Posts Tagged ‘Install’
Monday, June 11th, 2012
After writting in previous article on how talk be used to handle interactive chat console sessions on FreeBSD, I thought of dropping a few lines on how same is done on Debian, so here is how:
1.; Install talk and talkd
noah:/home/hipo# apt-get --yes install talk talkd
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
talk talkd
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 93 not upgraded.
Need to get 19.0 kB/42.3 kB of archives.
After this operation, 201 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/ stable/main talkd amd64 0.17-14 [19.0 kB]
Fetched 19.0 kB in 0s (67.1 kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package talk.
(Reading database ... 90%
Unpacking talk (from .../talk_0.17-14_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package talkd.
Unpacking talkd (from .../talkd_0.17-14_amd64.deb) ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Setting up talk (0.17-14) ...
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/netkit-ntalk to provide /usr/bin/talk (talk) in auto mode.
Setting up talkd (0.17-14) ...
2.;; Check and make sure talk and ntalkd lines are present in /etc/inetd.conf
noah:/home/hipo# grep -i talk /etc/inetd.conf
#:BSD: Shell, login, exec and talk are BSD protocols.
talk dgram udp wait nobody.tty /usr/sbin/in.talkd in.talkd
ntalk dgram udp wait nobody.tty /usr/sbin/in.ntalkd in.ntalkd
Now you probably wonder why are there two lines in /etc/inetd.conf for ))
in.talkd and in.ntald
in.talkd daemon's aim is to deliver talk sessions between logged in users on one Linux host with few logged in users willing to talk to each other locally;;
Wheter in.ntalkd is designed to serve interactive user talks between the host where in.ntalkd is installed and remote systems ruwhich have the talk client program installed. Of course in order for remote talks to work properly the firewall (if such has to be modified to allow in.ntalkd chats. I've never used in.ntalkd and on most machines having in.ntald hanging around from inetd, could be a potential security hole so, for people not planning to initiate remote TALKs between Unix / Linux / BSD hosts on a network it is a good practice the ntalkd line seen above in inetd.conf to be commented out ::;
noah:/home/hipo# grep -i talk /etc/inetd.conf
#:BSD: Shell, login, exec and talk are BSD protocols.
talk dgram udp wait nobody.tty /usr/sbin/in.talkd in.talkd
#ntalk dgram udp wait nobody.tty /usr/sbin/in.ntalkd in.ntalkd
3.;;; Restart openbsd-inetd init script and talk is ready to use
noah:~# /etc/init.d/openbsd-inetd restart
* Restarting internet superserver inetd
Onwards to use talk between two users the syntax is same like on other BSD, as a matter of fact TALK – console / terminal interactive chat originally was developed for the 4.2BSD UNIX release ;; the Linux code is a port of this BSD talk and not rewrite from scratch.
Using talk between two logged in users on pts/1 (lets say user test) and tty1 (user logged as root) is done with:
noah:~$ tty
noah:~$ talk root@localhost tty1
/dev/pts/1
On tty1 the user has to have enabled Talk sessions request, by default this behaviour in Debian and probably other Debian based Linuxes (Ubuntu) for instance is configured to have talks disabled, i,e ,,,
root@noah:~# mesg
is n
Enabling it on root console is done with:
root@noah:~# mesg y
Once enabled the root will be able to see the TALK service requests on tty1 otherwise, the user gets nothing. With enabled messaging the root user will get on his tty:
Message from TalkDaemon@his_machine...
talk: connection requested by your_name@your_machine.
talk: respond with: talk your_name@your_machine
So on the root console to reply back to talk chat request:
noah:~$ talk hipo@localhost
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Tags: aim, Auto, auto mode, building, confnoah, daemon, deb, debian gnu, dependency, dependency tree, dgram, Disk, disk space, DoneBuilding, Draft, exec, Fetched, freebsd, gnu linux, information, Install, interactive user, localhost, login, mesg, noah, nobody, ntalk, ntalkd, operation, package, protocols, reading database, reading package, request, root, sbin, sessions, Shell, shell login, state information, tree, wait, work, writting
Posted in Linux | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012
One of the companies, where I'm doing a part time job, as an IT Consultant, System Administrator and Web developer, a e-marketing specialist and business consultant (the list goes on
) … planned to integrate a Newsletter support in their WordPress based websites.
