Archive for January, 2012
Tuesday, January 31st, 2012
In above graphics you see development of GNU/Linux through the years startingfrom 1992 to 2010. You see for the past 18 years the number of kernel developers has rasised from 100 to 1000 (10 times). The number of super computers based on GNU / Linux operating system was only 1, while in 2011 they were already 413. Just for information Top 10 Super computers in terms of CPU power are running on top of some Linux + GNU environment based operating system.
You see the number of Patented software increased approximate 3 times for 16 years … PC shipped with Linux all oer the world increased almost 10 times.
A survey was run among the biggest Linux convention LinuxCon aiming to find out the share difference between users using different distros, as well as a survey to answer the question where is Linux mostly used. Obviously even though the Ubuntu desktop boom this years Linux is still mostly used in work location, home desktop / notebook users are almost 3 times less.
The survey show the sad results, the Linux in school and academic communities is less used than for professional purposes. On the desktop things has slightly changed, for the last 5-7 years. From the position of being a Linux Desktop leading OS, Fedora went into the shadows in favour of the "less free" (in terms of Freedom) Ubuntu.
All system administrators knows well Linux is a very common choice for building small or middle enterprise business information systems. Hugest platforms which are the web backbone today like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Stock Exchanges, Mail services, various technical equipment etc. runs on top of Linux. Even though the huge number of adoption Linux and free software is though to not be legally assured this is well known among free software and open source evangelist under the term FUD.
Android found its way also in Samsung Galaxy and a number of tablet devices running Linux based kernel OS was shipped in 2011.
With the raise of Android which (base is mostly Linux kernel and less GNU tools based). The spread of Linux has seen a huge raise on the mobile (smart phones) market as well. You see in above chart as of 2011 Android sells had the highest market share with 37%.
The year 2011 was not among the best Linux users anywas, as Unity does turned away many users to become Linux converts. The big GNOME 3 mess, which was called by Linus Toravlds a "holy mess" , along with the kernel.org's security break in does also contributed that year 2011 ended up as a bad one for free software.
As of August 2011, the global Linux market approximate market share is about 3% of all the installed OSes currently existing in the world. And compared to 5 years ago there is a little decline in the share. I believe the 2012 will be a better year for both development and adoption of free software and Linux.
Tags: Auto, business information systems, convention, cpu power, Desktop, distros, Draft, enterprise, equipment, facebook, gnu linux, google, home desktop, information, kernel developers, Linux, linux desktop, linux gnu, linux operating system, location, mail services, mess, nbsp, notebook users, number, oer, power, professional purposes, quot, sad results, show, software, Stock, stock exchanges, survey, term fud, Ubuntu, work, work location, year
Posted in Linux, Linux and FreeBSD Desktop, Linux Audio & Video, Various | No Comments »
Monday, January 30th, 2012 Kraptor is another Raptor Shadow of Death free software, open source clone arcade game for GNU/Linux, DOS and Windows (98, XP etc.).
The game is not under active development anymore since 2004. Kraptor features a powerful engine for creating quickly 2D shooter games, so the game should be a good learning curve for people interested into creation of arcade game shooter games.
The game just like Rafkill is built upon DUMB sound engine.
The game intro is quite entertaining 😉 The intro plays one by one the text:
Near Future:
Blobalization
Imperalizm
Corporations
Megalomaniacs
Money and Power. Slaves of the New Millenium!
After years of oppression, the slaved people of the world have raised against their masters. You, has a mercenary pilot, has been
contacted by the popular rebellion to fight against the forces of oppression.
In the morning, you jump into your cockpit and start up the engines. It's time to get airborne and start the attack. Get ready to
scramble the scum hired by the masters. Murder for freedom is the only way, you're on a mission, don't defraud us...
Like Rafkill, Kraptor is one man masterpiece created by a free software Argentinean geek known under the Kronoman artistic pseudonim. The game is really incredible for a one man work … a true masterpiece.
The game is licensed under MIT License.
Even though Kraptor is older game than Rafkill, the design is more resembling the original Raptor game. The game music is high quality stereo. Besides that music and fx sound effects are quite awesome. After each level you have a Raptor like weapons "blackmarket", where you can buy new weapons, recharge ship energy, upgrade ship etc.
The blackmarket implementation part of the game is probably the worst moment in the game along with the game menus (in my view).
