Applocator

Mint Update Manager does not show Changelogs

2012-03-07T19:48:00.000+01:00

If you are using Linux Mint, you might have noticed that the latest versions ship with an Update Manager that is able only to show you Changelogs of the packages from the Mint repositories and often they are cut off.

After searching through bug reports and forums finally I prepared a change of the underlying Python code which resolves the issue.

I hope they will integrate similar changes in the next version.

For more details you can have a look at these bug reports, where I got ideas and copied parts:

Install instructions

You can download the needed difference file from here, or just copy and paste the following into a file named mintUpdate.py.diff:

87c87,91
<                 changelog = source
---
>                 changes = source.split("\n")
>                 for change in changes:
>                     change = change.strip()
>                     if change.startswith("*"):
>                         changelog = changelog + change + "\n"
93c97,101
<                     changelog = source
---
>                     changes = source.split("\n")
>                     for change in changes:
>                         change = change.strip()
>                         if change.startswith("*"):
>                             changelog = changelog + change + "\n"
98,102c106,111
<                 source = commands.getstatusoutput("apt-get changelog " + self.source_package) 
<                 if source[0] != 0 or source[1].startswith("Err Changelog of"):
<                     changelog = _("No changelog available") + "\n" + _("Click on Edit->Software Sources and tick the 'Source code' option to enable access to the changelogs")
<                 else:
<                     changelog = source[1]
---
>                 source = commands.getoutput("aptitude changelog " + self.source_package)                    
>                 changes = source.split("urgency=")[1].split("\n")
>                 for change in changes:
>                     change = change.strip()
>                     if change.startswith("*"):
>                         changelog = changelog + change + "\n"

Then you can apply the patch with this command, it will leave a copy of the original script:

sudo patch -lb /usr/lib/linuxmint/mintUpdate/mintUpdate.py mintUpdate.py.diff

It has been created and checked with version 4.3.8.

Install LibreOffice 3.5

2012-03-03T22:37:00.000+01:00

The current version of LibreOffice which ships with Ubuntu Oneiric is 3.4.4.
Lately, I was getting very angry about this version, because it gave me constant trouble:

it looses somehow control about its lock-files, therefore I wasn't able to save my open files any longer, neither with the old nor with a new name
graphics in calc files suddenly jumped to another sheet when opening the files

I loved LibreOffice so far, but this behaviour really pi.... me of.
So the other day, I read about the new release 3.5, its new features and so I decided to update it by hand.

Below, you can find the update script that I programmed for that task.

After using it for some time, here I list the most interesting stuff about the new version.

No problem with the lock-files any longer.
Graphics stay in their sheets.
Conditional formatting now lets you define more then three conditions, this was really necessary, I use that feature a lot. I'm just missing an easy way for reordering.
Bigger text box for writing formulas.
The import of Microsoft Visio files.
The print preview of all pages.
and lots more

Install instructions

Just save the following lines as InstallLibreOffice.sh and execute it with the -h parameter to see the usage text. You can also download it from here directly.

#! /bin/bash

#
## LibreOffice installation from Debian Packages from website
## @author Sven Rieke
# 

language=en-US
version="3.5.0"

function Usage() {
    cat <<EOF
Usage: ${0##*/} [-h] [-v] [-l lang-id] [p lang-id] [-d version-id] [-u]

  Options:
    -h             Show this help.
    -v             Be verbose about processing steps.
    -l lang-id     Set language for main installer and documentation (default = ${language})
    -p lang-id     Set language for interface translation (not installed by default)
    -d version-id  Specify another package version (default = ${version})
    -u             Start with a clean user-profile
 
EOF
}

function AndOut() {
    popd
    exit
}

trap AndOut ERR

########################################################################
# Interpretation and validation of command line parameters and options #
########################################################################

while getopts :hvl:d:u OPT; do
    case $OPT in
 h|+h) Usage ; exit 0     ;;
 v|+v) VERBOSE=true       ;;
 l|+l) language="$OPTARG" ;;
 p|+p) langpack="$OPTARG" ;;
 d|+d) version="$OPTARG"  ;;
 u|+u) NEWUSER=true       ;;
 *)    Usage
       exit 2
    esac
done

sudo -v

mkdir -p /tmp/LibO.3.5
pushd /tmp/LibO.3.5

#### Download from http://www.libreoffice.org/download/?type=deb-x86
[[ -v VERBOSE ]] && echo "---[ Installing LibreOffice ${version}-${language} ]" >&2
[[ -v VERBOSE ]] && echo "*** Downloading packages ***" >&2

