Drukkar P66 Android-X86 4.4 RC P67 Hotshots P68 Rcssmin P68 Gipfel P69 Lynx P69 Flpsed P70 Lynis P68 Nightmaretris P70 Zatacka P71

FOSSPICKS

Drukkar p66 Android-x86 4.4 RC p67 HotShots p68 rCSSmin p68 Gipfel p69 Lynx p69 Flpsed p70 Lynis p68 NightmareTris p70 Zatacka p71

Sparkling gems and new releases from the world of FOSSpicks Free and Open Source Software Mike Saunders has spent a decade mining the internet for open source treasures. Here’s the result of his latest haul…

Lightweight blog platform Drukkar 2.0 http://drukkar.sourceforge.net

ituation: you want to set up entries as simple XML files, and is your own blog. Options: a designed with minimum bandwidth Smillion and one competing overheads, so the “content should blog platforms, each one trying to account for most of your web be more feature-rich, flashy and traffic” as the developer puts it. Web 4.0 than the last. End result: you get tired of trying to work out Nice and simple what’s right for you, give up, and go To install Drukkar, extract its .zip to the pub instead. file directly into a location on your Sounds familiar? Most of us web server (note that it won’t create don’t need whizz-bang WordPress a subdirectory during extraction). installations with all the trimmings Then edit config.xml and set for our day-to-day musings, and the base_url and base_location Drukkar does a splendid job with settings to match your installation minimal requirements. It doesn’t path. Finally, make sure that the need a database or special Apache entries, files and cache directories Drukkar’s default theme, “flat”, is clean and simple. To change the modules or anything like that – its are writable by your web server text on the right, edit inc/sidebar.php. only requirement is a web server account (eg www-data on Debian/ with PHP. Drukkar stores blog Ubuntu systems). Now access the Drukkar installation in your web browser, and voilà: your blog is ready to go. You can see that a sample entry has been created automatically. To add new entries, go to edit.php in your Drukkar installation and enter the admin password (by default it’s just password). You can then add a new blog entry in plain text, HTML or Markdown. It’s possible to add tags to entries for organising them later, and add files to them as well (go to files.php to manage them). See config.xml for more options, such as changing the blog’s title and creating a new password. It’s all charmingly simple, lightning fast and no-nonsense – we’ve got it The official webpage of Drukkar is made in, you guessed it, Drukkar – a good old running for a tech-shy relative who open source “eating your own dogfood” approach. wants his own type-and-go blog.

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Operating system Android-x86 4.4 RC www.android-x86.org

es, you can run the world’s Wi-Fi networks; Android will use the most popular mobile emulated network adaptor. Also, if Yoperating system on your you can’t see the mouse pointer, try desktop PC. And no, there are no disabling mouse integration from pressing reasons to do so, other the VirtualBox menu. than out of curiosity. But that’s why From here, it’s very much we love Linux and Free Software, standard Android: the black bar at right? If you’re absolutely bursting the bottom of the screen is almost to do some Android development always present, and includes three but can’t get your mitts on an buttons. The first takes you back to Android-powered smartphone or the previous screen (useful if you’ve tablet, this project might help you dived into several levels of settings), out somewhat. Bearing in mind that while the second takes you back to Android was developed specifically the home screen from whatever for handheld devices, don’t expect app you’re using. The third button to be amazed with this PC port. brings up a simple task manager The usual gamut Still, it’s surprisingly usable. for switching between apps. of Android apps is included by default: its fonts are Android-x86 is available from the bundled, along with a ridiculously tiny, so click the project website (and on the Linux Our new Google overlords terminal emulator. three-dot icon in the top-right Voice DVD) as an ISO image that Click the circle button with six dots (Android’s stock button for settings), you can burn to a CD-R, or inside to view the included go to Preferences, and finally Font alternatively, boot in VirtualBox. If software. Android-x86 bundles Size. When you’ve selected you do the latter, make sure that Google’s apps, so you can something better (eg 16pt), click the you provide at least 32MB of video immediately use Google+, Google back arrow in the bottom bar. RAM to the VM, and choose Maps and other services without Android as a PC OS is little more SoundBlaster 16 for the emulated extra fiddling. The Play Store is also than a novelty at this stage, but in sound card. Boot from the ISO provided as well. We’re pleased to time it might be a useful desktop image and at the initial menu, hit see that a terminal emulator is OS for non-technical users who are Enter on the first entry to start the already familiar with its interface on OS in live mode, running straight a smartphone or tablet. If we ever from the disc. You’ll be asked a few “In time Android might be a useful had the time to do our podcast questions before reaching the home desktop OS for users who are challenges, “use Android-x86 as our screen. If you’re running VirtualBox, already familiar with its interface. sole desktop OS for a week” would you can skip the question about ” be a darn good ’un…

