Make Tech Easier» Ubuntu

How to Integrate Skype With Ubuntu Unity

Damien — Wed, 23 May 2012 23:58:07 +0000

If you are both a Skype and Ubuntu user, you will know that Skype does not really integrate well into the system. While Skype comes with a Linux desktop client that you can install on Ubuntu, it doesn’t integrate itself into the system theme, nor does it makes use of the system notification panel. If you like a unified look and feel for Skype on Ubuntu (unity), here is the way to do it.

Skype-wrapper is a plugin that integrates Skype with Unity. It adds the Skype icon to the messaging menu and quicklist items to the launcher. It also uses the Unity notification style to notify you of incoming calls/messages.

Installation

Open a terminal and type:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:skype-wrapper/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install skype-wrapper

The above commands assume that you have already installed Skype in your system.

Running Skype-wrapper

Once you installed Skype and Skype-wrapper, you will find that there are two instances of Skype in your computer. You need to identify which is which and run only Skype-wrapper, and not Skype.

1. Open Nautilus File Manager and navigate to “usr/share/applications”. Scroll down the application list till you see two Skype icons.

2. To identify which one is which, right click on the Skype icon and select Properties. The one that shows the “skype-wrapper” in the Command field is the one that you want. Drag this icon to the Unity Launcher.

3. Click on the icon to launch Skype. A popup will appear to prompt you to grant access to the skype-wrapper app. Check “Remember this selection” and click “Yes”.

Once it is authorized, you should see the Skype entry in the messaging menu and any incoming notification will follow the Unity style.

Right clicking the Skype icon on the launcher also show the quicklist items. You can View Incoming Message and Add Contacts.

Skype-wrapper also comes with a Settings option that allows you to configure its behavior. From the dash, search for skype-wrapper and you should see the “Skype-Wrapper Settings” app. In the Settings, you can configure the events to show notification and whether the file transfer progress should appear in the launcher.

Removing Skype icon from the systray

After the unity integration, there is one thing left that you need to get rid of. If you can’t stand the green Skype icon that didn’t go well with the Unity theme, you can remove it by uninstalling the “sni-qt” package. Note that a few other application, such as Dropbox, depend on the “sni-qt” package to display icon in the systray, and removing this package will affect these apps as well. Here’s what you need to do:

sudo apt-get remove sni-qt

The next time you launch Skype-wrapper, the green Skype icon won’t be around anymore.

Uninstalling Skype-wrapper

To completely remove Skype-wrapper from your computer, first open up your Skype option and go to “Public API” (the last option in the left sidebar). Select “Skype4Py” and click Remove.

Next, uninstall skype-wrapper from your computer:

sudo apt-get autoremove skype-wrapper

That’s it.

How to Integrate Skype With Ubuntu Unity originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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How to Install Java Runtime In Ubuntu 12.04

Damien — Mon, 14 May 2012 21:30:05 +0000

If you have installed Ubuntu from scratch, most probably the java package is not installed by default. The java package is necessary to run any java-based app, including running java applets in the browser. While you may not use it it all the time, it is still handy to install it. When you need it, it is there ready to be used.

Sun JDK vs OpenJDK

In the past, Sun JDK was the default java package in Ubuntu. After Sun Microsystem was acquired by Oracle in 2010, Ubuntu (and various distros) switched the java package to the fully open-source OpenJDK as the SUN JDK no longer contain codes that are fully open-sourced.

OpenJDK is community-built and is (almost) 100% similar to the SUN JDK. You can easily install OpenJDK in Ubuntu via the Ubuntu Software Center, by clicking here or running the command:

sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jre

Personally, other than some minor font rendering issue with OpenJDK, I have not experience any major problem with OpenJDK. That could also because I don’t use many java-based apps in the first place. However, if you have a specific java-based app that don’t run well in OpenJDK, you can switch to the SUN JDK instead. Here is how you do it:

The hard way

This method requires you to install SUN JDK 7 manually. It is a good way for you to learn the trick.

1. Download the SUN JDK 7 here to your home folder.

2. Extract the tar file.

3. Move the extracted file to the “/usr/lib/jvm/” folder:

sudo mv jdk1.7.0_04 /usr/lib/jvm/

4. Install SUN JDK 7 in your system:

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/javac javac /usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.7.0_04/bin/javac 1
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java /usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.7.0_04/bin/java 1

5. Set the environment variables:

sudo update-alternatives --config javac
sudo update-alternatives --config java

You will see an option like the screenshot below:

Enter the option that corresponds to the SUN JDK package. Press Enter.

That’s it.

To test your java:

java -version

You should see something like this:

The easy way

If you don’t want to manually install the SUN JDK, you can do it via a PPA. Since there is no official PPA for SUN JDK, you will have to grab a custom PPA that comes with the java package. Note that custom PPAs might add extra software sources to the repository, and cause your system to be bloated or even have conflicts with other apps. So bear in mind the risk involved.

There are several PPAs out there that come with SUN JDK, one that you can use is “webupd8team/java”

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install oracle-java7-installer

This should install SUN JDK 7 in your system.

Run Java applet in Browsers (Firefox, Chrome etc)

Even after you have installed the java package, you will find that the java applet in your browser won’t run. If you are using the OpenJDK, here is another package that you need to install:

sudo apt-get install icedtea-7-plugin

For Oracle java, run the commands:

mkdir ~/.mozilla/plugins
ln -s /usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.7.0_04/jre/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so ~/.mozilla/plugins

If you are using a 64-bit system, remember to change the “i386″ to “amd64“.

Once install, restart your browser. The java applet should run now. To test if Java is working in your browser, go to http://java.com/en/download/testjava.jsp. If installed correctly, you should see a “Your java is working” message.

How to Install Java Runtime In Ubuntu 12.04 originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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How to Connect to A VPN In Ubuntu [Quick Tips]

Damien — Mon, 07 May 2012 21:30:16 +0000

There are many reasons why you need to connect to a VPN. Maybe you need to connect to your office network so you can access some confidential files from your Home PC, or that you need an American IP to watch Hulu and listen to Pandora. Whatever the reason is, you can easily configure a VPN connection in Ubuntu and no extra installation is required.

Note: This article assumes that the VPN you are connecting to is using a PPTP protocol. If you need a L2TP connection, the instruction below won’t work.

1. In your Ubuntu desktop, go to “System Settings -> Network”

2. At the Network window, click the “+” button at the left bottom corner.

3. When prompted, select VPN for the interface dropdown. Click “Create”.

4. Select “PPTP” for the VPN connection type (in most cases, you should only have one option). Click “Create”.

5. Give this VPN connection a name and enter the connection detail.

For some VPN connection, you might need to select the appropriate authentication method. In this case, click the “Advanced” button and check/uncheck the authentication method required for your VPN. Most of the time, you will have to disable the MSCHAP authentication and enable the “Use Point-to-Point encryption (MPPE)” optioni and select 128-bit security, but this could vary with each VPN connection.

Finally, click Ok and then Save to close out the previous window.

6. Lastly, click Save. You should be able to connect to this VPN by clicking the wireless icon at the system tray.

Done.

How to Connect to A VPN In Ubuntu [Quick Tips] originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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How to Upgrade to Gimp 2.8 in Ubuntu

Damien Oh — Fri, 04 May 2012 14:58:28 +0000

Gimp users, rejoice! After 3.5 years of development, Gimp 2.8 has finally arrived. This version of Gimp brings a plethora of changes and improvement, making Gimp a even better image editing software than its previous version.

What’s new in Gimp 2.8

Single Window mode

All previous versions of Gimp come with separate windows for the toolbar, main window and various dock dialogs. Some love it as it allows them to micro-manage, but some hate it and yearn for a Photoshop-like interface. In Gimp 2.8, the default interface is still the separate window mode, but you can get it to show the Single Window mode by selecting the “Windows -> Single-Window Mode” option.

Multi-column dock windows

GIMP 2.8 allows dockable dialogs in a dock window to be placed in multiple columns. To create a new column in a dock window, drag and drop a dockable dialog on the vertical edges of the dock window. This is an appealing feature for multi-monitor users where one screen can have a big dock window with all the dialogs and the tools, while all images are on other displays

Layer Groups

Gimp users with a Photoshop background will love this. In Gimp 2.8, you can organize your layers into group. Layer groups are also fully scriptable, making it easier and faster for you to get things done.