As this fits my "job description" ,I took the task and implemented a simple but functional Newsletter support to their 4 WP based sites. In this article I will in short describe, my experience with placing the Newsletter subscription.:
Earlier I've done something similar as, I've added a subscipriotion (form) box to WordPress to use Google Feedburner RSS . What I needed this time, however was a bit different. The company required the newsletter to be a separate one and don't relay on Google Feedburner (RSS) to deal with the subscriptions .
It took me a while until I came with a working version of a Newsletter and I actually tested all in all 4 newsletter wordpress plugins before, I had a well working one. Here in short, In this article I will shortly take a look at the 4 WP newsletter plugins:
1. A wordpress plugin called simply Newsletter
As of time of writting this is the most popular wordpress plugin, when I looked through:
- http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
Wordpress Newsletter plugin can be obtained via http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/newsletter/
Its really Advanced, probably the best free newsletter for WP available as of time of writting. The plugin supports email subscriber user confirmation (double opt-in), as well as can be accustomized to work with single opt-in.
For all those who don't know Double Opt-In is the technical term for a once requested user email (single opt-in), for subscription which is later confirmed by following an email box sent link pointing to confirmation URL.
Double Opt-In is almost a standard and "must" as otherwise, many spam bots will fill in randomly email addresses and your subscribers list will be mostly containing spammer email addresses.
1. Install WordPress Newsletter Plugin To install Newsletter plugin;
a) download and put into wp-content/plugins/ and unzip
server:~# cd /var/www/blog/wp-content/plugins
server:/var/www/blog/wp-content/plugins# wget -q http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/newsletter.zip
server:/var/www/blog/wp-content/plugins# unzip newsletter.zip
b) Enable in Plugins:
Plugins -> Newsletter (Activate)
c) Configure Newsletter
A new menu will appear in the left WP control panel, like you see in below screenshot:

Newsletter plugin is very configurable but it takes a bit of longer time until it is confingured to work well. So be patient with it.
d) Make Newsletter field appear on a wordpress home page.
In order to enable just configure Newsletter plugin (text and subscription form) to appear on the wordpress pages, you need to add the plugin as a widget. To do so go to:
Appearance -> Widgets
Drag and drop the Newsletter plugin widget to the widget right pane. Put it on the exact place you would like it to appear.
Once the widget is placed, you will see it appear to the respective location on WP pages, you should have something like:

If while you enable the plugin and put the Newsletter widget doesn't appear on WordPress, this is probably due to some Cache left from some enabled WP caching pugin like W3 Total Cache
In any case if Newsletter form subscription, is not appearing on your pages, delete the cache/ directory:
# rm -rf /var/www/wordpress-site/wp-content/cache/
I've experienced, this caching problems and it was quite a riddle, until I found out that the Newsletter plugin is not appearing on the WP pages because of the old cache. I've checked bacicly everything (error.log , apache php_error.log) etc.. Therein, there was no error or anything, so after a long 1 hour or so poundering I figured out this kind of caching done by W3 Cache.
My guess is, the same newsletter "not working" issue is probably observable also on WP installs with other caching plugins like WP Hyper Cache or WP Db Cache
2. ALO EasyMail Newsletter WordPress plugin
I don't know, why but this plugin didn't work properly on the wordpress install, I've tested it. Its true the wordpress version where I give it a try was not running, the latest stable wordpress so I assume this might be the reason for the empty pages returned when I enabled the plugin.
According to wordpress's plugin – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/alo-easymail/, the plugin is marked as Works, however in my case it didn't.
3. Adding WordPress Newsletter through Email newsletter
This plugin was a real piece of cake, compared to all of the rest, tested this one was the easiest one to install and configure on WordPress.
Just like with Newsletter and ALO EasyMail Newsletter once the user is subscribed, from the admin there is possibility to sent crafted messages to all subscribers.
The plugin is a great, choice for anyone who is looking for quick install of Newsletter on WordPress without extra "config" complications.
Below is a quote describing email newsletter, taken from the plugin author webpage;
Advantage of this plugin
- Simple no coding required.
- Easy installation .
- Using this plug-in we can send email to all registered folks.
- Using this plug-in we can send email to all comment posted folks.
