Since we have become aware of the security concerns surrounding the Truecrypt project, veracrypt has taken its place as one of the most trusted encrypting solutions. Here is a brief guide on how to get it intalled and running under Ubuntu Linux.
Installation
Go to the official VeraCrypt website at https://veracrypt.codeplex.com/ and click on the "Downloads" tab.
There you will find the appropriate Linux download option
VeraCrypt Linux Setup 1.0f-2 (version will change in the future)
Once downloaded unpack it and you should see 4 different files to chose from. If you are running a 32-bit install you will want to use the x86 option while the x64 file will be the one to use if you are on a 64-bit ubuntu installation. If you are new to Veracrypt I would recommend installing the GUI option (I believe this option even installs the commandline option as well)
$ /home/your_user_name/Desktop/veracrypt-1.0f-2-setup-gui-x86
This can be done by dragging and dropping the file from nautilus directly into a terminal screen which will cause it to show the path to the installation file with quotes around it. Simply remove the quotes and run the file.
The install should be fairly quick and you will be prompted for your admin password. Once that's done you should be able to find Veracrypt on your system.
Encrypting your files
In order to actually encrypt your files, Click "Create Volume" and follow the wizard.
I recommend creating an encrypted file container using "standard veracrypt volume". In terms of Encryption algorithm I usually go with "Twofish" and the hash algorithm "Whirlpool". Chose what size your volume will have and then format it.
Once you have a volume created, find your file location (Select File...) and mount the drive in the selected slot from the list shown. This should prompt you for your password. Once that's done you should see the mounted drive for your use.
Showing posts with label linux. Show all posts
Showing posts with label linux. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Thursday, October 2, 2014
BTSync - an alternative to cloud storage
For a while now, I have been concerned about my reliance on cloud services such as dropbox, evernote, google drive and Spider Oak. I have an active account with all of these services and more and more I worry about the fact that I have given so much of my data to these companies. I don't necessarily believe that these corporations are necessarily doing anything particularly evil with my data and I also don't upload anything terribly sensitive to the cloud. But in any case, that's not to say that quite a bit of the data I do put on the cloud I would still prefer to keep out of the public domain. For this reason I have started to look an alternative service, BitTorrent Sync.
For those unfamiliar with this system, it is basically a service developped by the folks that invented torrenting where you use a similar bit torrent protocol to sync data between different machines. The beauty of this system lies on the fact that all this data is stored locally in all machines involved and all data transfer is done in an encrypted manner. Meaning that you are not giving your data to anyone else, it stays withing all the machines sharing this data, and that's it. Not only that, but much like bit torrents, it can download this data in a really efficient way using direct connections to all machines involved. Lastly, one of the major advantages of this service over dropbox and others is the fact that there is no storage limits beyond how much you can store on your hard drive. Now, that's not to say that there isn't a downside of using this service. The downside is the fact that at least two machines need to be online for the data to successfully sync, so people like me that turn off their computers when they are not being used can't keep files updated all the time. For this reason I have devised a solution, which is to use my ubuntu server as a torrent sync server. BT Sync by its nature has no server, all clients just share the data, however if I add my home server to the loop, it will be updated at all times when it is online, serving as my personal "cloud" storage in a way. In this post I will go through the process of getting my server setup.
To start, download the appropriate tar file from the official website, http://www.bittorrent.com/sync/download
note that you need to download the file that correspond to your system, whether it is 32 or 64 bits. To find out what your machine is, type:
$ uname -a
if you see a i386 in the response you are using a 32 bit install, while anything showing x86_64 is likely a 64 bit install.
Once I downloaded the appripriate file, unpak it into a folder where you will keep your executable and configuration files. Note that this folder needs to separate from the folder you intend to share since apparently failing to do that will cause a lot of synching issues.
To unpack the tar ball type:
$ tar -xvzf bittorrent_sync_i386.tar.gz
of course, substitute the name of the tar ball if you are using a 64 bit system. Once that's done run the executable with
$ ./btsync
This should prompt a message indicating even the process id for the BitTorrent Sync application in case you need to restart it. Setting up your shares on linux is done via a web GUI via the default port 8888. One issue I came across the first time I set up my BTSync was that since I'm using a headless server and connecting to it via SSH, I needed to use the web GUI and for some reason could not connect to it right away. Instead, I needed to configure my BTSync to listen to the 8888 port from all ips (0.0.0.0) instead of just 127.0.0.1. To accomplish this you need to type
$ ./btsync --webui.listen 0.0.0.0:8888
Now to use the web GUI, use your favorite browser from a machine that does have a graphical interface and type the your server's ip followed by the port number you selected, in our case port 8888. So if my internal ip is 192.168.0.70 (use ifconfig if you need to find this out), then use
http://192.168.0.70:8888
From there, click on the "add folder" icon and select the folder you would like to sync. Just remember to backup this folder before going further. It's unlikely you will screw up, but just for good measure, you should always back up your data before an action like this.
Once you have added the folders you want synced to your list, click on the "3 dots" icon at the end of the line where the folder is displayed and go to "preferences". There you should see a button to "View Key". Here you will have the opportunity to copy a key for sharing this folder as a "read only" folder, or as a read and write folder.
Install following the instructions once again on another machine you want to sync with your server and this time, instead of clicking on the add folder button use the cog button instead, where you should see the option to "Enter a key..." That's where you will enter the hashed number you saw previously. Find the folder you want to sync and voila.
That's it, it should work and will work over several different installs. One last detail, you may need to set up a cron job or some other way of initializing the btsync executable every time you turn your server online.
edit- One detail I forgot to mention, you will need your clocks to be synchronized for BTsync to work. In case you need instructions on how to do that on your linux machine, use the following link http://www.howtogeek.com/tips/how-to-sync-your-linux-server-time-with-network-time-servers-ntp/
For those unfamiliar with this system, it is basically a service developped by the folks that invented torrenting where you use a similar bit torrent protocol to sync data between different machines. The beauty of this system lies on the fact that all this data is stored locally in all machines involved and all data transfer is done in an encrypted manner. Meaning that you are not giving your data to anyone else, it stays withing all the machines sharing this data, and that's it. Not only that, but much like bit torrents, it can download this data in a really efficient way using direct connections to all machines involved. Lastly, one of the major advantages of this service over dropbox and others is the fact that there is no storage limits beyond how much you can store on your hard drive. Now, that's not to say that there isn't a downside of using this service. The downside is the fact that at least two machines need to be online for the data to successfully sync, so people like me that turn off their computers when they are not being used can't keep files updated all the time. For this reason I have devised a solution, which is to use my ubuntu server as a torrent sync server. BT Sync by its nature has no server, all clients just share the data, however if I add my home server to the loop, it will be updated at all times when it is online, serving as my personal "cloud" storage in a way. In this post I will go through the process of getting my server setup.
To start, download the appropriate tar file from the official website, http://www.bittorrent.com/sync/download
note that you need to download the file that correspond to your system, whether it is 32 or 64 bits. To find out what your machine is, type:
$ uname -a
if you see a i386 in the response you are using a 32 bit install, while anything showing x86_64 is likely a 64 bit install.
Once I downloaded the appripriate file, unpak it into a folder where you will keep your executable and configuration files. Note that this folder needs to separate from the folder you intend to share since apparently failing to do that will cause a lot of synching issues.
To unpack the tar ball type:
$ tar -xvzf bittorrent_sync_i386.tar.gz
of course, substitute the name of the tar ball if you are using a 64 bit system. Once that's done run the executable with
$ ./btsync
This should prompt a message indicating even the process id for the BitTorrent Sync application in case you need to restart it. Setting up your shares on linux is done via a web GUI via the default port 8888. One issue I came across the first time I set up my BTSync was that since I'm using a headless server and connecting to it via SSH, I needed to use the web GUI and for some reason could not connect to it right away. Instead, I needed to configure my BTSync to listen to the 8888 port from all ips (0.0.0.0) instead of just 127.0.0.1. To accomplish this you need to type
$ ./btsync --webui.listen 0.0.0.0:8888
Now to use the web GUI, use your favorite browser from a machine that does have a graphical interface and type the your server's ip followed by the port number you selected, in our case port 8888. So if my internal ip is 192.168.0.70 (use ifconfig if you need to find this out), then use
http://192.168.0.70:8888
From there, click on the "add folder" icon and select the folder you would like to sync. Just remember to backup this folder before going further. It's unlikely you will screw up, but just for good measure, you should always back up your data before an action like this.
Once you have added the folders you want synced to your list, click on the "3 dots" icon at the end of the line where the folder is displayed and go to "preferences". There you should see a button to "View Key". Here you will have the opportunity to copy a key for sharing this folder as a "read only" folder, or as a read and write folder.
Install following the instructions once again on another machine you want to sync with your server and this time, instead of clicking on the add folder button use the cog button instead, where you should see the option to "Enter a key..." That's where you will enter the hashed number you saw previously. Find the folder you want to sync and voila.
That's it, it should work and will work over several different installs. One last detail, you may need to set up a cron job or some other way of initializing the btsync executable every time you turn your server online.
edit- One detail I forgot to mention, you will need your clocks to be synchronized for BTsync to work. In case you need instructions on how to do that on your linux machine, use the following link http://www.howtogeek.com/tips/how-to-sync-your-linux-server-time-with-network-time-servers-ntp/
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Download streamed flash videos from the command line
I have just been looking for ways to download streamed videos into my hard drive so I can watch them later when I'm away from my wifi. With the power of linux I really wanted to find a way to do this in a simple way and ideally from the command line. So that's how I came across this tool called "get-flash-videos" which is a pretty descriptive name for the app.
