Linux Movies

Installing CentOS or RHEL 6.4 on VirtualBox

rower — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 16:48:15 +0000

Add Linux as a virtual machine to your Windows 7 laptop without VMWare

by Robin Rowe

HOLLYWOOD, CA (LinuxMovies.org) 2013/4/27 – CentOS is a RedHat-workalike that it very similar to RHEL without the logos. CentOS and Debian are the two of the most popular Linux distros around.

VirtualBox is an open source alternative to VMWare. I upgraded VMWare Player, which I’d been using a long time, because it I had problems installing CentOS 6.4 and the Internet recommended installing the latest version. However, with the new VMWare I couldn’t see how to install any OS that didn’t come in one of their pre-configured images. It would no longer run my VMWare Player image of Linux Mint Debian. A dialog box said the new version of VMWare has less capabilities than the old version. Apparently, the free ride is over. I’ve been meaning to try Oracle VirtualBox, so this prompted me to do so.

After downloading and installing VirtualBox, and downloading the minimal iso of CentOS, it was time to create a new virtual machine and boot the iso. I had to increase memory allocation from 256M to 2G and also bumped virtual disk space to 12G. The rest of the settings I left as stock.

After installing and rebooting into my new CentOS virtual machine, I found I had no networking and no desktop. To add networking, find the name of your ethernet interface using ip.

# ip a

My ethernet shows as being eth0:

# vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

Edit ONBOOT to be ‘yes’. Start network:

# service network start

Next update the distro:

# yum update

Next install the desktop and developer tools:

# yum -y groupinstall “Desktop” “Desktop Platform” “X Window System” “Fonts” “Graphical Administration Tools” “Internet Browser” “General Purpose Desktop” “Development Tools”

Next edit inttab to set run level to 5:

# vi /etc/inittab

Next reboot:

# init 6

In VirtualBox preferences, set Display Max Guest Screen Size to 1024×720.

Right-click on the VirtualBox tools image on desktop and autorun to install.

Next install VLC so you can play movies.

# cd /etc/yum.repos.d/
# yum install wget
# wget http://pkgrepo.linuxtech.net/el6/release/linuxtech.repo
# yum install vlc

Next turn off screensaver.

{System}{Preferences}{Screensaver}

DreamWorks Animation The Croods Tops 9,100 Linux Render-Years

rower — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 18:09:47 +0000

HP Linux render farm used to create film

The Croods, which took #1 in the box office this weekend with an estimated $44.7 million, used a powerful Linux render farm to create the film

By Robin Rowe

HOLLYWOOD, CA (LinuxMovies.org) 2013/3/27 – The Croods took more than 9,100 computing render-years to generate images from 3-D models. DreamWorks Animation uses Linux and HP for its animation workstations and servers.

“Cutting-edge digital manufacturing requires a huge amount of compute power and orchestrated collaboration across our studios,” says DreamWorks Animation head of technology global operations Derek Chan. “HP Converged Infrastructure ,ensures that our filmmakers have the technical resources they require to bring their creative vision to life and deliver amazing films to our audiences.” The HP Converged Infrastructure includes servers, storage, networking, services, management software and workstations, HP printers and digital rendering.

The Linux server farm has more than 25,000 cores. DreamWorks Animation relies on a mix of HP ProLiant G8, G6 and G5 server blades. With its increase in cores and performance, the G8 blades achieve more than 40% higher render throughput compared to the G6 class blades and deliver more than 42% better performance per watt. The performance improvement has enabled the studio to render more efficiently and effectively and at a lower total cost. As a result, the studio increased render capabilities to an average of 500,000 jobs a day.

To bring to life the overprotective dad Grug and the teenage rebel daughter Eep, DreamWorks Animation used Linux servers and HP Enterprise Services in render farms across four geographic locations: Glendale and Redwood City, California, Las Vegas and Bangalore, India. To create the characters and intricate landscapes of The Crood, artists used HP’s most powerful workstations, the HP Z820 and Z800. With dual Intel® Xeon® processors, the HP Z820 workstation is up to 50% faster than previous generation workstations.

HP Remote Graphics Software enabled artists across studios in Glendale, Redwood City and Bangalore to collaborate in real time on a single desktop display.Access to the studio’s applications and assets is via HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage, HP MSA P2000, HP StoreAll Storage and HP StoreOnce Backup. Color consistency across print, display and big screen production of the movie by HP DreamColor displays and printers.