- Email subscribe box for front end
- Check box option available to select/unselect emails from the send mail list.
- Integrated the email newsletter plugin & simple contact form plugin
- Enabling the plugin is done via admin menus:
Plugins -> Inactive -> Email Newsletter (enable)
Afterwards, the plugin requires a quick configuration from wp-admin:
Email Newsletter -> Subscriber form setting

You see in the screenshot, the config where to place the plugin is trivial.
To make Email Newsletter appear on the pages, you will have to add the Email Newsletter widget from:
Appearance -> Widgets
The widget looks like the one in below screenshot:

Drag and drop the widget to the widgets pane. Onwards on the wordpress pages, should appear an email subsciption box:

Though Email Newsletter is great, it has one serious drawback, as it doesn't support Double Opt-In. Therefore people subscribing through it are not mailed with a request to confirm their email subscription request.
As a result, its very likely many spam-bots submit fake emails in the newsletter subscribe form and in 1 year time your newsletter email list might get full with tens of thousands unexistent emails. If you end up with this bad scenario, once newsletter emails are sent to (regular) exitent subscribers, many of the bulk emails in the list will never reach their senders, but will just fill-up the mail server queue and take up server resources for nothing for one week or so (depending on the email configuration keep undelivered mail setting).
Anyways, since the basis of this plugin works fine, I'm sure if the author modifies it to include a simple Captcha instead of double-opt functionality, the plugin can become top plugin.
Tags: administrator, ALO, Auto, bit, blog, business consultant, Cache, confirmation, confirmation url, description, download, Draft, e mail, email addresses, Feedburner, form, free newsletter, google, Install, job, job description, mail newsletter, marketing, newsletter, newsletter subscription, newsletter support, NewsletterAs, Opt, part time job, plugin, Plugins, quot, relay, something, spammer, specialist, subscriber, subscribers, subscriptions, support, system administrator, time, web developer, Wordpress, wp newsletter, writting
Posted in System Administration, Web and CMS, Wordpress | 3 Comments »
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
1. Install the slackware binary package xfce4-screenshooter.
For the latest Slackware Linux release which as of time of writting is 13.37 xfce4-screenshooter-1.7.9-i486-3sl.txz can be download from here
Install of xfce4-screenshooter-1.7.9-i486-3sl.txz is done with slackware's usual installpkg package manager command:
bash-4.1# /sbin/installpkg xfce4-screenshooter-1.7.9-i486-3sl.txz
By the way, I haven't used slackware for a long time so in the mean time since Slackware 13, the default slackware packages format .tgz is now substituted with the newer .txz (better compressed .txz). The old .tgz was simply a tar archive with DEFLATE gzip. The newer .txz packages bundled with newer slackware releases are using the LZMA2 (XZ) chain algorithm for compression. LZMA implies higher compression than even bzip2 and this is the reason why Patrick Volkerding – the one man army man behind Slackware decided to use it.
The reason Vollerding choose using .txz is slackware network distribution will load up less the networks and will take less time for downloading extra slackware packages via the internet. The .txz also reduces slackware main CD size so more packages can be contained in the same 700MB sized slack install CD.
Anyways now back to the installation of xfce-screenshooter.
Once installed to runit use the Xfce menus:
Xfce Menu -> Accesories -> Screenshot
Next you will see the xfce-screenshooter program to pop-up:
To take a snapshot of the screen use:
Entire Screen -> Save


Tags: 3sl, Accesories, algorithm, army man, Auto, binary package, compression, distribution, download, Draft, format, graphical environment, gzip, Install, installation, Linux, long time, LZMA, man army, manager, mean time, menu, menus, nbsp, network distribution, package, reason, screen, size, slack, slackware packages, snapshot, tar archive, tgz, time, txzBy, Vollerding, writting, XFCE, xfce4
Posted in Linux, Linux and FreeBSD Desktop, System Administration | 3 Comments »
Saturday, February 4th, 2012
If you're using Debian GNU/Linux wheezy/sid, you have already figured out GNOME3 settings to start GNOME in Classic mode (like in GNOME 2), starts gnome in a mode where the desktop is not showing the usual Computer, Home, Trash etc.