I've tested it already and it works quite well, but I should note that you shouldn't use this to download anything you are not supposed to download. Just avoid doing anything illegal with this information of course.
Anyway, let's get started on how to install and use this tool.
There is quite a bit of information you can find on how to obtain and how to use this app on the following link --> https://code.google.com/p/get-flash-videos/ ... https://code.google.com/p/get-flash-videos/wiki/Installation
For my own use, I followed the Debian based distro guide which requires you to install
$ sudo apt-get install libwww-mechanize-perl libxml-simple-perl
then use wget to download the .deb file
$ wget http://get-flash-videos.googlecode.com/files/get-flash-videos_1.24-1_all.deb
I've tested it already and it works quite well, but I should note that you shouldn't use this to download anything you are not supposed to download. Just avoid doing anything illegal with this information of course.
Anyway, let's get started on how to install and use this tool.
There is quite a bit of information you can find on how to obtain and how to use this app on the following link --> https://code.google.com/p/get-flash-videos/ ... https://code.google.com/p/get-flash-videos/wiki/Installation
For my own use, I followed the Debian based distro guide which requires you to install
$ sudo apt-get install libwww-mechanize-perl libxml-simple-perl
then use wget to download the .deb file
$ wget http://get-flash-videos.googlecode.com/files/get-flash-videos_1.24-1_all.deb
Lastly, install it via
$ sudo dpkg -i get-flash-videos_1.24-1_all.deb
That's it, as easy as pie...
Now to use this little tool, use the following command to watch a video:
$ get_flash_videos -p http://website.url/video
or alternatively if you want to download the video directly to your hard drive use
$ get_flash_videos "http://website.url/video?f=1&v=1234"
Enjoy... and if you want something specific for youtube, I've heard that youtube-dl is quite good but I haven't tried it myself yet.
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Shellshock - your bash may be making you vulnerable
Turns out that if you are a Linux or a Mac user you may be vulnerable to remote attacks via your bash shell. To check whether your machine is vulnerable you can use the following command:
$ env x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable' bash -c 'echo hello'
if your terminal returns the message "vulnerable hello" than you are vulnerable and you need to remediate that.
You are safe if the message "bash: warning: x: ignoring function definition attempt bash: error importing function definition for 'x' hello"
To fix your system you can update your bash via the command line by typing:
$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install --only-upgrade bash
this command will work on any debian based distro, if you are using another distro, I would redirect you to this link for the appropriate command to update your respective bash.
$ env x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable' bash -c 'echo hello'
if your terminal returns the message "vulnerable hello" than you are vulnerable and you need to remediate that.
You are safe if the message "bash: warning: x: ignoring function definition attempt bash: error importing function definition for 'x' hello"
To fix your system you can update your bash via the command line by typing:
$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install --only-upgrade bash
this command will work on any debian based distro, if you are using another distro, I would redirect you to this link for the appropriate command to update your respective bash.
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Linux distro sampling pt3 - Debian Xfce + Xubuntu 14.04
Debian 7 Xfce edition (VM)
Next I decided to give Debian Xfce a try since I saw that I had already downloaded the torrent for it a few weeks ago. I have had quite a bit of experience with xfce from my previous Xubuntu installs. Once again, using a non-Ubuntu distro makes it so I have to learn quite a few new things, however using Xfce does seem to make it a bit more familiar to me. I think just changing from GNOME to Xfce has the potential to make this experience much better. It appears just as stable and consistent as the other DE, while being much more lightweight and looking much much more pleasing in my opinion. Judge it yourself.
Xubuntu 14.04 (VM)
Next I decided it might be a good idea to see if Ubuntu 14.04 would work well on my ASUS P550C laptop as a VM since I'm too chicken to try dual booting it on this machine. After trying it I realized it wasn't going to happen. Not only unity is extremely sluggish and buggy in this machine as a VM. Besides that the mini toolbar for Virtual box keeps leaving this dark bar where it comes out to, which makes it look pretty sloppy. Removing this black bar seems to require removing the mini Toolbar which I don't want to do either.
Due to these reason I tried Xubuntu 14.04 the Trusty Tahr next. I'm used to Xubuntu from all my other VMs and once again I must say Xubuntu makes for the best VM experience I've had so far. It can look beautiful, it works, it's fast and good on resources. Just perfect really. Plus have I mentioned how pretty your OS can look?
At some point I might put together a nice looking Xubuntu setup and maybe post something about all my setting for folks interested in what I did.
Next I decided to give Debian Xfce a try since I saw that I had already downloaded the torrent for it a few weeks ago. I have had quite a bit of experience with xfce from my previous Xubuntu installs. Once again, using a non-Ubuntu distro makes it so I have to learn quite a few new things, however using Xfce does seem to make it a bit more familiar to me. I think just changing from GNOME to Xfce has the potential to make this experience much better. It appears just as stable and consistent as the other DE, while being much more lightweight and looking much much more pleasing in my opinion. Judge it yourself.
Xubuntu 14.04 (VM)
Next I decided it might be a good idea to see if Ubuntu 14.04 would work well on my ASUS P550C laptop as a VM since I'm too chicken to try dual booting it on this machine. After trying it I realized it wasn't going to happen. Not only unity is extremely sluggish and buggy in this machine as a VM. Besides that the mini toolbar for Virtual box keeps leaving this dark bar where it comes out to, which makes it look pretty sloppy. Removing this black bar seems to require removing the mini Toolbar which I don't want to do either.
At some point I might put together a nice looking Xubuntu setup and maybe post something about all my setting for folks interested in what I did.
Monday, June 9, 2014
Linux distro sampling pt2 - Debian 7 on ASUS P550CA
Recently I got a new ASUS P550C laptop from work. As with most my machines nowadays I try to run some form of Linux on them to accomplish some of the tasks in which Windows is handicapped at performing. Well I will begin this post first talking about my experience with the actual computer first.
Laptop Review: ASUS P550C (also called ASUS P550CA on the website)
First of all, this laptop is fairly impressive at first glance. It has a nice 15" screen, it has a relatively nice keyboard that features a keypad which I'm very thankful for (no backlight though... I'm spoiled, I know!). It has a nice finish and it is very light in my opinion, which may be a bad opinion since I'm used to my alienware (performance and weight are often mutually exclusive). Right from the get-go I notice some issues with my wi-fi adapter. It would disconnect under windows every 5-10 minutes. I started using a cable because of it. The wifi is also completely not supported by ubuntu so I also had to use a cable under my dual boot Ubuntu 14.04 install I started with. Eventually the wifi completely gave up which I alerted to the it people. After they contacted the Tiger Direct they mentioned that this particular adapter has been giving users some headache. For those curious I'm speaking about Mediatek MT7630E 802.11bgn. Long story short, I just received a new machine.
The other major complaint I have regard the UEFI/booting rubbish that made it extremely difficult to dual boot Ubuntu on my first machine. My new machine so far has been even worst. Every time I try to install Ubuntu 14.04 it basically tells me I can only overwrite Windows. It does not display the "install alongside" option which is a bit scary. For this reason I don't want to do the partitions on my own since I don't want to have to fix the windows booting garbage that is now standard in so many machines.
In summary, I had a great first impression of my ASUS P550C laptop which soon turned into frustration. This ASUS laptop is very Linux unfriendly as far as I'm concerned, so I must give some thumbs down to ASUS for manufacturing a laptop in the year 2014 that simply can't play nice with other operational systems.
Debian 7 (VM)
Anyway, done with my rant on ASUS. Now that I've been scared enough I decided to just install VirtualBox and use linux through a VM on my work machine which is what I was doing before anyway. I decided that before I settle on one distro I wanted to sample a few to see what is the most practical and useful to me for the types of needs I will have at work.
Well the first thing I have to say is that trying to use Debian was the first time I realized how Ubuntu centric my Linux experience has been up to this point. There are so many choices and small differences working with Debian coming from Ubuntu based distros. The most striking for me was the fact that I didn't know how to work under root. As a lot of you know, in Ubuntu you can simply use sudo on everything, apparently Debian requires you to log in as root in order to perform a lot of different admin tasks. Anyway, there it is, I'm a linux noobie outside of ubuntu.
Unfortunately for me there is a pretty good learning curve to migrate to this version of Debian. I can definitely see the appeal of this distro as it seems very stable and full of great admin tools right from the clean install. Unfortunately, it is a tad too new for me at this point. I will certainly consider it when I have a bit more free time to learn how to get the most out of it. The other reason I am hesitant of using this distro on my laptop is the desktop environment, I do not like Gnome very much. For this reason I decided to see if Debian Xfce is a bit more friendly to someone like me... (continued on pt.3)
Laptop Review: ASUS P550C (also called ASUS P550CA on the website)
First of all, this laptop is fairly impressive at first glance. It has a nice 15" screen, it has a relatively nice keyboard that features a keypad which I'm very thankful for (no backlight though... I'm spoiled, I know!). It has a nice finish and it is very light in my opinion, which may be a bad opinion since I'm used to my alienware (performance and weight are often mutually exclusive). Right from the get-go I notice some issues with my wi-fi adapter. It would disconnect under windows every 5-10 minutes. I started using a cable because of it. The wifi is also completely not supported by ubuntu so I also had to use a cable under my dual boot Ubuntu 14.04 install I started with. Eventually the wifi completely gave up which I alerted to the it people. After they contacted the Tiger Direct they mentioned that this particular adapter has been giving users some headache. For those curious I'm speaking about Mediatek MT7630E 802.11bgn. Long story short, I just received a new machine.
