I have added a new OpenVPN connection that fails as soon as it opens. Here are my notes in troubleshooting. I found the problem.
Category: Uncategorized
Troubleshooting Brackets Extension Errors
I tried to install an extension into my newly installed Brackets. For some reason, it failed! Here are my notes to troubleshoot.
The error I get is: “Installation failed. Unknown internal error.”
Ubuntu 16.04 — Media Programs
This is a continuation of my notes on installing Ubuntu 16.04. In this post, I install the programs that I use for working with different kinds of media like recording audio or creating videos.
Series Navigation:
- Previous: Programming Tools
- Next: TBA
- Series Overview
Ubuntu 16.04 — Programming Tools
This is a continuation of my notes on installing Ubuntu 16.04. In this post, I install the programs that I use for programming and technical work.
Series Navigation:
- Previous: Productivity Apps
- Next: Media Programs
- Series Overview
Ubuntu 16.04 — Productivity Apps
This is a continuation of my notes on installing Ubuntu 16.04. In this post, I install the programs that I use to work (aside from programming).
Series Navigation:
- Previous: Utilities and Configuration
- Next: Programming Tools
- Series Overview
Ubuntu 16.04 — Utilities and Configuration
Continuing on with outfitting my new Ubuntu 16.04 install, this post contains my notes for installing the utilities that didn’t really fit into another post. I have some configuration changes that I like to make it my own.
Series Navigation:
- Previous: Internet
- Next: Productivity Apps
- Series Overview
MenuLibre
The MenuLibre tool makes it easy to add shortcuts that allow you to launch programs from the Unity menu. It is a must have if you install anything manually without using a deb pacakge.
Install:
sudo apt-get install menulibre
Note: If you have shortcuts from an old installation, those would be located in the ~/.local/share/applications directory. (That helped me with shortcuts for which I forgot all of the command line parameters)
Compression
I use the File Roller application usually. But, I wanted the 7zip and rar libraries available:
sudo apt-get install p7zip-full p7zip-rar
Monitor Settings
For my dual screen setup at my desk, I have a few tweaks that I like to make. I can open the “Displays” settings app to make these changes:
- Sticky edges: off
- Launcher placement: only 1 screen
Package Managing Tools
With as much trouble as I am having with the Ubuntu Software app, I want the power of Synaptic.
sudo apt-get install synaptic
Another tool is the Y PPA Manager from Web Upd8:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/y-ppa-manager sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install y-ppa-manager
Compiz Settings Manager
The Compiz Settings Manager is a handy tool to tweak the compiz settings. I installed the compizconfig-settings-manager package from the Software Center.
sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager sudo apt-get install compiz-plugins
If you search for “compiz” in the Unity menu, you can easily open it.
I like the Wobbly Windows, so I enabled that. It requires disabling Snappy Windows, which it will do for you.
Unity Tweak Tool
I installed the Unity Tweak Tool for a few more changes:
sudo apt-get install unity-tweak-tool
Then, under “Panel”, I added the seconds, date, and weekday to the clock. And, I checked “Display remaining battery life”. Under scrolling, I changed the scrollbars to legacy. I don’t like the Overlay ones that hide.
Settings
In the Appearance Settings app, I made 2 changes:
- Show the menus for a window: In the window’s title bar
- Menus visibility: Always displayed
Caffeine
There are times that I don’t want my computer to lock. I am finally installing the caffeine indicator to make that easy.
Previously, you had to add a repository. I found in this bug report, that caffeine has been brought into the main Ubuntu repositories.
sudo apt-get install caffeine
After installing, I added the indicator to the startup applications. I opened “Startup Applications” from the dash. “Caffeine” was already in the list. The indicator was not. I added “caffeine-indicator” to the list.
Resources
Ubuntu 16.04 — Internet
My first step this time around after restoring files was to install the network-related applications. I needed to get back online quickly with being able to talk to people, connect to clients’ VPNs, and hit websites.
Series Navigation:
- Previous: Restoring Files
- Next: Utilities and Configuration
- Series Overview
Ubuntu 16.04 — Restore
This is my first post in the series for installing Ubuntu 16.04 on my Inspiron 17R laptop. In this step, I am mainly just restoring files and putting the data back after formatting the drive.
Series Navigation:
- Next: Internet
- Series Overview
I didn’t take screenshots of the install process. I just basically accepted the defaults.
Restoring files
These are the directories that I restored. Maybe it will give you an idea of things you may want to restore if you do the same thing.
