February 2013      Issue 73

- Welcome From The Chief Editor

1. Windows Migration: My Journey to PCLinuxOS

2. Windows Migration: What Software Do I Need?

3. Joe Gable: Fabled Foibler

4. Mark's Quick Gimp Tip & Double Take

5. Making Xsane A Little More Sane

6. Gimp 8: Colorizing a Photo

7. Forum Foibles: PCLOS Is The BEST

8. How To Use PCLinuxOS As A Router

9. How To Create, Edit ePub Files In Sigil

10. Game Zone: Killing Floor

11. ms_meme's Nook: Goody, Goody

12. Something Old, Something New

13. My Screen Is Way Too Dark When Booting To PCLinuxOS.

What Can I Do?

14. Create A /bin Executable Directory In Your /home Directory

15. LibreOffice 4.0 RC1 Advances Feature Set

16. Five New Testimonials

17. Screenshot Showcase

Disclaimer

Welcome From The Chief Editor

I'm beginning to think that the "J" in January must stand for "Judgement." Given how January went down, most people would be hard pressed to disagree.

Judgement: Good

On January 17, 2013, former forum moderator Joble's estranged wife was found guilty of two counts of "deliberate murder" in the October 13, 2011 shooting deaths of Joe Gable (Joble) and Sunday Bennett at Joble's home in Helena, MT. While sentencing is scheduled for March 1, 2013, she could face a minimum of life in prison.

In the 17 months since Joble's murder, the entire judicial process that lead up to the conviction has often times resembled a circus. There were numerous attempts by Joble's estranged wife and murderer to either derail or delay the process, including two suicide attempts and delays for psychological examinations.

Finally - and at last - Joble can rest in peace, with justice having been served. It is still hard to believe that he is no longer here, among his friends and family. Taken from us much too early, Joble is still missed by those who knew him.

Judgement: Bad

It's no secret that I'[m an avid bicycling enthusiast, as my monthly editor's column picture has frequently depicted me on a bicycle ride. On January 17, 2013, former seven time Tour de France winner (former, since he has had all of his seven Tour de France titles stipped by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, and his 2000 Olympic bronze medal taken away by the United States Olympic Committee) admitted in a televised interview with famous former talk-show host Oprah Winfrey that he had taken performance enhancing drugs to help procure those victories.

Love him or hate him (there seems to be no middle ground), Armstrong's confession rocked not only the sporting world of bicycling, but the entire sporting world. Long speculated, never proven (beyond a shadow of a doubt), and vehemently denied by Armstrong, the interview removed any questions of doubt and removed all speculation. The confession also revealed the lies that Armstrong had been living and espousing ever since the late 1990s.

Currently under a lifetime ban from cycling, his public confession is unlikely to have any effect. Officials for the USADA, the UCI (International Cycling Union), and the WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) are unanimous in their decisions to remain steadfast on the lifetime ban. Instead, they all agree that Armstrong must testify (minimally) before the USADA, under oath, about his "doping" activities, and give a full accounting about how the illegal activities were carried out. It remains to be seen if that will happen.

Summary

There's a couple of common lessons to be had between the two cases of judgement here. First, you never know when your whole world will come to a screeching halt. Everything we hold dear and sacred - even our lives, themselves - can be stripped away in the blink of an eye. Second, any attempt to "win at all costs" usually bears a cost that none of us can afford to pay. 'Nuff said.

Until next month, I bid each of you serenity, peace, happiness and prosperity.

Windows Migration: My Journey to PCLinuxOS

by Meemaw

I'm sure I've told this story before: I used Windows at home until about 2005.
I had a brother visiting one weekend in 2004, when my computer crashed. My brother, who had more computer experience than I, tried to recover my OS, but was unsuccessful. At that point, he said, "Maybe you should switch to Linux." ("What's Linux? I've never heard of it before.") I'm sure at this point you can imagine what he told me next, because you've heard it yourself. He uses Linux and was happy to tell me all about it. Of course, I did have to pay someone to restore Windows, but I vowed I would never do that again, and started researching Linux myself.

I found loads of Linux sites and read bunches of material. After seven years, I still remember a few sites that I thought were helpful to me. (www.linux.com, www.linux.org, http://www.linuxrsp.ru /win-lin-soft/table-eng.html and http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/ ) The last one is a site where you can try to determine which distribution is best for you, and every time I used it, I came up with a new idea or two. Many of the sites also directed me to DistroWatch to choose my distribution. I used it long enough to read the reviews and to see the variety of distros in existence, and started with the top 10 or 15 in their list. After that, I did my own research.

When I learned about Live CDs, I thought they would be the best route for me to learn about the distributions and, hopefully, discover which one was best for me. I downloaded Live CDs of Mandriva Move, PCLinuxOS, Ubuntu, eLive and several others. For a while, I had several Live CDs, and every day I would boot one up and experiment. I took notes on what I was learning as well, in order to remember which distro did what I wanted. I very quickly realized that PCLinuxOS did everything I wanted it to do, and it was easy to use. A couple of other distros worked well, but I always kept coming back to PCLinuxOS.

My stumbling block was a printer that I had owned for a while. It just wasn't recognized in any of the distros I tried, and a couple of the hardware compatibility lists I found kept saying "doesn't work under Linux". However, one day I discovered the printer had quit working. When I checked the lists for suggestions for a new one, I found that most all of the HP's were compatible. I'm still using the HP that I bought from a retiring friend shortly after that.

Now that everything worked under Linux, I could install my favorite distro. However, I was still sort of torn between PCLinuxOS and another distro. I solved that by taking a deeper plunge, partitioning my hard drive and dual booting the two different distros. I tried to alternate between PCLinuxOS and the other distro, but I still kept booting PCLinuxOS more often. So one day, I cleaned the whole thing off and installed PCLinuxOS. That was version 0.93, and I've been using PCLinuxOS ever since. I started with KDE, but have tried Gnome, LXDE, Xfce and e17. I use Xfce now on both of my machines.

In the course of my research, I discovered that many programs have Windows, Mac AND Linux versions. When I found that out, I started trying the Windows versions of the programs to learn a little about them. I have some very understanding employers, too. They don't mandate what program I should use for my job, as long as things are done correctly. As a result, I could install Firefox, GIMP, Inkscape, OpenOffice/LibreOffice and VLC on the work computer, too. I was able to learn quickly, and since then, I have expanded the new program list to include Hugin, Scribus, Chrome, and even Opera. I think I managed to save them some money as well, installing open source programs in place of the proprietary ones they would have had to purchase.

First Step (on your Windows Computer)

One of your first steps should be to list what programs you need. When I started, my list would have been similar to the list below:

Web Browser (Internet Explorer)

Office Suite (MS Office)

E-mail (Outlook/Outlook Express)

Financial (MS Money or Quicken)

Desktop Publishing (Print Artist -- I used to make my own greeting cards -- or Publisher)

Drawing program (MS Paint)

Games

Photo Manipulation (Photoshop)

File Manager (Windows Explorer)

CD/DVD Burner (Nero)

CD/DVD Player (Windows Media Player or PowerDVD)

File Archive Manager (WinZip)

As you know, you would have to pay extra for the codecs to play DVD's, or buy a player program if you didn't have one. As you may already be aware, most of the extra programs cost quite a bit. PowerDVD is about $50 now. Print Artist cost about $50 last time I looked, and the basic version of Photoshop is at least $150. I couldn't afford to keep buying new versions.

Intermediate Step (still on the Windows Computer)

You can begin to replace some of your favorite programs with their open source equivalents. You will learn about these programs, and your transition to Linux will be smoother. You'll probably save some money, too.

Web Browser (Firefox)

Office Suite (OpenOffice)

E-mail (Thunderbird)

Financial (KMyMoney or GnuCash)

Desktop Publishing (Scribus)

Drawing program (OpenOffice Draw)

Games

Photo Manipulation (GIMP)

File Manager (Windows Explorer)

CD/DVD Burner (ImgBurn)

CD/DVD Player (VLC)

File Archive Manager (WinZip)

Most of these are open source, and free.

Switching over (Linux Computer)

Now that you've installed Linux, you know what programs to use and you already know how to use them! I have listed the KDE programs I am familiar with, but there are many more choices.

Web Browser (Firefox)

Office Suite (OpenOffice/LibreOffice)

E-mail (KMail or Thunderbird)

Financial (KMyMoney or GnuCash)

Desktop Publishing (Scribus)

Drawing program (OpenOffice Draw)

Games

Photo Manipulation (GIMP)

File Manager (Dolphin)

CD/DVD Burner (K3b)

CD/DVD Player (VLC)

File Archive Manager (Ark)

Each different Desktop Environment you try will have its own programs included. All of these are open source and most likely included on your Live CD, or readily available from the repositories.

My Current List

I will include the list of programs I use now in Xfce. I am not telling you what to use at all. I am only demonstrating that even my choices have changed in the seven years since I first installed PCLinuxOS, and yours will, too.

Web Browser (Chromium Browser – the open source "parent" to Google Chrome)

Office Suite (LibreOffice)

E-mail (Chrome - all my email is web based)

Financial (GnuCash)

Desktop Publishing (Scribus)

Drawing program (OpenOffice Draw & Inkscape)

Games (I'm not a big gamer, so it's only Solitaire, Gweled, Mahjong, etc)

Photo Manipulation (GIMP)

File Manager (Thunar)

CD/DVD Burner (XFBurn)

CD/DVD Player (VLC)

File Archive Manager (File Roller)

Enjoy your journey! To help you plan your road map in making your transition to PCLinuxOS, I've compiled a list of common Windows programs - and their PCLinuxOS equivalents. To keep the "list" pared down a bit, I've only listed some of the more popular Windows programs. Usually, those are the ones most people are using. However, if you don't find your favorite Windows program listed, and you are curious to know what the PCLinuxOS equivalent is, don't hesitate to ask in the PCLinuxOS forum.

Windows Migration: What Software Do I Need?

by Meemaw

Now that you have experimented with Linux, or even installed a version, you remember a certain program that you need. In Windows, it was called ABC. Does Linux have a program that does the same thing? What's it called? When I first converted to Linux, I found an equivalent programs list that helped me find what I needed. Sadly, this list is outdated, and many of the programs on it are either not up to date or have been discontinued.

In this article I will discuss equivalent programs for the ones you had in Windows. All of the Linux programs I mention can be found in the PCLinuxOS repositories. Some of the more popular choices for Windows programs will be in Red text, and Linux equivalents will be in Blue. There's no possible way to anticipate EVERY user's needs, so we'll touch on what we think are the most common application equivalents.

When you tried a Live CD, Live DVD or Live USB, you found that most of them had several useful programs already installed (web browser, text editor, cd burning program, music player, video player, calculator, etc). Some of them differ depending on which desktop environment you were using. We'll start with the Web Browsers.

Web Browser

For a while, the only browser was Internet Explorer. Now, however, there are several others;

Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari

Mozilla Firefox, Konqueror, Chromium, Opera, Midori, SeaMonkey, Epiphany

Notice that Firefox, Chrome/Chromium and Opera are common to both groups. I always liked that because I have to use Windows at work. But because I use Linux at home, I can use the same browser in both places. We will find that several other programs have Linux versions PLUS Windows and Apple versions as well. This also helps those who want to try these programs before they commit to switching.

E-Mail Clients

All of my email is web-based, so I can access it on both of my computers but others want a program on their computer that they can use to receive their email. However, if you are the sort that likes to have and use a dedicated email client, you have plenty of choices to choose from.

Outlook, Outlook Express, Mozilla Thunderbird, Lotus Notes, Eudora

Mozilla Thunderbird, Evolution, KMail, Claws Mail, Eudora, Postler

Address Book

Outlook/Outlook Express

Evolution, KDE-PIM, gaddr, rubrica, osmo, contacts

Instant Messenger/IRC Client

Yahoo Messenger, AIM, Trillian, Pidgin, XChat, MSN, mIRC

Pidgin, XChat, KVirc, Kopete, aMSN

Video/Audio Conference

NetMeeting, GoToMeeting

Ekiga (formerly GnomeMeeting)

VoIP

Skype, Linphone, Blink, Cisco IP Communicator, Ekiga, Google Talk, Mumble, Ventrilo

Skype, Linphone, Ekiga, Decibel, Mangler, Google Talk plugin, Twinkle

File Manager

Windows Explorer, Xplorer2, Total Commander, Unreal Commander, Nomad.NET, etc.

