An Easy Way To Boot ISO Image From Your Hard Drive

With grml-rescueboot there is an easy way to boot an ISO image from your harddisk to test other linux distributions.
Out of curiosity I downloaded the iso from elementary OS ( elementaryos-stable-amd64.20130810.iso ).

First install grml-rescueboot as root :

apt-get install grml-rescueboot

Then move the ISO image to /boot/grml/ as root :

mv elementaryos-stable-amd64.20130810.iso /boot/grml

Update Grub 2 with the following command as root :

update-grub

Reboot and you will see a new entry in your booting list.

Links :
http://ubuntuportal.com/2013/08/heres-an-easier-way-to-boot-iso-image-from-your-hard-drive-in-ubuntu-13-04.html

http://michael-prokop.at/blog/2011/01/07/booting-iso-images-from-within-grub2/

Happy 20th Birthday, Debian

One day too late.....

http://bits.debian.org/2013/08/20-birthday-debian.html

Copy.com : Cloud Storage Service With 20 GB Free Storage

Just recently found out about this cloud service : copy.com .

You can get 15GB free storage by going directly to the website and register or you can get 20GB free storage by using my referral link .

To celebrate Copy's launch, earn 5 GB of extra free storage for yourself and whoever you refer each time you introduce someone new to Copy. This is a limited time opportunity to rack up huge amounts of extra free storage while we build the initial buzz around Copy!

Error Dependency Is Not Satisfiable : Libc6 Google-Music-Manager

I downloaded Google-music-manager from here : https://play.google.com/music/listen#/manager.

Installing with gdebi showed the following :

Error : Dependency is not satisfiable : libc6 ( >=2.15 ).......

After some Googling I found an older version from this link ( google music )

Installed without trouble...

To have it work properly (  the "Upload" menu item missing and the "Options" item not doing anything ) I had to delete the ~/.config/google-musicmanager directory and start the manager again ( link ).

Additional link for download ( version 1.0.60.7918-r0 ) : here. ( google-musicmanager-beta_current_amd64.deb ).

Liberate Your Hardware

LibreStickers

We honor the project trademarks and guidelines to the letter. We only manufacture and sell stickers if we have received an approval from the project / trademark owner. 

Disable The Universal Access Accessibility Menu In Gnome 3

Edit as root the file /usr/share/gnome-shell/js/ui/panel.js

Look for the following line, (line 37 in my case):

'a11y': imports.ui.status.accessibility.ATIndicator,

Comment it out, so it will look like this :

// 'a11y': imports.ui.status.accessibility.ATIndicator,

Restart gnome-shell :

Press ALT + F2 and type in r and hit Enter to restart the gnome-shell.

Done....

Enable Autologin Gdm3

As root edit the file /etc/gdm3/daemon.conf  :

nano /etc/gdm3/daemon.conf

Look for the lines :

#  AutomaticLoginEnable = true

#  AutomaticLogin = user1

Remove the # signs before each line and replace user1 with your own username.

So in my case ( username = eric ) these lines will look like :

AutomaticLoginEnable = true

AutomaticLogin = eric

To see it working switch to tty1 :

CTRL + ALT + F1

Login as root and then :

/etc/init.d/gdm3 restart

Install Pepperflash In Chromium

Go to the Google Chrome Webpage and download the web browser for your processor architecture.
Unpack the deb package ( I used file-roller ) and go to the directory /opt/google/chrome/ .

Select Pepperflash and Extract.

Inside the directory Pepperflash there is a file libpepflashplayer.so .

As root :
mv libpepflashplayer.so /usr/lib/chromium/plugins

As root edit the file default in /etc/chromium and add this line :

CHROMIUM_FLAGS=" --ppapi-flash-path=/usr/lib/chromium/plugins/libpepflashplayer.so"

The whole file will look like this :

# Default settings for chromium. This file is sourced by /bin/sh from
# /usr/bin/chromium

# Options to pass to chromium
CHROMIUM_FLAGS="--password-store=detect"
CHROMIUM_FLAGS=" --ppapi-flash-path=/usr/lib/chromium/plugins/libpepflashplayer.so"

Restart chromium.

