Required packages for building an Android OS on Ubuntu

Problem
You're trying to install the required packages for building a complete Android Operating System from scratch. Upon pasting the commands from the official documentation, you get the following error:

E: Couldn't find package lib32ncurses5-dev
E: Couldn't find package lib32readline5-dev
E: Couldn't find package lib32z-dev
E: Couldn't find package mingw32


Solution
The list of required packages for building an Android OS is wrong. The correct packages are:

sudo apt-get install git-core gnupg flex bison gperf build-essential \
zip curl zlib1g-dev libc6-dev lib64ncurses5-dev \
x11proto-core-dev libx11-dev lib64readline5-dev lib64z-dev \
libgl1-mesa-dev g++-multilib tofrodos


Note: This has been tested on Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx). YMMV.

Eeebuntu

I've always wanted to customize my Eee PC, but I'm too lazy to do it. Anyway, I've come up with a list of usability problems that I need to fix so that I can use my Eee more effectively.

• Unresponsive browser. At first, I tried using Opera, but I realized that its UI is very ugly, and its speed wasn't as fast as I hoped to be. I was able to solve this by replacing Firefox with Chrome. Chrome's speed can really be felt on an Eee.
• Small screen. I've solved this by using fluxbox instead of Eeebuntu's default desktop environment, which is GNOME. I've eliminated most elements that waste screen estate, such as the window decoration, taskbar, and other stuff. I wanted to add a cool dock-like app, but I realized that it would waste screen estate and would require a mouse anyway.
• Crappy touchpad. The solution to this problem is dependent on other solutions (i.e., using a keyboard friendly WM and app launcher). I wanted to do a touchscreen hack, but I can't find the necessary parts here in Cebu. Of course, I can always use a mouse, but it defeats the purpose of using a portable netbook. I don't want to bring a mouse wherever I go.
• Non-straightforward way of launching apps. I'm not really a fan of Netbook Remix's UME launcher, but I realized that I need something similar to it. Perhaps I need to use something like Quicksilver (a very useful Mac OS X app that lets you run apps anywhere by simply typing its name).

Display IPv6 routes in Ubuntu

Unlike FreeBSD, Ubuntu doesn't show the IPv6 routes when netstat -rn is invoked. To display the routes, just do ip -6 route show dev <interface> or route -A inet6.

KDE in Ubuntu

I've just installed KDE on my Ubuntu box. It's been a long time since I've last used KDE. I want to try it to see how things have improved over the years.

Installation via Synaptic was very simple. KDE is now running on my left box, and the UI looks impressive at first glance. One problem though: the menu is a mess. The programs are packed into big sub-menus, and it's very annoying to sift through the labels just to find what I need. The problem is aggravated by the fact that Gnome apps are mixed with KDE apps in the menu. Where the bleep is the KDE Control Center? How the frack will I change the screen resolution without directly modifying xorg.conf? I don't need all of these programs in the menu. I just need to change the screen resolution and customize my box via Control Center. Aaaaaaaargh... KDE has become bloated.

xmms-wma on Ubuntu

To play Windows Media Audio (WMA) files on XMMS, just do the following steps:

1. Open Synaptic Package Manager.
2. Install xmms-dev.
3. Download xmms-wmma plugin from <http://mcmcc.bat.ru/xmms-wma/>.
4. Extract the package.
5. In the current directory of your extracted files, do make install.

Rock on!

xmms-shn on Ubuntu

To play Shorten (SHN) files on XMMS, just do the following steps:

1. Open Synaptic Package Manager.
2. Install xmms-dev.
3. Download xmms-shn plugin from <http://www.etree.org/shnutils/xmms-shn/>.
4. Extract the package.
5. In the current directory of your extracted files, do ./configure, make, and make install.

Yeah, yeah. My instructions are not very precise. It should give you sufficient idea though. Just post a comment if any of the steps are unclear.

Rock on!