GPUTest - Stress Test and Benchmarking for Linux

GPUTest - Stress Test and Benchmarking for Linux

SSH Tunnel to Remote MySQL (Port Forwarding)

ssh -f -L 13306:localhost:3306 root@example.com -p 10022 -N

We block access to production MySQL servers over port 3306 for security reasons.  Here is an example connection string that proxies localhost port 13306 to port 3306 on the target system.

We use a few switched to make this easier to use:

Use -f to force SSH to go into background just before the SSH session starts.  This way you can get still be prompted for passwords but then run this in background.  We like this because then we don't have to have an open terminal all the time.

The -L switch indicates port:host:remoteport format. In this case, listen to socket 13306 on localhost and proxy to remote host port 3306.

The -p switch is special.  You might have to connect to SSH on a remote host on a port other than the standard 22.  It is starting to become common practice to change the SSH port on remote hosts to something else for security reasons.  In this example, the remote host only responds to SSH on port 10022.

Using -N tells SSH to NOT execute remote commands.  Useful when all you want this SSH session to do is port forwarding.

AirDroid - Manage your Android from your Computer Browser

http://youtu.be/WfNnQxpw7Uw

I need to transfer some video files from my Ubuntu computer to my Nexus 7. I couldn't get MTP via USB to work right.

Luckily, I found this nice Android application (free - no ads) that gives you a simple virtual desktop of your Android in your browser. I was able to upload my videos over WiFi in just a few seconds.

You can get AirDroid in the Google Play Store

Quick YubiKey PAM Bash Installer

Quick YubiKey PAM Bash Installer

A quick and easy way to install YubiKey PAM for Ubuntu.  There is also a Bash installer for Debian in the same GitHub repo.

Logitech USB Headset H530 on Linux (Ubuntu / Mint)

Just wanted to quickly blog that the Logitech USB Headset H530 works on Mint 11 without any additional drivers to install.  Since it's a Debian style OS, I think would on Ubuntu as well. I'm blogging wheneve I find hardware that isn't noted for Linux but works anyways.

Mint 11 - Broken or No Workspace Switching, Cannot Move or Resize Windows

I was playing around in Compiz and I enabled "Desktop Cube".  This broke a myriad of things in such as missing title bars and the inability to move windows in Mint 11.  I reverted the Desktop Cube, but Compriz did not return the setting before I enabled this plugin. Those were easily fixed:

1. Goto Control Center


2. Select Compiz


3. Scroll down to Window Management to fix the inability to move / resize windows
   
   
   
   1. Enable Move Window, Resize Window, Application Switcher, etc.
   
   


4. The broken ability to switch workspaces is some options under "Desktop" in Compiz were turned off
   
   
   1. Enable Desktop Wall and Viewport Switcher
   
   

I'm blogging this in case I need to remind myself how to fix this issue.

An Open Letter to Amazon - Support Linux or Give Up Now!

Dear Amazon.com,

You were the first in many ways

• You revolutionized the online buying experience


• You were the first to really contend with Apple iTunes with Amazon MP3 and offer a DRM-free music experience which is unparalleled still to this day


• You entice people to choose you over others by offering Amazon Prime and free two day shipping for everything. I am a member!


• You give away TV shows for free with Amazon Prime members.


• You started the eBook revolution with the Kindle (Sorry, Sony you failed).  The Kindle runs on Linux.


• You started CloudDrive with 5gb of free storage that does not count against your quota when you buy music from Amazon MP3

You are still king of sales of physical items, but you are going to loose out to Apple in the digital sphere because you have failed to support the Linux operating systems for your software.  You take but do not give.  You take Linux and use it for the Kindle.  You have made hundred of millions of dollars on Kindle sales.  You fail to recognize that Linux support will help you combat your biggest digital content competitor.  Apple sells hardware - phones, MP3 players and computers.  They have a captivate audience with their poor customers because they have hardware platforms.  You're only hardware is the Kindle.

