Ubuntu Tutorials

This last weekend put me on a distro rampage, the kind that we’ve all gone through at some time. I think it was brought on by the holiday of releases last week. Fedora Core 6, Firefox 2, Ubuntu 6.10.. a guy gets curious to see what is going on outside of his normal comfort-distro. Well, I triple booted Fedora Core 6, Ubuntu 6.10 & tried, yet again, openSuSE 10.1. I enjoy Fedora so far, and of course I’m a big fan of Ubuntu still (all of my machines, minus my server) is upgraded to 6.10. I was yet again let down by openSuSE 10.1. I did get the idea to try SLED 10 though, and this is my review. This post is written while using SLED 10.

1. The installation seemed long, reminding me of the old days of installing Windows. I suppose I’m used to a single-CD installation of Ubuntu so something that took an hour or more seemed long. I suppose installing from a DVD has more information, but the final installed footprint is just about the same so… it didn’t copy more data, just took longer.

2. I don’t like the idea of a 60 day trial & $50 for yearly updates and support. Seems like the old software licensing I’ve been trying to hard to get away from. I am using the trial with an “activation key” with no plans on paying to extend that.

3. I REALLY like the new navigation setup they have in SLED. One of my big complaints with openSuSE was the menu layout. It seemed like they tried to organize it to the point that it complicated things. This is a nice improvement in SLED 10.

4. My commonly used apps are all outdated from what I’m used to. The three apps I’m in regularly are Firefox, Evolution & gaim.

5. Firefox is still back at 1.5.0.7 (I understand it hasn’t been a week since release.. I’m being patient with this one).

6. Evolution is at 2.6 from what I can tell. I’ve been using 2.8.1 in Ubuntu for at least two months. I would think, considering Novell is the developer for Evolution, that they’d have the latest versions available.

7. Gaim is also back at 1.5, which is technically the latest stable, but Ubuntu & Fedora are using 2.0beta. This isn’t a big issue, just a step back from what I’m used to.

8. XGL setup was a breeeeze. I have an nVidia card, which was detected fine. SLED did tell me that my card was not supported for XGL, but considering I had set it up manually in the past I knew it would work. After clicking “activate” it logged me back into gnome & XGL was working. This is a nice feature for those that want it.

9. The default theme is very smooth. I think it looks very nice–better than the Fedora theme that’s still going on. (Thanks Gabe for the tip on Tango).

10. Manage Software surprised me by having all of the apps that I generally have to add second-hand. Gaim extras (otr, encryption), gstreamer packages, media players, etc. Everything I looked for appeared to already be installed, which was nice.

I’d love to hear some other reviews on SLED. I think with SLED Novell is doing a good job to push Linux on the corporate desktop. I think, with the $50 charge, it wont take off on the home desktop though. Its too bad, I’m fairly impressed so far and I MUCH prefer this over openSuSE. Upon first impression I would suggest SLED for a corporate setting. SLED has greatly upgraded my view on SuSE.. too bad openSuSE can’t do the same.

In a follow up from my previous post about Seveas’ Ubuntu Repositories I wanted to follow up with a few of his packages that make life easier. Big thanks to jsmidt for his tip.

If you do not have his repositories enabled see Ubuntu Seveas Packages for instructions
note: make sure you have universe & multiverse repositories enabled.

Multimedia: The best codecs and players you might want.
sudo aptitude install ubuntu-multimedia-gnome (Ubuntu – Gnome)
sudo aptitude install ubuntu-multimedia-kde (Kubuntu – KDE)

Games: A wider collection of Ubuntu games.
sudo aptitude install ubuntu-games

LAMP (for Server): Setup a Linux Apache MySQL PHP Server in seconds.
sudo aptitude install ubuntu-lamp

Development Packages: Got code? Need Devel? All you should need right here.
sudo aptitude install ubuntu-devel

FOSS Font Packages: Large collection of FOSS fonts for your system.
sudo aptitude install ttf-fossfonts

Personal Favorites: Seveas’ own personal favorites. Must be nice to have your personal favorites all tied up into a single package. Makes re-installing a breeze I’m sure
sudo aptitude install ubuntu-seveas

Last nite I decided to install Beryl and AIGLX after upgrading to Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft). After getting things setup and enjoying the sweet new features of Beryl I thought I’d post my instructions. note: All previous installations of XGL/AIGLX must be removed for this to work.

