Upgrading Shotwell to 0.18.1 in Ubuntu 12.04

Officially, Shotwell 0.18 is not supported on Ubuntu 12.04 and at first I was a little disappointed that the folks over at Yorba would drop support of an LTS that still has about three years of support to go before being end of life. But, looking at how the newer versions are built, I understand the reason: the newest version of Shotwell depends on packages that the Ubuntu team will not be making available for 12.04, meaning for those of us who aren't ready to jump into the next release (LTS or otherwise) are effectively "stuck" on older versions of many software packages.

With many applications, this is really not that big of a deal. In the case of Shotwell though, Flickr made a change that broke uploading with older versions of Shotwell. This was fixed in 0.18.1, meaning officially its either upgrade your 12.04 LTS release or deal with no Flickr uploading. Alternatively, you can install from source with my instructions below to get the current version of Shotwell running on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

For this to work, we will need four PPA's setup in order to install all the prerequisite packages that Shotwell will need when we compile it from source. All of the steps below (save downloading the source archive and uncompressing it) will be run from a terminal session (CTRL + ALT + T will bring up a terminal). First we will need to add the following four PPA's to your system:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ricotz/testing
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:vala-team/ppa
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yorba/ppa

After the four PPAs have been added, run sudo apt-get update and then install the following packages:

sudo apt-get install valac gee-0.8 webkitgtk-3.0 desktop-file-utils libgconf2-dev libgexiv2-dev libglib2.0-dev libgstreamer1.0-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev libgudev-1.0-dev libexif-dev libgphoto2-2-dev libraw-dev librest-dev libsoup2.4-dev libxml2-dev libsqlite3-dev m4 libjson-glib-dev gnome-doc-utils

Many other packages will get upgraded at the same time from the PPAs we installed, let them update as well (we'll need them to compile Shotwell). The webkitgtk-3.0 package is quite large (close to 500MB) so this part will take a bit to download and install.

At his point, if you haven't done so already - download the source tarball and extract it. For me, I simply saved it in Downloads to make it easy. From our terminal change into the recently extracted folder: cd Downloads/shotwell-0.18.1

Next we will run the following commands in sequence, letting each previous command finish before entering the next one:

sudo ./configure
sudo make
sudo make install

Once this is done you will have Shotwell 0.18.1 on Ubuntu 12.04LTS. I have noticed this may cause some issues with the Ambiance Theme (it did for me), this was solved by upgrading the light-themes package. I used the Synaptic Package Manager to do the update (which showed that the light-themes package had an upgrade available) and after a reboot, things were back in place looking they way I would expect.


 Keep in mind, that this is an unsupported (by either the Shotwell developers or the Ubuntu developers) way to upgrade and may cause system instability.

Blessings,

Jesse

Customizing Ubuntu Part 4: Fine Tuning & Final ISO

After going through the customization process and thinking over some of the applications I originally included, I decided to trim them down and go about the final product in a different way. The final ends up being two different customized versions. The first being a slim (though with Remastersys, the ISO is still 1GB) version that has the classic GNOME environment by default and some additional programs. I won't re-list the applications I removed, as they were not reconsidered and you can read about them in part one of this series.

The additional software that made it to the base system follows:

• Quadrapassel - Tetris clone, just one more little game to add for fun.

• Lucky Backup - Graphical rsync front end that is great for backups and can be scheduled to automatically run.

• Skype - For free video calls, not in the repositories and available pre installed in this image.

• Pinta - Basic imaging program, great for cropping, resizing and other basic imaging needs.

• gLabels label designer - For designing and printing on any number of different labels. From mailing labels to CD labels. Comes with a large number of pre-loaded popular label templates.

• Banshee -Music player of choice right now.

• Ripper X - For copying CDs to MP3 format on your local hard drive (so as to add them to an MP3 player, or just listen on the computer)

• Synaptic  Package Manager - For software management.
• OpenShot Video Editor - Great video editor for Linux, can be used to create photo slide shows and other home videos.

