Archives For November 30, 1999

wireless

This tutorial is trying to help those who want to create AP wifi hotspot in Ubuntu Laptop but stuck at “Wifi Hotspot: Access Point Mode Is Not Supported By This Device” error message.

I’ve written three tutorials about how to turn Ubuntu Laptop into a wifi hotspot for Android, and Windows phones. Access Point Mode does not support issue is one of the most asked questions from my readers. Below I will show how to fix it using Broadcom bcm4313 as example.

UPDATE: THIS TUTORIAL IS OUTDATED! It does NOT work anymore in current Ubuntu releases!

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run the command below to tell your wireless chip information:

lspci | grep -i Network

In my case, it outputs:

02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11bgn Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)

The chip id is BCM4313, manufactured by Broadcom.

2. Check the below table. Find out the driver that works for your wireless adapter and support AP mode.

For Broadcom, there are three drivers that support AP mode, but only brcmsmac (check link page for supported chips) support wifi chip BCM4313.

Driver Manufacturer Support AP Mode
adm8211 ADMtek/Infineon no
airo Aironet/Cisco ?
ar5523 Atheros no
at76c50x-usb Atmel no
ath5k Atheros yes
ath6kl Atheros no
ath9k Atheros yes
ath9k_htc Atheros yes
ath10k Atheros ?
atmel Atmel ?
b43 Broadcom yes
b43legacy Broadcom yes
brcmfmac Broadcom no
brcmsmac Broadcom yes
carl9170 ZyDAS/Atheros yes
cw1200 ST-Ericsson yes
hostap Intersil/Conexant ?
ipw2100 Intel no
ipw2200 Intel no
iwlegacy Intel no
 iwlwifi Intel yes
 libertas  Marvell  no
libertas_tf  Marvell yes
mac80211_hwsim  Jouni  yes
mwifiex  Marvell  yes
mwl8k  Marvell  yes
orinoco  Agere/Intersil/Symbol no
 p54pci  Intersil/Conexant  yes
p54spi  Conexant/ST-NXP  yes
p54usb  Intersil/Conexant  yes
rndis_wlan  Broadcom  no
rt61pci  Ralink  yes
rt73usb  Ralink  yes
rt2400pci  Ralink  yes
rt2500pci  Ralink  yes
rt2500usb  Ralink  yes
rt2800pci  Ralink  yes
rt2800usb  Ralink  yes
vt6656  VIA  yes
wil6210  Atheros  yes
 wl12xx Texas Instruments  yes
zd1211rw ZyDAS/Atheros  yes

3. Find out current driver running on your wifi adapter by running below command:

ethtool -i wlan0 | grep driver

If need, install ethtool from Ubuntu Software Center. The command outputs something like this:

driver: wl0

So in my case I need to switch wireless driver from wl0 to brcmsmac to get AP mode support.

4. Install brcmsmac driver.

sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer

5. After installed the new driver, try to enable it from Additional Drivers utility (search & open it from the Unity Dash), and finally restart.

6. Finally run:

iw list

Below section tells you AP mode is support now:

Supported interface modes:
* IBSS
* managed
* AP
* AP/VLAN
* monitor

For some wireless chips, run below command instead to check out supported interface modes:

sudo iwconfig wlan0 mode master

7 To make this work at next boot, go to /etc/modprobe.d directory in terminal:

cd /etc/modprobe.d/ && ls

Or in your file browser (open as root), find out and remove the line blacklist brcmsmac that blacklist the driver in any file in that directory.

create wifi hotspot in Ubuntu for android

Dear readers, I’ve found a new way to create wireless hotspot in Ubuntu, AP mode with Android devices support, using Unity’s Network Manager.

After this tutorial, I’ve found 3 ways to create wifi hotspot in ap mode:

  1. Using Ap-hotspot, an open-source app from github: see this post.
  2. Using KDE connection editor, see the post.
  3. Using Unity’s Default Network Manager with a little hack. See below

Below I will show you how to use Unity’s default network manager to create a wireless hotspot with Android devices support, tested in 64-bit Ubuntu 1404 with Nexus 4 and Sumsung Galaxy ace3.

1. Disable WIFI and plug in an internet cable to your laptop so that your Ubuntu is connect to a wired internet and wireless is disabled.

