Ubuntu Blog

Howto Install Kde 4.3.1 In Ubuntu Jaunty

2009-09-06T06:59:00.001-07:00

Kde 4.3.1 is released with a couple improvements and bug fixes.

Some notable changes from complete changelog :

*KDE 4.3 is now also available in Croatia.

*A crash when editing toolbar setup has been fixed.

*Support for transferring files through SSH using KIO::Fish has been fixed.

*A number of bugs in KWin, KDE's window and compositing manager has been fixed.

*A large number of bugs in KMail, KDE's email client are now gone.

Installing KDE 4.3.1 in Ubuntu Jaunty:

Open your sources.list:

$gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

and add the following repository at the end of the file. Save the file when you are done:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/backports/ubuntu jaunty main

Add GPG keys:

$gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv 2836CB0A8AC93F7A

$gpg --export --armor 2836CB0A8AC93F7A | sudo apt-key add -

Now you can update your list and do a dist-upgrade to upgrade to KDE 4.3.1 :

$sudo apt-get update

$sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Canonical Unveils The Ubuntu Software Store!

2009-08-28T04:53:00.001-07:00

Yesterday Canonical finally gave a name to their latest application center. It is now called “Ubuntu Software Store” and package’s name is software-store. It will be the major handling of Ubuntu’s overall software. At the moment packages affected by software-store are:

aptoncd, computer-janitor, computer-janitor-gtk, gdebi, gnome-app-install, software-properties-gtk, software-store, synaptic, update-manager

In the future it will grow to replace Synaptic, gdebi, some parts of the Computer Janitor, and possibly Update Manager (This is an official statement, not my opinion! :) ). However this is not going to be archived at the upcoming release, Ubuntu Karmic Koala.

To contribute to the development, you can read the official wiki.

Screenshots of the Ubuntu Software Store:

Caffeine 0.3 is Out with Major Improvements

2009-08-27T16:49:00.001-07:00

Caffeine is a little application that sits in your system tray, waiting for you to click it. Once you do, it fills up with coffee and keeps your computer from going to sleep or activating the screensaver. Caffeine is very handy for full screen games, watching a flash video, downloading something or so.

What’s new in Caffeine 0.3?

* Complete object-oriented rewrite.

* Support for xscreensaver

* Support for DPMS

* Full support for internationalization

* Command-line interface

* Simplification of packaging

You can also check Caffeine’s roadmap by clicking here.

Download Caffeine 0.3:

Edit your sources.list and add Caffeine Launchpad PPA to your list:

$gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

And add the following at the end of the file:

For Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/caffeine-developers/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/caffeine-developers/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

For Ubuntu Karmic Koala

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/caffeine-developers/ppa/ubuntu karmic main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/caffeine-developers/ppa/ubuntu karmic main

Save and close it.

Add the PPA key by entering :

$sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 569113AE

Update your system / list :

$sudo apt-get update

Install Caffeine with this command :

$sudo apt-get install caffeine

Tested and works great on Ubuntu Karmic Koala Alpha 4.

Skype 2.1 Beta for Linux

2009-08-27T16:26:00.001-07:00

Today Skype released their latest client, 2.1 Beta for linux. This release comes with high quality video and super wideband audio that have been exciting features of Windows and Mac version. This release is quite important for linux platforms since it supports Pulseaudio.

What is new in this release?

* Skype's SILK codec for outstanding sound quality

* High Quality Video

* PulseAudio

* Send SMS messages

* Organise your contacts with contact groups

* Improvements to chat (typing indicator, new emoticons and message editing)

Download Skype 2.1 Beta:

You can get the latest .deb package by going here, and selecting your Ubuntu version.

One Click Multi Rapidshare Uploader

2009-08-23T06:15:00.000-07:00

Yestarday darthrax released his latest Rapidshare Multi Uploader script. The script uploads your files (Right Click Uploader!) to your Rapidshare account easily. There are tons of downloaders (see Jdownloader) for Rapidshare but not many uploading scripts like this one, especially with multi file support!

This script will compress your selected files as rar (99mb per file, it will split the files, if they are bigger than 99mb.), upload them then delete the rar files after upload.

Incase you do not have rar package installed, this is a good time to install it:

$sudo apt-get install rar

You also need zenity package which is pre-installed with ubuntu:

$sudo apt-get install zenity

Navigate to your ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts folder and copy rsapi.pl (You can download this file from rapidshare, or see below) as .rsapi.pl:

$cd ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts
$wget -c https://dl.getdropbox.com/u/612498/rsapi.pl && mv rsapi.pl .rsapi.pl && chmod +x .rsapi.pl

Now download RapidUpload script and save it to ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts:

$cd ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts
$wget -c https://dl.getdropbox.com/u/612498/RapidUpload && chmod +x RapidUpload

Now edit ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/RapidUpload script and change username and password parts:

$gedit ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/RapidUpload

You are going to change this part with your username password:

rapidshareusername=username 
rapidsharepassword=password

Save it when you are done.

If you do not have a Rapidshare premium account, open RapidUpload and change

accounttype=prem

part with accounttype=col (collector's account), or accounttype=free (free user = anonymous)

PS : It is under rapidsharepassword=password part

You can now Right Click any file(s), and select Scripts > RapidUpload to upload your files.

Tested on Ubuntu Karmic Alpha 4, Ubuntu Jaunty, Crunchbang Linux.

Have fun!

Is ID Software Abandoning Linux?

2009-08-23T01:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was surfing at ubuntuforums.org and saw very interesting thread about ID software and the future of their Linux ports. As you know, ID Software was(?!) the biggest company that supports Linux and produces Linux ports to their games. Naikon89 sent two e-mails to John Carmack, and according the replies of John Carmack, id software (owned by Zenimax now) is abondoning linux ports. Here is direct link to the thread at ubuntuforums.org and the two e-mails John Carmarck replied :

> Dear Mr Carmack, I am just wondering if the graphics renderer for
> Rage is still
> built using OpenGL 3.* as a target? Will id still port to Linux if
> user numbers are
> small or not as big as say Mac OS or Windows?
>
> Gratzi,
> naikon89

The PC and Mac versions are still OpenGL 2.x.

