Yet Another Technology Site

AntiX 11 Core Install How to

noreply@blogger.com (rokytnji) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 07:50:00 +0000

A fellow compadre in the AntiX world made a nice how to for installing AntiX 11 i686 core iso on
his Laptop Computer.

He includes a /etc/apt/sources.list also for the uninitiated also.

All credit goes to

Written by Brian Masinick on October 1, 2011

Brians Blog

Just so you know how good a core install looks. Here is my AntiX 8.5 i686 core install from last year with a LXDE Desktop instead and Liqourix Kernel. Nice thing about a core install is you can tweak it to your own personal tastes. Then dd it (copy it byte for byte) if wishing to save config for later.

By the way. The top task bar and bottom task bar auto hide when not in use. I just showed them for the screen shot to show what apps can be had for the taking from Debian Testing.

Pianobar Linux

noreply@blogger.com (rokytnji) — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 04:27:00 +0000

Pandora radio can be a resource hog when playing in your browser with all the flash stuff going on. Pianobar is a

pianobar is a console client for the personalized web radio pandora
(http://www.pandora.com).

- play and manage (create, add more music, delete, rename, ...) your stations
- rate played songs and let pandora explain why they have been selected
- show upcoming songs/song history
- configure keybindings
- last.fm scrobbling support (external application)
- proxy support for listeners outside the USA

Basically. You can put your headphones on and listen to pandora radio through a terminal without opening a browser while working on other things like office work, pictures, whatever. You can also listen while surfing the web without opening pandoras site. You will need a pandora radio account and set up some radio stations before installing pianobar.

Debian and Ubuntu should have it in their package managers. Just be sure to hit the reload button in the package manager before doing a search for pianobar. For Puppy Linux. I have successfully installed and ran this in Puppy Linux 5.1.1 and Puppy 5.2. For Puppy Linux. I got the installable pet package from Here. This is what it looks like running in Puppy Linux on my IBM A22m. I run this in AntiX also. Hmmmm. I might have found one for you Windows users also. No guarantees though. Found THIS also for Ubuntu.

Another New Player worth checking out is Foobnix

Left click broke on Asus EEEPC 900

noreply@blogger.com (rokytnji) — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 15:56:00 +0000

Warning: Any breakage due to following this tutorial is sole responsibility of any body using this tutorial. So here is what I did to fix this. Physical fix took about 1 and a 1/2 hours from disassembly to cleaning out switch to VOM check to reassembly to reboot and check. Research took longer.

First. Do my research. Links below.

Link1

Link2

Link3

Then watch some videos. All credit goes to TigerOnEEEPC for making these videos on youtube.

The above videos were invaluable and I used them to follow how to disassemble my Netbook.

After pulling keyboard and upper plastic casing (plus ribbon harnesses for keyboard and mouse) I took apart the switch using this video for reference. Downloaded zip and extracted using Mplayer to watch extracted AVI File. Which was made with Open source tools like Blender. All credit goes to wapko for making this video.

Link

The contact disk was not cracked inside of switch. Cleaned out contacts with 90% denatured alcohol and q-tips and a razor knife (thin one). Reassembled switch. Checked with VOM first before reassembling Netbook.

Checked good with VOM. Reassembled Netbook.
Booted up into Antix 8.5. Left click on Menu in Icewm. Left click now works as it should. I will see how long this fix lasts.

AntiX 8.5 Full install on Asus EEEPC 900

noreply@blogger.com (rokytnji) — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 18:11:00 +0000

Disclaimer: Do at your own risk.
All below procedures are done with the understanding that the user backs up all critical data. This site and author is not responsible for any mistakes or problems encountered. I will try to make this as simple and painless as possible. Any novice should be able to hopefully follow the below steps.

This time I am going to show how I installed the New AntiX 8.5 to my internal Solid State Drives.
4gig SSD and 16gig SSD, I had Xandros 4 on this Netbook previously. To read up on New Features and to download AntiX. You can go to Here

There are numerous ways to make a boot able Live USB. I used Unetbootin to make mine like I did in My Previous AntiX tutorial.

It was also pointed out you can make a live USB using the antiX2usb installer via the AntiX Control Center. Below link will show you how.

Link

If using Xandros to make Unetbootin work. All I can say is to make sure mtools and p7zip is installed in Xandros also.Otherwise the Linux Version of Unetbootin won't work (won't start).
There will be no swap partition made with this install. Swap partitions can be harmful for SSD drives.

Insert your bootable live USB of AntiX 8.5. Power up and hit Esc key and pick your pendrive as first boot device. When grub Menu comes up pick Netbook boot from the grub menu. Now from here on. These were my steps on how I installed AntiX 8.5 (my way).

After getting to a Desktop. I went to the taskbar with the crossed wrenches icon and opened up AntiX Control Center and left clicked on the Network Tab.

I have connected my Asus EEEPC 900 using Ceni also. Ceni picks up my wireless and Cable interface just fine as wlan0 and eth0. I just prefer wicd but Ceni will work for you also.

Ceni

I picked Connect Wirelessly with Wicd. On the next window that opens. I go to the preferences tab and left click it. In the empty Connect Wireless Box I type in wlan0.

Then I left click on External Programs and switch from Automatic to dhclient. I then left click on the refresh tab and my router shows up and I connect via wireless to my router. A safer way to go about installing is if you have a land line. Use it instead if worried about dropping a connection. I just wanted to show I enabled wireless on my EEEPC 900.

Ok, Now on to the install. Left click on Menu Tab on far left of taskbar. Pick the AntiX Installer 3rd up on the Menu.

Left click and next window asks for password. The password is

root

When Next Window opens you tick on the box agree to terms

Next window make sure sda is showing. Tick on Install to custom partitions. Then Left click on Gparted Button.

When parted Opens. You will see sda1, sda2, sda3, and sda4. DO NOT TOUCH sda3 OR sda4. The only partitions you wish to delete are sda1 and sda2.. So right click on sda1 and select delete. Do the same also for sda2. Below I show sda1.

Below I show sda2

We will now move on to sdb drive which is the 16 gig secondary drive on my Asus EEEPC 900. I proceed to delete that partition also. In gparted in the top r/h corner hit the drop down arrow and select /dev/sdb. Then delete sdb like you did the 2 partitions on sda.

Ok. If you followed everything correctly so far your gparted window should look like mine below.
Check out that the assigned tasks you have given gparted (like delete sda1,sda2,and sdb) show in the bottom of gparted window.

If everything looks good. Hit the apply button and let gparted do its job.You will be greeted by one last final warning. Say yes and you are off to starting on your AntiX install. Xandros will be no more. Not even the recovery you had when you used the F9 option on the Asus 900. This is a one way trip.

After you get the completed successful operations window. Hit the close button.

Now go back to the top r/h corner of gparted and select /dev/sda with the drop down arrow.

Left click on unallocated partition on sda and select new

Make it a primary partition. I picked ext2 file system because I have read that journaling file systems like ext3,reiserfs, etc.... are harmful for SSD drives. Better safe than sorry says I.
Label it as root (/).

