How to install ionCube loader on Ubuntu 12.04

Some CMS (content management systems) may require IonCube Loader which is a PHP extension to encode PHP files.

The extension is not in the Ubuntu repos, so you'll have to grab it from the developer's website. (http://www.ioncube.com/loaders.php).

Here is how to install IonCube Loader on Ubuntu 12.04 (and other releases and editions of Ubuntu as well).

If your Ubuntu system / server is 32-bit:

cd /usr/local
sudo wget http://downloads2.ioncube.com/loader_downloads/ioncube_loaders_lin_x86.tar.gz sudo tar xzf ioncube_loaders_lin_x86.tar.gz

If your Ubuntu system / server is 64-bit:

cd /usr/local sudo wget http://downloads2.ioncube.com/loader_downloads/ioncube_loaders_lin_x86-64.tar.gz sudo tar xzf ioncube_loaders_lin_x86-64.tar.gz

Next step is to check if PHP loads the extension:

echo "zend_extension=/usr/local/ioncube/ioncube_loader_lin_5.4.so" | sudo tee /etc/php5/conf.d/ioncube.ini

Then restart the webserver:

sudo service apache2 restart

That's it.

How to install skype on Ubuntu / Kubuntu / Xubuntu 12.04 / 12.10

Installing Skype on Ubuntu / Kubuntu 12.04 / 12.10 and other flavors of Ubuntu is easy, even though it's not in the official repos.

Head to the official Skype website - skype.com -> Get skype -> Skype for Linux -> Download -> select the package for Ubuntu that suits your architecture - there are packages for (K/X)Ubuntu 32-bit and (K/X)Ubuntu 64-bit.

 

In short, here is the link to get Skype for linux - http://www.skype.com/intl/en/get-skype/on-your-computer/linux/ (there are packages for some other distros, as well).

Download the package, double-click -> install. The package manager will pull down all the dependencies and will install Skype on your Ubuntu system.

How to change splash screen resolution after installing proprietary Nvidia drivers on Ubuntu

Since Maverick Meerkat or so, after you install the proprietary Nvidia driver on Ubuntu and its flavors and derivatives (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Linux Mint, etc.), the splash screen resolution gets too small, and you stop seeing the nice splash screen that worked with open drivers, and see some broken text instead while the system is loading. This is not critical, of course, the system normally boots anyway, and after it's loaded, the resolution is the one that has to be. However, having an ugly splash screen is bad, and here is how to fix this.

1) Determine the resolution Grub can support. It's not necessarily the optimal one for you system (for example, my optimal resolution is 1440x900, but I found out Grub didn't support it). 

To do so, reboot, on reboot press "c" key on your keyboard to enter grub console.

In the grub console type:

vbeinfo

The command will list all the resolutions supported by Grub.

Note the closest (to your native one) supported resolution from the list (for my 1440x900 screen, the closest one was 1280x1024x32 - yes, it suggests it's longer but it's what I used and was happy with the result; x32 stays for color depth).

2) Next step is to edit the following file

/etc/default/grub

(Run kdesu kate /etc/default/grub or gksu gedit /etc/default/grub to edit the file with the necessary superuser permissions; change kate/gedit with the text editor you prefer, and kdesu/gksu are for KDE and Gnome/Unity/Xfce, respectively).

In the file, locate the string #GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480. Yes, it's commented (#). Leave it so. Put the following line after #GRUB_GFXMODE: 
GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=1280x1024x32 // << the resolution may differ! (see step 1)

Then run:

echo FRAMEBUFFER=y | sudo tee /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/splash
sudo update-grub2
sudo update-initramfs -u

Reboot. Check the splash screen - it should be nice now.

