This is a very relevant article to the Ubuntu and Unity debate, vs other Linux distributions, especially, Linux Mint.

Linux Mint: The new Ubuntu?

Personally, I am on Debian Squeeze. Very solid, but NOT for n00bs. Tad difficult to configure.

Wayno

Heh. This was a new trick on me. I did not know you could use Nautilus as an ftp client. Here’s how to do it.

1. Open nautilus, then File/Connect to server.

2. Fill in the information, hit connect and you are good to go!

Wayno

This is something I am asked by n00bs a lot. My Linux system doesn’t automount my USB or micro sd card / camera card, what do I do now?

(NOTE: You can usually tell an automounted device because it will have a mount point of

/media/volumelabel

First of all, like Douglas Adams said: Don’t panic!

The first thing you want to do, is to find out if Linux can first see the device? How? Easy.

1. The first thing we want to do, is see if Linux see’s the device? How? Easy! lsusb


lsusb


Sample lsusb output

nwayno@Homer:~$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 03f0:4211 Hewlett-Packard OfficeJet 7300 series
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 051d:0002 American Power Conversion Uninterruptible Power Supply
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 010: ID 0951:1603 Kingston Technology DataTraveler 1GB/2GB Pen Drive
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 0488:0022 Cirque Corp.
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0bc2:3000 Seagate RSS LLC
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0409:005a NEC Corp. HighSpeed Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

and sure enough the device I am looking for is present:

Bus 001 Device 010: ID 0951:1603 Kingston Technology DataTraveler 1GB/2GB Pen Drive

It is NOT mounted, but I know that Linux can see it.

2. The second step is to determine what the device is called. How do you do that? blkid. blkid will list all the block devices attached to a system. NOT necessarily mounted. We want ALL devices, so we do that as root. Be patient! This can take a couple of minutes (Your patience will be rewarded.)


sudo blkid


Sample blkid output

nwayno@Homer:~$ sudo blkid
[sudo] password for nwayno:
/dev/sda1: LABEL=”Homer699″ UUID=”12345AB567″ TYPE=”ntfs”
/dev/sda2: UUID=”4dac-408816aecd1e” TYPE=”swap”
/dev/sda3: LABEL=”homer” UUID=”4e75-985fd59115e4″ TYPE=”ext4″
/dev/sda4: LABEL=”waynohome” UUID=”bc4-4c34-9d7d-3f5a56d13″ TYPE=”ext4″
/dev/sdb1: LABEL=”BFDNTFS” UUID=”FC1687414″ TYPE=”ntfs”
/dev/sdb2: LABEL=”bfdlinux” UUID=”143-4c0-4db-a392-55fb94a0f” TYPE=”ext4″
/dev/sdd1: UUID=”7E-4CEC” TYPE=”vfat”
/dev/sdd2: UUID=”42062a-9f99-a4ec71894″ TYPE=”ext4″
nwayno@Homer:~$

Notice that all the devices on my system were listed. Both mounted and umounted.

So the guy I am looking for is /dev/sdd1

YOUR DEVICE MAY BE A DIFFERENT NAME.. Remember the device is STILL not mounted at this point.

We know that /dev/sdd1 is vfat which is pretty typical of micro-sd cards. They are almost always vftat.

3. We have a couple of choices on mounting the device. We can use the a system mount point /mnt or create one with mkdir. I’ll only show the mount with the system mount point, but it could easily be anything that you create. Remember that to Linux, a device is just a mount point.

4. So become root, and mount the device:


sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdd1 /mnt


YOUR DEVICE MAY BE A DIFFERENT NAME.

Remember, only root can mount/unmount (umount) devices.

The -t tells us that the device is vfat (windows). We got that from the blkid command. If it’s not vfat, the output of blkid well tell us what the file structure is. Use man mount for more information.

/dev/sdd1 was also obtained from the blkid information, tells us to associate this device with the mount point that follows: /mnt.

