Mandatory Internet Filter

It seems our government is ignoring all the advice the contrary and public opinion and aiming to introduce mandatory filtering with the legislation coming before parliament later next year. Of course they are hiding behind the child pornography issue but many people don’t realise that much more will be blocked.

The Google blog covered this in a reasonable article here. Well worth your time to read it if you are concerned about basic rights in this country.

Fedora 12

I have been trying out the new verison of Fedora since it was released a couple of weeks ago. This version is more of a evolutionary update rather than a major change, at least in KDE. F12 comes with the same version 4.3.2 that F11 was running. An update to 4.3.3 has been released for both versions since then.

That is not to say there haven’t been changes just that the majority are behind the scene improvements. A list of the changes are on the release notes.

Moblin Added

One of the changes to F12 is the release of Moblin for Fedora. Unfortunately it is currently based on Moblin 2.0 instead of the current 2.1. I installed it on my netbook and gave it a run for a few days. It is obviously in the early stages of development as some of the basic features are missing. There is no way to log out for example.

I liked the basic concept but don’t think it is quite ready for day to day use yet. I went back to KDE.

Network Manager

For a few versions now Fedora has worked well with Mobile Braodband but this verison includes some big changes in that area.

One big improvement is the provision of preset configuration for many Broadband providers. When you connect for the first time it asks you for your country and isp as well as type of service and then it connects with the correct setup.

It seems to work well. However one problem, probably not associated with the changes, is it is not possible to reconnect should you disconnect. You need to unplug the modem and plug it back in again. An irritation but not a major problem unless you are working in an area with poor reception.

Nvidia Cards

The open source nvidia driver nouveau has been improved for this version. Reports are that it is much more stable than previous versions. It still doesn’t do 3d so you need to install the propriety drivers if you want Google Earth, desktop effects or other 3d apps. There is a how to on the Guide section of the Fedora Forums. There is some extra steps due to a new version of x.org.

Atom Processors

Atom processors are common in netbooks and this version of Fedora has been optimised for them. I noticed some improvement in the performance of my netbook. I am using KDE on there now and find it is performing so well I haven’t felt the need to install Xfce which I did in F11.

Overall I would say this is a good update of Fedora especially if you use netbooks or Mobile Broadband. If you are using F11 and it is working fine for you there is no hurry to update though.

Gmail Signatures – Updated

Update. Since I posted this I have found the add-on again. In fact it is now available from the Mozilla Add-Ons site. There is a new home page for it too.

I posted some time ago about Firefox add-ons. One I mentioned was Blank Canvas Gmail Signatures which allowed you to have different signatures for each Gmail account. Unfortunately it is no longer available on the Mozilla site. There is no mention of it on the Blank Canvas site either.

This is a great loss as it is the only Gmail signature add-on that supported multiple accounts. There are other add-ons for signatures but none of them have this feature. The xpi file can still be found on archive sites, a search should bring up a source for you.

Hopefully one of the other add-ons will add this feature or even better Gmail itself will provide it.

Fedora 12 is Go.

It has been officially announced that the next version of Fedora will be released on time in a week. The release date is 17th November. See RedHat announcement.

There are many new features see Fedora 12 features.

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Credit where it is Due

I have criticised Optus in the past when I had problems with my mobile broadband so it is only fair to give credit when they get it right.

As a result of the storms the other night, al least I guess it was the storms could have been a totally unrelated problem, I lost all mobile phone and broadband reception at home. I called them to report it and after describing the situation, my phone could see distant towers weakly for short periods and both being out, they agreed it was most likely a network issue. They said they had several problems in the Sydney area but our local area hadn’t been reported. They would get a tech to investigate but it could take up to 48 hours to resolve. Not something to look forward to.

Anyway less than 10 hours later I had gotten into the habit of checking my phone every so often and there was a full signal this time. I had internet and working well too.

Well done Optus.

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Netbooks

I have been interested in the idea of a netbook since they first appeared. I can see the advantage of a small portable computer especially since laptops seem to be getting larger. I remember many years ago using a 486 laptop that only ran dos but was small and light. It was the ideal travel companion. So recently I decided it was time to add to my collection of pcs.

The new unit is Kogan Agora Pro from Kogan, an Australian company. At under $500 it is the cheapest netbook available in Australia but despite that is well equipped. It has a 160gb drive and 2 gig ram as well as the standard Atom processor. Graphics are Intel 950 which support 3d, transparency etc. OS is gOS a version of Linux based on Ubuntu with a emphasis on Google.