Check the setting at chrome:plugins in the address bar ( check +Details ) :

A Minimal Gnome 3 Installation

Download from Debian.org a Small CD ( here ). No businesscard CD image any longer...

I chose to put the image ( debian-7.1.0-amd64-netinst.iso ) on an USB stick ( see a former post and here ).

This time I decided to go the Graphical install way....

Just follow the instructions....it's easy enough.

In the next screen I deselected everything....

Install the Grub boot loader to the master boot record.....

After finishing the installation reboot and....just press Enter....

Next screen login as root....

A few adjustments to the sources.list....

nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Add contrib and non-free at the end of all lines....Ctrl+o ( WriteOut ), File Name to Write : sources.list, hit Enter, Ctrl+x ( Exit ).

Then :

nano /etc/apt/apt.conf

Write this line : 

APT::Install-Recommends "false";

Save and exit. First update....

apt-get update 

Install a minimal xserver. My videocard is a Nvidia GeForce GT 330

apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-evdev xserver-xorg-video-nvidia 

I kept an eye on the recommended packages.....

apt-get install nvidia-glx linux-headers-$(uname -r)

Package nvidia-glx will pull in package nvidia-kernel-dkms. Next :

apt-get install gdm3 gnome-session xorg nautilus gnome-terminal gnome-shell-extensions gnome-control-center gnome-tweak-tool alsa-utils pulseaudio gnome-themes 

Next is optional :

apt-get install chromium gthumb gdebi gksu leafpad glipper file-roller nautilus-open-terminal synaptic 

Create a configuration file for the Nvidia card :

nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf   and add these lines :

Section "Device"
        Identifier "My GPU"
        Driver "nvidia"
EndSection

Now reboot and login !

Some more tweaks :

Add this .fonts.conf file in your home directory.

Create a directory .icons in your home directory and add these icons.

Find more icons here and here....

Create a directory .fonts in your home directory and add these fonts.

Make adjustments in Advanced Settings.

Chromium Show In Folder Not Working

I ran Chromium in a terminal to find out what was happening.
There was a line saying :

/usr/bin/xdg-open 491 /usr/bin/xdg-open gnome-open not found

The problem was a missing package in my minimal Gnome installation : gvfs-bin ,indeed fixed by installing the package gvfs-bin.

sudo apt-get install gvfs-bin

Enable Video Thumbnails With Ffmpegthumbnailer

To enable video thumbnails in Nautilus we need package ffmpegthumbnailer.
As root :

apt-get install ffmpegthumbnailer

Create a file ffmpeg.thumbnailer in /usr/share/thumbnailers with the following content :

[Thumbnailer Entry]
TryExec=ffmpegthumbnailer
Exec=ffmpegthumbnailer -s %s -i %i -o %o -c png -f -t 10
MimeType=application/mxf;application/ogg;application/ram;application/sdp;application/vnd.ms-wpl;application/vnd.rn-realmedia;application/x-extension-m4a;application/x-extension-mp4;application/x-flash-video;application/x-matroska;application/x-netshow-channel;application/x-ogg;application/x-quicktimeplayer;application/x-shorten;image/vnd.rn-realpix;image/x-pict;misc/ultravox;text/x-google-video-pointer;video/3gpp;video/dv;video/fli;video/flv;video/mp2t;video/mp4;video/mp4v-es;video/mpeg;video/msvideo;video/ogg;video/quicktime;video/vivo;video/vnd.divx;video/vnd.rn-realvideo;video/vnd.vivo;video/webm;video/x-anim;video/x-avi;video/x-flc;video/x-fli;video/x-flic;video/x-flv;video/x-m4v;video/x-matroska;video/x-mpeg;video/x-ms-asf;video/x-ms-asx;video/x-msvideo;video/x-ms-wm;video/x-ms-wmv;video/x-ms-wmx;video/x-ms-wvx;video/x-nsv;video/x-ogm+ogg;video/x-theora+ogg;video/x-totem-stream;audio/x-pn-realaudio;audio/3gpp;audio/ac3;audio/AMR;audio/AMR-WB;audio/basic;audio/midi;audio/mp2;audio/mp4;audio/mpeg;audio/ogg;audio/prs.sid;audio/vnd.rn-realaudio;audio/x-aiff;audio/x-ape;audio/x-flac;audio/x-gsm;audio/x-it;audio/x-m4a;audio/x-matroska;audio/x-mod;audio/x-mp3;audio/x-mpeg;audio/x-ms-asf;audio/x-ms-asx;audio/x-ms-wax;audio/x-ms-wma;audio/x-musepack;audio/x-pn-aiff;audio/x-pn-au;audio/x-pn-wav;audio/x-pn-windows-acm;audio/x-realaudio;audio/x-real-audio;audio/x-sbc;audio/x-speex;audio/x-tta;audio/x-wav;audio/x-wavpack;audio/x-vorbis;audio/x-vorbis+ogg;audio/x-xm;application/x-flac;

