Sunday, April 1, 2012

Most Recent Page View Stats

I’m a little surprised to see the stats of Linux users so low.

Pageviews by Browsers

Firefox

497 (52%)

Chrome

235 (24%)

Internet Explorer

150 (15%)

Mobile Safari

23 (2%)

Opera

22 (2%)

Safari

22 (2%)

Iron

2 (<1%)

chromeframe

2 (<1%)

OS

1 (<1%)

 

Pageviews by Operating Systems

Windows

477 (50%)

Linux

229 (24%)

Other Unix

166 (17%)

Macintosh

34 (3%)

Android

21 (2%)

iPhone

8 (<1%)

BlackBerry

6 (<1%)

Ubuntu

6 (<1%)

Windows NT 6.1

2 (<1%)

iPad

2 (<1%)

Enabling 'Create Launcher' for Gnome 3 Desktop, Mint.

I can't right click and send shortcuts to the desktop. I can't drag shortcuts to the desktop. Just to use my browser I have to do 3 actions that used to take one. How is this usability enhancement? At least Mint has made it a lot more normal than other distros.

So anyway, now to show how to enable creating a desktop shortcut. (something that should have never been removed.

 1) Open your home folder.
2) Press the Ctrl+h key combination to show hidden files.
3) Navigate into the .gnome2/nautilus-scripts directory.
4) Create a new file called 'Create New Launcher'.
5) Edit the file and paste in the following (without quotes) "gnome-desktop-item-edit --create-new ~/Desktop" and save the file.
6) Right click on the file and select 'properties' from the menu. Click the permissions tab and check the 'Execute: Allow executing file as a program' option.

 Now if you right click on the desktop you'll be able to select 'scripts', 'create new launcher' from the menu and create a program launcher how you would expect to be able to crjouyeate one in previous versions of Gnome desktop.

 Enjoy

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Linux & Wireless Networking

Setting up a wireless NIC is usually fairly straightforward if you know what commands to use.

You MUST know what chipset your NIC uses.  The model number and manufacturer is mostly irrelevant.  

For a usb device use:
sudo /usr/bin/lsusb
You'll see output similar to this: 
Bus 003 Device 005: ID 0bda:8187 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8187 Wireless

For a pci NIC use:
sudo /sbin/lspci -nnk
This will give you output similar to the usb command.

If you're not getting any output with those commands your hardware is defective and Linux obviously won't be able to use it.  You can verify by trying in Windows as well.

The next step is to check if the kernel recognizes it.

Use the command: 
dmesg | less
or to get more specific
dmesg | grep -A 5 -B 5 -i firmware


That will allow you to browse through your looking for any information about your wireless card, in particular requests for firmware.  The second command searches specifically for the word firmware and outputs 5 lines before and five after so you won't miss anything.  Adjust it less if it's too much output.

One of my usb NICs require the package 'kernel-firmware' (opensuse) and would have something like this in the output of dmesg:
requesting firmware file 'kernel-firmware' failed

At that point all I have to do is install the package kernel-firmware (zypper in kernel-firmware) and it starts working.

If you know your nic id and the chipset but don't know what driver it uses or where to get the driver you can easily google around and find which driver it uses.  The usb id is the most surefire way to get an exact match of what driver you need.  The drivers actually have these id's in their code.

The best way to add a driver is by using a repository for your flavor of Linux.  If you just add the driver manually you'll have to update it every time you update the kernel.  With the repository that will be taken care of automatically.

It's not very likely that you'll have to compile your own driver unless your device is very new in the market.

Using NDISWrapper and Windows drivers should be a last resort.  There's almost always a better way to get your card working.

Please feel free to drop me a line if you can't get your wireless working, no matter which distro you use.

I've recently taken on the challenge of occasionally buying random (cheap) wireless nics (especially the ones people say in reviews don't work with Linux)  to see if I could make them work.  So far I haven't even had a challenge.  I just plugged them in and they worked.  I'm sure I'll eventually find some that don't work.

