Ubuntu: Linux for Human Beings

Operating system or simply OS is essential and indivisible software in computer systems. We have been using Microsoft Windows as OS from a long ago. We are very much familiar with Windows XP and Windows 7, the recent release. After all, Windows is commercial OS. In this article, we will go through ‘Ubuntu’, a Linux-based operating system.

Ubuntu is a free and OpenSource operating system. Before we proceed towards Ubuntu, let’s have a short idea about Linux kernel. Linux kernel was written in 1991 by Linus Torwald, a Finnish software developer. Kernel is actually a heart of any operating system because it is the communication bridge between the hardware and actual data processing in the applications at runtime. Linus Torwald developed this Linux kernel in such a manner that anyone can use, modify, extend or redistribute its source code under a license called as GNU General Public License (GPL). The development of any operating system is very much complicated process because the development of kernel takes much time. The operating systems developed as extensions of a kernel are known as derivatives of that kernel. As Linux kernel is OpenSource, many operating systems have been arrived as its derivatives or redistributions. Ubuntu is also one of them. Three of the most popular Linux derivatives are Fedora, Debian and OpenSUSE. Ubuntu is a debian derivative.
The first release of Ubuntu was in 2004. Ubuntu team releases its new version after every 6 months. The recent release of Ubuntu is 11.04 that is, April 2011. The main and striking feature of Ubuntu is that it is targeted towards users rather than towards programmers. Right now, Ubuntu is sponsored by Canonical Ltd in US.
Let us know about some best features of Ubuntu. Ubuntu differs from Windows in every sense. It has a well designed graphical user interface from GNOME (pronounced as g-nome), an OpenSource GUI which is also a part of GNU project. Ubuntu has a graphical desktop environment from Unity GUI, a version of GNOME interface. Ubuntu comes with many in-built daily applications such as OpenOffice.org, VLC Media Player, Mozilla Firefox as web browser. Ubuntu support UTF-8 that is, latest version of Unicode. Thus, it has support for almost all languages in the world.
OpenOffice.org provides a free word processor, spreadsheet and presentation software. Many Windows-based programs can be ran on Ubuntu using the emulator softwares or Virtual Machines such as Wine or VirtualBOX.

Here are some snapshots of Ubuntu:

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

Ubuntu 11.04

The minimum hardware requirements for Ubuntu 11.04 are:
1. x86 family processors with minimum 1 GHz speed.
2. 128 MB RAM
3. Minimum 5GB of free space on hard drive
4. Minimum 1024 x 768 pixel monitor resolution

Almost every PC nowadays satisfies these requirements. Thus, Ubuntu is free to install on any desktop or laptop computer. Considering speed, Ubuntu is much fast to load as compared to Windows. As per my experience, Ubuntu starts in just 10 seconds and shuts down in just 3 seconds. It has better security against viruses and malicious softwares over Windows.

Ubuntu Workspaces:
The ‘multiple workspaces’ is the most significant feature of Ubuntu. Workspaces are the groupings of multiple windows in Ubuntu. These workspaces make the desktop easier to browse and reduce the clutter in tasks. These are arranged in multiple rows and columns. You can use workspaces to organize your work. As an example, you can have all your communication windows, such as email, browser and chat apps on one workspace and the work you are doing on a second workspace Your music or media player could be on a third workspace.
Ubuntu has two editions namely, desktop and server. Both are available as OpenSource and free softwares.
Similar to command prompt in Windows, Ubuntu has ‘terminal’ as command line interface. This terminal is especially in the point of view of programmers.

How to get Ubuntu?
You can easily download a CD image (.iso) of Ubuntu from its official website, www.ubuntu.com . This CD image is of 700 MB. If it is not possible to you to download this heavy file because of slow internet connection, you can also ship its free CD directly to your home. This shipping is totally free and is also available in India.
After getting the CD, just start your PC and run it. You will have two options to install Ubuntu namely, “bootable operating system” and “install as application”. For installing it as a bootable operating, it needs to make free a partition of your hard drive to install the OS. After doing this, you can choice menu of OS after startup. But I will strongly recommend you to choose the second option that is, “install as application”. This option doesn’t need to dedicate a separate partition for Ubuntu. It can be installed and uninstalled just like any application. Also this doesn’t disturb your current file system.

