System Requirements :-

• Processor – 1.6GHz Intel Atom.
• RAM- 512 MB recommended.
• Space – 4 GiB (minimum)

Download:-

1. Ubuntu Netbook Edition[UNE] :-
   • Torrent Link
   • Direct Download
2. Kubuntu Netbook Edition[KNE] :-
   • Torrent Link
   • Direct Download

Installation :- The installation is same as that of Ubuntu Desktop Edition.

For details on How to install Ubuntu – See our previous post.

Ubuntu Netbook Edition is the Gnome flavour of UNE and has got this whole new interface that is easy to use and works really. They have optimized it to be light weight, to boot and run faster.

Take a look :

Kubuntu Netbook Edition is KDE flavour of UNE for all those KDE fans out there. Kubuntu Netbook Edition uses the Plasma Netbook shell. This features two desktop activities, one for launching applications and one for using Plasma Widgets.

Take a look :

Njoy !!

For Software Developers/Providers

Personal Package Archive (PPA) service is provided for Ubuntu by Launchpad via which you can distribute software and updates directly to Ubuntu users. Create your source package, upload it and Launchpad will build binaries and then host them in your own apt repository.
Refer this link for more on how to create your own PPA to distribute software.

For Users (Like Us)

PPA (https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+ppas) can be easily used to add new sources for software not available in Software Centre.PPAs work like normal Ubuntu archives. You can install software in the usual way — for example, through apt-get or synaptic — and whenever there’s an update Ubuntu will prompt you to install it. Both the x86 & x64 architectures are supported by PPA.

Here is an example, to add the repository:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa: user/ppa-name

So pop up your Terminal and try adding few of them from below

Open Office : sudo add-apt-repository  ppa:openoffice-pkgs/ppa

Google Chrome Browser Beta : sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chromium-daily/beta

ClamAv Antivirus : sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-clamav/ppa

Remember to run sudo apt-get update after you are done with above

Here is a look at a successfull addition via PPA

If you still feel you are bit of a Linoob just try using Ubuntu Tweak

Here are the Torrent files for you to download from:

i386: http://releases.ubuntu.com/10.04/ubuntu-10.04-desktop-i386.iso.torrent

AMD64: http://releases.ubuntu.com/10.04/ubuntu-10.04-desktop-amd64.iso.torrent

For HTTP/FTP downloads, kindly visit this link: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

Create professional documents and presentations

OpenOffice.org is fully compatible with Microsoft Office and has everything you need to create professional documents, spreadsheets and presentations. OpenOffice.org is easy to use, packed with the features you need and completely free.

Email and chat

Get chatting with Empathy. Quickly integrate your chat accounts from Yahoo, Gmail, MSN, Jabber, AOL, QQ and many more. Evolution Mail provides easy, intuitive email.

Buy music while you listen

New in 10.04. Ubuntu’s new music player includes an integrated store, so you can buy and download new tracks with just a few clicks. And thanks to Ubuntu One’s file-sharing magic you can store your music online and listen to it from other computers and music players. Ubuntu works with most music and media players.

Mobilise your digital life!

All Ubuntu users get a free Ubuntu One account. Ubuntu One allows you to store all kinds of files online so you can access them anywhere. Store bookmarks, contacts, music and pictures. Take everything everywhere with Ubuntu One.

Start fast with Ubuntu

Ubuntu loads quickly on any computer, but it’s super-fast on newer machines. After loading, opening a browser takes seconds, unlike other operating systems that leave you staring at the screen, waiting to get online.

Accessibility

At the core of the Ubuntu philosophy is the belief that computing is for everyone and access should be free and complete whatever your economic or physical circumstances. Ubun

We didn’t find one that good but came out with some wares that can do what they are really better than that. But still we found some of them worth satisfying.

Heres the list:-

1) Brasero Disc Burner.

2) K3B Cd and DVD Kreator.

3) Gnome Baker.

4) XfBurn.

5) Nautilus Cd/Dvd Creator.

Brasero CD/DVD Burner

Brasero was developed by Philippe Rouquier & Luis Medinas. Brasero is an application to burn CD/DVD for the Gnome Desktop. It is designed to be as simple as possible and has some unique features to enable users to create their discs easily and quickly. It is licenced under GNU-GPL & is a free software. It is available in Add/Remove and Ubuntu Software Center for installation in just 1 click.