The other major complaint I have regard the UEFI/booting rubbish that made it extremely difficult to dual boot Ubuntu on my first machine. My new machine so far has been even worst. Every time I try to install Ubuntu 14.04 it basically tells me I can only overwrite Windows. It does not display the "install alongside" option which is a bit scary. For this reason I don't want to do the partitions on my own since I don't want to have to fix the windows booting garbage that is now standard in so many machines.
In summary, I had a great first impression of my ASUS P550C laptop which soon turned into frustration. This ASUS laptop is very Linux unfriendly as far as I'm concerned, so I must give some thumbs down to ASUS for manufacturing a laptop in the year 2014 that simply can't play nice with other operational systems.
Debian 7 (VM)
Anyway, done with my rant on ASUS. Now that I've been scared enough I decided to just install VirtualBox and use linux through a VM on my work machine which is what I was doing before anyway. I decided that before I settle on one distro I wanted to sample a few to see what is the most practical and useful to me for the types of needs I will have at work.
Well the first thing I have to say is that trying to use Debian was the first time I realized how Ubuntu centric my Linux experience has been up to this point. There are so many choices and small differences working with Debian coming from Ubuntu based distros. The most striking for me was the fact that I didn't know how to work under root. As a lot of you know, in Ubuntu you can simply use sudo on everything, apparently Debian requires you to log in as root in order to perform a lot of different admin tasks. Anyway, there it is, I'm a linux noobie outside of ubuntu.
Unfortunately for me there is a pretty good learning curve to migrate to this version of Debian. I can definitely see the appeal of this distro as it seems very stable and full of great admin tools right from the clean install. Unfortunately, it is a tad too new for me at this point. I will certainly consider it when I have a bit more free time to learn how to get the most out of it. The other reason I am hesitant of using this distro on my laptop is the desktop environment, I do not like Gnome very much. For this reason I decided to see if Debian Xfce is a bit more friendly to someone like me... (continued on pt.3)
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Review of Ubuntu 14.04: The Trusty Tahr is out
I must admit, this was the most anticipated release of Ubuntu so far for me. I had been using 12.04 for a while on my main machine and I was eager to get my hands on this shiny new version of my favorite Linux distro.
After downloading the iso via torrent I installed it and here are my initial comments:
I very much like the aesthetic changes done, including the login screen, the colours and particularly the window resizing overhaul. I thought these would be barely noticeable for me but coming from 12.04 I definitely feel that the overall package looks shinier and more pleasant to look at.
I find it unfortunate that Ubuntu One is closing down but I do believe this doesn't really reflect on the health of canonical in general. One aspect of Ubuntu I think needs an overhaul is the software centre. It has pretty much looked the same for a while and if anything I think it may have looked better a few years ago than it looks now. I personally feel that while the rest of the OS has been evolving into a beautiful piece of software, the software centre still looks the same and it is already looking pretty dated.
*Before I continue, let me say that I have already adopted 14.04 to be my desktop OS for the next while. That's because I really really do like it. However I do have some criticism as well, so I wish that anyone reading this does not get discouraged from trying this distro based on the rest of my post.*
While I was very excited to use the latest HUD from Unity, I felt slightly disappointed so far because while the HUD idea is brilliant to the point of being almost revolutionary to me, it is still not doing what I believe it should be doing. I love the idea of having the HUD where I can not only use to open files and applications in my own computer, I would love to be able to easily pick filters and search engines that can be integrated to Unity that way. From my limited experience so far, it looks interesting but it is far from being what it should be. Part of the problem is that I did not find the HUD to be very user friendly and perhaps having a tutorial would be useful or some other way to really make the HUD intuitive and customizable. Once Ubuntu can do that effectively I would not be surprised if other OSs copied the idea because it is simply brilliant.
Some of the issues I had in the past with Ubuntu such as difficulty installing supported software like "Steam" are still there. I don't know why but when I try to install steam from the Ubuntu Software Centre it doesn't offer me an option to just "install", instead it says "Buy" which eventually leads me to errors. I really hope little glitches like that are taken care of soon because I strongly believe having an OS that works as it is intended all the time is vital if Ubuntu is ever to be a true competitor of Apple and Microsoft.
I've also encountered some problems with my sounds settings. For some reason my earphones only produce sounds from the left side. I know it's not a harware issue since Windows plays sounds fine on my machine. After doing some research I haven't been able to find an easy solution yet and it is a bit frustrating. So often Linux advocates bash new users because they say Linux is too hard to use consistently and this exemplifies what I mean exactly. I know that it is often a result of hardware manufacturers not paying as much attention to Linux, however, in order for Linux to really become popular accross the board, it needs to have issues like this addressed.
While Ubuntu still offers all the customization that it has offered in the past, I don't like that Canonical has disabled a lot of the options that use to be out of the box such as multiple workspaces and things like that. I also think they have made some of the settings a bit harder to access now which is likely an attempt to "dumb down" the OS to make it more user friendly. Unfortunately I do not like having to spend so much time tweaking my distro just so it could run like my Ubuntu 11.10 use to run. But if doing things like this helps to get more users I can forgive Canonical for it, but maybe offer an option during install for "new user" vs "seasoned user".
Overall though, I am extremely excited to be finally running Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr. I have been waiting for this version for a while and I am very impressed with what I have seen so far. After attempting to use quite a few other distros like Xubuntu, Mint 16, Kali, Debian and Ubuntu Gnome, I still feel that Ubuntu continues to deliver the best experience of all of these. Mint has climbed significantly in popularity, but to be perfectly frank I don't think it offers any more user friendliness than Ubuntu does. I strongly recommend Ubuntu to anyone wanting to try Linux for the first time as it is a great system, and I would love to see some of the more persistent problems with the distro disappear so that Ubuntu can really make an impact on the desktop market. Unity may be a source of a lot of differences of opinion, but in my opinion Unity is the most inovative, the most attractive and the desktop environment with the most potential to become the new standard in the future. Keep up the good work Canonical.
After downloading the iso via torrent I installed it and here are my initial comments:
I very much like the aesthetic changes done, including the login screen, the colours and particularly the window resizing overhaul. I thought these would be barely noticeable for me but coming from 12.04 I definitely feel that the overall package looks shinier and more pleasant to look at.
I find it unfortunate that Ubuntu One is closing down but I do believe this doesn't really reflect on the health of canonical in general. One aspect of Ubuntu I think needs an overhaul is the software centre. It has pretty much looked the same for a while and if anything I think it may have looked better a few years ago than it looks now. I personally feel that while the rest of the OS has been evolving into a beautiful piece of software, the software centre still looks the same and it is already looking pretty dated.
*Before I continue, let me say that I have already adopted 14.04 to be my desktop OS for the next while. That's because I really really do like it. However I do have some criticism as well, so I wish that anyone reading this does not get discouraged from trying this distro based on the rest of my post.*
While I was very excited to use the latest HUD from Unity, I felt slightly disappointed so far because while the HUD idea is brilliant to the point of being almost revolutionary to me, it is still not doing what I believe it should be doing. I love the idea of having the HUD where I can not only use to open files and applications in my own computer, I would love to be able to easily pick filters and search engines that can be integrated to Unity that way. From my limited experience so far, it looks interesting but it is far from being what it should be. Part of the problem is that I did not find the HUD to be very user friendly and perhaps having a tutorial would be useful or some other way to really make the HUD intuitive and customizable. Once Ubuntu can do that effectively I would not be surprised if other OSs copied the idea because it is simply brilliant.
Some of the issues I had in the past with Ubuntu such as difficulty installing supported software like "Steam" are still there. I don't know why but when I try to install steam from the Ubuntu Software Centre it doesn't offer me an option to just "install", instead it says "Buy" which eventually leads me to errors. I really hope little glitches like that are taken care of soon because I strongly believe having an OS that works as it is intended all the time is vital if Ubuntu is ever to be a true competitor of Apple and Microsoft.I've also encountered some problems with my sounds settings. For some reason my earphones only produce sounds from the left side. I know it's not a harware issue since Windows plays sounds fine on my machine. After doing some research I haven't been able to find an easy solution yet and it is a bit frustrating. So often Linux advocates bash new users because they say Linux is too hard to use consistently and this exemplifies what I mean exactly. I know that it is often a result of hardware manufacturers not paying as much attention to Linux, however, in order for Linux to really become popular accross the board, it needs to have issues like this addressed.
Overall though, I am extremely excited to be finally running Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr. I have been waiting for this version for a while and I am very impressed with what I have seen so far. After attempting to use quite a few other distros like Xubuntu, Mint 16, Kali, Debian and Ubuntu Gnome, I still feel that Ubuntu continues to deliver the best experience of all of these. Mint has climbed significantly in popularity, but to be perfectly frank I don't think it offers any more user friendliness than Ubuntu does. I strongly recommend Ubuntu to anyone wanting to try Linux for the first time as it is a great system, and I would love to see some of the more persistent problems with the distro disappear so that Ubuntu can really make an impact on the desktop market. Unity may be a source of a lot of differences of opinion, but in my opinion Unity is the most inovative, the most attractive and the desktop environment with the most potential to become the new standard in the future. Keep up the good work Canonical.
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Minty Review: Linux Mint 16 (cinnamon flavor)
After being on the top of the chart for more than a couple of years, I finally decided to give Linux Mint a try, after all why are people using it so much? I must say I was biased previously because I though Mint looked a little too boring for me and aside from being an easy to use sort of distro, I didn't see the appeal. To be perfectly honest, I never thought Ubuntu was hard to use so even that appeal I don't quite understand.
