Rather long preface but solution is quite simple. If u run Ubuntu you can try lxsplit utility for breaking files into parts (binary packages for other Linux distributions as well as source code are available at lxsplit project’s homepage.):

sudo apt-get install lxsplit

In order to split some file in 3.99GB parts use the following command:

lxsplit -s /path/to/hugemoviefile.mkv 3999M

Depending on size of hugemoviefile.mkv you will get several parts hugemoviefile.mkv.001, hugemoviefile.mkv.002 and so on stored in current directory. It means that if you’re going to store those parts on some external storage like ipod you can do the following:

cd /media/ipod/
lxsplit -s /path/to/hugemoviefile.mkv 3999M

and hugemoviefile.mkv.001.. will saved in /media/ipod/ directory regardless where hugemoviefile.mkv is located.

Now coming to assembling procedure. It’s just as easy as splitting:

lxsplit -j hugemoviefile.mkv.001

Once done you will get hugemoviefile.mkv saved in current directory.

Have an interesting article? You’re welcome to contact me and get it published at LinuxScrew.com!

sudo apt-get install youtube-dl
Let’s imagine you would like to download the following video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2leg8mUE9rs (this is part of Military Parade at Red Square in Russia at 9th of May 2010). Just run youtube-dl download utility as follows:

youtube-dl http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2leg8mUE9rs

and in a few minutes you will get 2leg8mUE9rs.flv file that could be viewed using almost any video player like my favorite one VLC.

Truecrypt is cross platform disk/file encryption software that is available for windows, mac os and linux. In order to get started visit www.truecrypt.org site and download the latest version of this software (direct link) and install it:

cd /usr/src
sudo -s
wget -c http://www.truecrypt.org/download/truecrypt-6.3a-linux-x86.tar.gz
tar -xvzf truecrypt-6.3a-linux-x86.tar.gz
./truecrypt-6.3a-setup-x86
exit

When installation is finished you will see Trucrypt item in Gnome menu (if not or use different X manager — type truecrypt in command line). Here how it looks like:

In order to create encrypted file press “Create Volume” button and follow instructions:

Use long passwords like “e07910a06a086c83ba41827aa00b26ed” instead of “123″ or “iloveyou”:

Once encrypted candy is created you can store it on usb flash drive or elsewhere, it doesn’t matter how that storage is formatted — it can be CD or windows formatter ipod.

Use the same utility to open the file — press “Select File” and point to newly created encrypted file, then choose first slot and select “Mount Volume” in drop down menu (it will ask for your sudo password and then password you typed when created the file):

As the result encrypted filesystem will be mounted into /media/truecrypt1 directory:

Copy your sensitive files there and unmount /media/truecrypt1 when done (select “Dismount” in drop down menu).
Good luck!

Actually complex UI is not the only decision why GIMP should be vanished from Ubuntu so here is the full list:

• the general user doesn’t use it
• its user-interface is too complex
• it’s an application for professionals
• desktop users just want to edit photos and they can do that in F-Spot
• it’s a photoshop replacement and photoshop isn’t included by default in Windows…
• it takes up room on the disc

(taken from here)

Still sounds like fresh nonsense? What about F-Spot as a replacement? Well, an average user most probably claim that above mentioned reasons are true. Maybe that’s why GIMP already dropped from latest Fedora 12. But what should do people who use GIMP every day and loves Ubuntu???

Just execute ‘sudo aptitude install gimp‘

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 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.

artemn@artemn-laptop:~$ cat /etc/passwd | awk '{print length, $0}' | sort -n | awk '{$1=""; print $0 }'

bin:x:2:2:bin:/bin:/bin/sh
sys:x:3:3:sys:/dev:/bin/sh
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
proxy:x:13:13:proxy:/bin:/bin/sh
mail:x:8:8:mail:/var/mail:/bin/sh
lp:x:7:7:lp:/var/spool/lpd:/bin/sh
sync:x:4:65534:sync:/bin:/bin/sync
ntp:x:110:120::/home/ntp:/bin/false
daemon:x:1:1:daemon:/usr/sbin:/bin/sh
ftp:x:111:65534::/home/ftp:/bin/false
games:x:5:60:games:/usr/games:/bin/sh
klog:x:102:103::/home/klog:/bin/false
man:x:6:12:man:/var/cache/man:/bin/sh
irc:x:39:39:ircd:/var/run/ircd:/bin/sh
dhcp:x:100:101::/nonexistent:/bin/false
news:x:9:9:news:/var/spool/news:/bin/sh
saned:x:120:131::/home/saned:/bin/false
syslog:x:101:102::/home/syslog:/bin/false
uucp:x:10:10:uucp:/var/spool/uucp:/bin/sh
backup:x:34:34:backup:/var/backups:/bin/sh
www-data:x:33:33:www-data:/var/www:/bin/sh
libuuid:x:112:121::/var/lib/libuuid:/bin/sh
messagebus:x:103:109::/var/run/dbus:/bin/false
nobody:x:65534:65534:nobody:/nonexistent:/bin/sh
sshd:x:109:65534::/var/run/sshd:/usr/sbin/nologin
Debian-exim:x:117:128::/var/spool/exim4:/bin/false
artemn:x:1000:1000:artemn,,,:/home/artemn:/bin/bash
list:x:38:38:Mailing List Manager:/var/list:/bin/sh
mysql:x:119:130:MySQL Server,,,:/var/lib/mysql:/bin/false
gdm:x:108:118:Gnome Display Manager:/var/lib/gdm:/bin/false
hplip:x:104:7:HPLIP system user,,,:/var/run/hplip:/bin/false
pulse:x:113:123:PulseAudio daemon,,,:/var/run/pulse:/bin/false
polkituser:x:114:127:PolicyKit,,,:/var/run/PolicyKit:/bin/false
avahi:x:106:114:Avahi mDNS daemon,,,:/var/run/avahi-daemon:/bin/false
asterisk:x:118:129:Asterisk PBX daemon,,,:/var/lib/asterisk:/bin/false
gnats:x:41:41:Gnats Bug-Reporting System (admin):/var/lib/gnats:/bin/sh
haldaemon:x:107:116:Hardware abstraction layer,,,:/home/haldaemon:/bin/false
landscape:x:115:65534:Landscape Client Daemon,,,:/var/lib/landscape:/bin/false
avahi-autoipd:x:105:113:Avahi autoip daemon,,,:/var/lib/avahi-autoipd:/bin/false
chipcard:x:116:119:Chipcard-Tools Daemon Account,,,:/var/run/chipcard:/bin/false