Besides that in that strange back-compitability Classic GNOME mode its impossible to add any program as a link in desktop like in the good old GNOME 2.
Thanksfully this abusive behaviour of the backwards compitability mode is easily fixable by two simple steps, here they are:
1. Install gnome-tweak-tool – (Tool to adjust advanced configuration settings for GNOME
root@debian:~# apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool
2. Start gnome-tweak tool
Press ALT+F2 and run gnome-tweak-tool or run it via xterm / gnome-terminal:
moonman@Moon:~$ gnome-tweak-tool
Change in Desktop, Have file manager handle the desktop the settings to ON


Once the Screenshot Handle Desktop is set to ON, further drag and dropping any application to the Desktop will be working.
Something really irritating is that launching applications in GNOME 3 does not work properly if you just press ALT+F2 and type in lets say gnome-terminal , to work around this weirdity you will have to install gnome-shell package.
Tags: abusive behaviour, Auto, behaviour, classic mode, compitability, configuration settings, debian gnu, desktop icons, Draft, f2, Gnome, gnu linux, Handle, Install, link, Linux, manager, Mode, moon, moonman, package, Press, root, shell package, sid, simple steps, something, Start, Thanksfully, tool, tool 2, tool change, tool tool, trash, type, weirdity, wheezy, xterm
Posted in Gnome, Linux, Linux and FreeBSD Desktop | 1 Comment »
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
1. Add Medibuntu package repository
root@ubuntu:~# wget --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list \
http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/$(lsb_release -cs).list \
&& apt-get --quiet update \
&& apt-get --yes --quiet --allow-unauthenticated install medibuntu-keyring \
&& apt-get --quiet update
2. Enable Ubuntu to play Restricted DVD
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install --yes libdvdread4
...
root@ubuntu:~# /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh
After that VLC will be ready to play DVDs for some programs which was compiled without DVD, source rebuilt is required.
If DVDs hang you might need to set a Region Code with regionset:
# regionset
3. Install non-free codecs
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install non-free-codecs
4. Install Chromium ffmpeg nonfree codecs
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install chromium
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-nonfree
5. Install w32codecs / w64codecs
Depending on the Ubuntu Linux installation architecture 32/64 bit install w32codecs or w64codecs
For 32 bit (x86) Ubuntu install w32codecs:
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install w32codecs
For 64 bit arch Ubuntu:
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install w64codecs
6. Install ubuntu-restricted-extras meta package
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
7. Install cheese for webcam picture/video snapshotting
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install cheese
8. Install GIMP, Inkscape, xsane,sane, shotwell etc.
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get --yes install sane xsane gimp inkscape gimp-data-extras gimp-plugin-registry \
blender gcolor2 showtwell bluefish kompozer
9. Install multimedia Sound & Video utilities
Install Subtitle editor, video editiking , sound editing, mp3 player, iso mounters, DVD/CD Burners
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install rhythmbox banshee smplayer mplayer \
realplayer audacity brasero jokosher istanbuk gtk-recordMyDesktop \acetoneisohexedit furiusisomount winff fala audacious dvdstyler lives hydrogen
subtitleeditor gnome-subtitles electricsheep k3b
10. Install CD / DVD RIP tools
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install acidrip sound-juicer ogmrip thoggen
11. Install chat messanger programs, Browsers, mail pop3 clients, torrent, emulators, ftp clients etc.
apt-get install seamonkey thunderbird transmission transmission-gtk gbgoffice kbedic \
pidgin openoffice.org gxine mozilla-plugin-vlc wine dosbox samba filezilla amsn ntp \epiphany-browser ntpdate desktop-webmail alltray chmsee gftp xchat-gnome ghex \gnome-genius bleachbit arista
12. Install Non-Free Flash Player
Unfortunately Gnash is not yet production ready and crashes in many websites …
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree flashplugin-nonfree-extrasound swfdec-gnome
13. Install Archive / Unarchive management programs
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install unace unrar zip unzip p7zip-full p7zip-rar sharutils rar uudeview \
mpack lha arj cabextract file-roller
15. Install VirtualBox and QEmu
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install qemu-launcher qemu-kvm-extras virtualbox virtualbox-ose \
virtualbox-ose-guest-dkms virtualbox-ose-guest-dkms
This should be enough to use Ubuntu normally for multimedia Desktop just as MS Windows for most of the daily activities.
