Letters - Issue 22

Every month we like to publish some of the emails we receive. If you would like to submit a letter for publication, compliment or complaint, please email it to: letters@fullcirclemagazine.org. PLEASE NOTE: some letters may be edited for space reasons.

In the last issue of Full Circle, Mr Alsemgeest writes, "The only way to upgrade to EXT4 without losing data is to copy all your data to another partition or hard drive first". This is incorrect. Quoting [1]:

To convert an existing ext3 filesystem to use ext4, use the command

tune2fs -O extents,uninit_bg,dir_index /dev/DEV

Further, the answer to the Java/C#/popular languages question doesn't mention that C# (and other .Net languages) are widely used in the free software community thanks to the efforts of the Mono project.

Toby Smithe

My husband and I were talking the other night, I have changed most of our six machines into Ubuntu and we now have two new grandchildren that are in Iowa, but we are in Pennsylvania. We need a way to keep in touch with our children, and grandchildren, and would prefer to do it via the Internet.

First we don't know what software we would need, we have powerful enough machines to run the software, camera and/or headsets, so that shouldn't be a problem. But then we need to know what hardware would work with the software (in Ubuntu) and of course which headset/phone we should look in to.

I was hoping maybe someone on your team, or a reader, would have useful information in this area that they could give to those of us who have family at long distances. Hopefully in the next few months, you might be able to find someone who could make this happen?

Marianne Popp

Ed: I've hardly touched VOIP (fancy abbreviation for telephone over Internet stuff), but Ekiga is installed by default on Ubuntu. For hardware, I'm really not sure. Readers, can you advise Marianne?

I am a serious newbie and have gained some user ability with Ubuntu. My quest of the week is to try to understand Sane which is driving me INsane. I find it user unfriendly. It is not intuitive at all, at least not for me. So I was pleased to read in your mag about gscan2pdf and went in search of this scanning elixir.

Can it be substituted for Sane and its incantations? I am a long term Windows user and am using an HP all-in-one wonder device. The Windows software is easily understood without a manual to refer to. I would like to see gscan2pdf in the same light. Is it possible? I really would like to migrate to Linux.

Phil McCristle

Ed: Xsane does seem somewhat daunting at first but all you need to do is click the 'Acquire' button (marked 1 on my diagram below) then 'Scan' (marked 2). Alter the number (marked 3) if you want to raise/lower the scanning detail (dpi). Normally 100 is enough, 300 is professional print quality.

RE: Q&A of Full Circle Issue 21. The question asked if there was a newsgroup for Ubuntu. Your answer said it had closed. This is not completely true. Check: alt.os.linux.ubuntu. Unfortunately Google Groups does not carry the newsgroup, but it is available through regular news servers.

Lawrence Lucier & Eldergod

I downloaded and read some of your magazines today after seeing a link in the Ubuntu forums. Good stuff, but I wanted to respond to the two letters I read from reader "Vincent" about everyone using the word "Linux" to describe the computer operating system vs "GNU/Linux" which "might be a more appropriate (albeit cumbersome) name".

I think that Linux has now come to be used as a generic term for Ubuntu, Red Hat, Suse, Slackware, et al the same as Unix has for all of its various incarnations. One has to admit that without Linus there would have been no Linux, just as without Stallman there would have been no GNU/Linux. The fact that Linus named his original software kernel 'Linux' is history. The fact that 'Linux' as a term has taken on a life of its own could not have been predicted.

GlenDobbs