Shutter is a free & open-source feature-rich screenshot program which has been licensed under GPL v3. It allows user to capture almost everything. It can take a screenshot of a specific area, window, your whole screen, or even of a website – apply different effects to it, draw on it to highlight points, and then upload to an image hosting site, all in one window. Isn’t it awesome ?

Lets take a look at the Features :-

1)Capturing the Desktop :-

1. Capture a Specific Area:  Select any region of the screen and capture only those parts you really need.
2. Capture a Window: Simply use your mouse to select the window you want to capture.
3. Capture the Desktop: It does not only capture all the contents of your desktop, it also supports Multi-monitor settings.
4. Capture a Website: Shutter uses gnome-web-photo to capture a website without opening a browser window.
5. Capture a Menu or Tooltip: Capturing menus or tooltips is very easy with Shutter. You select one of the options and a (user-defined) countdown starts. During this time you can open the desired menu or let a specific tooltip come up. Shutter will recognize and capture it. This one is my favourite

2)Editing the Screenshots :-

1. Add Text, Arrows, Rectangles, Ellipses: The built-in editor allows you to add primitives (e.g. rectangles, lines etc.), arrows or text to your screenshot.
2. Cropping: The built-in editor also includes a tool to crop your screenshot.
3. Auto-Increment Shape:  Shutter offers a specific auto-increment shape that can be added to the screenshot.
4. Censor/Pixelize to Hide Private Data: Shutter gives you simple but effective tools to hide this data like IP or e-Mail addresses.

3)Share your Creativity :-

1. Share it: Shutter has a built-in function to upload your screenshot with nice link-formatting so you can post the generated link directly in the forum, website, wiki etc.
2. The Ubuntu Cloud: The latest version of Shutter supports Ubuntu One as well.

4)Plugins :-

Shutter ships with a great variety of plugins that allow you to add impressive effects to your screenshots. Take a look here.

Download :- Shutter 0.86.4

Installation :-

1. Add a PPA to your system – Open a terminal and type:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:shutter/ppa

2. Update the System Package list so that it loads all the packages all over again including the Shutter PPA:

sudo apt-get update

3. Install Shutter now :

sudo apt-get install shutter

It’s done. Access Shutter from Application>Accessories>Shutter.

Now, capturing anything on your computer is just a matter of few clicks. Let your creativity fly!

Shutter at Work :- Take a look at a few screenshots taken using Shutter.

Any queries regarding the post or any other regarding Ubuntu can be asked here.

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 !

It started with Nero Linux  4 Trial. Nero would have been our first choice if it would have been Windows. But since neither the Windows is free nor Nero, we have been looking for a software that could take over Nero role for burning CDs and DVDs efficiently.

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!

The term Media Center may be defined either as a dedicated computer appliance or a specialized application software designed to run on standard personal computer hardware which then becomes a so called “HTPC” (“Home Theater PC”, also sometimes referred to as a “Media PC”), both of which are adapted for playing various kinds of media (music, movies,photos etc.), and it usually has a GUI (Graphical User Interface) . A Media Center typically allows watching movies (DVD, BluRay, and other digital video formats) and watching and recording television broadcasts, playing audio (CD as well as MP3,WMA, and other audio formats) & watching pictures and making galleries to manage them properly.

For Ubuntu , we have three awesome Media Centers lined up namely – XBMC, Enna Media Center and MOOVIDA .

1) XBMC :- XBMC Media Center (formerly named Xbox Media Center) is an award winning free and open source cross-platform media player and home entertainment software . XBMC is available for Linux, OSX, Windows, and the original Xbox. Created in 2003 , XBMC is a non-profit project run and developed by volunteers from different parts of the world. XBMC is available in more than 30 languages. Isn’t it great ! Its graphical user interface allows the user to easily manage video, photos, podcasts, and music from a computer, optical disk, local network, and the internet using a remote control/mouse.
It is a popular alternative to Microsoft’s Windows Media Center and Apple’s Front Row, & has a skinnable and user-configurable interface and plugin support.

Howto install :-

For Ubuntu 9.10 :- Open the terminal and type :

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xbmc xbmc-standalone
sudo apt-get update

and done.

For Ubuntu 9.04 :-

Add the following key in the terminal :

sudo apt-key adv –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com –recv-keys 9317790E

In the terminal, type :

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

and add these lines and save it .

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

Now run :

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt0-get install xbmc

Enjoy the best Media Center solution from Applications > Sound & Video > XBMC Media Center.

2)Enna Media Center :-Enna is a Media Center application that features a simple user interface. Enna is based on the powerful Enlightenment Foundations Libraries (EFL) as for its graphical user interface and GeeXboX libraries as for multimedia playback and information retrieval. The Enna project, as many Open Source projects, is in constant development and new features are regularly added.So, just watch out for regular updates . On the whole , all we can say is that its a must try.

Howto Install :-

For Ubuntu Karmic Users:-
Edit the apt-sources.list file with

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following lines & save it

deb http://packages.geexbox.org/ karmic main

Update the source list

sudo apt-get update

Install Enna using the following command:

sudo apt-get install enna

Access Enna from Applications >Sound&Video >Enna Media Center .

