TuxFeed

What used to be one of the most troublesome aspects is nowadays one of the greatest advantages of almost every Linux distribution: software installation and updating. Xubuntu and Ubuntu are no different.

The problem used to be that, in order to install one application, you needed to install a lot of other software (dependencies) in order to get it to work, which meant a lot of work just to install that single application. On top of that, the installation of that application and its dependencies wasn’t a matter of double-clicking an icon - no, you had to open a terminal window, move to the location of the installation files, type ./configure, find out what software you were missing, then… Let’s just say it was a lot of work

The developers of Debian, the Linux distribution where Ubuntu is based on (on which Xubuntu is based ), thought of a solution: they’d bundle the application in so-called packages in which they could store a lot of information about that software, such as which other packages it needed. They then created an application called apt (Advanced Packaging Tool) which could automatically download and install the package and all the packages marked as its dependencies! This is often referred to as package management.

Along with solving the problem of dependencies, this solution had a few other advantages. For one, since apt-get would by default download the packages from one location in control of the Debian developers, you could be quite sure that they were free of viruses. The biggest advantage, however, was that apt-get could check for updates to all packages at once, meaning it takes just one action to get the latest version available of every single application you had installed!

There were downsides too, though. For example, the Debian developers are unable to create a package for every piece of software that is available for Linux (According to Wikipedia, though, Debian has over 26 000 packages, so most of the popular applications are there ). Furthermore, Debian’s package management system wasn’t the only one: Red Hat’s Red Hat Package Manager is an example of another popular packaging method. Ubuntu uses Debian’s method; however, since Ubuntu’s goals differ from Debian’s, they provide the packages from a different location, which means that you cannot just install the packages made for Debian (though often it is possible). However, as Ubuntu can often copy Debian’s packages with very little modification, they offer about 23 000 packages.

As a result of these different methods in different distributions, an application cannot just offer “a Linux version” - at most they will allow you to download “the source” which you can install in the old and painful way. You can see this on the download page of Wormux where they link to a special page with instructions on installing it on many different Linux distributions.

Though there are many efforts like Autopackage, PackageKit, klik, glick, Smart Package Manager, Zero install and OBLISK, the native tools are still preferable.

As for Debian’s method, a graphical tool called Synaptic was also developed, and if that wasn’t enough, the Ubuntu developers also created the tool Add/Remove… (or gnome-app-install) which made the installation of packages even easier. As per Will’s request I’ll guide you through the basic process of package installation on Xubuntu and Ubuntu, and of course, if you have any questions you can leave a comment.

Software sources

The central place for configuring your package management is in Applications->System->Software Sources. As the name says, this application lets you configure the software sources (repositories): the place where Xubuntu downloads all the packages from. By default only a small portion of all available software is enabled. For full access to all 23 000 packages from the Ubuntu repositories you will want to enable the community maintained open source software, proprietary drivers for devices (not open source) and software restricted by copyright and legal issues (this includes e.g. support for playing MPEG videos which Xubuntu is not allowed to ship by default worldwide).

Then there’s the Third Party Software tab, which allows you to enable non-official repositories such as the Personal Package Archives by members of the Ubuntu community. Such third-party repositories often give you a line like:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/jani/ubuntu gutsy main

By clicking Add you can enter such a line and then you have access to all the packages provided in that third-party repository. Note that it is recommended that you stick to the official Ubuntu repositories since these repositories might install newer versions of certain packages which can break other packages, or they might not support newer versions of Ubuntu and Xubuntu which might cause problems when you want to upgrade to a newer version.

These third-party repositories often provide you with their GPG-key, which you can add in the Authentication tab in order to confirm that you trust them. Whenever you update the list of packages from that repository, Xubuntu will check whether this key is still available so as to know it is still the same person that provides the packages.

In the Updates tab you can configure which updates you want and how often you want updates to be checked for. Obviously it is highly recommended that you enable the security updates, and you’ll most likely also want the recommended updates. The proposed updates are updates that haven’t yet been thoroughly checked. Unsupported updates can provide you with newer versions of applications that also provide new features, which were only packaged for newer versions of Xubuntu.