Step 1: Make sure your desktop meta-package is installed.
sudo aptitude install ubuntu-desktop (for Ubuntu)
sudo aptitude install kubuntu-desktop (for Kubuntu)

Step 2: Add one of these repositories to your /etc/apt/sources.list (or System > Administration > Software Sources).
deb http://www.beerorkid.com/compiz edgy main-edgy
deb http://media.blutkind.org/xgl/ edgy main-edgy
deb http://compiz-mirror.lupine.me.uk/ edgy main-edgy
deb http://ubuntu.compiz.net/ edgy main-edgy

Or for you 64bit people out there:
deb http://compiz-mirror.lupine.me.uk/ edgy main-edgy main-edgy-amd64

Step 3: Import the GPG key for the repository.
wget http://ubuntu.compiz.net/quinn.key.asc -O – | sudo apt-key add -

Step 4: Use this repository for the latest nVidia drivers.
deb http://amaranth.selfip.com edgy lrm

Step 5: Make sure you’ve got 3D rendering setup.
sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx
sudo apt-get install linux-686 (Intel Processors)
sudo apt-get install linux-686-smp (Intel Multiple Processors / Core Duo)
sudo apt-get install linux-k7 (AMD Processors)
(for more on 3D rendering use the Latest nVidia for Dapper

Step 6: Run the following command & restart your Desktop (ctrl-alt-bksp).
sudo nvidia-xconfig

Step 7: Make sure your machine is completely up-to-date.
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude upgrade
sudo aptitude dist-upgrade

Step 8: Install the Beryl packages.
sudo apt-get install beryl-core beryl-plugins beryl-plugins-data emerald beryl-settings beryl-manager beryl beryl-dev emerald-themes

Step 9: Add the following to the end of your xorg.conf. (MAKE A BACKUP FIRST!)

BACKUP: cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf-WORKING.

# If you are using an older version of compiz that
# does not support rendering into the Composite
# Overlay Window, you will need to disable clipping
# of GLX rendering to the X Root window with this
# option, or you will get a blank screen after
# starting compiz:
# Option “DisableGLXRootClipping” “True”
Option “TripleBuffer” “True”

Step 10: Make sure your defaultdepth is 24 in xorg.conf
Restart X with ctrl-alt-bksp and log in again.
ALT-F2 – beryl-manager and start Beryl.

You should be done at this point. You should see the Beryl splash-screen. If not you’ve missed a step or something is else is missing. If it doesn’t work see the list of places below:

Other Beryl and Compiz Tutorials
Install nVidia Drivers
Install Latest nVidia Drivers
Enable Compositing in X

Outside of that you can use #ubuntu-xgl on irc.freenode.net for more tips and help. I hope the above steps work for you. I can say Beryl is much nicer than the Compiz / XGL I’ve seen in the past. Enjoy!

My office, in its infinite wisdom, decided that Microsoft Server 2003 was the best investment they could make. Well, I’m sure most of you understand why I think that’s probably the worst idea in the world but, on the bright side, at least I don’t have to use Outlook .

I am using Evolution to connect to the Exchange Server and everything works just fine. As far as I know it is the ONLY program (Windows or *nix) that will work with Exchange, except for Outlook or Outlook Express. For those of you that have to deal with another of Microsoft’s joke of a product here is how you can use Evolution to access your mailbox.

In Evolution select Edit > Preferences > Accounts > New

• Identity: Set your basic information here. Name, email address, reply-to, etc.
• Receiving Email:


Server Type: "Microsoft Exchange"
Username: domain/username (ie; your windows domain and user account)
OWA URL: The URL for your office / domain webmail. (ie; https://webmail.domain.com/exchange/)
Authenticate: Use this to verify the information is correct for your system
Receiving Options: GAL / Active Directory settings. This is the local config that you'd use to setup Outlook on-site. (This is optional. Mainly used for company calendar and contacts.)


I have been using this for months now and I don’t have any trouble. Occasionally it complains about not being able to access the calendar or company contacts but I’m fairly sure that is the fault of the Exchange Server itself (it, as you might guess, is fairly unreliable).

I would much rather use Evolution to access my office email (and I also use it to retrieve my gmail and other accounts). Before I set this up I simply used the webmail interface. I refuse to use Outlook. I hope this is helpful and anyone else needing to connect to an Exchange Server can use a reliable Linux app to do it.

I’m sure this would be more helpful if I included some screenshots but I don’t have the time for that just now. Feedback is appreciated on how I can better outline the steps. It isn’t too difficult once you have the right information, but finding that is tricky sometimes.

