[02:25] <nxlvohyo> Hi all.  It seems we are again seeing javascript based flood spam.  If you are experiencing this, please do not click the links in the messages as they will cause you to repeat the spam. More information is available at http://peoplesprimary.com.  Thanks!
[02:25] <nxlvohyo> Hi all.  It seems we are again seeing javascript based flood spam.  If you are experiencing this, please do not click the links in the messages as they will cause you to repeat the spam. More information is available at http://peoplesprimary.com.  Thanks!
[02:26] <kermiac> don't click the links
[02:28] <sevgav> Hi all.  It seems we are again seeing javascript based flood spam.  If you are experiencing this, please do not click the links in the messages as they will cause you to repeat the spam. More information is available at http://peoplesprimary.com.  Thanks!
[02:28] <sevgav> Hi all.  It seems we are again seeing javascript based flood spam.  If you are experiencing this, please do not click the links in the messages as they will cause you to repeat the spam. More information is available at http://peoplesprimary.com.  Thanks!
[02:30] <kermiac> anyone around that can +R the chan?
[02:30] <kermiac> spambots are hitting harder than usual today :(
[02:32] <pleia2> no, we're going to have far too many unregistered new users tomorrow morning :(
[02:32] <pleia2> coming in from lernid and such
[02:38] <kermiac> good point :(
[02:40] <pleia2> we'll remove it in the morning
[02:41] <kermiac> ok :)
[02:50] <andresmujica> ugghhh i'm so stupid..
[06:24] <will__> anyone here
[06:24] <will__> who can help with ubuntu question?
[06:25] <nigel_nb> will__, this is not a support channel, please in #ubuntu
[06:25] <will__> i dont understand
[06:25] <will__> saying go to #ubuntu?
[06:25] <nigel_nb> will__, yeah, sorry, mistyping.. please ask in #ubuntu
[06:26] <will__> ok
[06:26] <will__> thanks
[08:30] <robertneville777>
[08:30] <robertneville777> whatsup fellow students!
[08:31] <robertneville777> ok
[09:51] <Ghoul> alright
[09:52] <Ghoul> here is where it's coming from
[11:10] <ubu_> hi
[11:10] <bittin> hi
[11:10] <ubu_> what time does the user day start?
[11:11] <AlanBell> in 50 minutes
[11:11] <yofel> in 50 minutes
[11:11] <issyl0> Oh awesome :)
[11:11] <yofel> heh
[11:18] <Yos> T minus 40 minutes
[11:18] <Yos> lol
[11:19] <cjohnston> everyone who is here for User Days, tweet, identi.ca, post about it in your loco channels, facebook, whatever else you use.. (smoke signals if you like) to get people to come join us!
[11:20] <popey> cjohnston: is there an announcement mail i can forward to my loco?
[11:21] <cjohnston> popey: yes
[11:21] <popey> ah found one
[11:21] <cjohnston> let me guess.. you want me to get it?
[11:21] <popey> no, its ok
[11:21] <cjohnston> the one I sent out?
[11:21] <cjohnston> uh oh
[11:21] <cjohnston> lernid is causing errors
[11:22] <cjohnston> someone wake up jono! lol (jk, dont actually wake him up)
[11:22] <Pendulum> hah, so it is
[11:22] <qense> cjohnston: what errors?
[11:22] <Pendulum> I just got that popey isn't a registered protocol as an error
[11:22] <cjohnston> an alert that says cjohnston is not a registered protocol
[11:23] <nigel_nb> qense, I got cjohnston is not a registered protocol
[11:23] <AlanBell> popey really should be a registered protocol
[11:23] <cjohnston> sounds like eveyone has an error
[11:23] <qense> I donnot! I must be registered
[11:23] <popey> so lernid doesn't like it when someone mentions another nickname
[11:23] <nigel_nb> popey, probably
[11:23] <cjohnston> i guess?
[11:23] <popey> we can ask the tutors to make sure they dont do that
[11:24] <AlanBell> it is the colon on the name
[11:24] <qense> ah, I understand! It is the URL parser
[11:24] <nigel_nb> lemme try
[11:24] <cjohnston> thats gonna be really hard
[11:24] <cjohnston> is it AlanBell ?
[11:24] <nigel_nb> popey: test
[11:24] <qense> try to avoid all not http protocols!
[11:24] <cjohnston> AlanBell looks like it is
[11:24] <cjohnston> no colons today!!!
[11:24] <cjohnston> lol
[11:25] <qense> If you've got questions related to Lernid, ping me, I've hacked on it, but I am busy
[11:25] <AlanBell> someone file a bug :-)
[11:26] <AlanBell> was that colon OK?
[11:26] <nigel_nb> I just fixed a bug today
[11:26] <qense> Is anyone actually going to use Lernid's slide feature today?
[11:26] <nigel_nb> qense, no
[11:26] <nigel_nb> qense, we didn't want beginners to miss anything
[11:26] <cjohnston> No.. we requested they not
[11:26] <nigel_nb> and adding ppa is not exactly beginner friendly
[11:26] <qense> makes sense
[11:27] <AlanBell> which ppa should be used for lernid? jonobacon or lernid-dev
[11:27] <nigel_nb> jonobacon I think
[11:27] <cjohnston> I think jono's
[11:28] <cjohnston> hmm
[11:28] <cjohnston> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek/JoiningIn
[11:28] <cjohnston> freaky... sorry to all of you who are on lernid who I just changed your website
[11:28] <nhaines> I just used the lernid-devs PPA and Ubuntu User Day comes up fine.
[11:28] <qense> yes
[11:28] <cjohnston> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserDays
[11:28] <AlanBell> ok, I had it fail to install from lernid-devs
[11:28] <nigel_nb> qense, I find that when I open lernid and not enter a user name, I dont get that screen again
[11:29] <qense> you shouldn't be able to not enter a username, I think ;)
[11:29] <cjohnston> umm.. why wont it go back...
[11:29] <qense> btw, you want the ~lernid-devs PPA
[11:29] <RPG_Master> hey, is this going to be starting at 7 AM american central time?
[11:29] <qense> cjohnston, there is a drop-down thing for that
[11:29] <cjohnston> RPG_Master: I believe it is 6 for central time
[11:29] <cjohnston> its 7 EST
[11:30] <RPG_Master> Soooo, in an hour?
[11:30] <cjohnston> 30 minutes
[11:30] <RPG_Master> :|
[11:30] <qense> the use of lernid is good for keeping people like me out of this channel since you can't talk in the classroom with lernid
[11:30] <RPG_Master> GAH!...
[11:30] <nhaines> haha  :)
[11:31] <kyubutsu> they are a clan
[11:31] <AlanBell> if you want to know the time you can /msg ubottu @now UTC
[11:31] <AlanBell> qense: good point
[11:31] <RPG_Master> Should I sleep our stay up? :(
[11:31] <nhaines> There will be logs later.
[11:31] <AlanBell> RPG_Master: stay up!
[11:31] <qense> ah, avoid unregistered protocls
[11:31] <qense> btw, what will happen when I do apt:lernid ?
[11:32] <qense> not registered either
[11:32] <RPG_Master> I've been playing RE5 with my dad so I was finally going to get in bed :P
[11:33] <qense> btw, the introduction session at 12 UTC isn't on the Lernid schedule
[11:34] <cjohnston> nigel_nb ^^
[11:36]  * RPG_Master is installing lernid
[11:37] <AlanBell> please don't use lernid until -classroom is muted
[11:37] <RPG_Master> :O
[11:37] <RPG_Master> AlanBell: Why?
[11:38] <AlanBell> it will automatically open links, if someone pastes one of those spam links here everyone using lernid will be k-lined instantly
[11:38] <cjohnston> AlanBell I wonder if maybe that is something that needs to be changed in lernid, that only voices or something it automatically opens links?
[11:38] <RPG_Master> :O ok. thanks
[11:38]  * pleia2 sighs
[11:38] <qense> 10 lernid users in this channel at the moment, including a ghost of me
[11:38] <RPG_Master> and counting :P
[11:39] <Quintasan|Szel> so that means we could get serious problems here L/
[11:39] <Quintasan|Szel> are those spam links masked via some url shorten service?
[11:40] <AlanBell> Quintasan|Szel: I have not seen that yet
[11:40] <popey> AlanBell: do you want this channel muted?
[11:40] <popey> and take discussion to -chat..
[11:40] <popey> (makes sense)
[11:41] <Quintasan|Szel> popey: sorry for that
[11:41] <RPG_Master>  :O
[11:41] <popey> Quintasan|Szel: its not a problem
[11:41] <AlanBell> popey: I am concerned yes, however the first session is interactive here
[11:41] <RPG_Master> THE popey? :D
[11:41] <RPG_Master> ...sorry :P
[11:41] <popey> hah
[11:41] <qense> people, please don't use : sign without http or https in front of it, it scares Lernid users
[11:41] <pleia2> we'll mute it after the interactive portion of the first session
[11:41] <RPG_Master> popey: I blame you :O
[11:41]  * dox_drum is using lernid. NICK. doxdrum
[11:42] <KEPZ> wt time is it?
[11:43] <HoellP> KEPZ: very relative question...
[11:43] <_marx_> KEPZ: "date; date -u"
[11:43] <qense> KEPZ, the command date -u will help you
[11:43] <nigelbabu> please DO NOT use : after nick completion, it causes error in lernid
[11:43] <qense> yes indeed!
[11:44] <cjohnston> that ones gonna be a hard one...
[11:44] <cjohnston> anyone know how to change the default in irssi?
[11:44] <RPG_Master> :O what does it do to lernid?
[11:44] <qense> error
[11:44] <qense> and the window takes focus when showing that error
[11:44] <dox_drum> RPG_Master, got a message.
[11:44] <qense> annoying
[11:45] <maxb> : is the default in many clients - Why should everyone change to accomodate bugs in a specific piece of software?
[11:45] <RPG_Master> Oh, well darn
[11:45] <maxb> Plus it's a standard part of common IRC dialogue as habituated in many *humans* minds
[11:45] <qense> maxb, because the wiki encourages people to use this software for the Ubuntu Users Day
[11:46] <maxb> That's a bit of a dramatic failure :-(
[11:46] <cjohnston> maxb I just wnat to change it for today, so I dont have to remember to remove the : to make it easier for me
[11:46] <nigelbabu> well guys, chill, its only for some time
[11:46] <nigelbabu> anyway, you can use : in classroom-chat
[11:46] <nigelbabu> its only here that you need to be careful
[11:47] <AlanBell> qense: the wiki for developer days encourages use of lernid, some people are *testing* it today.
[11:47] <AlanBell> qense: we are learning useful things about it already
[11:47] <Pendulum> nigelbabu, yes, but you're likely to be c&ping questions in
[11:47] <qense> yes
[11:47] <qense> like the fact that I'm not a protocol ;)
[11:47] <AlanBell> dammit!
[11:47] <cjohnston> yes you are Quintasan|Szel
[11:47] <nigelbabu> qense, hehe
[11:48] <Quintasan|Szel> cjohnston, what?
[11:48] <nigelbabu> Quintasan|Szel, tab fail ;)
[11:48] <cjohnston> sorry Quintasan|Szel i was meaning qense
[11:48] <Quintasan|Szel> oh, happens =P
[11:49] <qense> such a pity
[11:49] <qense> the bug is at <https://launchpad.net/bugs/503502>, if anyone's interested
[11:49] <ubot2> Launchpad bug 503502 in lernid "Whenever Presenter enters text matching '\w+:' lernid tries to open the URL in the browser" [Undecided,Confirmed]
[11:49] <ubot2> Ubuntu bug 503502 in lernid "Whenever Presenter enters text matching '\w+:' lernid tries to open the URL in the browser" [Undecided,Confirmed] https://launchpad.net/bugs/503502
[11:49] <ubot2> Launchpad bug 503502 in lernid "Whenever Presenter enters text matching '\w+:' lernid tries to open the URL in the browser" [Undecided,Confirmed] https://launchpad.net/bugs/503502
[11:49] <qense> loop!
[11:50] <qense> one bot should go
[11:50] <cjohnston> nah
[11:50] <cjohnston> lol
[11:50] <Quintasan|Szel> :/
[11:58] <openweek4_> uh?
[11:58] <openweek4_> uh?
[12:00] <cjohnston> Hello everyone, and welcome to our first Ubuntu User Day! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserDays
[12:01] <cjohnston> To get things started, who is here for this and where are you from?
[12:01] <openweek5> anonrock from bangladesh
[12:01] <pleia2> Elizabeth from Philadelphia, USA :)
[12:01] <Yos> Yos from Israel
[12:01] <fvaresi> fvaresi from Montevideo, Uruguay
[12:01] <hhlp> <- from spain
[12:01] <Pendulum> Penelope from New York, USA
[12:01] <Terrabit> Maxim from Russia
[12:02] <Ryan1> I'm from Australia
[12:02]  * _marx_ from North Carolina, USA
[12:02] <habra_Smith_rus> Russia, Yakutia.
[12:02] <Seadog47> Russia, Moscow
[12:02] <dox_drum> Chile
[12:02] <gukk_devel> germany
[12:02] <nigelbabu> nigel from India
[12:02] <fobosnet> Russia, Spb
[12:02] <qense> Sense , the Netherlands
[12:02] <HoellP> Austria
[12:02] <ParsnipSoup> Kate, Boston, MA, USA
[12:02] <ulysses> Szolnok, Hungary
[12:02] <jepong> the Philippines!!!!
[12:02] <AlanBell> Alan from England
[12:02] <n0fun> Russia, Severodvinsk
[12:03]  * czajkowski is from ireland
[12:03] <yofel> Philip, Germanyy
[12:03] <RPG_Master_> Alabama
[12:04] <cjohnston> Anyone else?
[12:04] <Deem> <--- germany
[12:05] <cjohnston> Great!
[12:05] <cjohnston> So, what is this day all about anyway?
[12:05] <cjohnston> User Days was created to be a set of classes offered during a one day period to teach the beginning or intermediate Ubuntu user the basics to get them started with Ubuntu, including:
[12:05] <cjohnston> (sorry to lernid users!)
[12:06] <cjohnston> Learn how to install Ubuntu
[12:06] <cjohnston> Learn how to find equivalent programs in Ubuntu
[12:06] <cjohnston> Learn how to get help with Ubuntu
[12:06] <cjohnston> Learn the basics of how to use Ubuntu
[12:07] <cjohnston> Learn how to get involved in the community
[12:07] <cjohnston> And more! For our full schedule head over to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserDays
[12:08] <cjohnston> User Days was born out of a discussion at the Ubuntu Developers Summit in November 2009 regarding Ubuntu Open Week not being targeted enough at users.
[12:08] <cjohnston> Over the past two months, many people have taken the time to help put this day together for you.
[12:09] <cjohnston> We will be introducing each instructor at the beginning of their session, but I would like to take the time to introduce the leads behind this project, and your hosts for today.