Many third-party applications for Ubuntu are available on web on its free app store. You can easily download them. The only problem with Ubuntu is that, it needs to download ‘updates’ after installation to extend the functionality of the OS. Even common audio and video codecs are not included in the installation CD. But everything is fine excluding this drawback.
Ubuntu will bring you a hatke desktop experience which has never been on Windows. After all, Ubuntu is “Linux for Human Beings”. It doesn’t matter whether you are programmer or user. No problem to use it once!

Thanks and regards,
Nitish R. Muley

Enhance Your Capabilities with Bluetooth: Connect Wirelessly

As the popularity gadgets like cellphones and players increased, it was a demand among people that these devices should transfer data easily. At the beginning, there was the facility of 'infrared' in these gadgets. Infrared can easily transfer data between two devices within short distance provided that they are in line of sight of each other. Infrared had somewhat slow data transfer rate and so many other drawbacks. So, with the arrival of new technologies. Infrared quit from this industry permanently. Some of the new advanced technologies invented were Bluetooth and WLAN. We will discuss about WLAN later on. Let's turn towards our main subject, Bluetooth. We are using Bluetooth from last few years with the arrival of multimedia smartphones. We always use it for transferring files from one phone to another or to play music with wireless headphone. But right now, I am going to tell you about new interesting advantages of this technology.

Bluetooth is an open wireless technology for exchange or streaming of data over short distances (usually upto 100 metres) with fixed devices like cellphone, PC, laptop etc. Bluetooth creates Personal Area Connection with these devices. Bluetooth is a very secure technology. Bluetooth was invented by Ericsson in 1994. There is misunderstanding among people with word 'Blue' that the radio technology uses waves of wavelength nearer to 'Blue'. But, actually the name 'Bluetooth' is related with 'Halard Bluetooth' who was the name of son of King 'Gorm the Old' of Denmark in A. D. 935. Currently, Bluetooth is managed by 'Bluetooth SIG' (Bluetooth Special Interest Group).

Let me tell you some technical specifications about Bluetooth. Bluetooth is a packet-based protocol. Bluetooth implements a separate radio technology called as FHSS (Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum) which is a rapid method of transmitting radio signals among many frequency channels. In FHSS, the data being sent to other device is 'chopped' into small pieces and these pieces are transmitted upto about 80 bands each of bandwidth 1 MHz. Bluetooth has frequency range from 2400 MHz to 2483 MHz. This frequency range is reserved from Bluetooth or Wi-fi like technologies. The data rate possible is Bluetooth system is 1 Mbps. Bluetooth uses master-slave structure for communication. Bluetooth has range upto 100 metres.

There are three versions of Bluetooth which are most common in use. Bandwidth is enhanced in every upgrade. Version 1.2 has data transfer rate of 1 Mbps. 2.0 has 3 Mbps. Bluetooth 2.0 is currently very common in use in almost all devices. The most recent version Bluetooth 3.0 has highest bandwidth of 24 Mbps. The following picture shows a handy 'Bluetooth Dongle' connected in PCs or laptops via USB port which have no in-built Bluetooth reciever.

In order to implement this technology, that particular device must be compatible with Bluetooth Profiles for the use of desired services. So, Let us discuss about some of these profiles which is the main purpose of today's article.

A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile): This profile allows a stream of high bitrate audio to transfer over a Bluetooth connection from source device to handy wireless headset. The device like cellphone encodes the stream of audio into Bluetooth-friendly format and this signal is transferred wirelessly to wireless headset which recieves these signal and again decodes them into original audio. Today, almost all cellphones support A2DP. The audio codecs allowed are- MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (MP3) and AAC.



File Transfer Profile (FTP): This profile allows to transfer files within two devices in range. This profile is most commonly used in cellphones and is well known to all of us. It also allows one device to browse file system in other device.

