Change GRUB Splash Image (For GRUB Legacy)

Although GRUB 2 replaced the older GRUB 0.9x (currently known as ‘GRUB Legacy’), the latter still is the default boot loader on some distributions, like Debian 5.0 for example.

The splash screen for GRUB Legacy is an XPM image which appears as a background when you select which OS to boot. For those who are tired of the default splash screen, here is a short tutorial on how to change it.

First, download some splash screens from here (or Google some). Each splash screen comes as an XPM image archived as a Gzip file. Once you downloaded the desired splash images, copy them inside the /boot/ directory, or create symbolic links in this directory which will point to the actual location of the files. For example, if you downloaded the file tenerife.xpm.gz inside your home directory, you can type as root (and replace USER with the actual username):

cp /home/USER/tenerife.xpm.gz /boot/

Or, to create a symbolic link to it:

ln -s /home/USER/tenerife.xpm.gz /boot/grub/tenerife.xpm.gz

In Ubuntu (pre-Karmic releases, since Karmic uses GRUB 2 by default), use one of those, with the user password:

sudo cp ~/tenerife.xpm.gz /boot/grub/

Or:

sudo ln -s ~/tenerife.xpm.gz /boot/grub/tenerife.xpm.gz

The next step is to edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file, and tell it to use the newly downloaded splash image. For this, add a line which looks like this inside the file mentioned earlier (don’t forget to edit it with root privileges):

splashimage (hd0,0)/boot/tenerife.xpm.gz

This will tell GRUB to search for the file tenerife.xpm.gz on the first partition of the first hard drive. Save the file and restart the computer.

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Install Flash Player 10.1 Beta 2 in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta 2 was released earlier this year, on December 17 at the Adobe MAX 2009. This release comes with several new features and numerous bug fixes.

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How-To: Install Exaile 3.0.1 in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

Exaile 3.0.1 was released on 6 September and it is a bugfix for the stable 3.0 series. To get it in Ubuntu Jaunty, follow the steps below:

Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and add the following two lines (the second one is needed only if you want the sources too):

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/exaile-devel/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/exaile-devel/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Make sure to save the file and add the trusted key:

sudo apt-key adv –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com –recv-keys 43CBFCC0

Next, update the source packages:

sudo apt-get update

To install Exaile 3.0.1, issue the following command in a terminal application:

sudo apt-get install exaile

This should be all. Run Exaile by typing Alt+F2 and entering exaile in the run box that appears.

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How-To: Install Amarok 2.2 Beta 1 from the Kubuntu Beta Backports

The first beta of Amarok 2.2, codenamed ‘Crystal Clear’, was released on September 4 and packages are available for Kubuntu 9.04 Jaunty from the Kubuntu Beta Backports.

Amarok 2.2 Beta 1 comes with a huge number of bug fixes and many improvements and new features. To list some of them:
- new videoclip applet
- new photo applet
- improved browser layout to the left
- widgets can now be arranged differently from default
- ratings
- support for audio CDs
- the playlist offers multi-level sorting now
Those are only the highlights though, to see the full announcement and changelog read this.

To install Amarok 2.2 Beta 1 in Kubuntu/Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope just follow the instructions below:

First, edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file with your favourite text editor, e.g.:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Or:

kdesudo kate /etc/apt/sources.list

Next, add the following two lines:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/beta/ubuntu karmic main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/beta/ubuntu karmic main

Make sure to save the file and then add the trusted key for this repository:

sudo apt-key adv –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com –recv-keys 8AC93F7A

Now update your package lists:

sudo apt-get update

Eventually, remove your existing Amarok installation:

sudo apt-get remove –purge amarok
sudo apt-get autoremove –purge

And now install the latest Amarok:

sudo apt-get install amarok

This should be all. Run Amarok 2.2 Beta 1 by pressing Alt+F2 and typing amarok in KRunner.

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How-To: Install OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 was released a few days ago, bringing many bug fixes to the stable 3.1 series. One of the ways to get it on Jaunty is to use the Launchpad.net PPA for OpenOffice.org Scribblers which recently packaged it for Ubuntu Jaunty and included it in their repositories.

To install the latest release using command-line, just use the instructions below:

First, edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file and enter your user password:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following two lines (the second one is not necessary, unless you want the sources to be available too):

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/openoffice-pkgs/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/openoffice-pkgs/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Add the trusted key for these repositories:

sudo apt-key adv –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com –recv-keys 247D1CFF

Update the packages lists:

sudo apt-get update

You can eventually remove your existing OpenOffice installation by using the following two commands:

sudo apt-get remove –purge openoffice.org
sudo apt-get autoremove –purge

This will also remove system-wide configuration files.

Now, install OpenOffice.org 3.1.1:

sudo apt-get install openoffice.org

This should be all. You can run it by pressing Alt+F2 and typing openoffice in the run box.