After these steps force Nautilus to generate new thumbnails :

rm -rf ~/.thumbnails

And restart Nautilus :

nautilus -q

VPNBook : No Valid VPN Secrets.....

VPNBook is a 100% Free VPN service without any need for registration or sign-up.

In order to set up a VPN connection with pptp or openvpn using a GUI I did the following ( as root ) :

apt-get install network-manager-gnome network-manager-openvpn-gnome network-manager-pptp-gnome

The nm-applet showed an unmanaged Wired connection. Unmanaged devices means NetworkManager doesn't handle those network devices.

You need to edit as root the following files :

(1) /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf

Change line managed=false in managed=true

(2) /etc/network/interfaces

Comment out the last two lines
# The primary network interface
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

So it will look like this :
# The primary network interface
#allow-hotplug eth0
#iface eth0 inet dhcp

Restart NetworkManager :

/etc/init.d/network-manager restart

Now nm-applet shows a managed connection :

Choose Network Settings in nm-applet and click on the + sign and create a VPN Interface

Choose PPTP and the following window opens up :

Go to VPNBook and look for the PPTP settings. I choose Server #3 : uk1.vpnbook.com (UK VPN - optimized for fast web surfing; no p2p downloading).

Connection name : uk1.vpnbook.com
Gateway : uk1.vpnbook.com
User name : vpnbook
Password : phefra7U ( password changes every one to two weeks ! )
Check Available for all users

Go to Advanced and check Use Point-to-Point encryption ( MPPE )

Now you can go to the nm-applet and choose the VPN connection......but nothing happened....

tail -f /var/log/syslog  ( as root ) showed a message about Failed to request VPN secrets #2: (6) No agents were available for this request.....
After some Googling I found a solution ( link ) :

As root edit /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/uk1.vpnbook.com and under [vpn], change the password flags line to:

password-flags=0

And add the following:
[vpn-secrets]
password=phefra7U

Then again : /etc/init.d/network-manager restart

Now it works...

In order to get OpenVPN working I found a solution at this post http://howto.praqma.net/ubuntu/vpn/openvpn-access-server-client-on-ubuntu

Go to VPNBook and download one of the OpenVPN Certificate Bundles ( e.g Server #3 ).

Unzip the file and choose one of the ovpn files. Follow the instructions in the above link from the line
Open client.opvn in an editor....till....Remove both < key >  tags from client.ovpn.

Insert the following lines in the ovpn file :

ca ca.crt
cert client.crt
key client.key

Activities > Applications >Network Connections > VPN > Import.
Choose your ovpn file and fill in username and password...

As root edit /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/vpnbook-uk1-tcp80 and under [vpn], change the password flags line to:

password-flags=0

And add the following:
[vpn-secrets]
password=phefra7U

Again : /etc/init.d/network-manager restart

Update : I noticed that these OpenVPN Certificate Bundles may change as well, so you have to repeat the procedure above from time to time....

Unofficial debian-multimedia.org Repository Is No Longer Safe To Use

Debian warns on its blog : The unofficial third party repository Debian Multimedia stopped using the domain debian-multimedia.org some months ago. The domain expired and it is now registered again by someone unknown to Debian.....This means that the repository is no longer safe to use, and you should remove the related entries from your sources.list file.


