Linpus Lite, Update Adobe Flash Player

The other day, my FireFox updated itself and told me I should update Adobe Flash Player.



Just click the link get the free update now and I chose .rpm for other Linux. I chose rpm since Linpus Linux is based on Fedora which uses the Redhat Package Manager (rpm).



The default program to open rpm files is the package manager of Linpus. This is fine. Click OK to download.



It then downloads the file and you will be prompted for the root password for using the package manager.



Click Apply, click away a warning and the Adobe Flash Player will install. It actually amazed me how simple it was.

How to play Championship Manager 01/02 on Linpus Lite

Last time, I showed how to mount an ISO file. My intention was to install Championship Manager 01/02, a Windows 95 football manager I was addicted to at the time. I'm playing it now again. Many say the 01/02 version is the most playable version.

As a promotion for the newest version of the game, the creators decided to give the 01/02 game away for free. You will have to register on their site, though. Once you're registered and logged in, you can download the original cd from this page.

In order to have our Linpus Lite be able to run Windows applications, we'll install Wine. The yum repository doesn't have the newest version (I have 0.9.47), but it's new enough to run CM01/02. Install it in a terminal screen by typing
sudo yum install wine

I have mounted my ISO of the game on /mnt/iso/. I now can install the game with
sudo wine /mnt/iso/Setup.exe
Just install the default directories.

Wine installed the game in ~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Championship Manager 01-02/
We can now start the game by typing
cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Championship Manager 01-02/
sudo wine cm0102.exe
Unfortunately, when the guys at championshipmanager.co.uk decided to release the free version of the game, they didn't remove the cd check. If the original cd isn't in a cd drive, the game won't start. Since the Aspire One does not have a built in cd drive, it is impossible to have a cd in a drive. So i'm afraid a no cd crack is necessary. Although I don't like hacks en cracks, I don't see another option.
But first we're going to upgrade the game to the latest version.

The best site to find all kind of things for Championship Manager 01/02 is the fan site www.champman0102.co.uk. It's here I downloaded the SI Games Official Patch v3.9.68 which is the newest patch. All other patches and updates on the champman0102.co.uk site need this patch. I installed the patch:
sudo wine /home/user/Downloads/242.exe

I'm thinking about downloading and installing the Tapanified March 2009 Patch, which includes the current players (to start the season at 2008 instead of 2001). The game on my desktop computer also has this patch. It should enable me to use the other savegames, maybe save them to a server so both games can access them.

What is necessary is a no cd patch. I downloaded the file ppfcm68.rar from gamecopyworld. Unformtunately .rar was the only choice, so I extracted the file on my Windows desktop computer and rename the old .exe files and replaced them with the patched ones.

You can now play the game. Unfortunately you can't alt-tab in and out of the game, it will lock up. Windowed mode (cm0102.exe -windowed) also didn't help. So I'll play the game without multitasking. You can get the Linpus taskbar out of the screen by clicking on the arrow in the bottom left of the screen, the left of the taskbar. You'll have a full screen game then.
You can play the game:
sudo wine ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Championship\ Manager\ 01-02/cm0102.exe -nosound
I disabled the sound, I guess you will too.

How to mount iso files in Linpus Lite, a script

This page showed me it is really simple to mount an ISO image in Linux, just type in the following line.
$ sudo mount -o loop <iso-file>
Of course, the blog adds some code around it to create a new directory and such.

I decided to use the mount call and create a script, for my -and maybe your- convenience. First, I'll give the script, then I'll explain, in case you're interested.
#!/bin/bash
FILENAME=$1

if ! [ -f $FILENAME ]; then
echo "ISO file does not exist, exiting."
exit
fi

if [ $# != 1 ]; then
echo "No ISO file given, exiting."
exit
fi

if ! [ -d /mnt/iso/ ]; then
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/iso/
echo "/mnt/iso/ did not exist, created."
fi

if [[ $(mount | grep -c /mnt/iso/) -ge 1 ]]
then
sudo umount /mnt/iso/
echo "/mnt/iso/ was already mounted, unmounted."
fi

sudo mount -o loop $FILENAME /mnt/iso/
echo "$FILENAME is now mounted on /mnt/iso/"


A script always starts with #!, this script uses /bin/bash.
The location and name of the iso file the user is required to give is begin remembered in a variable, FILENAME.

The script starts with two tests. Is a file given and does the given file exist. If the tests (or one of the tests) fail, the program exits.

Then the mountpount is being checked. The script mounts the iso by default at /mnt/iso/. If the directory doesn't exist, it's created.

Next we have the block which checks if there's already a mount active on /mnt/iso/. If so, it is being unmounted.

Now we're finally ready to mount the iso file. A message is printed the mount was successful.

You can place the script in your homedir, for example. Don't forget to make it executable by (I called the file 'mountiso')
$ chmod 755 mountiso
I placed an iso on a usb stick, which mounted as /media/UDISK/ (the name of the usb stick was UDISK, don't ask me why), and mounted it with the command
$ ./mountiso /media/UDISK/iso/CM0102.iso

Samba shares in Thunar (file manager of Linpus Lite)

Wow, I just found this very handy forum posting explaining how to mount a Windows (or Samba) share on Linpus. I don't know if Linpus has been updated, because earlier I wasn't able to let Thunar (the default file manager) open smb shares.

