Only Ubuntu Linux

get-flash-videos - A command line program to download flash videos

2010-04-06T14:16:00.000+01:00

Download videos from various Flash-based video hosting sites, without having to use the Flash player. Handy for saving videos for watching offline, and means you don’t have to keep upgrading Flash for sites that insist on a newer version of the player.

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Histwi — Powerful twitter tools

2010-03-29T19:43:00.000+01:00

Histwi is linux desktop program for Twitter account management.

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X2go - Open source terminal server project (alternative to FreeNX)

2010-03-15T15:20:00.000Z

x2go is an open source terminal server project offering a comprehensive “server based computing” solution.Combining the advantages of existing systems it features ease of use, performance and scalability. x2go provides you with access to your desktop as an individual as well as a corporate user - from within your own network and via the internet. x2go is not limited to any particular hardware, it supports a variety of devices and architectures. x2go is open source and open minded. The project also offers you a command line client for you to implement your own client applications and ideas. Like any open source project we welcome your support.

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How to install FreeNX server and client in Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic)

2010-03-12T15:00:00.000Z

FreeNX is a system that allows you to access your desktop from another machine over the Internet. You can use his to login graphically to your desktop from a remote location. One example of its use would be to have a FreeNX server set up on your home computer, and graphically logging in to the home computer from your work computer, using a FreeNX client.

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Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid) Alpha 3 Screenshots Gallery (Updated with new wallpaper,theme)

2010-03-08T08:47:00.001Z

The Ubuntu developers are moving quickly to bring you the absolute latest and greatest software the Open Source community has to offer. The Lucid Lynx Alpha 3 is the third alpha release of Ubuntu 10.04, bringing with it the earliest new features for the next version of Ubuntu.

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FBReader - e-book reader for Linux desktops

2010-03-08T08:46:00.002Z

FBReader is an e-book reader. It currently works on the Sharp Zaurus, Siemens Simpad with Opensimpad ROM, Nokia Internet Tablet (Maemo platform), Archos PMA430, Motorola E680i/A780/A1200 smartphones, PepperPad 3, Asus Eee PC,IRex iLiad, UMPC, and desktop computers running Linux, Windows XP/Vista, or FreeBSD. It supports several e-book
formats: epub, plucker, palmdoc, zTXT, HTML, CHM, fb2, TCR (psion text),OEB,OpenReader, RTF, non-DRM'ed Mobipocket, and plain text.

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TestDrive - Test Drive an Ubuntu ISO in a Virtual Machine

2010-02-19T11:35:00.000Z

TestDrive is a project that makes it very easy to download and run the latest daily Ubuntu development snapshot in a virtual machine. Actually, it can be configured to download and run any URL-access ISO in a virtual machine.

But the primary goal is to provide a very simple method for allowing non-technical Ubuntu users to test and provide feedback on the current Ubuntu release under development.
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Create Custom Ubuntu Live-CD With Remastersys in Karmic

2010-01-20T11:34:00.000Z

Remastersys is a tool that can be used to do 2 things with an existing Klikit or Ubuntu or derivative installation.It can make a full system backup including personal data to a live cd or dvd that you can use anywhere and install. It can make a distributable copy you can share with friends. This will not have any of your personal user data in it.

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Ubuntu Geek Forum Section Live Now

2010-01-03T21:42:00.002Z

Ubuntu Geek Forum Section Live Now please register to post your ubuntu related questions

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/forum

How to install qBittorrent v2 in Ubuntu 9.10(Karmic)/9.04(Jaunty)

2009-12-29T13:15:00.000Z

The qBittorrent project was started in March 2006 to create a lightweight but featureful BitTorrent client that would be multi-platform and very easy to use.qBittorrent v2 is the closest open source (GNU GPL v2 license) equivalent to µtorrent. qBittorrent is based on Qt4 toolkit and libtorrent-rasterbar.

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Bash script to generate gnome wallpaper stack xml

2009-12-28T15:55:00.002Z

This quick script that generates an xml which can be consumed by the backgrounds config. This script was created by ozhoo in ubuntuforums http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1344787.

First you need to open wallpaper.sh file

gksudo gedit /usr/bin/wallpaper.sh

Copy and paste the following script

#!/bin/bash
#
# usage:./wallpaper.sh background_dir_1 background_dir_2 background_dir_3
#
# description: simply generate a backgrounds xml that can be consumed by gnome's background configuration
#
# author: ubuntuforums.org username 'ozhoo'
#
# note: only looks for .JPG and .jpg files

# output file
FILENAME=backgrounds.xml

# start time
YEAR=2009
MONTH=08
DAY=01
HOUR=00
MINUTE=00
SECOND=00

# time to show background (seconds)
WALLDURATION=900.0

# transition time (seconds)
TRANSDURATION=5.0

# script specifics
DIRS=$*
T1="echo -e \t"
T2="echo -e \t\t"

echo "" > "$FILENAME"
${T1}"" >> "$FILENAME"
${T2}"${YEAR}" >> "$FILENAME"
${T2}"${MONTH}" >> "$FILENAME"
${T2}"${DAY}" >> "$FILENAME"
${T2}"${HOUR}" >> "$FILENAME"
${T2}"${MINUTE}" >> "$FILENAME"
${T2}"${SECOND}" >> "$FILENAME"
${T1}"" >> "$FILENAME"

get_first()
{
for d in $DIRS; do
find "$d"|grep -i .jpg|while read j; do
echo "$j"
break
done
break
done
}

FIRST="$(get_first)"

${T1}"" >> "$FILENAME"
${T2}"${WALLDURATION}" >> "$FILENAME"
${T2}"${FIRST}" >> "$FILENAME"
${T1}"" >> "$FILENAME"
${T1}"" >> "$FILENAME"
${T2}"${TRANSDURATION}" >> "$FILENAME"
${T2}"${FIRST}" >> "$FILENAME"

for d in $DIRS; do
find "$d"|grep -i .jpg|while read j; do
if [ "$j" == "$FIRST" ]; then
continue
else
${T2}"${j}" >> "$FILENAME"
${T1}"" >> "$FILENAME"
${T1}"" >> "$FILENAME"
${T2}"${WALLDURATION}" >> "$FILENAME"
${T2}"${j}" >> "$FILENAME"
${T1}"" >> "$FILENAME"
${T1}"" >> "$FILENAME"
${T2}"${TRANSDURATION}" >> "$FILENAME"
${T2}"${j}" >> "$FILENAME"
fi
done
done

${T2}"${FIRST}" >> "$FILENAME"
${T1}"" >> "$FILENAME"
echo "" >> "$FILENAME"

Save and exit the file.

Now you need to give excute permissions for your script

chmod +x wallpaper.sh

Using this script

/usr/bin/wallpaper.sh background_dir_1 background_dir_2 background_dir_3

Note:- This script only looks for .JPG and .jpg files

How to install digiKam 1.0 in ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic)

2009-12-28T09:19:00.002Z

DigiKam is an advanced digital photo management application for Linux, Windows, and Mac-OSX.The people who inspired digiKam's design are the photographers like you who want to view, manage, edit, enhance, organize, tag, and share photographs under Linux systems.

You can check digikam new feaures from here

Open terminal and run the following commands

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:philip5/extra

Update the source list

sudo apt-get update

Install digikam 1.0

sudo apt-get install digikam

Screenshot

Step By Step Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic) LAMP Server Setup

2009-12-28T09:03:00.000Z

In around 15 minutes, the time it takes to install Ubuntu Server Edition, you can have a LAMP (Linux, Apache,MySQL and PHP) server up and ready to go. This feature, exclusive to Ubuntu Server Edition, is available at the time of installation.

The LAMP option means you don’t have to install and integrate each of the four separate LAMP components, a process which can take hours and requires someone who is skilled in the installation and configuration of the individual applications. Instead, you get increased security, reduced time-to-install, and reduced risk of misconfiguration, all of which results in a lower cost of ownership.New pre-configured installation options have been added to the Ubuntu Server Cloud computing server,cloud computing node and PostgreSQL Database options join existing Mail Server, Open SSH Server,Samba File Server, Print Server, Tomcat Java Server,Virtual Machine Host,Manual Package selection,LAMP and DNS options for pre-configured installations, easing the deployment of common server configurations.

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GDM2 GUI Configuration Tool

2009-12-28T08:58:00.001Z

This is new GDM2 configuration gui tools you can use this tool to change GDM images,icons, GTK theme,enable/disable login sound and hide users list from login screen.This tool is useful for ubuntu 9.10 users.

1.) Download the Code from here

2.) Copy it into /home/

3.) Open a console and make the file executable:

chmod a+x gdm-setup.py

4.) Start Script with

gksu gdm-setup.py

Screenshot

Enable/Disable write support for windows NTFS partition with simple click

2009-12-06T08:47:00.000Z

If you are using Windows and ubuntu as dual boot and if you want to access your windows partition you need to follow this procedure.This tutorial will explain how to access your windows partition in simple way.ntfs-config program allow you to easily configure all of your NTFS devices to allow write support via a friendly gui. For that
use, it will configure them to use the open source ntfs-3g driver. You’ll also be able to easily disable this feature.

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Howto setup Wireless on Chrome OS

2009-12-01T16:12:00.000Z

Chrome has recently been open sourced by Google as a developer preview. Its very young, clearly has some issues and needs serious work, however it is usable and lots of people have managed to get it running in a virtual machine or via a USB key.

Chrome OS is clearly based on Ubuntu(if you press Ctrl+Alt+T to open the terminal, you can see the Ubuntu Karmic development branch message) meaning hardware support should be excellent. However, its been heavily stripped down For most people, Wifi doesn’t work. Without Wifi, Chrome OS is pretty useless as it relies heavily on “the cloud”
for most of its features.

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How to get Hard disk,CPU infomation and temperature in Ubuntu

2009-11-08T22:00:00.001Z

First,open up terminal from Applications/Accessories/Terminal,and run:

sudo hdparm /dev/sdc

Output:

/dev/sdc:
multcount = 16 (on)
IO_support = 0 (default)
readonly = 0 (off)
readahead = 256 (on)
geometry = 19457/255/63, sectors = 312581808, start = 0

CPU info.

cat /proc/cpuinfo

Output example:

processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 15
model : 95
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+
stepping : 2
cpu MHz : 1799.564
cache size : 512 KB
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow up rep_good extd_apicid pni cx16 lahf_lm svm extapic cr8_legacy
bogomips : 3599.12
TLB size : 1024 4K pages
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp tm stc

CPU Temperature

Option 1:

cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature

This requires kernel modules support,and enable this in kernel option.

Option 2:

Install lm-sensors:

sudo apt-get install lm-sensors

Then run:

sensors-detect

there will be some questions and you can answer them all YES.
Now,use this command and you will get cpu temperature:

sensors

k8temp-pci-00c3
Adapter: PCI adapter
Core0 Temp: +44.0°C
Core1 Temp: +34.0°C

Upgrade Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) to Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) Beta

2009-10-12T11:30:00.000+01:00

The Ubuntu developers are moving quickly to bring you the latest and greatest software the Open Source Community has to offer. This is the Ubuntu 9.10 beta release, which brings a host of exciting new features.

Note: This is a beta release. Do not install it on production machines. The final stable version will be released on October 29th, 2009.

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Howto install Nvidia 185.18.36 drivers in Ubuntu (64 bit)

2009-08-27T16:47:00.000+01:00

This tutorial will explain howto install Nvidia 185.18.36 drivers in Ubuntu (64 bit) and enable visual effects.

First you need to download Nvidia drivers from here

1) Right-Click on the file: "Nvidia 185.18.36 Linux x64.run" and Click on "Properties"

2) Write down the text to the right of "Location:"

3) Close the "Properties" Window, and any other open Windows

4) Press "CTRL + ALT + F1"

5) Type: sudo bash

6) Press "Enter"

If prompted, type your password, and then press "Enter"

7) Type: sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop

8) Press "Enter"

9) Type the text you wrote down from Step 2

10) Now immediately after what you typed in Step 8, Type: Nvidia 185.18.36 Linux x64.run

11) Press Enter

12) Follow the prompted instructions until the installation is complete

13) Once the installation has completed, press "CTRL + ALT + F1"

14) Restart your computer

Display Driver Installation Completed

Follow this procedure to Enabling Visual Effects

1) From the "Desktop Panel" Click on System

2) Click on "Preferences"

3) Click on "Appearance"

4) From the "Appearance Preferences" Window, Click on the "Visual Effects" Tab

5) Click on one of the "Visual Effect" options from the list

6) Click on the "Close"

Enabling Visual Effects Completed

Howto Enable kate editor code folding

2009-08-17T14:48:00.000+01:00

Kate is a text editor for KDE. The name Kate is an acronym for KDE Advanced Text Editor.Kate has been part of the KDE since release 2.2 in 2001.Because of the KParts technology, it is possible to embed Kate as an editing component in other KDE applications. The integrated development environment KDevelop, the web development environment Quanta Plus, and the LaTeX front-end Kile are three of the major KDE applications making use of Kate as an editing component.

Kate is so far the best IMHO. Most essential features that a modern editor should provide such as session management, syntax highlighting, word completion, indentation, and scripting/plug-in system are all decent here except for code folding.

The XMLs are located at /usr/share/apps/katepart/syntax/

Find your targeted language style XML, and find at the end of the file the element general,
add a child element to it:

That's it.

Howto install and Enable Broadcom Wireless in Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty)

2009-07-26T21:58:00.000+01:00

This tutorial will explain Howto install and Enable Broadcom Wireless in Ubuntu 9.04

Procedure to follow

1. Connect your computer to the intenet using the wired LAN connection. I.E. Plug in you network cable to the computer in question to connect to the intenet.

2. Go to System > Administration > Hardware Drivers. Enter your password.

3. If you see “Broadcom…. wireless driver”, select it and click activate near the bottom of the window. It should be right above the close button. It should activate the driver, and the circle next to the “Broadcom… wireless driver” should be green.

4. Disconnect the wire connect from your computer.

5. Right click on the wireless strength bars at the top left of your screen. If you see a wireless network click on that, enter the passkey if necessary, and that is it.

BUT, if you don’t see a wireless network available and you know that there is one, we have a few more steps to take.

The Hard Way (use this if the above procedure didn't work for you):

1. Do the steps in the Restricted Driver How To and The Easy Way.

2. We need to install B43-fwcutter. To do this we go to System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager. Enter your password.

3. Go to Edit > Search, and search for fwcutter. You should see b43-fwcutter in the Package window.

4. Left click the box right before the name. If it is grey, click mark for installation. If it is green with a star, click mark for upgrade. If it is green, do not click anything.

5. Click Apply at the top of the window if you clicked mark for installation/upgrade. Then follow the prompts to install/upgrade. Close out of the Synaptic Package Manager.

6. Go back to System > Administration > Hardware Drivers. Enter your password if prompted. You should now see the “Broadcom… wireless driver”. Activate it.

7. Right click the wireless signal strength icon to see if you see a wireless network. If you do, congratulations you are finished. If not, lets move on to the terminal.

8. Open the terminal by going Applications > Accessories > Terminal.

9. Type in: sudo modprobe -r b43 b44 ssb wl ,and hit enter.

10. Type in: sudo modprobe ieee80211_crypt_tkip ,and hit enter.

11. Type in: sudo modprobe wl ,and hit enter.

12. Type in: sudo modprobe b44 ,and hit enter.

13. Type in: sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart, and hit enter.

14. Now right click the wireless signal strength icon and you should see a wireless network at this point. Click on the network shown and connect.

This fix goes away when you restart because the wireless card deactivates itself. You do not need to re-install the driver again, but you do need to at some code to rc.local file so that it reactivates on start up.

Code to Add to rc.local file:

1. Go to terminal if you don’t still have it up and running from activating your wireless card.

2. Type in: gksudo gedit/etc/rc.local or sudo gedit/etc/rc.local

3. That should open up a text editor with the file rc.local opened. You should see some blue text with #’s in front of it and an exit 0. You are going to add the following code to the file right before the “exit 0″ at the end.

#Activate Broadcom Wireless Card

modprobe -r b43 b44 ssb wl
modprobe ieee80211_crypt_tkip
modprobe wl
modprobe b44
/etc/init.d/networking restart

This file runs at start-up and will run the commands for you right after Ubuntu has finished loading.

4. Click save and exit out of the program.

5. Type exit in the terminal and hit enter. This will exit out of the terminal.

Notes:

Sometimes it takes a few seconds to a minute for the rc.local file to run the commands, be patient.

If the Network Manager asks you for a passphrase after you entered the network’s passkey, make it easy on yourself, put the same password for that as your user login.

Automatic Startup of uShare on Jaunty Jackalope (9.04)

2009-05-29T08:17:00.000+01:00

Issue: Because I am running wireless the ushare would always fail to load because it was loading to quickly before the wireless had a chance to reconnect with the router.

Solution

Created a simple script with the following lines:

sleep 10
ushare -x -c /sharepath

This makes it so that it waits 10 seconds before running the command. Then make the script executable.

sudo chmod -x scriptname

Add the script to the Startup Applications list:

System >> Preferences >> Startup Applications

create a new entry and point the command to the script you created.

Now reboot and test if it works, if it doesnt you may need to add more time to the sleep command in the script.

How To make ATI Catalyst work with Compiz - Xorg Server

2009-05-29T08:06:00.002+01:00

First you need to add a new source to your repo's

>open the "Software Sources" GUI

System/Administration/Software Sources

>Then select the tab "Third-Party Software

>Then Add... these two APT lines by clicking on the "Add..." button and cut/past them in. Add them "ONE at a Time"

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-x-swat/xserver-no-backfill/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-x-swat/xserver-no-backfill/ubuntu jaunty main

>Now you just need to enter it's GPG Key

>Fist follow this link

http://keyserver.ubuntu.com:11371/pks/lookup?search=0x643DC6BD56580CEB1AB4A9F63B22AB97AF1CDFA9&op=index

>That "Should" open a new tab, On that tab you will see

pub 1024R/AF1CDFA9 2009-01-20 Launchpad PPA for Ubuntu-X

>Click the "AF1CDFA9" or whatever that # is at the time.

>Then it should take you to a page with the GPG/PGP key and looks like this

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: SKS 1.0.10

mI0ESXVCiwEEANKBDbiSLOJOouub/S97iDifYCVW1b0KONg7XkFYiFos+bMBzzZyGGo90k1h
hCxcseLvqCKPL7dG0RzPRKMo7mvM68yyqi2ljw0ZYC9cVf0YzgKRTohVhihelpwZ+sBRGNYk
OCu+u0Dr+EdVI3u5RNOxAELrbd4vYaS+2cCOfzmLABEBAAG0GkxhdW5jaHBhZCBQUEEgZm9y
IFVidW50dS1YiLYEEwECACAFAkl1QosCGwMGCwkIBwMCBBUCCAMEFgIDAQIeAQIXgAAKCRA7
IquXrxzfqY4HBACIQEFhl59ZkuIhTD3pmCQgfkhpcg0RVdB6Xwhu3QDJvmlWmrs+cofNMzyA
7SwdjD9ARvhGbqHwub+T7oGiHlmFyodGypUZ4i/fdHsZYpsf34MwgYxhyNyOPY/jNImUE/yw
kSI+kV5esWURH4j0jYfkaergFqCpDnsSkxuIvdjH2Q==
=bkAa
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

>Now open up gedit or any text editor you like and Cut+Past in the whole key. Then save the file with any name, like NewRepoKey_1

>Back in the "Software Sources" GUI click on the "Authentication" Tab

>Then click on the "Import Key File..." button and navigate to the key you saved and click OK.

>Now click "close"

>Now take a brake and have a smoke.

>Now you can upgrade you system through any of the multitudes of GUI's Ubuntu preinstalls

Or just

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

How to fix Desktop Effects aren't enable for intel integrated graphic in Jaunty

2009-05-29T08:02:00.001+01:00

First, download Forlong's compiz-check

You can use this command to download it to your home directory:

wget http://blogage.de/files/9124/download -O compiz-check

Afterwards, you have to make it executable:

chmod +x compiz-check

And finally run it like this:

./compiz-check

If they output shows that Your intel graphic card is in the blacklist, this is the perfect solution for you.

Edit the compiz script file

sudo gedit /usr/bin/compiz

Then go down and look for blacklist, then add the # to take your intel graphic out of the blacklist.

Then the script should look like this

# blacklist based on the pci ids
# See http://wiki.compiz-fusion.org/Hardware/Blacklist for details
#T=" 1002:5954 1002:5854 1002:5955" # ati rs480
#T="$T 1002:4153" # ATI Rv350
#T="$T 8086:2982 8086:2992 8086:29a2 8086:2a02 8086:2a12" # intel 965
#T="$T 8086:2a02 " # Intel GM965
#T="$T 8086:3577 8086:2562 " # Intel 830MG, 845G (LP: #259385)
BLACKLIST_PCIIDS="$T"
unset T

Save, then restart

After reboot, go to System > Preferences > Appearance >Visual Effects
then tick on the middle or the last option.

Now your compiz should work back as normal.

How To: Add the Computer, Trash, and Home icons to the Desktop

2009-05-24T22:48:00.000+01:00

This how-to will explain exactly how to add these icons to your desktop, in a completely graphical way.

