AMSN messenger install howto

How to have a MSN clone in fedora?
How to install AMSN messenger?
How to install AMSN messenger plugins?

As you might noticed, I have been up and running for this month's blog, trying to atleast have major install howtos of these mostly used linux X apps.

One main reason I for this is to avoid audience blogshock attacks and linux-scare-away tendencies specially for newbies and noobs. I hope you all enjoy reading these short install howtos. Do not worry, as we go along, we would be covering more and more, having deeper and wider blogging scale of this linux OS - Fedora distro most of the time.

Now, back to AMSN project.

AMSN is simply a free open source MSN Messenger clone, with features such as:

* Display pictures
* Custom emoticons
* Multi-language support (around 40 languages currently supported)
* Webcam support
* Sign in to more than one account at once
* Full-speed File transfers
* Group support
* Normal, and animated emoticons with sounds
* Chat logs
* Timestamping
* Event alarms
* Conferencing support
* Tabbed chat windows

INSTALL HOWTO:

# yum -y install amsn amsn-plugins

Launch: Ctrl+F2, amsn

Setting up AMSN is really easy. At first, it would prompt you for existing MSN account and your current password during the initial startup like so:

Simply enter your hotmail account and current hotmail password.




Works like a charm!





*All trademarks mentioned here are all copyrights and owned by their own respective companies.

Related Posts:


How To See Invisible YM Users
How To Setup Chikka SMS Messenger using Kopete Messenger
How to Install and Setup Google Chat Messenger
How To Setup Chikka SMS Messenger using GAIM Pidgin
How To Block YM Messenger
How To Install GAIM Pidgin Messenger
How To Install KDE Kopete Messenger
How To Setup and Install PSI Chat Messenger

firefox browser - yum update howto

What is firefox?
How to update firefox web browser?
Where to download the latest firefox?

Firefox is another cross-platform opensourced web browser which was derived from Mozilla browser It created and designed for performance, security and portability.

By default RedHat/CentOS/Fedora linux distro installation with X, firefox is installed unless X was installed without a network card or as a stand alone setup.

Here's a quick linux way to update your firefox browser:

# yum -y update firefox

Simple. Yum downloads firefox for you including the needed binary modules and dependencies and installs for you with default configuration setup.

These guys have worked a lot improving and opensourcing firefox. I salute them on improving and creating a web browser alternative like firefox! It takes a lot of brain-smashing tender-drying time and effort to squeezed out logical algorithms and conclusion and finally obtained and achieved a very nice web browser like firefox!

If you wish to download the latest firefox, you may follow the firefox icon located down at the rightmost corner of your screen and check out their site for more browser plugins too!

Works great!



That is all.

kopete messenger install howto

How to install KDE wallet?
How to install Kopete messenger inside Gnome?
What other messenger supports Yahoo, AIM and MSN chat protocols?

Kopete is an instant messenger supporting AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, IRC, Gadu-Gadu, Novell GroupWise Messenger, and more. It is designed to be a flexible and extensible multi-protocol system suitable for personal and enterprise use.

The goal of Kopete is to provide users with a single easy-to-use way to access all of their instant messaging systems. The interface puts people first, and is integrated with the system address book to let you access your contacts from other KDE applications. IM can be intrusive, but Kopete's notification system can be tuned so that only important contacts interrupt you.

Kopete also features tools to enhance your IM, such as message encryption, archiving, and many other fun and useful effects.

Kopete supports all commonly used instant messaging protocols, and the Kopete team provides templates for developers to base new plugins on. Our API provides developers with many features to ease supporting a new protocol. All protocols are plugins and allow modular installation, configuration, and usage.

Read more here.

HOW TO INSTALL:

You will find the instructions on how to yum install it from Gnome via yum.

# yum -y install kdenetwork

This would download approximately 11MB of module dependencies including KDE wallet system.

APPLICATION LAUNCH: Ctrl+F2, kopete

Since kopete detects a fresh new installation, it would then ask you to create a new account setup prompting you several chat networks like so:



As usual, username and password for identity authentication and network authorization.



Now, before any attempts by kopete for web account connection, a KDE wallet system needs to be configured first. Worry not, this KDE PIM wallet system just presents you a Basic or Advanced configuration setup. All it needs to know basically is for you to decide whether you wish to create and save a password for any software that might access your newly created kopete account for security purposes. This system was installed as part of the KDE network binaries we just installed recently.

Kopete chat messenger is also enriched with several plugins, see them below.



Now, after all these steps, you can now proceed with your login credentials and enjoy!



Preview a multiple online account shown below taken from this site.



Related Posts:


How To See Invisible YM Users
How To Setup Chikka SMS Messenger using Kopete Messenger
How to Install and Setup Google Chat Messenger
How To Setup Chikka SMS Messenger using GAIM Pidgin
How To Block YM Messenger
How To Install GAIM Pidgin Messenger
How To Install AMSN Messenger
How To Setup and Install PSI Chat Messenger

Gaim pidgin messenger install howto

How to install Gaim in Gnome?
What is pidgin? Gaim?

Pidgin is a graphical modular messaging client based on libpurple which is capable of connecting to AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, XMPP, ICQ, IRC, SILC, SIP/SIMPLE, Novell GroupWise, Lotus Sametime, Bonjour, Zephyr, Gadu-Gadu, and QQ all at once. It is written using GTK+.

And Gaim says..

Gaim allows you to talk to anyone using a variety of messaging protocols, including AIM (Oscar and TOC), ICQ, IRC, Yahoo!, MSN Messenger, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, Napster, and Zephyr. These protocols are implemented using a modular, easy to use design. To use a protocol, just add an account using the account editor.

Gaim supports many common features of other clients, as well as many unique features, such as perl scripting and C plugins.

Here's a quick tip on how to install Gaim inside Gnome:

INSTALL:

# yum -y install gaim.i386

This would yum Gaim and automatically install all the needed dependencies seamlessly via yum.

Alternatively, browse the RPMS folder from your DVD ISO image, and gaim binary should be there.

By default, Gaim in included in Fedora ISO images.

Launch it, Ctrl+F2 and gaim




After successful installation, you need to create a new pidgin account. You can choose from serveral messenger network. Simply enter your corresponding username and password with your favorite avatar too.

This pidgin also works with gmail chat, jabber and chikka protocols and messengers.

Goodluck then.

Related Posts:


How To See Invisible YM Users
How To Setup Chikka SMS Messenger using Kopete Messenger
How to Install and Setup Google Chat Messenger
How To Setup Chikka SMS Messenger using GAIM Pidgin
How To Block YM Messenger
How To Install KDE Kopete Messenger
How To Install AMSN Messenger
How To Setup and Install PSI Chat Messenger

xmms - multimedia player install howto

How to play MP3 in fedora?
How to install XMMS?

xmms man:
XMMS is the X Multimedia System. It is used to play audio and other kinds of media files. By default XMMS can play MPEG audio, Ogg, Vorbis, RIFF wav, most module formats, and a few other formats. XMMS can be extended through plugins to play a number of other audio and video formats

Due to patent and licensing concerns, Red Hat/Fedora/CentOS did not include any MP3 support for legal reasons. But OGG Vorbis is widely regarded as a superior format to MP3, which is 100% free.
Listen to it for yourself.

If you wish to have this MP3 support with your XMMS player, you need to install and enable livna repo into one of your yum repos, which was blogged a fews ago, and follow the installation yum procedure.

HOW TO INSTALL:

Here is how to install an alternative multimedia player called XMMS.

# yum -y install xmms*

This will install everything that starts with xmms, including skins, equalizer plugins, visual and audio plugins, since all xmms rpm starts with xmms term, so there's no real issue about that.

If you wish to support XMMS MP3 plugin, simply enable your livna repo, and issue:

# yum -y install xmms-mp3

**It is adviseable to install everything from single repo, livna, although you can get it from fedora too without the xmms-mp3 support.

