playing .dat files

just rename the .dat file to .mpg and it plays with totem player with the gstreamer-plugins-bad extensions.

that was too easy !

thanks and bye

This one is new....recordMyDesktop

I wanted something to create screencasts of my laptop screen.
So I did a simple :-
yum install gtk-recordmydesktop recordmydesktop
and now I have a screen cast application under the group Sound and Video in Applications menu. It has a gtk and qt interface. I tried out the gtk interface and it worked fine for my needs.
Ok about the sound, I didnot try recording anything as yet. Shall post back on it.
The home page is http://recordmydesktop.sourceforge.net/rug/toc.php

installing google earth

That was fairly simple... just went to the google earth site and downloaded the binary for the installer. Then I did
sh '/root/Download/GoogleEarthLinux.bin'
and it self extracted and installed the application. Just have to type googleearth to start the application from any terminal window or may like to create a short cut and leave it on the panel.
Note :- The double 'ee' in "googleearth" is not a typo. Also remember to switch off the atmosphere layer under the view menu option, when you start googleearth the first time, or it may look a bit odd!

I ran into a small problem when I click on the googleearth shortcut or the program menu icon under the Applications menu nothing seems to happen . I checked out with ps -ef | grep googleearth but it showed google earth isn't running. So what went wrong ? I opened up a term window and typed googleearth and it showed this :-
[root@localhost ~]# googleearth
Warning: Unable to create prefs directory '/root/.googleearth'. File exists.
Google Earth appears to be running already. Please kill the
existing process, or delete /root/.googleearth/instance-running-lock if this is an error.
I just removed the instance-running-lock file in my home dir and I was back in business as usual. Thanks good old terminal window ......!

Reinstalling winXP on my dual boot system

Well that doesnot seem like easy....?!?
I have a dual boot system - I installed winXP first and then installed fedora 10. It took me at least couple of hours over two or three days to customize my fedora install.
The problem is I have a problem with my windows install and wish to reinstall it. But won't the fresh install rewrite the grub ? If so then fedora won't be available even if it is still around, becoz the fresh install would write MBR over the grub stage 1.
So the solution could be in first backing up the grub and the partition table first, then install windows and finally reinstall grub with the partition table back over the MBR on the superblock , from within the windows install.
But the question is how to do it ?

Linux Vs Windoz

My system is dual boot - WinXP and Fedora.
I initially had fedora 8 and then tried on fedora 9. I was disappointed with it as there was no significant changes for a desktop user like me. I waited for fedora 10 and here I am trying the new distro out.....
I haven't booted into Windoz for the last 3 months or so. Never felt the need for it, fedora is just too good. But on the other hand, whenever I plan to do a new fedora install or an upgrade, it takes me a good about one / two days to customize the system and have all the peripherals - wlan, webcam, bluetooth etc working!
I am wondering.... why do I love Linux / OSS so much ?!?

Fixing the bug with network configuration....

There is a problema as in fed10, network config always set the netmask to the default gw.So I had to do the following :- open the /etc/sysconfig/network file and provide the following :-
GATEWAY=192.168.1.1
Now open the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 and specify :-
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=192.168.1.1

Restart the network service and remember to stop the network manager service from the runlevel. Otherwise, firefox always starts in offline mode.

Going along the path .....

Do you need the true type fonts MS style.....?
I have installed the microsoft true type fonts using the rpm (Note :- no yum here.).
I now have Arial, Times New Roman and all those fonts in openoffice 3.0 too.

Next is Adobe Reader and Flash plugin....
For the above installs through yum I have had to add the adobe's yum repo (this involves downloading the rpm for the repo installation and then doing a rpm -ivh on the rpm file). My yum.repo.d dir now has repos from fedora, rpmfusion and adobe.
yum install flash-plugin
(I read it somewhere, that if we donot have sound for the flash videos then we need :-
yum install libflashsupport)
For the adobe reader I used the following..
yum install AdobeReader_enu


GNOME MP3 Preview...
I love this feature.... preview MP3 files in GNOME when you hover the mouse over them.
yum install mpg321
Configure this option in GNOME, open the File Manager (Nautilus) and go to Edit > Preferences > Preview and do the necessary selection.

Remotely launching your applications on to a XServer across the network.....
Starting XClient applications across the network - You can create a XServer out of your linux distro by just listening for TCP connections and usign a xhost +ipAddress command.
Fedora 9 had a problem with the X server it couldnot be started to listen for tcp connections. Do a ps -ef |grep X and you should see the --nolistenTCP flag in front of the X server. That means any other user can't export his X client applcns to your xserver.
Fedora 10 has overcome that problem. Open the /etc/gdm/gdm.schemas and look for the DisallowTCP section and change the value from true to false. Now restart your XServer with a Ctrl + Alt + Backspace and you should be able to start X without the nolisten TCP option.