1. You're going to follow this path in the Ubuntu panel:
Applications --> System Tools --> Configuration Editor.

2. If the above path existed, skip this step.

Sometimes System Tools isn't in the menu by default. It's simple to change by simply hovering your mouse over the taskbar, and Right-click --> Edit Menus. However, it is much easier to press
ALT + F2, and in the dialog box, copy/pasting

gconf-editor

3. On the left side of the configuration editor, follow this path:
Apps --> Nautilus --> Desktop.

4. Now, on the right side, select the checkboxes for "computer_icon_visible", "home_icon_visible", "trash_icon_visible", and whatever else applies to your wants/needs.

Howto enable ATI unsupported cards in Jaunty with full effets

2009-05-20T22:21:00.001+01:00

The latest open source git drivers seem to have a lot of this fixed. While I'm sure you can wait until the next release when we get newer drivers, here is how to do this in Jaunty and get your system fixed now. Worst case scenario of doing this is that on your particular card all the cleanup hasn't been done yet, but on my x1200 this worked wonderfully.

Open up a terminal and run the following commands

sudo apt-get install build-essential autoconf automake libtool pkg-config git-core

sudo apt-get install libdrm-dev x11proto-gl-dev mesa-common-dev xutils-dev x11proto-xf86dri-dev x11proto-fonts-dev x11proto-randr-dev x11proto-video-dev x11proto-xext-dev x11proto-xinerama-dev x11proto-render-dev xserver-xorg-dev

git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-ati

cd xf86-video-ati

sudo ./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr --enable-dri

sudo make

sudo make install

Now restart your machine and you're using the new drivers. Try bumping up your visual effects to max and see what happens. If you're lucky like me, everything will work flawlessly. If not, then you may want to wait a couple weeks and try it again, but you're no worse off then you were before.

Ubuntu Cooling Tip

2009-05-20T22:19:00.000+01:00

If you happen to have a clear fan with a blue led light, here is a helpful tip. Dust particles can build up on the intake of these fans and you will never be able to see it. I only discovered it because rising heat issues caused me to remove the side panel in order to use an exterior fan.

For whatever reason I happen to hold the the panel up in the air at a certain angle to the light and saw dust build up which looked in appearance to be similar to dryer lint which is removed from a clothes dryer. A few shots of compressed air to the inside of the fan to blow the buildup away from the intake does the trick. My 120mm fan is now happy again.

These are my after temps:
temp1: +29.0°C (low = +127.0°C, high = +127.0°C) sensor = thermistor
temp2: +16.0°C (low = +127.0°C, high = +127.0°C) sensor = thermal diode
temp3: -2.0°C (low = +127.0°C, high = +127.0°C) sensor = thermistor
cpu0_vid: +2.050 V

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 0: +34.0°C (high = +78.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

coretemp-isa-0001
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 1: +34.0°C (high = +78.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

Prior to cleaning my temps were 8-10 degrees higher across the board.

How to Make your windows show up on the bottom in Ubuntu

2009-04-13T12:39:00.002+01:00

Sometimes you will accidently add an applet to the bottom where your windows you go to when you minimize, or you may accidentlly delete the applet that displays the windows. This can be a major problem because, other than being extremely annoying it will cause you to not be able to maximize a window and have to reopen the application everytime you minimize it. Even worse it can casue you to lose your work if you are working in a program such as Open Office or GIMP.

First open up a terminal window: Applications > Accessories > Terminal

Enter the following command

killall gnome-panel

If there was an applet blocking your windows list that should have resolved the problem. If not read on.

Now Right click on the bottom panel and click "Add to Panel"

Scroll down to the bottom and click "Window List" then click add and click close.

Your windows should appear now.

How to Install Microsoft Office 2007 on Ubuntu Intrepid

2009-04-12T17:49:00.000+01:00

This tutorial will explain How to Install Microsoft Office 2007 on Ubuntu Intrepid

Install Wine 1.16 from the old .deb archive

Open terminal and type the following command

winecfg

in a terminal and make sure the Windows version is set to XP

Run your Office setup in wine.

Using the command line, cd to the directory where your Office setup files are and run:

wine setup.exe

Using the GUI: Navigate to your Office setup files, right click on the setup.exe file and choose open with "wine windows program loader."

Click customize in the setup window and disable any features you do not want, and change any settings (name, organization, etc.), then click install.

Once the installation is complete close the window, and navigate to /home/username/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Microsoft\ Office/Office12 and run any office programs to test (WINWORD.EXE, EXCEL.EXE, POWERPNT.EXE, MSPUB.EXE, etc.).

Re-enable the wine repository (steps to install repository here: http://www.winehq.org/download/deb), and update wine to the latest version.

Now just create links to these executables for easy access. Type this in the command box when making links to wine programs

wine "/pathtoexecutable/"

(replace "pathtoexecutable" with a valid file path).

How to Install Hercules Classic Silver Webcam in Ubuntu 8.10

2009-04-07T13:56:00.000+01:00

This tutorial will explain you how to Install Hercules Classic Silver Webcam in Ubuntu.This how-to assumes that you have not previously tried to load the gspca from source. If you have, you will need to clean up all the drivers that were installed previously.

For starters, you will know you have this webcam if, when you run the command:

$lsusb | grep 06f8:3004

You get:

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 06f8:3004 Guillemot Corp.

Since we will be build from source, we need to make sure we have all the tools:

$ sudo aptitude install build-essential

First we need to have a place to download and keep the source code. In this case we create a directory /opt/src for this, but you can just as easily use another location

$ sudo mkdir /opt/src

$ sudo chmod 777 /opt/src

$ cd /opt/src

The gspca source lives in the v4l-dvb project. This project uses Mercurial to allow for easy updating of source. So let's install Mercurial

$ sudo aptitude install mercurial

Using mercurial, download the most recent version of v4l-dvb:

$ hg clone http://linuxtv.org/hg/v4l-dvb

This will actively pull all the most recent source code for this project into a newly created directory called v4l-dvb. If you ever need to update the source just go to that directory and type

$ hg pull -u http://linuxtv.org/hg/v4l-dvb

Before we compile, we need to clean up any gspca stuff already on the system from the original install of 8.10. The drivers live in the specific folders for your kernel under /lib/modules. You can identify your kernel by

$ uname -r

and locate the /kernel/drivers/media/video/gspca folder. Or, you can use the below command to quickly remove them

$ sudo rm -r /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/media/video/gspca

There are some modules we need to make sure are not loaded as well before compiling

$ sudo rmmod videodev

Check to see if any gspca modules are currently loaded

$ lsmod | grep gspca

If any are found, remove them by name:

$ sudo rmmod (name of mod here)

Now we are ready to compile. Go into the v4l-dvb directory

$ cd v4l-dvb

And compile:

$ make

This will take about 10 mins or so and will compile all the v4l drivers including TV capture card drivers and other stuff. I'm sure there's a way to only compile what we need, but I'm not smart enough to figure it out.

Once it's done compiling, install it with

$ sudo make install

Restart your system using the following command

$ sudo reboot

Once it reboots, your camera should be recognized. Run:

$ dmesg

and look for something like:

gspca: main v2.4.0 registered
gspca: probing 06f8:3004
sonixj: Sonix chip id: 11
spca: probe ok
gspca: probing 06f8:3004
gspca: probing 06f8:3004
usbcore: registered new interface driver sonixj
sonixj: registered

If you tried to use Skype, You may got very colorful static instead of a picture of Yours Truly. Starting Skype with:

$ LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype

fixed it.

A way to start Skype from the menu instead of command line using the following procedure

$ sudo gedit /usr/local/bin/skype

and paste the following two lines into the new file

#!/bin/bash
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so /usr/bin/skype

save, then make it executable

$ sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/skype

That's it!

Autodetecting and configuring multiple monitors in Ubuntu

2009-04-05T14:23:00.002+01:00

A common problem for laptop users is that they use various display configurations. When traveling they use only the internal LCD panel, but in the office they use internal LCD panel + external display. It is pain to configure external display manually each time you plug it in.

This how to will give you instructions to create a shell script which will configure displays and Gnome panels according to the plugged in displays.

Install magnificent disper tool

Edit your sources.list file

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

add the following lines

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/wvengen/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/wvengen/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main

Save and exit the file

Update the source list using the following command

sudo apt-get update

Install disper tool using the following command

sudo apt-get install disper

Note:- Currently disper supports nVidia only, but the author claims ATI support is possible to add by contributions.

Run the following command to autodetect displays and set the extended desktop

disper --displays=auto -e

Dispering displays is not enough. You probably want to move Gnome panels to your primary (external) display when it is plugged in.

Gnome architects have been clever. Gnome panel stores its settings in gconf registry. gconf registry is not just dummy storage backend; changing these values immediately reflect changes in applications using the registry. One of these applications is gnome-panel. This means that we can move the panels by editing its registry setting related to the monitor configuration.

Using gconf-editor command the critical settings can be found under:

/apps/panel/toplevels/bottom_panel_screen0/monitor
/apps/panel/toplevels/top_panel_screen0/monitor

Value = 0 -> panels on internal LCD
Value = 1 -> panels on External display

Let's make a little command line script which will

a) Detect and configure monitors

b) Move gnome-panels according to the connected display count

Open monitor.sh file

sudo gedit monitor.sh

add the following lines save and exit

#!/bin/sh
#
# Detect displays and move panels to the primary display
#

# disper command will detect and configure monitors
disper --displays=auto -e

# parse output from disper tool how many displays we have attached
# disper prints 2 lines per displer
lines=`disper -l|wc -l`

display_count=$((lines / 2))

echo $display_count

echo "Detected display count:" $display_count

# Make sure that we move panels to the correct display based
# on the display count
if [ $display_count = 1 ] ; then
echo "Moving panels to the internal LCD display"
gconftool-2 \
--set "/apps/panel/toplevels/bottom_panel_screen0/monitor" \
--type integer "0"
gconftool-2 \
--set "/apps/panel/toplevels/top_panel_screen0/monitor" \
--type integer "0"
else
echo "Moving panels to the external display"
gconftool-2 \
--set "/apps/panel/toplevels/bottom_panel_screen0/monitor" \
--type integer "1"
gconftool-2 \
--set "/apps/panel/toplevels/top_panel_screen0/monitor" \
--type integer "1"
fi

Add monitor.sh to your Startup Programs in System > Services menu, so it will be run each time you login to Gnome.

How to Repair a corrupted filesystem in Ubuntu

2009-03-25T07:20:00.002Z

You can repair a corrupted filesystem with the program "fsck".The system utility fsck (for "file system check" or "file system consistency check") is a tool for checking the consistency of a file system in Unix and Unix-like operating systems such as Linux.

Note:-File systems must be unmounted, you cannot repair them while they are running.So fsck must ALWAYS be run on an UNmounted filesystem.Running fsck on a mounted filesystem can do SEVERE damage.

A quick fsck options overview:

Many options for fsck exist, but the most important are:
-f which performs a FAST check
-p which fixes minor problems without user interaction
-y which gives permission to correct every problem found
-n which indicates to only search (and not correct) problems

The most simple variant to run fsck is to force fsck on restart, and then restart your system:

sudo touch /forcefsck

The other option is to swich the system to runlevel 1 (logs-out any userRunning fsck on a mounted filesystem can do SEVERE damage), unmount all partitions. run fsck & repair, remount all drives, increase the runlevel to 3 and continue.

1) Take system down to runlevel one (make sure you run all command as root user):
# init 1

2)Unmount file system, for example if it is /home (/dev/sda3) file system then type command:

# umount /home

OR

# umount /dev/sda3

3) Now run fsck on the partition:

# fsck /dev/sda3

However be sure to specify the file system type using -t option. Recenly one of our sys admin run the command on ext3 file system w/o specifying file system. Result was more corruption as fsck by default assumes ext2 file system.

# fsck -t ext3 /dev/sda3

OR

# fsck.ext3 /dev/sda3

Tip if you don't know your file system type then typing mount command will display file system type.

fsck will check the file system and ask which problems should be fixed or corrected. If you don't wanna type y every time then you can use pass -y option to fsck.

# fsck -y /dev/sda3

Please not if any files are recovered then they are placed in /home/lost+found directory by fsck command.

4) Once fsck finished, remount the file system:

# mount /home

5) Go to multiuser mode

# init 3

Read man page of fsck for more information. Make sure you replace /dev/sda3 with your actual device name.
__________________

Persistent monitor rotation Script

2009-03-16T07:42:00.001Z

This is a fix that allows for persistent configuration of tho monitor's pivot rotation. You most create two scripts:

screen-rotate

sudo gedit screen-rotate

add following lines save and exit

#!/bin/bash
if [ "$1" = "right" ]
then
rotate="right"
else
rotate="left"
fi

if xrandr | grep "$rotate ("

then
rotate="normal"
fi
xrandr -o "$rotate"

echo $rotate > ~/.screen-orientation

screen-rotate-setup

sudo gedit screen-rotate-setup

add following lines save and exit
#!/bin/bash
rotate=`cat ~/.screen-orientation`
xrandr -o $rotate

save both scripts to /usr/bin and give them execution permissions to everyone (chmod +x)

Now go to System>Preferences>Sessions, click add and put screen-rotate-setup as the command. Name it as you see fit.

Now create a shortcut somewhere (the taskbar, perhaps?) put as a the command screen-rotate(in case your monitor rotates clockwise) or screen-rotate right(in case your monitor rotates counter-clockwise).

New click on the shortcut, log out and then login again.

Howto Make an MPEG Picture Slideshow with digiKam in Ubuntu

2009-03-09T08:03:00.001Z

If you only install digiKam, you will not be able to encode and render the mpeg slideshow.

Install the required packages

sudo apt-get install imagemagick mjpegtools music123 ffmpeg digikam

2. Open digiKam, select Tools -> Create MPEG Slideshow

3. From here on out, just select the file you want to save as (output file), add the pictures you want in the slideshow using the giant 'Add' button, and include an audio track if you're so inclined.

Note: If you just install digikam, it will not install mjpegtools or music123 which it needs to do the encoding. Also, this installs the full imagenagick, as opposed to the compact libraries.

How to Speedup Firefox using SQLite VACUUM command

2009-03-09T07:33:00.003Z

Firefox can run faster if it's database is purged of empty entries. Firefox database is using SQLite to manage its database.

Requirements

SQLite >=3.0

You can install using the following command

sudo apt-get install sqlite3

Now you need to open file ffast(you can give any name) using the following command

gedit ffast

copy and paste the following script

#!/bin/bash

username=$(whoami)
proc="$(ps aux | grep $username | grep -v $0 | grep firefox | grep -v grep)"
if [ "$proc" != "" ]
then
echo "shutdown firefox first!"
exit 1
fi

curdir=$(pwd)

for dir in $(cat ~/.mozilla/firefox/profiles.ini | grep Path= | sed -e 's/Path=//')
do
cd ~/.mozilla/firefox/$dir 2>/dev/null
if [ $? == 0 ]
then
echo "i'm in $(pwd)"
echo -e " running...\n"

for F in $(find . -type f -name '*.sqlite' -print)
do
sqlite3 $F "VACUUM;"
done

echo -e "done in $(pwd) ...\n"
else
echo -e "\n !!!! Error while entering directory $dir !!!!\n"
fi
done
echo "Job finished";

cd $curdir

Save and exit the file

Now you need to open your home folder select your file in this case ffast right-click on it, select properties. Then select Permissions tab and check the "Allow executing file as program" click Close.

Then close Firefox and run your script from terminal using

./ffast

when script done it's work start Firefox and you should see how fast your firefox will run.

Howto setup Pulseadio and VMWare with 2 soundcards

2009-03-04T07:39:00.001Z

You need a free PCI (or PCIe 1x) slot, so this is not for laptops.
This will cost you between 20 and 0 bucks depending on how much extra hardware you have lying around and how cheap you can get stuff.

You are going to need one extra soundcard and a cable to loop the audio-out (green) of one of the cards to the line-in (blue) of the other. This cable has 2 identical audio jacks at both ends.

1. Install the extra soundcard.

2. Boot back into your system and check what you have when you type 'ls /dev/dsp*' into the console. You should have a dsp and a dsp1 or some such.
If you don't see 2 audio devises, your other card is not recognized yet and you'll have to figure out why.

3. Go to your package manager and install the 'pavucontrol' and 'padevchooser' packages if they aren't there already.
Close the package manager window.

4. Start padevchooser. You will have a little audio jack icon in your systray now. Click on it and go to the 'Configure Local Sound Server' option. You will have a window with 3 tabs. Uncheck all boxes in all tabs.
Close the window.
Close padevchooser.

5. Start pavucontrol and go to the 'Output Devises' tab. Set your primary audio card as default with the little down arrow icon.
Close pavucontrol.

6. Close all apps that make sound and kill Pulseaudio with with the 'killall pulseaudio' command.

7. Start VMWare. Now you can figure out witch of your cards is dsp or dsp1 with directing the virtual sound to either dsp or dsp1 and checking it with your speakers when you play a sound inside your virtual machine.
Leave the settings directing the sound to your secondary soundcard.

8. Now use the audio loop cable to loop from the audio-out of your secondary card to the line-in of your primary one.
Leave the mic-in and audio-out cables of your primary card just the way they were when you started this guide.

9. Start 'pulseadio' while your VM is still playing music. Pulseadio will fail to hook on your secondary soundcard and just uses the primary one.
(Don't close the console window you started Pulseadio in until you reboot)

10. It should all work now. Pulse only hooks on your primary card and the sound feed from the VM goes to your secondary (and is looped to your primary one though the line-in).Even after reboot, Pulseadio should leave your secondary card alone now.

11. If your virtual OS is Windows, go to Control Panel>Sound and Audio> Audio>Sound Playback>Advanced>Performance
Set the hardware acceleration to None and the Sample rate conversion quality to Low. This should remove/reduce the sound stutter.

How to fix your Audio EQ in Audacious

2009-03-04T07:35:00.001Z

For all Users who is having trouble with audacious in Ubunutu, this seemed to work to fix the EQ

1. Download the Winamp preset EQ's
2. Open up terminal
3. wget http://www.xmms.org/misc/winamp_presets.gz
4. To install the presets for the Audacious media player type:
gunzip -c winamp_presets.gz > ~/.config/audacious/eq.preset

Restart Audacious. Now heres the sticker. What I think happens is Audaciou's Pre-Amp (to the left on EQ), is pushing too much Hz through the audio channel. Now, I do use the ALSA mixer, as nvidia's fails to work by default on my 8.04 machine.

Select a Winamp preamp, and turn on the EQ to ON. I am quite certain the preamp messes with the EQ in terms of the Base dB's (decibel) frequency. Think of if you've ever used Adobe Premiere, raising the dB too high and what, tiny crackly , or fuzzy audio! The same goes for a guitar amp, turn up the pre-amp (your amp) too high, then plug in a external effect pedal and turn up the sound and voila, crackly shitty audio.

Note!!!: If you use Ubuntu / Debian, I specially added the "Gnome-Alsamixer" to my arsenal as well. This allows you to change Master, and sub level audio tracks without the terminal. This will let you bump up you base master volume without destroying anything. The default audio applet on the top gnome panel bar only raises it so much. Find this program in Add/Remove Programs, or do "sudo apt-get install gnome-alsamixer "

Howto Display more than 5 bookmarks in gnome-panel "Places" menu

2009-02-21T21:55:00.001Z

1) Open Terminal

2a) Install apt-build

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install apt-build

2b) Configure apt-build:

* Optimization level: Medium
* Add apt-build repository to sources.list: Yes
* Architecture: SELECT YOUR ARCHITECTURE

3) Install files required to build gnome-panel from source and download the source

sudo apt-get build-dep gnome-panel
sudo apt-build source gnome-panel

4) Navigate to the downloaded gnome-panel source folder and open the menu items file

cd /var/cache/apt-build/build/gnome-panel-*
sudo gedit gnome-panel/panel-menu-items.c

5) Set the the maximum number of bookmarks to display before placing them in the Bookmarks submenu

Find the line:
PHP Code:
if (g_slist_length (add_bookmarks) <= MAX_ITEMS_OR_SUBMENU) {
and replace it with:
PHP Code:
if (g_slist_length (add_bookmarks) <= 20) {
Save the file.

6) Install the modified gnome-panel and restart it

sudo ./configure
sudo make
sudo make install
killall gnome-panel

How to tether AT&T's Fuze phone (AT&T version of HTC's Touch Pro) to Ubuntu Linux

2009-02-21T21:48:00.002Z

This is a tutorial showing folks how to tether AT&T's Fuze phone (AT&T version of HTC's Touch Pro) to Ubuntu Linux via USB. It is a little different from tethering a regular Windows Mobile phone to Ubuntu.

To tether the Fuze to Ubuntu Linux, 3 things need to be done:

* Crack the phone so that any connection can be shared
* Create a connection on the phone other than AT&T's MEdia Net
* Mod usb-rndis-lite to allow connection from Fuze

Please note that this tutorial is ONLY for the HTC Fuze on the AT&T (USA) Network.

