Ubuntu: Questions and Answers (2014)

Software Recommendation

Questions

Q: How to make my own Dropbox / Ubuntu One server at home?

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Does anybody know of any resources that can show me how to make my own "Dropbox, Ubuntu One" server at home?

I really like the idea of these services, but I don't want to put my 'stuff' in the clouds. Ideally, it should have a client that runs on Linux and Windows.

I tried to setup iFolder on my Ubuntu 10.04, but without any success so far.

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User: user1978

Answer by rick

Currently there's not a great open source alternative that's going to work out of the box. The best thing to keep an eye on is the sparkleshare project: http://www.sparkleshare.org/

Hopefully that will grow into a great, do it yourself, alternative.

Answer by henrik

There are actually lots of them.

SparkleShare (deps: git/subversion, mono, python) at github GUI-based sync software.

Versioning: through a source control system, hence it's mutex-based on a central server through a version number.
State: under development
Pros: OSS, mono-based so easily moddable, Cons: user-level process, GC-dependent, ineffective sharing protocol by orders of magnitude as git is primarily for small text files, fairly hard to compile (I tried). Using high-level tools.

lipsync (deps: Unison, rsync) Command-line service-based software.

Versioning: through the rsync delta algoritm. I assume programmer must choose conflict resolution.
State: I can't find its source code, so I have no idea. The only things in his git repo are binaries.
Pros: nice setup, using middle-level tools.

iFolder - Novell's Dropbox. I haven't studied its source yet. I just want to get this edit over with and if people are interested I'll add more.

Versioning:
State: Problematic getting it to even compile on Ubuntu, let alone packages. Here's a detailed install guide.
Pros: Windows X64 client, mature, AD-integration with ACLs, features no other project has started to implement. I think this might be a good starting point. Cons: Novell might not use its public svn repo as the primary repo and only do code-drops. I don't know exactly about this though. Might be too coupled to openSUSE to easily install on Ubuntu. To check out its algorithms.

scp/rcp - deprecated in favor of rsync
DRDB - block device mirroring tools for distributed RAID-1, i.e. a server-variant of dropbox. I haven't checked out its source code yet, but it's linux only. The actual algorithm would probably be easy to combine with the source code in my musings below this software-listing.

Versioning: internal message format over LAN/WAN
State: seems mature enough
Pros: stable enough for linux, Cons: no other operating systems are supported

Right now I'm investigating improving compile-times on a Virtualized Windows 7, where the compile-times on a Windows 7 on metal is 40 s, but virtualized approx 3m 20s. I'm thinking of writing an ioctl driver that is a write-through cache that looks like a ram-disk for selected folders on NTFS.

Using the above software, I think a week's worth of 2-3-person full-time development would produce a usable Alpha that doesn't lose you files by combining the above softwares.

On my system then, the general idea would be;

Mount a virtual drive \?{GUID}, that is the ram-disk and RW-cache. The software creating this virtual drive takes two input parameters (that are vital):
The target folder; this is the SMB folder, so I will be letting the operating system's network stack handle the actual IO. In my case this is in turn the VMWare virtual folder, that has in itself a target on an ext4 drive, but it could easily be your file server using SAMBA/SMB.
The path of the folder to be mounted, e.g. C:\ramdisk

This code for creating virtual volumes be taken from TrueCrypt's code, in /Driver/DriverFilter.c (among other files)

The drive uses SMB/the VMWare/network protocol to fetch data when it starts; it fetches with a low task priority, asynchronously from the network and fills its cache. It could use a simple compacting algorithm and have 1 thread that uses message-box type continuation passing to get great performance. On Windows it could use the normal async IO calls, and on linux it could use the epoll/inotify implementation and take code from nginx.
My service that is the ram-disk mounts the unnamed ramdisk drive as an NTFS folder. All programs can continue writing to C:\ramdisk, or whatever I call it.
Async copy from network still going on. With a read-rate of approx 100 MiB/s and 2 GiB ramdisk, it would be 20.5 s to read all data.

Each call to read would perform an in-CPU calculation of the index into a fixed n:ulong GiB max sized array. It would require conflict resolving though or read-write locks. If we'd implement a conflict-resolve algoritm like those available through Microsoft Sync, we could pass each chunk that conflicts as a message to another conflict resolve-process. Dropbox solves it by creating a new file and naming it "PrevFileName Username's Conflicted Copy (yyyy-MM-dd).ext". Perhaps this could be altered through a small widget, if one is compiling against that single source -- the widget would detect outstanding changes as messages/events and choose the conflict resolution protocol. As such, when programming against a folder in exclusive-mode, the Windows VM could set the widget to 'exclusive'.

This would have these PROs

It would be non-blocking / async
It would make the assumption but not require that one computer will be writing mostly to the files.
It would work for arbitrarily large files
It would work on *nix and Windows by tying together the mentioned projects.
It would work when high read-performance is needed (i.e. the files are physically located on disk)
When the conflicting events are reached, one could provide a user interface app that allows the user to write/download plugins that act sanely for different sorts of events -- i.e. different sorts of files. E.g. a text file could be brought up with Kompare/WinDiff, while a binary would be duplicated and saved as another file.

