Tag Archives: Linux

Linux Mint 13 (Maya)

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Once again, Linux has scored top marks.

A couple of weeks ago, Linux Mint 13 RC came on line.  I tried it out in VirtualBox and liked what I saw.  As a result I installed it on my main system.

I immediately came across two problems.  One was that I had retained my Home partition and the existing configuration files screwed up Mint 13 and the other was that I wasn’t able to install several of my favourite programmes, due to missing libraries.

I reinstalled Mint 12, but kept a version of 13 within VirtualBox.

A few days ago, I revisited my virtual Mint 13 and found that the missing libraries were now present so on Tuesday I decided to scrap 12 and move up.

The process was pure simplicity.

I took a full backup of my Home folder (including all hidden files and folders).  I took a backup of my software repositories (using Y-PPA Manager.  An excellent little programme).  I could have taken a backup of my software list, but decided to forgo that, as I didn’t want to reinstall all my old programmes.

Installation of Mint 13 was the usual simple affair, but this time around, I formatted all partitions for a clean install.

Once installed, I restored my backup of the repositories and set to loading in my favourite software.  For each programme, I restored its corresponding configuration from backup.  For example, for Firefox, I restored “.mozilla”, for Filezilla I restored “.filezilla” and so on.

The version of 13 I installed was the MATE one and it is running perfectly.  All my old programmes are running smoothly and it may just be my imagination, but the whole system seems a lot faster.

The whole process took a couple of hours, but most of that was taken up with copying files to and from my backup drive.

I can’t help but wonder how long the process would have taken within Windows, between loading the system and then tracking down all the installation disks, licence keys and the rest?

A couple of days?

Firefox New Tab

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I have been a fan of Firefox for many years.

I currently use Firefox Nightly, which as its name implies is the nightly build and therefor using the very latest in Firefox innovations.

For a few days, I noticed that whenever I opened a new tab, instead of a blank page, I got a page of thumbnails of my most visited sites.  These are the sites that appear if you click the dropdown on the right-hand end of the address bar.

I can appreciate how a lot of people will like this feature when it eventually filters down into a stable release, but frankly I found it a little distracting.  I set about finding ways and means of restoring the blank page.

I trawled through Preferences but could find no mention.  I then tried “about:config” and there it was – an entry in the configuration file – browser.newtab.url.  The value of this was set to “about:newtab”.  Typing “about:newtab” into the address bar produced the page with the thumbnails. I deleted the value (not the whole variable) and that cleared the new page and reverted to blank.

The thought then occurred to me that some people would maybe like their new tabs to open on a specific website.  I tried entering a search engine’s address and indeed it works.

aboutConfig

For those who are not familiar with the “about:config” file, it is a simple matter of entering “about:config” (without the quotes) into the address bar.  You will be presented with a precautionary warning that you are entering a risky area, but ignore that.  Scroll down the entries (they are alphabetically sorted) until you find the “browser.newtab.url” entry.  Right-click and enter (or delete) the value.

The NewTab is a new feature in Firefox.  I checked a few versions and found the following –

Firefox 11 for Windows – As yet, about:newtab and browser.newtab.url don’t exist.

Firefox 11 for Linux – about:newtab hasn’t yet been implemented but browser.newtab.url has, so at least you can set the new tab’s contents.

Update:

The NewTab entry in Config is new to Firefox and as such doesn’t appear in the standard releases.

Firefox 14.0a1 for Linux (the Nightly build) – both about:newtab and browser.newtab.url are implemented and operational.

Something to look forward to!

Serving up media (Part 1)

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A couple of weeks ago I embarked on a wee project.

I have a fairly large collection of LPs, CDs and even a few cassettes that have survived the years.  I decided it was time to digitise the lot onto one drive acting as a media server.

Why bother, you ask?  There are a few reasons why I am doing it.  The main reason is to create a central store for all my media, so at least I know where it all is.  Also the fact that it is all stored on a small box not much bigger than a paperback means the “hard copies” can be put away into storage.  As it is a media server, its contents can be accessed from anywhere in the house by using a laptop or television.

For my server, I am using my otherwise redundant Iomega iConnect box which has a built in media server.  The media is all stored on a 1Tb external drive plugged into the iConnect.

The media is accessed either on laptops or via an XBox which is connected both to the network and the main television in the house.  The software for the laptops was one of the areas where I did have some difficulty however.

As a Linux user, I had the option of using one of the main two packages – Banshee or VLC Media Player.  I had problems with each of these. where VLC took an age to connect and then had a nasty habit of duplicating everything, and Banshee was just plain flakey.

A good friend then recommended XBMC Media Center.  This is available for all the main platforms so I installed the PPA for Ubuntu and installed the package.

