Archives For November 30, 1999

How to Install Guvcview 1.7.3 in Ubuntu 14.04

Last updated: June 12, 2014

install the latest guvcview 1.7.3 in Ubuntu 14.04

Guvcview is a video capture tool for cameras supported by the linux UVC driver, although it should also work with any v4l2 compatible device.

It provides:

  • Image: jpg, png, bmp
  • Video: mjpeg, flv1, wmv1, mpg2, mpg4, vp8, ogg theora
  • Sound: mp3, acc, avi and matroska

You can also use guvcview as a control window only, (from console: guvcview –control_only), this allows image control on other apps, like ekiga, cheese, mplayer, skype, etc.

Guvcview Ubuntu 14.04

While Ubuntu 14.04 has Guvcview 1.7.1 in its repositories, the latest has reached Guvcview 1.7.3 with following changes:

  • add silence frames to compensate audio drift (delay).
  • fix possible memory leak
  • add video and image capture through system signals: SIGUSR1 and SIGUSR2
  • add true no_display mode (no X required)
  • small bug fixes
  • add H264 decoding support.

Install Guvcview 1.7.3 in Ubuntu 14.04:

The official v1.7.3 packages from sf.net were built on Ubuntu 13.10 and they don’t work on Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty due to dependencies problem.

I’ve rebuilt it into PPA based on Ubuntu 14.04, just download and double click to install it via Ubuntu Software Center.

guvcview 1.7.3 32-bit guvcview 1.7.3 64-bit

Enjoy!

hiphop free music for Ubuntu

You know HipHop? It is an application lets you listen instantly to more than 45 million songs. No ads and totally free!

HipHop works on Windows, Mac and Linux (64-bit only). This simple tutorial will show you how to install it in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 64-bit. Should also works on other Ubuntu releases.

Listen to free music in Ubuntu 14.04 via HipHop

There will be a few Linux commands in the below steps. Don’t be scared, just copy and paste them one by one in a terminal window (open terminal via Ctrl+Alt+T) and hit Enter to run.

1. Install required library via command:

sudo apt-get install libudev1 nodejs

Type in your user password when it asks. Just type in mind and hit enter because terminal displays nothing when you typing a password.

2. Create a symbolic link so that the app will find the library:

sudo ln -s /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libudev.so.1 /usr/lib/libudev.so.0

3. Download HipHop from:

HipHop on Github

So far the package is HipHop-0.4.6.tgz

4. In terminal, run command to decompress the package to /opt/ directory for global use.

cd /opt/ && sudo tar -xvzf ~/Downloads/HipHop-*.tgz

After this command, run ls and you should see HipHop folder in the list.

5. Make the app executable:

cd /opt/HipHop/ && sudo chmod +x HipHop

6. You can now launch the app via:

/opt/HipHop/HipHop

install-hiphop-ubuntu

If everything is OK, let’s go create a launcher for HipHop so that you can start it from Unity Dash or Launcher.

1. First download an icon for the app. Below command will download the logo at the top of this post.

cd ~/Downloads/ && wget https://ubuntuhandbook.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/hiphop-icon.png

2. Move the icon into the system’s icons folder (/usr/share/icons):

sudo mv ~/Downloads/hiphop-icon.png /usr/share/icons/hiphop.png

3. Ubuntu handles app launchers via .desktop files under /usr/share/applications/. We have to create one manually via:

sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/hiphop.desktop

When the file opens, copy and paste below into it.

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=hiphop
Exec=/opt/HipHop/HipHop
Hidden=false
NoDisplay=false
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false
Comment=
Icon=hiphop
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false
Categories=GNOME;GTK;RasterGraphics;Viewer;Utility;Network;

hiphop-desktop-file

Save the file and now you can search and open HipHop from Unity Dash.

Enjoy!

Firefox 30

Mozilla Firefox 30.0 was finally released just a few minutes ago on June 10, 2014. The new release features GStreamer 1.0 support, Mac OS X command-E sets find term to selected text, and Sidebars button in browser chrome enables faster access to social, bookmark, & history sidebars.