The time is up Amazon... You need to support Linux starting today or just give up now!

A little history of places where you don't support Linux:

• Your Amazon MP3 software does not support the latest versions of Ubuntu; only the old 9.x versions.  I've been waiting for Ubuntu 10.x support for over a year now.


• Your Amazon MP3 software does not support for 64-bit Linux operating systems. This has "been in the works" for more than a year now.  This is all smoke and mirrors on your part.


• Your Amazon MP3 software cannot even be downloaded as source. This is a failure because Linux fans cannot build .deb and .rpm packages for their favorite flavor of Linux.


• Your CloudDrive and CloudPlayer software does not support Linux at all.

Even Adobe is making an effort in making 64-bit version of the Flash Player for Linux. And I don't give praise to Adobe that often...

What Amazon can do today - I made a list for you!

• Update your builds to work with the latest versions of Linux and add 64-bit editions for the top Linux operating systems for your Amazon MP3 Downloader software


• Optionally create a way (even under NDA) for developers to access your software source so .deb and .rpm packages can be created for other Linux distros


• Build Linux support for your CloudPlayer software with editions for the latest Linux operating systems and offer 64-bit editions immediately.  A widget / daemon like the Dropbox integration with Nautilus on Ubuntu would kick ass.

With the greatest candor,

Peter J. Farrell

Software Developer / Open Source Advocate / Linux Fan

The Feud: Debian-Ubuntu Relationship (via Debian.org Mailing Lists)

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 10:32:09AM +0200, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:

>   I've been invited to give a talk at the forthcoming Ubuntu Developer
> Summit, on May 13th in Brussels. I've accepted, since I'd like to take
> the chance of the talk to present to the Ubuntu (and Canonical) people
> how we feel about the state of the Debian-Ubuntu relationship. I'm
> therefore seeking your feedback on the topic, in order to present our
> views rather than mine only.

So, I'm now back and with some feedback to share. I'll first post (in
this mail) a summary of the replies I got to this "poll" and later on a
more general summary of what I did at UDS.

Figures

I got about 50 feedback mails in a bit less than 2 weeks, which I
consider a fair amount of feedback. In case people are interested in
giving more feedback, by all means go ahead and mail me. The more, the
better. Obviously, the summary I report below is limited to the
feedback mails I got thus far.

Success stories

I got quite an amount of "submissions" for the success stories category
(frankly, more than I expected).

The most appreciated collaboration paradigm between Debian and Ubuntu
seems to be "mixed teams", where people from both distros work together
using some $VCS. I got report about a dozen such teams, of varying sizes
from a handful of packages to several hundreds. An interesting and
appreciated trend is that such teams usually lead to a direct
involvement in Debian by Ubuntu people: first as DMs, then as DDs, and
in some cases also to greater involvement such as becoming members of
our core teams (e.g.: ftp-master).

Other reported success stories are in the development of some core tools
such as dpkg and d-i where, starting from Ubuntu-specific needs, generic
technical solutions have been developed, benefiting not only Debian and
Ubuntu, but all possible Debian derivatives.

People also appreciate bug filing from Ubuntu [1] (especially if with
patches [2]) in the context of large changes such as the default gcc
version.

Interestingly enough, even for parts of the two distros that are
packaged independently (e.g. GNOME), some Debian people have now more
trust in Ubuntu patches than in the past and that entails a more
fruitful exchange or cherry pick of patches.

[1] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?tag=origin-ubuntu;users=ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com

[2] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?tag=ubuntu-patch;users=ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com

FAIL.

Now to what people don't currently like in the Debian-Ubuntu
relationship.

I won't spare much mail space to discuss episodes that concern
individuals. In fact, one such episode (i.e. the "python affair", see
#573745) has been reported by several people, and details can be found
in the tech-ctte bug log.

