Opera Web Browser for BOSS Linux – enjoy faster browsing speeds

For those of you who love using the opera web browser on Windows, theres good news Opera works on BOSS Linux (and many other distributions) too. You can download the Opera web browser from here. On the downloads page select Debian from the Select distribution and vendor drop down list, and select Debian 4.0 (this will work for both BOSS 2.0 Anant and BOSS 3.0 Tejas) and start the download. Once you’ve completed the download you can install it by right clicking the .deb package and installing using GDebi package installer, alternatively you can also use the command line dpkg command.

I’ve found Opera to be faster than Firefox on BOSS linux (both browsers running with default settings). Opera comes with a handy built in bit torrent client. For those of you who love firefox’s plug-ins (add-ons), Opera uses widgets, they are not the same as add-ons but which one you like is largely a matter of personal preference. Try it and if you don’t like it, theres always firefox to fall back on .

Speeding up OpenOffice load / start up time

Ever wondered if you could speed up OpenOffice’s start up time? Heres a nifty little trick to reduce the time OpenOffice takes from the point of clicking the icon to the OpenOffice application getting loaded.

Start any of the applications from the OpenOffice suite (Writer, Impress, Base, Calc etc).

On the menubar click Tools and then Options

OpenOffice.org calc example screenshot

now under Options under the OpenOffice.org menu Click Java

OpenOffice.org calc screenshot

and under Java options uncheck the checkbox titled Use a Java Runtime Environment. Click OK.

OpenOffice.org Calc screenshot

With this done OpenOffice will load in significantly less time than before. Most users dont need the Java Runtime environment so you can safely disable it, it can always be enabled in case some required functionality becomes unavailable.

(The screenshots are taken on BOSS Linux running the Mac4Lin theme.)

Web browsers for BOSS Linux

My installation of BOSS Linux ( ‘Anant’ – v2.0 ) came with firefox pre-installed, I currently use Iceweasel . There are quite a few web-browsers on the BOSS Linux package repository.

Debian had licensing issues with the Mozilla corporation on the conditions for the use of the name Firefox, so they decided to re-brand Firefox as Iceweasel. Heres the full story from @ wikipedia.Most add-ons, skins and other goodies from Firefox work with Iceweasel too, most Firefox users would feel right at home with Iceweasel.

To install Iceweasel from the BOSS Linux package repository you can either type “apt-get install iceweasel” if you are logged in as the root user or type “sudo apt-get install iceweasel”  on the terminal (Applications>Accessories>Terminal). If in case you are not much of a command line person use synaptic (Click System>Administration>Synaptic Package Manager), you’ll find Iceweasel on the list of packages. Click here for my post on setting up synaptic for BOSS Linux, you’ll find this post helpful even if you are planning to use apt-get as its got information on configuring the /etc/apt/sources.list file.

Then theres Dillo, a small(around 355kb to download) but furiously fast GTK+ based browser. It doesn’t support CSS, Javascript or Java. This means most web page layouts will not look like they should and you can’t login to check mail among other things. However the good thing is most online advertising wont work without Javascript support either, so no more pop-ups or irritating insite ads . Dillos good for plain browsing, but the lack of CSS support is a problem. As of now the project is frozen due to lack of sponsorship. Click here to visit the official website and do help the developers out if you can

Apart the above two, there are other browsers like epiphany(GNOME’s web browser), chimera2, elinks (an advanced text mode WWW browser) and a few more. These are only what you’ll find in the BOSS Linux package repositories (use synaptic or apt to download). There are lots of other open source web browsers that are not a part of the repository but can always be compiled and used.

Urban Terror (UrT) – Free First Person Shooter Game on BOSS Linux

Urban Terror is a free First Person Shooter (FPS) than runs on Windows, Linux & Mac. Gameplay is superfast with lots of moves like wall jumping and power sliding adding to the fun. The game also has a realistic stamina system, you cant sprint around non-stop for long. Getting injured results in permanent stamina loss. The thing i liked the most about the game is the array of gameplay modes it supports. Theres Capture the Flag(CTF) where each team tries to capture the other’s flag while defending its own. Theres Bomb mode, Free For All(FFA), Team Deathmatch (TDM), Team Survivor(TS), Capture and Hold(C&H), Follow the Leader. CTF, TDM, TS & Bomb are popular.

The weapons are realistic, you get a knife, primary , secondary weapons and other stuff like Grenades, Kevlar vests and helmets among other hardware . The Remington SR-8 is a favorite among snipers. There are two teams blue and red.

Theres also a wide variety of maps. Here are a few screen shots:

This is what the screen looks like as a map(Riyadh by .EXE) gets loaded. hellsheaven.co.za are nice folks hosting the server, they’ve got a clan going. Theres many other servers and clans too.

Another screenshot from the game, this is the Blue Team spawn area in Riyadh.

Urban Terror is a Quake 3 mod by Frozen Sand LLC, it can be downloaded free of cost from here.

Running Urban Terror is simple, download and extract the .zip installer for Linux & Mac users. The .zip installer is a BIG file at 720MB, buts its less than half the size of America’s Army. You’ll find ioUrbanTerror.i386 and ioUrbanTerror.x86_64 in it. If you’re running a 32-bit Linux installation (just about everyone running BOSS Linux is) you’ll be using ioUrbanTerror.i386, for 64-bit Linux installations use ioUrbanTerror.x86_64. You’ll need to enable execution for the file by right clicking it select Properties go to the Permissions tab and clicking the Allow executing file as a program checkbox.

I had some trouble running Urban Terror with Beryl enabled, some parts of the screen flickered. Just turn off beryl and you’ll be fine.

