Apps checklist for Ubuntu 11.10

Other apps I installed after upgrades and gnome-shell tasks, all available and searchable from the Ubuntu Software Center app:
1. 7z - better than Zip
2. Gimp - alternate opensource to Adobe Photoshop; handles layers and effects equally well

And some installed via CLI:
1. Image Resizer - reduces file size of images, integrated in the right-click context menu of the file manager (from a previous post)

sudo apt-get install nautilus-image-converter

sudo killall nautilus

back to ubuntu. version 11.10

1. install from CD
2. command-line mode

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

3. restart
4. install codecs, flash support

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

5. install gnome 3 shell, as a replacement to Unity

sudo apt-get install gnome-shell

6. logout, and pick gnome as your session, login again
7. install the gnome tweak took and the shell extension, download some gnome themes you like, change the theme, etc. - mostly taken from this Tech Drive-in link
The Tech Drive-in link is also where I got to install some cool Gnome-shell themes, and the Faenza icon theme. 8. put the window controls (maximize, close) to the right instead of the default left position (link) -

gconftool-2 --set "/apps/metacity/general/button_layout" --type string "menu:minimize,maximize,close"

9. Install Chromium Web Browser from the Ubuntu Software Center app. Same look and feel as the Google Chrome browser.
10. Install Ubuntu Tweak - yes, a release version is now available. But I notice the version for 11.10 doesn't have as much features as previous versions for older Ubuntu releases like 10.04 LTS.

Fedora 16 now!

Release 16 aka Verne of Fedora Gnome 3.2.1

First lesson - how do I install Google Chrome via command line?
Answer: Followed instructions here
But before I finished the first lesson, I had to grapple with some questions, such as:
1. How do I go as root in the terminal? Answer:

su -

2. What editor can I use, as there is no nano installed? Answer: gedit
Got these answers from this source
Still as root, add the virtualbox repo to yum
[root@lave ~]# gedit /etc/yum.repos.d/virtualbox.repo
And now attempting to install Virtualbox -
su -

yum install dkms

Successfully installs the pre-requisite dkms package

Unlike in Ubuntu, installing dkms does not include the gcc package, so need to install that as well

yum install gcc

Then add the virtualbox repo to yum -
[root@lave ~]# gedit /etc/yum.repos.d/virtualbox.repo
The contents of the file from the virtualbox site here
Then download the rpm file for Fedora, and perform this as root as well:

yum install VirtualBox-4.1-4.1.6_74713_fedora16-1.i686.rpm

The complete virtualbox installation for Fedora I used can be found here.

Installing Gimp goes like this:

yum install gimp

And installing Flash is a bit more involved, but level of difficulty (or ease) is the same as Ubuntu's, in my opinion. The steps for installing Adobe Flash is here.

Gnome 3 on Ubuntu 11.04 (natty narwhal)

Tried the new Gnome desktop in Ubuntu 11.04 (because I am not really fond of Unity, Ubuntu's own interface):

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Final output in the terminal window showing the other packages that were held back:

Setting up sound-theme-freedesktop (0.7-0ubuntu1) ...
Setting up libcanberra0 (0.28-0ubuntu7~natty1) ...
Setting up libcanberra-pulse (0.28-0ubuntu7~natty1) ...
Setting up liblaunchpad-integration-3.0-1 (0.1.51) ...
Setting up libgnome-keyring0 (3.0.3-1~natty1) ...
Setting up gvfs (1.8.2-1~natty1) ...
Setting up gvfs-fuse (1.8.2-1~natty1) ...
Setting up gvfs-backends (1.8.2-1~natty1) ...
Setting up libgck0 (3.0.3-2ubuntu1~natty3) ...
Setting up libgcr-3-0 (3.0.3-2ubuntu1~natty3) ...
Setting up libcap2-bin (1:2.20-1) ...
Setting up gnome-keyring (3.0.3-2ubuntu1~natty3) ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/xdg/autostart/gnome-keyring-secrets.desktop ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/xdg/autostart/gnome-keyring-ssh.desktop ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/xdg/autostart/gnome-keyring-pkcs11.desktop ...
Setting up brasero-common (3.0.0-1ubuntu4~natty1) ...
Setting up libbrasero-media3-1 (3.0.0-1ubuntu4~natty1) ...
Setting up brasero-cdrkit (3.0.0-1ubuntu4~natty1) ...
Setting up brasero (3.0.0-1ubuntu4~natty1) ...
Setting up libgtksourceview-3.0-common (3.0.5-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up libgtksourceview-3.0-0 (3.0.5-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up libpeas-common (1.1.1.really.1.1.0-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up libpeas-1.0-0 (1.1.1.really.1.1.0-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up gedit-common (3.0.6-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up gir1.2-peas-1.0 (1.1.1.really.1.1.0-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up gedit (3.0.6-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/gedit to provide /usr/bin/gnome-text-editor (gnome-text-editor) in auto mode.
Setting up libcryptui0a (3.0.2-0ubuntu2~natty1) ...
Setting up seahorse (3.0.2-0ubuntu2~natty1) ...
Setting up libgtkhtml-4.0-common (4.0.2-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up libgtkhtml-4.0-0 (4.0.2-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up libgtkhtml-editor-4.0-0 (4.0.2-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up libunique-3.0-0 (3.0.0-1ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up libevolution (3.0.3-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up evolution (3.0.3-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/xdg/autostart/evolution-alarm-notify.desktop ...
Setting up libavahi-ui-gtk3-0 (0.6.30-3ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up gnome-utils-common (3.0.1-0ubuntu3~natty1) ...
Setting up gnome-system-log (3.0.1-0ubuntu3~natty1) ...
Setting up gnome-search-tool (3.0.1-0ubuntu3~natty1) ...
Setting up gnome-screenshot (3.0.1-0ubuntu3~natty1) ...
Setting up baobab (3.0.1-0ubuntu3~natty1) ...
Setting up libclutter-gst-1.0-0 (1.3.14-1~natty1) ...
Setting up libclutter-imcontext-0.1-0 (0.1.4-1ubuntu1) ...
Setting up libcluttergesture-0.0.2-0 (0.0.2.1-2ubuntu1) ...
Setting up libmx-1.0-2 (1.1.3-0ubuntu4) ...
Setting up cheese-common (3.0.2-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up libcheese1 (3.0.2-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up libclutter-gtk-1.0-0 (1.0.2-0ubuntu2~natty1) ...
Setting up libcheese-gtk20 (3.0.2-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up gnome-video-effects (0.3.0-4~natty2) ...
Setting up cheese (3.0.2-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up empathy-common (3.0.2-0ubuntu1~natty~build1) ...
Setting up nautilus-sendto-empathy (3.0.2-0ubuntu1~natty~build1) ...
Setting up eog (3.0.2-1ubuntu2~natty1) ...
Setting up evince-common (3.0.2-0ubuntu4~natty1) ...
Setting up evolution-plugins (3.0.3-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up nautilus-data (1:3.0.2-0ubuntu2~natty1) ...
Setting up nautilus (1:3.0.2-0ubuntu2~natty1) ...
Setting up file-roller (3.0.2-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up gcalctool (6.0.2-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up gconf-editor (3.0.0-1ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up gir1.2-gtksource-3.0 (3.0.5-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up gir1.2-totem-plparser-1.0 (2.32.6-1~natty1) ...
Setting up libtotem0 (3.0.1-0ubuntu5~natty1) ...
Setting up gir1.2-totem-1.0 (3.0.1-0ubuntu5~natty1) ...
Setting up libgdu-gtk0 (3.0.2-1ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up gnome-disk-utility (3.0.2-1ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/xdg/autostart/gdu-notification-daemon.desktop ...
Setting up libgnome-media-profiles-3.0-0 (3.0.0-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up gnome-media (2.91.2-2ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up gnome-nettool (3.0.0-0ubuntu2~natty1) ...
Setting up libgtkmm-3.0-1 (3.0.1-1~natty1) ...
Setting up libwnck-3-common (3.0.2-1ubuntu1~natty2) ...
Setting up libwnck-3-0 (3.0.2-1ubuntu1~natty2) ...
Setting up gnome-system-monitor (3.0.1-1ubuntu1~natty2) ...
Setting up libvte-2.90-9 (1:0.28.2-0ubuntu2~natty1) ...
Setting up gnome-terminal-data (3.0.1-0ubuntu2~natty1) ...
Setting up gnome-terminal (3.0.1-0ubuntu2~natty1) ...
Setting up gtk3-engines (2.91.1-0ubuntu1~build2) ...
Setting up gnome-themes-selected (3.0.0-0ubuntu1~build2) ...
Setting up gnome-user-share (3.0.0-2ubuntu3~natty1) ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/xdg/autostart/gnome-user-share.desktop ...
Setting up gtk3-engines-unico (0.1.0+r69-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up libgucharmap-2-90-7 (1:3.0.1-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up gucharmap (1:3.0.1-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up libgcr0 (3.0.3-2ubuntu1~natty3) ...
Setting up libgvnc-1.0-0 (0.4.3-2ubuntu2~natty1) ...
Setting up libgtk-vnc-1.0-0 (0.4.3-2ubuntu2~natty1) ...
Setting up libgtk-vnc-2.0-0 (0.4.3-2ubuntu2~natty1) ...
Setting up libgucharmap7 (1:3.0.1-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up light-themes (0.1.8.15~natty1) ...
Setting up nautilus-sendto (3.0.1-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up totem-common (3.0.1-0ubuntu5~natty1) ...
Setting up totem (3.0.1-0ubuntu5~natty1) ...
Setting up totem-plugins (3.0.1-0ubuntu5~natty1) ...
Setting up totem-mozilla (3.0.1-0ubuntu5~natty1) ...
Setting up vinagre (3.0.1-0ubuntu1~natty1) ...
Setting up yelp (3.0.3-0ubuntu2~natty1) ...
Setting up zenity-common (3.0.0-1~natty1) ...
Setting up zenity (3.0.0-1~natty1) ...

