Ubuntu 14.04 Webmin Install from PPA
On remote systems sometimes a web-based tool can be very handy. Webmin is such a tool that has been well maintained for decades. To install quickly on a Ubuntu Server without having to manage dependencies and keeping it updated as part of normal OS update operations installing from a PPA Repo is handy.
sudo echo "deb http://download.webmin.com/download/repository sarge contrib" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
wget -q http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add - sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install webmin`
Barebone Ubuntu 14.04 Cloud Desktop
Since I have found some issues with my previous LXQT setup in real-life work I decided to fall back to standard Lubuntu for my cloud desktop. As part of this I also switched to TightVNC which seems a lot easier to configure.
Add local user account
adduser USERNAME
adduser USERNAME sudo
Install Lubuntu Desktop
sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends lubuntu-desktop tightvncserver
TightVNC Configuration
sudo vim /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
#
# VNC Server configuration
#
# enabled = True if VNC connections should be allowed
# port = TCP/IP port to listen for connections on
#
[VNCServer]
enabled=true
port=5900
width=1366
height=768
depth=24
sudo /etc/init.d/lightdm restart
Connect to the remote system
ssh -L 5900:localhost:5900 -i /path/to/your/aws/keyfile.pem YOUR.EC2.IP.ADDRESS

Accessing your cloud desktop from Chromebook
One of the main reasons for setting up a cloud desktop is that I tend to use a lot of different devices some of which are not very powerful.
One of my favorite devices of late has been a HP 11 Chromebook. I originally bought it for a new employee and wanted to check myself how this thing stacks up to do day-to-day computing tasks more efficiently than a standard laptop without all the headaches of running Windows (viruses, endless driver installs, bloatware, malware, …). We already have several people at work working exclusively from Chromebooks and they absolutely love them. Long story short – I ended up keeping the Chromebook for myself as it’s an absolutely great secondary device for me. I can carry it with me everywhere (doesn’t weigh much more than a tablet, roughly the same size as a tablet & has a keyboard and is so much more useful than a tablet).
ARD Mediathek offline viewing on Ubuntu
Since I am a bit of a sucker for German “Krimis” as well as some their excellent documentaries I like to watch ARD Mediathek IPTV. However there are several problems with this when you live at the opposite side of the world. ARD has a block for any films that are 15+ years outside of 20.00h-6.00h GMT+1. Which makes it pretty much impossible to watch at a reasonable time in Australia. I also like to watch these things on the plane which requires download of the media files.
Ubuntu 14.04 Amazon EC2 Cloud Desktop using LXQT
Using Amazon EC2’s free usage tier to host your own cloud desktop is a very economical way to to have a desktop at hand anytime you can not be near one. Since I quite often use Chromebooks these days when on the road this is a particular handy way should I need a full desktop for certain tasks.
Since Ubuntu 14.05 is my default desktop on my normal hardware I obviously want to have my cloud desktop running the same underlying OS. However I don’t think running Unity as the desktop interface would be appropriate via a low-bandwidth remote desktop connection. For this reason I chose LXQT. If you need total stability you probably should go for the more mature LXDE instead, but I have already tried LXQT on an old EEE PC and was very impressed by the speed and low resource usage.
Upgrading Nokia X to CyanogenMod 11 (via Ubuntu)
The Nokia X seems to be a nice piece of hardware for just around $125 AUD. Nothing spectacular in terms of computing power, but much better build quality than your average cheap Chinese Android clone. I have always been a fan of Nokia hardware until they decided to commit suicide by firstly adding CEO Stephen Elop and ditching all of their software for Windows Mobile.
The problem with the device out of the box is that is has a horribly butchered version of Android. And by horribly I mean way worse than the usual bloat and crapware that poor Samsung, HTC or Sony users are normally subjected to. Hopefully this is only Nokia’s first step to a more open platform, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one.
Upgrade Rikomagic MK902 Android MiniPC from Ubuntu
If there would be an Oscar for the WORST firmware upgrade procedure (and associated drivers, documentation and general quality of software) Rikomagic should win this by a country mile !
Since all the information I found on the interwebs said Linux was not supported I ended up borrowing friends notebooks (as I don’t own any Windows machinery anymore). My main Toshiba Ultrabook seemed to have issues with picking up the USB from a Windows Virtual Machine). After not being able to get the absolute crap USB drivers that come with the firmware download with any of the machines (Vista & Win7_64) I was ready to throw in the towel and put the purchase of this unit (in hindsight I would not do it again anyway) down as a total waste.
Android SDK issues on Ubuntu 14.04 64bit
Since the upgrade to Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr) I have had issues running the Android SDK Tools. For example this error:
./adb
bash: ./adb: No such file or directory
Check the multi-arch architectures installed on the system.
sudo dpkg --print-architecture
Mine only showed ‘amd64’. Turns out you need to add the i386 architecture and install libc6:i386,libncurses5:i386,libstdc++6:i386 library packages.
sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libc6:i386 libncurses5:i386 libstdc++6:i386
sudo ./adb
LXQt - extending the life of my trusty old EEE PC (even further)
My old Asus EEE PC 900 is the oldest piece of hardware I own. With an old Intel Atom processor and 1GB of RAM it’s never was the fastest kid on the block (in fact I never considered the Windows XP version of the same unit usable as it was very sluggish). However after owning it for nearly 7 years I am very surprised I can still use it. Granted I only use it occasionally when I am at home, but thanks to LXDE it was still usable. I recently learned that LXDE is merging with the Razor-Qt project (great idea!) to create the combined LXQT – an ultra-low resource window manager.
Ubuntu 14.04 - post-install enhancements for Trusty Tahr
Excellent coincidence that the release of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) fell into the Easter holidays. This gives me the time to install earlier than I normally have time for.
This realease being a LTS (long-term support) release means it is a fairly conservative release. There are some nice enhancements and most importantly for me the 3.13 Kernel means finally Wacom Touch devices are supported without kernel mods.
Fixing UEFI Secure Boot problems on Ubuntu 14.04
Unfortunately the mess that is UEFI Secure Boot still causes issues on some hardware. In my case it’s a Toshiba Z930 Ultrabook. I have documented the procedure to get it working here.
However it turns out that there is no ‘Trusty’ release for the boot-repair utility. The fix is relatively easy.
sudo vim /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yannubuntu-boot-repair-trusty.list
#change the following line from 'trusty' to 'saucy'
sudo vim /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yannubuntu-boot-repair-trusty.list
You can then just finish with
Apache Cordova development environment install on Ubuntu
Apache Cordova has very nice documentation, however as so many projects it is focused on the Windows/MacOS duopolies only. Fortunately it’s not too hard to work out the differences.
Installing dependencies
Thanks to: https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Installing-Node.js-via-package-manager
sudo apt-get install python-software-properties python g++ make ant openjdk-7-jre openjdk-7-jdk
Installing Android SDK
Please note: one of the problems I found was that I had some Android tools from the Ubuntu repos that were conflicting with the SDK install. It’s probably a good idea to remove them first. That might save you from a lot of headaches down the line (and time to troubleshoot).


