ubuntu for all

Configuring I-Bus in UBUNTU

2010-02-07T06:59:00.000-08:00

In UBUNTU there are many ways to type in தமிழ் language. One of the most simplest way is by configuring I-Bus.
Step 1: To configure, start I-Bus as shown.

Step 2: Configure as shown below

Specify the enable or disable key of your own. In this case "ctrl+space"

Add the input methods you want to install and make Tamil phonetic as default.

Step 4: The configuration is over. Lets start working with it. After you close the window you can notice the following icon.

Step 5: Now you can start working by using your enable or disable key. In this case "ctrl+space".

இனி தாங்கள் தமிழில் டைப் செய்வது மிகவும் எழிது.

Netbeans 6.8 features

2010-01-06T16:33:00.001-08:00

Netbeans installation in Ubuntu

2010-01-06T16:31:00.000-08:00

It is very easy to install Netbeans in Ubuntu.

Goto Applications --> Add/remove Packages
In the Search just type "Netbeans", it will list out the latest version of Netbeans. Currently it will show "Netbeans6.7.1"
Check the checkbox near it and click "Apply changes" to install

In command line, just type

sudo apt-get install netbeans

Ubuntu 9.10 Trailor

2009-11-19T02:45:00.001-08:00

Java And You

2009-11-17T17:53:00.000-08:00

Eclipse and Netbeans in Ubuntu

2009-11-17T07:20:00.000-08:00

goto Applications->Add/remove Applications.
in the "show" field select "all available applications"
in the search field type in "eclipse" or "netbeans" whatever you need and wait for a moment.
it will show you the package below.
check in the checkbox and click on "apply changes" button.
the system will automatically download and install the required package.
you can find the installed IDE in Applications->Programming

Installing Java in Ubuntu

2009-11-17T06:50:00.000-08:00

To install java in ubuntu just

go to System->Administration->Synapic package Manager.
it will prompt for the administrator password
then type
sun-java6
in the search field.
Check the necessary packages such as
- sun-java6-bin
- sun-java6-jdk
- sun-java6-jre
- sun-java6-plugin
Then Click on "Apply" to install the packages

Note:
In ubuntu (or in any other linux) there is no need to set path for executing a java file, after installing jdk.

Install RPM Packages on Ubuntu

2009-11-09T18:31:00.000-08:00

There are many Linux distributions and many package formats. Some times your favorite program is only available in one package format when you need it in another format. That's where alien makes your life easy by allowing you to install foreign packages on your favorite distribution.

Use following command to install alien package on your system.

sudo apt-get -y install alien

Assuming you have an rpm package named hello.rpm, you can install this package using following command.

sudo alien -iv hello.rpm

That's it you favorite program is installed on your system.

NS2 Installation

2009-11-09T10:27:00.000-08:00

This is an example of the NS2-AllInOne-2.33 installation for Ubuntu 8.10.

Download the most recent Ns-2-AllinOne-2.33 from Sourceforge.

Suppose that there is “ns-allinone-2.33.tar.gz” in current directory (e.g. “~/” for me is “/home/mm”).
All steps are done in Terminal, so open a terminal in Accessories/Terminal.

To extract the file:

$tar xvfz ./ns-allinone-2.33.tar.gz

Go into extracted directory:

$cd ns-allinone-2.33

Download required packages:

$sudo apt-get install build-essential autoconf automake libxmu-dev

Start installation:

$./install

Set environment parameter:

$gedit ~/.bashrc

Then at the last line, append the following text with changing “/your/path” to the directory that contains “ns-allinone-2.33″. (e.g. “/home/mm/” )

# LD_LIBRARY_PATH
OTCL_LIB=/home/mm/ns-allinone-2.33/otcl-1.13
NS2_LIB=/home/mm/ns-allinone-2.33/lib
X11_LIB=/usr/X11R6/lib
USR_LOCAL_LIB=/usr/local/lib
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:$OTCL_LIB:$NS2_LIB:$X11_LIB:$USR_LOCAL_LIB

