Ubuntu Tutorials

I know this isn’t particularly new, but seeing some news this morning about potentially more Google Apps coming to the Linux Desktop I thought I’d throw this together.

How to install Google Apps on your Ubuntu Desktop.

Currently the list of applications within the Google repository is Google Desktop and Picasa.  We could be seeing some more soon, but we’ll have to wait and see on more details.

Set up the repository

You’ll want to add the following to your sources.list. This can be done graphically via the System > Admin > Software Sources menu, or via manually editing your /etc/apt/sources.list file.

deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb stable non-free

Once you’ve got that you’ll also need Googles package signing key.  This can also be done via the GUI or the command line.  Try this command to pull down the key file and then we’ll import it to the apt system:

wget -c https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub

If you still have the Software Sources window open switch tabs to  Authentication and click Import Key File…   Look for the file you just pulled down (probably in your home folder) and click OK.

Installing Google Desktop

We’re now ready to install the Google Desktop or Picasa tool.  From the command line enter:

sudo aptitude update

sudo aptitude install google-desktop-linux  picasa

You can also install these via your favorite package manager front-end like Synaptic or Adept if you prefer.  Simply search for the package name.

I should mention that just because these are available for Linux does not mean they are now Free Software or Open Source.  They are to be considered non-free so the choice is yours.  If you don’t like the non-free cooties on your system, don’t bother installing this.

Quick Tips

If you do install the Google Desktop there are a few things that you might want to be aware of.

1. ctrl-ctrl will open a desktop search applet allowing you to quick-search the web, your gmail or your desktop.
2. you can set your preferences by right-clicking on the Google Desktop icon in your notification tray.  This allows you to customize what is indexed and what is not.

Notes

More resources for configuring or installing the Google Desktop tools available here.

If this article has been helpful, please consider linking to it.

Preface

Saturday night the Ubuntu Utah Team had a great presentation on Privacy and Encryption. One very important topic and another very interesting topic. With as much is going on these days to screw with our privacy (NSA) it isn’t a bad idea to learn a little bit about encryption. Now, I know you may think that you aren’t doing anything private so what is the point? I’m not doing anything “private” either, but honestly if I really wanted to talk to the NSA I’d send my emails directly to them. I’m not doing things that *needs* to be hidden, it’s simply a matter of it not being any of their business.

I have for some time now been digitally signing my emails. If you’ve seen me pop-up on a mailing list or got any emails from me you’ve probably seen a digital signature in-line or as an attachment. Via this digital signature you can verify that the exact contents of the email into your box is the same contents that came out of mine. If even *one* character changed the signature would not validate and you could tell the email or signature had been tampered with.

I have also started signing and *encrypting* emails to others that also have a PGP key pair that I have personally trust-signed. We’ll get into the trust signing later but I wanted to share a few steps and some other references to how you can generate your own key and also be able to sign and / or encrypt emails or files.

The GUI Front-End

There are a number of tools to help you generate and manage your PGP keys. I suggest seahorse on gnome or kgpg on KDE. You can also use the command line equivalent on either system, which will be standard between the two. (note: there are also solutions for OS X and Windows, but I won’t get into those.)

First we’ll install the GUI front-end to go with the pre-installed GnuPG back-end.

sudo aptitude install seahorse (gnome)

or

sudo aptitude install gpa (gnome)

or

sudo aptitude install kgpg (kde)

Creating The Key

Now that we have one of these installed we’ll launch the front-end and start creating a key. In this example I’ll refer to seahorse but the steps should fairly easily transfer to the other two applications.

Applications > Accessories > Passwords and Encryption Keys

Select “Key” from the File Menu and “Create New Key (ctrl-N)”

This will prompt you with a selection between PGP and SSH. In this case we’ll want PGP.

The next window will prompt you for your full name, email address and comment. It is generally recommended to use your full legal name (not nicknames or aliases) and your primary valid email address. I suggest leaving the comment section empty.

