Ubuntu, is it ready for Tablets? Unity Vs. MATE

Posted on February 23, 2013 by Ahmed Tawfik

Today I did a test, comparing the Unity desktop, which is Ubuntu’s default now, on Ubuntu Quantal, to the MATE desktop (forked from Gnome 2) on Linux Mint 14 (also based on Ubuntu Quantal), all 64-bit.

The test was run on an old laptop with a Core 2 Duo Processor, 1 GB RAM and Intel Graphics Card.

This was a non-standard test, where I measured desktop responsiveness, ran some applications like Firefox and LibreOffice, played some video files…etc, and I have to admit that Unity compared to MATE is like Sound speed compared to Lightning!!

This made me highly doubt that Ubuntu with Unity is ready for Tablets, as Canonical claims, what do you think?

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How to get version of Redhat & Oracle Enterprise Linux

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Ahmed Tawfik

Oracle Enterprise Linux: more /etc/enterprise-release, example output: “Enterprise Linux Server release 5.5 (Carthage)”

Redhat: more /etc/redhat-release

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How to enable & force HTTPS on Apache2 Web Server on Ubuntu

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Ahmed Tawfik

HTTPS Configuration (with self-signed certificate)

“sudo a2enmod ssl”

“sudo a2ensite default-ssl”

With Apache2 now configured for HTTPS, restart the service to enable the new settings:

“sudo service apache2 restart”

Source: https://help.ubuntu.com/10.04/serverguide/httpd.html

To force https:

Enable mod_rewrite:

"sudo a2enmod rewrite"

Then add the following to “/etc/apache2/sites-available/default” (first thing after <VirtualHost *:80>):
RewriteEngine   on
RewriteCond     %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule     ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [L,R]

Finally restart your Apache2 Server again (or force-reload it if you wish):

“sudo service apache2 restart”

Source: http://www.linode.com/wiki/index.php/Apache2_SSL_in_Ubuntu

 

 

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How to install basic GUI on Ubuntu Server and access it via VNC

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Ahmed Tawfik

For those who need basic & light-weight GUI for their Ubuntu Server, you can do the following:

“sudo apt-get install xorg openbox”

To easily access it via VNC:

“sudo apt-get install tightvncserver”

To start your VNC server, simply type:

“vncserver”

Then you can access this VNC server via any VNC client, such as Remmina with the following server info:

“servername:1” (for the first vncserver, replace 1 by a corresponding number as necessary)

If a password is required and the server didn’t prompt you for it, simply run:

“vncpasswd”

After you’re done, don’t forget to kill your VNC server via the following command:

“vncserver -kill :1” (replace 1 by a corresponding number as necessary)

All the above packages take very little resources from your server, for example they all take around 100 MB of storage only!

Source: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ServerGUI

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How to manually modify DB initialization parameters by creating pfile from spfile

Posted on January 19, 2013 by Ahmed Tawfik

pfile is the initialization parameters of DB in plain text, while spfile is the binary one, so to be able to change it, you have to:

  1. Extract the pfile from the spfile:
    “create pfile=’my_path/file_name.ora‘ from spfile;”
  2. Shutdown the DB:
    “shutdown immediate;”
  3. Edit the pfile applying the new parameters with “vi”, “notepad” or any plain text editor
  4. Startup the DB from the pfile:
    “startup pfile=’my_path/file_name.ora‘;”
  5. Generate spfile from pfile:
    “create spfile from pfile=’my_path/file_name.ora‘”

Source: http://www.dba-oracle.com/concepts/pfile_spfile.htm

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