Author: Sathya Bhat

Just couple of days ago, Canonical had announced the release of the second beta of Ubuntu Linux. I wanted to try out the second beta ( I haven’t tried the 10.04 series yet) – but being a beta version I thought I’ll do a Wubi install, instead of a traditional install. Once I mounted the ISO file and launched Wubi, I ran into a roadblock.

Wubi on the beta ISO proceeded to download the current stable version,i.e., Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, instead of proceeding to install Lucid. I thought I had downloaded the wrong ISO image, so I went back to the releases page, and just as I was about to redownload the ISO, I spotted at the very end of the page, a link to wubi.exe. Feeling curious to try it out, I proceeded to download, and voilà! Wubi install of Lucid was underway.

Bad news, however is that if you’ve already downloaded Lucid CD image, Wubi will proceed to re-download the ISO image. I tried putting my downloaded ISO image in wubi\install folder, and tried to start Wubi install. That, however, resulted in Wubi asking me to uninstall the existing version. In the end, I had to download the CD image again.

If you want to know more about Wubi and how to do a dual boot Windows and Linux install, do refer to our previous guide on dual booting Ubuntu and Windows using Wubi.

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I’ve owned couple of mobile phones now, all in increasing number of features. But the one thing that remained common amongst all of them, was the ability to use a tethered Internet connection in both Windows and Linux. Until I got the iPhone, that is. With the iPhone, I could no longer use the iPhone as a modem in Linux. Not anymore.

I was recently researching about claims that Ubuntu could sync with the iPhone, even the non-jailbroken ones. I was a little skeptical about this. What I found was libimobiledevice, and the iPhone Ethernet driver for Linux. I’ll write on libimobiledevice at a later day.

Let’s have a look at the USB Ethernet driver: The iPhone USB Ethernet driver was written by Diego Giagio, and is a kernel driver which adds support for iPhone tethering through USB cables. Like libimobiledevice, the driver doesn’t require you to jailbreak your iPhone, so bonus marks here.

Let’s start on how we can achieve this. This post is written from a Ubuntu/Debian system perspective, if you’re using some other distribution, the steps should remain same, with the exception of getting the packages via your favourite package manager.

First: Get the source from Diego’s git repository. If you don’t have git installed, open the terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install git-core

Once git is installed, get the source for the drivers

git clone git://github.com/dgiagio/ipheth.git

The output should be something like

sathya@shaman:~$ git clone git://github.com/dgiagio/ipheth.git
Initialized empty Git repository in /home/shaman/ipheth/.git/
remote: Counting objects: 10, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (9/9), done.
remote: Total 10 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)
Receiving objects: 100% (10/10), 8.11 KiB, done.
sathya@shaman:~$

Now, compile the pairing program.

cd ipheth/ipheth-pair

make

You should get an output like:

sathya@shaman:~/ipheth/ipheth-pair$ make
gcc -Wall -O2 ipheth-pair.c -o ipheth-pair -liphone

Next, type:

sudo make install

You should get an output like:

sathya@shaman:~/ipheth/ipheth-pair$ sudo make install
install -m 0755 ipheth-pair /lib/udev/
install -m 0644 90-iphone-tether.rules /etc/udev/rules.d
/sbin/udevadm control –reload-rules
sathya@shaman:~/ipheth/ipheth-pair$

Compile the Kernel driver:

cd ipheth/ipheth-driver

make

You should get an output like:

sathya@shaman:~$ cd ipheth/ipheth-driver
sathya@shaman:~/ipheth/ipheth-driver$ make
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.28-15-generic/build M=/home/sathya/ipheth/ipheth-driver modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.28-15-generic’
CC [M] /home/sathya/ipheth/ipheth-driver/ipheth.o
Building modules, stage 2.
MODPOST 1 modules
CC /home/sathya/ipheth/ipheth-driver/ipheth.mod.o
LD [M] /home/sathya/ipheth/ipheth-driver/ipheth.ko
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.28-15-generic’
sathya@shaman:~/ipheth/ipheth-driver$

The kernel module is ready. Now load the module.

sudo insmod ipheth.ko

We’re all set to try the new driver out. Now connect the iPhone. The iPhone should get detected, as shown in the picture.

