Charkra Linux 2012.2, a personal review

About a week and half ago I decided that my tower PC was getting a bit in need of updating to something that was a rolling release but not Arch (I've heard its a pain). I am coming to the opinion that an OS should be more of a rolling release with improvements made along the way rather the Linux standard of re install every time a new version is released. I see it as a waste of time an that it is more important to improve what we have rather than replace with something just as buggy or doesn't work quite right.

I started looking and found exactly what I want in the form of Chakra 12.2, Arch with out the rumoured pain and with KDE. Chakra is actually a fork of Arch and if Chakra is anything to go by after my sort experience with it then I may one day have a go with Arch because, quite frankly, its been a joy! Well almost.

The other thing that attracted me to this distro is that it is KDE which I have a great liking for because I find it much more pleasant to use than Gnome3. This distro is only KDE, meaning that there are no Gnome files, if you want these so that you can run some software it is easy  to download from the distros' repos.

Everything just worked apart from the problem that my HP printer/scanner does not work right as a scanner. There seems to be something missing, not sure what, but there is. It works fine a printer though.

One of the first things added was Nightingale (naturally), didn't work properly at first. I found by chance that after rebooting it did work.

When I installed the system I checked the wiki in case of anything extra, seeing as though its a new distro for me. I found the instructions slightly different when it comes to partitioning for the new system and was able to follow the instructions so that I could have a seperate /home folder so that I wouldn't lose anything personal files like music and photos.

Apart from that not much to it. So I can highly recommend it.

Nighthawk

Link for downloading the ISO- http://chakra-linux.org/get/

Wiki Link- http://chakra-linux.org/wiki/index.php/Installing_Chakra#Partitioning_Schemes

New feather for nightingale

My interest in Nightingale music player as reached a point where I wanted to do something for it. So with determination I went forth and found a Songbird feather which I thought could be worked on, I found one and changed the name to blue glow. I changed all that was needed to get it to work and the end result will be uploaded by the end of the week. Providing I can get an icon for it finished.

There is still some improvements to be done but I want to get it out and tested by others. I hope to keep this going.

Feed back welcome!

Cheers

Saving web pages to disk as ODF files

The past few months as seen me carry out a number of projects which involved the use of pages that I had bookmarked for later use. Increasingly I have found that the pages I want are no longer there so I no longer have the info.

I am now taking the step of saving the pages with the information that I need to my harddrive.

After saving the page I have found that if I open the page in libre office writer I can delete any thing like headers, adverts and other irrelevant stuff and save the bit I want as an ODF file.

I now have the stuff saved for my personnal use later when I come to finish the project.

Nightingale released....its a prelease but its still better than others!

All I can say is that I am over the moon about this. Finally, after waiting what seems like a very long time, Nightingale Music player for Linux is released (they've also done a Windows version with source code for mac also available). Although I have to say that I had been testing it before with a build it yourself download from git.

For my Fedora machine I had to download the general linux 32bit download but there is .DEB file that is available. A long with a number of add-ons which make Nightingale all the better including last.fm scrobbing.

The downloads are available from http://getnightingale.com/all-versions.php , just choose the one you need for your machine need to download!!

Before installing check with the nightingale website concerning anything extra that you

1/. Unpack the file into a directory, I chose /home/nightingale which is my personnal preference.

2/. Click on nightingale and it should run.

3/. To create a link from the application launcher, right click - add applications - new item - type nightingale in the name section and in command type home/your user name/nightingale/nightingale/nightingale or just click on the nightingale file.

You can also add the icon if you wish.

4/. save then close. Your can now launch from the application menu.

It should now work. The only problem I have is that I have been unable to add flash and Java for some web pages.

Nighthawk

Dropbox on KDE

Working between two computers is fine but when you are working on something such as a dissertation or University essay for example, it becomes a pain when you have an idea while on the computer that doesn't have your work on it or you forgot to back it up on a USB memory stick for when you switch between machines. So recently I decided to store my projects on dropbox so that which ever machine I am using I have access to my work.

Yes, Dropbox install is fine on a machine running Gnome BUT not KDE. I was resolved to the idea that I would only have to have access to my work on my Fedora machine through the browser.

BUT then I thought....Why the hell should that be the case?

