Switch between laptop LCD and external monitor in Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic)

It is easy to switch display modes through system/preferences/display, but I wanted to make it even faster with keyboard shortcuts. It also gives you ability to force resolutions and relative display positions when using both displays at the same time.

Use XRANDR in the command prompt to find out names of connected displays.  In my case VGA1 = external monitor and LVDS1 = laptop LCD.

$ xrandr

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192

VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm

   1280x1024      60.0*+   75.0 

   1152x864       75.0 

   1024x768       75.1     70.1     60.0 

   832x624        74.6 

   800x600        72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2 

   640x480        72.8     75.0     66.7     60.0 

   720x400        70.1 

LVDS1 connected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

   1280x800       60.0 +

   1024x768       85.0     75.0     70.1     60.0 

   832x624        74.6 

   800x600        85.1     72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2 

   640x480        85.0     72.8     75.0     59.9 

   720x400        85.0 

   640x400        85.1 

   640x350        85.1 

HDMI1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

DP1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

DP2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

go to System/Preferences/Keyboard shortcuts and add

WIN+F5 use only laptop LCD

xrandr --output VGA1 --off --output LVDS1 --auto

WIN+F6 use only external monitor

xrandr --output LVDS1 --off --output VGA1 --auto

WIN+F7 use both (laptop on the left)

xrandr --output LVDS1 --auto --left-of VGA1 --auto

WIN+F8 use both (laptop above)

xrandr --output LVDS1 --auto --above VGA1 --auto

Opera Mobile 10 Beta for Symbian

This is important. This is hilarious if you have got fast symbian phone with lots of RAM. Opera Mobile 10 is here. Installed it on my Omnia HD i8910 and immediately  tweaked RAM cache to some 50MB. Running well and not getting any “low memory” erros, like poor N97 guys. :)

It’s fast. It’s fucking Ajax compliant.

Gmail. It opened gmail in “standard view” and works fast.

Google Reader also opened in “standard ajaxy” mode. Wow.

Google Wave opened with errors. Not usable.

Youtube. Hmm, it doesn’t play youtube yet, but I have heard it from Opera some time ago, that Flash will be supported.

Friendfeed  works, as does Facebook.

(Virus-) Free gaming under Wine in Linux

In Windows world, you can play any game for free, but it usually comes with some payload from virus writers. Having realized that, I made it a rule to only play games that I purchased legally. Then, yesterday, I found some of those old Windows games archives. Don’t know why I have not deleted those virus-ridden wares long time ago.

I have already seen that many games work in Linux under Wine, and then I thought, why not try these ones, because they can not infect my Ubuntu anyway. And, voila! Both franchises of Bejeweled (2 and Twist) work in HD/3D accelerated, and they are “free”. True, they try to propagate on the game exit, and (moment of glory) simply error out in wine. Seems, that I will never ever have to pay for Windows games that do not use intensive 3D graphics or online authorization.

In search of the holy grail of home servers

ATM my home server runs Windows 7 Ultimate (trial mode till end of December) and I am researching free alternatives like freenas, openfiler, ubuntuserver, freebsd. Need this machine to support administration via web gui and provide following services for me

1. file sharing via SMB/Samba
2. torrenting with webgui
3. http web server
4. webdav
5. vpn
6. upnp/dlna media serving to multiple upnp/dlna players simultaneously
7. continuous data backup (windows live sync style, propagating changes between machines immediately, rather than overnight)
8. advanced disk/RAID management, described below.
9. seems that vitrtualisation is high on my list too.

Found this thread discussing freenas and drobo functionality, and thought that this post decsribes my needs too.

I'm also looking for the holy grail of RAID solutions and really hope someone can come up with or find something. I want the following features: REQUIRED: - Redundancy, allowing for at least 1 drive failure - Mix and match drive sizes WITHOUT being limited by the smallest drive (and thus wasting space) - Ability to add drives to increase capacity - Ability to replace drives and increase capacity - NAS functionality, accessible via a Windows share - Ability to create multiple partitions, with respective shares (or one large partition with multiple shares mapped to folders on the NAS? Who really cares about the "internal" file structure..) PREFERRED: - Performance that isn't terrible - In my case, fast enough to steam 1080P over ethernet - Minimal data capacity loss due to parity (< 50% - Else I'd just mirror.) - "NTFS" Volumes larger than 2TB (Not sure if this is possible via a share.. perhaps "Emulate" NTFS and actually store on a file system with larger volume capacities to achieve this? I could care less if Windows reports my remaining space correctly, as long as the NAS would.) - Software-based, so I can also use the box for other purposes.

I already run freenas in virtualbox on my server with bridged network interface on my server, and it appears as separate machine with web gui on my network. I already see some of the drawbacks of freenas, like no webdav, vpn, virtualisation (the kind that allows me to test freenas in VM like I do it now).

Downloading freebsd, openfiler and ubuntu server to install as VMs too and give ‘em a try this month.