Fix for JioTV not working.

I am presently at Bhopal and my Jio phone is on roaming. Today JioTV did not work in spite of internet speed of 15 Mbps or more. After googling I got following solution which worked for me.
1. Uninstall and reinstall JioTV app.
2. Go to Settings/Mobile Network/Access Point Names/APN which is Jionet. Edit the following setting.
APN Protocol IPv4
APN roaming protocol IPv4
Bearer LTE
JioTV started working.

Yesterday one old man brought his smart phone Panasonic Eluga Switch. He had Jio sim in slot 1 and Airtel sim in slot 2. After Android System update the Ringtone did not work for sim2.
After struggling for two hours I found interrupts setting in Sound in which calls was disabled. After enabling it the ringtone worked for sim2.

Improvement in Internet Speed on Jio Network at Delhi.

Since I have come back to Delhi on 8th Feb 2017 I  find that Internet Speed has greatly improved at my home. Earlier I could watch videos only during morning upto 7 AM now I could watch them anytime.

One more  good news is the Android version on my Cooldpad Mega 2.5D is upgraded and now the 4GVoLTE phone calls are working fine from Dialer.

The present Data Limit on Jio is  1 GB/day and due to this competition Airtel Broadband has revised the Monthly Data Limit to 30 GB and speed to 16 Mbps at the minimum tariff of Rs 899/month with unlimited free local and STD calls.

Jio has announced that it will charge Rs 303/month for 1 GB/day Data under Prime Subscription from 1st Apr 2017. This is almost 1/3 of what I am paying to Airtel.

Let me see whether Airtel Broadband further reduces Tariff.

Problems with voice calls on Jio 4GVoLTE.

I was using Coolpad Mega 2.5D since Oct 2016 on Jio 4G network. Voice calls used to work through Jio4GVoice app. Since the update dated 27th Jan 2017 of Jio4GVoice app is asking me to use the phone dialer since this is VoLTE phone but it is very difficult to use the phone dialer for making voice calls. It does not connect unless I disable and re-enable the enhanced 4G LTE mode in network settings.

Cashless Transactions since Nov 8 2016

I was already using paytm since Feb 2015 for Mobile Recharge then in Oct 2015 I did online shopping on it. In Jan 2016 I paid first electricity bill on it. During the year 2016 I used freecharge or paytm for payment of electricity bill. Then Mother Dairy introduced paytm on milk booths and I was first customer using paytm on nearby Mother Dairy Booth. I had also used Debit and Credit cards for online transactions and shopping for many years.
In short I was fully ready for cashless transactions when old currency was banned on Nov 8 2016. I happily used paytm or credit card wherever acceptable.
I grabbed UPI ID userid@icici when it was offered by ICICI Bank and ready for UPI Transactions.
I downloaded BHIM android app and got mobileno@upi ID also.
This worked very well for ICICI Bank.
My other Bank Account is in BOB but I was not using Mobile Banking on it since the registered mobile no was on ordinary mobile phone.
I tried *99# service on this phone by got Transaction declined message. I called their 1800223344 no and after waiting for long I could talk to customer care person and he told me to activate mobile banking through their ATM. I did it through Net Banking and got m-pin. After 4 hours I could use *99# system on ordinary mobile phone and could transfer money through it to my ICICI Bank.
I am now looking forward to use BHIM app on my smart phone and *99# on ordinary phone for online and offline shopping instead of paytm.

How to unzip the password protected zip archive.

Today I received TDS Certificate pdf file from IDFC Bank which was inside password protected zip folder.

I could not extract the file on Ubuntu 16.04 and also on Windows 10.

Then I tried unzip command and got the following error:

unsupported compression method 99

After googling the error I learnt that I required latest version of p7zip-full(version 16.02) whereas the available version on Ubuntu 16.04 is 9.20.

I installed the latest version as follows:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/backports
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install p7zip-full

If you use Windows you can get latest p7zip from this link.

Enjoying Free Internet and Calls on Reliance Jio on brand new Coolpad Mega 2.5D.

I bought Coolpad Mega 2.5D on Amazon, going to get 15% Cashback from Citibank for this purchase and availed Welcome offer of Reliance Jio.

Now enjoying free data and voice calls upto 31st Dec 2016 as per Welcome Offer of Reliance Jio.
All Voice Calls on Reliance Jio Network are VoIP calls consuming Data. But after 31st Dec 2016 the Data consumed for Voice Calls is not going to be charged making the calls as free.
The lowest Tariff for 28 days is going to be Rs 149/- providing 0.3 GB Data, however, this Tariff cannot be availed as first re-charge. First re-charge has to be Rs 499/- for 28 days providing 4 GB. Anyway it is a deal.
Update on 29/10/2016
Since 3 days we are at Bhopal where Jio network is excellent. We watched TV Programs on JioTV and ozee apps and making calls to friends all for free.

Get Color Emoji on Ubuntu 16.04

First click on this link to see whether you see Color Emoji or Black and white.

Install from the ppa

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:eosrei/font
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install fonts-emojione-svginot
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ys/emojione-picker
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install emojione-picker

Restart Firefox Browser and check again on the link and you will see Color Emoji.

😄 😄 😄 😄

Playing Linux Desktop Audio on Chromecast.

I was using Chrome Browser to play Audio & Video from my Linux Desktop to Chromecast through Chrome applications.

I learnt about mkchromecast and installed it on Debian Testing which is my alternative to Ubuntu 16.04.

After installing the .deb package I had to install the dependencies through apt-get install -f install command.

I opened VLC and started playing my favourite music.

I had to run mkchromecast through terminal and it got connected to Chromecast and asked me to open pavucontrol and change the sink to mkchromecast.

Removing old kernels on Ubuntu.

On Linux distributions you get kernel update and the images of old kernels remain on your machine occupying space. I got a kernel update today:

$ uname -r
4.4.0-28-generic

After restart I could see that the image of old kernel was present on the machine:

$ dpkg -l | tail -n +6 | grep -E 'linux-image-[0-9]+' | grep -Fv $(uname -r)
ii  linux-image-4.4.0-24-generic                4.4.0-24.43                                         amd64        Linux kernel image for version 4.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP

I removed the old kernel by using following commands one by one:

sudo dpkg --purge linux-signed-image-4.4.0-24-generic
sudo dpkg --purge linux-image-extra-4.4.0-24-generic
sudo dpkg --purge linux-image-4.4.0-24-generic

I removed the kernel headers by using following commands one by one:

sudo dpkg --purge linux-headers-4.4.0-24-generic
sudo dpkg --purge linux-headers-4.4.0-24

Since I remove the previous image on every kernel update I had to remove only 4.4.0-24 but if you are doing it first time you may have many images starting from 4.4.0.21

TintCore Linux on Lenovo G50-45

About 8 years ago I tried TinyCore Linux and developed a couple of tcz files to the project.

