Comments for Dave's Tech Blog

Comment on Bob Church Ends His Chemotherapy by Shirley Allard

Shirley Allard — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:52:03 +0000

I second that! Bob is very lucky to have such a wonderful and caring family. Thanks, Dave.

Shirley

Comment on Bob Church Ends His Chemotherapy by JO

JO — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:32:32 +0000

Hi, I’m the lady who had never flown before who came to Columbia. It was nice meeting you there. I’m clutching the memory of that weekend close as one of the most magical times I’ve ever given to myself–meeting other writers, and Bob, whom I’ve known on the internet for years.

These updates are so appreciated. It helps to feel like we are sharing this time with Bob, sitting with him watching movies, so to speak. Keep them coming, please!

Comment on Bob Church Ends His Chemotherapy by Karen Heywood

Karen Heywood — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:02:16 +0000

Thank you so much for posting this Dave - Bob has many friends and fellow writers on the internet and he has touched a lot of lives with his writing.

I appreciate you being his voice and keeping us posted during this difficult time.

Karen

Comment on Happy Birthday to Bob Church!! by david_steinlage

david_steinlage — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 00:15:40 +0000

Bob and Louise moved to Topeka about a month ago and his health has gotten worse since his birthday not long ago. His most recent stay at the hospital lasted about one week. Most of the time he spends awake he is barely awake (due to the morphene drip to reduce the pain) and otherwise spends most of the time asleep. I don’t think he’s been on the Internet or checked his email since the move. He spends all of his days and nights in a hospital bed in their living room and enjoys watching talk shows and court TV to help pass the time. His computer is attached to the big screen TV in the living room but its still difficult to read what’s on screen. I think it takes too much energy for him to deal with the computer. I will see if he might be up for using a laptop situated on a tray over his lap if he thinks he might be up for it. I will let him know that his fans and friends online are worried.

Comment on Happy Birthday to Bob Church!! by amuirin

amuirin — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 03:41:36 +0000

Hi… I’m a blog friend of Bob’s, and I just wondered if you knew if he was doin’ ok. We haven’t heard from him over there in a long time. I miss him.

Thanks,

Comment on 10 Things To Do After You Install Ubuntu Linux by Kent

Kent — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 23:03:37 +0000

thanks Dave, installed xubuntu on a laptop to try it and remembered seeing how to install the restricted extras here.

Comment on How To Fix Virtualbox After Upgrading Ubuntu by Titus

Titus — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 12:08:26 +0000

Hey Dave, just to tell you you are the best!
It worked “out of the box” for me, after I had spent hours trying to understand what could have caused the issue.

100 points +!

Thanks, Titus.

Comment on From The Linux Terminal To Shell Scripts by xosted

xosted — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:12:42 +0000

Hi David,
Thank you for the mail.
The new code works fine. Cheers.

Comment on How To Fix Virtualbox After Upgrading Ubuntu by Scott

Scott — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 03:35:19 +0000

sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup worked great for me after kubuntu 8.10 update.
Thanks for the help

Comment on From The Linux Terminal To Shell Scripts by david_steinlage

david_steinlage — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:17:40 +0000

xosted:

Wordpress was causing the double-hyphen placed before the word “output” to be blended together into one hyphen so it wouldn’t paste over correctly. I’ve made a correction above to accommodate for this.

Comment on From The Linux Terminal To Shell Scripts by xosted

xosted — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:57:23 +0000

Hi Dave,
The code to install Medibuntu is not working for me.
Everythin else works fine.
Very good post - I like the way you explained all the Terminal commands.
Keep ‘em coming!

Comment on Here’s A Little Song I Wrote by Dávid Szabó

Dávid Szabó — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:54:21 +0000

I quite liked the beginning and the spooky windlike noises in the background. Go on writing some more. Good luck!

Comment on 10 Things To Do After You Install Ubuntu Linux by nass

nass — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 01:40:20 +0000

great post. this is by far one of the better “10 things to do after installing Ubuntu” lists i’ve come across.

Comment on The Linux Terminal For Beginners by nass

nass — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 01:34:45 +0000

thanx a lot. helped me get started.

Comment on The Linux Terminal For Beginners by oth8man

oth8man — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 12:34:05 +0000

$ cat > Thanks.txt
Thanks man this is really helpful, & waiting for more
$ exit

Comment on 10 Things To Do After You Install Ubuntu Linux by tim

tim — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:38:55 +0000

Thank You. This was very helpful for me in choosing to run Umbutu on another pc.

