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Install Windows after Ubuntu Lucid Lynx

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Sh*t happens. There is no more applications to manage my 6th generation iPod Classic 160 GB under Linux/Ubuntu. I have to install Windows as the second operating system along with newly installed Ubuntu Lucid Lynx (it rocks but this is for another post) to run iTunes. For rather long time I’ve been using gtkpod, amarok, banshee, exaile or rhythmbox to sync my ipod under Linux/Ubuntu and load my music collection there. As we all know The Elder Brother Apple fights with interoperability and makes ipod/iphone users … Read more

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Fastest way to create ramdisk in Ubuntu/Linux

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I hope many of you will agree that sometimes it’s really good idea to have some small amount of RAM mounted as a filesystem. It may be necessary when running some bash or perl script that handles, say, thousands of small files so it’s much more effective not to waste computer resources on reading/writing data on hard disk but keep those files directly in memory. This idea is known as Virtual RAM Drive or ramdisk and can be setup in Ubuntu or almost any other … Read more

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

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, … Read more

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VMware server console keyboard problem in Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex

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Few days ago I have upgraded my Ubuntu to latest 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) and found that keyboard just doesn’t work in VMware Server Console. The problem was that I couldn’t use keyboard under guest operating system including Windows, Linux etc. After few hours of research I found simple solution which works for me:

$ setxkbmap
$ echo "xkeymap.nokeycodeMap = true" >> ~/.vmware/config

After this restart vmware-server-console and see if it helps. If not you can see other solutions of the same problem at this site:
http://nthrbldyblg.blogspot.com/2008/06/vmware-and-fubar-keyboard-effect.html

I hope it helps!

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Use iTunes in Linux including Apple Music Store

Quick Introduction to iTunes 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 … Read more

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Convert WMA to MP3 in Ubuntu

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In order to convert WMA file into MP3 format in Ubuntu (or Debian) you should install the following requirements first: 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 … Read more

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FAQ: How to change Duplex and/or Auto-Negotiation NIC settings in Linux?

Q: How to disable auto-negotiation option of my network interface card and set up half/full duplex mode manually from Linux command line (CLI)? By the way, how to see current settings? A: There are several Linux utilities coming with almost any distribution including Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, RedHat, Mandriva, Centos whatever. See details below. 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 … Read more

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Create .deb or .rpm from .tar.gz with checkinstall

Checkinstall is extremely useful utility to create .deb packages for Debian, Ubuntu (or .rpm packages for Fedora, RedHat, CentOs) from .tar.gz (or .tgz) source tarball after it’s compiled at your Linux box. In other words you can prepare binary package for later usage without need to compile software from sources every time you need to get it installed on certain Linux box. Another application of checkinstall is software deinstallation that was compiled and installed from sources. As you might already noticed, not every programmer adds … Read more

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Why did Ubuntu become so popular? UbuntuCat’s point of view.

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Were you wondering why Ubuntu is Linux distribution #1 for new users (and not new) and how could it become so popular leaving behind such old-times like Mandriva, Linspire, Fedora and even Ubuntu’s ancestor Debian? I was. And as for me, I think that people stick to community rather than to technology… Do you agree? 🙂 Here is the nice article to read in which UbuntuCat (one of the most active writers at ubuntuforums.org) tries to find out how did Ubuntu end up so popular… … Read more

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Home video security with Zoneminder and Ubuntu

zoneminder logoThis weekend my colleague brought to our office simple 20$ webcam. I have to say that my previous attitude to such toys was quite ambiguous. But idea to build home/office video security system based on such webcam(s) and Ubuntu changed my mind especially taking into consideration extremely low cost of end system and it’s capabilities. First of all I was interested in events replay, multiple camera zones and web interface. As it was discovered later, such system provides tons of useful features.

ubuntu logoIn this post I’ll provide you with a free-style guide on how to set up home video security system that supports above mentioned features and is based on rather cheap webcams, free as beer software ZoneMinder and Ubuntu. I used Hardy Heron Ubuntu (8.04) for the installation but this guide should also work for 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) and Jaunty Jackalope (9.04).

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