Not sure if you're using the debian-multimedia repository? You can easily check it by running:

grep -i debian-multimedia.org /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*

If you can see debian-multimedia.org line in output, you should remove all the lines including it.

The need of an external repository for multimedia related packages has been greatly reduced with the release of Wheezy, which features many new and updated codecs and multimedia players.

If you're wondering where it went, it moved to deb-multimedia.org......

The Debian Administrator’s Handbook

Just  in case you have missed the big news : The French reference handbook covering Debian system administration, written by Raphaël Hertzog and Roland Mas, has been translated into English and released as the Debian Administrator’s Handbook.
The book teaches the essentials of Debian system administration while trying to be as accessible as possible.
The translation of the book was accomplished by the authors themselves, with the help of a successful crowdfunding campaign. 

Read it online.  
Get the book (as paperback or as ebook).
Download the sources and contribute.
Install in Sid ( debian unstable ) :  

apt-get install debian-handbook

Openvpn With Hide My Ass

A VPN encrypts your internet traffic and lets you establish a secure connection over the non-secure Internet. This is especially useful when connected to insecure networks such as public WiFi hotspots. Once connected to a VPN server your online identity will be masked behind one of the anonymous IP addresses provided by the VPN service provider, which is a handy tool to virtually reside in another country . Also censorship and internet restrictions imposed by your internet service provider or government are bypassed. After examining some VPN providers, I went with Hide My Ass . HMA provides multiple protocols to use including OpenVPN ,PPTP and L2TP .
See this list of protocols : http://www.ivpn.net/pptp-vs-l2tp-vs-openvpn.php .

Choose openvpn rather than pptp. Openvpn with TCP connects over port 443 and traffic is indistinguishable from normal HTTPS traffic, making it very difficult to block.

In order to get your connection working do the following : ( as root ) :

apt-get install openvpn curl

After going to http://hidemyass.com/vpn I choose an one month subscription, created an account and paid.
All VPN plans include a 30 day money back guarantee making your purchase risk free.
After login on their website, you can download their software : linux.zip .

Move linux.zip into a folder HMA inside your home directory :
mkdir ~/HMA
mv linux.zip ~/HMA
cd ~/HMA
unzip linux.zip
Archive:  linux.zip
  inflating: keys/ca.crt            
  inflating: keys/hmauser.crt       
  inflating: keys/hmauser.key       
  inflating: client.cfg             
  inflating: hma-start              
  inflating: README.txt
Make hma-start executable :
chmod +x hma-start
If you don't use sudo change line 10 in hma-start which reads sudo openvpn client.cfg into su -c "openvpn client.cfg" .
Inside the folder HMA :
./hma-start -l   will give you a list of the available servers.
./hma-start "Country, Name" This command will connect you to the selected server.
e.g. UK, London (LOC1 S1) :
 ./hma-start "UK, London (LOC1 S1)" :
Password : ( enter root's password. )
Thu Dec  8 22:57:22 2011 OpenVPN 2.1.3 x86_64-pc-linux-gnu [SSL] [LZO2] [EPOLL] [PKCS11] [MH] [PF_INET6] [eurephia] built on Oct 22 2010
Enter Auth Username:  ( enter HMA username )
Enter Auth Password:   ( enter HMA password )
......
.....
.....
Thu Dec  8 23:00:51 2011 Initialization Sequence Completed

Now you're connected ! Check your ip before and after connecting by just entering the searchterm ip in google.com .
Stop the connection not by closing the terminal, but with Ctrl+C.
More options see : http://forum.hidemyass.com/index.php?/topic/2503-yet-another-hma-script/ .

