Author: digitaleagle

New Beta Releases of Fedora and Ubuntu

Linux Format Magazine pointed out that Fedora has released a beta of Fedora 9 and Ubuntu has released Ubuntu 8.04.

These features caught my eye from the Fedora 9 Feature List:

They also pointed out that Open Office 2.4 has been released!   Will it be in Fedora 9?

Installing Firefox 3 beta3

I mostly followed Ubuntu Geek’ instructions.

I made the backup of the profile directory:

sudo cp -R ~/.mozilla ~/.mozillabackup

I checked in Synpatic package manager and found that libstdc++5 was already installed.

I followed the link they provided for downloading the new version.

I extracted it as they suggested to the /opt directory:

sudo tar -C /opt -jxvf firefox-3.0b3.tar.bz2

For the plugins, I created the link that they suggested. Make sure you see that you have the right plugins directory — it looked like there could be various locations for the plugins.

cd /opt/firefox/plugins/
ls /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/* .
I found some information about controlling profiles, and so, I created a different profile for Firefox3. First, I created a copy for Firefox:

cp -r .mozilla .firefox3
/opt/firefox/firefox -P “firefox3”

The first time, it brought up the “Choose User Profile” dialog. So, I clicked on the Create Profile button and created a new profile by the name of firefox3. For the path, I chose $HOME/.firefox3/firefox/tgvjuj9r.default (the copy of my default profile).

Open Office 3.0

I just found this article from LXF about Open Office 3.0. It sounds very exciting — I can’t wait for it to come out. Here are they links they pointed out:

The presenter screen feature is one feature that I am really interested in:

JNode

I have run across a new operating system called JNode. What has caught my attention is that the operating system is written in Java. I am not sure it is ready for mainstream use, but I definitely want to play with it on VMWare to see if it is something I can use.

Websites:

To get started, download the iso from Sourceforge. The unzip the ISO with gunzip jnode-x86-0.2.6.iso.gz . Then, create a VMWare image that uses the iso file as the cdrom drive. Finally, boot the new OS.

When JNode boots by default, it only boots to a command prompt.  To start the GUI, first run the garbage collection with “gc”.  Then, run the command “startawt”.

Resources

How To: Scan a Hard Drive with Fedora 8 Live CD

I had downloaded the i386 version of the Fedora 8 Live CD. Since I already had it downloaded and burned to a CD, I decided to use this to scan a laptop’s drive for viruses. There is probably an easier way, but I thought this would be a good exercise.

Once booted, open a terminal and run the following commands:

su -
yum install gcc zlib zlib-devel make

Then, I downloaded clamav from the SourceForge website. The version I downloaded was 0.92rc2. Firefox automatically saves files to the Desktop, and so, I just let it do its thing.

Next, back in the terminal window, I compiled the program:

cd /home/fedora/Desktop
tar -xzvvf clamav*.tar.gz
cd clamav*
useradd clamav
./configure
make
make install

Then, I had to update the configuration files. You can do this from the terminal with:

freshclam
sed -e 's/^Example$/#Example/i' /usr/local/etc/freshclam.conf > freshclam.conf
mv -f freshclam.conf /usr/local/etc/freshclam.conf
sed -e 's/^Example$/#Example/i' /usr/local/etc/clamd.conf > clamd.conf
mv -f clamd.conf /usr/local/etc/clamd.conf

Next, download the most recent virus definitions.

freshclam

Finally, do your scan (You may need to mount it first).

clamscan /media/disk

Linux Mac Crossover

I found an interesting article today about making Linux look like a Mac.  The thing is that I don’t necessarily want to go all the way, but I would like to steal a few things from their side of the world.

Make Your Linux Desktop Look Like A Mac – Mac4Lin Project Documentation

The big thing that caught my eye was the AWM on page 3.   I had trouble following the instructions though.  These instructions worked a little better:

HOWTO: functional eye-candy with Avant-Window-Navigator and Affinity