I will be using the words Samba or smb because I have my shares on a Linux computer.

Part 1: create a script which will mount the samba share

First of all, create a directory in /mnt/. For example /mnt/windows, /mnt/samba or /mnt/<servername>
sudo mkdir /mnt/samba

Now, create a new file called /root/samba-share.sh with the following content
#!/bin/bash
/bin/df -k | /bin/grep /mnt/samba > /dev/null
if [ $? != 0 ]; then
sudo /sbin/mount.cifs //<server>/<share> /mnt/samba -o user=<user>%<password>
fi
/usr/bin/launch-thunar.sh /mnt/samba

You will have to insert your own servername (or ip address), share, username and password. If your server allow anonymous logins, you can replace "user=<user> password=<password>" by "guest".
Let's go through the script. The first line checks if the share is already mounted. If so, the mounting by mount.cifs is skipped.
Finally the graphical file manager Thunar is opened at your samba share.

You will have to make this file executable with the command
sudo chmod 755 /root/samba-share.sh

Part 2: create a desktop item and show it in the interface

We will create a file called /usr/share/applications/sambashare.desktop
In this directory all desktop items are placed. These items are used by the default interface.
In this file we'll put
[Desktop Entry]
Name=My Samba Share
Comment=Files shared on Samba server
Exec=/root/samba-share.sh
Icon=mydownload.png
Terminal=0

Now, just add this desktop item to the files menu. Open the file /home/user/.config/xfce4/desktop/group-app.xml and add the following line to the group with id=8 (search for <id>8</id>).
<app sequence="6">/usr/share/applications/sambashare.desktop</app>
This will have added an icon the the files menu. A reboot is needed to show it, though.

Clicking the icon will open Thunar at the samba share.

Install FireFox3 on the Acer Aspire One

Also, a good thing to do with your Aspire One is to install Firefox 3. Firefox 2 is installed by default, but since several Linpus programmes (like email) depend on Firefox 2 libraries, you cannot just upgrade 2 to 3.
I found a very good tutorial you can use, or you can follow my summary of the tutorial.

On the Firefox site you can choose the newest Firefox in your favorite language. Make sure you choose a download with os=linux. In this example, I'll use version 3.5.1 in US English. I downloaded via the link http://www.mozilla.com/products/download.html?product=firefox-3.5.1&os=linux&lang=en-US and put it in /tmp.

Now extract the file as superuser to the directory /opt.
sudo tar -jxf firefox-3.5.1.tar.bz2 --directory /opt

Set the default user as owner of all the files with
sudo chown user -R /opt/firefox

I choose to rename the old startup script /usr/bin/firefox to firefox2. Then I set a symbolic link from /usr/bin/firefox to the newly installed one.
sudo mv /usr/bin/firefox /usr/bin/firefox2
sudo ln -fs /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox

The next step links all plug-ins (not to be confused with extensions) to Firefox 3.
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/* /opt/firefox/plugins

Launch the profile manager using the command below. Create a new profile, name it anything you like and select it. If you want to keep your bookmarks export them via the bookmark manager first. You can then delete the old default profile.
The old profile has some things disabled, including the "check for updates".
firefox -profilemanager -no-remote

Now, I'm going to change the connect menu. First, copy the old .desktop file to a new one. I want to keep the old one, just in case.
sudo cp /usr/share/applications/linpus-web.desktop /usr/share/applications/firefox3.desktop

Edit the linpus-web.desktop file with your favorite editor. Search the line with "Exec=firefox" and edit it to "Exec=firefox2".
In the file firefox3.desktop, replace the old icon with a new one.
sudo sed '/Icon/ s/acs_//' -i /usr/share/applications/firefox3.desktop

Now, edit the menu. Edit the file ~/.config/xfce4/desktop/group-app.xml.
Optional: I copied the line <app sequence="0">/usr/share/applications/linpus-web.desktop</app> to the bottom of the block, replacing 0 by 11 (my last menuitem was 10).
We want to have the new FireFox icon on the first spot (replacing the old browser). Edit the line <app sequence="0">/usr/share/applications/linpus-web.desktop</app> and replace "linpus-web.desktop" by "firefox3.desktop".

Now, after a reboot of the system, it should work. You'll have a nice Firefox logo in the connect menu, which will open Firefox3.


How to install software in Linpus Lite on the Acer Aspire One

I wanted to install an irc-client on my AA1. I decided xchat was an ok option. I will post a step by step installation.

1. First open a terminal screen. This can be done with Alt-F2 and run program xterm.
2. Use the software package manager yum to install xchat. Yum is installed with Linpus. On the command line, type yum install xchat to install.
3. Now the program is installed, but it's nice to have an icon in the connect-menu. The install made a file named /usr/share/applications/xchat.desktop with a desktop entry, containing links to an icon and the executable. This file we want to present to the menu.
4. The menu is located in /home/user/.config/xfce4/desktop/group-app.xml, an xml file. Now look for the group where the first app is <app sequence="0">/usr/share/applications/linpus-web.desktop</app>. You can put the icon at the end, by adding the line <app sequence="9">/usr/share/applications/xchat.desktop</app> at the end of the apps, but I preferred to give it sequence=2 and give the other sequences an increase of 1, so xchat is displayed on the home screen.

Well, this installed xchat for me. In this way, you should be able to install most of the programmes.