever your equivalent of a Windows
key is and search for documents and applications. This is very
of users, or gone farther down the path responsive – and if you know what you’re looking for, you can
access apps faster than before. Notifications have always
of simplification? been good as well, and there have been a few updates to allow
for multiple events, easier dismissal of boxes, and they only
show up important notifications when doing something full-
screen. We even quite like the dynamic workspace, creating
new virtual desktops as you start using another.
Pros Cons Unfortunately, there is still so much fundamentally wrong
Keyboard navigation ...only it’s for
is still great, and it desktops, with with GNOME, and 3.6 seems to have gone even further out of
will probably be mostly mouse users.
very good with a GNOME seems to go its way to interrupt or generally slow down workflow. The main
touch-screen device out of its way to slow problem that has been plaguing GNOME 3 since its inception
or tablet… down your workflow
is navigating with a mouse – everything requires too many

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n A lock screen designed for smartphones
and tablets does not work on a desktop
n Search in GNOME is still the best part of the DE
actions to perform. In the past, it was going to the hot corner
to either go to another open window or workspace – and to
open applications, just add a few more steps. None of this has
been addressed, and in fact has been made worse. Maximised
windows now lose the menu bar, so to close them you need
to go to the hot corner and do it from there, or right-click on
the top bar to access quit – both an extra action on top of the
very simple one used before. With the GNOME web browser,
you can’t use the drag feature to return it to windowed mode,
instead having to right-click the top bar again.
If one of the criticisms of Unity was that it seems optimised
for touch-screen devices, then these changes and the new
additions in GNOME 3.6 can only be specifically targeted
towards tablet use. All the mousing issues and simplification
of the UI make sense if you’re primarily using your fingers –
no maximise button next to exit in case you press one and
not the other, the hot corner, using the activities overlay to
change windows, etc. The addition of the new lock screen
and a clock application typifies this change to touch-screen-
friendly interface.
The lock screen works very much like a smartphone or tablet
lock screen – it has the good stuff such as notifications and
big clock display, but it also has a ridiculous unlock process
of using your mouse to click and drag the overlay up to access
WorldMags.net
GNOME 3.6
Latest version of desktop environment
Review
n The GNOME web browser has no available space to drag it off full-screen
GNOME 3.6 seems to be
specifically targeted towards
tablet use
the login screen. A few glowing arrows are your only indication
of how to do this and, while similar to the iOS ‘Slide to Unlock’
message, these arrows flash up very briefly and quite rarely.
You can use Esc or Enter to get past the screen, but you’ll only
learn that through experimentation or finding the brief side
note in the GNOME documentation.
GNOME tell us that they’re listening to user feedback, but
the results of 3.6 seem to say otherwise. While touch-screen
devices are slowly gaining market share, PCs and laptops
still make up the vast majority of systems that can even use
GNOME. However, GNOME 3 is no longer just for desktop use..
GNOME 3.6 continues the
practice of taking half a step forward and several giant
leaps back, making it frustrating to use on a standard
desktop PC or laptop. The focus on touch-friendly
controls has further hampered the user experience
and noticeably slowed down workflow, and we don’t
believe that this will ever change.
Rob Zwetsloot
More
information
www.gnome.org
69 www.linuxuser.co.uk
 WorldMags.net
Review Office suite group test

group test

Office suite group test

We investigate what software selection is the
best to help you out in the office or at school
for all your reports and presentations

LibreOffice
It’s been a great year for LibreOffice, with
two major releases both vastly improving the
office suite over a period of a few months.
Going from strength to strength and, thanks the
community, fixing countless bugs left over from
the original code (it was forked from OpenOffice
in 2010), LibreOffice is one of the shining
examples of open source software done right.
formulas for inclusion in a document. These
are presented on a front-end, but you can go
straight to each application as you wish. n LibreOffice has a handy
The layout of each app is basically a greatest launch manager
hits from other popular office suites, and a
handful of community-requested features
to go with it. The entire interface is heavily
scores
customisable, including creating your own Installation & support

Now on version 3.6, it has never been better, with
added PDF capabilities, improved spreadsheet
formulas and even little things like a word count
bar in the Writer word processor.
The popularity of LibreOffice is such that
10
formatting menus and bars, and even the Huge community backing
individual programs themselves have a lot of means it’s readily available
customisation to help tweak them to your usage. in many forms
Compatibility-wise, LibreOffice is one of the
best. Able to open and save to just about any
Ease of use

you probably don’t even need to install it.
Most distros have it available as standard, or
at least a link to install the full suite from the
apps menu. Otherwise it’s in all major repos
and there are plenty of options available on
the website other than compiling from source,
8
kind of relevant file type, its compatibility is ever
increasing over each version. Most notably, in No improvements over the
our tests, spreadsheets that didn’t work so well standard office suite layouts, but
with the other competitors were just fine in Calc. it does that well
There’s very little we can fault with
LibreOffice. Its great to use, nowhere near as
Compatibility

for people who find that a bit daunting. As well
as the standard word processor, spreadsheet
and presentation apps, LibreOffice also comes
with Base for databases, Draw for diagrams,
and Math for creating properly formatted
9
buggy as it used to be, and each successive
Near perfect, with constant
update makes some noticeable improvement.
improvements bringing it
In the future we also have Google Docs-style
ever closer
collaboration coming, and ports to Android after
that. LibreOffice is truly a masterpiece.

9
Features
The most feature-packed
office suite available

9
Overall
We love LibreOffice. While
there was always lingering
doubts about the quality
of OpenOffice compared
to proprietary office
n CSV updates suites, LibreOffice is of a
have been professional quality
added to
allow custom
More information
www.libreoffice.org
imports

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 WorldMags.net
Office suite group test
Four of the best open source office suites go head to head
Review

Apache
OpenOffice
The tale of the fall of OpenOffice is quite
well known by now. While it was still called
OpenOffice.org, some of its developers start
The Document Foundation due to concerns of
Oracle meddling negatively; they eventually
release LibreOffice and it quickly overtakes
OpenOffice. This surge in popularity was due
to a number of reasons, but actually tackling
the extensive list of bugs from OpenOffice
contributed to it. Since then, Apache has
n The quick launch window
acquired the OpenOffice code and is now
was original in OpenOffice
developing it itself. That’s not to say OpenOffice is particularly bad
OpenOffice is now in version 3.4, one above the – while it definitely wasn’t perfect, it was certainly
final Oracle release, and 16 months after 3.3 was very competent, and the compatibility with other scores
originally released. This first version of Apache office suites and file formats was pretty great for
OpenOffice is a step towards a version 4.0; everything but the most complex spreadsheets. Installation & support