My wireless devices:

Rosewill RNX-G1

Bus 001 Device 007: ID 0bda:8187 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8187 Wireless Adapter
(works out of the box on the latest kernel)

Belkin F6D4050 V2
Bus 001 Device 012: ID 050d:935b Belkin Components
(requires package 'kernel-firmware' in opensuse, Ubuntu works out of the box)

Asus WL-167g V3
Bus 001 Device 013: ID 0b05:1791 ASUSTek Computer, Inc.
(Works out of the box)









Monday, July 26, 2010

Belkin F6D4050 v2, openSUSE 11.3 (and possibly other flavors)

The kernel doesn't have the usb identifier for this device.  In order to use it I had to modify a couple things.

the command lsusb shows the usb id of : 050d:935b

create a file called /etc/modprobe.d/rt2870sta.conf

Add this line to the file with no line breaks.

install rt2870sta modprobe --ignore-install rt2870sta ; /bin/echo "050d 935b" > /sys/bus/usb/drivers/rt2870/new_id

After that if you restart it should be at least recognizing the hardware, manifested by using the command dmesg | grep firmware

That should show an error message about the kernel not being able to load the firmware for the wireless card.  To remedy that, we just need to install a common firmware package.

sudo zypper in kernel-firmware

Now, edit the file /etc/sysconfig/kernel and add rt2870sta to the MODULES_LOADED_ON_BOOT section, so it looks like this.

MODULES_LOADED_ON_BOOT="rt2870sta"

Save the file and reboot, or use the command sudo modprobe rt2870sta, and the card should be working now.  I tested with unsecured, WEP and WPA.  Everything seems to work great.

This USB identifier has been added to the kernel and in the future (it will take a little while to propogate out and be available in the update repositories) all you should have to do is install the kernel-firmware package and it will just work.   

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Use your Blackberry as a Modem with Ubuntu

Using your Blackberry as a Modem is really very straightforward once you know how.

  • sudo apt-get install python libusb-dev ppp python-usb python-wxgtk2.8
  • Download  http://www.berry4all.com/install
  • Decompress the file wherever you want.  Somewhere like /home/username/ would be a good location.  You'll end up with a folder called "bbtether".
  • Inside the folder run "sudo ./berry4all.sh" from the command line.  Root persmissions (sudo) are needed for it to work properly.
  • Go to the "File" menu and select "Preferences".
        Deselect verbose logging for now, on the general tab.  (You can enable it later if you have issues connecting.)
        On the "Modem" tab, select your wireless provider on the PPPD config           dropdown list.
  • From the "Modem" menu, select connect.  The first time you connect it will take a minute to scan your device and find all the settings.  Once the messages stop scrolling, you should be able to connect to the internet.  You should see your ip address and DNS server addresses as the last lines of text in the berry4all client.
  • Once the messages stop scrolling, you should be able to connect to the internet.  You should see your ip address and DNS server addresses as the last lines of text in the berry4all client.
  • When you’re finished using it, just select disconnect from the modem menu, and click ok.  Once the phone is deinitialized (about 30 seconds) it will popup a dialog saying your phone is ready to be disconnected.  If you disconnect before it’s finished, you may need to reboot your phone to be able to use it.
Enjoy your new wireless modem.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

World of Goo Review

I first saw World of Goo while I was browsing the games at the local Target store.  From the box, I gathered that it was created by a 2 man game studio with a minimal budget.  The game was also very reasonably priced at $20.00.

Demo version of "World of Goo", for Linux

The creators of World of Goo, 2dboy

I didn’t actually play the game until I happened upon the demo version that is actually native to Linux.  It just happened that the Linux distro Sabayon which I was installing at the moment had a download link for the game.  After downloading and installing the game, I quickly became hooked.  

The simplest way of describing this game is to say it’s a physics simulation with specific goals you must accomplish.  It’s a puzzle game like you’ve never seen before.

The great thing about this game is that there’s a native version for Windows, Mac, and Linux.  This most likely means the future games coming from 2dboy will also be cross platform.  It’s a great example to the larger game companies that think there’s only a windows game market.  This game also has NO form of copyright protection.  I’m sure this was partly due to their minimal budget, but I think they also realize it’s just a nuisance for people and really doesn’t stop pirating.

The only oddity I saw with this game is that the resolution is very low.  This applies on all platforms.  There’s just no option from the menus to adjust it.  You can manually hack the config files, but then there are other graphical glitches associated with the game being in a higher resolution than it was designed for.

Thank you 2dboy for making a game that is amazing and fun, and runs natively on Linux.  We need more intelligent game companies out there like you.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Make Skype Video Work In Ubuntu

When I tried to use my webcam in skype all I was getting was garbled video. Other programs like cheese worked with the video just fine.


So, I set out to find the answer on Skype forums. Here's where I found the answer.

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-997807.html

#1. Run "LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype" at the command line and test the video in Skype again.

(If that gives you an error, you may need this instead: LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype)

#2. Create a new file in your home directory called skype. (/home/user/skype)

#3. Edit the file skype and put the command from #1 in it.

