So we decided to install Zend Server CE as it has more or less the same settings over different platforms. I've had some bad experiences installing ZSCE on a system that already had apache installed via apt, but after a clear install of Karmic, ZF was running like a charm. The install process described in the online documentation works great.

After install is done, make sure to symlink php, pecl, pear and phpize so you can access them system wide:

sudo ln -s /usr/local/zend/bin/zendctl.sh /usr/sbin/zendctl
sudo ln -s /usr/local/zend/bin/pear /usr/sbin/pear
sudo ln -s /usr/local/zend/bin/pecl /usr/sbin/pecl
sudo ln -s /usr/local/zend/bin/php /usr/sbin/php
sudo ln -s /usr/local/zend/bin/phpize /usr/sbin/phpize

At this point you should be able to run php -i in terminal and the phpinfo will be displayed.

Next step is to install xdebug via pecl by running:

sudo pecl install xdebug

If all went well you should have the xdebug library located at /usr/local/zend/lib/php_extensions/xdebug.so . If you don't have it there, then something went wrong and you should NOT continue reading. This issue must be sorted first.

Next you need to comment out the 1st line of /usr/local/zend/etc/conf.d/debugger.ini so it looks like this:

#open editor
gksu gedit /usr/local/zend/etc/conf.d/debugger.ini

# this is how the 1st two lines should look afterwards
; register the extension to be loaded by Zend Extension Manager
;zend_extension_manager.dir.debugger=/usr/local/zend/lib/debugger

Xdebug needs to be loaded before Zend Extension Manager, that's why you need to add the following line just on top of the /usr/local/zend/etc/ext.d/extension_manager.ini

#open the editor
gksu gedit /usr/local/zend/etc/ext.d/extension_manager.ini

#add this line on 1st line:
zend_extension=/usr/local/zend/lib/php_extensions/xdebug.so

#save the file

Restart zend server by running:

sudo /etc/init.d/zend-server restart

You can check if xdebug is working like so:

php -i |grep xdebug

The output should be something similar to this:

xdebug
xdebug support => enabled
xdebug.auto_trace => Off => Off
xdebug.collect_includes => On => On
xdebug.collect_params => 0 => 0
xdebug.collect_return => Off => Off
xdebug.collect_vars => Off => Off
xdebug.default_enable => On => On
xdebug.dump.COOKIE => no value => no value
xdebug.dump.ENV => no value => no value
xdebug.dump.FILES => no value => no value
xdebug.dump.GET => no value => no value
xdebug.dump.POST => no value => no value
xdebug.dump.REQUEST => no value => no value
xdebug.dump.SERVER => no value => no value
xdebug.dump.SESSION => no value => no value
xdebug.dump_globals => On => On
xdebug.dump_once => On => On
xdebug.dump_undefined => Off => Off
xdebug.extended_info => On => On
xdebug.idekey => mimir => no value
xdebug.manual_url => http://www.php.net => http://www.php.net
xdebug.max_nesting_level => 100 => 100
xdebug.profiler_aggregate => Off => Off
xdebug.profiler_append => Off => Off
xdebug.profiler_enable => Off => Off
xdebug.profiler_enable_trigger => Off => Off
xdebug.profiler_output_dir => /tmp => /tmp
xdebug.profiler_output_name => cachegrind.out.%p => cachegrind.out.%p
xdebug.remote_autostart => Off => Off
xdebug.remote_enable => Off => Off
xdebug.remote_handler => dbgp => dbgp
xdebug.remote_host => localhost => localhost
xdebug.remote_log => no value => no value
xdebug.remote_mode => req => req
xdebug.remote_port => 9000 => 9000
xdebug.show_exception_trace => Off => Off
xdebug.show_local_vars => Off => Off
xdebug.show_mem_delta => Off => Off
xdebug.trace_format => 0 => 0
xdebug.trace_options => 0 => 0
xdebug.trace_output_dir => /tmp => /tmp
xdebug.trace_output_name => trace.%c => trace.%c
xdebug.var_display_max_children => 128 => 128
xdebug.var_display_max_data => 512 => 512
xdebug.var_display_max_depth => 3 => 3

Note the xdebug support => enabled on line 2.

Hope that helps

After googling a bit i found a great way to recursively remove .svn folders. Just type the following while in the root of your checkout:

rm -rf `find . -type d -name .svn`

This tip was found on http://www.anyexample.com/linux_bsd/bash/recursively_delete__svn_directories.xml

ls --color=auto

Unfortunately this won't stick, and it'a a bit of a drag to always add the --color=auto part. To solve this, one has to create an alias to ls to point to ls --color=auto. You can do this by adding the following to ~/.bashrc

# enable color support of ls and also add handy aliases
if [ "$TERM" != "dumb" ]; then
    eval "`dircolors -b`"
    alias ls='ls --color=auto'
fi

Tada!

He's notified me about the addition of the script to install native flash player 64bit on ubuntu in the Ailurus project. I was thrilled. Since then Homer even built a version of the script to work on Fedora (which is now on this site also available) and we got in touch over IM.

I think Ailurus is an amazing project. Hardcore Linux users might not see why it's important to have projects like these, but someone new to linux will appreciate it. I can't stress enough how hard the Linux world seems to old windows users. It's not a matter of Linux being hard to learn, but more of windows being hard to forget. With tools like Ailurus that make installing applications a snap, i think the transition is made much easier.

