These tips are for - and tested in - MGSE, the default Linux Mint 12 login session, the one that looks like this. Use them in other distros, other desktop environments and other login sessions at your own risk. I don't think many of of these are of much use to MATE or Gnome Classic users. Unless otherwise noted all tips have been tested on my machine but I cannot guarantee that they work for you as well as they did for me. If you're not comfortable running terminal commands, ask in the thread if there is another way of applying the fix.
1. System
a. Get all programs and services back in Startup Applications
b. Create desktop launchers
c. Get the screensaver back
d. Configure window buttons
e. Disable Guest session login screen option
f. Login automatically to your session
g. Advanced power settings
h. Icons duplicated?
i. Remove MATE icons from Gnome Shell menus
j. Remove MATE altogether
k. Disable bluetooth on startup
l. Configure auto-mounting of drives
m. Reduce laptop screen brightness persistently
...
z. Don't like Mint 12?
2. Gnome Shell
a. Browse official Gnome extensions
b. Recommended extensions
c. Disable the bottom panel
d. Get Mint logo corner ripple
e. Change the default theme overview button image
f. Disable the Native Window Placement extension
g. Less spacing between notification area icons
h. Deactivate top left hot corner
i. Change size of overview grid icons
j. Get full(er) Icon captions (application names) in the overview grid
k. Activities button behaviour in single panel shell setup with Mint menu
l. Change Mint Menu font size
m. Permanently hide bottom notification bar
n. Disable window edge tiling ("Aero snap")
o. Disable the Show Desktop panel icon
p. Clock in the middle of panel
q. MGSE with MATE bottom panel
- NB: as the Mint themes and extensions are in the Mint PPA, they will be updated occasionally and whatever changes you make to the theme/extension system files will be overwritten each time. A way around this is to copy the theme/extension folders and use the copies for your fixes. That way you won't get updates for themes and extensions, but you won't lose your tweaks either. You can also just apply your tweaks after each update, doesn't take too long once you get the hang of it.
3. Applications
a. Install Ubuntu One
b. Install USC (Ubuntu Software Center)
c. Manage grub settings with Grub Customizer
d. Lose excess weight with bleachbit
e. Install Google Chrome
f. Jupiter for burning laptops
g. Tweak Gnome 3 with Ubuntu Tweak
4. Themes and appearance
a. How to install window themes
b. How to install icon themes
c. How to install Gnome Shell themes
d. Change login screen background
e. Updated version of Mint's icon theme
All of this can be found here. Thank you, "bimsebasse"!
Saturday 24 March 2012
Monday 27 February 2012
Set up a LAMP Server on Linux Mint / Ubuntu
Install and Configure the Apache Web Server
The Apache Web Server is a very popular choice for serving web pages. While many alternatives have appeared in the last few years, Apache remains a powerful option that is recommended for most uses. Issue the following command to install Apache:
apt-get install apache2
Now we'll configure virtual hosting so that we can host multiple domains (or subdomains) with the server. These websites can be controlled by different users, or by a single user, as you prefer.
Configure Virtual Hosting
There are different ways to set up virtual hosts, however we recommend the method below. By default, Apache listens on all IP addresses available to it. We must configure it to listen only on addresses we specify. Even if you only have one IP, it is still a good idea to tell Apache what IP address to listen on in case you decide to add more.
Begin by modifying the NameVirtualHost entry in /etc/apache2/ports.conf as follows:
File excerpt:/etc/apache2/ports.conf
NameVirtualHost 12.34.56.78:80
Be sure to replace "12.34.56.78" with your IP address. Now, modify the default site's virtual hosting in the file /etc/apache2/sites-available/default so that the entry reads:
File excerpt:/etc/apache2/sites-available/default
<VirtualHost 12.34.56.78:80>
Configure Name-based Virtual Hosts First, create a file in the /etc/apache2/sites-available/ directory for each virtual host that you want to set up. Name each file with the domain for which you want to provide virtual hosting. See the following example configurations for the hypothetical "example.com" and "example.org" domains. Substitute your own domain names for those shown below. File:/etc/apache2/sites-available/example.com
<VirtualHost 12.34.56.78:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@example.com
ServerName example.com
ServerAlias www.example.com
DocumentRoot /srv/www/example.com/public_html/
ErrorLog /srv/www/example.com/logs/error.log
CustomLog /srv/www/example.com/logs/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
File:/etc/apache2/sites-available/example.org
<VirtualHost 12.34.56.78:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@example.org
ServerName example.org
ServerAlias www.example.org
DocumentRoot /srv/www/example.org/public_html/
ErrorLog /srv/www/example.org/logs/error.log
CustomLog /srv/www/example.org/logs/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
Notes regarding this example configuration:
All of the files for the sites that you host will be located in directories that exist underneath /srv/www. You can symbolically link these directories into other locations if you need them to exist in other places.