To confirm that the USB Ethernet driver is in use, open the terminal and type

dmesg | grep iPhone

You should get an output like:

sathya@shaman:~/ipheth/ipheth-driver$ dmesg | grep iPhone
[22871.808469] ipheth 2-2:4.2: Apple iPhone USB Ethernet device attached

Yay! That means the USB Ethernet driver is ready. Lets switch on Tethering on the iPhone.

Lets see what happens. Prior to installing the driver, I would get no notification and nothing would happen. Not now.

To confirm that we have indeed connected using iPhone let’s have a look at Network Manager connections:

And there you go, iPhone tethering on Linux!

Notes:
1: You _need_ to have tethering working. From what I know, tethering is not officially allowed under AT&T’s plan, so I don’t think this method will work.
2: I was unable to compile the pairing program. I’m not sure why the compilation failed. Despite this, the Kernel driver works work. I assume that the pairing program is required if you need Bluetooth tethering.
3: I tested this on my iPhone 3G running on iPhone OS 3.1.2. Although mine is a jailbroken iPhone, the author mentions that jailbreaking is not required.

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In a surprising turnaround,  Songbird developers Pioneers of The Inevitable (POTI Inc.) announced on their blog that they will no longer be supporting Songbird on Linux platforms. The developers cite their intent to support an increasing number of devices and a focus on narrow set of priorities meant that they would no longer be able to deliver Songbird as an outstanding product on Linux. This, the developers say,  would not be the right thing to do.

As posted on their blog,

Some of you have noticed that the Linux version has fallen behind, leading to some heated, but healthy debate internally about how to prioritize the development hopper. After careful consideration, we’ve come to the painful conclusion that we should discontinue support for the Linux version of Songbird. Some of you may wonder how a company with deep roots in Open Source could drop Linux and we want you to know it isn’t without heartache.
 We have a small engineering team here at Songbird, and, more than ever, must stay very focused on a narrow set of priorities.

The developers state that they will continue to run the build bots and host the Linux builds on the developer wiki. However this seems like a pointless exercise, especially considering that the Linux version will not be tested and is unlikely to pick up any new features.

Songbird is an open source Media Jukebox and media-oriented Web Browser built on Mozilla’s XULRunner framework with an extensively skinnable interface using what Songbird calls as “Feathers” and features add-on support to change the functionality.

I recently started using Songbird on Linux, and found it to be pretty decent. Will you miss Songbird ? Do drop a comment and let us know.

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Welcome to another edition of FOSS Friday, where we wrap up the week’s news and tips on FOSS.

News

• Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Beta 1 now available

After a delay of a day due to certain critical issues, Canonical has announced the availability of first beta Ubuntu 10.04. Apart from being a Long Term Support (LTS) release the 10.04 version gets a visual facelift, dropping its traditional brown colour scheme for a much lighter colour scheme.

• OpenSolaris will live

OpenSolaris users have been apprehensive about the long term availability of the OS, especially considering the fact that Oracle now owns Solaris due to its acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Adding to the uncertainty, there was barely any mention about OpenSolaris when Oracle executives discussed their plans for Solaris in the near future. To dispell these fears, Dan Roberts, director of Solaris product management at Oracle stated “Oracle will continue to make OpenSolaris available as open source, and Oracle will continue to actively support and participate in the community”.

• Linus Torvalds named most influential open source blogger

A study conducted by Infoworld concludes that Linus Torvalds is the most influential open source blogger, and that his opinions are considered as highly regarded in the Open Source world. Joining him in the list are other promineent open source voices, including Tim O’Reilly, Google’s Chris Messina, and Mono founder Miguel de Icaza.

Tips And Features

• Ubuntu 10.04’s five best new features

Popular Linux blogger and evagelist SJVN talks about the new Ubuntu 10.04’s best new features – which include a manual(!), extensive integration with popular social networking sites and the fantastic new theme.

• Some FOSS Financial and Accounting software

Tech Source has a compilation of some awesome FOSS financial and accounting software including Grisbi, jGnash and KMyMoney. Iif you ask me however, GnuCash is my preferred utility.

• Two note taking applications compared

LinuxInsider compares two note taking applications, XPad and Tomboy. If you use Tomboy across several machines, Clif Sipe has a neat tip to keep all your notes the same across several machines using Dropbox.

That’s it for this edition of FOSS Friday. Do post a comment if you would like to add a tip or two or have any suggestions!

