Yet Another Linux Blog - Page 46 of 54

Site Update!

The site recently experienced some heavy downtime due to a MySQL problem. I’ve isolated the problem, clipped it out, reformed the database, and brought us back inline. I apologize EXTREMELY for this downtime…I realize it reeks of amateurism and ( *sheepish grin* ) makes me look like a total n00b. The forum is back online after some mad SQL editing over the last couple of days…for some reason the backup wouldn’t restore so I had to go over it line by line to isolate the problem. Luckily I found it after the second day or I would have been lost in SQL-space.

OH well! Life goes on. On another note, the experiment has been on hold for the last few days so that I could bring things inline. I’ve also neglected my email and other stuffs such as the multimedia machine I’m building. I’ll get back to everyone…although I may be a few days behind. We’ll install PCLinuxOS 8.1 in a few days…afterall, it is finals week for my college classes and I’ll be quite busy! Thanks for staying tuned…things will be much more close to normal after this week.

Back up!

We’re back…but the forum has some bugs in it…so I’ll be forced to reconstruct some of the SQL statements. In the meantime, the forum will be down for at least today. Sorry for the extended time down…things took longer than I thought they would but for good reason.

I built a multimedia machine and am installing mythTV on it. I am keeping a journal and plan on posting the results for anyone wanting to use Debian and MythTV. Look for this sometime in the near future.

As always, thanks for reading!

Site Downtime This Weekend

The site will be down sporadically this weekend. I’m migrating the server to a new computer. I host this on my own Linux box that is in a standard ATX case. I’ve decided to go to a Shuttle case with it to save space and to look stylish. Space is always an issue. Recently, I upgraded to a 17-inch flatpanel LCD monitor that replaced my bohemoth of a 21-inch CRT monitor. So, more space = happier devnet and happier mrs.devnet. Plus it is easier to clean and what not.

If you experience this downtime, I apologize and please check back later. The site should only be down for a small amount of time…perhaps an hour. The only thing I’ll need to do is a restoration of config files, mySQL backups, and then copy the site files across and ensure permissions.

So, in pure Linux Blog fashion…I’ll post about this and how I did things so that perhaps others can apply this as well for on-the-fly-fast migrations. Thanks for reading!

PS: Update on the experiment…During the downtime, we’ll be installing PCLinuxOS 8.1a onto disk as well. Check back for mrs.devnet’s initial take on this fantastic distro on Sunday or Monday.

OASIS & RAND…Danger Will Robinson! Danger!

Larry Rosen, an intellectual property attorney and open source advocate, has called to action all open source advocates to battle against patenting standards via a consortium called OASIS. OASIS is chock full of powerful members from businesses around the globe including friend of Linux IBM, HP, and foe of Linux Microsoft. So, what’s the deal with this? When I read the article, I didn’t really know what the heck these guys were talking about. So I went to the OASIS webpage to check out what all the hubbub was about.

What I found was similar to an old western movie. How so? You’ve got the sheriff and his posse rooting out any of the “bad guys” in various ways; first by deputizing anyone and everyone that can buy themselves in and secondly by making up any laws they want to and going out to enforce them. How is this? Let’s say that IBM and HP develop a standard together…for the sake of argument, let’s say that they have a new file format and they call it BVL. Ok, so BVL is a new cool format that allows RSS syndication of 3D images to be syndicated…(hypothetical here). They push this BVL format onto their little consortium OASIS and all of the members think it is just the cat’s pajamas.

They ratify and adopt this standard. They look at three IPR modes (Intellectual Property Rights) to release their BVL standard under…Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory (RAND),” “Royalty-Free (RF) on RAND Terms,” or “RF on Limited Terms”. In each instance, this standard would prevent open source from interacting with it.

Continue reading “OASIS & RAND…Danger Will Robinson! Danger!”

Experiment 1.2: SimplyMEPIS 3.3Test2 Final Rating

Linuxblog Introduction: We took an average windows user, gave her a handful of distributions of Linux, and forced her to use each distro for one week. We gave her alsaconf, email servers, and mounted her windows partition to the fresh install. Then, we faded away and quietly watched her in her new environment. You too can join us by reading on…

I think everyone knows what’s going on here….so let’s get on with the review…

1)Look/Feel -I was confused by the desktop icons that read Hard Disc HHD1 [/] and the like. Figuring out that this was what was similar to “My Computer” took me quite some time because I was just so intimidated by the way it was labeled.There are four icons labeled similarly (Hard Disc, etc.) on the desktop and I was confused.I am sure plenty of other people would be too.For this reason I am taking off a few points that I would not have otherwise taken.