This tutorial is done under Ubuntu Linux 8.10 aka Intrepid Ibex with software up-to-date (according to the update manager). It is also recommended that you have an unlimited data plan with AT&T. Tethering plan is recommended but not required.

PART I: Allow any connection on phone to be shared

AT&T has modded the registry of the Fuze so that ONLY folks with dedicated tethering plans can tether. If you have a tethering plan with AT&T, please move on to part 2. Otherwise complete this step.

1. Download a registry editor for Windows Mobile. We recommend PHM Registry Editor for Pocket PC. This links directly to the install file, so I would recommend downloading this to the phone.
2. Open File Explorer (Start > Programs > Tools > File Explorer) and navigate to where you saved the install file. Install it by tapping it once.
3. Once it installs, open it. It should be in Start > Programs.
4. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Comm/InternetSharing/Settings.
5. You will notice a key in settings called "ForceCellConnection". Delete it.
6. That's it. Any connection can be used for tethering. Verify this by opening Internet Sharing and seeing that there are two combo boxes (one for PC Connection and one for Network Connection)

PART II: Create a connection alternative to MEdia Net

AT&T configures the Fuze's network slightly differently from its other WinMo phones. but when tethering with it's MEdia Net connection, I can never seem to log on in Ubuntu. This wasn't a problem on my Windows box, but that box ain't my main box. Anyway this step is rather simple.

1. On your phone, go to Start > Settings and tap on the connections tab. Open Wireless Manager and make sure that Data Connection is turned OFF.
2. Close Wireless Manager and go into Connections. You should see "MEdia Net" and "My Work Network". Under MEdia Net, tap "Manage existing connections".
3. You should see a radio botton labled "MEdia Net". Tap and hold it to bring up the menu and select "Delete"
4. Now tap the "New" Button. In the dialog that comes up, enter a name for your connection. This name will be the name you select in Internet Sharing later. From the combo box below it, select "Cellular Line (GPRS, 3G)". Tap Next.
5. Leave the Access Point Name box blank. Tap Next. Leave those boxes blank as well and tap finish.
6. If you did all right, you should be able to get on the web. Verify this by opening Opera on the Fuze. If web pages load, it worked.

PART III: Mod usb-rndis-lite to allow Fuze connection

This is a mod to Ubuntu now. Not the phone. Apparently HTC phones have some issues tethering to Ubuntu. This is usually due to rndis failing with some packets exceeding error. Here we will modify and recompile the source code for usb-rndis-lite to ignore that error.

1. Open up a terminal and do this:
Code:

sudo apt-get install subversion

This will install subversion, which is needed to get the latest version of usb-rndis-lite.
2. Using that same terminal, do this:

svn co http://synce.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/synce/trunk/usb-rndis-lite

This will download the latest code of usb-rndis-lite.
3. Still in the terminal, move into the folder by doing this:

cd usb-rndis-lite

4. Terminal again, open the source file we are going to edit by doing this:

gedit rndis_host.c

5. Around line 524, find the following code

if (tmp < dev->hard_mtu) {
dev_err(&intf->dev,
"dev can't take %u byte packets (max %u)\n",
dev->hard_mtu, tmp);
goto fail;
}

and change it to this:

if (tmp < dev->hard_mtu) {
dev_err(&intf->dev,
"dev can't take %u byte packets (max %u)\n",
dev->hard_mtu, tmp);
retval = -EINVAL;
/* goto fail;*/
}

Save and close the file
6. Returning to the terminal, type the commands in this order to compile and install it:

make
sudo ./clean.sh
sudo make install

Now that the steps are completed, verify everything worked by plugging your Fuze into your preferred USB port. Open the Internet Sharing app on the Fuze (somewhere in Start > Programs), select USB for PC Connection and the name of the network you typed earlier for Network Connection, and tap Connect. Ubuntu should see and connect to the phone, and you should be able to browse the web, get email, IM, and so on.

From this point on, all you should need to do is open Internet Sharing, select the right things and hit "Connect" to connect.

ONE THING TO NOTE: updating usb-rndis-lite will break this. To fix it, just repeat part 3 and your good to go.

Howto SetUp Dual-Dual NIC Bonding On Ubuntu

2009-02-12T07:13:00.002Z

Bonding is creation of a single bonded interface by combining 2 or more ethernet interfaces. This helps in high availability and performance improvement.

How to setup dual-dual bonding (two bonds of two interfaces each) on Ubuntu as quickly as possible.

1. Add two lines to /etc/modules

bonding bond0 -o bond0 mode=1 miimon=100

bonding bond1 -o bond1 mode=1 miimon=100

If you’re very good at managing your time, just remember that miimon’s option determines how often the bond is monitored for failure and that mode can be one of:

0 - Round robin balancing

1 - Active back-up

2 - Transmit based on MAC address for load balancing/fault tolerance

3 - Broadcasting - provides fault tolerance by transmitting on all slave interfaces

4 - Aggregates links, assuming all nics support same speeds and duplex settings

5 - Transmit load balancing - balancing is handled by the bond based on load

6 - Same as 5, but also uses arp to balance load “better

2. Install the ifenslave package if you haven’t already. You can use apt-get to grab it if you don’t:

sudo apt-get install ifenslave-x.x

3. Ensure that the package actually installed:

sudo dpkg –get-selections | grep enslave

ifenslave-x.x install

4. Set up your interface files:

# cat /etc/network/interfaces (only including the parts you probably need - substitute IP addresses, netmasks, etc):

auto lo

iface lo inet loopback

auto bond0

iface bond0 inet static

address 10.10.125.88

netmask 255.255.255.0

network 10.10.125.0

gateway 10.10.125.1

post-up ifenslave bond0 eth0 eth2

pre-down ifenslave -d bond0 eth0 eth2

auto bond1

iface bond1 inet static

address 10.10.127.88

netmask 255.255.255.0

network 10.10.127.0

gateway 10.10.127.1

post-up ifenslave bond1 eth1 eth3

pre-down ifenslave -d bond1 eth1 eth3

5. Add lines to the bottom of your architecture’s modprobe files, reboot and pray:

sudo cat /etc/modprobe.d/arch/i386

alias bond0 bonding

options bond0 mode=1 miimon=5000 max_bonds=2

alias bond1 bonding

options bond1 mode=1 miimon=5000 max_bonds=2

5 Ways To View CHM Files in Ubuntu Linux

2008-12-30T20:28:00.001Z

1. Gnochm

Gnochm is a gnome based chm viewer that has the following features :

Support for external ms-its links

Full text search support

Bookmarks

Configurable support for HTTP links

Integrated with GNOME2

Support for multiple languages

Support to open multiple files at once

To install gnochm issue the following command in the terminal window

sudo apt-get install gnochm

After installation gnochm should be installed properly, which you can even launch by typing in "gnochm" in the terminal window.

2. kchmviewer
If you are one of those who likes using KDE desktop environment you might like using a tool that uses KDE library instead of gnome one , and integrates better with KDE desktop. A nice chm viewer for KDE desktop is kchm viewer.

to install kchmviewer type in the following command in the terminal window :

sudo apt-get install kchmviewer

and after above step is completed you can launch kchmviewer by typing in kchmviewer in the terminal window

3. xCHM

xCHM is a chm file viewer , that is not bound to any desktop environment and could be used even in window manager like fvwm or xfce .

to install xchm issue the following command in the terminal window :

sudo apt-get install xchm

and then you can launch xchm by typing in xchm in the terminal window .4. Mozilla Firefox add-on to display chm files
Mozilla Firefox is a powerful platform and it can be extended to do a number of cool things by installing different plug ins and one really useful addon is a CHM viewer .

To install CHM reader addon go HERE and, download the *.xpi file, then put it somewhere in Mozilla folder, sorry i forgot where exactly the folder is, you can try to find it yourself. Procedure after that is quite self explanatory owing to extremely easy interface of Mozilla Firefox

After installing you can easily open chm files from Mozilla Firefox , In the File submenu you will find a option of opening chm files .5. Okular

If you happen to install kde4 on your desktop , Okular is the new addition to the KDE desktop environment . Okular besides having ability to render pdf , djvu files can also display chm files flawlessly . Besides being based on solid KDE 4 libraries Okular allows one to add notes , highlight text etc . It is one of the most advanced document reader available on linux .

How to Rip & Encode DVDs into AVI/OGM files in Ubuntu

2008-12-21T17:00:00.001Z

OGMRip is an application and a set of libraries for ripping and encoding DVDs into AVI/OGM files using a wide variety of codecs. It relies on mplayer, mencoder, ogmtools, oggenc, and lame to perform its tasks. The GUI features a clean HIG-compliant GNOME 2 interface and tries to minimize (as much as possible) esoteric settings.

Download DEB package via getdeb.net

After download, double click on the file to install..

List of Twitter Clients in Ubuntu

2008-12-21T16:55:00.001Z

1. gTwitter - Hompage

It's a simple GTK+ based application for Linux, designed to interact with Twitter web service. It's written using Mono/C# and some of GNOME dependant libraries. GUI is inspired by Mac client Twitterrific.

Download TAR Package via googlecode

2. Twidge - Homepage

Twidge is a command-line, full-functional Twitter client. It supports posting updates, retrieving information, and excellent integration with the Unix shell scripting environment via piping and well-formatted output.

Download TAR/BIN/ZIP Packages

3. Gwibber - Homepage

Gwibber is an open source microblogging client for GNOME developed with Python and GTK. It supports Twitter, Jaiku, Identi.ca, Facebook, and Digg. Please note that this is pre-alpha software.
Intallation Guide For Ubuntu
Installation Guide For OpenSUSE

4. Mitter - Homepage

Another Twitter Client.Download DEB Package via getdeb.net

5. Twhirl (Need Adobe AIR) - Homepage
A social software desktop client based on the Adobe AIR platform.

Download Twhirl(.AIR)

6. Spaz (Need Adobe AIR) - Hompage
Spaz is a Twitter client for users who value free, open-source software, attractive design, and customizability.
Download Spaz(.AIR)

How to fix upside down webcam image in ubuntu

2008-12-21T16:53:00.001Z

I've found a Ubuntu user via ubuntuforums.org that have problem with the webcam, the user have integrated webcam - Syntek USB Video Camera. He/she claimed that the webcam image turned upside down. This happen because of the vflip option..

To fix it(Syntek USB Video Camera as a example) you need to know the camera driver, in terminal type :

lsusb

udevinfo --query=all --name=/dev/video0 --attribute-walk

Example udevinfo command result :The driver for the webcam is stk11xx & has the vflip option(To check all the options the driver offers, use the command "modinfo stk11xx")

Now unload the driver and then re-load it with the vflip option, code :

sudo modprobe -r stk11xx
sudo modprobe stk11xx vflip=1

Now try with webcam app to see that the problem has solved. You can add the option to the system settings so the driver always uses it when it loads..

Code:

echo "options stk11xx vflip=1" | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/options

Circular Application Menu for Ubuntu

2008-12-13T14:00:00.001Z

This is a circular-application-menu (C-A-M) prototype mirroring the same structure as the exisiting application menu for the GNOME desktop. I heard this feature will be available in Windows 7.It’s a menu in a circular form displayed in desktop. The icon of each sub menu is laid around the circle, if we click on the icon another circular of the menus that laid under the icon of the sub menu will be displayed so that we will show two circle on our desktop.

Download via getdeb.net

After download finished, just double click it to install it & you can find at Apllication>>Accesories>>Circular-Application-Menu

Safely Remove USB Device in Ubuntu with Ejecter

2008-12-13T13:50:00.001Z

Ejecter is a small but very useful utility to safely, easily remove external media. A simple menu that sits in the system notification area, providing you a quick way to unmount external peripherals such as usb pendrives, cd/dvd, external hard disks and so..

Download DEB Package :

Ejecter via getdeb.net

After download, double click on the file to install..

Repackage i386 deb for in lpia (for Dell Mini9)

2008-12-06T21:38:00.000Z

1. Download the Ubuntu version of Skype
2. Use the Archive manager to uncompress it. Alternatively, right click on the deb package and select "extract here"

3. Rename the uncompressed folder, by changing the ending from i386 to lpia. (the folder should be now named: skype-debian_2.0.0.72-1_lpia)
4. Open the folder
5. There are 3 files. remove the "debian-binary" file
6. Decompress "control.tar.gz". There are tree files in it.
7. Make a folder "DEBIAN" in the main folder, and placed the 3 files you just decompressed inside it.
8. Open one of the files inside DEBIAN, "control". Change the line "Architecture: i386" into "Architecture: lpia"
9. Open the other archive "data.tar.gz". There is a folder "." inside. Open it (double click). Select both the folders (usr and etc) and select uncompress.
10. Remove the files "control.tar.gz" and "data.tar.gz"
11. You should now have your main folder with the following inside:
DEBIAN folder with tree text files in it (conffiles, control, md5sums); a "usr" folder and a "etc" folder.
12. You are now ready to prepare your lpia deb folder.
13. From the command line, go to the folder that contains your main skype folder you just prepared (most likely named: skype-debian_2.0.0.72-1_lpia).
14. type: dpkg --build skype-debian_2.0.0.72-1_lpia
15. Your deb package is ready. Double click on it and follow instruction. After installation it should appear in Synaptic, and from there you can remove it at any time.
16. Enjoy!!!

Simple Wireless Network Manager in Ubuntu

2008-12-06T18:54:00.002Z

Wicd is an open source wired and wireless network manager for Linux which aims to provide a simple interface to connect to networks with a wide variety of settings.

Wicd’s features :

No Gnome dependencies (although it does require GTK), so it is easy to use in XFCE, Fluxbox, Openbox, Enlightenment, etc.

Ability to connect to wired and wireless networks

Profiles for each wireless network and wired network

Many encryption schemes, some of which include WEP/WPA/WPA2

Remains compatible with wireless-tools

Tray icon showing network activity and signal strength

Installing Wicd in Ubuntu :

First you need to edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following line for gutsy user

deb http://apt.wicd.net gutsy extras

Add the following line for hardy user

deb http://apt.wicd.net hardy extras

Save and exit the file

where gutsy is your version of Ubuntu in lowercase (dapper, edgy, feisty, gutsy, hardy).

Now you need to update the source list using the following command

sudo aptitude update

Install wicd using the following command (in Terminal, type) :

sudo aptitude install wicd

Please note that this will remove network-manager, which is the default GNOME network manager and may cause loss of network connection temporarily.

In GNOME, to get the tray icon to automatically appear at boot, go to System>>Preferences>> Sessions. In the “Startup Programs” tab, click the “New” button. Give it a name (”Wicd” works fine). For the command, enter “/opt/wicd/tray.py”.

Running Wicd

To use wicd, launch it go to Applications>>Internet>>wicd in GNOME.

In the wicd program window you’ll see a list of the wireless networks that the software has detected. Wicd doesn’t always pick up all of the networks that are in range when it starts; click the Refresh icon on tool bar to get a full list.

From there, click the Connect link beneath the name of the network that you want to use. After a few seconds, you should be connected the network.If the network is encrypted, you need to do a little more work. Wicd supports the following encryption schemes: WPA, WEP, LEAP, TTLS, EAP, and PEAP.

Click the arrow beside the name of the encrypted network to which you want to connect, then click Advanced Settings. From there, click the Use Encryption checkbox, select an encryption method from the dropdown list, and enter the required password in the Key field.

Getting Clock to Display Temp, Weather & Multiple Timezone in Ubuntu

2008-12-05T23:13:00.001Z

You can make the clock on Ubuntu panel to show local temperature/weather by adding the time zone. You can also make the clock to show different/multiple time zone..

To do this, click the clock on the panel, select 'Edit', select 'Location' tab..

Click 'Add', to add your local or other time zone, you can use the 'Find' button to find for specific country or city.

Tip : If you can't find your location(Location Name:), you can choose nearest location at(Timezone:)

Hover your mouse on the weather icon to see detailed info (ie sunrise,sunset,wind direction). See screenshot on top..

Click on the 'Set' to change your default local time..

How to Change/Reset Ubuntu Password

2008-12-05T23:03:00.002Z

1. Reset Your Ubuntu Password(in the GRUB)

Reboot your computer, and then as soon as you see the GRUB Loading screen, make sure to hit the ESC key so that you can get to the menu.Root Shell - Easy Method

If you have the option, you can choose the "recovery mode" item on the menu, usually found right below your default kernel option.Then choose "Drop to root shell prompt" from this menu.

This should give you a root shell prompt.

Alternate Root Shell Method

If you don't have the recovery mode option, this is the alternate way to manually edit the grub options to allow for a root shell.

First you'll want to make sure to choose the regular boot kernel that you use (typically just the default one), and then use the "e" key to choose to edit that boot option.

Now just hit the down arrow key over to the "kernel" option, and then use the "e" key to switch to edit mode for the kernel option.

You'll first be presented with a screen that looks very similar to this one:

You'll want to remove the "ro quiet splash" part with the backspace key, and then add this onto the end:

rw init=/bin/bash

Once you hit enter after adjusting the kernel line, you'll need to use the B key to choose to boot with that option.

At this point the system should boot up very quickly to a command prompt.

Changing the Actual Password

You can use the following command to reset your password:

passwd

For example my username being geek I used this command:

passwd geek

After changing your password, use the following commands to reboot your system. (The sync command makes sure to write out data to the disk before rebooting)

sync
reboot -f

I found that the -f parameter was necessary to get the reboot command to work for some reason. You could always hardware reset instead, but make sure to use the sync command first.

And now you should be able to login without any issues.

2. Resetting Ubuntu Password with LiveCD

You'll want to boot from your Ubuntu Live CD, choosing "Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer" from the boot menu.

Once the system boots, open up a new Terminal window from Applications>>Accessories and then type in the following command:

sudo fdisk -l

This command is used to tell what device name the hard drive is using, which in most cases should be /dev/sda1, but could be different on your system.

Now you'll need to create a directory to mount the hard drive on. Since we're actually booting off the live cd, the directory doesn't really get created anywhere.

sudo mkdir /media/sda1

The next command will mount the hard drive in the /media/sda1 folder.

sudo mount /dev/sda1 /media/sda1

Now it's time for the command that actually does the magic: chroot. This command is used to open up a shell with a different root directory than the current shell is using, and we'll pass in the folder where we mounted the hard drive.

sudo chroot /media/sda1

Now you should be able to use the passwd command to change your user account's password, and it will be applied to the hard drive since we are using chroot.

passwd geek

Note that you'll have to type your username after the passwd command in order to change the right password.

Now you should be able to reboot your system and log yourself in with your new password.

Easy Way to Create Bootable Ubuntu USB Pendrive

2008-12-05T22:59:00.001Z

The easy way to create Ubuntu in USB pendrive/flashdrive/thumbdrive, you''ll need :

The USB Startup Disk creator tool. It comes as a part of the default Ubuntu 8.10 desktop. I haven’t seen any packages for older versions of Ubuntu yet, but I have have been able to install the 8.10 package in Ubuntu 8.04.

A USB drive or memory card with a minimum of 700 MB of free space.

An Ubuntu CD or Ubuntu CD ISO file.

Launch the USB Startup Disk creator tool from System->Administration->Create a USB startup disk.
Either insert your Ubuntu CD, or click Other and browse to your ISO file. (If the application doesn’t recognize your CD, try clicking Other and then Cancel. This caused the CD to show up.)

Plug in your USB drive or card. The application should recognize the drive immediately and check that there is enough free space. If you have multiple USB drives, select the one you want to use from the list.

Finally, you can choose whether you want your USB system to be persistent between boots, or static like a live CD. Adjust the slider to choose how much space Ubuntu will have on the disk to expand to, or select the Discarded on shutdown option.

Click Make Startup Disk, and wait while the USB system is created. Now you can boot from this drive on any system which supports USB boots.

Booting from the USB drive is just like a CD; you’ll have to select Try Ubuntu from the boot menu to load the desktop. If you allocated space for a persistent system, anything you install or change on the system will persist the next time you boot.

You can also try with SD card or other type of memory card.

Virtual Desktop/OS Emulator Tools for Ubuntu

2008-12-05T22:50:00.002Z

VirtualBox

VirtualBox is a family of powerful x86 virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

VBoxGTK

A simple GTK frontend for VirtualBox. It's still in beta (the site notes that "most of VirtualBox features are not supported,and those that are will probably fail"), but it's a good beginning and progressing rapidly.

Qemu Launcher

Qemu Launcher is a Gtk front-end for the Qemu x86 PC emulator. Qemu is a command line application so I wrote this so that Qemu is more accessible from the desktop.
QEMU

QEMU is a generic and open source machine emulator and virtualizer. When used as a machine emulator, QEMU can run OSes and programs made for one machine (e.g. an ARM board) on a different machine (e.g. your own PC). By using dynamic translation, it achieves very good performances.

QtEmu

QtEmu is a graphical user interface for QEMU written in Qt4. It has the ability to run virtual operating systems on native systems. This way you can easily test a new operating system or try a Live CD on your system without any troubles and dangers. QtEmu has been tested on Linux, FreeBSD and Windows (2k, XP).

