At VitalBodies we had UPGRADED all of our computers from Windows to Ubuntu some time back. And we have no intention of going back to Windows. This week we updated Hardy Heron to Intrepid Ibex. Very nice simple process. Much thanks to the Ubuntu Team!

Graphic Created With Inkscape.

Updating Ubuntu:

Essentially you just tell Ubuntu you want to be offered Normal Releases rather than just the Long Term Support Updates Only.

System > Administration > Software Sources > Updates > Release Upgrade > Normal Releases.

Check for updates:

System > Administration >Update Manager.

From here you will see if an Update is available.

For us updating required a reboot. Also once the installation part starts (after the download) you will not want to have any applications running. We had Firefox going and it simply shut it down. Firefox saved all our tabs though.

We noticed that our Preferences Appearance had been changed once the new upgrade had started after a reboot.

Preferences > Appearance > Visual Effects had been set to Normal rather than None.

That is easy to change to what ever you like though:

Preferences > Appearance > Visual Effects.

Evolution the mail program in Ubuntu also has had a few anomalies but those usualy get worked out in a day or so after a big update. For us when writing a reply to an email every word is underlined in red as if every word is mis-spelled.

USB DRIVE:

This version of Ubuntu is also fully able to run from a USB drive. This means you can take your favorite Operating system all of the programs, files settings and everything with you! Having a Portable Operating System is definitely the way to go!

GIMP 2.6.1:

GIMP 2.6 is standard with Ibex! Yes! Bugfixes, Updated translations. “One Window Gimp” option added. PlusGEGL.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEGL

There is also GIMP 2.6.2:

GIMP Features: http://www.gimp.org/features/

Overview of Changes from GIMP 2.6.1 to GIMP 2.6.2
=================================================

* Bugs fixed:

 557950 – Scaling in Gimp 2.6 is much slower than in Gimp 2.4
 558215 – unit and zoom entries in Statusbar not visible
 558451 – Cannot build GIMP using Sun CC on Solaris 2.8
 558420 – projection incorrect with alpha-less layers
 556603 – Zoom region always zooms in center of image
 557870 – "Qmask" message popping up here and there
 557705 – compatibility with GEGL > 0.0.20
 556248 – Scaling gives 'jagged' edges
 556804 – Zoom drop down doesn't update
 524615 – Print not to scale
 555246 – gimp crashes when a file is opened while a preview is generating
 556741 – Alpha layer automatically added (in psd format)
 556182 – Could you please explain a few strings [I18N]
 555697 – build fails if configured with --without-libjpeg
 134956 – Curves tool doesn't save free curves

* Updated translations:

 Czech (cs)
 Danish (da)
 Finnish (fi)
 French (fr)
 Japanese (ja)
 Polish (pl)
 Brazilian Portuguese (pt_BR)
 Swedish (sv)
 Simplified Chinese (zh_CN)

Overview of Changes from GIMP 2.6.0 to GIMP 2.6.1
=================================================

* Bugs fixed:

 555587 – PSD file crashes PSD plug-in
 555222 – PSD Load Plugin: unsupported compression mode
 555362 – gimp-remote is not working properly
 555280 – some gif files will not be open
 554890 – JPEG Save Options Dialog does not remember
 554966 – Gimp crashes creating a new image using a template
 554785 – Compile failure on uri-backend-libcurl
 554646 – Opening Help crashes GIMP with lqr-plugin installed
 553534 – centering issues after image scaling and setting zoom
 554898 – Compile failure on uri-backend-wget.c

* Updated translations:

 Belarusian (be)
 Catalan (ca)
 Finnish (fi)
 French (fr)
 Japanese (ja)
 Macedonian (mk)
 Punjab (pa)
 Brazilian Portuguese (pt_BR)
 Romanian (ro)
 Slovenian (sl)
 Swedish (sv)

Network Setting:

The little Icon that shows if we are connected to the router has had features added like VPN.

Graphics:

On the Lenovo ThinkStation Nvidia graphics driver (proprietary) is now fully operational and there is a control panel for that.