We are not currently scheduling native linux ports.  It isn't out of the 
question, but I don't think we will be able to justify the work.  If 
there are hundreds of thousands of linux users playing Quake Live when 
we are done with Rage, that would certainly influence our decision...

John Carmack

Follow up :

> Ok, it must be alot more difficult to port
> than older id software games :(

Yes, it is.  The codebase is much, much larger, and the graphics 
technology pushes a lot of paths that are not usually optimized.  It 
probably wouldn't be all that bad to get it running on the nvidia binary 
drivers, but the chance of it working correctly and acceptably anywhere 
else would be small.  If you are restricted to it only working on the 
closed source drivers, you might as well boot into windows and get the 
fully tested and tuned experience...

John Carmack

Ear Candy, A Nice PulseAudio Volume Manager

2009-08-22T01:31:00.000-07:00

Ear Candy is a cool PulseAudio volume manager, it will automatically mute your music when a video(Youtube, local movie, whatever) starts or when a skype calls in. It is a sound level manager that nicely fades applications in and out based on their profile and window focus.

What works now:

- All volume adjustments are fades
- Fade out music/video players on skype call
- Fade to music player with focus when more than one
- Fade out music player when video playing
- Push sound to USB headsets on plugin
- Categories to assign to clients
- Sniffs desktop files to guess application category ... music/video/VoIP
- Simplified pref UI for creating rules
- Volume sniffing to fix youtube video issue
- PID matching
- Reset volumes for streams on exit (so streams dont get stuck at a low level)

Whats being worked on:

- Optional plugins, allowing pause of banshee / rhythmbox etc via DBUS
- Global mute of managed streams

Installation:

Open your sources.list and add the Launchpad PPA:

$gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

And add the PPA at the end of the file:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/flimm/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/flimm/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Change jaunty part with your ubuntu version.

Add the PPA key:

$sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 6E73CA45

Update and install ear candy:

$sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install earcandy

You can run Ear Candy with $ear_candy command, add it to start up and add application rules.

Pidgin 2.6.1 is Out With Voice and Video Support!

2009-08-22T00:10:00.000-07:00

Pidgin developers gave a promise to develop voice and video support for Pidgin since 2005 (a.k.a Gaim). Pidgin 2.6 is out now with voice and video support (Navigate to Pidgin changelog). Today we are going to install Pidgin 2.6.1 from Launchpad PPA.

Installation:

Open your sources.list and add the repository (this PPA is for dependencies):

$gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

And add the PPA at the end of the file:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kalon33/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/kalon33/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Change jaunty part with your ubuntu version (jaunty, karmic, intrepid etc) before saving the file.

Add the PPA key:

$sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 0C48D1BF

Also add this PPA for Pidgin (Only Jaunty Package):

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/korin43/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/korin43/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Add the PPA key:

$sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys EDC35A97

Update your list:

$sudo apt-get update

Install Pidgin:

$sudo apt-get install pidgin

Video and Voice options are under Conversation window > Conversation > Media

Have fun!

Finally Quake LIVE is Available for Linux!

2009-08-19T04:15:00.001-07:00

Today ID Software finally releases Quake LIVE client for linux and mac(0.1.0.256). You can go to the website, register an account and download the plugin for Firefox(1.4MB). Do not forget to restart your browser after installing the extension to continue the installation process.

What is Quake LIVE?

Quake Live is a browser plugin-based first person shooter video game developed by Id Software. It is a variant of its predecessor, Quake 3 Arena, running a slightly updated version of this game's engine. The focus is on usability enhancements rather than graphical upgrades, including the plug-in that runs compile code on the user's processor and a more streamlined heads-up display.

Don't expect any graphical wonders from this game; based on a title released in 1999, it's meant to have a quick and simple installation procedure for casual gaming or maybe aid team-bonding through lunch break tournaments.

Update: If voices are distorted, run s_mixahead 0.3 in command line (in-game command line). I had this issue on Ubuntu Karmic Alpha 4.

Howto Change Notification Colors in Ubuntu Jaunty

2009-08-18T04:49:00.001-07:00

I really like Ubuntu Jaunty's notification system, which looks cool. However it lacks of customization and the notification system (notify-osd) may suck at some themes and wallpapers. Today we will change the color of notify-osd with a simple dirty hack :)

First let's install the dependencies:

$sudo apt-get install build-essential libnotify-bin

Now it is time to get required libraries to build notify-osd:

$sudo apt-get build-dep notify-osd

Create a tmp directory to work inside :

$mkdir ~/tmp ## It is under your home directory = /home/USERNAME ##

Navigate to newly created tmp directory and start working :

$cd ~/tmp && apt-get source notify-osd

After this operation (apt-get source), notify-osd-0.9.11 directory will be created under tmp directory.

Download this patch and apply it :

$cd ~/tmp/notify-osd-0.9.11/src
$wget -c https://dl.getdropbox.com/u/612498/notify-color-hack.patch
$patch < notify-color-hack.patch

You should get this output :

duyq@duyq-laptop:~/tmp/notify-osd-0.9.11/src$ patch < notify-color-hack.patch 
patching file bubble.c
patching file main.c

If you do not get any errors, it is now time to configure notify-osd:

$cd ~/tmp/notify-osd-0.9.11 && ./configure --prefix=/usr
$make

Before installing it, test and customize it:

Create .notify-osd under your home directory and paste the following :

$gedit ~/.notify-osd

Paste and save :

bubble-background-color = 6D84B4
bubble-background-opacity = .85
text-title-color = ffffff
text-title-opacity = 1.0 
text-body-color = ffffff
text-body-opacity = 1.0

This is the part you are going to customize notify osd! Do not forget to change the color codes!

Kill current running notify-osd:

$killall notify-osd

Now navigate to ~/tmp/notify-osd-0.9.11/src and test notify osd :

$cd ~/tmp/notify-osd-0.9.11/src
$./notify-osd

You should see

##reading settings from '/home/duyq/.notify-osd'##

at the terminal. If you see something like :

##** (notify-osd:xxxxx): WARNING **: Another instance has already registered org.freedesktop.Notifications ##

That means you did not kill the notify-osd process go and kill it :)

Now send a notification and complete the test :

$notify-send "test" "Do not test me"

If everything is ok, it is time to install it:

$cd ~/tmp/notify-osd-0.9.11
$sudo make install

###End of Installation###

Howto Install Thunderbird 3 (Beta) On Ubuntu

2009-08-16T02:53:00.000-07:00

I usually do not use any e-mail clients on my notebooks because i find managing my e-mails faster and better on my E-63 via Nokia Messaging than on my notebooks. This week i am getting tons of e-mails with swf attachments and i had to install an e-mail client to view some of them :( So it is time to install Thunderbird 3 beta 3 and send a blog post about the installation.