for i in install helppack ; do
    package="LibO_3.5.0_Linux_x86_${i}-deb_${language}.tar.gz"

    if [ ! -f $package ]; then
 [[ -v VERBOSE ]] && echo "*** Downloading new package $package ***" >&2
 wget http://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/stable/${version}/deb/x86/$package
    fi
done

if [ -v langpack ]; then
    package="LibO_3.5.0_Linux_x86_langpack-deb_${language}.tar.gz"
    if [ ! -f $package ]; then
 [[ -v VERBOSE ]] && echo "*** Downloading new package $package ***" >&2
 wget http://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/stable/${version}/deb/x86/$package
    fi
fi

[[ -v VERBOSE ]] && echo "*** Decompressing downloaded archives ***" >&2
for t in LibO_3.5.0_*.tar.gz ; do tar xzf $t ; done

[[ -v VERBOSE ]] && echo "*** Removing old LibreOffice installation ***" >&2
sudo apt-get remove libreoffice-core

for d in $(find -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type d) ; do
    [[ -v VERBOSE ]] && echo "*** Install packages from $d ***" >&2    
    pushd $d/DEBS
    sudo dpkg -i *.deb

    if [ -d desktop-integration ]; then
 [[ -v VERBOSE ]] && echo "*** Install desktop integration ***" >&2
        cd desktop-integration
        sudo dpkg -i *.deb
        cd ..
    fi
    
    popd
done

if [ -v NEWUSER ]; then
    [[ -v VERBOSE ]] && echo "*** Remove old user profile ***" >&2
    mv ~/.config/libreoffice/3/user ~/.config/libreoffice/3/user_old
    [[ -v VERBOSE ]] && echo "*** Old one can be found in ~/.config/libreoffice/3/user_old ***" >&2
fi

AndOut

From repository

There also exists a repository which gets updated from time to time with the latest versions.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Troubleshooting

In two installations I had trouble with my old user profile. LibreOffice claimed about templates already installed. Therefore, I added the -u switch to my install script which moves the whole user profile to a backup location, so LibreOffice will start with a new profile. Just copy your old templates to the new profile and reapply all your settings again.

Customize boot and startup

2012-01-24T23:27:00.000+01:00

Change screen resolution, colors and background image.

Some time ago, I recommended and used StartUp-Manager for tweaking the Grub boot loader and system loader, but this project isn't updated any longer. I found some very valid replacements which work even better.

Grub Customizer

With Grub Customizer you can tweak the new GRUB 2 boot screens, select the default boot entry, change the menu visibility and timeout, set kernel parameters, disable recovery entries.

Install instructions

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:danielrichter2007/grub-customizer
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install grub-customizer

Plymouth Manager

With Plymouth Manager you can change the startup animation, for example, put one which fits with your brand new Linux Mint.

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mefrio-g/plymouthmanager
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install plymouth-manager

Cinnamon Desktop

2012-01-24T22:54:00.001+01:00

Cinnamon is a fork of the GNOME Shell, created by developers of the Linux Mint project.
It recovers the visual aspects of the old GNOME 2 desktops, but is more up-to-day, includes it's own visual effects and contains some details of GNOME 3.

Install instructions

If you are using Linux Mint, you can install Cinnamon directly from their repositories, but if you want to use the latest build and/or you want to install it in another system, use the following PPA repository.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:merlwiz79/cinnamon-ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cinnamon

# Install the weather extension
sudo apt-get install cinnamon-extension-weather

# Install some additional themes
sudo apt-get install git-core
cd /tmp && git clone https://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon-themes.git
cd cinnamon-themes
./test

Managing printers from CUPS web interface

2012-01-17T20:00:00.000+01:00

Installed printers are listed here.

Recently, I had problems with my printer settings, I wanted to change the duplex setting and wanted to install a new network printer, but without success.
The problem I have is that in Linux Mint the Printers configuration applet fails, crashes and doesn't offer all options.

But finally I found a way. Linux Mint, like other distributions use the CUPS as printing system and it offers a web based administration interface.

Just point your web browser to http://localhost:631/. There you can add and manipulate all kind of printers and manage the print queues as well.

This is a nice workaround, until these options will be supported in the printer settings applet.

