Archives For jimingkui

 

Since Linux Kernel 3.11, the open source AMD Radeon driver got dynamic power management (DPM) feature support. If you have already installed the Kernel 3.11 or higher and have a Radeon HD 2000 (R600) series or newer graphics card, you may wish to enable DPM feature by below steps (DRM will probably be enabled by default in Ubuntu 14.04).

1. Download the updated firmware from this directory. You need the *_smc.bin files, choose the one that matches your graphics card codename.e

The *_smc.bin files can be installed by running below command in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T):

cd ~/Downloads/ && ./FILENAME_smc.bin

2. If you have Linux Kernel 3.11 or higher installed, now you can enable DPM by adding the radeon.dpm=1 parameter.

In terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T), run command to edit grub:

sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

Find the line that says “GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash”. Add the parameter so that it will look like:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash radeon.dpm=1″

3. Save the file. Update the grub:

sudo update-grub

4. You can further configure DPM by opening /etc/rc.local and adding the following line:

echo parameter > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_dpm_state

Where “parameter” can be:

  • battery (a set of performance levels targeted for optimal operation on battery)
  • balanced (a set of performance levels targeted for optimal every day use)
  • performance (a set of performance levels targeted for the highest GPU performance)

via: AskUbuntu

Install Light Table IDE 6.0.2 Ubuntu

Both Light Table IDE 0.6.1 and 0.6.2 were released yesterday which bring various bug fixes and a few improvements.

Light Table is a new interactive IDE developed by Chris Granger, it lets you modify running programs and embed anything from websites to games. It provides the real time feedback we need to not only answer questions about our code, but to understand how our programs really work.

Light Table IDE is now open source since version 0.6.0. The current releases are the first updates and below is the changelog:

##0.6.2

  • FIX: styling bug that caused light themes to be unusable

##0.6.1

  • FIX: build instructions for all platforms. Add in build scripts for each.
  • FIX: active line in solarized theme (Gozala)
  • FIX: re-enable workspace behavior diffs
  • FIX: Plugins should not say they need an update if there’s no version available on the server
  • FIX: Read keymaps safely so that errors are reported.
  • FIX: remove readlink -f from the mac startup script
  • FIX: provide skin/theme shold work correctly now (joshuafcole)
  • FIX: Catch errors while walking the file system (zoranzaric)
  • FIX: look in 64bit dirs first in the linux64 run script and add other dirs to fix openSUSE (wesleywiser)
  • FIX: line-endings were not being added correctly to the ends of files.
  • FIX: set the default screen size to be smaller so that LT doesn’t open off screen
  • FIX: type in plugin dialog (rmunn)
  • FIX: Add SQL file type back in
  • FIX: External browsers don’t disconnect correctly
  • FIX: remove inconsistencies in the plugin manager
  • FIX: pmeta in :- keymaps didn’t work
  • FIX: better error handling in the local client
  • FIX: make functions return correctly from external browser connections
  • FIX: add LightTable.app to .gitignore (DomKM)
  • FIX: dramatically better line numbering styles for the default theme
  • FIX: line numbers now correctly size and stay right-aligned.
  • FIX: remove use of rtl that causes very weird file name display behavior in navigator.
  • CHANGE: Auto-complete is now auto-show by default
  • ADDED: lt.objs.plugins/find-plugin for use in finding the current plugin dir
  • ADDED: `Console: set buffer size`
  • ADDED: Code folding with `Editor: fold code at cursor` command (efuquen)
  • ADDED: travis-ci (sieben)
  • ADDED: set the save dialog’s first location to a sensible path (can3p and ndr-qef)
  • ADDED: .zsh and .zshrc file extensions
  • ADDED: `App: Disable metrics` behavior
  • ADDED: LiveScript file type
  • ADDED: platform specific startup scripts
  • ADDED: typing : in a keymap or behavior file will now complete based on the command/behavior id
  • ADDED: `Editor: Toggle line wrapping` command for one off wrapping
  • ADDED: Tabsets are now styled as active
  • ADDED: The body gets an “active” class when the window is focused
  • UPDATED: Latest codemirror
  • UPDATED: CLJS 2138

Install:

1. Download the IDE at lighttable.com. You may check out your OS type by going to System Settings -> Details

2. Extract the Linux package in your file browser and you’ll see the result folder LightTable in Downloads directory.

3. Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run below command to move LightTable to /opt/:

sudo mv ~/Downloads/LightTable /opt/

4. Now launch the IDE via:

/opt/LightTable/LightTable

5. To create a launcher, run:

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

Paste below section into the file and save it.

