Table of Contents for

Ubuntu: Up and Running

As can be seen in Figure 3-2, the General tab allows you to change the delay before a key repeats and the speed of repeating using the Repeat Keys section. If you don’t wish to allow keys to repeat, you should uncheck the box. Otherwise, move the two sliders left and right, and then enter text in the “Type to test settings” box to try out the settings.

Figure 3-2. The Keyboard Preferences window

You can also choose whether or not the cursor should blink when in a text field and, if so, the speed at which it should blink. Again, you can test the result in the input box at the bottom of the window.

If you need assistance at any time, you can click the Help button. When you are finished setting the current options, don’t click the Close button yet, as there are more settings to look at first.

During installation of the version of Ubuntu used for these screen grabs, I chose to use a UK keyboard by default, as can be seen in Figure 3-3 (although if you are using Ubuntu 10.04 or higher, the screen layout will be slightly different).

But let’s assume that you don’t have the correct settings here and need to change them. First of all, to ensure that you have the correct keyboard installed, click the button to the right of “Keyboard model.” This opens up a new window in which you can see a range of keyboard models from a wide variety of vendors, as Figure 3-4 shows.

If in doubt, or if you can’t find your keyboard manufacturer listed, you should choose Generic for the vendor and then select the model most similar to yours. Click OK when you are done.

If you use more than one keyboard, you can check the “Separate layout for each window” box to match different keyboards to different windows.

Figure 3-3. The Layouts tab showing a UK keyboard

Figure 3-4. Choosing your keyboard from the supplied list

If you need to change the country layout of your keyboard, the best way is to click the Add button to create a new one. This will bring up a new window, such as the one in Figure 3-5, in which the full layout is displayed, making it very easy to select the one that matches your keyboard.

Figure 3-5. You can choose the exact layout to match your keyboard

So, for example, to choose a U.S. keyboard layout, you could click the “By country” tab, then select United States for the country, and then USA for the variant from the options provided. Alternatively, you can click the “By language” tab, then select English, followed by USA for the variant, or, for example, Spanish; Castilian followed by Latin American, and so on.

When you have the right keyboard layout selected, click the Add button and you will see it listed in the Layout section. At this point, if you want to remove a keyboard, you can now highlight it and click the Remove button.

Incidentally, on Ubuntu 9.10, once you have more than one layout installed, if you check the “Separate layout for each window” box, the Layout section will show a radio button next to each layout, which you can use to choose one of the layouts as the default.

If you decide you don’t want to keep the changes you have made, you can always click the Reset to Defaults button, or you can make your changes apply to all users on your system by clicking on the Apply System-Wide button.

You can also further customize your layout by clicking the Layout Options button to bring up the window shown in Figure 3-6. Here, you have all manner of options relating to the handling of Esperanto, the Euro monetary sign, the Caps Lock and Ctrl keys, the numeric keypad, and much more. Just click on a heading to open up its available options.

Figure 3-6. The Keyboard Layout Options dialog allows configuring down to the minutest detail

As you would expect from a good operating system, Ubuntu offers some useful accessibility features under the Accessibility tab (see Figure 3-7). The options available include Sticky Keys, which lets you press Ctrl and Shift keys before the key being controlled instead of simultaneously; Slow Keys, which ignores brief key presses; and Bounce Keys, which ignores fast duplicate key presses. These are all enabled or disabled by checking or unchecking the associated boxes.

Figure 3-7. The Accessibility tab is invaluable for people with impaired keyboard ability

You can also choose to provide audio and visual feedback for these actions by clicking on the Audio Feedback button, which brings up the window in Figure 3-8. Just check or uncheck the boxes provided to enable or disable beeps for the actions shown, as well as to flash the title bar or screen if needed.

Sometimes it can be useful to be able to control the mouse using the keyboard. You can do just that with the Mouse Keys tab, shown in Figure 3-9.

Click the checkbox to activate the feature, and you can then choose your desired acceleration, speed, and delay for the simulated mouse by moving the sliders left and right. You can test the settings by pressing the keypad arrow keys.

Are you or someone else who uses your computer a workaholic, or someone susceptible to carpal tunnel or tendinitis problems, who must be forced to take a break? If so, Ubuntu comes to the rescue with the Typing Break tab (see Figure 3-10).