Basic Printing Profile (BPP): This profile allows to send text and images to Bluetooth supported printer wirelessly for easier printing jobs.

Cordless Telephony Profile (CTP): This profile allows cordless phones to work using Bluetooth which increases efficiency of signal and audio quality.

Dial-up Networking Profile (DUP): It is one of the most important profiles of Bluetooth. It allows the Internet access over a Bluetooth connection. It is most common in cellphones. A laptop can easily access Internet by creating a regular GPRS connection using cellphone.

Remote Control Profile (RCP): Most TV remote controllers work with infrared and suffer many drawbacks like 'line of sight'. The remote control profile of Bluetooth allows TV remote controllers to work with Bluetooth. It covers almost all functions of TV.

Basic Imaging Profile (BIP): The profile allows to send images within devices. This profile is most common in digital cameras.

Human Interface Device Profile (HID): This profile allows devices like mouse, keyboard, joystick to work wirelessly using Bluetooth. For this purpose, a small device called 'Bluetooth HID' is inserted in USB port of personal computer which decodes these signals and sends to PC.

Hands-free Profile (HFP): There are many car accidents due to mobile phone. This profile of Bluetooth will save several lives avoiding this danger without rejecting the incoming call. A 'Bluetooth Hands-free kit' is installed withing car. If phone notices any incoming call, it routs this call to Hands-free via Bluetooth. Hands-free is connected to main speaker of car, so that one can talk without disturbing hands from driving.

Phonebook Access Profile (PBA): This profile allows to exchange 'phonebook' within devices. This is often used in 'Hands-free' kit of car to display the name of incoming caller.

SIM Access Profile (SAP): Many cars have in-built GSM receivers so that a car itself can act as a phone. This profile allows these receivers to access a SIM card within a phone via Bluetooth. Thus, car doesn't require separate SIM.

Video Distribution Profile (VDP): This profile allows to transfer a 'streaming' video (recorded or live) from one device to another. This profile also has application in 'videoconferencing'. This profile supports any of these two mandatory codecs- H.263 or MPEG-4 Visual Simple Profile. I think this profile will have better work in version 3.0

Bluetooth also uses a process called as 'pairing'. The two Bluetooth supported devices can be 'paired' so that they can remember each other and can transfer data without the permission.
The Bluetooth technology is leading day by day with increasing its application. I hope with the use of this information you will really try to get best of this technology.

Thanks and regards,
Nitish R. Muley

Windows 8: Developer 'Review'

Microsoft Corporation recently revealed the developer preview of the next release in its Windows line of desktop operating systems, codenamed as Windows 8. This may be the first time for Microsoft to publicly release the preview of its operating system for free. Microsoft is keeping Linux as idol in this sense! Well, I downloaded its ISO from official website of Microsoft Developers Network and tested it on my laptop computer. I present here my review and some of the snapshots of it. This review is based on my testing in non-touch environment.

Windows 7 was just an attempt of Microsoft to repair the pitfalls and flaws in Windows Vista. There are no considerable changes in Windows 7 in comparison with Vista. Unlike Windows 7, Windows 8 is really ambitious. Almost every corner of OS is well touched up and shows right working from boot. Windows 8 is inspired by its mobile cousin, Windows Phone 7.

Windows 8 is dual-UI operating system, first one is classic Windows UI and another one is Metro UI, inspired by Windows Phone 7. This Metro UI was the only reason why Microsoft released its preview. Metro UI is the new way for Windows developers for creating new applications. The classic Windows 7 UI remains mostly same. Windows 8 is essentially meant to be an OS that can run on tablet PCs. Windows 7 came up with multi-touch screen support, but it didn’t provide very good multi-touch experience. Windows 8 overtakes this drawback with tile-based metro UI. This Metro is complete different from classic Windows UI and is heavily optimized for touch screens.