View available updates from terminal without updating the system / Ubuntu

I find it a faster way to install updates on my Ubuntu machine from terminal rather then using a GUI package manager.

sudo apt-get update  // collects information on updated packages from the repos
sudo apt-get upgrade // install upgrades for packages for which updates are available

The commands above are cool, of course, and quick to type, but one thing always annoyed me - I could only see what was updated after I actually initialized the process of upgrading the system. Well, not cool (GUI package manager would show what packages are upgradable).

How to view available updates from terminal without updating the system:

apt-get --just-print upgrade
apt-get -s upgrade

These 2 show the very same output (they both simulate an upgrade, don't really do it). So the 2nd one is shorter to type.
Another command for the same purpose:
aptitude search ~U

Anyway, I find a command like below a bit more logical when read by a human being than simulating an upgrade:

sudo yum list updates // view available upgradable packages on rpm distros.

How to remove wine entries from context menu

After you install wine, it puts itself as an option in the context menu (right click menu) for certain file types. In the very most cases I personally don't want to open a text file or an html file using wine (I generally need wine to open a few .exe files like a forex terminal, and nothing more).

Here is how to quickly remove wine entries from the context menu on Linux:

Go to /home/yourUsername/.local/share/applications/

You'll see a number of wine-extension-***.desktop files - they are responsible for the fact that you see wine as an option for certain file types.
Delete / rename all / some of those wine .desktop files to stop seeing wine as a program to open files in the context menu.

Also, remove wine entries in the file:
/home/yourUsername/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list

How to change GDM cursor theme Gnome 3 Sabayon

If you change the cursor theme on your system (Advanced Settings Gnome 3), you find out the new theme is used when you're logged in, but the login screen on Gnome 3 still uses the default pointer theme. Well, it's quite typical for Sabayon, polish is not the aim of the distro, its advantages lay in other things, so Sabayon's KDE flavor has the same behavior (see this post).

I tried to resolve the issue with the cursor theme the same way I did for KDE (see the post from above), but it didn't work. So I had to resort to cheating. I installed the theme I wanted (DMZ, yeah, old good DMZ) and then:

How to change GDM cursor theme Gnome 3 (in case changing in system settings doesn't affect the theme at login):

gksu -> nemo -> /usr/share/cursors/xorg-x11/ -> rename the default Adwaita theme to something else -> rename the theme you want to be used as default to Adwaita.

It's a cheat, it's not the way things should work in a distro, but it gives me the expected result. Sad but true.

How to minimize all windows in Gnome 3

Thanks God it's possible to assign a shortcut to minimize all open application windows in Gnome 3.

Here is how:

System Settings ->  Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Navigation.
Find "Hide all normal windows" and assign a key to minimize all the windows.

Things to do on OpenSuse 12.2 LXDE

1) Update the system as always :)

2) Add a keyboard layout switcher to the panel and support for another layout (if needed) as described here, for example.

3) Okay, it's handy to have numLock on at system start-up on LXDE. Below is
How to turn numlock on at system startup LXDE:

As a superuser edit the file /etc/lxdm/lxdm.conf
Find the line:

numlock=0

Uncomment it (remove the # sign) and change 0 to 1. Logout, login. Numlock should be on at system startup now.

4) Ok, I remember this bothered me about YaST since OpenSuse 11 - the package manager closes itself   after a package is installed. If you want to install another batch of packages after a 1st one, you need to relaunch the package manager. Here is how to prevent it from closing: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10573557/SUSE%20Misc/yast-at-close-action.jpeg
https://features.opensuse.org/312750

5) One bad thing about LXDE on OpenSuse 12.2 - on my system if I click "logout", nothing happens, the system hangs up. Hopefully, this will get fixed.

6) You need a screenshot app (would you believe print screen launches some Paint like app to save the snapshot? It does!). I installed Shutter (I'd prefer to have a simpler one, though).

7) Can you believe you have no archiving tool on Opensuse 12.2 LXDE? At least a GUI one? Well, at the very least there was no working one. Installed xarchiver from some repo (packages.opensuse.org)

8) LibreOffice failed to start, returning this error when launched from terminal:

[Java framework] Error in function createSettingsDocument (elements.cxx).
javaldx failed!

