How to Configure Reliance Huawei Modem with Ubuntu 10.4 LTS Lucid Lynx

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This howto explains steps to make Ubuntu 10.4 LTS codenamed “Lucid Lynx” detect, configure and install Huawei EC1262 usb modem used by Reliance Netconenct Broadband+.  This should also apply to various other similar devices used by Tata Photon, Alcatel, Vodaphone etc. 3G connections.

Solution:

Install

1. usb-modswitch
2. usb-modswitch-data

Two ways to do it,

• Automatic from package manager, (Recommended)

Paste this to terminal (Applications=> Accessories=> Terminal)

sudo apt-get install -yq usb-modeswitch usb-modeswitch-data

• Manual

1. Open a Terminal from  Applications=> Accessories=> Terminal

2. Download and install usb-modeswitch-data for both 32bit and 64bit,

wget -c  http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/universe/u/usb-modeswitch-data/usb-modeswitch-data_20100127-1_all.deb

dpkg -i  usb-modeswitch-data_20100127-1_all.deb

3. Download and install usb-modswitch 

For 64 bit :

wget  -c  http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/universe/u/usb-modeswitch/usb-modeswitch_1.1.0-2_amd64.deb

dpkg -i usb-modeswitch_1.1.0-2_amd64.deb

For 32 bit

wget -c http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/universe/u/usb-modeswitch/usb-modeswitch_1.1.0-2_i386.deb

dpkg -i usb-modeswitch_1.1.0-2_i386.deb

Once you install both packages,  you should have the modem detected and then use networkmanager to configure it.

What does usb-modswitch do and why is it necessary?

USB devices, specially high speed wireless WAN dongles such as the Huawei Modem that comes with Reliance NEtconect Broadband+ is only detected as USB storage device by Ubuntu and not as a Serial Modem in order for it to function as one.  usb mode switch does the work of switching the mode to modem from the storage only modem and make it awailable to be used as a internet modem device.

Ubuntu Studio: A Multimedia Professional’s Dream Distro: Pictorial Walkthrough

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Ubuntu Studio is a tailor made  multimedia creation flavor of Ubuntu aimed at audio/video, graphic editors, both enthusiasts and professionals. One could setup a decent studio, and connect midi devices, synthesizers, audio/video recording devices, additional sound cards and installing ubuntu studio on the system. Look and feel of ubuntu studio is very attractive. Folks who are not much interested in studio tools, but like the look and feel of it, can  stillinstall and use ubuntu studio theme on top of their existing ubuntu system ( sudo apt-get install -yq ubuntustudio-look ).

Ubuntu Studio comes with a kernel which is been  tweaked to allow higher priority to graphics, audio  and video applications which should give effectively better performance for these applications and reduce latency, jitter etc. Ubuntu Studio comes with Some of the tools that come with ubuntu studio are,

Graphics: Blender 3D Modeler, GIMP, InkScape, Synfig Studio, Agave, Scribus
Audio Production : Audacity, Ardour, Mixx, Muse, RoseGarden, QSynth etc. etc…
Video Production : Kino, Open Movie Editor, Stop Motion

For more information on Ubuntu Studio please visit their homepage at http://ubuntustudio.org and also have a look at the wiki article on ubuntu studio at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Studio.

Setting up Reliance USB Modem ( Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. E620 USB Modem ) on Ubuntu 8.4 LTS “Hardy Heron”

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In this article I am going to provide you a simple and quick way to setup reliance data card on ubuntu hardy heron. Most of the tasks could be done with the script that I am attaching here.

1. Plugin Data Card

2. Download setup script from here. Open a terminal and run it as ” bash reliance_setup.sh “. It will ask for your data card connection number. Provide it when it does and press enter. The script will install gnome-ppp gui package, wvdial, and modify the necessary system files to setup permissions to dial the reliance connection using ppp.

3. Once set up, the script will launch gnome-ppp dialer. You need to provide following,

Username

Password (same as usrname. the connection number)

Phone Number : #777

4. Click on “Setup” option from the dialer window. From modem tab, click on “Detect” button which will automatically detect your usb modem in most cases. If not, you’ll have to choose it manually from the dropdown menu. Choose speed as 115200 from the drop down list.

5. You could leave rest of the options as it is for now. Close the setup window and click on “Connect”. You are all ready to rock. A connection window will appear, from which you could click on “Log” to see what is happening while connection is progress.

Miro : Watching YouTube Videos Made Offline and Simple

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Are you tired of waiting till your favorite yououtube video stream is being buffered to avoid jitters?  Are you looking for an application to save youtube videos offline and watch them at your convenience
later? Do you want to save multiple parts of a video and watch it as a whole in one go? …. Try Miro.