You may want to select the “Advanced key options” button and set a higher key strength. The default type DSA Elgamal of 2048 is a very powerful key strength but it does support up to 4096 as well. Personally I chose the 4096 but, again, the default 2048 is plenty powerful in itself.

You can also optionally select a date that this key will expire. Unless you know a reason why you’d want to do that (sometimes for temporary project-based keys, etc) you can safely set it to not-expire.

When you hit “Create” it will ask you for a passphrase to bind to this key pair. Choose a good, solid, more-than-a-dozen character passphrase to make this even more solid. Your digital signature and key are only as strong as its weakest link which is the passphrase. If someone gets a hold of your passphrase they can make use of your private key, un-encrypt emails sent to you or appear to be you! Once you have entered the passphrase it will generate your key pair. Remember this passphrase because, without it, the key pair is useless!

Depending on the key strength and the speed of your machine this may take a while. You should see a progress bar on the screen while it processes a new key. Just be patient.

You now have a basic key that is capable of digitally signing and optionally encrypting emails or files. One great use of this is to digitally sign the Ubuntu Code of Conduct as outlined here.

Using the Key

For those of you that want to get started right away signing emails you may be interested in some of the extensions available for commonly used mail applications. Thunderbird has a great one (actually the #1 reason I use Thunderbird as my client) with Enigmail. You can find it on the mozilla addons site or via the ubuntu repositories.

Evolution has PGP support built in but it is not as flexible (or at least I haven’t figured it out). You can find this in the Privacy tab of your email box settings.

Now this tutorial is getting a bit long so I’ll have to expand this next time and explain expanding your key with your alternate email addresses, keysigning parties, etc.

Until then I hope this helped a little bit.

UPDATE: screenshots of the key creation here [1,2,3,4]

Two major things to remember before you run off and start playing around. Remember your passphrase and back up your private key!!

Your public and private keys are found in ~/.gnupg/ . I suggest backing up this entire folder to an external USB. If you lose your private key the whole pair is useless. Even if you still have the public key and the passphrase the private key section is the most critical part of the process.

With Microsoft as dominant as it is (see Bug #1) we often need to look for compatibility options for a number of things. There are teams working on all types of compatibility issues but one of them is already taken care of (and I’m sure there are many more to come). This tutorial will allow you to install Microsoft’s Core Font package on your Ubuntu system, allowing you to see and use the same fonts that all of our Windows friends are used to.

Simply run the following command which will retrieve and install the Microsoft Core Fonts. (Note: license restrictions, of course, do not allow these to be freely distributed but Microsoft does make them available for download. This script simply downloads the publicly available files.)

sudo aptitude install msttcorefonts

After this is done cranking through the downloads you should now have access to these fonts the next time you launch your next Word Processing application. Enjoy your proprietary compatibility.

I have been using the Tor privacy network for quite some time now and I really appreciate the anonymity it allows me. It is very easy to setup on Ubuntu systems and basically offers you the freedom to surf and chat anonymously. No more tracking by marketers or wondering if someone can find you based on your IP. Of course always remember to use your powers of invisibility for good! Here you can find out more about the Tor Network.

1. sudo aptitude install tor
2. sudo vim /etc/tor/torrc
3. sudo vim /etc/privoxy/config
4. comment out: “logfile logfile” and “jarfile jarfile”
5. find: listen-address 127.0.0.1:8118
6. add (on next line): forward-socks4a / localhost:9050 . (including the period)
7. sudo /etc/init.d/tor restart && sudo /etc/init.d/privoxy restart
8. configure your network to now use Tor and Privoxy.

That is a pretty quick setup for getting the engine to work, now to actually use it. This can be used globally if set in your network proxy config (System > Preferences > Network Proxy) or individually by program that allows proxy configuration.

