20030123 Lockergnome Penguin Shell

01.23.2003 PenguinREPORT

One of the great joys of writing Penguin Shell is the ability, the need, really, to look at as many of the top distros as possible. I'm a natural-born tinkerer, in the end. Even when a distro proves to be difficult (perhaps especially when one is difficult), the satisfaction of solving problems and using a new install is hard to describe. Then there's the process of discovery. Every distribution has clear strengths and weaknesses. There's an endless amount of fun to be had in contrasting and comparing one to another. While I'll admit it's useful to have a second machine on which to conduct these exploratory missions, I might still find a way to do them with only one.

Which brings us to the final chapter of the Libranet review. I've spent a couple weeks pounding, tinkering, analyzing, comparing, and generally having fun with this distribution. Even a CD-ROM failure didn't completely kill the install. It's been rock-solid and stable as a Celtic castle. I couldn't really ask for much more in a Linux distribution.

One of the distinguishing features of Libranet is the xadminmenu program, a complete system maintenance and configuration tool. This app puts a clean GUI face on such tasks as package management, X Window, sound, network, and printer configuration. It's also possible to set the system time, perform disk/CD/floppy-related tasks, administer users, and adjust your desktop from this unified interface. Xadminmenu isn't as deep as SuSE's YaST2 nor as pretty as Red Hat's most recent package management system. It doesn't have to be. Xadminmenu provides all the necessary tools to administer your system - nothing more, nothing less. I like that.

In the end, I'd have to consider Libranet the sleeper of this round of reviews. In fact, it was the sleeper of the last round, as well. It's well-planned and well-executed. It's easy to install and maintain. It takes the best of the Debian distro and adds a high level of user friendliness. There's simply no reason I can see why Libranet isn't considered a "major" distribution. It's powerful, easy and friendly to both new and old Linux users alike.

Libranet is set to release their 2.8 version within the next few weeks. The version I reviewed, by the way, is 2.7. I'm told by the folks at Libranet that the 2.8 version will primarily consist of some small bug fixes and updates to the packages.

One final Libranet note. The latest version of the distro (whether 2.7 or 2.8) is not a free package. Libranet 2.0 can be downloaded for free, but lacks many of the fine-tuning and highlights of the later versions. Quite frankly, I have no objection to either the "for pay" model of this distro or the pricing structure. The Home Use package is $59.95, with a discount of $20 for students. Libranet also has corporate and institutional pricing available. Yes, I could have downloaded and installed Debian free. Truth is, though, that it likely would have taken much longer to get to a working system than it did with Libranet. To me, the efforts of the Libranet team and the few hours saved justify the price. It's a sure way to keep a good distribution moving forward, too.

I'm going to take a one-week review hiatus next week, due to the hectic testing schedule at work. With some luck and good weather, the bulk of our sky testing should be completed by the end of the week next week, once again freeing my evenings up for reviews.

That's it for another Thursday. Be right back here tomorrow ...

Happy just sittin' here in my tux,
Tony Steidler-Dennison

GnomeTWEAK

IceWM

As you know, we've been reviewing Libranet the past few weeks. One of the comments I made during the installation phase of the review was that if you wanted to use KDE as your default desktop environment, you'd need to deselect "Window Managers" from the installation routine. On the other hand, if you're looking for an extremely lightweight desktop manager, you might want to give IceWM a shot. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it's the default window manager in Libranet. In limited use, I liked it quite a lot. It's quick, highly configurable, and very easy to use.

IceWM is fully Gnome-compliant and at least partially KDE-friendly. Both Gnome and KDE apps will appear in the applications menu, though not all KDE apps will run well.

According to the IceWM site, some of the important features of this light desktop include:

Configurable window borders
Theme support
Auto-defined menus: change automatically when the appropriate configuration file changes
Tool tips
Configurable key bindings
Mouse optional control<
Application switching with Alt+Tab
Shaded windows
Low resource usage
Multiple workspaces
Sound support

If you're used to Gnome and KDE, you'll probably find IceWM to be a bit stark initially. In the Libranet install, the Libranet-specific apps take prominence in the menus. Both Gnome and KDE apps are tucked away into submenus. I was quickly able to configure IceWM to a level I'm comfortable with, though. While the power and configurability wasn't immediately apparent, it exists nonetheless.