How to restore original VLC skin and config on Ubuntu

2008-11-29T08:19:00.000Z

If you already install new VLC skins and now you want default skin becouse many options are gone, or you mess up the options and want to start from beginning follow this simple tutorial

Go to home folder
Set up nautilus to show hidden files (View/Show hidden files)
Go to the .config folder - with dot on front
Delete vlc folder
Restart VLC and set up your settings from beginning

Howto Disable HTTP Cache cleaner notification when using KDE apps on Gnome

2008-11-28T21:47:00.001Z

How to disable the "Launching HTTP Cache Cleaner..." process that appears every once in a while on the taskbar/panel when using KDE apps like Amarok in GNOME.

Install kcontrol

sudo apt-get install kcontrol

It'll probably install kdebase-data kicker and libkonq4 too (not sure if they're needed but let it do it).

2. Go to Applications -> Other -> Cache. Uncheck the "Use cache" option, Apply, Close and you're done!

With these two simple steps you'll get rid of that "Launching HTTP Cache Cleaner" window forever.

Howto install functional eye-candy with Avant-Window-Navigator in Ubuntu

2008-11-28T21:39:00.000Z

AWN is a compositing dock-like taskbar. It is similar to the dock in OSX, but supports features such as custom themes, applets that can do anything from displaying battery life to showing Dilbert, and much more.

AWN requires a compositor (like beryl or compiz) to work properly.

If you have previously installed some other version of AWN, you should remove it before you begin. In most cases my guide will not have any trouble wiht a previous install, but odd bugs have been known to occur.

Before we begin, make sure you have all the needed ubuntu repositories installed, namely universe and ubuntu-updates. This can be done in System -> Administration -> Software Sources by enabling 'recommended updates' under the 'Updates' tab, and also enabling 'Community-maintained Open Source software' under the 'Ubuntu Software' tab.

First, add AWN repo by running the appropriate set of commands

For Hardy Users

echo 'deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/reacocard-awn/ubuntu hardy main' | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list

For Intrepid Users

echo 'deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/reacocard-awn/ubuntu intrepid main' | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list

Update the source list using the following command

sudo apt-get update

Install AWN Using the following command

sudo apt-get install avant-window-navigator-bzr awn-core-applets-bzr awn-manager-bzr

start AWN from Applications->Accessories->Avant Window Navigator.

Howto Fix the Firefox taking up the whole screen problem

2008-11-28T21:25:00.001Z

Problem

Firefox taking up the whole screen problem

Solution

What you need to do is for a temporary fix is press "F11" twice

Permanent fix

Go into the Compiz Settings Manager and find "Windows Decorations" add the following line to "Decoration Windows"

(any) | class=Firefox

Once you've done that close out CCSM, then open CCSM back up again, then change that to:

any

Then that should solve the problem, it worked flawlessly. If that doesn't work you can always revert back to metacity

metacity --replace

Firefox cache in ramdisk (tmpfs)

2008-11-25T19:50:00.002Z

I was trying to find a way to set up a ramdisk and have firefox store the cache there.

Step 1: Make a place to mount the ramdisk. In the terminal type:

sudo mkdir /media/ramdisk

Where /media/ramdisk is where you will mount the ramdisk.

Step 2: Mount the ramdisk

sudo mount -t tmpfs -o size=64M,nr_inodes=10k,mode=0777 tmpfs /media/ramdisk

We set the permisions to 777 which allows anybody and everybody to access it. Set these as you wish

Step 3 In firefox: Set the cache location to you new ramdisk

Basically type

about:config

in the URL address bar. Search for

browser.cache.disk.parent_directory

or add a new string by right clicking and choosing new. Then set the location to your ramdisk. In my case I set it to

/media/ramdisk/

Optional:

Step 4: If you wish to automount the ramdisk you need to edit your FSTAB file

gksudo gedit /etc/fstab

Add the line

tmpfs /media/ramdisk tmpfs size=64M,nr_inodes=10k,mode=777 0 0

Everything should be all set. You can check the ramdisk to see if a folder 'Cache' is created when you load firefox. Don't forget to close firefox or restart firefox before you set this up.

How to Fix Usplash in Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid)

2008-11-16T17:05:00.000Z

At the moment if you change your usplash theme, it just does not change.To fix this use the following procedure.

sudo apt-get install libusplash-dev

Then go to your theme folder (In this example we are using this and the filenames used below is for this one )

make

sudo cp usplash-theme-wideubuntu.so /usr/lib/usplash

sudo rm /etc/alternatives/usplash-artwork.so

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/usplash/usplash-theme-wideubuntu.so /etc/alternatives/usplash-artwork.so

sudo update-initramfs -u

sudo update-grub

That's it now you should be having your new usplash.

How to Disable The PC (internal/system) Speaker in Ubuntu 8.04/8.10

2008-11-05T22:23:00.000Z

This may also be referred to as the system beep. Ubuntu utilizes this function found on the majority of computers.

Blacklisting the module

This method requires basic knowledge of the terminal, but is still very simple.

Fire up a terminal session (Applications > Accessories > Terminal) and proceed with the following command:

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

Enter your password when prompted, it will not display any input.

At the very bottom of the file that is now open in Gedit append the following:

blacklist pcspkr

Save and close. Next boot, the module will not be loaded and your annoyance ceases.

Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) Release Schedule

2008-11-03T12:27:00.000Z

The Ubuntu 9.04 (codename Jaunty Jackalope) development will on November 6th, and will conclude next year on April 23rd, with the final release. Make sure you check with our website, starting with November 20th when the first alpha will be released, as we will do a full coverage of the Ubuntu 9.04 development process. Without any further introduction, let's have a look at the release schedule:

November 20th, 2008 - Alpha 1 release

December 18th, 2008 - Alpha 2 release

January 15th, 2009 - Alpha 3 release

February 5th, 2009 - Alpha 4 release

February 26th, 2009 - Alpha 5 release

March 12th, 2009 - Alpha 6 release

March 26th, 2009 - Beta release

April 16th, 2009 - Release Candidate

April 23rd, 2009 - Final release of Ubuntu 9.04

For the Jaunty Jackalope, the development team will focus their efforts to fulfill certain tasks that are intended to make Ubuntu 9.04 the reflection of the most efficient understanding of the open source ensemble. The first one is the boot time decrease, mostly when the OS is tailored to a specific device, but also in the standard case. Another declared goal is the intention to blur desktop tools and web services, so that the former better integrate the web. And last, but certainly not least, all of Ubuntu will migrate to Bazaar, giving developers the unprecedented possibility to publish their changes and branch any Ubuntu package with a simple bzr command.

Fix for "no sound" issue in Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex)

2008-11-01T21:04:00.002Z

I just installed the new Ubuntu 8.10 and I have no sound.I have fixed this problem by installing following commands.

Solution 1

sudo killall pulseaudio

sudo alsa force-reload

and then go to System>Preferences>Sound and change everything to ALSA

or

Solution 2

Try to uninstall pulse audio check here for complete guide

How to Configure WiFi and Webcam in a Dell Inspiron 1525 for Hardy

2008-10-24T07:11:00.002+01:00

A fresh install from the Ubuntu disk does not include the wifi and webcam drivers by default, so you have to install them manually. If you can connect to the internet by ethernet (wire) from your laptop then do so.

If you can connect by ethernet

Go to System -> Administration -> Software Sources -> Updates tab.

Check the box saying "Unsupported updates (hardy-backports)" and close the window.

Open a terminal window and type

sudo apt-get update

and then

sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-hardy

This is a meta-package that will install the relevant modules for your kernel version and keep them up to date whenever you install a new kernel version. After a reboot your WiFi and/or webcam should work now, and hopefully bluetooth but I'm not sure whether these modules will enable bluetooth or not.

If you cannot connect by ethernet

Go to the following page and download the file for your processor (AMD or Intel) to a removable storage device (eg. Pen drive). The file you want to download is under the header "Download linux-backports..." from here

Put the pen drive into your laptop and double click to run the .deb file you downloaded from that page. Install the package (you'll need to use your sudo password).

After that, a reboot should have your wireless and webcam running (if you have a webcam). However, you should now do all of the tasks listed under "If you can connect by ethernet" before any new updates. This is because kernel modules are kernel version dependent, and you need the meta package to ensure your kernel module is kept up to date with any new kernel versions.

Sound

Sound should be working with the default Ubuntu install on an Inspiron 1525, but with some limits, namely Pulseaudio won't work with all programs installed on your computer so you might be limited to only one application being able to produce sound at a time.

For a simple solution, just open Synaptic, search for "Pulseaudio" and install all the packages it lists.

You may not need to, but it may be best to reboot after installing these pulseaudio packages, to ensure the server and your desktop environment loads all of these new packages and uses them.

How to Setup Broadcom Wireless BCM4312 (rev 02)for Ubuntu Hardy

2008-10-19T09:45:00.004+01:00

Step 1 (run in terminal)

echo 'blacklist bcm43xx' | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils-1.9

mkdir ~/bcm43xx; cd ~/bcm43xx

For Step 2, You can check your Broadcom wireless version with this command in terminal : "lspci | grep Broadcom\ Corporation",if your wireless device is different from BCM4312 (rev 02), please refer here for this step and you can continue again with step 3 onwards:

Step 2 (run in terminal)

sudo apt-get install cabextract

wget ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/sp34001-34500/sp34152.exe

cabextract sp34152.exe

Step 3 (run in terminal)

sudo ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf

ndiswrapper -l

sudo depmod -a

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

sudo cp /etc/network/interfaces /etc/network/interfaces.orig

echo -e 'auto lo\niface lo inet loopback\n' | sudo tee /etc/network/interfaces

sudo ndiswrapper -m

echo 'ndiswrapper' | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

echo 'ENABLED=0' | sudo tee -a /etc/default/wpasupplicant

Step 4 (run in terminal)

sudo aptitude remove b43-fwcutter

Step 5 (run in terminal)

sudo gedit /etc/init.d/wirelessfix.sh

Step 6

Paste the followings in the opened file(wirelessfix.sh)and make sure you save it before continuing Step 7

#!/bin/bash
modprobe -r b44
modprobe -r b43
modprobe -r b43legacy
modprobe -r ssb
modprobe -r ndiswrapper
modprobe ndiswrapper
modprobe b44

Step 7 (run in terminal)

Run this :

cd /etc/init.d/ && sudo chmod 755 wirelessfix.sh

Step 8 (run in terminal)

finally run this:

sudo update-rc.d wirelessfix.sh defaults

Step 9

Restart your machine and that's it.

Some tips for correcting UUIDs in Ubuntu

2008-10-19T08:37:00.002+01:00

a UUID is a rather long identifier for a disk partition. Every disk partition has its own unique UUID. In Ubuntu, the UUID for partitions must be correctly specified in two files: /boot/grub/menu.lst and /etc/fstab. Sometimes errors occur during boot up eg after partition changes or formatting cause changes to the UUID. Correction is often simply a matter of editing files to reflect the correct UUID designations.

First... Files which may need to be edited include /boot/grub/menu.lst and /etc/fstab. It's a good idea to back up these important files first

sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.bk1

sudo cp /boot/grub/menu.lst /boot/grub/menu.lst.bk1

To find out the UUID for each partition, in a terminal type:

sudo blkid

This will show the current UUID and the device designation for each drive recognised by the BIOS. The partition does not need to be mounted - it will appear here in any case.

To list all partitions on all drives:

sudo fdisk -l

This will show the partition information for each drive, and each partition. You can recognise which partition is which on the basis of its size, format and the drive designation. Once again, the partition does not need to be mounted; all partitions will be listed irrespective. The 'fdisk' command does not show the UUID of partitions but we already have that from the 'sudo blkid' command.

To find out where partitions are mounted now:

mount

To show/edit default mount points:

cat /etc/fstab

sudo gedit /etc/fstab

This will show where partitions are mounted during boot. You may wish to use a text editor other than gedit of course (eg kate, mousepad, vi, nano, mcedit etc). The UUID or device name shown in the relevant line in fstab must correlate with the partition information given by 'fdisk' and 'blkid'.

To show/edit where Grub is directing the boot process:

cat /boot/grub/menu.lst

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

Towards the end of the menu.lst file you will see entries correlating to those you see in Ubuntu's start up or boot menu, (which only appears if enabled). The UUID for the respective partition, which appears in /boot/grub/menu.lst, must be that shown by 'sudo blkid'.

Note: Drive and partition numbering in Grub language starts at 0, whereas the numbering for the Ubuntu operating system starts at "a" or 1. Thus "root (hd0,0)" would be Grub's reference to the first partition on the first drive, ie device "/dev/sda1". Likewise for example "root (hd1,2)" would refer to "/dev/sdb3".

Some examples from laptop:

Extract from output of 'sudo blkid':

/dev/sda1: UUID="73d8bfea-01e8-4f65-8efe-99265ce849db" TYPE="ext2"
/dev/mmcblk0p1: UUID="24672713-fb81-47f5-8190-f8f88529ac44" TYPE="ext2"
/dev/sdb1: LABEL="LaCie" UUID="6853-5BA9" TYPE="vfat"
/dev/sdb2: UUID="c85eeef7-1599-4be8-a5b8-9d3f673db526" TYPE="ext2"

Shows me the UUID and format type for the partitions on several disks on my laptop.

Extract from output of 'sudo fdisk -l':

Disk /dev/sda: 8069 MB, 8069677056 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 981 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000a34c8

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 981 7879851 83 Linux

(Other lines deleted for brevity)

Shows me the size and format information for my partitions .

Extract from output of 'mount':

/dev/sda1 on / type ext2 (rw,noatime,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
/sys on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
varrun on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=0755)
varlock on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devshm on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
lrm on /lib/modules/2.6.24-19-generic/volatile type tmpfs (rw)
/dev/mmcblk0p1 on /home type ext2 (rw,noatime)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/sdb1 type vfat (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,dmask=0000,fmask=1111,uid=1000,gid=1000)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)

(Other lines deleted for brevity)

Shows (amongst other things) that my partition /dev/sda1 is mounted on the root file system "/" and that my /dev/mmcblk0p1is mounted on "/home".

Extract from output of 'cat /boot/grub/menu.lst':

(Lots of lines deleted for brevity)
title Ubuntu 8.04.1, kernel 2.6.24-19-generic
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-generic root=UUID=73d8bfea-01e8-4f65-8efe-99265ce849db ro quiet
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic
quiet

title Ubuntu 8.04.1, kernel 2.6.24-19-generic (recovery mode)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-generic root=UUID=73d8bfea-01e8-4f65-8efe-99265ce849db ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic

title Ubuntu 8.04.1, memtest86+
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
quiet
(Other lines deleted for brevity)

Here:

* 'title' is the relevant line as displayed in the Grub menu
* 'root' is the partition where grub will look for the boot files (and remember (hd0,0) refers to /dev/sda1)
* 'kernel' is the path where grub will look for the kernel file
* 'initrd' is the path where grub will look for the file system image file

Howto get the rt2870 Wifi 802.11abgn chipset to work with Intrepid Ibex

2008-10-11T08:56:00.002+01:00

Install build-essential (This may not be needed so try the next steps without build-essential first).

sudo apt-get install build-essential

Create a directory in for example your home directory to keep all the files.

cd ~/

mkdir rt2870

cd rt2870

Now retrieve the driver

wget http://www.ralinktech.com.tw/data/drivers/2008_0925_RT2870_Linux_STA_v1.4.0.0.tar.bz2

Extract the compressed driver directory and files.

tar xvfj 2008_0925_RT2870_Linux_STA_v1.4.0.0.tar.bz2

Enter the directory and edit the config.mk file so that the driver will support NetworkManager

nano os/linux/config.mk

Change the following part

# Support Wpa_Supplicant

HAS_WPA_SUPPLICANT=n

# Support Native WpaSupplicant for Network Magang

HAS_NATIVE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_SUPPORT=n

to this

# Support Wpa_Supplicant

HAS_WPA_SUPPLICANT=y

# Support Native WpaSupplicant for Network Maganger

HAS_NATIVE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_SUPPORT=y

Compile and install.

sudo make

sudo make install

Edit the Ralink settings file to your liking.

sudo nano /etc/Wireless/RT2870STA/RT2870STA.dat

This is what mine looks like without the passwords and accesspoint.

#The word of "Default" must not be removed

Default

CountryRegion=5

CountryRegionABand=7

CountryCode=SE

ChannelGeography=1

SSID=*REMOVED*

NetworkType=Infra

WirelessMode=5

Channel=1

BeaconPeriod=100

TxPower=100

BGProtection=0

TxPreamble=0

RTSThreshold=2347

FragThreshold=2346

TxBurst=1

PktAggregate=0

WmmCapable=1

AckPolicy=0;0;0;0

AuthMode=WPA

EncrypType=TKIP

WPAPSK=*REMOVED*

DefaultKeyID=1

Key1Type=0

Key1Str=

Key2Type=0

Key2Str=

Key3Type=0

Key3Str=

Key4Type=0

Key4Str=

PSMode=CAM

FastRoaming=0

RoamThreshold=70

APSDCapable=0

APSDAC=0;0;0;0

HT_RDG=1

HT_EXTCHA=0

HT_OpMode=1

HT_MpduDensity=4

HT_BW=1

HT_BADecline=0

HT_AutoBA=1

HT_BADecline=0

HT_AMSDU=1

HT_BAWinSize=64

HT_GI=1

HT_MCS=33

HT_MIMOPSMode=3

IEEE80211H=0

TGnWifiTest=0

WirelessEvent=0

I think the important part of my changes is this.

AuthMode=WPA

This was what I had to change to make the driver work with NetworkManager.

Now make the driver load at bootup

sudo nano /etc/modules

and add this line to the the file.

alias ra0 rt2870sta

My /etc/modules looks like this.

# /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time.

#

# This file contains the names of kernel modules that should be loaded

# at boot time, one per line. Lines beginning with "#" are ignored.

fuse

lp

sbp2

#ndiswrapper

uinput

alias ra0 rt2870sta

# Added for Nero Linux device access

sg

Add an ugly fix to make the ra0 interface come up during each boot.

sudo nano /etc/init.d/rc.local

and add these lines to the end of the file

ifconfig ra0 inet up

sudo /etc/init.d/NetworkManager restart

Reboot and it should work. It did for me.

How To Change File-Type (mimetype) Icons in Ubuntu

2008-10-11T08:44:00.002+01:00

This how-to is based on wanting to change icons which have been downloaded from Gnome-look or some other source. As an example, I'll show how to change the icons associated with .doc and .odt files. Exactly same method applies to other file types.

(If you're using the icons supplied with Ubuntu, you'll find them in /usr/share/icons. Also, if the iconset you're modifying is based on scalable .svg icons, the procedure will differ - find the icon to change in the "scalable" folder and replace with new .svg image)

Open up a folder containing files with icons you want to change.

Right-click on an icon and select Properties

Look for the MIME type entry and make a note of it:
e.g. application/msword (for .doc file)
or application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text (for .odt file)

Navigate to ~/.icons folder. You'll see all the custom icon sets you've installed.

Open up the icon folder you're using and you'll see that there are several folders containing the same icons at different sizes. In the Nautilus file manager, you can zoom in or out, increasing or decreasing the size of the icons displayed - these folders of icons make that possible. The size of icon vs zoom level is as follows:

400% - 128x128
200% - 96x96
150% - 72x72
100% - 48x48
67% - 32x32
50% - 24x24
33% - 16x16

(There are also icon folders 64x64 and 24x24 - not sure what they're used for!)

Make seven versions of the image you want to use in the sizes listed above and copy into each folder.

You'll have to repeat the next bit for each size:

Open folder
Look for file corresponding to mimetype entry you noted down earlier
e.g. application/msword = application-msword.png
or application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text = application-vnd.oasis.opendocument.text.png
Delete existing file
Find the image file you copied in here earlier, right-click, Properties, Permissions tab.
Click on the "Execute" tick box and "OK"
Right-click on image file, Make link to to create a new link file.
Rename the link to replace the file you deleted.

Repeat for each icon size.

When you've finished replacing icons, delete the "icon-theme.cache" file.

Open a terminal and do:

# cd .icons

# gtk-update-icon-cache ICONSET NAME

This will re-generate the icon-theme.cache file using your new icons.

That's about it. Open up a new Nautilus window and enjoy icon nirvana

How to install Wink (Video Tutorials Application) for 64bit - Ubuntu 8.04

2008-10-11T08:30:00.003+01:00

Wink is a great program for creating video tutorials through the use of flash animation. You can take screen captures with Wink either on-demand or on a time-delay basis and then compile those screenshots into a swf file for use in a web page. You can also add explanation boxes, buttons and titles to your presentations. If you're looking for an easy way to create a video tutorial on how to use certain software applications or perhaps even a website then you definitely want to check out Wink. Unfortunately the wink package available in the Ubuntu repository is only available for the 32-bit architecture so this guide will walk you through installing it on the 64-bit version of Ubuntu.

First off you'll need to install the ia32-libs package if it's not already installed.

