If you’ve ever tried to setup a runtime server in Ganymede, you’ll find that the Tomcat 5.5 installation in Ubuntu doesn’t work with it. The problem is that Ubuntu staggers the installation location of Tomcat 5.5 and create symlinks to link all these directory together. When attempting to specify location of the tomcat installation, Eclipse will complain of missing directories (/common/i18n for example).

One solution for this problem is to create a directory with symlinks to link all the staggered directories. These are the symlinks needed:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 24 2007-07-25 00:56 bin -> /usr/share/tomcat5.5/bin
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 2007-07-25 00:57 common -> /usr/share/tomcat5.5/common
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 25 2007-07-25 00:56 conf -> /usr/share/tomcat5.5/conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 2007-07-25 00:56 logs -> /var/log/tomcat5.5/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 2007-07-25 00:57 server -> /usr/share/tomcat5.5/server
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 2007-07-25 00:57 shared -> /usr/share/tomcat5.5/shared
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 25 2007-07-25 00:57 temp -> /usr/share/tomcat5.5/temp
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 2007-07-25 00:58 webapps -> /usr/share/tomcat5.5-webapps
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 25 2007-07-25 00:57 work -> /usr/share/tomcat5.5/work

To create a symlink for /usr/share/tomcat5.5/bin, navigate to the directory to place the symlink (say /opt/tomcat) then run the command ‘sudo ln-s /usr/share/tomcat5.5/bin‘. This will place a symlink for ‘bin‘. After creating all the symlinks, proceed to setup your Eclipse Ganymede.

The update selection screen

Wouldn’t it be neat to have an auto-update feature ala Windows Update but less annoying? Well, worry not, there is! In fact, it’s all like Windows update, and then some!

Straight off the bat I can tell you what’s annoying about Windows Update - the thing can occasionally reboot your computer without asking permission! Just a 15 minutes timeout dialog box. Imagine coming back from lunch and seeing a newly rebooted computer - and you didn’t save your work! God damn Windows!

Details of the update after prompting for the admin password

Here’s how Ubuntu’s auto-updating trumps Windows updates:

• it asks for permission to do anything, before it even starts downloading
• you have to be have admin rights to install it, requiring a password before downloading anything
• it updates any software in the debian repositories and OS patches - how cool is that?!

The actual download

Also, almost 90% of the time, there’s no reboot after installing updates. And it sure as hell won’t force me too! Here’s looking at ya’ Windows.

My previous post on Ubuntu has generated quite an interest. That’s a good thing because of a lot of reasons - avoiding vendor lock in and security are among the top few. But a new install of Ubuntu does not automatically give you such crazy effects. To get to custom effects, you need to install a custom effects manager by running

’sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager’

You can then run Compiz Custom Settings Manager from the System->Preferences->Advanced Desktop Effects Settings menu item.

Enjoy.

Update: It seems this post gives the impression that in order to see the fancy GUI of Ubuntu, the user would have to deal with the terminal. This simply isn’t true. To enable the default effects - you still have cube desktop, transparent windows and nifty 3D graphics - nothing needs to be installed. Yes, it works out of the box if your graphics card is supported (I’m on Intel graphics). The command above is only needed if you wish to further tweak the effects. Totally optional.

All you need to get fancy graphics for your Ubuntu desktop (System -> Preference -> Appearance)

Please oh please make this phone available in Asia as well. This is a potentially welcomed partner to my Centro. Google, ya indexing this?

T-Mobile to have first Android phone later this year - TechSpot News

My Internet browsing desktop

It all started innocent enough. I was tasked with helping my brother-in-law with a new hard drive install in his laptop. Yeah, I’m the resident techie. Fine I thought. After booting up the Windows XP installer I hit a snag - no hard drive found. WTF? I thought nowadays hard drives comes pre-formatted? Don’t tell me I needed to run a low-level format on this thing? Times like this I know I need the old fdisk but I don’t have anything to boot into DOS to do so.

