Linux Cookbook

Encryption with Ubuntu, Two Looks

There are tons of reasons to use encryption on your computers, especially if you store sensitive information on them. But I won't go into that stuff right now. I will point you to a couple of how-to pages that explain how to install and use encryption software on Ubuntu Linux systems:

• TrueCrypt With GUI On Ubuntu 7.10 is a tutorial from Howto Forge about using  open source TrueCrypt disk encryption software.
• HowTo: Setup and Benchmark Encrypted Partitions in Ubuntu comes from new-ish Linux blogger Wayne Richardson, at fsckin w/ linux, and it's about more than just how to install the software--Wayne tells us about how he went about encrypting, and benchmarking, partitions. Very cool: it helps to know just how much (or actually, how little) encryption affects performance. Great work Wayne!

Snapshot backups in Ubuntu, with Timevault

Here's a good one from HowtoForge: Creating Snapshot Backups Of Your Desktop With Timevault On Ubuntu 7.10.

From the TimeVault UbuntuWiki entry:

TimeVault is a simple front-end for making snapshots of a set of directories. Snapshots are a copy of a directory structure or file at a certain point in time. Restore functionality is integrated into Nautilus - previous versions of a file or directory that has a snapshot can be accessed by examining the properties and selecting the 'Previous Versions' tab.

Snapshots are protected from accidental deletion or modification since they are read-only by default. The super-user can delete intermediate snapshots to save space, but files and directories that existed before or after the deletion will still be accessible.

TimeVault lets you set up backup regimes and browse backup histories, so you can easily revert to the "way things were before".

Could this be the backup tool non-techie Linux users have been needing? Perhaps.

Doing DVDs with Linux

DVDs are kind of a problem, sometimes, in Linux because DVD players are supposed to be "licensed" to "decrypt" the "encryption" that most DVDs use for "protection". All those quotation marks are meant to signify that DVD "encryption" is really kind of a joke, and was broken about thirteen nanoseconds after it was released.

Anyway, it's not the technology that's difficult so much as the thicket of legalities and licensing that make doing DVD stuff on Linux a little bit complicated. So you can find out more about how it all works from this article, Rip DVDs in Linux the (Semi-)Easy Way, from Lifehacker.

Walmart's Ubuntu PC: Bait and Switch?

With all the attention Linux has been getting recently, especially in the form of attention from major hardware vendors, the impact of Walmart's decision to bring to market a $200 Linux PC (Everex TC2502 Green gPC w/ Via C7-D Processor) should be surprising.

The customers seem to love this computer, if you go by the product reviews: 56 reviewers gave it an overall 4-star rating. There were only two buyers who left one-star reviews, complaining about lack of performance or inability to run Windows XP (not true, since the hardware was certified as XP-compliant).

But what really surprised me was the fact that the item is listed as "out of stock", with a note explaining how you can "Step up to the Everex GC3502 for Double the Memory and Windows Vista Basic" instead. For an extra $100, you get: the exact same computer, but with an extra 1/2 gig of RAM and              Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic.

Which is kind of funny, because you wouldn't be able to run Vista on a PC with only a half-gigabyte of RAM.

Anyway, RAM's pretty cheap these days. You can buy a full gigabyte from Walmart online for $40 or so. Which means you'd be paying roughly $60 for that low-end edition of Vista. In other words, you pay a 25% "Vista tax" on a $240 PC.

The big question is this: does Walmart make any money selling a $200 PC for $200, or is it just a loss-leader to get people in the store and sell them $240 PCs for $300?

How to Install Ubuntu, With More of What You Want

Writing an article about "how to install Linux" is easy, because the basic installation of just about every Linux distribution I've ever seen is easy: choose your language, keyboard, time zone, choose the disk/partition to install it on, choose your software, set a user ID and password, and you're done. Mostly.

The reality is that there can be more twists to get your system useable the way you want it, especially with Ubuntu, which doesn't include non-free software in the distribution.

The good news is that you can get answers to many of your questions about which software to install (and which to uninstall), how to get some of the cool features in Firefox to work, and how to get some of that non-free but very handy for everyday surfing software to work on your Ubuntu desktop from this article: The Perfect Desktop - Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon".

If you just look at the first page (of six), you may be disappointed: it's mostly a rehash of screenshots of the install process. But skim it or skip it and you'll get to the good parts, including tips on how to remove software and stop (or start) services, pointers to the good software that doesn't get installed by default but that you probably want, and how to install add-ins to Firefox.

It's all on HowToForge. This article doesn't have anything to say about partitioning, which is a topic that, oddly, doesn't get much treatment in "howto" articles about Linux generally. Here's an article on how to Modify Your Partitions With GParted Without Losing Data, but it doesn't give much guidance on how to make partition decisions.

I'll just have to write an article about partitioning, not just how to do it but why you want to do it. Because I've been looking for close to ten years for that kind of guidance, and have yet to find it.

Ubuntu 7.10 Is Almost Here!

Just two more days til Ubuntu Linux 7.10 goes live; I jumped the gun and installed the release candidate last week. Not sure how happy I am--perhaps I installed the wrong add-ins, perhaps it's just too early. But I still like it a lot, and expect to continue using it full time. And I expect that once I get the bugs out of this install, I'll be more than happy.

But in the meantime, here are some Ubuntu-related items:

• Just in case you weren't sure, here's a good summary of 7 reasons why Ubuntu is so successful.
• Kevin Van Zonneveld explains how to Upgrade any version of Ubuntu Desktop just in case you already have Ubuntu installed. Kevin's got more goodies at his Techblog in case you're interested.
• Serdar Yegulalp writes about why Linux doesn't need to look like Windows over at Information Week. I've been saying this for years, as have others, but it's nice to hear another version. We don't want Windows, free. We want Linux.
• Slicehost has a lot of good technical articles about running/administering Ubuntu Linux.

Enjoy!