4
however, there has been very little in the way of This remains roughly the same, albeit with a bit Gone from most package
bug fixes and updates to the code beyond making more language support, a handful of major bug managers, and slow to
it compliant with the Apache licence. fixes, and general performance increases. update. You’ll need to remove
That pretty much makes it a non-starter. The Again though, it’s just not enough. When the LibreOffice for it as well
code was bloated and old when The Document exact same code has been overhauled in the
Foundation started with it, and the progress same time it took Apache to even release its
Ease of use

8
it has made in the past two years has been first stable version, it’s a big problem. There’s
absolutely phenomenal, squashing numerous absolutely no reason why you’d want to use One of the strong suits of the
bugs and fixing or adding countless features. OpenOffice over LibreOffice if you have the original: OpenOffice is still
The release of AOO 3.4 was far behind the state choice, at least at this stage. While the future recognisable and easy to use
of LibreOffice at the time, and while there were may hold a brighter future for OpenOffice once
improvements over the Oracle-released beta, the older Lotus suite is integrated into it for 4.0, at Compatibility

7
using it after LibreOffice is like a step back. present it’s still in the shadow of its successor. It will open most document
formats you can throw at it,
but not always correctly

8
Features
It has a full suite of applications
that will definitely help you out,
whether you’re in a pinch or not

6
Overall
OpenOffice’s hand-off
to Apache has not paid
dividends for the ageing
software yet, and in the
face of LibreOffice it looks
especially worse off
More information
www.openoffice.org
n OpenOffice still has great compatibility

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Review Office suite group test

GNOME Office Software

In lieu of a proper office suite included with
GNOME, there are a handful of programs
that are considered by the GNOME Project
to be part of a loose conglomerate of
applications that make up a GNOME Office.
These include AbiWord for word processing,
Gnumeric for spreadsheets, Inkscape for
vector graphics and some presentation work,
and Dia for diagrams. Some of the packages
in the list are officially part of GNOME, such as
Gnumeric, mail client Evolution and document
viewer Evince; however, others are simply
promoted by GNOME.
We’ll be frank – the combination of these n AbiWord
applications is not as rich or varied as any of oddly aligns
the full suites of software in this group test. page view
The most noticeable reason for this is that the to the left
presentation software that is part of the GNOME
Office tag is still currently under development, than a text editor, it is sorely lacking in features
and Inkscape is not great for the kind of slide- that people with serious word processing to do
scores
based presentations everyone is used to. will notice.
Installation & support

Otherwise, the rest of the software covers
most of the bases. However, application to
application, each individual element is not up to
the same quality as its rivals.
For example, AbiWord is fairly competent. It
contains basic formatting and table options,
5
Much of the same can be said for Gnumeric,
While some of it does come
although it is relatively a lot more feature rich
by default with GNOME, the
than AbiWord is. However, we did experience
rest cannot be installed as one
problems with it importing some spreadsheets
GNOME Office package
that the others were able to handle fine, making
it possibly the weakest spreadsheet software
Ease of use

8
you can open just about any kind of document for compatibility in this group test.
file type, save the result to even more formats It’s clear that this GNOME Office group of Generally simple and easy to
and it’s generally easy to use and nicely laid out. programs is not really meant to fully replace a use, copying the standard office
Unfortunately, that’s about it. Features-wise, full office suite, but at least it lets you get by until software layouts
everything is shown up front, and there’s no you do install one. As some of it comes with a lot
customisation for the menu bars or much of the of distros that run GNOME and GNOME forks, it’s Compatibility
software at all. While it’s a lot more advanced at least good for that. Depending on which part,
it can be quite bad or
quite good
5
4
Features
The basics, if that, and no
proper presentation software

5
Overall
The GNOME office
packages are good for
holiday checklists, but
for anything approaching
serious office work you’ll
be stuck
More information
www.gnome.org
n Compatibility in Gnumeric is inconsistent

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 WorldMags.net
Office suite group test
Four of the best open source office suites go head to head
Review

Calligra
Suite
The Calligra Suite was originally based on the
same code as KOffice, albeit at a much earlier
point in its development. While it shares some
similarities with KDE’s original office suite, they
both went down different paths and when
KOffice development came to halt a couple of
years ago, Calligra Suite became the de facto KDE
office software package.
Calligra is readily available in a lot of package
managers, especially for distros that support n Words has an interesting interface that
KDE. Unlike LibreOffice and OpenOffice, it works well with widescreen displays
doesn’t particularly conflict with anything, portrait page can easily fit on the side while all the
meaning you can at the least have it among other formatting flanks it. You can see more of the page, scores
office software if you prefer specific features. and that little touch adds a fair bit. Sadly, for a
What you get with your install is Words, the word spreadsheet, this has the opposite effect. As you
Installation & support

processor; Stage for presentations; Sheets for
spreadsheets; Flow for diagrams; and Kexi, a
visual database creator.
Calligra’s layout is very different from the
classical office software setup. Instead of menu
bars and formatting at the top of the window,
8
can’t change the orientation, the more complex
Available as one package
the spreadsheet, the less you’ll be able to see.
in most repos, and is
Still, there is a lot of customisability in the
supported by KDE
Calligra suite, enabling you to edit the contents
of the menus and some of the basic workings and
defaults for each individual app. The compatibility
Ease of use

everything is put down the right-hand side, which
has its pros and cons. For starters, the slightly
different layout will probably slow folks down
who are used to doing a lot of mousing for their
workflow. However, for word processing, it’s
actually a lot more efficient in terms of screen
6
is a bit odd, though – while it will open almost any
Depends entirely on the
file we could throw at it, it only has very limited
application, but generally
ways to actually save files, sticking to open
it’s just different
document formats and nothing else.
Overall, Calligra is very inconsistent. While its
word processor may be one of the best in terms of
Compatibility

real estate. The original layout was the best way
to orient it for the 4:3 screens of old, but with
widescreen and 16:10 monitors the norm now, a
2
layout, the lack of compatibility across the suite
Opens a lot of files; has some
and its fixed perspective mean it falls behind
problems with spreadsheets,
LibreOffice in almost every other way.
though, along with limited
saving capabilities