Anyway, now that I've played with Mint for about a week, I feel like I can form a more relevant opinion, and to be honest I was not impressed. First of all, as I feared the OS to me looks very vanilla, and offered as far as I saw, nothing dramatically interesting. As I mentioned, often mint is labeled as a great distro to start with, and while it is easy to use, I had two crashes in my first day of use and one of them was while watching a regular video. I feel that a distrubution that is known for media compatibility out of the box should be able to play simple videos without a hiccup.Ubuntu 13.04 VM or my Xubuntu 12.04 VM. I had a lot of issues getting a few pieces of software, including my email client to work smoothly and that didn't help me have a good opinion of it.
I do need to disclose that I was running it as a virtual machine, so perhaps my experience would have been better on a hard install, but these are issues I didn't seem to have with my
Perhaps I am being unfair by reviewing Mint as a VM, but I've done that with other distros before and considering Mint's reputation, I don't feel that it requires special treatment on my review.
Overall, I feel that Mint, much like Ubuntu, has really helped bring Linux to a lot of new users, and I applaud them for that. I think that if there is anything that can be done to make Linux more popular, it should be done. With all the discourse regarding online privacy, the NSA and hackers, a shift to Linux is a great first step into trying to protect yourself. The Internet is my favorite invention of the 20th century and I truly believe that popularizing Linux is just another step into giving people online freedom, and ensuring that we stay in control of our own private habits. So Mint gets points for doing that, however as a distrubution for someone like me, I wasn't impressed. In my opinion Ubuntu is just as easy to use to a user with some computer knowledge and it offers a much more inovative experience. I have to admit I am an Unity fan boy, even though it is bulky. If I want a less meaty distro, my current pick is Xubuntu, I have yet to see another really lightweight distro that looks so good and functions so well.
Anyway, now that I've played with Mint for about a week, I feel like I can form a more relevant opinion, and to be honest I was not impressed. First of all, as I feared the OS to me looks very vanilla, and offered as far as I saw, nothing dramatically interesting. As I mentioned, often mint is labeled as a great distro to start with, and while it is easy to use, I had two crashes in my first day of use and one of them was while watching a regular video. I feel that a distrubution that is known for media compatibility out of the box should be able to play simple videos without a hiccup.Ubuntu 13.04 VM or my Xubuntu 12.04 VM. I had a lot of issues getting a few pieces of software, including my email client to work smoothly and that didn't help me have a good opinion of it.I do need to disclose that I was running it as a virtual machine, so perhaps my experience would have been better on a hard install, but these are issues I didn't seem to have with my
Perhaps I am being unfair by reviewing Mint as a VM, but I've done that with other distros before and considering Mint's reputation, I don't feel that it requires special treatment on my review.
Overall, I feel that Mint, much like Ubuntu, has really helped bring Linux to a lot of new users, and I applaud them for that. I think that if there is anything that can be done to make Linux more popular, it should be done. With all the discourse regarding online privacy, the NSA and hackers, a shift to Linux is a great first step into trying to protect yourself. The Internet is my favorite invention of the 20th century and I truly believe that popularizing Linux is just another step into giving people online freedom, and ensuring that we stay in control of our own private habits. So Mint gets points for doing that, however as a distrubution for someone like me, I wasn't impressed. In my opinion Ubuntu is just as easy to use to a user with some computer knowledge and it offers a much more inovative experience. I have to admit I am an Unity fan boy, even though it is bulky. If I want a less meaty distro, my current pick is Xubuntu, I have yet to see another really lightweight distro that looks so good and functions so well.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Weather update from console and a conky config
I found some Linux goodies while redditing the other day and thought they were worthy of reposting here.
First, I found this awesome weather app for the console. Basically, you type your "FIPS area code" and it spits out an update on the area directly from that particular mornitoring station. It's fairly detailed and it's on the console which is just great for those that appreciate being able to do that. It may seem a bit inconvenient to get that type of information that way but it's not very hard to just creat an alias and only have to type a short command to get it. You can even set it as a cron job and get periodic updates on an open console. Maybe you just think it sounds cool. Anyway, to get this little gem go ahead and type
$ sudo apt-get install weather-util
which should install it. This can also be done via the ubuntu software centre if you so chose. To get the weather update you just have to type
$ weather ????
or
$ weather --forecast CYYZ
where ???? is the 4 digit FIPS code for your area, in my case CYYZ corresponds to Toronto International Airport. Note that not everywhere has these updates available, to check what is available check out the IWS website. The website for the actual software you can find at http://fungi.yuggoth.org/weather/
I found this link from a post by avaipar on /r/ubuntu and the article comes from OMG ubuntu.
The other link I came across was smileymalais' conky config from his blog (presumably). Here is the config for it:
# UBUNTU-CONKY
# A comprehensive conky script, configured for use on
# Ubuntu / Debian Gnome, without the need for any external scripts.
#
# Based on conky-jc and the default .conkyrc.
# INCLUDES:
# - tail of /var/log/messages
# - netstat connections to your computer
#
#
# Create own window instead of using desktop (required in nautilus)
own_window yes
own_window_hints undecorated,below,skip_taskbar
background yes
# Use double buffering (reduces flicker, may not work for everyone)
double_buffer yes
# fiddle with window
use_spacer no
use_xft yes
# Update interval in seconds
update_interval 3.0
# Minimum size of text area
minimum_size 0
# Maximum width
maximum_width 160
# Draw shades?
draw_shades yes
# Text stuff
draw_outline no # amplifies text if yes
draw_borders no
uppercase no # set to yes if you want all text to be in uppercase
# Stippled borders?
stippled_borders 8
# border margins
border_margin 4
# border width
border_width 1
# Default colors and also border colors, grey90 == #e5e5e5
default_color white
default_shade_color black
default_outline_color white
own_window_colour black
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_argb_value 50
# Text alignment, other possible values are commented
#alignment top_left
alignment top_right
#alignment bottom_left
#alignment bottom_right
# Gap between borders of screen and text
gap_x 10
gap_y 110
# stuff after 'TEXT' will be formatted on screen
override_utf8_locale no
xftfont Inconolata:size=8
#xftalpha 0.8
TEXT
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}LUBUNTU 13.10
# ${offset 0}${color white}${time %a, } ${color #aaaaaa}${time %B %e %G}
# ${offset 0}${color white}${time %Z, }${color #aaaaaa}${time %H:%M:%S}
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}Kern:${color #aaaaaa}$kernel
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}UpTime: ${color #aaaaaa}$uptime
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}CPU:${color white} $cpu% ${acpitemp}C
${offset 0}${cpugraph 20,130 000000 ffffff}
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}Load: ${color }$loadavg
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}Processes: ${color }$processes
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}Running: ${color }$running_processes
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}Highest CPU:
${offset 0}${color white} ${top name 1}${top_mem cpu 1}
${offset 0}${color lightgrey} ${top name 2}${top cpu 2}
${offset 0}${color lightgrey} ${top name 3}${top cpu 3}
${offset 0}${color lightgrey} ${top name 4}${top cpu 4}
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}Highest MEM:
${offset 0}${color white} ${top_mem name 1}${top_mem mem 1}
${offset 0}${color lightgrey} ${top_mem name 2}${top_mem mem 2}
${offset 0}${color lightgrey} ${top_mem name 3}${top_mem mem 3}
${offset 0}${color lightgrey} ${top_mem name 4}${top_mem mem 4}
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}RAM: ${color } $memperc% $mem/$memmax
${offset 0}${membar 3,130}
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}SWAP: ${color }$swapperc% $swap/$swapmax
${offset 0}${swapbar 3,130}
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}ROOT: ${color }${fs_free /}/${fs_size /}
${offset 0}${fs_bar 3,130 /}
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}HOME: ${color }${fs_free /home}/${fs_size /home}
${offset 0}${fs_bar 3,130 /home}
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}NET:
${offset 0}${color}Up: ${color }${upspeed wlan0} k/s
${offset 0}${upspeedgraph wlan0 20,130 000000 ffffff}
${offset 0}${color}Down: ${color }${downspeed wlan0}k/s${color}
${offset 0}${downspeedgraph wlan0 20,130 000000 ffffff}
First, I found this awesome weather app for the console. Basically, you type your "FIPS area code" and it spits out an update on the area directly from that particular mornitoring station. It's fairly detailed and it's on the console which is just great for those that appreciate being able to do that. It may seem a bit inconvenient to get that type of information that way but it's not very hard to just creat an alias and only have to type a short command to get it. You can even set it as a cron job and get periodic updates on an open console. Maybe you just think it sounds cool. Anyway, to get this little gem go ahead and type
$ sudo apt-get install weather-util
which should install it. This can also be done via the ubuntu software centre if you so chose. To get the weather update you just have to type
$ weather ????
or
$ weather --forecast CYYZ
where ???? is the 4 digit FIPS code for your area, in my case CYYZ corresponds to Toronto International Airport. Note that not everywhere has these updates available, to check what is available check out the IWS website. The website for the actual software you can find at http://fungi.yuggoth.org/weather/ I found this link from a post by avaipar on /r/ubuntu and the article comes from OMG ubuntu.
