601. Linphone on windows XP with llinphone's sip server

This post is meant as a step by step guide that more computer savvy users on linux (who'd be interested in using linphone) can share with less computer savvy users on windows.

I'd like to be able to do a video chat with a specific person who told me about issues with installing skype on their laptop. Given that I'm having issues with skype on some of my computers as well, and the general nuisance of having to deal with i386 libs just for the sake of skype, and the fact that I'm using linphone for my iinet voip service as well as freecall, I'm keen on getting that person switched to linphone.

(I presume that easier solutions would involve e.g. google talk in a browser, but where's the fun in that?)
The following was done on a native installation of windows xp which I remotely connected to using remmina (via rdp).

1. Get Linphone.

Note that the current version, 3.7.0, which is available by clicking on the download button on the website does not work on windows XP (for me), as it gives the following:

Instead, go to http://download-mirror.savannah.gnu.org/releases/linphone/3.6.x/win32/ and download 3.6.1.

version 3.4 works too

2. Install Linphone
Nothing odd here:

2b. Register for a SIP service
For Linphone to work you need to register for a SIP service. Linphone offers a free one. NOTE that you can register for a SIP service during the installation of Linphone i.e. you don't need to follow this step. Might be useful if you've already got Linphone installed and want to manually register though.

3. Set up Linphone
If you're asked whether to unblock, click unblock.

The wizard:

If you didn't sing up separately for a SIP account you can choose to do so as part of the setup using the wizard. Otherwise you can manually set it up, and that's what I'll show here:

That's the end of the wizard.

You can add contacts just like you would in any other 'chat' program, although here you use SIP addresses.

574. Texmaker and texlive on windows xp

There are two ways of dealing with latex on windows -- either using native packages or via cygwin. Here's the  native approach, which I tested in a virtual machine with Windows XP SP2

 
1. Install texlive

Go to http://www.tug.org/texlive/acquire-netinstall.html and download http://mirror.ctan.org/systems/texlive/tlnet/install-tl.exe

Run the file. You'll now be taken through the installation of texlive. Note that the full installation is ca 3.7 Gb and it will take a few hours to download and install. On the other hand, space is cheap and most people (in academia) don't pay for bandwidth, so it's not a bad idea to do the full install.

Anyway, here are a few screenshots of the installation process:

It's a good idea to change the mirror to speed up the download

Uncheck TexWorks since we'll be installing TexMaker

This step can take many hours

Finally done.

2. Install texmaker

Go to http://www.xm1math.net/texmaker/download.html and download http://www.xm1math.net/texmaker/texmakerwin32_install.exe

The same file will work on XP, Vista and 8 (and presumably 7, which is more or less a patched version of Vista) and it will work on both 32 and 64 bit systems.

Install texmaker.

3. Configure  texmaker
Start texmaker

Go to Options/Configure Texmaker.

Under Commands you can select to use an external pdf viewer. Note that you will need to make sure that the path is correct -- in my case it was pointing to adobe reader 11, whereas I had adobe reader 9 installed. Easy enough to change, but you need to do it manually. The embedded/internal pdf viewer works ok, but distorts the text and figures somewhat (everything got a bit squashed)

Choose internal or external pdf viewer. Make sure the path is correct

Under Quick Build you can tick Latex+Bib(la)tex+Latex(x2)+dvips+ps2pdf+View pdf. NOTE: if you do this you won't be able to compile any file which hasn't got a \cite command and a mathing .bib file.

Alternatively, pick latex + dvips + ps2pdf + View pdf.

Quick Build -- pick the one with bibtex in it

Under Editor you can disable code completion (which can get annoying at times):

You can now load a tex file and hit F1 to compile it:

---

Quick test example

0. Create a folder called e.g. testtex
 
1. Download UCSD.eps from here: http://vectorlogotypes.net/logo/68332_UCSD.htm

Put it in the testtex folder.