More changes in Firefox 30:

  • Disallow calling WebIDL constructors as functions on the web
  • With the exception of those bundled inside an extension or ones that are whitelisted, plugins will no longer be activated by default.
  • Fixes to box-shadow and other visual overflow
  • Mute and volume available per window when using WebAudio
  • background-blend-mode enabled by default
  • Use of line-height allowed for <input type=”reset|button|submit”>
  • ES6 array and generator comprehensions implemented
  • Error stack now contains column number
  • Support for alpha option in canvas context options
  • Ignore autocomplete=”off” when offering to save passwords via the password manager
  • TypedArrays don’t support new named properties

For more details, see the official release note.

Upgrade to Firefox 30 in Ubuntu:

Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, will make the Firefox 30 into updates/security repositories very soon, available for Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 13.10 and Ubuntu 12.04.

Just run software updater from Unity Dash:

software updater in ubuntu

Firefox 30 will be in the list once it’s available:

Firefox in software updater

Can’t wait? Download the source or portable version at ftp.mozilla.org.

Linux Kernel 3.15

Linus Torvalds finally announced the Linux Kernel 3.15 on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (lkml.org):

So I ended up doing an rc8 because I was a bit worried about some last-minute dcache fixes, but it turns out that nobody seemed to even notice those. We did have other issues during the week, though, so it was just as well. The futex fixes and cleanups may stand out, but as usual there’s various other random fixes since rc8 in there too: mainly drivers (drm, networking, sound, usb etc), networking, scheduling and perf tooling.

But it’s all been fairly small and quiet, which *may* of course be due to the fact that last week was also the first week of the merge window for 3.16. That might have distracted some developers. I’m not entirely convinced I liked the overlap, but it seemed to work ok, and unless people scream really loudly (“Please don’t _ever_ do that again”) and give good reasons for doing so, I might end up doing that overlapping merge window in the future too if it ends up helping out with some particular timing issue.

That said, I also don’t think it was such a wonderful experience that I’d want to necessarily do the overlap every time, without a good specific reason for doing so. It was kind of nice being productive during the last week or rc (which is usually quite boring and dead), but I think it might be a distraction when people should be worrying about the stability of the rc.

Of course, maybe the overlap ends up meaning that we get less noise during the last week of stabilization, and it actually helps. It could go either way. I’d be interested to hear what people thought, although I _suspect_ most people don’t feel strongly either way.

Anyway, with 3.15 released, my “master” branch has already merged the work in my “next” branch on my local machine, and I’ll be decommissioning the “next” branch once I push that all out. After that, any future merge window work will happen on “master”, and we’ll be back to the normal single-branch model for my tree.

What’s New in Linux Kernel 3.15:

  • EFI mixed mode support to support running a 64-bit Linux kernel on a system with 32-bit UEFI.
  • Faster suspend and resume times
  • Add support Sony DualShock 4 controller
  • Newer notebooks should play nicer with the new kernel release.
  • On the future CPU front is AVX-512 and RDSEED extension support.
  • open-source graphics driver improvements that include initial NVIDIA Maxwell GPU support and the VCE 2.0
  • video encoding support for recent AMD graphics cards.
  • And more.

Install / Upgrade to Kernel 3.15 in Ubuntu:

The Ubuntu Kernel Team has made the .deb packages which are available at:

Download Kernel 3.15 DEBs

Check your OS type (32-bit = i386, 64-bit = amd64) via System Settings -> Details and download the generic or low latency packages and install them in below orders:

  1. linux-headers-3.15.0-xxxxxx_all.deb
  2. linux-headers-3.15.0-xxx-generic / lowlatency-xxx_i386/amd64.deb
  3. linux-image-3.15.0-xxx-generic / lowlatency-xxx_i386/amd64.deb

For command line:

1. 32 bit system, run below commands one by one in terminal:

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.15-utopic/linux-headers-3.15.0-031500-generic_3.15.0-031500.201406131105_i386.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.15-utopic/linux-headers-3.15.0-031500_3.15.0-031500.201406131105_all.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.15-utopic/linux-image-3.15.0-031500-generic_3.15.0-031500.201406131105_i386.deb

sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.15.0-*.deb linux-image-3.15.0-*.deb

2. 64 bit system, run:

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.15-utopic/linux-headers-3.15.0-031500-generic_3.15.0-031500.201406131105_amd64.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.15-utopic/linux-headers-3.15.0-031500_3.15.0-031500.201406131105_all.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.15-utopic/linux-image-3.15.0-031500-generic_3.15.0-031500.201406131105_amd64.deb

sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.15.0-*.deb linux-image-3.15.0-*.deb

If you’re using a proprietary video driver, you may re-build or re-install it to get it work with the new kernel.

