TUX Desktop Watch for July 18
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Welcome to the TUX Desktop Watch

As you might have seen in the last edition of TUX Desktop Watch, I was
recently on vacation. I spent my vacation visiting family in Indiana. I
grew up in Kokomo, Indiana, but haven't lived there since I left for
college, umm, a while ago. Visiting Kokomo is always a trip because,
everywhere I turn it reminds me of a story. One of the advantages of
working for TUX, is that I get to take my office along with me -- my SUSE
10.0-powered laptop. With this new visit, I now have another story.

What surprised me most about my visit to the Heartland of the United States
was the lack of free wireless Internet access. When I did find a wireless
network, there wasn't even a notion, that I might want to connect to the
network with something other than Microsoft Windows. I'll dive into this
topic deeper in my next Web log entry at http://www.TUXMagazine.com.

When I desperately needed to get online I used one of the two public-
library locations. Of course, all of the machines available were running
Microsoft Windows and none of them were using Mozilla Firefox. Man, am I
attached to using multiple tabs for browsing many pages simultaneously!
Anyway, while I was there I noted that the library was deep into their
summer reading program. I have extremely fond memories of my mother taking
me to the library to participate in similar programs. I credit these
programs with creating my thirst for knowledge and my love for reading.
Knowing firsthand the success of these programs made me wonder if we don't
need similar programs to teach general computing. Hopefully, a broad
computing program would include Linux and FOSS (Free and Open Source
Software), but it wouldn't be critical.

From my perspective, computing is becoming nearly as important as reading,
writing, and arithmetic. So we as a society should accept the importance
computing holds for our future and begin offering secondary, tertiary, etc.
education programs to teach fundamental computing. I believe that
increased computing knowledge is necessary for wider Linux and FOSS
adoption. When more people understand computers and computing technology,
the path towards wider adoption of Linux and FOSS will become easier.
Public libraries as social, intellectual, and knowledge hubs must play a
special role within the community to create the computing expertise
necessary.

Here's a call to action: I'd like to hear your ideas about how we can raise
the general computing knowledge of the populace. Assume that most schools
have some type of program, and although I know that is one of the most
important programs, I also know that every school doesn't have a program.
If you don't have suggestions, please help me understand what are the
largest obstacles to achieving this goal.

Also, after my first call for tech-tips. The well is running dry. So
please don't forget to send us your technical Linux tips.

Kevin Shockey
Editor in Chief
TUX Magazine


Feature Links of the Week

Building a Database with Kexi by Dmitri Popov
http://www.tuxmagazine.com/node/1000207
This link is intended to show you what you are missing by not downloading
and reading the July issue of TUX. Billed as the open-source competitor to
Microsoft Access, Kexi provides a rapid application development tool for
database systems.

Declare Your Independence from Proprietary Software (Or How to Break the
Habit of Proprietary Software) by Kevin Shockey
http://www.tuxmagazine.com/node/1000206
Kevin shares his thoughts on breaking through the comfort level
we feel with
the proprietary software we have grown accustomed to.

Voices from a Veteran Columnist: My Ten Favorite "Cooking With Linux"
Columns by Marcel Gagne

http://www.linuxjournal.com/xstatic/advertising/newsletter/issue-8/Favorites.htm\
l
As mentioned in previous editions of the TUX Desktop Watch, Marcel Gagne's
super column over in Linux Journal, called "Cooking With Linux," typically
has material of great interest to us TUX folks. Well this
month, Marcel did
us the great favor of sharing with us his Top 10 list of favorite columns
he's written since he started the column back in 1999.


From the Field

This is the space for tech tips that come directly from you, our readers.
Keep sending your fantastic desktop-Linux tips and tricks to
ed@.... If we publish your submission, we'll send you a free
t-shirt or other great Linux gear!

Here's a submission from Daniels from somewhere on Earth:

Kate Tip
If you have Kate (KDE's all purpose text editor) version 2.5.x installed
under KDE 3.5.x you can use some external commands, like sort for example,
to sort highlighted text. All you have to do to enable this feature is to
click on: Settings (on the menu bar) >> Configure Kate >> Plugins and then
check the box next to Kate TextFilter and then click on the OK button.

To use the filter you highlight the text you want to sort, press the Ctrl
key and the \ key at the same time and then enter sort in the text box that
pops up and press OK.

Sort when used by itself, sorts based on the first characters in a line. A
useful option is the -g option. If numeric sorting is not working correctly
add -g after sort, because without it sort just looks at the first digit.
Other options can be found by typing man sort and pressing enter while in a
console or terminal window.

If you create or edit HTML code for web pages this feature allows you to
easily use the tidy command to check the HTML code for errors and
automatically fix minor problems in the code.


From our sister publication, Linux Journal

Musings from Studio Dave by Dave Phillips
http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000057
Dave Phillips is one of the most eloquent and savvy voices in our community
regarding music and sound on the Linux platform, and he's written scores of
articles for us. This article is Dave's first stab at the world of
blogging, in which he discusses his own home music studio, dubbed "Studio
Dave", as well what programs he uses with his underfunded music students.


Last But not Least: Tech Tip!

TUX editor Daniel McCarthy says:

"A page that is frequently hit on my site is how to recover the root
password. I've written up the following on how to recover the password
using Grub. If you have ever forgotten the root password for any of your
machines you know what a hassle it can be. If you have direct
access to the
machine and it is using the Grub boot loader it is very easy to change the
password.

All you need to do is reboot the machine. When you are presented with the
Grub menu, hit the 'e' key. This will allow you to edit the current boot
options. Select the line that begins with 'kernel', hit the
'e' key again to
edit that line and add the word 'single' at the end of the line
and press the
Enter key. Now press 'b' to boot with the modified boot options.

You'll now be presented with the command line. At the command line simply
enter 'passwd' and press Enter. You'll be prompted, twice, for a new
password.

After you have finished entering the new password, type in 'exit' and press
Enter, and the machine will continue booting into the normal process. Your
root password has now been changed."
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