The solution is to change ownership to your user over the folder /home/username/.config:

su chown -vR username:users ~/.config

9) Installed MS fonts by using this package - fetchmsttfonts. It does what it says - fetches the fonts from a source outside the repos.

10) http://stray-notes.blogspot.com/2011/01/lxde-remap-keyboard-shortcuts.html - this post explains how to set keyboard shortcuts on LXDE. I would like to have ctrl+alt+T back for terminal, and ctrl+escape for a system monitor app.

After installing the MS fonts, the system fonts got ugly. Yes, it's now typical OpenSuse. The fonts in QT apps look too small (e.g. skype).

The good thing about OpenSuse 12.2 LXDE is that it features a customized sound control app (which is not present on a vanilla LXDE install) which works with the multimedia keys on the keyboard out of the box.

KDE theme gets too dark with desktop effects disabled

I am really happy about KDE's default theme - Air. It looks fine for me, and I don't want to change it.

I also never have desktop effects enabled on KDE (and on any DE) as I never need it. However, every time I disable the desktop effects on my KDE system, I notice that the Air theme gets too dark which is unpleasant, unaesthetic and simply makes the letters on, say, the Task Manager hardly discernible.

I really wanted to get the light grey color of the theme back. So I've notice the following manipulation usually helps get the theme back to being light-color:

System settings -> Desktop effects -> Advanced - then switch between the Compositing types and QT graphics systems until you notice your Air theme stops being dark and gets light-grey.

The behavior of those settings is a bit unpredictable for me, as various options have brought in the same result (right now I use OpenGL / Native, and I have the light theme, but I remember I've used other options in the Advanced tab on my other KDE installations before to get the theme light). Anyway, the good thing is that switching between those options does work.

Sabayon Linux - to choose or not to choose

Sabayon Linux is one of my favorite Linux distros. It is based on Gentoo, but this fact is of little importance for me personally.

I decided to make a summary of why I like Sabayon, and what I dislike about it, or in other words, to list  what are the pros and cons of Sabayon Linux for me. This is just a subjective opinion.

Sabayon: To choose or not to choose:

Pros

Cons

• Rolling release. Rolls stably. • Multimedia codecs installed out of the box • Proprietary graphics drivers installed out of the box • Latest software, latest DEs versions • GUI package manager, powerful command line package management utility • Restricted software available in the repo (Flash, Oracle Java, proprietory Virtualbox, Opera), no unnecessary philosophy • Large repository • Relatively light on resources, not bloated,  fast and responsive • Binary distro - apps are quickly installed • Source-based distro - compile if you like • Uses the Anaconda installer, easy to deploy • Generally, sufficiently user-friendly

• Little customisation, vanilla DEs • Rather poor artwork • Lack of polish (it’s your duty to make sure GTK apps look acceptably on KDE, or that you use the same cursor theme both for welcome screen and after logged in; etc.) • Corrupt packages in the repo on rare occasions • Apps may behave not as expected or feature non-optimal default settings (e.g., winFF won’t just work and convert videos, the user’s intervenience is needed to configure the app) • Latest software, less testing, bugs may occur (e.g. on Sabayon you’ll be one of the first to find out Clementine’s multimedia keys support is broken in a new version)

For me, the pros outweigh the cons. What really makes me addicted to Sabayon is that I have the latest software, easily, with no fuss, and little effort.

Probably, I need to try Arch, another prominent rolling distro, to be able to truly appreciate Sabayon. Something tells me, though, Arch would consume more time on system configuration while Sabayon doesn't, it just ships the latest software to you in a couple of clicks.

How to ungroup conversation tabs skype 4 linux

The conversation tabs in Skype 4 for Linux may be not what you want. For example, if you communicate to different people in different languages, you'll have to annoyingly change the layout while your DE supports different layouts for different windows (this is how I use it and I find this layout switching policy really convenient). In this case you'd prefer Skype to start a conversation with a new person in a separate window (like it was in the old Skype 2 version).