Miro is an application which turns your computer into an internet TV video player. It has a concept of channels whereas viewers could browse through thousands of channels available and subscripbe to them and receive regular feeds downloaded at your desktop, some of the most popular being ‘National Geographic Video Shorts’, Discovery Channels Video Podcasts, Cartoons, Spanish Learning Channel etc.

Here are few interesting features available with Miro:

1. Watch YouTube Videos: One can search, download and watch YouTube videos and videos from maany more video streaming sites such as Google Videos, Yahoo Videos, Blogdigger, Blip.tv, DailyMotion. The application actually downloads the videos to harddisk, making it available to be watched offline. By default the video expires in 5 days, which can be changed with option to store it permanently on the drive.

2. Video Player: Miro also acts as a video player for the internet videos. It uses embedded player such as gstreamer, xine in linux and vlc on windows, and quicktime on Mac to play the videos. One could
actually watch videos in fullscreen mode, which apparently looks better than that watching it on youtube. And users could play videos, which generally come in the parts, as if it is a single video.

3. Cross Platform: Miro is a Open Source Software, released under GPL License, and is avaialble on Linux, Windows, and Mac Operating Systems.

4. Widely Supported Formats: Miro supports a wide range of video formats including MPEG, Quicktime, AVI, H,264, Divx, Windows Media, Flash Video(Youtube Videos) and many more.

5. Channels and Automatic Video Downloads: Miro comes with an in built channel guide, which users can brows through and select thier favourite channels. Once added, users can configure miro to download videos automatically as and when added.

6. Podcasts Compatible: You could add your podcasts that you have been downloading automatically with itunes so far, to Miro as a channel. Once added, all new podcasts can be downloaded automatically.

7. Share: Users could search videos, watch them and share with friends using social sites such as del.icio, digg, reddit etc.

Even though its released as a beta, overall, Miro is a wonderful app to have on your desktop.

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS ‘Hardy Heron’ – You’ll never go back

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The much awaited version of ubuntu, named ‘Hardy Heron’ (ubuntu 8.04) is officially been launched today. “You’ll never go back” is what canonical says on their official website http://www.ubuntu.com . Ubuntu releases LTS (Long Term Support) every two years and provides 3 years and 5 years of support respectively for desktop and server editions. Last one of the series was Ubuntu LTS 6.06, released in June 2006. In addition to LTS, ubuntu has a smaller release cycle of 6 months which are supported for a year and half, last one being 7.10 ‘Gutsy Gibbon’.

Features

Here are some feature highlights for the latest ubuntu version,

• Firefox 3 beta 5 : Improved browsing speeds : lightweight Mozilla Firefox 3 Beta 5 means faster browsing with improved performance and less use of RAM as compared to the older versions of the firefox which were memory hogger and slower.  Some of the noticeable features of new firefox are  it allows you to bookmark, and subscribe to the rss feeds directly from the address bar, shows summary of the website while you are typing the address, shows recently closed tabs  etc. Click on  View -> Switch Page Direction, and see everything getting aligned to the right hand side.
• Wubi : Painless Migration From Windows : Are you a windows user and always been wanted to give linux a spin ?? Then wubi is a bless to you (http://wubi-installer.org). All you need to do is, run wubi’s exe file. It will install ubuntu as any other windows application, without disturbing your windows partitions and prepares you to boot into ubuntu after a reboot. Wubi installs ubuntu on the top of windows as a large file. If one chooses to get rid of ubuntu, they could remove it like any other application from add/remove programs.
• Gnome 2.22 : Enhanced User Experience : Gnome 2.22 comes with improved look and feel, new applications such as cheese (needs to be installed as an additional package on ubuntu), new networked filesystem GVFS which overcomes GNOME VFS shortcomings, improved support for DVD and digitial TV, international clock, remote desktop viewer and many more enhancements to make user experience. One thing clearly missing is the gnome-control-center. Its just disappeared from the menu. To open the control center, one has to open a terminal and type in gnome-control-center to open it.
• Dash : Better System Performance : since 6.10 , ubuntu has changed the default system shell to dash(the Debian Almquist Shell) instead of /bin/sh to improve overall system persormance. This might cause few scripts to break though for users who are migrating from 6.06 LTS to 8.04 LTS.
• Multimedia : Get…Set….Go in minutes : The latest version of ubuntu makes it smoother to play any audio/video formats quickly.  If the codec for a particular format is not present, it immediately fires up synaptic and asks your permission to install the codec. All it takes is a couple of clicks and you are ready to get on with your music/videos.  Certainly saves a time and efforts for newbies.  Installing flash plugin was a piece of cake as well unlike the older version of ubuntu where one had to install it manually. Default audio player comes with magnatune, jamendo stores as additional features. For video playback, I would still recommend using mplayer.
• System Hibernate : I could successfully put my laptop to hibernate mode and bring it back, which I could not do with the older versions.
• Hardware Testing : This is a utility which serves a its purpose well. You can run it from System -> Administration -> Hardware Testing. It gathers information about your hardware, runs  manual tests to verify your hardware (audio, network controllers, screen resolution, mouse, video, keyboard, internet connection)  works and submits information to launchpad if you have an account. It is recommended you submit the results to launchpad in order to assist  developers fraternity to come up with better hardware support.