Solution was to google Dropbox in KDE and the solution was found. However, there are two main draw backs.
1/. You don't have all the features that are available in Gnome. And
2/. It doesn't start up when you turn the machine on. But I don't see any need to have dropbox working all the time, just when you require it to get to your work.

How to install...


I already had a Dropbox account but it really isn't necessarily a requirement to have one set up before installing this...

1/. Download the closed source Dropbox Linux client from http://www.getdropbox.com/download?plat=lnx.x86 (x86_64 for 64 bit)


2/. Extract the file into a new folder, for example I set up dropbox in home so I could fine it again.


3/. Go to the folder and click on it. If you see nothing; go to view in dolpin and click on view-show hidden files and it will then be visible.


4/. Click on the file dropbox and it should start up. Follow the set you during which you will be asked for your account details. Now is when you either set up an account or type your details in.


5/. Right click on the Application launcher and go to 'Edit Applications'. Enter this in the command 'user/home/dropbox/.dropbox-dist/dropbox'.


Hopefully I didn't forget anything.....

Its been a long time since I wrote something.

The reason is that I've been busy with uni and work stuff. I've also been playing with something new....Nightingale Music player has seen alot of activity recently. A source code download was made available 2 months ago which I was able to build and use. A true learning experience as I have never done this before. Including adding dependencies.

It was and is somewhat frustrating that I am unable to code, so I have deciding that I will try and help out with bug reporting and testing till I have learn't how!

In the mean time, I have, on the off chanced asked one of the Dev's on the project how to get started. I got a really nice reply with over of help and from their I got myself a Teach Yourself C++ by Al Stevens (for Kindle, just using the app on my android at the moment, a true Kindle hopefully arrives next week).

If anyone does read this please make yourself known!! Maybe give advice if you know what your doing.

Nighthawk

Downloading music from Emusic with Emusicj

I recently decided to rejoin Emusic.com because their costs are far cheaper than others and they seem to have the music I want (most of the time anyway). The trouble is that their Linux downloader is difficult to find unless you know where to look but it doesn't seem maintained or so it seems.

What is often suggested on the forums, even by the moderators is Emusicj, which also seems to have not been touched for more than year. It still works and I was able to get it working on my Fedora15 (KDE) and Unbuntu (Gnome2) machines.

You need to have Sun Java 6 (or newer) for this to work. I found that after installing the downloader didn't work on fedora so I switched to open Java then back again and it worked fine.

You also obviously need an account with Emusic.com (various options) to download from the site.

Download Emusic from (a .tar.gz file) -

http://www.kallisti.net.nz.EmusicJ/Download

-double-click it and extract it into your home directory (I set up a folder specially for this in my home directory)

-navigate into the extracted emusicJ-linux directory

-click the emusicj file and in the dialogue that opens hit run. (if it doesn't, check Java settings).

If everything is set up right it should open and start running. Thats it, all done but now you need to have set up to work when you click the download buttton.

The next thing I did was to add it the main menu, but Gnome2 and KDE require slightly different methods.

Gnome 2 (Tried Gnome 3 and didn't like it!)

- System> Preferences>Main Menu
- Highlight 'Sound and Video then click 'New Item'
- For Name enter EmusicJ'
- For Command enter '/opt/emusicj-linux/emusicj'
- click the springy icon thing thing in the top left
-in the location bar in the window that opens enter '/opt/emusic-linux/emusicj.xpm'

This should give you the option to open emusicj from the menu.

KDE4

I use this on Fedora 15 which is on a faster machine and is therefore what I mostly use.

- Right click on the menu launcher in the left corner
- Click on 'edit applications'
- Highlight Multimedia
- Click add application
- Enter name and description
- For Command simply click on the little box on right and navigate to the amusicj folder in my case I simply clicked on '/home/***/emusicj-linux/emusicj'  (*** will be your user name)
- To get the icon simply place the curser over the area next to Name and description (on the right) and click
- add the same file as in the Gnome instructions
-click save and your done


Now go to your emusic settings and click 'turn on or allow downloader', this will enable you to download complete albums and make downloading much easier.

When you first use it, you need to click in the box the option to sync with firefox it will take you back and then click on download again. You now have music :-

Any up dates or alterations may appear as edits or changes to the main text.

I would also like to thank the person on the Ubuntu forums who posted a guide that influenced these instructions (sorry I forgot the name).