[12:09] <cjohnston> First let me introduce you to pleia2.
[12:10] <pleia2> My name is Elizabeth Krumbach, I'm currently living in Philadelphia, USA (soon to be moving to San Francisco!) and I got involved with this via the Ubuntu Community Learning Project: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning
[12:11] <pleia2> I'm also a member of the Ubuntu Community Council, do a lot of work with LoCo teams and do upstream development in Debian
[12:11] <cjohnston> Next we have Pendulum.
[12:13] <Pendulum> Hiya, I'm Penelope Stowe. I live in New York City (for now), although people online seem to often think I'm in the UK. I got involved through the Ubuntu Developer Summit when this was first suggested as an event.
[12:13] <Pendulum> Other things I do with Ubuntu include working on the Ubuntu Women project, Ubuntu NGO, and doing transcripts for the Ubuntu Uk Podcast
[12:14] <cjohnston> Up next is _marx_
[12:14] <_marx_> My name is Mark Cox. I currently live in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
[12:14] <_marx_> I began using Linux in '98 about a year after my wife and I bought our first computer for Christmas '97. We couldn't share that computer so I took an old clunker given to me by a customer and installed RedHat 6.0 on it
[12:15] <_marx_> I bagan using Ubuntu with the 5.04 release.
[12:15] <_marx_> I'm also involved with the North Carolina LoCo Team
[12:15] <_marx_> I hope to be unique by being the first Grandfather in recorded history to convert his grandsons to Ubuntu instead of the other way around. The two oldest were dazzled by "the cube" over the holidays.
[12:16] <cjohnston> nigelbabu, is next.
[12:16] <nigelbabu> Hi, I'm Nigel and I'm a computer science student from India who is a passionate FOSS and Ubuntu enthusiast and, like pleia2, I got involved via the Ubuntu Community Learning Project!
[12:17] <nigelbabu> I'm a course writer with the Ubuntu Community Learning Project and a bug triager with the Ubuntu Bug Squad.
[12:18] <cjohnston> And I guess that I am last... ;-)
[12:18] <cjohnston> My name is Chris Johnston. I'm from Orlando, Florida.. (Go Florida LoCo!) In real life I'm a Fire Fighter Paramedic.
[12:19] <cjohnston> Around here I'm a member of the Ubuntu Community Learning Project, Ubuntu Beginners Team, Ubuntu Bug Squad, and I do quite a bit of work helping out with the Ubuntu Website.
[12:19] <pleia2> thanks cjohnston!
[12:19] <pleia2> Now, we will give you a quick rundown of how today will work:
[12:20] <pleia2> Each hour, a presenter will be giving a class in this channel, #ubuntu-classroom
[12:20] <pleia2> During the classes, #ubuntu-classroom will be moderated (+m), meaning that only the instructor and hosts will be able to speak in that channel.
[12:21] <pleia2> Please hold all discussion about the class in #ubuntu-classroom-chat
[12:21] <pleia2> If you have a question during the class, please ask in #ubuntu-classroom-chat with the prefix QUESTION for instance, you may say
[12:21] <pleia2> QUESTION How do you uninstall a program?
[12:22] <Pendulum> After each session (as soon as our volunteers can), we'll be posting logs on the wiki, so be sure to check back to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserDays if you missed anything.
[12:22] <Pendulum> Logs will also be automatically generated at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com
[12:22] <Pendulum> Since you're already here, you know how to participate, but in case you have a friend you'd like to invite, you can find some help on the Joining In wiki page,
[12:22] <Pendulum> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserDays/JoiningIn
[12:23] <Pendulum> It gives you links to some client documentation, as well as the direct link to joining #ubuntu-classroom & #ubuntu-classroom-chat via a web browser.
[12:23] <_marx_> You may have seen articles about the Lernid application which is designed for learning events such as this, you can certainly try out Lernid for User Days,
[12:24] <_marx_> We should note here that lernid is still alpha software and as such users should be aware it may have problems.
[12:24] <_marx_> we just won't be using the slideshow functionality this time.
[12:24] <_marx_> More info on Lernid including how to install it on Ubuntu at
[12:24] <_marx_> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lernid it would be great to have your feedback on Lernid at the end of the day.
[12:25] <_marx_> We hope that this event can continue to grow and that we'll host more days like this.
[12:25] <_marx_> Indeed, it's already inspired a Spanish version of the day which is also being held today: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DiaDelUsuarioUbuntu
[12:26] <nigelbabu> The User Days Team has worked with Local Community Teams (LoCos), the Ubuntu Beginners Team, Ubuntu Classroom and the Ubuntu Community Learning Project and others within the wider community to bring this day to you.
[12:26] <nigelbabu> For more information about any of these see their wiki pages
[12:26] <nigelbabu> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoTeams
[12:27] <nigelbabu> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BeginnersTeam
[12:27] <nigelbabu> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Classroom
[12:27] <nigelbabu> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning
[12:27] <nigelbabu> To quiet various noise that happens in the IRC channels during the talk use this command (in supported clients only)
[12:27] <nigelbabu> type "/ignore #ubuntu-classroom CRAP NOTICES SNOTES CTCPS JOINS PARTS QUITS KICKS MODES WALLOPS NICKS DCC DCCMSGS CLIENTNOTICES CLIENTCRAP CLIENTERRORS HILIGHTS" without the quotes
[12:28] <nigelbabu> If you are on webchat, Click on the small blue box on top left corner and click "Options."  Add a tick to "Hide JOINS/PARTS/QUITS:"
[12:28] <nigelbabu> Unfortunately, Freenode, the IRC network we use, has been hit hard recently with an influx of javascript spam. For more information please see http://blog.freenode.net/2010/01/javascript-spam/. Do NOT click ANY other links that say you are infected or they give you more information about the spam.
[12:29] <nigelbabu> Finally, before we get to some general Q&A in this introduction session, a big thanks to everyone who made this day possible :)
[12:29] <nigelbabu> Anyone have any general questions about the day?
[12:30] <Pendulum>  doxdrum> QUESTION - What does supported clients only means?
[12:30] <Pendulum>  doxdrum> QUESTION - What does supported clients only means?
[12:30] <nigelbabu> well, not all clients support the /ignore function.  try it and if ti doesn't work, let us know your client
[12:32] <pleia2> < HoellP> QUESTION how can i un-ignore stuff again?
[12:33] <nigelbabu> For those of you, if the command didn't work and you're on X-chat
[12:34] <nigelbabu> On x-chat GNOME, there is a checkbox for hiding/showing join/part messages in the channel context menu of Xchat GNOME (thanks qense )
[12:35] <pleia2> regarding un-ignoring, most clients have an /unignore option
[12:35] <pleia2> < Deem> Question is this "tutorial" tody for all ubuntu versions?
[12:36] <pleia2> we're focusing on karmic Ubuntu
[12:36] <pleia2> but some sessions may touch upon other varients and versions
[12:36] <pleia2> < starcraftman> Question - Where's the cake and refreshments and anything else edible? I could have sworn that was mentioned, if not, I say we make a last minute addition!
[12:36] <pleia2> uuuh, sure!
[12:36]  * pleia2 shares cake ;)
[12:36]  * Pendulum hands out tea to go with the cake
[12:36] <cjohnston> starcraftman it was your job to bring the refreshments
[12:37]  * _marx_ shares "Sweet Eyetalian" light roast coffee
[12:38] <pleia2> < gukk_devel> Question will special questions like hardwaredetection be answered, especially former xorg-stuff
[12:38] <pleia2> there is a restricted drivers session which will seek to cover some of this
[12:39] <pleia2> this will be jamalta's session at 16:00 UTC
[12:40] <Pendulum> Question: i never used an irc before. i think i got it, ignoring  stuff in one window wont affect another or subsequent
[12:40] <Pendulum>  windows?
[12:40] <Pendulum> For most IRC clients (at least that I know of) this is true
[12:41] <Pendulum> each window (channel as they're called on IRC) needs to have /ignore set separately
[12:42] <cjohnston> Are there any more questions related specifically to the Ubuntu User Day?
[12:43] <nigelbabu> Question, How often a day like this one is hold?
[12:44] <Pendulum> This is the first User Day that has been held.
[12:44] <pleia2> so we're not sure yet :) I think we're going to shoot for every 6 months to start out
[12:44] <pleia2> maybe every 3 if we can get enough volunteers
[12:44] <Pendulum> Please let us know if you want them more or less often in your feedback!
[12:45] <pleia2> < gukk_devel> Question is there a german version of this UsersDays planned?
[12:45] <nigelbabu> There is nothing planned now
[12:45] <nigelbabu> but if you'd like to help out organize, we can assist you
[12:48] <_marx_> The more languages the better.
[12:53] <cjohnston> Any other questions about today? If not, we will start the next class in about 7 minutes
[12:54] <nigelbabu> Okay, so that about it from our introduction session.  Next up in a few minutes is "Switching to Ubuntu & Installation" by nagendra
[12:54] <nigelbabu> If you have anymore questions, we'll be taking it :)
[12:54] <pleia2> < Yos> QUESTION will there be a chance at the end of the day for making suggestions for the next user day
[12:54] <pleia2> there is a survey
[12:55] <cjohnston> < doxdrum> Question - I'm interested in participate in future UserDays, Who should I contact?
[12:55] <cjohnston> me
[12:55] <_marx_> t -5
[12:55] <cjohnston> later please though. ;-)
[12:55] <Pendulum> or come find us in #ubuntu-learning :)
[12:55] <Pendulum> (but, again, later please)
[12:55] <pleia2> http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WQWHJQY
[12:55] <pleia2> is the survey for the day :)
[13:01] <Pendulum> Our first instructor today is Guru Nagendra Prasad. Nagendra has been using Linux & GNU packages since 97. He is pursuing bachelors degree in computers.
[13:01] <Pendulum> His first introduction to Linux was RedHat. He received 2 CD's of RedHat Linux from my friend in 97 and tried to install it on his system. However he crashed his HDD at that time.
[13:02] <Pendulum> He has since learned how to install Linux on a system. In the year 2000 he started to teach Linux in an institute.
[13:02] <Pendulum> However at that point in time he didn't know about how to install audio/video drivers (Due to no Internet connection). So, he screwed up few systems.
[13:02] <Pendulum> In the year 2005 Nagendra joined Google and worked 3 years as a data analyst. After leaving Google in 2008 he have started working on his own project.
[13:02] <Pendulum> In the year 2008 he also developed a distro called Gubuntu, based on Linux Mint. It was a multimedia based OS, with all audio and video tools in it and bunch of few other stuff.
[13:03] <Pendulum> Before nagendra  begings, I just want to remind people Unfortunately freenode, the IRC network we use, has been hit hard recently with an influx of javascript spam. For more information please see http://blog.freenode.net/2010/01/javascript-spam/. Do not click other links that say you are infected or they are more information about the spam.
[13:04] <Pendulum> Also, please fill out our survey about today!  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WQWHJQY
[13:05] <nagendra> hi please let me know when should I start ?
[13:05] <pleia2> now :)
[13:05] <cjohnston> Now
[13:05] <nagendra> ok
[13:06] <nagendra> so my first topic is : Difference between windows and Linux (Ubuntu)
[13:07] <nagendra> their are few things to remember with you switch from windows to ubuntu that windows only supports FAT and NTFS file system however Ubuntu supports many file systems
[13:10] <nagendra> while installing windows you will have to specify only one drive usually C-Drive however while installing ubuntu you will have to specify 2 different drive one for the ROOT (/) and another for the SWAP area
[13:11] <nagendra> ubuntu uses a sperate drive for swaping files however the same thing in windows called the paging file
[13:12] <pleia2> < doxdrum> Question - Is it better to have only / and swap than also the extra home partition?
[13:13] <nagendra> is depends on you if you want to use another drive partation called home
[13:14] <nagendra> apart from root (/) and swap every other partation will work just like your other dirves like d,e,f and so on
[13:14] <pleia2> < zhukaster> Question: is it necessary to have swap at least 2x larger than RAM amount?
[13:15] <nagendra> giving my experience it dosen't matters if your physcial RAM is larger then 1 GB
[13:15] <nagendra> however it is recommended
[13:16] <pleia2> < ehlim> Question is that posible to change filesystem witout reinstall ubuntu, said like from ext 3 to ext 4
[13:16] <nagendra> as far as I know its not possible
[13:18] <nagendra> people always get scared when they see linux or ubuntu on a system but its just their state of mind :)
[13:19] <nagendra> any other question about- Difference between windows and Linux (Ubuntu)?
[13:21] <nagendra> so my next topic is -why Windows?
[13:21] <nagendra> this is a question we have to ask ourselves
[13:23] <nagendra> see if you are a basic user of computer like net surfing, chatting, listening to music and few office stuff why do you want to waste your money on windows when you can do the same tasks on any version of ubuntu
[13:24] <nagendra> so their might be the next question that may come to your mind is why Ubuntu ?
[13:26] <nagendra> Ubuntu is very easy to use, install, update, troubleshoot and you will get the community help as well for your issues how about that :)
[13:26] <nagendra> any questions guys ??
[13:28] <pleia2> < jazz__> Question what do they mean "free as in beer?"
[13:29] <nagendra> so my next topic is - Who need Ubuntu and who need Windows?
[13:32] <nagendra> I don't know about others but in india ppl teach some programing languages based on windows like VB, VC++ and so on so for those they might be needing windows but for others like in small bussiness holders, shop keepers who wants to maintain their daily sales and purchase accounts they can switch to ubuntu as its free :)
[13:33] <nagendra> their are so many different versions of Linux starting from Redhat, fedora, suse, ubuntu etc
[13:33] <nagendra> its on you which version or distor you want to use
[13:34] <nagendra> however giving my experience Ubuntu is the best one when it comes to linux :)
[13:35] <nagendra> also ubuntu supports a large numbers of hardware devices
[13:36] <nagendra> if you want to make sure if your computer hardware will work on ubuntu use a live media of Ubuntu and you will get an idea about it
[13:37] <pleia2> < Jedemco> Question What is live media and why is it called live media?
[13:38] <nagendra> live media is nothing but a complete Ubuntu OS which will be run on your system without installing on your HDD
[13:39] <nagendra> its like this you have a viedo DVD with you and when you insert the DVD in your DVD drive you can watch the movie  directly from DVD but only if you like you copy the DVD on your system
[13:40] <nagendra> so the same thing applies here the live media gives you a chance to see how the OS is working on your system and if everything is OK then you can install it on your HDD
[13:41] <nagendra> any questions guys ?
[13:43] <nagendra> here are the few links which you might want to read about ubuntu installation :http://news.softpedia.com/news/Installing-Ubuntu-9-10-126370.shtml
[13:43] <nagendra> http://ubuntuguide.net/a-step-by-step-guide-for-ubuntu-910karmic-complete-installation
[13:44] <pleia2> < Jedemco> Question How long does it take to install Ubuntu?