Features:

• Supports multiple backends: cdrtools, growisofs and libburn

Data CD/DVD:

• supports edition of discs contents (remove/move/rename files inside directories)
• can burn data CD/DVD
• automatic filtering for unwanted files
• supports multisession
• can write the image to the hard drive
• can check disc file integrity

Audio CD:

• write CD-TEXT information
• supports the edition of CD-TEXT information
• can burn audio CD on the fly
• can search for audio files inside dropped folders
• full edition of silences between tracks

CD/DVD copy:

• can copy a CD/DVD to the hard drive
• can copy CD and DVD on the fly
• supports single-session data DVD
• supports any kind of CD

Others:

• erase CD/DVD
• can save/load projects
• can burn CD/DVD images
• song, image and video previewer
• device detection
• file change notification
• a customisable GUI
• supports Drag and Drop
• can search for files
• can display a playlist and its contents
• all disc IO is done asynchronously to prevent the application from blocking

K3B:  Cd/Dvd Kreator

The KDE tool for CD/DVD creation is called K3B aka KDE Burn Baby Burn! It is a free software CD and DVD authoring application for GNU/Linux operating systems designed for KDE. It provides a graphical user interface to perform most CD/DVD burning tasks such as creating an Audio CD from a set of audio files or copying a CD/DVD, as well as more advanced tasks such as burning eMoviX CD/DVDs. It can also perform direct disc-to-disc copies. The program has many settings which can be customized by advanced users. The actual disc recording in K3b is handled by the command line utilities cdrecord or wodim, cdrdao, and growisofs.

To install K3b open your Ubuntu Software Center (Applications->Ubuntu Software Center) and type k3b in the search field. Double click the search result and select the Install button. When installed close your Ubuntu Software Center and K3b can be found in your Sound  & Video list (Applications->Sound & Video)

Features:

• Data Cd/Dvd burning.
• Audio CD burning.
• CD tect support.
• Built in CD/DVD Rip.
• eMovix CD/DVD .
• Mixed mode CD (Audio and Data in one).
• Multisession CD.
• Disc to Disc CD /DVD copy.
• ISO image support.
• Erase CDs/DVDs
• Ripping Audio CDs/DVDs , Video CDs/DVDs.
• Video CD/DVD authoring.
• CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW  support.
• K3B can also burn data CDs that support Linux/Unix based OS, Windows, DOS file systems.

GNOME Baker: The Gnome Weapon

GNOME Baker is a free CD/DVD authoring application build for GNU-Linux operating systems. This application has been built for the GNOME Desktop Environment. It requires a recent tools for the burning process like cdrecord, readcd , mkiofs etc. For DVD burning ,it requires gravisofs. It needs gstreamer 0.8 for audio processing. Goto Ubuntu Software Center or Add/Remove programs to install Gnome Baker.

Features:

• Create Data Cds/Dvds.
• RW Disks.
• Burn CDs/DVDs.
• Copy Data CDs/DVDs.
• Copy Audio CDs.
• Support Multisession Burning.
• Record-to & Burn ISO image to CDs/DVDs (including Bootables).
• Supports Drag ‘n’ Drop feature.
• Create Audio CDs from existing WAV, FLAC,MP3 Files.
• Gconf integrated for Storage of Application Settings.
• Can burn Cue/Bin files.
• Format  DVDs.

Xf-Burn

XfBurn is a simple CD/DVD burning tool based on libburnia libraries. It was developed to be the default burning application for the Xfce Desktop Environment. It can erase CD/DVD-RW, burn and create ISO images, audio CDs, data CD/DVDs. It has a simple GUI, drag n drop / copy – paste feature enabled. It is a freeware and is licenced under GNU -GPL for Linux based operating systems basically for the Xfce Desktops. It is available in Ubuntu Software Center or Add/Remove programs for the  installation.

Features:

• Blank CDs/DVDs.
• Burning Data CDs/DVDs.
• Create ISO images.
• Burn ISO CDs /DVDs.
• Audio CDs.
• Simple GUI.
• Copy n Paste feature .

Note : It a stable release but is undergoing constant development so keep an eye on the updates for more features.

Nautilus Cd/Dvd Creator

The Nautilus CD Burner package provides an easy method to write files to a CD or DVD burner through GNOME – by just drag-and-dropping files using the GNOME file manager aka Nautilus.

Features:

• Create Data Cds/Dvds.
• Burning .ISO images.
• Nautilus File manager Integration.
• Drag n Drop support.
• CD-RW & DVD-RW support.
• Duplicate CD/DVD

Enjoy!

Our guinea pig for this post were few chat clients (both for GNOME & KDE).