I used two different methods to install Thunderbird 3 (beta 3) on my two different notebooks :
1- From Official (Mozilla) Site
2- From Thunderbird Daily Repository

It is upto you which method you are going to use. However i should mention that, second method (I prefer the repository way.) is a DAILY repository so be prepared to upgrade your Thunderbird 3 often(daily :) ). You can read and learn more about Thunderbird 3 here, from its official wiki at mozilla.org.

###Installation###

1- From Official (Mozilla) Site:
We will download and install Thunderbird 3 with just one command. The command will download Thunderbird 3 to your home directory, and extract it it to ~/thunderbird folder, and remove the downloaded file. It will be ready to use :

$cd && wget -O - http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/3.0b3/linux-i686/en-US/thunderbird-3.0b3.tar.bz2 | tar xj -C ~

You can now create a shortcut to /home/YOURUSERNAME/thunderbird/thunderbird command if you want. To open Profile Manager paste this command to terminal :

$~/thunderbird/thunderbird -ProfileManager

2- From Thunderbird Daily Repository:

We will add Ubuntu Mozilla Daily Repository to our sources.list (This repository also has the following packages : firefox 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, thunderbird 3, xulrunner 1.9.1, 1.9.2, 1.9.3, and prisms). Open your sources.list and add the repository :

$gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Navigate to the end of the page and add the following :

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Change "jaunty" with yours. You can use jaunty, hardy, karmic and intrepid. Save and exit.

Add repository key, update our system and install Thunderbird 3:

$sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 247510BE
$sudo apt-get update
$sudo apt-get install thunderbird-3.0 thunderbird-3.0-gnome-support

Now you can run Thunderbird 3 with $thunderbird-3.0 command

###End of Installation###

Howto Convert a YouTube Video to an Animated GIF

2009-08-15T21:54:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you may need to make a GIF file from a video for using it as an avatar or different purposes. Today i will show you two ways to make a GIF from a Youtube video :

1 - Using mplayer
2 - Using Avidemux + ffmpeg + Gimp (More detailed = More customizable)

I do use youtube-dl ($sudo apt-get install youtube-dl) to download videos from Youtube, however you can use other ways like copying the flv from /tmp folder, an online converter, different softwares etc.

1- Using Mplayer

This is the easiest way to convert a video to a GIF. Just download the video with youtube-dl then give this command :

$mplayer -vo gif89a yourvideosfilename.flv

The GIF file (out.gif) will be inside the directory after playing the video.

2- Using Avidemux + ffmpeg + Gimp

As you can see from the title, you need to install avidemux, ffmpeg and gimp (all at the repositories) to use this method. This is a little more detailed way than the first one but in this way you can rip the video file before converting to a GIF.

After downloading your video file, convert your FLV file to avi. That is the purpose of ffmpeg here :

$ffmpeg -i youtubefilename.flv filename.avi

Now launch avidemux, open the avi file we have created a couple of minutes ago. Select the range you want to rip using A and B buttons at the buttom. After you are done, save the images to a new directory via navigating to File->Save->Save Selection As Jpeg Images.

###Optional###
You can use Phatch to reduce size, change resolution and other things on Jpeg file before making it a GIF.
###End of Optional Part###

Open Gimp and open the first part of the Jpeg series. Then go to File->Open As Layers and select the rest of the series. After that go to Filters->Animation->Optimize For Gif . Now save it as GIF and you are done.

Howto Disable Pango to Get a Faster Firefox

2009-08-08T23:39:00.000-07:00

I always find Ubuntu's Firefox package is so slow and wrote a couple of blog posts (soon dozens if i am not gonna switch to debian or gentoo :) ) about Firefox tweaks because of this :) -- read howto optimize firefox , 17 Cool Firefox about:config tricks and 12 more Cool Firefox about:config tricks --

Today i find out that Ubuntu's Firefox packages are compiled and packed with Pango support (You may want to read more about Pango here.) This is quite useless and problematic on Ubuntu so it is better to disable it to gain speed. I am talking about real speeds up to %30 - %40. There are a couple ways to disable it :

1- You can compile Firefox yourself
2- You can compile Firefox via ubuntuzilla
3- Or you can continue reading and finish this title in a couple of seconds :)

Open a terminal and edit your .bashrc file :

$gedit ~/.bashrc

at the end of that file add the following and save it :

export MOZ_DISABLE_PANGO=1

Restart your firefox ($pkill firefox) and see the difference.

Howto Disable Opera 10's Tray Icon

2009-08-08T01:58:00.000-07:00

I am using OpenBox on Ubuntu Jaunty (Crunchbang Linux). Yesterday I have forced to try Opera 10 beta (qt4) to test some web pages on Opera/Linux. Everything went fine until i saw that damn white non transparent Opera 10's sys tray icon :) . I googled around and saw that this is also happens on KDE (and probably Gnome) on different distros. I did not see any "disable tray icon" value on options so i find another way to disable the tray icon :

$opera -notrayicon

Yes it is a cheap and dirty trick but it just works :) You can edit your menu and replace $opera command with $opera -notrayicon command (to edit menu use $alacarte command). Please feel free to post a fixed package via comments : )

12 More Cool Firefox about:config Tricks

2009-08-08T00:00:00.001-07:00

After getting huge hits at 17 cool about:config tweaks and optimizing firefox blog posts, i decided to go for another about:config tricks blog post.

Tested On : Firefox 3.5.2 Ubuntu Jaunty

1- Disabling Favicons in Address Bar and Tabs:

Favicon is a 16x16 pixel square icon associated with a particular website. This setting enables or disables it.

Key : browser.chrome.site_icons
Default Value : True (enable icons)
What i am using : False (disable icons)

2- Show More Tabs on Firefox Window before Scrolling:

This changes tabs minimum width so when you decrease the min width, you will get more tabs on the screen.

