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How to Fix Ugly Japanese Fonts in Firefox

May 11, 2012 in Applications, Firefox, Linux, Ubuntu | 1 comment

The other day I took and reinstalled Ubuntu on my computer. So now I’m running 12.04, and I have to say that it’s a really nice OS.

Anyway, in Firefox I encountered an ugly Japanese font on some pages. It looked like an old/jagged serif font. However, on some other pages it looked much better and modern.

After looking around I finally managed to fix that ugly font problem by doing these steps:

  1. Open Firefox’s Preferences window.
  2. Select the Content tab.
  3. Click on the “Advanced…” button under “Fonts & Colors”.
  4. A new window appears with the title Fonts.
  5. Select Japanese in the “Fonts for:” drop-down list.
  6. Select “sans-serif” in the “Serif:” drop-down list.
  7. Finally close the window by clicking the OK button and you are done.

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How to Compile a gtkmm Project in Code::Blocks

November 20, 2011 in Applications, Code, Linux | No comments

To compile a C++ application using gtkmm in Code::Blocks, do the following steps:

  1. Open Project > Build Options…
  2. Select your project.
  3. On the Compiler settings tab, select Other options and add this to the field:
    `pkg-config gtkmm-3.0 –cflags`
  4. Select the Linker settings tab and type the following line in the Other linker options text area:
    `pkg-config gtkmm-3.0 –libs`

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How to Set Up Egit with Github in Eclipse

November 16, 2011 in Applications, Internet | No comments

When I the other day tried to set up Egit in Eclipse Indigo with Github I had major problems with guides not working. Two of the tutorials I tried where:

I got many errors and such… :/

But I found a really good post describing how to set it up in a current version of Eclipse:

2. In eclipse, configure the remote push
a. Window > Show View > Git > Git Repositories will add a repository explorer window.
b. In the repository window, select the repository and expand and right-click Remotes and choose Create Remote.
c. Copy the github repository URI from the github repository page and paste this in the URI box.
d. Select ssh as the protocol but then go back to the URI box and add “git+” at the beginning so it looks like this: git+ssh://git@github.com/UserName/ProjectName.git
e. In the Repository Path box, remove the leading slash
f. Hit next and cross your fingers. If your get “auth fail” restart eclipse and try step 5 again.
g. When you get past the authentication, in the next dialog select “master” for source ref, click “Add all branches spec” and “Finish”.

Now try a push to github. This worked for me but with all the fiddling around I’m not sure these instructions are perfect….

Link to the post: http://www.eclipse.org/forums/index.php/mv/msg/200890/648905/#msg_648905

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Guide to Make Your Computer Automatically Start and Download Torrents on Linux

October 2, 2011 in Applications, Arch Linux, Internet, Linux | 2 comments

Today I managed to install and configure software to make my computer automatically start and download torrents. So now my computer will by itself download episodes from series I have specified as soon as they are released. What you basically need (for my solution) is the torrent client Deluge, the application FlexGet and a RSS feed where the torrents are indexed.

Hereunder follow descriptions of what you have to do to get this working (on Arch Linux with Gnome, but most of the steps should work on any distribution. However some commands may differ and such).

Deluge

  1. First, download Deluge from your Linux distribution’s repository, if you don’t already have it installed. On Arch Linux, type the following in the terminal: sudo pacman -Sy deluge
  2. Open the Preferences window under the Edit menu in Deluge. Then navigate to the Interface tab and make sure that Classic Mode isn’t enabled, which I think it’s by default. You have to disable Classic Mode to be able to run the Deluge daemon, which is Deluge without the GUI, in the background.
  3. Next time you start Deluge (I think) it will ask you to start the daemon to make Deluge able to run. Under Edit > Connection Manager in Deluge you can reopen this window.
  4. Then you have to reopen the Preferences window, and under the Downloads tab choose where the torrents (the downloaded content) should be downloaded to.
  5. You can also start the daemon by typing deluged in the terminal. More information about the daemon can be found here: http://dev.deluge-torrent.org/wiki/Faq#Daemon. To see if it’s running, type ps -A | grep deluged in the terminal.

