The Smorgasbord

You can dump Comcast DNS for Google Public DNS for a much faster Internet on your computer! I’ve been a staunch Comcast cable Internet subscriber for nearly a decade now. Probably because I live in a small town and there’s never been anything else here but dial up and DSL that’s much slower. We can’t get Verizon Fios high speed service (or anything else). For better of for worse, Comcast has been the fastest game in town for years (like many communities).

We doing business with “the beast” there have been lots of issues of course – going back to when Comcast would “hijack” packets when people were filesharing or using peer to peer networks, to bandwidth caps, and all kinds of other things. There have been many times when web sites would hang (or be really slow) – but when I ping them from another data center they were just fine. Lately, the thing I really don’t like is the fact that Comcast now participates in “DNS hijacking”. When you mistype a URL that doesn’t exist, instead of giving you a “not found” page – they give you targeted ads! I guess other ISP’s do it too, and it’s called “DNS Redirection Advertising“. I call it BS.

So, when google announced “google public DNS” today – I about peed myself! Everyone knows google’s data centers are fast as hell and very redundant (all over the world). They are faster, more powerful, and probably more secure than Comcast will ever be – and they don’t filter a damn thing! No ads, no BS – woohoo! You can use google’s public DNS whether you are on Windows, Ubuntu, or Mac! It’s easy and quick to make the change, google has directions on using pubic DNS here.

If you’re using Ubuntu (like me), just to go to “System -> Network Connections” and “edit” whatever connection you’re using (Wireless, Wired, etc), and then go to the “IPv4″ tab:

Just enter their public server addresses like I did:
8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4

(make sure there is a space between the 2 sets of numbers).

I have to say – I noticed an IMMEDIATE improvement and MUCH FASTER speed! I LOVE it!!!

Sidenote – if you want to continue to use Comcast DNS – they apparently a DNS Health Portal, where you can use “opt out” servers for the DNS redirection. I’m sure nearly no one knows about this (or uses it) – AND it’s STILL slower than google! Some people use Open DNS because they have filtering options – might be good for families with younger kids, or protection against malware. Me – I now prefer the lightning quick speed on Google’s Open DNS!!

Have you had problems playing .wmv Windows Media video files, or AVI’s after upgrading to Ubunty 9.04 Jaunty? I sure did, and you know I never had these problems before the upgrade at all. Totem would crash immediately on opening a video file, it would just close down unexpectedly. Come to think of it, it wouldn’t play mp3 audio either (but would stay open). I had the same problem playing Windows video and AVI files in VLC and mplayer as well – all video players on my system. Reintstalling the restricted repository W32 Windows Media codecs did absolutely nothing. My problem was with my Toshiba Satellite P105-S6167 laptop.

The good news is – I found a fix! Turns out the problem is with the Intel video driver that got updated in the Jaunty update. All you have to do is follow the instructions in the Reverting the Jaunty Intel Xorg video driver instructions (like I did) and everything will work again – NP at all! Thanks Ubuntu Wiki!

I got the Ubuntu error in update manager “Error failed to fork pty” when I upgraded my laptop from Ubuntu 8.04 to 9.04 yesterday.  That was quite annoying for 2 reasons, first because the bug, whatever it is, doesn’t allow you to open a terminal window either.  You get an additional error “cannot launch a child process”.  So I did a quick search of the Interwebs, and low and behold – the fix is pretty easy if you know what to do.  You have to edit the fstab (filesystem tab file) as root, and guess what – because of the bug, you can’t use terminal!

So here is your fix, this is all you have to do.  You can run a command in Ubuntu by hitting the keys “Alt+F2″ at the same time.

Once the window comes up – enter this command and click ok:

devpts /dev/pts devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=620)


This hit “Alt+F2″ one last time and run this command:

sudo mount -a


Then you should be good, no reboot required!