Answer by dinesh

OwnCloud! sounds like something you're looking for.

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Q: How to create a screencast?

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How can I create a screencast on Ubuntu?

The app I'm looking for has ideally all of these features:

Can record in a format that can be played back easily on any platform and/or accepted by youtube or another popular video site
Can record just a window (instead of the whole screen), possibly selecting it with a mouse click
Can start recording after a configurable delay (e.g., I launch the app and have time to do arrangements to my desktop/window before actual recording starts)

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User: riccardo-murri

Answer by sagarchalise

gtk-recordmydesktop

Adds an easy to use graphical icon on the GNOME toolbar to make a pleasure use and configure the audio and video capture and screencast application recordMyDesktop.

xvidcap

A screen capture enabling you to capture videos off your X-Window desktop for illustration or documentation purposes. It is intended to be a standards-based alternative to tools like Lotus ScreenCam.

Video can be saved in MPEG or AVI files format.

Answer by cassidy-james

I like Byzanz; it records your activity as a GIF file.

It's pretty light and works well, especially for putting a shorter screencast on a webpage or in an email.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fossfreedom/byzanz

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install byzanz

For further information:

How to create animated GIF images of a screencast?

Answer by jorge-castro

This is what I use to make screencasts, the cli command that comes with recordmydesktop

recordmydesktop --width 1920 --height 1200 --full-shots --fps 15 --channels 1 --device hw:1,0 --delay 10

The delay 10 gives me 10 seconds to "prepare" my desktop before it starts recording. When I'm done I hit ctrl+c, then it starts encoding the file.

I have a dual display, and the width/height argument lets me focus recording on one of my monitors. By adjusting this value I can also record onto my second monitor.

Other pointers:

Install screenkey for a slick overview for screencasts.
Ubuntu Screencast Team

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Q: Nautilus Git integration

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Is there any equivalent to TortoiseSVN but for Ubuntu / Git? I'd like to integrate Git commands to Nautilus.

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User: olivier-lalonde

Answer by jelmer

RabbitVCS integrates Git into Nautilus. It is available for Ubuntu from a PPA.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rabbitvcs/ppa

sudo apt-get update

For 11.04 and earlier:

sudo apt-get install rabbitvcs-nautilus

For 11.10 and later:

sudo apt-get install rabbitvcs-nautilus3

You should reload Nautilus after!

Answer by riccardo-murri

This has been proposed already on Ubuntu braninstorm and on GNOME-Look.org but no code seems to be available at the moment.

There is however a GNOME GUI front-end for Git called Giggle which is available in the Ubuntu 10.04 repositories (pre-packaged for other distributions as well, see the web page): apt-get install giggle.

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Q: What developer text editors are available for Ubuntu?

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I'm looking for a text editor for programming in Python, preferably one which is easy to learn for beginners.

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User: thex

Answer by dv3500ea

Geany

Geany is a lightweight IDE that supports python.

Some features that I have found particularly useful include:

Syntax highlighting
Automatic indenting - especially useful for python
Code folding, allowing you to hide parts of your code
Inbuilt syntax checking and execution
Symbol browser
Embedded terminal
Find and replace with regexp support

Answer by drkenobi

Vim

I think Vim is amazing!

Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing. It is an improved version of the vi editor distributed with most UNIX systems.

Although Vim was originally released for the Amiga, Vim has since been developed to be cross-platform, supporting many other platforms. It is the most popular editor amongst Linux Journal readers.

Vim is free and open source software and is released under a license which includes some charityware clauses, encouraging users who enjoy the software to consider donating to children in Uganda. The license is compatible with the GNU General Public License.

Answer by dv3500ea

Gedit

Gedit is a simple but useful text editor that supports syntax highlighting for python. It doesn't have many features out of the box, but is very simple to use. It can be extended with plugins. There is a set of plugins that can be installed from the gedit-plugins package.

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Q: File and directory comparison tool?

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I'm looking for something that will compare directories and files like Beyond Compare does for windows.

Its mainly for use of source control, but I need to use it for deployment as well.

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User: developingchris

Answer by dv3500ea

Meld

Meld is a tool that can compare and merge files and directories. It is a GUI analog to the standard diff and patch command line tools. (See man diff and man patch for more details on those)

Also, lots of source control systems (such as bzr or git ) have the ability to create diffs between versions.

Answer by richm

Diff is your friend.

diff -ur path1 path2

This will compare all files that are common between path1 and path2.

If you change -ur to -urN then that will also show the contents of files that are only present in one of the paths.

Answer by aneeshep

'Beyond Compare' is available for Linux too.

Check their download url: http://www.scootersoftware.com/download.php

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Q: What software can I use to view epub documents?

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What software can I use to view .epub documents?

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User: olivier-lalonde

Answer by karthick87

You can use calibre software for viewing .epub documents.