Comment on How to connect Linux to your cellular Internet by Pavel

Pavel — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 18:54:10 +0000

Thanks, works like a charm on Tmobile Tm 506 with HP Dv6000z and Ubuntu 8.10.

Comment on 10 Things To Do After You Install Ubuntu Linux by david_steinlage

david_steinlage — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 07:59:06 +0000

@Johannes Eva: I’ve had audio problems in the past with Skype, but found that, through trial and error of the audio device settings, I got it to work. The problem is that Skype developers need to get things ironed out by updating their Linux version more rapidly. A fix will come eventually, but in the mean time, there are solutions available on the ubuntuforums.org. If you use google to search for a solution, you will likely find a way to get it to work for you. Are you having audio issues with any other applications?

@meganox: I remember when I was proof reading this thing one day at work catching those missing sudo’s but getting distracted and forgetting about it. Thanks for the heads up!!!

@Boris: Thanks for the suggestion! There are other applications available via those repositories more experienced users might want to take a look at.

Comment on 10 Things To Do After You Install Ubuntu Linux by meganox

meganox — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 09:03:45 +0000

Great guide. Small typo:

# sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2 && apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

should be:

# sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2 && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

Comment on 10 Things To Do After You Install Ubuntu Linux by Johannes Eva

Johannes Eva — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 00:21:19 +0000

Great!
Would be even better if Skype would work, but well… pulseaudio…
I just spent some hours trying it out, no way!

Comment on 10 Things To Do After You Install Ubuntu Linux by Boris

Boris — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 22:06:44 +0000

Very good, I suggest adding the Medibuntu repository - http://www.medibuntu.org/

Comment on 10 Things To Do After You Install Ubuntu Linux by david_steinlage

david_steinlage — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 05:50:22 +0000

Axel, Thanks for the heads up about Ubuntu Tweak. I will be taking a look at this program very soon and will likely write about it here.

Comment on How To Fix Virtualbox After Upgrading Ubuntu by Ian Berean

Ian Berean — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 14:09:45 +0000

Follow-up to my previous post: I’ve removed VB and then reinstalled from the site and everything seems to be working. Once again, many thanks.

Comment on How To Fix Virtualbox After Upgrading Ubuntu by Ian Berean

Ian Berean — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 09:43:29 +0000

Thanks for putting this together. Unfortunately, I’m left with the same error that I received previously:

VERR_VM_DRIVER_NOT_INSTALLED (rc=-1908)

The VirtualBox Linux kernel driver (vboxdrv) is either not loaded or there is a permission problem with /dev/vboxdrv. Re-setup the kernel module by executing

‘/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup’

as root. Users of Ubuntu or Fedora should install the DKMS package at first. This package keeps track of Linux kernel changes and recompiles the vboxdrv kernel module if necessary.

I’ve performed your suggestions twice, and rebooted in-between, but no luck alas. Any ideas, Dave? Any suggestions gratefully received. Thank you. Ian

Comment on 10 Things To Do After You Install Ubuntu Linux by Axel

Axel — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 08:42:58 +0000

Hi Dave,

thank’s for your article and description of the various software packages available for ubuntu.

I just like to add, that you could have saved yourself a lot of time using “ubuntu tweak” (http://ubuntu-tweak.com/) doing the installation tasks.

Ubuntu Tweak also adds the according sources into the sources list, so you will be automatically served with updates of the installed programs which is NOT the case if you are using “deb”-files.

By the way: Ubuntu Tweak does NOT change anything on you system any more like it did in former versions. It does not break the system in any way, but does most of the hard work described above for you.

Greets Axel

Comment on Six things to do after you install Ubuntu by daibarnes

daibarnes — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:10:53 +0000

This is a great list and more of this sort of thing is required for ubuntu virgins like me. I’m trying to go OSS only on my new machine and keep running into obstacles. Examples - can’t get dual monitors working; logitech webcam video and audio work on skype but not on seesmic or any other web platform because I can’t choose the webcam mic. Installing software that downloads into archive manager is a mystery to me. Would love a post on this as it is the biggest turn off so far.

Thanks for the six! Esp Google Earth. :o)

Comment on What’s Coming In Ubuntu 8.10: Intrepid Ibex by david_steinlage

david_steinlage — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 04:58:19 +0000

@ mafia_spidey

I should have added a third reason no major upgrade has occurred: Because you can easily change the way the GUI looks on your own, either through downloadable theme packages (available at websites like gnome-look.org, which I would suggest you take a good look at before criticizing Ubuntu’s looks), or by switching to a different window manager. Instead of GNOME, you could use KDE (which looks more like Windows XP). Or if you wanted to slim things up, you can use XFCE or IceWM, or even Fluxbox if you really want to trim your resource usage down.