# TCL_LIBRARY
TCL_LIB=/home/mm/ns-allinone-2.33/tcl8.4.18/library
USR_LIB=/usr/lib
export TCL_LIBRARY=$TCL_LIB:$USR_LIB

# PATH
XGRAPH=/home/mm/ns-allinone-2.33/bin:/home/mm/ns-allinone-2.33/tcl8.4.18/unix:/home/mm/ns-allinone-2.33/tk8.4.18/unix
NS=/home/mm/ns-allinone-2.33/ns-2.33/
NAM=/home/mm/ns-allinone-2.33/nam-1.13/
PATH=$PATH:$XGRAPH:$NS:$NAM

Method to Execute bin file

2009-11-09T09:46:00.000-08:00

$chmod +x *.bin && ./*.bin

This is the command used to execute a “.bin” file in a UBUNTU OS.
This command is the mixture of two commands.
First part “chmod +x *.bin” is the command to give global permission to all users for the file.
Second part “./*.bin” is the command to execute the “.bin” file.
You can replace the * with the file name of your “.bin” file.
If it not work just prepend “sudo ” with the command.

i.e., $sudo chmod +x *.bin && ./*.bin

Linux file system - Explaination

2009-11-09T06:17:00.000-08:00

For those of you coming from windows backgrounds, the way the linux filesystem is laid out may seem confusing at first glance…. but that is where this article comes in !

The first thing you should know when working with linux, is that everything is treated as either a file or directory. Yeap thats right, even hardware is considered a file by linux, and, speaking of hardware… all your hardware devices are located in the /dev directory, but more on that later.

Another thing that confuses windows users, is the fact that linux dosen’t use drive letters to distinguish between different partitions and devices. that is to say in linux, the “root” of your filesystem is / whereas in windows it would most probably be C:\ . Drives in linux are “mounted” to directories where their data can then be accessed, so for instance, if you needed to use your thumbdrive, you would plug it into your computer, and then mount it using the “mount” command, which specifies the path to the device ( something like /dev/sdb or /dev/sdc ) and the directory to mount it to (usually /mnt or /media), then you can happily access your drive from the /mnt or /media folder.

Sounds strange right? well yes it does if you come from a windows environment, where the entire operating system is consolidated onto a single drive. However, with linux and the ability to mount devices as directories, it gives the end user much greater flexibility in splitting up their operating system over several drives or partitions.

to understand what I mean when I say that this approach in mounting drives grants flexibility, I must first explain the different folders in linux and what they store
Diagram showing Linux filesystem hierarchy

Diagram showing Linux filesystem hierarchy

The graphic above shows the linux file-system hierarchy, now will explain in a bit more detail what each folder contains.

/ this is the root folder, all other folders come under root.. think of it as C:\ in a Windows context.

/bin this folder contains all the user-essential binaries (programs) that are needed to administer and run your linux system… delete this folder and your system is broken.

/boot as the name suggests, this folder contains configuration files and other necessary files that are needed by the bootloader

/dev this folder contains device files (remember, these files represent physical devices, so be careful when working with them)

/etc this folder contains all the configuration files used by the system, you can also start and stop services (daemons ) from here

/home this folder contains the home folders of all the normal (non – root ) users on the system .. think of it as my documents in windows

/lib this folder contains software libraries

/media this is a mount point for removable devices… this is where you would usually mount your thumbdrives … etc

/mnt this is a temporary mount point

/opt this folder contains add on software (extra software)

/sbin this folder contains binaries that can only be run as the root user (”superuser”)

/tmp this folder contains temporary files that are erased upon reboot

/usr this folder and its sub-folders contains user installed programs and utilities and libraries

/var this folder contains files that change alot (”Variable files”)

/root this folder contains the root user’s files

/proc this is a pseudo folder, that contains information about the linux kernel and hardware that is updated in realtime.

Now back to how mounting grants flexibility…

you see how the different folders all contain parts of the operating system? well we can actually mount a seperate hard drive for each of this folders. for example, your /home folder can be put on another harddrive than your / which means that you can easily recover your personal files if the harddrive on / fails because the harddrive mounted to your /home folder is seperate from the one that is mounted to your /

So there you have it, you now know a little bit more about the nuts and bolts of linux based operating systems.