Cold Chicken » Linux

Page Up and Page Down History Search on bash

Sena — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 11:24:10 +0000

One thing I got used to when using SLES was that I was able to search bash command history simply by typing the first few letters of a previous command, and then pressing Page Up. However, Ubuntu doesn’t seem to come with that feature enabled by default.

After fiddling with CTRL-R a few times, I checked out how to make this work.

Well, simply add the following two lines on a .inputrc file on your home directory, or uncomment them on /etc/inputrc for a system-wide effect:

"\e[5~": history-search-backward
"\e[6~": history-search-forward

That’s it. Enjoy.

Using Google Apps as default mail client in Linux (Gnome)

Sena — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:05:46 +0000

Ok, pretty simple. I had a couple of machines where I wanted to keep the installation base to a minimum, so WebMail was a natural choice.

I neded to be able to send mails when clicking mail links everywhere in Firefox or other application, so we need to tell Gnome that Firefox is it the default mail client.

So I created the following shell script, which I placed in /usr/local/bin:

#!/bin/bash

DOMAIN=example.com
FIREFOX=/usr/bin/firefox

if [[ "" != "$1" ]]; then
  SEND="?extsrc=mailto&url=$1"
fi

URL=https://mail.google.com/a/${DOMAIN}/${SEND}

if (pidof $FIREFOX); then
  $FIREFOX -remote "openurl($URL, new-tab)"
else
  $FIREFOX $URL
fi

You must replace “example.com” with your own domain.

This script opens a new tab in Firefox, loading Google Apps Mail directly. If Firefox is not yet running, it starts a new instance. If you provide a mailto: URL in the command line, it opens the mail composition section. If no URL is provided, it opens the regular Inbox view.

Now, we must tell Gnome to use this script as the default mail client. Simply open the Preferred Applications dialog in the System/Preferences menu. In the Mail Client section, select Custom and type the name of the script we just created in the Command field, followed by “%s”.

Preferred Applications window

That’s it. It should be working now.

One last warning, tough. If you’re not logged in Google Apps, you will get the username/password dialog, and then you must click the e-mail address link again, in order to send a message.

Edit: you must verify if Firefox is running or not and start a new instance if it’s not. Changed the code accordingly.

EeePC 901 desktop screenshot (#2)

Sena — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 08:36:10 +0000

Just for fun, a screenshot of Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex running on my EeePC 901.

(desktop-20090208.png, 329 KB)

Desktop Meme

Sena — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:07:48 +0000

My Ubuntu desktop, on an Asus EEE PC 901:

Take a screenshot of your desktop right now, don’t change anything, post it on your blog.

Fedora 9 goodness

Sena — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 02:19:28 +0000

Fedora 9 is looking awsome!

I’ve been trying it for a couple of weeks, and it’s getting better by the hour.

Two niceties:

Encrypted system volume with LUKS, at install time;
3G connections (with my Vodafone 3G card) just works; it just really works; I just clicked “Auto GSM network connection” on NetworkManager and it worked; pure magic here, people.

I used Ubuntu for everything until now, but I’m seriously considering going back to Fedora.