Linux User & Developer 142 - Linux Mint 17

100 Pages·2014·40.745 MB·English

by  Gavin Thomas

NO. 1 FOR RASPBERRY PI 16 PAGES
The essential monthly guide for coders & makers IN EVERY ISSUE
www.linuxuser.co.uk
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Edit video in Kdenlive
Powerful multi-track video editor with
excellent prosumer features
MOOCs
How to
learn for
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.lin Pi and make it play videos
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ser.c » Make web templates with Go+Revel Build your own robot ISSUEIS 1S4N 22041-3270 £54.929>
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Welcome
Get
to issue 142 of Linux User & Developer
Linux User
This issue cheaper
… Rob Zwetsloot studied aerospace engineering,
using Python to model complex every issue
simulations. Following his avant-
s garde yet distressing experiments » Simplify project planning
Page 40
with a Tux/Clippy mashup, Rob
t returned from his testing lab to build » Start writing Bash scripts
r a Raspberry Pi video player (page
e 58). It’s since been stolen by the now » Code an RSS reader for Android
self-aware Makeblock tank.
p » Make a hand-held video player with Pi
Richard Smedley started using computers long
x
before WYSIWYG and still maintains
e that the command line, and Emacs, Welcome to the latest edition of Linux User &
is the most productive working Developer, the UK and America’s favourite Linux
x environment. This month Richard
discusses the rise of MOOCs and and open source magazine.
u open source education (page 26), Linux users are, fundamentally, a self-taught
and also begins his series on writing
n shell scripts (page 32). bunch. And for every hour of formal training received
by a Linux developer, countless more have been
Li Nitish Tiwari is a software developer by spent in the tenacious pursuit of solutions to coding
profession and an open source
enthusiast by heart. As well as problems. But one of the things that makes this all work is the
f
writing for leading open source
o strength of the Linux community, continually communicating
magazines, he helps fi rms set up
and use open source software for and sharing knowledge, and this kind of dynamic interaction
m their business needs. Over on page
is beginning to shake up the education establishment at
36, Nitish explains how to manage
projects using LibrePlan. large. This month, following edX’s move to make its acclaimed
a
Introduction to Linux course free and open, we take a look at
e Mihalis Tsoukalos is a UNIX system
administrator with expertise in the rise of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).
t programming, databases and We also dive into the hugely anticipated Linux Mint 17 long-
maths. He has been using Linux
r since 1993. In this issue, Mihalis term support release, Qiana, to fi nd out whether Distrowatch’s
u shows us how we can quickly install highest-ranking distro really does deliver the complete
and administer a Drupal website
o using the command line and package. With this being Cinnamon’s fi rst appearance in an
Y scripting interface Drush (page 42). LTS release and Qiana being the culmination of years’ worth of
Jon Masters is a Linux kernel hacker who has effort, it’s one of the most exciting releases we’ve seen yet.
been working on Linux for some There’s another great tutorial line-up, too. This issue we
18 years, since he fi rst attended
cover Drush, Revel and LibrePlan, touchscreens and servos
university at the age of 13. Jon lives
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with the Pi, we start a new series on shell scripts and continue
and works for a large enterprise
our Android series with a look at networking apps. Have fun.
Linux vendor. You can fi nd his
brilliant Kernel Column on pages Gavin Thomas, Deputy Editor
14-15 this month.
Get in touch with the team:
Gareth Halfacree is our resident news
reporter and brings us the latest
developments from all over the [email protected]
open source world, starting on
page 6. See page 80 for his brilliant
review of the new Cubietruck, Buy online
designed for those who’ve Facebook: Twitter:
outgrown the Cubieboard2.
Linux User & Developer @linuxusermag
Visit us online for more news, opinion, tutorials and reviews:
www.linuxuser.co.uk
3Issue 142
003_LUD_142.indd 3 11/07/2014 15:12
Contents
Reviews
Subscribe 75 BSesot fwtewb barorwesers
super test
& save! A surprise newcomer takes on three
of the biggest open source browsers
40 S ave up to 50%
on the shop price.
