Archive for category Open Source
Upgrading Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake) to 6.10 (Edgy Eft) using apt-get
Posted by Benny Chew in Linux, Open Source, Tips & Tweaks on October 29th, 2006
This upgrade was released a day or 2 ago, and I thought I’ll give it a shot at upgrading using apt-get‘s distupgrade. The steps I used:
- sudo sed -e ’s/\sdapper/ edgy/g’ -i /etc/apt/sources.list
- sudo apt-get update
- sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
- sudo apt-get -f install
- sudo dpkg –configure -a
- Reboot.
Steps taken from Debian Admin.
The first step replaces all occurrences of ‘dapper’ with ‘edgy’ in the sources.list which has the list of repositories apt-get will use (e.g. I have mine pointed to my ISP’s FTP mirror instead), the next step updates the sources.list which is then followed by the upgrade. 5th and 6th step is to check that the process completes properly and the last step is pretty self explanatory.
Only issue I had with the upgrade was VMware Server stopped working, which I’ll probably have to reconfigure/reinstall it as I think some configuration stuff probably got overwritten.
Ubuntu’s documentation wiki has probably more comprehensive explanations on the upgrade steps as well as alternative upgrade choices.
WordPress 2.0.5 released
Posted by Benny Chew in Open Source, Site Updates, Web, WordPress on October 29th, 2006
Firefox 2.0 close button tweak
Posted by Benny Chew in Firefox, Open Source, Tips & Tweaks, Web on October 24th, 2006
One of the more obvious user interface changes in this version of Firefox is the position of the close button for tabs. Practically all other web browsers with tabs have tab closing buttons on each tab as opposed to Firefox’s choice of having it at the extreme right of the tab row up until now. With version 2.0, the default close tab button position is now on each individual tab.
This is probably a good decision in a way, but after such a long time of using Firefox, I’ve been too accustomed to the close button being there and would rather not have that change (I use the scroll button to close tabs nowadays, but selectively closing multiple tabs with the ‘x’ at the end is pretty useful). Fortunately there’s a setting which can be easily changed to accommodate the behaviour you want.
Here are the steps to have the close button back at same position as pre-1.5 days:
- Type ‘about:config’ in the address bar.
- In the filter textbox that appears below, enter ‘browser.tabs.closeButtons’.
- Double click on the browser.tabs.closeButtons preference, and a message box should appear.
- Change the value to ’3′ and click OK.
And you’re back with the close button at the same position as before the latest upgrade! You can easily revert to the default Firefox 2.0 behaviour by changing the value back to 1.
Default:
After change of value:
Here are some other values you could use for that preference:
- 0 – Display a close button on the active tab only
- 1 – Display close buttons on all tabs (Default)
- 2 – Don’t display any close buttons
- 3 – Display a single close button at the end of the tab strip (Firefox 1.x behavior)
browser.tabs.closeButtons values and explanations taken from MozillaZine Knowledge Base.
Firefox 2.0 released!
Posted by Benny Chew in Firefox, Open Source, Web on October 24th, 2006
Update: Now officially out with a restyled website as well!
Although not out officially via the main Mozilla Firefox site, it’s currently publicly available on the servers for you to download and get it installed!
If you’re interested in knowing the list of new features that comes with this version, check out this page.
Download here.
The latest version should be made available via the automatic software update function relatively soon.
Firefox 2.0 (RC1)
Posted by Benny Chew in Open Source, Tips & Tweaks, Web on September 30th, 2006
I’ve been using Firefox 2.0 since it was at Beta 2 a few weeks ago, and I am happy to say it has been relatively stable. I had it running for nearly a week before it got cranky, which is quite a long way since the days when I had to restart it every day at the very least.
Notable updates include the integration of functionality similar to the SessionSaver extension into Firefox’s history function, close buttons being added to each tab, anti-phishing filter, a redesign of the preferences dialog and minor user interface tweaks.
At time of writing, Firefox 2.0 is currently at RC1 (Release Candidate 1) which denotes a final product which is ready for release unless some serious bugs surface. Do note that installing Firefox 2.0 RC1 will overwrite your current Firefox installation and may disable some of your extensions which are incompatible (I’m using Nightly Tester Tools extension to get around this). However, if you would just like to try 2.0 out without having it replace your current Firefox installation, you can get Firefox Portable 2.0 RC1 which will run in standalone mode.
Firefox 2.0 is scheduled to be released some time in October, so you shouldn’t have to wait too long before your Firefox browser gets upgraded!
