Whether you want to fix up your home movies, put together a video for a corporate presentation, or create a DVD slide show of your photos, your Mac is up to the task.

 iMovie 

Apple’s iLife suite comes with iMovie, a powerful and easy-to-use video-editing application . You can import camcorder video, apply scene transitions, add titles, credits, and a soundtrack, and even export your movie to iTunes, YouTube, Facebook, or a DVD. iLife’s iMovie application is an excellent video editor. 

iDVD 

iLife also comes with iDVD , a program that enables you to set up and burn your own DVDs (assuming your Mac has a DVD burner attached). You can add movies and create photo slide shows. iDVD offers lots of fun themes, and you can even set up menus and submenus just like the pros.iLife’s iDVD application lets you create and burn your own DVDs. 

Final Cut 

Apple’s top-of-the-line video editor is Final Cut Studio, which offers every possible bell and whistle you can think of for managing, editing, and publishing digital video. Of course, with a price tag of $999, it should! If your needs (and pocketbook) are more modest, consider Final Cut Express, a scaled-down version of Final Cut Studio that, for the much more comfortable price of $199, still offers amazingly powerful features.
 See www.apple.com/finalcutexpress. 

Adobe Premiere 

Adobe Premiere was once the most popular and the most full-featured of the Mac video editors. However, Adobe stopped making Premiere for a while, and that allowed Final Cut to become the king of the Mac video-editing hill. Premiere is back once again, and it remains an excellent product. The high-end version is Premiere Pro , which, as the name suggests, is aimed at professional video editors. The price is high end, too: $799! If your needs aren’t so grandiose, you’ll want to stick with Premiere Elements, which will set you back $99, but still offers plenty of powerful features. Mac video-editing applications don’t get any more full featured than Adobe Premiere Pro.

 Other Mac video editors 

Here are some other Mac video-editing programs to look into:

Popcorn. www.roxio.com  

FastCut. www.timesforfun.de

MediaEdit. www.miensoftware.com  

SimpleMovieX. www.aeroquartet.com

 
If you use Quick Look to view any files that feature text—such as PDFs or Word documents—you’ll notice that you can’t click and drag to highlight text. Clicking anywhere on the Quick Look window simply moves it around. However, a secret setting will let you click and drag as usual to highlight text, and you can use the standard key combination of Command + C  to copy text . 

The Quick Look window can still be moved around the screen by clicking and dragging its title bar, as with any other program window. To activate the setting, open a Terminal window (Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal) and type the following:

 defaults write com.apple.finder QLEnableTextSelection -bool TRUE;killall Finder 

The changes take effect  immediately.  To deactivate the setting,  open a Terminal window and type the following: 

defaults delete com.apple.finder QLEnableTextSelection;killall Finder

 

Call me a cynic, but it feels like OS X is a little showy with its visual effects. Dialog boxes and some program windows pop onto the screen from nowhere. This design mirrors the iPod and iPad user experience. On a larger screen, however, the effect can be unsettling.

 Wouldn’t it be nice if things just appeared on screen with no fuss, like they did in the good old days? Here’s how you can turn off the majority of OS X’s visual effects. Pop-Up Windows and Dialogs To turn off dialog boxes and windows that spring out from the middle of the screen, open a Terminal window (FinderApplicationsUtilitiesTerminal) and type the following: 

defaults write -g NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled -bool FALSE 

Then log out and back in again for the changes to take effect. To restore the effect, open a Terminal window and type the following, logging out and back in again afterward to make the changes take effect:

 defaults delete -g NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled 

 Quick Look windows appear when you select a file and hit Space . They show a preview of the file’s contents. You can stop Quick Look windows from springing up from the file in question by typing the following into a Terminal window (this change will also remove the effect of the Quick Look window shrinking back into the file): 

defaults write com.apple.finder QLPanelAnimationDuration -int 0;killall Finder 

The change will take effect immediately. To restore the effect, open a Terminal window and type the following (again, the change will take effect immediately): 

defaults delete com.apple.finder QLPanelAnimationDuration;killall Finder

 Mission Control 

To turn off  the Mission Control  zoom effects that  appear whenever it’s activated and deactivated, open a Terminal window and type the following:

 defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -int 0;killall Dock 

The changes take effect immediately. Note that this also removes the animated effect of windows zooming out of the way when Show Desktop is activated (usually via the “finger spread” trackpad gesture). To revert to the default animated Mission Control effects, open a Terminal window and type the following: 

defaults delete com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration;killall Dock 

File and Print Dialog Boxes

 To stop the Save and Print dialog boxes from sliding out and down from the title bar of each application, open a Terminal window and type the following:

 defaults write -g NSWindowResizeTime -float 0.01

You’ll need to log out and in again for the changes to take effect. If you wish to reintroduce the visual effects at a later date, type the following, logging out and back in again afterward for the changes to take effect:

 defaults delete -g NSWindowResizeTime 

Launchpad 

 A hidden setting can be tweaked to make Launchpad appear and disappear instantly. To activate it, open a Terminal window (FinderApplications UtilitiesTerminal) and type the following two lines, hitting Return  after each: 

defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-show-duration -int 0

 defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-hide-duration -int 0;killall Dock

