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Elementary OS Luna Screen Shots

Admin — Sat, 12 May 2012 15:43:28 +0000

Luna is the upcoming release of elementary OS, which is still in development stage. Here are some of the screen shots taken from a live session from a 20120504 build. Builds can be downloaded from here. Most of them are pre-release builds, so it could be broken or will not work on your system. Try it on your own risk.

Enjoy the simplicity and awesomeness.

Setting up Microsoft Exchange Server Mailbox with Thunderbird

Admin — Tue, 01 May 2012 09:35:01 +0000

Setting up Thunderbird with Microsoft exchange server is little different than normal mail setup. This how to focuses on setting up mail which have no access with POP and IMAP from Microsoft exchange server. That is quite easy if you have IMAP or POP support on exchange server, but this how to will cover more than that. Lets assume that you do not have support for both IMAP and POP.

1st of all lets list down the softwares which will be used for this how to:
- Java 1.5 or above
- Thunderbird 12.0
- Davmail 3.9.8
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 or later.
- Extensions [Lightning]
I assume you have already installed Java, if not you can install it from YaST. Oh yeh this how to will be based on openSUSE 12.1 KDE.
Next install Thunderbird from YaST again, if not installed yet.

Setup Davmail:
Now time to download Davmail, download it from here. I have downloaded 3.9.8 version, you can choose yours.
Choose Linux(others) from the list and select your system arch(32 or 64bit).
Extract it with an extracting app you have, and put the extracted directory any where you like, e.g: home folder. Enter to the directory and click on davmail.sh. A notification pop up will appear.

There are not much things to change in the settings(right click on the icon in the notification area) except OWA URL, it can be like:
https://domian.com/exchange/
Change domain.com to your exchange server domain.

All other default ports settings are good to go.
There are logs available if you wana check it, right click and show logs.

Now for Thunderbird mail setup we will cover three areas to configure, configure exchange mail, calendar and directory service.

Section-I (configure mail)
1- Open Thunderbird and from menu > File > New > Existing mail account.
2- Window will appear to enter your name, email and password. Enter your full email address.
3- Change the rest of the settings according to the image below and re-test. Remember to check the ports from Davmail settings to reflect yours.

Note: Username will be like domain\user.
4- If step 3 successfully done, you will see this page. Check it any way and click create account because we are running it on localhost, so no worries.

5- Done.
6- You can change some of the settings from Edit > Account settings, by following the images below, but that’s totally up to you.

Section-II (configure calendar)
1- Install lightning addon from the addon page, tools > add-ons. Restart Thunderbird after installation.
2- Add new calendar from File > New > Calendar.

3- Use this URL: http://localhost:1080/users//calendar . Choose the appropriate options as shown. Change with your email address.

4- In this window, name your calendar and choose any color you like, remember to not leave the E-mail drop down blank, choose your email address. If you leave it blank, no invitations will be sent to other users.

5- Done
6- In the sidebar a mini calendar will appear, by clicking on the calendar icon at the top will open a new tab.

Section-III (configure directory service)
1- Open Address book and add new LDAP from File > New > LDAP Directory.
2- Enter the information asked for name, hostname, base dn, port number and bind dn.

Note: Bind DN is the username domain\user.
3- Download your directory from the offline tab, if you want.

4- Done

Everything is configured, and now what you can do is WAIT. It will depend on your internet connection and total emails with attachments. It will time some time, so be patient.

If you want to use personal address book, you will need SOGo connector extension. But as it is not compatible with 12.0, so i can’t help with that. You can give it a try here, and then follow this link for how to configure it.

On each boot of the system, Davmail will not start automatically. I found out this way for KDE, which is quite easy. For other desktops and distro, please search for the way around.
Open configure desktop > Startup and Shutdown > Autostart. Click on Add Program button, and locate davmail.sh where you saved it after extraction. Check Enabled checkbox, and that’s it. Davmail will now start on each boot.

Side-Note: If you discover that there are 2 mails in the sent folder, to avoid this go to Davmail settings and in the advanced Tab uncheck ‘SMTP save in sent’ checkbox.

Ref:
- https://getsatisfaction.com/mozilla_messaging/topics/thunderbird_owa_support
- http://davmail.sourceforge.net/faq.html
- http://davmail.sourceforge.net/linuxsetup.html

Cronjobs – An effective Linux utility

Admin — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 07:19:49 +0000

Cron, an Unix term stands for Command Run ON. It is very useful utility in Unix/Linux specially for SysAdmins who might like to schedule different tasks on different times for different purposes. Most frequently it is used for running scripts and creating backups. It’s a command based utility, where we can schedule a task on a given time to run. It’s format looks like the following:

MIN HOUR DOM MON DOW CMD

MIN = Minutes[0-59] , HOUR = Hour[0-23] , DOM = Day of month[1-31] , MON = Month[1-12] , DOW = Day of week[0-6] , CMD = Command to run

00 06 * * * /home/bak/cback.sh

The above command will run on the following time and will trigger a script at home bak directory called cback.sh:

00 = 0th minute

06 = 6AM at morning

* = Every day

* = Every month

* = Every day of the week

Normally * represents ‘Every’ word here, if you want to run it every hour. Replace 06 with *, which will trigger the script every hour.