[13:44] <nagendra> Max -30 Min
[13:44] <nagendra> again it depends on your system
[13:45] <pleia2> < Jedemco> Question How much room does the operating system take up on the HDD?
[13:46] <nagendra> basically you will have to specify 5 GB of free space for root and 1 GB for swap
[13:48] <nagendra> if you have any question about how to install Ubuntu with dual boot please ask :)
[13:48] <pleia2> < LuizAquino> Question What type of filesystem to choose on install?
[13:49] <nagendra> you can choose ext3 or ext4
[13:49] <pleia2> < Jedemco> Question Can dual boot be done so that Ubuntu not the first choice
[13:50] <nagendra> yes you can when you install ubuntu it will ask you to change the boot loader of you want
[13:51] <nagendra> their you can change the OS order :)
[13:51] <pleia2> < lannocc> Question better to install Windows or Ubuntu first?
[13:51] <nagendra> better to install windows first then install Ubuntu
[13:52] <pleia2> < userday20> Question, if i have winxp and an another linux distro. will i have to delete the partion of other linux distro, and then start installing ubunut or should i directly start installing ubuntu and i'll have the option to delete the other linux distro during installation
[13:52] <nagendra> any more question guys I just have 10 min left :)
[13:52] <nagendra> yes you will get an option to delete the existing linux partation
[13:53] <pleia2> < lannocc> Question (followup) but doesn't Windows try to use up all available disk space?
[13:54] <nagendra> no if you have already installed windows then in the installation Ubuntu will give you the option to use the free space of windows
[13:54] <nagendra> in this case your windows will be safe as well
[13:54] <pleia2> < LuizAquino> Question Is it save to change the size of a partition with Windows on installation?
[13:55] <pleia2> 5 minute warning :)
[13:55] <nagendra> yes you can and your windows will be safe
[13:57] <nagendra> thank you all for taking part in Ubuntu user day. I wish a very good luck to you all and if you have any other questions please feel free to join the Ubuntu community
[13:58] <nagendra> I still have 3 min left I can take 1 more question
[13:59] <cjohnston> Thank you nagendra!
[13:59] <nagendra> you are welcome :)
[13:59] <_marx_> thanks nagendra
[14:00] <_marx_> Welcome everyone to Command Line Basics
[14:00] <cjohnston> Up next we have _marx_
[14:00] <cjohnston> Mark Cox lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He has made his living as a carpenter since getting out of the Army in '85.
[14:00] <cjohnston> He has been using Linux since 1998. Mark has been using Ubuntu since 5.04. He hopes to be unique by being the first Grandfather in recorded history
[14:00] <cjohnston> to convert his grandsons to Ubuntu instead of the other way around. Mark's two oldest grandchildren were dazzled by "the cube" over the holidays.
[14:01] <_marx_> thanks cjohnston
[14:01] <_marx_> Today I just want to cover some basics.
[14:01] <cjohnston> < mick__> Question:: shell programming::  any good tutorials online to take you from newbie to MOTU?
[14:01] <cjohnston> Got an early question for you. ;-)
[14:02] <_marx_> Hopefully when we're done you be able to survive the dreaded no X experience.
[14:02] <_marx_> mick__, the linux documentation project bash
[14:03] <_marx_> First a little lecture time.
[14:03] <_marx_> Then we'll do some things
[14:03] <_marx_> When we use the command line we are using a shell.
[14:03] <_marx_> In this context a shell is the most basic way a user can interact with a computer's operating system kernel.
[14:04] <_marx_> A shell is a piece of software.
[14:04] <_marx_> Most GNU/Linux distributions use the Bourne Again SHell (bash) as the login shell.
[14:05] <_marx_> The again part is because the first iteration was called the Bourne SHell (sh) which was released for unix in the late '70's
[14:05] <_marx_> Beginning with the 6.10 release Ubuntu began using dash (the Debian Almquist Shell) as the default system shell.
[14:05] <Pendulum> Jedemco> Question: Is a "shell" also the "Terminal" in Ubuntu?
[14:05] <_marx_> The default login shell is still bash.
[14:06] <_marx_> Jedemco, yes for all practical purposes
[14:06] <_marx_> when one opens say gnome-terminal you'll be using bash
[14:07] <_marx_> Today we will learn how to navigate the Linux file system,
[14:07] <_marx_> view the contents of a file,
[14:08] <_marx_> opy and rename files and directories,
[14:08] <_marx_> userdays3, yes
[14:10] <_marx_> pipe output of one command to another, direct output to a file,
[14:10] <_marx_> install programs, navigate the internet all via the command line interface.
[14:10] <_marx_> Maybe we'll get to all of that!
[14:10] <_marx_> For our exercises today I will be using the Gnome terminal.
[14:10] <_marx_> I want to make opening a terminal a click or two faster so click Applications > Accessories and drag Terminal into your top panel.
[14:11] <_marx_> This is just to make starting a terminal a little faster by not using the menu system
[14:11] <_marx_> I'm not real familiar with KDE and Xfce so maybe just drop the icon on the desktop to create a launcher.
[14:12] <Pendulum> < userdays3> QUESTION:Is there a difference between a system shell and a login shell?
[14:12] <_marx_> lannocc, makes starting a terminal little quicker
[14:13] <_marx_> There can be a difference between the system shell and login shell; on Ubuntu they are different.
[14:13] <_marx_> ow let's open a terminal session, just click the icon we just created in the top panel.
[14:14] <_marx_> Everyone have a terminal open?
[14:14] <_marx_> I'm going to try to remember to wrap all my command examples with quotes around them so just type whatever is inside the quote marks.
[14:15] <_marx_> I may forget so pay attention :-)
[14:15] <_marx_> Okay first command "whoami"
[14:15] <_marx_> Well now you know who you are!
[14:17] <_marx_> Concept Where am I!
[14:17] <_marx_> This is an important unix concept.
[14:17] <_marx_> Where am I in the file system?
[14:17] <_marx_> Let's use print working directory to find out. "pwd"
[14:18] <_marx_> everyone should be in their home directory.
[14:19] <_marx_> Okay, what's here? Use the list command to list the contents "ls"
[14:20] <_marx_> no pm's please
[14:20] <_marx_> ask in -chat
[14:21] <_marx_> Commands can take options.
[14:21] <_marx_> Try `ls -l`
[14:22] <_marx_> now we get a long listing of all the files and directories
[14:22] <_marx_> But this isn't all the files use `ls -a` to see all the files
[14:23] <_marx_> Okay let's go somewhere else; `cd /`
[14:23] <_marx_> and let's do a long listing of all the files
[14:23] <_marx_> answer in -chat
[14:24] <_marx_> any one long listing of all files
[14:24] <_marx_> well it's `ls -al`
[14:25] <_marx_> and where are we now?
[14:25] <cjohnston> < doxdrum> Question - is it important the order of the options? -al or -la
[14:25] <_marx_> doxdrum no
[14:26] <_marx_> everyone should be in "/" now.
[14:26] <_marx_> pwd to find out where you are
[14:27] <_marx_> well not seeing responces to where one is in -chat
[14:28] <_marx_> okay let's all go home with `cd`
[14:28] <_marx_> the command `cd ~` will also work
[14:28] <_marx_> now `cd -`
[14:28] <_marx_> and where are we?
[14:29] <_marx_> that was a dash or minus sign
[14:29] <_marx_> yep; "cd -" will take you back to the last directory you were in
[14:30] <_marx_> ok go home
[14:30] <_marx_> and list all files
[14:30] <_marx_> we're gonna shorten up on some of this typing
[14:31] <_marx_> `less .bashrc` will let you view your bashrc file
[14:31] <_marx_> use "q" to quite less
[14:31] <_marx_> we can shorten up on alot of typing by using aliases
[14:32] <_marx_> type `alias` to see what aliases are set now
[14:32] <_marx_> everyone have a output of current aliases?
[14:34] <_marx_> oka to set an alias try "alias 'l=ls -l'"
[14:35] <_marx_> now just type "l"
[14:36] <_marx_> good question hhlp
[14:36] <_marx_> it is not permenamt
[14:36] <_marx_> ow bad spelling
[14:37] <_marx_> to make an alias permenant
[14:37] <_marx_> we need to edit ~/.bashrc; that file we just viewed with less
[14:38] <_marx_> assuming everyone is in there home directories do "nano .bashrc"
[14:39] <Pendulum> < Crewsr3> so when you set up an alias without editing the .bashrc file how long will the alias work?
[14:39] <_marx_> go to the end of the file and add the line "alias 'l=ls -l'"
[14:40] <_marx_> Crewsr3, until you logout of the shell/bash session.
[14:40] <_marx_> 20 minutes to go: how are we on nano w/.bashrc?
[14:41] <_marx_> everyone have that line in .bashrc
[14:41] <_marx_> save and exit the file
[14:41] <_marx_> now bash doesn't know we've changed it's config file
[14:42] <Pendulum> < Yos> how to save and exit ?
[14:42] <_marx_> in nano ctl-x to save and exit
[14:43] <_marx_> so to make bash aware that we've changed it's config file we need to source the config file
[14:43] <_marx_> do that with "source .bashrc"
[14:45] <_marx_> so now you could open a second terminal and "l" should give you the same as "ls -l"
[14:45] <_marx_> well i'm not going to get to everything i wanted to so questions?
[14:46] <_marx_> Question: command to check available disk space
[14:47] <_marx_> i like `df -h` and i usually alias df to that
[14:47] <_marx_> ah info on commands can be found several ways
[14:47] <_marx_> man <command> info <command>
[14:48] <Pendulum> < Jedemco> Question: I don't understand the concept of "alias." What is it and what does it do for me?
[14:48] <_marx_> alias example: `alias 'df=df -h'`
[14:49] <_marx_> an alias is like a shortcut; instead of typing all the options for a command we can type one or two letters to do the command
[14:50] <_marx_> for the brave "sudo apt-get install mc"
[14:50] <_marx_> this will install the midnight commander file manager
[14:50] <_marx_> it can also do ftp and sftp
[14:51] <cjohnston> < Yos> Question what is the difference between bash and screen byobu ?
[14:51] <_marx_> screen is like a console or command line window manager
[14:52] <_marx_> screen starts within a bash session
[14:53] <_marx_> anyone install mc?
[14:53] <_marx_> start mc with `mc`
[14:53] <cjohnston> < Jedemco> Question: how do I get to "screen"?
[14:54] <_marx_> Jedemco, just type `screen`
[14:54] <cjohnston> _marx_: is screen installed by default?
[14:54] <_marx_> start mc with `mc`
[14:54] <_marx_> cjohnston, not sure
[14:54] <cjohnston> I believe they would need to install first?
[14:55] <_marx_> we could do 30 minutes on mc probably
[14:55] <cjohnston> 5 minutes left in this session
[14:56] <_marx_> some other command line goodies are lynx for a web browser
[14:56] <_marx_> and alpine for an email client
[14:57] <_marx_> three minutes left thanks everone of coming by today
[14:58] <_marx_> hopefully some of this was helpful
[14:59] <starcraftman> almost time to start, test.
[15:00] <nigelbabu> Thanks _marx_ for that wonderful session.  Next up is starcraftman
[15:00] <_marx_> go get 'em starcraftman
[15:00]  * starcraftman waves to classroom.
[15:00] <nigelbabu> starcraft.man is a Computer Science student studying at the University of Concordia in Montreal
[15:00] <nigelbabu> He'll be explaining how to get effective help by understanding the problem and using useful resources
[15:01] <nigelbabu> starcraft.man is involved in the Beginners Team and the Documentation Contributors
[15:01] <nigelbabu>  Most importantly,
[15:01] <nigelbabu> he's friendly and doesn't mind answering questions (we think he's a bot ;)). For more information see his wiki page at: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/starcraft.man
[15:01] <nigelbabu> apologies to the lernid folks, I missed that one
[15:01] <starcraftman> hehe
[15:02] <starcraftman> thanks nigelbabu
[15:02] <starcraftman> Alright, so everyone please pay attention got a lot of ground to cover and only the hour. It'll be going by a bit fast as I just copy/paste this over, I've prewritten most everything.
[15:02] <starcraftman> Section 0 - Introduction
[15:03] <starcraftman> I’ll be covering an important topic today. What to do when things go wrong. It happens to everyone and dealing with it correctly can save a lot of trouble.
[15:03] <cjohnston> FYI: starcraftman prefers questions be held until they are asked for..
[15:03] <starcraftman> An overview of the material to be covered today is available on the wiki -https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserDays/01232010/FindingHelp
[15:04] <starcraftman> Take a moment and look over it while I continue with the introduction. At the end you’ll notice a links section. I’ll be mentioning these as I go, they are listed for convenience.
[15:04] <starcraftman> Please keep questions to #ubuntu-classroom-chat as with other sessions. I’d prefer if they were reserved for the end. You’re free to ask them during and hopefully someone else can respond. I don’t want to be stopping at every question I’ve a lot of stuff to mention, I'm also pretty sure I've covered most things people will question by end.
[15:04] <starcraftman> I'll try to pace these out not too fast.
[15:05] <starcraftman> If your question remains unanswered by end, I'll take it then. Please make sure you keep them  prefaced with Question so people can see them.
[15:05] <starcraftman> Also, please don't PM me during this session, if 30 people each PM me with questions I can't go through them all and do the session.
[15:06] <starcraftman> If you want to know more about me, see my page as linked in intro or on outline. This is interactive session so please follow along and do what I say, above all feel free to experiment and poke around.
[15:06] <starcraftman> So on with my presentation.
[15:06] <starcraftman> Things go wrong. It sucks.
[15:06] <starcraftman> The same way gravity unfortunately is still there when you wake up in the morning.
[15:07] <starcraftman> One minute you are typing away merrily on your word processor then.....
[15:07] <starcraftman> [Insert program crash here with some profanity about lost work]
[15:07] <starcraftman> Maybe you just finished installing some updates and wham!
[15:07] <starcraftman> Some unknown error appears on screen and you don’t know what to do.
[15:08] <starcraftman> The first rule of getting help is DON’T PANIC. Incidentally, this is also written in big bold letters on the back of a certain book for Hitch Hiker’s trekking the galaxy.
[15:08] <starcraftman> I’d say it’s a very good first rule.
[15:08] <starcraftman> The focus of this session will dealing with such problems –like the aforementioned – in a simple and effective manner. By the end, you should be able to gather simple information and on any problem and find help from the most appropriate resource.
[15:08] <starcraftman> Section I – Preparing for Help
[15:08] <starcraftman> The title sounds a bit silly doesn’t it?
[15:09] <starcraftman> You’d be surprised how just a few steps make all the difference finding good help.
[15:09] <starcraftman>  Mostly it will help you narrow the focus of your search. If you reach out to someone else on forums or in person, it’s easier to bring them up to speed.