To ungroup conversation tabs in Skype 4 on Linux and switch back to the separate window per conversation style:
- click "Options" in Skype 4
- go to "Chat" settings
- uncheck "Use default view".

That's it. Now you'll have the old good style of different chat in separate windows.
By the way, the icon in the top right corner of the conversation window toggles showing the contacts that are currently in chat.

Illegal source level jdk 7 - Linux Mint 13

You try to compile a Java program and Netbeans gives you the error:

Illegal source level jdk 7

You get this because you have the OpenJDK version installed while the program you're trying to compile requires Oracle Java. Mint/Ubuntu cannot ship Oracle's Java due to some laws and licences.

However, if you do need the original Oracle Java to develop your Java apps, you can have it in 2 ways:
- by installing Oracle Java on your system yourself - see how here: http://www.wikihow.com/Install-Oracle-Java-on-Ubuntu-Linux (24 steps).

- or by using a PPA which will kindly and easily get Oracle Java into your system.


sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install oracle-java7-installer

This should get you the Oracle's version. To check, type:
java -version

You're supposed to see something like:
java version "1.7.0_05"

Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_05-b05)

Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 23.1-b03, mixed mode)


Happy Java coding.

How to change DuckDuckGo for another search engine in Mint

Linux Mint ships Firefox with the DuckDuckGo search engine/provider that's used if you type your search terms directly in the address bar (the most convenient way probably).

DuckDuckGo might be good, but it at least looks intolerably ugly and urges a strong desire to remove it.
Here is how to change DuckDuckGo for another search engine from address/URL bar in Firefox on Linux Mint version 12, 13, probably 14 and 15 :) :

type about:config in the address bar of Firefox
promise you'll be careful
in the search bar type keyword.URL
right click on it - modify
replace the string with the DuckDuckGo for another URL that will query another search engine.

If you want to continue supporting Mint, place the Yahoo's URL and use Yahoo search (the example below will use USA Yahoo in English):
http://us.yhs4.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=

Or you can use the dominant and not sharing revenues with Mint Google:
http://www.google.com/search?q=

How to switch to kickoff menu PCLOS

PCLinuxOS (oh, what a name, I'd change it; nice OS though) ships with a classical menu.

The major drawback of the classical menu is that there are too many categories to navigate through, too many apps in a category to find the one you need, too long to arrange menu items the way you'd like to (as too many apps come pre-installed), and the last and most important - the classical menu makes the use of favorites impossible - which is the major advantage of KDE's default kickoff menu - I use 10 apps 90% of the time, so I do need a favorites menu. The category named "favorites" in the classic menu makes life no easier, neither does alt+F2 when you need to launch, say, system monitor or system settings. And another advantage of the kickoff menu style is the search bar - no need to click through categories.

So here is how to switch to kickoff menu on PCLOS:
Unlock widgets (if they were locked) -> right click on the menu icon -> Switch to Application launcher style.

That's it.

No sound on PCLOS 2012-2

After you install the PCLOS iso (that was released in February), next you have to do is to update your system. The update will bring a new KDE base, and besides this, the sound will disappear :)

No sound on PCLOS 2012-2

Luckily this is easy to fix - open terminal, become root and run:

# alsaconf

Agree with what alsaconf says, let it detect your sound card once again. In the end it will congratulate you that your sound card has been detected and that you now have sound on your system.

Basically, this works for any linux system. If you for example have no sound on Ubuntu, you can similarly run:
sudo alsaconf
in terminal.

Things to do on Sabayon 9 Xfce

Sabayon ships the Xfce Desktop Environment bare. The distro doesn't seem to offer whatsoever customized Xfce and forces the user to adjust the DE to his/her liking. Unfortunately, it also drops even some basic things that make the impression bad if missing.