FlexGet

  1. Download and install FlexGet. There are installation instructions in their Wiki: http://flexget.com/wiki. However, if you are on Arch and have a wrapper for pacman and the AUR installed, like Yaourt, type the following in the terminal: yaourt -Sy flexget. (On Arch you probably will need to do some button smashing to install all dependences, since many of them can be found in the AUR too.)
  2. When you have installed FlexGet, create the folder .flexget in your home folder and in it create a file called config.yml. Now you should read a bit on FlexGet’s wiki to learn how you should construct the config file. Especially read the Configuration page. Here is how (a part of) my config file looks like: 
    feeds:
  tokyotosho:
    rss: http://www.tokyotosho.info/rss.php?filter=1&entries=450
    series:
      - Fate/Zero
    deluge: yes

    Note the last line: deluge: yes. It’s necessary for making Deluge start the torrents. Also note that you have to specify a RSS-feed where FlexGet should look for new torrents to download.

  3. Now FlexGet should be able to check the RSS feed(s), find the series/content you want to download and make Deluge download them. To test run FlexGet, run flexget –test in the terminal. Of course you can run flexget –help to find more possible commands. But to do a regular check in the RSS feeds, download, and all that stuff, just run flexget. Note that you don’t have to be running Deluge to download the torrents, only deluged is needed.

Start deluged with Gnome

  1. Open a terminal and run gnome-session-properties if you are on Gnome. In the window that pops up you should add an additional startup program – in this case deluged. Just type that in both the Name field and the Command field. If you are using another desktop environment you sadly have to figure out this step by yourself (Google).

Make FlexGet run once every hour automatically

FlexGet only checks the RSS feeds when you run flexget in the terminal. So what we want to do is to schedule the computer to run it once every hour.

  1. Start with adding the following two lines to the .bashrc file in your home folder: 
    EDITOR=nano
export EDITOR

    This will make the next terminal application use the text editor nano instead of whatever alien editor it uses by default. :)

  2. Close all terminal windows and open a new one to apply the change.
  3. Run crontab -e in the terminal.
  4. Add 0 * * * * flexget to the file, and then save and close it with Ctrl + Shift + X. You can find more schedule options here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Crontab. Please don’t make it run once every minute or something crazy like that, since that would use a lot of the server’s bandwidth where your RSS feed is hosted.
  5. To see everything you have scheduled, type crontab -l.

Done!

Now your computer should be able to automatically download torrents for you. I hope you found this guide helpful. If you have any wonders or problems, please leave a comment below, and maybe I can help you get it sorted out.

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How to Show Album Art in DeaDBeeF

September 29, 2011 in Applications, Linux | 2 comments

There is a really nice lightweight music player to Linux called DeaDBeeF, which can be found on the following link:

The appearance is in many ways very similar to the Windows music player Foobar2000. So if you like Foobar2000 on Windows, give DeaDBeeF a try. It also has many (preinstalled) plugins and features.

One of the features it has is the ability to show album art right in the playlist. To do this, do the following steps:

  1. Right click the bar right over the playlist and add Album Art from the Add Column window.
  2. Right click the bar again and choose Artist/Date/Album under Group by.
  3. Done!
  4. If you don’t want it to separate the playlist by artist. Choose Custom under the Group by menu instead, and type [%y] %b in the Format field.

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Tiling Window Manager XMonad

September 17, 2011 in Applications, Linux | 3 comments

On my laptop where I run Linux Mint 11 I have been using the window manager XMonad for a while. It’s a tiling window manager, and it’s the first time I’m using one of those. If you don’t know what a tiling window manager is, you can check out Wikipedia’s page on the subject:

Or this video of somebody fiddling around with XMonad:

XMonad works very well with Gnome 2, and it doesn’t conflict with the Gnome 2 panel at the top of the monitor. Here is a screenshot of my dekstop (click on it to show it in full-size):

XMonadI like that you open, resize and change active window, and move windows between workspaces with only the keyboard. This means that you don’t have to use the trackpad for those tasks. :)

I think that using a tiling window manager works surprisingly well, considering that it’s not a commonly used type of window manager. Sometimes do windows look a bit strange when they are forced to fill the whole screen tho, but that’s not often.