#4. Run "chmod +x skype" in order for the script to be executable.

#5. Edit the skype launcher and change the command to /home/user/skype. Substitute user for your user name of course.



Now Skype video will work without the hassle of running an archaic command from the terminal.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Repairing RPM Errors

On SLES10SP2, I was trying to run yast online update, and kept getting a bunch of errors, including this one....

"rpmdb: fatal region error detected; run recovery"

To resolve the problem I first had to do the following...

Change to the rpm directory..
#cd /var/lib/rpm
Remove file locks from rpm directory..
#rm -f __db*
Rebuild the rpm database. This will take a few minutes.
#rpm --rebuilddb

After that completed, I was able to apply updates without incident.

Source info for post......

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Wireless support improving in Linux

All too often, people automatically assume they need to use ndiswrapper to get wireless network cards working in Linux. In fact, I was about to do the same thing today, because in other distributions with the same network card I had no luck getting it to work. Once I stuck the network card in, Ubuntu informed me that there were drivers available for the card, and it would have to download the firmware for me. I had to temporarily plug the computer into the wired network to download the firmware. Once that was done, I unplugged from the wired network and the wireless connected right away. (It had the WEP key already) I'm more impressed with Linux every day, and the situation with device support is only going to improve as more and more manufacturers realize Linux is a force in the world.

The card is a Linksys WPC54G, which according to lspci uses the Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 chipset. I'm using Ubuntu 8.04.

After that, I also tried another wireless card, the linksys WUSB54G. I plugged it in, and it detected it and was able to connect to the network with no issues at all. Although, I did notice it seemed to be a little slow. It's a great improvement from what I have previously seen.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Puppy Linux 4.0 Review

After my last review of Puppy Linux, I was very skeptical about the new release. But, I'll say right away that it has improved quite a bit.

From the "mount" icon on the desktop, I was very easily able to mount my USB drive. Even though this is automatic in other distributions, it's made very easy in Puppy, and I suppose the distro is lighter because it doesn't have an auto mount service running. One thing that Puppy needs to do is put an icon on the desktop once it's mounted. It took me a few minutes to figure out that you have to click on mount again, and click on the icon for your appropriate disk. It's a little redundant, if you ask me. I later found an option in the menu which will change this behaviour. If you go to "menu", "desktop", "hotpup desktop drive icons" it gives you the option to put an icon on the desktop when it mounts the drive. I still feel that icons should be put on the desktop by default.

Once I had my USB drive mounted, I was easily able to retrieve my WEP key from the text file which opened in the default text editor Geany. Then all I had to do was click on "network" from the start menu and "pwireless wireless scanner" and paste the WEP key in. My wireless card was detected without any issues and I was able to connect to the internet.

The package management seems to work pretty well in Puppy. It basically uses wget to retrieve packages from your mirror of choice. I would prefer if it automatically chose the fastest mirror, and if the package management was a little more transparent. Instead of showing all the command line stuff that it's doing, it should just show a progress bar in the package management window. Since the focus of Puppy is being a lightweight distro, most of the packages are old versions, but that's somewhat understandable.

All the applications that are installed by default are focused on being lightweight. This really shows with the "Office" type applications. Abiword opens almost instantaneously, as well as Gnumeric, and Inkscape. The lightweight aspect of Puppy Linux is it's strong suite. Everything runs very quickly, even on an older laptop with 512MB of memory. I imagine it would do well with even less.

When you shutdown Puppy for the first time, it asks if you want to save your settings to a file. It also asks you if you want to copy some files from the CD to the hard drive, to improve bootup and overall performance. It was able to do this for me without any problem on a partition that contains Ubuntu.

One major issue for me about Puppy Linux is that the root user is the default account. This means that most people using it will be surfing the internet as root, and doing everything else as root. This may be common practice in the Windows world, but I think most Linux users would agree that this should be changed. It could be setup to use sudo instead, like Ubuntu and other distros. It's just not good from a security perspective to use root for everything.

Another small annoyance I found was that I couldn't change the time by right clicking on the clock at the bottom right. I instead have to go to the main menu and find the set time option. It's a little thing, but something you just expect you can do without hassle.

I also found out after rebooting that my wireless network didn't reconnect automatically. I feel that once I put in my WEP key it should be set and reconnect to that network automatically at bootup. Another one of those things that you just expect will work.

