eee LT eae) VES) XMAS BONANZA! INUXVOICE; January 2016 FREE SOFTWARE|FREE SPEECH = www.linuxvoice.com G ® WHEN . | DEVELOPERS | Our festive gift guide for HACK A BLUETOOTH MONITOR p76 aac Se ane Linux distros \ FALLOUT! USE ¥ LINUX SMARTER Serve your Os ren © , Ey MODEL { THEGLOBAL | e e \ ECONOMY pad” 9 -- iiieesepesensecons 4 a 4 we MYSQL > FEDORA > UBUNTU > PYTHON & MORE!The only Linux magazine available as DRM-free PDFs and ePub ela) ITS HIDDEN FEATURES 208 HEF — BASES >GITLAB > GARBAGE > ADA + shop.linuxvoice.comISSUE 22 VOICE OF THE MASSES The January issue V Ae sore ahcee snd trae elt Qi Ton hans asd rocco ad ao ofthe Meeq MIDI step sequencer ‘cur padeast (which is seven years old in Fearuary!), there's Ja section called Voice ofthe Masses’. This where ‘urlisteners a question. This question often starts off innocuous but the answers always surprise us with ther insight and positivity. One ofthe best examples of this happened recent, hes weasked, ‘Who is your Linux or Free Software hero? ‘What surprised us most was that out of the 60 people proposed in the replies, there was only one mention of Linus Torvalds, and only tree or four of Richerd Stalman, The majority were forthe unsung heroes behind much ofthe software we all use every day. Fabrice Bellacor is work on Qemu and FFmpeg, Martin Grin for speaking calmly in a KDE storm; and even Mark Shuttleworth for binging Linuxto the masses. But to even highlight these few is to miss the point ~ the best thing about Linux? its bul by all of us, Graham Morrison Editor, Linux Voice Linux Voice is different. Linux Voice is special. Here's why. ‘ {WAL the end of each nancial year wel v2 50% of out profits toa selection of crganeation thet support fee software decided by 2 vote ameng our readers thats you). r {Lo ater than ne months ater fist pubication we wll lcense all of our bantent under the Creative Commons . (CCBY-S licence, so that ld content can sil be useful, nd can ive on even after the magazine has come of the {Were small company, so we don havea board of crectrs ora bunch of hateholdes inthe City of London to keep happy. The only people that matter tousare the readers, ‘wor linuxvoice.com We haven' put a number ont but our collection of tips is numerous and diverse, wth people like Mathew Garrett and Matthias Kirschner contributing thei atime favours. pla Valerie’ ook athow Lin wots becoming TIE psve eating thsmonth fe dconstwcts and eon the hub eneotable ich soretingweuse ey dy pad ts We've not una competion before, but we can't help being ected about the pirate booty we've got from Pimooni Al you've go to dois find 10 Penguins! p26 ON PAGE 56ISSUE 22 JANUARY 2016 Contents Welcome to Linux Voice, the magazine that gives back to the community Regulars eda a : =) Big more movesin the word of Fee eeatS 4 Software huge government contract fr LiveOice, and Raspberry Pi head tothe Intemational Space Station, Distohoppes e hee tne orrononyeesen LINUX ‘eiheneven gonna NO POSTAGE COSTS wwuilinuxvoiee.comSAG USE LINUX SMARTER elle cts desktop Keep tabs on your system Streamline the PERC Whether you're a Linux beginner or a certified expert, we've put together a collection of the finest tips known to Gnumankind. the Rubiks Cube, in the beginning, Itcan look build on layers. When you've nailed your first inaccessible and complicated. Even knowing solution, go back to refine your reflexes, trenathen eee eee gee ere ea) | Rice is alot like learning how to solve solution, as with achieving Linux enlightenment, isto eee er Ete eee eee an Cena ete cate et en eee Sear Pee Ren eo ee a en ee Oe Cone side of the cube followed by another But the anyone tolevelup their Linux skills “4 wwui.linuxvoice.com=r USE LINUX SMARTER % @ EEE Both Ubuntu and Gnome are well known for ee a removing options, but you can get back a lot ; more control by installing their associated Tweak ——= -& Tools. For example, Ubuntu’s will enable you to == disable Amazon searches, switch the window control buttons to the right or adjust the size and transparency of the launcher. S To enable automatic update in Ubunt, ‘open the Software & Updates panel, them aut uni be notified before an upgrade.moins USE LINUX “a b als ‘5 (Of emia cl We know that appearances are only skin deep, but giving your desktop a new look is like putting a fresh lick of paint on your shed: it gives you a new perspective, and makes you feel ) like getting out/in there and making the most of it. In particular, we love the new Google-inspired ‘Paper’ theme for GTK/Gnome/Unity and ‘Papirus’ for the KDE desktop. Pi In Unity, select images in COA snctwet and setect ‘Desktop Slideshow’ from the File menu. The de poee ane " : cycle through the slide a : ‘© the panel and window colours will also change Mess wwuilinuxvoice.comUsea clipboard manage (Sp Coren pasteis fdamental tothe way meuse computers, Linuxis already ahead ofthe game in the way you can select text with your mouse and paste it with a simple cick Of the riddle mouse button, but you ccan do so much more, Install clipboard manager ike Gllpper or KDE's Olipbaard and you can ‘access any of your previous cuttings, reselect them, and paste as usual But you can also do clever things lke perform an action when you copy °a Clipboard alin | ‘cions Contguation rate) 2 hoot ‘Sidvemmeane something specific, or use a regular sone tg ‘expression to modify the data ewoun . for pasting ove =) « omc 7 Peers insconngsi| 9) \Vimerise Firefox shortcuts There are many addons for Firefox, but the frst we install is Vim. This wil default all Firefox keyboard shortcuts to keys familiar to ary Vim user such as O for opening X to.close, GG/Shift+ for top/battom and’ for searching, Press F end every links overlayed witha new shortout for easy navigation ~ mouse free! snares 9) Ce ee nis Manage your audio levels with Pavucontrol x Nearly every Linux distribution now defaults to PulseAudio for audio duties, but they provide little control over how volumes and devices are configured. If you need to see what's going on, and give yourself more control, install the sparse but powerful Pavucontrol tool. It lists every application generating sound and enables you to change the audio device or output used by each one, as well as visualising the levels and giving you control over the volume. You can also set application-specific default devices. cviceencnn re tt Peete eee td ‘wor linuxvoice.comNaS Ui} USE LINUX SMARTER Or iy ee een ' rg Ese mention ay Gl Every operating system seems to have virtual desktops now, but that's because they're awesome, and Linux still has the most powerful implementations. You can, for example, configure your setup so that emails always launch on desktop 3, or use a tiling window manager to organise each desktop by task — say, accounts in one desktop, personal in another desktop, and real work in another. Save yourself froma having to buy a second screen and work from anywhere.USE LINUX SMARTER alias caenemes=" There's particular styl and format for rman pages, which can take litle getting used to, soit's a good idea to become familiar wth the manual before you need it One of the best features of the manuals that it doesnt rely on the network, so you can always get the help ‘you need — great for then you're stuck with a knotty problem and cant get access tothe internet How do you lear how to use man? ‘Why with the man page of course! Get started in your journey to manual mastery with Virtualise new distros @ Tete stehunctes of aeent distros out there, sohow do you know which ones right for you? best option isto trya few out, this can be time consuming Fortunately there's a quicker way. virtualisation. Using a tool ike VituafBox (or KVM you can create virtual machines that enable you to boot a distro from within your currently running machine The downside of this is that the system youre testing won't be as snappy asi ‘would ifit were running natively, but sidestepping the need to push the (onto a USB stick and reboot makes it much faster to ty new distros, ‘wor linuxvoice.com 2UNA SNiUS13) USE LINUX SMARTER canvertpyresie 1204120, et) ee eee CMe Tp ate e ea Linux. By using both Linux and a BSD, you c his might sound lke an odd tip tohelp get. better fee forthe decisions Linux distros joubecomeabetter Lnux user butit make, and decide for yourself you think sseful point of comparison. Ifyouve they good or bad, (OS Xand Linux then PORSt sseda whole genrecffreesoftware for your ip youunderstand desktop us SDs, as the other major open sour considering ify Unix-alke, provide a really useful counterfolto_ BSD machine and GhostBSD are great options ty, as theyre both bul inmind. FreeBSDis also worth re planning on using your coon ne “e © You can create ebooks automatically from web pages or RSS feeds. Just point the Calibre application at the sites you're interested in and it will grab content for you to enjoy offline on your eReader or smartphone. ‘wot Linuxvoice.com rUSE LINUX SMARTER [g3N0U i158 15 Cees © We don't know of a better way to experience the Free Software community rere than by meeting fellow geeks. There are Linux ee User Groups (LUGs), events and meetups around the world where people come together to chat Linux and maybe have a beer or two — a couple of our favourites are OGGCamp in the UK and FOSDEM in Belgium. 1s| re —cipbeard input en you end a connection andGEEK’S CHRISTMAS 24 year (maybe! when a convenient ist of lovely things for ‘open source geek comes in handy. And as we've look rather alot ofthis stuff last 22 issues, now isthe perfect ‘excuse to revisit and revise some of those items, as well as look at a fewrnew things, for anyone looking for inspi youre not loking for piration, but would Ike 10 ire someone ese, why not circle @ couple and leave these two pages open somewhere prominent? tain times of the ‘any Linux or ion. IF IFyoulve already got an ‘Android phone, this low-cost vital reality headsets an absolute blast. It relies on your phone for everything ~ from the gyroscopes, which are used forhead tracking to the screen, which is spitinto two and focused onto your retinas through a coupe of cheap plastic lenses, For something so hackneyed the experience is fantastic. Just install any ‘Cardboard apps via Google Play and youl find yourself fuly immersed in Tusean countryside, standing on ‘mountaintops, shooting along 2 roller coaster or exploring an Egyptian tomb. Googie criginal origami cardboard hurts yournose and doesnit hold the phor sowed recommending spending a few meagre pounds more on a proper comfortable pelosure. Wel sute you've ale heard about this serious upgrade ta the alhconquering Raspberry Fi, but were even more enamoured by its capabilities after a few months of using itinour own projects. In particulyits 2 briliant media player especially with XBMCiKoal For lots of content. you stil eed the hardware MPEG:2 decoding Unlocked (this costs 3 couple of pounds via raspberypi.org), but this revision can easily stream HD material without Fitting the CPU, making it much cooler ‘and more stable. As always, yout also need 2 quality power supply, USB hub ‘wor linuxvoice.com and probably a case, And fora chanoe towin one, tum the page, hitps://www-raspberrypi.org pite Canonicals touck-based portable operating system not quite hitting the ‘mark, and facing an uphill adoption struggle, we can't help but admire the companys young pretender tot smartphone throne. The OS itselFis dling great things, with the lor Awaited convergence mode making an appearance, and its more open than Android, We'd sug unt Phone is ideal of you want an open device for tinkering, and weld recommenda more powerful device for this re ‘www.ubuntu.com/phone s0n,BitScope (from £94) O 4 olosccpe fev cod inticacies af varying voltages passing through a crcut, turning what's ‘theoretical into something you can see. They'ealso incredibly useful fox synthesizer technicians and mus as those audio voitages wil aso reveal the constituent waveforms within an audio path. BitScope's headless designs feature Linux support using your ‘desktop or even your Raspberry Pas the screen. They also excelent logic. ‘analysers — visualsing the binary signals sent from integrated circuits. Forosciloscopes with tis kind of power they re excellent value fer money. ‘wwrn.bitscope.com Kobo Aura H20 (£140) We read dozens of books via their silky backit eink screens every year and we puta lot ofove into our ‘own ePub editions specifcaly for that purpose. And while a shame we know of no open source reader, the obo Aura H20 supports all DRM tree formats, works with Linux andhasa ‘screen to rival the latest Kindle - plus, you can read itn the bath, Dare we also mention isthe perfect accompaniment toa new Linux Voice subscription? http://kobo.com ‘Steam Controller (£40) Weve