How to BBC iPlayer from outside the UK

If you live outside the UK you will know about GeoBlocking where you will be denied access to certain data depending on your IP address. You can get around this by using FoxyProxy on Firefox with a UK proxy server IP.

1. Download and install FoxyProxy, and restart Firefox:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/15023

2. Open the FoxyProxy settings and configure a UK proxy:
Go to Tools > Addons > FoxyProxy > Preferences > Add New Proxy

3. Add the Required Data:
In the “General” Tab just add the name of your proxy. I put BBC iPlayer.
In the “Proxy Details” Tab put the IP address 92.52.125.17 with the port address 80
Now Click “Ok” to Save.

4. Optionally you can set the proxy to Auto for the BBC iPlayer url:
Just add the url http://bbc.co.uk/iplayer/* to the Automatic Proxy field and click “Ok” to Save.

5. Activate the BBC iPlayer proxy:
On the bottom right of Firefox you will have a FoxyProxy button. Right-Click it and choose “BBC iPlayer” and make sure it is set as “enabled”.

6. Get yourself something nice to eat!
Click on BBC2 and get yourself something nice from one of Raymond Blanc’s marvelous cookery programmes [/sarcasm]

That’s it, you are good to go. Happy viewing!

At certain points, Proxy servers can get flooded and slow, or even not work at all. If this happens just go and get the IP of a new UK proxy from here: http://www.xroxy.com/proxy-country-GB.htm

#! Crunchbang Set the Time via Terminal CLI

From: http://wiki.debian.org/DateTime

Set the time manually via the terminal cli

When setting the time manually, the time string may be confusing. The command date –set … accepts the date and time in many formats. You can read the ShUtils info document, or use the example below to figure out one possible format. The date is given in ISO 8601 standard format YYYY-MM-DD for Year-Month-DayOfMonth, and time of day using 24 hour clock. Leading zeros are significant.

Set the date
sudo date --set 2010-01-28

Set the time
sudo date --set 21:08:00

Restart Tint2 to see the correct time:
sudo killall tint2
tint2 &

Conky Forecast on #! Crunchbang

Add Kaivalagi’s Lucid repo, and install ConkyForecast:
sudo wget -q http://www.kaivalagi.com/ubuntu/ppa/conkyforecast-lucid.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/conkyhardcore-lucid.list

Get the repo Gpg key:
wget -q http://www.kaivalagi.com/ubuntu/ppa/conkyhardcore-key.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Update APT and install conkeyforecast:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install conkyforecast

Copy the conkyforecast config to your home directory:
cp /usr/share/conkyforecast/conkyForecast.config ~/.conkyForecast.config

Edit it to add your XOAP key: (which you get from ) http://www.weather.com/services/xmloap.html
nano ~/.conkyForecast.config

//

Install Swiftfox on #! Crunchbang

If you want a bit of speed to your browsing now that Firefox has gone all bloated and slow, try Swiftfox.
http://getswiftfox.com

Just download your desired version, I chose the i686 for my old AMD Mobile Sempron:
http://getswiftfox.com/deb.htm

Now you need to get a dependency: (libxp6)
sudo apt-get install libxp6

Then install the Swiftfox .deb file: (mine was downloaded to my “downloads” directory)
cd downloads

Change the next command to suit your Swiftfox build:
sudo dpkg -i swiftfox_3.6.0-1_i686.deb


That’s it, you can now run Swiftfox with the command:
swiftfox

As it reads from the standard Mozilla directory, all your bookmarks etc for Iceweasel will also be available.

