Linux Indya - Linux is not only for Geeks!

Gaming in Linux

ravisagar — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 02:25:55 -0700

Gone are the days when Linux was only used by Geeks. Now a days many people are using Linux as their primary operating system. Another reason is that many Computer Manufacturers now ship their machines with pre-installed Linux Distributions. It reduces the cost to the customers significantly.

Linux can be easily used as the primary system and all kind of day to day softwares like Music Player, Video Player, Word Processing etc can easily be installed on it but some people still complain that installing games is still not possible on linux as most gaming companies either make their games for PS2, Xbox or windows. Linux is usually ignored. What a pitty.

Though this is not true for all the games. Games like Quake can be easily be played on linux. There is a separate package of this game for linux. Apart from that partypoker.com has also become very popular these days. Many of my friends are really hooked to it.

Using Wine linux users can play the windows based games. Though it doesnt work for all the games but if the game is not very graphic intensive then it should surely work with wine and you can enjoy it on your linux system.

Now a days many games can only be played online, which is not really a concern for linux users because they are usually flash based games and works perfectly on linux machine. A Java plugin may also be required for playing such games. so how do you start finding about these games. Well I will leave it up to you. Yes, just go to google.com and typing in online flash games and you will get many sites where you can start playing the games.

In case you can to install the windows based games in linux then you can try to install Wine: www.winehq.org/

Have fun playing!

How to Play DVD in Ubantu

Vinod Dev — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 07:33:38 -0800

Ubuntu will probably not be able to play most of the DVDs that you own. This isn’t because of an oversight on the part of the Ubuntu developers; it’s simply because most DVDs you might buy are encrypted with a system called CSS (Content Scrambling System). While video-player packages such as totem-gstreamer, totem-xine, xine, mplayer, and vlc can all play unencrypted DVDs, to play CSS-encrypted DVDs, you will have to
actually circumvent the encryption scheme. (Note that in certain countries circumventing CSS is not legal, so here is a good place to stop reading and and phone up your attorney before proceeding.)

Ubuntu actually makes this process very simple. The first step is to install one of the aforementioned video-player packages along with the libdvdread3 package, if they aren’t installed, so use your preferred package-installation tool to do so .

After you install libdvdread3, you must run the script it provides to download and install the libdvdcss2 libraries you need. Open a terminal and run the following script:

$ sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/examples/install-css. sh
Password:
--20: 19: 23-- http: //www. dtek. chalmers. se/groups/dvd/deb/libdvdcss2_1. 2. 5-1_
i386. deb
=> ` /tmp/libdvdcss. deb'
Resolving www. dtek. chalmers. se. . . 129. 16. 30. 198
Connecting to www. dtek. chalmers. se| 129. 16. 30. 198| : 80. . . connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response. . . 200 OK
Length: 25, 178 (25K) [ text/plain]

100%[ ====================================>] 25, 178 55. 66K/s

20: 19: 25 (55. 54 KB/s) - ` /tmp/libdvdcss. deb' saved [ 25178/25178]
(Reading database . . . 59605 files and directories currently installed. )
Preparing to replace libdvdcss2 1. 2. 5-1 (using /tmp/libdvdcss. deb) . . .
Unpacking replacement libdvdcss2 . . .
Setting up libdvdcss2 (1. 2. 5-1) . . .

That’s all. Now to play a DVD, just insert it into your computer’s DVD
player. Ubuntu is configured by default to automatically open DVD video with the Totem media player. If you want to toggle that setting, click System ➝ Preferences ➝ Removable Drives and Media, click the Multimedia tab in the window that appears, and check or uncheck the checkbox next to “Play video DVD disks when inserted” . From the window that appear , you can also change the default program used to open DVDs. Just change the default video player from totem to your program of choice.

To start Totem manually, click Applications ➝ Sound & Video ➝ Movie Player, then click Movie ➝ Play Disc to open your movie. Totem provides a simple interface to navigate through a movie—with standard Play/Pause, previous track, and next track buttons on the main window, along with a sliding bar you can use to quickly skip through a movie. When you are finished watching the movie, click Movie ➝ Eject or hit Ctrl-E from within Totem .

