Opera Unite provides webserver, chat room, file sharing right from your PC.

Opera Unite was launched on 16th June 09 and I decided to give it a try on first day. When I clicked on the download link on Opera Unite page it was nothing but version 10.00 Beta of Opera browser. I downloaded the .deb package and installed on Ubuntu Jaunty Jaackalope.

When I opened the browser there was Unite icon on side panel. I could use myopera userid and password to setup the system on my PC. Immediately I could start the chatroom on my PC and send the link to my friends and chat with them.

I had developed some content regarding my experience on steam Turbines using Tiddlywiki in 2007. I could immediately setup website on my PC using that content.

For sharing photos and files I don't need to upload them anywhere. My friends could download directly from my PC.

All these things have become so easy for common user.

Uzbl the new usable browser on Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

Uzbl is a new Webkit based browser with minimal graphical interphase. For opening a URL you have to type 'o URL' and it opens. See the screenshot below:

For adding a bookmark you have to type 'B'. For loading a bookmark you have to type 'u' and for loading a URL from history you have to type 'U'.

Actually o, B, u, U etc are keybindings defined in the config file and B, u and U also call the required scripts.

Tabbed browsing is not available but you can open any number of windows for different URLs.

This browser is being developed on Archlinux and easily installable from AUR. The bookmarks and history use the utility dmenu which has been patched for displaying the URLs vertically and available as dmenu-vertical in AUR.

After installation you can start the browser with 'uzbl' command but you get a blank browser window which does nothing since there is no default configuration. You need to create 'uzbl' folder in ~/.config and copy the following two files in it:

cp /usr/share/uzbl/examples/configs/sampleconfig ~/.config/uzbl/config

cp /usr/share/uzbl/examples/configs/cookies ~/.config/uzbl/

For bookmarks you need to create 'uzbl' folder in ~/.local/share and copy the file:

cp /usr/share/uzbl/examples/data/bookmarks ~/.local/share/uzbl/

and create an empty session file:

cd ~/.local/share/uzbl

touch session

You can also create a launcher uzbl.desktop:

[Desktop Entry]

Encoding=UTF-8

Name=Uzbl

GenericName=uzbl

Exec=/usr/bin/uzbl %u

Terminal=false

Type=Application

Categories=Application;Network;

Icon=applications-internet

All the above settings are required even on Archlinux on which it is being developed since the developer is trying to just give a browser with all other things managed from scripts outside the browser, although, thy are giving 'example scripts' and the settings given above configure these example scripts to work in conjunction with the browser.

Now let us come to installation of uzbl on Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope.

For installing the recent version of Webkit Library add the following sources to /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/webkit-team/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main

deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/webkit-team/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main

to import keys

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 0x991e6cf92d9a3c5b

and to install

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install git git-core libwebkit-dev

to compile and install uzbl

git clone git://github.com/Dieterbe/uzbl.git

cd uzbl

make

sudo make install

After installation on Ubuntu you need to create uzbl directory in ~/.config and ~/.local/share and copy/create the files as stated above.

In addition, Ubuntu does not have $XDG_DATA_HOME set to ~/.local/share by default and dmenu-vertical is not available in Debian/Ubuntu repositories. These things are required by the example scripts.

There are various ways to set the environment variable $XDG_DATA_HOME but I simply decided to put the following line in the load_url_from_bookmarks and insert_bookmark scripts for the time being.

XDG_DATA_HOME=~/.local/share

I have downloaded dmenu-4.0 sources from:

wget http://code.suckless.org/dl/tools/dmenu-4.0.tar.gz

and the required patch from:

wget http://evaryont.me/dmenu-vertical-history.patch

and compiled dmenu-vertical:

tar -xvzf dmenu-4.0.tar.gz

cd dmenu-4.0

patch -p1 < ~/path-to/dmenu-vertical-history.patch

make

sudo checkinstall

I used checkinstall to make .deb package of dmenu-vetical.

VOIP to Gtalk, YM, MSN using Gizmo.

I have setup Gizmo on Ubuntu and called couple of friends (Windows users) on their Gtalk and Yahoo Messenger and had voice chat today and surprised them.

Gizmo has not updated its Linux version since Nov 2007 and there is lot of criticism by Linux users on its forum. I had to use OSS to make the audio work.

Once setup and audio checked through free sip call to Echo Test I could easily import the Gtalk and YM buddies and could have text chat with online buddies but voice chat did not work. This was happening because they were setup as user_id@xmpp.chat.gizmoproject.com (Gtalk) user_id@yahoo.chat.gizmoproject.com

Then I added one contact as user_id@gmail.com and called him and had successful voice chat.

