VLC 1.1.0-Pre1 Might Be Released On Tuesday

Jean-Baptiste Kempf, one of the main VLC (everybody's favourite movie player. well, true for 64% of you anyway) developers posted the following message on the VLC mailing list:

I suggest a tag of 1.1.0-pre1 and a following string freeze the next tuesday. Tarball and binaries for Win32/Mac would then be available for testing.

You can read Jean-Baptiste's entire message, HERE.

Of course, he only suggests this so it's not official yet. But it could mean we'll have a first VLC 1.1.0 (pre1) release around Tuesday, next week. The new release will come with a few known bugs:

• 2864/3088, mkv multiple audio freeze
• http, rc, telnet are not working on Win32
• upsampling/resampling asserts/crashes #3199
• some Qt fixes
• various lua issues
• projectM
• fontcache rebuilding on all videos on Win32

As you can see, the new 1.1.0 will be released for Windows and Mac OSX. But if you're using Ubuntu, you can still give VLC 1.1.0 a try because as you probably know, VLC 1.1.0 is available in the WebUpd8 PPA. In fact, I've uploaded a build as of today just seconds ago and I will continue to maintain VLC 1.1.0 (as long as I can do it - there are huge changes to the source every day) until there is an official Ubuntu PPA or VLC 1.1.0 will be available in the Ubuntu repositories.

As always, before using the WebUpd8 PPA, I have to remind you that it contains experimental packages and I am not responsible for whatever happens if you use it (your computer explodes, etc =) ).

You can add the WebUpd8 PPA and install the latest VLC 1.1.0 from GIT (as well as the latest x264 of course), using the following commands (Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic and 10.04 Lucid only!):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install vlc

Nautilus Trash Information Plugin: Date Deleted And Original Location

I find Nautilus to be a pretty good file manager, however it's far from being complete - missing some very basic features such as "undo/redo" which also includes "undelete", mp3 and FLAC tags in list view and many others. One such missing feature is the option to see when exactly a file in the Trash has been deleted and its original location.

Until Nautilus actually implements this trashed files deleted date and original location, there is a very small plugin you can use to see this info. You can install it by copying the following commands in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install python-nautilus
wget http://github.com/mvz/nautilus-trash-date-deleted/raw/master/date-deleted-column.py
mkdir ~/.nautilus/python-extensions
mv date-deleted-column.py ~/.nautilus/python-extensions/
nautilus -q

Note: due to the limits of the Nautilus plugin system, the date is shown and sorted as a simple string, rather than as a date.

Then in Nautilus go to View > Visible Columns and check the following two columns: "Deleted date" and "Original location". Then simply go to your trash and select the "list view" (View > List or press Ctrl + 2) - you should now see the date your files have been deleted and their original location (presuming you have some files in your Trash).

Banshee 1.6.0 Stable, Released!

After almost a year, a new Banshee stable version has been released: 1.6.0.

Compared to Banshee 1.5.6 (1.6.0 RC2), there aren't many new things. However, Banshee has made an amazing progress since the last stable version and it now has a lot of very interesting features. If you're a constant WebUpd8 reader, you already know most of them since we've covered almost every release of Banshee until 1.6.0.

A quick recap of new features since the latest stable Banshee version: Auto DJ, sync device from playlist option, grid view, 15 great community extensions (which includes Lyrics, Telepathy and Mirage), new shuffle modes, library-folder watcher, a YouTube extension and well... many other features. You can read in detail about all of these, HERE.

Download Banshee 1.6.0

Download Banshee 1.6.0.

If you're using Ubuntu, you probably want to install Banshee 1.6.0 from the PPA. Well, Banshee 1.6.0 is not yet available in either its stable or daily PPA. However, since the daily PPA has a build from today, it should be 99.99% Banshee 1.6.0, so install it using the following commands (Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic and Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:banshee-team/banshee-daily
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install banshee

You can find the stable PPA here (in case you want to see when Banshee 1.6.0 will be released in this PPA - but usually it takes quite some time).

LiVES Linux Video Editor Gets A Launchpad PPA Repository

LiVES is a non-linear Linux video editor. It comes with dozens of effects, a clip editor which you cna use to trim and edit your clips and then merge them into a video using the multitrack timeline. You can even use LiVES to record your performance in real time, and then edit it further or render it straight away. A complete list of features can be found @ LiVES sourceforge page.

Even though it's an amazing application, LiVES only got 5% of the votes in our "Best Linux Video Editor" poll. In a comment, I suggested that LiVES creates a PPA for Ubuntu users to be able to easily update to the latest version.

The great new is that now LiVES has a PPA for Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid) and 9.10 (Karmic) users. To add the PPA, simply paste this in a terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:hrickards/lives
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install lives

[Special thanks to UbuntuTips for mentioning the new LiVES PPA]

Dropbox Increases Referral Additional Space To 8GB (For Free)

Up until now, Dropbox offered 2 GB of space for free, as well as an additional 3 GB maximum for referring people to signup for Dropbox.

But Dropbox wants to eliminate all of its competition (UbuntuOne, SpiderOak, etc.) by offering it's users the option to get an additional 8GB of space for free, by referring new users to sign up for Dropbox using their referral link (250 MB per referred user).

If you're not using Dropbox yet, you can use my referral link and get 250 MB for free when signing up.

In case you don't know what Dropbox is, see THIS article. You can also browse all our Dropbox posts.

[Thanks to Linux und Ich for the heads up]

Grsync (Rsync GUI) 1.1.0 Ubuntu 9.10 And 10.04 .deb Download

We wrote about Grsync before, an open source rsync GUI (Graphical User Interface) which you can use for file and directory synchronization (for backups, etc.).

Rsync is the well-known and powerful command line directory and file synchronization tool. Grsync makes use of the GTK libraries and is released under the GPL license, so it is opensource. It doesn't need the gnome libraries to run, but can of course run under gnome pretty fine. It can be effectively used to synchronize local directories and it supports remote targets as well (even though it doesn't support browsing the remote folder). Sample uses of grsync include: synchronize a music collection with removable devices, backup personal files to a networked drive, replication of a partition to another one, mirroring of files, etc.

