Installing GIMP 2.6.6 in Ubuntu 8.04

GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a free opensource alternative software for Adobe Photoshop or CorelDraw Photopaint. For Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty the latest GIMP version is 2.6.7 but for Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy the latest suggested version is GIMP 2.6.6.

Here are the steps I have made to install GIMP 2.6.6 in Ubuntu 8.04:

1. Choose your right version of GIMP from this site GetDeb
   Download the following debian packages here:
   
   • gimp
   
   
   • libgimp2.0
   
   
   • gimp-data
   
   
   • libbabl-0.0-0
   
   
   • libgegl-0.0-0


2. Run a terminal application, go to Applications->Accessories->Terminal


3. Install the packages in the following order to avoid dependency problems:
   $ sudo dpkg -i libbabl-0.0-0_0.0.22-1~getdeb1_i386.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i libgegl-0.0-0_0.0.18-1~getdeb1_i386.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i libgimp2.0_2.6.6-1~getdeb1_i386.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i gimp-data_2.6.6-1~getdeb1_all.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i gimp_2.6.6-1~getdeb1_i386.deb

So there you have it, you now have installed the GIMP application in you Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron machine!

To run GIMP, go to Applications->Graphics->GIMP Image Editor.

Installing Apache Webserver and PHP5 in Ubuntu 8.04

If you are following my posts in this blog, you have already seen how quick and easy it is to install additional packages in Ubuntu Linux. This time I'll show you how quick and easy it is to install Apache plus PHP in Ubuntu Linux.

1. Click Applications->Accessories->Terminal


2. Execute apt-get to download and install apache.
   $ sudo apt-get install apache2


3. Again execute apt-get to download and install the php5 package.
   $ sudo apt-get install php5


4. Lastly, install also the apache-php module.
   $ sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-php5

You have now a webserver application installed in your Ubuntu Linux with PHP support. To start your Apache Webserver, run this command:
$ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
Verify that your Apache Webserver is running by checking your process table and show only the apache process:
$ ps ax | grep apache
14606 ? Ss 0:01 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
14610 ? S 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
14611 ? S 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
14612 ? S 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
14613 ? S 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
14614 ? S 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
14617 ? S 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
19769 pts/3 R+ 0:00 grep apache2

So there you have it. The Apache Webserver my test machine has fork itself six times that why you have all in all seven apache2 daemon running in order to serve several clients accessing your webserver all at the same time.

You can now try to open your default website using your favorite Internet Browser by typing:
http://localhost/
or
http:///
You should then see this page:

It works!

You can either change this site by editing the index.html file from your terminal located at /var/www using your favorite text editor (ex. vi) but you must first execute $ sudo su to change from an ordinary user to a super user. Or, you copy index.html file to your home directory and edit it from there using the Text Editor application in your desktop then copy the file back to /var/www/.

Setting the right resolution for your Ubuntu 8.04 - Take 2

My first post about solving the resolution problem of Ubuntu 8.04 in my computer did solved it for a little while but after my reboot the problem unfortunately came back. And by the way, my monitor, keyboard and mouse where not really directly connected into my Ubuntu machine, I am using a KVM switch since I don't use my Ubuntu box much often, I need to switch to my other machine running on a different Operating System.

I did another googling and found this solution:

1. Open the terminal application and execute this command:
   $ sudo displayconfig-gtk
   Then provide your super user/root password.


2. A Screen and Graphics Preferences window will pop-up.
   This time my problem was that I am using a ViewSonic LCD monitor but its model does not exist under its list of known ViewSonic model. What I did was, I set the Manufacturer to Generic then for the Model I set it to LCD Panel 1280x1024 then click OK.
   

And so thats it, it solved my problem. Hope this will solve your problem this time too.

Setting the right resolution for your Ubuntu 8.04

I have just installed an Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron and I noticed that I cannot modify the resolution of my screen since there is only one resolution available and its just so large that some parts of some of the application window I cannot be seen or accessed.