Am I missing some important program?
Tags: amp, architecture, audacity, Auto, banshee, blender, bluefish, cd burners, Chromium, Draft, editing, editing mp3, ffmpeg, free codecs, gcolor, inkscape, Install, installation, ISO, libdvdread, Linux, linux multimedia, lsb, Medibuntu, meta package, output document, package, player, plugin registry, regionset, repository, root, shafter, shotwell, showtwell, smplayer, Sound, sound editing, subtitle editor, sudo, Ubuntu, ubuntu linux, video, video utilities, VirtualBox, VLC, wget, WinFF, x86
Posted in Linux, Linux and FreeBSD Desktop, Linux Audio & Video, System Administration | 4 Comments »
Sunday, January 22nd, 2012
If you still have some old dusty CDs left on the CD shelf, its quite cool to give it a ride in a rainy morning.
As I enjoy working in console so much, I thought it might be interesting to share how music audio CDs can be listened in plain text mode console.
For all console / terminal geeks Linux and BSDs can be equipped with a number of text/console audio cd console players.
There are plenty of free software console cd audio players on the net, however I found cdplay , cdcd and dcd to be the most popular ones.
On Debian and Ubuntu G*/Linuces cdplay and cdcd are installable via apt. To install cdtool:
root@xubuntu-desktop:~# apt-get install cdtool
...
cdtool package, contains a number of commands enabling you to listen/stop/shuffle/eject/get info about cd audio volumes. cdtool provides the following binaries:
cdeject
cdclose
cdir
cdinfo
cdpause
cdplay
cdstop
cdvolume
cdshuffle
Install cdcd on Debian and alike by typing:
root@xubuntu-desktop:~# apt-get install cdcd
...
cdcd has shell like interface the most basic use of it is with:
root@xubuntu-desktop:~# cdcd
cdcd> play
To play audiocds in console on FreeBSD , a command tool dcd is available and installable through ports.
To install it issue:
root@freebsd# cd /usr/ports/audio/dcd
root@freebsd# make install clean
...
dcd is also available for Linux but on most GNU/Linuxes it has to be built from source.
Lets say you'd like to Play the 5th song from audio CD:
freebsd# dcd 5
dcd has plenty of great arguments, to get some fun with it check the man page.
Another program that can be used to play audio CDs on both Linux and BSDs is the "classical" mplayer .
To play AUDIO CD with mplayer the command line to use is:
root@debian:~# mplayer -cdrom-device /dev/sr0 cdda:// -cache 5000
...
The argument -cache 5000 has to be passed to to work around choppy sound (if for example audio playback interruptions every few milliseconds).
For people who are keen on ncurses (Midnight Commander) like command line interfaces you might enjoy Herrie – a minimalistic music player that supports plenty of sound formats, including audiocds.
Herrie is available for Debian and most deb based modern distros via apt, e.g.:
root@xubuntu-desktop:~# apt-get install herrie
...

Ports are also available for FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD.
To install on FreeBSD:
root@freebsd# cd /usr/ports/audio/herrie
root@freebsd# make install clean
I'll be happy to hear feedback and recommendations on any other console audio cd players I might forgot to mention.
Which is your favourite console text based cd audio player?
Tags: audio cd, audio cds, audio music, audio playback, Auto, binaries, BSDs, cac, cdcd, cdclose, cdeject, cdejectcdclose, cdinfo, cdircdinfocdpausecdplay, cdplay, cdvolume, cdvolumecdshuffleInstall, choppy sound, command tool, dcd, Draft, Free, geeks, gnu linux, herrie, info, Install, interruptions, linuxes, man page, midnight commander, milliseconds, mplayer, music cds, number, Open, package, page, Play, player, playTo, ports, quot, rainy morning, root, shelf, Shell, software, terminal, text, text mode, tool, Ubuntu, usr
Posted in FreeBSD, Linux, Linux and FreeBSD Desktop, Linux Audio & Video | 1 Comment »
Friday, January 20th, 2012
Today I had a task to change an old CRT Monitor to LCD BENQ Model FP61E on a computer running Microsoft Windows XP SP3.