6
Features
A decent set of features, but
nothing that stands out from
the competition

6
Overall
Calligra is definitely not
terrible, but it lacks a lot of
features and compatibility
to truly make it competitive
with something like
LibreOffice

More information
www.calligra.org
n Calligra can open plenty of file types, but save to very few

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 WorldMags.net
Review Office suite group test

In brief: Compare and contrast our verdicts

10 4 5 8
Installation If it’s not already Gone from some Available in repos, Available in repos
& support installed, it’s no repos, cannot install but not as one as one package,
problem to get alongside LibreOffice coherent product files on website

8 8 8 6
Ease of use Same layout as most The classic layout is Like other GNOME The unique interface
office suites, nothing still there, and just as apps, they’re all is great for Words,
confusing easy to use simple and easy to use but not for the rest

Compatibility Works with just

about anything,
with very few holes
9
Compatibility has
fallen behind over
the past two years
7 Opens and saves to
a lot of file types, but
has problems with
5 Opens some file
types, not always
very well though, and
2
some formulas saves to very few

9 8 4
Features
6
Constantly Good and feature-full It only really helps A decent set of
improving, and has applications that are you if you have no programs will just
the most in this test more than stopgaps other choice about let you do
what you need

A fantastic software Apache has done very It’s fine if you have to Calligra needs to
suite that covers little to fix OpenOffice, use it, but upgrading is mature much more
every need very well while LibreOffice has otherwise essential before it can be

Overall 9 improved hugely

6 5 competitive
6
AND THE WINNER IS…
LibreOffice
Going into the group test, while we
GROUP TEST
WINNER
suspected LibreOffice might win, we did
not anticipate how far ahead of the rest
of the office suites it was. OpenOffice
has barely changed since it was taken over
by Apache, GNOME Office is a random
sprinkling of applications, and Calligra is
nowhere near as mature.
So LibreOffice wins, almost by default.
Of course, a lot of people have done a lot
of hard work to get it to the state it’s in
today, and it highlights how open source
can be incredibly beneficial to developing
software. With rapid improvement leading
to new full versions twice a year, each
with significant updates, and regular bug
fixes for them, it’s rare that you’re going to
encounter major problems or limitations to
the software for every long.
We would like to see the Calligra Words
interface applied to Writer, though, as that
is smart UI design…
Rob Zwetsloot ■ Our group test winner gets the honour of being used to write this article

74 www.linuxuser.co.uk

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Review CAINE 3.0

■ The Caine Interface

program guides you
through all steps of a
forensic investigation

DISTRO

CAINE 3.0
CAINE is a well-known specialised Linux distribution focusing
on penetration testing. With its latest 3.0 release, it updates
itself to the Ubuntu 12.04 base and adds a host of new tools
CAINE (Computer Aided INvestigative
Pros Cons Environment, but also named after
Offers a lot of tools Some functionality
and scripts to help is still rough, suchCSI: Miami ’s head of crime lab Horatio Caine)
you with a forensic as booting from
investigation, also USB, and CAINE has is a hyperspecialised Linux distro. As its full
usable as a general- some peculiarities name implies, it’s aimed at digital forensic
purpose distribution to watch out for
practitioners. The latest edition is CAINE
3.0 (codename Quasar), based on Ubuntu
12.04 and Linux kernel 3.2 but with the GNOME 2 fork, MATE,
instead of Unity as its desktop environment. Unfortunately,
the 1.3GB live DVD image isn’t a hybrid image and it doesn’t
work out of the box with UNetbootin either. Writing the ISO
to a USB stick and making it bootable is possible, but needs
some fiddling. The installer, though, will be familiar to Ubuntu
users, as it’s Canonical’s easy-to-use Ubiquity.
An interesting difference between CAINE and many other
specialised distributions is that it also ships with a lot of
general-purpose tools. When you have installed CAINE 3.0,
MATE’s menu contains many applications that you would
find in any regular desktop distribution. This is a good move,
because in many other specialised distributions we found
ourselves limited if we wanted them to use for daily tasks.
You would then have to install many regular applications
first, or constantly switch from the specialised distribution
to a general-purpose distribution. In contrast, you can use
CAINE perfectly as your regular desktop distribution, and
on top of that, all the specialised tools are available in the
Forensic Tools menu.
However, CAINE is much more than just Ubuntu
with some forensic tools added. A regular desktop
distribution isn’t suitable for forensic purposes, because
it automatically mounts available drives as read/write. In
a forensic investigation of a computer this is obviously a

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 WorldMags.net
CAINE 3.0
Linux distro for digital forensics
REVIEW

■ PhotoRec is a
tried and tested
tool to recover
deleted files

■ CAINE offers a slew of forensic tools in its menu

CAINE’s policy for

mounting devices is
unrelenting
recipe for disaster, as it changes last mount times and also
risks wiping out (potentially hidden) data when you write to
the drive. That’s why CAINE’s policy for mounting devices
is unrelenting: it never automatically mounts any device.
Mounting is only possible through the Mounter applet in
the system tray or on the command line with the mount
command. A left-click on the Mounter applet lets you mount
or unmount devices and a right-click lets you toggle the
system policy for all future mounts with the applet from
read-only to read/write and vice versa. If the current policy
is read/write, the disk icon in the system tray becomes red MATE desktop didn’t honour our choice. Moreover, you really ■ CAINE extends its
to warn you to be careful. have to read the distro’s online documentation, as it has some file manager with a
lot of handy scripts
Moreover, CAINE streamlines the process of conducting peculiar behaviour with respect to mounting. Unfortunately,
a forensic investigation. Just click on the Caine Interface there’s no overarching documentation about what the various
icon on the desktop and click on ‘Create report’, after tools do, either, so you have to discover their function by trial
which you are guided through a four-step phase from data and error.
collection to a report. You can collect information from
connected devices; recover files using known headers,
footers and data structures; find image files containing If you’re searching for a set
hidden (steganographic) content, and so on. More specific of computer forensic tools, look no more, you have
tools, such as for forensics of iPhone and BlackBerry devices, found it. It takes time to discover all the scripts and get
can be found in the Forensic Tools menu, and MATE’s file used to the Caine Interface, but with this distribution
manager Caja has been extended with countless handy you have all the relevant tools at your fingertips. Just
scripts in the context menu of your files. don’t forget to read the documentation, as CAINE has
This isn’t to say that the distribution is not without its faults, some peculiarities.
however. We already touched upon the issues with booting Koen Verloesem
the live ISO from a USB stick, but also after installation there More
are some minor annoyances. For instance, even though we
information
had set a specific keyboard layout in the Ubiquity installer, the www.caine-live.net

