8thString

Tools to clean up xml files abound in  the internet. But if you have a need to do batch processing of a bunch of files or just the plan joy of doing it from the command line then you can use xmllint . If you are using openSUSE, Ubuntu or Linux Mint 10 (and many other Linux distro) then this is come pre-installed. xmllint is flexible and have way more features than shown below but this should give you a taste of the tools usefulness. So to tidy up an xml file do: xmllint –format ugly.xml –output pretty.xml ~ts

I just got the time to play around openSUSE 11.4 which was released last March 10, 2011. From the outside, nothing much changed between 11.3 and 11.4 especially in the installation department (seems like they are exactly the same except for the new artwork/background). Why change if it is working? Without too much ado... here comes the screen grabs. Additional information: kernel: 2.6.37 KDE: 4.6.00 (4.6.0) "release 6" X org: 1.9.3 Have fun!!! ~ts

Font smoothing and subpixel rendering is not configured/enabled by default in OpenSUSE 11.4. It seems like there are patents (see link ) around subpixel rendering that prevents FOSS distros from enabling this be default. For smallish installation (home use or experimentation) this might not be too much of a deal but of course who really knows that the patent owner will do to enforce it. So if you are not comfortable doing this, please stop. First, need to download subpixel package by muzlocker . This can be done in a console. sudo zypper addrepo http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/muzlocker/openSUSE_11.4/ subpixel sudo zypper ref sudo zypper dup Next, create .Xdefaults, from a console do: cd ~ touch .Xdefaults kwrite .Xdefaults Then copy the following: Xft.autohint: 0 Xft.lcdfilter: lcddefault Xft.hintstyle: hintslight Xft.hinting: 1 Xft.antialias: 1 Xft.dpi: 96 Xft.rgba: rgb Next up, create .fonts.conf file, can be created in console, like: cd ~ tou

Debian provides you with a lot of options in terms of how you setup/install your system. You can do it via GUI, through live CDs and of course the proven text based install. With Debian Squeeze out, it is time for me to install the latest that the Debian community has to offer. I find that the installation is very straightforward so I will just post screen captures where the user would need to interact with the installation for bare bones configuration. So here we go.... Figure 1. Installer Boot Menu Figure 2. Language selection Figure 3. Set your location, this is for time zone Figure 4. Keyboard map to use Figure 5. Set machine hostname Figure 6. Set domain name. For internal/home use, pick whatever you like Figure 7. Set root (administrator) password Figure 8. Verify root password Figure 9. Create user, this would be what you will be using most of the time Figure 10. Username for the new account Figure 11. Password for the new account Figure 12. Verify password for ne

Ubuntu Natty Narwhal (11.04) dash (or launcher) by default is tied to super key (Windows key on most keyboards). This default configuration is good for most situation but can interfere with some applications notably VirtualBox. As most things in Linux land, this can be modified. And of course this can be done in various ways. To make it easier for non-Linux/Ubuntu guru we will try to do this via CompizConfig Settings Manager ( ccsm  as this is the name of the python script). Unfortunately this is not installed by default but this is so easy in Ubuntu. Again this can be done in various way but will try to do this in Ubuntu Software Center .  In Software Center search box type ccsm . Select Advanced Desktop Effects Settings  then follow instructions to install it. Now run ccsm (using console/terminal or using dash ). Select Desktop category then select Ubuntu Unity Plugin . Figure 1. Ubuntu Unity Plugin In Ubuntu Unity Plugin, change Key to show the launcher to desired key

I own an Asus Eee PC 900 (Intel Celeron M processor 900MHz). Of course you can only do so much with this machine so having an optimized OS does help a lot. Just recently I have replaced my OS/Linux distro with Puppeee (Linux 2.6.35.7celeron). This distro does feel light and fast. It comes with what you would expect from a descent distribution. The default web browser is Midori 0.2.9 (based on WebKit) which works okay. Unfortunately it does not work well with Pandora. It maybe because Pandora requires Flash support which I am not sure if Midori is configured in Puppeee to work with the plugin. I have used Pandora with Google Chrome so I was hoping that it might work with that browser. Installing Chrome is quite straightforward in Puppeee. First, download the latest from  http://puppeee.com/files/distsfs/ , I picked chrome-10.sfs  using Mindori. Once done, click Puppy menu -> System -> Control Panel . Select Software tab, then SFS-Loader load squash files . Browse to where you s

Say, you have a USB thumb drive that you want to donate or give to a friend and you want to ensure that nothings left that might embarrass you, don't worry my friend. As always in the Linux/Unix land there is a tool for that. So to wipe clean a USB drive, do: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc "/dev/zero" is a special file  that provides a stream of null characters. "/dev/sdc" is the USB thumb drive. dd is a low level system utility used to copy raw data from a source to a destination. Source being a stream of zeros and destination the thumb drive. So, we just wiped clean our storage media. Note that this is applicable to most storage devices, so be careful. ~ts