not hada chance to hone of Vanes although we've been cethe OS We stillcant quite beleveit lets us play AAA games, natively. on Linux and the situation is only going to get rosier now you can buy offcally endorsed Steam PCs. A central part ofthis strategy s Valves new controler, which touchpads to emulate the responsiveness of mouse control. This ses two circular works brllantly with Valve's own ‘games but takes sore getting used to for others. Ether way,its the cheapest way tojoin the Linux games revalution, http://store.steampowered.com/ hardware £230) 0 Thisis the most expensive item we're looking at here and, as such wont bean impulse purchase. Butif you care about Free Software, its still great value. The X200 is a reconditioned Thinkpad overhauled with a software stack endorsed by the Free Software Foundation, This includes ibreBoot asa BIOS/UEFI femware sment, and Trisquel GNU/Linux Fechnically, the machine is more than adequate wth pethaps just the screen fling below modem HiDP! standards (i's @ 121" 1280x800 TFT LOD display). Even ‘more impressively profits from s wil fund the LibreBoot project, http://minifree.org £160) O Ifyou love music,and listen predominately from CDs or lacs, this high-quality digitalaucio-converter (DAC) s a great upgrade over your ‘computers inbuilt audio output. it plugs, LibreBoot X200 (from Henry Audio DAC (approx. ‘wor linuxvoice.com e Henry into a spare USB port, requires no ‘extemal power and no special drivers Since our review in issue 9, the pxioe has been lowere, making it even better vvalue against its competition, and its the only quality DAC weve found completely open source. Admittedly youl need some serious DSP programming skis to make this relevant, but there's already a huge -ommunity built around the SDA- idget, which is exactly what the USB, DAC 128 Mk Is built ound. ‘www henryaudio.com 25WIN LOADS OF COOL STUFF We've got together with the great folks at Pimoroni to give away lots of lovely stuff. ‘Wee good friends with Pimoroni ( Use the Display O-Tron to parse updates from Finuxvoice.com. Pimoron’s lovely cases accomdate thet HATs, such as the Piano HAT and the i Unicom HAT (bth right) alWIN LOADS OF COOL STUFF We're giving away five ccmpletePicade kits, five console kts and five starter kits, including everything you need for Pi-based fun,SHE)BANG OUT Gees DE (lA OE aL CRSE TL emer) Loreto ence lte eee el ere N RCN eo eso ee Or ae td Ce eee era Software application. You've devoted hours to Ren ete eee) \written some documentation. Full of confidence and Coe Se ec? ‘mailing lst, hoping that it will be accepted into the Fee ee ee cee eee ce eens eee ee am eco eT ‘suck and you should never have been bom” Sago eee a eee nero Seether ed channels and realife meetups, and most people are friendly and patient. But as Linux and FOSS grows, the amount of hostility, abuse and threats on mailing lists and forums is expanding at an alarming rate ot eer eg ee few female kemel hackers, said she no longer wants eMC a oe cee te) the kemel community. She had previously criticised Ne secu on language on the mailing ist. POC Ter Poettering has described the FOSS world as “quite Pee a eed ee eee ee toes CD avec ur ae eal Conc o moor ea) which the community should adhere, and guidelines Cee ee nec Is it sad that we need these guidelines inthe first Cea eee i ‘The answers are complex as welll se, and reflect eee et ea) lines of source code. We spend 90% of our time ee cea ans Pee ee mtn problems and quirks ~ are fascinating as well ResCONFLICT IN THE COMMUNITY Sis2NiU) i135 Ye [might seem easy to pinpoint the eux of the problem: Free Software developers are 99% male nerds who lve in ther parents’ basement don't understand anything about human interaction, right? Well,this argument might have held some water back in the early 1990s, out even then, t wasrit allabout reclusive shutns, Even when GNU, Linux ‘and FOSS was largely the domain of hobbyists, many Contributors were unwversity students, retired Unix ‘admins with families, and other ‘normal’ developers. tisocial Does a fish rot from the head down? Fast forward to today al work even the majority in sore projects tke the Linux keene! — comes from fultime developers working 9 ices found the globe, Ever for those hackers who work from home, the vast of conferences, meetups and hackathons at developers meet up in person very regulary Writing FOSS code isa respectable, s jab, owe cant simply aseribe neg: to the FOSS world being aload of socially inept Ubergeeks who never see the light of day. Lennart Poetteing has remarked that on the Linux kernel mailing lst, "the fish rots from the head down’ In other words: Linus Torvalds has set the standard for communication, and it only ets worse from there Long-time kernel developers are used to Linus's epic rants, n which he thoroughly lambasts other hackers {or ther failures, mincing no words when he wants to js point made. ‘One argument in favour ofthe Torvalds response is that it saves time in the lang run, these two scenarios: Dev: H Linus, Here's a patch that adds feature X to the kernel What do you think? ‘Torvalds: Hi there Dev. Thanks for sending the patch. Wel, kudos for giving ta try but fm not really sure is the right approach. Maybe you could tyt sghtly differently? (Two weeks later) Dev: Hi Linus. ‘and made it slightly if ye behaviour ake ve reworked the Linus Torvalds is a role model .We may 66 accept the odd rant, but what happens when others try to emulate his ways? a Torvalds: Hi Dev, Thanks again but t stil doesnt ft into the way we do things in the kernel. etc. et This back-and-forth exc ails and patches ‘ould drag on for months. Contrast it with this: Dev: H Linus, Here's a patch that adds feature X to cemel. What do you tink? Torvalds: This is completely broken and entirely Unsuitable forthe kernel, Throw it away. This response is more brash ~ and arguably impolite ~ but it gets the message across much more ‘Quickly. The developer in question may feel hurt that Torvalds doesn't ike his/her code. but. it spend weeks or months tryin hat willnever be accepted any way’ Who's your daddy? However, the prablem runs deeper. Mary developers have sad they doit abject otis level of directness, butte insults go too far. hone of Torvalds’ famous trades he sad that developers who write code ina certain way ‘shoul just be revoactvely aborted Some would argue that such statements ae so clearly over he top that theyre not meant tobe taken literally - Torvalds doesnt actully want tokll people And others have noted that Torvaldss quips abways cus on a persons abilities as personal aspects The big issue heres: Torvalds isa role model for many younger andless experienced hackers, We ‘may accept the odd hyperboicrant hen hes deeply isappointed in another (serie) develope but what happens when others ry to emulate his ways? Some greenhiom developers may assume that its perfeaty normal o post abuse othe mang lt and the more abuse, the more they'l be seen ike hr hero, They dont understand how Torvaks inks, how such outbursts are extremely rare and how they're about code. No, they ink its cool and trendy to hur round lbscenites and abuse ssthe/she wwuilinuxvoice.com Lennart Poettering is no stranger to online ‘abuse, but says he looks beeyondit and focuses on code,CONFLICT IN THE COMMUNITY | The solution may lie in carefully crafted guidelines... ‘Theo de Raadt founded OpenBS0 ater being expelled from NetBSD for abusive behaviour, and hhas since gone on to run a successful project. In early March 2078, 60 kemel developers signed offa auld remedy the situation. The Code of short 223-word text fle ied by maining source tree by Linus forvalds. For such an important project like the Linux kernel you might expect this document to be very specific in its demands and expectations of the ‘community, buts actually rather vague, For start alludes to the fact that you need a thick skin as a kemel developer "Your code and ideas behind it willbe carefully reviewed, often resulting in critique and crits. [1 his development proc has been proven to create the most robust operating system kemel everand wwe do not want toda anythir quality of submission andl eventual result to ever decrease Soin other words: you won't be handled with kid loves, we willbe harsh if your code is bad, ad system has worked so far. But this doesrit sound tke much pragress, does it? f we can carry on as before, what's the point of having a Code of Conflict in the first place? Wel the second section deals with that “ifhoowever, anyone feels personally abus threatened, or otherwise uncomfortable due to this process, that is not acceptable. If so, please contact the Linux Foundation's Technical Advisory Board! This isn'ta silver bullet solution butit provides ‘something that never existed before: an official way 10 report and register bad behaviour, If you're on the receiving end of personal abuse, no longer do you hhave to suck it up or simply quit kernel development but you actually have an avenue to (hopeful) get the stati “The Code of Conflict also signs off with tis positive thought all humans, and frustrations can be high on both sides of the process... keep in mind the immortal words of ill and Ted, 8 excellent to each other” So there are very few specifies in the docurnent that ‘actually define what abuse is or what the ace levelof ication should be. Some may find the Code of Conflict deeply lacking thet respect, ut we hink its goed start. By and large, the Linux keene! has been an enormous success, so let's try to fx the problem with a general solution, rather than requiring fone to read a §000-word document and signit re contributing ~ like sore kind of tresome End User Licence. rent. ‘The LLVM approach ‘Since the Linux kernel got its own Cade of Confit, ‘some other notable FOSS projects have adopted one as wel. LLVM the development toolchain providing ‘some healthy competition o GCC, tooka diferent ‘approach to the kemne’s document with a whopping 1,361-word file (httpi//tinyurl.comv/llvmeoe) that goes into many more specifies. t describes in depth how glist posters should be patient, welcoming and ciful, and gives conerete examples of behaviour that should be avoided, including: violent threats; discriminatory jokes; personal insults, unwanted ‘serual attention; and personal information (ox. LLVM's Code of Conflict gives concrete examples of behaviour that should be avoided, including violent threats and unwanted sexual attentionCONFLICT IN THE COMMUNITY Sis2NiU) i135 Ye LLVM has adopted a detailed Code of Conflict whee the Linux kernals essential says ust ry tobe ice’ mila, the LLVM guide provides a mux led set of steps for reporting bad behaviour and how it wil be resolved, The LLVM Advisory Corn will get together and review the incident, suggesting possible resolutions: the misbehaving developer could be given a private reprimand if the incident is inox oF asked to make a public apology. fits a more serious ‘case of threats or personal abuse, that developer could be asked to take a week off to permanently expelled from the proje to-appeal the decision) ‘So we have two types of Code of Confit the Linux kesnels shortand-vaque aporoach, and LLVis very detailed document. Which one will be more effective in thelong run remains ta be seen, but we prefer the 2001 down, or be with a chance eres ar etc ee aCe ee) ce eee eens Oe eg ree ree ee nay Pee Ceo Sere eee not eae ores Ce eee ee eee et ey nent ett ee cerry scanrun deep. Imagine a Chine ont mean anything Pee lapanese kernel hacker being told on the malig ist that Ce eens Beer eet een een Panera errr era eet Chinese or Japanese developer may fe! deep shame in Sree eae ee er some of his isa stereotype and thee are developers in SEO eee Pert eter te ts Peer et ee dees eter eer tod former. Trusting developers to use their intuition and know semis more fitting to the open and diverse carnmunity around FOSS ~ but maybe some people will simply stillnot cgetit,and a more precise set of guidelines willbe necessary in the future nals right or wrong Its not all bad... One of the most famous forks in Free Software history is OpenBSD, the operating system that, forked from NetBSD backin 1995. A year earlier, the NetBSD Core Team had expressed ‘concerns that one of ts most prominent developers, Theo de Raack: was being abusive to other hacke (on the mailinglist ing others from Contributing tothe project. The problem was described to de Radin private "Your abusive actions have seriously impaired the 88 of the NetBSD project in several ways. Your ‘actions have driven away developers or potential developers, and have alienated many users. They have also squandered much of the good wil that various people have directed at the project ‘Meanwhile, on the