The Croods is in theaters everywhere.

Get a free game of The Croods. From the makers of Angry Birds, The Croods game is available for iPhone, Android and Amazon Kindle Fire.

Adding a Linux Swap File for Virtual Memory

rower — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 17:41:55 +0000

Give your Linux system more virtual memory

By Robin Rowe

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 2012/2/27 – Sometimes you need a little more memory for programs that use a lot of memory like Firefox. It used to be you had to dedicate a separate swap partition, but now Linux virtual memory can use a file instead of a partition, like Windows. Here’s how to set that up….

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/boot/swapfile bs=1024 count=524288 # mkswap /boot/swapfile # chown root:root /boot/swapfile # chmod 0600 /boot/swapfile # swapon /boot/swapfile

vi /etc/fstab

/boot/swapfile swap swap defaults 0 0

$ free

http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-add-a-swap-file-howto/

Flumotion Server Installation

rower — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 14:38:35 +0000

The open source server to stream to iPad

By Robin Rowe

HOLLYWOOD, CA (LinuxMovies.org) 2012/1/31 – Ustream and LiveStream are Flash-based streamers and therefore don’t work with the iPad or iPhone. An alternative is Flumotion:

Building and Installing

wget http://www.flumotion.net/src/flumotion/flumotion-0.10.0.tar.gz

tar xvfz ..

cd flumotion..

./configure

checking for XML::Parser… configure: error: XML::Parser perl module is required for intltools

Install Perl Moducles

http://perl.about.com/od/packagesmodules/qt/perlcpan.htm

perl -MCPAN -e shell install Bundle::CPAN reload cpancpan> installXML::Parser


Back to Flumotion, as root...

./configure
make
make install

http://www.flumotion.net/doc/flumotion/manual/en/trunk/html/

http://www.getflv.net/flumotion.com-downloader/how_to-record-flumotion-com-videos-to-mp3.htm

Install client…

http://python.org/ftp/python/2.7.2/Python-2.7.2.tar.bz2

no pager for man…

export PAGER=less

Puppy Linux Compiler Installation

rower — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:34:50 +0000

Puppy has a special procedure for installing the build tools to compile programs

By Robin Rowe

HOLLYWOOD, CA (LinuxMovies.org) 2012/1/30 – Puppy Linux is a great small distro. It takes a little special effort to install the build tools.

Installing the “devx” file in a full hard drive installation
1. Download devx package that matches your version of Puppy http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/puppylinux/Click on the devx_xxx.sfs in a ROX-Filer window to mount it.
2. Open a terminal in the mounted directory.
3. # cp -a –re move-destination ./* /mnt/hda2/
4. # sync
5. Close the terminal.
6. Click on the devx_xxx.sfs file to unmount it

Install the man page pages and execute mandb -c.

Lightening Ubuntu and Dropping Unity

rower — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 22:27:59 +0000

Make Ubuntu lighter and more fun to use with a couple apt-get commands

By Robin Rowe

HOLLYWOOD, CA (LinuxMovies.org) 2012/12/31 – Ubuntu is a popular Linux distro that many open source enthusiasts like. It’s based on Debian, but without so many rough edges. You could go instead with a Red Hat-based distro such as CentOS, Fedora or SUSE, but if you’re an open source developer being on a Debian-based distro just seems right. Unfortunately, Ubuntu made a desktop UI change that will tend to drive you nuts.

It’s called Unity. Gnome and KDE users hate it, and everyone else just says, what the f**K? If you like the Playskool interface of Windows XP, you’ll find Unity is a step further past that. Unity is so simple, so easy, that it’s unusable. Lot’s of folks have written about Why Unity Sucks, so let’s not repeat that here. The question is, if you’re not ready to throw out Ubuntu with the Unity bath water, what to do?

