For Ubuntu 8.04 users, please try the instructions below. (I’m not in front of a Hardy, 8.04, box right now, so please comment below if you find I’ve made a mistake; and I will correct it – Thanks). If I recall correctly, these packages are not in the “regular” Ubuntu repositories. To get them installed, we can create the appropriate entries in our sources/list, add the GPG keys and then use Aptitude to complete the installation.

For Google Chrome, try the following steps.

Add the chromium-daily PPA to your sources list:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Append the following:

# Chrome Source
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu hardy main

Next add the GPG key with this command:

sudo apt-key adv –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com –recv-keys 4E5E17B5

Update with this command:

sudo aptitude update

Then try to install Chrome withthe following command:

sudo aptitude install chromium-browser

As for Google Earth, I’m sure it’s in the Medibuntu repository. Here are the steps:

Add the Medibuntu source:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Append the following:

# Medibuntu Source
deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ hardy free non-free
deb-src http://packages.medibuntu.org/ hardy free non-free

Next add the GPG key with this command:

wget -q http://packages.medibuntu.org/medibuntu-key.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add

Update with this command:

sudo aptitude update

Now try this install command:

sudo aptitude install googleearth-4.3

Have any suggestions, changes or know another way to do this? Feel free to say so, in the commonts section below.

In that post, I was careful to install Squid3 first, so that Webmin would use it (in the management interface) instead of the older Squid 2.x; and that the installation would be smoother. One thing I noticed was that webmin was using an older version of squid:

“…I noticed that webmin (for some strange reason) thought squid 2.6 was installed…”

One of our readers (atass) provided a useful comment in that post:

“The reason is that you have also installed squid3 AND 2.6. 2.6 was installed via webmin because it is not configured by default to find squid3

I think you should correct this procedure so that you correctly configure webmin to use squid3 by going to module configuration and changing to squid3 paths. Avoid installing Squid via webmin cause it will install Squid 2.6 regardless if you have squid 3 installed”

So this needed fixing, here are the settings (below) I changed to get Squid3 going. Above all, remember to back up data or settings before changing anything.

Log into your webmin interface and select “Squid Proxy Server” from the left side navigation menu.
At the top select “Module Config“.
Change the following values:

Full path to squid config file: /etc/squid3/squid.conf
Squid executable: squid3
Full path to squid cache directory: /var/spool/squid3
Full path to squid log directory: /var/log/squid3

Now remember to stop squid and start squid3, via ssh (substituting for your IP address instead of mine):

ssh root@192.168.1.200

sudo /etc/init.d/squid3 restart

sudo /etc/init.d/squid stop

Now try surfing with your web browser configured to use the Squid3 proxy. If you get an error message (like I did):

————————————————————————–

The requested URL could not be retrieved

While trying to retrieve the URL: http://ubuntulinuxhelp.com/

The following error was encountered:

* Access Denied. Access control configuration prevents your request from being allowed at this time. Please contact your service provider if you feel this is incorrect.

Your cache administrator is xxxx@xxxx.com.

Generated Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:44:31 GMT by squidbox (squid/3.0.STABLE1)

————————————————————————–

Double check your Access Control in the “Squid Proxy Server”, Select the padlock icon that says “Access Control”.

Mirror the original settings you had in the Access Control for the older version of Squid. Then select the “Proxy Restrictions” tab, and again mirror the settings.

Then I restarted Squid3

sudo /etc/init.d/squid3 restart

And tried to surf the web… and everything works!

Big thanks to the reader that pointed out the issue. That’s appreciated! :)

One thing you’ll notice in this post is that the command line does not use “sudo”. This is because the last post configured the server to permit root logins via SSH. In fact, there is a lot of information in the last post that directly relates to (or effects) what we’ll do in this one, again, please read it: Faster Internet With an Old Laptop – Ubuntu and Squid. Otherwise some of us might get a bit lost trying to complete the hands-on activities in this post. Also a reminder that this is an Ubuntu server 8.04 LTS, if using other versions of Ubuntu (or other Debian based distributions, you’ll probably need to make a few adjustments).

In order to make this old laptop even more useful, in addition to the previously installed Squid proxy server, we’re going to add an Apache webserver with PHP, MySQL database server and Mail server (SMTP/POP3). The mailserver is just for the future in the event it’s needed or any PHP based package requires it (so you can skip that if you don’t need it). More importantly, Apache and MySQL are needed so I can successfully install and use MediaWiki.

First SSH into your server. The command for me is:

ssh root@squid.localdomain (You’ll need to substitute the hostname you chose for your server).

Let’s get some packages for  compiling, zip, perl, ssl, certificates and so on. Remember, because you logged in as root, you don’t have to “sudo”.

aptitude install binutils cpp fetchmail flex gcc libarchive-zip-perl libc6-dev libcompress-zlib-perl libdb4.3-dev libpcre3 libpopt-dev lynx m4 make ncftp nmap openssl perl perl-modules unzip zip zlib1g-dev autoconf automake1.9 libtool bison autotools-dev g++ build-essential

Let’s get the database server installed and configured;

aptitude install mysql-server mysql-client libmysqlclient15-dev

During the installation of MySQL, you’ll be asked to  provide and confirm a new MySQL root password. DO NOT FORGET IT! (as the MySQL root password is not going to be the same as your system root password – Right?) You can use upper case and lower case letters, numbers and special characters. To check that MySQL is listening for connections, use the netstat command:

root@squid:~# netstat -tap | grep mysql
tcp    0      0 localhost.localdo:mysql *:*      LISTEN      28746/mysqld

See how MySQL is only listening on localhost?