Crunchbang 10 Statler Review

Distrowatch: http://distrowatch.com/crunchbang
Homepage: http://crunchbanglinux.org
Wiki: http://crunchbanglinux.org/wiki
Forums: http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums
Download location: http://crunchbanglinux.org/downloads/statler/alpha-01/

|IT-0| Install/Live Test BOTH
Time to Boot/Install: 10 Minutes
The text based installer didn’t show up probably as I installed on a Sis based Laptop. I solved this by adding the vga=791 to the installer commandline:
http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/6853/fix-statler-alpha-text-installer-black-screen/

|N-5| Network (router/modem/wireless)
Wifi: See Notes
Nic: Eth0 connected with Network Manager and DHCP with no problem at all
Modem: N/A
As of yet, the Alpha does not have wireless tools or Broadcom drivers/firmware installed, so I just manually installed them and fired up wirless without a problem.

|U-0| USB periferals NOT TESTED
Periferals:
Problems?

|G-5| Graphics Card
Make and Model: Sis Graphics Card (No proprietary Linux Drivers/Firmware)
Always problems with this card on any Linux distro. The sisfb framebuffer has to be added to Grub:
http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/6854/fix-laptops-with-sis-graphic-cards-and-wrong-colour-depth/

|S-5| Speed+ DM
Desktop: OpenBox
Slow or Fast? Very fast !

|F-5| Forum Support
URL: http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/

The Crunchbang forums and community in general are awesome. I mean really. The Crunchbang community is a mixed batch of experienced users and newbies all working together to make the best of their distro. User feedback and support is amazing, probably the best Linux distro forums I know (obviously I won’t comment on Dreamlinux Forums or LxH, bias etc Tongue ) Everybody gets involved with support, chat, scripts, apps. Whatsmore the head developer and forum Admin (corenominal) plays a very big part in the community, which is something that many other forums lack.

Points Guide
0. Didn’t Work
1. Unsatisfactory
2. Satisfactory
3. Good
4. Very Good
5. Excellent

General observations:
I spoke to omns and corenominal about putting together a FluxBang Fluxbox edition, but as soon as I installed the Crunchbang Debian OpenBox edition (I also have the Ubuntu version), I decided that there is nothing i can do with Fluxbox that would even come close to competing with (or offering anything new) to this already amazing distro.

This version has blown me away and rekindled my desire to distro-test and help support a distro. I tried OpenBox before, but as a Fluxbox fan, I always went back to Fluxbox (Dreamlinux and Tota). But Crunchbang has done something special with it, and I will be leaving it as it is.

Crunchbang goes Debian – Statler Alpha1

I have just installed Crunchbang 10 Statler which is the first of Crunchbang’s move to Debian, Squeeze to be precise.
Here is the release announcement:
http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/6843/crunchbang-10-statler-alpha-1-released/

The first alpha of CrunchBang 10 “Statler” is now available. Download it at your own risk!

If you do decide to give it a try, please do not forget to provide feedback. Your comments and suggestions are really important to the future development of the project, so please warm-up your digits and get ready to type-up your notes.

For anyone who might be interested, I have written up some release notes on the wiki. Apologies about the lack of details, but this is a new start to the project and I am not sure I could reasonably detail every change.

P.S. Please do not break the new download servers. Captain Link Hogthrob, Dr. Julius Strangepork & First Mate Piggy are all new to the job, so take it easy on them!

I have always liked Crunchbang, but even though I do have Ubuntu installed on two of my computers, I just couldn’t get into it. And in my quest for a Debian based Window Manager run desktop, myself and the guys at LxH built Tota Linux

I have always been a Fluxbox freak, and basically end up Fluxbox-izing everything. I am currently working on the Tota Fluxbox Edition as well as building a Fluxbox desktop for the upcoming Dreamlinux 4.0.

I PM’d omns and corenominal about creating a FluxBang Community Edition, but after installing the latest Debian based Crunchbang Alpha I just fell in love with what has been done with OpenBox.
Therefore I decided to abandon all hope of doing anything with Fluxbox that hasn’t already been done with OpenBox:
http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/6850/fluxbang-idea-abandoned/

As soon as I had installed and had a good play with Crunchbang Statler I decided to write a Distro Test over at LxH, something that for a long time, no distro has given me any incentive to do:
http://linux-hardcore.com/index.php?topic=2706.0

So far so good, I am really enjoying the simplicity and speed. Whatsmore, as it is Debian and not Ubuntu, you also get a psychological impression of stability. I use Ubuntu and it’s good, but it always leaves you feeling scared that the next update or reboot will break something. Debian Squeeze did that to me a couple of times on Tota and also a Vanilla install but it was always due to third party apps or a small (fixable) bug.