Changing phyiscally the monitors and restarting the computer to load with the new BENQ monitor ended up with the LCD Monitor showing a blank screen with error:
Out of Range
making the computer completely unusable.
Thanksfully in Windows Safe Mode the monitor was able to display the screen properly, so I had an option to operate somehow on the pc
My guess was that the Out of Range monitor problems were caused by an incorrect (monitor unsupported resolution).
Therefore what I tried as a fix to make it work was:
1. Enter Windows Safe Mode and change (lower the resolution) to 640×480, and restart the PC.
Unfortunately using this classical way to fix such issues failed… so I thought of some options.
2. Disable the video card NVIDIA Riva TNT2 Model 64 driver and check if this will make any difference.
I come up with the idea the Out of Range LCD issues might be caused by the Video card driver cause I've noticed in safe mode a standard VESA like VGA Driver shipped with Windows worked just fine.
To Disable the currently loaded NVIDIA Riva TNT2 Model 64/ Model 64Pro I used:
System -> Device Manager -> Hardware (Tab) -> Display Adapters
Clicking on Display Adapters the NVIDIA Riva TNT2 Model 64 appears using the option menu on it one can choose to disable the driver.
Further on restart Windows, to test if the XP will load properly with disabled NVidia video drivers.
Onwards it was clear the whole Out of Range issues were caused by some kind of conflict between the LCD BENQ FP61E Monitor and the NVIDIA Riva TNT2 Model 64
Often latest video drivers solves hardware incompitability issues and fix many bugs, upgrading the driver to latest is always a good idea.
3. Therefore I Upgraded the NVIDIA Riva TNT2 64 driver (using Safe Mode) to the latest available from Nvidia's official site.
Weirdly Upgrading NVidia Riva TNT2 drivers to the latest did not fix the Out of Range blank screen error.
After a bit of thinking on what to do to make the Monitor work fine with the Nvidia driver, I thought of completely uninstalling the Nvidia drivers and installing them again might be a fix.
In my previous experience with Windows at many occasions, uninstalling a driver failing to properly work and installing it again with a working version was a good fix.
4. Uninstall the NVIDIA Riva TNT2 Model and Install the latest driver.
Uninstalling and Installing the Video driver had to be done in Windows Safe Mode again, in normal mode the windows was not displaying anything.
After The driver installation program completes the installation it requires a restart. After the restart the Video driver gets loaded fine and Windows loaded up in Normal mode as usual
Tags: Auto, blank screen, card, cause, change, CRT, device manager, Display, display adapters, Draft, hardware tab, Install, installation, manager gt, menu, microsoft windows, Model, monitor problems, nvidia, nvidia riva tnt2 64, nvidia riva tnt2 64 driver, nvidia riva tnt2 model 64, nvidia video drivers, Onwards, option, option menu, range resolution, resolution problems, riva tnt2 model 64, Safe, screen, tnt2 model 64 driver, Uninstalling, Upgraded, vesa, VGA, vga driver, video card driver, Weirdly, windows safe mode, work
Posted in Everyday Life, Windows | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 18th, 2012
I had to make one old Samsung ML-2010P Laser Printer work on Xubuntu Linux . I've had some issues in installing it, I couldn't fine any step by step tutorial online, on how the printer can be made work fine on Linux. Therefore I took the time to experiment and see if I could make it work. Since the printer is old, not much people are interested any more in making the printer operational on Linux, hence I couldn't find too much relevant posts and sites on the net, anyways thanks God after a bit of pondering I finally succeeded to make the Samsung ML-2010P printer to print on Linux.This are the exact steps one has to follow to make this old bunch of hardware to play nice on Linux:
1. use lsusb to list the printer model
root@linux:~# lsusb |grep -i samsung
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 04e8:326c Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd ML-2010P Mono Laser Printer
You see the printer reports as Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd ML-2010P Mono Laser Printer
2. Install cups printing service required packages
root@linux:~# apt-get install cups cups-bsd cups-client cups-common
root@linux:~# apt-get install cups-driver-gutenprint ghostscript-cups
root@linux:~# apt-get install python-cups python-cupshelpers
3. Install foomatic packages
root@linux:~# apt-get install foomatic-db foomatic-db-engine foomatic-db-gutenprint
root@linux:~# apt-get install foomatic-filters python-foomatic
4. Install hpijs hplip printconfand other packages necesssery for proper printer operation
root@linux:~# apt-get install hpijs hplip hplip-data ijsgutenprint
root@linux:~# apt-get install min12xxw openprinting-pdds printconf foo2zjs
P.S. Some of the packages I list might already have been installed as a dependency to another package, as I'm writting this article few days after I've succeeded installing the printer, I don't remember the exact install order.