Some screenshots: A new panel on top -

A new dashboard called Activities -

Installing LAMP on Ubuntu 11.04

Followed the instructions in this link to install LAMP.
If you get this message while restarting apache - “apache2: Could not determine the server’s fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.0.1 for localhost”
Type this in the terminal to fix the problem:

echo "ServerName localhost" | sudo tee /etc/apache2/conf.d/fqdn

and reload apache

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload

Back in Ubuntu 11.04 and loving it

After about a month and a half of Lubuntu (11.04) in my test notebook, the new shiny Intel core i3 HP ProBook 4230s, I decided to test Ubuntu 11.04 64-bit Desktop edition.

Having made sure there was a way to disable Unity, and revert back to the classic Ubuntu, I took the plunge yesterday.

It's really quite refreshing and liberating to be back in the Gnome interface.  LXDE has lost its allure for me - for now.

Everything just works: Huawei broadband modem (model E153) for the Internet, Bluetooth starts up, Weather indicator, having windows that actually remember my view settings, and yes - guilty as charged - my hunger for eye-candy is back with wobbly windows, transparent menus (care of Ubuntu Tweak), and some fancy wallpaper.

Question: Why did I choose 11.04 over the 10.04 LTS (long term support) version?
Answer: video resolution.

Testing the live CD of 10.04 ran Ubuntu with a resolution of 1024 x 768.
Testing the live CD of 11.04 produced a higher resolution - 1280 x 800.

I notice this pattern consistent with Linux distros (Centos, Fedora, OpenSuse, Debian...) based on kernel version 2.6.32 and 2.6.38, with the latter capable of producing the higher resolution when running the live CDs.

Some video to audio to mobile music player stuff

Having a video file downloaded from the Internet as mp4

Objective: to make it simply as an audio file, to be able to play in my phone.

Packages needed: handbrake-gtk, audacity

1. Open the mp4 file with handbrake (screenshot example)

2. Go over the Audio tab and change the following values:
Codec -> MP3 (lame)
Bitrate -> 320
3. Click the Start button to begin conversion to m4v (MPEG-4 video) format.
4. When the conversion completes, close handbrake app, open audacity.
5. Click File - Import - Audio
6. Select the m4v file created. Importing completes (screenshot example)

7. Click File - Export
8. Select the M4A (AAC) Files (FFmpeg) format, then click Save.
9. Exit audacity, no need to save the project.

