I recently migrated to Thunderbird 3.0.3 There is a specific problem with Thunderbird that I have seen at times. Ever faced a problem of loosing your mail data and accounts after migrating to new Thunderbird? Thunderbird stores data under directory named .thunderbird in your home. But maybe just in Ubuntu or some versions of Thunderbird store it under directory named .mozilla-thunderbird. So if after installing a new Thunnderbird and restarting it, if you are not able to see your e-mails, it might well be the problem of directory names.
To resolve, try renaming the directory (Whatever applies to you),
> mv .mozilla-thunderbird .thunderbird
or
> mv .thunderbird .mozilla-thunderbird
Restart your Thunderbird and now you should be able to see your e-mails.
I have mostly seen this problem when I install Thunderbird externally i.e. not through package manager. By installing I mean simply extracting it to /opt and not doing "./configure make install"
Showing posts with label Linux. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Linux. Show all posts
Spell check under Openoffice
Are you unable to do auto spell check in the OpenOffice applications? To make it work, you need to go to the application (oowriter, oocalc etc) menu, go to Tools -> Options -> Language Settings -> Languages and set the "Default language for the documents" to something standard. In my case "English (USA)" just worked fine.
Annoying system beep under Xubuntu 8.10
If you face a problem of getting an annoying system beep at startup / shutdow and any other actions under xubuntu 8.10, the only solution is to blacklist the pcspkr module.
edit the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file as root (sudo) and add line,
blacklist pcspkr
Although the changes will apply only after you reboot the machine, you can do
sudo modprobe -r pcspkr
This will remove the pcspkr module and disable the annoying sound
edit the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file as root (sudo) and add line,
blacklist pcspkr
Although the changes will apply only after you reboot the machine, you can do
sudo modprobe -r pcspkr
This will remove the pcspkr module and disable the annoying sound
Problems with Thunderbird calendar after Thunderbird upgrade
If you are not able to see the calendar data after upgrading your Thunderbird, specially after upgrading your linux version, the problem can be solved by installing libstdc++5.
I recently upgraded to Xubuntu 8.10 from OpenSUSE 10.3 (late but worth it) and after importing my mail data, I could not see the calendar. The Thunderbird version I used before was 2.0.0.6 and the new version was 2.0.0.17. I tried installing the lower version (in /opt keeping the prebuild version) and it complained to start. It complained about missing libstdc++5.so after I installed that (sudo apt-get install libstdc++5) all worked fine.
After a bit of googling that the problem with latest version is that it is dependant on libstdc++6 whereas the calendar plugin is dependant on libstdc++5 (I am using Lightning version 0.9 which presumably is the latest)
I recently upgraded to Xubuntu 8.10 from OpenSUSE 10.3 (late but worth it) and after importing my mail data, I could not see the calendar. The Thunderbird version I used before was 2.0.0.6 and the new version was 2.0.0.17. I tried installing the lower version (in /opt keeping the prebuild version) and it complained to start. It complained about missing libstdc++5.so after I installed that (sudo apt-get install libstdc++5) all worked fine.
After a bit of googling that the problem with latest version is that it is dependant on libstdc++6 whereas the calendar plugin is dependant on libstdc++5 (I am using Lightning version 0.9 which presumably is the latest)
kdesu, su and sudo
Recently I upgraded to SUSE 10.2 First thing I did after install was configured sudo. I find it handy when doing operations requiring root privileges. But I always faced problems running GUI applications which require to connect back to X server. For example sudo /sbin/yast2 would always revert to the text based yast in suse, and others would give up with error. After I had done my installation I tried running yast (this time clicking on a link in launch bar.) It showed me the routine pop up asking for root password. And to my surprise, root password wouldn't work. So I typed in my password and Bingo! it worked! Now I was puzzled why would it not accept root password (despite asking me for root password) and would succeed using my password.
