Ubuntu Tutorials

Recently I started playing with virtualization on my new machine, mainly so that I could do more testing for Ubuntu. With the release of Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy” Tribe 1 (first alpha release) I was excited to get going and get testing. Well, unfortunately I was quickly disappointed in that a bug in the 7.10 series causes it to be non-installable in a QEMU virtualization system. I reported the bug (#120316) and a few of us have been doing further testing since.

I had hoped that the release of Tribe 2 (second alpha release) would solve the issue. Unfortunately the bug remained. Here went the second alpha release of the soon to be most improved release yet and I was still unable to do any testing… until today.

I came home this morning after watching Transformers (very cool, by the way!) and found an email bug fix. My hat goes off to Henrik Riomar who pointed out a fix on launchpad that now allows gutsy to be installed in QEMU. Thank you for helping find a solution and thank you even more for sharing the fix. Isn’t this what makes open source and free software so amazing? Small people working around the world come up with big solutions and improve existing software.

The quick fix, in case you’re wondering, is outlined below:

For gutsy-alternate-i386.iso (Tribe2)

In the boot menu
1. Push F6 ( Other Options)
2. remove: "quiet --"
3. add: "ata_piix.blacklist=yes"
4. Push Enter

The installer will now work fine in QEMU.

I will sit down in a few more minutes and write up a tutorial on how to setup QEMU for virtualization, optionally using KVM modified QEMU for improved performance.. and lastly how to install Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy” Tribe 2 on your virtual machine for testing and improvement of the greatest distro of all time.

Happy 4th of July everyone.

So a few months ago I was visiting Georgia and had a pleasant dinner with a few guys from the Georgia Team. Somehow the topic of Windows Vista came up and some of the “cool” features that it had, one of which being an ability to add available space from an inserted USB drive to the virtual memory (swap). Well, I quickly outlined a plan in my head on how it *could* work, but never sat down to actually try it. Today I finally made time to try it.

After twenty minutes I had a basic implementation. Not very flexible, but it worked on the USB drive I plugged it. The first implementation took only 43 lines of bash code, much of that simply being echo output, so it could have been smaller.

After some more testing and expanding it now seems a little more solid. It’s a bit over 100 lines of bash code, with plenty of room to grow but I wanted to get some feedback from the general public. If you would like to help alpha test this application you can get a copy of the script below. If you’d like to help on this project I think there is plenty of improvement and could make for a good team project as well.

In any event, here is a basic outline of what it does and how to use it at this point. It may not be completely intuitive, but that is part of what I need feedback on. Below are three steps to increase your swap size by using excess space on a pluggable USB disk.

1. Insert USB disk and allow gnome / KDE to auto-mount the device.
2. Run ./swapboost.sh -n to create a new swap addition
3. Check your system memory. Your swap should now be extended by the amount of free space on the device. (swapon -s will show you all available swap areas).

When you would like to make use of the disk again for that other than swap you can run the cleanup portion of the script by doing the following.

1. Run ./swapboost.sh -d to delete added swap and safely unmount your USB disk.
2. Check your system memory. Your swap should now be reduced by the amount of space previously added. (swapon -s will show you only your default swap area).

I’d love to get some feedback on this script. I know there are some features that need improving. A GUI would be great. The ability to select the size to expand the swap, instead of *only* the full size. A more intuitive launcher.. etc. The list can go on and on. Again, if you’d like to join this project I think it could be fun. If you’d simply like to give some feedback check out the v0.1alpha release below.

This release goes out to my boys in Georgia. Thanks for planting the seed.

Remember, this script is in alpha stage and the user assumes all responsibility for its potential lack of function. If this messes up your machine it is not my fault. Use at your own risk. (I had to get that out of the way. It most likely won’t really screw things up, but you never know at this stage.)

SwapBoost.sh v0.1alpha

During my switch to KDE for a week I saw a few comments about others leaving gnome based on the seeming trend toward mono development. I have seen this in other places as well and I thought I would try to offer some information on what the mono framework really is about. I share some of the same reservations that many of you have about Microsoft, its tools and so-called “Intellectual Property“. I was interested enough that I thought I should do some research. Well here is what I found out about mono.

