Software used:

• Hashcat for CPUs
• oclHashcat-lite for AMD graphic cards
• cudaHashcat-lite for nVidia graphic cards

Results:

MD5

SHA1

AMD’s VLIW architecture owns nVidia’s Fermi and older architectures in this case. More parallelized and that’s what Cryptography is all about. Would be interesting to see how AMD’s Graphics Core Next fares up for this purpose.

What does 5 billion MD5 brute forces per second mean?

MD5 Hash of a 7 char string containing only lower-case alphabets and numbers cracked within 30 seconds. Think how fast 8 x HD 6990s would be.

Note: oclHashcat-lite didn’t work for nVidia cards. Don’t know why. Could be either – software or driver issue. Don’t consider this an Apples-to-Apples comparison. But still this is the best what each platforms can offer.

Ubuntu Tweak 0.6 Beta is finally out after a long wait. We wish you all the very best to Tualatrix Chou from the entire open-source community as despite of the hardships he faced in the previous weeks, he is still on the way to get UT 0.6 working. Thank-you very much !

Moving along, this release came up with -

• New sleek UI.
• New clips feature: first screen information.
• All features are plug-able.
• Specific tweak: Compiz Settings.
• Package Cleaner becomes a new major part feature as tbe “Janitor”.
• At Preferences, you can manage the plugins, enable or disable,  or install new plugin.
• Tweaks and Admins, designed like GNOME Control Center, but with a more easy to use “back” and “forward” arrows.

Installation

Open the terminal and type the following to test the beta version of UT 0.6 in Ubuntu (11.10 is there ofcourse) -

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tualatrix/next
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-tweak

Since there are no ‘app center’ and ‘source center’ in this version, so you can use ‘sudo apt-get install ubuntu-tweak-0‘ to install UT 0.5 alongside to keep things under control.

Take a look -

Image courtesy – Ubuntu Tweak Blog

Njoy !!

Fuduntu is a light weight and fun Linux distribution that earns its name by its design to fit somewhere in-between Fedora and Ubuntu. It is designed to be aesthetically pleasing, and is optimized for Netbook and other portable computers. The quarterly installation i.e Fuduntu 14.11 is now available for downloads.  As with all Fuduntu releases, this release continues the tradition of small incremental improvements.  It is important to note that existing Fuduntu users will roll up to this version through the normal update process, and do not need to download or install from this media to benefit from this release.  This release is considered the first official Fuduntu “rolling release” ISO.

Download

Fuduntu 14.11 – Direct link – 32 bit & 64 bit.

System Requirements (min.)

• 900 MHz or faster processor
• 384 MB RAM
• 5 GB available hard disk space

Chief Features

• The latest stable Linux Kernel (3.0) at the base.
• Aesthetically pleasing design makes it user-friendly.
• Unbelievable Performance is guaranteed.
• Unparalleled battery life assured.

Latest Updates

• Linux Kernel 3.0.3.
• Chromium Browser 13.0
• Flash 10.3.183.7.
• VLC Media Player1.1.11.

Take a look -

This quarterly release also includes a roll up of the latest patches. So Njoy this new OS folks !

Talking about Terminal, we have been working on the same default terminal for a long time. Why not change it a little. Keeping this in mind, we have selected two cool alternatives to replace the default Ubuntu terminal for your basic to advanced operations. Both of them are unique in their own way and serve the main stream purposes as well as some special purposes. These two are basically terminal emulators and are aimed mainly at increasing usability of gnome terminal in Ubuntu.

Guake Terminal

Guake is a drop-down terminal for Gnome (in the style of Yakuake for KDE, Tilda or the terminal used in Quake). It aims to  provide a quick-access  terminal, that show/hide on screen with a simple key pressing. This drop-down terminal is really good to work with. Install it, run it, set it to start on boot. It can be minimized into tray and can be called back by F12 directly.It can be installed from Ubuntu Software Center or simply type ‘sudo apt-get install guake‘ in the terminal. Simply type in search box ‘Guake” and install it. Run it from Applications>Accessories>Guake.  Then right click the tray icon  and click ‘preferences’ and set them according to your requirement. For any details please refer “man guake“.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Terminator

Terminator is an application that provides lots of terminals in a single window, saving valuable screen space otherwise wasted on window decorations and not quite being able to fill the screen with terminals. Much of the behaviour of Terminator is based on GNOME Terminal, and they have added more features from that as time goes by, but we also want to extend out in different directions with useful features for system admins and other users.