- ~/.ssh: The keys for my remote ssh connections — most important because of backuppc restoring
- ~/Documents: This is where I put all my document files
- ~/Pictures: I have Shotwell pointed at this directory, so it contains all the pictures from my cell phone and digital camera
- ~/GideonTaylor: I keep my work files in a different directory
- ~/.config/google-chrome: The settings for Chrome (extensions, bookmarks, etc) (or, ~/.config/google-chrome-beta)
- ~/.local/share/keyrings: My saved passwords
- ~/.Skype: Skype history
- ~/.remmina: The settings for my remote connections
- ~/.local/share/shotwell: The settings and thumbnails for my photos
- ~/.sword: The downloaded Bible files for Xiphos (and the underlying Sword library)
- ~/.filezilla: The settings for my FTP connections
- ~/.sqldeveloper: The connection settings for SQL developer
- ~/.vim: stores the plugins installed in Gvim
- ~/.vimrc: preferences for Gvim
- /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections: this saves all of my wireless connections and VPN connections
My backup this time was located on an external USB drive. I also had a BackupPC installation, but I didn’t restore a lot from it. For smaller directories/files, just copy and paste works fine. For larger directories, it was better to use grsync, which I installed from Ubuntu Software.
Shortcuts / Menu Entries
I had a couple of items that I had added to help me get to Vmware View machines. Unfortunately, I didn’t remember the exact commandline. Instead of looking it up again, I found that I could copy the .desktop files from the directory:
- ~/.local/share/applications
BackupPC
I’m not going through the whole configuration of the server. In this case, I just need it to connect and begin to back up the laptop after my install.
I checked the version of my apps:
$rsync --version rsync version 3.1.1 protocol version 31
First, SSH is not enabled on Ubuntu 16.04 by default. I had to install it:
sudo apt-get install openssh-server
Then, I generated the keys with this command (left the passphrase blank)
sudo ssh-keygen -t rsa
On my backup server, the backuppc user’s home directory is /var/lib/backuppc (you can confirm in the /etc/passwd file). Using vi, I copied the contents of /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub on the client to /var/lib/backuppc/.ssh/known_hosts. I’m not sure this step worked … on my test I had to remove the pistachio key (maybe I should have done that first):
ssh-keygen -f "/var/lib/backuppc/.ssh/known_hosts" -R pistachio
Then, I opened up /root/.ssh/authorized_keys2 on my laptop (client) and pasted the contents of /var/lib/backuppc/.ssh/id_rsa.pub from the server. In the end, Copy and Paste in a text editor wasn’t good enough. I had to scp the file across between the computers.
I verified security on the directory:
sudo chmod -R go-rwx /root/.ssh
Finally, I tested as the backuppc user on the backup server:
sudo su backuppc ssh -l root pistachio whoami
To troubleshoot, I ran the server with debugging messages as root:
service ssh stop /usr/sbin/sshd -d
Next time, I will configure Backup PC to backup the root .ssh directory to avoid having to reconfigure all of this.
Next Steps
If you want to follow along with my install process, you can check out the next post: Ubuntu 16.04 — Internet.
Resources
Ubuntu 15.04 — Programming
This is a continuation of my series of notes on my install of Ubuntu 15.04 on my laptop. The full list of posts is on this page. Previously, in the last post, I installed some media programs. In this post, I’ll install the programming tools that I use.
Gvim
I really like using the Gvim text editor for many editing tasks. It’s not a full fledged IDE, but it’s great for single files. It’s a simple install from the Software Center — the vim-gnome package.
I have some plugins in my plugin directories and a customized configuration. So, I restored my ~/.vim directory and /.vimrc. I changed the directory for the backup files as well. I have this in my .vimrc:
set bdir=~/.vimtmp set directory=~/.vimtmp
So, I needed to create a ~/.vimtmp directory.
Git
I use Git for tracking my source code changes for a few projects. I don’t work in it that much, so it is nice to have a GUI for certain things. The git-cola package has done that nicely in the past. Installing it also installs the actual git application.
Brackets
I used WebUpd8’s repository to install Brackets:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/brackets sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install brackets
After installing the main application, I installed the “Brackets Git” plugin.
Node JS
I have been doing a bit of web programming, and Node JS seems to come up constantly. For example, everything wants to be installed with bower. I tried to use Bower PHP for a bit, but I quite fighting it. I’ll just install bower even if I don’t have it on my website. I shouldn’t be developing there anyway.
So, this installs: Node JS, the NPM installer, Bower, and Protractor
sudo apt-get install nodejs sudo ln -s /usr/bin/nodejs /usr/bin/node sudo apt-get install npm sudo npm install bower -g sudo npm install -g protractor
Note: For some reason, the package installs node as nodejs. I had to run the ln command to make a link to node. Bower wouldn’t work without that.
Here are the versions:
$ nodejs --version v0.10.25 $ bower --version 1.5.2 $ protractor --version Version 2.2.0
I found that version 0.12 is released, and there are some nice instructions for installing that. I didn’t go down that path.