How To Take Backup of window system using Linux

Vinod Dev — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 05:23:15 -0800

Linux works nicely with a number of other computer systems, including Windows. With a few simple
commands, Linux will happily safeguard data in those systems as well.
entirely.
For now, here's a quick Samba example. Pretend that you have a Windows PC called
speedy on your network. The user has shared the C: drive with the name SPEEDY_C. I can mount
that share on a Linux system running Samba like this:

smbmount //speedy/speedy_c /mnt/linux_mount_point

Then, I simply back it up to my drive like this:

cd /mnt/linux_mount_point
tar -cvf /dev/st0.

Undertanding Linux Standard Directories

Vinod Dev — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 06:32:03 -0800

This Blog explain Linux Standard Directories . All Linux systems provide a standard set of core directories. The following directories are used to hold programs that must run when you are booting your Linux system, configuration files for those programs, libraries used by those programs, temporary files created by running programs, and so on:
* /: As the top-level directory of a Linux system, this directory must exist so that other directories can be located within it.
* /bin: A directory that holds core applications used by a Linux system.
* /dev: A directory that holds special files, known as device nodes, which are used to access any devices that are attached to your Linux system.
* /etc: A directory that holds system configuration information, contains the files that explain the sequence of applications that execute on a Linux system as part of its boot process, and stores configuration files for some of the applications that are executed by a Linux system.
* /lib: A directory that holds libraries of functions that can be called by other applications.
* /proc: A directory in which the Linux kernel tracks active processes and general status information.
* /sbin: A directory containing applications that are usually executed only by the superuser.
* /sys: A directory in which the Linux kernel tracks the status of system hardware and related hardware interfaces.
* /tmp: A directory that holds temporary files created by various applications on a running system.

You will find these standard directories on most Linux systems, regardless of the type of distribution or the size of the disk they are using.

How to Access Entire Desktop Remotely in Linux

Vinod Dev — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 04:14:47 -0800

There is no doubt that running X applications remotely is useful, but a truly killer feature is the ability to run the entire desktop from a remote computer on your local machine.
To do this, you need to use a feature called the X Display Manager Control Protocol (XDMCP), which is part of X. This protocol allows remote computers to access the GDM/KDM/XDM login program, which then gives access to the remote desktop. If you have a reasonably fast network connection—Ethernet speeds of 10-Mbit or greater are recommended—it is possible for a slow computer to be as responsive as a cutting-edge machine.This is possible because the local box is just a display device, like a television, and all the real work is done on the faster remote machine.

To use XDMCP, you must be running XDM, GDM, or KDM as your login manager on the remote machine. Each display manager has support for XDMCP, and you must turn on that support.

To enable XDMCP in GDM, you need to load the gdmconfig tool. Inside this tool is an XDMCP tab. Turn on XDMCP support by setting the Enable XDMCP option. You can use some additional settings on this tab to fine-tune XDMCP support. After you've made your changes, you must restart GDM.

There is no GUI way to turn on XDMCP in KDM, so you need to edit the kdmrc file on your system. Both a system-wide file (possibly in /etc/kde3/) and a per-user file (in ~/.kde/share/config) exist. Inside kdmrc is an [Xdmcp] section where you need to set the Enable option to true. After you save this change, you must restart KDM.

When you have turned on this support, you can return to your local machine and search the network for computers that are allowing XDMCP connections. To do this, ensure that you are logged out of X and run the following command:

foo@bar:~$ X -broadcast

X will start and the login screen from the remote machine will appear. Now you can log in and use the machine in the same way as if you were sitting in front of it. If you want to connect to a specific machine on the network, you can also run the following command on your local machine (remember to change the IP address to a host that is relevant to your network):

foo@bar:~$ X -query
192.68.0.2

How to Automate your Life in Linux using Cron

Vinod Dev — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 05:41:00 -0800

One of the great benefits of using computers is that they are ideal candidates for performing the uninteresting jobs humans get tired of doing. Most of us would be bored senseless making database
backups everyday, cleaning out disks, updating report files, and managing system logs. These activities are typically linear, mundane processes that are straightforward enough to require little intervention, which makes them ideal candidates for automation.