Many of you might be familiar with my post concerning How to install Flock on Ubuntu. I’ve been using Flock now for months and I really enjoy it. Recently, however, I noticed that a few multimedia functions that I had supported in Firefox were not supported in Flock, despite the fact that the correct plugins were installed. After a little research I realized that this was due to Flock merely not knowing where to find them. Below is a quick one-line command to make sure Flock matches any multimedia support that Firefox has, whether this be Flash Player 9 Beta on Ubuntu, Java, etc.

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/* /opt/flock/plugins

Basically, if you didn’t follow what that command does, it simply creates a symbolic link inside the flock/plugins folder to any plugin available in firefox. Running this command will make sure that anything supported as a Firefox plugin will also be supported as a Flock plugin (this, of course, is based on the fact that Flock is based on Firefox).

note: if you’ve added or updated any plugins for Firefox you may need to repeat the command to re-sync anything new to your Flock plugins.

Update : Improved (current) tutorial available here.

I’ve been looking for a decent Calendar application lately so I thought I would try Mozilla’s new Sunbird release (v0.3, released October 11, 2006). Perhaps due to its very early release, or perhaps related to the Mozilla vs Debian fiasco it is not yet included in Ubuntu repositories. For those interested in trying it out here are a few quick steps to installing it manually on your Ubuntu machine.

1. Download Sunbird (Save As…)
2. Unpack the archive (should be on Desktop): sudo tar -C /opt -xjvf sunbird-0.3.en-US.linux-i686.tar.bz2
3. Create a link: sudo ln -s /opt/sunbird/sunbird /usr/bin/sunbird
4. Create meu item: sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/sunbird.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Sunbird
Comment=Sunbird Calendar
Exec=sunbird
Icon=/opt/sunbird/icons/mozicon128.png
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Applications;Network

5. Refresh the menu: killall gnome-panel

If anyone else has used Sunbird and has suggestions on its use or on another application that might offer more please let me know. I hope these instructions work for everyone.

Technorati Tags: ubuntu, linux, sunbird, mozilla, calendar

Dennis Kaarsemaker has been publishing Ubuntu related repositories for quite some time. He is one of the big players in the community (http://ubuntulinux.nl) and maintains quite a few packages for the community. For those not yet aware of this resource I’ve got some tips below:

1. http://ubuntulinux.nl/source-o-matic – use this to generate a custom sources.list. Includes everything from main and security updates to community supported, backports, OpenOffice.org bleeding edge, Wine, KDE, Cipherfunk (multimedia), PLF (Penguin Liberation Front) and Opera. Note: some of the included packages are non-free.

Dennis has also put together packages supporting the last three releases. Breezy (5.10), Dapper (6.06) and now Edgy Eft (6.10) are available. To authenticate these packages via GPG import the key 1135D466.

The following mirrors are available:

• http://free.linux.hp.com/~brett/seveas/freenx (Sponsored by Brett Johnson)
• http://seveas.imbrandon.com (Sponsored by Brandon Holtsclaw)
• http://mirror.ubuntulinux.nl/ (Sponsored by Niels Roosen)
• http://seveas.theplayboymansion.net/seveas (Sponsored by Henri Cook (orion-hosting.co.uk)
• http://mirror2.ubuntulinux.nl/ (Sponsored by Peter Lieverdink)

To include one of these repositories in your sources.list add one of the following examples:

# Seveas Packages - imbrandon mirror
deb http://seveas.imbrandon.com edgy-seveas all
deb-src http://seveas.imbrandon.com edgy-seveas all

# Seveas Packages - ubuntulinux mirror
deb http://mirror.ubuntulinux.nl edgy-seveas all
deb-src http://mirror.ubuntulinux.nl edgy-seveas all

Some of the packages maintained in these repositories include (versions match date of this post):

• dirac 0.5.2
• flashplugin-nonfree 9-beta-1
• ftd4linux 0.98.3
• gftp 2.0.18
• gst-pitfdll 0.10
• lame 3.97
• libdvdcss 1.2.9
• mirage 0.8.1
• seveas-meta 6.10
• ttf-fossfonts 0.0.3
• w32codecs 2006-06-11

So, enjoy a few extra updated packages and a big thanks goes out to Seveas (Dennis) for his contributions. If you’d like to thank him or contact him about these packages you can find him at dennis {at} kaarsemaker.net or as Seveas on irc.freenode.net.

A recent comment reminded me that I completely forgot about including instructions for the GPG key. To import Seveas GPG key you can use the command below:

wget http://mirror.ubuntulinux.nl/1135D466.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

At this point you should have everything you need to get these cool custom packages.