Figure 3-8. Audio and visual alerts are available if required

Figure 3-9. Ubuntu allows you to control the mouse with the keyboard

Figure 3-10. Give yourself a regular break with the Typing Break tab

Enable the feature by clicking in the checkbox. Then you can choose the lengths of the work and break periods, and whether to allow the user to postpone breaks should something important come up.

This facility is smart about timings. If you stop using the keyboard and mouse for any period equal to or longer than the break interval, you’ll get a new, full work interval when you next use the computer again.

Assuming you have now been through all the tabs and set up all the keyboard options the way you want them, you can click the Close button to close the window.

While you’re at it, now is a good time to set up or edit your keyboard shortcuts. To do this, select System → Preferences → Keyboard Shortcuts, and the window in Figure 3-11 will appear.

Figure 3-11. You can define keyboard shortcuts for many actions

To change the shortcut for a specified action, select it with the mouse and then press the key (or combination of keys) you want to initiate that action. For example, if you would like Ctrl-PgUp to increase the volume, click on “Volume up” and then hold down the Ctrl key and press the PgUp key.

If you have one of those fancy advanced keyboards that has special keys for actions such as volume control, web surfing, or fetching email, and Ubuntu doesn’t appear to recognize them, you can attach them in the same way by clicking on an action and pressing the associated key.

You can also add custom shortcuts for actions that aren’t listed by clicking the Add button. But be aware that you’ll need to enter details about the program to call up by entering a Linux (shell) command, so it’s best to leave such advanced configuration until you’ve mastered how to use these commands (see Chapter 7).

When you have finished with the shortcuts, click the Close button.

Under the General tab you can choose whether you will use your mouse left- or right-handed, and whether to highlight the location of the mouse pointer when the Ctrl key is pressed. You also can adjust various settings such as the Acceleration speed and Sensitivity, the Drag and Drop Threshold, and the Double-Click Timeout.

Adjust the settings to your preference, and then click the light bulb image. A single click will make it light dimly for a while and then go out. This length of time is the Double-Click Timeout, which increases as you move the slider to the right.

The Acceleration setting determines the speed at which the pointer will move as you move the mouse, whereas the Sensitivity determines the responsiveness. If you find the mouse pointer is a little jerky, move the slider to the left; if it seems sluggish, move the slider to the right.

The Drag and Drop Threshold specifies the distance you have to move an item before Ubuntu decides you are conducting a drag-and-drop operation.

The Accessibility tab provides enhanced features to provide assistance when a user’s mouse control is limited. The options available, Simulated Secondary Click and Dwell Click, are shown in Figure 3-13.

Figure 3-13. The Mouse Accessibility settings

If you can’t use the second button on your mouse, you can enable the Simulated Secondary Click feature to invoke the function of a second button, which generally opens a menu. This feature invokes the right-click function when you hold down your primary button (usually the left button) for the period of time specified.

However, for this feature to work, the system has to enable Assistive Technology Support, which is disabled by default. So if you haven’t already enabled the support, when you click in the checkbox, a new window will open up, as shown in Figure 3-14. This window will ask you to enable Assistive Technology Support and then log out so that you can log back in again with everything correctly set up.

Figure 3-14. This dialog may appear when enabling Mouse Accessibility options

If you want this support, click the Enable and Log Out button and Ubuntu will return to the login screen, where you should re-enter your username and password. Having done this, try moving your mouse pointer to an open area of the desktop and hold down the left button. As you hold it, you will see the mouse pointer icon slowly fill with a different color.

If you leave the button held down until the pointer has fully changed color, a right mouse click event will be generated, and you’ll see the context menu you’d expect as a result of right-clicking the desktop. Set the delay before the secondary click is activated by returning to the Mouse Accessibility dialog and sliding the delay timer left or right.

With Assistive Technology Support enabled, the Mouse Accessibility dialog also lets you try out the Dwell Click option. This performs a click for you, even if you are unable to depress the mouse button. It does this by noticing that the pointer has stopped moving, and then starts to fill the mouse pointer icon with a different color.

If you leave the pointer still and the cursor fills up, it will then change to a crosshair symbol. If you then move the cursor a little bit to the left (while the crosshair is visible), a mouse click will be generated at the position at which the mouse was just resting. In fact, you can generate four different types of mouse events according to the direction in which you choose to move the mouse while the crosshair is visible:

You can modify these directions and behaviors if you like, using the drop-down boxes provided in the Mouse Accessibility window.