Talking about graphics Kraptor supports really high number of resolutions ranging from 320×240 to 1280×1024! 640×480 is the standard resolution in which the game is running.
Something I really like in the game is the number of multiple weapons your ship uses during play. Even if played in Easy mode it is taught.
There are game Saves after each level, so thanksfully you don't have to start again from zero once death.
At the end of each level there is a huge bad BOSS you have to destroy ;).
Installing Kraptor on Debian / Ubuntu and deb derivatives is with:
debian:~# apt-get install kraptor
On most rpm based Linux distributions, you can install the game by converting the deb package to rpm with alien or by building from source from Kraptor's sourceforge page
Its interesting the game name e.g. Kraptor is also a death / grind metal band name, (Maybe Kronoman is metalhead big fan of Kraptor and that's how he came up with the playful name. For all the old school game addicts there is the joystick support. I've tested it with my Genius analogous joystick and it works fine.
The game is lacking .desktop gnome definition and after once installed it only appears through Debian (section) GNOME menus and not in Applications -> Games :
Applications -> Debian -> Games -&act; Action -&t; Kraptor
Just like Rafkill on Debian the game exacutable binary is located in /usr/games/kraptor . Also like with the Rafkill case when launched the game has troubles with choppy sound and music caused by the stupid buggy! pulseaudio
Analogously like with Rafkill's case, the work around to the problematic music en sound is to use a little bash shell script like:
#!/bin/bash
pulseaudio -k;
/usr/games/kraptor
pulseaudio --start;
You can dowload Kraptor fix sound issues wrapper here
To install it on your Debian / Ubuntu and hence make the game sound play good issue with root:
debian:~# cd /usr/bin
debian:/usr/bin# wget https://www.pc-freak.net/bshscr/kraptor.wrapper.sh
...
debian:/usr/bin:# chmod +x kraptor.wrapper.sh
debian:/usr/bin:# mv kraptor.wrapper.sh kraptor
Tags: active development, arcade game, Argentinean, Auto, clone, Corporations, curve, Draft, Engine, freedom, game menus, game music, geek, gnu linux, joystick, Kronoman, learning curve, level, Linux, linux dos, man work, Megalomaniacs, money and power, new millenium, number, oppression, plays one, power, pseudonim, pulseaudio, quality stereo, quot, raptor game, raptor shadow, rpm, scum, shadow, shadow of death, shooter, shooter games, software, software open source, text, time, true masterpiece, Ubuntu, work, wrapper
Posted in Games Linux, Linux, Linux and FreeBSD Desktop | No Comments »
Saturday, January 28th, 2012 I've earlier blogged on playing Apogee's Raptor Shadows of Death arcade on GNU / Linux with dosbox
All the old school raptor addicts will be interested to hear Kazzmir (Jon Rafkind) a free software devotee developer has created a small game resembling many aspects of the original Raptor arcade game.
The game is called Rafkill and is aimed to be a sort of Raptor like fork/clone.
Originally the game was also named Raptor like the DOS game, however in year 2006 it was changed to current Rafkill in order to avoid legal issues with Apogee's Raptor.
The game is not anymore in active development, the latest Rafkill release is from January 2007, anyhow even for the 2012 it is pretty entertaining. The sound and music are on a good level for a Linux / BSD shoot'em'up free software game . The graphics are not of a top quality and are too childish, but this is normal, since the game is just one man masterpiece.
Rafkill is developed in C/C++ programming language, the game music engine it uses is called DUMB (Dynamic Universal Bibliotheque). By the way DUMB library is used for music engine in many Linux arcade games. DUMB allows the Linux game developer to develop his game and play a music files within different game levels in "tracked" formats like mod, s3m, xm etc.
The game is available in compiled form for almost all existent GNU/Linux distributions, as well as one can easily port it as it is open source.
To install Rafkill on Debian, Ubuntu, Xubuntu and Linux Mint en other Debian based distros
root@debian:~# apt-get install rafkill
Installing on Fedora and other rpm based is with yum
debian:~# apt-get install rafkill
...
Once rafkill is installed, in order to start it on Debian the only way is using the rafkill (/usr/bin/rafkill) command. It appears the deb package maintainer did not wrote a gnome launcher file like for example /usr/share/applications/rafkill.desktop
Just to explain for all the GNOME noobs, the .desktop files are a description file GNOME reads in order to understand where exactly to place certain application in the (Gnome Applications, Places, System …) menu panel.