Urban Terror does have an offline mode, you’ll need to press ~ at the start up screen and type /bot_enable 1 at the prompt. Then start server. One the game starts you can add bots by pressing ~ again and typing /addbot chicken repeat this to add more bots. Do note however that bots are no longer supported and may cause crashes. Besides its more fun to play online against real people.

All in all Urban Terror is a fun game, which is very addictive.

Update: I have ended up with  “No server list from Master Server” on the servers page quite a few times now, its quite a pain! You can always connect to the servers directly. First you’ll have to look up server IP addresses, I used http://topservers.beer-garden.org/ut.php . They’ve got a list of popular servers. Once you have the IP, bring down the console by pressing ~ and type connect ip_address_of_server

It’ll connect you to the server, the only issue I have faced with this is i only see the ping after connecting!

Changing the default Gnome Splash screen on BOSS in 3 easy steps!!!

Heres one of the ways you can change the default splash screen that appears after login.
1. Install gTweakUI from synaptic(Click System>Administration>Synaptic you’ll find gTweakUI on the list of applications there)

2. You can use a splash screen image of your own or search for some on the internet, i used one from Gnome Art. Once you’ve found yourself a splash screen, you’ll need to save it somewhere, i saved it here:
/usr/share/images/desktop-base/
Thats where the default splash screen is saved.

3.Now we’ll use gTweakUI to change to the new splash screen. Go to:

System>Preferences>gTweakUI Session
You’ll see your current slash screen displayed there, click it to change to the new splash screen. You will have to select the new splash screen from where you saved it. Click close and you’re done! Log off and log back in see the new splash screen in action.

Setting up Synaptic on BOSS Linux

Heres how you can setup synaptic to be able to download packages from BOSS Linux’s online repository.

Open /etc/apt/sources.list using your favorite text editor (Gedit, vi etc), It is advisable to create a backup of the existing sources.list file, you can try renaming it as sources.list.old or any such name that makes sense to you.

if you are doing this for the first time you’ll see the link for the CD-ROM in there, remove it before proceeding.

Paste the following as a single line of text in the souces.list file:

deb http://packages.bosslinux.in/boss anant main contrib non-free

save the file and close the editor.

Now make sure you are connected to the internet and open Synaptic(System>Administration>Synaptic Package Manager) and press the refresh button, Synaptic will now download the list of application from the online repository. You can select the application you need and install it.

Notes:

Depending on your version on BOSS Linux you may need to change the contents of the string deb http://packages.bosslinux.in/boss anant main contrib non-free. Refer to the user manual which is usually found on the Desktop for details. I am using version 2.0 and the above settings work for me,

You can also add repositories to the sources.list file from within Synaptic by Clicking Settings>Repositories>Add and selecting a repository, however on my version of BOSS this leads to a wrong string http://pacakges… instead of http://packages…

Update for BOSS Linux Version 3.0 Tejas:

The string you need to add to your /apt/etc/sources.list file for BOSS Linux version 3.0 tejas is

deb http://packages.bosslinux.in/boss tejas main contrib non-free

Apart from the BOSS Linux repositories you can also try out Debian Lenny (for Tejas) or Etch (for Anant) repositories.

Hello world in C on BOSS (basic GCC usage)

So you are trying to set up BOSS for some C programming? Heres a basic how-to.

The first thing you’ll need is a compiler, gcc the GNU C Compiler comes installed by default in BOSS. Next you’ll need an editor, many editors(vi, nano, gedit to name a few) come installed by default in BOSS Linux. You can also use IDEs like Anjuta, Eclipse, Netbeans etc.

Lets get this started: we will be using Gedit, get to a terminal window(Applications>Accessories>Terminal) once on the terminal window type:

gedit firstfile.c

or any other filename of your choice in place of firstfile, be sure to use the .c extension. Otherwise GCC will not be able to recognize it as a C source file. Press the Enter key and type the following code in the Gedit window:

#include<stdio.h>

int main()

{

printf(“Hello World!”);

getchar();

return 0;

}

I am sure you have seen something like this before its just a basic program to get you feet wet, Most students from India start off C/C++ programming with the Turbo C++ Version 3.0 compiler and are in the habit of using getch(); at the end of the code to basically make the execution wait for the user to press a key before completion. Well, conio.h is not a part of the C Language and it limited to old MS-DOS C Compilers, so I used getchar() in its place, it does pretty much the same thing in this program.

Now save the file and close gedit to get back to the terminal window. We will now compile firtsfile.c. Type:

gcc firstfile.c

If all goes well the prompt will reappear on the next line without any message, otherwise you’ll see an error message.

Now we will execute the file, the default name for the executable is a.out, to execute it type:

./a.out

and press Enter on the terminal, you will see:

Hello World

with the blinking cursor to the right of the d Press enter to return to the prompt.

On windows with Turbo C++ you have firstfile.exe as the executable generated, a.out is the default name for the executable file created by GCC. To use a name of your choice use the -o argument with gcc:

gcc firstfile.c -o firstfile

this will generate an executable by the name firstfile.

Happy Coding

Playing MP3s on BOSS Linux

So you are having trouble playing mp3s on BOSS??? Just about everybody has used Winamp, and a similar software exists on Linux too, its called xmms (x multimedia system) and heres how you can install it…

open a terminal window (Applications>Accessories>Terminal) and type in:

apt-get install xmms

press Enter and once the download is completed you will have xmms show up in

Applications> Sound & Video>XMMS

XMMS allows you to change the default skin, to change the skin right click anywhere on XMMS(except the playlist) and then click Options > Skin Browser just select a skin from the list and you are on To get more skins visit the XMMS website , download the XMMS skin of your choice (it will be a .tar.gz file), place the file i:

/…/.xmms/Skins

where  … is the path to your home directory, for example if you login user ID is happy, your home directory will be /home/happy, so the directory to paste the skin file will be /home/happy.xmms/Skins

Happy Listening