Evan’s Debugger is a Linux replacement for OllyDbg.
You can install it by downloading the .tar.gz and doing the following:
$ sudo apt-get install libqt4-dev $ sudo apt-get install libboost1.40-all-dev $ tar zxvf debugger-0.9.15.tgz $ mv debugger /usr/local/src/ $ cd /usr/local/src/debugger $ qmake -makefile DEFAULT_PLUGIN_PATH="/usr/lib/edb/" $ make $ sudo make INSTALL_ROOT=/usr install
I just got a laptop loaded with Lucid Lynx and have had a bit of a mixed experience adjusting. I’ve actually used Ubuntu a bit in the past, but only minimally and never as my primary computer until now.
First reactions
Nice surprises
Frustrations
Nagging throw my chair through the window frustrations
Necessary fixes
Installing NX for remote desktop support
Overall I rather like Ubuntu. OpenSUSE 11.2 left me feeling rather frustrated, so I’ve now switched to Ubuntu on my home machine as well.
Resume button disabled
I was unable to resume my NX session. While trying to connect, the resume button was greyed out (or grayed out) This apparently can happen if the two machines are running at a different color depth.
The machine I was trying to connect to was running Ubuntu, so I checked the color depth (sudo cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf) and saw that it was running at 24 bit. Then I checked the color depth on my Windows machine (Control Panel > Display > Settings > Color Quality) and saw it was running at 16 bit. There was no option to set it to 24-bit, so I chose the option “Highest (32 bit)”. No more disabled resume button!
I think the cause of the problem was plugging my laptop into the projector at work yesterday. It apparently changed my color depth and Windows didn’t reset it when I exited presentation mode.
Execution of last command failed
Trying to reconnect to my NX session kept failing. I hit the Details button and saw the following:
NX> 596 NX> 596 ERROR: NXNODE Ver. 3.4.0-6 (Error id e76DC5C)
NX> 596 NX> 596 ERROR: resume session: run commands
NX> 596 NX> 596 ERROR: execution of last command failed
NX> 596 NX> 596 last command: '/bin/kill -USR2 16905'
NX> 596 NX> 596 exit value: 1
NX> 596 NX> 596 stdout:
NX> 596 NX> 596 stderr: /bin/kill: 16905: No such processThe only thing I found that would let me connect to my box via NX at all was to “rm /usr/NX/var/db/running/*” in order to kill my current session. Killing the session is a sucky option, but at least now I can use NX again.
openSUSE is my favorite Linux distribution. Linux in general has some usability frustrations as a desktop user, so I hope to share some of the ways they can be dealt with. If you have questions of your own leave a comment.
Fix horrible bug that breaks buttons
GDK has a horrible debilitating bug that was not caught before release and at the time of writing the fix has not been backported as an online update. This makes buttons in both Flash and Eclipse unresponsive to clicking. You need to “export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=true” in order for things to work correctly. I added this in my ~/.bashrc file:
# .bashrc
# User specific aliases and functions
alias untargz="tar zxvf"
export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=true
export PATH=/usr/local/eclipse/eclipse-3.5:$PATH
# Source global definitions
if [ -f /etc/bashrc ]; then
********. /etc/bashrc
fi1-click installers – Setup graphics card, multimedia, and fonts
An easy way to install most of the software you need is to use a 1-click installer. If you have an NVIDIA or ATI graphics card, then you’ll want to install the drivers using one of these installers. I also recommend installing “Codecs pack for KDE”, “VLC Media Player”, and “Fonts with subpixel hinting enabled”.
Install Chrome
Setup multimedia
This is a perennial setup step on Linux distributions. We’ll install the codecs needed to watch videos on Linux.
Setup time synchronization
NTP (Network Time Protocol) can be used to synch your system’s clock to a server on the internet.
Setup a static IP address
This step is optional and is meant for people that know what a static IP is and want to set one up. Having a static IP address is very nice when you want to remote desktop to your server or access it in some other way without worrying about what the IP address is. There may also need to be some configuration done on your router for this one. Or you may prefer to investigate DHCP reservations if your router supports them.
Setup a network file share (NFS) using Samba
Another optional step, Samba allows you to share files on your computer with others on the network.
