My Ubuntu Blog

Excited about KDE 4.0

Just a few days ago the KDE 4.0 was announced. It seems that everyone was already excited about KDE 4.0. People using Kubuntu 7.10 Gutsy can try KDE 4.0. Ubuntu Geek has an explained version of the same intstructions here. Tombuntu has ten tips for KDE 4.0 Beginners and patchshorts writes about 5 Things to hate about KDE 4.0.

I am not trying KDE 4.0 yet, I think it is still in development phase and since I am not an advanced KDE user I might find it difficult to use. Reading about KDE 4 at OpenSuse website and Kubuntu I feel that I might run into problem if I try to install it. DistroWatch weekly scares me further away in the featured story titled “Distributions and KDE 4:

KDE 4 is the start of something amazing and this is possibly the best definition of the current release - it’s here, it’s available, but it’s nowhere near ready for the prime time. It’s a decent start, though. So let’s give the KDE developers a round of applause for the courage to try something new and extraordinary, something that will eventually mature into a stable and reliable desktop environment we can all be proud to use on our computers.

Right now I have Kubuntu 7.10 and I am trying to get familiar with the K environment. I hope that KDE4 will be available with Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron which is a long term support release. It will be much safer and enjoyable to try KDE 4.0 then or may be I should wait till the release of KDE 4.1.

Posted in KDE, Kubuntu, Linux | 4 Comments »

Alex at ‘The tech and other cents’ has a great post titled “There’s more to Linux than Ubuntu“. He is worried that Ubuntu will overshadow Linux.

Posted in Cool Links, Misc | No Comments »

KDE Improving a lot

I just read about the new version of KDE. I prefer Gnome, but there are so many KDE features that appeal me. Now it feels like KDE is getting improved. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu has announced that there next long term support version will be Gnome only, and Kubuntu will not be supported for long term. The reason behind the decission is the developer focus on KDE4. It is changing fast so it is not possible to offer long term support for it.

I often try to install KDE and try to develop a taste for it. But each time I end up frustrated with one thing or the other. Many of my friends are KDE fans and they think that Gnome is for grandmother and children. I want to discover why KDE is so great to them. Right now I think Gnome is the best, but I would be happier if the new KDE changes my opinion, as this will give me more choice and I will be enjoying different Desktop environments whenever I am bored with the one I am using at that time.

Posted in KDE, Kubuntu | 7 Comments »

Debian Ubuntu - Webcam in Yahoo! Chatrooms

Recently my internet service provider gifted me a webcam. It is a Creative Vista Webcam and came with an installation disk for Windows. I wanted to see how it works on my Ubuntu Linux. When I plugged it in Ubuntu didn’t recognize it. I had to download drivers for it. Ubuntu’s community documentation’s Webcam page helped a lot. The EasyCam utility recognized my webcam but didn’t offer a driver for it. So I tried manual driver installation.

Rastageeks provides a hacked driver for webcams. My webcam was listed on the Working Webcams webpage. The installation instructions were simple, and since I was familiar with adding third party repositories I had no trouble installing the debian packages. Running the module assistant installed the driver on my computer and now I was able to see it working in Ekiga.

But I don’t use Ekiga, I use Yahoo! Messenger, so it has to work with Yahoo. We have Pidgin (Gaim) installed by default in Ubuntu. But it does not support Yahoo webcams. I have seen webcams working on Gyachi but I didn’t like its cluttered interface. So I decided to try Kopete. KDE Wiki has a very helpful Kopete Webcam Support page. From there I found out that I need to download libjasper-runtime package to see my webcam working. Jasper Runtime package is called libjasper-runtime and is available from Ubuntu Archives so it was much easier to download and install it. After that I ran Kopete and by clicking on Settings > Configure > Devices I was able to see my webcam working. Fantastic!

I was pleased with the picture quality. It was much better than Windows, and what I saw on Yahoo! messenger installed on my Windows PC. But unfortunately Kopete does not support Yahoo Public Chatrooms. So I had to try Gyachi again. While trying to Install Gyachi, I came across more dependency issues. But these were no big issues, I simply had to install two packages libgpgme11 and libmcrypt4. Finally getting Gyachi installed, this is what I got:

I browsed the forums to find out a solution, I read about adjusting brightness, contrast and colors. I did that too, but nothing worked. I am still unable to use the web cam in Yahoo chat rooms.

Posted in Debian, Gutsy, KDE, Misc, Ubuntu, webcam | 3 Comments »

Using Terminal to Shutdown Processes

XFCE does not come with a system monitor utility like the one I had in Gnome. I used the utility to kill unresponsive processes. So how do we kill unresponsive programs using the terminal? To understand how Linux handles processes and how you can control them read this great article by Gary Sim (in plain English). Here is what I learnt from Gary’s article.

We need to know the process id of the program that is not responding. We find out process id or PID by running the command

ps aux

This command displays all running processes. Below are a few of the many running processes on my computer. The list is long so I am only showing you a few to give you an idea.

USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
nom 3006 0.0 0.3 2476 772 ? S 23:15 0:00 gnome-pty-helpe
nom 3097 0.0 4.0 16584 10348 ? Ss 23:23 0:01 gksu -u root /u
root 3102 0.0 0.4 3712 1068 pts/1 Ss+ 23:23 0:00 /bin/su root -c
root 3105 0.0 0.2 2256 592 pts/1 S+ 23:23 0:00 /usr/lib/libgks
nom 3321 0.7 3.2 14920 8364 ? Ss 23:44 0:01 mousepad


Now find out which one of them you want to kill. I want to kill the mousepad it has the PID 3321 and I kill it by running this command:

kill 3321

Just incase if this command doesn’t work you can try

kill -9 3321


I am very happy with XFCE. But I need to find out a nice and lite pdf viewer. Evince is great but how could I download evince without downloading so many gnome libs? There is an evince-gtk package in Debian experimental but I can not install it due to dependency issues.

Posted in Linux, Tips, XFCE | 5 Comments »

My Cute Little XFCE Desktop Environment

I have previously used XFCE with Xubuntu. But then I replaced it with Debian Etch and Gnome. But Gnome was becoming a little too heavy for me. I was bored and needed some change. So I decided to install a complete Gnome free system. First I downloaded latest Debian net-install cd. Installing Debian this way is much more easier. You get a chance to select your own packages during the installation or go ahead with some preselected packages. You even have a choice to install only the minimal system. So I installed the minimal base system and then logged in.

I am using Linux for more than a year now so I am comfortable with commands. Since I was going to install new things so it was wise to log in with super user priviledges.

nom@debian:~$ su
Password:
debian:/home/nom#


Once logged in, I had to tell apt to use network proxy. I did that by running the command:


export http_proxy=http://[proxy.address]:[port]


This command is temporary solution and you will have to repeat it with each new session. There is a workaround to set this up permenantly.

I installed XFCE4 by running the command:

apt-get install xfce4

I was foolish, I thought I would be able to log in a nice GUI world by simply downloading XFCE4. I forgot that I should also download gdm and xorg.

apt-get install gdm, xorg

Even then I was unable to log in to the gdm. So I ran:

dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg


This command runs a nice little wizard which helps you solve issues with your xserver settings. It could be difficult sometimes if you don’t know what hardware you are using and what it is called. Like once I had this trouble and I had no other computer to connect to the internet and ask for help on the internet. At that time I learnt about lynx a text mode web browser and bitchx the IRC chat client.

After configuring xserver I logged in with GDM and entered into the brand new world of XFCE. May be its just me but XFCE in Debian is faster and prettier than Xubuntu. I still had to install iceweasel web browser, xchat, ttf-nafees font and gimp. Working in this new environment, limited set of tools and applications, I learnt that I need to download more packages. Like for example I didn’t install alsa-base package. I also didn’t have xfce4-mixer package which is required to add a volume indicator icon on panel. I also learnt that I can’t live without Synaptic package manager.

I am much happier now and satisfied for a few months at least. Basic applications are still the same. I was already using Mousepad, Iceweasel, Gimp and Xchat with Gnome. But the most notable difference is in performance. My computer is much faster now, start up time is improved and it feels so neat.

Posted in Debian, XFCE, Xubuntu | 3 Comments »

Gmail and Google Reader in Startup Programs

I have tried several Email Clients and Feedreaders on Ubuntu and my primary Debian Operating System. But now I was feeling that why bother with any more software when you have Google and Firefox (Iceweasel on Debian). So, I decided to make myself a script that automatically opens my Gmail and Google Reader account in Firefox each time I log on to my computer. I thought may be some of you would find it useful.

Step 1: We need to create two files.
mailnreader1 which contains this:

#! /bin/sh
firefox http://mail.google.com/


And mailnreader2 which contains this:

#! /bin/sh
sleep 30;
firefox -new-tab http://www.google.com/reader


We are going to save these two files in /usr/bin/ directory. Once you have pasted these files please check the permissions. Select a file right click and select Properties and then click on Permissions tab. Make sure that the file is read and executeable by all. See the image below:

These two files contain simple commands to open Firefox with specified web addresses. The sleep command tells your computer to wait for 30 seconds before running the next command. The reason behind doing this is that when your session begins your computer performs some tasks. Like loading your settings, Desktop, Nautilus, etc. My system is only 800 mghz, and If I don’t wait for 30 seconds the browser would give me an error something like this:

Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system.


If you have a faster computer you can try removing the sleep line or decrease the number of seconds.

2: Now Go to Preferences > Sessions, click on Startup Programs tab, press the Add button and add this:

mailnreader1


Press Ok and then press the Add button again to add the second file:


mailnreader2


Press Ok and then Close. Now to check these scripts out you need to Log Out and then Log In.

Why two files?

I tried creating a single file containing this code:

#! /bin/sh
firefox http://mail.google.com/
sleep 30;
firefox -new-tab http://www.google.com/reader


But it didn’t work. I hope someone would improve the script so that we don’t have to wait longer and we can add more sites all in one single script. Until then, I guess I will keep using it because it works and saves me time and hassle of fetching mail and feeds in two separate windows while browsing the web in the third window.

Posted in Debian, Firefox, Google, Google Office, Tips | 4 Comments »