Posts Tagged ‘derivatives’

Remote Desktop client – Remmina, Connect Remote to MS Windows VNC hosts from Linux

Friday, May 31st, 2013

remmina remote connet to windows linux vnc client logo

If you're system administrator, who use Linux as Desktop. You surely want to check out Remmina – The GTK+ Remote Desktop Client.

As far as I tested among all VNC Linux clients I know Remmina is definitely the one of choice in terms of Interface simplicity / stability and remote connection level of responsibility.

Before finding out about Remmina existence, I tried xtightvncviewer, xvnc4viewer, gvncviewer, gtkvncviewer. xtightvncviewer, xvncviewer and gvncviewer are more for console geeks and hence either they lack GUI interface or user interface looks terrible.

GTKVncViewer's interface is also not bad but still not со nice as Remmina's.

gtkvncviewer Debian GNU Linux Wheezy screenshot Linux VNC simple client

As you see in above shot, gtkvncviewer lacks any configuration. The only thing it can do is connect to remote host and you have option to configure nothing related how remote connection will respond, what type of Resolution to use etc.

I know of of no other Linux VNC Clients that has configurability and GUI interface of Remmina.

 

As of time of writting Remmina is at stable version 1.0 and supports following Remote connection protocols:

  • VNC
  • VNC
  • RDP
  • RDPF
  • RDPS
  • SFTP
  • SSH

Remmina is available across mostly all Linux mainstream distributions:

To install Remmina on Debian / Ubuntu and deb derivatives:

debian:~# apt-get –yes install remmina
….

On Redhats (Fedora, CentOS, RHEL – RPM based Linuxes) install via:

[root@centos ~]# yum –yes install remmina
…

Below are few screenshots of Remmina:

Remmina Linux remote vnc connect best software gui frontend screenshot

Linux VNC best VNC connect tool Remmina preferences screenshot

One of best Remmina feature is it supports Tabbing just like in Firefox. You can open a number of Remote VNC connects to different Windows hosts and manage them all by switching from tab to tab.

Remmina best vnc linux desktop client screenshot with tabs / What is best VNC client for Linux

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Posted in Linux and FreeBSD Desktop, Remote System Administration, System Administration | 1 Comment »

Get more peaceful night sleep on Ubuntu, Mint and Xubuntu Linux using gtk-redshift

Monday, March 11th, 2013

gtk redshift Xubuntu Linux screenshot sleep peacefully when using computer at late

If you want to have more peaceful night sleep when working on Ubuntu or other Debian based Linux distro, be sure to have gtk-redshift installed.
It is a little program that simply changes the color gamma of screen and makes your screen look more reddish at night. According to many scientific research done on how we humans react, whether using computer late at night. It is concluded that less bright colors and especially reddish color gamma relaxes our eye strain and thus makes it easier for us to get a sleep quickly once in bed. gtk-redshift is available in latest Ubuntu 12.04 as well as on other Ubuntu derivatives (Xubuntu, Mint Linux) etc.

Easiest way to install it is via respective GUI Package Manager or via good old Synaptic (GUI aptitude frontend).
I personally prefer to always install Synaptic on new Desktop Linux PCs, use it as package GUI frontend, for the simple reason it offers one very similar "unified" package Installer outlook across different Linux distros.

The quickest way to use GUI version of Redshift is to install with apt:

root@xubuntu:~# apt-get install --yes gtk-redshift
....

To further use it it needs one time to be run with color gamma paraments, launch it first time via terminal with:
user@xubuntu:~$ gtk-redshift  -l 52.5:13.4
It is a good idea to make a tiny shell script wrapper with good settings for gtk-redshift and later use this shell wrapper as launcher :

root@xubuntu:~# echo '#!/bin/sh' >> /usr/local/bin/gtk-redshift
root@xubuntu:~# echo 'gtk-redshift' >> /usr/local/bin/gtk-redshift
root@xubuntu:~# chmod +x /usr/local/bin/gtk-redshift

From then on, to launch it you can directly open it via terminal

user@xubuntu:~$ /usr/local/bin/gtk-redshift
To make the program permanently work, make it run via respective GUI environment startup . In GNOME add it start-up from:

user@xubuntu:~$ gnome-session-manager
Important note to make about gtk-redshift is that on some older monitor screens, very early in morning the screen becomes too red, making screen look like displaying on very old long time used CRT monitors. For people working in fields like; Web Design, Architecture, or any drawing twisted colors effect will be annoying and will probably interfere with your perception of colors. However for programmers, system administrators and people who use computer mainly for typing and reading gtk-redshift is huge blessing.

Enjoy ! 🙂
 

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Posted in Everyday Life, Linux and FreeBSD Desktop, Linux Audio & Video, Various | 1 Comment »

Secure delete files irreverseble on Debian and Fedora GNU / Linux

Thursday, February 21st, 2013

I just read an article in Linux-Magazine on Advanced File Management named – "Beyond the Basics". Most of what the article says is pretty trivial and known by any Linux enthusiast average user and administrator. There was one command mentioned shred which is probably not so well known among Free Software users shred allows the user to "secure delete files" / from the hard disk irreversible.