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

The next step is to download the Wink package from here

Open your terminal and type the following:

cd /home/[YourUserName]/Desktop

dpkg-deb --extract wink_1.5.1060-3ubuntu1.2_i386.deb wink

dpkg-deb --control wink_1.5.1060-3ubuntu1.2_i386.deb wink/DEBIAN

gedit ./wink/DEBIAN/control

Find the line that begins with "Architecture:" and replace the "i386" with "all"

Architecture: all

Delete the line that begins with "Original-Maintainer: Daniel Baumann ". This step isn't mandatory but it will prevent an error from being displayed when the package is built.

Click Save and close gedit.

Type the following

gedit ./wink/usr/share/applications/wink.desktop

Find the line that begins with "Icon=" and replace "wink" with "/usr/share/pixmaps/wink.xpm". This step ensures that the correct icon will appear on your Applications > Graphics menu.

Icon=/usr/share/pixmaps/wink.xpm

Click Save and close gedit

The wink package requires that the libexpat.so.0 file be installed in your /usr/lib32 folder. The first step here is to check and see if you have that file installed. Type the following:

dir /usr/lib32/libexpat*

If you see a file named libexpat.so.0 then you can skip to step 12. Otherwise make a note of the latest version of libexpat that is installed. It's most likely going to be libexpat.so.1.5.2. Type the following: (make sure to replace the 1.5.2 with your latest version)

mkdir ./wink/usr/lib32

sudo ln -s /usr/lib32/libexpat.so.1.5.2 ./wink/usr/lib32/libexpat.so.0

Type the following to build the package.

dpkg-deb --build wink

Click on the new wink.deb package to install it or type the following. If you receive any errors during the installation you may need to install the gcc-3.3-base and libstdc++5 pacakges.

sudo dpkg -i wink.deb

Before running the program for the first time you need to make sure that all required libraries are installed. After you install the newly created package type the following:

ldd /usr/lib/wink/wink

If none of the libraries say "not found" then you should now be able to open wink from the Applications > Graphics menu.

To uninstall type the following command

sudo apt-get remove wink

Adeona - System for tracking lost or stolen laptops in Ubuntu

2008-10-11T08:25:00.002+01:00

Adeona is the first Open Source system for tracking the location of your lost or stolen laptop that does not rely on a proprietary, central service. This means that you can install Adeona on your laptop and go — there's no need to rely on a single third party. What's more, Adeona addresses a critical privacy goal different from existing commercial offerings. It is privacy-preserving. This means that no one besides the owner (or an agent of the owner's choosing) can use Adeona to track a laptop. Unlike other systems, users of Adeona can rest assured that no one can abuse the system in order to track where they use their laptop.

Installation Procedure

Step 1: Install the packages that Adeona needs

sudo apt-get install build-essential libssl-dev openssl traceroute cron

Step 2: Download the latest version of Adeona to your home folder

Step 3: Unzip/Untar the tar file

tar -xvf adeona-0.2.1.tar.gz

Step 4: Move to adeona directory

cd adeona/

Step 5: Run the configuration and compile

./configure

make

Step 6: Install Adeona

sudo make install

Step 7: During the install it asks you to add a line to your cron/crontab... Make sure you copy this line, then open cron/crontab

sudo crontab -e

and then paste this line as a new line at the end of your cron/crontab file and then save it.

How to Install and Configure OpenVZ on Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy)

2008-09-28T19:07:00.001+01:00

OpenVZ allows multiple Linux distributions to run on a single computer or server, each with their own dedicated resources and configurations, also known as "Virtual Private Servers" (VPS). It is the free and open source alternative to VMWare and Virtuozzo (actually based on OpenVZ and has many similarities).

Preparing and Installing OpenVZ

1. It is recommended, but not necessary, to create a separate partition for the VE. Use gparted if needed to resize partitions. After the partition is made, create the /vz directory (even if skipping the partition):

sudo mkdir /vz

2. If making a separate partition, add the following to /etc/fstab:

/dev/sda1 /vz ext3 noatime,relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1

3. Create a symbolic link from /vz to a /var/lib/vz

sudo ln -s /vz /var/lib/vz

4. Make sure backports is enabled.After backports is enabled, install the openvz packages

sudo apt-get install linux-openvz

and then reboot into the openvz kernel.

5. After rebooting into the openvz kernel, install some tools

sudo apt-get install vzctl vzquota

6. Edit the /etc/sysctl.conf with some necessary info:

net.ipv4.conf.default.forwarding=1
net.ipv4.conf.default.proxy_arp = 0
net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
net.ipv4.conf.all.rp_filter = 1
kernel.sysrq = 1
net.ipv4.conf.default.send_redirects = 1
net.ipv4.conf.all.send_redirects = 0

7. Restart the vz service:

sudo /etc/init.d/vz restart

Creating the VE

1. Get an OS template to create the VE. I am using the ubuntu 8.04 template, there are more available at http://wiki.openvz.org/Download/template/precreated

wget download.openvz.org/template/precreated/ubuntu-8.04-i386-minimal.tar.gz

sudo mv ubuntu-8.04-i386-minimal.tar.gz /var/lib/vz/template/cache/

2. Create the VE (don't use less than 101, since those are for internal use):

sudo vzctl create 101 --ostemplate ubuntu-8.04-i386-minimal

Configuring the VE

1. Add the appropriate network settings to the VE. For a static IP

sudo vzctl set 101 --ipadd 192.168.1.101 --hostname testvps --nameserver 192.168.1.100 --nameserv

2. Edit /etc/vz/conf/101.conf to give the VE some usable resources

# UBC parameters (in form of barrier:limit)
KMEMSIZE="16384000:18022400"
LOCKEDPAGES="4096:4096"
PRIVVMPAGES="262144:292912"
SHMPAGES="131072:131072"
NUMPROC="400:400"
PHYSPAGES="0:2147483647"
VMGUARPAGES="102400:2147483647"
OOMGUARPAGES="102400:2147483647"
NUMTCPSOCK="500:500"
NUMFLOCK="200:220"
NUMPTY="64:64"
NUMSIGINFO="512:512"
TCPSNDBUF="5365760:10485760"
TCPRCVBUF="5365760:10485760"
OTHERSOCKBUF="1503232:4063232"
DGRAMRCVBUF="262144:262144"
NUMOTHERSOCK="500:500"
DCACHESIZE="4194304:4317184"
NUMFILE="9312:9312"
AVNUMPROC="200:200"
NUMIPTENT="128:128"

# Disk quota parameters (in form of softlimit:hardlimit)
DISKSPACE="5048576:5153024"
DISKINODES="1000000:1020000"
QUOTATIME="0"

3. Start the VE:

sudo vzctl start 101

4. Enter & test the VE's networking:

sudo vzctl enter 101
ping
ping google.com

5. If it's working you can start using your VE just like another copy of Ubuntu or whatever distro you used for the OS template. Note: the Ubuntu template is a minimal install (only uses 46MB default). I updated the VE's /etc/sources.list to match my HN's repos, then installed whatever software I needed, using 'apt-cache search

Useful Commands

List all VEs and their state: vzlist -a
Delete VEs: vzctl destroy (no going back)
More commands: man vzctl
See VE stats: vzctl exec cat /proc/user_beancounters

Troubleshooting

Weird errors? Make sure you are booted into the openvz kernel:

uname -a

Linux vpsu4.4domains.com 2.6.24-19-openvz #1 SMP Thu Aug 21 04:18:17 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

And all the openvz modules are loaded on the HN:

sudo modprobe vzethdev vznetdev vzrst vzctp vzmon vzdquota vzdev

How to change the start-here icon (Start Menu Icon) in Ubuntu

2008-09-21T19:20:00.001+01:00

* Manually putting them into the directory
* Recreating the folder

You can go into the following directory:

/usr/share/icons/themename/24x24/places/start_here.png

Once you're in there make sure you open your icon and it's scaled for 24x24. One thing you probably should do is backup the old icon, copy it and put it in a folder. So once you've done that, remove the "start-here.png" file from the directory, then rename your new logo "start-here" and put it in the directory. After that, you want to run this command:

sudo gtk-update-icon-cache /usr/share/icons/Human/

After you've done that, go into Terminal and run this command:

killall gnome-panel

The Gnome panel should disappear for a second and come back with your desired logo.

The simplest way to do it (and I forget which thread I read this in, but kudos to whomever suggested it first) is to create a folder in your home directory for the icon theme you use and then put your custom icon in there.

One of the more simpler ways to do this (and I forget which thread I read this in, but thanks to whoever suggested it) is to create a folder in your home directory for the icon theme you use and then put your custom icon that you want to use in there.

So an example would be, if you're using the Human theme create this directory:

/home/username/.icons/Human/scalable/places/distributor-logo.png

Then you can run this in Terminal:

killall gnome-panel

Then you should have your custom icon where the Ubuntu icon was.

How to install Subsonic Ubuntu Hardy

2008-09-21T19:14:00.002+01:00

Subsonic is a free, web-based media streamer, providing access to your entire music collection wherever you are. Use it to share your music with friends, or to listen to your own music while at work. You can stream to multiple players simultaneously, for instance to one player in your kitchen and another in your living room.

Subsonic is designed to handle very large music collections (many thousand albums). It uses a combination of directory structure and tag parsing to organize the music. Although optimized for MP3 streaming, it works for any audio or video format that can stream over HTTP (for instance AAC and OGG). By using transcoder plug-ins, Subsonic supports on-the-fly conversion and streaming of virtually any audio format, including WMA, FLAC, APE, Musepack, WavPack, Shorten and OptimFROG.

Step1: Dependencies

sudo apt-get install tomcat5.5

cd; wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/subsonic/subsonic-3.4.zip

Step2: Modify Init For Tomcat & Start

sudo nano /etc/init.d/tomcat5.5

Change TOMCAT_SECURITY=yes to TOMCAT_SECURITY=no

*If anyone has a better solution for this please post.

sudo /etc/init.d/tomcat5.5 start

Step3: Unzip/Install Subsonic

unzip subsonic-3.4.zip

mv subsonic.war /var/lib/tomcat5.5/webapps/

mkdir /var/subsonic

chown tomcat55:nogroup /var/subsonic

Step4: Test

firefox http://127.0.0.1:8180/subsonic

How to set Yahoo Mail as Firefox default e-mail client

2008-09-21T19:12:00.000+01:00

Here is the procedure to follow:

1. In Firefox 3 and further versions go to Tools.
2. Click Options.

3. Click on the Application tab.
4. Highlight Mailto and select Yahoo! Mail.
5. Click OK.
6. Done!

How to access to music with amarok from anywhere (almost)

2008-09-16T07:12:00.002+01:00

The idea is to gain access and playback to any or as many music folders from right clicking on the desktop or any file browser screen.

Works with amarok and probably audacious. (with correct launch comm.) Once it's setup very easy to add or delete 'entries'.

first install this

sudo apt-get install nautilus-open-terminal

This provides a right click - 'open in terminal' on any directory (folder
Useful to run a command or get proper path to a folder without typing errors.

EX.
I have a mp3 music folder - 'derek and the dominos' somewhere. (red is path
Browse to the folder, r. click 'open in terminal'

~/mp3/ruchi And The Dominos (1970) Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs$

Copy the path only and then browse to home dir. -> .gnome2 -> nautilus-scripts.
Inside create a new text docu., name it something simple (I used layla - note; must be lowercase

Use this as a template, replace my path by pasting in copied path. Leave quotes for paths with spaces and or oddities

The file extension must match format of music files

#!/bin/bash
cd ~/mp3/"Derek And The Dominos (1970) Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs"
amarok --load --play *.mp3

Save and backspace to .gnome2, r/ click, 'open in terminal' and run

chmod +x layla

Now a r.click will show a 'Scripts", mouse over and click name chosen. If Amarok is open the folder will load and begin playing, it it isn't Amarok will open, ect.

EX. of flac

#!/bin/bash
cd ~/flac/"Quicksilver Messenger Service (1968) Quicksilver Messenger Service"
amarok --load --play *.flac

You can also create subdirectories in nautilus-scripts if wanted, a right click 'collection' of sorts.We made a couple based on sub dir. = artist, script = album or mix.

Fix for E: Cannot find filename or size tag error in AptOnCD

2008-09-14T18:37:00.003+01:00

I had created a Repository DVD with APTonCD 0.1.98

But when I was go to add this DVD as repository CD-ROM, I got this error :

E: Cannot find filename or size tag

The problem is cached-name of .DEB files. You must remove 1%3a, 2%3a, 3%3a... till 9%3a from all .DEB file names.

There is one problem too. You must create another DVD after doing this. Your old DVD with the error will not repair.

Here is the step-by-step:

1) First, just go to cache folder with this command :

cd /var/cache/apt/

2) Now CHMOD "archives" folder to make permission to rename files inside this folder.

sudo chmod -R 777 archives/

3) Now, do this all commands one by one in terminal/konsole to rename all .DEB files :

for FILE in $(find . -type f -name '*1%3a*'); do NEWNAME=$(echo $FILE|sed s/'1%3a'//); mv -v $FILE $NEWNAME; done

for FILE in $(find . -type f -name '*2%3a*'); do NEWNAME=$(echo $FILE|sed s/'2%3a'//); mv -v $FILE $NEWNAME; done

for FILE in $(find . -type f -name '*3%3a*'); do NEWNAME=$(echo $FILE|sed s/'3%3a'//); mv -v $FILE $NEWNAME; done

for FILE in $(find . -type f -name '*4%3a*'); do NEWNAME=$(echo $FILE|sed s/'4%3a'//); mv -v $FILE $NEWNAME; done

for FILE in $(find . -type f -name '*5%3a*'); do NEWNAME=$(echo $FILE|sed s/'5%3a'//); mv -v $FILE $NEWNAME; done

for FILE in $(find . -type f -name '*6%3a*'); do NEWNAME=$(echo $FILE|sed s/'6%3a'//); mv -v $FILE $NEWNAME; done

for FILE in $(find . -type f -name '*7%3a*'); do NEWNAME=$(echo $FILE|sed s/'7%3a'//); mv -v $FILE $NEWNAME; done

for FILE in $(find . -type f -name '*8%3a*'); do NEWNAME=$(echo $FILE|sed s/'8%3a'//); mv -v $FILE $NEWNAME; done

for FILE in $(find . -type f -name '*9%3a*'); do NEWNAME=$(echo $FILE|sed s/'9%3a'//); mv -v $FILE $NEWNAME; done

(Help : This command will remove the "1%3a" with "2%3a" "3%3a" "4%3a"... till "9%3a" )

4) DONE.

How to create an ubuntu 8.04.1 boot floppy

2008-09-11T08:16:00.001+01:00

There are various posts about this topic already, but none of them actually worked for me using a new Ubuntu 8.04.1 installation.

For reference, my computer is setup like this:
Windows Xp installed on an IDE drive /dev/hda using whole disk
Ubuntu 8.04.1 installed on SATA drive /dev/sda using whole disk
Kubuntu 8.04.1 installed on SATA drive /dev/sdb using whole disk

If the BIOS are set to an IDE boot I get windows. If the BIOS are set to SCSI boot I boot into GRUB on the MBR of the primary SATA disk. This is how I have the BIOS set for the remainder of this post (to boot to GRUB on the MBR of a SATA disk). If I change the BIOS boot order it breaks GRUB, I think because the disks get assigned in a different order (hd2,0) becomes (hd0,0) etc. (this is annoying....)

Once booted into Ubuntu I wanted to make a backup floppy boot disk just in case something ever happened to the Linux install. I followed various posts I could find on the internet but none actually worked. Below is what finally did work for me:

1. Open a terminal window
2. $ su and enter password to become the root 'super user'
3. # gformat --device=/dev/fd0

Set format type to DOS in the GUI application, for some reason whenever I tried to format these to Linux ext2 the floppy could not be used in later steps. I can't explain this. The command line "fdformat" also would not make usable floppies. However, once you have a usable blank formatted floppy:

4. # mke2fs /dev/fd0
5. # mount /dev/fd0 /media/floppy
6. # mkdir -p /media/floppy/boot/grub
7. # cd /boot/grub
8. # cp * /media/floppy/boot/grub

Note I copied ALL files, not just stage1, stage2, menu.lst and device.map files like some other posts suggested. The resulting floppy would not fully work for me unless I copied ALL files.

9. # umount /dev/fd0
10. # grub
11. grub> device (fd0) /dev/fd0

Note the need for the 2nd parameter, device (fd0) would not work

12. grub> root (fd0)

Ignore the message about not recognizing the partiton header.

13. grub> setup (fd0)
14. grub> quit
15. # exit
16. $ exit

The floppy you just wrote should now be bootable and have the entire GRUB menu on it (and actually working). Make sure your BIOS are set to try a floppy boot before the hard disk boot to test the boot loader floppy.

How To Cover you tracks with truecrypt in gnome

2008-09-09T22:10:00.001+01:00

when browsing around in your true crypt mount your data might not be as secure as you think. Gnome keeps track of a list of your recent files and creates thumbnails of your files. They will be there even after you dismount. To fix this issue we wrote the following script to prevent gnome from tracking you while you use truecrypt.

#!/bin/sh

#save old recently used stuff, and stop tracking recently used
mv ~/.recently-used ~/.recently-used.bak
mv ~/.recently-used.xbel ~/.recently-used.xbel.bak
mkdir ~/.recently-used.xbel

truecrypt

#restore old recently used stuff
rm -r ~/.recently-used.xbel
mv ~/.recently-used.bak ~/.recently-used
mv ~/.recently-used.xbel.bak ~/.recently-used.xbel

#shred the thumbnail folder
find ~/.thumbnails -type f -execdir shred -u '{}' \;

How to backup MySQL and recovery Using Zmanda Recovery Manager

2008-09-09T22:07:00.000+01:00

Zmanda Recovery Manager (ZRM) for MySQL simplifies life of a database administrator who needs an easy to use yet flexible and robust backup and recovery solution for MySQL server. Significant features are:

* Schedule full and incremental logical or raw backups of your MySQL database
* Centralized backup management
* Perform backup that is the best match for your storage engine and your MySQL configuration
* Get e-mail notification about status of your backups
* Monitor and obtain reports about your backups (including RSS feeds)
* Verify your backup images
* Compress and encrypt your backup images
* Implement Site or Application specific backup policies
* Recover database easily to any point in time or to any particular database event
* Custom plugins to tailor MySQL backups to your environment
* MySQL backup using Linux LVM and Solaris ZFS snapshots

Release 2.0 of the community project can be downloaded from Zmanda downloads page(http://www.zmanda.com/download-zrm.php). It supports all Linux and Solaris distributions. The documentation is available on ZRM wiki(http://mysqlbackup.zmanda.com). ZRM forums (http://forums.zmanda.com) can be used to get questions answered about the project.

This example assumes that the ZRM server and MySQL server are the same machine. We are backing up MySQL database

myisamnetflix

to the same machine running Ubuntu 7.04.

ZRM For MySQL Installation

* Installation has to be done as super user.

* ZRM for MySQL requires perl 5.8.7 or later. Ubuntu 7.04 already has perl 5.8.8 installed.

* Install perl-DBD and perl-XML-parser modules

# apt-get install libxml-parser-perl libdbd-mysql-perl

* Download ZRM for MySQL debian packages from Zmanda downloads page.

* Install ZRM for MySQL (ZRM server package is sufficient because MySQL server and ZRM server are the same machine).

# dpkg -i mysql-zrm_2.0_all.deb

Selecting previously deselected package mysql-zrm.
(Reading database ... 108342 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking mysql-zrm (from mysql-zrm_2.0_all.deb) ...
Setting up mysql-zrm (2.0) ...
Updating ownership of previously backedup data sets

MySQL Server Configuration

* Check to see if MySQL server is running. If MySQL server is not installed, please install "mysql-server" using "apt-get" command. Update the "root" MySQL server with a password using mysqladmin command (mysqladmin --user root password boot12). We are using "boot12" as the root password. This user will be used for doing MySQL backups and restores. It is better to user a specific user with minimal privileges to do MySQL backups instead of using "root" MySQL user.

* The MySQL server has to run as "mysql" user and "mysql" OS user should belong to "mysql" group. The default installation of ZRM for MySQL requires MySQL server to run as "mysql" user.

* "ps" output shows mysql server is running using the default MySQL port

mysql 22034 21995 0 14:38 pts/2 00:00:09 /usr/sbin/mysqld --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --user=mysql --pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid --skip-external-locking --port=3306 --socket=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock

* Enable binary logging on the MySQL server. Binary logging must be enabled to do incremental backups of the MySQL server.

* Edit /etc/mysql/my.cnf configuration file. Add "log-bin" in mysqld section.

[mysqld]
log-bin

* We have mysql database "myisamnetflix" that contains two tables. We will be backing this database. This database uses MyISAM storage engine:

mysql> show databases;
+--------------------+
| Database |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| myisamnetflix |
| mysql |
+--------------------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> use myisamnetflix;
Reading table information for completion of table and column names
You can turn off this feature to get a quicker startup with -A

Database changed
mysql> show tables;
+-------------------------+
| Tables_in_myisamnetflix |
+-------------------------+
| MovieID |
| MovieRatings |
+-------------------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select count(*) from MovieID;
+----------+
| count(*) |
+----------+
| 17770 |
+----------+

* MySQL client commands are installed in /usr/bin/ directory. If they are not, accordingly configure the client command location and binary log location in mysql-zrm.conf.

