Installing Ubuntu on hard disk having bad sectors

Today I was approached for installation of Ubuntu on a Laptop on which the hard disk had many bad sectors. We booted the machine with Ubuntu start up USB disk and started checking the 320 GB hard disk with badblocks command. Then we found that it may take several hours to check the hard drive since it had many many badblocks. We used gparted to make two 20 GB partitions at the beginning of the drive and found that both partitions had bad blocks. We interrupted the command with Ctrl+C if bad block was found. We made 20 GB partition after 100 GB and interrupted the badblocks command because bad block was found. Then we made 20 GB partition after 200 GB and no bad block was found. We decided to install Ubuntu on that EXT4 partition having no bad blocks. We made 200 GB NTFS partition at the beginning of the drive. Following are the screen-shots.

After completing the above operation I thought why not check my Laptop Hard Disk for bad sectors. I booted with the start up disk and used badblocks command to check two ext4 partitions having Ubuntu 10.04 and Ubuntu 12.04 and NTFS partition having Windows XP and found no bad blocks. Following is the screen-shot.

Backing up Thunderbird mails on Company's server.

I use Ubuntu Linux on my office Laptop and download mails in Thunderbird. IT Department of every company dislike Linux users and find out ways to prevent them or complain to top management that they have this or that problem due to Linux user. Generally I am able to deal with such complaints.

I am working at Jharsuguda for over two and half years now and there are more than 10000 emails in my inbox and 1000 emails in the sent box. IT Department complained that it is not possible to back up my mails since they are doing back ups through Outlook Express in .pst format.

I installed Import/Export tools on Thunderbird and found that either I could export in .mbox format in one single file or individual mails in .eml format without attachments.

I proposed that Thunderbird on Windows could import the .mbox file but IT Department did not agree.

Then I found mbox2xml converter and told them that the IT Department could convert the mbox file into xml and read it directly in the browser but I had to do that conversion for them and convince that the mail was backed up in usable format.

Revisiting Ubuntu installation on Windows Desktop

I carry a boot-able pen-drive with Ubuntu so that it can be used for quick installation on Desktops/Laptops whose owners permit me to do so.

Yesterday I found a Desktop in Delhi where previous installation of Ubuntu done by me using Live CD was wiped out due to reformatting of hard disk. I tried booting with pendrive after changing the first boot device to USB-HDD, USB-FDD, USB-ZIP etc but could not boot. I will investigate the problem some other day.

Then I decided to download Ubuntu 12.04.1 iso and burn a CD. For cheking md5sum I downloaded WinMD5Sum   The iso failed in md5sum check. Then I downloaded Free Download Manager to download the iso and the iso passed the md5sum check. For burning the iso on CD I downloaded Infra Recorder. After making Live CD I could install Ubuntu 12.04.1 on the Desktop.

This post is just to record what software is needed on Windows ( WinMD5Sum, Free Download Manager, Infra Recorder) to install Ubuntu on Windows machine.

Search News, Wikipedia and many other things directly from Ubuntu Desktop

Although I have installed Ubuntu 12.04 for last two months I could not use various lenses and search the web directly from Ubuntu Desktop.

Today I installed Wikipedia Lens which was available in Ubuntu Software Centre and could search for God Particle Article on Wikipedia as seen in the screen shot below:

Then I decided to use the Unity News Lens and installed it as follow
 sudo add-apt-repository ppa:scopes-packagers/ppa
 sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install unity-lens-news

After installing I logged out and logged in

Following is the screen shot:

Screen Shots of Micromax USB Modem on Ubuntu 12.04

I had posted about using Micromax USB Modem on Ubuntu 12.04 here.One visitor requested me to post the screen shots. Here they are:

The above screen shot shows that there is no network connection.

The above screen shot shows the commands to be typed in the terminal. After this you insert the modem in USB slot.

The above screen shot shows that the modem has been working. Please note that Network Manager is not showing anything so far. You need to wait upto 3 minutes till it shows on Network Manager

The above screen shot shows that the Network Manager has detected a new Mobile Broadband connection. Please note the clock time.

Copying Thunderbird Mails and Address Book from Ubuntu 10.04 to 12.04

I am running Ubuntu 10.04 on my office Laptop since April 2010. When Ubuntu 12.04 came I considered distribution upgrade but decided not to do it since I was running latest versions of Libreofice, Thunderbird, Firefox using Launchpad PPAs. My only problem was to transfer the Mails and Address Book in Thunderbird. The other problem was to resize the big NTFS partition to install Ubuntu 12.04 on a new partition. I solved the NTFS resize problem as described on this post.

For copying Mails and Address Book I copied  xxxxxxxx.default folder and profiles.ini file from/to .thunderbird folder from Ubuntu 10.04 to 12.04 and it works perfectly.

Now I am using Ubuntu 12.04 on my office Laptop.

Resizing NTFS Partition using gparted and chkdsk

Today I installed Ubuntu 12.04 on a Laptop which had Windows XP and Ubuntu 10.04 in dual boot and large extended NTFS partition on E:/ drive. First I tried to resize the NTFS partition using gparted of Ubuntu 10.04 but it failed and also made the NTFS partition unmountable on Ubuntu. I corrected the partition using testdisk and it became mountable. Then I decided to try gparted on Ubuntu 12.04 and successfully resize the partition as follows: I inserted the usb Startup disk into usb port of the Laptop and booted into Ubuntu 12.04. Clicked on top left icon called Dash Home and searched for gparted and clicked on the gparted icon. I right clicked on the NTFS partition and selected check. As expected the gparted produced following error: GParted 0.11.0 --enable-libparted-dmraid Libparted 2.3 Check and repair file system (ntfs) on /dev/sda5  00:00:07    ( ERROR )      calibrate /dev/sda5  00:00:00    ( SUCCESS )      path: /dev/sda5 start: 204,796,683 end: 623,032,829 size: 418,236,147 (199.43 GiB) check file system on /dev/sda5 for errors and (if possible) fix them  00:00:07    ( ERROR )      ntfsresize -P -i -f -v /dev/sda5      ntfsresize v2012.1.15AR.1 (libntfs-3g) Device name : /dev/sda5 NTFS volume version: 3.1 Cluster size : 4096 bytes Current volume size: 214136902144 bytes (214137 MB) Current device size: 214136907264 bytes (214137 MB) Checking for bad sectors ... Checking filesystem consistency ... Accounting clusters ... Cluster accounting failed at 12408217 (0xbd5599): extra cluster in $Bitmap Cluster accounting failed at 12408218 (0xbd559a): extra cluster in $Bitmap Cluster accounting failed at 12408219 (0xbd559b): extra cluster in $Bitmap

