Let me be clear about one thing: Among the various Linux distributions I've tried, Ubuntu is the one I like best (at the moment). I used to be a great fan of RedHat, as a simple, clean nice and well featured disto. At least the "simple" part went down the drain after 7.2. (One of the crappiest one was SuSe, which started out quite well. I liked the idea of having commercial forces supporting a free project, but unfortunately the distribution has become more and more awkward and the free/open support community more and more egg-headed.)
A few years ago I was thinking - if we're going for the "all GUI" approach anyway, why not Brunbuntu :) I've been mostly a happy-puppy with Brunbuntu since then, but only until something needs tweaking. Then it's not so damn funny anymore. One of the things I've been tearing my hair about lately is the network manager. If you think I'm just whining, try upgrading from Edgy to Jaunty Jackalope. Someone should be shot messing up such a vital thing as network management methinks. However, whence you've got it right its actually not that bad at all (I particularly like the concept of being able to assign different settings to the same wlan interface depending on which network you're logged into - really great!).
If you're actually stuck with this, look out for the article abot the Network Manager I'm about to write.
Some things in Debinan/Ubuntu repel me on a deeper level however. One of those is the the idea of mimicking the Windowze registry. How this common-point-of failure strategy found it's way into the Linux community is beyond my understanding.
Anywho, here comes a few hints if you're unlucky enough having to alter some Gnome application setting.
Instead of the usual Unix/Linux approach, Gnome aware programs store all their data in a sub directory called ~/.gconf
Another place to look is in /etc/xdg/, at least for the "autostart" part for some of the applets.
The "keys" are fortunately files which makes this at least somewhat bearable, if not understandable. The content of these "keys" are however in XML, which again is quite repulsive IMHO.
The program to use to manage the "keys" in this "registry" thingy is the Configuration Editor (gconf-editor), which is part of your distribution but which is not enabled in the menu. Run the Menu Editor (alacarte) from a shell and enable it and to make life a little bit easier.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Netbook mode - not playing nicely with Classic Desktop mode
I've been playing around with the netbook-remix package on various machines, aiming to have both netbook desktop management and normal desktop management on the same machine ant to be able to choose between them on demand. The netbook stuff is actually not bad if you hook up your laptop (or netbook for that matter) to your TV as a media-player/web-browser thingy. Especially if you remote control your mouse with a Bluetooth application from your phone, it's great to be able to see what application your starting from a distance.
In the case where a machine is installed from the Ubuntu Netbook distribution and where the switch-desktop package is installed on-top this works somewhat well. But if one starts the other way around with a normal Ubuntu Desktop disto and then install the netbook-remix and switch-desktop one ends up with a situation where all windows are always started maximized no matter which mode you switch to or even which VM you run.
I.e. no matter which desktop mode you select with the Switch Desktop Mode utility, or if you add your own ~/.xinitrc, the issue with the maximized windows remains (!).
Usually one can google around and find at least a couple of persons who's stumbled across the same problem that oneself has, but in this case - nothing.
Anyway, to keep a long story short, here's what I did to resolve this particular issue.
In the folder /etc/xdg/autostart/ there used to be two files:
maximus-autostart.desktop
netbook-launcher.desktop
I removed the first one and after restarting gdm everything works as usual. This leads me to believe that this is some sort of ugly-patch because the compiz maximumize in the CCMS was disabled and it does no difference if it's set or not.
I'm not an expert in either X, VM's, DM's or Gnome and I dare not say what the xdm structure is or what it's good for.
References
In the case where a machine is installed from the Ubuntu Netbook distribution and where the switch-desktop package is installed on-top this works somewhat well. But if one starts the other way around with a normal Ubuntu Desktop disto and then install the netbook-remix and switch-desktop one ends up with a situation where all windows are always started maximized no matter which mode you switch to or even which VM you run.
I.e. no matter which desktop mode you select with the Switch Desktop Mode utility, or if you add your own ~/.xinitrc, the issue with the maximized windows remains (!).
Usually one can google around and find at least a couple of persons who's stumbled across the same problem that oneself has, but in this case - nothing.
Anyway, to keep a long story short, here's what I did to resolve this particular issue.
In the folder /etc/xdg/autostart/ there used to be two files:
maximus-autostart.desktop
netbook-launcher.desktop
I removed the first one and after restarting gdm everything works as usual. This leads me to believe that this is some sort of ugly-patch because the compiz maximumize in the CCMS was disabled and it does no difference if it's set or not.
I'm not an expert in either X, VM's, DM's or Gnome and I dare not say what the xdm structure is or what it's good for.
References
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Monitoring nework activity
For instant monitoring the following tools are good:
Remember that promiscuous mode monitoring requires packages to actually pass your interface for the host to be able to pick them up. I.e. wired traffic can be difficult to pick up if a network switch is used in the central of a star network topology. Either replace it with a simple hub or you have to put the machine used for monitoring in the way between the router and the rest of the network (i.e. it has to be multi hosted running ip-chains or similar).
Note that darkstat has a config bug. For the -l option the format is:
-l aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd/nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn
and not:
-l aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd/N
(where N is the number of bits from the left. I.e. 1-32)
- wireshark (ethereal)
- etherape
- tshark
- darkstat
- ntop
- iptraf
Remember that promiscuous mode monitoring requires packages to actually pass your interface for the host to be able to pick them up. I.e. wired traffic can be difficult to pick up if a network switch is used in the central of a star network topology. Either replace it with a simple hub or you have to put the machine used for monitoring in the way between the router and the rest of the network (i.e. it has to be multi hosted running ip-chains or similar).
Note that darkstat has a config bug. For the -l option the format is:
-l aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd/nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn
and not:
-l aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd/N
(where N is the number of bits from the left. I.e. 1-32)
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