As I mentioned earlier, NautilusSVN attempts to be the TortoiseSVN for Linux. It looks like NautilusSVN is not yet available in the Ubuntu repositories but fortunately they had a “deb” package which I downloaded.

Though their documentation specifies that you don’t . . . → Read More: NautilusSVN – The TortoiseSVN for Linux users]]> TortoiseSVN is the dominant Subversion client for Windows. While there so many Subversion clients available, what makes TortoiseSVN special is it’s smooth integration with the Windows Explorer. As a result, working with your Subversion repository becomes super easy. When I switched completely from Windows to Ubuntu Linux, TortoiseSVN is one of the few applications I missed. Not anymore!

As I mentioned earlier, NautilusSVN attempts to be the TortoiseSVN for Linux. It looks like NautilusSVN is not yet available in the Ubuntu repositories but fortunately they had a “deb” package which I downloaded.

Though their documentation specifies that you don’t need anything extra, I had to install a few packages before proceeding to NautilusSVN. I installed the dependencies using the following command,

sudo apt-get install python-nautilus python-svn python-configobj

Then I installed the “deb” package using the command,

sudo dpkg -i nautilussvn*.deb

I had to just close and open Nautilus to see NautilusSVN in action.

All other SVN tasks can be performed by simply doing a “right click” at appropriate places in your working copy.

NautilusSVN has a commit window quite similar to TortoiseSVN.

NautilusSVN provides decent support to create branch/tag, move, change properties, view revisions etc. But there is no “Repository Browser” yet and the “Revert” option needs more polish. Also I noticed that as my working copy grew, NautilusSVN seems to slow down Nautilus. This can be a major downside which might prevent the adoption of this otherwise great tool. But NautilusSVN is still in beta and I hope these issues will be resolved shortly.

Not surprisingly, close to 50% of them use the popular TortoiseSVN as their client.

The only limiting factor of this wildly popular tool is that it is available only for Windows.

Surprisingly, the second most popular choice for users is their IDE (like Eclipse, NetBeans etc). 30% users are satisfied with the support provided . . . → Read More: Readers choice: Most popular Subversion clients]]> Subversion is a very popular version control system. As a result, subversion has a wide array of client tools which makes life difficult for us, the users. So we wanted to know what our readers actually use and here is the summary of their opinions.

Not surprisingly, close to 50% of them use the popular TortoiseSVN as their client.

The only limiting factor of this wildly popular tool is that it is available only for Windows.

Surprisingly, the second most popular choice for users is their IDE (like Eclipse, NetBeans etc). 30% users are satisfied with the support provided by their IDE. I hope this user base will only increase in future as the IDEs offer more sophisticated support not just for Subversion but also for other popular version control systems.

But there are some limiting factor in using the IDE as the Subversion client. The support, in most cases (atleast in NetBeans), is limited to only the projects you are working from the IDE. That’s where the third popular Subversion client comes into picture.

The third choice of the users is the Subversion command line client which comes bundled with Subversion.

To be frank, the command line client is what all you need with the only limiting factor being it’s “command line” nature . Whenever the tool you use falls short in certain scenarios, the command line client can be your life saver. 14% of users vow by the Subversion command line client and I believe most of them are Linux users.

RapidSVN comes at the distant fourth garnering only 5% of votes.

Going by the comments, SmartSVN is preferred by a couple of users and so is nautilus scripts, nautilussvn, git-svn, kdesvn.

I have used SmartSVN for a while and I would say it’s almost on par with TortoiseSVN. The biggest advantage of SmartSVN is it’s cross platform nature while the biggest drawback is that it’s not opensource. NautilusSVN has big potential as it attempts to become the TortoiseSVN for linux.

Thanks for everyone who participated in the poll “What is your favourite Subversion client?”

If you use any other Subversion client, please let us know.

Read more about Subversion at the dedicated SolitaryGeek Subversion category.

This tutorial is directed towards new users of Linux or people who migrated from Windows to Linux recently. If you are a Windows user, TortoiseSVN . . . → Read More: Subversion and RapidSVN]]> Subversion is a very popular version control system. Though Subversion provides a very robust command line client, most of us prefer using a nice GUI front end. Windows users are really fortunate to have a powerful tool like TortoiseSVN which without any argument is simply the best front end for Subversion. Unfortunately, TortoiseSVN is available for just the Windows platform. Here I would like to highlight about RapidSVN, a cross-platform GUI front end for Subversion.

