Treg's blog

Finally I took the time to find a descent snipping tool for linux… and I found Shutter. A very nice, quick and clean tool to take screenshots and parts of screenshots. The program offers some extra features, yours to find out.

Off course, this is open source software which on integrates nicely in the Gnome notification area. The software is available in the Ubuntu repositories. 🙂

While testing KDE4.5, it seemed I couldn’t use Tweetdeck anymore. The problem has something to do with storing passwords securely. Since Adobe AIR is a 32-bit application, it needs the 32-bit version of the KDE wallet client libraries in order to get the AIR ELS working properly. (Similarly on GNOME, the 32bit libraries for GNOME keyring are used.)

You can check if 32bit kdewallet client libraries are installed by testing the dynamic link dependencies of e.g. Adobe AIR’s libaddkey.so:

ldd "/opt/Adobe AIR/Versions/1.0/Resources/libaddkey.so" | grep kwallet

If you get something like “libkwalletclient.so.1 => not found” you will need to install the 32bit library. In Ubuntu 9.10 this library is in the kdelibs4c2a package, but this can be detected automatically by the getlibs package (see http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=474790):

wget http://frozenfox.freehostia.com/cappy/getlibs-all.deb
sudo dpkg -i getlibs-all.deb
sudo getlibs libkwalletclient.so.1
sudo ldconfig

Re-run the ldd command above to check that the client library can now be resolved.

After this, erase Adobe AIR ELS and enter your account data anew:

rm -rf ~/.appdata/Adobe/AIR/ELS
TweetDeck

After this, AdobeAIR shows up in KDE wallet manager with an ELSKey stored password.

I found this solution on the Ubuntuforum.org. (provided by mkalen in this topic)

Finally there’s a bugfix for the Linux kernel SATA bug I mentioned in this post. This is how I fixed it on my Ubuntu 7.04 machine:

– Make a file called stopsata in the folder /etc/init.d
The file should contain the following two rules:
#!/bin/sh
echo 1 > /sys/class/scsi_disk/0\:0\:0\:0/stop_on_shutdown
– Make a file called S89stopsata in the folder /etc/rc0.d
The file is a symlink to the previously made script. You can link it with:
ln -s /etc/init.d/stopsata S89stopsata

Attention, Ubuntu 7.04 is using kernel 2.6.20.x. This fix is already included in the kernel but not standard activated yet.

Info/patch about the bug on kernel.org: http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7838
Info about the bug on Ubuntu’s launchpad: Bug #63937

Since the latest network-manager-openvpn doens’t support pkcs12 certs, I needed to convert the pkcs12 key into other keys. This is how I managed to do it.

Extract CA cert, client cert and private key to a single PEM file
> openssl pkcs12 -in client.p12 -out client.pem

Extract client cert to client.cer (no private key or CA cert)
> openssl pkcs12 -in client.p12 -out client.crt -clcerts -nokeys

Extract client private key to client.key (no certs)
> openssl pkcs12 -in client.p12 -out client.key -nocerts

Lately I installed an Ubuntu Dapper LTS 6.06 server with a 3ware 8006-2 sata raid controller. I wanted to use the CLI and the 3DMD raidcontroller software. So I downloaded the software on the website, installed it, but it just refused to work, complaining about wrong drivers. I suppose the drivers into kernel 2.6.15.x are good enough, in fact they are _to_ good/new. So I started to find a solution. I found one by downloading the newest CLI version 9.4.1.

The 3DMD tool wouldn’t work either, so I tried to install the 3DM2 tool. It failed because the installer didn’t generate a .pem file. So I searched some repositories with 3DM2 binaries and found a debian based package.

wget http://ftp.debian-unofficial.org/debian/pool/restricted/3/3ware-3dm2-binary-i386/3ware-3dm2-binary_9.3.0.4-1duo1_i386.deb

I just had do install it with dpkg and it works perfectly now.

The latest sources for Ubuntu Hoary I use, changed dramatically. It are the standard sources because there is no need anymore to get custom binaries of mplayer and jdk. 😛

deb http://be.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-updates main restricted
deb-src http://be.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-updates main restricted
deb http://be.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary universe
deb-src http://be.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary universe
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security universe
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security universe
deb http://be.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary main restricted
deb-src http://be.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary main restricted


My current Ubuntu Hoary sources.list

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary main restricted
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary main restricted

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary universe
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary universe

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security main restricted

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security universe
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security universe
deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ testing main
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ warty multiverse
deb http://ubuntu.tower-net.de/ubuntu/ warty java
deb ftp://neacm.fe.up.pt/pub/ubuntu-java/ binary/
deb-src ftp://neacm.fe.up.pt/pub/ubuntu-java/ source/

Now that you have Ubuntu installed lets tweak a few things to make your experience even better.

