SB Backup

SBackup is a simple backup solution for the Ubuntu desktop. It allows you to backup selected files and directories, define the file size limit, use regular expressions to exclude files and folders, and much more. These backups can then be saved locally, on removal media or even on remote directory. Let’s see how to install and configure SBackup for creating a backup and restore solution for an Ubuntu machine.

Install SBackup

Type the following command to install SBackup on your Ubuntu machine:

sudo apt-get install sbackup

Backing up using SBackup

Once installed SBackup will be available under System \ Administration \ Simple Backup Config.

SBackup window will look like the one below:

As you can see on the first tab “General”, there are 3 options for making backup. Depending on your need you can choose the one that you want to use. It can be used in 3 modes.

1. Use recommended backup settings

    Has all the default settings. All you have to do is click “Backup now” button to backup the default files and folders.

2. Use custom backup settings

    This one is for custom backups where the user can define what she/he wants to backup on a regular basis. This setting can be configured for automatic backups

3. Manual backups only

    This option should be used if you do not want to have regular automatic backups. You can backup manually whenever you think you need backups.

However, for the sake of this demo let’s use “Use custom backup settings”.

The next tab is “include” which let’s you define the folders and files you want to include while creating a backup. You can click add a file or folder by clicking the respective buttons.

The third tab is “exclude”. Here you can define, path, filetypes, regex and maximum size for exclusion criteria. For example you have added a directory included for backup, but you don’t want to backup files larger than 50 MB, you can use the exclude tab to define it.

The fourth tab is “Destination”. This one is used to define the destination location where you want to save the backup file.

As you can see there are 3 options for setting up destination backup location. The first one is the default location /var/backup/. The second option can be used to define the custom backup destination. The third option is used when you want the backup destination on a remote location.

The fifth tab is to set up schedule of backup. This one is pretty self explanatory.

The last tab “purging” is about how the old backup files will be handled. You can choose from one of the 2 options. In my case I am leaving it as the default selection which is Logarithmic (Recommended).

We are done with configuring all the settings. All that is left is to click the “Save” button for the backup settings to be effective. However, you can also click “Backup Now !” button to make an instant backup.

Restoring from a backup

In order to restore from an existing backup go to System \ Administration \ System Backup Restore.

Select from the available backups, the one that you want to restore.

If you are looking for a quality backup app for your Linux desktop, SBackup is a great choice.

Links

http://sourceforge.net/projects/sbackup/

The problem is most likely because ClearType is not enabled by default when you setup Windows in a virtual machine. For example, take a look at these two shots:

Without ClearType (notice the jaggy fonts)

With ClearType:

The second screenshot is a lot more readable, especially on an LCD screen.

Enable ClearType in XP

Head into the Display Properties via the desktop context menu, open up the Appearance tab and click the Effects button.

Then change the drop-down to ClearType instead of Standard.

The changes should happen immediately, and no more jaggy screen fonts in your virtual machine. I would also show you how to enable ClearType in Windows Vista, but I can’t think of any good reason why you would use Vista in a VM instead of XP.

Install Amarok

In case you don’t have Amarok, you can install it by dropping down to terminal. To open a terminal window click ALT+F2 and type “gnome-terminal” (without quotes).

Or from the menu Applications \ Terminal.

In the terminal window, type the following command and wait a couple of moments while Amarok is installed.

sudo apt-get install amarok

In order to enable support for mp3 format, type the following commands on your terminal window one by one.

sudo apt-get install libxine1-ffmpeg

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-restricted-extras

Managing Your iPod

Before we can start using an iPod with Amarok, let’s make it’s the default player to manage your iPod. When you plug in your iPod, the following window will pop up.

By default Rythmbox Music Player selected. From the drop down menu select “Open with other Application” and from the Add Application window and select Amarok.

If you want to make Amarok the default application to open your iPod in future, check the box “Always perform this action” and Click Ok.

Managing iPod in Amarok

Now that we have made Amarok as the default application to launch your iPod we can easily transfer files to iPod. Go to Collection in Amarok, Right-click the file you want to transfer to iPod and click copy to collection and select iPod.

That’s it! The song is now copied to iPod. You can also select multiple tracks to transfer them simultaneously.