Key : browser.tabs.tabMinWidth
Default Value : 100
What i am using : 75

3- Paste with Middle Mouse Click:

This enables / disables pasting copied content with middle mouse click.

Key : middlemouse.paste
Default Value : True (enable)
What i am using : False (disable, without mouse it is faster in my opinion :))

4- Increase Recently Closed Tabs Limit:

By default Firefox 3.5 can only undo last 15 tabs, this setting increases / decreases it.

Key : browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo
Default Value : 15
What i am using : 20

5- Speeding Firefox SubMenu Up:

This key modifies or disables the submenu delay of Firefox (I hate submenu delays). You may need to create it (New > Integer).

Key : ui.submenuDelay
Default Value : Not entered
What i am using : 0 (disables the delay and value you gonna enter will be ms not second)

6- Turn Off Chrome Toolbar Tooltips:

This will disable toolbar tooltips of Firefox.(Hover your mouse on a Firefox tab and wait for 3-4 seconds)

Key : browser.chrome.toolbar_tips
Default Value : True (enable tooltips)
What i am using : False (disable tooltips)

7- Enable Spell Check in Text Fields:

By default Firefox's builtin spell check is only available in text areas and text boxes. This tweak enables spell check in text fields also (This is why you see so many grammar mistakes on blog post titles, it does not check that area by default :) ).

Key : layout.spellcheckDefault
Default Value : 1
What i am using : 2

8- Open Bookmark Groups in New Tabs:

If you open a group of bookmarks at once, Firefox's default behavior is to replace any existing tabs with the newly opened pages. With the following key, opening groups of bookmarks will append new tabs to the existing window instead of overwriting existing ones.

Key : browser.tabs.loadFolderAndReplace
Default Value : True (True = Overwrite Existing Ones)
What i am using : False

9- Get Case Sensitive in-page Searches:

Linux is case sensitive as you know and when searching at web pages (Ctrl +F), i really hate Firefox's case insensitive search feature. However with this trick, we can set it as case sensitive:

Key : accessibility.typeaheadfind.casesensitive
Default Value : 0 (case insensitive searches)
What i am using : 1 (cae sensitive searches)

10- Reduce Session History:

Firefox caches several recently visited web pages in memory so they don't have to be regenerated when you press "Back" or "Forward" button. Each page takes arund 4MB of your Ram. You can set the number of pages stored with the following key :

Key : browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers
Default Value : -1
What i am using : -1

-1 = determines how many pages to cache from the amount of available physical memory | 0 = disable page caching | NUMBER (For example 8) = maximum number of pages.

11- Disable Blinking Text:

Firefox supports both the HTML element and the blink value for the text-decoration CSS property. Blinking content is very annoying for me and most web users.

Key : browser.blink_allowed
Default Value : True (enable blinking)
What i am using : False (disable blinking)

12- Automatic Image Resizing:

When an image is bigger than your Firefox screen, it is automatically resized to fit the window at Firefox. This is of course very handy for a normal web user but you may need to disable resizing time to time.

Key : browser.enable_automatic_image_resizing
Default Value : True (enable resizing)
What i am using : True (enable resizing)

Howto Enable Plugins (including Flash) on Chromium

2009-08-07T10:23:00.001-07:00

I have blogged about Chromium and Google Chrome before about their installations here and here. I am not using Chrome or Chromium for a couple of months and after uninstalling PcLinuxOS 2009.2 and installing Crunchbang Linux (Openbox + Ubuntu) today, i want to give it a try again (3.0.198.0 - 22605). First thing i love is you can set Chromium a GTK+ theme (Under Options > Personal Stuff > Set to GTK+ Theme), there are tons of new features (and of course bugs also :) ) included at Chromium but without a flash (and may be Java) plugin it is quite useless for a normal web user. However you can start Chromium with flash (10.0.r32) plugin with this command :

$chromium-browser --enable-plugins

and you can check active plugins by entering

about:plugins

into the address / location bar of Chromium / Google Chrome.

I used Chromium with plugins enabled for 2-3 hours. The biggest thing you will notice beside flash objects is the cpu usage :) It is always around %10 (only Chromium, not system wide) which is a lot high with my optimizations. Mostly you will see blank flash objects and this is very annoying. However, Chromium and Google Chrome is going better and better every day and soon it will catch the Firefox.

PS : You can find daily Chromium PPA on Launchpad and Google Chrome repository with installations howtos at my blog posts i made before.

Howto Set Movie Covers as Thumbnails on Ubuntu

2009-08-06T01:51:00.000-07:00

Today our case is setting movie covers as thumbnails via imdb-thumbnailer script and setting aliases for updating existing thumbnails easily.Imdb-thumbnailer searches imdb website for covers based on file names.The best part of this script it works recursively.If there is no cover found on imdb, it uses default thumbnail (i never saw this since it always finds something even sometimes wrong cover).

Installation:

Imdb-thumbnailer script requires GTK + 2.10.x and imagemagick package.So let's install it's dependency first :

$sudo apt-get install imagemagick
Now after installation of imagemagick, you can download imdb-thumbnailer .deb package from here and install it via double clicking.(or $sudo dpkg -i /where/is/this/package/packagename.deb)

Configuration:

Now we have imdb-thumbnailer installed.But we need to set it first to get it working.If you are using nautilus, open a terminal and give this command :

$imdb-thumbnailer --set-nautilus

If you are using thunar, give this command (only one of them, not both of the commands!) :

$imdb-thumbnailer --set-thunar

Setting part is done.We need to edit ~/.imdb-thumbnailer/config file and show the movie folders to the script.I am using one movie folder(/home/username/Movies) and there are several folders under that folder.So i am going to show only the big folder(/home/username/Movies) and i will write an alias to find and update all movies under the Movies folder.