ErrorLog and CustomLog entries are suggested for more fine-grained logging, but are not required. If they are defined (as shown above), the logs directories must be created before you restart Apache.
Before you can use the above configuration, you'll need to create the specified directories. For the above configuration, you can do this with the following commands. Substitute your own domain names for those shown below.
mkdir -p /srv/www/example.com/public_html
mkdir /srv/www/example.com/logs
mkdir -p /srv/www/example.org/public_html
mkdir /srv/www/example.org/logs
After you've set up your virtual hosts, issue the following commands:
a2ensite example.com
a2ensite example.org
This command symbolically links your virtual host file from sites-available to the sites-enabled directory. Finally, before you can access your sites you must reload Apache with the following command:
/etc/init.d/apache2 reload
Assuming that you have configured the DNS for your domain to point to your IP address, Virtual hosting for your domain should now work.
The a2dissite command is the inverse of a2ensite. For example, if you wanted to disable the example.com site, you would issue the following command:
a2dissite example.com
After enabling, disabling, or modifying any part of your Apache configuration, you will need to reload the Apache configuration again with the "/etc/init.d/apache2 reload" command. You can create as many virtual hosting files as you need to support the domains that you want to host.
Install and Configure the MySQL Database Server
MySQL is a relational database management system (RDBMS) and is a popular component of web development tool-chains. It is used to store data for many popular applications, including Wordpress and Drupal.
Install MySQL
The first step is to install the mysql-server package, which is accomplished by the following command:
apt-get install mysql-server
During the installation you will be prompted for a password. Choose something secure (use letters, numbers, and non-alphanumeric characters) and record it for future reference.
At this point MySQL should be ready to configure and run. While you shouldn't need to change the configuration file, note that it is located at /etc/mysql/my.cnf for future reference.
Configure MySQL and Set Up Databases
After installing MySQL, it's recommended that you run mysql_secure_installation, a program that helps secure MySQL. While running mysql_secure_installation, you will be presented with the opportunity to change the MySQL root password, remove anonymous user accounts, disable root logins outside of localhost, and remove test databases. It is recommended that you answer yes to these options. If you are prompted to reload the privilege tables, select yes. Run the following command to execute the program:
mysql_secure_installation
Next, you may create a database and grant your users permissions to use databases. First, log in to MySQL:
mysql -u root -p
Enter MySQL's root password, and you'll be presented with a MySQL prompt where you can issue SQL statements to interact with the database. To create a database and grant your users permissions on it, issue the following command. Note, the semi-colons (;) at the end of the lines are crucial for ending the commands. Your command should look like this:
create database ex_db;
grant all on ex_db.* to 'ex_db_admin' identified by 'ex_db_admin_password';
flush privileges;
In the example above, "lollipop" is the name of the database, "foreman" is the username, and "5t1ck" is the password (without the quotes). Note that database user names and passwords are only used by scripts connecting to the database, and that database user account names need not (and perhaps should not) represent actual user accounts on the system. With that completed, you've successfully configured MySQL and you may now pass these database credentials on to your users. To exit the MySQL database administration utility issue the following command:
quit
With Apache and MySQL installed you are now ready to move on to installing PHP to provide scripting support for your web pages.
Install and Configure PHP
PHP makes it possible to produce dynamic and interactive pages using your own scripts and popular web development frameworks. Furthermore, many popular web applications like WordPress are written in PHP. If you want to be able to develop your websites using PHP, you must first install it.
