Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 Squeeze Released

Finally the stable release of Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 with code name Squeeze has been released. Debian Squeeze includes KDE desktop, Gnome, Xfce, and LXDE desktop environment.

Debian 6.0 using 2 new ports not based on linux Kernel userland: Debian GNU/kFreeBSD for the 32-bit PC (kfreebsd-i386) and the 64-bit PC (kfreebsd-amd64). Continue reading

DesktopNova Background Changer For Gnome & Xfce Desktop Environments

DesktopNova helps you to auto change backgrounds after an adjustable time from multiple files and folders you can add it to different profiles.

DesktopNova is quite similar to wally application we mentioned it before in this post Here also does same functions as DesktopNova but wally includes many features like searching for pictures on different search engines and artwork websites. Continue reading

Applications : 5 webcam applications for capture photos, videos, multiple photos, and security cameras

webcam applications for capture photos, videos, multiple photos, and security cameras

1. Cheese

One of the most common application located on gnome project, first it was written by google summer code project. really liked effects you can add using cheese ” noir, edge,warp,dice,hulk,….

also you can use this applications for talking multiple photos or videos, customize to specific resolution you want, working in many different distributions you can find many download options for debian based distributions, fedora, ubuntu, mint, …..

More information and download

2. Camera Monitor

simple tool notify you if your camera is on or off. designed to work on gnome desktop work as well on KDE and Xfce

simply you can install it by terminal

sudo apt-get install cameramonitor

More information and download options for other distributions

3. Camorama

camorama is a program i wrote to learn gtk and v4l. as you can see, i am still learning ;) . it is pretty simple at the moment, and i hope to make it much more complete. i also plan to make it more generic, as i initially wrote it with only my own creative webcam 3 in mind. hopefully it will work with other cameras. i will test on anything i can get my hands on, but that might take a while.
right now you can change the video settings using the gui and apply some crappy filters i wrote to mess around with. it runs at a reasonable speed, but i would like to get the fps up as high as possible. still figuring that out.
as for requirements, you will need at least gnome 2 and v4l. i haven’t used anything else crazy, and that should do it.

More informations and Download Options

4. Gnome Security Camera “Gspy”

Gspy retrieves images from a video4linux device and processes these into a daily mpeg movie on the disk drive. Each image is recorded with a time stamp to insure accurate real world correlation. Special motion detection algorithms are used to reduce the size of the daily movies by eliminating pictures with similar content as well as the normal compression obtained via the mpeg process. The result is a time lapse video per day with nonlinear time compression using only the images of interest. This program will only run on Linux machines which support a video4linux-device in 640×480 capture size. This software has been tested with the 2.4.0-test1 kernel, 2.4.0-test4 and the 2.2.16 kernel with the usb backport patch. You should have the Berkeley MPEG Tools installed if you wish to generate the MPEG files. Gspy can be used without the MPEG tools, as it will fill a directory with jpg images that can be processed or viewed at a later time. Versions from 0.1.6 include a user defined command that is executed on each alarm. This command string can include a token(s) “%f%” that will get replaced with the alarm picture filename. Typical uses would be to copy the alarm picture to a remote site using ftp or scp, email the picture to someone, play a sound annoucement… “Step away from the keyboard!”, turn on lights using a parallel port or X10 interface, or ???. Have FUN

More informations and Download options

5. Kamoso

My favorite webcam application for KDE, support many webcams, able to capture photos, videos, multiple photos. you can easily share your photos and videos directly from the application to facebook and twitter.

More informations and Download

that’s it for now.

Element 1.1 Review

Element 1.1 just released today march 28, 2010

Element is an Ubuntu-based distribution for home theatre or media-centre personal computers featuring a ten-foot user interface and designed to be connected to a HDTV for a digital media and Internet experience within the comforts of a living room or entertainment area. Element comes pre-loaded with dozens of applications that will allow listening to, viewing, and managing music, videos, photos, and Internet media.

Check the release notes and announcement

Download

LinuxNov Review for Element 1.1

Used it on virtual machine “virtual box” as a live session with this hardware specifications

  • single core processor  2.1 Ghz
  • 1 GB of Ram
  • 12 MB of video memory
  • with extended hard driver space in case installed it

Booting time was really good, I didn’t expect a quick booting time for live session, I believe it will be much better if you installed on machine not on virtual machine.

A lot of people are really big fans with media centers applications, this one it awesome it’s using xbmc my favorite media center application, it’s really customizable with a lot of themes and extra plugin follow these links for plugins and scripts for xbmc 1 2 .

xbmc website Follow this link

xbmc skins Follow this link

Versions of most important packages:

linux 2.6.31, glibc 2.10.1, gcc 4.4.1, python 2.6.4, pidgin 2.6.5, gtk+ 2.18.3,  xfce 4.6.1, xbmc 9.11, firefox 3.5.8, transmission 1.83, decibel-audio-player 1.01, vlc 1.0.2, brasero 2.28.2, element-app-finder 1.0

Using Desktop environment Xfce 4.6.1  awesome modifications for the desktop. for easy access for main applications on the distribution itself such as ” firefox, Home directory, VLC, Xbmc, …”

Pros :

It’s Awesome distributions specially for multimedia files, watching many movies with different extensions using xbmc and vlc, and for sure it’s customizable to download extra packages or multimedia applications, “maybe you will need to install extra codecs”

Really liked the Xfce desktop environment with this customizations “ middle dock for main applications”

Awesome booting Time

Cons :

Many windows don’t fit on the screen, maybe cause I am using it on virtual machine with 800X600 resolution

Not all applications are up to date.

Screenshots time :

Please leave your feedback, and enjoy it.