I was impressed.

XBMC is not just an application but can actually be installed as a standalone operating system.  To say it is graphically rich is an understatement.  It is also fairly intuitive and I had no problem in hooking it up to my server (it automatically recognises most protocols including UPnP which the iConnect uses). 

XBMC

So far I have only had a couple of minor problems with the programme.  The first is that it tends to just vanish if memory gets a bit tight (which just means I don’t run any memory intensive programs such as VirtualBox when I am running it).  The second was a little more problematic – I discovered that some skins, while claiming to be mouse enabled, in fact weren’t.  The problem then is that there is no way of changing the skin to one that works.  In the end I used brute force and attacked the XBMC configuration file (home/.xbmc/userdata/guisettings.xml).  I deliberately corrupted the skin entry (under <lookandfeel>) and then restarted the program.  As it couldn’t find the corrupted skin it defaulted back to the standard one.

Problems notwithstanding, this is now my media player of choice.

Taking a backward step

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I took a regressive step yesterday.

I scrapped Linux Mint 12 (Lisa) in favour of Linux Mint 11 (Katya).

Once again, I was amazed at the simplicity of the move.  While selecting the sectors for the installation, I simply told it not to format my Home sector.  As a result, I lost nothing and my precautionary backup wasn’t needed.

So why scrap the latest version in favour of an older one?  The answer is that I was having too many problems which in fairness I should probably blame on the laptop and not the software.  Most of my programmes were noticeably slower, with some abysmally so.  As laptops go this isn’t a bad one.  It has a dual core AMD Athlon processor with 4Gb of memory so it’s a fairly nippy machine.  I suspect that its graphics just wasn’t up to the mark when it came to Gnome 3.  But even using Mate or Cinnamon didn’t help.

So now I’m back on Katya and everything is flying along.  I had one mysterious problem in Lisa where I couldn’t detect my network scanner.  It’s a wireless HP Officejet J4680, and while Lisa picked it up straight away as a printer, the only way I could scan was to bring the laptop to the unit and connect via USB.  One of the very first things I did after the reinstall was to check this problem, and there was the scanner ready for use!

My only problem now is that I got somewhat used to the layout and functionality of Gnome 3, and now I have to relearn where everything is.

I suppose in time I will stop looking for the clock in the top right-hand corner of the screen?

Essential Linux Software

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In the last couple of days, for various reasons I have completely reinstalled Linux on this machine.

One of the great joys of Linux is the ease with which a reinstall can be done.  A Windows reinstall is a slow process and when it is complete there is the tedious and lengthy process of reinstalling all the software, if you can find all the disks and the licence codes.  Even then, the chances are you have lost all your settings for the various programmes and you have to customise them all over again.

With Linux, it is a simple matter of restoring your Home directory from backup and that’s that.

However there are still some programmes that have to be reinstalled.  There is no fear of having no CDs or licence codes as they are already available on the Net.  The problem (if you can call it a problem) is remembering which programmes to install.  For that reason, I have made a little list as a reminder to myself in the future.  I have called this “Essential Linux Software” but that just means it is essential for me.

First on my list is VirtualBox.  This is essential not only for testing other flavours of Linux but also for running Windows for the odd programmes that won’t run on Linux.  Naturally I will have kept all my virtual machines intact in my /home backup!

I have to include Filezilla despite its small problems.

Another one I like is Alacarte.  which is a nice little program for tidying and editing the Menu.

I am a great fan of Audacity.  However, to record off the soundcard I also have to install pavucontrol.

Skype is another essential, and again all it’s settings and history can be restored from the /home backup.

Another programme that isn’t exactly essential but is just too good to miss is Google Earth.

For my browsing and mail I like to use the absolute latest versions of Firefox and Thunderbird and therefore use the nightly builds (called respectively Nightly and Earlybird).  As I have both installed directly in my /home directory they are automatically installed from backup.

All the above can be installed directly by using Synaptic Package Manager or Software Manager.  There is one little programme that I like which has to be manually installed.  That is Grub Customizer.  Installation of this requires a wee bit of Terminal typing.  The lines are –

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:danielrichter2007/grub-customizer
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install grub-customizer

The one feature of this little programme is that apart from being a good Grub editor, it can set Grub to load to the last used OS.  On a dual boot machine with Windows, this is very handy as for example Windows may need to reboot after an update.  In a normal Grub, Windows will try to reboot into Windows, but will actually end up in Linux, if that’s the default OS.

Occasionally I like to delve into the strange world of Twitter.  For this I use Tweetdeck which requires Adobe Air.  The latter is simple to install once you know how!

I’m sure there are one or two I have missed.  I’ll add them at a later date if necessary.

Any other suggestions?