I recommend you to check out XMonad if it sound interesting. On Mint it’s really easy to change back to regular Gnome if you don’t like it, just pick regular Gnome on the login screen.

Links:

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Control Keystrokes and Mouse from the Command-Line with Xautomation

June 29, 2011 in Applications, Code, Linux | 2 comments

There is a pretty cool command-line based application that can execute keystrokes, mouse movement and mouse clicks, called Xautomation. It’s kinda useless if you are sitting at the computer with the terminal in the foreground. But it’s really awesome if you are coding an application that runs in the background and responds to signals from a remote control or similar. I have coded a little command-line based Python 3 program that does just that. It reads USB signals from my Arduino board which is connected to a IR receiver, and executes hotkeys that fits in Totem Media Player.

As an Arch Linux user it was a piece of cake to get Xautomation by downloading it from the AUR:

To use it, open a terminal and print:

xte --help

Then you will get a list of stuff that you can do with this piece of software, like:

xte "key a"
xte "str aAa"
xte "keydown Shift_L" "key a" "keyup Shift_L"
xte "mousermove 100 100"

To execute these commands from a Python 3 application, use this code:

import subprocess
subprocess.call(["xte", "key a"])

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Free & Open Source Twitter Competitor: Identi.ca/StatusNet

June 24, 2011 in Applications, Internet | No comments

I have heard some talk about Identi.ca on podcasts like Linux Outlaws and FLOSS Weekly, and today I took some time and checked it out. Identi.ca is a microblogging platform that works almost exactly as Twitter, but it’s based on the StatusNet software that is freely available for download and install.

What I find pretty funny is the kind of people that is hanging out on Identi.ca – open source geeks. This is obvious if you look at the page that lists the most popular groups, where you can see that the following groups got the most members: Linux, Ubuntu, GNU, Debian, Python and KDE.

I have also registered an account on Identi.ca, but I don’t know how active I will be. I never really got into Twitter, so I’m a bit dubious. However, here is a link to my profile: http://identi.ca/matachi/

Links:

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Serial Monitor In Arduino Not Working On Arch Linux – Solution

June 19, 2011 in Applications, Arch Linux, Hardware, Linux | No comments

Arduino Mega (ATmega1280)One week ago I ordered an Arduino kit from Ebay with an Arduino Mega (ATmega1280) board and some other stuff included, like a breadboard, some LED lights and a LCD display. It costed me only 62 $, so it was a really great price compared to what it would cost here in a Swedish store.

I installed the Arduino software from the AUR (Arch User Repository), but the version of avr-gcc that was included was 4.6.0. If I have understood it correctly, is avr-gcc a compiler that is designed for AVR microcontrollers. However, apparently there is a bug in the versions 4.4 – 4.6.0 of the compiler, which makes programs on the Arduino Mega board unable to send and receive signals through the USB cable. So the Serial Monitor in the Arduino software won’t work.

On Arduino’s website they recommend that you use version 4.3.x of avr-gcc instead, therefore I thought it would be a good idea to install it. And that have I been messing with since Friday. But I finally got it to work just a moment ago, thanks to madworm on the Arduino forums. I’m not here going to describe every step that I took, but if you are having the same problem that I described above, check out the thread and see if you can get it sorted out:

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How To Get The Tray Icon Back In Emesene 2

June 1, 2011 in Applications, Linux | 10 comments

I just updated Emesene to version 2 on my Linux Mint installation and I noticed that the tray icon was gone. To bring it back, I did these steps:

  1. Start Emesene.
  2. In the main window, press Options, which you find in the top bar. Then select Preferences.
  3. Click on the Extensions tab in the new window that has opened.
  4. There, select tray icon from the Categories drop-down list.
  5. And finally select Tray Icon from the Selected drop-down list, which is right beneath Categories.
  6. Press Redraw main screen to apply the changes. This button can you find on the same window.

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