5. To access you files, launch your file browser (I use nautilus and just navigate (Filesystem/mnt directory) or just do a a cd to the /mnt directory:

And the contents of /mnt are:


cd /mnt


6. List the files:


ls


and you should get some output:

A6VWN4.pdf
aztcs.htm
budgeting
discovery
FNPACK
ubuntu_11.04.png
ubuntu_11.04_unity.png
unity_11_04.png
vsftpd.conf_25K

7. And how much space do you have left on that device?


df -h


the df command displays used and free space on the device:

Sample df -h output

nwayno@Homer:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 50G 23G 25G 48% /
none 934M 268K 933M 1% /dev
none 940M 1.5M 939M 1% /dev/shm
none 940M 344K 940M 1% /var/run
none 940M 4.0K 940M 1% /var/lock
/dev/sda4 834G 306G 486G 39% /home
/dev/sdb2 773G 397G 337G 55% /media/bfdlinux
/dev/sdb1 147G 90G 58G 61% /media/BFDNTFS
/dev/sdd1 975M 847M 128M 87% /mnt
nwayno@Homer:~$

YOUR DEVICE MAY BE A DIFFERENT NAME.

In my case I have used 847M, and have 128M free on a 975M device (/dev/sdd1 above or /mnt)

8. All done? Umount the device, and sync the output.


umount /dev/sdd1


YOUR DEVICE MAY BE A DIFFERENT NAME.


sync


sync flushes the buffers, writes any pending data to the drive, and avoids data loss!

Easy! Painless!

Wayno

No place on the internet, have I found the location to add your own music, to a Samsung Restore Cell Phone. Till now. While this is Linux oriented, the same location would be used in Windows.

It goes into the Downloads folder. (Yes. Spelled “Downloads” with a capital D!)

1. Copy your music from your source, to this folder. Yes you can have embedded folders. Mine is called: “The Moody Blues”

You can use nautilus to create the folder, or mkdir from the command line. In Windows, you would use the File Manager.

You will notice that my microsd is labelled WAYNOSVMFON. You can do this with gparted. Note that the microsd is formatted as vfat. Debian has some issues auto-mounting vfat partitions, so you may need to manually mount it.


sudo mount /dev/sdxx /mnt


where xx is the device name (hint: use sudo blkid to get that)

You will notice that when you use the media player, that a file in (yup, remember this is windows) is created called:

SamsungMusic_key.txt

The file seems to contain some random 4 digit number.

You may also notice a folder called “music” That’s NOT where you put the music. BUT, you will find the file: playlist.mdb Yup, that’s a Microsoft Database file.

Oops! Added an SONG you no longer want? Want to make it disappear? Sort of easy. This is how you do it from the phone itself.

1. Select the LEFT Menu button.

2. Go to Tools and Settings.

3. Select Tools.

4. Mass Storage.

5. File Manager.

6. Memory Card

7. Downloads folder.

8. Open the Folder that your music is in, then the sub-folder within that contains the song you to delete, and finally the song. Nope it will NOT let you just delete the folder, if it contains files. You must delete the contents of the folder, one at a time.

9. Options Button (right button)

10. Delete

Enjoy your music!

Wayno

I have been fighting video problems with Debian for a couple of weeks. I corrected the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file here.

If it looks familiar it should! This is the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file from the 64 bit Ubuntu 10.10 Livecd. I put it onto a usb flash drive, used sneaker net (which means I pulled it out of one machine, walked over, and put it into another), and copied it over. Restarted the gdm3 on 64 bit Debian Squeeze. I have full use of the hardware graphics capability and monitor sizes.

Using Ubuntu to fix Debian. Oh! I so love irony.

Thanks Joe for this crazy idea. But it worked!

Wayno

Let’s face it. Debian != Ubuntu. It can be difficult to configure. But this DVD may help!

BOTH 32 and 64 BIT SYSTEMS on the DVD (under $5)

The main advantages to this DVD over this free ones you can at the Debian Site are:

1. Comes with the non-free software already on the dvd.

2. Comes with drivers you’d have to hunt up, like the atheros wireless driver.

Order it here

Thanks Joe!

Wayno

original post here

Thanks to @jelly-home on #debian for getting me unstuck.

Couple of steps involved. It’s not that hard, but the post above makes it harder then it needs to be.

1. Go into the Synaptic Package Manager (System/Administration/Synaptic Package Manager) and add the Debian Non-Free Software as shown.