Konqueror, Thunar, Dolphin, Nautilus, Midnight Commander, XFE

Archiver (Compress and decompress files for storage or email)

7-Zip, WinZip, WinRAR, PKZip

ArK, File Roller, Xarchiver

Text Editor (When you don't need a whole office suite)

Notepad, Wordpad, Sticky Notes

KWrite, Kedit, Gedit, Kate, Mousepad, Leafpad, scite, Medit, Nedit, Geany

PDF Viewer

Adobe Reader, Foxit Reader

Kpdf, Evince, Adobe Reader, Foxit Reader, Epdf, Okular

PDF Creator

Adobe Acrobat, Ghostscript. LibreOffice, OpenOffice, Scribus

Ghostscript, Kghostview, LibreOffice, OpenOffice, ps2pdf (a print-to-file function in many programs), Scribus

Office Suite (most including word processor spreadsheet, presentation creator, drawing program &amp; database)

Microsoft Office, Microsoft Works, Lotus Symphony, OpenOffice, LibreOffice

LibreOffice, Calligra (formerly KOffice), Abiword (word processor only), OOo4Kids

Scanner Controls

Each scanner cd generally includes its own program, VueScan

XSane, SimpleScan, Kooka, VueScan, SimpleScan, Gnome Scan, gscan2pdf

CD/DVD Burning

Nero, Roxio Easy CD Creator, ImgBurn, Windows Media Center

K3b, GnomeBaker, Iso Master, XFburn, Grafburn, Brasero, Audacity, Mencoder, DVD::Rip, AcidRip

System Configuration

Control Panel, SysConfig, Regedit

PCLinuxOS Control Center, KDE Control Center, Gnome Control Center, XFCE Settings Manager, LXDE Control Panel

Audio/Music Players

Windows Media Player, WinAmp, iTunes, VLC

MPlayer, AmaroK, Noatun, VLC, Clementine, Totem, XMMS, KsCD, XBMC, Exaile, Banshee, DeaDBeeF, Listen, Rhythmbox, Songbird, Xfmedia, Parole

Video Players

Windows Media Player, iTunes, VLC, Power DVD, RealPlayer & others

MPlayer, XBMC, VLC, Xine, Parole, Xfmedia

Video Creators

Windows Movie Maker, Adobe Premier, Video Studio 4, (and some video cameras have their own programs on CD)

Avidemux, Cinelerra, Cinepaint, Kdenlive, LiVES, Kino, Openshot

Picture Viewers

Windows Fax & Image Viewer, IrfanView, XNView, ACDSee

GPicView, Ristretto, picturewall, ephoto, Eye of Gnome, viewnior, kuikshow, Cornice, flphoto, Imgv, gliv, GQView, Shotwell, f-Spot, gthumb, Mirage, Gwenview, IrfanView

Graphic Editor (simple)

Paint

Kpaint, Tuxpaint, MTPaint, Mypaint

Graphic Editor (like Photoshop)

Adobe Photoshop, GIMP, Paintshop Pro, Corel PhotoPaint

GIMP, ImageMagick, Cinepaint, MTPaint, KolourPaint, Gnome Paint, Krita

Vector Graphics Editor

Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, OpenOffice Draw, LibreOffice Draw, Inkscape

Inkscape, (Sketch), Sodipodi, OpenOffice Draw, LibreOffice Draw, Dia, Xara-Extreme

3D Graphics

3D Studio Max, Maya, POVRay

Maya, Blender, POVRay

Screenshots

In-system <Shift>+, Snag-It

KSnapshot, Shutter, screenie, Xfce Screenshooter, MTPaint Screenshot, scrot

Desktop Publishing

Microsoft Publisher, Adobe PageMaker, Scribus

Scribus

Personal Finance Manager

MSMoney, Quicken, Quickbooks, MoneyDance, GnuCash, KMyMoney, grisbi, skrooge

GnuCash, KMyMoney, grisbi, Money Manager EX, Homebank, iFreeBudget, skrooge

HTML Editor

Microsoft FrontPage, Dreamweaver, many web-based sites, LibreOffice, OpenOffice

KompoZer, LibreOffice, OpenOffice, Bluefish, Blue Griffon, many web-based sites

CAD

AutoCAD

Blender, Qcad, OpenCascade, KiCAD

Space Simulator

Open Universe, Celestia, Google Earth

Open Universe, Celestia, KStars, Marble, Google Earth, Stellarium

Genealogy

Family Tree Maker, Legacy

Gramps

Summary

While it would be nearly impossible to list every possible Windows application and the PCLinuxOS equivalent, you can see that PCLinuxOS isn't lacking when it comes to providing the software that you need to get your tasks completed. You would be hard pressed to find a Windows application that doesn't have a Linux equivalent. In many instances, Linux has more to offer than what's available in the Windows universe.

It's important to remember two things that are somewhat linked. First, you don't download software from the internet and install it on your computer, like you do/did under Windows. Second, you install software ONLY from the PCLinuxOS repository. Installing software from outside the official PCLinuxOS repository will render your installation ineligible for support. When you install software from outside the repository, no one knows exactly what changes were made to your installation, which could be reason for the problems you may be experiencing. There are very few exceptions to the second "rule."

I hope that we've covered at least some of the most common and popular Windows applications, along with the Linux equivalent. If there's something that you use that we didn't cover here, don't hesitate to ask others in the PCLinuxOS forum what they recommend. The best thing about it is that the software in the PCLinuxOS repository is priced the same as PCLinuxOS... FREE. Along the way, you may just make some new friends.

You can also take a look at some additional resources that might be able to help direct you to Linux equivalent software.

PCLinuxOS Forum (we can't leave this out... other PCLinuxOS members will probably be your best, if not friendliest, resource)

Linux App Finder (a well maintained database of Linux equivalent software)

alternativeTo (just software, regardless of platform)

alternative.to (not only software, but alternatives to just about anything)

OSalt (find open source alternatives to most any software title)

Enjoy your journey!

Joe Gable: Fabled Foibler

MP3                               OGG

Mark's Quick Gimp Tip & Double Take

Did you ever need to remove an object from a photo and found yourself using the clone tool for endless hours? The process involves grabbing various bits of background elements and overlaying/cloning them onto the foreground. Well, the Gimp plug-in called Resynthesize comes to the rescue! And the great news is, it's available in the PCLOS repository! Once installed, you're just a couple of clicks away from modifying images in a revolutionary way. In the example below, I was able to remove an entire building and have background elements redrawn automatically. It's seamless. Simply select the element you want removed, then go to Filters>Map>Resynthesize. In the new pop-up window you can accept the default settings or tweak them a bit by varying the sample of neighboring horizontal and vertical pixels. Click Okay and the plug-in does the rest!

-Mark Szorady is a nationally syndicated cartoonist with georgetoons.com

He blogs at georgetoong.com/blogs.

Email Mark at: georgetoon@gmail.com.

Find the Answers here

Making Xsane A Little More Sane

by Paul Arnote (parnote)

Back in October 2009, Meemaw covered some of the basics of using and setting up a scanner under PCLinuxOS, with Xsane. If you are new to Xsane, or if you need to brush up on your scanning basics, I recommend following the link and re-reading Meemaw's article. This month, we'll revisit Xsane and explore some of the more advanced things you can do with it.

Xsane is a cross-platform application, helping to provide a graphical interface to the SANE backends. Aimed at UNIX and Linux users, Xsane also provides a graphical interface for Win32 users and OS/2 users. Of course, none of this would mean anything without understanding SANE.

SANE is a cross-platform backend for standardizing access to raster image acquisition hardware. The SANE API is in the public domain, and is released under the GNU General Public License. Ports to MacOS X, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows are either already done or in progress.

From the SANE project site:

SANE is a universal scanner interface. The value of such a universal interface is that it allows writing just one driver per image acquisition device rather than one driver for each device and application. So, if you have three applications and four devices, traditionally you'd have had to write 12 different programs. With SANE, this number is reduced to seven: the three applications plus the four drivers. Of course, the savings get even bigger as more and more drivers and/or applications are added.

Not only does SANE reduce development time and code duplication, it also raises the level at which applications can work. As such, it will enable applications that were previously unheard of in the UNIX world. While SANE is primarily targeted at a UNIX environment, the standard has been carefully designed to make it possible to implement the API on virtually any hardware or operating system.

While SANE is an acronym for "Scanner Access Now Easy" the hope is of course that SANE is indeed sane in the sense that it will allow easy implementation of the API while accommodating all features required by today's scanner hardware and applications. Specifically, SANE should be broad enough to accommodate devices such as scanners, digital still and video cameras, as well as virtual devices like image file filters.

If you're familiar with TWAIN, you may wonder why there is a need for SANE. Simply put, TWAIN does not separate the user-interface from the driver of a device. This, unfortunately, makes it difficult, if not impossible, to provide network transparent access to image acquisition devices (which is useful if you have a LAN full of machines, but scanners connected to only one or two machines; it's obviously also useful for remote-controlled cameras and such). It also means that any particular TWAIN driver is pretty much married to a particular GUI API (be it Win32 or the Mac API). In contrast, SANE cleanly separates device controls from their representation in a user-interface. As a result, SANE has no difficulty supporting command-line driven interfaces or network-transparent scanning. For these reasons, it is unlikely that there will ever be a SANE backend that can talk to a TWAIN driver. The converse is no problem though: it is pretty straightforward to access SANE devices through a TWAIN source. In summary, if TWAIN had been just a little better designed, there would have been no reason for SANE to exist, but things being the way they are, TWAIN simply isn't SANE.

In the previous article, Meemaw covered how to set up your scanner. Granted, support under SANE is often hit and miss. This is, of course, nothing new to Linux users. Many manufacturers worry only about supporting Windows. Even when a scanner or imaging device is recognized by SANE, there's no guarantee that all of the features of your scanner will be recognized or that they will all work like they were intended to under Windows. You can check here to see if your scanner is supported by SANE. Be sure to look for your specific scanner model. Close doesn't count. Sometimes, on models with close model numbers, you will find one model that works, while the next one does not.

Personally, I have a Hewlett-Packard ScanJet 8250. SANE recognizes my scanner as a model 8200, and the automatic document feeder simply will not work. Still, I feel fortunate to have a scanner model that works under Linux and SANE. I have two other scanners, and one of those will not work under Linux. No way, no how. One is a Canon FB-620P LiDE scanner that uses the parallel printer port. It works, thanks to a recent addition to the SANE backends, albeit limitedly and very, very slowly. Still, it works and the quality is acceptable. The other is a Lexmark printer and scanner combination. Linux will recognize the printer part of the combo, but not the scanner.
To be sure you're getting a scanner that you can use, I would suggest looking through the supported models list to find one that is reported as working, and that has the features you are seeking. Then, go to Ebay and look for a used model of that scanner. You'll also save yourself some money - and hassles. My HP ScanJet 8250 originally sold for $1000 when it was brand new, but you can now get it on Ebay for $55 and free shipping.

Meemaw did an outstanding job of covering the basics of Xsane in her previous article. But, there are a lot more capabilities hiding under the hood. Each of the various capabilities of Xsane can be set up under the Preferences > Setup menu. So, let's take a look at some of those features.

Image Scanner

This is probably what most people will use Xsane for. There aren't many of us around that don't have a bunch of photos stuffed into a box in the closet. How nice would it be to have those images in a digital format that you can use?

To get started, select either "Viewer" or "Save" as the target (note the target icon to the left of the drop down selections). The difference between "Viewer" and "Save" is that the former will allow you to view the image in the viewer window before saving it, while the latter will simply save the file directly, without you being able to view it before it is saved. If you use the viewer selection, you can save the displayed image by selecting File > Save Image from the Viewer window menus.

Another nice feature of Xsane is that it will automatically number your images, giving each a unique filename when it saves them. All you have to do is set up the first number in the naming scheme, and Xsane will take care of incrementing the number with each picture you scan, and append that number to the end of your filename. I have Xsane set up to save images to the ~/Pictures/Scanner directory (which I created), and the filename set up as out-0001.png for the first image I scanned. From there on out, Xsane increments the number at the end of the filename, even between reboots and subsequent launchings of Xsane.