Yesterday I downloaded the latest TinyCorePure64-7.1 ISO and made a UEFI bootable USB stick to try it. I could boot to the desktop and connect through wired network (wireless wlan0 was not detected out of the box but that was expected from the Tiny Linux distribution). I installed Opera Browser.

After searching on the Forums, I installed following tcz files:

wireless-4.2.9-tinycore64.tcz

           wireless_tools.tcz

firmware-rtlwifi.tcz

wpa_supplicant-dbus.tcz

wpa_supplicant.tcz

After this wlan0 was detected but I had to make wpa_configure.conf file and connect through following command:

$ sudo wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/opt/wpa_configure.conf &

I have added the above command to /opt/bootlocal.sh to automatically connect on next boot.

Now I can explore this Tiny Linux distribution once again.

Running Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial Xerus on my Lenovo G50-45 Laptop.

I had downloaded Ubuntu 16.04 Daily ISO and was periodically updating it using zsync. I updated it this morning to version 20-Apr-2016 22:30 and assuming it that it is going to be the Final version installed it to hard disk replacing Ubuntu 14.04.4 Trusty (which I was not using anyway).

See the screen shot below with Unity Launcher moved to Bottom using Unity Tweak Tool (which is now available in Software).

Transfer files from Android to Ubuntu 15.10 Lenovo G50-45 Laptop using Bluetooth.

I struggled to use Blue-tooth on my Ubuntu 14.04 Lenovo G50-45 and eagerly waiting for Ubuntu 15.10 which has Linux Kernel 4.2 and proper drivers for using Blue-tooth on this Laptop. As soon as Ubuntu 15.10 Development version Kernel was upgraded to 4.2 I installed it and happily using it. Although the Laptop got connected through Blue-tooth to my Android Phone I had to try various things including  obex-data-server etc. to transfer the files.

On 22nd Oct 2015 final version of Ubuntu 15.10 was available I downloaded the ISO and made a USB stick and decided to connect Android phone to the laptop using Blue-tooth on Live Ubuntu 15.10.

I had to install Bluetooth Manager to transfer files to and from Android Phone to the laptop.

Importing ICICI Bank, other Banks and Android Applicaton Transactions in GnuCash.

I posted about the same topic in 2011. I have decided to maintain the Books of Accounts on my own in the Current Financial Year 2015-16 (since the tryst with Steam Turbine is temporarily suspended and tryst with Linux is on which the readers of this Blog would have noticed anyway looking at frequency of my posts). I installed GnuCash 2.6.6 on Ubuntu through Software Centre couple of days ago and started importing the Bank Account Files. ICICI Bank no longer offers QIF/MSMoney Fomat download as stated in comments on the year 2011 post. No problem for me. I downloaded the Excel File and saved as CSV which was accepted by GnuCash in the option "Import Transactions from CSV".

I imported the transactions from Bank Accounts, Credit Card Accounts and the corresponding debit/credit entry went into Imbalance and only task then was to change the imbalance into the correct account.

I have again become my own CA, thanks to GnuCash.

I also installed GnuCash Application on Android Phone, created Expenses Account, entered the Cash transactions while shopping, exported the transactions in QIF File, imported that File on Desktop Application and the Transactions are entered there. Great going.

Filing Income Tax Return using Java Utility on Ubuntu.

My CA audits my accounts and sends me the XML file of Income Tax Return for uploading it to Income Tax Return e-Filing site. I check the XML file by opening it in the Browser or if I see that a thorough check is necessary I use other tools including Excel Utility for which I need Windows.

This year I decided to use the Java Utility available in Downloads section of e-Filing site. When I opened it typing ./ITR.sh in the Terminal it produced an error. On Googling I found that I need an older version of Java to use it.

I went to Java Oracle site and downloaded the old version jre-8u51-linux-x64.tar.gz and extracted it to /opt/jre (I had to create the directory). Since the latest version of JRE openjdk-8-jre 8u66-b01-5 was installed on my Laptop I removed it and had to use "G Alternatives" to add the path /opt/jre/1.8.0_51/bin/java for Oracle Java.

I could then use the utility by typing ./ITR.sh in the Terminal and open the XML File to view the Income Tax Return.

I made necessary changes in the Return after consulting my CA and could submit it directly through the utility without logging to e-Filing site.

My Karbonn Sparkle V Androidone received Marshmallow 6.0 update

After formatting the SDCard I could move some applications to SDCard.

Upgrading Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 my experience.

Although this is Linux Blog I have decided to write about my upgrade experience from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10.

My LenovoG50-45 came with pre-installed Windows 8.1. I had disabled Automatic Update on Windows 8.1 and use to update once in a while. When MS decided to give free upgrade to Windows 10 I went through the procedure which asked for applying all pending updates to Windows 8.1 to see Get Windows 10 application. When I clicked on the application it asked to wait for my turn. Becoming restless I searched for how to get immediate upgrade and enabled something which did not work. Finally I got permission to download on Get Windows 10 application and started download of about 2.8 GB. After download got finished something happened during preparation to install and it started the download of 2.8 GB once again.

Getting frustrated I decided to re-install Windows 8.1 through one-key recovery. While booting in re-installed Windows 8.1 MS asked whether I was interested in upgrade to Windows 10 and I said yes to it.

Windows 8.1 re-install damaged Grub2 which I corrected using Boot-repair.

After couple of updates to Windows 8.1 (not all) Windows 10 download appeared on Windows update and I finished the download in 6 hrs (I have 1 Mbps connection).

After finishing download it changed to "preparing to install" and I had to wait patiently for this activity since Windows extracts the 2.8 GB file in the background.

Finally it was ready to upgrade after accepting EULA. The upgrade took lot of time and there were three reboots. On the last boot Windows asked several questions and the best one was to go for express install which I declined and chose "Custom".

After booting to the Desktop Windows 10 did not allow to disable automatic updates but I searched in Wi-Fi Settings to declare my connection "metered" which prevented the automatic update.

Fortunately Windows 10 upgrade did not touch grub2 and I could boot to Ubuntu 14.04.3.

From Ubuntu 14.04.3 Grub2 I could not boot Ubuntu 15.10 using systemd and had to use upstart option. I used Boot-repair once again on installed Ubuntu 15.10 to re-install Grub2.