The changes take effect instantly. To revert to the previous animated effect, open a Terminal window again and type the following two lines:

 defaults delete com.apple.dock springboard-show-duration 

defaults delete com.apple.dock springboard-hide-duration;killall Dock

 You can also reduce the amount of time the individual app list pages of Launchpad take to scroll in and out. Open a Terminal window and type the following if you want the pages to slide in and out instantly: 

defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-page-duration -int 0;killall Dock 

The changes take effect immediately. To revert back to the default, open a Terminal window and type the following:

 defaults delete com.apple.dock springboard-page-duration;killall Dock 

Dock 

The Dock can be hidden so that it slides off the screen when not being used. This saves a little screen space. Nudging the cursor against the edge of the screen where the Dock is normally positioned will make it slide back into view again. To turn this feature on or off, right-click the dashed lines between the main Dock icons and the stacks and select Turn Hiding On or Turn Hiding Off. 

To make the Dock instantly leap back into view when it’s needed, rather than slide, open a Terminal window and type the following:

 defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -int 0;killall Dock

To revert back to the default sliding effect, open a Terminal window and type the following:
 
defaults delete com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier;killall Dock

Here’s a handy little tweak for the Dock that will cause a pop-up window to momentarily appear each time iTunes begins playing a new track (see Figure above). It’s so useful that it’s hard to believe it isn’t activated by default or is at least an official preference option. But it isn’t. 

Quit iTunes if it’s open, then open a Terminal window (Finder >Applications >Utilities >Terminal) and type the following:

 defaults write com.apple.dock itunes-notifications -bool TRUE;killall Dock 

Then start iTunes and try playing a track. Neat, eh? The pop-up fades away after a few seconds.
                                 
 To add the iTunes icon to the pop-up window, type the following into a Terminal window: 

defaults write com.apple.dock notification-always-show-image -bool TRUE; killall Dock 

To deactivate the pop-up at a later date, quit iTunes again, then open a Terminal window and type the following two lines:

 defaults delete com.apple.dock itunes-notifications 
 defaults delete com.apple.dock notification-always-show-image;killall Dock


 Need any help, Please comment.

Enjoy ........................... 

Apple has been busy: Lion adds more than 250 new features to Mac OS X! But it’s not the quantity of features that impresses — it’s the quality. Let’s check out some of the more prominent Lion goodies:  

Accessibility

 Features in Lion are unmatched. VoiceOver (a utility that allows your Mac to speak to you) now supports 23 languages. There is also built-in support for 80 braille tables. 

 FaceTime video calling

You can now talk to your favorite pals with a true video phone using your Mac and FaceTime.  

AutoSave

Applications developed with AutoSave automatically save any changes you make to your documents. There’s no longer any need to constantly press Ô+S to save your files after each change. 

 Lion is now distributed online

You can download the entire Mac OS through the Mac App Store and install with just a few clicks.  

Full-screen applications

You can run many of your applications in full-screen mode, which cuts down on external distractions and keeps you focused. 

 Recovery mode

You no longer need discs to reinstall or restore Mac OS X because Lion includes a built-in restore partition on your hard drive. Just press Ô+R during a restart to boot into Recovery mode.  

Launchpad

This literally launches all of the apps on your Mac. You can see most (if not all) of them with a click of your mouse or a swipe of your trackpad. You can also organize your applications into folders, a process with which iPhone and iPad users are already familiar.

  Mission Control

 Mission Control allows you to see everything that’s happening on your Mac in one window.  


Multi-Touch gestures

 Multi-Touch gestures make your Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, or your laptop trackpad absolutely rock! Properly orchestrated finger swipes instantly scroll through web pages, open Launchpad, zoom in, and much more.  

Versions

 Lion saves versions of all of your documents once an hour while you work. You can browse between versions of your documents if you mistakenly remove an item and need to restore it. You can restore parts of older versions or you can restore the entire document. Lion saves only the information that has changed from version to version so your hard drive space won’t be eaten up with duplicate information.  

Resume

Resume allows you to open an application in the exact same state you left it when you last closed it. Any windows that were open, any palettes that were on-screen, and even the position of the cursor, remain exactly as they were when you last used the application. You can also restart your Mac, and any applications or windows that were open before you restarted are restored upon reboot.

What exactly is Ubuntu for Android? And does it mean that our phones and tablets can replace PCs for good?

According to its developers, the Ubuntu operating system could be the next step in getting our Android platforms to replace the  PC entirely. Ubuntu is a free and open-source operating system, based on Linux, that has an estimated 20 million users, worldwide. While this is a tiny number compared to the 1.25 billion users of Microsoft Windows, the de facto standard operating system for the PC, Ubuntu is, nevertheless, a heavyweight desktop operating system and it’s coming to Android.

                            Ubuntu for phones was recently announced by its developer Canonical Ltd and will be available, as an alternative to Android or Windows, later this year. A version for some tablets is already available, but only if you’re prepared for it to overwrite Android. Of more interest to Android users, though, is Ubuntu for Android which enables both Android and Ubuntu to run on the same multicore handset at the same time. 

                               Because both operating systems share the same Linux kernel this doesn’t involve the emulation or virtualisation techniques that, traditionally, have allowed one operating system to run inside another. As a result, Android and Ubuntu will both run at the maximum speed allowed by the processor.