For reverse sort, use the following command:

cat /etc/passwd | awk '{print length, $0}' | sort -rn | awk '{$1=""; print $0 }'

Source: www.opennet.ru

P.S. Linus “almost Santa” Torvalds’ announcement is definitely worth reading:

Listen to the cheerful grinding of your harddisk as you reboot into an all-new kernel – and I’m sure that if your computer could smile, it would have a big silly grin on its non-existent face. So as you sit there in your basement, give your computer the holiday cheer too.

2. Top 10 Coolest Open Source Applications in 2008. Well, good reading in New Year Eve.

3. Bootable FSF membership cards: USB flash drive comes with pre-installed gNewSense 2.1.

4. Sabayon Linux 4.0 is realeased (smart Gentoo based distro): 25% boot speed gain, 8500 applications, ext4, KDE 4.1.3, Gnome 2.24.2, OpenOffice.org 3.0, Firefox 3.0 and more…

5. Pidgin 2.5.3 is out. Best GTK based instant messenger is ready for downloading. Changelog.

Apple iTunes is one of the most popular proprietary digital media players in the whole world. Using this no doubts outstanding application you can organize, play music/video files in very comfortable and user friendly way (it’s not an advertisement but real truth). Moreover iTunes is the only way to access Apple’s onilne music store and thus people often seeks the possibility to seamlessly access it after moving to Linux from Mac or Windows.

Well, unfortunately Apple doesn’t believe in magic so there is no native support of iTunes in Linux. At the same time none would deny that Wine does and guys from this project do their best to make things with iTunes in Linux better. In our example we use iTunes 7.3 which comes with Quick Time player 7.1.6, Apple iPhone support and of course iPods of any version, family and generation.

Install Apple iTunes 7.3 in Linux

1. Download iTunes 7.3 from apple.com or filehippo.com

2. Prepare Wine for itunes installation (if not installed do “apt-get install wine -y” or “yum install wine -y” in Ubuntu/Debian or Fedora/Redhat/Centos respectively):

$winecfg
wine: creating configuration directory ‘/home/artemn/.wine’…
fixme:midi:OSS_MidiInit Synthesizer supports MIDI in. Not yet supported.
wine: ‘/home/artemn/.wine’ created successfully.

Select your audio driver, it may be something like OSS or Alsa so use one u actually use Set Hardware Acceleration to “Emulation” option. All other Wine settings are per your consideration e.g. Graphics tab.

3. Update richedit30 (Win32 Cabinet Self-Extractor):

cd ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32
mv richedit32.dll richedit32.bak
mv richedit20.dll richedit20.bak
wine richedit30.exe

Set richedit20.dll and richedit32.dll as native through winecfg.

4. $wine iTunesSetup.exe
It will open iTune’s installation program under wine so you just install itunes as usually you did it in Windows. If error happens just re-run installer. See screenshot below:

5. Now you can start itunes and go through first run setup (all related screenshots are here). Just don’t care about errors thrown into the console:

$ cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/iTunes
$ wine itunes.exe

6. That’s it! Now u can use iTunes in Linux as you did it before in other operatin system:

P.S. By the way there are numerous Linux really native alternatives to itunes for comfortable music/video organizing and iPod management. At the same time latter can’t be as native and seamless as it’s in iTunes because those playes use Apple’s proprietary file storage system.

But I definitely recommend banshee, amarok and… exaile

What is .docx actually? It’s Microsoft’s file format representing word processor documents and named OpenXML (as an attempt to create open and free international standard). Today .docx is default format for Microsoft’s word processor Word.

There are myriads of online converters between OpenXML and OpenOffice formats including .docx, .xlsx, .odt and many etc but sometimes it’s much more better to just open received .docx file in Linux offline (if there is temporarily no Internet connection or for security/private reasons etc).

So, just download the following package to certain directory like /usr/src, here are the commands to do it:

1. cd /usr/src
2. sudo wget http://blog.mypapit.net/imej/odf_filter.tar.bz2

The next step is to unpack the contents of the archive (.tar.bz2 is definitely well compressed file) and copy 3 files to OpenOffice’s system directories:

3. sudo tar -xvjf odf_filter.tar.bz2
4. sudo cp OdfConverter /usr/lib/openoffice/program/
5. sudo cp MOOXTypeDetection.xcu /usr/lib/openoffice/share/registry/modules/org/openoffice/TypeDetection/Types/
6. sudo cp MOOXFilter_cpp.xcu /usr/lib/openoffice/share/registry/modules/org/openoffice/TypeDetection/Filter/

As you can see from picture below now it’s possible to natively open .docx files in openoffice under Linux. Of course such “native” support may imply some artefacts in opened files due to file formats incompatibility so it’s also a good option to ask your friends to convert .docs into .pdf before sending you

P.S. Thanks to guys from mypapit.

P.S. Here are several online converters .doc(x) <-> .odf <-> .pdf:

1. ZAMZAR (possibly the best converter), 2. http://docx-converter.com/.