What Is Mono?

Mono provides the necessary software to develop and run .NET client and server applications on Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, Windows, and Unix. Sponsored by Novell (http://www.novell.com), the Mono open source project has an active and enthusiastic contributing community and is positioned to become the leading choice for development of Linux applications. - Mono Project Website

Did I really just say .NET? Back the truck up there pal! I don’t want to develop for Microsoft! Well you’re not. .NET is a public development framework that was initially contributed to by Microsoft but does fall under their control, licensing, etc. From the Mono website:

The Mono Project is an open development initiative sponsored by Novell to develop an open source, UNIX version of the Microsoft .NET development platform. Its objective is to enable UNIX developers to build and deploy cross-platform .NET Applications. The project implements various technologies developed by Microsoft that have now been submitted to the ECMA for standardization.

The ".NET Initiative" is a somewhat nebulous company-wide effort by Microsoft, one part of which is a cross-platform development framework. Mono is an implementation of the development framework, but not an implementation of anything else related to the .NET Initiative, such as Passport or software-as-a-service.

Ok. I’ll translate. This didn’t really clear a lot up for me at first either. It gets better, I promise. From what I understand Microsoft put together a development framework that allowed coders to write programs in the language of their choice. In other words, you and I could work side by side on a program while I use python and you used C#. .NET, in its original implementation, allowed for this and was then submitted to the ECMA for standardization. So, Microsoft isn’t even really in charge of this system anymore although they’ve expanded it to their Passport and software-as-a-service models. These two things, and Microsofts usage of this development framework are really disconnected from Mono.

The only thing .NET, Microsofts original framework, and Mono have in common are the idea. A central cross-platform development framework.. and one is based on the other, although not dependent on the other.

Now, from what I’ve read and understand, there really are quite a few benefits of writing in Mono that should really appeal to us as a software community. Not only in developing better software but also in being able to spread our software to those not yet ready to use Linux or Ubuntu.

As mentioned above Mono allows you to write an application in a list of languages so you can use the language of your choice. You don’t need to learn something new in order to use it. Some of the languages currently supported in Mono are:

C#

Java

Boo

Nemerle

Visual Basic.NET

Python

Javascript

Oberon

PHP

Object Pascal

Cross Platform Compatibility is the second, and I think more important reason why Mono development can benefit us. Considering that Mono is supported on Linux, UNIX, OSX, Solaris, BSD and Windows you can write an application within one and almost instantly port it to the next. Assuming the other platform has the mono common libraries (which are included in Ubuntu and Windows for starters) and your application doesn’t depend on any platform dependent libraries. If this is the case you just wrote an application that can be used on Linux, OSX and Windows without any additional work.

Think of the benefits to those outside our community if we could more easily share our Open Source applications with them.. and if we can sell them on Open Source applications we’ll have an easier chance of helping them understand the benefits of free software and the ideals we all embrace.

There are already some very popular applications that have been developed using Mono. You might have already used a few of them. Banshee. Tomboy. F-Spot. Beagle. Even Second Life is developed using Mono.

You might want to take a second look at what Mono is all about. I think it has some real value. Not only for us as developers but also as a community. Thoughts?

This is another quick post tonite. I was reviewing some of the apps that I wanted to writeup tutorials for and came across one that I’ve been using for about as long as I can remember but, sadly, isn’t included in the default repositories. Not the universe or multiverse or any verse that we’re aware of. Each time I install I’ve got to add a third-party repo, install and then remove the third party (I’m not a big fan of using third-party repositories.) You can see my previous posts about it here and here.

So, if any of you MOTU guys would love to make my day and do me the biggest favor (and I’m sure a lot of other people would enjoy it as well) perhaps you could package up AllTray for Feisty (I hope my request isn’t too late for the freeze!)

From the website:

With AllTray you can dock any application with no native tray icon (like Evolution, Thunderbird, Terminals) into the system tray. A high-light feature is that a click on the "close" button will minimize back to system tray. It works well with Gnome,
KDE, XFCE 4, Fluxbox and WindowMaker.