Ubuntu includes packages for installing PHP from the terminal. Issue the following command:
apt-get install php5 php-pear
Once PHP5 is installed, you'll need to tune the configuration file located in /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini to enable more descriptive errors, logging, and better performance. These modifications provide a good starting point if you're unfamiliar with PHP configuration. Make sure that the following values are set, and relevant lines are uncommented (comments are lines beginning with a semi-colon (;)):
File excerpt:/etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
max_execution_time = 30
memory_limit = 64M
error_reporting = E_COMPILE_ERROR|E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR|E_ERROR|E_CORE_ERROR
display_errors = Off
log_errors = On
error_log = /var/log/php.log
register_globals = Off
After making changes to the PHP configuration file, restart Apache by issuing the following command:
/etc/init.d/apache2 restart
If you need support for MySQL in PHP, then you must install the php5-mysql package with the following command:
apt-get install php5-mysql
To install the php5-suhosin package, which provides additional security for PHP 5 applications (recommended), issue the following command:
apt-get install php5-suhosin
Restart Apache to make sure everything is loaded correctly:
/etc/init.d/apache2 restart
Congratulations! That's it!
The Apache Web Server is a very popular choice for serving web pages. While many alternatives have appeared in the last few years, Apache remains a powerful option that is recommended for most uses. Issue the following command to install Apache:
apt-get install apache2
Now we'll configure virtual hosting so that we can host multiple domains (or subdomains) with the server. These websites can be controlled by different users, or by a single user, as you prefer.
Configure Virtual Hosting
There are different ways to set up virtual hosts, however we recommend the method below. By default, Apache listens on all IP addresses available to it. We must configure it to listen only on addresses we specify. Even if you only have one IP, it is still a good idea to tell Apache what IP address to listen on in case you decide to add more.
Begin by modifying the NameVirtualHost entry in /etc/apache2/ports.conf as follows:
File excerpt:/etc/apache2/ports.conf
NameVirtualHost 12.34.56.78:80
Be sure to replace "12.34.56.78" with your IP address. Now, modify the default site's virtual hosting in the file /etc/apache2/sites-available/default so that the
File excerpt:/etc/apache2/sites-available/default
<VirtualHost 12.34.56.78:80>
Configure Name-based Virtual Hosts First, create a file in the /etc/apache2/sites-available/ directory for each virtual host that you want to set up. Name each file with the domain for which you want to provide virtual hosting. See the following example configurations for the hypothetical "example.com" and "example.org" domains. Substitute your own domain names for those shown below. File:/etc/apache2/sites-available/example.com
<VirtualHost 12.34.56.78:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@example.com
ServerName example.com
ServerAlias www.example.com
DocumentRoot /srv/www/example.com/public_html/
ErrorLog /srv/www/example.com/logs/error.log
CustomLog /srv/www/example.com/logs/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
File:/etc/apache2/sites-available/example.org
<VirtualHost 12.34.56.78:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@example.org
ServerName example.org
ServerAlias www.example.org
DocumentRoot /srv/www/example.org/public_html/
ErrorLog /srv/www/example.org/logs/error.log
CustomLog /srv/www/example.org/logs/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
Notes regarding this example configuration:
All of the files for the sites that you host will be located in directories that exist underneath /srv/www. You can symbolically link these directories into other locations if you need them to exist in other places.
ErrorLog and CustomLog entries are suggested for more fine-grained logging, but are not required. If they are defined (as shown above), the logs directories must be created before you restart Apache.
Before you can use the above configuration, you'll need to create the specified directories. For the above configuration, you can do this with the following commands. Substitute your own domain names for those shown below.
mkdir -p /srv/www/example.com/public_html
mkdir /srv/www/example.com/logs
mkdir -p /srv/www/example.org/public_html
mkdir /srv/www/example.org/logs
After you've set up your virtual hosts, issue the following commands:
a2ensite example.com
a2ensite example.org
This command symbolically links your virtual host file from sites-available to the sites-enabled directory. Finally, before you can access your sites you must reload Apache with the following command:
/etc/init.d/apache2 reload
Assuming that you have configured the DNS for your domain to point to your IP address, Virtual hosting for your domain should now work.