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If you dig racing games, and are a fan of the Need For Speed series, then here’s some good news. EA has started the closed beta testing of their upcoming massively multiplayer Need For Speed game, Need For Speed: World.

EA mentions that there would be multiple closed beta sessions, with most sessions occuring every other week. To participate in the beta, just head over to this page and click on Apply for Beta.
Need For Speed will be oriented towards arcade gamers, and is said to incorporate best features from Need For Speed:  Most Wanted and Need For Speed: Carbon – including extensive tuning, customizing, cop chases (yay!), adds in some MMO features like a power up system,“deep RPG style progression” and puts it in a persistent online world. Here’s hoping that I can get an invite soon!

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It has been one heck of a week for gaming enthusiasts – let’s have a quick recap on what’s been going on.

• Ubisoft’s servers DRM servers, which are used to authenticate games like Assassin’s Creed II went down, rendering all legit users copies useless as they were unable to play the game. Ubisoft was quick to point out that the servers were down because of hackers – like paying customers are going to give a damn about why they aren’t able to play a $60 single player game without an Internet connection.
• Mac gamers were delighted when Valve announced that all of their Source engine games, including Portal 2 would be ported over to the Mac. Pretty certain Mac gamers went ballistic after Valve’s confirmation that existing  owners will not have to purchase the games again, and the games would be native to Mac, and not emulated crap.
• OnLive, the online gaming service which allows you to play games similar to how you can stream movies using Netflix or Hulu, announced that their service would go live on June 15.  If you have a good enough Internet connection and the $15 per month fee plus additional fees for actually owning/renting the game  doesn’t deter you, then OnLive just might be a good option.
• Sony finally realizes that motion controlled gaming is the “in” thing, and introduces us to a rather silly named contraption, the PlayStation Move.
• Palm announced that the awesome Unreal Engine 3 has been ported over to webOS. Wonder if will boost Palm’s fortunes significantly.
• To round off, Steam has been having an Eidos Square Enix Deals week, and on the final day we have Batman: Arkham Asylum and Just Cause on sale at 50% off for individual games, and at 66% off for the full collection.

Happy gaming weekend, everyone!

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As mentioned earlier, Steam is featuring an Eidos Square Enix deals week. Day 2 features two Wargaming classics:  Battlestations and Order of War.

Just like day 1

• Each game of Battlestations and Order of War is available at 50% off.
• Purchasing the Batlestations pack ( Battlestations: Midway and Battlestations Pacific) will result in savings of 60%
• Purchase all the games for a whopping 66% off.

So go get these Wargaming classics while you can!

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Earlier, we had posted about Valve’s Portal 2 and other Source engine based games headed onto the Mac. Now if that wasn’t good enough news, you have lot more to be happy about. In a post explaining some of the most commonly asked questions, that they have received via email, Valve has  confirmed the following points:

• You will not have to purchase the Mac version of Team Fortress 2, if you own the PC version. Alternatively, once the Mac version is available, purchasing it would mean that you own the PC version as well
• Team Fortress 2 will not running under emulation, via Cider / SwiftShader /API wrappers / what not. The build will be a clean native code build running on OS X.
• Mac and PC users will be able to play against each other simultaneously.

So Mac folks, get your gaming gear ready and warm up to frag your PC counterparts!

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We love Steam for its awesome deals, and this week all you fans of Eidos Interactive ( now a subsidiary of Square Enix) are going to be in for a treat. Steam is featuring an Eidos Square Enix deals week, and up for sale on day one are two legendary game franchises – the Deus Ex and Hitman series.

The deal is as follows:

• Each game of the Deus Ex and Hitman franchise is up for sale at 50% ( $4.99 instead of the regular $9.99)
• 60% off on Hitman and and Deus Ex game bundles.
• Purchase all the games for a whopping 66% off.

So whatcha waiting for ? Go grab ‘em bundles!

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Portal, the short but extremely brilliant and critically acclaimed shooter, will be out for the Mac, in addition to the PC release. The confirmation of this news comes via image scans of the latest edition of GameInformer magazine as reported on Macrumours, which features Portal 2 as the cover story. Since the past couple of days, Valve had been hinting Portal’s imminent release for the Mac via teaser images which closely resemble Apple’s cult advertisements.