Hopefully Crunchbang on Debian has started as it means to go on, because it is absolutely rockin’ at the moment.

Just added Corenominal’s Twitterzoid script

Corenominal (Philip from #!Crunchbang) has written an awesome script for Twitter.
http://crunchbang.org/archives/2008/02/20/twitterzoid-php-script/

I created a page called Twitter, then edited the link to go to the /twitter directory where I uploaded his script.
Just edit “example.php” and call it “index.php” then edit it to add your Twitter details.

This is Philip’s example template, but i’m going to play with the css and see what I can do. I’m still not completely decided on my theme, but at least you can see how it looks/works.

How to Mount Ubuntu Ext4 on Debian Ext3

As Ext4 was experimental during the release of Lenny, it wasn’t fully implemented. However, you can mount an Ext4 file system on Ext3 with Debian Lenny, but only in “Read Only” mode.

As root
tune2fs -E test_fs /dev/XXX
mount -t ext4dev -o ro /dev/XXX /mnt/ZZZ

I had Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx and Windows 7 on two other partitions when I installed Lenny, I now have read access to Ubuntu’s Ext4 and read/write to Windows 7’s ntfs file system.

Debian Lenny on Acer 3004 laptop

I needed a stable, fast environment to get some work done so I decided that as I had a spare partition on my Acer 3004 laptop i’d go back to Debian Lenny.

I installed Debian Lenny Netinstall via a wired connection to my router.

I chose to install to an Ext3 partition, and only selected the base files and laptop files as I am going for a Fluxbox driven rocket box.

This laptop has Broadcom wireless, a Sis graphics card, and a Synaptics touchpad. Everything else is standard

I updated and upgraded after install and then got my wireless drivers and additional wireless necessities (I have a wpa2 tkip wireless connection):
aptitude instal bcm43-fwcutter wireless-tools wpasupplicant
Then as I like to use Wicd which isn’t available in the standard Lenny repos, I added Lenny backports and pinned the standard repos as default:
Lenny Backports:
# Backported packages for Debian Lenny
deb http://www.backports.org/debian lenny-backports main contrib non-free
Backports key:
apt-get install debian-backports-keyring

Pin Lenny as default:
echo 'APT::Default-Release "lenny";' > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/default
While I was at it, I added “contrib” and “non-free” to the standard repos

Install Xorg Sis driver which automaticall installs Xorg dependencies
aptitude install xserver-xorg-video-sis
Incidentally, I always add video=sisfb after ro quiet splash on the menu.list or grub.cfg to make sure that the sisfb framebuffer gets used. Vesa witll leave you with a blurry desktop with the wrong colour depth. But that’s what you get for buying a laptop with a pile of crap graphics card like Sis. Sis have stated there will never be drivers for Linux, so we just have to put up with it, or buy Ati/Nvidia next time.

Synaptics Touchpad
aptitude install xserver-xorg-input-synaptics
(See my xorg.conf to add the relative synaptics section, without it you get no scroll action)

Next up I configured Xorg and copied the new xorg.conf over to /etc/X11
su to root
X -configure
Then copy it over:
cp /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Next up I had to manually add my Spanish keyboard and the section for my Synaptics touchpad
As a quick fix to get your keyboard keymap correct while you are getting everything setup, you can issue this command with your keymap (mine is “es” for Spain):
setxkbmap es
My Xorg.conf for my laptop with everything working
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "X.org Configured"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"
RgbPath "/etc/X11/rgb"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi"
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "GLcore"
Load "dri"
Load "dbe"
Load "record"
Load "glx"
Load "xtrap"
Load "extmod"
Load "synaptics"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "es"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "TapButton1" "1"
Option "SpecialScrollAreaRight" "true"
Option "VertEdgeScroll" "true"
Option "VertTwoFingerScroll" "true"
Option "SHMConfig" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "Monitor Model"
EndSection