Firefox Setup / Global Network Proxy Settings:

1. Edit > Preferences > Advanced > “Connection”
2. HTTP and SSL Proxy: localhost: 8118
3. SOCKS Host: localhost 9050

Or for an even simpler method simply download the Tor Plugin for Firefox. It allows you to turn on / off the Tor proxy with a click of a button.

For gaim:

1. Edit any account (Jabber, MSN, etc)
2. “Advanced” Tab or “Proxy Settings” (depending on your version of gaim)
3. Proxy Type: SOCKS 5
4. Host: 127.0.0.1
5. Port: 9050
6. Done

For IRC (freenode) over gaim:

1. Edit your IRC account settings
2. change “irc.freenode.net” to: mejokbp2brhw4omd.onion
3. “Advanced” Tab or “Proxy Settings” (depending on your version of gaim)
4. Proxy Type: SOCKS 5
5. Host: 127.0.0.1
6. Port: 9050

Enjoy using the Tor Privacy network. If you enjoy it, consider hosting another private node on the network to expand its reach and bandwidth. It is very easy to setup (outside of the scope of this tutorial) and you can limit the bandwidth available. Those instructions (hopefully) coming soon.

Dear eBay user,

As you know, I almost never reach out to you personally with a request to get involved in a debate in the U.S. Congress. However, today I feel I must.

Right now, the telephone and cable companies in control of Internet access are trying to use their enormous political muscle to dramatically change the Internet. It might be hard to believe, but lawmakers in Washington are seriously debating whether consumers should be free to use the Internet as they want in the future.

Join me by clicking here — http://www.ebaymainstreet.com/netneutrality — to send a message to your representatives in Congress.

The phone and cable companies now control more than 95% of all Internet access. These large corporations are spending millions of dollars to promote legislation that would allow them to divide the Internet into a two-tiered system.

The top tier would be a “Pay-to-Play” high-speed toll-road restricted to only the largest companies that can afford to pay high fees for preferential access to the Net.

The bottom tier — the slow lane — would be what is left for everyone else. If the fast lane is the information “super-highway,” the slow lane will operate more like a dirt road.

Today’s Internet is an incredible open marketplace for goods, services, information and ideas. We can’t give that up. A two-lane system will restrict innovation because start-ups and small companies — the companies that can’t afford the high fees — will be unable to succeed, and we’ll lose out on the jobs, creativity and inspiration that come with them.

The power belongs with Internet users, not the big phone and cable companies. Let’s use that power to send as many messages as possible to our elected officials in Washington. Please join me by clicking here right now to send a message to your representatives in Congress before it is too late. You can make the difference.

Thank you for reading this note. I hope you’ll make your voice heard today.

I was recently referred to a site that I instantly knew I had to share with everyone else. It’s name: Explorer Destroyer. It’s mission: Kill Bill’s Browser.

I’d encourage everyone to implement this on their sites. Hey Gabe, use this on the Utah Open Source Planet instead of just causing that weird error message. Make a few bucks while you lock out the infidels.
From Explorer Destroyer:

Three settings: Gentle, Semi-serious, and Dead-serious

When you install the script on your site, you can decide how muchforce you want to use to convince your users to switch away from thedark side:

Level 1: Gentle Encouragement Rating: $$
Visitors using IE see a message encouraging them to download Firefox(with a download link) running across the top of the page.
Level 1 Demo >> (the demo will pretend you are using IE)

Level 2: Semi-serious Rating: $$$$
Visitors using IE get a friendly splash page encouraging them todownload Firefox. There's a download link, and a link to continue on toyour site.
Level 2 Demo >> (the demo will pretend you are using IE)
Update: Xavier sent us this modified version of level 2 that will only show the splash page occasionally. Download it here and see a live demo here.