Java
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install oracle-java7-installer sudo apt-get install oracle-java8-installer
I installed the Oracle 8 installer because SQL Developer says it needs it.
Soap UI
Downloaded from the Soap UI website. Ran
sh SoapUI-x64-5.2.0.sh
Note: didn’t use sudo.
To test from the command-line:
/bin/sh “/home/skp/SmartBear/SoapUI-5.2.0/bin/SoapUI-5.2.0”
I got a core dump, so I tried this:
JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS="" /bin/sh "/home/skp/SmartBear/SoapUI-5.2.0/bin/SoapUI-5.2.0"
I updated my shortcut with MenuLibre to include that variable:
After that, it worked just fine.
JavaFX Scene Builder
Apparently, the Scene Builder from Oracle is gone. Instead Gluon has taken on maintaining a fork of the Scene Builder. They now offer a Linux Deb file on their Download Page.
Ubuntu Make: Eclipse & Android
Since the last time I installed Eclipse, Ubuntu has now come out with Ubuntu Make. So, I decided to give that a whirl.
I ran these commands
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-make umake ide eclipse umake android
The only question that it asked was the path where to install…
Choose installation path: /home/skp/tools/ide/eclipse
Choose installation path: /home/skp/tools/android/android-studio
I was a little disappointment. On the Eclipse Download page, it looks like the version is a little behind.
After opening Eclipse, I installed the plugins from Help > Install New Software. (using Luna – http://download.eclipse.org/releases/luna):
- Collaboration > Command Line Interface for Java Implementation of Git
- Collaboration > Eclipse Git Team Provider
- Collaboration > Eclipse GitHub Integration with task focused interface
- Collaboration > Java Implementation of Git
- Collaboration > Java Implementation of Git – optional Java 7 libraries
- Collaboration > Mylyn Context Connector: Eclipse IDE
- Collaboration > Mylyn Context Connector: Java Development
- Collaboration > Mylyn Context Connector: Plug-in Development
- Collaboration > Mylyn Task List
- Collaboration > Mylyn Task-Focused Interface
- Collaboration > Mylyn Versions Connector: Git
- General Purpose Tools > Swing Designer
- General Purpose Tools > Swing Designer Documentation
- Web, XML, Java EE and OSGi Enterprise Development > Eclipse Web Developer Tools
- Web, XML, Java EE and OSGi Enterprise Development > Eclipse Java Web Developer Tools
- Web, XML, Java EE and OSGi Enterprise Development > Eclipse XML Editors and Tools
- Web, XML, Java EE and OSGi Enterprise Development > Javascript Development Tools
- Web, XML, Java EE and OSGi Enterprise Development > PHP Development Tools
Finally, to make developing with Java FX easier, I installed the e(fx)clipse plugin for Eclipse. Their install page is pretty good and detailed.
I just added two sites to Window > Preferences under Install/Update > Available Software:
- http://download.eclipse.org/efxclipse/updates-released/2.1.0/site
- http://download.eclipse.org/modeling/tmf/xtext/updates/composite/releases/
- http://download.eclipse.org/efxclipse/updates-released/2.0.0/site
- http://download.eclipse.org/efxclipse/updates-released/1.2.0/site
On the Install Dialog (Help > Install Software), I picked e(fx)clipse – install > e(fx)clipse – IDE. Then, I just let it do it’s thing.
I can’t get the 2.0 or the 2.1 versions to install in Luna. I had to install the 1.2 version.
SQL Developer
I downloaded SQL Developer from Oracle’s SQL Developer website. They are on version 4.1.1.19.59 now. I downloaded the “Other Platforms” version. Then, I used the sqldeveloper-package program to install it.
sudo apt-get install sqldeveloper-package make-sqldeveloper-package -b output \ sqldeveloper*.zip sudo dpkg -i sqldeveloper*all.deb
Note: on my first attempt, I got this error:
dpkg-checkbuilddeps: Unmet build dependencies: debhelper (>= 7)
I fixed that with:
sudo apt-get install build-essential
Meld
Meld is an important tool for comparing text files. I use it mostly for comparing source code or programming-related projects, so it fell under this category. It’s an easy install from the Software Center.
Resources
SmartBear Community: Soapui not starting on Ubuntu 15.04
WebUpd8: FIX MISSING LIBGCRYPT11 CAUSING SPOTIFY, BRACKETS AND OTHER APPS NOT TO WORK / INSTALL IN UBUNTU 15.04
Stackoverflow: Where is the JavaFX scene builder gone?
WebUpd8: UBUNTU DEVELOPER TOOLS CENTER RENAMED TO UBUNTU MAKE, SEES NEW RELEASE
Ubuntu Wiki: ubuntu-make
StackOverflow: Installing Bower on Ubuntu