Open a terminal window by searching for ‘term’ in the confusing Unity interface. Once you get a terminal open…

sudo apt-get install lubuntu-desktop

That converts your Ubuntu halfway into the lightweight LUbuntu distro with LXDE. Now we just remove the heavy bits…

sudo apt-get remove acpi-support acpid adium-theme-ubuntu aisleriot apg app-install-data app-install-data-partner appmenu-gtk appmenu-gtk3 appmenu-qt apt-xapian-index apturl apturl-common at-spi2-core avahi-autoipd bamfdaemon banshee banshee-extension-soundmenu banshee-extension-ubuntuonemusicstore baobab binfmt-support bluez-alsa bluez-cups bluez-gstreamer branding-ubuntu brasero brasero-cdrkit brasero-common brltty c2esp checkbox checkbox-gtk cli-common compiz compiz-core compiz-gnome compiz-plugins-default compiz-plugins-main-default compizconfig-backend-gconf cups-bsd dc deja-dup dmz-cursor-theme doc-base duplicity dvd+rw-tools empathy empathy-common eog espeak espeak-data evolution-data-server evolution-data-server-common example-content exiv2 firefox firefox-globalmenu firefox-gnome-support foo2zjs gamin gbrainy gcalctool gcc gcc-4.6 gedit gedit-common geoclue geoclue-ubuntu-geoip ghostscript-x ginn gir1.2-atspi-2.0 gir1.2-gconf-2.0 gir1.2-gmenu-3.0 gir1.2-gtksource-3.0 gir1.2-indicate-0.6 gir1.2-launchpad-integration-3.0 gir1.2-peas-1.0 gir1.2-totem-1.0 gir1.2-totem-plparser-1.0 gir1.2-wnck-3.0 gnome-accessibility-themes gnome-codec-install gnome-control-center gnome-control-center-data gnome-desktop3-data gnome-font-viewer gnome-games-common gnome-icon-theme-symbolic gnome-mahjongg gnome-media gnome-menus gnome-nettool gnome-online-accounts gnome-orca gnome-power-manager gnome-screensaver gnome-screenshot gnome-search-tool gnome-session gnome-session-bin gnome-session-canberra gnome-session-common gnome-settings-daemon gnome-sudoku gnome-system-log gnome-system-monitor gnome-terminal gnome-terminal-data gnome-utils-common gnomine growisofs gstreamer0.10-alsa gstreamer0.10-gconf gstreamer0.10-plugins-base-apps gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio gstreamer0.10-tools guile-1.8-libs gwibber gwibber-service gwibber-service-facebook gwibber-service-identica gwibber-service-twitter hplip hplip-cups hplip-data hwdata ibus ibus-gtk ibus-gtk3 ibus-pinyin ibus-pinyin-db-android ibus-pinyin-db-open-phrase ibus-table im-switch indicator-appmenu indicator-datetime indicator-power indicator-session indicator-sound inputattach intel-gpu-tools kerneloops-daemon lftp libappindicator0.1-cil libasound2-plugins libatk-adaptor libatspi2.0-0 libavahi-gobject0 libbamf0 libbamf3-0 libboost-serialization1.46.1 libbrasero-media3-1 libbrlapi0.5 libc-dev-bin libc6-dev libcamel-1.2-29 libcanberra-pulse libcompizconfig0 libcrypt-passwdmd5-perl libdbus-glib1.0-cil libdbus1.0-cil libdbusmenu-qt2 libdconf-dbus-1-0 libdconf-qt0 libdconf0 libdecoration0 libdotconf1.0 libebackend-1.2-1 libebook1.2-12 libecal1.2-10 libedata-book-1.2-11 libedata-cal-1.2-13 libedataserver1.2-15 libedataserverui-3.0-1 libespeak1 libexempi3 libexiv2-10 libfile-copy-recursive-perl libfolks-telepathy25 libfolks25 libgail-3-common libgail-common libgamin0 libgconf2.0-cil libgd2-xpm libgdata-common libgdata1.7-cil libgdata13 libgdiplus libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgkeyfile1.0-cil libglew1.5 libglewmx1.5 libglib2.0-bin libglib2.0-cil libglib2.0-data libgmime-2.4-2 libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-control-center1 libgnome-desktop-3-2 libgnome-media-profiles-3.0-0 libgnome-menu-3-0 libgnome-menu2 libgnome2-common libgnomekbd-common libgnomekbd7 libgnomevfs2-0 libgnomevfs2-common libgoa-1.0-0 libgomp1 libgtk-sharp-beans-cil libgtk-vnc-2.0-0 libgtk2.0-cil libgtkmm-3.0-1 libgtksourceview-3.0-0 libgtksourceview-3.0-common libgtkspell3-0 libgudev1.0-cil libgvnc-1.0-0 libgweather-3-0 libgweather-common libgwibber-gtk2 libgwibber2 libhyphen0 libibus-1.0-0 libidl0 libido3-0.1-0 libjson-glib-1.0-0 liblaunchpad-integration1.0-cil liblightdm-gobject-1-0 liblouis-data liblouis2 libmetacity-private0 libmission-control-plugins0 libmng1 libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo4.0-cil