Now after setting that up. Go to the top r/h corner again and select /dev/sdb

Again right click on the 16gig unallocated and select new

I made mine a primary partition, ext2 file system, labeled as /home.

Again. Double check the bottom of gparted window before saying apply operations.

Below is the next window you should see after hitting apply button.

When done. Take a look at sdb and see if yours looks like mine.

Now go back to sda and we are going to flag sda as bootable. Just right click and select Manage flags. Then tick on the boot box and hit apply.

After hitting apply your line for /dev/sda1 should look like mine.

Ok. You can close gparted now. You are done setting up your SSD drives for the installation process.
Now. To avoid some confusion. The Mepis Installer that AntiX 8.5 uses can not install /home to the secondary 16gig drive you formatted. It is a limitation because IMO the installer was made for platter ide and sata drives which are usually only one drive per laptop. I will show you later on how I moved the home folder to sdb 16gig SSD in as simple of procedures as I know how.
I have successfully done this procedure and am writing this tutorial on my Asus EEEPC 900 and all things I save to home now go on to my /home drive on sdb.

Now. Make sure sda1 is where the root partition is going. No swap. And home is also going to root for now. Make sure and tick on the box that says "preserve data in /home (if upgrading) so as to not overwrite your ext2 partition. If you don't click that box. /home will be formatted as ext3 during the install process. So to preserve my ext2 file system. I tick on that box also.

Select yes on the last minstall that pops up. You are ready to install AntiX 8.5 now.

The install process is fast. This is your next window. I read the messages while installing.

When done. We are on to installing grub. Make yours match my screenshot below for installing grub

You will be asked if it is ok.Say Yes.

Confirmation grub installed OK is Next.

After hitting OK. The next window is for startup services in case you need dial up or printing services. I just leave the defaults for me and select next.

Next window is network names

Next is localization Window. I am a Texan so I pick English. I ticked the GMT box (personal preference).

Next is user name and passwords.

Don't freak out if you get a warning pop up saying something about not being able to name user folder. I got that pop up. Just say OK and hit finish when you are done.

Next Window. You are done for now. Reboot and pull your live Pendrive when netbook shuts down. You are done with it.

Reboot to your new AntiX install. Just pick the top option in grubs menu. Slim is the login manager for AntiX. The Splash screen is by my good buddy Sakasa. If you wish to have wicd monitor show up on taskbar so as to see if you are connected. What I did was go to the crossed wrenches in toolbar and when AntiX control Center Opens I selected "Edit Icewm Settings and below window opens. I select startup tab on taskbar and uncomment the
"sleep 2 && wicd-client &" . Hit save on taskbar and exit.

Next hit the red button on taskbar and log out and back in again. You should have a moniter on bottom r/h of taskbar

Now. The easiest way I know how to show you how I moved my home folder in / to /home on sdb is to provide a link to the thread I made at AntiX Forums. Thanks to SilverBear, dolphin_oracle,secipolla, and anticapitalista. I was successful in moving home on / of sda to
/home on sdb,

Link

Any questions you may have or comments. You can make at the AntiX section at Mepis Lovers or the AntiX Forum.

I am going to just provide some screenshots below to show how my edited /etc/fstab looks now. Always back up your /etc/fstab or any other file that you are going to make changes to

I do this by making a backup folder in home and inserting stock unchanged files in there and renaming them fstabbackup as a example.

First shot shows how rox should appear after moving home to /home to sdb and symlinking /home on sdb to / on sda. The symlink is needed to move saved changes to the new home on sdb. My thread should pretty well explain how I went about doing this and has screenshots. If you get stuck. Ask and someone will answer in the AntiX forum or at Mepis Lovers.

My current /etc/fstab as it now stands. Also after moving home to /home on sdb. Make sure home has file permissions so as user can make changes. I did this by opening a terminal. Typed in

gksu pcmanfm

entered my password and pcmanfm opened as root user. Then went to my /home drive and right clicked on home folder and selected properties. Then selected permissions and made my user able to read and write to folder and all sub directories. My Modified /etc/fstab below

Update: Limiting writes to SSD on EEEPC. I made this thread at AntiX Forum and another at Mepis Lovers. If interested

Link

There might be better ways to write and do this kind of install and tutorial. But I am just a regular Home User trying to help out the Linux community for all the help given me. Happy Trails, Rok

INXI Yes you can install it in Ubuntu

noreply@blogger.com (rokytnji) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:19:00 +0000

I showed you how it could be installed in Puppy Linux.

So I decided. Lets see if this works in ubuntu. So I booted up my Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Desktop. And proceeded to install.

First I went back to the site

Then proceeded to install page

I used the below command to download the deb package to my /home folder

So I issue the command to download

sudo wget ftp://cathbard.com/binary/inxi*.deb

Wait till it downloads my deb package to /home. I go to places on my taskbar and select home to open. I look and find my inxi_1.3.2-1_all.deb.

Now it is just double left click on inxi_1.3.2-1_all.deb and let Gdebi do its thing.

After installing. Open Terminal and upgrade inxi first by doing a

sudo inxi -U

After it upgrades to inxi 1.4.8 you can run inxi -F to look at your system specs.

I like having extra commands in terminal that I never had before. It makes my box more functional. Happy Trails, Rok

Songbird add-on to use Ubuntu notifications

noreply@blogger.com (L4Linux) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 10:29:00 +0000

In a previous post, we saw 3 add-ons for Firefox and Thunderbird that allowed them to use Ubuntu or KDE notification system, so they would integrate much better with the OS. There is a similar add-on available for the geat media player Songbird too!
It can display title/artist/album name/genre/rating (any metadata actually and in any order you like) and the album cover!
You can find ubuntu-notifyOSD here.

Rant: Why Songbird is still not in the Ubuntu/Debian repositories (PPA is not a good solution, it should be in the real repositories) is beyond my comprehension and probably beyond any (un)reasonable explanation. It can't be that hard for the Ubuntu, Debian & Songbird developers to package it, can it???

Rant update!!!!!
As if absence form repositories was not enough, Songbird team announced that they are droping official support for Linux!!!!! Community builds will keep coming for anyone who still cares to use it. Maybe Songbird on Linux was doomed from the beginning with most KDE distros shipping with Amarok and Ubuntu and many others with Rythmbox. But this is a really lame excuse, as many other programs thrive, despite not being the default ones. The biggest reason for its failure was not ever really trying to provide packages for the most popular distributions and using the system theme to integrate better with the OS.

So, as my favorite Southpark character Cartman would say:

Where "home" would be the preinstalled Rythmbox.

AntiX 8.5 Persistent Flash Drive.

noreply@blogger.com (rokytnji) — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 01:20:00 +0000

This how to is just going to be a generic how to for making a persistent live usb of AntiX. You can do this on any computer. You can do this with a Live CD or Live USB or Live SD. For my purposes. I am doing this using a live USB. But a Live cd will work just as good for this also. Your downloaded iso I will show you later will work running in live cd mode also. So it does not matter if you are using a Live CD or Live USB or SD card. My persistent live drive I am going to install to is going to be a Kingston 4gig SD Flash card.

