digital nomad » documentation

Getting a handle on Ubuntu mobile power management

leogaggl — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 07:57:25 +0000

To get an idea on the current power usage and some suggestions on how to improve power-management ‘powertop‘ is a must-have.

sudo apt-get install powertop

Powertop Screenshot

For some more detailed suggestions this is a good start: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PowerManagement/ReducedPower

Turning the Toshiba Z830 into a Ubuntu Ultrabook

leogaggl — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 03:03:07 +0000

Since I will have to do a fair amount of traveling in the next year I was in need of upgrading my trusted workhorse of Toshiba Qosmio F60 to a more portable option that will be easier on the shoulders during long travels. After doing some research in the available options it came down between the Intel i7 variants of Samsung Series 9 and the Toshiba Z830.

Thanks to these sites for some useful content:

In the end it came down to Toshiba having full-size VGA, HDMI and Ethernet connectors at the rear of the unit (no need for carrying adapters) and getting a very decent price rebate for the Toshiba.

The first and only task in the included Windows 7 OS was to create a recovery USB drive using the Toshiba included utility (on the desktop). You need a 12GB USB stick (found out the hard way after buying an 8GB version with the unit on advice of the sales guy).

After booting from a USB stick created from the Ubuntu 11.10 ISO (http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download) with Ubuntu Bootdisk Creator (or alternatively UnetBootin) I opted to wipe the whole SSD drive. If you are not sure that you want to stick with Ubuntu it might be safer to try running from USB or dual-boot.

Note: you need to use the USB3 connector on the right-hand side of the machine to boot (not the rear USB2 connectors). Press the F-12 Function key when turning the unit off and choose the USB Boot option.

It always gives me strange pleasure to wipe a pristine new machine from all the rubbish that manufacturers pre-install and start with a clean system that I can customise to my needs (without having redundant stuff cluttering the system and waste valuable resources). So enjoy that part

The Oneiric Ocelot (11.10) installation was extremely smooth. As predicted by the previous research all the hardware was detected automatically. Even Bluetooth and Toshiba Function keys (screen brightness and display switching) work without any tweaking.

I am currently looking into some SSD specific tweaks thanks to this article on ZDNET. I will post future updates on further experiences when it comes to battery-life and other day-2-day issues.

Update: I have made a tweak to improve disk I/O parameters to improve SSD performance

Disable the ‘elevator’ I/O scheduler in the kernel by editing the default Grub config (/etc/default/grub)

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash elevator=noop"

Looks like this unit is definitely a good option for people looking for Ubuntu Notebook / Ultrabook hardware. Well done Toshiba ! Now I just want a refund for the wasted Windows license….

Enjoy your OPEN Ultrabook !

Mobile Browser Testing on the Desktop

leogaggl — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 05:29:53 +0000

If you need to check websites for mobile compliance on a regular basis you know that having a device to constantly check is painful and slows down your work during debugging and phases of constant change.

by adactio

There are a few tools that will make this work a lot easier:

Google Chrome

Chrome does have some nice dedicated plug-ins to help with this task

Ripple Mobile Environment Emulator (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/geelfhphabnejjhdalkjhgipohgpdnoc)
appMobi HTML5 XDK (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onmkoldigcfmebcinpmineoadckalllb)

Firefox

I am not aware of any plug-ins like Chrome, but as a hack I have found it useful to employ a user-agent switching plugin to trick the browser

User Agent Switcher (http://chrispederick.com/work/user-agent-switcher/) works well for this.

Download the User Agent Switcher Add-on for Firefox
Restart Firefox for the add-on change to take place.
To start a new browsing session using an emulated browser, go to Tools > User Agent Switcher and select the appropriate mobile web browser you want to emulate
To switch back to normal browsing, just select the default option from the above menu.

If you need more specific UA Strings check here: http://www.zytrax.com/tech/web/mobile_ids.html

For more serious work there are obviously dedicated emulators from the major Mobile OS vendors (but they need to be installed and configured for each platform):

Android (http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/emulator.html)
iOS (http://developer.apple.com/devcenter/ios/)
WinPhone (http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=13890)
Nokia (http://www.developer.nokia.com/Develop/Web/)
Opera (http://www.opera.com/developer/tools/mini/)
WebOS (http://developer.palm.com/)

PS: Nothing substitutes final QA testing on actual devices …

Installing MySQL Workbench on Ubuntu 11.10

leogaggl — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 03:45:54 +0000

Thanks to Olivier Berten for providing this package via his PPA Repo !

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:olivier-berten/misc
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mysql-workbench-gpl

Virtualbox 4 install on Ubuntu

leogaggl — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 23:50:16 +0000

Since the default Ubuntu repository does not have the current version of VirtualBox (currently 4.1.x) here is the installation procedure via apt-get

echo "deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian $(lsb_release -sc) contrib" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/virtualbox.list
wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-4.1

To use USB devices on the clients you need to install the Extension Pack from the Oracle Site and install via the File –> Preferences.

