Ubuntu: /usr/lib/sendmail: no such file or directory

If you're getting the error "/usr/lib/sendmail: no such file or directory" on Ubuntu, you probably removed Sendmail but didn't fully install a replacement.  Try this to get Exim4 installed and configured:


# sudo aptitude update

# sudo aptitude remove sendmail

# sudo aptitude install exim4-base exim4-config exim4
 
# sudo dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config
 
# sudo /etc/init.d/exim4 restart

Easy ISO booting with Qemu

Qemu is one of the early virtual machine systems.  Before Xen, before VirtualBox, maybe even before VMware, Qemu was the cross-platform, FLOSS option for running virtual machines and even running cross-architecture VMs.  I think some of its code has been incorporated into these other big-name products.

If you have an ISO file that you need to boot for testing purposes, it doesn't get much easier than using Qemu.  For being a FLOSS app, the command-line interface is a bit Windows-centric in it's drive naming (the C drive is the first hard drive file that you attach; the D drive is cd-rom iso file), but it gets the job done:

     $ qemu -cdrom ./debian-7.0.0-i386-netinst.iso -boot d


According to the webpage, "when used as a virtualizer, QEMU achieves near native performances by executing the guest code directly on the host CPU."  That's impressive.  Qemu is still in development.

KDE Photo Slideshow running with slow transitions?

Does your KDE Photo Slideshow screensaver run with slow transitions between photos?  Buried in the Bug Tracker is this little gem:

Paul Lemmons 2011-12-16
..."I wish I could simply disable all transition effects."...

Add the following line:
EffectsEnabled=false

to the end of the file:
~/.kde/share/config/kslideshow.kssrc

And your wish is granted