Section "Device"
### Available Driver options are:-
### Values: : integer, : float, : "True"/"False",
### : "String", : " Hz/kHz/MHz"
### [arg]: arg optional
#Option "Accel" # []
#Option "AccelMethod" #
#Option "TurboQueue" # []
#Option "FastVram" # []
#Option "HostBus" # []
#Option "RenderAcceleration" # []
#Option "ForceCRT1Type" #
#Option "ForceCRT2Type" #
#Option "ShadowFB" # []
#Option "DRI" # []
#Option "AGPSize" #
#Option "GARTSize" #
#Option "Vesa" # []
#Option "MaxXFBMem" #
#Option "EnableSiSCtrl" # []
#Option "SWCursor" # []
#Option "HWCursor" # []
#Option "UseColorHWCursor" # []
#Option "Rotate" #
#Option "Reflect" #
#Option "Xvideo" # []
#Option "InternalModes" # []
#Option "OverruleFrequencyRanges" # []
#Option "RestoreBySetMode" # []
#Option "ForceCRT1" # []
#Option "XvOnCRT2" # []
#Option "PanelDelayCompensation" #
#Option "PDC" #
#Option "PanelDelayCompensation2" #
#Option "PDC2" #
#Option "PanelDelayCompensation1" #
#Option "PDC1" #
#Option "EMI" #
#Option "LVDSHL" #
#Option "ForcePanelRGB" #
#Option "SpecialTiming" #
#Option "TVStandard" #
#Option "UseROMData" # []
#Option "UseOEMData" # []
#Option "YV12" # []
#Option "CHTVType" # []
#Option "CHTVOverscan" # []
#Option "CHTVSuperOverscan" # []
#Option "CHTVLumaBandwidthCVBS" #
#Option "CHTVLumaBandwidthSVIDEO" #
#Option "CHTVLumaFlickerFilter" #
#Option "CHTVChromaBandwidth" #
#Option "CHTVChromaFlickerFilter" #
#Option "CHTVCVBSColor" # []
#Option "CHTVTextEnhance" #
#Option "CHTVContrast" #
#Option "SISTVEdgeEnhance" #
#Option "SISTVAntiFlicker" #
#Option "SISTVSaturation" #
#Option "SISTVCFilter" # []
#Option "SISTVYFilter" #
#Option "SISTVColorCalibFine" #
#Option "SISTVColorCalibCoarse" #
#Option "SISTVXScale" #
#Option "SISTVYScale" #
#Option "TVXPosOffset" #
#Option "TVYPosOffset" #
#Option "SIS6326TVAntiFlicker" #
#Option "SIS6326TVEnableYFilter" # []
#Option "SIS6326TVYFilterStrong" # []
#Option "SIS6326TVForcePlug" #
#Option "SIS6326FSCAdjust" #
#Option "YPbPrAspectRatio" #
#Option "TVBlueWorkAround" # []
#Option "ColorHWCursorBlending" # []
#Option "ColorHWCursorBlendThreshold" #
#Option "CRT2Detection" # []
#Option "ForceCRT2ReDetection" # []
#Option "SenseYPbPr" # []
#Option "CRT1Gamma" # []
#Option "CRT2Gamma" # []
#Option "GammaBrightness" #
#Option "GammaBrightnessCRT2" #
#Option "CRT2GammaBrightness" #
#Option "Brightness" #
#Option "NewGammaBrightness" #
#Option "CRT2Brightness" #
#Option "CRT2NewGammaBrightness" #
#Option "Contrast" #
#Option "NewGammaContrast" #
#Option "CRT2Contrast" #
#Option "CRT2NewGammaContrast" #
#Option "CRT1Saturation" #
#Option "XvGamma" # []
#Option "XvDefaultContrast" #
#Option "XvDefaultBrightness" #
#Option "XvDefaultHue" #
#Option "XvDefaultSaturation" #
#Option "XvDefaultDisableGfx" # []
#Option "XvDefaultDisableGfxLR" # []
#Option "XvChromaMin" #
#Option "XvChromaMax" #
#Option "XvUseChromaKey" # []
#Option "XvInsideChromaKey" # []
#Option "XvYUVChromaKey" # []
#Option "XvDisableColorKey" # []
#Option "XvUseMemcpy" # []
#Option "BenchmarkMemcpy" # []
#Option "UseSSE" # []
#Option "XvDefaultAdaptor" #
#Option "ScaleLCD" # []
#Option "CenterLCD" # []
#Option "EnableHotkey" # []
#Option "ForceCRT1VGAAspect" #
#Option "ForceCRT2VGAAspect" #
#Option "MergedFB" # []
#Option "TwinView" # []
#Option "MergedFBAuto" # []
#Option "CRT2HSync" #
#Option "SecondMonitorHorizSync" #
#Option "CRT2VRefresh" #
#Option "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" #
#Option "CRT2Position" #
#Option "TwinViewOrientation" #
#Option "MetaModes" #
#Option "MergedDPI" #
#Option "MergedXinerama" # []
#Option "TwinviewXineramaInfo" # []
#Option "MergedXineramaCRT2IsScreen0" # []
#Option "MergedNonRectangular" # []
#Option "MergedMouseRestriction" # []
#Option "SHMConfig" "true"
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "sis"
VendorName "Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]"
BoardName "661/741/760 PCI/AGP or 662/761Gx PCIE VGA Display Adapter"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 1
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 4
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 8
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 15
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 16
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

