Guake drop down terminal

Guake is a top-down terminal for Gnome (in the style of Yakuake for KDE, Tilda or the terminal used in Quake). You can start Guake with F12 key. You can customize guake to suit your needs. To install guake type in terminal:

sudo apt-get install guake

To make guake run at startup, type in console:

sudo cp /usr/share/applications/guake.desktop /etc/xdg/autostart/

To learn more about guake, visit http://labs.alfaiati.net/guake/

Howto turn numlock on at startup in ubuntu

It is pretty annoying that ubuntu has numlock off as default during startup for people that use digits in their passwords. Good thing is, it's not that hard to change this. To turn numlock on during startup by default proceed with these commands in terminal:


First install numlockx - program to control the NumLock key inside X11 session scripts:

baban@brux:~$ sudo apt-get install numlockx

Now create a backup file for /etc/gdm/Init/Default

baban@brux:~$ sudo cp /etc/gdm/Init/Default /etc/gdm/Init/Default_backup

Open the file in your fave editor (vi, gedit, nano):

baban@brux:~$ sudo vi /etc/gdm/Init/Default

Insert these lines before "exit0":

if [ -x /usr/bin/numlockx ]; then
/usr/bin/numlockx on
fi

Next time you log in a numlock will be on.

How to add a second disk to your ubuntu box using command line

Recently I have installed ubuntu karmic (9.10) on my old box. It also had a second older disk (160Gb) with FreeBSD on it, which I wanted to use within this box. Adding another disk via command line is not that hard as you might think it is, but I don't reccomend doing it by yourself if you have just switched to ubuntu from window$. Anyways I have tested this howto on karmic koala and it worked like a breeze, but don't blame me when somthing goes wrong - use this howto at your own risk :P

At first I will post a short overview of what needs to be done:

1, Partition the disk with fdisk
2, Create the filesystem on the partition with mkfs
3, Mount the filesystem with mount and /etc/fstab file

Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) is now available

Canonical has announced the release of Ubuntu 9.10 See the press release, release notes and feature overview for more information. Get them from: ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso and ubuntu-9.10-desktop-amd64.iso

New features introduced with Karmic Koala:

• Faster, simplified, better-looking boot experience for most users

• Audio revamp allowing improved sound control across multiple applications

• Firefox 3.5: latest, fastest, most secure web browser yet from Mozilla

• Software Center
  

• Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC)

• Grub2 by default

• Ext4 filesystem by default
  

Ubuntu 9.10 - Karmic Koala RC released

Steve Langasek has announced the availability of the one and only release candidate for Ubuntu 9.10, code name "Karmic Koala": "The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the Release Candidate for Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop and Server editions, Ubuntu 9.10 Server for UEC and EC2, and the Ubuntu Netbook Remix. We consider this release candidate to be complete, stable, and suitable for testing by any user. Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop edition improves on the work of 9.04 to get you going faster, with improved start-up times and a streamlined boot experience."

Get RC 9.10 images here:
Ubuntu 9.10 RC 32bit
Ubuntu 9.10 RC 64bit

Full circle magazine issue 29

Full Circle is a free, independent, magazine dedicated to the Ubuntu family of Linux operating systems. Each month, it contains helpful how-to articles and reader submitted stories. Besides Ubuntu other flavours of *buntu are being mentioned in the articles such as Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu... Here are the main topics included in 29-th issue:

• Command and Conquer
• How-To: Program in Python – Part 3, LAMP Server – Part 2, Virtual Private Networking.
• My Story – One Man’s Journey, and Walk With Ubuntu.
• Review – Kompozer.
• MOTU Interview – Iulian Udrea.
• Top 5 – Physics Games.
• Ubuntu Games, as well as all the usual goodness!
  

Get this and all other issues from fullcircle webpage: http://fullcirclemagazine.org/

Funny login message with fortune

Fortune is a nice piece of code that prints out a random epigram. Epigrams are divided into several categories. To make it print an epigram upon logging in the console, we need to install it first:

sudo apt-get install fortune

As per step 2, we need to add this to ~/.bashrc file
if [ -x /usr/games/fortune ]; then /usr/games/fortune -s fi

Now, every time you log in to your console you will see some funny text as a welcome message generated by fortune like:
You are a very redundant person, that's what kind of person you are.