Grsync 1.1.0 was released 2 days ago and it adds some small new features as well as some bugs fixed:

• "Use tray icon" preferences option added.
• Autogen.sh script upgraded.
• Modified Makefile.am to exclude subversion directories from the tar distribution file, other small fixes.
• Added --protect-args option, on by default, solves the "remote filename with spaces" problem.
• Fixed bug: doesn't save "itemized changes list" option.
• French translation updated (Thanks François).
• Added mime type definition for grsync session files with icon.
• Updated desktop file to open session files with "grsync -i".
• Made some fixes which could make grsync more stable on some systems.
• Added "run as superuser" extra options switch, uses "pkexec" from policykit.
• Added rsync child watch function.
• Added rsync process exit status output.
• Fixed behaviour when rsync window is closed not by using the close button.
• Added "contribute" menu item.
• Added workaround for freebsd and mac os X glib child watch problem.
• Fixed scrolling to end on pause.

Because Grsync deserves more attention, I decided to package the latest 1.1.0 in a .deb file (for Ubuntu Karmic and Lucid) since both Ubuntu Karmic and Lucid have version 0.9.2 in the official repositories.

Download Grsync 1.1.0 .deb:

Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid):
64bit: grsync_1.1.1~webupd8~lucid_amd64.deb (131.0 KiB)
32bit: grsync_1.1.1~webupd8~lucid_i386.deb (126.9 KiB)

Karmic 9.10 (Karmic):
64bit: grsync_1.1.1~webupd8~karmic_amd64.deb (130.7 KiB)
32bit: grsync_1.1.1~webupd8~karmic_i386.deb (129.8 KiB)



If you're using the WebUpd8 PPA, all you have to do is:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install grsync

If you're not using Ubuntu, download Grsync 1.1.0 source packages from HERE.

Update: I updated the download links to Grsync 1.1.1.

Terminator 0.90 Finally Released [Multiple Terminals In The Same Window]

Like cmsj was announcing yesterday, he finally released Terminator 0.90.

The goal of Terminator is to produce a useful tool for arranging terminals. It is inspired by programs such as gnome-multi-term, quadkonsole, etc. in that the main focus is arranging terminals in grids (tabs is the most common default method, which Terminator also supports).

Terminator 0.90 is a complete re-write of the original code. The most important new feature is that now you are able to save layouts, however this doesn't seem to work for me.


To see the new Terminator 0.90 for yourself, all you have to do is paste this in a terminal (Ubuntu 9.10 and 10.04 only):

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

I just hope there will be an exception and Terminator 0.90 will be in the Lucid official repositories.


If you're not using Ubuntu, you can download Terminator 0.90 source files from HERE.


Update: Terminator 0.91 was released just one day after 0.90 to fix some nasty bugs in the initial release.

Take Screenshots In Linux And Windows Using ScreenShooter

Sure, Shutter has all the options in the world for taking professional screenshots, but if you're not a blogger you probably want simplicity instead of all those features.

ScreenShooter is a screenshot taking application for Windows and Linux which is designed for simplicity, yet it has a few nice features which you might find very useful. The option I like the most in ScreenShooter is that it automatically uploads the screenshots you take to it's server and gives you a link for your screenshot:

(the link on top is for the screenshot I just took)

You can also annotate your screenshots, draw and a few other basic options but nothing too fancy.


Download ScreenShooter [Linux and Windows]

To run ScreenShooter on Linux, all you have to do is extract the downloaded archive and double click the "screenshooter" executable.

[via LinuxFreedomForLive]

Kubuntu 10.04 New Branding [Logo]

Kubuntu 10.04 finally got a new branding (logo) to match the new Ubuntu branding:

There should be an update on the Kubuntu Plymouth theme really soon.

[via darkwing duck]

The Best Linux Music Player

In this week's hive five post, it's time to see which Linux music player WebUpd8 readers consider to be the best.

The contenders are: MPD (and all MPD clients - we will probably have a separate poll to vote for the best MPD client some other time), Amarok, Rhythmbox, Exaile and Banshee.


There are way too many good music players but we had to pick only 5. The selection made is subjective but you can vote for music players not in the list by selecting "Other answer" and entering the music player which you find to be the best.

Other amazing music players (not counting MPD clients which are included with MPD in the poll): Listen Music Player, Goggles Music Manager, Guayadeque, Audacious, Xmms, gMusicBrowser, Songbird, qmmp, Jajuk, aTunes, even VLC and so on (waaay to many).

The poll:

As usual, don't forget to let us know (in the comments) why you like a certain Linux music player as well as suggest some we might not know of.

More Right Window Button Ideas For Ubuntu 10.10

Since Mark Shuttleworth said that moving the Metacity window buttons to the left "opens up the space on the right nicely", lots of button ideas came out. The most controverted one is probably Esfera, an idea by Pablo Quirós which Mark Shuttleworth forwarded to the Ayatana mailing list.

A recent idea by Izo makes a lot more sense than all the previous ideas. Have a look (it's called "The Workflow Button"):

Izo is the same guy who came with the amazing idea of integrating Zeitgeist into Nautilus, but unfortunately he's not a programmer so his mockups are just... images, if or until someone tries to implement his ideas. Hopefully someone @ Ayatana sees this and takes it into consideration as it seems (at least in my opinion) something far more useful than Esfera - and here I'm also taking into consideration the "n00b factor" because Esfera can produce some serious confustion among new Ubuntu users.

Izo gives more details on his idea @ http://www.design-by-izo.com/2010/03/29/workflow-and-upload-two-new-button-concepts-for-lucid/

How To Replace PulseAudio With ALSA Or OSS In A Few Seconds [Ubuntu Linux - GStreamer]

I couldn't get PulseAudio to work on one of my computers no matter what I do. But removing PulseAudio can be tricky and besides, there is a very easy way to "fix" it (if you're using GStreamer as a backend for music and videos). This is very useful for applications which use GStreamer but do not let you select the sound output module like: Rhythmbox, Totem and so on.

To use ALSA or OSS instead of PulseAudio for Gstreamer based apps, all you have to do is press ALT + F2 and enter:

gconf-editor

Then navigate to /system/gstreamer/0.10/default and change the "audiosink" and "musicaudiosink" to "alsasink" or "osssink", depending on what you want to use. I for one used OSS ("osssink" - notice there are 3 s) because it simply works, even though it's deprecated.

