sudo tasksel install lamp-server

Found in the Ubuntu Community Documentation.

A quick way to get a development environment up nice and quick!

The PowerShell Team have released a CTP of 2.0.

Skype have released Beta 2.0 for Linux (finally bringing video!)

SDM Software have released a set of free cmdlets full of GPO goodness!

And even though it wasn’t technically this week, Microsoft’s Deployment4, was officially named Microsoft Deployment, and went to RC1.

My favourite so far, was yesterdays highlight about the new Bulletproof X and Graphical X configuration feature. Anything to make configuring/troubleshooting X easier in my book deserves some attention!!

Well worth taking a look at, especially tomorrows look at Desktop Effects with Compiz Fusion :)

I have been having a gripe about the sheer amount of stuff installed with Ubuntu though (that’s the Debian voice in me!), so I’ve been musing about Linux From Scratch. My main concern there is how do you keep your hand cranked distro patched?

Anyway, those of you that like to play with Ubuntu will know that they release a new version every 6 months! The next release is Gutsy Gibbon and is due out:

Cool! :)

At work today one of the guys told me that he’d had an Xmod and replaced it due to a few hassles. Namely on his 64-bit Windows machine it had caused numerous BSOD’s. That would have been sufficient for him to pass it on, but his other two criticisms were that it required external power to run, and drivers installed to get it operational under Windows.

Suffice to say I got home tonight, less than expectant about my new toy. I figured I’d give it a try on my Ubuntu machine, and if it didn’t live up to my expectation – namely no driver hassles, and power drawn off the USB alone, I’d send it back and pick up a Terratec Aureon instead.

Well, my first impression was good. I liked the packaging and the iPod-esque colouring. I’m not an Apple Fanboy by any stretch, but you have to give them points for style!

First up I connected it to my Windows XP laptop, and sure enough I got the New Hardware dialogue. Not a good sign!

I hooked the unit up to the Ubuntu laptop, and opened up a terminal session to see if the OS recognized the device.

Now I’m not brilliant with configuring sound on Linux – despite my work mates labeling me as the token tree-hugging-sandal-wearing Nix-Fanboy ;) I do however know how to configure Amarok to use a different card, so this is where I started. Under Settings | Configure Amarok select the Engine settings from the left side of the dialogue, as below.

The output from the cat command previously gave us the name of the audio device – Xmod. So this is the name we use.

A quick restart of Amarok, had “Blink182 – Feeling This” pumping down my earphones :)

So far so good, but I still had no system sounds, or any of other other media apps (Totem, or VLC etc). What I needed to do was set the Xmod as the default audio card in the system.

A quick look around the OS, and I found – asoundconf. Typing the command gave us a list of expected switches, of which two looked useful: list and set-default-card

As you can see, stepping through the switches appears to have set the Xmod as the default card. A quick reboot, and, I suddenly have system sound, and all the media apps are playing nicely!

Despite my earlier worries, the device works well with by Ubuntu machine. No extra drivers required, no extra power needed, and it even works with the hardware sound control!

Tomorrow, there shall be music :)

There’s probably more than one way to do this, and this may not be the best way. These are the steps I took.

Post OS install:
After the Ubuntu install completes and you remove the disk and reboot back into the desktop, enable the Desktop Effects, by clicking System – Preferences – Desktop Effects . Click the button and tick both boxes.

Install Beryl Applications
Next we want to install the Beryl Manager, and Beryl Settings Manager. This enables us to have much more control over the configuration of the Beryl Window Manager.
Click, Applications – Add/Remove…. Make sure the Show: drop-down is set to “All Available Applications” and type “Beryl” in the Search: box.

Place a tick in the boxes against the two required applications and click OK. Step through the acknowledgment dialogs to get the software installed.

There should now be a red jewel shortcut located under Applications – System Tools. Clicking on this will cause the Beryl Manager to launch in the tray.

Right-click on the jewel and select the first item in the menu, Beryl Settings Manager.
This is where we want to configure our options. There’s a lot in here, but in this example we’re just going to configure the zoom, and transparency options.

Configuring Transparency
Click on the Desktop icon along the top of the window, and from the left pane, select Desktop Cube, and then the Transparency tab.

Place a tick in the box for Transparent Cube.

Configuring Zoom
To get that nice zoom-out effect when you’re moving between windows, from within the Beryl Settings Manager, make sure you’re still within the Desktop section, and click Rotate Cube from the left pane.
Expand the General option out and move the zoom slide all the way to the right.

Placing a tick in the Zoom Before Rotate, causes the Desktop to zoom away from you when using the keyboard shortcuts, which I think is a nice effect too!

Anything Else?
One last thing to do is to put an entry in under System – Preferences – Sessions – Startup Programs, so that Beryl will automatically startup when we log in.

Other nice features to check out are the Caps and Skydome tabs under Desktop – Desktop Cube, however I was unable to get any of my own images to work there (though to be fair I didn’t really look into it).

The Result?

The Skype team announced that they have release Skype for Linux 1.4 into alpha development.

1.4 is a big rewrite on the previous Linux version and the Skype team claim that even though they’re a couple of months behind schedule, that:

…this Linux version is on par with Windows 3.2 and Mac 2.6 releases with regards to audio quality. Better device detection, ALSA plugins support and overall improved audio quality was our primary aim for this rewrite (not counting the obvious UI improvements).

Sounds promising so far. Of course it’s an alpha product so expect things to break!