Let's edit our config file first :

$gedit ~/.imdb-thumbnailer/config

Mine looks like this :

films_path[1]=/home/duyq/Movies

Here, you can use as many as folders you want.For example :

films_path[1]=/home/duyq/Movies
films_path[2]=/home/duyqfassd/asdasd
films_path[3]=/home/asdaaaaaa/Moviesaaaa
films_path[4]=/home/duyq/Movies4

When you are done, save it.Now open your .bashrc file and add this alias at the end of the file :

$gedit ~/.bashrc
alias imdb-up='find /home/USERNAME/Movies/* -type f | while read -r line ; do imdb-thumbnailer -u "$line" ; done'

Do NOT forget to change /home/USERNAME/Movies/* folder.You can now update your thumbnails via $imdb-up command or you can update manually via $imdb-thumbnailer -u /home/videoblabla/videoname.avi command.

PS : You may need to restart nautilus to get the script working.To do so do a reboot or use $pkill nautilus command.

Firefox 3.5.x Branding Fix for Ubuntu Jaunty

2009-07-29T23:41:00.001-07:00

If you install Firefox 3.5.x from repositories for Ubuntu Jaunty, it's branding is set to Shiretoko.With this blog post you can fix this (name, icon, command etc) easily.

First close (it is better to kill entire firefox process) all firefox windows :

$pkill firefox

Install firefox (just to be sure every required package is installed):

$sudo apt-get install firefox-3.5 firefox-3.5-branding firefox-3.5-gnome-support

Now enter these commands into terminal (alt + f2 > gnome-terminal) :

PS : I do use $ for normal user and # for root

$sudo cp -v /usr/lib/firefox-3.0*/icons/* /usr/lib/firefox-3.5*/icons/
$cd /usr/lib/firefox-3.5*/defaults/preferences/
$sudo cp -v firefox.js_bak firefox.js
$sudo cp -v firefox.js firefox.js_bak
$sudo sed -i "s/pref(\"general.useragent.extra.firefox\", \"Shiretoko\//pref(\"general.useragent.extra.firefox\", \"Firefox\//g" firefox.js
$cd /usr/lib/firefox-3.5*/chrome/
$sudo cp browser-branding-en-US.jar_bak browser-branding-en-US.jar
$sudo cp browser-branding-en-US.jar browser-branding-en-US.jar_bak
$sudo cp browser-branding.jar_bak browser-branding.jar
$sudo cp browser-branding.jar browser-branding.jar_bak
$cd /usr/lib/firefox-3.0*/chrome/
$sudo cp -p browser-branding.jar /usr/lib/firefox-3.5*/chrome/
$cd /usr/lib/firefox-3.0*/chrome/icons/default/
$sudo cp -p * /usr/lib/firefox-3.5*/chrome/icons/default/
$sudo mkdir -p /d2tmp/ffbrandnew/
$sudo chmod 755 -R /d2tmp
$cd /usr/lib/firefox-3.5*/chrome/
$sudo cp browser-branding-en-US.jar /d2tmp/ffbrandnew/
$sudo unzip /d2tmp/ffbrandnew/browser-branding-en-US.jar -d /d2tmp/ffbrandnew/
$sudo rm -f -r /d2tmp/ffbrandnew/browser-branding-en-US.jar
$sudo sed -i "s/<\!ENTITY  brandShortName        \"Shiretoko\">/<\!ENTITY  brandShortName        \"Firefox\">/g" /d2tmp/ffbrandnew/locale/branding/brand.dtd
$sudo sed -i "s/<\!ENTITY  brandFullName         \"Shiretoko\">/<\!ENTITY  brandFullName         \"Mozilla Firefox\">/g" /d2tmp/ffbrandnew/locale/branding/brand.dtd
$sudo sed -i "s/<\!ENTITY  vendorShortName       \"mozilla.org\">/<\!ENTITY  vendorShortName       \"Mozilla\">/g" /d2tmp/ffbrandnew/locale/branding/brand.dtd
$sudo sed -i "s/<\!ENTITY  releaseBaseURL        \"http:\/\/www.mozilla.org\/projects\/shiretoko\/releases\/\">/ /g" /d2tmp/ffbrandnew/locale/branding/brand.dtd
$sudo sed -i "s/brandShortName=Shiretoko/brandShortName=Firefox/g" /d2tmp/ffbrandnew/locale/branding/brand.properties
sudo sed -i "s/brandFullName=Shiretoko/brandFullName=Mozilla Firefox/g" /d2tmp/ffbrandnew/locale/branding/brand.properties
$sudo sed -i "s/vendorShortName=mozilla.org/vendorShortName=Mozilla/g" /d2tmp/ffbrandnew/locale/branding/brand.properties
$cd /d2tmp/ffbrandnew/
$sudo zip -r browser-branding-en-US.jar locale
$sudo cp /d2tmp/ffbrandnew/browser-branding-en-US.jar /usr/lib/firefox-3.5*/chrome/
$cd /usr/bin/
$sudo rm -f -r /d2tmp/
$sudo rm -f -r firefox
$sudo ln -s firefox-3.5 firefox
$sudo sed -i "s/Name=Shiretoko Web Browser/Name=Firefox 3.5 Web Browser/g" /usr/share/app-install/desktop/firefox-3.5.desktop
$sudo sed -i "s/Comment=Firefox 3.5 Beta/Comment=Browse the World Wide Web/g" /usr/share/app-install/desktop/firefox-3.5.desktop
$sudo sed -i "s/GenericName=Preview Browser/GenericName=Web Browser/g" /usr/share/app-install/desktop/firefox-3.5.desktop
$sudo sed -i "s/Name=Shiretoko Web Browser/Name=Firefox 3.5 Web Browser/g" /usr/share/applications/firefox-3.5.desktop
$sudo sed -i "s/Comment=Firefox 3.5/Comment=Browse the World Wide Web/g" /usr/share/applications/firefox-3.5.desktop
$sudo sed -i "s/GenericName=Preview Browser/GenericName=Web Browser/g" /usr/share/applications/firefox-3.5.desktop

To download text version of commands, click here (direct download).

This is tested on Ubuntu Jaunty.

17 Cool Firefox about:config Tricks

2009-07-28T09:13:00.000-07:00

about:config page contains most of Firefox configuration options as you know.So it is the most powerful and effective way to tweak and enhance your Firefox experience.Here is 17 coolest about:config tricks i gathered from all around web and my experience :

These tricks tested on Firefox 3.5.1 Ubuntu Karmic Koala, Ubuntu Jaunty and PCLinuxOS 2009.2

1- Disable Extension Compatibility Check

This is useful when you want to use an extension but not supported by your Firefox version installed.This will disable extension compatibility checks so you can install unsupported ones.