If you happen to be in the same problem with me right now, this is how to solve it:

1. Press Control-Alt-F1 to login into a text-mode terminal


2. Stop the GNOME Display Manager(gdm):
   

   # sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop



3. Reconfigure your screen resolution:
   

   # sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg



4. Start the GNOME Display Manager back again:
   

   # sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start



5. Then go back to your X-Window by pressing Control-Alt-F7

And thats it! Hope this helps.

Running Remote commands using SSH

I found a very informative website discussing about how to run remote commands with SSH. Cool right?

It says there that it gets even cooler if you use SSH key-based authentication. That gives me an idea to summarize his discussion and also explain how to setup key-based authentication in ssh.

To run a remote command in ssh is pretty straight forward. Here is how you can do it:

# ssh remote_username@remote address 'remote_command' 

Example 1: To display the free disk space of your remote server

# ssh ruut@www.example.com 'df -h'
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/ubda 3.5G 2.1G 1.4G 61% /
tmpfs 96M 4.0K 96M 1% /dev/shm

Example 2: To count the number of httpd process in your remote web server

# ssh ruut@www.example.com 'ps -ax | grep httpd | grep -v grep | wc -l'
11

The above examples will still prompt you to input the user's password if you still have not configured a key-based ssh authentication. Alright, I don't mind typing my password, after all it is there for security reasons. Why would I use the key-based authentication?

You will need this key-based authentication when for example you create a script that will execute a remote command regularly to monitor your remote sites. So you will configure your cron to do the job for you right?

Convinced now? Let me show you how to do it.

1. Generate a private and public keys using ssh-keygen
   

   # ssh-keygen -t dsa -b 1024 

   
   To make this straight forward, just press the enter key when asked to enter a passphrase.
   This will create two files inside your

   /home/username/.ssh/

   directory:
   
   
   
   • id_dsa - your private key
   
   
   • id_dsa.pub - your public key
   
   
   
   


2. Copy your public key securely to your remote site and place it inside /home/username/.ssh/ and name the file as authorized_keys
   

   # scp /home/username/.ssh/id_dsa.pub ruut@www.example.com:/home/ruut/.ssh/authorized_keys



3. Now you can execute our Example 1 like to and it should not prompt you to input the password of your remote site account:
   

   # ssh -i /home/username/.ssh/id_dsa ruut@www.example.com 'df -h'
   

   
   

So that's how its done. I hope this article has help you in some ways.

Installing and Running VMWare Server 1.0.8 in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jacalope

I just recently installed VMWare Server 1.0.8 in Ubuntu 9.04 and while doing so, I have encountered several problems which prompted me to do some google queries that leads me to the different fragments of solutions.

I picked up this bits and fragments and form this article hoping that when you land into this blog, you will find all the steps you need to successfully install your VMWare Server 1.0.8 in Ubuntu 9.04.

Here are the 10 bits and pieces that I put together:

1. Download VMware-server-1.0.8:
   

   # wget -c http://download3.vmware.com/software/vmserver/VMware-server-1.0.8-126538.tar.gz



2. Download VMware-server Installation Script Patch:
   

   # wget -c http://www.insecure.ws/warehouse/vmware-update-2.6.27-5.5.7-2.tar.gz 



3. Untar the VMware-server:
   

   # tar xzvf VMware-server-1.0.8-126538.tar.gz



4. Untar the Patch:
   

   # tar xzvf vmware-update-2.6.27-5.5.7-2.tar.gz



5. Install some package dependencies:
   

   # sudo aptitude install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r` xinetd g++ ia32-libs 



6. Go to the VMware-server directory:
   

   # cd vmware-server-distrib



7. Install:
   

   sudo ./vmware-install.pl 

   
   Note: When you reached the stage in which the installer will ask if your want to run configuration script, type no.


8. Go to the VMware patch directory:
   

   # cd ../vmware-update-2.6.27-5.5.7-2



9. Run the patch installer:
   

   # sudo ./runme.pl



10. Read the instructions carefully until you are done.

Note:
- if you encounter this error:

"Unable to get the last modification timestamp of the destination file /etc/vmware/ssl/rui.key." 

Do the following:

# sudo touch /etc/vmware/ssl/rui.key
# sudo touch /etc/vmware/ssl/rui.crt