Here are the sample files, notice difference in file types and sizes (screenshot example).

Proceed to upload the m4a file to your phone.

Bluetooth in Lubuntu 11.04

Man, all the while I thought there was a problem with this notebook's wifi Atheros driver, it turns out Lubuntu 11.04 doesn't install the Bluetooth apps, much less show it in the taskbar, by default.

Here it is:
1. First install the bluetooth package

sudo apt-get install bluetooth

2. Then install the personal file sharing thingy (this is needed for the bluetooth device - i.e. my phone - to be able to send files, and for the laptop to receive those files)

sudo apt-get install gnome-user-share

3. Then in the Preferences - Desktop Session Settings, put a tick mark on Bluetooth Manager. To make sure bluetooth service starts on every boot-up.

Atheros wifi + bluetooth on Lubuntu 11.04

Link describing atheros wireless drivers in ubuntu 11.04, which is in the notebook I'm working on right now, this troublesome sandy-bridge HP Probook 4230s

Source: Ubuntu forum thread

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-ath_pci.conf

and comment out the line

blacklist ath_pci

with

# blacklist ath_pci

hopefully this will make the bluetooth work.

Brain food - PHP, mySQL, Apache stuff

Here are some common tasks that a newbie in PHP needs to memorize:

Restarting Apache, after doing some tweaks

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload

Editing the php.ini file

sudo nano /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

php.ini to display errors, for the development web server:
After opening the php.ini file for editing, scroll down to the Error handling and logging section.

Comment out the error_reporting = ... line, copy-paste it to a new line, and change it to:

error_reporting = E_ALL

Scroll down further to the line display_errors = ... and change it to:

display_errors = On

Accessing mySQL at the command-line:

mysql --user=root --password={root's password]

Installing dotProject in Lubuntu

Documentation of my experience with dotProject starts here.

Installation steps

And a review of some basic Linux commands here.

And also a review of getting / setting permissions here.
Prerequisites:
1. A working Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP machine


Move the downloaded file to the web server's root directory.

cd ~/Downloads
sudo mv dotproject-2.1.5.tar.gz /var/www

Unpack the file:

sudo tar -xzf dotproject-2.1.5.tar.gz

Delete the tar.gz file:

sudo rm dotproject-2.1.5.tar.gz

Now run the installer in the browser with this URL:
http://localhost/dotproject/install/

Then review the checklist and settle these to be resolved first:
./includes/config.php writable? - this should be writable
./files writable - this shouldn't be World Writable; come up with a more restrictive setting
./files/temp writable - this should be writable for PDF report generation
./locales/en writable - Translation files cannot be saved. Check /locales and subdirectories for permissions.

Check if we have the temp folder, and create if none:

cd /var/www/dotproject/files
mkdir temp

Then set the proper permissions:

cd /var/www/dotproject
sudo find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;
sudo find . -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/dotproject

(source link here)

Taking care of the PHP setting use_trans_sid:
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available

And change that section AllowOverride None to AllowOverride All:

        
                Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
                AllowOverride All 
                Order allow,deny
                allow from all
        

But I still can't get this. Better study .htaccess tweaks here.

Create a new dp_user with password using phpmyadmin. Grant full access rights.
Then continue dotProject by clicking on the install button.

RDP flavor of the month

packages in: remmina, lubuntu-restricted-extras

So I had to go on my knees and accept the fact that I still need RDP. And some Flash.
As a consequence, a little fatter Lubuntu becomes.

sudo apt-get install remmina
sudo apt-get install lubuntu-restricted-extras

Virtualbox 4.0.12 in Lubuntu

Summary:
1. Modified a system file
2. Download, register a public key
3. Download virtualbox package for Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty)

Installing Virtualbox 4.0.12 on Lubuntu 11.04 (Natty)

1. Modified the sources.list file

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

insert the following line

deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian natty contrib

and save the modifications.
2. Download and register the Oracle public key

wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

3. Run these:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-4.0

4. Download and install the Virtualbox extension pack
5. Add user login to the vboxusers group (under System Tools > Users and Groups)

Configuring PLDT MyDSL modem to work with D-Link DAP-1360 Access Point

This is still in a work-in-progress.