Make sure you've set up the rest of you options, as Meemaw covered in her October 2009 article. Then, place the image(s) you wish to scan on the glass of the flatbed scanner, and close the lid. Click on the "Acquire Preview" button in the Preview window.

You can place either a single image, or multiple images on the flatbed scanner. Meemaw covered how to use "Auto Raise" in the preview window to select single items when multiple items were placed on the scanner bed. I take a slightly different approach. Click on the first icon at the top of the Preview window, and then simply draw around the image you want to scan by clicking and dragging your mouse, leaving a little extra "wiggle room" around the edges. Don't worry. You can crop the image closer later in your favorite image editor, such as GIMP. When you are satisfied with your selection in the Preview window, select the "Scan" button in the main Xsane window.

Now, depending on whether you selected to save the file directly or if you selected to view the image before saving it, your scanned image will be either written to your hard drive or displayed in the Viewer window. You can choose to save it as a JPG, PNG, PDF, PNM or TIFF file.

Home Copy Machine

Let's say your brother or sister comes over for dinner and you have prepared an old family recipe. Your sibling asks for a copy of the recipe, which you happen to have in your grandmother's handwriting. You could get in the car and run off to the local copy center and make a copy - or you could just head over to your computer and scanner, and make a copy on your own printer in less time than it would take you to make the round trip to the local copy center. Convenient, huh?

Before we can use Xsane and our scanner as a copy machine, we first need to set things up in Xsane. Go to the Preferences > Setting menu in Xsane, and choose the third tab.

If this is your first time setting up this part of Xsane, you may not have a printer listed. You may need to select the "Add printer" button at the bottom of the window. Next, specify the name of your printer on the Name field exactly as it appears in your list of printers. While your mileage may vary, I have found that I can simply accept all of the rest of the default settings in this window.

Next, select "Copy" as the target for your scan. In the second row of controls, you can set how many copies you would like to print, the printer you want to print to (just in case you have more than one printer to choose from), and the positioning of the scanned image on the copied page. Now, select the rest of your settings (you may want to change from "Color" to "Lineart" if you're copying documents or handwritten text), and place the original on the glass of your flatbed scanner. In the Preview window, select "Acquire Preview," then crop the scan area as we previously described. In the main Xsane window, select the "Scan" button, and after a brief wait (providing you've done everything properly), your scanned image should start printing on your selected printer.

Multipage Document Creation

Without a doubt, I have found this feature of Xsane to be the most useful. Most of the time, when scanning documents, we have more than one page to the original document. Sure, you could save each individual page as a separate PDF file. If I wanted them all placed into one PDF, I could use pdfjoin from the command line, and combine all of the pages into one single PDF file.

However, selecting "Multipage" as your scan target eliminates all of that post-scanning work. Instead, it will take each page that you scan and place them into one PDF file for you.

Select "Multipage" as your scan target, and make adjustments to the rest of your settings so they meet your needs.

When you select "Multipage" as your scan target, another window will open up. On the top line of that window, you can specify the path and filename you want to use when saving your multipage file. On the second line, you can specify what type of file you want Xsane to create. Your choices are PDF, PS or TIFF.

Now, all you have to do is scan each page of your document. As you scan each page, the scans will be listed in the middle of the window, in the "Pages" section. If you accidentally get some of your pages out of order, don't worry. Highlight the page in the list that you want to move, then click on the up or down arrow buttons to move it to its new location. After you've scanned all of your pages, select the "Save multipage file" button at the bottom left. Voila! You have just created a mutlipage file from a series of scans.

Home Fax Machine

Last month, in the January 2013 issue of The PCLinuxOS Magazine, I covered how to send faxes from PCLinuxOS. While I personally think it would be easier to create a multipage file, and then send that file with your fax modem, Xsane also includes a feature that will allow you to send a fax from your scans, as you scan them.

Select "Fax" as the target for your scans, in the main Xsane window.

Enter the telephone number of your fax recipient in the second line of the window below. You can change the name of the project, if you choose. The default is "faxproject," and is placed in your /home directory.

Select "Scan" in the main Xsane window. The scanned page(s) will show up in the "Pages" section of the Xsane Fax Project window. When you are satisfied that you have all the pages you want to send listed, select the "Send project" button at the bottom of the window.

At least, that's how it's supposed to work. To be perfectly honest, I never got this feature of Xsane to work - at all. Your mileage may vary, and I'd love to hear from you if you are successful in getting this setup in a manner that allows it to work. I tried the efax-0.9a fax program, which is installed with efax-gtk, the fax program we used in the January 2013 fax article. I also installed mgetty+sendfax, and was still unsuccessful at getting Xsane to send the fax. Oh sure, it "queued" the faxes, but they were never sent.

Like I said when I started talking about the Fax capabilities of Xsane, it makes a lot more sense to me to make a multipage PDF, and then send that from Efax-Gtk. If nothing else, this provides a nice alternative to sending faxes from Xsane.

Document Emailer

If you have a standard POP3 email account, you can email scanned images directly to your email recipients. It kind of shortcuts the whole process of scanning in an image, opening your email client (or web page), composing the message, remembering to attach the image, then sending your email. Why not just do it all, right from Xsane?

Before you can send an email, you will need to set up the details of your email account in the Preferences > Setup dialog box.

On the first line, insert your name how you want it to appear in the "From" field of the email. On the second line, "Reply to," insert your return address, which is typically the email you are sending email from. You can insert a different email address, if you wish. On the third line, insert the smtp server address, provided from your ISP or mail host. On the fourth line, insert the SMTP port (typically, 25) used by your mail provider. On the fifth line, select ASMTP Login, since most email accounts require authentication these days. The sixth line is your "User" ID, which is typically your email address. The seventh line is where you put the password for your email account. You should now be set to send email with your POP3 email account, straight from Xsane.

Select "Email" as the target for your scans, in the main Xsane window. This would also be a good time to make sure all of the other settings are what you want (Color, Gray, Dithered, Lineart, scan resolution, etc.).

When you select "Email" as your target, another window opens that allows you to specify all the specific details necessary to send your email. On the second line, insert your email recipient's email address. On the third line, insert the subject of your email. In the "E-mail Text" box, type your message to your email recipient. Below that, check the box "HTML e-mail" if you want Xsane to send HTML encoded email. Otherwise, your message will be sent as a plain text email. You can also select the type of file you want your scan to be saved as. Your choices are JPG, PDF, PNG, PostScript, and TIFF.

At this point, place your original on the scanner bed, acquire the preview, crop it, then select the "Scan" button in the main Xsane window. The scanned file will appear in the "Attachments" window, in the bottom half of the email window. Once you are satisfied that everything is as you intend, select the "Send project" button at the bottom left of the email window.

This is all fine, if you are using a standard POP3 email account. But if you are a Gmail user, you have some work to do to get Xsane to talk to Gmail's SMTP servers. Initially, I honestly thought it might not be possible. But after some digging around, I found a four year old post on Ubuntu forums from a user named flabdablet that solved the problem. Instead of linking you to the actual post, I'm going to list the instructions here, minus the typical Ubuntu sudo stuff that PCLinuxOS doesn't use. I've tested this, and can confirm that the instructions work perfectly.

First, open your favorite text editor, and enter the following:

#!/bin/sh

/usr/bin/openssl s_client -connect smtp.gmail.com:465 -quiet 2>/dev/null

I temporarily saved the file as gmail-smtp.sh in ~/Downloads/Scripts. Right click on the file, go to the "Permissions" tab, and make sure the file is marked as executable. Now, open up another copy of your favorite file manager as the root user, and copy the gmail-smtp.sh file to /usr/bin.

Before proceeding, let's test the script to make sure it is working properly. Open a terminal session, and enter /usr/bin/gmail-smtp.sh on the command line.

After a short delay, you should see something similar to 220 mx.google.com ESMTP f42sm17489123rvb.6. If you then type helo, you should get something like 250 mx.google.com at your service. Typing quit should get you 221 2.0.0 mx.google.com closing connection f42sm17489123rvb.6, and your shell prompt back.

Now we need to make that wrapper available as a local network service, so XSane can use it. Open your favorite text editor again, and type the following in:

# default: on

# description: Gmail SMTP wrapper for clients without SSL support

service gmail-smtp

{

disable         = no

bind            = localhost

port            = 10025

socket_type     = stream

protocol        = tcp

wait            = no

user            = root

server          = /usr/bin/gmail-smtp.sh

type            = unlisted

}

Save that file as gmail-smtp, without any file extension. Again, I temporarily saved the file in my ~/Downloads/Scripts directory. Once again, open another window of your favorite file manager as the root user, and copy the file to the /etc/xinetd.d directory.

If you type netstat -ltn at a command prompt, you should see a line something like this:

tcp    0  0  127.0.0.1:10025  0.0.0.0:*  LISTEN

All that remains is to configure XSane. Under the "Email" tab in the setup dialog box, set the SMTP server address to localhost, the port to 10025, fill in your Gmail account details, and select ASMTP Login authorization.

If you've done everything properly, you should now be able to send emails from your Gmail account. To test it out, enter your email address as the recipient, type a subject, enter some text for the message, and hit "Scan" in the main Xsane window. The image will appear in the "Attachments" section of the email project window. Once everything is as you want, click on the "Send project" button. Your email to yourself should be on its way.

A Few Scanning Tips

Get out the Windex (or other glass cleaner), some plain white paper towels (the ink on the printed paper towels can cause streaks) … and CLEAN the glass that makes up your flatbed scanner's imaging surface. It'll save you time later on when you are enhancing and cleaning up your scanned images. You will reveal plenty of imperfections to "fix" in just the original image. There's no need to add more work, simply because you introduced more dirt and imperfections into the scanned image. Plus, no one wants to see your fingerprints and other smudges - which will show up in the scanned image. Choose your scan resolution wisely. Higher resolution scans take more time to complete, and they also make larger files - sometimes HUMONGOUS files. Keep in mind what your intended purpose is for whatever it is you are scanning. Here are some examples.

First, let's say that you are scanning in an image to use as desktop wallpaper on your computer. Most computers use a display resolution of 96 dpi (dots per inch) for images. Hence, it makes no sense to scan in an image at 4800 dpi if you're only going to use the image as wallpaper. Similarly, if you are scanning in a document that you are preparing to fax, it makes no sense to scan your document at 600 dpi and in color, since the maximum resolution a fax machine can reproduce is 200 dpi with dithered graytones. In that case, anything more than 300 dpi and dithered gray is overkill and a waste of time and disk storage space.

On the other side of that spectrum, if you are planning on making a copy of an image that is larger than the original (say you are taking a 4" x 5" image and wanting to make an 8" x 10" image from it), it is wise to gather and preserve as much of the image detail as possible. You can do this by increasing the scan resolution. Keep in mind that the resulting file will be quite large. Get rid of the blank space around an image. If you are scanning in a wallet sized school picture of your niece or nephew, you certainly don't need all of the rest of that blank space surrounding your image. Without cropping too tightly, select only the image and maybe a little of the surrounding space around the image. Your scans will not only have a smaller image file size, but your scan will also complete much quicker. On a similar note, if you are only interested in just a portion of an image, crop the image in the Preview window to scan only that specific portion of the image you are interested in. Using this method, I was able to create a "close-up" image of my grandfather, who was standing in a large group of kids outside the schoolhouse where he went to school. In the smallish original image, taken in 1911, it was hard to distinguish that it was him. But afterwards, by paying close attention to my scan resolution (high) and scanning only that portion of the image, I was able to make a passable 5" x 7" image of my grandfather, separated out from the crowd of other students. It is, to this day, the only image we have of my grandfather from when he was a child.

Summary

Without a doubt, Xsane is a very powerful tool to use with desktop scanners. Like I stated earlier, there are a lot of features hiding just below the hood. Once you understand how to manipulate, setup and use those features, Xsane becomes even more powerful. There are more advanced Xsane functions, but what we have covered here should cover the needs of 98% or more users needs.

