Icedove Thunderbird – Debian Ubuntu not opening with NS_GetServiceManger Error

Icedove fails to open after system cleanup
I had a clean out of old applications and files on my work Debian Squeeze box, only to reboot and find that Icedove email client wouldn’t run.

I opened the terminal and ran “icedove” and got this error message:

/usr/lib/icedove/icedove-bin: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/icedove/components/libimgicon.so: undefined symbol: NS_GetServiceManager

A quick Google around a few forums and mailing lists showed it to be a lib error (probably from my recent clean out) and not specifically Icedove on Debian (Hence the reason i’ve posted this here and not on DebianAndI) as it also appeared for Ubuntu users and Thunderbird as well. Anyway, there’s an easy fix.

1. Backup your Icedove email files just in case:

cp .icedove icedovebkp

2. Completely remove Icedove:

sudo apt-get remove –purge icedove

3. And then reinstall:

sudo apt-get install icedove

4: Open your terminal and type:

LD_BIND_NOW=1 icedove

Icedove should open and everything should be back to normal.

Convert to and split flash video (flv) files for Youtube

I recently got asked about uploading videos to Youtube by a friend, and decided to look at the best way to first convert them to Flash (.flv) and then split them into chunks to get round the Youtube video size restrictions.

Winff
If you’ve never used Winff before, then you’ll love it. It allows you to choose your video file and convert into various formats, including Flash for Websites (.flv) It’s available in most Linux repos, and you can find more info here: http://winff.org/html_new/

sudo apt-get install winff

Ffmpeg
Ffmpeg is the tool for everything video and audio. It’s available in all Linux repos and you can find more info here: http://ffmpeg.org/

sudo apt-get install ffmpeg

VLC Media Player:
I would also recommend installing vlc which is probably the most complete lightweight Video/Audio player available. It’s also available in all Linux repositories, more info here: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Basically you just convert and split.
1. Open Winff, open the file you want to convert, and choose Flash/Website
2. Let it convert then open your terminal ready for some ffmpeg-foo

Ok, so, case scenario: 
You have a video file called “bacon” that is 30 minutes long and you want to create two 15 minute files. To get file number 1 you split from 0min for a duration of 15 minutes, and then for file number 2 you split from 15min for another duration of 15 minutes like this:

ffmpeg  split originalbacon.flv from [startpoint 0] [for duration 15] to newbacon1.flv
ffmpeg  split originalbacon.flv from [startpoint 15] [for duration 15] to newbacon2.flv

Which in the Terminal is like this:

ffmpeg -i input.flv -sameq -ss 00:00:00 -t 00:15:00 file1.flv

then:

ffmpeg -i input.flv -sameq -ss 00:15:00 -t 00:15:00 file2.flv

Happy splitting and uploading 🙂

Broadcom BCM4311 problem on Debian, Mint, Ubuntu

The STA driver does not work properly for the BCM4311 in Mint/Ubuntu/Debian.
The Restricted Driver Manager only gives you the Broadcom STA driver as an option.

Yesterday got asked by a friend to remove Ubuntu from his 5-year-old laptop. It’s a 64bit, 1Gb Ram machine, with an Nvidia graphics card and Broadcom wireless.

I was pretty certain that the 64bit Linux Mint 12 would just work out of the box, even though i’ve had problems with the Broadcom firmware on other machines (wireless cutting out and needing to be restarted)
The install went fine, and I went straight to the “Restricted Drivers manager” for Nvidia and Broadcom. The STA driver was recommended so I installed it. Only to find it would work.

My laptop at home works ok with the older B43 module, so I went the traditional route and installed that instead.

Install:

sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer b43-fwcutter

Then unload both modules:

sudo modprobe -r b43 wl

Now reload the B43 module:

sudo modprobe b43

If when you reboot, the B43 module doesn’t get loaded:, just add it to “modules”:

sudo vim /etc/modules

and add b43 at the end of the list. Now it’ll load at boot.

The STA module may also load at boot, so just blacklist it by adding it to the blacklist:

sudo vim /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

and it like this:

blacklist wl

Now reboot, and you’ll have Broadcom 4311 wireless working.

Howto setup any HP printer on Debian

Other Printers
I’ve written other guides on setting up printers with Cups in the web browser via localhost:631 (which is still an easy way to setup most printers, however, the drivers weren’t listed for my current printer, so I Googled for the Hplip site at Sourceforge and found a neat little script.

Hp Deskjet 3050
In general with any Linux distro with a full desktop environment you would just install the Hplip package with GUI via the package manager. I have a minimal self-built Debian Squeeze with Openbox window manager, and as such, not all installed applications appear on the Obmenu (even the added Debian menu), so I have my own default menu with my frequently used apps. basically, when I installed the Hplip GUI there was no link to be seen on the menu, so I did an Alt+F2 to do arun-search of all the hp* references.

HP-Setup = No USB Printer Detected
I ran hp-setup and it informed me that there was no printer connected via USB, even though lsusb showed it listed. I checked for usual dependencies, unplugged and replugged the printer, nada, so off to Google I went.

Using the Hplip script from Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.jp/projects/sfnet_hplip/releases/
*NOTE* If you don’t already have it, install python-dev, libcups2-dev, libusb-dev, python-qt3, libsane-dev, libtool and libcupsimage2-dev

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install python-dev libcups2-dev libusb-dev python-qt3 libsane-dev libtool libcupsimage2-dev

*NOTE 2* Optional Dependencies
If you think you may need these, install them as well:

INSTALL MISSING OPTIONAL DEPENDENCIES
————————————-
warning: There are 3 missing OPTIONAL dependencies.
note: Installation of dependencies requires an active internet connection.
warning: Missing REQUIRED dependency for option ‘network’: libnetsnmp-devel (libnetsnmp-devel – SNMP networking library development files)
warning: This installer cannot install ‘libnetsnmp-devel’ for your distro/OS and/or version.
warning: Option ‘network’ has been turned off.
warning: Missing REQUIRED dependency for option ‘gui_qt4’: pyqt4-dbus (PyQt 4 DBus – DBus Support for PyQt4)
warning: This installer cannot install ‘pyqt4-dbus’ for your distro/OS and/or version.
warning: Option ‘gui_qt4’ has been turned off.
warning: Missing OPTIONAL dependency for option ‘fax’: reportlab (Reportlab – PDF library for Python)
warning: This installer cannot install ‘reportlab’ for your distro/OS and/or version.

Running the script and installing

1. Find the latest *.run script (Currently hplip-3.12.4.run) and download it.

2. Open a terminal and go to your “Downloads” directory

cd Downloads

3. Create a HP directory (A lot of files will be downloaded when the script runs)

mkdir HP

4. Move the script there

mv hplip-3.12.4.run HP

5. Change to the HP directory

cd HP

6. Run the script as a regular user

sh hplip-3.12.4.run

Now just go through the motions, it’s self explanatory and will guide you step by step. Basically after reading it turns out that I just said YES to all the default options, and now have a fully working HP Deskjet 3050 on Debian Squeeze.