Filed under: Ubuntu
VMWare rocks. Specifically, the VMWare web management console which allows you to start and stop virtual machines from your browser AND connect consoles to them rocks big time!
However, if you install it, you’ll note that it doesn’t start up when you restart your machine. Thanks to Velonis Petros for this fix:
The solution to this is to modify the /etc/init.d/httpd.vmware. Just type
sudo pico /etc/init.d/httpd.vmware
search for “start)” and after this line add the following code:
if [ ! -d /var/run/vmware/httpd ] then mkdir /var/run/vmware/httpd chown www-data:nogroup /var/run/vmware/httpd chmod 700 /var/run/vmware/httpd fi
Done.
Filed under: Ubuntu
This drove me nuts for more than a short time, but if you’re interested in creating a whole bunch of symbolic links at any time, simply use the -s switch to the cp command – i.e.:
cp -s /media/MoreVideos/*.avi /media/Videos
would create a symlink in Videos to each .avi in MoreVideos.
Niiice.
No Machine’s NX Server software is another one of those absolutely brilliant finds! This allows RDP type connections to Ubuntu boxes. For the simplest instructions on how to set it up for Hardy, check out Urban Puddle.
CIFS is apparently better than SMBFS for mounting shares across a network in Ubuntu. To set up fstab to automatically mount a share (with read/write access):
- apt-get install smbfs
- Create a file called .smbcredentials in the /root folder containing the lines:
username=[your username] password=[your password]
Then
chmod 700that file so that only root can access it. - For each share, add the line:
//Server/Sharename /[local mountpoint] cifs credentials=/root/.smbcredentials,iocharset=utf8,file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777 0 0
Done. However, to make sure you don’t get the CIFS VFS: Server not responding error, execute:
ln -s /etc/init.d/umountnfs.sh /etc/rc0.d/K15umountnfs.sh
ln -s /etc/init.d/umountnfs.sh /etc/rc6.d/K15umountnfs.sh
Filed under: Ubuntu
Another tip I found – this one allows you to ping hunt for a Windows box from Ubuntu without having to change the hosts file to manually create the IP lookups.
- Install smbfs/cifs:
apt-get install smbfs
- Edit your nsswitch file
sudo nano /etc/nsswitch.conf
Search through the file and look for the line that looks something like:
hosts: files dns
and add “wins” to the end of the line so it looks something like this:
hosts: files wins dns
NB: “wins” MUST come before “dns” if you are using the openDNS service. - Install winbind
apt-get install winbind
Done. 
Ping away!
Another sweet find! Synergy is a virtual KVM. Basically, what this means is that you can control more than one machine…very useful when you have two machines side by side with separate monitors. The uber-sweet nature of the sweetness is that it is open source and multi platform, so I can jump between my Windows laptop and Ubuntu server with ease! Sweeeeet!
To do this, download the synergy source from the link above and follow the instructions on the page. I have it set so my laptop (primary machine) is the server, so I followed the simply Windows instructions to get that working. For the Ubuntu clients, the tricky bit was to get it so that synergy automatically starts at the login screen. To do this:
- Add the following to
/etc/gdm/Init/Defaultbeforesysmodmap=/etc/X11/Xmodmap:#Start the Synergy client for KVM switching SYNERGYC=`gdmwhich synergyc` if [ x$SYNERGYC != x ] ; then $SYNERGYC servername fi
- Add the same to PreSession/Default before the setting of the background color.
That pretty much does it I think. NB: Hardy Heron seems to have some performance issues and you may need to manually run it as root instead.
I’ve had to put Dan’s Guardian to one side as I have made some serious progress with getting my Pocket PC (iPaq 2210/2215) syncing with Linux – specifically Mozilla’s Thunderbird on Ubuntu. This has long been considered the holy grail of synchronisation in Linux…by me at least!
How does it work?
- I installed the Lightning extension into Thunderbird. This brings the power of the Sunbird calendar application directly into Thunderbird, thus making it more like Microsoft’s Outlook sans bloat.
- I then installed GCalDaemon which is a Java application that allows for two-way synchronisation with Gmail calendar. I set this up (as per the page) to use file-based synchronisation so that it would bring back an iCal file that Thunderbird Lighting could access. I saved this in
file.ical.path=/home/thecrane/Documents/calendar.ics
- Then I installed FinchSync. This application rocks! Seriously! It runs as a client on the PocketPC and syncs up over WiFi (or other network connection) to the server version running on the server – totally bypassing ActiveSync altogether! Brilliant!
- I made both FinchSync and GCalDaemon run on startup by adding them to init.d. Basically, I created a file called
gcaldand one calledfinchsyncand put them in/etc/init.d. I then ranupdate-rc.d finchsync defaults
as root and did the same for
gcald. - Now we’re off and running! I then added the calendar to Thunderbird Lightning by adding a new calendar, pointing it at the iCal file and it appeard. I also ran the finchsync gui with
java -jar finchsync.jarand set it up to look at the same source file.
Done and done! Now, whenever I add an appointment to GMail, it appears on my Thunderbird calendar and when I sync my iPaq, it appears there too. Sweeeeeet!
