Oh the Spotify Gods have smiled upon us this day! Backing up some — after the 3.6.6.x kernel update my Wine didn’t seem to load anymore. I then went looking for an alternative way to run the Spotify program and came across a forum post with successful installs on Fedora 15 and 17. I’m writing this post to sort of put it all together in a neat, consumable, package instead of the running around I ended up doing. Spoiler Alert: The native client access is ONLY for premium members.

Let’s jump right into it:

1. Grab the RPM from meltingrobot’s Dropbox.
2. Open gnome-terminal, navigate to the location you downloaded the RPM file, and type the following commands:

sudo rpm -Uvh –nodeps spotify-client-qt-0.6.1.309.gb871a7d-2.x86_64.rpm

cd /usr/lib64/

sudo ln -s libssl.so.1.0.0j libssl.so.0.9.8

sudo ln -s libcrypto.so.1.0.0j libcrypto.so.0.9.8

Here’s a little background about the symbolic links. The RPM was created in Fedora 15 so the libraries libssl and libcrypto are older versions. To fix this create symbolic links in order to fool the program to use the current libraries. In this instance I’m using 1.0.0j. In your version there might be different letters. Keep that in mind.

At this point I was hype and ran the program — To my disappointment I ran into a firewall error. I used my Facebook login credentials, but kept getting a 406 error. After stoping my firewall service and Googling I soon learned that access via Linux is only for premium members. Damn!

Either way; kudos to the guys on the Fedora forum for creating the RPM and discussing this process. It may not help me, but it’ll help those chumps paying for music on the Internet. Ha!

References

1. http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=269416
2. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6310099/spotify-client-qt-0.6.1.309.gb871a7d-2.x86_64.rpm
3. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=814882
4. http://askubuntu.com/questions/62881/cannot-get-spotify-to-run

I checked “my YouTube” on Xbox and was excited to see a new Epic Rap Battles of History! This one was pretty cool — Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates. It was released four days ago and it’s already at 10,000,000+ views. Holy crap! The song was pretty funny, but to my surprise the hosts then gave some well-deserved love to GNU/Linux, represented by a HAL9000. The Linux love starts at 1:33.

The Wife and I laughed our butts off. Kudos to ERB. I felt the love!

That’s right! You read the title properly… I’m using one Linux distribution to create a bootable USB stick of another distribution of Linux. It’s Linux-on-linux debauchery. In this instance I’m using Fedora 16, a 4GB USB stick, and an Ubuntu 11.10 ISO file.

Here’s roughly what you’ll be doing:

1. download Ubuntu .iso
2. install unetbootin-linux
3. install additional packages (if prompted)
4. run UNetbootin

Download Ubuntu ISO

This process is pretty straight forward. If you want to take advantage of the 4GB+ of memory your intended system has then download the 64-bit ISO. Visit the Download Ubuntu page and choose from its many distribution-platforms to obtain your .iso of choice.

Install UNetbootin

$ sudo yum install unetbootin

Install Additional Packages

When I first ran UNetbootin there were warning messages informing me of the additional packages it needed. In one instance it asked for p7zip and in another it asked for syslinux. So; pay attention to the start-up messages (if any) when you run UNetbootin.

Install syslinux

$ sudo yum install syslinux syslinux-extlinux

Install p7zip

$ sudo yum install p7zip p7zip-plugins

Execute UNetbootin

Now for the fun part, running the UNetbootin program. If you downloaded the latest version of the program make sure the period (.) starts your path or the file won’t execute. If you YUM’d the program then you should be able to simply type in the command. The program requires it be executed as root, so prepend your command with “sudo” or “su –c”.

$ sudo ./<path-to-file>/unetbootin-linux-568

$ sudo unetbootin

References

Not really sure I can justify the title of this post. Finch is a text-based instant messenger client for the command line interface (CLI). In this day and age you’re probably wondering why in the world would I want to instant message using the command line? Well hipster; I was tired of IMing on my phone when I had a perfectly good full-sized keyboard at my workstation… plus I wanted another reason to SSH into my home machine. So; I did a search on “linux instant message cli” and booyah Linux never fails.