I’m not disappointed about the fact that there won’t be a major upgrade to the default GUI’s because I’m quite happy with the current one, which is already very customizable and easy to use. It is by no definition an “eye sore”. For example, simply adding a GTK theme and Cairo Dock to your system, and you can make the computer look exactly like a Mac (if you are so inclined). I disagree with you on user-friendliness vs. stability. Stability is #1, always. Because in the world of computers, downtime = mucho dinero. Eye candy can take a back seat and like it.

And seriously, Compiz blows every other major operating system’s eye candy/window management out of the water, and it can be enabled and configured by a 7 year old. It doesn’t take a programmer to make Ubuntu look slick and sexy.

Comment on What’s Coming In Ubuntu 8.10: Intrepid Ibex by mafia_spidey

mafia_spidey — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 03:23:05 +0000

You present two reasons why Ubuntu’s GUI sucks. One is that a better looking GUI will use up resources. True. Another is that a better looking GUI is just not the top priority. (will it ever be?)

My response to that is. If those are the real reasons for not having a better looking Ubuntu, then Ubuntu is NOT geared towards the regular people. For ubuntu to become mainstream, user-friendliness is just as important as stability! If that is not true, than Ubuntu’s philosophy is to build an OS for ‘programmers’ and ‘computer experts’, not the average guy. BUT, wait, didn’t Mark Shuttleworth said that Ubuntu should be competing with Mac to actually become a mainstream OS? Did he just say that or did he mean it?

Comment on What’s Coming In Ubuntu 8.10: Intrepid Ibex by Mika

Mika — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 05:57:49 +0000

“Xorg 7.4 (which is said to completely eliminate the need for the xorg.conf file; no more manual tweaking necessary),”

Xorg 7.3 already did that.

Comment on Google Releases New Open-Source Browser by JO Janoski

JO Janoski — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 20:43:53 +0000

I like Chrome! I’ve been using since it came out. I like it well enough to be willing to give up Firefox with all the handy extensions. Speed trumps all.

Comment on Happy Birthday to Bob Church!! by Shirley Allard

Shirley Allard — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 01:11:18 +0000

Hi Dave, It was so nice to meet you and have the chance to thank you personally for your technical advice in the past. As Karen said, It was Bob’s birthday but we got the best gift he could have given us - the opportunity to meet him and his wonderful family & friends. And, as a bonus, I sat in the chair from where the brilliance begins!

Thanks so much for the photos.

Comment on Happy Birthday to Bob Church!! by Karen Heywood

Karen Heywood — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:54:32 +0000

Thanks for sharing these downloads with us, Dave! It may have been Bob’s birthday but he gave us the best gift - the gift of friendship. My world is a better place because of Bob!

Comment on Happy Birthday to Bob Church!! by JO Janoski

JO Janoski — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:46:15 +0000

It was nice to meet you at the festivities. I’m the crazy lady who loves ubuntu who talked to you for a while. Great job on those photos you took. You covered the day down to every detail. I really appreciate the download since my own camera went kaput on me. Looking at your shots was like enjoying the day all over again. Thanks again for the pics!

Comment on Happy Birthday to Bob Church!! by david_steinlage

david_steinlage — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 07:20:50 +0000

I will be adding content from the party to this address:

http://www.davestechsupport.com/bobsbirthday

Anybody can download photos and video of the party from that address.

Comment on Happy Birthday to Bob Church!! by Bob Church

Bob Church — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:53:18 +0000

Hi, David…

Thanks for the advertising! Ha! It was so great to see everyone and I’m so honored that folks would turn out in the numbers that they did, it’s quite humbling.

Comment on Spoofing Holiday Inn Part 2 by teh

teh — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 23:15:27 +0000

I just tried spoofing my wii’s mac address at a Sleep Inn, works fine here

Comment on How to connect T-Mobile Wireless Internet in Linux by Benjamin T

Benjamin T — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:05:00 +0000

Sorry for double-posting, but I just found out that the step you’re recommending for others, putting “Stupid Mode = 1″ in wvdial.conf, eliminates this 10-20 second wait. Try it out, It’ll speed up your connecting time.

Comment on How to connect T-Mobile Wireless Internet in Linux by Benjamin T

Benjamin T — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:01:31 +0000

That 10 or 20 second pause isn’t the handshake. As it says, it’s waiting for a prompt. Recieving none, it times out, hence the ” Don’t know what to do! Starting pppd and hoping for the best.” line. Eliminating this step would shorten the connect time a lot…

Comment on How to Install Real Player 11 (32-bit) in Ubuntu by david_steinlage

david_steinlage — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 08:49:03 +0000

Son of a fucking bitch!