Finally I have Windows 10/Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS/Ubuntu 15.10/android-x86 multi-boot successfully working on my laptop.

Running Android 5.1 lollipop on my Laptop.

Recently I came to know that you are able to run android-x86 on PC and Laptop. I downloaded the stable version of Android 4.4 Kitkat and tried it but it did not boot to GUI and presented Root Terminal. Then I did some debugging and came to know that for the AMD APU with radeon R2 on my Laptop I should try a test build of Android 5.1 Lollipop.

I am now running live session of Android 5.1 on my Laptop and posting this on Chrome Browser. I could not take a screenshot now in this session but I will post it later.

I downloaded a recent test build and could install it on hard disk on ext4 partition and added following menuentry in grub2 to boot it:

 menuentry 'Android-x86 5.1 on sdaX' --class android-x86 {
    set root='(hd0,gptX)'
    linux /android-2015-08-16/kernel root=/dev/ram0 androidboot.hardware=android_x86 quiet SRC=/android-2015-08-16 DATA=/android-2015-08-16/data
    initrd /android-2015-08-16/initrd.img
}

 I could take screenshot by pressing PrtSc key.

Happily running Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf on my Lenovo G50-45.

Update on 21/04/2016: Now more happy running Ubuntu 16.04

I purchased Lenovo G50-45 Laptop in December 2014 and installed Ubuntu 14.04 in dual boot with pre-installed Windows 8.1 as per this post.

When you install any Linux Distribution on a new Hardware it works but not 100% and there were following problems:
1. Screen brightness could not be adjusted.
2. Wifi was erratic.
3. Bluetooth did not work.

Screen Brightness worked after installing Realtek Proprietary Driver but it broke on update in April 2015. I removed the Proprietary Driver and upgraded to Kernel 3.16 through Hardware Enablement Stack which installed the Open Source radeon driver and problem 1 was solved.

Wifi problem was solved creating /etc/modprobe.d/rtl8723be file as follows:

 echo "options rtl8723be fwlps=0" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/rtl8723be.conf

 For Bluetooth I had to wait till Ubuntu 14.04.3 was launched with Kernel 3.19 and it worked sometimes but not on every boot (I wonder why?) after adding following ppa and the driver:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:hanipouspilot/rtlwifi
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install rtl8723au-bt-dkms rtlwifi-new-dkms linux-firmware

On questioning I came to know that I had to wait for Linux Kernel 4.2 when Realtek drivers are included.

On 9th Sep 2015 I came to know that Linux Kernel 4.2 was included in Ubuntu 15.10 and I downloaded the ISO and tried it on my Laptop as per this post. I updated the ISO for couple of days through zsync and it was booting properly every day.

Yesterday I decided to install Ubuntu 15.10 on my hard drive and found that installer crashed, however, I used the following workaround to run the installer and installed:

sudo -H bash -c 'ubiquity gtk_ui'

I am happy to report that there is no need to add any rtl8723be file for wifi, radeon driver is perfect and Bluetooth is working on installed Wily Werewolf.

Booting daily-live/current wily-desktop-amd64.iso from Grub2 and updating it using zsync.

Yesterday I downloaded Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf Live ISO

wget -c http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/wily-desktop-amd64.iso

 and used it booting from Grub2 menu entry as follows:

sudo gedit /etc/grub.d/40_custom

and added the following lines:

menuentry "Wily Desktop iso" {
        set isofile="/home/user/wily-desktop-amd64.iso"
        loopback loop (hd0,X)$isofile
        linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz.efi boot=casper iso-scan/filename=$isofile noprompt noeject
        initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz
}

then I updated grub to add the menuentry:

sudo update-grub

I could boot from the ISO and found that Wily has Linux Kernel 4.2 which has Blue tooth driver for my Laptop and it worked well.

Today I decided to keep the ISO updated and installed zsync and used it to update.

sudo apt-get install zsync -y
zsync http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/wily-desktop-amd64.iso.zsync
#################### 100.0% 108.2 kBps DONE   

reading seed file wily-desktop-amd64.iso: **************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************Read wily-desktop-amd64.iso. Target 100.0% complete.    
verifying download...checksum matches OK
used 1257062400 local, fetched 0

Since it is less than 24 hours it says " fetched 0"

If you want to use the method please note that the ISO is on /home folder of the user. Put your username replacing user and X in (hd0,X) as your partition no X.

File sharing via Bluetooth between Lenovo G50-45 Ubuntu Laptop and Android device.

I had installed Ubuntu 14.04 on Lenovo G50-45 Laptop as per this post in December 2014 and solved some problems like screen brightness as reported in this post after enabling LTS/HardwareEnablementStack.

This Laptop has Realtek Wireless Network Adoptor which also works as Bluetooth device. Although the Wireless disconnection problem was solved by setting options rtl8723be fwlps=0 in /etc/modprobe.d/rtl8723be.conf file the Bluetooth did not work.

After Ubuntu 14.04.3 update I got Linux Kernel 3.19 and the Bluetooth could be used after installing the driver as follows:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:hanipouspilot/rtlwifi
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install rtl8723au-bt-dkms rtlwifi-new-dkms linux-firmware

I could send file via Bluetooth from the Laptop to Android Device but Android device failed to send the file. This could be corrected after searching for Personal File Sharing on Dash and checking the boxes Receive the files in download folder over Bluetooth and Notify about received files.

Mate Desktop 1.10.2 on Debian Testing.

As written in this post I installed Mate Desktop version 1.8.1 on Debian 8.1 and got hooked to it.

In order to run the latest version I edited the /etc/apt/sources.list file and replaced "jessie" by "stretch". Stretch is the codename of next stable version of Debian which is under testing.

After pointing the sources.list to "stretch" I did apt-get update && upgrade && dist-upgrade.

Debian Stretch with linux kernel 4.1.0 is running fine on Mate Desktop 1.10.2

Ubuntu Phone Emulator on Ubuntu 14.04.3.

When I herd about launch of BQ Aquaris Ubuntu Phone in India and its availability by Aug 2015 end on snapdeal I decided to try the Phone in emulator on Ubuntu 14.04.3 on my Laptop.

Since the emulator was launched in Jan 2015 most of the instructions I got to install the emulator did not work. Finally I installed Ubuntu SDK through PPA as follows:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-sdk-team/ppa

sudo apt update && sudo apt install ubuntu-sdk

Then I installed the emulator through the sdk.

Since running emulator required memory I switched to gnome-fallback session and started the emulator through following command:

ubuntu-emulator run ubuntutouch --scale=0.5 --memory=1024

After waiting for 15 minutes I got the login screen:

I added some applications through Ubuntu Store and could use them.