The other link I came across was smileymalais' conky config from his blog (presumably). Here is the config for it:
# UBUNTU-CONKY
# A comprehensive conky script, configured for use on
# Ubuntu / Debian Gnome, without the need for any external scripts.
#
# Based on conky-jc and the default .conkyrc.
# INCLUDES:
# - tail of /var/log/messages
# - netstat connections to your computer
#
#
# Create own window instead of using desktop (required in nautilus)
own_window yes
own_window_hints undecorated,below,skip_taskbar
background yes
# Use double buffering (reduces flicker, may not work for everyone)
double_buffer yes
# fiddle with window
use_spacer no
use_xft yes
# Update interval in seconds
update_interval 3.0
# Minimum size of text area
minimum_size 0
# Maximum width
maximum_width 160
# Draw shades?
draw_shades yes
# Text stuff
draw_outline no # amplifies text if yes
draw_borders no
uppercase no # set to yes if you want all text to be in uppercase
# Stippled borders?
stippled_borders 8
# border margins
border_margin 4
# border width
border_width 1
# Default colors and also border colors, grey90 == #e5e5e5
default_color white
default_shade_color black
default_outline_color white
own_window_colour black
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_argb_value 50
# Text alignment, other possible values are commented
#alignment top_left
alignment top_right
#alignment bottom_left
#alignment bottom_right
# Gap between borders of screen and text
gap_x 10
gap_y 110
# stuff after 'TEXT' will be formatted on screen
override_utf8_locale no
xftfont Inconolata:size=8
#xftalpha 0.8
TEXT
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}LUBUNTU 13.10
# ${offset 0}${color white}${time %a, } ${color #aaaaaa}${time %B %e %G}
# ${offset 0}${color white}${time %Z, }${color #aaaaaa}${time %H:%M:%S}
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}Kern:${color #aaaaaa}$kernel
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}UpTime: ${color #aaaaaa}$uptime
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}CPU:${color white} $cpu% ${acpitemp}C
${offset 0}${cpugraph 20,130 000000 ffffff}
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}Load: ${color }$loadavg
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}Processes: ${color }$processes
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}Running: ${color }$running_processes
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}Highest CPU:
${offset 0}${color white} ${top name 1}${top_mem cpu 1}
${offset 0}${color lightgrey} ${top name 2}${top cpu 2}
${offset 0}${color lightgrey} ${top name 3}${top cpu 3}
${offset 0}${color lightgrey} ${top name 4}${top cpu 4}
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}Highest MEM:
${offset 0}${color white} ${top_mem name 1}${top_mem mem 1}
${offset 0}${color lightgrey} ${top_mem name 2}${top_mem mem 2}
${offset 0}${color lightgrey} ${top_mem name 3}${top_mem mem 3}
${offset 0}${color lightgrey} ${top_mem name 4}${top_mem mem 4}
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}RAM: ${color } $memperc% $mem/$memmax
${offset 0}${membar 3,130}
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}SWAP: ${color }$swapperc% $swap/$swapmax
${offset 0}${swapbar 3,130}
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}ROOT: ${color }${fs_free /}/${fs_size /}
${offset 0}${fs_bar 3,130 /}
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}HOME: ${color }${fs_free /home}/${fs_size /home}
${offset 0}${fs_bar 3,130 /home}
${offset 0}${color #ddaa00}NET:
${offset 0}${color}Up: ${color }${upspeed wlan0} k/s
${offset 0}${upspeedgraph wlan0 20,130 000000 ffffff}
${offset 0}${color}Down: ${color }${downspeed wlan0}k/s${color}
${offset 0}${downspeedgraph wlan0 20,130 000000 ffffff}
Thursday, October 10, 2013
update error on Ubuntu Server 12.04
Recently I came across an annoying error on my headless Ubuntu Server. Nothing really had happened as far as I'm concerned in my home LAN, and all of a sudden only this distro could no longer run an OS update. I did upgrade my internet service recently but I'm not sure if that could be related. Anyway, the error I kept getting for days was:
Anyway, after a bit of googling, I came across a helpful comment by fossfreedom from the UK, which can be found here. The solution was simple for me:
" temporary failure resolving 'us.archive.ubuntu.com' "
Err http://us.archive.ubuntu.com precise Release.gpg
Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/Release.gpg
Temporary failure resolving 'us.archive.ubuntu.com'
Anyway, after a bit of googling, I came across a helpful comment by fossfreedom from the UK, which can be found here. The solution was simple for me:
- Test to see if the problem is your DNS setting or an ISP issue. To do this type on the console: ping -n 8.8.8.8
- If produces replies you can stop it with Ctrl + C. This indicates that it is not an ISP problem so there is no point in calling them.
- Therefore, for me it was a DNS problem, which I have been having a lot of lately (likely due to my VPN usage). So I checked /etc/resolv.conf to see if I could find my DNS servers there. That's when I knew what my problem was. The file was empty, so I added the google DNS server.
- This was done through: echo "nameserver 8.8.8.8" | sudo tee /etc/resolv.conf > /dev/null
- After that, I just had to run the update via: sudo apt-get update
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Xubuntu - Trying Xfce for the first time
To keep the theme of distro sampling I decided to give Xubuntu a go. As I mentioned on a previous post, I didn't find the Gnome Ubuntu to be an OS I would like to use personally. I thought the idea of simple, minimalist and intuitive sounded like a good match for me, less is not always more and simple functionalities that are not in Gnome are in my opinion an improvement over not having them and I don't see the need to remove them if they don't clutter or confuse things.
Anyway, my pick to try Xubuntu stemmed from the fact that I wanted a distro to run as a VM in my laptop, hence I needed something lightweight but with enough functionality to keep me happy. Xfce seemed like the place to go. As you may or may not know, Xfce is a desktop environment known for being lightweight, although not as barebones as some of the others out there like LXDE it still feel snappy and efficient.
I installed version 13.04 mostly just to try the most updated Xubuntu available. Nothing special about the installation process, it's much like all other Ubuntu distros I've tried, very easy to get going, even as a VM. This desktop environment definitely feels fast compared to Unity when I tried on my machine. I very much enjoyed the fact that the OS comes pre loaded with GIMP and a number of other applications I would have to install otherwise.
Update warnings show up on the taskbar in a discrete way and so far I feel it's very stable and user friendly. I appreciate that this distro still has multiple workspaces as default, which is no longer the case for Ubuntu. I understand that perhaps new user may struggle to understand the concept, but to be honest I don't think it's rocket science. But then again, I should assume Cannonical knows what their doing. Since I'm on this small tangent already, I would suggest that Ubuntu should have 2 options when you download, the newbie version which doesn't have default options that may be unfamiliar to noobies and a version for more experienced users with defaults that I really miss such as multiple desktops, sticky windows with shortcuts and synaptic. I love Unity, and I would say it's my favorite Linux flavor but with every version of Ubuntu I feel they change it so I have to tweek more and more every time and I find that a tad annoying.
Anyway, back to Xubuntu, I highly recommend it to anyone that has some experience with Linux at all. It's not difficult to figure out, it is attractive despite it's light weight. Worth a shot for anyone that can't run Unity due to hardware limitations.
Lastly, for anyone curious, here is my conky config from this photo, it's nothign fancy but it's a nice config that works well out of the box.
-----
background yes
use_xft yes
xftfont Sans:size=8
xftalpha 1
update_interval 1.0
total_run_times 0
own_window yes
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_type desktop
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
double_buffer yes
minimum_size 200 200
maximum_width 200
draw_shades yes
draw_outline no
draw_borders no
draw_graph_borders yes
default_color white
default_shade_color black
default_outline_color white
alignment top_right
gap_x 12
gap_y 120
no_buffers yes
uppercase no
cpu_avg_samples 2
override_utf8_locale no
TEXT
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}SYSTEM ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}$sysname $kernel $alignr $machine
Host:$alignr$nodename
Uptime:$alignr$uptime
File System: $alignr${fs_type}
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}PROCESSORS ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}${cpugraph cpu1}
CPU1: ${cpu cpu1}% ${cpubar cpu1}
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}MEMORY ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}RAM $alignc $mem / $memmax $alignr $memperc%
$membar
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}DISKS ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}/ $alignc ${fs_used /} / ${fs_size /} $alignr ${fs_used_perc /}%
${fs_bar /}
SWAP $alignc ${swap} / ${swapmax} $alignr ${swapperc}%
${swapbar}
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}TOP PROCESSES ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}${top_mem name 1}${alignr}${top mem 1} %
${top_mem name 2}${alignr}${top mem 2} %
$font${top_mem name 3}${alignr}${top mem 3} %
$font${top_mem name 4}${alignr}${top mem 4} %
$font${top_mem name 5}${alignr}${top mem 5} %
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}NETWORK ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}IP address: $alignr ${addr eth0}
ESSID: $alignr ${wireless_essid eth0}
Connection quality: $alignr ${wireless_link_qual_perc eth0}%
${downspeedgraph eth0}
DLS:${downspeed eth0} kb/s $alignr total: ${totaldown eth0}
${upspeedgraph eth0}
ULS:${upspeed eth0} kb/s $alignr total: ${totalup eth0}
Anyway, my pick to try Xubuntu stemmed from the fact that I wanted a distro to run as a VM in my laptop, hence I needed something lightweight but with enough functionality to keep me happy. Xfce seemed like the place to go. As you may or may not know, Xfce is a desktop environment known for being lightweight, although not as barebones as some of the others out there like LXDE it still feel snappy and efficient.I installed version 13.04 mostly just to try the most updated Xubuntu available. Nothing special about the installation process, it's much like all other Ubuntu distros I've tried, very easy to get going, even as a VM. This desktop environment definitely feels fast compared to Unity when I tried on my machine. I very much enjoyed the fact that the OS comes pre loaded with GIMP and a number of other applications I would have to install otherwise.
Update warnings show up on the taskbar in a discrete way and so far I feel it's very stable and user friendly. I appreciate that this distro still has multiple workspaces as default, which is no longer the case for Ubuntu. I understand that perhaps new user may struggle to understand the concept, but to be honest I don't think it's rocket science. But then again, I should assume Cannonical knows what their doing. Since I'm on this small tangent already, I would suggest that Ubuntu should have 2 options when you download, the newbie version which doesn't have default options that may be unfamiliar to noobies and a version for more experienced users with defaults that I really miss such as multiple desktops, sticky windows with shortcuts and synaptic. I love Unity, and I would say it's my favorite Linux flavor but with every version of Ubuntu I feel they change it so I have to tweek more and more every time and I find that a tad annoying.