Even though it miss the .desktop, it is launchable via Applications menu under the Debian section e.g. to open it from the GNOME menus you will have to navigate to:
Applications -> Debian -> Games -> Action -> Rafkill
This "shortcut" to launch the game is quite long and hard to remember thus it is handy to directly launch it via xterm:
hipo@debian:~$ rafkill
or by pressing ALT+F2 and typing rafkill :
Starting the game I got some really ugly choppy music / sound issues.
My guess was the fizzling sounds were caused by some bug with the sound portions streamed through pulseaudio sound system.
To test if my presume is correct, stopped pulseaudio and launched rafkill once again:
hipo@debian:~$ pulseaudio -k
hipo@debian:~$ rafkill
This way the game was counting on ALSA to process sound en the sound was playing perfectly fine.
I solved this problem through small wrapper shell script. The script did kill pulseaudio before launching rafkill and that way solve gchoppy sound issues, once the game execution is over the script starts pulseaudio again in order to prevent all other applications working with pulseaudio.
Finally, I've placed the executable script in /usr/bin/rafkill :
Here is the script:
#!/bin/bash
pulseaudio --kill
/usr/games/rafkill
pulseaudio --start
You can download rafkill.wrapper.sh here
Or write in root terminal:
debian:~# cd /usr/bin
debian:/usr/bin:# wget https://www.pc-freak.net/bshscr/rafkill.wrapper.sh
debian:/usr/bin:# mv https://www.pc-freak.net/bshscr/rafkill.wrapper.sh rafkill
debian:/usr/bin:# chmod +x rafkill
Interesting in Ubuntu Linux, rafkill music is okay and I suppose the bug is also solved in newer Linux distributions based on Ubuntu. Probably the Debian Squeeze pulseaudio (0.9.21-4) package version has a bug or smth..
After the change the game music will be playing fine and the game experience is cooler. The game is hard to play. Its really nice the game has game Saves, so once you die you don't have to start from level 1.
I've seen rafkill rolling around on freebsd.org ftps under the ubuntu packages pool, which means rafkill could probably be played easily on FreeBSD and other BSDs.
Enjoy the cool game 😉
Tags: active development, arcade game, arcade games, Auto, BSD, c c programming language, c programming language, clone, deb package, Desktop, desktop files, different game, dos game, Draft, Engine, file, form, Free, game developer, game levels, game music, Gnome, hipo, level, Linux, linux distributions, linux game, menu, mod, music engine, Open, open source clone, package, package maintainer, pulseaudio, quot, script, shadows of death, share applications, small game, software, software game, software open source, Ubuntu, Universal, wrapper, year
Posted in Games Linux, Linux, Linux and FreeBSD Desktop | 1 Comment »
Friday, January 27th, 2012 By default latest Debian GDM does not provide an automatic way to login using user AVATARS (like Windows does).
This is pretty strange, especially if you compare to Ubuntu and many other Linux distributions which already has support for AVATAR login via GDM
The reason for this is that currently Debian is shipped with old version of gdm2 and this gdm version does not have support for clickable login avatars.
Debian looks by default like this:
Thanksfully this non-user friendly GNOME login screen behaviour can be changed by simply installing gdm3
root@debian:~# apt-get --yes install gdm3
...
This will remove the old gdm installed package as well as fast-user-switch-applet and install the gdm3.
Having installed the gdm3 with configured a background will look like so:
I was quite stunned that gdm3 does not have included support for themes . As far as I've spoken with some ppl in irc.freenode #gnome the reason for this oddity is it crashed a lot when a theme is configred.
By default the gdm2 themes are provided by a package called gdm-themes, since gdm3 does not support themes (yet), the package gdm3-themes is missing.
Tags: avatar, avatars, behaviour, Debian, debian gnu, freenode, GDM, Gnome, gnu linux, Linux, linux distributions, login, nbsp, non-user, oddity, old version, package, ppl, reason, root, screen, squeeze, support, support themes, Thanksfully, theme, Ubuntu, version, way
Posted in Gnome, Linux, Linux and FreeBSD Desktop, Various | No Comments »
Thursday, January 26th, 2012 I needed to enable automatic passwordless login in my Debian GNU/Linux …
GNOME and GDM desktop environments developed a lot through the last few years, achieving these simple task was doable only through gdm manual configurations. Nowdays creatiion of user to login without any password is easy via easy to use GUI program.