3)MOOVIDA :-Moovida is a media center “bringing the best of the internet to your TV/computer screen. The elegant and easy to use interface automatically displays artwork and fan art throughtout and gives you access to movie synopsis and artist info.” Moovida is a project to create an open source cross platform media center solution, with a 10-foot user interface design for the living-room TV, to be used with a remote control. Primary development and deployment platform is Linux and Unix operating systems; it also currently supports Microsoft Windows and also hope to support Mac OS X in the future. It runs on top of the GStreamer multimedia framework.

Howto Install :-

Open the terminal and type

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following line to it and save.

For Ubuntu 9.10 (karmic) -

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/moovida-packagers/ppa/ubuntu karmic main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/moovida-packagers/ppa/ubuntu karmic main

For Ubuntu 9.04 (jaunty)-

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

Now type in

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install moovida

You can start Moovida from Applications > Sound&Video>MOOVIDA.

Njoy !!!

Source: Wiki

Wubi (Windows-based Ubuntu Installer) is an official Windows-based free software installer for Ubuntu.It can bring you to the Linux world with a single click. It allows you to install and uninstall Ubuntu as any other Windows application, in a simple and safe way. Trying Ubuntu out has never been easier.

For history freaks Wubi was born as an independent project but after 8.04 alpha 5 , it started coming within the iso. The goal of the project is to assist a Windows user unacquainted with Linux in trying Ubuntu without risking any loss of information due to disk formatting or partitioning .Wubi can also uninstall Ubuntu from within Windows. It adds an entry to the Windows boot menu which allows the user to run Linux. Ubuntu is installed within a file in the Windows file system (c:\ubuntu\disks\root.disk), as opposed to being installed within its own partition. This file is seen by Linux as a real hard disk.

While Wubi does not install Ubuntu directly to its own partition this can also be accomplished by using LVPM, a Loopmounted Virtual Partition Manager, to transfer the Wubi-generated Ubuntu installation to a dedicated real partition. The creation of Virtual partition and installation of Ubuntu in it saves your data in c:\ drive and it deosnot let any change happen to your system ,its just that it takes some part of your disk space .

Wubi also creates a swap file in the Windows file system (c:\ubuntu\disks\swap.disk), in addition to the memory of the host machine. This file is seen by Ubuntu as additional RAM. A related project named Lubi (Linux based Ubuntu installer) is also present which lets you install Ubuntu in Linux host machine. After installation , you will be able to dual boot b/w your own previous Linux and Ubuntu.

Caution:-  : Wubi sometimes can create problems with certain hardware and hangs out . The only option at that time to regain your system is hard reboot (CPU reset or UPS shutdown )

Hardware Support :- intel x86_32 bit version of ubuntu and x86_64 bit versions are supported.

Installation procedure :-

1) The first step is to get your Ubuntu installation Iso image. You can get your copy here . To read more about Karmic koala – Ubuntu 9.10 , please read our previous post.

2)Once you have your ubuntu copy, then burn it into a CD or install via USB drive. For using USB, you will need Unetbootin(Universal Netboot Installer) which you can get it here .After running this software select the option “Diskimage ISO” & just give the location of the image file you downloaded.

3)Now , insdert your CD or USB into your computer. Then , open My Computer on your Windows and goto the Installation CD directory os USB drive. Double click Wubi.exe .You will see an ubuntu menu like this one.

4)Now click “Install inside Windows” .You will get option to select destination , desktop environment , username /password etc.

Note:You must have about 6 gb space free for installation , rather the installer asks for only 4 gb but for a better experience, it is recommended to have larger space.

5)After making all the desired settings, click Install .

6)Last step is completing installation .Just click reboot.

Our work here is done.Now, its all upto ubuntu now. Go get a cup of coffee and relax on your chair as after a while you will see Ubuntu getting installed itself.

Installation will start by itself . All seetings that you have done previously will now take effect.

The installer also shows you what you can do with Karmic. Its a really nice OS which can give you a realtime Computing experience.

After completing installation , your computer will reboot by itself .

Now, if you want to see ubuntu in your system , just goto control panel and see

While you select your os vis dual boot as shown above, you will go across grub 2.0 . Just press enter and enjoy ubuntu experience.

If you want to uninstall wubi , its also easy.Just goto Ubuntu folder in your c:\ drive and open it .Double Click the Uninstall-wubi icon and done.

If you want to do a dedicated fresh install , then you should refer our post Landing on Planet Ubuntu .

We are sure ubuntu will give a full computing experience and that too for free.

Happy linuxing to all our users .

Njoy.!.

Canonical launched the latest version of Ubuntu, Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala on 29th October, 2009.

For HTTP/FTP downloads, you can click on the logo on the right side or simply click here – http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

Here are the links to the torrent files:

• i386 CD —-   i386 DVD
• amd64 CD —-   amd64 DVD

Download them with your favourite torrent client.