US customers
can subscribe via
page 70
Otter Firefox
16 Linux Mint 17
Hands-on tour and in-depth review of the new LTS release
Chromium Midori
OpenSource Tutorials 80 Cubietruck
Can the boosted specs justify
06 News 30 Edit video in Kdenlive its increased selling price?
T he biggest stories from the Rob shows us how to use this powerful open
82 Makeblock
open source world source editor to make movies
Will this Arduino-powered
14 Kernel Column 32 Write useful shell scripts robot invade the classroom?
The latest on the Linux – part 1
Kernel with Jon Masters Build on your command line knowledge to 84 LXLE 14.04
create useful Bash scripts Can this lightweight distro
79 Books
breathe new life into old PCs?
Some of the best books on 36 Simplify your project planning
Linux and open source with LibrePlan
Harness the power of LibrePlan to manage MI
94 Letters your projects, time and resources NI-
Your views on the magazine MA
and the open source scene 42 Run Drupal sites with Drush G
Administer a Drupal website from the
Features
command line
16 Linux Mint 17 46 Generate webpage templates
Everything you need to know with Go + Revel
about Qiana Create a server and handle network requests
26 Learn Linux for free On your free disc
MOOCs and the rise of open
source education 96 Cover disc
50 Code apps for Android Four of the latest distros
– part 2 for you to try out
on this issue’s DVD!
This month we code an RSS 55 Practical Raspberry Pi
reader to explore networking Mageia 4.1 Make a hand-held video player using
Linux Mint 17 PiTFT, set up and control servos, add
88 Q & A
(Cinnamon/MATE) vision to your Pi, find out what ARM really
Your questions answered is and meet the tweet-powered dice roller.
Peppermint Five
Join us online for more Linux news, opinion and reviews www.linuxuser.co.uk
4www.linuxuser.co.uk
004_LUD_142.indd 4 11/07/2014 15:07
Full Page.indd 1 09/07/2014 14:06
06 News | 12 Opinion | 94 Letters
HARDWARE
HP unveils Linux-
powered ‘The Machine’
Cutting-edge project uses memristor and photonics technology
Hewlett Packard has announced its intention
to ship the world’s irst commercial computer
based around silicon photonics and memristor
technologies within the next six years,
featuring a custom-built operating system
based on the Linux kernel.
The Machine, as the device is known, is
designed to represent HP’s vision of the future
of computing. Its storage will be based around
memristor technology, a portmanteau of
‘memory’ and ‘resistor’ that describes a circuit
element irst postulated in 1971 by Professor
Leon Chua. Featuring the performance of
dynamic memory but in a non-volatile design,
memristors would be used by the system as
a replacement for both working memory and
storage as so-called ‘universal memory.’
The advantages of universal memory are
many. Performance would be improved, as
data no longer needs to be fed into memory in
chunks from slow mass storage. Power demand nHP’s memristor technology, first postulated in 1971, erases the distinction between working
would also drop, with no need to supply constant memory and storage
power to working memory to retain its contents.
Aims to release The Machine
Potentially, a system based entirely around
memristor technology would be able to survive a
power cut and continue its calculations without between 2017 and 2020
error or interruption once power is restored.
A shift away from the split storage
architecture of traditional computers, The between nodes in a system, silicon photonics Memristor technology, in particular, has been
Machine’s memristor-based circuits will require brings high-speed optical communications just over the horizon for decades. In 2010, HP
a wholly new operating system that can take to components within an individual system announced a partnership with SK Hynix to create
advantage of its design. HP has indicated that and has even been suggested as a means for a commercialised variant of the technology
this operating system will be developed in- building high-speed interconnections within dubbed Resistive RAM (ReRAM), but thus far its
house speciically for the new architecture and integrated circuits themselves. only appearance has been as mere kilobytes of
will be based on the Linux kernel. This operating HP has stated that it is dedicating around memory for a microcontroller from Panasonic
system will then be released under an as yet 75 per cent of its research and development released in 2013.
unspeciied open source licence, the company division to The Machine and aims to release HP’s The Machine, should the company’s
has added. a irst commercial implementation of The research and development reach fruition,
The Machine is also said to include Machine between 2017 and 2020, but told news will go head-to-head with technology being
silicon photonic technology: on-chip optical outlet Bloomberg that earlier announcements of developed by rival IBM on replacing traditional
interconnections designed for rapid transfer of memristor breakthroughs being just around the semiconductor transistors with versions based
data. Typically used for external connections corner were perhaps a little overenthusiastic. on carbon nanotube technology.
