New to linux ? Have a look to this !

Posted on August 28, 2010 by Ashwini Shankar Patankar

I have seen many who tried their hands on linux and end up back to windows. Many students who got stuck up with the question How will I do this in Linux? which is best distro ? where to get help ? So I decided this will help those who want to try their hands on linux and who are looking for doing everything with linux.

First thing first, you can use any distribution that you want Ubuntu, Sabayon, Centos, Mint, OpenSuse, Fedora etc. these are just few out of a big list, you can check and get information about all this at Distrowatch.
But my personal advice, if you are a programmer or engineering student then try with fedora else for everyone else try ubuntu.
Now, you can get the installation instructions through web or through the home pages of distribution.
Here are some places where you can get all the information and answers to your ‘how to ‘ questions.

There are some forums also where you can browse the solutions to common porblems and also ask some new
Fedora Forum
Ubuntu Forum
Linux Forum
Linux Questions

And if you are looking to find the alternatives for your windows softwares then try this
Alternative to
Open Site Solutions
Open Source As Alternatives

If you are looking for reasons why you should switch to linux then try this
Why Linux is Better ?

you can also google out for videos,

Usually, every linux distros has their own repositories from where you can install the packages but there is one more great place to look for some great softwares like SourceForge

For now thats all ! Please comment with more links and description so that many others get benefit

Knowledge belongs to all, Follow opensource !

Useful Vi Vommands

Posted on December 1, 2009 by Ashwini Shankar Patankar

I just came across a list of useful Vi commands, which every one should know atleast newbies
Useful Vi comands

iPod and Linux

Posted on October 27, 2009 by Ashwini Shankar Patankar

Unfortunately Apple does not provide any thing like iTunes, but hayi, there is GTKPOD for managing iPod.

go to the terminal (you can use synaptic also) and type
$yum -y install gtkpod

now check Applications > Sound and Video > gtk-pod

Njoy !

Make video of Desktop

Posted on October 25, 2009 by Ashwini Shankar Patankar

In windows if you want to make a video of your desktop then google for the tools and be ready to pay for them, but in linux it is not so.

just go to your terminal and type
$yum install gtk-recordmydesktop (for fedora)
and for ubuntu

$apt-get gtk-recordmydesktop

the tool is easy to use and offcourse free. There is one more tool developed on gtk-recordmydesktop called istanabul .

Enjoy making videos of your desktop.

Yum in Fedora 11

Posted on October 22, 2009 by Ashwini Shankar Patankar

I usually install fedora or any distro by flash drive (unfortunately my dvd rom doesnt work). When I install fedora, the first thing I need is to set the yum repo.

Problem Statement:
Yum is not working in fedora 11
Terminal Output:

Solution
$cd /etc/yum.repo.d/
$gedit fedora*.*

now in all the .repo file that get opened by the above command, remove ‘#’ or uncomment ‘base url’ and comment or add ‘#’ the ‘mirrors’ at all the places (approximately 3 per file)

now save and close, run $yum clean all
all set to go !

Remove Desktop Icons

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Ashwini Shankar Patankar

Distro: Fedora 11
Desktop: Gnome

$yum install gconf-editor

Press ALT+F2
run gconf-editor
go to /apps/nautilus/desktop/
tick untick the required boxes

Enjoy Clean Desktop !

Chrome on Fedora !

Posted on October 14, 2009 by Ashwini Shankar Patankar

Add the google repository to the yum data base:

file name: google.repo

Path: /etc/yum.repos.d/

$gedit googel.repo

 [google]
 name=Google - i386
 baseurl=http://dl.google.com/linux/rpm/stable/i386
 enabled=1
 gpgcheck=1
 gpgkey=https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub

and save this.

now go the terminal and type
$yum install google-chrome

if there will be any problem regarding signing key then download the key from here
and then again go to terminal run this command
$rpm –import <key..pub>

now try to install google chrome
all go, Chrome installed !

FFMPEG Commands

Posted on October 13, 2009 by Ashwini Shankar Patankar

apart from some classic tutorials , here is a few commands infact examples,

How to split video with ffmpeg?

ffmpeg -i input.mpg -ss 00:00:10 -t 00:00:30 out1.mpg

-ss is the start point in hh:mm:ss from the beginning of your video file

-t is the length of time in hh:mm:ss of your new segment.

Microsoft Fonts on Linux !

Posted on October 12, 2009 by Ashwini Shankar Patankar

Recently I was drafting a cover letter and I found I was not having Times New Roman installed, so I tried this steps for installing Micro Soft fonts on fedora 11. Hope this will work with you also.

1) yum -y install rpm-build cabextract ttmkfdir xorg-x11-xfs

2) download chkfontpath*.*rpm from http://dl.atrpms.net/f11-i386/atrpms/stable/ and install it.

do not forget to check the right rpm, in my case it was i386/i586 adn f11 thats why I used this one else go to parent directories and select another architecture

add atrpm repo to yum link http://fedoraguide.info/index.php?title=Main_Page#Atrpms

and then install chkfontpath

#rpm -ivh http://dl.atrpms.net/all/chkfontpath-1.10.1-2.fc9.i386.rpm

3) Making the msttcorefonts rpm

Download the file http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/msttcorefonts-2.0-1.spec to the folder ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/

cd ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/ OR http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/packages/SPECS/

rpmbuild -bb msttcorefonts-2.0-1.spec

rpm -ivh ~/rpmbuild/SRPMS/msttcorefonts-2.0-1.src.rpm

rpm -ivh ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/noarch/msttcorefonts-2.0-1.noarch.rpm

check your writer or editor, there should be Micro soft fonts available after all this steps !