IceWM bills itself as "The Window Manager Cool As Ice." I'd have to agree. If you're looking to lighten your desktop load, IceWM may be just the slimming PenguinTWEAK you need.

Recommend It!
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GnomeSCRIPT

VMStat
Scribbled by Hook

Here's another script, considerably smaller this time ! It runs vmstat for an hour at a time putting the output into a file for later. I run it permanently, just so that I can keep track of how the server's behaving. Unsophisticated, but useful.

Anyone who wants to collect it online can go here.

As usual, great newsletter ! By the way, thanks for including SetUp.sh in the last issue - I've had 200+ visits so far. Very impressive.

Recommend It!
Send us a GnomeSCRIPT

GnomeCORE

Final Emacs

I've got some final emacs concepts for you today. As you've seen, the command list is deep and powerful. In fact, it can be a bit overwhelming when you first begin using emacs. Though I tend to lean more toward the vi editor, I've found emacs a bit more useful under certain circumstances. I, too, found the learning curve a bit higher than with vi. Hopefully, the concepts presented today will help you pull the emacs picture into sharper focus.

Like bash and other shells, emacs uses command line completion. Entering a few letters then pressing the tab key will cause emacs to complete the command, if possible. If the command is unique to emacs, and you've typed enough letters to distinguish the command as unique, emacs will fully complete the command. If neither of these requirements is met, emacs will display a list of possible commands matching the pattern you've entered.

Emacs also maintains a command history similar to bash. Using the up arrow key repeatedly will scroll through your commands from the most recent to the oldest. When the command is found, press enter to execute. This can greatly decrease your keystrokes (especially when working with a relatively small command set) by eliminating duplicate command entries.

You can easily view man pages from within emacs. In some ways, this is an even easier system to use than the normal man page viewing. Move the cursor to the man entry keyword you'd like to view and enter the manual-entry command. Emacs preserves the normal man page formatting and is navigable within the man page using the normal emacs movement commands.

Emacs also serves as an email reader and a usenet news reader. Using Rmail or vm, emacs allows you to view and sort your email from within its native interface. Usenet news reading is handled by GNUS. It's useful to note, though, that both mail programs significantly modify the headers. If you choose to use emacs as your mail reader, your messages may not be readable by other mail programs.

Finally, remember that emacs is fully extensible. A quick Google search for emacs extensions will turn up quite a few you may personally find useful.

Here's a list of other resources for further emacs information and additional tutorials:

target="_blank">A Tutorial Introduction to GNU Emacs

Recommend It!
Send us a GnomeCORE tip

GnomeFILE

Color Emacs
Unearthed by Adam Knutson

http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ColorTheme

"On the topic of Emacs, here are some plugins that I find useful. A great add-on for Emacs is the color-theme-selector, which allows you to change Emacs colors on the fly.

"And for the casual Java programmers who don't need the whole Emacs-Java ide you can have a new menu + shortcut keys in Emacs java-mode to quickly compile and run your Java program. Grab the java-compile plugin here."

Recommend It!
Send us a GnomeFILE suggestion

GnomeVOICE

Linux Insecurity
Scribbled by Russell Dwiggins

"First, I'd like to say thanks for the newsletter. I liken it to a Linux newbie oasis.

"Recently, I received an email from a LUG (Linux user's group) with a link to an article detailing recent CERT statistics on operating system security. The link is here.

"I believe the article states in a nutshell that Linux security can no longer be taken for granted, and further, that Linux security may be inferior to that of Windows.

"Typically I would treat this kind of news with a grain of salt and wait for the rebuttals from the experts. This time, however, the article was pointed to me from a member of the LUG, and no rebuttals have been forthcoming.

"My assumption has been that the open source model makes us more secure...is it possible that we are missing something?"

Recommend It!
Speak your GnomeVOICE

GnomeCLICK

Synergy2
Unearthed by Jason Burzenski

http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/index.html

"I read Mikes scribbled blurb on todays Penguin Shell and I thought I would chime in about some REALLY sweet software I heard about yesterday on Freshmeat. I got it up and running between a WinXP box and my RH 8.0 box in under 5 minutes yesterday and IMO it's the coolest thing since grep."

Recommend It!
Suggest a GnomeCLICK

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