ZRM Configuration

* This should be done as mysql user:

$ id

uid=1002(mysql) gid=1001(mysql) groups=1001(mysql)

* Create the backup set directory. The backup set is called "netflix".

$ mkdir /etc/mysql-zrm/netflix

* Create mysql-zrm.conf configuration file. Backup compression is enabled and "myisamnetflix" database is being backed up. The location of MySQL binary logs are also specified ("mysql-binlog-path").

$ cat /etc/mysql-zrm/netflix/mysql-zrm.conf

host="localhost"
databases="myisamnetflix"
password="boot12"
user="root"
compress=1
mysql-binlog-path="/var/log/mysql"

Perform ZRM Backups

* This should be done as "mysql" user.

* Perform full backup of the database immediately using "mysql-zrm-scheduler".

$ mysql-zrm-scheduler --now --backup-set netflix --backup-level 0

schedule:INFO: ZRM for MySQL Community Edition - version 2.0
Logging to /var/log/mysql-zrm/mysql-zrm-scheduler.log
backup:INFO: ZRM for MySQL Community Edition - version 2.0
netflix:backup:INFO: START OF BACKUP
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE START: Initialization
netflix:backup:INFO: backup-set=netflix
netflix:backup:INFO: backup-date=20080326161652
netflix:backup:INFO: mysql-server-os=Linux/Unix
netflix:backup:INFO: host=localhost
netflix:backup:INFO: backup-date-epoch=1206573412
netflix:backup:INFO: mysql-zrm-version=ZRM for MySQL Community Edition - version 2.0
netflix:backup:INFO: mysql-version=5.0.38-Ubuntu_0ubuntu1.4-log
netflix:backup:INFO: backup-directory=/var/lib/mysql-zrm/netflix/20080326161652
netflix:backup:INFO: backup-level=0
netflix:backup:INFO: backup-mode=raw
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE END: Initialization
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE START: Running pre backup plugin
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE END: Running pre backup plugin
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE START: Flushing logs
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE END: Flushing logs
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE START: Find table type
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE END: Find table type
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE START: Creating raw backup
netflix:backup:INFO: raw-databases=myisamnetflix
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE END: Creating raw backup
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE START: Calculating backup size & checksums
netflix:backup:INFO: next-binlog=mysql-bin.000009
netflix:backup:INFO: backup-size=122.27 MB
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE END: Calculating backup size & checksums
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE START: Compression/Encryption
netflix:backup:INFO: compress=
netflix:backup:INFO: backup-size-compressed=37.65 MB
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE END: Compression/Encryption
netflix:backup:INFO: read-locks-time=00:00:01
netflix:backup:INFO: flush-logs-time=00:00:00
netflix:backup:INFO: compress-encrypt-time=00:02:20
netflix:backup:INFO: backup-time=00:00:15
netflix:backup:INFO: backup-status=Backup succeeded
netflix:backup:INFO: Backup succeeded
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE START: Running post backup plugin
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE END: Running post backup plugin
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE START: Mailing backup report
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE END: Mailing backup report
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE START: Cleanup
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE END: Cleanup
netflix:backup:INFO: END OF BACKUP
/usr/bin/mysql-zrm started successfully

* Delete some entries from the "myisamnetflix" database (so that we can do incremental backup of the database)
mysql> use myisamnetflix;
Reading table information for completion of table and column names
You can turn off this feature to get a quicker startup with -A

Database changed

mysql> delete from MovieID where MovieTitle = "Alien Hunter";
Query OK, 1 rows affected (0.01 sec)

* Perform incremental backup of the backup set.

$ mysql-zrm-scheduler --now --backup-set netflix --backup-level 1

schedule:INFO: ZRM for MySQL Community Edition - version 2.0
Logging to /var/log/mysql-zrm/mysql-zrm-scheduler.log
backup:INFO: ZRM for MySQL Community Edition - version 2.0
netflix:backup:INFO: START OF BACKUP
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE START: Initialization
netflix:backup:INFO: backup-set=netflix
netflix:backup:INFO: backup-date=20080326164433
netflix:backup:INFO: mysql-server-os=Linux/Unix
netflix:backup:INFO: host=localhost
netflix:backup:INFO: backup-date-epoch=1206575073
netflix:backup:INFO: mysql-zrm-version=ZRM for MySQL Community Edition - version 2.0
netflix:backup:INFO: mysql-version=5.0.38-Ubuntu_0ubuntu1.4-log
netflix:backup:INFO: backup-directory=/var/lib/mysql-zrm/netflix/20080326164433
netflix:backup:INFO: backup-level=1
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE END: Initialization
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE START: Running pre backup plugin
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE END: Running pre backup plugin
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE START: Flushing logs
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE END: Flushing logs
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE START: Creating incremental backup
netflix:backup:INFO: incremental=mysql-bin.[0-9]*
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE END: Creating incremental backup
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE START: Calculating backup size & checksums
netflix:backup:INFO: next-binlog=mysql-bin.000013
netflix:backup:INFO: last-backup=/var/lib/mysql-zrm/netflix/20080326162210
netflix:backup:INFO: backup-size=0.03 MB
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE END: Calculating backup size & checksums
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE START: Compression/Encryption
netflix:backup:INFO: compress=
netflix:backup:INFO: backup-size-compressed=0.00 MB
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE END: Compression/Encryption
netflix:backup:INFO: read-locks-time=00:00:00
netflix:backup:INFO: flush-logs-time=00:00:00
netflix:backup:INFO: compress-encrypt-time=00:00:00
netflix:backup:INFO: backup-time=00:00:00
netflix:backup:INFO: backup-status=Backup succeeded
netflix:backup:INFO: Backup succeeded
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE START: Running post backup plugin
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE END: Running post backup plugin
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE START: Mailing backup report
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE END: Mailing backup report
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE START: Cleanup
netflix:backup:INFO: PHASE END: Cleanup
netflix:backup:INFO: END OF BACKUP
/usr/bin/mysql-zrm started successfully

ZRM Backup Reports

* Use "mysql-zrm-reporter" to look at the status of backups available.

$ /usr/bin/mysql-zrm-reporter --where backup-set=netflix --show backup-status-info

REPORT TYPE : backup-status-info

backup_set backup_date backup_level backup_status comment
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
netflix Wed 26 Mar 2008 04:44:33 1 Backup succeeded ----
PM PDT
netflix Wed 26 Mar 2008 04:16:52 0 Backup succeeded ----
PM PDT

* ZRM reports can also provide information on impact on MySQL application.

$ /usr/bin/mysql-zrm-reporter --where backup-set=netflix --show backup-app-performance-info

REPORT TYPE : backup-app-performance-info

backup_set backup_date backup_level backup_size backup_time read_locks_time flush_logs_time
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
netflix Wed 26 Mar 2008 04:44:33 1 0.03 MB 00:00:00 00:00:00 00:00:00
PM PDT
netflix Wed 26 Mar 2008 04:16:52 0 122.27 MB 00:00:15 00:00:01 00:00:00
PM PDT

Database Recovery

* Use ZRM reporting tool to identify the location of MySQL backup images.

$ /usr/bin/mysql-zrm-reporter --where backup-set=netflix --show restore-info

REPORT TYPE : restore-info

backup_set backup_date backup_level backup_directory backup_status comment
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
netflix Wed 26 Mar 2008 04:44:33 1 /var/lib/mysql-zrm/netflix/20080326164433 Backup succeeded ----
PM PDT
netflix Wed 26 Mar 2008 04:16:52 0 /var/lib/mysql-zrm/netflix/20080326161652 Backup succeeded ----
PM PDT

* You can parse incremental backups to identify database events of interest. In our example, we will look for the "DELETE" event.

$ /usr/bin/mysql-zrm-parse-binlogs --source-directory /var/lib/mysql-zrm/netflix/20080326164433 | grep delete

parse-binlogs:INFO: ZRM for MySQL Community Edition - version 2.0
/var/lib/mysql-zrm/netflix/20080326164433/mysql-bin.000011 | 13634 | 08-03-26 16:28:03 | Query | use myisamnetflix/*!*/; delete from MovieID where MovieTitle = "Alien Hunter"/*!*/;

* Restore the database from the full backup done at 16:16:52.

$ /usr/bin/mysql-zrm-restore --user=root --password=boot12 --source-directory=/var/lib/mysql-zrm/netflix/20080326161652

restore:INFO: ZRM for MySQL Community Edition - version 2.0
BackupSet1:restore:INFO: Restored database from raw backup: myisamnetflix
BackupSet1:restore:INFO: Restore done in 9 seconds.
MySQL server has been shutdown. Please restart after verification.

* Restart the MySQL server
# /etc/init.d/mysql restart
* Stopping MySQL database server mysqld [ OK ]
* Starting MySQL database server mysqld [ OK ]
* Checking for corrupt, not cleanly closed and upgrade needing tables.

* Check the database recovery.

mysql> use myisamnetflix;
Reading table information for completion of table and column names
You can turn off this feature to get a quicker startup with -A

Database changed
mysql> select * from MovieID where MovieTitle = "Alien Hunter";
+---------+------+--------------+
| MovieID | Year | MovieTitle |
+---------+------+--------------+
| 17770 | 2003 | Alien Hunter |
+---------+------+--------------+
1 row in set (0.02 sec)

Howto Dump and view the cache of BIND9 DNS server

2008-09-05T08:14:00.001+01:00

Bind 9 makes it fairly easy to dump and view the cache of a caching BIND DNS server. All you have to do is run under root:

rndc dumpdb -cache

This will create a file called named_dump.db in the /var/cache/bind/ directory. You can easily open this .db with your favorite text editor.

** If your instance of BIND is chrooted, for example to /var/lib/named/, then the cache dump file will be located in the /var/lib/named/var/cache/bind/ directory.

** The dumpdb feature of rndc has other options including a -all or -zone flag. Check 'rndc --help' for more information.

Howto setup PPTP server (VPN) on Ubuntu 7.10

2008-09-05T07:53:00.003+01:00

What is PPTP?

PPTP stands for Point to Point Tunneling Protocol. It was developed by a consortium including Microsoft and is used for establishing VPN (Virtual Private Network) tunnels across the Internet. This allows remote users to securely and inexpensively access their corporate network from anywhere on the Internet.

PPTP uses a client-server model for establishing VPN connections. Most Microsoft operating systems ship with a PPTP client, so there is no need to purchase third-party client software. PPTP has the additional advantage over other VPN technologies of being easy to setup.
What is Poptop?

Before Poptop, no solution existed if you wish to connect PPTP clients to Linux servers. Using Poptop, Linux servers can now function seamlessly in a PPTP VPN environment. This enables administrators to leverage the considerable benefits of both Microsoft and Linux operating systems.

The current release version supports Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP PPTP clients and Linux PPTP clients.

Poptop is free software, licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL.

Features of Poptop include:

* Microsoft compatible authentication and encryption (MSCHAPv2, MPPE 40 - 128 bit RC4 encryption)
* Support for multiple client connections
* Seamless integration into a Microsoft network environment (LDAP, SAMBA) using RADIUS plugin
* Works with Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP PPTP clients
* Works with Linux PPTP client
* Poptop is, and will remain, totally free under the GNU General Public License

How to install Poptop (PPTPD)?

* Use this command:

sudo apt-get install pptpd -y

* Edit the /etc/pptpd.conf file like this

nano /etc/pptpd.conf

The file looks like this:

###############################################
# $Id: pptpd.conf 4255 2004-10-03 18:44:00Z rene $
#
# Sample Poptop configuration file /etc/pptpd.conf
#
# Changes are effective when pptpd is restarted.
###############################################

# TAG: ppp
# Path to the pppd program, default ‘/usr/sbin/pppd’ on Linux
#
#ppp /usr/sbin/pppd

# TAG: option
# Specifies the location of the PPP options file.
# By default PPP looks in ‘/etc/ppp/options’
#
option /etc/ppp/pptpd-options

# TAG: debug
# Turns on (more) debugging to syslog
#
#debug

# TAG: stimeout
# Specifies timeout (in seconds) on starting ctrl connection
#
# stimeout 10

# TAG: noipparam
# Suppress the passing of the client’s IP address to PPP, which is
# done by default otherwise.
#
#noipparam

# TAG: logwtmp
# Use wtmp(5) to record client connections and disconnections.
#
logwtmp

# TAG: bcrelay
# Turns on broadcast relay to clients from interface
#
#bcrelay eth1

# TAG: localip
# TAG: remoteip
# Specifies the local and remote IP address ranges.
#
# Any addresses work as long as the local machine takes care of the
# routing. But if you want to use MS-Windows networking, you should
# use IP addresses out of the LAN address space and use the proxyarp
# option in the pppd options file, or run bcrelay.
#
# You can specify single IP addresses seperated by commas or you can
# specify ranges, or both. For example:
#
# 192.168.0.234,192.168.0.245-249,192.168.0.254
#
# IMPORTANT RESTRICTIONS:
#
# 1. No spaces are permitted between commas or within addresses.
#
# 2. If you give more IP addresses than MAX_CONNECTIONS, it will
# start at the beginning of the list and go until it gets
# MAX_CONNECTIONS IPs. Others will be ignored.
#
# 3. No shortcuts in ranges! ie. 234-8 does not mean 234 to 238,
# you must type 234-238 if you mean this.
#
# 4. If you give a single localIP, that’s ok - all local IPs will
# be set to the given one. You MUST still give at least one remote
# IP for each simultaneous client.
#
# (Recommended)
#localip 192.168.0.1
#remoteip 192.168.0.234-238,192.168.0.245
# or
localip 192.168.101.1 <— THIS IS YOUR SERVER IP
remoteip 192.168.101.200-245 <—- THIS WILL BE THE IP’S FOR THE CLIENTS

* Now you will need to add a user and password in the /etc/ppp/chap-secrets file. The user will login with this user and password

nano /etc/ppp/chap-secrets

* add a user like this:

# Secrets for authentication using CHAP
# client server secret IP addresses

user pptpd password “*”

The "*" can be a IP address (Ex. 222.222.222.222) and the client will be able to connect only from this IP address or you can put * and the client will be able to connect from anyware

* Kill the pptpd service and start it

killall pptpd

pptpd

Howto Disable Multiple Instances of VLC Media player

2008-09-05T07:49:00.001+01:00

Disable the Multiple Instances of VLC , Follow these Steps

1. Open up the Terminal , and type :

gedit vlc.sh

This will open a new blank file , inside the file , copy and paste the following :

#!/bin/sh

#Script to Disable Multiple Instances of VLC Media Player.

pid=$(pidof vlc)

kill $pid

vlc "$1"

Save the File and Close it.

2.Make Script Executable.
In the terminal , do :

chmod a+x ~/vlc.sh

3.Change File Associations.

Right Click a .mp3 file , go to Properties.
Now click the "Open With" tab.
Click Add.
Click "Add a Custom Command".
Click Browse and select the vlc.sh
(Its the file u just created in your home directory in Step 1.)
Click Add.
Click Close.

**Do This For all the Extensions you want to Run using VLC , For example ,AVI ,M3U , MPEG , etc **

Now Whenever u new file , VLC will close if its running and play the new item.

**If you do Not like it , and want to Revert for reasons unknown :P **

Just Change the File Associations
(the one u changed to vlc.sh in Step 3. back to VLC Media Player)

Delete the vlc.sh file (It will be in the ~ Folder).

Optional (Opening files via Browsers Directly) :

The file associations part works great with regard to browsing and double clicking files in Nautilus, on the desktop, or whatever. But if you want to add this function in Firefox , Seamonkey , etc., you will want to set up the file associations in your browser as well.

In Firefox, you would go to Preferences->Applications, find and highlight the file type, scroll down to "use other...", browse to your ~/vlc.sh file, click "Open", move onto the next file type, next, next, ..., and then close your Firefox preferences.

How to create an ubuntu 8.04.1 boot floppy

2008-09-05T07:46:00.001+01:00

Once booted into Ubuntu you wanted to make a backup floppy boot disk just in case something ever happened to the Linux install. Procedure to follow

1. Open a terminal window
2. $ su and enter password to become the root 'super user'
3. # gformat --device=/dev/fd0

Set format type to DOS in the GUI application, for some reason whenever I tried to format these to Linux ext2 the floppy could not be used in later steps. I can't explain this. The command line "fdformat" also would not make usable floppies. However, once you have a usable blank formatted floppy:

4. # mke2fs /dev/fd0
5. # mount /dev/fd0 /media/floppy
6. # mkdir -p /media/floppy/boot/grub
7. # cd /boot/grub
8. # cp * /media/floppy/boot/grub

Note:- We copied ALL files, not just stage1, stage2, menu.lst and device.map files like some other posts suggested. The resulting floppy would not fully work for me unless I copied ALL files.

9. # umount /dev/fd0
10. # grub
11. grub> device (fd0) /dev/fd0

Note the need for the 2nd parameter, device (fd0) would not work

12. grub> root (fd0)

Ignore the message about not recognizing the partiton header.

13. grub> setup (fd0)
14. grub> quit
15. # exit
16. $ exit

The floppy you just wrote should now be bootable and have the entire GRUB menu on it (and actually working). Make sure your BIOS are set to try a floppy boot before the hard disk boot to test the boot loader floppy.

Howto Share Internet Connections in Ubuntu

2008-08-29T17:51:00.000+01:00

Network Bridge comes in handy. Its essentially the same as ICS, only more flexible, albeit less secure. You might want to have a firewall remain on your system with it.

Normally, using a series of commands will work when bridge-utils is installed, but they're only for the current session. We want to make it permanent.

Procedure to follow

1. Get bridge-utils through Synaptic. This is the software we'll use to create the Network Bridge.

sudo aptitude install bridge-utils

Now, keep in mind to either print this out or not exit your browser, because in this next step we'll stop the Networking Services to change them.

2. Open a terminal, and type

sudo /etc/init.d/networking stop

Keep the terminal open.

3. Now we're going to edit our interfaces file:

gksu gedit /etc/network/interfaces

Replace whatever is there with:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet manual

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet manual

auto br0
iface br0 inet dhcp
bridge_ports eth0 eth1

Save the changes.

4. Now we'll restart the Network Services

sudo /etc/init.d/networking start

And there we go. Your computer is now set up to automatically share its internet connection without dizzying settings for more advanced set-ups!

Have fun, and note longer boot-ups will occur due to creating the network upon boot.

Howto install manually nVidia drivers in Ubuntu

2008-08-29T17:49:00.001+01:00

Firstly, go to the official nVidia website and download the official linux drivers. Of course nv's nice and all.. but I wouldn't use it over the real thing. Once you download the driver file (into your home folder), right click on it in nautilus (file browser), click properties, then permissions, checking the box that says "allow executing the file", then type into a TTY session ctrl+alt+f1-f3 (ctrl+alt+f7 to get back to GUI) and type in

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop

Which will stop your x-server.. (DON'T DO ANY OF THIS UNTIL YOU KNOW THE WHOLE PROCESS, BECAUSE TURNING BACK ON YOUR GRAPHICS COMES AT THE END!)
(Also note that this will be a text-only display! Remember or write down all the commands.) then hit

ls

to list the files in your home folder. Find the one with "nvidia" in it, and hit "sudo ./*nvidia filename*" it should install the "nvidia" driver on your computer. when it asks you whether or not you want to replace the existing "xorg.conf" file, let it do so. once that's done, type in "sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start" which will turn back on the graphical interface, allowing you to login again. (sorry. it logs you out of everything but the commandline part of ubuntu. save everything before you turn off gdm.) If your controls work perfectly in regards to the mouse and keyboard, rejoice, you're done! if your mouse isn't scrolling, or it's behaving funny.. you may have to hit alt+f2 (You'll still be in graphical mode after hitting this one. it's a nice little tool.), and type in

gksu gedit

then open your xorg.conf file (Usually in the "/etc/X11/" folder), looking somewhere other than me about how to fix that, if copying your "pointer" section doesn't fix it.
(Copying the pointer section worked for me, since I had it set up right in a previous xorg.conf file..)

Now, in case of kernel update, remember that the nvidia driver will NOT work without reinstallation. This is expected, so expect it. In this case, you'll be in CLI mode. Your previous driver installer will work just fine, I like to check for updates occasionally, just to be with the newest version.

Always make sure, with a new executable comes making it executable before trying to.. well.. execute it. With GDM (the graphical display) working, simply right click the file in the file browser and click properties, set it executable. In CLI: have the file in your home directory or know the directory it's in.. Then do "cd "/path/to/driver/" before finally setting it executable. Do this with "sudo chmod a+x "{driver file name}"" (You can use the ls command to once again list it exactly).

Now, execute the file by simply typing the filename into the command line. It will say there's a previous version installed, and ask to write over it. Do so. It shouldn't need to overwrite the xorg.conf file, as the NVIDIA driver's still being used. Don't let it and save some hassle.

So basically, set the file executable in the file browser, or use sudo chmod a+x "nvidiadrivernamehere", stop gdm if it's started (sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop), then execute it, overwriting the driver, but not the xorg.conf. Then, start GDM back up (sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start)

If you overwrite the xorg configuration file (conf) just restore the backup. Look in the file browser (using alt+f2, typing in gksu nautilus and executing to get a root file browser. Needed for editing /boot/ files.) in "/boot/grub/" in list mode for the latest thing resembling .backup or .bak1 or something, listing files by date changed. delete the new xorg.conf, changing the name of xorg.conf.bak to xorg.conf.