Filesystem check failed! Totally 2576 cluster accounting mismatches. ERROR: NTFS is inconsistent. Run chkdsk /f on Windows then reboot it TWICE! The usage of the /f parameter is very IMPORTANT! No modification was and will be made to NTFS by this software until it gets repaired. Then I rebooted into Windows XP and opened command prompt >chkdsk E: /f The type of the file system is NTFS. CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)... File verification completed. CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)... Index verification completed. CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)... Security descriptor verification completed. CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the volume bitmap. Windows has made corrections to the file system. 209118068 KB total disk space. 51761464 KB in 45713 files. 19896 KB in 7661 indexes. 0 KB in bad sectors. 131132 KB in use by the system. 65536 KB occupied by the log file. 157205576 KB available on disk. 4096 bytes in each allocation unit. 52279517 total allocation units on disk. 39301394 allocation units available on disk. Then I  rebooted twice in Windows XP. Once again I booted into Ubuntu 12.04 using usb startup disk and started gparted, right clicked on the partition and selected check. This time gparted reported as follows: GParted 0.11.0 --enable-libparted-dmraid Libparted 2.3 Check and repair file system (ntfs) on /dev/sda5    ( SUCCESS )      calibrate /dev/sda5  00:00:00    ( SUCCESS )      path: /dev/sda5 start: 204,796,683 end: 623,032,829 size: 418,236,147 (199.43 GiB) check file system on /dev/sda5 for errors and (if possible) fix them    ( SUCCESS )      ntfsresize -P -i -f -v /dev/sda5      ntfsresize v2012.1.15AR.1 (libntfs-3g) Device name : /dev/sda5 NTFS volume version: 3.1 Cluster size : 4096 bytes Current volume size: 214136902144 bytes (214137 MB) Current device size: 214136907264 bytes (214137 MB) Checking for bad sectors ... Checking filesystem consistency ... Accounting clusters ... Space in use : 53159 MB (24.8%) Collecting resizing constraints ... Estimating smallest shrunken size supported ... File feature Last used at By inode $MFT : 162676 MB 0 Multi-Record : 170638 MB 27119 $MFTMirr : 107604 MB 1 Compressed : 42052 MB 30556 Ordinary : 168508 MB 26979 You might resize at 53158412288 bytes or 53159 MB (freeing 160978 MB). Please make a test run using both the -n and -s options before real resizing! grow file system to fill the partition  00:00:00    ( SUCCESS )      run simulation  00:00:00    ( SUCCESS )      ntfsresize -P --force --force /dev/sda5 --no-action      ntfsresize v2012.1.15AR.1 (libntfs-3g) Device name : /dev/sda5 NTFS volume version: 3.1 Cluster size : 4096 bytes Current volume size: 214136902144 bytes (214137 MB) Current device size: 214136907264 bytes (214137 MB) New volume size : 214136902144 bytes (214137 MB) Nothing to do: NTFS volume size is already OK. real resize    ( ERROR )      ntfsresize -P --force --force /dev/sda5      ntfsresize v2012.1.15AR.1 (libntfs-3g) Device name : /dev/sda5 NTFS volume version: 3.1 Cluster size : 4096 bytes Current volume size: 214136902144 bytes (214137 MB) Current device size: 214136907264 bytes (214137 MB) New volume size : 214136902144 bytes (214137 MB) Nothing to do: NTFS volume size is already OK. Finally I could resize the NTFS partition and make a new ext4 partition to install Ubuntu 12.04.

Using Micromax 3G Modem on Ubuntu 12.04

In Sep 2010 I had written about using Micromax 3G modem on Ubuntu 10.04. Since then I could not find time to see whether Ubuntu 10.11, 11.04 and 11.10 has any changes wrt modeswitch etc. In Ubuntu 12.04 the newest version of usb-modeswitch is already installed by default and  mode switching takes place in the background.

Today I downloaded the iso of Ubuntu 12.04 Desktop iso and made a boot-able pen-drive and wanted to use the Micromax 3G Modem. Before implementing the procedure in my last post I searched and found following procedure on askubuntu:

Open up a terminal from Applications -> Accessories. Type:

sudo gedit /etc/modules

At the bottom of the file, make two new lines, like this:

usbserial
option

Then close the editor program and save it. Reboot the computer and hopefully you’ll be right from now on!

Since I was running from usb stick I used the following commands to load these modules:
sudo modprobe usbserial
sudo modprobe option

Then I inserted Micromax usb modem and configured a new Mobile Broadband connection through the Network Manager.

Although the Network Manager had not detected the insertion of modem but after configuring the connection it worked.

If you have installed Ubuntu 12.04 and want to use this modem on regular basis you can edit /etc/modules file as per the procedure on askubuntu so that the modules would be loaded on boot.

If you want to occasionally use this modem you can use my procedure i.e. to load the modules before inserting the modem.

NB: Network Manager takes about 3 minutes to detect the modem on LiveCD/USB or even installed Ubuntu 12.04. You need to have some patience after inserting the modem. In addition the modules 'usbserial' and 'option' need to be loaded before insertion as described above. In Ubuntu 11.10 this Modem shows up in Network Manager after a few minutes without giving any command.

One visitor wanted me to post screen shots. Here they are.

Run Latest Ubuntu from USB stick.

My favorite Linux Distribution Ubuntu Linux has come long way in last 7 years. Today I decided to download the latest version 11.10 and try it on USB stick since I am not yet prepared to upgrade the LTS version 10.04. Downloading and making a USB stick has become so simple. Here is how to do it:

Go to download page.
Select Download options:
Ubuntu 11.10 Latest Version
32 or 64 bit
Click on Start Download
After download check the iso with following command:
sha256sum ubuntu-11.10-dektop-i386.iso
sha256sums are available in this file

Following procedures assumes that you are running Windows
Go to pendrivelinux.com
Download Universal USB installer
Insert USB stick
Click on Universal USB installer exe file
Accept TOS
Select Ubuntu 11.10
Click on Browse button and select ubuntu-11.10-dektop-i386.iso
Select the drive for USB stick and check to format if necessary.
Select persistent file size
Click on Create

The installation process is going to take time. Relax.

