Archive for the 'Linux' category

Rather than downloading a pirated copy of Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), I keep repeating that you should try a free download of OpenOffice. But some people complain that it is too slow. I am not of this opinion, but I found a post about how to accelerate OpenOffice on an Ubuntu GNU/Linux. But this advice is applicable to other configurations (OpenOffice is available for Windows, GNU/Linux, Apple Mac).

The bootchart utility is able to produce a simple PNG image of the boot sequence of your GNU/Linux configuration. Installation is a snap:

sudo apt-get install bootchart

The result is a nice little thing like:

Portable apps for a portable USB key.

• Portable Office Software
• Portable Email/Calendar/ToDo Programs
• Portable Text and Voice Messengers
• Portable Media Tools (Audio / Video)
• Portable Graphics Viewers and Image Editors
• Portable Browsers and Web Tools (FTP, Feedreaders, Torrent clients…)
• Portable Security Software
• Portable Games
• Other Portable Utilities
• Portable Developer Tools (Techies Only)
• All-In-One Packages
• Portable Operating Systems (’HowTo’ Articles)
• USB ThumDrive Tips

AMD (previously ATI) has prepared entry-level graphics cards under the names of Radeon HD 2400 and Radeon HD 2600. These lines were quite eagerly expected since nVidia was nearly alone on the DirectX 10-compatible card market (mostly with its geForce 8600 line). Even if the DirectX 10 games are still uncommon, we expect many of them to be coming up (including Crysis from EA - an FPS expected for September 11, 2007).

Recently, we saw a number of analysis of these new cards, that I would like to share with you:

• HD video comparison of geForce 8600 and Radeon 2600 (Guru 3D)
• AMD’s Radeon HD 2400 and 2600 series graphics processors (TechReport)
• AMD 2400/2600 74-page monster test (HardSpell)
• Radeon 2000-series and Linux (Phoronix)

Aquamacs is a software program in development for two years, but the ambition is quite interesting: Integrate Emacs, the prfered text editor of Roumazeilles.net, into the Aqua environment for Mac. This is an impressive feat because they are at the opposite ends of technology: Aqua is associated to graphics elegance, subtlety and grace allied to the most modern techniques of User Interfaces; Emacs is known for its roughness, performance and complexity.

Worth considering by all Mac lovers who checked on GNU-Emacs and were not satisfied by the lack of integration in the Mac GUI.

Installing the GNU-Emacs text editor under Windows could not be simpler:

1. Uncompress all files in a directory
2. Run the ADDPM.exe program

But there is still a little improvement to add if you want additional comfort. Everywhere I install this program, I want to ensure that I can open any file with GNU-Emacs just by right-clicking on it (with an additional Emacs edit entry in the menu).

I add an entry in the registry database by running a file containing:

The file is ready to use: emacs.reg (but I guess that you would prefer to modify the installation path to adapt to your own GNU-Emacs installation directory - for me it was in \bin\emacs-20.7).

One of the most efficient way to start a religious war between white hat hackers is to ask “what is the best text editor?” Everybody got their own choice and they are quite sensitive to the issue.

My own choice is Emacs.

Today I have the pleasure to announce that GNU-Emacs is released in its new version 22.1 (to include new extensions for a better GUI integration).

Immediate free download on the GNU Official Site.

Qtpfsgui is really the name of this utility program for GNU/Linux that allows to do High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography by grouping several images exposed differently to get a new image surprisingly clear and readble. Any Linux-loving digital photographer should try it.

Lightzone is a RAW manipulation tool (”Your personal digital darkroom“) that some people like a lot for its specific set of qualities (clean neat interface, support for a lot of RAW file formats, ability to handle batch jobs, end-to-end color management) despite its hefty price tag ($150 for the Basic version and $250 for the Full version for Windows or Mac).

Now, thanks to Download Squad, I noticed that there is more than the 30-day trial version that you could be interested into. Light Crafts made LightZone available for free for those of you running GNU/Linux. I would say that it make sense to have a partition running Linux on your PC (or maybe even a LiveCD boot and some reserved disk space) just to be able to run some useful applications like LightZone on your computer.

The Linux-based LightZone is essentially the Full version of the software application, so it’s a really neat bargain.

However, you will not find it on the corporate web site of Light Crafts. You should go to the specific LightZone for Linux web site. Light Crafts is OK with it, but does not want to support this version. However, since this is good software…

PS: After all, it looks a little like the shareware strategy of some years ago. You can use my software application, it should be attracting you to pay in full later for additional benefits (here, to get to run it natively on your Mac OSX or Windows).

Update: Modified the link to LightZone for Linux.

Microsoft promised that the new graphics standard for Windows (DirectX 10) will not be applied to anything older than Windows Vista. This was enough to push some people in looking for ways to make it work on Windows XP (WinXP), or on Mac, or on Linux. A guy, named Cody Brocious from San Diego, California, claims to have had the first success at this. He created a wrapping code to make those DirectX 10 appplications (mostly games) run on Windows XP and even on some DirectX 9 hardware.

That could quickly become one of the most interesting development in video games for Windows this year.

Cody Brocious official Project Alky blog.

From the Inquirer.

The Unidentified Flying Raw (UFRaw) is a utility to read and manipulate raw images from digital cameras. It can be used on its own or as a Gimp plug-in. It reads raw images using Dave Coffin’s excellent raw conversion utility - DCRaw. UFRaw supports basic color management using Little CMS, allowing the user to apply color profiles. For Nikon users UFRaw has the advantage that it can read the camera’s tone curves. Even if you don’t own a Nikon, you can still apply a Nikon curve to your images.

You are using Firefox, you want to use it at its best, you should go to the FireFox tweak guide.