2. Create the following anothertest.bib file in either texmaker or notepad:

@Article{2014:example,
  AUTHOR = {Placeholder, A},
  TITLE = {Comprehensive title},
  YEAR = 2014,
  JOURNAL = {J. Comp. Chem.},
  VOLUME ={45},
  PAGES = {100-101}
}

Put it in the testtex folder.

3. Create a new tex file in texmaker:

Make sure to tick graphicx

Basic tex file

Save to your testtex folder.

4. Edit your tex file as shown below::

\documentclass[10pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{amsfonts}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{graphicx}

\usepackage{url}
\title{This is a test}

\begin{document}

\section{The test}
This is a simple test which consists of inserting a figure and adding a reference via bibtex. You can download the logo from \url{http://vectorlogotypes.net/logo/68332_UCSD.htm}. Put the UCSD.eps file in the same directory as your .tex file.
\begin{figure}
 \includegraphics{UCSD.eps}
 \caption{UC San Diego logo.}
 \label{fig:test}
\end{figure}

Here's a citation.\cite{2014:example}

\bibliography{anothertest}
\bibliographystyle{ChemEurJ}
\end{document}

5. Compile.
If you set up your F1 as shown above (i.e. with bibtex support), then all you need to do is hit F1. Otherwise, if you used the alternative setup, do F2 (latex), F11 (bibtex), F2 (latex), F11 (bibtex), F1 (compile and view).

353. Cygwin with octave and gnuplot on windows XP.

Here's my fourth Windows XP post.

Again, the goal is primarily to get Gnuplot and Octave working on Windows, together with sed, gawk and other tools for data processing. In this post that's done using cygwin on windows XP.

This is (in my opinion) a better alternative to installing the native gnuplot and octave packages (posts 350, 351, 352), especially as Octave in post 350 takes well over a minute to start, but only a few seconds through cygwin.

1. Download http://cygwin.com/setup.exe and run it. Set it to install from the internet, with c:\cygwin as the root directory. Pick a mirror which is reasonably close (e.g. mirror.aarnet.edu.au in Australia).

2. You're now asked to select packages.
Select octave (search for octave, click on 'skip' to change it to the version number), octave-forge, gnuplot, xinit and xorg-server

3. Cygwin will calculate dependencies. cat, gawk, sed etc. are part of the base package and don't need to be explicitly selected.

I got a single error during installation, but it doesn't seem to have caused any obvious issues:

Package: libpango1.0_0
 pango1.0.sh exit code 1

4. Launch Programs/Cygwin-X/XWin server.
Unblock if necessary.

Do
echo $DISPLAY

:0

to make sure that all is well. Run gnuplot and do e.g. 'plot x w lines' to make sure that all is working. Best thing? Octave only takes a few seconds to start... You may have to load packages in octave manually (e.g. 'pkg load all')

---

Links to this post:
http://blog.csdn.net/lllcfr1/article/details/8657143

352. Installing coreutils and sed, gawk on Windows (without cygwin)

My third Windows XP post. Only a few more to go...

You can also set up all these tools via cygwin: http://verahill.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/353-cygwin-with-octave-and-gnuplot-on.html

1. coreutils
coreutils covers a fair number of the basic linux file tools. In particular cat, paste and join are of interest with respect to data processing.

A. Go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnuwin32/files/coreutils/5.3.0/coreutils-5.3.0.exe/download?use_mirror=waix&download= and download coreutils-5.3.0.exe. Run the file.

B. Make sure to add C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin to the PATH:
* Right-click on my computer, select properties, Advanced.
* Click on Environment variables
* In the second box, 'system variables', highlight 'Path' and click on 'Edit'. In the variable value box, add ';C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin'

C. Go to the start meny, click on Run..., and type in 'cmd'
In the (fake) DOS window, type e.g. ls -lah to see if everything works.