1. Getting the latest updates.
   From your desktop select Computer > System Configuration > Synaptic Package Manager you will be asked to enter your password. Click the Reload button then select Mark All Upgrades and finally click Apply this will ensure your system is running the latest updates. You can follow this every few weeks to ensure you get new updates as well.
2. Setting up Nvidia/ATI video drivers (only if you have Nvidia/ATI video cards).
   For ATI Video Drivers:
   – sudo apt-get install linux-686 (if you haven't already). or -k7 or -686-smp or -386... whatever matches your kernel.
   – sudo apt-get install fglrx-driver
   – echo fglrx | sudo tee -a /etc/modules
   This command won’t have any effect until you reboot. To load the kernel module immediately, run sudo depmod -a ; sudo modprobe fglrx, but this will only work if you have already rebooted since upgrading the kernel. If it doesn’t work, perform the next step (below) and then reboot.
   – sudo sed -i -e 's/"ati"/"fglrx"/' /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 Note: If you are going to compile 3d applications, you will want to install the fglrx-driver-dev package Note: You might want to install the fglrx-control package, which provides a control panel to configure graphics card options such as dual-head display (two monitors).

   NVIDIA Video Drivers:
   – sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx
   – sudo nvidia-glx-config enable
   – sudo reboot
   Note: (optional): If you are going to compile 3d applications, you will want to install the nvidia-glx-dev package, like sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx-dev
   Note: (optional): the nvidia-settings package provides a control panel to configure graphics card options such as gamma correction. Install: sudo apt-get install nvidia-settings

3. Enable Universe in Synaptic.
   From your desktop select Computer > System Configuration > Synaptic Package Manager you will be asked to enter your password. Goto Settings > Repositories you will see (2) grayed out boxes click both of them, then click the Reload button.
4. Installing Java systemwide / Firefox.
   Download Java: http://java.sun.com
   – chmod a+x j2re-1_4_2_05-linux-i586.bin
   – ./j2re-1_4_2_05-linux-i586.bin
   – sudo mv j2re1.4.2_05 /usr/local/
   – sudo ln -sf /usr/local/j2re1.4.2_05/bin/java /usr/bin/java
   – sudo ln -sf /usr/local/j2re1.4.2_05/bin/java_vm /usr/bin/java_vm
   – cd /home/username/.mozilla/plugins
   If you do not have a plugins directory you can create one.
   – mkdir -p /home/username/.mozilla/plugins
   – ln -s /usr/local/j2re1.4.2_05/plugin/i386/ns610-gcc32/libjavaplugin_oji.so libjavaplugin_oji.so
   – sudo ln -s /usr/local/j2re1.4.2_05/plugin/i386/ns610-gcc32/libjavaplugin_oji.so /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/
   That should give you working firefox java and systemwide java support.
5. Installing XMMS music player.
   – sudo apt-get install xmms
   If you are running a Nvidia video card you need to add this package as well:
   – sudo apt-get install libmikmod
6. Enable MP3 support in Rhythmbox.
   – sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.8-mad
7. Installing basic development tools.
   – sudo apt-get install build-essential
8. Turn off ipv6 so firefox loads pages faster.
   The latest version of Mozilla includes support for “IPv6” a new form of addressing things on the Internet.
   The problem is: Mozilla tries to use IPv6 before it uses IPv4 (IPv4 is the old version). When your Internet connection doesn’t support IPv6, Mozilla fails to connect on the first try. In the current version of Mozilla, you can’t change this, because of a bug.
   To fix this issue follow these steps:
   – sudo nano /etc/modutils/aliases
   Look for this line:
   # alias net-pf-10 off # IPv6
   Change the line to: (remove the #)
   alias net-pf-10 off # IPv6
   – sudo update-modules
9. Installing a CPU specific kernel.
   – sudo apt-get install linux-686 for newer Intel/AthlonXP
   – sudo apt-get install linux-k7 for any AMD Processors
   – sudo apt-get install linux-686-smp for Dual Intel Processors

Here ‘s a little howto that contains the sources I am currently using on my Ubuntu OS.
First of all you open the sources.list with a text editor e.g. vi, nano, gedit
sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

You comment all the lines and add this lines: (change hoary to warty for the warty release)
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary main restricted
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary main restricted
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary universe multiverse
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary universe multiverse
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security universe
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security universe
deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ testing main
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ warty multiverse
deb http://ubuntu.tower-net.de/ubuntu/ warty java
deb ftp://neacm.fe.up.pt/pub/ubuntu-java/ binary/
deb-src ftp://neacm.fe.up.pt/pub/ubuntu-java/ source/

Save the file and then run:
sudo apt-get update

This will update your repository.