Poker and Linux [guest post]

Date: October 2, 2009. Categories: linux. 0 Comments

Most online poker players take it as a given that they are going to need Windows to play online poker on their favorite site. Windows is the most popular operating system anyway, so this isn’t even something most poker players worry about.

However, what if you are a Linux user? Shouldn’t there be a way for you to play your favorite game with your favorite operating system? Does Windows somehow have a monopoly on the online poker industry? The answer is no. In fact, you can play online poker using Linux. One way to play at the best Linux poker sites is with the Wine application. This is essentially an open source application that creates compatibility for Linux to run Windows programs. No actual Windows software is necessary, as Wine mimics Windows using entirely non-Microsoft code. However, the Wine application will allow you to run programs more commonly run in Windows, such as, in this case, online poker. To get Wine, simply visit Wine HQ online to download/install Wine and WineTools. After completing the setup process, you can run or install poker client software with the wine command. Once complete, you should be able to enjoy online poker with your Linux operating system.

Wine enables online poker Linux play for such prestigious online poker sites as PokerStars, UltimateBet, Party Poker, Titan Poker and Paradise Poker. If you are interested in another poker site, you can do some online research to see other sites that Wine allows Linux to work with, or you can experiment yourself.

However, the above sites probably represent about 90 percent of online poker traffic. You should be able to get what you want using one of these services. Once you’ve been able to install poker software and register for a site, you might want to spend some time watching the action before jumping in with your own money. It’s free to watch, and you might learn a few things about poker from your Windows-using brethren that can help you earn more of their money down the road.

Top 3 Linux HTML editors

Date: July 28, 2009. Categories: centos, debian, fedora, gnome, kde, linux, ubuntu and xfce. 9 Comments

This post is dedicated to quality html editors for Linux and Ubuntu operating system in particular. You may think that nowadays nobody uses offline editors as there are so many content management systems (CMS) like Drupal (my favourite one), Wordpress, Joomla etc. which contain embedded visual html editors. But today I made sure myself that sometimes it’s real pain to draw a 10×20 table using Wordpress’s editor…

Text editors like gedit, emacs, nano or vi will certainly live forever but thankfully there are numerous visual html editors for my Ubuntu :) They are sometimes called WYSIWYG editors, it mean “What You See Is What You Get”.

1. Quanta Plus

This is KDE/Qt visual html editor available as binary package for numerous Linux distributions
including Debian and Ubuntu. From developers’ site:

Quanta Plus is a highly stable and feature rich web development environment.
The vision with Quanta has always been to start with the best architectural
foundations, design for efficient and natural use and enable maximal user
extensibility.

In order to install it in Debian/Ubuntu run the following CLI command:

sudo apt-get install quanta

Fedora, Centos, Redhat users type this:

sudo yum install kdewebdev

I found Quanta html editor extremely useful, this is just an outstanding application of this
field.

2. Bluefish

Bluefish HTML editor logoBluefish is a powerful editor targeted towards programmers and webdesigners,
with many options to write websites, scripts and programming code. Bluefish
supports many programming and markup languages, and it focuses on editing
dynamic and interactive websites.

I found this really versatile html editor. Besides HTML/CSS it handles C,
Java, Perl, Python, XML and others.

Ubuntu and Debian users type:

sudo apt-get install bluefish

Fedora/Redhat/Centos:

sudo yum install bluefish

Gentoo:

emerge bluefish

3. Screem

SCREEM is a web development environment. It’s purpose is to increase
productivity when constructing a site, by providing quick access to commonly
used features. While it is written for use with the GNOME desktop environment
in mind it does not specifically require you to be running it, just have the
libraries installed.

This is one of the most user-friendly Gnome HTML editor. Its simple interface
brings extremely powerfull HTML editor so if like minimalistic design Screem
is your choice.

Update: below is the bottom line from Linux.com’s review of three Linux HTML editors (Quanta Plus, Blowfish,
Screem). I found that review after I wrote this post.