After installation reboot with USB stick (I hope you know how to boot your machine with USB) and you get the new Ubuntu on your screen.

I did all the above steps and here is the screenshot:

I could also setup network connection using Bluetooth through my Samsung Galaxy 5 using the GUI.


I love new Ubuntu 11.10 but I need to learn using Unity Desktop which I am going to finish today.

Importing ICICI Bank and other Banks account file in GnuCash

Update: This is four years old. A new post on same topic may be found here.

I wrote in the previous post that I would write about how to import Indian Banks Transaction files in GnuCash accounting software.

ICICI Bank offers download of Bank Transactions file in MS Money Format (.qif) and GnuCash accepts importing this file format but when you try to import it may fail and if it succeeds the import wizard will ask many questions. Open Office has a macro CALC2QIF which imports .qif file. When you import the file you will see that the Category column has entries like TCI, TBI, TIP etc and while GnuCash can import the transactions into the Bank Account it does not understand where to post the corresponding debit/credit entry into the other account. Let us consider one example.

Suppose you have received payment from your Customer there are two entries to be made. One in the Bank Account and the other in Accounts Receivable but the file downloaded from ICICI Bank shows TBI on the Category. You need to change TBI to Accounts Receivables. Similarly you should write the names of other accounts like Cash etc in the Category column. If you can't decide the account name you can write Imbalance against such entries in the Category and GnuCash will show them as imbalance till you change them.

After you change the entries in Category column you should select the cells and click on Save to QIF, clear the default fields and select them again in the order they are displaced i.e. Date, Amount, Check Number, Payee, Memo, Category and Sub-Category, select the destination for QIF output file and click on Convert.

Now you can import this file easily in GnuCash.

Using GnuCash for maintaining books of accounts of small business in India

For the last two months I was working on suitability of GnuCash for maintaining books of accounts of small businesses of India. When you start GnuCash for the first it offers to setup the accounts. In Business Accounts Category it creates most accounts necessary for a Business excluding Fixed Assets. You can also select the Fixed Assets category which creates three accounts House, Other Asset and Vehicle. You can delete the accounts (e.g. House) you don't need for your Business later on. After you select the accounts the next screen offers to change the name of accounts. This is necessary because the default names are suitable for a Business in USA e.g. there is an account called "Federal" under Taxes which you can change to "Income Tax" and there is an account called "Checking Account" which you can change to "Current Account" and so on. You should also have the amounts of Opening Balances ready with you for Fixed and Current assets while setting up.

After setting up the accounts with Opening Balances you can delete the accounts (especially there are too many Expenses accounts) not relevant for your Business and also add the accounts which you need but not present (e.g. you can create Computer, Office Furniture etc under Fixed Assets.

I found a site explaining the setup nicely and there is no need to write the details here.There are more details on this page.

The next step is to import the Data from Bank Accounts. Some Banks (e.g. ICICI Bank) offer to download the statement in MS Money Format (.qif) which can be imported directly into GnuCash. I am going to write another post for importing the data from Bank Statements. If you do this correctly all Bank transactions get posted in double entry system in Books of Accounts and saves lot of time.

How to get new Indian Rupee Symbol ₹ on Keyboard shortcut on Debian or Ubuntu?

The new Indian Rupee Symbol ₹ exists for more than one year now. There are various posts on the Internet describing how to type it. The symbol has been included in UTF-8 as U+20B9. Most fonts now support this character therefore you don't need to install any special font for typing it.

You already know how to type $ sign (by pressing shift +4). There is a new Keyboard Layout "India English with Rupee Sign" in new xkb-data file but the stable Linux Distributions have not updated their files.


If you want to get this Keyboard Layout on Debian or Ubuntu download the latest xkb-data file. It is available on Debian Sid as xkb-data (2.1-2)  You can download and install it on Debian or Ubuntu.

After installation you need to select the Keyboad Layout "India English with Rupee Sign". Now you can type ₹ by using Right Alt +4 key combination.

Update: Ubuntu 12.04 has this Keyboard Layout Emglish (India, with Rupee sign).

Using Thunderbird to down load mail using POP3 server and importing address book from Evolution

I have been facing some issues using Evolution mail client and decided to switch to Thunderbird. When I opened the program for the first time it asked the email ID and password and communicated with server and configured IMAP server automatically. When I tried to change to POP3 server there was no option anywhere in the settings.

After Googling a bit I found couple of solutions. The one I used is as follows:

I deleted the account setup initially and asked Thunderbird to setup the account once again. While it was communicating with the server I interrupted the process and it offered me to edit the setup with a drop down for the server type. I selected POP and could setup POP3 server.

I faced another problem importing the Address Book. Evolution saves the Address Book only in VCard format and Thunderbird does not import from this format. I used this on-line utility to convert VCard (.vcf) into LDIF (.ldif) format and imported the converted LDIF file.

Deleting sms messages on Android Phone

I am getting sms messages daily from 2 numbers. Android phone was forming a thread of all the sms messages. In default Android messaging system it was not possible to delete one or some of the messages in a thread and if I wanted to delete the complete thread was getting deleted including the newest messages.

I searched on Market with "sms" and got number of applications. I downloaded HandsentSMS. Now with this application I can select Batch mode and then select the messages I want to delete and delete them

Moving/Copying Virtual hard disk for Virtualbox

As described on this post I installed Windows XP on Virtualbox on Ubuntu 10.04. For creating virtual hard drive I used the default settings of Virtualbox which created it in hidden .virtualbox/harddisks folder on home.

Since I did not think about running Windows inside Ubuntu the /home was not very large. After a few months Ubuntu started complaining about low disk space and when I examined it the largest space was occupied by the virtual hard drive.

I copied the Windows.vdi file on another partition and tried to attach it but Virtualbox complained of same uuid already registered and refused to attach the copy.

