Installing IBM iSeries Access for Linux in Ubuntu

There are some application that you can used for emulate iSeries from your ubuntu machine. You can easily just using telnet from your terminal or use tn5250.

Actually beside for Windows, IBM also release iSeries Access for linux, though not as complete as the windows version, where they also include iSeries Navigator.

After some trial to install iSeries Access for Linux in Ubuntu, here some steps that I can share for you which I already proven that these steps is working,:D


First of all you need to download iSeries Access Linux from IBM site. Just for your notice you have to registrate yourself before you can download anything from IBM site, this is not a big deal, cause it is so simple.

Because the file that you will get is an rpm file you will need alien to enabling you execute that file in your Ubuntu machine.
If you don't have alien in your Ubuntu then install it using
$ sudo apt-get alien

Then install the iSeries Access and some packages that it needs

$ sudo alien -i iSeriesAccess-5.2.0-1.10.i386.rpm
$ sudo apt-get install libmotif3
$ sudo apt-get install libxaw6
$ sudo apt-get install libstdc++5

After you execute above steps, then here some configuration that you must do

$ sudo ln -s /opt/ibm/iSeriesAccess/lib/libcwbcore.so /usr/lib/ libcwbcore.so
$ sudo ln -s /opt/ibm/iSeriesAccess/lib/libcwbodbc.so /usr/lib/libcwbodbc.so
$ sudo ln -s /opt/ibm/iSeriesAccess/lib/libcwbodbcs.so /usr/lib/libcwbodbcs.so
$ sudo ln -s /opt/ibm/iSeriesAccess/lib/libcwbrc.so /usr/lib/libcwbrc.so

IBM5250 expects something other than en_US.UTF-8, so run this to start.

$ /opt/ibm/iSeriesAccess/bin/ibm5250 -LANGID en_us

For comfortable and easiness to start iSeries Access in your ubuntu you can make a launcher in your desktop, here the steps

Right-click in your desktop












Then it will show you a window like this












Choose Application in Type
Fill any name that you desired (i.e. iSeries Access)
In Command you must fill this
/opt/ibm/iSeriesAccess/bin/ibm5250 -LANGID en_us
For the icon you can used what fatbuttlarry have created and shared in ubuntu forums they are quite nice i think

I have try in Ubuntu 8.04, 8.10 and 9.04 and these steps is worked.
Notes sometimes you need to install msttcorefonts to makes it worked
$ sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts

Have a nice day

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Make an ubuntu live usb flash disk

To begin the process make sure you have these following items:

1. a usb flashdisk with at least capacity of 750 MB, i recommend 1 GB of capacity
2. a cd of Ubuntu (i recommended you to use version 7.04 or upper) or its iso files
3. syslinux
   is a boot loader that operates off a Microsoft FAT filesystem (because most but not all usb flashdisk come with FAT filesystem). I recommended to use the later version (3.35 upper), because that will make our works more simple. You can grabbed it from here . Extract the archive (whatever kind of archive file that you choose to download). The executable will be in \win32\syslinux.exe.
   If you use Ubuntu Linux, you can install it with
   

   sudo apt-get install syslinux mtools

If you already have above items, then let's the thing get started

1. attach your usb flashdisk to your computer and mount it.
   if you are using Linux this may happen automatically, if it doesn't then you can mount it by using a command, for example
   

   mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt

   
   (this is just example, please change the device name /dev/sda1 with your corresponding device name, and mountpoint /mnt with your own desired mountpoint that you already created)
   if you are using Windows, it should mounted automatically, if not, then your windows is pretty old one, you have to install a driver for your usb flashdisk first, check your flashdisk vendor's homepage.
2. make the usb flashdisk bootable
   if you are using Linux and your flashdisk is mounted as in the above example, in terminal console type command
   

   syslinux -s /dev/sda1

   
   if you are using Windows from your command prompt, go to the directory where you extract syslinux previously, then go to win32 subfolder, so if you extracted it to C:\syslinux, you have to go to directory C:\sysylinux\win32 . After you already in that directory in command prompt, for example your flashdisk drive letter is F:, the type this command
   

   syslinux -s -m F:

3. check file idlinux.sys in your flashdisk
   after you succesfully execute previous step, check if there is a new file called idlinux.sys in your flashdisk root directory. It is a hidden file if you are using Windows if won't appear in windows explorer unless your setting is different. Try dir /a F: from command prompt
   
   
4. Copy the Ubuntu Cd to your USB Flashdisk
   Copy the contents of the Ubuntu installation CD to your USB stick (i.e. all files and directories that are on the installation CD). Please do not copy an ISO image of the installation CD.
   