Here are some basic things that need to be added to Sabayon Xfce:

Sound mixer/indicator on Xfce:
Add the mixer plugin to the Xfce panel


Keyboard layout configuration on XFCE. The following plugin needs to be installed:


xfce4-xkb-plugin: http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/panel-plugins/xfce4-xkb-plugin

This plugin offers a keyboard indicator for the Xfce panel and also a gui way to add a new keyboard layout, to configure layout switching options/shortkeys, layout behavior (used globally, on per window or application basis), and some other options.


Multimedia keyboard Volume control on Xfce. The plugin below makes the Xfce Sound Mixer accept commands from the volume up/down multimedia keys on the keyboard:
xfce4-volumed

How to fix mute/unmute through multimedia keys on Xfce:

http://grumbel.blogspot.com/2011/10/fixing-volume-control-in-xfce4.html

How to add calendar and date to Xfce panel:
xfce4-datetime-plugin

How to change keyboard layout xfce

If you run a distro like Sabayon which ships bare-bones Xfce you might wonder:

How to add a keyboard layout on Xfce
How to add a keyboard indicator to Xfce panel
and

How to set a shortcut to switch the layout on Xfce

Install the plugin xfce4-xkb-plugin: (http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/panel-plugins/xfce4-xkb-plugin)
Then add a keyboard indicator to your panel:
Right click on the Xfce panel -> Panel preferences -> Items -> Add (the plus sign) -> Keyboard layouts

Now add a new keyboard layout and configure the switching shortcut:
Right click on the Keyboards layouts -> Properties -> and then configure all that's related to your keyboard (keyboard model, add a new layout, arrange which layout will be first/default, set the options to change the layout, display flags or text, etc.).

How to add and switch keyboard layout LXDE - Lubuntu 12.04

After all, I ended up on LXDE shipped by Lubuntu 12.04. It looks really nice, the default theme is perfect (unlike that of Xubuntu).

One tricky thing is though how to add a keyboard layout on Lubuntu 12.04 (if you didn't specify an additional language at installation). Basically, I consider a lack of a working GUI (lxkeymap returns an error) to configure keyboard layouts a big flaw of LXDE (there are other ways to configure this aspect of LXDE of course, I'm just saying no GUI is bad).

So here is what I did to add a new keyboard layout.

1) Add a layout indicator to the panel - right click on the panel - Add / remove panel items - Panel Applets  - Add - Keyboard Layout Switcher.
A switcher will be added to the panel, in Panel Applets you can choose the position for the switcher you like.

2) Next is to add a new layout. For example, I need Russian. This will be done by editing a configuration file. Run:


gksu leafpad /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/autostart

Enter your administrative password to open up the document with root privileges. Then find the line @lxpanel --profile Lubuntu and add the following:

@setxkbmap -option grp:switch,grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp_led:scroll us,ru
Save file. Logout, login.
Press alt+shift to see whether the layout changes or not. It should change :)

By the way, there are more ways to add a layout on LXDE. They're nicely listed in this document:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/LXDE#Keyboard_layout

How to change layout switch shortcut on Lubuntu 12.04

Examine the line - @setxkbmap -option grp:switch,grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp_led:scroll us,ru
What you need is "grp:alt_shift_toggle". Replace alt_shift with alt_ctrl, for example.

sudo: update-apt-xapian-index: command not found - Lubuntu 12.04

Well, when running the command - sudo update-apt-xapian-index on Lubuntu 12.04 to make Synaptic (it rocks) list packages from 3rd party repos I got the following error:

sudo: update-apt-xapian-index: command not found - Lubuntu 12.04


The reason is quite simple - the package apt-xapian-index turned out to be not install (nice). Which is why all you have to do is to install it:

sudo apt-get install apt-xapian-index

And then rebuild the xapian index again (run the initial command). That's it. Synaptic is now fully usable.

