LinuxTent

ROOT is an important framework for people working in high energy physics and in analyzing accelerators data and some other fields. I am not here to introduce ROOT, you probably know what it is if you are looking for how to compile it.

1. First you need to download the source code package.
2. Uncompress the source code package.
3. Enter the folder
4. Now you need to install the required packages sudo apt-get install build-essential libx11-dev libxft2-dev xorg-dev
5. Here you start with configuration, there are many compilation options. You can check them by entering ./configure --help
6. I used the following command, the python parameter is to instruct the compiler to compile the python interface ./configure --enable-opengl --prefix=/usr/local --enable-python --enable-debug

7. Now the making sudo make
8. The installing sudo make install
9. Now go to gedit /etc/ld.so.conf.d/libc.conf
10. Add the following line, do not forget to replace $ROOT by the path to the root folder on your computer $ROOT/lib
11. sudo ldconfig

This worked for me.

ENJOY!

After long procrastination, for about a year, our wordpress engine that render LinuxTent was upgraded eventually from 2.6 to 2.8.4 . The main reason to upgrade was to fix the security hole in the wordpress versions before 2.8.4. The warnings were spread over the internet that it is a serious attack.  According to some analysis the threat was due small bug in admin options file permissions, for more info look here.

The upgrade was easy with the help of the official upgrade tutorial,  FileZilla and PHPMyAdmin. It was just a matter of downloading, uploading and overwriting. Till now everything works fine. The new wordpress panel interface is really awesome . You feel you want to write more and more .

All the plugins were upgraded successfully except the Automatic Upgrade plugin. Anyway, I don’t think I want it anymore, especially that worpdress provide that nowadays by default. Check your /wp-admin/update-core.php to see if you have it or not.

I think I should maintain a backup for the wordpress in my repository, not sure if databases are maintained under common version control systems.

For anyone who did not upgrade yet, don’t let terrorism to take over the internet. Fight fear and confusion by upgrading your wordpress. Don’t forget that you are always standing on the shoulders of giants, Wordpress !.

Java interfaces usually brings problems as cpu high usage and rendering difficulties. You can notice that for matlab, Netbeans and Mathematica. I think they have to consider QT4 for cross platform UI library.

Java used mainly in Mathematica in the documentation center, and this usage allocated about 15% of the CPU to Java all the time, to reduce the usage you have to replace JLink folder with patched one.

1. wget http://download.wolfram.com/download/GM5YM4/JLink.zip
2. extract the zip file
3. Replace the /usr/local/Wolfram/Mathematica/7.0/SystemFiles/Links/Jlink with the new folder

If you don’t want Java anymore your can use this trick, notice that you will block the documentation center. However, you can use http://reference.wolfram.com instead.

1. Renaming the folder
   mv /usr/local/Wolfram/Mathematica/7.0/SystemFiles/Links/JLink /usr/local/Wolfram/Mathematica/7.0/SystemFiles/Links/JLink_old
2. OR Making it not executable
   chmod a-x chmod a-x /usr/local/Wolfram/Mathematica/7.0/SystemFiles/Links/JLink

Sources:

1. The patched folder
2. Renaming option [1][2]

Rendering Graphics3D using Mathematica on linux generally and specifically on Ubuntu 9.04+ is not fun. The output is not displayed till you rotate the object, and once you rotate the 3D object the cpu usage jump to 100% which gives bad experience using Mathematica for Ubuntu users. This is a driver issue which it is expected to be addressed with the newer Intel graphics drivers which introduces UXA option instead of EXA as an acceleration method. As 9.04 was released this new technology was not stable enough to be enabled by default.

Now, to solve the problem for Mathematica you have two options:

1. Run Mathematica with mesa option
   mathematica -mesa

2. • Modify /etc/X11/xorg.conf to add the UXA option
     Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Option "AccelMethod" "uxa"
EndSection

   • Logout to restart the X server

   Notice: Don’t forget to backup your xorg.conf before editing

Sources:

1. UXA option
2. Mesa option

The Linux driver for Konica Minolta 7222 is not working for me, when I send the test page it gives 32 garbage page.

