Canaima GNU/Linux 3.1

Canaima GNU/Linux is a Debian-based desktop Linux distribution from Venezuela. An updated build, version 3.1 based on "Squeeze", was released a couple of days ago. According to the project's website, the distribution is built in the spirit of social and technological policies leading to increased knowledge, innovation and technological independence in Venezuela and is meant for use in government organisations and communities of users. Some of the changes in this release include: software updates to LibreOffice 3.4, Cunaguaro 8.0 web browser with complete support for HTML 5, Turpial 1.6.6, Amigu 0.7.2; new applications, such as Ucumari - a control centre based on Ailurus Centro, Canaima Instalador - a new system installer written in Python, Software Center - a graphical package management front-end; newly included software applications.... Read the release announcement and also the detailed release notes (both links in Spanish) for further information. Download links: canaima-popular-3.1~estable_i386.iso (672MB, MD5), canaima-popular-3.1~estable_amd64.iso (696MB, MD5).

Install Magog White Icon Theme From PPA In Ubuntu 12.10/12.04/Linux Mint 13

Today, we will introduce another set of icons for Gnome desktops named Magog White. This icon theme comes with more than 1000 program icons and can be used under Unity or Gnome Shell.

The PPA is compatible with the following distributions:

• Ubuntu 12.10/12.04/11.10
• Linux Mint 13 (Maya)

Magog White Installation

Open the terminal and run the following commands to install and enable Magog White:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:upubuntu-com/icons 

sudo apt-get update 

sudo apt-get install magog-white-icons 

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface icon-theme 'Magog White'

Here are some screenshots of Magog White under Ubuntu Unity:

Mageia 3 Alpha 3

Anne Nicolas has announced the availability of the third alpha release of Mageia 3: "Finally the bug hunt was successful and the alpha 3 release is now available for tests. We hope you will enjoy this new one. Upgrade from Mageia 2 is now possible and we need your feedback to make it smooth for final Mageia 3. Major new features: the first stage of the installer will now automatically pass the right URL to stage2; RPM has been upgraded to 4.10.1; urpmi has been re-factored and cleaned, various bugs have been fixed; base system - Linux kernel 3.6.5, systemd 195, Perl has been upgraded to 5.16.1; graphical environments - KDE 4.9.2, Qt 5 beta, GNOME 3.6.1, LibreOffice 3.6...." See the release announcement and release notes for further details. Download the installation DVD images (live CD and DVD images with KDE and GNOME are also available): Mageia-3-alpha3-i586-DVD.iso (3,864MB, MD5, torrent), Mageia-3-alpha3-x86_64-DVD.iso (3,884MB, MD5, torrent).

Dream Studio 12.04.1

Dick MacInnis has announced the release of Dream Studio 12.04.1, an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring a collection of open-source applications for creating graphics, videos, music and websites: "Dream Studio 12.04.1 has been officially released. New features include: upgraded base system, based on the Ubuntu 12.04.1 install disc; many upgraded packages, such as Ardour, Blender, and GIMP; the Dream Studio audio indicator by default, instead of QJackctl; the addition of a hardware-specific software installer for some audio hardware; the addition of all the KXStudio repositories; the addition of slowmovideo by default, as well as a new graphics repository; many, many, small tweaks and performance upgrades. This is the latest release in the 12.04 series for Dream Studio. Any current 12.04 users will be upgraded automatically." Here is the brief release announcement. Download the live DVD images from here: DreamStudio-12.04.1-i386.iso (2,460MB, torrent), DreamStudio-12.04.1-amd64.iso (2,391MB, torrent).

GNOME Shell 3.6.2 Released! Install It on Ubuntu/Linux Mint

 

Second update of maintenance for the family 3.6 of GNOME Shell, on which way the famous desktop environment version 3.6.2 . And, as happens in every update less of respect, even this time we are going to attend or drastic changes immediately visible to the eye, but in this maintenance release have been resolved a little ‘extremely annoying bugs that, in a few seconds, we analyze together.

