July 2012 | Linux Blog

Free Cross-Platform Linux MultiMedia Studio (LMMS)

Linux MultiMedia Studio (LMMS) is a free cross-platform alternative to commercial programs like FL Studio®, which allow you to produce music with your computer. This includes the creation of melodies and beats, the synthesis and mixing of sounds, and arranging of samples. You can have fun with your MIDI-keyboard and much more; all in a user-friendly and modern interface.

Linux MultiMedia Studio Features
* Song-Editor for composing songs
* A Beat+Baseline-Editor for creating beats and baselines
* An easy-to-use Piano-Roll for editing patterns and melodies
* An FX mixer with 64 FX channels and arbitrary number of effects allow unlimited mixing possibilities
* Many powerful instrument and effect-plugins out of the box
* Full user-defined track-based automation and computer-controlled automation sources
* Compatible with many standards such as SoundFont2, VST(i), LADSPA, GUS Patches, and MIDI
* Import of MIDI and FLP (Fruityloops® Project) files

Open source E-book Library Management Application - Calibre

Calibre is an free and open source eBook library manager. It can view, convert and catalog eBooks in most of the major eBook formats. It can also talk to many eBook reader devices. It can go out to the Internet and fetch metadata for your books. It can download newspapers and convert them into eBooks for convenient reading. It is cross platform, running on Linux, Windows and OS X.

Calibre has a cornucopia of features divided into the following main categories:
* Library Management
* E-book conversion
* Syncing to e-book reader devices
* Downloading news from the web and converting it into e-book form
* Comprehensive e-book viewer
* Content server for online access to your book collection

Bash Script: Create & Use Associative Array like Hash tables

Before using Associative Array features make sure you have bash version 4 and above, use command "bash --version" to know your bash version.

Below shell script demonstrate the usage of associative arrays, feel free to copy and use this code.

Associative arrays are created using declare -A name

Source: cat associative_array.sh
#!/bin/bash

# use -A option declares associative array
declare -A array

# Here, you can have some other process to fill up your associative array.
array[192.168.1.1]="host1"
array[192.168.1.2]="host2"
array[192.168.1.3]="host3"
array[192.168.1.4]="host4"
array[192.168.1.5]="host5"

echo -n "Enter the ip address to know the hostname: "
read ipaddress

# Now you can use the associative array as hash table, (key,value) pairs.
echo "Hostname associated with the $ipaddress is: ${array[$ipaddress]}"

# You can also perform all the basic array operation.
# Iterate over Associative Arrays

#for hostname in "${array[@]}"; do
# echo $hostname
#done

Output: ./associative_array.sh

Enter the ip address to know the hostname: 192.168.1.4

Hostname associated with the 192.168.1.4 is: host4

Cross-platform and easy to use Audio Editor - ocenaudio

Ocenaudio is a cross-platform, easy to use, fast and functional audio editor. It is the ideal software for people who need to edit and analyze audio files without complications. ocenaudio also has powerful features that will please more advanced users.

This software is based on Ocen Framework, a powerful library developed to simplify and standardize the development of audio manipulation and analysis applications across multiple platforms.

Features for Ocenaudio:
* VST plugins support
* Preview effects in Real-time
* Drag & Drop support
* Various effect options (silence, reverse, invert, delay, etc.)
* Multi-selection support
* Large file editing support
* Fully-featured spectrogram

Single application to convert Audio, Video, Image and Document files to other formats

FF Multi Converter is a simple graphical application which enables you to convert audio, video, image and document files between all popular formats, using and combining other programs.

It uses ffmpeg for audio/video files, unoconv for document files and PythonMagick library for image file conversions. Common conversion options for each file type are provided. Audio/video ffmpeg-presets management and recursive conversion options are available too.

FF Multi Converter Features
* Conversions for several file formats.
* Very easy to use interface.
* Access to common conversion options.
* Audio/video ffmpeg-presets management.
* Options for saving and naming files.
* Recursive conversions.