Once that was all done I installed my desktop and a few apps:
aptitude install fluxbox wicd gdm bbrun fluxconf fbpager xfce4-terminal conky lua50 imlib2 iceweasel scrot imagemagick
No themes, no wallpaper, no frills………….. at the moment 😉

Then reboot, at GDM choose Session > Fluxbox then login to a very sparse but very fast Fluxbox desktop.

Next up was to edit my ~/fluxbox/menu to add my main apps right at the top, and also add wicd and conky as my startup apps on ~/fluxbox/startup

That’s it for the moment for a basic Debian Lenny Acer laptop H4x0r-R0kk3t-B0x.

How to Ubuntu 10.04 Window buttons on the right

The new theme and lay out on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx introduced a new annoyance. When you open an application window, the minimize, maximize and close buttons are now on the left. This is easily fixed with one command in the terminal:

Place just the buttons on the right:

gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout --type string “:maximize,minimize,close,”

If you also want the menu button on the left:

gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout --type string “menu:maximize,minimize,close,”

Not sure why the devs decided to go all Mac on us, but there you go, all easy to fix.

Quickest Archlinux install guide ever?

This was posted by willxtreme on the Crunchbang forum:
#! ArchBang
http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/post/50583/#p50583

Setup Arch with OpenBox
He did it in VirtualBox so just add your graphics driver.

1) Boot cd & login as root & type /arch/setup
2) Select Source>CD
3) Set clock UTC
4) Prepare HD>Auto Prepare for now
***5) Select ALL Packages lol & install them***
6) Configure w/ Nano
-rc.conf>check timezone
>MODULES=(!net-pf-10 !snd_pcsp !pcspkr loop) #to disable ipv6 & beep
>change myhost to your desired cpu name (sasoria)
-/etc/hosts>be sure to see your hostname
-/etc/locale.gen>uncomment your locale
-/etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist>uncomment for your country (Canada)
-Set your root passwd & click Done
7) Bootloader>Grub (check menu.lst & see if all cool)>select your main HD>Reboot
8) Login as root & ping http://www.google.com to check your network
9) pacman -Syu & reboot if there was a kernel upgrade
10) useradd -m -G users,audio,video,wheel,storage,optical,power -s /bin/bash will
11) passwd will
12) pacman -S powerpill (powerpill -Syu from now on when you do big installs)
13) pacman -S alsa-utils also-oss>alsaconf (detect snd card)
>run alsamixer as normal user to adjust vol(m to unmute) ex:su – will
14) save settings by going back root & run alsactl store
15) #nano /etc/rc.conf to add alsa & hal: DAEMONS=(syslog-ng network crond alsa hal)
16) in the following order:pacman -S libgl>pacman -S xorg>pacman -S mesa
17) # pacman -S xf86-video-vmware
18) # Xorg -configure > cp /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf
19) enable hotplugging # pacman -S hal dbus xf86-input-evdev xf86-input-synaptics
20) pacman -S openbox obconf obmenu
21) Once openbox is installed you will get a message to move menu.xml & rc.xml to ~/.config/openbox/ in your home directory:
# su – yourusername
$ mkdir -p ~/.config/openbox/
$ cp /etc/xdg/openbox/rc.xml ~/.config/openbox/
$ cp /etc/xdg/openbox/menu.xml ~/.config/openbox/
22)
edit your ~/.xinitrc (as non-root user) and add the following:
exec openbox-session