Running facebook below:

facebook detecting it as Chrome on LG Nexus 5 

Playing H-265 Videos on Ubuntu 14.04.

While installing Ubuntu 14.04 if you check for installation of proprietary codecs  most videos could be played on Videos application but those having H-265 won't play. For playing them you need to install gstreamer1.0-libde265 as follows.
Open a terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:strukturag/libde265
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gstreamer1.0-libde265

Enjoy!

Using antiX live usb on Lenovo Ideapad S100.

I am presently at Bhopal and the family has Lenovo Ideapad S100 Netbook with Windows 7. I had made usb stick with latest antiX-15 which I decided to try on this netbook.

On this Netbook pressing F12 on boot is supposed to bring Boot Menu but it did not work (may be because F12 is actually Fn+F11 and Fn key may not be working on boot).

Pressing F2 however brings the BIOS Set up. In BIOS Set up Boot Tag I could see the USB Stick but there is no provision to bring it up and make it first boot device.

But I could disable booting from Hard Disk (first boot device) by putting a "x" by pressing "x" key and save settings.

Then I could boot from USB and  now posting this on Iceweasel (Open Source Firefox) on antiX-15.

This machine has 2 GB RAM and antiX is very fast.

Review of antiX-15 USB persist on UEFI Secure Boot.

On 30th June 2015 new version of antiX called antiX-15 (Killah P) was released. I was impressed with the announcement "Want to run live on a box with UEFI bootloader? antiX can do this", and immediately wanted to test this.

I downloaded antiX-15-V_64-full.iso from souceforge. The announcement recommended Unetbbotin to make live usb but unfortunately Unetbootin crashed while selecting the iso file. I used dd command to copy the iso to usb but it allowed me to boot only in Legacy mode of BIOS.

I posted on antiX Forum and was advised to mount the iso and simply copy the contents (same like what I recommend for Ubuntu 14.04 for UEFI)

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/iso
sudo mount -o loop,ro  antiX-15-V_64-full.iso /mnt/iso
cp -a /mnt/iso/. /media/USB_mount_point/

 After selecting boot from usb in BIOS Boot Menu I could boot into antiX default Desktop with secure boot on since antiX has Microsoft signed kernel image.

Then I wanted to make the usb persistent. I used the cheat-code "persist=root!,home" in grub boot line but was getting blank screen.

I created the rootfs and homefs files and placed them in /antiX folder on usb even then it did not work:

dd if=/dev/zero of=rootfs bs=1M count=0 seek=1024
mkfs.ext4 -q -m 0 -O ^has_journal -F rootfs
dd if=/dev/zero of=homefs bs=1M count=0 seek=1024
mkfs.ext4 -q -m 0 -O ^has_journal -F homefs 

After struggling for a day I was told to change "gfxpayload=text" to "gfxpayload=keep" in grub.cfg and it worked.

Enjoying old Desktop days with Mate DE 1.8.1 on Debian 8.1

I recently installed Debian 8.1 in triple/quadruple boot with Windows8.1/Ubuntu14.04.2/Ubuntu15.04 on my Lenovo G50-45 Laptop.

Initially I installed LXDE Desktop but yesterday added Mate Desktop and now enjoying good old days of Gnome 2.

How to make back-light Brightness Fn keys work on LXDE.

Back-light Brightness is set on my Laptop by Fn+F11 (down) and Fn+F12 (up) keys. These keys worked on Ubuntu Unity Desktop but not on LXDE Desktop.

I tried xbacklight command but it did not work. Then after googling I discovered that xbacklight does not work on radeon driver.

Then I tried how it works on Ubuntu Unity Desktop and found that following command was executed by USER=root

/usr/lib/unity-settings-daemon/usd-backlight-helper --set-brightness 24

Since the command to be executed required root privileges I created two bash shell files on my desktop:File ~/home/Desktop/Brightness1

#! /bin/bash
# script to set the initial brightness on login
[ "$UID" -eq 0 ] || exec gksu bash "$0" "$@"
/usr/lib/unity-settings-daemon/usd-backlight-helper --set-brightness 12

File ~/home/Desktop/Brightness2

#! /bin/bash
# script to set the initial brightness on login
[ "$UID" -eq 0 ] || exec gksu bash "$0" "$@"
/usr/lib/unity-settings-daemon/usd-backlight-helper --set-brightness 24

I made the files executable and tested them. The script asked for sudo password and set the required brightness.

Then I inserted following Keycodes in ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml

<!-- Keybindings for LCD Backlight -->    <keybind key="XF86MonBrightnessDown">        # decrease screen brightness      <action name="Execute"><command>/home/user/Desktop/Brightness1</command></action>    </keybind>    <keybind key="XF86MonBrightnessUp">        # increase screen brightness      <action name="Execute"><command>/home/user/Desktop/Brightness2</command></action>    </keybind>

and it works by pressing Fn+F11 and Fn+F12 i.e. it asks for sudo password and sets the required brightness. 

How to run Debian with secure boot on.

I am having Lenovo G50-45 Laptop which had Windows 8.1 pre installed and I have installed Ubuntu 14.04 and 15.04 in triple boot with secure boot on.

Today I installed Debian 8.1 on another partition. For installing Debian I had to disable secure boot. After installation if I was booting Debian through its Boot Loader I had to disable the secure boot.

Later on I enabled secure boot and using Ubuntu 15.04 and updated the kernel. After update the grub got updated and it picked up the entry of Debian.

Now I could boot Debian through Ubuntu's Boot Loader without disabling secure boot.

NB: For those who are not familiar with UEFI. Each operating system has its own Boot Loader with entries of other operating systems in the Grub Menu.

Chromixium OS -- Chromebox plus Ubuntu.

I was always fascinated with any OS from Google or something like that. I had tried gOS Desktop in 2007 and Chromium OS on pendrive in 2009.

Google then launched Chrome OS only on Chromeboxes and they have significant market share today.

One developer has combined Ubuntu with Openbox, LXPanel and Google Applications to develops what he calls Chromixium OS.

I downloaded the Chromixium 64 Bit RC ISO, copied it to USB, added casper-rw file and persistent boot parameter in /boot/grub/grub.cfg before "quiet splash" in the menu entry and running it now on my Lenovo G50-45 Laptop. The OS has beautiful Desktop:

How to recover lost Grub Menu and Edit Menu entries.

Yesterday I installed Ubuntu 15.04 on USB stick and selected grub install on the USB to keep the Grub on Hard Disk intact. Even then I lost the Grub Menu on the Hard Disk and had to use the grub on the USB to boot into Ubuntu 14.04.2 installed on the hard disk.

