CentOS 5.3 minimal installation with X as VMware guest

1. get ISO of the latest version of CentOS 5 from the CentOS website, centos.org. You will only need the first disc or the net install disc. (eg. CentOS-5.3-x86_64-bin-1of7.iso)
2. following normal installation but deselect all pkg (refer to screenshot)
3. after reboot. add EPEL repo (EPEL - FedoraProject), such that iceWM is available.
   # rpm -Uvh http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/epel-release-5-3.noarch.rpm


4. install additional pkg (yum install):
• xorg-x11-twm
• xorg-x11-xfs
• xorg-x11-xinit
• xorg-x11-server-Xorg
• xorg-x11-drv-vmware
• urw-fonts (needed by icewm)
• icewm
• vnc-server
• vnc


5. 
   

Freeware for Mac

List of recommended freeware for mac.

1. Paintbrush - Paintbrush is a simple paint program for Mac OS X, reminiscent of Microsoft Paint and Apple’s own now-defunct MacPaint. It provides users with a means to make simple images quickly, something which has been noticeably absent from the Mac for years.
2. Seashore - Seashore is an open source image editor for Mac OS X's Cocoa framework. It features gradients, textures and anti-aliasing for both text and brush strokes. It supports multiple layers and alpha channel editing. It is based around the GIMP's technology and uses the same native file format.
3. Burn - Simple CD/DVD burning utilities.
4. Transmission - BT client
   
5. VLC - Video player
   
6. Adium - IM client
   
7. Perian - Perian is a free, open source QuickTime component that adds native support for many popular video formats.
8. Flip4Mac WMV component - to play .wmv file using quicktime.
   
9. Carbon Copy Cloner - Backup software
   
10. Stuffit Expander - Expand compressed file, eg. zip, rar, etc.
11. Cyberduck - FTP client
12. Skype - VOIP software
13. HandBrake - Video converter
14. iStat Pro - iStat pro is a highly configurable widget that lets you monitor every aspect of your Mac, including CPU, memory, disks, network, battery, temperatures, fans, load & uptime and processes.
15. Firefox - Web Browser
16. Skim - Skim is a PDF reader and note-taker for OS X. It is designed to help you read and annotate scientific papers in PDF, but is also great for viewing any PDF file.
17. arCHMock - CHM files viewer for Mac OS X
18. OpenTerminal - This application allows you to open a Terminal window with the path of the current Finder window

How to Install VMware Tools on Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 under VMware Fusion

Reference:
http://peterc.org/2008/62-how-to-install-vmware-tools-on-ubuntu-hardy-804-under-vmware-fusion.html

http://x86virtualization.com/open-source/howto-install-open-vmware-tools-in-linux-kernel-2624.html


sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r` libx11-dev

Install VMware Tools make scroll mouse not workable, edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf to add following under:


Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
....
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"


skype audio failure in Ubuntu 8.04

I found following work around and it's working!

In the input section of "Multimedia Systems Selector" try switching your input to ALSA and then going into volume control and turning it all the way up. You may have to kill pulseaudio for this to work:

Code:

pulseaudio -k

play quicktime and real media files on Ubuntu

Medibuntu (Multimedia, Entertainment & Distractions In Ubuntu) is a repository of packages that cannot be included into the Ubuntu distribution for legal reasons (copyright, license, patent, etc).

Some of these packages include the libdvdcss package from VideoLAN and the external binary codecs package (commonly known as w32codecs) used by MPlayer and xine.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Medibuntu

Ubuntu 8.04

had a clean install of Ubuntu 8.04 desktop today on my nx8220 laptop. everything went smooth but still have problem with dual display. If I us generic video driver, then I was able to give different resolution setting to my laptop and external monitor but the problem is it show both of the display are overlapping each other, i was not able to make the external monitor as an extension to the laptop display.

Then I enable the ATI driver, things get even worst, startup no display (can be solved), then the external display is only allow to work in clone mode and the resolution is limited to my laptop resolution which is 1280x800.

No choice, I was lazy to debug and just revert to the generic driver, at least i can set the external monitor to 1280x1024.

Install Ruby using apt-get

sudo apt-get install ruby rdoc irb libyaml-ruby libzlib-ruby ri libopenssl-ruby

Install RubyGems manually from source

wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/29548/rubygems-1.0.1.tgz
tar xzvf rubygems-1.0.1.tgz
cd rubygems-1.0.1
sudo ruby setup.rb
# This creates /usr/bin/gem1.8, but every guide you find will just use “gem”
# so create a symbolic link
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/gem1.8 /usr/bin/gem
# update rubygems
sudo gem update –system

Install Rails using RubyGems

sudo gem install rails