On-Canvas Text Editing

This is one feature that I love most. In previous version of Gimp, the text-editing feature always open in a new window, making it very troublesome to handle. The on-canvas text editing in Gimp 2.8 allows you to make changes on the canvas itself.

Simple Math In Size Entries

While resizing an image, you can now use simple Maths as the input size. For example, rather than calculating half of 768px, you can now input “0.5*768″ into the width/height field. You can also input “30%” in the field without having to change the unit from “px” to “percent”.

For more changes, refer to the complete Gimp changelog.

Install Gimp 2.8 in Ubuntu 12.04

Ubuntu 12.04 is still running Gimp 2.6. For those of you who can’t wait for Ubuntu to include Gimp 2.8 in the repository, you can upgrade to Gimp 2.8 via the following method:

1. Uninstall Gimp from your system:

sudo apt-get autoremove gimp gimp-plugin-registry

2. Add the following PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:otto-kesselgulasch/gimp
sudo apt-get update

3. Install Gimp:

sudo apt-get install gimp

Configuring plug-ins and scripts for Gimp 2.8

Updated: The “gimp-plugin-registry” package has been updated to work with Gimp 2.8. The instruction below is no longer necessary.

The “gimp-plugin-registry” package in the repository is not compatible with Gimp 2.8, so if you are using plenty of plug-ins, you won’t be able to install them via the “gimp-plugin-registry” package. The only way is to manually install the plugins (until the plugin registry package is updated). Most of the scripts should continue to work though. I place the “arrow.scm” script in the “.gimp-2.8/scripts” folder and it works perfectly.

Here is how I install the “Save for Web” plugin:

1. Download the “gimp-save-for-web-0.29.3.tar.bz2” file to your home folder.

2. Extract it to the “.gimp-2.8/plug-ins” folder.

3. Open a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install libgimp2.0-dev intltool
cd /home/your-username/.gimp.2.8/plug-ins/gimp-save-for-web-0.29.3
./configure
make
sudo make install

If everything goes smoothly, you should be able to use the “Save for Web” feature in Gimp 2.8 now.

How to Upgrade to Gimp 2.8 in Ubuntu originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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Installing Your Own LTSP Server on Ubuntu

Adrien — Thu, 03 May 2012 14:58:30 +0000

Last week I came up with a review of 2X ThinClientOS, a Linux distribution specialized for thin clients. However, you may be on the other side of the problem: you want to have your own thin client server. The simplest way to do that is to use LTSP. It stands for “Linux Terminal Server Project”, and basically turns any computer connected to the Internet into a server to which thin clients can be linked. To make it even simpler, LTSP can be installed on any common Linux distribution like openSUSE, Fedora, Debian, and of course Ubuntu. There are two ways to install LTSP on Ubuntu: installing it from scratch or on the top of an already existing system. I will focus more on the former, but the latter is also straightforward, and I will discuss it briefly.

Installing from Scratch

First, you will need an Ubuntu Alternate CD. For this example, I took a classic 10.04 i386 ISO from here. In case you don’t know, an alternate CD is like the regular one but without the fancy interface for installing Ubuntu, and it lets you access more options. Among these is the ability to hit F4 at boot to select “Install an LTSP server” from the different modes.

The installation will then take as usual when an alternate CD is used:

Select your language
Select your country
Select your keyboard layout (automatically or manually)
The DHCP will configure itself
Choose a host name

Set the clock
Select your partition system (full disc, partial, encrypted, etc.)

The installation will begin. It can take a few minutes
As usual, choose a user name and a password

Decide if you want to encrypt your /home
The image will be compressed

And finally, the GRUB boot loader will be installed

And that’s it. You can now reboot and connect your first thin client.

Notice that even if the automatic installer is great, some manual configuration may be needed in some cases.

I advise you to take a look at “/etc/ltsp/dhcpd.conf” and “/opt/ltsp/i386/lts.conf” for the advanced settings. The LTSP Wiki is very informative.

If you want to transform your computer into a thin client server without having to re-install everything, LTSP can also do that. Simply install the required packages:

sudo apt-get install ltsp-server-standalone openssh-server

And then launch the automatic configuration process via

sudo ltsp-build-client

It will take some time to retrieve and install everything.

It did not work out for me the first time but it was probably due to the bad Internet connection, so don’t hesitate to retry in case of failure. However, bear in mind that some manual configuration will generally be needed here. You can finally launch your server with

sudo /etc/init.d/dhcp3-server start

Conclusion

As I said earlier, LTSP can be installed on a plethora of other distributions, so you can pick your own if you want. Ubuntu can be considered as the standard for a tutorial but each distribution’s wiki is very precise and a lot more detailed. As a last piece of advice, you should check that your thin clients can be booted from the network because it is really a pain to do it manually if you have more than ten of them.

Would you pick another distribution to install LTSP on? Or would you choose something completely different from LTSP in the first place? Let us know your opinion in the comments.

Installing Your Own LTSP Server on Ubuntu originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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How to Enable Hibernate in Ubuntu 12.04

Damien — Tue, 01 May 2012 23:58:47 +0000

If you have upgraded to Ubuntu 12.04, one thing that you will find missing is the “Hibernate” button. For those of you who are not aware or don’t use this feature at all, the Hibernate button usually lies above the Shut Down option and it allows you to save your current state to the hard drive so the next time you boot up, it can restore to the previous saved state without going through the usual boot up loop.

Why Hibernate is disabled by default in Ubuntu 12.04?

Some of you who are used to the Hibernate feature in Ubuntu might be asking “why is this missing in Ubuntu 12.04?”

The reason behind this is because Ubuntu’s Hibernate feature has always not been working well in many computers. For new hardware models, the Hibernate feature often don’t work by default. In some instances, the Hibernate feature will even lead to data loss. The rationale behind the removal of the Hibernate button is:

For Ubuntu to present a Suspend function that doesn’t work is unprofessional, and presenting a Hibernate function that doesn’t work (and destroys data by never waking up) is even worse.

After much discussion and debating, the final decision is to disable Hibernate by default on all computers, unless the computer is on a whitelist. The whitelist will include all “Ubuntu Certified” computers that have been tested and proven to work with the Hibernate feature. So if you are not seeing the Hibernate button, most probably your PC is not “Ubuntu Certified”.

Where to access the Hibernate feature?

Currently, the Hibernate feature is only available in the “Power -> When power is critically low” settings. You can get your laptop to go into Hibernate mode when your batter power is critically low.

How to get back the Hibernate feature?

If you are not sure if your PC supports the Hibernate feature, open a terminal and type pm-hibernate. If your PC succeed in going to Hibernate mode and you have no problem waking it up, your PC supports the Hibernate feature. You can then proceed to the next step to restore the Hibernate option.

In the terminal and open the following file:

sudo nano /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/com.ubuntu.desktop.pkla

Add the following:

[Re-enable hibernate by default]
Identity=unix-user:*
Action=org.freedesktop.upower.hibernate
ResultActive=yes

Save (Ctrl + o) and exit (Ctrl + x).

Restart the PC. The Hibernate option should return now.

How to Enable Hibernate in Ubuntu 12.04 originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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3 Things You Need to Do Before Upgrading to Ubuntu Precise

Damien — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 23:58:33 +0000

Finally, Ubuntu 12.04 has landed, but before you rush to upgrade to the latest version, here are some things that you need to do.

1. Decide whether to install from scratch or upgrade your existing version

In my past experience, upgrading an existing version of Ubuntu to the latest version always left a bad taste in the mouth. Downloads are slow, upgrade took forever and the completed product always break things here and there. This is worst if you are two or more versions behind as the transition from GTK 2.x (11.04 and below) to GTK 3.x (12.04) would undoubtedly break some of your applications and settings. However, I have read news that the upgrading process in Ubuntu Precise is much smoother and less things are breaking, so it might worth a try.

My advise is: if you are using a much older version of Ubuntu (11.04 and below), it is good to reformat your PC and install from scratch. This will rid your system of any old and useless files, applications and settings. On the other hand, if you are inexperienced with PC formatting, don’t wish to spend the extra time and effort to install from scratch and don’t mind things breaking (the breaking could be minimal if you are upgrading from 11.10), upgrading using the Upgrade Manager is your best bet.

2. Backup, backup and backup

No matter what, you should always backup your system. In case the upgrade fails and you have to re-install from scratch, you still can recover your files from the backup.