Installation

Use the following PPA to install Terminator to your Ubuntu machines -

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome-terminator/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install terminator

Features

• Arrange terminals in a grid
• Tabs
• Drag and drop re-ordering of terminals
• Lots of keyboard shortcuts
• Save multiple layouts and profiles via GUI preferences editor
• Simultaneous typing to arbitrary groups of terminals

Keyboard Shortcuts

Ctrl+Shift+O – Split terminals Horizontally.

Ctrl+Shift+E – Split terminals Vertically.

Ctrl+Shift+Right – Move parent dragbar Right.

Ctrl+Shift+Left – Move parent dragbar Left.

Ctrl+Shift+Up – Move parent dragbar Up.

Ctrl+Shift+Down – Move parent dragbar Down.

F11 - Toggle Fullscreen.

Ctrl+Shift+F – Search within terminal scrollback

Ctrl+Shift+N or Ctrl+Tab – Move to next terminal within the same tab, use Ctrl+PageDown  to move  to the next tab.  If cycle_term_tab is False, cycle within the same tab will be disabled.

Ctrl+Shift+P or Ctrl+Shift+Tab – Move to previous terminal within the same tab,  use  Ctrl+PageUp to  move to the previous tab.  If cycle_term_tab is False, cycle within the same tab will be disabled.

Alt+Up – Move to the terminal above the current one.

Alt+Down – Move to the terminal below the current one.

Alt+Left – Move to the terminal left of the current one.

Alt+Right – Move to the terminal right of the current one.

For more information, please refer “man terminator” or “man terminator_config”. Any queries regarding these or any other regarding Ubuntu/Bash etc can be asked here.
If you want your favourite terminal app to be reviewed here please leave a  comment.
Njoy !

Hardware Drivers are very important for a computer system to run properly to its optimum limits. Real Gaming on Ubuntu would be possible only after Driver installation. This post will cover the basic methods of installing Hardware Drivers in Ubuntu. We will try to make things as simple as possible. When it comes to Laptops, Ubuntu has always configured the present external card easily and  the install was just 1 click away and most of the times, the case is same with Desktops as well but sometimes, things dont work as they are supposed to. For that, we have some mitigation strategies so that your hardware driver installation is not halted because of some bug or the other

Fundamental Method

This method is the most basic method of installing Hardware Drivers in Ubuntu. This method works for all kinds of cards irrespective of tags (ATI/Nvidia). All you need to do after Ubuntu installation is -

• Connect to internet and wait for the pop-up to appear.
• Click on it and it will show “Available Drivers” for the present hardware configuration.
• Click “Activate” and the drivers will be installed easily. Then reboot the system.

If somehow, you donot see any popup or you loose it or cancel it, dont worry. All you need to do its to browse to System>Administation>Additional Drivers and click “Activate” and the available driver will be installed. After that reboot your computer and enjoy 3D effects Ubuntu as well. This method works 90% of times with most hardware. The images below will make you understand better –

Alter : Synaptic Method

Synaptic Package Manager can also be easily used to install Nvidia/ATI drivers in Ubuntu.

Nvidia

Open “Synaptic Package Manager” from System>Administration and search for ‘nvidia’. Now select ‘nvidia-current’,'nvidia-current-modaliases’, ‘nvidia-common’, ‘nvidia-settings’ and mark them for installation. Apply changes and wait for the processed to complete. That should be it. Reboot your computer and its done.

ATI

Open “Synaptic Package Manager” from System>Administration and search for ‘fglrx’. Now select ‘fglrx’,'fglrx-amdccle’, ‘fglrx-modaliases’ & ‘xserver-xorg-video-radeon’ and mark them for installation. Apply changes and wait for the processed to complete. Thats it. Reboot and done.

If the methods used above doesnt work for you, then the below are the best possible approaches to get things done. Be very careful while using them as you might land up in trouble.

Nvidia Driver Installation

Method I – PPA

A good news for all Nvidia card owners is that there is a PPA available that is regularly updated on launchpad. So you can directly use it to install your drivers, just type the following commands in sequence and its done.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current nvidia-current-modaliases nvidia-settings

Reboot and enjoy !

Method II – Manual Install

There are some prerequisites for manual install and you need to be very careful while following these steps. First, make sure that your /etc/X11/xorg.conf is backed up.

sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup

Next, download drivers for your system from the download page. Open a terminal, and run the following command:

uname -r

and now insert the output into the “uname -r” portion of this command (sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r`) carefully as done below:

sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-2.6.38-8-generic

Now, we are ready. For Ubuntu, type

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop

OR for Kubuntu:

sudo /etc/init.d/kdm stop

First navigate from the tty to the directory where you saved the install file (I will use /path/to/installer), then set executable permissions on it:

cd ~/Downloads
sudo chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86-270.41.06.run

You can start the install script with the following command:

sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-270.41.06.run

The installer will now walk you through the steps required. Afater comletion, you can now restart your X11 using:

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start

OR

sudo /etc/init.d/kdm start

Now you can now change settings for your video setup. In Ubuntu, go to Applications->System Tools->NVIDIA X Server Settings and set your desktop accordingly.

