Praise for The Official Ubuntu Book “The Official Ubuntu Book is a great way to get you started with Ubuntu, giving you enough information to be productive without overloading you.” —John Stevenson, DZone Book Reviewer “OUB is one of the best books I’ve seen for beginners.” —Bill Blinn, TechByter Worldwide “This book is the perfect companion for users new to Linux and Ubuntu. It covers the basics in a concise and well-organized manner. General use is covered separately from troubleshooting and error-handling, making the book well-suited both for the beginner as well as the user that needs extended help.” —Thomas Petrucha, Austria Ubuntu User Group “I have recommended this book to several users who I instruct regularly on the use of Ubuntu. All of them have been satisfied with their purchase and have even been able to use it to help them in their journey along the way.” —Chris Crisafulli, Ubuntu LoCo Council, Florida Local Community Team “This text demystifies a very powerful Linux operating system . in just a few weeks of having it, I’ve used it as a quick reference a half dozen times, which saved me the time I would have spent scouring the Ubuntu forums online.” —Darren Frey, Member, Houston Local User Group This page intentionally left blank The Official Ubuntu Book Sixth Edition This page intentionally left blank The Official Ubuntu Book Sixth Edition Benjamin Mako Hill Matthew Helmke Amber Graner Corey Burger With Jonathan Jesse, Kyle Rankin, and Jono Bacon Upper Saddle River, NJ • Boston • Indianapolis • San Francisco New York • Toronto • Montreal • London • Munich • Paris • Madrid Capetown • Sydney • Tokyo • Singapore • Mexico City Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and the publisher was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters or in all capitals. The authors and publisher have taken care in the preparation of this book, but make no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of the use of the information or programs contained herein. The publisher offers excellent discounts on this book when ordered in quantity for bulk purchases or special sales, which may include electronic versions and/or custom covers and content particular to your business, training goals, marketing focus, and branding interests. For more information, please contact: U.S. Corporate and Government Sales (800) 382-3419 [email protected] For sales outside the United States please contact: International Sales [email protected] Visit us on the Web: informit.com/ph Library of Congress Control Number: 2011927965 Copyright © 2011 Canonical, Ltd. This book is published under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is protected by copyright, and permission must be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise unless permitted under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license 3.0. For information regarding permissions, write to: Pearson Education, Inc. Rights and Contracts Department 501 Boylston Street, Suite 900 Boston, MA 02116 Fax: (617) 671-3447 ISBN-13: 978-0-13-274850-6 ISBN-10: 0-13-274850-9 Text printed in the United States on recycled paper at RR Donnelley in Crawfordsville, Indiana. First printing, June 2011 This book is dedicated to the Ubuntu community. Without your tireless hard work and commitment, none of this would be possible. This page intentionally left blank Contents at a Glance Foreword xxi Foreword to the First Edition xxiii Preface xxix Acknowledgments xxxi About the Authors xxxiii Introduction xxxv Chapter 1: The Ubuntu Story 1 Chapter 2: Installing Ubuntu 33 Chapter 3: Using Ubuntu on the Desktop 59 Chapter 4: Gaining Greater Proficiency 111 Chapter 5: The Ubuntu Server 139 Chapter 6: More Applications for Ubuntu 179 Chapter 7: The Ubuntu Community 209 Chapter 8: Using Kubuntu 245 Chapter 9: GNOME 3, GNOME Shell, and More 289 Chapter 10: Ubuntu-Related Projects 299 Chapter 11: Introducing Ubuntu One 317 Appendix: Welcome to the Command Line 327 Index 343 ix This page intentionally left blank Contents Foreword xxi Foreword to the First Edition xxiii Preface xxix Acknowledgments xxxi About the Authors xxxiii Introduction xxxv About This Book xxxv The Scope of the Book xxxvi The Menu xxxvi CHAPTER 1 The UbuntuStory 1 The Vision 2 Free Software, Open Source, and GNU/Linux 3 Free Software and GNU 4 Linux 5 Open Source 6 How the Vision Became Ubuntu 7 Mark Shuttleworth 7 The Warthogs 9 What Does Ubuntu Mean? 10 Beyond the Vision 11 What Is Ubuntu? 12 What Is a Distribution? 