Automatix turns Ubuntu 2 full throttle

Automatrix is an excellent automated GUI installation script for installing the most commonly used sofwares on to ubuntu linux. With this its very easy to turn linux into a complete windows substitute. There is no need for installation through painful terminals and commands. There is a beautiful GUI which links to the sofwares to their respective repositories. It has the following features

Features:
a) Shoots up xterm for full debug info (giving u a good idea about the status of your download , changes being made to your system, etc)
b) deletes all downloaded files (except those downloaded by apt-get) automatically after installation.
c) automatix does not overwrite anything without making a date_and_time_based backup.
d) When u install a new version of automatix, it automatically uninstalls and replaces the last version.
e) Automatix will refuse to run if user has synaptic/update-manager/apt-get/dpkg running and will exit gracefully.
f) Automatix will give the user the option to restore his/her original sources.list after finishing all installations.

These are the list of things that its going to update

Capabilities:
1) Installs multimedia codecs
2) Installs all Firefox plugins (java, flash, etc) (except Adobe reader and mplayer)
3) Installs RAR, ACE and UNRAR archive support
4) Installs skype
5) Installs Acrobat reader 7 and firefox plugin for the same.
6) Installs Gnomebaker (CD/DVD burning s/w for GNOME)
7) Installs gftp (FTP client for GNOME with ssh capability)
Installs Amule (File sharing program)
9) Installs Frostwire (GPL clone of Limewire)
10) Installs multimedia editors (Audacity (audio), Kino (video), EasyTag (ID3))
11) Installs DVD (dvdrip) ripper
12) Installs Mplayer and mplayerplug-in version 3.05 for Firefox
13) Installs totem-xine, Realplayer, VLC and Beep Media Player (with docklet)
14) Installs Opera Browser
15) Installs Debian Menu (shows all installed applications) (this kills and restarts your gnome-panel without warning u but its a completely harmless operation!)
16) Installs Bittornado and Azureus (Bittorrent clients)
17) Installs Avidemux (Video editing tool) (New version 2.1.0)
18) Enables Numlock on (turns numlock on Gnome startup)
19) Installs Programming Tools (Anjuta (C/C++ IDE), Bluefish (HTML editor) and Screem (Web Development Env.))
20) Install GnomePPP (Graphical Dial up connection tool)
21) Installs MS true type fonts
22) Configures ctrl-alt-del to start gnome-system-monitor (aka windows)
23) Installs Streamripper and Streamtuner
24) Installs NON-FREE audio and dvd codecs
25) Installs ndisgtk (WiFi configurator Graphical user interface)
26) Upgrades Open Office to 2.0 (final version), installs openoffice clipart and installs OO2 thumbnailer. (no support for AMD64 and ppc packages)
27) Adds 3 nautilus scripts (open any file with gedit as root; open a nautilus window as root in any folder; open gnome search tool in any folder (Right click in a nautilus window and look under “scripts”)
28) Installs SUN’S JAVA JRE version 1.5
29) Installs SUN’S JAVA JDK version 1.5
30) Installs wine (u need to run winecfg manually after installation)
31) Enables ejection of CD when CDROM drive button is pressed.
32) Installs AMSN 0.95 (MSN client with webcam support)
33*) Installs firestarter (GNOME firewall frontend) and adds firestarter to GNOME startup
34*) installs gdesklets (GNOME eyecandy) and adds gdesklets to GNOME startup
35*) Gamepads (Makes USB gamepads work)
36*) Turns DMA ON on Intel and AMD machines (needs a restart)
37*) NVIDIA cards (Detects Nvidia cards and installs drivers) (Needs a restart)
38*) Adds midi capability to your Ubuntu box (test by playing a midi file with timidity or pmidi from terminal)
39*) Installs Firefox 1.5.0.1 and its plugins(themes and extensions are not retained, bookmarks need to be copied from backup folder)

I’ve tried it on my box so guyz what you are witing for go get it! Ubuntu Rox!

The Indain Linux project

Localizing free software, for a free
country

Its really great to know there are many people who are working to bring linux in all indian languages. I’ve been thinking about this for a quite long time. It was really great to know that there are already many people involved in this project. I wish that you should look into this project. Even you can contribute from your side for the development of this project. I think this can become a platform for bringing out a standard GNU/Linux in indian languages. Again good old Karma Linux concept is seems to be feasible. This is the About page of the project:

About Us

Indlinux.org is a group of people who passionately believe that the benefits of information technology must be widely and freely available to the Indian masses. We are a group of people who combine skills in written scripts, free/open source technologies and technology journalism to make this happen.

WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?

Today, almost all software and operating systems and websites in India are in the English language. Since English is a language spoken by less than 10 percent of India’s population (generally considered to be the language of the affluent) language is a significant barrier for the other 90 percent of India.