Hat tip to: http://www.webupd8.org/2011/04/virtualbox-ubuntu-1104-natty-narwhal.html

Using Blackboard Collaborate (Elluminate) on Ubuntu

leogaggl — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 02:19:10 +0000

Like it or not (personally I am in the second category) Blackboard Collaborate or Elluminate (as it is still more commonly referred to) is something you have a hard time avoiding if you work in online education.

I discovered that I have audio issues on some Ubuntu Linux machines and found the following to fix the issues.

1) Install alsa-aoss

apt-get install alsa-oss

2) Save the Elluminate Java Webstard (.JNLP) file to a local folder – DO NOT OPEN IN BROWSER
3) Launch Elluminate using this command (in the folder you saved the JNLP)

aoss javaws meeting.jnlp

Thanks go to all people involved in this forum thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1081899

EDIT:

1) This assumes you are already running Sun (Oracle) Java JRE not the default OpenJDK as apparently Blackboard Collaborate does not play nice with the default OpenJDK. I have described the install on 11.10 here.

2) Make sure you have updated the alternatives for javaws (install only sets the java alternatives).

update-alternatives --config javaws

Setting up TV channels for DVB tuner cards in Ubuntu

leogaggl — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 00:35:15 +0000

Just some memory aid to help remember how to set up DVB cards in Ubuntu:

apt-get install dvb-apps dvbstream w-scan
w_scan -c AU -X > channels.conf

You can use this channels.conf with a number of TV players (MeTV, MythTV,…) however I prefer the no-nonsense interface of VLC

vlc channels.conf

Here is the example output (for those in Adelaide, South Australia you can just save this into channels.conf):

7 Digital(Seven Network):177500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:1281:1282:1360
7 Digital 1(Seven Network):177500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:1281:1282:1361
7TWO(Seven Network):177500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:1313:1314:1362
7mate(Seven Network):177500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:1329:0:1363
7 Digital(Seven Network):177500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:1281:1282:1364
Nine Digital(Nine Adelaide):191620000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:512:650:1105
GO(Nine Adelaide):191620000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:514:652:1106
GEM(Nine Adelaide):191620000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:513:0:1112
ONE(Ten Adelaide):219500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:514:0:1617
TEN Digital(Ten Adelaide):219500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:512:650:1621
ONE(Ten Adelaide):219500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:514:0:1623
ELEVEN(Ten Adelaide):219500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:516:681:1624
ABC News 24(ABC):226500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:2314:0:592
ABC1(ABC):226500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:512:650:593
ABC2 / ABC4(ABC):226500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:2307:2308:594
ABC1(ABC):226500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:512:650:595
ABC3(ABC):226500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:2311:2312:596
ABC Dig Music(ABC):226500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:0:2317:598
ABC Jazz(ABC):226500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:0:2318:599
44 Adelaide(44Adelaide):543500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_NONE:QPSK:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_8:HIERARCHY_NONE:100:101:3585
SBS ONE(SBS):564500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_8:HIERARCHY_NONE:161:81:833
SBS TWO(SBS):564500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_8:HIERARCHY_NONE:162:83:834
SBS 3(SBS):564500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_8:HIERARCHY_NONE:161:81:835
SBS 4(SBS):564500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_8:HIERARCHY_NONE:161:81:836
SBS HD(SBS):564500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_8:HIERARCHY_NONE:102:103:837
SBS Radio 1(SBS):564500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_8:HIERARCHY_NONE:0:201:846
SBS Radio 2(SBS):564500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_NONE:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_8:HIERARCHY_NONE:0:202:847
ONE(Ten Adelaide):711500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_AUTO:FEC_AUTO:QAM_AUTO:TRANSMISSION_MODE_AUTO:GUARD_INTERVAL_AUTO:HIERARCHY_AUTO:514:0:1617
TEN Digital(Ten Adelaide):711500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_AUTO:FEC_AUTO:QAM_AUTO:TRANSMISSION_MODE_AUTO:GUARD_INTERVAL_AUTO:HIERARCHY_AUTO:512:650:1621
ONE(Ten Adelaide):711500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_AUTO:FEC_AUTO:QAM_AUTO:TRANSMISSION_MODE_AUTO:GUARD_INTERVAL_AUTO:HIERARCHY_AUTO:514:0:1623
ELEVEN(Ten Adelaide):711500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_AUTO:FEC_AUTO:QAM_AUTO:TRANSMISSION_MODE_AUTO:GUARD_INTERVAL_AUTO:HIERARCHY_AUTO:516:681:1624
service_id 833:760500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_AUTO:FEC_AUTO:QAM_AUTO:TRANSMISSION_MODE_AUTO:GUARD_INTERVAL_AUTO:HIERARCHY_AUTO:161:81:833
service_id 834:760500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_AUTO:FEC_AUTO:QAM_AUTO:TRANSMISSION_MODE_AUTO:GUARD_INTERVAL_AUTO:HIERARCHY_AUTO:162:83:834
service_id 835:760500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_AUTO:FEC_AUTO:QAM_AUTO:TRANSMISSION_MODE_AUTO:GUARD_INTERVAL_AUTO:HIERARCHY_AUTO:161:81:835
service_id 836:760500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_AUTO:FEC_AUTO:QAM_AUTO:TRANSMISSION_MODE_AUTO:GUARD_INTERVAL_AUTO:HIERARCHY_AUTO:161:81:836
service_id 837:760500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_AUTO:FEC_AUTO:QAM_AUTO:TRANSMISSION_MODE_AUTO:GUARD_INTERVAL_AUTO:HIERARCHY_AUTO:102:103:837
service_id 846:760500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_AUTO:FEC_AUTO:QAM_AUTO:TRANSMISSION_MODE_AUTO:GUARD_INTERVAL_AUTO:HIERARCHY_AUTO:0:201:846
service_id 847:760500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_AUTO:FEC_AUTO:QAM_AUTO:TRANSMISSION_MODE_AUTO:GUARD_INTERVAL_AUTO:HIERARCHY_AUTO:0:202:847