We’ve tested them for their ease of use interface, plugins (customizations)  & of course capabilities to handle various protocols. There are really a great amount of IM protocols out there (checkout this list) and covering all these was a bit difficult job. So, what we tested upon were the most frequently used IM clients i.e Yahoo & Jabber (Gtalk) and results are following:

Best Yahoo IM Client : GYachE Improved

Best Gtalk Client : Empathy (Now I figured why Ubuntu chose it over pidgin)

Best Plugins : Pidgin (Of course what else you can expect)

Best Interface : Kopete (Really this deserves more than that)

INSTALLATION PROCEDURE

Kopete

If you are planning no voice chat then IMO you should go with Kopete. It has got a really simple & clear interface (probably due to its base environ KDE).

• To install Kopete go to Applications>Add/Remove Applications
• In search box type Kopete (always enable “Show all Applications”)
• Select Kopete Instant Messenger & click “Apply Changes”

It has also got plugins support with a brilliant notification icons.The configuration part was really well built.Kudos to the programmers….!!!

Pidgin

If you want a lots of plugins n stuff that can configured you should go for Pidgin.

It is available for Windows too, so probably makes easy transition for windows users

It is preinstalled in Ubuntu 9.04 but is replaced with Empathy in later releases and still if you want it then it’s available in Add/Remove Applications.

Pidgin supports more than 15 IM protocols with around 68 worldwide languages with features like customizable smilies,music tracker & lot more just via its plugins. Xfire users have a good news, Gfire is a very good plugin for Pidgin for chatting through the xFire protocol in Ubuntu.

But you might be probably thinking what the heck was special in Empathy that it replaced Pidgin.I figured it out as I was writing this post.

Emptahy: GTalk (Voice) For Ubuntu

We’ll Empathy seemed to be a hidden marvel. Though it might’ve been used but will get really more users after its entry as default chat client in Ubuntu. It supports many IM protocols (probably more than Pidgin does) but lacks plugins like Pidgin. Interface of both is quite similar. Empathy has got few skins but doesn’t support smilies like Pidgin (probably we’ll see this feature in later versions). Where Empathy scores over Pidgin is its ability to support voice calls (suitable for GTalk) though it still lacks the Skype Protocol. Its more like in the country of the blind people, the one-eyed man is king. Since I don’t want an IM clients war here what I feel is that there is a lot of scope for both the client to work upon.

Installation of Empathy is really simple. You may either go to Add/Remove Applications and search for “Empathy” or you may chose the following method if you want the latest version rather than the default one.For this you have to update your repositories, which is probably you’ve never done before. So let’s do it

To update repositories you may either choose the graphical way or the terminal(as always).

Graphical Way : System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager->Settings->Repositories

Terminal Way : sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Then you may add the desired values in that and for this instance its following :

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/telepathy/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

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

As now we have updated the repositories its time to do the installation.

Press Alt+F2 and enter the following

sudo apt-get install empathy telepathy-mission-control telepathy-stream-engine telepathy-gabble telepathy-butterfly telepathy-haze telepathy-idle telepathy-salut telepathy-sofiasip python-msn empathy-megaphone-applet

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

GYachE Improved : Yahoo! for Ubuntu

We’ll, there’s a reason why GYachE Improved (also known as GYachI) is mentioned over here.

GyachE is very good client for Yahoo, because it supports almost all the features like avatars, audibles including Voice & Webcam support.

The DEB Installation Package can be downloaded from here.

All these applications will be available in Applications>Internet

Gtalk CONFIGURATION

Finished with all and still not able to connect to GTalk then here’s probably what you’re looking for.

Set the following options in your IM client’s (or override the default values) configuration

SERVER : talk.google.com

PORT : 5223

Check “Use Old SSL”

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras is one simple solution to all problems like No Flash player in your browser, no media plugins for playback of certain multimedia files and all. It will install everything.

I think the above explanation is more than self explanatory. :p

Lets start with Terminal which is equivalent to the Command Prompt of Linux (but much more powerful than that of Windows).

It can be acessed by going to Applications —–> Accessories —–> Terminal

Since we’ll use Terminal too often , so just press Alt+F2

Type anything you wish to RUN  in terminal there & just check the “Run in Terminal“  before pressing Run.

Running commands as root/administrator

There is one user ‘root’ in Linux which has access to everything in the operating system with no restrictions,so it is the root of all evil . It is equivalent to Administrator in Windows Vista/XP .

The user account which you created while installing or in simple words, the account which you are using does not have full access to the system. Why? The reason is simple – to improve security. Moreover, to avoid messing & unauthorised changes to the operating system.

To exec commands as ‘root’, you’ve to prefix ‘sudo’ before every command.

Open terminal and type nautilus….Nautilus will get opened, but you can’t delete/modify the system files in folders like /etc, /var..

Now close nautilus…and type ‘sudo nautilus‘ in the terminal and then enter your password. Don’t worry, you’ll not be asked for the password everytime. This time, Nautilus has been opened as root and you can make changes & delete the system files. But don’t try doing that at the moment.