[Desktop Entry]
Name=LightTable IDE
Comment=
Exec=/opt/LightTable/LightTable
Type=Application
Icon=/opt/LightTable/core/img/lticon.png

Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr, the next Long Term Support hits alpha 2 release. Though regular Ubuntu doesn’t take part in the alphas , the following flavours are participating in this second round of alphas:

  • Edubuntu
  • Kubuntu
  • Ubuntu GNOME
  • Ubuntu Kylin
  • Xubuntu
  • Ubuntu Cloud

Download Links: releases.ubuntu.com

  • Ubuntu Gnome 14.04 Alpha2
  • Kubuntu 14.04 Alpha2
  • Edubuntu 14.04 Alpha2
  • Ubuntu Cloud 14.04 Alpha2
  • Xubuntu 14.04 Alpha2
  • Ubuntu Kylin Alph2

If you’re on Ubuntu 13.10, you can also upgrade to Ubuntu 14.04 Alpha to help testing this development release via this post. Note that don’t do this on production machines.

The Ubuntu 14.04 will hit its first beta release at next month, see the release schedule:

  • Alpha 1 – December 19th (for flavours) – released
  • Alpha 2 – January 23rd (for flavours) – released
  • Beta 1 – February 27th (for flavours)
  • Final Beta – March 27th
  • Release Candidate – April 10th
  • Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Final – April 17th

 
LightDM GTK+ Greeter brings a quick, reliable, and GTK+ 2/3 support login screen. It is used by a number of Ubuntu’s flavours, including Xubuntu.

The latest version 1.7.1 has been released a few hours ago with below changes:

  • Username tooltip tweaks
  • Language applet now displays country code labels
  • Login windows can no longer be positioned ‘off screen’
  • Improvements to handling of xscreensaver timeout
  • Login button set as “default” widget

Install:

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

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lightdm-gtk-greeter-team/stable

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install lightdm-gtk-greeter

This will install the latest package for Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 12.10 and their derivatives.

If you don’t like Launchpad PPAs, download & install the .deb from this page.

Usage:

After installation, your login screen should changed at next boot. If not, edit the config file via:

sudo gedit /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

Make sure its content looks like:

[SeatDefaults]
greeter-session=lightdm-gtk-greeter

Edit the /etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf file via below command to change the theme, icon, etc.

sudo gedit /etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf

In below config file I used the Numix gtk theme:

#
# background = Background file to use, either an image path or a color (e.g. #772953)
# theme-name = GTK+ theme to use
# icon-theme-name = Icon theme to use
# font-name = Font to use
# xft-antialias = Whether to antialias Xft fonts (true or false)
# xft-dpi = Resolution for Xft in dots per inch (e.g. 96)
# xft-hintstyle = What degree of hinting to use (none, slight, medium, or full)
# xft-rgba = Type of subpixel antialiasing (none, rgb, bgr, vrgb or vbgr)
# show-language-selector (true or false)
# show-indicators = semi-colon “;” separated list of allowed indicator modules (e.g. libsoundmenu.so)
# show-clock (true or false)
# clock-format = strftime-format string, e.g. %H:%M
# keyboard = command to launch on-screen keyboard
#
[greeter]
background=/usr/share/backgrounds/mate/nature/Blinds.jpg
theme-name=Numix
icon-theme-name=LoginIcons
default-user-image = /usr/share/pixmaps/griffon_icon.png
font-name=Ubuntu 11
xft-antialias=true
xft-dpi=96
xft-hintstyle=slight
xft-rgba=rgb
show-language-selector=true


 
This simple tutorial is going to show you how to disable disk write caching in Ubuntu to prevent data loss when you may experience power failure.