For future projects, I don’t want the database server to listen only on the localhost, I want it to listen on any interfaces. This is simple to do when editing the configuration file:

nano /etc/mysql/my.cnf

Look for: bind-address = 127.0.0.1
And comment out (#) that line. The line should now look like this:

# bind-address = 127.0.0.1

Doing this does make it less secure, but this is on an internal network, not a public one. Also, note that the default port is 3306, if you ever need to change the port, this is the file you can edit. However, to keep it simple, leave the default port as is.

When done editing, Ctrl o will save the file and Ctrl x will exit nano.

Restart MySQL so the new setting takes effect:

/etc/init.d/mysql restart

Let’s check to see if our settings work:

netstat -tap | grep mysql

You should see something similar to this:

root@squid:~# netstat -tap | grep mysql
tcp    0   0 *:mysql   *:*   LISTEN      28895/mysqld

Note that there is no mention of localhost!

I like using phpMyAdmin to manage the DB server via Firefox:

aptitude install phpmyadmin

When prompted, select the option “apache2”

After the install, you can visit the URL: squid.localdomain/phpmyadmin (substitute you own URL, which may be different from mine).

Use the login credentials that you created when installing and configuring MySQL:

Username = root
Password = The MySQL password (not the normal root password used to login).

If you’ve forgotten the MySQL root password, you can reset it. Here are the steps to fix the “forgot root MySQL password” issue (this has happened to me a few times):

Stop the DB server:
/etc/init.d/mysql stop

Restart MySQL without it accessing the user information (user tables):
mysql mysqld_safe –skip-grant-table &

Now connect to MySQL using the MySQL root account (you won’t need a password):
mysql -u root

Finally change the password via these commands:
use mysql;
UPDATE user SET password=PASSWORD(‘enter-new-password-here’) WHERE user = ‘root’;
flush privileges;
exit;

Currently I only intend to run MediaWiki to replace Tomboy notes (which I’ve probably mentioned a few too many  times now), but perhaps I might add a couple other PHP based sites in the future. Some of them may require email connectivity. Let’s put something in place now (Postfix, Courier).

aptitude install postfix procmail

When issuing the above command, I received the following output:

root@squid:~# aptitude install postfix procmail
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states… Done
Building tag database… Done
The following packages are BROKEN:
sendmail
The following packages will be automatically REMOVED:
sendmail-bin
The following packages have been kept back:
apt apt-utils cron dash initscripts libcurl3-gnutls libkrb53 libssl0.9.8
libvolume-id0 linux-image-2.6.24-23-server linux-image-server
linux-server linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-23-server python-apt sudo
sysv-rc sysvutils tasksel tasksel-data tzdata udev update-manager-core
The following NEW packages will be installed:
postfix
The following packages will be REMOVED:
sendmail-bin
0 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 1 to remove and 22 not upgraded.
Need to get 1160kB of archives. After unpacking 799kB will be used.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
sendmail: Depends: sendmail-bin but it is not installable
Resolving dependencies…
The following actions will resolve these dependencies:

Remove the following packages:
sendmail

Score is 121

Accept this solution? [Y/n/q/?]

I selected Y (yes) to remove the (broken) sendmail package and install the remainder. After accepting the above solution, I saw the following (further) output:

Accept this solution? [Y/n/q/?] Y
The following packages are unused and will be REMOVED:
procmail sensible-mda
The following packages will be automatically REMOVED:
sendmail sendmail-bin
The following packages have been kept back:
apt apt-utils cron dash initscripts libcurl3-gnutls libkrb53 libssl0.9.8
libvolume-id0 linux-image-2.6.24-23-server linux-image-server
linux-server linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-23-server python-apt sudo
sysv-rc sysvutils tasksel tasksel-data tzdata udev update-manager-core
The following NEW packages will be installed:
postfix
The following packages will be REMOVED:
sendmail sendmail-bin
0 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 4 to remove and 22 not upgraded.
Need to get 1160kB of archives. After unpacking 102kB will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?]

The install will give you some prompts (questions) to answer. Here’s how I answered them:

General type of mail configuration:
Internet Site

System mail name:
squid.localdomain (Your’s may be different, so make sure you input the correct name).

I noticed that the installation for procmail did not go through, so:

aptitude install procmail

We can always configure postfix later when needed, but let’s do a quick tweak of it now:

dpkg-reconfigure postfix

For “General type of mail configuration”, leave the setting we already made (Internet Site).

Also leave our “System mail name” as the one we just defined (squid.localdomain) – Again, your name may have been different.

For the “Root and postmaster mail recipient”, we don’t want to add any aliases, therefore leave this blank.

In the next prompt we see “Other destination to accept mail for (blank for none)”. It should be pre-populated with something like this:

squid.localdomain, localhost.localdomain, , localhost

Yes, let’s add this (by selecting “ok“).

No, we do not want to “Force synchronous updates on mail queue”.

The next section that asks about “Local Networks”, populating the input fields with something like this:

127.0.0.0/8 [::ffff:127.0.0.0]/104 [::1]/128

Select “ok“.

“Use procmail for local delivery” – Select Yes!

We don’t need a limit on mailbox files. In the next windows make sure the entry is “0” and select “ok“.

“Local address extension character” prepopulated with “+“, leave it as is, select “ok“.

Finally, “Internet protocols to use”, select “all” and “ok“.