                                          Canonical doesn’t envisage you using Ubuntu as an alternative to Android when you’re on the move. Instead, you’d use Android as normal when you’re out and about and then, when you return to the home or office, you plug your phone into a docking station that will give you access to Ubuntu with the added convenience of a keyboard, mouse and full-sized screen. Not only that but the two operating systems can share address books, emails, text messages and the like, thereby eliminating the need for synchronisation. 

                                         Richard Collins, product manager at Canonical, sees all this as a significant development. “Ubuntu for Android is really  important to giving users of high-end Android  smartphones a fully embedded native Ubuntu PC experience”, he said. “This is a PC capability in every sense, meaning that when the Android phone is docked to a desktop monitor, the user has exactly the same set of Ubuntu services that would run on normal PC hardware.

                                             You are effectively carrying your PC in your pocket.” However, David Ludlow, editor of Computer Shopper, the UK’s highest circulation PC monthly, isn’t too sure. “The ability to dock your phone and seamlessly switch to a desktop environment on a  monitor sounds brilliant for people on the move, as it  lets them carry around a complete personal system”, he agreed. “However, a phone can’t compete with the power, flexibility and storage of a full PC or laptop, so I don’t expect Ubuntu for Android to offer anything other than niche appeal for now.”


STAY TUNED FOR MORE ......

Is this beta for one of the best community-run distros around a good indicator for the full release, or a serious work-in-progress like last year?

it’s about time we stopped harping on about how surprised we were when Mageia’s initial  release became somewhat of an overnight  sensation just under two years ago. The release of Mageia 2 last year proved it wasn’t just a one-hit wonder, with improvements across the board making it truly one of the best  distros available today. As development nears the end for Mageia 3, we look at the second beta to try to get an idea of what the next instalment will bring us.

                                First of all, going by the features list, not much has changed this time around. The usual updates are there for packages and the most noticeable change is the inclusion of a graphical boot menu, similar to Fedora 18’s. A fairly major change is  coming before the final release with a switch to systemd for   the installer, but that’s not fully implemented yet. n Mageia and its Control Center are returning in the updated distro. 

                                          The installation process slightly differs depending on which version of the ISO you get – of which currently the  usual dual-architecture version is not available. As well as  the individual desktop spins that clock in at about 1.5GB for each desktop environment and architecture, there’s the full DVD offering more choice. The spins give you a quick and somewhat minimal install, with a very watered down graphical installer compared to the full version. 

                         The full drakx version takes you through the installation process step-by-step, with good defaults and plenty of options to fully customise the process. There is a small problem with both versions of the installer, though. First of all, they’re both supposed to install GRUB 2 by default, which they don’t always do. Secondly, the installer  tries to install GRUB to the wrong location. If you don’t catch  it in time, you will end up having to do some creative GRUB installation independently, or go through the installation process again. 

                                          It’s a known bug for the Mageia dev team, so it will hopefully be fixed before the final release. At least the installation itself isn’t too time-consuming, taking no longer than 15-20 minutes on a decent, modern machine. A brief user setup process follows this quick install.  However, once we were into the desktop environment we  were hit with a massive, two-stage update that took about half an hour to complete. 

                                             This is more than likely due to the fact that packages are being constantly updated as part of the QA process, and it at the very least fixed some of the graphical issues that we had briefly experienced after the initial install. Some of the major packages for the distro are pre-release versions, with the expectation that they will be final versions by the full release. The repos no longer have the common Mandrake issue of only wanting to use a live CD as a source, so you have full access to the pretty extensive Mageia  packages. In our tests, sudo and YUM were not installed by  go through the graphical package manager to begin with.

                                           This resides in the fantastic Mageia Control Center, which still allows you full control over almost every aspect of your system with good graphical tools. The distro is clearly not quite ready for mass consumption yet – but compared to last year, it’s in a much better state.  We’re looking forward to the full release, which is currently  planned for the beginning of May.  It’s a development release, which means it has its issues, but it seems a lot more mature than it was at the same point last year. There isn’t much major changing in this version. However, it still provides the easy-to-use experience, but now with more up-to-date packages.


Pros 

 A decent postinstall package  clean-up leads to  the familiar and  very usable Mageia  desktop with the  usual frills.

Cons 

Not much new so far, although the installer’s default recommendations break GRUB for the system, so it’s definitely a beta.

  The GRUB installation can be a problem

 The single desktop environment  installer is much simpler

A good selection of software is available by default

  The repos contain a mixture of free and non-free packages

 The Control Center is a portal to full system configuration

 We look at the bootable installations of Linux available to help you cut through the various options available
  
1. Level of support

 Once you have determined which system(s), and therefore which user(s) will be using Linux, you’ll need to consider their familiarity (if any) with the Linux environment and hence the potential learning curve for the tasks that they are supposed to perform. Most major vendors such as Red Hat, Ubuntu, etc. do provide commercial support offerings (including planning for deployment). Other major distros which do not provide  commercial support usually do provide  reliable  community-assisted  support but  then youobviously cannot expect committed levels of support. 

