I have no problem running 720p .mkv HD video files. No lagging, no dropped frames whatsover. However, when running 1080p .mkv files, especially those big sizes full-HD Blue Ray medias, I have:
- Lagging,
- Dropped frames,
- 100% CPU utilizations.

It doesn’t matter if I’m using VLC, or Totem Movie Player, it will always have those problem above. From what I’ve read, this is probably due to FFMpeg codecs for H.264 decoding.

However, I have a solution, found from http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1037625

Below are the steps:
1. Install mplayer:
sudo apt-get install mplayer-nogui

2. Run your 1080p .mkv files with it:
mplayer -vo vdpau -vc ffh264vdpau /path/to/the/mkv/file

Now the HD movies playing in my Ubuntu laptop are smooth as it can be.
Try it out. Cheers.

1. How to Check for Open Ports in Ubuntu There are various ways to view for open ports on...

Open your command prompt, and type:
netstat -an | grep "LISTEN "

Or, another method:
sudo netstat --tcp --udp --listening --program

It will list all ports that your machine are listening to. The latter method will even shows the program name associated to it.

Enjoy.

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Then, I’ve found Conky. I’ll never turn back.

This is the best system monitor I have ever experienced. It is highly customizable, all you have to do is modify the Conky config file. There’s a lot of widgets/variables to use, such as system monitoring tools (CPU, RAM, SWAP, Hard Drive, etc), batteries capacity, networking, and more. And best of all, it is very, very easy to create your own widgets. If you know any programming language such as Python, Perl, or even a simple Shell Scripts, then you’re off to create your own.

Installing Conky are easy as executing command below in the terminal:
$ sudo apt-get install conky

Next, create your Conky config file. Here is my config file I’m currently using.

Then, execute command below to run Conky. Put it in your startup so that it will be running each time you boot-up your computer:
$ conky -c <path_to_my_conky_config>.conf

Below are what my desktop currently looks like with Conky:

Conky Desktop

In there I’ve created my own GMail notifier, Google Reader notifier and local TV guide, all using Python. You will find more ideas, screen shots and scripts to use with Conky on Ubuntu Forum.

Cheers.

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Below I have created a simple bash script. What it does is, converting all of the finished avi’s to wmv. The conversion is via ffmpeg. The script below is easily modified to suit your needs, such as:
i – Copying the finished torrent to another location.
ii – Doing any conversion to your media.
iii – Send you mail notifying the torrent have finished downloading.
iv – etc, etc.

So, let’s get started.

1. Install transmission-remote
sudo apt-get install transmission-remote

2. Copy the script below, and save as my_script_name.sh , (or whatever name you prefer, but note the .sh extension).
This is among my early attempts of shell script programming, so go easy on me and feel free to give feedbacks.

#!/bin/sh

# The absolute path where your torrents are downloaded
# For example: /tmp/download
BASEDIR=/home/myuser/mytorrentpath
LOGPATH=/home/myuser/mywmv.log

# The absolute path to and including the transmission-remote binary
# For example: /usr/bin/transmission-remote
TRANSREMOTE=/usr/bin/transmission-remote
TRANSOPTS=" 127.0.0.1:my_port_number -n my_username:my_password "

DoConvert ()
{
  _AVINAME=$1
  WMVNAME=${_AVINAME%.*}".wmv"
  if [ ! -f "$WMVNAME" ]; then
    #Do conversion here
    echo "converting $_AVINAME" >> $LOGPATH
    ffmpeg -sameq -i "$_AVINAME" -vcodec wmv2 -acodec wmav2 "$WMVNAME" \
    < /dev/null 2> /dev/null
  fi
}

cd $BASEDIR

echo "Starting at `date`" >> $LOGPATH

# Find the first completed torrent
$TRANSREMOTE $TRANSOPTS -l | grep "100%" | grep "Done  " | cut -b71- | while read LINE
do
  if [ -e "$LINE" ]; then
    if [ -h "$LINE" ]; then
      echo "$LINE is already moved" >> $LOGPATH
    else
      if [ -d "$LINE" ]; then
        cd "${LINE}"
        ls -1f *.avi 2>/dev/null | while read AVINAME
	  do
	    DoConvert "$AVINAME"
	  done
        cd -
      else
	DoConvert "$LINE"
      fi
    fi
  else
    echo "torrent $LINE is removed" >> $LOGPATH
  fi
done

echo "-----------------" >> $LOGPATH

Save the script on any location you prefer.