Comment on How to Install Real Player 11 (32-bit) in Ubuntu by Jennifer M. Cato

Jennifer M. Cato — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 01:07:45 +0000

I have been informed of potential copyright issues with Debian package of Real Player 11 I converted from an .RPM and had on the Tuxwerx server.
Until I get some sort of formal legal clearance from RealNetworks I can no longer provide this .deb package.
In the meantime until RealNetworks posts a .deb package you can simply download the .rpm package from Real’s own servers then run that RPM package through alien to convert it to a .deb package and install it like any other .deb package. The .rpm may work on your Debian\Ubuntu system but I had issues with it so I converted it in to a native Debian package for Ubuntu.
No modification of the core code was performed. Only the manner of packaging was altered from an .RPM package to a .DEB package for installation on a Debian based Linux system.
I’ll try to get clearance from RealNetworks but until that happens copyright restrictions prevent me from redistributing that RealPlayer 11 .deb package.
Sorry folks. You can thank the Lawyers for that one…

Comment on About Dave’s Blog by david_steinlage

david_steinlage — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 03:04:36 +0000

Hi there Mat!

Thanks for the compliments you left on my blog. I’m just getting around to approving these things as I’ve been away on vacation for a few days.

I’d love to be able to help you with Cairo, but I feel you’d get better direction elsewhere because I don’t really use Cairo (I’m too used to the plain old task bar). I highly recommend http://www.ubuntuforums.org, as they have hundreds of thousands of members, that are pumped up to take and answer questions about everything Ubuntu related. I would start with the Desktop Effects & Customization forum first:

http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=330

The developers of Cairo Dock also have a wiki online you can look at which may be even better than the link above:

http://www.cairo-dock.org/ww_page.php?p=Accueil&lang=en

Good Luck!

Comment on How to Install WinXP after Ubuntu with Gparted by everett

everett — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 19:26:22 +0000

I successfully created the NTFS partition, however when I go to install xp, it says “Unknown Disk ”
Any help please?

Comment on About Dave’s Blog by mat

mat — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 01:57:16 +0000

Dave your blog is awesome, i msut say the 3 best part are the bib bang one, the how to ubuntu, and within ubuntu …the cairo dock. You just rock hehe

How should i put this, yeah..im new to ubuntu. But hey, as soon as i saw how great it was i so dump my xp disc in the garbage :D.

After reading and apply your advice on how to install cairo doc, i came to realize that it is still a bit complicated for me tho. (not your tutorial , the dock itself i mean)

So i was wondering if you could teach me how to get it just like shown in your youtube link. I have the basic settings applied and it runs fine. but wow, it would look so much better to have it like in the video.

I don’t mean to be a pain tho, if its not too much of an hassle, could you explain it to me, like how to tweak the setting for it becomes like this video ?

Cause i can see that you know how to explain things by reading our blog.

Well even if you don’t have the time or think it’s a bit difficult to explain all that, i would still like to say “great job!!” on your blog.

-Mat

Comment on Sorry, I’ve been busy playing Portal on Ubuntu by Wintershade

Wintershade — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:35:48 +0000

Performance Windows games running on Linux, under WINE, is no surprise. The same as the fact that new games may not be a problem for WINE at all, as much as some old games pose a total disaster.
By reading the WINE documentation, you may understand that Wine Is Not an Emulator - it is more like an EXE and DLL interpreter, with a set of mostly-used Windows APIs implemented. This means that WINE utilizes the same x86 or x86_64 processor your Linux is using, and doesn’t create a “virtual environment” in order to make Windows applications run.

Since WINE is open-source, it is no surprise that many of the implemented APIs actually work better than on Windows (for me, Diablo 2 works faster under WINE than under Windows), since they’re open-source and being constantly optimized for speed and compatibility, and, what’s more important, they support modern i686 and x64 architectures, while Windows is forced to support i386 for compatibility with older architectures.

Cheerio =]

Comment on The Linux Terminal For Beginners by Wintershade

Wintershade — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:19:33 +0000

A dandy one for beginners! I like it!

Comment on The Linux Terminal For Beginners by Dave

Dave — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:32:51 +0000

There are advantages to typing sudo in front of every command, particularly in a multi-sysadmin environment.

Every sudo command is logged in /var/log and also in the appropriate user’s .bash_history.