Once done, restart your computer.

If for some reason this kernel release doesn’t work properly for you, reboot into previous kernel (Grub -> Advanced -> select previous kernel) and run this command to remove Linux Kernel 3.15:

sudo apt-get remove linux-headers-3.15.0-* linux-image-3.15.0-*

Finally update grub menu:

sudo update-grub

sigram telegram client for Ubuntu Linux

Sigram is a different telegram client from Sialan.Labs for Linux desktops. The project is based on Qt5 and qml, and released under the terms of the GPLv3 license.

The client has a gorgeous and simple interface. It has integrated with Limoo to preview pictures.

Features:

  • Send and recieves messages
  • Upload and send files
  • Download photos
  • Emoticons
  • Smart and native notifications
  • Start and End group chats
  • Chat background
  • Delete and forward messages
  • Delete and Add users to group chats
  • Show telegram system status
  • Local mute
  • Inner image viewer with zoom and pan features
  • Full support for touch monitors
  • Beautiful user interface with awesome animations
  • App indicator support on unity desktop
  • Show sent, seen, online, offline, lastseen and typing status
  • Contacts info pages

To-Do:

  • Secret chat
  • Add, remove, rename and edit contacts
  • Send typing status
  • Search on contacts and messages

Screenshots:

sigram telegram client

sigram-login

sigram-file-sending

Install Sigram Telegram Client:

You may first check your OS tyle 32-bit (i386) or 64 bit (amd64) via System Settings -> Details, then download the Ubuntu installer from:

Download Sigram From Its Project Page

create wifi hotspot for android

This quick tip is going to show you how to create wifi hotspot in Ubuntu 14.04 so that you can share a wired internet connection with Android devices through your wireless card.

I’ve written about this in another post using a third-party app called ap-hotspot, but some readers said that not work.

The pre-installed Network Manager in Ubuntu Unity does not support Access Point (AP) mode which is required for Android devices. Fortunately, KDE’s connection editor support this mode, below is how:

NOTE: To do below steps, your Wireless Card must support Access Point (AP) mode.

1. Click the link below to bring up Ubuntu Software Center and click install kde-nm-connection-editor:

Click Install KDE’s Network Manager

2. Once installed, press Alt+F2 and run command to launch the app:

kde-nm-connection-editor

launch kde connection manager

3. Click Add button and choose “Wireless (shared)” from the drop-down list.

create-wireless-point

4. Type in a name, ssid, and select Access Point mode. If want, set up a password under Wireless Security tab. Finally, click OK.

create-wireless-point1

5. Already connected Wired internet? OK, click Network Manager applet on Unity panel and then choose “Connect to Hidden Wi-Fi network”, choose the connection you created in previous step and click Connect button.

connect-to-wireless

6. Finally, your Network Manger menu should like this:

wifi-hotspot-connected

Turn on WLAN on your Android phone and you’ll see the access point in the list. Click connect and enjoy!

turn on NumLock automatically

For desktops and laptops that have a separate numeric keypad, it might be useful for NumLock to be turned on automatically when your Ubuntu boots up. This quick tutorial will show you how to do it in Ubuntu 14.04.

First click the below button to bring up Ubuntu Software Center and install numlockx.

Click to install numlockx

Then press Alt+F2 and paste below command into the dash.

gksudo gedit /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-unity-greeter.conf

edit-lightdm-conf

Hit enter and type your password when prompt. It will open the lightdm config file with gedit text editor.

Next to do is add below line into the end and save the file:

greeter-setup-script=/usr/bin/numlockx on

enable-numlock-lightdm

Finally restart your computer. The numeric keypad should turn on automatically when you’re at the login screen, and stay on after logging in.

Tip: In my case, NumLock was turned off again during login. If this happens to you, add numlockx as a startup program:

name: Numlockx
command: sleep 20 && numlockx on

numlock-startup

For more: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NumLock

XBMC 13.1

XBMC 13.1, the first bug-fix release of XBMC 13 Gotham, was finally announced after released two betas and a release candidate.