Enable write caching improves disk performance, but a power outage or equipment failure might result in data loss or corruption. It’s recommended only for disks with a backup power supply.

Some third-party programs require disk write caching to be enabled or disabled. If your disk are used for Event Store databases, it’s highly recommended to disable disk caching to help ensure that data is durable when the machine might experience a power, device or system failure.

In Ubuntu, it’s easy to check out whether disk caching is enabled on your disk or not by running below command:

sudo hdparm -i /dev/sda

Replace /dev/sda with your device and you’ll see below similar outputs:

Model=WDC WD3200BPVT-22JJ5T0, FwRev=01.01A01, SerialNo=WD-WX61EC1KZK99
Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec SpinMotCtl Fixed DTR>5Mbs FmtGapReq }
RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=50
BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=8192kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=off
CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=625142448
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6
AdvancedPM=yes: unknown setting WriteCache=enabled
Drive conforms to: Unspecified: ATA/ATAPI-1,2,3,4,5,6,7

* signifies the current active mode

The words in red, WriteCache=enabled, means caching is enabled! To disable it, edit the “/etc/hdparm.conf” with your favorite editor, here I use vi as example:

sudo vi /etc/hdparm.conf

Uncomment the line “#write_cache = off” (without quotes) by removing the # at its beginning. So it looks like:

# -W Disable/enable the IDE drive’s write-caching feature
write_cache = off

After that, restart your computer and check out the write caching status again to make sure it’s disabled.

This simple tutorial shows how to upgrade your system from Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy to Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr for both Desktop and Server editions.

Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty is scheduled to be released on April 17th. At the moment of writing this article, the alpha release is available to upgrade in Saucy’s updater for testing purpose.

Important: Production machines please wait until the Ubuntu 14.04 final is released. By then, we can follow below steps to upgrade our systems.

Before starting any upgrades, you need to:

  • Backup important files, documents, bookmarks and other data.
  • If you’ve manually installed proprietary drivers directly from the manufacturer’s website, then before upgrading I recommend removing these drivers first and reverting to the open-source drivers
  • Open Software & Updates utility from Unity Dash. Disable all third-party repositories under Other Software tab.

Desktop Upgrade:

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

sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Now start the updater via -d option:

sudo update-manager -d

The Software Updater will open and tell you your system is up to date and a new release Ubuntu 14.04 is available.

Click on the Upgrade button and confirm again in next window. Software Updater will fetch and install the files and prompt you to remove unnecessary applications.

Finally you’ll be asked to restart your computer to finish the upgrade. That’s it.

Upgrade Ubuntu Server:

NOTE: Please backup your configuration files if you’re running any services on Ubuntu server.

For Ubuntu Server edition, we need to install the update-manager-core first by executing the command below:

sudo apt-get install update-manager-core

Then edit the config file:

sudo vi /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades

Make sure there’s a line that says “Prompt=normal” or “Prompt=lts”.

Start the upgrade process by:

sudo do-release-upgrade -d

Follow the on-screen prompts and you’re done!.

QtWebKit browser QupZilla 1.6.0 has been released a few days ago. Here’s how to install it via PPA in Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 13.04, Ubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 12.04, Linux Mint and their derivatives.

This release comes with new TabBar implementation that supports scrolling through all tabs when tabs don’t fit at all into TabBar. So it means, no more overflowing of tabs!

LocationBar received new completion feature – inline completion. You can now write only first letter and the most used domain will be completed. Once you see the completion, you can just press Enter and load the site.

For details, see the changelog:

