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Quick and Easy Mplayer Installation on Fedora Core 5 via Yum...

Mplayer is a movie player that plays most multimedia formats supported by many native and binary codecs. You can watch Video CD, SVCD, DVD, 3ivx, DivX 3/4/5 and even WMV and QuickTime movies on Linux.

  1. FC5 rpms for mplayer are available at greysector.net
  2. Set up yum to use greysector repository:
    # cat <<EOF > /etc/yum.repos.d/greysector.repo
    [greysector]
    name=Grey Sector RPMs for Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch
    baseurl=http://rpm.greysector.net/yum/$releasever/$basearch/
    #mirrorlist=http://rpm.greysector.net/yum/mirrorlist-$releasever
    gpgkey=http://rpm.greysector.net/greysector-pubkey.txt
    enabled=0
    
    [greysector-all]
    name=Grey Sector RPMs for all Fedora Core releases - $basearch
    baseurl=http://rpm.greysector.net/yum/all/$basearch/
    #mirrorlist=http://rpm.greysector.net/yum/mirrorlist-all
    gpgkey=http://rpm.greysector.net/greysector-pubkey.txt
    enabled=0
    EOF
    
  3. Import the GPG Key:
    # rpm --import http://rpm.greysector.net/greysector-pubkey.txt
    
  4. Use yum to install or update the current rpms:
    # yum --enablerepo=greysector* install mplayer*
    
  5. You can selectively list the mplayer rpms and install the ones you want:
    # yum --enablerepo=greysector* list mplayer*
    # yum --enablerepo=greysector* install mplayer mplayer-gui mplayerplug-in mplayer-codecs mplayer-codecs-extra
    
  6. The required ones are mplayer, mplayerplug-in and mplayer-codecs.

Lomboz Eclipse on Linux -- Fedora Core 5

Lomboz is an open source and free J2EE development environment built on the Eclipse open source platform and the Web Tools Platform (WTP) projects.

  1. Download and install the latest java sdk.
    # cd /usr/local
    # sh /path/to/jdk-1_5_0_07-linux-i586.bin
    # ln -s /usr/local/jdk-1_5_0_07 /usr/local/java
    # ln -s /usr/local/java/bin/java /usr/bin/java
    # ln -s /usr/local/java/bin/javac /usr/bin/javac
    
  2. Download and install the Eclipse SDK:
    $ wget http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/drops/R-3.1.2-200601181600/eclipse-SDK-3.1.2-linux-gtk.tar.gz
    # tar -C /opt -xvzf eclipse-SDK-3.1.2-linux-gtk.tar.gz
    # chown -R root:root /opt/eclipse
    
  3. Download and install Lomboz and prerequisites all in one package:
    $ wget http://download.forge.objectweb.org/lomboz/lomboz-wtp-emf-gef-jem-3.1.2.zip
    # cd /opt
    # unzip /path/to/lomboz-wtp-emf-gef-jem-3.1.2.zip
    

    Note: Say "yes" to any prompt to replace existing file while unzipping.

  4. Start lomboz eclipse:
    $ /opt/eclipse/eclipse
    

Deleting corrupt DOS files

I recently tried to resize my external usb drive partition which failed on me due to a corrupt file in the partition. The file could not be deleted or moved.

I used dosfsck which comes with dosfstools rpm. Installed it and ran `dosfsck -av /dev/sda1` on the unmounted drive, which automatically fixed the corrupt files. I was then able to resize the partition with the parted tool.

More on how to resize with parted to follow...

Minimum RPM packages required for Gnome graphical display on Cent OS 4.3

Below are the minimum RPM packages required that will also install all dependencies for Gnome Graphical display to be working on Cent OS 4.3:

# yum -y install xorg-X11 system-config-display gdm xterm gnome-desktop gnome-session

Run `system-config-display` to generate the "xorg.conf" file which will be saved to "/etc/X11/xorg.conf".

Set the runlevel to 5 in "/etc/inittab" and reboot.

Atheros AR5005G 802.11abg NIC on Cent OS 4.3

Install the RPM file madwifi-*.i386.rpm (or x86_64 respectively) plus the RPM kernel module packages (kmdl) appropriate for your kernel version and architecture, madwifi-kmdl-*.rpm and madwifi-hal-kmdl-*.rpm.