HOW TO LAUNCH:

Ctrl+F2, xmms



Looks familiar?

UltraDMA - speedup your harddisk howto

How to speed up your harddrive read access?
How to change your harddrive access parameters?
How to measure your harddrive read access?
How to show your hardrive geometry and identification?
How to enable your harddrive UDMA (Ultra DMA) setting?

This document would cover mostly changing IDE/ATA harddrive parameters. If you have Western Digital drives, skip this document and have a further consultation from your hardware provider.

First you need to know which harddrive device you have from your system. As root:

# cat /boot/grub/device.map
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(hd0) /dev/sda
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You need to remember the word from the second column which maps to your harddrive device. In the above example, we have /dev/sda .

We need to see what options are already enabled with the harddrive. We are going to make use of linux hdparm command, which is installed by default, as follows:

# hdparm /dev/sda

Now, in order for us to know each harddrive paramater changes, we need to measure and take note of our current harddrive read access and transfer rate for comparisons later on.

Now, let us get more harddrive information.

# hdparm -giI /dev/sda

The above would give you more data like harddrive geometry, read/write modes, IO buffers, timer/DMA values and more.

After getting these values, we can now do our initial harddrive read test and again take note of returned result by issuing:

# hdparm -tT /dev/sda
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads: 888 MB in 2.00 seconds = 443.96 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 120 MB in 3.02 seconds = 39.77 MB/sec
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Executing hdparm without any arguments, would show you available help options.

You can make experiments with different hdparm parameter changes. Just make notes of every read tests like the one shown above for comparison purposes. By referencing to those results, you would definitely arrive to a conclusion on which harddrive parameters makes your harddrive reads and performs fastest!

man hdparm:
hdparm provides a command line interface to various hard disk ioctls supported by the stock linux ATA/IDE device driver subsystem. Some options may work correctly only with the latest kernels. For best results, compile hdparm with the include files from the latest kernel source code



To enable DMA settings (UltraDMA) :

# hdparm -d1 /dev/sda

and to disable DMA would be :

# hdparm -d0 /dev/sda

See the effects immediately:

# hdparm /dev/sda

To make it permanent, besides from /etc/rc.local, you can place these parameter settings directly to a file /etc/sysconfig/harddisks .

Hope it helps

sabayon - user profile manager howto

How to manage Gnome user desktop profiles?
How to yum install sabayon?
How to create and manage desktop user group profiles?
How to edit GConf hassle-free way for each user?

Sabayon is a system administration tool to manage GNOME desktop settings. Sabayon provides a sane way to edit GConf defaults and GConf mandatory keys: the same way you edit your desktop. Sabayon launches profiles in an Xnest window. Any changes you make in the Xnest window are saved back to the profile file, which can then be applied to user's accounts. You can find the website here.

Gnome says:

Sabayon is GNOME's first major design targeted at improving the user experience for people who administer GNOME systems, and hopefully the start of an initiative toward designing for this important group of users. I'm jazzed about Sabayon as the first step toward a historic goal: GNOME as the definitive desktop management experience for sysadmins, which was documented here.

HOW TO INSTALL:

# yum -y install sabayon

HOW TO LAUNCH:

CTRL+F2 , sabayon

When you first launched sabayon, it prompts you to create a new profile identity. Here you can start creating your superuser or root profile, say sysad-profile . Like so



Clicking Edit menu would launch a jailed Gnome X inside the profile manager (sabayon) environment. From there, you can now customize how your desktop, shortcuts, icons, and desktop setup would appear when you use an account under that profile identity. Here is a sample running sabayon manager.



After making your desktop customization inside sabayon, you can click sabayon File Menu > and Save. You will be returned back to this profiler menu after changes has been saved.

Now, click the newly created group profile identity from that window. At this point, you need to assign existing linux users with the newly created group identity. You can do this by clicking the Users button. A new window will appear from here allowing you to choose from which existing linux users would be managed and assigned to just newly created group profile. Just click those users that would belong to the sabayon group. After that just Press OK.

Now, try to log out of X and login back as the particular user assigned to the newly created group. After successful user login, your newly created profile customization would now be active and displayed from your screen.

Fedora can switch to users using User Switcher applet FYI. Incase, you need to customize further of of any existing profile group identities, you can easily make use this User Switcher applet located down at rightmost corner of your screen and switch to root user anytime.

That is all.

50 quick linux command tips part 3

I am writing this document again (part 3) specially for linux newbies audience, even for intermediate users that might think a few of these tricks are useful for them.

Here goes 50 quick linux command tips and tricks part 3.

As root

1. How to have a stop watch scenario from command line terminal?

# time cat

Press Ctrl+C

2. How to measure the time of executing any executable command?

# time firefox

wait 5 seconds and close the application

3. How to CD to a user's home directory?

# cd ~userhome

4. How to CD back to home folder of a currently logged in user?

# cd

5. How to CD back to previous directory?

# cd -

6. How to show all active host IP address?

# ip address

7. How to list out all your iptables rules?

# iptables -L

8. How to save your currently loaded firewall iptable rules?

# iptables-save

9. How to download a file using wget?

# wget -c "http://website.com/file.rpm"

10. How to limit your download rate with wget?

# wget --limit-rate=30k "http://vertito.com/file.rpm"

11. How to download multiple files in one shot?

# wget -c "ftp://vertito.org/file[1-9].iso

12. How to find windows machine with shared folders?

# findsmb

13. How to look for windows netbios name?

# nmblookup -A windows-ip-address

14. How to browse for computers like network neighborhood does?

# smbtree

15. How list folder shared by a particular windows machine?

# smbclient -L windows-machine

16. How to diplay calendar without X?

# cal
# cal -3

17. How to list out all harddisk partition?

# cat /proc/partitions
# fdisk -l

18. How to list out all mounted and labeled harddisk partition?

# mount -l

19. How to show host reboot history?

# last reboot

20. How to get CPU info?

# cat /proc/cpuinfo

21. How to show all interrupts?

# cat /proc/interrupts

22. How to show last successful login users?

# lastlog

23. How to search for a yet unknown package from web repo?

# yum search *packagemaybe*
# yum whatprovides packagemaybe

24. How to setup a shell with yum?

# yum shell

25. How to use yum locally?

# yum localinstall packagename

26. How to find file with 750 file permission?

# find / -type f -perm 750

27. How to find all files not owned by any user?

# find / -nouser

28. How to find all files owned by a user?

# find /home -user vertito

29. How to find files by group name?

# find /home -group vertito

30. How to change timestamp of a file?

# touch -c -t 0707280337 testfile.txt
(YYMMDDhhmm)

31. How to change ownership of a file?

# chown user1:user1 testfile.txt

32. How to set user password details and expiration?

# chage username

33. How to change default home directory of a user?

# usermod -d /new-default-directory username

34. How to change a user finger information?

# chfn username

35. How to change a user shell information?

# chsh username

36. How to change file mode bits?

# chmod testfile.txt

37. How to change and update (multiple) user passwords in batch mode?

# chpasswd

38. How to make an ISO image from contents of a directory?

# mkisofs -V label-name -r directory-name > iso-image.iso

39. How to make an ISO image from contents of a directory and zip it in one shot?

# mkisofs -V label-name -r directory-name | gzip > iso-image.iso.gz

40. Oh, how to eject a DVD/CD disk from a mounted DVD/CD drive?

# eject

41. How to clear or erase all data from a mounted DVDRW / CDRW disk?

# cdrecord -v dev=/dev/cdrom blank=fast

42. How to add an ext3 journal to a filesystem ?

# tune2fs -j /dev/sdb1

43. How to create ext2/ext3 filesystem with bad block checking?

# mkfs.ext3 -c /dev/sdb1
# mkfs.ext2 -c /dev/sdb1

44. How to combine and sort multiple raw files in one shot?

# sort file1 file2 | uniq > newfile

45. How to compare two text files?

# diff file1 file2

46. How to get more memory information?

# cat /proc/meminfo

47. How to get the maximum number of threads of your host?

# cat /proc/sys/kernel/threads-max

48. How to get the file properties of a file or folder?

# stat testfile.txt
# stat foldername

49. How to backup harddisk to another host via ssh?

# dd bs=1M if=/dev/sda | gzip | ssh username@remote-ip-address 'dd of=hda.gz'

50. How to run a command as another user?

# runuser another-user script-name-or-program

That's all.