  • added support for Proxy Auto-Config (PAC)
  • added option to open another private window from private window
  • added option to detach tabs from window
  • added delete action in edit context menu on page
  • added possibility to remove EasyList from AdBlock
  • added inline domain completion to urlbar
  • added KWallet password backend plugin
  • added Gnome-Keyring password backend plugin
  • added StatusBar Icons plugin that adds extra icons to statusbar
  • added support for POST method in search engines manager
  • added context menu for translating webpage
  • added possibility to export bookmarks to html file
  • great performance improvement for matching basic rules in AdBlock
  • themes can now be loaded from profile directories
  • pagescreen can now save output into number of formats, including PDF
  • proxy exceptions now supports wildcards (*, ?)
  • cancel upload when trying to upload non-readable files
  • select previous / next engines with ctrl+up/down in websearchbar
  • ask user first before closing all but the current tab from tabbar
  • last 2 sessions are now backuped in profile directory
  • always show tab previews after a small delay
  • GreaseMonkey: added icon in statusbar
  • GreaseMonkey: added support for GM_Settings
  • GreaseMonkey: fixed userscripts when first loading plugin
  • GreaseMonkey: run userscripts in all frames on page
  • oxygen: set rounded corners for tooltips
  • oxygen: workaround for transparent background of tooltips
  • X11: Set correct WM_CLASS property to windows
  • fixed: size of preferences dialog on low-res screens
  • fixed: loading plugins with relative paths in portable build
  • fixed: displaying a lot of RSS feeds in RSS widget in locationbar
  • fixed: enabling disabled rules in AdBlock now works everytime
  • fixed: parsing OpenSearch files with XML declaration
  • fixed: don’t show urls multiple times in url completer
  • fixed: drag & drop moving folders under bookmarks toolbar
  • fixed: files with relative paths can now be opened from command line
  • fixed: issues with overflowing tabs, it is now possible scroll through all tabs

Install QupZilla Browser:

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

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nowrep/qupzilla

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install qupzilla

For Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty, the latest version is available in Ubuntu Software Center.

Linus Torvalds finally announced the Linux Kernel 3.13 on Jan 19, 2014. In this tutorial you’ll see what’s new in this kernel release and how to install / upgrade to Linux Kernel 3.13 in Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 13.04, Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 12.10, Linux Mint and also Ubuntu 14.04 daily build.

Linus Torvalds wrote on the mailing list (read the announcement):

The release got delayed by a week due to travels, but I suspect that’s just as well. We had a few fixes come in, and while it wasn’t a lot, I think we’re better off for it. At least I hope so – I’ll be very disappointed if any of them cause more problems than they fix..

Anyway, the patch from rc8 is fairly small, with mainly some small arch updates (arm, mips, powerpc, s390, sparc, x86 all had some minor changes, some of them due to a networking fix for the bpf jit). And drivers (mainly gpu and networking). And some generic networking fixes. The appended shortlog gives more details.

Anyway, with this, the merge window for 3.14 is obviously open.

What’s New in Linux Kernel 3.13:

Below exciting new features comes from phoronix.com:

  • The multi-queue block layer (blk-mq) was merged. It provides better disk (SSD) performance and with lower disk latencies by allowing I/O load to now be balanced across multiple CPU cores, supporting multiple hardware queues, etc. The multi-queue block layer can scale much better and developers have reported improvements in the range of 3.5 to 10 times greater IOPS and a 10 to 38x reduction in latency.
  • The AMD hardware on the open-source driver now supporting the reading of ELD audio information, 7.1 channel audio support on capable hardware, and DTS HD-MA and TrueHD audio support. The Radeon HDMI driver is now enabling HDMI audio support by default where as on earlier kernels it required a special kernel command-line switch due to some users experiencing problems.
  • AMD has published open-source Hawaii GPU support to allow the Radeon R9 290 series to work on Linux without Catalyst. Besides needing Linux 3.13, you will also need other new code in user-space.
  • For users of the open-source Radeon driver there is now dynamic power management being enabled by default. It allows AMD GPUs to dynamically adjust their clock speeds and voltages based upon load, allowing for lower heat output and energy consumption while idling.
  • There’s now NFTables as the eventual replacement to IPTables.
  • New power management and re-clocking code for the open-source NVIDIA (Nouveau) driver. With the new power management code is now fan management being enabled by default. The re-clocking work does include support for GeForce 400/500 “Fermi” and GeForce 600/700 “Kepler” GPUs, but this re-clocking support isn’t yet ready for use or enabled by default.
  • There’s now an Armada DRM driver in the mainline kernel along with PRIME and Render Nodes improvements to the MSM driver, overall continuing to improve the open-source ARM graphics landscape on Linux.
  • There’s ongoing work with Btrfs performance tuning.
  • Samsung’s F2FS supports new features as the promising Flash-Friendly File-System.
  • In making the Linux power efficiency and performance competitive, there’s been a number of changes to ACPI and power management, including more hardware having CPUfreq drivers.
  • While part of the power management work, Linux 3.13 introduces a Linux Power-Capping Framework and Run-Time Average Power Liming driver from Intel. The RAPL driver allows limiting power consumption of certain components from exceeding defined thresholds.
  • Intel’s open-source Direct Rendering Manager driver now supports HDMI Stereo/3D. This support is for the HDMI specification’s handling of a standardized stereoscopic 3D display format since version 1.4.
  •  