2. gawk
Go to http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/gawk.htm and open http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/gnuwin32/gawk/3.1.6-1/gawk-3.1.6-1-setup.exe

Run the .exe and use the default installation location (which is the same as the coreutils above -- so you don't have to add a separate path). Run cmd and do e.g.

cat ntuser.ini|gawk "{print $2}"

S e t t i n g s ; T e m p o r a r y

3. sed
Sed is installed like gawk -- go to http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/sed.htm and go to http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/downlinks/sed.php

Run the .exe file and install in the default location. Try e.g.

cat ntuser.ini|sed "s/e/E/g"

351. Installing gnuplot on Windows XP

Here's my second Win XP post.

Here's how to set up gnuplot on windows XP. You can also set it up using cygwin: http://verahill.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/353-cygwin-with-octave-and-gnuplot-on.html

1. Download
Go to http://www.tatsuromatsuoka.com/gnuplot/Eng/winbin/ and download http://www.tatsuromatsuoka.com/gnuplot/Eng/winbin/gp470-20120916-win32-mingw-setup.zip

You'll need e.g. 7zip to extract the file.

2. Install and set up
Extract the  gp470-20120916-mingw.exe file to some temporary place, and then launch the installation by double-clicking on it. Most installation steps are straight-forward. Set windows as the default terminal, and make sure to check the box to add the application directory to PATH.

3. Usage
Launch gnuplot from the windows start menu as any other program if you want it to run interactively.

Alternatively, create a script and launch it using "gnuplot scriptname" from cmd as you would under linux.

350. Installing GNU Octave on Windows XP

This is a Windows XP post (my first?), so right-thinking linux people can move on. Nothing to see here.

For the rest of you:
Since I can't force my students to switch to Linux -- but I can force the to use Octave and Gnuplot -- I need to make sure that there are some easy, step-by-step (recipe-based) guides available that describe how to install the tools that they are required to use on their platform of choice. OS X has many flaws, but has macports. Windows has cygwin, in addition to native builds of most GNU tools. I'll cover cygwin in a separate post.

Here's a pretty straightforward approach to installing GNU Octave and I've tested it on Windows XP. It suffers from a fatal weakness: it takes well over a minute (!) to actually start Octave this way -- each time. Use the cygwin approach instead: http://verahill.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/353-cygwin-with-octave-and-gnuplot-on.html -- this way it's about as fast as on Linux.

0. 7zip and notepad++
You'll need 7zip: http://www.7-zip.org/ and http://notepad-plus-plus.org/. Download and install.

1.  Download Octave
Go to http://wiki.octave.org/Octave_for_Windows
The most current version is 3.6.2 ("Octave-3.6.2-mingw + octaveforge pkgs"), which takes you here: http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/octave/Octave%20Windows%20binaries/Octave%203.6.2%20for%20Windows%20MinGW%20installer/Octave3.6.2_gcc4.6.2_20120609.7z

2. Set up
The downloaded file is 169 Mb but extracts to 700 Mb(!) so even the extraction process takes a little while. Extract with 7zip by right-clicking the downloaded file, selecting 7zip, and extract to "Octave...".

Create C:\octave, and put the Octave3.6.2_gcc4.6.2 folder in it.

Right click on C:\octave\Octave3.6.2_gcc4.6.2\bin\octave.exe and select create shortcut. Copy the shortcut to e.g. your desktop. Edit it and click on change icon -- select "C:\Octave\Octave3.6.2_gcc4.6.2\share\octave\3.6.2\imagelib\octave-logo.ico".

3. Running

Simply double-click on the shortcut.
Here's the bad news: it takes 1 m 20 s to start, which is unacceptable.

4. Packages
To install packages without having a full build environment, download from
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/octave/Octave%20Windows%20binaries/Octave%203.6.2%20for%20Windows%20MinGW%20installer/Octave3.6.2_gcc4.6.2_pkgs_20120613.7z

Extract the file, and copy the bin, include, lib, share folders to c:\octave\Octave3.6.2_gcc4.6.2\ so that the folders merge with those from step 2.

Start octave and run

pkg rebuild -noauto nan

This way all packages (except nan) will auto-load next time you start octave.