This tutorial is directed towards new users of Linux or people who migrated from Windows to Linux recently. If you are a Windows user, TortoiseSVN might be the best bet for you. Learn more about TortoiseSVN from the post “Extending Subversion by using TortoiseSVN“.

Pre-requisites
Subversion

Installation
Installing RapidSVN in Ubuntu is a breeze,

sudo apt-get install rapidsvn

Once installation is done, RapidSVN can be found under “Applications -> Programming”. Or if you use a dock like GNOME-Do, you can launch it by typing “rapidsvn”.

For other platforms, download the latest release from the RapidSVN site.

Adding a repository to RapidSVN
Unlike TortoiseSVN which seamlessly integrates into Windows Explorer, RapidSVN allows you to manage the files from a dedicated user interface. RapidSVN will display details like status, author, revision number etc in separate columns.

To add a new repository to RapidSVN, right click “Bookmarks”, click “Add Existing Repository” and enter the repository url.

Checkout a working copy
To checkout a working copy from the repository, right click a repository, click “Checkout New Working Copy” and enter appropriate details.

RapidSVN will display any unversioned files in your working copy, if any.

Adding files to working copy
Right click any unversioned file and then click “Add” to add them in your working copy. Click “Add recursive” if you want to add a folder with multiple sub folders inside it.

RapidSVN will display appropriate status regarding the files that are added in your working copy but not yet committed to the repository.

Commiting changes
You can commit the added files, modified files by right clicking them and selecting “Commit”.

View history (Log)
To view the change history of a file, right click a file and select “Log”.

Reverting local changes
Right click a modified file and click “Revert” to revert the changes you made to your working copy.

Compare the changes made (Diff)
Unlike TortoiseSVN, RapidSVN does not provide built in support for “Diff”. However, you can instruct RapidSVN to use any externl diff tool to fill that gap. So this is what you will see when you attempt to run “Diff” on a file,

Fortunately, there are many excellent “Diff” tools available. I use “Meld” as the diff tool in Ubuntu Linux. “Meld” should be available in all major Linux distros. This is how you will install “Meld” in Ubuntu,

sudo apt-get install meld

Once you have your diff tool of choice installed, you need to tell RapidSVN to use the diff tool. In RapidSVN, click “View -> Preferences” and then open the “Programs” tab. In the “Programs” tab, look for a section called “Diff Tool” and enter the command name there and save the changes.

Now you can diff the changes made to a file by right clicking it and selecting “Diff” or “Diff to Head” or “Diff to Base”.

Once you click “OK”, RapidSVN will invoke the respective Diff tool to display the differences.

Other Settings
If you want to open and edit files right from within RapidSVN, open “Edit -> Preferences” and then enter the appropriate value in the “Standard Editor” section.

If you want to explore your working copy from within RapidSVN, then configure the “Standard Explorer” section in “Preferences”.

Overall, RapidSVN is a solid Subversion client especially to linux users. What Subversion client do you use?

SolitaryGeek Poll

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

My objective was to convert *.DAT files from a VCD into *.mp3. I decided to try WinFF first. The interface was pretty simple to use.

But when I pressed the “Convert” button, I got the following . . . → Read More: Convert video files to mp3 in Ubuntu]]> In my previous post, I explained how to convert audio files from one format to another in Ubuntu. Ubuntu provides native support for this through Sound Converter which can be installed using a simple command. After trying Sound Converter, I was confident that there will be similar applications to convert video files. That made me to install applications like WinFF, Avidemux.

My objective was to convert *.DAT files from a VCD into *.mp3. I decided to try WinFF first. The interface was pretty simple to use.

But when I pressed the “Convert” button, I got the following message,

WinFF reported that the encoder ‘libmp3lame’ is unknown. I tried to install that via apt-get but could not find that in the repository as well. I tried to convert to other formats but in vain. I understand that I miss some libraries/encoders, but the help message was not very useful. The application could have suggested me to install the respective library like Sound Converter does for “mp3″ support.

Since WinFF failed to get the job done for me, I tried Avidemux this time. When I started avidemux, I quickly realised that this not going to be an application which everyone can use effortlessly. Avidemux might be a great tool but unless it gets a decent user interface it’s not going to be used by many. But since I was determined to convert my video files, I proceeded ahead with Avidemux.