[15:09] <starcraftman> The average user skips this step. Usually this is followed by an attempt to use bad or limited information to fix the problem.  The result is getting flustered. At this point they usually reach out to someone else, say on a forum or by email to a friend. This results in more annoyance as they answer many questions they didn’t consider at first to give the expert necessary information.
[15:10] <starcraftman> In the end, users can get very angry. I’ve seen it happen.
[15:10] <starcraftman> Posting on a forum in a bad mood “My video is broken, FIX IT!” is not a good way to get help.
[15:10] <starcraftman> Consider ( as some may know) that the forums are staffed, moderated and questions answered by volunteers not being paid. None of above like seeing rants posted.
[15:10] <starcraftman> If you speak like that to your tech friend, well, I don’t think he’ll be your friend after giving you the fix.
[15:11] <starcraftman> More to the point, a lot of your time got wasted. You got upset. You also didn’t resolve the problem given the time invested.
[15:11] <starcraftman> This leads to rule 2 “Try to spend time solving a problem yourself before you ask other people for help. If you follow this common courtesy, then it will not be an imposition when you ask for help.” That's from community wiki.
[15:11] <starcraftman> Section 1a – Analysis
[15:11] <starcraftman> When something goes wrong, the first thing that’s important to do is think what just happened? What was I doing? What crashed? What did I see?
[15:12] <starcraftman> Get a piece of paper and a pen and immediately write the answers to those questions down. Write in plain language all the details, you may not think it’s important but the person who helps you might disagree.
[15:12] <starcraftman> Say for example evolution just crashed, and there’s a window that popped up stating so with an error and asking you to file a report. Take down the error, note what you were doing.
[15:12] <starcraftman> If the error is a graphical one (like the error window popping up) you might want to take a screenshot off this.
[15:12] <starcraftman> Screenshots are just a way of taking an image of the screen, works on Linux just like Windows. Push print screen on the keyboard. Doing so will open up a screenshot application (on any Ubuntu variant), from there save the image to your Desktop.
[15:13] <starcraftman> (you can try to printscreen now if you like).
[15:13] <starcraftman> We’ll see what to do with this image later.
[15:13] <starcraftman> Another helpful thing to do in advance of getting help is knowing your hardware (this can especially help with networking/graphics problems). An easy way to get a complete listing of your hardware is to use the following simple command in any terminal (Applications > Accessories >Terminal) and using the command--
[15:14] <starcraftman> "sudo lshw > ~/Desktop/hardware.txt"
[15:14] <starcraftman> No quotes.
[15:14] <starcraftman> This command creates a file called hardware.txt that you can open and browse on your desktop. It lists all components of your PC, CPU, RAM, Graphics card, Network interfaces, etc... There are a few commands that produce more precise output (like just listing PCI cards) but this covers everything with one shot.
[15:14] <starcraftman> Very useful, I've done this often.
[15:14] <starcraftman> After jotting down this information and taking a screenshot we can proceed to play detective.  That would be a networking issue.
[15:15] <starcraftman> IT detective work involves narrowing things down through categories, you start at the top and work your way down specifying at each new level until the problem is clear.
[15:15] <starcraftman> You might not have enough experience to solve it completely, but getting a start with what you know can go a long way.
[15:15] <starcraftman> It’s hard to say how much effort you should put in before moving on. Usually it becomes clear when you can no longer write or deduce anything else.
[15:15] <starcraftman> Section 2 – Power Searching Google
[15:15] <starcraftman> So the first stop is a search engine. I’ll use Google for this example, any engine should work.
[15:15] <starcraftman> The reason to search is another rule- If you’re having a problem, 99.9% of the time someone else has had the same one and posted its solution.
[15:16] <starcraftman> At this point, if everyone can open a browser and go to www.google.com that'd be great.
[15:16] <starcraftman> Or your local version.
[15:16] <starcraftman> Power searching is when you do more than simply type key words into Google. By default, each word is searched successively. For example, do a search in Google for “DC Batman Robin Crusader”, first with no quotations around the terms then with quotes. Then just DC Batman. Compare and see the difference.
[15:17] <starcraftman> The first time (first search with no quotes) Google searches for DC and finds all pages with references to it, then cross-references with all pages with Batman. The overlap becomes the new base and then further narrowed by overlap with Robin and Crusader. The search operation descends one word at a time, so the first word is most important and more general usually.
[15:17] <starcraftman> When searching in Google “DC Batman Robin Crusader” you get 0 results, very different from before. In this instance, Google searched for the string (a computer science term referring to the quoted line) as a whole, the exact sequence of words in the order inside the quotes is simply never used (it is incoherent as a sentence after all).
[15:18] <starcraftman> (I'll give ya moment to catch up, a bit of text to digest)
[15:18] <starcraftman> Now time to get to the meat of this. Everyone go to Google homepage and click “Advanced” on the right.
[15:18] <starcraftman> Here’s the advanced search page, a lot of people don’t know about it. It is very handy.
[15:18] <starcraftman> Immediately I’d like you to note the box at the top highlighted in blue stating “Use the form...”, here you will see the actual search string used when you enable all these advanced tricks. Look up every time you try something else.
[15:19] <starcraftman> This means that this is the actual search you could use alternatively in the standard Google Search box, you'll see what I mean as I go.
[15:19] <starcraftman> First two lines cover what I’ve already explained.
[15:19] <starcraftman> The third is the Boolean OR search. This means that rather than only take the overlap (or intersection) between DC and Batman, a search for DC OR Batman would include all results from the individual searches for DC and Batman. Rather than narrow down this really widens a search with every new result.
[15:20] <starcraftman> “Don’t show these pages” does exactly what it says, put keywords here and all pages with them will be subtracted from the search.
[15:20] <starcraftman> “Search within site or domain” is another useful one. Your entire search is then confined to the site listed. You can also limit by domain, so .edu limits it to educational websites indexed by Google on the internet.
[15:20] <starcraftman> Take a moment and play around with these modifiers to search, take note of the top line that shows how the modifiers are used.
[15:21] <starcraftman> “Filetype” does as it says and limits your search to an extension, say .pdf or .txt. Any extension is valid.
[15:21] <starcraftman> Click on “Date, usage rights, numeric range, and more...” here you’ll find even more though less commonly used modifiers.
[15:21] <starcraftman> more advanced*
[15:22] <starcraftman> These are mostly self-explanitory, you can check pages by date, search with numeric ranges (like price), etc...
[15:23] <starcraftman> One thing not here is wildcard modifier for search.
[15:23] <starcraftman> * is the wildcard. Say I knew part of a word, say.... nvidia but I only knew it started with nvid. Searching nvid* produces nvidia as top result. It isn’t always most useful given there might be words that complete the wildcard that you maybe don’t want included.
[15:23] <starcraftman> I don’t have time to go into all of them. I will warn, don’t be tempted to use too many. The more you employ the less results will appear. Often just one or two of these modifiers makes the difference.
[15:23] <starcraftman> Say you have a video problem, you want to check whether other people have had trouble with it. It’s an nvidia 8800GT. You know Ubuntu Forums usually has people posting about such things. You fill “ubuntuforums.org” in Site Search box, “nvidia 8800 GT” in all these words then search. Voila.
[15:23] <starcraftman> I don’t have time to cover all the nuance of power searching. I will leave you with a good site for those interested. http://www.googleguide.com/ . See the section start now that best applies to you.
[15:24] <starcraftman> Another page to note is Ubuntu Search at http://search.ubuntu.com/
[15:24] <starcraftman> As it says on its homepage, by default it only searches Ubuntu related sites like the Wikis and Forums.
[15:24] <starcraftman> Though it doesn’t have an advanced option per se, I’m pretty sure it supports most of the above function. You just have to do it manually via text modifiers.
[15:24] <starcraftman> Section 3 – System Documentation and Wiki
[15:24] <starcraftman> For this section we will cover Ubuntu’s official documentation.
[15:24] <starcraftman> System Docs are the documentation that comes with any standard Ubuntu installation, these are accessible locally even without a net connection.
[15:24] <starcraftman> On the main panel, notice the blue question mark. Please click it. If you don’t have it, see System > Help and Support.
[15:25] <starcraftman> Note: If your not on Ubuntu at this moment, you won't of course.
[15:25] <starcraftman> Here you will find the documentation promised. It’s a gem overlooked often by people in need of help. Feel free to click around.
[15:25] <starcraftman> On the main page at the right you’ll see some common questions. At the left is most of the main sections covered like “New to Ubuntu?”, go ahead and click it, new options appear, pick what you like. You can always go back to beginning with the Home button (the house) on the Toolbar at the top.
[15:25] <starcraftman> The documentation contains a lot of answers to common questions and introductory material you can read to understand Ubuntu.
[15:26] <starcraftman> Do a test search and scroll to the bottom. You’ll see repeat this search online, click it. Presto, you’re back at search.ubuntu.com, nifty. I only just found that one.
[15:26] <starcraftman> Feel free to take a while and explore a bit.
[15:27]  * starcraftman takes lil drink.
[15:27] <starcraftman> Go back to homepage pls (push home button as mentioned on the toolbar).
[15:27] <starcraftman> I’d like to note at the home page you can find the Free Support link, directing you to a lot of materials I’ll talk about.
[15:27] <starcraftman> Next is the Wikis, we have two.
[15:28] <starcraftman> The help wiki you’ll be most interested in is at- https://help.ubuntu.com/ . The other site is https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ . This second site I tell you to prevent confusion, it is primarily for organization of teams. Help.ubuntu.com as the name implies stores all the help documents. Use the first one, not the second.
[15:28] <starcraftman> People often don't understand, these are official sites. They aren't like a wikia, a spin off by fans.
[15:28] <starcraftman> So take a moment and load up https://help.ubuntu.com/
[15:28] <starcraftman> Here you’ll see listed the versions of Ubuntu still in support (i.e. 9.10, 9.04, these are links to their documentation). Clicking any of the versions will take you to an online version of the system pages, useful if you need it on the internet for reference.
[15:29] <starcraftman> (if your not on Ubuntu at this moment, you can now browse system docs)
[15:29] <starcraftman> Some people prefer the system docs in their browser, it’s got a different feel. The content is to my knowledge exactly the same though.
[15:29] <starcraftman> At the bottom you’ll see a link on upgrade notes, useful for upgrades.
[15:29] <starcraftman> More interesting is the community link, please click it
[15:30] <starcraftman> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ < to be clear.
[15:30] <starcraftman> This is the main wiki area it is maintained entirely by the community (folks like me) in an effort to document the software of Ubuntu and problems that arise. Browse all the information on the main page.
[15:30] <starcraftman> The bulk of documentation is in English, it is however translated into other languages and available.
[15:30] <starcraftman> See the “Getting Started with Ubuntu” section. Here is some beginner stuff you can read, there are also three subsequent sections underneath with useful links to stuff beginners need like Installation help and learning more information about their system.
[15:31] <starcraftman> This is all good reading material even if you don't have an immediate problem.
[15:31] <starcraftman> Next, have a look at the “Finding Your Way with Ubuntu” section.
[15:31] <starcraftman> Say hello to Signpost, a recent innovation.
[15:31] <starcraftman> Its aim is simple, to start with the general and try and narrow down to the right information.
[15:31] <starcraftman> Click “get some Help”, and click around some. It’s fairly easy. Different sections have different focus, some on help, filing bugs, some for programmers. See what you need.
[15:32] <starcraftman> Now lastly, search (top right). Say for example I’m having a video problem with my nvidia card. It won’t display my maximum resolution. Do a quick search here for “video nvidia” and see what pops up. Or maybe I just want to learn a good way to backup my system... search for “backup system”. Shameless plug,  top result is one of my pages. Good reading.
[15:32] <starcraftman> Search will present you with relevant pages, as long as you know what you’re looking for. If you do the preparation at the beginning this shouldn’t be a problem.
[15:33] <starcraftman> The community wiki is my preferred resource for a wide variety of problems. It’s up to date and usually covers problems/software in a timely fashion.
[15:33] <starcraftman> Section 4 – Forums
[15:33] <starcraftman> Next, www.ubuntuforums.org
[15:33] <starcraftman> An excellent site, when in doubt posting here is reasonably certain to get you a good answer. There’s an art to posting though, as well as a wrong way to do it.
[15:33] <starcraftman> While I’m explaining, feel free to sign up, click Register at left.
[15:33] <starcraftman> First let’s look at the structure. The most relevant section is Absolute Beginners Talk. It’s come to be a catch all for new people and just problems in general, it gets the most eyeballs. If you post here with reasonable amount of information problem is usually resolved in one or two posts.
[15:34] <starcraftman> The next section is the Main Support Categories, it offers more specialized help for those with... more exotic problems. Advanced server configurations or some more obscure problems. It’s less used by beginners and is less frequented by support people. I’d encourage you to stick with ABT unless you’ve posted there and not gotten a reply in a reasonable time.
[15:34] <starcraftman> The remainder of the site is aimed less at support than discussion/development. You can peruse it at your own leisure.
[15:34] <starcraftman> Time to discuss posting etiquette on the forums, what to do/not do.
[15:35] <starcraftman> We have a full list of things you have to agree to at register I believe, this is just a rundown of pet peeves and things that really shouldn't happen.
[15:35] <starcraftman> Don’t TYPE IN CAPS OR with LOTS of exclamations!!!!! – CAPS usually infer yelling and exclamations excessively used are annoying.
[15:35] <starcraftman> Don’t curse or insult other members offering help. – If you wouldn’t say it to someone standing next to you, it generally shouldn’t be posted.
[15:35] <starcraftman> Don’t demand help in the title/topic like “Fix this or I’m leaving Ubuntu”. We aren’t prone to offering better help when threatened. This is an unfortunate practice by people who get frustrated, it also gets attention quickly. It is incredibly rude and doesn’t make things easier.
[15:36] <starcraftman> Don’t post in the ABT, wait a minute then repost the same thread in different sections. This is annoying. Post in one section (I recommend ABT) and wait for response. It may take 10 minutes or 20, or more, no more than a few hours usually. If so, you can bump your forum post.
[15:36] <starcraftman> A bump of course is just you replying to the post and pushing it back to the top of cue of threads so it is noticed.of
[15:37] <starcraftman> Now a few pointers to actual posting, you can click New Reply somewhere (doesn't matter where) to follow along (just don’t submit please).
[15:37] <starcraftman> Do NOT push submit on the post, this is just so you see the advanced features to posting.
[15:38] <starcraftman> Incidently, in case it wasn't clear, you need to be signed in to post.
[15:38] <starcraftman> Do make your post title pertinent to your problem. If you don’t have any internet on the machine then “I don’t have internet” is better than “problem needs fixing”. You don’t need to convey too much information, just the general category of problem. Including the version of Ubuntu might also be good.