The a2dissite command is the inverse of a2ensite. For example, if you wanted to disable the example.com site, you would issue the following command:
a2dissite example.com
After enabling, disabling, or modifying any part of your Apache configuration, you will need to reload the Apache configuration again with the "/etc/init.d/apache2 reload" command. You can create as many virtual hosting files as you need to support the domains that you want to host.
Install and Configure the MySQL Database Server
MySQL is a relational database management system (RDBMS) and is a popular component of web development tool-chains. It is used to store data for many popular applications, including Wordpress and Drupal.
Install MySQL
The first step is to install the mysql-server package, which is accomplished by the following command:
apt-get install mysql-server
During the installation you will be prompted for a password. Choose something secure (use letters, numbers, and non-alphanumeric characters) and record it for future reference.
At this point MySQL should be ready to configure and run. While you shouldn't need to change the configuration file, note that it is located at /etc/mysql/my.cnf for future reference.
Configure MySQL and Set Up Databases
After installing MySQL, it's recommended that you run mysql_secure_installation, a program that helps secure MySQL. While running mysql_secure_installation, you will be presented with the opportunity to change the MySQL root password, remove anonymous user accounts, disable root logins outside of localhost, and remove test databases. It is recommended that you answer yes to these options. If you are prompted to reload the privilege tables, select yes. Run the following command to execute the program:
mysql_secure_installation
Next, you may create a database and grant your users permissions to use databases. First, log in to MySQL:
mysql -u root -p
Enter MySQL's root password, and you'll be presented with a MySQL prompt where you can issue SQL statements to interact with the database. To create a database and grant your users permissions on it, issue the following command. Note, the semi-colons (;) at the end of the lines are crucial for ending the commands. Your command should look like this:
create database ex_db;
grant all on ex_db.* to 'ex_db_admin' identified by 'ex_db_admin_password';
flush privileges;
In the example above, "lollipop" is the name of the database, "foreman" is the username, and "5t1ck" is the password (without the quotes). Note that database user names and passwords are only used by scripts connecting to the database, and that database user account names need not (and perhaps should not) represent actual user accounts on the system. With that completed, you've successfully configured MySQL and you may now pass these database credentials on to your users. To exit the MySQL database administration utility issue the following command:
quit
With Apache and MySQL installed you are now ready to move on to installing PHP to provide scripting support for your web pages.
Install and Configure PHP
PHP makes it possible to produce dynamic and interactive pages using your own scripts and popular web development frameworks. Furthermore, many popular web applications like WordPress are written in PHP. If you want to be able to develop your websites using PHP, you must first install it.
Ubuntu includes packages for installing PHP from the terminal. Issue the following command:
apt-get install php5 php-pear
Once PHP5 is installed, you'll need to tune the configuration file located in /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini to enable more descriptive errors, logging, and better performance. These modifications provide a good starting point if you're unfamiliar with PHP configuration. Make sure that the following values are set, and relevant lines are uncommented (comments are lines beginning with a semi-colon (;)):
File excerpt:/etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
max_execution_time = 30
memory_limit = 64M
error_reporting = E_COMPILE_ERROR|E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR|E_ERROR|E_CORE_ERROR
display_errors = Off
log_errors = On
error_log = /var/log/php.log
register_globals = Off
After making changes to the PHP configuration file, restart Apache by issuing the following command:
/etc/init.d/apache2 restart
If you need support for MySQL in PHP, then you must install the php5-mysql package with the following command:
apt-get install php5-mysql
To install the php5-suhosin package, which provides additional security for PHP 5 applications (recommended), issue the following command:
apt-get install php5-suhosin
Restart Apache to make sure everything is loaded correctly:
/etc/init.d/apache2 restart
Congratulations! That's it!
Tuesday 21 February 2012
Linux Mint hidden Startup Applications
If you have been using Linux Mint for a while you might notice that
the Startup Applications Preferences has far fewer entries than before.
This is because most of them are hidden by default, to get them back
launch Terminal and run the following command:
sudo sed -i 's/NoDisplay=true/NoDisplay=false/g' /etc/xdg/autostart/*.desktop
Now you will be able to see all the applications and services that are set to automatically start
Monday 20 February 2012
TV Maxe
TV Maxe is a SopCast GUI that also supports mms, rmtp and http streams. By default, it comes with a Romanian channel list but more lists (International, UK, France, Danmark, Hungary, Spain, etc.) are available on its wiki page.