2. package management 

In addition to the well established DEB and RPM systems, a few other alternatives are coming up and growing every day, such as pacman of ArchLinux. This becomes an all the more important question for desktops, where hasslefree    management of packages takes precedence over  optimization obtained through compiling the sources.  You might  as well    have prepared  a  list  of  the programs/ applications that you will use in Linux in order to carry out your routine business tasks. For each of them, determine  what binary packages (if any) do their original developers  officially provide for your architecture. Applying security  patches, bug fixes and other updates becomes much  easier in this manner. Also check whether the software package    is  provided  as  a binary for  your architecture  in  your distribution’s official repositories, which is usually known not to conflict with other packages installed.

3. Hardware compatibility 


Where possible,   run  the    shortlisted    distros   in  the  target  system in a live mode. Even if the target system does not contain any optical disc drive, freely available tools such as Unetbootin make creation of live USB drives (from the corresponding ISO images) a piece of cake for a large number of distros. However, an installed system will generally    tend    to    detect    a    greater    amount    of    hardware     than what the live system does. Hence, use the live experience just as a guideline and not as a final decision  making criteria to evaluate hardware compatibility.  Running under virtualization too may not determine the accurate status of compatibility of different devices. In many cases, documentation available on the distro’s website may contain a hardware compatibility list which will assist you in resolving compatibility issues. You also need    to    check    with    your    system’s    OEM    too,  many  of  them   provide device drivers for Linux, often in the form of binary packages that are customized for a specific distro. 

4. partitioning constraints

 This applies mainly to dual/multi-boot systems. If you have, say, 4 installations of Windows on different partitions on a single hard disk, such as XP, Vista, 7 and 8, it means that each of these is a primary partition and hence, in most    cases,  you  are  out of  luck  if  the distro  you are  going  to install requires a separate partition of it’s own (which is usually the case). However, there are exceptions. You can install general purpose distributions such as Ubuntu using Wubi, as well as special-purpose distributions such as Geexbox to the hard disk, without creating another partition at all in any of these cases. In case your hard disk has 3 primary paritions instead of 4 (and none of these 3 can be deleted/formatted), your best bet is to create an extended partition first (as the fourth partition) and then install Linux within a partition there, so as to leave room for easy modification if need be. Most Linux distributions  can  be succesfully  used  from    being    installed within a partition contained in an extended partition.

5. configuration tools 

You don’t want to edit configuration files by hand in most cases (especially for desktops). Hence, look for distros which offer a rich GUI-based means of configuring different system parameters. Yast in Suse Linux is a good example. The `Firstboot’ wizard in Fedora takes you through basic system configuration (such as adding a new non-administrative user, setting date/time preferences, etc.) at the first successful boot post-install. However, not all configuration can be done using a point-and-click interface in every case. For instance, if your graphics’ subsystem   itself cannot  be   recognized  and hence the X  server is failing to load, you will have to settle for tinkering  with the configuration files by hand or (if available) go for  a menu-driven interface to configuring the system.

                                The openSUSE project, the worldwide community that promotes Linux and creates Linux distributions, has released openSUSE 12.3. The latest version of openSUSE offers the integration of systems and delivers better system log experience with journals.
                                OpenSUSE 12.3 has been loaded with graphical package management tools and a new theme that brings consistent performance right from the boot to the desktop. The 1 GB live images have now been optimised for USB sticks, and the ARM team has readied stable OpenSUSE 12.3 ARM v7 and experimental ARM 64bit images for this architecture.    


                                               According to a post on the OpenSUSE website, the latest desktop delivers faster metadata handling, a new print manager, provides improved Bluetooth integration in KDE’s Plasma Desktop, improved notifications, better file management and account integration for Exchange and Windows Live in GNOME Shell. Apart from the experiential features, the 12.3 comes with a host of new technologies like PostgreSQL 9.2 that has native JSON support (NoSQL style).

The blue version of Linux Mint comes in a KDE flavour, but is there much point to choosing it over Kubuntu

 The cycle for the Linux Mint release has become fairly standard now, with the standard version coming shortly after the initial Ubuntu release, followed some time later by the Xfce and KDE versions. While both KDE  and Xfce are actually initially available to the original Mint release, these versions are tweaked to work just that little bit better in Mint than the Kubuntu or Xubuntu Desktop package available in the repos. 

                        Linux Mint KDE comes on top of the same Ubuntu 12.10 base as the standard Linux Mint 14, which works using Linux kernel 3.5, and includes a lot of updated cloud compatibility. One of Mint’s big projects, the MDM Display Manager, is not present in this release; instead it relies on KDM for the windows manager. However, the software manager uses a similar base. As in the normal Mint, the software manager no longer uses Aptdaemon and instead has its own Apt client now. 

                        This is a good thing, as the previous version’s software manager had the propensity to crash or freeze every now and then. Installation of the distro is different from the usual Ubuntu affair, with a draklive-esque installer that takes you through all the necessary setup for the system. Installation is pretty quick and the process allows you the usual customisation options to make sure your PC is configured to your liking.

                          Like Kubuntu, Mint KDE is on KDE 4.9. Compared to the last version, there are a lot of updates to Dolphin, KDE’s file manager, which includes new navigation buttons such as backwards and forwards, improved search, and better displaying of  metadata. There are some other general improvements aswell, with increasing support for the Kickoff menu and betteractivity integration in the desktop. 