Anyway, back to Xubuntu, I highly recommend it to anyone that has some experience with Linux at all. It's not difficult to figure out, it is attractive despite it's light weight. Worth a shot for anyone that can't run Unity due to hardware limitations.
Lastly, for anyone curious, here is my conky config from this photo, it's nothign fancy but it's a nice config that works well out of the box.
-----
background yes
use_xft yes
xftfont Sans:size=8
xftalpha 1
update_interval 1.0
total_run_times 0
own_window yes
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_type desktop
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
double_buffer yes
minimum_size 200 200
maximum_width 200
draw_shades yes
draw_outline no
draw_borders no
draw_graph_borders yes
default_color white
default_shade_color black
default_outline_color white
alignment top_right
gap_x 12
gap_y 120
no_buffers yes
uppercase no
cpu_avg_samples 2
override_utf8_locale no
TEXT
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}SYSTEM ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}$sysname $kernel $alignr $machine
Host:$alignr$nodename
Uptime:$alignr$uptime
File System: $alignr${fs_type}
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}PROCESSORS ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}${cpugraph cpu1}
CPU1: ${cpu cpu1}% ${cpubar cpu1}
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}MEMORY ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}RAM $alignc $mem / $memmax $alignr $memperc%
$membar
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}DISKS ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}/ $alignc ${fs_used /} / ${fs_size /} $alignr ${fs_used_perc /}%
${fs_bar /}
SWAP $alignc ${swap} / ${swapmax} $alignr ${swapperc}%
${swapbar}
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}TOP PROCESSES ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}${top_mem name 1}${alignr}${top mem 1} %
${top_mem name 2}${alignr}${top mem 2} %
$font${top_mem name 3}${alignr}${top mem 3} %
$font${top_mem name 4}${alignr}${top mem 4} %
$font${top_mem name 5}${alignr}${top mem 5} %
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}NETWORK ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}IP address: $alignr ${addr eth0}
ESSID: $alignr ${wireless_essid eth0}
Connection quality: $alignr ${wireless_link_qual_perc eth0}%
${downspeedgraph eth0}
DLS:${downspeed eth0} kb/s $alignr total: ${totaldown eth0}
${upspeedgraph eth0}
ULS:${upspeed eth0} kb/s $alignr total: ${totalup eth0}
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Using an SSH Client on Ubuntu 13.04
Since now I have an Ubuntu Server setup at home, I feel the need to use a client from my Ubuntu 13.04 VM. In order to do that I followed this great concise guide I found from ubuntulinuxhelp.com (from garymacritchie)
---
The SSH Client
The SSH Client is the piece of software that you have on the computer you are sitting in front of and typing on. It sends messages to the SSH server which is on the remote computer (such as the webserver). We’ll assume that there is already a valid SSH server up and running that you are trying to connect to.
In Ubuntu, there is a SSH client installed as standard and it is called Open SSH.
To use it, you simply open a terminal and proceed any command with “ssh”.
For example, if you would like to log in to your remote server, just use the command…
ssh username@mysite.myserver.org
However, as this is a blog that likes to keep things simple (and annoy a lot of the die-hard Linux geeks), I’m going to suggest a different tool… PuTTY.
PuTTY is a client program for SSH (among other things) and gives a neat little interface for making SSH connections. It is also in my opinion one of the best pieces of software ever written. It has been around for ever and can also be used on Windows without installation (just runs as a .exe). Learn this little guy and you will never look for another SSH client.
Install PuTTY by typing the following into a terminal…
sudo apt-get install putty
You will then find the PuTTY program among your other internet applications.
(When you start it up, you will be able to enter the ip address or name of the remote computer you wish to contact and click connect. You will then be asked for password etc. If you are going to be using SSH regular, you can save that connection as a profile which makes things easier).
---
The SSH Client
The SSH Client is the piece of software that you have on the computer you are sitting in front of and typing on. It sends messages to the SSH server which is on the remote computer (such as the webserver). We’ll assume that there is already a valid SSH server up and running that you are trying to connect to.
In Ubuntu, there is a SSH client installed as standard and it is called Open SSH.
To use it, you simply open a terminal and proceed any command with “ssh”.
For example, if you would like to log in to your remote server, just use the command…
ssh username@mysite.myserver.org
However, as this is a blog that likes to keep things simple (and annoy a lot of the die-hard Linux geeks), I’m going to suggest a different tool… PuTTY.
PuTTY is a client program for SSH (among other things) and gives a neat little interface for making SSH connections. It is also in my opinion one of the best pieces of software ever written. It has been around for ever and can also be used on Windows without installation (just runs as a .exe). Learn this little guy and you will never look for another SSH client.
Install PuTTY by typing the following into a terminal…
sudo apt-get install putty
You will then find the PuTTY program among your other internet applications.
(When you start it up, you will be able to enter the ip address or name of the remote computer you wish to contact and click connect. You will then be asked for password etc. If you are going to be using SSH regular, you can save that connection as a profile which makes things easier).
Friday, May 31, 2013
Linux distro sampling - Ubuntu GNOME and Kali Linux
I decided to try a few new distros this week after realizing that my current Ubuntu 12.04 install is wrecked. Before picking what to install next on my dual boot machine I decided to try out a couple of things in a VM form. So I downloaded VirtualBox, installed that, changed my BIOS to be able to run a virtual machine and off I went installing Ubuntu Gnome.
I had seen a few videos of the distro and read some reviews of Gnome 3 and thought this looks quite nice, looked nicer than KDE and it seemed a bit more practical and fast than Unity. Well after installing it I'm not nearly as impressed as I thought I would be. I don't like a lot of aspect of this version of gnome. I thought I would like the idea of a desktop environment that's simple, clean and minimalist, but I don't. I like the search function of the DE but it's not even as good as Unity at that. Not having minimize and maximize buttons is annoying even if they are not essential. The color scheme is annoying and I can't find a quick way to remediate that without downloading something. I know this is probably not related to my desktop environment, but the software center in this distro has no search function, and that's just abnoxious. I ended up downloading synaptic which I do like but seriously. I'm also not a big fan of the file manager that comes with this distro, Nautilus in my opinion is superior. All in all I think I would go back to the regular Ubuntu as soons as I can unless I do find something better before I make the jump back.
After trying to get my old copy of Backtrack 5 running on my newer laptop and having a lot of issues to fix I decided to go ahead and download a more recent version of BT which would be BT5R3. Well I discovered in this process that there is a whole new distro that is the next BT called Kali Linux. I did a bit of reading and despite my natural propensity to avoid change I went ahead and downloaded Kali. First thing I noticed was how much smaller the ISO file is compared to BT5. The OS uses KDE and it isn't nearly as sleek looking as BT5 was, but obviously aesthetics of a distro with this kind of purposes is kind of a silly thing to worry about. The bottom line is that I'm extremely impressed with this distro. I don't think I will ever touch BackTrack again after experiencing Kali. It's faster, lighter, does the job with minimal problems. It also took a lot less configuring to get things I needed working to work such as the network adapter. I would strongly recommend anyone using BT to try Kali next chance they have, it's a wonderful change from BT in the sense that it does what you need it to with minimal to no headache. Great move by the developers.
Since I'm at it and this was something I did recently I figured I'd post it here too... I mentioned in earlier posts that I'm also working with a server distro on my old laptop. I'm using it headless with Putty on my desktop machine. Right now I have it running a samba server which shares any HD attached to my dock, and this week I installed miniDLNA on it to share media over my network to other machines as well as my PS3 (mainly to my PS3 really).
My experience so far with this distro has been very positive. It's so fast even on my old shitty laptop. Working on it through a command line and no GUI has actually been quite an interesting experience. I'm not going to say it's not a bit more challenging to work on it this way (at least for a noob like me), but I feel like I'm learning quite a bit and it just makes the whole experience "cleaner" if you understand what I mean. It's nice having such a minimalist OS running in my server.
Ubuntu GNOME 13.04 - I want my unity back, sorry Gnome 3 but it's just not going to work out.
Ubuntu Server 12.04 - Fast and reliable, what else do you need from a server?
Kali Linux 1.0.3 - An upgrade from BT5, I didn't think it was possible. It was love at first ARP spoof.
Ubuntu GNOME
Kali Linux
After trying to get my old copy of Backtrack 5 running on my newer laptop and having a lot of issues to fix I decided to go ahead and download a more recent version of BT which would be BT5R3. Well I discovered in this process that there is a whole new distro that is the next BT called Kali Linux. I did a bit of reading and despite my natural propensity to avoid change I went ahead and downloaded Kali. First thing I noticed was how much smaller the ISO file is compared to BT5. The OS uses KDE and it isn't nearly as sleek looking as BT5 was, but obviously aesthetics of a distro with this kind of purposes is kind of a silly thing to worry about. The bottom line is that I'm extremely impressed with this distro. I don't think I will ever touch BackTrack again after experiencing Kali. It's faster, lighter, does the job with minimal problems. It also took a lot less configuring to get things I needed working to work such as the network adapter. I would strongly recommend anyone using BT to try Kali next chance they have, it's a wonderful change from BT in the sense that it does what you need it to with minimal to no headache. Great move by the developers.Ubuntu Server 12.04
Since I'm at it and this was something I did recently I figured I'd post it here too... I mentioned in earlier posts that I'm also working with a server distro on my old laptop. I'm using it headless with Putty on my desktop machine. Right now I have it running a samba server which shares any HD attached to my dock, and this week I installed miniDLNA on it to share media over my network to other machines as well as my PS3 (mainly to my PS3 really).