Typical users just have full access to their /home directories not to the system files.

This is actually controlled by the ‘Permissions‘ which can only be changed by the ‘root’ if root is owner of the files. As ‘root’ is the ‘owner’ of the system files, it has full access to them.

Installing softwares & Packages

You might be wodering how we install softwares in Linux. So, here is a bit of theory about ‘packages’ in Linux.

In Linux, softwares are installed using files known as ‘Packages‘.

There are mainly 3 types of packages:

• deb – Debian packages which is used by Debian linux and derivatives such as Ubuntu, Mint etc.
• RPM – this was originally used by Red Hat, but now it is also used by distributions like Fedora, openSUSE, mandriva etc.
• tar.gz – standard tar + gzip compressed packages, used by distributions like Slackware, Arch etc.

The packages are managed by a ‘Package manager’ which makes installing, upgrading and removing of the packages easy.

For Ubuntu, the common Package manager are ‘aptitude’, frontend for ‘dpkg’ &  Synaptic Package manager is the graphical frontend, which can be used to manage packages with a help of a GUI.

To access, Synaptic Package Manager ( go to System —–> Administration —–> Synaptic Package Manager )

To install a package, you can do either of following:

1. Open Synaptic Package Manager —–> Tick the package you want to install after searching in the categories —–> Click Apply.
2. Packages can also be installed by going to Applications —–> Add/Remove. This is basically a more user friendly version of Synaptic Package Manager.
3. Directly download packages from sites like:
   http://packages.ubuntu.co and http://www.getdeb.net
4. sudo apt-get install <package_name> in the terminal.
   Tip: You can search the Ubuntu package repository using the search box in Firefox.

And to remove you’ve can do either of following:

1. Open Synaptic Package manager —–> Uncheck the package you want to uninstall after searching —–> Click Apply. Alternatively, you can also use Add/Remove.
2. sudo apt-get remove <package_name> in the terminal.

Next time we’ll be talking about making your Ubuntu look really nice and will also let you practice a bit on installation procedures. Till then keep installing some really nice softwares using Add/Remove.

When you’ll boot into Ubuntu, you’ll be welcomed by the GNOME Desktop Environment.

Now you may be wondering what is a Desktop Environment? Well, Desktop Environment refers to the style of user interface. In Linux, we have various types of Desktop Environments like GNOME, KDE and Xfce. In UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems, these Desktop Environments work over the X Window System about which we’ll tell you later. In layman’s words, we can say that X Window System is the base on which all these Desktop Environment work.

Okay now, we started Ubuntu and are ready to use it. Here is a glimpse of Ubuntu running GNOME…

At the bottom right corner, you’ll see a Trash icon which is equivalent to the Recycle Bin of Windows.

Adjacent to the Trash can are the Workspaces. These are multiple desktops. If one workspace gets cluttered because you’ve opened many programs, then you can shift to anyone of the other workspaces. (This is something which you may have seriously been missing in Windows)…

The top and the bottom bars are called Panels. The top Panel contains three main Menus.

• Applications – from where you select the application which you want to run
• Places – I guess this willbe self explanatory.Nautilus is the file managing software of the GNOME Desktop Environment.In simple words, Nautilus is the ‘Windows Explorer’ of GNOME.
• System – This menu contains the various options to configure & administrate your OS….!!!

To ‘Shut the computer down’ or ‘Log out’, you just have to click on your nickname in the top right corner.

Now lets learn to change the Desktop Background and Themes.  Just right click any where on the Desktop, click on ‘Change Desktop Background’ and there you go.

Click on the +Add buton under the Background tab to browse for more images. Theme can be changed from the ‘Theme’ tab.

For more themes you may visit www.gnome-look.org

To boot using Pen Drive you have to use a freeware called unetbootin which may be downloaded from here. After running this software select the option “Diskimage ISO” & just give the location of the image file you downloaded.

Assuming that you successfully boot into using your CD or Pen Drive you will be welcomed at the language selection screen like this.

Let me tell you that Ubuntu installation is really very simple until you don’t mess it up.

BASIC SETUP

After this point Ubuntu provides a selection option to its users which include Live Mode or directly Install.

Direct Installation is just same as installation from Live Environment so it immaterial whether you choose former or latter. (Just to let users see how Ubuntu looks like we went ahead with “Try Ubuntu without Any Change to Your Computer”).

After a minor loading you’ll be presented with the desktop.

