Entries Tagged 'Software' ↓

Whenever you type in a website, the domain name is converted to the IP address and sends the request to the machine. You can have a DNS cache which will speed up the domain name resolving time. I get a boost up of almost 250ms.

You just have to install a package called dnsmasq.

First install it by running (you need to enable the Universe repository)

$sudo apt-get install dnsmasq

Then, open this file /etc/dnsmasq.conf and uncomment(remove the #) the line listen-address=127.0.0.1

After that edit /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf and search for a line prepend domain-name-servers 127.0.0.1; and uncomment it. What this does is, whenever you get a new dhcp lease, the dhcp3 client tool on your computer gets the new lease and updates the /etc/resolv.conf file with the right values for the DNS server.

Using the prepend option, we make sure that 127.0.0.1 appears before the other DNS servers. So, if the details of a domain are already in the cache, it retrieves it fast - else it looks for the other DNS servers.

Now open /etc/resolv.conf and you can see that it doesn’t have 127.0.0.1 now.

search yourisp.com
nameserver 127.0.0.1
nameserver 192.168.1.1

The last line may be different for you. I have a router which is configured to use OpenDNS, so my entry points to it.

To check whether the cache really works, execute the following command.

$dig google.com

You will get something like ;; Query time: 252 msec

Executing the command again will get you ;; Query time: 1 msec.

Congrats, you have saved about 250msec by caching the DNS.

Popularity: 59%

Google has brought another app over to linux. Google Desktop which is brings the power of Google search to your personal files, is now available for linux. It is really nice to see that it doesn’t run on a emulated layer(wine) like picasa or maps instead requires glibc 2.3.2+, gtk+ 2.2.0+.

Google Desktop for linux has various features like:

• Quick Search box: Just press ctrl twice and you get the quick search box.
• Search your Gmail and web history: Allows you to search your email and history even if you are offline as the index is stored on your computer
• Many file types: Searches your Gmail, text, source code, PDF, postscript, html, Thunderbird mail, OO.o documents, images, music, man and info pages, files and folder names. Phew!
• Familiar results: The search result is same as your regular Google search result
• Smart indexing: Indexes the files automatically
• Google integration: If you search for something on the web, it will show related information present on your harddisk too
• File Versioning: Creates cached copies(snapshots) of your files - so you can get previous versions of files or even accidentally deleted data (now someone must complain about it)
• Multi-Language support: Supports multiple languages based on the language setting.

You can download Google Desktop for linux .deb / .rpm or there are information which gives clear steps to install on your favourite distro.

Popularity: 65%

If you want to use the latest snapshot of Beryl, Compiz, OpenCompositing Compiz Tools and Plugins, Emerald, kiba-dock on your Ubuntu Feisty, then you should add Treviño’s repositories. Once you add these repositories, you can install them by using apt-get.

Edit your /etc/apt/sources.list file and add the following to it.

deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb feisty eyecandy

deb-src http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb feisty eyecandy

After you do that, update your packages and then install your required package.

Popularity: 71%

Recording screencasts in Linux was a difficult problem faced by many users. recordmyDesktop is a command line tool to record screencasts and it has a GTK and a qt based frontend to make it easy for newbies. RecordMyDesktop can be tweaked to your hearts content by changing the sound and video quality, frames captured per second, mouse cursor style, compression, and whether to record the current window or the entire desktop.

Ubuntu users can install recordMyDesktop and gtk-recordMyDesktop with:

sudo apt-get install recordmydesktop gtk-recordmydesktop

Other distro users too can use their package management tool to install it.

Popularity: 53%

I am a fan of GNU Emacs, the second most popular programmers’ editor (after vi) and was till now using the old Emacs 21 version which doesn’t have great font. But now Emacs has a XFont backend which makes possible to use good looking fonts, like Bitstream Vera Sans Mono. I wanted to install this on my Ubuntu Fiesty and managed to do it with the emacs-snapshot packages by Alexandre Vassalotti.

Here is how you too can install Emacs Snapshot on your Ubuntu.

1. First add the following lines to your /etc/sources.list file

   deb http://debs.peadrop.com feisty backports
   
   deb-src http://debs.peadrop.com feisty backports

2. Then add the GPG key to the key database.

   wget --quiet http://debs.peadrop.com/DD385D79.gpg -O - | sudo apt-key add -

3. Then update and install the following packages. These are only for the 32bit version of Ubuntu.

   sudo aptitude update
   
   sudo aptitude install emacs-snapshot-gtk emacs-snapshot-el

4. Then you have to specify which font you want to use in the Xresources file.

   echo "Emacs.font: Monospace-10" >> ~/.Xresources
   xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources

This will do the magic and now you can enjoy the cool looking emacs. And also thank Alexandre Vassalotti for the nice packages.