If you want to do this via command line, all you have to do is paste this in a terminal:

gconftool-2 --type string --set /system/gstreamer/0.10/default/audiosink "osssink"
gconftool-2 --type string --set /system/gstreamer/0.10/default/musicaudiosink "osssink"

The above 2 commands set GStreamer to use OSS for audio and video players. To use ALSA instead of OSS, simply replace "osssink" with "alsasink" in both commands above.

If you want to use ALSA or OSS for Audio/Video Conferencing too, also run the following command (remember, the app must be using GStreamer):

gconftool-2 --type string --set /system/gstreamer/0.10/default/chataudiosink "osssink"

To use ALSA, simply replace "osssink" with "alsasink" in the command above.


Then restart your music player or video player (Rhythmbox, Totem, etc.).

To reset these values to default, run this in a terminal:

gconftool-2 --type string --set /system/gstreamer/0.10/default/audiosink "autoaudiosink"
gconftool-2 --type string --set /system/gstreamer/0.10/default/musicaudiosink "autoaudiosink"

If you also used it for Audio / Video Conferencing setting, also run this command to reset to default:

gconftool-2 --type string --set /system/gstreamer/0.10/default/chataudiosink "autoaudiosink"

It's that easy - no installation or removal of any app.


Note: I've tested this in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, but it probably works in other Ubuntu versions / Linux distributions too.


Update: you can also change this via gstreamer-properties (thanks to Nordlicht) - simply run this in a terminal:

gstreamer-properties

And then change Output properties to ALSA or OSS. However, using this GUI method, you cannot change it individually for audio, video or conferencing so for these, use the command-line tweaks above.

Install Defrag (Defragmentation Application) In Ubuntu

On most forums, websites and so on, when someone asks "do I need to defragment my Linux filesystems?", the answer is "no". But that's a common misconception and in some cases you do have to defragment your Linux filesystems. This is even confirmed by an Ubuntu developer on a very recent post I stumbled upon just a few minutes ago about ureadahead on the ubuntuforums.

I'm not sure if this common misconception is related or not, but there aren't many applications for defragmenting your Linux filesystems. In fact I could only find 2 and posted about them a while back (shake and defrag). Unfortunately defrag development stopped some time ago, but Phillip Susi rescued Defrag by creating a bzr branch in Launchpad and converting Defrag to a native Ubuntu package which you can access @ https://code.launchpad.net/~e2defrag/e2defrag/trunk

To help in saving Defrag, I've uploaded it to the WebUpd8 PPA (packages available for Karmic and Lucid).

You can either get the Defrag code from the bzr link above and create the .deb yourself or install it via the WebUpd8 PPA.

To add the WebUpd8 PPA and install defrag (Karmic and Lucid), paste this in a terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install defrag

Defrag will work on Ext, Ext2 and XFS Linux filesystems:

Mdefrag will reorganise data on a minix file system partition in order to improve the file system's performance. Edefrag is the equivalent program for the old extended file system. E2defrag in its turn is designed for the second extended file system (versions 0.3 onwards). And the xdefrag program will operate on Xia FS filesystems.

For how to use defrag, type this in a terminal:

man defrag

Attention: do not run Defrag without reading it's man page. Also, back up the data before using Defrag!

To find out if your partition are fragmented and a lot more info on defragmenting the Linux filesystems, see this post: Defragment Linux EXT3 Filesystems Using Shake And Defrag

Yonoo Social Media Client Integrates Instant Messaging Accounts Also, In Addition To Twitter, Facebook, And So On [Linux, Windows, Mac OSX]

I've always missed the option to add my instant messaging accounts, in practically all social media clients. A great idea for Ubuntu would be to integrate Empathy into Gwibber but unfortunately there are no plans for this. At least for now.


Luckily, there is a social media client called Yoono which supports instant messaging accounts like Yahoo, GTalk, AIM and MSN, as well as the usual social media websites such as Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Friendfeed, Flickr, LinkedIn.

Yoono can be used either as a Firefox addon or as a stand-alone application with it's own browser or you can select to open the links in your default browser. Both the addon and the stand-alone client work on Linux, Windows and Mac OSX. I've only tested the Linux version using the built-in browser option because I find it very useful to open the links from Twitter or Facebook in the same application as where I read the tweets / FB updates. Also, I for one don't like using a Firefox addon for this because I usually do other things in Firefox and want a separate app for social media.

You might know Yonoo for a while but I've found out about it yesterday and I'm really liking it so far. Yonoo will probably remind you of Gwibber, as you can see the updates from multiple social media websites in the same stream, but you can also read them separately.

Like any respectable social media client, Yonoo can also be used in column mode which is always great for productivity. However, if you don't care about the IM features, you will probably find Yonoo lacking some features (which depend for each person).


Instead of listing all of Yonoo features in this post, I've recorded a video with the stand-alone Yonoo app running on Ubuntu 10.04:

(the video quality should improve soon - or so says YouTube)

Download Yonoo for Windows, Linux and Mac OSX (either as a Firefox addon or stand-alone app). On Linux, all you have to do is extract the archive and run the "yoono-desktop" file. Additionaly there is also an Ubuntu .deb file (but I haven't tested it).

Special thanks to LinuxFreedomForLive for the heads up on Yonoo!

Poll Results: Best Linux Video Editor

Here are the results from our latest poll in the weekly 'hive five' posts - Best Linux Video Editor:

I for one was expecting OpenShot to win, given the huge publicity it got recently but I didn't see Avidemux on the second place. Avidemux is my favourite because I only do basic video editing with no effects and so on but it seems that's what many people need in a video editor (22% of WebUpd8 readers to be more specific - compared with 35% for OpenShot). But the biggest surprise in my opinion is KDEnlive (17% of the votes), not because I don't find it a great application but because most WebUpd8 readers use Gnome (and we've seen KDE apps usually getting always under 5% until now).

The new video editor included in Ubuntu 10.04, PiTiVi, only got 14% of the votes so it seems the Ubuntu devs would have pleased a lot more people by chosing OpenShot or Avidemux. But I guess people are used to using non-default applications, after all... all the 'hive five' posts until now have been won by non-default apps.