   You don't have to burn iso to copy its content, from Linux you can mount it with this command:

   mount -o loop /path/to/ubuntu.iso /path/to/mount/point

   
   if you are using Windows you can use any of Virtual drive for windows.
   
   Make sure you copy all the files and directories, including the hidden ones. If you are using Linux with Gnome desktop manager, press ctrl+H to see hidden files. In Windows, assuming that your CD-ROM drive is D: and your flashdisk drive is F:, you can use following command

   xcopy /e /h /k D:\*.* F:

   
   
5. adjusts syslinux.cfg
   if you follow my advise to use syslinux version 3.35 or upper, you just need to rename the isolinux directory to syslinux and rename the file isolinux.cfg inside this directory to syslinux.cfg.
   
   if you're not, For older versions: Copy (or rename) the file isolinux.cfg to syslinux.cfg. Then edit the file and remove the /casper/ or /install/ reference in all paths. For example you would change the line containing DEFAULT /casper/vmlinuz to DEFAULT vmlinuz. Save the file, and make sure it is called syslinux.cfg. It does not matter whether the line breaks are in DOS or Linux format.
   
   
6. Boot from usb flashdisk
   Now if you already followed above steps, your flashdisk is bootable now and can act as a ubuntu live usb flashdisk. Boot the computer from the USB stick. You have to configure it from you computer's BIOS. The configuration is vary depend on your BIOS. The installation can now be done as if you would be booting from the installation CD.
   

Have a nice day, it should work also for other distros, but i never try it, i just try to make it for ubuntu.

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How to type Arabic in Ubuntu 8.04

The first step that if you want to type Arabic in Ubuntu is you must have SCIM in your Ubuntu machine.
Scim by default is supported by Ubuntu, so after you installed your Ubuntu in your machine you'll get Scim already installed. The next thing is you have to install the input languange.

To install it you can do the following things (i grabbed this from ichsan's blog):

1. Install language for Japanese, Korean, Arabic and others.
   • apt-get install scim-anthy scim-hangul, scim-tables-additional
2. Create an 644 permission file: /etc/X11/Xsession.d/75custom-scim_init which contains
   • GTK_IM_MODULE=xim
     QT_IM_MODULE=xim
     XMODIFIERS=@im=SCIM
3. Run scim -d
4. Logout
5. Restart X (Ctrl+Alt+Backspace)

Actually you just need scim-tables-additional if you want to type in arabic, but it is fine in case in the future you want to type japanese or korean character.

The next step after you have installed the language is you have to run the arabic (egypt) input mode in scim. You can simply press Ctrl+space to activate it, and press Ctrl+space once more if you want to deactivate it (back to normal). You can see your scim input status in top panel, if you see ع, then you can start to type in arabic, you can test it with gedit, though you have to change font scale to the bigger one, because the default gedit font scale (monospace 10) not quite big enough to make your arabic letter to clearly seen.

Here is the table that shows you what key that you must press and the arabic letter that will come out, note that if the latin letter is written as capital letter, then you must type in capital letter form also, for example A then you must type it shift+a. This keys combination does work if you use US Keyboard layout, because i just only have that kind of keyboard, i do not know if this keys combination also work in other keyboard layout.

I accidentally found this combination keys after i saw this table, then i manage to found all the 'hidden' letter, :p

Arabic letter table

arabic letter	keys combination
ا	A
ب	b
ت	t
ث	th
ج	j
ح	h.
خ	kh
د	d
ذ	dh
ر	r
ز	z
س	s
ش	sh
ص	s.
ض	d.
ط	t.
ظ	z.
ع	'
غ	gh
ف	f
ق	q
ك	k
ل	l
م	m
ن	n
ه	h
و	w
ي	y
ة	h'
ﺀ	'2
ٔ	/2
ى	I

Other arabic symbol

vowel	name	combination keys
َ	fatha	a
ِ	kasra	i
ُ	damma	u
ْ	sukun	/'
ٰ	alif above	aa
ً	fatha tanwin	an
ٍ	kasra tanwin	in
ٌ	damma tanwin	un
ّ	sadda/tashdid	x

For arabic numeral just type the keys that coresponding its values, for example 1 for ١, 2 for ٢, 0 for ٠, and so on.
if you want to type this letter لا lam+alif then type l+A.

Example:

• the word شكرن is come out if you typed shkrn, or if you want the word with vowel like this شُكْرَنْ you must typed shuk/'ran/'
• the word محبّة is come out if you typed mh.bxh', or if with vowel like مَحَبَّة you must typed mah.abxah'

So, الحمدلله we can type arabic in ubuntu now.

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