13 An Ecosystem of Distributions 14 The Debian Project and the Free Software Universe 16 The Ubuntu Community 17 xi xii Contents Ubuntu Promises and Goals 17 Philosophical Goals 17 Conduct Goals and Code of Conduct 20 Technical Goals 22 Bug #1 24 Sustaining the Vision: Canonical and the Ubuntu Foundation 25 Canonical, Ltd. 25 Canonical’s Service and Support 26 Bazaar and Launchpad 28 The Ubuntu Foundation 29 Beyond the Vision: Ubuntu Subprojects, Derivatives, and Spin-offs 30 Summary 32 CHAPTER 2 Installing Ubuntu 33 Choosing Your Ubuntu Version 34 Other Ubuntu Distributions 35 Is It Still Ubuntu? 36 Getting Ubuntu 36 Burning a CD 37 Installing from the Desktop CD 39 Language 40 Preparing to Install Ubuntu 40 Allocate Drive Space 42 Installation Begins 46 Configuring Your Keyboard 47 Identification 48 Migration 50 Finishing Up 51 Installing from the Alternate Install CD 51 Choosing Your Spot in the World 51 Hardware 52 Setting the Hostname and Time Zone 52 Creating Partitions 53 Configuring a User 55 Finishing Up 57 Installing from a USB Key 57 Installing from within Windows 58 Summary 58 Contents xiii CHAPTER 3 Using Ubuntu on the Desktop 59 Taking Your Desktop for a Ride 61 Ubuntu Classic Desktop 62 Unity Starts Here 63 Starting Applications and Finding Things 63 Finding Your Files and Folders 65 Configuring Your System 66 Adding Additional Users 67 The Notification Area 68 Network Manager 69 The Clock 69 The Launcher 70 Shutting Down Your Computer and Logging Out 71 Using Your Applications 72 Browsing the Web with Firefox 73 Creating Documents with LibreOffice 76 Connecting with Empathy and Gwibber and the Indicator Applet 79 Ubuntu One 79 Managing Your E-Mail and Calendars with Evolution 79 The Ubuntu File Chooser and Bookmarks 85 Ubuntu in Your Language 87 Customizing Ubuntu’s Look and Feel 87 Changing the Background 88 Changing the Theme 88 Configuring a Screensaver 89 Managing Your Files 90 Selecting, Copying, and Moving Files and Folders 92 Using the Sidebar 92 Graphically Accessing Remote Files 93 Ubuntu and Multimedia 95 Installing Codecs 95 Listening to Audio Files 96 Playing and Ripping CDs 98 Buying Music 98 Interacting with Photos 99 Watching Videos 99 Creating Videos 102 Exploring the Ubuntu Landscape 102 xiv Contents Moving to the Next Ubuntu Release 108 Doing the Actual Upgrade 108 Summary 110 CHAPTER 4 Gaining Greater Proficiency 111 Adding and Removing Programs and Packages 112 Using Ubuntu Software Center 112 Terminology 114 Managing Software with Synaptic 115 Keeping Your Computer Updated 117 Installing Updates 118 Learning about What Was Updated 118 I Want to Install an Application That Is Not in the Repositories 119 Changing Your Launcher 120 Adding Additional Users 122 Using and Abusing Devices and Media 123 Using USB Keyring Drives 124 Burning CDs 124 Using Floppy Disks 125 Using Digital Cameras 125 Configuring a Printer in Ubuntu 126 Gathering Information 127 Launching the Wizard 127 Mission Accomplished! 129 Remote Printing 130 How Linux Stores and Organizes Files 131 Using Windows Files on Another Partition 133 The Terminal 134 Backup Strategies 135 Working with Windows Programs 136 Running Applications 137 Summary 137 CHAPTER 5 The Ubuntu Server 139 What Is Ubuntu Server? 140 Installing Ubuntu Server 142 A Couple of Installer Tricks 143 Partitioning Your Ubuntu Server 143 The Story of RAID 144 Setting Up RAID 146 Contents xv The Story of the Logical Volume Manager 148 Setting Up LVM 150 Encrypted Home and Software Selection 152 You’re Done—Now Watch Out for Root! 153 Ubuntu Package Management 154 The Ubuntu Archive 154 APT Sources and Repositories 155 dpkg 156 Installing a Package Manually 157 apt-get and apt-cache 158 Running a Distribution Upgrade 161 aptitude 163 Tips and Tricks 164 Ubuntu Server Security 165 User Account Administration 165 Filesystem Security 167 System Resource Limits 168 System Log Files 169 A Sprinkling of Network Security 170 Final Words on Security 171 Advanced Topics 172 Virtualization 172 Disk Replication 175 Cloud Computing 175 Summary 176 CHAPTER 6 More Applications for Ubuntu 179 Creating Graphics with GIMP and Inkscape 180 GIMP 180 Inkscape 186 Desktop Publishing with Scribus 191 Creating Music with Jokosher 196 Playing to Learn with Educational Programs 200 Getting There Faster with Docky 206 Summary 208 CHAPTER 7 The Ubuntu Community 209 Venues 211 Mailing Lists 212 Internet Relay Chat 213 xvi Contents Web Forums 216 Wikis 217 The Fridge 220 Ask Ubuntu.com 221 Social Media 222 Developer