ATI Driver Installation

Method I – PPA

There is a PPA available for ATI users on Launchpad which can be used to install ATI drivers on Ubuntu -

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd

and reboot your computer. We didnt had any ATI cards for testing so, we are relying on launchpad and google for this one. Any help would be much appreciated in this case.

Method II – Manual Install

Prerequisites -> Open the terminal and type -

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libqtgui4

Download the drivers from HERE, and open the Terminal and type:

cd ~/Downloads

This is not necessary if you are running Kubuntu or have already installed the libraries. In the Terminal, to create the deb files, type:

sudo sh ati-driver-installer-11-3-x86.x86_64.run –buildpkg Ubuntu/maverick

To install the created deb files, type in the Terminal:

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

After that, type in:

sudo aticonfig –initial

Close the Terminal and reboot the system.

If all is right, the fglrx driver that corresponds to AMD/ATI Catalyst 11.2 will be installed and working on your system. To confirm the drivers are working open a Terminal and type:

fglrxinfo

and you will see your card info displayed. Reboot and enjoy your Ubuntu desktop to its maximum!

Ubuntu 11.04 Compiz effects ->

Unity 3D Workspaces ->

Thats it for now. We will be back with more later on. For any queries regarding Drivers or any other regarding Ubuntu, ask us here freely.

Njoy !

A nice maintenance Update from Oracle for the thier hypervisor yesterday. VirtualBox got updated to version 4.0.6 and now Virtual box packages are available for Ubuntu 11.04 as well. It is a very useful application for testing different distros while keeping the mainstream OS intact. All you need is good hardware. This release has gone through a lot of updates and bugfixes including support for X.Org Server 1.10 final, Linux kernel 2.6.39-rc1 fixes, improved auto-run support, fix mouse support on SUSE 11 SP 1 guests, allow snapshots to be stored in the VM directory and much more.

Download Virtual Box 4.0.6

Ubuntu 11.04 – i386 / amd64
Ubuntu 10.10 – i386 / amd64
Common Extension Pack

Download the specified file and open it with Ubuntu Software Center and install it. After that Access Virtual Box from Applications>SystemTool>Oracle VM VirtualBox and goto File>Preferences>Extensions and select the Extension pack and install it. (It will ask you to read the license agreement, read it and aprrove). Done ! If you want to go the terminal  way then you can use these dpkg command (sudo dpkg -i *.deb) to install it.

• Snapshots: allow snapshots to be stored in the VM directory
• Storage: fixed access to iSCSI targets over internal network
• Storage: automatically create a diff image when attaching a streamOptimized VMDK image to a VM
• Host-Only & Bridged & Internal Networking: fix for processing promiscuous mode requests by VMs, defaulting to switch behaviour
• Buslogic: fixed emulation for certain guests
• Linux kernel 2.6.39-rc1 fixes
• Improved auto-run support
• Webservice: use own log file, with log rotation to limit size

For full details, see Changelog.

Njoy !

Ubuntu Control Center or UCC is an application inspired by Mandriva Control Center and aims to centralize and organize in a simple and intuitive form the main configuration tools for Ubuntu distribution. UCC uses all the native applications already bundled with Ubuntu, but it also utilizes some third-party apps. In all, it serves like a Control Panel to your Ubuntu desktop giving your enough power to control each and every part of your system whether it be installed Software, Hard Disks, User accounts, Network, and also allows you to upgrade to the latest development release to take part in Ubuntu testing. So, we can conclude that this application is worth installing.

Download

Jstest-gtk-0.1

Ubuntu Control Center 0.5.1

Installing & Testing

GUI Method

The installation is really simple.But there is a dependency for this build. So follow the instructions carefully.

• Download the above files and locate them.
• First open Jstest-gtk.deb via Ubuntu Software Center(10.10) or GDebi(10.04) and install it.
• After that, install UCC 0.5.1 via USC / Gdebi.
• After successful install, access and test UCC from Applications>System Tools>Ubuntu Control Center.