[15:38] <starcraftman> To the left of title you’ll find prefix, please select your version of Ubuntu. When it’s solved, edit your first post and change the prefix to Solved.
[15:39] <starcraftman> The solved tag is useful, it tells people searching the archives your problem was resolved. So they can rely on the proposed fix.
[15:39] <starcraftman> This is nice, also goes back to one of my rules.
[15:39] <starcraftman> I’d like to make a note here- to the right of the title is “Check if Already Posted”. Please click this after writing in a title it will quickly search all previous posts for related information. Experiment with different titles. Often your question has already been answered. Don’t be afraid to detour and read some of these pages, you can always return to new post and submit it.
[15:40] <starcraftman> Just another way of preventing double posts, we get a lot of similar questions.
[15:40] <starcraftman> In your first post, try to put as much information as you can. Now is the time to consult that page we wrote earlier. Explain what you were doing, what went wrong, and what you have since learned (maybe from wiki). Nothing’s too small, at the same time, don’t write pages.
[15:41] <starcraftman> Take a note of the GUI at top of the forum reply, there is # button.
[15:41] <starcraftman> This is for the code tag.
[15:42] <starcraftman> people will often use it responding, if you want to post the hardware.txt file output use these tags. It stops the page overflowing.
[15:42] <starcraftman> Screenshots can be hosted at sites like http://www.imgur.com or as attachments to the post (scroll down on new post page, click Manage Attachments). These are very useful.
[15:43] <starcraftman> Images hosted on imgur you just copy the forum link and paste in the body of reply. The attachements way automates this.
[15:43] <starcraftman> When you’re happy with your post, submit it. Someone should get back to you with instructions in a timely and friendly fashion.
[15:43] <starcraftman> Some people ask how do I know the instructions will help? Or to trust the person giving? Well, there isn’t a rule per se.
[15:43] <starcraftman> I for instance have an almost 3000 post count, does that imply a user should trust me? I guess. Though when I started posting I only had a post count of 1, my knowledge has improved since but my advice was still usually helpful based on what I knew.
[15:43] <starcraftman> The rule I’d say is, does it sound right and well explained? A person who knows their stuff should be able to convey relevant information and convince you it’s the right thing to do.
[15:43] <starcraftman> A few closing comments on the forums.
[15:43] <starcraftman> It’s a helpful resource, it harnesses the collective experience of thousands of geeks like me. Do remember we all volunteer for no pay.
[15:44] <starcraftman> Also, a few helpful links you might enjoy are- http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1052065
[15:44] <starcraftman> A free beginners guide PDF to getting started.
[15:44] <starcraftman> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=801404
[15:44] <starcraftman> A general launch point to many good forum guides written by people who know their stuff.
[15:44] <starcraftman> I wrote the installation one for instance.
[15:45] <starcraftman> Peruse them on your own. These links are good for general learning. Like the wiki.
[15:45] <starcraftman> Section 4.5 – IRC (Real  quick)
[15:45] <starcraftman> Nhandler is covering this later. I only want to point out that IRC can be used for support. Channels such as #ubuntu, #kubuntu and #ubuntu-beginners are all good stops. A good run down of channels and getting help is available here- https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InternetRelayChat
[15:45] <starcraftman> (don't click the #links, that will open IRC client to somewhere else).
[15:45] <starcraftman> The page lists the channels, what they focus and how to fix her up. Nhander will give more details.
[15:45] <starcraftman> Section 5 – Launchpad
[15:46] <starcraftman> I’m going to try and make this brief, I don’t want to cover nigel’s topic (see agenda for time), he’s devoting a whole hour to launchpad.
[15:46] <starcraftman> Launchpad is however the place to go when all of the above doesn’t get you an answer. You have two choices.
[15:46] <starcraftman> First is the answers section, see here-
[15:46] <starcraftman> https://answers.launchpad.net/
[15:46] <starcraftman> Launchpad Answers is basically a section designed to let the people working on the projects answer your question.
[15:46] <starcraftman> Please note, you need to be signed up to use this site. If you want, you can sign up now in preparation for later with Nigel. A nice plus, any launchpad account is automatically an opened, can be used on other sites supporting such login.
[15:47] <starcraftman> Say I have a problem with music playing in rhythmbox, so esoteric that none of the above helped.
[15:47] <starcraftman> (by above, I mean the other resources)
[15:47] <starcraftman> Go to answers home, click choose one project and type in rhythmbox. This takes you right to the project answer section. See if your problem is listed. If not, you can file a question here in much the same way as you would a bug (bug filing is last resort).
[15:47] <starcraftman> Click ask a new question and fill it out. Someone should get back to you in a reasonable time. (don't file a question at this time...)
[15:47] <starcraftman> People are very active in the Ubuntu project answering the Answers section, you might consider posting there more generally before in a specific project like rhythmbox.
[15:47] <starcraftman> Next is a quick bug filing run down. Click bugs section at the top of rhythmbox. At the right, on top of ask a question is now Report a Bug.
[15:48] <starcraftman> Click this only if you want to file a bug, please don’t file them without being sure it’s a bug and having searched existing bugs. Devs get a lot of duplicates that don’t help.
[15:48] <starcraftman> There's a structure to filling reports, nigel will cover this. It's important to put more not less info, as specific as you can so devs can reproduce bugs, test and fix.
[15:49] <starcraftman> Launchpad is a good service, though I’m more of a doc person so I guess I’m biased to recommend system then wiki docs.
[15:49] <starcraftman> That's it on LP, please see nigel later for more.
[15:49] <starcraftman> Section 6 – Closing
[15:49] <starcraftman> When confronted by a problem, stop and think. Don’t panic.
[15:49] <starcraftman> Write down all pertinent information that you know.
[15:49] <starcraftman> Then use the right resource. I usually start with the system or wiki documentation. Or a Google search.
[15:49] <starcraftman> http://search.ubuntu.com is fast becoming a favourite of mine to get quick answers as it indexes most of the good resources.
[15:50] <starcraftman> If looking on your own fails to turn up help, I’d next suggest the forums or IRC. Search them carefully and if you can’t find relevant info ask in ABT for help with all the information you know.
[15:50] <starcraftman> Next if that doesn’t work, see Launchpad answers/bug system as relevant.
[15:50] <starcraftman> There’s no hard fast rule, it’s more of an experience thing finding good answers. The more you do it the easier it becomes. It's not too intimidating now I hope.
[15:50] <starcraftman> Do please consider where the information comes from before doing anything, if you do a Google search and you find a lone blog post detailing an answer with no comments or any affiliation with Ubuntu that’s been abandoned by the poster, you should hesitate.
[15:51] <starcraftman> Where the information comes from is important.
[15:51] <starcraftman> I know it’s a lot of information to absorb, I hope you’ve found it helpful.
[15:51] <starcraftman> I have extra links I may not have mentioned on my outline as listed at the beginning. Click and browse them at your leisure.
[15:51] <starcraftman> I guess we can open questions, to do so orderly please follow the question format-
[15:51] <starcraftman>  /Begin_Asking_Questions
[15:52] <nigelbabu> Question How important are quotes for searches in a browser?
[15:54] <starcraftman> Good question. Remember that when your searching with quotes your searching an exact string. This is most useful when you have a snippet of an error and want to search for it. Say for example.... "xrender failed to intialize"
[15:55] <starcraftman> Hope it was clear but when searching do just stick to keywords, drop all "the" and "it" or "and". You may want to use them in string searches though.
[15:56] <nigelbabu> Question what will be the most effect way to type a keyword to search an answer?
[15:57] <starcraftman> Ah, this really depends. Experience as I said gives you more insight into where and how to search for answers. In general a standard well thought out (i.e. carefully consider order of keywords) may be all you need.
[15:58] <starcraftman> So if I had nvidia problem with my 8800 GT.... "Ubuntu 9.10 nvidia 8800GT" without the quotes in google would probably turn up some results  of other karmic users having trouble with nvidiia card.
[15:58] <starcraftman> Ultimately, more you practice searching easier it becomes.
[15:58] <starcraftman> Don't be shy bout reading googleguide, nice site. It goes into much more depth.
[15:59] <nigelbabu> QUESTION Are books a good resource to help a friend get started with ubuntu, as opposed to or along with what you've told us about today?
[16:00] <starcraftman> Interesting question. Yes I do have a few good books I like, for those that may want something a bit more structured and tangible.
[16:00] <starcraftman> A practical Guide to ubuntu Linux by Sobel is a quite comprehensive read.
[16:00] <starcraftman> See amazon.
[16:00] <cjohnston> Thank you starcraftman !
[16:01] <starcraftman> Beginning Ubuntu linux fourth edition by Thomas also good. Time pretty much up now.
[16:01] <starcraftman> Hope yall enjoyed, I'll move to chat if there's any more questions.
[16:01] <cjohnston> Next up is Jamal Fanaian. Jamal lives in Orlando, FL and is a member of the Florida LoCo....
[16:01] <cjohnston> Go Florida!
[16:01] <cjohnston> He have been a web developer for a few years, and has been using Ubuntu as his primary operating system
[16:02] <cjohnston> for about two years now. Jamal like to help out with the Ubuntu Community and show up to LoCo events, as well as helping out
[16:02] <cjohnston> some open source projects with code and what not.
[16:02] <jamalta> Hi! :)
[16:02] <jamalta> Before I start, I wanted to thank starcraftman for a great talk, as well as everyone that went before him, and everyone else left in the day. Also, I wanted to thank everyone that has been working hard for months in making this day a success, you guys rock!
[16:03] <jamalta> So like cjohnston said, I'm Jamal and I'm going to be talking about Restricted Drivers. Feel free to ask questions at ANY time during this talk in #ubuntu-classroom-chat. Please prefix your questions with QUESTION: so I can easily see them.
[16:03] <jamalta> I'll be keeping an eye, and I don't mind pausing at any point :)
[16:03] <cjohnston> jamalta no colons!
[16:03] <jamalta> cjohnston: ok
[16:04] <cjohnston> !fail
[16:04] <jamalta> Alright, so let's get started!
[16:04] <jamalta> First, let's start off mentioning what drivers are and what they do for us. A driver is a program that facilitates communication with hardware.
[16:04] <jamalta> Restricted drivers, are drivers that are manufactured by a third-party, usually the hardware vendor, and are not open source. This makes it difficult for the community to contribute to innovating these drivers, which is why they are often not preferred.
[16:05] <jamalta> Anywho, you probably want your computer working as efficiently as possible, so Ubuntu has made it easy for us to load these restricted drivers in our system.
[16:05] <jamalta> So let's talk about the drivers manager
[16:05] <jamalta> Restricted Drivers Manager, or jockey as it is code named, is a tool that lets you activate restricted drivers. It simply checks your system against Ubuntu's database to check what closed drivers are available for you to use.
[16:05] <jamalta> You will often see it as an icon in your notification area (by the clock on the top right) that pops up telling you that you have restricted drivers available.
[16:06] <jamalta> Well, sorry let me rephrase,.. you will usually see it the first time you boot to Ubuntu.
[16:06] <jamalta> You can also access it by going to the System -> Administration -> Hardware Drivers.
[16:06] <jamalta> When you first open it, you will have to wait for it to scan your hardware and determine what drivers are available to you. As soon as that is done you will see a list of drivers you can activate.
[16:07] <jamalta> If you have an NVIDIA or ATI video card, you will often see the restricted drivers here. If you see multiple options, I would choose the recommended one. Select the driver and simply click the "Activate" button. You will have to reboot your system, but don't do it yet!
[16:07] <jamalta> Once you reboot, your system will be using the drivers and should have access to advanced features. For example, with the video drivers enabled, you will have access to 3d rendering and compositing (transparency and animations), if it wasn't working before.
[16:08] <jamalta> Next topic, installing drivers from the repository
[16:08] <jamalta> It is also possible to install drivers directly from the repository. You can do this in one of two ways, using the GUI tool, Synaptic, or through the command line, with aptitude.
[16:08] <jamalta> To install a driver from Synaptic, first open it by going to System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager.
[16:09] <jamalta> Once you have it open, you have to find the driver you want. In this example, I'm going to go into ATI drivers.
[16:09] <jamalta> From Synaptic, search for xserver-xorg-video-fglrx. Check it, and click Apply. This will install fglrx which are the ATI restricted drivers. For NVIDIA, you will have to choose among the avialable options for nvidia-glx. Refer to this wiki for more help: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/Nvidia
[16:10] <jamalta> You can also do this from the command line by running sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-fglrx.
[16:10] <jamalta> Another option, and our next topic, is to install the drivers directly from the vendors
[16:11] <jamalta> For ATI, you can visit ati.amd.com and search for your card. Select Linux (x86 for 32-bit, and x86_64 for 64-bit). And download the drivers. For NVIDA you can do the same by going to nvidia.com and searching for your card.
[16:11] <jamalta> 11:11 < jazz__> Question: wheni isntalled my nvidia fx5200 128mb my system  wouldn't load i get a black screen and a string of goggbled words  just after the pc loads & before the grub. would that be a driver  problem?
[16:12] <jamalta> jazz_: that can be a driver problem.. usually, the system will try to fall back to vesa (standard drivers that are meant to work with practically anything)
[16:13] <jamalta> But if you have configured your system to use other drivers, then there would be a conflict.
[16:14] <jamalta> 11:13 < ehlim> Question if the driver version is newer than repos, could that  cause system problem?
[16:14] <jamalta> ehlim: not always, the issue usually lies on whether the newer drivers support your current kernel
[16:14] <jamalta> i have upgraded to newer drivers before, but nowadays i try to be safe and use what is in the repos
[16:15] <jamalta> The only reason I would recommend to sticking with what is in the repository is because it will be easier for the community to help
[16:16] <jamalta> 11:15 < gukk_devel> QUESTION: what to do when the installer can't detect the  onboard nvidia in combination with the monitor -> mode not  supported
[16:16] <jamalta> Guest71766: that's a good question. i don't know exactly how to debug jockey to find out why it didn't detect it but the first thing i would do is report ab ug in launchpad
[16:16] <jamalta> err that was for gukk_devel...
[16:17] <jamalta> You can always try to install the drivers and configure them yourself. I'm going to touch on that a bit but it may be a bit heavy to do so, and I've screwed up my system a few times doing that.
[16:18] <jamalta> For now, let's move back to downloading drivers
[16:18] <jamalta> For ATI, you can visit ati.amd.com and search for your card. Select Linux (x86 for 32-bit, and x86_64 for 64-bit). And download the drivers. For NVIDA you can do the same by going to nvidia.com and searching for your card.
[16:19] <jamalta> In my case I would select ATI Radeon HD 4350, after selecting Linux x86_64 as my operating system
[16:19] <jamalta> Then you will be provided with a download that should work in your system
[16:19] <jamalta> In most cases, the drivers is a self-executable installer. So to install them, you simply open a terminal, browse to the directory the download is in (cd Downloads, or cd Desktop).