You should know. That any changes you make to a persistent install usb. Like if you install xfce Desktop of KDE Desktop or Gnome Desktop to your live persistent USB Drive. If you run the installer on that USB Persistent Drive. It will install ALL Changes like your XFCE,GNOME,or KDE Desktop also.

The Meta installer which is on the menu is a great tool for installing different Desktops and other stuff.

I am going to show how doing this with the AntiX 8.5 base ISO. For first time users I would suggest you download the AntiX 8.5 Full Iso.

I will mention this though. If you are a EEEPC user reading this. If you do the base Install and Ceni when you open it runs the cpu at 100% when loading Ceni. Just wait till Ceni finishes loading and CPU will drop back down to 15%. I experienced this on my EEEPC 900 (celeron processor). I also used a land line for all my downloads and after booting up base Persist SD Card. I used a land line also running base to install packages using

apt-get update

In terminal as root user and then

apt-get install wicd

So as to bypass using ceni to connect wireless. Do what you wish though. I am just mentioning this from personal experience.

Just think of AntiX base as a Debian Net minimal install that you can build off of.
AntiX Full Iso has more tools though Like AntiX control center and Synaptic package manager. The base just comes with apt-get. Full Iso comes with ceni, wicd, rutilt to connect to the net. Base come with just ceni.

Antix has a New Wiki thanks to all the hard work by the Antix group. Check it out also.

Antix Wiki How To articles

You will need to make a Live Media of AntiX 8.5 first (cd or usb or SD card). Whichever way you prefer. My way is just one of the many ways it can be done.

Refer to my old post on AntiX 8.2 and Unetbootin if you wish to make a live USB my way.
Link

Inset your media that you wish to boot live session from. Insert at least a 1 gig Flash drive (what I would call a minimum size USB for a persistent USB of AntiX. 2 gig or higher would be better.)

Ok. Now use whatever key you need to use to change boot order in bios. And change boot first to USB or cdrom. Depends on what your bios is capable of and what media drive you are going to use.

You should be greeted with with a grub splash screen. Pick the top Option. You will not need to login. You should be greeted with a Icewm Desktop. Make sure you are connected to the net. We will need to download a ISO and Md5sum text from the net. Open your Browser and go to AntiX main web page. I used This Mirror since I live in the US. Choose any mirror you wish from the list though. Remember You can use any of the isos on that list. 8.2 Full, 8.2 base, 8.5 Full, Etc.... Any AntiX iso will work with the antix2usb persistent installer.

{I wonder if any other Linux Distro like Full Mepis 8.5 will work with the persistent installer. Time and testers will Tell)

You can download isos to your live USB session. Just remember that if you reboot or shutdown. You will lose any isos downloaded after reboot. Download will take a few minutes. You have time to do other things while this is going on.

You should now have 2 files in your Download folder in AntiX. Now I am going to do a md5sum check of my Iso to make sure the file is OK. You should always do a md5sum check of large files (IMO) to save your self time and grief later if something does not go right.

Go to where you downloaded AntiX ISO and Md5sum. On mine I have it in /home/demo/downloads.
Right click on empty space in file manager. You should see a menu. Pick open in terminal. I am using pcmanfm file manager to show this. It is the default file manager in AntiX live though rox is available also. For simplicities sake. I will show this using the default file manager.

Next you will get a pop up. Terminal program not set. No worries. Just hit the oK button.

Next the preferences window will pop up and you can select which terminal you wish to run in file manager. For my purposes. I will pick rox-terminal. Just use the drop down arrow on the blank box in preferences to do this.

Close preferences window after selecting your preferred terminal. Right click on empty space where you have your isos and your terminal should now open. I used rox-terminal as a example so I could show you how to copy and paste md5sum readout into your downloaded md5sum text file to compare the two.

Double left click on your md5sum text file next to your iso file and paste terminal readout under your entry in text file.

As you can see. My md5sum check OK. So I can close pcmanfm because I am done and start on the SD card Install process. A USB drive will work just as well.

Go to the crossed wrenches on the bottom task bar and open up AntiX control Center and left click on the disks tab. You will see antix2usb button on the bottom right of window.

Left click on the antix2usb button and the next window that pops up will show the installer. On the top Select Iso file find your downloaded Iso and put it in that window.

On device find your drive you are going to do the persist install to and put it in that window.

Make sure the drive you are installing persistence to is unmounted. You can unmount it by either opening pcmanfm as root.

gksu pcmanfm

or follow steps using steps from the wiki

You can use the livecd/liveusb/fromiso live (as well as installed antiX) to install an antiX.iso file to usb stick via the antix2usb application.

1. Boot from live media

2. Open antiXcc -> Disks -> antix2usb, provide root password

3. Select Iso file - Navigate to the antiX.iso file

4. Choose a system partition size of circa 10 MB bigger than the selected Iso file

5. Set options for antix2usb ie persistent.

6. Make sure hal is disabled before hitting Apply (/etc/init.d/hal stop)

7. Once finished, you should have a bootable live usb stick with persistence enabled

8. If you have an older computer, you might need to add this to the /boot/grub/menu.lst to stop being dropped to a limited shell, when booting from the usb stick.

rootdelay=10

It was just easier for me to unmount SD drive using pcmanfm as root user. There are many ways to unmount a drive in AntiX. My way is just one way to do it.

Mine looks like this screenshot when done.

I am using ext2 file system. I am also using the default 320mb since I am using Base Iso for this tutorial. If using Full Iso the value will be a little larger. Closer to 600 mb or so. The default sets the demo (live Partition) 10% higher than it needs to be. So default is fine in most cases. If your drive is huge like 8gig or so. You can type in that box a larger value if you so wish. Just remember you are going to be taking away space from the persistent partition when you do this. If you hit the drop down arrow. Other file systems are available like ext3 and ext4. Use what you wish. Notice that I have the persistence box checked also. Everything from here on will be done Auto Magically. Hit the Apply Button.

Be patient. Give it some time. If you get a pop up window saying the install drive is mounted. Then you haven't unmounted the drive yet. Just unmount that drive and hit the apply button again after closing error window.

Window below should show up if you did every thing right.

Just Shut down and pull your Live CD, Or USB. Keep the persistent live in your computer. Use bios to boot from that drive. Enjoy your new Persistent Live media on your computer. My persistent flash drive using fluxbox (default window manager for base) with rox desktop icons (with a couple of new apps installed)

Thanks again to the gang at AntiX. Just to mention a few. (Not in order of importance. Just great guys involved in this). Special thanks to lagopus for this useful tool.

lagopus
miks
m_pav
anticapitalista
BitJam
secipolla
ICE-M
eriefisher
SilverBear
OldHogsHead
And a ton of others.It is a community of Linux brothers.

Sorry if I missed anybody. You should really check out the Antix2usb installer. It is one neat tool to have. I am going to leave this last link just because I like it. It mentions the 2 operating systems I chose to run on some of my gear.