Overall, this release was a huge improvement. I hope the developer(s) will find this review helpful in focusing their development efforts for the next release.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Using rsync to keep desktop and server music files in sync

It's not perfect, but I've come up with a pretty good way to keep my music folder clean, and in sync with my server. This way, I can put files in the music folder on either the server or on my Desktop, and I don't have to worry about which files are where. It makes sure its the same on both.

My script also deletes the typical files you get when you're downloading music files, like text, urls, jpg's, etc.

I have a samba share permanently mounted on my desktop, so I can work on the server files as if they're local.

So, here's the script.

# Delete all the crap files on desktop before syncing
find /home/username/Music/ -regextype posix-awk -regex "(.*.jpg|.*.ini|.*.rtf|.*.url|.*.txt|.*.log|.*.sfv|.*.nfo|
.*.md5|.*.m3u)" -exec rm -v {} \;

# Delete all the crap files on server before syncing
find /home/username/servername/music -regextype posix-awk -regex "(.*.jpg|.*.ini|.*.rtf|.*.url|.*.txt|.*.log|.*.sfv|.*.nfo|
.*.md5|.*.m3u)" -exec rm -v {} \;

#sync music from desktop to server
rsync -r -t -v --progress /home/username/Music/ /home/username/servername/music/

#sync music from server to desktop
rsync -r -t -v --progress /home/username/servername/music/ /home/username/Music/


That's all there is to it. This will only synchronize new files that you put on there. It won't delete any files, unless they're of the file types specified above. You can change it to suit your needs.

You could even set this up in a cron job and have it syncing daily.

Friday, May 9, 2008

Permanently mount a Samba (or Windows) share in Linux

Samba shares are easy enough to browse to, with the gui, but it's a lot more convenient having it mounted in a local folder. Also, I've found many programs that aren't able to see samba shares, even though the OS can.

First, let's test and see if it will do a temporary mount with this command....

mount -t smbfs //servername_or_IP/file_store /home/user/Desktop/file_storage
Use sudo above, if you're using Ubuntu, or other distros that don't have root active by default.

This will prompt for username and password. Enter one if necessary, or leave blank if you have anonymous access. Once you enter credentials, you should be able to browse to your local folder and see all your files.

To mount it permanently, you will have to add a line to your file /etc/fstab.
This file is what tells Linux what drives you want mounted on bootup. Use gedit, nano, or similar program of your preference to open and edit fstab. You need to add a line similar to these, depending on your exact setup......

For anonymous access, add a line like this. Your Samba share has to be setup to allow anyone to access it. (I'll provide that config at the end) This allows you to mount the share without providing credentials.

//servername_or_IP/file_store /home/user/Desktop/file_storage smbfs guest

To mount a samba share with credentials, you just need to provide the username and password like so.

//servername_or_IP/file_store /home/user/Desktop/file_storage smbfs username=username, password=password

If you're a security nut, or just plain paranoid, you may want to provide your credentials in a separate file.

//servername_or_IP/file_store /home/user/Desktop/file_storage smbfs credentials=/root/.smbcredentials

You can also place dmask=777, fmask=777 at the end of the fstab line to alter the credentials it mounts the folders and files with.

Here's how a typical samba share configuration should look to access it anonymously. This is typically stored in the file /etc/samba/smb.conf

[global]
workgroup = workgroup_name
local master = yes
preferred master = yes
netbios name = storage
server string = storage
security = SHARE
max log size = 1000
dns proxy = No
wins support = Yes
wins server = localhost

[File_Storage]
comment = file-storage
path = /mnt/hda/share/file_storage/
read only = No
writeable = Yes
create mask = 0777
directory mask = 0777
guest ok = Yes

In the global section, "security = SHARE" is the main key to anonymous browsing.
The other line that's key is in the individual share cofiguration of File_Storage.
"guest ok = Yes"
Without those two lines, you'll be banging your head against the wall for hours trying make your share work for anyone, without requiring credentials.

Note: This really isn't the best way to do things as far as security goes. But in my case, convenience wins over security. I have a firewall. My wife wants quick easy access to a large storage drive, as do I. I don't feel the data we're storing on there is of high value to anyone else. But, you'll have to evaluate these things for yourself.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

The high price of running "legacy" hardware.

A lot of people seem to stick with their old hardware because they can't afford new hardware, or they think it's too expensive to buy / build a new computer.

