Tezra's Campfire

Create USB Startup Disk From .img

2009-05-14T00:43:00.001-07:00

Netbook users who are using Ubuntu might face this:

The pre-installed USB startup disk creator only accepts ISO files.

What about IMG files?

From the terminal, using dd:
dmesg | tail -20
sudo umount /dev/device/node
sudo dd if=/path/to/downloaded.img of=/dev/device/node bs=1M

If you prefer a graphical interface image writer:
sudo apt-get install usb-imagewriter

Change default ssh port in Linux

2009-02-24T01:48:00.001-08:00

Here's a good guide on how to change default ssh port in Linux

http://techie-buzz.com/linux-tips/change-default-ssh-port-in-linux.html

Mini CD Stuck inside a Macbook?

2009-01-18T06:49:00.000-08:00

Before I insert a Mini CD into the MacBook, I was half expecting that it will get stuck and it really did. The thought of sending it for repair wears me down. I wanted to slid it out using my credit card but fear that I might damage the lens.

The way to deal with this is to fold up your MacBook and shake it up down furiously. The Mini CD will drop out.

"Mini CD + MacBook? Remember to Shake After Usage."

Virtual Hosting with Apache2

2008-12-20T15:37:00.000-08:00

If you want to host a few different sites on the same machine meaning multiple hosting, you'll need to do some configurations. Don't worry, is not as hard as you think it is.

Firstly, open up /etc/hosts and match your site with an IP. Here is my configuration:


127.0.0.1       localhost www.mysite.com

The next thing you do is adding this new available site in apache.

Let's say your website is at this location: /var/www/www.mysite.com/

Open up /etc/apache2/sites-available with your favorite editor and add the following lines:


NameVirtualHost *
<virtualhost>
ServerName www.mysite.com
ServerAlias mysite.com
ServerAdmin admin@mysite.com

DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
DocumentRoot /var/www/www.mysite.com/
<directory>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
# pcw AllowOverride None
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
allow from all
# This directive allows us to have apache2’s default start page
# in /apache2-default/, but still have / go to the right place
# Commented out for Ubuntu
#RedirectMatch ^/$ /apache2-default/
</directory>

ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/www.mysite.com/error.log

# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
# alert, emerg.
LogLevel warn

CustomLog /var/log/apache2/www.mysite.com/access.log combined
ServerSignature On
</virtualhost>

As you can see, we have set logs to be saved at this directory: /var/log/apache2/www.mysite.com/ but that directory doesn't exist, so create that directory by:


sudo mkdir /var/log/apache2/www.mysite.com/

Set the correct permission to allow apache to access that directory.

Next is to enable the site www.mysite.com at /etc/apache2/sites-available/. Usually we do that by creating a seam link but there's a neater way.


a2ensite www.mysite.com

To do otherwise, just run a2dissite www.mysite.com.

Restart the server and you should be able to view your site.

If you want to set your machine to listen to other ports , open up /etc/apache2/ports.conf and add the port number you want.


# If you just change the port or add more ports here, you will likely also
# have to change the VirtualHost statement in
# /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default

NameVirtualHost *:80
Listen 80
Listen 4000

   # SSL name based virtual hosts are not yet supported, therefore no
   # NameVirtualHost statement here
   Listen 443

Just as the reminder in the comment, remember to change the VirtualHost statment in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/

To verify if the port you've just added is currently listening, do this check:


netstat -anp | grep 4000

How to Make a Central Git Repository

2008-12-19T02:39:00.000-08:00

I've always have trouble remembering all the steps. So here we go.

Let's say you have a new repository on your local machine named myrepos, change your directory into that folder and do the following to initialize git then do a initial commit.


git init
git add .
git commit -m "Initial commit"

Then clone myrepos to myrepos.git


git clone --bare myrepos myrepos.git

Now you have to copy myrepos.git to a remote machine. First create a directory to store myrepos.git. For me, I've chosen this location: /var/git. Then copy myrepos.git using SCP to that director.

Next is the part I often forget-- setting permissions.


sudo chown -R root:users /var/git
cd /var/git/myrepos.git
sudo find . -type d -exec chmod 775 \{\} \;
sudo find . -type f -exec chmod 664 \{\} \;

Last but not least, delete myrepos.git from your local machine and get a fresh copy by cloning back from your remote machine.


git clone ssh://user@remotemachine.com/var/git

Use that new copy to develop from then onwards.

Here's a useful git cheat sheet created by Zack Rusin.