For recovering Grub of menu I had to install Boot Repair through the ppa. After running Recommended Repair through Boot Repair I got the Grub Menu on the hard disk but with many unnecessary entries.

For removing the unwanted entries on Grub Menu I installed Grub Customizer and used it to remove the entries.

Boot Repair and Grub Customizer are excellent tools.

UEFI Bootable full install of Ubuntu 15.04 on 32 GB USB stick.

Yesterday I posted about Live persistent UEFI Bootable USB stick of Ubuntu 15.04. I could upgrade some packages, save wifi settings and documents and they were available on reboot but when I upgraded linux kernel I could not reboot on using persistent kernel boot parameter and even without this parameter.

Since the 32 GB USB stick could take full install I made full install of Ubuntu 15.04 on the stick with installing bootloader on the stick. The bootloader also picked the Windows 8.1 and Ubuntu 14.04.2 installations on the hard disk.

I think the days of persistent live linux on USB stick are over and full install is the way forward.

Live persistent UEFI Bootable USB stick of Ubuntu 15.04.

I had purchased one 32 GB USB stick to back up Windows 8.1 installation on my Lenovo G50-45 Laptop before installing Ubuntu 14.04 in dual boot. Since the dual boot is working well and Windows recovery partition already exists on the Laptop I decided to have Live persistent Ubuntu 15.04 on the stick.

I created 2 GB Fat32 partition, 4 GB ext4 partition with label casper-rw and another 4 GB ext4 home-rw partition on the USB stick. Then I used start up disk creator to put Ubuntu 15.04 on Fat32 partition.

After booting I found that persistence did not work on UEFI machines since there was a bug in live usb creator. The work around was to edit the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file and put "persistent" before "quiet splash" in the menuentry.

Now my wifi settings and documents are avaiable on reboot.

I will try updating the system later on. Upgrades to packages like Firefox worked but when I upgraded the linux kernel I could not boot with or even without persistent boot parameter.

Today I made full install of Ubuntu 15.04 on the USB stick.

My Karbonn Sparkle V Androidone received Lollipop 5.1.1 update.

We bought Google Chromecast.

After buying latest Android Phones and Tabs the next step was to buy Google Chromecast to connect theses devices to TV for media streaming but it required Wifi at home and our Landline phone and MTNL Broadband was in safe custody since 2010 when we went to Jharsuguda. I was not wiling to spend for Landline Phone and we experimented with Mobile Operators taking advantage of Mobile number portability. Finally we sattled for Idea after trying Reliance CDMA and Airtel. For internet Reliance GSM Data was working in the Tab.

For Broadband also I am experimenting with Tikona Brodband which is Wireless till the terrace of our flat where a CPE is installed from where it is wired to the Wifi router installed at suitable location in the home.

The Chromecast is plugged in the HDMI port of the TV and gets power either through USB port of the TV or mains. The Android Phone is used for Setting up the Chromecast to connect to the Wifi Router. After setting up the Cromecast is directly connected to the Wifi Router like other Android Devices and Laptops.

Now suppose you want to watch the Youtube video on your TV you first open the Video on the Phone/Tab or Crome Browser on the Laptop and connect the device to the Chromecast. After connecting the Youtube video directly plays on the TV.

You can also play the local media on your Android devices on the TV. For Laptop you can do it through Chrome Browser and its add-on extensions.

New Terminal Commands learnt.

Recently I learned some new Terminal commands. Following is the output of these command on my Lenovo G50-45 Laptop.

$ lspci -nnk | grep -i vga -A3 | grep 'in use'
    Kernel driver in use: radeon

 $ /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p
OpenGL vendor string:   X.Org
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on AMD MULLINS
OpenGL version string:  3.0 Mesa 10.3.2

Not software rendered:    yes
Not blacklisted:          yes
GLX fbconfig:             yes
GLX texture from pixmap:  yes
GL npot or rect textures: yes
GL vertex program:        yes
GL fragment program:      yes
GL vertex buffer object:  yes
GL framebuffer object:    yes
GL version is 1.4+:       yes

Unity 3D supported:       yes

 $ cat /etc/lsb-release; uname -a
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=14.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=trusty
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS"
Linux Lenovo-G50-45 3.16.0-37-generic #49~14.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Thu Apr 30 10:52:28 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net
01:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8723BE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter [10ec:b723]
    Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:b736]
    Kernel driver in use: rtl8723be
02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller [10ec:8168] (rev 10)
    Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:3812]
    Kernel driver in use: r8169

I knew the following command but now the second one to be used.

$ sudo fdisk -l

WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sda'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.


Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xecf87c27

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1   976773167   488386583+  ee  GPT
Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.

$ sudo gdisk -l /dev/sda
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.8

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/sda: 976773168 sectors, 465.8 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): D8108174-FF68-4388-A994-3799AE5B6B2D
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 976773134
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 2029 sectors (1014.5 KiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048         2050047   1000.0 MiB  2700  Basic data partition
   2         2050048         2582527   260.0 MiB   EF00  EFI system partition
   3         2582528         4630527   1000.0 MiB  FFFF  Basic data partition
   4         4630528         4892671   128.0 MiB   0C01  Microsoft reserved part
   5         4892672       104552447   47.5 GiB    0700  Basic data partition
   6       104552448       733698047   300.0 GiB   0700  Basic data partition
   7       898043904       950472703   25.0 GiB    0700  Basic data partition
   8       950472704       976773119   12.5 GiB    2700  Basic data partition
   9       733698048       895946751   77.4 GiB    8300 
  10       895946752       898043903   1024.0 MiB  8200

How to make UEFI Bootable Ubuntu 15.04 USB stick on Windows 8.1?

Since many years we download the Ubuntu ISO and use the installed Ubuntu to make a Start up Disk from the ISO to install on the same or other machines. The Start up disk is a UEFI Bootable USB stick.

Today I faced a question on Ubuntuforums about how to make UEFI Bootable Ubuntu 15.04 USB stick on Windows 8.1. I am doing it now on My Lenovo G50-45 Laptop on Windows 8.1. I have the Ubuntu 15.04 ISO on the drive. I have downloaded and installed md5 Calculator Application from Windows Store. I have checked the md5sum of the ISO and it is same as in this file.

I have downloaded 7-Zip 9.38 .msi file from here.
I have a 2 GB USB stick formatted in FAT32 in the USB slot.
I have extracted the ISO on the USB stick using 7-Zip.
I right click on Start Button and select Disk Management and find that the USB drive is Healthy (Active, Primary Partition)
I right click on Start Button, select Power Options/Choose what the power button does and uncheck Fastboot (if exixts)
I reboot holding the shift key.
On reboot I select use a device and EFI USB device and get options on Grub Menu to run Ubuntu without install.