Possible leads:
1. wordpress blog

Lubuntu getting steadier

Finally, a working Lubuntu 11.04

Some information:
1. 20 seconds from cold boot to user login prompt
2. 160mb memory used (with Chromium browser open)
3. Linux kernel 2.6.38-10-generic (i686)

Testing Lubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal), part 4.

package in: pysdm

1. Booted my USB pmagic, and reduced the partition to 20gb. For future clonezilla backups.

2. Having a pesky prompt in Lubuntu, asking for my keyring password everytime I connect to the wifi.
Should I do this?

rm -rf ~/.gnome2/keyrings/

I wonder if this is a bug as posted in the forums.

[fix] go to Edit Connections, and edited the wireless connection to be available to all users. When I rebooted, wifi immediately connecting, and the system no longer asked for the keyring password.

3. Using Disk Utility, created the freed space of my drive as a 2nd EXT4 partition. Then as with my previous post, installed the pysdm package to automount the partition during boot-up.

Testing Lubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal), part 3.

Packages out: ace-of-penguins, mtpaint, simple-scan, sylpheed, osmo
Packages in: xfce4-screenshooter, phatch

Removing some packages to trim down the Lubuntu installation further.

1. ace-of-penguins, which scares you to think that once you remove that the lubuntu-desktop package will also be removed. But not to worry, as this is only a metapackage and the lubuntu desktop will remain ok. All games will be uninstalled.

2. other packages:
mtpaint
simple-scan
sylpheed (email client), which also removes slypheed-i18n and sylpheed-plugins
osmo


Installing a screenshot capture utility, as Lubuntu doesn't have this out-of-the-box.
1. xfce4-screenshooter - has far less dependencies than ksnapshot or shutter packages

And phatch, a photo batch processor which can resize multiple images in one go, among other things.
2. phatch

Testing Lubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal), part 2.

Packages in: g2ipmsg, libxp6, openmotif_2.3.3-2_i386, icaclient_11.100_i386.patched.deb

1. Install IPMSG, package name: g2ipmsg. Good thing it's in the Synaptic already.

2. Citrix Receiver now.
Resource link in Citrix: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX125285

sudo dpkg -i openmotif_2.3.3-2_i386.deb

yields:
Selecting previously deselected package openmotif.
(Reading database ... 84668 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking openmotif (from openmotif_2.3.3-2_i386.deb) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of openmotif:
openmotif depends on libxp6; however:
Package libxp6 is not installed.
dpkg: error processing openmotif (--install):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
openmotif

so...

sudo apt-get install libxp6

then repeat the openmotif package installation, which succeeds this time.

Next, install the Citrix ICA client.

sudo dpkg -i icaclient_11.100_i386.patched.deb

Accept the EULA question (YES), and the installation proceeds.

Citrix Receiver is found under the Internet sub-menu.

Testing Lubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal)

Package in: b43-fwcutter

Another possible Citrix thin client candidate.

Having a bad CD day, made a boot USB instead for the Lubuntu 11.04 ISO, using my other laptop's Ubuntu startup disk creator.

Fast boot-up: under 22 seconds - time between turning on the laptop and the user id prompt.
Faster screen display: under 3 seconds - time between hitting the enter key after entering the password, and the LXDE desktop is displayed.

Looks promising.

Just can't get my wifi to work.

Issuing the terminal command:

sudo lshw -C network

yielded the following output:
*-network UNCLAIMED
description: Network controller
product: BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN
vendor: Broadcom Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
version: 01
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
configuration: latency=0
resources: memory:d4100000-d4103fff


So how to get the proprietary Broadcom BCM4311 to work?

Many ways to get the driver, I suppose. Another way to do it is:

sudo lspci -vvnn | grep 14e4

which shows this output:
03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN [14e4:4311] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Broadcom Corporation Device [14e4:0465]
04:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5906M Fast Ethernet PCI Express [14e4:1713] (rev 02)

Ubuntu wifi links to resolve the issue:
1. Ubuntu forum thread
2. Ubuntu Wifi doc

An hour later...

