Remotely Control your Torrents on Linux

You have a spare PC lying around or you travel a lot and want to monitor your Bitorrent downloads. Well then what you could do is make yourself a mini seedbox, essentially what a seedbox is a spare computer that you use for torrent downloads now I am going to show you how to create one so that it may be easy for you to monitor your Bittorrent downloads on the go.

First thing’s first we need a torrent client in this case we will be using a modified version of Torrent Flux ( which is a php torrent client) called Torrentflux-b4rt. I choose the modified version because it has more features and also the option to use different back ends. you must be wondering why not just use the uTorrent with its webUI, let me tell you that utorrent webUI has very limited set of features as opposed to TorrentFlux and utorrent webUI cant be accessed from your cellphone if you decide to control it on the go and last but not the least torrentflux is very customizable as you can install plugins and theme to either change the look or to add more features.

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Advanced Power Management in Ubuntu

The default power management system that is present in ubuntu is very basic and provides very limited functionality. If you need more advanced features i will show an application called Kpowersave which is part of the KDE gears package. Kpowersave is easily found in Ubuntus repositories so instaling it is not too difficult.

When you first launch Kpowersave you get an icon in your panel like so:

Clicking on the icon shows you an information dialog box showing you various options such as.

1) The power scheme selected

2) The CPU frequency policy set

3) Remaining Battery Power and voltage consumption

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Customize Compiz Fusion effects In Ubuntu

Ubuntu 8.04(Hardy Heron) comes with a full featured version of Compiz Fusion, but the main problem is that there is no way to configure these effects. To configure the different options we will use a tool called Compiz Config. To install it open up synaptic manager and search for Compiz Config

Once Compiz Config is installed, open it and you will get an interface similar to this:

The interface is pretty simple a checked option means the effect is enabled and an unchecked option means the effect is disabled, to configure individual effects like key bindings click on the image of the effect. Now I am going to show you some of my favourite effects and their output:

1) Fire on the screen: You can use it to paint text with fire on your screen, to use it press the key combo Shift+ windows key and left click and fire will be painted on the screen.

While the fire text is on your screen your normal desktop works and you can do all tasks such as browsing the web. To clear the text press the key combo Shift+Windows Key+C and the fire text will be cleared

2) Expo: Gives you a preview of your desktops that are enabled, to use it press the key combo Windows key+e

3)Wobbly Windows: a favourite for many people who use Compiz Fusion. It basically makes your windows wobble like water

4) Water Effect: Makes it rain on your desktop extremely good for killing productivity. To activate it press Ctrl+Windows key

5) Shift Switcher: Goes through your windows in a way similar to cover flow in iTunes. To use it press Windows key+Tab

6) Ring Switcher: Makes your windows form in a ring to use it simply use the Alt+tab because this plugin disables the default view of alt+tab

So start customizing Compiz fusion to your liking!

Use Utorrent or any other windows application in Linux

There are many good bit torrent clients available for Linux such as Ktorrent, Azereus and Bitornado. But people who have recently switched to Linux may want to use Utorrent either because of its functionality or because they are familiar with it. I am going to show you how to do it using a program called WINE (Wine Is Not An Emulator), with WINE you can run a lot of Windows programs within Linux.

Now to install WINE you first need to add its repository to your sources list which is simple to do. First click on System

Now click on Administration then open the Synaptic Package Manager, once Synaptic window shows up click on settings and then click on Repositories. You will get a window similar to this:

Now click on third party software. You will then be presented with a window like this:

Click on Add and you will be prompted to enter the APT line which is:

http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt

Now click on close and exit Synaptic. Now for Ubuntu to detect WINE from the new repository execute the following command from a terminal:

sudo apt-get update

After the Repositories are updated use this command to install WINE:

sudo apt-get install wine

Now WINE is installed but there is a problem, the theme that WINE uses by default looks very ugly, the WINE developers thought of this and that is why they added the functionality to install Windows themes in WINE.

Here is WINE before the theme has been applied:

And here it is after it was applied:

Now onto installing Utorrent, first you need to get the installer from the Utorrent website. Now after it is downloaded click the Utorrent icon on desktop to install it and while installing it remember to select to install an menu in the task bar so that you can easily access Utorrent, now that you have installed it open Utorrent by clicking the desktop icon and that’s it you are ready to use the most popular bittorrent client.

Here Is a screenshot of Utorrent running in Ubuntu:

Some people also wonder where WINE’s emulated C drive is? to navigate to that simply select for the hidden files to be shown and in your home folder will be a file called .wine this is WINE’s emulated C drive

you can install any windows application in Linux using the same method!

Install KDE 4.1 in Ubuntu/Kubuntu

KDE 4.1 was released to address many of the issues and complaints people had against KDE 4 and it completely lives upto its expectations.From better application integration to the many new desktop effects similar to compiz fusion are added in this version. Beware though KDE 4.1 is still in beta stage so I would suggest you back up all your data before installing it.

First you need to edit your sources list to add the KDE 4.1 repository, to do that simply enter this command into the terminal

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

this will open up Gedit and will list all your repositories at the end just add this line

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-members-kde4/ubuntu hardy main

This is the KDE 4.1 repository now save the file and exit gedit, Ubuntu now needs to read the packages from the newly added repository to do that simply enter this into the terminal

sudo apt-get update

Now to install KDE 4.1 if you are using Ubuntu execute this command

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-kde4-desktop

If you are using Kubuntu execute this command

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

And now just restart your computer then when asked to enter your user name and password in sessions select KDE 4 as the default desktop environment so that the next time you start you wont have to select KDE 4 again and again

To find out about the new features in KDE 4 just go here http://www.kde.org/announcements/announce-4.1-beta1.php