Author: matt

Categories
General

Perfect Distro?

After having a look at PCLinux OS then the latest Linux Mint KDE edition, I came to the conclusion I don’t like KDE.  I know there is a lot of discussions about kde and gnome, but in my opinion it does not look as clean, the file managers, dolphin and konquerer just don’t cut the mustard for me.  I know kde is “more configurable” as they say, and does some nifty things like having amorak plugins to the file manager so it’s always at hand, but I just think the whole thing looks more cluttered and after several attempts could not get the font rendering to look any good.  It’s all a matter of personal preference….

I finally settled on Linux Mint (Gnome version) which has all the benefits of ubuntu, which I used for several months but has some nice enhancements.  The Mint Menu is superb. It’s simple, uncluttered and allows you to have favourites. The inclusion of most codecs working out the box in mint also is a benefit and getting compiz going was the easiest process of all the distros.

1) install restricted-manager
2) enable ati driver
3) install xorg-server-xgl

It just works.

If you are coming from windows and moving over to linux, I heartily recommend Linux Mint (not the KDE edition though it’s still a bit buggy).

Categories
General

PCLinuxOS 2007 and ATI X1600

A nice article on getting my ATI Mobility x1600 working under PCLinuxOS 2007.

http://thecleverlynamedpage.wordpress.com/2007/09/25/how-to-ati-radeon-x1600-with-pclinuxos-2007/

Categories
Linux Ubuntu

Guts to go Gutsy

I was having problems with something in Feisty, which was obviously fixed in Gutsy because I can’t remember what the problem was after the hour so of the upgrade had passed. And it all worked from then on… Well there must have been some reason I decided to do it, and I am sure something was not working… anyway as there’s only a couple of days left before Gutsy is released, I figured I might be pretty stable by now so minimal risk.

I wasn’t disappointed.  A couple of third party bits needed re-installing, specifically vmware and nero, but apart from that it all went well. XGL and compiz still worked (however the original Feisty compiz-config needed removing and re-installing) and you even get a nice little message telling you not to run the XGL session as it will just work in the gnome one.

The new Screen and Graphics section doesn’t look to exciting to windows users, but it’s a god send when trying to use your laptop for presentations, at last an easy way to handle multiple monitors and resolutions.

More to come as I find stuff worthy of my attention, but to the Ubuntu team, bloody well done, it was such a smooth upgrade….

Categories
General

Raaum’s Rails Reader

Rails Documentation for the Working Developer

http://rails.raaum.org/

Categories
General

Unique Theme Studio for UIQ3 Released

I am pleased to announce the release of version  1.0 of Unique Theme Studio for UIQ3. 

[Edit] Sorry no longer available.

Categories
Linux

Pixel Image Editor – like Photoshop CS2 and cross platform too

So you want a cross platform Adobe Photo Shop that runs on linux ? Then look no further for an application that is at least as functional as CS2.

Pixel Image Editor

Pixel is running following platforms now: Windows, Linux/x86,
Linux/PPC, Linspire, Zeta/BeOS/x86, QNX/x86, FreeBSD/x86, MacOSX/PPC
and MacOSX/x86, MorphOS/PPC, eComStation, OS/2, SkyOS and DOS.

At the moment as it’s still pre v1.0 (not that you would know) it costs only $38!!!! with free upgrades up to version 2.0 and the license to run on any platform

Having used photo shop the interface feels totally natural. Everying is set out similar and there a few nice enhancements as well.

Some of the features:

Core

  • Pixel is an extremely small and fast application
  • it is easy to translate to any language as it supports full
    Unicode, all available translations are available at once (English,
    German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Slovak, Croatian, Swedish, Polish,
    Russian, Hungarian, Afrikaans, Brazilian Portuguese and others)
  • supports TWAIN compatible scanners, digital cameras
  • supports SANE compatible scanners, digital cameras and others (Linux, BeOS, eComStation)
  • pressure sensitive tablets support
  • printing support
  • multiple color managed clipboards
  • various image formats handling (GIF, PNG, JPG, TIFF, BMP, PSD…)
  • support for JPEG-2000 format
  • support for OpenEXR format
  • EXIF support