To install calibre from terminal:

sudo apt-get install calibre

Or click the icon below.

calibre

If you don't want to launch the full calibre client just to view your ebook files you can add a .desktop launcher to calibre's inbuilt ebook viewer:

Create a new .desktop file in ~/.local/share/applications:
gedit ~/.local/share/applications/calibre-ebook-viewer.desktop
Copy and paste the following passage into the file:
#!/usr/bin/env xdg-open
[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Icon=calibre

10.Exec=ebook-viewer

11.Name=Calibre Ebook Viewer

12.Comment=Display .epub files and other ebook formats

13.MimeType=application/x-mobipocket-ebook;application/epub+zip;

14.StartupWMClass=calibre-ebook-viewer

Save the file. You should now be able to launch Calibre's inbuilt ebook viewer both from the dash and through the right click "Open with" menu.

Answer by samizdata

I recommend fbreader. Small, fast, single key page turning. Quite pleasant.

fbreader

Answer by sabacon

Another useful option, try this in Firefox; https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/45281/, a fairly good extension for the Firefox web browser that lets you read .epubs from the browser, especially good since on Ubuntu you are likely to be using Firefox and it is usually kept open when you are using your computer.

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Q: Which PDF Viewer would you recommend?

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Which PDF-Viewer would you recommend to use in Ubuntu?

At the moment I use the standard document viewer (Evince) but I'm missing features like stageless continous zooming.

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User: nes

Answer by karthick87

Here are some good PDF readers:

acroread
xpdf
evince
kpdf
gv
okular

Answer by rolandixor

Try okular . It's a KDE/Qt application, and it has some of the most awesome features of any reader.

Answer by frabjous

I'm going to mention some lesser-known options: MuPDF and Zathura.

These are not feature rich, but they are super-fast, lightweight, and keyboard-driven. It's hard to believe how fast MuPDF is.

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Q: What Application Indicators are available?

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This question exists because it has historical significance, but it is not considered a good, on-topic question for this site, so please do not use it as evidence that you can ask similar questions here. While you are encouraged to help maintain its answers, please understand that "big list" questions are not generally allowed on Ask Ubuntu and will be closed per the help center.

I installed Ubuntu 11.04 on one of my systems and I am using the Unity interface. Unity is working quite well so far but I really miss panel applets for net speed, cpu temp, and system monitor.

These applets are useful for viewing quick info. Unlike 10.10, there is no other way to get this info onto the panel or unity launcher. There are solutions like screenlets and conky but they don't feel appropriate for a clean desktop look.

If you know one then please list out any third party indicators with links so that they can be found.

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User: user8592

Answer by cas

StackApplet

Category: Other

StackApplet is a GNOME panel applet that monitors your activity on any StackExchange site.

Update:

As indicated in comments, the version of StackApplet in the Ubuntu Software Center is old and broken. To install it, use instead this ppa.

The first time the application is used, run

python /usr/share/stackapplet/stackapplet.py &

from a terminal.

For Ubuntu 14.04:

1.5.1 is available on universe repositories

So after enabling universe repositories, It can be installed by following command:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install stackapplet

But it has bug with adding account so upgrade to 1.5.2 as follows:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stackapplet-dev/stackapplet

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install stackapplet

Answer by rapazp

System Load Indicator

Category: System Information

Network, memory and cpu usage indicator; this is a port of the original System Monitor GNOME Panel applet (gnome-system-monitor applet).

In Preferences you can customize the output to fit it to your desktop theme:

To install:

You can install it through the Ubuntu Software Centre by clicking this button:

or through the command line:

sudo apt-get install indicator-multiload

If you want the latest updates, you can install it from the PPA with these commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:indicator-multiload/stable-daily

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install indicator-multiload

Answer by cas

Weather Indicator

Category: Weather Forecasting

Warning. This indicator is not being updated anymore and will probably not work in current versions of Ubuntu.
UPDATE ! Development continues! https://launchpad.net/weather-indicator/+announcement/11516

Displays the current/extended weather, multiple locations and notifications support.

indicator-weatherin Ubuntu Software Centre

or project's PPA: ppa:weather-indicator-team/ppa
Please note! The latest builds of Weather Indicator require updated versions of pywapi, Python Weather API: ppa:pywapi-devel/ppa

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Q: What FLOSS skype alternatives are available?

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Given Skype's slow development speed for the GNU/Linux version and its recent acquisition by Microsoft, I am looking for alternative softwares.

What FLOSS (free/libre/open-source software) Skype alternatives are available?

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User: alaukik

Answer by alaukik

SIP Clients

These all are SIP clients which means they all can be used to call each other and they just need a SIP address (like your mobile number). You can get a SIP address for free from many providers (Ekiga, jit.si, iptel), some of which (sip2sip.info, ippi.com, localphone.com, nonoh.net) also have PSTN gateways into the normal phone network which allows you to make and receive regular calls from/to your SIP client (for a fee). For various reasons some clients may not work with some providers (for example, for Nonoh and Iptel, Blink works but Jitsi, Ekiga, and Linphone don't).

Ekiga (available in the software center)

Here is First use documentation for ekiga .