In this article I'll explain, few ways to enable automatic login in GNOMEThe quickest way is to navigate in GNOMEs gnome-control-center -> Login Window submenu
To do so launch gnome-control-center – press (ALT+F2) keys and type in gnome-control-center, or launch via command line in gnome-terminal or xterm:
hipo@debian:~$ gnome-control-center
While inside the control center find en launch the Login Window as in the screenshot below:
Login Window configuration can be also done directly by launching gdmsetup from command line e.g.:
hipo@debian:~$ /usr/sbin/gdmsetup
...
gdmsetup will further pop up a window asking to type in the root password to allow you to customize, how gdm will deal with user logins.
For who might not know gnome well architecture, gdmsetup is part of the gdm (Gnome Display Manager) package and is the default login program used to login the end user in most of the modern Linux based distributions as well as BSDs. gdm logins the users on many of the free software OS desktop environments like GNOME, LXDE, XFCE… Just to name a few of the many Linuces counting on GDM to handle the user logins: Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Fedora, Debian, Linux Mint, OpenSUSE etc.
Once the Login Windows Prefences appears go to the Security tab.
As you can see in the screenshot, what you can do with gdmsetup it is pretty self-explanatory:
The two options of interests for user authorization without pass are:
a. Enable Automatic Login
To enable:- put a tick on Enable Automatic Login
– from user dropdown menu, choose the user which has to be configured
b. Enable Timed Login
Enable Automatic Login lets the user login without any user password input, immediately after the configured username is typed in (if gdm is with type username prompt).
In case where the usernames are represented by Avatars, (like its in most user friendly Linux distributions), once clicked avatar the user is logged in.
When Enable Timed Login is ticked and a username is choosen or typed, instead of immediately logging the user on click or username input, the user logging is delayed with a number of set seconds .
Enabling the Automatic and / or Timed Login is doable also using few simple configurations directives in /etc/gdm/custom.conf. In many distros /etc/gdm/custom.conf will be not existing and hence the file has to be created.
To enable delayed autologin without password for a user using gdm config:
Create the file with a text editor ( vim, joe, nano )whatever your favourity and place inside:
[daemon]
TimedLoginEnable=true
TimedLogin=hipo
TimedLoginDelay=30
The above gdm config vars can also be placed inside /etc/gdm/gdm.conf but for the sake of clarity its better if custom.conf is used.
If you don't want to bother with a text editor copy paste inside any terminal lets say mlterm :
echo '[daemon]' >> /etc/gdm/custom.conf
echo 'TimedLoginEnable=true' >> /etc/gdm/custom.conf
echo 'TimedLogin=hipo' >> /etc/gdm/custom.conf
echo 'TimedLoginDelay=30' >> /etc/gdm/custom.conf
To enable auto-login for a user on a first PC boot in /etc/gdm/custom.conf put:
[daemon]
AutomaticLoginEnable=true
AutomaticLogin=hipo
An auto login can also be done by using the TimedLoginDelay gdm config directive by putting insetad of the previous code a code like:
[daemon]
TimedLoginEnable=true
TimedLogin=hipo
TimedLoginDelay=0
Where hipo is my desired username that will autolog, and as you see the LoginDelay is 0 (e.g. no gdm login delay)
I attempted to also allow autologin for several users with some cinfigurations like:
[daemon]
AutomaticLoginEnable=true
AutomaticLogin=hipo
AutomaticLogin=other-username
as well as configurations like:
[daemon]
TimedLoginEnable=true
TimedLogin=hipo
TimedLogin=other-username
TimedLoginDelay=0
In gdm3, the location of GDM config files should be /etc/gdm3/ directory, anyways the configurations directives should be working just like in gdm2
After any configuration changes to gdm.conf or custom.conf to load the new settings in gdm a gdm daemon restart is necessery with cmd:
root@debian:~# /etc/init.d/gdm restart
...
Note that, weirdly not using the gdm init script and trying to kill -HUP $(pidof gdm) / killall -9 gdm will not make gdm to load its new configurations. So always restart via /etc/init.d/gdm restart after gdm conf change.
Another alternative method to achieve login without a password input is by creating a passwordless user account on the system. This method is not recommended though, especially for machines with real IP addresses visible from the Internet (with lets say enabled) SSHD access.
Using a passwordless system account can expose the system to a severe security risk!!! Anyways, for systems not running telnet/sshd or any other system remote access service creating a user without an empty password might be not such a bad idea.
