Ubuntu

screenshot-about-shiretoko

Installing Firefox 3.5.2 (Shiretoko) on Ubuntu using the default repos and customizing the icon to be more recognizable

When Firefox 3.5 came out, I along with many others, was eager to try it. For a while I ran it out of the archive directly but this caused minor issues as it’s a messy solution. At some point I noticed firefox-3.5 in the repository:

tyler@quadjutsu:~$ apt-cache search firefox |grep 3.5
abrowser-3.1 - dummy upgrade package for firefox-3.1 -> firefox-3.5
abrowser-3.1-branding - dummy upgrade package for firefox-3.1 -> firefox-3.5
firefox-3.1 - dummy upgrade package for firefox-3.1 -> firefox-3.5
firefox-3.1-branding - dummy upgrade package for firefox-3.1 -> firefox-3.5
firefox-3.1-dbg - dummy upgrade package for firefox-3.1 -> firefox-3.5
firefox-3.1-dev - dummy upgrade package for firefox-3.1 -> firefox-3.5
firefox-3.1-gnome-support - dummy upgrade package for firefox-3.1 -> firefox-3.5
firefox-3.5 - safe and easy web browser from Mozilla
firefox-3.5-branding - Package that ships the firefox branding
firefox-3.5-dbg - firefox-3.5 debug symbols
firefox-3.5-dev - Development files for Mozilla Firefox
firefox-3.5-gnome-support - Support for Gnome in Mozilla Firefox

and proceeded to install it with the following command:

tyler@quadjutsu:~$ sudo apt-get install firefox-3.5

It runs along-side Firefox 3.0 without a hitch. I often use the two in tandem while testing web applications.

Something that bothered me about this was the default icon isn’t as recongnizable to me as I’d like it to be.

screenshot-about-shiretoko

As such I looked into a way to replace it.

First, I found a replacement icon I liked

hp-firefox-128x128

from the following website (where other nice replacements exist).

Then I went to find the logical location of the files to replace. First I updated my ‘locate’ database file because this software is new, so it’s not yet known. This is done automatically daily on a cron but you can update it any time you’d like as follows:

tyler@quadjutsu:~$ sudo updatedb

Then I probed for icons I might think would be responsible.

tyler@quadjutsu:~$ locate firefox |grep lib |grep icon |grep 3.5
/usr/lib/firefox-3.5.2/icons
/usr/lib/firefox-3.5.2/chrome/icons
/usr/lib/firefox-3.5.2/chrome/icons/default
/usr/lib/firefox-3.5.2/chrome/icons/default/default16.png
/usr/lib/firefox-3.5.2/chrome/icons/default/default32.png
/usr/lib/firefox-3.5.2/chrome/icons/default/default48.png
/usr/lib/firefox-3.5.2/icons/document.png
/usr/lib/firefox-3.5.2/icons/mozicon128.png
/usr/lib/firefox-3.5.2/icons/mozicon16.xpm
/usr/lib/firefox-3.5.2/icons/mozicon50.xpm

The first set in the ‘/usr/lib/firefox-3.5.2/chrome/icons/’ folder will replace the icons used by the application itself (i.e. the icon in the top of your window). The latter, ‘/usr/lib/firefox-3.5.2/icons/’ will replace the ones used by shortcut icons.

Here are all the files for the icons I resized if you’d like to use them.

firefox-3.5_replacement_chrome_icons.zip
firefox-3.5_replacement_shortcut_icons.zip

bash pro-style:

cd Desktop/ && mkdir firefox_replacement_icons && cd firefox_replacement_icons
wget http://www.doknowevil.net/files/firefox-3.5_replacement_chrome_icons.zip && wget http://www.doknowevil.net/files/firefox-3.5_replacement_shortcut_icons.zip
for file in *.zip; do unzip $file; done
sudo cp chrome/* /usr/lib/firefox-3.5.2/chrome/icons/default/
sudo cp shorcuts/* /usr/lib/firefox-3.5.2/icons/
screenshot3

feh – lightweight command line image viewer and data tool

While I was looking for a better image viewer than the default ‘eye of gnome’ (eog from the command line), that’s able to play animated gifs, I came across a command line tool called feh

sudo apt-get install feh

feh is is lightweight image viewer that you can call from the command line. It can recursively view files with the following command for example:

feh -r *.jpg

You can navigate through the images with your arrow keys or space bar and backspace. Use the window close button or press esc to quit.

That’s all good and fun and I’ll probably use it from time to time but it’s not what really got me excited about this tool. It has an option for a “list” of image attributes as the screenshot below shows.

screenshot3

By typing for example

feh -l *.jpg

I would list all attributes for jpgs within a specified directory. In my screenshot, I had a text file multiple image extensions, so I did a subshell with an ‘ls’ command piped to ‘grep -v’ which negates whatever pattern that follows it. To rephrase, the command inside $() is run first and that list which has all files minus those ending in ‘.txt’ is called by the ‘feh -l’ command.

I find this very helpful for when I’m slicing images for web pages. When I’m typing out css for example:

#my_image {
  display:block;
  height:25px;
  width:120px;
  background:transparent url('img/my_image.png') 0 0 no-repeat;
}

it’s very handy to have the image dimensions. The nice thing about this raw dimension output is that I can script it further to generate CSS like above.

There are many other tricks this command can do, just type ‘man feh’ to learn more.

