Riding Linux

I have to admit. Being a technical people with minimum knowledge of image or graphic editing, the mostly used image editor for me is Ms Paint (Microsoft Paint). I rarely use higher featured image editing software such as Adobe Photoshop simply because Ms Paint already fulfill my needs. All I want is a simple tool to do quick hack on images I’m working on such as creating pointing arrows on a desktop snapshots that will be used while authoring howtos for peoples I support.

So when I migrated to a linux desktop, I need MsPaint replacement as soon as possible. Peoples suggested Gimp but I found that Gimp is too complicated for my needs. It’s more suitable to be tagged as a open source replacement for Adobe Photoshop rather than Mspaint.

Luckily the packages that I need are truly existed in the linux world. Presenting KolourPaint and GNU Paint (gpaint).

Both programs acts mostly identical to ms paint especially Kolourpaint. Even though kolourpaint is built for KDE environment but I’ve tested it on Gnome and it works fine. The same goes for Gpaint where you can use it on KDE. To install both softwares, I suggest your all to use your distro’s package management such as Synaptic or apt get for Debian/Ubuntu based, urpmi for Mandriva and yum for Redhat or Fedora users. Search for ‘kolourpaint’ or ‘gpaint’ to find and install the software.

Below are some screenshots for Kolourpaint

And a screenshot of Gnu Paint

Popularity: 64% [?]

Konqueror uses ‘Icon View’ as the default view. You can change it to other types such as ‘Detailed List View’ or ‘Image View’ and make it the default view each time you open Konqueror File Manager.

Firstly launch Konqueror File Manager, the easy way is to open (double click) your home folder icon located in your desktop.

This is your default file list view of your Konqueror

Change the view to whatever view you wanted. Eg: Detailed List View

To make the changes permanent, you need to save it into your profile

From the menu, select Settings > Save View Profile “File management”

Click save

From now on, Konquerer will use your preferred view as the default display. You might change the setting whenever you want but don’t forget to save your setting to make it permanent.

Popularity: 32% [?]

Gnome is the default desktop environment for Ubuntu. For people who prefers using KDE as the default desktop environment, Kubuntu would be an ideal choice. But how about people who need both?

Actually it is pretty easy to have both Gnome and KDE on your machine. You could install Kubuntu on top of Ubuntu, or likewise Ubuntu over Kubuntu.

There are multiple ways to achieve the above objective. Some people might prefer using aptitude (due to better un-installation capabilities) and some prefer using apt-get from the terminal. As for me, I chose synaptic as the installation medium.

Launch synaptic (System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager)

Make sure you have the latest package information. Click Reload if not. You are also advised to use the nearest local/regional mirror or internal repository mirror if you have one.

Search for kubuntu-desktop package

Select the kubuntu-desktop package and mark for installation

When prompted for package dependencies, click mark.

Click ‘Apply’ to start the installation process

Click apply to confirm the installation

The installation process will start right away

During the process you will need to specify the default desktop environment to be used as default environment for your account. Select gdm if you want to use Gnome or kdm if you prefer KDE.

Installation completed

To change your desktop environment to KDE, logout your current session

Select ‘System > Quit’ and choose ‘Log Out’

Once logged out, click Option > Select Session

Then choose KDE and click ‘Change Session’

Fill in your username and password to log in. You will now using KDE (Kubuntu) as your desktop environment.

Popularity: 38% [?]

This tutorial will guide you on how to setup a custom (third party) package repository in Ubuntu. We have our own Ubuntu archive repository in our network which undergoes rsync updates twice a day. Instead of using the official repository or local region mirror, we might instead use our local network repository to maximize speed and reduce internet bandwidth.

The configuration can be made though apt config file of if you prefer using GUI, the synaptic tool. This howto will cover configuration using Synaptic.

Launch synaptic

From the menu choose “Settings > Repositories”

Turn off all checkboxes, only leave the “Source Code” checked. Don’t forget to turn of the Cdrom source if you didn’t have the plan to use it.

