You can see there a bunch of *.json files.

If you use more than one machine or you’ve recently changed / reinstalled your OS and you want to restore the old bookmarks, you need to import them manually:

• backup your bookmarks files to a safe location e.g.
  cp -r ~/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/bookmarkbackups user@other_machine:~

• on your new / other machine, open firefox then go to Organize Bookmarks
• go to Import and Backup –> Restore and choose the most recent file from the list of *.json files that you previously copied

That’s it. You can now use your bookmarks. There are, of course, other (more elegant) solutions such as using a browser addon (e.g. Xmarks) but some people are concerned about privacy, or they just don’t want to complicate things.

I could use an unofficial repo, such as Remi, to get the updates more quickly, but the easiest way for me is to use the precompiled binaries from Mozilla, available for download as a tar.bz2 archive. This way, I’ll always get notified when an update is available and –just two clicks away — I’ll be running the latest version.

Here’s how you can do it:

• download the archive to /opt
  $ cd /opt ; wget ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/3.1.2/linux-i686/en-US/thunderbird-3.1.2.tar.bz2
• unpack it
  tar jxvf thunderbird-3.1.2.tar.bz2
• remove the tarball
  rm thunderbird-3.1.2.tar.bz2
• run it using
  /opt/thunderbird/thunderbird
• add a launcher to the panel — Right click on the main panel –> Add to Panel –> Custom Application Launcher –> Add

You can choose an icon for the new launcher from

That’s it. Make sure you configure it to automatically check for updates (Edit –> Preferences –> Advanced –> Update) and you’ll always run the latest version:

Updated packages to fix these bugs were released 2 weeks ago, but the users were not prompted to install them, since the update applet was broken. Users who perform manual updates using yum are not affected.

To fix your system, you need to run yum as root:

• to update all packages:
  yum –skip-broken update
• to install updated versions to fix the two issues:
  yum –skip-broken update gnome-packagekit selinux-policy

After the installation a reboot is required / recommended depending on the option you choose.

More details on Fedora Project mailing list.

The above update alias will execute ‘sudo yum update’ each time it is run from a terminal. In a similar manner, more complex aliases can be defined.

Each time my_script is executed, it checks for the machine’s hostname and warns if the output is the default localhost.localdomain.

Running ‘alias‘ displays the current aliases for the user’s session.

An alias can be unset using the unalias command.

So, what do you do to run the latest version?

Compile it yourself, of course.

How?

1. Download the latest version (1.1.2)
2. Unpack it and cd to the newly created folder (vlc-1.1.2). Here you will find the README file and the installation instructions (same as here)
3. Compile it. I recommend creating a new path (e.g. /opt/vlc) to use it as the installation PREFIX

• ./configure –prefix=/opt/vlc
• make
• su -c "make install"

Issues?

• Running ./configure can fail if there are missing dependencies. Install them, then try again. I had to install the following packages before running configure successfully:

• make sure you have pulseaudio-libs-devel and alsa-lib-devel installed to compile vlc with pulseaudio/alsa support

After a successful installation you can start vlc with /opt/vlc/bin/vlc. Enjoy.

This can be annoying so here’s how you can get rid of it:

• install gconf-editor (yum install gconf-editor on Fedora  / sudo apt-get install gconf-editor on Ubuntu)
• run gconf-editor and navigate to apps–>gnome-power-manager–>notify
• uncheck low_capacity

That’s it.

Other battery info can be displayed with ‘cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info’.

First, you need to upgrade these 2 packages:

fedora-release-12-2.noarch

fedora-release-notes-12.0.2-1.fc12.noarch

Enabling the rawhide repository to search for updates using yum won’t do the trick, since Fedora 14 is already in rawhide, so you need to download the packages from a mirror (here’s a mirror list for Fedora 13 x86_64)

After downloading the packages, install them as root with:

rpm -Uvh fedora-release-*

Confirm the release file change by running:

cat /etc/fedora-release

Fedora release 13 (Goddard)

If you use packages from the RPM Fusion repository, you’ll be happy to find that you don’t need to update rpmfusion-free and rpmfusion-nonfree  RPMs (http://rpmfusion.org/Configuration). Whether it’s Fedora 11, 12, 13 Alpha or Beta, the repo will detect what needs to be installed / updated based on $releasever from the repo configuration files.