Then I opened the terminal and typed following command after changing directory to that partition.
VBoxManage internalcommands sethduuid Windows.vdi

The uuid was changed and I could attach and use the copy of .vdi file.

After testing that everything was fine I deleted the original .vdi file.

Now I have enough space on home and Windows XP running in Virtualbox as before.

Tethering Samsung Galaxy 5 on Ubuntu 10.04

I have been using Samsung Galaxy 5 to surf the net on the Laptop through USB and Bluetooth using its modem. But the speed which I was getting on Mobile could not be obtained on the Laptop.

Then I discovered EasyTether application on Android Market and installed the EasyTether Lite (Free). I could get better speed on the Laptop.

EasyTether Lite does not support https protocol and I could not login to gmail, facebook etc. Today I bought the License paying $9.99 and now it is supporting https also.

Enjoying Samsung Galaxy 5 Mobile Android (Linux) phone.

Being a passionate Linux user I was curious about Linux Mobile smart phones. Recently I purchased Samsung Galaxy 5 mobile phone which has Android 2.1 which is Linux based operating system developed by Google. It is a 3G phone with GPS and internet connectivity through Wi-Fi and Mobile Network and synchronization with Google Applications. I can download and install Android software. Yesterday I installed Skype and Facebook.

I have enabled GPS in it and the visitors of this blog can track my presence in the power station where I work or my home at Jharsuguda in real time through the Google Latitude gadget on right side bar.

As I was connecting my Nokia phone through USB or Bluetooth to my Laptop for browsing the net I can use this Samsung phone as well through USB or Bluetooth.

Using Micromax BSNL 3G Modem on Ubuntu 10.04.

While doing my new job at Jharsuguda I am also introducing people to Ubuntu Linux and many people are using it booting from USB stick. BSNL provides Micromax USB modem for net connection and I had specific request from one person yesterday to help him set it up on Ubuntu. I brought his modem home and tested it as following.

While googling for this modem I discovered that usb_modeswitch was necessary to detect it as modem instead of mass storage device. I downloaded the latest version of usb-modeswitch and usb-modeswitch-data from Debian repositories. Then I proceeded as  follows:


When I plugged in the Modem it got mounted as a CD. I got its vendor and product ID (thro lsusb) and unmounted it:

$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 1c9e:f000
$ eject /dev/sr1

I found the configuration file for ID 1c9e:f000 in /etc/usb_modeswitch.d/
Since I did not want the configuration on my machine I simply used it:
$ sudo usb_modeswitch -c /etc/usb_modeswitch.d/1c9e:f000

The modeswitch reported success I got the new ID for the device:
$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 005: ID 1c9e:9605


I inserted the driver thro:
sudo modprobe usbserial vendor=0x1c9e product=0x9605

and the Network Manager detected it as BSNL Mobile Broadband device using the same set up which I use for the Mobile.

There is a wonderful script Sakis 3G for doing all this automatically.

Update on 12th May 2012: I have posted today about using this modem on Ubuntu 12.04 and it is entirely different. Click here to read.

Using Nokia Mobile GPRS net connection via Bluetooth.

Since I have come to Jharsuguda I am using Nokia Mobile GPRS through USB connection to my Laptop to access internet. Although, it is painfully slow but it works. When the Mobile is connected through USB cable to the Laptop it gets detected as new Mobile Broadband device and after choosing BSNL East (my service provider) it works after putting correct access point (APN). The APN was gprseast.cellone.in which has been changed to bsnlnet recently.

The problem with USB connection was very short cable provided by Nokia. Moreover, I had to sit in the balcony of my flat to get constant signal strength.

Today I decided it to use Bluetooth. I switched on Bluetooth and it got detected and I could browse the files on the Mobile and transfer files from/to the Laptop. It was also detected by the Network Manager but not connecting to internet.

After googling for the solution I discovered that I need to write the following in

/etc/bluetooth/rfcomm.conf

rfcomm0 {
        bind yes;
        device mac-address;
        channel 1;
        comment "Bluetooth PPP Connection";
}

The mac-address of the phone and channel could be found by following command:

$ sdptool search DUN

 For connecting I had to use the following command:

$ sudo rfcomm connect 0

Then I could use the connection which was set-up via USB but without USB cable (through Bluetooth).

Now the mobile is kept in the balcony and I am sitting in the bedroom posting this.

Restore panels in Ubuntu.

In Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx the shutdown applet was found missing once. After restart it reappeared. Today I found the Network Manager applet in top right corner. Although this may be happening due to some bug I found the following way to restore the panels. Open a terminal or if the top panel is missing and you can't click on Applications/Accessories/Terminal press Alt+F2 and type 'gnome-terminal' (without quotes) in run box and type the following commands:

$ gconftool --recursive-unset /apps/panel
$ rm -rf .gconf/apps/panel
$ pkill gnome-panel

That's it. Your panels would be restored with default settings.

Using Ubuntu and Windows simultaneously.

Since Ubuntu is my favorite operating system I installed it on my office Laptop initially in dual boot with Windows. I can do most of my office work like emails (in Evolution), creating and reading the documents (in Open Office) on Ubuntu. But we have many drawings in dwg and dwf formats and although, I could install dwg viewer on Ubuntu I could not find satisfactory solution for viewing dwf format. In addition Bank of Baroda Net Banking transactions require Internet Explorer and Microsoft Virtual Machine. I was using Windows for this purpose.

After briefly trying Wine I decided to install Virtual Box on Ubuntu and installed Windows in Virtual Box. I added dwg and dwf viewers in the Windows installation.

Now I can simultaneously use Ubuntu and Windows. See the Ubuntu and Windows running in two workplaces below:

USB support and access to folders on Windows running in Virtualbox.

After joining at Jharsuguda I need to view Autocad files and although, I can view dwg files on Ubuntu I could not find any viewer for dwf files. I was using Windows to view the files.

I was also using Internet Explorer along with Microsoft VM for Net Banking of Bank of Baroda.

Meanwhile various viruses were spreading due to transfer of files through pendrives and one virus corrupted Microsoft VM and I could not use Net Banking.

I was having Ubuntu in dual boot with Windows. I decided to install Windows as Guest OS in Virtualbox on Ubuntu to provide virus free environment to BOB Net Banking. I have posted about this in previous post.