System > Administration > Nvidia X Server Setting.

Very nice, you can even monitor the temperature of the chip.

Blender:

The latest Blender version is also in Ibex!

Quit:

The Quit button is now integrated with logging in and out. To update to this change also required a reboot.

Printing Issues:

8.04 to 8.10:

Since this is a fairly minor update I would guess that the vast majority of the articles on this blog that were written for Hardy will work for Ibex.

Upgrade Notes:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes

Release Notes:

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/810

This HOW TO is for those who want to run the newest version of Blender In Ubuntu.

Your best bet is to simply Update Ubuntu to Ibex. If you can not do that for some reason here is a possible work around.

Builds:
amd64

i386

lpia

Or at least version 2.46 depending on when you read this…

Because the W Grant repos do not contain the 64 bit blender anymore we have added this new post.

This is an advanced technique for adding the latest Blender to Hardy Heron Ubuntu.

Essentially the technique uses the APT-GET command to add the Intrepid Ibex Blender Package to Hardy Heron.

NOTE: You would definitely want to use this trick at your own risk.

According to rickyrockrat: “You are mixing repositories, so you can get into dependency hell. I’ve not personally had it happen, but never want it to.

You’ll try to update one thing, and apt will grab the latest version, then it will start down the dependency tree. If you start to ‘fix’ this tree, you could wind up down a dark hole fast.

Bottom line is this is a major hack, and I’m lucky it worked in the first place! It’s kinda like using a screwdriver for a prybar. Does it work? Is it designed to be used that way? No. Don’t tempt Murpy!”

Temporarily add (to /etc/apt/sources.list):

System > Administration > Software Sources > Third Party Software

Copy this:

deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid universe

Click the Add button and paste then click the Add Source button.

Copy this:

deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid main

Click the Add button and paste then click the Add Source button.

Click the Close button.

Click the Reload button.

Note: Be sure to un-check these two lines when you are done.

Run apt-get update:

Open the terminal: Applications > Accessories > Terminal.

We had un-installed Blender so we ran this command in the Terminal:

sudo apt-get install blender

Follow the on screen instructions (we had to click “y” and then the “Enter” key).

If you did not remove Blender you might try this command:

sudo apt-get upgrade blender

If you have blender 2.45 installed:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install blender

Once the program is installed and you should un-check the two Intrepid Ibex entries.

If you do not, you could run into complications for your Ubuntu system.

System > Administration > Software Sources > Password > Third Party Software >

Un-check the two Intrepid Ibex entries…

Then in the Terminal:

sudo apt-get update.

-

VitalBodies would like to thank rickyrockrat for sharing this technique!

And Blender.org

SEE THE LATEST POSTS ABOUT BLENDER FOR AN UPDATE: CLICK > BLENDER

For our example we will use the 3D program Blender.

Open the Terminal:
Applications > Accessories > Terminal
Copy this code:
file /usr/bin/blender-bin
Paste: (Edit > Paste) the code into the Terminal.
Execute The Code: Press the Enter key on the keyboard.
You should see something like this:

/usr/bin/blender-bin: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, 

x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), 

for GNU/Linux 2.6.8, dynamically linked (uses shared libs), stripped

What about other programs?

file /usr/bin/ADD PROGRAM NAME HERE

Example: (inkscape)

file /usr/bin/inkscape

/usr/bin/inkscape: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, 

x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), 

for GNU/Linux 2.6.8, dynamically linked (uses shared libs), stripped

What if this does not work?

For example, blender does not work but blender-bin does work.

Navigate to the /usr/bin folder.

Places > Computer > File System > usr > bin

And see if you can figure out what the correct name of the program might be.

UPDATE:

Example: What about Firefox?

For Firefox you might only see an icon or what is called a symbolic link as the terminal will confirm.

file /usr/bin/firefox
/usr/bin/firefox: symbolic link to `firefox-3.0'

So if we try right clicking on the icon and we look at the properties we can see the target is../lib/firefox-3.0.6.