No negotiations with Microsoft in progress

This a nice document I found from Mark Shuttleworth's blog, founder of Ubuntu Linux distro from South Africa, denying any further talks, ties and negotiations from Microsoft's proposal tie-up and OS collaboration agreement.

Read further...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No negotiations with Microsoft in progress

There’s a rumour circulating that Ubuntu is in discussions with Microsoft aimed at an agreement along the lines they have concluded recently with Linspire, Xandros, Novell etc. Unfortunately, some speculation in the media (thoroughly and elegantly debunked in the blogosphere but not before the damage was done) posited that “Ubuntu might be next”.

For the record, let me state my position, and I think this is also roughly the position of Canonical and the Ubuntu Community Council though I haven’t caucused with the CC on this specifically.

We have declined to discuss any agreement with Microsoft under the threat of unspecified patent infringements.

Allegations of “infringement of unspecified patents” carry no weight whatsoever. We don’t think they have any legal merit, and they are no incentive for us to work with Microsoft on any of the wonderful things we could do together. A promise by Microsoft not to sue for infringement of unspecified patents has no value at all and is not worth paying for. It does not protect users from the real risk of a patent suit from a pure-IP-holder (Microsoft itself is regularly found to violate such patents and regularly settles such suits). People who pay protection money for that promise are likely living in a false sense of security.

I welcome Microsoft’s stated commitment to interoperability between Linux and the Windows world - and believe Ubuntu will benefit fully from any investment made in that regard by Microsoft and its new partners, as that code will no doubt be free software and will no doubt be included in Ubuntu.

With regard to open standards on document formats, I have no confidence in Microsoft’s OpenXML specification to deliver a vibrant, competitive and healthy market of multiple implementations. I don’t believe that the specifications are good enough, nor that Microsoft will hold itself to the specification when it does not suit the company to do so. There is currently one implementation of the specification, and as far as I’m aware, Microsoft hasn’t even certified that their own Office12 completely implements OpenXML, or that OpenXML completely defines Office12’s behavior. The Open Document Format (ODF) specification is a much better, much cleaner and widely implemented specification that is already a global standard. I would invite Microsoft to participate in the OASIS Open Document Format working group, and to ensure that the existing import and export filters for Office12 to Open Document Format are improved and available as a standard option. Microsoft is already, I think, a member of OASIS. This would be a far more constructive open standard approach than OpenXML, which is merely a vague codification of current practice by one vendor.

In the past, we have surprised people with announcements of collaboration with companies like Sun, that have at one time or another been hostile to free software. I do believe that companies change their position, as they get new leadership and new management. And we should engage with companies that are committed to the values we hold dear, and disengage if they change their position again. While Sun has yet to fully deliver on its commitments to free software licensing for Java, I believe that commitment is still in place at the top.

I have no objections to working with Microsoft in ways that further the cause of free software, and I don’t rule out any collaboration with them, in the event that they adopt a position of constructive engagement with the free software community. It’s not useful to characterize any company as “intrinsically evil for all time”. But I don’t believe that the intent of the current round of agreements is supportive of free software, and in fact I don’t think it’s particularly in Microsoft’s interests to pursue this agenda either. In time, perhaps, they will come to see things that way too.

My goal is to carry free software forward as far as I can, and then to help others take the baton to carry it further. At Canonical, we believe that we can be successful and also make a huge contribution to that goal. In the Ubuntu community, we believe that the freedom in free software is what’s powerful, not the openness of the code. Our role is not to be the ideologues -in-chief of the movement, our role is to deliver the benefits of that freedom to the widest possible audience. We recognize the value in “good now to get perfect later” (today we require free apps, tomorrow free drivers too, and someday free firmware to be part of the default Ubuntu configuration) we always act in support of the goals of the free software community as we perceive them. All the deals announced so far strike me as “trinkets in exchange for air kisses”. Mua mua. No thanks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You will find the link here.

All trademarks and company names mentioned here are all managed and owned by their respective owners.

connect SamSung D820 mobile to linux howto

How to browse file with SamSung D820 mobile in Fedora?
How to mount your USB-plugged SamSung D820 mobile?

This document describes the process of connecting and mounting SamSung D820 mobile with Fedora via USB port connection.

MONITORING:

First, login to your fedora box. We will try to monitor system message log before plugging the said mobile phone. As follow

# tail -f /var/log/messages

Now, change the settings of your SamSung D820 mobile settings. Go to Setting, select Storage Device and press OK. Plug it into one of the system USB ports. Watch out for any log changes that would appear from the tailed log file. You are going to see similar message as follow:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
Jul 29 22:10:15 ver kernel: usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
Jul 29 22:10:15 ver kernel: usb 1-1: configuration #2 chosen from 1 choice
Jul 29 22:10:16 ver kernel: cdc_acm 1-1:2.1: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
Jul 29 22:10:16 ver kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_acm
Jul 29 22:10:16 ver kernel: drivers/usb/class/cdc-acm.c: v0.25:USB Abstract Control Model driver for USB modems and ISDN adapters
Jul 29 22:10:31 ver kernel: usb 1-1: USB disconnect, address 3
Jul 29 22:10:32 ver kernel: usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
Jul 29 22:10:32 ver kernel: usb 1-1: configuration #3 chosen from 1 choice
Jul 29 22:10:32 ver kernel: Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
Jul 29 22:10:32 ver kernel: scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Jul 29 22:10:32 ver kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
Jul 29 22:10:32 ver kernel: USB Mass Storage support registered.
Jul 29 22:10:37 ver kernel: scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
Jul 29 22:10:37 ver kernel: SCSI device sdc: 121817 512-byte hdwr sectors (62 MB)
Jul 29 22:10:37 ver kernel: sdc: Write Protect is off
Jul 29 22:10:37 ver kernel: sdc: assuming drive cache: write through
Jul 29 22:10:37 ver kernel: SCSI device sdc: 121817 512-byte hdwr sectors (62 MB)
Jul 29 22:10:37 ver kernel: sdc: Write Protect is off
Jul 29 22:10:37 ver kernel: sdc: assuming drive cache: write through
Jul 29 22:10:38 ver kernel: sdc:
Jul 29 22:10:38 ver kernel: sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sdc
Jul 29 22:10:38 ver kernel: sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

The one in bold, would be the mounting point . Let us continue mount it as follow

# mkdir /mnt/samsung
# mount /dev/sdc /mnt/samsung/

VERIFICATION

I have mentioned lsusb as one of the main tools used when troubleshooting USB-enabled devices.
Let us use and confirm if the mobile was detected correctly:

# lsusb
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 04e8:665c Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As you can see, fedora read and detected the brand make of the mobile.

USAGE:

Now, you can now continue and browse your favorite music and video files.

# ls -la /mnt/samsung
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
fayrouz hizib Images mobile Music Other files @samsung.ess Sounds Videos
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Click here for SamSung D820 specifications. Company website here

cheers

yum from ISO image or CD install howto

How to install createrepo?
How to install package from DVD installation disk using yum?
How to install package from mounted DVD image using yum?
How to create a new repo file?
How to mount your Fedora DVD ISO image file?
How to install portmap?

These are the questions that would be covered from this document.