Start Postfix with /etc/init.d/postfix start, however if you need to make changes manually (to /etc/postfix/main.cf), remember to reload postfix with /etc/init.d/postfix reload

Installing courier:

aptitude install courier-authdaemon courier-base courier-imap courier-pop gamin libgamin0 libglib2.0-0

During the installation, you’ll receive a prompt asking “Create directories for web-based administration”, select “No“.

Quick tweak: Let’s configure postfix to drop mail to the users Maildir. We can issue the following command to do this:

postconf -e ‘home_mailbox = Maildir/’ && postconf -e ‘mailbox_command =’ && /etc/init.d/postfix restart

Finally let’s get Apache and PHP installed. I’m going to install PHP as a module, not as CGI, because I want to be able to easily change the configuration settings using directives in Apache configuration files (such as httpd.conf) and .htaccess files.

First, let’s get Apache going:

aptitude install apache2 apache2-doc apache2-mpm-prefork apache2-utils libexpat1 ssl-cert

I received some errors in the output:

.
.
.
Get:3 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com hardy/main libaprutil1 1.2.12+dfsg-3 [70.0kB]
Err http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com hardy-updates/main apache2-utils 2.2.8-1ubuntu0.5
404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.46 80]
Err http://security.ubuntu.com hardy-security/main apache2-utils 2.2.8-1ubuntu0.5
404 Not Found
Err http://security.ubuntu.com hardy-security/main apache2.2-common 2.2.8-1ubuntu0.5
404 Not Found
Err http://security.ubuntu.com hardy-security/main apache2-mpm-prefork 2.2.8-1ubuntu0.5
404 Not Found
Err http://security.ubuntu.com hardy-security/main apache2 2.2.8-1ubuntu0.5
404 Not Found
Err http://security.ubuntu.com hardy-security/main apache2-doc 2.2.8-1ubuntu0.5
404 Not Found
Fetched 478kB in 2s (180kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package libapr1.
.
.
.

If you get this error, try updating the repositiries like this:

aptitude update

The reissue the installation command.

Now that Apache is installed, let’s get PHP and related packages:

aptitude install libapache2-mod-php5 libapache2-php5 php5-common php5-curl php5-dev php5-gd php5-idn php-pear php5-imagick php5-imap php5-mcrypt php5-memcache php5-mhash php5-ming php5-mysql php5-pspell php5-recode php5-snmp php5-sqlite php5-tidy php5-xmlrpc php5-xsl

From dealing with other web servers, I’ve often found that I need to add the appropriate directives to Apache’s dir.conf file (because they will not all be included):

nano /etc/apache2/mods-available/dir.conf

You should see this line:

DirectoryIndex index.html index.cgi index.pl index.php index.xhtml index.htm

Change it to this:

DirectoryIndex index.html index.shtml index.xhtml index.htm index.php index.php3 index.pl index.cgi

We also need to enable the rewrite, include and SSL modules:

a2enmod rewrite && a2enmod include && a2enmod ssl

You’ll get a prompt that tells you to run the command:

/etc/init.d/apache2 force-reload

You should get a success message like:

root@squid:~# /etc/init.d/apache2 force-reload
* Reloading web server config apache2   [ OK ]

Side note: If you need to disable a module, the command would be a2dismod, and an example would look something like: a2dismod ssl && /etc/init.d/apache2 force-reload I generally prefer to disable instead of delete as one never know if a module might be needed in the future (or if disabling causes an error). It’s usually a simpler fix to re-enable a module.

Lets get FTP going:

aptitude install proftpd

You’ll see a prompt asking you how to “Run proftpd”. I’m selecting “Standalone” because I want the ability to restart proftpd (or stop it) if needed. It will create the directory /home/ftp on your server. Here’s some of the output of that command:

Adding system user `proftpd’ (UID 114) …
Adding new user `proftpd’ (UID 114) with group `nogroup’ …
Not creating home directory `/var/run/proftpd’.
Adding system user `ftp’ (UID 115) …
Adding new user `ftp’ (UID 115) with group `nogroup’ …
Creating home directory `/home/ftp’ …
`/usr/share/proftpd/templates/welcome.msg’ -> `/home/ftp/welcome.msg.proftpd-new’
ProFTPd is started from inetd/xinetd.

Side note: If you ever need to restart the FTP server (after changing a configuration), the command would usually be: /etc/init.d/proftpd restart

For those who followed on from the original Squid installation post, we now need to access Webmin. For me the Firefox URL is:

http://squid.localdomain:26395/ (remember, use your server’s correct url and port number).

After logging in, select “Refresh Modules” and see an output similar to mine below:

Checking for usable Webmin modules ..
.. found 58 with installed applications, 46 not installed.

Now select “Servers” and you should see that:

Apache Webserver
Fetchmail Mail Retrieval
MySQL Database Server
Postfix Mail Server
ProFTPD Server
Procmail Mail Filter

have been added to the list. (Originally there was only Read User mail, SSH Server and Squid Proxy Server).

Finally, visit the URL of your nifty web server on Ubuntu, my URL would be:

squid.localdomain (once again, substitute the URL of your server).

And you’ll see the “It works!” message.

By default root is denied the ability to log in via FTP. Because this is my local network, I’ll allow root to access FTP. DO NOT do this is a public environment!

Still in Webmin, select “ProFTPD Server” (listed under “Servers“), then select the “Denied FTP Users” icon. This will open /etc/ftpusers, and display the following directives:

# /etc/ftpusers: list of users disallowed FTP access. See ftpusers(5).  root daemon bin sys sync games man lp mail news uucp nobody

Find: root

and remove it from the list. Click “Save“.