Screenshot:
GParted
Posted by Benny Chew in Linux, Open Source, Tips & Tweaks, Windows on September 19th, 2006
If you have ever partitioned your hard disk, Partition Magic would probably be the application you used for it. It’s probably the de facto software to use for doing anything with partitions with a very low chance of any loss of data (I personally have never got any issues on data loss/corruption). Unfortunately, Partition Magic isn’t free.
I recently tried out GParted (stands for Gnome Partition Editor) to repartition the hard disk on my Ubuntu server box. As opposed the Partition Magic which runs only on Windows, GParted can be used regardless of the operating system installed. It boots up via a CD or USB (which you can choose from the site) and is able to support the file systems currently in use by Windows and also Linux.
Its interface is very similar to Partition Magic, so it shouldn’t be too difficult if you have prior experience with the former. I managed to delete a redundant FAT32 partition I had and resized my /home ext3 partition without much drama. After restarting, everything was in a perfect order, so I don’t really have much to complain about.
Try it out if you’re looking for a free, open source alternative to Partition Magic.
Internet Explorer 7: Comeback of the king?
Posted by Benny Chew in General Tech, Open Source, Reviews, Web on September 16th, 2006
Internet Explorer (IE) has been largely synonymous to browsing the internet ever since Microsoft decided to bundle it with Windows 95 operating system. The much heralded browser wars between Microsoft and Netscape accelerated progressive innovation of new features to the web browser which ended with the demise of Netscape’s Navigator browser. Unfortunately, ever since Microsoft released version 6 of the browser released to the public about five years ago dominating the web browser arena, innovation of new functionality or interface tweaks have grounded to a halt.
The resurgence of a strong competitor to IE in the form of Mozilla Firefox has caused Microsoft to restart its efforts in this arena. After about a year and a half since the announcement that the 7th version of IE was in development, Release Candidate 1 (latest version at time of writing) of Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) has been released to the public for testing. A RC1 status would mean a close to complete final version where the goal would be to iron out bugs which appear before the final release is shipped. With lots of promise by Microsoft that this browser will help stem its eroding market share, here are the new features which have been introduced to regain its foothold.
Portable apps
Posted by Benny Chew in General Tech, Open Source, Tips & Tweaks, Windows on September 14th, 2006
If you’re always having to use public terminals or friends’ PCs, you definitely would have been in a position where you wanted to or had to install an application to get some stuff done. In another situation, the applications might have already been installed on the machine, but the settings isn’t configured to how you want them to be, causing heaps of time wastage in reconfiguring it (and risking the wrath of your friend or sysadmin).
With USB thumb drive storage capacities skyrocketing in recent times, you can now have those applications you need stored in it, ready to be used right away with Portable Apps. The list of applications being made portable seems to be growing so there is a chance more applications will be added soon if the one you’re after isn’t listed. All portable applications are open source and seem to be updated fairly regularly.
However, with more and more traditional desktop applications being turned into web applications (e.g. Writely, Google Spreadsheets, Google Calendar, Meebo) as well as internet access being available almost everywhere, IÂ believe the only portable application worthwhile having on a thumb drive would be Firefox Portable since everything else is available through the web browser. Hmm, I think I should stop before I start contradicting myself..
Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Server setup guide
Posted by Benny Chew in Coding/Development, Open Source on August 25th, 2006
About a month ago, I got some old computer parts from Kah Wai which weren’t in use and set up a headless server using the latest Ubuntu server edition. I stumbled upon this guide which was excellent in guiding me through the process of setting it up and I would highly recommend it if you are new to setting up a server from scratch.
I’m pretty impressed by the Debian derived package management system which makes it very easy to add, remove or update almost any application available for it. I remember the times when I had to deal with all sorts of dependency errors when attempting to install stuff on Mandrake 9.0 (now called Mandriva). Besides the server services such as Apache, PHP, MySQL, I got Samba installed as well so it’s now also functioning as a dump box besides its primary function as a development server (not much so recently though..). :D
WordPress 2.0.4
Posted by Benny Chew in Coding/Development, General Tech, Open Source, Site Updates, WordPress on July 30th, 2006
It was released earlier today and is noted to have fixed a lot of security vulnerabilities, so I those who are running WordPress blogs themselves should update soon.
Have just updated blogs hosted on spherebox. :)
Edit: You can get only the changed files in a zip which would save the time needed in uploading here.
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