My flash is running on slitaz too!

I was just saying that flash is not possible in my previous post and not even one hour later, I manage to install flash on slitaz!

After searching the internet on this, I found this to be really helpful. It seems some of the methods works for some people and some work for others. I wonder what makes the difference.... hmmm...

Anyhow, below are the steps I took:


1. Download: ftp://ftp.ch.xemacs.org//pool/2/mirror/slitaz/packages/cooking/get-flash-plugin-1.2.tazpkg

2. Open a terminal and su to be root:
# su root

3. go to the location where the file was downloaded:
# cd [fullpath_where_file_is]

4. type the command "tazpkg install get-flash-plugin-1.2.tazpkg". In my case where I had made earlier attempt and had installed it once, I need to append "--force" (without the quotes, of course) at the end of the command. Just to be clear, I did:

# tazpkg install get-flash-plugin-1.2.tazpkg --forced

5. Once the installation is done, run the command:
# get-flash-plugin

6. Open the browser (I had also installed firefox 4, apart from the default midori), and it works on both!

:)

Finally my mkv video file is running on slitaz!

It has been a while since I had the chance to work on my slitaz machine...

And since today I had some time, decided to find out if I can:
1. Play flash
2. Play mkv files (like what I was trying to in my previous post

For (1) the sad truth is that it is not possible... or maybe I have not tried hard enough. But after reading http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/slitaz.html, I have decided to stop since at the end of the installing flash segment (and I quote):

"However, neither did this help. Flash was not meant to be."

So, then, moving on to task (2). Did another google search and this time, I came across this topic on slitaz forum: http://vanilla.slitaz.org/index.php?p=/discussion/304/help-cannot-play-video-files-on-slitaz/p1 (I wonder why I did not see this earlier... :( ... )

Anyhow, I followed the instructions to change the video driver to X11 instead of default xvin the mplayer preferences.

Voila! it now can play my mkv files! yay! :)

Reading up on DNSSEC...

I have been reading up on DNSSEC to improve on the current implementation of DNSSEC and found that the blog below has quite a good write-up.

Just logging the links here so that it could come in handy in the future:

http://blog.sarion.jp/cbytes/2010/08/dnssec-operation-tools-bind-97.html
http://blog.sarion.jp/cbytes/2010/08/dnssec-operation-tools-opendnssec.html
http://blog.sarion.jp/cbytes/2010/08/dnssec-operation-tools-zkt.html
http://blog.sarion.jp/cbytes/2010/08/tools-for-dnssec-operation.html
http://blog.sarion.jp/cbytes/2010/06/performance-implications-of-using-an-hsm-for-dnssec.html
http://blog.sarion.jp/cbytes/2010/06/using-an-hsm-with-bind-for-dnssec.html

Advent - Countdown to Christmas

This year, my daughter, Hannah, just turned 4. I believe she is now ready for us as a family to come to the LORD together. I had wondered how should we do this as it is kind of difficult if we could not find suitable.

Thanks to technology, the YouVersion bible app on my android launched the count down to Christmas reading plan (http://www.youversion.com/reading-plans/countdown-to-christmas) and it looked perfect especially with the activities that we can do to keep her interested as well as making her understand bible passages.

So last night, we started our first reading and she was all excited. And since I was late a day, we even did two readings!

By the time we ended the session, we set the stage for her to anticipate the next day reading. Looking forward to the reading tonight and hope the flame that has started will continue to burn...

Playing MKV files on SliTaz

 I have been trying to play MKV files for the past week after I have installed SliTaz but have yet to find success. MPlayer, GNOME Player does not seems to work... or at least it doesn't seem to run for me.

Somehow I suspected VLC may be able to run, so I have installed it yesterday using:
SliTazBox# tazpkg get-install vlc

Once that was done, I was disappointed that it does not respond.

So today, by doing some google search, found that VLC is one of the best way to play mkv files.

Maybe all I needed yesterday was to restart my machine. Will see how it goes today...

Reusing old PC as a headless linux

Wish I had more time to do this, but well, doing a short one better than none.

I have this old PC (given by my father-in-law who practically gave up on it), with the specs:
Intel Pentium 4 1.5GHz
384MB (after I added some RAM, but can't recall how big was the initial RAM).
20GB HDD
with a very very bad CRT monitor (14")

So with that, I formatted the hard disk (originally Windows XP) and installed Ubuntu 11.04. I like it even though the 3D acceleration could work as the graphic card could not support, but 2D worked well enough. Soon, I found that it could no longer able to do multitasking. The specs are just too low for Ubuntu. But that didn't bother me as I only use that to download files.

Days became, weeks... Weeks became months... I left it as it is.

Then, my wife, who was given the flexibility to work from home, is given an LCD monitor. So for space sake, I took off the old monitor and in its place, the LCD monitor. To be fair, the monitor is to be plugged into her office laptop and it would be troublesome to connect/disconnect from the tower CPU case to her laptop.

By then, Ubuntu 11.10 was released. So I did an upgrade. But since it became so sluggish, change the X windows to Xubuntu, but that did not help that much.

Then the idea of headless linux struck as I look around the Internet.

I am still working on it to see how else to make it better, but this is what I did:

1. Install ssh into the machine. Installed OpenSSH. It was done a while ago, so could not capture the steps here, but its fairly easy

2. Install VNC. Used various VNC software (again, it was a while ago, so can't recall) but the X Window could not display Ubuntu's UI properly. In the end, run x11vnc, which I think is the best way to see the my user screen.

Ah... but later I also read about a light weight Linux Distro called SliTaz, and reviews were good. Decided to give it a go since the PC became so slow! You can always google Slitaz for more information. Will not layout the details here.

Once installed, the PC felt like brand new. Everything just run. Of course, there were some programs such as the default browser, Midori, is less familiar, and how packages installed must be tazpkg, and movie files with the mkv file format does not quite run (still working on it...), I was quite happy to have SliTaz installed.

So with that now, Slitaz has got a light-weight SSH installed, called DropBear. By following the instruction at http://doc.slitaz.org/en:handbook:ssh, SSH is now running.

Then, I install x11vnc using the instruction at http://doc.slitaz.org/en:guides:conspy (near the bottom of the page) where below instruction is found:

SlitazBox# tazpkg get-install x11vnc
SlitazBox# tazpkg get-install x11vnc-extra
SlitazBox# /etc/init.d/x11vnc start

By just doing that, voila! my VNC is now running again! Based on the previous x11vnc setup, I can now let my VNC start automatically by setting it as a "Auto Started Application" that can be configured via the UI. Also, to make sure that the x11vnc does not end process when the connecting VNC viewer ends the session, the command ought to be:


/usr/bin/x11vnc -bg -reopen -forever

where:

-bg - is running on the background
-reopen - after you will log in and the x11vnc will be terminated this swich renew x11vnc connection
-forever - after you close vnc client the x11vnc server won't close but keep "running"


(reference from http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=995746)

Somehow, after adding the command in "Auto Started Application", it does not appear as one of the item (maybe I have to restart? but I doubt it). But when I view the "Configuration", it is found there.

Well, this is as far as I could go for now. Will explore further if TeamViewer can work properly. Hope I can connect to this machine from my android phone. :)

Blogging... here I come!

Yeah, I know I am a late starter, but better late than never, right?

So... this is my attempt to log things I learn, be it of life experiences, impression on my heart by my Lord Jesus, or plain technical IT stuff...

So that's it! Hope I can spend time as much as I wish I could in capturing things that strike a chord in my heart, fascinating, or amusing. :)