This is creating a new class of people who live in what can be called as “Information Poverty” even as technology becomes cheaper and cheaper.

To destroy this barrier we need to create a national-level, collaborative effort to localise Linux to Indian languages.

WHAT ARE THE REASONS THAT MAKE INDLINUX NECESSARY?

1) Indian linguistic groups have to wake up to the fact that their languages will become outdated if they do not become a part of the digital age.
2) Since culture is embedded in language to a significant degree, the ability to compute in one’s native language can give Indian culture a significant boost. We believe that technology, particularly, the Internet can be one of the finest means of recording, archiving and propagating Indian culture.
3) India’s annual per-capita income is $390 (Rs 17,355) while operating systems cost $40 (Rs 3,500). Word processing software etc. cost even more. Free/open source software are therefore extremely important in the Indian context.

WHY LINUX?

There are several significant economic and cultural reasons for choosing Linux as a platform.

Free operating systems like Linux have several advantages for developing countries. Most software packages today are developed in the west and then sold in developing countries where the parameters of affordability are completely different. This problem does not arise with Linux because it is free.

There are cultural reasons that make Linux even more attractive. The existing user interface paradigm of files and folders evolved because computers were essentially designed for a western audience familiar with real-life files and folders. There is no reason to assume why the same paradigm should apply to a trader in Tamil Nadu or a farmer in Madhya Pradesh.

The openness of Linux allows local linguistic groups to customise user interfaces in ways that are far more culturally sensitive than any centrally controlled approach. Linguistic groups that may be considered too small a market by vendors can also take their destiny in their own hands by customising the Linux interface to their own needs. We therefore believe that Linux is a very attractive long-term solution to India’s computing needs. We chose Linux over other free/open OSes because of the popularity of the platform with developers.

HOW CAN YOU CONTRIBUTE?

Localising the user interface of Linux to all the 18 official Indian languages will involve changing the menus and help-text to Indian languages and creating a whole stack of applications and tools (word processors, browsers, spell-checkers etc.) to enable computing in Indian languages. This is a task that involves both technical and linguistic challenges. For example, should “File” simply be called “File” but written in Indian scripts because it is now a part of popular usage? Or should we find Indian language equivalents? In some cases it makes little sense. For example, how many people know that the Hindi word for computer is “sanghanak”? Or what is the Hindi equivalent for “Internet”? A very sensitive balance has to be struck between practicality and preserving Indian languages. To achieve this goal we are looking for people with either of the two skills (if you have both these skills, that’s fantastic!):

1) Technical skills: The project needs a variety of technical skills such as X-Windows/GNOME/KDE, font development, kernel support, locale support etc.
2) Language skills: You must be fluent with the script of at least one Indian language and be willing to contribute to the task of Indianising the menus and help text of Linux. We request linguistic user groups and patriotic individuals to come forward and help us in this task.

Lets make this dream to reality…..

Isn’t she my babe?

Happy Valentine! :p

Gmail for your domain

This is a very great revolution for those who couldnt manage their mail servers. Google is going to host the mail stuff for any domains available on internet. They are going to provide as many Email accounts you need for all your customers and your organization for free with a mailbox size of 2.5GB. Its providing all the feature of Gmail like attachments, chat, anti virus scan and many more. Even they are going to provide some control panel to customize those accounts. Still this feature is in Beta stage. I guess this is going to compete the M$ similar strategy called live domains. ‘Live’ is going to be the last hope for Microsoft to battle with google on Internet. A serious war is going between google products and M$ live feature. I don’t wish to promote what they do but if you are really interested what are up to go to www.live.com. But I guess the major issue about this Gmail Domains might be about the privacy. Google is really getting more and more into privacy. Its poking nose on to every aspect of a normal Internet user. Most of the time the end user is totally unaware that a massive data mining is done on him. So we have to wait and see how the corporate world is going to take up this. I don’t exactly know what mail extension they are gonna provide but Microsoft is going to provide the exact extension of your domain like " whatever@yourdomain.com". So if any one wish to avail that facility I think there is much threat in it. For ppl who go for a cheap hosting plan they get only few email accounts with the type of hosting plan they choose. I guess its really useful for such ppl.

Think Geek Mirror Launch!

luckily Thinkgeek domain is available on WordPress. WordPress is the world’s best CMS. Today I’ve registered around ten new accounts on WordPress. They have better functionality, features, amazing templates, flexible options and many more. I’ve created the mirror site of this blog by just a simple wizard. Guyz you too try you luck may be some amazing domain may be still free. Btw I’m not going anywhere there will be simultaneous post on both blogger.com and wordpress.com. So if you are missing me here you can catch me there. I would like more participation of group blogging at thinkgeek.wordpress.com Every geek is invited.

Finally Gmail Chat is out!