In addition to the base packages available in the stock Ubuntu system (LibreOffice, Firefox, Shotwell etc...) I picked the above programs to form what I would consider a more complete package (less some unnecessary applications, and of course the classic GNOME look) for more everyday, general use. And while some of these may not be needed, I think they make a good base install for many users. Going back, if I were to start over, I would likely not include Skype as it might not be desired for all users - but it can be easily removed. This base setup also still has PPA's in place for the GIMP, Pithos (Pandora Client) and Darktable if those applications are desired. The OpenShot stable PPA is also in place to ensure the most current version is available when the program is updated beyond the installed version when I created the ISO files. 


The next custom ISO is a version with software geared toward digital photography, which is one of my main uses for my laptop.  For this  ISO I have removed Pinta from the system and added the following additional programs:

• GIMP 2.8, along with the resynthesizer plug-in, python layer effects plug-in and the G'MIC plug-ins.

• Darktable - A digital darkroom program for developing photographs. Darktable supports RAW image formats.

• Hugin Panorama Photo Stitcher - For stitching panoramic photographs and other composite images.

• DVD Styler - For creating DVDs that will play in standard DVD players.

• WinFF - To convert video files between formats. DVD Styler typically needs MPEG format for video files.

As a quick side note, I am in the process of writing an introduction article/blog post on my photography blog regarding digital photography for Linux. Now back to the ISO files and related information.

Currently both ISO files are 32Bit. With Ubuntu's stock kernel being a PAE kernel, this shouldn't be much of an issue as PAE enables 32Bit systems to get past the 4GB memory limit. However, if there is interest in my project and a 64Bit version I would be willing to create 64Bit ISO files. I originally could not boot a 64Bit ISO in Virtualbox, but have since fixed that issue by enabling the virtualization technology in my system's BIOS.

Next step for this project is a customized version of Xubuntu. The XFCE powered version of Ubuntu has come a long way since I first looked at it in version10.04, but again, I am not a big fan of the default configuration. XFCE has the added bonus of being more customizable, much like the classic GNOME environment was before the introduction of GNOME 3. Even though many users man not want or need the flexibility to configure a desktop environment extensively, many still do though.

Eventually I would like to go further with customized Linux distributions, with Remastersys you have additional options for custom boot splash images and some other customizations for starters. And at some point I would be interested in working through the directions from the Linux From Scratch project for a completely custom, ground up build. I will be sure to document here any additional explorations I dive into.

But for now, the customizations I have done so far are available for download on Sourceforge at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/customizedubunt/

Blessings,

Jesse

Using Clonezilla to Clone From a Larger Hard Drive to a Smaller Drive

Officially, Clonezilla does not support cloning from a larger hard drive to a smaller one. While this may seem counter-intuitive there are some situations where you may want or need to do this. Such as with my job when images have been created from systems with 500GB drives and the new systems come with 250GB drives, or when going from a large traditional drive to a smaller SSD.If you are in this situation, I have found a way to get this done. We will have to do some prep work on the image (and re-create it) and then some additional prep on the destination drive before final imaging.

To prep what will be the new image we will be creating a new one (if its an already created image) and we will need to shrink the main partition first. You may need to restore your original image on the larger, original disk first and go from there. I use Parted Magic (which also has Clonezilla built into it) to boot the system and shrink the partition using GParted, making sure to give myself a good amount of flex room - we can always grow the partition on the new disk later. In my test I shrunk the main partition of a two partition Windows 7 drive down to about 100GB (160GB total drive capacity) to be able to fit it on a 120GB SSD. You will also want to note sizes of all partitions on the drive, in this case there was the 100MB system/boot partition and the larger main partition. After the partition has been shrunk and everything is smaller than the new destination drive, reboot the system and let the  operating system boot and run its file system/drive check - if you skip this test CloneZilla will fail when we get to making an image from the newly shrunk drive. Once the checks are finished, reboot the system again and boot into the Clonezilla environment. Once we start up Clonezilla, set the options desired after choosing to work with the device-image option. When asked what mode to use, we will be choosing "saveparts - Save_local_partitions_as_an_image" and then go through the rest of the option sets, making sure to check all the partitions on the disk.