Or like this:
You will be run over by a bus.

Access your Box.net account as a folder in ubuntu

Box.net is offering 1GB of free space for your storage. It is also a great substitution for micro$oft sharepoint. I wanted to access the box.net account directly from my Desktop. To accomplish that I have created a launcher on the Desktop. To create a box.net free account visit http://box.net/ to check the howto proceed with reading :)

At first install davfs2 support by typing:
$ sudo apt-get install davfs2

Create a file (this will be a launcher icon) on yout desktop by typing in console. You can use any editor you like, my fave is vi so I will use that:
$ vi ~/Desktop/Box.desktop

Paste this thing into the Box.desktop file:
#!/usr/bin/env xdg-open

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Version=1.0
Type=Link
Icon[en_US]=gnome-panel-launcher
Name[en_US]=Box
URL=dav://www.box.net/dav
Name=Box
Icon=/usr/share/icons/Human/48x48/places/folder-remote.png

Now just doubleclick on the desktop icon. You will be prompted for login and password. You can make ubuntu remember your password by selecting remember password forever. You can also edit file /etc/davfs2/secrets to store your password and login there.

Creating fancy server message with figlet

Every time you log in to the server you can see a message that is shown on the terminal. The message comes from the file /etc/motd (message of the day). If you want the users to notice your message, you can make it a little bit fancy :) You can use figlet to do that. Figlet can create multiple types of ascii text messages in nice font. More about this tool is available on http://www.figlet.org/

To install figlet type in command prompt: sudo apt-get install figlet

Now, to create Fancy server name text and center it horizontally (as image shows), use this command:
$ figlet -f block -c "Fancy server name" > /etc/motd

You can use more types of fonts specified with -f option, but only one at a time. To list a directory with available figlet fonts use:
$ figlet -I2

Remove external media with Ejecter

Ejecter is an utility to safely, easily remove external media. A simple menu that sits in the system notification area, providing you a quick way to unmount external peripherals such as usb pendrives, cd/dvd, external hard disks and so.

To install ejecter on ubuntu type in console: sudo apt-get install ejecter
To check more info about ejecter go to homepage: https://launchpad.net/ejecter

Red notebook personal diary and journal

RedNotebook is a graphical diary and journal helping you keep track of notes and thoughts. It includes a calendar navigation, customizable templates, export functionality and word clouds. You can also format, tag and search your entries.

To install it type in console: sudo apt-get install rednotebook

Red notebook includes theese features (author promissed more functions later) :

• Enter text for individual days and navigate using a fancy calendar
• Add Categories to days and fill them with content
• Tag your entries
• Format your text bold, italic or underlined
• Insert Images, files and links to websites
• Links and mail addresses are recognized automatically
• (Live) Search
• Automatic saving
• Backup to zip archive
• Word Clouds with most often used words and tags
• Templates for each weekday and arbitrarily named ones
• Export the journal to HTML, Latex or plain text
• Graphical preferences dialog
• You can have multiple journals
• RedNotebook is open source software, you are free to use and redistribute it under the terms of the GPL
• The data is stored in plain text files, no database is needed

Check the homepage at http://digitaldump.wordpress.com/projects/rednotebook/

Monitor your boot with bootchart

Bootchart is a tool for performance analysis and visualization of the GNU/Linux boot process. Resource utilization and process information are collected during the boot process and are later rendered in a PNG, SVG or EPS encoded chart.

To install botchart type in console: sudo apt-get install bootchart

Bootchart collects various statistics from /proc utilising a shell script which collects the info. After the next boot you will find detailed performance chart created by java application showing your boot in /var/log/bootchart directory and also a tarball containing logs.

The only thing I don't like about bootchart is, that after some time you will find a lot of logs and images in the bootchart folder while there is no script to delet them after some time. We can fix this by creating a cron job:

At first use your favourite editor to edit crontab:

To edit crontab with nano:
sudo crontab -e

To edit crontab with vi:
export EDITOR=vi; sudo crontab -e

Add this line to root crontab if you want to delete files older than 30 days:
@reboot /usr/bin/find /var/log/bootchart -type f -mtime +30 -exec rm {} \;
To find out more about bootchart - check the bootchart web at http://www.bootchart.org/

Monitor your weight with pondus

Pondus is a personal weight management program written in Python and Gtk+2 released under the GPL. It aims to be simple to use, lightweight and fast.