When I tried to load the “DAT” file, Avidemux complained that it could not open that file.

I searched the Avidemux wiki but still couldn’t solve the problem. My search continued and in one forum I got a suggestion that I can rename the file to “mpg” and change the “video”, “audio” options to “MPEG-4 ASP (Xvid4)”, “MP3 Lame” respectively. But the result was same. Avidemux couldn’t open the file.

Then I realised that another user had the same frustrations like me and eventually opted to run the popular windows only tool FormatFactory on top of Wine. I decided to follow suit but I thought of trying out AnyVideoConverter on top of Wine. But AnyVideoConverter failed to start which left me with no options but to turn for FormatFactory.

I downloaded and installed FormatFactory using Wine and it started without any issues on my Ubuntu.

Since I wanted to convert video files into “MP3″ format, I clicked the “Audio” tab in the left pane and chose the option “All to MP3″. Then I was prompted to add the necessary files.

Once I added the necessary files, all I had to do was to click “Start” button.

After a few seconds, FormatFactory successfully converted the “DAT” files into “MP3″ format.

Thanks to FormatFactory and Wine, I was able to convert “DAT” files without booting into Windows. Many thanks to this wonderful article which was an eye opener for me.

I haven’t yet tried the FormatFactory|Wine combination to convert my videos into other format. Why don’t you try it and share your experience with us?

Traditionally I use softwares like Any Video Converter, Format Factory to convert audio/video files but unfortunately they are available only on Windows and I had to boot into my old Windows XP in order to use them. I thought I . . . → Read More: Convert audio files in Ubuntu with Sound Converter]]> “Linux lacks good multimedia applications“. How many times have we heard this! This was my perception as well. Not that I do my living based on these tools but I do use them often at home. Atleast, many of us might be in a need to convert audio/video from one format to another and rip tracks out of audio cds.

Traditionally I use softwares like Any Video Converter, Format Factory to convert audio/video files but unfortunately they are available only on Windows and I had to boot into my old Windows XP in order to use them. I thought I had no other choice and also since those tools did the job for me, I was eventually using them whenever the need arises. Fortunately there are some good tools in linux as well.

My search for a good audio/video converter continued and even thought of using those popular windows tools on Ubuntu using Wine after reading the article, Best Linux Ubuntu Video/Audio Converter: Format Factory and WINE.

I was almost sold if not for this comprehensive guide from ubuntu forums. At the first look, the article might look a bit overwhelming, but it contains a wealth of information covering many aspects. I was primarily interested in just a audio converter and I all I had to do was execute this simple command


sudo apt-get install soundconverter audacity oggconvert

All these three are audio converting tools where audacity provides audio editing capabilities as well. You might also need sound-juicer to extract audio files from cd. Installing that is pretty straightforward:

sudo apt-get install sound-juicer

Converting files are only two steps away. Click “Add File” button to add the files you would like to convert. Once you have added the necessary files, click “Convert”.

By default, Sound Converter converts audio files to the opensource “ogg” format. If you want the default output to be “mp3″, you need to first install some additional libraries. Then you need to edit the preferences and change the output format “mp3″ (under the section “Type of result”).

I am using Sound Converter quite regularly now and I am quite impressed with it. How about you? What tools do you use to convert audio files? It will be great if you can share your experiences as well.

gOS also provides skype, wine in the default installation. Since gOS is based on Ubuntu, ubuntu users will feel right at home when using gOS. All these facts prompted me to go after gOS.

I downloaded gOS after a lot of struggle from their website. They call the operating system as gOS gadgets which really confused . . . → Read More: gOS on VirtualBox]]> gOS or “Good OS” is an operating system based on Ubuntu. What makes gOS special is it’s “mac” like look and feel, out of the box support for google apps like Gmail, Google Docs, Picasa, Youtube etc through a special mozilla application called prism.

gOS also provides skype, wine in the default installation. Since gOS is based on Ubuntu, ubuntu users will feel right at home when using gOS. All these facts prompted me to go after gOS.

I downloaded gOS after a lot of struggle from their website. They call the operating system as gOS gadgets which really confused me. Only after figuring out the size of the iso, I was convinced that I’m downloading the operating system. Also the website seems less informative and not well organized.

Keeping those things aside, let us quickly see how to install gOS as an guest in VirtualBox. Follow these steps to install gOS as a virtual machine in your VirtualBox:

Download the respective “iso” image from the gOS download site.