Metro Start Screen

After a fresh installation and first boot, user is greeted with this metro UI. This UI shows the collection of pre-installed applications from both of the UIs. These tiles are easy to re-arrange just by drag-n-drop feature. This start screen really has a sexy look. Tiles are small windows into the application. Each tile shows the status of that application. Means, the e-mail app shows the count of unread mails. You can pin any application to Metro start screen, whether traditional Windows app or web URL.

There’s also instant search interface in start screen which can search any kind of search query, may be app, may be content of app or may be file. This feature is really efficient.

Search UI

After clicking on ‘desktop’ from start screen, the following desktop view is displayed, which is must similar to classic Windows 7 desktop. Now, you can have access to your computer but sill, everything is centralized around Metro UI.

Classic Desktop View

Optimized Lock Screen

Metro UI Style Login Screen

Windows 8 comes with Internet Explorer 10 (IE10) both in metro and classic UI. Metro IE10 does not allow plugins such as Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight.

Windows now has a new version of multi-tasking. Pressing Windows key suspends the active application. These suspended processes still remain in background and consume RAM, but they don't consume CPU resources. You will be presented with list of all running and suspended applications by opening the regular task manager. You can also choose to suspend those apps which are consuming too much CPU resources. This improves the overall performance speed. The task switching can be done via [Alt] + [Tab] as well as [Windows] + [Tab].

The login or lock screen is also metro-based and shows current date and time and a featuring wide-screen high-resolution image.

Internet Explorer 10 (Classic Windows UI)

Internet Explorer 10 (Metro Style UI)

The only and biggest loss in Windows 8 is Start menu :(. The new Metro UI doesn’t support start menu, instead it launches tile-based metro start screen as described already.

The Windows Explorer in Windows 8 has a brand new ribbon-based UI, with much better functionality. This UI brings back the lost menus in Vista and 7.

(New Explorer with Ribbon-based UI)

The ribbon UI toolbar shows the common options such as extracting ZIP files, properties, open with etc. Some of the common operations can be pinned to Explorer toolbar.

One more plus point with Windows 8, we can virtually mount or burn ISO file without any third-party utility. Just double click on the ISO file we want to mount. It gets automatically mounted as new optical drive. We can also unmount it just by normal eject operation. +1!

The file copy and move interface is also enhanced. All file transfer operations such as copy, move, delete appear in the same window. These operations can be also be paused.

Expanded View of Copy Progress Window

Expanded of copy window shows the graph of changes in file transfer speed versus time.

A new “Automatic” option for aero theme automatically set s the color of window border and title bar based on the current wallpaper.

The new task manager in Windows 8 is very powerful tool. It adds many attributes in addition to CPU and RAM utilization, such as disk and network utilization. It is very detailed.

New Task Manager (Detailed Processes View)

New Task Manager (Performance Statistics)

Windows 8 also offers Control Panel in Metro UI as shown below.

The Windows 8 provides inbuilt Anti-virus technology which includes Smart-Screen filter introduced in IE9. Windows automatically checks the downloaded files using any browser.

One more core improvement in Windows 8, even boot screen has Metro UI! Each boot option is optimized for touch-environment.

Metro UI for Boot Options

There is also serious improvement in boot speed. My PC now starts just in 10 seconds!

Windows 8 comes with in-built feature called as ‘Hyper-V’ for creating and accessing virtual machines. This feature needs to be turned on from ‘Turn Windows Features On or off’ from Control panel. But still this option is not a substitute for VMWare Player.

After all, if you can’t wait for having access to this coolest version of Windows OS, you can download its ISO file (Developer Preview) from this link. You can either mount it virtually or can write it on writable DVD and can proceed towards easy (may be time consuming) installation process.

The minimum hardware requirements for this installation are:

1. 1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

2. 1 GB of RAM (for 32-bit) or 2 GB of RAM (for 64-bit)

3. 20 GB for free hard drive space

4. Screen resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels

Remember, Windows 8 is just the codename for this version OS by Microsoft. The name can be different after its final release. This final release is expected to be in late 2012. This was just a pre-beta version to make developers aware about new development era for Windows Development apart from .NET Framework development. Many much changes are expected in final release. Waiting for your comments!

Regards,

Nitish R. Muley