For those who haven’t heard of it, Frostwire is the fork of the p2p client Limewire. As Limewire is open source, Frostwire took a complete copy of their code and created a version of the software which is easier to install in linux, and which comes with all the features of the paid version for free!
So check it out at Frostwire.com
Today I have done some more learning of python. Dive Into Python so far has been my favourite way to learn the language as the progression through topics seems fast, and the author assumes that the programmer is not an idiot while still offering useful tips!
However, I like an IDE to help me program to I started looking today at the Python options there are in linux. I didn’t feel like spending too much time looking, so I did a quick check through the software installer in Ubuntu. The installed and had a brief look at the following options:
What astounded me most was how simple to use all these IDEs were. Within seconds I could figure out how to use them, but I didn’t feel like doing an in-depth review of each.
Out of those listed, I chose to go with PyDev because Eclipse is cross-platform and looks good. It wasn’t so much that I liked it particularly much but I had some problems with the other choices. Eric is Qt based which looks horrible in Gnome on Ubuntu (other than that, the range of features is fantastic) . SPE was unfortunately not as stable as I would have liked (it is still quite young but promising looking) and Pida was great, albeit a little too simple and clean for my liking.
So once I settled on Eclipse I had to figure out how to get it working. In theory it should be as simple as installing the eclipse and pydev packages from the universe repository in Ubuntu, but little did I know post-install configuration was actully require, and something called Jython also needs to be installed.
Basically once you’ve installed those three packages you need to go to the preferences page in Eclipse, and under the PyDev options set paths to the Python and Jython interpretters. On my system the paths were /usr/bin/python and /usr/lib/eclipse/org.python.pydev.jython_1.2.0.jython.jar respectively.
After that the PyDev plugin should work fine. I’m not sure why this setup process isn’t automatic when the package is installed, but once you know the procedure it isn’t too hard!
HTTrack is a neat program for downloading web sites. I’ve found the best use of it is in downloading whole tutorials or blogs for offline reading. The program is absolutely simple to use, with a web based interface, and comes in a version for Ubuntu that can be installed via Synaptic, “webhttrack”.