How to install Ruby 1.9.3 on Ubuntu 12.04

The latest and greatest version of Ruby - 1.9.3 - is in the Ubuntu repos. All you need to do is to grab it from there.

So, if you don't have any other version of Ruby installed on the system, just do the following:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install ruby1.9.1 ruby1.9.1-dev \ rubygems1.9.1 irb1.9.1 ri1.9.1 rdoc1.9.1 \ build-essential libopenssl-ruby1.9.1 libssl-dev zlib1g-dev

After Ruby is installed, check the version of the programming language - run in terminal:

ruby --version

---------------

If you have Ruby installed already and need to switch to the latest version, take a look at this post that will explain in more details what you need to do: http://lenni.info/blog/2012/05/installing-ruby-1-9-3-on-ubuntu-12-04-precise-pengolin/.

Clementine multimedia keys on Kubuntu 12.04

Multimedia keys don't work for Clementine on Kubuntu 12.04. Yeah. It's a Clementine 1.0.1 bug, which still has to be fixed by the developers.

Follow up the issue here for a workaround (which still has to come) - http://code.google.com/p/clementine-player/issues/detail?id=2908.
Or maybe a patch will be issued soon, and will be delivered through an update.

IRC - Could not resolve your hostname: Domain name not found; using your IP address instead

Quite an annoying message when you're trying to connect to an irc channel to get some help. You stay connected for a while, and then get kicked off the channel with the message above.

When I'm in a real, real hurry and have no wish to try resolve the issue, I just go to the web-based IRC client - http://mibbit.com/ and connect to the channel I need. It works fine, I get the help I need.

Could not resolve your hostname: Domain name not found; using your IP address instead - still don't know for sure how to bypass this. Also because in some clients like Konversation or XChat the error doesn't prevent from using the channel, while in others it results in getting disconnected.

Flash videos colors on Linux / Ubuntu

If you've found out that when watching flash videos on Youtube or on other websites, the colors are shown blue on your system, don't worry, do the following:

Right click on the flash video -> Settings -> Uncheck Enable hardware acceleration -> Refresh the page.

This should solve the issue, and the video should show the correct colors.

Skype on Kubuntu 12.04 - 13.04 / 64 bit - ugly mouse theme

When you install skype (which is a 32bit software) on a 64 bit Kubuntu 12.04 system from the official Ubuntu repositories, you find out that when you focus the skype window, the mouse theme changes for a classic KDE mouse theme.

That might be fine if you're using that mouse theme system wide. However, if you're using the default nice-looking KDE Oxygen mouse theme, you most probably find the cursor style in focused skype utterly ugly.

To solve this, remove skype from the official Ubuntu repos ('sudo apt-get remove style', if you have it installed, of course), access the official skype website, and get a "64bit" skype version for your Kubuntu 12.04 from there -  http://www.skype.com/intl/en/get-skype/on-your-computer/linux/. By the way, the version on the skype website is the most recent, and the one in the Ubuntu repos is not.

Install the downloaded binary file, and you're done - skype is going to use your default mouse theme. That's easiest way.


Update

Since the above-described way no longer results in a successful resolution of the cursor theme problem at least for Kubuntu 13.04, so here is how to actually make Skype use the default on Kubuntu 64bit:

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

So what was the problem - Skype needs this dependency -  libxcursor. Its 64bit version comes preinstalled, but being a 32bit app, Skype needs a 32bit version of the dependency.
Why install the package ia32-libs (which pulls in quite much stuff) and not just libxcursor 32 bit -- because for Ubuntu the lib is packaged in a larger package - ia32-libs. So you'll have to install the whole package. Anyway, that will successfully resolve the issue with the skype cursor theme.

How to install mod_rewrite on Ubuntu 12.04

After you've installed the Apache web-server and php on Ubuntu, you find out there is no mod_rewrite installed and available.

