Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat – “The Perfect 10″ Released
Canonical have said that there isn’t really too much changed in this version compared to the outstanding 10.04 LTS release.
Some of these minor changes are, better Ubuntu One integrations/sycing, Shotwell replaces F-Spot, the installer now gives you the option to install the mp3 codec (this is my favourite feature) and overall they did some more polishing on the desktop user interface (the menus look great).
You can download it here, however I'd recommend getting the torrent version because you'll probably get better speeds, here.
Howto: Use Dropbox to Sync Tomboy Notes on Ubuntu 10.04
Ubuntu by default comes with Ubuntu One, which is basically a Dropbox clone with a few cool additions. Ubuntu One has got some great desktop integration syncing which I really like, but unfortunately like most people I don't just work in an Ubuntu environment, so Ubuntu One just doesn't suite my needs. I want something that will sync all my files, Tomboy notes etc... cross-platform. So I've been using a feature in Tomboy that allows local folder syncing, which can take advantage of Dropbox's own syncing abilities. Basically what we're going to do is have Tomboy sync to a local folder which is located in the Dropbox folder.
Howto: Subscribe to TV and Radio shows using Miro on Ubuntu
Some on-line content such as radio or TV shows gets updated with new shows on a regular basis. Miro is a very handy piece of software that allows you to keep track of your favorite shows, and get the latest episode, every time it is released. All you have to do is subscribe to those shows, so the content can be automatically and conveniently downloaded to your hard-drive, ready to be enjoyed whenever you want. This way you get to choose what to watch (or listen to), and when to do so. Pretty much like having your customized TV / Radio Network.
Howto: Install Dropbox on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx
If you're like me and just can't switch over to Ubuntu One because they don't have a cross-platform client quite yet, Dropbox is still the king of easy folder synchronisation.
Step 1
Go to www.dropbox.com/downloading and download the appropriate .deb file.
Note: If you don't have a dropbox account sign-up for one here
Note: If you're not sure which one to download, you'll notice just above the download links they recommend which one you should download.
Step 2
Once downloaded, locate the file and double click it. You'll be presented with a package installer, just follow the on screen prompts.
Howto: Install Skype on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx
This is exactly the same process of installing it on the previous version, straignt forward, works great.
Note: Due to a recent update, you can now install Skype via the Ubuntu Software Centre, just do a search for it. You can also install it via the command line with the following: sudo apt-get install skype
Step 1
Go to www.skype.com/download and get the appropriate 8.10+ version for you (32/64-bit).
Step 2
Launch the Skype install .deb file (just double click it) and follow the on screen prompts.
Ubuntu 10.04 Beta 1 Released
Beta 1 is finally out after being postponed. I'd recommend you download the torrent version for the fastest download experience, check out the download page here.
What changes would you like to see in Beta 2 if it's not already been changed in this release? (I'm sure a lot of people are going to say, "buttons")
Howto: Fix Spotify sound problems on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
After installing Spotify on my Ubuntu 9.10 system I found that I was having some sound issues, popping, cracking and sound crashes. I'll walk you through my settings and point you to the Spotify FAQ for the suggested settings (they didn't work for me, but they could for you) So here we go...
Howto: Install Spotify on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
I finally got around to trying Spotify, unfortunately they don't have a Linux native application so we'll be running the Windows version under Wine. The install process is very straight forward and most people have had it work straight out of the box however I had some sound problems which you can see here.
Howto: Install TweetDeck on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
This is one of the best social networking application I've found out there, not only is it functional and stylish, but it's cross-platform as it's an Adobe Air application and it's really easy to install!
Note: If you don't have Adobe Air installed please follow this guide first and then return to here.
Step 1
Go to tweetdeck.com and click the yellow download button.
Howto: Install Adobe Air on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
There are some really great adobe air applications out there especially one revolving around social networks such as twitter, facebook, friendfeed. This is a pretty easy install and I'm going to show you how to do it via the command line because it's very quick to do.
Step 1
Download adobe air here and save it to somewhere you can find it like the /Downloads folder.
Step 2
Open up a Terminal window under the Applications->Accessories menu and navigate to the folder you download adobe air to, in my case it was the /Downloads folder:
Howto: Install Firefox 3.6 on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
Update: The mozilla team has made a new ppa that will upgrade firefox 3.5, I've added that ppa below.
Firefox 3.6 has just come out and for people that don't want to wait for Canonical to officially upgrade the default Firefox 3.5 install on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala follow these steps:
Step 1
Go to System->Administration->Software Sources and in the Software Source window navigate to the Other Sources tab.
Step 2
Click the Add button and copy and paste the either ppa into the dialogue box:
Howto: Use Symbolic Links to Sync Folders with Dropbox on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
I've been using Dropbox to sync files over multiple OS's for a while now, but I've always found it annoying that I couldn't sync folder I specified rather than just the one Dropbox folder. While my solution isn't quite what I want, I does a pretty good job of it nonetheless, this is done by using symbolic links.
Basically a symbolic link will allow a folder to be in two places at once. In my case I'd like to make a symbolic link of my /Documents folder and place it in my /Dropbox folder so it will be synced to my other machines.
Step 1
Open a Terminal and simply run the following command:
Howto: Compile Dropbox from Source on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
It's very straight forward to do and doesn't really take much time at all. If you're on another Debian based distro it should work fine.
Step 1
Download the source files from here www.getdropbox.com/downloading and unzip it (right click and "Extract Here").
Note: If you don't have a dropbox account sign-up for one here
Step 2
We now need to install the dependencies in order to build our install files from source.
Open up your Terminal and type:
Howto: Install Adobe Flash 10.1 (pre-release) on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
As most linux users know Adobe Flash isn't particularly good, it's choppy and hogs your CPU. Well Adobe has a pre-release of Flash 10.1 which is really really good. It's pretty easy to install.