5. Install splix (SPL Driver for Unix)
Here is a quote taken from Spix's project website:
"SpliX is a set of CUPS printer drivers for SPL (Samsung Printer Language) printers.
If you have a such printer, you need to download and use SpliX. Moreover you will find documentation about this proprietary language.
"
root@linux:~# apt-get install splix
For more information on splix, check on Splix SPL driver for UNIX website http://splix.ap2c.org/
You can check on the projects website the Samsung ML 2010 Printer is marked as Working
Next step is to configure the Printer
6. Go to Cups interface on localhost in browser and Add the Samsung printer.
Use Firefox, SeaMonkey or any browser of choice to configure CUPS:
Type in the browser:
http://localhost:631
Next a password prompt will appear asking for a user/pass. The user/pass you have to use is the same as the password of the user account you're logged on with.

Click on the Add Printer button and choose to add the Samsung ML-2010.
Then restart the CUP Service (cupsd) to make it load the new settings:
root@linux:~# /etc/init.d/cups restart
Now give the printer a try in printing some page in SeaMonkey, Chrome or Firefox (the quickest way is through pressing CTRL + P )
Following this steps, I've managed to run the printer on Xubuntu Linux, though the same steps if followed should most probably make the Samsnung ML 2010 play nice with other Linux distributions with a little or no adjustments.
I'll be glad to hear if someone succeeded in making the printer work on other distributions, if so please drop me a comment.
That's all folks! Enjoy printing
Tags: Auto, Bus, configure, dependency, Draft, Driver, exact steps, experiment, few days, foo, foomatic, GNU, grep, hplip, Install, Laser, Linux, ML, mono laser printer, operation, package, password, printer model, printer operation, printer work, printing, printing service, python, quot, relevant posts, root, root linux, samsung, samsung electronics, samsung electronics co, samsung electronics co ltd, samsung ml, Service, SPL, time, tutorial, work, Xubuntu
Posted in Linux, System Administration, Web and CMS | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
Right after installing Windows XP inside VirtualBox, I've found out everything works fine except the screen. Even though pressing (Right CTRL + F) was changing the Windows XP running window to FullScreen the XP screen was taking only a part of the whole screen area, where almost half of the screen was visible as simply staying blank.
A bit of research and I found the issue is caused by missing VirtualBoxGuestAdditions .
VBoxAdditions is a package which should be installed inside the VirtualBox by navigating to Devices -> Install Guest Additions
Virtualbox offers a download of a VboxGuestAdditions_4.1.2_Ubuntu.iso from url;
http://dlc.sun.edgesuite.net/virtualbox/4.1.2_Ubuntu/VBoxGuestAdditions_4.1.2_Ubuntu.iso, anyways this download fails since the URL is currently unavailable.
To fix this two ways are possible:
1. Download VBoxGuestAdditions.iso from here and put it in directory /usr/share/virtualbox , e.g.:
root@ubuntu:~# cd /usr/share/virtualbox
root@ubuntu:/usr/share/virtualbox# wget http://www.pc-freak.net/files/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso
...
2. Download and install virtualbox-guest-additions-iso_4.1.2-1_all.deb
root@ubuntu:~# wget http://www.pc-freak.net/files/virtualbox-guest-additions-iso_4.1.2-1_all.deb
...
root@ubuntu:~# dpkg -i virtualbox-guest-additions-iso_4.1.2-1_all.deb
...
Next to enable and install guest additions once again use menus:
Devices -> Install Guest Additions

The screen to appear next will be similar to:

Further on follow the few dialogs to complete the installations and integration of Guest Additions and restart the Virtual machine and hooray the Windows will appear in Full screen in VirtualBox !
