Category Archives: GNU/Linux

Como arreglar la conexión de red en Kubuntu 10.04

Hace unos días tuve un problema con mi Kubuntu 10.04 y la conexión de red. Cuando fui por apagar el PC, en lugar de apagarlo le dí a hibernar por error y cuando fui otra vez a encenderlo no tenia conexión de red disponible. Mirando en el icono que informa respecto a la conexión de red tenia un único mensaje que decía: Gestión de Redes Desactivada. Por tanto que yo intentara de buscar la forma de activar el gestor de redes, no encontraba nada y ninguna opción disponible. Después de varios intentos tuve que ponerme a buscar en la Web con mi portátil para ver si encontraba la forma de solucionar el problema. Afortunadamente encontré que el problema surge en cuanto se apague el PC de forma instantánea o como en mi caso por hibernar, por esos motivos parece que NetworkManager no borra el archivo de estado y cuando se vuelve a reiniciar el PC se genera este error. Para solucionar el problema hay que escribir una serie de comandos en el Terminal para borrar e archivo y volver a reactivar el Gestor de Redes. Os añado las líneas de comandos porque puedo garantizar que es una solución realmente efectiva:

sudo service network-manager stop

cd /var/lib/NetworkManager/

sudo rm NetworkManager.state

sudo service network-manager start

How to repair the missing upper panel on Ubuntu 10.04 Netbook

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After my last update I was not able to visualize my upper panel on Ubuntu 10.04 Netbook. After some internet searches and tests I found these two solutions which were useful to me:

Solution A

– right click on the background and choose Change Desktop Background

– go to Visual Effects and click on Normal

Solution B

– ALT + F2 and when in Terminal type

gnome-panel

If you want to save the configuration and visualize the upper panel for the next time you use Ubuntu, please type in terminal:

gnome-session-save

I am sure there are better ways to solve this problem, so if you have suggestion you are free to comment this post. Thanks.

Linux evolution!

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Rediscover Prism by Mozilla (Ubuntu, MAC and Windows tips)

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In 2007, when Prism was launched, there were some enthusiastic reviews about this application. Then the widget era began and Prism popularity decreased. Anyway, Prism is still a powerful application for all that people who desire to run their more often used web application saving RAM and CPU resources. Prism, based on XULRunner, is multi platform, easy to use and very flexible. To use it on Ubuntu you can launch the Terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install prism

or using the Synaptics Package Manager (System —> Administration —> Synaptics Package Manager). Then go to Applications —> Internet —> Prism and a small windows appears. Now, fill in all the required information: the web application URL, the name you prefer, settings and do not forget to click on the Desktop shortcut option. At this point you will find a new rough icon on your Desktop with the name you chose. The first time you use it, with the right mouse button click on it and go to Properties —> Permissions and Allow executing file as program. If you want to change the icon you have to click on it (with the right mouse button), go to Properties —> Basic and choose your favorite icon clicking the icon on the upper left corner. If all are steps are annoying for you, it is possible to use Prism as add-on for Firefox. In this case, on Firefox, go to Tools —> Add-ons —> Get Add-ons and type Prism on the search bar. You will install Prism as a simple add-on for Firefox. Now, you can automatically generate a Prism application just clicking on Tools —> Convert Website to Application when you are in the web application page.

On Windows or MAC we suggest to download the standalone package directly from the official web page or install Prism as Firefox add-on following the same steps we described for Ubuntu. If you use the Prism standalone package you have to decompress it in your favorite location. For Windows users: when you set up a new Prism application, try the tray menu option but do not forget to click on the Desktop shortcut or you will not be able to find again the application after you close it.

In my experience, Prism is really useful with all the Google web applications, with Zoho services and Pandora. Try and enjoy it!

How to read yahoo.com (and many others) email accounts on Thunderbird 3.1 (Ubuntu and Windows tips)

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Many on line email providers don’t allow you to use their accounts with POP email clients such as Thunderbird 3.1. To solve this “matter” we have a couple of possible solutions: FreePOPs and WebMail. Today, we will discuss about Webmail that we tested on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and Windows XP. WebMail is substantially a Thunderbird’s add-ons but it is not featured by Mozilla. Using this add-on you are able to manage Yahoo, Hotmail, mail.com, GMail, Libero, and AOL email accounts. The installation is similar in Ubuntu and Windows; on both, you have to install the core WebMail add-on and restart Thunderbird then you can add all the other components (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc..) you prefer. Then you have to modify the Thunderbird server settings following the instructions provided by WebMail:

POP
Server Type : POP
Incoming Server: localhost
UserName : username@domain

SMTP
Server Name: localhost
UserName : username@domain

Do not forget to set the Connection Security to None.

Only on Ubuntu, you need also to manually modify the incoming and outgoing ports because when you use Thunderbird through WebMail on Ubuntu, you will have a “could not connect to server local host; the connection was refused” message. This problem can be easily solved substituting the default ports on both WebMail add-on and Thunderbird ports:

– Thunderbird —> Edit —> Account Settings. Highlight the account you want to manage and go to Server Settings. There you can modify the POP Server Mail port setting it to a number bigger than 1000 (in my case I put 1250). Then go to Outgoing Servers and Edit the SMTP account you want to modify (I changed the default port to 1025).

– Thunderbird —> Tools —> Add-ons —> WebMail —> Preferences and put the same port numbers you have set on the previous step.

All this because ports below 1024 seems to be blocked on Ubuntu (if you know why, please post a comment).

For security, restart Thunderbird and it will immediately download and send your emails. Last but not least, if your on line email account is not supported by WebMail, do not forget to try FreePOPs.