Click on the “Third Party” tab

Click “Add”
Enter your custom repository’s address and component. In our case the address is

deb http://mirror.oscc.org.my/ubuntu/archive edgy main

*modify the above address base on your release. We are using version 6.10 which is edgy. If you are using 6.06 change the edgy part to dapper.

Add other components universe branch also to be able to install community maintained packages

deb http://mirror.oscc.org.my/ubuntu/archive edgy universe

Optionally if you want to use restricted and multiverse packages, add the following addresses.

deb http://mirror.oscc.org.my/ubuntu/archive edgy mulitiverse
deb http://mirror.oscc.org.my/ubuntu/archive edgy restricted

You will be prompted with an repository changes warning.

Click close and click the Reload button on the Synaptic main interface to update your repositories information.

You can now install a new packages using the local repositories.

Note:
You can also add the above 4 repositories address using a single line. Use a single combined address as the example below

deb http://mirror.oscc.org.my/ubuntu/archive edgy main universe multiverse restricted

Popularity: 18% [?]

I encounter some problems installing Ubuntu on e newly bought HP DC7700 workstation. After done some reading on the internet, I found out that there are some custom parameters to be used to perform the installation.

Since the problem is related to the ACPI, so ACPI sould be turned off in the boot menu.

We need to put these commands into the boot option

install noapic nolapic pci=noacpi acpi=off

Below is the screenshot for those who are using network (mini.iso) method

If you are using the normal cd installation, press F6 during at the menu page to enable custom parameter.

You will be presented with some preloaded parameters. Append the pre-existing parameters by adding “noapic nolapic pci=noacpi acpi=off” at the end of the line.

Popularity: 20% [?]

My goal is pretty simple. I want to install Ubuntu Edgy Eft disto into a few newly bought pc units. I don’t want download and burn the whole installation cd image and do the installation process one by one. Luckily for me our network is equipped with a local ubuntu mirror (archive) which provide me an option to do a network installation process. This method is also applicable for those you prefer to do installation over the internet via nearest ubuntu mirror site.

There are quite a few tutorial and howtos out there that provide guidance on setting up a dhcp server and do PXE netboot procedure. For some reasons I can’t choose that method. So I opt for a minimal install cd method.

A minimal intallation cd iso can be downloaded from
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD

Alternatively you can download the iso from your nearest ubuntu mirror. The mini.iso file usually resides in “/dists/edgy/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/” directory. Download and burn the iso.

Boot the pc with the minimal boot cd. You might need to visit the help page “F1″ for additional install method/parameters. In my case I have to disable acpi and set vga=771 due to some complication with my machines.

Proceed with the language and location selection page. You will then need to choose your keyboard layout. If you already know your keyboad layout type, just skip the layout detection step by answering “no”

Specify your keyboard and proceed. You will then need to set the machine’s hostname.
After that, you will come to the download source selection page.

Choose your nearest mirror site. In my case I had to choose “enter information manually” as the installation source is our local archive mirror server.

For manual source selection, you will need to enter the hostname / domain name of your preferred mirror site.

Then you have to manually enter the exact path of the installation sources.

The installation process will start right away

Further processes are pretty straight forward. Enjoy…

Reference:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/

Popularity: 12% [?]

With default installation of Mandriva 2007 in KDE environment, all networking setup will be automatically refers to DHCP server. This include the machine’s hostname. They maybe cases where the user wants a complete control his own hostname without needing to consult DHCP server admin to specify the hostname.

Root password of the particular workstation will be needed. The user could either change the needed parameters using terminal console, file editor or using Madriva Control Center. To change the hostname using Control Center, launch the tool from the menu by going to:-

System > Configuration > Configure Your Computer

Provide the pc’s root password

Select Network & Internet > Setup A New Network Interface (LAN, ISDN…)

Select Ethernet and click next

Select the network interface to configure (use the one selected by default if you are not sure)
Click Next

Choose either Automatic Or Manual (use automatic if you are not sure)
Click next

Un-check the “Assign host name from DHCP address”
Enter your new hostname
Click Next

Click next

Click Next

Click finish.