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 WorldMags.net
Review Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal

n Unity, now with more online search results

The last version of Ubuntu was the much lauded LTS
release of the distro, focusing more on stability than
distro adding new features. While the HUD did manage to sneak

Ubuntu 12.10
its way into 12.04, there wasn’t a whole lot else other than the
standard package updates. So now it’s back to a standard
cycle Ubuntu, we’re interested to see what Canonical has up
its sleeve this time.
We had to wait a long time to see the changes as well – we

Quantal
initially went through the distro upgrade process from an up-
to-date Ubuntu 12.04.1 64-bit, and the process took literally
hours to complete. While we were fine with the package
updates taking a while to download – that’s just par for the

Quetzal
course – the fact it then took several hours to apply them on
both machines we did it on was shocking. It’s especially odd
since the actual fresh install of the system took a leisurely
half an hour. We don’t recall previous distro upgrades on
Pros Ubuntu ever taking this long.
Lots of software,
a huge amount
Once we were finally in, we found Ubuntu to be much the
same. The LDM has been updated to look a little sharper,
The release of Ubuntu
of choice, and
generally easy to
use for any level of
and now has the peculiar function of wanting you to press a
separate ‘Confirm’ button when selecting a different desktop
rolls around yet again. Has
Linux user
environment. Unfortunately, if you happen to have a handful
of DEs installed, this confirmation button gets hidden down
Canonical listened to concerns Cons
The best part of
Unity, the search
below the screen on lower-resolution displays, leaving you
stuck with the default one until you change your display
of the users, or continued to results, polluted
by Amazon unless
you find the hidden
manager, or trim the list.
The basic set of applications are pretty much the same as
forge its own path? off switch
usual: you have Firefox, the LibreOffice suite, Thunderbird

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 WorldMags.net
n The Amazon search results don’t blend in very well
n You can turn off the Amazon search results
n The new previews give you application information
and a handful of basic GNOME apps to get you going. The
Software Centre has as many packages as ever, with
Ubuntu’s strength of a vast and complete repo intact for
another roll of the distro.
Unity has changed the most, and this is mainly due to
the inclusion of the online search results, the controversial
Amazon results that pop up in your searches. While there
were obvious concerns over privacy and such, the actual
way the results worked was never really questioned –
unfortunately, what could have been its saving grace merely
pollutes the search results with often unrelated items, price
tag emblazoned on top. You can turn it off, but finding the
exact setting for it is a little unintuitive, with the switch under
Privacy and not the normal Unity settings.
Over the past six months, not much has been said of the
HUD, which is strange since HUD integration seems better
than it ever has been in Ubuntu. Now finding the menus for
just about every app we were using, it also seemed to throw
up more relevant results than before. While HUD is not for
WorldMags.net
Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal
Major new release of the popular distro
Review
n Upgrading to the new version took us hours to complete
Amazon results merely pollute
the search results with often
unrelated items
everyone, it’s at least good to see that it’s improving for those
who might want to use it now or in the future.
Of course, it’s Ubuntu, so you have access to all the variety
of other desktop environments such as GNOME, KDE, LXDE
and Xfce, to name a few. While something like Cinnamon
or MATE is still not in the repos, they were available in their
own PPAs very shortly after the release for 12.10, proving the
popularity of the young desktops.
Overall, it’s another Ubuntu release that has people
scratching their heads. It works great, which is to be expected,
but Unity is just getting further and further away from what
the users seem to want.
Canonical is again holding
its ground on the use of Unity in Ubuntu, which is a
shame as the rest of vanilla Ubuntu is a fantastic,
easy-to-use operating system. Luckily, there are
the other desktop environments you can use to fit
your own workflow, while keeping the great software
library and support.
Rob Zwetsloot
More
information
www.ubuntu.com
79 www.linuxuser.co.uk
 WorldMags.net
Review Fractal Design Define R4

Technical specs
Motherboards ATX, Micro ATX and Mini ITX
Dimensions 232 x 464 x 523mm
Weight 12.3kg
case Colours Black (Pearl Black), White (Arctic

Fractal Design
White), Grey (Titanium Grey)
Expansion slots 7x normal, 1x vertical
HDD slots 8x standard, 2x SSD only

Define R4 £90.99
This stunning Scandinavian case is put through its paces to
find out if it can handle the server room as well as the office
Fractal Design is well known for the quality and you know you’ve pressed it, two USB 2.0, two USB 3.0, and
Pros Cons craftsmanship of its computer cases, with the audio ports for your headset and microphone. The extra
Big on space and Only some very
customisability, minor issues, like previous Define R3 being a fantastic all-round USB 3.0 port is very useful, although the case does not come
it also looks no USB 3.0 to 2.0
fantastic and is adaptor, and case
box. The new Define R4 sounds like an overall with a converter in case your motherboard does not have
very quiet to boot screws can be lost update to the R3 on paper, with an extra built- 3.0 compatibility.
in USB 3.0 slot, the ability to mount SSD cards The legs enable the Define R4 to stand slightly higher at
behind the motherboard, and a few more surprises up its the front, and the door to the front of the case is held in place
sleeve on top of that. magnetically so that there are no extra push clips or buttons
First of all, yet again the case is beautifully designed. required to open it. Both sides are held in place by two screws
The matt black of the Pearl Black case is stealthy and non- designed for hand tightening, which hold in the panels in
reflective, and the minimalist front panel is very efficient firmly enough yet allow for a screwdriver to get them
and in line with the rest of the case. This front panel includes clamped in if necessary. The only issue we have with these
the power switch and reset, both with a satisfying click so screws is that they aren’t overall connected to the panels

