Category Archives: Linux

Eclipse 3.3.2 and Debian

March 1, 2008 Mick Leave a comment

So I wanted to install Eclipse at home, the version that comes with Debian is 3.2.2-5 and I wanted to try 3.3.x and install WTP and some other plugins that aren’t packaged with Debian (anyone know why?).

After downloading and installing Eclipse the welcome screen would appear with an error message saying:

Error creating the view.

org.elipse.core.runtime.Plugin

This is because the default jvm or java executable on my system was one provided by gcj and for some reason Eclipse’s eclipse doesn’t seem to work properly with gcj (or I had a too old version), Debian’s 3.2.2 Eclipse packages seem to work fine with gcj. Gcj is an Open Source Java compiler provided by GNU.

Using Sun’s JVM solved this. To install Sun’s JVM, if you don’t already have it, issue the following command:

aptitude install sun-java5-bin

Debian uses what’s called alternatives, this means that the java executable /usr/bin/java is actually a symbolic link to /etc/alternatives/java which itself is a symbolic link to the real java executable. You can manually change the links in /etc/alternatives or run:

update-alternatives –all

And change all the java tools to point to the ones that come with the Sun JVM. Alternatively, you can install galternatives which is an easy to use GUI tool to manage alternatives.

Updated March 2008: Corrected misspellings, and grammatical mistakes.

Linux

Boston Linux Installfest XXVII

February 23, 2008 Mick Leave a comment

Boston Linux Installfest XXVIII
When: Saturday, March 1, 2008 from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm
Where: MIT Building E-51, Room 061, 2 Amherst St, Cambridge

What you need to bring: Your computer, monitor, power strips and yourLinux distributions. We do have copies of some distributions. In general we have expertise with most distros, but if you need special expertise, please email the BLU discussion list in advance.

COST: It’s free! However, we DO have expenses, and contributions arewelcome. Please consider contributing $25 per machine.

Our volunteers will help you to install Linux on your own system. While Linux runs on most systems, some systems do have configurations and hardware that may not be supported. Please consult the following web pages for hardware compatibility.

Linux.ORG: http://www.linux.org/hardware/index.html
Hardware HOWTO: http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO.html
Linux Frequently Asked Questions: http://www.linuxdoc.org/

Generally our volunteers have sets of the latest Fedora, SuSE and Ubuntu distributions:
* Fedora – http://fedora.redhat.com (Fedora 7)
* Open SuSE – http://opensuse.org (OpenSuSE 10.3)
* Ubuntu – http://www.ubuntu.com (Gutsy Gibbon 7.10)

Please refer to the BLU website (http://www.blu.org) for further information and directions. Parking is available in front of the building on Amherst St. Enter the building, and take the elevator to your left down 1 floor. Room 061 is opposite the elevator.

Adobe, Linux, Tech

Adobe Air for Linux?

February 16, 2008 Mick 5 Comments

A friend forwarded the e-mail below to me. It looks like there is a beta or prerelease of the Linux version of Adobe Air available. However, poking around Adobe’s site I can’t any references to this release and Googling hasn’t turned up anything useful (except for doc from last year saying Air for Linux will be here in the 1.2 release). And the first Q/A in the e-mail say there isn’t a public announcement, yet. If anyone knows what procedure there is get access to a version, please leave a comment.

Wouldn’t you think they’d include a few links in the e-mail! I’m guessing that it’s somewhere on http://labs.adobe.com, maybe all I have to do is register? Nor is there anything on the Air Forums?

The announcement is below, the only changes I’ve made is masking any e-mail addresses (to help prevent unnecessary spam), and some minor formatting to improve the legibility. BTW Adobe, good job on working on providing Linux support. However, I’d suggest that if you provide support for Ubuntu, that you also consider providing packages for Debian which is what Ubuntu is based on.

Update: See Ashutosh‘s comment below.

Also, see Arstechnica’s Air Review.

Continue reading Adobe Air for Linux? →

Linux, Tech

Dell BIOS updates using Linux

February 5, 2008 Mick Leave a comment

Dell provides Ubuntu support for updating the BIOS of Dell systems:

http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/12/05/37446.aspx

… be sure the Universe section is enabled in /etc/apt/sources.list, then run as root:

wget -q -O – http://linux.dell.com/repo/firmware/bootstrap.cgi | bash
aptitude install firmware-addon-dell
aptitude install $(bootstrap_firmware -a)
update_firmware

Thanks Dell!

kde, Linux, Tech

kde4 & debian!

February 2, 2008 Mick 2 Comments

Works great! Following the instructions here:

http://pkg-kde.alioth.debian.org/experimental.html

However, if you install the KDE4 kdeartwork package, any remaining kde3 packages, such as k3b & amarok, will uninstalled and aren’t available for KDE4 on Debian yet.

See the screenshot that highlights transparency:

However, this does seems buggier than on my laptop running Ubuntu. For instance, whenever I type in the brower (such as writing an e-mail using gmail), the pager flickers off and on, and sometimes the whole bar on the bottom flickers on and off. I’ve tried setting KWIN_NVIDIA_HACK=1 and that didn’t help.

kde, Linux

kde4 and ubuntu

January 13, 2008 Mick 3 Comments

Follow the instructions at the link below to install KDE 4 for Ubuntu:

http://kubuntu.org/announcements/kde-4.0.php

Screenshots follow!