Terminal Method

This one is also simple but i would prefer the first one

wget http://ucc.googlecode.com/files/jstest-gtk_0.1.0-1%7Egetdeb1_i386.deb
wget http://ucc.googlecode.com/files/ucc_051_i386.deb
cd ~/Downloads
sudo dpkg -i jstest-gtk_0.1.0-1~getdeb1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i ucc_051_i386.deb
exit

done. After that you can access UCC from Applications>System Tools>Ubuntu Control Center. So go on and start testing it.

Njoy !

Conky is a free, lightweight system monitor for GNU/Linux/BSD, that displays any information on your desktop i.e Cpu usage, Disk usage, Download/Upload speeds, CPU/Hard Disk temperatures, list of programs with pid (taking max cpu) etc . Originally a fork of Torsmo, Conky’s torsmo-based code is BSD licensed. New code in Conky has been licensed under the GPL 3.0.

Over the years, Conky has changed significantly from its predecessor, while maintaining simplicity and configurability. Conky can display just about anything, either on your root desktop or in its own window. Not only does Conky have many built-in objects, it can also display just about any piece of information by using scripts and other external programs.

Features : It has more than 300 built-in objects including support for :

• A big list of OS stats (username, uptime, CPU usage, memory usage, download, upload, disk usage, “top” like process stats, and network monitoring, just to name a few)
• Built in IMAP and POP3 support
• Built in support for many popular music players (MPD, XMMS2, BMPx, Audacious)
• Can be extended using built in Lua support, or any of your own scripts and programs.
• Built in Imlib2 and Cairo bindings for arbitrary drawing with Lua.

and much much more….

Conky can display this info either as text, or using simple progress bars and graph widgets, with different fonts and colors.

Download :- Conky 1.8.0

Install :- You can directly install conky using the terminal, just type in :

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install conky

OR

You can also install it from the source itself. Just download the Conky from above link and place the downloaded file in /home/user directory and typein

$tar zxf conky-1.8.0.tar.gz

$cd /home/user/conky-1.8.0

$ ./configure –prefix=/usr –enable-x11 –enable-mpd

$ make

$ make install

Note: You’ll need the X11 development libraries, version 6.8.2 or later. package name is probably libx11-dev on Ubuntu, as well as the development libraries for any additional features and do make sure you have “build-essential” package before trying to install from sources

Getting it to Work :

Launch Conky by typing in

sudo /usr/bin/conky

Type in the root password and press enter & you will see conky running on your Desktop.

Styling it up : Conky by default gives a very gloomy dark look but you can edit to look awesome and display content according to your choice. The Conkyrc file resides in /home/user directory and you can edit it. All you need to do is to edit your .conkyrc. Use

sudo vi /home/user/.conkyrc

and edit it accordingly.

Here are 10 really good conky scripts that will make your desktop look great. The download & instructions are on the respective pages :

1) Ubuntu Lucid – Gnome

2) Ubuntu Blue -KDE

3) WoW Light Worldwide

4) Conky Flavors

5) The Perfect Conky Setup

6) Conky blue by vsv

7) ConkyTransmission

8 ) Ubuntu simplified

9) Mi – Ubuntu

10) New Dark Desktop

Just download these (extract the files if any). Locate conky script and open it with any text editor (say gedit) and copy all the content and then type :

sudo gedit /home/user/.conkyrc

Repalce the old content with the new code from the downloaded file, save it & exit. Now type

sudo /usr/bin/conky

and enjoy all new conky !

You can also add Conky to your startup. You can get more conky scripts from Gnome-look.org. Just go there in the search box type “Conky” and done. Download and install awesome scripts from there and give a new look to your Desktop.

Note: ‘/user’ must be replaced by your own username.

Any questions regarding the post can be asked here.

Njoy Conky !

Its been a while since we have discussed Virtualisation in Ubuntu using KVM – Kernel Virtual Machine. Its about time for us to move on to discuss one of the most famous cross-platform Virtualisation solutions out there – VirtualBox.

VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualisation product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). Recently, Oracle Virtual Box 3.2.8  has been released with a lot of improvements. We will discuss the installation of Virtual Box and using it to run a Guest OS inside Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

Download :-VirtualBox 3.2.8

Installation :-

Installing Virtual Box is really simple. Just download the .deb and double click the file, Gdebi Package installer will install it automatically for you (make sure you have uninstalled the previous version of VirtualBox if any).

OR

Open the terminal and type -

cd /home/celldweller/Downloads

/*Change Directory to the one where VBox has been downloaded */

sudo dpkg -i  virtualbox-3.2_3.2.8-64453~Ubuntu~lucid_i386.deb

Usage :-

1)Access VirtualBox from Menu>System Tools>Oracle VM VirtualBox and run it.