Requirement:

You need install createrepo rpm package. It is available both from installation CDs and from yum network repos. And is not installed by default installation method. This package createrepo is a linux binary that creates repomd repositories from set of rpms.

Now, how to install createrepo.

# yum -y install createrepo

Mount your Fedora ISO DVD image back again.

# mount -o loop -t iso9660 /data/ISO/F7/F-7-i386-DVD.iso /mnt/F7

# cd /mnt

Now createrepo based from your mounted ISO image:

# createrepo .

After several minutes, you'll be having similar screen outputs like below:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
('E', 'r', 'r', 'o', 'r', ' ', 'o', 'p', 'e', 'n', 'i', 'n', 'g', ' ', 'p', 'a', 'c', 'k', 'a', 'g', 'e') - usr/share/doc/xsane-0.994/xsane.RPM

Saving Primary metadata
Saving file lists metadata
Saving other metadata
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Launch your favorite file editor and prepare a new repo file

/etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-CD.repo

file which contains the following as follows:

[fedora-CD]
baseurl=file:///mnt/F7/
enabled=1


Noticed the filename of the repo file was the same with the repo name.

Done.

Now, what if you only have DVD installation disk. Here's how to do it:

# mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
# cd /mnt
# createrepo .

Create the repo file as follows

[fedora-CD]
baseurl=file:///mnt/cdrom
enabled=1


Since portmap is not with standara repo sites, you can now yum it and find it from your DVD repo file! Try it!

# yum search portmap

See mine

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Loading "fastestmirror" plugin
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Repository 'fedora-cd' is missing name in configuration, using id
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
fedora-cd 100% |=========================| 1.3 kB 00:00
primary.xml.gz 100% |=========================| 772 kB 00:00
fedora-cd : ################################################## 2242/2242

portmap.i386 4.0-65.2.2.1 fedora-cd
Matched from:
portmap
The portmapper program is a security tool which prevents theft of NIS
(YP), NFS and other sensitive information via the portmapper. A
portmapper manages RPC connections, which are used by protocols like
NFS and NIS.

The portmap package should be installed on any machine which acts as a
server for protocols using RPC.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That is all.

missing portmap reinstall howto

I received an email asking me any hint on how to re install his missing portmap services. He accidentally uninstalled and press Y when he was uninstalling a particular package. Later on realized that portmap is not available and does not comes up from searching yum repos.

Definition:

Portmap is a server that converts RPC program numbers into DARPA protocol port numbers. It must be running in order to make RPC calls.

How to install:

Here is one way to recover and re-install a deleted and/or missing portmap package. In order for the installation to be successful, as a requirement, you need to bring out your Fedora/Centos installation CDs, so we can install and copy the package from it.

From DVD ISO Image:

I do not have the Fedora installation CDs. However, I have Fedora ISO images from my systems. So, in this case, I am going to cover how to re install portmap using the Fedora 7 ISO image from my harddrive. As root,

# locate *.iso
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/data/ISO/FC6DVD/FC-6-i386-DVD.iso
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

# mount -o loop -t iso9660 /data/ISO/FC6DVD/FC-6-i386-DVD.iso /F7/
# cd /F7/Fedora/RPMS/

# ls -la portmap
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-rw-r--r-- 25 root root 38128 2006-10-06 01:17 portmap-4.0-65.2.2.1.i386.rpm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Since the package comes from the ISO image, we will make use of rpm instead of yum installation binary.

# rpm -ivh portmap-4.0-65.2.2.1.i386.rpm

To start it:

# service portmap start

VERIFICATION:

# service portmap status

All is done.

Have you tried to do yum from your own computer CD/DVD drive on Fedora?
Are you blogging from your-own-PC-based Wordpress on Fedora?
Did you give Plone - Content Management System a shot on Fedora?

50 quick linux command tips part 2

Created Thursday 26/07/2007

As I go along and remember those linux commands, I'll be adding them here as time goes by. They don't pop out of my tiny-winny braincells easily when I needed them most.

Here goes nothing.

1. How to know which ports are listening from your IP address?

# nmap -sT -O your-ip-address

2. How to grep an exact match?

# grep -w textfile.txt

3. How to reverse grep matches?

# grep -v textfile.txt
#
4. How to know which service name is what port?

Assuming port 443

# cat testfile.txt | grep -w 443

5. How to get the first 10 lines of a file?

# head -10 testfile.txt

6. How to get the last 10 lines of a file?

# tail -10 testfile.txt

7. How to get the first column of a file?

# awk '{print $1}' testfile.txt

8. How to get the first and second columd of a file?

# awk '{print $1 " " $2}' testfile.txt

9. How to get the first column of a file having consistent field separator pattern?

Field separator character patterns is /

# awk -F/ '{print $1}' testfile.txt

10. How to get the second column of a file having consistent field separator pattern?

# awk -F/ '{print $2}' testfile.txt

11. How to show contents of a text file?

# cat testfile.txt

12. How to show contents of text file pausing ever page or one screenful at a time?

# more testfile.txt
# less testfile.txt

13. What is the big difference between more and less?

less linux command has much more extensive enhancements compared with more.
You can also scroll up interactively via control keystrokes using less while the other one does not allow you to do that.
less does not need to read the entire file to buffer when showing a screenful content of a file and furthermorel less is faster than more on accessing big filesize.

14. How do you delete all numbers and digits from contents of a file?

# tr -d [:digit:] < testfile.txt

15. How do you sort contents of a text file in descending order?

# sort -r newfile.txt

16. How do you create a file using touch (without opening it interactively for writing)?

# touch newfile.txt

17. How do you change the date of all files in one folder?

# touch *

18. How do you create a file using tee?

# tee newfile.txt

and start typing, press

19. How do you query currently installed package offline from your system?

# rpm -qa sendmail

20. How do you query packages for something-like package ?

# rpm -qa | grep sendmail
# rpm -qa *sendmail*

21. What files comes with a something package?

# rpm -qa postfix*
# rpm -ql postfix-2.4.3-2.fc7

22. What is this something package?

# rpm -qi postfix-2.4.3-2.fc7

23. Where does rpm stores its rpm database?

# cd /var/lib/rpm
# ls -la __*

24. How to mount CD drive after inserting the disk?

# mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/CD

25. How to know if fedora detects your Nokia N70 via USB?

# lsusb

26. How to change system date ?

# date -s "December 25 2007 01:01:01"

27. How to know your free base memory and other memory / swap statistics ?

# free

28. How to show disk space usage of your filesystem in human readable form?

# df -ah

29. How to get the top 10 of your mbox mail users?

# cd /var/spool/mail
# ls -lS | head -10

30. How to find process ID of a running service like httpd?

# pidof httpd

31. How to locate a binary file, command source and its man pages?

# whereis ping

32. How to find the location of a executable file that could have been executed when entered from a prompt?

# which ping

33. How to download ISO or any file from web using command line?

# wget -c www.google.com/testfile.txt
# wget -c ftp://google.com/google.ISO

34. How to transfer file via ssh?

# scp -c testfile.txt user@remote-hostname

35. How to transfer files that has been only changed from one host to another without taking comparison?

# rsync -avz remoteserver:/home/remotefolder /home/localfolder

36. How to transfer your identity.pub into a remote machine's authorized_keys?

# ssh-copy-id -i identity-rsa-dsa.pub user@remote-hostname

37. How to know who you are in a shell?

# whoami

38. How to get more real-time view linux process stats and info?

# top

39. How to issue a continuous trace route to a host?

# mtr host-ip-addres

40. How to trace route without resolving IP address?

# mtr --no-dns hostname

41. What is another text-based alternative to chkconfig?

# ntsysv

42. How to list out current cron jobs?

# crontab -l

43. How to get the CPU time?

# clock

44. How to set date and time from NTP server?

# ntpdate 0.fedora.pool.ntp.org

45. How to show current system path?

# set | grep PATH

46. How to list out currently loaded kernel modules?

# lsmod

47. How to know the total days of your system without reboot?

# uptime

48. How to get a system bootstrapped from redhat network?

# /usr/bin/go-rhn.sh

49. How to see current running user jobs?

# jobs

50. How to edit text files from terminal?

# vi textfile.txt
# nano textfile.txt
# joe textfile.txt
# vim textfile.txt
# pico textfile.txt (if pico is installed - Pico is a trademark of the University of Washington)
# tee vv


Hope this helps a bit.