Once the new image is saved and after installing the new, smaller disk we will again boot into Parted Magic (or GParted Live, or a similar tool), load up gParted and edit the partitions on the new drive. First (if it is a new drive) we will need to create a partition table (I did an msdos table for this restoration) and re-create the partition theme from the old drive. To create an aligned partition (critical for an SSD) create a new partition with 2MiB of space preceding it (in my case I created the 100MB system/boot partition for the Windows 7 dive I was moving over to a smaller drive) apply the change then resize/move the partition and change the 2MiB preceding space to 1mb. After that, create the next partition - again starting with 2MiB preceding space and then resizing/moving with 0 preceding space (always choose align to MiB). Repeat these steps for each additional partition. You may have to mark the appropriate partition with a boot flag either in this step or after running Clonezilla.

Now that the new drive is prepared, we will again boot Clonezilla and this time we will be restoring the recently created image. When we are offed the mode option, we will be choosing "restoreparts - Restore_an_image_to_local_partitions." Set our options of source/destination when prompted and away we go. Once finished reboot and you should now be all good to go. Your operating system may run through its file system checks again and you will want to expand the partition to fill any empty space.

There you have it, a tested procedure to clone a larger drive to a smaller drive using Clonezilla.

Blessings,

Jesse

The "Perfect" Linux Desktop?

I have seen many posts detailing the "perfect Linux desktop." These are usual semi detailed posts on installing and setting up a newly released distribution and the software set added to the base packages.

There is one thing about open source Linux distributions that seems to attract many of the love it or hate it crowd: choice. To some, the fact that there are hundreds of different distributions all built around multiple configurations of a common universe of packages wrapped in a decent list of available desktop environments, makes for an environment where there is something for everyones taste and if you don't like it - there is another distribution to fit your needs. To others, this fact is one of the loudest criticisms sung to the tune of a drum labeled fragmentation.

So of all the readily availably and well done distributions is there a "perfect" Linux desktop? This is one of the yes and no answers that centers around personal preference. The team at Canonical made waves with the introduction of their in house GNOME skin dubbed Unity that shipped as default in Ubuntu 11.04. GNOME changed the much beloved look and feel of the 2.x series with the introduction of GNOME 3. Many users love these new UI experiences and many loath them. KDE and XFCE also have crowds of loyal users.

When it comes to distributions with a default, untouched install - my personal favorite, and what I would consider the best looking or close to perfect as you can get - was Ubuntu 10.04. Version 10.10 looked pretty nice as well, but I stayed away from it due to the limited support life. For me no of the current releases fit what I want untouched, but Ubuntu 12.04 (with its 5 years of support) configured with GNOME Classic (gnome-session-fallback would be the packed to install) gets my vote and is what I use currently. A close second would be a slightly customized XFCE environment in Xubuntu 12.04.

Software set is another area where someones perfect would be vastly different that another users. With my system I have mainly added additional multimedia programs, such as Gimp (2.8 from PPA), OpenShot and DVD Styler.

I have had an interest in created a customized installation CD for some time, and will begin an experiment in creating one using the Remastersys tool - based on my version of the perfect Linux desktop with Ubuntu 12.04 as the base. I will be documenting my experience, the steps taken and the software set used here on my blog. I will also try and get the final ISO uploaded for anyone interested in downloading my customized version of Ubuntu.

Blessings,

Jesse

Gimp 2.8 Impressions

Gimp 2.8 has been available since May and I have it installed on my laptop and have had some time to actually use the updated version that was over three years in the making. While I hope the next release is much sooner, and I would loved to have had this available much sooner, I have to say that this one was definitely worth the wait.

The Gimp team has done a fantastic job, and like I mentioned in my last post on Gimp 2.8, I will not be going into full detail on all the new features. The single window mode works beautifully and is a simple joy to finally have. It was the first thing I did when loading up Gimp 2.8, switch to single window mode and get to work. They layer groups are well done, and the on image text editing is a dream.

If you have not upgraded to 2.8 yet, what are you waiting for?! You will not be disappointed and the update is worth every second it will take to get installed and configured. Coming up in 2.10 will be high bit depth support and further on in the development road map is script recording and payback. Exciting times for sure, and encouraging to see the improvements released and usable.

Blessings,

Jesse

Gimp 2.8 Has Been Released!