The initial delay while the mouse cursor fills up can be changed by moving the delay slider left and right, and the amount of cursor movement required to initiate an action can be set using the motion threshold slider.

If this behavior turns out to be a little too complicated, you can use a simpler system by clicking the “Choose type of click beforehand” option and ensuring that “Show click type window” is checked. A new control window will pop up (see Figure 3-15) that lets you rest the mouse over the action that you want to happen next.

Figure 3-15. Resting the mouse pointer over one of these icons will make that the default action for the next mouse event

So, to create a right-click, you would pass the mouse pointer over the Right Click icon and leave it there until the mouse pointer fills up with the new color. Now move the mouse pointer to a clear part of the desktop and leave it there to call up the desktop right-click context menu.

To disable either of these options, just uncheck their associated radio buttons or boxes.

You can call up the Display Preferences window by selecting System → Preferences → Display, which will present a window similar to that shown in Figure 3-16.

Figure 3-16. The Display Preferences window, showing a resolution of 1680 × 1050 pixels

There are a number of options available in this window, but the most important to you at this moment is probably the Resolution drop-down menu. When you click on it, you will be shown all the different display resolutions that Ubuntu thinks your graphics card and monitor are capable of displaying.

In this window, you can also change the refresh rate of your monitor (generally not necessary) and the screen rotation (if supported), and decide whether to echo (or mirror) the display from your main monitor onto any others you have attached. If you have more than one monitor and turn mirroring off, you can drag the monitors to the positions relative to each other that you prefer. If you do have multiple monitors but not all of them are shown, you can click Detect Monitors, which should make Ubuntu find them all.

I tend to check the box called “Show displays in panel” after a new Ubuntu install. This places a small icon resembling a computer monitor at the top right of the desktop top panel, and you can use this icon to quickly change display settings.

As I mentioned, the main option of interest here after installing Ubuntu is probably the Resolution, which sometimes isn’t set to the width and height you prefer. Figure 3-17 shows the resolutions available for a widescreen monitor, with a maximum resolution of 1680 × 1050 pixels. Currently, 1024 × 768 is selected. A click on 1680 × 1050 will put Ubuntu into the desired widescreen mode.

Figure 3-17. Selecting a different screen resolution

However, sometimes the resolution you require isn’t displayed in this window because the right drivers haven’t been loaded yet. If you load these drivers, they will show up on the list and you can choose them.

The reason Ubuntu doesn’t load some drivers is that they are proprietary and not open source. Proprietary drivers do not provide source code publicly and therefore have not undergone the full scrutiny of the Linux community. However, companies sometimes have legitimate reasons for keeping source code secret—for instance, they may have licensed part of the code from another company and lack the rights to make it open—but the proprietary drivers that you can load using the procedure in this section have been tested by the Ubuntu team, so they can be considered safe enough to use.

Therefore, if you have installed Ubuntu either as a standalone installation or as part of a dual- or multi-boot system, you may be able to install proprietary drivers for your hardware. These need to be downloaded from development sites, so your system must be connected to the Internet.

To find out whether there are any such drivers available on your computer, select System → Administration → Hardware Drivers, and you’ll be presented with a window similar to that in Figure 3-18. Any proprietary drivers that are available for your computer will be listed there. In the case of the system I used for the Figure 3-18 screen grab, some Nvidia graphics drivers can be enabled to provide additional functionality and possibly a wider range of screen resolutions.

Figure 3-18. Ubuntu is showing that various proprietary Nvidia drivers are available

Starting with Ubuntu 10.04, the latest drivers are marked as “version current,” making it obvious which is the best one to select. If you find any graphics drivers listed here, you can try enabling one by highlighting it and clicking on the Activate button. You will be prompted for your password, and the driver will then be downloaded and installed. After installation completes, you should reboot Ubuntu, and you may find that you now have additional screen resolutions available.

If there is more than one driver, you might want to try them in turn to find out which supports the most features on your monitor. You can determine this by trying the three options available in System → Preferences → Appearance → Visual Effects, ranging from “No extra features,” to Normal, and Extra.

Once you have installed a proprietary driver, you may also be offered use of a different Display Preferences window (see Figure 3-19). If you select No, you will be shown the standard window, which may or may not work fully, due to the proprietary driver.

Figure 3-19. Message displayed when using a proprietary graphics driver

If you select Yes, you’ll be presented with a different window, such as the one in Figure 3-20, which is for an Nvidia driver.