NOTE: At this point I jump to command line, but the following could be done in Synaptic as well.

2. Install the nvidia Dynamic Kernel Module Support

Note: this assumes sudo works on your debian box, or you will have to su root


sudo apt-get install nvidia-kernel-dkms


Before we reboot, let’s fix X.

3. We need to change xorg.conf, so it loads the proper driver.

As always anything the begins with an octothorpe (#) is a comment and does NOT need to be coded.


cd /etc/X11 # change to the X directory
ls


if there IS an xorg.conf file (I did NOT have one) make a backup copy:


sudo cp xorg.conf xorg.conf.bkup


Now edit or create xorg.conf file:


sudo nano xorg.conf


and the contents need to be:


Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
DefaultDepth 24
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "glx"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Default Device"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "NoLogo" "True"
EndSection


Control + o to write, control + x to exit.

NOTE: If this /etc/X11/xorg.conf file looks familiar, it should! This is the same file off of 64 bit Ubuntu 10.10 Livecd. (Ubuntu to fix Debian!)

And then reboot.

4. to confirm the correct driver:


grep -i glx /var/log/Xorg.0.log


and you should get output that looks like:

(II) “glx” will be loaded. This was enabled by default and also specified in the config file.
(II) LoadModule: “glx”
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so
(II) Module glx: vendor=”NVIDIA Corporation”
(II) NVIDIA GLX Module 195.36.31 Thu Jun 3 08:59:25 PDT 2010
(II) Loading extension GLX
(II) Aug 21 14:27:19 NVIDIA(0): Support for GLX with the Damage and Composite X extensions is
(==) Aug 21 14:27:20 NVIDIA(0): Enabling 32-bit ARGB GLX visuals.
(II) Loading extension NV-GLX
(II) Initializing extension GLX

Enjoy video goodness!

Thanks jelly-home

Wayno

How to convert from Ubuntu to Debian

This article will encompass a LOT of previous posts. This is NOT recommended for n00bs.

1. While you are downloading the Debian iso, it would be a good first step to backup /home/ and /etc/.

2. You can find simple rsync backup/restore scripts here.

3. Once the debian iso is downloaded, you should md5sum check it first. You can find the debian cd iso image checksums here.

4. Burn the iso (not copy to a cd – why this is NOT for n00bs) to a cd or dvd, depending on what you downloaded.

5. Installing from the DVD is quite different then Ubuntu. This is NOT a live cd, so you can’t experiment first.

The rest of this article will ass/u/me that you were able to install Debian sucessfully. Configuring Debian, requires some work!

1. The first thing that bit me in the buttocks (can we say that here?) – is rebranded software. You won’t find Firefox or Thunderbird. Instead you will find re-branded software. So icedove instead of Thunderbird, and IceWeasel instead of Firefox. Those are in the Debian Repositories. The problem with re-branded software, is that it is NOT upstream compatible. You can always choose to install the branded stuff (Firefox/Thunderbird) from the Mozilla site.

NOTE: the following code block assumes sudo (#3 below is fixed:)

As always anything with an octothorpe (#) is a comment and need not be coded.


sudo apt-get install icedove # get the re-branded thunderbird
sudo apt-get install iceweasel # get the re-branded firefox


2. The second thing is .profile so you will want to deal with that next.

3. Next, was how to easily do sudo in debian

By default – sudo does NOT work in Debian. And as you know, you get sort of used to using sudo in Ubuntu. There are some crazy ideas on how to fix this, but this is pretty easy and straight forward.

4. You probably need java run time

Guess what? That does NOT come pre-installed on Debian! You can easily add the java runtime environment (jre) for Debian.

5. if you need to restart the gdm in Debian, it’s gdm3 NOT gdm as in Ubuntu. So


sudo service gdm3 restart


6. By default, /usr/sbin is NOT in your path in Debian, but is in Ubuntu. How to fix? This was a little more complicated then I thought. But Joe had a neat fix! (so none of the system tasks are available – things like I dunno gparted, vsftpd, useradd, etc — are not accessible.)