Gimp 2.8 was a long time coming, three and a half years in the making as mentioned on the May 3rd release notice on the projects official page. This is great news with a truck load of improvements over the 2.6 version with many more to come. There have been plenty of write ups on the improvements, so I will not be going into them here with any depth. I will simply have a few thoughts on what has become one of my favorite programs that has replaced virtually all my Photoshop use on my Laptop (which runs Xubuntu 12.04. For a good write up on the features you will find in the new Gimp version you can check out this post on Webupd8.org.

I have always thought the Gimp program was one of the most promising open source projects out there and have always been frustrated with the painfully slow development of the program that comes from having a small group of core developers. According to the developers, this is one of the issues that will be remedied, starting with the release of the long awaited Gimp 2.8.

This is very exciting news, as the list of coming features are also long awaiting and much anticipated form the community. High bit depth editing is due out in the next 2.10 release and the one listed under the "future" list (with no milestone number associated yet) is the script recording and playback option. This is one I am very much interested in, as this feature is one of my favorite features in Photoshop and would be amazing to have in the Gimp.

With 2.8 out they have "fixed" one of the long standing issues that I believe may have been detrimental to more novice users adopting the program: Lack of the long awaited Single Window Mode. I have tested this out and I can say it is very nice to finally have and will only benefit users who are used to this standard.

Gimp 2.8 is worth the time to upgrade and I sure hope we see 2.10 released sooner rather than later.

Blessings,

Jesse

Application Review: Create Syncronicity

In my last post I had a brief review of Lucky Backup for Linux. It is a great program that I highly recommend for Linux users as a very robust back up situation. Unfortunately for Windows users Lucky Backup is not available. It took me a little bit of searching, but I have found a program available for Windows that works wonderful and is open source as well. The program is called Create Synchronicity and I would highly recommend any Windows users to download a copy and start putting it to use.

Much like Lucky Backup, when I have set this up on Windows systems at work (and for my dad's business) it is set for incremental backup where only new and modified files on the source side are copied over to the destination. Nothing is deleted on the backup destination and this program works flawlessly from my experience so far. It can also be scheduled to automatically run the backup at a set time, which I know also works well.

For my dad's business I have set up two Windows XP machines and one Windows 7 machine to automatically sync files to a mapped network drive (which is a share residing on a Linux server) after business hours. The first backup on the Windows 7 system took overnight and then some (two hard drives worth of data as the files from the previous workstation it replaced were copied to its hard drive) but since then the backups take significantly less time and are finished well before the start of business the next day. The Linux server then uses Lucky Backup to sync all the files now residing on it to an external hard drive.

I will definitely be installing this on my parent's new computer they are getting at home, scheduling it nightly and then I will sleep well knowing they are automatically being backed up. Check it out and you will not be disappointed.

Application Review: LuckyBackup

Every computer user should have a good backup plan. Personally I loath to loose any information from my computer, be it from a hardware failure, accidental removal or anything else that could result in a loss. This sure shows in my backup archives as many files are on several sets of backup medium.

A good program to look at for backing up is Lucky Backup. Written for Linux, community members are working on a Windows version and it appears there is a Mac OS-X version out there as well. I would highly recommend it for Linux users and am just waiting for the Windows version to be complete so I can recommend it for Microsoft's OS as well.

Lucky Backup functions as a GUI front end for the r-sync utility and is very straight forward and easy to configure. Choose your source, destination and options such as back up or sync. I always disable the delete from destination option as I don't want files on my backup to vanish just because it no longer exists on the source drive. Other options include directory exclusions (both user selected and options to exclude cache and trash folders among others).

From the default profile you can create different tasks to perform. I have three different task sets created, and usually have all three checked and run them at the same time. Lucky Backup is extremely quick on successive runs, with the first run taking the longest as it is transferring the most data. On subsequent runs, only the changed files are backed up.

A word of caution: I would not recommend using Lucky Backup in Super User mode if you are wanting to backup more than one user's home folder (in fact, I do not even use super user mode anymore) from under one main account. This did cause some permission issues rendering the other account on my computer useless. It is best to create individual back up profiles from with in each users account and go from there.

I use Lucky Backup on my Xubuntu 11.10 system and enthusiastically recommend it as a great backup utility. Check it out, you won't be disappointed.

Linux and OpenShot save the day!

OK, so save the day would be a wee bit on the over dramatic side but the simple fact is there was a task to do and had it not been for a computer with Xubuntu 10.04 and OpenShot the task may not have been able to be finished.

