Archive: Linux

It seems that things happen in clusters, sometimes it's more of a chain reaction. My longtime working laptop lost the ability to backlight the display. Yes, the backlight is replacable with a couple …

Windows users know chkdsk, linux users know fsck... users of each MIGHT have heard of SMART. These are different ways of TESTING hard drives. Well, there's also a utility called TestDisk that looks p…

In ubuntu/debian linux software installs, there are such things as "metapackages" which is a package that just describes what OTHER packages it "needs". For instance in ubuntu, the kubuntu-desktop pa…

For years I've been using smartmontools on my linux-based machines. What I've absolutely LOVED about it is the advance notice I've had of hard drive failures. Two consecutive Decembers I received an …

A few days ago I was researching possibilities for linux boot without rebooting to a cd. I found something interesting in instlux. Essentially, it's a windows installer style download that can bootst…

One recent task was install opengroupware on a dapper drake 6.06 install in a virtual machine. I followed the instructions found here and ran into a slight problem. The default install from Ubuntu do…

I thought I had already posted this, but I looked the other day and didn't find the article, so I'm posting it now... if it's a duplicate, sorry... I'm still using Ubuntu's Dapper Drake 6.06(.1) as a…

In the US and Europe and many more developed parts of the world we take our internet connectivity these days for granted. (And some go into panic attacks when it's not available...) In some parts of …

Haven't had the chance to try this one firsthand yet, although I've been watching for this. You may be familiar with ies4linux which is a script that uses wine to download/install multiple versions o…

I thought I had written about this once before, but when I searched the site to find the solution I had come across before, I couldn't find my post.... so, sorry if this is a duplication, but I've ru…

I like nx server and client, it can really make good use of low bandwidth connections to get a gui link. But, by default it's quick and easy to setup gnome and kde login sessions within nxclient, but…

Now... available in Beta form... The Linux version of the Flash player has been stuck at 7 for some time, while many sites require flash 8 for video/etc... (The page to find the beta download is here…

Yikes, what an evening..... it started innocently enough in the afternoon. I have an old Mandrake 10.0 server that I was upgrading clamav on (recent security update). While I was at it, I was reviewi…

First, I should disclaim that this is going to be a brain dump of the resources and experience of a quick setup of Ubuntu 6.06 on a software raid based storage system. This may be less than ideal, bu…

Several days ago there were announcements of the release of Mandriva 2007, only thing was, the download wasn't available yet. Well, today the download appears available. I haven't looked to see what …

WMV and WMA file formats (Windows Media Video and Windows Media Audio) have been one of those sore spots for desktop linux. Yes, I KNOW mplayer and other players can handle them. (If the codecs are i…

It was just announced that there is a VMWare image available for download that includes SuSE 10.1 with KDE 3.5.4 installed and it's also been updated to the most current releases of the other desktop…

I use wget a LOT. Many times in working with a website I've got a ssh console opened to the site and if there's a plugin that I'd like to download it doesn't make sense to download and then upload, I…

The Channelinsider is reporting that Lenovo will be the first tier one OEM to preinstall a linux distribution on generally available PC's. For years, you either had to order large volume, or find a s…

Here is a link to the info page. It sounds as though there are several images available. Mandriva 2007 Beta 1 has Gnome and KDE centric 586 and x86_64 versions of cd images for download as well as an…

I just read that Codeweavers has managed to get World of Warcraft working in Crossover Office in their development builds it should be possible. Of course, it's been possible for some time to run it …

The five Dapper Drake Kubuntu 6.06 LTS disks that I requested in the week or so before release arrived in the mail today. Thanks Canonical. Yes, I do a lot of downloading, but a professionally presse…

What follows are some notes that I've taken on the Vista beta that I installed into a VM. I've got a lot of toying around yet to do with it (and at least one Internet Explorer bug I want to mention.)…

OK - just fresh off solving the reason I couldn't get vmplayer to start on my 1Ghz AMD 64 1GB of memory machine.... I started looking at vmserver. (RC1). Now, vmplayer is a free download (so is vmwar…

I just came across this article about wine-doors which sounds VERY promising. Of course, let me set the stage. Wine is a windows compatibility api for linux. The goal of wine is to allow windows appl…