Key : extensions.checkCompatibility
Default Value : It does not exist, you have to create it (Enter "False" as value if you want to disable checking)
What i am using : I do not use it (= True)

2- Disable Delay Time When Installing Add-ons

This is the countdown you see while you try to install an add-on.I do not install and use more than 3-4 add-ons but you should disable the delay if you are an experience user and installing a lot of add-ons.

Key : security.dialog_enable_delay
Default Value : 2000 (msec)
What i am using : 0

3- View Site Source With Your Favorite Editor

This trick comes especially for webmasters.This is where we can change Firefox's default source viewer (Ctrl + U) with anything we want.I would go for modded Gedit, Bluefish, Kompozer or Nano :)

Key : view_source.editor.external
Default Value : False
What i am using : True

When you make it true, you should show Firefox an editor :

Key : view_source.editor.path
Default : Null
What i am using : /usr/bin/gedit

4- Fullscreen Toolbar Animation

When you go fullscreen at Firefox, i always hate that damn animation :).Now you can disable or change that animation.

Key : browser.fullscreen.animateUp
Default : 1 (1 = animate the toolbar collapse only the first time)
What i am using : 0

Values : 1 = animate the toolbar collapse only the first time, 0 = disable animation, 2 = enable the animation for every collapse

5- Disable or Adjust Session Restore Function

This is where you can make your Firefox faster.Firefox automatically saves your session every 10 secs so you can restore it when it crashes.This is a useful feature but saving every 10 secs may not be good if you are using a notebook.

Key : browser.sessionstore.interval
Default : 10000 (= 10 secs)
What i am using : 90000 (This is a lot better when you are using a notebook)

PS : I changed mine from 90000 to 340000 today.

Key : browser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash
Default : True
What i am using : True

6- Disable Anti-Virus Scanning

This is probably for Windows users since linux users do not need this.So we can disable it to gain speed :)

Key : browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone
Default : True
What i am using : False

7- Speeding Firefox Up

Please read my blog post, Howto Optimize Firefox , about:config tricks are at Section D.

8- Select All Text/Address With One Click

I blogged about this useful feature here.

9- Auto Fill Address in URL Bar

You can get your address bar to auto fill the address as you type the URL.

Key : browser.urlbar.autoFill
Default Value : False
What i am using : True

10- Setting Zoom Limit
If you find current zoom level is not efficient for you, you can change it with this trick.

Key : zoom.maxPercent
Default Value : 300 (percent)
What i am using : 400 (you can enter min 300)

Key : zoom.minPercent
Default Value : 30
What i am using : 30

11- Configure Backspace Button

You can configure backspace button to go back to previous page, or act as page up button.

Key : browser.backspace_action
Default Value : 2 (It does nothing)
What i am using : 0 ( 0= previous page, 1= page up)

12- Offline Cache

You can increase/decrease your offline cache from here.If you do not have internet access often, it is better to increase this.

Key : browser.cache.offline.capacity
Default Value : 512000 (kb)
What i am using : 512000

13- Add-On Search Results

When you go to Tools->Add-ons->Get Add-ons and make a search there, you will get max 5 results.The following key is defines that amount :

Key : extensions.getAddons.maxResults
Default Value : 5
What i am using : 8 (You can enter min 5)

14- Auto Hide Toolbar in Fullscreen Mode

When you press F11 and go fullscreen, the toolbar auto hides and appear upon mouse over.This key changes the function of auto hide part.

Key : browser.fullscreen.autohide
Default Value : True (Always auto hide)
Modified Value : False (always show the toolbar)

15- Open Search Box Results In New Tab

When you make a search ,which is located at the top right corner, it displays the result at current window.It really sucks and we can change it to new tab instead of current window :

Key : browser.search.openintab
Default Value : False (current tab)
What i am using : True (new tab)

16- Enable/Disable Close Button on Tabs

I do not want close buttons on tabs since i prefer using Ctrl + W shortcut.You can enable and disable close button on tabs with this key.

Key : browser.tabs.closeButtons
Default Value : 1 (display close buttons on all tabs)
What i am using : 0 (display close button on active tab only)

The values you can use :

0= display close button on active tab only, 1= display close buttons on all tabs, 2= disable close button on all tabs, 3= display a single close button at the end of tab strip

17- Adjust the Smart Location Bar’s Number of Suggestions

When you start typing at adress bar, you will see a drop-down list of suggestions.This key adjust that number of max suggestions.

Key : browser.urlbar.maxRichResults
Default Value : 12
What i am using : 5 (-1= disable this function)

Howto Install and Use Google Gears and Offline Gmail Browsing

2009-07-17T02:32:00.000-07:00

Google Gears is an open source project that enables more powerful web applications, by adding new features to your web browser:

-Run JavaScript in the background to improve performance
-Store data locally in a fully-searchable database
-Let web applications interact naturally with your desktop

For linux and of course for Ubuntu the requirements (requirements are for 32 bit install) to run Gears are :
-firefox 1.5+
-glibc 2.3.5+
-libstdc++6 (for Gears 0.3)
-libstdc++5 (for Gears pre-0.3)

This howto will show you howto install Google Gears on Firefox 3.5.x or 3.0.x and use beta offline Gmail feature (beta) with it.

Installation:

Install Google Gears by going here.Some users have firefox installed on different sources and reported that they are getting this error with Firefox 3.5.1 :

"Your browser is not currently supported. Please check the list of supported browsers below."

OR

"Google Gears 0.5.29.0 could not be installed because it is not compatible with Firefox 3.5.1."

If you get these errors, to fix it you can do one of the followings :

-Install this user agent switcher extension and spoof as some other versions of Firefox.(i recommend this one).
-Install compiled XPI from here (32 & 64 bit versions plus you can find howto compile it yourself there.)
-You can always use Ubuntuzilla project to install latest version of Firefox.

After installation done, restart firefox.

Offline Gmail Settings:

Now navigate to Gmail, then click Settings.Click Labs tab and enable Offline Gmail, click Save Changes.Now Gmail page will be reloaded and you will see Offline button near Settings.Click it and a wizard will pop up, and ask a couple of questions (desktop shortcut etc).Before clicking offline, you can change your offline browsing settings under Settings.(attachment sizes, content etc).