BleachBit: a free, powerful software to increase your privacy on Ubuntu and Windows

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Since the first release many thins has been changed on BleachBit. I perfectly remind its first version that I uninstalled because I didn’t feel comfortable with the possible disaster I could do on my Ubuntu computer. Now BleachBit is very different: more powerful and easy to use! This software can be used on Linux (in my test I used Ubuntu 10.04 LTS) and Windows. To install it on Ubuntu you have to use Synaptics ( System —> Administration —> Synaptics) and search for bleachbit in the search bar. For the Windows installation please, download the .exe file and install it. After the installation on Ubuntu, open BleachBit going to Applications —> System Tools —> BleachBit. Now, you have a very understandable menu bar in the left side of your screen. If you click on the main sub-menus you can automatically read some information about what every option will delete on tour PC. Moreover, if the delete options you choose are potentially dangerous, a pop up mini alert will inform you about the risks. We recommend to use the Preview option before bleaching your PS. In this way you can have a final picture of what you are doing and how many bytes are you deleting. On the preference menu you can decide to overwrite files to hide contents or to run BleachBit every time you start your computer. Last but not least, BleachBit supports many languages that you can select from Edit —> Preferences —> Languages.

How to protect your profile and emails on Thunderbird 3 (Ubuntu and Windows instructions)

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On Thunderbird, the only way to be 99% sure nobody will read your emails is to save your profile on an encrypted folder (or disk partition) using e.g. TrueCrypt but if you are not concerned that you are under surveillance, you can simply use a quick and useful trick that allows Thunderbird to ask for the Master password every time you launch it.

In Ubuntu you have to follow two different steps. First of all, go to Edit —> Preferences —> Security —> Passwords and create your Master Password. Secondly, go to Edit —> Preferences —> Advanced —> Config Editor (click on “I’ll be careful, I promise”). Then in the filter bar, type password and change the parameter for mail.password_protect_local_cache to True. The next time you will launch Thunderbird nothing will be displayed (old and new emails) before you insert the correct Master Password.

If you are using Thunderbird on Windows you have to modify mail.password_protect_local_cache going to Tools —> Options —> Advanced —> Config Editor (click on “I’ll be careful, I promise”). Then, as for Ubuntu, in the filter bar type password and change the parameter for mail.password_protect_local_cache to True.

How to uninstall software on Ubuntu

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Installing software on Ubuntu is really easy but sometimes we can have problems to uninstall it if we have not used the Package Manager (Synaptic till Ubuntu 9.04 and later through the Software Center) or a .deb package. To fastly uninstall all the software you do not need or you are not fond of, you can type in the Terminal:

sudo dpkg -r your_file

An alternative and powerful way is typing:

sudo apt-get remove your_file

(where your_file it is the name of the software you want to remove)

or, if you want to completely cancel also the configuration files:

sudo apt-get --purge remove your_file

If you want to check what software is installed on you Ubuntu you can use:

dpkg --list

and you will obtain a complete list of software and a very short summary for each package.

Prey: a multiplatform, open source anti-thefth free software for laptops

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What about losing your laptop? Obviously the chances to find it and have it back are very few! But there are several software you can install on your laptop to trace the ip and geo-location of te laptop and with a bit of fortune you could find it. Prey is one of these programs you can use and it is particularly interesting because it is open source and free up to three laptops. After the download of the proper version for your OS (Linux, Windows, Mac OS X or Android) you have to run it on your machine and configure it through a very simple interface (on Ubuntu: Applications —> System Tools —> Prey Configurator). Do not forget to select Enable guest account and Wifi autoconnect to improve the possibilities to trace your laptop. You are also asked to provide an email account where you will receive the geo-location reports if your laptop is stolen. When you activate your Prey account do not forget to fill in the Configuration and Modules tabs. Personally we suggest to switch to ON the following commands: Auto update, Notify new reports and all the commands contained in the left column of the Modules tab. At this point, if your laptop is missed, you have to log in your on-line Prey account and, in the Configuration tab, switch the Missing option on YES. Since this moment, Prey software on your laptop is activated and will start sending reports to your email and to your Prey webpage. Last but not least, to better protect your laptop I suggest to hide or cancel the Prey Configurator icon from the OS menu (in Ubuntu: System —> Preferences —> Main Menu —> System Tools and deselect Prey Configurator).

CLI Companion: una ayuda concreta para utilizar la Consola añadiendo una lista automatizada de comandos

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Hace unos días he encontrado esta nueva aplicación para Linux, se llama CLI Companion. Aunque Linux ha evolucionado muchísimo y hay que reconocer que ya casi no hace falta hacer uso de la Consola para ejecutar programas y tareas varias, pero también hay veces que gracias al uso de la Consola se puede solucionar pequeños problema que de otra forma seria bastante mas complicado. En esos casos CliCompanion nos hecha una mano añadiendo una lista con diferentes comandos junto a nuestro terminal. La lista de los comando no es infinita, viene con unos cuantos; para cada comando hay una referencia donde se explica la función, también es posible añadir comandos y los parámetros correspondientes. Además CliCompanion tiene un apartado de búsqueda donde es posible encontrar el comando que mas nos interese en cada momento. Desde cuando lo instalé en mi Kubuntu 10.04, tengo que confirmar que es una muy buena aplicación y puede ser instalada con lo repositorios correspondientes y tener futuras actualizaciones o directamente através el paquete .DEB. Os dejo el enlace de la Web: http://okiebuntu.homelinux.com/okwiki/clicompanion