I came across this great article full of “Linux Terminal Shortcuts” this morning and thought I would share. Well the title of the post was actually “50 ways to impress geeky linux friends”, but I think there were some good tidbits in there for people using linux that might not know how powerful the command line is. Although it requires a bit more effort than the dumbed down “point and click” world – I think you might find these features far more useful (and advanced) than any version of Windows.

Out of the 50 tips, here are the ones I picked out to be most useful Linux Terminal Shortcuts:

1. Rip a DVD: You wouldn’t think it would be this easy, but you can rip a DVD on the command line with the following: dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/cdrom_image.iso
2. Encrypt your files: Easily encrypy any files from prying eyes using this command: gpg -c filename.doc, and simply enter your password twice. Then to decrypt them later, just run this command: gpg filename.doc.gpg and enter the password you used.
3. Block a Web Site: Kids use your laptop a lot? Boyfriend spending too much time on MySpace? You can block any web site in linux quickly and easily. Just run this command to open a file: gedit /etc/hosts, and then add 127.0.0.1 website.com one by one to block any web sites you want!
4. Scan Wireless Networks: If you want to scan for all available wireless networks, run this command: iwlist scan, and get much more info on each than you would ever get in Windows.
5. Convert text to HTML: Linux shines in it’s ability to process information, and particularly in conversion utilities. For example, convert a text file into HTML like this: recode ..HTML < file.txt > file.html
6. Schedule a download: Say you want to download an 800MB file but want to do it when everyone is asleep? Just run this command: echo ‘wget url’ | at 01:00

I’m sure there are tons more not in that article – post yours now below!

[nms:linux hacks,8,0,0,smorgas.linux.hacks]

PC Mag online has a post about the Phoenix Pre-Boot shell that’s pretty cool. Some computers and laptops have had pre-boot environments for years but they were proprietary to that make and model computer. Now Phoenix has launched downloadable versions at CES 2009 that you can install on any laptop (that has an AMD or Intel chipset with virtualization technology).

What is a “pre-boot shell” you ask? It’s an environment that loads instantly when your PC starts – before you ever get to windows. This is usually based on Linux, and the cool things is now manufacturer are starting to add features that allow you to perform basic tasks without ever booting into Windows. Just need a web browser, or quick access to Amazon or flickR? These pre-boot shells have wi-fi built in so you can do basic web tasks on the fly in seconds without booting. Phoenix claims as much as 25% increase in savings to your battery charge.

I think it’s funny in a way that “once again” Linux is being used as an innovator where Microsoft falls flat. On the one hand you could say that Windows Vista had too many versions to choose from, but on the other hand Linux is so very flexible that it can be used on a phone, for a pre-boot shell, on a thumb drive, or in a cable box.

In a way – the simplistic features of the pre-boot shell remind me of when I tried gOS, the version of Linux that is famously installed on the WalMart budget PC’s that were $199 last year. It has huge icons at the bottom toolbar with most-oft-used web functions, like MySpace, Facebook, eBay, Amazon, Firefox, etc.

If any of you are interested in what the pre-boot shell could be like, I invite you to download a copy of the latest Ubuntu Linux for free, burn it to a CD and run it “live”. You can try out Linux on your Windows laptop or desktop without installing a thing.

Isn’t Linux great?

I’ve had a Toshiba laptop with Windows Vista Home on it for the last two years. It’s my main work machine, the one I do all my blogging and web site work on. In that time I’ve had to reformat it back to it’s original “storebought” state twice (the last time about 10 days ago). That’s always a pain because first you have to backup all of your photos, music, and files to an external drive. Then, once you format and reinstall you have to spend a few hours removing all the crap installed from the factory, and installing all the software you need to work.

It’s a dual-core machine with 2GB of RAM, and sometimes it just gets too damn slow for the resources it should have available. I had a virus once, and it was a PITA to remove. A few weeks back the computer got some kind of a glitch, where it would keep trying to load DLL’s that didn’t exist. This was hanging the machine, and it would literally take 5-8 minutes just to open a file folder. I knew the machine HAD to be reformatted and wiped again, because the restore disk only has the option to install from scratch – there is no “repair over the top of existing Windows” like there is from a real original Windows (non-OEM) disk.