2)When the VirtualBox main screen appears, click “New” on top left corner to start with new Guest OS installation.

3)Type the “Name” of your VM and select OS and its version.

4)Allocate RAM to the Guest OS. Make sure to allocate it wisely for better performance.

5)Select Virtual HardDisk. Select “Create New Hard Disk” and click “Next” . A virtual disk creation wizard will open :

• Click Next and select “Location” and “Size” of the Virtual Machine and click “Next”.
• Select Hard Disk Storage type as “Dynamically Expanding Storage” and click “Next”.
• See summary of your preferences, check it again and click “Finish”.

6)Now the Screen will show summary of the VM preferences, take a clear look and click “Finish” to start booting with the guest VM.

7)Select Guest VM (here, its “Kubuntu”) and click Start to boot the VM.

8)First Run Wizard will open and will ask you to  select “Installation Media”. Select your choice and click “Finish”.

9)The machine will now start booting will all the proposed settings.

10)Install the Guest OS as usual and test virtualisation with VirtualBox in Ubuntu.

Enjoy !!!

Ubuntu Studio is a multimedia editing/creation derivative of Ubuntu. It is built for audio, video and graphic enthusiasts or professionals. But as it is free and open-source, everyone is free to use. It is an officially recognized derivative of the Ubuntu Linux distribution, which is explicitly modified for general multimedia production. The latest version is Ubuntu Studio 10.04 – Lucid Lynx. We have already discussed in detail about Ubuntu Studio 9.10 in our previous post.

Download Ubuntu Studio 10.04 [ 1.7GB DVD image] :-

Torrent:- i386 or amd64

Direct :- i386 or amd64

For details see the Official Download Page.

What’s New :-

Ubuntu Studio is undergoing heavy development. This time also, numerous improvements have been implemented. Here are some of the more prominent ones :-

Audio :

• Aeolus 0.8.2 from 0.8.1
• Alsa-tools-gui (echomixer, eny24 control, HDSPcontrol, DPSPmixer, RME digicontrol) 1.0.22 from 1.0.20
• Ardour 2.8.6 from 2.8.2
• Audacity 1.3.11 from 1.3.9
• Freqtweak 0.7.2 from 0.7.0
• GNE Denemo 0.8.10 from 0.8.6
• Hydrogen 0.9.4
• Jackbeat 0.7.4 from 0.7.2
• Mixxx 1.7.2 from 1.6.1
• Muse 1.0.1 from 0.8.1a
• Puredata 0.42.5 from 0.41.4
• Qsynth 0.3.4 from 0.2.5
• SooperLooper 1.6.14 from 1.0.8c
• SoundRecorder (gnome-media) 2.29.91 from 2.28.1
• Virtual Midi Keyboard (vkeybd) 0.1.18d from 0.1.17b
• Zynaddsubfx 2.4.0 from 2.2.1

Graphics:

• Blender 2.49.2 from 2.49a
• FontForge 0.0.20090923 from 0.0.20090622
• FontMatrix 0.6.0 from 0.4.2
• F-Spot 0.61.5 from 0.61.3
• Gimp 2.6.8 from 2.6.7
• Hugin Patch Processor 2009.2.0 from 0.8.0
• Hugin Panorama Creator 2009.2.0 from 0.8.0
• Inkscape 0.47.0 from 0.47~pre4

Video:

• Kino 1.3.4 from 1.3.3

New Applications:

• Rakarrack 0.3.0
• MuseScore 0.9.6
• Subtitleeditor 0.30.0

Removed Application:

• Creox

Applications Moved Into the Main Repository to allow for better integration:

• libffado
• JACK

JACK support for applications:

• Pulseaudio
• Portaudio
• Xine

Pulse Audio/JACK integration:

• Pulse Audio built against Jack is available (but qjackctl still disables Pulse Audio via pasuspender on start)

Note : Further integration between Pulse Audio and JACK should occur in Maverick most likely via DBus

Installation :- Download the ISO image & burn it into a DVD or make a bootable USB using UNetBootin and proceed with the installation.

As we have already discussed, Ubuntu Studio can be installed by 2 Methods :-

1) Upgrade Install – Synaptic Package Manager based installation. [requires Ubuntu 10.04 already installed]

2) Dedicated Install – Making a separate partition and installing Ubuntu Studio afresh. [requires a separate empty space, atleast 10gb]

For Detailed Installation Process & Screenshots Please Refer Our Previous Post.

Njoy !!!