| Desktop Linux Application Tips |
Dec. 30, 2002
Walt Pennington authors this practical guide for using Desktop Linux applications. Pennington covers some essential areas for users getting started downloading Linux, creating .pdf files, disabling pop-up ads, and tips for secure online transactions in this article . . .
Create a .PDF
Adding New Applications in Mandrake
Browsing within the Browser and Deflating Pop-Up Windows
Encrypt Email with Electronic Keys
Creating a Encryption Key
Encrypting with Evolution
Typing in Multiple Languages
Downloading Linux
Evolution in Emailing
Credit Card Security with On-line Buying
Create a .PDF with OpenOffice (For Linux, Windows, Mac)
The .pdf document format was created by Adobe, and OpenOffice.org makes creating .pdf documents easy. OpenOffice 1.0 is included in the latest versions of Mandrake, Red Hat and SuSE Linux, and is available as a free download for Linux, Windows, and Mac OSX (beta) at OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice is the open source sibling to StarOffice 6.0 created by Sun Microsystems.
To create a .pdf document, open OpenOffice 1.0 and create a document. After you are finished creating the document, save the document. Next, go to File then Print. Under the name, choose PDF, and then check the box for "Print to File." At the prompt for where to save the file, choose the name and location. At this time, make sure that you make the "File Type" PDF. After you select, the file name, and type, it will bring you back to the "Print" menu. When you "Print" OpenOffice 1.0, will save your document as a .PDF. To view your document use the Adobe Acrobat Reader, or any of the Linux .PDF viewers such as xpdf or KGhostView. If you need to change your .PDF form, you can change your initial OpenOffice 1.0 form, and then print the .pdf to a the same or a new file.
If the .pdf document does not show up in the list of printers, go to Printer Setup to add a new printer, and follow the instructions for installing an Acrobat Distiller. The Help instructions within OpenOffice offer excellent instructions on how to add the Acrobat Distiller or other printers within OpenOfffice.
Adding New Applications in Mandrake Linux 9.0 (Linux)
Linux distributions such as Mandrake come pre-packaged with many desktop, server, security and game applications, and adding prepackaged or downloaded applications is easy. Installing prepackaged, but uninstalled applications will be discussed first, followed by installing downloaded applications. When installing Mandrake, or any other Linux distribution, the default installation adds most of the applications you will want, but occasionally you will want a new application. Suppose you want to import your Quicken data to a new accounting program such as GnuCash, but GnuCash was not added during the default installation. To add GnuCash, go to the K in the bottom left, then Configuration, then Mandrake Control Center. If you are logged in as a user, you will need to enter the root password. This security feature prevents unauthorized users from adding unwanted applications to your system, or changing system configurations. Within Mandrake Control Center, go to Software Management and click on Install Software. There are many ways to search for applications. Since the name of the application is known, enter the any part of the name and press search. The search results vary depending on the number of letters entered. After you find the package, click the box to the right, then Install. Next the CD tray will open, and a box will prompt you for the appropriate CD to add the applications. Put in the appropriate CD, and Mandrake will tell you the progress of the installation. After the installation is complete, go back to the K in the bottom right, and start the application. Its that easy.
For downloaded applications, Mandrake and Red Hat package software with file endings of .rpm. for easy installation. .Rpm is the Mandrake and Red Hat equivalent to .exe in Windows. To install a downloaded .rpm application, go to the K Menu, choose Home (Personal Files), and open the directory where you downloaded the file. Right click on the file, and scroll to Open With and choose Software Installer. A box will ask for the root or superuser password, put in the password. Next you will see the downloaded application being installed. After the installation is complete, go to the K in the bottom right, and you will see the file in the appropriate menu.
Removing applications is also easy. To remove applications, go to Mandrake Control Center, then Software Management, then Remove Software. Find the package you want to remove, click the box to the right, then click the Remove button. The application will then be removed.