publicnetosd-users mailing lst sed their decision with regret “On December 20, Theo de Raadt was asked to resign from the NetfSD Projet by the remain members of core. This was a very dificuit decision jo make and resulted from Theo ong history of ‘and abuse of users and developers Core Team exp rudeness towal of NetBSD We believe that there is no place for that type of behaviour from represent Project. and that, overall, has been damagi project. This decision was dificult ta make because Theo has a long history of positive contributions: What followed w. mailing ist, posts and private mals all which de Raedt has chived at www.theos.com/deraadt/coremail htm The file contains over 62,000 words — so not some light bectime reading ~ but we spent afew days going rough itll. In summary: de Rad had behaved extremely inappropriately using personal abuse and ‘sexvalreferences to other developers. cde Raat lft NetBSD, forked itinto Open8$D, and now has a more popular project today different focus: ful-on security rather tabilty) Despite his abrasive personality, de Raadt many NetBSD developers with him and runs «a suocess{ul project today ~ arguably for the same reasons that makes the Linux ker Torvalds. (And de Raadt himself has “not as angry’ as he was 20 years ago. Of course, the OpenBSD communitystiny in ‘comparison to Linux, so there aren't 2s many eyeballs hing how developers interact. Open8SD will expand enough that the developer base is diverse enough to require a Code of Confict. nd who knows ~ maybe someone wil fork OpenBSD into ‘another project, and the cycle will continue forever. anepic series intheend hat hes Maybe one day wwuilinuxvoice.com 3SOFTWARE DEFINED NETWORKING FAG Software Defined Networking Redefine your infrastructure on the fly with the latest network technologies. at, s0 instead of one router, have to have a hardware router and a server to run the control software? Whats the point in adding that complexity? hardware. Cables, routers, Well if you're just running single interfaces, that sort of thing. Where router, theres nat much point in does the software come into it? SDN, However f you run more than one Things lke routers and firewalls router or switch then a single machine have networking hardware, but can be the contro layer forall of ther. they also all have software that controls This means that rather than managing the harcware. This software does a single piece of hardware, the contral things such as decide where packets software can handleall ofthe hardware should be sent (findeed they should be atthe same time. As well as being able sentatal) tomanage mutiole pieces of hardware, the control software willaiso be abe to ‘Ah, think I've seen that. At see the whole network, so willbe able home, I've got a Wi-Fi router tomake more inteligent decisions with a HTML control panel that ‘about how the network should be ‘enables me to block ports, forward configured, data and that sort of thing. The end goal of SON is a network Thats exactly the sort ofthing that can quickly and easily adapt as the we're deating wth. In Software ses ofthe network change. This goes Defined Networking (SDN), we talk handtin-hand with things like about the control layer (whic isthe Virtualisation technology, which enables software that manages the hardware) you to quickly and easily change the ‘and the data layer (which isthe actual software stack running on hardware, networking hardware itself), SDNisrita siver bullet to solve alla (Onmostourtent networking businesses IT problems, but a more equipment both ofthese things runon flexible IT setup should enable a the same device, soin the case of your business to be more flexible in ts home WiFi router there's one box that operations, has both the networking hardware and the software that provides you with the ‘That makes sense. | guess this configuration options. In an SON setup, ‘means that you need a way for these two aspects are separated, so the the control layer to communicate ccontrollayer runs ona separate with the data layer. Is there a machine to the data layer. standard for this, or does each | The end goal of Software Defined Networking is anetwork that can quickly and easily adapt as the uses of the network change 32 ‘wor linuxvoice.com hardware manufacturer do it differently? The most popular way of controling data layer hardware is with the OpenFiow protocol, This works in exactly the way weve just described. There's an OpenFiow controler that handles the control layer, and hardware that handles the data layer. Using ths, ‘you can combine hardware from any ‘manufacturer and any controle provided they all support OpenFlow: This is known as the southbound protocol The SON controle should also ‘enable software torun onit form above, This software skrowas the applications layer, and the idea is that the setup will enable standard software in the control layer to run software in the application layer to run en any physical hardware in the data layer. The software runningin the application layer can then take advantage of the controllers power to configure the networkin different ways. This could inckude, for example, a wed app to handle levels of Quality of Service (QoS) across all nodes on the network or an algorithm for automatically balancing the load on the network. The connection between this higher-level software and the controler is known as the northbound protocol There isn't yet a standard for northbound protocols and cifferent SON controler alow different software torunon them, Northbound? Southbound? What's any of this got to do with a compass? ‘Some ofthe terminology can be abitconfusing, Typically,SOFTWARE DEFINED NETWORKING whenever someone draws a diagram, SON infrastructure has the data layer at the bottom ofthe page, the control layer in the middle ard the applications layer at the top, The protocols are allin relation tothe control layer, so the protocols going dawnwards from the contro layer are called southbound, and the protocols going upwards are called northbound ‘This SDN thing sounds useful. ‘Are most corporate networks run on SDN now? The concent of SON hasbeen ‘around since the late 90s, but its only been a practical solution to enterprise tech needs since around ‘2013, Since it requires new hardware, ‘SDN is only slowiy catching on, However many are suggesting that it vill become a serious player inthe technolagy scene in 2016 and 2017. Industy analysts 1D ‘expect the worldwide SON industry to beworth $8bilion by 2018. If you'e an early adopter, or lke to get ahead ofthe tech curve, you need to start investigating SONnow, What's all this SDN stuff got to cdo with Linux anyway? There's nothing inherently Linuxy about SDN; however, given the prevalence of Linux in the data centres ‘where many of these SDN are tunning and the flexbilty ofthe Linux stack, it should came as na surprise toleam that alot of the SDN hardware runs Linux. This includes things tke OpenvSwitch and Microsoft's Azure Cloud Switch (ACS). Hang on just one second. Did ‘you just say that Microsoft runs its SDN on Linux? ‘Yep! We were equally surprised Microsoft's ACS is used in its ‘Azure cloud data centre to control the hosted environment. that's nota ringing endorsement for Linux as the base platform for SDN, then we really don't know what is, Ifall these SDN systems are built on Linux, does that mean | can build my own SDN setup on my Linux box? EQ rete sad at the start, slowly and errs eric @ wovcemes-—— Gerson en err ‘The Open Networking Foundation sets the standards for SDN, including OpenFlow, and its members include Google, Facebook, HP, Intel and almost anyone else who's anyone in the tech world Cleary: there's no point in using SON i you only have one or two pieces of network hardware (eg routers or switches). The chances of you having a homenetwork that would actually benefit rom SON is pretty small Of course, just because there's no technical benefit in something, that doesnt mean you shouldnt civein and do itanyway for the geeky fun of learning something nev! SDN is both ‘an interesting area and a rapicly ‘rowing aspect of system ‘administration, Assuming you don't want to. go out ‘and buy expensive enterprise level networking hardware, you've got basically to options if you want to experiment with SON. The simplest option isto use vitual machines. Using Visualisation software such as KVM or VirtualBox, you can start machines with Virtual network interfaces. These interfaces connect ta virtual networks. Usually, the visualisation tools youre using wil connect t together ina fairy straightforward ‘manne, but you don't have to use the ‘that comes autof-the-box. ad, yOu can use more powerful virtual networking software such as Openv Switch (http /openvswitch.org), ‘wor linuxvoice.com which understands the OpenFlow protocol tent there a less heary-duty way of giving it ago? Anatemative opproac sto bud some networking hardware using a Linucbased machine You needa computer to bullion which ceuldbe more orless any machin that can un in (ning a sal ARO device sucha. Raspberry Pir an Odio). You need to add more than cone network interface, whic is easly ard cheaply done using US® Ehemet imerfacesand ten youl need some fermof SON civer turning on such as LINC (https://github.com/ FlowForwarding/LINC-Switch) Ether ofthese method (ar indeed bath simutaneausy)eanbeusedt0 create he datalayer ofan SON, On ton otis, you need to create acontol layer There are a ew open options here clung Pox .nonepo.o), Froodigtt (www, pojetloadight orgy floodlit) cr aes (htp// hengesi git olmacstro-patorm) The process of seting up an SON isntoompletey stragforwars butt you go through. youllend up leaning aot about this emercing technology. 33GIANUGO RABELLINO GIANUGO RABELLINO MICROSOFT'S GNU WHISPERER Graham Morrison simply walks into Mordor to discuss open source strategy with Microsoft's senior director of open source communities. But is all as it seems? ‘ved from a career in law by a career at Microsoft, Gianugo Rabellino has played a huge role in Microsofts burgeoning interest in open source, Microsoft is now a significant contributor ‘to many projects, including the Linux kernel Why did you take on the job at Microsoft? Gianugo Rabellino: This October is my fith anniversary at Microsoft | joined in 2010, coming all the way from Europe. | had an open source services ‘company, and before that, and after that of course at Microsoft | spent all my ifein open source, Ima member of the Apache Software Foundation, contributed to vatious projects founded the frst official Linux organisation in Italy in 194, 901190 back to Linux 0:99 and a big pile of floppies. | had a C64 wher turned 14, My parents had a company and they had one of the fst PC: ‘So from a C64 to a PC, so not ‘through the Amiga then? 34 GR: No, |rmissed the Amiga stuff and that's one of my regrets, but what can youdk PCs are probably a much wiser choice anyway. GR'In a number of ways, yes Sol found myself thinking that | almost got this degree in law but | dont want to «lawyer, what am | going to do? I did have the time or the money to pursue ‘another degree and then | found myself backin computing, stumbled into open source fel in iove witht Lucky that vas when the intemet had started, What was it that you liked ‘about open source? You could have had Windows on your PC? GR: | could have except that was wwuilinuxvoice.com and a partner in fve initiatives with the Linux Foundation, Thanks to customer demand and the prevalence of Linux in everything from phones to the cloud, along with the wiser stewardship of its new CEQ, Satya Nadella, Microsoft has released a version of Office running on Andtoid, and has even been working on its own internal Linux distribution — both things that were completely unimaginable 10 years ago. But how realis this change? We find out what's, {going on at the heart of Microsoft utterly broke. And | got into the BBS world And atthe centre point ‘torun my own BBS but could only have one computer. And that was quite 2 hxury | saved and bought a 386 because | heard that those things could run more than a program ata time, so could run my BBS and use the computer atthe same time, and lo and behold Windows 3.1 dict do that. S got into [BM] 08/2. aboutit. wanted everything (Oy Yooh hed tasins. GR: Yes, ea wen they did 08/2 3.0 and t was lke OK, no that was a mistake. Friends brought a lle of floppies with Linux and itwas lke, oh wow lookat that ~ that’s interesting! And then thought you know wh COO ny perenne iny Peso ty Senn.GIANUGO RABELLINO INTERVIEW LV “The only way to achieve interoperability is by building open protocols, open formats, open standards — and that gets coupled more and more with open source”GIANUGO RABELLINO ee a Prern in the eating (and