Mac4Lin ver.0.2 - Mac OS X Leopard Transformation pack

Surprised to see that people are running independent project to make linux look/act like mac.

I am curious and would sure experiment with this.

Mac4Lin ver.0.2 - Mac OS X Leopard Transformation pack - Ubuntu Forums

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DVD Playback on Gutsy

Configuring DVD playback on Gutsy

For DVD playback, install VLC (accepted by most as the best DVD player, supports menus too);

sudo apt-get install vlc

And if you also want Totem to play DVDs well, you have to use the Xine backend instead of Gstreamer (this is optional, VLC will do just fine);

sudo apt-get install totem-xine libxine1-ffmpeg

To get encrypted DVDs playing properly (check out no. 9 in the "Troubleshooting" section if you are having problems with new DVDs), paste these commands into the Terminal;

sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2 libdvdread3 libdvdnav4 build-essential debhelper fakeroot

then;

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh

or if you get an error with that command;

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/examples/install-css.sh

To set VLC as your default DVD player (I strongly advise you do) type the following command into the Terminal;

gksudo gconf-editor

Now expand "desktop" and then "gnome", scroll down to "volume manager" but don't expand it, just click on it and look over at the right pane. Scroll down and look for "autoplay_dvd_command" and change the command to "/usr/bin/vlc dvd://" (without quotes of course) by right clicking on it and selecting "Edit", then click on "Set as Default". Do the same for the "autoplay_vcd_command" as well.

From :  Complete Streaming, Multimedia & Video How-to - Ubuntu Forums

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Ekiga - PC to Phone on Ubuntu

It works, finally... it works.

I managed to configure my voipcheap account to work with Ekiga.
Though the phone numbers that u have to call look a bit awkward (sip:<phoneNumber>@sip.voipcheap.com), but it works.

I basically love the fact that I reduced another reason to boot into windows.  Loving Ubuntu every minute...

Here's some documentation on How to Use Ekiga
Ekiga - Community Ubuntu Documentation

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Scrollkeeper flaky - Ubuntu Forums

Scrollkeeper flaky - Ubuntu Forums

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Linux desktop imitating OSX

Wonderful article .. full of info...

Linux desktop imitating OSX | Lauri Taimila

will report the exeperience..

"Must Have" list of Apps for Gutsy? - Ubuntu Forums

I dont use Ubuntu as a full time desktop system. More focus on programming, though the general usage is increasing by day.

While I was searching for something about one the gutsy issues I was facing, I came across this post.

"Must Have" list of Apps for Gutsy? - Ubuntu Forums

Really interesting set of suggestions from people who use such a system for everyday usage.  Though personal preferences differ, its a good start.

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Complete Streaming, Multimedia & Video How-to - Ubuntu Forums

Trying to get my browsers run some online media streaming on Ubuntu. This page here is an excellent place to start with.

Great compilation, and once again, the value of discussions forums is enhanced in my view.

Complete Streaming, Multimedia & Video How-to - Ubuntu Forums



Great effort "reassuringlyoffensive", interesting nickname as well :)

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Improved Gutsy for 6710b

Going through a few Ubuntu forums, it turned out that many of the initial glitches around Gutsy installation for HP6710b have been removed.

My installation was originally an upgrade from Feisty, a very troubled and hacked one at that. So, I thought why not try to give it a clean shot and get a fresh copy of Gutsy installed on my laptop.

I dared and I like the results already. Few features -

• The system is a lot faster than it was before
• The graphics quality in general a lot better
• The fonts looks much better (though the settings are same)
• After installing xserver-xgl package, the Visual effects work
  

Though I had to spend some time to configure a few things again from scratch, it looks and works like a much better system than it used to.

After my fresh installation, I had initial trouble with installing rails. There this page helped. Though it talks about installation on FreeBsd, it worked perfectly on my Gutsy.

Then I had some trouble with initial password of root user on MySQL. For some reason, after the initial installation, I could not go in mysql environment through any means at all. Then again, googling and ubuntu forums helped out. This page helped me through that.