How it works: install Android-x86 to your hard drive

1 Boot 2 Partition 3 Install Burn the ISO image to a CD-R – you’ll find it Choose a partition on your drive for the Choose ext3 as the file format, choose to on this mont’s cover DVD – and boot from it. At the Android files. (This will wipe the data!) If you need to install Grub, and the files will be copied over. initial menu, select the 4th option: Installation. partition manually, the third option runs cfdisk. Reboot and enjoy exploring the OS.

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Screenshot creator/editor HotShots 2.1.0 http://sourceforge.net/projects/hotshots

t’s something of a cliché to say full details. Once you have it “Foo is like Bar on steroids”, but installed, enter hotshots and the Ithat certainly applies here. main window will pop up. The app HotShots is a screenshot creation also drops an icon in your and editing tool with nigh-on every notification area, so you can easily feature you can imagine rolled in, pop it up when needed. and it does a sterling job. You might think: what’s so special about taking Many, many extras a screenshot? Just hit the Print In the main window, the most Screen key. Well, that’s fine if you important widget is Capture Mode. HotShots lets you draw just want a rather generic capture of Along with grabbing the whole writing documentation and want to areas on the screen to the screen, but if you want to add screen or a specific region, this also take as a screenshot, explain parts of an interface. effects or annotations, it’s better to lets you save hand-drawn regions with the background set You can save your work as a .hot use a specialist tool. with smoothed edges – something as transparent. file for later editing (eg if you want HotShots uses Qt4 for its we haven’t seen in other screenshot to reposition elements), or export it interface, and the dependencies creation tools. Click the fire button in PNG, BMP, GIF and other formats. you’ll need on Debian/Ubuntu- on the left, and after you’ve chosen It’s even possible to upload based systems are qt4-qmake, the area to grab, the editor will pop screenshots to an FTP server or libqt4-dev, libxtq-dev and libxfixes- up. This is a mightily powerful tool image hosting site like Imgur with a dev. Its installation process that lets you add snazzy-looking single click – great if you need to includes several alternative shapes, arrows, numbered tags and quickly show someone else on the methods – see INSTALL.txt for the text boxes; very useful if you’re net your current screen state.

CSS compressor rCSSmin 1.0.3 http://opensource.perlig.de/rcssmin

f you’re developing a website, than you do, though. It simply strips it’s all too easy to focus on out spaces, comments, semi- Ihome or office users with fast colons (where possible) and other connections and unlimited bits and bobs that aren’t required. bandwidth. But there’s an Two versions are provided: one is increasing number of people on written in Python, takes its input via expensive mobile data tariffs, and stdin, and spits the results to there are still some people stuck on stdout. So if you have a file called dial-up, so it’s important to consider style.css, compress it like this: Before and after: our all types of users and reduce your cat style.css | ./rcssmin.py > new.css 70k to 40k. This isn’t a world- 70k CSS file in the left- site’s overall data requirements. Have a look in new.css, and you’ll hand window, and its quaking change, but if you’re rCSSmin helps in this process by see that it’s not as readable as 40k crunched version on running a big website serving up crunching your CSS files to the bare before, but considerably smaller. the right. hundreds of thousands of CSS files essentials. Chances are that your We tested it with a CSS file from the every day, it all adds up and saves CSS contains lots of whitespace Linux Voice Forums, and rCSSmin you bandwidth costs too. and comments to make it easy to managed to shrink it down from The C version is designed with read and edit, but the web browser performance in mind (it’s up to 50 doesn’t care about that – it just times faster than the Python one), wants the information. rCSSmin “It’s important to reduce your so you can even use it at runtime doesn’t pull any fancy tricks or on your sites (ie crunching CSS on pretend it knows your CSS better site’s overall data requirements.” the fly as it’s served up).