Let's say I have a system with a Pentium 3 Processor that requires pc133 memory required by that architecture. Most likely, the system will have very little memory, especially by today's standards. If you go to a site like Newegg, $50 may at first look like a bargain for 512MB of memory. That is, until you look at prices of newer types of ram and realize you can get 2GB of DDR2 for the same price. It's almost impossible to find 1GB modules of memory for these older systems, as that was unheard of at the time. Even if you were able to find them, most motherboards at the time didn't support that large of memory modules. Then you start to look around at prices of everything else, and realize that computer components are dirt cheap these days. You can get a dual core AMD processor that will completely smoke your ol' P3 for a mere $56. Of course you'll have to get a motherboard and memory that will go with the processor, but you can get a Foxconn or similar motherboard with everything (sound, video, NIC) integrated for around $50.

Most likeley, you're waiting around a lot with your current system, especially if you're trying to run a more modern OS than Windows 98. Trying to upgrade your old system just isn't worth the price and hassle, for the amount of processing power you're going to end up with. New components are typically much more power efficient than old components as well, and will help reduce your carbon footprint and your electricity bill.

Next on the agenda is CRT monitors. These beasts were big, bulky, and consumed a large amount of power. If you're still using one of these, you could probably cut your electric bill by at least $25/month just by upgrading to a more power efficient LCD. LCD's are just as good or better quality than CRT's, and they're easier on your eyes. Refresh rates of 60hz on a CRT would cause a lot of eye strain, but that's a thing of the past with LCD's unless you have the brightness set way too high.

Another aspect that many may not think of is virtualization. I have a system that's powerful enough to run my OS, plus any other virtualized os's I may want or need to run at the time. This also saves me money, since I don't have to have extra test servers running, sucking up electricity and heating up the room. I've tested all sorts of OS's this way including Fedora, Ubuntu, Windows Vista, PCBSD, and any other beta release I feel like testing at the time. It saves me a lot of time, trouble, and hardware to just load them up as VM's, instead of using physical servers. Virtualization on an old P3 just wouldn't be that feasible.

So really, the best thing to do with those old systems is to donate them to a charity or school, and fork out the cash for some shiny new hardware. You'll appreciate that you did once you start using it and see all the advantages.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Hardy Heron fixes hard coded color scheme

Just a quick note. I've been testing Hardy Heron since it went beta. Everything seems to be working really well. I just noticed today that the hard coded color scheme as referenced in my previous article (http://happylinuxthoughts.blogspot.com/2007/12/out-with-brown-on-ubuntu.html) that was in previous Ubuntu releases has been fixed. When you change the color scheme of the desktop, and the background color of the login screen, everything works just like it should instead of having a momentary brown background that doesn't match your color scheme.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

OpenSuse 11.0 Alpha 2, Initial Reaction

I've been a fan of the Suse distro for quite some time now, even though it's not my primary distro of choice. I thought I would download the alpha and see how things are coming along.

The installation process was almost identical to 10.3. In fact, most of the screens still showed that it was 10.3. The only difference was the look of the installer. I have to say, it does look quite nice. I was impressed when I was even able to choose my time zone by clicking on the map and zooming to my location.

I picked the gnome desktop to install, because that's what I've grown accustomed to and seems to be the standard these days. It was pretty obvious that it was in alpha stage when I wasn't able to open the system menu by left clicking. I instead had to right click and choose open. Other than that, everything seemed to be shaping up nicely. Being that yast is the main config tool for Suse, you would think it would be on the main menu, but you actually have to go looking for it in more applications. I think that's an oversight of the developers. I'm sure a lot more changes are coming for the gnome side of things, because it looked kind of half and half 10.3/11.0.

The installer doesn't give you the option to install both gnome and kde, so I had to go into yast, and choose all the kde packages. I was curious to see how kde 4 is coming along, so I installed it. Overall kde 4 looks pretty good. I don't like how the menus function though. To expand the menus, you have to click, and then it kind of slides over, and to get back you have to click back. I would say the whole menu system looks pretty nice but is a huge step back in functionality.

If you're going to install the distro at this point, I highly recommend using a virtual machine. You're probably gonna keep it around long enough to check out the new features and test the software. But, I wouldn't say it's completely usable at this time. And, that's not what it was intended for, by developers (That's why it's still Alpha)

Enjoy

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Just one more reason I can't stand Windows Vista

The task: remotely set up a customer's openvpn client to connect to an openvpn server on windows vista. (on xp, this is a simple task)

Problem: vpn client won't connect.

Resolution: slightly improved; vpn now connects, but doesn't route traffic properly. Must contact vendor for further vista insight.

Due to the "Security" features of vista, it doesn't allow a vpn client to function, unless it's run by Administrator. Funny thing is, the account we were logged in as was supposedly an administrator.