The data can be plotted to get a quick overview of the history of your weight. You can choose from kilograms / pounds metrics.

A simple weight planner allows to define "target weights" and this plan can be compared with the actual measurements in a plot. More info is available at http://www.ephys.de/software/pondus/

Share files on home network with lanshark

Lanshark is a free multiplatform filesharing tool for local area networks. Lanshark allows you to share files with other users in the same network more efficiently. It automatically detects other lanshark users in the same Network and lets you browse trough their shares. Get more info at http://lanshark.29a.ch/en/About.html

Edit Places menu in ubuntu / nautilus bookmarks

There are three ways for doing this:

1, Open Nautilus and select bookmars -> edit bookmarks, or simply press Ctrl+B to edit bookmarks.

2, Open Nautilus and drag and drop folders you would like to have in Places menu to the left panel.


3, For the console ninjas there is another way of doing this in command line. Configuration file for Nautilus bookmarks and places menu is .gtk-bookmarks in your home directory. Just edit the file and you're good to go. My fave editor is vi - so I will use that as an example, but you can use whichever you like.
$ vi ~/.gtk-bookmarks

One more tip - to alphabetize your bookmarks
$ sort ~/.gtk-bookmarks -o ~/.gtk-bookmarks

Ubuntu brainstorm

On wiki Brainstorming is defined as a group creativity technique designed to generate a large number of ideas for the solution of a problem. In 1953 the method was popularized by Alex Faickney Osborn in a book called Applied Imagination. Osborn proposed that groups could double their creative output with brainstorming. Ubuntu brainstorm is a page dedicated to improving ubuntu linux. Anyone who takes his / hers time to register can submit his idea. At the time of writing this article the Ubuntu community has contributed 15921 ideas, 100308 comments and 2077824 votes - aint that amazing?

If you want to participate in ubuntu brainstorm, visit the http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/

How to create and extract .tar, .tar.bz2, .tar.gz files in command line

Here is how to use GNU Tar to create tarballs and extract files in command line:

To create tarball use: c switch (create), f switch (file), j switch (for bzip2 files .bz2) and z switch (for gnu zip files .gz)

Here are some examples on creating tar, gz and bz2 files:
To create tar file:
$ tar cf file.tar file

To create .gz file:
$ tar czf file.tar.gz file

To create bz2 file:
$ tar cjf file.tar.bz2 file

To extract files use: x switch (extract), f switch (file), j switch (for bzip2 files .bz2) and z switch (for gnu zip files .gz), optional is v switch (verbose - will show output during extraction) or vv (very verbose - will show detailed output during extraction)

Now some examples on how to extract tar, gz and bz2 files:

To extract gz file use:
$ tar xzf file.tar.gz

To extract bz2 file use:
$ tar xjf file.tar.bz2

Funny thing is, that nowdays all three types of files can be extracted quick just by typing:
$ tar xf file.tar
$ tar xjf file.tar.bz2
$ tar xzf file.tar.gz

Verbose output during extraction:
$ tar xvjf file.tar.bz2
file
$

Very verbose output:
$ tar xvvjf file.tar.bz2
-rw-r--r-- baban/baban 5 2009-09-24 15:00 file
$

SSH menu - applet for managing ssh connections

SSHMenu is a GNOME panel applet that keeps all your regular SSH connections within a single mouse click. Each menu option will open an SSH session in a new terminal window. You can organise groups of hosts with separator bars or sub-menus. You can even open all the connections on a submenu (in separate windows or tabs) with one click. For more details on how to install and use SSHMenu, check the author's web: http://sshmenu.sourceforge.net/

Mark announced LTS Ubuntu 10.04: Lucid Lynx

Mark Shuttleworth announced next Long Time Support (LTS) Ubuntu release — version 10.04. Codename for the release is Lucid Lynx and will include gnome version 2. Check out this youtube video announcement for more info:

Full circle magazine issue 28

Full Circle is a free, independent, magazine dedicated to the Ubuntu family of Linux operating systems. Each month, it contains helpful how-to articles and reader submitted stories. Besides Ubuntu other flavours of *buntu are being mentioned in the articles such as Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu... Here are the main topics included in 28-th issue:

• Command and Conquer
• How-To : Program in Python – Part 2, LAMP Server – Part 1, Networking with SSHFS and Fast Internet With Squid.
• My Story – My Linux Experience I and II.
• My Opinion – AllMyApps
• Review – Tellico.
• MOTU Interview – Stephane Graber.
• Top 5 – SIP Clients.
• Ubuntu Women Interview, Ubuntu Games and all the usual goodness!
  