I wouldn’t think it would be terribly difficult to add. It’s a pretty small app but really nice and helps me keep my panel clear by allowing me to minimize apps back to the notification area (yes, like you’re used to in XP or OSX).

Or, if one of you MOTU might be interested in taking a budding package developer under your wing I would be happy to try and take on the responsibility of ‘apprentice package maintainer’, or whatever you’d like to call it. I’ve tinkered a bit with debuild and put together a few custom packages on my own (see my previous work hack Tomboy 0.5.0 release).

If anyone is interested you can find my contact information on the sidebar. Thank You!

/me is crossing his fingers.

Technorati Tags: alltray, gnome, MOTU, kde, xfce, notification area

This last weekend put me on a distro rampage, the kind that we’ve all gone through at some time. I think it was brought on by the holiday of releases last week. Fedora Core 6, Firefox 2, Ubuntu 6.10.. a guy gets curious to see what is going on outside of his normal comfort-distro. Well, I triple booted Fedora Core 6, Ubuntu 6.10 & tried, yet again, openSuSE 10.1. I enjoy Fedora so far, and of course I’m a big fan of Ubuntu still (all of my machines, minus my server) is upgraded to 6.10. I was yet again let down by openSuSE 10.1. I did get the idea to try SLED 10 though, and this is my review. This post is written while using SLED 10.

1. The installation seemed long, reminding me of the old days of installing Windows. I suppose I’m used to a single-CD installation of Ubuntu so something that took an hour or more seemed long. I suppose installing from a DVD has more information, but the final installed footprint is just about the same so… it didn’t copy more data, just took longer.

2. I don’t like the idea of a 60 day trial & $50 for yearly updates and support. Seems like the old software licensing I’ve been trying to hard to get away from. I am using the trial with an “activation key” with no plans on paying to extend that.

3. I REALLY like the new navigation setup they have in SLED. One of my big complaints with openSuSE was the menu layout. It seemed like they tried to organize it to the point that it complicated things. This is a nice improvement in SLED 10.

4. My commonly used apps are all outdated from what I’m used to. The three apps I’m in regularly are Firefox, Evolution & gaim.

5. Firefox is still back at 1.5.0.7 (I understand it hasn’t been a week since release.. I’m being patient with this one).

6. Evolution is at 2.6 from what I can tell. I’ve been using 2.8.1 in Ubuntu for at least two months. I would think, considering Novell is the developer for Evolution, that they’d have the latest versions available.

7. Gaim is also back at 1.5, which is technically the latest stable, but Ubuntu & Fedora are using 2.0beta. This isn’t a big issue, just a step back from what I’m used to.

8. XGL setup was a breeeeze. I have an nVidia card, which was detected fine. SLED did tell me that my card was not supported for XGL, but considering I had set it up manually in the past I knew it would work. After clicking “activate” it logged me back into gnome & XGL was working. This is a nice feature for those that want it.

9. The default theme is very smooth. I think it looks very nice–better than the Fedora theme that’s still going on. (Thanks Gabe for the tip on Tango).

10. Manage Software surprised me by having all of the apps that I generally have to add second-hand. Gaim extras (otr, encryption), gstreamer packages, media players, etc. Everything I looked for appeared to already be installed, which was nice.

I’d love to hear some other reviews on SLED. I think with SLED Novell is doing a good job to push Linux on the corporate desktop. I think, with the $50 charge, it wont take off on the home desktop though. Its too bad, I’m fairly impressed so far and I MUCH prefer this over openSuSE. Upon first impression I would suggest SLED for a corporate setting. SLED has greatly upgraded my view on SuSE.. too bad openSuSE can’t do the same.

In a follow up from my previous post about Seveas’ Ubuntu Repositories I wanted to follow up with a few of his packages that make life easier. Big thanks to jsmidt for his tip.

If you do not have his repositories enabled see Ubuntu Seveas Packages for instructions
note: make sure you have universe & multiverse repositories enabled.