To make a user auto login without any password input /etc/shadow file (storing all user account information) needs an edit.
This is an example user entry taken from /etc/shadow:
test:$6$OPdvXArZ$ktujC6bBh9JNaCz8E9v61yNeWcJHqQiuNk8eBzevcwcIl8KFvQzJ6aBCvVpIs0Lf5MAbHjjqftUeN9crWUfxs.:15275:0:99999:7:::Now to make the test user login directly without any pass input, one can just remove his encrypted password string. After the change the user line in /etc/shadow, should be:
test::15275:0:99999:7:::
If the user is created just from scratch e.g. (a new user) that needs to login passwordless in GDM, create it without password:
root@debian:~# adduser -d newusername
To sum it up the good thing about the remove password hash method to auto login a user is that it will allow user or users login across all Display Managers (not only GDM specific).
The bad side is it is very insecure and therefore in most times a really bad practice.
I guess the described ways to login without password in Gdm on FreeBSD should similar, unfortunately right now I have not access to BSD running desktop to test it. If someone has tested it and can confirm it works it will be great to drop a comment.
Tags: Alt, architecture, Auto, automatic login, center, config, control, custom, customize, debian gnu, Desktop, desktop environments, distributions, Draft, dropdown menu, fedora, file, GDM, Gnome, gnome control center, gnomes, GNOMEThe, gnu linux, launch, linux gnome, login, login windows, logins, manual configurations, mint, password, root, screenshot, security tab, text, tick, TimedLoginDelay, type, username, window, window configuration, xterm
Posted in Gnome, Linux, Linux and FreeBSD Desktop, Linux Audio & Video, Various | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 Acid3 Test is a group of browser compitability tests. Acid3 test is a good indicator on how Web ready is your browser.
Acidtest is part of the web standards project. Latest Firefox 9.0.1 passes the test on 100% (100/100).
I've tried it with Epiphany and it scored only 67/100, still I'm using Epiphany on daily basis and I'm quite happy with it.
The tests involved are testing browser for:
- DOM
- DOM2
- Checks on HTML tables and forms browser rendering
- SVG compitability testing
- DOM1 and DOM2 compitability
- Various ECMA Script Javascript compitability tests
- Unicode (UTF-16 and UTF-8) browser compitability
- XHML, SMIL, CSS, HTML compitability
- Content-type image/png, text plain etc.
The Acid3 test is written itself in Javascript. It consists of 6 testing "stages" (buckets) upon which the browser tested is evaluated.
Each of the test is represented visually by a rectangle. If the a test stage is passed you see a new rectangle appearing in the tested browser.
In wikipedia, there is a thorough list with web browsers by type and engine and the level of support for the Acid3 test.
The test is of great use if you're web developer.
Tags: Acidtest, Auto, basis, browser, buckets, checks, compatability, compitability, content type, daily basis, dom2, DOMDOM, Draft, ecma script, HTML, html tables, image png, indicator, Javascript, level, nbsp, rectangle, script, script javascript, stage, test, test stage, type, Unicode, use, UTF, utf 8, web browser, web browsers, web developer, web standards, Wikipedia, XHML
Posted in Everyday Life, Various, Web and CMS | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 I needed a G/Linux distribution that will work fine on an old PC with hardware configuration:
guest@xubuntu-desktop:~$ grep -i cpu /proc/cpuinfo; free -m; df -h
cpu family : 6
cpu MHz : 797.613cpuid level : 2
total used free shared buffers cachedMem: 497 470 26 0 35 259-/+ buffers/cache: 176 321Swap: 1454 10 1444File System Size Used Free % Mounted on
/dev/sda1 37G 4,3G 31G 13% /
I've read a lot on the internet and come to the conclusion I have basicly two popular Linux distros as option to install on archaic x86 hardware:
1. Puppy Linux
2. Xubuntu Linux
I first give Puppy Linux a try. It worked quite nice, but the interface was too old school and the desktop felt like a bit out-dated.
Besides that many of the Puppy Linux shipped programs were not a mainstream programs available across most of the other Linux distributions.
Many of the programs shipped with Puppy are great, but more suitable for a computer geek than for a Windows accustomed GUI user.
My opinion on Puppy (from what I've seen) is that its great distro for old school hardcore Linux users.