[16:20] <jamalta> Then run the installer by typing ./filename. So for ati, it would be ./ati-driver-installer-9-12-x86.x86_64.run. This will start the installer which may ask more questions about the install.
[16:20] <jamalta> If it gives you an error that the file is an executable, then you first have to make it executably by using th efollowing command
[16:20] <jamalta> chmod +x <filename>
[16:20] <jamalta> So if I wanted to make my drivers an executable, I would run
[16:20] <jamalta> chmod +x ati-driver-installer-9-12-x86.x86_64.run
[16:21] <jamalta> don't worry, it won't screw things up if you run that command more than once
[16:21] <jamalta> 11:20 < Jedemco> Question: If the driver is downloaded using FireFox, couldn't you  just install the driver by double clicking in the download window?
[16:21] <jamalta> Jedemco: Yes, you could do that, but it will only work if the file is downloaded as an executable. Sometimes you have to chmod it to make it an executable first.
[16:22] <jamalta> I always do it from a terminal first, though, because often the drivers have more questions they ask.. and just to be safe that I see all the output I need.
[16:22] <jamalta> Once the installation is done you need to configure your system to use the drivers by running aticonfig --initial in the command line.
[16:22] <jamalta> You will probably have to prefix that command with sudo
[16:23] <jamalta> Always refer to the provided documentation for more help on configuration. The drivers will often come with a README file. If not, it should be available in the page you downloaded the drivers from.
[16:23] <jamalta> But generally, this method is least recommended as it difficult to support and often requires custom configuration.
[16:23] <jamalta> ehlim: just to point out, this is how you would upgrade to newer drivers if you downloaded them from the vendor.
[16:24] <jamalta> Something I'd like to point out is to use starcraftman's talk to find help if you ever get stuck when installing these drivers.
[16:24] <jamalta> Also, the people in #ubuntu are usually VERY helpful in answering these questions.
[16:25] <jamalta> Just remember, if you ask a question, and you don't get an answer, wait a few minutes and just ask it again.
[16:26] <jamalta> So on to our last topic
[16:26] <jamalta>  Using Windows drivers with ndiswrapper
[16:26] <jamalta> Hopefully, your wireless already works and you won't have to do this. But some of us are unlucky enough to have a wireless card that just works.
[16:26] <jamalta> Oh, sorry, I need to backtrack a bit... We will be using wireless drivers as an example. This is what you will most often have an issue with.
[16:27] <jamalta> 11:26 < hhlp> question - what hapenned is a new relase of kernel is relese i have  to install the graphic driver again
[16:27] <jamalta> hhlp: Usually, you will not have driver issues when upgrading drivers within the same distroseries. This means, that if you're system is using Karmic, and you are upgrading to newer kernels provided in Karmic, you shouldn't have an issue
[16:27] <jamalta> There are some cases where this isn't true.
[16:28] <jamalta> Most issues will occur when upgrading to a new distroseries. For example, I upgraded to Lucid and my video drivers are not working. This is because ATI has not released drivers for the newer Kernel in Lucid.
[16:28] <jamalta> 11:28 < jamon1> is it possible to use ndiswrapper with other drivers ( eg for  antiquated webcam )?
[16:29] <jamalta> You didn't prefix your question ;).. maybe it wasn't meant for me, but I caught it anyway!
[16:29] <jamalta> jamon1: Webcams are VERY tricky. I've never had luck trying to get windows drivers working
[16:29] <jamalta> Your best bet will be to use V4L2 (Video 4 Linux) drivers, and hope your webcam is supported
[16:30] <jamalta> More information can be found in the V4l wiki, http://linuxtv.org/v4lwiki/index.php/Main_Page
[16:30] <jamalta> Uh oh, that's not the wiki, sorry
[16:30] <jamalta> Well it is but it's empty
[16:30] <jamalta> There's a link there to the new wiki, sorry!
[16:30] <jamalta> 11:30 < ehlim> Question: how about built in mic for note book?
[16:30] <jamalta> ehlim: That's another tricky one.. mic's have always worked for me. I've never had issues with any mic I've used.
[16:31] <jamalta> I would first check your sound options to make sure the mic is enabled and the volume is up for it.
[16:31] <jamalta> ehlim: in System > Preferences > Sound.. just check all over the place for mic recording volume, it's annoying, sorry.
[16:32] <jamalta> Also check to make sure the right Mic is chosen in the Input tab
[16:32] <jamalta> jamon1: Btw, here is the correct wiki http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
[16:32] <jamalta> Also this page should be very helpful with webcams https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Webcam
[16:33] <jamalta> So let's go on to ndiswrapper. In my example I will be using a broadcom card, because that is what I've had most experience with, and honestly, I think it's the card that gives the most issues in Linux.
[16:34] <jamalta> First, let's install ndiswrapper by installing the ndiswrapper-utils-1.9 package. You can do this through Synaptic or apt-get (sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils-1.9).
[16:34] <jamalta> Once you have ndiswrapper you need to get your hands on the Windows drivers. You will hopefully have a CD with them, but if not, you can always try finding them at broadcom.com or drivers.softpedia.com.
[16:35] <jamalta> If the drivers are in an executable (.exe file), you will have to first extract them in Windows and then copy them to your Ubuntu machine. If you have wine installed, you can attempt to extract them that way. Keep in mind that your C:\ directory is actually in ~/.wine/drive_c/.
[16:35] <jamalta> Once you have the driver files, open a terminal and go to the directory where the drivers were copied or extracted. The file you are interested in is the inf file. In my case, this is bcmwl5.inf.
[16:36] <jamalta> So, let's try to install it! Run ndiswrapper -i <filename.inf> In my case, it's ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
[16:36] <jamalta> Once that is done, you can run
[16:36] <jamalta> ndiswrapper -l
[16:37] <jamalta> Which will list the installed drivers
[16:37] <jamalta> This will also tell you if the driver is correct, by telling you the driver is installed and the device is present.
[16:37] <jamalta> 11:37 < MagicFab> jamalta, why not use ndisgtk ?
[16:37] <jamalta> MagicFab: Good question! I didn't know it existed!
[16:38] <jamalta> 11:38 < MagicFab> jamalta, the .inf file is not enough, you need to have all  accompanying files. .inf is only a text file
[16:38] <jamalta> MagicFab, right.. sorry what I meant is that you need the inf file in the command.
[16:39] <jamalta> As MagicFab mentioned, you do have to have all the extracted files.  I hope that is the case at least!
[16:40] <jamalta> MagicFab: Thank you so much for your suggestions! ndisgtk is actually pretty good.
[16:41] <jamalta> So if you install ndisgtk from the package manager, you should be able to do the same thing I just explained. Except, it's all in a GUI that is easy to follow.
[16:41] <jamalta> Anyways, that is pretty much all I have. I hope that I provided some insight on how to take care of your drivers. I'm going to leave room for any questions you may have.
[16:42] <jamalta> So please! I would hate to leave with 20 minutes left, heh.
[16:44] <jamalta> 11:43 < JLinden> Question: I tried installing the driver for ATI X1400 the way you  explained, but I got an error saying that "./default_policy.sh  does not support version ...". What am I doing wrong?
[16:45] <jamalta> it seems like the issue has to do with the ATI drivers not supporting the kernel you are on
[16:46] <jamalta> In those cases, I think (and please correct me if I'm wrong) ATI has stopped upgrading the drivers for a specific card to the newer kernels.
[16:47] <jamalta> So your best bet is to try the radeon drivers (Open Source drivers) to see if they work.
[16:48] <jamalta> That is what is terrible about the restricted drivers.. we rely on these companies to "support" us and in most cases they don't do it well.
[16:48] <jamalta> 11:45 < jazz__> Question: how do you remove drivers completely
[16:48] <jamalta> jazz_: You will want to look at your package manager to get rid of drivers. For example, if I wanted to get rid of fglrx, then I would remove xserver-xorg-video-fglrx using Synaptic or apt-get remove
[16:50] <jamalta> Regarding the radeon drivers, this page has much more information on how to find out if your card is supported and installing them https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RadeonDriver
[16:53] <jamalta> I'm going to say goodbye now, as nigelbabu will be taking over and using the extra time for his class. I will answer questions in -chat. Thanks everyone!
[17:00] <cjohnston> Thanks jamalta !
[17:01] <cjohnston> Unfortunately freenode, the IRC network we use, has been hit hard recently with an influx of javascript spam. For more information please see http://blog.freenode.net/2010/01/javascript-spam/. Do not click other links that say you are infected or they are more information about the spam.
[17:01] <cjohnston> Also, at some point today please take the Ubuntu User Days Survey located at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WQWHJQY
[17:02] <pleia2> Nigel is a computer science student who is a passionate FOSS and Ubuntu enthusiast. He is involved is various teams in the Ubuntu community like the beginners Team,
[17:02] <pleia2> Ubuntu Community Learning Project, and Bug Squad.
[17:03] <nigelbabu> Alright, like starcraftman, I've got a lot of ground to cover and only the hour.   Please keep questions to #ubuntu-classroom-chat, reserve them for when I ask for them. Please make sure you keep them  prefaced with "QUESTION - " so people can see them.
[17:03] <nigelbabu> Also, please don't PM me during this session.
[17:04] <nigelbabu> As pleia2 mentioned,  I'm Nigel Babu and I'm Ubuntu's bug squad member.  I'm here to talk today about Launchpad.  hggdh will be assisting me with answering your bug reporting queries later on in the session :)
[17:04] <nigelbabu> Launchpad is a collaboration and hosting platform for software projects.
[17:04] <nigelbabu> It brings communities together by making it easy to share code, bug reports, translations and ideas across projects.
[17:05] <nigelbabu> Now, my main focus is why it is a good idea for you, as a user, to sign up for a Launchpad account.
[17:05] <nigelbabu> There are mainly 3 services that you might want to use after signing up for Launchpad -- OpenID, Launchpad Answers, and Reporting Bugs.
[17:06] <nigelbabu> I will be elaborating about how to report bugs in great detail while touching through the others.
[17:06] <nigelbabu> Now, lets talk about Launchpad an Open ID provider.
[17:06] <nigelbabu> Open ID allows you to use an existing account to sign in to multiple websites, without needing to create new passwords.
[17:06] <nigelbabu> However, rather than entering that username and password at each website, you use a website you trust -- such as Launchpad -- to confirm your identity to the other sites.
[17:07] <nigelbabu> Now, here is how it works :
[17:07] <nigelbabu> You visit a website that supports OpenID and it asks you to log in.
[17:08] <nigelbabu> Enter the Launchpad profile URL - https://launchpad.net/~your-nickname. (lernid guys, apologies, you'll see page not found)
[17:08] <nigelbabu> If you're not already logged into Launchpad, it'll ask you to enter your username and password.
[17:08] <nigelbabu> Once you're successfully logged into Launchpad, it'll return you to the site you want to use.
[17:08] <nigelbabu> Simple! This means that you only need to remember your Launchpad profile URL, username and password in order to use websites that support OpenID.
[17:08] <nigelbabu> You can use Launchpad to log into any of the growing number of sites that support OpenID.
[17:09] <nigelbabu> So where can you use it?  Blogs on blogger, wordpress (using an openID plugin), LiveJournal, and many more.
[17:09] <nigelbabu> For the full list, please refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenID#Adoption
[17:09] <nigelbabu> Okay, so any questions so far about OpenID with Launchpad?
[17:10] <pleia2> < oskude> QUESTION - is there a "fear" to get scammed for your OpenID ?
[17:11] <nigelbabu> oskude, could you explain more?  I dont understand your question
[17:11] <pleia2> < oskude> or how im sure that a site really uses OpenID ? and not try to scam my ID ?
[17:11] <nigelbabu> well, when you try to signup for open ID, it will take you to your provider's side, i.e. launchpad
[17:12] <nigelbabu> make sure that the browser location shows http://www.launchpad.net and you should be fine
[17:12] <pleia2> < Brot1> QUESTION: why is launchpad only a OpenID-provider and not except OpenID accounts from other providers?
[17:13] <nigelbabu> well, that functionality is not yet written.
[17:13] <nigelbabu> remember launchpad is in active development and features get added all the time
[17:14] <nigelbabu> Let's move onto Launchpad Answers.
[17:14] <nigelbabu> Please hold your questions till the end of this one
[17:14] <nigelbabu> starcraftman covered this briefly and I'll take you through it in more detail.
[17:15] <nigelbabu> While mailing lists, web forums, and IRC are great places to find help with free software they do have a couple of shortcomings:
[17:15] <nigelbabu> oops, sorry lernid guys
[17:15] <nigelbabu> (a) There's no way to track the progress of a question and knowledge about the software is spread across different places.
[17:16] <nigelbabu> so the solution to that is launchpad answers.
[17:16] <nigelbabu> Launchpad Answers is unique in that it works like a bug tracker.
[17:16] <nigelbabu> It notifies volunteer support contacts of new questions, builds a searchable knowledge base of good answers, and allows people to ask questions and offer support in different languages.
[17:16] <nigelbabu> Using Launchpad Answers is easy, first off, visit the Answers page at https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu.
[17:17] <nigelbabu> Click on the "Ask a Question" link in the right top of the page.  Next, type good summary to your question.
[17:17] <nigelbabu> of course I would assume that you are signed in.  If you're not, just listen in.  You can try it out later.
[17:17] <nigelbabu> Just make sure that the question is entered clearly.
[17:18] <nigelbabu> starcraftman covered asking questions properly on forums and it applies here too
[17:18] <nigelbabu> "Please help me!" or "I need help" is not a good summary ;) .
[17:18] <nigelbabu> A good summary would be "How to replace a hard drive without losing the boot loader" or something in that tone
[17:18] <nigelbabu> Click on next, and Launchpad will now search for existing questions that look similar.
[17:18] <nigelbabu> If it finds any, it will show you them.  If Launchpad doesn't find any similar questions, or those it finds are unhelpful to you, you can write a more detailed description of your problem and submit your question.
[17:19] <nigelbabu> Once you've added your question, Launchpad emails anyone who's volunteered to be an answer contact for your language.
[17:19] <nigelbabu> They can then ask you for more information or offer an answer. Launchpad will then email you whenever your question changes, such as when someone suggests an answer.
[17:20] <nigelbabu> Thats about for LP answers.  Questions?
[17:21] <nigelbabu> Question - will Lauchpad collect information on our system? like hardware info?
[17:22] <nigelbabu> well, launchpad as such does not collect information.  Its apport which collects it and automatically adds to a bug report.  But that works only for bugs anyway.
[17:22] <nigelbabu> for those of who you who dont know, Apport is a script that collects information about a software when you report a problem. (I'll talk about it soon!)
[17:23] <pleia2> < Yos> Question When starcraftman gave his session, it sounded like asking questions on launchpad should be nearly the last resort, but you make it sound more like it should be done at even an early troubleshooting step that is, to centralize the knowledge base.  My question is, when should someone turn to launchpad to ask their question?
