Archive for the 'ubuntu' Category

Install Ubuntu Chromium browser (Google Chrome for Linux)

Date: June 22, 2009. Categories: applications, howtos, linux, tips and ubuntu. 17 Comments

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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.

Watching HD Media on Linux made easy

Date: April 1, 2009. Categories: docs, drivers, laptop, linux, ubuntu and video. 2 Comments

h1_camcorder_1

This article is presented to you by LaptopLogic.com. Go there to read the latest info on the top rated laptops and the best laptop accessories.

The High Definition (HD) content is everywhere these days, from HD and Blue Ray Discs to streaming HD media. Although HD content gives best picture quality, it also uses a lot of computational power to decode and play.

This was made easy for Windows by the introduction of new drivers from graphics card manufacturers, Nvidia and ATI, which allowed the whole media to be decoded on the dedicated graphics card, saving cost in computational power, and the need to have a stronger processor.

nvidia graphicsNvidia recently released a new set of drivers for Linux supporting PureVideo technology for its line of graphics hardware, enabling full hardware HD-decoding, and giving smooth HD content playback, even on less powerful computers. The 180 series supports PureVideo decode acceleration. These drivers adds a new VDPAU API, which provides PureVideo like features on Linux, adds CUDA support, X Render optimizations, new workstation performance optimizations and some other improvements. The new versions offer optimizations and support for a wide range of Nvidia hardware, and is expected to improve with future releases.

Linux uses X-Video (Xv) as output extensions, where as X-Video MotionCompensation (XvMC) is an X-Video extension which offers some video decoding on GPU. With the new drivers, Nvidia implements VDPAU (Video Decode and Presentation API for UNIX).

VDAPU is capable of hardware acceleration and the decoding of MPEG-1, MPEG-2, VC-1 and H.264 bit streams. It also provides an API for post-processing of decoded video in order to apply operations such as noise reduction and temporal and spatial de-interlacing, timestamp-based presentation of final video frames, and compositing of sub-picture elements.

amd-4800-series-graphic-cardAMD also supports hardware acceleration through X-Video Bit stream Acceleration or XvBA API. The recent drivers can take advantage of Unified Video Decoder (UVD2).

These new technologies are also supported by new video playback softwares, which can fully utilize the Graphics Hardware for video playback, providing smooth frames in HD and Blue-Ray movies. The VDPAU supported players include libavcodec, mplayer and ffmpeg.

CUDA support is also provided with 180 series drivers for Linux, and it can also be used to accelerate videos, and also to do any processing involved, like CoreAVC 1.9.0 is the first media player to offer this decoding.

The video acceleration on Linux came late, but certainly, with these new advancements by Graphics chips manufacturers, Linux users will be able to experience HD media playback, even on less powerful systems.

The fastest way to disable PC speaker in Ubuntu

Date: March 17, 2009. Categories: linux and ubuntu. 11 Comments

There are several ways to disable usually noisy PC speaker in Ubuntu Linux (this is what beeps every time you wish to keep silent). The fastest one is just to unload its kernel module/driver:

sudo modprobe -r pcspkr

Add the the line “blacklist pcspkr” to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist to turn off the speaker forever :)

Mount remote filesystem via ssh protocol using sshfs and fuse [Fedora/RedHat/Debian/Ubuntu way]

Date: March 10, 2009. Categories: debian, docs, fedora, howtos, ssh, tips and ubuntu. 8 Comments
sshfs

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.

ssh1. 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!

Ubuntu Iptables Firewall: set of useful links

Date: January 22, 2009. Categories: linux, tips and ubuntu. 1 Comment

Ubuntu as any other Linux distribution comes with netfilter iptables as default firewall. This is one of the best firewall software for Unix family operating systems: it allows to perform various filtering operations and makes it possible to match packets using numerous ways starting from data in IP packet header and ending with Layer 7 packet inspection (but this is another topic).

Below you can find a list of articles on the Web helping to understand the logic of Ubuntu iptables setup as well as create powerful firewall from your Ubuntu system:

1. Official Ubuntu Iptables How To:

There is a wealth of information available about iptables, but much of it is fairly complex, and if you want to do a few basic things, this How To is for you.

2. Simple firewall for Ubuntu using iptables

Don’t forget to look through page’s comments as there is a lot of useful staff there.

3. Setting Up An Iptables Firewall On Ubuntu With Firehol from Howtoforge:

FireHOL is a stateful iptables packet filtering firewall configurator. It is abstracted, extensible, easy and powerful. It can handle any kind of firewall, but most importantly, it gives you the means to configure it, the same way you think of it.

4. Basic sshd and iptables security in Ubuntu

5. Use iptables as firewall with a daemon on system startup

This howto is intended to set up a firewall without installing firestarter (useful if you don’t use any wm, eg: servers). It uses iptables which is available with a fresh Ubuntu install, and a init.d script to run it as a daemon on boot.

6. Set up Ubuntu as a firewall/gateway router with webmin

7. Netfilter & Iptables in Ubuntu (French)

8. Set a custom firewall (iptables) and Tips [Beginners edition]

9. Set a custom firewall (iptables) and Tips [Advanced user only]

10. iptables premier

“Do I need a firewall?” is a FAQ on the Ubuntu Forums. In order to answer that question we need to understand what you want to do accomplish by using (configuring) a firewall. The purpose of this post is to introduce iptables and encourage appropriate use.

11. Block brute force attacks with iptables in Ubuntu or Turning away the bruters

Without proper protection your server is a sitting duck waiting for a bot to guess the right combination and hit the jackpot. But with just 2 commands we can stop that.

Of course you can try google to find more articles about how to configure iptables in Ubuntu Linux but I am sure that above mentioned links will help you to move forward with configuring Ubuntu iptable and take the first steps on builing secure and stable iptables firewall box.

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