Best NewLinux Operating Systems you may not know about for 2010

Since doing this install. I have installed XFCE Desktop and wicd network manager. I use this drive on My Acer Aspire One ZG5 with Atheros Wireless Chipset with the Ath5K Linux driver that comes stock in AntiXs kernel. wlan1 is the wicd network manager interface to get connected in wicd properties. I use dhclient also instead of Automatic in wicd preferences also.

Install inxi in MacPup

noreply@blogger.com (rokytnji) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:56:00 +0000

I haven't posted in a while. I had some Surgeries to deal with. Any Hows. I run Macpup Foxy 3 on one of my Laptops. A IBM T23. I dual boot it with AntiX. Antix has a nice command in terminal called inxi besides a few others. Today I am going to show you how to install inxi in MacPup. This should work for other distros also. But I haven't tried it yet. So do at your own risk/experiment.

If you are interested in MacPup. I recommend the below video to get a idea on what it uses and is.

You Tube Video

First I went to This Site

I Opened my Terminal. In Puppy you are always root user in terminal. So no need for su or sudo. For you sudo users. Use sudo or su before the below command.

cd /usr/local/bin && wget -Nc smxi.org/inxi && chmod +x inxi

I have already installed inxi so I won't run the command again. Just hit enter and you will have wget download and install inxi into your Operating System. Like I said. I used MacPup Foxy 3 for this install.

After it is done downloading and is installed. I closed Terminal to be on the safe side and reopened it before running inxi Command. This might not be necessary.

This post was done on a IBM T23 Laptop that boots AntiX 8.5rc3, AntiX 8.2, Macpup Foxy 3, and Puppy 4.31. Happy Trails, Rok

Edit: since I have posted this. I have installed this on Puppy linux 4.31, Puppy Dingo 4, NOP Puppy Linux, Bruno Puppy Linux, Lighthouse Puppy linux. This script works on all those variations of Puppy Linux I have tested this on.

Vote for Ogg Support in Youtube

noreply@blogger.com (L4Linux) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 08:58:00 +0000

Google has started offering experimental support for viewing Youtube videos using html5 in testtube. THis means that you don't need to have flash installed! The problem is that you can't take advantage of it in Firefox, since testtube uses the proprietary h264 codec for the html5 videos, while Firefox uses the open codec Ogg Theora.

So, vote for Ogg support on Youtube. You only need to sign in with your Gmail account.

Web should be open, using open standards and formats.
Spread the word about voting for Youtube Ogg support in your blogs, facebook pages, etc.

Make Linux look better with mozilla add-ons

noreply@blogger.com (L4Linux) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:44:00 +0000

Since Jaunty, Ubuntu has a very cool notification system. KDE developers have also reworked the notification system to be more elegant and functional. The only problem is that not all applications use them yet, so there are inconsistencies between applications. This is solved for Firefox and Thunderbird, with the use of add-ons.

For Firefox, there is FirefoxNotify if you use Ubutnu and PlasmaNotify if you use any KDE based distribution.

FirefoxNotify for Ubuntu

PlasmaNotify for KDE

For Thunderbird you can use Mozilla Notification Extensions (currently experimental, didn't cause any issues to me) or Growl New Message Notification if you are using a MAC. The page of the last, notes that there is a newer version in the project's website, but at the moment it just displays "Blog program not done yet."

Mozilla Notification Extensions for Ubuntu

Since Firefox & Thunderbird are installed by default in many KDE distributions and Ubuntu (only Firefox), they should consider preinstalling those add-ons as well for a more unified look.

Firefox 3.6 & 3.7 speed

noreply@blogger.com (L4Linux) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 15:38:00 +0000

I just run the Sunspider Javascript test on Firefox 3.5.5 (latest stable version), 3.6 Beta 4 and 3.7 pre-Alpha.

The results will vary depending on your PC specifications and Operating System.
Mine was a Pentium Dual-Core 3.2 GHz with 2Gb Ram, running Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 1 "Lucid Lynx" from a Live-USB.

So, the results were:
Firefox 3.5.5: 2306.4ms
Firefox 3.6b4: 2052.8ms
Firefox 3.7pre-a1: 1609.8ms

Well done Mozilla. That represents about 40% increase in Javascript speed. And what about competitive browsers?
Chrome 4.0.249.30 (beta): 812.0 ms
Opera 10.10: 7249.2ms

Well, not so well done I guess...But until Chrome gets 1/10th of Firefox's add-ons, I can't consider it as my first choice. Opera was inexplicably slow, maybe it has something to do with the Alpha version of Ubuntu... But Opera was the amazing feature of being a web server at the same time, which means you can stream your music from it, host your chat room or show your photos to your friends. Firefox is still my browser of choice because of the add-ons and I use Opera when I need this functionality. I hope Firefox and Chrome will release an edition with a built-in server in the feature.

Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala. The best Ubuntu till now. Period.

noreply@blogger.com (L4Linux) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 06:58:00 +0000

Having tried the Alpha 5 in September and finding it stable and fast in my laptop, I was very eager to try the official release.
If reading the rest bores you, the verdict in 2 words is:
it rocks!!
And yes, the brown-orange theme has finally gone away!!

Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope had nice improvements such as the ext4 filesystem, which offered faster boot times among other advantages and the cool redesigned notification system, the disaster of the Intel graphics driver made it unusable to 50% of laptops... Having this terrible regression fixed by switching to the new UXA acceleration method, what new does Karmic Koala brought that made me and everyone else write dithyrambic reviews???
(Apart from trolls and Ubuntu-haters...)

First of all, ext4 has now matured enough and it is the default option on a new installation. It makes the boot process a lot faster, which is a big plus especially to netbooks.
In Karmic Koala, apart from the under the hood technical improvements, there were leaps in usability.

Usability improvements:
During the development of Karmic Koala, the 100 papercuts project started with the aim to fix minor annoyances, which experienced users wouldn't notice any more, but are visible to newcomers and adding up they could make a noticeable difference in usability.
While Ubuntu is being installed, there is a slideshow that guides users to the programs they need to use(Empathy for IM, Evolution for emails, F-Spot for photo album...) and most importantly to the Software Center in order to install programs. Amen!!!Finally the new Ubuntu user can figure out how to install a program without having to find someone who has done it before or ask in forums.The Software Center is a much improved version of the old Add/Remove(which many assumed that it was mainly for Uninstalling programs, like in the "intuitive" windows) and has the big advantage of fetching a screenshot of each application to help the user find what he/she wants among the thousands of available applications. It is also lays the necessary infrastructure for Companies to sell their applications, in the likes of the Android market.

(Software Center, new theme, "humanity" icons and cool notifications)

New Artwork:
The artwork finally improved considerably, with a fancier boot screen and a very cool -in my opinion- GDM login screen. As for the notification system, it dims & blurs when you hover the mouse over it and it simply looks awesome!!! I really hope it makes way upstream to Gnome, so every Gnome based distro will have it. The Human theme was updated and it is dark brown instead of the much criticized brown-orange of previous versions and there are other themes you can actually use(in the past versions, I haven't heard of a single person in the world to have ever used Crux theme for more than a day...). The new Humanity icons are far superior to the mundane Human icons of the previous versions and there are abundant wallpapers to choose from vs the only 2-3 wallpapers in the past.