Here is documentation on how to use the PC to Phone feature in ekiga .

Ekiga (formely known as GnomeMeeting) is an open source SoftPhone, Video Conferencing and Instant Messenger application over the Internet.

SFLphone (available in the software center)

SFLphone is a robust standards-compliant enterprise softphone, for desktop and embedded systems. It is designed to handle several hundreds of calls a day. SFLphone is available under the GNU GPL license, version 3.

Twinkle (available in the software center)

Twinkle is a softphone for your voice over IP and instant messaging communcations using the SIP protocol. You can use it for direct IP phone to IP phone communication or in a network using a SIP proxy to route your calls and messages.

Yate VoIP (available in the software center)

YATE is a telephony engine aimed at creating a telephony server that performs well enough to deal with PBX requirements and also flexible enough for complex Gateway and IVR solutions.

YateClient uses the same telephony code to produce a software desktop VoIP (SIP, H.323, IAX2) phone. yate-qt4 uses this to provide such a telephony

QuteCom (available in the software center)

QuteCom is a community of enthusiasts and developers, creating free software products related to communication over IP. The flagship product of the QuteCom project is a softphone which allows you to make free PC to PC video and voice calls, and to integrate all your IM contacts in one place.

Linphone (available in the software center)

Linphone is an internet phone or Voice Over IP phone (VoIP). With linphone you can communicate freely with people over the internet, with voice, video, and text instant messaging. Linphone makes use of the SIP protocol , an open standard for internet telephony. You can use Linphone with any SIP VoIP operator, including our free SIP audio/video service

Jitsi

Jitsi - Open Source Video Calls and Chat Secure video calls, conferencing, chat, desktop sharing, file transfer, support for your favorite OS, and IM network. All this, and more, in Jitsi - the most complete and advanced open source communicator. Implemented in Java.

Blink

A state of the art, easy to use SIP client Available for Mac, Windows and Linux. Comprehensive controls over the details of the protocol. Blink is the end-result of cumulated knowledge built over many years by its developers who worked on the development of popular open-source SIP infrastructure software and attended relevant IETF and SIPIT events where SIP protocol has been developed and tested 18. Implemented using Qt.

Answer by user4124

You can use Empathy (pre-installed in Ubuntu) instead of Skype.

For users of Windows, OS/X, you can ask them to install Google Voice and Video chat, http://www.google.com/chat/video

Empathy and Google Voice and Video chat are compatible with each other, so you can have voice and video chats!

There is an option for VoIP (SIP) support in Empathy. You install the telepathy-sofiasip package to add SIP support. It might not be excellent yet, however you can get the work done.

In addition, with Empathy you have many additional options (not found in basic Skype), including

you have the option for remote desktop to your IM contacts (pre-installed)
you can SSH to the computer of your contacts (requires package to install)
you can collaborate with your contacts in writing a document with gedit (see gedit-collaborate).

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Q: What IDEs are available for Ubuntu?

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This question exists because it has historical significance, but it is not considered a good, on-topic question for this site, so please do not use it as evidence that you can ask similar questions here. See the FAQ for more information.

This is a community wiki for IDEs available on Ubuntu. Please post one IDE per answer (including more than just a screenshot or a link, please at least put a short description).

In your answer, tell us what the IDE is for (which language(s) or if it is RAD capable).

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User: rolandixor

Answer by wojox

Geany

[Geany] is a text editor using the GTK2 toolkit with basic features of an integrated development environment. It was developed to provide a small and fast IDE, which has only a few dependencies from other packages. It supports many filetypes and has some nice features. My favorite so far.

Supported File Types

Answer by db42

Eclipse

I am surprised that no one mentioned Eclipse. Personally, I use it for Java, C and python.

Quoting from wikipedia:

It is written mostly in Java and can be used to develop applications in Java and, by means of various plug-ins, other programming languages including Ada, C, C++, COBOL, Perl, PHP, Python, R. Ruby (including Ruby on Rails framework), Scala, Clojure, and Scheme. It can also be used to develop packages for the software Mathematica. The IDE is often called Eclipse ADT (Ada Development Toolkit) for Ada, Eclipse CDT for C/C++, Eclipse JDT for Java, and Eclipse PDT for PHP.

Answer by nitstorm

Netbeans

The latest version is Netbeans 7.2.1

It supports quite a few languages, web services and databases. RAD is definitely supported for Swing components. Just gotta draw the boxes required and then double click on a segment to write its code. The interface is easy to use and is pretty intuitive. Nothing that puzzles you or anything. Also there are a lotta plugins you can choose from too. It's a power-packed IDE and it's more fun when you use it. Loads of cool features which you just can't type it out, but have to try it out to experience the fun :)

Supported Tecnologies:

Skip code block

Java EE 6, Java EE 5 and J2EE 1.4

Java ME SDK 3.0

Java Card 3 SDK

Struts 1.3.8

Spring 3.0, 2.5

Hibernate 3.2.5

Java API for RESTful Web Services (JAX-RS) 1.1

Java Wireless Toolkit 2.5.2 for CLDC

Issue Tracking

Bugzilla 3.4 and earlier

Jira 3.4 and earlier

C/C++/Fortran

PHP 5.3, 5.2, 5.1

Groovy 1.6.4

Grails 1.1

Apache Ant 1.8.1

Apache Maven 2.2.1 or later

VCS

CVS: 1.11.x, 1.12.x

Subversion: 1.5.x, 1.6.x

Mercurial: 1.5

ClearCase V7.0

Git 1.7.