There are several things that you will need to backup:

Files and documents

Needless to say, you should always backup your important files and documents. One good way is to back them up to the cloud, using either Dropbox, Ubuntu One or Box. When combined, the 3 cloud storage services give you a whopping 57GB of storage space to use, which should be sufficient for most users. Alternatively, you can also use the built in backup manager – Deja Dup to backup your system. That will require you to use an external hard drive or partition.

PPAs

Most of us don’t just use the default applications in Ubuntu. Most of the time, we will install new applications using third-party PPAs. To save you the trouble from sourcing these PPA again after re-installing, you can backup your list of PPAs and restore them after the re-install.

There are two main places where your PPAs are kept. If you are using the add-apt-repository command or the Software Sources to add your repository, they are kept at the “/etc/apt/sources.list.d” folder. To backup this folder, you can use the command:

tar -cvzf myppas.tar.gz /etc/apt/sources.list.d/

This will create a tar file in your home folder. You can then move this tar file to your backup drive or Dropbox.

To restore, place the tar file in the Home folder and use the command:

sudo tar -xvzf myppas.tar.gz
sudo apt-get update

If you have added your PPAs manually, they are most likely to reside in the “/etc/apt/sources.list” file. To backup this file, use the following command:

cp /etc/apt/sources.list /your-backup-folder/

Replace the “your-backup-folder” with the actual filepath to your backup folder.

To restore,

cat /your-backup-folder/sources.list >> /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt-get update

That’s it.

Note: You will most probably have duplicate or obsolete PPA in the list after the restoration. You might want to use “sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list” to remove the unwanted PPAs (follow by “Ctrl + o” to save and “Ctrl + x” to exit) before you run the “sudo apt-get update” command.

Backup config files

The config files are one thing that many people overlooked while backing up their systems. Failing to backup the config files won’t break your system, but you will have to manually configure the settings for each app again.

In Gnome, the config files are usually stored in the “/.local/share” and “/.config” folders, but some apps could have their own config folders like “/.gnome2″, “/.VirtualBox”,”/.Thunderbird”,”/.wine” etc.

One good way to backup your config files is to setup your UbuntuOne account and sync these config folders. On your next install, UbuntuOne will automatically restore your config files to their rightful locations.

3. Test out with a Live CD first

This isn’t necessary all the time, but if you have some old applications that are critical to your business and you are not sure if they are supported in Precise, you can download the ISO file and test it with a Live CD or in Virtualbox. You can proceed to install after you have verified that it can fulfill your needs. In addition, for new user who are planning to switch to Ubuntu, testing with the LiveCD is the best way to find out if you really like the distro and whether you should switch from your existing OS.

Conclusion

It never hurt to be careful. While you are eager to jump onto the bandwagon and upgrade to the latest version, doing a little bit of housekeeping and backing up could save you tons of trouble later on.

What other precautions do you take before you upgrade your system?

Image credit: by BotheredByBees

3 Things You Need to Do Before Upgrading to Ubuntu Precise originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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Deepin: An Elegant Ubuntu-based Distro For The Chinese

Damien — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 21:00:18 +0000

The beauty of Linux lies in the fact that there is a distro for everyone. It doesn’t matter whether you are a geek, beginner, Apple fan, Windows fan, gamer or developer, there’s surely one distro for you. And yes, if you are a Chinese, there is this distro just for you, and it is elegant and well-polished.

Deepin is a Ubuntu-based distro for the Chinese and it is heavily modified to include plenty of useful stuff and rid of less useless/seldom used packages. After booting up Deepin, the first impression is that it is beautiful. The custom theme used is bright, elegant and refreshing.

The login screen:

Deepin desktop:

Deepin Activity Overview:

Update: From Deepin 11.12.1 onward, all the menu and interface are in English by default. English speaking users will be able to enjoy this distro without any problem.

Interface

Deepin is based on Gnome Shell 3.2 and it comes with its own set of extensions. Other than the colorful and refreshing wallpaper, the top panel has also been modified to become a dock that displays your favorite apps. Any opened app will also show up in the dock, and when you hover over the icon, a thumbnail screenshot of the app shows up.

In the Activity overview, the workspace panel is moved to the left and is hidden by default. This allows more screen space for the applications display. The Favorite bar has also been removed.

The theme used in this distro is a custom theme named “Deepin”. You can download it here.

A quick look at the Applications list

When reviewing a new OS, I always like to look through the applications list to see what applications it has included and whether there is any new software for me to play with. In Deepin, a quick look at the applications list unveils apps like Gnome Tweak Tool, DeaDBeeF (a lightweight music player), uGET (download manager), ipTux, GTKHash, NTFS-config, and its own Deepin Software Center, all installed as part of the default application.

The most interesting of them all is the Deepin Software Center. This is not just a re-skin of Ubuntu Software Center (USC), but a complete rebuild with more useful features.

There are five main sections in Deepin Software Center. At the Home page is a recommendation of the popular apps in each category. I find this more visually appealing and comprehensive than the USC. Next is the Repository page where you can browse all the applications in each category. There are options for you to sort the apps by Recommendations, Downloads, or Ratings. The Upgrade tab is where you can check if there is any update for your applications/system. This is a “good to have”, but not a “must-have” feature, since your system will auto-update itself when there are new update available. Nevertheless, the penguin background is very cute and for this, it is worth the visit once everyday.

The Uninstall feature, in my opinion, is the best feature in the Deepin Software Center. I am always being asked “how do I uninstall a software in Linux” and I have to explain to them that they have to open the USC (or their default package installer app), browse to the app they have installed and click “Remove”. Alternatively, they can open the terminal and use the apt-get autoremove command. Both are not a quick and easy method. The Uninstall feature in DSC allows you to view the whole list of installed apps and you can simply click the “Uninstall” button to remove it. USC has this feature as well, but Deepin Software Center makes it much easier to use.

Lastly, the Download tab shows all the software you have downloaded and allows you to clean the Download cache to free up storage space.

One useful, yet hidden feature

There is this extremely useful, but hidden feature in Deepin that is only accessible from command line (for now). This feature is called “Deepin Scrot”, an extremely versatile and lightweight screen capture and image editing tool.

Open a terminal and type

deepin-scrot

A lightbox will appear and you can drag to select the area (of the desktop) that you want to take a screenshot of. After that, you can add text, arrows and drawings on the screenshot. Lastly, you can choose to save the screenshot into your clipboard and paste it in another image editor for more editing. In case you are wondering, scrot means SCReen shOT. For those who are keen to install deepin-scrot in your distro, you can download the .deb file from the Deepin site.

Conclusion

Deepin may just be another modified distro based on Ubuntu, but there is no doubt that the developers have put in plenty of efforts to make it an elegant and usable distro. Some of the design work and software, such as the Deepin Software Center and Deepin-scrot are excellent and is something that the Canonical team can learn from them.

Linux Deepin

Deepin: An Elegant Ubuntu-based Distro For The Chinese originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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How to Easily Automount Windows NTFS partition in Ubuntu

Abhishek Prakash — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 14:58:53 +0000

There are a great number of Linux users who dual boot their computer with Windows. And in situation like this, one has to make different partitions to separate Windows and Linux partition. Windows usually (not always) uses NTFS file format while Linux is usually (again, not always) installed in Ext3 or Ext4 file format. While using Linux, one has to manually mount the drives. It doesn’t take time in mounting but in some situation you might prefer to have it automatically mounted at each start-up for e.g., if your Music files are on the NTFS partition and you want to use the same directory in Linux it is advisable to auto mount that drive. In this tutorial I will show you the easiest way to mount Windows NTFS partition at each start-up.

One way to automount NTFS drive is by editing fstab, but that might not be simple for beginner Linux users. An alternative way is to use a GUI tool named ntfs-config.

Open the terminal ( Ctrl+Alt+T ) and use the following command to install the tool:

sudo apt-get install ntfs-config

Alternatively, you can install it from Ubuntu Software Center.

Before using, we need to tweak the tool a bit as there is a known bug which stops the tool from working properly. It looks for a directory which needs to be created. In the terminal, use the following command to create the mentioned directory:

sudo mkdir -p /etc/hal/fdi/policy

Now we are ready to use the ntfs-config tool. Launch ntfs-config. Remember, it needs administrative rights to run the tool. When you start the tool, it lists all the partitions that are available on your computer. The interface looks like this:

As shown in the picture above, there are three NTFS drives present on my computer. Check the box adjacent to the drive you want to automount. In the place for you can put the name which you want to use for that particular drive for e.g., windows1.