Looking forward for future releases!

After a bit of digging I've found out how to make Skype detect the video input from my Webcam. The secret is to preload the v4l1compat.so library as shown on the Ubuntu Wiki:

bash -c 'LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype'

That does the trick for 32bit systems, and since there isn't a native Skype version for 64bit

mimir@orion:~$ file /usr/bin/skype
/usr/bin/skype: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.8, stripped

we need to tell skype to preload the 32bit version of the library like so:

bash -c 'LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype'

Now video works perfectly using Skype 2.1.0.47 under Ubuntu 9.10 64bit

Here is what you have to do install Zend Framework and Zend_Tool using PEAR on Ubuntu:

sudo pear channel-discover pear.zfcampus.org
sudo pear install zfcampus/zf
# for some reason the installer does not correctly link the zf.php and Zend_Tool won't work
# so we need to setup a symlink
sudo ln -s /usr/share/php/zf.php /usr/bin/zf.php

That's it! You can now test your install:

zf show version

In my care the output was this one:

mimir@orion:~$ zf show version
Zend Framework Version: 1.9.2

sudo apt-get install ruby # needed by gegl
git clone git://git.gnome.org/babl
git clone git://git.gnome.org/gegl
cd babl
./autogen.sh
make
sudo make install
cd ../gegl
./autogen.sh
sudo make install
sudo apt-get install libjasper-dev # the jasper libs are required to provide JPEG2000 support in GIMP
cd ..
wget ftp://ftp.gimp.org/pub/gimp/v2.7/gimp-2.7.0.tar.bz2
tar jxvf gimp-2.7.0.tar.bz2
cd gimp-2.7.0
./configure --prefix=/opt/gimp-2.7
make
sudo make install

Now just create a file gimp-2.7 inside /usr/bin as follows:

#!/bin/sh

PATH=/opt/gimp-2.7/bin:$PATH
export PATH
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/gimp-2.7/lib
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH

/opt/gimp-2.7/bin/gimp-2.7 "$@"

Run /usr/bin/gimp-2.7

  User:		mimir (uid:1000)
  Groups:	mimir adm dialout cdrom plugdev lpadmin admin sambashare vboxusers
  Working dir:	/home/mimir
  Home dir:	/home/mimir
  Hostname:	orion
  IP (lo):	127.0.0.1/8
  IP (eth1):	192.168.1.102/24
  Gateway:	192.168.1.1
  Name Server:	208.67.222.222
  Name Server:	208.67.220.220
  Date:		Wed Jan 21 19:43:43 EET 2009
  Uptime:	19:43:43 up  9:44,  3 users,  load average: 0.56, 0.42, 0.25
  Kernel:	Linux orion 2.6.28-4-generic #11-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jan 16 21:50:52 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux
  Memory:	Total: 3895Mb	Used: 3071Mb	Free: 823Mb
  Swap:		Total: 1953Mb	Used: 7Mb	Free: 1945Mb
  Architecture:
  Processor:	0 : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7500 @ 2.20GHz
  Processor:	1 : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7500 @ 2.20GHz

All that info is found just by invoking Scott Morris's 'sup script.

Cool script!

1. Recursive chmod only files within this folder:
find . -type f -exec chmod 0600 {} ;

2. Recursive chmod only folders within this folder:
find . -type d -exec chmod 0755 {} ;

Hope this helps!

Adobe FINALLY released a native 64bit Flash Player 10 plugin. Although this is still an alpha release, the news is very exciting for Linux users, since we don't longer depend on nspluginwrapper, which although does the job, has it's drawbacks.

I have put together a small tutorial on how to install the native flash player 10 64bit plugin for linux.

#!/bin/bash
# Script  created by
# Romeo-Adrian Cioaba romeo.cioaba@spotonearth.com

echo "Stopping any Firefox that might be running"
sudo killall -9 firefox

echo "Removing any other flash plugin previously installed:"
sudo apt-get remove -y --purge flashplugin-nonfree gnash gnash-common mozilla-plugin-gnash swfdec-mozilla libflashsupport nspluginwrapper
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -f ~/.mozilla/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -rfd /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper

echo "Installing Flash Player 10"
cd ~
wget http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/libflashplayer-10.0.45.2.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz
tar zxvf libflashplayer-10.0.45.2.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz
sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ 

echo "Linking the libraries so Firefox and apps depending on XULRunner (vuze, liferea, rsswol) can find it."
sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/
sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so  /usr/lib/xulrunner-addons/plugins/

# now doing some cleaning up:
sudo rm -rf libflashplayer.so
sudo rm -rf libflashplayer-10.0.45.2.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz

You can now restart firefox

Some users seem to have problems with viewing this page, so i wrapped everything needed to install the native 64bit flash player on linux into a shell script. Grab the Ubuntu script here, chmod +x and execute it.

Thanks to Claudio de Taunay for providing a script that works in OpenSuSE 11. You can pick it up here.

Thanks to Homer Xing from the Ailurus project you can now install native flash player 64bit on Fedora. You can pick up the script here.

Let me know if you encounter any bugs.

the scripts to install in different distro:
Ubuntu: install native flash 64bit on Ubuntu

Fedora: install native flash 64bit on Fedora

OpenSuse: install native flash 64bit on OpenSuse