Sweet Home 3D : Prevent crashes and change icon

2011-12-10T09:55:00.001+01:00

Sweet Home 3D is the best interior design application that I have found so far for Linux. It is easy to place your furniture on a house 2D plan, and render the whole scene in 3D.
The website gives you the possibility to run the application online without installation, as being written in Java.
Unfortunately there are two points that bothered me for a while and that I fixed finally:

The application crashes every time you choose the preferences or the 3D rendering from the menu.
The application icon has a very low resolution and looks awful when rendered by the application launchers.

Install instructions

Sweet Home 3D can be installed from the GetDeb application repository, execute the following in the shell:

sudo -v
# Enable GetDeb Application repository:
sudo echo "deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu oneiric-getdeb apps #GetDeb repository extends the official repositories" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/GetDeb-Apps-oneiric.list
# Add the repository GPG key
wget -q -O- http://archive.getdeb.net/getdeb-archive.key | sudo apt-key add -
# Update package information
sudo apt-get update

# Install Sweet Home 3D package
sudo apt-get install sweethome3d

Prevent crashes

Sweet Home 3D checks whether computing off-screen 3D images is supported by Java 3D on your computer, but the detection test itself makes Sweet Home 3D crash!

A special flag can be passed to the Java command line inside the launcher script.
The following shell commands change the original script, and leave a backup.

sudo -v
sed -i.bak 's/java /java -Dcom.eteks.sweethome3d.j3d.checkOffScreenSupport=false /' /usr/bin/sweethome3d

Change icon to higher resolution

Higher resolution icons can be found inside the source code, the following shell commands replaces the low resolution one with a higher one:

sudo -v
cd /tmp
wget -q http://sweethome3d.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/*checkout*/sweethome3d/SweetHome3D/src/com/eteks/sweethome3d/viewcontroller/resources/help/images/sweethome3d.png
sudo cp /tmp/sweethome3d.png /usr/share/pixmaps/sweethome3d.png

Application launcher Kupfer

2011-12-02T17:00:00.000+01:00

For some time I used Gnome-Do as application launcher, for its beautiful design and huge amount of plugins which enhance its features. But there were to things which bothered me lately:

Gnome-Do's Skype plug-in stopped worked time ago
Some applications that I removed already, still showed up in the search results
Icons weren't refreshed.

All recommended tips that I found in forums (remove certain folders from Gnome-Do) didn't help.
But in one of these threads they commented about another application: Kupfer.
Tried that one, and it works like a charm, connection to Skype works, almost has all plugins that I used from Gnome-Do and seems to integrate with Gnome, KDE and other systems.

Install instructions

Kupfer can be installed right away from the universal repository:

sudo apt-get install kupfer

In it's preferences you could choose the same key-combination you used with Gnome-Do, and set it's auto-start flag.

Changing wallpapers with Wally

2011-11-29T19:30:00.000+01:00

Years ago, I posted about tools for changing your desktop wallpaper automatically.
The best tool I found so far is Wally, which is able not only to rotate through your local wallpaper picture collection, but also obtain them from several online storages like Picasa, Flickr, remote folders, etc.
It permits to define tags to include certain sets of pictures that you like.

Install instructions

Wally can be found in the universe repository of your Ubuntu system.

sudo apt-get install wally

KUbuntu

Wally is available as desktop plugin, so you'll have to enable it in your desktop folder settings.

Ubuntu Oneiric

Ubuntu recently changed the management of the desktop wallpaper, which breaks Wally 2.3.2 (the one which can be found in the repository), it isn't able to replace the wallpaper. To repair this, you'll have to install the .deb package 2.4.3 from the developers website.

Update to Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot

2011-10-18T15:40:00.000+02:00

These days, Ubuntu's new release hit the repositories, so I upgraded my three systems as soon as possible to see if some annoying Unity bugs have been solved finally. Here is the resume and the reasons why I'll evaluate to switch to KDE finally: Upgrade
During the upgrades I had two issues:

Emacs got somehow broken on one system y prevented the upgrade process to finish completely. It even said, the process had been aborted, but the only thing missing was the last Cleanup step.
I removed emacs packages and reinstalled them, then everything went fine.
Screenblanker got stuck on one of my machines during upgrade, so I could hit on any button to enter the last Cleanup step.
I connected via Remote Desktop to that machine and could finish the process correctly.

Updating custom repositories
As usual, the upgrade process disables all your custom repositories to prevent problems. You'll have to adapt and enabled them by hand, or you might use these instructions to do this with a few commands.