My experience so far with this distro has been very positive. It's so fast even on my old shitty laptop. Working on it through a command line and no GUI has actually been quite an interesting experience. I'm not going to say it's not a bit more challenging to work on it this way (at least for a noob like me), but I feel like I'm learning quite a bit and it just makes the whole experience "cleaner" if you understand what I mean. It's nice having such a minimalist OS running in my server.
Overall (tl:dr)
Ubuntu GNOME 13.04 - I want my unity back, sorry Gnome 3 but it's just not going to work out.
Ubuntu Server 12.04 - Fast and reliable, what else do you need from a server?
Kali Linux 1.0.3 - An upgrade from BT5, I didn't think it was possible. It was love at first ARP spoof.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Media Server install on Headless Ubuntu Server 12.04
As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been playing around with Ubuntu Server 12.04 on an old laptop of mine. One of the purposes of putting it together is to stream media over my home network. As I mentioned earlier, I'm running this server headless using Putty. So here is a set of instructions I found to work very well with my install. Credit goes to folks at UbuntuForums.org and damo12 for putting this post together. Another potentially useful link in case there are still questions after this post can be found HERE.
The Hardware
My server is a headless HP Microserver running Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS 64 bit edition accessed through Putty and Webmin (www.webmin.com). I have also tried this using a virtual setup using Virtual Box and that also worked fine.
As a receiver, I am using an LG HX806SH Blu-ray player connected to my LAN by a Homeplug adapter. I have also tried using Windows Media Player and they both work fine. I would like to try this with VLC to test it on a Linux desktop but configuring VLC to receive streaming media from a server is beyond me right now.
The Server Setup
The server has a standard headless setup including Samba installed (a combination of Windows and Linux machines share files stored on it). If you need any help installing and using Webmin, I suggest you have a look at the excellent guide at http://www.kelvinwong.ca/2010/05/22/...-04-lts-lucid/.
Installing and Configuring MiniDLNA
For some reason, when I tried to install MiniDLNA, through Putty I received error messages. From reading around, it turns out that this is a common problem as some repositories are missing.
In the end, these commands installed the package:
I would also recommend installing the Webmin MiniDLNA module from https://sourceforge.net/projects/minidlnawebmin/
If you are accessing the server through Webmin and are not sure how to install the module, save it to a local location (such as your desktop on your computer). Select the "Webmin Configuration" module which is under the "Webmin" tab. Select the "Webmin Modules" and choose to load the module “From uploaded file". Once the module has been installed it will be automatically be configured and it will be available under the "Servers" tab.
Once this is installed, you need to configure the MiniDLNA conf file located at /etc/minidlna.conf.
You can use your favourite text editor or if you are accessing this through Webmin, you can use the "Edit" option in "File Manager". If you have installed the Webmin module, you can also change all of the settings from there.
My minidlna.conf file reads as follows:
[refer to link for the full text, but the only changes I had to made were adding the following]
[Basically you need to add the path to the appropriate folders you want to share, and where it says "friendly_name" you can change to something you can easily identify in your network.]
As you can see, I've made a few changes to the standard file:
Despite the line “# default presentation url is http address on port 80” MiniDLNA does not have a webpage that it can be controlled from. From what I can gather, this was going to be a future feature that was not completed for whatever reason. However, the Webmin module takes care of everything that you need.
From the "Command Shell" in Webmin or through an SSH session using Putty, you can control MiniDLNA using the commands:
At first run, MiniDLNA will scan all of the folders (and their
sub-folders) it has been pointed at and make all of these files
available. The scan is extremely quick (less than 10 minutes to scan
about 12,000 files).
The Webmin module has a "Restart" button but for some reason (on my set-ups) it does not work properly. It will stop MiniDLNA but when it tries to restart it, it fails. Trying to manually start it using the command "sudo /etc/init.d/minidlna start" after using this "Restart" does not seem to work and the only way I have found to resolve this is to restart the whole server.
Adding or Removing Files of Folders from the Database
In my experience, MiniDLNA tends not to notice if a file has been added or removed from the folders so the database does not update and new files are not shown on your device and old files are still shown even though they have been removed. This seems to be a problem with MiniDLNA and not the receiving soft/hardware. If you change the name of the server, the soft/hardware picks that up fine.
Some people have had success with the command:
or by removing the file /tmp/minidlna/files.db and restarting the server using the command:
Someone else suggested using the command:
However, I have found the easiest and most successful method is to
use the "Rescan" button in the Webmin interface. This button deletes
the MiniDLNA database and rescans from scratch. On my system, this new
scan took less than 10 minutes to scan about 12,000 files. After the
scan, any new files appear in the database and any deleted files are
removed.
Outstanding Problems
The only thing I have not been able to get MiniDLNA to do so far is display my photos properly on the Blu-ray player even though they display fine on Windows Media Player. On the Blu-ray, it shows all of the folders where my pictures are stored and even gives me the option to search by camera but when I try to view the pictures or look into the folders, the folders are all empty. This suggests it is something to do with the Blu-ray player and not MiniDLNA however, to be honest this is not an issue for me as my main aim was to stream videos and music and it works perfectly for that.
If anyone can point me to a walkthrough of how to receive streamed videos and music on VLC I would be grateful so I can test this set-up on that and add it to this guide.
I hope you find this guide useful and it takes away some of the headaches I've had with setting up this excellent program.
----------------------------
Guide to Installing and Running MiniDLNA on an Ubuntu Server
I have recently been experimenting with running MiniDLNA on a headless Ubuntu Server and have hit a few snags. After a lot of search and a few pointers from this and other forums I have finally managed to get it running fine. In case anyone else has this problem I have written this guide to hopefully take some of the pain out of installing and configuring an amazing program.The Hardware
My server is a headless HP Microserver running Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS 64 bit edition accessed through Putty and Webmin (www.webmin.com). I have also tried this using a virtual setup using Virtual Box and that also worked fine.
As a receiver, I am using an LG HX806SH Blu-ray player connected to my LAN by a Homeplug adapter. I have also tried using Windows Media Player and they both work fine. I would like to try this with VLC to test it on a Linux desktop but configuring VLC to receive streaming media from a server is beyond me right now.
The Server Setup
The server has a standard headless setup including Samba installed (a combination of Windows and Linux machines share files stored on it). If you need any help installing and using Webmin, I suggest you have a look at the excellent guide at http://www.kelvinwong.ca/2010/05/22/...-04-lts-lucid/.
Installing and Configuring MiniDLNA
For some reason, when I tried to install MiniDLNA, through Putty I received error messages. From reading around, it turns out that this is a common problem as some repositories are missing.
In the end, these commands installed the package:
Code:
sudo apt-get install --reinstall python-software-properties && sudo dpkg-reconfigure python-software-properties sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stedy6/stedy-minidna sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade sudo apt-get install minidlna
If you are accessing the server through Webmin and are not sure how to install the module, save it to a local location (such as your desktop on your computer). Select the "Webmin Configuration" module which is under the "Webmin" tab. Select the "Webmin Modules" and choose to load the module “From uploaded file". Once the module has been installed it will be automatically be configured and it will be available under the "Servers" tab.
Once this is installed, you need to configure the MiniDLNA conf file located at /etc/minidlna.conf.
You can use your favourite text editor or if you are accessing this through Webmin, you can use the "Edit" option in "File Manager". If you have installed the Webmin module, you can also change all of the settings from there.
My minidlna.conf file reads as follows:
[refer to link for the full text, but the only changes I had to made were adding the following]
# set this to the directory you want scanned.
# * if have multiple directories, you can have multiple media_dir= lines
# * if you want to restrict a media_dir to a specific content type, you
# can prepend the type, followed by a comma, to the directory:
# + "A" for audio (eg. media_dir=A,/home/jmaggard/Music)
# + "V" for video (eg. media_dir=V,/home/jmaggard/Videos)
# + "P" for images (eg. media_dir=P,/home/jmaggard/Pictures)
media_dir=V,/media/server/server/Media/Films
media_dir=V,/media/server/server/Media/TV
media_dir=V,/media/server/server/Media/Commedy
media_dir=V,/media/server/server/Music/Videos
media_dir=A,/media/server/server/Music/Music
media_dir=P,/media/server/server/Stuff/Pictures
# set this if you want to customize the name that shows up on your clients
friendly_name=MiniDLNA Server
[Basically you need to add the path to the appropriate folders you want to share, and where it says "friendly_name" you can change to something you can easily identify in your network.]
As you can see, I've made a few changes to the standard file:
- I have added various sources of videos
- I have changed the name of the server so I can recognise it easily on the network
- I have moved the location of the database to a location that I backup each day and is shared by Samba (this is for my personal benefit only)
- I have added extra filenames to the "AlbulmArt" section as I usually call the front cover of an album "Front"
Despite the line “# default presentation url is http address on port 80” MiniDLNA does not have a webpage that it can be controlled from. From what I can gather, this was going to be a future feature that was not completed for whatever reason. However, the Webmin module takes care of everything that you need.
From the "Command Shell" in Webmin or through an SSH session using Putty, you can control MiniDLNA using the commands:
Code:
sudo /etc/init.d/minidlna stop sudo /etc/init.d/minidlna start
The Webmin module has a "Restart" button but for some reason (on my set-ups) it does not work properly. It will stop MiniDLNA but when it tries to restart it, it fails. Trying to manually start it using the command "sudo /etc/init.d/minidlna start" after using this "Restart" does not seem to work and the only way I have found to resolve this is to restart the whole server.
