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Archives For November 30, 1999

TVPVRD: Advanced Digital TV Recorder for Ubuntu Linux

Last updated: April 4, 2019

TV capture cards.TVPVRD is a highly flexible and configurable server daemon that acts as an advanced digital TV recorder using one or several installed TV capture cards.

The server manages scheduled recordings and provides an efficient command language interface on a dedicated TCP/IP port. As an alternative interface the daemon also comes with a basic WEB-interface through the daemons built in micro-web-server. To keep the WEB-interface simple only the most common commands are available through this interface.

The goal with this project is to provide an advanced recording and transcoding (using ffmpeg) server without the need to configure complex databases or GUI. The daemon sits unobtrusively in the background.

The server is self-contained and uses a plain text database (in XML format) to store and manage recordings. In addition, the server has built-in intelligence to make it as easy as possible to manage and use. Examples are highly flexible commands to specify future recordings and automatic load assessment on the server to avoid starting too many parallel transcoding jobs. The server is completely self-contained and has a small footprint.

Install TVPVRD in Ubuntu:

The GetDeb repository provides the latest packages for Ubuntu 13.04 Raring, Ubuntu 12.04 Precise, and a little old versions for Ubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 11.10 and their derivatives, such as Linux Mint and Elementary OS.

To Add GetDeb repository, just download and double-click to install the package below (For Linux Mint users, read this post).

getdeb package

Once done, install TVPVRD by running below commands in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T):

sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install tvpvrd

Use TVPVRD:

There are two main ways to use tvpvrd:

  1. via command line shell, run man tvpsh to get details
  2. via the built in Webserver (http://localhost:9301/)

You need to enable the config file by running below command:

cd /etc/tvpvrd; sudo mv tvpvrd.conf.full.template tvpvrd.conf

Then edit the file by:

sudo gedit /etc/tvpvrd/tvpvrd.conf

There you can change the port, enable web interface by “enable_webinterface=yes” and many other settings.

For more, see tvpvrd manual.

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Install Adobe’s Brackets Editor in Ubuntu and Derivatives

Last updated: March 21, 2019

As you may know, Brackets is an open-source editor for web design and development built on top of web technologies such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The project was created and is maintained by Adobe, and is released under an MIT License.

What makes Brackets different from other web code editors?

  • Tools shouldn’t get in your way. Instead of cluttering up your coding environment with lots of panels and icons, the Quick Edit UI in Brackets puts context-specific code and tools inline.
  • Brackets is in sync with your browser. With Live Development, Brackets works directly with your browser to push code edits instantly and jump back and forth between your real source code and the browser view.
  • Do it yourself. Because Brackets is open source, and built with HTML, CSS and JavaScript, you can help build the best code editor for the web.

    • Try out Brackets:

    The official download page provides the DEB packages for Debian / Ubuntu and their derivatives, such as Linux Mint, Elementary OS, and so forth.

    Just download and double click the DEB to bring up Ubuntu Software Center and install it. Or run below commands instead once downloaded:

    sudo dpkg -i ~/Downloads/brackets-sprint-*.deb; sudo apt-get -f install

    Once installed, you can find it in Unity Dash.

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    Use Silverlight in Firefox, Chrome in Ubuntu via Pipelight plugin

    Last updated: March 21, 2019

    Pipelight is a special browser plugin allows to run your favorite Silverlight application directly inside your Linux browser. The project combines the effort by Erich E. Hoover with a new browser plugin that embeds Silverlight directly in any Linux browser supporting the Netscape Plugin API.

    Pipelight consists out of two parts: A Linux library which is loaded into the browser and a Windows program started in Wine. The Windows program, called pluginloader.exe, simply simulates a browser and loads the Silverlight DLLs. When you open a page with a Silverlight application the library will send all commands from the browser through a pipe to the Windows process and act like a bridge between your browser and Silverlight. The used pipes do not have any big impact on the speed of the rendered video since all the video and audio data is not send through the pipe. Only the initialization parameters and (sometimes) the network traffic is send through them. As a user you will not notice anything from that “magic” and you can simply use Silverlight the same way as on Windows, like you can see on the following screenshot:

    Install Pipelight on Ubuntu

    Warning: Before you continue the installation you should note that:

  • It is strongly recommended to close your browser before installing! Some browsers try immediately to load the plugin which might fail or crash the browser when the installation is not complete!
  • Silverlight might contain (like all other browser plugins) security issues – You may want to enable click-to-play for this plugin to prevent an undesired start of Silverlight.
  • Pipelight needs to start Wine to execute the pluginloader. This may slow down the start of your browser.