The "other result" votes were quite frequent this week, with Cinerella getting 23 such votes, Belender 4 and Kino 4.

There weren't many votes this week, as not everyone does video editing but 711 votes still mean something. We'll return with a more popular 'hive five' post sometime tomorrow.

Previous Hive Five posts

Lubuntu 10.04 Gets A New Plymouth Theme Too

After Kubuntu, it's Lubuntu's turn to get a new Plymouth theme to match the new Ubuntu branding:

For more screenshots, see our Lubuntu 10.04 Alpha 3 screenshot tour post (there haven't been any major changes since then).

Rhythmbox 0.12.8 Released [Available In The WebUpd8 Ubuntu PPA]

Rhythmbox 0.12.8 was released just a few hours ago. This is mostly a bug-fix release (lots of bugs!) but there are also a few new features/improvements:

• Last.fm cover art search
• Automatically unmount MTP devices mounted by gvfs
• More improvements to mixed-direction text display

A complete list of fixed bugs can be found here.

Ubuntu Karmic users will be very glad to know that Rhythmbox 0.12.8 is available in the WebUpd8 PPA. We've also packaged it for Ubuntu Lucid, although Rhythmbox 0.12.8 will be updated in the Lucid repositories too (don't worry, the Lucid version will overwrite the one in the WebUpd8 PPA when it comes out).

To update Rhythmbox 0.12.8 in Ubuntu Karmic or Lucid, simply paste this in a terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

If you do not have Rhythmbox installed, replace "update" with "install rhythmbox" in the last command above.

Update: the bug in the initial package has been fixed so you can now safely install Rhythmbox 0.12.8 in Ubuntu Karmic. My apologies for that issue!

Download The Latest Gnome Icon Theme Via GIT

The Gnome icon theme is not exactly a great one or at least I for one never found it to be polished enough to use, but the latest version available via GIT is definitely an improvement. This will probably be the icon theme which will ship with Gnome 3.

To download and install the latest Gnome Icon Theme, simply paste this in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install git-core #in case you don't have git installed
git clone git://git.gnome.org/gnome-icon-theme
mv gnome-icon-theme/gnome ~/.icons

Then set the new icon theme via Appearance Preferences.

[via lathund.nu]

Last Week's Top Posts (Week 12, 2010)

1. Gnome And KDE Might Collaborate Into Creating A FLOSS Alternative To Dropbox
2. FatRat Is An Amazing Linux Download Manager [Ubuntu PPA Included]
3. Esfera: New UI Element Proposal For Ubuntu 10.10
4. Install / Upgrade OpenOffice 3.2 From A PPA Repository [Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic]
5. Finally Opera 10.51 .deb And .rpm Linux Packages
6. Tweak Ubuntu With Ailurus 10.03.2 (Just Released)
7. Now You Can Say: "Linux Supports iPhone / iPod Touch Out Of The Box" [libimobiledevice 1.0.0 Released]
8. Ubuntu 10.04 Proposed Ubiquity Slideshow Goes Live
9. qmmp Is A Fast, WinAmp-Like Music Player For Linux
10. Ubuntu-Mono 0.9 Brings Lots Of Updated / New Icons [Ubuntu 10.04]

And don't forget to vote for the best Linux video editor!

Previous weeks top posts

Zenity + Bash Audio Converter Script Updated

The script created by WebUpd8 reader Remy which we were telling you about a few days ago just got updated.

The new version can convert to / from two more formats: flv and aac (it used to work for lac, mp3, wav and ogg), and an quality selector for ffmpeg has also been added. This version also checks if a file exists and asks if you want to open Nautilus.

To use it, firstly install zenity and ffmpeg:

sudo apt-get install zenity ffmpeg 

And then download and run the script using these commands:

wget http://raymii.org/cms/content/downloads/easyconverter.sh
chmod +x easyconverter.sh
./easyconverter.sh

For more info, check out Remy's post @ raymii.org (thanks once again!).

Kubuntu 10.04 Plymouth Theme

Kubuntu just got a new Plymouth theme, however it's not finished yet. Richard Johnson explains that the logo is temporary as the new Kubuntu branding logos are not ready for now, so the theme will be further tweaked.

via Richard Johnson

Gnome Nanny (Parental Control) Takes Care Of Your Children Computer Access [Ubuntu PPA]

Gnome Nanny is an easy way to control what your kids are doing in the computer, under Linux. You can limit how much time a day each one of them is browsing the web, chatting or doing email. You can also decide at which times of the day the can do this things. Gnome Nanny filters what web pages are seen by each user, so you can block all undesirable webs and have your kids enjoy the internet with ease of mind, no more worries!

Using Gnome Nanny (Parental Control), you can control which websites you children can and can't access and for how long for each day of the week they can access the computer, the web, email or an instant messaging client.


Installing the latest Gnome Nanny version in Ubuntu Linux is very easy, as there is a Launchpad PPA available. To add the PPA, simply paste the following command(s) in a terminal:

-Ubuntu Lucid and Karmic:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nanny

-Ubuntu Jaunty:

sudo bash -c "echo 'deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/nanny/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list" && sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 132D48BA

Then, install Gnome Nanny in Ubuntu Lucid / Karmic / Jaunty using the following command:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install nanny

Once installed, you will find Gnome Nanny under System > Administration > Parental Control.


Using Gnome Nanny (Parental Control) is very easy, simply select the user for which you want to enable the restrictions, then chose what you want to restrict: pc use time, web browser, mail client or instant messaging and select some hours on a certain day to restrict the access for the selected user. You can also select and drag using you mouse to set the restriction for multiple hours or a whole day.

You can also simply set the number of hours your kids can use per day (for each category: web browser, mail, etc.), without selecting the interval:

And finally, under the Web Browser tab you can also select web content filtering and restrict access to some websites. Additionally, you can import website blacklists by going to System > Administration > BlackLists.

[via Luís Cardoso @ ubuntued.info, special thanks to Claudio Novais for the tip]

Shutter 0.86 Released

We already presented Shutter 0.86 and it's beta Ubuntu PPA so you know all the new features in Shutter 0.86.