Use `uname -r` to determine which kmdl you need to download. If you use a depsolver like smart/yum/apt, all you have to do is point it to ATrpms and use

# smart install madwifi madwifi-kmdl-`uname -r`

Replace smart with yum or apt as appropriate. Note that you will have to install a new pair of madwifi*-kmdl packages for each kernel update, as the depsolvers aren't yet capable to automate this.

Read up more details at madwifi.org

You can download the respective rpms from http://atrpms.net/dist/el4/madwifi/ directly and install via:

# rpm -ivh madwifi*.rpm

After you have installed madwifi, reboot and the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) deamon should automatically pick the card up for configuration. If you skip this configuration on boot, you can set up networking as below:

Install Democracy Player (Internet TV) on FC5

I've been using the democracy player under OSX and Windows for the last several versions which seemed very unstable. The Linux version just became available under beta... but seemed pretty stable on testing.

If you are using Fedora Core 5, then the installation is a breeze.

  1. If you have not setup yum for downloading from livna repository, you can do so by adding the repo file -- "/etc/yum.repo.d/livna.repo":
    [livna]
    name=Livna for Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Base
    baseurl=http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/$releasever/$basearch
    failovermethod=priority
    mirrorlist=http://rpm.livna.org/mirrorlist-5
    enabled=0
    gpgcheck=1
    

    Import the gpg keys.

    # rpm --import http://rpm.livna.org/RPM-LIVNA-GPG-KEY
    
  2. Install the dependencies:
    # yum --enablerepo=livna --enablerepo=extras install \
          boost xine-lib libfame gnome-python2-gtkmozembed gnome-python2-gconf Pyrex
    
  3. Install the democracy player:
    # rpm -ivh http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/pculture.org/democracy/linux/fc5/Democracy-0.8.2-1.i386.fc5.rpm
    

The install will place a shortcut under "Sound & Video". ENJOY!!

Installing Typo on Fedora Core 2 with Ensim Control Panel -- Part 1

Typo is a weblog application using the well known Ruby on Rails framework.

These are my notes as I remember on installation of Typo on FC2 with Ensim Control Panel...
(Ensim Pro 4.1.0-8.fc.2 )

This is the first part of a series of notes which will cover the preparation of what I need to get Typo up and running:

  • Install ruby.
  • Install gem.
  • Install rails.
  • Install mysql ruby binding.
  • Install the fcgi libraries.
  • Install mod_fcgi apache module.
  • Install fastcgi ruby binding.
  • Install and setup Typo.

PostgreSQL QuickStart/Reference Commands...

Since I don't use PostgreSQL as often as MySQL, I tend to forget simple commands for administering the database. Hopefully these notes will help as reference when working with PostgreSQL:

Checking for rootkits, exploits and backdoors with Rootkit Hunter

rkhunter (or Rootkit Hunter) is a Unix-based tool that scans for rootkits, backdoors and local exploits. It does this by comparing MD5 hash of important files with known good ones in an online database, searching for default directories (of rootkits), wrong permissions, hidden files, suspicious strings in kernel modules. It should run on almost every Unix clone.

Installation notes:

Installing Ruby on Rails on Fedora Core 5

Quick notes on installing Ruby on Rails on Fedora Core 5 ( It should be similar for other linux distros as well )

  1. Install ruby rpms via yum:
    # yum install ruby ruby-libs ruby-mode ruby-rdoc ruby-irb ruby-ri ruby-docs
    
  2. Download and install rubygems from rubygems.org.
    Change to the extracted directory and run:
    # ruby setup.rb
    
  3. Now use gem to install rails. It will ask about installing dependencies. Answer "Y" or just hit return.
    # gem install rails
    
  4. Test it by creating a skeleton rails app in your home directory:
    $ cd ~
    $ rails testapp
    
  5. Start the WEBrick server.
    $ cd ~/testapp
    $ ruby script/server
    

    The WEBrick server should now be started and listening to the default port - 3000 .
    Point your browser to:

    http://localhost:3000/
    

    You should see a welcome page with some additional getting started info.

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