Review: Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex

2008-11-27T21:17:00.000-08:00

I've been using it for 3 days and I'm sooooo satisfied I'm giving it 9/10!

Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex, THE REAL DEAL

When I first logged in, the pop up notice on the top right conner makes me the happiest man in the world. Ubuntu 8.10 recommend graphic card drivers to my machine? Oh goodie goodie!

Recommended graphic drivers works! (And that's me listening to my favorite Buono! song, Kimi Ga Ireba)

At first I did gave a frown, "Will it actually work? The title of each graphic card drivers don't make sense to me and the descriptions are so generic."

NVDIA accelerated graphics driver (version 173)
NVDIA accelerated graphics driver (version 96)
NVDIA accelerated graphics driver (version 177)[Recommended]

The description don't even mention which graphic driver works with which graphic card.

3D-accelerated proprietary graphics driver for NVIDIA cards.

This driver is required to fully utilise the 3D potential of NVIDIA graphics cards, as well as provide 2D acceleration of newer cards.

If you wish to enable desktop effects, this driver is required.

If this driver is not enabled, you will not be able to enable desktop effects and will not be able to run software that requires 3D acceleration, such as some games.

I've experienced trouble before when installing recommended graphic card drivers and installing myself, eg. "The which screen of death". What has gained my trust to at least give it a try was the little flower icon with text "Tested by Ubuntu developers".

And guess what? It worked soooo well with my NVDIA GeForce Go 7400. I'm using a XPS M1210 by the way.

Check it out! I'm playing World of Warcraft with 45 fps and to my amazement, I can Alt-Tab it without any lag at all. So stop giving excuses of not converting from Windows to Ubuntu because of games.

IT'S PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!!! (It's me, Tezra!)

The other cool thing that didn't stop me from smiling and hugging my 2 years old laptop is the Gnome Interface. So much improvement! I don't know wwhat Gnome did but for some reason, I find my screen so shinny, clear and glossy compared to the older version. The fonts are... oh noes... the right spacing and the right size! My eyes feel so good even with my tiny screen.

I love the eject button on nautilus and a little surprised by its tabbed browsing. Is this new? It might not be new because there was once in ubuntu 7 I accidentally discovered that I can actually mouse over a audio file to play it. That was an amazement to me as well! And take a look at my name on the top right conner, is green right? I'm online using Pidgin :)

Tab Browsing in Nautilus is as amazing

There's more to it of course but I'm not gonna tell you. JUST GO GRAB ONE AND INSTALL IT!!!

If your DVD-ROM/CD-ROM is faulty(mine is) and don't have a CD, don't worry. Turning your USB drive into a Ubuntu Start Up Disk is easy.

Create a USB start up disk

Sound Quirks in Ubuntu

2008-11-24T06:59:00.000-08:00

Sound related issues never occur when I when using Ubuntu 7.10 and older.

When using Ubuntu 8.04...

1. If I on Firefox first then Rhythmbox, I can't play songs in Rhythmbox or any other sound playing applications.

2. If I on Rhythmbox first then Firefox, any sound can't be played on Firefox. This includes youtube videos.

Solution: Go to System > Preferences > Sound. Put ALSA for everything. If still cannot just try everything on the list.

Using Ubuntu 8.10, I have this weirder problem.

1. If I try to record my voice, it freezes. Then when I try to play anything, there's no sound.

I've used all the methods above it just won't work.

In the end, I found out that in the sound volume control, the PCM is muted. >_< Why did it muted by itself?

White Screen of Death

2008-11-14T19:08:00.000-08:00

It happened to me the first time I installed graphic driver on Ubuntu.

When I saw my graphic card driver, ATI Radeon X300 listed on the Add/Remove, it was a very happy sight :D. Just when I thought I wouldn't need to scratch my head so much, I saw the...

"White Screen of Death"

... after I restarted the system with the newly installed driver. I went around looking for help at the IRC channel. I want to undo what I did, so here goes:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

That did the trick ;)

But unfortunately, I still have not fix the graphic card driver, it is still using the generic graphic card driver.

How to Tame HTML to Ignore "<" and ">"

2008-11-12T22:51:00.000-08:00

Since I started writing this blog I kept having troubles when trying to display "<" and ">" as plain text. I tried < > and < > , < > and < > . It just won't work. HTML just won't ignore them.