You have completed the process. To be on the safe side, reboot your pc.

Popularity: 10% [?]

While using windows I mostly doing file transfers to & from any linux desktop/server by using Winscp. The application is quite handy and fulfill all my requirements. Now I have migrated to a linux desktop and of course Winscp is not an option anymore.

So, what can I use now? Luckily in linux, there are alternative approaches to use. These approaches might even better than using Winscp in windows mainly due to the ability browse remote folder within the same file manager view without depending on third party file management interface. Imagine browsing remote folders via SSH/SFTP protocol directly in your existing file manager (windows explorer) without needing to launch Winscp.

In KDE we can use fish. Simply launch your file manager, in this case ‘Konqueror‘. Type the below command in the location bar.

fish://username@remote_address
eg: fish://root@10.20.20.15

The above command will open up SSH connection to the remote machine using the particular username.

Provide your password and…

You can now browse the remote machine and do any kind of modification you wanted as long as your account is permitted considering that not all of us could log in as root.

The above process is about the same if you are using GNOME. The file manager in GNOME which is called Nautilus also have the ssh tunneling capabilities. Simply open the file manager, hit Ctrl-L to open up location editor and type

ssh://username@remote_address
eg: ssh://root@10.20.20.15

Provide your password

UPDATE

Follow up of this article can be found here :
Krusader - the Winscp alternative in linux

Popularity: 43% [?]

One major aspect to consider whenever we decided to migrate from using Windows as desktop to fully linux environment is finding what software to replace our commonly used existing windows application. Being a windows user for a very long time, we might have nurtured a certain practices and favors a quite number of applications in our works.

Migrating to a linux desktop means that we would miss a quite number of applications as most of them are designed to work only on Windows platform. Applications such as Adobe Photoshop, Ms Office, Windows Media Player is suitable to be used on a windows system. Even though there are ways to install and use those applications on linux (using Wine is an option), the works are somewhat tedious to some people and portability is not guaranteed 100%.

So, why not using any alternative softwares that are built specifically for linux environment in the first place. Most of the applications are designed to be as close as it can be to match the features, look & feel, and functionality of the win32 applications. Some of the also have the ability to import existing saved files from the windows applications.

Below are some applications that I have identified to be the closest to the commonly used windows application.

• Microsoft Office
  • Open Office (http://projects.openoffice.org)
• Microsoft Visio
  • Dia (http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/)
• Adobe PageMaker
  • Scribus (http://www.scribus.net/)
• Adobe Photoshop
  • Gimp (http://www.gimp.org/)
  • GimpShop (http://gimpshopdotnet.blogspot.com/)
• Dreamweaver
  • Nvu (http://www.nvu.com/)
• Maya 3D
  • Blender (http://www.blender.org/)
• ACDSee
  • XNView (http://www.xnview.com/)
• Yahoo Messenger (YM)
  • Kopete (http://kopete.kde.org/)
  • Gaim (http://gaim.sourceforge.net/)
• Ms Outlook => *KMAil (http://kmail.kde.org/)
  • Evolution (http://www.gnome.org/projects/evolution/)
  • Thunderbird (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/)
• Internet Explorer
  • Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/)
  • Konqueror (http://www.konqueror.org/)
• Winamp
  • Xmms (http://www.xmms.org/)

Popularity: 8% [?]

This is my first attempt of being a blogger. There are several reasons why I chose to setup my own blog particularly on linux subject. One of them is to share my experience and any findings that might be interesting or maybe valuable for my fellow visitors. Another reason is to keep all information documented for my own reference in the future. Apart from that I also would like to have any kind of critical feedbacks or ideas that will benefit everybody and myself along the journey. So, welcome to my blog and hopefully we can together ride the linux journey.

Popularity: 9% [?]