• Quickly deploys Arch Linux to my specifications
• Supports i686 and x64_64.
• Detects ATI/AMD, Intel and Nvidia chipsets and configures the Open Source video drivers and enables early KMS.
• Hardware and location aware. Installation and configuration can be different for Home vs Work or Desktop vs Netbook.
• Detects and correctly configures some device specific hardware, such as touch screens and wireless drivers.
• Automatically configures DAEMONS array.
• Includes custom power management hooks for pm-utils.
• Designed to safely run multiple times so that it can be used as a tool for keeping all systems consistent.

I’ve dubbed this script Arch Angel. I’m undecided if I’ll release it publicly since it is very much my personal preferences and to some extent my colleagues at work. I suppose the real reason for this post is that I’ve been wanting to take Shelr for a test drive, so click the Play button below to see an example run of Arch Angel

if you are a super-technologist then there is value in learning all about linux from every angle
try arch. try gentoo. try fedora. try debian. try suse.
they are all good

So, I did. I tried Arch Linux and it is is not just good, it’s truly brilliant!

The truth is, I didn’t take Mark Shuttleworth’s advice. I took the advice of a quietly spoken work colleague. Whenever he saw me squirming with irritation at Canonical/Ubuntu he reminded me (quietly) that he was running Arch Linux and that he thought it was really rather good. It turns out I should have listened to my colleague years ago, because he was right all along. He often is.

I started learning Arch Linux a few weeks ago and as of the time of writing all our home computers are running Arch Linux and so is my office workstation. I moved away from Ubuntu (which I’ve been using daily since 2004) because:

• I often find myself needing/wanting updated packages on my workstations. Ubuntu + PPAs just wasn’t doing it for me anymore. I concluded I needed a rolling release distribution.
• In my humble opinion, Unity is a software engineering solution developed (by programmers) not designed using UI-patterns (by user interface designers) consequently it sucks the big one.
• It was less hassle for me to switch to Arch Linux than bend Ubuntu to my will.

That said, I do wish Canonical every success with Unity, they’ll need it. If they try and ship a smartphone, tablet or TV running Unity they’ll be laughed out of town.

For anyone interested in giving Arch Linux a try here are some observations.

• Arch Linux does not hold you hand, you should be competent with a Linux based distribution. I’ve been using Linux since 0.99patch2 so I think I qualify.
• Read the Unofficial Beginners’ Guide and Official Installation Guide before you install anything.
• Install Arch Linux in a virtual machine to get acquainted.
• Be prepared to fix your own problems. Fortunately the Arch Linux Wiki and Arch Linux Forums are a great source of good information.

Here is a list of what I most like about Arch Linux:

• It’s a rolling release. I’ve already progressed through several kernels and been upgraded from Gnome 3.2 to 3.4. No fuss, no mess.
• It keeps out of my way, I get to build the OS they way I want it. Yes, I’m looking at you Unity, Overlay Scrollbars, Unity App Indicators, Ubuntu One and upstart!
• The AUR. It’s like a great big PPA.
• Creating my own packages is super simple.
• Adding my own packages to the AUR is super simple. I’ve already contributed 8 packages.
• I’m learning more about Linux than I have done in years.

Here’s what I’m not so keen about, but can live with.

• Some of the comments in the Forums and AUR are from real arse hats with a superiority complex. New comers may be put off by their tone and look elsewhere.
• The AUR. Package quality in the AUR is variable, some are pretty poor. So long as the maintainer is not one of the aforementioned arse hats then contributing fixes and improvements is easy.
• It’s a rolling release, so may not be suitable for serious server deployments. That said, I will migrate my own servers to Arch Linux in due course and see if I can prove myself wrong.

So there you have it, I like Arch Linux very much and, like Mark Shuttleworth, recommend it to other technically competent individuals looking to regain ownership of their computer(s).

• http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/terms/license/

My script is an automated wrapper for Janusz Dziemidowicz Debian packaging scripts for Java 6. My new script simply downloads the Java binary installers from Oracle, builds the .deb packages locally on your computer and creates a local ‘apt’ repository for them. Once my script has been executed you can then ‘apt-get’ install/upgrade Java 6 from your local repository. Packages are compatible with “official” Ubuntu ones and pre-existing Java 6 packages will upgrade cleanly.

You can find the script and full usage instructions on github.