libmono-corlib4.0-cil libmono-csharp4.0-cil libmono-i18n-west4.0-cil libmono-i18n4.0-cil libmono-posix4.0-cil libmono-security4.0-cil libmono-sharpzip4.84-cil libmono-system-configuration4.0-cil libmono-system-core4.0-cil libmono-system-drawing4.0-cil libmono-system-security4.0-cil libmono-system-xml4.0-cil libmono-system4.0-cil libmono-zeroconf1.0-cil libmysqlclient16 libmythes-1.2-0 libnotify-bin libnotify0.4-cil libnux-1.0-0 libnux-1.0-common liboauth0 libopencc1 liborbit2 liboverlay-scrollbar-0.2-0 liboverlay-scrollbar3-0.2-0 libpeas-1.0-0 libpeas-common libprotobuf7 libprotoc7 libpulse-mainloop-glib0 libqt4-dbus libqt4-declarative libqt4-network libqt4-opengl libqt4-script libqt4-sql libqt4-sql-mysql libqt4-svg libqt4-xml libqt4-xmlpatterns libqtbamf1 libqtcore4 libqtdee2 libqtgconf1 libqtgui4 libquadmath0 libquvi0 libraptor2-0 librasqal3 librdf0 libreoffice-base-core libreoffice-calc libreoffice-common libreoffice-core libreoffice-draw libreoffice-emailmerge libreoffice-gnome libreoffice-gtk libreoffice-help-en-us libreoffice-impress libreoffice-math libreoffice-style-human libreoffice-writer librest-0.7-0 librsync1 libsane-hpaio libsdl1.2debian-pulseaudio libspeechd2 libspeexdsp1 libstlport4.6ldbl libsyncdaemon-1.0-1 libtaglib2.0-cil libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-logger2 libtextcat-data libtextcat0 libtotem-plparser17 libtotem0 libubuntuone-1.0-1 libubuntuone1.0-cil libunique-1.0-0 libunity-2d-private0 libunity-core-4.0-4 libunity-misc4 libutempter0 libuuid-perl libwmf0.2-7-gtk libwnck-3-0 libwnck-3-common libwnck-common libwnck22 libxp6 libxres1 libyajl1 libyaml-tiny-perl libzeitgeist-1.0-1 light-themes lightdm linux-libc-dev make media-player-info metacity metacity-common mono-4.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime mousetweaks mscompress mysql-common nautilus nautilus-sendto nautilus-sendto-empathy nautilus-share notify-osd notify-osd-icons nux-tools onboard oneconf openprinting-ppds overlay-scrollbar pinyin-database pkg-config plymouth-theme-ubuntu-logo protobuf-compiler ptouch-driver pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat pulseaudio-module-bluetooth pulseaudio-module-gconf pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils pxljr python-brlapi python-configglue python-dateutil python-egenix-mxdatetime python-egenix-mxtools python-farsight python-gconf python-ibus python-imaging python-indicate python-libproxy python-louis python-openssl python-pam python-papyon python-pexpect python-piston-mini-client python-protobuf python-pyatspi2 python-pyinotify python-serial python-speechd python-telepathy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-core python-twisted-names python-twisted-web python-ubuntuone-client python-ubuntuone-control-panel python-ubuntuone-storageprotocol python-uno python-virtkey python-webkit python-wnck qdbus qt-at-spi radeontool rastertosag-gdi rdesktop rfkill rtkit sane-utils seahorse shotwell sni-qt software-center speech-dispatcher splix ssh-askpass-gnome syslinux syslinux-common telepathy-butterfly telepathy-gabble telepathy-haze telepathy-idle telepathy-indicator telepathy-logger telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut thunderbird thunderbird-globalmenu thunderbird-gnome-support tomboy toshset totem totem-common totem-mozilla totem-plugins ttf-opensymbol ubufox ubuntu-artwork ubuntu-desktop ubuntu-docs ubuntu-mono ubuntu-sounds ubuntu-sso-client ubuntu-system-service ubuntu-wallpapers ubuntuone-client ubuntuone-client-gnome ubuntuone-control-panel ubuntuone-control-panel-gtk ubuntuone-couch ubuntuone-installer unity unity-2d unity-2d-launcher unity-2d-panel unity-2d-places unity-2d-spread unity-asset-pool unity-common unity-greeter unity-lens-applications unity-lens-files unity-lens-music unity-scope-musicstores unity-services uno-libs3 update-inetd ure usb-creator-common usb-creator-gtk vinagre vino whois wodim xbitmaps xcursor-themes xdg-user-dirs-gtk xdiagnose xfonts-mathml xterm xul-ext-ubufox zeitgeist zeitgeist-core zeitgeist-datahub zeitgeist-extension-fts zenity zenity-common