So I looked up for the link launching the yast. I found out that the application which asked for root password in GUI mode was kdesu, and the command looked like kdesu /sbin/yast2. After reading brief documentation of kdesu, I learned that kdesu is kde equivalent for su. But then why would it not take my root password and still accept my password? Then I realized that I configure my sudo with targetpw attribute disabled. This will ask me for my password instead of root password to get root privileges. So for my curiosity I ran command kdesu /sbin/yast2 again, and did pstree. The tree showed that kdesu spawned sudo (and not su) This clarified why my password was accepted and not root password.
kdesu is very handy running KDE / GUI applications. You can also run applications as some other user (as in sudo) with -u switch. Say you want to run konqueror as user bozzo you can run kdesu -u bozzo konqueror from Run Command dialog (pressing Alt + F2).
So I looked up for the link launching the yast. I found out that the application which asked for root password in GUI mode was kdesu, and the command looked like kdesu /sbin/yast2. After reading brief documentation of kdesu, I learned that kdesu is kde equivalent for su. But then why would it not take my root password and still accept my password? Then I realized that I configure my sudo with targetpw attribute disabled. This will ask me for my password instead of root password to get root privileges. So for my curiosity I ran command kdesu /sbin/yast2 again, and did pstree. The tree showed that kdesu spawned sudo (and not su) This clarified why my password was accepted and not root password.
kdesu is very handy running KDE / GUI applications. You can also run applications as some other user (as in sudo) with -u switch. Say you want to run konqueror as user bozzo you can run kdesu -u bozzo konqueror from Run Command dialog (pressing Alt + F2).
My "dream" development environment
My boss keeps telling me to leave my laptop and get onto a desktop
machine. I agree, desktops are more powerful and rather sturdier than
laptops. But my laptop gives me freedom to work from anywhere. I can
work from home if i want (Well.. maybe at least sometimes! :D) I have
all the resources that i need wherever I go. But its really frustrating
when I try running heavy applications on my laptop. I feel I really need to get
on to a powerful machine. But then I loose all my freedom of working
from anywhere.
Recently I just gave this whole idea a thought! Well, what do i really
need is a powerful hardware! What if I can carry my whole Operating
System with me wherever I go? such that I use only the computing power
of the hardware but the operating system (and the whole environment) is
what remains the same. Then I came across a USB disk, one sent to me by
my Dad. The specialty with this USB disk is it actually uses memory
card. So that you can plug in any memory card into it and use it as a
pen drive. For long I have known a Linux distribution aimed at being
really small. Its called Damn Small Linux (DSL). It has also got XFace
windowing system and is really damn small in size. Major feature of DSL
is that it can start from within Windows or even within Linux. So what
has this all to do with my dream development environment?
Well, if I can put all these pieces together, I can build my "dream"
development environment! Say I have a memory card of 5G. I use my funky
USB Disk to connect that to my computer. I can install DSL or in fact
any other distribution on this USB disk. I can setup my whole
development environment on the same. Since I have got 5G which I suppose
is plenty of space, (Even if you dont agree) I can setup all the stuff I
want like Java, Eclipse, Browser etc. I just have to make sure that I
have driver for most of the hardware. I take this little USB disk to any
machine which can boot from USB (Not necessary if I install DSL), I boot
to my very own portable development environment!
Sounds amusing isn't it? But reading or writing stuff to this memory
card maybe very slow and loading, saving applications can also be
considerably slow. But I wouldn't bother to compromise on that if I have
so very portable environment with me. Surely comfortable and easy to
carry. Well only thing which can bother me now is my USB disk crashes. I
think we are not very long from an era where computing power will be
provided like service, and your software (my USB disk in this case) will
be something you store on Internet. The computer will be a very light
front-end on top of all these services.
Super User Do! (sudo)
sudo (Super User do) is an excellent and yet extremely simple utility.
sudo lets ordinary user to execute commands as super user (root)
Any user can execute privileged program using sudo command.
sudo will ask for that users password before executing any command
(Note it doesn't ask you root password) sudo can be configured to
gain finer control over who can execute what. People can be restricted
to execute certain commands such as halt, reboot etc. Yet they can
execute other commands without providing root password.
sudo configuration can also be stored in LDAP. This allows finer control
over distributed set of machines. All machines can read configuration from
LDAP server which localizes the configuration and management of sudo
for multiple machines.
Ubuntu comes with preconfigured sudo. Ubuntu has null root password
that is no one can log into root account directly. First user who registers on
the ubuntu box is given all privileges through sudo on that machine.