50 quick linux command tips part 1

I have compiled several linux CLI basic tips and quick tricks that solves simple issues of daily routines and objectives. Most probably they are most commonly used by others too, but who knows?

Here are a few old tricks and linux workarounds that still works with Fedora distro and probably works with CentOS and RedHat.

These commands were all done as super user root. I suggest not to try this if you don't know what the command is for, use at your own risk!!!

1. How to create a return email address when using mutt ?

# export REPLYTO=youremail@yourdomain.com

2. How to dump a website into your terminal screen ?

# elinks -dump "http://www.gmanews.tv/forex.php"
# lynx -dump "http://www.gmanews.tv/forex.php"
# links -dump "http://www.gmanews.tv/forex.php"

3. How to dump a website into a file ?

# elinks -dump "http://www.gmanews.tv/forex.php" > file1
# lynx -dump "http://www.gmanews.tv/forex.php" > file2
# links -dump "http://www.gmanews.tv/forex.php" > file3

3. How to sort batch of files containing alpha numeric characters in a file with one command ?

# cat filename101*.txt | sort -n

4. How to remove duplicate lines from a file ?

# uniq < filename01.txt

5. How to force rotate of all your defined log files located in /var/log/ ?

# logrotate -f /etc/logrotate.conf

6. How to change the interval time of your daily and weekly system cron jobs ?

# vi /etc/anacrontab

7. How to start X / Gnome from terminal ?

# startx

8. How to do a whole new xorg.conf setup for your nonworking/epileptic X which was caused recent xorg.conf misconfiguration ?

# mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.old
# gdmsetup

9. Do you have a very old and nice webtool for newbies or junior system admins?

Click here

10. How to launch and run a program into background ?

# program-name &

10. How to locate and find file(s) in CLI ?

# find /foldername -name name-of-file

Ex.
# find /home -name *vertito*
# locate *vertito*

11. For script kiddies who successfully hacked a box, LOL. How to know your current dropped user, shell id, group id, groups your shell belongs to after successfully hacking into a linux box? :)

# id

12. How to know who is currently active from ssh connection from your server ?

# w

13. How to know all your opened UDP ports and connections ?

# ss -u -a

14. What are the most commonly known world writeable and readable folders?

# cd /tmp
# cd /dev/shm

So watch out for any scripts or file changes there!

15. How to build rpm package from source file (*.src.rpm) ?

# rpmbuild --rebuild *.src.rpm

Most probably, you'll find the sources in /root/rpmbuild/SOURCES and the RPM file in /root/rpmbuild/RPMS . If not, try /usr/src/redhat/SOURCES and /usr/src/redhat/RPMS

16. How to find all files from a particular folder that contains this string and do it recursively ?

# find /home/vertito -exec grep -li myownstring {} \;

17. How to find a specific filename and delete it ?

# find / -name specific-filename.txt -exec rm -rf {} \;

18. How to trim my temporary files and delete the ones that are more than 1 month old?

# find /tmp -mtime +31 -exec rm -rf {} \;

19. How to know the descriptions, functions, and more info a a linux command ?
Ex.

# man elinks
# apropos elinks
# whatis elinks
# info elinks

20. How to know from which rpm package does a particular library belongs to ?

Ex. /lib/libcap.so

# rpm -qf /lib/libcap.so

21. How to find out interesting port of a particular host ?

# nmap host-IP-Address-here

22. How to ping one subnet class of IP address or group of IP address ?

# fping -g 192.168.100.0/27
$ fping -g 192.168.1.1 192.168.1.254

23. How to know if a port is open ?

Example: port 25

# telnet IP-address 25
# nc -dz IP-address 25

24. How to watch for file and file size changes of one folder live and not by email ?

# cd your-folder
# watch ls -la


25. How to divide 9999999999999999 by 3 directly from terminal ?
How to use a terminal based calculator?

# echo '9999999999999999/3' | bc -l




26. How to print line numbers of each output line of a text file ?

# cat -n yourfile.txt

27. How to negate a grep result?

# grep -v "null" yourfilename

28. How to list statistics from your network ?

# netstat -s

29. What is the country code for a particular country ?

# grep -i philippines /usr/share/zoneinfo/iso3166.tab

30. How to find out who owns and manages a particular domain ?

# whois google.com

31. How to get the resolved IP of a domain ?

# nslookup google.com
# host google.com
# dig google.com

32. How to say hello and goodbye to your system log file ?

# logger 'Hello and Goodbye'

33. How to list out all your USB current connections ?

# lsusb
verbose
# lsusb -v

34. How to list out all your PCI card connections ?

# lspci
verbose
# lspci -v

35. How to lock/unlock a bash enabled user shell account ?

# passwd -l useraccount
# passwd -u useraccount
# passwd -S useraccount

36. How to limit and change available shell accounts for user's shell assignment ?

# vi /etc/shells

37. How to change the default values when adding new user accounts ?

# vi /etc/default/useradd

38. How to create default files automatically every time a new user accounts is created ?

# cp /home/vertito/whateverfile.txt /etc/skel
# useradd -d /home/newuser newuser

39. How to go the easy way to home folder of a particular user if you have multinested virtual home folders?

# cd ~hisusername

40. How to browse and download the whole pages of a particular WWW site in one shot ?

# wget -p --progress=dot http://www.google.com

41. How to safely mark badblocks from another ext2/ext3 linux harddisk ?

# umount /dev/other-harddisk2
# e2fsck -c /dev/other-harddisk2

42. How to create a new ext3 filesytem with bad-block checking from your secondary harddisk?

# mkfs.ext3 -c /dev/other-harddisk2

43. How to compare bzip2 compressed files ?

# bzdiff file1 file2

44. How to detect hardware monitoring chips and load modules related to newly detected chips?

# sensors-detect
>45. How to know if your postfix or sendmail is running ?

# ps axuw | grep sendmail
# ps axuw | grep postfix

46. How to change the default port when spamassassin is launched?

# vi /etc/sysconfig/spamassassin

47. How to disable postfix permanently after reboot ?

# chkconfig --levels 345 postfix off

48. How to know the number of children spawned by apache ?

# ps axuw | grep http | wc -l

49. How to avoid a module from being loaded by kernel during startup and blacklist it permanently?

# vi /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

50. How to quickly count all your queued mail when you box is really hogging due to spam bruteforce attacks and spam mailer?

# mailq | wc -l

How to smile ?

:)

Hope this helps abit.

desktop wiki install howto

Want to do a wiki offline from your own desktop and publish it later when you get online?

This is what I am using offline. Meet Zim.

Zim is a WYSIWYG text editor written in Gtk2-Perl which aims to bring the concept of a wiki to your desktop. Every page is saved as a text file with wiki markup. Pages can contain links to other pages, and are saved automatically. Creating a new page is as easy as linking to a non-existing page. Pages are ordered in a hierarchical structure that gives it the look and feel of an outliner. This tool is intended to keep track of TODO lists or to serve as a personal scratch book.

Zim handles several types of markup, like headings, bullet lists and of course bold, italic and highlighted. This markup is saved as wiki text so you can easily edit it with other editors. Because of the autosave feature you can switch between pages and follow links while editing without worries.

Besides from that, you feel as you don't overkill yourself by launching Office sofwares and using much of your system memory for a small pages of wiki or blogs.