This should get you started with managing your iPod with Amarok on your Ubuntu machine.

http://amarok.kde.org/

OpenOffice is a free and powerful alternative to Microsoft Office and is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac. The suite includes an alternative for the 4 major MS office apps like Word, Excel, Access, Publisher and PowerPoint. Here we will take a quick look at each of the applications available in OpenOffice 3.1 for Windows. This should give you an idea of what you can expect if you make the switch or are just starting out with it.

Open Office 3

The installation process is similar to that of MS Office and you can choose which features to install.

Writer

Writer is your alternative to MS Word and will handle most of your document creation needs.

Calc

Calc is the Excel alternative and has similar features that will allow most users to work with spreadsheets, including those created in the MS app.

Impress

This is the alternative to PowerPoint and includes a lot of the same features. It provides you with templates to create, give, and publish professional looking presentations.

Draw

This is a vector graphics editor which is an alternative to MS Publisher. It includes a lot of features included in other desktop publishing software. You can add clip art from the Open Clip Art Library to ad unique images to your documents.

Conclusion

OpenOffice may not have all of the features that MS power users crave, but it comes close. If you are a fan of the Ribbon feature in Office 2007, you won’t see that here. Another cool thing about OpenOffice is that it’s available in a portable version so you can take it around with you on a flash drive, and is included with several Linux distributions. OpenOffice can open docx files but isn’t able to save them in that format, but MS can now open and save documents in the Open Document format. Because of that you should have little problem interchanging documents between the two. If you are looking for document creation capabilities of MS Office, but don’t want to shell out the money, OpenOffice is a great choice.

Download Open Office for Windows, Linux or Mac

Also check out our look at IBM Lotus Symphony which is built on Open Office.

IBM Lotus Symphony

Exaile is a solid choice for Ubuntu users to manage their music collections. It incorporates automatic fetching of album art, lyrics, artist/album information via Wikipedia, Last.fm scrobbling. It also supports Internet radio services like Shoutcast, includes tabbed playlists, and supports your iPod and other portable music players.

Install Exaile 0.3.0 on Ubuntu

Let’s take a look at how to install Exaile 0.3 on Ubuntu 9.04. The first step in the process is to get PPA added to your software sources list. Go to System \ Administration \ Software Sources.

Go the the tab that reads Third Party Software and add the following:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/exaile-devel/ubuntu jaunty main

Adding the OpenPGP security key

1. Go to the Exaile PPA page (At the end of the post)

2. Download the signing key 1024R/43CBFCC0 (At the end of the post) from the PPA page.

3. Copy the key information on to gedit and save the file as Exaile on your desktop.

4. Import the Exaile OpenPGP key (that you saved on your desktop) by going to the Authentication tab on software sources window.

Install Exaile

Drop down to terminal and type the following commands

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install exaile

This should download and install Exaile 0.3.0 on your machine which takes a couple minutes.

Running Exaile

You can run Exaile by going to:

Applications > Sounds & Videos > Exaile Music Player

If you are a Linux user and want a cool way to play and manage your music collection, you might want to give Exaile a try.

Download Exaile 0.3.0.1

Installation & Setup

Installation is quick and straightforward with a total of nine install windows to go through. When the installation is complete, it is recommended to allow Tux Paint Config to launch. This will help you get everything set up nicely before running Tux Paint.

When Tux Paint Config launches, it will start with the “About Tab”. Notice at the bottom that there are options regarding “Current User” versus “All Users”, the ability to apply individual changes, resetting the Config, selecting Defaults, and the Config exit.

In the “Video/Sound Tab” area you should choose the screen display size that best suits your needs since you will not be able to resize the Tux Paint Window while the program is running. You can also choose to rotate the screen sizes (width and height), allow a screensaver, enable/disable sound effects, and use an alternate color palette.

The “Mouse/Keyboard Tab” area lets you decide if you would like to use “Fancy Cursor Shapes”, to hide the cursor if desired, enable/disable keyboard shortcuts, and the options that you would like to have active for your mouse while Tux Paint is running.

In the “Simplification Tab” area you can make choices regarding Tux Paint Stamps, text case, Magic Controls, and the ability to disable the “Quit Button” and “Escape Key”.

You can choose the display language desired, Stamp Mirroring, and what you would like Tux Paint to do with your system’s fonts in the “Language Tab” area.

In the “Printing Tab” area you can make any modifications desired for printing in Tux Paint.