69. Reverse VNC using vncviewer and tightvnc

Reverse VNC is a good way of helping people remotely. It requires that your IP is remotely accessible, but it does NOT require that the client's IP is public.

This is based on http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=299489 and https://caedesnotes.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/remote-administrationtech-support-with-reverse-vnc/ but with screenshots. If both of you are using linux but you for some reason prefer vnc over ssh, have a look at that link for how to do (i.e. using x11vnc on the client)

Like a lot of people I have parents. Like most of those people, my parents aren't too interested in augmenting their computer skills. Which is fine. But trying to explain over the phone where to click etc. gets old really fast -- VNC is an advantage here if they are running windows. Parents also tend to appreciate lots of screenshots -- so I've provided that. It's running on a French version of XP -- it's my way of indirectly learning and keeping my French alive.

-- START HERE --

The situation:
You're running linux. The client is running Windows. You are you, the person you're helping is The Client.
Set up your system before having the client follow the instructions here. I put the client instructions first so you can send them to this page.

---

The Client:
They are running Windows. They don't have a public IP. Here's what they should do:

1. Download tightvncviewer from here: http://www.tightvnc.com/download.php

2. Installation of tightvnc

a) Install both client and server or only server. It doesn't matter -- the server is important here.

b) During setup, make sure that you check all the boxes as shown below

You will not need to share your password with the person helping you. Make sure not to leave these blank.

c) Tightvnc requires the administrator password to be able to accept connections.

Right-click on the icon in the taskbar tray, and click on Configuration...

Change main server port to 5500. We're doing this to be consistent.
You may de-select 'Serve Java Viewer to Web clients)

The steps above you will only need to do once.

The following steps you will need to do each time you want to get help:
1. Right-click on the vnc icon in the taskbar tray. Select Attach Listening Viewer...

2. In Hostname or IP address of the viewer, type the IP address given to you by the person helping you. In this example it's 192.168.1.102, but it can be anything. Append ::5500 to the IP address. In our example, the input is 192.168.1.102::5500

That's it. If something not described here is happening, make sure to tell the person helping you. Especially if messages about Blocked programmes or Firewalls come up.

---

You (linux person):
Your public IP is 192.168.1.102 in the example above. Your port 5500 is open to the world.

sudo apt-get install vncviewer

Start your listening session by

vncviewer -compresslevel 9 -listen 0

vncviewer -listen: Listening on port 5500
vncviewer -listen: Command line errors are not reported until a connection comes in.

Once the connection is started by the client you get:

Connected to RFB server, using protocol version 3.8
Enabling TightVNC protocol extensions
No authentication needed
Authentication successful
Desktop name "tantalum"
VNC server default format:
  16 bits per pixel.
  Least significant byte first in each pixel.
  True colour: max red 31 green 63 blue 31, shift red 11 green 5 blue 0
Using default colormap which is TrueColor.  Pixel format:
  32 bits per pixel.
  Least significant byte first in each pixel.
  True colour: max red 255 green 255 blue 255, shift red 16 green 8 blue 0

You can play around with the compresslevels which runs from 0 to 9. Make sure to keep an eye on your firewall log -- your client/parent may easily get frustrated if things aren't working -- and you really don't want to be the cause of it.

---

Notes:
iptables
I tested this by running windows xp in virtualbox on one linux box, 192.168.1.1, and piped the vnc connection through to another linux box at 192.168.1.102. The firewall settings I had to do were:

On 192.168.1.1

Open port 17500 to tcp traffic from 192.168.1.102 to 255.255.255.255:
sudo iptables -A INPUT -i eth1 -s 192.168.1.102 -d 255.255.255.255 -p tcp --dport 17500 -j ACCEPT

On 192.168.1.102
Open port 5500 to tcp traffic destined for 192.168.1.102:
sudo iptables -A INPUT -d 192.168.1.102 -p tcp --dport 5500 -j ACCEPT