Setup remote desktop through NX
The two main remote desktop softwares for Linux are VLC and NX. NX is much faster and is what I would recommend. Unfortunately, I have not been able to get desktop sharing to fully work. If you get desktop shadowing to work properly then please let me know. In addition to installing NX, we’ll also open the corresponding port in the firewall so that we can connect from another machine.
Upgrade to the ext4 file system
ext4 is the new default file system on openSUSE 11.2. If you did a clean install, you will be running ext4 by default. However, if you have a drive you did not reformat when installing the OS then you may be running ext3. For example, I have two drives: 1 60 gig drive I use as my root partition and a 500 gig drive I use as my home directory. When I installed openSUSE 11.2, I wiped the root partition and reformatted it as ext4, but I wanted to keep the data on my home directory, so I couldn’t reformat it and left it as ext3.
Review: The Problem with Linux is Usability and Resource Allocation
openSUSE is as good a Linux desktop as you’ll find. Unfortunately that’s not saying as much as I’d like. There are so many broken things on the system and yet so much effort was put into developing things that average person doesn’t give a rat’s ass about. There’s a whole load of crap that comes with the system that’s a waste. It’s incredibly frustrating to me to see so many resources go into this software that few people care about. I don’t need Marble when the far superior Google Earth is available on Linux. I don’t need Kaffeine when VLC is a better alternative. Most of the games are a waste and can’t hold a candle to the hundreds of Flash games available online. I’ve never used digiKam, but have to assume that at best it’s Picasa‘s ugly stepsister. There are dozens of programs I’d rather use than KDE PIM: GMail, Thunderbird, LinkedIn, etc. The list goes on, and on, and on. Why are we building this stuff? The single biggest improvement in openSUSE 11.2 is that Firefox is now the default browser. This took way too long, but is a welcomed change. I wish VLC would replace Kaffeine. Someone at Novell, Canonical, et. al. needs to do some user testing. Any 12-year-old kid would tell you you’re crazy if you think people would rather use Marble than Google Earth. Linux distros have done an absolutely horrifyingly awful job of picking the best software to be the default. Instead of wasting all this time, how about we come together and decide to make an operating system that just works? There are so many usability frustrations that I’d like to see solved instead. Novell, Canonical, and the other leaders in this area need to step up.
As mentioned, there are a lot of usability problems. For example, Flash was unusable in full screen mode after install. It turned out this was because I hadn’t yet installed my NVIDIA driver. But this is a big problem. How would any casual user know they had to do this? My parents, brother, or sister would not have known to do this despite being reasonably computer savvy. I knew because I’ve used Linux for many years, but if it requires a computer science degree to watch a YouTube video then you’ve failed. And when I did realize I needed to install the driver, I needed to know which of three drivers I wanted. Are you serious? I could just imagine asking my mom what graphics card she has. That would be a fun conversation. It’s 2009. And you don’t have the ability to detect my hardware? I understand that there are licensing issues, but once I’ve said I want to install a graphics driver you should be able to tell me which one I need. I want to get rid of the “Recently Used” option on the Kicker menu like I can with classic, but there’s no option to. I don’t understand why YaST has a “Media Check” option. Can’t you tell there’s no CD/DVD in my drive? I tried to edit my network settings with YaST and it told me to use NetworkManager or change the setup method to Traditional with ifup. How do I do either of those things? I don’t know what NetworkManager is or how to open it. There’s nothing in any of the menus called NetworkManager. When I started Firefox it asked me if I wanted to use Flash, gnash, or swfdec. But I tried gnash and swfdec and neither could play a Hulu video, so are you insane? Of course I don’t want to use either of those. Why are you confusing me? Flash on Linux is a big problem. The controls on the Hulu just stop working with frustrating frequency. I can’t figure out why Amarok and Kaffeine are both broken. I could go on, but you get my point. Let’s fix these problems instead of building more crap no one asked for. I know how much of this work has been done by volunteers and am extremely grateful for it. I’ve contributed to several open source projects myself and know what it’s like, so I hope those reading know I am thankful to have this amazing free software. I’m happy for what’s been done and am hoping the leaders of KDE and openSUSE will make some hard choices about what’s worth investing in and supporting, so that these projects can become successful in the mainstream world because as it stands now, even as great as it is, Linux simply isn’t ready.
