UbuntuHandbook | Author Archives

Archives For jimingkui

Install Gnoduino – GTK Replacement of Arduino IDE in Ubuntu 14.04

Last updated: August 19, 2014

This simple tutorial shows how to install Gnoduino IDE, implementation of well-known Arduino IDE for GNOME, in Ubuntu 14.04 & Ubuntu 12.04.

Why Gnoduino?

The original Arduino IDE is written in Java however, and that makes for poor integration on the Linux platform, particularly with Ubuntu Unity. Luckily enough someone has been busy to do a simple rewrite of the original IDE in Python and GTK, making a fully Linux native IDE, and it’s called Gnoduino. This implementation is targeted at GNOME and its purpose is to be light.

How to Install Gnoduino IDE in Ubuntu:

Besides building from source, the IDE is available in PPA for Ubuntu 14.04 and Ubuntu 12.04.

Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, paste the command below and hit enter to run. Type in your password when prompt.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pmjdebruijn/gnoduino-release

This will add the Gnoduino PPA into your system.

After that, run commands below to update package lists and install the IDE:

sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install gnoduino

Once installed, open it from menu or Unity dash and enjoy!

In Howtos Arduino IDE, Gnoduino IDE, Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 14.04

LiVES Editing System 2.2.6 Available For Ubuntu 14.04/12.04

Last updated: August 17, 2014

LiVES, a free video editing system and VJ tool, now is at version 2.2.6, which updates for gtk+ >= 3.10.0.

LiVES is designed to be simple to use, yet powerful. It is small in size, yet it has many advanced features.

cross-platforms.
Support multiple video formats via mplayer, mplayer2.
Extendable video and audio effects via plugins.
Support for remote control via OSC protocol.
Video capture from FireWire cameras and TV cards.
Lossless backup and crash recovery.

The latest release 2.2.6 was released on Aug 16, with below changes:

Fix startup bug (regression) creating config file incorrectly.
Libav compatibility fixes.
Updates for gtk+ >= 3.10.0
Show warning when configured with gtk+ 3.10.x
Add support for freenect camera.
Minor code cleanups.

Install / Upgrade to LiVES 2.2.6 in Ubuntu:

For Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04 and their derivatives, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run the commands below one by one to get this release from PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/lives

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install lives

(Optional) If for some reason you want to remove it, run below commands one by one:

sudo apt-get remove lives

sudo add-apt-repository -r ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/lives

sudo apt-get update

Above commands will remove LiVES as well as the PPA from your system and update the package lists.

In Howtos Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 14.04, video editor

Gcalcli – Google Calendar in Command Line /Desktop Widget

Last updated: August 16, 2014

Gcalcli is a command line tool for Linux users to manage Google Calendar. It allows you to get your agenda, search for, add, delete, edit events and even import those annoying ICS/vCal invites from Microsoft Exchange and/or other sources.

Additionally, gcalcli can be used as a reminder service and execute any application you want when an event is coming up.

Gcalcli features:

OAuth2 authention with your Google account
list your calendars
show an agenda using a specified start/end date and time
ascii text graphical calendar display with variable width
search for past and/or future events
“quick add” new events to a specified calendar
“add” a new event to a specified calendar (interactively or automatically)
“delete” event(s) from a calendar(s) (interactively or automatically)
“edit” event(s) interactively
import events from ICS/vCal files to a specified calendar
support for URL shortening via goo.gl
easy integration with your favorite mail client (attachment handler)
run as a cron job and execute a command for reminders
work against specific calendars (by calendar name w/ regex)
flag file support for specifying option defaults
colored output and unicode character support
super fun hacking with shell scripts, cron, screen, tmux, conky, etc

Install Gcalcli in Ubuntu:

This python app is available in the default repositories of Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 14.10, and Ubuntu 12.04. So we can easily install it by running below command (or via Software Center):

sudo apt-get install gcalcli

For Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, due to this bug, we need to download & install the latest parsedatetime 1.2 to get gcalcli work.

