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 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.

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

Imagine the following situation: you have to compile some Linux/Unix application or kernel module that requires kernel source present at your hard drive, say, in /usr/src/kernels/kernel-2.6.21-i386/ or elsewhere. But there is not enough disk space to copy these sources or install kernel-devel or linux-source packages (in Fedora/RedHat or Ubuntu/Debian distros respectively)… Sounds familiar? Believe me, sometimes it happens

As a solution you can mount the directory of some remote PC that contains needed kernel source. It can be done via several protocols like smb, ftp etc. In this article we will mount remote directory using ssh protocol that is one the most popular for remote and secure access to Linux boxes over the network.

Below are the steps which should be taken to get the ball rolling. We need two packages: sshfs and fuse-utils.

1. Install necessary packages:

a. Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo aptitude install fuse-utils sshfs

b. Fedora/Centos/RedHat:

yum install fuse-sshfs fuse fuse-libs

c. Other Linux: download and compile sshfs/fuse from sources

2. Check that kernel module fuse is loaded:

lsmod | grep fuse

There should be the line containing “fuse” in the output (of not try modprobe fuse).

3. Mount remote filesystem using something like this (two commands):

mkdir -p /mnt/sshfs/
sshfs remote-user@remote-machine:/some/directory /mnt/sshfs

where remote-user is the username allowed to login remote-machine via ssh protocol. It will ask you to type the password so just type it and press return

4. That’s it. Good luck!

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/.

1. mplayer (sudo aptitude install mplayer)
2. lame (sudo aptitude install lame)
3. win32 codecs (sudo aptitude install ubuntu-restricted-extras)

and then convert file.wma into file.mp3 using the following console command:

mplayer -vo null -vc dummy -af resample=44100 -ao pcm:waveheader file.wma;lame -m s -V 3 audiodump.wav;mv audiodump.wav.mp3 file.mp3;rm audiodump.wav

This also works for Fedora / Centos / Redhat family Linux distributions (requirements should be installed by yum package manager via third-party software repositories).

ethtool

This is rather powerful utility can display and change settings of ethernet network interface card. You can easily disable/enable autonegotiation option for your NIC, also it’s possible to manually set up duplex mode, configure wake-on-lan options, set speed settings. Just look through full manual page for ethtool. Here are several ethtool usage examples:

ethtool eth0 – shows current NIC settings

Settings for eth0:
        Supported ports: [ TP MII ]
        Supported link modes:   10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                                100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
        Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
        Advertised link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                                100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
        Advertised auto-negotiation: No
        Speed: 10Mb/s
        Duplex: Half
        Port: MII
        PHYAD: 32
        Transceiver: internal
        Auto-negotiation: off
        Supports Wake-on: pumbg
        Wake-on: d
        Current message level: 0x00000007 (7)
        Link detected: yes

ethtool -s eth0 duplex half autoneg off – disables auto-negotiation, enables Half Duplex.
ethtool -s eth1 duplex full speed 1000 autoneg off – disables auto-negotiation, enables Falf Duplex and sets up Speed to 1000 Mb/s.

mii-tool

According to manual it allows to manipulate and see media-independent interface status. Let’s see examples:

bash-3.1# mii-tool eth0
eth0: negotiated 100baseTx-FD, link ok – shows 100 Mbps speed, Full Duplex, Auto-negotiation is on.
bash-3.1# mii-tool eth0 -F 10baseT-HD – enables 10 Mb/s Half Duplex connection.

Well, after quick testings there are no doubts that it is not a good option if you wish to have quick and stable alternative for Firefox… But of course it is good for evaluation purposes or for those people who CAN’T wait for official release of Chrome for Linux Certainly the port is based on Windows copy run by Wine (don’t forget to upgrade it). Actually CodeWeavers says that this is just a proof of concept, for fun, and to showcase what Wine can do.

Thanks to Matt from besttechie.net forum.

To help people who are under installing/configuring Samba as a DC in their network I published here several links which helped me with this task. First of all, be ready for long time configuring as compared with Windows Active Directory configuration it takes much more time to do the same task with Samba… But practically vendor independent solutions usually worth time spent on compiling, installing, configuration and maintenance.

Why Debian/Ubuntu? Looking through Google’s findings regarding DC set up on these distributions, I noticed some kind of lack of the quality resources lying at the top.

1. The first place one should visit in order to start with above mentioned task is Samba official documentation. Probably not everything that is covered by it would be used, but this is the only place you can find some special aspects of installation and configuration their software.

2. Ricky Jone’s article on howtoforge.com is an excellent guide on how to get the task done on Ubuntu 7.10.

3. Excellent article “SAMBA (Domaincontroller) Server For Small Workgroups With Ubuntu 6.10” written by Till Brehm is applicable also for later Ubuntu versions.

4. Steve Lacey wrote interesting and informative article about Samba on Debian as primary DC on his blog.

5. A certain mawi wrote very informative manual:

We're sorry, this application requires a version of the GTK+
library that is not installed on your computer.
You have GTK+ 2.8.This application requires GTK+ 2.10 or newer.Please upgrade your GTK+ library if you wish to use this application

Thankfully there is no need to upgrade GTK+, the tips given here (and here) will keep you from headache. The only thing that is necessary to do to get Firefox 3 working at Debian Etch, is to get GTK+ from backports by the following commands:

wget http://apt.linex.org/linex/gtk-2.10/libgtk2.0-0_2.10.13-2%7Ebpo.1_i386.deb
dpkg-deb -x libgtk2.0-0_2.10.13-2~bpo.1_i386.deb gtk2-10

Then copy contents of newly created directory gtk2-10 to /opt/firefox3 and add the following line into /opt/firefox3/firefox:

#!/bin/sh
#
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/opt/firefox3/gtk2-10/usr/lib"

It is necessary to inform Firefox where is new GTK+ is located Now it’s time to start Firefox…

P.S. In other distributions you can try to compile/install GTK+2.10 manually:

cd /usr/local/src
wget http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/gtk+/2.10/gtk+-2.10.14.tar.bz2
tar xjf gtk+-2.10.14.tar.bz2
mkdir gtk210
cd gtk+-2.10.14
./configure --prefix=/opt/firefox3/gtk2-10
make install