Minimize Thunderbird to System Tray on Linux
I still wonder why such a functionality is not implemented in every mail app (Outlook does it after all). So since I had to search twice and always had a hard time finding this add-on for… well, Firefox I thought I write a short article that may help others looking for the same information.
So you are looking for a solution to minimize Thunderbird to your systray on a Linux box, right? Well, search no further go here:
So forget about AllTray, Traybiff, or other mail notifiers. They all suck.
Btw I tested this on Ubuntu 9.04 and 9.10 where you might want to select the option “Close button minimizes to tray” (thats the way I like it).
Tags: firefox, Linux, mozilla, seamonkey, systray, thunderbird, tray, ubuntu
Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 (R2) and Linux Client
It is always amazing what the community out there is creating while I am asleep. I just wondered if there is a way to natively connect a Linux machine to an OCS 2007 (R2) Installation. And well yes, there is.
SIPE is a protocol extension for the Pidgin Instant Messanger and on my standard Ubuntu 9.04 system I just followed the instructions on the SIPE website (installing the required packages and a simple configure, make, make install process) and off I was. A new protocol Microsoft LCS/OCS is available.
So far I tested this connecting through a NATed network to the OCS R2 Edge Servers (not internally). OK, there is no Audio or Video (A/V) support and there are still problems with ACLs and presence information but in general instant messaging and presence works.
And it’s nice to be able to change the user agent manually. So if your client version gets banned you simply change it to the latest Microsoft Office Communciator (MOC) string and you should be fine again.
Ah yes, there is a Windows Version, too.
Great work! Keep it up.
Remote KVM VMs, bridged Networking, and RH Virtual Machine Manager
Remember the good ole times when there was only one single virtualization solution to chose from? Well, today there is VMWare ESX, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer, Sun xVm/VirtualBox, and lot’s of others with different approaches. And the craziest part is their giving it all away for free (or parts of it). It’s almost impossible to check all of them out.
I decided to follow the Red Hat way and check out KVM because to me it seems as the only really free solution (maybe Xen) that takes the hypervisor approach and allows virtualization w/o the need to make changes to the guest OS.
One thing first: Using KVM still requires a lot of commandline tasks, especially when used in a client/server scenario. Not everything can be configured inside the available GUIs. But hey, there is SSH and you may connect to the remote machine this way anytime. Still, the client GUI is used to do the standard tasks: create, start, stop, monitor virtual machines, networks, and storage locations.
In fact, this article is about the commandline part
So here is my setup:
- Debian 5 Server
- Debian KVM and libvirt-bin packages
- Ubuntu 9.04 Client
- Ubuntu virt-manager package
I use SSH as a protocol between the Virtual Machine Manager and the remote host mainly because it’s the easiest way to get a quick solution running.
Besides the current limitations of the Virtual Machine Manager (crashes every once in a while) and libvirt (currently not able to pass -std-vga or -vga option to KVM although a patch is available) one main problem I had was to configure bridged networking so that guests could use the host interface w/o NAT. The workaround I use is as follows:
- Create a VM with a supported network type inside Virtual Machine Manager
- Connect to the host via SSH and navigate to
/etc/libvirt/qemu/machinename.xml - Look for the
<interface>section. I change it to look as this:
<interface type='bridge'> <source bridge='br0'> </interface>
This requires you to have a bridge interface up and running on the host. Mine is called “br0″ as you can see. Setting up bridge interfaces differs in the distributions. A good place to start is libvirt’s Wiki: Netowrking, the Qemu Wiki, and the KVM FAQ about guest networking
Last thing is to restart libvirtd (Debian system)
/etc/init.d/libivirt-bin reload
Ah right, there is this directory /etc/libvirt/qemu/networks. I tried to create a network here that then would probably be usable inside Virtual Machine Manager but I couldn’t get this to work w/o too much code manipulation. Problem is that the interface type in the machine.xml file would be “network” and not “bridge“. Furthermore, a manipulated network.xml file does not show up inside VM Manager. Whenever you manipulate inside libvirt’s XML files you may end up with your devices, VMs, networks not showing up inside VMM anymore.
And if you’re having problems getting a host only network to run I suggest you check out the mcast option. Instead of an interface like the one above you use this:
<interface tpye='mcast'> <source address='230.0.0.1' port='12345'/> </interface>
If you need separated “host-only” networks simply change the multicast IP or the port. But you probably only made a mistake with the IP address anyway (Darn! But it might be heplful one day).
So here is a list of tasks I currently still do on the commandline:
- Create bridge interfaces (obviously)
- Create differential / immutable disks
- Copy/clone VM settings
- hmmm…. I’ll think of some more
Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex on IBM Thinkpad R30: Screen Resolution Problem (1024x768)
I just got my old IBM Thinkpad R30 back and I thought installing Ubuntu on it could be useful. So I downloaded the Desktop Edition Live-Install-CD thing and booted into the live system.
Disappointedly I discovered that the latest Ubuntu seems to have problems configuring the right resolution. The system would only let me choose 800×600 as a maximum but the display is capable of 1024×768. So I started searching the web and found descriptions of a bug. Still, all this seemed a little overdosed to me and searching around a little more I found another thread where a guy describes the problem of Xorg detecting the right display refresh rates.