cd /tmp

wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/python-parsedatetime_1.2-1_all.deb

sudo dpkg -i python-parsedatetime_1.2-1_all.deb

How to Use Gcalcli:

Before getting started, set up your Google Account via:

nano ~/.gcalclirc

Type in below as its content:

[gcalcli]
user: GMAIL-ACCOUNT
pw: PASSWORD

After saving the changes by Ctrl+X, type y, and hit Enter, use the tool via below commands:

To get your agenda:

gcalcli agenda

To get a month agenda in a nice calendar format:

gcalcli calm

Quick add an event:

gcalcli quick 'text here'

For more, run:

gcalcli --help

Display Google Calendar as Desktop Widget:

With this command line tool, you can also display Google Calendar on your desktop through conky. To do so, first install the required packages:

sudo apt-get install conky ttf-dejavu ttf-dejavu-core ttf-dejavu-extra

Then download the conky script (thanks to lffl.org):

cd && wget https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/209784349/lffl/.conkyrc.txt && mv .conkyrc.txt .conkyrc

Finally run conky from terminal or Alt+F2 command box and you’ll see something like below:

via: github, lffl.org

In Howtos Google Calender

Install Vuze BitTorrent Client 5.4.0 in Ubuntu

Last updated: April 4, 2019

Vuze BitTorrent client has finally reached v5.4.0 with new features, UI changes and various bug fixes.

Vuze is a multimedia BitTorrent client based on Azureus intended for DVD and HD video. It includes some social-networking features to share videos among friends.

User Interface

Added ‘force start’ and ‘super seeding’ options to the create-torrent wizard
File filter added to torrent-options dialog
Minimum/Target share ratio setters added to column menu and torrent options view
Added ‘SHA1′ column to files-view
Added a default save directory to apply when ‘best guess’ is enabled and nothing matches
File path names can now be entered into the search box to open the torrent
New column showing the date of completion of the most recent file
Added ‘initial tags’ to the create-torrent wizard
Enabled networks can now be specified in torrent-options dialog
Added an ‘apply to current’ function to tags with initial-save/move-on-complete set
Added ‘availability’ button to torrent-options to allow a torrent’s availability to be checked before addition
Tag buttons can now be enabled in Library view; category buttons can be hidden
Added ‘pause for’ option for selected torrents in Library view via Advanced menu

Client Core

Added simple tag constraint language (e.g. to define a tag that contains downloads whose title matches a regex)
BEP 40: Canonical Peer Priority
Added ‘copy-on-complete’ function to tags
HTTPS support for web-seeds
Speed limit handler can now start/stop downloads assigned to particular tags

Install Vuze in Ubuntu:

The getdeb apps repository contains the latest packages for Ubuntu 14.04, see: ~~GetDeb.net~~

If you don’t want to add this repository, go to the link below:

~~Download Vuze .DEB~~

Download and install below packages via Gdebi (available in Software Center):

azureus_5.4.0.0-1~getdeb1_all.deb
vuze_5.4.0.0-1~getdeb1_all.deb

In Howtos Ubuntu 14.04, Vuze Bittorrent Client

Liferea News Aggregator 1.11 Adds InoReader Support [PPA]

Last updated: August 14, 2014

Liferea 1.11.0, the first release of the new unstable release line, has been released with experimental InoReader and Reedah support.

Liferea is an open source feed reader and news aggregator with an embedded graphical browser (supports playing video, audio). It’s a Linux native app comes with below distinguishing Features:

Read articles when offline.
Synchronizes with InoReader, Reedah (since 1.11), TheOldReader, TinyTinyRSS.
Permanently save headlines in news bins.
Match items using search folders.
Play Podcasts in Liferea

According to the release note, the latest 1.11.0 also added tray icon plugin (removed build in tray icon support), category/folder support for TheOldReader, folder auto-removal for TinyTinyRSS & TheOldReader. And support for libindicate and libnotify has been removed (to be added as plugin maybe).