By the way, I’ve started using gThumb as my default image viewer, it’s still lightweight and quite powerful. It’s essentially the same as eog with some minor differences and a few major enhancements

sudo apt-get install gthumb
screenshot-detrateshobo-music-internet_radio

The “easy” way to listen to internet radio in Ubuntu

I started with rhythmbox like most new Ubuntu users. It seemed nice enough but not in the area I was concerned with, internet radio. I tried out many players but was disappointed with different areas of different players. From Ubuntu 8.04 to 8.10 I was using the “good” Amarok (for KDE 3.5). Disappointed by the exclusion of that version in Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04 and unimpressed with workarounds like the PPA’s, I decided to play the field. I came across Exaile, which I’ve blogged about in the past. It’s a good enough player… most of the time. It crashed too often for my likings and I’m getting sick of pkilling it.

It struck me today that I needed a simplier more streamlined solution for my simple needs. I needed a console application. Through a little research, I found moc, which happens to play shoutcast streams as I’ve become accustom to.

I then proceeded to set myself the following way:

sudo apt-get install moc
mkdir -p ~/Music/internet_radio && cd ~/Music/internet_radio
wget -r -l2 -nd -Nc -A.pls http://www.di.fm/index.php
for file in *.pls; do mocp -a $file; done
mocp

1) Installed moc
2) created a directory to download all the playlists from di.fm (since this is the station I listen to most often)
3) wget all the playlists
4) add them all to moc
5) start moc and [tab] to the play list side, enter to play

screenshot-detrateshobo-music-internet_radio

  enter  -- starts playing
  s      -- stops playing
  n      -- plays next item from the playlist
  b      -- plays previous item from the playlist
  space  -- pause
  p      -- pause

  S      -- plays at random
  R      -- repeats the same song in a loop,
	    Next (X button below) must be OFF
  X      -- switches to play sequentially
  o      -- plays a file from the Internet
  u      -- moves playlist item up
  j      -- moves playlist item down
  Ctrl+u -- adds the URL to the playlist
  g      -- searches marked string in file names
  /      -- searches marked string in file names

  r      -- rereads the directory
  T      -- switches to the theme selection menu
  f      -- toggles display mode of song titles
  TAB    -- switches marker bar between the playlist
	    and the file manager panels
  l      -- switches between displaying the playlist
            or the file manager panel
  P      -- switches full path in the playlist
  H      -- toggles hidden files view
  Ctrl-t -- toggles song duration time
  Ctrl-f -- toggles format file view
  m      -- moves to directory entered in config file
  G      -- moves to directory with currently played file
  i      -- moves to marked directory
  U      -- moves to upper directory
  a      -- adds a file to the playlist
  A      -- adds a directory recursively to the playlist
  C      -- clears the playlist
  V      -- saves the playlist
  d      -- removes marked item from the playlist
  Y      -- removes all empty items from the playlist

  < -- decreases volume by 1%
  ,      -- decreases volume by 5%
  >      -- increases volume by 1%
  .      -- increases volume by 5%

  x      -- toggles the mixer channel
  ?      -- shows help

  !      -- goes to a fast dir 1 (set in config file)
  @      -- goes to a fast dir 2
  #      -- goes to a fast dir 3
  $      -- goes to a fast dir 4
  %      -- goes to a fast dir 5
  ^      -- goes to a fast dir 6
  &      -- goes to a fast dir 7
  *      -- goes to a fast dir 8
  (      -- goes to a fast dir 9
  )      -- goes to a fast dir 10

  F1     -- executes ExecCommand1 (set in config file)
  F2     -- executes ExecCommand2
  F3     -- executes ExecCommand3
  F4     -- executes ExecCommand4
  F5     -- executes ExecCommand5
  F6     -- executes ExecCommand6
  F7     -- executes ExecCommand7
  F8     -- executes ExecCommand8
  F9     -- executes ExecCommand9
  F10    -- executes ExecCommand10

Above commands from polish linux’s article on moc audo player, great resource.

My Second Article Published on Ubuntu Magazine

My latest article on Accessing your favorite media via the terminal has been published.

screenshot-recordmydesktop-1

Make Screencasts in Ubuntu with gtk-recordmydesktop

Yeah, the name sounds cliche but man oh man is this app slick. Compared to some of the others I tried, this one _just_worked_ and had the options I needed, plus more.

sudo apt-get install gtk-recordmydesktop

screenshot-recordmydesktop-1

You can select a specific window or an arbitrary area and it compresses to ogv automatically.

Here’s a quick video I recorded in seconds — http://z.nexuizninjaz.com/videos/nst.ogv

g0esklea7oxc2vvin563

A (darker) brown theme for ubuntuforums.org

Because I use a dark theme for GTK, I’ve been working on a darker theme for the ubuntu forums using Stylish. It’s not complete but certainly usable. If you’d like to try it out, you can install the theme (after you install stylish) by going to the userstyle page.

g0esklea7oxc2vvin563

8hp9pibmfh3adx4pfo3a

Reverting two Ubuntu features ‘removed’ in 9.04

Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04 has many improvements on the prior release of Intrepid 8.10, however 2 things were removed that I didn’t agree with. They are pretty easy to change back so I wanted to share them with you all.

Update Notifier in system tray

I guess the idea behind this change was intended to make updates more obvious… but to power-users like myself, I consider it an annoyance. Every time I’d run apt-get, a “update yo shiz” window would pop up above my terminal and anger me. I’m not the stupid windows user Ubuntu’s starting to treat me like. I just don’t have time for updates that require a restart in the middle of the day when I’m trying to get some work done.

gconftool -s --type bool /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch false

tip from launchpad

Ctrl+Alt+Backspace

This would classically restart X… but for some reason they removed this as well?!?! Whatever, here’s how to fix it.

sudo aptitude install dontzap && sudo dontzap –d

tip from Chris Johnston