Core is a minimal distribution of the GNU/Linux operating system designed to be the basis for a complete system constructed by the end user. A fresh installation of Core will boot into a console and provide the user with the tools needed to download, compile and install other applications. Core contains nothing beyond what is required to perform these tasks. Core is primarily designed for experienced Linux users, though it has found an audience with those looking to learn about the internals and operation of a Linux system.

Four years ago, on April 4, 2003, Josh Devon released Core 1.x — today, May 1, 2007, the new Core development team has released a fully functional beta of Core 2.0. This beta has been in constant use for development for a number of weeks, and is more or less stable in that capacity.

Check out Core GNU/Linux website and the SourceForge project for information and downloads.

Sergio Lopes has created a very good script to install Internet Explorer on Linux for use with WINE. You can visit the IEs4Linux site at http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/page/Main_Page.

After installing the three versions of IE that are available, I was left with the task of creating menu items for each launcher script, which I didn’t really want to do. Instead I wrote a launcher that lets me select which version of IE I want to run. I also generated usable icons from Sergio’s SVG image.

This trick requires Xdialog, and you will need to modify this script to work for your installation of IEs4Linux by setting the base variable. You can download the script from ielaunch or copy/paste it from here.

#!/bin/bash
base='/path/to/ies4linux/scripts/'
launch=$(Xdialog --stdout --title 'IEs4Linux Launcher' --no-tags --menu 'Select IE Version' \\
         10 40 15 '1' 'IE 5.01' '2' 'IE 5.5' '3' 'IE 6.0 SP2')
case $launch in
1)
   $base'ie5'
   ;;
2)
   $base'ie55'
   ;;
3)
   $base'ie6'
   ;;
esac

Now, just add a menu item pointing to the script (make sure the script is chmod +x!). You can use an icon from the icon pack. If all went well, you will see this dialog when you click your menu item -

Press Release: Barrie, Ontario, Canada - September 14, 2006

Barrie’s second Software Freedom Day - September 16, 2006

Thousands of people expected to gather in cities around Canada and the world to share and promote the benefits of free and open source software.

The Barrie Linux Users Group is proud to announce Barrie’s inaugural Software Freedom Day on September 16, 2006. Software Freedom Day is a global initiative to celebrate and give back to the community by taking Free and Open Source software to the streets! The event will be held from 9am to 4pm at the Barrie Public Library’s Georgian Room.

Software Freedom Day will have over hundreds of teams across the world doing a variety of activities, including distributing free Linux CDs and other giveaways, running booths about Linux and open source software

More information about free software can be found online at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/FLOSS_Concept_Booklet

Free software offers everyone all the tools they need to improve their computer literacy, without any upfront cost. Computers have become an integral part of society and now drive most businesses. Computer skills have therefore become essential to advancing a person’s career.

In addition to job prospects, computer skills and online communications equip an individual with the means to a better education, online services and goods, a broader community, and to opportunities that simply may not be accessible to them in their area. The online culture does not judge people on their colour, age, sex, or beliefs, but rather on their achievements, and with the right tools, what an individual can achieve with a computer is solely limited by their imagination.

Examples of free software include the Linux operating system, OpenOffice.org office productivity suite, Firefox Web browser, and the GIMP image manipulation tool (similar to Adobe Photoshop). There is also free software for gaming, instant messaging, business and financial applications, and many more areas of computing.

Discover Free Software and what it can do for you on Software Freedom Day, September 16!

About Software Freedom Day

Software Freedom Day is a global initiative to celebrate and give back to the community by taking Free and Open Source software to the streets! See http://www.softwarefreedomday.org for more information.

About the Barrie Linux Users Group

The Barrie Linux Users Group (BLUG) was founded to cater for the needs of the Barrie Linux community and to promote the use of Linux and open source software in Barrie and central Ontario. For more information and the monthly meeting schedule see http://www.barrielug.org/ .

Contacts:

Alexander Rau – BLUG founder & event coordinator – alex.arau[it_goes_here]gmail.com

Pat Wendorf – BLUG founder & event coordinator – dungeons[it_goes_here]gmail.com

James Linden – BLUG co-founder & event coordinator – jl[it_goes_here]jameslinden.com

Journalists are very welcome to these events, and please contact us if you are interested in more information, interviews or photos.