While I was testing out the "single cut and paste" linux vnc remote desktop sharing script and x11vnc binary.... I spent a fair amount of time booting up livecd's n qemu to test various distributions…

I've tried to ask myself if I'd trust someone enough to let them run a remote session on my own desktop to solve a problem. I think the answer is "it depends". If you think about it, I do tech suppor…

So, I had the script all ready, I've got my x11vnc custom compiled to be as widely compatible as possible, I've tested thoroughly on the internal network. The next step was to test my x11vnc "one cut…

Well, I've got a nice way of doing "easy" one click (or one cut and paste) light desktop support for windows or linux, one uses ultravnc sc, the other uses x11vnc with a special wrapper script. So, w…

I've got to say, one of the things I really like about linux are the myriad of options for remotely administering a system. SSH is the one I use the most, but for the graphical you have x (especially…

As I said in the earlier posts, I was essentially looking for a "Single click" solution for linux VNC remote desktop support. A solution that doesn't require the remote support client to change firew…

So, the idea is that I wanted something "like" the Ultranvnc Single Click download, only for linux. The main idea being is that if someone is looking for a bit of desktop tech support on linux, we do…

It's hard to believe it's time for a version 5 of knoppix, but ... I guess it is. I was just booting up Knoppix 4 in a qemu session last night and already several days behind 5... Anyway, Knoppix 5 w…

Probably the biggest news so far today, at least in linux circles is the official release of the Dapper Drake.... Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Long Term Support) (and kubuntu and edubuntu all...). I've been play…

Some time back I had seen a quick reference to Mandriva Kiosk as some new Mandriva version of the "Click and Run" repository of Linspire. I finally got a chance to give it a try with the upgrade of K…

One of the big stories out today... Google has released an "early beta" version of Picasa for linux. I first saw the news from the ZDNet Googling Google blog. There are deb, rpm and bin downloads ava…

The Mozilla Firefox 1.0.x series will no longer be supported with security updates. IF you use Firefox as your web browser, make sure you're using the current version in the 1.5 series (currently 1.5…

Since, I've still got a few older Mandrake 10 installs that I'm maintaining as mailservers, there aren't supported security fixes for various things anymore... Friday there was news of a new clamanti…

Some time back, I was teetering on the brink.... I've used Evolution as my linux mail client for ages (since I switched), because it had the calender integrated etc... However, Kontact has REALLY loo…

This is a good idea.... let's say you want a linux install, but you're very particular. You'd like to have a certain setup out of the box, say a basic desktop with OpenOffice and Firefox/Thunderbird.…

So, juice (formerly known as ipodder) was a bit too gui-only for my tastes, I took a look at bashpodder which is a bash-script based podcast client. Really, this is very much to my liking as it can b…

I've been playing around a bit with podcast clients the last couple of days. I've been finding online news feeds for the onlineradiotv.com site and for many of those I have bash scripts to handle dow…

Not long ago, I switched from Evolution to Kontact as my primary mail/calendar/addressbook/etc.... program under linux. One of the nice things about the Kontact suite is that you can either open up t…

Mandriva 2006 released without Mozilla Firefox 1.5, it came with 1.0.6 (which included security fixes and other patches from 1.0.7).... anyway, source rpm's for Firefox 1.5 became available in cooker…

I've got a couple of older Mandrake 10.0 servers that I'm still maintaining. They're systems that it hasn't been practical (yet) to do an upgrade to a more recent release of the base operating system…

There has been a bugfix release to Crossover Office, released by Codeweavers. Crossover Office is an offshoot of the Wine project, which is a windows compatibility suite for Linux, to allow Windows a…

There's a security fix available for a vulnerability in Clamantivirus. Version 0.88 fixes the vulnerability which could allow a remote attacker to control a machine running clamantivirus. The Securit…

There's a good review up of both Kubuntu and Ubuntu over at Desktoplinux.com. The writer doesn't seem to find either a perfect fit. Ubuntu is Gnome based, Kubuntu is KDE based. The versions reviewed …

So, I've spent a bit of time talking about flightgear. Here are a couple extra resources that I want to "bookmark" here. There is a Good unofficial how-to here. (Mostly linux flightgear oriented. Als…