It's a shame that the scanner market, after 20 years, still isn't unified. Some manufacturers, such as Epson, only support the TWAIN standard. The sad thing about TWAIN is that it is rather "Windows-centric." Although TWAIN claims to support Linux, it has never really caught on with Linux users. Even on their forum, the most recent posts about Linux are three and four years old. Meanwhile, other scanner manufacturers, such as Hewlett Packard, support both the TWAIN and SANE standards, giving users the best of both worlds while supporting more than just Windows.

Of course, as Linux users, we're used to manufacturers not releasing detailed hardware and interface specifications, since they don't want to reveal "trade secrets." Linux users, as has been the case all along, have been forced to "roll their own" solutions to get image scanners operational under Linux. Maybe when - not if - Linux gains a greater market share among desktop computer users, the scanner manufacturers will start to provide better Linux support for their hardware.

There is a new crop of scanners coming onto the scene in recent years that work without the need to be connected to your computer. Rather, these scanners are a standalone, all-inclusive solution. Their imaging capabilities are self contained on their ROM, and they store images on either a USB flash drive or on SDHC/microSDHC memory cards. With this newer crop of scanners, there are no more concerns about drivers, driver compatibility or whether an OS is supported. All you have to do is scan your images, and save them to the memory card. Then, pop the memory card into the card reader on your computer, and you have immediate access to your newly digitized images.

Gimp 8: Colorizing a Photo

by Meemaw

I have several old photographs of my grandparents. One of my favorites is a shot of my grandmother as an infant. I have always wondered what that photo would have looked like if color photography had been available in 1893. I have scanned and saved this photo to try to colorize it.

The first thing I am going to do with it is to open a copy of the photo in Gimp so I still have the original. This way if I mess up, I won't have to re-scan. In addition, I am going to make a copy of that layer, so I will still have the original I opened and can delete any layer that's messed up. You may try a lot of options on this project, and having a copy of a layer is one way to be able to undo something you did that didn't turn out as you wanted it. Remember, you can always use the undo key combination <CTRL> + Z.

It's also a good idea to give each layer an appropriate name to make things less confusing during this project, since there will be several layers.

Next, you should right click on the image and create a layer mask (Layer > Mask > Add Layer Mask)

Set the background as white.

Make a copy of this layer as well. Then you will need to make sure that the image is not in Grayscale mode. Go to Image > Mode > RGB and set the mode to RGB.

Now go to colors and select Colorize. Color Balance or Hue-Saturation could be used as well, but we'll colorize this one.

For the Colorize dialog to actually come up, we need to make sure our image is selected and not the layer mask (below). The image is on the left and layer mask is on the right and when either is chosen, it is outlined in white. The image is chosen here.

With Color Balance or Colorize, we will now want to try to get the image to be same color of the object we want to color. I started with the skin. I made sure I created a copy of the image and layer mask I could use specifically for the skin.

When you choose Colorize, your photo will start out bluish/turquoise. Adjust the hue until you find the color you like. Below are the the screens I adjusted to do the blanket in light blue.

After you have the color you want, you will now need to select the layer mask by clicking on it. Now go to Colors > Invert to invert the colors. Once the colors are inverted, it will look like the original without any color.

Next I used paint brush, selected the white color and painted. You can use the selection tool, outline the object you are colorizing, then fill it with white, but using the paintbrush is easier. As we did on the other layer mask, you can outline with a smaller brush, then fill in with a larger one.

Once you have that layer the way you want it, create a new copy and repeat the process for another portion of the photo. For my next layer I did the dress.

Keep on repeating the process for every object that is a different color. It can be quite tedious but it's fun. I ended up doing the skin, hair and dress and decided against doing the blanket.

Don't worry too much about getting the colors exact. Changing the colors later is quite easy. If you decide you want to go back and change a color, just select the layer and go back to colorize (make sure the layer mask is NOT selected).

After you do all the layers, you can go back and adjust the opacity on the layers to make it look a bit more natural and not over saturated.

Once you adjust the opacity on the layers, you are done! Export your photo. As a finishing touch, I opened the finished photo and took out the white spots (blemishes on the original photo) using the Clone tool, like we did the road sign a couple of months ago.

Forum Foibles: PCLOS Is The BEST

How To Use PCLinuxOS As A Router

by muungwana

A router is a device that connects two or more networks.

A computer needs three things to be able to act as a router. It needs at least two network interfaces, with each interface connected to a network. It needs to be configured to allow traffic to pass from one interface to another. Finally, it needs to be configured to masquerade traffic from the secondary interface as it leaves the primary interface.

The primary interface is an interface that is connected to a larger network. The larger network maybe the internet at large, or it can be a local network connected to the ISP network. The primary interface is the interface that connects the computer to the internet.

The secondary interface is the interface that is connected to a network which acts as a bridge for the computer to access the internet, or to access the local network the primary interface is connected to.

Before we continue, it is important to (re) familiarize ourselves with network terminologies.

An IPv4 address is made up of 32 bits, ie 32 ones and zeros. It is also made up of two parts, a network address and a host address. An IP address is usually represented as a decimal number representation of these 32 bits broken down to four chunks, each chunk consisting of eight bits and separated by a dot character.

An IPv4 address looks like: 192.168.10.10. The "dot" is added for clarity, and is not part of the binary representation. It just marks the eight bit boundary.

"192" for example is a decimal representation of a binary number "11000000". "192.168.10.10" is an IPv4 address and its binary equivalent is "11000000 10101000 00001010 00001010"

A netmask has the same number of bits and format of IPv4 address and it is a variable that is used to separate a network address from a host address in an IPv4 address.

A netmark address of 255.255.255.0 corresponds to "11111111 11111111 11111111 00000000" binary address.

An IPv4 address given as:

IP address: 192.168.10.10

netmask   : 255.255.255.0

which is equivalent to 192.168.10.10/24

They both say the same thing. Of the 32 bits of an IPv4 address, the first 24 bits are used to represent a network address, and the remaining eight bits are used to represent a host address, an address of a network device within its network.

What distinguishes one network from another is the network address, identified by a netmask address. All computers that have the same network address belong to the same network, and must send their traffic to a router when they want to communicate with other computers that are in another network.

It is not allowed for network traffic belonging to one network to be seen outside of its network, and any traffic that somehow manages to "escape" its network simply gets dropped. The router's responsibility is to sit on network boundaries and "masquerade" network addresses of traffic from one network as it crosses network boundaries, and to allow the traffic to pass through safely.

A gateway address is an address belonging to a router, and it acts as a gateway in and out of a network.

A typical network properties listing of an interface may look something like this:

IPv4 address: 192.168.10.10

netmask       : 255.255.255.0

gateway       : 192.168.10.1

DNS           : 8.8.8.8

The above says:

The host address is 10, the host address belongs to a network with a network address of 192.168.10.0, the first 24 bits of the 32 bit IPv4 address are used to represent a network address, and the "door" in and out of this network is at 192.168.10.1. The router is at this address. The DNS address is not relevant to this discussion.

For simplicity, we will call the computer that will act as a router "alice" and a computer that will access the internet through "alice" computer "bob."

Before we continue, make sure "alice" and "bob" are connected, either through a hub or through a crossover cable, if a cable runs directly from one to the other. Modern network interfaces can handle direct connections of interfaces with normal cables and it may not be necessary to use a crossover cable with direct connections. It is also possible to connect them wirelessly using wireless network interfaces.

Also, make sure "alice" can go online through the primary interface.

For a computer to act as a router, it needs more than one interface. Traffic needs to be allowed to flow from one interface to another. Lastly, traffic from the secondary interface must be masqueraded when passing through the primary interface network.

A kernel option that allow traffic to pass from one interface to another is at: " /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward".

Traffic is not allowed to flow between interfaces if the content of the virtual file is "0," and traffic is allowed if the content is "1".

To set the option to "1", run the following command (as the root user) from a terminal session on "alice."

echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward

If you want the option to survive a reboot, add "net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1" to the "/etc/sysctl.conf" configuration file. First, make sure the line is not there before you add it. If it is already there, but with an option of "0," just change the option to "1." That is all that is needed to allow traffic to flow from one network to another.

Now, let's set up the primary interface to masquerade traffic from a secondary interface.

Here we add a rule to iptables. Iptables is a program in Linux that enforces network traffic policy. Most Linux firewalls do their business by writing iptables rules.

Once again, in a terminal session on "alice," (as root) run the following command:

/sbin/iptables -t nat -I POSTROUTING -o XYZ -j MASQUERADE

XYZ is the primary interface (eth0, wlan0, etc.).

The above rule says the following:

Insert a "masquerade" iptable rule in the "postrouting" chain of a "nat" table. Iptables rules are hierarchical. Tables are at the top, chains follow, and lastly rules. The "postrouting" chain acts on all traffic just before it leaves the network, and the "masquerade" says "change the network address of whatever traffic is passing through to the network address of this interface."

If you want the rule to survive reboots, from the terminal, as root, run "service iptables save." Then, go to PCC (PCLinuxOS Control Center) services section, and make sure "iptables" is set to start at boot time.

Still on "alice," re-setup the network interface in PCC's Network and Internet section, and give the secondary interface the following network properties:

IP address: 10.10.10.10

netmask   : 255.255.255.0

That is all. Ignore the dialog if it shows you an error warning.

Give the network interface on "bob" that is connected to the secondary interface on "alice" the following network properties:

IP address: 10.10.10.20

netmask   : 255.255.255.0

gateway   : 10.10.10.10

DNS       : 8.8.8.8

That is all. "bob" should now be able to go online using "alice" as its router, i.e., as its gateway.

The host address of the network interface on "bob" is "20." Its network address is 10.10.10.x.

The host address of the secondary interface on "alice" is "10." Its network address is 10.10.10.x.>

The above means the two interfaces belong to the same network.

The primary interface on "alice" will have/should have a different network address, making it belong to a different network. The two commands executed above connect the two interfaces, and allow traffic to pass between them, which makes "alice" a router.

How To Create, Edit ePub Files In Sigil

by stealth

So what is Sigil? It is a fancy data compression app. You can use it to open existing ebook files and edit them, or you can use it to create your own new ebook files.

What are ePub files? Are they a mystery to you? Ever wonder how they are created? The ePub files don't have to be a mystery, and you are about to learn how to create them. ePub files are, in essence, a self contained portable website with some improved features.

An Overview Of Sigil

If you just want to edit an existing ePub file or create one, and you don't care how it is put together or how it works, then use Sigil. It takes care of all the technical stuff for you and makes everything work correctly. However, Sigil does not appear to provide access to all of the features made available in the ePub standard as found at idpf.org. Sigil does have a slick Table of Contents (TOC) creation feature.

Sigil In Linux, Mac and Windows

There does seem to be some lost functionality when using Sigil in Linux. Windows and Mac users claim the ability to do things that just don't seem to work in the Linux version. Even the documentation says certain things can be done, but they don't work for Linux users. You can still use the app to create and edit ePub files. Just apparently not with the same ease that Windows and Mac users have. Your mileage may vary.

Three Editing Modes In Sigil

The image below shows you the Sigil Editor in the center section of the combination mode where you do the editing in WYSIWYG or the HTML code. The single tool icon on the toolbar (below the Tools menu circled in red) is how you get to the combination editor from the toolbar. You can see which file you are working in by the green highlight in the left Book Browser Window, as well as the tab above the editing window. The TOC for the book can be viewed in the Table of Contents window to the right. The two icons circled in red are the Metadata editor on the left and the TOC generation on the right.

You can see full WYSIWYG editing in this image, below. The toolbar icon for this mode is circled in red.

You can see Full Code editing in this image, below. The toolbar icon for this mode is circled in red.

The two files circled in the Book Browser in the left section of the image below are key files, which are in any ePub file. The toc.ncx is where the TOC, which you can see in the pane on the right, is stored. The content.opf stores the list of the entire contents of the ePub file. The content.opf file is also what controls the order the HTML files will be arranged in for viewing in an ebook reader.

It is also how you will see them in the Book Browser under the Text folder (above) in the pane on the left. All your HTML, SVG/PNG/JPG/GIF, CSS, fonts, audio, video and possible script files, such as JavaScript, are contained in the same folder in the ePub file. But, they can also be contained in sub folders, as you can see above on the left. Those folders are actually created, and the files are separated into them by Sigil when you open an existing ePub file, or when you create a new one.