I’ve used Ubuntu on my 1.2Ghz 512MB of RAM 7 year old Gateway machine in the basement for the last 5+ years. It stays on 24/7, it has 3 100GB hard drives in it, and I reboot it maybe 5 times a year. I use it almost every night when I play guitar to listen to mp3′s and play along, and I also do web work on it, lookup lyrics, and write content from time to time. It does have WINE of it for Windows emulation, and I did install (and use) TaxCut on it once a few years back with no problems.

I thought about installing Ubuntu on the laptop when I first got it, but didn’t because I have to have a Windows box to login to work remotely using VPN. It requires Internet Explorer, ActiveX, and all that jazz. Since I knew that the laptop had to be reformatted anyway – I decided to try Ubuntu on it and see how it would work before reinstalling Windows. If I had problems, then in with the Vista restore disk and back to MS-land again. I sent to the Ubuntu Web Site and downloaded the 32-bit ISO to burn and install.

If you haven’t used Ubuntu Linux before – you should try it. The install is painless and as easy as Windows, and to most people that don’t know any different – it’s just a “PC”, and they have no problems using it at all. Case and point, we have relatives that were calling me every 3 months because their computer kept locking up and getting viruses. I was sick of it, so I formatted the disk and installed Ubuntu. I installed Java, Flash, Firefox Windows Media plugin and never looked back. I never told them it wasn’t Windows (they aren’t computer people or techie at all) – and they don’t know any different. They think it’s actually some new version of Windows other people don’t have. They’ve had it one year now, and have never called me to ask “how do I do…” anything, and they have not accidentally screwed it up or gotten a virus at all. In fact, both adults in the house were taking online courses at the college using that PC (and printing out papers) with no problems – AND they never called me to setup the printer! I think that’s really saying something about how far Linux has come the last few years.

When you boot from the Ubuntu CD the first option you have is to “boot live and try”, so I decided to try that first and make sure all the hardware worked. Once the desktop came up, I tried a web browser, and everything (including sound) worked great! All drives and hardware components showed up, even my card reader. I plugged in an external drive, no problems there, and the wireless was fine. There was an icon on the desktop “install” – so I took the plunge. In less than 15 minutes I had wiped the disk, installed Ubuntu 8.10 and was on my new desktop.

I set about installing the things I would need to work, Firefox and my required addons, windows and other (quicktime) media codecs, the latest version of Flash, an Acrobat reader, FTP, telnet, some graphics and movie editors, etc. Then I remembered that there were two things I STILL needed Windows for. The first was to login to work via VPN, and the second was to install and edit my Line 6 PodXT tones for my guitar rig. These were both two very specific things I wouldn’t be able to do in Linux at all.

I remembered at work that they were starting to convert the data center over to “virtual machines”. Instead of buying hundreds of rack mounted servers, they were starting to install virtual machines on the mainframe and really big super-computer servers. This had become really big in the IT business world, but had it translated over to mainstream linux yet?

It turns out it has, and Sun is leading the way (or so it appears). Sun has software called Virtual Box, and the personal license is FREE! I was skeptical at first, but downloaded and installed it on my now Ubuntu laptop. I installed the downloaded .deb package, but you can do it from the command line or with Synaptic no problem. USB support is disabled by default, but that’s easily fixed with a tutorial like “how to enable USB in Virtualbox.

Once I installed the software I created a new “Virtual Machine” and called it “WindowsXP”. I gave it 10GB of disk space and 256MB of Ram, 8MB shared video. It said to put in a CD to install, so I popped in an old WindowsXP disk and let it rip! I took about 10 minutes to install and reboot, and about 20 more minutes on Windows famous “first time configuration” runs, and then the “virtual” PC rebooted and presented me with a login screen. I promptly changed the settings to 1024×768 display (my laptop is widescreen 1680px). When I logged in everything was perfect! I fired up an IE browser and downloaded Firefox. I installed quicktime, flash, and acrobat reader. I logged into my desktop PC remotely – no problem! All from within “virtual Windows XP” window on my Ubuntu Linux desktop. When I went to close the Window I was prompted, do you want to “save the state of the virtual machine”, “power off”, or “reboot”.