The tool is part of coreutils package and available across mostly all Linux distributions including Debian / Ubuntu debian derivatives and the RedHat based distros CentOS, Fedora, RHEL etc.

Just for info for those who don't know how to check, to which package a command belongs with rpm and dpkg, here is how;

[hipo@centos ~]$ rpm -qf /usr/bin/shred
coreutils-5.97-23.el5_4.2

hipo@debian:~$ dpkg -S /usr/bin/shred
coreutils: /usr/bin/shred

Here is how to delete a sample file ovewritting 3 times (-n2 – means 3 because in comuters we know we countr from 0 – 0 1 2 3), the z option fills up with zeros after overwritting the file ( just like seen on paste), -v option shows verbose what shred is doing and -u option truncates removes file after overwritting

noah:/var/tmp# shred -n2 -zvu crash20121113021508.txt
shred: crash20121113021508.txt: pass 1/3 (random)…
shred: crash20121113021508.txt: pass 2/3 (random)…
shred: crash20121113021508.txt: pass 3/3 (000000)…
shred: crash20121113021508.txt: removing
shred: crash20121113021508.txt: renamed to 00000000000000000000000
shred: 00000000000000000000000: renamed to 0000000000000000000000
shred: 0000000000000000000000: renamed to 000000000000000000000
shred: 000000000000000000000: renamed to 00000000000000000000
shred: 00000000000000000000: renamed to 0000000000000000000
shred: 0000000000000000000: renamed to 000000000000000000
shred: 000000000000000000: renamed to 00000000000000000
shred: 00000000000000000: renamed to 0000000000000000
shred: 0000000000000000: renamed to 000000000000000
shred: 000000000000000: renamed to 00000000000000
shred: 00000000000000: renamed to 0000000000000
shred: 0000000000000: renamed to 000000000000
shred: 000000000000: renamed to 00000000000
shred: 00000000000: renamed to 0000000000
shred: 0000000000: renamed to 000000000
shred: 000000000: renamed to 00000000
shred: 00000000: renamed to 0000000
shred: 0000000: renamed to 000000
shred: 000000: renamed to 00000
shred: 00000: renamed to 0000
shred: 0000: renamed to 000
shred: 000: renamed to 00
shred: 00: renamed to 0
shred: crash20121113021508.txt: removed
 

One common use of shred is by sysadmins who has to prepare old server containing lets say client data (SQL) – mail boxes or just file data and then sell it to third parties making sure data will be un-restorable for the new owner. Also shred is used a lot by crackers who set up "time bombs" activated on user activity or inactivity to destroy evidences in case of crackers PC is being captured by police. Though shred cannot guarantee 100% that deleted data can't be recoved within a special data recovery lab in most of cases it is enough to assure data with it will be almost impossible to recover.

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Posted in Linux, System Administration | 1 Comment »

After a loooongg, looong waiting finally a New Version of Skype 4.0 is out – Skype 4 on Debian GNU / Linux short review

Sunday, June 17th, 2012

After about 3 years of no new version for GNU / Linux finally Skype has released a new version of Skype.
I thought already there will be never a new skype version out for GNU / Linux, since the moment Microsoft purchased skype.

Now suddenly and quite in quiet the new version of Skype 4.0 is out for download from Skype's website. The latest Skype download for Linux is to be found here

As of time of writting this post there are Skype 4 versions for following Linux-es;;;
 

  • Ubuntu 10.04 32 / 64-bit (probably would work fine on latest Ubuntus too)
  • Debian 6.0 Squeeze 32 / 64-bit
  • Fedora 16 / 32 bit
  • OpenSUSE 12.1 32bit (only)

    • Most likely the Ubuntu release of skype 4 will work flawlessly on Linux Mint and other debian derivatives.The The release mentions, Skype 4 is supposed to have 4 major advancements and the gap in interface and usability with latest Mac OS and M$ Windows Skype versions is now filled.The four major changes said in the announcement are;;;

  • 1. a new Conversations View where users can easily track all of their chats in a unified window.
    Those users who prefer the old view can disable this in the Chat options;
  • 2. a brand new Call View;
  • 3.Call quality has never been better thanks to several investments we made in improving audio quality;
  • 4. Improved video call quality and extended support for more cameras.

