Gimp is the image editing tool for Linux. To install additional plugins such as drop shadow etc, the easiest way is to install gimp-plugin-registry.
This can be done using the Ubuntu packages: -
sudo apt-get install gimp-plugin-registry
To backup all MySQL databases on a machine, use the following command: -
mysqldump -u root -psecret –all-databases > backup.sql
To restore all databases, use the following command: -
mysql -u root -psecret < backup.sql
To restore a single database (from a cpanel backup etc), use the following command: -
mysql -u user -psecret dbname < dbbackup.sql
Starting a VM from the Command Line (or via a shortcut on the desktop) is easy – just use the command: -
VBoxManage startvm name_of_virtual_machine
for example : -
VBoxManage startvm “Windows XP”
Here are the steps required to get USB working on a Linux host (tested with VirtualBox 2.1.4)
1. Create a group usbusers and put yourself in it.
sudo addgroup usbusers
usermod -a -G usbusers andy
2. Note down the vendor and id numbers for the USB devices that you want to enable after running the following command: -
VBoxManage list usbhost
3. In VirtuaBox’s USB section add both of these devices, making sure you have the vendor and id numbers correct.
4. Add the following lines in /etc/fstab (you can get the ID of the usbusers group by looking in /etc/group) : -
# usbusers is the USB group (id 1001)
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=1001,devmode=664 0 0
5. A reboot is required.
Combining PDF files in Linux is ridiculously easy – its just a matter of installing the PDF Toolkit package (pdftk) and then running the following command: -
pdftk file1.pdf file2.pdf file3.pdf cat output newfile.pdf
Accessing the QNAP from Ubuntu is fairly easy.
First install “smbfs”: -
sudo apt-get install smbfs
Then it’s just a matter of creating the relevant directories in /mnt
sudo mkdir /mnt/Qdownload
sudo mkdir /mnt/public
sudo mkdir /mnt/Qmultimedia
sudo mkdir /mnt/Qweb
…and then editing /etc/fstab
//192.168.0.2/Qdownload /mnt/Qdownload cifs credentials=/root/.credentials,directio,iocharset=utf8,noacl,noperm,nosetuids,rw
//192.168.0.2/Public /mnt/public cifs credentials=/root/.credentials,directio,iocharset=utf8,noacl,noperm,nosetuids,rw
//192.168.0.2/Qmultimedia /mnt/Qmultimedia cifs credentials=/root/.credentials,directio,iocharset=utf8,noacl,noperm,nosetuids,rw
//192.168.0.2/Qweb /mnt/Qweb cifs credentials=/root/.credentials,directio,iocharset=utf8,noacl,noperm,nosetuids,rw
You then need to create a file with your username and password in it: -
sudo vi /root/.credentials
and put the following in it: -
username=user
password=pass
A simple “sudo mount -a” will mount these filesystems ready for use.
For some reason, by default in Ubuntu, pressing the “backspace” key in Firefox doesn’t go back. Fortunately this is easy to fix: -
Open your firefox browser and type the following code into the address bar:
about:config
After that in the filter type:
browser.backspace_action
and change it’s value to “0″.
By default in Ubuntu 8.10 the fonts aren’t great. To fix this, first install the Microsoft Truetype fonts: -
sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts
Then install the Segoe UI font
cd ~
wget http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/2/9/1749988/segoe_ui.zip
mkdir .fonts
cd .fonts
unzip ../segoe_ui.zip
For a great Monospace font, take a look at Inconsolata : -
cd ~/.fonts
wget http://www.levien.com/type/myfonts/Inconsolata.otf
In Gnome, the fonts are changed via “System->Preferences->Appearance” under the Fonts tab – you can then change the default to “segoe_ui”, and the monospace to “Inconsolata”.
Finally, change the rendering to “Subpixel Smoothing”.
Everything should now look much better.
Ubuntu 8.10 works great under Sun’s Virtual Box. To get everything working perfectly, you need to install “Guest Additions”. This is done by selecting “Install Guest Additions” from the VirtualBox Menu, and then entering the following into a terminal: -
sudo /media/cdrom/VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run
This installs better mouse & video drivers and enables things like automatic resolution changing, and better mouse control.
For some reason, my xorg.conf file wasn’t updated properly though – the following lines should be present in /etc/X11/xorg.conf : -
Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Configured Mouse”
Driver “vboxmouse”
Option “CorePointer”
EndSection
Section “Device”
Identifier “Configured Video Device”
Driver “vboxvideo”
EndSection
rsync is a useful application which synchronizes files and folders between devices. The QNAP TS-101 supports this (with a bit of fiddling).
Setting up the QNAP
On the QNAP, go to the “Remote Replication” page, and turn on “Allow remote Rsync server to back up data to NAS”. (“Enable backup from a remote server to the local host.” should already be set, and the port should be the default of 873)
Fixing rsyncd.conf
Unfortunately, there seems to be a problem with the rsync configuration file – the master user is set as “admin” which doesn’t exist (the root user on the QNAP is “administrator”).
To fix this, edit /etc/rsyncd.conf and change: -
uid = admin
to
uid = administrator
Listing Remote Folders
To check that rsync is allowing connections, go to your client and enter: -
rsync 192.168.0.2::
You should get something similar to the following: -
Qmultimedia
Qdownload
Qweb
Qusb
Public
Backing up a directory
To back up a directory, its a simple matter of issuing an rsync command. For example: -
rsync -vrltz –progress –password-file=password.txt –delete –exclude-from=excludes.txt “/cygdrive/C/users/windows_user/Documents/” “qnap_user@192.168.0.2::qnap_folder/“
where: -
password.txt is a file containing your qnap password
excludes.txt is a file containing files not to synchronize
C/users/windows_user/Documents is the folder to copy
qnap_user is a QNAP user that has access to the remote folder
192.168.0.2 is the IP address of the QNAP device
qnap_folder is the destination
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