schlasim’s ubuntu blog

As pointed out in my previous post, I try to convert some Windows stuff to files I can use in Ubuntu.

This time I am going to show you how to convert the Windows Address Book (*.wab) to LDIF format (which can be imported by Thunderbird).

First of all you need to download a little tool called libwab

wget http://lilith.tec-man.com/libwab/files/libwab-060901.tar.gz

and extract it

tar xfvz libwab-060901.tar.gz

change into the directory and configure it

cd libwab-060901
./configure

and finally compile it

make

then you can use it by typing

./wabread /path/to/MyAdressBook.wab > /path/to/MyAdressBook.ldif

Enjoy!

When I set up the laptop for my brother I decided to use Ubuntu instead of Windows. But as he used to have Windows installed, the mail program he used was Outlook Express. So I was looking for a way to convert his .dbx mail folders to the MBOX format (which Thunderbird can read) under Ubuntu.

I found the tool DbxConv which runs under wine.

And here is how to use it:

wine /path/to/DbxConv.exe “FolderName.dbx”

This gets you a file called “FolderName.mbx” which you can open in Thunderbird and for example copy via IMAP to Gmail.

Today I’m going to tell you, how you can customize the autocompletion feature of the Gedit LaTeXPlugin (LP).
If you use the command \usepackage{XY}, the LP will look for a file with the name XY in the following directory:

.gnome2/gedit/plugins/LaTeXPlugin/completion/

So if you want autocompletion for the package XY, you have to tell the LP the commands that the package XY contains of.
An example:
Assume you use the package “latexsym” and you know that it contains the commands “\Join” and “\sqsupset” (which draw special symbols), then you would do the following:
1) go to the directory:

cd .gnome2/gedit/plugins/LaTeXPlugin/completion

2) make a new file with the name “latexsym” using gedit:

gedit latexsym

3) enter the following lines in gedit:

Join
sqsupset

(Note that you must not enter the “” before the commands)
4) Save the file and exit gedit.

If you include the package “latexsym” in your latex file by inserting

\usepackage{latexsym}

in the preamble of your latex file, the autocompletion of “\Join” and “\sqsupset” should now work.

Have a nice day,
Simon

As we set up LaTeX in the previous blog entry, it’s now time to make our LaTeX-publishing-life easier with Snippets. Snippets is a plugin shipped with gedit that helps you enter code, that you use very often. All you have to do is activate it! Open gedit, go to:

Edit->Preferences->Plugins

and activate Snippets (”Schnipsel” in the German version of gedit) by checking the checkbox.
Now you can manage your Snippets by opening:

Tools->Manage Snippets…

if your actual document (opened in gedit) is a blank file or a *.txt file, then the section Global will be opened. Otherwise the section according to your actual type of file is opened (e.g. LaTeX for *.tex). Open the LaTeX section and study the Snippets in this section.
A few hints:

• the content of the field “Edit snippet:” will be inserted when you enter the characters/symbols of the field “Tab trigger:” followed by the TAB-key
• if you want to print a ” in your file, you have to enter ‘\’ in the “Edit snippet:” field
• $1 is the position where the cursor jumps after hitting the TAB-key
• $2…$n is the position where the cursor jumps after hitting the TAB-key 2…n times

A simple Snippet (exp-function with size-fitting brackets) could look like:

\exp{\left( $1 \right)}

A more complicated one:

\section{${1:section name}}\label{${2:label}}

Try it out and have fun!
See you, Simon
_______________________________________
Screenshot of the Snippets Manager:

Hi all!

Because of the lecture “Halbleiterbauelemente” I became interested in LaTeX, which is known for its excellent way to write formulas. For an introduction to LaTeX read the excellent Book The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX 2e by Tobias Oetiker.

First of all, we install LaTeX on your system by typing the following in to your shell (one line!):

sudo apt-get install texlive texlive-latex-extra texlive-pdfetex texlive-pictures texlive-lang-german lmodern

Note: if you have installed LaTeX yet, the only thing you have to install is the package “lmodern”. It’s required to make the fonts in the PDF look nice.

Now it’s time to get the gedit LaTeXPlugin:

The gedit LaTeXPlugin is now integrated in the repos of Ubuntu! You can simply install it by typing:

sudo apt-get install gedit-latex-plugin

Check now if the plugin is installed by activating it in gedit. Open gedit. Go to Edit->Preferences and navigate to Plugins. Activate the “LaTeX Plugin” by checking the check box.

Restart gedit.
You should now see a new toolbar with a button called “New LaTeX”.

Done.

If the plugin is looking for rubber you can install it by typing:

sudo apt-get install rubber

Hope this is working for you, otherwise write a comment…

Simon
____________________________
Links:
LaTeXPlugin, Wikipedia

Screenshots:

Hi again!

Since I’m using gedit as my favourite editor for joining and printing MATLAB files, I wanted correct syntax highlighting.
So far I used this workaround:

sudo gedit /usr/share/mime/packages/freedesktop.org.xml

If you open that file you will see that *.m is also recognized as Objective-C files (look at the end of <mime-type type=”text/x-objcsrc”>).
To fix this you can just comment the whole Objective-C section with the XML “<!– ” and “–>” tags.

Right after this section is the text/x-matlab section.

Save the file.

Now to make gnome recognize the new settings, run

sudo update-mime-database /usr/share/mime

Verify by typing

gnomevfs-info matlabfile.m

it should show

…
MIME type : text/x-matlab
…

This should cause gedit to highlight .m files as matlab files.

Have a nice day, Simon
__________________________
Original post can be found here

Hi there!

Today Ubuntu works well on my ThikPad T60. But it needed some extra configuration and tricks. And these tricks I want to post on my blog.

Let’s get started:
I installed MATLAB on my system without problems. Then I wanted to configure it and encountered the following problem:

MATLAB terminates unexpectedly when selecting Fonts in MATLAB Preferences

Workaround:
Remove access to the problematic fonts directory by running the following chmod commands:

chmod 000 /usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-bengali-fonts
chmod 000 /usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-gujarati-fonts

Cheers, Simon
_______________________________
Original discussion can be found here