    • Some of the minor improvements in those

  • new Linux skype

    • are:- improved chat synchronization- new presence and emoticon icons- the ability to store and view phone numbers in a Skype contact's profile- much lower chance Skype for Linux will crash or freeze- chat history loading is now much faster- support for two new languages: Czech (flag:cz) and Norwegian (flag:no)Just like with prior Skype releases 2.0 and 2.2beta this release comes with almost same list of non-english language support ,,,Seeing those announcement, I've hurried to download and test skype 4 on my 64-bit desktop running Debian 6 Squeeze.Once downloaded to install the pack skype-debian_4.0.0.7-1_amd64.deb I used the usual dpkg -i i,e,;;;noah:~# dpkg -iskype-debian_4.0.0.7-1_amd64.deb…………..Just like the release announcement mentions the first initial launch of Skype 4 took about 3 or 4 minutes doing something (probably sending half of my hard disk data to Microsoft 🙂 🙂 🙂 ) along with importing the prior skype data and chat history :)The minimum software dependencies for correct operation of Skype are:Qt libraries; D-Bus; libasound and pulseaudioHere are few screenshots of Skype 4 to give you an idea what to expect:The Skype Options is almost identical to Skype 2.2. One interesting new feature I've noticed is Skype WIFIUnfortunately to use Skype WIFI you need to have purchased skype credits.Another notable difference is the organization of Skype Chats, which is more like in the good old times of mIRC and IRC chat clientsHere is also the list of Skype emoticons including bundled with Skype 4:The "look & feel" of the new interface gives the impression of seriously improved Skype client stability too.There was a minor trouble with the voice recording (microphone) with Skype 4;To make the microphone work properly I had to raise up the mic volume from PulseAudio settings in Skype options.Well that's all the only unpleasent thing for this new skype is it is using KDE's libQT and seems not to have a native interface for GNOME via GTK2. If we put away this I guess this version of Skype is much more stable and therefore I would recommend anyone to update.Of course we never know if this new updated more stable Skype release is not filled up with backdoors or does not transfer all our conversations to microsoft but we didn't know that even when Skype was not Microsoft's so and since it is not a free software I guess it doesn't matter so much.As you can guess Microsoft has imposed centralization on Skype protocol so connecting the peers is now done by Microsoft servers this news is another intriguing one.According to one recent article from May 1, 2012 Microsoft Skype replaces the Peer-to-Peer P2P supernodes with Linux boxes hosted by Microsoft – In short that probably means that by changing this nowdays microsoft probably now logs all chat sessions between Skype users, even it is likely the calls between users are recorded too. We all know Microsoft imperialism pretty well so I guess this is not a big news …..This new release of Skype if it is significantly more stable than it is prior releases would certainly have serious positive implication on the development and adoption of Linux for the Desktop. So far I'm sure one of the obstacles of many manufacturers of notebooks and comp equipment to ship with Linux was the lack of a stable and easy to implement skype release for Linux.Well that's all folks. Enjoy the New Skype Cheeres ! 🙂

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Posted in Skype on Linux | 2 Comments »

Enabling talkd (Console Chat) between logged in users on FreeBSD and other BSDs

Sunday, June 10th, 2012

Talk between two useres on FreeBSD 7.2 screenshot, console peer to peer interactive talk program UNIX, Linux, BSD

Those who are in familiar with older UNIXes, UNIX BSD derivatives and GNU Linux should certainly remember the times, when we hackers used to talk to each other using talk service.

Those who don't know what talk command is it is a simple console / ssh utility to talk to another logged in users.

Talk is very similar to write and mesg one liner messasing utilities available for *nixes, the difference is it is intendted to provide interactive chat between the two logged in users. People who came to know UNIX or free software in older times most likely don't know talk, however I still remember how precious this tool was for communication back in the day.

I believe still it can be useful so I dediced to install ot on one FreeBSD host.

In order to have the talk service running on BSD it is necessery to have /usr/libexec/ntalkd installed on the system this however is installed by default with standard BSD OS installs, so no need for any external ports install to run it.

talk doesn't have it's own init script to start is not written to run as it own service but in order to run it is is necessery to enable it via inetd

Enabling it is done by;;;

1 — Editting /etc/inetd.conf

Inside the conf the line::

#ntalk dgram udp wait tty:tty /usr/libexec/ntalkd ntalkd

should be uncommented e.g, become ;;;

ntalk dgram udp wait tty:tty /usr/libexec/ntalkd ntalkd

2 — Restart inetd

freebsd# /etc/rc.d/inetd restart
Stopping inetd.
Starting inetd.

talk is planned to be used for peer to peer conversations over SSH so in a way it is the GRANDFATHER 🙂 of IRC, ICQ and Skype;;;

Here is an example on how talk is used ,, Let's say there are three logged in users

pcfreak# w
12:39PM up 3 days, 16:25, 3 users, load averages: 1.12, 0.91, 0.71
USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE WHAT
testuser p0 192.168.0.7 10:50AM - bash
hipo p3 192.168.0.8 12:23PM - w
root p4 :ttyp2:S.0 12:24PM - vim /usr/local/www/dat

I'm logged in with my username hipo and I would like to talk to testuser ;;;;

pcfreak% tty
/dev/ttyp3

You see I'm logged in on /dev/ttyp3 (this is the specific naming on BSDs) on Linux equivalent is /dev/tty3So to talk the other user testuser;;;;;-

$ talk testuser ttyp0
[No connection yet]
[Waiting for your party to respond]

The testuser logged in via SSH will then get a message ||;

Message from Talk_Daemon@pcfreak at 12:44 on 2012/06/10 ...
talk: connection requested by hipo@localhost
talk: respond with: talk hipo@localhost

To enter a talk session then the logged in testuser has to type:

$ talk hipo@localhost
 

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Posted in FreeBSD | No Comments »