KDE 4’s Show Desktop Grid, use Ctrl-F8:

Pick running app, use Ctrl-F10

If you want some more screenshots let me know.

Update: To install extra goodies do the following:

sudo aptitude install kde4

gnome, Linux

Gnome theme problems.

January 2, 2008 Mick Leave a comment

Wow, major problems with Gnome and trying to change themes. Ended up the issue was some weird conflict with the gtk-qt-engine package. A simple:

apt-get remove –purge gtk-qt-engine

solved the problem. Of course it took a fews days of googling to find the answer, which was on Ubuntu’s bug tracker (don’t have the link handy sorry). The issue I had was that if I tried to change the theme or any part of the appearance of Gnome, the whole theming application would go blank. If you expierence this too, remove gtk-qt-engine .

Debian, gnome, Linux

Evolution e-mail client & gnome-keyring

December 14, 2007 Mick Leave a comment

Recent updates on Debian for Novell’s (formerly Ximian’s) Evolution E-mail programme added support for gnome-keyring. When you start Evolution for the 1st time after the recent updates Evolution will ask for the gnome-keyring password, then for your smtp password (password for your e-mail account). This can be a bit of a pain, especially for less experienced users. If your using GDM as your login manager (the login screen) you can install the libpam-gnome-keyring and have this done for you at login.

Updated March 2008 with formatting changes.

First install libpam-gnome-keyring:

sudo aptitude install libpam-gnome-keyring

Then read this file:

less /usr/share/doc/libpam-gnome-keyring/README.Debian

The only thing you should have to do is this:

If you want the default password to be correctly changed together with he login password, you need to add the following line to etc/pam.d/common-password:

password optional pam_gnome_keyring.so

If you want to start gnome_keyring from another display manager, you need to add the following lines to the corresponding /etc/pam.d/?dm file:

auth optional pam_gnome_keyring.so

session optional pam_gnome_keyring.so auto_start

If you saw my other instructions, they were wrong! (And deleted!)

However, it is possible that this wont’ work! Before you do anything else, check the file /etc/pam.d/gdm and see if the following 2 lines are already there:

auth optional pam_gnome_keyring.so
session optional pam_gnome_keyring.so auto_start

If they aren’t, you’ll have to add them. So make a backup copy of the file:

sudo cp /etc/pam.d/gdm /etc/pam.d/gdm.org

and add the 2 lines to the END of the file. My copy of the file looks like this:

#%PAM-1.0
auth requisite pam_nologin.so
auth required pam_env.so readenv=1
auth required pam_env.so readenv=1 envfile=/etc/default/locale
@include common-auth
@include common-account
session required pam_limits.so
@include common-session
@include common-password
auth optional pam_gnome_keyring.so
session optional pam_gnome_keyring.so auto_start

More information here:

http://forums.debian.net

Linux, Tech

Iceweasel browser identification

December 9, 2007 Mick Leave a comment

Debian replaced Firefox with Iceweasel which is a version of Firefox committed to all the Open Source freedom goodness stuff. However, some sites check the browser identification string and will refuse to let you view any of the pages because they don’t realise that Iceweasel is a version of Firefox (it’s based on the same code base as Firefox). Why some websites think they need to verify what browser your using is beyond me, I think they should just warn the user that the site might not work with their browser and let them in.

Updated March 2008, with formatting changes, and spelling corrections.

To get around this, you can change the browser identification that Iceweasel sends to websites. Follow the instructions below which is from Ubuntu’s wiki:

If you’re having trouble with browser identification — in other words, sites block your access because you’re “not using Firefox” — try this:

Open “about:config” in IceWeasel‘s address bar.

In the “Filter” box, type general.useragent.extra.firefox.

Where you see the word “Iceweasel”, right-click and pick “Modify”

Then replace the word “Iceweasel” with “Firefox”.

Close the page (or the tab).

“Masquerading” your browser like that simply prevents the host site from telling you you’re not using Firefox. Aside from that, it should have no effect whatsoever on your collective Internet experience.

This is a bit sub-optimal as it changes the identification for all sites which means when they analyise their logs they won’t realise that people are running Iceweasel. Browsers such as KDE’s Konqueror allow you to change the browser’s identification on a per-site basis which I think would be great idea for Iceweasel/Firefox too.

Update: March 2007, added screenshot.

gnome, Linux

Gnome-screensaver is a bit of a pain in it simplicity

November 25, 2007 Mick Leave a comment

One of Gnome’s main philosphy is simplicity but in this endeavour, some things are a pain! For instance, Gnome’s pictures screensaver doesn’t let you specify what directory to look for pictures or photo’s to display (nor has the neat zooming and paning features of Xscreensaver’s Glslideshow). It expects all your pictures to be in a directory named Pictures in your home directory and this isn’t an easily configurable option, and it seems to not look for pictures in any sub-directories of the Pictures directory (all the pics need to be in one directory).

But you can use the xscreensaver’s screensaver with gnome-screensaver:

http://philcrissman.com/2006/07/25/howto-add-your-xscreensavers-to-gnome-screensaver/

So once again I can use the Glslideshow screensaver without having to disable Gnome’s screensaver and configuring xscreensaver to auto start when I login. The only problem with this is I need to use the xscreensaver-demo command to configure xscreensaver’s screensaver. If you do this make sure you don’t start the xscreensaver daemon.

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