# Become super-user
sudo -i

# Set some variables (these can be changed to adapt to other Ubuntu versions)
export old=natty
export new=oneiric

# Enter repository list folder
cd /etc/apt/sources.list.d/

# Change old distribution list files and store them as newer ones
for sl in *-${old}.list ; do echo "Creating ${sl/${old}/${new}}" ; sed 's/\(.*\) '${old}'\(.*\)/\1 '${new}'\2/' $sl > ${sl/${old}/${new}} ; done

# Enable and remove the "disabled ..." comment
for sl in *-${new}.list ; do echo "Enabling ${sl}..." ; sed -i.bak 's/^# \(.*\) disabled on upgrade to '${new}'$/\1/' $sl ; done

# Check they are all fine
for sl in *-${new}.list ; do echo "Content of ${sl/${old}/${new}}:" ; cat $sl ; done

# Cleanup backup files and old distribution list files (not needed any longer)
rm *-${old}* *${new}.list.bak

Time tracking with Hamster indicator

2011-08-26T16:35:00.001+02:00

At work, I find it very handy to track the time I'm spending on some tasks. Especially, if you have to report to someone the time you spend on certain projects or whatever.
Hamster is such a time tracker that I found to be very useful, easy to use, and enables you to obtain statistics about your daily/weekly/yearly work.

It gives you the possibility to introduce information from the shell, but there's also a graphical indicator available, which fits perfectly with Ubuntu Gnome and Unity.

Install instructions

If you need more details about the following installation and configuration commands, you can consult this article.

# Add repository
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:albertomilone/hamster-indicator

# Add description to repository for easier identification
sudo sed -i.save 's/$/ #Hamster-Indicator Time-Tracker/' /etc/apt/sources.list.d/albertomilone-hamster-indicator-natty.list

# Install Hamster Indicator
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install hamster-indicator

Configuration

The hamster indicator permits to change how and which information to show on the Unity panel.

# Show all possible configuration values and values
gconftool-2 -R "/apps/hamster-indicator"

# Toggle Icon Glow
gconftool-2 --toggle "/apps/hamster-indicator/icon_glow"

# Toggle Show Label
gconftool-2 --toggle "/apps/hamster-indicator/show_label"

# Set enough space for label
gconftool-2 --set "/apps/hamster-indicator/label_length" --type int "20"

Database location

It might be interesting to now, where Hamster stores it's data, for example for backups, or if you want to copy/share the data to another Ubuntu installation.

~/.local/share/hamster-applet/hamster.db

Obtain some basic hardware details of your Ubuntu system

2011-07-21T21:39:00.000+02:00

Unix systems are capable of recognizing lots of details of your hardware, so instead of having to open your PC for obtaining information like serial numbers, just use some shell commands.
Here is a list of such useful commands.

General system

grep -r . /sys/class/dmi/id/ 2>/dev/null
lsusb
lspcmcia
lspci -vvnn
udevadm info --export-db
lshal
sudo lshw

BIOS

sudo vpddecode    # Serials from BIOS, Motherboard
sudo biosdecode   # More details about BIOS
sudo dmidecode -q # Show information about valid BIOS components
sudo dmidecode    # Show also unknown/invalid BIOS components

CPU

lscpu
cat /proc/cpuinfo

Audio

cat /proc/asound/card*/codec#*

Drivers

lsmod

Upgrade to Picasa 3.8 on Ubuntu

2011-07-20T16:02:00.001+02:00

If you're still stick to old 3.0 version of Picasa on your Ubuntu system (because you prefer it over Ubuntu's own programs, as I do), here are some instructions about how to upgrade Picasa to newer versions which have for example Face Recognition.

Install instructions

These instructions have been tested on Ubuntu Natty, and for Picasa 3.8, in case there's a newer version released you'll have to change it's location (search below for HERE).