The new release has fixed below bugs:

Mistakenly claims “TinyTinyRSS source is not self-updating”
Crash on font resize at startup.
Honor preferences when opening links
Selecting last unread item in reduced feed list jumps to next feed
Fixed missing “Via” metadata type
Fixed incorrect new count reset handling in item_state.c and some of the node source implementations.
missing installation of liferea.convert file
liferea-add-feed doesn’t process feed:https//
startup race with LifereaHtmlView
Parsing errors not visible with dark themes
Do not use bold text for feeds/folders with unread items in the leftmost treeview
Liferea does not update feeds with TinyTinyRSS
subscription prop/source: not all fields and buttons visible
RTL comments appear incorrectly
Images do not autosize to fit the available space
Add TinyTinyRSS Enclosure Support
“Any of the following” search condition doesn’t work
Some dialogs scrolling areas do not request enough height
Doesn’t automatically update feed name and favicon for new feed
Update to new libxml2 buffer API
Avoid copying list in itemset_merge_items
Make Liferea use ETags and send If-None-Match
Support NOCONFIGURE for RPM builds

Known Bugs:

issue #48: Need to start Liferea twice simultaneously before it shows the window.

Install Liferea 1.11.0 in Ubuntu:

As an unstable release line it might have bugs. I’ve uploaded it into a new PPA, available for Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04 and Ubuntu 12.04.

To add the PPA, press Ctrl+Alt+T to open the terminal and run:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/liferea-unstable

If you want the latest stable release (1.10.10 so far), remove the previous PPA by running above command with parameter -r and then add the below one:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

After added an appropriate PPA, install or upgrade Liferea via Synaptic or Software Updater after checking for updates. Or just run below commands one by one:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install liferea

(Optional) To purge the PPA as well as downgrade Liferea, run:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge

sudo ppa-purge ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/liferea-unstable

In Howtos Liferea News Aggregator, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 14.10

Nvidia Driver 340.32 Fixed Various OpenGL & G-SYNC Bugs [PPA]

Last updated: August 13, 2014

Nvidia Team has announced the latest Linux driver 340.32 a few hours ago with new GPUs support, various OpenGL, G-SYNC monitor, and other important bug fixes.

According to the release highlights, the new driver added support for Quadro K420, Quadro K620, Quadro K2200, Quadro K4200, Quadro K5200 GPUs. Also there are various important fixes:

Fixed a regression that prevented the internal stereo infrared emitter built into some 3D Vision monitors from working.
Fixed a bug that could cause some Java-based OpenGL applications using JOGL to crash on startup on systems with Xinerama enabled.
Fixed a bug that could prevent OpenGL Framebuffer Objects (FBOs) from being properly redrawn after a modeswitch.
Fixed a memory leak that occurred when starting OpenGL applications.
Fixed a bug that prevented the EDID-Like Data (ELD) of audio-capable displays from being updated when hotplugged/unplugged.
Fixed a bug that caused Xid errors when using stereo mode 12 (HDMI 3D) on Quadro boards without an onboard stereo DIN connector.
Fixed a video corruption issue for VDPAU decoding of VC-1 and WMV video streams utilizing range remapping on Maxwell GPUs.
Fixed a “black window” bug in Ubuntu 14.04 when using the Xinerama and Composite extensions.
Fixed a bug that caused the screen’s contents to be shifted downward when a G-SYNC monitor is unplugged and replaced by a non-G-SYNC monitor.
Fixed a bug that prevented G-SYNC from working when a G-SYNC monitor was unplugged and plugged back in without a modeset.

Install Nvidia 340.32 in Ubuntu:

For Ubuntu 14.04 and Ubuntu 14.10, this driver has been made into the Xorg Edgers PPA. 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:xorg-edgers/ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install nvidia-340

If you would like to install it from the official package. Download the installer from:

Nvidia Driver for Unix

You may check out your OS type via System Settings -> Details and download the right package matches your os type.