With the restrictions I’ve had to endure at work (like doing personal stuff during work hours); I am really enjoying the simplicity of the command line interface. With PuTTY at my disposal the Internet is like “putty in my hands.” < ha! see what I did there.

Although there’s nothing special about CLI UI design the interface simply looks horrid while using Screen; it is managable, but certianly not the ideal environment to run finch. In a local terminal everything renders properly. The interface is just like Pidgin so it’s not hard to use at all. You can find more information about the keyboard shorcuts on Mehul Speaks‘ blog.

Installing Finch

I’m running Fedora so I simply ran a YUM command and off I was to chattin’ it up with my friends. This program is associated with Pidgin, which means I’m going to assume most repositories supports some version of this very handy tool.

$ sudo yum install finch

Resources

1. http://developer.pidgin.im/
2. http://mehulved.wordpress.com/2008/07/16/finch-im-client-for-command-line/
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj_3XmfGxzM - Finch: the little brother of pidgin, an Instant Messenger

I have a HTC Droid Incredible running the custom ROM CyanogenMod 7.1.x. For the most part it runs great, but there are moments when it feels like the Armageddon of 2012 is happening to my phone. No matter what application I open it will frustratingly crash in mere moments. What I’ve noticed is the catalyst to this crash-o-thon starts with some sort of “google framework” crash. Makes sense, break the framework and everything else should be coming down with it. Once that happens I will start to feel the instability of my rooted device.

The simple solution, yet temporary, is to clear the cache. I’m guessing there is some executed code or data that got corrupted, which in turn causes the apps to crash. The two types of cache that I clear are:

• cache partition
• Dalvik cache – a decent explanation of what this cache is can be found in the reference section below.

Assumptions

I’m constantly making assumptions about things — it’s become quite a skill. And I will continue my assumptions by stating that this process is for rooted users. I’m going to assume that since your device is rooted, it’s most likely that you have a custom ROM, which also means you have ROM Manager installed. The recovery section of this post is based on ClockworkMod (it’s a part of ROM Manager).

Cache-clearing Process

1. Hold down the power button of your device to get the “phone options” prompt.
2. Click “Reboot”, then choose “Recovery”. Click “OK”.
3. Your phone will reboot and you will soon be in the recovery screen.
4. Choose the option “wipe cache partition”. If that option isn’t there then head to “mounts and storage” and choose “format /cache.”
5. Next choose “advanced” (from the main screen) and then click “Wipe Dalvik Cache”.
6. Once that’s finished you can reboot the device.

I’ve noticed that once I reboot the device it seems to get stuck at the point where its trying to load the custom ROM. I would give it about 5 minutes. If nothing changes, remove the battery and boot the device again. Whatever the device tried to initialize the first time should be there and the device will boot just fine.

I mentioned earlier that this is a temporary solution. I don’t know the cause of the framework crash; it may be a combination of things, but at least you have a way out now.

Let me know if this process works for you OR if you have a better process. At this point I’m just a tinkerer of Android so I might be talking crap about the whole cache and corruption. I’d love to know.

References

1. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=3844295&postcount=5
2. http://androidforums.com/eris-all-things-root/76110-what-dalvik-cache.html#post710236
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalvik_(software)

I was sorely disappointed with G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra when it first released. I said to myself, “If they ever make G.I. Joe movie, it BETTER be good.” I wanted to slit my wrist the day I witness that movie [don't worry, I didn't]. Skimming Google Trends I saw “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” and clicked on it. To my surprise this movie trailer is pretty good. I really loved the music, the costumes look revamped, and the action scenes look pretty decent. Then again; it is a movie trailer… I’m a little liery of Bruce Willis, but whatever man. I’ll give this movie another chance — one last chance!