Now we’ll need to allow root in the proftpd.conf via our command line, like this:

nano /etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf

Look for:

# Set the user and group that the server normally runs at.
User                proftpd
Group                nogroup

And underneath the above add:

# Permit root logins
RootLogin on

Side note: If you ever need to reconfigure proftpd (to use inetd instead of standalone for example), the command is: dpkg-reconfigure proftpd

In your terminal, restart FTP so that root will now be allowed:

/etc/init.d/proftpd restart

root can now login and transfer files via FTP.

To change pages that Apache serves, you should be uploading files to:

/var/www

Guess what? We’re done!

While in the Webmin interface I noticed that I had to fix an issue from the last post:

Error: The Squid cache manager program /usr/lib/cgi-bin/cachemgr.cgi was not found on your system. Maybe your module configuration is incorrect.

I encountered this error when trying to access the “Cache Manager Statistics” under “Squid Proxy Server”.
/usr/local/squid/etc/squid.conf

Fix:

aptitude install squid-cgi

More importantly, I run several distributions of Linux in virtual environments. This way I don’t have to worry about multiboot configurations, bootloaders, etc. and I can simply delete or backup up a copy of images I don’t immediately need. To do this I use VirtualBox.

To get it: sudo aptitude install virtualbox or apt:virtualbox

From time to time I come accross an image I’d like to be able to boot in my virtual environment (VirtualBox), only to find that the site only hosts the VMware version for download. Fortunately, there’s an easy way for me to convert the files from the original .vmdk to VirtualBox’s .vdi. Actually, it’s a two-set method.

1. Convert the .vmdk to a .bin file
2. Convert the .bin file to .vdi

In order to convert the image to .bin, were going to need qemu:

sudo aptitude install qemu or apt:qemu

To convert the .bin to a.vdi, we’ll need the VBoxManage package, which is included when you install VirtualBox.

Here’s how the conversion process plays out:

Convert the downloaded VMware image like this:

qemu-img convert xxxxxx.vmdk xxxxxx.bin (where xxxxxx is the name of the file).

Then convert the .bin like this:

VBoxManage convertdd xxxxxx.bin xxxxxx.vdi (where xxxxxx is the name of the file).

I should note that I originally started using VMware as my virtualization platform, then switched to VirtualBox. Converting the images, saved me a fair bit of time reinstalling all the different linux systems!

Update June 20, 2009: As an after thought, I should try the command this way:

qemu-img convert xxxxxx.vmdk xxxxxx.bin && VBoxManage convertdd xxxxxx.bin xxxxxx.vdi (again, where xxxxxx is the name of the file).

Have a comment, suggestion or better way? Please comment below. A GUI application that can do this? – Again, please comment and let me know. Hope this post helps some of you!

“I have a ati r128 graphics driver. I dont see the driver in hardware drivers at all. The driver is a inf file. I dont know how to install it. Please help me!”

I don’t have much information provided in the question (more information is always helpful and allows for better answers).  However, I hope the following will help.

First, the inf file is a Windows based file, you don’t need that in Linux. I had an ATI Rage 128 card a while back, and a do remember having issues. If I recall correctly (this was a few years ago for me), the issue was that the card was not detected properly. In your case, I’d suggest that the card driver is not ATI, instead you’ll want R128 because (again, if I remember correctly) X11 detects the card incorrectly.

If you’re not sure what “X11″ means, please see the article: X Window System

From their site:

“…The X Window System (commonly X or X11) is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a graphical user interface (GUI) for networked computers, and was initially developed as part of Project Athena. It implements the X display protocol and provides windowing on raster graphics (bitmap) computer displays and manages keyboard and pointing device control functions…”

Here’s one approach you can take to try and fix this…

As mentioned, you need to ensure that R128 is the used driver. To accomplish this, please edit your xorg.conf file, but make a BACKUP FIRST! In fact, it’s good practise to keep a backup of any data you find valuable, that way if you feel a need to reinstall your OS, you will not lose all your valuable files. So, ALWAYS keep a current backup of files you never want to lose – I learned this the hard way (more than once).

Here’s the terminal command to do this:

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Look for two lines that starts with:

Section “Device”
Identifier    “Configured Video Device”

Now ensure the following line (just under those) that says:

Boardname “ATI Rage 128″

is changed to reflect the real name of your video card.

Next look for the line that says:

Driver “ati”

and change it to say:

Driver “r128″

The other directives should be okay. Save the file and reboot your system: sudo shutdown -r now

I hope this information helps you overcome the driver issue.

Update June 16, 2009: Steven and Coder’s Wasteland has taken this post even further! In my opinion, he’s done a great job in providing a bash script that implements all the changes described in this post. Way to go Steven! You can read more about that (and get the script) at: Initial Ubuntu Install Items Script.

Update June 19, 2009: Steven and Coder’s Wasteland has migrated the script from a CLI to a GUI based one! Check it out at: Install Initial Ubuntu Items GUI.