First thing I had to do was show hidden files, and known file extensions. The process was changed for vista for no apparent reason, just like most everything else in vista.

The next thing I had to do was an msconfig. Then I had to select the vpn client, go to properties, and checkmark the "run as administrator" box. After that, a reboot, and the client was able to connect to the vpn and ping the vpn ip address, but traffic wasn't routed correctly. Not able to resolve the routing issue, we now have to contact the vendor for further support and suggestions.

Sounds simple enough, but it took a lot of google searching and experimentation. I see all this as completely unnecessary crap, since it would be a 5 minute task in Linux, even though Linux is a much more secure OS.

Personally, I think that Vista will be passed over in the corporate sector because of all the support hassles it will cause.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Secure system to system file copies without Samba or NFS

What if you need to copy files from one system to another, but don't want to bother with setting up file shares (SAMBA or NFS)? It's actually very quick and simple.

All you need is the scp command. The tricky part is getting the syntax correct, but I'll help you with that. For this example, let's just say you're copying a file from one user's desktop to another user's desktop. Here's how you would do it.....

scp filename username@remotesystem:/home/username/Desktop/

Once you provide this command, it will ask you for the password on the remote system. Of course you need the correct credentials or it will fail.

Now, if you want to copy from the other system to your system, you can do that as well, with a quick command line switch.
----
scp -r filename username@remotesystem:/home/username/Desktop/filename .
----
Keep this command all together. Long commands tend to breakup in small formats like this.
The -r indicates that you're copying from the remote system to the local system instead of the other way around. Also, the period at the end of the command indicates that you're copying to the current directory. Without a destination directory, the command will not work, so this is important. You could put any location there as long as you have proper permission. Enjoy.

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Out with the Brown on Ubuntu

To change themes completely to a different color in Ubuntu should be trivial and take only a couple of clicks. It seems though that there is a bug that prevents the background screen from changing colors. I'm going to go through the process of changing everything to a different color.

The first place we need to go is the "System", "Preferences", and "Appearance" menus. Select the background tab. From there I pick the solid color, and then select an alternative color. (Blue, in my case) You can of course download a wallpaper and use that as well. Then select the theme tab to choose a non-brown theme.


The next place we need to go is "System", "Administration", and "Login Window" menus. Select the
local tab. Once there, I chose the Happy Gnome theme and changed the background color to blue.


That should be the only steps required to get rid of all the brown. However, while logging on, the brown background still persists. After searching for a while, I did find a fix.

The script /etc/gdm/PreSession/Default is at fault.
You can download a version that fixes the background color like this:
wget http://ubuntu.freehostia.com/Default
Then just copy that to the original directory, restart your session, and the brown will be gone.

Because you shouldn't just blindly copy files into your system without knowing what's in them, here's a comparison of the two files, showing what's been changed. I used the program TkDiff to display the output you see here. The original file is on the left, while the new file is on the right.



That's all she wrote.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Most TV networks online aren't Linux friendly

After my original article on ABC.COM (ABC.COM article), I thought I would do a little more research and see how the other major networks fared with Linux. And, here are the results...

ABC.COM - As I originally mentioned, ABC's shows will not work in Linux.

FOX.COM - Their shows can only be viewed on Windows and Mac systems.

TBS.COM - Once again, we have a network that's ignorant to the fact that there are Linux users. I wasn't given an error message, I just wasn't able to play the episodes.

CWTV.COM - Their video ads worked perfectly, but the full episodes only work on Windows and Mac.

CBS.COM - Online episodes were easily viewable.

NBC.COM - Not only was I able to watch online episodes, it was very easy to use.

Congratulations to CBS and NBC for being forward thinking and allowing people on any OS to view their TV shows. ABC, FOX, TBS and the CW need to get on board (sounds like the developers at ABC are already working on this). Please stop by their sites and give them feedback, if you feel they should support ALL OS's.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

ABC.COM developer responds to Linux blog

Here is my original post about ABC.COM compatibility.
http://happylinuxthoughts.blogspot.com/2007/11/abccom-isnt-linux-friendly.html

Don't ever think that we Linux users have no hope for support. If we keep voicing our opinions, we will be heard. Here is the comment from an ABC developer, or move networks developer..........


We're working on getting a port sanctioned by management.

- A dev at Move Networks
November 28, 2007 2:30 PM

This isn't definitive, but at least they see there's demand. Keep sending your feedback!

Here's my new article with an investigation of Linux compatibility for all major television networks. Television networks Linux compatibility.