Ubuntu One client preinstalled: Ubuntu One can be very useful for sharing files between Ubuntu PCs. Unfortunately if you use other OSs apart from Ubuntu , you won't find the appropriate client for them...But you can still use the Web GUI to get a file you need or upload something. The more frequent use I can find for Ubuntu One is syncing files between my home PC and my netbook, which runs Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

(Ubuntu One web interface)

Default applications:
The deafault applications are in their newest versions: Firefox 3.5, OpenOffice 3.1, Gnome 2.28 and kernel 2.6.31.Kubuntu comes with KDE 4.3.2, which has the awesome, the best theme ever "Air", to which win7 theme looks suspiciously alike (good move by MS!). If someone would make a Gnome rip-off theme of "KDE Air" I would immediately use it, in place of anything else. Unfortunately Kubuntu doesn't come with all the improvements of Ubuntu, such as the Software Center.
Netbook users will prefer the UNR edition (Ubuntu Netbook Remix), whose interface was revamped to be even easier to use in the small netbook screens.

(Ubuntu Netbook Remix, new simpler-to-use interface design)

Servers:
There is also the server edition, but personally I'll wait for 10.04, which will be an LTS version with 5 year support for servers. Till then my 8.04 install will keep serving me, as it has without failure for the last 1,5 year. For anyone who wants to set up a new server, it is a good choice because you can get official paid support from Canonical should you want to, and it also has Eucalyptus infastructure for deploying your Ubuntu installation to Amazon Servers.

The Future:
Next Ubuntu version 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" will be a Long Term Support(LTS) version and will receive 5 years of support for servers and 3 years for all other editions. Since it will be an LTS version, the primary goal will be maximum stability, which will make it a good choice for OEMs to include in their products. The artwork design will once again improve, as well as the usability with another launch of the "100 papercuts" project. Currently, no radical new features have been announced and there probably won't be any, since ext4 is already the default file system and the next generation BTRFS is still under heavy development. Gnome 3.0 with the totally redisigned Gnome-shell won't make it for the same reason(not mature enough for an LTS version) but it will be available in the repositories.
In the netbook field, Ubuntu Moblin remix will be released as well as the awesome (I have used awesome too many times, haven't I? But it's worth it ) looking Kubuntu Netbook Remix, which will be the best looking netbook OS by a long shot.

(Kubuntu Netbook. Was I exaggerating of it being awesome??
I think simply "awesome" is actually an understatement!)

So what are you waiting for?? Download Ubuntu today and give it a try.

Hosting Your Windows 7 Torrenting Party

noreply@blogger.com (L4Linux) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 06:40:00 +0000

A video from Funny or Die UK.
If you are against piracy, yet you don't like paying overpriced products so a Corporation can make billions, while you get payed sh*t, just don't use win7... Use Ubuntu instead or any other Linux distribution.

Asus EEEPC 701 and 900 Anshul's Theme Manager = ATM

noreply@blogger.com (rokytnji) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:38:00 +0000

I can only report that this theme manger works great in Asus EEE PC 701 and 900 Xandros EASY DESKTOP Netbooks. Because this is Soooooo Neeeeew that these are the only 2 Netbooks so far that this script has been tested on. Anybody with a Asus Xandros Easy Desktop should try this script out. I run it on my Xandros Easy Desktop and it is the bomb In my opinion. Gives you a way to change wallpapers and themes and icons and also give a bouncy icon Mac look via a GUI interface. Simple to use also.

Here is what the author (a really good guy) of this script has to tell you about this

ATM-the theme manager for my eeepc
For my eeepc vanity needs i used to use theemer a wonderfully designed application with great gui.However,of late,i have not been using theemer as there is a bug in it on using gradient based images for the tabs in AsusLauncher the text on the tabs disappear which seems to be due to resizing of images in theeemer.I like changing my desktop look often and since i was unable to get theemer to work the way i wanted it to , I decided to make my own little script with gui using gtkdialog .

More Here

If you use his script to change your wallpapers or whatever in Easy Desktop on your Asus EEE PC Netbook. Please take the time to thank him and let him know you appreciate his hard work. If running something other than a 701 or 900 Asus EEE Let him know it works on your model or what doesn't work so he can incorporate it. He did that for me on my 900 when I tested his script. He is a very nice guy in my opinion also. I love my customized Xandros Easy Mode Desktop.

The second screenshot shows the difference between Anshuls older version 1 script and now his latest which I used which is Version 2.2. Notice how I changed the Desktop icons and how the taskbars look now between the two different versions and screenshots. I think Anshuls (thanks man) script is the bomb!

Update: Anshuls site has moved.

Update: He has another new site also

Karmic Koala Alpha5

noreply@blogger.com (L4Linux) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 06:40:00 +0000

I downloaded Ubuntu Karmic Koala Alpha 5 today and gave it a test in my laptop. This laptop has Intel 945 graphics chip and it performed horribly with Ubuntu Jaunty (9.04). For this reason, I still use Ubuntu 8.10 in that laptop and in my desktop I use 9.04.

The Live-USB booted with no issues. The boot process now uses Xsplash instead of Usplash and it is different than the previous version. The rest of the artwork is still the same, but it should change a lot until September 24th when the Artwork deadline exprires. The notification system dims & blurs when you hover the mouse over it and it simply looks awesome!!!

Default desktop, showing the cool notification system

The first thing I wanted to check was of course the performance of Intel graphics chip. Compiz worked flawlessly and glxgears run at about 1000fps, which was almost equal to 8.10 installed on the HDD. In 9.04, it had regressed several times slower.

I connected using an ethernet cable and as usual it worked fine.
Sound was fine too and after 5 hours of running from the Live USB, it didn't crash (some applets crashed here and there, but the X system never)so I guess I could even upgrade now to this ALPHA version and start using it for my everyday computing!! After installation it will boot and run a lot faster compared to the live-USB and previous versions, since it uses the ext4 filesystem by default. By the time the stable version is released, the stable kernel and the tweaks by Ubuntu developers will probably give it another boost to speed along with stability.

I noticed a bug, the workspace switcher won't allow you to increase the number of virtual desktops, It was already submitted to Ubuntu's Launchpad, but not to Gnome bugzilla, so I filled it in the latter(copied Ubuntu's bug report actually...)
So, that makes me a Gnome developer now, I guess...LOL!

Update: The bug is marked as fixed in Gnome bugzilla.

Summary of tests I performed on my laptop:

Graphics card: ✔
Sound: ✔
Ethernet: ✔
wireless: not tested
Microphone:✔
Touchpad, usb ports:✔
Function keys: ✔

So does an upgrade to Karmic Koala seem a good choice?
For those with Intel graphics, it is an absolute must, since the driver in Jaunty was slow & broken and made many Ubuntu users skip that version or switch to other distros. For everyone else, it is a welcome (and free...) upgrade which includes a new kernel, ext4 by default, Firefox 3.5, Openoffice 3.1 and Gnome 2.28.