Browsing within the Browser and Deflating Pop-Up Windows (For Linux, Windows, Mac)
I hate pop-up windows, and Mozilla 1.1 lances pop-up Internet advertisements. Mozilla is an open source web browser based on Netscape. Mozilla is packaged with all Linux distributions and is available as a free download at Mozilla.org. After you have downloaded, installed and opened Mozilla, you will see how similar it appears to Netscape, but unlike Netscape, Mozilla has features to deflate pop-up windows and to allow tabs of web pages for a windows-within-windows experience.
To prevent pop-up windows, go to Edit, Preferences, Advanced then Scripts & Plugins. By unchecking the first box, Open Unrequested Windows, you will prevent any unwanted windows from opening. Review the other 7 options to determine if disabling those features is beneficial for your web use.
Some additional features to make web browsing in Mozilla 1.1 easy include opening new web sites within tabs rather than a new window. With most browsers, in Preferences, go to Navigator then Tabbed Browsing. Check the two boxes under Open Tabs Instead of Windows for. For Google users, go to Internet Search, and choose Google. Having made all of the changes, click OK, and you will be at the main Mozilla page. To test these features, try a google search by typing "President Wasington" in the location bar. Directly under "President Washington," you will see Search Google for "President Washington." You can either use the down arrow, and choose this option, or you can click Search to the right of the location bar. The Google search will bring the results, and if you want to open a new tab instead of a new window, right click over any of the hyperlinks, and then choose Open in a New Tab. If you have a three button or wheel mouse, you can click the middle button or wheel, and the new page will open in a new tab. The Mozilla window tabs, allows toggling between each of the tabs for each of your searches. To close a tab window, click the x to the right of the tabs.
Encrypt Email with Electronic Keys
Sending an email, is similar to sending a postcard, there is no privacy and whoever passes the email can read your email. Many times, email is unimportant and can be public, but occasionally, confidential information demands secrecy, and encryption is available for those occasions. Encryption scrambles the email, preventing everyone except those with appropriate electronic keys from being able to read the email.
Encryption uses public and private keys. You give your public key to others, and keep your private key. Others give you their public key, and keep their private key. When you send email, you use the recipients' public key, and they unlock the message with their private key.
Creating a Encryption Key
First, we will construct an electronic key, then we will send an email using encryption. Linux and Windows have several easy tools for creating encryption keys and sending encrypted emails. A popular key encryption tool is GPG (Gnu Privacy Guard) available at GnuPG.org. Within Linux, there are several tools to make creating, importing and managing electronic keys easy. My favorite is GPA (Gnu Privacy Assistant) which can be found at GnuPG.org/gpa.html . GPA is packaged with Mandrake PowerPack, and is available as a free download.
After starting GPA for the first time, it will ask if you want to generate a key set. GPA will generate both your public and private keys. You will be asked for your name, email, identifying information and a password phrase. Your security is increased with a long and difficult to reproduce passphrase. Remember with encryption that capitalized letters are different characters from small letters. For security, your phrase should be at least 20 characters long with a mix of letters, numbers and capitals. Once you have created your password, you will see a key ID within GPA, that identifies you. Next we need to import that key ID to Evolution to use with incoming and outgoing email.
Encrypting with Evolution (For Linux and Windows)
Evolution by Ximian is a popular integrated email, calendar, contacts and task manager similar to Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes. Evolution is packaged with all new Linux distributions, and is available as a free download from Ximian. Ximian Connector allows Linux users connecting to Microsoft Exchange 2000 for email and shared calendaring. At the time of this writing the current version of Evolution is 1.2, with version 1.4 soon to be released.
For Evolution to encrypt your emails, it needs your key ID. Take the key ID information generated by GPA, and within Evolution go to Tools then Settings. On the left column click Mail Settings, then highlight the appropriate email account, then click Edit.