You can see the cron jobs by running crontab -l in terminal and add/edit them via crontab -e .

Read Linux man pages in terminal for more knowledge or read this article for more deep understanding.

AirDroid – Your Android Over the Air

Admin — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 09:39:07 +0000

AirDroid is an application built for Android phones which connects you to your phone over the air. Now what that means?, quite simple, it will connect you to your phone over wireless network and you can operate your phone through your PC or laptop or netbook etc. To use this application, your phone and PC should be on the same wireless network.

How i’m gonna do/use that?, 1st of all you will need to download the app from Google Play store and install it on your Android based phone. Turn on your phone wireless settings and turn on the wireless network which is active on your PC. Next open the application and hit start button. It will show you which wireless network you are on with an ip address and a password. Now open any browser on your PC and type the ip address, enter the password and wait for loading the contents and page. In the app settings, you can choose what to share and what not.

It has very nice and beautiful interface almost showing you every detail from your phone including battery status, wifi status, network status. You can read your messages, send messages. Play around with your pictures. Transfer files to and from your device via web browser.

Checkout its website for more useful information. I recommend it, try it and i am sure you will love it.

Calligra 2.4 is released – Office and Graphics suit

Admin — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:09:04 +0000

Calligra team has announced the 1st ever stable release of Calligra suit formerly known as KOffice. It is combination of office suite, graphic apps and management app. There are many improvements over time and the transition was made in the mean time from KOffice to focus on a separate product. There are two touch computing apps for mobile platforms. Calligra mobile and Calligra active are added to this suite, which itself are useful tools. It is light weight and goes easy on system resources. Complete apps are listed below,

Office applications:

Calligra Words – Word processor
Calligra Sheets – Spreadsheet app
Calligra Stage – Presentation app
Calligra Flow – Flowcharts and Diagram app
Braindump – Note taking app
Kexi – Visual database creator

Graphics applications:

Krita – Drawing app
Karbon – Vector graphic app

Management applications:

Calligra Plan – Project management app

Mobile applications:

Calligra Mobile – Nokia N900 smart phone
Calligra Active – targeted for plasma active devices

Read detail announcement here.

If you are on openSUSE, installation will be quite easy. Just open terminal and become root by su - , type:

zypper in calligra calligra-braindump calligra-flow calligra-karbon calligra-kexi calligra-krita calligra-kthesaurus calligra-plan calligra-sheets calligra-stage calligra-words

That’s it, use it, explore it and then review it.

Kompare – Useful tool for comparing files

Admin — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 13:26:38 +0000

Ever heard of Kompare?. An application from KDE worth trying out. Ever run into this situation when you need quick solution for comparing two files and want to see the differences between the two files. Let’s assume you have two versions of files for index1.php, index2.php and want to know the exact differences between these two files. Kompare can do that for you. It has very simple interface. You can set the options, change font colors for comparison. It will be installed by default in KDE, if you have KDE desktop. But if not or want to checkout it out in other desktop environment in openSUSE.

Just open terminal and become root by su - and type:

zypper in kompare

That’s it, you can now use it.

KDE 4.8.2 is OUT

Admin — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 02:43:49 +0000

KDE team released a bug fix release version[4.8.2] for 4.8 series, last month we saw 4.8.1 and here is 4.8.2 with many bug fixes. There are no features added, as this is only updates and bug fix release. Major updates pushed to XRender in the Kwin window and compositing manager, dolphin new engine and tweaks in the plasma quick-based new window switcher, Kontact and many more. Head over to announcement page for more details.

If you want to install/update it in openSUSE 12.1, this post might be helpful.

How to install Google Chrome in openSUSE

Admin — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 06:50:48 +0000

Don’t be confused about Chrome and Chromium. Both are browsers and using the same engines, then what’s the difference?, the difference is one is actively developed by open source community[Chromium] and the other is maintained and developed by Google[Chrome]. Google Chrome can say provide stable version, while Chromium is dev build version[unstable] which is stable though but have new features which then go to Google Chrome stable version later. Chromium is already provided in openSUSE default repositories. But for Google Chrome we need to add new repository. Which will have three versions, stable, beta, unstable. If you want to have different versions of this browser, install both Chromium and Chrome. Currently i’m running both versions, stable version from Google[Chrome] repository and dev build[Chromium] from openSUSE repositories. 1st of all open terminal and become root by su - , and then type, choose your system architecture:

64bit version

zypper ar http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/rpm/stable/x86_64 Google-Chrome

32bit version

zypper ar http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/rpm/stable/i386 Google-Chrome

Now type:

zypper ref

And install Google Chrome:

zypper in google-chrome-stable

Now you will have two versions of Chrome/Chromium browser.