    Install / Upgrade Kernel 3.13:

    The Ubuntu Kernel Team has made the deb packages available in this page. If you’re comfortable with command line, follow below steps to download & install this kernel.

    Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens:

    1. Download DEBs for this kernel:

    For 32-bit Ubuntu, Linux Mint and alternatives run commands below one by one:

    wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.13-trusty/linux-headers-3.13.0-031300-generic_3.13.0-031300.201401192235_i386.deb
    
    wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.13-trusty/linux-headers-3.13.0-031300_3.13.0-031300.201401192235_all.deb
    
    wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.13-trusty/linux-image-3.13.0-031300-generic_3.13.0-031300.201401192235_i386.deb

    For 64-bit Ubuntu, Linux Mint and alternatives run commands below one by one:

    wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.13-trusty/linux-headers-3.13.0-031300-generic_3.13.0-031300.201401192235_amd64.deb
    
    wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.13-trusty/linux-headers-3.13.0-031300_3.13.0-031300.201401192235_all.deb
    
    wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.13-trusty/linux-image-3.13.0-031300-generic_3.13.0-031300.201401192235_amd64.deb

    2. For both 32-bit & 64-bit install the Kernel via:

    sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.13.0-*.deb linux-image-3.13.0-*.deb

    Once installed, restart your computer and done.

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

    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 3.13:

    sudo apt-get remove linux-headers-3.13.0-* linux-image-3.13.0-*

    The native Linux virus scanner ClamTK (ClamAV GUI) has released version 5.03. In this release, the scheduler was re-added by demand, it’s mostly the same as it was in the 4.xx series. It also updated requirement for some distros with gnome-icon-theme and brought lots of clean-up.

    ClamTK 5.03 changelog:

    • Re-add scheduler (Google Issue #1). This adds cron or cronie back as a dependency.
    • Update requirement for some distros to gnome-icon-theme-full, and gnome-icon-theme for some distros (Google Issue #2); for Fedora, it seems we need gnome-icon-theme-legacy. Depends on the distro.
    • Remove extra gettext subs
    • Fix ugly copyright symbol
    • Update year in multiple places, 2013 -> 2014
    • Minor help documentation and man page tweaks.
    • Translation updated

    Download ClamTK:

    Download .deb packages for Ubuntu and .rpm packages for Fedora from the links below:

    ClamTK main packages

    ClamTk Thunar plugin

    ClamTK KDE Dolphin plugin

    ClamTK Nemo plugin

    F-IRC, an irc client for terminals/command-line/console now is at version 1.31 which brings several improvements.

    As you may know, F-IRC aims to be as user friendly as possible with easy navigation and keyboard shortcuts for quick navigation. The learning curve should be as shallow as possible.

    The latest version F-IRC 1.31 brings below changes:

    • rewrites IRC protocol handling (much more stable)
    • Nicks can now be aligned in a column. You can now add a marker line to see where you left off (this is also automatic when changing channels)
    • An improved configuration editor
    • A tab-completion dictionary
    • Improved scroll-back window navigation. You can now invoke an external program/script when there’s a nick-hit
    • A “headlines” window has been added. You can now set custom highlight words

    How to Install F-IRC in Ubuntu:

    I’ve uploaded the latest builds to launchpad PPA, so we can easily install the client by running below commands one by one in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T):

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps
    
    sudo apt-get update
    
    sudo apt-get install f-irc

    Works for Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 13.04, Ubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 12.04, Linux Mint and their derivatives.

    If you don’t like the PPAs, download the DEBs from launchpad page

    F-IRC Homepage