    • The Pipelight PPA is available for Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 13.04, Ubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 12.04 and their derivatives. You can easily install it by running below commands in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) one by one:

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pipelight/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install pipelight

    You may need to accept a license agreement for a set of fonts during the installation. After it’s done just start your browser, type about:plugins in the addressbar and hit enter – if the installation went well you should now see Silverlight in your plugin list and everything is ready to run! Pipelight will install Silverlight on the first start of your browser, this may freeze the interface for several minutes (and you may just see a blank page without any progress). There might appear some dialog asking if Mono or Gecko should be installed during the Silverlight installation – you can safely choose no, as this is not necessary to get Pipelight running. After this step, the overall performance of your browser shouldn’t be affected any more.

    More at Pipelight Homepage

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    BeatBox has gone, use Noise Music Player instead

    Last updated: August 19, 2013

    Try to install BeatBox music player in Ubuntu? Well, I’m here to tell you Beatbox has gone! The developer announced that he won’t take much attention on it due to lack of time. If you prefer this music player, you may go to noise.

    “I’m sorry to say that BeatBox will not be seeing much attention from me at this point due to lack of time.

    I’ve added elementary to the BeatBox team, which means they can merge, pull, push, whatever they want to the project. I’ve recommended that they merge parts of BeatBox. Its core and plugin API could be very useful to them, but whether or not that merge happens is up to them.” — Scott Ringwelski

    BeatBox was the default music player for Elementary OS, and now it is Noise. Though there is not much of differences between Beatbox and Noise, both only differs by: Music view, Search bar, and the name of course

    Install Noise in Ubuntu and Linux Mint

    Due to the dependency problem, BeatBox is not working now. So here’s how to install Noise music player in Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 13.04, Ubuntu 12.04 and Linux Mint 13, 15, 16.

    Press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal. When it opens, run below commands to add the Elementary daily build PPA:

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:elementary-os/daily

    Then you can update and install Noise:

    sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install noise
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    Get Email Notification When Security Updates Available on Ubuntu

    Last updated: August 15, 2013

    This will install a package called Apticron, which is a simple script sends daily emails about pending package updates such as security updates, properly handling packages on hold both by deselect and aptitude.

    Apticron is available in Ubuntu’s universe repository. You can install it via apt-get command, or just search for and install the package from Ubuntu Software Center.

    Once installed, edit the config file /etc/apticron/apticron.conf. Enter your email address by replacing root with your email address.

    # apticron.conf
    #
    # set EMAIL to a space separated list of addresses which will be notified of
    # impending updates
    #
    EMAIL=”root”

    Save and close the file.

    When updates are available you will get an email once a day. When no updates are available, apticron doesn’t send any email.

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    bpm-tools: Calculate and Tag Tempo (beats-per-minute) of Audio

    Last updated: August 18, 2013

    The bpm-tools is a command line tool to automatically calculate and tag the tempo (in beats-per-minute) of music files. It reliably detects the tempo of the vast majority of popular music I have used it with, and is a useful tool for DJs and use with xwax on Linux, and scripting on the command-line.

    Right now the code serves as the best explanation of the algorithm — a relatively simple application of an autocorrelation by statistical sampling. As yet, there is no scientific comparison of the algorithm with others software.

    bmp-tools is available in Ubuntu Software Center for Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy. For Ubuntu 13.04, Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 12.10, you may install it from PPA by running below 2 commands one by one in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T):

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:dholbach/ppa

sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install bpm-tools
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    Upload to Flickr, Google+, Picasa in Ubuntu Desktop via PostMan

    Last updated: August 14, 2013

    PostMan is a small utility allows to upload images to Flickr, Google+, Picasa, and Ubuntu one. This is done through a simple and modern intuitive user interface. Drag stamps to mark destinations, and drag images to select content.