Figure 3-20. Nvidia’s replacement for the Display Preferences window

Because of the wide variety of proprietary driver software, you will be on your own at this point, as it’s beyond the scope of this book to detail each one. That said, though, you’ll generally find the tools provided to be intuitive and easy to use and comparable with (if not more fully featured than) the Ubuntu default.

Sun VirtualBox

As I explained in Chapter 2, Sun’s VirtualBox virtual machine software is my preferred virtualization solution because it’s extremely robust software that I have found almost impossible to crash, and it runs Ubuntu at quite a reasonable speed considering it’s not running natively. What’s more, it’s available for all of Windows NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, and Windows 7, as well as for DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux, Solaris, OpenSolaris, and OpenBSD.

However, if you are running Ubuntu inside a Sun VirtualBox virtual machine, then you may have only 640 × 480 and 800 × 600 resolutions available to you by default. To increase these dimensions, you will need to make sure you have a clear Ubuntu desktop that is fully visible. Then, press the Ctrl key on the right of your keyboard to ensure you are controlling your computer (not the virtual machine), and select Devices → Install Guest Additions from the VirtualBox menu (as shown in Figure 3-21).

Figure 3-21. You can add more screen resolutions by installing Guest Additions to VirtualBox

Now click again inside the window to regain control of the virtual machine and, if a new CD-ROM icon has not been added to your desktop, restart Ubuntu by clicking the broken circle icon at the top right of the desktop.

Once you have the new virtual CD-ROM icon on your Ubuntu desktop (with a name similar to VBOXADDITIONS_5_3, although this may change for different versions), double-click it to open up the disc. You will see that one of the new icons displayed is called autorun.sh. Double-click this icon and then select either Run in Terminal or simply Run, and follow any prompts, inputting your Ubuntu password if it is requested. Figure 3-22 shows what the installation process will look like.

Figure 3-22. Installing the VirtualBox Guest Additions

If a message appears asking you to add execution rights to a particular file, you should be able to ignore it, as the installation appears to proceed without problems anyway.

Once installation is complete, you can press Return (in the virtual machine) to exit the install, and then restart Ubuntu. When it has rebooted, you can select the display preferences again from within Ubuntu and should now be presented with more available screen resolutions from which to choose (see Figure 3-23).

Figure 3-23. This VirtualBox installation of Ubuntu can now use resolutions up to 1664 × 979

It is important when using virtualization software to save the state of your guest operating system when you aren’t using it. Otherwise, any updates may be completely lost next time you run the virtual machine. With VirtualBox, you can click on the Close icon and you will be given three choices:

• Save the machine state

• Send the shutdown signal

• Power off the machine

Normally you should check the first option to ensure that next time you use it the guest operating system will be fully up-to-date. However, if it has hung and become unresponsive, you may have no choice other than to select one of the other two options. You may then have to reinstall any software added since the last time you saved the machine’s state.

This tab lets you choose the sound theme. By default, the theme will be Ubuntu. If other themes are available you can select them (or choose to not use a theme and so turn sounds off) using the “Sound theme” drop-down menu. Underneath there you can also choose your preferred alert sound and choose whether to enable window and button sounds by checking the associated box.

If you don’t know what sound hardware you computer uses, you are best advised to avoid this tab for now, but if you still have sound problems after trying everything else, you can try changing the settings here to see whether that helps. To do this, select a device to configure and then use the Profile drop-down menu to configure it.

Here, you can specify the input volume with a slider, or mute input entirely by checking the Mute checkbox. You can also test sound levels by checking the lights next to “Input level” (see Figure 3-25).

Figure 3-25. Configuring sound input

Underneath that you can choose which connection to use for input through the Connector drop-down menu (the most common choices are line in and microphone input), and use the radio buttons in the bottom area to select between different input devices.

This tab lets you specify the device to use for output by selecting the radio buttons in the top area of the window, or you can set the balance using the slider underneath (see Figure 3-26).

Figure 3-26. Configuring sound output

Below that you can select the output method using the Connector drop-down menu. The usual choices here will be either headphones or general analog output.

Whenever you have any applications using sound on your computer, the Applications tab will show the application and enable you to alter the sound level or mute it (see Figure 3-27). By the way, some sound drivers have a bug where the action of the mute checkbox is reversed. So if it is unchecked and you cannot hear any sound, try checking it.