In a couple of minutes or hours (this depends on your connection and e-mail size), it will be done.

For the ones who want to create a shortcut manually, you can always make an icon with this command :

"/usr/bin/firefox" "https://mail.google.com/mail/"

Howto Optimize Firefox and Benchmarking

2009-07-16T02:51:00.000-07:00

The objective of this blog post is to get better performance on Firefox (resource + bandwidth wise).Feel free to submit your tweaks, extensions via comments so i can update the blog post.

A- Benchmark:

You can benchmark your Firefox performance via Peacekeeper test which is located at here.For speed tests you can use Speed Test tool, but i do not find speed tests reliable.You can also use Extended Statusbar extension that adds speed, percentage, time and loaded size (similar to Opera's one) to Firefox's status bar for benchmarking but before installing it please read B- Extension Optimization section.

B-Extension Optimization:

Mostly we use Firefox because of its extensions and themes but the more extensions we have the more memory will be used by Firefox.So try to remove all extensions except the ones you require.We will install 2 extensions to make Firefox use less bandwidth and resource.
1-Adblock Plus :
You can install Adblock Plus from here.You probably know what this one does, but for the ones who do not know, it blocks and removes the advertisements on websites.This means less page size and mostly less javascript size = less memory.
2-Flashblock:
Flash banners, advertisements, movies and other flashy things sometimes use a lot of CPU power.Flashblock, replaces flash elements with "F".This will decrease used CPU power and bandwidth.If you want to play the flash element, you can do it by just clicking the "F" button.(See the screenshot)

C-Database Optimization:
This is the section you should read at least twice before doing anything.Unlike other sections, this one of my favorite (My fav = Section C and G) but you can damage your Firefox profile (= everything including your bookmarks are gone).Before doing anything :

- You can use FEBE extension, to backup your entire Firefox profile.
- You can manually backup your ~/.mozilla/firefox/ folder.

Firefox stores a lot of data into standalone sqlite database files.They can be found in your profile directory and have the extension .sqlite.We will optimize Firefox databases by removing junk data :

First install sqlite3 package via entering :

$sudo apt-get install sqlite3

to terminal(Alt + F2 > gnome-terminal).

Now you can optimize a single database by entering this command :

$sqlite3 $HOME/.mozilla/firefox/YOURPROFILE/places.sqlite "vacuum"

Do not forget to change YOURPROFILE with your profile folder.For instance the bold one is my profile folder :

/home/duyq/.mozilla/firefox
[duyq@localhost firefox]$ ls
profiles.ini  v7vw0o3r.default/
[duyq@localhost firefox]$

So i am gonna enter this command :

$sqlite3 $HOME/.mozilla/firefox/v7vw0o3r.default/places.sqlite "vacuum"

This will ONLY optimize places.sqlite database.If you list the *.sqlite files at your profile folder you will see a couple more :


[duyq@localhost v7vw0o3r.default]$ ls | grep sqlite
content-prefs.sqlite
cookies.sqlite
cookies.sqlite-journal
downloads.sqlite
formhistory.sqlite
permissions.sqlite
places.sqlite
places.sqlite-journal
search.sqlite
signons.sqlite
urlclassifier3.sqlite
webappsstore.sqlite

You can repeat this step OR you can use this bash scripting method :

We will create firefoxoptimize file under /usr/bin/ (you can create it anywhere you want) , we will make it executable and we will place our script insite firefoxoptimize :

$sudo touch /usr/bin/firefoxoptimize
$sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/firefoxoptimize
$gksudo gedit /usr/bin/firefoxoptimize

and paste the following into firefoxoptimize and save it :

#!/bin/bash

killall firefox
find $HOME/.mozilla/ \( -name "*.sqlite" \) -exec sqlite3  {} "vacuum" \;

Now you can run firefoxoptimize command.The script above will basically search for all sqlite databases on your ~/.mozilla folder and execute the vacuum command, to remove junk data.Run the command as normal user (do not use sudo).

Doing this will improve the performance a lot.

PS : I also posted a long script which does the same thing here.But this one is better :)

D-about:config Tweaks:

Open your Firefox and write about:config to your location bar and hit enter.

- network.http.pipelining > Make it True
- network.http.pipelining.maxrequests > Make it 8 or 10
- network.http.proxy.pipelining > Make it True
- network.dns.disableIPv6 > Make it True (to disable IPV6 at Ubuntu Jaunty, please read my Howto Disable IPV6 on Ubuntu Jaunty blog post.)
- plugin.expose_full_path > Make it True
- nglayout.initialpaint.delay > Make it 0 (If this does not exist, create it!)
- browser.cache.memory.capacity > You have to create this if it does not exist (Right-click anywhere, select New, then Integer.write browser.cache.memory.capacity).This is where you decide how much memory to allocate to Firefox.This depends on how much RAM your computer has.If you want 16MB , enter 16384 to the prompt.To see all values and learn more about this, click here.

Edit & Update : You may also want to check my other 2 blog posts (12 + 17 about:config tricks) :
17 Cool Firefox about:config tricks
12 more Cool Firefox about:config tricks

E-Flash Issues:

There are big issues at webstreaming on Linux because of Adobe's flash player (Do not blame Firefox!).You can browse this bug report on Adobe's bug tracker to get some solutions to your problems, especially this one MAY be helpful.

F-Removing Conflicting Plugins:

Ubuntu comes with swfdec plug-in but it will not work on most sites.Installing Adobe's is will solve your problems and so your performance.Open a terminal (Alt + F2, write gnome-terminal, hit enter) and give this command :

$sudo apt-get remove swfdec-mozilla mozilla-plugin-gnash adobe-flashplugin flashplugin-nonfree && sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree

G-Running Firefox Profiles from RAM:

This one also can damage your Firefox profiles like C-Database Optimization section, so i am giving the same advice : backup your profiles!(see that section)

This script will load your Firefox profile into your ram.Unlike other scripts:
-It will ask for the amount of RAM to allocate
-It will ask for the interval you want to synchronize the profile with a copy in the disk, so you can keep any changes after unloading the profile from RAM.
-It saves a tar backup of your profile inside ~/.mozilla/firefox/
-It creates a temporary /etc/fstab.bak
and so......