## Add Google's testing repository for Picasa
sudo echo "deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/ testing non-free #Google Picasa" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-unstable.list
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 7FAC5991
sudo apt-get update
## Install Picasa 3.0
sudo apt-get install picasa

## Download Picasa 3.8 installer
# If there's a newer version you might to have to change it's name and location HERE
cd /tmp && wget http://dl.google.com/picasa/picasa38-setup.exe

## Install it (will not override your current Linux Picasa 3.0)
# Use default settings
wine /tmp/picasa38-setup.exe

## Copy over Picasa 3.8 files to your Linux Picasa 3.0 installation with backup
sudo cp -r /opt/google/picasa/3.0/wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Google/Picasa3{,_3.0}
sudo cp -r ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Google/Picasa3/* /opt/google/picasa/3.0/wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Google/Picasa3/

## Uninstall the previous installed Picasa 3.8 (it's not needed any longer)
wine ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Google/Picasa3/Uninstall.exe

Now you can run Picasa as usual from Applications --> Graphics --> Picasa --> Picasa
In case that something went wrong, you can find a backup of Picasa 3.0 in /opt/google/picasa/3.0/wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Google/Picasa3_3.0

Reading Skype logs

2011-07-18T16:21:00.005+02:00

If you use Skype a lot, for example at work, it will accumulate hundreds of chat database files .dbb on your system.
Information in these history files is partially compressed, so searching something particular in these files is only possible from Skype itself and its searching engine isn't very useful.

Better you use the Skype Logs Reader/Viewer, which is able to read these files and permits to search for text, export all text into several text or HTML formats, so you can use more powerful tools like your web browser, grep, word processor, spreadsheet, etc. to look for the information you remember vaguely you interchanged months or years ago.

Install instructions

This program doesn't need any installation, just unzip the archive anywhere you want.
It is designed for Windows, but runs fine with wine on your Ubuntu system.

Manager for installing applications from PPA repositories

2011-05-05T23:40:00.004+02:00

Search results for Chromium package.

I just discovered an application I was hoping for: Y PPA Manager.

Find easily the corresponding repository for a specific application, remove added PPA-repositories, etc., with this simple desktop tool.

Install instructions

The following command lines will install the tool, and I almost promise; this is the last time you add a repository from the command line.

# Add repository
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/y-ppa-manager

# Add description to repository for easier identification
sudo sed -i.bak 's/$/ #Y-PPA-Manager/' /etc/apt/sources.list.d/webupd8team-y-ppa-manager-natty.list

# Install
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install y-ppa-manager

Features

For example, search for Chromium and it will offer you more than 20 repositories, from daily, beta, official ones.
It advises, if there isn't a repository for your current distro, for example, Ailurus still isn't available for Natty.
You can browse all packages offered by a repository before enabling it for your system.
Somehow, I often run into problems with PPA keys, maybe because I just copy the corresponding PPA entries from /etc/apt/sources.list.d to another machine.
Each time I run the apt-get update command, I get lots of warnings about missing GPG keys.
Y-PPA-Manager offers a command to clean up all these errors by automatically importing all missing keys.
The PPA-purge option disables a PPA from your Software Sources and reverts your system to normal after testing a new version from a PPA.

In short words: A-must-have-tool for Ubuntu.

Command line

You can also use Y-PPA-Manager commands directly from the shell (in case you still miss the terminal), just execute this to see all available commands:

y-ppa-cmd
launchpad-getkeys  # import all missing keys
ppa-purge              # remove a PPA repository source from your system

Convert existing PPA repositories to Natty

I'll offer you here some commands you might want to use to convert your existing PPA repositories to your upgraded distro.
When upgrading Ubuntu to a newer version, all your personal repositories will be disabled to prevent problems.
After the upgrade you'll have to enable them by hand, even worse, the ones you had disabled before upgrading still point to the repositories of the previous distro.
You might use some of these commands to make these changes automatically.

# Become super-user
sudo -i
# Enter repository list folder
cd /etc/apt/sources.list.d/
# Change maverick to natty for all maverick specific list files and store them as natty ones
for sl in *-maverick.list ; do echo ${sl/maverick/natty} ; sed 's/# \(.*\) maverick\(.*\)/\1 natty\2/' $sl > ${sl/maverick/natty} ; done
# Remove the "disabled ..." comment
for sl in *-natty.list ; do echo ${sl} ; sed -i.bak 's/ disabled on upgrade to natty$//' $sl ; done
# Check they are all fine
for sl in *-natty.list ; do echo ${sl/maverick/natty} ; cat $sl ; done
# Cleanup backup files and maverick list files (not needed any longer)
rm *-maverick* *.list.bak

Severe design flaw in Natty's Upgrade Process

2011-04-04T20:00:00.000+02:00

Ubuntu's latest version 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) arrived a few days ago, some people hate it already before launched, high expectations by others.
Personally, I waited for that version several months already, hoping that it will resolve the slow problems I had on my personal laptop, as described on my previous post. Even changing the Kernel version, never solved the problem completely.
Here my update experience on three systems (all were 10.10).