Because of this, if you are trying to figure out who ran the command that broke the mail server, you can actually find out. If everyone simply logs in as root or opens a root shell after logging in then you can’t tell who ran any particular command in root’s .bash_history.

Also, as yourself you can switch between root and user commands quickly and easily by not typing sudo in front of the command. If you are root then you have to log out before running a non root command.

Comment on Six things to do after you install Ubuntu by Bob

Bob — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 03:19:31 +0000

Fascinating. I like it. Will it be continued?

Comment on The Linux Terminal For Beginners by alec

alec — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 21:11:15 +0000

If you don’t want to have to type SUDO in front of Every command that you do, simply type ‘SUDO SU’ in the terminal and provide your password for root. You will then be able to enter data as root in ubuntu. Don’t know Ubuntu does it that way, but they do.
–alec

Comment on The Linux Terminal For Beginners by Greg Krakow

Greg Krakow — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 19:11:53 +0000

I’ve always just used ’sudo bash’ to get to bash shell in super user mode. Seems intuitive to me.

Comment on The Linux Terminal For Beginners by Derek

Derek — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 00:25:04 +0000

Instead of ’sudo su’ you can do ’sudo -i’ which to me seems less redundant.

Comment on How to Install WinXP after Ubuntu with Gparted by david_steinlage

david_steinlage — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 08:53:10 +0000

It’s hard to say. I have very limited exposure to RAID. I would suspect everything would be seamless if you are running %100 hardware-based RAID. But if it’s software based, you will have problems.

Comment on How to Install WinXP after Ubuntu with Gparted by rajesh

rajesh — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 04:06:16 +0000

Hi,

Can be able to use that on the Raid 5 Disks as well?
I am getting some strange errors.

raj

Comment on The Linux Terminal For Beginners by anon

anon — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:38:13 +0000

The reason that su doesnt work by default in ubuntu is due to groups. While sudo does work for single instances of root privs. if youd like to be able to just $su root you can either:

1. add your username to the wheel group. (/etc/group)
2. sudo su (this allows you to use sudo to su

the second option is a bit rendudant looking, but for those of you who are not comfortable with group management itll get the job done

Comment on The Linux Terminal For Beginners by Gary Utz

Gary Utz — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:48:11 +0000

Great job teaching the basics. Been in IT for 25 years and have been hacking UNIX as a Systems Engineer for over 12 years. I do everything from the CLI. I hope you draw in some newbies and get them to understand what goes on behind the GUI curtain. The CLI is the way to fly through Linux, Solaris and AIX.

Comment on Virtualbox vs. VMware Server by anthony

anthony — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 06:16:34 +0000

If you are the sort of person who updates their kernel with every release then you deserve everything you get. Got nothing better to do?

Comment on Make your dumb cell phone smart with J2ME by Bill Scott, VP Sales/BD at GetJar

Bill Scott, VP Sales/BD at GetJar — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:15:37 +0000

Dave,

We at GetJar noticed your blog and would like to thank you for thinking of us. Your readers might want to browse other categories on GetJar to find free applications that they may find useful. If you work with mobile application developers, they should know that they can post their applications on GetJar for free, and also access free beta testing services.

Regards,

Bill Scott
VP Sales & Business Development
GetJar Networks Ltd.
bill@getjar.com

Comment on The Great Singularity (Part 2) by Dave’s Tech Blog » Blog Archive » The Great Singularity (Part 3)

Dave’s Tech Blog » Blog Archive » The Great Singularity (Part 3) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 22:29:22 +0000

[...] a year ago when I first started writing this blog, I threw a couple posts out there (Part 1 and Part 2) that talked about the history of our existence. Not the existence of mere humans, but of the [...]

Comment on The Great Singularity (Part 1) by Dave’s Tech Blog » Blog Archive » The Great Singularity (Part 3)

Dave’s Tech Blog » Blog Archive » The Great Singularity (Part 3) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 22:28:42 +0000

[...] than a year ago when I first started writing this blog, I threw a couple posts out there (Part 1 and Part 2) that talked about the history of our existence. Not the existence of mere humans, but [...]

Comment on Virtualbox vs. VMware Server by Ealdor

Ealdor — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 11:42:43 +0000

Great guide, thanks.

Comment on The Linux Terminal For Beginners by andrew

andrew — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 02:13:51 +0000

if you type sudo su then your password you can get root. seems redundant but it works for me.

Comment on Make your dumb cell phone smart with J2ME by LC

LC — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 20:58:52 +0000

I am a big fan of Opera and now I am a big fan of MovaMail! Hands down the best mobile email application out there… I see they also have a great mobile IM application. You can download it here:
http://www.movamessenger.com. You should really check it out and do a review of it too. Its the best one I have ever used. Be good if they combined the two products into one convenient application. That would rock!!