If you want all of your NTFS partition to be automounted, just click on “Auto Configure” and it will take care of the rest of the stuff.

By the way, in case you do not know which drive is numbered what (i.e. /dev/sdaX which is not similar to Windows naming convention of drives), you can use the following command in terminal to find it out.

sudo fdisk -l

which outputs (for my computer) like this:

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048      206847      102400    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2          206848   215541759   107667456    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3       215544166   625141759   204798797    f  W95 Ext (LBA)
/dev/sda5       215544168   420340724   102398278+   7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda6       420340788   504296414    41977813+   7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda7       535547904   545062911     4757504   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda8       545064960   625141759    40038400   83  Linux
/dev/sda9       504297472   529539071    12620800   83  Linux
/dev/sda10      529541120   535543807     3001344   82  Linux swap / Solaris

In the output, look for the column Blocks. This gives the size of the partition in bytes. In the example above, 102398278 bytes can roughly be estimated as 102 GB.

Once you select the mount point, it gives you option of enabling write support for the drives. Its up to you if you want this feature.

Save and close and you are done with a reboot. You will find your drive(s) automatically mounted at the start-up.

Your questions and suggestions are always welcomed. Do not forget to subscribe to the site for more helpful article to make your tech-life easier. Cheers :)

Image credit: Hard Disk Drive by Big Stock Photo

How to Easily Automount Windows NTFS partition in Ubuntu originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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Cinnamon – A Great Alternative Desktop Environment For Gnome Shell [Linux]

Damien — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 22:00:41 +0000

Gnome 2 has been a favorite of many Linux users. The simple, yet fully customizable interface is what won the hearts of many users, and it is not surprising that when the Gnome team releases Gnome 3 which is more resource intensive and radically different from Gnome 2, many users protested. Many developers started to create their own desktop environment, trying to mimic the look, feel and behavior of Gnome 2. Cinnamon is one of the few that did a great job.

Cinnamon is created by Clement Lefebvre, the Linux Mint founder and lead developer. It is a fork of Gnome Shell, but with the look and feel, and even the functionality of Gnome 2. The focus of Cinnamon is to make the users “feel at home with an easy to use and comfortable desktop experience“. After trying it out, I am pretty sure it has achieved its aim.

Installation

The cinnamon package is already available in the Linux Mint repo,. If you are a Linux Mint user, you can easily install it via the command:

sudo apt-get install cinnamon

In Ubuntu, you will have to add the PPA before you can install:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gwendal-lebihan-dev/cinnamon-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cinnamon

Users of Fedora and other distro can follow the instructions here to install Cinnamon in your system.

Once you have installed Cinnamon, log out of your current session and select “Cinnamon” in the login screen.

The default desktop layout comes with a bottom panel with the Menu button and several app launchers. There is also a system tray showing the calendar and network settings. It is pretty bare, just like Gnome 2.

The Menu button is the popular MintMenu in Linux Mint that sort all your applications into various categories. You can also drag any application from it and drop to the panel for quick access.

In addition, you can also right click at the system tray and add/remove applets, much like the way you do it in Gnome 2. I know what you are going to ask – Nope, you can’t use Gnome 2 applet here. There is a good list of applets in the library, but if that is not enough, you can also download more from the Cinnamon applets page. To install the applet, you have to extract the zip file and place it in the “./local/share/cinnamon/applets” folder.

Cinnamon Settings

The Cinnamon Settings is the most important part of the Cinnamon desktop and it contains all the settings to make Cinnamon looks great and performs well.

You can access Cinnamon Settings from “Menu -> Preferences -> Cinnamon Settings”.

At the Panel setting, you can configure whether to auto-hide the panel and whether it should be at the top, bottom or both (the classic Gnome 2 way). There is also a Panel edit mode. In this mode, you can drag, drop and move the app launcher to your favorite order and position.

The calendar option allows you to edit your own date format to display in the panel. The default is showing “Day (of the week) Date Hour:Min”, but if you are like me who don’t like to see the date in the time, you can remove the “%b %e” from the input field.

The Hot Corner settings is where you can assign a corner of your desktop for a specific task. At the moment, you can only assign one corner and one task (either “Show all windows” or “Show all workspace”. You can also hide the “Activity Overview” icon.

Cinnamon support custom themes, applets and extensions. You can download any of these from Cinnamon site. Similarly you need to place them in the respective folder within the “./local/share/cinnamon/” folder. After that, you can then go to the Cinnamon Settings to activate your themes, applets, or extensions.

Cinnamon also support desktop effect, much like the way Compiz does. The desktop effects are rather minimal, focusing mainly on windows minimizing, maximizing and closing effects.

The Desktop is where you can configure whether the Computer icon, Home icon, and various mounted hard drive should appear on your desktop or not. Similarly, you can change the mouse double click action on a window title bar. I also like how it allows you to switch the window button from right to left, or on both sides.

Conclusion

Cinnamon is a very polished Linux desktop that will make many users “feel at home”. While it is a fork of Gnome Shell trying to mimic the look and feel of Gnome 2, it does comes with plenty of extra features that make it very user-friendly and customizable. One thing for sure, it doesn’t look and feel like Gnome Shell at all and the panel is definitely a welcome return. If you are a Gnome 2 fan, I will sure you will fall in love with Cinnamon.

Try it out and let us know if Cinnamon can make it to your favorite Linux desktop list.

Cinnamon – A Great Alternative Desktop Environment For Gnome Shell [Linux] originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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How to Handle And Configure Firewall In Linux

Adrien — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 23:58:59 +0000

If you are using, or planning to use Linux, a good incentive is the relative security that is implemented by default. Linux systems are insensitive to a good majority of Windows and Mac OS viruses, and the GNU project in itself assures the authenticity of the software. However, every (paranoid) geek knows that there is no such thing as a completely protected system. Today, we will show you how to beef up your Linux security by making a few changes to your Firewall settings.

Instead of just reviewing Firewall software, I will focus more on the firewall settings, such as the rules and ports, as they stand for the basis of an efficient firewall.

The traditional program for a firewall in Linux is the command-based IPTables. Directly derived from the ideal of Unix, it is very powerful, and yet extremely complicated for a beginner. IPTables does not launch itself at the boot, so it is the user’s duty to configure the firewall in a script and run it right after the login. An easier option is to use UFW (Uncomplicated FireWall). UFW is a command-based firewall, but with a much simpler syntax. It launches itself at boot, and comes with the same security level as IPTables. An even easier way to bypass the command line altogether is to use gUFW – a graphical interface for UFW.

Installation

In Ubuntu, all you have to do is to use the command (you can also install via the Ubuntu Software Center):

sudo apt-get install gufw

Configuration

Run the gUFW application. You should be prompted with a nice gray window.

To operate properly, gUFW needs the super-user’s rights, which means that in a terminal, you will be using the command:

sudo gufw

If you launched it from the Application Menu, you can click the gold lock at the bottom right of the gUFW window and type your password to elevate the user permission.

The window should come to life and you can now begin the configuration.

First, you want to activate the firewall by clicking on the bar next to “Status” so that “On” is displayed. You can then choose what you want to do with the incoming and the outgoing traffic. By default, the incoming is denied and the outgoing is authorized. This is a good basis, but in general with Linux, you want to use your full control to go further than the default. The configuration as it is now will prevent something from coming into your computer but will not stop your computer from communicating. Imagine that your computer is already infected or that a malware succeeds in going through the firewall. In this case, UFW will not stop him from communicating with the Internet and maybe from transmitting your data to an evil cracker.

I therefore advise you to apply drastic measures: deny everything – incoming and outgoing!

At this moment, you will find that you have cut yourself off from the Internet. By denying everything, you also deny any web traffic from coming in/out to your system. Worry not, we are going to set rules to only allow the applications you need and trust to access the web. Adding a rule is simple. You just have to click the “+” button at the bottom left of the window. Equally, the “-” button is to delete rule.

Now, click the “+” button. You should now be in front of a new dialog box with three tabs.

The “Preconfigured” tab is for creating some rules for defined and specific tasks, like for Skype or Transmission. It is the easy way to set rules quickly: decide what program or service you want to use from the list, if you allow incoming or outgoing, and the rules will add themselves.

For example, if you decide to allow in Skype connections, gUFW will allow incoming connections to port 443 using the TCP protocol.