• https://github.com/flexiondotorg/oab-java6

The quick and dirty guide for using this script is as follows:

cd ~/
wget https://raw.github.com/flexiondotorg/oab-java6/master/oab-java6.sh -O oab-java6.sh
chmod +x oab-java6.sh
sudo ./oab-java6.sh

Please read the README file for a more detailed explanation of how the script works and how to use it. If anyone has any problems, then please submit a ticket on my Issue Tracker.

• https://github.com/flexiondotorg/oab-java6/issues

• As of August 24th 2011, Canonical no longer have permission to redistribute new Java packages as Oracle has retired the “Operating System Distributor License for Java”.
• Oracle has published an advisory about security issues in the version of Java currently in the partner archive. Some of these issues are currently being exploited in the wild.
• Due to the severity of the security risk, Canonical released a security update for the Sun JDK browser plugin which disables the plugin on all machines.
• In the near future, Canonical will remove all Sun JDK packages from the Partner archive. This will be accomplished by pushing empty packages to the archive, so that the Sun JDK will be removed from all users machines when they do a software update. Users of these packages who have not migrated to an alternative solution will experience failures after the package updates have removed Oracle Java from the system.

See the full Canonical notice below.

• https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2011-December/001528.html

Update Monday 16th January 2012

I’ve developed another solution for installing Java 6u30 on Ubuntu which doesn’t infringe any copyrights, licenses, terms of use or CoC’s. 

• http://blog.flexion.org/2012/01/16/install-sun-java-6-jre-jdk-from-deb-packages/

Update Friday 13th January 2012

My Java PPA has been disabled by Canonical, possibly because they violate the Ubuntu CoC and PPA terms of use, as Jef Spaleta noted in the comments below, although I’ve had no communication from Canonical at this time. I’m preparing an alternative solution, for those of you who need Sun Java 6, that doesn’t violate and copyrights, CoCs or terms of use. A new blog post will be made when that alternate solution is available.

My personal motivations for creating this PPA are as follows:

• I require Sun Java 6 for two enterprise applications we use at work. OpenJDK is not fully compatible.
• I require Sun Java 6 for two desktop applications at home (so does my father-in-law). OpenJDK not compatible in one instance and not fully compatible in the other.
• I require Sun Java 6 browser plugin for a web applications I use at home. OpenJDK is not compatible.
• A friend of mine requires Sun Java 6 for building AOSP from source. OpenJDK is not compatible.
• Some friends of mine play Minecraft, apparently this will help
• Janusz Dziemidowicz made it easy for me – https://github.com/rraptorr/sun-java6

The PPA currently publishes Sun Java 6 1.6.0.30 for:

• Lucid i386/amd64
• Maverick i386/amd64
• Natty i386/amd64
• Oneiric i386/amd64
• Precise i386. However, amd64 is failing to build on Precise. I will try and fix this in due course.

To Sun Java 6 , previously instaled via packages, do the following.

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:flexiondotorg/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

To install Sun Java 6 JRE do the following:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:flexiondotorg/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre

To install Sun Java 6 browser plugin do the following:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:flexiondotorg/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-plugin

To install Sun Java 6 JDK do the following:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:flexiondotorg/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk

You can take a look a round my PPA from the URL below:

• https://launchpad.net/~flexiondotorg/+archive/java

Enjoy!

If you’d like to give Gnome 3 a whirl then you could try installing Jan Hoffman’s Ubuntu Gnome Shell Remix from either the 32-bit or 64-bit ISOs he has prepared. This will give a “pure” Gnome 3 experience.

• http://ubuntu-gs-remix.sourceforge.net/p/home/

If you already have Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric installed then you can install Gnome 3 along side Unity. Here are the incantations you’ll need to utter in a shell.

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:jan-hoffmann/gnome-shell
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:aegirxx-googlemail/gnome-shell-extensions
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:webupd8team/gnome3
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libglib2.0-bin gnome-core gnome-documents gnome-shell gnome-sushi gnome-tweak-tool gnomeshell-default-settings gtk3-engines-unico

The repositories added above will give you access to Jan’s Gnome 3 meta packages, updated Gnome 3 packages and some extra Gnome 3 extensions. Gnome 3 extensions add all manner of additional tweaks and functionality. Some extensions can even provide a user experience more akin to that of Gnome 2.

• http://intgat.tigress.co.uk/rmy/extensions/index.html

In order to get acquainted with Gnome 3 I suggest you read the Discover Gnome 3 (watch the videos too) and Gnome 3 Cheat Sheet pages. Having read those you’ll soon master Gnome 3. After you’ve used Gnome 3 for a while you may conclude it is a more usable desktop environment than Unity, which isn’t a surprising conclusion to arrive at given Unity sucks the big one. If you want a “pure” Gnome 3 experience then the following commands will purge Unity and other bits and bobs that Gnome 3 simply doesn’t required.

