Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (64-bit) Trusty Thar personalization

Your options for a Desktop Environment are:

• Unity (Ubuntu default)
• Gnome (3) (install from Software Center)
• Gnome (2) Flashback Services (install from Software Center) - use it with Metacity

You can install all of this and select the one you want to use at login by clicking on the circle icon in the up-right corner of the user selection.

There are several posts helping to make your decision:

• LifeHacker's Linux Desktop Faceoff: GNOME 3 Shell vs Ubuntu Unity helps to choose between Unity and Gnome 3
• This ubuntuforum post helps you customize Unity to get back some of the Gnome2 features you're used to.
• This blogpost helps you customize Unity further.
• This blogpost helps you get rid of Unity completely (this can be risky according to the comments) and get back to a Gnome2 style interface.
• This blogpost helps you get back to a Gnome2 style interface without removing Unity.

My decision is: Gnome (2) Flashback Services with Metacity.

Migrating from Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Lucid Lynx to 14.04 LTS Trusty Thar on HP Compaq TC4400 Tablet PC

For these 4 years I sticked with Lucid Lynx despite the lessening support and the increasing complications and deficiencies, because of the beloved Gnome2 interface and all the customization I made throughout the years I used it.
However, Lucid Lynx is not supported anymore, and the difficulties this bare fact caused me recently reached my limits.

I backed up all my data and profile files to an external hard drive, and erased the whole hard disk to start anew.

I gave Ubuntu 20GB space for the system, 5GB for swap space, and put /home to a separate partition.
I installed the 64-bit version (finally, after 7 years of using the 32-bit version on my intel dual-core cpu because the first ubuntu distro I set on it still did not cover my needs on 64-bit) of Trusty Thar.

Now what's next is the personalization.
Will I stick with Gnome2, or will I migrate to Gnome3 or Unity?

What do I need from Ubuntu?

• it should work with the HP Compaq TC4400's native features.
• Pen features: pen, eraser, pen-button, pressure-sensitivity
• Screen rotation for pen usage
• Screen mapping for multi-screen setup
• Display side located buttons (scroll jog dial, ctrl-alt-del)
• Pen activated buttons on the side of the display (have never worked with Ubuntu previously)
• Fingerprint Sensor on the side of the display (I never tested it in Ubuntu previously)
• Ambient Light Sensor (I never tested it in Ubuntu previously)
• it should support the functionality of nautilus scripts and bash scripts
• it should allow full control over the system from terminal
• it should support easy access of software, applications, files and folders, without having to remember any name at all, so basically it should support easy, icon-based and menu-based navigation, where the user only has to remember visually and motorically to be able to locate anything. (menus to navigate through with keyboard or mouse)
• it should constantly give feedback about system performance (System Monitor in top panel)
• it should have a file manager (nautilus) that makes copying and moving files easy (2 panel view F3), have favorite places stored to reach them easily (bookmarks), have compact view with small icons that allow a lot to be seen at once (compact view). It is also great to have tree view, to make file moving/copying even easier.
• it should have multiple desktop workspaces available
• it should allow switching between running software by clicking with mouse
• it should have a software center that allows switching between software versions (synaptic)
• it should be light on my hardware
• it should support working intensively with large xlsx, xls and ods files with a lot of cells being functions.
• it should support opening a lot of web browser windows simultaneously
• it should work with these specific software: 
• Dropbox
• Skype
• Rescuetime and Toggl
• keepass2 and keepassX
• Plex Media Server
• imagemagick, pdftk, mkbitmap, scanimage and other command line image manipulating tools I'm used to work with

Installing Windows and Ubuntu to DualBoot

Read the Ubuntu Help Wiki on WindowsDualBoot

Generally:

1. Backup your hard drive. All of it.
2. Have a Windows installer and an Ubuntu installer ready.
3. Install Windows first, than Ubuntu second.

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

Additional notes to Windows7 installation:

• to be able to change the display language you'll need Win7 Ultimate or Win7 Enterprise.
• download additional language packs from the Control Panel, or directly from this site.
• I gave 40GB space for Windows7 on my hard drive besides Ubuntu. It made 2 partitions out of it, one 100MB large for the system purposes, and another from the rest of the space for the rest of the system.

How to set up a Send to Kindle Button on Google Blogger

1. Visit The Send to Kindle Button for Websites page to generate design and code for your button:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/developers/button

When generating the code for your button select the "Blogger / Blogspot" option twice, if you do not use the dinamic view on your blog.
If you use dinamic view, and you successfully install the Send to Kindle button on your blog, please do leave me a comment about how you did it! Thank you in advance!

2.1. Go to your Blogger home: https://www.blogger.com/home
2.2. Go to the Template menu of your blog.
2.3. Select Edit HTML button under the Live on Blog thumbnail.

3.1. Insert the "Step 1" code before the closing body tag.
3.2. Change the "&" to "&" in the code so the xml can understand it.
3.3. Click Save Template to see that you do not get any errors. If you get errors, google on the error message to solve your problems.