64-bit os – Linux x86_64/AMD64/EM64T
32-bit os – Linux x86/IA32

Finally you can install the official .run installer by following this guide (skip step2, and replace the package name in the codes).

In Howtos Nvidia Driver

How To Map A Network Drive Onto Ubuntu 14.04 Permanently

Last updated: April 22, 2024

This simple tutorial shows you how to map a network drive, Windows share as example, onto Ubuntu 14.04 LTS with read and write permission permanently.

UPDATE-2024: This tutorial is outdated, and no longer works in current Ubuntu releases!!

All things will be done in a terminal window. Not familiar with Linux command? Don’t be afraid, just paste the command into terminal and hit enter to run one by one. There will be a few pictures to make things more clear.

Preparation:

There are a few preliminary actions we need to do before we can start mounting using cifs.

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. Paste the command below and run to create a mount point, you can replace ‘Ji-share’ to what you want.

sudo mkdir /media/Ji-share

2. Install cifs-utils, which provides support for cross-platform file sharing with Microsoft Windows, OS X and other Unix systems.

Install it from Ubuntu Software Center, or via below command:

sudo apt-get install cifs-utils

3. Edit the /etc/nsswitch.conf:

sudo gedit /etc/nsswitch.conf

Find the line looks like:

hosts: files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns

change it into:

hosts: files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] wins dns

4. Run below command so that your Ubuntu can resolve Windows computer name on a DHCP network.

sudo apt-get install libnss-winbind winbind

Reboot Ubuntu, or restart your network.

Mount (map) network drive:

Now edit the fstab file to mount network share on start up.

1. Make a backup by running the command below:

sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab_old

If you need to restore your backup, run:

sudo mv /etc/fstab_old /etc/fstab

2. Create a credentials file via:

gedit ~/.smbcredentials

insert the username and password for accessing the remote share. Replace “Ji” & “741852963” with yours and save the file.

username=Ji
password=741852963

3. Run command to get your gid and uid. Replace handbook with your user name.

id handbook

4. Now edit the fstab by running the command:

sudo gedit /etc/fstab

Add below line (one line) to the end and save it. REPLACE WORDS IN RED!

//192.168.1.5/share /media/Ji-share cifs credentials=/home/handbook/.smbcredentials,iocharset=utf8,gid=1000,uid=1000,file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777 0 0

Finally run sudo mount -a in terminal and you’ll get the network share mapped in Unity Launcher and Nautilus file browser:

In Howtos map a network drive, Ubuntu 14.04

Open Source Racing Game ‘Stunt Rally’ Gets A New Release

Last updated: August 10, 2014

Open source racing game Stunt Rally just reached 2.4 release with lots of updates.

According to the changelog, the new release comes with all 147 tracks (6 new, 12 old deleted, some renewed), 2 new sceneries (Crystals, GreeceWhite), 3 new cars (4 renewed, 2 old deleted). Also there are a few improvements on UI and game experiences.

For detailed changes, refer to the project page.

Install Stunt Rally in Ubuntu:

For 64-bit Linux so far (as well as Windows .exe) download the latest release from the link below and run the executable from its bin folder.

Download Stunt Rally

For Ubuntu 14.04 and Linux Mint 17, you can also get it from Playdeb repository. To do so, do below steps:

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, paste the command below and hit enter. Type in your password when prompt.

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu trusty-getdeb games"

2. Also run command to get the key:

wget -q -O- http://archive.getdeb.net/getdeb-archive.key | sudo apt-key add -

3. Finally install the game from Synaptic Package Manager (available in Software Center) after clicking reload button to update package lists:

In News open source racing game, stunt rally

Native Music Player DeaDBeeF Updates With Lots of Fixes and Improvements

Last updated: August 9, 2014

The lightweight Linux native music player DeaDBeeF has been updated to v0.6.2 with lots of new features, improvements and bug fixes.

DeadBeef is a fully-featured music player takes use of very few RAM. Since v0.6, it has a design mode (view -> design mode) that allows you to customize the UI the way you like.

