Onze stickerman, ook wel beter bekend als ArmedKing is MIA (Missing In Action). Blijkbaar worden de enveloppen die opgestuurd worden ook niet meer gevuld teruggestuurd. Je kunt dus geen Ubuntu stickers bestellen bij de stickerman.

We zijn dus op zoek naar een nieuwe stickerman (of vrouw), die dit karwei op wil pakken. Als je denkt dat je aankunt, stuur dan even een mailtje naar swat#ubuntu-nl.org.

P.S. Mocht je dit lezen ArmedKing, stuur mij of iemand van het team even een bericht!

Update (09-02-2010): Hij is terecht en doet nog steeds de stickerdistributie! Hoera!

Ubuntu, Ubuntu-NL

This little gem of a magazine got my attention during the previous HCC dagen. It contains the basic information a newbie could/would need to get started with Linux. Topics in the magazine are, but are not limited to: drivers, cd/dvd burning, desktop layout, netbook remix, music/video, fspot, firefox, evolution, ekiga/skype, empathy etc.. These are topics which I get a lot of questions about from new converts and this saves me precious time and energy. Another advantage of this ‘publicity’ is exactly that, publicity. There are not that many Linux magazines around, but there are dozens of magazines which focus on other operating systems. This is the kind of magazine I could give to parents to get them hooked on Ubuntu, good stuff!

P.S. Yes, the magazine is focused on Ubuntu (9.10 a.k.a. Karmic Koala)

FOSS, Ubuntu, Ubuntu-NL, Ubuntu.com

Yesterday evening the HME awards 2009 event took place at the Jaarbeurshallen in Utrecht, just after closing time of the HCC dagen. A few people from the Ubuntu-NL team went there to pick it up (including me), and I wanted to at least share a picture of the award with everyone. This award goes to everybody who made a contribution to Ubuntu!

Note: “besturingssysteem” means operating system

Ubuntu, Ubuntu-NL, Ubuntu.com

Has it been 6 months already? Time flies when you are having fun or when you are very busy, it seems. The Dutch and English announcements can be found on the official Ubuntu wiki as well as the Dutch and English release notes. Another great upgrade, loaded with new stuff and changes. Here are some tips to get you through the potentially “rough” part of it

Fast upgrade

I gave a friend of mine a great tip. That tip enabled him to upgrade his system in less than an hour and downloading the updates took less than 10 minutes (at about 1.6 MB/s). I told him that the default is to use the official nl.archive.ubuntu.com as an update source and he should use an alternate local mirror if the main one is slow. Just add a line to your /etc/hosts :

ip.of.the.alternate.mirror nl.archive.ubuntu.com

Do not forget to undo this after the upgrade though

GNOME-RDP

Apparently the GNOME-RDP database “breaks” again if you upgrade. This bugreport also contained the “fix” (by Mick K), but make sure sqlite and sqlite3 are installed:

sudo apt-get install sqlite sqlite3
cp ~/.gnome-rdp.db ~/.gnome-rdp.db.backup
mv ~/.gnome-rdp.db ~/.gnome-rdp.db.old
# Open GNOME-RDP to create and initialize a new database and then close the application:
gnome-rdp
sqlite ~/.gnome-rdp.db.old “.dump session” | fgrep INSERT | sqlite3 ~/.gnome-rdp.db
# Keyring support slows it down a lot (and produces errors) so disable it:
sqlite3 ~/.gnome-rdp.db “INSERT INTO appOptions VALUES(’UseKeyring’,'False’);”

Note: please keep your backup file in place (an extra backup is never a bad thing), since GNOME-RDP seems to have database issues when upgrading. I can not ensure this is ‘the’ best way to fix your current database, so use with caution.

Compiz and Intel

I suddenly found myself unable to enable compiz (”Blacklisted PCIID ‘8086:2a02′ found”). After a quick Launchpad error search I found this bug which referenced the Dell site, which eventually contained the workaround. Just edit /etc/xdg/compiz/compiz-manager and add the following line:

SKIP_CHECKS=”yes”

CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE

I really do NOT get this. This shortcut was disabled because some people accidentally triggered it and this restarts X. Which idiot accidentally presses CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE? Anyway, this is how you get the famous shortcut back and working as intended:

sudo dontzap –disable

Bugs, FOSS, GNOME, Ubuntu, Ubuntu-NL, Ubuntu.com

De titel is heel erg wervend, maar met een reden. Ik weet namelijk niet hoeveel Ubuntu gebruikers in Nederland weten dat we meerdere mirrors hebben. Na diverse gesprekken bekroop mij het gevoel dat lang niet iedereen wist dat er mirrors zijn en waarom deze handig zijn (en wat ze doen), dus bij deze een korte uitleg. Zeker met de release van Jaunty Jackalope (9.04) morgen, kan dit ervoor zorgen dat je de updates sneller binnen hebt dan je buurman

