Pinguy OS

Pinguy OS - not many must have heard about it. Pinguy OS is basically a heavily modified Ubuntu with an emphasis on the out-of-the-box functionality of the OS and more importantly on the look-good factor. And I got to tell you folks, on every count, my experience with Pinguy OS was well above average.

What is Pinguy OS?

Pinguy OS is basically a remastered Ubuntu which just works out of the box without a hitch and also, it looks and feels so damn pretty. Here, I will try my best to point out things that I loved about Pinguy OS and also some other things that bothered me.

My Experience With Pinguy OS

As I said before, experience I had with Pinguy OS was delightful. And the interesting part is, I didn't even install Pinguy OS in my laptop. Instead, I tried out the live DVD version of Pinguy OS from my USB drive. Actually, I am writing this blog post right from live Pinguy OS.

One of the first things you notice while using Pinguy OS is the overall robustness and responsiveness of the OS. Normally, when you try to open say, Nautilus file browser for example, there will be a slight delay. But somehow, that delay is completely absent in Pinguy OS. I figured out that, Pinguy OS comes with Preload installed. But even with Preload, my Ubuntu machine didn't felt as robust. And I was not even using the properly installed version of Pinguy OS!

Default Pinguy OS looks beautiful too. It comes preinstalled with useful Conky menu, Docky,Nautilus Elementary, Gloobus Preview and also has Elementary as the default GTK theme. Many of the above features are among the first things every savvy Ubuntu user would do after installing Ubuntu. For reference, you should check out this collection of things I did after installing Ubuntu Maverick. 

After installing Pinguy OS, I had to do nothing, except for removing unnecessary applications, about which we will discuss in more detail below. Pinguy OS does the branding part also quite nicely. I liked the Pinguy OS logo and the way it is displayed in the boot screen.

Things that Bothered Me

Nothing really, except the sheer amount of applications that comes default with Pinguy OS. I consider myself as a pretty heavy user of applications and even I find this list of applications completely overblown. Some of the applications that comes installed with Pinguy OS and that I most probably won't use include DeVeDe, GNOME MPlayer(prefer SMPlayer), pms-linux, Torrent Episode Downloader, gpicview, Pinta, Ailurus, mvPod to name a few.

Download Pinguy OS

• Both 32 bit and 64 bit version of Pinguy OS is available for download. Visit Pinguy OS download page for more information.

Conclusion 

Pinguy OS is undoubtedly the best Ubuntu derivative I have used and I won't mind rating it even above Linux Mint. I would prefer a much lighter version of Pinguy OS though. So, next time when a wannabe Linux user comes to me asking for a good Linux desktop that just works, Pinguy OS will be my first choice.

Install Gerix Wifi Crackrer Ubuntu

Here we are to present the new version of Gerix Wifi Cracker NG (New Generation), a really complete GUI for Aircrack-NG which includes useful extras.

Completely re-written in Python + QT, automates all the different techniques to attack Access Points and Wireless Routers (but not only ..)

Currently Gerix Wifi Cracker NG is available and supported natively by BackTrack (pre-installed on the BT4 Final version) and available on all the different Debian Based distributions (Ubuntu, ecc..).

The software requires: aircrack-ng, xterm, machchanger, zenity and obviously python-qt3. The version 1.0 is publicly released for the last tests and to collect opinions from users.

To install, open terminal and type

wget http://www.clshack.it/nopaste/gerix-wifi-cracker-ng-2.0-bt7.deb

sudo dpkg -i gerix-wifi-cracker-ng-2.0-bt7.deb 

If cannot install then creates the directory

mkdir / pentest / wireless / wifi-gerix-cracker-ng

 Well, once installed, can open it from here:

sudo python /usr/share/gerix-wifi-cracker-ng/gerix.py

or

sudo python /pentest/wireless/gerix-wifi-cracker-ng/gerix.py

Install Gnome Music Player Client (GMPC) + MPD - Ubuntu 10.10

GMPC is a GTK2 client for Music Player Daemon. I'm not going to talk about Music Player Daemon again, because we covered it when we talked aboutSonata (including how to configure Music Player Daemon - MPD).

This time we will talk about GMPC, or Gnome Music Player Client, which is a lightweight client for MPD, extendable through plug-ins: alarm, album view, AWN applet, dynamic playlist, fullscreen info, jamendo, last.fm, libnotify, lirc, lyrdb, lyricsplugin, lyricwiki, magnatune, wikipedia info, taglib (for editing tags) and so on (in the latest version).

