Taming the jackalope…

Ubuntu 9.04,

Jaunty Jackalope

I have been waiting to reorganize my hard disk for a month. Release of jaunty was of course, the best time for this. I can’t still believe I broke my wrist on the day of the release… Now I have to install Ubuntu ‘Single-handedly’ in my laptop(Lenovo Y410) 🙂

The torrent was well seeded. The CD image was downloaded within a litte over an hour. I couln’t find a blank CD, so I created a bootable USB drive using the USB startup disk creator in Ubuntu 8.10.

The live usb-stick booted without any trouble. The installation was a breeze with a few welcome changes to the installer. The time zone selecion method has changed. Also the partitioner. This time I obeyed the tech-gurus and gave a seperate partition for /home. Of course all the partitions were ext4 (the default was ext3, but I couldn’t wait to try it out). A cup of coffee and the installation was done. Now to try out the the long awaited release…

I was greeted by cool new usplash and GDM themes… and the boot time…wow! less than 20 secs…

But oh! no compiz! I tried to enable that and failed. A bit of googling told me my graphic card was blacklisted or something. So i created a file ~/.config/compiz/compiz-manager with content “SKIP_CHECKS=yes” and then ran compiz –replace. Presto! My desktop was all flashy again!!

Next thing I indented to do was to customize my firefox and pidgin. I had earlier taken backups of .mozilla and .purple folders from my home folder in intrepid. I simply copied this to my home folder. I could not believe my eyes when I started firefox. Everything was there like before.. my bookmarks, addons, saved passwords, everything. Pidgin was restored too. I had to install the plugins again. But all configuration was restored.

I installed deluge instead of the default torrent client Transmission. I could continue the unfinished downloads without difficulty. Cheese was needed to take pictures using the webcam. For those who like small games, install frozen bubble. It is one of my favorites.

The new notification system is awesome. Brasero is now the default CD creator. The indicator applet is good. But I got tired of it after some time and removed it. The tracker search and deskbar applet are missing. I installed tracker and indexed my home folder.

I installed all multimedia plugins along with vlc. My whole music collection is now OGG. But I knew I would need these codecs for later. Vlc really disappointed me. It opened all the videos in two seperate windows and there were no controls in full screen mode. I couldn’t find a way to change this. May be I’ll have to wait for an update.

I was actually going to check whether gcc worked when I found out that vim was absent. There was vi.. but still..
It was a good thing that I read A byte of vim by Swaroop C.H. Or else I wouldn’t know navigation could be done using h,j,k,l because vi didn’t support the arrow keys. gcc worked fine. I installed vim with the plugins and wrote the .vimrc configuration file.

Ubuntu developers have disabled Ctrl+Alt+Backspace Combination for restarting X.  Problem was solved by running sudo apt-get install dontzap && sudo dontzap –disable.

The computer Janitor is a welcome addition. But here is something funny.

I dont think any end-user will cleanup  after this message.
I use replacements for certain default applications now. Like vlc instead of totem, banshee instead of Rythmbox, Deluge instead of transmission etc.

I have been using this for over a week now. I will have to say this is yet another fantastic distro from the free world!!

Get ctrl+alt+del working in ubuntu

Ctrl+Alt+Del is something a windows user needs when the computer hangs. So he needs to use it very frequently. The need for something like that in ubuntu is completely pointless. But this guide can also help you assign shortcuts to a no. of other applications. We have 10 user definable commands in ubuntu. Let us start then.

First i shall introduce you to an application similiar to the task manager in windows.

Goto System –> Administration –> System Monitor go to the processes tab.

Now to run this applicaion when we press Ctrl+alt+del.

Press Alt+F2 . The run dialog box appears. Type gconf-editor and press Enter.

Goto Applications –> Metacity . We need two sections here.  Global key Bindings(It lets you define the shortcuts) & keybinding commands(lets you define the commands to be run).

now in global_keybindings, type in the value of run_command_1 to be ” <Control><Alt>Delete ” (without quotes)

in keybinding_commands, type in the value of command_1 to be ” gnome-system-monitor ”

Now press ctrl+alt+del. Voila!