Beside that, people don't like when Canonical does not behave as a good
upstream, e.g. when they are not reactive to Debian developers as their
downstream distributors. More generally, people would like to see
efforts in packaging Canonical software---when is not Ubuntu
specific---into Debian directly.

Similarly, people don't like when Ubuntu does not behave as a proper
downstream. In particular, there seems to be a desire to have more
triaging of Launchpad bug and then forwarding to the Debian BTW when
they apply to Debian too (no surprise here: it is the most "traditional"
complain Debian had wrt Ubuntu).

Several people do care about the status of their Debian packages in the
Ubuntu distribution. As a consequence, those people find annoying when
those packages degrade in quality due to reasons not under their control
(e.g. they are synced in bad moments, patched inappropriately, etc.);
that seems to mostly affect the Ubuntu universe.

Requests

The last category of feedback sought in the poll was "requests".

A recurrent request is to give more credit to Debian. Coming from the
tradition of free software, people have no problem with the fact that
Ubuntu benefits from Debian work, but they feel that the mantra "give
credit where credit is due" should be better respected. All in all,
people don't like the equation "GNU/Linux = Ubuntu" which is slowly
getting through.

Another recurrent request is to push the culture of "do changes in
Debian first". That would mean discussing changes in Debian first; then,
*if* an agreement can be reached (which is not necessarily the case, of
course), people would like to see those changes implemented in Debian
first; from there, they will naturally flow to Ubuntu.

Then, I've also collected tons of technical requests related to how
Debian people can more easily interact with the Ubuntu infrastructure
(most notably with Launchpad) in "their" way, i.e. via mail, via the
Debian BTS, etc. In that category---that I won't detail to avoid abusing
your patience---there is stuff like: an opt-in service to be notified of
Launchpad bugs, Ubuntu accepting uploads from our keyring, Ubuntu having
something like patch-tracker.d.o to better split patches, etc.

While on the above I've noticed no real convergence, it seems that in
general those Debian people which care about their packages in Ubuntu,
would like to have a contact point where to drop sync requests. It seems
that using the suggested way to do that (don't ask me what it is :))
does not really work, as they get lost in the noise or similar.

via lists.debian.org

Ok, for the first time I've seen -- a real account of the feud going on why some people are hating Canoncial (the makers of Ubuntu). Lately, I see 140 character posts on Twitter or Identi.ca that is just "complaining" without any real concrete reasons. If this is the reason, then there is something you complain about. However, denting/tweeting is not a good format.

Alien Arena - Fix audio/sound on Ubuntu

Just recently started playing Alien Arena for fun (free) on Ubuntu which is Quake II or Unreal Tournament.  AA is available for Windows, Linux and FreeBSD.  However, I found that after upgrading to Ubuntu Lucid 10 that the audio no longer functioned.  Open up Synaptic Package Manager and see if "libopenal1" is installed.  Installing the Open Audio Library packaged fixed the issue for me.  See you on AA.

Ubuntu - Screen Dims When Watching Hulu / YouTube

I was majorly annoyed when this was happening so I when to check the power management settings (System -> Preferences -> Power Management) and made sure that "Dim Screen When Idle" was unchecked for both AC and battery settings.  Darn both of those options were unchecked and I just lived with having to move the mouse for a couple of weeks.

What you need to check is your Screensaver settings (System -> Preferences -> Screensaver).  By defualt, the screeensaver is "Blank Screen" and the timeout for "idle" is rather low.  So uncheck "Activate screensaver when computer is idle" or increase the slider for "Regard computer as idle after...".  This solved my problems and I'm posting this so I don't forget.

USB to Parallel Converter - TrendNet TU-P1284 on Ubuntu using HP Series II Printer

I own an aging, but trusted workhorse of a printer - HP Series II.  My printer was built in 1987 and to the surprise of many the toner cartridges are still available from mass retailers.  The crux of getting old in the printer world is my Series II only has an LPT port and most new computers (even desktops) no longer have LPT ports.  This was the issue for me in the recent years where I only had one computer (a Shuttle mini-box) with an LPT port.  This was fine until our recent move and I now longer want to have my Shuttle system setup to just for my occational printing needs.