• Open VirtualBox, click “New” to add “gOS”as the virtual machine.
• Choose “Linux” as the operating system and “Ubuntu” as the version.
• Complete the rest of the virtual machine setup by giving appropriate details.
• Mount the gOS “iso” image in the CD/DVD ROM section of the new virtual machine you just created.
• Start the virtual machine and proceed with the installation.
• Once the installation is complete, boot into your gOS virtual machine.
• Once you boot into the gOS virtual machine, open the terminal and type “sudo apt-get install gcc make automake autoconf“. This will install the necessary build tools which is needed to install the virtualbox guest additions.
• Now click “Devices -> Install Guest Additions” to install the guest additions for this virtual machine.
• Once the guest additions are installed, restart your virtual machine. If the screen resolution of your virtual machine is still small, follow the steps mentioned in this tombuntu post and reboot your virtual machine.
• You can still go and configure things like “enabling smooth fonts” etc to make your experience with gOS pleasant.

Step 1: Install JDK

Install jdk on your machine using the super easy install option in Ubuntu. Open the terminal and type:

This will install the latest jdk available in the Ubuntu repository. This is cool because, you need not worry about updating your jdk whenever a new release is available. Your system’s “Update Manager” will take care of the rest.

Once the jdk is downloaded, you will . . . → Read More: Getting NetBeans ready for work on Ubuntu 8.10]]> Now that you have upgraded from Windows to Ubuntu (like me ), let’s see how to setup NetBeans quickly on your new Ubuntu machine without wasting much time.

Step 1: Install JDK

Install jdk on your machine using the super easy install option in Ubuntu. Open the terminal and type:

This will install the latest jdk available in the Ubuntu repository. This is cool because, you need not worry about updating your jdk whenever a new release is available. Your system’s “Update Manager” will take care of the rest.

Once the jdk is downloaded, you will be prompted to agree a license agreement in the terminal. Press “TAB” key to select the “Ok” option and then press “Enter”.

Next you will be shown another prompt, use your “arrow” keys to select “Yes” option and press “Enter” to start the install process.

Step 2: Install NetBeans

Verify whether jdk is installed on your machine by typing “java -version” in the terminal. If everything is ok, go and get yourself a copy of netbeans installer.

Once the netbeans installer is downloaded, right click the downloaded file (which should have “.sh” extension), click “Properties”, go to the “Permissions” tab and check the “Allow executing file as program” checkbox.

Now double click the file and click “Run” to start the installation process.

Step 3: Start NetBeans with Nimbus Look and Feel

Let’s face it. The default look and feel (GTK) of NetBeans on Ubuntu (and that of Ubuntu too) sucks. You probably don’t want your friends to ridicule your IDE and say “Is this NetBeans 1.0?”. You don’t want that, right?

But fortunately, there is a saviour in the form of “Nimbus” which is available from JDK 6 Update 10 onwards. And instructing NetBeans to start with “Nimbus” look and feel is very easy. Just right click your “NetBeans” icon on your desktop and click “Properties”. In the “Command” text field add the word ” –laf Nimbus”.

In my case, it looks like:

Now restart NetBeans to see your IDE skinned in Nimbus.

Tip:
If you want NetBeans to look like other apps on your system, skin your Ubuntu with Nimbus theme too.

Step 4: Configure your video driver to ensure that NetBeans displays large files properly

In a perfect world, you don’t need this step but unfortunately you might need to configure your video driver properly to ensure that NetBeans displays large files properly. Otherwise, your IDE editor might display large files like this when you scroll your mouse:

Relax, this is not a bug in NetBeans but rather it’s just a little misconfiguration by Ubuntu. Fortunately, there is a solution to this issue and follow this netbeans wiki page to solve this.

Step 5: Choose the right font for your editor

Some of you might not like the default font used by the NetBeans editor on Ubuntu. For example, I like the crispy “Bitstream Vera Sans Mono” font with font size “13″. But if you are satisfied with the default editor font, it’s fine.

Step 6: Install path-tools plugin to integrate NetBeans with your filesystem browser

I strongly recommend you to use the excellent “path-tools” plugin which help you to integrate your NetBeans IDE with the nautilus file manager in Ubuntu. With this plugin, you can easily navigate to your netbeans projects located in your filesystem. Go grab it from the plugin portal.