The ePub standard from idpf.org suggests that they all be stored in the same file and not separated, although it is allowed. I’m not sure why the author of Sigil decided to go the route which is not suggested, but allowed. Maybe he is following Microsoft's lead of not following standards. The reason they suggest not doing it this way, as seen above, is because there is nothing in the standard requiring a reader to follow the linking behavior which is required for the separated folder setup to work. Doing it that way might work in one reader, but not in another. The linking behavior is identical to what you might do with a web site, but it is not required of the reader to handle the links or the folder structure properly. All the readers I have tried handle the links properly.

From within Sigil, you cannot see the upper folders or the other two essential files that are required in any ePub file. Those two folders and two files are identical in every ePub file, and it won't work if they aren't.

In the image above, you see the folders with little > pointers next to some of the folders. That means there are files in those folders, and none in the others lacking the > pointers. You will see, farther down, that those folders don't actually exist in ePub files generated by publishers. However, if you used Sigil to open and edit an existing file, then saved it, Sigil will create the folders and restructure all the files in that ePub file. Sigil will also correct any linking problems caused by the restructure.

Sigil's TOC Generation

Below is the automatic TOC generation feature I mentioned above. You will also see the search tool at the bottom of the editing window. The icon with the magnifying glass on it, just to the left of the Tools drop down menu in the image, is how you open, search and replace from the toolbar.

You can also do the TOC by hand if you want. You can also edit part of it after automatic generation. If you do edit the file after it is created, you will see activity in the right pane as you are editing.

Right Click Context Menus

There are right click context menus almost everywhere in Sigil. Right clicking on the text folder will let you start a new HTML file, or import existing files. Any existing files have to be well formed by the XHTML 1.1 standard, or Sigil will not bring them in.

Creating An ePub From Scratch

Here is what the same file that is in the previous images looks like from within Ark. For some reason, Sigil replaces that callouts folder in this ePub. It is at the same level as the sub folders you saw in the Sigil images above. It has some *.gif files in it. You can see a couple of different file types, including HTML and OTF (OpenType Font) files. You will also notice that the sub-folders that you saw in Sigil aren't here, because they don't actually exist in this ePub file. O'Reilly makes all their ePub files with all the content files in the same folder, with the exception of that callouts folder with the *.gif files in this ePub.

The image below shows more file types, including the content.opf, CSS and image files.

You can see the toc.ncx file at the bottom of the window in the image below.

In the image below, you can see the two essential sub-folders and the two essential files I mentioned above, which you cannot see when opening the ePub file in Sigil. The OEBPS (Open eBook Publication Structure) folder is where all the content files for the ebook are stored. That also includes the content.opf and toc.ncx. The contents of the OEBPS folder is all you see in Sigil. The OEBPS folder and the META-INF folder are one level down from the main folder and one level up from the contents you see in the Sigil images above, or what is actually the ePub file that you would open and read in an ebook reader.

How Does An ePub File Go Together?

If you are like me and have to find out how the ePub file works, or what the full process for making a properly working ePub file is, then you will have to roll up your sleeves and get ready to get all that technical stuff all over you. Just kidding! I sure am glad it is not like working on a gasoline engine.

You need to know how to use a compression app like ark, xarchiver, Q7Z, p7zip, file-roller, tar or zip. If you know how to create folders on your computer, and you know how to use a text editor, then you can create your own ePub file using your favorite text editor and compression app. My favorite text editor is Vim, of course. Oh, you will also have to know a little something about making well formed HTML, XHTML and XML files.

The container.xml & mimetype

So what is the container.xml file and the mimetype file? The container.xml file is, as the name implies, a container file which references the content.opf file found in the OEBPS folder inside the ePub file. An example is shown below.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<container version="1.0"

xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:opendocument:xmlns:container">

<rootfiles>

<rootfile full-path="OEBPS/content.opf"

media-type="application/oebps-package+xml"/>

</rootfiles>

</container>

The mimetype file contains only what you see below. The ePub file is a zip file.

application/epub+zip

Create Your Own ePub File From Scratch

I prefer to do it this way. It lets me be in control, instead of an application. The current standard for ePub is EPUB3. It supersedes the older EPUB2 specification.

Open a file manager and create the folder and name for your ePub file name. Then create your two sub folders META-INF and OEBPS.

Here is the Structure of the ePub file as viewed in Ark before extraction.

Here is the structure of the ePub folder after extraction.

Epub file name

|

|____META-INF (1 Required)(Other Files Optional)

|      |

|      |____container.xml (1 Required)

|

|____OEBPS (1 Required)

|      |

|      |____HTML/XHTML (1 Required)

|      |

|      |____CSS (Optional)

|      |

|      |____SVG/PNG/JPG/GIF (Optional)

|      |

|      |____scripts (Optional)

|      |

|      |____videos (Optional)

|      |

|      |____audio (Optional)

|      |

|      |____fonts (Optional)

|      |

|      |____content.opf (1 Required)

|      |

|      |____toc.ncx (1 Required)

|

|____mimetype (1 Required)

Creating The Required Files In The ePub
Start your favorite text editor, and enter the following:

application/epub+zip

Save this file in the root folder that has the ePub file name, and name this file mimetype. Do not put the mimetype file in OEBPS or META-INF. It has to be at the same level they are.

Start a new file and add exactly what you see here for the container.xml file. Then save that to the META-INF folder.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<container version="1.0"

xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:opendocument:xmlns:container">

<rootfiles>

<rootfile full-path="OEBPS/content.opf"

media-type="application/oebps-package+xml"/>

</rootfiles>

</container>

The toc.ncx File

Below is a sample of a toc.ncx file. Creating this from scratch can be a hassle. This is an XML version of the HTML list. It is an XML file with opening and closing NCX tags and the XML Namespace in the opening NCX tag. It can be used with or without a DOCTYPE declaration in the file. I have found that, sometimes, NOT using a DOCTYPE allows you to create a TOC that would otherwise not work. The sample toc.ncx below has three sections between the NCX tags: head, docTitle and navMap. The standard at idpf.org says you can also have two other sections called navPage and navList. Each section is separate from the others, and each has its own opening and closing tags. I cut out most of the middle of this toc.ncx file because it was too long. Within the navMap section you will find:

<navPoint>

<navLabel>

<text>Your TOC Text

</navLabel>

<content src="yourfile.html"/>

</navPoint>

You can nest the navPoint element like so.

<navPoint>

<navLabel>

<text>Your TOC Text

</navLabel>

<content src="yourfile.html"/>

<navPoint>

<navLabel>

<text>Your TOC Text

</navLabel>

<content src="yourfile.html"/>

</navPoint>

</navPoint>

Here is a sample DOCTYPE

This sample toc.ncx does NOT have a DOCTYPE declaration. If it did, it would go between the XML tag and the NCX tag, in basically the same manner as your XHTML files. Also, the XML tag below, starting with

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no" ?>

<head>

<meta content="cover" name="cover"/>

<meta content="isbn:9780596159351" name="dtb:uid"/>

<meta content="-1" name="dtb:depth"/>

<meta content="0" name="dtb:totalPageCount"/>

<meta content="0" name="dtb:maxPageNumber"/>

</head>

<docTitle>

<text>Learning the vi and Vim Editors

</docTitle>

<navMap>

<navPoint id="id2909437" playOrder="1">

<navLabel>

<text>Learning the vi and Vim Editors

</navLabel>

<content src="Text/index.html"/>

<navPoint id="id2857362" playOrder="2">

<navLabel>

<text>Preface

</navLabel>

<content src="Text/pr01.html"/>

<navPoint id="id2857202" playOrder="3">

<navLabel>

<text>Scope of This Book

</navLabel>

<content src="Text/pr01.html#vi7-ch-0-sect-1"/>

</navPoint>

<navPoint id="id3103816" playOrder="4">

<navLabel>

<text>How the Material Is Presented

</navLabel>

<content src="Text/pr01s02.html"/>

<navPoint id="id3168839" playOrder="5">

<navLabel>

<text>Discussion of vi Commands

</navLabel>

<content src="Text/pr01s02.html#vi7-ch-0-sect-2.1"/>

</navPoint>

<navPoint id="id3174260" playOrder="6">

<navLabel>

<text>Conventions

</navLabel>

<content src="Text/pr01s02.html#vi7-ch-0-sect-2.2"/>

</navPoint>

<navPoint id="id2856537" playOrder="7">

<navLabel>

<text>Keystrokes

</navLabel>

<content src="Text/pr01s02.html#vi7-ch-0-sect-2.3"/>

</navPoint>

</navPoint>

</navPoint>

</navMap>

</ncx>

The content.opf File

Shown below is an example of a content.opf file. I cut out most of this one, too, because of length. The content.opf file has an opening and closing PACKAGE tag with an XML namespace in the opening tag. It has four sections between the PACKAGE tags, each separate from the other, and each with its own opening and closing tags: METADATA, MANIFEST, SPINE and GUIDE.

METADATA: Contains information about you and your book. dc:indentifier, dc:title, dc:language and meta are the only required elements in this section.

MANIFEST: All of your book content must be listed here.

SPINE: This must have all of the book content, minus images, CSS, audio, video, fonts and any scripts. The order in which the content is listed is the order in which the content is presented in a reader.

GUIDE: Can be empty. The section must be in the file, though.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?>

<package xmlns="http://www.idpf.org/2007/opf" version="2.0"

unique-identifier="bookid">

<metadata>

<dc:identifier xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"

id="bookid">urn:isbn:9780596159351

<dc:title xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">Learning the vi and

Vim Editors

<dc:rights xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">Copyright © 2009

Arnold Robbins and Elbert Hannah

<dc:publisher xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">O'Reilly

Media

<dc:subject xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">COMPUTERS /

Operating Systems / UNIX

<dc:date xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">2009-06-30

<dc:description xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"><p>The

standard guide for <em>vi</em> since 1986, this book has been

expanded to include detailed information on <em>vim</em>, the

leading <em>vi</em> clone that includes extra features for both

beginners and power users. You learn text editing basics and advanced tools for

both editors, such as writing macros and scripts to extend the editor, power

tools for programmers, multi-window editing -- all in the easy-to-follow style

that has made this book a classic.</p>

<dc:creator xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"

xmlns:opf="http://www.idpf.org/2007/opf" opf:file-as="Arnold Robbins">Arnold

Robbins

<dc:creator xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"

xmlns:opf="http://www.idpf.org/2007/opf" opf:file-as="Elbert Hannah">Elbert

Hannah

<dc:creator xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"

xmlns:opf="http://www.idpf.org/2007/opf" opf:file-as="Linda Lamb">Linda

Lamb

<dc:language xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">en

<meta name="cover" content="cover-image"/>

</metadata>

<manifest>

<item id="ncxtoc" media-type="application/x-dtbncx+xml" href="toc.ncx"/>

<item media-type="text/css" id="css" href="core.css"/>

<item id="cover" href="cover.html" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>

<item id="epub.embedded.font.1" href="LiberationMono-Bold.otf"

media-type="font/opentype"/>

<item id="epub.embedded.font.2" href="LiberationMono-BoldItalic.otf"

media-type="font/opentype"/>

<item id="epub.embedded.font.3" href="LiberationMono-Italic.otf"

media-type="font/opentype"/>

<item id="epub.embedded.font.4" href="LiberationMono.otf"

media-type="font/opentype"/>

<item id="epub.embedded.font.5" href="LiberationSerif.otf"

media-type="font/opentype"/>

<item id="id2909437" href="index.html"

media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>

<item id="cover-image"

href="httpatomoreillycomsourceoreillyimages8936.jpg" media-type="image/jpeg"/>

<item id="id3093658" href="oreilly_large.gif" media-type="image/gif"/>

<item id="id2857362" href="pr01.html"

media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>

<item id="id3175607" href="pt01.html"

media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>

<item id="id3175744" href="ch01.html"

media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>

<item id="id3176055" href="httpatomoreillycomsourceoreillyimages8938.png"

media-type="image/png"/>

<item id="id3346907" href="author_bios.html"

media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>

<item id="id3130574callout1" href="callouts/1.png"

media-type="image/png"/>

<item id="id3130574callout15" href="callouts/15.png"

media-type="image/png"/>

</manifest>

<spine toc="ncxtoc">

<itemref idref="cover" linear="no"/>

<itemref idref="id2909437"/>

<itemref idref="id3103816"/>

<itemref idref="id3346923"/>

</spine>

<guide>

<reference href="cover.html" type="cover" title="Cover"/>

</guide>

</package>

Your ePub Content

Create or copy all the XHTML, images, CSS, Fonts, (EPUB3 won't need the font files, but includes provisions for them), and any other files that are necessary for the book, and save those in the OEBPS folder. You can save them into organized sub folders under the OEBPS folder, if you want. Make sure your XHTML and CSS files validate correctly with the validation tools on the W3C website. That step is absolutely essential. Otherwise, your ePub WILL NOT work if you don't have well formed documents. You can also validate your ePub files at several web sites.
It is best to leave out any code that you would use to create your structural look and layout. Just use content markup, h1-h6, p, em, strong, ul, ol, li, dl, dt, dd, table, tr, th, td, div, blockquote tags, and some others I am probably missing, and use CSS for all your styling. Stay away from position and size in your CSS. Don't use layout controls because it will cause problems in the ePub file, even if the HTML validates on W3C. Those controls disrupt a large part of what the ePub reader is designed to do on its own. Your HTML/XHTML files need to have the DOCTYPE, as shown below, in the HTML/XHTML files you use in your ePub:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"

"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">

Your HTML/XHTML files can contain internal hyperlinks to enable moving around in the book, and even external hyperlinks to leave the book. (That is also dependent on the reader you are using, and the device). You can have an HTML menu file at the beginning of the book, with standard HTML hyperlinks directing to the contents of the book. You can also have the toc.nxc, which is not actually part of the book content, where the HTML menu would be. See idpf.org for exact specification of the conformance of your XHTML documents.