The latest version (0.19.1) of GMPC adds a lot of new features, such as:

• Dynamic playlists
• Lots of new plugins (se above)
• Now Playing window: This shows a page full with metadata information about the playing song.
• Fully rewritten and more flexible metadata system.
• Metadata selector: You can now look through all the results returned by the metadata plugin and pick the cover, lyric, etc you like best.
• Guitar Tabs.
• Similar genre support. (For now only used by dynamic playlist plugin).
• Support for mpd's 0.15.0 single and consume mode.
• Show the title of the next song. (requires mpd 0.15.x)
• Translatable plugins: (Partial) translated plugin preferences pane.
• Integrated favorites support.
• A firefox like status bar, indicating repeat state, random state and when used the state of the dynamic playlist plugin.

For a full list of new features in MPGC 0.19, see THIS page.

Even though through plugins, GMPC becomes a fully featured music player and manager, it's still one of the fastest applications of this kind: currently it handles a play queue with more than a 1.000.000 songs without a problem. I have a collection of almost 40.000 songs and GMPC uses about 30 mb of RAM with all the plugins installed (the author says that for it's database of 32.000 songs, it used 11 MB of RAM but I guess that was either an older version, or he didn't test it using all the plugins).

Let's install GMPC in Ubuntu

If you configured MPD for Sonata, all the settings will also be used for GMPC (obviously). If not, configure MPD first.

NOTE: the mpd --createdb command doesn't work with the latest MPD. Instead, after installing GMPC, simply select Server > Update Database. You will then see a blue icon in the bottom right corner saying the music database is updating.

For this post, I am going to cover install GMPC from the trunk PPA, meaning it will be the latest version (0.19.1 at the time I am writing this post) but there might be bugs. If you want to add the stable PPA, see HERE.

Now let's get started:

1. Before installing GMPC, we must update MPD. So add the following PPA:

-For Ubuntu Karmic Koala, Lucid Lynx and Maverick

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gmpc-trunk/mpd-trunk

-For Ubuntu Jaunty, Intrepid or Hardy:

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/gmpc-trunk/mpd-trunk/ubuntu YOUR_UBUNTU_VERSION_HERE main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com C116A57C

Replacing YOUR_UBUNTU_VERSION_HERE with jaunty, intrepid or hardy.

Now upgrade or install MPD if it's not already installed:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

or

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install mpd mpc

2. Adding the GMPC trunk PPA.
Open a terminal and paste these commands:

-for Ubuntu Karmic Koala and Lucid Lynx:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gmpc-trunk/ppa

-For Ubuntu Jaunty, Intrepid or Hardy:

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/gmpc-trunk/ppa/ubuntu YOUR_UBUNTU_VERSION_HERE main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com CA0EB130

Replacing YOUR_UBUNTU_VERSION_HERE with jaunty, intrepid or hardy.

3. Installing GMPC (Gnome Music Player Client).

Now, to install GMPC, simply run this command:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install gmpc

The following command will also install all the plugins available in the PPA:

sudo apt-get install gmpc-plugins

After installation, you will find GMPC under Applications > Sound & Video > Gnome Music Player Client

NOTE: Some of the internet fetching plugins might cause gmpc to crash if you have "wins" enabled for your host in /etc/nsswitch.conf.

GMPC and Last.fm

The last.fm plugin in the latest GMPC version only fetches artist images, generates playlists, etc. To be able to scrobble your music to last.fm, you must install mpdscribble:

sudo apt-get install mpdscribble

Then press Alt + F2 and enter:

gksu gedit /etc/mpdscribble.conf

MPDscribble has scrobbling support for last.fm, libre.fm and jamendo. Just edit the file above with your username / password.

Some last notes

Although the name suggests it, GMPC does not depend on Gnome anymore (for the last 4 years).

GMPC is very portable and will run on Linux,Solaris, Mac OSX and Windows and have been used on embedded/low end hardware like openmoke, one-laptop-per-child etc. You can grab source files and Windows binaries from HERE.

My verdict on this application: just WOW! I can't stop saying that ever since I started using it (just about when I started writing this post)

LiquidFM Mod

Increase Quality by Adding an Antenna. Kensington's LiquidFM is a device that transmit audio from my Ipod to my car radio.

The transmission quality suffers especially in crowded areas. By adding an antenna to it, one could enhance the signal strength and therefore get a better sound into your card radio. Checkout the video tutorial for the details.

Install SuperTuxKart Games in Ubuntu 10.10

It’s here, racing fans – a brand new version of iconic Linux game ‘SuperTuxKart’ is now available for download.

SuperTuxKart 0.7, which has been in development for over a year, sees some great new features and improvements added to the game, including: -

• New graphics engine
• New GUI
• New Kart and track animations
• New and improved tracks, karts, and items
• Shortcut/alternative way support for tracks
• Asian font support
• Bugfixes

Download

Dying to get your racing helmet on? You can nab the latest release by adding the following PPA (in bold) to your software sources.

To do this using a Terminal enter: -

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stk/dev

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install supertuxkart

Launch Via Applications > Games > SuperTuxKart
Alternatively you grab the source @ sourceforge.net/projects/supertuxkart