                               As usual, KDE is a prettygreat desktop environment to use, with a lot of stylistic flairto the design allowing for some interesting features such asthe customisable desktop folder and activities menu. Thecustomisation for KDE is absolutely fantastic, allowing you toconfigure just about every part of the desktop to your exactspecification. 

                        Context-sensitive settings menus attached toeach element of the desktop UI let you tweak to your heart’scontent: icon size, font size, border, displayed content etc. However, these same features are available in Kubuntuand have been for months before Linux Mint KDE came outOnce again we’ve come to the question – is Linux Mint KDEworth it over Kubuntu? 

                      The best use case we can come upwith is if you switch a lot between Cinnamon and KDE on LinuxMint and don’t like it when installing the kubuntu-desktoppackage starts messing around with Plymouth and otherboot-time displays. It also fits a little more neatly in with theMint 14 aesthetic, having access to the same themes as thenormal version.

                   Also, you can easily start with Mint 14 KDE which arguably has a better login manager, and then install Cinnamon alongside it. This doesn’t detract from the overall quality of the distro, though. It’s still fantastic and great to use, and is probably a better way to use KDE and Cinnamon together. But if you’re a fan of KDE, you’ve likely been using Kubuntu for a few months before it’s even released. Although at least the software manager is much better in Mint than Kubuntu .

Just because it’s popular doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best

uNetbootin is near enough the standard by which we’re comparing all of these tools – a popular, simple tool used across all platforms to put a single image file onto usB storage and make it bootable. It’s more than likely that if you’ve made a live USB of some kind in the past, you probably used this. 

             So what makes it so great in the first place, and does it stand up to the rest of the competition? One of its biggest strengths is the sheer simplicity of the graphical interface. The start screen offers two options: download an ISO from a selection of Linux distributions directly via UNetbootin, or select your own image file. 

                         The downloadable selection of ISOs is a little limited: the package for it on Ubuntu 12.10, for example, doesn’t contain a download link for 12.10 itself; same with other modern distros. You can of course download more up-to-date versions of UNetbootin, but it’ll still only include the most popular distros. Sure, the list does have quite a few of them, but it’s by no means a complete list.

                                                        Once you’ve selected a distribution, you may also have the option to add some persistent storage for the install. Unfortunately though, it’s dependent on the distro being Ubuntu-based (or Ubuntu itself). Either way, you have full control over whether or not you want no extra storage or to fill up the USB device. 

               This extra storage is not immediately accessible from a USB stick if you just plug it into another operating system,  since it is locked inside a specific file that is mounted during boot. The installation of the files can be fairly quick, although this is related to the size of the image you’re trying to use, and can also be affected by your hardware. 

             We found that it can take longer to set up the actual persistent storage than it does to add an image of the same size. Booting up the image is about the same speed as with a CD or DVD, and UNetbootin even adds its own boot menu, allowing you to choose the options from the image or to boot straight from the  hard drive.    

Automotive Grade Linux

The Automotive Grade Linux workgroup aims to get more open   source technology in vehicles.

 With the help of AGL, the car industry is shifting towards open source technology.

 As a mascot, our humble Tux may seem somewhat out of place next to the testosterone-fuelled lions, griffins and rearing stallions of the automotive world. But as Linux continues its unstoppable drive into more and more areas of our daily lives, the giants of the car industry are rallying around the cuddly little penguin in ever increasing numbers.

                                    “The [automotive] industry is looking to get away from the more proprietary systems and into open source technology. The consumer electronics and the mobile phone industry are setting the standard, and the automotive industry really needs to catch up,” claims Rudolf Streif, the Linux Foundation’s director of embedded solutions. Streif is also now chairing the steering committee of the foundation’s new Automotive Grade Linux workgroup. 

                               The car industry’s collaboration around open source began in earnest with the formation of the Genivi Alliance, which was formally launched at CeBIT in 2009. Founded by BMW, General Motors, Peugeot Citroen and a series of major tier-one  Automotive Grade Linux component manufacturers, Genivi sought to “bring open source to in-vehicle infotainment [IVI]”. 

                                 Originally focused on building an open source reference platform, Genivi fi rst chose the ill-fated MeeGo Linux project as the basis for its development. With Nokia’s exit and the collapse of MeeGo, Genivi continued with the development of Tizen IVI on top of the successor Tizen project, which is also hosted by the Linux Foundation.

                                  Confusing then, when in late 2012, the Linux Foundation announced the launch of its new Automotive Grade Linux workgroup together with Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan and Toyota and a host of other consumer electronics and component manufacturers. So what is AGL and what is happening there? “You have an industry that wants to catch up [in its use of open source]. Where can you go to download something and start playing with it? 

                                   If you want to do something on a desktop, you have the many different Linux distributions. For mobile, you have Android, but for the automotive industry there is nothing out there,” says Streif.  “AGL is a cross-industry initiative for Linux and open source in automotive. One of the tangible outputs of AGL [is] reference distributions for invehicle applications as well  as other applications such as intelligent transportation system (ITS) roadside instrumentation, and other areas,” he elaborates. 

                     “What I found through many, many talks with OEMs and tier-ones was that they needed a starting point… some kind of reference platform that they can put on reference hardware and get started. This is not what they are ultimately going to put into their fi nal products. 