he was part Creu) NET, so that’ a tasty pudding) instead of running a BBS, really w to-spread the wort! about this Linux stuff 50\'m just going to open up ‘access, Dial up a number, get a login prompt, no password, youre in and you ccan play around. ‘And | would be on ancther terminal doing stuff while other people were absolutely tearing my machine to ‘shreds. And one day, just by acci get tak request, Do you remember? Ah, the days of FidoNet. (GR: Exactly Andittumed out to bea professor at 2 university who was looking for help to set up alab, and he said it]ooks lke you knovr Unix why don't you come and help me out. | stil had to prepare for my final exam, buta few months later was pretty much a teacher's assistant of Computer ‘Science managing a lab in my small town. And thats what got me into andit was a combination of hey | got this operating system for free, wow that’s awesome’, and then I was lucky ‘enough that | could actually dial into the university and | had the internet, which is something you couldn't afford back then, There was no web, those were the days of Gopher [a protocol that pre-dated HTTP]. And | remember sending my frst traceroute and being ‘amazed that ry frst traceroute went 10 36 Vienna, and | was ike fin a small town in ftaly and now my stuffis getting to Vienna. And then ths guy told ‘me, yeah but this is actualy Vienna USA it's not Vienna Austria, My mind vas blown, and | realised | could just se IRC, back in these day's where you could just use IRC, We still put our magazine together through IRC. GR: So then lcame on IRC and! found people from HP people from IBM, ‘people from Sun and | understood that | had another shot ata career. | could ‘actually earn because there's so many resources that | coulduse. And! started hacking and I never looked back That's really good. GR: Yeah. | one everything to ‘open source software. This isthe beginning and the end of it Microsoft were doing their first forays into open source and back then they were actually involved in OpenXML, Which you might recall was quite Controversial at that time. And my imoression as an open source person was that Microsoft was not geting credit fr what they were trying to do Everyone was second guessing that Microsoft was coming from the angle that these guys were not right. ‘wor linuxvoice.com You mean in a general IT to do with open GR: twas the attitude towards Microsoft | really thought that they deserved more credit, and were genuine in thet efforts to do more open stuff When was this? GR: We'e taking 2008, which is When | started (Sourcesense). Then nen | decided for other reasons to leave Souroesense and takea sabbatical | sent an emailtomy Contacts at Microsoft saying rm leaving the ympany, going somewhere ese it fas fun working with you and they said hey do you want to come have an interview So that's how | joined ‘So Redmond has realised it needed some help because its ‘open source work was very isolated? GR: They were doing some bits of pen soutoe here and there, They were dipping their toes. But then it car point that there was clearly an ‘executive mandate to do more, to ‘explore So joined in 2010 andihad 23 interviews to get thejob, and | asked for those because realy wanted to tak 10 as many people as |could before ig decision such as moving a family of four including a twornont ‘ld, to the USA and also taking a career that was built on open source, on my toa lowe everything to open source software. That's the beginning and the end of it ‘open source reputation, and joining Microsoft Butat the time | signed up, was postive that there was a genuine .wilingness to turn this company around and make it become more ‘open, Andit wasnt just. ip service, they wanted to change the company. So that was a challenge that was realy ‘exciting for me. Figg C2" you say who at Microsoft wanted that change to happen? GR:| have to ive alot of credit tomy hiring manager, Jean Pao whom Ive worked with forthe last five years, He clearly had that vision, but he was alsa backed by alot of executives atGIANUGO RABELLINO Microsoft including for anumber of important as this Microsoft changes, is there where its relly hard ta say years Satya Nadella, the curtent CEO. that open sourve changed as well The whether they area standard or an open He was the one who approved of our ‘Microsoft of floppy drives and the open source project Whatis the new first big planto build open source for sourceaf lappy drives had become container intiatve? its bask ‘Azure, There was.alot of executive he Microsoft andthe open source of |_Docker. They have these four backing behing this effor. tera, whereeverythingis components that | care about open ‘Connected, products are shipped to source, open standards, interopera Did everybody understand the thecloud. The software that runs your and community development, because advantages and why it was phone is coupled with your device. that's the ather part important internally? All we saw was Those.areniewthings and so openness What we ecm about over the years is the outside image presented by has become a more nuanced concept. that open source is stuff that you throw people like Steve Ballmer. Today, | don't likejust talking about at the wall. mean, its nothing. Youre GR: Steve Ballmer was 2001 and floppy open source I's important ~ its building the ‘whole ofthe garden dives. So fast forward afew yearsand absolutely crucial~ but you talk about It doesn't matter. Code by itself rocks. at we got was probably the tailend open source alone, you dont bring open But Iman Apache guy, tomeit’s Cf that phase when Microsoft was very standards intothe picture. fyou dont’ community over code always, reluctant towards open source, The‘no bring interoperabiity into the pictur, way phase. And then, pretty much mean, we need to see the same Have you built a community when joined or short thereafter, we webpage and access the same emai within Microsoft so that those sdaphaseot genuine, open and —_It/ooks emagie, butthere'salotof open projects will remain open? ‘asking of ourselves why. In technology behind it, GR: Absolutely yes. And again that Imogen tothe view of using oper ‘maps to something that changed in the source, but give me: Wouldn't you say that market. Gone are the days of five years of course there's a spectrum. It went Microsoft wasn't too worried —_untilthenext version of Windows or the rom people who were highly about interoperability and open ‘ext version of Office, The turnaround opeople who were very open, but! standards up until 2005-20067 needs to be faster: Azure updates every never metanyoneat Microsoft who GR: thinkitSinteresting to seehiow day. Your Windows devices update ‘was under the idea that we are no Microsoft got interested in nearly every day or on a weekly basis. ding itjust because it was open interoperability and, subsequently, went Weneed that fast turnaround, And we source, Inever saw that inmy fveyears into open source - info openness in _need to make sure our products and at Microsoft ‘general. Because the only way to technologies can embrace that mod Recently think we squarely entered achieve interoperability is by building theage of why nat! sogive mea gaod open protocols, open formats, open When you say open source, is reasonnotto, We're going to default _ standards — andthat gets coupled it more important for the ‘more and more with open source Right source to be open and readable with ow there aresormany projects out more of an emphasis on permissive, Linux is no longer a cancer that attaches itself to everything eter ecu} Rejoice, oh my brothers! ‘wor linuxvoice.com a7GIANUGO RABELLINO or is it that it becomes more of a ‘community project? GR: An open source license gives you all ofthat. So I can reat, ean modify it can redistribute my modification But the real value comes when those modifications get merged back n, When | tak about open sourcing products or technologies at Microsoft, | always say if you dont intend to aocept ‘contributions theres tle pont in what yout doing, But initially Microsoft had quite specific Microsoft open source licences. Thankfully, these ‘seem to be fewer. GR: Yes, absolutely, they te gone now. We haven't been using them for yeas. Figg Coming from the Apache side of things, did you have anything to do Microsoft's new licensing regime? GR: Marginal but by the time | joined there was already very verylitle use of MS-PL [the Microsoft ieences}.IF anything, | nucged towards Apache 20, being an Apache guy, and recently ‘weve switched more and more to the MIT Licence. But we realised that there See eee nis Pee To feet) Dee ott i 38 was very tte advantage in building our ‘wn licences, but back when Microsoft cic that, I wasnt atthe company then, Itkind of made sense. That was the time when everybody was doing their ‘vwnlicences, And then t became a problem and we understood at Microsoft that we need to go where the ‘community is and the community wants to coalesce and consolidate ona handful oficences. We don't need so many, we just need a few, And thatis winy today we have five or six cences and everything else is really inthe long tall We ust folow that trend, ‘What would you say ha changed the most at Microsoft since you joined in its attitude to ‘open source, and also how does the wider world of computing outside of Microsoft feel about the company? GR: When !look back at these five years, my impressions that we did everything organically and thats probably one ofthe reasons why we were successful at changing the company so much Weel jerk, we took tite by litle. Small steps with a bitof a bottor up, grassroots approach with executive coverage from the top, ‘wor linuxvoice.com and always focused on ‘the code talks tsa useless conversation about the specific open source project or technology without showing code, that's the whole idea. We have been ‘consistently pushing on the same strategy fr five years and little by tle ‘we made this stuf change. ‘When | interview people who want to ‘work at Microsoft, want to work in my ‘team, |always tell them you cannot be successful in changing a big company if you take a speedboat approach. Youre nat ona lake ina speedboat doing zig zags, You're actually the tug boat that needs to steer the container ship. And the only way you can doi is by using lot of torque. And ttle by little, slowly but surely —itlooks ike ‘you're not making progress — but then ‘you look back and you see thatthe ship is tuming, Figg 80 you're able to look back and ee the difference between people at Microsoft five years ago and people now? GR: ifs consistent just took this ‘much time. It was ajourney. We had to demonstrate business value, We had 10 validate. So when | joined there was a hypothesis that we need to change, we need to become mare open because i's {900d for us i's good for our customers, its good for the company Was there any pressure from outside Microsoft? GR: Oh there was tons of pressure. We always listen to customers, that’s one of the main reasons why. And itwas a ‘changed landscape. Imagine how the ‘world has changed since, as an ‘example, the inception of XML. XML ‘meant that allo a sudden yau could have a heterogeneaus data centre ina numberof technologies and stil have those machines communicate with one another, And that brought our ‘customers to say, you know what, we love your technology but we also love this other technology now and they can talk together and we want to keep it that way, we want to use both, So that was the pressure that started ital off. Figg 2s there a change in attitude at Microsoft? GR: There was aig shift in the market. The market went from a singlewendorSed eer view, we are where we want tobe: Ca) Prone ea ‘market, where you are married to your ‘customer fora decade because of lockcin toa much more dyn ‘market where customers could mix and ‘match. They tld Microsoft and they {ald all the other companies, “hey this is the way we want to operate going forward. We're going tohave a Being more open is good for our customers, and it's good for the company heterogeneous set of technologies that ‘can interact with each other, and we're ‘going to keep you accountable for that” ‘So we have an interoperability executive Ccounell, which is part of what ry tean hhas been doing forthe past few years and we have large companies and startups coming tous and teling ust fix this, you ought to fix this, How far have you got in your mission at Microsoft? GR: From this standpoint in turning the round, | think weve done it, we're fame, there were to major milestones: open sourcing of NET ~ ‘open sourcing of one's crown jewels if you lke — and the second major milestone for me was folding MS Open fech back, which meant taking open GIANUGO RABELLINO §INUIS:\//3078 8 source