Desktop PC

Machine gots stuck and hang during the upgrade process.
After rebooting, when trying the use the new Grub entry, it claims that my hardware doesn't support Unity.
After a second boot, entering the Previous Linux entry, my old 10.10 system started up perfectly and advised about a partial upgrade.
The upgrade continued smooth and left my system at the end with a running Natty.
Only my Chromium isn't usable any longer, but that's another story.

Dell home laptop

The 2nd, a smooth upgrade, without any problem.
First I downloaded the ISO image, and mounted the burned CD as software source, so most of the packages hadn't to be downloaded from the net.
After upgrade, the slow problem was gone, finally I have a fast system again, even compiz effects are usable again.
Great, all my expectations have been reached.

Lenovo office laptop

My last system hang too during the update process, it blocked with the screen-saver and I wasn't able to enter the desktop, so I couldn't see where exactly it got stuck.
Rebooting the system, first showed that Grub hadn't been updated yet, and even worse, my old system didn't booted up.
My root partition didn't mount correctly.
Inspecting with the SystemRescueCD (I have an entry to it's ISO in my Grub boot menu as explained in this post) revealed that the filesystem hadn't been damaged, all files where there.
After some investigation, I found this discussion about a serious design flaw in the Upgrade Process which could lead to that situation.
I could recover with the mentioned commands as seen below.

Recovering from not ready yet or not present root partition

mount -w -o remount /dev/sda1 /
dpkg --configure -a

Only one package made trouble, winbind, so I removed it with aptitude purge winbind, then run the dpkg command again and finally rebooted into a running Natty system.

Slow laptop with Ubuntu Maverick 10.10

2011-03-01T16:12:00.003+01:00

Having installed Ubuntu Maverick on three systems, one desktop and two laptops, I really started to wonder, why during the past weeks my Dell laptop got slower and slower.
Opening two applications almost let the system being unusable.
Even worse, the frequency scaling of the CPU stopped working and was running at full speed all the time, heating the laptop, but going slow nevertheless.
First I thought it was a problem of the CPU scaling, so I installed cpufreqd, which at least slowed down the CPU a bit, very little.

Still wondering, ..., why?
I had installed my Dell laptop from zero, so I also thought it might have to do with the graphics driver, as compiz was impossible to use as well.

Then I started investigating a little further and I found several posts from users with the same symptoms, and everything pointed to a kernel 2.6.35 problems, the version that ships with Ubuntu 10.10

People said that upgrading to next kernel version solved that problem, so I tried that and it worked.
Now, I have a quicker system again.
Guess, I could have waited for Ubuntu 11.04, but if you have the same problem, and want to quick up your system, download a higher kernel version from here (2.6.36 rc7 for 32Bit, 2.6.36 rc8 for 64Bit systems).

Install instructions

wget -nc -q -P /tmp http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.36-rc7-maverick/linux-{headers,image}-2.6.36-020636rc7{-generic,}_2.6.36-020636rc7.201010070908_{all,i386}.deb
sudo dpkg -i /tmp/linux-{headers,image}-2.6.36-020636rc7{-generic,}_2.6.36-020636rc7.201010070908_{all,i386}.deb

Software Update will offer you updates from kernel 2.6.35 which you might install without problem, as grub boot process will still find the newer 2.6.36 kernel and offers and boot that as the default one from the list anyway.

Nightly icon cache update for Gnome

2010-10-22T22:36:00.000+02:00

Sometimes it happened on my Ubuntu system, that a newly added application didn't had its icon.
This can happen due to an not updated icon cache of GTK.
This can be fixed with the command

gtk-update-icon-cache

, which rebuilds the GTK+ icon cache.

So why don't do this automatically in the background on a daily basis (during the night)?

Install instructions

Just execute the following commands, which will put a script into /etc/cron.daily so that the cache is fixed and the missing icon appears overnight.

sudo -i
echo '#!/bin/sh
#
# 

for theme in $(find /usr/share/icons -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d)
do 
    if [ -f "$theme/index.theme" ]
    then gtk-update-icon-cache -f -q "$theme"
    fi
done

exit 0' > /etc/cron.daily/update-icon-cache
chmod a+x /etc/cron.daily/update-icon-cache

Open URL in Firefox with middle mouse button

2010-10-20T23:37:00.002+02:00

Often I copy an URL somewhere and want to open it in a new tab in Firefox.
Normal steps:

Open a new tab with Ctrl-T
Click into the URL address bar
Paste the URI and press Enter

Wouldn't it be nice to make all these steps in one, f.ex. by clicking with the middle mouse button on the current tab.