As expected it took couple of days to settle every thing of the launch of Gmail Chat. The interface is quite similar to that of Gtalk. There is option to send invitations, edit personal details, changing status, and many more. Its a very good innovative concept to integrate mail and chat. Google is amazing! In no time people are going to shift on to google completely for chat. All these seems that the prophecy EPIC 2014 may become reality. In near future google will definitely launch a google grid, where it will integrate all its services and create a personalised cell for every person on this planet. This may lead to the downfall of Big Shot in this Game. Welcome to G World !

Micro$oft Linux – Its hilarious :))

Don’t you believe me? Just go to www.mslinux.org. Though the site is pretty old I couldn’t stop laughing. It was hilarious. Who ever did this he got good sense of humor. Just look at the comments its really funny. I get to know about these stuff from http://linux.wordpress.com a good OSS Info site.

Microsoft Monkey Colony on Mars
Microsoft has announced that a team of monkeys will be shot into space in 2005 to establish the first Martian Colony. At a recent press conference, Bill Gates confirmed, “We are already training the monkeys to do simple tasks like reboot the space ship when it blue screens. The space vehicle will be running our newest product, SpacePod 2004. This product will instruct the monkeys how to colonize Mars and establish trade with the Martians. We intend to monopolize this market before Human travel to Mars is possible.”

What others are saying:
“They want me to be a whore!”
— Linus Torvalds.

“He doesn’t scare me as much as he scares others.”
— Richard Stallman

“Jesus Christ, who are these people?”
— Bill Gates

“I don’t remember agreeing to that.”
— Janet Reno

“This is horseshit. Horseshit, horseshit, horseshit. And for those of you who don’t know what that means, it’s the shit that comes from a horse!”
— Greg, Columbia Internet

All about Anonymity!

Disclaimer: I strongly recommend that nobody attempts in anyway to gain unauthorized access to any sort of computer system, as any kind of attempt to gain unauthorized access sadly seems to be a serious criminal offense. I’m in no way responsible for any kinda offence. Its totally ethical stuff and there’s even potential danger that you may even get logged and even chance to get sniffed. So stay alive. Happy Hacking

Hey fellas don’t get annoyed by the disclaimer. It’s just a formality you know rules are always meant to be broken. So today’s hot topic is about how anonymous you are. Let’s see what anonymity on web really mean. In one line its nothing but how deep you can tunnel down the rabbit hole without being noticed. If you ain’t anonymous, may be your first hack be your last one. Always cover your tracks, it’s the basic thing one should ensure before planning to hack the box. There are loggers all the way. If you escape you ISP, there are routers waiting to for your address. For those who are not good at root kits and burning logs, I guess this could become a useful article. Before that we just need to know how hackers make out by erasing the tracks. There are number of compromised systems on internet whose network is named as Botnet in Hackers Jargon. So when they wish to attack any specific network with either brute force or just another DDOS, they just pass it on the automated script on to the botnets for the attack. Burning the logs is the most important thing that you should be knowing before you do your first hack. As the topic indicates, it ain’t about burning logs it’s about staying anonymous by using third party proxies. I don’t say that even that will provide you 100% anonymity. They log you each and every click and keystroke for their security purpose. So this is a mini HOWTO to get the best out of free proxies. First of all secure spoof your Identity. Use finger print fuckers to erase the OS fingerprint and the service finger prints from your host box. Then you need to do is spoof you MAC. It’s not a big deal on Linux, you write a handy script which sets your MAC to some random series every time you boot. Next thing is getting you job done through some compromised host or some free anonymous proxies. There is thousands of free proxies out there from different places on this planet and among them some are really good and some even provide secured tunnel. Every thing depends upon your choice. You can get the latest list of hot proxies from http://www.proxy4free.com n http://www.freeproxylists.com/. Though it ain’t worked for me as I’m behind another proxy. There are some very good site through we could tunnel out. Even we have many open source alternative to tunnel down. I’ll be giving you the list of very popular Anonymous sites that I use. Before that there is some thing that you should tweak on you host to ensure max anonymity. Before you connect to internet install some good firewall to monitor every input and output. I would insist Zone Alarm for window users. After that set you browser setting to high security level where no ActiveX components, Java applets, Scripts, Ads and some times even cookies are allowed. All these settings ensure your anonymity for client side.

