Author Archives: Marko

Install and configure Prosody XMPP (Jabber) server on Debian/Ubuntu Linux based operating system

6 Replies

Prosody XMPP/Jabber logoI've been working on my Ajax chat system Quick Chat for WordPress for a while now. With Quick Chat I'm using technique called long polling to turn Apache Web server into chat server. This approach works fine most of the time when there aren't many concurrent chat users and server load is moderate. The reason for this is that Apache Web server is tuned for serving HTML. Better way of handling chat on your page is to install dedicated chat server software using XMPP (Jabber) protocol. This is protocol is used by big players like Gogole as well as Facebook for their chat services. XMPP is open protocol with many open source server and client implementations. In this article I will show you how to install and configure Prosody XMPP (Jabber) server on Debian/Ubuntu Linux based operating systems.

Continue reading →

Internet connection sharing without Network Manager on Ubuntu Linux

3 Replies

RJ45 connectorsI've given up on Network Manager a while ago. Why? Because most of the time I use 3G modem to connect to Internet and Network Managers 3G support varies from release to release. Earlier I wrote about managing GSM mobile broadband connections without Network Manager on Red Hat Linux, CentOS, Fedora based Linux distributions and on Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Debian based Linux distributions. In this article I will explain easiest way to configure Internet Connection Sharing on Ubuntu Linux based operating system.

Continue reading →

Xubuntu 12.04, Lubuntu 12.04 and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin review

8 Replies

Ubuntu-12.04-LTSLong term release of Ubuntu with version number 12.04 and code name Precise Pangolin has been released a few days ago. It brings the evolution of Canonicals Unity desktop environment as well as Linux Kernel version 3.2 and fresh set of applications in official repository. At the beginning of this article I must point out that at the time Ubuntu 12.04 had been released all machines I use were powered by Gnome 2 operating systems like Ubuntu 10.04 or CentOS 6.2. The reason for this conservative approach is that I choose my software based on the level of productivity it allows me to reach. From my experience using current Linux desktop environments like Unity and Gnome 3 could be considered as productivity suicide. In this article I will review latest offering from Canonical in the form of Ubuntu 12.04 with Unity, Xubuntu 12.04 with Xfce and Lubuntu 12.04 with LXDE. I'll leave KDE Ubuntu flavor Kubuntu out of this review because although feature packed it is usually too buggy to be taken seriously.

Continue reading →

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and Java applications menu bar font color

8 Replies

Java LogoUbuntu 12.04 LTS named Precise Pangolin has been released few days ago. I did some testing and I can't really say I'm disappointed because that happened a while ago when Canonical released first Unity powered Ubuntu version. But lets be fair and ignore Unity for a moment and focus on something else. Latest Ubuntu is full of bugs. For example if you had an idea to do some coding using NetBeans Java IDE on your shiny new Ubuntu 12.04 LTS think again. To be honest you can try to do some coding if you don't mind not seeing your menu bar due to bug where Java applications use wrong menu bar font color. Also the latest version of Ubuntu light themes exposes an old bug where Java applications loose menu border. This bug first appeared with default Gnome 2 GTK+ theme Clearlooks, if you need workaround for that one here it is. It isn't clear is this Java Swing API bug or Ubuntu light themes bug but fortunately there is a workaround. In this article I will present PPA with modified version of Ubuntu light-themes package that works around this issue.

Continue reading →

Fix ugly Qt4 apps on Lubuntu and Xubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

4 Replies

Lubuntu LogoSo far Lubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin turned out really great. But there's always that one thing, my VLC media player looks strange and doesn't fit in with the rest of my operating system. Apparently Qt4 apps in Lubuntu doesn't pick up correct GTK theme. To fix this issue you just need to install libgnome2-common package and restart your Qt4 application.

You can do something like this from terminal:

sudo apt-get install libgnome2-common

This command will install library necessary to fix this issue. Have fun!

Edit: The same thing applies to Xfce desktop from Xubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin. I've forgot to point out that you need to logout/login into your desktop environment to notice changes.