Finally got my WIFI to work, using the 2nd link above as reference, and discovering that my firmware runs on the b43 steps, and NOT the STA at all.

I did NOT activate this: System Tools > Additional Drivers > Broadcom STA wireless driver

This did it for me instead:

sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter firmware-b43-installer

Ubuntu out, Debian in

Today marks the day I switched to Debian (Squeeze). After 2 years of Ubuntu (last version I used: Lucid).

Restored a Clonezilla image of Debian6, making it much faster than a bare-metal installation.

Some early steps and observations:
1. Fonts are finer in Ubuntu on my laptop's lcd.
2. Memory utilization much lower in Debian (124mb with IceWeasel open)
3. I had to install proprietary wifi drivers. Basically followed the steps from the wiki debian, but instead of the aptitude commands, I used the Synaptic Package Manager.
4. Reinstalled Virtualbox. Downloaded the i386 debian squeeze deb package from their website, and followed instructions.
5. Along the way, had to make myself belong to the sudoers. Unlike Ubuntu, the user doesn't have this privilege by default.

6. PokerTH 8.3 in Debian 6! Just simply place:
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian wheezy main
in my /etc/apt/sources.list, sudo apt-get update, then Synaptic, and I'm good to go.

Addendum: No pysdm package in Debian to automount a partition I just created. So I have to go a bit low level - fstab it.

1. Create the partition, format it to an ext2 80gb partition, and mount it using the Disk Utility app. Take note of the mount point. Mine was: /media/Data

2. Go into a terminal shell and get some information needed for fstab editing.
sudo sh
and execute:
fdisk -l
to get the new partition's specific dev assignment. Mine was: /dev/sda3
Make sure I have the correct mount point:
ls -lsa /media/Data
and it gave me the output I expected:
total 28
4 drwx------ 4 roy roy 4096 Jul 10 16:06 .
4 drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 Jul 10 16:04 ..
16 drwx------ 2 root root 16384 Jul 10 16:03 lost+found
4 drwx------ 4 roy roy 4096 Jul 10 16:06 .Trash-1001


3. Now go proceed to edit fstab. I added this line:
/dev/sda3 /media/Data ext2 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1

Installing a third-party package in Ubuntu 10.04, or how to install the latest version of PokerTH

Getting the latest package from other people are sometimes better than the versions in the Ubuntu repositories.

Simple 3-step procedure, this one is:

Tell Ubuntu where to find the PPA (personal package archive):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pkg-games/ppa

Refresh the repositories:

sudo apt-get update

Install the package:

sudo apt-get install pokerth

Updated: These steps also work for Lubuntu 11.04.

Resizing partitions, auto-mount, and granting access to the new partition

INSTALLING THE STORAGE DEVICE MANAGER
1. In Ubuntu, install the Storage Device Manager
sudo apt-get install pysdm

I'll use this to make life easier configuring to automount the new partition during boot time, instead of the fstab thingy.

CREATING THE NEW PARTITION
1. Download Parted Magic and burn it to CD or USB.
For my purposes, I installed parted magic in a USB using the Universal USB Installer in www.pendrivelinux.com.
2. Boot the computer from the USB.
3. Proceed to resize the partition.
4. Create the new partition from the reclaimed unused space. I made an ext2 partition.
5. Log off parted magic, shutdown computer, and start up Ubuntu.

FINAL TOUCHES
1. Start up System - Administration - Storage Device Manager
2. Select the new partition, and click on the Assistant button.
3. Put a check on The file system is mounted at boot time.
Note also the mount point name of your new partition. You will need it for the last step below.
4. Restart Ubuntu.
5. In a terminal window,
sudo chown lavezarez:lavezarez /media/mydata
where you replace lavezarez with your own user name, and mydata with the mount point name of your new partition.

Ubuntu 11.04 blues

I don't like the Unity interface. That's all about what I have to say right now.