EPUB2 supports CSS2 and up with limited support for CSS3, (EPUB3 supports more of CSS3), HTML5, XHTML 1.1, XML 1.0, SVG 1.1.

I know my HTML files with the above DOCTYPE, saved as .html, have worked so far. It looks as though the xhtml extension is required with EPUB3. So, I have renamed all my files to .xhtml in the ePubs I have created. My ePub files still work with the new file names inside. I had to edit a lot of hyperlinks. Creating new files for your ePub in Sigil will create them as .xhtml.

Testing Your New ePub

Once you are finished creating the ePub content, clean up any back up files and any other unnecessary files in the OEBPS folder. Then open a compression application and zip the main folder and everything in it. Next, rename the extension of the new zip file, changing it from zip to epub. Finally, try opening the file in your favorite ebook reader. If you did everything correctly, you will be able to read your new file. If you didn't do it correctly, go back to the main folder that you started from. Check everything, making sure you have all the required files and folders in the correct locations, and they are named correctly. Check to see if the contents inside those essential files are typed correctly. Once you are sure everything is right, just delete the old ePub file and save a newly compressed zip file. Change it again from zip to epub, and try opening it again. If you can make a set of HTML files work correctly on a website, you should also be able to make your ePub files work. Be sure you have all the essential files and folders in your ePub, and they are named correctly and in the correct locations.

Epub Authority

The governing authority on ePub is idpf.org. There is a lot of cool technology that is available for ePub files. But, there is also a problem with the technology not being used fully by the different ePub readers. I know on our PCLinuxOS distribution, the best ebook readers I have found so far are the ebook viewer that comes with Calibre, and fbreader. I wouldn't waste my time with any of the others. Okular will read ePub files, but it won't display them, probably because it doesn't have the dynamic flow capability of the actual ebook readers. There are also a couple of freely available epub reader add-ons for Firefox. One is called EPUBReader , and the other one is called Lucifox.

You Have Enough To Get Started

I gave you enough information to create well formed and properly working ePub files that you can roll with just a text editor and a compression app. You can learn a lot more by going to idpf.org and reading the documentation, if you want to learn about ePub file creation in greater detail. That is what I did, particularly after I was asked to write this article. I am still going there to learn more to use as a reference. EPUB3 will have a lot of improvement over EPUB2. So, that is reason enough to visit idpf.org often.

Credit And Thanks

The same ePub file was used in all the examples, both in the images and some of the copy and paste code examples. That ePub was purchased by me from O'Reilly Media. And falls within O'Reilly Media's automatic permissions, which allow the use of part of their work found in nearly every one of their publications.

Although they don't require it, I am adding the acknowledgment information for the very small part of the ePub file I used for my examples.

Learning the vi and Vim Editors

Arnold Robbins, Elbert Hannah, Linda Lamb

Copyright © 2009 Arnold Robbins and Elbert Hannah

O'Reilly Media

1005 Gravenstein Highway North

Sebastopol, CA 95472

800-998-9938 (in the United States or Canada)

707-829-0515 (international or local)

707-829-0104 (fax)

http://www.oreilly.com

Thank you O'Reilly Media for your contribution and friendly position towards the Open Source Community. Additionally, thanks for making your publications so easily accessible for life, and in so many formats. Also, a big thanks for making them DRM free!

Happy ePub rolling!

Game Zone: Killing Floor

by daiashi

About The Game
Killing Floor is a co-op survival horror game. Up to 6 players can play in online co-op mode, or just you, on your own, playing in the Solo mode. The aim - cleanse each area of zombies, in waves, until you get to the last one. The Big One. The Patriarch. Then, exterminate him, too. Actually, they aren't "zombies" at all. They are the leftover "specimens" from a cheap and dirty government program to clone monster soldiers. The basic ones will just munch on your arm and try to disembowel you. The bigger ones were the first ones they tried arming. Nothing much. Just a chainsaw or a blade for starters. They had just caught on to the chain gun and rockets when the government tried to shut down their secret program.

But, in the typical way these things go, the program didn't want to be shut down. The specimens got loose. No one was left alive to turn off the specimen-cloning equipment. Now, they are running amok. Well, some of them are running amok. Others are shambling amok or even jumping amok, but you get the idea.

The police were sent in, but that wasn't even a challenge for the specimens. The first army units hadn't been warned what to expect. The screams of "It's got a bloody chainsaw!" over the radios probably didn't do much for morale, as whole units were chewed up. Quite literally, in some cases, of course.

Now, there is just you. And a few friends. There are also a few survivors from the first police and army units thrown in. Of course, you can't tell anyone anything, because that would be a breach of the Official Secrets Act 1911, 1920, 1989. That would be a disciplinary offense. So just get in there and do your bit for Queen and Country.

Zombies. Lots of them. Big ones, little ones. Armed and Dangerous. JUST MAKE THEM ALL GO AWAY! http://killingfloorthegame.com/

System requirements

Software: Wine and steam.

Hardware:

Processor: 2.4 GHz

Memory: 2 GB

Graphics: 128 MB Directx 9.0c compatible or better with pixelshader 2.0

Hard Drive Space: 2 GB

Sound: Directx Eax compatible.

These are the minimum requirements for Windows 7/Vista/XP. However, I have always had better luck when these specs are slightly higher, on account of playing through WINE.

About The Company, Tripwire Interactive

Based in Roswell, Georgia, Tripwire Interactive is an entertainment software developer and publisher founded in 2005 by the award-winning mod team and winners of the 2004 edition of the "$1,000,000 Make Something Unreal" competition. The team released Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45, to both critical and commercial success, garnering several awards including "Multiplayer Game of the Year" and "FPS of the Year". This was followed by the immensely popular Killing Floor, which went straight to the top of the best-seller list on Steam and has now sold over 1.2m units, making it one of the best-selling PC games of all time. Red Orchestra 2 was released in September 2011, to high praise and PC Gamer's award for "FPS of the Year (Multiplayer)". Along with publishing other Indie titles, Tripwire Interactive continues to build a reputation for strong support for all their titles over a prolonged period of time.

Some Gameplay Screenshots

Getting It To Run

Ok, first things first. Head on over and grab Steam. WINE should install it without any problems, as the WINE team has made lots of progress from where they used to be. Once you have Steam up and running, type "killing floors" in the search bar within Steam to quickly locate it. It started up with no problems with a fully updated PcLinuxOs. There was a slight freeze occasionally and stuttering, however these settings seem to work best. Others may vary. You can play around with it to see what works best. The only issue I had was after closing the game, you were left with the game's resolution. If you are able to play at your desktop's setting, you should not have this problem. Otherwise, you can enter (xrandr -s 0) in a console without the parentheses. I wanted to go ahead and enter this, knowing that Tripwire's titles have been sent to steam under Linux, but it has not been released to the masses as of yet. Well, I hope you enjoy it.

ms_meme's Nook: Goody, Goody

MP3                                           OGG

Something Old, Something New

by Patrick G Horneker (phorneker)

The past three months brought a lot to the Linux world, namely some new distributions, new tablet and smartphone operating systems (all built on the Linux kernel), giving some real competition to Android (and to iOS and Windows Phone).

Thankfully, the world did not end on December 21st as some predicted. However, the world of Windows did end in October … with the introduction of Windows 8.

The latter event did have some profound changes to the world of Linux, namely for new machines that incorporate the UEFI specification, and what needs to be done to new machines to be able to install PCLinuxOS. This means that in order to install PCLinuxOS, the user would have to take the extra step to disable UEFI before attempting to boot PCLinuxOS. Alternately, we would have to include a bootloader program such as Shim (http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/20303. html) as well as GRUB 2 on the ISO image.

Predictions for 2013

The following are my predictions for PCLinuxOS for 2013:

Anything specific to GNOME 3 will be removed from the repositories, and replaced with equivalents from the Gnome Legacy project, effectively continuing support for GNOME 2.

Cinnamon and MATE will be implemented as desktops and included in the repos in separate directories, not unlike what we do with KDE and Xfce as desktops.

A bootloader such as Shim will be included in the repository to allow installation of PCLinuxOS on Windows 8 certified desktops and laptops, getting around the UEFI problem.

The 64-bit version of PCLinuxOS will finally be released.

MariaDB will replace MySQL in the repositories.

OpenJDK will replace Oracle Java in the repositories.

A version of PCLinuxOS for ARM devices such as the Raspberry Pi will be implemented. We can already install PCLinuxOS on memory cards and USB flash drives, so such an implementation is possible. However, do not expect a version of PCLinuxOS to work on smartphones.

New ISOs will be available for direct download in addition to torrents. However, they will be installable on blank DVDs, flash drives and memory cards as the size of their ISO images will be too big to fit on blank CDs. ISO Images could incorporate more than one desktop environment, or could be a variant of Full Monty with XFCE, LXDE, WindowMaker or E17 instead of KDE, hence making the Full Monty accessible to older hardware.

,br> A new desktop theme will be implemented for 2013.

What We Need To Do for 2013

A number of new distributions have appeared on the Linux scene, many of which are targeted towards older hardware. What is common to these is the use of Enlightenment, MATE and GNOME 2 for default desktops. (Thankfully we have kept GNOME 2 around.)

So how can we get PCLinuxOS to be an attractive option for people wanting to migrate from Windows 7 or earlier? Last month’s issue already addressed this issue when it comes to migration from Windows.

But what exactly makes PCLinuxOS stand out from other distributions? This is the basis on which my predictions were derived. These days, Linux in general is about much more than replacing the Mac OS-X or Windows desktop. Linux appears in most everything from gaming consoles, to tablets, to smartphones, to the newest embedded device: The Raspberry Pi.

We have had some success getting PCLinuxOS onto desktops and laptops. Otherwise, this distribution would no longer be around for 2013.

We could work on getting PCLinuxOS onto servers, not unlike certain major distribution vendors. This could come in the form of an “enterprise edition” ISO, or an ISO without a graphical desktop intended for server installation.

Or... we could produce an ARM version for devices such as the Raspberry Pi, which has gained significant popularity this past year.

64-Bit Issues

One thing I have learned about 64-bit Linux distributions is that 32-bit binaries will not run on a 64-bit distribution without 32-bit compatibility libraries installed. Though many Linux applications can be compiled for 64-bit, there are some applications and hardware drivers of which there are no 64-bit versions available.

Fortunately, the 64-bit version of Wine in the PCLinuxOS repository contains a 32-bit compatibility package that allows 32-bit Windows binaries to run on 64-bit PCLinuxOS.