Anyways its not suitable for absolutely "uniniated" users who encounter Linux for a first time.
Secondly I installed Xubuntu. Most of the archaic hardware on the PC was detected during install time (a pleasently surprise).
Xubunto works fast and Xfce menus opens "light fast" as on the old 800Mhz pc with 512 mem of ram. Generally the GUI worked quick and responsive.
To conclude I liked Xubuntu a lot and I strongly recommend it to anyone who want to quickly roll on Linux on an old PC.
What impressed me most is the minimalistic look & feel and simplicity.
I'm sure Debian will be working great on old hardware as well, however configuring it will be hell a lot of work. Thus I think Xubuntu is a good choice for people who want save some time in obscure configurations and easily have a neat Linux ready for desktop use.
Tags: Auto, bit, buffers, computer geek, CPU, cpu family, cpu mhz, cpuid, Desktop, distribution, distro, Draft, family, Free, geek, hardcore, hardware 1, hardware configuration, hardware pc, installing linux, level, Linux, linux distribution, linux distributions, linux distros, mainstream, mainstream programs, menus, Mounted, old hardware, old school, opinion, option, puppy linux, quot, school hardcore, sda, simplicity, size, thoughs, time, work, x86 hardware
Posted in Linux, Linux and FreeBSD Desktop, Linux Audio & Video | No Comments »
Monday, January 23rd, 2012 I've not played audio CD for ages. Anyways I had to set up one computer with Linux just recently and one of the requirements was to be able to play audiocds.
I was surprised that actually a was having issue with such as simple tasks.
Here is how i come with this article.
If you encounter errors playing Audio CDs on any Linux distro in VLC or other players, you might need to apply the following fix.
root@xubuntu-desktop:~# apt-get install xubuntu-restricted-extras
...
root@xubuntu-desktop:~# apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
...
I'm not sure if this packages are required, anyways having them installed is a good idea especially on computers which will have to support as much multimedia as possible.
Trying to play a CD with VLC the result was not nice, you see in the picture above the error that poped up while trying it with VLC:
Due to wrong configuration of the play device VLC will be looking to read the audio cd from.
To succesfully play the audiocd invoke VLC command with a cdda///dev/sr0 argument like so:
hipo@xubuntu-desktop:~$ vlc cdda:///dev/sr0
...
To permanently fix the error you will have to edit ~/.config/vlc/vlcrc :
Inside ~/.config/vlc/vlcrc find the lines:
dvd=/dev/cdrom
Substitute the above line with:
dvd=/dev/sr0
Next find the line:
vcd=/dev/cdrom
Change the above line with:
vcd=/dev/sr0
Due to a bug in generating vlcrc , the dvd= might be set also to other messy unreadable characters (different from /dev/cdrom). This can also be the reason why it fails to properly read the disc.
If dvd= and vcd is set to a different unreadable characters delete them and substitute with /dev/sr0 .I've experienced this on Xubuntu Linux with a Bulgarian localization (probably the bug can be seen in other Linuxes when GNOME is installed in Russian, Chineese and other UTF-8 languages.
The strange error can be observed also in other players when the localization is set to someone's native language …
Alternative solution is to install and use rhythmbox instead of VLC.
Other program to play audio CDs called workman , you will have to get used to the interface which uses gtk1 and therefore obsolete. Putting aside the ugly interface it works 😉
Tags: Anyways, argument, Audio, audio cd, audio cds, audioCD, Auto, cdda, change, chineese, Computer, config, disc, Draft, error c, fix, freebsd, Gnome, GNU, gnu linux, gtk, hipo, languages, Linux, linux distro, linuxes, localization, picture, Play, program, reason, root, someone, strange error, unreadable characters, UTF, VCD, VLC, workman
Posted in Linux, Linux and FreeBSD Desktop, Linux Audio & Video | No Comments »
Monday, January 23rd, 2012 Every now and then my gnome keyboard layout switcher hangs. When my keyboard switcher hangs I can't switch between my two defined languages English and my native Bulgarian
The hang up of the language switcher is makes switching between my two defined languages impossible until I logoff and login again or kill the current GNOME session with CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE.
Sometimes logging off again is not necessery so I have to logoff and login to GNOME few times until finally the gnome keyboard layout switcher reacts to an issued change language via Alt+Shift or by clicking on it.
Unfortunately the gnome keyboard layout switcher is not available as a process so there is no way to simply kill -HUP the process responsible for it.
