Firefox Nightly Builds

Following the amazing release of Firefox 4, Mozilla Firefox is moving to a rapid release development cycle to deliver new features, performance enhancements, security updates and stability improvements to users faster.
Firefox 8 (!) recently found its way into the nightly build channel.
I went to : http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/ and downloaded firefox-8.0a1.en-US.linux-x86_64.tar.bz2.
Extract it :
tar xf firefox-8.0a1.en-US.linux-x86_64.tar.bz2
This will yield a folder firefox. Open up a terminal inside this folder and start firefox 8 with the following command :
./firefox -P
Profilemanager will open and just create a new profile...
Start firefox 8 with the newly created profile.

To create a shortcut ( I use alacarte : Internet > New Item ) move the above mentioned folder firefox to your home directory , rename it to firefox8 and start firefox 8 with the following command :
/home/username/firefox8/firefox -P "new profile" -no-remote

I was pleasently surprised that the font rendering was excellent, no need to compile it yourself..
( see one of my former posts : http://debian-bits-and-snips.blogspot.com/2009/12/rebuilding-firefox-with-enable-system.html ).
Same applies to Aurora : http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org//mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-mozilla-aurora/ ( 32 and 64 bit ).
See also : http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/channel/ ( only 32 bit ).

Edit : Nice feature : automatic updating

Bleeding edge :

Firefox UX-Builds : : http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-ux/
: a project branch where the Firefox front-end and UX teams can play around and share experimental ideas before they're stable enough to land in the usual Nightly channel.

DevTools-Builds : http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-devtools/ : a sneak preview in the Developer Tools group.
See : http://blog.mozilla.com/devtools/2011/07/21/121/

Make Iceweasel Bookmarks Toolbar Auto-hidden

Here is a way to hide your Bookmarks Toolbar until you drag your mouse above it, this will provide you with more space on your screen and a simpler user interface :
Menu > Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory > Open Containing Folder .
In this folder there is a folder called chrome . Edit the file userChrome.css and add these lines :

/* Auto-hide bookmarks toolbar */
#PersonalToolbar {visibility: collapse !important;}
#navigator-toolbox:hover > #PersonalToolbar {visibility: visible !important;}

Restart iceweasel. In case you don't see your bookmarks on the Bookmarks Toolbar check Bookmarks Toolbar in View > Toolbars.

There is an extension as well : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bookmark-autohider/

Adobe Releases Flash Player 11 Beta

The next Adobe Flash Player release finally re-syncs the 64-bit build with the Flash updates in the mainline code available to 32-bit users. This is the first public beta release of the Adobe Flash Player 11 that offers both 32-bit and 64-bit binaries to Linux users, along with 64-bit binaries for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X users.
Adobe Flash Player 11 Beta drives innovation for amazing, breathtaking digital experiences with brand-new features, including Stage 3D, HD surround sound, H.264/AVC software encoding and 64-bit support.

Download : http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer11.html

The final version of Flash Player 11 will be released before the end of 2011.
For setup see a former post : http://debian-bits-and-snips.blogspot.com/2011/02/setup-flash-non-debian-way.html

When using flashplugin-nonfree just do the following as root :

/usr/sbin/update-flashplugin-nonfree --install

Output:

http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplatformruntimes/flashplayer11/flashplayer11_b1_install_lin_64_071311.tar.gz
Resolving download.macromedia.com... 95.100.179.191
Connecting to download.macromedia.com|95.100.179.191|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 7044701 (6.7M) [application/x-gzip]
Saving to: “./flashplayer11_b1_install_lin_64_071311.tar.gz”

Restart iceweasel and check version at about:plugins

Hide Vertical Scrollbar In Iceweasel

First find userChrome.css : Open Troubleshooting Information page :Menu > Help > Troubleshooting Information. At Profile Directory : Open Containing Folder.
In the folder named chrome add the following to the file userChrome.css ( or create it, if it's not there ) :

notificationbox {
overflow-x: hidden;
}
browser[type="content-primary"], browser[type="content-targetable"] {
overflow-y: scroll;
margin-right: -15px; /* 12px == width of my scrollbar */
}

The negative margin-right will shift the page 15 pixels to the right, thereby hiding the scrollbar. It is still there, you can change it from 15 to 12 and see that some of it will show.