I didn’t get as much of a chance to use Gnome as I would have liked to this time around.I will probably use it first on the next distro so I can really decide which one I like the best.But regardless of the desktop I use, Simply MEPIS seems to be about the same to me in the looks department as Mandrake.It does not dazzle me because I am a real sucker for attractive designs.I think that it feels a little more familiar than Mandrake, so I give it points for that.It is easier to find my way around too.The start or K menu resembles the ones I am used to in Windows.(Score – 6)

Edit: On reviewing my notes one more time…I remembered the dragon at the logon screen. It looks like some second rate PBS kids show character. Really, what is with that dragon? Somebody needs to kick that to the curb.

2)Performance – It’s not as fast as Mandrake was in opening applications and surfing the Internet.I can’t figure out why programs are slower to start.But this is not too big of a deal.Overall, it performs well.(Score – 8)

3)Hardware/Software – I liked the fact that so much is already there and I didn’t have to go around trying to figure out how to download so many different things.The problem is that the things I did have to download, I had that same problem of trying to track down their location.I didn’t like the fact that all the cool features of my mouse do not work.(Score – 5)

4)Upgradeability/Security – It seems like MEPIS is set up to make upgrades really easy but I do not dare try one.The upgrade menu has endless options but it all looks like Greek to me.The security issue is kind of lost on me, I have no idea how secure it is.(Score – 10)

5)Documentation – There seems to be no shortage, I found a few websites out there that looked ready to help a new user.I did learn that sometimes you don’t get answers to your questions though.I can’t say that I expect much when relying on the kindness of other people; They don’t have all the time in the world for idiots like me.But they do seem to have a major community thing going on.Besides that they have a really decent quick start guide but because of my stupidity, it didn’t do me a whole lot of good. (Score – 8 )

6)Installation – The initial install was smooth with less than fifteen minutes total to completion.This was possibly the most impressive part about the whole thing.(Score – 10)

Now we talk about MY Criteria…

Continue reading “Experiment 1.2: SimplyMEPIS 3.3Test2 Final Rating”

Alternative Screenshot Methods

Are you trying to take screenshots in Linux but don’t want to use KSnapshot or the built in Gnome Screenshot Utility? There are quite a few ways you can take screenshots in Linux. The thing is, most of them are unknown. It’s almost like the ability to take a screenshot is the best kept secret in Linux. So if taking screenshots is something you need to do on the fly or from a shell, or in a GUI that doesn’t have the utilities you need…read on.

XWD & XV

For X Window desktops such as GNOME and KDE, the command xwd -out filename.xwd lets you click a window to make an XWD image of it. Adding the -frame option will capture the entire window manager as opposed to just the open application. The popular utility xv also does screen captures so check that out as well. Use xwd and xv in the following ways:

%> xwd -root -out myimage.xwd

%> xv -grabdelay 2 myimage.jpg

IMAGEMAGICK

If you have imagemagick installed, you can use it to capture your screen as well. This is done by executing a simple command via shell:

%> import -window root wholescreen.jpg
(to grab the entire screen) or:

%> import window.jpeg

(and then click a window you want captured)

If you’re not sure whether you have ImageMagick installed, type any of the above commands just to see if they respond, or type in “man import” for help/instructions on usage.

SCREENSHOT ‘MOVIE’

There is also a really great tutorial on how to make a bash script take a ‘screenshot movie’; that is, multi-screenshots of every single window you open up.

THE GIMP

The GIMP can also be used to grab screenshots. Go to File >> Acquire >> Screenshot

FBGRAB

Another really great utility is fbgrab which can be used to capture the Linux framebuffer and convert it to a PNG image. This is handy for shell screenshots. This package is in the testing branch of Debian.

SCROT

This little utility allows you to do lots of things you wouldn’t even think of doing with screenshots such as autogenerating filenames and other things like taking screenshots of multiple displays and gluing them together. Find out how to use scrot here.

Conclusion

Screenshots don’t have to be a hassle. The use of many different utilities can simplify and streamline the process. Now you can capture various screens and show them off to all your friends…or capture various screens and hide them from your friends so they don’t know what a big Linux geek you are 😉

Do you have another method for screenshots? Visit the forum and post your method so that others can benefit. Not a member? Register here.