Then I installed dwg and dwf viewers on Windows running on Virtualbox and this required USB support and access to folders on the hard disk.

Providing USB support was simple on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. I had to add the user to the group vboxusers.
sudo adduser userid vboxuser

Further I could delete the viruses by initially mounting the pendrive on Ubuntu. Then I could mount the pendrive on Windows by clicking on Devices/USB_Devices.

For accessing folders on hard disk I had to install Guest additions on Virtualbox. Then I clicked on Devices/Shared_Folders to add the folders.

Finally, I could access the folders through My_Network_Places.

BarodaConnect BOB Net Banking on Ubuntu Linux.

Update on 18/10/2012
Net Banking Site of Bank of Baroda has since been changed. Now it works on Ubuntu 12.04 with JRE  7 with Chromium Browser. There is only one problem. You should enter the transaction password using Virtual Keyboard, otherwise, it says that you entered wrong password.

Bank of Baroda Net Banking requires Internet Explorer and Microsoft VM for initial change of password and entering Transaction password. If you use Firefox on Windows or Linux it gives an error "[21996] Javascript disabled in browser" after you enter the transaction password.

In order to use BarodaConnect I installed Virtualbox on Ubuntu. Then I installed Windows XP in Virtualbox. Opening BarodaConnect on Internet Explorer I clicked on Java Settings Link and downloaded the Zip file which had Microsoft VM.

After installing Microsoft VM I restarted Windows and did the required browser settings.

Finally I could use BarodaConnect on Internet Explorer running in Virtual Box on Ubuntu.


Step by step instructions for Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx:
Install virtualbox-ose through Synaptic or apt-get

If you need usb support in guest os download proprietary Virtualbox from this link and install through gdebi.

Start Virtualbox through Applications/System_tools.

Create a new Virtual Machine for Windows.

Insert Windows CD and install it on Virtual Machine.

Start Internet Explorer and go to BarodaConnect.

Click on Login link for Net Banking.

Since Java VM or Microsoft VM is not yet installed you will get the link to download java_settings on login page.

Click on the link and download java.settings in zip file.

Unzip and click on msjavx86 exe file to install Microsoft VM.

Set up Internet Explorer as follows:
Click on Tools/Internet_Options
Click on Security Tab
Select Internet
Click on Custom_Level
Scroll down to Microsoft_VM/Java_Permissions
Select Custom
Click on Java_Custom_Settings
Click on Edit_Permissions Tab
Select Enable every where
Click on Ok.

Select Restricted Sites and repeat all above steps.
Finally click on Apply button.


You can now access BarodaConnect and carry out transactions.

Reading Phonebook of Nokia 5130c-2 on Ubuntu.

In order to read the phonebook of my Nokia 5130-c-2 on Ubuntu I installed gnokii (available in Universe repository).

Then I searched on Google and found the following configuration file which I saved as .gnokiirc on home directory.

[global]
port = /dev/ttyACM0
model = 6510
initlength = default
connection = dku2libusb
use_locking = yes
serial_baudrate = 19200
smsc_timeout = 10
[xgnokii]
allow_breakage = 0
[gnokiid]
bindir = /usr/sbin/
[connect_script]
TELEPHONE = 08093098045
[disconnect_script]
[logging]
debug = off
rlpdebug = off
xdebug = off

Then I tried Xgnokii but it was not working as normal user
. Then I tried with sudo and it gave this error:

Couldn't open PHONET device: Device or resource busy

After searching on Google I removed cdc_phonet kernel module:

sudo rmmod cdc_phonet

Now I am using the following command and can access phonebook, send sms and initiate call from Ubuntu laptop:

sudo xgnokii

Checking built-in Webcam on HP Notebook

I got HP ProBook 4410s from my new office and running Ubuntu 9.04 Live CD on it. To test whether the built-in webcam was working I opened a Terminal and typed:
gstreamer-properties

A GUI window with title 'Multimedia System Selector' opened in front of me. I clicked on video tab and clicked on Test under Default Input.

The webcam indicator showed light and I could see my image in front of me. I could take a screenshot of the image.

Using Tata Docomo Nokia Mobile to surf on Ubuntu Laptop.

Many readers of this blog are not aware that I am a Power Plant Professional. I joined at 4x600 Thermal Power Station at Jharsuguda in Orissa on 18th Jan and could not get net access except for a few minutes every day through Reliance Data Card in the new office.

Then I got Tata Docomo post paid connection on Nokia 5302c which is web enabled phone. Initially I used Opera browser on the mobile connecting through GPRS. Today I connected the Mobile through USB port to Ubuntu Laptop. The Mobile asked what to use the USB connection for and I selected PC Suite. Ubuntu opened the Network setup wizard automatically and I selected Tata Indicom (Plug2surf) and Ubuntu configured it for me. After connecting the Mobile asked me to subscribe to Data Packets. In the Mobile I selected Connectivity and set up the access point as tata.docomo.internet in Packet Data.

I could connect to internet through the Mobile and posting this through the connection.

Update on March 1, 2010
GPRS charges on post paid Mobile on Tata Docomo were very high (1p/KB). Today I received an SMS from Tata Docomo Customer Care that I could activate a day pass for Rs 5/10 MB for the day. I activated it and using it now.

PCLinux OS on Intel 82845 chipset

PCLinux OS is a very user friendly Linux Distribution which I have not tried since long. I am bored with Ubuntu Karmic and most mainstream distributions since the desktop I am using at present has Intel 82845 chipset which has problems with all these distributions because the problem lies with the latest intel driver. When I looked at PCLinux OS it has X.Org X Server 1.4.0.90 built in 2007 and I thought it should work on this machine.

