Yep! I’m running Karmic Koala

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

So if you are in a same situation as mine, you probably…

• Are on an MNC’s intranet which is being simultaneously used by a ton of other souls
• Get pathetic internet speeds, at times – measurable sometimes in BYTES!
• Even “git pull” takes like ages to complete…
• Any connection to Twitter is severed before it even sees light of the day!

The solution to all these worries is simpler than you think.

We can create an SSH tunnel to a *much* faster server and push our internet traffic over it. If the server is local, this will work even better – as your SSH on local LAN connections would be definitely faster than that on real WWW.

Follow http://wiki.freaks-unidos.net/weblogs/azul/firefox-ssh-tunnel and create a tunnel on any port. Lets call it $PORT
Basically, you need to run…

ssh -fND localhost:$PORT username@some-fast-server.com

Install tsocks – its a Transparent SOCKS Proxying Library which uses the magic of LD_PRELOAD and patches the connect() call to appropriately use a pre-configured proxy (via /etc/tsocks.conf). Hence any call like…

git pull

becomes

tsocks git pull

Your /etc/tsocks.conf looks something like this (after removing all the comments)

#Define a local network for which tsocks won’t patch the connect() call
local = 192.168.0.0/255.255.0.0

path {
reaches = 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0
server = 127.0.0.1
server_type = 5
server_port = $PORT
}
server = 127.0.0.1
server_type = 5
server_port = $PORT

Replace the $PORT by the port you selected when creating the SSH tunnel. Server remains 127.0.0.1 as your tunnel exists on your own machine.

To configure your Firefox to use this new tunnel, goto Edit > Preferences > Advanced > Network Tab > Settings and make it look like

Add URL’s and IP ranges to “No Proxy for” field to exempt them from using the SSH tunnel.

That’s it. Click OK and you are ready to rock!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The much awaited Karmic Koala beta is due today from Ubuntu team…

With a ton of new features – and as always, the bleeding edge of the Linux world, I just can’t wait to test it out.

These features include

• Gnome 2.28
• Software Center (replacing the old Add/Remove)
• Ubuntu One file sharing service
• Kernel 2.6.31
• Seemingly new video drivers for Intel based cards
• Movement to ext4 and Grub2 as defaults
• Uncomplicated Firewall
• Newer KDE packages
• And much more @ Technical Overview page

The Beta release is yet to happen – as the daily builds page is still reflecting the builds from 29th September.

GDM screen in Karmic Koala.
Sneak peak into more artwork at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Incoming/Karmic/Backgrounds

Can’t wait!!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Very recently, I upgraded from Ubuntu Intrepid to Ubuntu Jaunty – and to my horror, the system went very slow! I wasn’t sure what was causing the problem but Xorg reported near 100% CPU utilization in “top” output, Firefox felt very very heavy, flash videos on youtube were choppy and slow – even Gedit felt like a 200 megs java app – …that slow!

I googled a bit and realized that many were facing the same problem. Reason were the Intel video drivers in Jaunty.

This is how I fixed my Lenovo ThinkPad T61 running on Ubuntu Jaunty

Installed Kernel

Linux Warrior 2.6.28-15-generic #52-Ubuntu SMP Wed Sep 9 10:49:34 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux

My T61′s Graphics Card

00:02.0 “VGA compatible controller” “Intel Corporation” “Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller” -r0c “Lenovo” “Device 20b5″

Step 1
Follow the guide at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReinhardTartler/X/RevertingIntelDriverTo2.4 and install xserver-xorg-video-intel-2.4 package/drivers. Restart GDM.
After installing these drivers, my system was back to sanity (firefox, gedit, etc) – however, flash videos were still choppy.

Step 2
Follow the changes mentioned at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Troubleshooting/IntelPerformance and reboot.
This fixed the choppy flash issues for me.

Step 3
Thanks to the comment http://allredb.wordpress.com/2009/05/07/speed-up-flash-and-firefox-in-ubuntu-jaunty-904/#comment-2 – use the CPU Frequency scaling applet to make your CPU cores perform permanently at peak levels. Though this will cause higher battery consumption, I guess you are looking for better CPU speed (considering you are reading this post )

Thats it folks!
I hope this helps… my $0.02 – to make Ubuntu a better $home

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I’m nothing short of saying – “Holy cows”!!

Check this why…

If you noticed, thats Ubuntu 8.04 – Hardy Heron running on top of my Windows XP!!! Click on the image to see a bigger screenshot.

All thanks to Ubuntu Portable

So what does this means now?

• I get to use apt-get and install a zillion other things for which I keep on requiring a shell access
• I am no more dependent on Services For Unix
• Use my mods to stay on top of the network
• Have fun! Yay!!

The apps running inside Ubuntu Portable actually felt more faster than how they ran on my Windows box. I wonder, how Netbeans & Firefox (my major memory consumers) would work in such a setup… I am yet to configure the connectivity though…

This is some serious fun now!!! Trust me when I say that…

I’m darn sure, Sandy would love to see this! I just can’t wait to show this to him tonight

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

After a long gap, the guys at Linux Creative Group (LCG) met again today @ 3PM at Mocha Cafe in Koregaon Park in Pune. We discussed stuff ranging from girls to virtualization, startups including

Rati, Subu, Manoj and Abhishek (behind Subu)

Ofcourse, I was there too

Feel free to join in at the LCG Orkut Community.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.