[HOWTO] Install VLC Media Player 1.1 in Ubuntu Lucid Lynx and Maverick Meerkat

One of the most popular media players, VLC Media Player has version 1.1 RC out. The final version should be released shortly. You can install the Release Candidate by installing the following PPA:

ppa:c-korn/vlc

To do that, open System>Administration>Synaptic Package Manager>Settings>Repositories>Other Software>Add and paste in the code above.
If you are on Maverick, since the PPA does not have packages for Maverick, you can install the Lucid packages by editing the added PPA and changing maverick to lucid.
Then close the Repository window and Reload. Then Mark for updates and Apply. That should install the latest vlc packages.

[HOWTO] Ease your eyes while using Linux with some RedShift

I usually sit in front of my PC for long hours. It is always better to have least effect on my eyes and I used to reduce the brightness and adjust colors for that. Now, I have discovered a software to do just that. It claims to adjust the screen color temperature according to the surroundings. It is called Redshift and can be installed from the PPA ppa:jonls/redshift-ppa. To install it on Karmic and Lucid, open up Synaptic and navigate to Settings>Repositories>Other Software>Add and paste in “ppa:jonls/redshift-ppa” (without quotes) and then close it, Reload the package lists by clicking Reload in the Toolbar and then search for redshift and install it. It is not available for Maverick Meerkat now, but you can install it by following my earlier post. After installation, you can run it by invoking the following command from the terminal:

redshift -l LATITUDE:LONGITUDE

For example, since I am at Lalitpur, Nepal, I ran:

redshift -l 27.4:85.2

You can find latitude and longitude information about your city here. If you don’t, use the one which is nearest to your place and it should work just fine. You will immediately see a change in color. You may also like it to show a tray icon so that you can disable/enable it easily if you have to. To do so, just run:

gtk-redshift -l LATITUDE:LONGITUDE

You can toggle enable/disable by clicking on the tray icon.

You will probably want to install run it on startup. To do so, just open Startup Applications and Add an application with command as

gtk-redshift -l LATITUDE:LONGITUDE

To see how much it is actually helping your eyes, keep it enabled for prolonged hours while you sit in front of your PC and disable it. You will see how difficult it is to see the normal color and how cool RedShift is.

Hope this helps.

[SOLVED] Adobe FlashPlugin Problem in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx 64bit

I had posted about flash plugin controls not working in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala 64 bit here. I had moved to Ubuntu 32 bit for quite sometime and recently made a move back to Ubuntu 64 bit. I found the same problem with flash plugin controls in Ubuntu 64 bit. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. I haven’t found any specific patterns to when it does and when it doesn’t. If someone has, please do share.

In my previous post regarding the issue, I had suggested the installation of Adobe flash player 64 bit version from Adobe Labs website. The solution worked fine for me and it seems for most of the others, but the plugin was experimental and when someone needed to update, it was not available via repositories. It has been provided in a launchpad ppa repository currently which can be added by adding ppa:sevenmachines/ppa to Repositories in Synaptic, but it seems it is not updated as of now and the latest version available in the ppa is 10.0.45.2 while Adobe has already released version 10.1rc4. But since the latest version is not recognized by youtube, I think we should stay with the version in the repository.

Simply open up synaptic and navigate to Settings>Repositories>Other Software and click on Add. In the apt-line, enter ppa:sevenmachines/flash and close it. Then Click on the Reload button. Now, search for flashplugin64-installer, mark it for installation and click on apply.

When done, restart firefox and flash should run fine.

Please share your flash player 10 experience in Linux.

Ubuntu 10.10 named Maverick Meerkat

Ubuntu 10.10 Marvick Meerkat has been announced at Shuttleworth’s Blog today, April 2, 2010 which should be released in October 2010.

It will probably have loads of new features that have been held back in Lucid Lynx since it is LTS (Long Term Support) version. I will probably be trying it out from the 1st Alpha release and keep you updated about the feature additions (what’s new) and changes. I think Maverick will feature gnome-shell, rgba support and more.

[HOWTO] Move the Minimize, Maximize, Close buttons to the Right in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx

I am using Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx in my PC. The Ubuntu Design Team has decided to move the Minimize, Maximize and Close buttons to the left of the title bar. Not exactly like Mac OS X, which looks like the following:

while Ubuntu button layout is as follows:

Maximize, Minimize, Close in Ubuntu Lucid

The difference is the order in which they appear.

UPDATE April 2: The button order in Lucid will now follow Mac OS X style.

More

[SOLVED] Gtk-Message: Failed to load module “rgba”: librgba.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I had enabled the ppa

ppa:erik-b-andersen/rgba-gtk

and upgraded and installed nautilus, murrine-themes , gtk2-module-rgba and gtk2-engines-murrine to enable rgba transparency in my Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Alpha. That looks really cool. It was supposed to be coming with Lucid, but was dropped due to bugs. The programs started crashing for me too. I was done with adding exceptions to /etc/profile.d/gtkrgba.sh because almost every new program crashed. So I decided to remove the rgba module altogether. Just removing the repository does not help. So, here are the removal instructions.
Find and removing the PPA Packages and installing original versions:
Open up synaptic. Make sure you have not disabled the rgba repository.
Click on “Origin” in the lower left of Synaptic and in the upper left pane, select LP-PPA-erik-b-andersen-rgba-gtk/lucid.
Now, the packages installed via the repository can be seen in the main window of synaptic.
Select gtk2-engines-murrine and click on Package>Force Version and choose non-ppa version. Repeat the same for libnautilus-extension1, murrine-themes and nautilus.
Mark gtk2-module-rgba for removal.
Apply the changes.
Now, you can safely remove the PPA repository.
Remove the rgba module listing from profiles:
Even after the removal of ppa versions, you will still get a message

More

[HOWTO] Auto Re-Connect to dsl pppoe in Linux

I am using Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Alpha. I have a dsl connection (WiZoom, Wireless via ubnt but wired to my PC) from Worldlink Pvt. Ltd., Nepal. I need to connect via pppoe. I occasionally keep my PC to download overnight while I sleep or even when I am away. It works well with torrents (with deluge as my torrent client, I haven’t used transmission torrent client much) but sometimes it disconnects from the internet. So, I had to configure it to auto re-connect on disconnect. It should also connect on logon. Since network manager does not meet my requirements, I had to delete the DSL connection from my network manager (which I had configured to connect at logon). Then I would need to configure pppoe connection via pppoeconf. To do so, I bring up my terminal and type in:

More

[HOWTO] Moving Gnote Notes to Tomboy and vice versa

I had moved to Gnote from Tomboy notes in my Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Alpha because I wanted to free some space by removing mono (I don’t play gbrainy and I do not have a photo collection in my PC :)).

However, I have been facing crashes with Gnote recently. I updated to latest version of Gnote from the PPA with no success. I get the following error when I try to launch Gnote version 0.7.1-1ppalucid3 from the terminal:

More

[HOWTO] Video Wallpaper on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx with Shantz XWinWrap

I wanted to try out video wallpaper (like DreamScene on Windows 7). I had tried XWinWrap with Hardy but back then, I had problems running Compiz on an old PC and it did not look good at all. Now, I am trying it out on a new PC and Compiz works well on my onboard Intel GMA 3000 on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Alpha.

If you want to try this, you must have compiz enabled. You may also want to install mplayer and codecs for videos you want to use as desktop background.

More