Booting sidux from iso with persistent

I wanted to try sidux since long time. I downloaded the KDE lite version and searched on Google for 'sidux boot from iso' and got the page Booting with "fromiso" of sidux manual.

I created sidux folder at the root of an ext3 partition and copied the iso, vmlinuz and initd.img as per instructions and created following entry in /boot/grub/menu.lst

title sidux 32bit from ISO
kernel (hd0,X)/sidux/vmlinuz boot=fll quiet vga=791 fromiso=/sidux/sidux.iso persist
initrd (hd0,X)/sidux/initrd.img

After booting into sidux KDE 3.5.10 desktop I configured static IP through Ceni. Then I added noxorgconf and nonetwork boot parameters so that sidux does not create xorg.conf and reconfigures the network on reboot.

Since I don't like browsing with Konqueror I installed Iceweasel.

After reboot I found my static IP configuration intact and Iceweasel available.

The persist boot parameter creates folder fll at the root of same partition and uses the remaining space on the partition.

Installation of Archlinux from archiso-live-2009-05-24.iso

I had earlier installed Archlinux after downloading Core installer and following Beginners Guide on ArchWiki.

After reading about Archlinux Live CD archiso-live developed by godane on latest issue of Distrowatch Weekly I decided to give it a try and also use the installer.

I was very much impressed with the Live CD with Xfce as default and choice of LXDE, e17, gnome, openbox-session, Fluxbox by pressing F1 key at Slim Login Manager. The normal user login is arch/arch and root login is root/ArchLinux

The choice of applications is also good:
Blender, Comix, GIMP, GPICViewer, Rawstudio, mtPaint in Graphics category
Arista, Asunder, Audacious, Audacity, Avidemux, Elisa, Hydrogen, VLC in Multimedia category
Abiword, Gnumeric, HomeBank in Office category.

I decided to give the installer a try. Initially, the installer produced some errors after partitioning stage while copying files. I googled for the errors and decided to logout and login as root.

The installer worked this time and copied all the files successfully and failed at Bootloader stage (which I did not want to use anyway).

I found the installation in order except /etc/fstab (which was meant for Live CD) and some tweaks needed in /etc/rc.conf file DAEMONS line. I used the Beginners Guide to build /etc/fstab and also corrected the DAEMONS line.

I made an entry in present /boot/grub/menu.lst as suggested in Beginners Guide and I could boot into the installed Archlinux.

I found that the installer did not delete the Live CD user "arch", therefore, I logged in as arch password arch and everything is working fine.

I updated the system through pacman and found upgrades to clamav, docbook, pidgin, xchm and openvpn which I applied.

Ulx 9.04 Ubuntu based LXDE Live CD with all applications.

Today I am putting new iso of Ulx 9.04 on Linuxtracker.org which has Ubuntu 9.04 minus Gnome (replaced by LXDE), gnome-panel (replaced by lxpanel), Nautilus (replaced by PCManFM), gnome-terminal (replaced by LXTermina), gedit (replaced by Leafpad) but all other applications on LXDE Desktop. I have removed things which refer to Ubuntu like usplash (replaced by LXDE splashy), Ubuntu Docs, Ubuntu themes and wallpapers, Ubufox etc, GDM Ubuntu Themes. COMPIZ is also removed (replaced by Openbox).

It has gnome-games, Brasero, Movie Player (xine based), Rhythmbox, Pulse-audio, F-spot, GIMP, GPICViewer, XSane, Network Manager, Add/Remove, Computer Janitor, Language Support, Network Tools, Synaptic, System Monitor, Update Manager, Ekiga, Evolution, Firefox, Pidgin, Transmission, Open Office (minus Dictionery, language support). In short everything Ubuntu 9.04 has.

Some people may say it is as heavy as Ubuntu itself, may be. I have not tried to make it lighter by removing applications but I am sure the distrolet is lighter than Xubuntu.

In addition, I have written a small utility "mykeyboard" which helps in adding a Keyboard Layout to the default US Layout and added fbxkb to toggle.

Please download from torrent, seed it for some time, try it and post your comments here.

Ulx -- Ubuntu 9.04 distrolet with LXDE.

Today I made Ubuntu 9.04 LXDE Live CD and uploaded the iso on LinuxTracker. This is an experimental effort to get user feedback. At present it has Firefox 3.0.10 OpenOffice 3.0.1 gnome-games Leafpad only.

I am going to add multimedia applications and upload another iso image shortly.

Users are requested to write their feedback about Ulx 9.04 under comments on this blog post.