How To Install The Latest JDK On Debian/Ubuntu

If you are an expirienced Java programmer, you probably want to have the latest JDK on your Debian box. Normally there is no need to install it manually since JDK (as well as JRE) is available in modern distros as .deb package and therefore may be downloaded and installed from one of the official mirrors using familiar apt-get (or aptitude, or Synaptics, or whatever...) interface.

But what if you are not satisfied with the version of Java which is packaged with your distribution? At the moment, the official "production" version of JDK is 6.0 update 3, but for exmaple Debian Etch does not include Java 6 at all (only Java 5 is supported). This is a noticeable drawback since Java 6.0 contains some important features, such as high-quality font antialiasing. The only way to solve this situation is to download the latest JDK from Sun website and install it manually with a bit of Debian magic ;)

So, here are step-by-step installation instructions:
1. Download self-extracting package containing JDK: jdk-6u3-linux-i586.bin.
2. Make sure it has execution privileges:
chmod 755 ./jdk-6u3-linux-i586.bin
3. Run it, answer yes and watch the files being extracted.
4. Copy the extracted directory to /usr/lib/jvm:
sudo cp jdk1.6.0_03 /usr/lib/jvm
5. Check which versions of Java are already installed in your system:
sudo update-alternatives --display java
Notice what priority is assigned to the currently selected one
6. Update symlinks to make them point to your freshly installed Java:
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java /usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.6.0_03/jre/bin/java 65 --slave /usr/share/man/man1/java.1.gz java.1.gz /usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.6.0_03/man/man1/java.1
7. Check that java has correct version now:
java -version
8. If something went wrong, try assigning higher priority to your JDK or select appropriate version in manual mode:
update-alternatives --config java
9. You can do the same trick with javac:
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/javac javac /usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.6.0_03/bin/javac 65 --slave /usr/share/man/man1/javac.1.gz javac.1.gz /usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.6.0_03/man/man1/javac.1

How To Install Multimedia Codecs On Debian Linux

Debian is considered by its die hard followers (like myself ;) to be one of the few GNU/Linux distributions which can stand up to other Linux OSes with regard to security without sacrificing those aspects which make GNU/Linux the most feature-rich POSIX OS in the world.

But once you finish installing Debian, you need to do some tricks in order to be able to play multimedia files which are encoded using proprietary or closed formats such as Microsoft WMV or Apple QuickTime.

Some times ago I've spent a lot of time trying to find and install all necessary codecs, but there is much simpler way:
1) Download debian-multimedia-keyring package by hand
2) Install it:
sudo dpkg -i debian-multimedia-keyring_2007.12.04_all.deb
3) Add the following line to your /etc/apt/sources.list file:
deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org etch main
(you can also substitute etch with lenny or sid if you use testing/unstable distribution)
4) Update APT package database:
sudo apt-get update
5) Install multimedia codecs and libdvdcss which is necessary to view DVD movies:
sudo apt-get install w32codecs libdvdcss2

How To Configure Synaptics Touchpad

Here are some useful tips about how to configure your Synaptics Touchpad. Remember to backup xorg.conf first!

1. Enable/disable
   
   • Edit xorg.conf (/etc/X11/xorg.conf in Debian/Ubuntu)
   • Find Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad" and add the following option:
     Option "SHMConfig" "true"
   • Restart the X server
     
   • In your terminal type synclient TouchpadOff=1 to disable touchpad or synclient TouchpadOff=0 to enable it
     
     
2. Disable touchpad while typing
   If you've ever tried to type something with the enabled tuchpad, you should probably know how annoying it is when you accidently make a touch. This tip disables the touchpad for some seconds when you press a key. It needs the configuration described above to be done in order to work. To disable touchpad for one second, go to your terminal and type syndaemon -i 1 -d
   
   
3. Configure the device using Gsynaptics/ksynaptics
   Gsynaptics (ksynaptics if you use KDE) is a graphical touchpad configuration utility. It allows for example to enable/disable tapping and to tune scroll movements. Here is a screenshot:
   
   

Easy Way To Create Virtual CDs On Linux

1. Insert the cd on the drive(of course!).

2. To create an ISO image of the CD on the Linux system do:

# dd if=/dev/cdrom of=name-of-cd-image.iso

3. Now, we can use the ISO image whenever we want to by:

# mount -t iso9660 -o loop name-of-cd-image.iso /mount/point

4. Check the mounted image by:

# mount