Technorati Tags: ubuntu, breezy, dapper, edgy, repositories, mirror, flash, linux

I re-found something today that I had forgotten about. It outlines a couple of quick methods you can use to speed up the Firefox engine and make pages load more quickly for you. I set this up again this evening and see a noticeable speed increase.

Here are five steps for speeding up your browser.

1. In your address bar visit: about:config
2. Find: network.dns.disableIPv6. Set “true”
3. Find: network.http.pipelining. Set “true”
4. Find: network.http.pipelining.maxrequests. Set “8″
5. Find: network.http.proxy.pipelining. Set “true”

This little trick has been around for a while. I wanted to get it out there for anyone that hadn’t known about it. Also make sure I write it down so I don’t forget it again the next time I re-install (which I do far too often).

technorati tags:firefox, flock, http, browser, speed

Update: This post has been updated based on comments by users. See comments for more details.

I realize that this might be something understood by many people but last night I went to set it up and realized I needed some documentation. The documentation that I did find was rather limited so I thought I would put together a quick tutorial for setting up NFS on an Ubuntu system.

For those that aren’t familiar with NFS here is a quick breakdown of what it might be used for.

• Commonly used data can be stored centrally over an NFS share and accessible by networked machines.
• Centrally store user /home directories on an NFS share allowing them to take their user settings with them on any locally networked machine.
• Centrally share CDROM drives, USB drives and more over the network. If a machine does not have a CDROM simply share that device over NFS and get access.

Below are quick steps on installing and configuring an NFS share on your network. I set this up last night in about 5 minutes to share my media (video and audio) to the other machines on my network.

• sudo aptitude install nfs-kernel-server (install on the central machine you want to share)
• sudo <editor of choice> /etc/exports (this is the configuration file for NFS)

At this point you’ll have to list the devices or locations that you’d like to share and any specifics of that share. Below is an example of my entry and an explanation of each section.

/media/video *(ro,sync)

The first part of this entry, /media/video, represents the location that I want to “export” or share to the network. This, if you hadn’t guessed is the location of my video files.

The second part begins with *. *, as you probably know, represents everything or in this case everyone on the network. You can replace this with a hostname to limit just who can connect to your NFS share. In my case I want all of my local machines to connect so I’ve left it with *.

After that you see ro which defines “read-only”. All of my local machines can access the folder but none can make changes to any of the files. For now this is what I’d prefer. I’d hate for someone to “accidentally” erase half of the video files so its look but don’t touch access.

Now for the good part. How do I use the share that I’ve just setup? It’s quick and easy and uses our good friend the “mount” command. Below is an example of how I would mount the share I created above.

sudo mount media:/media/video /media/video

Here is a quick breakdown of that command. sudo, of course, to gain the privelege of running that command. mount is the same that you’d use to mount a cdrom or usb flash drive. media: represents the machine on the network. Why isn’t that an IP? I’ve specified media in my /etc/hosts file so I can make that shortcut. /media/video is the name of the remote share (as defined above) and /media/video is the location that I would like to mount to. I know it looks like some repetition but I like the organization. You could easily use anything in those places. (ie; sudo mount server:/home/user /home/Desktop/user)

note: the mount destination must already exist and must be empty to properly function.
Quickly, before I wrap this up. Below is an example of how you can set the NFS share to auto-mount on each boot. This would be helpful if you wanted to take advantage of the example above by centrally sharing /home folders.

sudo <editor of choice> /etc/fstab

Add the following entry (replacing with your specifics) to the bottom of that file.

example.hostname:/share_location /mount_location nfs rw,hard,intr 0 0

You’ll notice that the first part of the entry is very similar to the example for manually mounting the share. The last part, beginning with nfs, specifies the file system type (nfs, vfat, ext3, etc) and the last part specify the rest of the details for that nfs system.

I hope this helps anyone new to setting up an NFS share on their network. Some argue that a problem with Linux is lack of helpful documentation. Well, stick this in your pipe and smoke it.

technorati tags:nfs, network, filesystem, ubuntu, 6.06, 6.10

Per my recent post below, Flash 9 is now available for the Linux Desktop. Hooray for us! In my previous post, How to install Flash Player 9 for Linux I outlined how to install the plugin for the default Firefox browser. I also updated the plugin for my Flock browser and wanted to share those steps as well.

1. Download Installer for Linux (GZ, 2.48M) or visit the Adobe Labs
2. Unpack the archive
3. For Flock: sudo cp libflashplayer.so /opt/flock/plugins/
4. Done

I know the instructions are very similar to my other post. Just wanted to make sure that those of you using Flock know how to get this setup as well. Enjoy the flash goodness.

technorati tags:flock, ubuntu, flash, player