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Fractal Design Define R4
Stylish, flexible computer enclosure
Review

n Lower HDD cage in n Lower HDD cage in n Lower HDD

standard position alternative position cage removed

You can hide a lot of the

cables away once the insides
are mounted, thanks to space
behind the motherboard
n You’re not just limited to black either Also
– a nice touch that we’ve seen in other cases so that you Otherwise it allows for full ATX motherboards in the case, consider
don’t lose them. and includes six horizontal PCI slots for graphics, network and
The insides belie the simplicity of the exterior with thick sound cards, depending on the application you have in mind.
soundproof padding lining every side surface and myriad There’s even a vertical slot for USB-style expansion slots,
tidy cables to power the front panels and fans. Of particular allowing you to save a PCI slot for something more important
note is the audio cable, which is pre-assembled and not like while still adding a few extra I/O ports.
the fiddly pins of other cases. You can hide a lot of the cables Frankly, we really like this case. While there are a couple of
away once the insides are mounted, thanks to space behind features elsewhere we’d like to see, generally it’s one of the
the motherboard – accessible via insulated holes in the case – most design-conscious cases we’ve ever used. With plenty of
and screw placements on this side allow the mounting of two usage options from storage server all the way to gaming PC,
SSDs. This space-saving feature can help you create a low- the best part is that it easily fits all these roles without any CoolerMaster
power system with maximum storage over eight HDD bays. sacrifices being made. Silencio 550
Design considerations don’t stop there – the top five HDD £70
Another silent, black case
bays can be rotated 90 degrees, making extra room for some with soundproofing and a
SATA cables, and easy front access to the bays if you remove Nitpicking aside, this is one similar small front panel. You
lose the USB slots and extra
the front fan slot altogether. This allows for quick changes and of the best cases we’ve come across in some time. HDD bays, but gain an extra
upgrades if you need to do this, especially in home or office It’s as useful as it is good-looking, with plenty of optical bay and an SD card
slot for those who need it.
server situations. The front fans being removable is part of space and options to customise the interior and the Otherwise it still has plenty of
another decision to allow easy cleaning of intake fans, with way it holds components to cover most server and space for cooling.
www.coolermaster.co.uk
dust guards protecting the front fans and the PSU, both easily office or home PC roles.
removable by sliding them out for cleaning. We particularly Rob Zwetsloot
like these features in modern cases, especially with some of More
the weird and wonderful locations we find ourselves putting information
computers in these days. www.fractal-design.com

81 www.linuxuser.co.uk

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Review Ubuntu GNOME Shell Remix

distro

GNOME Shell
Remix
Still running on 12.04, this version of Ubuntu seeks
Pros
It’s based on the LTS
release of Ubuntu,
Cons
While the GNOME
Shell is a little

to fix the Unity problems some people have by

so it’s stable and better than Unity in
has plenty of some respects, it’s
available packages still not as good as

replacing it with the equally controversial GNOME 3 to use other desktops

Ever since Ubuntu 11.04, there has been no official flavour

of Canonical’s distro running the GNOME Shell as its main
desktop. Of course, you could always install it from the
repos, and Unity itself was a fork of GNOME, but there was no
‘Gubuntu’ spin of the popular distro. This is where GNOME Shell
Remix comes in, to fill this apparent gap in the market. The
latest version of the distro uses the previous Ubuntu, 12.04, as
its base, as it is not one of the official releases just yet.
The ISOs are both slightly larger than the standard
Ubuntu ones, but installation is basically still the same as
any other flavour of the distro. It does do some rebranding,
though, changing the information screens and colour
scheme of Plymouth to match the blues of GNOME.
Installation was as quick as usual, depending on your
system; however, post-install required nearly 500 updates
as it is based on 12.04 and not 12.04.1.
Once in, you have the standard GNOME 3 Shell, with this support will last for years. However, the GNOME 3 Shell is n It’s simply
options for fallback/classic mode on the non-standard not really an adequate replacement for Unity. As we’ve covered Ubuntu with a
display manager. It’s definitely not GDM, but it’s at least still in the review of GNOME 3.6, both Unity and GNOME 3 are not GNOME paint job
easy enough to understand, and allows you to select users. universally accessible to all types of input. GNOME seems to
Otherwise, the normal default apps are all present: Firefox, prefer a hybrid of mouse and keyboard that relies heavily on
LibreOffice and the standard GNOME apps like Empathy the keyboard part, and Unity is much the same.
and Shotwell. If you were expecting just Ubuntu with GNOME In the end, it’s not an official version of Ubuntu, and to
instead, then apparently you’d be correct. make sure you have the latest and greatest while keeping the
Obviously, being based on Ubuntu gives it a lot of GNOME Shell, you’re better off starting with vanilla Ubuntu, or
advantages, such as one of the best selections of packages another version, and going from there.
available, strong support for updates, and being an LTS release

It literally is just Ubuntu

with GNOME Shell installed and Unity removed – if
that’s your thing, though, you’re probably better off
doing it yourself from one of the official flavours of
Ubuntu anyway. Otherwise it’s a fully functioning
version of Ubuntu 12.04 with all the same advantages
and disadvantages.
n Installation Rob Zwetsloot More
is the same information
as standard http://ubuntu-gs-remix.
Ubuntu sourceforge.net/p/home/

