I am proud to announce (o.k., maybe a little late) that my first two packages made it into the Ubuntu repositories and are available in Ubuntu 9.04:

• gebabbel helps you with converting different GPS data formats and downloading GPS data from your GPS handheld.
• tomboy-blogposter is an addon for the note taking program Tomboy which allows you to send notes to your blog.

I am about to test migrating my Ubuntu installation to 64bit. I’ll test compatibility with my used applications first in a VM.

For that I installed Ubuntu 8.10 64bit Desktop edition into the VM. Since I don’t want to manually reinstall all packages by hand, I came up with the following aptitude / dpkg commands after reading a few other instructions:

On the source system, execute:

sudo aptitude search '~i !~M' -F '%p install' > packages-list

This will generate a list of all manually installed packages in packages-list. (All packages not installed as a dependency of another package.)

On the destination system execute:

sudo dpkg --set-selections < packages-list
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dselect-upgrade

This will install all the packages from the list. (and apt will take care of resolving dependencies)

That’s it. If you have already used a different method and want to fix things, read on:
More »

I just noticed that my cursor keys did not behave correctly with a Windows XP VM on an Intrepid host. The down arrow acted as the Windows key!

After some googling I found this blog entry.

You have to insert the following lines into your ~/.vmware/config file:

xkeymap.keycode.108 = 0x138 # Alt_R
xkeymap.keycode.106 = 0x135 # KP_Divide
xkeymap.keycode.104 = 0x11c # KP_Enter
xkeymap.keycode.111 = 0x148 # Up
xkeymap.keycode.116 = 0x150 # Down
xkeymap.keycode.113 = 0x14b # Left
xkeymap.keycode.114 = 0x14d # Right
xkeymap.keycode.105 = 0x11d # Control_R
xkeymap.keycode.118 = 0x152 # Insert
xkeymap.keycode.119 = 0x153 # Delete
xkeymap.keycode.110 = 0x147 # Home
xkeymap.keycode.115 = 0x14f # End
xkeymap.keycode.112 = 0x149 # Prior
xkeymap.keycode.117 = 0x151 # Next
xkeymap.keycode.78 = 0x46 # Scroll_Lock
xkeymap.keycode.127 = 0x100 # Pause
xkeymap.keycode.133 = 0x15b # Meta_L
xkeymap.keycode.134 = 0x15c # Meta_R
xkeymap.keycode.135 = 0x15d # Menu

I have a few updates regarding my Personal Package Archive:

My Vinagre VNC backport for Gutsy will make it into the official gutsy-backports repository if I get two successful test reports on bug #191077. So please download and test, if you are interested.
(See also my previous post: New Ubuntu Packages)

Also, I have the beta version of the upcoming 1.10 release of the Transmission Bittorrent Client in my PPA. I use the same packaging as the official Ubuntu versions. (As opposed to the ones you’ll get at getdeb.net)

If you don’t know Transmission yet: It’s a lightweight Bittorrent client, capable of downloading multiple Torrents simultaneously, throttling speeds, peer exchange and encrypted transfer (and more…). It will be the default Bittorrent client for Hardy.

In my opinion, it is a good replacement for Azureus, if you don’t need all the advanced stuff and don’t want a big java app hogging all your memory…

Get all the debs at my PPA.

Robin has updated his TomboyBlogposter addin and I have updated my Ubuntu packages correspondingly.

Screenshot from Vinagre Homepage

Also fresh: Backports of the Vinagre VNC client for Ubuntu 7.10. It’s not sure whether these will make it into gutsy-backports, since some bigger source change was necessary.

Vinagre obsoletes the old and ugly xvncviewer and has a user interface similar to VMWares Server Console or Workstation (sidebar, tabs, etc.).

Get the packages by adding the line

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/hanno-stock/ubuntu gutsy main

to your APT sources.list (or use Synaptic 3rd party software tab) or download at my PPA.

Download the .debs for your architecture (i386, etc.) and install with:

sudo dpkg -i packagename.deb

Note that if you install the .debs manually via dpkg you have to install gtk-vnc prior to vinagre.

If you dual-boot and want to share your bookmarks and passwords between the two installations:

symlink the files key3.db, signons2.txt and bookmarks.html from your windows profile in your Linux profile.
(Assuming you use a master password for your password store.)

In a terminal go to your Linux profile dir (~/.mozilla/firefox/x9999abc.default or similar) and do a "ln -s /path/to/the/corresponding/windows/file".

Here are some of my bookmarks regarding .deb packaging.

I finally did it. I’ve been running Ubuntu 7.10 on my personal desktop for a bit more than a week now. I never felt the urge to boot into windows again

Configuration tweaks because of special hardware were minimal. MP3 collection, Slimserver, Komodo, etc. — all is up and running angain.

I also got my own Ubuntu Package Archive now and built my first Package. I packaged Robin Sonefor’s Blogposter Plugin for Tomboy, an excellent note taking program for Gnome.

More later…