Matthew Helmke - Ubuntu Unleashed 2012 Edition: Covering 11.10 and 12.04

Covering 11.10 and 12.04

Matthew Helmke
with Andrew Hudson
and Paul Hudson

800 East 96th Street, Indianapolis, Indiana 46240 USA

Ubuntu Unleashed 2012 Edition: Covering Ubuntu 11.10 and 12.04

Copyright 2012 by Pearson Education, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Nor is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

ISBN-13: 978-0-672-33578-5
ISBN-10: 0-672-33578-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Helmke, Matthew.
Ubuntu unleashed / Matthew Helmke. 2012 ed.
p. cm.
Covering 11.10 and 12.04.
ISBN-13: 978-0-672-33578-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-672-33578-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Ubuntu (Electronic resource) 2. Linux. 3. Operating systems (Computers) I. Title.
QA76.76.O63U36 2012
005.4'32dc23
2011041953

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing: January 2012

Editor-in Chief
Mark Taub

Executive Editor
Debra Williams Cauley

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Matthew Helmke is an active member of the Ubuntu community. He served from 2006 to 2011 on the Ubuntu Forum Council, providing leadership and oversight of the Ubuntu Forums (.

Andrew Hudson is a freelance journalist who specializes in writing about Linux. He has significant experience in Red Hat and Debian-based Linux distributions and deployments and can often be found sitting at his keyboard tweaking various settings and config files just for the hell of it. He lives in Wiltshire, which is a county of England, along with his wife, Bernice, and their son, John. Andrew does not like Emacs. He can be reached at .

Paul Hudson is a recognized expert in open-source technologies. He is also a professional developer and full-time journalist for Future Publishing. His articles have appeared in MacFormat, PC Answers, PC Format, PC Plus, and Linux Format. Paul is passionate about free software in all its forms and uses a mix of Linux and BSD to power his desktops and servers. Paul likes Emacs. Paul can be contacted through http://hudzilla.org.

To Heather, Saralyn, Sedona, and Philipthe most amazing family a guy could hope for, to my grandfather for always believing in me and teaching me to believe in myself, and to my friends in the Ubuntu, developer, sysadmin, and DevOps communities.

Matthew Helmke

I am solely responsible for this edition of Ubuntu Unleashed but freely acknowledge that I am standing on the shoulders of giants. I want to express my gratitude to Andrew and Paul Hudson for the solid foundation that past editions of the book (up to Ubuntu Unleashed 2008) provided to this update. Thanks to Ryan Troy for helping with the 2010 edition. Thank you to the many people who helped with technical edits and both formal and informal advice, especially Andrew Lenards, John Wregglesworth, Kris Healy, Dustin Kirkland, and several developers who wanted to remain anonymous. A huge debt of gratitude is owed to the Ubuntu community, Canonical, and Mark Shuttleworth for inviting me to participate in the community, including my role in the forums, a turn on the EMEA membership board, and two Ubuntu Developer Summits. Thanks to the Ubuntu All Stars for the chance to jam with you on guitar. Thank you to the entire Ubuntu community for your labor of love to create this wonderful operating system. Finally, thanks to my colleagues at Pearson, especially Debra Williams Cauley, for the trust placed in me and the opportunity to collaborate on projects like this one.

Matthew Helmke

As the reader of this book, you are our most important critic and commentator. We value your opinion and want to know what were doing right, what we could do better, what areas youd like to see us publish in, and any other words of wisdom youre willing to pass our way.

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We are pleased to present the 2012 edition of Ubuntu Unleashed. Ubuntu is a Linux-based computer operating system that has taken the world by storm. From its humble beginning in 2004, Ubuntu has risen to be the vanguard of desktop Linux, as well as a popular choice for servers.

Ubuntu descends from one of the oldest and most revered Linux distributions, Debian. Debian is assembled by a team of talented volunteers, is one of the most stable and customizable distributions of Linux, and is well respected for its quality and technological prowess. It is, however, an operating system for geeks; the bar for entry into the Debian realm is set high, and its user base tends to be highly proficient and expects new users to learn the ropes before joining in. That is both appropriate and okay.