Adding or Removing Files of Folders from the Database
In my experience, MiniDLNA tends not to notice if a file has been added or removed from the folders so the database does not update and new files are not shown on your device and old files are still shown even though they have been removed. This seems to be a problem with MiniDLNA and not the receiving soft/hardware. If you change the name of the server, the soft/hardware picks that up fine.
Some people have had success with the command:
Code:
minidlna -R
Code:
rm -rf /tmp/minidlna
Code:
minidlna -R -f /tmp/minidlna.conf
Outstanding Problems
The only thing I have not been able to get MiniDLNA to do so far is display my photos properly on the Blu-ray player even though they display fine on Windows Media Player. On the Blu-ray, it shows all of the folders where my pictures are stored and even gives me the option to search by camera but when I try to view the pictures or look into the folders, the folders are all empty. This suggests it is something to do with the Blu-ray player and not MiniDLNA however, to be honest this is not an issue for me as my main aim was to stream videos and music and it works perfectly for that.
If anyone can point me to a walkthrough of how to receive streamed videos and music on VLC I would be grateful so I can test this set-up on that and add it to this guide.
I hope you find this guide useful and it takes away some of the headaches I've had with setting up this excellent program.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Reinstalling Ubuntu while keeping the home partition intact
I've been using Ubuntu on my desktop alongside Windows 7 for a little while. I started with 11.04 and since then I have been simply upgrading it using the update manager. It worked well enough up until 12.04, I have since experienced a few problems. For instance, my sound all of a sudden stopped working on my Linux, I have had a lot of issues managing my ipod with rythmbox or banshee (which I don't tend to use since it's so buggy), my Conky now looks a bit funky and I often get errors when I try to update my distro using the software manager.
Anyway, lot's of problems. So I decided to install a fresh copy of Ubuntu 12.04 from a disk, and my main problem is that I would like to keep my /home partition intact and of course keep my Windows partitions the way they are. So this is what I have done:
This method seems to work in terms of getting my distro installed fresh, however it did not seem to fix my sound problem, probably because the configuration information is probably located on my /home. Regardless of that, at least I have a fresh install of ubuntu now. So my next course of action will be to see if I can fix the sound issue without having to install the OS again. If that doesn't work maybe I'll install Ubuntu again and create a new /home partition. From there I could just keep my old /home partition and move the files later.
Anyway, lot's of problems. So I decided to install a fresh copy of Ubuntu 12.04 from a disk, and my main problem is that I would like to keep my /home partition intact and of course keep my Windows partitions the way they are. So this is what I have done:
- Using a GParted live CD, I formatted my \ partition (root partition) but I left the partition as it was
- Rebooted the machine with the Ubuntu live disk and selected the install Ubuntu option
- Chose to do "somthing else" on the installation. There I selected my original root partition to and "changed" it to be an active partition and be used as root. You have to make sure all the Linux partitions are in Ext4.
- Chose the original /home partition and select it as active and as the "/home" partition.
- Chose the original /swap partition and keep it as /swap, although for this I didn't seem to need to do anything about it.
This method seems to work in terms of getting my distro installed fresh, however it did not seem to fix my sound problem, probably because the configuration information is probably located on my /home. Regardless of that, at least I have a fresh install of ubuntu now. So my next course of action will be to see if I can fix the sound issue without having to install the OS again. If that doesn't work maybe I'll install Ubuntu again and create a new /home partition. From there I could just keep my old /home partition and move the files later.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Settled on Astrill as my VPN service
For a while I have been looking into different ways to gain a bit more privacy while online. I love the internet, and I do think it is the greatest invention of the 20th century, however, political parties and their archaic outlook on new technologies, slows down the natural progress of it. One of the main problems with the internet is privacy. Laws have not been evolving as quickly as the community, so a lot of them are outdated and infringe on basic freedoms already achieved in the real world. For that reason, I have decided that investing a little bit on a VPN service would be worthwhile.
I did a fair bit of research, and ended up settling on Astrill. I looked at a lot of different services, and as a package I think Astrill's service really suited my needs. One of the other contenders was "Hide my ass", which seems to be one of the most popular services out there. Indeed it was one of the ones I was most interested in. However, HMA made big news at one point when the folks from lulzSec got caught. Apparently HMA did provide authorities with logs that gave away a lot of vital information about its members. So entirely due to principles, in this case being that it makes no sense to pay a fee for privacy, if privacy is not really garanteed. It's not like LulzSec killed anyone.
The other big contender was Strong VPN, which I almost signed up with before I had done more reading. Their prices seem fair, and they do have a lot of options in terms of where their servers are, however, I really was looking for a service that included servers in different countries, freedom to switch servers frequently, the ability to connect via PPTP or OpenVPN. At Strong VPN, the ability to have all those things would cost me quite a lot, so I decided to go with Astrill. They offered pretty much all I wanted for a decent price if you do at least a 3 month contract.
The installation in Ubuntu as well as Windows 7 was easy. On Ubuntu you may need to download OpneVPN through apt-get, but after that you just click to download a small client. Windows just requires the client. I'll use it during the next few months, and I'll post if I encounter any problems.
I did a fair bit of research, and ended up settling on Astrill. I looked at a lot of different services, and as a package I think Astrill's service really suited my needs. One of the other contenders was "Hide my ass", which seems to be one of the most popular services out there. Indeed it was one of the ones I was most interested in. However, HMA made big news at one point when the folks from lulzSec got caught. Apparently HMA did provide authorities with logs that gave away a lot of vital information about its members. So entirely due to principles, in this case being that it makes no sense to pay a fee for privacy, if privacy is not really garanteed. It's not like LulzSec killed anyone.
The other big contender was Strong VPN, which I almost signed up with before I had done more reading. Their prices seem fair, and they do have a lot of options in terms of where their servers are, however, I really was looking for a service that included servers in different countries, freedom to switch servers frequently, the ability to connect via PPTP or OpenVPN. At Strong VPN, the ability to have all those things would cost me quite a lot, so I decided to go with Astrill. They offered pretty much all I wanted for a decent price if you do at least a 3 month contract.
The installation in Ubuntu as well as Windows 7 was easy. On Ubuntu you may need to download OpneVPN through apt-get, but after that you just click to download a small client. Windows just requires the client. I'll use it during the next few months, and I'll post if I encounter any problems.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Firefox slowness on Ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10
I've been experiencing a very annoying slow browsing experience on my Firefox but I've found a fix for it. Type about:config in the address bar and hit enter.
from there you should see a list of configuration lines. Look for the following:
on all of these click with the right button and toggle them from false to true. Lastly look for
change this one from whatever is there (2 in my case) to 8
I hope this helps.
from there you should see a list of configuration lines. Look for the following:
- network.dns.disableIPV6
- network.http.pipelining
- network.http.proxy.pipelining
on all of these click with the right button and toggle them from false to true. Lastly look for
-network.http.proxy.pipelining.maxrequests
change this one from whatever is there (2 in my case) to 8
I hope this helps.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
FTP client in Ubuntu
Just started to work on my website using my Linux distro. First I needed an HTML editor which I believe I already posted about. Anyway, I'm using Komposer for that purpose, and then I needed an FTP client, since unfortunately Nautilus doesn't work with FTP the same way Windows Explorer does. That was a disappointment, as I do love how on Windows I can just type in my ftp adress and boom, I'm pretty much there.
Well there are a few options I found, such as Gftp, Kasablanca, Fireftp, KFTPgrabber, and others. I ended up chosing Filezilla, since I had already heard about it before and figured that should be a good one to start with.
The app is pretty good, I have just used it a couple of times and it seemed stable enough and powerful enough for my needs. To get the bastard, you can go through the software center or the good old command line
easy enough
Well there are a few options I found, such as Gftp, Kasablanca, Fireftp, KFTPgrabber, and others. I ended up chosing Filezilla, since I had already heard about it before and figured that should be a good one to start with.
The app is pretty good, I have just used it a couple of times and it seemed stable enough and powerful enough for my needs. To get the bastard, you can go through the software center or the good old command line
$sudo apt-get install filezilla
easy enough
Monday, January 23, 2012
Editing PDF files and looking at the stars
Just today I had to send out a PDF document that I've received a few days ago, however in this document I had about 12 pages of irrelevant information I didn't want to share. Well there I went to look for a nice app to just remove pages off of a PDF file, and that's when I came by this neat little app on the Ubuntu Software Center called PDF Shuffler. It is a very simple and very small app that just did exactly what I needed, it literally took me less than 5 minutes to search a program like this on UBC, check a couple of reviews, download and install it. It works very well.
As I was in the Software Center, I decided to download this other program called Stellarium, which is an Astronomy app. It is great if you are interested in finding out what star you are looking at night. It's neat that you can also look at the sky anywhere in the world, and it will give you names of stars, planets and constellations. I recommend.
As I was in the Software Center, I decided to download this other program called Stellarium, which is an Astronomy app. It is great if you are interested in finding out what star you are looking at night. It's neat that you can also look at the sky anywhere in the world, and it will give you names of stars, planets and constellations. I recommend.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
KompoZer, free HTML editor for Linux.
I've been using Dreamweaver as my HTML editor for as long as I can remember. I am pretty sure that before that I used notepad, but that was easily over 13 years ago. Well today I decided to look for a new editor that doesn't crash on me as much and that works on my Ubuntu distro. After doing some reading I decided to go with KompoZer, which is a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) type editor, which to me just saves me a ton of time; and it seems quite popular in the community.
To get this beast you can either go the synaptic route or the console route, which will require you to type:
I'll update this post once I have used the program a few times to let you guys know how I like it.
To get this beast you can either go the synaptic route or the console route, which will require you to type:
$ sudo apt-get install kompozer
I'll update this post once I have used the program a few times to let you guys know how I like it.
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