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How-To: Install Pidgin 2.6.1 in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty from a Launchpad PPA

Pidgin 2.6.0 was made available a few days ago, on August 19, 2009, and today Pidgin 2.6.1 was released as a bug fix version to the new stable 2.6 series. Among the features and improvements which come with 2.6.0 are:

- several changes and bug fixes in libpurple, the library used by Pidgin for its various chat protocols
- various DNS fixes
- AIM and ICQ fixes
- Gadu-Gadu fixes
- MSN new features, like support for receiving audio clips, support for receiving handwritten messages, many other fixes
- lots of XMPP fixes and improvements, like voice and video support with Jingle or the Service Discovery Browser plugin
- Yahoo! fixes and improvements
- Finch and the Pidgin GTK+ Theme control plugin also received improvements

To install Pidgin 2.6.1 in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope from the Pidgin developers PPA on Launchpad, just follow the instructions below:

First of all, edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file with your favourite text editor (e.g. sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list or gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list) and add the following two lines:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/pidgin-developers/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/pidgin-developers/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Next, make sure to save the file (Ctrl+O followed by Ctrl+X in Nano) and add the trusted key for this repository:

gpg –keyserver http://keyserver.ubuntu.com –recv-keys A1F196A8
gpg –export A1F196A8 | sudo apt-key add -

Now, update the packages lists:

sudo apt-get update

The next step is to uninstall your currently Pidgin installation:

sudo apt-get remove –purge pidgin

And the next step is just to install Pidgin 2.6.1 from the newly added repositories:

sudo apt-get install pidgin

This should be all.

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How-To: Install RSSOwl 2.0 in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic and 9.04 Jaunty

RSSOwl is a powerful feed reader application for Linux licensed under the Eclipse Public License and written in Java. To get it up and running in Ubuntu, all you have to do is follow the few steps below:

Install the unzip and sun-java6-bin packages:

sudo apt-get install unzip sun-java6-bin

With your user password. Next, download the .zip package from the official website (direct link here). Unzip it either graphically from Nautilus or issuing the command below in a terminal, making sure the current working directory is the one where you saved the rssowl-2.0-M9.linux.gtk.x86.zip file:

unzip rssowl-2.0-M9.linux.gtk.x86.zip

What you have now is an rssowl directory, which you can copy anywhere in your home directory.

To run RSSOwl, just run the script RSSOwl inside the rssowl directory:

./RSSOwl

Alternately, you can make a desktop shortcut to it. That’s all.

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Install Hive Rise in Ubuntu – Free RTS Game for Linux

I recently bumped into a cool RTS (real time strategy) game for Linux called Hive Rise. Although the game is not open-source, it offers a free Linux download as a RUN file which can easily be installed on your Ubuntu box.

To install it in Ubuntu, you only need to follow these steps:

First, download the .run file from the official website (direct link here). After the download is finished, open the terminal, make sure the current working directory is the one where you saved the installhiverise.run file and make it executable:

chmod 755 installhiverise.run # or chmod +x installhiverise.run

Alternately, in Nautilus you can right-click on it, go to Properties, then the Permissions tab and tick the Allow executing file as program checkbox. Now, install it (either double-click the installhiverise.run file or from terminal issue):

./installhiverise.run

Accept the license agreement:

Select a destination for the installation. I used here /home/embryo/apps/hiverise, but you can choose any other directory you have access to (the default /home/USER/hiverise should be fine too).

After the installation is over, go to the directory where you installed Hive Rise and run the hiverise script:

This should be all.

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How-To: Compile and Install Wine 1.1.28 in Debian Lenny

Wine 1.1.28 was released on August 21 and it comes with new features and improvements like support for IRDA protocol, faster wineprefix creation, more image formats in WindowsCodecs and various other bug fixes.

To get Wine 1.1.28 in Debian Lenny, follow the next steps:

1. Enable the sources repositories
Edit your /etc/apt/sources.list file as root and make sure you have a line which starts with deb-src, like in the example below:

deb-src ftp://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free

If not, add it, replacing the TLD (top level domain) with your own country TLD (in the example above the TLD is ftp.fi.debian.org – Finland).

2. Update the package lists
As root, type:

apt-get update

3. Install the needed dependencies
As root, type the following commands in a terminal window:

apt-get install build-essential
apt-get build-dep wine

The first command will get build-essential (which is a meta package including tools needed for the compilation, like gcc) and the second will fetch the Wine development libraries.

3. Get the source tarball
Download the source tarball from here (direct link here) and uncompress it:

tar -xjf wine-1.1.28.tar.bz2

4. Compile and install Wine
Make sure the current working directory is wine-1.1.28 and type the following commands:

./configure
make depend && make
make install

The last command (make install) with root privileges. Alternately, you can install Wine as normal user by specifying a prefix:

./configure –prefix=/home/USER/usr/
make depend && make
make install

In which case you don’t need to run make install as root, but as normal user only.

After the installation is complete, run:

winecfg

And that’s it. Wine should be now properly installed. Run any Windows application using:

wine executable_file.exe

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Tip of the Day: Run a C Program Directly

For this short tip you’ll need tcc, the Tiny C Compiler, which comes with most distributions out there, including Debian and Ubuntu. tcc is a small ANSI C compiler which offers the ability to run the program after compiling it, unlike GCC, which (as far as I know) doesn’t offer this option. To install tcc in Debian and Ubuntu:

In Debian, as root:

apt-get install tcc

In Ubuntu, use:

sudo apt-get install tcc

Now let’s test this. First, create your C source file, e.g.:

#!/usr/bin/tcc -run
#include <stdio.h>

int main ()
{
printf (“Hello, world!\n”);
return 0;
}

Now, save this file as example.c or some other name and make it executable:

chmod 755 example.c # or chmod +x example.c

And the next step is just to run it!

./example.c

tcc will compile the source and run it automatically.

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