Ubuntu Hacks

Credits

About the Authors

Jonathan Oxer (http://jon.oxer.com.au/) is president of Linux Australia, the national organization for Linux users and developers. He is the author of “How To Build A Website And Stay Sane” (http://www.stay-sane.com), writes regularly for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald newspapers, and his articles have been translated into French, Brazilian Portuguese, Italian, Norwegian, and Spanish and have appeared in dozens of publications.

In 1994, he founded one of the first businesses in the world to specialize in dynamic web sites and online content management, and in 1995 he became one of the first people to ever do real-time event coverage via the Internet when a live feed was run from the floor of the Bicycle Industry Trade Show in Sydney, Australia. His company, Internet Vision Technologies (http://www.ivt.com.au), has since developed web sites, intranets, extranets, and custom web applications for clients ranging from backyard businesses to multinational corporations.

Jonathan has been a Debian developer since 2002 and has convened the Debian Miniconf in a different city every year since 2003. He has presented dozens of tutorials, papers, and keynotes on various technology and business topics at both corporate and government seminars; at conferences, including LinuxTag, linux.conf.au, Open Source Developers Conference, and Debian Miniconf; and at user groups, including Melbourne PHP User Group and Linux Users Victoria. He sits on the Advisory Group of Swinburne University’s Centre for Collaborative Business Innovation, which is responsible for researching and formulating IT-related, post-graduate curriculum strategies, and on the Australian Federal government’s e-Research Coordinating Committee Reference Group.

He lives in Melbourne, Australia with his wife, daughter, and son.

Kyle Rankin is a system administrator for QuinStreet, Inc., the current president of the North Bay Linux Users Group, and the author of Knoppix Hacks, Knoppix Pocket Reference, and Linux Multimedia Hacks (all from O’Reilly). Kyle has been using Linux in one form or another since early 1998. In his free time, he either writes or does pretty much the same thing he does at work: works with Linux.

Bill Childers is Director of Enterprise Systems for Quinstreet, Inc. He’s been working with Linux and Unix since before it was cool, and previously worked for Sun Microsystems and Set Engineering. In his spare time, he works with the Gilroy Garlic Festival Association as one of its chairmen, and enjoys playing with his children.

Contributors

• Scott Granneman specializes in helping schools, nonprofits, and businesses harness emerging technologies. Through presentations, consulting, and publications, Scott explicates the power of the Internet, the World Wide Web, and related technologies. He has helped educate thousands of people of all ages—from preteens to senior citizens—on a wide variety of topics. A mix of educational experience and practical know-how enables Scott to deliver the kind of hands-on solutions his clients expect. And, as the Internet continues its phenomenal growth, he helps his clients take full advantage of each new evolution of this emerging technology. Detailed information is available at http://www.granneman.com.

• Brian Jepson is an O’Reilly editor, programmer, and coauthor of Mac OS X Tiger for Unix Geeks and Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther. He’s also a volunteer system administrator and all-around geek for AS220, a nonprofit arts center in Providence, Rhode Island. AS220 gives Rhode Island artists uncensored and unjuried forums for their work. These forums include galleries, performance space, and publications. Brian sees to it that technology, especially free software, supports that mission.

• Thomas Pletcher operates a communications agency in upstate New York using Ubuntu and other free and open source software. He is also a writer/partner at CommunityMX.com. He and his wife Barbara operate a site (http://www.pfne.org/rescue) devoted to rescuing Great Pyrenees dogs, a wonderful breed he hopes to see on the cover of an O’Reilly book before long.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the people who made this book possible.

Jonathan

The biggest thanks definitely have to go to my wife Ann and our children Amelia and Thomas, who for several months barely saw me from one week to the next. Writing Ubuntu Hacks has been one of those periods when everything else, including sleep, became secondary to just getting the job done, and my family was amazingly supportive and understanding through everything.

Thanks also to my coauthors Kyle Rankin and Bill Childers, who so willingly shared their knowledge of all things Linux, and the contributing writers who put in a big effort to supplement the body of the text with their particular areas of expertise. And the whole Ubuntu Hacks circus wouldn’t have been possible without our editor, Brian Jepson, acting as ringmaster and keeping all our performances on schedule while even managing to contribute some of his own.

Finally, without the Canonical team there wouldn’t be an Ubuntu to hack on, and without Debian there would never have been Canonical, and without the whole free/open source software community there would never have been Debian, so the ultimate thanks have to go to the amazing community that we’re all part of. To every person who has ever written open source software, or submitted a bug report, or written a how-to, or maintained a Debian package, or stood on a street corner and handed out Ubuntu CDs: thank you. This book is written in your honor.

Kyle

First I’d like to thank my wife Joy for helping me yet again through the crunch period of this book. I’d also like to thank David Brickner for bringing me on this project, along with Brian Jepson for his guidance in editing the book.

This book was the result of a great team effort, so many thanks to Bill and Jon for all their hard work to make the book happen, and thanks to all the contributing writers.

Finally, I’d like to thank Ubuntu’s amazing community of users and developers for their hard work in making Ubuntu a success in such a short amount of time.

Bill

I want to kick off this acknowledgments section by thanking and recognizing the most important people in my life: my family. Gillian and Conner, this book is for you. This is why Daddy’s been at the keyboard for so many nights and weekends. Special thanks to Kelly for putting up with me while I undertook this project amongst all the other things I do—I love you, honey. You’ve been a tremendous influence and source of support, and I couldn’t have pulled any of this off without you.

Thanks to my parents and grandparents for getting me my first computer and supporting my initial “addiction”—I wouldn’t be where I am today without them.

Thanks to all the programmers, documentation people, bug testers, and everyone else who contributes to the Ubuntu and Debian projects. Every one of you should be proud of your work—you’ve created something truly special. Thanks to the crowd of #linux too, particularly Jorge, whose ongoing pursuit of shiny stuff led me to run the prerelease of Warty way back when. Also thanks to my fellow writer Kyle: all the stuff we’ve been through has been a total blast, and I’m looking forward to the future.

Finally, thanks to David Brickner and Brian Jepson for giving me this shot and for editing all my mistaeks (sic).