Get this and all other issues from fullcircle webpage: http://fullcirclemagazine.org/

Manage your passwords with KeePassX

KeePassX is an application for people with extremly high demands on secure personal data management. It has a light interface, is cross platform and published under the terms of the GNU General Public License. The complete database is always encrypted either with AES (alias Rijndael) or Twofish encryption algorithm using a 256 bit key. More about this password tool on http://www.keepassx.org/.

How to mount and unmount iso file using nautilus scripts

First thing you need to do is download theese two scripts from debianadmin.com:
unmount.sh
mount.sh

Then open up the console and make theese scripts executable:
$ chmod +x mount.sh
$ chmod +x unmount.sh

Now copy theese scipts to ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/ folder:
$ sudo mv mount.sh /home/baban/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/
[sudo] password for baban:
$ sudo mv unmount.sh /home/baban/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/

To mount the .iso file right click on the .iso file --> Scripts --> mount.sh
To unmount the .iso file right click on the .iso file --> Scripts --> unmount.sh

You can rename theese scripts to whatever you like to make it more confortable for you.

Netspeed applet

Netspeed is just a little GNOME-applet that shows how much traffic occurs on a specified network device. You can configure and select more network cards if you have more than one. You can install it from command line: apt-get install netspeed
More info available on project homepage http://projects.gnome.org/netspeed/

How to merge two pdf files in command line

To do this, we will use ghostscript (in1.pdf and in2.pdf are files to be merged):

gs -q -sPAPERSIZE=letter -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=out.pdf in1.pdf in2.pdf

Tucan manager

Tucan Manager is a free and open source and multiplatform software designed for automatic management of downloads and uploads at hosting sites like rapidshare or megaupload. It is released under GPLv2 license. What I really like on tucan is, that it checks all the links first before downloading. If you don't have premium account and you have to wait some time between downloads, tucan will check the time and start downloading files immediately after this period of time expired. For more info check the homepage http://tucaneando.com/index-en.html Deb install file is available from here: http://www.getdeb.net/app/Tucan

Sync and Share your files with ubuntu one

With this fancy thing you can: Sync your files, share your work with others or work remotely with your Ubuntu computers. Ubuntu one is only available for Ubuntu and no other OS. You need to register first in order to install the ubuntu one client. If everything goes ok, you will be able to launch ubuntu one via Applications » Internet » Ubuntu One menu. There are 2 options available - 2GB Free space (no fee) and 10GB Free space (charged $10 per month). If interested, check it out on https://one.ubuntu.com/.

Check ubuntu release version from command line

This info is stored in /etc/lsb-release file:

baban@ubuntu :~$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=9.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=jaunty
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 9.04"

You can also use lsb_release command with -a argument, which shows all info:

baban@ubuntu :~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 9.04
Release: 9.04
Codename: jaunty
baban@ubuntu :~$

Ubuntu releases...

Here is a short list of the ubuntu releases with version numbers and codenames:

4.10 Warty Warthog (Released in Oct 2004 - The First Ubuntu Release)
5.04 Hoary Hedgehog (Released in April 2005)
5.10 Breezy Badger (Released in Oct 2005)
6.06 Dapper Drake (Released in June 2006 - Long Term Support)
6.10 Edgy Eft (Released in Oct 2006)
7.04 Feisty Fawn (Released in April 2007)
7.10 Gutsy Gibbon (Released in Oct 2007)
8.04 Hardy Heron (Released in April 2008 - Long Term support)
8.10 Intrepid Ibex (Released in Oct 2008)
9.04 Jaunty Jackalope (Released in April 2009)
9.10 Karmic Koala (Planned Release - Oct 2009)

Regular releases are supported for 18 months, LTS releases are supported 3 years on desktop and 5 years on server versions. As you probably found out - release cycle is 6 months.