[17:24] <nigelbabu> its personal perference really.  Some people like forums - there is a sizeable crowd there and I feel you have a better chance there.
[17:24] <nigelbabu> LP answers are people like me - lazy to browse forums, just doing a quick dash of questions I understand when I get the time
[17:25] <nigelbabu> both sides have volunteers and a good community.  Basically boil down to personal perference
[17:25] <nigelbabu> okay, so lets move on to bug reporting now
[17:26] <nigelbabu> Ubuntu as you know Launchpad for reporting bugs.
[17:26] <nigelbabu>  Launchpad is a very unique bug tracker and we'll be covering how to make your bug report more complete and therefore more likely to get fixed!
[17:27] <nigelbabu> Very often we see bug reports with incomplete information, which means more time is spent getting the actual information.  If you give proper information, its easy for us triagers to confirm the bug so the developers can look into it.
[17:27] <nigelbabu> so, now, we'll be looking at how to ensure that you give proper information
[17:28] <nigelbabu> Even though you can report bugs directly from the website, we suggest that you don't you do that.
[17:28] <nigelbabu> in fact, most of the time, the appropriate information is never really attached or given when you report from the web interface
[17:28] <nigelbabu> If you want to report a bug on an application that is running and responding, use the application's help menu: Help -> Report a problem.
[17:29] <nigelbabu> Its a GUI that will collect the necessary information required for that software.
[17:29] <nigelbabu> like this https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=report-a-problem.png
[17:30] <nigelbabu> If an application crashes, and you're using a version of Ubuntu which is actively under development, Apport will start automatically, raising an appropriate bug report for you to complete in Launchpad. This provides developers with rich debugging information that will make it easier to fix the problem.
[17:30] <nigelbabu> for more information about apport, see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Apport
[17:31] <nigelbabu> some times, you really can't use the menu for reporting bugs for example :
[17:31] <nigelbabu> You're using the Server Edition,  The application doesn't have the appropriate menu item,
[17:31] <nigelbabu>  The application won't start at all, or Your problem is not related to an application but is an infrastructure component, such as the Linux kernel or graphics subsystem
[17:32] <nigelbabu> this is when you use a small command  line program called "ubuntu-bug"
[17:32] <nigelbabu> supposing firefox is giving you trouble
[17:33] <nigelbabu> to report a bug about firefox, you simply type "ubuntu-bug firefox" in the Alt + F2 dialog (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=ubuntu-bug.png)
[17:33] <nigelbabu> the format is ubuntu-bug <package-name>
[17:34] <nigelbabu> so, it is very critical you have the package right
[17:34] <nigelbabu> if you have a problem with epiphany browser, you would report it against "epiphany-browser" and not "epiphany" - epiphany is a game
[17:35] <nigelbabu> to know more about finding the right package, please see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage
[17:35] <nigelbabu> To file a bug against a program that is currently running, go to System > Administration > System Monitor, and find the ID of the process:
[17:36] <nigelbabu> for example https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=system-monitor-id.png
[17:36] <nigelbabu> Then type the process ID instead of the package name into the "Run Application" window.
[17:36] <nigelbabu> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=ubuntu-bug-pid.png
[17:37] <nigelbabu> In the event that you have a bug with your internet connection or want to file a bug for another system you can still do this using apport.
[17:37] <nigelbabu> Using the command apport-cli -f -p <package name> on the target system will collect information and provide you with an option to "K: Keep report file for sending later or copying to somewhere else".
[17:37] <nigelbabu> The report is then saved on the target system, in your /tmp directory which is cleared out on reboot, with a .apport extension.
[17:37] <nigelbabu> After copying it to a different system you can file that report using ubuntu-bug  <location of apport file>.
[17:38] <nigelbabu> A special note, all translation issues should be filed against the Ubuntu Translations project (ubuntu-translations). From there the bugs will be triaged and assigned to the right person and package.
[17:38] <nigelbabu> Wrong translations or spelling mistakes in applications, Errors in spellcheckers or language support, etc all come under translations bug
[17:39] <nigelbabu> If for some reason you cannot file a bug through the Apport tool you can file one via Launchpad. When doing so please ensure that you have determined which package it should be filed against.
[17:39] <nigelbabu> ensure that you read the "Finding the right package" link I gave earlier.  Well, here it is again : https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage
[17:40] <nigelbabu> To report a bug when you don't know the package name https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+filebug/?no-redirect - please use this as the last instance.  If you need help with filing a bug, do drop by at #ubuntu-bugs.  We'd be happy to help
[17:41] <nigelbabu> If you have already reported a bug directly via Launchpad, but want to add additional debugging information via Apport to the bug, you can do this by running the command "apport-collect BUGNUMBER" via "Run Application" or terminal window.
[17:41] <nigelbabu> now moving on to the report itself
[17:42] <nigelbabu> When a developer fixes a bug, they will test that the bug occurs, make a small change to the program, then see if the bug has gone away. Depending on the bug, they might need to run the same test dozens or hundreds of times. When you submit a bug report, it's important to specify three things:
[17:42] <nigelbabu> (1) What you expected to happen (2) What actually happened (3) The minimal series of steps necessary to make it happen, where step 1 is "start the program"
[17:42] <nigelbabu> Fill in the description field with as much information as you can, including the release of Ubuntu you are using and steps for someone else to recreate the bug. It is better to have too much information in the description than not enough.
[17:42] <nigelbabu> Only describe a single problem per bug report so that each can be followed up on in detail. If you experience several issues file separate reports.
[17:43] <nigelbabu> Add supporting attachments to explain or help others reproduce your bug. This might include a screenshot or video capture of the problem or a sample document that triggers the fault. To add an attachment to the bug use the Include an attachment section of the bug form. Additional attachments, if necessary, can be added after the bug is reported via Add a comment/attachment at the bottom of the page.
[17:43] <nigelbabu> For anything hardware related, give precise details about your hardware. Attaching the output of "lspci -vvnn" and "dmesg", after a fresh boot, will help a lot.
[17:43] <nigelbabu> A bug report can be under different status, initially, it is in the "New" status
[17:44] <nigelbabu> this is the latest bug for ubuntu filed.  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/software-center/+bug/511632
[17:44] <nigelbabu> notice the status is "New"
[17:45] <nigelbabu> It will be changed to Confirmed if someone else can reproduce the same problem and confirm that the issue is actually a bug.
[17:45] <nigelbabu> Please do not confirm your own bug, that would defeat the purpose of having "Confirmed" status
[17:46] <nigelbabu> If a bug triager has asked you for more information, he/she will set the status to incomplete.  Once you submit the information, do not hesitate to change the status back to "New"
[17:47] <nigelbabu> If you look at the bug report I showed, you'll see a green text "This bug affects 1 person. Does this bug affect you?"
[17:48] <nigelbabu> Please dont click that button if your bug is a hardware bug.  The same issue can be caused by several different hardware and each need to be different bugs.
[17:48] <nigelbabu> Clicking on me too! is not going to solve your problem.
[17:49] <nigelbabu> If your issue is software bug, like the bug I just showed (which i suspect could be some trouble with the mirrors), you *could* click for me too and leave comments
[17:50] <nigelbabu> moving on to What is NOT a bug!
[17:50] <nigelbabu> Support requests - they are not bugs.  Please use #ubuntu IRC channel, forums, LP answers, and other community support means
[17:51] <nigelbabu> Feature and policy discussions (including suggestions to change defaults) should be discussed on the ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list.
[17:51] <nigelbabu> exception to the above are small feature requests to a particular software (like support webchat in pidgin - its there now!)
[17:52] <nigelbabu> Development ideas should be posted to http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/ or discussed on the ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list.
[17:52] <nigelbabu> Already filed -  if its a software bug and already filed, then better subscribe to the one already filed and add any additonal information if any
[17:52] <nigelbabu> Okay, thats it for the class.  hggdh and I are available for questions :)
[17:53] <nigelbabu> QUESTION - Are Launchpad bugs connected to bzr ? as in, can i close a bug from bzr command line while submitting (pushing) a commit ?
[17:54] <hggdh> no
[17:54] <hggdh> here's why: pushing a commit will *not* resolve the bug. Only when the commit is actually deployed this will happen
[17:54] <hggdh> and you get that done by adding (LP: xxxxx) on the changelog
[17:55] <nigelbabu> QUESTION -  I'm not sure I understand: does Apport report to launchpad ? If not, how do we get feedback on the reported bug ?
[17:56] <nigelbabu> yes.  Apport brings you to the LP page.
[17:56] <nigelbabu> here, you need to add more details about the bug like the summary and description
[17:56] <hggdh> and the submitter is automagically subscribed to any updates on the bug
[17:57] <nigelbabu> A few more minutes to take some quick questions.  Any more?
[17:59] <cjohnston> Thank you very much nigelbabu and hggdh!
[17:59] <nigelbabu> Okay.  That's about it then.  Thank you hggdh for you help :)
[17:59] <nigelbabu> I guess I forgot to introduce hggdh.  He is a member of bug control and mentor to a lot of new Bug Squad members :)
[17:59]  * hggdh bows
[17:59] <cjohnston> Again.. Please take our Ubuntu User Days survey today! http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WQWHJQY
[18:00] <cjohnston> Our next speaker is another member of the Ubuntu Florida LoCo team!
[18:00] <cjohnston> Michael Hall has been working in software development for 10 years. He has been a Desktop Linux user for 6 years, the last 4 being on Ubuntu.
[18:00] <cjohnston> He is the main developer of Qimo, an Ubuntu-derived Linux Distribution for kids. He currently spends his days doing Python development for the
[18:00] <cjohnston> Moffitt Cancer Research Center in Tampa, FL.
[18:01] <mhall119> thanks cjohnston
[18:02] <mhall119> so I'm going to be talking about cryptography, what it is and how it's used by Ubuntu
[18:02] <mhall119> and also how it can be used by you
[18:03] <mhall119> if you go over to my notes for this session, there's some helpful images and screenshots https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserDays/01232010/SeahorseGPG
[18:04] <mhall119> so there are two types of encryption in regular use
[18:04] <mhall119> in the past, the most often used form was symmetric cryptography
[18:04] <mhall119> what this means it that you have one key, and that key is used to both encrypt and decrypt the data
[18:05] <mhall119> much like a physical lock
[18:05] <mhall119> so, if you want to use that to securely send a box to someone, you need to send them the box, the lock, and a copy of the key
[18:06] <mhall119> now, the problem is that you have a much harder time keeping that key safe, because it's having to be passed around, or you have to give out multiple copies
[18:07] <mhall119> and if you send them all together, then it defeats the purpose of locking the box in the first place
[18:07] <mhall119> so some time ago some very smart people developed an alternative method called public key cryptography
[18:08] <mhall119> and what makes that different is that instead of one key, you have two
[18:08] <mhall119> and those two keys are different, but related
[18:09] <mhall119> specifically, they are used in a new kind of lock, and if you use one of the keys to lock it, then only the other key can unlock it
[18:10] <mhall119> now, the reason it's called "public key" cryptography is because you make one of these keys publicly available, to anyone that wants it
[18:10] <mhall119> and you keep the other one completely private, you never give it to anybody, you don't let anybody see it
[18:11] <mhall119> so now if you want to send a box to your friend, you get their public key (which they made available to everyone), and you use that to lock the box
[18:11] <mhall119> and because you used their public key to lock it, only their private key can be used to unlock it.  Not even the key you used to lock it can unlock it
[18:12] <mhall119> so now you can send the locked box over an unsecured route like the post office, knowing that the only person in the world who has a key that can unlock it is your friend
[18:13] <mhall119> for added security, you can lock the box twice
[18:13] <mhall119> once as before, using your friend's public key
[18:13] <mhall119> and then again, using your private key
[18:13] <mhall119> and what that does is not only let you know that only your friend can open it
[18:14] <mhall119> but now your friend, using your public key to unlock it, knows that you are the only person in the world who could have sent it
[18:14] <mhall119> any questions so far?
[18:15] <mhall119> oskude> as i haven't ever had something i would need to be a secret that only a key can open... where do you need this ?
[18:15] <mhall119> very shortly I'm going to show you how this is used in Ubuntu, and the benefits it gives you
[18:16] <nigelbabu> question - how strong should a key be? in your screenshots you use strength 768
[18:16] <mhall119> okay, so public key cryptography has several implementations
[18:16] <mhall119> the key strenght is up to you, I used the default values in my screenshots
[18:17] <mhall119> the larger the key, the longer it would take some evil government to crack it
[18:17] <mhall119> but it also takes longer for it to encrypt and decrypt things
[18:17] <mhall119> so it's a judgement call, what level of security do you need?
[18:18] <mhall119> so, Ubuntu has a few implementations of this
[18:18] <mhall119> SSH, or the secure shell, which provides an encrypted connection between two boxes similar to telnet
[18:19] <mhall119> GnuPG, which is an open source implementation of PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), which is used to sign and encrypt files and email
[18:19] <cjohnston> < Brot1> and which key length is recommended?
[18:19] <mhall119> and SSL, which you should all be familiar with, is the underlying technology behind HTTPS
[18:19] <mhall119> I personally use 4096 bit keys, which is probably overkill, but I'm not encrypting things where speed of encryption matters
[18:20] <mhall119> for something like SSL or SSH, it might slow you down slightly
[18:20] <mhall119> I'm sure there's plenty of references on the internet with people arguing for or against larger keys
[18:21] <mhall119> okay, moving on
[18:21] <mhall119> Ubuntu uses these technologies for some of it's underlying systems
[18:21] <mhall119> the repositories that feed apt and synaptic are secured through GPG
[18:22] <mhall119> every package on them is signed by Canonical
[18:22] <mhall119> so that means that you can verify that every package you download hasn't been modified by someone else
[18:23] <mhall119> even if someone hacked into the repository server,and replaced packages with their own that contained a virus
[18:23] <mhall119> it wouldn't let you install it, because the signature wouldn't match
[18:23] <mhall119> the same goes for the PPA (personal package archives) available on Launchpad
[18:24] <mhall119> those packages aren't signed by Canonical, but rather the owner of the PPA
[18:24] <mhall119> so if you trust the owner of the PPA not to include a virus or trojan in their packages, you add their public key to your system, and that will be used to verify their packages
[18:25] <mhall119> finally, if you want to become a contributor to Ubuntu, you will need to sign the code of conduct
[18:26] <mhall119> and that requires that you use your private key to "sign" the actual CoC file
[18:27] <mhall119> signing doesn't encrypt the data, but rather is creates a short encrypted "signature" of the data, which when checked with the other key in the pair, will tell someone that the plain text message matches what the sender signed
[18:27] <mhall119> any questions before we move on?