6www.linuxuser.co.uk
006-009_LUD142.indd 6 11/07/2014 15:01
News
The latest in the Linux community
OPEN SOURCE
DEVELOPMENT Linux calendar
KDE details future plans
The Annual Linux
t
s Kernel Summit
Jos Poortvliet tells all u
g
u » Sheraton Hotel Chicago, Illinois
The KDE Project has summarised its future DPI displays and the Wayland display server, A » USA
direction developments, with Jos Poortvliet but warns that “neither are expected to be fully h » events.linuxfoundation.org
t
posting a detailed breakdown to the project’s fi nished with the fi rst release” and that it “will not 0
official website. be without its issue.” 2 An invitation-only event, the
According to Poortvliet, the next generation Poortvliet also suggests that the KDE - Kernel Summit is designed to
h facilitate discussion between
of the Plasma subsystem will include “pixel- Applications team are considering a shorter t kernel developers and industry
perfect design and super smooth performance release cycle, but that “this is a discussion that 8 leaders, and to plan the future of
1
thanks to the QML and Qt 5 technologies and needs to include the distributions as much as the the Linux kernel.
fully hardware-accelerated display rendering.” upstream developers.”
Poortvliet states that plans are in place for high- The KDE Frameworks project, meanwhile,
is said to be progressing on reworking the LinuxCon North
KDE Libraries into cross-platform modules
America
available to all Qt developers. “Some functions t
s
have already been adopted as Qt standards,” u » Sheraton Hotel Chicago, Illinois
Poortvliet writes. “The Frameworks can ug » USA
simplify, accelerate and reduce the cost of Qt A » events.linuxfoundation.org
development by eliminating the need to reinvent d
key functions.” n Designed for everyone involved
2 in the Linux ecosystem, from
Poortvliet stopped short of offering a fi rm
2 developers and maintainers
release schedule, stating only that “by summer - to sysadmins and community
■ Jos Poortvliet detailed the development of this year we can expect new generation h members. Confi rmed keynote
direction, while also showing off new designs Frameworks and Plasma to be available.” 0t speakers include edX’s Anant
2 Agarwal, Docker’s Solomon
Hykes and Jonathan Kuniholm of
the Open Prosthetics Project.
HARDWARE
Nvidia partners for
t DebConf ‘14
s
u
64-bit ARM servers g » Portland State University, Oregon
u » USA
A
t » debconf14.debconf.org
s
Nvidia, once described as “the worst Based on the same technology as its 1 The annual Debian developers
company” by Linux founder Linus Torvalds, graphics processors, the Tesla family feature 3 conference, DebConf ’14 will
- include talks about the new
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EEuurrootteecchh ttoo pprroodduuccee rraacckk--mmoouunnttaabbllee ■ Nvidia’s 64-bit FrOsCon
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4 The Free and Open Source
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2 Software Conference enters
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accelerator cards. d comprehensive fi ve-track lecture
r
3 programme, LPI exams, the
2 FrogLabs childrens’ track and even
a keysigning party.
7www.linuxuser.co.uk
006-009_LUD142.indd 7 11/07/2014 15:01
OpenSource
Your source of Linux news and views
www.linuxuser.co.uk
Email us directly…
For the latest news and views [email protected]
OPEN SOURCE
Respondly goes free
ANDROID
for FOSS Cyanogen
expands team
Team communications service gives back
Cyanogen, the company formed by the
Respondly, the collaborative communications non-commercial open-source projects can CyanogenMod Android team, announced
platform designed to improve customer now take advantage of the service for free. the hiring of three new executives.
relationship management, has announced that Full details of how to sign up for the service Dave Herman joins the company as vice
open-source projects can now sign up for free. for open-source project members are available president of product, and was formerly
“In our software careers, we’ve received at respond.ly/oss. For other users, a 40-day employed by Amazon, Microsoft and
great benefi t from open-source software and free trial is available. Hulu. Vik Natarajan joins as vice president
the communities that support it,” the company of global partnerships and distribution,
claimed in a statement announcing the move. formerly of system-on-chip companies
“We want to give back.” MediaTek and Broadcom. Tyler Carpenter
Respondly provides teams with a centralised joins as vice president of engineering,
inbox and Twitter messages, and allows them formerly director of engineering at HTC.