East to install, do the yum

# yum -y install zim

and launch

Ctrl+F2, zim

NASA tests Linux for spacecraft control

NASA tests Linux for spacecraft control

I was reading one of newly met nice sysad too, and read his interesting blog about NASA here.

Linux was selected for a NASA experiment aimed at proving the feasibility of COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) hardware and software for scientific space missions. A key requirement was for application development and runtime environments familiar to scientists, to facilitate porting applications from the lab to the spacecraft.

Read more here

warzone 2100 strategy 3d game install howto

Warzone
Created Wednesday 25/07/2007

Are you looking to try a free different 3D strategy game for Linux?

Here's one.

Warzone 2100 was an innovative 3D real-time strategy game back in 1999, and
most will agree it didn't enjoy the commercial success it should have had. The
game's source code was liberated on December 6th, 2004, under a GPL license
(see COPYING in this directory for details). Soon after that, the Warzone 2100
ReDev project was formed to take care of its future.

You can find more warzone wiki pages here .

Now, a quick way to install warzone using yum under fedora . As root

# yum -y install warzone2100.i386

This would install warzone and all its dependency modules that is around 19MB in size.

Rresolved dependecies:

=============================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
=============================================================================
Installing:
warzone2100 i386 2.0.6-1.fc6 extras 705 k
Installing for dependencies:
openal i386 0.0.9-0.9.20060204cvs.fc6 extras 150 k
physfs i386 1.0.1-5.fc6 extras 58 k
warzone2100-data i386 2.0.6-1.fc6 extras 18 M

Transaction Summary
=============================================================================


Launch:

Ctrl+F2, type warzone2100 and hit ENTER.

See mine

motd - message of the day

MOTD - Message Of The Day file

This file , /etc/motd, is traditionally used to inform and send message to shell enabled user accounts upon logging in instead of informing them by email. It requires much disk space, effortless of just editing the file without launching any mail user agents as well.

By default install, /etc/motd contains nothing.

You can edit this file and try to reflect some interesting stuff or message of the day, like

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
Hey you!

Today is the last day of the month again,
as we all know, we would do a scheduled
downtime exactly, this time it would be
exactly 22:00 GMT, so be around, don't
drink! LOL

Thanks!
Your BIG boss
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The others may have like this one:

more with kernel name version howto

How to know your Fedora/Redhat/CentOS release version?

Easy as splash image. Follow these steps as root

# cat /etc/issue

You'll be seeing lines like these
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fedora release 7 (Moonshine)
Kernel \r on an \m
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You can actually edit this file and reflect some access restriction wordings like so:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unauthorized Access is PROHIBITED!!!!

Security access restrictions applied.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Upon successful logins of any shell enabled user accounts via server consoles (tty*), these lines would be reflected.

Additionally, you may want to try out the following commands too:

# cat /proc/sys/kernel/ostype
# cat /proc/sys/kernel/osrelease
# cat /proc/sys/kernel/version

which gives you the same combined result from issuing

# uname -a

That's all.

stop and start networking service howto

Enabling and disabling your network card in windows is quite different in linux world. Here in linux world, we are referring them as stopping and starting a daemonized service. Services are known to be one of multithreading feature integrated in linux architecture, and from my own personal view, which begun available with window$ NT during its first flight, perhaps that gave her a term of New Technology (NT) making use of these runnable/stopable concepts.

Here are quick CLI ways, based on redhat-based distro, to stop and start your networking service. The below would stop and your networking service.

Take note that any ONBOOT=no line arguments included fromyour /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth* would not be included from starting/stopping the service.

See

# service network stop
# service network start
# service network restart

Another way of starting/stopping your NIC service

# ifup eth0
# ifdown eth1

For linux newbies and just starting with linux terminal commands. You may want to try

# system-config-network-tui

which would present you a text-based menu for doing the same process.

You are reminded that all receive/transmit (RX/TX) packets would be down from stopping the service

Alternatively using GUI:

# system-config-network



From there, you can choose a particular ethernet interface to stop and start it. Keep in mind that stopping would disconnect all you remote ssh connections as well as all your established WWW connections.

Additionally, when linux OS starts booting, the network daemon service is one of the services usually being started at linux bootup process.

change network proxy preference howto

Here's a gnome way of changing your GNOME network proxy preferences like proxy configuration.

Without launching your favorite browser, simply hit Ctrl+F2 and typ

gnome-network-preferences

or via CLI

# gnome-network-preferences

This is the same "Internet Options" you will find from control panel under the old windows$ X.P.

alexa firefox toolbar plugin install howto

The Alexa Toolbar, an application produced by Alexa Internet, is a Browser Helper Object for Internet Explorer/ Firefoxt hat is used by Alexa to measure website statistics. It includes a popup blocker, a search engine entry box, some external web links information about the current Alexa ranking of the user visited websites and links relevant to the site the user is browsing.

By early 2005 there had been over 10 million downloads of the toolbar, according to Alexa. But Alexa doesn't provide info on how many of them are actually used. According to one estimate made in Mar 2003, Alexa had a sample size of 180,000.

A third-party developer has created a plugin for the Firefox browser that provides the user with the Alexa ranking and Google PageRank of the currently visited site and also requests site information from Alexa, which they use in their website statistics

-Wikipedia

How to install sparky, the alexa firefox toolbar plugin?

Browse the site here. You would be presented with Alexa Internet Privacy, you know terms of use and agreement, that kind of stuff and proceed as you wish.

After successful firefox plugin installation, a firefox restart is needed.

reboot / halt system via CLI howto

Up until now, I rarely reboot my system via any shortcut icon from my X panel or via System > Reboot. This happens once in two full moon events. Since my system required 24/7 operation, these commands are really rare to be seen from my root history commands.

Here are brief alternative and not too bloated ways on doing reboot and shutdown with your linux system.

Make sure you save all your opened documents before executing any of these. It is also suggested to close any opened browsers and ssh connections you might have before doing these command.

1. via Reboot . Reboots the system.

# reboot

2. via halt - actually halts the system

# halt

3. shutdown - shuts down the system

# shutdown -t3 -r now

4. Ctrl+Alt+Del - also works in linux as long as you have unmodified /etc/inittab

5. poweroff - powers your system down

# poweroff

6. init 0 - runlevel 0

# init 0

7. init 6 - runlevel 6

All of them must be executed by superuser root, unless specified by sudoers access levels, which is not really advisable.

gparted partitioning install howto

There are times you need to resize and extend a particular partition to give way to another set of installation programs or data download storage allocation. What about you've mistakenly designated a wrong partition size for particular partition?

Put your partition worries away.

Here comes linux partitioner GParted.

GParted install howto.

# yum -y install gparted

GParted stands for Gnome Partition Editor and is a graphical frontend to libparted. Among other features it supports creating, resizing, moving and copying of partitions. Also several (optional) filesystem tools provide support for filesystems not included in libparted. These optional packages will be detected at runtime and don't require a rebuild of GParted.

On thing I like with GParted is doing it live and online with your partition data using X.



Launch:

Ctrl+F2, gparted, enter.

HTH

google picasa install howto

Find and enjoy the pictures on your computer in seconds!

Picasa is a free software download from Google. Now available for Linux!

Picasa is software that helps you instantly find, edit and share all the pictures on your computer. Every time you open Picasa, it automatically locates all your pictures (even ones you forgot you had) and sorts them into visual albums organized by date with folder names you will recognize. You can drag and drop to arrange your albums and make labels to create new groups. Picasa makes sure your pictures are always organized.

Picasa also makes advanced editing simple by putting one-click fixes and powerful effects at your fingertips. And Picasa makes it a snap to share your pictures – you can email, print photos home, and even post pictures on your own blog.

--Google picasa overview and definitions.

