FCM18EdLet

18期Fullcircle的Letters：

As an Ubuntu convert for a few years I've grown to like, and live, with the OS. As a non-techie it can take a long time to 'do something' or 'work around' something that is familiar in Windows, but this is just familiarisation, and learning, something I can accept.
What all this tinkering has taught me is that a computer is many things to many people. The opportunities are endless, even if they are still essentially quite dumb compared to nature. The skills I now have are ones which help me administer the home IT, but little else. For other things I spend time searching for, installing, evaluating, and removing, software that may, or may not, fit my requirements.
I would like to contribute, make my own distro, write a program that does something (even if it is small), but don't know how, and crucially, I don't have a lot of spare time to learn.
There may be an Ubuntu product that runs my desktop, but it doesn't run every piece of it because of a shortfall. Not in Ubuntu, but in my skills. The opportunity to get more people into developing applications is there, the platform doesn't have the draw. Linux does offer tremendous opportunity within the techie community but it falls short outside this arena. I dream of one day being able to develop some software by drawing down on pre-written modules of code to provide the base for a simple application. Just as I plug in a new piece of hardware to offer a new opportunity.
The opportunity to provide a platform for non techies to learn how to build software doesn't exist or it's not obvious to those outside that community. Not for Windows, Apple or Linux. So here is the challenge. Ubuntu you have hooked me as a user, and I'll be staying for the foreseeable future. Now give me the skills to turn me into a user who might one day make a useful contribution.

Alex

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In FCM#17 (page 36), someone appears to have problems trying to edit the tags of their MP3 files. You suggest to use another program to edit these files, but you don't give a clue of which one to use. I would like to suggest a program called easytag http://easytag.sourceforge.net/ (it's also in the Ubuntu repos).
Xi0N
I'm very disappointed to see the article "Programming in C" (FCM#17). Worse still, it's the first of a series of articles. If I want to learn C, there are dozens of books, websites, on-line tutorials etc. Why would I subscribe to a magazine that purports to be about Ubuntu to learn C? It makes no sense. As a new user of Ubuntu, I would much prefer to see articles about Ubuntu!
Articles on different applications running under Ubuntu would be interesting especially if they included details of installation, troubleshooting, as well as the application itself. I'd also like to see articles on things like the Ubuntu boot sequence: what is all that script I see when I fire up Ubuntu and how do I work with it. Troubleshooting is always good: my hardware/app does not work, what do I do next? User experience articles which you're doing are great. In other words, please include Ubuntu specific stuff and not general computing, or PC, articles.
Jim
Ed: I can see where you're coming from Jim, but how many books are out there about programming specifically in Ubuntu? And the more people we can get interested in C, the more potential developers the community could have. Also, we can only print what people send us. We're a community magazine, see the first News page for more information on writing for Full Circle. The programming in C series is here to completion.
I was wondering if there is really a terminal or bash shell designed to look like a chalkboard. If there is it would look really neat included with edubuntu. If not you should tell us how you made the cover (FCM#17), or better yet create a bash shell terminal like that.
Andrew Barney
Ed: The FCM#17 cover was created in GIMP. I used a font that looked somewhat like handwriting then applied some noise to it to simulate the chalk on board. I'm sure it would be easy enough for someone to create a noisy font for use in a bash shell.

Since 9 months ago, when I decided to try Linux for no defensible reason, I've been impressed with the open-source community. One of the taglines I've come to appreciate most is the distinction between FOSS and programs-you-can-get-for-free: Is it free, as in beer, or Free, as in Speech?
They're both good, and I'll take as much beer as I can get, but the concepts and ideals behind Freedom of Speech/Software are so powerful that I denote them with capital letters. Ubuntu gave me proper adjectives, something I never could have imagined or considered before.
Is there such a thing as a "proper adjective"? Well, maybe not on Windows or Mac.
D'Artagnon
Ed: You make a good point, and thanks for the Budweiser inspired cartoon (below).

18期的Editrial：

Welcome to another issue of Full Circle Magazine.
October marks the birth of two very important events in the Linux world. It was in October, seventeen years ago, that Linus Torvalds announced he was working on a UNIX-like kernel. And, by the time you read this, Ubuntu 8.10 (and its derivatives) will be upon us.
Also, this month, Full Circle received several books for review from No Starch Press, Pragmatic Programmers and Apress, so, from next month, we will be reviewing one, or two, books each month - with the possibility for you, the readers, to win some of the books under review. We would like to extend our thanks to No Starch, Pragmatic Programmers and Apress, for supporting Full Circle. Expect to see ads in Full Circle for these publishers. It's only fair that we support them in return.
We're always looking for articles to publish in Full Circle. If you're interested in writing something for us, please send your articles as text, or OpenOffice documents, with screens/photos (please don't embed them in the ODT file!) to [email protected]. You don't need to be an expert to write an article - you just need to know a bit about your subject. I'm no GIMP, nor Scribus, expert but I've written about the bits I use and know about. Give it a try!
All the best,
Ronnie
Editor, Full Circle Magazine
[email protected]