Sarath Chandra Pandurangi's Blog

Docker releases come out faster than ubuntu updating thier repositories. Docker mainitains a ppa. One can add the ppa key, and then add to sources.list.d and then update sources and then install lxc-docker. OR.. curl -sSL https://get.docker.com/ubuntu/ | sudo sh

Mark Shuttleworth recently announced that Ubuntu will do away with GNOME, The good old, desktop environment – as the default. Making Unity, (which is the current default for netbook version) THE default. The switch was barely absorbed by ubunters and is now followed by another announcement of replacing the X.org server with a newer, minimalist X server - Wayland. Wayland is still in alpha. So, for the pessimists this announcement and the switch is a little cavalier. For the optimists, this is a huge step towards a better GUI. To put simply, Wayland is different from X.org in that it (Wayland) leverages the newer kernel's ability to do much of the work X.org's complex layers do. It natively uses 2D and 3D support from OpenGL.Technically – Quoting Wikipedia Wayland uses existing technologies in the Linux kernel such as the Direct Rendering Manager (DRM), kernel mode-setting (KMS) and the Graphics Execution Manager (GEM) batchbuffer in order to provide a minimal display ser...

This is note to self. All the applications I need to install after a clean install of a linux. I am trying to get to a more productive way of doing this. But atleast this will serve as a todo list javasdk tomcat6 grails adobe air google-gae-java flickr uploader Eclipse web git andriod svn grails FireFox addons collection NO ppa conky - conky gnome-do gnome-do-plugins gnome-do-docklets ccsm - compizconfig-settings-manager Keepass - keepassx PPA google-chrome Dropbox - nautilus-dropbox shutter opera sudo apt-get install conky compizconfig-settings-manager keepassx gnome-do gnome-do-plugins gnome-do-docklets subversion git-core sudo apt-get install google-chrome nautilus-dropbox shutter opera Update: For a Server sudo apt-get install gadmin-tools

I found this Trendnet 54Mbps 802.11bg Wireless USB 2.0 Adapter. Trying to make my desktop wirefree, I got this. I was doubtful, but works flawlessly in ubuntu. You just plug and play. Supports WPA, WPA-PSK. Microcenter is carrying a special on this one until Nov 1. You can get it for $7 (+tax).

If you are in a place where you dont have internet (or have a bad one) You want to download .deb packages and install them offline. Each deb file is packaged as a seperate unit but may contain dependencies (recursively). apt-get automagically solves all the dependencies and installs all that are necessary. Manually install deb files one by one resolving each dependency would be tedious. A better approach is to make your own local repository. Before you actually make a repo, You need *all* deb files. You dont practically have to mirror all of the packages from the internet, but enough to resolve all dependencies. Also, You have to make sure, you are getting debs of the correct architecture of your system (i386 etc) # 1. make a dir accessible (atleast by root) sudo mkdir /var/my-local-repo # 2. copy all the deb files to this directory. # 3. make the directory as a sudo dpkg-scanpackages /var/my-local-repo /dev/null > \ /var/my-local-repo/Packages # 4. add the local repo to sour...

If you are like me, doing a lot of command line in linux (Bash) shell, there are a few commands you do very often. The following commands will make your life a lot easier to quickly go back in command history. [ !! ] or better yet [ sudo !! ] - [ !! ] is an alias for last run command. One of the best use of this is - Sometimes, you type a command and the shell hits you back with a root privileges required message. You dont have to copy the command and run again. just run [sudo !!] [ history ] - just spits out ~/.bash_history with line numbers. A good use of this is piping it to grep to find something. The line numbers can be used to execute the command following it. Say for example, [ history | grep find ] lists the previous searches (okay, it also shows all commands with "find" anywhere in the line - but a filtered, smaller list). $history | grep find 457 find *.wav 462 find *.wav -exec lame --preset fast extreme '{}' '/tmp/mp3/{}' \; 487 find *.wa...

Yet another weekend, Yet another fix :).. Well a workaround, actually.. This has been a problem for a while. Ubuntu Intrepid has very annoying too fast key repeat rate. and the gnome-keyboard-properties ignores any setting changed. There were some workarounds proposed like xorg.conf . they dint work on my lappy. I also played around experiments, in vain . Miserably. But very well pointed out by Jorge Peixoto de Morais Neto , You can set the repeat settings with kbdrate just add the following line in /etc/rc.local #/etc/rc.local kbdrate -r 25 -d 500 This should solve the quick repeats. If this fixes your issue, Please contribute at the bug in launchpad.

I have upgraded my laptop to the latest Ubuntu (Intrepid Ibex). I was happy to notice My Audio is now working fine. Headphones too :) My flash issue is still open (I think it is in Adobe's Court - and they dont seem to bother ) Everything else *looked* fine. However, on a deeper examination. There is a small issue (not a deal breaker, though). The user login takes a little longer. I looked at the syslog. There are some noticiably interesting things (All I think it boils down to X11, I may be wrong) X (crashes? and) is restarted RIGHT before gdm login screen appears. There a log of compiz real segfault-ing WARNING: gdm_slave_xioerror_handler: Fatal X error - Restarting :0 Nov 2 13:02:27 sar-akshaya kernel: [ 6185.471607] compiz.real[5767]: segfault at 2b0021 ip 08055c8c sp bf9ad770 error 4 in compiz.real[8048000+34000] Nov 2 13:02:28 sar-akshaya gdm[5326]: Sigfile not found . After a couple quick screen flickers, login screen appears and after login credentials are entere...