This post is for those who don't want to install beta versions. So to install the latest Shutter 0.86 from the stable PPA in Ubuntu, paste this in a terminal:

-Ubuntu Karmic and Lucid:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:shutter/ppa

-Ubuntu Hardy, Intrepid and Jaunty:

sudo bash -c "echo 'deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/shutter/ppa/ubuntu UBUNTU_VERSION main ' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 009ED615

Don't forget to replace "UBUNTU_VERSION" with jaunty, intrepid or hardy.


Then install Shutter 0.86 using the following command (any Ubuntu version):

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install shutter

For other Linux distributions, see the Shutter download page.

Switch Between The Same Windows Of The Focused Application Using A Keyboard Shortcut [Quick Linux w/ Compiz Tip]

Here is a quick tip which many of you might know but I for one only today came across it and I'm finding it really useful.

Ever since we wrote about the very simple Pidgin/Empathy script to focus the conversation window using a keyboard shortcut, I've been trying (together with WebUpd8 reader RKV) to create a similar script using xdotool for switching between the same windows of the currently focused (active) application: kind of like an ALT + TAB but for an application only (for example: all opened Nautilus windows, all opened OpenOffice Word Processor opened files, etc.). But there's no need of a script after all, as it seems Compiz can do much more things than I could imagine, and comes with an option for the behavior I was telling you about above.

In fact, 2 Compiz plugins support this: Shift Switcher and Ring Switcher. To use this "next window from the same group as the active window" feature, firstly make sure you enable one of these 2 plugins, then in their settings go to the "Key bindings" tab and select a keyboard shortcut or a Desktop corner for triggering this behavior.

I found that setting a desktop corner as a trigger is very useful if you have many windows of the same application, and then using the scroll wheel on the mouse you can easily navigate between them.

How To Create A MultiBoot LiveUSB Using A GUI [Ubuntu]

MultiSystem (formerly called MultiBoot) is an application similar to the MultiCD script which we wrote a while back, except MultiSystem comes with a GUI so is somewhat easier to use for non-technical users.

What MultiSystem does is allows you to make a live USB with multiple Linux distributions. A list of supported Linux distributions can be found HERE.

To install MultiSystem in Ubuntu, simply paste this in a terminal:

wget http://liveusb.info/multisystem/install-depot-multisystem.sh.tar.bz2
tar -xvf install-depot-multisystem.sh.tar.bz2
sudo ./install-depot-multisystem.sh

Of crouse, you may want to check out the script before running it. The last command will run the installer.

Once installed, you can access it via the Applications > Accessories > Multi System menu item.


To use MultiSystem, you will need a FAT32 formatted USB memory stick. Then, running MultiSystem will display the following screen:

Where you must select the USB drive and after clicking "Validate", you can start adding the ISO images to your multi-boot USB using drag and drop:

Thanks to WebDevOnLinux (French)

Esfera: New UI Element Proposal For Ubuntu 10.10

Mark Shuttleworth posted a suggestion he got from Pablo Quirós for the free space on the top right window corner (now that the button(s) will be placed on the left side of the Metacity), on the Ayatana mailing list.

The proposal is a new UI element for the windows in Ubuntu called Esfera which should be placed in the free space on the top-right of the windows. The button will basically support gestures which you can perform on that window, like a joystick.

Mark attached a PDF with the exact explanation of this Esfera. Here is a small excerpt:

Esfera (sphere in Spanish) is a circular spherical button, about 3 times wider than the normal ones, which offers a variety of possibilities to the user. Esfera represents the window. Any action performed with Esfera is an action that affects the whole window where it is placed.

It's draggable, and it responds to different movements performed by the user with it. This are some of the possibilities I see:

Easy-to-implement actions

Moved to the top: the window is maximized. User clicks on Esfera, moves it a little bit to the top, and the window is maximized even before he releases the button. If he changes his mind, he moves it down without releasing the Esfera, and it gets back to the previous unmaximized state.

Moved to the bottom: the window is minimized; same behavior than maximizing, but the user moves Esfera down to perform it.

Moved right: the window is moved to the workspace on the right.

Moved left: the window is moved to the workspace on the left.

Moved performing an “X”: the window is closed. User clicks on esfera, moves it to make an “X”, and the window becomes transparent to show that it's about to be closed. If he releases Esfera, the application is closed. If he changes his mind, he moves Esfera back and the window gets opaque
again; then, if he releases Esfera, the window will stay opened.

Clicked: the user sees a menu, in which he can choose between the different options of Esfera: close, minimise, maximise, switch workspace... this menu is thoght to make easier the life of new users

You can download the PDF from HERE and read the full specs of Esfera.


Pablo's idea is that the normal minimize/maximize/close buttons will stick around for a while but should be completely removed at some point. David Sigel had an almost identical idea, except that he wanted to keep the close button on the top left corner (but remove the minimize/maximize buttons).


Pablo:

The idea is that, at first, there is a coexistence of Esfera with the maximize-minimize-close buttons to test the user experience with it, but in the middle term, if it works, it would replace them as this actions can be done with Esfera.

David:

Replace Close, Min, Max buttons with just Close and "other". Dragging the "other" button slightly to the right and releasing maximizes the window to full the right half of the screen ("maximize right").

Basically all this is not just for decluttering the window but mostly for usability. Just because people are used with the minimize / maximize / close buttons doesn't mean they were a great way to control a window, but that's how people got used to it.


The button is there so new users are not very confused (although that's going to be a bit tough since they won't find the regular buttons there) but this could be done with only the gestures, without an actual button at all.

What's the point on changing something that works for a different concept? Innovation and usability. If we do it well, we'll be able to do lots of things with a single button, which brings simplicity and a faster usage - it's far easier to reach a big, single button, than three little buttons, and we'll offer more options to the user. And if we do it well, it will be quicker for him.


You can follow the whole discussion @ https://lists.launchpad.net/ayatana/

Ambiance And Radiance Themes No Longer Need Special Fixing After Today's Update [Ubuntu]

The Ubuntu light-themes: Ambiance and Radiance got an update today which finally fixes the border around the Metacity buttons, meaning you can now place them in any order without the need to edit the theme in GIMP to fix the border around the maximize button. Well, sort of, meaning the active window buttons were fixed for both Ambiance and Radiance, but the inactive window buttons still need a bit of fixing:

Even though this still needs work, it's a great step forward, especially for those like me who simply can't get used to having the minimize and maximize buttons inverted.