The latest 0.6.2 release was released days ago on August 5th with lots of changes:

added “Stop playback after current album finished” (Aleksejs Popovs)
added ALAC, OPUS, OggFlac encoder presets (Ian Nartowicz)
added configure option to build artwork plugin without network support
added new widget for muting chiptune voices
added support for SHIFT-JIS charset detection/recoding (off by default)
fixed “stop after current” bug, which required player restart on every change
fixed –gui command line option
fixed GUI seeking accuracy bug
fixed bug in extended frame flags conversion between ID3v2.3 and ID3v2.4 tag formats
fixed crash when loading playlist from command line
fixed loading album art (APIC frame) from ID3v2.4 with data length indicator
fixed non-utf8 locale support in console
fixed support for vorbis files with more than 6 channels
fixed playlist count limit bug
fixed preserving file permissions after editing ogg files
fixed several bugs in PLS playlist format support
improved FreeBSD and OSX support
improved charset detection in CUE and ID3v1
improved album art column rendering/resizing (Christian Boxdörfer)
improved the build system and the output build quality
improved detection of config changes, to avoid unnecessary config writing
improved support for reading APEv2 and ID3v1 tags from large files (>2Gb)
updated licensing information in all plugins, to include information about all used libraries
aac: added workaround for 7 channel sound playback bug
ape: play files with format >= 4.11, improved error handling
artwork: many fixes and improvements, including support for non-tagged files
dumb: added option to configure internal volume
ffmpeg: fixed bitrate calculation
ffmpeg: fixed replaygain support
flac: fixed/improved many things in tag reading and writing code
gme: added support for loading gzipped modules from supported archives (e.g. from zips)
gtkui, pltbrowser: better accessibility
gtkui: added option to disable seekbar overlay
gtkui: added option to display playback state as unicode characters, instead of bitmaps (works better on HDPI screens)
gtkui: added support for design mode to more widgets (seekbak, volumebar, playback toolbar)
gtkui: fixed bug in gtk_drag_check_threshold handler
gtkui: numerous fixes in widget layout code
gtkui: single/double clicking on album art column will select/play the album/group (Christian Boxdörfer)
lastfm: added support for scrobbling radio streams (off by default)
lastfm: added support for scrobbling tracks shorter than 30 sec (off by default)
lastfm: improved support for musicbrainz track id
mms: fixed few buffer overflow bugs, improved responsiveness
mp3: optimized scanner: less backward seeks during frame syncing
shellexec: fixed escaping of single quotes, prevent opening copies of shxui dialogs
vfs_zip: huge speed improvements
vorbis, oggflac: new tagging code (Ian Nartowicz)
improved plugin duplicate checking
fixed RIFF WAVE header writing in converter
fixed 8bit png crash in album art plugin (Ian Nartowicz)
static builds now use -O3 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=0 compiler flags
fixed few issues with implementation of the Play button
improved tag writing in converter
fixed issues with “background jobs are running” warning
changed all wiki links to point to the new wiki on github
improved streamer event handling, to make the GUI more responsive and stable
fixed cleaning up downloaded temporary playlist files
Fixed skipping bad FLAC__METADATA_TYPE_CUESHEET blocks in FLAC
added support for uppercase .CUE extension
added “mpga” extension support (mp3)
fixed seeking backwards using hotkeys when in the beginning of a track

Install DeaDBeeF in Ubuntu:

Download the .deb package that matches your OS type – 32-bit (i386) or 64-bit (amd64) – from the link below:

Download DeaDBeeF .deb

Then double click the package to open it with Ubuntu Software Center and click install.

In News deadbeef music player

Ubuntu Tips – Display Asterisks When Typing Your Password in Terminal

Last updated: August 8, 2014

When you run a command started with sudo in Ubuntu terminal, it asks you to insert the password for your user with no visual feedback as you type.

For beginners who feel uncomfortable with this terminal feature, below will teach you how to tweak your Ubuntu so that Gnome terminal (and TTY console) displays asterisks when you type in your password.