This should probably go in the Windows tech support category too... but, as I've talked about before I've spent a good amount of time using different linux livecd's. I've even made a few livecd's of …

Ok - I was thinking I might have been a bit too dismissive of flightgear. So, I took a second look (and a third and fourth.) In fact, I found a source rpm of the 0.99 version and rebuilt it for Mandr…

I remember back when I was running Windows as my primary OS, one of my favorite diversions was Microsoft Flight Simulator (2000?) In fact, I clearly remember circumnavigating the globe in a Cessna in…

There are lots of ways to get a remote desktop under linux, remote X, nxserver, vnc. One of the problems though is the most common configuration doesn't let you connect to a running desktop session. …

I just happened across The Qemu site and found that qemu v. 0.8.0 has been released *(yesterday). I haven't had a chance to download and try myself, but it looks like the open source virtualization s…

The first maintenance release for Openoffice.org 2 has been released sometime today according to Betanews.com. It's mainly a bugfix release. I didn't see an official announcement on their main site, …

OK, the urpmi upgrade did not go very well. I got into an unworkable corner with URPMI (segmentation fault on running urpmi). Rather than try to troubleshoot or do anything fancy I'm going to move on…

The news is that Nero has announced NeroLinux a version of their cd burning software that will run under the linux operating system. The software is available in either rpm or deb binary (for either …

Sendmail is not my favorite MTA. I really prefer Postfix, but... I have to use sendmail in a few situations. I've run a little script on the web server for a good while to monitor the mail queue. I w…

Mirrors are added, now it's time to start the process. OK, everything up until now has been preparatory and hasn't REALLY upgraded anything. I've skimmed over the errata and release notes (again) at …

OK - copying of the most crucial files are done. It's time to start the process. First I've gathered a list of URPMI sources that I can use from online. No local mirror this time, so it may take a wh…

I'm writing this from the laptop. Having run Mandriva 2006 without any real significant bumps for a couple weeks I've come to a point where I'm ready to take the plunge on the desktop. The desktop is…

I saw this earlier today, but had thought it was an issue already covered (just before Thanksgiving there was an opera security update I think.) Anyway... Secunia has an advisory on a security vulner…

Lookes like VMWare has officially released the first version of their VMPlayer. The previous was a pre-release preview/beta. It looks like it's now officially a 1.0.0-final. VMPlayer of course, is a …

For those of you new to linux and using a debian based distribution... here is a good introduction to the world of apt-get. Apt-get is a tool for installing software, updating software, uninstalling …

I've played around with NXserver before and been impressed with it's speed (and quality) of remote X desktop over slow connections. It's been about a year since I've actively looked at it, but I foun…

An editor at tech republic gave a challange not too long ago to Linux users to step up and offer articles along the lines of the top 10 things to do before hooking a linux pc up to the internet. Clic…

I put vulnerability in quotes because it's looking less like a problem. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) Here's the situation. Both Sans and Mozilla have failed to duplicate the crash although have duplica…

Incidents.org has reported on the first announced vulnerability with Mozilla Firefox 1.5 since it's release. The vulnerability is along these lines. History of visited sites is kept in a file called …

There's a good how-to at (where else) howtoforge.com on the topic of setting up ubuntu Linux (with samba) as a Primary domain controller for your network of windows machines. This uses tdb instead of…

There's a good writeup on what OpenOffice.org could learn from firefox. It raises some interesting points. One of which is that software can be designed to meet the needs of say, 60% of the market, t…

Think about it: one pc, 3 monitors, 3 keyboards, 3 mice, 3 users all on the same machine at the same time doing different things. Ah yes, some of you are saying terminal clients, been there... Think …

This is filed under security, but a slightly different angle than the usual computer security articles. I just ran across a link I've kept to Zoneminder. Zoneminder is a neat linux application to hel…

Database replication is one of those useful things that can really make your life simpler. It's not really a way of backing up the data in a MySQL database, because if you inadvertently issue a comma…

OS Dir has the story that Mozilla Firefox 1.5 has already been downloaded more than 2 million times. It was released publicly on the 29th of this month (Tuesday afternoon) and today is Friday... not …

This is something I've wanted to build for some time. I hadn't actually thought about a terrabyte of storage, but... linux journal has the article on making your own home network backup storage solut…