The last tab, Statistics, might not provide direct benefit to you, but it allows you to automatically submit anonymous information about which packages you have installed and how often you use your applications. Statistics are then made available at http://popcon.ubuntu.com/ where they can help the developers and packagers.

Add/Remove…

Ubuntu’s Add/Remove… tool is a great way for you to discover new software to install (Applications->System->Add/Remove...). Applications are sorted in categories and come with an extensive description about what it does. There are also plans to expand this tool’s capabilities to show screenshots, reviews and more, but for now, you’ll have to do with this

In the top corner on the right-hand side, you’ll see a drop-down menu. This menu is a quick way to configure the software sources - again, to have access to the widest available range of software, you’ll want to select “All available applications” here. Clicking Preferences in the bottom left-hand side will take you to the Software Sources configuration window.

You can easily find new applications by searching using the input field at the top. For example, a search for “Firewall” will turn up a list of Firewalls. Installation and uninstallation of applications is easy too: just check or uncheck the checkbox in front of an application’s name, and when you’ve selected all desired changes you click Apply Changes in the bottom right-hand side.

Synaptic

A more advanced tool is Synaptic (Applications->System->Synaptic Package Manager). By clicking the Search button on top you can search for applications: if you already know a package’s name I recommend you to just search on Name as it is notably faster than Description and Name.

Once you have found the package you want to install or uninstall, you can click the checkbox in front of its name. You can then “mark” a package for a certain action, which won’t be performed until you click Apply on top.

If a package has dependencies you do not yet have installed, Synaptic will ask you whether you also want to mark those packages for installation.

Once you click Apply on top, Synaptic will give you an overview of all the package it will install and uninstall. Once you click Apply again it will take care of the installation and notify you when it’s done.

Gdebi

Unfortunately, sometimes a package is just not in the repository. However, an application might still provide you with a package that you might want to install by hand. Or perhaps you want to install an application from the popular site GetDeb.net which, for example, packages a lot of games not available in the Ubuntu repositories. Or perhaps you want to install a package you downloaded from packages.ubuntu.com, which provides all the packages from the Ubuntu repositories, after you transferred them to a computer without internet connection.

For this, Xubuntu comes with the Gdebi Package Installer. Gdebi will be opened when you double-click on a .deb file (the package). It can also download and install dependencies - all it takes is a click on the Install button on top.

Conclusion

Whenever a newer version of a package is available in one of your software sources, you will be notified that an update is available and asked whether you want to install it, or perhaps it will automatically install it in the background, depending on what you set.

As you can see, software installation in Xubuntu and Ubuntu is extremely user-friendly. After having used it for a while, you start to wonder how other people get by checking the websites of every application they want to install or update

Installing Ubuntu on one of these is relatively straight forward, if it were not for the lack of graphics driver support out of the box.
It boots, gives the install menu, so you can choose “start or install ubuntu,” or “install in safe graphics mode” (i tried both) After loading for a little bit, it gives me the following blue screen: “Failed to start the X server (your graphical interface). It is likely that it is not set up correctly. Would you like to view the X server output to diagnose the problem?”

The Dell Inspiron 5160, contains the XGI Volari XP5 video card.

I don’t think Ubuntu has these drivers, or perhaps they are on the disk but the hardware isn’t being recognised.

The important piece of information here is that this card maker was bought by Trident, so look for them in the list of drivers, to see the list, you need to type in the following. Use Ctrl-Alt-F1 to get access to a terminal

ubuntu@ubuntu sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

From here I was able to select Trident
Select defaults for everything

then from a terminal, do the following

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start

It looks like 1024×768 is the resolution to go for.

Try system-config-display from a terminal and see if you can set the correct resolution, 1024×768 or whatever is correct for your laptop’s lcd

PC Repair Forum

Tags: configuring XGI Volari XP5 video card, General, Inspiron 5160 display drivers, XGI Volari XP5 video card dell, XGI Volari XP5 video card ubuntuconfiguring XGI Volari XP5 video card, General, Inspiron 5160 display drivers, XGI Volari XP5 video card dell, XGI Volari XP5 video card ubuntu

©2007 Ubuntu Geek. All Rights Reserved.