The “Saving Tab” area gives you some wonderful choices in how to handle saving images (especially helpful to keep from accidentally overwriting a saved image). You can also choose to have Tux Paint always start with a blank canvas, use an alternate save directory, disable the “Quit Button”, and enable auto-saving pictures on program exit (terrific!).

The “Data Tab” area lets you disable the “Lockfile” (to run multiple instances) and the option to use an alternate data directory.

At this point you will have completed the configuration for Tux Paint and can exit Tux Paint Config (program does not auto-start after closing). Before starting Tux Paint you should install the Stamps first if you want the extra functionality added to Tux Paint…

Install the Stamps

As with the main program, there are a total of nine install windows to go through with this install file. Here you can see that the Stamps will be installed in the Tux Paint folder in Program Files…

Note: The Tux Paint Stamps can be added in at a later time, but it does make it very nice to have everything already installed before starting to use Tux Paint.

You will be able to select the stamps that you would like to install for Tux Paint (very nice!).

The shortcuts for the Stamps will also be added to the Tux Paint folder in your Start Menu to keep everything easy to find and very organized for you (nice!).

Tux Paint in Action

Once you have finished installing the Stamps (if desired), this is what the Main Window will look like. Everything is easy to access and ready for lots of fun!

Note: You will not be able to resize this window while Tux Paint is running. To make window size changes, close Tux Paint and access the Tux Paint Config.

Here is an image that we fixed with Tux Paint…definitely a great program to have fun with!

Conclusion

Tux Paint is a terrific program for your children (or you) to have hours and hours of fun with. This is definitely a recommended install for everyone’s family computer.

Links

Download Tux Paint & Tux Paint Stamps

Works On: Windows 95 – Vista, Linux, and Mac OS X +

Installed On: Windows Vista (32 bit), Service Pack 2

Scribus is an Open Source program that brings award-winning professional page layout to Linux/UNIX, Mac OS X, OS/2 Warp 4/e ComStation and Windows desktops with a combination of “press-ready” output and new approaches to page layout. Underneath the modern and user friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as CMYK color, separations, Spot Colors, ICC color management and versatile PDF creation.

Installation

Here we take a look at installing Scribus on our Ubuntu system.

First, bring up the Synaptic Package Manager by going to System \ Administration \ Synaptic Package Manager.

Search for the package called as scribus. Select the necessary packages that you want to install by Right-clicking them and hitting mark for installation. I selected the following packages.

• scribus – Scribus 1.3.3.x (stable branch)
• scribus-ng – Scribus 1.3.x (development branch) scribus-ng package can be installed paralelly to the scribus package
• scribus-template – developer and user-contributed additional templates
• scribus-doc – Scribus 1.3.3.x documentation
• icc-profiles – a collection of common ICC profiles to use with Scribus and other color profile-aware software
• lprof – hardware color profiler that can be used to create color profiles for your hardware to be used with Scribus
• qt3-qtconfig – Ubuntu users are strongly advised to install this package for finetuning the Scribus GUI with their Gnome desktop

Click the Apply Button to start installing the application.

Depending on the speed of your Internet connection the package will be downloaded and installed.

Using Scribus

You can start Scribus by going to Applications \ Graphics \ Scribus.

The following is how the application looks. The interface is pretty intuitive to use.

Let’s quickly create a quick letter head and save the file as PDF.

1. Open a new Scribus document.

2. Click on Insert \ Shape to insert a rectangle as shown below. By default the color of the rectangle shape is black.

3. In order to change the color of the shape, right click on it and click properties to bring up the properties window.

4. Click color to change the color of the box. Following is how it looks:

5. Now let’s get the image for our letter head. Make sure you have your image ready. Click on Insert \ Image Frame to insert an Image frame. (Note: This does not inserts image, it only inserts the frame). It should look something like this:

6. In order to insert the image in the image frame right click the image frame you just created and click Get Image.

7. Locate and select the image to insert it.

8. Now let’s create the title of the letter head. To do so click, Insert \ Text Frame. Right click on the frame and click Edit Text to bring up the text editing box. Enter the title of your letter head.

9. Let’s save this letter head in PDF format. Click File \ Export \ Save as PDF. The PDF file looks like this:

That’s it! The letter head is ready for use. If you are looking for a quality desktop publishing tool for Linux Scribus is definitely worth a look.