Comment on The Linux Terminal For Beginners by John

John — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 23:31:00 +0000

Bash is very clever. I have two bash scripts, one 600+ lines, the other nearly 3000 lines, running diagnostic tests on boards that we produce. Couldn’t be done any other way, and I haven’t really found much of a limitation… Well, floating point math would be nice, but I got over it

Comment on The Linux Terminal For Beginners by Gary Roush

Gary Roush — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 23:25:21 +0000

This info helped me alot. I’m just getting started with linux and articles like this are really welcomed. Thanks a lot.

Comment on The Linux Terminal For Beginners by guitarMan666

guitarMan666 — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 07:57:38 +0000

This is an excellent tutorial for the beginner. I never had one, I figured it out on my own drawing from my experience with MS-DOS and the DOS-like consoles that ship with modern Windows systems.

This is the first site that I send recent Linux “converts” to.
Kudos!

Comment on The Linux Terminal For Beginners by Josh

Josh — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 22:35:23 +0000

Man the bash shell is SO much better than windows’s…. !!

Comment on The Linux Terminal For Beginners by Josh

Josh — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 22:34:28 +0000

I like this article.

I am kinda fluent in the Bash shell but it is good to have a refresher!

Comment on The Linux Terminal For Beginners by Anthony

Anthony — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 07:28:24 +0000

su doesn’t work in a default install of Ubuntu

sudo gives you the ability to execute one command with ‘root’ privileges

If you want a # prompt in Ubuntu use sudo -i

type ‘exit’ (without the quotes) to go back to a non privileged $ prompt.

HTH

Comment on How to Install Real Player 11 (32-bit) in Ubuntu by khatib nedjar

khatib nedjar — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 20:07:23 +0000

so guy thank you for a lot take care .

Comment on Virtualbox vs. VMware Server by david_steinlage

david_steinlage — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 12:37:11 +0000

Ba Page,

I stand corrected! And thanks for writing out that -default option on the vmware-config.pl file. It will be handy for those who decide to stay with VMware.

In return, I’ve found the script command used for Virtualbox to reconfigure it after a kernel update:

/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

I’ve written a very, very short blog about this command. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!

Comment on Virtualbox vs. VMware Server by Ba Page

Ba Page — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:24:21 +0000

Sorry mate, you’re perspective is skewed.

VBox requires you to run a script after every kernel upgrade, just like VMWare.

VMWare’s time-wasting (as you called it) script does prompt you for anything if you throw on a ‘-default’ switch to the command, ie:
$ vmware-config.pl -default

you just spent 3 pages explaining to vbox users how to setup in vbox what vmware does for you automatically.

I recommend you try to get some journalistic research done before you start throwing big opinions around.

Comment on The Linux Terminal For Beginners by david_steinlage

david_steinlage — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 05:22:22 +0000

I made a minor adjustment to the blog (just for added clarity). To execute a command with root privilages, you type “sudo”, and then the command. It will then ask you for your account password.

This will not work with accounts that do not have admin privilages. The first account to exist does.

Comment on The Linux Terminal For Beginners by Stamen

Stamen — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:13:43 +0000

I think you type “su” and enter, then type your password.

Comment on The Linux Terminal For Beginners by Joel

Joel — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:22:04 +0000

i am really new to this whole terminal thing and i am trying to get Root level privileges but i have no idea how. i am trying to install an update for my video card but in order to do so i need [Joel@localhost ~]# (which you prolly already new) how do i change the $ into the #

Comment on How to Install WinXP after Ubuntu with Gparted by david_steinlage

david_steinlage — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:29:24 +0000

GRUB, included with Ubuntu, should suit your purposes as it is designed to function as a boot manager. Installing a program such as Mr. Booter would overwrite GRUB, but because Mr. Booter functions not just with DOS and Windows, but also Linux, you should be able to configure it to boot Ubuntu for you, but I cannot instruct you on how to do this.

Comment on How to Install WinXP after Ubuntu with Gparted by Bert

Bert — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 20:53:44 +0000

Hello,

Love this tutorial.
Everything works fine, until you use for example mrbooter
to choose a OS.

Is there existing a boot program to handle this?

Comment on Look at what I got for my Birthday! by ewe

ewe — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 06:42:50 +0000

look great dave.

Comment on How to setup Internet Connections in Ubuntu by david_steinlage

david_steinlage — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 20:41:13 +0000

No ports are open on your system by default, though if you want to modify the rules your firewall operates on, or if you want to view the status of current connections, you can use a program called Firestarter.