One of the most fundamental pieces of the toolbox within all Unix-type operating systems is called cron. This small utility is like an alarm clock. When the alarm goes off, it tells the computer to do whatever you have configured it to do. As an example, if you perform a backup every day, you can get cron to perform this for you at a specific time. Another example is if you need to generate a weekly report about a project—cron can generate this report automatically.

An important point to note is that cron does not actually perform these activities itself. cron's only function is to trigger a specific process or series of commands at a certain time. When the specified time occurs, the commands and tools that are needed to complete the activity are run. As such, to automate a process on your computer, you need to determine how you can complete your task with a series of command-line tools. This usually means you need to create a script with the commands for cron to run at specified intervals.

Create a Cronjob

The cron program reads in a special file called a crontab. This file specifies jobs to be run and their times. You can access this file by running:

foo@bar:~$ crontab -e

This command uses the system's default command-line editor so that you can edit the crontab. If you want to set this editor to a different one (such as jed), set the $EDITOR environment variable prior to editing crontab:

foo@bar:~$ export EDITOR=jed

If this is your first use of cron, it is likely that your crontab is empty; unless some special system cronjobs were added (these automatically added crontabs are quite common in a number of Linux tools and utilities). Each cronjob consists of a single line containing the time of the cronjob, as well as the command to run.

A simple example of a crontab entry is:

30 3 1 * * /home/foo/createreport.sh

This example runs a script called createreport.sh at 3:30 a.m. on the first day of each month. The numbers on the left side of the line identify the time at which the script should be run, and the /home/foo/createreport.sh part shows the location and name of the script. It is always important that you use full and absolute paths when referring to scripts and files, as cron does not understand relative paths.

The numbers and stars on the left side of the line are entries in five different columns. Here are the columns, from left to right.

Minutes

This column indicates the minute part of the time in which the cronjob is to be run.

Hours

This column indicates the hour of the job and is given in 23-hour time (0_23). The time between midnight and 1:00 a.m. is the 0 hour.

Day

This is the number of the day in the month when the job is to be run.

Month

This is the month number between 1 and 12.

Day of the week

This is the day of the week, between 0 and 6, where 0 is Sunday.

In this example, you indicated the time as 3:30 a.m., and the day as the first day of the month. The two asterisks (*) show you want to run the script for each time increment in that column—i.e., every day or month. As per the example, the * in the month and day-of-the-week columns means the cronjob will run every month and every day.

When you have finished editing the crontab, saved the file, and exited, the changes are automatically enabled. You can view the entries in the crontab file by running:

foo@bar:~$ crontab -l

You can also remove the entire crontab by using the -r option:

foo@bar:~$ crontab -r

Basic Shell Programming

Vinod Dev — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 06:21:10 -0800

The most popular Linux shell is bash. This stands for Bourne Again Shell, and is named after one of the original UNIX shell designers. bash has a lighter relative, ash, which lacks some features such as command-line histories, but requires substantially less memory and is therefore found in some Linux distributions and on emergency recovery disks. Clones of the standard UNIX shells, sh (the Bourne shell), csh (the c shell), and ksh (the Korn shell) are also available.

Another point to remember is that a shell under Linux (as well as under other UNIX systems, and interestingly enough, under DOS and OS/2) is just another program. You can start another shell from the shell you're in, just like you can start the program ls to get a directory listing. This is significant because many shell scripts are not interpreted by the same type of shell in which you type the command; instead, a different shell is started to process the command. The different shells have different syntaxes. If a program is written using sh but you are running bash, it makes sense that sh would be started when your shell script is started.