Scribus Homepage

Earlier you had to compile the program on your Linux machine to be able to use it. However, the developer(s) have come out with an easy solution by releasing deb files for the same.

Features of OpenShot

• Support for many video, audio, and image formats (based on FFmpeg)
• Gnome integration (drag and drop support)
• Multiple tracks
• Clip resizing, trimming, snapping, and cutting
• Video transitions with real-time previews
• Compositing, image overlays, watermarks
• Title templates, title creation
• Solid color clips (including alpha compositing)
• Support for Rotoscoping / Image sequences
• Drag and drop timeline
• Frame stepping, key-mappings: J,K, and L keys
• Video encoding (based on FFmpeg)

Download and Install OpenShot on Ubuntu

In order to run and start using OpenShot on Ubuntu we will have to download the respective deb file and install it. Download the respective deb file based on the version of your Ubuntu and CPU from the download page (link below). You’ll also have to download the dependency package from the same page (dependencies_32_904.tar.gz)

Install OpenShot On Ubuntu

Once you have downloaded the respective deb files (The main package and dependency files) start the installation by installing the dependencies first. Double click the dependency package (dependencies_32_904.tar.gz) and install all the 4 deb files:

1. openshot-ffmpeg_git-2623d8f-1_i386.deb
2. openshot-frei0r_1.1.22-1_i386.deb
3. openshot-mlt_0.4.3-1_i386.deb
4. openshot-x264_0.67.1173-1_i386.deb

Once you have installed all the dependency package we’ll install the main package (openshot.deb). Double click the package to install it.

Running OpenShot

Once installed you can run the OpenShot video editor by going to Applications \ Sound & Video  \ OpenShot Video Editor.

The main interface is nicely laid out and easy to use.

Importing the video in OpenShot

Importing videos for editing is very easy all you have to do is click File \ Import Files.

Exporting videos is very easy and you can export your video in multiple formats. Click the red button to export the edited video.

You can choose from several different effects and video settings.

List of Features

The following is an impressive full list of features for OpenShot:

• Support for many video, audio, and image formats (based on FFmpeg)
• Gnome integration (drag and drop support)
• Multiple tracks
• Clip resizing, trimming, snapping, and cutting
• Video transitions with real-time previews
• Compositing, image overlays, watermarks
• Title templates, title creation
• Solid color clips (including alpha compositing)
• Support for Rotoscoping / Image sequences
• Drag and drop timeline
• Frame stepping, key-mappings: J,K, and L keys
• Video encoding (based on FFmpeg)

OpenShot is a stable and easy to use video editor for Ubuntu and is also available in Spanish, French, and Italian.

Download OpenShot for Ubuntu Linux

Description

(AWN/Awn) is a dock-like navigation bar for the Linux desktop that positions itself at the bottom of the screen. It can be used to keep track of open windows and behaves like a normal window list.

Final Result

Installation

We are going to install the testing package of AWN via the developer’s PPA (Personal Package Archive). I am using Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope).

Adding the PPA Repositories

1. Go to the PPA page (Mentioned at the end of the post) and choose your Ubuntu version (In my case it’s Jaunty (9.04).

2. We’ll now add the sources.list entries to software sources, for Ubuntu 9.04 to know about the repositories.

3. To do so go to System > Administration > Software Sources.

4. Go to the tab that reads Third-Party Software.

5. Click the Add… button and add the following lines one by one.

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/awn-testing/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/awn-testing/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

The final result should look like this (Make sure both the check boxes are checked).

Don’t close this window as yet. Follow the steps below to add the PPA keys associated with AWN.

Adding the PPA keys

On the same AWN Testing PPA page (Mentioned at the end of the post), you’ll see a line that reads Signing Keys.

1. Click on the link 1024R/BF810CD5 and you’ll reach the public key server page.

2. Open gedit by hitting ALT+F2 and typing gedit. Copy the code under “—–BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK—–” in your gedit.

3. Save the file as PGPAWN on your desktop.

4. We’ll now import this PGP (PGPAWN) security key. On the Software Sources Window select the tab that reads “Authentication” and click “Import Key File…”. Locate the PGPAWN file which we saved on desktop and import it.