Ubuntu 14.04 on Lenovo Laptop G50-45 with Kernel 3.16.

As written on this post I installed Ubuntu 14.04 LTS in dual boot with Windows 8.1 in December 2014.

The proprietary driver fglrx worked fine till I updated it to newer version on  12th April 2015. After the update I could not login and had to remove fglrx driver and come back to radeon.

Today I installed Kernel 3.16 (original kernel 3.13) through LTS Enablement Stack with following command:

sudo apt-get install --install-recommends linux-generic-lts-utopic xserver-xorg-lts-utopic libgl1-mesa-glx-lts-utopic libegl1-mesa-drivers-lts-utopic

 The open source driver radeon is working perfectly on Kernel 3.16

This Laptop has Realtek Wireless Network Adapter and its driver rtl8723be was causing disconnections and required reboot to connect again. This is solved by following command:

echo "options rtl8723be fwlps=0" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/rtl8723be.conf

Now Ubuntu 14.04 is working perfectly on this Laptop.

My Android one phone got Android Lollipop 5.1 update.

I bought Karbonn Sparkle Android one installed with Android Kitkat version 4.4.4 recently. Yesterday it got Android version 5.1 update which is called Lollipop.
If you click on Settings/About_phone/Android_version_5.1 number of times it opens Lollipop game (Screenshot below)

Installation of Ubuntu 14.04.1 in dual boot with Windows 8.1 on Lenovo Notepad G50-45

There are many visitors to this post through Google Search when they look for suitable Linux Distribution for Lenovo G50-45 but this is an old post and I recommend that anyone looking to install Ubuntu on this Laptop should go for Ubutu 16.04 LTS and not 14.04, however, if you are looking for instructions for Dual Boot with Windows you should read this post but install Ubuntu 16.04 LTS which has no issues.

Lenovo Notepad G50-45 Specifications:
Model Name 80E3
CPU AMD E1-6010 1.35G
RAM 2G
HDD 500 GB
Display 15.6" HD LED
OS Windows 8.1 WB EM

I downloaded 64 Bit Desktop ISO of Ubuntu 14.04.1from Ubuntu and used it to create USB Start up Disk from Ubuntu 12.04 on another machine.

After shutting down the Windows 8.1, I inserted the USB Start up Disk in USB port on the Lenovo Notepad and pressed the NOVO button as shown in the diagram below:

 The display brought the BIOS screen below:

 I selected Boot Menu and selected to Boot from USB, on Grub menu I selected Try Ubuntu and could boot into Live Ubuntu 14.04.

In Live Ubuntu every thing worked well except I could not mount the Windows NTFS partitions getting errors that Windows was not shutdown properly, although I had selected to shutdown while in Windows. After reading about shutdown of Windows 8.1 I decided to shutdown Windows completely by running following command:

Shutdown /s /t 0

Once again I started Ubuntu Live session as above and I could now mount the NTFS partitions. I could have resized NTFS partitions using gparted but decided to do it in Windows.

In Windows I tried to shrink C:/ partition but was not allowed to shrink more than 50%. Once again after reading on the net I did following settings in Windows as advised on this blog:

1.Disable Hibernation
2:Disable Paging in C Drive temporarily
3:Diable System protection in c Drive temporarily

After doing the above settings I could shrink the partition to the extent I desired (48 GB for Windows 8.1). I created new NTFS partition leaving 80 GB unused for Ubuntu installation.

Once again I started Ubuntu Live session and created one EXT4 and one SWAP partition to be used for Ubuntu. Then I decided to check whether Windows 8.1 is accepting these changes or not by booting into Windows. Everything was Ok in Windows. Windows had a Recovery partition on the hard disk which I could copy to a USB disk.

Finally I decided to install Ubuntu on the EXT4 partition. After the installation I could boot into Ubuntu as well as Windows from grub installed on MBR.

The Laptop had Radeon Display Driver and the default ati driver was not working properly. After installing proprietary fglrx driver it is ok. 

Income Tax efiling utility and DSC working on Ubuntu Linux.

I am using Linux since Sep 2004 and Ubuntu since July 2005. I was forced to use Windows for Bank of Baroda Netbanking and efiling of Income Tax Return.

Bank of Baroda changed in 2012 and I could use Chromium Browser with JRE 7 on Ubuntu.

Income Tax efiling utility worked only on Windows besides the Digital Signature upload and signing.

Since last two years my CA prepares the xml file of the Income Tax Return but last year I had to use Windows for uploading the xml file using Digital Signatures.

On going through Downloads on Income Tax efiling website I find that besides Excel utility there is Java utility which is having following instructions in Readme.txt
To run in LINUX
Change the ITR.sh file's permission, provide execution permission by executing the following command
> chmod 755 ITR.sh                
run using the command "sh ITR.sh" or ./ITR.sh


This year I find that I could use Firefox with latest JRE 7 on Ubuntu for uploading and signing the Digital Signatures (DSC).

Thanks to the demise of Windows XP, the Income Tax Department had to switch to latest JRE 7 which works on Windows 7/8 as well as Ubuntu 12.04.

How to deal with Excel (.xlsx) file not opening in Libreoffice?

Long back I discovered that Excel (.xlsx) file not opening in Libreoffice opens in Gnumeric.

Today I noticed that after I save the file opened in Gnumeric in the same format without making any changes it can be opened in Libreoffice.

Running Live Android Jelly Bean in Vitualbox on Ubuntu 12.04

Yesterday I downloaded Android-x86 4.3 20130725 live and installation iso from code.google.com and running now on my HP ProBook 4410s Laptop in Virtualbox as Live. Booting

and running the Browser.

Goodbye Ubuntu, Welcome AntiX Linux

Although I tried many Linux Distributions as evident from various posts on this blog, I have always used Ubuntu LTS version on my office Laptop and home desktop.

Now I have decided to say Goodbye to Ubuntu and selected AntiX Linux as my OS.

Day before yesterday, I downloaded the latest antiX iso from sourceforge
I installed Unetbootin on Ubuntu Software Centre and created boot-able USB Stick using Unetbootin and the iso image. Windows user can download the Windows exe file and install Unetbootin and create the USB stick.

Yesterday, I tried antiX using the USB stick. I could also create persistent file to save the settings etc.