82 www.linuxuser.co.uk

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 WorldMags.net
COMING SOON
The best Linux books heading to a
bookshelf near you…
R in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition
Author: Joseph Adler
Publisher: O’Reilly
ISBN: 978-1449312084
Price: £38.50
A quick and practical
guide: you’ll learn how
to write R functions and
use R packages to help
you prepare, visualise
and analyse data. Author Joseph Adler
illustrates each process with a wealth
of examples from medicine, business
and sports.
NumPy Cookbook
Author: Ivan Idris
Publisher: Packt
ISBN: 978-1849518925
Price: £44.98
This will teach you to
write readable, efficient
and fast code that is as
close to the language of
mathematics as possible
with the cutting-edge
open source NumPy
software library. You
will also learn about plotting with
Matplotlib and the related SciPy project
through examples.
Building Web Applications
with Erlang
Working with REST and Web
Sockets on Yaws
Author: Zachary Kessin
Publisher: O’Reilly
ISBN: 978-1449309961
Price: £15.50
If you are an experienced
web developer who knows
basic Erlang, you’ll learn
how to work with REST,
dynamic content, web
sockets and concurrency
through several examples.
In the process, you’ll see
first-hand that Erlang is
ideal for building business-
critical services.
Book Reviews
Latest Linux books revealed
REVIEWS
Practical Common Lisp
A most practical Lisp tutorial
Another month, another paperback re-release from Apress
of an ancient book. Well, seven years is an eon in internet
time, it’s true, but Common Lisp is a mature language, and
fortunately hasn’t gone through any seismic shifts since
Siebel first published his classic guide.
See the first word of the title? This is a practical tutorial
in Lisp programming. From Hello World, the author jumps
straight into a simple database project for cataloguing CDs, a
precursor to a streaming MP3 server and intro to server-side
web programming in later chapters.
In between functions, variables and macros are covered
in the lead-up to a practical chapter on building a unit test
framework. This pattern continues: groups of topics are taught,
then used in practical projects to reinforce learning, and give
Author: Peter Siebel experience of using Lisp in real-world tasks. With so many
Publisher: Apress Lisp programming books being weighty references, or smug
ISBN: 978-1430242901 polemics against other, ‘lesser’ languages, Practical Common
Price: £47.99 Lisp still stands out from the crowd.
Ubuntu Made Easy: Managing Humans
A Project-Based Biting and Humorous
Introduction to Linux Tales of a Software
Newbie-friendly Engineering Manager
Ubuntu starter with The human, and
history airbrush humorous, face
Authors: Rickford Grant, of managing
Phil Bull programmers
Publisher: No Starch Author: Michael Lopp
ISBN: 978-1593274252 Publisher: Apress
Price: £27.49 ISBN: 978-1430243144
Price: £19.99
Start at chapter two and this is a most
comprehensive guide to the Ubuntu Is this book for engineers who find themselves
desktop, covering office tasks, multimedia, managers, or those who have to deal with (and
games, customisation, hardware, security, are frustrated by) managers, or is it a book which
networking, indeed almost nothing useful is helps you run teams of creative people? It’s all of
missed out. those, and more.
But chapter one? Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear. The author’s direct, humorous and occasionally
Several pages of GNU/Linux history, but a busy sweary prose holds a whirlwind polemic – which
airbrush has removed all traces of the GNU won’t be to everyone’s taste – on how to manage
project and the Free Software Foundation. as a manager, how to manage other managers,
This, despite a strong sense of community, and how to really get the best from a team of
reflected in a later chapter covering bug software engineers. Along the way Lopp deals
reporting, community help and getting with meetings, performance reviews, saying no,
involved with Ubuntu. meetings, disasters, hiring, meetings, problem
The authors certainly know their Ubuntu. If colleagues and… meetings.
you want a guide to just about everything you A collection of blog posts, but each sharp and
can do on Canonical’s unstoppable distro, from thoughtful, this is Dilbert for optimists – the
a newbie, GUI point-of-view (yet with a great skewering, observational humour is the same,
newbie-friendly intro to the command line, but in place of resigned despair we have positive
too), and can get past the sins of omission of action points to take back to your dysfunctional
the first chapter, you won’t find a clearer guide. organisation, to start making it less dysfunctional.
85 www.linuxuser.co.uk
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Contact us...
Web: www.linuxuser.co.uk
Email: linuxuser@imagine-publishing.co.uk
Questions
& answers
Your questions
answered
ASK THE EXPERTS
This month your questions
were answered by…
Send us your questions and we’ll do our best to answer them!
Russell Barnes has been
a computer and technology
journalist for many years
Koen Verloesem has a
master’s degree in computer
science and philosophy
Rob Zwetsloot studied
aerospace engineering, using
Python to model simulations
Richard Hillesley writes
about art, music, digital rights,
Linux and free software
86 www.linuxuser.co.uk
Contact us @linuxusermag
Become a fan on
Linux User & Developer
n The fstab may look daunting to beginners, but it’s very straightforward
Share alike
Gentlemen,
I have been using Linux Mint 13 for a while now,
and am very pleased with it. There were some
initial configuration issues, but I managed to
work through them.
One issue that is still unresolved is getting
Mint to talk to my WD 3TB ‘My Book Live’
NASD drives. The WD support CD configures
Windows automatically and assigns a drive
letter to each drive. Alas, there is no similar
support for Linux.
I can’t seem to attach to the drive with a
browser address like ‘\Files1\Public\’ as I can in
Windows. Nor can I attach to it with a browser
address like ‘\169.254.10.130\Public\’ as I can in
Windows. Nor can I successfully ping the prior IP
address from Linux.
I have Windows and Mint on separate
pluggable drives, so switching the OS is no big
deal. Windows works, Linux doesn’t, so it can’t
be the hardware or connections. It has to be a
configuration issue.
WorldMags.net
Okay, so networks are not exactly my
strongest suit, but I can follow instructions, and I
can chase down resources on the net – and best
of all, I can play without fear of bringing down a
company network: I own all the pieces and they
reside in my basement. I understand TCP/IP at
the physical level, but building entire networks is
beyond me for now. However, I am educable.
So, if you could suggest what I need to do,
in as much detail as your time permits, I will
try it. If you could suggest good references for
something beyond the basics of the wire and
packets of networking, I would appreciate it.
Even better if they were on the internet.
I am sure others would appreciate this as
well. WD seems to have no interest in helping
its non-Windows customers. I have seen others
pose this question, but have seen no appropriate
answers. Some guesses about file systems and
Samba, but no definitive reply.
I know this can be done, I just don’t know how.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Greg
 WorldMags.net
Hi Greg, I think I can help you out.
The first thing I’ll say is that
accessing external or networked
hard drives is handled quite
differently in Linux than it is in
Windows. While you may have noticed USB
sticks or other types of flash storage popping up
in Linux Mint, this is due to the distribution
automatically mounting the drive. Mounting is
the process of assigning a place in the overall
file system for the storage – and in the case of
Linux, letting it know what type of file system it
is as well.
On the one hand, this make it easier to access
without having to remember the different
network names to type into a file browser. On
the other, it can be confusing to folks such as
yourself who are having trouble finding out how
to connect networked storage for the first time.
First of all, we’ve noticed that you’re trying to
access it with an IP address that is for internet-
based connections. You’ll need to find the IP
address of the hard drive on your local network,
which on home hardware will usually start with
192.168 (eg 192.168.0.25). Once you know that,
we can tell you that apparently these hard
drives use an ext4 file system, the same used
by modern Linux distros. To mount it, assuming
Public is the folder you want to mount, it would
be something like this in the terminal:
$ mount //192.168.0.25/Public /home/
user/Share
You can place it anywhere, but make sure to
create the folder first.
If that doesn’t work, you’ll need to install
Samba – you can find it in the Software Centre,