2. Go to Network Icon on top panel -> Edit Connections …, then click the Add button in the pop-up window.

Edit Network Connections

3. Choose Wi-Fi from the drop-down menu when you’re asked to choose a connection type:

Choose Connection Type

4. In next window, do:

  • Type in a connection name. The name will be used later.
  • Type in a SSID
  • Select mode: Infrastructure
  • Device MAC address: select your wireless card from drop-down menu.

create-wifi-hotspot

5. Go to Wi-Fi Security tab, select security type WPA & WPA2 Personal and set a password.

6. Go to IPv4 Settings tab, from Method drop-down box select Shared to other computers.

wifi-ipv4

When done, click the save button.

After above steps, a configuration file created under /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections directory. File name is same to the connection name you typed in step 4.

Now press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, paste the commands below and hit enter to edit the configuration file:

gksu gedit /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/wifi-hotspot

Replace wifi-hotspt with the connection name you typed in step 4.

When the file opens, find out the line mode=infrastructure and change it to mode=ap. Finally save the file.

Change to AP mode

When everything’s done, enable WIFI from Network Manager icon on the panel. It should automatically connect to the hotspot you created. If not, select “Connect to Hidden Wi-Fi Network …” and select it from the drop-down box.

wifi-hotspot

Now you can search and connect the access point from your Android mobile and enjoy!

Yorba Geary Shotwell

Yorba Team has recently announced its Geary Mail Client 0.8 with lots of new features and improvements. Here’s how to upgrade it in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

According to the release note, Geary 0.8 now looks a lot sharper and more modern than before. The compose new message and reply window are now inline the main window. You can still pop the composer out into a separate window through the Detach button.

Compose new message and Reply window are now inline the main window

Compose new message and Reply window are now inline the main window

Another new feature is that signature support has been made into Geary. It will automatically insert a signature of your design into an email, whether new or replying to another.

Geary with signature support

Geary with signature support

Also the new release brings great improvement on database speed and IMAP connection stability, and more:

  • Saving drafts to server can be disabled
  • Improved interface, now using GtkHeaderBar and modern widgets
  • Database speed optimizations to reduce lags and improve read times
  • Improved connection handling and reestablishment
  • Show attachments lacking a Content-Disposition
  • Important bug fixes
  • Updated translations

Install Geary 0.8 in Ubuntu 14.04 or Linux Mint 17:

UPDATE: The step below is outdated! See how to guide instead.

Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run commands below one by one:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yorba/ppa

sudo apt-get update 

sudo apt-get install geary

install-geary-ppa

Above commands will add the official PPA and install the latest geary packages in your Ubuntu. For those don’t want to add the PPA, you can grab the .deb directly from the Launchpad Page.

Install BirdFont Editor in Ubuntu

BirdFont is a free font editor that lets you create vector graphics and export TTF, EOT & SVG fonts. It’s an open-source editor written in Vala.

BirdFont is developed by Johan Mattsson with a good number of people contributing translations and patches. The editor now is at version 1.3 and has around 42 000 lines of code.

BirdFont Editor in Ubuntu

BirdFont has been made into default Ubuntu repositories since 14.10 Utopic. But the packages are old at the moment.

I’ve upload the latest build into PPA with the debian files belong to Ubuntu official. The PPA so far supports Ubuntu 14.10 and derivatives, such as Linux Mint 17.

To install the latest BirdFont (1.3 so far) in Ubuntu:

Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, paste the commands below and run one by one:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/birdfont

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install birdfont

Install BirdFont Editor via PPA

After that, you can receive future updates through Software Updater.

For those who don’t want to add the PPA repository, grab the .deb package directly from THIS PAGE.

To get started using the editor, please read the official tutorials.

Nvidia 343.22 ubuntu 14.04

Nvidia has just announced a new version of graphics driver 343.22 for Linux with new GPUs support and various fixes.

According to the release highlights, Nvidia 343.22 added support for GeForce GTX 970 and GTX 980, removed support for G8x, G9x, and GT2xx GPUs, and motherboard chipsets based on them. Ongoing support for new Linux kernels and X servers, as well as fixes for critical bugs, will be included in 340.* legacy releases through the end of 2019.

