Howto Ubuntu

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Notes about installing and setup of various apps and features in Ubuntu

  • Grep - grep and egrep usage tips
  • VirtualBox - run other OS-es in parallel
  • Wine - run windows apps within linux


Other nice external links and howto-s

Edit Ubuntu Places menu bookmarks

Edit or remove old Places-bookmarks like this: 

gedit ~/.gtk-bookmarks

Also, the volume icons on the desktop are removeable. Run gconf-editor and uncheck /apps/nautilus/desktop volumes_visible as needed.


Mount a remote volume over ssh (using sshfs)

sudo apt-get install sshfs
sudo adduser your-username fuse              (logout and login after this)

sudo mkdir /media/dir-name
sudo chown your-username /media/dir-name
sshfs example.com:/stuff /media/dir-name


Make an iso image from a CD

cat /dev/scd0 > mycd.iso

Mass search and replace in files (with sed)

for i in $(find . -type f); do sed 's/oldstring/newstring/g' $i > $i-tmp; mv $i $i-backup; mv $i-tmp $i; done

Mass file rename

Replace spaces with underscores in all file names of the directory. then rename *.JPG to *.jpg 

rename 's/ /_/g' *
rename 's/.JPG/.jpg/g' *

DV/Firewire for Ubuntu

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Firewire



Acroread on Ubuntu

The link.

Check the ports and apps listening on them

netstat -lnptu


Listing members of a group

I.e., the opposite to the command 'groups myuser' 

sudo apt-get install members     [if needed]
members groupname


Custom autocomplete in Ubuntu

It is nice to use TAB key to autocomlete path for example, for a ls command in bash. It turns out, you can also autocomplete certain command arguments, e.g. apt-get inst<TAB> expands to apt-get install. Even better, you can define your own completion rules for other commands and applications.

Read more on "howto" here: part 1 and part 2


Create your own apt-get repositories

The link.

A short example:

Get the tools 

sudo aptitude install dpkg-dev

Create the repository structure. You can use any other location accessible from the web. 

cd ~/public_html
mkdir my-repository
cd my-repository
mkdir binary
mkdir source

Copy your deb packages to your repository 

cp src/bzr_0.11-1.1_all.deb public_html/my-repository/binary/

Create a repository index 

cd my-repository
dpkg-scanpackages binary /dev/null | gzip -9c > binary/Packages.gz
dpkg-scansources source /dev/null | gzip -9c > source/Sources.gz

Using the repository. Add these two lines into the /etc/apt/sources.list 

deb http://example.com/~myuser/my-repository binary/
deb-src http://example.com/~myuser/my-repository source/

Optionally, add the security key. Read about it elsewhere...

Kill-ing a process for sure

The link.

In short, ways to kill in the order of fierceness: 

ps aux | grep gaim
kill 1234
pkill gaim
sudo kill 1234
kill -1 1234
kill -2 1234
kill -9 1234
killall gaim
killall -9 gaim


How to merge PDF documents

Nice writeup was found here. You need to install pdftk, unless you have it already. Then use it like this to merge files 1,2 and 3 to a file merged.pdf. 

sudo apt-get install pdftk
pdftk 1.pdf 2.pdf 3.pdf cat output merged.pdf


Howto make deb packages


How to restore Ubuntu Gnome panel

Say your kid deleted the menu panel. This restores default: 

gconftool-2 --shutdown
rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel
pkill gnome-panel


List all installed packages

dpkg --get-selections

More info at this link.


Virtual CD from iso

mkdir cdiso
sudo mount cd.iso cdiso -o loop

Now cdiso is your virtual cd with the cd.iso image in it.


CUPS 400 Bad Request problem

Fix this by adding ServerAlias * in /etc/cupsd/cupsd.conf . For example: 

# Administrator user group...
SystemGroup sys root users

# Only listen for connections from the local machine.
Listen 631
Listen /var/run/cups/cups.sock

# Show shared printers on the local network.
Browsing On
BrowseOrder allow,deny
BrowseAllow @LOCAL
BrowseAllow All
# Default authentication type, when authentication is required...
DefaultAuthType Basic
DefaultEncryption Never
ServerAlias *  <--------------------------------------------
...

Mplayer normalize sound for AC3

Use "-a52drc 1" codec switch to make the loud quieter and the quet louder, look up manpages for the details. 

mplayer -a52drc 1 mymovie.mkv

Create a bootable USB disk with Free-DOS in Ubuntu

Get qemu 

sudo apt-get install qemu

Partition the USB disk with a single fat16 partition. Maybe fat32 works too.

Get a DOS image. Suppose you found a dos622.iso image, then boot from it with the USB disk at /dev/sdb like this: 

qemu -cdrom dos622.iso -boot d -hda /dev/sdb

Then format from qemu-booted-dos the drive C: that is really your USB drive (be careful not to wipe the real hard drive!) 

a:> format /s c:

Then exit qemu and test if you can boot from the new USB drive: 

qemu -hda /dev/sdb


The idea came from this blog and qemu wiki.

Upgrade bios in Ubuntu

Now, this could be dangerous. Use if you understand and at your own risk. Conceptual info only, not up to date.

Source: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=318789

In essence: 

wget http://www.fdos.org/bootdisks/autogen/FDOEM.144.gz
gunzip FDOEM.144.gz
mkdir /tmp/floppy
sudo mount -t vfat -o loop,quiet,umask=000 FDOEM.144 /tmp/floppy
unzip my-newBIOS.zip -d /tmp/floppy
sudo umount /tmp/floppy
rmdir /tmp/floppy
sudo mv FDOEM.144 /boot/biosupdate.img
sudo apt-get install syslinux
sudo cp /usr/lib/syslinux/memdisk /boot/

sudo vim /boot/grub/menu.lst

title       BIOS upgrade
kernel      /boot/memdisk
initrd      /boot/biosupdate.img

SSD tweaks on Linux

See here


Disable Bluetooth on startup

Put this in "/etc/rc.local" before "exit 0" 

rfkill block bluetooth

Get Gnome old desktop on Ubuntu 11.10

You can select Gnome as your desktop environment in the login screen after you do: 

sudo apt-get install gnome-panel

HDMI troubleshooting

Enable HDMI sound (Ubuntu 11.04) by selecting speaker icon on the top panel -> Sound Preferences -> Hardware -> Profiles -> HDMI output.


Check alsamixer or gnome-alsamixer that SPDIF devices are not muted.


Still no HDMI sound? Find HDMI device(s): 

aplay -l

For my Asus i5 with Intel CougarPoint HDMI I get: 

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC892 Analog [ALC892 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 1: ALC892 Digital [ALC892 Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Test sound from command line (note, in my case that was the second HDMI, so I had to use device 0,7 rather than 0,3): 

aplay -D plughw:0,7 /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav
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