My Screen Is Way Too Dark When Booting To PCLinuxOS.

What Can I Do?

by AndrzejL

So your screen is normally bright, but for whatever reason when you boot up to PCLinuxOS the brightness level is very low?

Try this:

1) Install xbacklight via Synaptic.

2) Open terminal and su to root.

3) List the contents of the folder /sys/class/backlight with this command:

ls --full /sys/class/backlight

4) You should get a few hits:

[root@wishmacer backlight]# ls –full /sys/class/backlight

total 0

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-11-04 02:10:05.023004946 +0000 acer-wmi ->

../../devices/platform/acer-wmi/backlight/acer-wmi/

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-11-04 02:09:09.784000471 +0000 intel_backlight ->

../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0/drm/card0/card0-LVDS-1/intel_backlight/

[root@wishmacer backlight]#

5) Now, you need to find the correct command to use. We are going to push the variable into the correct folder. The variable and the folder will be different on all machines, but I think it's safe to assume the variable values go from 1 to 15.

6) So, knowing that, let's try the intel_backlight folder first:

echo -n 15 > /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness

This, however, didn't go so well.

[root@wishmacer backlight]# echo -n 15 >

/sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness

bash: echo: write error: Invalid argument

[root@wishmacer backlight]#

7) So let's try the acer-wmi folder:

echo -n 15 > /sys/class/backlight/acer-wmi/brightness

BINGO! The screen became bright.

8) Now that you know what folder/file to modify, try changing the variable from 15 to a different value and see if you get better results with other numbers. See if you can go to 16 or 14, for example.

9) When your command is ready, open your favorite text editor as root and modify the /etc/rc.local file by adding the command as a last line.

10) Save the file and reboot.

Create A /bin Executable Directory In Your /home Directory

by Matthew Kelley, via Google+

Reprinted with permission

Here's a Linux tip for the newer users. It’s something that might make a few things clearer, while making your system a bit easier to use.

Some distributions give you a /home/USERNAME/bin folder. The idea behind this folder is that it gives you a place to put executable scripts. If the folder is pre-existing on your distro, it will almost assuredly be placed in your PATH.

Your PATH, for our purposes, is defined as the listing of directories that your shell searches for executable files. In simple terms, it's the difference between pulling up the terminal and being able to execute a program by typing in "fu", versus typing /home/USERNAME/applications/fu_folder/fu.

If you don't already have a "bin" folder (and you don’t, by default, in PCLinuxOS), you can create one, and then manually add it to your path by editing your /home/USERNAME/.bashrc file and adding export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin.

Now, there are many different ways to use this folder and your PATH to your advantage, but I'll give you a simple usage scenario using the “Run Program” dialog box that is called with the Alt + F2 command on most desktop environments.

Lets say you have downloaded a game that isn't in your distribution's repositories. (Reminder: PCLinuxOS users are discouraged from installing applications from outside the official PCLinuxOS repository). We'll go with the roguelike game "Infra Arcana," in this instance. Let's assume we unzip the game to /home/USERNAME/applications/InfraArcana, and that the game's executable is called "ia."

The first thing we'll do is create a script called ia.sh, inside the InfraArcana folder. The contents of this script will be as follows. Of course, you'll have to change the USERNAME, as necessary:

#!/bin/bash

cd /home/USERNAME/applications/InfraArcana/

./ia

exit 0

The script above does two things. It changes the working directory to the one the game will need, and it issues the command to start the game.

Next, we'll set the script as executable. You can do this by right clicking on the script in most file managers and selecting "Properties" and then "Permissions" and toggling it to executable. Alternatively you can bring up the terminal, change to the game’s directory and issue the command chmod +x ia.sh.

Now, we can change to the /home/USERNAME/bin folder in our terminal and create a symbolic link to this script. You can do this from the command line with

ln -s /home/USERNAME/applications/InfraArcana/ia.sh infra

What this does is create a symbolic link named "infra" in the /home/USERNAME/bin folder (similar to a shortcut on Windows) that points to our script in the game folder.

At this point, you will find that you can launch the game by bringing up the terminal and typing in "infra" and hitting enter. You can also launch other programs installed by your package manager. Alt-F2, which brings up a "run" dialog on most desktop environments, will also launch the game with "infra."

LibreOffice 4.0 RC1 Advances Feature Set

by Paul Arnote (parnote)

It doesn't seem all that long ago that most of us updated LibreOffice to version 3.6. The Document Foundation (TDF) isn't sitting on their laurels, though. They already have the first release candidate (RC1) out for LibreOffice 4.0.

LibreOffice is a multi-platform free office suite for Linux (x86 and x64), Mac (PPC and Intel), and Windows (x86 only). It is fully read and write compatible with Microsoft Office files, and uses the international Open Document format standard.

Here is a rundown of some of the fixes and enhancements.

Writer

Enable attaching comments to document text ranges.

Import ink annotations from DOCX and RTF documents (available when using Word on a Tablet PC).

Import/export support for native RTF math expressions.

Allow different headers and footers on the first page without using a separate page style.

RTF filter now imports old Drawing Objects syntax.

Various DOCX improvements: import of floating tables, OLE objects inside rectangles, margins of inline images using the WordProcessing markup.

Clicking fields selects them instead of placing the cursor before them.

Calc

Improved performance of ODS document import.

When opening ODS and XLSX files, the values of formula can be shown as they were saved in the files (cached), without recalculating the formula directly when opening the file. This makes opening of (larger) files faster. When the spreadsheet was last used by someone else, this will always show the values, as they were on that computer. (It is known that large, real complex spreadsheets on different computers, with different OS, processor or software, can have different results.) So that may be seen as an advantage when opening spreadsheets that have last been edited in Excel. The user gets a message on opening the file. That message can be turned on/off at "Tools > Option > LibreOffice Calc > Formula … Recalculation on file load."

Cached value import from ODS and XLSX. Due to possible different implementations you get a warning when the cached values are used.

Save settings of Text Import Dialog for Text to Columns and Paste Unformatted Text from Clipboard (in addition to Text File Import).

Export color scales and data bars to XLSX (also supports Excel 2010+ extensions for databars).

Increased size limit on (uncompressed) ODF documents from 2Gb to 4Gb. (Michael Meeks) Support "type-ahead" search in the autofilter popup. It is now possible to search for specific entry via key input.

XML Source dialog to quickly import arbitrary XML content.

Enhanced chart visualisation - better quality rendering/print and PDF export of charts.

New conditional formats: Date formats, Top/Bottom rules, String rules.

Improved conditional format dialogs.

Icon sets.

Overlapping conditional formats.

Initial work on a gnumeric import filter based on orcus. This is a technical demonstration of the orcus integration and hidden behind the experimental flag. Only imports value, strings and formulas in 4.0 (more will follow in the future).

New spreadsheet function XOR as defined in ODF OpenFormula.

New configuration option to toggle handling of empty strings when used in arithmetic expression.

Re-implemented RAND() function with better random number generation algorithm.

New spreadsheet functions AVERAGEIF, SUMIFS, AVERAGEIFS and COUNTIFS as defined in ODF OpenFormula.

New spreadsheet functions IFERROR and IFNA as defined in ODF OpenFormula.

Support multiple selections in page field of pivot table.

Impress

The state of the sidebar pane in Impress is now remembered.

Improved accelerated multimedia previews, and previews of embedded video on Linux.

Presenter Console RTL support.

Draw

Improve quality of page previews in Draw/Impress with supersampling.

Linecap improvements - adding rounded caps (ends) to lines, see right-click "Line"->"Corner and Cap Styles."

Rounded line caps.

Shear transforms for GraphicObjects, and shear + properties for OLE Objects.

Multi-image support in ODF allowing a bitmap + SVG representation, eg.

Circles and Ovals toolbar from Impress now also available in Draw.

Base

On all non-Windows platforms a new mork driver implementation is used to access Thunderbird address book. This means that Debian/Ubuntu users can finally integrate LO with their Thunderbird address book. (Debian/Ubuntu distros are not shipping a Mozilla-based mork driver, therefore their native Base package can not access the address book.) This also fixes some really old bugs for different distros.

In Forms, AutoFilter no longer treats values as patterns. As a consequence, an AutoFilter on "A*" will not match any value starting with an A, but only the exact value "A*".

Core

CMIS protocol support for easy access to documents stored on Document Management Systems like Alfresco, Nuxeo, SharePoint, etc.

Integration of session installer to add missing parts of LibreOffice on the fly.

Session installer: Reduce Java code. Port Fax and Letter Wizard to Python.

Filters

Import filter for Microsoft Publisher documents.

Document in Microsoft Publisher

Same document in LibreOffice Draw

Extended coverage of Visio file-format. LibreOffice 4.0.0 supports all existing Visio file formats from Visio 1.0 released in 1992 to Microsoft Visio 2013 released in 2012.

Improved ODF compatibility in various points.

GUI

New Widget layout technique for dialog windows introduced, and converted various dialogs. UI mockups can be created with Glade UI designer then hooked up to code. Converted widgets can be edited without recompiling Libreoffice. More easy to iterate for good UI design. Support for easily resizing and hiding elements. Reduces code complexity. Intent to follow best-practice guidelines for spacing and indentation yielding nicely spaced, clearer dialogs.

Added dialog for Smooth image filter, where it is possible to select the radius (strength) of smoothing/blurring.

Graphics can be resized and recompressed with the new Compress Graphics.. popup menu function. Menu function is available is available in Draw, Impress and Calc but not (yet) Writer. Supports displaying of current graphics information: original dimensions, dimensions inside of document. Ability to reduce image resolution with setting a new dimension (width/height in pixels and DPI). Lossless (PNG) or lossy (JPEG) compression with ability to set the quality and compression strength. Possibility to select the interpolation (resampling) algorithm.

Added Edit with External Tool to Calc, Impress and Draw.

Unify Popup menu option Save Graphic… from Writer and Save as Picture… from Draw and Impress to Save Graphic….

Improve quality of displaying images in documents.

It is possible now to select and copy text from message boxes.

The "Apply Style" combo box in the toolbar now features previews of the styles to choose.

Hide / Show styles in the “Styles & Formatting” dialog.

Support Firefox Personas in LibreOffice. With LibreOffice 4.0, you can choose Tools -> Options... -> Personalization -> Select Persona, choose a persona you like in your browser, paste its address to the dialog, confirm, and LibreOffice will use that.

Localization

Agenda/fax/letter/report templates localizable via PO files (File→Wizards).

Added locale data files for axk_CG beq_CG bkw_CG bvx_CG dde_CG ebo_CG iyx_CG kkw_CG kng_CG ldi_CG mdw_CG mkw_CG ngz_CG njx_CG njy_CG puu_CG sdj_CG tek_CG tsa_CG tyx_CG vif_CG xku_CG yom_CG.

Autocorrection improvements for pt-BR.

The LightProof grammar checker for Brazilian Portuguese is now avaiable. Improvements in pt-BR spell checking.

Performance

Improved ODS load times.

Improved XLSX load time.

Significantly improved the performance of saving a new entry to a large autocorrect replacement table.

Significant load and save time improvements for slides / drawings with large numbers of shapes.

Significantly improved RTF file load times.

Linux

Add GStreamer 1.0 support, and refactor existing gstreamer code.

Extensions

PDF Import, the Presenter Console, and the Python Scripting Provider are no longer bundled extensions but core features.

Feature removal / deprecation

Dropped support for legacy binary StarOffice (version 1.x → 5.x) files. Note that the old OpenOffice.org XML file format (.sxw, .sxi etc.) which was used as the default format by StarOffice versions 6 and 7 is still supported.

Dropped support for export to legacy Word and Excel (version 6.0/95) files. These files can still be opened, but they will save in your default format (usually .odt/.ods). We continue to export to the Office 97 and later binary file formats of course. This avoids user confusion, and accidentally selecting very old formats that will lose document data.

Dropped support for ODMA document management integration, this windows-specific integration point is deep legacy, and yields some horrible user interactions.

Dropped legacy STLport library for compatibility with old extensions that linked against it (was only included for 32-bit Linux and Windows).

Deprecated Mac / PPC as a platform, raising our base-line to 10.6.