I decided to have a look at their LXDE Live CD and downloaded the iso. I mounted the iso and copied vmlinuz and initrd.gz in pclos folder on the root of sda4 partition (mounted at /media/disk) and livecd.sqfs at root of sda4:
mkdir /tmp/pclos
sudo mkdir /media/pclos
sudo mount pclinuxos-lxde-2009.4.iso -o loop /tmp/pclos
sudo cp /tmp/pclos/isolinux/vmlinuz /media/pclos
sudo cp /tmp/pclos/isolinux/initrd.gz /media/pclos
sudo co /tmp/pclos/livecd.sqfs /media/

Then I wrote the following lines in/etc/grub.d/40_custom:

menuentry "PCLinux OS" {
set root=(hd0,4)
linux /pclos/vmlinuz livecd=livecd root=/dev/rd/3 vga=788 keyb=us splash=silent fstab=rw,auto changes_dev=/dev/hda4
initrd /pclos/initrd.gz
}

and updated grub:
sudo update-grub

If you are having Legacy grub you have to write following lines in /boot/grub/menu.lst:

Title PCLinux OS
root (hd0,4)
kernel /pclos/vmlinuz livecd=livecd root=/dev/rd/3 vga=788 keyb=us splash=silent fstab=rw,auto changes_dev=/dev/hda4
initrd /pclos/initrd.gz

After reboot I could choose "PCLinux OS" on grub menu and get the Login screen. I logged in as guest and I could see the LXDE Desktop but could not do much before it froze. Then I added vesa at the end of linux boot line in grub and I could use the Live CD.

I went to PCLinuxOS Forum and searched for 82845 and read a couple of posts and got a solution in this post. PCLinux OS loads intel driver which does not work for 82845 chipset, however, it also has the old i810 driver which works.

I clicked on Configure your computer icon in the Application Launch Bar entered the root password (root), clicked on Hardware/Set_up_the_graphical_server/Graphic_card_selection (Intel 810 and later) and changed it to Intel 810, accepted the changes and clicked on Ok to logout. Unfortunately, I got blank screen on logout.

On next attempt I booted without vesa driver and followed the above procedure once again. This time I could get Login screen on logout and after re-login the driver was changed to i810.

If you intend to install PCLnuxOS the blank screen on logout should not matter since the change of driver is already saved by the system.

I can say that PCLnux OS 2009 works for Intel 82845 chipset with i810 driver.

Update:
I have added changes_dev=/dev/hda4 to boot options to have persistent Live system. Now when I change the driver to i810 the new configuration is saved for reboot. The default web browser is Midori. I have installed Firefox 3.5.6 using Synaptic package manager and it is available on reboot.

If you are looking for how to use Ubuntu Karmic on Intel 82845 chipset read this post.

Sidux with XFCE.

I had tried KDE version of Sidux earlier in May 09 and wrote about it in this post. I decided to try XFCE version this time and downloaded the latest iso. As before I wanted to boot from iso without burning a CD. Now I have grub2, therefore, I opened /etc/grub.d/40_custom to edit and wrote the following lines in it:

menuentry "sidux 32bit from ISO" {

set root=(hd0,4)

linux /sidux/vmlinuz boot=fll quiet vga=791 fromiso=/sidux/sidux.iso persist tz=Asia/Calcutta

initrd /sidux/initrd.img

}

First I copied the iso to 'sidux' directory at the root of sda4 partition (mounted at /media/disk)

sudo cp sidux-2009-03-momos-xfce-i386-200911110039.iso /media/disk/sidux/sidux.iso

Then I mounted the downloaded iso and copied vmlinuz and initrd.img to 'sidux' directory at the root of sda4 partition (mounted at /media/disk):

mkdir /tmp/sidux

sudo mount sidux-2009-03-momos-xfce-i386-200911110039.iso -o loop /tmp/sidux

cd /tmp/sidux/boot

sudo cp vmlinuz* /media/disk/sidux/vmlinuz

sudo cp initrd.img* /media/disk/sidux/initrd.img

Then I updated grub to get the sidux entry in grub menu:

sudo update-grub

Then I restarted and selected 'sidux 32bit from ISO' entry in Grub menu and I could boot into the XFCE Desktop on latest Sidux.

There was a freeze after some time because of the bug in Xorg for Intel 80845 chip-set.
I had faced same problem on Ubuntu Karmic on this chip-set and forced Xorg to use vesa driver by writing xorg.conf. I copied the file to /fll/cow/etc/X11 on sda4:

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier    "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier    "Default Screen"
    Monitor        "Configured Monitor"
    Device        "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier    "Configured Video Device"
    Driver        "vesa"
EndSection

Google Chrome Browser for Linux

Some Linux users were already running Google Chrome Browser from dev channel. Now Google has announced immediate availability of Google Chrome Browser for Linux. You can download it from here. You can download themes and extensions. See my screenshot. I have installed Similar Pages, Feedly, Aviary screenshot utility, Gmail checker and Xmarks extensions and you can see their icons on right side.

Update on Dec 12
When Google announced Chrome Beta it was version 4.0.249.30 and unstable version was also same, however, the development continues and if you upgrade unstable today it is at version 4.0.266.0. If you installed unstable before beta was announced the version changes if you upgrade, however, those who installed beta the version remains at 4.0.249.30, therefore, if you want to stick to beta remove unstable and install beta or don't upgrade unstable and let it stay at version 4.0.249.30.
Update on Dec 17
Today Chrome Beta also got updated to version 4.0.249.40.

Using Google Chromium OS on Desktop.

After Google announced the availability of source of Chromium OS VMWare and USB images appeared on internet. I downloaded USB image but it exceeded the 2 GB size of my pendrive. Then a smaller USB image (less than 1 GB) was made by a developer and I downloaded it today from this site. I extracted the image and copied it to the pendrive through:
sudo dd if=ChromeOS-Cherry.img of=/dev/sdb bs=4M

I could boot from USB to the login screen but it froze after login then I realized that I was using a desktop which has Intel 82845G chipset. Then I modified xorg.conf on the USB stick to use vesa driver.

I could then get to the Chrome browser. I could browse but noticed following two problems:

1. I was already logged in to my Google account but could not use the Blogger even after I logged out of gmail and tried to login to Blogger. The Blogger complains about cookie functionality.
2. When I type I have to wait a few seconds before the text appears on the browser.

Note: On next boot I was already logged into Blogger. You can ignore point 1.

Xmarks on Google Chrome Browser.

I have been running Google Chrome Browser (unstable) on Ubuntu Linux. Today I discovered that I can run Xmarks for Chrome Alpha, version 0.5.11 on it. I clicked on the download link of Xmarks through Chrome Browser and it installed as an extension.


You need to have an Xmarks account to access the download link and the Google Chrome Browser should be from Development Channel.

Xmarks is working perfectly on Google Chrome from dev channel.