To solve the problem, you can:

1. Fix the konica driver
2. Install a virtual machine XP using virtualbox and connect it to the network printer using the windows driver. The printing process is slow according to the usage of the NAT service. To solve such low performance use Host adapter solution from virtualbox as a networking alternative to NAT service which asks you to make many changes including creating a new virtual bridge on your ubuntu host machine , for more details read this tutorial. Eventually your new virtual XP machine will appear as a new machine in the LAN so you can order printing requests as any other XP machine. Anyway, it is not east task especially that my network has strict administration rules which does not allow giving an unauthenticated machines an IP address
3. Use generic drivers. You can pick any one of many generic drivers available by default in ubuntu :
   1. go to System/Administration/printing or run the following command
      system-config-printer
   2. Choose new printer, you will get this dialog after searching for available printers
   

   new-printer dialog

   3. After choosing the IP address of your network printer, press forward to get the “choose driver” dialog.
   4. Choose Select Printer from database then for makes choose Generic. Press forward to get the following dialog
      

      Choose Driver dialog

   5. Most of the models are working, for me PCL 5, PCL 5e and PCL 6/PCL XL work for normal printing orders, for both sides printing option only PCL6/PCL XL works, after choosing the model choose the driver the best to choose is the recommended one.
   6. After that you have to fill the name and description fields, and Yupeee you have a new printer.
   7. Try printing a test page by choosing prosperities from right click menu.

   

   Go to Settings/Tests and Maintenance. Press print test page.

Both Sides printing Option

As I said before this option is not working smoothly with all the generic drivers even it is available in most of them. For example, my network printer supports both sides option, the PCL 5 driver also give the option from the printer properties dialog but it is disabled in the evince printing dialog. Moreover, adding the both sides option to the lpr command did not work with the PCL 5 generic driver, choosing PCL6/PCL XL solved the probelm.

To check if your driver provides both sides option:

1. Go to Your Printer Properties Dialog
2. Choose Printer Options
3. Go to Gutenprint Printer Features Common
4. Change the default setting to whatever you want

Providing the option of both sides does not mean that it is guaranteed to work, so to test the option, open any pdf you have using evince, and try the printing dialog. Go to the page setup tab if the both sides option is enabled this means that it is working, if it is disabled try another generic driver.

You can pass the both sides option to the lpr command in this way:
$ lpr -P NameofYourPrinter -o InputSlot=Standard -o Resolution=FromPrintoutMode -o PageSize=A4 -o sides=two-sided-long-edge -o page-ranges=3-4 nameofthefile

pidgin cant send wings and cant make an voice chat .
thats a proplem .
u can fix it by install amsn .
to install it write this command :
sudo apt-get install amsn

(havw fun0

Empathy is a new instant messaging client in Gnome 2.24 which aim to replace pidgin and Ekiga. It provide voice and video chat services besides the usual text chatting service.

Read the rest of this entry »

This semester, I opted for a course in Artificial Intelligence. To make the long story short, we had to use Prolog.

I was new to the whole language and structure, but what made me really uneasy was I did not know how to use it on Ubuntu.

Here is how to do it:

Go to your terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install swi-prolog

This will install the swi-prolog interpreter on your computer. Note that you can search for other things relating to Prolog such as documentation etc through typing in terminal

sudo apt-cache search prolog

Now, after you have installed the interpreter it is time to start writing programmes !!!

First open a new gedit (or any other text editor to that effect) and type the following at the head of the document:

#!/usr/bin/swipl -s

The body of the program should follow.

Remember to save the file with the .pl extension as well.

Finally, open terminal again. This time find the directory in which you have the program, if it were the Desktop for instance type:

cd Desktop

now, type:

prolog <name of the programme with .pl extension>

and have a blast!!!!!

p.s. Do not type the name between parenthesis, I only used them as delimiters to show you where to type the name.