[18:28] <mhall119> great
[18:28] <mhall119> now for the fun part
[18:28] <mhall119> Under Applications->Accessories you will find "Passwords and Encryption Keys"
[18:28] <mhall119> this is a graphical frontend to GnuPG called Seahorse
[18:29] <mhall119> and it will let you manage your PGP and SSH keys, and also will store passwords for you so that you don't have to remember them all
[18:30] <mhall119> so now we're going to walk through creating a private and public key of your very own
[18:30] <mhall119> Go to File->New
[18:30] <mhall119> and select PGP Key
[18:30] <mhall119> Put in your Name, email, and a comment
[18:31] <mhall119> you can see in my screenshot that I made one specifically for this session
[18:31] <mhall119> under the "Advanced" settings is where you can is where you can set the type and length of the key
[18:32] <mhall119> so fill that out and press the create button
[18:32] <mhall119> this will take a few minutes, depending on your CPU speed and key size
[18:32] <mhall119> so we'll stop for questions
[18:32] <mhall119> if there are any
[18:33] <mhall119> again, you can follow along with the screenshots here if you aren't actually making the keys: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserDays/01232010/SeahorseGPG
[18:34] <_marx_> QUESTION If I lose or forget the passphrase will i have to make a new key?
[18:34] <mhall119> yes
[18:34] <mhall119> you can change the passphrase if you want, but you will need to know the old one to do so
[18:34] <mhall119> do not forget your passphrase, and do not lose your private key, or you will need to make new ones
[18:35] <mhall119> and your old public key will not no longer be usable
[18:35] <_marx_>  question - what is the diference with DSA (elgamal) and DSA (only sign)
[18:35] <mhall119> I'm not really sure what DSA (elgamal) is
[18:36] <cjohnston> < somnoliento> QUESTION What's the relationship between this PGP keys and the keyring (a common dialog in ubuntu sessions)
[18:36] <mhall119> you can ignore the (only sign), those are flags for users, you can still encrypt with those keys
[18:36] <mhall119> good question
[18:37] <mhall119> a keyring is a single place to store multiple keys
[18:37] <mhall119> your GnuPG keyring contains your private keys, your public keys, and the public keys of other people you know
[18:38] <mhall119> alright, we're gonna have to move one due to time
[18:38] <mhall119> if anyone is still generating keys, you can follow along with the screenshots
[18:38] <mhall119> once you have your key, you can view it's properties
[18:39] <mhall119> you should note the Key ID and Fingerprint for your key, you will use them later
[18:39] <mhall119> now, it's time to make your public key public
[18:40] <mhall119> select your new key, and goto Remote->Sync and publish keys
[18:40] <mhall119> click on the Key Servers button to see the public keyservers available
[18:41] <mhall119> on the "Publish keys to: " drop down, select the ubuntu server
[18:41] <mhall119> you also have two more options here
[18:42] <mhall119> you can have your system automatically check these key servers for a person's public key when you recieve something encrypted or signed by them
[18:42] <mhall119> you can also have it automatically sync the public keys in your keyring if you change them
[18:42] <mhall119> it's up to you if you want to enable those, I do for convenience
[18:43] <mhall119> okay, now close that dialog and click the Sync button
[18:43] <mhall119> this will upload your public key to the ubuntu keyserver
[18:43] <mhall119> and it will eventually be sent to the other public keyservers too, as they all share key data
[18:44] <cjohnston> < oskude> QUESTION - i assume there is no confirmation screen after "sync" ?
[18:44] <mhall119> you can check that your key has been uploaded by going to the web interface: http://keyserver.ubuntu.com:11371/ and doing a search on your name
[18:44] <mhall119> no, I don't think there is a confirmation on sync
[18:44] <mhall119> it may take a few minutes to get published
[18:46] <mhall119> alright, now we need to get someone's public key from those keyservers
[18:46] <mhall119> back in Seahorse, go to Remote->Find Remote Keys
[18:47] <mhall119> and search for "Ubuntu User Day"
[18:47] <mhall119> you will see a few of them now, as it seems some of you used the same comment I did :)
[18:47] <mhall119> my key, as you saw in the screenshots, has id 08FBB574
[18:47] <cjohnston> < Yos> Question is there a way to delete from these keyservers obsolete public keys
[18:48] <mhall119> right-click that and select Import
[18:48] <mhall119> cjohnston, I don't think so, when a key is obsolete, you generally add it to a published "revokation" list
[18:48] <mhall119> so that people know it was explicitly removed from use
[18:49] <mhall119> alright, now if you go to the "Other Keys" tab, you should see my User Day key there
[18:49] <mhall119> double-click that to view it's properties
[18:50] <mhall119> now for some more magic
[18:50] <_marx_> 10 minutes
[18:50] <mhall119> if you go to the Trust tab you can sign my public key with your private key
[18:50] <mhall119> and what this does it let other people know that you believe that key belongs to me
[18:50] <mhall119> so even if someone else doesn't know that, if they trust you, then they can be assured
[18:50] <mhall119> wow, 10 minutes left, okay the next will have to go by fast
[18:51] <mhall119> I'm gonna skip the ssh and password parts, they're pretty straight forward, you can see the screenshots
[18:51] <mhall119> now, you can integrate your new PGP key into Evolution to sign and encrypt outgoing email
[18:52] <mhall119> and also to decrypt and verify incoming email
[18:52] <mhall119> in Evolution, go to Edit->Preferences and select your account
[18:52] <mhall119> on the Security tab, you can put the key id from your key, and evolution will use that
[18:53] <mhall119> when someone sends you an encrypted or signed email, Evolution will display an icon at the bottom telling you the state of it
[18:53] <mhall119> whether it was valid, and who it was from
[18:54] <mhall119> finally, if you install the package seahorse-plugins, you will have extra options in Nautilus and GEdit to sign or encrypt
[18:54] <mhall119> in nautilus, you can right-click any file (not folder) and encrypt it
[18:54] <mhall119> if you want more than one file, compress them into a .zip or .tar.gz and encrypt that
[18:55] <_marx_> 5 minutes
[18:55] <mhall119> and from Gedit, under the Edit menu will be options to sign/encrypt/decrypt and verify
[18:55] <mhall119> alright, any questions in the last 5 minutes?
[18:55] <pleia2> < oskude> QUESTION - Should i copy that "Key ID" (8 characters) row from Seashore (Passwords and Encryption Keys) or right click and select copy (gets a longer string) ? (for the evolution settings)
[18:55] <_marx_> QUESTION - Should i copy that "Key ID" (8 characters) row from Seashore (Passwords and Encryption Keys) or right click and select copy (gets a longer string) ? (for the evolution settings)
[18:55] <mhall119> just the key id
[18:56] <mhall119> anything else?
[18:56] <mhall119> you have my email address now (it on my public key), so you can always email me for more questions
[18:56] <mhall119> or find me in #ubuntu-us-fl just about any time
[18:57] <mhall119> okay, well thank you all for coming, and enjoy your new cryptographic powers!
[19:00] <nigelbabu> Thanks mhall119 for that wonderful session
[19:01] <nigelbabu> next up is MagicFab with a session on Choosing hardware that works with Ubuntu
[19:02] <nigelbabu> Fabián work at Canonical's Global Support Services center in Montreal, Canada as a senior support analyst and technical trainer since November 2006.
[19:03] <nigelbabu> The scope of his works includes hardware, desktop and server support issues, as well as training support partners on how to best tackle those.
[19:03] <MagicFab> inasec
[19:03] <nigelbabu> He is mostly interested in free technologies advocacy (including formats, content, licensing) & training for new users, with an emphasis on security.
[19:03] <nigelbabu> well, MagicFab is going to take a minute.  During that time I'd like to remind you all about the attacks again!
[19:04] <nigelbabu> Please do not click any links that say about the attacks and promise to give more information
[19:04] <nigelbabu> and when you get the time, do answer the survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WQWHJQY
[19:05] <MagicFab> Ok, I take a glass of water and brb in 1
[19:06] <nigelbabu> As you all know, there is a Spanish version of Ubuntu User Day and MagicFab just finished a class there.
[19:07] <MagicFab> OK let's roll :) nigelbabu tx for the intro
[19:07] <MagicFab> My session today is described at: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserDays/01232010/ChoosingHardwareThatWorks
[19:08] <MagicFab> You'll find contact info too, in case anything remains unclear/unanswered
[19:08] <MagicFab> And just to be SUPER CLEAR: this will NOT be about troubleshooting, but rather how to buy your hardware so you don't have to troubleshoot ANYTHING :)
[19:09] <MagicFab> and also understanding why your  existing hardware doesn't work (if/when it doesn't)
[19:09] <MagicFab> Questions welcome ANYTIME
[19:10] <MagicFab> In my daily work at support I often get support cases that have this remark: "BTW, my hardware run fine on Windows / Mac OSX ."
[19:10] <MagicFab> runs8
[19:10] <MagicFab> runs*
[19:10] <MagicFab> :)
[19:10] <MagicFab> So I want to start with that misconception.
[19:11] <MagicFab> It's important to know why this has nothing to do with the same hardware working in Ubuntu (or in general, Linux)
[19:11] <MagicFab> I often politely say "ok, so we know it's not broken" ! .. which may be useful to know anyways... well..
[19:12] <MagicFab> The fact is all hardware that work on Windows or Mac and lists it under its requirements most likely came with drivers for it. Would you expect a wheel designed for a Hummer to fit on your bicycle ?
[19:12] <MagicFab> Or would you expect to be able to call Hummer/GM/whoever and have a "workaround" in five minutes ?
[19:13] <MagicFab> Ok, I know this example is not exactly fitting :) But you get the idea. Ubuntu and Linux in general relies on the idea that whatever has open specs and documentation that can be freely shared and implemented without patent/legal constraints will be - if there is demand for it.
[19:13] <pleia2> Question - possible suggest notebook will support best for ubuntu ?
[19:13] <MagicFab> When hardware manufacturers don't make their specs open & legal to implement, that's when you're most likely to find compatibility problems. Nowadays most situations when this happens are known and manufacturers that support Linux (or not) are not difficult to spot.
[19:14] <MagicFab> pleia2, I will get to that very shortly :)
[19:14] <pleia2> < LuizAquino> Question - Does Ubuntu comes with, by default, some GUI tool to know our hardware?
[19:14] <MagicFab> LuizAquino, yes it's called the LiveCD. I'll get to that at the very end :) It's the secret weapon to test BEFORE you buy.
[19:14] <MagicFab> Most importantly, manufacturers historically target Windows or Mac depending on what will be more profitable to them. Remember those are *business relationships* which means even if there may not be technical obstacles to make their devices compatible with Linux, the economic incentive may just not be there.
[19:15] <MagicFab> or economic * capability *.
[19:15] <MagicFab> Nevermind the offer to do this for free (thanks for the reminder andresmujica):
[19:15] <MagicFab> http://www.linuxdriverproject.org/foswiki/bin/view
[19:16] <MagicFab> Some companies just can't afford (in every sense of the term) to do so.
[19:16] <pleia2> < somnoliento> QUESTION What role (if any) should Canonical have in "bugging" hardware makers for support?
[19:16] <MagicFab> Can they afford not to support Ubuntu ? *THAT* is why it's important you *always* let a manufacturer know you are using Ubuntu (or just "Linux") with their devices. Every email/call/public post counts.
[19:18] <MagicFab> somnoliento, honestly Canonical is only an enabler. The community votes with their money. The manufacturers respond or not. The nice thing right now is we can at least say there is *some* business to get from +10 million users...
[19:18] <MagicFab> And by *only* I mean getting companies like Dell to ship pre-installed :) That's one area of focus :D
[19:19] <MagicFab> So I'll start with that notion. --> "DO your research, vote with your money"
[19:19] <MagicFab> What hardware is guaranteed to work with Ubuntu ? ?
[19:19] <MagicFab> Right now Canonical offers *systems* certification (NOT component-only).
[19:20] <MagicFab> This means you can easily check if a server, desktop or laptop is certified or not. Components, are a bit trickier.
[19:20] <MagicFab> So your first stop, and this answers the previous netbook recommendation question, should be: http://webapps.ubuntu.com/certification/
[19:20] <MagicFab> Knowing your official docs may help tremendously when looking at components + systems recommendations...
[19:21] <MagicFab> For example
[19:21] <MagicFab> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport
[19:21] <MagicFab> and
[19:21] <MagicFab> if you come from Windows...
[19:21] <MagicFab> https://help.ubuntu.com/9.10/switching/preparing-hardware.html
[19:22] <MagicFab> A loooot more resources exist. But those are what I'd call "official" as far as *Ubuntu* is concerned. Sure, most things that work in "any linux" will work in Ubuntu.
[19:22] <MagicFab> So other sites help there
[19:22] <MagicFab> http://linuxpreloaded.com/
[19:22] <MagicFab> is one of them.
[19:22] <MagicFab> So who can you trust ?
[19:22] <MagicFab> Public accounts of "this works" are incredibly useful. For example look at this one:
[19:22] <MagicFab> http://castrojo.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/asus-eeetop-2002-and-ubuntu/
[19:24] <MagicFab> This is an important part of the search & buy process - just like any other goods you'd buy! So many times i hear someone saying they bought this expensive printer... without even checking first!
[19:24] <MagicFab> Relying on public accounts of "this works" is crucial in that respect. But it's not enough- make sure they don't date back 3 years :D
[19:24] <MagicFab> Which brings me to another important part of that process: Relying on official sources: Ubuntu info vs. Manufacturer's info ("Linux")
[19:25] <MagicFab> I mentioned before ** contact your manufacturer, ask about Ubuntu/Linux support **
[19:25] <MagicFab> You'd be surprised how many have unofficial support (or don't know about it)!
[19:26] <MagicFab> Here's a test - call Canon... They may not know about it but they have this nice resource:
[19:26] <MagicFab> http://www.canon-europe.com/Support/software/linux/
[19:26] <MagicFab> Unfortunately it's not free software. And it's not trivial to install. At least not "the Ubuntu way" - so what to do ?
[19:26] <MagicFab> Vote with your money.
[19:26] <MagicFab> This means, know your manufacturer.
[19:27] <MagicFab> Some are recognized for strong support and easy access to bugtrackers, docs, engineers (some even send their peoiple to the Ubuntu Dev Summit!)
[19:27] <MagicFab> Dell, HP (for printers), Intel are some of them.
[19:27] <MagicFab> Atheros too.
[19:27] <MagicFab> Some are not, but they use standard components...
[19:28] <MagicFab> from Intel, Atheros... :) You get the idea.
[19:28] <MagicFab> Some other are really AGAINST supporting Linux (as per their own word).
[19:28] <MagicFab> Logitech, for example is one of them.
[19:29] <MagicFab> Some others are in another area: they'll support Linux but won't make it easy/legal to check their specs and work publically
[19:29] <MagicFab> Nvidia, VIA... are some of them. Broadcomm too.