Here is how to install mod_rewrite on Ubuntu 12.04 (actually, this is actual for at least Apache on Ubuntu 6.04).
Launch a terminal and run:

sudo a2enmod rewrite


Restart apache. Done.

Debian Administrator's Manual

Recently I've come across this very nice Debian manual describing the famous open-source linux-based distribution.

The handbook was written by 2 members of the Debian project Raphaël Hertzog and Roland Mas which is a good sign generally as the guys must know pretty well what they're writing about. The book is aimed to cover all the aspects of Debian, including how the distro is build along with the practical aspects of administering a Debian based system. It is also a fresh book, published on May 2012 (not in 2001 for example).

In short, if you want to learn about Debian from within, the book is for you. If you plan to administer Debian based desktops or web-servers, the book is for you as it covers a lot of  topics a future system administrator should know:
- how to set up the Apache webserver on Debian,
- how to secure a web-server on Debian,
- virtualization on Debian (KVM/Xen/LXC),
- automatic installations, etc.

You can get an electronic version of the book from here for free, also check their website for ways to obtain a paper-copy if you prefer books in that format.

Ubuntu 12.04 / 12.10 - rcconf needs dialog or whiptail

RCCONF is a TUI (text user interface) utility that lets you configure the services and daemons that are launched at system start-up.

When you install it on Ubuntu 12.04 / 12.10 and then launch, it returns the following error:

"rcconf needs dialog or whiptail"

Dialog and whiptail are utilities to display user-friendly dialog boxes from shell scripts. Despite the fact that whiptail comes preinstalled with the system, rcconf doesn't run.

Solution 1:

install dialog:

sudo apt-get install dialog

Now launch a terminal, and run rcconf.

Solution 2:

Whiptail is already there, but not in the folder the apps try to launch it from (see the comment by Viajemotu below). All you need to do is to create a symlink to the app in the /usr/bin directory. To do so, execute:

$ sudo ln -s /bin/whiptail /usr/bin/whiptail

After this, run rcconf.

Linux Mint IRC channel

Here is how to connect to the Linux Mint IRC channel:

Server: irc.spotchat.org
Channel: linuxmint-help
linuxmint-chat

Make QT apps look native on Sabayon KDE

QT apps are those that are made using the QT tool kit.

In case such apps like Clementine, qBittorrent, last.fm player use a different theme than the rest of your apps on Sabayon KDE, set them use the system's theme:

Alt+F2 -> qtconfig -> appearance -> GUI style -> Desktop settings (default)

Or you can, of course, choose any other style you like. The qtconfig tool is installed by default in your Sabayon KDE (if not, look it up through the packages and install).

Change KDM cursor theme on Sabayon

The default settings of Sabayon KDE feature a login screen which uses a GTK style cursor theme. Which is not what we want.

Here is how to change the KDM (login screen) mouse theme for a KDE one, let's assume we want the default Oxygen White (change it for whatever you like, just replace the theme name - see below).

Create a folder named "default" in /usr/share/icons/default (will require root privileges).

Then create a file in that folder named "index.theme". 

Open it and paste the following:

[Icon Theme]
Name = Oxygen White
Comment = Oxygen mouse theme. Oxygenize your desktop!
Inherits = Oxygen_White

Change "Oxygen_White" above with the name of a theme you prefer.
Logout. Voila.

Upd.
On Sabayon 9 the step from above didn't work. This is because some package pulls and installs additional cursor themes and places them in:
/usr/share/cursors/xorg-x11
along with a default folder in it symlinking to a cursor theme.
Due to this, Xcursor looks for cursors in /usr/share/cursors/xorg-x11
before looking in /usr/share/icons/default

So, the if there are any cursor themes and links in /usr/share/cursors/xorg-x11, remove them from that folder. Then follow the step from above to create a default folder in /usr/share/icons/.

Logout. The nice cursor you wanted welcomes at the login screen. Sabayon is usable now :)

// The solution should work on other systems as well.