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Mountain finder Gipfel 0.4.0 www.ecademix.com/JohannesHofmann/gipfel.html

o you’ve had a lovely holiday where you can identify two of them, in the Alps, and taken plenty but the rest are unknown to you. Sof photos. Back home, you With the picture open, click File > load up the pictures on your Linux Choose Viewpoint and select the box and start browsing them. “Aha”, name of a mountain that you know you say, “there’s the Zugspitze, is in the picture. (The database is Germany’s highest mountain. But extensive but some of the names what’s that one behind it?” With are a bit off – for instance, the some messing around on Google Großvenediger in Austria is written Gipfel can show labels Maps and Wikipedia, you could as “Gross Venediger”.) Now for mountains behind Peak again, dragging the icon to the probably find the name of the right-click on the picture and the ones in the picture, other known mountain. If all is well, mountain in question, but Gipfel choose Find Peak. Enter the name so reduce the visibility Gipfel will calculate the location makes it easier – and more fun. of the mountain again, click OK, and setting to make things from which you took the photo, and Using FLTK for the interface, a red symbol will appear. Drag this clearer. add labels to the tops of other Gipfel’s dependencies are libtiff4- to the top of the known mountain. mountains in the picture. dev, libjpeg62-dev, libexiv2-dev, Now repeat this process, It’s possible to manually adjust libgsl0-dev and libfltk1.3-dev. right-clicking and choosing Find your latitude and longitude, and also Once you have the program started, tweak various angles and settings click File > Load Image in the menu, to match your photo more closely. and select a photo from your “Gipfel will add labels to the tops It’s a clever little app when it works collection. Choose a picture that correctly – it just takes some includes several distinct peaks, of other mountains in the picture.” fiddling to get right.

Text-mode web browser Lynx 2.8.8 http://lynx.isc.org

e love programs that run attempt to recreate complex on almost every OS layouts, but for text-heavy sites it Wunder the sun. Lynx, the does a respectable job. venerable text-mode web browser that has been doing the rounds Bare-bones browser since 1992, has just seen a new The only major requirement to build release. And this release has been Lynx is (n)curses. Once you have it tested on (deep breath): Linux, running, hit G to enter a URL. Use FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, the cursor keys to navigate through Hit O to bring up the OpenVMS, AIX, HP-UX, Haiku, IRIX, links, enter to follow a link, the left commands; a progress bar that’s options screen, which Solaris, Tru64, Mac OS X, and even cursor key to go back, and Ctrl+P/N is full of tweakable bits now compiled in by default and that weird Windows thing that to scroll two lines backwards/ ’n’ bobs. available in the options screen; some people still use. forwards. Hit Shift+G to edit the improvements to SSL support; and Now, Lynx is quite limited as a current URL, backspace to bring up better interpretation of HTML code. web browser, given that it operates the history, and forward slash to do We’re really chuffed to see Lynx in text mode, but it’s good to have a search. Lynx has an impressive being updated to support the latest around. If something goes wonky range of features tucked away - so web technologies – it’s good to with your X server and you need to enter H to bring up the help. When know that it’s always there, even search the web for help or drivers, you’re finished, Q quits. when you’re exploring some you’ll need a browser that runs in New features in version 2.8.8 random, obscure Unix variant that the plain text terminal. Lynx doesn’t include: submit, reset and pwd few people have heard of.

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PDF and PostScript file annotator Flpsed 0.7.2 www.flpsed.org/flpsed.html

espite the best efforts of the Flpsed is a super-simple Free Software community, lightweight little app that lets you Dpeople still send Microsoft add text to PDF and PostScript Word .doc files around as if they documents, without changing the were some kind of standard. We structure of them. You simply add always recommend that people lines of text at whatever position install LibreOffice and use an open you want, and then re-export the file file format, but our words often fall as a PDF. This means you can fill in on deaf ears. Usually, the best forms in seconds without having Flpsed doesn’t alter the structure of PDF documents - it just adds success we have is asking people to mess around in a much more another layer of text on top. to send us documents as PDFs – complicated app. at least they will render the same It’s built with FLTK, and has a document, and start typing. When across different platforms. very sparse interface: click File > you’re done, click File > Export PDF. Now, that’s all good and well until Open File and choose a document. This is good enough, but Flpsed someone sends you a form to fill in. Then set your font size and colour has an awesome extra feature: If your PDF reader doesn’t support using the widgets in the toolbar, batch processing. It’s possible to this facility, you might be tempted click on the relevant position in the add tags to PDFs that will later be to install the dreadfully bloated replaced by custom text strings, so Adobe Reader, which makes you can, for instance, automatically your hard drive grind on start-up “You simply add lines of text, then add text to a bunch of forms and perpetually annoys you with re-export the file as a PDF. without having to go through each “update me!” pop-ups. ” one manually.