What Shell Scripts Are Used For
Shell scripts are actually one of the most common types of programs on all UNIX systems. They are relatively easy to write and maintain, and they can tie together other programs (for example, other shell scripts) to get a lot of work done with one simple command.

Every time you log in to your Linux system, the system executes a shell script before you even see the first $ prompt. Almost all aspects of system startup, including network initialization, are controlled by shell scripts. For a regular Linux system user, shell scripts can make work easier and more productive. For the Linux system administrator, a basic understanding of shell scripts makes all the difference between a well-run and trouble-free Linux system and one that can get really ugly, really fast.

Writing Shell Programs
Shell programs are similar to batch files in the DOS world. Unlike DOS batch files, however, shell programs have much more advanced functionality; they are akin to conventional programming languages. Entire books have been written about most available shells; this chapter covers only bash because it is the most popular, and because it is used by default on Red Hat, Caldera, and most popular Linux distributions.

A Sample Program
The last thing the world needs is another "Hello, World!" program. Instead, I want to show you something useful. For example, suppose you want a nicely formatted printout of what is in the current directory. The code shown below provides a means to do just that (the numbers at the beginning of each line are for your use; they do not actually appear in the code).

01 #!/bin/bash
02 #Sample Program for Practical Linux
03 # www.linuxindya.com
04 # Blog Basic Shell
05 # written by v dev
06 # and checked by ravi
07 # This code comes without warranty of any kind. If it breaks u get
08 # to keep both pieces.
09 ls -l > /tmp/lstemp
10 pr /tmp/lstemp | lpr
11 rm /tmp/lstmp
12 #end of script

This script works best when you're logged in as a regular user rather than system administrator; it assumes that you have a printer installed and correctly configured. Simply put, it executes the commands in the file in sequence. The more interesting aspects of this listing are as follows:

* Line 1 tells the system which shell the system should start to execute the script. This is vital because different shell programs sport different built-in commands.
* Line 9 executes the program ls -l and redirects output to a file in the system temporary directory.
* Line 10 feeds the contents to pr (which breaks the file into pages and, depending on the arguments, numbers the pages, adds a nice header, and so on) and feeds the output of pr to lpr, the system print spooler. The important point here is the redirection of the output of commands, not the commands themselves.
* Line 11 removes the temporary file created in line 3.

How to Recover Root Password

Vinod Dev — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:28:05 -0800

As Linux geeks, we have a responsibility to set a good example and avoid easy passwords. However, if you have to change your password frequently, there's a chance that you'll forget it.

Single-User Mode

1. Boot your computer into single-user mode, which logs you in as the root user, without network connections or server services.
2. Linux mounts only the root filesystem (the / directory) in single-user mode, but you can mount other filesystems manually with the mount command if you need them.
3. Use the passwd command to reset the root password.

To boot your computer in single-user mode, you need to access the kernel command line from your Linux bootloader.

Watch TV on Your Linux Computer

vinod — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 07:01:00 -0800

Every TV hardware that is Tv Tuner is installed in your computer but still your are not able to watch TV on it . so what Next ?
This Blog covers some of the Linux tools you can use to configure your TV tuner and watch TV with it from your Linux desktop.

i) xawtv
The most basic program you can use to watch TV under Linux is xawtv .
With xawtv installed, you could just immediately launch it; however, no channel frequencies for your particular tuner have been configured yet, so you won't be able to tune into a channel. It's possible to configure everything by hand, but xawtv includes a utility called scantv that scans the tuner for available channels (much like the scan function on many car stereos) and generates a configuration file for xawtv. Open up a terminal and type:

$ scantv -o ~/.xawtv

please select your TV norm
0: PAL
1: NTSC
2: SECAM
3: PAL-Nc
4: PAL-M
5: PAL-N
6: NTSC-JP
7: PAL-60
nr ? 1

please select a frequency table
0: us-bcast
1: us-cable
2: us-cable-hrc
3: japan-bcast
4: japan-cable
5: europe-west
6: europe-east
7: italy
8: newzealand
9: australia
10: ireland
11: france
12: china-bcast
13: southafrica
14: argentina
15: australia-optus
16: russia
nr ? 1

scanning channel list us-cable…
1 ( 73.25 MHz): no station
…

2) Zapping

xawtv works fine, but it doesn't have much of a GUI. Zapping is a TV viewing program designed for the GNOME environment, but it will work on either GNOME or KDE. Zapping is already packaged for a number of distributions, so check with your package installation tool first, and if it isn't there, download and compile Zapping from the source package at http://zapping.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/view/Main/Download.