    PostMan image uploader is available for Ubuntu 12.10 and Ubuntu 12.04 in Ubuntu Software Center. Just search for and install the package. For Ubuntu 13.04 Raring, download the DEB from the below link:

    PostMan-image-uploader_0.3.5_all.deb

    Then press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal, run below command to install downloaded package:

    sudo dpkg -i ~/Downloads/postman-image-uploader_*.deb; sudo apt-get -f install

    Once installed, open PostMan from the Unity Dash Home. In the main window, drag and drop your services onto the envelope and then login.

    Finally, drop your images onto the icon to upload:

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    Man Page Editor GUI on Ubuntu Linux

    Last updated: January 23, 2015

    Man Page Editor is a simple graphical tool for writing the manpage. The developer of Xfce Theme Manager wrote this GTK app and here’s why:

    “I write a number of my own programs, and have always had a bit of a problem writing the manpage, I have used the excellent ‘ManEdit’ but development on this has been stalled for a number of years.

    So I finally decided to write my own and this is the result. This is only the first draft and there is LOTS to be done, so bugs and suggestions are welcome, please click on the ‘About’ button in the program for my email address.”

    Man Page Editor homepage: keithhedger.hostingsiteforfree.com

    Source code can be downloaded from homepage.

    Download the debian packages from this page

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    Install Google Calendar in Ubuntu 13.04, 12.04, 12.10, Linux Mint

    Last updated: August 12, 2013

    Want to use Google Calendar in Ubuntu? Well, here I’ll show you how to install an indicator which provides Google Calendar integration on Ubuntu and Linux Mint desktop.

    The calendar indicator is an open-source applet allows to add, edit and delete Google Calendar events as well as to create new calendars.

    Once you installed this indicator, you can login your Google Account and set the automatic synchronization time in its Preferences window.

    After that, you can click ‘Show Calendar’ in the indicator menu to dispay your calendar.

    Install Google Calendar Indicator

    The developer has added the packages to his PPA repository. So far, it supports Ubuntu 13.04 Raring, Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal, Ubuntu 12.04 Precise, and Linux Mint 13, 14, 15.

    To add the ppa, press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open terminal and then run below commands:

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/atareao

    After that, update the package lists and install Google Calendar:

    sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install calendar-indicator
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    Install PAC Manager, SecureCRT Alternative in Ubuntu 13.04

    Last updated: August 11, 2013

    PAC is a free alternative to SecureCRT and Putty. It provides a GUI to configure connections: users, passwords, EXPECT regular expressions, macros, etc.

    PAC Manager works on Debian/Ubuntu, and RPM based linux platforms. All you need to do is download and install the installer package and fix denpendencies.

    Features:

  • Unique linux app to implement SecureCRT’s functionality (more or less!)
  • Remote and local macros
  • Remotely send commands with EXPECT regexp
  • Cluster connections!! Connections on same cluster share keystrokes!!
  • Scripting support! (vía Perl code)
  • Serial/tty connection via cu/tip/remote-tty connections!!
  • Pre/post connections local executions
  • TABS OR WINDOWS for connections!!
  • Proxy support
  • KeePass integration!
  • Wake On LAN capabilities
  • Possibility to split terminals in the same TAB!
  • Quick acces to configured connections via tray menu icon
  • Best linux GUI for ssh, telnet, sftp, rdesktop, vnc, cu, remote-tty, ftp, etc
  • DEB, RPM & .TAR.GZ packages available!!
  • More to come (ASA I find time!)
  • FREE (GNU GPLv3)

    • To get started, download the .deb package from SourceForge.

    Then press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal. When it opens, run blow commands to install the package:

    sudo dpkg -i ~/Downloads/pac-*all.deb

    Fix dependency problem if any:

    sudo apt-get -f install

    Install the indicator support for Unity Desktop:

    sudo apt-get install libgtk2-appindicator-perl

    When everything is done, open PAC Manager from the Unity Dash.

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