As easy to use as this tab is, it is however incomplete. There is still a bunch of stuff that you cannot do without going into the “Simple” tab. I promise, we won’t go any further, no “Advanced” tab for today.

This tab is not very complex to use. All you have to do for adding rules is to choose between incoming or outgoing connections, the protocol used, and the port number. I am not going to teach you the difference between UDP protocol or TCP, but instead, I will provide you a non-exhaustive list of ports that you may want to keep opened, and the reasons why.

Non-exhaustive List Of Ports

Outgoing connections:

80/tcp for HTTP
53/udp for DNS
443/tcp for HTTPS (secured HTTP)
21/tcp for FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
465/tcp for SMTP (send emails)
25/tcp for Insecure SMTP
22/tcp for SSH (secure connection from computer to computer)
993/tcp&udp for IMAP (receive emails)
143/tcp&udp for Insecure IMAP
9418/tcp for GIT (version control system)

Incoming connections:

993/tcp&udp for IMAP (receive emails)
143/tcp&udp for Insecure IMAP
110/tcp for POP3 (old way to receive emails)
22/tcp for SSH (secure connection from computer to computer)
9418/tcp for GIT (version control system)

Again, this list is incomplete, but it is a good start. Don’t hesitate to search if you have other needs, and check the “Preconfigured” tab first.

Some services, like IMAP, require an incoming and an outgoing connection to work properly. And in some cases, encrypted connections ask for a different port.

Conclusion

Now you are ready to perfectly control your own firewall and assure yourself your security. Lastly, UFW needs to be added to your daemons at boot. Use the command:

sudo update-rc.d ufw defaults

And in other distributions like Archlinux, edit your /etc/rc.conf file. It is of course better to add the UFW daemon before the daemon that establishes an Internet connection (like wicd or network-manager for example).

Do you use another firewall? Or do you have some other rules that you recommend? Please let us know in the comment.

How to Handle And Configure Firewall In Linux originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin Beta Review

Damien — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 00:58:17 +0000

Every six months, we will do a review of the latest version of Ubuntu and see what features/improvement Canonical has added to the popular distro. The next version of Ubuntu – 12.04, Precise Pangolin is now available in beta and this is particularly important since it is the next Long Term Support (LTS) version. As of all LTS version, the emphasis is always on stability over new features experimentation, so it is interesting to see how the 12.04 will perform. Let’s proceed with the review.

Note: This review is based on the Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin beta release. While most of the features are fixed, some might be improved or removed from the final version. You can get the download here.

First of all, from the bootup to the desktop, you will discover that there is little differences between this version and the current version of Ubuntu (Oneiric). The UI is pretty much the same, and the Unity 3D is still the default desktop manager (for those who computer cannot support Unity 3D, Unity 2D will be used instead).

The differences start appearing once you delve deeper into the applications.

1. The default music player is restored to Rhythmbox, together with the Ubuntu One Music Store support.

2. The default browser is still Firefox, though there has been many discussions about using Chrome as the default. Firefox 11.0 (which is still in beta as of this post) was used instead of the stable 10.0.2. The stable release of Firefox 11.0 should be in time for the final release of Ubuntu 12.04.

3. LibreOffice has been updated to 3.5 and it is still not integrated with the global menu.

4. Ubuntu Software Center is still the default installer manager (replacing Synaptic), and a new recommendation feature is now available in the app store.

5. Ubuntu One now comes with a new interface and allows you to add a sync folder within the application.

6. There are a few new features in the System Settings settings. You can now configure some of the Unity setting in the Appearance option. The configuration option is pretty limited at the moment, with only one option to set the launcher autohide behavior. Hopefully, more options will be added to the list.

There is also a new Privacy feature where you can remove the logging history so all your activities won’t be logged (or automatically removed after a period of time). This is almost the same as the Activity Log Manager that we reviewed sometime back.

7. Gimp is back after its omission in Natty.

8. New video lens in Unity Dash. You can now search various video sites directly from your desktop.

9. Remmina has replaced Vinagre as the default remote desktop client.

HUD: Probably the best feature in Ubuntu 12.04

The above mentioned are just some of the improvement over existing features and they are not really new and revolutionary. HUD is what really makes Ubuntu 12.04 shines. HUD, stands for Heads UP Display, is an intelligent search feature that you can use to search for items in the menu bar. For example, in GIMP, rather than moving your mouse to the menu bar, navigate to “Filter -> Blur -> Blur” to select the “Blur” feature, you just have to press Alt and type “blur” to access the feature. It is definitely a more efficient way to use the application that you are most familiar with.

As of now, HUD does not work for all applications. It only works with applications that support the global menu. This means that you can’t use it in LibreOffice, since it doesn’t support global menu by default.

Better ClickPad Support

The ClickPad was popularised by Apple for the ability to click in the trackpad. However, most Ubuntu users will find that the clicking and gestures action don’t work really well in previous and current version of Ubuntu. In 12.04, the ClickPad support has been greatly improved. You can now click on the ClickPad and use another finger to move the cursor. This is similar to the drag and move action in a mouse. In addition, most Synaptics brand ClickPads are now recognized out of the box. Apple MacBook trackpads are recognized as well. Support for Apple Magic Trackpads will follow in the next release.

That’s all for now. Most of the changes are merely improvement and HUD is a great addition to the list. The beta version of Ubuntu 12.04 is available here. The final version will be released on April 26th.

Image credit: By PLeia2

Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin Beta Review originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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How to Change Your Console Fonts In Ubuntu [Geeks Trick]

Damien — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 23:00:45 +0000

Very seldom do we need to work entirely on a console, but for those who do, you might like to change the font or the appearance of the console so it is more pleasing to the eye. Here is how you can do so in Ubuntu.

Note: the font used in the console is monospaced and is not the same as the ttf, otf fonts that we used for document and browsers. In addition, there is also a limited selection fonts that you can choose from.

Changing the console font is very easy. Here is what you need to do. Open a terminal and type:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup

You will see this:

Press “Enter” to select the default.

Next, it will ask you for the character set the console should support. Similarly, press “Enter” to select the default.

The next screen is the one that is most important to you – changing the font used in the console. There are only a few choices: VGA, Fixed, Terminus, TerminusBold and TerminusBoldVGA. Fixed seems to have the best coverage for international scripts while Terminus is the most pleasing to the eyes. Make your choice with the arrow up/down key and press Enter.

Lastly, you can set the font size used in the console. The default is 16, but you can change it to a bigger or smaller font size.

To see the font change in action, you have to open a virtual console (not to be confused with the terminal).

1. Press “Alt + Ctrl + F1″ on your keyboard. The virtual console should open full screen. Login with your username and password.

2. Once you are logged into the console, type:

setupcon

3. You should see the font change immediately.

4. To get out of the console, press “Alt + Ctrl + F7″ on your keyboard. This will return you to the desktop.

That’s it.

How to Change Your Console Fonts In Ubuntu [Geeks Trick] originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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How to Fix Low Battery Power And Overheating Issue In Ubuntu 11.10

Abhishek Prakash — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 15:58:08 +0000

One of the many things that Linux users boast of is the better performance of the hardware in Linux as compared to Windows. Unfortunately, it has not been true in many cases. One of the major issues with the latest Ubuntu releases (11.04 and 11.10) were a dramatic decrease in the battery life along with overheating of laptops. The issue is faced by a large number of people that claimed to reduce the battery life by around 2 hours on average. Interestingly, Windows still performs better and gives greater battery life than the latest version of Ubuntu.

A lot has been discussed about the issue. Lots of bug reports has been filed but nothing conclusive came out. Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) versions for e.g., Ubuntu 10.10 and the upcoming 12.04 are known to perform better than Windows but it does not mean that one has to suffer from poor battery life until the LTS version 12.04 comes out. In this post we will discuss two workarounds that could help you in improving the battery performance. You can use either or both of them.

Improve battery life by using Jupiter

Jupiter is a Linux applet for display, power, and device control. It can be used to change screen resolution, screen orientation, disabling WiFi, bluetooth and touchpad, and above all, battery performance. Jupiter has 3 Performance Modes: Maximum Performance, Performance on demand and Power Saver (the one we are interested in). In Power Saver mode it underclocks the processor and hence improves the battery life.