So if we try that in the terminal we will see that the file in question is a directory:

file /usr/lib/firefox-3.0.6
/usr/lib/firefox-3.0.6: directory

In the directory we can see that there is an icon for Firefox. So let’s try that in the terminal.

file /usr/lib/firefox-3.0.6/firefox
/usr/lib/firefox-3.0.6/firefox: ELF 64-bit LSB executable,
x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), for GNU/Linux 2.6.8,
dynamically linked (uses shared libs), stripped

And so we have our answer!

]]> http://www.vitalbodies.com/blog/2008/07/26/how-to-tell-if-an-application-is-64-bit-in-ubuntu-hardy-heron/feed/ 6 http://www.vitalbodies.com/blog/2008/07/25/how-to-install-blender-246-in-ubuntu-hardy-heron/ http://www.vitalbodies.com/blog/2008/07/25/how-to-install-blender-246-in-ubuntu-hardy-heron/#comments Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:42:19 +0000 vitalbodies http://vitalbodies.wordpress.com/?p=580 How To Install Blender 2.46 In Ubuntu Hardy Heron

UPDATE: THIS METHOD NO LONGER WORKS AS THE DEB IS NO LONGER IN W GRANTS REPOS…

SEE THE LATEST POSTS ABOUT BLENDER FOR AN UPDATE: CLICK > BLENDER

This HOW TO is for those who want to run the newest version of Blender In Ubuntu.

Builds:
amd64
i386
lpia

Or at least version 2.46 depending on when you read this…

System > Administration > Software Sources > Password > Third Party Software > Add >

Copy the command below and paste the command (Ctrl V) into the Add form.

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/wgrant/ubuntu hardy main

Click Add Source.

Click the Add button again.

Copy the command below and paste the command (Ctrl V) into the Add form.

deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/wgrant/ubuntu hardy main

Click Add Source.

Click Close > Reload

Next Applications > Add/Remove… >Show: Installed Applications > Search Blender >

(You may need to uninstall Blender and then reinstall)

Enable (install) Blender by putting a check in the Check Box and then click Apply Changes.

You may get a warning that the Software Can Not Be Authenticated.

If you wish to install click Apply.

-

VitalBodies would like to thank W Grant for making this possible!

https://launchpad.net/~wgrant/+archive

And Blender.org

VitalBodies is getting ready to expand our offerings in the Art realm to include 3D graphics. We will be using Open Source solutions that can work well with Blender. We have collected a nice list of open source rendering engines and wanted to share our list. Have you used any of these solutions? Your comments are welcome.

Open Source Rendering Engine Pixie:
http://www.renderpixie.com/
Renderman compliant Rendering Engine…

Pixie is an open source RenderMan renderer for generating photorealistic images. You can compile Pixie on Windows (using Visual Studio 2005), Linux and on OSX (using XCode or unix style configure script).

Pixie is an open source project licensed under GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).

Open Source Rendering Engine AQSIS: Open Source Renderman software that can render from RIB files
http://www.aqsis.org/
Aqsis is a high quality, photorealistic, 3D rendering solution.

Aqsis is a high quality, photorealistic, 3D rendering solution. It complies with the RenderMan® interface standard defined by Pixar.

The RenderMan® standard has been used in film and television visual effects since it’s introduction in 1989. Pixar has used their own implementation for all of their award winning CG features, and provided their implementation for use in the visual effects of most major blockbuster films over the last 2 decades. The Aqsis project offers a way for individuals and organistaions alike to gain experience with the RenderMan® interface without the cost of commercial software licenses.

Aqsis comprises a command line rendering tool, a tool for compiling shaders in the RSL language, a tool for preparing textures for optimal use, and various developer libraries to enable integration with third party tools.

Aqsis is licensed under the GPL license, with some parts under the LGPL.

Open Source Rendering Engine Yafray:
http://www.yafray.org/
Free Raytracing for the masses – Y A F R A Y . O R G

YafRay is a powerful raytracer, under the LGPL license. It enables you to create fantastic images and animations of a photorealistic quality.