Tested application servers:

GlassFish Server Open Source Edition 3.1

WebLogic 11g PS3 (10.3.4)

Known to run application servers:

GlassFish Enterprise Server v2.1.1

Tomcat 7.0.11

JBoss 6.0

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Q: How do I download a YouTube video?

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For a school project I need to download three youtube videos and save them to a CD. I am running Ubuntu 10.10; can anybody provide instructions on how to do this? I'm fairly new to Ubuntu so the more detail the better.

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User: cathy

Answer by pedram

For Firefox Users:

You can install Video DownloadHelper addon on firefox and download any embedded object including Youtube videos.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/video-downloadhelper/

Answer by shekhar-raut

Run

sudo apt-get install youtube-dl

to install command line mode downloader for YouTube.

Then run

youtube-dl YouTube-video-link

so it will download the video.

Answer by uri-herrera

Why did no one mention Minitube ?

Minitube is a YouTube desktop application. With it you can watch YouTube videos in a new way: you type a keyword, Minitube gives you an endless video stream. Minitube is not about cloning the original YouTube web interface, it aims to create a new TV-like experience.

It does not require the Flash Player. From this application you can watch and download videos.

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Q: Is there a Google Drive client available?

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I'd like to install a Google Drive client for Xubuntu (12.04).

I'm getting non-English Google results, and I didn't find grive in the Xubuntu repositories.

Does anyone know of a client that works well for Ubuntu or it's supported derivates (or installation instructions for grive?)

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User: eyal

Answer by eyal

Apparently grive exists on a ppa - I installed it and it works reasonably well. This is preferable in my opinion over the google-docs-fs solution, since that doesn't put your files permanently on your drive, and grive does. Also, grive isn't a commercial venture like InSync - which is described as "free during beta".

The PPA for grive can be found on webupd8's site using these instructions:

http://www.webupd8.org/2012/05/grive-open-source-google-drive-client.html

One limitation that the current version of grive has is that it doesn't automatically sync your drive directory. But I found this blog post describing a script to fix this and make grive sync whenever a file in the drive directory is changed.

(This answer is originally based on @uri's comment, which has since disappeared)

Answer by hexafraction

Unfortunately, Not with an official client. An unofficial driver exists online.

Note that there is no 12.04 PPA. I've contacted the maintainer asking for one to be made.

There is currently no official Linux client supported by Google.

For Linux

Google Drive isn't currently available for the Linux operating system. Linux users can still access Google Drive on the web drive.google.com New Window or through the Google Drive mobile app.

Refer to http://support.google.com/drive/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2375082

There is an unofficial Gdrive FS in a PPA:

execute sudo add-apt-repository ppa:invernizzi/google-docs-fs to add the PPA.
once the command finishes, run sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install google-docs-fs to install GdriveFS. Please be patient as this step may take a while.
Create a folder within your home folder called "Drive".
Execute: gmount Drive username@gmail.com, replacing your username as necessary, to mount your Google Drive. This must be run in a terminal. Test show that this application works fine, and is filemanager-independent, being an FS driver.

Answer by orangetux

OmgUbuntu posted an article about Google Drive and Ubuntu recently.

InSync

Note: as of time of answering, this app is still in beta.

Download the Insync.tar.gz
Extract to your Home folder
Open a new terminal and navigate into the extracted Insync folder using the cd > command (e.g. cd insync/)
Run: sudo ./insync-installer Follow any on-screen prompts

After installing there are a few other things to note: After installation

Insync must be started from the Terminal by running insync
The app doesnt auto-start by default, and there is no in-app way to enable > this

Update

There is a Ubuntu package from the Download page which installs (via software centre by default), configures an update repository, optionally installs file browser integration and starts InSync.

google-docs-fs

This app mounts your drive so you can thread it like a file system. Instructions come from OmgUbuntu.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:invernizzi/google-docs-fs
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install google-docs-fs

Once everything thats needed has been installed log out and back in.

Open Nautilus
Create a new folder in your Home folder titled Drive
Open a Terminal and run: -
gmount Drive username@gmail.com
Input your password

Your Google Drive is now mounted in the Drive folder

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Q: Slap me when I stop working

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On Mac OS X I have an app that plays a sound when I enter certain sites. I want a similar software to use on Linux. Does anybody know one?

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User: ademar111190

Answer by medigeek

Here's a workaround:

sudo apt-get install mpg321 wmctrl

while [ 1 ]; do z=$(wmctrl -l -p | grep -i 'facebook\|miniclip'); if [ -n "$z" ]; then mpg321 myfile.mp3; fi; sleep 5; done

This will play myfile.mp3 if any open current window title matches "facebook" or "miniclip".