Bash Script: Difference betweem single ( ' ) and double quotes ( " )

The Bash manual has this to say:

Single Quotes
Enclosing characters in single quotes (‘'’) preserves the literal value of each character within the quotes. A single quote may not occur between single quotes, even when preceded by a backslash.

Double Quotes
Enclosing characters in double quotes (‘"’) preserves the literal value of all characters within the quotes, with the exception of ‘$’, ‘`’, ‘\’, and, when history expansion is enabled, ‘!’. The characters ‘$’ and ‘`’ retain their special meaning within double quotes (see Shell Expansions). The backslash retains its special meaning only when followed by one of the following characters: ‘$’, ‘`’, ‘"’, ‘\’, or newline. Within double quotes, backslashes that are followed by one of these characters are removed. Backslashes preceding characters without a special meaning are left unmodified. A double quote may be quoted within double quotes by preceding it with a backslash. If enabled, history expansion will be performed unless an ‘!’ appearing in double quotes is escaped using a backslash. The backslash preceding the ‘!’ is not removed.

The special parameters ‘*’ and ‘@’ have special meaning when in double quotes (see Shell Parameter Expansion).

Bash script: Using shift statement to loop through command line arguments

A shift statement is typically used when the number of arguments to a command is not known in advance and it takes a number (N), in which the positional parameters are shifted to the left by this number, N.

Say you have a command that takes 10 arguments, and N is 4, then $4 becomes $1, $5 becomes $2 and so on. $10 becomes $7 and the original $1, $2 and $3 are thrown away.

Below is the simple example showing the usage of 'shift' statements:

Source: cat shift2.sh
#!/bin/bash

echo "Total number of arg passed: $#"
echo "arg values are: $@"
echo "-----------------------------------------"

while [[ $# > 0 ]] ; do
echo "\$1 = $1"
shift
done

echo

Output: ./shift2.sh a b c d e f
Total number of arg passed: 6
arg values are: a b c d e f
-----------------------------------------
$1 = a
$1 = b
$1 = c
$1 = d
$1 = e
$1 = f

Bash Script: Using Globbing (glob) in bash script

Glob characters
* - means 'match any number of characters'. '/' is not matched
? - means 'match any single character'
[abc] - match any of the characters listed. This syntax also supports ranges, like [0-9]

Below is a simple script which explains the problem and also provide the solution using globbing:

Source:
cat glob.sh
#!/bin/bash

echo "Creating 2 files with space: this is first file.glob and another file with name.glob "
`touch "this is first file.glob"`
`touch "another file with name.glob"`

echo "---------------------------------"
echo "Using for loop to search and delete file ... failed :( "
for file in `ls *.glob`; do
echo $file
`rm $file`
done

echo "-------------------------------"
echo
echo "Using the another for loop to search for the same set of files ... but failed :("
for filename in "$(ls *.glob)"; do
echo $filename
`rm $filename`
done

# This is the example of using glob in the script
# This time BASH does know that it's dealing with filenames
echo "-------------------------------"
echo "Finnaly able to delete the file using glob method. :)"
for filename in *.glob; do
echo "$filename"
`rm "$filename"`
done

Bash Script: Convert String Toupper and Tolower

Here is a simple bash script which converts the given string to upper or to lower case.
feel free to copy and use this script:

Source:
cat toupper_tolower.sh
#!/bin/bash

echo -n "Enter the String: "
read String

echo -n "Only First characters to uppercase: "
echo ${String^}

echo -n "All characters to uppercase: "
echo ${String^^}

echo -n "Only First characters to Lowercase: "
echo ${String,}

echo -n "All characters to lowercase: "
echo ${String,,}

Output:
./toupper_tolower.sh
Enter the String: linuXPoisoN
Only First characters to uppercase: LinuXPoisoN
All characters to uppercase: LINUXPOISON
Only First characters to Lowercase: linuXPoisoN
All characters to lowercase: linuxpoison

Cross-platform files Sharing application - NitroShare

NitroShare makes it easy to transfer files from one machine to another on the same network. Most of the time, no configuration is necessary - all of the machines on your network running NitroShare should immediately find each other and you can instantly begin sharing files.

