New Layout

I've changed a few things in the layout. Let me know if it works for you!

My Software Favorites

• FileZilla (ftp client)
• FUSE
  
• KDE 4, esp. Plama, Okular, Pauker, KTeaTime, Kopete, Kaffeine
  
• Nomachine NX (the best remote desktop solution out there!)
  
• OpenOffice (office software)
• OpenCards (flash card learning software)
  
• Opera (web browser)
  
• Picasa (google photo management)
  
• Pidgin (instant messenger)
• Sane
  
• ScummVM (play old DOS games like monkey island)
• Skype (video conference, also check out mebeam)
  
• SuperTux (a platform game)
  
• UltraVNC Single Click (remote help software)
  
• WINE (run windows software in linux)
  
• µTorrent (a bittorrent client)/span>

Googling for Something Linuxy

Sometimes when you talk about things as a Linux user, people look at you oddly. For example when you tell them about installing software into a wine bottle in Linux. They'll probably just look at you in wonder and consider if you've gone mad.

Now the same sort of happens with Google sometimes. Even though Google is based on Linux, it will find quite a different kind of wine unless you e.g. add linux to the search. But even then it's not efficient and you might lose pages, as wine also works on Mac OS X and (yeah, I know) Windows itself.

But there's help: the Google Linux Search. It's not restricted to Linux as its name suggests, but excludes almost everything that doesn't have anything to do with computers (and which might distract the normal Google).

I've got Sun Java Working in my Browser in 64-Bit Linux!

I've been trying to get java to work in the browser for me for a long time now. And I've got two final results for you: First, it's (yet) impossible, the 64-bit java browser plugin will not be out before 2009.

But Secondly, it's possible and really easy with wine! Just download Firefox and install it. Then download Java and install it. Done! That easy! :) It should work the same way for Flash, etc.

Now finally I could use packstation.de in Linux!

Automatically Boot Different Kernel on Fail With the Grub Fallback Options

Did you know you can configure grub to automatically fallback to a different boot entry if one was not successful? A pretty neat idea, especially for servers where you can now avoid a lot of head aches. It doesn't matter at what point the system hangs, grub will boot the other kernel the next time, unless the system boot completes and you tell it not to with another grub-set-default. Nice!

Funny Bug Report Misuse

Ever been annoyed the Bugzilla or a similar software to report bugs online? Here are some funny examples for bug report misuse: http://linuxshellaccount.blogspot.com/2008/11/funny-mozilla-bugs-open-source-humor.html

Find Out Which Operating System is the Best

The Operating System Sucks-Rules-O-Meter will tell you.

Rude Linus Torvals

If you ever wondered why people say the kernel developers are sometimes very rude, check out this article, referring to a post by Linus himself.

Funny Linux Shirts

Check out these funny Linux T-Shirts.

32 Bit Software in 64-Bit Debian-Based Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu)

There's a wonderful script named getlibs, that makes the annoying process of installation 32-bit libraries really comfortable.

Canon Printer Tips

Did you know there are original Linux driver from Canon? Now you know that, why not get the hacked and enhanced version.

Famous Flame Wars

Check out this summary of Famous Open Source Flame Wars.

Preacher of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

Here's a funny video about a FSM preacher.

Microsoft Office 2003 with Wine

Check out this howto install MS Office 2003 with regular Wine:
http://www.wine-reviews.net/microsoft/running-ms-office-2003-under-linux-with-wine-0952.html

Backup with Rsync

There's a nice article about backups with rsync at Linux.com.
I shall leave the explanations to it and just post my script as example here

DIRS="Documents Desktop"

cd ~
for i in $DIRS;
do
echo Syncing $i
rsync -av --progress -e ssh "$i" user@server:/path/to/dir
done

Disabling Touchpad on Demand

There's now an alternative to using the shared memory of the synaptic driver to enable and disable the touchpad:

xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Off" 8 1 (enable)
xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Off" 8 0 (disable)

This should work out of the box in Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid). But it doesn't. At least not for me. But this works for me:

xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Off" 8 0
xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Off" 8 1

Nice! :)

Workaround for Screen Flickering in Kubuntu 8.10

Okay, I've got a dirty hack for now to work around the flicker problem in Kubuntu 8.10. You can edit /usr/bin/startkde and comment out the line starting ksmserver (kwrapper4 ksmserver).

Then instead write

kwrapper4 krunner &
kwrapper4 plasma &
kwrapper4 kwin

There will be no session management, but also not flickering. I'll let you know when I find a better fix.

Update: Eventually I did find a much better fix. But it doesn't work for KDE 4.2 (yet).

Google's Lack of Response to Security Threats

Google criticized a security researcher for publishing information about a security vulnerability in the android platform. They had no reason and don't do anything to motivate researchers tells us the article at cnet.

Voting Machines Are Good - Homer Votes

Arora - A Webkit Browser

Today I accidentally stumbled about Arora, another simple webkit based browser. And I'm very pleased. It's quite fast, renders webpages without errors, is google-mail, etc. compatible, and has a basic interface that's very similar to Firefox(tm).

That's getting pretty close to a cross-plattform Safari in my opinion. In comparison to Chrome it lacks the faster javascript engine and the multi-threaded multi-process approach, which causes it to slow down a bit with many tabs open. A private browsing feature is included.

But I think it's lean, but a true alternative and I'm writing this blog post in it - without any issues. I've tested version 0.4 in Ubuntu 8.10.