Wow, I had to think about the power of what all this meant. Let’s say you had an ubuntu box with a 500GB hard drive. You could install Virtual box with WindowsXP, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, or even other versions of Linux if you wanted. Personally I would stick with Windows XP, but you could install all your software on it you normally use (like Office), and then “save the state” of the machine. Let’s say you have 3 kids in the house that are notorious for screwing up your PC (or relatives or friends). Give ‘em each their own virtual machine. If they screw it up – make another!

Kids like to play Windows based games, need a Windows PC for work – all “virtual machine”. Guess what? VirtualBox has versions you can download and install for both Windows AND Mac (free!) too! So, you can download on Windows and install Linux virtual machines, or even other Windows virtual machines. Install on a Mac to install Windows or Linux virtual machines! The possibilities are endless, and it’s all FREE!!

I’m glad I downgraded my Windows Vista laptop to Ubuntu and Windows XP – it’s the best thing I ever did!

I created this tutorial how to page because I had trouble accessing my Ubuntu PC from my Windows based Network (Windows Vista, Windows XP) in my home. I have 4 PC’s (wired and wireless) connected to a router – which is the how they get out the Internet. All the PC’s (including the Ubuntu one) have the same network “workgroup” name. In addition this tutorial assumes you alread have “Samba” installed, and if you don’t run this first in terminal:

sudo apt-get install samba

Next, stop samba while you make the required changes by running this in terminal:

sudo /etc/init.d/samba stop

Now you need to edit the samba config file, which is located here:

/etc/samba/smb.conf

You can open it in a text editor to make changes by running this in terminal:

sudo gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf

Copy and poast the following into smb.conf:

[global]
    ; General server settings
    netbios name = YOUR_HOSTNAME
    server string =
    workgroup = YOUR_WORKGROUP
    announce version = 5.0
    socket options = TCP_NODELAY IPTOS_LOWDELAY SO_KEEPALIVE SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192

    passdb backend = tdbsam
    security = user
    null passwords = true
    username map = /etc/samba/smbusers
    name resolve order = hosts wins bcast

    wins support = yes

    printing = CUPS
    printcap name = CUPS

    syslog = 1
    syslog only = yes

; NOTE: If you need access to the user home directories uncomment the
; lines below and adjust the settings to your hearts content.
;[homes]
    ;valid users = %S
    ;create mode = 0600
    ;directory mode = 0755
    ;browseable = no
    ;read only = no
    ;veto files = /*.{*}/.*/mail/bin/

; NOTE: Only needed if you run samba as a primary domain controller.
; Not needed as this config doesn't cover that matter.
;[netlogon]
    ;path = /var/lib/samba/netlogon
    ;admin users = Administrator
    ;valid users = %U
    ;read only = no

; NOTE: Again - only needed if you're running a primary domain controller.
;[Profiles]
    ;path = /var/lib/samba/profiles
    ;valid users = %U
    ;create mode = 0600
    ;directory mode = 0700
    ;writeable = yes
    ;browseable = no

; NOTE: Inside this place you may build a printer driver repository for
; Windows - I'll cover this topic in another HOWTO.
[print$]
    path = /var/lib/samba/printers
    browseable = yes
    guest ok = yes
    read only = yes
    write list = root
    create mask = 0664
    directory mask = 0775

[printers]
    path = /tmp
    printable = yes
    guest ok = yes
    browseable = no

; Uncomment if you need to share your CD-/DVD-ROM Drive
;[DVD-ROM Drive]
    ;path = /media/cdrom
    ;browseable = yes
    ;read only = yes
    ;guest ok = yes

[MyFiles]
    path = /media/samba/
    browseable = yes
    read only = no
    guest ok = no
    create mask = 0644
    directory mask = 0755
    force user = YOUR_USERNAME
    force group = YOUR_USERGROUP