Firefox has this possibility, but you can't enable it from the normal preference dialog.
Instead you have to alter the configuration parameters directly.

Install instructions

Navigate to about:config
Put middlemouse.contentLoadURL in the filter bar
Press the right mouse button over the option and select toggle, so it's value is true.

Now lets test it:

select and copy this text: www.ubuntu.com
press the middle mouse button in the window where you're reading this post
A new browser tab should appear with the Ubuntu site.

Flash Video in Linux and Webcam

2010-08-22T20:48:00.000+02:00

You also experienced problems when trying to use a webcam from a flash application in your Firefox browser?
It claimed about not being able to detect the cam, whereas VLC finds and uses it perfectly.

Well, there's a known compatibility limitation between the underlying video-for-linux (v4l) layer.
Modern Linux systems use version 2, whereas the Flash applets seem to be comfortable only with version 1.

There's a possibility to force Firefox to use the version 1 of v4l, by launching it this way:

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l2convert.so firefox &

Now the Flash applet should be able to detect and use your webcam.

More details can be found in this article I found.

Disk Defragmentation

2010-06-13T15:12:00.004+02:00

Defragmenting your disks file-systems can be important for several reasons:

Lots of fragments are slowing down your systems performance (especially true for any Windows systems).
You may want to shrink a partition and therefore need to move all files to get all available space at the end of the partition.

I needed to shrink my NTFS partition, because I want to give more space to my Ubuntu one, but even if it claimed to have 26 GB free, I could only shrink about 300 MB.
Why?
Because NTFS uses a MFT table for allocating, which could be anywhere and unfortunately, it will be in most cases at the end of the partition.
And almost any defragmentation program is able to move it.

Since I found Perfect Disk. It is not free-ware, but its one month evaluation was enough to finally claim all free space to the end of the partition and get it shrunk with GParted.

Until then, I tested several programs (because Windows XP internal tool isn't the optimum), and I'll list them here.

Perfect Disk

Perfect Disk is simply perfect. It makes it job as one thinks it should. Can defrag your MFT, pagefile, hyberfile in offline mode, its defragmentation algorithms seem to be very clever, can choose each algorithm automatically adapted to the file-systems state, scheduled tasks, during screensaver, and the interface is clean and nice.

O&O Defrag

O&O Defrag is similar to Perfect Disk, but finally wasn't able to move the MFT, but has more algorithms than Perfect Disk. It seems to be more slower during defragmentation than the other one. Isn't free-ware too.

MyDefrag

MyDefrag is freeware, and has a very different concept to other tools. Internally, it uses scripts that define the algorithm, and even if there are several ones included already, you could write your own ones. Its interface is ugly, but includes screensaver mode. Can handle floppies, USB disks, memory sticks, and anything else that looks like a disk to Windows.

Auslogic Disk Defrag

Auslogic tools is a simple disk defrag tool, with a nice interface. Does its job better than Windows included one and is free-ware too. Can defrag a single file or folder and includes a scheduler.

Defraggler

Use Defraggler to defrag your entire hard drive, or individual files - unique in the industry. This compact and portable Windows application supports NTFS and FAT32 file systems. Lets you specify one or more files, folders, or the whole drive to defragment. Very simple and supports quick defrag.

WinContig

WinContig is an easy-to-use stand-alone defragmentation tool that doesn't create any installation directories or Registry entries on your computer. Its purpose is to quick defrag files without the need to defrag the whole disk. In addition, WinContig allows you to group files into profiles, and also it accepts a number of optional command-line switches that you can use to control how the program operates.

SysInternal Tools

SysInternals also has some tools for defragmentation working directly on single files which can help out in some cases.

Contig

Contig is a single-file defragmenter that attempts to make files contiguous on disk. Its perfect for quickly optimizing files that are continuously becoming fragmented, or that you want to ensure are in as few fragments as possible.

PageDefrag

PageDefrag uses advanced techniques to provide you what commercial defragmenters cannot: the ability for you to see how fragmented your paging files and Registry hives are, and to defragment them. In addition, it defragments event log files and Windows 2000/XP hibernation files (where system memory is saved when you hibernate a laptop).