Enter the TrendNet TU-P1284 USB to Parallel Convert which I just got off Amazon for a cool $14.  I'm using Ubuntu and CrunchBang as my operating systems.  As any Linux user knows, having a manufacturer listing Linux support is pretty rare for the little items like a converter (although I am noticing it more and more).  So the cable arrived today and I hurried unpacked it. I plugged it in and a big fat... nothing.  CUPS would not even recognize a new printer connected.

After a whole bunch of Googling and a few thoughts of returning the cable to Amazon, I found a bug from a few years about about foomatic not recognizing printers connected via usb to parallel converters. So instead of editing CUPS configuration files I decided to check if I could find in "/dev/usb" if Ubuntu actually saw the usb converter plugged in and Ubuntu did at "/dev/usb/lp0". I was right! It was mirrored at /dev/usblp0.  So I tried adding a printer again in CUPS by using this device URI "usb:/dev/usblp0" (yes, a zero - "0") and the test page did not work.  I reviewed that bug report again and noticed his HP printer only worked when using the device URI of "parallel:/dev/usblp0".  That worked and I was able to select the printer driver for HP II (there are three available) and had a successful test page printed.

So I'm posting this for two reasons:

1. Google did not come up with any immediate results that helped me.


2. I will forget how I set this up by tomorrow and next time I switch computers around in my office I will up a wall trying to figure this out again.

Hope this helps somebody else out there.

Why I'm Proud To Be A Dirty GNU Hippy (GoingWare)

By earning my bread through writing software, I made a pact with the Devil. In seventeen years spent working as a software engineer, I have been required to sign a non-disclosure agreement by everyone I have ever worked for. I have never been allowed to write Free Software. All but a tiny bit of the source code I have written in seventeen years of hard labor is now kept a jealously guarded trade secret by those who paid me to write it. Many of those companies are now long out of business, yet I could still be sued or even imprisoned should I release any of the source code I wrote for them.

via goingware.com

So true and probably why there are a lot of people trying to figure out how open source can pay the bills. I'd be one of those as I like sharing my work, but if only it would pay my mortgage.

Creating a VirtualBox Virtual Machine Using CrunchBang Linux

This tutorial assumes that you already have VirtualBox installed and that you have a CrunchBang Linux ISO downloaded.  You may choose a 32-bit or 64-bit version of CrunchBang depending if your target system supports a 64-bit system.

In VirtualBox:

1. Click on "New..."

2. VM Name and OS Type
  a) Enter a name for your new virtual machine
  b) Select an operating system.  In this case, select "Linux" and for the version select "Other Linux"
  c) Click "Next"

3. Memory
  a) Choose the amount of memory. The default is 256MB of memory.  Depending on the what you are going to do with the virtual machine you may need more memory.
  b) Click "Next"

4. Virtual Hard Disk
  a) You'll need to create a new hard disk for this virtual image.  Don't worry! You're not going to delete the contents of your current hard drive but create a virtual disk for your new virtual machine to use.
  b) Click "Next" and the New Virtual Disk Wizard will appear.

4a. Virtual Hard Disk Wizard
  a) Click "Next" on the welcome screen.
  b) I prefer a "dynamically expanding storage" type of hard disk so it doesn't eat up all the allocated space right away (i.e. the size of the "virtual" hard disk grows as you put things on it in your virtual machine).
  c) Click "Next"
  d) Select a location to put the virtual hard disk file.  Yes, the virtual disk is just a file on your host hard drive. I used the default 8GB size.  You may want to make it bigger depending on what you are going to do with the virtual machine.
  e) Click "Next"

5. Summary
  a).  Now you ready to create the virtual machine so click "Finish" to continue.

6. Start your new virtual machine.

Inside the Virtual Machine:

1. Since this is the first time you're starting your new virtual machine.  You'll need to mount the CrunchBang ISO as the CD-ROM so you can install the OS in your new virtual machine.  Select the "live" option when the machine boots into the ISO start menu.