The new drive contains various fixes and/or new features:

  • Fixed a bug that prevented the “sync to vblank” setting from being honored for EGL applications.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause some OpenGL programs to encounter out of memory during a mode switch.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the NVIDIA OpenGL driver from honoring the __GL_SHADER_DISK_CACHE_PATH environment variable.
  • Fixed a bug that caused disabled displays to be implicitly included in the target selection for some queries and assignments on the nvidia-settings command line interface, in the absence of any explicit target selection.
  • Added a new attribute to the NV-CONTROL API to query the current utilization of the video decode engine.
  • Fixed a bug where the Exchange Stereo Eyes setting in nvidia-settings didn’t work in certain stereo configurations.
  • Worked around a Unigine Heaven 3.0 shader bug which could cause corruption when tessellation is enabled by implementing an application profile that uses the “GLIgnoreGLSLExtReqs” setting.  See the documentation for the __GL_IGNORE_GLSL_EXT_REQS environment variable for more details.
  • Fixed a memory leak when destroying EGL surfaces.
  • Added support for multiple simultaneous EGL displays.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause nvidia-installer to unsuccessfully attempt to delete the directory containing precompiled kernel module interfaces, on packages prepared with –add-this-kernel.
  • Updated nvidia-installer to log uninstallation to a separate file from the installation log, and to attempt uninstalling previous driver installations using the installer program from the previous installation, when available.

Install or Upgrade to Nvidia 343.22 in Ubuntu:

NOTE: Ubuntu provides “nvidia-current” driver, available in Software Center, which may interact better with your distribution’s framework, and you may want to use this rather than NVIDIA’s official package.

There are two ways installing this driver in your Ubuntu system, using the official .run installer or a third-party PPA repository.

To install Nvidia 343.22 via official installer:

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal, run command below to download the driver:

For 32-bit system, run:

cd ~/Downloads/ && wget http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/343.22/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-343.22.run

For 64-bit system, run:

cd ~/Downloads/ && wget http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/343.22/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-343.22.run

download-nvidia

2. , run command to remove the previous driver and install latest update-dev package:

sudo apt-get purge nvidia*; sudo apt-get install nvidia-331-updates-dev

When done, restart your computer.

3. When back, press Ctrl+Alt+F1 (or F2~F6) to switch to command console and log in with your user name and password.
There will no visual feedback when typing a password, just type in mind and hit enter.

4. When you’re logged into command console, stop the graphics session by running the command below:

sudo service lightdm stop

For Ubuntu Gnome edition and Linux Mint, you may replace ligthdm with gdm or mdm

5. After the graphics session closed, you can now starts the official Nvidia installer, by running below commands:

chmod +x ~/Downloads/NVIDIA-Linux-*-343.22.run && sudo sh ~/Downloads/NVIDIA-Linux-*-343.22.run

Follow the onscreen prompt and done!

6. (Optional) To uninstall this driver, run below command in console:

sudo sh ~/Downloads/NVIDIA-Linux-*-343.22.run --uninstall

To install the driver from PPA repository (easier way):

First check out the PPA page to see if the packages are ready: xorg-edgers PPA. Check out the package version of “nvidia-graphics-drivers-343”.

Once the driver is made into the PPA, you can run below commands one by one to install it in Ubuntu 14.04 or Ubuntu 14.10:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install nvidia-343

That’s it. Enjoy!

Install enlightenment e19 Ubuntu 14.04

Enlightenment 0.19.0 stable has been released recently. One of the best new features in E19 is the full wayland support.

In this quick tutorial I’ll show you how to install the Enlightenment window manager 0.19.0 (E19) in Ubuntu easily with a bash script. Tested in Ubuntu 14.04.1 64-bit.

E19 in Ubuntu 14.04

Enlightenment E19 session in Ubuntu 14.04

Before getting started, you may take a look at what’s new in the latest E19 release:

  • greatly improved wayland support
    • E_WL_FORCE environment variable for forcing output types
  • e_uuid_store: Add infrastructure to store window/surface properties.
  • Add a tiling profile.
  • per-screen desklock logo visibility config
  • Tiling: Merge the tiling module rework..
  • check udisks1 DevicePresentationHide flag
  • ACTIVATE_EXCLUDE window active hint policy
  • show video resolution in filepreview widget
  • add fileman option to clamp video size for video previews
  • handle xrandr backlight using a single, accurate handler
  • blanking options for wakeup on events (urgent + notify)
  • packagekit module for package manager integration
  • ibar now optionaly triggers its menu on mouse in
  • selective redirection toggling
  • new focus option “raise on revert focus”
  • add PIN-style desklock for lokker module
  • make desklock hookable, break out current desklock into module, move pam stuff to separate file
  • revive personal desklock passwords
  • allow moveresize visuals to be replaced
  • allow desk flip animations to be handled completely externally
  • E16-style live pager returns!
  • comp config is no longer a module
  • E_FIRST_FRAME env variable
  • new compositor API
  • add E_MODULE_SRC_PATH for setting current module src path without needing to install modules
  • use non-recursive makefiles for entire build system
  • filemanager popups no longer span multiple monitors
  • system operations no longer dim screen until action has begun
  • window stacking and focus restore is more accurate across restarts
  • gstreamer1 is now used for media previews
  • improved multiple monitor setup reliability
  • shaped windows now render more accurately

Install Enlightenment E19 in Ubuntu 14.04:

UPDATE: The link to the script is broken. As an alternative, install E19 from PPA by running below commands one by one from PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:niko2040/e19

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install enlightenment terminology

Thanks to batden, there’s now a bash script to make it easy to install / upgrade / uninstall the E19 (git version) in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. All you need to do is download & install the script and answer on screen prompts during the installing process.

1. To download the script, right-click the link below and click “Save link as …” and save the file nineteen.sh to Downloads folder..

Right-click me and select ‘Save link as …’

You can also download the script from the ubuntuforums thread.

2. After you downloaded the script, make it executable and run it.

To do so, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run the commands below one by one:

cd ~/Downloads/ && chmod +x nineteen.sh && ./nineteen.sh

Install Enlightenment e19 in Ubuntu 14.04

3. When the script starts, type a number to select install, update, or uninstall E19 (see above picture.) and hit Enter.

After that, it will pop up a information dialog and then ask you to insert your user password. Not that, terminal does not give visual feed back when typing a password, just type in mind and hit enter.

4. After that, the script will update & upgrade your system, download all Enlightenment packages, and finally compile them on your system. Depends on your internet connection, the process will cost a few minutes.

During this period of time, it will ask two or three questions, so don’t go too far away!

5. When everything’s done, you should see something like below.

e19-installation-done

Restart your computer and select log in with Enlightenment when you’re at Unity Greeter and enjoy!

BleachBit ccleaner ubuntu

Looking for a computer cleaning software? Well, BleachBit is the best free and open source cleaner for Linux desktop.

BleachBit was originally designed for GNU/Linux to free cache, delete cookies, clear Internet history, shred temporary files, delete logs, and discard junk you didn’t know was there. It’s the best Linux alternative to Windows’ CCleaner.

BleachBit is started in 2008, it’s written in Python and uses PyGTK. Since version 0.5.0, it added support for Windows XP, 7, and 8.

Bleach Cleaner in Ubuntu

Features:

  • Simple operation: read the descriptions, check the boxes you want, click preview, and click delete.
  • Multi-platform: Linux and Windows
  • Free of charge
  • Free to share, learn, and modify (open source)
  • No adware, spyware, malware, or browser toolbars
  • Translated to 61 languages
  • Shred files to hide their contents and prevent data recovery
  • Shred any file (such as a spreadsheet on your desktop)
  • Overwrite free disk space to hide previously deleted files
  • Portable app for Windows: run without installation
  • Command line interface for scripting and automation
  • CleanerML allows anyone to write a new cleaner using XML
  • Automatically import and update winapp2.ini cleaner files (a separate download) giving Windows users access to 1700+ additional cleaners
  • Frequent software updates with new features

Download & Install BleachBit:

1. For Ubuntu and other Linux distributions, you can always download the latest installer from its website:

Download BleachBit for Linux

2. For Ubuntu, select download the package matches your release version. The package is a .deb file.

3. To install it, double click to open the .deb file with Ubuntu Software Center and click the install button.

Once installed, start the cleaner from Unity Dash. You can change the language from its Preferences window. Enjoy!

Ubuntu Touch Apps

Applist.py is a basic python script that allows to browse all the applications available in Ubuntu Touch App Store through a web browser.

