HOWTO: backup my Ubuntu

This is a short guide to my backup scheme. I use this nice guide from the ubuntu forum. First of all, I found it will take ages to extract some certain file from the huge tar file of the whole system backup. So I backup separately. The idea is to backup the home folder into 3 files, and other system files into one. Here they are:

• tar cvpzf /media/SEA_DISK/Backup/Linux/Wei/personal_111206.tgz /home/wei/personal This backup all the personal files include my pictures and application files (say KmyMoney file).
• tar cvpzf /media/SEA_DISK/Backup/Linux/Wei/samba_111206.tgz /home/wei/samba
  This backup the samba folder, which is used to share with my Windows XP via VMWARE. Yeah, I am still usingWindows XP, unber VMWARE. I have to use windows to do some study. This folder is shared between Ubuntu and Windows XP so that I can save the data file in Windows and edit my paper in Ubuntu with just “Ctrl+Alt” to switch out VMWARE.
• tar cvpzf /media/SEA_DISK/Backup/Linux/Wei/wei_others_111206.tgz –exclude=/home/wei/personal –exclude=/home/wei/samba –exclude=/home/wei/songs –exclude=/home/wei/vmware /home/wei
  This backup all the other files in my home folder except the”song” folder, which stores temporary mp3 files I copy from my external hard disk occasionally.
• tar cvpzf /media/SEA_DISK/Backup/Linux/system/system_edgy_kde_111206.tgz –exclude=/proc –exclude=/lost+found –exclude=/mnt –exclude=/media –exclude=/home / This backup all other system files.

• One very IMPORTANT hint: don’t add the last “/” symbol in the exclude parameter. For example, write “–exclude=/home”, but NOT “–exclude=/home/”. Maybe this is a tar bug. /media/SEA_DISK/ is the mount folder of my external hard disk. 

Just these simple steps to backup my Ubuntu, with no need to boot by a CD using Ghost. This is done in running Ubuntu. Amazing, isn’t it? I haven’t restored my Ubuntu yet, but it is just unpack this tar files, again, in the running Ubuntu. In fact, I doubt there wouldn’t be a chance that I have to restore it, Ubuntu seems so stable and easy-repair.

Update Opera using non-free repository

Opera has updated to 9.10. I can’t remember how I installed opera, but I can’t update it using “sudo apt-get dist-upgrade”. This post has exactly the same problem as mine. So, I changed my old stable repository into this “#deb http://deb.opera.com/opera/ etch non-free”, and use this in the terminal to add public key:

 

sudo gpg –keyserver subkeys.pgp.net –recv-key 6A423791
sudo gpg –fingerprint 6A423791
sudo gpg –armor –export 6A423791| sudo apt-key add -

 

and then “sudo apt-get update”, “sudo apt-get dist-upgrade”.

HOWTO: Canon PIXMA IP1500

I have a Canon PIXMA ip1500 printer which I usually print in the Windows environment. I came across a software called Turboprint one day. My printer model is supported. I downloaded it and installed. Everything seemed perfect (except the GTK1 interface). But it turned out that every paper I print has its logo on, even I try the lowest resolution. And I have to pay $34 to register to use it with full function. It seems ridiculous that I have to pay almost equvalent money as my printer to drive it in my Linux! Uninstall it immediately…

I searched Ubuntu Forum with “ip1500″ , there are lots of posts. I read some of them, looked quite complex… so I didn’t try then. But today I am quite free so I decided to drive my ip1500 in my Ubuntu. Fortunately, the first post I read from my search result is a perfect one. Here it is. I’ll just add a link where the official driver for Linux can be downloaded.

As the post said, despite the official site said the OS is SUSE, it works perfect on my Ubuntu Edgy with KDE. Just install the printer from KDE control center instead of “gnome-cups-manager”.

Make Opera not use the KDE color scheme

After I installed KDE desktop environment in Ubuntu and changed a dark color scheme, my opera brower uses this color scheme automatically! People discuss around how to make Opera using the current KDE theme, but no one wants to leave Opera alone. The reason why I want to do this, or must do this is because some website seems to set font color to be dark or black. As in my KDE color scheme all the background are black, and the foreground is white (I like this high contrast), I can’t see much in this color scheme. See the screenshot:

(KDE color scheme) (Default color scheme)

I searched around and found no answer in opera community, kde, ubuntu, kubuntu forums… Then I played around all the opera settings, nothing to configure this. Then I found there is one file that is the key to this problem. That is “~/.qt/qtrc“. It seems opera will read the color scheme from this file every time it launches. I found this because when I launch opear as root, the color scheme would become default, same as the root color scheme. Then I make my hotkey “Win+O” to run this command “mv ~/.qt/qtrc ~/.qt/qtrcc & opera“. By doing so, this qtrc is renamed as qtrcc, Opera will use the default color scheme if this qtrc file is not found in the ~/.qt folder. I’ve been doing this for weeks, nothing bad happened to any of my other KDE programs. So I guess this will resolve this problem before I found an “official” way. By the way, this qtrc file will be created every time I logged in Xwindows, I rename it to qtrcc just in case some day somehow this file is not created.