To play around with the button order, don't forget you can use MWbuttons, a great GUI for Metacity (and very easy to use).


This update also means we will no longer maintain the light-themes-fixed package in the WebUpd8 PPA a new version should be released soon anyway and it will fix this once an for all.



To upgrade to the latest "light-themes" version in Ubuntu Lucid, all you have to do is:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

For Karmic and Jaunty, you'll have to wait. The new light-themes package needs the latest Murrine Engine from SVN - not the one we had in our PPA (or in any other PPA for that matter) but the actual "latest". We've backported the Murrine Engine from Lucid to Karmic and Jaunty but it will take from 11 hours (for 32 bit) to 1-2 days (for 64bit) due to Launchpad being under heavy work lately. We will also update the latest light-themes package in the WebUpd8 PPA but we didn't hurry since the theme is broken if you don't use a Murrine Engine from 23 March, 2010 or newer! We've also updated the ubuntu-mono (monochrome) and humanity-icon-theme packages but the last one also needs quite a few hours before it will start building.

To install the light-themes (Ambiance and Radiance) from the WebUpd8 PPA in Ubuntu Karmic, see THIS post.

Update: it seems the latest Murrine now needs GTK 2.18 which is not available for Jaunty even in a PPA, therefore I cannot maintain the themes for Jaunty anymore.

Update 2: the new light-themes is now available in the WebUpd8 PPA as well as Murrine Engine as of 23 March, but only for Karmic.


Here are the complete changelogs:

light-themes (0.1.5.9)

* Adding new listviewheaderstyle and seperatorstyle
* Fixing Radiance menu seperator padding
* Adding buttons and metactiy config for unfocused windows
* Rearraning values to best match intended design
* Ambiance/Radiance: Reduce progressbar appearance (LP: #535175).
- Minor beautifications / reduced code to buttons, treeview-header, spinbutton, and comboboxentry closer to the original design. Thanks to l3on.
- Adjustment to scale / scrollbar to utilize bg_color for customization
- Mixed focus color (LP: #535177).
- Cleaned up code
- Fix panel visibility (LP: #536844).
- Fix inactive entry text and focus
- Restore missing style sections
- Fix separator-menu-item Mozilla GTK (LP: #538164).
- Fix metacity border not defined (LP: #537920).
- Rewritten metacity themes using trough bg's and icons; prelight, presses, etc. were added (LP: #538721).
- Fix GtkTreeView::indent-expanders (LP: #540973).
- Fix round maximized metacity bottom corners (LP: #541542).
* Ambiance: Fix brown scale in Banshee (LP: #538500).
- Fix comboboxentry (LP: #540511).
- Fix Evolution button/text (LP: #539188).
- Fix white border on show desktop icon (LP: #544962).

ubuntu-mono (0.0.10)

* Adding account-logged-in and new mail icon
* Adding indeterminate states for me menu
* Ambiance/Radiance: Global button settings
- Fix scale borders (LP: #545024).

humanity-icon-theme (0.5.1.7)

* Update Login Screen icon; LP: #542767.
* Correct spelling mistake in applications-engineering; LP: #546430.
* Banshee should have status icons in the panel; LP: #546464.
* MS mime icons in all sizes and more SC icons.
* System shutdown icons for humanity-dark.

FatRat Is An Amazing Linux Download Manager [Ubuntu PPA Included]

FatRat is the big brother of SlimRat (or is it fat brother?) which we previously covered HERE. So what is it? Well, it's an open source download manager for Linux but not an ordinary one. Read on!


FatRat comes with many very interesting options. For one, it can download from HTTP(S)/FTP, RapidShare free and even YouTube. But FatRat can also download torrents, (it has BitTorrent support) has RSS feed support + special functions for TV shows and podcasts, support for SOCKS5 and HTTP proxies and even remote control via Jabber and a web interface and of course, a scheduler. FatRat has way to many options to list them here so check it out for yourself by installing FatRat (instructions further down).

(FatRat WebUI)

The RapidShare support doesn't just include downloads, but also verifying links, decoding links and exract files from a RapidShare.com folder.

FatRat also comes with plugin support and for now there are 3 plugins available: integration with OpenSubtitles.org - easy subtitle searching, CZshare.com download and upload support and unpack or pipe RAR (and ZIP optionally) archives inside the application. You can check out these plugins, HERE.


I've seen lots of download managers for Linux, but I must say I am impressed by FatRat: it is very easy to use, lightweight and still has lots of really nice features.

Install the latest FatRat version in Ubuntu

FatRat is available in the Ubuntu official repositories, but that's not the latest version (not even in Lucid) so to be able to easily install the latest FatRat 1.2.0 in Ubuntu Karmic and Lucid, I've uploaded it to the WebUpd8 PPA.

To install FatRat, you must firstly add the PPA (note: make sure you check out the packages in the PPA first as there are some SVN packages there, such as VLC 1.1.0, etc.):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8

And then install FatRat:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install fatrat

If you're not using Ubuntu, download FatRat from HERE.

Special thanks to Martin Pavlik for letting us know about FatRat!

Ubuntu Radiance Firefox Theme

There are already Radiance and Ambiance themes for Google Chrome. But how about Firefox? I mean, Firefox doesn't look exactly ugly without a theme, but I still find it really nice to make the Radiance color consistent within Firefox.

I just saw @ ubuntulife an userChrome.css style for Firefox which makes the Ubunu Radiance consistent through Firefox (and looks like in the screenshot in the beginning of the post).