.

When you use console in X-Window, often and often you desktop are literally wasted with xterms. It is more important, that you productivity is lowered, too. But here is solution - Yakuake.

Install Yakuake in Debian etch

#aptitude install yakuake

This will complete the installation

Gamer`s console

When I was young, I spent pretty much time with CounterStrike and QuakeIII. And I felled in love with this small and elegant console hidden-in-a-top of screen in Quake. Till now, I was missing this feature on my desktop. But surfing in Synaptic recently, I found what I missed so much - Yakuake - and installed it immediately.

Tweaking is necessary

The main thing after installing Yakuake is tweaking. For comfort and productive work, you should customise Yakuake to yourself: keyboard shortcuts, theme, console hide duration and so on.

First step is to define for yourself with size of console: if it`s too small, you can`t see all that is written in console, and if it`s too large, it can overlap all of applications. I think that vertical size of 40% is fine for me - I can see everything in console and it don`t occludes other applications.

You can customize not only height of Yakuake console, but position on screen as well. It can be positioned in left, right on in centre. Of course, you can set position in procents precisely.

But the main thing in Yakuake are hotkeys. The work in console itself disposes to hotkeys and keyboard use, and properly configured hotkeys combinations can increase you productivity with Yakuake dramatically. There are not so much keys to customise, so tweaking don`t take so much time. By default you can call Yakuake by pressing F12 functional key, but you can redefine it to you choice.

Because Yakuake is very dynamic thing, only video can show it real capabilities, so I made short youtube film and here
A little comment: first of all, film shows conventional work in terminal with xterms in X-Window, and they overlap each other. Then Yakuake is ran, and do the same stuff much more effective.

Original post is HERE.

Tags: install Yakuake debian, Yakuake debian, Yakuake gamers console, Yakuake tutorialsinstall Yakuake debian, Yakuake debian, Yakuake gamers console, Yakuake tutorials

©2007 Debian Admin. All Rights Reserved.

.

Epiphany is the web browser for the GNOME desktop. Its goal is to be simple and easy to use. Epiphany ties together many GNOME components in order to let you focus on the Web content, instead of the browser application. As part of the GNOME project, Epiphany is Free Software.

Powered by the Gecko engine, Epiphany displays webpages with the same speed and accuracy as Mozilla Firefox. In addition, it provides an elegant, responsive and uncomplicated user interface that fits in perfectly with GNOME, and it has been translated to over thirty languages!

epiphany-extensions

Adds extra features to GNOME’s Epiphany web browser, including action, adblocking, auto-reload, auto-scroller, console, extensions manager, find, greasemonkey, javaconsole, mouse gestures, move tabs between windows, python-console, pushscroller, rss extension, error viewer and validator, certificate viewer, sidebar, smart bookmarks, page info, CSS Stylesheet, favicon.ico, tab states and a GNOME Dashboard interface.

Epiphany Features

Security

Epiphany shows you clearly if the information you enter on a webpage is transmitted securely. It can block popup windows, refuse cookies from untrusted sites and store your passwords in a safe place. With Epiphany, you can rest assured that your online privacy is being guarded.

Customizable user interface

Epiphany lets you arrange user interface elements by simply dragging and dropping with your mouse. It also provides tabs, so you can easily organize related webpages on your computer screen.

Smart bookmarks

Smart bookmarks make it a snap to lookup text in online knowledge bases, like dictionaries or search engines. Also, you don’t have to keep track of in which subfolder you put that one bookmark — just assign it some topic(s) and Epiphany will show you the relevant bookmarks in a dropdown menu.

Extensions and plugins

Need some specialized browser function that’s not available in the default menus? There’s a good chance someone has already written an extension for you. The Epiphany Extensions package is what you will need. Epiphany runs all the same popular plugins that run in Mozilla.