On my office Laptop, I always keep two versions of Ubuntu in dual boot, the current LTS for use and either retain the old LTS or the latest version for testing. I had old LTS version 10.04, which I deleted and used the partition to install antiX after booting from USB stick.

After installation I added Icedove (which is same as Thunderbird) and copied xxxx.default and profile.ini files from hidden .thunderbird folder from Ubuntu to hidden icedove folder on antiX and I could see all previous mails and address books.

I added the Battery Monitor in Conky.

I have set up the Cannon Image Runner Printer.

I am using antiX now, goodbye Ubuntu.

Yesterday, I was trying to play music on dhingana.com but it was not playing. I found that Iceweasel is having Flashblock extension installed by default. I posted on antiX forum and got a reply. Accordingly, I added www.dhingana.com to whitelist in preferences of Flashblock extension and it works.

Running UZBL Browser on Android Phone

As described in this post I had installed Debian Squeeze LXDE Desktop on my Samsung Galaxy 5 Android Phone. Since the Iceweasel Browser was not very useful I installed UZBL Browser. I could use the Browser to surf. Following are screen-shots:

Access to files on Android Phone from Ubuntu laptop through SSH on Nautilus.

As described in the previous post I have installed Debian which is working side by side with the OS on the Android Phone. Since the Phone has only 186 MB RAM and most of it being used by the processes running on the Phone OS there is hardly anything left for the Debian LXDE. Unless I can manage to kill the unnecessary processes there is not much use of the Debian LXDE installation.

Off course I have found other uses of the Debian installation. I could start the SSH server through the Debian on the phone and could login from my Laptop and browse the files on Nautilus as follows:
Open Nautilus
Go/Location
ssh://Debian_user_on_phone@ipaddress

I could also copy files from the Phone to the laptop and vice versa.

You can see Folders like /bin /boot /etc /home etc which do not exist on the Android OS but have been mounted by the debian installation and when I exit Debian I have to unmount them through a single command. In fact there is nothing inside the /boot folder because the Debian is not controlling the Boot. The folders on Android OS root are as follows:
cache config data dev lib persist proc root sbin sdcard sqlite_stmt_journals sys system
and the files
default.prop EUROPA.rle init init.glodfish.rc init.qcom.rc init.qcom.sh init.rc

Installed Debian on Samsung Galaxy 5 (GT-I5503)

People generally look for installing other ROMs on their phones after getting root access but being Linux user I was looking for installing Linux Distribution without disturbing the original ROM. After googling I got this thread on xdadevelopers site. The idea of installing Debian using the original ROM appealed to me. Accordingly I downloaded the Debian Kit application by Sven-Ola Tuecke from Android Market. You can read about this application here.

Following are the Prerequisites which are easily met by even old Android phones (mine was bought in 2010):

• Root access to your Android device is required. No root, no Debian.
• Kernel supports mounting loop disks or you have at least an external SD card with a spare partition.
• Kernel supports the ext2, ext3, or ext4 file systems.
• CPU architecture is ARM (little endian) or i386 (ia-32 bit).
• 128 Mb of RAM or more, otherwise the launcher app may be killed during installation.
• 512 Mb of free space on SD card (either internal or external).
• Internet connection to download 100-500 Mb of software packages.
• Terminal app installed, alternatively ADB access.
• If you are a noob: command line input and text file editing is a must.

To make it easy the Debian Kit applications checks the above requirements and reports the suitability of the phone.

There are procedures to run Linux in chroot environment on Android Phones but the Debian Kit method works as follows:
The kit does not use the chroot command to make up a separate Debian environment (refer to schroot(1) for a similar technique). Instead, Debian subdirectories and files (such as /lib or /etc/resolv.conf) are added to the Android RAM-disk based file system with symlinks or bind-mounts. With this, e.g. you have access to newly mounted devices such as USB drives and the SD card. Also, can use Debian commands to compile packages that in turn can use a working chroot. This works, because a typical Android device has a file system (e.g. Libraries below /system/lib) that does not overlap the Debian file system (e.g. Libraries below /lib and /usr/lib). However, some files may overlap - which triggers a warning displayed if you start the deb script. For example, the Android /etc/hosts file is replaced by the Debian version while Debian is mounted. Which in turn may influence the inner working of your Android software stack. This is especially true with custom ROMs, because these typically add some Linux stuff that the ROM developer may miss. All changes are reverted if you issue the deb u command or simply by restarting your device.

After rooting my phone as described in previous post I have installed Andromized version of Debian on my phone and presently downloading andromized-lxde.

Following is the screenshot of my phone:

and on right side is the screen-shot running Bash shell on Debian and downloading required files for andromized-lxde desktop.

The internet speed is slow on the mobile using GPRS 2G and I will upload the image of andromized-lxde desktop later on when it gets installed on the phone.

Update on 26th July 2013
I am posting the screen shots of LXDE Desktop and the Leafpad running on it. When I tried Iceweasel the mobile crashed but it used to crash otherwise also before installing Debian.

After two days struggle successfully rooted my Samsung Galaxy 5 Android Phone.

After trying z4root and Superoneclick and getting frustrated I could successfully root my Samsung Galaxy 5 Phone running Android 2.1 using Universal Androot.

Now watch my blog! I am going to run Debian on this mobile phone.

I could get a blog post specifically for my mobile and do it.

How to resume an unresponsive Ubuntu Desktop.

I am using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS with 3.5.0 Kernel. Sometimes the Desktop becomes unresponsive to mouse clicks and key presses.

Earlier I use to press Ctrl+alt+F1 login to terminal and reboot.

Then I read somewhere that I can kill all processes and re-login. The suggested command was:

kill -9 -1

Today I had the opportunity to use this command and it worked. The manual describes this command as follows:
EXAMPLES
       kill -9 -1
              Kill all processes you can kill.

I could re-login to the Desktop without reboot.

Ubuntu OCR Solution.

Since I am transferred to NOIDA office of the company there is mostly office work for me except occasional visit to a power station.

I was looking for OCR solution to convert scanned PDF documents to text files. Initially I tried pdfocr and tesseract command line tools but not much success.

Then I converted one page online at ABBYY FineReader The site allowed me to convert 3 pages for free and afterwards I had to pay.

I discovered this page about Linux OCR solution. I downloaded the .deb file and installed on Ubuntu 12.04. It installed without any dependency problem since I had tesseract already installed.

Actually Lios is a GUI using cuneiform/tesseract engine in the background. I had already tried pdfocr which uses cuneiform and tesseract through command line and not hoping to get good results but Lios worked much better.

I used cuneiform engine for normal scanned page and tesseract engine if there was a table on the page. It takes time if there is a table but tesseract extracts the text correctly.