This 13.1 release contains only fixes compared to previous 13.0, and no new features. It can be safely installed on top of any previous XBMC releases.

  • Fix resume point of certain PVR items begin stale on playback.
  • Fix weirdness when certain TVs query XBMC’s UPnP server and it starts running a bunch of add-ons which cause popups on the XBMC machine.
  • Fix crash at exit while airplay is playing
  • Better recovery of VDPAU on errors.
  • Fixes for cropping of interlaced content using VDPAU.
  • Fix for FLAC tracks with large embedded images not playing.
  • Fix for crash if librtmp wasn’t available.
  • Fix for ffmpeg building on linux using later versions of librtmp.
  • Fix for broken m4a, mp4 playback with paplayer.
  • Fix for the hint text not being shown in editcontrols once unfocused.
  • Fix minor memory leak in PlayMedia builtin function.
  • Fix albumartist use in song smartplaylists.
  • Use unique client broadcast UID in the PVR api.

xbmc-gotham-13_1-splash-600x336

Install XBMC 13.1 in Ubuntu 14.04 / 13.10 / 12.04:

Important notice: 1. It’s always recommended to backup your current userdata before upgrading. 2. Due to changes related to the add-on system and skin improvement, certain plugins, scripts and skins may become incompatible when upgrading from XBMC 12.x.

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

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install xbmc

This quick tutorial is going to show you a really simple photo collage maker application called PhotoCollage.

Although Ubuntu has fotowall in its repositories, PhotoCollage make things much easier.

photocollage-baby1

PhotoCollage is a free and open source tool written in Python. It assembles the input photographs you give it to generate a big poster. Photos are arranged to fill the whole poster, however you can influence the algorithm to change the final layout. You can also set a custom border between photos, and save the generated image in the resolution you want.

Features:

  • generate random new layouts until one suits the user
  • choose border color and width
  • save high-resolution image
  • works even with a large number of photos (> 100)
  • integrates into the GNOME environment
  • available in English and French

Install PhotoCollage in Ubuntu:

The project is hosted on github.com, you can run below commands in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) one by one to get the code and install it:

git clone https://github.com/adrienverge/PhotoCollage.git

cd PhotoCollage

sudo python3 setup.py install

Thanks to dhor, the package is also available in his PPA for Ubuntu 14.04. Below commands will add the PPA and install PhotoCollage from that repository.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:dhor/myway

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install photocollage

HP printers in Linux
 

HP print, scan and fax Drivers for Linux just got an update a few hours ago with new printers and Linux Distros support, Linux Mint 17 Qiana is included.

HPLIP (Hewlett-Packard Linux Imaging & Printing) is an HP-developed solution for printing, scanning, and faxing with HP inkjet and laser based printers in Linux. It is free, open source software distributed under the MIT, BSD, and GPL license.

The latest HPLIP 3.14.6 was released on June 4th, which added support for Boss 5.0, Debian 7.5, Linux Mint 17, and following new printers:

  • HP DesignJet Z6600 PostScript
  • HP DesignJet Z6800PS Photo
  • HP DesignJet D5800 60-in Production Printer
  • HP DesignJet T3500 36-in Production eMFP
  • HP Designjet T7200 42-in Production Printer
  • HP Deskjet 2543 All-in-One Printer
  • HP Deskjet 2549 All-in-One Printer
  • HP OfficeJet Pro 8640 e-All-in-One Printer
  • HP OfficeJet Pro 8660 e-All-in-One Printer

Also there are a few bug fixes:

  • Fixed Device Communication Error on launching HP Device Manager
  • Unable to add/remove file in ‘hp-sendfax’ wizard
  • Fax cover page does not get changed after changing recipient second time
  • Improved scan performance for ‘hp-scan’ utility

Install HPLIP 3.14.6:

1. Download the installer:

Download HPLIP 3.14.6

Or check out if there’s a new release at official page.

2. Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run the installer via:

cd ~/Downloads && chmod +x hplip-3.14.6.run && ./hplip-3.14.6.run

Answer the questions to finish the installing process. Once done, restart your computer.