How to change default Operating System on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

Some people use Ubuntu in dual boot with Windows and they prefer to make Windows as default Operating System. Prior to Ubuntu 9.10 this was achieved by changing the default line in /boot/grub/menu.lst file.

Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala has Grub2 which does not have menu.lst file. The configuration file is /boot/grub/grub.cfg which is not supposed to be edited even by root. The primary configuration file for changing menu display settings is /etc/default/grub. The procedure to change the default OS is as follows:


Count the line number in the Grub menu taking first line as 0.
$ gksudo gedit /etc/default/grub

Change 0 in this line to the desired number:
GRUB_DEFAULT=0

Save and close the file

$ sudo update-grub

After running update-grub the default will change in grub.cfg

Running Ubuntu Karmic on Intel 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset

My daughter's Desktop which I use while at Bhubaneswar has this chipset:

$ lspci -nn | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device [8086:2562] (rev 03)

I have installed Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala on this machine and it is having random freezes. I have submitted a bug report but I don't think the bug is going to be resolved very soon. There is another bug resembling mine (my bug may be a duplicate) which has been submitted upstream on freedesktop.org but I don't think that it may be resolved soon.

I decided to change to vesa driver but there was no xorg.conf. I used the following xorg.conf:

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "vesa"
EndSection

There is no freeze using vesa driver.

Update on Jan 1 2010
There is some activity on the bug report. The commit in the Kernel responsible for this bug has been identified and informed upstream. Meanwhile I have found that if I use IceWM instead of gnome there is no freeze with intel driver. If you are comfortable with IceWM you can also use it.

How to boot Ubuntu from Desktop iso.

I have been trying various Linux distributions by copying the contents of Live CD ISO to a spare partition, editing menu.lst file of Grub for suitable entries and booting the operating system. This method saves a CD.

Grub2 is the default boot-loader on Ubuntu 9.10 Karnic for previous distributions you have to install it.

To install Grub2:
$ sudo apt-get install grub-pc
This will install Grub2 but does not replace Grub Legacy and puts an entry in /boot/grub/menu.lst to Chainload and try it. After you find that it is working you need to replace Grub Legacy by Grub2:
$ sudo upgrade-from-grub-legacy

I installed Grub2 recently and discovered that it can directly boot from ISO. I had Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop CD ISO to try. Instead of copying the contents of the ISO I copied the ISO in my-ISO folder on one partition (sda4). Then added following entry in the file /etc/grub.d/40_custom
menuentry "Karmic Live CD (sda4)" {
loopback loop (hd0,4)/my-ISO/ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso
linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/my-ISO/ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso
initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz
}

Then I updated Grub2:
$ sudo update-grub

The update copied the above menu entry from /etc/grub.d/40_custom to /boot/grub/grub.cfg (Please note that you are not supposed to edit grub.cfg directly).

On reboot I selected the new menu entry "Karmic Live CD (sda4)" and could boot from the ISO.

Please note that on Grub2 sda4 is represented by  (hd0,4) and not  (hd0,3) like in Grub Legacy.

How to make manual entry in Grub2 on Ubuntu.

I installed Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala RC today on one partition using Desktop CD. This version of Ubuntu has Grub2 which is under development. The Grub did not detect Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope and I could not boot into it till I studied the problem and resolved it.

As suggested on Ubuntu Wiki I tried the following workaround:

$ sudo apt-get install --reinstall libdebian-installer4
$ sudo os-prober
$ sudo update-grub

The above commands detected the Jaunty installation and updated /boot/grub/grub.cfg file (equivalent of /boot/grub/menu.lst file) but put wrote wrong partition #.

After reading Grub2 documentation on Ubuntu Wiki I made following manual entry in the file /etc/grub.d/40_custom

menuentry "Ubuntu 9.04" {
set root=(hd0,8)
linux /vmlinuz-2.6.28-16-generic root=UUID=5fdb796b-96c0-49f1-80ec-9455e337625c ro xforcevesa quiet splash
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.28-16-generic
}

The partition numbering system has changed on Grub2 and (hd0,8) now means sda8 partition. After writing the above file I had to run:
$ sudo update-grub

to add the entry in grub.cfg file.

How to create Google Chrome theme with your picture.

Since the day I installed Mariah Carry theme on Google Chrome I wanted to create one with my picture. This did not work immediately since the Linux version of Chrome browser could not pack the theme into .crx file. The new version 4.0.222.5 does.

Here is the screenshot of my theme:

This is how I created it:
Create a folder MyTheme and another folder Image inside it. Copy the following text on editor and save it as manifest.json in MyTheme folder.

{
   "name": "name_of_theme",
   "theme": {
      "colors": {
         "bookmark_text": [ 255, 255, 255 ],
         "frame": [ 255, 255, 255 ],
         "ntp_background": [ 45, 42, 41 ],
         "ntp_header": [ 0, 0, 0, 1 ],
         "ntp_link": [ 255, 255, 255 ],
         "ntp_section": [ 68, 68, 68, 0.3 ],
         "ntp_section_link": [ 255, 255, 255 ],
         "ntp_section_text": [ 255, 255, 255 ],
         "ntp_text": [ 255, 255, 255 ],
         "tab_background_text": [ 0, 0, 0 ],
         "tab_text": [ 255, 255, 255 ],
         "toolbar": [ 0, 0, 0 ]
      },
      "images": {
         "theme_frame": "Image/theme_frame.png",
         "theme_ntp_attribution": "Image/theme_ntp_attribution.png",
         "theme_ntp_background": "Image/theme_ntp_background.png",
         "theme_tab_background": "Image/theme_tab_background.png",
         "theme_toolbar": "Image/theme_toolbar.png"
      },
      "properties": {
         "ntp_background_alignment": "bottom",
         "ntp_background_repeat": "no-repeat",
         "ntp_logo_alternate": 1
      },
      "tints": {
         "buttons": [ 1, 1, 1 ]
      }
   },
   "version": "3"
}

Replace "name_of_theme" with the name you want to give to the theme.

Now you require following images in the Image folder:

theme_frame.png

theme_ntp_attribution.png

theme_ntp_background.png (Put your photograph as this image)

theme_tab_background.png









theme_toolbar.png

You can download the images from this page.

