Archive for the 'ubuntu' Category

FAQ: How to select fastest APT server in Debian

Date: May 15, 2008. Categories: faq, debian and ubuntu. 1 Comment

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debian swirl logoQuestion: I want to select APT repository server/mirror that is fastest for my location. How can I do it in Debian?

Answer: You can use application named as "netselect-apt" to get new sources.list file with fastest APT mirror. Install this application by command "sudo aptitude install netselect-apt" and run it in accordance with Debian distribution you use (Debian Etch in our example):

sudo netselect-apt -n etch -o /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt-get update

P.S. By the way, in Ubuntu you can do the same in a few clicks.

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FAQ: How to retreive hardware manufacturer name, serial numbers, etc. in Linux command line

Date: May 10, 2008. Categories: unix, faq, tips, linux, debian and ubuntu. 3 Comments

ibm serial numberQuestion: How can I get information about hardware manufacturer, model name, serial number, BIOS information using Linux command line (CLI)?

Answer: You are welcome to use dmidecode which helps to get information about your system’s hardware as described in your system BIOS. That information typically includes system manufacturer, model name, serial number, BIOS version, asset tag as well as a lot of other details depending on the manufacturer.

Beware that DMI data have proven to be too unreliable to be blindly trusted. Dmidecode does not scan your hardware, it only reports what the BIOS told it to. Dmidecode was first written by Alan Cox and is now being further developed and maintained by Jean Delvare. It is released under the General Public License (GPL).

This tool can be easily downloaded from here (source code) or can be installed as binary package included into repositories of many distributions like Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo. FreeBSD version is also available. Actualy it is reported that dmidecode works well on the following systems:

  • Linux i386
  • Linux x86_64
  • Linux ia64
  • FreeBSD i386
  • FreeBSD x86_64
  • NetBSD i386
  • OpenBSD i386
  • BeOS i386
  • Cygwin i386
  • Solaris x86 (CVS version)

In Ubuntu (my favourite distro) just execute the following: sudo aptitude install dmidecode (sample output is here).

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Mount your Flickr account as regular Linux drive

Date: April 30, 2008. Categories: applications, hacks, linux and ubuntu. 1 Comment

flickr logoFlickr is an extremely popular image/video hosting website, web services suite and an online community platform. It was one of the earliest Web 2.0 applications. In addition to being a popular Web site for users to share personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers as a photo repository. It hosts more than two billion images.

Now it is possible to mount your Flickr account on Linux PC as a virtual filesystem, allowing you to browse through your photos as if they were on a locally connected drive.  It can be now easily done with Flickrfs:

Once mounted, it retrieves information about your photos hosted on your flickr account, and shows them as files. You can now easily copy photos from your local machine to this mount, and it will automatically upload them to your flickr account. Similary, you can copy the files from your mount to your local machine, and it will download your images from flickr.

All the files in the mount have a meta file attached to them, which provides access to title, description, tags, and license information. Modifying any of these fields and saving the meta file, will update them on the server as well.

You are lucky if you chose Ubuntu as detailed step-by-step installation guide is available at author’s site for Ubuntu users. Of course you are welcome to use it under other Linux distributions e.g. Slackware ;)

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Install Ubuntu as Windows XP/Vista Application (with Wubi)

Date: April 30, 2008. Categories: tips, linux and ubuntu. 0 Comments

wubi logoToday it is possible to install Ubuntu Linux 8.04 (Hardy Heron) under Windows XP or Vista without necessity to create separate partition for it. The tool that allows to do it is called Wubi. Actually it is Ubuntu installer for Windows helping you ro install and uninstall Ubuntu with few clicks. Here is nice brief article on how to set it up under Vista:

Wubi adds an entry to the Windows boot menu which allows you to run Linux. Ubuntu is installed within a file in the Windows file system (c:\wubi\disks\system.virtual.disk), as opposed to being installed within its own partition. This file is seen by Linux as a real hard disk.

Sweeet! :)

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ptunnel: send/receive TCP traffic via ICMP reliably

Date: April 10, 2008. Categories: applications, hacks, linux, debian and ubuntu. 0 Comments

Yes, it can be useful sometimes. For example, you have access to Wi-Fi network but you're not allowed to access Internet via TCP/UDP as these protocols are blocked. At the same time ICMP is opened and you can ping everything alive in Internet. So, to check your email just have ptunnel installed and work around the restrictions set by the Wi-Fi network sysadmin easily.