Unfortunately, Jupiter doesn’t work by default with Ubuntu 11.10, but thanks to WebUpd8 team, we have a work around for it. Open your terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and type the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/jupiter
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install jupiter

After installing it, you need to log out and login again. You can see Jupiter in your system tray on the top. You can select Power Saver mode from there. This picture could be helpful:

After you put it on power saver mode, the icon turns green. It help you in remembering what mode you are using. You can see a considerable improvement in both battery performance and over heating.

Changing the Grub configuration to improve the battery performance:

If you are not satisfied with Jupiter, you may want to use the other work around which is a Kernel tweak. It was found that battery and over heating issue is related the Linux kernel. Let’s see how to use this trick:

Open your terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and open the Grub config file by using the following command:

sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

Now here search for this line:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

Replace the above line with this one and save the file:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash pcie_aspm=force"

Update the Grub by using this command:

sudo update-grub

This fix was mainly meant for Linux Kernel 2.6.38 and the issue was “supposed” to be solved in later versions of Linux Kernel but that, unfortunately, never happened.

PowerTop can also be used instead of Jupiter but personally, I preferred Jupiter over PowerTop. I hope these tips increase the battery life and solve the overheating problem of your laptop. I sincerely hope that things will be better with Ubuntu 12.04 which is bound to release in April’12. Your questions and suggestion are always welcomed. Cheers :)

Image credit: Orange warning low battery signal by Big Stock Photo.

How to Fix Low Battery Power And Overheating Issue In Ubuntu 11.10 originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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How to Make Dropbox Icons Work in Ubuntu Oneiric [Quick Tips]

Damien — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 23:00:07 +0000

If you are using Ubuntu Oneiric and Dropbox at the same time, you will find that the Nautilus Dropbox extension does not work as well as intended. While the Dropbox daemon is working fine and it will sync all files you place in the Dropbox folder, the sync icon and the Dropbox contextual menu is no longer there. This means that you can’t see whether the sync is successful or not and also access Dropbox feature, particularly the public link and shareable link, from the context menu. Here’s how you fix it (and it is incredibly simple).

The reason for this is because the Dropbox installer installs itself into the Nautilus extensions 2.0 folder while Nautilus 3.x is using the extensions 3.0 folders for the icons and context menu. To fix this, we just have to create a symlink between the respective files in extensions 2.0 and 3.0.

Open a terminal and type:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/nautilus/extensions-2.0/libnautilus-dropbox.a /usr/lib/nautilus/extensions-3.0/libnautilus-dropbox.a
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/nautilus/extensions-2.0/libnautilus-dropbox.la /usr/lib/nautilus/extensions-3.0/libnautilus-dropbox.la
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/nautilus/extensions-2.0/libnautilus-dropbox.so /usr/lib/nautilus/extensions-3.0/libnautilus-dropbox.so

Restart Nautilus:

killall nautilus

That’s it. Open your Dropbox folder and you should see the sync icon and the Dropbox entry in the context menu.

How to Make Dropbox Icons Work in Ubuntu Oneiric [Quick Tips] originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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Why Linux? 7 Reasons That Make Linux Great

Josh Fox — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 00:58:51 +0000

There are several reasons that I love using Linux. Ubuntu to be more specific. It’s definitely not for everyone, but if you can get by without the latest and greatest games, it’s generally a great operating system. Sure, there are some annoyances, but name one operating system that doesn’t have any. Want to know some really great things about Linux that make it number one in my book? I’ll tell you…

1. Price

Of course the price is great. You simply can’t beat free. Many people think, “you get what you pay for“, but that’s not entirely true. For instance, even most Windows users will say that Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome are the best browsers out there. How much do you pay for those? That right, they’re free. Although these are free, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some really good developers behind the software.

2. Software Management

One of my favorite features of Ubuntu is its software management. This is especially true when it comes to updates. In Windows, it could turn into an all-day job just to update the operating system, and then all the software you have installed because you have to go to Windows Updates and the websites for all of your installed software. Some programs might have an update system built into the software, but I still say it’s not as nice as updating everything in a single place at a single time. All of the software is available for install from the same place as well. When you decide you need a new program for keeping track of your bank account, it’s just a case of opening your favorite package manager and installing it from there.

3. Choices

Since Linux is open source, there are a ton of choices and options. This can be daunting to some people who like simple. It can be very simple. It’s even a choice to have choices. You can go to Ubuntu’s website, download the latest release, install it, and enjoy the operating system with its default set of software. However, you can also dig deeper and change nearly everything. Whether it’s the desktop environment, email client, look and feel of everything, or nearly anything else you want, the options are there. Unlike Windows, you can even change the default file manager. If you don’t like Windows Explorer, you can’t exactly ditch it and use a different file manager. In Linux, you can use the default file manager if you like, which Nautilus is a great file manager in itself, or you can install something else (like Marlin) and set it as default. Simple as that.

4. Customizing

It’s nice to be able to customize something when you don’t like the defaults. You can change nearly any aspect of the operating system, as I mentioned. This can be done through themes, color schemes, widgets, change of software, or pretty much any other way. In an earlier article, I told you how to move the navigation buttons to the left of the address bar in Nautilus 3+. Most customizations aren’t that involved, but due to the young nature of the latest versions of Gnome and Nautilus, some options aren’t supported yet. Overall, if something isn’t to your liking, it’s usually easy enough to change it to what you want.

5. Support

People may think different things when the word “support” is mentioned. Some people will think, “I need help, where do I go?“, while others will think, “Does my 3G modem work with it?“. Both are valid concepts of support, and both are really good in Linux. It’s easy to get help with Linux. If you have a problem, there are many forums and chat rooms you can use to get help. Ubuntu Forums is possibly the best place to get help with anything related to Ubuntu, its derivatives, and its software. If a more general forum would be better suited for you, LinuxQuestions.org is the place to go.

When it comes to hardware support, that can be a tricky subject to tackle from either the user’s aspect, or the developer’s. Some hardware is supported by Linux, while some hardware manufacturers support Linux. Things that aren’t supported in either direction are usually being handled the best they can in some way or another. The Linux community is big, and I mean really big. That means that if there’s a piece of hardware out there, it’s bound to be in the hands of a Linux user or developer. If it’s not already supported in some way, it’s probably being worked on by someone in the world. Even if something is already supported, there’s probably someone working on making it easier to work with, no matter how well it already works. The goal is to make everything work, and make it as easy as possible to do. That seems like a very noble goal, especially when it’s such a big task with some hardware.

6. Bug Handling

This actually goes in with support, but it’s done well enough to be mentioned separately. There are many ways to file a bug report. Ubuntu even has bug reporting built into the operating system. When you find something wrong with the software and you file a bug report, it will be verified and assigned to a developer to be fixed in the next release of the software. If it’s big enough, it could even justify a bug fix release on its own.

At the same time, there’s also feature suggestions. Most open source software has a way to make suggestions for improving the software. Nobody knows a user’s needs and desires like a user, so if you find something missing from your software choice, make a suggestion. This is one of the best ways for developers to know what they need to add to their software, and in most cases, they like to get that feedback.

7. Community

As I mentioned before, the Linux community is really big. It’s not hard to go into the Ubuntu IRC chat room and find over 1000 users online. These people are there to get or give help, or just to talk about Ubuntu-related stuff. There are even Linux User Groups (LUGs) all over the world. There’s a good chance you can find one near you, or you can even organize a group of your own. With how the Internet works, it’s easy to create an online community for your area, organize meetings, create forums, chat rooms, host install parties, and much more. If you have a verified group, you can even get free or discounted stuff from different places to help promote Linux and open source software.

There are also many blogs out there, like Make Tech Easier, that post articles to help you along the way. Most of the time, if you can’t figure out how to do something, you can usually find the answer on a blog of some sort listed in Google’s search results. In the spirit of open source, users will often volunteer their time and knowledge to be shared with others.

Conclusion

There are a lot of things to like about Linux. It’s not just Ubuntu, but most distributions offer a lot of things to like. There are a lot of people that are passionate about open source software, and the developers volunteer their time to make it all better. In the end, it all boils down to the community that surrounds Linux. If it wasn’t for the community, Linux wouldn’t be as good as it is. You can expect Linux to get even better as the community grows over time.

What are some of your favorite parts of Linux? Let us know what you have to say in the comments.