Next Alpha ver.6 will be available in September 17 and it will probably include new artwork, since the Artwork Second Drop, will take place in September 10th.

Pimp your GIMP!!

noreply@blogger.com (L4Linux) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:14:00 +0000

You already know GIMP, as it comes pre-installed with half Linux distributions or you may use it in Windows. It has a ton of features but it doesn't come with many brushes to boost your creativity even further. No problem! You can simply add brushes made by professional artists very easily and for free. Some great sites are Qbrushes.com, Brusheseezy, PSbrushes, deviantART GIMP brushes, deviantART PS brushes..

-What?? It says "Quality brushes for Photoshop"!

That is not an issue as GIMP can use Photoshop bruses. Simply download any brush you like, uncompress it and copy it to /home/username/.gimp-2.6 (this will vary according to username and version). Next time you launch GIMP, you can select your new brushes and make great designs.

(A few of Qbrushes)

While I was adding brushes, GIMP refused to start. A brush set was the issue, so I deleted it and GIMP continued to work fine. The other 10 brush sets I downloaded, worked with no issues.

Install AntiX 8.2 Final on External Flash Drive

noreply@blogger.com (rokytnji) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 23:29:00 +0000

Following this tutorial without backing up your data is done at your own risk.

I own a Asus EEE 900. It is a Celeron M, clocked at 900hz,1 gig ram, with a 4gig and a 16 gig internal SSD with Xandros as the stock operating system. I wanted to keep my Xandros on here as I have customized Xandros using the EEE PC Wiki .

So I bought me a 8 gig SDHC Flash Drive. Formated it with Gparted . I formatted the whole 8 gig flash drive as a Primary EXT 2 Partition with no swap partition. I then Downloaded Antix 8.2 and took out my Kingston 2 gig USB drive I have and used it to make a bootable USB using Unetbootin. By the way, You can use a smaller flash drive like a 1 gig or even a 512 mb to make your bootable flash drive. Though on the 512 mb one, I haven't tried it so if someone does use one. Let us know.

Ok, Now my 8 gig flash drive is installed into the r/h slot on Net book. I insert my 2 gig Bootable USB drive and Power up my Asus being sure to hit escape while booting so I can get into the boot order to select the live USB as first boot.

Press Space Bar as Antix Boots up. Now on to the Install. On your install the drives may be different designations than mine. So pay attention to which drive is which. I used Gparted and wrote down the drive letters for all my drives. Because with 2 internal, and 2 external drives. It is easy to get confused. So I recommend a pencil and a piece of paper.

Press AntiX Installer off of Menu Selection.

Agree to the terms and Hit Next

Now I open Gparted again during the install process so I can flag my Hard drive as Boot. I also Label my Hard drive as root "/".

I check every thing when done. Everything Looks in order. Notice that my 8 gig Flash drive is described as sdc1. This is important to remember as we go through the install. Remember or write on a piece of paper the drive letters. You will need them later.

Now close Gparted and we are back to the installer. Remember SDC? That is where I want AntiX to install to. So on Line 1a. I select sdc using the arrow next to where it says sda. I also select custom install on existing Partitions.

I hit next. This brings me to the next page. I make sure I click the box that says "Preserve data in /home if upgrading" so that my ext2 file system won't be reformatted as EXT3 (special thanks to ICE-M in AntiX forums for this tip). I make sure sdc1 is still the destination drive also.Disregard the ext3 tab window as clicking the box preserve data in /home if upgrading nullifies that.

Hit next and Antix installer is nice enough to give you one final warning and let you know exactly where it is going to install to and also that you do not wish to format either. Once you say OK and hit next. You will be off to the races. If you say no you can start over. Nice feature I think.

Now kick back and relax. Takes just a few minutes to install Depending on your rig.

Now to install grub. I make sure I have sdc selected as boot disk and tell it to install to MBR.

Hit Next. Wait for the Grub installed OK message.

Hit OK. On to the next Page. I accept defaults and hit next.

Next page type in Computer Name and domain.

Next page sets up Keyboard and locale config.

Next page you set up user name and password and root password.

Next page is the finish line. When you hit finish. You may get a error, about naming the user directory. I just click OK and Hit finish again.

Now you get a pop up asking if you wish to continue running the Live USB/CD or reboot into the operating system. I chose not to reboot yet because I wished to shutdown completely so I could remove my Live USB Drive without hurrying.

I power up again after removing USB Drive. I make sure I hit escape to bring up my boot menu again in bios. I select my 8 gig flash drive as first boot. Every time I wish to boot up AntiX as a dual boot with Xandros, I will have to use escape button to select external 8 gig flash drive in the boot order to boot up AntiX. If I don't, it will just default to booting up Xandros. I am Welcomed with the AntiX Grub Screen. It is quite attractive. I select the top Menu item. AntiX boots. I get a grub error 15. I think in my unprofessional opinion that with 2 internal drives,and one 2 gig external USB,and 1 external 8 gig SDHC Flash card. That grub menu.lst got confused as to which drive was the boot drive for Antix. I have heard from a friend this happens with a Fedora 11 install to a external flash drive also.

I press any key to continue. Next I press the "e" key to get me to edit the grub entry for booting root. I press e again on the next page. I change the root entry (hd2,0) to (hd0,0), I press enter. Then I press the letter "b" so I can boot. Antix 8.2 Final is now booting up. I press the space bar again to continue with the booting process.

After I get to my Desktop I open Terminal. Now I used su to become root user. I typed in su without thinking. Actually you should type in sux in AntiX to become root user. But su worked for me.Hit enter. I type in my password and hit enter. I type in

leafpad /boot/grub/menu.lst

and hit enter.

That opens up my /boot/grub/menu.lst with leafpad editor so I can now edit it to boot up AntiX properly.

I proceed to edit /boot/grub/menu.lst. I like a longer default time so I change it from 15 to 30 seconds. I edit both root entries in grubs menu so I can boot up AntiX and Xandros even If I boot from AntiX Grub screen. I change the Antix at sdc1 root entry from (hd2,0) to (hd0,0). I change my Normal Boot (which is actually Xandos) root entry from (hd0,0) to (hd1,0). My /boot/grub/menu.lst now looks like the screen shot below

Here is a complete screen screenshot of what my new AntiX 8.2 /boot/grub/menu.lst looks like. I only showed the smaller window on previous screen shots because I didn't need the whole window maximized to make the changes I needed to make.

I go to close the window when done and say yes to saving my changes.

Now all that is left is to connect to the net. I open Control Panel>Network>Connect Wireless.
I first go to preferences (on top task bar) and ( scroll though tabs in preferences till I find dhclient with a empty check box) and use dhclient to connect. You need to check that box to connect. At least I had to to connect completely. I then hit the connect button to connect up wireless and check the box for automatically connect to this network.