Multimedia: The best codecs and players you might want.
sudo aptitude install ubuntu-multimedia-gnome (Ubuntu – Gnome)
sudo aptitude install ubuntu-multimedia-kde (Kubuntu – KDE)

Games: A wider collection of Ubuntu games.
sudo aptitude install ubuntu-games

LAMP (for Server): Setup a Linux Apache MySQL PHP Server in seconds.
sudo aptitude install ubuntu-lamp

Development Packages: Got code? Need Devel? All you should need right here.
sudo aptitude install ubuntu-devel

FOSS Font Packages: Large collection of FOSS fonts for your system.
sudo aptitude install ttf-fossfonts

Personal Favorites: Seveas’ own personal favorites. Must be nice to have your personal favorites all tied up into a single package. Makes re-installing a breeze I’m sure
sudo aptitude install ubuntu-seveas

Dennis Kaarsemaker has been publishing Ubuntu related repositories for quite some time. He is one of the big players in the community (http://ubuntulinux.nl) and maintains quite a few packages for the community. For those not yet aware of this resource I’ve got some tips below:

1. http://ubuntulinux.nl/source-o-matic – use this to generate a custom sources.list. Includes everything from main and security updates to community supported, backports, OpenOffice.org bleeding edge, Wine, KDE, Cipherfunk (multimedia), PLF (Penguin Liberation Front) and Opera. Note: some of the included packages are non-free.

Dennis has also put together packages supporting the last three releases. Breezy (5.10), Dapper (6.06) and now Edgy Eft (6.10) are available. To authenticate these packages via GPG import the key 1135D466.

The following mirrors are available:

• http://free.linux.hp.com/~brett/seveas/freenx (Sponsored by Brett Johnson)
• http://seveas.imbrandon.com (Sponsored by Brandon Holtsclaw)
• http://mirror.ubuntulinux.nl/ (Sponsored by Niels Roosen)
• http://seveas.theplayboymansion.net/seveas (Sponsored by Henri Cook (orion-hosting.co.uk)
• http://mirror2.ubuntulinux.nl/ (Sponsored by Peter Lieverdink)

To include one of these repositories in your sources.list add one of the following examples:

# Seveas Packages - imbrandon mirror
deb http://seveas.imbrandon.com edgy-seveas all
deb-src http://seveas.imbrandon.com edgy-seveas all

# Seveas Packages - ubuntulinux mirror
deb http://mirror.ubuntulinux.nl edgy-seveas all
deb-src http://mirror.ubuntulinux.nl edgy-seveas all

Some of the packages maintained in these repositories include (versions match date of this post):

• dirac 0.5.2
• flashplugin-nonfree 9-beta-1
• ftd4linux 0.98.3
• gftp 2.0.18
• gst-pitfdll 0.10
• lame 3.97
• libdvdcss 1.2.9
• mirage 0.8.1
• seveas-meta 6.10
• ttf-fossfonts 0.0.3
• w32codecs 2006-06-11

So, enjoy a few extra updated packages and a big thanks goes out to Seveas (Dennis) for his contributions. If you’d like to thank him or contact him about these packages you can find him at dennis {at} kaarsemaker.net or as Seveas on irc.freenode.net.

A recent comment reminded me that I completely forgot about including instructions for the GPG key. To import Seveas GPG key you can use the command below:

wget http://mirror.ubuntulinux.nl/1135D466.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

At this point you should have everything you need to get these cool custom packages.

Technorati Tags: ubuntu, breezy, dapper, edgy, repositories, mirror, flash, linux

Per my recent post below, Flash 9 is now available for the Linux Desktop. Hooray for us! In my previous post, How to install Flash Player 9 for Linux I outlined how to install the plugin for the default Firefox browser. I also updated the plugin for my Flock browser and wanted to share those steps as well.