N.B.  Once VirtualBox takes focus of your keyboard and mouse inside of your virtual machine you might be wondering how you can defocus the keyboard and mouse so you can use programs in your host OS.  The default option to deactivate focus is to simply press the right CTRL key on your keyboard.  The deactivate shortcut key in noted in on the bottom right on the virtual machine window.

2. Right click on the desktop or press super+space (super key is the "Windows" key) to get the CrunchBang menu.  Select "Install CrunchBang".  Follow the options for timezone, language, etc.  You'll be prompted on the hard drive to install CrunchBang.  When you setup the administrator user name and password make note of what you selected as you'll need this information later.  Also, the default option (and only option) to install CrunchBang should be virtual drive you created.  After it has finished installing, be sure to reboot.

3. Press super+u to do a system update.  We'll want to be sure that the OS is up to date.  You'll be prompted for the administrator user password that you created when you installed CrunchBang.  Follow the prompts on the screen.

4.  At this point, you'll only have maximum screen resolutions of 800x600 in CrunchBang.  In order to increase this, we'll need to install the VirtualBox Guest Additions.  We'll need to install the GNU C Compiler first in order to accomplish this.
  a) Go to the CrunchBang menu (super+space) -> System -> Package Manager.  You'll be prompted for the password of the administration user and since this is the first time that the Package Manager has been run, it will take a few moments to build an index of packages.
  b) Type "gcc" (without the quotes) into the Quick Search box.  Find "The GNU C Compiler" in the list and click on the checkbox on that line.  Select "Mark for Installation".  Click "Apply" at the top of the Package Manager and follow the prompts to install the package.
  c) Quit the Package Manager.

5. Now, at the top of the virtual machine goto Devices -> Install Guest Additions...  Unless you've downloaded the Guest Additions ISO follow the prompts to have VirtualBox download the ISO for you.  At the end, mount that ISO to the virtual machine's CD-ROM.  VirtualBox should ask if you want to mount the ISO to the CD-ROM for you.

6. Back in CrunchBang, press super+f to bring up the file manager.  We need root privileges to install the Guest Additions so goto the Tools menu -> Open Current Folder as Root.  You'll be prompted again for the root password.  Then navigate to the CD-ROM/DVD-ROM Drive (you should see it listed on the left side.  Run the "VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run" package.  After it finishes compiling and installing the Guest Additions then reboot the virtual machine (super+space -> Exit - Reboot).

7.  Once you've rebooted, you'll probably have higher screen resolutions automatically.  However, if you want to change them just use GrandR or LXrandR (super+space -> System -> Display Settings) to change the screen resolution.

Congratulations! You have a new CrunchBang virtual machine!

Infamous Chinese pirates launch Ubuntu that looks just like Windows XP (Download Squad Blog)

via downloadsquad.com

I think this goes to show how customizable Ubuntu (and Linux) can be. Not that I actually want Windows XP's GUI anyways.

CentOS / Linux: Change Timezone

I'm posting this for future reference and in the hopes that it might help somebody.  This works for CentOS5 (works on 3 and 4 as well).  I assume it works on RHEL as well since CentOS is just the open source version of that.

1. Go to the time zone directory

#cd /usr/share/zoneinfo

2. Find the timezone you want (in my case I prefer to run everything in UTC)
3. Copy the timezone you want to the localtime zone for the server.  In this case, we're going to switch the server to use UTC:

#cp UTC /etc/localtime

4. Type "y" to overwrite the current timezone.
5. The imezone should be changed automatically. Check the time by running:

#date

The "#" is the character for the command line prompt. Do not type this into your terminal.