1) sudo aptitude install sbackup

Nothing is worse that losing all your important data (pictures, email messages, music, documents, etc.) The above command will install Simple Backup Suite (more details found on Sourceforge). For me at least it’s a great desktop backup solution. I can select which directories I want backed up (full and incremental), then have backups automatically transfered to my external network storage. I play a lot with my computer, I often break something as a result. With sbackup, I can be more confident as it’s easy to restore data (in the event I have to reinstall an application or even worse… the OS itself). You can also install via:

apt:sbackup

2) sudo aptitude install ubuntu-restricted-extras && sudo aptitude install w64codecs

If you enjoy music, videos, and so forth, you’ll want to install the extra media codecs and packages that will allow you to play almost any desktop media format (mov, mpg, avi, wmv, mp3 and so on). I wrote a detailed post:  “Build a Web Developer PC and Enable Most Media Playback Using Ubuntu Linux“, which provides a bit more of an in depth explanation of the above command (including editing the sources.list to include mediabuntu). Note: If you have a 32 Bit system, change the the “w64codec” part of the command to say “w32codecs” instead. You can also install these packages via:

apt:ubuntu-restricted-extras

apt:w64codecs

3) sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts && sudo fc-cache -fv

I like having the same fonts used by Windows users. People often send me .doc files, so I want to ensure I have at least the core fonts they use. The above command installes the Microsoft core fonts and then reloads the font cache. I’ve posted about this before at “How to Install TTF and CTF Fonts in Ubuntu“, which contains far more detail. You can also install the core fonts via:

apt:msttcorefonts

4) sudo aptitude install vlc

I prefer not to try juggling with the use of different applications to play different media types. VLC plays all the media types I access. For me at least, it’s the singular application I use to play everything from an MP3 file to a DVD video (and incidentally, vlc can stream your media to other computers, even to the television!). Of course you can click the apt link and install via:

apt:vlc

5) sudo aptitude install k3b

Even though I use gnome, I still install k3b, which is (in my opinion) among the best DVD/CD burners around. I find the interface  intuitive and easy to use. There’s a post containing more applications at “Top 100 of the Best (Useful) OpenSource Applications“. Using apt links, we can also install k3b via:

apt:k3b

6) Enable surround sound right away. I’ve an earlier post at Enable 5.1 Surround Sound on Linux – Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy, but the jist of the instructions is to edit

sudo gedit /etc/pulse/daemon.conf and change the line that says:

; default-sample-channels = 2

to say

default-sample-channels = 6

7) Use the “Windows” Key.

I prefer using keyboard shortcuts instead of the point and click mouse. Thankfully, there’s an easy way to turn your keyboards “Windows key” into an Ubuntu key.

Go to: System -> Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts

Scroll down to the action “Show panel menu” and click on it. (The phrase “New accelerator menu…” will appear).

Now simply press your Windows key once. (You’ll see the accelerator now says “Super L”). Select the “Close” option and you’ll see that your Windows key now works. Note: If you ever want to change it back to the default (for Hardy 8.04), the original setting is Alt f1.

8) Make gedit remember more documents.

I often use gedit to quickly edit files in a GUI environment. I often wish gedit would remember more of the documents I edit. That way I don’t have to surf through the file system. There’s a simple way to ensure gedit remembers more of the files you edit:

sudo gconf-editor

In the window that appears (using the above command), select

apps -> gedit2 -> preferences -> ui -> recent

Select the “max_recents” key and change the default of 5 to 10

9) Increase the start speed of multi-core CPU systems.

This will slow down systems that  have a single CPU. For multi core CPUs, we can change the services to all start together (in parallel) during boot time. The command to do this is;

sudo perl -i -pe ‘s/CONCURRENCY=none/CONCURRENCY=shell/’ /etc/init.d/rc

and then reboot with

sudo shutdown -r now

10) Finally, I sometimes need to run application that are for another OS (not Ubuntu Linux). Virtualization is the answer and allows me to run the other application without using Wine ore rebooting into another OS. You can install Virtualbox:

sudo aptitude install virtualbox

If you’re interested, more information about VirtualBox can be found by visiting the about VirtualBox page. Again, here’s the apt link to install virtualbox:

apt:virtualbox

A bonus tip!

I’m often asked how to uninstall a .deb package. The command to facilitate that is:

sudo dpkg -r package_name

I hope these tips help some of you out there! How strong is your Kung Fu? -> If you’ve any tips or tweaks you think should be here, please feel free to drop them in your comments below!

It’s an older IBM Thinkpad T22, Type 2647 with 256MB of RAM and a 20GB hard drive. A couple years ago, I had 2o of these units, bought from a recycling depot. I sold them all on eBay, and only have a couple left now.

Whilst packing up the stuff to cart off, it occurred to me that I could put this old laptop to work by installing a proxy / caching server on it, and have my we browsers, pull much of the regularly requested web content off a locally cached network server. This means installing Squid. Not sure what Squid is: Squid (software), from their site:

“…Squid is a proxy server and web cache daemon. It has a wide variety of uses, from speeding up a web server by caching repeated requests, to caching web, DNS and other computer network lookups for a group of people sharing network resources, to aiding security by filtering traffic. Although primarily used for HTTP and FTP, Squid includes limited support for several other protocols including TLS, SSL, Internet Gopher and HTTPS. The development version of Squid (3.1) includes IPv6 and ICAP support…”

Needless, as I currently enjoy using Ubuntu, that’s what I used as the OS for this project. Installing a Squid server on the network, provided me with a few important benefits:

• Less bandwidth usage.
• Faster web surfing.
• Network cached copies of pages I regularly visit (if the original server is down).