  • If you use GNOME, use Screem. It’s a fast, simple, and powerful tool for web editing. However, it does not have the large feature sets that Bluefish and Quanta Plus have, especially for languages other than those directly related to Web page editing.
  • If you use GNOME and need the more powerful features of Quanta Plus, load the required libraries and run it.
  • If you use KDE and want a code editor, choose Quanta Plus. Ignore the WYSIWYG capabilities and take advantage of the tremendous editing capabilities, especially for CSS style sheets.
  • If you use Xfce, Quanta Plus should run fine. Screem would still require loading additional libraries.
  • Finally, if you use GNOME, find that Screem does not meet all your needs, and you don’t want to bother with loading the KDE-native Quanta Plus, then load Bluefish. It is nearly as capable as Quanta Plus, but will run well without a lot of fussing with libraries.

Google Chrome Operating System

Date: July 8, 2009. Categories: linux and news. 1 Comment

google-chrome os logoHere is astonishing news I came across today at Google Official Blog:

We’re announcing a new project that’s a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It’s our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we’re already talking to partners about the project, and we’ll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.

…

The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.

Read more >>

Another pulications on the topic:

1. Alas, poor Microsoft at PCWorld
2. Google Chrome: Lookout Windows and OS X at Gizmodo
3. Google Chrome lives at arctechnica

Postgresql: show tables, show databases, show columns

Date: July 3, 2009. Categories: linux and tips. 3 Comments

postgresql logoPostgreSQL is one of the best database engines for an average web project and many who moves to psql from mysql (for example) often ask the following questions: what  is the analog of “show tables” in postgres? or how can I get the list of databases in postgres like “show databases” in mysql? The answers are short:

mysql: SHOW TABLES
postgresql: \d
postgresql: SELECT table_name FROM information_schema.tables WHERE table_schema = 'public';

mysql: SHOW DATABASES
postgresql: \l
postgresql: SELECT datname FROM pg_database;

mysql: SHOW COLUMNS
postgresql: \d table
postgresql: SELECT column_name FROM information_schema.columns WHERE table_name ='table‘;

Install Ubuntu Chromium browser (Google Chrome for Linux)

Date: June 22, 2009. Categories: applications, howtos, linux, tips and ubuntu. 20 Comments

One of the easiest way to try Chromium browser in Ubuntu Linux (Google Chrome browser for Unix/Linux operating system is named as Chromium) is to use daily binary builds at https://launchpad.net/chromium-project. Today Ubuntu is the most popular Linux disributions for desktops so there are daily builds available for the following Ubuntu versions: hardy, intrepid, jaunty, karmic.

First let your Ubuntu know where it should find chromium-browser deb package:

vi /etc/apt/sources.list

add the following lines:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Replace jaunty with hardy, intrepid or karmic depending which version you run at your computer. If you feel this information is not sufficient for you, follow this link to get Ubuntu official information on this matter or follow Launchpad help.

The next step is to install Chromium browser:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install chromium-browser
or
sudo aptitude install chromium-browser

Once you press enter Ubuntu will download around 18 MB of data from launchpad’s server and will install Chromium with gnome menu entries and shortcuts. Now you can go to System menu –> Internet –> Chromium Web Browser in order to launch Google browser.

Ubuntu Chromium (google chrome for linux)

Ubuntu Chromium Google browser (Google Chrome Ubuntu)

As you might know there is still no official release of chromium/chrome available for Linux, so these daily builds from launchpad are for testing/observations purposes only. For example, there is no flash plugin available so you will be able to see html pages like this one and no swf/flash content. Anyway thanks to Google for great browser which has all chances to become “browser number one” for Linux or even for the rest of operating system such as Windows or Mac. Who knows? :)

You might also find this page using Google and the following keywords: Ubuntu Chrome, Google Chrome Ubuntu, Chrome for Ubuntu and others.

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 My name is Artem Nosulchik (artiomix AT gmail DOT com) and I'm Linux/Unix, Cisco systems engineer. The main idea of Linux Screw is to share relevant knowledge, skills and observations over The Web. Here you can find a lot of information related to different Linux distributions, FreeBSD, IOS as well as a other Open Source around staff. Read more ››