Brother MFC 215c printing in Suse 10.2

This may be very specific all of a sudden, but I've been having a few problems installing my Brother MFC 215c printer on Linux.

To aid anyone that needs to know, this is how ya do it…

1.  Download the CUPS wrapper for the driver.
2. Download the LPR printer driver.
3. Simply double click LPR driver to install
4. Install the wrapper using these commands:

• Hit Alt-F2 to get the run dialoug
• Type in "  konsole –type=su   "
• When asked, enter in root password.
• Change to the director of the downloaded rpm wrapper using the command " cd /home/andy/ " for example.
• "   rpm -ihv -nodeps MFC210Clpr-1.0.2-1.i386.rpm     "
• After that last command hit Alt-F2 again, type in 'Cups'
• Go to the 'Administration' tab at the top.
• Click 'Add this printer' next to the MFC 210C option.

You're done!

Mod_rewrite underscores as dashes in URLs

At work I was faced with a problem — to rewrite all the URLs of a website that have underscores in, to dashes. This is to aid a painful transition to manage the website with the MODx php CMS.

Here is the mod_rewrite code that converts any underscores in an URL to dashes.

 # Rewrite underscores for dashes in URLs  – upto 6 underscores
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*)_(.*)/$
RewriteRule (.*)_(.*)/ http://www.microplop.com$1-$2/ [R=301]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*)_(.*)_(.*)/$
RewriteRule (.*)_(.*)_(.*)/ http://www.microplop.com$1-$2-$3/ [R=301]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)/$
RewriteRule (.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)/ http://www.microplop.com$1-$2-$3-$4/ [R=301]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)/$
RewriteRule (.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)/ http://www.microplop.com$1-$2-$3-$4-$5/ [R=301]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)/$
RewriteRule (.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)/ http://www.www.microplop.com$1-$2-$3-$4-$5-$6/ [R=301]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)/$
RewriteRule (.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)/ http://www.microplop.com$1-$2-$3-$4-$5-$6-$7/ [R=301]
 

Hope this helps 

How to Hack Silverlight for Linux in 21 days

A developer and his team from the Mono project were offered by Microsoft a 10 – 20 minute presentation on the Mono project's efforts on bringing Silverlight to Linux. As all they had working at that point was a rectangle that could move a bit and not much else, the team decided that they would stage a 20 day hack-a-thon to complete as much Linux XAML implementation as possible before the talk which was going to be 21 days later.

At the SLIDE7 event a Microsoft speaker said that they were developing the Silverlight plugin for both Mac and Windows; IE and Firefox — but not for Linux, as there was 'not enough demand' for it. 

It'll be great to see the new 'Moonlight' plugin for Mozilla when the first few alpha or beta builds surface.  

Ubuntu group confirm new multimedia creation studio

The team who bring us Ubuntu, Kubuntu and everything *ubuntu, have announced the creation of a new flavour to their line of open source operating systems — Ubuntu Studio. This is from the website:

Ubuntu Studio is aimed at the GNU/Linux audio, video and graphic enthusiast as well as professional.

We provide a suite of the best open-source applications available for multimedia creation. Completely free to use, modify and redistribute. Your only limitation is your imagination.

Only time will see how successful it is against the multimedia market leader Mac. 

Linux for all

A zero config Linux distribution called BabelLinux has been made by the Brit boff behind Pipex and much of the internet.

Running off of a live CD, the distro claims to be a no crap, simple interface aiming to achieve a clean and simple way to get people to use Linux with the least amount of fuss.

Write access to the physical hard drives will be disallowed, and storage of documents will be made possible through an online service provided by BabelLinux, for £1 a month and £10 start up fee.

This is an interesting approach to getting people into Linux and away from Windows, but will it’s over simplistic design work? Too many people are already familiar with the Windows look — they may even feel scared to venture away from M$.

What ever happens, it’ll be a great solution to run if you need to complete that piece of coursework, and all your drives have just become un-bootable.

How to synchronise iPods with Amarok

It has always been tricky to find a way to sync ipods in Linux, but I’ve found a way.

1. Get Amarok (version >= 1.4.4)

2. Make sure you have libipod installed – this allows iPod file functions.

3. Initialise all music in Amarok.

4. Initialise iPod

5. Goto ‘Playlist’ on the left menu bar

6. Under ‘Smart Play lists’ -> Collection -> All Collection.

7. Right click -> Synchronise to media device.

8. Goto ‘Media device’ on left menu bar.

9. At the bottom of the left pane under ‘Transfer Queue’ it should now read ‘All Collection’

10. Underneath the top menu bar select ‘Transfer’

Sorted!