Tags: additions, area, deb, dialogs, dlc, download, dpkg, edgesuite, everything, freak, FULL, fullscreen, half, hooray, Install, installing windows, integration, iso 2, issue, Linux, menus, package, root, share, sun, two ways, Ubuntu, usr, Virtual, virtual machine, VirtualBox, VirtualBoxGuestAdditions, wget, windows xp
Posted in Linux, Linux and FreeBSD Desktop, System Administration | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
My beloved sister was complaining games were failing to properly be played with wine emulator , therefore I decided to be kind and help her by installing a Windows XP to run inside a Virtual Machine.My previous install experiments with running MS Windows XP on Linux was on Debian using QEMU virtualmachine emulator.
However as Qemu is a bit less interactive and slower virtualmachine for running Windows (though I prefer it for being completely free software), this time I decided to install the Windows OS with Virtualbox.
My hope was using VirtualBox would be a way easier but I was wrong… I've faced few troubles and I thought many people who initially try to install Virtualbox VM to run Windows on Ubuntu and other Debian based Linux distros will probably experience the same problems as mine, so here is how this article was born.
Here is what I did to have a VirtualBox OS emulator to run Windows XP SP2 on Ubuntu 11.10 Linux
1. Install Virtualbox required packages with apt
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install virtualbox virtualbox-dkms virtualbox-guest-dkms root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install virtualbox-ose-dkms virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-guest-x11
...
If you prefer more GUI or lazy to type commands, the Software Package Manager can also be used to straight install the same packages.
virtualbox-dkms virtualbox-guest-dkms packages are the two which are absolutely necessery in order to enable VirtualBox to support installing Microsoft Windows XP. DKMS modules are also necessery to be able to emulate some other proprietary (non-free) operating systems.
The DKMS packages provide a source for building Vbox guest (OS) additional kernel modules. They also require the kernel source to be install otherwise they fail to compile.
Failing to build the DKMS modules will give you error every time you try to create new VirtualMachine container for installing a fresh Windows XP.
The error happens if the two packages do not properly build the vboxdrv extra Vbox kernel module while the Windows XP installer is loaded from a CD or ISO. The error to pop up is:
Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908)
The VirtualBox Linux kernel driver (vboxdrv) is either not loaded or there is a permission problem with /dev/vboxdrv. Please reinstall the kernel module by executing

To fix the error:
2. Install latest Kernel source that corresponds to your current kernel version
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`
...
Next its necessery to rebuild the DKMS modules using dpkg-reconfigure:
3. Rebuild VirtualBox DKMS deb packages
root@ubuntu:~# dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox-dkms
...
root@ubuntu:~# dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox-guest-dkms
...
root@ubuntu:~# dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox-ose-dkms
...
Hopefully the copilation of vboxdrv kernel module should complete succesfully.
To test if all is fine just load the module:
4. Load vboxdrv virtualbox kernel module
root@ubuntu:~# modprobe vboxdrv
root@ubuntu:~#
If you get some error during loading, this means vboxdrv failed to properly compile, try read thoroughfully what the error is and fix it)
.
As a next step the vboxdrv has to be set to load on every system boot.
5. Set vboxdrv to load on every Ubuntu boot
root@ubuntu:~# echo 'vboxdrv' >> /etc/modules
I am not sure if this step is required, it could be /etc/init.d/virtualbox init script automatically loads the module, anyways putting it to load on boot would do no harm, so better do it.
That's all now, you can launch VirtualBox and use the New button to initiate a new Virtual Machine, I will skip explaining how to do the configurations for a Windows XP as most of the configurations offered by default would simply work without any tampering.
After booting the Windows XP installer I simply followed the usual steps to install Windows and all went smoothly.
Below you see a screenshot showing the installed Windows XP Virtualbox saved VM session. The screenshot letters are in Bulgarian as my sisters default lanaguage for Ubuntu is bulgarian

I hope this article helps someone out there. Please drop me a comment if you experience any troubles with it. Cya
Tags: Auto, beloved sister, DKMS, Draft, Failing, free operating systems, guest os, init, Install, ISO, kernel modules, kernel source, Linux, Microsoft, microsoft windows, ms windows, necessery, Permission, qemu, root, screenshot, software, software package, time, type, Ubuntu, uname, vbox, Virtual, virtual machine, VirtualBox, virtualmachine, vm, windows os, windows xp, windows xp sp2, wine, x11
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