Firestarter can be installed via Applications>Add/Remove>Search for “Firestarter”.

To get it to run when you boot, click System>Preferences>Session. Click on the Add button, then in the “command” line, type “firestarter” all lower-case, and you should also name it firestarter as well. Once you have those two fields populated, click ok, and that’s it!

Comment on How to setup Internet Connections in Ubuntu by Milardo

Milardo — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 02:22:36 +0000

Hi how do i start the firewall on default when system starts up?

Comment on Look at what I got for my Birthday! by david_steinlage

david_steinlage — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:28:26 +0000

I’ll let my girlfriend know you guys like her taste in computer monitors.

Comment on Look at what I got for my Birthday! by Justin

Justin — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 23:32:49 +0000

yo…that monitor is too cool!!!

Comment on A Friendly Reminder: Backup Your Data! by Dr Small

Dr Small — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:30:01 +0000

One of my old systems got hit by lighting once. It only damaged the motherboard, as I have tested every component on the thing. The hard drive, RAM, PSU, are all good. The CPU might be good, but I have no way of telling for it.

I now always unplug when lightning gets near.

Comment on Look at what I got for my Birthday! by Dr Small

Dr Small — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:23:42 +0000

I like your case

Comment on How to Install WinXP after Ubuntu with Gparted by david_steinlage

david_steinlage — Thu, 29 May 2008 02:01:33 +0000

Tiggsy,

I’ve started a thread about your particular problem on Ubuntu Forums. You are not the first to encounter this problem. View this link for some helpful advice:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=807286

Comment on How to Install WinXP after Ubuntu with Gparted by david_steinlage

david_steinlage — Thu, 29 May 2008 02:00:41 +0000

Cindy,

If I’m not mistaken, you are attempting to type “sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst” while in a plain text terminal interface. Gedit is a graphical text editor, so if you are not operating within a GUI, it will not run.

You have two options:

1. Boot from an Ubuntu install CD into a Live CD environment, then run the command from there with the GUI up and running.

2. Use a text mode editor like nano, instead of gedit, to edit the file. If you opt for this option, I would recommend you read a little about using nano from this link:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Nano

Simply exchange the word “nano” for “gedit” in the above command and your config file should open (sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst). To save a file after editing, you can hit CTRL-O (which stands for “write out”). Then CTRL-X to quit nano.

Please let me know if you have further problems.

Comment on How to Install WinXP after Ubuntu with Gparted by Cindy

Cindy — Wed, 28 May 2008 02:51:00 +0000

Everything worked fine until I got to entering sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst. It says “cannot open display.”

Also, when I tried rebooting I can only get to a command prompt. I tried “startx” and it still will not open to the GUI.

Please help!!

Comment on How to Install Real Player 11 (32-bit) in Ubuntu by david_steinlage

david_steinlage — Sun, 25 May 2008 21:11:41 +0000

Alex,

The deb file was designed to be used on a 32-bit based processor, so if you have a 64-bit processor, it probably won’t work.

However, you can attempt the manual method of downloading the generic Linux binary file and following these steps to install:

(originally found these instructions here: http://www.ubuntux.org/how-to-install-the-realplayer-multimedia-player )

1. Download the RealPlayer11GOLD from http://www.real.com/linux to your home directory.
2. Open Terminal (from this point on, you must have admin rights).
3. Type sudo chmod +x RealPlayer11GOLD.bin
4. Type sudo “./RealPlayer11GOLD.bin”
5. Follow prompts. It’ll start the installer. Do as it instructs and hit Enter.
6. It’ll ask for the install path. Default is fine and hit enter.
7. It’ll ask for a confirmation of install path. Press F to Finish the install.
8. It copies files, installs icons, etc. When you get the prompt, it’s done.

Congrats! You have just installed RealPlayer 11 on Ubuntu. Easy, huh?
To launch the app, go to Applications > Sound & Video > RealPlayer 11.
If that doesn’t work, open Terminal again and type realplay .

Follow setup prompts and RealPlayer should be launched. It may open a new tab in FireFox to say if RealPlayer is up to date or not.

Comment on How to Install WinXP after Ubuntu with Gparted by tiggsy

tiggsy — Sun, 25 May 2008 17:50:27 +0000

It didn’t work for me.

I have a separate drive for XP. It’s a second SATA chained to the master, which is Ubuntu. It boots into Ubuntu fine, and I amended the file once to point to the actual disk with XP on sda1 = (hd0,0)

This didn’t work.