Firstly, make sure you’ve installed a copy of Ubuntu 8.04 Server (Hardy) on the old laptop. Not sure how to do that? Here’s a guide: The Perfect Server – Ubuntu Hardy Heron (Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Server). In my case I skipped (did not install) Apache, MySQL, Postfix, BIND9, Proftpd, POP3/IMAP and Webalizer. I don’t need those, I only need the Squid proxy / caching server. I also installed Webmin (see below), so that I can easily manage this server remotely. A word to the wise however, I found out (about 2 years ago) to install Squid first! – That way the Webmin installation goes much smoother (I was using Debian for the server  at that time, and Ubuntu in another instance). Also, for those of you who have been following my blog (and for my welcomed new readers), I also played with Squid and Ubuntu about a year ago, in this post: Speed Up and Improve Web Surfing With an Ubuntu Squid Server. My earlier Ubuntu, Squid post was based on Ubuntu 6.06LTS and Squid 2.6 – Things have changed and applications, etc. have improved, so I though a revisit and reinstallation of the Squid server was in order.

I downloaded and burned a copy of the Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Server from Ubuntu’s official site at: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download-server. The bare minimum requirements are:

300 MHz x86 processor
64 MB of system memory (RAM)
At least 4 GB of disk space (for full installation and swap space)
VGA graphics card capable of 640×480 resolution
CD-ROM drive or network card

256MB of RAM, made the install slower than I’m used to. You can find more requirements info for Ubuntu Server (Hardy) at Ubuntu System Requirements.

After downloading, and burning a copy of the ubuntu-8.04.2-server-i386 CD, complete a base install of Ubuntu server (using the howtoforge.com guide above as a reference). I also installed an SSH server so that I could tuck the old laptop away and complete everything else in  comfort,  using my desktop.

sudo aptitude install ssh openssh-server

will get the ssh server up and running for you.

Throughout this post, you’ll need to substitute your IP addresses and names to match those in your own network. After the installation of the base server is complete, open a terminal from your (comfortable) desktop and enter:

ssh root@192.168.1.200

192.168.1.200 is the address of  there server I just installed.

Use the command:

su

to enter root. That way I don’t have to keep typing “sudo”.

Install Squid usingthe command:

aptitude install squid3

After Squid has finished installing and you’ve rebooted the system, you may want to install Webmin, a GUI interface to manage that server, still in terminal, you can download a copy of the webmin package into and directory you like. The command to download is:

wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/webadmin/webmin-1.470.tar.gz

Untar it like this:

tar xzvf webmin-1.470.tar.gz

Webmin needs perl to run, so I installed some packages:

aptitude install install libauthen-pam-perl libnet-ssleay-perl libpam-runtime openssl perl perl-modules

Enter my extracted contents of the webmin-1.470.tar.gz package  by:

cd webmin-1.470

And run the installation for webmin:

./setup.sh

I changed the port number away from 10000 to 26395. I changed the admin account to “root”, and entered a new password.

At the end of the webmin installation, I got the success message that include the URL: http://squid.localdomain:26395/

On my local PC, I had to edit my hosts file like this:

sudo gedit /etc/hosts

Then added the following line:

192.168.1.200 squid.localdoman    squid

Now we want to reboot the squid server using:

shutdown -r now

After rebooting the server and logging back in (via ssh), you can see if the webmin service is running by using the command:

sudo /etc/init.d/webmin status

You should see something like:

webmin (pid 4573) is running

To see if it is listening on the correct port number, the command to check that is:

sudo netstat -tap

You should find a line in the output of the above command that says something like:

tcp    0    0 *:26395    *:*    LISTEN    4573/perl

(Remember, port 26395 was the one we chose to tun webmin on – And webmin uses perl).

Now open a web browser and visit webmin. The URL I would use is:

http://squid.localdomain:26395/

(Again, remember that I added the appropriate information to my hosts file so that the browser can find the URL).

I chose not to enable SSL for logging into webmin (as I don’t need it in this LAN). After logging in, we want to configure squid. Look for something (on the left) that says “Unused Modules” and look for “Squid Proxy Server“, click that link. You will see an option to install the squid (webmin) module. Select that link to install it.

After installing, look on the left side menu and under “Servers” you will see “Squid Proxy Server“. Select “Squid Proxy Server” and then select the “Ports and Networking” option.

Note that squid is running on the default port 3128. Now return back to the squid module page by clicking “Module Index” (at the top of the page). Select the “Access Control” icon and see a button at the bottom of the page that says “Browser Regexp” – That contains a drop down list. Use the drop down list to select “Client Address” then click the button that says “Create new ACL“.

Enter your values in the form. I used the following:

ACL Name: localdomain
From IP: 192.168.1.0
To IP: 192.168.1.255
Netmask: 255.255.255.0

I didn’t change anything else and clicked on “Save”.

Now click the tab (at the top) that says “Proxy restrictions“. Click (at the bottom) “Add proxy restrictions” and look for the new ACL name you just created (mine was called “localdomain”) *** Make sure you are looking under the column that says “Match ACLS” *** and click on that name. Now click the radio button that says “Allow“. Then select “save” at the bottom.

In the new screen that display, use the up arrow to move “localdomain” (or whatever you called your new ACL rule) so that it is just above the line that says “Deny all”. If you don’t, your browsers will not be able to get access.

Now in your ssh window, use the command:

shutdown -r now

This will restart the server and squid3 (along with then new configuration). I noticed that webmin (for some strange reason) thought squid 2.6 was installed. Therefore, webmin was unable to start the server. But after rebooting the system, the “Stop Squid” button appeared – so I assume the webmin module has started working properly (no need for me to play with webmin again, as I’ll use SSH to access and reboot, etc., so I did not try).