                    They will need to make a lot of adaptations to their specifi c hardware needs, their business needs, and they will customise the user interface to fit with their corporate identity. But they still need a starting point. That is what AGL is here to do.” Asked about the current relationship between Genivi, Tizen and the new AGL project, Streif says: “To avoid reinventing the wheel, AGL chose Tizen IVI as the base integration platform for the AGL IVI distributions. 

                                  For other applications AGL may choose different base platforms or even create the entire OS stack from scratch. But Tizen has a lot of good technology already on board. Intel and Samsung are doing great work integrating all these software packages into an operating system stack. So it already gets AGL to maybe 50-60 per cent of where it needs to be.  “For us in the steering committee, and the companies participating in AGL, there is no sense in spending resources, money, effort and time in replicating that fi rst 50%. 

                        We need to focus on the value added components that then make Tizen and Tizen IVI very suitable, and a great starting point for the automotive industry,” he explains. As for Genivi, Streif claims that the organisation is now more focused on standards, middleware and technical frameworks, rather than on creating working reference platforms.  “AGL and Genivi are complementary entities. We had a great meeting with them at CES [Consumer Electronics Show, held in Las Vegas in January]. Genivi is mainly about supply chain management and standardising a platform.

                                  The OEMs can now go out to the tier-one [component providers] and say ‘I want to have a Genivi-compliant platform’, which is, say, 80 per cent of the software stack. Then they say ‘I want this and this and that on top of it’, which is the differentiating factor for that particular OEM. 

                                 “That makes it that much easier for the OEMs, because right now they go out and get [software] components and it’s hard for them to compare [the different options] and to see if they are actually getting what they are asking for. So Genivi is really about standardisation, middleware standardisation, API specifi cation, and supply chain management.”  While the Linux kernel is written into Genivi’s compliance specifi cation, Streif says that this doesn’t mean it has to be Tizen: 

                          “It only says that certain [Linux] components are required, with specifi c versions and you need to expose certain APIs. It doesn’t tell you how to integrate it and what to use. This is where AGL comes in, because AGL is going to be Genivi compliant. It is providing a Genivi-compliant cutting-edge technology distribution for people to use and, eventually, to derive their product development from. 

                     We see AGL as the Debian or the Fedora of automotive – [they] are cutting-edge developer/ community distributions. They include the latest and greatest technologies. They are good, but it is not something you would put into production. If you want a production server you would go to Red Hat or Ubuntu. That is pretty much the model that we are following with AGL.

                          ” With AGL positioning itself as the ‘community distro’ for the automotive industry, it begs the obvious question of who will be providing support. Will this be the car fi rms, the OEMs and component manufacturers, is there interest from existing providers of enterprise Linux distros, or is there a gap in the market for new organisations to move in there and take on that support role?

                                 “I don’t see traditional organisations such  as Red Hat, SUSE and Canonical getting into it [though Canonical is a Genivi affi liate member]. I think it’s an opportunity for system integrators and new companies to come in. There is an opportunity for them to come in there and provide system integration and support to the OEMs and their tier-ones.” The other major role for AGL is in promoting the whole idea of Linux, open source collaboration and particularly the importance of contributing their developments back upstream into the Linux kernel.

                                 This is one area where the AGL project is working extensively with the Linux Foundation on workshops and mentoring programs in the automotive sector. “The whole industry is very conservative, and the whole paradigm of open source is completely new to the industry. Many of the senior management in these companies have been there for years, even decades. Often they are not software engineers, they are electrical and mechanical engineers, so it is a complete shift in paradigm and it does take time to transform the industry.” 

  NO FLOW

 One of the main drivers for both the car makers and larger, tier-one component manufacturers is the need for content. These fi rms have seen the massive external boost which Android and other mobile platforms have received from third-party apps and they want a piece of the pie. At the same time, the industry has a growing appreciation of the fi nancial benefi ts of using open source software and, increasingly, collaborating on open standards and even distributions.

                          “The broad vision is this whole application or app ecosystem: I have my favourite apps on my smartphone, and my smartphone that integrates nicely with my car. The apps exchange data and have access to the same data. That is where everyone wants to get to,” says Streif. “I think Tizen is actually taking the right approach, although it’s is heavily debated, using HTML5, CSS and JavaScript. 

                  This provides an application development platform that is simply based on the lessons that we have learned from the world wide web. We wouldn’t be in the situation where you can watch web content on any device that you want to enable (a smartphone, computer or even TV) if it weren’t for… all these [open] technologies which have been developed for the web. 

                                  “So I think that in mobile ecosystems (and this is my personal take on it), HTML5, JavaScript, CSS will, over time, push apps developed for the native platforms out of the way. It’s a very attractive proposition for the app developers, when they can target many, many devices with one application. What is also interesting is that this opens up the area of mobile development to a whole new breed of developers. “So Tizen is defi nitely pushing things in the right direction, it’s the correct trend. 

                      Is AGL dependent on Tizen? No – since all the integration is also happening upstream [in the main Linux kernel], there are also other ways of doing things.”  But with the idea of in-vehicle apps, and even an open development environment, AGL IVI is not the only game in town. Ford has recently been making a lot of noise around its OpenXC project, which was started in partnership with open source hardware pioneer Bug Labs. 