Remove Unity

sudo apt-purge unity unity-2d unity-2d-launcher unity-asset-pool unity-common unity-greeter unity-lens-applications unity-lens-music libunity-misc4

Remove Overlay Scrollbars

These just don’t work on my netbook since they regularly obscure portions of the window I actually want to click on. The can safely be removed even if you intend to continue using Unity.

sudo apt-get purge overlay-scrollbar liboverlay-scrollbar-0.2-0 liboverlay-scrollbar3-0.2-0

Remove Indicators

Indicators are a Ubuntu “thing”. If you never going back to Unity these can be safely removed.

sudo apt-get purge xchat-gnome-indicator indicator-appmenu indicator-power indicator-session indicator-sound indicator-status-provider-mc5 libindicator-messages-status-provider1

Remove Global Menu

Again, Global Menu is not used by Gnome 3. So if you not going back to Unity these can be safely removed.

sudo apt-get purge appmenu-gtk3 appmenu-gtk appmenu-qt firefox-globalmenu thunderbird-globalmenu

Finally, a word or warning: Distribution upgrades are not possible!

You can’t upgrade to a newer version of Ubuntu when using Jan Hoffman’s Ubuntu Gnome Shell Remix or if you modify an existing Ubuntu 11.10 using my method above. You will have to do a full install once the next Ubuntu release is available. This can’t be fixed as long as this Jan’s meta packages are unofficial, because the distribution upgrade process requires having installed one of the desktop meta packages from the official Ubuntu repositories.

• https://launchpad.net/~flexiondotorg/+archive/shotwell

My PPA contains Shotwell 0.11 built for Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 LTS and Ubuntu Maverick 10.10. I created this PPA because I run Lucid at home and wanted the new version of Shotwell. Sadly, Yorba aren’t going to provide new Shotwell packages for Lucid due to the reasons discussed in the following ticket:

- http://trac.yorba.org/ticket/3015

As mentioned in the ticket above, there are newer versions of Shotwell available for Lucid in other PPAs. However, those PPAs contain hundreds of packages. If you’re not that brave, like me, then hopefully this PPA provides what you need. I have built Shotwell with minimal changes from the original Yorba source packages and not polluted this PPA with any unnecessary packages

Since Shotwell 0.11 you must enable the GStreamer PPA, see the ticket below for the reasons for this requirement:

- http://redmine.yorba.org/issues/3716

To install Shotwell on Lucid and Maverick do the following:

 sudo apt-add-repository ppa:flexiondotorg/shotwell
 sudo apt-add-repository ppa:gstreamer-developers/ppa
 sudo apt-get update
 sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
 sudo apt-get install shotwell

Enjoy!

• https://launchpad.net/~flexiondotorg/+archive/shotwell

My PPA contains Shotwell 0.8.1 built for Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 LTS. I created the PPA because I run Lucid at home and wanted the new version of Shotwell. Sadly, Yorba aren’t going to provide a Lucid build of Shotwell 0.8.1 due to the reasons discussed in the following ticket:

• http://trac.yorba.org/ticket/3015

As mentioned in the ticket above, there are versions of Shotwell 0.8.1 available for Lucid in other PPAs. However, those PPAs contain hundreds of packages. If you’re not that brave, like me, then hopefully my PPA provides what you need. I have built Shotwell 0.8.1 with minimal changes from the original Yorba source packages and not polluted my PPA with any unnecessary packages

NOTE! My PPA has dependencies that are satisfied by the Yorba PPA, so you must also enable the Yorba PPA too.

• https://launchpad.net/~yorba/+archive/ppa

To install Shotwell 0.8.1 on Lucid do the following:

 sudo apt-add-repository ppa:yorba/ppa
 sudo apt-add-repository ppa:flexiondotorg/shotwell
 sudo apt-get update
 sudo apt-get install shotwell

Get a list of Ubuntu codenames

wget -q http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/ -O - | sed -e :a -e 's/<[^>]*>//g;/</N;//ba' | grep '^[[:space:]][a-z]' | sed 's/\///g'

Get a list of Ubuntu versions

wget -q http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/ -O - | sed -e :a -e 's/<[^>]*>//g;/</N;//ba' | grep '^[[:space:]][1-9]' | sed 's/\///g'