to respond to queries without stepping on each Cyanogen has recently been hit by
other’s toes. Conversations can be shared, delays in shipping the One, a high-end
or ‘claimed’ by individual users who take smartphone based on the CyanogenMod
responsibility for a given issue. port created by hardware partner OnePlus,
A starter account on Respondly typically the most recent of which related to
costs $9 per month for up to 300 conversations ■ Respondly wants to improve user another OpenSSL security vulnerability.
and monitoring of a single Twitter search, but communications in open-source projects
HARDWARE
Russian government looks to Linux
Homebrew processors, open-source OS
The Russian Ministry of Industry has $800 million annual spend on server hardware
reportedly announced plans to produce goes to local companies with foreign companies
an ARM-based processor, dubbed like Intel getting the majority of the funds.
Baikal, which will be produced locally to A secondary reason may be for improved
power GNU/Linux-based computers for security. In the wake of Edward Snowden’s
government and private use. revelations regarding the regular planting of
According to local news outlet Kommersant back-door malware into commercial products,
Moscow, the Russian government is looking to many countries are looking to develop both
produce 2GHz eight-core processors based on software and hardware within their own borders.
a 28nm process node and Cambridge-based There may be a long wait for Baikal: currently,
ARM’s 64-bit Cortex-A57 intellectual property Russia’s semiconductor manufacturing facilities
■ The aim is to move to GNU/Linux-based
for local production. These Baikal processors, use a 90nm process node; a jump to 28nm will
systems on a Homebrew Cortex-A57 design
it is reported, would be used to run a variant of take time to complete and cost a considerable
GNU/Linux tailored for the local market. amount of money to retool the factories and Its low-power designs are getting increasing
The paper’s sources suggest that the design facilities. interest in the server sector of late, and its IP-
reasoning behind the move is to reduce Russia’s While holding the majority share of the mobile based licensing allows for more fl exible design
reliance on foreign manufacturing: at present, market, ARM has been largely absent from the and local manufacturing than the off-the-shelf
the overwhelming majority of the government’s desktop since the Acorn RiscPC of the Nineties. products of AMD and Intel.
8www.linuxuser.co.uk
006-009_LUD142.indd 8 11/07/2014 15:01
News
The latest in the Linux community
open source
FIreFoX
mozilla adopting
vr technology
Firefox gets early Oculus Rift support
mozilla’s vladimir vukicevic has revealed that 3D video support
he is leading a project at the company to build and even the
virtual reality technologies into the open- ability to render
source Firefox web browser. DOM and CSS
“The opportunity for VR on the Web is HTML content to
particularly exciting,” Vukicevic claims in a supported devices.
personal blog post. “The Web is a vibrant, To demonstrate this, he has
connected universe where many different types released early builds of the Firefox browser
of experiences can be created and shared. with simple support for the Oculus Rift virtual nFirefox’s support for VR display devices will
People can be productive, have fun and learn all reality headset, currently available as a be starting with the Oculus Rift
from within their browser. It is, arguably, an early developer kit for $350 from Facebook-owned
version of the Metaverse – the browser is the creator Oculus VR. content to VR,” wrote Vukicevic. “Over the coming
portal through which we access it.” “This initial step has the seed technical weeks, I’ll be expanding the scope and support
Vukicevic’s vision for web-based VR includes functionality needed to support […] receiving of VR in the Web platform so that all of the above
support for VR display devices via Canvas, sensor input and rendering Canvas/WebGL will be possible.”
development
node.js drops
contributor Agreements
Still sticking with MIT licence
the node.js project has announced that it is to do away with the
requirement for a signed contributor licence Agreement (clA), in order
to encourage external contribution. Built on Chrome’s V8 JavaScript
runtime, Node.js is a platform for building fast, scalable network
applications. During his worldwide tour as part of the Node on the Road
event series, project lead Timothy Fontaine announced changes including
improved documentation and easier contribution from external parties.