Just until today I couldn't find a way how to restart the gnome keyboard layout switcher when it hangs.
Now today I finally found a way to restart it without restarting the whole gnome session or killing completely the Xorg server.
To "fix" up the keyboard switcher when its not responding, I had to issue in gnome-terminal or via ALT+F2:
hipo@noah:~$ gnome-keyboard-properties
As you can see in the screenshot below, one has to press the Move Up button to switch the default order of languages. Once this is done the keyboard layout switcher starts working again. Once working I just used the move up once again to revert back my default language order as it used to be.
I'm not sure what exactly is causing the GNOME 2 keyboard layout switcher to hang (when it does), my guess is it is due to some kind of version incompitability between gnome versions or configurations specific to my computer. In the past I was running Debian Testing/Unstable and then downgraded back to Debian stable, probably this is the reason of the language switcher hangs.
Tags: Button, change, change language, Computer, default language, f2, Gnome, guess, hipo, HUP, incompitability, keyboard layout, keyboard switcher, kind, languages, layout, login, move, necessery, noah, order, reason, revert, screenshot, switch, switcher, testing, today, Unstable, version, way
Posted in Gnome, Linux, Linux and FreeBSD Desktop, Linux Audio & Video | No Comments »
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
1. Add Medibuntu package repository
root@ubuntu:~# wget --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list \
http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/$(lsb_release -cs).list \
&& apt-get --quiet update \
&& apt-get --yes --quiet --allow-unauthenticated install medibuntu-keyring \
&& apt-get --quiet update
2. Enable Ubuntu to play Restricted DVD
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install --yes libdvdread4
...
root@ubuntu:~# /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh
After that VLC will be ready to play DVDs for some programs which was compiled without DVD, source rebuilt is required.
If DVDs hang you might need to set a Region Code with regionset:
# regionset
3. Install non-free codecs
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install non-free-codecs
4. Install Chromium ffmpeg nonfree codecs
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install chromium
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-nonfree
5. Install w32codecs / w64codecs
Depending on the Ubuntu Linux installation architecture 32/64 bit install w32codecs or w64codecs
For 32 bit (x86) Ubuntu install w32codecs:
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install w32codecs
For 64 bit arch Ubuntu:
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install w64codecs
6. Install ubuntu-restricted-extras meta package
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
7. Install cheese for webcam picture/video snapshotting
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install cheese
8. Install GIMP, Inkscape, xsane,sane, shotwell etc.
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get --yes install sane xsane gimp inkscape gimp-data-extras gimp-plugin-registry \
blender gcolor2 showtwell bluefish kompozer
9. Install multimedia Sound & Video utilities
Install Subtitle editor, video editiking , sound editing, mp3 player, iso mounters, DVD/CD Burners
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install rhythmbox banshee smplayer mplayer \
realplayer audacity brasero jokosher istanbuk gtk-recordMyDesktop \acetoneisohexedit furiusisomount winff fala audacious dvdstyler lives hydrogen
subtitleeditor gnome-subtitles electricsheep k3b
10. Install CD / DVD RIP tools
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install acidrip sound-juicer ogmrip thoggen
11. Install chat messanger programs, Browsers, mail pop3 clients, torrent, emulators, ftp clients etc.
apt-get install seamonkey thunderbird transmission transmission-gtk gbgoffice kbedic \
pidgin openoffice.org gxine mozilla-plugin-vlc wine dosbox samba filezilla amsn ntp \epiphany-browser ntpdate desktop-webmail alltray chmsee gftp xchat-gnome ghex \gnome-genius bleachbit arista
12. Install Non-Free Flash Player
Unfortunately Gnash is not yet production ready and crashes in many websites …
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree flashplugin-nonfree-extrasound swfdec-gnome
13. Install Archive / Unarchive management programs
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install unace unrar zip unzip p7zip-full p7zip-rar sharutils rar uudeview \
mpack lha arj cabextract file-roller
15. Install VirtualBox and QEmu
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install qemu-launcher qemu-kvm-extras virtualbox virtualbox-ose \
virtualbox-ose-guest-dkms virtualbox-ose-guest-dkms
This should be enough to use Ubuntu normally for multimedia Desktop just as MS Windows for most of the daily activities.
Am I missing some important program?
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Posted in Linux, Linux and FreeBSD Desktop, Linux Audio & Video, System Administration | 4 Comments »