The hints were further boosted by a beta version of Steam ( Steam is Valve’s digital delivery and content management platform), which moved away from IE’s rendering engine to a Webkit based rendering engine, dumping the platform specific lockdown. Some enterprising folks had found OS X menu components in the Steam file directory, further providing proof of Portal 2 and Steam heading to the Mac.

For those living under a rock, Portal is an FPS game where the player must solve a series of puzzles by teleporting using what is known as the portal gun. The player is continuously egged-on by a voice-over AI, known as GLaDOS. Upon completion of the puzzles,  the user said to be rewarded with a cake .

Are you excited about Portal 2 coming for the Mac ? How many of you have played the original Portal ? Do drop a comment and let us know.

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Awhile back we had mentioned about Google committing to use of Ext4 as the filesystem for their servers. Google Senior Engineer Michael Rubin had explained that after a  lot of performance testing of the available filesystems, they came to a conclusion that ext4 was best suited to their needs.

Well, Phoronix conducted few tests of their own, pitting Ext4 against Reiser4, Brtfs and the original ReiserFS. They used their inhouse Phoronix test suite with the SQLite, Compile Bench, and IOzone tests, on an Intel Core i3 530 processor operating at 3.31GHz, an ECS Elitegroup H55H-M motherboard, 2GB of DDR3 system memory, and a 64GB OCZ Vertex SSD.

The results made up for an interesting analysis. Reiser4 was the fastest performing file system in 5 of the 7 tests. Brtfs was pretty fast, and Ext4 couldn’t perform as well as either ReiserFS or Brtfs, with the orignal ReiserFS trailing the pack. Given that that Google would’ve done lot more tests than Phoronix might have, it is prudent to assume that Google believes that the performance benefits gained by the transition to Reiser4 or Brtfs would be negligible, especially considering that the fact that Ext4 is backward compatible with Ext2.

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Barely a month after the release of KDE SC 4.4.0, the KDE team has announced the immediate release of point version, KDE SC 4.4.1.

The point release contains updated translations and numerous bug fixes, most prominent of which include

• Performance improvements in KMail when sending mails
• Various fixes in Plasma widgets and other addons, such as the analog clock and the picture frame
• A number of fixes in Konsole

For those interested in knowing all the little details, have a look at the entire changelog over here.

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Amarok 1.4 was probably one of the best media players for Linux, and arguably one of the best media players around. Amarok 2.0 was a radical departure from its previous versions and was not well received by quite a lot of Amarok users. If you’re one of the folks who feel that Amarok 1.4 should not have been touched upon, well this new ongoing project might interest you.

David Sansome and John McGuire have been working on a project, which aims to port Amarok 1.4 to Qt4 and rewrite it to make full use of Qt4 features. The project has been christened as “clementine-player”.

Features:

• Ability to search and play your local music library
• Listen to internet radio from Last.fm and SomaFM
• Edit tags on MP3 and OGG files.
• Works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux
• Native desktop notifications using libnotify on Linux  and Growl on Mac OS X

The player is still in very much early stages, and the pending features include

• Automatic addition of files from disk to music library
• iPod and MP3 player support
• Global shortcut keys on Windows and Mac OS X
• Loading and saving of playlists

Clementine for Linux

Clementine for Mac OS X

Clementine for Windows

The project certainly seems interesting and Techie-Buzz will cover it as it progresses. If you wish it try it out, do check out the download page.

(Image credit).

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If you’re new to KDE4 or KDE for that matter, you might be a little bit lost in trying to customize it, especially when it comes to themes and wallpapers. Here’s how you can change them.

Right-click on the desktop and left-click “Desktop Activity”

Desktop Activity

Desktop settings opens up.

Desktop Settings

From the above screenshot – you’ll see two options – open, and Get New Wallpapers. By clicking on Open you can browser to the directory where all your images are stored, select it and set it as your wallpaper.

Select the required wallpaper

Once you’re chosen your required wallpaper, hit apply, and your selected image will be set as the wallpaper.

Selected wallpaper is set

If you don’t have too many wallpapers on your system, or prefer getting some excellent wallpapers from outside sources, KDE4 provides a neat way to get and install them. At the Desktop Settings screen, click on the Get New Wallpapers button.