I’ve got 3 desktops, one usually runs Windows

Then I remembered that I had a copy of Ubuntu around somewhere. OK fine I popped that into the disk and started up the Live version of the OS (means it runs off the CD, no install needed). Then lo-behold a shiny spanking fast OS booted up. This was on a lowly Core Duo laptop with only 512MB of RAM. I ran the disk partitioning tool and walla - the disk is ready to be used. But then I noticed something else - graphics, USB, sound, WiFi, BT, modems, everything was installed and ready to use! I thought WTF, this can’t be Linux! I knew that for Windows XP, I’ll need to download at least a few hundred MB worth of drivers before anything worked (and I did, post install). Then I remember that Hardy comes with fancy 3D effects that rivals even Mac OSX (nevermind the b*tch called Vista) so I digged into the menu. Wait, that’s not right - I only went to System -> Preference -> Appearance and enabled something called “Advanced Effects”. What? That’s it? No more tinkering with X11 settings and downloading of proprietry drivers? Heck, NO NEED TO REBOOT? Hell yeah! Then came another surprise - the speed of which the transparency, multi-desktop and wobbling windows were rendered! These guys are really on to something. I just saw a demo of OSX when my friend bought one, so I trust me when I say Ubuntu is really on-par graphically! OK that was it, I was sold!

Exposè on Ubuntu

I quickly finished the Windows XP install and popped the Ubuntu CD into my work laptop. A behemoth of one, running a Core 2 Duo at 2.4GHz with 2GB of RAM. I thought to myself “Ubuntu would fly on this thing” and it sure did. I’m now on Linux for 2 weeks. I’ve managed to sync my Palm Centro, use BT & WiFi, play MP3s, DVDs and all the other proprietry format (I don’t have DRM stuff so the transition is easier), run Java & Eclipse 3.4, get the latest Firefox with Flash and all the add-ons I love, do instant messaging, setup my email accounts for work & GMail and much more. Heck it even mounts NTFS partitions so I can access my 14GB of MP3s and work documents without me doing much of anything!

Windows key + TAB

Did I install a lot of stuff to have it run what I needed? Nope, I think less than 10. This thing comes with built-in support for the most ridiculous amount of file formats - PDF, ZIP, XLS, DOC, PSD, and much more. Again, much like OSX, it works out of the box. What I did install was Flash for Firefox, Java and Eclipse, a more advanced manager for Compiz Fusion, a dock software, VLC (just for kicks, I use Rythmbox for MP3s, a couple of fonts and Totem movie player for videos), VirtualBox for Windows virtualization and that’s it! I’m still amazed at this modern OS that is faster, graphically pleasaning and more productive. There’s a sticky note software on the desktop, widgets like a calculator, a calendar and a dictionary that pops up just by hitting F9 (again, very similar to OSX), multiple desktops that are STABLE and EASY to use, a new ALT-TAB scheme that is more effective because it shows the actual Windows and desktop regions that can trigger Expose-like effects to see all open Windows (again, like OSX). Oh, and there’s also a desktop search that I think is better than Google Desktop similar to Spotlight on Mac OSX (of course, feel free to install Google Desktop if that’s your thing).

Built-in dictionary!

Still, I miss Dreamweaver, Photoshop & Lightroom. I wish Adobe would consider releasing these for Linux. And there’s also the issue of Microsoft Office compatibility. Lucky for me, the laptop is more than capable of running Windows XP in a virtual machine so I still get to use Office documents without rebooting. VirtualBox is magic by itself. Windows boots up in less than 20 seconds in VirtualBox which is pretty damn impressive. And I use that to run MS Office 2007. Total cost of switching to a brand new, modern OS that looks nicer, is more productive, easier to use, has tons of quality software out of the box and more secure? Zero (assuming you already have a copy of licensed Windows to run in that VirtualBox).

I still run Windows XP on my desktop though. For games.

I didn’t manage to record my screen, but there are plenty in YouTube showing what Ubuntu + Compiz Fusion is capable of. The effects shown are overkill, but used subtly, it looks very cool.

Compiz Fusion on Ubuntu 8.04