4.1. Insert the "Step 2" code in the "b:includable id='shareButtons' var='post'" section before the closing b:includable tag to have it together with the other shareButtons. (shareButtons have to be enabled from the Layout menu: edit Blog Entry and tick "Show Share Buttons".)
4.2. Click Save Template to see that you do not get any errors. If you get errors, google on the error message to solve your problems.

5. Check your blog, it now has a Send to Kindle button where ever you put it.

Plex Configuration for various reasons

Restart Plex Server:

~$ sudo service plexmediaserver stop

~$ sudo service plexmediaserver start

Install Plug-in manually:

UPDATE: a script for plugin installation can be found here.

Plug-in directory: /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application\ Support/Plex\ Media\ Server/Plug-ins/

To install a new plug-in:

the new plug-in's directory name should end with ".bundle" like the existing plug-in directories.

copy the downloaded plugin to the plex plug-in directory

~$ sudo cp -R /download_dir/new_plug-in_dir /plex_plugin_dir/

change the permissions to be like the existing plug-ins (this is not needed in 14.04 anymore)

~$ sudo chmod ugoa+rx /plex_plugin_dir/new_plug-in_dir

change the owner of the files to be like the existing plug-ins

~$ sudo chown -R plex:plex /plex_plugin_dir/new_plug-in_dir

restart plex server as written above.

the new plug-in should show up in plex.

Custom plug-in sources:

Unsupported AppStore: https://forums.plex.tv/index.php/topic/25523-unsupported-as-in-totally-unofficial-appstore/

rawrAnime: https://forums.plex.tv/index.php/topic/103120-rel-rawranime-watch-hd-subbed-and-dubbed-anime/

works fine for me.

AnimeToon.tv https://forums.plex.tv/index.php/topic/101657-rel-animetoontv-watch-cartoons-and-english-dubbed-anime/

To get AnimeToon working you need to update this file:
AnimeToon.bundle/Contents/Services/URL/AnimeToon/ServiceCode.pys

UPDATE: a fixed version of the plugin can be downloaded from here.

Add these lines to the end of the file:

###new stuff begins

elif each.find("videozoo") >= 0:
 page_data = HTML.ElementFromURL(each)
 string_data = HTML.StringFromElement(page_data)
 find_url = RE_PLAY44.search(string_data).group()
 url = String.Unquote(find_url, usePlus=False)
 Log(url)
 return [MediaObject(parts = [PartObject(key = url)])]

elif each.find("playbb") >= 0:
 page_data = HTML.ElementFromURL(each)
 string_data = HTML.StringFromElement(page_data)
 find_url = RE_PLAY44.search(string_data).group()
 url = String.Unquote(find_url, usePlus=False)
 Log(url)
 return [MediaObject(parts = [PartObject(key = url)])]

elif each.find("easyvideo") >= 0:
 page_data = HTML.ElementFromURL(each)
 string_data = HTML.StringFromElement(page_data)
 find_url = RE_VIDEO44.search(string_data).group()
 url = String.Unquote(find_url, usePlus=False)
 Log(url)
 return [MediaObject(parts = [PartObject(key = url)])]

elif each.find("playpanda") >= 0:
 page_data = HTML.ElementFromURL(each)
 string_data = HTML.StringFromElement(page_data)
 find_url = RE_PLAY44.search(string_data).group()
 url = String.Unquote(find_url, usePlus=False)
 Log(url)
 return [MediaObject(parts = [PartObject(key = url)])]

###new stuff over

Serviio Configuration for various reasons

Serviio promises features that require additional configuration and not work out of the box.

Online Resources
RSS feed reading requires the installation of serviio plugins, and that the feed be specifically readable for serviio.
Online streaming my desktop with VLC could work, but definitely not through wifi (it is too slow for that)

Experimenting with a Samsung UE32H6200 Smart LED TV

Useful links

• Product website
• User Manual (EN)
• User Manual (HU)
• Samsung account (register, etc.)

Connecting to the TV

• Using the HDMI port 
• Connecting via HDMI Port (using the HDMI cable) 
• Connecting with the HDMI (DVI) Port (using a DVI to HDMI cable)
• Samsung Link (log in) connects content to the TV through cloud based software
• Home Network (DLNA, UPnP) connects content to the TV through virtual network file server
• Screen Mirroring for Samsung Mobile Devices
• Wi-Fi Direct 
• Samsung Smart View 2.0 for PC, for Samsung Mobile Devices, for iPhone to share the screen

DLNA connection from Ubuntu

• MediaTomb
• Ubuntu Help to set up MediaTomb
• works like a shared folder
• video file handling
• cannot control playback (ff, rw, pause) at all.
• cannot control srt subtitles
• .
• Serviio
• Ubuntu 12.04 Installation Guide
• Getting Started with Serviio
• video file handling 
• promises to support subtitles, but does not do so.
• allows pause, stop, rw, ff,...
• Kinsky
• Plex MediaServer

Screen Casting with Wi-Fi Direct from Ubuntu
Read this summary first.
Read this how-to second.
Unfortunately HP Compaq TC4400 does not support Wi-Fi Direct.
I know this from the directions of the above how-to. I installed "iw" through synaptic and checked for "p2p" under "supported interface modes" in ~$ sudo iw list -- and there was none.