Changing DNS of my Ubuntu server

This is related to my September 2010 post on how to configure a static IP address for a computer.
I had to revisit that post and change the IP address again today, after having bought a new router with a new LAN configuration.

Here is the how-to for specifying an explicit DNS server, to guarantee that the Ubuntu SSH server will have Internet as well.

Edit this file in the terminal:

sudo nano etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf

Changes:
1. Remove the "domain-name-servers" from the request directive.
2. Modify the line:

prepend domain-name-servers 127.0.0.1;

by changing 127.0.0.1 to the DNS server of your Internet connection.
For my case, using Sun Broadband (Huawei usb modem), it was:

prepend domain-name-servers 202.138.128.50,202.138.128.54;

Taken from this Ubuntu Forum thread.

PLDT WeRoam on Linux Mint 10 (or Ubuntu 10.10)

These PLDT support guys don't have a clue how to support their product for Linux.
Major turn-off.

I didn't have to install those drivers in their website for my version of Linux Mint.
All I had to do was plug in the ZTE MF627 modem in my USB slot and Linux Mint automatically detected the modem.

These are the settings in my network connection:

Number: *99#
User name: pldt@weroam
Password: pldt

APN: weroam
Network ID:
Type: 3g (UMTS/HSDPA)

PPP Settings:
Allow PAP as the only method.
Uncheck Use point-to-point encryption (MPPE)
Check Allow BSD, Deflate, and TCP header compression

How to resize pictures in Ubuntu

Quick way to have the ability to resize big pictures. Very useful when you upload pictures to the web a lot (e.g. Facebook)

sudo apt-get install nautilus-image-converter

Then restart Nautilus:

sudo killall nautilus

When in want of resizing, right-click on the picture (or pictures) to resize, and select resize pictures from the context menu.

A dark theme for Geany

Been always partial to dark themes for my editors. Studying PHP, and using Geany, I got this excellent theme.

Downloaded the zip file from code.google.com
extracted to a subfolder in my Downloads folder, e.g. darktheme

From a terminal window,

ls ~/Downloads/darktheme

then still in the terminal,

sudo cp -r ~/Downloads/darktheme/*.* ~/.config/geany/filedefs

And this is how it looks.

Update:
This theme (from Mozilla bespin) looks promising.  Gotten from github.

virtualbox stuff

Version 4.x changes the game somewhat from version 3.x.

To enable USBs, you'd need to download a separate file called extensions pack. USB is NOT included in the vbox additions, as in earlier versions.
Download the extensions pack using your host browser, not the guest VM.

Then shut down your VM (if it's running), and install it under File-Preferences-Extensions.

Then, THEN, make sure your Linux user id belongs to the group vboxusers. System-Administration-Users and Groups, under Ubuntu's main menu.

Only then did my USB drive work inside the guest machine.

---

Import/Export appliance - it works. I exported from v3.1 (still under the Sun logo), to v4.0.2 (Oracle logo). Different machines. Installed ssh-server on the destination laptop, installed filezilla on the source laptop, did the export locally, then did a sftp to copy the 3 virtualbox files, then on the destination laptop, did the import.

The 3 files generated during export were:
1. *.mf
2. *.ovf
3. *.vmdk (the virtual hard disk)

how to view local php files

Here's just so I won't forget.

Currently my home laptop have these packages installed:
1. mysql-server, and dependencies
2. phpmyadmin, and dependencies
3. php5, and dependencies

Now wanting to play around with PHP scripting, without installing LAMP, I found out here that the default location where I should start putting my PHP files would be in /var/www.

Putting any PHP file in this directory, then viewing in my browser via http://localhost/ works.

However, I want to have my own webdev directory, under my own home folder. Trying out the tips of this link.

Great tutorial - it works!

mysql stuff - setting up a (super) user

1. Install mysql-server package
2. Create a super user

mysql> CREATE USER 'monty'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'some_pass';
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'monty'@'localhost'
    ->     WITH GRANT OPTION;
mysql> CREATE USER 'monty'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'some_pass';
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'monty'@'%'
    ->     WITH GRANT OPTION;

3. Install phpmyadmin package

4. Go ahead and import Excel tables!

Raid 1 not starting and mounting on boot - Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick

Still a work in progress.