As a final step, make sure that you set the proxy server address in your web browser. In my case the information to enter as a proxy server for each web browser is:

192.168.1.200:3128

Update, July 03, 2009: I found a problem when trying to access statistics. Here’s the issue and fix…

Issue:  When trying to access the “Cache Manager Statistics” under “Squid Proxy Server”, the following error displays:

“The Squid cache manager program /usr/lib/cgi-bin/cachemgr.cgi was not found on your system. Maybe your module configuration is incorrect.”

Fix:  aptitude install squid-cgi

Cache manager statistics will now work.

Other sites with related information:

• Howto Block websites using Squid Proxy in Ubuntu Linux
• Howto Block a Port in Squid Proxy , Ubuntu Linux
• [Ubuntu]Installing an HTTP proxy server (Squid)
• Installing Squid Proxy using Webmin on Ubuntu Server 8.04.1
• Paranoid Penguin – Building a Secure Squid Web Proxy, Part I

Enjoy faster web surfing as less external files are requested for pages you commonly visit and local cached copies are delivered to your browser. I hope you ladies and gents have fun playing with this, as I hope this post helps you out. Questions, suggestions, corrections, even additions?…. Please feel free to add them to you comments!

A short post: “Why is Jaunty not an LTS release, shouldn’t I just stay with Hardy?” That’s a question I received from one of my clients. For those not familiar, “LTS” means “Long Term Support”. Indeed 8.04 (Hardy) has a longer support life than 9.04 (Jaunty), in fact, support for 9.04 will expire before 8.04.

Note:

Ubuntu Hardy (8.04) release was April, 2008

• Support for desktops ends: April, 2011
• Support for servers ends: April, 2013

Jaunty Jackalope (9.04) release was April 2009

• Support ends: October 2010

One thing to be aware of is that Canonical (the people who release Ubuntu), provide an LTS version of Ubuntu every two years. Since Ubuntu 8.04 LTS was released in 2008, I assume Ubuntu 10.04 will be released in 2010 as an LTS release, and maybe be supported until 2015.

I think the above clearly answers the LTS question, however as to the choice of upgrading to 9.04 or remaining with 8.04, that’s not as simple.

Some of the key changes released in 9.04 (among others) were:

• Support for Wacom graphic tablets
• Netbook support
• Faster boot up time
• Desktop integration for web applications
• Support for the new ext4 file system

Additionally, keep in mind that some open (and closed) source applications may no longer be  developing for 8.04. In many respects, I would weigh the options of application support just as much as patches and security releases from the Ubuntu repositories.

Personally, I have not upgraded yet. Why? – I don’t need to! Don’t get me wrong, I love all the new toys, tweaks and features, but I’m happy with the way my system runs and am reluctant to change that.

However, as of late, I find I’ve been using more .deb packages (upgrading to Gimp 2.6 in Ubuntu Hardy for example). Additionally, I’m using nVidia and am not sure about support in Jaunty’s new version of X.org.

Either way, just because 9.04 is not an LTS release, does not mean you shouldn’t consider upgrading – You should. Rather, stand back an evaluate whether you really NEED an upgrade or not.

Here’s the scenario…

Hardware:

• AMD 64Bit system.
• Logitech USB camera (Fusion).

Software:

• Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy).
• Flash  LNX 9.0.152.0 upgraded to  LNX 10,0,15,3 (during this post).

In my particular case, I discovered that when using Flash to connect to a video chat, I’d get a pop-up window asking which webcam to use. It was a simple matter to select the USB based cam, wich was given the name “0x046d” (for selection). Sometimes it would work, most of the time it did not. I also found that Skype connections were working all the time. However, video quality was not that great and there was almost none of the software features available (that were available to Windows users).

Missing features (that the camera supported) were:

• Face tracking (camera lens moves to keep your face in the center of the frame).
• Rightlight 2 Technology (this fixes low, uneven, or glaring light automatically).
• Built in mic (sometimes it worked, sometimes not).

Needless to say, I was a bit frustrated with the inconsistent performance in Ubuntu Linux. To be fair, I did test the camera on a Windows XP environment and found that it worked great and that all features were available (so I knew it was not because of poor webcam hardware). However, this in great part was facilitated by the software installation. It seems that Logitech has not made any drivers or software available for Linux. In fact, it seems there’s nothing available of Mac either. It’s just my opinion, but what kind of company produces products and dictates what operating system they can be used in. The world is rapidly changing and, it seems, there is much more (and increasing) diversity in the desktop environment, as such (in my opinion) Logitech should really sort out this issue as I think it makes them look bad. Ranting aside, this still left me with the issue of a great cam that had reduced functionality – simply because software was unavailable.

I found out that I needed to update my version of (64Bit) Flash. Apparently there were some issues that had been fixed since the initial Flash install. You can see what version of Flash you are using here: “Version test for Adobe Flash Player” and learn how to install Flash properly here: “Adobe Flash 10 64-Bit – Use the Alpha Version Instead?” – That post has been updated (read “Update Feb. 23, 2009″) to get the correct information – It’s not an Alpha version anymore.

While the update of Flash, did resolve some issues – Video works more consistently now. However, even though the mic did install in Linux, I have to use a seperate mic when using the cam in Flash. However, when using Skype, both video and the on-board mic work. Again, this indicate the issue is software based. Interestingly in Ekiga, nothing works! I’ve since dumped Ekiga as it has no use in my system.