Summary

There you have it. These are most of the changes that most users will see and appreciate. There are other changes, beneath the hood. You can see the full feature list here. As you can see, The Document Foundation continues to work on and improve LibreOffice. Accordingly, LibreOffice continues to grow and become an even more feature-rich office suite - as if it wasn't already. Without the weight and burden of a large corporation (e.g., Sun and Oracle), LibreOffice's progress seems to have outpaced that of its corporate origins. Clearly, the development team at The Document Foundation is nimble and quick, responding rapidly to ever-changing needs of its users.

Five New Testimonials

from besonian

I very seldom use the forum except to ask questions. OK, that's what it's there for, but there are times when I've felt I've had such a good deal over the last few years from this OS and the forum that I don't give enough in return. Not quite sure what it is I could give, given the demands in my time anyway, but maybe I could, from time to time, add something stunningly funny, stupefyingly original, mind-bending etc. to the Sandbox. Or something.

Anyhow, having said that, I'm really here today to say I've recently learned a very interesting lesson. One of my stepsons, (25, doing an Oxford DPhil and knows generally what he's talking about) who uses another well-known distro, told me he'd always got the impression (don't know where from) that PCLinuxOS was a bit clunky and old-fashioned. It made me think. I've been using it now for about five years, and I had to stop and ask myself was I still using it after all that time simply because I was still using it? Or because I thought it was the best? I decided to try out a few others. I didn't leave PCLinuxOS, but I did give half a dozen other top distros, and a couple not in the top ten, a try - even to the extent of installing them.

It was a fairly depressing and disappointing experience. I struggled and became really frustrated at some point with all of them - either in the install or in using them, or both. The hardware didn't work or the wireless was horribly difficult to configure; things which were supposed to work just didn't; or using the repositories was unbelievably complicated. Something screwed up at some point in each one and I became really disillusioned - anyone coming from Windows to Linux for the first time with one of these would have either to twist his/her brain painfully around in order to get it up and running satisfactorily - or give up and return to Redmond.

In the end, I downloaded the latest PCLinuxOS KDE 2012.8. I thought I'd just see, out of interest, how that compared. Now, I don't really like KDE. It has never done it for me. This one, however, blew me away. It installed flawlessly, updated flawlessly and installed all my extra programs flawlessly. And quickly. The wireless, like everything else, worked out of the box. And it runs like the clappers - it seems that a lot of the bloat, bells and whistles have been relegated to the optional department. Great! On top of that, it looks beautiful. I'm really knocked out with it.

How you guys do it, I don't know, but you've put together something here which leaves the competition, as I've experienced it, standing and you have my admiration and thanks. Brilliant. Here's to another five years.

from catlord17

Yesterday I traveled to Orlando, Florida, 2 hours drive away, to try to fix my friend's parents computer. After 10 years of (very light) duty, Windows XP gave up the ghost. Honestly, I don't know how it lasted that long, but again … very light duty.

I got there, popped in the 2012.8 KDE DVD and … no dice. It wouldn't read. I was also getting a message that SMART was throwing errors on the hard disk.

Fortunately, I had foreseen this possibility, had downloaded PCLinuxOS LXDE, and burned a CD also. The CD booted. I guess there is a different lens for DVDs, and it was dirty.

As luck would have it, they had salvaged a second IDE hard disk from another family computer, and I was able to swap out the bad one in about 10 minutes. With those two adjustments made, only the unknown video mode error was causing an issue. Hitting spacebar got it autodetected, but still had to do that every boot.

I had some issues with the partitioner wanting me to reboot over and over again when I tried using custom partitions (whatever happened to only rebooting after install?), but "Erase and use the whole disk" made short work of that.

Then, we spent the rest of the day configuring and installing. I had to uninstall several programs and install several more in order to make it less confusing for the users. Once I had it working, they were impressed with how nice and clean it was, and how fast.

There's no more Windows in that household anymore.... and they're perfectly happy with it that way, after seeing how nice PCLinuxOS LXDE is.

Thanks, team. They'd have had to go without a computer at all otherwise. Now they'll probably get another 2-4 more years out of that computer before it will need to be replaced. And to be honest, it gives me a special thrill whenever I can kill a windows install and replace it with PCLinuxOS.

Oh, and having experience with the sudden drop in support calls from installing PCLinuxOS..... thank you for that too.

from cozzykim

Wahaaay,

After years of trying to convince SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed) that her Dell Inspiron 1525 would always be a PITA with Vista installed, I persuaded her to shell out for a new hard drive when the old 160GB drive was getting filled up.

So, one 500GB Medion Drive 'n' Go later:

1) Swapped new drive for old in the Medion caddy, installed Vista (just to give her the confidence of a fall back) on a 60GB partition

2) Downloaded and installed PCLinuxOS 2012.08 with default partition sizes.

3) Plug in the old drive in its USB caddy and transfer everything from Vista Documents folders.

4) Set up Thunderbird email accounts (she was already using T'Bird) and import address books.

5) Sit back and wait for questions/complaints. She: "how do I …" Me: "there's an app for that."

She likes it, "I like the fonts and layouts, I like the window decorations, I like x, I like y".

It obviously helps that she was using Thunderbird and Google Chrome before.

Success

P.S. The internal mic is not working/showing up as a distinct device in kmix or alsamixer, but I'll have a look at that when she's not around.

I'm anticipating a much less labor/time intensive IT support role from now on.

From the point of view of a new user, the latest PCLinuxOS is one slick piece of work. Thanks are due for all the hard work to everyone who makes this possible.

from geraldw321

Hello there, I'm geraldw. I'm new to PCLinuxOS, but not new to Linux. I've run other distros in the past, but never stayed with them. But this distro is great. I love the Full Monty version.

I put it on my new Acer v-771G 9875 laptop, which has a core i7 3610QM processor @2.3ghz, a Samsung 830 ssd @256gig, a Hitachi 750 gig storage drive, Pioneer dvd burner, nVidia GT650m video card ... on and on.

PCLinuxOS installed fine. I’ve been running it for a month with only a few minor issues (trying to get optimus working) and an occasional freeze, but other than that, it’s a rocking system.

The group here has helped with info I found here (and replies to a couple of questions), to configure things to my liking and address my issues. I hope PCLinuxOS is here to stay. Many thanks to the team for putting together an excellent system.

From ibi
The short version:

PCLinuxOS is awesome! It's given me an extremely stable, lean OS to work, play, and learn on.

The tl;dr version:

In June 2011, exasperated during my one-millionth reboot of a Windows OS, I decided there had to be something better out there. I knew Mac OSs were praised as highly stable, but Mac hardware is expensive. I had also heard of "Linux," a computer-geek OS that you operated by furiously typing green text onto a black screen, like Samuel L. Jackson in Jurassic Park.

When my Windows reboot was finally finished, I opened my browser and did a Linux search. I saw pics of some Linux OSs that actually had desktop environments! Whatever happened to that imposing terminal? Well, after about an hour researching Linux, I decided it just might be doable.

My local library had a "Linux for Dummies" book that came with an old Fedora CD. I installed that Fedora distro on one of my junk PCs, and worked my way through the book. It turned out that Linux, with a GUI, was similar enough to Windows to navigate easily. And, best of all for a cheapskate like me, Linux was free! I was excited.

That Fedora distro was very old, and since my first distro installation went so smoothly, I became obsessed with trying all those distros out there. (You know how it is at the beginning.) And there were a lot of distros out there - more distros than I had Windows reboots under my belt.

So I spent a few days burning and installing LiveCDs. Unfortunately, I had issues with a lot of distros. Some of them wouldn't install on my PCs that lacked "pae" support. Others wouldn't recognize the wireless cards in my laptops. I was not so excited anymore.

I eventually came upon PCLinuxOS, which was near the top of the Distrowatch list. I was hooked! PCLinuxOS installation was a breeze. No issues with "pae" support. PCLinuxOS recognized the wireless cards in two of my three laptops. PCLinuxOS was similar enough to a Windows environment as to make it just plain easy for a noob like me.

In my opinion, that's one of the real beauties of PCLinuxOS. It just works straight away, giving the user, if so inclined, time to explore what's really under the Linux hood. And I was so inclined.

My great experience with PCLinuxOS made me want to learn everything I could about Linux - the command line and all those cool things I read about in the forums - ssh, scp, setting up NFS and Samba servers. All of it.

So, in recent months, I've been working my way through William Shotts' excellent book, "The Linux Command Line." I also recently purchased Soyinka's "Linux Administration: A Beginner's Guide." Also excellent. I now have three desktops and three laptops (all PCLinuxOS) networked via NFS. I'm ssh-ing from one PC to another and exchanging files via Filezilla - not because I have to, just because I can. Next on the list: set up a Samba server so I can network my two remaining Windows PCs also.

I have PCLinuxOS to thank for all this. It's given me a new hobby and driven me to learn all I can about systems administration. Want proof of what a geek I'm becoming? Well, I'm composing this (rather long now, sorry) post on vim, whose terminal layout is just awesome, because I created my own colorscheme and "vimmed" my .vimrc file. Why? So that the terminal looks really cool as I learn to program Python! (Plus, I can now pull off a pretty decent Samuel L. Jackson impression -- the hypersonic typing, the beautiful green text flowing effortlessly across the terminal screen, the cigarette ashes falling onto the keyboard.)

Thank you, PCLinuxOS team! I hope I eventually reach the point where I can contribute to the project in a substantive way.

Screenshot Showcase

agmg - KDE

bones - KDE

Crow - LXDE

ferry_th - OpenBox

gandy - KDE

GermanTux - KDE

RobNJ - LXDE

Smileeb-ROIOFLU - KDE

Stephen - KDE

T6 - KDE

DISCLAIMER

1. All the contents of The PCLinuxOS Magazine are only for general information and/or use. Such contents do not constitute advice and should not be relied upon in making (or refraining from making) any decision. Any specific advice or replies to queries in any part of the magazine is/are the personal opinion of such experts/consultants/persons and are not subscribed to by The PCLinuxOS Magazine.

2. The information in The PCLinuxOS Magazine is provided on an "AS IS" basis, and all warranties, expressed or implied of any kind, regarding any matter pertaining to any information, advice or replies are disclaimed and excluded.

3. The PCLinuxOS Magazine and its associates shall not be liable, at any time for damages (including, without limitation, damages for loss of any kind) arising in contract, tort or otherwise from the use of or inability to use the magazine, or any of its contents, or from any action taken (or refrained from being taken) as a result of using the magazine or any such contents or for any failure of performance, error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, computer virus, communications line failure, theft or destruction or unauthorised access to, alteration of, or use of information contained on the magazine.

4. No representations, warranties, or guarantees whatsoever are made as to the accuracy, adequacy, reliability, completeness, suitability, or applicability of the information to a particular situation.

5. Certain links on the magazine lead to resources located on servers maintained by third parties over whom The PCLinuxOS Magazine has no control or connection, business or otherwise. These sites are external to The PCLinuxOS Magazine and by visiting these, you are are doing so of your own accord and assume all responsibility for such action.

Material Submitted by Users

A majority of sections in the magazine contain materials submitted by users. The PCLinuxOS Magazine accepts no responsibility for the content, accuracy, and conformity to applicable laws of such material.

Entire Agreement

These terms constitute the entire agreement between the parties with respect to the subject matter hereof and supersedes and replaces all prior or contemporaneous understandings or agreements, written or oral, regarding such subject matter.

Table of Contents

Welcome From The Chief Editor

Windows Migration: My Journey to PCLinuxOS

Windows Migration: What Software Do I Need?

Joe Gable: Fabled Foibler

Mark's Quick Gimp Tip & Double Take

Making Xsane A Little More Sane

Gimp 8: Colorizing a Photo

Forum Foibles: PCLOS Is The BEST

How To Use PCLinuxOS As A Router

How To Create, Edit ePub Files In Sigil

Game Zone: Killing Floor

ms_meme's Nook: Goody, Goody

Something Old, Something New

My Screen Is Way Too Dark When Booting To PCLinuxOS.What Can I Do?

Create A /bin Executable Directory In Your /home Directory

LibreOffice 4.0 RC1 Advances Feature Set

Five New Testimonials

Screenshot Showcase

Disclaimer

www.linux.com

www.linux.org

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