This is tested on Firefox 3.0.x and 3.5.x BUT there is one important thing if you are using Firefox 3.5: The script will only work if you have at least one profile under ~/.mozilla/firefox/.Shiretoko stores profiles under ~/.mozilla/firefox-3.5 so do not forget to make a symlink to your profile folder inside the ~/.mozilla/ and rename it to firefox!

Install the necessary dependencies by entering this command :

$sudo apt-get install sqlite3 zenity rsync

Download this ramprofile.sh file (It is very LONG to paste the code to this blog post, sorry folks!) to your home directory and make it executable:

$cd && wget -c https://files.getdropbox.com/u/612498/ramprofile.sh && chmod +x ramprofile.sh

The script is well commented (I did not write the script.), so you can read them and understand the script.

To load the Firefox profile at RAM, be sure firefox is not running ($pkill firefox) and run this command at your home directory :

$./ramprofile.sh

Warning: You should always unload the profile from RAM before logging off or rebooting, otherwise the profile content might be lost and the profile might not be unmounted from RAM.

After using Firefox, after a system crash, reboot or something worse :), we will use the following script to unload the profile we used.

Let's download the script to our home directory and make it executable:

$cd && wget -c https://files.getdropbox.com/u/612498/restoreprofile.sh && chmod +x restoreprofile.sh

Run the script via :

$./restoreprofile.sh

EDIT & UPDATE : You can also read my blog post about how to disabling Pango to gain upto %40 speed at Firefox here.

Walldefender, a 2D Arcade/Defense Game for Linux

2009-07-15T03:48:00.000-07:00

Walldefender is a 2D arcade/defense game.The purpose of the game is to defend the walls from alien attacks.You shoot aliens, get points and upgrade your weapons.It is a typical 2D defense game but we love it because it is available on linux :) I do not like Java stuff, but it is hard to find defense games on linux so we will give it a try now.

Installation :

Current version of Walldefender is 0.45 Alpha and it is actively developed.So it is better to update your source often.(Just re-do the installation step to upgrade, for now.)

Let's start downloading the files, open a terminal and download it via wget :

$wget -c http://walldefender.googlecode.com/files/WallDefender.tar.gz

Extract the compressed file and delete it :

$tar -zxvf WallDefender.tar.gz && rm WallDefender.tar.gz

Navigate to the folder that is created (It is better to download and extract the compressed file to a pre-defined games folder or whatever you use, i am using /home/USERNAME/SVN/Games for example.):

$cd WallDefender/

Make the .jar file executable and run the game via :

$chmod +x walldefender.jar && java -jar walldefender.jar

PS : Install Sun Java before running the command.

Adding Shortcuts :

Press Alt + F2 and run alacarte command :

$alacarte

Click/Select Games and then click "New Item".Fill the following and Click "OK".

Name : WallDefender
Command : java -jar /home/YOURUSERNAME/CHANGE/CHANGE!!/WallDefender/walldefender.jar >> Do not forget to change the directory structure!
Comment : Walldefender is a 2D arcade/defense game.
Icon : I can not find a proper icon this, and the game does not come with an icon itself.

Tested Platform : Ubuntu Karmic Koala, Minimal PcLinuxOS 2009 with Sun Java 1.6.0.14

Howto Add a User to Sudoers List On Ubuntu

2009-07-14T01:30:00.000-07:00

Believe me or not i am replying this, howto add a user to sudoers list on Ubuntu, question every day so after sending my last reply to this question here is the blog post to stop getting this question as an e-mail :) Like my all blog posts this is also verified me on Ubuntu Karmic, PClinuxOS 2009.2.

Open a terminal (alt+f2 gnome-terminal , use a dropdown terminal, whatever you want.) and give this command as ROOT :

$su -
Enter your root password (or your username's password on some distros)
#visudo

Now use your Up/Down arrows (you may prefer PgUp and PgDn keys) and navigate to this line :

root ALL=(ALL) ALL

Under that line add this line (DO NOT FORGET TO CHANGE "user" part with your username!) :

user ALL=(ALL) ALL

You can use Shift + Insert to paste.
To save, write :w (hit enter of course) to save.To exit, write :quit and hit enter.I am poor at vi/vim or whatever you call that :)
You can find the sample screenshot of sudoers file (the part we have edited) at the beginning of my blog post.

Howto Install Dropbox Without Gnome/Nautilus

2009-07-09T03:07:00.000-07:00

I was playing with my Fedora 11 KDE installation yesterday, then i realized that Dropbox has a heavy Gnome/ Nautilus dependency tree.I searched and tested solutions for an hour and here is two ways to get Dropbox working without Nautilus or Gnome dep tree on any linux system (Tested on Ubuntu Karmic, Jaunty and Fedora 11) :

Installation :

Download the closed source Dropbox Linux client from here (32 bit).

Extract the contents to your home folder.You will get a .dropbox-dist folder under your home directory (If not, move it to your home directory.The directory structure will look like : /home/YOURUSERNAME/.dropbox-dist/)

Now you can run dropbox via

$~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd

command.

Features that will not work with this method :

*Open my dropbox (Right click to Dropbox System Tray icon and Select Open My Dropbox) will NOT work since we do not have nautilus installed.

There is also a CLI tool which is written in pyton.It provides everthing that nautilus can do and it is located at here.

Howto Fix Firefox 3.5's Font Hinting Problem on Ubuntu

2009-07-01T00:56:00.000-07:00

As you know Firefox 3.5 is released yesterday(You can read my blog post about it here.).But unlike Firefox 3.0, Firefox 3.5 takes its font hinting orders from fontconfig instead of gnome's font settings.I am using medium, subpixel hinting in gnome, but my firefox fonts were using slight, greyscale hinting.This is what i did to fix my problem (I found them somewhere at ubuntuforums dot org):

$sudo rm /etc/fonts/conf.d/10-hinting-slight.conf
$sudo rm /etc/fonts/conf.d/10-no-sub-pixel.conf
$sudo ln -s /etc/fonts/conf.available/10-hinting-medium.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/.
$sudo ln -s /etc/fonts/conf.available/10-sub-pixel-rgb.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/.
$sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig

You can also browse the bug report on Launchpad here.