This is a follow up post that solved an issue I had. This post will also illustrate how to run a GTK application on a different theme Recently I posted that Eclipse on Ubuntu is the Ugly Betty. I was looking for a Theme that would make it look better(and a way to use it only for eclipse). A digg commentor suggested that I get Clearlooks Compact Theme . Another commentor (Victor Ott) suggested that I install a plugin That will save some screen real estate. I tried both. While the plugin is good, It makes eclipsel lose its easthetics. I then saw this post . So I improvised a little more.. Mixed all the ideas. First get the Libertarian fonts, as described in max's post . (They are really good indeed, I even made them my gnome defaults). Then, Download this archive and extract in the eclipse directory. And "chmod 755 ec" . Thats it! run ec instead of eclipse. What this does: The gtkrc-sar is a theme rc for GTK engine. Think of it as a CSS in HTML page, to GTK a...

O so long, I have been waiting. With hopes that Intrepid will solve my sound issue out of box (I could have checked in live CD but it can wait), I am counting this week down for the next release of Ubuntu. This is not a major release but you could have seen a lot of beta (p) reviews if you follow digg enough. What I am looking for: Latest Gnome, X.org, Kernel (Solve My audio issues.. ) Encrypted FS Mounts (Protect my Data) Networking improvements (Bluetooth, Network Manager[ndiswrapper - would be needed futher?]) DKMS (interesting feature, eh?) Flash (My web cam issue )

Yet another day looking for a solution to an issue in ubuntu. but I am loving it :) I am trying to get my webcam work with live.yahoo.com or justin.tv in ubuntu. For some reason adobe flash is unable to open my web cam. It shows up a modal dialog box: "Camera is unavailable, may be in use by another application" Results from video test on Skype, on the other hand, is positive on my system. So My webcam is not the issue here. Also the tabs in the options are not focusable. I mean I click on them, NOTHING happens. There was a bug raised in Adobe Support forums . I posted back, if you know a solution let me know. System : Lenovo Y410 Browser: Firefox 3.0 Flash: 10 downloaded from adobe.com

By now, many people are done making a switch to ubuntu. Fallen in love with it and oogled on Compiz and its sooper dooper Cube (Okay, you might have even gone farther.. awn , conky..). However, You might still be dependent on Windoze for some applications. Among other things, Development is one such. I have created everything on my site and on this blog in Gimp and Eclipse. Needless to say Eclipse is my favorite IDE. So, I have had my share of issues in the past on my ubuntu. But now, I am hell bent on going full time on it. I have a lenovo Y410. It maxes out on 1280x800 resolution. I should say an experienced developer would clearly have issues with such *low* resolution. To make it worse, it appeared eclipse on linux was not built with this configuration in mind. A screenshot looks like this. . Apparently a large portion of the real estate is taken up by spacing in the toolbar icons, height of the tab, spacing in the tree etc. (my windoze eclipse is okay). The fonts, colors...

I have vpnaccess to my work. I have been on Ubuntu after my upgrade to Hardy. But I have to go back to vista only for vpn. If I am able to connect to vpn in Ubuntu, There is hardly any reason to switch to windoze. First of all, I was able to install AnyConnect client using the webinstaller the same way I would in vista. But only to find an error after I run the client. then when you click ok.. it would go to.. and quit on me. I realised the client needs a vpn agent deamon. I checked the folder where it installed and started it manually (I guess the install script failed to put in init.rd or something.) /opt/cisco/vpn/bin/vpnagentd But it doesnot solve the problem. I still get a certificate error. And no.. This is not related to the host, as I can very well connect to the same host in Vista. I am looking up to my IT guys. Lets see what they come up with.

finally, I installed Ubuntu 8.04. This blog is exclusively from Ubuntu.. My Lenovo Y410 still doesnot have sound, but I could redo my steps for Gutsy . However, The GL issues have been taken care of Desktop Effects work out of box. I am going to setup GAE environment and JEE on ubuntu and roll!!

Linux, I am a big fan. I am still to upgrade my ubuntu to Hernon. This has been long awaited weekend for me.. I am squeezing a lot of things in. Upgrading ubuntu is on my list.. Coming to linux, By natural ability, I am not a big fan of 3d and WarFare games. So I am not even concerned about the ability to play them on Linux. But.. In the very beginning, When I used to advocate for Linux amongst friends, the big straw the windooze users would pull on me was "Could you play PnS games on Linux?" . And many a time, That was when I just used to duck and say.. "You know, you may not, NOW, but soon you will be..". And the Day is not far off.. Here are some of the VERY popular games that you can play on Linux with how-to details. Eat it Microsoft.

The most awaited release of Ubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04) is just around the corner . I have a Lenovo with Vista Home premium and Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon. I have had problems with my ubuntu install, however, I still cherish having a linux distro on my system. With Heron, things are going to take bigger tangential. I shall spend my weekend putting my Laptop to Heron. But if you are eager to check out some reviews they are here , here and here . People have had been speculating how this version is taking linux to masses . It may be still discussed if it is, yet, but I am sure days are numbered. ps: fosswire has a ubuntu cheatsheet for the budding and the enthusiasts