5. Now click the Close button to close Software Sources windows. You’ll be prompted with a message to reload.

6. Click reload to update the software sources.

Installing AWN-Window-Navigator and AWN-Extras

1. Open a terminal window by hitting ALT+F2 and typing “gnome-terminal” (without quotes).

2. Copy and paste the following line in your terminal window to install AWN-Navigator.

sudo apt-get install avant-window-navigator-trunk

3. Type “y” to install.

Similarly we’ll install AWN-extras-applets by pasting the following lines in the terminal window.

sudo apt-get install awn-extras-applets-trunk

Launching Avant-Window-Navigator

You can now launch AWN by going to Applications > Accessories > Avant Window Navigator.

You’ll now have AWN running. It should look this:

Doesn’t look so great. Right! Let’s pimp it up and make it a real eye candy dock.

Delete the panel

In the above screenshot you’d notice a panel behind the dock. Let’s get rid of it.

Right Click on the panel and click “Delete This Panel”. Confirm by hitting the Delete button.

With the panel gone, AWN looks neat but not as neat as we want it to look. So let’s see how we can pimp it up.

Configuring Avant Window Navigator

Click on the first icon which is “AWN-Manager” to bring up the AWN Manager window.

General Preferences

1. Under the General Preferences in the General Tab, check the box which reads “Automatically start AWN on login”. This would make sure that AWN is started with every new session of Ubuntu.

2. I’ll also check the box that reads “Maximized windows don’t cover the bar” so that I have AWN visible all the time (You’ll have to restart AWN for this setting to take affect)

Bar Appearance

I don’t like the flat bar so I’ll go to the tab that reads “Bar Appearance” and under the drop down menu Looks, select “3D look”.

As a result of this your AWN bar will look like this:

You can experiment with rest of the settings.

Adding Applets to your AWN

Don’t settle with just the above configuration. We can add various Applets to our dock.

Start AWN Manager and select Applets.

From the list of avaialble applets select the one you want to have on your dock. I added a few

Theme AWN

Avant Window Navigator comes with a decent theme. However, there is an option of adding more themes. You can download the themes from the official theme page mentioned at the end of this post.

1. Download the theme from the theme page.

2. Open AWN Manager and select Themes.

3. Click Add to install the theme

Click Apply to use the selected theme. You can select a theme that best compliments your desktop wallpaper. Feel free to try other settings to see how creative you can get!

Links

Avant Window Navigator Home Page

http://wiki.awn-project.org/Main_Page

AWN Testing PPA page

https://launchpad.net/~awn-testing/+archive/ppa

Awn Theme Page

http://wiki.awn-project.org/Themes

Note:  For this article we are using version 3.0.2 on a Windows 7 (32-bit) guest OS.

Install Guest Additions for Windows

Guest Additions installs on the guest system and includes device drivers and system applications that optimize performance of the machine.  Launch the guest OS in VirtualBox and click on Devices and Install Guest Additions.

The AutoPlay window opens on the guest OS and click on the Run VBox Windows Additions executable.

Click yes when the UAC screen comes up.

Now simply follow through the installation wizard.

During the installation wizard you can choose the Direct3D acceleration if you would like it.  Remember this is going to take up more of your Host OS’s resources and is still experimental possibly making the guest unstable.

When the installation starts you will need to allow the Sun display adapters to be installed.

After everything has completed a reboot is required.

Install Guest Additions for Ubuntu

Note:  For this section we are using version 3.0.2 on Ubuntu 8.10 (32-bit) version.

If you have Ubuntu running in a virtual machine installing the Guest Additions is easy as well.  With the Ubuntu virtual machine running click on Devices and Install Guest Additions.

This will mount the ISO and show an icon on the desktop and give you the following message box where you just click Run.

Enter in your admin password and click OK.

Next you will see the installation taking place and when done you’ll prompted to click on Enter.

A Reboot of the guest OS is required to complete the installation.

Command Line Installation

If the above process doesn’t work or you want to use the command line to install Guest Additions then first open up a Terminal session.

Now type in the following commands.

cd /media/cdrom

ls

sudo ./VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run

Again a restart of Ubuntu is required from the GUI or type in “sudo reboot” (without quotes) in the command line.

There are a lot of cool features included with the Guest Additions such as clipboard and folder sharing, better video support, and mouse pointer integration which lets you navigate in the guest OS without having it capture the pointer. 

Related VirtualBox articles:

Try Out a New Operating System the Easy Way with VirtualBox

Use VirtualBox to Test Linux on Your Windows PC