By default, when Linux comes up, it executes /etc/profile. Within /etc/profile it sources /etc/profile.d/bashrc.local.sh

What do I mean by “sources?” Joe explains:

Executing a script is the normal way to do it. The script executes, then it exits, and it’s environment is gone forever.

When you source a script, you execute all the commands in the script and (it) remain(s) in the environment – keeping all changes made to same.

execute: /path/to/script.sh

source: source /path/to/script or more succinctly:

. /path/to/script

And that is what the following script does/ It uses a function called pathmunge to add the missing paths:


# /etc/bashrc.local.sh for Linux
#
# Local environment variables
#
export ORGANIZATION="Mirai Consulting"

#if [ $SHELL == '/bin/bash' ]; then

#
# Set prompt and aliases to something useful for an interactive shell
#

case "$-" in
*i*)
#
# Set prompt to something useful
#
case "$is" in
bash)
set -p
if test "$UID" = 0 ; then
PS1="u@h:w> "
else
tty=`tty`
PS1=`uname -n`': $PWD n(tty${tty#/dev/tty}): bash: ! > '
fi
;;
esac

case $TERM in
xterm)
PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "33]0;${USER}@${HOSTNAME%%.*}:${PWD/$HOME/~}07"'
;;
screen)
PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "33_${USER}@${HOSTNAME%%.*}:${PWD/$HOME/~}33\"'
;;
*)
PROMPT_COMMAND=''
;;
esac

# fix broken non-root path -

pathmunge () {
if ! echo $PATH | /bin/egrep -q "(^|:)$1($|:)" ; then
if [ "$2" = "after" ] ; then
PATH=$PATH:$1
else
PATH=$1:$PATH
fi
fi
}

#
# Path manipulation
#

pathmunge /sbin
pathmunge /usr/sbin
pathmunge /usr/local/sbin
pathmunge $HOME/sbin

unset pathmunge

set histexpand
export HISTCONTROL=ignoredups

alias ltr='ls -latr'
alias ll='ls -laFL'
alias lll='ll | less'

alias cls=clear
alias f=finger

sudo=''

alias maillog='$sudo tail -20 /var/log/mail.log'
alias postlog='$sudo grep postfix /var/log/mail | tail -40'
alias poplog='$sudo grep pop3-login /var/log/mail | tail -40'
alias msgs='$sudo tail -20 /var/log/messages'
alias krnl='$sudo tail -20 /var/log/kernel'
alias cmo='ls -Lltr /var/spool/mail'
alias psu='ps -FHu'
alias mqt='mailq|tail'
alias dmesg='/bin/dmesg|tail -40'

/bin/rm -f ~/.project
set `date`
echo "" >> ~/.project
echo " $LOGNAME logged in on `hostname` $1 $2 $3 $4" >> ~/.project
echo "" >> ~/.project

esac

#[ -r /etc/dircolors.sh ] && . /etc/dircolors.sh

alias addkey="sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys"

#fi


7. If you have Skype you will probably need to fix that as well.

This is just a first cut draft on the differences I noted between Ubuntu and Debian.

Thanks always to Joe and Loni.

Many apps, applets, games, and more are written in, or use Java to run. Java is very important, and widely-used. With this article, I will show you how to install the latest JRE/JDK (1.7.0) on Ubuntu/Debian, and Fedora.

original article here:
and 64 bit java install directions from Oracle

Ubuntu:

1. Download the JRE (Java Runtime Environment) / JDK (Java Development Kit) 7 from here:

The file type for Ubuntu is the .tar.gz
Note: The JDK is for developers. Do not download unless you plan on programming in Java.

2. Unpack (or untar, or extract) the .tar.gz file in the desired directory. Type:


tar -zxvf filename


3. Install Java 1.7 to alternatives. Type:


sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java /your/java/directory/jre/bin/java 3


Note: Replace /your/java/directory/, with the directory where you extracted the .tar.gz

4. Choose your Java version using alternatives. Type:


sudo update-alternatives –config java


Then choose the option that points to your Java 7 directory.

Note: If you have chosen the JDK, your javac will not be updated. Typing the javac -version command will return the previous Java’s version javac. I do not know how to fix this.

5. Configure the Java browser plugin.

You will have to use a symbolic link to configure the plugin.

