linuxsysconfig

Linux FAQ on Google

admin — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 08:00:39 +0000

Although Linux is a mature OS now (15+ years old) people are still wondering what’s it like or how good is it. As I said in a previous post I don’t think Linux is for everyone. It sure isn’t for those people that ask stupid questions an google, looking for a quick answer.

Let’s do a little comparison.

See any differences between the 2 images?

Me neither.

Squirrelmail test script

admin — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:00:44 +0000

Those of you that are familiar with Squirrelmail know that it uses a script to perform general checking “to make sure everything works like it should” <– quote from the INSTALL readme file.

While I can agree this is actually useful as it can detect errors such as wrong permissions or plugin compatibility issues, I don’t understand why the sysadmins leave the script on the web server after the installation, accessible to everyone. The script generates output which can reveal sensitive information about the server, especially when verbose logging is enabled.

I wouldn’t expect everyone to be extremely cautious when it comes to server security and certainly not everyone is knowledgeable enough to realize the importance of protecting the web folders and online content, but I was surprised to see websites such as linuxcbt.com ignoring it.

For those who don’t know, they offer Linux training solutions and they say they’re the best in business.

Amarok 2.X proxy settings

admin — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:38:03 +0000

I’ve been looking for a workaround for quite a while since Amarok developers didn’t put this on top of their priority list. As of version 2.1.1 the player still doesn’t have a proxy setting option in the Settings menu and this can get really annoying when you deal with multiple machines and play music on all of them behind a proxy server.

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.

Amarok Lyricwiki

admin — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 07:44:27 +0000

No comment…

Sysadmin Appreciation day

admin — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:53:31 +0000

Yes, I know there are numerous jokes and so called guides about system administrators that circulate all over the Internet. But today, Friday, July 31, we must make an exception as it’s their Appreciation Day.

So please join me in letting them know we are all aware of their efforts and we apologize for those (364) days when we make their lives a living hell.

last.fm ipod scrobbling

admin — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:59:05 +0000

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.

Amarok 2.1

admin — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:11:48 +0000

Have you already downgraded Amarok back to 1.4? You may want to reconsider. I did! Amarok 2.1 is the real deal. Check out the screencast I made (available in HD) and read the release notes. You won’t look back again.

Crossover Linux? No thanks!

admin — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:56:49 +0000

As you all know Crossover Linux 8.0 was announced a few days ago. New and “exciting” features such as IE7 and Outlook 2007 support are presented as “major development” by the company’s CEO.

Sorry, but I have to strongly disagree. Come one, IE7? Not even IE8? And what’s with the poor gaming support? Counterstrike and Civilization IV? Is that all you can? Oh wait… There’s more, but most of them don’t work!

So why would someone pay for your product? To support wine? I’d agree with that, wine is a great project (being free and all) but that’s about it. It doesn’t run all Windows applications so why use it? I don’t need headaches and frustration, I have that already, so I prefer dual booting or using virtualization. I don’t want to have a native Windows environment on my machine. Wait…that is the actual Crossover goal??

Oh well…Here’s a screenshot with a successful IE7 installation. You won’t see that title for your favourite game.

Pidgin Twitter Plugin

admin — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:57:43 +0000

This is a part of the microblog-purple project which aims to add microblog support to libpurple based clients. It allows you to quickly receive and update your Twitter messages from a Pidgin conversation window. It is available for Mac, Windows and Linux. The project home page only links to the installation instructions for Ubuntu, so here’s how you install it on Fedora 11.

Install the plugin using YUM

luckily, the package is in the official fedora repository which makes it really easy to install/update
yum install purple-microblog (that’s all you need to do assuming you already have Pidgin installed)

Enable the plugin

open Pidgin, go to Tools –> Plugins and enable the Twitgin plugin

Configure your Twitter account

add a new account in Pidgin (choose TwitterIM protocol). Everything else in the Advanced Tab is already configured, but you can modify it if you wish and you know what you’re doing. Specify a proxy server if you use one.

Enable the account and connect

Verify the SSL certificate

Done, you’re now logged in and you can start tweeting!

Important notes

version 2.1 which is current in Fedora 11 has a know bug (fix id overflow) which has been corrected in 2.2. Hopefully the new version will be available soon as an update for Fedora users
other microblog services will be supported in the future (the plugin currently supports Twitter and Identica)

Happy twitting!

Amarok 1.4 RPMs for Fedora 11

admin — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:16:39 +0000

If you’re like me and hate the way Amarok changed with v2 release then you’re probably still using the old 1.4. Thanks to ingvar.blog.linpro.no you can find RPM packages for Fedora 11 here (both i386 and x86_64).

Enjoy!