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.

Using Tata Photon+ on Ubuntu 12.04

The Huawei modem model EC1260 supplied by Tata Photon is detected automatically by the Network Manager in Ubuntu 12.04 as New Mobile Broadband connection after you wait for one to two minutes. You need to choose country as India, and service provider as Tata Photon+. In addition after setting up you need to edit the connection and write username and password as internet.

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.