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Q: Is there a power saving application similar to Jupiter?

Tags: software-recommendation power-management (Next Q)

I have installed the 13.04 final release and so far I am loving it more 12.10. I'm trying to install the Jupiter power settings app but, I read it is no longer compatible with the new kernel. Is there a similar program or a way to manage the power settings on 13.04?

Tags: software-recommendation power-management (Next Q)

User: michael-scott

Answer by qasim

Improve Power Usage / Battery Life In Linux With TLP

Overview

TLP brings you the benefits of advanced power management for Linux without the need to understand every technical detail. TLP comes with a default configuration already optimized for battery life, so you may just install and forget it. Nevertheless TLP is highly customizable to fulfil your specific requirements.

Features

Skip code block

Kernel laptop mode and dirty buffer timeouts

Processor frequency scaling including "turbo boost" / "turbo core"

Power aware process scheduler for multi-core/hyper-threading

Hard disk advanced power magement level and spin down timeout (per disk)

SATA aggressive link power management (ALPM)

PCI Express active state power management (PCIe ASPM) Linux 2.6.35 and above

Runtime power management for PCI(e) bus devices Linux 2.6.35 and above

Radeon KMS power management Linux 2.6.35 and above, not fglrx

Radeon dynamic power management Kernel 3.11 and above, not fglrx

Wifi power saving mode depending on kernel/driver

Power off optical drive in drive bay (on battery)

Audio power saving mode hda_intel, ac97

Also Check Additional functions

Installation

Also Check Prerequisites

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linrunner/tlp

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install tlp tlp-rdw smartmontools ethtool

ThinkPads

sudo apt-get install tp-smapi-dkms acpi-call-tools tlp tlp-rdw smartmontools ethtool

tlp-rdw Radio Device Wizard - Need to enable/disable & Power saving (Wifi / Bluetooth )

smartmontools - needed by tlp-stat to display disk drive S.M.A.R.T. data

ethtool - needed to disable wake on lan

tp-smapi-dkms ThinkPad only, tp-smapi is needed for battery charge thresholds and ThinkPad specific status output of tlp-stat

acpi-call-tools ThinkPad only, acpi-call is needed for battery charge thresholds on Sandy Bridge and newer models

Additional

TLP Indicator for Unity A Unity Indicator created to comfortably switch between AC and BAT Modes. Use it at your own risk. Download here: indicator-TLP.py

Configuration

Removing default Ubuntu cpu frequency config

sudo update-rc.d -f ondemand remove

TLP Developer

( This is not a general prerequisite for TLP but is only needed if the user decides to change the default governor. If a user issues the command without changing the TLP setting too, he ends up with "perfomance", which is quite bad for battery life.), Apply to section 3.) Processor and Frequency Scaling

The main config file of TLP is at /etc/default/tlp

sudo -i gedit /etc/default/tlp

Parameters

General hints:

Parameters ending on _AC are effective with the power supply connected
Parameters ending on _BAT are effective when running on battery
Parameters containing blanks must be enclosed in double quotes like this: ""
Some parameters are inactive by default; remove the leading '#' to activate

0.) General

TLP_ENABLE=1

Set to 0 to disable TLP (Reboot needed), It should be enabled so leave the default value

1.) File System

DISK_IDLE_SECS_ON_AC=0

DISK_IDLE_SECS_ON_BAT=2

DISK_IDLE_SECS_ON_BAT=2 = You can either leave the default value (2) or you can edit it as 5, By default Ubuntu uses 5, its up to you, read the gives below help

cat /usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/laptop-mode

This controls how agressive the system is at trying to avoid writing to disk. The longer the disk is idle, the more power you can save.

This is only active on battery power, and it restores these values to kernel defaults when on AC power.

Defaults 5, which enables laptop mode and forces the system to wait 5 seconds whenever something asks to write to disk to flush out as much data as we can.

2.) Dirty page values

MAX_LOST_WORK_SECS_ON_AC=15

MAX_LOST_WORK_SECS_ON_BAT=60

Leave the default value

Defaults 60, which means that the kernel will not start forcing process to write out file information that has been changed but not saved until 60% of usable system memory is filled with dirty information.

3.) Processor and Frequency Scaling

CPU_SCALING_GOVERNOR_ON_AC=ondemand

CPU_SCALING_GOVERNOR_ON_BAT=powersave

Remove the hash and edit it as conservative.

Its up to you what you want, you can also use ON_BAT=powersave

Select a cpu frequency scaling governor: ondemand/powersave/performance/conservative

Governor ??

The governor decides what frequency should be used.

Module Description:

ondemand Dynamically switch between CPU(s) available if at 95% cpu load

performance Run the cpu at max frequency

conservative Dynamically switch between CPU(s) available if at 75% load

powersave Run the cpu at the minimum frequency

TLP Developer

To use "conservative" over "powersave especially on AC should not be a general recommendation but only an option for hardware that produces excessive heat or fan noise.