So how good is it? It is only available online which is a bit of a concern. I like to see and touch before I buy. However there were several good reviews online so I took a risk. It arrived in a couple of days. Just a plain white box with the usual hardware but no manual. That is only available on the website. Kogan proudly state they are a paperless company. It had a Windows XP sticker even though it came with Linux, that went very quickly. My first impressions were very good, it runs well and seems well made.

I was not so impressed with the operating system though. It seemed to be an older version as it contained out of date versions of OpenOffice and Firefox. The getting started guide recommended against updating it too. Seems that causes problems with the wifi driver. To add to that it didn’t recognise my wireless broadband so I couldn’t get online.

My next move was predictable I guess. gOS was gone and Fedora replaced it. Most things worked out of the box including wifi and my wireless broadband. I was surprised how well it ran even with KDE 4.3 installed which is a bit resource intensive. Even the desktop effects worked. It didn’t take me long to have the desktop customised the way I like it. Later I added the Xfce 4.6 desktop and that runs even better. I will give Fedora’s new Moblin spin when that becomes available after the release of Fedora 12 in about a month.

I have used it around home, in meetings and when out and about. It has prove a worthwhile investment and a useful tool.

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Fedora, Mobile Broadband and Conky

It was over 12 months ago that I blogged about using my Optus mobile broadband with Fedora. I’ve noticed there have been a few searches on that subject recently so I thought it was about time I updated.

With Fedora 11

When I first plugged the 3g modem in it generated a SELinux error and I had to set SELinux to permissive to get it working. That is no longer the case with Fedora 11. Nor does it load the modem as an usb drive. It is recognised as a modem and Network Manager just handles it.

I must add that this seems to apply only to Fedora. I have tried it in Mandriva and Ubuntu derivatives like Gos and only Mint has worked.

This will improve in Fedora 12 with a new feature that will automatically set up the requirements for each provider. Looks like a great feature for those who need to change the default settings.

Working with Conky

Conky is a very useful system monitor. I have often thought of doing a post on Conky but in the interim I’ll just talk about monitoring the Mobile Broadband.

When I first  set up the Mobile Broadband I couldn’t get Conky to report on it. I tried “dmesg | grep usb” and it reported that the modem was using ttyUSB0, ttyUSB1 and ttyUSB2. However none of these would report any activity. Searching around I found that these were redirecting to ppp0. I can’t remember where I found this but it has been consistent across multiple Fedora versions and computers. I can now see the current activity on the Internet connection.

If it is useful here is the code I added to my .conkyrc to get it working

${color0}INTERNET $color(${addr ppp0}) ${color0}${hr 2}$color
${color1}Down:$color  ${downspeed ppp0} KB/s${alignr}${color1}Up:$color ${upspeed ppp0} KB/s
${downspeedgraph ppp0 25,120 color1 color2} ${alignr}${upspeedgraph ppp0 25,120 color1 color2}$color
${color1}Downloaded: $color${totaldown ppp0} $alignr ${color1}Uploaded: $color${totalup ppp0}

Hope that helps.

Security on the Go

An article on Lifehacker Australia today highlights the problem of security when using free wi-fi. I wonder how many people realise that they are putting themselves at risk when they surf the web at fast food and other places. Have a look here for more info.

Keyboard Shortcuts

I may have mentioned earlier that I have set up keyboard shortcuts for menu items I use daily. But since I updated to KDE 4.3 I have noticed a change in the way shortcuts are set up.

Previously I right clicked on the menu icon and selected menu editor. Next I found the app I wanted to create a shortcut for and then I went to the advanced tab and entered the key combination.

I still do that but now an additional step is required. I need to go the System Settings then Input Actions and the shortcuts I have created are there but not activated. Adding a tick to each shortcut activates it and it starts to work. I’m not sure if this is a bug or a change that was added for a reason but it seems an unnecessary complication.

Fedora and KDE 4.3

KDE 4.3 was released a few weeks ago and the update has finally made it into the Fedora Updates repo a few days ago. It had been in Updates Testing for a while. The update was worth waiting for, 4.3 is another improvement.

The release notes list hundreds of bugs that have been squashed and although most apparent changes are cosmetic the work done beneath the skin is obvious from the improved performance. I’ve noticed a speed increase to the extent that KDE isn’t much slower than Xfce on the same hardware. This is a condemnation of Xfce as much as a bouquet for KDE. I found Xfce 4.6 to be slow compared to previous versions while KDE has made big strides forward since 4.0.

The only small problem I had was I needed to change my startup script for Conky as it lost its transparency. It appears the config file that contains the wallpaper setting has changed. That fixed everything is back to normal, well a better normal.

KDE 4.3 is another (big!) step forward for KDE. It is now well and truly ready for everyday use. If you haven’t tried KDE for a while now is the time for another look.