Typing in Multiple Languages
Changing the keyboard in Mandrake 9 is a quick click. To configure multiple keyboards, click the K in the bottom right, then go to Control Center (this is the Control Center for KDE). Within the KDE Control Center go to Peripherals, then keyboards. Click the languages, you wish to enable, then apply. In the system tray at the bottom right, you will see a flag with your language. To change the keyboard, left click, and it will rotate between the options available. If you have more than two languages, and want to select the exact language, right click and the available keyboards
Downloading and Burning a Linux Distribution (For Linux, Windows, Mac)
One of the many ways to acquire a Linux Distribution is to download it from the Internet, and one of my favorite sites is LinuxISO.org. Although this site will work with any download speed, a high-speed line will let you download the .iso image in hours rather than days or weeks. At LinuxISO.org, you can download an .iso file. The .iso images are large, so make sure that you have sufficient hard drive space. For example, a three cd set, such as Mandrake Linux is 2.1 GB.
When burning to a Linux CD from a .iso image, make sure that your CD burner converts the .iso image into files. To burn CDs in Linux, a very nice tool is X-CD-Roast. X-CD-Roast is prepackaged with Mandrake and many other Linux distributions. After you have downloaded the file, open X-CD-Roast, then go to setup. Within the setup menu, go to the HD Settings tab, and then choose the directory where you downloaded the .iso files. Click Save Configuration, then Create CD, then Write Tracks. In the Layout Tracks tab, choose the .iso image, you wish to burn, then click add. You will see the tracks to be written in the column on the left. After you select the correct image, click Accept Track Layout, then Write Tracks. My cd writer takes about 12 minutes to burn one 700 MB CD. If you are burning a 3 cd set, when you want to burn a different CD, go back to the Layout Tracks tab, and remove the existing file, and add the new .iso you wish to burn. When the cd burner finishes, you will have the latest Linux distribution for you to use or test.
Evolution in Emailing (Linux)
Common email viruses that attack and disable Microsoft Outlook are impotent against Evolution an integrated email, calendar and contact manager by Ximian. Evolution is packaged with Mandrake, Red Hat, SuSE and most other Linux distributions and installed as part of the default desktop installation. Evolution, like Outlook, allows users to enter information into a contact manager, and when writing an email, search for appropriate entries that match letters typed into an email. Evolution also allows you to right click on an incoming reply email address, and add that entry to Evolution's contact manager. If your office uses Microsoft Exchange 2000 as its email server, Ximian sells an Evolution Connector (single user $69.00, 10 user license $599) which allows Evolution connect to the email server to send and receive email, and to share calendars and contacts. These same features are available without the connector to other email servers such as Qmail or Postfix.
Features within Evolution include advanced mail and spam filtering, synchronization with Palm OS PDAs, , and ability to run a program on receipt of emails. One of my favorite features within Evolution is the ability to invoke strong email filters. Most spammers send email from the same server, but from different email addresses. Therefore blocking the address, does little to prevent email. With Evolution, you can filter on any part of the name of the sender, the IP address or several other methods. If the incoming email meets the criteria, you can redirect it to the trash folder or have the email deleted immediately upon receipt. You can also filter incoming email by sender of by mailing list, and have those incoming emails placed into different folders. To filter, go to Tools then Create Filter from Message, and choose your appropriate filtering criteria.
Most PDAs are accompanied by software that will synchronize the Palm OS to a particular application created by that vendor. Ximian has created the tools within Evolution to synchronize the Palm OS PDA. To configure Evolution, make sure your PDA is connected then start Evolution and go to Tools, then Pilot Settings. You will see a window with four tabs, you need click add to enter the information for your PDA. The typical connections will be either USB or serial, which are both readily accepted.
Lastly for the advanced users, Evolution has the ability to receive incoming emails, and trigger other events. For example, if emails arrive at your office with certain key words, you could trigger another application to page you or cause other applications to start or stop based on that incoming email. You configure this feature through the filters described above.
Credit Card Security with On-line Buying (For Linux, Windows, Mac)
Citibank developed virtual account numbers ("VAN") which allows its credit card holders to buy on-line, yet protect the credit card number of their physical card. At
www.Citicards.com, you will see a link for "Virtual Account Numbers." Following the link will lead you to an information page which shows you how to generate a VAN. The VAN is valid for only one purchase, and can be used for telephone ordering, fax ordering or on-line purchasing. Once you make the purchase, the VAN is deactivated, therefore theft of a VAN is worthless.
About the author: Walt Pennington is a member of the San Diego Linux Users' Group.
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