I sometimes forget that VLC is cross-platform. Given that linux is my primary platform I've used it quite a bit in playing around with streaming a video from one machine to another. Engadget has a gr…

According to Planet Mozilla it looks like we should expect the release of Mozilla Firefox 1.5 at around 3PM EST (12 noon PST). There are no promises, but that's what I'm seeing, no exact time mind yo…

DesktopLinux has the news of a new release of Inkscape, an open source SVG editor for Linux, Max, Windows and Unix. The program boasts capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, and Xa…

Desktoplinux.com has a story on a new application directory for KDE. The directory can be found here and lists all applications that are native to KDE, (or QT). There are ratings for how well integra…

Somewhere along the line, there was a review up of Mandriva 2006 where the reviewer mentioned extremely slow performance in KDE, but on loading GNome instead, things were just fine. I've seen some sl…

There's a local Denial of Service vulnerability in the linux kernel's ptrace function according to secunia.com. It reportedly is present in kernel's prior to 2.6.14.2 and is listed as a non-critical …

The 3.5 release of the KDE (linux) desktop environment has come today. Among other things, konqueror is now the second browser to pass the ACID2, CSS rendering test (ahead of Internet Explorer and Fi…

Linux.com is running an article on easy automated backups with a new program called sbackup. Sbackup is a product of Google's summer of code and is a GUI to pick and choose what to backup and when to…

I can't recall trying Ubuntu (maybe a livecd), but I've heard quite a bit about various variations on it lately. I've seen articles on business desktop use, certification by IBM (?) for running one o…

On the back of new server sales numbers, cooltechzone has been declaring the demise of linux. I remember looking at the stats and numbers when they came out and didn't see anything terribly surprisin…

This isn't actually news in the "new" sense, but to many people this is newsworthy. From slashdot... aselabs is running a bit on DSL linux on an older laptop (Pentium 266MMX with 64 MB RAM). Most peo…

I hadn't heard of this distro before, but read at distrowatch, that Troppix has released version 1.2 of their livecd. It supports many wireless chipsets, is aimed to improve look and feel and include…

How many times have I seen this, a dual-boot system with a sideways Master Boot Record (MBR). This is one of those ways that Windows systems sometimes don't "play well with others". This tip at linux…

Word has it that Mozilla Firefox 1.5 will be released Tuesday, November 29th, 2005. It's gone through three release candidates and a number of betas. I think there are some good improvements from wha…

One of the other things I had hoped to do this weekend was play around with the new VMWare player. VMware is a company that makes virtual machine software, the entry level pricing usually starting at…

Well the saga continues. I suspect there will be a three as I get all software installed and mention tips and tweaks. III may not be named as such, I may just do a series of articles on little things…

I had a chance today to start the upgrade process for Mandriva 2006 on my laptop (Dell Inspiron 8000). Now, let's see.... a bit of background. Mandriva (Mandrive/Mandrake) has been my favorite distro…

Madpengiun now has a review up of Mandriva 2006. I'm still hoping soon to have time to sit down and upgrade on at least the laptop. The biggest problem the reviewer had was (slow?) performance under …

OK, truth be told linux is usually thought of as a download for free and install operating system and there are LOT's of ways to do that. But it is also available for purchase at various places, from…

This is an error I've run into a few times. It's rare enough that the second time I saw it, I had a vague memory that it had happened before. The third time though (was within the last week) I rememb…

Recently I did a post on the release of version 5 of Crossover Office which is a commercially supported variation of the wine project. In fact, it's very similar, the only exceptions I know of are th…

News is coming out that Mozilla Firefox 1.5 RC3 is now available. There's coverage at mozillazine.org. From the comments there may be a few bugs to work out still, although I've just skimmed. I'm not…

I was surprised to do a search and find that I haven't mentioned tightvnc before (or even merely VNC as a useful tool.) Ok - here's the scenario, you need a way to get remote pc access, or remotely v…

I'm still not used to the name Mandriva, Mandrake is just what I remember... anyway, mandrake.tips.4.free.fr has the second part of their mandriva 2006 review up. It sounds as though in the last week…

There is an interesting article at Linux.com on the top ten administrator utilities in linux. Titled "My sysadmin toolbox" it goes into some detail on some of the good standby's that if you're intere…