or by installing smbfs in the terminal. The mount
would then be
$ mount -t smbfs //192.168.0.25/Public
/home/user/Share
Questions & answers
All your technical problems solved
That should get you started actually seeing
the share. To get it to automatically mount
at boot, you will need to add an entry to the
/etc/fstab file, which you can access in the
terminal with something like:
$ sudo nano /etc/fstab
…where nano is just a text editor. The line
should look something like this:
//192.168.0.25/Public /home/user/Share
cifs defaults 0 0
There are plenty of tutorials online for fstab if
you get stuck as well. Hope this helps.
Virtual internet
I’ve been having some issues testing out new
distros on VirtualBox after an upgrade to
Ubuntu 12.10. The internet connection pass-
through has not always been working, and I’m
at a loss as to how to fix this. I’ve tried switching
between the different network interfaces in the
settings, but to no avail.
Is there a way to fix this? It seems to be working
fine on a fresh install on another machine I use.
Thanks,
Luke Flynn
The quick and simple answer is,
you probably need to upgrade
VirtualBox. There seems to be a
small bug where it won’t properly
update the software to the 4.2
series after a distro upgrade, so you can either
build it from source or just uninstall it and grab
the DEB files from the VirtualBox website. Your
files, settings and previous virtual machines
should be kept, although you will have to re-
download the extensions file.
Happy testing.
n The older
VirtualBox
is in the
Ubuntu repos
WorldMags.net
Q/A
Disc
reconstruction
Hi all, I’m wondering if there’s a way to
recombine an ISO on Linux? It’s a disc of
digitally converted home videos, and a friend
of mine split it up so he could send it to me.
Unfortunately, they’re not around to tell me
how to put it back together again.
If it helps, I know he split it up on Windows,
but I’m not sure if the software that he uses
exists for Linux. Any solutions would be
greatly appreciated.
Brian Manapul
There are a number of
methods you could use to
get this done, but first make
sure the names of the files
are fairly uniform (file.iso.1,
file.iso.2 etc). You can use the concatenate
tool in Linux to try to put the file together
with a command like:
$ cat file.iso.i >> file.iso
That should join all the parts together
into one ISO. If it doesn’t like that so much,
which it sometimes doesn’t depending on
the software used to split it up, you can
also try using lxsplit. This tool can split and
merge files and ISOs; to merge files back
together, you can use:
$ lxsplit -j file.iso.1
And it will find the rest of the parts
to join back together. Finally, if you’re
still having problems, then there is a
graphical tool called HJSplit. It will guide
you through the process of putting them
together again.
n HJSplit is a popular and cross-
platform file splitter
87 www.linuxuser.co.uk
 WorldMags.net
Questions Become a fan on
Linux User & Developer
& answers
Using your Live DVD
STEP 1: Set the BIOS or boot menu
Once you’ve inserted your Linux User DVD into
your drive, reboot your computer and press the
Delete key to enter the BIOS to ensure your DVD
drive is set to boot before your hard drive. Check
your PC help files if Delete doesn’t work.
STEP 2: Reboot into the disc menu
When your computer reboots, you should be
met with the Linux User DVD selection screen.
Should your computer boot to your desktop
as usual, ensure the DVD drive is configured
correctly and repeat step 1.
STEP 3: Choose your distro
All you have to do now is pick which distro from
this month’s selection you want to test first. Once
you’ve made your choice, sit back and wait for the
live desktop to load. No changes will be made to
your computer while testing a live distro.
88 www.linuxuser.co.uk
Contact us @linuxusermag
Reinstall queries
I’m planning to reinstall my Ubuntu OS – if it’s
relevant, I’m running Ubuntu 12.04 on a Dell
Inspiron E1505 laptop, 2GB RAM, 40GB internal
hard drive. I’m going to erase the partition Linux
is on and reinstall it on my external hard drive as
I’m running out of room.
I know how to reinstall Linux itself, of course,
but is there any way to make a list (or better yet,
a GRUB code file) of all my installed packages, so
that I can easily reinstall them afterwards? I was
going to simply look at Synaptic and write down
which ones are installed, then go through and
manually install them all after Linux installs, but
that’s going to take a while. Please note, I am not
a Linux newbie but I am a bit of a GRUB newbie!
Any help appreciated!
Also, would you know also what the file is
that contains my bookmarks for the Chromium
browser? I’d like to grab and save that too.
Nate Shepard
Well, the easiest thing about this
is saving and restoring your
Chromium bookmarks, and there
are a number of ways that you
can do this. Firstly, and most
n dpkg can be used otherwise to just list all your packages
Use dpkg to list your packages
WorldMags.net
conveniently, if you set up Chromium sync, you
can have your browser, settings, cookies, apps
etc all saved to your Google Account to then be
restored to any of your Chrome or Chromium
instances of your choosing.
Otherwise, not only can you export the
bookmarks from Chromium in the bookmarks
manager, the actual settings files from
Chromium can be found in your home directory.
If you look under .config/chromium/, all the
files will be there, and the bookmarks are
under the Defaults directory.
As for saving your applications, there is
a fairly simple way of doing this. Before you
uninstall your system, use dpkg to make a list
of your packages like so:
$ dpkg --get-selections >
selections.txt
Make sure to save this file. Once you’ve
installed the new version of Ubuntu, you can
use this list to add the selections to the new
dpkg:
$ dpkg --get-selections <
selections.txt
And finally:
$ apt-get dselect-upgrade
This should install all the packages back
onto your system.
 WorldMags.net
Login font
As a bit of a typography nerd, I’ve been wanting
to change the font on the login screen for my
system, a Slackware install. I decided to write
a little script to get this to work, and came up
with this:
if [ $TERM = linux ]
then
setfont ter-v16n
fi
I know that ter-v16n is supposed to be the
Terminus font; however, it doesn’t seem to be
working. Where are the font files located in
Slackware? Because I will either add it here, or
just choose another font.
Al Phillipson
Customising Linux completely is
something we very much approve
of. You can find the available
Slackware console fonts in /usr/
share/kbd/consolefonts, although
they’re in a different location for other distros.
If Terminus isn’t there, then you can
just grab the source for it from the official
website, which is here: http://terminus-font.
sourceforge.net/.
Turbocharged Pi
My Raspberry Pi has had a lot more use than
I expected when I first got it. However, I’m
starting to feel the constraints of the board’s
Questions & answers
somewhat limited power. I heard there are
overclock options built into the Pi now that I can
turn on. Where do these settings lie? Am I likely
to burn out my Pi by turning them on? Thanks.
Tom Sullivan
Yep, you’re right, there are now
official settings for turbo mode,
which is made up of five different
volt settings to overclock your
Raspberry Pi. You can find them in
■ Results
from official
tests indicate
a 50% speed
boost can be
obtained
WorldMags.net
All your technical problems solved
Q/A
■ Terminus font is a clean terminal-style font
raspi-config, with the highest setting increasing
the processor to 1GHz. According to Eben
Upton, co-creator of the Raspberry Pi, it limits
the overclock when the core starts reaching
high temperatures, and should be fairly safe.
They’ve even allowed the warranty to extend to
this overclocking, and claim that it won’t reduce
the lifespan of the board.
Size matters
Here’s the problem I’m having. I cannot
determine slice size for dar, because I cannot
figure out exactly what the slice size should be.
My output from fdisk -l seems to clash with my
output from df: it shows more space. I didn’t
create any partitions when I encrypted the drive,
so I believed that they should match. Alas, they
do not. Which one should I trust?
Ant O’Ryan
Thanks for your question, Ant. The
difference between those tools is
basically how they report the
data. Using fdisk looks at the
actual partitions, whereas df will
just look at the file systems. As you encrypted
the entire partition, you’d think it wouldn’t make
a difference; however, the extra data you’d see
from fdisk is going to be the function of the
encryption and not usable. In this case, we’d say
trust df instead.
89 www.linuxuser.co.uk
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Your view Your source of Linux news and views
Contact us…
Register and post your comments… Email us directly…
www.linuxuser.co.uk/forum/ linuxuser@imagine-publishing.co.uk