Screen shots of KDE 4.8.x on openSUSE 12.1

Admin — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 04:28:53 +0000

Currently running KDE 4.8.1 on openSUSE 12.1 with 3.2.9 kernel. One thing i always love about KDE is it’s customization of almost everything. You can customize it from head to toe the way you want it. In the screen shots below, i would also share my desktop settings if any one else might want to try it out.

Desktop theme: Produkt

Windows decoration: Bespin

Style: Oxygen

Fonts: Droid Sans

Icons: MaliaeSVG

Colors: Mint-RGS

Kwin beclock at the right top corner.

MeliaeSVG Icon Theme in openSUSE [KDE]

Admin — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 05:17:47 +0000

MeliaeSVG Icon Theme is an icon set created by sora-meliae. It is quite clean and very refreshing icon theme. Love the simple and cleanse look of the icons.

It is for Gnome, and i am using KDE so how can we install it inside KDE desktop. That is quite easy. 1st download the zip file from deviantart. Extract the zip archive, a new file with .tar.gz will be extracted.

Now open ‘Configure Desktop’ in KDE from kickoff menu. Click on ‘Application Appearance’ and choose ‘Icons’ and click on ‘Install new theme’, browse for the theme which you just extracted(.tar.gz one). And bingo, there you go.. apply it and you will see the changes immediately.

More information here.

How to install Cinnamon desktop on openSUSE 12.1

Admin — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 17:30:23 +0000

Cinnamon is a desktop environment introduced by Linux Mint developers/creators. It is based on Gnome3 giving you the look and feel of Gnome2 and is quite nicely done with its initial stage. Let’s have it in openSUSE 12.1, 1st of all open terminal and become root by su - . Now type:

zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/GNOME:/Cinnamon/12.1/ Cinnamon-desktop

And now refresh the repos:

zypper ref

Install cinnamon by typing the following command:

zypper in cinnamon

After installation, logout and choose cinnamon from the session menu and login. There you have it…easy!

Ubuntu 12.04 Beta 1(LTS) released and what’s new in it?

Admin — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 09:23:12 +0000

Beta 1 for the long term support(LTS) version of Ubuntu 12.04 is released and this time with quite impressive and nice improvements. Unity is getting mature over time and Ubuntu is which of course most of its users love it. Wana take a tour of the new features with screen shots and a video demonstration with download link too?, check it out here. I am downloading it now, and will give it a shot in vbox later..

Icon-Only task manager in KDE – A nice launcher by default

Admin — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 15:05:36 +0000

Icon-Only task manager is a task manager available in KDE 4.8 by default, so you no need to install any thing. Just checkout the widgets and it will be there. What it have and why it is different from task manager?, as from its name, it is just an icon only task manager. The good thing i found in this new version is that we can make the icon for an application stay there after closing it. That means, that the application icon will be available at the task bar, if enable the settings for that specific icon. You can move the icons and re arrange its positions, and after moving them according to your taste, it is advisable to lock the Launchers. Just right click on the bar and choose ‘Lock Launchers’, so doing that, your icons will be locked and cannot be re arranged even by a mistake. It have many options in the settings to change its behavior, look and feel(even can make it like unity launcher) etc. In short, it is a nice, complete and simple dock. The best thing about it is, that we can add widgets, system tray, kickoff menu etc beside it(like in the screen shots below). Check out the screen shots of it in action. Try it out, i am sure you will love it.

[howto] Install KDM themes in openSUSE

Admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:41:49 +0000

If you are on KDE with openSUSE and want to change the default login theme(by default it is SUSE theme). That will be pretty easy. In case you tried Login Screen in Configure Desktop Settings and its not working, then you can follow this post to have your desired login screen theme. Almost every theme is available on kde-look.org KDM KDE4 themes page, search around and download your favorite one. Lets say you downloaded it to Downloads folder in your home directory, extract it there. [for example this post will use KStarboard-new theme]

Now open terminal and become root by su - , type:

cd /home/username/Downloads/

mv KStarboard-new /usr/share/kde4/apps/kdm/themes/

Now open YaST, go to /etc/sysconfig Editor and then click on Desktop -> Display Manager -> DISPLAYMANAGER_KDM_THEME, and you will SUSE or some other value, change it to your theme folder name like KStarboard-new. Save and close YaST. Checkout the screen shot for this.

Reboot your system so that the changes take effect.

If you are editor/terminal lover, you can open the following file in terminal instead of using YaST and edit it there(via root user):

vim /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager

Look for this line [DISPLAYMANAGER_KDM_THEME="SUSE"] and add your theme folder name there.

That should do it.

Interview with Monty Widenius of MariaDB[previously MySQL]

Admin — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 17:03:28 +0000

The other day i was reading Monty Widenius interview on linux.com. It was nice share from him that how MariaDB came to existence and how easily it is to migrate to MariaDB from MySQL. How he formed the new team and get started with the new database(MariaDB).

Read the Q&A session