Early Userspace in Arch Linux

This is an extract and a link to a very informative post by brain0’s Archlinux Blog:

There have been some major changes in Arch’s early userspace tools recently. So I thought I’d take the time to sit down and explain to everyone what these changes are about.
Booting Linux Systems: Why do we need Early Userspace?

Traditionally, booting a Linux system was simple: Your bootloader loaded the kernel. The kernel was extracted and initialized your hardware. The kernel initialized your hard disk controller, found your hard drive, found the root file system, mounted it and started /sbin/init.

Nowadays, there is a shitload of different controllers out there, a huge number of file systems and we are a good distro and want so support them all. So we build them all into one big monolithic kernel image which is now several megabytes big and supports everything and the kitchensink. But then someone comes along and has two SATA controllers, three IDE controller, seven hard drives, plus three external USB drives and who knows what. The Linux kernel will now detect all those asynchronously – and where is the root file system now? Is it on the first drive? Or the third? What is “the first drive” anyway? And how do I mount my root file system on the LVM volume group inside the encrypted container residing on a software RAID array? You see, this is all getting a bit ugly, and the kernel likes to pretend it is stupid – or it simply doesn’t care about your pesky needs, especially now that it has become so fat after we built every imaginable driver in the world into it.

What now? Simple: We pass control to userspace, handle hardware detection there, set up all the complicated stuff that people want, mount the root file system and launch /sbin/init ourselves. You are probably asking yourself “How do I execute userspace applications when the root file system is not mounted?”. The answer is: magic!

READ MORE From original source.

Ubuntu Kill Xserver – How to get Ctrl Alt Backspace back

Many people were annoyed that Xorg removed the ctrl+alt+backspace function to restart the Xserver. Well, it’s so easy to re-enable it’s unreal.

Go to:
System > Preferences > Keyboard

Choose:
Layout Tab > Options > Check “Key Sequence To Kill Xserver”

Easy!

Back on Ub… #! Crunchbang

**EDIT** – Since Crunchbang changed to a Debian Base, I am now using it as my main distro. I tried to get back into Ubuntu, but neither the forums nor the distro felt the same as when I started using them around 4-5 years ago.

Due to having to restructure my freetime; Work, Family, Study, I have decided to have a rest and a change.

I have spent the last 4-5 years distro-testing, developing, building Linux Forum communities and other Linux related sites.

There was stress, fun times, negative times and also very positive learning experiences, both with distros and people.

I have now decided to focus what little freetime I have on “using” computers and distro related sites to help the Linux community in general as opposed to trying to reinvent the wheel with separate projects.

Ubuntu has all of these tools in place; Launchpad, Forums, Wikis, Blogs, and recently Lucid LTS which is proving to be a very nice distro on all of my machines. I have had conflicts with members of the Ubuntu community in the past. But the past is the past and I am hoping to be able to play a small part in helping probably the most prominent Linux distro (in terms of marketing and popularity) to be even more user friendly.

At the moment the most I can do is help new users and provide beta testing and bug reports. Later on I would like to provide English/Spanish/Catalan translations as well (time permitting), but for now, giving something small back to Linux is all I have time for, so it’s just easier to do this with a distro which has the complete collection of tools and community.

I wanted to setup and Admin a large forum community, which I achieved with Dreamlinux Forums, I also wanted to create my own distro, which I achieved with Tota Linux. Finally I ran out of goals and new ideas, as well as freetime.

It took a of thinking about, but in the end I think I have made the right decision. My contact with local Catalan/Spanish Ubuntu LoQuo members has been quite refreshing and I am looking forward to taking part in a few meetings and helping out where I can.

It’s quite nice to be in the background as just another Linux user.