“The project has decided to lift the requirement of signing the CLA
before contributions are eligible for integration,” Fontaine announced in
a blog post. “Having to sign the CLA could at times be a stumbling block
for a contribution. It could involve a long conversation with your legal
department to ultimately contribute typo corrections. I’m excited to see
what contributions will be coming from the community in the future,”
Fontaine added. The project will not, however, be shifting from its current
licence. “The MIT license is one of the most permissible open source
licenses out there, and has fostered a ton of development with Node.js,”
Fontaine explained, “and we want that to continue.”
Fontaine also announced plans to revise the Stable/Unstable branch
layout, proposing a move to a release schedule where only stable versions
are available, but stated no irm decisions have been made. “It’s important
that the features and changes that go into a release are shaped by user
feedback,” he claimed, “which is why events like Node on the Road are vital.”
006-009_LUD142.indd 9 11/07/2014 15:01
OpenSource
Your source of Linux news and views
www.linuxuser.co.uk
Email us directly…
For the latest news and views [email protected]
NEW RELEASE
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 released
Anticipating the future and raising the bar, RHEL 7
caters for current and next-gen needs
Red Hat
Earlier last month, Red Hat announced the
Satellite 6 beta
public availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7, stating that it’s “redefi ning the enterprise
operating system”. Given that this release is As well as the release of RHEL 7, Red
as much about addressing next-generation IT Hat also announced the availability of
infrastructure requirements as it is fulfi lling the Red Hat Satellite 6 beta. Among
modern demands, Red Hat has certainly picked the new capabilities of the RHEL
the right turn of phrase. Major enhancements management solution are Puppet Forge
have been made and new features added since and Git integration, federated life-cycle
RHEL 6, following a successful beta cycle, that management, Drift remediation and more.
Get involved by downloading the beta from
paves the way for even more power, deployability
https://access.redhat.com/products/
and maintainability throughout enterprise IT,
red-hat-satellite/beta.
from application containers to cloud servers.
Linux Containers have become a crucial
element of open source application packaging,
providing both application isolation and fl exible
deployment. RHEL 7 delivers on this burgeoning
trend by enabling application isolation at the
operating system level and fully supporting
Linux Container capabilities, including Docker,
across physical, virtual and cloud deployments.
The Identity Management feature has also been
updated to provide direct and indirect routes
for integrating Linux systems into the Active systems against SYN-fl ood attacks. Netfi lter’s Above The industry-standard SPECjbb2013
Directory environment, and there have been connection tracking system (conntrack) is used benchmark measures Java-based
improvements made to both NFS and GFS2. XFS to fi lter out false SYN-ACK and ACK packets application performance
is now the default fi le system, scalable to 500TB, before they hit the ‘listen’ state lock, while the
and the maximum fi le system size limit is now new SYNPROXY iptables module, as well as Below Product plans and pricing for Red Hat
50TB for ext4. related changes in the Netfi lter core, bolsters Enterprise Linux 7 can be found at www.
There have also been improvements made to the defences on both localhost and hosts redhat.com/wapps/store/catalog.html
network management, bandwidth and security behind the fi rewall.
in RHEL 7. The network management interface On the fi rst day of its general availability,
NetworkManager has been overhauled to make RHEL 7 broke multiple benchmarking world
it even easier for system administrators of all records on HP ProLiant servers. The SPECjbb
abilities to perform network tasks. There’s also Multi-JVM Benchmark results can be seen in
a new command-line network management the table above. According to Red Hat surveys,
utility (NM-CLI) that’s useful for remote server performance of online transaction processing
administration, headless nodes and scripting. is up 13 per cent compared to RHEL 6, with
On top of that, there’s now support for 40GB analytics and server-side Java performance up
Ethernet link speeds that enable even faster 11 per cent and 25 per cent, respectively. With
system-application communication and a new 90 per cent of Fortune 500 companies running
dynamic fi rewall service (FirewallD) that allows Red Hat Enterprise Linux and 80 per cent of the
settings to be changed during run-time without top public cloud services running it too, RHEL
dropping existing connections. 7 is hugely empowering to both enterprise
DDoS defence features have also been added organisations and the end users of the products
to the new release, in particular to protect and services offered by it.
10www.linuxuser.co.uk
010_LUD142.indd 10 11/07/2014 15:02