4.) Min/Max frequency

#CPU_SCALING_MIN_FREQ_ON_AC=0

#CPU_SCALING_MAX_FREQ_ON_AC=0

#CPU_SCALING_MIN_FREQ_ON_BAT=0

#CPU_SCALING_MAX_FREQ_ON_BAT=0

Set the min/max frequency available for the scaling governor. Possible values strongly depend on your cpu. For available frequencies see tlp-stat output, Section "+++ Processor".

Hint: Parameters are disabled by default, remove the leading # to enable them, otherwise kernel default values are used.

5.) Turbo Boost

CPU_BOOST_ON_AC=1

CPU_BOOST_ON_BAT=0

Set the cpu "turbo boost" feature: 0=disable / 1=allow ,Requires an Intel Core i processor and kernel 3.7 or later.

Important: This may conflict with your distribution's governor settings, A value of 1 does not activate boosting, it just allows it

6.) Cpu Cores/Hyper-Threads

SCHED_POWERSAVE_ON_AC=0

SCHED_POWERSAVE_ON_BAT=1

Minimize number of used cpu cores/hyper-threads under light load conditions

7.) Kernel

NMI_WATCHDOG=0

Activate kernel NMI watchdog timer (0 = disabled/save power, 1=enabled). A value of 1 is relevant for kernel debugging only.

8.) Hard disk advanced power management level

DISK_APM_LEVEL_ON_AC="254 254"

DISK_APM_LEVEL_ON_BAT="128 128"

Set the "Advanced Power Management Level". Possible values range between 1 and 255:

1 max power saving / minimum performance

Important: this setting may lead to increased disk drive wear and tear because of excessive read-write head unloading (recognizable from the clicking noises)

128 compromise between power saving and wear (TLP standard setting on battery)

192 prevents excessive head unloading of some HDDs

254 minimum power saving / max performance (TLP standard setting on ac)

255 disable APM (not supported by some disk models)

Different values for multiple disks are separated with blanks.

9.) Disk I/O Scheduler

#DISK_IOSCHED="cfq cfq"

Select io scheduler for the disk devices: noop/deadline/cfq (Default: cfq) Separate values for multiple devices with spaces.

noop is often the best choice for memory-backed block devices (e.g. ramdisks) and other non-rotational media (flash) where trying to reschedule I/O is a waste of resources

deadline is a lightweight scheduler which tries to put a hard limit on latency

cfq tries to maintain system-wide fairness of I/O bandwidth

10.) SATA aggressive link power management (ALPM):

min_power/medium_power/max_performance

SATA_LINKPWR_ON_AC=max_performance

SATA_LINKPWR_ON_BAT=min_power

ALPM Aggressive Link Power Management (ALPM) is a mechanism where a SATA AHCI controller can put the SATA link that connects to the disk into a very low power mode during periods of zero I/O activity and into an active power state when work needs to be done. Tests show that this can save around 0.5-1.5 Watts of power on a typical system. ( For more check " Sources and additional help " )

11.) PCI Express Active State Power Management (PCIe ASPM):

( default/performance/powersave )

Hint: needs kernel boot option pcie_aspm=force on some machines

PCIE_ASPM_ON_AC=performance

PCIE_ASPM_ON_BAT=powersave

12.) Radeon graphics clock speed

(profile method): low/mid/high/auto/default

auto = mid on BAT, high on AC; default = use hardware defaults (Kernel >= 2.6.35 only, not with fglrx driver!)

#RADEON_POWER_PROFILE_ON_AC=high

#RADEON_POWER_PROFILE_ON_BAT=low

13.) WiFi power saving mode

1=disable/5=enable

(Linux 2.6.32 and later, some adapters only!)

WIFI_PWR_ON_AC=1

WIFI_PWR_ON_BAT=5

14.) Disable wake on lan

Y = Yes , N = No

WOL_DISABLE=Y

15.) Audio power saving for Intel HDA

Enable audio power saving for Intel HDA, AC97 devices (timeout in secs). A value of 0 disables / >=1 enables power save.

SOUND_POWER_SAVE=1

Disable controller too (HDA only): Y/N

SOUND_POWER_SAVE_CONTROLLER=Y

16.) Power off optical drive in UltraBay >> (ThinkPads only)

Set to 1 to power off optical drive in UltraBay (ThinkPads only), when running on battery. A value of 0 disables this Feature (Default). Drive can be powered on again by releasing (and reinserting) the eject lever or by pressing the disc eject button on newer models. Note: an UltraBay hard disk is never powered off.

BAY_POWEROFF_ON_BAT=1

Optical drive device to power off (default sr0)

BAY_DEVICE="sr0"

17.) Runtime Power Management for pci(e) bus devices

RUNTIME_PM_ON_AC=on

RUNTIME_PM_ON_BAT=auto

Runtime PM for all pci(e) bus devices

RUNTIME_PM_ALL=1

Runtime PM for all pci(e) bus devices: 0=disable / 1=enable, Warning: experimental option, could cause system instabilities

Some times my usb mouse dongle didn't work when i plug it in usb 3 port, work fine when i plug it in usb 2 port, and all my usb 3 devices are working properly no issue.