Ubuntu – create manual application launcher (Unity)

leogaggl — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 08:12:02 +0000

With every new release of Ubuntu I am becoming more resigned to the fact that the effort to revert back to the Ubuntu Classic (Gnome 2) interface is getting harder and sooner or later I will have to bite the bullet and learn to live with the ugly and more cumbersome Unity interface (specially since Gnome 3 seems to be even worse). One of the first issues I found is that there seems to be no easy way to manually add programs to the “Launcher” (as well as to the applications list).

After some digging everything seems to be still via .desktop files in /usr/share/applications/

1) Create the desktop file

vim /usr/share/applications/eclipse.desktop

2) Copy the following into the file (Note: adjust application name and path)

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Terminal=false
StartupNotify=true
Icon=/path/to/application/icon.xpm
Name=Eclipse
Comment=Programming IDE
Exec=env UBUNTU_MENUPROXY=0 /path/to/application/eclipse
Categories=Application;Development;

3) Update the desktop database

update-desktop-database

UPDATE: According to this article: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/11/ubuntu-desktop-designers-clarify-on-configurability/ the Ubuntu developers have confirmed some more reconfigurability in future releases.

Installing Java6 JDK on Ubuntu 11.10

leogaggl — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 03:00:09 +0000

Since sun-java6-jdk has been removed from the default Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) repositories you need to add a PPA repository (unless you want to install by hand)

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ferramroberto/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk sun-java6-plugin

Export Delicious Bookmarks in XML

leogaggl — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 06:28:43 +0000

After the recent takeover of Delicious from Yahoo Inc by Avos and the subsequent total screw-up of what was a workable system I have been struggling to export bookmarks from Delicious in XML format (since the API is badly broken). The API export of all bookmarks limits the export to 1000 bookmark entries. Which is fine if you have less than 1000 bookmarks stored. But it makes it impossible (since there is no paging functionality exposed by the API) to export the rest should you have more (and many people would have much more than that).

After two weeks worth of helpdesk emails from Avos I got this (which does not sound very comforting that these guys well ever get it sorted):

--------------------------------------------
Although we have several engineers, the main guy dealing with API coding has been out with the Flu so progress on this issue is slow. Ever since our launch last week all our engineers have been working and pushing really hard trying to fix bugs so hopefully we can get to this issue soon.

We have a community based thread going on at http://support.delicious.com/delicious/topics/api_related_bugs_and_questions
If you post this up, one of the engineers or other users may be able to chime in. Hope that helps for now. Sorry for any inconveniences.
--------------------------------------------

NOTE: if you only need a simple HTML export go here: http://delicious.com/settings/bookmarks/export

After some digging I found the IP Addresses of the OLD DELICIOUS SERVERS (on Yahoo – which luckily are still live ! – as at 13th Oct 2011)

Edit you hosts file and add:

98.139.50.166 www.delicious.com
76.13.6.190 secure.delicious.com
76.13.6.209 static.delicious.com
98.139.50.166 api.del.icio.us

(this can be found on /etc/hosts on Linux or C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts on Windows).

After editing this file you can again go to: https://api.del.icio.us/v1/posts/all and you will get ALL your bookmarks you had added to Delicious before the takeover (less the ones you added on the new Avos Server)

Another lesson in what can happen if you let other people take care of your information for free. You get what you pay for. Thank you to Yahoo for making this a nice service for years. But time to take control of my bookmarks again using SemanticScuttle.

Good bye Delicious – it was nice working with you. But I don’t think I like where you are going …