To Install Ubuntu click on Install Icon on the desktop Select the language from the language menu and then click Forward

Then select your time zone and click Forward

Now select your keyboard layout (you may type in test box in order to test it)

PARTITIONING THE DISK

Now we head to the Partitioning of the hard disk to install Ubuntu. Keep in mind that this is the most important thing in our installation. You’ll be needing 3 partitions to install Linux.

One is the root partition which is denoted by ‘/    ‘, second is the Home partition which is denoted by ‘/home’ and third is the Swap partition.

Files of the Operating System are stored in the root partition, files of the users (Documents, Pictures, Music) are stored in the home partition and the Swap partition in Linux is equivalent to the Virtual Memory in Windows. If your RAM is less, then Linux uses the Swap partition as RAM.

The file system of Linux partitions should be either ext3 or ext4.

Select the option ‘Specify partitions manually (advanced)’. Now we may consider following important cases with our Hard Disk

1. New Disk
2. Install in disk having Windows (Dual Boot)(2 or more partitions)
3. Install in disk having Windows (Dual Boot)(Single Partition)

So lets start:

We will be creating 3 Linux partitions in 12 GB of space (you may change as per your needs)

Root or system = 5 GB (ext3/4) (increase size incase no home partition is there)

Home or user = 4GB (ext3/4) (recommended but may be skipped)

Swap = 3GB (swap)(varies according to RAM)

CASE 1

• Right click and format the disk
• Then create a primary partition using right clicking or pressing Ctrl+N
• Although you can create upto 4 primary partitions but its sufficient to have 1
• Remember that to install Ubuntu u have to either use an ext3 or ext4 partition.
• The mount point of one partition should be ‘/     ‘ and the mount point of second should be ‘/home’
• Now you may create rest of your partitions likewise (refer the screenshots)
• Last requisite is to create a swap partition that is used as a swap for Linux (same as Virtual Memory in Windows).
• Just Review the changes you have made & click Apply to commit all changes (If you made any mistake you may change it before committing)

CASE 2

For those in Case 2.

• Just Format the drive into an ext3/4 partition if you don’t want to keep your Windows data.
• Else if you want to dual boot, then you’ll have to resize the partition & create two partitions from the free space (unpartition space which you’ll get after resizing). Mount poof botht the partitions should be ‘/    ‘ and ‘/home’ respectively.
• And don’t forget to create swap partition.
• Note: In these screenshots, I already had one ~38GB ext3 partitoin from my old Linux installation. I chose to delete it and create two 18GB partitions + 1.5GB swap.

CASE 3 (Ideal for people using Laptops)

• Generally laptops these days just have a single partition
• If that is the case then you just have to shrink/resize the partition to get some unpartitioned space and createnew partitions out of it.
• Once the partition is resized or shrunk, create a new partition from the free space. (REFER 1)

ALERT: Check whether you’ve made 1 root partition and 1 swap partition.

Just go ahead, click ‘Forward’ and then enter your details with a password (it’s a must).

You may choose to log on automatically incase you are alone user else don’t

(At this stage if you have another operating system installed you’ll be asked to import settings).

Wow! it’s all done? Just review a bit (not necessarily required) and click INSTALL.

Wait for a while till installation finish and then restart….!!!

Categories	Linux	Windows
Price	Most of the Linux distributions are free and the commercial ones are cheaper than Microsoft Windows	Microsoft is not available for free and the various editions are available for around $100 to $200
Software	Most of the Linux softwares are for free. But this is problem as well cause we can’t say that they are better compared to the non-free Windows softwares, but surely they can give a run for their money and in many cases, they are even better!	Due to a large market share, much larger amount of softwares are available for Windows, but all are not free. eg. Microsoft Office starts from 150$ but OpenOffice.org can nearly do everything Microsoft Office can do and it comes free!
Reliability & Security	Linux is very reliable and this is explained by the fact that most of the servers on the internet run on Linux. As we had told you earlier, there are no viruses for Linux. If vulnerabilities are found, they get patched up faster due to the Open Source community.	Comparatively to Linux, Windows is less reliable, has tons of Viruses, and many vulnerabilities which take time to get patched.
Ease	With the evolutions of Desktop Environments like GNOME & KDE there are features that Windows users can dream of only in their next versions.	People may find Windows easier just because of the fact that they have spent more time using Windows.
Software Cost	Since most of the Linux softwares are free & Open Source.Due to the Open Source nature, you can even modify them and compile according to your needs. eg, OpenOffice.org, GIMP etc.	Great Windows applications are generally not available for free.
Hardware	Linux today supports almost all devices available in the market. Also since drivers are bundled with the OS itself there is no need of separate driver CD’s	Windows since holds considerable share in the market so too has great driver support but requires separate installation CD’s to install drivers