Wow, the first of June this year is special, a year ago I succeeded to move on toward my freedom. My story started in the beginning of 2005, when I tried for the first time to install Red Hat [I am not sure of the version], my first impression was that this whole thing is completely strange and complicated to learn. Trying SuSE a year after did not solve the problem, and yes Ubuntu is the one who made it. The obstacles I faced were due to my ignorance, which Proprietary Software is to be blamed for in part.

My enthusiasm was sourced by the powerful application I have been using since years, Firefox. My thought was if open source is powerful enough to come up with such a browser what about giving it a chance to master my machines. I decided after my Electromagnetic final exam [1/6/2007] to format my desktop and then install Ubuntu as the lone Operating System [No more XPs], because it’s the only way to learn; when you face the fact you don’t have any other solutions to live other than using Ubuntu.

After three days all my daily needs were solved, a lot of copy and paste from Ubuntu forums make things work. I was wondering when my machine will crash and I’m still waiting !!! If you want to ask me why I am still using Ubuntu, my strongest answer will be; because open source is just FUN. The software is owned by humanity and you are not under someone’s authority. Throughout the year I learned a lot about my machines, the operating systems, the current IT industry standards, and the software engineering tools and their importance to make the collaboration of people over the seas possible and productive in the same time.

I hope the next year will be another year of being an Ubuntuer, in my first year I was a participant in #ubuntu channel, blogger about ubuntu users’ issues and problems, persuading my colleagues to switch to Ubuntu, a founder of The Jordanian Ubuntu LoCo team, and making initiatives to adopt Linux in Jordan education system. But this year I hope that my participation will be different, being a maintainer or even a developer for an open source project is not an easy mission, it needs a lot of passion and determination. However, I believe in the importance of this step for the benefit of the community and the process of upgrading my skills.

I know all of that won’t be sufficient for the non technical persons to switch to Linux, or open source in general. But bear in mind if you believe in freedom, the availability of knowledge for all, better future, or new and good jobs for your friends you have to support open source and there are many ways to do that.

Best of wishes extended to all those developers who devoted their lives and gave their best efforts to provide me and millions others with the opportunity to use high end Software, and yes for freeDom.

–Ramy Eid

After one day of The world’s first Document Freedom Day, 26 March 2008 open office 2.4 was released which has minor bug fixes and new features, i chose some of them.

General

• Custom icons for toolbars are imported
• Control password-storing with a master password
• Warning if document is from a newer ODF
• PDF documents: relative links, document references, PDF/A-1 (ISO 19005-1) supported, and cross-document link behavior options
• DejaVu font is now default instead of BitStream Vera

Localisation

• Entries for 10 languages added

Base / DBA

• Support for Access 2007 (.accdb files)

Calc

• Convert text to columns: with this feature CSV data inside cells can be transformed into columns directly
• Columns and rows in spreadsheet can be moved with drag and drop
• Enter key returns to the column where the input started, one row below
• Formula input: “+” and “-” can also be used to start

Chart

• Reverse axes possible
• Bars on different axes displayed next to each other
• Data point label: display both value and percentage
• Data label: display each part in a separate line
• Labels on pie segments: avoiding overlapping

Draw

• Navigation (tab) order of page objects
• PDF export: page names as bookmark

Impress

• Navigation (tab) order of page objects
• Thrilling 3D effects in slide transitions
• Export slide names as PDF bookmarks
• Easier to insert background picture

Writer

• Selecting rectangular region of text
• Spell checking: easier selecting of the language
• Insert&Insert Object toolbar redesign – Writer
• Printing of hidden text can be turned on
• Shortcuts added for paragraph style Heading 4, Heading 5 and Textbody

Open Office is a cross platform Office suite which support multi documents formats the open ones, and the Microsoft ones. As of the 2.0.3 release, OpenOffice.org changed its release cycle from 18-months to releasing updates, feature enhancements and bug fixes every three months, to download this new release go here.