To 'install' it, navigate to your home folder, then press Ctrl + H to see hidden files and folders and then go to .mozilla/firefox/ and there you should have a folder called "xxxxxx.default" which is your default profile (in case you use a custom profile, navigate to it's folder instead) and inside this folder you will find the chrome folder. Basically this is the exact path on my computer:

/home/andrei/.mozilla/firefox/ops41fsj.default/chrome

There you should have a file called userChrome.css but if it's not there for you, create it and paste this inside this file:

/*
* Do not remove the @namespace line -- it's required for correct functioning
*/
@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul");
/* set default namespace to XUL */

/* Menu and toolbar color */
navigator-toolbox {background: #efcb87 !important;
}

#urlbar, #searchbar .searchbar-textbox{
background-color: white !important;
color: black !important; }

#navigator-toolbox,
#navigator-toolbox #toolbar-menubar,
#navigator-toolbox #nav-bar,
#navigator-toolbox #PersonalToolbar
{
-moz-appearance: none !important;
border: 0 !important;
}

#navigator-toolbox
{
-moz-appearance: none !important;
background-color: #E0D6BA !important;
}

#urlbar {
-moz-appearance: none !important;
-moz-border-radius: 9px !important;
padding-right: 2px !important;
padding-left: 6px !important;
}

#search-bar {
-moz-appearance: none !important;
-moz-border-radius: 12px !important;
padding-right: 6px !important;
}

#navigator-toolbox textbox
{
 -moz-border-radius: 6px !important;
}

.tabbrowser-tabs {
background: #E0D6BA !important;
}

Save the file and restart Firefox. That's it.

Credits: UbuntuLife

Ubuntu 10.04 Proposed Ubiquity Slideshow Goes Live

The Ubuntu Ubiquity Slideshow is a project which uses Webkit that provides a slideshow when you install Ubuntu.

The new Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Ubiquity Slideshow which we were telling you about ~2 weeks ago is now live and you should be able to take a look for yourself by downloading an Ubuntu 10.04 daily build starting tomorrow (or by updating the installer but that didn't work for me - the package is probably not in the repositories yet).

Besides the improved look, there are some other changes too: the Ubuntu slideshow is now 816x500 pixels in size (it used to be 700x420), the slideshow now uses the official Firefox icon rather than a generic browser icon, as well as some other minor improvements.

Here are a few more screenshots:

The online preview which was set up by Dylan McCall previously is not available anymore, however I've uploaded the new Ubuntu 10.04 Ubiquity Slideshow and you can try it out HERE. Note: the Firefox icon is not visible because it uses the icon on the computer the slideshow runs and it doesn't have permissions to run it from the website. But it should work just fine in the actual Ubiquity Slideshow.


There is no new slideshow for Kubuntu and Xubuntu and so on for now, even though initially those were also supposed to get a new look. However, some bugs in the old slideshows for Kubuntu and Xubuntu have been fixed.



Complete changelog:

[ Dylan McCall ]
* New look for the Ubuntu slideshow.
* Updated license details for images in debian/copyright.
* Larger dimensions for Ubuntu slideshow: 816x500, from 700x420.
* Removed GIMP build dependency. GIMP scripts in images-source no
longer to be run at build time; final icons should be added
manually in source package.

[ Evan Dandrea ]
* Use the official Firefox icon, rather than a generic browser icon.
* Freeze exception for new design (LP: #538411).
* Update the update-launchpad-translations script.
* Update translations from Launchpad.

[ Richard A. Johnson ]
* Updated slideshow for Kubuntu installer
(LP: #540348) (LP: #534949) (LP: #539147)

[ Brian Murray ]
* resolved some grammatical issues with the xubuntu slides

Please note that most probably this isn't the final design.

qmmp Is A Fast, WinAmp-Like Music Player For Linux

qmmp is a Linux music player which will remind you of Winamp. In fact, it looks a lot like it and it can even use Winamp skins (as well as Xmms skins) so if you're just switching to Linux and can't give up WinAmp (although I really liked Foobar2000 on Windows but anyway), you should try qmmp as an alternative to WinAmp.

It supports mpeg1 layer 1/2/3, ogg vorbis, native flac support, musepack and wavpack, modplug, wmpa, pcm wave, acc. audio cds, CUE sheet, WavPack embedded CUE and FLAC embedded CUE support. It can use ALSA, PulseAudio, Jack or OSS sound. Of course, those are just the essential features. qmmp comes with basically all the features you would want in a music player (and even more).

One downside would be that qmmp is a QT application, but since it supports Winamp skins I don't think QT is a big drawback.

Other qmmp features include:

• Last.fm/Libre.fm scrobbler
• Spectrum Analyzer
• projectM visualization
• sample rate conversion
• bs2b dsp effect
• streaming support (MP3, Vorbis via IceCast/ShoutCast)
• removable device detection (via HAL)
• MPRIS support
• global hotkey support
• video playback via Mplayer
• lyrics support (using lyricsplugin.com)

And many other features.

If you're scared that such a fully featured music player would use too much system resources, you'll be glad to know that in my tests, qmmp used only 11MB of RAM with a collection of ~1000 music files - all loaded in the playlist - which is very good considering that Goggles Music Manager used 14 MB of RAM and Rhythmbox - 17mb (like we were telling you about in our Listen Music Player review). For the test I used Ubuntu Karmic 32 bit.

Another great thing about qmmp is that it's very actively developed.

How to install qmmp in Ubuntu

qmmp is available in the Ubuntu repositories. However, the version in Karmic or Jaunty is very old. Luckily, there are 2 PPA repositories to install a newer qmmp version in Ubuntu Jaunty and Karmic.

a) Latest SVN PPA

In this PPA there are experimental packages with the latest qmmp svn version. To add the PPA and install qmmp, paste this in a terminal:

-Karmic

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stiff.ru/qmmp-svn

-Jaunty:

sudo bash -c "echo 'deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/stiff.ru/qmmp-svn/ubuntu jaunty main ' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 2C2B0858

Then install qmmp using the following command:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install qmmp

b) Stable PPA:

To add the stable Ubuntu Karmic and Jaunty PPA, paste this in a terminal:

-Karmic:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stiff.ru/qmmp-releases

-Jaunty:

sudo bash -c "echo 'deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/stiff.ru/qmmp-releases/ubuntu jaunty main ' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 2C2B0858

And then install qmmp:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install qmmp

Once installed, you will find qmmp under Applications > Sound & Video > Qmmp.


For more information on qmmp and other Linux distributions download, visit qmmp homepage and qmmp Google Code page.

[thanks to LinuxFresh for mentioning qmmp]

Zenity + FFmpeg Bash Script To Convert flac, mp3, wav and ogg Audio Files

WebUpd8 reader Remy sent us a tip with a bash script which uses Zenity and ffmpeg for easily converting various audio files. It can convert from / to flac, mp3, wav and ogg.