Install Epiphany web browser in Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install epiphany-browser epiphany-extensions

This will complete the installation

Using Epiphany web browser

If you want to open Epiphany web browser go to Applications—>Internet—>Epiphany web browser

Epiphany web browser in Action

Epiphany web browser Version Details

If you want to enable Epiphany web browser Extensions go to Tools—>Extensions

Once it opens you should see the following screen where you can enable Extensions

Tags: configuring install Epiphany web browser in Ubuntu, Epiphany web browserscreenshots, General, install Epiphany web browser Extensions, install Epiphany web browser in Ubuntuconfiguring install Epiphany web browser in Ubuntu, Epiphany web browserscreenshots, General, install Epiphany web browser Extensions, install Epiphany web browser in Ubuntu

©2007 Ubuntu Geek. All Rights Reserved.

.

mt-daapd is a DAAP server that works with most POSIX compatible operating systems. It allows you to share your music collection over the local network using the same protocol iTunes uses, so real iTunes users may peruse your music.

Moreover, if your music is in more esoteric formats like FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, or Musepack, these can be converted on the fly to different formats (usually WAV), so that your entire music collection can be listened to by normal iTunes clients.

It also features a web interface that can be used to control components of the server, trigger database updates, and create playlists.

Preparing your system

First of all install ID3 tag support (so mt-daapd can read mp3 files)

sudo apt-get install libid3tag0

Now install mt-daapd using the following command

sudo apt-get install mt-daapd

Configuring mt-daapd

Configuration file is located at /etc/mt-daapd.conf, so make your changes there and test this file using
the following command

sudo mt-daapd -f

Also you have to remember to add the Avahi Daemon to your startup scripts with the following command

sudo update-rc.d avahi-daemon defaults

that provides mt-daapd the Apple ZeroConf services (also known as “Rendezvous” or “Bonjour”). Otherwise your iTunes machines won’t be able to discover the mt-daapd server even thou the server itself is running properly.

To enable smart playlists you have to use the administration WebUI with http://localhost:3689.
Now it will prompt for the username and password as admin and your password setup in mt-daapd.conf file
Once it opens you should see the following screen

You can edit smart playlists under the smart playlists tab either directly as logic script or using the wizard (provided) to fill the rules for playlist generation point-n-click way.

Configuration setup screen

Tags: configuring mt daapd, General, install iTunes compatible Media server in Ubuntu, install mt daapd, Media server in Ubuntu, Media server in Ubuntu gutsyconfiguring mt daapd, General, install iTunes compatible Media server in Ubuntu, install mt daapd, Media server in Ubuntu, Media server in Ubuntu gutsy

©2007 Ubuntu Geek. All Rights Reserved.

.

Lynis is an auditing tool which tests and gathers information from Unix based systems. The audience for this tool are security and system auditors, network specialists and system maintainers.

Lynis features

- System and security audit checks
- File Integrity Assessment
- System and file forensics
- Usage of templates/baselines (reporting and monitoring)
- Extended debugging features

Lynis requirements

- You have to be root (log in as normal user, su to root), or have equivalent
rights (for example by using sudo).
- Have write access to /var/log (for using a log/debug file)
- Have write access to create a report (most likely in the same directory
where Lynis is located)
- Have write access to /tmp (temporary files)

Lynis Installation

Lynis doesn’t have to be installed, so it can be used directly from a (removable) disk. If you want the

program to be installed, use the following method

Create a custom directory (ie. /usr/local/lynis)

#mkdir /usr/local/lynis

#cd /usr/local/lynis

#wget http://downloads.rootkit.nl/lynis-1.0.5.tar.gz

unpack the tarball

#tar xfvz lynis-1.0.5.tar.gz

Now you have lynis directory

Using Lynis

Depending on the installation or the path you run Lynis from, you can start it with ‘lynis’ (if

installed and the file is available in your binary path) or ’sh lynis’ or ‘./lynis’.

#./lynis -c

This will produce similar to the following output

Tags: Lynis, Lynis debian, Lynis security audit tool, Security, system audit tool debianLynis, Lynis debian, Lynis security audit tool, Security, system audit tool debian

©2007 Debian Admin. All Rights Reserved.