YOUR VIEW Canonical

Linux User contributions
I think this is an excellent idea, and that other

Letters
distros should follow. If someone is to work on a
free-for-all product for everyone and that product
is to be done professionally, we should be able to
easily contribute to helping them make their ends
Your opinions about the magazine, meet and reward them for what they do.
It doesn’t have to be either ‘work for free’ or
Linux and open source ‘insist on getting paid for every copy’. Still, I think it
could be done in a better way. For instance, there
could be a text box where users could type in
what they want to contribute to.
Daniel Blake

We agree with you there: while the contribution

part is fine in a time where everything seems
to be crowdfunded, if what Canonical wants is
raw data on what people wish to have improved,
there must be a better way around it. Still, the
firm probably gets a lot of people telling it what
should be changed on its forums.

G M
D
THREAD BARE S
U
F
No more Ubuntu surprises
Our super-review of Ubuntu last issue was our biggest ever, and
when we posted it online we expected to see plenty of debate
over the quality of the distro in the comments. Surprisingly
though, it seems nobody gets riled up over Ubuntu any more.
Join in with the conversation at http://bit.ly/QSQdov F
G S
John said: M
I’ve been playing with 12.10 and the first thing I did was remove D
the shopping lens. Unity is a totally pointless user interface for
desktops. It takes too many steps to start a program. U
NickN said:
Geoff said: Meh. Sticking with Mint until someone suggests a good reason
I’d like to offer Ubuntu a massive thank-you for such a fabulous not to.
OS and providing a route to equally fab free software. I’m also
delighted that there’s another Ubuntu long-term release. However, I Thomas said:
have an even bigger thank-you to those Ubuntu-based distros and for I like Debian, but after a few hours trying to get my laptop to
my personal favourite, Mint. Mainly for replacing that awful Unity front- suspend or hibernate, an 18-minute Ubuntu install solved
end and giving us MATE and Cinnamon, which I’m happy to work with. everything. I use GNOME Classic, which I had to install after that.
On my Dell XPS, fan noise and other power features also all work in
JohnB said: Ubuntu, unlike Debian. I am going to be installing this in my classroom
Well, after trying Windows 8, at least I can find the shutdown as well, and will see how Unity is for middle school students.
button! Actually, compared to Win 8, Unity is much more intuitive
to use (IMHO, of course). I found I was able to find my way around Unity Tom O’Connell said:
much faster and I’ve been a Windows user exclusively since the early I switched to Ubuntu GNOME 8.10-11.10, tried 12.04, tnen went to
Nineties. Of course, Mint with Cinnamon is even easier to navigate and Mint 13 MATE with Ubuntu Software [Centre] and Ubuntu Tweak. I
to find the apps I need to use as well as the settings. see no reason to return to Ubuntu.

94 www.linuxuser.co.uk

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Under the Arch
I just read the ‘Under the Hood’ article from
issue 118. I’ve used both Arch and Gentoo
for years; they are very similar and both
excellent. I happen to prefer Gentoo for my own
personal use, and while Gentoo does not have
the mammoth community it once did, it has
overcome the challenges mentioned. Source-
based distros may become more important in
coming years, with the proliferation of Linux
onto a wide variety of devices.
As to the differences between these two
distributions, I think the main one is that Arch
provides pre-built packages and a secondary
capability to customise and build your own,
while Gentoo provides source packages and
assumes you want to build your own (and if you
have multiple similar machines, or you want to
create your own distribution, you may create
your own repository of binaries).
The Gentoo build system is constantly being
improved and is extremely powerful. If you have a
deep understanding of Linux, as well as end-user
computing hardware and software, and you
really want a highly customised, highly optimised
The ultimate resource for open source enthusiasts and professionals
• Latest news
• Reviews
• Tutorials
• Opinion
Never miss an update
Subscribe to our RSS feed today!
Your view
Canonical contributions, Ubuntu 12.10, Arch/Gentoo
LETTERS
source-based distro, Gentoo may be the better
choice. If you’re skilled but more ‘intermediate’
Got Android?
than ‘expert’, or you don’t want to ‘waste time With more and more
watching crap scroll by’ while you compile Android features being
packages for which your needs are no different merged back into
than anybody else’s, but you do want the flexibility the Linux kernel, it’s
to do without unwanted software and to build a becoming easier to
develop for one of the
few packages from source in order to obtain the
most popular mobile
customisations you want, Arch may be better. operating systems
If I were an Ubuntu (or similar) user looking to around. With over 25
start getting ‘under the hood’, I’d probably opt for billion app downloads,
Arch and then maybe explore Gentoo later on. and over 100 million Android devices worldwide,
John Brendler there’s a wide audience of folks ready and willing
to consume apps. For a more Android-driven
editorial, you can look to our sister mag Android
Arch is a bit kinder to the user trying to get into Magazine, the only publication dedicated to the
source-based distros – especially if they’re platform. Along with news and reviews to keep
used to something as repo-heavy as Ubuntu. you up to date on everything Android, there
It’s always going to be a steep learning curve are also tutorials and advice on developing
either way, but at least, as you say, Arch will let and hacking your hardware. Find out more at:
www.littlegreenrobot.co.uk
you fall back on pre-built packages.
Contact us @linuxusermag
Become a fan on
Linux User & Developer
The website for the
GNU Generation
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