KDE 4.4 Get Hot New Wallpapers

You’ll get the Plasma Addon installer screen. The screen gives you various options to get your desired wallpaper. You can sort by highest ratings, downloads, most popular, or just enter a search criteria of your own. Once you’ve selected your wallpaper, just click on the Install button, and the wallpaper will be ready to be installed.

Choose your wallpaper

Hit the close button to head back to the previous screen. You’ll see that the wallpaper is available, just select it, and hit Apply. Your new wallpaper is ready!

Your new wallpaper is ready!

Let us have a look at how you can change themes. Like wallpapers, you can change themes by downloading from the Internet or by using the Get Hot New Stuff interface. We’ll use the Get Hot New Stuff interface. The screen for changing themes is a bit hidden, we’ll have to goto Desktop settings (read: Personal Settings / Configure Desktop)  first.  Once there, click on Appearance.

Desktop Settings

Once in Appearance, click on Styles and Workspace tab. Then proceed to click on Get New Themes.

Get new themes

Select a theme which you like, and click on the install button. Then click on close to go back to the theme selection screen. Click on the theme and click Apply. That’s it, your new theme is installed!

If you want to change individual aspects of the theme, mix and match best elements of multiple themes, head back to Personal Settings, and click on the Advanced tab, and from there select Desktop Theme details

Desktop Theme Details

Once in, mix and match and customize till you’re happy with the final results!

Your masterpiece!

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Earlier we at Techie-Buzz had reported about StarCraft II closed beta program starting soon. For those eagerly waiting, well wait no more ( or perhaps, just few more days). StarCraft Legacy reports that many people  have started the beta client downloads for the most eagerly anticipated RTS title.

StarCraft II Installer

While it is not certain as to what is the criteria for folks getting the beta download links, it is certain that beta invites are being sent out in batches. StarCraft Legacy also points to a new beta portal where beta testers can get information about the patches coming out and provide feedback on the game.

While you’re waiting for those invites, you might want to check out some interviews G4TV has posted with some core members of the StarCraft II team.

So are you amongst the lucky few who have got access to the beta ? How’s the experience been ? Do share your views in the comments section!

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The openSUSE Marketing team today made a surprising announcement, stating that KDE SC 4.3.5 will be pushed to users as an online update, rather than an optional update from the openSUSE build service. The team mentions that the fact that this release fixed many bugs convinced the team to make it available via the online update service.

As a consequence of this, the KDE4.3 repository ( Build Service KDE:43 ) will no longer be in use and users are requested to remove this repository from the installation sources, present in YaST.

If you’d like to skip past KDE 4.3.5 and go directly to KDE 4.4, do check out our guide to update to KDE 4.4.

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Earlier, the KDE team had announced the availability of version 4.4 of the popular desktop environment, KDE. I’m a big KDE fan, and have been a KDE user since KDE 3.5. Despite the criticism faced by KDE4 for its initial release, I’ve always been impressed by KDE. I’d been running the RC2 version of KDE 4.4 since it was made available. And today I’ve upgraded to the release version.

Here are some screenshots of the DE:

KDE 4.4 in its barebones view

KDE 4.4 in its default avatar

The folder view plasmoid in KDE 4.4 – indeed I’m hovering my mouse pointer over the folder, not clicking on it!

Folder View Plasmoid in KDE 4.4

Revamped interface for adding new Plasmoids on to desktop. As you can see, the widgets (“Plasmoids” ) are categorized, and can also be searched.

Add new widgets or "Plasmoids" as they are known

Multiple windows can now be grouped into one, providing a tabbed interface across windows. Individual windows can be further split and remote protocols do work

Multiple windows grouped into a single window

KWin’s composition engine is now a lot smoother, faster and my preferred composition engine

CoverFlow effect of switching tasks in KWin

KDE 4.4 comes with Amarok 2.2.2 as the music player. Amarok can make use of KNotify for displaying Now Playing information, instead of its OSD feature.

Amarok 2.2.2 on KDE 4.4

KRunner functions well as an application launcher, as well as a search bar

KRunner functions well as an application launcher

Konqueror is a fine browser, based on KHTML – the foundation for WebKit. However Gmail is not fully supported under Konqueror

Konqueror

So, what’re your thoughts about KDE 4.4 ? Or are you still hanging onto KDE 3.5 ? Post a comment and do let us know!

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