Finally, when I was installing Eclipse to be able to work faster/better with rails, I came across the fact that the standard Eclipse package from Ubuntu, does not come with any java runtime environment. I tried downloading and using Sun Java but that didnt turn out very well.

Later I found that Synaptics has a cunning little feature. On a right click on a package name, there is a option for "Mark Recommended For Installation". Once I clicked on that, it selected about 15 more packages and this time managed to get all the required stuff for Java as well.

Surprised as I was at the intuitiveness of the package management system, I felt it should hae done the same to start with. Anyway, its fine now. Took some time, but working great now. :)

Gutsy on Dell Inspiron 5100

As planned, I was doing a bit of research on installing latest Ubuntu release on my Dell Inspiron 5100.

I had installed Feisty Fawn on the same laptop earlier without any issues. As it turns out, there are a lot of issues with Gutsy on Dell Inspiron 5100.

Some of the major issues..

1. Display
   
2. Heat Sink management (from software)
3. Live CD booting
   

Here is one of the that point towards such problems...

• http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=580134

When I tried to boot through the Live CD (downloaded today), I was greeted with a blank screen. Could only get in when I chose the safe graphics mode from the boot menu.

I am surprised at this situation, especially at the fact that a give set of hardware was supported by default in Feisty Fawn and not in the next release (Gutsy). There got to be something in the release planning that needs strong attention...

Oracle 10g Installation on Ubuntu

The link problem
The installation process stops midway, complaining about a certain make target having some error message.

Read this post for fixing that :
Here

Thought the post points to an older version of Ubuntu, it works on Gutsy just as good.

Things to do to make it work automatically on each reboot :

1. create a script in init.d, Sample Here

2. Create further links for that script in diff rc.d directories. Remember, the suggested commands in the page referred above are not correct completely. The path needs to be changed. So, check ur box, and then update the path.

3. In the script, there is no reference to the listener start/stop thing, u got to do that urself. So, add ${ORACLE_HOME}/bin/lsnrctl {start|stop} before the dbstart and dbshut respectively.

Here's my copy for reference...

----------------------------
#! /bin/sh -x
#
# Change the value of ORACLE_HOME to specify the correct Oracle home
# directory for your installation.

#ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1
ORACLE_HOME=/media/sda8/oracle/product/10.1.0.1
#
# Change the value of ORACLE to the login name of the
# oracle owner at your site.
#
ORACLE=oracle

PATH=${PATH}:$ORACLE_HOME/bin
HOST=`hostname`
PLATFORM=`uname`
export ORACLE_HOME PATH

case $1 in
'start')
${ORACLE_HOME}/bin/lsnrctl start
$ORACLE_HOME/bin/dbstart $ORACLE_HOME &
;;
'stop')
${ORACLE_HOME}/bin/lsnrctl stop
$ORACLE_HOME/bin/dbshut &
#$ORACLE_HOME &
;;
*)
echo "usage: $0 {start|stop}"
exit
;;
esac
#
exit

----------------------------

4. The files at $ORACLE_HOME/network/logs behave strangely when root tries to start a listener. So, mark them 777 and then the listener control from root works fine.

When i know more, I would post...

Making the fonts look better on Ubuntu

Hi,

Just found a better way of rendering fonts on Ubuntu..

I was looking for making the fonts look better on my Feisty Fawn. While searching, I hit this - http://jaganath.wordpress.com/2006/07/16/ubuntu-install-log-6-finally-os-x-like-font-rendering-in-linux/

The following page suggests some tips/packages to be installed for better rendering.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=1041769&postcount=1

However, I must warn that, after installing the attached files, the system will be BROKEN. Not because what he is suggesting is incorrect in any way, rather just because in Feisty fawn the same packages are

1. available in the repositories
2. available in newer versions.

And therefore, I would suggest installing the packages from the standard Feisty repository. Following commands can be useful -

sudo apt-get install libcairo2 libcairo2-dev libfreetype6 libfreetype6-dev libxft2

And, lest I forget to mention, run the following command...

sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config


Hope that its useful. AND, I must say, the suggestion for the fonts settings work excellently.. absolutely great.



have fun
raghav..