Level 3: Dead serious
Level 3 will not allow people using IE past a splash page. This levelis very useful for sites that are not IE6 compatible. And there's neverbeen a more important moment to switch people to Firefox. Can youhandle it? (At least try it for a day to see how good it feels.)Unfortunately, level 3 is a little too intense for the Adsensepolicies, so for this level you'll have to use a regular, non-Adsenselink to download Firefox.
Level 3 Demo >> (the demo will pretend you are using IE)

Download Explorer Destroyer

Verizon treads into the realm of The Prince by ZDNet‘s Mitch Ratcliffe — Verizon’s changed its customer agreement with wording that could limit or ban class action law suits by customers. You have to act to opt out.

From the article:

NationalAccess and BroadbandAccess data sessions may be used with wireless devices for the following purposes: (i) Internet browsing; (ii) email; and (iii) intranet access (including access to corporate intranets, email and individual productivity applications like customer relationship management, sales force and field service automation). Unlimited NationalAccess/BroadbandAccess services cannot be used (1) for uploading, downloading or streaming of movies, music or games, (2) with server devices or with host computer applications, including, but not limited to, Web camera posts or broadcasts, automatic data feeds, Voice over IP (VoIP), automated machine-to-machine connections, or peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, or (3) as a substitute or backup for private lines or dedicated data connections.

So, in other words, Verizon’s advertised “Unlimited” use is clearly NOT unlimited. You can add Verizon to the growing lists of providers & companies that I won’t be working with. Misleading advertising, over-limited terms of service, “you can’t sue us” agreements and proprietary lock-in are not good for any customer.

When will businesses ever care about the customer?

I came across two great videos hosted over at ZDNet about DRM and the ‘real’ explanation of what it does.

ZDNet Executive Editor David Berlind suggests that CRAP or Content, Restriction, Annulment, and Protection, is a catchier phrase than DRM - Digital Rights Management. Why does he think this technology is crap? Once you've bought music or other content to play on one device, it won't play on any other device because of the proprietary layer of CRAP.

A load of C.R.A.P

He also released a follow-up video on the topic which is also interesting. Too bad the general public doesn’t understand this aspect of DRM.

Digital Rights Management-- or what ZDNet Executive Editor David Berlind calls C.R.A.P. (Content Restriction Annulment Protection) -- has enabled companies like Apple to lock music downloaded through their service into their own devices. Berlind describes an effort to create a DRM standard so content can flow seamlessly between multiple devices.

C.R.A.P that won't go away

Bill Gates demands open source by ZDNet‘s Dana Blankenhorn — “We have to change the way we work,” is the way Nick Hellman, the interim director of HIV projects at the Foundation, put it.

Bill Gates is demanding that AIDS researchers share or open source their results if they’re to get some of the $287 million the Gates Foundation is putting into the search for AIDS vaccines.

From the article:

“The Foundation has recognized that one of the forces slowing medical progress is greed commercial rivalries, bureaucratic rivalries, personal rivalries.”

Hey Bill. Kiss my ass! Let’s take the quote above and remove the word “medical”. Now let’s try again.

“The Foundation has recognized that one of the forces slowing progress is greed — commercial rivalries, bureaucratic rivalries, personal rivalries.”

Tell that to all the developers and companies you’ve left destroyed along your way to the top. You’ve left innovative companies & their technologies dead and stifled everywhere you’ve gone.

Yes, I agree that medical research should be opened up for faster progress but talk about being a damned hypocrite. Shut your mouth. You piss me off.

Microsoft: We won’t be evil, either by ZDNet‘s Ed Burnette — Microsoft has outlined a new corporate philosophy of competition that could be summed up in these familiar words: “Don’t be evil”. While speaking at the New America Foundation luncheon, Brad Smith, the general counsel of Microsoft outlined the “Windows Principles”: Twelve tenets that will govern Microsoft’s approach to competition in the future, even after the US anti-trust ruling expires next year.

This brings two things to mind.  First, I don’t believe a word that comes from anyone at Microsoft.  The trail of bodies they’ve left behind tells far more than some guy saying they want to be good people.

Secondly, if this is true… wait, in no world I can comprehend can Microsoft be 1) innovative, 2) transparent & honest, 3) provide opportunities for competition.