Again, it seems to me that Ubuntu Linux support for web cams is somewhat inconsistent, however, I’d like to clarify one thing. In reality it is some vendors that are not supporting Linux, which is the crux of the issue. It would be nice if the open source and Linux communities could jump in and fill the gap that some vendors are failing to address. That said, I as the end user could better help myself by properly researching hardware before buyting it.

The following resources, I’ve found, are most helpful (and I hope they help you too).

Gspca/Spca5xx, Spca5xx-LE are web cams drivers that support a wide range of cameras. When reviewing the list of cams, pick the ones where the “support” column is green and says “yes”. Also ensure that the “quality” column contains five stars.

gspca driver on launchpad (bugs) helps fix a lot of issues with web cams. It provides more software updates and fixes as well.

Ubuntu Community Webcam Documentation contains some excellet resources (and probably should be one of your first stops?) One thing though, they suggest using Ekiga to test your webcam (as Ekiga is installed by default). That was not a good suggestion in my case (Ekiga did not work, but Skype and Flash did).

The Webcam HOWTO is a bit dated, but it will provide answers to some questions.

The IEEE1394 Digital Camera List is helpful to those who use a Firewire camera instead of USB.

Linux Driver for Quickcam USB cameras – Logitech Quickcam Fusion will help you get your Logitech Fusion working with Ekiga. This is a post I wrote just over a year ago, some things may have changed (and personally, I’ve learned a lot more since then).

Finally, for us Ubuntu Linux users, there’s a specific hardware compatability list that you might want to peek at here: “Ubuntu Hardware Compatability List“.

As for the functionality – which is application driven, again, it would be nice is Linux (Ubuntu), could at least catch up a bit with Windows and Mac! Doing so may further enhance its desktop viability!

For those interested in GPSA, there’s a great video (shown blow) that demonstrates how to install it:

Personally I’ve not tried it yet – But I plan to! :)

Other Related Resources:

If you have any good Linux webcam resources, have some experiences or knowledge that you’d like to share, please feel free to comment below!

First off, there some other applications I use, namely:

xVidCap. This facilitates screen capturing video so that I can create tutorial videos. After which ffmpeg can be used to convert the captured video to flv format for web streaming.  If you’re interested, they have a couple instructional videos: Video 1 and Video 2. To install it, the command is:

sudo aptitude install xvidcap

Also, to be able to quickly find the differences between file versions I use TkDiff File Comparison and Meld. Both allow me to open different versions and display where files differ. These are particularly helpful if you access files from different locations and then need to troubleshoot changes. To install:

sudo aptitude install tkdiff

sudo aptitude install meld

In my personal case, this became more useful when I tried out Unison. As explained on the Unison web site:

“…Unison is a file-synchronization tool for Unix and Windows. It allows two replicas of a collection of files and directories to be stored on different hosts (or different disks on the same host), modified separately, and then brought up to date by propagating the changes in each replica to the other…“

While I’m mentioning Unison, I should point out that I had a horrible experience with it (Note: I did not read the manual). In my opinion it’s a great idea, and I am truly waiting for the latest versions, however I did have issues (which I have not been able to resolve yet):

It advertises that synchronization can also occur between Linux and Windows systems (or Linux to Linux systems).

My reality with regards to Windows :

• Linux can connect to Windows, but then the connection is lost with an error message after supplying the correct password.
• Window can connect to Linux and does begin searching for changes, but then the application freezes, becomes unresponsive, network traffic is almost zero and CPU load shoots to 100% if you try to stop.
• For it to work the same version needs to be installed on both machines.
• Compiling from source did not work on Ubuntu 8.04 as it indicated there were errors in the make file (yet the sudo aptitude install unison-gtk command does succeed – So I know all dependencies and libraries are already available)
• Currently it does not work. (However other solutions like rsync etc. work without any issues or much hair pulling).
• There is no option to delete a profile.
• Importantly, the FTP synchronization option is not available.

I really hope I can get this going – But it’s slow as it’s taken me almost 5 hours to try and get it working – to no avail. I wish there would be the same updated versions for all platforms available as packaged binaries (I think this would make things easier).

imgSeek is another useful tool that manages graphic collection and has the unique search capability where you can provide a rough sketch of the image you are looking for – And the results will be returned. No more having to use tags! In my opinion that is a great feature. You can view the screenshot of the search feature.

Many of the other web design and development related tools are also Firefox extensions:

Codetch allows me to edit files right inside Firefox. It’s a little bit like Bluefish.

Copy Plain Text gives you the ability to copy and paste text without all the formatting.

W3C CSS Validator does exactly that – validate that your CSS is formatted to the correct standards.

CSSViewer allows you to hover your mouse around a web page and see a small box that clearly shows all the CSS element in effect for any object or area.

EditCSS allows you to edit the CSS of any web page in real time and see the immediate changes, then you can simply copy and paste the change into your final style.css file.

Firebug is a robust extension that allows you to live debug and monitor CSS, HTML, JavaScript, etc. actions and results. It’s a good tool for troubleshooting issues.

Web Developer provides a tool bar with lots (and lots…) of development tools! If you’re only going to check one of these extensions, this is the one to look at!

Side note: I’ve often been asked what the “Ubuntu Firefox Modifications” extension does (as there is no ability to edit the preferences for it). It’s function is to allow installation of Firefox add ons via the Ubuntu package manager, however I’ve not played with that yet.

Finally, one issue I’ve found very helpful is to tweak how Firefox operates, in other words making it function faster. The video below provides a good guide to tweaking Firefox for speed improvements:

Hopefully the revisit of this topic helps answer questions as well as improving the web developer and designer productivity in an Ubuntu Linux environment.