And don’t forget to install your favourite version control system like subversion, mercurial, git etc to enjoy the benefits offered by your IDE.

That’s it for now. It will be great to see your suggestions, comments and tips you employ on your Ubuntu machine. Enjoy..!

You can get the nimbus icons and themes from gnome-look.org. Just download the “icon” and “gtk-engine” debs and run it. (TIP: First install the “icon” deb)

Since I’m new to this linux stuff, it took me some time to configure things like static ip address, host names etc. But once everything was setup, things started moving quickly. I initially had doubt in my minds about the font rendering of NetBeans (or any swing app for that matter) . . . → Read More: Ubuntu 8.10 – A Productive Java Development Environment]]> I recently started using Ubuntu 8.10 at my workplace as well. Till then, I have been using Ubuntu only at home. For me, Ubuntu@Work was very different from Ubuntu@Home. I mostly surf, blog, listen to music and play some games at home. But Ubuntu@Work was a completely different scenario.

Since I’m new to this linux stuff, it took me some time to configure things like static ip address, host names etc. But once everything was setup, things started moving quickly. I initially had doubt in my minds about the font rendering of NetBeans (or any swing app for that matter) under linux. I even wrote an post showing my frustration with NetBeans font rendering when compared to Eclipse. But with jdk.1.6.10, font rendering is smooth and NetBeans works like a champ! You can see some samples here:

But not everything is perfect at this point of time. For example, the combo boxes are not rendered properly. But apart from these minor glitches, NetBeans runs very well on Ubuntu.

I initially thought of using my already existing netbeans projects in a ntfs partition. But later, I decided not to go for it. I thought working on a native “ext3″ partition would give better performance and I can say that I’m not disappointed.

With my projects in a “ext3″ filesystem, opening projects and editing files are faster now. And with excellent subversion integration, working as a diverse team is not at all an issue. (I’m the only one using Ubuntu in my team so far. )

So far, I have been doing Java development on a Windows XP machine and I can say with absolute confidence that Ubuntu offers a much more better development environment. I can connect to other Windows machines in my network using “Terminal Server Client” which comes with the default Ubuntu installation. Yes you can argue that Windows has “Remote Desktop” by default as well. But Ubuntu supports not just “remote desktop” but also “VNC” by default. With VNC, I can connect to linux servers and other old windows machines (2000, NT).

Just in case if you want to connect to that old operating system, it’s very easy with Ubuntu on your side

And I use to depend heavily on WinSCP to share files between computers but I was stunned to see Ubuntu providing native support to ssh which is integrated into the nautilus file explorer as well. This feature alone saves me a lot of time!

What more, you get a powerful “Network Tools” which can do some simple operations like “ping” to scanning for opened ports in a remote computer.

There is an excellent partition editor as well in the form of “GParted” with which you can easily resize/create/delete/format partitions. I use this to manage partitions even in windows machines.

Remember that crappy “Disk Management” tool in Windows?. Yes there are tools like Partition Magic for Windows, but in Ubuntu, all these things are available by default and costs absolutely nothing.

Moreover, boot up and shutdown are very fast with Ubuntu 8.10 than with Windows XP. The OS itself consumes much less memory, so other applications get more resources. Especially when you have a system with minimal configuration, then Ubuntu Linux is definitely a better option than Windows.

Setting up a fresh system with Windows XP + drivers + other softwares normally take more than 2 hours but setting up a similar system with Ubuntu will take less than half an hour. And do I need to say that a default Ubuntu installation comes with softwares like Firefox, Pidgin, OpenOffice, GIMP etc. And you can find most of your favourite software in the Synaptic Package Manager. You will enjoy installing softwares like Picasa, Google Earth, Skype etc from within your operating system. No need to go to 101 sites to download 101 stuff!

And kindly note that Ubuntu Linux is not the only option you have. There are many other great Linux distros like Fedora, Linux Mint, OpenSuse etc. Since I use Ubuntu at work/home, I shared my views based on Ubuntu. I just installed Linux Mint for my wife which looks like a drop-in replacement for Windows. (Actually she couldn’t believe that it’s linux for quite some time)

With it’s excellent performance even on old hardware and with lots of bundled software tools which boosts productivity, Ubuntu certainly provides excellent environment for development. Add NetBeans/Eclipse/Intellij IDEA to this and you get a powerful java development environment that will cost you less and provide more value for your money/hardware.