Rebel Zero » Software

Ubuntu: See, Preview, And Compare Fonts With gnome-specimen

Adam Stovicek — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:12:51 +0000

More inspiration from #ubuntu @ irc.freenode.net

trayzz_: how do i display the fonts i have installed graphically

Since 8.04 Hardy Heron, Ubuntu has included gnome-specimen in the universe repository. As long as that repository is enabled, you can install it simply at the command line with sudo apt-get install gnome-specimen or searching for gnome-specimen in Synaptic. It will be listed in the Applications > Graphics menu.

You’ll get a window with a list of all of your installed fonts on the left, a field to change some preview text and its size, and a preview of that text using the currently highlighted font. A large blank field on the lower right gives you the opportunity to add lines of preview text to compare how they look in different fonts. In my example below, I compared both FreeSans Medium and Droid Sans Regular with Ubuntu’s default display font, Sans Regular, all in 12pt.

OpenOffice.org 3.1 For Hardy, Intrepid, Jaunty

Adam Stovicek — Wed, 13 May 2009 01:46:04 +0000

Want OpenOffice.org 3.1 for Hardy, Intrepid, or Jaunty? Open a terminal window and follow these quick steps.

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/PPA_OpenOffice.org.list

Copy and paste the following deb lines:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/openoffice-pkgs/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/openoffice-pkgs/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

This website’s formatting may split those lines. Each line from “deb” to “main” should be unbroken. Change jaunty in each entry to either intrepid or hardy accordingly for your own Intrepid or Hardy installation.

CTRL-O to write to the file.
CTRL-X to exit.

nano ppa_keys

Copy and paste the PGP Public Key Block for the OpenOffice.org Scribblers PPA from HERE.

CTRL-O to write to the file.
CTRL-X to exit.

sudo apt-key add ppa_keys

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Answer yes when prompted. Wait for the packages to download and set up and enjoy OO.o 3.1 on your Hardy, Intrepid, or Jaunty Ubuntu installation.

As an added bonus, if you don’t already have the full OpenOffice.org suite, as some unnecessary packages are left off of the install CDs, just tell apt-get to get them:

sudo apt-get install openoffice.org

gufw: Autostart with session

Adam Stovicek — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 18:35:16 +0000

I like using gufw to manage the iptables firewall rules. It makes for a clean an easy graphical way to implement rules. I was having an issue with the preferences where “Autostart with session” was grayed out. After a little hunting with Google, I stumbled across a question and an answer at Launchpad, which is someplace I should be looking to first and foremost.

The answer to enabling that option is to simply create a directory.

mkdir ~/.config/autostart

Now the option is no longer grayed out and you can have gufw start for your every session.

You can install it from Ubuntu’s repositories. Make sure you have the universe repos enabled. You can find it in Synaptic or at the command line, issue:

sudo apt-get install gufw

It will need to download ufw and iptables if you don’t already have those.

Oracle To Buy Sun Microsystems

Adam Stovicek — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 22:13:37 +0000

Jonathan Carter’s latest post, aggregated on Planet Ubuntu, made note of the announcement posted at Sun.com about the agreement made between Sun and Oracle. Good news to Sun’s shareholders who got an immediate $2.50/share jump in price today, but the greatest concern in the Linux community will be how this merger will impact the development of the many major open source applications we use today.

Sun Mircosystems is responsible for OpenOffice.org, MySQL, VirtualBox, OpenSolaris, and JAVA to name a few. If the past proposed merger with IBM had gone through, these applications might have been safely earmarked for the open source community. Under Oracle’s leadership, things could possibly be different.

We’ll just have to see how it all plays out.

EDIT: Ars Technica just posted an excellent article about how this may impact the future of open source.