So I figured out that I wouldn’t need all this xorg.conf stuff except the refresh rates and changed my original xorg.conf to look like this:
Section "Device" Identifier "Configured Video Device" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Configured Monitor" Option "DPMS" HorizSync 28-49 VertRefresh 43-72 EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Default Screen" Monitor "Configured Monitor" Device "Configured Video Device" EndSection
The only lines I added are bold. And after I restarted X with [CTRL][ALT][DEL] I got the wanted resolution. Btw it is a Trident graphics chip but /var/log/Xorg.0.log showed that it is detected just fine.
Mount ISO images in Konqueror / Dolphin
I didn’t want to bring up a console every time I had to mount an ISO image. So I browsed the web a lil’ bit and found a good solution for my needs. I am a big fan of context menus or service menus as they are called in KDE. These menus are configured through .desktop files. To create such a file only a few steps are necessary:
- Find out the location of .desktop files
- Learn about the syntax of a .desktop file
- Check the mime type of the file where the context menu should appear
- Some eye candy with Icons and submenus
In the end you will have entries under Actions when you right-click on and ISO image that look somewhat like this:
1. Where are these files?
You can use
kde-config --prefix
to find out where your KDE has been installed. You will then find a folder
/usr/share/apps/konqueror/servicemenus (in my case)
Here you create a file with any name you like it only must end with .desktop
Since there now also is a noob file manager Dolphin there also is a folder
/usr/share/apps/d3lphin/servicemenus
Anyway, I used a symbolic link to only have to configure one file for both apps.
2. File syntax
Mine looks like this:
[Desktop Entry] ServiceTypes=application/x-iso Actions=mountIsoImage;umountIsoImage X-KDE-Submenu=ISO Image [Desktop Action mountIsoImage] Name=Mount Icon=cdrom_mount Exec=kdesu -c 'mount -o loop -t iso9660 %f /mnt/iso' [Desktop Action umountIsoImage] Name=Unmount Icon=cdrom_unmount Exec=kdesu -c 'umount %f'
Here you’ll find a good explanation of the file options.
3. MIME type
As you can see you must declare a ServiceType in the .desktop file. This defines when the context menu should appear. A good way to search for these types is to go to Settings -> Configure Konqueror -> File Associations and use the search feature.
4. Eye candy
You may use you own icon images but if you want to use the system icons I suggest editing a K-Menu entry, clicking on the icon and then using the icon browser to find a name of an icon you like.
REMARK
This is tested with Kubuntu Gutsy Gibbon. But I guess it should also work with other distributions.
IMPROVEMENTS
Instead of using the mount command more or less directly one could use a script to create a temporary folder at the current location where the ISO is then mounted. Unmounting would delete the folder again.
Linux with UMTS HSUPA ExpressCard
On my laptop (HP Compaq nx6325) I run Kubuntu Feisty Fawn and I am very satisfied. Especially the built-in support for UMTS modems perfectly fits my needs since I am sort of a stroller.
I used to go online with an “old” CardBus PC Card (PCMCIA). On the back of the card it says Option Globetrotter GT 3G Quad and it came with a real UMTS flatrate (50./month) of the German provider E-Plus.
Anyway, E-Plus is the worst provider ever and I can only recommend everyone to never ever demand any of their services. Although I have to admit, their support is nice and friendly and each time I called they gave me a bonus (5. or 20.) to compensate for my bothering. But this is no help if you want to go online and they simply won’t let you half of the time for whatever reason. There were times I almost freaked out.
Since I rely on a good network connection to do my job my employer now ordered a “Vodafone Mobile Connect Card (Express) UMTS Broadband” (wow, what a name) for me and on its back it says: “Option“, “Model: GE0301“, “Qualcomm 3G CDMA“, and on the box “Option Etna Express“.
It supports HSDPA and HSUPA with a bandwidth of up to 7,2 MBit down- and 1,45 MBit upstream. 
Besides, it is a ExpressCard34 which takes less space in my pocket. This is pretty cool so I could test my ExpressCard slot which works just fine. For those not having such an interface Vodafone encloses a PCMCIA adapter.
Actually, Feisty Fawn comes with all the drivers needed (usbserial). The only problem is that the vendor and product ID of the card are not known to the system, yet. To find out those IDs you issue a
# cat /proc/bus/usb/devices
on the commandline and somewhere in the results it says something like
P: Vendor=0af0 ProdID=7001 Rev= 0.00
S: Manufacturer=Option N.V.
S: Product=Globetrotter HSUPA Modem
The information needed is in the first line. You may add it to a file called /etc/modprobe.conf (which you may have to create) but for Kubuntu I thought /etc/modprobe.d/options would be a good place. For information about the syntax of the file type man modprobe.conf. There I added the line:
options usbserial vendor=0xaf0 product=0x7001
I then rebooted and the next time I inserted the card it got bound to /dev/ttyUSB0, /dev/ttyUSB1, and /dev/ttyUSB2. Almost exactly the behavior of my old card except that I now surf reliably and at a much higher speed. When will you?
About
Originally this site was intended as a project site. The goal was to define standards for the perimeterless network using
open-source software. To be honest I simply do not have the time for such a thing. So what is left is a blog with sporadic
posts that are either helpful for myself or I think are helpful for others, too since I had a hard time finding information
on the Internet. Think of it as a knowledge base.
Ehm yes, somtimes I write down my two cents on any topic that may go through my mind at that point in time ;-)