to the next level, realising that ‘open sourceis across the company, Were you involved in the open sourcing of .NET? GR: absolutely was. actually sit on board of the NET foundation, Is probably one of the biggest and most positive things Microsoft has done for open source in that i’s genuinely useful GR: Anda few menths after ‘announced open sourcing. NET, we ‘announced Visual 1g. developers w jo Code, Its about he ultimate evolution of the mixed IP idea, We went from “I want to have a litle bt of everthing in my data centre” (0"l wil need to have a lite bit of ‘everything because Im in the loud and hat's what Im running today’ it may not be what im running tomorrow it not be what Im running next may not be with thi particular ier it may be with somebody ese ‘and ere they are. I's pro ‘nd |also have my private clou reed to connect everything, interoperability is supremely impor Dorit get me started with devices, with the idea that hey | build apps or sites. Take arandam room of five or six people and you wil find a mix of probably weve different operating terns, devices, sex And wwuilinuxvoice.com we stil have to deliver a consistent experience. So the fact that we can do it thanks to the work the Microsoft and ‘many others di at places like the just thoroughiy amazes me Figg So what's next? GR: Fight now the mission ofthe Opens ys Office is to enable, simplify and promote open ‘managed to turn the ship around and now we need to salt ‘oss the company, Where are you sailing to? GR: Were saling to where the ‘market wants us to sal. We know that there's going to bealot of openness down the road, so we're heading in direction, Now its about taking alt Ite stumbling blocks that ae stil there, making sure the process is smooth, Making sure that when you ingest an open source package, you your own due diigence, you make sure its an appropriate thing todo and we reed to make sure that the process doesn't take much effort Right now my major concern is ‘making sure that we will eed to create a process to manage resources intesnally and | want that process to be as frictionless as t can possibly be because we are doing these things to speedus up. 396 LISTEN TO THE PODCAST ) i LINUXVOI IL. Ate malalad LINUXVOICE.COM —_The latest software and hardware, rigorously bashed against a wall by our crack team. Is building a scale model of Harlech castle out of abandoned laptops ythe time you read this ‘magazine the world will have forgotten about the TalkTalk data leak/hack. in which a telecoms ‘company in the UK mislaid aload of| customers data (including bank details), That's a shame, because there are lessons to be learned he most important ofthese is that you always need someone to blame. fakTalks share price fell orn the day the hack was announced a slide that rested when police arested old from County Antrim in ‘connection with the attack ‘Always blame someone else ‘Are you keeping your customers data unencrypted? Fine, carry on, Do you know of abreach, but doing nothing, hoping itll go away? Also fine. But find someore to blame, pronto. No doubt once this child has been leave fo another gold plated salary and theyll pat themselves on the back for rting ut the storm. But realy ifa 15-year-old ccan hack your network its not the 16 year old that shouldbe arrested andrew@linuxvoice.com On test this issue... Ubuntu 15.10 a Beware the moon The beginner iendly distros so sy werewolves can use it All the con the privacy OwnCloud Server 8.2 “ vence of Docs/Mail/Calenda, Fedora 23 Behind the scenes, ius about the mo technologeallyadvane Linux distibution there Combine that wit attractive desktop anda solid community youve got agreat system, ‘TeamViewer 10 45 Pay mane fora proprietary remote desktop? When its as good as this, you ust might. Group test and books Group test ~ window managers 50 Far more conta, mare paves, or mo you hike to tinker with your setup, give one ofthese window managers a ty today. wwuilinuxvoice.com a ‘Yourcoa 1 Cine Gm } Books 4 efor programmes, inside the tech of tein rating your code as iit were a crime scene That's some esoteric reading righ there, 41SV/)Si53 GNU/LINUX DISTRO File Edit View Insert Format Table Tools Window Help B-s- Defautt Stye Adega Uberatia B-a About LibreOffice Version: 5.0.0.5 Build ID: 5.0.0.5-2.fc23 Locale: en-US (en_US.UTF-8) LibreOffice is a modern, easy-to-use, open source productivity suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and more. @ ‘This release was supplied by The Fedora Project Copyright © 2000 - 2015 LibreOffice contributors LUbreOfie was based on OpenOfice. org Credits Website Fedora 23 Slightly later than expected, Fedora 23 is here to delight Mike Saunders. Web wn federapoject xg Devlopr RedHat and FedoraProject Platforms A, x66, PC, a Gnome 3.18, the default desktop in Fedora 23, sports two new programs (Calendar and Characters) and Google Drive integration ~ see pA of last issue for our review. 42 cra 73 was tobe read fe as Pierre tne ce cromasiife wots reat hat washed bockby ene week Tats enough wee =e bese dea aa gel way enue hat sofware es sippedel sare porta oes languchindeveopmenthel st tswerhbaig abt fesbetoens el ceases fect ay oi eet ov eeses Fee 2 aloe inal toss Wolsey eskeps anlofs emorreris) Saver ard Goud Oe tok change rt aft e's pctge hatrnng who ossbe bay reat ae bik 2s YC ston dependence) whch ea hy canbe poe! anfieintmcpeithg yer money etsy pace Unni A es pce www. linuxvoice.com layout randomisation) the OS can make security holes less damaging, as crackers can't assume that certain bits of code are at specific points in RAM, Waiting for Wayland Desktop-vise, Fedora 23 ships with Gnome 3.18 and while many improvements have been made to Weyland, the X Window System stil prowdes the faut graphical layer Lieedtioe 60 made into the release justin time ae wel nthe Sever flavour of the dsto, theres anew role to set up Fedora as acache server for web applications (using memecached) while the Cockod administration interface now supports SSH key authentication and can work with Kubernetes to manage clusters of Linux containers + changes include Docker Tin the Cloud flavour, a migration from Mono 2.10 to 40, and Unicode 8.0 support. long wth the standard Grome version ofthe Workstation release, there are ‘spins fealuting other desktops such as KDE, Xfce LXDE, Mate and Cinnamon. the wholes aworthy upgrade: the switch to PIC bnares should have a postive impact onthe cistro's security inthe ong ran, and easy access tothe latest Gnome and Libeotie releases make itano brainer @ ‘shiny new desktp, updates to Lire and mee secuity~ there's plenty ok here. tOUBUNTU 15.10 Filter results » sai aka Wiley Werewolf) ktop a Ben Everard’s purple werewolf costume left some people confused at Halloween. eabunt com ical top and you could be forgiven for cure running 1 04, arouse software Heenes f blocky icon: Ubuntu still includes online resuits in local searches, but to disable if you nant to increase your privacy ‘own tool rather that handle 43 www. linuxvoice.comFILE SHARING OwnCloud Server 8.2 Thanks to this great update, Graham Morrison has eos use OmClad ey yo pts Dew ur we Wren legato: Ree artes seca tofeare tune anything capt o bang over the soso ope cares gs 0 Dropboer some Googles Soo bats eis raspy ting sa he eso gs cpa row wnt einer 8 moruely vpn ou od Txsevera wevebeen abe ‘ouoetreoueraterareludae etue orto 8 ard82 making Neupyades oes vary changes scene ral Thee smotrent maniogcerta cach fie hat roves conmioed dost arerrre dates fr sree, wie psd ardfieceton neste sen = menu at the top. These replace the slightly clunky eye seems hence ad ‘The best thing about the new desktop clients that you can use it with more than one account and ‘OwnCioud server at the same time, 4 ‘wurwlinuxvoice.com [almost] managed to drop Google. folders in previous versions. Clicking onthe Details, ‘menuitem also opens a new panel on the right ‘where you can easily see the sharing status of your selection slong with a preview of ts contents ~ and brilianty, access to each version if the flehas been ‘modified. We love the way you no longer have to save a text fle when you edit it, as all changes are saved automatically. But our favourite visual upgrade is to the Gallery view, replacing the old Pictures mode, You can sort your mages by creation date, and the update time for us was much faster than with previous versions. You can also zoom and pan around ‘your photos, making tis the first time we've felt ‘comfortable sharing a folder link wth someone rather than using another online photo repository, ‘Administrators get a lot more control from the ‘command tne, including the ability to modify the ‘numberof versions and the amount of trash kept by the system, and the ably to encrypt and decrypt ‘everything. And while isnot specifically part ofthe server package, we have to mention that the recent ‘upgrades tothe Linux desktop standalone client are brillant tn longer sucks CPU cycles and can ‘connect to mutiple seners at once, OunCloudis 2 project that just keeps getting stronger. i Nothing touches OwnCoudforits feature set, or forts development sped. otk kokOur star apps aS REVIEWS LV TeamViewer 10 Ben Everard may be about to become the technical support team for his social circle. in mst emote anes om Litrerenaieessteteeesine Hanya cat os hese Shing capbies thal see eal eed foraproneany pt? Toerowe it question wehatetlbokintthe swoihgs tht eraveer does Fst a youray erect ches comptes rch orenete como The remote can te ate te mouse anderen se sat wh The tostesrran wage rts ng bis Teahione pfs ths tok pet wl 0 docter tok Teaiveve’srea acartage coe theses ak pares rarogra teeter comectors sin wt ning bound TOP Coren herachre eg cote Thatalona ite echal ols g bk sotamiute rane you ewes you pend saytteyieraurganreben ath ther omar How do you caret iD VSS" NG youred an ads tocentc Tha isinetore sever te pcbby even ose oe ahomeltaret camecton st tore ayo eet th Teer het oe uber played the ster why eed enter inoyou machine ard yuhow acceso er shen tosmpeerieryatobeate tot aternclyheptpacen toute etalon anscupinatew minutes herve eve tress Web wnmtesmvenercom Developer TeaViewe Licence Fe for personal use cron £449 You can try if you ike, but these login details wont let you takeover the Linux Voice network. totheir machine and can fix ther problem for them. That alone is worth the fulfive stars from us, There are only two problems we can see: i's closed source, andif yournake it too easy for people to come to you with their problems, they may never fix anything themselves again, Well leaveit up to you ta decide how serious these problems are ‘As well as Linux, TeamViewer works on Windows, Mac, Android, Windows Phone and Blackberry, 0 you can help people of any computer denomination. The easiest ay offing other peoples problems on jst about any compute kkk kk 45 ‘wurwlinuxvoice.comGAMING Michel Loubet-Jambertis our Games itor. He hasnt hada decent nights seep since Steam came out on Li. heist Steam Contrles ~ ‘on which much ofthe iabty of Linux as a mainstream ‘gaming platform hangs ~have been ‘hipped, and thaee ue enough to have pre-ordered have given their thoughis online. tthe sme tims, Vai has pushed back the official release cose to Cvistmas toon ‘out some ofthe kinks Responses have been positive, though the unusual double trackpad design has been reported to work beter on some types of games than ters anit expected that ater ‘versions wil atempt todo mare to ‘make amore viable epi for FPS games. The contol also had issues with runing out of the box on some maj Linux sts, though tis has now been patched up Meanie, contracts have been secuedin the UK US and Australia toring the Linux powered consoles and their controllers tothe biggest brick-and-mortar game retailers in those counties bringing PC gaming hack to store shelves alongside consoles after along absence. The shee varity of hardware and pricing wil bea challenge for vendors, Having gotten a chance tory out Steam0S ona home made Steam machine its certainly impressive As gaming distribution, takes lg-and play toa whole new lve without having to wrest wth pesky ‘raphies dives fine-tane things afterinstalltion. There ino dub as tothe ease fuse to potential Lia newcomes, thoughts acceptance bythe gaming ‘community wil remain to be sen, 46 Soma ‘Atmospheric sci-fi horror from the makers of Amnesia: The Dark Descent. enumbra and Amnesia are ofter considered to be amon 6 fall time, but So ‘more on story than horror. It's fare sors, using philosophy as an than tsp theme tots: The games pr terifying due to but elsofortheirat 20k of self defence abilities, mosphere and excellent sound design. Soma does: ings well though by this point the formula has been imitated 1 the extent where it ha Asa