What's my kernel version?

Quick tip: to discover what's your kernel version just type:

$ uname -a

Cheers

Avidemux

So here goes another software tip: Avidemux. It is a video encoder with some really great options and really easy to use. I particularly use it to encode videos for my palmtop, and it works great. It has some automatic encoders built-in, like an iPod encoder, which may come in handy if you own one.
So, to install it, easy as pie:

$ sudo apt-get install avidemux

Then to use it just right click the audio file and then "OpenWith...advidemux". The interface is very intuitive.

Cheers.

Japanese input

Hi! Or こんばんは!
I'm beginning to study japanese and found this great howto to get japanese characters input on Ubuntu without changing the whole instalation to japanese. The input manager SCIM has a handwriting recognition tool that ease a lot when you are looking for a kanji. Just follow this UbuntuForums topic:

HOWTO: Installing Japanese Input with SCIM for Hardy

If you use Gutsy you'd rather follow this one:

HOWTO:Japanese Input and Fonts in Ubuntu 7.10

では、また。

Songbird doesn't auto-update

If you installed songbird with a .deb package, there's a little bug with it. It won't update properly due to the permissions in songbird's folder.
To fix it simply type

$ sudo chown username /usr/share/Songbird -R

replacing username with your user.

Then restart songbird and go to help->Check for updates and enjoy the new 0.6 version!

Cheers.

Songbird + Last.FM

After a while bashing my head I got it working. In the end it was simple, only I had my localhost IP different because of an apache server. Anyway, there's a new songbird's extension that works great with last.fm's official audioscrobbler.


First of all, add last.fm to your repos:

$wget -q http://apt.last.fm/last.fm.repo.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

gets the key and then add the line

deb http://apt.last.fm/ debian stable

to the file /etc/apt/sources.list
After that simply install the SB add-on.
Here you can find the SB's extension.

OpenChrome Display Driver

Hi!
My notebook has a VIA VN896 video card and it have brought me a lot of problems. First of all, I can't run a Live CD more recent than Feisty, the X session simply doesn't start. OK, I have to use the alternate CD to install the system, not really a problem. For Gutsy, I had to install the system with 800x600 resolution, or again the graphical session didn't initiate. There is an open source video driver for Linux called OpenChrome, created to support 2D application for many VIA cards, because VIA itself didn't support Linux at all!! Hopefully this is going to change, VIA announced a web portal for Linux and released a driver for some video cards. After installing the driver came the battle against xorg.conf file in order to configure my driver. After a few tries and a few system reinstalls I got my system working. Terrible...

But today I reinstalled Hardy (was having some freezes with newer kernels) and for my surprise after installing the system with the alternate CD (didn't tried the Live CD, might have worked) my display worked fine with the default Vesa driver. 1280x800 resolution running nice... Then when I was searching for the OpenChrome driver to install it I found a script that automates all the process, really cool! And it worked nice and smooth, really easy to use!!

First of all download the script in the original Ubuntu Forums topic HERE. Then type:

$ sudo sh /where_you_put_the_file/openchrome_stable.sh

Answer the questions on screen. After the process is finished type to test:

$ grep openchrome /var/log/Xorg.0.log

(II) LoadModule: "openchrome"

To test 3D rendering (didn't work for me, I think it is because of my card) type:

$ glxinfo | grep render

direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI UniChrome 20060710 x86/MMX/SSE2

The author of the script says 3D rendering might cause instability on some systems.
UbuntuForums topic

GnuCash

A quick tip for those who like to keep track of their finances: GnuCash. I read it is not as user-friendly as MsMoney, but it really handles everything I need it to. It generates automatic customizable reports and integrates really well with Gnome. To install it simply type

$ sudo apt-get install gnucash

You can find a really good tutorial in their webpage .As I said before, it is not "what you see is what you get", but once you get the hang of it (aprox. 30min) it is really fit!


Here's the tutorial



Cheers.

Media Packages

Hello!
Many people dislike the fact that Ubuntu comes with little support for media files. This happens because many of the usual media formats for Windows or Mac have proprietary codecs, and Ubuntu doesn't come with them by default.
There is a repository with lots of media packages. To gather support for almost every usual media format, first add the Medibuntu repository to you software sources:

$ sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/hardy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

If you don't use Hardy Heron, replace the word hardy for gutsy, feisty or whatever is your distro. Then, install the packages:

$ sudo apt-get install alsa-oss compizconfig-settings-manager faad flashplugin-nonfree gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse gstreamer0.10-pitfdll liblame0 msttcorefonts sun-java6-fonts sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin unrar w32codecs

That's it, after the installation you should have support for all your media files. Have a nice sunday!

Basic VIM

So let's start our first post with a VIM tutorial. VIM is a command-line text/code editor. It has syntax highlight and auto indentation amongst other useful features. I'll run through basic procedures.

To create a new file just start a terminal emulator and type

$ vim

It will open a "window" inside the terminal window. Notice you can't write right away. VIM uses specific commands to start writing in different ways. To simply start writing press "i" (please that notice it's case sensitive). A label "INSERT" will appear in the bottom and everything you write will appear on the screen. To stop the "INSERT" mode, simply press esc. Here's a table of commands you can try to write differently:

a	Text after cursor
A	Text at end of line
i	Text before cursor
I	Text at beginning of line
a	New line + Insert
a	New line(above) + Insert

or to delete input text:

x	Erases character
dnd	Delete n lines (dd to erase 1 line)
D	Erase the rest of the linte

and some other goodies:

yny	Copies n lines (yy for 1 line)
p	Pastes lines (copied with yny or cut with dnd)
u	Undo last change

There are some useful navigation commands you can try as well. They are very useful for browsing through extensive code. The "/" [slash] character starts a search. If you type

/hello

the page will scroll until the next occurrence of "hello". If you want to go to the next after that, type

//

and so forward. Here's a list of some other useful navigation commands:

H	Top of screen
M	Middle of screen
L	Bottom of screen
gg	First line
G	Last line
nG	Line n
%	Finds the matching (,[,{

Now to save your file you must press ":" to open an inside command-line. There are a series of commands to be put here. I'll go through the basic:

:w

will write the modifications to the file

:wq

will write the modifications to the file and then exit

:q!

will exit without saving the file.

Besides that, I use three other commands that are very useful:

:set [no]nu

Turns the number of lines on and off

:set [no]ai

turns the indentation on and off

:set syntax=value

sets the syntax to value or if you want to turn it off, set it to value=off.



And that was it. Enjoy.

TuxGuitar

Hello! Welcome to Impulse Train blog...

My first hint goes to guitar players.
There is a software to view and create guitar tablatures for Windows, called GuitarPro, well-known by guitar and other instruments players. I could've tried to run it under Wine, but I didn't. Not necessary. I've found a great software for Linux that is able to open gp* files in order to play them. The name is TuxGuitar, it can be installed through the Add/Remove dialog, or type in a terminal:

$ sudo apt-get install tuxguitar

The features are basically the same:

• Edit tabs with a lot of effects, like: bend, slide, hammer-on, pull-off, tapping, palm mute, etc...
• Choose different instrument sounds
• Play the tabs in your sound device with different tempo for training purposes, for example
• Add markers and lyrics... and so on...

Welcome

Hello.

Our ideal is to post some Ubuntu treats, hints and experiences to help new users.

Enjoy and, we would appreciate it, feedback.

Thanks.