.

Firefox 3 Beta 2 is a developer preview release of Mozilla’s next generation Firefox browser and is being made available for testing purposes only.

These beta releases are targeted to Web developers and our testing community to gain feedback before advancing to the next stage in the release process. The final version of Firefox 3 will be released when we qualify the product as fully ready for our users.

Firefox 3 Features

Firefox 3 is based on the new Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform, which has been under development for the past 28 months and includes nearly 2 million lines of code changes, fixing more than 11,000 issues. Gecko 1.9 includes some major re-architecting for performance, stability, correctness, and code simplification and sustainability. Firefox 3 has been built on top of this new platform resulting in a more secure, easier to use, more personal product with a lot under the hood to offer website and Firefox add-on developers.

More Features check here

Installing Firefox3.0 beta2 in ubuntu

Preparing your system

sudo apt-get install libstdc++5

Now you need to take backup of your old firefox prferences

sudo cp -R ~/.mozilla ~/.mozillabackup

Now you need to download firefox 3.0b2 from here

Now you have firefox-3.0b2.tar.bz2 file

Unzip the .tar.bz2 file in /opt directory using the following command

sudo tar -C /opt -jxvf firefox-3.0b2.tar.bz2

Now you need to link the plugins using the following command

cd /opt/firefox/plugins/

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/* .

Now you need to create a link to your new firefox launcher using the following command

sudo dpkg-divert --divert /usr/bin/firefox.ubuntu --rename /usr/bin/firefox

sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox

sudo dpkg-divert --divert /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox.ubuntu --rename /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox

sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox

This will complete the installation of firefox 3.0b2

If you want to open firefox 3 beta 2 go to Applications—>Internet—>Firefox Web Browser

Once you open first time you should see similar to the following screen

Firefox 3.0 beta 2 in Action

Firefox Version Details

Tags: firefox 3 beta 2 install ubuntu 7.10, firefox 3 ubuntu, General, install firefox 3 ubuntu gutsy, install firefox latest version ubuntu 7.10firefox 3 beta 2 install ubuntu 7.10, firefox 3 ubuntu, General, install firefox 3 ubuntu gutsy, install firefox latest version ubuntu 7.10

©2007 Ubuntu Geek. All Rights Reserved.

.

Whowatch is an console, interactive users and process monitoring tool.It displays information about the users currently logged on to the machine, in real-time. Besides standard informations (login name, tty,host, userâs process), the type of the connection (ie. telnet or ssh) is shown. Display of users command line can be switch to tty idle time. Certain user can be selected and his processes tree may be viewed as well as tree of all system processes. Tree may be displayed with additional column that shows owner of each process. In the process tree mode SIGINT and SIGKILL signals can be sent to the selected process. Killing processes is just as simple and fun as deleting lines on the screen.

Install whowatch in ubuntu

sudo apt-get install whowatch

This will install all the required packages for whowatch

Using whowatch

Whowatch has no command line options or configuration file.

If you want to open the whowatch you need to run the following command

whowatch

Now you should see similar to the following screen

All actions are performed in real time by pressing following keys

up,down - cursor movement

i - toggle between user command line and idle time

c - full command line on/off. Disabling full command line can save CPU time. It can give you also some additional information about process executable.

enter - view selected users processes tree.

t - all system processes (init tree)

Tree mode:

up,down - cursor movement

enter - go back to users list

o - show processes owners

c - full command line on/off. Disabling full command line can save CPU time. It can give you also some additional information about process executable.

Ctrl-I - send INT signal to selected process

Ctrl-K - send KILL signal to selected process

s - It will provide the system details

d - Details about the user

Tags: General, install whowatch ubuntu, Server, whowatch, whowatch examples, whowatch screenshots, whowatch ubuntuGeneral, install whowatch ubuntu, Server, whowatch, whowatch examples, whowatch screenshots, whowatch ubuntu

©2007 Ubuntu Geek. All Rights Reserved.

.