If you have a different variant of Ubuntu to convert, here are more options for Getting Back to a Pure LXDE.

The Perfect WordPress Configuration

rower — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 06:06:08 +0000

Tweak WordPress to be the best HOLLYWOOD, CA (LinuxMovies) 2011/11/30 – WordPress has many options and plug-ins. Here’s a recommended configuration.

Build a custom template
Check Permalinks work ok when clicking through a front page link
Plug-ins: Akismet, Embed Iframe, Google News Sitemap, Really simple Facebook Twitter share buttons, WP Super Cache, Fix RSS Feeds, WP-Stats-Dashboard, WP to Twitter, WP YouTube Lyte, Really simple Facebook Twitter share buttons, Share On Facebook
WordPress Settings: Akismet, WP to Twitter, WP Super Cache, WP-Stats-Dashboard
Add contact and privacy policy pages
Add links in template for our Facebook and Twitter pages
Add banners in template for our sponsors and affiliates
Add RSS feed link
Add Google Adsense ads to template and sitemap to Google Analytics
Add Alexa, Compete and Quantcast

Installing FluxBB on Linux

rower — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 17:43:51 +0000

FluxBB can use MySQL, PostgresSQL or SQLite

FluxBB is a free open source lightweight PHP bulletin board forum

By Robin Rowe

HOLLYWOOD, CA (LinuxMovies) 11/7/2011 – Installing a forum on your website enables your users to post useful information. There are many open source PHP-based forums available. FluxBB is a good choice as a lightweight forum that supports MySQL, PostgresSQL or SQLite. Here’s how to install on Linux with MySQL.

Create table in MySQL

mysql -u root -p
CREATE USER ‘fluxbb’@'localhost’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘password’;
CREATE DATABASE fluxbb;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON fluxbb.* TO “fluxbb”@”localhost”;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Download and Unpack FluxBB

cd /var/www/html/YOUR_WEBSITE
wget http://fluxbb.org/download/releases/1.4.7/fluxbb-1.4.7.tar.bz2
tar xvfj fluxbb-1.4.7.tar.bz2
mv fluxbb-1.4.7 forum
chown -R apache:apache forum

Finish Installation via Web Browser

http://YOUR_WEBSITE/forum/install.php

Lighten CentOS Server

rower — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 22:12:42 +0000

A few things to remove that are unneeded on your CentOS server

By Robin Rowe

HOLLYWOOD, CA (LinuxMovies) 9/18/2011 – CentOS is a Redhat-based Linux that many use as a server. Here are a few things to jettison that a server doesn’t typically need.

To disable X11 you could change your run level to 3 and edit the initdefault line in your /etc/inittab file. To get rid of X11 entirely, so you’re not updating useless packages with yum update, use this:

yum groupremove “X Window System”

We may want to put ImageMagick back.

yum install ImageMagick

We don’t need SAMBA:

yum remove samba-common

Windows 7 Putty SSH Access Denied Solution

rower — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 17:58:12 +0000

Quick fix for Putty ssh client “Access Denied” hiccup on Windows 7

By Robin Rowe

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Linux Movies) 8/20/11 – Windows doesn’t include an ssh client to connect to our Linux servers, so we use the open source Putty software. This software opens a terminal window where you can enter your login name and password. Windows 7 gave us a surprise, though. It was saying “Access Denied” as soon as a user name was entered, before prompting for the password.

The solution is to create a new Putty connection with GSSAPI turned off. Putty was checking for that type of encryption by default. You can’t turn that off in your saved connection. Turn off GSSAPI first in Putty’s authentication settings, that’s under Connection/SS/Auth/GSSAPI. Then create a new connection and save it.

TIP: To see the event log in order to debug a Putty session, CTRL-click on the terminal window.