Using the script is very easy so it should be very useful for lots of people. The first thing you need to to to get it working is to install Zenity and ffmpeg. To do this in Ubuntu, simply paste the following command in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install zenity ffmpeg

Then, to download and run the script, use the following commands:

wget http://raymii.org/cms/content/downloads/easyconverter.sh
chmod +x easyconverter.sh
./easyconverter.sh

You can check out the script code HERE.

Once you run the script, it will ask you to select a folder which should contain the audio files you wnat to convert. Then you will have to select the audio files original format:

and then the output format:

And then you can start the conversion:

The files resulted after the conversion will be placed in a folder called "converted" in the same directory as the files you converted.

Credits and many thanks for the script: Remy (Raymii.org)

Now You Can Say: "Linux Supports iPhone / iPod Touch Out Of The Box" [libimobiledevice 1.0.0 Released]

libimobiledevice is a FOSS software library that talks the protocols to support iPhone ® and iPod Touch ® devices on Linux. Unlike other projects, it does not depend on using any existing proprietary libraries and does not require jailbreaking.

When we posted an article named "Ubuntu 10.04 supports iPhone / iPod Touch out of the box", it was actually libimobiledevice (and usbmuxd/gtkpod) who made this possible, not Ubuntu (thanks to Karl for mentioning this).

libimobiledevice (formerly known as libiphone) development started in 2007 and today it hits the first stable version: 1.0.0 and was followed by the release of usbmuxd 1.0.3. The result is that now you can say that in fact "Linux supports iPhone / iPod Touch out of the box!". Most distributions will feature the library in their next release. For now, the following have confirmed using libimobiledevice: Ubuntu Lucid (for Ubuntu Karmic, see THIS), Fedora 13, openSUSE 11.3 and Mandriva 2010.1.

libimobiledevice 1.0.0 has been tested with iPhone/iPod Touch 1G, 2G and 3GS running up to firmware 3.1.3. libimobiledevice is used by other components like GVFS, libgpod/gtkpod, and libusb to provide a pleasant experience when connecting your iPhone or iPod to a Linux desktop.

What can and can't libimobiledevice do?

For now, you can sync your music/video, access the filesystem from your Linux Desktop, manage your SpringBoard, managed installed apps, create backups and a lot more.

The contacts/calendars/notes/bookmarks synchronization capabilities are in progress while updating/restoration, camera/photo synchronization, and profiling/debugging are not yet supported.

Credits / further reading:

• Phoronix
• sukimashita
• libimobiledevice
• If you want to install libimobiledevice in Ubuntu Karmic, see StoneCut's post (a complete how-to)
• Image credits: WebUpd8 reader RKV

Install / Upgrade OpenOffice 3.2 From A PPA Repository [Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic]

The OpenOffice Scribblers PPA was finally updated and it now hosts the latest OpenOffice.org 3.2 packages for Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic) for now.

We wrote about installing OpenOffice from the official website and installing Go-OO but those didn't support upgrades since they weren't installed through a repository and also the desktop environment integration wasn't the best, therefore using the packages in the OpenOffice Scribblers PPA is the recommended way of installing / upgrading OpenOffice to version 3.2 in Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic).

Why would you want to upgrade to OpenOffice 3.2? Well, it has many many improvements and just as an example, OpenOffice Calc and Writer start up time should be reduced by 46% in 3.2.

To install / upgrade OpenOffice 3.2 in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, paste the following commands in a terminal:

1. Add the OpenOffice Scribblers PPA repository (remember - for now it only has OpenOffice.org 3.2 packages for Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic!):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openoffice-pkgs/ppa

2.

a) Install OpenOffice 3.2:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install openoffice.org

If you're using Gnome, also install the following package:

sudo apt-get install openoffice.org-gnome

If you're using KDE, also install the following package:

sudo apt-get install openoffice.org-kde

b) Upgrade to OpenOffice 3.2:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

Note: If you have previously installed OpenOffice from the .deb files provided on the OpenOffice website or Go-OO packages from the Go-OO website, go to System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager, then search for "openoffice" and remove all packages, then proceed with the steps mentioned above for installing OpenOffice 3.2 via the OpenOffice Scribblers PPA repository.

[thanks to paraisolinux for the heads up]

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Gnome And KDE Might Collaborate Into Creating A FLOSS Alternative To Dropbox

There is an ongoing discussion on a Gnome mailing list which points out that Gnome and KDE might collaborate for a new project: a FLOSS alternative to Dropbox.

One might think: well, we have Ubuntu One - but that's only for Ubuntu (even though work is done to port it to other Linux distributions too - or it was done at some point) and also it's KDE integration is still experimental (and not official as far as I know). And finally: many will agree that Ubuntu One is not the best implementation of this great idea so there is room for some competition. And also, the Ubuntu One server is not open source (only the client is) and it seems there are no plans to open-source it.

The Gnome and KDE approach is more towards an collaboration tool, but which is very close to Dropbox. The DE independent FLOSS Dropbox alternative idea came because Google Summer of Code is approaching and both Gnome and KDE have a collaboration tool on their list:

• GNOME has ideas for the front-end:

http://live.gnome.org/SummerOfCode2010/Ideas#Other_Ideas (Collaboration server/client)

• KDE focuses more on the back-end:

http://community.kde.org/GSoC/2010/Ideas#ownCloud


Digging deeper into this discussion, we find out that the KDE front-end called ownCloud is intended to be something more than Dropbox:

Please note that ownCloud is much more than just a DropBox replacement.

We already have a KDE frontend for the syncing client for KDE GSoC planed. It would be fantastic if somebody from GNOME would write the GNOME frontend.

It would be great if we could make this a shared KDE/GNOME project.

[quote from here]

I think it would be awesome to have a free software equivalent to Dropbox and even more awesome to have one created by a KDE/GNOME team.

The GNOME Foundation would be interested in hosting the services part. We'd need to talk about requirements.

[quote from here]

The ownCloud idea is that everybody can host it individually but a hosted solution will also be possible. In the beginning it will allow file hosting like Dropbox, but then add a lot more features like an individual music server or photo gallery.

How will it work? How much space will the users get? Those and many other questions will remain unanswered for now but it's great to know a GNOME + KDE FLOSS alternative to Dropbox might be on it's way. Don't you think?

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