How to install Gnumeric 1.12.0 on Ubuntu from Debian Sid.

I have become fan of Gnumeric.

Earlier I was unable to open one .xlsx file (which I use to get daily as MIS) in Libre Office 3.5.4 but I could open it in Gnumeric. In fact I had submitted a bug for Libre Office on Launchpad.

As soon I knew about release of Libre Office 4.0 I installed it as indicated in this post. The file opens quickly in this version of Libre Office.

Afterwards I found that Excel file locked i.e. main sheet protected by password but I could open the lock in Gnumeric as indicated in this post.

As a fan of Gnumeric I decided to install the latest version and downloaded gnumeric_1.12.0-1_i386.deb from Debian Sid.

When I clicked on the .deb file Software Centre complained of following dependencies one by one:
libgsf-1-114_1.14.25-2_i386
libgsf-1-common_1.14.25-2_all
libgoffice-0.10-10-common_0.10.0-1_all
libgoffice-0.10-10_0.10.0-1_i386
gnumeric-common_1.12.0-1_all

I downloaded all the above packages from Debin Sid. Before installing Gnumeric 1.12, I had to remove installed gnumeric-common and gnumeric packages.

At last Software Centre complained broken cache but installed gnumeric on second attempt.

How to edit protected Excel Sheet using Gnuneric.

I am getting an MIS Report every day in Microsoft Excel. Although there is no need to change the contents of the file I clicked out of curiosity on one of the cells and found that I could not read the formula. When I right clicked on Sheet Tab I found the sheet protected with a password.

Since I use Libreoffice I searched about how to crack the password and found a couple of lengthy solutions.

I also keep Gnumeric on my machine. I opened the file in Gnumeric, right clicked on Sheet Tab, selected Manage Sheets and clicked on Lock icon. I was surprised to find that the lock opened without any password. After saving I could edit that file in Libreoffice.

I suppose this is possible in Gnumeric on Windows as well.

Gnumeric is a fantastic software.

Ubuntu 12.04.2 has new Linux Kernel.

Ubuntu 12.04.2 has been shipped with Linux Kernel 3.5.0-23. I have downloaded the iso for Ubuntu 12.04.2 and running it now from USB disk.
Typing uname -a in the terminal gives:
Linux ubuntu 3.5.0-23-generic #35~precise1-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jan 25 17:15:33 UTC 2013 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

I am having some issues on my Laptop running updated Ubuntu 12.04 like it hangs but pressing ctrl+alt+f1 opens a terminal in which I can reboot. Sometimes the Keyboard too does not work and I long press the power key.

I didn't find any issue running the Laptop on USB disk, therefore, I upgraded the kernel on installed Ubuntu 12.04. The command is:
sudo apt-get install linux-generic-lts-quantal xserver-xorg-lts-quantal

This also upgraded Xorg.

I am happy on Linux Kernel 3.5 and removed Linux Kernel 3.2 completely with headers.

You can read all about Kernel/LTS Enablement  stack on this page.

Install Libreoffice 4.0 on Ubuntu 12.04.

LibreOffice 4.0 was released on 7th Feb 2013.

Update: As on 4th March PPA for Libreoffice 4.0 is available. You can add the PPA by following command:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/libreoffice-4-0
sudo apt-get update

Although I use LTS versions of Ubuntu, I upgrade the packages to latest by using relevant PPAs, however, I continued with Libreoofice 3.5 the version on Ubuntu 12.04.

Today I read about release of LibreOffice 4.0 and I decided to install since it may take sometime before PPA for Libreoffice 4.0 arrives for Ubuntu 12.04.

I downloaded the debs from Libreoffice.org.

Libreoffice 4.0 can be installed without removing the default Libreoffice 3.5 on Ubuntu 12.04 as per procedure on this page, however I removed the installed version of Libreoffice:
sudo apt-get purge libreoffice*

After opening the terminal in the directory containing the DEBS I installed Libreoffice 4.0
sudo dpkg -i *.deb
cd desktop-integration
sudo dpkg -i *.deb

After installing you can click on Dash and search for "libreoffice" and open Writer. After it is open you can lock the icon on the launcher. Similarly you can open Calc from Dash and lock the icon on the launcher.

On Kubuntu 12.04 or any other distribution you can run the following command to start Libreoffice 4.0
libreoffice4.0

It is working fine but Menu integration with Unity Desktop is not working and it is not working in Ubuntu 13.04 either.

You can chose Firefox Themes in Libreoofice 4.0. I have installed Underwater Dolphins Theme:

How to combine multiple .flv files into one

Sometimes you download .flv files in parts e.g. Presentation_Part1.flv Presentation_Part2.flv but you would like to see the whole presentation using one file. After searching I found this thread on Ubuntuforums.

The forum post suggests to convert the .flv files to .mp4 files by using the following command:
$ for f in *.flv; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -vcodec copy -acodec copy "${f%.flv}.mp4"; done

By using the above command the 1.flv, 2.flv, 3.flv get converted to 1.mp4, 2.mp4, 3.mp4 etc.

The *.mp4 files get combined into test.mp4 by using following command:
$ MP4Box -add 1.mp4 -cat 2.mp4 -cat 3.mp4 -cat test.mp4

How to stop ongoing download from Android Market

I was trying to download an application from Android Market on Samsung Galaxy 5 and got stuck up. I went again to Android Market and selected the application and the download for second file of that application started and none was getting completed.

I searched on Google and was advised to force close the Download Manager from Settings/Applications/Manage_Applications but could not find the Download Manager.

While in Manage Applications I pressed the left key and selected Filter options "All". Then I could see the Download Manager. I forced closed the application and the download stopped.

Facebook, Tweeter Feeds on Ubuntu Desktop

Today I installed Ubuntu Unity gwibber lens:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gwibber-team/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install unity-lens-gwibber

Then I found that Gwibber was not getting facebook and tweeter feeds. After I restarted Gwibber tweeter feeds worked but facebook did not:
killall gwibber-service
gwibber-service -do

Then I searched to get the solution for facebook feeds and found this page. I did what was told i.e. to modify the following file:
gksu gedit /usr/share/gwibber/plugins/facebook/__init__.py

Now I can get facebook and tweeter feeds on my desktop:

Extract winmail.dat on Ubuntu.

Today I received an email which mentioned an attachment but the attachment was winmail.dat file. After searching on the net I came to know about tnef utility. I installed it with command:
sudo apt-get install tnef

I downloaded the attachment on desktop and extracted it as follows:
cd Desktop
tnef winmail.dat

I found the Excel file attached by the sender on my desktop.