1. Download Installer for Linux (GZ, 2.48M) or visit the Adobe Labs
2. Unpack the archive
3. For Flock: sudo cp libflashplayer.so /opt/flock/plugins/
4. Done

I know the instructions are very similar to my other post. Just wanted to make sure that those of you using Flock know how to get this setup as well. Enjoy the flash goodness.

technorati tags:flock, ubuntu, flash, player

Flash Player 9 Beta for Linux was released earlier. A release is available for Windows, Mac and Linux platforms. Over the last five minutes I downloaded, installed and setup the Flash Player on my Ubuntu system. It is really simple. Note: This doesn’t qualify as “free software” (free as in freedom) but for those that want their flash goodness here is how its done.

1. Download Installer for Linux (GZ, 2.48M) or visit the Adobe Labs
2. Unpack the archive
3. For Firefox: sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/
4. Done

If you’re using a different browser simply replace /usr/lib/firefox/ with the folder of your browser. So far, in my quick testing, Flash has worked like a charm.

Also, included in the archive is a readme.txt with more instructions for those that may not have root / sudo access. It can be installed per user or system wide.

technorati tags:linux, flash, player, 9, beta

I want to publically convey my disgust with the VHCS v2.4.7.1 Pro project. Anyone considering using this should go find another project. I will detail my reasons below, but the overall message is DO NOT USE VHCS.

First of all lets take a stroll down memory lane encompassing the last six months and my trouble with VHCS. Below are previous blog posts about my trouble with a huge VHCS v2.4.7.1 Pro security issue that nobody has done anything about.
May 7, 2006: Server rebuilt after being hacked

July 29, 2006: Hacked Again

July 30, 2006: Hacked Site

August 15, 2006: Hacked again, had gone unnoticed for about a week

There is a very easy to find VHCS v2.4.7.1 Pro exploit page that allows you to create an admin user on ANY VHCS v2.4.7.1 Pro (or earlier) system. The security hole is so huge that a simple javascript attack based in an html form will give complete access to any VHCS v2.4.7.1 Pro or earlier system. The only thing you need to know to take over control of a machine is the URL. (note: I have decided to omit the link to the exploit. I don’t mean to spread cracking tools, my main purpose is to point out the reason not to use VHCS.)

VHCS is vulnerable up to & including the latest VHCS v2.4.7.1 Pro. There has been no updates or work on this issue that I can find in the last six months! The developers are very aware of this issue and have done nothing to fix it! I have posted on their forums and contacted them directly, as have other people in the community, and nothing has been done! The latest news I can find on the VHCS site is about the pending 3.0 release, but that is also a dated post & no work has been done to release a security fix.

A writeup about the vulnerability, how it works & details on the lack of updating can also be found at: http://www.rs-labs.com/adv/RS-Labs-Advisory-2006-1.txt Below is an excerpt from the advisory.

.: [ HISTORY ]

* 19/Jan/2006: - I discovered bug #1 on VHCS 2.4.6.2 while evaluating the software.

- Asked for VHCS security contact.

- Alexander Kotov contacted.

* 20/Jan/2006: - I noticed the bug was fixed in 2.4.7.1 (although it was hard to detect because

vendor -one more time- did not clearly announce it on its main page).

* 05/Feb/2006: - VHCS security patch v.1 was released.

* 07/Feb/2006: - I noticed the patch release and reviewed it.

- Bugs #1 and #2 reported to vendor. At the same time, public
disclosure (because the impact was *minimum*: affected users
were indeed only the people who installed the buggy security
patch; furthermore, to be "infected" they first should have
noticed the patch release and have time to install it. First
condition is difficult to comply with, given that vendor
doesn't have any announce mailing-list).
- Vendor got angry due to public disclosure (it breaks its
security-by-obscurity policy) and refused to give any detail
to public mailing-lists neither privately to me.
- Moreover, vendor began insulting me and other VHCS users who
asked for clarifications about the security patch.
- I decided not to talk to that vendor anymore. This includes
stopping the reporting of security bugs to them. This advi-
sory will NOT be the exception.

* 08/Feb/2006: - I found bugs #3 and #4. I also built the exploit for them [3].

* 11/Feb/2006: - Advisory released.

DO NOT USE VHCS v2.4.7.1 Pro – DO NOT USE VHCS v2.4.7.1 Pro