3. Create a cron job to run the script. Open the entry to crontab:
crontab -e

4. Let say you want to run the script every hour, by the hour, the entry on your cron job should be as below:
0 * * * * sh /home/myuser/my_script_name.sh

You can also test the script you’ve created by executing the command:
sh /home/myuser/my_script_name.sh

Enjoy.

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Xbox-Linux box media sharing could be achieved by using GeeXbox uShare. GeeXboX uShare is a free UPnP A/V & DLNA Media Server for Linux. Installation and configuration explained after the jump below:

Installation and Configuration

1. Install uShare by using command:
sudo apt-get install ushare

2. Edit the uShare configuration file:
sudo gedit /etc/ushare.conf

Example of the uShare config file:

# /etc/ushare.conf
# uShare UPnP Friendly Name (default is 'uShare').
USHARE_NAME=uShare

# Interface to listen to (default is eth0).
# Ex : USHARE_IFACE=eth1
USHARE_IFACE=eth0

# Port to listen to
USHARE_PORT=49153

# Port to listen for Telnet connections
USHARE_TELNET_PORT=

# Directories to be shared (space or CSV list).
# Ex: USHARE_DIR=/dir1,/dir2
USHARE_DIR=/home/myusername/mymediafolder

# Use to override what happens when iconv fails to parse a file name.
USHARE_OVERRIDE_ICONV_ERR=yes

# Enable Web interface (yes/no)
ENABLE_WEB=yes

# Enable Telnet control interface (yes/no)
ENABLE_TELNET=no

# Use XboX 360 compatibility mode (yes/no)
ENABLE_XBOX=yes

# Use DLNA profile (yes/no)
# This is needed for PlayStation3 to work (among other devices)
ENABLE_DLNA=no

“USHARE_NAME” is the display name of your share.
“USHARE_IFACE” is the network interface uShare should listen to.
“USHARE_PORT” this is the port the uShare server listens on. Make sure this is set to 49153.
“USHARE_DIR” is the full path of the folder with your media.
“ENABLE_WEB” to turns on the web interface. Make sure this is set to ‘yes’.
“ENABLE_XBOX” is what enables Xbox 360 compatibility. Make sure it’s set to ‘yes’.

3. After finished editing the configuration file, save the file.

4. Edit the following file by issuing command below:
sudo gedit /etc/init.d/ushare

Find the following lines:

start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --background --oknodo \
--make-pidfile --pidfile $PIDFILE \
--exec $DAEMON -- $USHARE_OPTIONS

And change them to:

start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --background --oknodo \
--make-pidfile --pidfile $PIDFILE \
--exec $DAEMON -- $USHARE_OPTIONS --xbox

5. Restart uShare
sudo /etc/init.d/ushare stop
sudo /etc/init.d/ushare start

That’s pretty much it!

If you have a firewall running, open the firewall connection to your Xbox ip address.

The web interface is available at:
http://your.servers.ip.address:49153/web/ushare.html

Xbox 360 Settings

For your Xbox 360 configuration, make sure they are able to connect to your home network. Just set the networking options in the “Settings” blade. You can set the networking options to be automatic, or manual by the simplest settings of the ip address, subnet mask and gateway.

Viewing Your Media

Go to the “Media” blade on your Xbox 360 Dashboard. Open your media (Music, Video or Picture). The uShare (or any other name you’ve given in the uShare config) should be available on the selection source.

Open your media in the uShare source. WMV files should not be any problem, but for AVI’s and any other types, the view-ability depends on the codecs installed on your Xbox.

Next project, wireless connectivity for the Xbox 360. I currently have a 10 meter network cable running across the room from my Xbox to the router, which is ridiculous.

1. How to Check for Open Ports in Ubuntu There are various ways to view for open ports on...

Let’s go through them one by one.

You log in to a Linux server and all you get is a dollar sign and a cursor. The first thing you want to know is: where am I? So you want to print the working directory:

pwd

Then you want to list all the contents of the current directory in a long listing format:

ls -al

To get around, you change directory:

cd /another/directory

Then, to copy a file from one directory to another:

cp /some/directory/somefile.txt /another/directory

To move it instead:

mv /some/directory/somefile.txt /another/directory

There is no command to rename, you just move it:

mv oldname.txt newname.txt

To remove a file:

rm filename.txt

To remove a directory and its contents recursively:

rm -r dirname (use with extreme caution!)

To make a directory:

mkdir dirname

To change the mode of a file or directory to make it writeable by everyone:

chmod ugo+rwx file_or_directory

ugo+rwx means, for (user, group, others), add (read, write, execute) permissions. Use the minus sign instead of the plus sign to remove permissions. ugo and rwx can be used in any combination, e.g., go-w.