Ubuntu Touch Apps

Meizu MX4, to be released few months later, will be the first mobile devices with pre-installed Ubuntu Touch OS. In addition to the default core applications, there are already quite a few third-party apps available in the App Store.

With a simple python script, desktop users can search and view all the Ubuntu Touch applications available in App Store.

Download the script from Github page:

Download Applist.py

Once you downloaded the package:

  1. Extract and go into the result folder.
  2. Right-click on the script file and select Properties, under Permissions tab, check the box between “Execute:” and “Allow executing file as program”.
  3. Finally run the script from the context menu and you’ll see the window in above picture.

run-python-script

If you don’t see the Run option in file’s context menu, go to File Browser Menu -> Edit -> Preferences -> Behavior tab, check the box where it says “Run executable text files when they are opened”. You might need to run command nautilus -q to restart Nautilus to take place.

run-executable-in-nautilus

That’s it. Enjoy!

via:lffl

How to Schedule Automatic Shutdown in Ubuntu 14.04

Last updated: September 14, 2014

schedule auto shutdown

Want to shutdown, restart, or hibernate your Ubuntu machine automatically on a schedule? Well, it can be done easily by a graphical tool called ComplexShutdown.

ComplexShutdown is a simple python script for those who hate Linux commands to schedule shutdown Ubuntu desktop with an easy to use graphical interface.

This simple GUI features:

  • Automatic Shutdown, Log off, Restart, Standby (Suspend), Hibernate, and run a custom command.
  • Supports sound and message notification, Unity integration,
  • Run action in days:hours:minutes:seconds.
  • Run action after computer idled days:hours:minutes:seconds.
  • Run action in select date and time.

schedule-shutdown-ubuntu

Install ComplexShutdown in Ubuntu:

Download the latest .deb package from the link below. Then double click to open it with Ubuntu Software Center and click the install button.

Download ComplexShutdown

Once installed, open it from Unity Dash and enjoy!

Tip: due to bug, options for “after idle” and “at” are grayed out. I got it fixed in my 64-bit Ubuntu 14.04 by accident. See what I did:

  1. Downloaded & installed the complexshutdown_0.5_all.deb
  2. Run the app for a while and found that “after idle” and “at” options not available.
  3. Removed complexshutdown 0.5 by running below command in terminal:
    sudo apt-get remove complexshutdown
  4. Installed the complexshutdown_0.4_amd64/i386.deb (available in above link)
  5. Run the app and found that “at” option worked, but “after idle” not.
  6. Finally I removed complexshutdown_0.4 and reinstalled the 0.5 version. Found that all works!

cinelerra 4.6

Cinelerra video editing and compositing software now is at version 4.6. The 64-bit binary for Ubuntu 14.04 is available from Heroine Warrior.

The Cinelerra HV version is produced by Heroine Virtual, and is free software distributed under the GNU General Public License. Cinelerra also includes a video compositing engine, allowing the user to perform advanced compositing operations such as keying and mattes.

What’s New in Cinelerra HV 4.6:

  • Split pane editing.
  • OpenGL supported on Intel HD.
  • Titler improvements.
  • Bugfixes.

Install Cinelerra 4.6 in Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit:

1. Download the 64-bit binary from the link below:

Download Cinelerra HV 4.6

2. Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run the command below to open Archive Manager with root permission:

gksudo file-roller

When the Archive Manager opens:

  • Click the Open icon, navigate and select open Cinelerra package.
  • When the package opens, click the Extract button, select extract to /opt/ folder.

extract-cinelerra

When done, you can start the Cinelerra video editor by running command /opt/cinelerra/cinelerra in terminal.

3. Create launcher shortcut for Cinelerra

Press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal. When it opens, run command to create a launcher file and open it with Gedit text editor:

gksudo gedit /usr/share/applications/cinelerra-hv.desktop

When the editor opens, paste below into the file and save it.

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Cinelerra-HV
Comment=Video Editor
Categories=Application;AudioVideo;Multimedia;VideoEditing;
Encoding=UTF-8
Exec=/opt/cinelerra/cinelerra
Icon=
Terminal=false
Type=Application

You can grab a shortcut icon from web and input the file path after Icon= in above content.
cinelerra-launcher

When done, you can search for and open Cinelerra video editor from Unity Dash. Enjoy!