Ubuntu and Debian

Ubuntu and Debian are closely related. Ubuntu builds on the foundations of Debian architecture and infrastructure, with a different community and release process.

Debian is "the rock upon which Ubuntu is built".

Debian is a volunteer project to develop a GNU/Linux distribution. Debian was started more than a decade ago. It has several "packages" of free and open source applications and documentation.

Sponsored by Canonical, the Ubuntu project attempts to work with Debian to address the issues that keep many users from using Debian. Ubuntu provides a system based on Debian with frequent time-based releases, corporate accountability, and a more considered desktop interface. Ubuntu provides users with a way to deploy Debian with security fixes, release critical bug fixes, a consistent desktop interface, and to never be more than six months away from the latest version of anything in the open source world.

Most source packages in all Ubuntu components are copied unmodified from Debian, but other sources include apt-get.org, REVU, directly from organisations such as Blackdown and WineHQ, software which has been packaged by Ubuntu developers, and packages created specifically for Ubuntu.

Edubuntu - Go Education

Edubuntu is a Linux distribution targeted for schools and other educational environments. It is a complete operating system, built on the popular Ubuntu distribution, that includes an office suite, web browser, many educational applications, and much more. Edubuntu is designed for a teacher or network administrator to be able to setup a complete classroom quickly and easily.

Some useful links

Official Page

Download

Some screen shots of Edubuntu.

Inkscape Vector Illustrator - Open Source vector graphics editor

Inkscape Vector Illustrator is a free and open source drawing program similar to Illustrator and CorelDraw. It uses W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.

"The name is made up of the two English words 'ink' and 'scape'. Ink is a common substance for drawings, and is used when the sketched work is ready to be permanently committed to paper, and thus evokes the idea that Inkscape is ready for production work. A scape is a view of a large number of objects, such as a landscape or ocean-scape, and thus alludes to the object-oriented nature of vector imagery. "

The latest stable version is 0.46.

To install Inkscape in Ubuntu type the following in terminal,

sudo apt-get install inkscape

Some screen shots of Inkscape Editor.

Software packaging formats in Linux

Linux uses some common formats to distribute software. The most common formats for the average Ubuntu user are:

1. Debian Packages (.deb)
2. Tarballs
3. Red Hat packages (.RPM)

Debian packages (.deb)

Debian Packages are the most common format you will encounter when installing software in Ubuntu. This is the standard software packaging format used by Debian and Debian derivatives. All of the software in the Ubuntu repositories is packaged in this format. Synaptic Package Manager, Add/Remove Applications, Aptitude, and apt-get handle the transaction with the repository behind the scenes.

Tarballs

Tarballs are a large collection of files assembled into a single archive file. The "tar" command is used to combine many files into a single file for archiving or easy distribution. The "gzip" command is used to compress the size of a file so that it takes up less space. A tarball is very similar to a .zip file on Windows or a .hqxfile on Macs. Tarballs have extensions like ".tar.gz", ".tar.bz2" or "TGZ".

RPMs

The Red hat Package Manager or .RPM format is specifically designed for easy installation and management of software packages. The format allows you to automatically install, upgrade and remove software packages. It tracks dependencies -- situations where one package requires another package in order to work correctly -- and will not install software if it depends on another package which is not installed.

Reference: https://help.ubuntu.com

Jaunty’s New Usplash Theme

Canonical has updated the boot splash screen (USplash) theme with a very nice one for Jaunty. As you can see in the image below, the logo is the same as it was in Ubuntu 8.10, but it's smaller and the loading bar was replaced with a thinner and nicer one (see the video below for more details). It looks more professional than the previous one, and the new loading bar has a gradient effect.

Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) will be the last release of the Ubuntu operating system that will use the old USplash software. Starting with Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala), Canonical will replace it with Red Hat's Plymouth.

Jaunty’s New Usplash Theme

Jaunty’s New Usplash Theme Video

Azureus - now called Vuze - Bittorrent Client

Vuze (formerly Azureus) is a free BitTorrent client used to transfer files via the BitTorrent protocol. Vuze is written in Java, and uses the Azureus Engine. The Azureus engine is released under the GNU General Public License, and is free software. However, parts of the recently added Vuze platform carry more restricted licensing terms, and it is no longer possible to install the Azureus engine using the latest installer without first accepting the Vuze license.

The Blue Poison Dart Frog (Dendrobates azureus) was chosen as the logo and named by co-creator Tyler Pitchford. This choice was due to Latin names of poison dart frogs being used as codenames for his development projects. In 2006 "Vuze" was released as an attempt to transform the client into a "social" client by a group of the original developers forming Azureus Inc., shortly to be renamed Vuze, Inc.

To install Vuze in Ubuntu, type the following in terminal.

sudo apt-get install vuze

Ubuntu Kernel

The kernel is the software that directly manages your hardware, allowing application libraries and software like GNOME and Firefox to run on many types of hardware without much difficulty. The kernel is loaded into memory when the system starts and remains in memory.

Monolithic Kernels

Monolithic kernels are kernels that have all of the device modules built directly into the kernel. The advantage of the Monolithic kernel is that it can communicate faster as the device modules are built in. Monolithic kernels are not flexible because a new kernel must be built to add any new peripheral devices. This difficulty often then resulted in a huge kernel as the tendency was to build in support for more devices than was needed to avoid having to build a kernel.

Modular Kernels

The Ubuntu kernel is modular. Modular kernels provide many device modules as separate loadable modules so the kernel is much smaller. Modular kernels are slower in communication to modules because they cannot talk with them directly. The Modular kernel is much more flexible and because of size reduces the boot time of the kernel. The modprobe and insmod commands can be used to load modules.

Kernel modules are object files (they have a .o extension) which were produced by the C compiler but were not linked to a completed executable. Thus the process of loading modules creates this executable link to the kernel. The modules are distributed with the kernel and can be found in /lib/modules.

Here is a view of /lib/modules with the default kernel directory.

ls /lib/modules

To verify which kernel you are running go to the command line and type this command:

uname -r

The difference that you will see is that the generic kernel is set for the i586 and the i686 architectures while the server kernel will focus on the i686 architecture. The reality is that the closer you can tune the kernel to your specific CPU and hardware, the better the performance you will receive.