Restart iceweasel to see the result....

A Minimal Gnome Installation

To achieve this I opted for a network install from a minimal CD : http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/. The network install assumes that you have a connection to the Internet. You can choose between a netinst CD image or a smaller businesscard CD image. The netinst image contains the installer and the base system. The smaller business card image does not contain the base system, but only the installer: even the base packages need to be downloaded from the net.
I grabbed the debian-6.0.1a-amd64-businesscard.iso which is only 49.0MB in size. Just to mention here one of the cool features of the businesscard installer - not found on the netinst.iso and other media - is the option to select for installation any one of Debian's 3 different release versions. See picture below....( Advanced options > Expert install )

Debian CD and DVD images can now be written directly to a USB stick, which is a very easy way to make a bootable USB stick. ( see : http://blog.einval.com/2011/01/07#isohybrid_CDs ).
Plug the USB stick into your host machine and leave the stick unmounted. Run the dmesg command and note the USB device ID (In my case the last line was : [ 6101.712220] sd 8:0:0:0: [sde] Attached SCSI removable disk )
Make sure to record the correct USB device ID. The following procedure wipes out all data on the USB stick :
# cat debian-6.0.1a-amd64-businesscard.iso > /dev/sdX
# sync
( in my case X = e ).
Make sure your computer starts from usb ( check BIOS ).
First screen will be :

Just press Enter....

A number of screens later you'll reach the next one :

Only install Standard System Utilities.

When it's all done, reboot and you'll be greeted by the next screen :

After boot process login as user and enter your user's password....

Become root with the command su and enter root's password....

To prevent apt from suggesting/installing recommended packages we'll add two lines to /etc/apt/apt.conf :
nano /etc/apt/apt.conf
Add these lines :
APT::Install-Recommends "false";
APT::Install-Suggests "false";

To install a minimal Gnome :
apt-get install gnome-session gnome-themes gnome-terminal xserver-xorg-core gdm3 gnome-control-center alsa-utils

Start your first session :
/etc/init.d/gdm3 start

After your login start a terminal and run alsamixer :

The current version of alsa installs with all channels muted by default. You will need to unmute the channels manually. The label MM below a channel indicates that the channel is muted, and 00 indicates that it is open.
Unmute the Master and PCM channels by scrolling to them with cursor left/right and pressing M . Use the ↑ key to increase the volume and obtain a value of zero dB gain. The gain may be found in the upper left next to the Item: field.
Test sound with the next command :
aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav

You're done so far....time to add packages you want and need....

Nautilus-dropbox Dropbox Integration For Nautilus

Package was removed from Debian, because of multiple license violations .
A proper package has been built this weekend by Raphaël Hertzog, see : http://raphaelhertzog.com/2011/06/06/official-debian-ubuntu-packages-for-nautilus-dropbox/.
The package nautilus-dropbox has been uploaded to Debian unstable ( http://ftp-master.debian.org/new/nautilus-dropbox_0.6.7-1.html ) and will shortly reach the mirrors.

As an alternative you can download the package from Linux Mint ( the version that has lmde as part of the name ).

More ways to go :
http://www.khattam.info/solved-error-dependency-is-not-satisfiable-libnautilus-extension1-12-22-2-while-installing-dropbox-2010-11-27.html.

Add Email Button In Chrome To Send Link Using Gmail

Rightclick the Bookmarks Bar and Add page... If the Bookmarks Bar is not visible press Ctrl + Shift + B
For Name choose e.g. Send Link.
For URL fill in the following :
javascript:window.open('http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=1&view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=&su='+encodeURIComponent(document.title)+'&body='+encodeURIComponent(document.location),'addwindow','status=no,toolbar=no,width=575,height=545,resizable=yes')

This will open a Compose window in Gmail using the page title as the subject and link address as the message.