Finally, to get to know more about the contents of a file:

more filename.txt

Press space to scroll to the next page, and q to quit. (Note: less is better than more. With less, you could go both backwards and forwards.)

Finally: when in doubt, consult the manual!

man command

Update 13 February 2009

See also Commands that you must know in Linux… by dirn.name.

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Need to view Microsoft Silverlight enabled sites, but you’re on Linux, and running Firefox as the web browser? Have no fear, Moonlight is here.

Moonlight is an open source implementation of Microsoft Silverlight for Unix or Linux platform.

The current release version is 1.0. All you have to do is, just go to their site, and install the plugin/add-on from your Firefox.

Enjoy!

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You would like to automate the export of SQL dump files from one Linux server to another using scp. These dump files are to be generated and exported once every two weeks. You also wish to archive these dump files on the source server.

So let’s say the servers and directories are as follows:

Source

Hostname: perak
Username: nazham
Dump file directory: /home/nazham/data_export/current
Archive directory: /home/nazham/data_export/archive/yyyymmdd

Target

Hostname: selangor
Username: romantika
Target directory: /home/romantika/data_import

Passwordless scp

First you need to set it up so that you don’t need to enter a password for scp. The overall picture is as follows:

1. At the source server, generate a pair of public and private keys [1] using RSA.
2. Store the private key in a specific place in the source server.
3. Store the public key in a specific place in the destination server.
4. And that’s it! Now you’ll no longer be prompted for a password when using scp.

One-off steps

# login to perak with username nazham
ssh-keygen -t rsa
# choose default location, no passphrase - just press enter at all prompts
scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub romantika@selangor:/home/romantika/.ssh/authorized_keys
# I'm assuming the file authorized_keys does not exist!
# otherwise, you need to append the contents of id_rsa.pub to it.
crontab -e
# add the following:
# 1 0 1,15 * * nazham /home/nazham/run_data_export >> /dev/null 2>&1
# which means, run at 12:01 am every 1st and 15th of the month
mkdir ~/data_export
mkdir ~/data_export/current
mkdir ~/data_export/archive

The run_data_export script

todaysDate=`date +%Y%m%d`
oldDate=`date -d '1 year ago' +%Y%m%d`
exportDir=data_export
mysqldump -u username -ppassword -r ~/$exportDir/current/filename dbname tablenames
echo $todaysDate > ~/$exportDir/current/importdate.txt
scp ~/$exportDir/current/* romantika@selangor:/home/romantika/data_import
mkdir ~/$exportDir/archive/$todaysDate
rm ~/$exportDir/current/importdate.txt
mv ~/$exportDir/current/* ~/$exportDir/archive/$todaysDate
if [ -d ~/$exportDir/archive/$oldDate ]; then rm -r ~/$exportDir/archive/$oldDate; fi

The Linux date command

I’m very impressed by the Linux date command. This might be old news to some, but the fact that I’m able to say date -d '1 year ago' or date -d '30 days ago' completely blows the mind.

Notes

[1] From Pass on Passwords with scp: “If you’re not familiar with public key cryptography, here’s the 15-second explanation. In public key cryptography, you generate a pair of mathematically related keys, one public and one private. You then give your public key to anyone and everyone in the world, but you never ever give out your private key. The magic is in the mathematical makeup of the keys; anyone with your public key can use it to encrypt a message, but only you can decrypt it with your private key.”

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RH033 Red Hat Linux Essentials
RH131 Red Hat Linux System Administration
RH253 Red Hat linux Networking and Security Administration
RH142 Linux Troubleshooting Techniques & Tools
RH184 Red hat Enterprise Linux Virtualization

… and many more. Just contact your nearest training center.

For Kuala Lumpur, training center below offers Red Hat Courses. The center classroom and facilities are good, and the trainers are well experienced and knowledgable :

Iverson Associates Sdn. Bhd.
Suite T113 – 114, 3rd Floor,
Centrepoint, Lebuh Bandar Utama,
47800 Bandar Utama, Selangor Darul Ehsan.
Tel: 03-77262678
http://www.iverson.com.my

For more info, feel free to check Linux Red Hat courses and certification listings:

Red Hat Training and Certification

Red Hat Courses

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Twitux
A Twitter client for GNOME.
Twitux is a lightweight client for the twitter messaging service, featuring time-line auto updating, a tray area icon and notification of new messages.

gTwitter
Client for tracking and posting to twitter.
gTwitter is a client for posting and fetching updates to the twitter service.

Installation is available through Synaptic Package Manager. Just do a search for the application name, twitux or gtwitter.

1. How to Check for Open Ports in Ubuntu There are various ways to view for open ports on...