                        According to last year’s launch announcement, Ford’s vision for OpenXC is that the car becomes a docking station for Bug Labs’ interchangeable plug-and-play hardware and software modules. These are programmed with the customised connectivity features and services the driver wants. Drivers will be able to add and delete modules, allowing them to continually customise their experience and to add value to their vehicles as new technologies are introduced. 

                                   Beyond the marketing hype, what OpenXC does is provide an API giving access to data from your car. This is then made accessible to Android app developers through the OpenXC library. So on the face of it, Ford are providing a similar ‘open’, in-car app environment as AGL IVI. We asked Streif if there is any collaboration between the projects. “Ford!” There is a poignant, contemplative silence.

                                  “We haven’t been in direct contact with Ford in terms of AGL, there is no interaction  there. We know that Ford has launched a couple  of projects, such as the OpenXC project, which allows you to connect to the OBD bus, allowing applications on Android to utilise car data. Ford’s open source activities are popping up here and there. I don’t know what their offi cial strategy is. 

                                    From my point of view, their offi cial platform strategy is still with Microsoft SYNC.”  Moving back to AGL, we wrap up by asking Streif about where AGL is headed. Within the modern car there is a black-box computer that controls many functions beyond ‘infotainment’. With broad high-level automotive industry involvement in Genivi and AGL, what is the scope for Linux to become the main control system for the car?

                                          And with the progress being made on the real-time kernel, is Linux creeping into engine management and the mechanics? “What real-time does is that it gives you deterministic response times to certain events. In an engine control system you need that. If you have any piece of software with a closed control loop – where you get sensitive data, you need to process this data and then you need to react and control certain things based on the process output – that is where you need real-time. 

                                          You need to be sure that this processing is done every single time, within a maximum period of time. Engine control systems are one of the classic examples; airbags are another… Will Linux ever go into an airbag? No, because it’s so very specifi c you don’t really need a general-purpose operating system for it. In an engine controller, maybe, because it has much more functionality. “The other big area is the instrument cluster. 

                                 These are becoming more and more tied together with IVI systems. The IVI systems are responsible for maps and navigation, but you want to have a map integrated into the instrument cluster so you don’t have to look to the side. And of course, instrument clusters are moving away from these electromechanical gauges and becoming a rectangular screen with all the gauges rendered on there.”

                               Are there areas where Linux will never make it in the car, even in the future? “I see some areas, for very simple things, maybe for the seat controller, you wouldn’t use it because it will be too much overhead,” Streif responds. “I don’t think you would want that kind of overhead with an airbag control system or antilock  brakes. 

                                     But I do see opportunities for palm print systems and some security systems such as door locks, window controls, climate control, instrument clusters and eventually for engine control, environmental management and the catalytic converter.”  So AGL would seem to have a massive future. 

                       The project has formed its initial workgroups, the basic graft on documentation and education are underway, and decisions are being fi nalised about what goes into the fi rst offi cial release. “We don’t have a fl ashy car yet with AGL in it, but we will be getting there soon,” Streif concedes. “Although there is actually one of the car companies participating in AGL [which] has said, ‘We can provide a car and you can put a technology demonstrator together’.”
                                
     “We see AGL as the Debian or the Fedora  of automotive”  

 “We don’t have a flashy car yet with AGL in it, but [we’re] getting there”                                  

Sync Linux with Google Drive


Automatically download and sync files from your Google Drive account using a simple utility paired with cron.

Get your Google Docs offline using the open source Chromium browser, allowing you to view your files even when there’s no internet connection

Stream your Google Music from outside the browser, complete with desktop notifications, hardware media keys and other desktop integration options

 Share files to your Google Drive from Linux and also get  desktop access to your Google Music collection

 We’re becoming an increasingly clouddependent  world, thanks to the convenience of having our files to hand wherever there’s internet access. From computers to smartphones to tablets, all our devices can be connected to our online documents and storage. One of the best services for achieving this is Google Drive, Google’s free service tied into its Google Docs. Unfortunately, while the  integration of Drive with Android phones is  fantastic, there’s currently no official Linux client for syncing with the cloud service. While you can at least edit documents from a browser, you can’t do any desktop syncing so that your files are the same across your entire ecosystem. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to set up your own syncing system on Linux that checks for changes at intervals you specify, to save bandwidth. We’ll also throw in a way to stream music through the new Google Music service via a desktop app – one you can also control with media keys. 

 Get Grive 

We’ll use Grive, a command-line Google Drive tool, to accomplish syncing for our purposes. First, download the git repository with: $ git clone git://github.com/Grive/ grive.git Once that’s downloaded, cd to the newly created grive directory.  

 Grive libraries 

Before we start to compile Grive, we need to make sure we have the correct libraries and dependencies installed on the system. Grive requires: • libgcrypt11-dev • libjson0-dev • libcurl4-openssl-dev • libexpat1-dev • libboost-filesystem-dev • libboost-program-options-dev • binutils-dev Install these onto your system, as well as build- essential if you don’t have it, before proceeding .