Warmest regards,

Alexander Rau, Pat Wendorf, James Linden

After building KSplash and GDM/KDM themes using Tux, I ended up making a couple of others as well:

nuxified.org

KSplash Theme: [preview] [download]
GDM/KDM Theme: [preview] [download]

barrielug.org

KSplash Theme: [preview] [download]
GDM/KDM Theme: [preview] [download]

All are released under the BSD license.

To install, simply download and run the included install script.

I made a basic GDM login theme with Tux, our esteemed mascot. This theme is designed to be very basic, so you can easily change the images, etc and make your own theme.

Instructions:

1. Download gdm-Tux-0.1.tar.bz2
2. Unarchive the file with tar -xjf gdm-Tux-0.1.tar.bz2
3. Run the install script which is in the package. (The installer simply copies the Tux directory to /usr/share/gdm/themes/.)

Screenshot:

I made a basic KSplash theme with Tux, our esteemed mascot. This theme is designed to be very basic, so you can easily change the images, etc and make your own theme.

Instructions:

1. Download kplash-Tux-0.1.tar.bz2
2. Unarchive the file with tar -xjf kplash-Tux-0.1.tar.bz2
3. Run the install script which is in the package. (The installer simply copies the Tux directory to /usr/share/apps/ksplash/Themes/.)

Screenshot:

I installed FC5 the other night, on a box that previously ran FC4 just fine…

First attempt

Board: Asus
CPU: Intel P4 2.4Ghz
RAM: 1GB DDR
NIC: onboard SiS900 (known to work in Linux)
Install: CD
Problem: nic driver installed, able to configure card, able to ping card, unable to ping network

Second attempt

Board: Asus
CPU: Intel P4 2.4Ghz
RAM: 1GB DDR
NIC: PCI - 3COM 3c905b (known to work in Linux for sure)
Install: CD
Problem: nic driver installed, able to configure card, able to ping card, unable to ping network

Third attempt

Board: ASRock
CPU: AMD 2400
RAM 1GB DDR
NIC: onboard Via Rhine II (known to work in Linux)
Install: CD
Problem: nic driver installed, able to configure card, able to ping card, unable to ping network

Ok, this is definately a problem with FC5, not my machines…

Fourth attempt

Board: Asus
CPU: Intel P4 2.4Ghz
RAM: 1GB DDR
NIC: onboard SiS900 (known to work in Linux)
Install: FTP

Installing from FTP did the trick… in the end, the network configuration, etc was all the same as CD installations… It’s been running fine for 3 days, and so far, I have yet to figure out what’s different.

I have three main servers that I ssh into all the time, and it gets very annoying having to open a Konsole window, then type in ssh server.

Here is an easy way to do it a bit faster:

Make yourself a shortcut (desktop, kicker panel, or kicker menu) using this as the command line: konsole -e ssh user@server and instead of opening up a local konsole, it will open up the ssh console.

You can go one step further and do some key swapping, and you won’t even have to type in your ssh password anymore either.

I got a bit fancier and put some options in my shortcuts: konsole --nomenubar --notoolbar --T "Remote SSH" -e ssh user@server

In the process of migrating all my development procedures, etc, I’ve run into a few snags. The biggest one so far had the unhealthy result of losing about 9000 lines of code from a project — the entire project!

I installed FC4 with Eclipse from the FC4 CDs. When I loaded up Eclipse, I found that it was a severly hacked version and I couldn’t get several plugins to work properly. I uninstalled Eclipse and install the real 3.1 package from eclipse.org and it seemed to work. However, I created a new file and tried to save it, and got a “Save Failed: org.eclipse.core.internal.utils.UniversalUniqueIdentifier” error. Through the course of trying to work around that, I managed to get my entire project workspace deleted.

The fix was relatively simple once I had some sleep and stopped cursing at Torvalds, McNeely, Gates, and anyone else I could think of.

Step 1: Uninstall FC4’s default JVM (and all related packages). This is interesting since there are a lot of dependancies, but eventually, you’ll clean it all out.

Step 2: Backup your projects (if you have any left) and delete your ~/.eclipse and workspace directories.

Step 3: Uninstall Eclipse - entirely.

Step 4: Install the real JRE from java.com. You may have to put in some symlinks so paths work, etc.

Step 5: Install the Eclipse package from eclipse.org

That will get you going and able to save files. Have fun programming.