The trick is to write

"<" as "& lt;" ">" as "& gt;"

:D

p/s: please stick these together -> &+l+t+;

Getting Django to Work with Apache2 and mod_python

2008-11-12T22:25:00.000-08:00

When I was looking for a good code review web application, I found ReviewBoard. Looking at the installation guide, I thought it would be easy to set it up. The most time consuming part for me was to get django to work with apache2 and mod_python. Well, the guide did warn me about this part. It pointed me to the official django site for more help. Not good enough because I've never use either apache before. As for django, I've messed around with it before but never until a point where I can deploy one.

Before we go into the basic configuration, do you have mod_python installed? If not,
Sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-python

Check if the module mod_python is enabled.
cd /etc/apache2/mods-enabled

If mod_python.load is not there that means it is not enabled. You should have mod_python at
cd /etc/apache2/mods-available

So it is available but not enable. Create a smbolic link for mod_python then reload apache's configuration to load the module mod_python.

sudo ln -s ../mods-available/mod_python.load
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload

Now that we have installed mod_python, let's move to basic configuration.

Open up httpd.conf file
sudo nano /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

Add the following


<location "/mysite/">
..SetHandler python-program
 ..PythonHandler django.core.handlers.modpython
 ..SetEnv DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE mysite.settings
 ..PythonOption django.root /mysite
 ..PythonDebug On
 ..PythonPath “['/path/to/project'] + sys.path”
</location>

Restart apache2
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

To start or to stop apache2
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 stop; sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 start

If there's permission problem, be sure to fix it
sudo chmod -R 755 /path/to/project

There's more to it though if you wish to run multiple django sites. That's virtual host for you ;) I've not gone to that part yet but you can read it here if you want.

The Annoying Alt Key as the Window Movement Key

2008-10-26T04:10:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wanted to disable the Alt key in GNOME? For me, the Alt key as the default shortcut key to move Windows around in GNOME is very annoying when I'm using Photoshop or games. (Sorry for not using GIMP, but honestly, Photoshop's shortcut is more intuitive than GIMP.)

However, disabling the Alt key at System > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcut will not work. Isn't the "Keyboard Shortcut" the most sensible menu to click when you thought of the idea of disabling or changing a keyboard shortcut?

To make it work, you'll have to change the settings at:

System > Preferences > Windows

Unfortunately you can't disable it but to change it to two other keys: Ctrl or Super(Windows Logo).

Add a New User to vsftpd

2008-10-22T01:48:00.000-07:00

A simple task but I spent more than 30 minutes to find out how to do it.

nano /etc/vsftpd.conf

Look for these lines and make sure it is uncommented and set to YES:

chroot_list_enable=YES
chroot_list_file=/etc/vsftpd.chroot_list

By uncommenting this line -> chroot_list_file=/etc/vsftpd.chroot_list, you know you'll have to create vsftpd.chroot_list in /etc/

nano /etc/vsftpd.chroot_list

Then add the username you want to export to ftp. If you have not create any users,

useradd [username]
passwd [username]

Lastly, restart the vsftpd server.

/etc/init.d/vsftpd restart

Special thanks to Linux Hacks

Best Open Source Game - OpenTTD

2008-10-21T09:08:00.000-07:00

What is OpenTTD?

Remember Microprose's Transport Tycoon Deluxe? Best simulation game of all time! And the good news is, this game is not forgotten. OpenTTD is an open source clone of the game but with added features. I'm in love with OpenTTD because not only the core design of Transport Tycoon remains, the added features actually adds more fun element! Download and install it quick!

OpenTTD is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2.0.

Where do I get OpenTDD?

Get from the openttd website. If you are using Ubuntu Linux, you can go to Application>Add/Remove, look for openttd or type this in the terminal

sudo apt-get install openttd

Before you can play the game, you need the original Transport Tycoon data files to be placed in the openttd directory. eg. my openttd is located at /usr/share/games/openttd/

Where do I get the original Transport Tycoon data files?

You can download it from here.

Why Convert from Windows to Ubuntu Linux

2008-10-21T08:39:00.000-07:00

If you are a Windows user...

The longer you use Windows the slower the it gets.
When an application closed unexpectedly, a window popped up to let you know that something went wrong with the application(of course something went wrong otherwise why did the application closed by itself?). You then have two choices, send the error report to Windows or not. Even if you did click on the send error button, no one will get back to you.
The bundled applications are not very useful. eg. VLC Media Player vs Windows Media Player. After some time, I just can't remember where my stuffs are.
Unfortunately, the Searching for Files application is not much of a help because it just takes too long to search.
The fear of virus attack.
Slowing down the computer and time consuming security software scans.

Let me give you a free Windows support...