Issues

Is the new version of Ubuntu comes without any bugs and issues?? Ubuntu flolks claim hardy heron is the most stable and fastest ubuntu ever. Neverthless, I could see the following issues with my copy of installation atleast.

• System hangs after opening multiple applications. I just opened around 10 lightweight apps, and before even using them, it got hung. Strange enough, my mouse was cruising smoothly all over the screen, but not a single application was responding. Does not look like a load issue, most likely a gnome/app bug.
• ‘ NetworkManager restart ‘ in a terminal fails to restart network manager.

Convertig text, html, images to PDF format on Ubuntu Linux

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Here is a procedure to create PDF files, convert from any format (html, text, doc ….) to PDF format.

This simple procedure involves adding PDF printer. I have tried it on Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon)

1. 1. • From the menu, go to System —> Administration —> Printing
      • Click on New Printner, let it search and come up with “Select Connection” menu. Select “Print into PDF file” , click on forward
      • “Select Printer from Database” window will appear. “Generic” will be selected by default which is the right option. just click on forward, button.
      • Again, in the next window keep “PDF File Generator” option untouched and click on forward button.
      • In the next widow, type in the printer name, description etc. and click on “apply” to finalize the settings.

Thats all, and you have created a PDF printer. Next time you want to convert anything to PDF format, just choose to print and select the PDF printer.

Partition Editors in Ubuntu GNU / Linux

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Playing around with the filesystem partitions is a very risky job and needs great care, or else one could loose important data on the system. There are a variety of partition editors that come with your linux distribution. I will enumerate a few of them here. You could use one of them depending on your expertise and level of comfort with linux system. Some of the description is taken from the respective man pages as it is. This is to provide you a single point reference for the tools that you could use for partitioning.

1. parted : parted is a disk partitioning and partition resizing program. It allows you to create, destroy, resize, move and copy ext2, ext3, linux-swap, FAT, FAT32, and reiserfs partitions. It can create, resize and move Macintosh HFS partitions, as well as detect jfs, ntfs, ufs, and xfs partitions. It is useful for creating space for new operating systems, reorganising disk usage, and copying data to new hard disks. Level of expertise : intermediate to advanced
2. gparted : GNOME frontend for parted . This is a easy to use interactive graphical tool to manipulate partition tables. Ones who want to use a simple tools for playing around with the partitions should use this one. Level of expertise : intermediate
3. fdisk : Fdisk is a interactive command line tool to manipulate partition table. This is a very powerful tool but needs advanced level of expertise. Be very careful while using it. Level of expertise : advanced
4. sfdisk : Another command line utility to manipulate partition table. sfdisk has four (main) uses: list the size of a partition, list the partitions on a device, check the partitions on a device, and – very dangerous – repartition a device.Level of expertise : intermediate to advanced
5. cfdisk: This is a curses based disk partition table manipulator for Linux.Level of expertise : intermediate to advanced
   

Restoring System Tray / Task Bar on Ubuntu Linux

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I just removed my system tray from the gnome top panel in Ubuntu. I did right click on the panel, and selected add to panel option. I tried searching for System Tray / Task Bar / Launch Bar without any success. Finally searched through some docs and found out that they actually call it ” Notification Area ” . Added it to panel and got back my system tray, or notification area as they say.

LPI (Linux Professional Institute) Certification Study Guides

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LPIC ( Linux Professional Institute Certification )

LPIC is a vendor neutral linux certification which has three levels.

Here are some resources for the LPIC-1 aspirants.

LPIC-1 is divided into two exams, LPIC 101 and LPIC 102

• Detailed Objectives for exam 101
• Detailed Objectives for exam 102

Study guides available online

• LPIC WikiBook
• Linux Certification Documentation Project
• Penguin Tutorials for LPIC
• LPIC Self Study Guide
• IBM Developer Works LPIC Tutorials
• LPIC Study Group

How to Install Fonts on Ubuntu Linux

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1. Download the fonts and extract the zip/tar.gz

e.g. tar -xzvf FooFonts.tar.gz

2. Copy them to the fonts directory (/usr/share/fonts)

cp -r FooFonts /usr/share/fonts

3. cd /usr/share/fonts/FooFonts

4. Create fonts.scale and fonts.dir files

mkfontscale

mkfontdir

fc-cache

5. restart gdm (xserver)

/etc/init.d/gdm restart