My software list in Ubuntu+KDE

Having been trying different software these months (hope the English grammar is right…), I’ll list my favorite Linux software here, just remind myself. Everything can be installed by simply typing “sudo apt-get install XXX (its name)” in the terminal. Except, opera needs to add a commercial repository, which can be found here.

File management:

• Krusader — very cool KDE file manager. Very similar to Total Commander under Windows.

Internet:

• Opera, Firefox, Swiftfox, browers I use forth and back
• Amule — similar to emule in windows
• Ktorrent — BT client
• Kontact — very exciting program which includes all the PIM stuff I need: calendar, todo list, note, Email (Kmail), RSS news reader (akregator)…
• Gaim — MSN, QQ, Gtalk, ICQ… client
• vpnc — much better and easier application than the Cisco one
• qsopcast — online TV, it’s a p2p software

Graphic:

• Openoffice
• gwenview – smart KDE picture viewer
• KPhotoAlbum — Help me sort all my images in my computer. Its tag-every-image feature makes finding a single picture from thousands much easier.

Multimedia:

• Amarok — MP3 player
• Kmplayer (Xine, mplayer) — movie player

Useful Utilities:

• Tomboy — note-taking application
• Stardict — dictionary
• gvim+latex suite — latex editor (also Kile)
• vmware — virtual machine which let me run Windows XP under my ubuntu to do some must-in-windows stuff, say MATLAB… Using samba service could make a folder to be share by both the host and guest machine to share data.
• KMymoney2 — This is a prety cool software that help me record my cost and income. I found it easier than others like Gnucash. At least, I want to avoid using GTK stuff in the KDE environment.
• qtparted, gparted – partition utilities in KDE and Gnome.
• k3b, gnomebaker — CD/DVD burning utilites in KDE and Gnome.
• fcitx – Chinese input server. 小企鹅输入法, Linux下的中文输入法.
• tpfan — An automated control script to solve the fan always-on problem in my IBM T43 laptop. There is also a small utility for Windows use here.
• tpb — TPB is a little program that enables you to use the IBM ThinkPad(tm) special keys.
• xvkbd, xbindkeys — Help me define button functions of my Logitech® Optical Cordless TrackMan. A nice howto article can be found here.
• gmrun — one of the few GTK programs I used in KDE. It’s a Gnome completion-run utility which is very handy. In Windows there is a similar free program called Runfast. The “Run Command” (Alt+F2) in KDE is useless for me, because it has no auto-completion ability. I haven’t found any program in KDE that can replace gmrun yet.

My (K)Ubuntu desktop arrangement

I can’t call my operation system exactly Ubuntu, because I am using KDE environment now. I can’t call it Kubuntu either, as I installed Ubuntu and then “sudo apt-get install kde” instead of “sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop”. In the latter case, all the Kubuntu stuff would be installed, as I read from some posts about how to reverse GDM back. Anyway, I don’t think there would be much difference, it is definitely Ubuntu.

As you can see, I like make the taskbar (panel) vertical on the left, and make it autohide. I found this way could save my screen space and time to move the mouse to the bottom of the screen to switch different windows, like the default panel. Although this panel is seldom used, as I have set up 9 desktops. Most of the programs I opened were set to be opened in specific desktop no matter what is the current desktop. This can be set by “KDE control center – Desktop – Window-Specific Settings – Geometry”. I also set couple of hotkeys for certain applications. Say “Win+Ctrl+G” will swich to Gvim wherever it is, “Win+Ctrl+T” will swich to Terminal. There are also large number of hotkey settings in KDE which can make operation much convenient. They are all in the KDE control center.

Bottom right is a very small Xwindow application called “oclock”, it is made above all other applications so that I can know the time without go to the hiden panel.

Journey starts

I’ll start to share my personal experience of using ubuntu and KDE applications here.