Security auditing tool Lynis 1.4.1 http://cisofy.com/lynis

ecurity is a moving target: you existence) and can be executed in can harden your systems to place without installation. To use it San almost unbreakable all you need to enter is: degree, but there’s no guarantee tar xfv lynis-1.4.1.tar.gz that they’ll be equally robust cd lynis-1.4.1/ tomorrow, when new vulnerabilities sudo ./lynis -c are discovered. It’s also a vast topic, (The -c flag performs a complete and if you’ve been given the job of check – just run sudo ./lynis on its making a Linux box ultra secure, it’s own to see all available options.) Lynis doing a scan: it hard to know where to start. You’ve Lynis works step-by-step through has some suggestions colours: green means that got packages to update, user different aspects of your setup, for user and group everything’s OK, yellow is used for accounts to maintain, settings in pausing along the way to help you settings, which it will warnings, and red signifies major /etc to check… it adds up. see what’s going on. It looks at explain in more detail at problems. Once the scan has the end. Lynis provides a one-stop-shop potential problems in user and completed, you’re given a much for checking your system’s security. group settings, looks for vulnerable more detailed set of instructions for It’s a script that pokes around in packages, checks file permissions, fixing issues that have cropped up. various parts of your Linux tests your networking setup, looks Lynis is no silver bullet and won’t installation, alerting you to potential at your compiler configuration, and make your machines impenetrable, problems. Usefully, it’s written in many other things. but it’s well worth keeping around plain shell script (so it will run on As the scan progresses, Lynis and running periodically to keep one virtually every Linux distro in provides feedback in different step ahead of crackers.

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FOSSPICKS Brain relaxers

Deliberately annoying Tetris variant NightmareTris 1.0 https://github.com/giacomodrago/nightmaretris

etris does funny things to of love and liblove available in your brain. Play it for long Ubuntu 13.10’s repositories don’t Tenough, and you’ll start work properly with the game, so to wonder if the game is trying to if you’re using that distro, get the taunt you, giving you especially latest packages from www.love2d. awkward pieces at the most org. Then run the game as follows: difficult moments. In reality, most love NightmareTris.love Tetris variants pick pieces at (Add --windowed to the end of the random, so you just have to hope command to disable full-screen that your luck is in. NightmareTris mode.) Hit F2, and a standard- How many times are is different though: it includes looking game of Tetris begins: use Sometimes the game doesn’t we going to get a 2x2 an algorithm that deliberately the left and right cursor keys to block? Until we lose the seem to be too evil, but you know chooses the worst pieces for move pieces sideways, up to rotate game, clearly… that it’s only planning to make your current situation. Need the them, and down to drop the piece your life harder down the line. long thin one to get rid of four to the bottom. If you enjoy a spot of Tetris lines? You ain’t going to get it… but got bored with the standard As well as being annoying to Curse my metal body! variants years ago (how could play, NightmareTris is a bit fiddly There’s no music or fancy effects, you?!), it’s well worth trying this. to install. It’s written using LÖVE, but the gameplay is great: it’s Don’t punch your monitor too a 2D game engine; the versions classic Tetris, made extra difficult. hard though…

Souped-up Tron-like game Zatacka X 0.1.6 https://github.com/simenheg/zatackax

e’ve seen countless Ubuntu-based systems you can get Tron-inspired games these via libsdl1.2-dev, libsdl- Wcome and go over the mixer1.2-dev, libsdl-ttf2.0-dev and years, and they’re all pretty much libsdl-image1.2-dev. the same: you control a moving Build the game with make and dot that leaves a path behind it, run it in place with ./zatackax. The and CPU-controlled opponents game is set up for multiplayer, but if also zip around, leaving trails on you want to play against the the screen. Your goal is to survive computer, go to Settings > Player Trails occasionally have for as long as possible without Config and set the AI for extra opponents. Hit Enter again to gaps in them, leaving crashing into any of the trails. players to On. At the main screen, possible escape routes start playing. Use the left and Zatacka X takes a slightly highlight Start Game and press the when the arena starts to right keys to change the direction different approach; it’s based on a right arrow key to add the AI players get full. of your line, and up to use a game called “Achtung, die Kurve” you just enabled, then hit Enter. power-up. You’ll notice your line (watch out for the curve) with changes direction in a smooth some extra goodies sprinkled on Race against the machine curve, rather than at right-angles top. Getting it compiled is fairly Before the game begins, there’s a like in other Tron-esque games, simple as it just depends on choice of power ups: these give you and the power ups make it much common SDL libraries: in Debian/ temporary boosts, or afflict your more entertaining.