There are the so called requirements:

System Requirements
* Should work on any Linux system with Intel 386-compatible processor,
glibc 2.3.2 or greater, and a working X11 display system.
* Desktop Integration features require a current version of Gnome or KDE.
* Camera detection and integration requires kernel >= 2.6.13, hal >= 0.56, and
gnome-volume-manager or equivalent.
* Available in English

Be the first few to install this another nice item from google!

Just download the rpm binary file from google itself from this site here.

Then use the almighty rpm

# rpm -ivh picasa-2.2.2820-5.i386.rpm

Launch! Ctrl+F2 , picasa, enter.

pine and pico install howto

The Pine.

Pine was my very first linux email client during the old old days, I loved pine,.. and used it really very well via ssh during my first and worst-than-ever dialup connectivity. This includes my very old good text editor Pico for editing and modifying text based files. Later on, Thunderbird works out right for me until now. Then nano replaced my pico after that.

What is Pine?

Pine (R) -- a Program for Internet News & Email -- is a tool for reading, sending, and managing electronic messages. Pine was developed by Computing & Communications at the University of Washington. Though originally designed for inexperienced email users, Pine has evolved to support many advanced features, and an ever-growing number of configuration and
personal-preference options.

How to install in Fedora?

Simply, make sure you have the livna repo as blogged earlier and yum it so:

# yum -y install pine

This will install pine and pico which is about 2.6 MB in size for F7 including dependencies, so it might take a if you have dialup connection.

See pico in action




**Pine and Pico are trademarks of the University of Washington, check their website here. No commercial use of these trademarks may be made without prior written permission of the University of Washington.

adobe/macromedia flash player test and install howto

Here is a clean and quick way to verify if you have succesfully Adobe (macromedia) flash player plugin in Linux.

Simply browse to this site. If you have successfully installed Adobe flash player, you would be seeing your current version and that Adobe detected your flash plugin running from your browser.

If not, simply download the linux flash plugin version here that is around 2MB in size, and install it using rpm like so:

# rpm -ivh flash-plugin-9.0.48.0-release.i386.rpm

Restart your firefox browser and revisit the link site .

Once in a while, check out Adobe Flash Plugin download center here.

Cheers

realplayer install howto

Here's another alternative on playing multimedia files.

RealPlayer - supports RealAudio, RealVideo 10, MP3, Ogg Vorbis and Theora, H263, AAC and more.
And RealPlayer 10 for Linux is based on the open source Helix player.

How to install it:

Browse and download the latest RealPlayer from this site . They have a version specifically for Linux, which you can easily download here.
This link is for redhat-based distros.

Then install compat-libstdc++-33 library.

# yum install compat-libstdc++-33

And CD back to the downloaded folder of RealPlayer binary file and do install

# rpm -ivh RealPlayer10GOLD.rpm

Lastly, you need to restart your firefox for the RealPlayer plugin to work.

How to launch RealPlayer, just hit, Ctrl+F2 and type realplay, enter.

Microsoft's TrueType core fonts install howto

How to install additional fonts?
How to install Microsoft fonts?
How to list out all recognized and installed fonts?

Microsoft's TrueType core fonts install howto

Well, one good thing of having Microsoft as your base OS, is having their set of fonts.
Linux basically had this terrible font sets - but it has improved over the number of development years compared to the old RedHat 6.0 days. Still, there are more space for improvement. As a result of this, we are going to install Microsoft's TrueType core fonts.

One major requirement is you need to have rpmbuild installed from F7. If not, you can install them by doing so as root:

# yum -y install rpm-build rpmdevtools rpm-libs

Now proceed installing the second font-installation requirement,



# yum -y install cabextract

After successful installation, download the latest msttcorefonts spec file here. Then go to your download location, as root, do the build thing

# rpmbuild -bb msttcorefonts-2.0-1.spec

If you experience any problems like these
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RPM build errors: Bad exit status from /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.60339 (%prep)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Try issuing the command again as root.

This will download about 9 MB (more or less) set of fonts from sourceforge mirror and repackage them for further installation as single rpm installation file. It might take some time depending on your internet download speed. So get a milk or a coffee...

After successful download, install your own newly built rpm file

# rpm -ivh /root/rpmbuild/RPMS/noarch/msttcorefonts-2.0-1.noarch.rpm

If the rpm file is not there, do

# updatedb
# locate msttcorefonts*.rpm

This would locate the just compiled rpm file for you.

After that, you can reload your XFS server

# service xfs reload

Have read that xfs restart brings out unknown flickering and dirty screen, so watch out for that. I did a reload with my own.

Now, enjoy your new and high quality MS fonts compiled from your own system. Fireup a new document from linux word processor (Office menu). You will be seeing new set of microsoft font names there along with the other default linux fonts.

Alternatively, to display and list out those fonts, try

# xlsfonts | grep 'microsoft\|monotype'

Please note that you need to restart all programs that you want to make aware of the new fonts. Note also that not all fonts have 'microsoft' in their name, some of them will be from 'monotype' instead.

Alternatively, hit Ctrl+Alt+Backspace for immediate none-liner effect.

* This way, we do not distribute Microsoft's fonts in a prohibited way to the best of my knowledge that is) and don't bypass the rpm database like other the font installation scripts does.

WARNING!!! WARNING!!! WARNING!!!

This works out just fine for me and only hereby documented for my own purpose as my own reference, as it is without due warranty it would work for you. You may try this, all howtos and install tips mentioned from these blog pages at your own risk! My current working environment is Fedora 7.

Related Post:

European Font Installation on Fedora

Three Steps to Install Microsoft TrueType Fonts in Fedora

Why Choose Fedora? (Fedora vs. Ubuntu)

During my free time of browsing distrowatch...and due date for a newly compiled Ubuntu version, I make it appoint, during these past years, that I should have an OS test spin of these what's new and have been stuff with Ubuntu latest distro. They have free shipping and delivery mode of spreading their own, wish we could have that on unlimited version with F7 DVDs.

What do I do with it?

Trying to alteast keep up with my know-how with Ubuntu and the OS test spin likenings.

Fedora Cores are old?

Yes.

I was one of them, for the past years, I also wasted a lot, I really mean a lot of boxes burning CDs and DVDs for doing fresh-install repititions of these various tinker distros. To name a few OS that I tried with my gone-with-the-wind dual processor laptop were Fox Desktops, Mandrakes, Slackwares, PCLinuxOS, SuSes, FreeBSD, ArkLinux, not to forget Bayanihans, CentOS, Mempis, Berry, ALinux, AsianLinux, TaoLinux, Xandros (that is all). And in the end, I am happy with my default fallback bleeding-edge razor-sharp OS now called Fedora (without the Core word).

Now, I am sure I am not the only one around the blogsphere. And I must admit, I agree with his standpoint same like my experience with them.

Here, take time reading these comparison thoughts and conclusions based from hyphothetical real-life experience with ubuntu and fedora users too, like I was before and I still am.

Why Choose Fedora? (Fedora vs. Ubuntu)

After reading continually about Ubuntu, and having heard about what a great Linux distribution it is for over a year, I finally broke down two days before Fedora 7 was released to the public and installed Feisty Fawn 7.04 on my /backup partition to give it a spin. For two days I used it exclusively, and tried to hold off any judgments one way or another while testing it. After all, it seems like all I hear about is people jumping ship off of whatever Linux distribution they had used for years in favor of Ubuntu (Stanton Finley and Eric S. Raymond come to mind from the RedHat/Fedora camp, among others, including just about everyone from the Slashdot/Digg crowd); and if Ubuntu truly is a superior Linux distribution, then I at least needed to give it a try to evaluate its performance. And so I did. I installed the DNS and LAMP server, followed by the Ubuntu desktop, knowing that I could always install KDE applications if I needed to via apt-get.

Unfortunately, I was not impressed.