scifi story focused game, Somais hus successful though the honar aspects can be half-baked. Attimes,it feels as if more could have been achieved ifthe game stopped doing what was expected of t and concentrated on the hat s: achieved through the traditional means: really adds to the experience. The story deals with some intriguing theres such as human consciousness and unfolds lent pt atan excellent pace as the mysteries ofthe Underwater facility and as former o are steadily revealed. The loneliness of the See een) Peete Sets ‘Soma's mysterious underwater facility feels very ‘much alive ands full of decay. experies constant second. to the goings-on really pull the player into the game's world, and n effect also serve ta bolster the horror aspects whict effectively, tis these asp undoubtedly bette than its p We recommend Soma — i's one of those ‘games that create conversations between people who have played it albetn this case far more about the story and the issues it raises than the ju was 1s that mak The atmosphere achieved through the traditional means of horror really adds to the experience. wwuilinuxvoice.comGAMING Sword Coast Legends A well polished RPG set in the Forgotten Realms universe. here have been many successful attempts at reinvigorating the RPG ‘genre and Sword Coast Legendls puls ito e Rather than lezly relying on the success of icewind 1's Gate and drowning in ‘sea of nostalgia, the game delivers 3D visuals that look great even when zoomed incredibly close tothe cha “There's still plenty of standard fantasy ‘ropes of bustling tom filed with monsters and bancits alike. Many of the Dungeons & Dragons crowd claim that the game's mutiplayer mode is tionally sandhuge caves, not true to the rulesets and have crtcised pretty extensively, Not knowing the least bit about DEO, | can only speak for oduction values, sold story and excellent voice ‘acting, That sad, the combat and ski trees are somewhat superficial, which jeed not be a bad thing in o the campaign, which has high toatiract ‘anew generation of players, but seasoned RPG fans may be somewhat disappointed inthis regard, Grand Ages: Medieval A pleasant trading simulator which could have been far more. hen Grand Ages was announced it ooked to be ‘an exciting combination of the best aspects of 4X strategy games like Giiization, with the complex empire building aspects of a grand str ne, Hows somewhat superficial trade simulator with limited combat and building mechanics, No political mect Nonetheless, rand Ages is by nor ‘bad game. Itis fun and satisfying, whik providing many hours of gameplay ~ even if tdoes fee ike a missed opportunity at times. The campaign is well put together, ith a story that takes place inthe latter sof the Byzantine empire. “The gameplay often lacks balance, ranging from it being near impossible totum aprofit to beng incredibly being ile Je; ittumed out tobe a ‘whatsoen ‘overpowered and ther — +) 0 an ae we Grand Ages clearly hasan impressive engine ‘and a good base fora sold franchise. challenge, However, anumber of patches ve already addressed some of these 'ssues, and progression feels pretty solid most of the time, The game would suit fans ofthe Patrian series and other trade oriented games the most while grand strategy fans may Iso enjoy wwuilinuxvoice.com 47Waa BOOKS Exercises for Programmers Ben Everard changes out of his Lycra — these are different exercises. uso ian P Hogan Punter Pragati Bookshelf Price £189 'san 978 16e0s01228 ‘ow long does it take to leam a new language? The answer to this {question really depends on what you mean by learn a language. A decent programmer can probably pick up the syntax and basic usage ofa new language ina weekend, After a month they should be fairy comfortable. However, it can tal along time to really get you head around all ‘he lite bits that you need to know, Beercises for Programmers is a setof challenges that are designed to cover every areaofa language sa that when youve covered them, youll be abe to program ‘comfortabiy in that language, The tasks are there to test your knowledge of a language, rot your skill as a programmer, so you wen ‘need to come up with any novel algorithms or tricks to get through this book. The result isa slightly pedestrian set of exercises which didnt really excite us ‘Beerises for Programmers takes you through everything from creating user interfaces to using web services forthe purpose of getting data allt force you to search through all the features, ibrares and ‘modules of your chosen language. These exercises should work with any language regardless of paradigm, useful but sgh dul wrkout help ‘yourake sure you have complete grasp ‘of anew language KaKS \ Exercises for Programmers O/ sae Musicians practise scales, so perhaps programmers should practise the routine parts oftheir craft as wel You Code as a Crime Scene Ben Everard’s code always looks like a crime scene. Aor Ada Trt Punter Pragmatic Bookshelf Price £72.90 san 9781660500887 toe materhowgodyou cs [istenseansnt somite cholenges opener sng ‘steno coas aoe See rn Ton itedoce te ofan rents ower ture temo he tobe eos Shasedon guacho oe pot wtichatenot oat th i sston Sfacimrolbooed ontrepaten of cre Torso ed cris tatatempt beset places oe tuscton eaten comply and chart tote cantare That wap pute vinalotae a Tse oop wheres areltey occa Oyen testo youca foom yar bouche aches tpemostat oor ad as use is 48 knowledge to inform your development practices (should this ‘and human resource know how this code works). n sr projects, developers can easily keep track of the whole codebase, and so identifying hotspots isn't very useful, but as projects get larger, it becomes more useful to know where problems may arise. Adam Torn takes the reader through a series of real ‘open source projects to demonstrate the techniques. This isnt a failsafe approach ‘quarantced to leave your software spotless, but could be a useful weapon in the endless battle for software qualiy. ‘Anotl approach to software analysis that ‘could prove useful for managing lage Projects ok kk ‘wor linuxvoice.com ‘The deerstlker and pipe arent essential accessories to this bok, but we highly recommend them,BOOKS Blockchain Graham Morrison finds the first example of currency gentrification Melanie Svan ‘ely erst s7a-asnez04s7 his is a book that covers classic OReilly tetory. ittakes a technically challenging new area that could lead toa revolution and explains why that technology is important. OReilly has Workspaces > Add New To Add More. You can add launcher icons to the Glin for specific workspaces, ‘50 OU can use the Dock for general apps ‘and the Clip for apps you only want to launch on certain workspaces, ‘Window Maker includes a ‘comprehensive setup tool (double- ‘ckck the uppermost icon in the Dock) «and various theres (See WorkSpace > Appearance > Styles in the desktop menu). amature, eiable and attractive desktop with a unique way of working. and ‘weve spent many months hapily using it ‘38 out dally driver in the past Peas rt oa Berar Dee en ‘wor linuxvoice.com Beefing up your WM Useful apps and tools to add. rear tte dom ah our Qpessteren roca eee ae canpicen seen eermer ter atelier of cnr chao oe iiegted ereuose toto done ice ners ee eee happen to have installed. So youll first want to worse ropa Durowe econ women ranay Cnt oa) Yo. in the lightweight LXDE desktop, and does a great all-round job. Another alternative is XFE_ (http://roland65. free. fr/xfe), based on the FOX: ‘toolkit, which has fewer features but runs at light speed. ‘Another tool worth adding — especially if you care about eye-candy — is a compositing menage Ts yo ade Sop Seon inreeeynonad esa coer ore github.com/chjy/compton) I's availale Mawros.oy ma de rene nov tnwotosnaa fa aetna eee cine eae Sane (man compton} to get an overview of all the: available options. Fersue ieyouneywanto sid ochk Piet poe eae Cus ttguigickon) eae choice here, and while its clearly heavily inspired by Mac OS X, it has plenty of features inisomfat Tolan meson aro hese eed aaa henalioche to create your own desktop environment, see ‘our tutorial at www.linuxvoice.com/create- your-own-desktop-environment, Here's Window Maker again, but with lurvely drop shadows around windows and menus thanks to the Compton compositor. 53WINDOW MANAGERS 13 vs Awesome Tiling WMs go head-to-head. ling WMs are becoming singly popular, especially eens mnt ‘among power users running amas Sian large displays, and they can help youto etm, fai ‘work much more efficiently. But what is ating wha? The best way to explainisby demonstrating Instal3 from your distros package manager and then select it at your login soreen Youll see ‘wothings when the WM starts up thin panel along the bottom of the screen (called the bar) and a“first configuration box asking you f you want an automaticaly generated config apie smb is fle ~ hit Enter here and choose Alt as Sprors Soe ae the default moder when prompted " ‘And youre ready to go. Alt Enter and a terminal window will appear, filing the ‘whole soreen. Now ht the same key combination again to spawn another Atypical session, with vertical and horizontal spits in use. To ext the WM use At-Shift+, terminal ~ and youl see that they've Do What I Mean. Good Docs. Clean Code. Sounds good? Thenyeuviloves Watchthe scenes readthe User Gute and nt automaticaly been placed side-by-side _; keys forleft, down, up and right completely iS is capable of much (or one above the other, depending on respectively (abt le in the V editor) ‘more, so see hittps://iawm.org/does/ your display ratio) To switch between horizontal and uuserguide.html forthe complete guide vertical spitting, use AWE. And to close ‘Awesome, meanwhile, shares ‘Save space with tiling a window, use Alt#Shift+Q. To resize ‘many ofthe same features as i3 i's Thisis the tiling aspect of it ‘a window hit Alt#R and then use the ating window manager designed automatically places and resizes arrow keys followed by Enter when ‘tomaximise soreen space usage windows to make the best use of your _youte dane — or use the mouse to grab and make you less dependent on the ‘screen space. To switch between the handle between windows if you mouse, Unlike 3, however its abit windows, use Alt with theJ,K,Land _dorit want to say goodbye to the rodent more friendly to mouse users aut of the bax, as youll see ifyou ightick on the Hister-oneonest 3 desktop (a program menu appears). To < nga =<) aim ‘open a terminal, use Mods (usualy the Windows key) and Enter — by default windows aren floating mode, so use Mod44Spaceto switch to tied mode, lke. fll ist ofeybindings can be found athttp//awesome.naquadah ‘org/dloc/manpages/awesome.1.html ‘Awesome is a hugely configurable WM with support for Lua extensions toads tabs, popup menus and even a Space invaders game Once youve spent a few days learning the keybindings: Soo'e Be Wishing srvtatna's | focdvesome ois youllnever wantto Soret waste your fe shoving windows around ctetty tn mem, canst | on your desktop ever again. Teng Concepts pee aay ata ‘Awesome has @ ot in common withi3, ands also extensible thanks to Lua scripting suppor. 