I then test my wireless

This is how I installed AntiX 8.2 to a 8 gig SDHC External Flash Drive. This worked for me. I prefer AntiX 8.2 instead of Easy Peasy or EEEbuntu because Of the speed at which it runs on the flash drive. Both Ubuntus don't require editing the /boot/grub/menu.lst if you decide to use either of those distros following this tutorial. I just prefer AntiX. Special thanks goes to Anticapitalista and all the members at AntiX Forum who held my hand and gave me help when asked for. Thanks guys.

One last hint or note. If You boot into Xandros with the flash card drive still plugged in and it gives you the pop up window for your flash drive to open it in File Manager. Just close it first. Then Unmount your Flash Drive using the icon from your bottom Task bar. The reason I mention this, is because the next time you boot up the flash drive into AntiX or whatever you install to flash drive. The boot loader will complain that you didn't unmount the external flash drive cleanly. It will then do a disk check for errors and then reboot again. So if you want to leave the external flash drive in its slot. Make sure you unmount it before you do anything else in Xandros. You might forget later when you go to shutdown. Just a small tip.

Update Sept11, 2009

To fix undefined Video mode at boot up I opened up as root /boot/grub/menu.lst and edited vga=791 to vga=785

This line in menu.lst is what I am refering to. You can use leafpad as root to edit it like I showed in above instructions.

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-1-mepis-smp root=/dev/sdc1 nomce quiet nosplash vga=785

Fixing Old Gear

noreply@blogger.com (rokytnji) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:34:00 +0000

I own a old IBM 390E, 14.1 inch LCD Screen, Pentium 2, 366mhz, 64mb of ram, 3 gig hardrive. It had been collecting Dust in the computer room. It had been dropped by the previous owner on the left Hinge corner breaking the corner of the base to where the Hinge snapped loose and there was no plastic on the base to attach the hinge and screen to. Also the monitor would not display a screen but I checked it with a External CRT monitor and it would display with it. It had Windows ME on it. (Notice the word had)

I played with it once in a while learning about computers and Linux with it. It was my first computer 2 years ago. I ran Xubuntu and Mepis on that puppy after I put 2 128mb sticks of ram in it to bring it up to 256mb.

Today I decided I was going to fix that baby back to where it should work better than it did before it was broken.

I broke out my JB Weld Quick and started Building up the plastic with epoxy. Sanded and filed till I got a good foundation to remount the hinge to. I then drilled out the broken screws in the hinge and tapped out the holes to one size
bigger which is 6-32 screws. Fastened everything together and open and closed Laptop. Locks on display cover worked. Open and closes smoothly.Did this numerous times to make sure my chemical weld job would hold. Success there.

Next it was on to figure out why the screen wouldn't display. Pulled the Keyboard. Unscrewed 2 screws where the screen plugs into the motherboard and checked for bent pins and such. Nothing Amiss there. Next I removed the plastic outer casing that holds the LCD in place. It is a pretty involved process let me tell ya.

Anyhows fast forward a bit. Now the Hardrive is pulled, Cdrom is pulled, Battery is pulled. LCD screen can be pryed up now from back plastic of Display casing. I have replugged in the LCD where it connects to the motherboard and secured it.I hook up the AC Adapter and power that puppy up. I pry up the LCD which puts a little pressure on the ribbon Harness
that goes from the motherboard connector to the back of the LCD Screen where it connects to the screen. Yowzaa. I get
a no operating system found now displayed on the screen.

You see, when this laptop was dropped, It also messed up the connection of the ribbon cable going to the back of the
LCD Screen. I applied pressure forcing the ribbon cable to make a good connection as far as it could go into the connection housing (which is a flaky setup, but standard on glass LEDs) and took the clear pieces of Duct Tape I had
precut for this repair. And Taped up that Harness to the back of screen while applying pressure to ensure the cable was seated firmly.

To make a long blog post short. I reassembled it. Fired it up. Runs just Like new but better. Now I got another pet project done, with something to show for it. Now on for the distro dance. Though I might pop in a 8 gig Microdrive
Hardrive out of a Ipod in it to boost the gigs on it. I have a CF to IDE Laptop adapter for just that purpose. We'll see.

Google OS announced!!!!!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (L4Linux) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:03:00 +0000

From the OFFICIAL Google blog!! This is NOT a speculation from me or any other day-dreaming blogger!!!
They clearly say that it will be open-source and specifically Linux and that they are already talking to their partners. This is Huge news. A lot of people I know did not intend to use Linux, simply because they are lazy and wouldn't try anything new...But when I ask this simple question: "Would you try Google Linux??", their answer is always "I would try anything that comes from Google". Everyone loves or loves to hate Google, compared to other competing companies that people ...well, just hate most of the time. I can't wait to try the first beta, alpha, whatever version comes out. Can you?

So today, we're announcing a new project that's a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It's our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we're already talking to partners about the project, and we'll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.

Dropbox vs Ubuntu-One

noreply@blogger.com (L4Linux) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:28:00 +0000

My request for using Ubuntu-One Beta was approved by Canonical, so I immediately made a small (& un-scientific) test. I put 13 files, totaling 23,4MB, first in Ubuntu-One and then in Dropbox.
It took 5' 56" for Ubuntu-One and 4'25" for Dropbox in my ADSL line to synchronize the files. For the time being, Dropbox is faster. Furthermore it has the significant advantage of being cross-platform, while Ubuntu-One works only in Ubuntu. I use Ubuntu both at home and work, but I also use Fedora and rarely Windows and moreover I want to share files with people that don't use Ubuntu. So in my case I can only use it as personal cloud storage space and not for sharing. What's the point of having files in the cloud if you can't access them from every available platform? (I would also like to see both in Solaris and BSD, as well)
Ubuntu-One's speed will probably get better in the future, but unless Canonical makes it cross platform, I really don't see anyone (including me) to keep using it.

Sound Converter

noreply@blogger.com (rokytnji) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Sound Converter is a gnome sound conversion available for Linux. You can convert music files into another format (OOG, MP3 and Flac). The tool is very simple, just add the files, set the destination directory and convert the files.

The how to with pictures is here:
http://taufanlubis.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/sound-converter-%E2%80%...

Here is a more detailed How to from me.

Insert CD, The window below should open up. Click on Copy to Library

Disregard the time in the lower window. It doesn't take that long on my rig. More like 10 to 15 minutes.
Open up home folder then music folder and you should have a folder like mine (though the one I'm doing is Tom Petty)

Now I'm going to create a Folder named Tom Petty 2 in harry/home

I wanna show you where sound converter now is.

Now select open file

Find your Music folder, Double left click it. Keep double clicking till you get to the listing of music you wish to convert.

Now click on edit and use select all. This will highlight all the songs you wish to copy off album. You can delete any songs later when you are done in its new folder (Tom Petty 2), Or you can select just individual songs to convert. Next hit the open button and your window should look like this below.