Why Linux? 7 Reasons That Make Linux Great originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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How to Install A Minimal (And Non-Bloated) Ubuntu On Your Old Laptop

Damien — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 23:00:05 +0000

Ubuntu has always been said as the Linux distro for beginners and entry users. It comes with plenty of free software and most of the things will just work after you installed it. However, if you have noticed, the recent build of Ubuntu is getting more and more resource intensive (with more animation and effects) and also come bundled with plenty of software that you probably have no use for. In short, it is getting bloated and doesn’t run well on old laptop anymore (at least in my case). While you can install another distro like Linux Mint, another alternative is to strip off all the software and unnecessary stuff and install Ubuntu from scratch. Here is how you can install a minimal Ubuntu on your (old) PC.

To get started, we can use either the Ubuntu Server edition or the Ubuntu minimal CD as the base install. Both come with the minimum packages to get the distro running and don’t come with any pre-installed software. The Ubuntu Server edition is more focus on server usage though. For this tutorial, we will be using the Ubuntu Minimal CD.

1. Download Ubuntu Minimal (mini.iso) for your PC architecture. The file size is only less than 30MB.

2. You won’t be able to create a USB startup disk with this iso file, so the only way is to burn it into a bootable CD.

3. Make sure your PC/laptop is connected to a LAN network. Insert the CD into your CD-rom and boot up your computer from the ROM. This is what you will see. Select “Install”.

4. Select the language, follow by your location.

5. Let it detect your keyboard. Optionally, you can select “No”, you can select from a list of keyboard layout (the most widely used is English (US)).

6. Next, the installer will proceed to configure some files for networking. When it is done, it will prompt you to enter the hostname. This will be what you will see in the terminal later, so change the hostname to something more personal, like “my-laptop“.

7. Select the mirror for Ubuntu archive that is closest to your location. This allows you to update your system and retrieve packages faster.

8. Unless you are using a proxy to connect to the outside world, leave the HTTP proxy field blank.

9. The installer will now retrieve the necessary packages from the mirror site. Once it is done, it will prompt you to reformat your hard disk. I assume that you are going to use the whole hard disk, so in this case, select “Guided – use entire disk”. If not, you can select “Manual” and configure the partitioning accordingly. I won’t go into the detail here.

When prompted, select “Yes” to confirm the partition setting.

10. Now, sit back and let the installer do its work. Once it’s done, it will prompt you to enter your username, password and whether you want to encrypt your Home directory.

11. Go grab a coffee while the installer do the final installation on your PC.

12. When prompted on how you want the security update to be done, select “Install Security Update Automatically”.

13. The next part is the important part. Here is where you can choose what to install on this machine. Personally, I want to choose what to install on this system, so I am going to select “Manual Package Selection”. You can do otherwise, though.

14. The last thing it will install is the GRUB loader. Select this if this is the only OS running in the machine and the GRUB loader does not interfere with other bootloader.

15. Finally. this is what you will see when the installation is completed. Remove the CD from the CD-rom and select “Continue” to restart the computer.

Post Installation

Now that you have finished the installation, it is only half the battle. You still need to install the desktop manager and several required applications.

1. Restart the computer. Press “Alt + F1″ when the grub loader appears. This will bring you to the command prompt. (If you didn’t press “Alt + F1, you will only see a blank screen).

2. In the command prompt, first login with your username and password. Next, type the following:

sudo apt-get install gdm network-manager

This will install the gdm login manager and the network-manager. Optionally, you can replace the “gdm” with “lightdm” or “lxdm“. You can also use “wicd” as the alternative to network-manager.

3. Next, choose your desktop manager. You can choose to use Gnome, Openbox, LXDE, Fluxbox, XFCE, WindowMaker, etc.

For Gnome, installing the Gnome-core will install a whole bunch of Gnome library and several Gnome applications (including Synaptic). This is a good starting point for beginner.

sudo apt-get install gnome-core

For Openbox:

sudo apt-get install openbox

4. Lastly, start gdm

sudo start gdm

Note: I have problems getting lightdm to work with Openbox. It could be just my hardware problem, but since I can’t get it to work, I don’t recommend it here.

That’s it. Restart your PC. Once you are logged back in to the desktop, you can proceed to install all the applications you want/need. If Synaptic is not installed, use the following command to install:

sudo apt-get install synaptic

Enjoy!

How to Install A Minimal (And Non-Bloated) Ubuntu On Your Old Laptop originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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Knowing Your Linux System Via the Command Line

Adrien — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:58:40 +0000

Every Linux user will tell you the same thing: know your computer. Mine always works not because there are no bugs, but because I know enough to identify their sources every time and correct them. And one of the best ways to monitor your system is through the command line. There are some great GUI for this, but the command line has the advantage of working on every computer, and it can easily be put into a script.

I propose to you five great commands for:

Knowing your kernel
Finding hidden processes
Listing running modules
Checking disk usage
Locating binaries and configuration files

1. Knowing your kernel

The kernel is the core of your Linux system. It is frequently updated, and knowing its version may be important for compatibility reasons. Certain programs may require a certain version in order to work properly. It may also be important for some peripherals and modules. As an example, my Ubuntu is based on the official kernel 3.0.0. So far, the latest version is 3.2.5.

To know exactly what kernel you are using, its version, and your computer architecture, use the command:

uname -mrs

With this example, we can clearly see that I am using the official kernel, version 3.0.0. The i686 stands for my computer architecture. Here it means that I am using a 32-bit computer. On the other hand, x86_64 would have indicated a 64-bit architecture.

2. Finding hidden processes

To know what processes are currently running on your machine, most people would recommend the command “top“. Joshua wrote a very good article about it last year at Linux Running Too Slow? Here’s How to Find the Cause. Personally, I find this command very useful, and as Joshua explains, it can even be used to monitor the RAM usage.

However, I am sometimes too lazy to search in the list provided by “top“, and if I already know the name of the program running, I recommend the combination:

ps aux | grep [name of the program]

This will have the effect of listing all the current processes, even the smallest ones that will not be picked up immediately by “top“, and then filtering them according to your keywords.

This method will instantly give you the name of the user responsible for this process, the PID number, the CPU usage percentage, the memory usage, the name of the process, etc.

As a side note, if you don’t know how to kill a running process:

kill [PID number]

killall [name of the process]

3. Listing running modules

Modules appeared in version 2.0 of the Linux kernel. They are very useful, and you can consider them as drivers that you can load and remove from the memory. As an example, if you are using a laptop, you probably have a WiFi card. The corresponding modules for that card are probably loaded automatically at start up. If you want to save some battery, you may want to stop the card when you are not using the Internet. Removing the corresponding driver from the memory will then give you a little bit more memory (and you will also be sure that your card is disabled).

But first you need to know which modules are currently running. The command for that is

lsmod

This command is simply the combination of “ls” for listing files in a directory and “mod ” for module (I know, what a surprise).

As a complement to your knowledge, you can add modules with the command

modprobe [name of the module]

and remove them via

rmmod [name of the module]

These two commands have to be launched by a super-user.

4. Checking disk usage

Keeping an eye on your system’s volumes can save you a lot of trouble. You may want to be sure that there is always enough room in /root, and remember to periodically clean your /tmp. For that purpose, there are two great commands:

lsblk

and

df -h

lsblk displays a tree representation of the partitions of your computer. It also gives you some useful information about the size of these partitions, their type, and their mountpoint.

However, even if lsblk is more visual, I still prefer to use df -h. The latter gives you more information about the remaining space, the size of the partitions, and the percentage of memory in use.

You may have noticed that the command df alone will give you the size in bytes, which might be very hard to interpret. The option -h stands for human readable and gives you the amount of data in gigabytes, megabytes, or whatever is the easiest for a human to understand.

5. Locating binaries and configuration files

One of the first things that confused me when I left Windows a few years ago was that the file system was completely different on Linux. There is no such thing as Program Files, or a single directory for all the configuration files. But it may be very useful to know where these binaries are. For that purpose, the command:

whereis

is among the best. Similarly to

whoami

which gives you the name of the current user, or

whatis

which explains a command quickly, whereis can locate binaries, manual entries, and various configuration files. Its syntax is also very simple:

whereis [name]

In the example above, I asked where Firefox was, and the command returned the location for its binary and various directories, as well as the manual page.

But one of the greatest strengths of whereis is its ability to locate standalone configuration files. Here is another example, where I was searching for rc configuration files:

Such options can become very useful, especially if you are not using Ubuntu but another distribution like Archlinux which requires a serious amount of time to edit these files.

Conclusion

With these commands in your pocket, you will be able to see a little more of what is going on in your system. If you still prefer to have a GUI for that, I would still recommend things like Baobab for the files and Gnome System Monitor in general.

