Tomcat6 on Ubuntu 11.10

If you are using software enter to install tomcat6 on your ubuntu, it wont start up directly. You are able to start and stop it as service using /etc/init.d/tomcat6 start/stop

However if you want to start and stop it using startup.sh, it is giving some errors.
First  for some missing directories and then for server.xml.

This is due to CATALINA_BASE being set to the default /usr/share/tomcat6 instead of /var/lib/tomcat6

Check below references for more information.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=11307493&postcount=7

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1347601

enabling root on ubuntu

I strongly suggest you read this help page for implications of enabling a root.
Just adding this page for quick reference and some lazy users like me

Enabling root


sudo -i

sudo passwd root


Disabling root

sudo passwd -dl root

ubuntu software center - check your internet connection

While trying to install a package from Ubuntu software center, I received "Check your internet connection" even though the connection is fine and I am able to access the internet.

Even if the issue with the mirror server, it looks like a wrong alert. Though this is related to the connection with the mirror, problem is not your connections.

After opening Ubuntu Software Center

   -> Edit

         -> Software Sources

Select a different server from the list.

Best thing might be to auto select a best suitable mirror

Enabling crash report

By default automatic crash reporting is disabled. If you want to enable crash reporting

$ sudo vi /etc/default/apport

You will see the following in the file

# set this to 0 to disable apport, or to 1 to enable it
# you can temporarily override this with
# sudo service apport start force_start=1
enabled=0

Change the last line 0 to 1.

enabled=1

Next time when an application crashes you will have a dialog box opened asking if you want a crash report to be submitted.

Few other options to enable crash reporting

• If you are using Ubuntu with the Gnome desktop environment - launch nautilus and navigate to your /var/crash directory and double click on the crash report you wish to submit.
• If you are using Kubuntu or Xubuntu you can file the crash using /usr/share/apport/apport-qt --crash-file=/var/crash/_my_crash_report.crash in a terminal - where _my_crash_report.crash is the crash you would like to report.

Microphone settings - skype

Recently I have been using mostly 'Skype' for the instant messaging and calls. I really liked the latest version of the skype on Windows.

On my Ubuntu machine I Installed Skype 2.2.x. This is definitely an older version of the skype and you will feel the difference if you moved from a latest version of it from Windows. Given that Microsoft now bought skype you can forget about a new version of skype for linux now I assume.

After installing Skype a realized that my microphone is not working. Made the below changes  in sound preferences to make it work.

Click on the sound Icon -> Sound Preferences -> Input Tab

Connector was setup as "Analog Line in". Changed this to "Analog Microphone/Microphone1". That's it now I can talk too :)

Flash and Java plugins for browser Chromium Firefox Ubuntu

I have installed Chromium along with the default Firefox on the machine. First thing I wanted to check was that if my browser has flash and java plugins. You can check if the browser has flash plugin by clicking here. If you dont have flash, install 'Adobe Flash Plugin' from the update center.

Click here to check if you browser supports java.
If you see a “Missing Plugin” box, you need to install JRE.

 In the ubuntu software center click on canonical partners and search for “jre plugin”

Once you install the latest version of jre plugins check the version on browser  again

Soap UI for Ubuntu

Soap UI is one of the tools I like a lot. This tool is used to verify or test  Soap based web services. Soap UI is not available from Ubuntu Software Center. However you can download and install it on your machine pretty easily.

Download soapUI-x32-4_0_0.sh file from source forge project page and save it on the disk.Once the file is download right click properties and go permission tab and allow permission to excute as a program.

Once that is done double click on the .sh file and select 'Run in terminal' or Run. Then follow step by step instructions to finish the installation.


Referenceshttp://www.soapui.org/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/soapui/files/

Evolution email client for exchange 2007 ubuntu

After reviewing few email clients available for Linux I decided to go with Evolution, which is the native email client for Ubuntu. I tried to setup using server type 'Microsoft Exchange'  and looks like this has some problems to be able to connect with exchange 2007.

What all you need to make it work is install evolution mapi plugin. Search for evolution mapi in ubuntu software update center and install the below highlighted plugin

Then your email account setup is cake walk. There seems to be a small bug in the first screen used for configuring emails, where the text labels disappear after few seconds.


References

• http://live.gnome.org/Evolution/
• http://live.gnome.org/Evolution/MAPI
• http://live.gnome.org/Evolution/FAQ
•  

A Journey from Windows to Linux

Recently my Windows XP machine crashed in the middle of something. I thought it might have been a message for me from somewhere. Hence decided to switch to a Linux machine instead of again installing Windows on the machine.

Given that I used to working with PC and Windows for such a long time, thought it might be good to keep track on how I adopt to and what tools I use on Linux.

First things I will be looking into are the basic tools to get me a start

• browser along with few add-ons for debugging
• email client
• Instant Messenger
• Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
• SSH Client
• Office
• Photo editors

Hope the journey will be smooth.