Step 1
Note: Download it to somewhere easy to access it like your Desktop
Howto: Fix Gnome Do Home Folder Bug on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
If you've had a problem opening the Home Folder with Gnome Do, basically if I add the Home Folder icon to my docky or even find it doing a search, it simple wont open. Well I did some poking around and found a fix.
Step 1
Open up your Terminal under Application->Accessories menu and run the following command:
gksudo nautilus /usr/share/applications
This will basically open up your file manager as root so you can edit the Home Folder executable.
Howto: Speed Up GRUB2 Boot Loader on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
If you're like me and are sick on the 10 second GRUB2 boot loader timer and would like to speed it up or remove you'll be happy to know that it's quite easy to change.
Note: This tutorial is for Ubuntu 9.10 if you're using an older version of Ubuntu and thus GRUB see my previous artical - Howto: Speed Up Grub Boot Loader Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope.
Step 1
Open a Terminal window and run:
sudo gedit /etc/default/grub
Howto: Fix Performance of ATI Drivers with Compiz on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
Everyone know's that ATI drivers always seem to have something wrong with them, be it tearing in video or just general slow performance.
I happen to be victim to both of these currently, the way I got around video tearing was by changing my video output as I outlined in my previous tutorial, Howto:Fix ATI Video Playback. As for the performance issues I've finally found the answer! It turns out that it's got something to do with backfill we don't need to know what it is or what it does, all you need to know is getting rid of it fixes performance issues such as slow maximizing windows and also should fix video tearing!
Caution: I'd like to warn you in advance that doing anything with xserver could make your system unstable and crash you desktop interface. So do this at your own risk!
Quick Tip: Getting your mic working with alsamixer
After installing Skype flawlessly if time around I was messing around with some sound settings and managed to muck something up and stopped my microphone from working. It was either me or an update, but more than likely it was me. After using alsamixer to fix my previous gripe with the pc speaker beeping and not finding a way to fix my problem in the Sound Preferences application found under System -> Preferences I turned back to alsamixer.
When I opened up alsamixer pressed tab until I was viewing [All] I saw that there were two options both called analog and I figure well everything else seems to be on why no see what they do, anyway, I ended up pressing up once to change them both to Digital and that seemed to fix my problem instantly!
Howto: Fix ttf-mscorefonts-installer problems in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
Most of the people that installed the new Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala and then tried to install the ubuntu-restricted-extras quickly found that any time after that when installing a package via CLI/Software Center/Synaptic Package Manager they got an error in reference to ttf-mscorefonts-installer (3.0).
I'm not really sure why it's can't resolve the host, but the easiest way to fix this little problem is to simple uninstall the ttf-mscorefonts-installer, but now you're thinking well maybe I want the Microsoft fonts for cross-platform compatibility reason, well I've got my own little script that does that for you too.
Step 1
Open up your Terminal under Applications -> Accessories ->Terminal and run:
sudo apt-get remove ttf-mscorefonts-installer
Step 2
Download my script here (you'll have to unzip it to get to the bash script), by default it's not an executable, which we will amend in a second. In order to run my script open a Terminal and navigate to the directory the file is in (i recommend putting it on the Desktop) as shown in my example:
cd ~/Desktop/
Now run the following command to make the file executable:
sudo chmod +x msfonts
Note: You may need to install cabextract, as it's one of the programs I use in my script. In your Terminal run:
sudo apt-get install cabextract
Step 3
In the same terminal windows run the script:
./msfonts
Note: My script is pretty basic as you can see and may take sometimes to download all the files depending on your connection. It basically get's the .exe's that hold the fonts extracts, renames and copies the fonts into the appropriate directory on your system, which is /usr/share/fonts/truetype/mscorefonts/ and now you can see the fonts when you open up Open Office Writer.
Let's hope the package managers notice this problem soon, because I have no doubt in my mind that is is going to really annoy a lot of people!
Note: My fix works most of the time, but I've got a few emails saying it didn't so I've directed them to follow this post
If you liked this guide please comment and subscribe.
Edit: Made a quick correction in Step 2 making the file an executable, thanks FXB for pointing that out.
Edit: Made a note in Step 3 to make sure you have cabextract, otherwise my script wont work.
Edit: Just so people know you can read/do what my script actually does manually...Basically go download the .exe extract the font, rename it and then move it too the correct place. It's that simple.
Howto: Install Dropbox on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
Dropbox have officially released there .deb's for Ubuntu 9.10 32/64 bit! It's quite straight forward to install.
Step 1
Go to www.getdropbox.com/downloading and download the appropriate package for your system.
Note: If you don't have a dropbox account sign-up for one here
Step 2
Run the .deb file and follow the install instructions, it'll just take a moment.
Step 3
It'll tell you to logout and log back in, do so. Now run the application from Applications->Internet->Dropbox. It'll take a moment to load up then give you a warning that it's going to download/install a nautilus daemon, allow it to do so. This will just take a minute or so.
Step 4
You'll soon be greeted with a window that'll ask you if you'd like to login or create an account do what's appropriate for you.
Step 5
Once you've gone through the setup stage your Dropbox folder will now be located in your /home directory. You can however pick where you'd like to locate it and you can see that option in the setup, but the default is fine.
Step 6
Simple drag and drop files in and out of the folder and they will sync with the cloud and other machines you have it running on (can be Windows/Mac/Linux)
Congratulates you're all done! The thing I like the most about Dropbox is the fact that it's so easy to use, cross-platform and most of all free!
If you liked this guide or would like to add to it, please post a comment below and don't forget to subscribe (it's free)
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