To start Zapping, launch it from your desktop menu or type zapping in a terminal window. Zapping will automatically scan for valid video4linux devices and connect to the first one found. You must initially configure which video standard to use, so click Channels → Video standards and choose your standard from the list (I'm in the United States, so I would choose NTSC). If you have more than one video4linux device in your computer, click Edit → Preferences to open the preferences window, and then click Devices → Video. You can change the video device to use from this window, and click Devices → Audio to change your audio device. One nice feature of Zapping is that it supports OSS as well as ESD and aRts audio output. The preferences window also lets you configure a lot of other general options such as keyboard shortcuts and on-screen display settings.

Next you need to configure the channels for your tuner device. Click Edit → Channels to bring up the channel configuration window. Choose your region from the region drop-down menu, and then click "Automatic station search" to let Zapping search for channels for you. Alternatively you can have Zapping load the channel information from a xawtv configuration file. In this window, you can also assign names for each of the channels and a key binding so you can quickly switch to a certain channel.

You can change channels in the main interface either with the buttons on the toolbar, or by pressing PgUp and PgDown. The + and - keys control the volume. You can even take a quick screenshot with the s key.

How to take Screenshot in Linux

vinod — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 07:30:01 -0800

A picture is worth a thousand words , when you need to document anything . in microsoft window its the one of simple thing we can do .
there are many ways and utilities through which a screen shot can be taken in Linux . In this Blog we are sharing simple way to take Screenshot .

From the Command Line

One of the simplest and most universal ways to take a screenshot is with the import command from the ImageMagick suite of utilities. This is a very common tool, and chances are that ImageMagick is already installed by your distribution; if not, packages should be readily available. import has two major screenshot modes. To take a picture of the entire screen, type:

$ import -window root
screenshot.png

The -window root argument tells import to take a picture of the entire screen. If you type:

$ import
screenshot.png

Your cursor turns into crosshairs, allowing you to drag across the section of screen you want to copy. Once you release the mouse button, the part of the screen that is selected becomes the part import will put into your image. import supports all common image formats used for screenshots, including JPEG, PNG, and BMP (useful for lossless screenshots). All you have to do is name your output file with the file extension you want—import will figure out the rest.

If you want to set a time delay so you can arrange your windows or possibly hide the terminal containing the import command, just preface your import command with sleep. To allow five seconds before a screenshot is taken, type:

$ sleep 5; import -window root
screenshot.png

From Within GNOME

GNOME uses its own screenshot program called gnome-panel-screenshot. This program can be accessed a number of ways, but probably the easiest is to press the Print Screen key on your keyboard. This immediately takes a screenshot of the entire screen and displays a dialog you can use to name and save the screenshot file. To take a picture of the current window, just press Alt–Print Screen instead. This program is also accessible in the panel menu. Click Actions → Take Screenshot. You can even access this program directly from the command line with:

$ gnome-panel-screenshot --delay 5

This command causes GNOME to pause five seconds before taking a screenshot. GNOME then presents you with a dialog so you can choose the filename to save to.

From Within KDE

If you use the KDE desktop, ksnapshot is the KDE alternative to gnome-panel-screenshot and can usually be found within the K Menu → Graphics menu. The GUI allows you to choose a delay, take a screenshot, and choose whether to take the screenshot of the entire desktop or just the current window. You can, of course, also start ksnapshot just by typing ksnapshot in a terminal window or in the Run Command window, which you can access by pressing Alt-F2.