If the privileged person wants to login as root he can do so using
command
sudo su
The most important feature of sudo is that it enables logging. sudo logs
the commands you execute with the user name. And this is what many
people use it for.
This sounds very good approach in terms of security, but I don't totally
agree with it. Say there are 3 users who have got full privileges with sudo.
All of them can execute any command by providing their own password
to sudo. This means that we now have nearly 3 root equivalent accounts
and 3 root equivalent passwords to protect! Also the configuration is
rather trickier. When I configured sudo I started with exclusion principle.
Users were disallowed to execute certain programs, rest of the programs
can be executed by users. This is really dangerous as the programs which
you are allowing are virtually infinite set, so its always better to use inclusion
principle here. Only allow certain programs can be executed as root.
Maybe rest of the programs can be allowed to run as some less privileged
user or the same user (As pointed out by Milan :D)
All I can say its something very useful for people using it for personal
desktops or in the environment where there are limited users.
links:
Sodores Manual
sudo (Super User do) is an excellent and yet extremely simple utility.
sudo lets ordinary user to execute commands as super user (root)
Any user can execute privileged program using sudo command.
sudo will ask for that users password before executing any command
(Note it doesn't ask you root password) sudo can be configured to
gain finer control over who can execute what. People can be restricted
to execute certain commands such as halt, reboot etc. Yet they can
execute other commands without providing root password.
sudo configuration can also be stored in LDAP. This allows finer control
over distributed set of machines. All machines can read configuration from
LDAP server which localizes the configuration and management of sudo
for multiple machines.
Ubuntu comes with preconfigured sudo. Ubuntu has null root password
that is no one can log into root account directly. First user who registers on
the ubuntu box is given all privileges through sudo on that machine.
If the privileged person wants to login as root he can do so using
command
sudo su
The most important feature of sudo is that it enables logging. sudo logs
the commands you execute with the user name. And this is what many
people use it for.
This sounds very good approach in terms of security, but I don't totally
agree with it. Say there are 3 users who have got full privileges with sudo.
All of them can execute any command by providing their own password
to sudo. This means that we now have nearly 3 root equivalent accounts
and 3 root equivalent passwords to protect! Also the configuration is
rather trickier. When I configured sudo I started with exclusion principle.
Users were disallowed to execute certain programs, rest of the programs
can be executed by users. This is really dangerous as the programs which
you are allowing are virtually infinite set, so its always better to use inclusion
principle here. Only allow certain programs can be executed as root.
Maybe rest of the programs can be allowed to run as some less privileged
user or the same user (As pointed out by Milan :D)
All I can say its something very useful for people using it for personal
desktops or in the environment where there are limited users.
links:
Sodores Manual
Building cheapest gateway machine.
What would you like your gateway machine to have? I consider
most people will want at least following things in a gateway,
1. Firewall
2. DHCP Server
3. Easy administration tools
4. Monitoring Tools
And also there may be less essential things like
1. Caching DNS Server
2. Caching Proxy Server
3. HTTP Server
Most latest router products can give all above things out of the
box. But most of the routers are considerably expensive. Now
what if you have ran out of budget to buy such funky routers?
Well you dot need to worry! You can build a cheapest gateway
machine with cost as less as FREE!
There are plenty of Linux distributions (Open Source and
Commercial) available aimed for this purpose. These distros
provide out of the box services which a gateway or a server
machine might need.
Most of these distributions provide you excellent monitoring and
administration tools. Some have web based administration interface.
There are good bandwidth management tools available. Firewall is
conventional iptables / ipfilter based firewalls and also custom and
open source front-ends for configuring the same.
Major feature about these firewalls is that they also provide you Live
CD distributions. Configuration files can be saved to floppy discs
or also on the USB disks. You can also create your own custom CD
with configuration burnt on it. So, in case if your gateway machine
goes down, pickup this CD put it into other machine and then that
machine can readily start functioning as the gateway. Effective way
to handle fail-over! Most of these distros provide good support for
hardware (As Linux does anyway!) one can run it on any machine like
old Pentium machine to any new high-end machine. But you ideally
don't need a powerful machine. In case of Live CD distos, you don't
even need any hard-drive.
Some of the firewall distros are -
Devil Linux
IP Cop Firewall
Smoothwall
Coyote Linux
ClarkConnect Gateway/Server