Figure 3-27. Programs making use of sound appear in the Applications tab of the Sound Preferences window

If no sound is in use (either recording or playing), this tab will simply display the message “No application is currently playing or recording audio.”

In the case of a wired (or Ethernet) connection, select “Auto eth0” (or “Auto eth1”, etc., if you have more than one network card). The icon will show an animation while the connection attempt is made, and if successful, will be replaced with the diagonal-pair-of-plugs Ethernet icon I mentioned earlier. You will also know whether this has worked because a black message box will appear saying “Auto eth0 connection established.” If you ever unplug your Ethernet lead, this message will become “Auto eth0 disconnected.”

If you don’t have an Ethernet cable connected, all that will appear under Wired Network is the word “disconnected,” and you will be unable to select a wired network. Likewise, if there are no wireless networks within range, then the word “disconnected” will appear underneath the Wireless Networks section.

Installing suitable drivers

You should also bear in mind that if you do not have a network card (either wired or wireless) or it is not correctly installed, then Ubuntu will not show any option at all, as only the cards it finds connected are provided as options. Therefore, if you do have a wired network card but none is listed, then you may need to use a search engine to find a suitable driver and install it.

For example, I discovered from a Google search that one of my computers experiencing networking problems uses the RALink 2790 chipset—which is not installed by default. After performing another quick search, I located the RT2860STA driver software, which I downloaded and installed according to the supplied instructions. After a reboot, the menu was properly activated.

Due to the wide variety of network cards, it’s not practical to list them and their drivers here. However, you can usually determine what hardware is connected by opening up the Terminal (by selecting Applications → Accessories → Terminal), typing lspci (the command to list all PCI devices), and then pressing Enter. The result of running this command can be seen in Figure 3-31. Look for the words Network or Ethernet, and you should see which devices are used for networking. You can then use a search engine to get more information and download drivers.

Figure 3-31. Listing all PCI devices

The same advice for installing drivers given in the previous section also applies here. If your wireless network card is not detected, follow the advice in that section for looking up the card’s details and installing the correct driver for it.

The first step is always to ensure that you can see the name of the wireless connection you want and that you can click on it. When you do so, if no password is required you should be connected automatically. Otherwise, Ubuntu will determine the type of encryption used and prompt for the right type of password. In the case of Figure 3-32, a WEP 40/128-bit key is being requested.

Figure 3-32. Connecting to a secured wireless network

If you wish to ensure you have entered the correct characters, you can click the “Show key” box before you enter them, but for security reasons, you should uncheck the box afterward.

When you click the Connect button, the network connections icon will animate for a while, and assuming you are successful, you will see a black message box appear saying “connection established.”

When trying to get wireless networking to connect, if all else fails there is a solution that should work every time: using an Ethernet bridge, which is a wireless device that features a socket for connecting to the Ethernet card in your computer. When you do this, as far as your computer is concerned it’s using a wired connection to your network via its Ethernet card.

There are two types of bridge available. One uses the wiring in your electrical sockets to connect two devices together, just as if you had run a long Ethernet cable between them. They usually come in pairs, and you connect one to your computer and the other to your router or access point.

The other type of bridge uses an antenna to connect your computer to your wireless network. You configure the device with your network’s name and security details, and it remembers this information, even when it’s switched off. You then plug it into the Ethernet socket of any computer (running Ubuntu, Windows, OS X, or any other operating system) within range of an access point. This kind of device is often called a Wireless Ethernet Bridge or a Wireless Gaming Adapter.

This solution always seems to work because wired networking has been around much longer than wireless, and the drivers required are now refined to such a level that just about all Ethernet cards are supported—which isn’t something that can be said about all wireless networking devices.

If your network printer is not automatically discovered by Ubuntu and it is a Windows printer, you should try selecting the “Windows Printer via SAMBA” option and entering the server/printer details in the “smb://” input box. These will be the name of the computer to which the printer is connected, followed by a /, and then the shared name that computer has provided for it. Then click Browse to list any printers attached to that server. In the case of my local network, I know there’s a shared printer using the name Samsung attached to a machine identified by the name IQ500, so I entered those details, and Ubuntu found the printer, as shown in Figure 3-36.

Figure 3-36. Informing Ubuntu where to find a network printer

From there it was simply a matter of choosing the correct printer driver as before and then printing out a test page, all of which worked smoothly.