First, here is the full changelog :

• Implement org.gnome.ScreenSaver.GetActiveTime
• Explicitly load gnome-screensaver When not running GDM
• September Empathy as preferred handler When delegating channels
• Tweak ScreenShield animations
• Restore Fittsability summary of items in message tray
• App search: Match GenericName too

Add

• setting to force log out menuitem
• Fix auto-scroll to bottom in chat notifications
• Update man page
• Hide button is clicked notifications When closed
• Fix screenshots on Big Endian
• Implement ‘disable-user-list’ in the login screen
• Error message in ‘Run’ should use a symbolic icon
• usermenu: Hide menu immediately before suspending
• workspacesView: Fix some errors in code paths for non-default settings
• “has been added to your favorites.” message Appears as left-to-right in Hebrew locale
• messageTray: Fix lightbox
• close-window.svg is overscaled in GNOME shell
• messageTray: Fix close button position in RTL locales (gnome-3-6)
• Extensions Should be disabled in lock screen
• screen locks with modals still up
• libedataserverui Drop unnecessary dependency
• not log out Offered When logged in as root
• Regression: Dash item labels fail to report accessible names
• Misc fixes for the login dialogs
• power: “0 minutes remaining” when exactly 60 minutes are remaining
• Screen shield is not lowered on automatic suspend, session can never be unlocked on resume
• precaution prevent lock-in initial setup mode
• messageTray: Hide summary notification immediately When closing the tray
• Dash resize is delayed until you enter the overview
• Text fields in password dialogs expand inconsistent behavior
• loginDialog Minor fixes

Basically a nice full-bodied changelog many small bugs here and there finally go away! The best, however, is yet to come: were finally resolved incompatibility issues – on the Ubuntu operating system – including GNOME Shell, LightDM, GDM and Unity: the GNOME desktop It’s now able to coexist peacefully with the LightDM manager, without encountering any sudden crashes and missing functionality (in GNOME 3.6.0 and 3.6.1, for example, screensaver GNOME refused to leave if you were using the desktop manager LightDM ).
Another interesting bug fixed regards the compatibility with the graphics acceleration drivers Intel: has been released a patch for the architecture MESA 9 was eliminated of obsolete code and – attention – has been eliminated close dependence, at compile time, by libGL (and consequently to GLX and xlib, this core library of X.org) : translated into terms human, this means that GNOME Shell has begun to take into account the replacement of X.Org with Wayland / Weston.

GNOME Shell 3.6.2 – Installation on Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal

Regarding Ubuntu 12.10 (this is the family GNOME 3.4.x within the repository) will need to update the shell using a PPA external everything is opening a terminal, and type

sudo add-apt-repository ppa: gnome3-team/gnome3
sudo apt-get sudo update
apt-get install gnome-shell

GNOME Shell – Installation on other Linux distributions

GNOME Shell 3.6.2 will soon be available as an upgrade system on all distributions that use GNOME as the default desktop environment. For deployments that not provide a packaging system will be directly can compile from source, using git and these instructions .

How to Use your USB Flash Drive (USB Token) to Log into your PC under Ubuntu/Linux Mint

In this tutorial, we will help you create secure way for logging in with the help of your USB stick to your session. Once setup, you will no longer use your user account name and password to log in, just insert your usb device and click Log In:

To do this, we will use PAMUSB which is a module for PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) that allows users to have authentication from a USB device. It is compatible with many display managers (LightDM, GDM, etc.).

Getting Started

Open the terminal and run this command to install required packages under Ubuntu 12.10/12.04/Linux Mint 13:

sudo apt-get install pamusb-tools libpam-usb

Connect your usb flash drive to your computer/laptop and run this command to add it to PAM (the usb device will be detected automatically):

sudo pamusb-conf --add-device usb-key-name

Replace usb-key-name with any name of your choice. You will be prompted to save your configuration to /etc/pamusb.conf, type Y and press Enter:

Let's now add your username to PAM so that it will be granted access to your desktop via the USB drive. To do this, run this command:

sudo pamusb-conf --add-user username

Replace username with your own user account name. Or run this command which will detect automatically your current username:

sudo pamusb-conf --add-user=$USER

Type again Y and press Enter to save:

Edit now this file to make sure PAM is using the pam_usb library:

sudo gedit /etc/pam.d/common-auth

For Linux Mint, replace gedit with pluma. These lines must be available in /etc/pam.d/common-auth:

auth sufficient      pam_usb.so 

auth [success=1 default=ignore] pam_unix.so nullok_secure try_first_pass

Save your file and close. Next, run this command to check if the username you have added is authenticated to login with the USB device:

su username

or

pamusb-check $USER

If everything goes well, you will get these outputs:

$ su upubuntu 

* pam_usb v0.5.0 

* Authentication request for user "upubuntu" (su) 

* Device "upubuntu-usb-key" is connected (good). 

* Performing one time pad verification... 

* Regenerating new pads... 

* Access granted.

You can now log in to your user session without submitting your password as along as the USB device is connected.