(in my case only left ctrl+alt works. please comment me yours)

Now as you might have guessed, there are 9 more customizable commands. Let us try those.

select global_keybindings . I will give you some idea on how to create commands.

ctrl+alt+e                – <Control><Alt>e

alt+F2                     – <Alt>F2

super(windows)+d     – <Mod4>d

Set your own keybinding commands.

now under keybinding_commands you can select what application should run when you press the keys. Just give the command to run the application under value.

Here another problem arises. We have to know what command runs the application. I will tell you what i do.

i create a launcher in my desktop by rightclicking. (see the screenshot)

now rightclick on the launcher, select properties and go to Launcher tab.

you get the command to run the application. You can now delete the launcher from the desktop.

Let us do something interesting. Set the keybinding to, say <Control><Alt>e.

Let the command be ” eject “. Now press Ctrl+alt+e . Good, isn’t it. The command to reverse it is “eject -t “.

Read manoramaonline in ubuntu using firefox

This is perhaps the simplest answer. Install Padma, a firefox addon.

If anyone still experience problems, please comment.

Connect to internet in ubuntu 8.04 : a simple guide to windows users

This guide is intended to help windows users who have recently switched to ubuntu and who connect to the internet using a broadband ADSL modem.

I recommend connecting the modem via Ethernet and not using USB.

Now let me divide the users into two.

1. If in windows you use a connection that is always on (i.e you get connected to the internet when the modem is switched on), you are lucky. There is no need for further configuration in ubuntu. Just switch on the modem and get going.
2. If you connect to the internet in windows by using a ‘broadband connection which requires a username & password’ (i.e you double click on the internet icon on the desktop and click connect), you have to do the following.

goto Applications –> Accessories –> Terminal

type sudo pppoeconf and press enter. Follow the onscreen instructions.

After doing this, you need to manually start and internet connection.

1. sudo pon dsl-provider to start the connection
2. sudo poff to end

some really cool firefox addons…

I haven’t been using firefox for long. In fact i started using it when i got the version 3beta5 along with ubuntu 8.04 & within no time firefox had a new admirer. To be exact never used IE again even when i used windows(I work on ubuntu almost 99% of my time). Oh! not really. I used it while browsing from some internet cafes. But only to download & install the latest version of firefox.

The tabbed browsing feature of firefox was what attracted me 1st. I dont think there is any  need to mention its advantage here. IE7 has already adopted this feature. The general interface was cool fulfilling all the needs of a normal browser. It had a search a search box which supported a no. of search engines. I had no problems with the beta version. But like many i waited for the official release of firefox3.

It created a lot of public interest prior to its release. The media was giving out reviews of firefox and i dont think i missed even one. It was then that i came to know about the best and coolest feature of firefox. Addons. There are many who fail to see why addons matter this much. I think i can explain it in a single sentence. It gives firefox infinite features. i.e you can customize firefox the way you want i to be.

You can find out all firefox supported addons at https://addons.mozilla.org/

I have listed some of the addons which I found intersting.

1. DownThemAll : A superb download manager and accelerator that works within firefox. It can pause and continue downloads. The advanced accelerator increases the speed upto 400%. It has options to download all the links form a page or all the links pointing to a certain extension.
2. Video DownloadHelper : Download youtube and other embedded videos without any external software. It even converts the flv files to avi for you. A really useful addon for youtube freaks.
3. Gmail Notifier : A gmail checker that resides in the bottom right corner of your firefox window. Checks for new mail every x minutes(you specify the x). Capable of managing more than one account. Ideal for those who keep their gmail inbox always open in a background tab.
4. gTalk Sidebar : well….. the name says it all. Simple but cool.
5. New Tab Button on Tab Right : A new tab button. no more boasting IE7 has a new tab button and it is easy to use.
6. Tab Renamizer : Rename all background tabs with a simple ctrl+shift+z. People usually find different uses for this.
7. Tab Wheel Scroll : Switch tabs by scrolling ure mouse wheel.
8. Google Notebooks : Take notes on-the-go. Uploads notes to your google notebook account. Google service. Requires a google account.
9. Speed Dial : For opera fans. Thumbnails of selected sites in a new tab. Get direct access to favorite sites.
10. Extended Status Bar : Another opera like service. A great addon. Displays details about current page like size, no. of images etc. Can be used as a replacement or along with the firefox status bar.
11. Pacman : Play pacman.

These are just some which i found out. Ill update this when i find out something exciting.

Please let me know if you know any good addons.