So, in essence,
1: Download driver. Set as executable.
2: turn off graphics, going into only command line.
3: list files, execute driver installer.
4: follow installer's instructions, allowing it to replace your xorg.conf.
5: restart gdm. Hope everything goes smoothly.
6: *contingent upon condition in last step being met* DANCE! YOU WIN!

To reinstall,

1a: change file to executable if gdm's booted up through the properties prompt.
1b: do a sudo chmod a+x {filename} if it's not.
2a: kill gdm server (sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop in CLI (ctrl+alt+f1)) proceed to 2b.
2b: execute file. (sudo ./NVIDIA-x86-173.x.x-pkg1.run (or -x86_64-))
3: Follow prompts, letting it overwrite the old driver. Don't let it overwrite xorg.conf unless it's been changed to use another driver.
4: Start gdm. (sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start)
5: Rejoice! If it worked before, it should work now! If it doesn't, despair. Boot from a livecd if you have one, or use a computer at a library to come here and flame me. It happens frequently.

Howto Setup Canon C3380/C3380i printer setup in Ubuntu 8.04(Hardy Heron)

2008-08-16T18:46:00.001+01:00

Here are instructions for getting a Canon C3380/C3380i printer set up under Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron).

The printer is connected to via IPP, and in my case the printer requires authentication (username/password and mailbox authentication).

Drivers:
http://canon.codehost.com/

The normal system drivers (Generic->PCL 5c, etc.) will not work, because they do not have support for mailboxes (mailbox ID, password). If your printer is open to all and does not require mailbox authentication, then you may be able to use the normal system drivers.

The Codehost drivers are fully integrated with CUPS. Once installed you can print from any application without any special Codehost-specific process. Both color and black and white work.

NOTE: The most non-intutive part is that the username/password authentication for IPP and other protocols is not the same as mailbox authentication. Both must be specified, and this requires using the Codehost drivers.

Instructions:
1. Install the Codehost drivers
2. Using codehost-config:
- Add a Printer
- A remote printer using a network protocol
- Discover network printers
- Enter IP address of printer, select Any protocol, Start Discovery
- Expand the found printer
- Select IPP line
- Select Printer

- Enter Login/Password provided by the printer administrator (same as mailbox/password), Next
- Make sure the next window is maximized to edit the settings on the right hand side
- Under the Mode header
-- Job Mode: Print
-- Job Password: Empty
-- Mailbox number: Mailbox number provided by printer administrator
-- User ID: Mailbox number provided by printer administrator
-- Password: Mailbox password provided by printer administrator
- Next, Next
- Print Test Page, should work

- If you get an error when printing saying "can't prompt for authorization", or if Firefox seems to work but actually does not, then do this:
-- In codehost-config, right click on the printer and select Duplicate.
-- Now print to the duplicated printer and it should work.

Troubleshooting:
- Check the CUPS error log file, it is very useful.

- If you see "client-error-not-authorized", that means the mailbox authentication was not sent (most likely) or not accepted (less likely). This is the error you'll get when using the system drivers.

- You can log into the web interface for the printer and check the status of print jobs and see the log of previous print jobs.

- If you can't get the drivers working, you can also use the web interface on the printer to print PDFs and image files using Direct Print.

How to connect to HSDPA/3G trough USB with Ubuntu Linux and Windows Mobile 6

2008-08-13T08:11:00.002+01:00

To connect your WM6 device via usb to your linux pc do the following

On your phone enable internet sharing via usb but do not connect the usb cable yet.

Run the following commands..you may need to install "svn" for this to work: (install by terminal: sudo apt-get install subversion)

svn co https://synce.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/synce/trunk/usb-rndis-lite/

cd usb-rndis-lite/

make

sudo ./clean.sh

sudo make install

Create the path "/etc/sysconfig/network/", in Hardy Heron the path "sysconfig/network/" doesnt exists, easy with nautilus trough terminal:

sudo nautilus

Nautilus opens, and browse to "/etc/" and create the path "sysconfig/network/" and futher. - Close nautilus.

The create the file "ifcfg-rndis0" in "/etc/sysconfig/network/", easy with gedit (gnome's text-editor) trough terminal:

sudo gedit /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-rndis0

Fill the file with the text below:

BOOTPROTO='dhcp'
BROADCAST=''
ETHTOOL_OPTIONS=''
IPADDR=''
MTU='1460'
MRU='1500'
NAME=''
PEERDNS=no
NETMASK=''
NETWORK=''
REMOTE_IPADDR=''
STARTMODE='hotplug'
USERCONTROL='no'
_nm_name='static-0'

So, if you haven't start "Internet Sharing" on your WM-phone yet. Do it now..

- Now plug the phone into the usb cable going to the pc and if you do a "dmesg" you should see the following (or something similar):

[ 6539.589930] usb 5-1: USB disconnect, address 2
[ 6539.590829] rndis0: unregister 'rndis_host' usb-0000:00:1d.2-1, RNDIS device (SynCE patched)
[ 6540.972801] usb 5-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
[ 6541.019337] usb 5-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 6541.628430] rndis0: register 'rndis_host' at usb-0000:00:1d.2-1, RNDIS device (SynCE patched), 80:00:60:0f:e8:00

and if you do an ifconfig you should have a new rndis0 device:

rndis0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 80:00:60:0f:e8:00
inet addr:192.168.0.102 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::8200:60ff:fe0f:e800/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:8050 Metric:1
RX packets:3008 errors:2425 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:225
TX packets:2993 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1915412 (1.8 MB) TX bytes:763519 (745.6 KB)
----

The rndis0 device will exist both when internet sharing is enabled via usb and when it is NOT....here is how it works:

If internet sharing IS enabled via usb you have access to the internet and will get an IP...default route will be set.

If internet sharing is NOT enabled via usb then the rndis0 device will exist and can be used by programs such as syncE to manage your contact list or transfer files but you will not have internet access (from the phone) and more than likely you will not get an ip address auto assigned (it may keep the ip it used last).

How to setup ndiswrapper with BT Voyager 1055 in Ubuntu

2008-08-13T08:08:00.000+01:00

The guide should be the same whichever wireless adapter you have (I cannot see why it would not work if you had the correct drivers but someone more experienced in Linux is probably going to correct me on this) – you will just need the .inf and .sys driver files which should be installed under windows (mine were located here - “C:\Program Files\BT\BT Voyager”).

Step 1

Using the file manager in Ubuntu I mounted my windows xp drive and navigated to the above folder. Select the relevant driver files (for the BT Voyager 1055 they are usb8023.sys, RNDISMP.sys and bcmrndis.inf) and copy them to the Ubuntu desktop.

Step 2

Install the latest version of ndiswrapper. I used the Synaptics package manager, searched the cd for packages and selected ndisgtk which also installed the other two ndiswrapper files however you can use the command line – sudo apt-get install ndisgtk

Step 3

In Terminal type “cd Desktop” which will move you to the desktop directory and type

sudo ndiswrapper –i bcmrndis.inf (you will be asked for your user password and you should get an error message which states it will create the file anyway – just ignore and carry on with next steps).

This will copy the bcmrndis.inf to the ndiswrapper folder.

Step 4

Type:

sudo cp –v usb8023.sys RNDISMP.sys /etc/ndiswrapper/bcmrndis/

This will copy the sys files to the ndiswrapper folder.

Extra step if you are using this guide to install a different wireless adaptor otherwise skip to next step:

Type:

lsusb //Note: Is lowercase L

This will bring up a list of all the attached devices for your usb ports. Locate you wireless device in the list and you will see a set of numbers next to it – for BT it was 1690:0715. Make a note of these two numbers.

Step 5

You must now create the hardware configuration file by typing:

sudo gedit /etc/udev/rules.d/99-custom.rules

This will open the text editor for GNOME (KDE users replace gedit with kate) with a blank page. Copy the attached text and save and exit the text editor.

#START**
BUS=="usb",
SYSFS{idProduct}=="0715",
SYSFS{idVendor}=="1690",
RUN+="/bin/sh -c 'echo 1 > /sys/$devpath/device/bConfigurationValue'"
#END**

Please note the single and double quotes on the RUN line which need to be included or your configuration file will not work. If you are installing a different adapter you will need to substitute the two SYSFS numbers above with the ones for your card (see extra step above). After running lsusb BT Voyager shows as 1690:0715 with the first 4 numbers being the idVendor and the second set being the id Product

Step 6

Check the installation by typing:

sudo ndiswrapper –l //Note: Is lowercase L

You should see a message stating Driver: installed and Device: present. This means you have successfully setup the wireless adaptor (if you don't see Device: present unplug your adapter, plug back in and run the above command).

Type:

sudo depmod –a
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

On the top toolbar, at the right hand side (near the date and time), there will be a icon of a terminal. Left click here and you should see the wireless networks in your area. Click on the network you wish to associate to. If you have security setup up on your router you should be presented with a window to enter your security key.

I had some difficulty with this as I could not connect to my router when security was enabled (even though the router and wireless dongle both support all the current encryption methods) so I had to disable my security through the router and change the mac address table so that only my adapter's mac address can connect to the router. I know this is not the safest of options as mac address spoofing is quite simple to do but it will do for now until I get chance to conduct further tests on the security.

In order to connect to your network each time you boot type:

sudo gedit /etc/modules

And add ndiswrapper to the list that appears in the editor, save and close.

How to Install aMSN 0.98b with anti-aliasing in Ubuntu

2008-08-11T20:57:00.001+01:00

Install aMSN 0.98b with anti-aliasing in Ubuntu

Step 1

Open a terminal session by pressing "Alt+F2" then typing "gnome-terminal". Make sure your computer is connected to the Internet.

Step 2

Install the g++ compiler (can be skipped if already installed)
First, you need to make sure the g++ compiler is installed on you computer. At the prompt, simply enter the following code

sudo aptitude install g++

Step 3

Install subversion (can be skipped if already installed)
We are going to download the aMSN source code via subversion, so you need to have it installed. At the prompt, simply enter the following code

sudo aptitude install subversion

Step 4

Install the latest tcl/tk libraries
Since aMSN is written in tcl/tk, we need to download the latest libraries in order to compile properly. The good news is that v8.5 supports anti-aliasing. At the prompt, simply enter the following code

sudo aptitude install tk8.5-dev

It should install everything you need to compile aMSN, including the tcl8.5 libraries.

Step 5

Get the aMSN source code

Simply enter the following code at the prompt

svn co https://amsn.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/amsn/trunk/amsn amsn

This will download all the source code in your home directory. For more info, visit this page http://www.amsn-project.net/wiki/Enabling_antialiasing

Step 6

Build aMSN

Change your working directory by entering

cd amsn

Then you use the usual commands to build the app.

./configure

make

sudo make install

Now, some people have experienced problems while running the configure script, something about the tcl/tk libraries not found. If you experience such a problem, or if your compiler builds using an old version of tcl/tk, use the following commands instead

./configure --with-tcl=$HOME$INST_PATH/lib --with-tk=$HOME$INST_PATH/lib

make

sudo make install

And that's it! You should find your shiny new aMSN under Applications->Internet->aMSN.

How to Optimize your Internet Connection using MTU and RWIN

2008-07-30T21:31:00.003+01:00

The TCP Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) is the maximum size of a single TCP packet that can pass through a TCP/IP network.

An easy way to figure out what your MTU should be is to use ping where you specify the payload size:

ping -s 1464 -c1 google.com

Note though that the total IP packet size will be 1464+28=1492 bytes since there is 28 bytes of header info. Thus if the packet gets fragmented for payload above 1464, then you should set your MTU=1492. Ping will let you know when it becomes fragmented with something like the following:

ping -s 1464 -c1 google.com

PING google.com (72.14.207.99) 1464(1492) bytes of data.
64 bytes from eh-in-f99.google.com (72.14.207.99): icmp_seq=1 ttl=237 (truncated)

--- google.com ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 118.672/118.672/118.672/0.000 ms
john@TECH5321:~$ ping -s 1465 -c1 google.com
PING google.com (64.233.167.99) 1465(1493) bytes of data.
From adsl-75-18-118-221.dsl.sndg02.sbcglobal.net (75.18.118.221) icmp_seq=1 Frag needed and DF set (mtu = 1492)

--- google.com ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 0 received, +1 errors, 100% packet loss, time 0ms

In other words, to find your correct MTU, you would first start with a small packet size, and then gradually increase it until you see fragmentation; the cutoff point will be what to use for your MTU (using the formula payload + 28 = MTU). Note in the first case shown above where the payload size is 1464, the packet was transmitted fine, but in the second case where the payload size is 1465, ping complains "Frag needed"; to clarify, that means any packet with a payload of 1464 or less will be sent just fine, but a payload size of 1465 or above will end up being fragmented. Therefore, 1464 is the maximum payload, and that means the MTU is 1464+28=1492.

To set the MTU temporarily (will be lost after a reboot), you can do:

sudo ifconfig mtu 1492

Note that unfortunately some NICs do not allow you to change their MTU. You can use "ifconfig" by itself to see what the MTU is for your NIC and whether the MTU changes when you use the above command.
Or to make the change permanent, you can add it to /etc/network/interfaces:

gksudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces

And then add "mtu " in it for the particular interface. Here's an example of mine that uses my wireless interface wlan0:

iface wlan0 inet static
address 192.168.1.23
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.1.1
wireless-essid John's Home WLAN
mtu 1492

TCP Receive Window (RWIN)

In computer networking, RWIN (TCP Receive Window) is the maximum amount of data that a computer will accept before acknowledging the sender. In practical terms, that means when you download say a 20 MB file, the remote server does not just send you the 20 MB continuously after you request it. When your computer sends the request for the file, your computer tells the remote server what your RWIN value is; the remote server then starts streaming data at you until it reaches your RWIN value, and then the server waits until your computer acknowledges that you received that data OK. Once your computer sends the acknowledgement, then the server continues to send more data in chunks of your RWIN value, each time waiting for your acknowledgment before proceeding to send more.

Now the crux of the problem here is with what is called latency, or the amount of time that it takes to send and receive packets from the remote server. Note that latency will depend not only on how fast the connection is between you and the remote server, but it also includes all additional delays, such as the time that it takes for the server to process your request and respond. You can easily find out the latency between you and the remote server with the ping command. When you use ping, the time that ping reports is the round-trip time (RTT), or latency, between you and the remote server.

When I ping google.com, I typically get a latency of 100 msec. Now if there were no concept of RWIN, and thus my computer had to acknowledge every single packet sent between me and google, then transfer speed between me and them would be simply the (packet size)/RTT. Thus for a maximum sized packet (my MTU as we learned above), my transfer speed would be:

1492 bytes/.1 sec = 14,920 B/sec or 14.57 KiB/sec

That is pathetically slow considering that my connection is 3 Mb/sec, which is the same as 366 KiB/sec; so I would be using only about 4% of my available bandwidth. Therefore, we use the concept of RWIN so that a remote server can stream data to me without having to acknowledge every single packet and slow everything down to a crawl.

Note that the TCP receive window (RWIN) is independent of the MTU setting. RWIN is determined by the BDP (Bandwidth Delay Product) for your internet connection, and BDP can be calculated as:

BDP = max bandwidth of your internet connection (Bytes/second) * RTT (seconds)

Therefore RWIN does not depend on the TCP packet size, and TCP packet size is of course limited by the MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit).

Before we change RWIN, use the following command to get the kernel variables related to RWIN:

sysctl -a 2> /dev/null | grep -iE "_mem |_rmem|_wmem"

Note the space after the _mem is deliberate, don't remove it or add other spaces elsewhere between the quotes.

You should get the following three variables:

net.ipv4.tcp_rmem = 4096 87380 2584576
net.ipv4.tcp_wmem = 4096 16384 2584576
net.ipv4.tcp_mem = 258576 258576 258576

The variable numbers are in bytes, and they represent the minimum, default, and maximum values for each of those variables.

net.ipv4.tcp_rmem = Receive window memory vector
net.ipv4.tcp_wmem = Send window memory vector
net.ipv4.tcp_mem = TCP stack memory vector

Note that there is no exact equivalent variable in Linux that corresponds to RWIN, the closest is the net.ipv4.tcp_rmem variable. The variables above control the actual memory usage (not just the TCP window size) and include memory used by the socket data structures as well as memory wasted by short packets in large buffers. The maximum values have to be larger than the BDP (Bandwidth Delay Product) of the path by some suitable overhead.

To try and optimize RWIN, first use ping to send the maximum size packet your connection allows (MTU) to some distant server. Since my MTU is 1492, the ping command payload would be 1492-28=1464. Thus:

ping -s 1464 -c5 google.com

PING google.com (64.233.167.99) 1464(1492) bytes of data.
64 bytes from py-in-f99.google.com (64.233.167.99): icmp_seq=1 ttl=237 (truncated)
64 bytes from py-in-f99.google.com (64.233.167.99): icmp_seq=2 ttl=237 (truncated)
64 bytes from py-in-f99.google.com (64.233.167.99): icmp_seq=3 ttl=237 (truncated)
64 bytes from py-in-f99.google.com (64.233.167.99): icmp_seq=4 ttl=237 (truncated)
64 bytes from py-in-f99.google.com (64.233.167.99): icmp_seq=5 ttl=237 (truncated)

--- google.com ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 3999ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 101.411/102.699/105.723/1.637 ms

Note though that you should run the above test several times at different times during the day, and also try pinging other destinations. You'll see RTT might vary quite a bit.

But for the above example, the RTT average is about 103 msec. Now since the maximum speed of my internet connection is 3 Mbits/sec, then the BDP is:
Code:

(3,000,000 bits/sec) * (.103 sec) * (1 byte/8 bits) = 38,625 bytes

Thus I should set the default value in net.ipv4.tcp_rmem to about 39,000. For my internet connection, I've seen RTT as bad as 500 msec, which would lead to a BDP of 187,000 bytes. Therefore, I could set the max value in net.ipv4.tcp_rmem to about 187,000. The values in net.ipv4.tcp_wmem should be the same as net.ipv4.tcp_rmem since both sending and receiving use the same internet connection. And since net.ipv4.tcp_mem is the maximum total memory buffer for TCP transactions, it is usually set to the the max value used in net.ipv4.tcp_rmem and net.ipv4.tcp_wmem.

And lastly, there are two more kernel TCP variables related to RWIN that you should set:

sysctl -a 2> /dev/null | grep -iE "rcvbuf|save"

which returns:

net.ipv4.tcp_no_metrics_save = 1
net.ipv4.tcp_moderate_rcvbuf = 1

Note enabling net.ipv4.tcp_no_metrics_save (setting it to 1) means have Linux optimize the TCP receive window dynamically between the values in net.ipv4.tcp_rmem and net.ipv4.tcp_wmem. And enabling net.ipv4.tcp_moderate_rcvbuf removes an odd behavior in the 2.6 kernels, whereby the kernel stores the slow start threshold for a client between TCP sessions. This can cause undesired results, as a single period of congestion can affect many subsequent connections.

Before you change any of the above variables, try going to http://www.speedtest.net or a similar website and check the speed of your connection. Then temporarily change the variables by using the following command with your own computed values:

sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_rmem="4096 39000 187000" net.ipv4.tcp_wmem="4096 39000 187000" net.ipv4.tcp_mem="187000 187000 187000" net.ipv4.tcp_no_metrics_save=1 net.ipv4.tcp_moderate_rcvbuf=1

Then retest your connection and see if your speed improved at all.

Once you tweak the values to your liking, you can make them permanent by adding them to /etc/sysctl.conf as follows:

net.ipv4.tcp_rmem=4096 39000 187000
net.ipv4.tcp_wmem=4096 39000 187000
net.ipv4.tcp_mem=187000 187000 187000
net.ipv4.tcp_no_metrics_save=1
net.ipv4.tcp_moderate_rcvbuf=1

And then do the following command to make the changes permanent:

sudo sysctl -p

Howto use Truecrypt and Evolution

2008-07-30T21:28:00.000+01:00

For anyone who likes to store their email in encrypted containers (for security and portability reasons), here is way to link evolution to files stored on an encrypted drive.

first you need to make sure you have installed Truecrypt and follow this procedure

Then, create the link to the encrypted container as follows:

1. For a new Ubuntu installation, start Evolution normally and go through the configuration questions. Then close Evolution
2. Mount the encrypted drive (in my case it is mounted at /media/truecrypt1) and create a directory in which to store the evolution-data (in my case it is at /media/truecrypt1/Datafile/evolution):
3. Navigate to the /home/user directory and type the following:
sudo rm -f -r .evolution (you will want to copy the .evolution directory before removing it if you already have valuable files there)
ln -s /media/truecrypt1/Datafile/evolution .evolution
4. Verify that the link brings you to the mounted drive location.
5. Start Evolution and, voila, it should be storing data into the encrypted drive.

Not only is your evolution data encrypted, but it is in a container you can easily backup, etc.