At work, I had a video file that needed about 30 seconds trimmed from the beginning and unfortunately Windows lacks any worth while free (open source or otherwise) video editors and the iMac's Final Cut Express would not even import the MP4 file I needed to edit.

Loaded up Xubuntu and OpenShot, trimmed the file, exported it and uploaded to Youtube. I did have to install the MP4 codec for the export, but after that I moved the file to my main machine to upload to Youtube and the job was finished.

Hooray for Linux and Open Source!

Application Review: Puddletag for Linux (installed in Ubuntu 10.04)

Puddletag is an audio tag editor that I stumbled upon while browsing through the WebUPd8 PPA for Ubuntu Linux. While not an application I was looking for at the time, it did fill a need for me.

I have a number of MP3 files that do not have meta tag data entered. And while this worked fine in my car stereo MP3 player that only read file names, virtually all modern music players I have used as of late rely on this data for display. So, wanting to sort my music for playback on my computer I would need this data entered. I had previously used a Windows based program called "Stamp" which wasn't very quick, and doesn't fit anymore as I use a Linux system for my personal computer and want to find a native Linux application for all my computing needs.

The interface of Puddletag is simple and efficient. Browse for your media location on the left hand side and on the right you are greeted with a spreadsheet like view of all the editable fields (file name, artist, title, album etc...). This view is very easy to work with and will even let you copy and paste a field over multiple files (say album title).

I did find that some operations are night lightning quick, but that could be a combination of editing files on a USB hard drive and my older Pentium 4 system. It is by no means unbearably slow, and plenty tolerable to use. I have started working on my collection and will continue till the last of my files have been edited and ready to load up in my music player. I would highly recommend giving Puddletag a try if you have need to edit meta data on any audio files.

Puddeltag is available in the WebUpd8 PPA or from the developers SourceForge site. Give it a try, I doubt you will be disappointed.

Good news about Gimp Development from Libre Graphics World

According to a post on Libre Graphics World, the Gimp development team is likely looking at saving an obstacle to the Gimp 2.8 release for a future release to prevent further delays of the 2.8 release date. This change hasn't been reflected on the Official Schedule for the release of the next version, currently projected for January of 2012 and being pushed back nearly every day.

In my opinion, The Gimp program has huge potential for a graphics editing program but at least two factors are holding it back at this time. First, for those used to other programs the floating windows that make up the user interface can be a nightmare to work with and be especially confusing for new users. This is even more apparent on smaller screens where you have little room to lose for the main image window. This will be eliminated when 2.8 is finally released with the single window mode.

The second part is the pace of development. While I am not a fan of the rapid release schedules seen in some open source software, development that is too slow can be even more frustrating. The Gimp could definitely benefit from a quicker release schedule as the current development pace can feel painfully slow. Getting bug fixes and new releases out to the public sooner rather than later is definitely a plus. To accomplish this, the Gimp simply needs more developers on the team.

OpenShot Video Editor 1.4

I am going to make my first post about something I was quite excited to read about: the 1.4 release of the OpenShot Video Editor. OpenShot is a free, open source video editor for Linux. They aptly describe the program as "Simple & Powerful" and I would have to fully agree. The learning curve was not very dramatic and the results I was able to achieve on my first video lived up to my expectations and were very well loved by family members receiving the DVD I produced.

I read the preview post on the developers site (www.openshotvideo.com) and began waiting for the updated release to hit their repository. And while I haven't had a chance to try out the new features, I am looking forward to my next video project to see how they shape up. You can head on over to the developers site for a quick (1:45) video for the release announcement.

I am also excited that the long term plans are shaping up for cross-platform compatability. While I don't use Windows or Mac OSX on my personal computers, OpenShot could gain use at the school I work with (when available for Windows) as well as be a very capable and free option for Windows and Mac users.

In the mean time, if you are a Linux user with interest in video editing (or might just want to give Linux a try to explore this program) you cannot go wrong with OpenShot. The video (and subsequent DVD) I created with OpenShot was a combination of video footage and still image slide show taken and my sister in-laws birthday party. The program performed quite well on my older Pentium 4 laptop, and should be even better on a newer machine.