Here are my link resources to figure this out -
Ubuntu forums #1

Ubuntu forums #2

and a new lead here.


and here's a draft:

hard disk1: /dev/sda
hard disk2: /dev/sdb, raid device: /dev/sdb1
hard disk3: /dev/sdc, raid device: /dev/sdc1
raid1 device name: /dev/md0

ARRAY /dev/md0 devices=/dev/sdb1,/dev/sdc1


mount raid1
sudo rm /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf
sudo dpkg-reconfigure mdadm

click Yes (redundancy checks), Yes (monitor daemon), enter email address, No (boot system if RAID gets degraded)

gksu gedit /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf
replace the ARRAY /dev/md0, and remove the UUID references, replace with devices=/dev/sdb1,/dev/sdc1

then rerun:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure mdadm

get UUID of the raid device:
sudo blkid

and modify fstab
gksu gedit /etc/fstab, inserting this line:

UUID=ae5f4540-59af-4e7a-84b0-ea97cc12e425  /Raid500    ext3          nodev,nosuid       0       2

The puzzle revealed
Inspecting my Ubuntu-10.04-with-RAID1 at home - which works starting up the raid and automounting it - I observed the following:

sudo blkid

reveals the following information:

dan@athena:~$ sudo blkid
/dev/sda1: UUID="7272061b-81d4-7395-e009-c51128a3b5c6" TYPE="linux_raid_member" 
/dev/sda2: UUID="c9ce349c-636a-667d-51a5-cb52c66e37ae" TYPE="linux_raid_member" 
/dev/sdb1: UUID="7272061b-81d4-7395-e009-c51128a3b5c6" TYPE="linux_raid_member" 
/dev/sdb2: UUID="c9ce349c-636a-667d-51a5-cb52c66e37ae" TYPE="linux_raid_member" 
/dev/md0: UUID="97019d30-06b0-42ef-8bfd-1699316f3012" TYPE="swap" 
/dev/md1: LABEL="raid1now" UUID="f1d9e97a-b766-4af1-bafd-ce0192aa04e1" TYPE="ext4"

I am guessing here that the /dev/sda1 and /dev/sdb1 are the swap partitions of the 2 actual physical drives. And the /dev/sda2 and /dev/sdb2 are, in turn, the ext4 partitions also of the 2 actual physical drives. And notice how both sda1 and sdb1 are the same, as well as sda2 and sdb2.

The raid device then takes new UUID values for swap (/dev/md0) and ext4 (/dev/md1).

BUT, the mdadm.conf tells a different story.

# definitions of existing MD arrays
ARRAY /dev/md0 level=raid1 num-devices=2 UUID=7272061b:81d47395:e009c511:28a3b5$
ARRAY /dev/md1 level=raid1 num-devices=2 UUID=c9ce349c:636a667d:51a5cb52:c66e37$

The mdadm.conf's md0 = blkid's sda1 (and sdb1), while its md1 = blkid's sda2 (and sdb2) - with slight variations:
Comparing blkid's sda1 (and sdb1) with mdadm's md0:

7272061b-81d4-7395-e009-c51128a3b5c6
7272061b:81d47395:e009c511:28a3b5$

and blkid's sda2/sdb2 with mdadm's md1:

c9ce349c-636a-667d-51a5-cb52c66e37ae
c9ce349c:636a667d:51a5cb52:c66e37$

So mdadm.conf references the blkid's sda/sdb UUIDs, and NOT the blkid's md0/md1 UUIDs.

Finally, fstab reveals the following:

# / was on /dev/md1 during installation
UUID=f1d9e97a-b766-4af1-bafd-ce0192aa04e1 /               ext4    errors=remoun$
# swap was on /dev/md0 during installation
UUID=97019d30-06b0-42ef-8bfd-1699316f3012 none            swap    sw           $

Fstab references blkid's md1 with it's own md1 for the ext4 partition:

blkid: f1d9e97a-b766-4af1-bafd-ce0192aa04e1
fstab: f1d9e97a-b766-4af1-bafd-ce0192aa04e1

and same with the swap partition.