Ptunnel is an application that allows you to reliably tunnel TCP connections to a remote host using ICMP echo request and reply packets, commonly known as ping requests and replies. It is not a feature-rich tool by any means, but it does what it advertises. So here is what it can do:

  • Tunnel TCP using ICMP echo request and reply packets
  • Connections are reliable (lost packets are resent as necessary)
  • Handles multiple connections
  • Acceptable bandwidth (150 kb/s downstream and about 50 kb/s upstream are the currently measured maximas for one tunnel)
  • Authentication, to prevent just anyone from using your proxy

1. Install ptunnel in Ubuntu or Debian
apt-get install ptunnel

2. Start ptunnel proxy:

ptunnel -p proxy_address -lp listen_port -da destination_address -dp dest_port [-c network_device] [-v verbosity] [-u] [-x password] [-f file]

The following example assumes that ptunnel is run as root, both on the proxy and client. To tunnel ssh connections from the client machine via a proxy running on proxy.pingtunnel.com to the computer login.domain.com, the following command line would be used:

ptunnel -p proxy.pingtunnel.com -lp 8000 -da login.domain.com -dp 22

An ssh connection to login.domain.com can now be established as follows:

ssh -p 8000 localhost

P.S. A brief manual on how to use ptunnel can be got here.
P.P.S. If you are sysadmin and have to forbid Internet access to some user in LAN, don't forget to block ICMP! :)

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Dell offers new Ubuntu preinstalled laptop XPS M1330

Date: January 24, 2008. Categories: news, mobile, linux and ubuntu. 3 Comments

dell xps m1330Dell position XPS M1330 as one of the thinnest and lightest notebooks in its class, as really portable notebook (weight is under 4 pounds or 1.8 kg). On January 23, 2008 it was announced that Spain, Germany, France, UK consumers can purchase this notebook with Ubuntu 7.10 Linux pre-installed. As usually announcement was made at Direct2Dell blog:

Since we've began offering Ubuntu on some consumer systems, two clear areas of feedback from the IdeaStorm community and Direct2Dell readers have been: offer Ubuntu on more hardware, and offer it worldwide.This Ubuntu-related post is still the third most commented post in Direct2Dell’s history-many of the 654 comments are asking for it in more countries.

Looking through XPS M1330 technical information (Intel Core Duo up to 2.20GHz, up to 4Gb RAM, 128 MB Video, 200GB HDD, etc.) and price starting from £599, I would like to say that this Dell’s product definitely has future. And it’s too bad I don't live in Spain, UK… :)

Get more information on the laptop here, the next step would be to customize and buy one while notebooks are hot!

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KDE 4 Era begins

Date: January 11, 2008. Categories: news, kde, linux and ubuntu. 2 Comments

Today it was announced that KDE 4.0 is finally released and as it was proudly noted in press release, with this major version the KDE Community marks the beginning of the KDE 4 era.

kde 4.0 logo

K Desktop Environment was created in 1996 by Matthias Ettrich, who was troubled by UNIX certain aspects and proposed the formation of not only a set of applications, but rather a whole desktop environment, in which users could expect things to look, feel, and work consistently.

kde 4.0 plasmaMajor version KDE 4.0 comprises numerous improvement that can be grouped as follows: libraries, desktop, applications and artwork. Full list of updates and improvements is too long to quote it here, so you might read it from protosource (:

Official announcement page, KDE 4.0 Visual Guide

Here are some significant points of the new system:

The KDE 4 Desktop has gained some major new capabilities. The Plasma desktop shell offers a new desktop interface, including panel, menu and widgets on the desktop as well as a dashboard function. KWin, the KDE Window manager, now supports advanced graphical effects to ease interaction with your windows.

Visual updates through vector-based artwork, changes in the underlying libraries, user interface enhancements, new features, even new applications -- you name it, KDE 4.0 has it. Okular, the new document viewer and Dolphin, the new file manager are only two applications that leverage KDE 4.0’s new technologies.

Soon after KDE Community announcement, Kubuntu KDE 4.0 live CD became available and it is one of ways to get familiar with new KDE 4.0 today. ~ 550 MB ISO images are freely downloadable here (servers are overloaded right now, so be patient :) ).

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