Problem: Windows takes too long to start.
Solution: Is ok man, just format it.

Problem: While I was using this application, it closed unexpectedly.
Solution: An unexpected error? That is very much expected from Windows and is normal. So is ok man, just format it.

Tolerating with bad tools affects a person mentally. Using bad tools is like putting your hand on fire but don't feel pain. Bowing down to bad tools because it can turn you into a everything-is-ok-man. Don't numb yourself! Look for Ubuntu.

What is Ubuntu?

Ubuntu is a community developed, Linux-based operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers. And it is FREE.

The word Ubuntu is originate from South Africa. Nelson Mandela explained Ubuntu as follows:

A traveller through a country would stop at a village and he didn't have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food, entertain him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu but it will have various aspects. Ubuntu does not mean that people should not address themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to be able to improve?

Ubuntu gives you...

Error messages that you can copy and paste to seek for help.
Super cool community that not only help you solve a problem but educate you as well.
Free security updates frequently.
It doesn't get slower the longer you use.
Gnome. Ubuntu's desktop GUI that is way more user friendly than Windows.
Ubuntu is shipped with free softwares that are really useful eg. OpenOffice, Firefox, Rhythmbox Music Player, Text Editor: gedit, etc.
Amazing Synaptic Package Manager that install, remove and update software easily.
A free mind. Use free and open source software, improve it and pass it on. Ubuntu encourage you to know the machine you are using.

Free yourself from bad tools and trapped mind by...

Download Ubuntu
Request a Free Ubuntu CD

Note: The Ubuntu CD is a live CD.

What is a live CD? It means you do not have to install Ubuntu to start using Ubuntu. You can run Ubuntu on a CD. The fun thing is, you can still use Ubuntu while installing Ubuntu. You just have to see it for yourself.

How to Use DOCTYPE Declaration

2008-10-19T17:18:00.000-07:00

Why bother declaring the DOCTYPE?

Browsers are not standardized. The same document might display differently across different browsers. Therefore, if you want the browser to display your document accurately, you have to let the browser know what markup you are using. Here we will explore both XHTML and HTML DOCTYPE declaration.

XHTML 1.0 provides 3 types of DOCTYPE declaration:

XHTML Strict - Strictly for XHTML purist.
XHTML Transitional - For those who don't want to get a headache using deprecated codes.
XHTML Frameset - For those who still want to use frames.

XHTML Strict
<

!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"

>

XHTML Transitional
<

!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"

>

XHTML Frameset
<

!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Frameset//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-frameset.dtd"

>

The following are DOCTYPE for HTML 4.01:

HTML Strict
<

!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"

>

HTML Transitional
<

!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"

>

HTML Frameset
<

!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/frameset.dtd"

Add a User to the Sudoers List

2008-10-16T17:56:00.000-07:00

Is like taking a candy from a baby.

Scenario 1

The user, momoko, wants to use sudo but found out that she is not in the sudoers list. As an admin, you will have to...

nano /etc/sudoers

*if you do not have nano, use other text editor.

Look for this line

root ALL=(ALL) ALL

Then add the following line bellow

momoko ALL=(ALL)ALL

Adding, Modifying and Deleting a User Account in Linux

2008-10-16T17:40:00.000-07:00

Is freaking easy to add a new user, modify a user and delete a user in Linux.

Scenario 1

I want to add a new user named momoko and give momoko a password, pichichi.

useradd momoko

passwd momoko

You will be prompted to enter new Unix password for momoko.

Scenario 2

I want to give momoko a home directory and add momoko to a group named peachgroup.

usermod -d/home/momoko -gpeachgroup momoko

Scenario 3

I want to delete the user named momoko and the directory /home/momoko

userdel -r momoko

Copy Files from Remote Machine to Local Maching Using scp

2008-10-16T17:17:00.000-07:00

Definition of scp from Wikipedia:
Secure Copy or SCP is a means of securely transferring computer files between a local and a remote host or between two remote hosts, using the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol.

Syntax

scp [options] [[user@]host1:]filename1 ... [[user@]host2:]filename2

In simple English:

scp [fromwhere] [towhere]

Scenario 1

A user, momoko wants to copy a file, momochan.txt from remote machine momo.com to her local machine.

scp momoko@momo.com:/momochan.txt /home/momoko/

Scenario 2

A user, momoko wants to copy a folder, momofolder from remote machine momo.com to her local machine.

scp -r momoko@momo.com:/momofolder /home/momoko/

*r = recursive