Now run:

yum upgrade

If you get any missing dependencies, try uninstalling them first and re-run ‘yum upgrade’.

All was fine for me and I got ~1.2GB of data to download as you can see in the screenshot.

After a couple of hours of installing / updating packages and a reboot, I’m finally running Fedora 13.

The only (reliable) solution I’ve found was to manually add the proxy settings to ~/.kde/share/config/kioslaverc:

[$Version]
update_info=kioslave.upd:kde2.2/r1,kioslave.upd:kde2.2/r2,kioslave.upd:kde2.2/r3
[Proxy Settings][$i]
ProxyType=1
httpProxy=http://username:password@proxyserver:port/

I found this workaround on a very useful Ubuntu forum. If you have other solutions please share.

]]> http://linuxsysconfig.com/2009/09/amarok-2-x-proxy-settings/feed/ 1 http://linuxsysconfig.com/2009/07/last-fm-ipod-scrobbling/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=last-fm-ipod-scrobbling http://linuxsysconfig.com/2009/07/last-fm-ipod-scrobbling/#comments Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:59:05 +0000 admin http://linuxsysconfig.com/?p=1225 If you have an iPod you’re probably not always in front of your Linux PC listening to music using your favourite music player. That way you won’t have your last.fm profile page automatically updated with recently listened tracks. So what do you do?

Use can use last.fm Linux client to scrobble your ipod manually in three easy steps:

• Go to Tools –> Scrobble ipod

• Choose your ipod mount point (use df in a terminal if you don’t know what it is)

• Get a list of tracks and select which ones to scrobble

Done.

Note: last.fm is included in most Linux distros. Find more on the download page.

]]> http://linuxsysconfig.com/2009/07/last-fm-ipod-scrobbling/feed/ 1 http://linuxsysconfig.com/2009/05/10-steps-for-basic-linux-desktop-security/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=10-steps-for-basic-linux-desktop-security http://linuxsysconfig.com/2009/05/10-steps-for-basic-linux-desktop-security/#comments Sat, 09 May 2009 09:20:45 +0000 admin http://linuxsysconfig.com/?p=1071 I agree that Linux is less vulnerable than Windows, but that doesn’t make it immune to attackers. It’s not always about security flaws, buffer overflows or denial of service attacks. Most intruders exploit incorrect system configurations or access permissions which are often caused by user ignorance.

I came up with a list of 10 basic rules that should reduce the security risk.

1. Download the ISO for your preferred distro from trusted sources. It’s recommended to visit the official web page and select a download method from there. If you are downloading from unofficial torrent sites for higher speed rates, make sure they’re using the same tracker. Upon downloading always check the SHA1/MD5 sum.
2. Don’t perform a full install. Select only packages that you need, why waste the disk space? Fewer packages means less bugs.
3. After the installation, disable any unwanted services. A running service means an open port to the outside. If you don’t need that service, it’s better to disable it. Run netstat -ntlp | grep LISTEN as root to find out which services are running. Also, if you don’t use IPv6, you can safely deactivate IPv6 support in your network card configuration.
4. Run a firewall. Either you use a distro specific GUI or configure it yourself, the firewall is a must-have security measure if you have an active network connection, as it drops unnecessary traffic and blocks a possible intruder.
5. Configure tcp_wrappers. It’s really easy to do it  and it gives you an extra layer of security. You can control access to all services (e.g. SSH) that are linked against  libwrap or run by a super daemon (e.g. xinetd).
6. Avoid using the root account. Configure sudo access for your user, it’s safer.
7. Update your system on a regular basis. Don’t mind the daily updates, they’re meant to resolve bugs and keep your machine more secure.
8. Use trusted software sources. Try not to install packages from unknown websites and stick to the official repositories. Avoid compiling from sources and use your distro’s package management system instead.
9. If you access FAT/NTFS or Samba shares, install an Antivirus software (e.g. Clamav). You may not be vulnerable to Windows malware, but you can infect other users on the network.
10. Use an Intrusion Detection System like aide or tripwire. In addition, use rkhunter to scan for backdoors and rootkits and logwatch to monitor your system.

Important

• Set an email alias for root. Most cron jobs send emails to the root user with their findings. Read them!
• Have an active backup solution to synchronize your data to some other location. It’s better to be safe than sorry.