People incessantly claim that Fedora is less user friendly than Ubuntu is, but Ubuntu has become so watered down as a Linux distribution that I can only classify it as having been completely n00bified. Maybe I'm out of touch with the budding Linux enthusiast, who is in desperate need of a hand-holding Linux distribution, but everywhere I turned, I found road blocks preventing me from getting work done quickly. A perfect example of this is the simple task of connecting to my DSL internet connection when at home. Under Fedora, this takes about two minutes to setup (if that): System -> Administration -> Network. Type in the root password, click on New -> xDSL connection, follow the directions, and you are off and running. Under Ubuntu, creating a DSL connection via the Network Panel is not even possible! A Google search on the Windows machine turned up the following:

"Configuring DSL can be a hassle..."
"...How good it would be, if there exists a wizard that will guide you thru all the above steps."

My thoughts exactly! Ok, ok, it is not that big of deal once you know what to do: connect to eth0, run pppoeconf, and use pon dsl-provider/poff to turn the connection on and off. But how is a new Linux user going to figure that one out on his/her own? 95% of the people trying out Linux for the first time are not going to be sitting behind some fat bandwidth pipe using a 100Mbs/1Gbs Ethernet connection. They will be using wireless, or just as likely, have a DSL connection...

At any rate, Feisty Fawn does not seem to be that stable of an operating system. I found that I had to reboot multiple times just to allow it to log me into Gnome properly. Often times, it would just freeze or lock up halfway through the login process. Eventually I figured out that the problem was tied to my not having shut off the DSL connection before logging out, but why should that be a problem? Additional issues included the screen resolution not being set properly (1440 x 900), or allowing me to change it without delving into /etc/X11/xorg.conf, and having to deal with tons of native applications that were not included in the base server/desktop installs. The first mistake that I made along these lines was an attempt to change my shell via /etc/password to /bin/tcsh. Oops! No tcsh. Oops! I can no longer login to a terminal. Oops! I can't log into root either because I choose to only allow sudo when I installed Ubuntu and had not made a point of setting up a root password yet. Guess it is time to mount the partition in Fedora and fix it, or reinstall... And so it went.

Sure apt-get is great, and synaptic (the GUI) is nice, but what real advantages does it have over yum and yumex? It's faster? In my opinion, even that's debatable, simply because there are so many tools that are missing in the basic Ubuntu install that it would have taken me forever to set them all up over an internet connection with apt-get anyway. Sure, Ubuntu gives you a LAMP server (Linux OS, Apache, MySQL, PHP), but what Linux distribution doesn't?

What Fedora does give you natively that Ubuntu does not is the following:

• The option to create your own Fedora spin!
• The option to install all Server Applications, Gnome, and KDE at once
• Simple DSL Setup
• SELinux
• NFS
• Samba
• Compatibility Libraries
• Development Packages
• Compilation Tools
• Programming Tools & Editors
• +1000 other Native Applications

Again, can most of these programs be installed with apt-get and be configured under Ubuntu? Sure, but instead of it taking about 3 days to figure out if I finally have downloaded and installed everything, I can instead burn a single Fedora DVD and install it all once in about an hour. And be completely configured within three to four.






But what about RPM and Dependency Hell?
Ah yes, it always seems to come down to RPM and dependencies. Whenever I hear that argument, I can tell instantly that the person making it has either never used a RedHat/Fedora RPM system before and are quoting a common misconception, or that they used RedHat (and not Fedora) a long time ago before yum came along (Fedora Core 1). Even circular dependencies can be dealt with elegantly using rpm, and if you are missing a library or dependency now, yum whatprovides [missing].[library] is a wonderful, wonderful thing. Frankly, the RPM/Dependency Hell argument is a tired old argument that has not been true for about 5 years. But hey, don't let that get in the way of a good FUD campaign...

But what about Fedora being a Beta test for RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)?
For four years now I have used Fedora: from Fedora Core 1 all the way up through Fedora 7. Before that, I used RedHat from the 7.0 days on up to 9.0. Aside from the typical hiccups that are always present any Linux distribution, I find Fedora to be no worse than other Linux distributions that I have used. I use it 98% of the time while at the University (the other 2% is with Windows), and have had a Fedora Linux server sitting in my office for three and a half years. Fedora has never felt like a Beta test version to me.
It has always felt solid, and has always performed admirably. And I like the rapid development and inclusion of new software into the distribution — I have been able to watch Fedora mature over the past few years significantly.

But what about...?
Simply stated, most of the arguments that I have heard with respect to Fedora are dealt nicely on the Fedora Myths page. I suggest that you head over there and read it if you are still skeptical.

The point here is not to try and drag Ubuntu through the mud. But having now used it, I believe I can definitively say that that particular Linux distribution is really aimed toward the Linux n00b (no offense intended), or the Linux desktop enthusiast. For server applications, it just doesn't cut it. Fedora provides a much deeper and comprehensive set of tools right out of the box, and I find that after I've finished installing it, I'm off and running. I've seen other people allude to this fact as well — Ubuntu is fine for the average desktop user, but if you are in need of a powerful Linux server, then Fedora is the way to go. And with that, let's get down to business...

Ref:
California State Univ.
ECE Dept.
Assistant Professor Gregory R. Kriehn
URL Reference : here

Microsoft vs Opensource

Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith told Fortune that open source software violates 235 Microsoft patents, it sent tremors through the tech industry.

It's ironic that Microsoft is making these statements, considering how they benefited from a ruling by the Supreme Court last week that stated U.S. companies could not sue other U.S. companies in U.S. courts for patents infringed upon in other countries. Is Microsoft really going to seek royalties from every company in the world that is using some version of Linux?

:) brief, but says it all. I like that, so probably must to have it here too!

Reference: Fedoranews

the df command

In linux, one GNU tool that displays information more about partition. It also supports human readable option, which enhance output readability.

The df command only displays information about active non-swap partitions. These can include partitions from other networked systems, mounted devices, and more. Linux version of df cannot show the space available on unmounted filesystems, because on most kinds of systems doing so requires very nonportable intimate knowledge of filesystem structures.


A sample output of df command

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 18G 8.8G 7.6G 54% /
proc 0 0 0 - /proc
sysfs 0 0 0 - /sys
devpts 0 0 0 - /dev/pts
/dev/sda5 9.6G 6.2G 2.9G 69% /dload
/dev/sda1 45G 33G 9.8G 77% /data
/dev/sda2 99M 22M 73M 24% /boot
tmpfs 498M 0 498M 0% /dev/shm
none 0 0 0 - /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc
sunrpc 0 0 0 - /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Sample LVM enabled LFS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/cciss/c0d0p2 22G 12G 9.2G 56% /
proc 0 0 0 - /proc
sysfs 0 0 0 - /sys
devpts 0 0 0 - /dev/pts
/dev/cciss/c0d0p3 43G 32G 8.5G 80% /backup
/dev/cciss/c0d0p1 99M 20M 75M 21% /boot
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00_home-LogVol00_home
67G 14G 49G 23% /home
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00_var-LogVol00_var
67G 18G 45G 29% /var
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sample that supports human readable output

# df -ah
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2 4.9G 261M 4.4G 6% /
none 0 0 0 - /proc
none 0 0 0 - /sys
none 0 0 0 - /dev/pts
/dev/sda1 99M 19M 76M 20% /boot
none 505M 0 505M 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda5 20G 7.4G 11G 41% /home
/dev/sda6 4.9G 1.3G 3.4G 27% /usr
/dev/sda7 37G 8.9G 26G 26% /var
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Issuing the command without any parameters will likely give you similar output:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 17958380 9166384 7865048 54% /
/dev/sda5 9974924 6441384 3018660 69% /dload
/dev/sda1 46362180 33767420 10239636 77% /data
/dev/sda2 101105 22133 73751 24% /boot
tmpfs 509412 0 509412 0% /dev/shm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The output is simple but useful. You can incorporate this command from shell. Or you can issue this command from MRTG/Nagios as well for graphical needs without using additional plugins.