We’ve changed servers: The Epic Tale

Whey! I’ve finally changed my server over to a US host. It’s an epic story, which i will relay to your in epic form…

In the beginning, there was ukHost4u.co.uk. Microplop.com was hosted there, and all was good…

(Okay, I can’t keep this up, as it’s too difficult! (well it is the Bible I’m trying to copy!) )

I setup a reseller account at a US based hosting company, under a different website name (i’ll release this later, when it’s finished). Then I created private nameservers to use under this new domain, which all my customers would use. I transferred all the data from ukhost4u to the new host, and all was dandy. I did this using cPanel’s backup and restore feature. I could see the site perfectly on it’s IP based name.

I then tried to change the nameserver info on 123-reg.co.uk. All my domains were registered with them, but they didn’t allow nameserver updates. (for me anyway, they never worked)

… so I transferred all my domains over the www.iyd.com (which costs a hell of a lot, especially to a poor lowly student). This sounds like an easy task, but 123-reg refused to give me my EPP auth codes without either ringing their non-existent-50-pence-per-minute number, or by emailing them. After waiting a few days I emailed again, and kept emailing them. After 13 days, they responded to all 9 emails at once, each one getting humorously more and more sarcastic!

Once I got the codes I transferred all the domains over to iyd.com, and was able to change nameserver info.

After all this, the websites weren’t directing properly using the nameserver info:

• My computer in Reading Uni had no problem viewing any of the sites on some days. On others, nothing was seen -404 errors. And on others, the 123-reg.co.uk holding page could still be seen! Rudeness!
• My computer at home in Kent, had similar problems but on different days!

This confused the hell out of me! The nameserver settings were all correct, and a whois showed the correct nameservers listed.

After much stress and much changing of settings, I deleted the accounts on my reseller server to begin from the top. When I tried to remake the accounts, WHM said that the DNS zone info already existed so it couldn’t possibly make an account of the same name. When I went to delete the DNS zone from within WHM, it didn;t load for ages (literally left overnight!) – so I emailed my new host for them to complete it for me.

Much to my surprise, they replied 3744 times quicker that 123-reg as they replied and fixed my problem in 5 mins!

So here we are now. All grown up but slightly limping from the hideous experience of changing hosts!

Morale?
123-reg and nameservers: EVIL!

Dual-head nVidia powered displays on openSuse linux: Simple!

Recently I told you that I was scrapping Windows. Well a few weeks down the line, I had a few problems with my multi-headed setup with my graphics card – the nVidia Geforce 7600 GT.

I installed the new version of openSuse without any problems; Setting up an Apache server with php, cgi and ruby on rails all in the drop of a hat (not a fedora here, sorry Dr. AAA).

On first boot it displayed only on one of the screens, giving a dark off-centre shadow on the other screen – oh fudge I thought.
A quick look on t’internet was no good, as the hard Linux nerds told me to get down and dirty in the X11 configuration files.

Before I even thought about considering this, I checked with nVidia themselves, and they gave me the closed-source Linux drivers – which didn’t download properly: parity errors. I then added the legendarily named ‘packman’ repository to YaST2 – openSuse’s software manager.

A quick tick of a box and the nVidia drivers installed. When I rebooted, a little pop-up box came up helpfully saying, ‘Multi-head configuration found. Would you like to enable it?’. openSuse you beautie! It was as simple as that.

As a whole, Linux treats two screen setups a hell of a lot better than Windows does – it is a lot smoother in maximising windows and video across both screens, much more considered controls and configuration, and the openGL effects look mental on it!

So there you have it, openSuse, Linux and nVidia on Linux all rock as far as dual-head configs go.

The World’s First Open Linux Phone

Just announced today is a phone that runs off of the weeks old linux kernel 2.6.18, and is completely open source to everyone, a first for phones. It is not attached to any network, and therefore, should theoretically be allowed to run in the UK. Below is a picture:

Aside from it looking sweet, it comes with a complete package of phone, charger, gps inbuilt, car attachment stuff and bluetooth, more specs below:

Hardware

• 120.7 x 62 x 18.5 (mm)
• 2.8″ VGA (480×640) TFT Screen
• Samsung s3c2410 SoC
• Global Locate AGPS chip
• Ti GPRS (2.5G not EDGE)
• Unpowered USB 1.1
• Touchscreen
• micro-sd slot
• 2.5mm audio jack
• 2 buttons
• 1200 mAh battery (charged over USB)
• 128 MB SDRAM
• 64 MB NAND Flash

Software

• Dialer
• Contacts
• Application Manager
• Calendar
• More…

All the features are accessed through two soft buttons at the front, and the touchscreen

Price: $350 ~ £178.68