SystemRescueCD from ISO image

2010-05-25T22:50:00.004+02:00

The new grub loader shipped with Ubuntu Lucid is able to boot systems directly from ISO images located in any hard disc partition.

Lets use this fact and have always the latest SystemRescueCD at hand, without having to burn a new CD, just by having its ISO on our Ubuntu partition.

There are some instructions on their web-site, but

they don't work

why not use grub's update mechanism to include the SystemRescueCD entry automatically, instead of having to add it by hand.

Therefore, grub offers to have some scripts in /etc/grub.d which are called during the update process and I'll give you here the steps for adding the ISO image as entry "magically".

Install instructions

Download latest SystemRescueCD image from their web.

Move it somewhere inside the /boot folder, for example I use a subfolder:
```
sudo mkdir /boot/sysrcd
sudo mv systemrescuecd*.iso /boot/sysrcd/
```

Create a new file /etc/grub.d/50_sysrcd and put the following content:

#!/bin/sh

# Search for System Rescue CD iso file in /boot and add it as boot-entry.

for iso in $(find /boot -name systemrescuecd*.iso)
  do 
    isofile=`echo $iso`
    version=`echo $iso | cut -d "-" -f 3 | cut -d "." -f 1,2,3`
    echo "Found SystemRescueCD image: ${iso}" >&2
    cat << EOF
menuentry "SystemRescueCd ${version}" {
        loopback loop ${isofile}
        linux (loop)/isolinux/rescuecd isoloop=${isofile}
        initrd (loop)/isolinux/initram.igz
}
EOF
done

Make it executable:

sudo chmod a+x /etc/grub.d/50_sysrcd

Now, we are ready to update the grub menu:
```
sudo update-grub
```

That's it, now when you reboot your system, you should see the SystemRescueCD as latest entry and you can just boot it up.

You could also have several versions of the ISO images in /boot/sysrcd and this will give several grub entries.

Nice if you need to tweak your system partitions, need to recover something from your broken Windows partition, you just have the tools there, and it only occupies about 250 MB on your Linux partition.
And whenever you want to use a newer version, just download the new one, replace the old ISO, and update the grub menu again.

Troubleshooting

If you get these messages during update-grub

Testing for an existing GRUB menu.lst file ... found: /boot/grub/menu.lst

and

Updating /boot/grub/menu.lst ... done

this means that you still using grub version 1, not the latest one.
In that case, you should first upgrade grub with

sudo aptitude install grub2

Create a bootable Live USB drive with UNetbootin

2010-04-30T22:00:00.000+02:00

UNetbootin is a cross-platform utility that can create Live USB systems and can load a variety of system utilities or install various Linux distributions and other operating systems without a CD.

Install instructions

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gezakovacs/ppa
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install unetbootin

Remove Evolution

2010-04-06T09:23:00.006+02:00

Personally, I prefer Thunderbird for mailing than the preinstalled Evolution.
If you share the same preference, surely you tried to remove Evolution from your system, just to run into a dead-end, because several packages depend on it, especially one meta package.
Evolution seems to be embedded into Ubuntu like IExplorer in Windows.

But yesterday I found some Spanish article explaining how to remove it from the system, leaving about 56 MB of free space on your system.
I just added two more packages to the de-installation instruction that where missing for my Ubuntu 9.10 system.

Deinstall instructions

sudo aptitude purge evolution-indicator evolution evolution-documentation-en evolution-common evolution-data-server evolution-webcal evolution-plugins evolution-couchdb evolution-exchange mail-notification-evolution

Setup GDM2 startup graphically

2010-01-24T15:30:00.005+01:00

GDM2Setup is a graphical tool that allows us to setup the new GDM2 included since Ubuntu Karmic.

After installation, a new entrance in the menu appears: System > Administration > Login Screen (GDM2Setup)

See also my post about other graphical setup tools for the Ubuntu bootup process.

Install instructions

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gdm2setup/gdm2setup
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-gdm2setup

Extract email attachments from winmail.dat files

2010-01-13T15:47:00.002+01:00

tnef is a program for unpacking MIME attachments of type "application/ms-tnef". This is typically a Microsoft only attachment, named winmail.dat.
This program allows one to unpack the attachments which were encapsulated into the TNEF attachment, thus alleviating the need to use Microsoft Outlook to view the attachment.

Install instructions

sudo aptitude install tnef

or click here.

Usage

Save the winmail.dat file from the email and execute

tnef --list winmail.dat  # list containing files
tnef winmail.dat         # unpack containing attachments