18.) Usb autosuspend

Set to 0 to disable/1 to enable usb autosuspend feature

USB_AUTOSUSPEND=1

19.) System Start and Shutdown

RESTORE_DEVICE_STATE_ON_STARTUP=0

Restores radio device state (builtin bluetooth, wifi, wwan) from previous shutdown on system startup:

0 disable, 1 enable

DEVICES_TO_DISABLE_ON_STARTUP="bluetooth wifi wwan"

Disables builtin radio devices upon system start:

bluetooth

wifi Wireless LAN

wwan Wireless Wide Area Network (UMTS)

Multiple devices are separated with blanks.

I have an error that my Blue tooth device is not Disabled on start up, so if you face this problem just do the following config

sudo nano /etc/rc.local

And add the following line before exit 0

rfkill block bluetooth

Save & Exit & Reboot

Working with TLP

After installation TLP will be automatically activated upon system start.

To start it immediately without reboot or to apply changed settings use:

sudo tlp start

Use the tlp-stat terminal command to check if TLP is working properly

sudo tlp-stat

Check You system temperature

sudo tlp-stat -t

Show battery information only:

sudo tlp-stat -b

sudo tlp-stat --battery

Show configuration only:

tlp-stat -c

tlp-stat --config

Show radio devices switch state only:

tlp-stat -r

tlp-stat --rfkill

Show temperatures and fan speed only:

tlp-stat -t

Apply Battery Settings (ignoring the actual power source):

sudo tlp bat

Apply AC Settings (ignoring the actual power source):

sudo tlp ac

You can check Which I/O you are using.

sudo tlp-stat # Check the section +++ Storage Devices

Trace Mode

To examine suspected problems in TLP more closely, activate trace mode in /etc/default/tlp:

TLP_DEBUG="lock nm path pm rf run sysfs udev usb"

Add above mentioned line in the end /etc/default/tlp , The accumulated trace data may be read at any time with

tlp-stat -T

grep "tlp" /var/log/debug

In case the trace output is missing, you have to modify your rsyslogd configuration. Create the file /etc/rsyslog.d/90-debug.conf containing

*.=debug;\

auth,authpriv.none;\

news.none;mail.none -/var/log/debug

And restart the daemon

sudo /etc/init.d/rsyslog restart

Sources and additional help

There is very good support at TLP Website

Useful Config Link 1

TLP Settings

ALPM

Optional tweaks

Tweak your CPU frequency with indicator-cpufreq

Installation

indicator-cpufreq will help you change your CPU frequency on the go:

sudo apt-get install indicator-cpufreq

Go to Dash > search for Startup > edit indicator-cpufreq add -f or copy paste the following command:

indicator-cpufreq -f

Screenshot

With the indicator you will be able to monitor your current CPU frequency & can change CPU frequency

Changing CPU frequency

Click on indicator

Additional Advice

VA-API (Hardware Acceleration For Intel / AMD GPUs)

Overview

The main motivation for VA-API (Video Acceleration API) is to enable hardware accelerated video decode/encode at various entry-points (VLD, IDCT, Motion Compensation etc.) for the prevailing coding standards today (MPEG-2, MPEG-4 ASP/H.263, MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, and VC-1/VMW3). Extending XvMC was considered, but due to its original design for MPEG-2 MotionComp only, it made more sense to design an interface from scratch that can fully expose the video decode capabilities in today's GPUs.

Help full Links

webupd8

Official Intel Drivers are using VA-API

Support video codecs

Install Intel / AMD VA-API drivers in Ubuntu

for Intel GPUs (for Intel HD Graphics as well as G45 and later):

sudo apt-get install i965-va-driver libva-intel-vaapi-driver vainfo

for AMD Radeon GPUs (you also need the proprietary drivers!):

sudo apt-get install xvba-va-driver vainfo

Install MPlayer with VA-API support in Ubuntu

By default, the MPlayer version available in the official Ubuntu repositories doesn't support VA-API, but you can use a PPA which provides custom MPlayer builds with VA-API support.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sander-vangrieken/vaapi

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install mplayer-vaapi

Now you need to install smplayer or vlc

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rvm/smplayer

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install smplayer

sudo apt-get install vlc

Configuration

SMPLAYER

Its in Option tab > Preferences, on the Video tab > General Video > Output driver set the video output driver to "vaapi":

VLC

Its in Tools > Preferences > Input & Codecs > Enable Use GPU Accelerated decoding

Helpful Links

How to correctly enable/test VA-API on Intel Sandy Bridge ?

Command line flag for mplayer to use hardware acceleration?

PowerSavingTweaks for Intel Graphics

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

change:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

to:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=""quiet splash intel_pstate=disable i915.lvds_downclock=1 drm.vblankoffdelay=1 i915.semaphores=1 i915_enable_rc6=1 i915_enable_fbc=1"

and run:

sudo update-grub

Helpful Links

3x+ battery life

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