TV Maxe comes with a PPA for Lucid, Maverick Natty and Oneiric - add it and install TV Maxe using the commands below:
For other Linux distributions, see the TV Maxe download page (but please note that you'll need to manually install the sp-auth package).
TV Maxe comes with a PPA for Lucid, Maverick Natty and Oneiric - add it and install TV Maxe using the commands below:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:venerix/blug
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install tv-maxe
For other Linux distributions, see the TV Maxe download page (but please note that you'll need to manually install the sp-auth package).
SopCast Player "segfault" Ubuntu x64
So, "sopcast-player" does not start, and you do:
strace sopcast-player
callbackmethod=
by,
callbackmethod=
strace sopcast-player
in terminal, and you get:
execve(
brk(0) = 0x74f000
access(
mmap(NULL, 8192, PROT_READ|
access(
open("/
fstat(3, {st_mode=
mmap(NULL, 126050, PROT_READ, MAP_PRIVATE, 3, 0) = 0x7f7377476000
close(3) = 0
access(
open("/
read(3, "\177ELF\
fstat(3, {st_mode=
mmap(NULL, 3793768, PROT_READ|
mprotect(
mmap(0x7f737726
mmap(0x7f737727
close(3) = 0
mmap(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|
mmap(NULL, 8192, PROT_READ|
arch_prctl(
mprotect(
mprotect(0x619000, 4096, PROT_READ) = 0
mprotect(
munmap(
getpid() = 8514
rt_sigaction(
geteuid() = 1000
brk(0) = 0x74f000
brk(0x770000) = 0x770000
getppid() = 8513
stat("/home/paul", {st_mode=
stat(".", {st_mode=
open("/
fcntl(3, F_DUPFD, 10) = 10
close(3) = 0
fcntl(10, F_SETFD, FD_CLOEXEC) = 0
rt_sigaction(
rt_sigaction(
rt_sigaction(
rt_sigaction(
rt_sigaction(
rt_sigaction(
read(10, "#!/bin/
clone(child_
wait4(-1, [{WIFSIGNALED(s) && WTERMSIG(s) == SIGSEGV}], 0, NULL) = 8515
--- SIGCHLD (Child exited) @ 0 (0) ---
write(2, "Segmentation fault\n", 19Segmentation fault
) = 19
read(10, "", 8192) = 0
exit_group(139)
brk(0) = 0x74f000
access(
mmap(NULL, 8192, PROT_READ|
access(
open("/
fstat(3, {st_mode=
mmap(NULL, 126050, PROT_READ, MAP_PRIVATE, 3, 0) = 0x7f7377476000
close(3) = 0
access(
open("/
read(3, "\177ELF\
fstat(3, {st_mode=
mmap(NULL, 3793768, PROT_READ|
mprotect(
mmap(0x7f737726
mmap(0x7f737727
close(3) = 0
mmap(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|
mmap(NULL, 8192, PROT_READ|
arch_prctl(
mprotect(
mprotect(0x619000, 4096, PROT_READ) = 0
mprotect(
munmap(
getpid() = 8514
rt_sigaction(
geteuid() = 1000
brk(0) = 0x74f000
brk(0x770000) = 0x770000
getppid() = 8513
stat("/home/paul", {st_mode=
stat(".", {st_mode=
open("/
fcntl(3, F_DUPFD, 10) = 10
close(3) = 0
fcntl(10, F_SETFD, FD_CLOEXEC) = 0
rt_sigaction(
rt_sigaction(
rt_sigaction(
rt_sigaction(
rt_sigaction(
rt_sigaction(
read(10, "#!/bin/
clone(child_
wait4(-1, [{WIFSIGNALED(s) && WTERMSIG(s) == SIGSEGV}], 0, NULL) = 8515
--- SIGCHLD (Child exited) @ 0 (0) ---
write(2, "Segmentation fault\n", 19Segmentation fault
) = 19
read(10, "", 8192) = 0
exit_group(139)
There is a workaround for it. Edit /usr/share/
At line 5453:
replace,
replace,
callbackmethod=
by,
callbackmethod=
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