54 ‘wor linuxvoice.comOUR VERDICT Window managers veryone has their own way of working. so we cant say which one ofthe six window is perfect for you = but hopefully youve found a few that have whetted your appetite to ‘tryout fora couple of days or ‘weeks, Just afew small changes in your working habits can havea huge effect on your productivity as time goes by, rodent (or trackpad), Window Maker is well worth geting to grips with. Its use of the Dock and Clip creat workflow to the usual taskbar-and -systentray setup, and the ablity to deck menus around the screen can be highly useful as well Plus, some of the in-built styles look areat - they can be rather dark and stony, but look far better than the extreme flatness thats being pted elsewhere these days, Window Maker come outat the Sowhile werecommend that topofthe bunch. iSjust makes so everyone gives iS and Window much sense forthe type afwork Maker a go, theres stil plenty that many of us Linux geeks do, ‘and while it takes a while to master, the learning curveis worth it Ifyou have plenty of screen space and XP machine, in that it provides a want to neatly divide your display familar layout and runs ke the into sections so that you can work —_clappers even on dated hardware ‘on multiple projects sideby-side _Fluxiox’s conservative use of = orjust keep tabs on ankhtop scr fe makes tideal for session ona remotemachine- ald netbooks, while Awesome has then is bliss. Youll wonder why plenty to sing about as well you ever wasted so much time And if you want to create the WM manually huffing windows around of your dreams without hacking th the mouse, avigy on code, ust spend a few Ofcourse, constant keyboard months meticulously crafting an usage isnt for everyone, and ifyou FYWM configuration fleand ive have a.good relationship with your forever in peace. managers he worth investigating in the others. WM if we were i3 makes so much sense for geeks — while it takes a while to master, the learning curve is worth it. Dee apa Pee reel ey Pore eer een) eer cy cere Pe amar ety Pe ee ar re Pra eedy Peers ee oe nna) Pe ed ene een) ~ the programs runing onthe emote eer cy eens eee eet tis eet rt) ee ery Erect Det pet WINDOW MANAGERS [eisitsijssig AY) Everyone should try ating window manager a least once in their lives, we reckon ~ you have nothing to fear but fear sel Miller feature: NextStep goodness “ww ‘A grea alternative to taskbar-based window managers, with some sh themes included. Miller featur: Lua extensions “httpi/awesome.naquadah.org More ting fun, with the ability to customise and add heaps of extra functionality via extensions. Aller feature: Familiarity for Windows 9x users “w.icenm.org i Blazingly fast ad providing a comfortable environment fr those used to old-style Windows releases. Killer feature: Perfect minimalism ‘wwe flusbor.o7g ‘Keeps out of your way but still provides just enough to make you feel at home, Killer feature: Taking up your life ‘wwe fowe.0rg provides pretty much every customisation option you could imagine ~ if youte wing to read the giant man page. wwuilinuxvoice.com 55shop.linuxvoice.com DNF Introducing the magazine that: © Gives 50% of its profits back to Free Software @ Licenses its content CC-BY-SA within 9 months UK - Europe - US/Canada - ROW - DIGITAL UK SUBSCRIPTION Europe - US/Canada - ROW - Payment isin Pounds Stein, 12-month subseribers wll receive 12 issues of Linux Voice a year 7-month subscribers will ceive 7 issue of Linux Voice. f you are dissatisfied in any way you can write to us to cancel your subscription at subseriptions@linuxvotce.com and we will refund you forall unsiled issues, 56 wwuilinuxvoice.comeee NEXT MONTH IN LINUXVOICE EVEN MORE AWESOME! laal eR aS THURSDAY arises 54 Bradley Kuhn There are forces out there that want to take contral of your ‘computer away from you. Don't worry though: Bradley Kuhn has got your back. Cheers Bradley! Automate RSS The old technologies from the dawn of Web 2.0 are not dead; they are only resting. Reanimate RSS, and get your websites to talk to each other. Documentation ‘The good, the bad and the ugly of Linux THE INTERNET OF THINGS documentation = and what you can Frankly, we were unimpressed with the do to make Free Internet of Things buzzphrase — until we Se ee realised that we could hack everything! everyone. LINUX VOICE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BYeae ale. cy 7: Sparkling gems and new releases from the world of Free and Open Source Software Out benevolent editorial overlord Graham Morrison tears himself away from updating Arch Linux to search for the best new free software. ‘Simple file transfer Zget low many times have you automatically negotiate a been sting with your connection across your network laptopand needed to. —_soyou doritneed to worry about IP or cuiky andinstant ante afle addresses how your lents Ree toanothercompute? iryoute connect withone another. Alter Se anything ke us you've ost count. _intaling thetool through Pi the Soars TTheansweristypicalytofinda Python package manage and abit Hoe naan USB thumdive.orusewebsbased of configuration transfering fess eae aust eae emal.orevenaquickinctalatonof 2s simpleas typing agetflename SSH s0thatSFTP works. Bu onone machine, and age filename conthe other. The to chents shoud vwevegota soluton which weve findone another andinstigate the foundto be arsimplertouse nd transfer without any further user paricuerywellsutedfor when irterfrenoe ‘someone else's using your computer. Zget uses the ma _zero-configuration networking to Use 2get to quickly transfer files from one machine ona network to-another. Cloud music player Nuvola Player 3 (beta) lease forgive us, We've providers you want to use. Nuvola Preeresmienyee Caen pers ecoet mrusio serves, mostly _streaming services, including because they're so convenient and —_Spotify, Google Play Music, using them means youdonthave Amazon, Deezer, Ri, Plex Turin te wory about taking yourfies with and even Logitech's Media Sever, you,er synchronising your music which could be useful for accessing before makinga tp. Nuva Player your ownlocalcollecton. specialises in being a ingle portal toseveralofthesecioud-based Simple sounds sevioes encapsulating therweb With the plugin installed and the interfacesintoa single window on app running, you select one of the your desktop. WeVveused the old services to get started. The You can upload 50,000, ‘of your own music files cross-eferencing, where a playlist 2xversion before esgeciallon experience isexactlyIMeusinga tp Google Play for free, CoN be created from different Ubuntu, and there’sa majornew web browser, because that’s and aceess them from Sources, but Nuvole keeps things. update on the horizon with the essentially what'srunring within anywhere. simple. And there's alt to like betas of version Snow considered the application window. Desktop ‘about that relatively stable integration includes notifications, Youll need the player and Serobbiing,andyrics, Weld love to additional plugins for whichever ——_see some of Banshees collection 58 ‘wor linuxvoice.comTerminology 0.9 herultiole promises of those physical attributes is quit future computing interfaces, good fun, especially when they fas seen inflms like Minerty don't impede on function, and this, ‘Report or perhaps the positronio is where Terminology comes in, brains of Asimov/s robots, seem to _Terminofogyis a smooth, anachronism of the feature-packed terminal emulator commandline Andyet t's that takes the emulator part 2015,and many ofus useit daly, seriously By defaults simple But the command interpreter is _X-Term startup con one partof the interface, with from the strip lighting of your virtual Terminology is pat of (crralacceetnceayusi Agkckkadarcarocoy LAME a ae odaopa a eamit weear cama eee rnunt bteetmane |, Derminology is a smooth, deioniihe don't dois emulate the physical feature-packed terminal characterites of those early teminals Butewperencngatewor — eMUlator for Linux Development environment KDevelop 4.7.2 DEhasjust celebrated ts but Q's recent emphasis an touch, Toth birthday and for many mobile and proprietary modules of those years, itwasits has meant KDevelpis just as integrated development important as ever. Thankfully, with environment, KDevelop, that made over fiveyears since the first KDE as.accessibleas possibleto re-written 40 release, KDevelop has developers. Like KDE itself, come suonessfully through its dark ‘KDeveloplostits way when amajor period, wit this latest release being update was quickl followed bya another strongrevisionto ther long-promised code overhaul that 47.0 update that appeared in 2 ‘eventually led to a complete rewrite, ‘Av the same time, the Qt pro KDE made easy(er) Help integration, code completion, huge performance improv ‘Develops just ikea version of KDE's ments) excellent Kae text youcan have multi ‘open, wihich is useful if youre using tional development PHP support and a powerful p editor augmented for che project to leam from while lervironment, the wonderful Qt system make ita must-ty for KDE developers, whichis coding into another but the best Creator. Qt Creator benefited froma develogers, and even other ‘exactly what an IDE thing about KDevelop is that its fulltime team and the official programmers looking for armodem should be. remained relatively lightweight and backing of the Qt project quickly IDE. There's Gnome and wnWidgets straightforward unike its previous making it sick, stable and just as support, for example, along with incarnation, ‘capable as the older KDevelp, support for languages lke Python, QrCreatoris stil great open Perl Ada, ava and Ruby alongside PROJECT WEBSITE developmentenvironment, the perennial C++. We lke the way ‘wor linuxvoice.com 59Interior design Sweet Home 3D 5.1 ell has indeed frazen over Not only has Microsoft created its own Linux distribution, but we're now covering interior design software in the pages of a Linux and open source ‘magazine! But feer not Thanks to ‘open source, were already ahead of the game. We can reveal, for instance, that weve reached peak Chateau Grey and French Linen for colouring, and that next season's hues willbe more vibrant, with yellowbased neutrals and velvet flocked paper coming back into style. We know this because we've experimented with our own palettes textures layouts and furniture, transforming our bedroom offices without epiling a drop of paint. And weve done this thanks to Sweet Home 20. ‘Sweet Home panorama Despite italy sounding ike an ‘add-on forthe popular fe alternative, The Sims, Sweet Home isa serious design tool that combines craughtsmanship, 20 modeling texture mapping and rendering with a sense of homely belonging taken crcty fom vcs tiracyot neds ou start by creating the floor plan, tay cee sab alah angen eu Smemnsdlrin boss snd ayetaaeen oh Seema arcane Thebaendgn marprg ant nedurceangesaatens mate cy oor are covery istecdo tSccrenecarenmn a —itgaino kart bavaadsesoned mca Wuncnoyrsmcioe peel ircteate ne foitacordfengmatie ye layout, you get to play with colours craton lot cuocean berrefedend adit scortng ‘opr aeahevitny Veneers I dpared arhepote sneslnod at wue be taeteactonfun anew Sweet Home 3D combines 3D modelling, texture mapping and rendering butit does include both the AL and Creative Commons colour matching Kt, and align your isnt a problem When yute frishet you can tol acund the ceakime 0 wew using WASD Keys ‘or by dragging a symbol around the olan and you can even rendera ‘hot within the appication with supesinghy photoresist quality {athough takes along tine) or cutput te ene sere a an object fie for Blender. We found the entre process hugely enjoyable, and that's ‘thout any kindof motivation to tidy-up the place or get on makeover How it works: Build your perfect home use the Create walls and Creatercoms' Add the doors, windows furiture and The final output can be rendered within ‘modes to drag your layoutinto existence, _furishings. Import external models if the application or exported as an abject ile Using ether your imagination orreal-word required. Alcolours, textures and materials that can be processed orraytraced ina 3D ‘coordinates from your own property cean be changed according to taste application lke Blend. 60 ‘wor linuxvoice.comMinimal browser Dillo 3.0.5 Ithough al of us on the team stl love Frefox, and consider itone ofthe most important open source projects out there, there are murmurings of disilusioned after event developments. In particular, Fiefox is no longer alightweight web browser requining significant ‘amounts of RAM and CPU if you ‘open more than a dozen tabs at ‘once, Ths has left us eager to find ‘an alternative, at least for the majority of browsing we do, which is searching for our own names and keeping abreast of ‘fToastesPights. ‘hiss one ofthe reasons we found Qutebrowser so effective — the combination of low resouroe usage, ood rendering and Virelike shortcuts revolutionised our browsing behaviour Andi also ‘another reason we're taking alook Secure messaging eve covered quite a few secure instant ‘messaging platforms in the past, but Cutegram has become ‘one of our favourites. As its name implies this isa Telegram client built atoo the at framework {pronounced cute’ by developers), Telegram is awellestablshed platform for messaging securely ‘and privately, There ae official clients for nearly every device — including enother Qe-based offering for Linux and even a client that ean be driven from the command ine. “They're all open source, but the server software that binds clients together is closed — however, many users trust Telegram enough to make ithe default ‘communications tool, and with a reported 60 millon users sending 12billion messages every day, it at Dil, which has recently been Upgraded to version 3 Dilois lightning fast, whichis the first thing you notice after launching its 725k binary its page loading speed takes you back toa time before the irony of responsive web design before JavaScript and even before image maps. But s0 100 does its rendering, which is sparse, often appearing broken and the opposite of what ‘many modem browsers would ‘expect. However, as it should Even Dllds cache is Cleared when youqut compromises are all made for always'be,the words arealvays the browser helping SPeed: Wereally enjoy using ilo, legible and navigation remains both speed andyour and whileit’ssightly too minimal lear Likea Formula racingcar privacy