 Grive build

 Set up the build environment for Grive by typing into the terminal: $ cmake . The full stop needs to be there. It will work through quickly and configure the build files. However, sometimes you may need to perform it as root.

 Grive make 

Now it’s time to actually compile Grive,  of course with the magic: 

$ make This will take a while as it compiles the package for use. Dependencies should be covered, but be prepared to install some more if the build fails for some reason.

Move executable

You’ll need to move the Grive executable to the folder you’ll be using for the file syncing, so create a Google Drive folder if you haven’t and move it there with cp. Running the executable syncs everything in the folder where it lies, so you don’t want to sync the Git files.

 First sync

 Move to your Google Drive folder in the terminal using cp, and execute Grive for the first time like so: $ ./grive -a This will do some initial setup, then give a link to follow. Click on the link or copy and paste the URL.

 Grive permissions

Make sure you’re logged into your Google account before clicking the link, and then grant permission for Grive to access Drive. Copy the code it gives and paste it into the terminal; it will continue with the first sync, uploading the Grive executable first before downloading directories and files.

 Future Grive 

To perform a sync in general, all you need to do is open a terminal and execute Grive from the Google Drive directory with simply: $ ./grive For the moment, you will have to run this every time you finish making changes to the directory or files.

 By Cron 

We can make it so that syncing occurs automatically using cron and crontab to set up a cron job. To open crontab use: $ crontab -e You may need to be superuser to do this. If it’s already set up, you’ll be ready to go, otherwise follow the instructions.
 
 Cron start
 
If this is your first time using cron and crontab, all you need to do is select a text editor to use. It will recommend one from your installed editors, which you can just press Return to use, or alternatively select from the numbered list.       

 Cron syntax 

  If you’ve never used cron before, the syntax to create a cron job is quite simple and arranged as so: Minute, Hour, Date, Month, Day, command. The date is the month date, while day is the actual day of the week. You can put an asterisk wherever you want to ignore a field.

 Cron job 

In our example, we want cron to run Grive every ten minutes. We’ll write it like this: */10 * * * * * cd /home/user/ GoogleDrive/ && grive The first part makes sure the cronjob is activated every ten minutes. If you want to save some bandwidth, you can change the number.      

Save cron 

Once you’re happy with your cron job, make sure to save crontab using Ctrl+O, then Ctrl+X to quit. This will immediately start executing Grive every ten minutes, which will then sync your files up to Google Drive, and then  down from Drive.   

    

Google Docs 

Documents won’t be synced with Grive, but what is downloaded on other systems are just links to the documents anyway. Chromium can access these docs offline once set up properly by first installing the Drive app from the Chromium Store. Right-click on the app and you can also add it to your desktop or menus.

Offline Docs 

To make the docs offline, click on More in the left column of the Drive interface. Go to Offline Docs, where it will ask you if you want to keep your docs offline. Click the button and your documents will automatically be downloaded for you. Every time you turn on Chromium, it will sync any changes and at the very least it will allow you to view the documents offline. However, like with the documents in a Drive folder, you’ll need an internet connection to edit them. 

 

Google Music

 Google Music lets you store your local music files on the cloud – up to 20,000 tracks – while also allowing you to stream your Google Play music without taking up any online storage space.  Go to play.google.com/music and make sure  you’re signed in with your Google account.

Music Manager 

Click on Upload Music, and download the Music Manager. There’s a selection of binaries for different distros you can get, which can then be installed using your package manager. After it’s installed, launch the app to get started setting it up, linking your Google account in the process.

Upload music 

Select the folders you want to upload and it will start uploading what it needs. If you have a track that is available on Google Play, the Manager will skip it and instead use that. You can set it to scan your library every now and then and upload new tracks.     

Nuvola Player 

You can play Google Music from the browser. However, you need to keep a tab or window of that open, and it doesn’t integrate well with hardware media keys. Nuvola is an open source player that streams online music, such as Google Music, and integrates well with the desktop. 

Install Nuvola 

Sync with Google Drive Get desktop access to your Google Drive in Linux Head over to the Nuvola website at nuvolaplayer.fenryxo.cz and download either a binary package or the source. Install the packages using your preferred package manager,  or by compiling from source. For Debian and  Ubuntu, there’s a PPA you can add which will allow you to update the software.

 Set up Nuvola

  Launching Nuvola will take you to a service selection screen, allowing you to choose between Google Music and other services like Rdio, Pandora and Grooveshark. Click on Google Music, then ‘Use this service’ and log into your Google account. You’ll get the same interface as the web, only now with external controls.

Hardware keys 

There are two steps to make sure your hardware media keys are working. First of all, in Nuvola, go to Services in the toolbar, then Preferences. In the Extensions tab, make sure Media Keys is selected. If they don’t start to work immediately, make sure your desktop environment’s support for them is also turned on.
 

Other extensions 

The Extensions tab also allows you to integrate Nuvola a bit more with your desktop. This includes track notifications, a tray icon you can control Nuvola with, a dock manager that can be used with Linux docks to also control Nuvola from, and an MPRIS interface.

 

Google desktop

 With all this set up, you have full desktop access to your work, music and other files on your Google Drive. Even without official tools, it’s surprisingly easy and hassle free to get the entire suite set up, and can increase productivity with the right mindset. Experiment with ways to make it work for you.