So how to ensure about anonymity after connection wid the third party proxy is established. First thing check out is your IP same or different from www.whatismyip.com. As soon as you confirm that it’s changed then go for IP test and WHOIS lookup. www.stayinvisible.com is very good for going with these steps. If you sure enough that you are invisible. If you are done with this! Its time to Ragna Rock! Check out some of my fav anonymous browsing sites. As mentioned earlier never pass your personal information on these site coz many of them are in club with hacker’s network. Always ensure the line is secured and encrypted. There even some Hacking client software’s which can automate all the things I mentioned above. But I would rather insist you to grow up. Script Kiddies need to evolve its time to be a real hacker. Try to write your own scripts to connect to the proxies. There’s always danger with hack kits that they will be having custom written Trojans that are undetectable by any spy wares or any antivirus. Even the topic about how to create a custom Trojans is pretty interesting. I’ll be dealing about that later on. You are behind proxy I would insist you a quite reliable platform independent software called JAP. In general it connects with German based proxies. So you will be on the other side of the globe. One thing I forgot even look for trace route to ensure how you’re routing is done. Get JAP from http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/win/download_en.html. I guess this information is enough for any good enough geek to put through. Here the list of free browser based free proxies

• http://www.evaded.net -It’s pretty fast and highly anonymous.
• http://www.proxy1.be
• http://www.proxydrop.com/
• http://www.sweetproxy.com/
• http://www.proxypla.net/
• http://tntproxy.com/
• http://boxproxy.com/
• http://www.hidemyass.com/
• http://www.the-cloak.com/login.html
• http://letsproxy.com/
• http://www.proxymouse.com/
• http://projectbypass.com/
• https://proxify.com/
• http://www.techtakeover.com/search/
• http://www.proxifree.com/
• http://browseatwork.com/
• http://www.afreeproxy.com/
• http://greenrabbit.org/
• http://www.nomorelimits.net/
• http://worldwideproxy.com/

This list goes on n on. You can even find better than these, what all you need is a better googling. Btw do you want Google to be responsible for these things there is a simple Google hack, where we can use Google language translation as free proxy. Just check this link http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/h/4807 he’s is simply exploiting the feature by translating the page from English to English. Ok buddies my battery may down any time. Any kinda quires do drop a mail or a comment. Looking for constructive comments.
Happy Hacking,
–Lunatic 2.0 \m/

Linux Asia 2006

I’ve been waiting for a long time to attend this expo, but due to some constraints I couldn’t make out this time. Its on 8th, 9th and 10th of this month. Linux Asia is Indias largest Open Source Conference and Expo. We can find hot shots of Open Source World. There are number of workshops by leading Tech guyz in the Open World. India is going to be the major player in this open source race in near future. Indias leading Linux magazine LFY is the major Organizers of this event. Mark Shuttleworth is on the top of the list. There are going to be amazing workshops from IBM, Redhat, Novell and Ubuntu. India was passive player all these days, even ppl used to call India as leeches than contributors but It ain’t right now. There are so many Open Projects of Indian origin now. People are getting to know more about the beauty of Linux. I believe only we people (I mean we engineers) should take some initiative in bringing out some innovative ideas and start over. GNU is providing platform for such developers at http://savannah.gnu.org/. We can call savannah as free alternative for sourceforge.com. Even they review your projects and promote them to official GNU project after the thorough scrutinize by experts and finally by the approval of RMS. The roots are to be laid from the basic education system. People are spending huge amounts in M$ Windows for educational purpose and in government organizations. Students should be encouraged to use Linux for personal purpose and do some open projects. Future is Open!

Firefox 1.5.0.1 upgrade HOWTO

Hi fellas, This howto is meant for ppl who wish to upgrade from firefox 1.0.7 of Ubuntu’s Breezy Badger. As there isn’t any upgrade option on Linux version of firefox and even there is no latest version of firefox at ubuntu’s repositories, only way left is to get the package from Mozilla website and upgrade. There is a little bit problem with the latest version. It has a little bit dependencies problem to run on breezy badger. So here’s a mini HOWTO for Firefox 1.5.0.1 upgrade.

If you are behind any firewall or any proxy set your proxy on terminal by executing the following command as root or sudo. Replace user and password with your authentication details and set the proxy address and port in the following command

root@zionmainframe:/# export http_proxy=”http://user:password@proxy_address:port”
(eg: http://admin:pass@172.16.16.2:3128 )

Check the proxy variable by following command

root@zionmainframe:/# echo $http_proxy
http://admin:pass@172.16.16.2:3128

Remove the comments (#) before the Universal, Main and Restricted repositories from the source list

root@zionmainframe:/# vi /etc/apt/sources.list

Solve the dependency by installing the following library

root@zionmainframe:/# apt-get install libstdc++5

After installation get the firefox package for Linux i.e., Firefox 1.5.0.1 from www.getfirefox.com. Extract the file by the following command on to your home directory

root@zionmainframe:/home/user/# tar -zxvf firefox-1.5.0.1.tar

Change the link from the /usr/bin on to the new executable

root@zionmainframe:/usr/bin/# ln -s -i -v /home/user/firefox/firfox firefox

Accept to replace the existing link. Thus you have the latest Firefox ready to explode. You will have all your old bookmarks and it automatically updates the latest version of all the plugins. Though all these things seems to be pretty easy, this might help out for starters.
Happy Hacking,
–Lunatic \m/