NitroShare introduces the concept of "share boxes", which are small widgets that are placed on your desktop. Each share box represents another machine on your local network that you can instantly share files with by dropping them on it. (You can also create a share box that will ask you which machine you want to send the files to.)

NitroShare features:
* Dynamic file compress during transfer to decrease transfer time and bandwidth
* DRC check sum generation to ensure file integrity during transfer
* Full compatibility with clients running on other operating systems
* A helpful configuration wizard to guide you through setting up the application on your machines
* The application was developed using the Qt framework and therefore runs on any platform supported by Qt, including Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Free Video Transcoding Software for Linux and Windows OS - viDrop

viDrop is free video transcoding software for GNU/Linux and Windows operating systems. With its help you can easily convert your favourite movies or videos into format, playable on your Smarthone, Tablet, MID, Portable Media Player etc.

viDrop Features:
* Extensive codec and file format support
* Convert DVDs in any format you like, so you can watch movies on your portable device
* Embed subtitles into the video – useful when your device does not support subtitles
* Supports user defined presets with predefined settings, so you can save your favorite settings for later use
* Apply different video filters – resize/crop, sharpen, blur, deinterlace (useful when converting DVDs)
* Based on the well known mplayer/mencoder engine
* Free license (GNU GPL3)
* Multi-platform support – GNU/Linux and Windows versions
* Created entirely with the aid of free software programs – Python, GTK, GIMP, GEdit

Simple Download Manager for Ubuntu Linux - Steadyflow

Steadyflow is a download manager which aims for minimalism, ease of use, and a clean, malleable codebase. It should be easy to control, whether from the GUI, commandline, or D-Bus.

Features of SteadyFlow Download Manager:
* Add and remove downloads.
* Multiple downloads at same time.
* Pause and Resume downloads.
* Simple Interface.
* Integration into system tray
* Notification for download completes

How-To Install Java JRE and JDK on Ubuntu Linux

Java technology's versatility, efficiency, platform portability, and security make it the ideal technology for network computing. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

* 1.1 billion desktops run Java
* 930 million Java Runtime Environment downloads each year
* 3 billion mobile phones run Java
* 100% of all Blu-ray players run Java
* 1.4 billion Java Cards are manufactured each year
* Java powers set-top boxes, printers, Web cams, games, car navigation systems, lottery terminals, medical devices, parking payment stations, and more.

To see places of Java in Action in your daily life, explore java.com.

Google Drive for your Ubuntu Desktop - GWoffice

Google Web Office - GWoffice - brings your Google drive to your desktop. It offers you a nice interface to its editing abilities and also gives you basic syncing for off-line use.

GWoffice features:
* HUD support for any keyboard bound command
* theming according to the current Gtk+ theme
* shortcuts for quickly creating documents
* drop to upload (and edit, if you enable it..)

Install Latest version of Opera browser under Ubuntu

Opera 12 comes with more than just these features. Numerous other tweaks, tricks and tucks make this Opera version the best yet:

* Plug-ins run in their own process, so if they crash, Opera keeps singing.

* Giddy-up: Opera 12 receives a significant speed boost — faster page loading, faster start up and faster HTML5 rendering — over its predecessor. 64-bit support on Windows and Mac gives better performance on more advanced machines.

* Right-to-left text support and five new languages: Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Urdu and Kazakh. Opera 12 now comes in 60 total languages.

Install Ubuntu Tweak under Ubunt 12.04

Ubuntu Tweak is an application designed to config Ubuntu easier for everyone. It provides many useful desktop and system options that the default desktop environment doesn't provide. At present, it's only designed for the Ubuntu GNOME Desktop, and always follows the newest Ubuntu distribution.

Features of Ubuntu Tweak
* View of Basic System Information(Distribution, Kernel, CPU, Memory, etc.)
* GNOME Session Control
* Auto Start Program Control
* Quick install popular applications
* A lot of third-party sources to keep applications up-to-date
* Clean unneeded packages or cache to free disk space
* Show/Hide and Change Splash screen

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