Tag Archives: linux

Syncing files with Unison in Ubuntu

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I have this music collection in my local hard drive which I wanted to sync with a folder in my portable HDD. What I wanted was to sync any changes done in any of them to the other with just one click. And came across Unison.

It’s available in the repositories and once installed all you have to do is to give the two folders for it to start syncing. However it seemed that most of my folders won’t sync. An error appears saying “Failed to set permissions blah blah”

Then came up with a simple solution in the Ubuntu forums. All you have to do is to add an entry called ‘perms=0’ in the Unison’s profile preferences file. It’ll bypass the frustrating permissions. This file can be found under ~/.unison directory. For my case it was ~/.unison/default. prf

Simply open up that file, enter a new line saying “perms=0” (w/o quotes) and save the file.  Works like magic 🙂

Cool improvement for Nautilus thumbnails

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Saw this trick in OMG! Ubuntu today. You can check out the original article here.

All you have to do is enter the following three commands in a terminal.

  • wget http://a.imageshack.us/img135/8666/thumbnailframe.png
  • sudo mv thumbnailframe.png /usr/share/pixmaps/nautilus/thumbnail_frame.png
  • killall nautilus

And check out the improved look in nautilus thumbnails. What this actually does is changing the default border in the thumbnails to a more 3D looking one.

The Linux App Store

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I’ve always been charmed by the ease with which you can install an app in linux. I open the Ubuntu Software Centre (my system being Ubuntu) and enter a search term for the kind of app i’m looking for and click install. It’s similar to installing an app from the Apple App Store. And there’s an app for everything, too!

Some bed time reading in case you aren’t convinced: Washing the windows myths. Program installation.

JDownloader: Awesome download manager for linux

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I’ve always suffered from the lack of a good download manager for linux until I stumbled upon JDownloader. I swear it is something better than you could expect.

Just copy a link from Rapidshare, Mediafire, Hotfile, or any such file hosting service available and it’ll do the download for you. Yes, you don’t need to have premium accounts for any of these services. No more count downs. If the site requests filling out Captchas JDownloader will just show you the captcha and all you have to do it type it in and press Enter. Furthermore, once a compressed file is downloaded it is automatically uncompressed.

As the name suggests it is written in Java. Does some updating thing once installed so you’ll have to wait for a few minutes. Another con is the not so eye catching interface. But pros overrule over them.

JDownloader has recently obtained its own PPA so nothing to worry about installing.

Refer this post to get instructions on adding the PPA and installing.

Babiloo: Offline dictionary for linux

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UPDATE: I ditched Babiloo for Artha Dictionary. It has a lot more cool features and is perhaps the best available offline dictionary currently. It’s available in the Ubuntu software centre as well.

Lately I was using the Dictionary that comes as an accessory bundled with Ubuntu. It was good, but I thought it’d be wonderful to have an offline one.

After a lot of trials and errors, I settled with Babiloo. It’s a simple app which is available in the Ubuntu Software Centre as well. Several free dictionaries can be downloaded from here and installed in Babiloo. So far so good.

P.S. And I’m beginning to love the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (which can be downloaded from the above link).

EDIT: The above link to download dictionaries doesn’t seem to work anymore. You can download free dictionaries from this link.

Adding PPAs

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Until now I was too afraid at the notion of adding a new PPA to the system. Some sites give you the direct commands to add the PPA but when you have to do it manually, I start to sweat.

Today, I wanted to install HandBrake in my Ubuntu system, and was directed to this page. And after installing the key somehow, I got to know how easy a task it was. All you have to do is type sudo add-apt-repository <ppa-name> and sudo apt-get update after the key is installed. For example, the commands I entered in this case were:

   sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stebbins/handbrake-snapshots
   sudo apt-get update

Chrome is odd in Ubuntu

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Starting from Lucid Lynx, the control buttons are placed at the left side of the title bar in Ubuntu. This is quite cool. Once you get used to it, it seems more intuitive than having them on the right side.

But unfortunately one single app still has its buttons in right side, and that’s Google Chrome. Wish they’d let the users choose where to place the buttons.

To move to Peppermint Ice or not to

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Well, I almost installed Peppermint Os One in my machine only to find so many problems, not recognizing my USB modem only one of them. Now that they’ve released PeppermintOS Ice, which has Chromium as its default browser, I’m thinking again.

Well, modem problem could be solved somehow or other, but then when I was going through the PeppermintOS forums I saw that people were having problems configuring iBus too. iBus of course is a necessity to write and view Sinhala.

So, still I’m more likely not to trash Ubuntu for PeppermintOS Ice.