Wat doet een mirror?
Een mirror is een spiegel (letterlijk vertaald). Een mirror in deze context is een lokale server, die onder andere de officiële (initiële) pakketten, updates en releases bevat. Met lokaal bedoel ik een server in je eigen land, in mijn geval Nederland. Het is namelijk een nogal zinloos om je updates/pakketten vanaf een server in Amerika te halen, als er ook een lokale server ter beschikking staat. Dit scheelt iedereen tijd, moeite en bandbreedte!
Opmerking: De officiële mirrors zijn te herkennen doordat de URL’s eindigen op .archive.ubuntu.com

Welke mirrors zijn er in Nederland?
Inmiddels zijn er 3 mirrors in ons kikkerlandje, welke onder andere te vinden zijn op de Ubuntu wiki.

• nl.archive.ubuntu.com gesponsord door Bit
• nl2.archive.ubuntu.com gesponsord door Universiteit Twente
• nl3.archive.ubuntu.com door PCextreme

Je kunt dus voor een andere mirror kiezen, als blijkt dat deze (tijdelijk) traag is omdat meerdere mensen van die server aan het downloaden zijn. Dit is natuurlijk enkel voor diegenen die weinig geduld kunnen opbrengen.

Alternatief: BitTorrent
Je kunt natuurlijk ook de Jaunty Jackalope (alternate cd/dvd) via BitTorrent downloaden, waarbij je niet gebruikt maakt van een centrale server. Hierdoor zul je dus waarschijnlijk erg snel kunnen downloaden en vervolgens kun je deze CD/DVD gebruiken om je systeem te upgraden. Let wel, dit is eigenlijk enkel bedoeld voor systemen die niet met het internet verbonden zijn.

FOSS, Ubuntu, Ubuntu-NL, Ubuntu.com

Last saturday I visited the cebit again. I go there almost every year (I try to). This year it was a bit smaller than the year before. Not all of the exhibition rooms were completely filled, but it was extremely crowded nevertheless. At the end of the day my feet hurt and I had a memory card full of nice memories. I will share some of them with you:

The good:

• New toys / previews
• IBM sphere (extremely cool)
• Open Source was also represented (even if it was not a huge part of CeBIT)
• Ubuntu-DE stand
• Free/clean toilets and the parking

The bad:

• The weather, it rained a lot and I missed the sunshine.
• Ugly toys like the Hummer housing
• I was only one day at the CeBIT

The ugly:

• Extremely crowded ( a lot of children )

Events, FOSS, Games, Hardware, Ubuntu, Ubuntu-NL, Ubuntu.com

A while ago I found myself in the need of a new keyboard and I heard about this special keyboard, which supposedly would totally rock. I am always careful when I hear that kind of marketing and advertisement talking. After a lot of consideration I eventually bought Das Keyboard (ultimate) and I never looked back since.

Pros:

• Typing comfort
• Black keys, so visually less noisy
• USB hub in keyboard (if you need to charge your media player)
• Huge geek factor
• Compatible with Linux (duh)

Cons:

• ‘Typing sound’ needs some time to get used to. You hear every single keystroke, but after a short while I did not find it disturbing at all.
• The price

What would a geek do without some sort of gadget to keep track of the time, which is so volatile. This is about as geeky as you can get, the binary clock. I got the silver version with the blue LED’s (which are _very_ bright, when it is dark inside a room).

Pros:

• 12 and 24 hour mode
• Binary horizontally or vertically
• 3 Brightness settings
• Looks great

Cons:

• If you need to know the time when it is very early (and your brain did not boot yet) or when you are drunk (and your brain is too lazy to function properly), it takes a while to ’see’ the time.
• Sometimes the LED’s feel too bright in a completely dark room, even on the lowest brightness setting.

Hardware, Personal, Ubuntu, Ubuntu-NL, Ubuntu.com

Some of you might have noticed and probably a lot of you did not. This morning at 00:31:30 (Netherlands, GMT+1) the Epoch time was: 1234567890. There were a few people on IRC who were still awake at that time, so enjoy the screenshot.

Events, IRC, Ubuntu, Ubuntu-NL, Ubuntu.com