Now go to preferences. I make sure that destination folder is Tom Petty 2 by using the Choose button. I am converting my music from oog to mp3 if you look at the picture

Now just hit the Convert Button and you are off to the races. Not bad for a Tattoed knuckle dragging Biker who hated computers. If I can do it. Anybody can. Happy trails Guys and Gals

How to install Easy Peasy in Acer Aspire One

noreply@blogger.com (L4Linux) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:01:00 +0000

I 've been using Acer Aspire One for the last month and while I really like its GUI, which made it easy to use like a cell-phone, the pre-installed Linpus Lite is well...Lite...
So I decided to install Ubuntu 8.10. But the conventional GUI of any OS, whether it is Ubuntu, Fedora or Windows is not well fitted to 9" screens. So my options where to install the "Easy Peasy" version of Ubuntu (Formerly Ubuntu Eee) or to install the interface of HP Mini. As you already guessed from the article title, I installed Easy Peasy!!!

First download Easy Peasy and burn the image to a CD(if you have a USB Cd-Rom) or creat a Live-USB, using UNetbootin.
Unetbootin is a great tool that creates a Live-USB, using an ISO file of any Linux distribution. It works on Linux and Windows. It really can't get any better!!

Then press F12 while booting to invoke the boot menu and choose the USB.
It will take a while to boot from the USB, since netbooks are not very fast, but once installed it doesn't take too long to boot(and the next version of Ubuntu & Easy Peasy will boot much faster, especially if you choose to use the EXT4 filesystem).

Easy Peasy will immediately present you the Ubuntu installer. If you want to try it first, to make sure everything works OK, just close the installer. After trying it for 2 hours I concluded that wifi & ethernet work OK, sound and videos OK, camera (using the cheese program) worked OK as well. In 2 words, everything worked out of the box!! Try installing Windows, entering the 25-digit password, going through the activation procedure, install drivers for everything (motherboard, wifi) codecs, firefox, skype, MSN or Pidgin, OpenOffice or MS-Office, antivirus, anti-spyware, anti-trojan, anti-everything and tell us how many hours it took you!!

Enough ranting, let's get back to business...
The installation procedure is exactly the same as for Ubuntu. Select Language, time zone, keyboard layout, partitions, username & password and that's it.
One important point is to use a non-journaling filesystem, because journaling is accussed of reducing the life of SSD drives. If your model has the classic hard disk, than select EXT3 (or EXT4 in the next version 9.04 of Ubuntu, to get better boot times). If your model has SSD, than select EXT2 filesystem.
Apart from the EXT2 filesystem for the / partition, keep the swap partition as it is.

When the installation finishes, remove the USB and reboot. If you are connected to the Internet, you will be notified that there are updates available. These will probably be more than 150 and will take about 1 hour to be downloaded installed, but it is an easy 1click procedure.

If you prefer Thunderbird to Evolution, you can install it through Synaptic(in the Administration section) or from the terminal
sudo apt-get install thunderbird
I aldso installed vlc, although Easy Peasy has codecs for everything. Installation is the same as for Thunderbird.

It can't be that good, it just can't!!!! What's the catch???
If you can call it a catch, Ubuntu 9.04 was released in April 23rd, so you will either have to do a clean install or do an Internet update, which will take a LOT of time in a netbook and I can't recommend it. So you'll need to backup your /home folder, before the upgrade. Or you can wait for the next version of Easy Peasy that will be based on Ubuntu 9.04. Although Easy Peasy may stop being developed, since Jaunty has an official Netbook Version. I'll try it and post again in the next few days.

There is a minor bug, that you can fix within 30sec. The installer coming up every time you reboot after Easy Peasy is installed. Simply go to
->Preferences
->Sessions
and disable Ubiquity

1 day to go for Jaunty!

noreply@blogger.com (L4Linux) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:38:00 +0000

Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope will be released tomorrow!
Most blogs wrote that no exciting new features are present.
I agree. In 6 months Ubuntu got:

A newer kernel
New versions of every application(OO 3 at last, it should be on Ibex repositories all along...)
New cool notification system
Faster boot times thanks to optimizations by Canonical and much more if you use ext4 filesystem

Windows 7 on the other hand, after 3 years of hard work, will have faster boot time and less resource consumption than Vista, which I can't say is a big accomplishment. Making it slower than Vista, now THAT WOULD BE AN ACCOMPLISHMENT!!!!!
Oh and a new theme which looks suspiciously similar to KDE 4.2...How times have changed, Windows being accused as a rip-off...

So, I guess I don't totally agree with other bloggers... Although comparing Ubuntu's or any other Operating System's changelog with Fedora's 11, the comparison is simply humiliating. (Remember that Fedora did all those stuff in just 6 months!!!It is simply phenomenal) Moreover, many of those changes could probably be pushed in Ibex repositories and not require a system upgrade.(Hello, we want open office 3 in 8.10 without the need to enable an extra repository!!)

I am starting to lean on the side for yearly upgrade cycles, instead of 6-moths. Giving the programmers/hackers/developers more time to polish their programs will give everyone higher quality products with mush less bugs. Linux has already matured so much, that going into a 6-month cycle frenzy is no longer needed. "Just works" is just so close that simply avoiding regressions will be greatly appreciated by new users that see a much more technologically advanced system in Linux anyway. Another new feature that makes it even better than Windows in no longer required, compared making a system ready to work right after (or even before!!!) the installation with no user intervention at all.

So, enough of my little rant. Download & use Ubuntu yourself and if you have a netbook, the officialy supported Ubuntu Netbook Remix is a great choice!!

10 Individuals who have contributed the most to FOSS

noreply@blogger.com (L4Linux) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:10:00 +0000

I found in Tuxmachines a link about the biggest contributors to FOSS.
We should all be aware about the people that are forging a better future and ask nothing in return! Well, I believe some if not all became pretty rich or extremely well paid in the process, but they deserve it tenfold!!!They are not like "golden boys" that turned their companies bankrupt!!

http://www.l2admin.com/linux/10-individuals-i-feel-have-contributed-the-most-to-foss/

How to speedup Firefox and Ice Weasel

noreply@blogger.com (rokytnji) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 20:35:00 +0000

This small How to is for those that wish to speed up their Browser, (Firefox or Iceweasel)

To start Off Open A New Tab in Browser to get a blank address bar.

Type in:

about.config

Hit enter

When you get the warning, say yes you will be careful you promise.

This will open a script page. Where it says filter and next to it is a blank address bar Type In:

pipe

Now, what you are going to do is change all these setting below to true.

network.http.pipelining;false
network.http.pipelining.ssl;false
network.http.proxy.pipelining;false

This setting below you are going to change to 30

network.http.pipelining.maxrequests;4

To do these changes, Right click network.http.pipelining line and left click on boolean.

In the preference name. Type in the line that you selected in the window.Then hit OK.

Change all the other lines with "type boolean " the same way your config file should now look like the screenshot below.

Now to change the last line, you do the same as the other lines, but this time you will select integer instead of boolean.

Now add the line like you did the others. then hit OK

Then in next window change the value from 4 to 30. Then hit OK. Your config file should look like this screenshot below now.

Now go ahead and close Firefox so changes can take effect. Then restart you faster browser. There is a noticeable speed improvement. I have also done this in Iceweasel and it works for it also. Happy Trails.