for day-to-day use i's brilant on that’s unsuitable for roads, ills devices lke the Raspberry Por on ‘an older machine that rarely needs Dillo is lightning fast, which arena webspace: is the first thing you notice on launching its 725k binary 2.7.0 has become the goto application for many. This is the other side of the Faustian pactin secure messaging. You need to use a cient the other person is using too, Always compromises Ignoring the almost-impossible-to- ey caty Teleamis sa pial de la Guegometmsreteuroarte, RRM Maltot yaaa ra Trechcceesnstighmsgitand CHa es ry toca te Gta fec.itingh wal wietrostany ghar benepdsedin Weal row end may messages Telegram’s encryption deskiop. Transitions aresmooth teh wake of the NSA's today, andi very likely that al the andgvea very modem styleto the supposed learning how protocols you use ae insecure (ook user interface, and you can send _—*to crack this method. ‘at SIMS, for instanoe). Telegram isn't and receive messages from more perfect but tis a great application than one account too, even with that’s more open than most. ‘emoticons, whatever they are. Telegrams best prvacy/security features also easily accessible, providing end-to-end encryption, ‘ww. linuxvoice.com a assis)Oxe 1.3.3 tthe very beginning of Tom Cruise's classic 1980s movie, Top Gun, Harold Faltermeyers soundtrack begins with a very distinctive low chiming ‘sound, andi’ a sound that can be heard across many other recordings ofthe era, This sound is preset from the most revolutionary synthesizer of the time, Yamahals DXT, and the sound ‘was called TUB BELLS in reference tothe instrument made famous by Mike Oldfield over a decade befor. “The DX? was revolutionary for ‘tworeasons. Firstly its sound generator was driven by frequency ‘modulation. This is where a simple ‘cartier waveform hasits frequency ‘modulated by another waveform ‘operating within the auelo range, creating almost infirite complexity. “The sounds it generates are incredibly distinctve, especially for brass, bass string and belMike Display Fr parameter feedback and preset names E Presets Sitch betneen the 2 banks of 127 presets Etfecs Add excelent delay and reverb effec El Operators These generate sound from a preselected waveform NoisefEnvelopes Each operator has contol of amplitude ofr time, ls pitch, except thi noise generator Fite outputs fom the othe operators int a simple iter and mix values fr iter, noise and outputs ELF Ad repeating modulation and change mix evel mor 62 timbres, and they‘ quit different from the classic subtractive sounds cof older synths. Oxe grinding The second reason the DXT was revolutionary was because it was dita Yamaha caanily ought the fights to the algorithms inthe 1970s, andby the 1980s, advances inintegrated circuits meantitcould finally implement in software what other sys were doing in hardware, They buita synthesizer that was technical superior while costing considerably less than the competition, The DXT was cheep, robust. duotimbral and polphoni, unlike almost anyother synth. This iswhy the sound of Yamaha's FM smithesisis allover the 80s, While early FM sounded fresh and modem, ubiquity soon lett feeling cheap. You'll have heard theminalmost every game from Mod Matix Set modulation level for each operator, the mid-90s, for example, as a single chip of an FM synthesizer was nearly always botted on to ‘every soundcard and console, ‘As you'dimagine from one of the first digital synthesizers, there have Oxe FM is a VST synth plugin that replicates the sound of the DX7 synth bbeen many recreations in software, But good ones are rare, which is why when one ofthe best Windows FM synths became open source and then started bundling a Linux version, we had to take notice, Ove Fis 2 VST synth plugin that recreates the sound of the DX7. ‘There's even an optional skin to ‘make itlook like one. To install youll need a VSFoompatible host ‘such as OTractor or Ardour. You then place the pre-compiled 60 binary intoa location that you add to the plugin path of your host. The plugin should then appear just ike any other FM synthesisis stil complicated, and this makes the ‘Ore GUI look more intimidating than youmight expect. Tere are six ‘operators, just Ike the original DX7, plus anoise generator and a filter ‘These are all mixed together ina huge bank of knabs known asa ‘modulation matrix. This cleverly allows you to mix the input from ‘one source into another, as well as the final output, But you dont need to understand anything about FM touse the synth Itcomes witha couple of banks of excellent presets, revealing the 1980s inal their Day-Gio glory, and you can ccbviously change and adapt these ‘sounds to suit your own purposes. We thinkit sounds fabulous, and with FM making a retro-comeback theres never been a better ime to (get reacquainted with the DXT. ‘wor linuxvoice.comLaSSigltaes) asad ec Gu Strategy game Tanks of Freedom 0.3-7 beta [= read ourtuteralinissue skirmish, and battle against other 20 on the Gadbt games humans. There's even amap eation engine and were editing mode for creating your own, intrigued by what kind of results scenarios, which is great fun in might be possible, Tanks of itself Despite the games beta Freedom's perfect example Its status, we found performance was excellent old-school turbased excellent, with the game already strategy game, where you move playable and addictive enough to ‘and upgrade units to takebest keep you playing, advarrage of yeurresouces is hou packages fr our deoignisgogecus and stdkedin —dstbuon (ch wenende restakja histo ts eometic stot te code games engine, Welmetie tte sate yeu own cont, Doe ar fabuouscnptune _whhohneededtobe but and tren Saunataektatcomes reine ee how torts. Trusicendarefectiaienspeech dovive relates Taisof th ae wel thought synthesis. The 16-bit pixel art of Freedom files from the code title screen effects. ‘out and designed game that dlderversons hasbeen updates rept. These ad only erie brings tht ocho ibotbitbutisisometiolaeat TzMBandircuded the gare og Fr felg to yur Linx des, and tremovementttreurts_arwokandsound. Al wethen and dente vert oki very much fee's ike an old game. needed to do was add the youve got some time to fill ‘The gameplay will fel familar to configuration file as @ new project anyone who's played Westwoods _ within Godot pressing Play to the (ol Dune li game,and you can launch the game. Launching from playa campaign.or acneoff the Godot engine also means you Platformer Sol 1.2 GPLaioensaarcecode. — motetimeexpetertng and Homer asthe wetate sn, _simpyenoangthe lols bt "WeTustyouto suppor use removesmucnoftheteson and S2/SEVBMEYRUGEE —tarormee (espe ones ith alcowhatwe doherest Linx stessthatgoes wth alata _Manddownea ough try Vaca sowethighi recommend gameespaialyegmewin — aegauieseye | rs) are fads fran a cbovnlosdngthedara paying aspretonafor 1800s nostaia.—ammmenirangadh sa gestexanrle Wed veto thefrttreledsondiying However ropeydeagned——_yousel see the gare Deore succesful tregareltyou kek enough that he Sevopers wie Theganetsefeisieesot | The visual style is primitive, |] #obe:swrdsatesopn tough platform action, source too, Graphicallyitemindsusofalx but the level design in Sol is Kd, an arcade geme from the 80s, butgame mechanics are absolutely top notch ‘ww Linuxvoice.com 63Code Club is a nationwide network of volunteer-led after school clubs for children aged 9-11. We're always looking for people with coding skills to volunteer to run aclub at their local primary school, library or community centre for an hour a week. You can team up with colleagues, a teacher will be there to support you and we provide all the materials you'll need to help get children excited about digital making. There are loads of ways to get involved! So to find out more, join us at www.codeclub.org.ukite} TUTORIALS LV TUTORIALS Warning: excessive Linux knowledge may lead to fun and more efficient computing. Ben Everard ‘akes mistakes, bt resto learn rom them. You shuld to. \ebeen batingtond cn foro [istceeserncte ity tlie eendthe ht petal on rans wrk Saban tot beens un err Yous put off going to the dacter because you feel youte too busy and dont wait until its too late to make changes to your work setup We should consider using a ‘computer to be a dangerous activity because, wel tis. Ther’ a good Chane that sitting at a desk for work vill at some point, leave you in pain, This isnt something you cen abdicate to your employers heath and safety team, because youl suffera lot more than them if anything goes ‘wrong. Take a ite time now to research the best posture and ergonomics. Be prepared to spend a litle on a decent keyboard and mouse. Think very carefully before committing tousinga laptop long tem. They may be convenient, but do they enable you tositina safe position? Don't watt until itbecomes a problem: take action now, bben@linuxvoice.com In this issue... Give presentations anywhere with HTML HIMLs the one uriversal language, so Valentine Sinitsym uses it fr presentations and oesrit get caught out by software mismatches. a Build aquizmachine 72 Motors, caréboard and glue are the only things Les Pounder needs fo start a game show. Coding Economic modelling 4 ‘Andrew Conway models ‘mathematical equation wih his rag-and-droppng finger ‘wor linuxvoice.com Monitor over Bluetooth 76 Ben Everard never kes to be away from his compute, so be stays in touch with Bluetooth Build a filesystem ‘Wing to esis for wimps. Ben Everard bulds an entire flesystem to save his data Type without touching the keyboard. John Lanes too lazy to type commands. Join him 2 he delves deep inside his terminal to autornate the prooess of entering text Database 101 80 Find out how web apps work with part oof Mike Saunders database series = {88 Functional programming 90 Jaliet Kemp enters the world of Haskell wth nly functions to ude he. 65SHOWER SHOWER: BUILD HTML- BASED PRESENTATIONS Making a presentation should be no harder than writing a blog post. VALENTINE SINITSYN Ta Perec Sepa seas vio See ers eres ee ees recente Pi PROTIP ire erry poet Your sides may include not only images, but aso equations, thanks tothe Mather brary, Basic math Square equation roots e219 = 66 ae ead conta hatever job you do, youre likely to.do presentations from time to time. A defacto standard slide maker is Microsoft PowerPoint Is certainly powerful (perhaps too much for an occasional presentet), but non-free, and provides no su Impressisa close free alternative, an handle PowerPoint documents, up to point. The troubles that quite often PowerPoint documents are rendered cfferently on different ‘machines. You know what we mean: fonts could be diferent shapes and sizes, equations missing or garbage and so on. Impress can always export your slides to PDF: this way, you gain fidelity but lose much of the interactivity Modem web browsers are quite powerful and flexible, too — so, why not use a browser asa presenter tool? ‘Showeris @ JavaScript library that makes it tocreate presentations with plain HTML and CSS. There's no visual editor asin PowerPoint! Impress, out if you already use HTML or Markdown for your biog, everything should go smoothly ‘Tostarta presentation download http://shwrme/shower2ip and unzip it Now, open your favourite text editor ang start making changes, The archive a ‘many "lorem ipsum slides of varying layouts you can se as templates or for reference. Usually, this is more effective than starting from soratch, After you finish a slide or two, save your work an preview the presentation (index.html) in 2 brow ty contains safe www. linuxvoice.com Simply toggle the browser window to full-screen, and press FS to begin the presentation ‘Shower recognises several hotkeys: Space/-»/4 ‘moves to the next slide, Shift+Space/-+/1/brings you back and F5 toggles presentation made, a3 in Impress. For that reason, you cant use F5 to reload ‘a page If this bothers you, use browser addons, ike Auto Reload for Firefox. Laying out slides ‘Shower eats everything with a lide class as a slide Usually it’ eseetion, and the side body goes wrapped in 2div> inside it You can use any HTML markup you like, but as usual, avid being too nosy Better stick to lists, paragraphs, headings and images. For starters, give your resentation ate. Simply exit the contents of le» in the page head and -cheadet/> nthe body. ow, proceed to slides. Text goes in

, and headings use

. Bullet (eu) and ordered (eb) sis, hyperlinks (a>), quotations (

) and even tables are readily supported and styled appropriately. Each slide has an ID (either ‘explicitly assigned or an automatically generated ‘ordinal: 1,2, 3... S0 you.can oreate cross et viaea nef="Fid/> Sometimes, a sdemay a few words ike ‘Questions?’ shout class to stylet Nor-default Shower theres may define ditional classes. The