Of course, there are hundreds (if not thousands) of different makes and models of printer, and so you may still be having difficulty installing yours under Ubuntu. If this is the case, I suggest you visit https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Printers (make sure you use a capital P for Printers), where there’s advice on installing most of the Brother, HP, Lexmark, Samsung, and Xerox printers.

There’s also http://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportComponentsPrinters for information on the entire range of Ubuntu supported printers. If yours isn’t there, unfortunately there’s probably no Ubuntu driver available for it…yet. I say yet because if your printer is very new, keep checking back. A driver could be available soon.

Although you may not be asked to, I recommend restarting your computer after installing MythTV to be absolutely sure that installation is complete. You will now be ready to configure the system.

First you will need to tell the program about your TV card by selecting System → Administration → MythTV Backend Setup, which will present the screen shown in Figure 3-37. The first time you do so, you may be asked if you wish to be added to the mythtv group. If you do, click OK and enter your Ubuntu password when prompted. After that you will need to log in to Ubuntu again, so click log out, then log back in again, and then re-run the MythTV program.

Once up and running, you may not see your mouse on the screen. If this is the case, you will have to use the cursor keys and Enter to select and change options. The first option you’ll need to use is “Capture cards,” with which you will tell MythTV what capture card you have connected to your computer.

Select “Capture cards” by pressing the down cursor key a few times and pressing Enter, followed by (New Capture card). There may be a delay of several seconds while the configuration software searches your machine’s hardware, after which a screen similar to Figure 3-38 will appear.

Figure 3-37. The MythTV configuration menu

Figure 3-38. Identifying your TV tuner card

Use the cursor keys to move to the “Card type” field, and press the right cursor key to scroll through the types of cards shown until yours is listed, ignoring any USB cameras or other input devices. For example, the computer used for the screen grab in Figure 3-38 has a Philips digital tuner card, so once the program displayed that one, I selected Finish by pressing Alt-F. To go back a level you can press Alt-B, or to discard any changes you can press Alt-C or the Escape key.

At this point, though, you should be back at the “Capture cards” menu and should now press Escape to return to the Main menu.

Next you need to select the “Video sources” menu and then select (New video source) to bring up the screen shown in Figure 3-39. To keep things simple, I have chosen to use only TV listings supplied along with the television channels by setting the “Listings grabber” field to “Transmitted guide only (EIT).” I therefore entered the name EIT in the “Video source name” field and then selected Finish.

To return back to the Main menu, press Escape.

You are now ready for the final essential step, which is the “Input connections” menu. Select it, and then select the single connection that should be listed to enter the setup screen shown in Figure 3-40.

Here, I chose to give a display name of Digital TV, and then moved onto the “Video source” field and pressed the right cursor key to call up the previously created video source, EIT.

Once the video source has been selected, you can then click “Scan for channels,” followed by selecting Next, to set up all the TV channels your card can receive. Be prepared to wait for some time while all possible channels are scanned. It will take even longer if you have increased any of the Timeout settings for your card, but higher settings help you stand a greater chance of finding all receivable channels.

Once the scanning is complete, your main configuration work is done, but you can then go ahead and configure other options if you like and, when you are ready, exit from the program. When you exit, you’ll be asked whether you wish to run mythfilldatabase to update MythTV. If you will be using the EIT program information rather than obtaining listings information over the Internet, just click Cancel.

Figure 3-39. Selecting the video and listing source

Figure 3-40. Connecting the EIT video source to the input

Once you have completed installation and configuration, you are ready to call up MythTV itself by selecting Applications → Sound & Video → MythTV Frontend. Your screen should now look like Figure 3-41.

Figure 3-41. The MythTV frontend using the mythbuntu theme

You are now ready to test out MythTV by selecting Watch TV. All being well, you’ll get a screen such as the one shown in Figure 3-42. You should also be able to pause live TV and record and play back various TV programs and other media. Just experiment with the options to get the hang of them.

Starting with Ubuntu 10.04, as well as mounting your iPhone’s photo folders using Nautilus, it will also let you browse the entire contents of your iPhone, including your apps, music and videos. What’s more, the Rhythmbox music player now integrates with iPhones, working in a similar manner to the iTunes program. Hopefully this integration will stay and won’t be interrupted by any future iPhone firmware upgrades. It’s one more good reason to upgrade to 10.04 soon after you’ve installed 9.10.