Install NVIDIA drivers
If you have an NVIDIA card, then you’ll want to install the drivers. Use the NVIDIA driver 1-click installer.
I’d heard of Tonido awhile back, but was having trouble getting it to run on OpenSUSE since it’s packaged only for Ubuntu. Tonight I sat down and figured out how to get it to run:
Yay, now you can run Tonido. When you start it, it will open Konqueror, for which it is very buggy. So close that window and open http://127.0.0.1:10001/ in FireFox. Now you’re off and running.
My initial thoughts:
Want to know how to figure out what’s running on a given port on your machine? The following example will show you what’s running on port 80 on your Linux machine:
lsof -i -n -P | grep :80
Have you ever wanted to have content served up, but it wasn’t readable? Here’s an easy way to recursively set permissions for a web server:
chmod -R a+r ~/www
find ~/www -type d -exec chmod a+x {} \;Just change ~/www to whatever directory you wish to make readable, and this command will make everything under that directory world-readable and make all directories listable.
openSUSE 11.0 was the best Linux distribution I’ve ever used. I was hoping openSUSE 11.1 would continue the great strides of late, but it’s a bit of a mixed bag. One of the most frustrating things for me is that support for remote access is falling by the wayside. VNC used to be better integrated with openSUSE, but they removed integrated support in favor of KDE’s krfb, which is badly broken. The package management in openSUSE 11.0 and 11.1 is enough to suggest upgrading if you’re using an older version – it is absolutely great, especially for those of us who have been around long enough to see the pains it’s gone through. If you want to get up and running with openSUSE 11.1 then there are likely a few customizations you’ll want to make.
Upgrade to KDE 4.2
It’d be nice if openSUSE and KDE could sync up their release schedules a bit better. KDE 4.2 came out a month or so after openSUSE 11.1 and you’ll likely want the upgrade. I experienced some annoying but not critical bugs with the version that shipped.
Setup Multimedia
This is a perennial setup step on Linux distributions. We’ll install the codecs needed to watch DVDs, handle MP3s, etc.
Install NVIDIA drivers
If you have an NVIDIA card, then you’ll want to install the drivers.
Install CD Ripper
For some reason, openSUSE 11.1 no longer ships with KAudioCreator installed by default. My guess would be that it hasn’t been ported to KDE4 yet, but it’s nice to have, so we’ll go ahead and install it anyway. We’ll also change KAudioCreator’s (stupid) default setting of not looking up CDDB information that hasn’t been cached on the local system.
Upgrade WINE
WINE is continuing to evolve and getting closer every day to reaching maturity. You’ll likely want the latest version instead of the one that was the latest when openSUSE shipped.
Setup a static IP address
Having a static IP address is very nice when you want to remote desktop to your server or access it in some other way without worrying about what the IP address is. There may also need to be some configuration done on your router for this one. Or you may prefer to investigate DHCP reservations if your router supports them.
Setup remote desktop through NX
The two main remote desktop softwares for Linux are VLC and NX. NX is much faster, but unfortunately I’ve had some problems with desktop sharing with 11.1 vs. 11.0. If you get 11.1 to shadow properly then please let me know. In addition to installing NX, we’ll also open the corresponding port in the firewall so that we can connect from another machine.
Setup Network File Share using Samba
Samba allows you to share files on your computer with others on the network.
Just a few to post for right now, but this entry may grow later.
alias ll='ls -la' # list all directory contents in listing format
alias untargz="tar zxvf" # unpacks a .tar.gz file
alias rd='cd `pwd -P`' # change to the real directory if in a linked directoryI’ve connected both a Syntax Olevia and an LG TV to my openSUSE desktop. Neither have worked well because they caused the default font size to be unusably large. I’m talking gigantically huge, like only a few letters on the screen at any one time. The solution is to modify your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. OpenSUSE 11.2 no longer uses an xorg.conf file by default, so you will need to create one by running sax2.
Because these TVs apparently lie to the operating system about their dimensions, in the Monitor Section you need to add the following:
Option "UseEDIDDPI" "FALSE"Then change the DisplaySize using the following formula:
DisplaySize = (pixels/desiredDPI)*25.4So, if I want to run at 110 DPI and 1366×768 resolution then I would set the following in my xorg.conf:
DisplaySize 315 177