Next, you're going to want to edit the appropriate values:

netbios name = name_of_your_computer_will_be_on_the_network
workgroup = same_name_all_computers_in_house_use_as_workgroup
wins suypport = yes
force user = YOUR_USERNAME
force group = YOUR_USERGROUP

you can edit anything else you want, but in most cases at least those 5 things are required. Now, start samba back up:

sudo /etc/init.d/samba start

Next, you need to actually ADD THE USERS MANUALLY INTO SAMBA (this is why mine was failing - I never did this part). Run these commands in terminal:

sudo smbpasswd -L -a your_username
sudo smbpasswd -L -e your_username

You will be asked for a password after running the first one, BE SURE to use your LOGIN password and username for Ubuntu! That's it! You should now be able to see and access the Ubuntu box on the Windows based network, and login from another PC using your main Ubuntu username and password. Any files or folders you right click and "share" on the Ubuntu box will appear on the PC's now when you go to "Network" and the name of your Ubuntu box.

If you get stuck or need more info, view this page for reference.

Is there a google shell, a google command line, or a google operating system?

There is a version of Linux supposedly used within google called Goobuntu, or google on “Ubuntu” linux. Many have speculated for years that google intends to market this, but they have repeatedly denied it. I myself have installed “gOS” which stands for “green OS” – many mistakenly call “google OS” because it such an insanely web based version of linux. Their new catch phrase is “Linux meets MySpace”. I can attest it works well because I replaced relatives Windows XP with this install and they are fine with it. They still don’t understand that they don’t have Windows – and they don’t even know what Linux means. Despite this, they’ve had no problems using their computer for the last year, and I’ve not received one single phone call regarding a virus, trojan, or other crippling PC problems like they used to have.

Get a live preview of gOS here (I’m not sure which version it is):

I found something cool today that calls itself the “unofficial google shell“. Really it’s just an ajax app that allows you to do a cool “command line like” web search. Check it out – I think you’ll really dig it!

I just had to write about this one real quick too, this is one of the most needed and coolest Ubuntu Linux tools I’d seen in a long time. This articles shows how to create your own live cd with Remastersys. What does that mean? It means that you can create your very own Live CD or DVD backup based of your own system! Backup all of your system settings and essentials – AND making it a bootable LiveCD you can use on any computer anywhere? How can you beat that! Be sure to bookmark this one and pass it on to your friends!

I was looking at what was on digg this morning, and came across this list of Top 10 Free Linux Games. I’ve been using Ubuntu on several PC’s for 3-4 years now, and for some reason I had no idea that there were this many free 3D games that were Free for Linux! I guess I spend too much time building web sites and not enough time playing games! I’m definitely going to have to download and install some of these to see how good they are! I want you to check out the list for yourself, but here were the things that surprised me:

America’s Army: Apparently this game is owned by the US Government and has been out since 2002? WTF! It’s a “recruiting tool” to get people to join the army? I guess it’s very popular with 4,500 people playing at any given time.

True Combat Elite: This is a Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory mod? It supports widescreen and letterbox, and has anti-cheat software!

Open Racing Car Simulator: This one really surprised me, mostly because it’s a racing game. Well – a simulator. Nearly all of the games I was familiar with for Linux were First Person Shooters, basically all like Quake copies. This is awesome, a racing game for Linux!

Frets on Fire: Now here’s a game I actually knew about, and played on Windows, but I didn’t know there was a Linux version. Frets on Fire is basically the Open Source version of Guitar Hero, and is just as fun to play! And there are tons of songs for it because it’s open source! This one I’m going to have to put on my Ubuntu box for sure!

Track Mania: is another car game, but this one has crazy short tracks with acrobatics and tricks. Very cool, another driving game for Linux I didn’t know about!

Again, be sure to visit the full list for all 10 games! Read the comments too, because there were lots of games listed there I didn’t know about as well, like Digital Painball 2, Gillo, and Sauerbraten!