Type:


ln -s /your/java/directory/jre/lib/your system architecture/libnpjp.so /your/brower/plugins/directory


Note: /your/java/directory/ is wherever you extracted the .tar.gz

Also, /your system architecture/ is the architecture type of the Java .tar.gz file you downloaded. This will either be i386, or amd64. If you are unsure which, open a file manager, go to your Java directory, and go to the jre/lib/ directory. If a folder entitled amd64 is there, you have the x64-bit version. If not, you have the x32-bit.

Another thing to note, the /your/browser/plugins/directory/ is your browser’s plugins directory. Example: if you are using Mozilla’s Firefox, your plugins directory is /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/

6. Test the plugin. Restart your browser, and go to

Java Tester

Click the Java Version button. If the pink box says Java 1.7.0 from Oracle, you have configured the plugin correctly.

Installing Java 1.7 goodness for Ubuntu. Enjoy

Fedora:

1. Download the .rpm installer from Oracle here:

2. Install. You can do this by:

A) Using the Open With feature of your browser

B) Going to the directory of the download in a file browser, right-clicking the file, and selecting the Open with Software Install option

C) Typing (as root)


rpm -ivh filename


The browser plugin should be configured by the installer.

Java 1.7 goodness for Fedora. Enjoy

Jack

Original post here.

The basic idea of how to convert a video for the Sansa Fuse Mp3/Video player is simple. What’s not so simple is directions.

1. You will need to make sure you Sansa Fuse is set correctly. Set it to MSC Mode.

2. If not installed already, you will need to install k9copy. You can do this simply by:


sudo apt-get install k9copy


Note this is a KDE application, so it may add the required KDE libraries to make this application work, and this may take some time. As Alton Brown says: “Your patience WILL BE rewarded. Your impatience, will be punished!”

3. Follow the directions give in the post above, to install fuzemux, and video4fuze.

4. Now the k9copy part. To change the settings, bring up k9copy, and find “configure k9copy”

Hit the MPEG-4 encoder and select the vido tab:

It should look like this: Encoder: mencoder

Width: 224 Height: 176

and I arbitrarily set the file size to 500 meg.

Video part done!

5. Now to the audio. Select the Audio tab (still under MPEG-4) — codec is mp3 (lame) and bitrate: 128. The gain was preset to 7 (I did NOT change this)

It should look like this:

6. If you have never used k9copy, it can be a bit intimidating. What you want to do, is to OPEN the DVD. All the title sets will be presented: (make sure you check ALL the title sets)

Set you input/and output as shown in the image above. Your name is going to be different then: “SOUTH_PACIFIC”

7. Hit the COPY button, and then go do you favourite 30 minute activity: walking, biking, television, reading. You know: something other then watching k9copy work!

It will create an output file called .avi in your home directory.

NEXT!

8. While the directions say to start video4fuze on the command line, in reality, that didn’t work for me. Why? Because at least in Ubuntu 10.10 (64 bit), it installs it into /usr/share/video4fuze

And while that’s NOT in-correct, it’s probably NOT in your path either.

Two choices:

either manually navigate to the directory


cd /usr/share/video4fuze


or

create a launcher:

You will note, that this is a Python Script.

so to run it: python /usr/share/video4fuze/video4fuze.pyw

And the screen pops up. Select the input file. The output file will be called, /home/username/input_file2_fuze.avi

You will note, that video4fuze – is really a front end for mencoder.

Again, this is NOT fast. So yea, another 30 minute thing.

10. Plug in your Sansa Fuse to your usb port. My Sansa Fuze has 8 G internally, and a 16G external drive. So I put this on the external drive. Videos will be 300 – 500 meg.

You MIGHT need to create a VIDEOS folder on the Sansa Fuze. (mkdir or nautilus will do this).

11. Copy and Paste time. Simply copy the /home/username/input_file2_fuze.avi file video4fuze created to your mp3 player VIDEOS folder. This will take some time, depending on how fast your ram is. Mine isn’t so, this time a 15 minute break. (Who said any of this was fast?)

12. When it’s done copying:


sync


sync to flush the buffers to disc.

13. Unplug the usb cable, let the fuze refresh, and enjoy!

Wayno