I always struggle with quickly enabling MP3 playback on a fresh install of Fedora. There are legal reasons (which I’m not interested in) as to why Fedora doesn’t ship with MP3 support right out of the box. So; that’s what third-party repositories are for. Simply install the RPM Fusion repository and then install the “Ugly” GStreamer Plugin.

# yum localinstall –nogpgcheck http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm
# yum install gstreamer-plugins-ugly

If you need other support you can always install all the plugins for GStreamer…

# yum install gstreamer-plugins-*

Another method is simply installing VLC. This media player is bursting at its seams with codex goodness.

# yum install vlc

You’re welcome!

Can a man’s love for the command line blossom like a rose or age like good wine? I do believe the answer to my rhetorical question is a resounding YES! Recently I’ve found myself choosing gnome-terminal to execute things rather than clicking in a series of menus on my desktop. Don’t get me wrong; a GUI is nice thing to have, but the efficency of the CLI is unmatched. Through a series of unfortunate events I’ve setup my Linux environment for Android development (aka how trying to fix a bricked phone). I’m working with a fresh install from Fedora 16 Live. What that means is A LOT of packages/libraries are not installed. Just the bare minimum to get me going.

Here’s a general overview of the process I took:

1. Download and extracted the Android Software Development Kit.
2. Installed the Eclipse IDE (roughly 68 packages).
3. Installed ADT plugins for Eclipse.
4. Ran ./android command from SDK “tools” directory.
5. It started the “Android SDK Manager”. I then installed:
   1. Android SDK Platform-tools
   2. The covented “Android 4.0″ platform
   3. 3.2, 2.3.3, and 2.2 platforms (just to show that I can be verstile)

WGET the Android SDK

I’m really enjoy the simplicity of the WGET command. While viewing the SDK page in Firefox I simply copied the link for the SDK file and pasted it into the terminal:

$ wget http://dl.google.com/android/android-sdk_r15-linux.tgz

Yummy, Eclipse

I then used YUM to grab the Eclipse IDE and all its relevant components. Again; since this OS installation was pretty light I ended up installing 68 packages, such as: Eclipse, Java, etc.

# yum install eclipse

Once that was done I then installed the ADT plugin.

1. I opened the Eclipse IDE.
2. Clicked on Help > Install Software.
3. Added the following repository: https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/
4. Clicked “Select All” and went to town! It was odd, but I noticed I had to try a couple times. It was claiming to have dependency issues. So; I started clicking one-by-one. Eventually I was able to get all 4 packages installed.

Running Android

This following set is unnecessary since you can access the Android SDK Manager from within Eclipse (thanks to the ADT plugin). Originally;  skipped the ADT plugin step.

Now that Java is installed I can run the “android” command. It’s located in the “tools” directory of your freshly extracted tarball file “android-sdk_r15-linux.tgz”.

$ ./android

SDK Managment

The Android SDK Manager popped up with some packages to install. I chose what I thought were appropriate and wrote this blog post while I waited for the files to be downloaded and installed.

So; that’s pretty much it. At this point you’re ready to jump into the wonderment, which is Android development. Enjoy!

References

1. http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/wiki/Howto:_Install_the_Android_SDK
2. http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing.html

Well; not really kick start, but keep it going. The e-book series titled Fergyville is on its third installment. Support my wife’s project as she budgets for a kick-ass editor for this well-received series. You can find out more on the kickstarter web site.

Android enthusiasts know exactly what the title of this article is referencing. I’m hearing a lot about Android 4.0 aka Ice Cream Sandwich. I remember when I first got my Android 2.1 phone (Motorola Droid), I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. I knew 800MHz of processing power was too low, but I had to get my hands on one. And yes the phone was already out 6+ months — I had to get my hands on one! Cellular carriers were launching new Android phones left and right. At one point I was looking into getting the Samsung Galaxy Ace.

So many choices, but I’ve learned to be patient. I’ve gotten the Android-gitters out of my system so now I can wait for the right phone. I’m going to wait for Android 4.0 to be released before I even consider getting a new phone. It’s too close to choose anything else.