Ubuntu Tutorials

In response to my earlier post I wanted to make a how-to publically available for those that aren’t familiar with setting up Jabber. If you have a gmail account you already have an account with Jabber. Gmail’s chat uses the Jabber protocol so you’re already half-way there. (If you don’t have a gmail account you really should, post a comment and I’ll send you an invite)

This how-to depends on 1) gaim, 2) gmail account.

1. ‘Add Account’ in Gaim
2. Use the drop-down & select Jabber
3. screen name = your.address (before @ sign for gmail)
4. server = gmail.com (you do not need to use the @ anywhere)
5. resource : I don’t know the importance of this–I use the default
6. password = your gmail password
7. alias = what do you want to be known as?
8. more options / advanced
9. connect server : talk.google.com
10. Register & Connect

Any contact in your gmail address book will be available under your new account.

I’ve recently been discussing the pros and cons of using the open IM protocol Jabber. I realize that I advocate FOSS in everything else I do. From Ubuntu Linux to OpenOffice, from Gaim to Firefox. Open protocols and open source is what we’re all about.. aren’t we?

How many of us use proprietary IM clients? For as much as we advocate FOSS do we really do as much as we can? I wonder why so many of us still use proprietary IM clients. If you’ve made the switch to Linux why are you still using msn messenger, aim or yahoo?

I am contemplating making the switch to Jabber. I foresee losing a few contacts but didn’t we lose a few things (that we were better off without!) when moving to Linux? I realize I’m having the same feelings about making that leap that I had when contemplating the leap to Linux.

I’d love to hear what people’s thoughts are on this. Can you ‘make the switch?’

Tonite I decided to swap out my gnump3d partition for a hard drive twice the size. Normally it’d be a quick and easy job–thats assuming there are no errors when I put it in my headless server. Well, that wasn’t the case (of course!) and I spent the next twenty minutes re-installing a video card, installing the drive and trying jumper combinations until it worked. What a pain.. especially since its time critical on a public webserver.
The good news is I now have twice the space to store my media. I had been getting bored of the 60G collection..

For anyone who isn’t familiar with Gnump3d I’d suggest checking it out. Its a really simple way to setup your home/office (or even remote access) with a streaming media server.

Well I’m using Dapper 6.6 on two of my machines now. I initially had it installed on one machine for testing and it has since proven itself stable enough for everyday use (for me anyway). Anyone new to Ubuntu or Linux would be well advised not to try it.. just yet.

To check out some of the latest features visit the link below. We’re on Alpha release #6, also known as “Flight 6″. There are some cool features that are new since 5.10

Flight 6