Image editing

  • support for layers, paths, channels, masks and selections
  • Color Management support for RGB, CMYK, Grayscale and CIE Lab modes (8-bit and 16-bit)
  • support for HDR (High Dynamic Range) images with 32-bit/channel
    precision, HDR images in Pixel are editable in full HDR quality, not in
    8-bit RGB as in competiting programs
  • realtime live effects for layers (adjustments, effects), sets of live effects can be saved as layer Styles
  • image browsing and searching
  • powerful text editing with spellchecking and support for IME/XIM (Asian languages)

Retouching

  • includes variety of brushes, including full-color brushes and animated brushes
  • brush retouching tools including special effects
  • retouching set of filter plug-ins

Web features

  • complex support for image slicing and image optimizations (GIF, PNG, JPEG, WBMP)
  • direct editing of generated HTML code without destroying user’s additions
  • support for clickable maps
  • support for small animations for your web pages (animated GIFs)
Categories
Ubuntu

Ubuntu – USB Drives – Optimising for quick removal (nearly)

As default USB drives in Ubuntu are optimised for performance, i.e. when data is written to the drive it is cached.  When you unmount or eject the drive, you usually get a notification to wait whilst data is written to the drive.

After searching a bit on the net I found that you can add a couple of options to the device, sync and dirsync that cause the data to by written synchronusly rather than caching it.  I have been running with this option enabled and it seems to work.

When I now eject the drive (NOTE: You still need to unmount / eject else you get a warning!) it ejects straight away without the please wait whilst the OS clears the  cache.

To set the option install gconf-editor if it is not installed via sudo apt-get install gconf-editor or synaptic package manager.

run gconf-editor from a terminal or choose Applications > System Tools > Configuration Editor.

Navigate to System > Storage > default_options

I added the option to the vfat section, which covers most usb flash drivers because they are Fat16 or FAt32.

I have not tried it with the ntfs etc, as I still want ubuto to cache writes to my ntfs partitions.

In the right had side, double click the mount_options item to bring up the editor

Click add, and enter
sync
choose Ok.

Click add, and enter
dirsync
choose Ok.

The options are now added. Click Ok to close the key editor, and close gconf-editor.

You should now be cooking on gas…

Categories
Ubuntu

Installing Ruby and rails on Ubuntu Feisty

The image “http://www.rubyonrails.org/images/rails.png” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Found these instructions at http://www.aptana.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=10640

Blogging to ensure I have a copy, credits go to janmartin.

Lets start with a fresh Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04 installation:

  • sudo apt-get install build-essential
  • sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk
  • sudo update-java-alternatives –list
  • sudo apt-get install ruby irb ri rake rdoc ruby1.8-dev rubygems
  • sudo apt-get install libmysql-ruby mysql-server
  • sudo gem update –system
  • sudo gem install rails –include-dependencies

Some tests:

  • ruby –version
  • rails –version
  • mysql –version
  • gem list

END of command line installation

Download
Aptana + Rails (Linux).
Extract it into ~/aptana

Follow these instructions:
# Open up Aptana, and Navigate to the Help > Software Updates > Find and Install menu.
# Select “Search for new features to install”, click “Finish”
# Select “Ruby on Rails Development Environment”, click “Finish”
# Select the Ruby on Rails Development Environment feature.
# Continue through the dialog boxes until complete.

Follow these instructions:
http://www.aptana.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1397

Configure:
Menu -> Window -> Preferences

Rails -> Configuration
Rails path: /usr/bin/rails
Rake path: /usr/bin/rake

Ruby
Installed interpreters:
/usr

Ri/rdoc
RDoc path:/usr/bin/rdoc
Ri path: /usr/bin/ri

Finished!

Categories
Linux Ubuntu

Java Window blank or not rendering correctly when running under XGL/Compiz

I’m running Ubuntu with an XGL session and Compiz, and tried installing ArgoUML a java based cross platform UML designer. However when the application was run, the main window did not render correctly, it was blank with no menus or content.

A friend informed me of the solution, which affects Netbeans IDE as well, so the following:


sudo gedit /etc/environment

Add the following line

AWT_TOOLKIT="MToolkit"

save and close.

You may need to restart the session or reboot to pick up the environment setting change.

Categories
General

Various Ruby Learning Links

For reference, a few ruby links.

Poignant Guide to Ruby
A Ruby user guide
Ruby How Tos
Ruby code snippets