If you like to use a GUI :
apt-get install network-manager-gnome network-manager-openvpn-gnome network-manager-pptp-gnome
 .......
.......
.......
Setting up network-manager (0.8.1-6+squeeze1) ...
Reloading system message bus config...done.
Disabling interfaces configured with plain DHCP in /etc/network/interfaces so that NetworkManager can take them over
Auto interfaces found: lo eth0
iface to disable = eth0
Disabling interface: eth0 ... done.
Starting network connection manager: NetworkManager.
Setting up network-manager-gnome (0.8.1-2) ...
Reloading system message bus config...done.
Setting up network-manager-openvpn (0.8.1-1) ...
Reloading system message bus config...done.
Setting up network-manager-openvpn-gnome (0.8.1-1) ...
Setting up network-manager-pptp (0.8.1-1) ...
Reloading system message bus config...done.
Setting up network-manager-pptp-gnome (0.8.1-1) ...
Now reboot !
After login you will have the network-manager applet in your gnome-panel .
We will need the HMA server's .ovpn files :
Go to :  http://hidemyass.com/vpn-config/ and download vpn-config.zip ( at the bottom ) .
Move  vpn-config.zip to your folder HMA inside your home directory and unzip it.
Now click the applet and choose VPN Connections > Configure VPN...
Choose the VPN tab and then Import. Navigate to the HMA folder and choose one of the .ovpn files. ( e.g. Germany.Dusseldorf.ovpn )

Enter your User name and Password and click Apply.
Click the network-manager applet and choose VPN Connections > Germany. Dusseldorf.
A window will pop up :

Enter your HMA password and choose Save password in keyring....
Now you're connected !
Switching servers is very easy and fast and the connection is very stable. Speed was a bit slower than with my own ISP ( UPC, Amsterdam ), depending on the distance of the server.

My own ISP :

Germany.Dusseldorf

Netherlands. Rotterdam

USA.NewYork.NewYork_LOC2S6

Free Sample Of The Debian Administrator's Handbook

Thanks to all the donations the first goal of the fundraising campaign has been reached : the English translation of the French best-seller known as Cahier de l'admin Debian, written by two Debian developers—Raphaël Hertzog and Roland Mas will happen. A sample chapter was just released, it deals with the APT family of tools: apt-get, aptitude, synaptic, update-manager, etc.

Go get it here... http://raphaelhertzog.com/files/2011/11/chapter-apt-rh.pdf

Update Dec 2 : see : http://debian-handbook.info/

Google: What Do You Love?

http://www.wdyl.com/# 
WDYL, short for What Do You Love, is a service from Google which lets you search the web for images, blogs, maps, news, videos and it also shows the popularity of the term you're searching for, and more.

Protecting Data Communication : Encryptyourmessages.co.uk/

Just came across this website I'd like to share with you : http://www.encryptyourmessages.co.uk/


You probably sit behind your PC, connect your machine to the Internet, open your e-mail program, start your instant messenger application, read your messages, reply to them and browse the web... But, have you ever you wondered how much data could be collected on you? This website has the purpose to inform you on the technical and practical aspect of this subject. You will also find tutorials explaining how to protect your personal data transiting on the Internet.


Some additional links worthwhile reading :
(1) http://www.rossde.com/PGP/pgp_encrypt.html
(2) http://www.youdzone.com/signature.html
(3) http://users.telenet.be/d.rijmenants/index.htm
(4) http://www.garykessler.net/library/crypto.html

Dropbox For Linux Now Provides Debian Packages

I've been using nautilus-dropbox ( version 0.6.7-3~bpo60+1) from Backports for awhile, but it seems that the website of Dropbox provides Debian packages as well ! Just go to : https://www.dropbox.com/downloading?os=lnx and download nautilus-dropbox version 0.7.0.

See also :http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=46448

N: Ignoring File *.save In Directory '/etc/apt/sources.list.d/' As It Has An Invalid Filename Extension

Just recently apt-get update started throwing errors which read:

N: Ignoring file 'google-chrome.list.save' in directory '/etc/apt/sources.list.d/' as it has an invalid filename extension
....
....
....
N: Ignoring file 'google-musicmanager.list.save' in directory '/etc/apt/sources.list.d/' as it has an invalid filename extension

Looking inside directory  /etc/apt/sources.list.d/  I saw a number of files which ended with .save, which were not there before since my last apt-get update.
Apparently they are some sort of backup files, because the content of file foo.list.save is the same as file foo.list.

Following fix will work and next time you apt-get update these former notices won't be shown :

su -c "echo 'Dir::Ignore-Files-Silently:: \"(.save)$\";' > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99ignoresave" 

I recently installed software-properties-gtk and update-notifier, and I suspect one of these packages to generate these files with the .save extension.....