Popularity: 76%

Installing Beryl (the cool 3D desktop videos you see on youtube) in Feisty is super easy now. This is made possible because of the restricted drivers manager with which you can install non-free drivers for NVidia cards easily. Follow these instructions and you can easily have a cool looking Ubuntu desktop.

1. First update your system by typing in the terminal
   $ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
2. Then you need to add a repository to your sources.list file.
   Type $ gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list
   Add this line to the end of the file and save it. deb http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org feisty main
3. Then type this in your terminal
   $ wget http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org/root@lupine.me.uk.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -
4. Then update your system.
   $ sudo apt-get update
5. Install the latest Nvidia drivers
   $ sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx
$ sudo nvidia-xconfig --add-argb-glx-visuals --composite
6. Restart your X by pressing ctrl+alt+backspace
7. Install Beryl and emerald themes
   $ sudo apt-get install beryl emerald-themes beryl-manager
8. You can now run beryl by typing beryl-manager in the run application box by pressing alt+f2
9. To make beryl start automatically every time you login,
   goto System -> Preferences -> Sessions
   In Startup Programs -> New add beryl-manager.

Popularity: 76%

Movable Type, the most popular installable platform written in perl has decided to go open source. Wordpress stole most of the popularity and fame because it is open sourced and has a huge community behind it. Movable Type has also decided to enjoy the benifits of open sourced software and announced the open source project along with the launch of the MT 4 Beta.

Movable Type Open Source, or MTOS, is the open source project that will consist of a GPL-licensed version of Movable Type 4.0, to be released in Q3 2007, and resources for the already large community of Movable Type developers, hosted at www.movabletype.org/opensource. Also the website states that they wouldn’t be abandoning the commericial licensed version of the software.

It is good to see a solid blogging platform come out into the public with the source code. You can download the beta version of MT4 to try the new features. The website says that it is easy to install and get started, which was a problem with the previous versions.

Popularity: 28%

I have tried Flock long time back when it was released. But wasn’t impressed by it. But now thought of trying it out. For all those who haven’t known what is Flock - it is called the social web browser.

To quote the website “Flock is an amazing new web browser that makes it easier to share media and connect to other people online. Share photos, automatically stay up-to-date with new content from your favorite sites, and search the Web with the most advanced Search Toolbar available today.”

As of now you can’t install Flock through synaptic. you have to download the archive and just run it.

Download flock from the website.
Extract the archive by typing

sudo tar -C /opt -xzvf flock-*.linux-i686.tar.gz

Create a symbolic link to the executable

sudo ln -s /opt/flock flock /usr/bin/flock

Now you can run flock by typing flock or you can instead create a menu item.

sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/flock.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Flock
Comment=Flock Web Browser
Exec=flock
Icon=/opt/flock/icons/mozicon128.png
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Applications;Network

Then refrech the menu

killall gnome-panel

After that when you start flock it will automatically set up all your blog, photo, bookmark account and will be ready to use.

Blogged with Flock

Popularity: 37%

For many days I wanted to try Enlightenment after reading and seeing many screenshots about it. Yesterday in the LUG meeting I saw it live and was impressed by E. Enlightenment is an open source window manager for X Window system which can be used alone or in conjunction with GNOME or KDE. It has extensive theming support and advanced graphics without sacrificing system performance. This window manager is fully configurable making it the best one out there
The latest stable version is 0.16.8.5 but the development release 0.17 also called DR17 is pretty usable and nice. I have installed DR17 on my Edgy. Here are the steps.

First you have to add a few repositories to your sources.list.

In terminal type sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following repositories to the file

## E17 repository "edevelop.org"
deb http://edevelop.org/pkg-e/ubuntu edgy e17
deb-src http://edevelop.org/pkg-e/ubuntu edgy e17

You can replace edgy with dapper if you are using Ubuntu 6.06.

Then type the following lines to download the gpg keys and to add it

wget http://lut1n.ifrance.com/repo_key.asc
sudo apt-key add repo_key.asc

After the repositories are added, do a sudo apt-get update to update the packages list.

Then finally install e17 by issuing this command. sudo apt-get install e17

You have successfully installed e17 and can now logout of GNOME and again login by changing the session as Enlightenment.

Popularity: 100%

Drupal the most popular open source content management system has moved on to version 5 after almost 8 months of development. The most important feature included in this version is the easy to use web based installer. The UI is also greatly improved and is easy to use. This version also allows themers to develop better themes for Drupal.

Drupal also celebrates its 6th birthday with its release of version 5.

Popularity: 31%