Next step is to pack the theme. Type the following in the address bar of the chrome browser:
chrome://extensions/
Click on Pack_extension under Tools.
Click on Browse for Extension_root_directory
Chose MyTheme Folder
Click on Ok.
This will create two files MyTheme.crx and MyTheme.pem.

Now you have to open the .crx file using Chrome browser. You can do this by typing the following in the address bar:
file:///path_to_MyTheme.crx

Save the file and the theme is installed.

Google Chrome Browser on Ubuntu with nice themes.

As per Google the Chrome Browser for Linux is under development. For Ubuntu user it is a fairly developed Browser with Flash working and even themes could be installed from Google Chrome Themes Gallery. Look at the Mariah Carry Theme on my Browser running on Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope:

I have installed Daily Build of Chromium Browser available on following PPA:
http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu
the GPG key can be added from the following command:
sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 4E5E17B5


For some people what I have installed from PPA is Chromium and not Google Chrome, although, both are same browser. If you want to install with the name Chrome here is the link to Chrome .deb package. 

Tux Paint Open Source Drawing Software for Children.

I installed Tux Paint on Ubuntu for my grand daughter but while teaching her how to use it I have fallen in love with it since I can't paint. It has an option called Stamps which can be used to insert images on the canvas like the following images of the Sun, Seagull and 3 types of houses on the following painting:

Talking about my lousy painting I painted this one using GIMP.

Install new Opera 10 on Ubuntu

Opera 10 was released on 1st September and I tried to upgrade since the Opera deb repository was already available on my software sources file. Then I noticed that I had not added the Opera GPG Key. I added the key:

$ wget -O - http://deb.opera.com/archive.key | sudo apt-key add -

and I could upgrade to the new version.

How to talk using Pidgin 2.6.1 on Ubuntu Jaunty.

Pidgin 2.6.0 was released on Aug 19 2009 and brought good news to Linux users that it comes with Voice and Video support.

This is how I installed on Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope.

Removed existing Pidgin:

sudo aptitude purge pidgin pidgin-data libpurple0 libpurple-bin

Add the following repositories to Software sources:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/pidgin-developers/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/pidgin-developers/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Add signing keys:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys A1F196A8

Update and install:

sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install pidgin

For audio/video calls:

Double click the buddy and
Click on Conversation/Media in the new window.

If the buddy does not have audio/video facility the options will be greyed out.

Google Applications for small business owners.

My son-in-law launched a company this month and was looking for low cost email, Document Sharing and website solution and I discovered standard edition of Google Applications which is giving more than he asked for and only at the cost of a domain registration.

Printing Mailing Labels using gLabels

When there are weddings you need to send large number of invitations. You need to build postal address database and then print mailing labels. I had prepared address database for my daughter's marriage in 2001 but lost the file due to loss of hard disk on my old desktop from which data could not be recovered.

Another marriage is planned in Nov 2009 and since advance period of rail reservations is 3 months formal letters of invitations are required to be sent by first week of Aug 09.

This time I have prepared the Database in Spreadsheet on Google Docs so that it does not get lost. I have shared the document with others so that addresses could be fed into it quickly.

I bought Mailing Labels from a Stationery shop and the page format is 210x306 mm which looks non-standard. The product is from Oddy and perhaps obsolete (meant for Dot-matrix Printers).

I tried to create the Labels in Open Office but it has selection for Brand of paper and Oddy was missing from the list and no Brand was close enough.

Then I searched for "Printing Labels on Ubuntu" and discovered gLabels and installed it.

gLabel also had many templates but I decided to create one for Oddy for the paper size I had. There is a Template Designer accessible through File Menu. I selected custom size of paper and entered the measured dimensions. Then I entered the dimensions of the Label, no of Labels on the paper (16), horizontal and vertical pitch etc. carefully and saved the template but it was not satisfactory. Then I opened the XML file of the template from ~/.glabels as text file and edited and saved it.

gLabel does not accept spreadsheet data, therefore, I saved it in CSV format and used it through "Merge Properties". For entering text on the label, I created the text objects and inserted the merge fields into them.

I could print the Mailing Labels perfectly on the non-standard stationery. Before printing I went into the printer set up and selected Custom paper size.

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.

xserver crash on restart taught me optimised use of memory.

I have a machine which originally arrived with 128 MB RAM and Linux Distributions with 2.4 series kernels (Mandrakelinux 9.1) worked well with this memory. Even Ubuntu 5.04 with 2.6 series kernel worked vey well.

Subsequently I added 256 MB RAM to the machine making it 384 MB to use Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake properly.

I soon learnt to use lightweight Window Managers to have good speed with later versions of Ubuntu and also tried Debian and Arch Linux to further optimise thye memory usage.

The video setting in the BIOS was on "Auto" and 72 MB RAM was getting allocated towards the video leaving 312 MB for the OS.

Although Ubuntu says that its Live CD works with 256 MB RAM it is very slow and even 312 MB is less for effective use.

Recently I downloaded Ubuntu 9.04 Beta Live CD and in order to use it effectively changed the video setting in the BIOS to minimum (8 MB). The memory available for the Live CD was 360 MB (instead of 312 MB) and it worked very well.

Subsequently I forgot to restore the BIOS setting and continued using Linuxes installed on the hard disk (Ubuntu Hardy, Archlinux and antiX). They were working very well till I decided to change the Window Manager on Ubuntu Hardy and logged out of GDM to change session. To my surprise, the xserver crashed. I checked restart of xserver on Archlinux and antiX and it crashed on those distributions as well.

I googled for "xserver crash on restart" and read many bug reports and tried some remedies. Ultimetly I discovered the BIOS video setting and changed it to "Auto" once again.

Then I remembered that I had tested "logout" on Ubuntu 9.04 Beta Live CD and xserver did not crash.

I changed the BIOS video seiing to 16 MB and found that Archlinux (with xserver 1.5) did not crash on restart but Ubuntu Hardy Heron (which has xserver 1.4) required 32 MB setting in the BIOS.

Today I upgraded to xserver 1.6.0 on Archlinux and it is not crashing on restart with minimum (8 MB) video setting in the BIOS (like Ubuntu 9.04 Beta). With this setting the available memory for the OS has jumped from 312 MB to 367 MB.