Are you using other commands? Other GUIs? Let us know in the comments.

Knowing Your Linux System Via the Command Line originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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How to Remove Recent History Lists In Ubuntu 11.10

Josh Fox — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 23:00:28 +0000

If you are using Ubuntu 11.04 or newer, you may have noticed that there is no longer an easy way to clear your recently opened items. They could have chosen to do this for different reasons like accessibility or convenience. However, there are some people who simply don’t want their recently opened files to be listed anywhere for whatever reason. Today, I have a couple of ways to do that for you.

The Script

Using a Bash script is the easiest way to clear your history. You can have it do nearly anything you could want. Since the point is to clear your recent items, we’ll make a script that will delete the files.

To do this, open gedit and use the following commands to create the script:

#!/bin/bash 
## Clear recently accessed files
rm -f ~/.recently-used.xbel
rm -f ~/.recently-used.xbel.*
rm -f ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel
rm -f ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel.*

This is very simple and removes the recently used items from most GTK-based programs. If you want to go another step and remove thumbnails as well, that’s just one line of code away. Just add:

rm -rf ~/.thumbnails/*

Once you have that done, it should look like this:

Now, just save the file as something like clearhistory.sh. The .sh extension signifies that it is a shell script. To make it executable, right-click on the file and open the “Properties” window. In the Permissions tab, check to box next to where it says “Allow executing file as program“.

Click “Close”, and you’re done.

Placing The Script

If you only want this available to you, on demand, you can either keep it as a file or put the file somewhere safe and keep it as a menu entry. If you want to keep the script itself hidden, create a hidden folder in your home folder like .MyScripts. Be sure to start the folder name with a period to make it hidden by default. Put the file in there.

TIP: You can show/hide hidden folders like these by pressing CTRL+H in Nautilus.

To create a menu entry for it, open your applications menu and find the Main Menu program.

Click on the Category or menu folder you want it to be in on the left, click New Entry and fill in the information. It can be ran either as an application or from the terminal. You can choose this from the first drop-down menu. It does the same thing either way, except you will see a terminal window flash if you select Application in Terminal. You can also give it an icon by clicking on the launcher icon in the upper-left corner of the window.

Now, type in the path to where you put the file. If it is located somewhere in your home folder, you can start the path with “~” like ~/.MyScripts/clearhistory.sh. You can also add a comment to the launcher so you can remember exactly what it does. The comment is displayed as a tooltip where it applies. When you are finished, it should look something like this:

Click OK to close and save the new menu item, and you can close the menu editor. Now, it will be available to you in the application menu. That means you can also add it to your favorites if you want it to be even easier to get to.

Automatically Clear Your History

If you would rather have your history items cleared automatically, place the script in ~/.config/autostart. Everything in this folder will run automatically every time you login. This takes the effort out of the process. However, if you only put it here, it will not be cleared in the middle of any session, so if you want to still be able to do it manually, you can have the menu entry point to the script in the autostart folder.

Another thing to note is that this will only work for the current user. If you have multiple user accounts you want to do this with, you would have to place the file and menu entry in the same way in any other accounts you want it available in. Or, you can have it done automatically at shutdown, which can easily clear the history system-wide.

System-wide On Shutdown

This part is a little more involved, but it can also simplify the process if you want to use it on multiple accounts. To start, open the Run command by pressing ALT+F2 and type:

gksudo gedit /etc/init.d/clearallhistory.sh

This will open gedit as root so you can save the file to the system directory. You can also name the file something other than clearallhistory.sh if you like, but remember to keep the .sh extension. You can copy the code from the original script and change it from there by changing ~/ to /home/*/ like this:

#!/bin/bash
## Clear recently accessed files and thumbnails
rm -f /home/*/.recently-used.xbel
rm -f /home/*/.recently-used.xbel.*
rm -f /home/*/.local/share/recently-used.xbel
rm -f /home/*/.local/share/recently-used.xbel.*
rm -rf /home/*/.thumbnails/*

The asterisk (*) is used as a wildcard, so it will follow all paths in the /home/ folder to remove the history files. Once you have the code in place, save and close.

Now, you need to open the terminal to do the rest of this part. First, you need to make the script executable. Since it’s in the system directory, you can’t do it as a standard user, so that is why the terminal is being used here. Type the command:

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/clearallhistory.sh

This will set the script as executable and you can continue. Now you need to link it to the proper places by using these commands:

sudo ln -sf /etc/init.d/clearallhistory.sh /etc/rc0.d/S10clearallhistory.sh
sudo ln -sf /etc/init.d/clearallhistory.sh /etc/rc6.d/S10clearallhistory.sh

This puts a link to the file in the folders of things that are automatically ran on shutdown and restart. You will notice that in the rc0.d and rc6.d folders, the file name starts with “S10″. This is because the scripts in this folder are ran in order of their filenames. The lower the number, the earlier it is ran. By default, Ubuntu ships with scripts starting at S20 in these folders.

If you decide to edit this script in the future, you will only need to do so to /etc/init.d/clearallhistory.sh because the other two locations are only linked to this one.

Specific Users On Shutdown

If you don’t want the history cleared from all accounts on shutdown, you will still use the above process, but you will need to change the script a bit. Instead of using the * wildcard, you will need to create a new command for each user you want cleaned. Each command should look something like this:

rm -f /home/josh/.recently-used.xbel
rm -f /home/amanda/.recently-used.xbel

This should be repeated for every command you want ran on each account you want it ran on.

Conclusion

Whatever your reason for wanting a clean history on your computer, this will make it work for you. If you followed the entire process, you should now have the script in the autostart folder in your profile, in the application menu, and in the shutdown/restart scripts folders.

Does this work for you, or do you want another method? Maybe you already have another method. Let us know what you have to say in the comments.

How to Remove Recent History Lists In Ubuntu 11.10 originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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How to Connect Your Galaxy Nexus to Ubuntu And Enable File Transfer

Damien — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 00:58:28 +0000

While Android is based on the Linux kernel, that doesn’t mean it plays well with Linux distro. If you are a proud owner of the Galaxy Nexus, you will find that it doesn’t come with a micro SD-card slot where you can transfer files to and when you connect your phone to your Ubuntu, it doesn’t show up in the File Manager. In short, you are not able to transfer files into and out from the phone.

Why is this so?

Most older Android phones are using the USB block mode to connect to your computer. In this mode, the computer will see your phone’s SD card as a USB device and mounts it as one. The bad thing about this USB block mode is that once your SD card is mounted in the computer, it won’t be functional in the phone. Any app that depends on the SD card will fail to work during the time when your device is connected to the computer.

The Galaxy Nexus (and several other Android tablets) uses the Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) which has several advantages over the USB block mode. The greatest benefit is that it allows you to use the whole (internal) partition for apps, music, media, photos, etc and not have the hardware manufacturers allocate for you the storage amount for your apps and photos.

Ubuntu doesn’t come pre-installed with support for MTP, that’s why you can’t get your computer to see the phone after you have plugged it into the USB port.

gMTP is a simple MP3 and Media player client for MTP-based device. It provides a GUI for you to mount your Galaxy Nexus and transfer files in/out of it. We will need to compile some code in the process. Follow the steps below and you will be fine.

1. Open a terminal. Install libusb-dev

sudo apt-get install libusb-dev

2. We are going to need a copy of the libmtp file. The version in the Ubuntu repo is outdated, so we need to download the latest version of libmtp here. (For your info, I am using libmtp-1.1.2.tar.gz).

3. Extract the libmtp file to your Home folder. Back to the terminal:

cd libmtp-1.1.2
./configure --prefix=/usr
make
sudo make install

This will compile and install the libmtp file.

4. Lastly, install gMTP

sudo apt-get install gmtp

Now, plug in your Galaxy Nexus and open gMTP. Press the Connect button. If successful, you should see the SD card folder of your Galaxy Nexus. You can now transfer files using the Add/Download button.

Note:

1. Even if it is connected in gMTP, your device won’t appear in the File Manager. You can manage your files transfer only in the gMTP GUI.

2. When attempting to download files from your phone, it will return an error saying the file is not found. This is because the default Download path has been to set to “/” (root) and you have no permission to write to the root folder. To change this, simply open the Preferences and change the Download path to “/home/username” or any other path that you desire.

That’s it.

How to Connect Your Galaxy Nexus to Ubuntu And Enable File Transfer originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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