Howto Add The Trash to Your Ubuntu Desktop

2008-07-25T22:50:00.001+01:00

If you are a new person to linux, just coming from Windows or if you want the trash applet on your desktop, then you will like this tutorial. This is on how to add the trash icon to your Ubuntu desktop:

* Run in terminal: gconf-editor
* enter your password into the "Password For...." area
* Navigate apps \ nautilus \ desktop
* On the right side, you will see an option named "trash_icon_visible"
* Check the box next to the above said option
* exit out of gconf-editor, remember to save your work before you leave

Thats it, you should now see a big bin on your desktop, similar to the gnome-panel applet icon. I am sure this will help anyone transition from Windows to Ubuntu.

Howto Use Bootchart to Time and Track your Boot Sequence

2008-07-25T22:47:00.001+01:00

This simple tutorial will describe how to use bootchart in order to get a graphical representation of the processes which run during your boot process. You will also be able to view the CPU and disk usage during your boot sequence, and will get an exact time (in seconds) of how long it takes for you to boot up.

Installing Bootchart

In order to track the boot sequence, we will use a program called bootchart. Installing it from the repositories is dead simple:

sudo aptitude install bootchart

... And it's installed! No further configuration is necessary.

Using Bootchart

Using bootchart may be even easier than installing it... Just reboot! After your machine starts up next time, bootchart will create a graphical representation of the boot sequence (as a .png file), and place it in /var/log/bootchart.

An example bootchart is attached. It was taken from an unoptimized boot sequence on my Thinkpad x61 running Hardy. You can see at the top that it took 30 seconds to boot completely, and there seem to be some places where optimizing the boot sequence (through parallelism) could possibly lead to a speedier bootup. But, such a thing is best left for another tutorial...

Disable Bootchart

Bootchart will, unless disabled, chart every boot process after you've installed it. This may be overkill for most users, who only want to track their boot sequence occasionally. In order to stop bootchart from charting your boot sequence, simply remove its SysV script from executing after startup:

cd /etc/init.d

sudo update-rc.d -f stop-bootchart remove

Removing any system startup links for /etc/init.d/stop-bootchart ...
/etc/rc2.d/S99stop-bootchart
/etc/rc3.d/S99stop-bootchart
/etc/rc4.d/S99stop-bootchart
/etc/rc5.d/S99stop-bootchart

Enable Bootchart

Re-enabling bootchart is as simple as disabling it. You may either reinstall it (through the repositories), or add it back to runlevels 2345:

cd /etc/init.d

sudo update-rc.d stop-bootchart start 99 2 3 4 5 .

Adding system startup for /etc/init.d/stop-bootchart ...
/etc/rc2.d/S99stop-bootchart -> ../init.d/stop-bootchart
/etc/rc3.d/S99stop-bootchart -> ../init.d/stop-bootchart
/etc/rc4.d/S99stop-bootchart -> ../init.d/stop-bootchart
/etc/rc5.d/S99stop-bootchart -> ../init.d/stop-bootchart

That's it! It's so easy!

Howto Install Netgear WG111v3 USB wireless

2008-07-19T21:56:00.002+01:00

This is a GUI solution on how to install Netgear USB WG111v3 USB.

STEP 1

Go to "add and remove programs" type on the searchfield " ndiswrapper "

One program should come up! it calls samething like "graphical frontend for ndiswrapper"

Install it!

STEP 2

start whit wine a file called setup.exe

the installations fails! but if you go to:

/home/moises/.wine/drive_c/windows/inf/WG111v3

( Moises is my home directory ) or go to wine and push " Explore c:/ "
There you will find the .inf file you need!

STEP 3

Go to SYSTEM - ADMINISTRATION - and there you will find the program called

" graphical frontend for ndiswrapper "

Push the buttom " Install new driver "! Go to the .inf file located on /home/moises/.wine/drive_c/windows/inf/WG111v3

And install it!

Download drivers from here

Howto setup Handbrake including GUI from svn in Ubuntu

2008-07-15T20:20:00.001+01:00

First get the medibuntu version of ffmpeg (makes more codecs available),but first remove any old ffmpeg,open a terminal and enter.

sudo apt-get remove ffmpeg

then enter.

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/hardy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

then enter.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get update

then enter.

sudo apt-get install ffmpeg

Next Install the dependencies for Handbrake and the gtk gui.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install automake build-essential jam libdvdcss2-dev libtool subversion yasm zlib1g-dev libbz2-dev dvdbackup xmlto texinfo g77 gfortran libgtk2.0-dev nasm doxygen libsdl1.2-dev gfortran-multilib gcc-multilib g++-multilib libesd0-dev libgtk1.2-dev libfftw3-dev electric-fence

Next install and build Handbrake.svn and gtk gui (enter each line seperately,it will take some time to build)...

svn co svn://svn.handbrake.fr/HandBrake/trunk HandBrake

cd HandBrake

./configure

make

sudo make install

cd Handbrake/gtk

./autogen.sh

make

sudo make install

HandBrake should be available from the Applications menu under Sound & Video

LXDE- lightweight and fast UBUNTU environment

2008-07-13T15:09:00.002+01:00

One brilliant thing about Linux is that it can be tweaked anyway to suit any kind of a system. If your system is pretty old and if ubuntu is too slow in it, then here you go. LXDE(Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment) is a light weight environment that's fast even on antique systems. It is surely not designed to be powerful or bloated but it is light enough to keep the system usage low.

Not all components are integrated but most of them are independent and each of them can be used with a few dependencies.

Here are some of the important LXDE features :

It's lightweight and runs with reasonably low memory usage.
Fast and runs on old machines producced in the '90s.
Gook looking gtk+2 internationalized user interface.
Desktop independent(every component can be used without LXDE)
Standard compliant, follows the specs on freedesktop.org

Installing LXDE in UBUNTU:
This first step is to edit the "/etc/apt/sources.list" file. Add the following lines to the file.(Please make a back up before you do so)

For hardy heron users:
"deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/lxde/ubuntu hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/lxde/ubuntu hardy main"

For gutsy gibbon users:
"deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/lxde/ubuntu gutsy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/lxde/ubuntu gutsy main"
Save and exit the file.

Now the source list has to be updated. Open a terminal and type the following command:
sudo apt-get update
Use the following command to install the LXDE environment:
sudo apt-get install lxde

This will install all the required components for LXDE. Now you need to logout from you system. Then go to Options->Select session.

Select the LXDE option and click on Change Session.

Howto setup custom gproftpd ( GUI for Proftpd Server) in Ubuntu

2008-07-13T15:05:00.002+01:00

If you have installed lampp, then you probably know that the proftpd configuration is very confusing for people that haven't dealt with proftpd.

Gproftpd is a user interface to the config file, making it easy to set it up. However, installing it from synaptic makes u get a new proftpd install.

step 1: have this installed: (you can remove it after, its just so that the compiler thinks that you have gtk2.0 installed. if anyone finds a work around, plz post)

sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev

step 2: get the gproftpd package and unpack it:

wget http://mange.dynalias.org/linux/gadmin-proftpd/gadmin-proftpd-0.2.8.tar.gz && tar -zxvf gadmin-proftpd-0.2.8.tar.gz

you can remove the tar.gz if you like

rm gadmin-proftpd-0.2.8.tar.gz

step 3: cd there and open autoinstall:

cd gadmin-proftpd-0.2.8 && gedit ./Autoinstall

step 4: we have to change the directories for it use the lampp proftp.conf:

original:

### Default paths and settings ###
# export PROFTPD_CONF="/etc/proftpd.conf"
# export SECURE_LOG="/var/log/secure"
# export XFER_LOG="/var/log/xferlog"
# export PROC_PATH="/proc"
# export PROFTPD_BINARY="proftpd"
# export FTPWHO_BINARY="ftpwho"
# export SERVER_USER="nobody"
# export SERVER_GROUP="nobody"
# export WELCOME_MESSAGE="welcome.msg"
# export HTML_STATISTICS="/var/www/html/ftp.htm"
# export MIN_PASS_LEN=6

### Debian commands for starting the server at boot ###
# export SYSINIT_START_CMD="update-rc.d -f proftpd defaults"
# export SYSINIT_STOP_CMD="update-rc.d -f proftpd remove"

### RH/Fedora commands for starting the server at boot ###
### This is the defaults for the rpm specfile ###
export SYSINIT_START_CMD="chkconfig proftpd on"
export SYSINIT_STOP_CMD="chkconfig proftpd off"

./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc \
--localstatedir=/var --sbindir=/usr/sbin &&
make &&
make install

(assuming you did a normal lampp install) new:

### Default paths and settings ###
export PROFTPD_CONF="/opt/lampp/etc/proftpd.conf"
# export SECURE_LOG="/var/log/secure"
# export XFER_LOG="/var/log/xferlog"
# export PROC_PATH="/proc"
export PROFTPD_BINARY="/opt/lampp/sbin/proftpd"
export FTPWHO_BINARY="/opt/lampp/bin/ftpwho"
# export SERVER_USER="nobody"
# export SERVER_GROUP="nobody"
# export WELCOME_MESSAGE="welcome.msg"
# export HTML_STATISTICS="/var/www/html/ftp.htm"
# export MIN_PASS_LEN=6

#############################################
############# feel free to change any of the
############# above to your liking as long as
############# you know what you're doing
#############################################

### Debian commands for starting the server at boot ###
# export SYSINIT_START_CMD="update-rc.d -f proftpd defaults"
# export SYSINIT_STOP_CMD="update-rc.d -f proftpd remove"

### RH/Fedora commands for starting the server at boot ###
### This is the defaults for the rpm specfile ###
export SYSINIT_START_CMD="chkconfig proftpd on"
export SYSINIT_STOP_CMD="chkconfig proftpd off"

./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc \
--localstatedir=/var --sbindir=/usr/sbin &&
make &&
make install

Save it!

step 5: last step

sudo ./Autoinstall

NOTE:
the binary isn't

gproftpd

its

gadmin-proftpd

and it has to be run as root

recommended steps:

This installs a binary into Applications-Internet-GADMIN-PROFTPD.
but it needs to run as root. So, right click on applications, click edit menus, click internet, right click on gadmin-proftpd, click properties, and in the command box it'll say:

gadmin-proftpd

but we want it to be:

gksudo gadmin-proftpd

Save all that.

and that should be it!

Howto Schedule Bittorrents to Automatically Download in Ubuntu

2008-07-09T21:55:00.003+01:00

Ever wondered if you could schedule your torrent downloads to occur in those times when you are not using you computer, when you know that there will be more people online sharing the file your downloading, or perhaps during the off-peak times of your Internet plan Well this tutorial is for you.

1. We need to make sure that the relevant software is installed on our system. To do this we start up Synaptic Package Manager

System → Administration → Synaptic Package Manager

and search for 'bittorrent'. Select 'bittorrent' from the options and click 'Apply' to install it with all of its dependencies. If you've already got bittorrent installed then it will already be selected in the list and you won't need to perform this step.

2. Next we need to create the directory that we will download our torrents into. You can use any directory that you have permission to use for this this but a sub-directory in your home directory will often make things easier. For this tutorial I will be using a sub-directory in the user's home directory called 'torrents'. To create this directory simply navigate to your home directory

Places → Home Folder

right click on some empty space and select 'Create Folder'. Name this folder 'torrents'.

3. To automate the task of downloading torrents, and stopping the downloads at an appropriate time, we are going to create some very simple bash scripts (For more on bash scripts see here). We will use the familiar graphical text editor gedit for this task.

In your home folder right click some empty space and select

'Create Document' → 'Empty File'

Name this file 'bittorrentstart'. Perform this task again to create another file and call this one 'bittorrentstop'. You can place these files anywhere you like, perhaps in a directory called 'scripts', but this tutorial will assume they are in your Home directory.
Double click the file 'bittorrentstart' to open it and paste in the following information

#!/bin/sh
# Start Downloading Torrent Files!
cd
nohup btlaunchmany /home/Your_User_Name/torrents/ > torrent.log &
tail -f torrent.log

Make sure you change the 'Your_User_Name' to your user-name. Save this file, open 'bittorrentstop' and paste in the following information

#!/bin/bash
# Stop Downloading ALL Torrent Files!
killall btlaunchmany

4. The second part of automating the downloading of torrents is to tell our computer when to execute the start script and execute the stop script. To do this we use a tool called cron . To make the editing of cron entries simple we are going to create a text file that we will edit in gedit (like the bash scripts above) and then append it to our cron entries.

While in your Home directory right click on some empty space and select

'Create Document' → 'Empty File'

Name this file 'cron.txt'. Double click this file to open it and enter in the following information

# Start BitTorrent Download Script
05 02 * * * sh /home/Your_User_Name/bash_scripts/bittorrentstart.sh
# Stop ALL BitTorrent Downloads Script
55 11 * * * sh /home/Your_User_Name/bash_scripts/bittorrentstop.sh

Be sure to enter your user-name in the required fields. This setup will start the download start script at 2:05am and start the download stop script at 11:55am. These values will likely not suit you so you need to alter them. To understand the format of cron entries picture five asterisks at the start followed by your command. Something like the following

* * * * * sh /home/Your_User_Name/bash_scripts/bittorrentstart.sh

The first asterisk represents minutes, the second hours, the third days of the month, the fourth is the month, and the fifth the day of the week. The allowed syntax is

minute 0-59
hour 0-23
day of month 1-31
month 1-12 (or the month names)
day of week 0-7 (0 or 7 is Sun, or use the weekday names)

Save this file and start up your terminal emulator

Applications → Accessories → Terminal

Enter in the following command

crontab cron.txt

To verify that this was entered into your cron entries properly enter in the following command

crontab -l

5. Now that we've installed the relevant applications and told the computer to execute the appropriate tasks at the appropriate times all we need to do is save our *.torrent files into the bittorrent directory we created earlier and wait. At the appropriate times they will be downloaded into their own sub-directory without you even being aware.

6. In the bittorrentstart script we created earlier there is a command to create a log file. This file records the activity of the torrent downloads. This file, called 'torrent.log', will be found in your Home directory. You can simply open this file to check on the status of your downloads. A sample line from this log file is

/home/Your_User_Name/torrents/torrent_name: Spd: 34.0 K/s:18.2 K/s Tot: 171.2 M:61.1 M [18:10:07 76%]
All: Spd: 34.0 K/s:18.2 K/s Tot: 171.2 M:61.1 M

What all of these entries mean is beyond the scope of this tutorial but you can easily recognise your connection speed and the percentage finished of your torrent downloads.

Howto install latest ayttm for yahoo messanger in Ubuntu

2008-07-08T06:37:00.002+01:00

Ayttm is an instant messenger program, supporting various protocols such as MSN, Yahoo, AIM, Jabber, and more. It is the heir of the Everybuddy project, and aims to continue improving the program and addressing its shortcomings.

Install alien using the following command

sudo apt-get install alien

Now you need to download latest ayttm rpm from here and convert it to a deb:

sudo alien ayttm-0.5.0-45.i386.rpm

and install using the following command

sudo dpkg -i ayttm_0.5.0-46_i386.deb

starting ayttm will probably generate a message about not finding a library libjasper-1.701.so.1 which is used for yahoo webcam.

To get rid of the jasper lib warning, install it:

sudo apt-get install libjasper1

and make a link to simulate the correct version:

sudo ln -s libjasper.so.1 /usr/lib/libjasper-1.701.so.1

That's it, ayttm works again.

Printing CD Labels with GIMP and Canon Pixma iP3000

2008-07-08T06:32:00.002+01:00

This tutorial will explain how to Print CD Labels with GIMP and Canon Pixma iP3000

Preparing your system

If you don't have it, install GIMP trough apt, aptitude, synaptic... whatever you like.

CREATE A PRINTER CLASS

On this part we will create a printer class that will save us time on configuring the printer each time we need to print a CD.

#1 . Open System Configuration and click on "Printers" then "Add Printer".
On the wizard select:

1) Printer Class -> NEXT

2) If you're using TurboPrint (recommended), select tp0 (or the number of your Pixma printer), otherwise select iPxxxx (where xxxx is the model of your printer) and press the arrow (->) on the middle to add the printer to the class. -> NEXT

3) Name now your printer CD_Label_Printer leave location and description blanked. -> NEXT -> FINISH

4) Now you must have another printer on the list named "CD_Label_Printer", click on it to select the printer than the tab "Instances" and with (default) select on the list below, press Configure.

5) Select on the first tab:

Page Size: CD Printable
Paper kind: CD Printable
Paper Origin: CD Tray

leave the rest as is and, if you're using TurboPrint, select the last tab "Controller Configuration", otherwise is done.

If you are using TurboPrint set the Print Quality to 1200 dpi or over (default CUPS driver just has 300 or 600 dpi).

USING GIMP WITH OUR PRINTER

1) Start GIMP and create an image of 800 x 800 pixels with some color background. If need use the bucket and fill the background with some weird color.

2) Create a new layer with transparent background, name it "mask" for an instance.

3) With the new layer selected, choose the circle selection tool and draw and adjust a circle to fill the canvas, then select Selection -> Invert Selection

4) Select the forecolor white and the bucket fill tool and fill the selection with it.

You must now have a "your background" color circle on the middle.
*I added mine as attachment to this post

5) Open your CD label image on GIMP and copy it to clipboard.

6) With background layer selected paste the CD label image.

7) The image must now be a new floating selection, with it selected click on "New layer". Now the image must be rasterized between the background and the mask.

Adjust your image, add text, etc. When you're done press "Print" (CTRL+P)

9) Select your "CD_Label_Printer" and go then the tab "Image Settings"

10) Set the following values:

Check the box "Ignore page margins"

Width: 120.00 mm
Height: 120.00 mm

Position: Center -> none

Top: 85.00
Left: 5.00

Put your CD on the tray and Print it.

How To Install torrentflux-b4rt on Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron)

2008-07-05T20:33:00.006+01:00

Torrentflux-b4rt is a web based transfer control client.Torrentflux-b4rt allows you to control your internet downloads / transfers from anywhere using a highly configurable web based front end.

Torrentflux-b4rt is very easy to install on a web server and includes a simple setup script which can be accessed from a web browser. Just upload the files to your web server, run the setup script and your torrentflux-b4rt installation is ready to go.

First you need to make sure you have install Ubuntu 8.04 LAMP server setup from here and now follow this procedure.

Now you need to go /var/www folder using the following command

cd /var/www

If your behind a proxy and havn't already set up your export...

export http_proxy = [enter your proxy here]:[port]/

wget http://gunblade.fakap.net/doc/torrentflux-b4rt_1.0-beta2.tar.bz2

So far we've gone and got the tar containing torrentflux-b4rt and stuck it in our default web root /var/www.

tar xjvf torrentflux-b4rt_1.0-beta2.tar.bz2

This unzips our archive.

personally I now rename the new folder from torrentflux-b4rt_1.0-beta2 to something a little nicer like torrentflux

mv torrentflux-b4rt_1.0-beta2 torrentflux

but thats optional.

now we need to install quite a few libraries for everything to work nicely.

Now you need to install the following packages

sudo apt-get install php5-cli php5-gd libxml-dom-perl libxml-simple-perl libthreads-shared-perl libdigest-sha1-perl libhtml-parser-perl zip unzip unrar transmission-cli phpmyadmin

let that churn away for a bit then run setup.php from a web browser of your choice from the torrentflux/html folder.

When it gets the part where it asks what user name and password to use for the database, copy the username provided (or enter a new one) open a new tab and go to the phpmyadmin page (http://[your box ip]/phpmyadmin), log in using your root username and pwd and click on privileges. add a new user, give it sufficient privileges and click save.

I just gave it full access to everything. This isn't required and you can just keep flicking between the two tabs trying to connect until you've found the required permissions and it works.

when the setup is finished it'll give you a log in screen. the user and password you enter here is going to be your superadmin account! so don't forget it!

How to install Ms OFFICE 2003 in Ubuntu

2008-07-02T18:32:00.003+01:00

Install WINE 1.0 or greater for this you need to download latest wine from here or if you are using Hardy you can install it from ubuntu repos using the following comamnd.

sudo aptitude install wine

After wine has been installed -

Put your MS office 2003 cd in your drive and in terminal type following:

cd /media/cdrom0

wine autorun.exe

And follow instructions as if you were installing it on windows.

Now on your desktop right click -->Create launcher for each below

Create launchers for each application:

in Command field type this

For excel

env WINEPREFIX="/home/your_username/.wine" wine "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\EXCEL.EXE"

For Word

env WINEPREFIX="/home/your_username/.wine" wine "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\WINWORD.EXE"

For powerpoint

env WINEPREFIX="/home/your_username/.wine" wine "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\POWERPNT.EXE"

For Access

env WINEPREFIX="/home/your_username/.wine" wine "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\MSACCESS.EXE"

You are almost done.

Now if you are having problem running your macro then you need to install Dcom98.

Dcom98 contains three dlls from Windows 98: ole32, oleaut32, and rpcrt4. Use winetricks to install it:

In terminal type:

wget http://www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks

sh winetricks dcom98

The winetricks script will set to override globally, and if you have any other programs installed in that wineprefix it may affect them. If that happens, you can fix it through winecfg.

That's it Now you have running MS OFFICE 2003 on your ubuntu.