So I looked at the file in more detail and found that Ubuntu is listed as (hd0,0) - so i tried changing the ref to the XP disk to (hd1,0).

This didn’t work either.

Then I thought, well I will change the Ubuntu disk references to (hd1,0) as it’s actually on sdb1,2 and 5.

This gave me a menu of options to choose from (which is what I’m after), unfortunately none of the selections worked.

So I booted from the Live CD and changed the boot back to saying hd0,0 for ubuntu and hd1,0 for xp. I still cant boot into xp (even changing the bios to select that disk doesnt work), but at least ubuntu is working again.

Oh what fun. I have to say after 3 weeks trying to get this … system working properly and reinstate my xp data (stuck in an image file on an external disk - well its on my ubuntu desktop as well), i am beginning to get very bored with the whole thing.

Comment on How to Install Real Player 11 (32-bit) in Ubuntu by Alex

Alex — Sun, 25 May 2008 13:14:54 +0000

when installing the .deb file i get “error: wrong architecture ‘i386′”

any suggestions how to fix this?

Comment on How to Install WinXP after Ubuntu with Gparted by david_steinlage

david_steinlage — Sat, 17 May 2008 23:03:09 +0000

Corvi,

A solution to the problem you’ve encountered can be found here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=4587202&postcount=9

Comment on How to Install WinXP after Ubuntu with Gparted by corvi42

corvi42 — Sat, 17 May 2008 22:35:45 +0000

when I do find /boot/grub/stage1 I get:

Error 15: File not found

… what now?!?

Comment on A Friendly Reminder: Backup Your Data! by Kent

Kent — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 01:13:43 +0000

Cool, Thanks Dave.

Kent

Comment on A Friendly Reminder: Backup Your Data! by david_steinlage

david_steinlage — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 20:22:19 +0000

Kent, check this post out:

http://davestechsupport.com/blog/2008/04/05/from-failed-beta-test-to-ubuntu-system-reinstall/

In short, if you copy your entire Home Folder, you’re personal documents and program settings (saved passwords, bookmarks, e-mail settings, gnome preferences, etc.) will all be saved. To restore after a crash, you just copy in the contents of your old home folder and overwrite your newly created one after a reinstall.

Comment on A Friendly Reminder: Backup Your Data! by Kent

Kent — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 03:03:50 +0000

Dave,
I have my important stuff saved to cd. Is there a simple way in Ubuntu to back up your basic preferences in case I ever have to reload the OS?

Kent

Comment on How to Install WinXP after Ubuntu with Gparted by madhavan

madhavan — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 03:48:37 +0000

WOW!!!
THIS REALLY REALLY WOORKSS AND IT IS EZY

Comment on If you use Linux and haven’t heard of Amarok yet… by david_steinlage

david_steinlage — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 03:42:49 +0000

When you first run Amarok, it will ask you what folders you would like it to include in your Library. Once these folders are selected, they will be regularly scanned from time to time and your library’s listings will update. To modify these settings, click Settings>Configure Amarok…>Collection (on the left).

Comment on If you use Linux and haven’t heard of Amarok yet… by Alex (xVehemencityx)

Alex (xVehemencityx) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 19:48:28 +0000

Hey, I’ve got a question for you about Amarok. I’m curious if there’s a way to make it so you just play the library. That way, when I get new songs, it automatically adds them and will play them without me having to update a playlist. That’s something that I had in WMP on windows, and I really liked it.

Comment on Suddenly, I feel like becoming a CCNA. by Shan

Shan — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 05:50:04 +0000

Hello Dave,

In case you didn’t know, Cisco recently released a newer CCNA Certification (640-802) around summer 2007. It includes new topics, so if you’re taking the newer CCNA Exam, I suggest you check out the blueprint here:
http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/le3/current_exams/640-802.html

Did you say you were in the Networking Academy? If you were, then you can still take the old 640-801 CCNA exam. You just need to use the promotional code found on the Alumni Page.

I’ve already taken the first part of the newer CCNA exam and gotten my CCENT. By June I plan on taking the second part and getting my CCNA.

I’ve prepared through the Cisco Networking Academy and through the Cisco Press books by Wendell Odom. If you login to your Cisco Networking Academy account and click “Course Materials” you’ll see the newer updated course curriculums. They are more user-friendly and way more better than the old version 3.1 curriculum. I’ve been using CCNA Exploration to prepare for the exam. Check the newer curriculums out, they’re really great.

I’m looking forward to seeing how this turns out for you. Good luck with getting that CCNA.

Comment on A Friendly Reminder: Backup Your Data! by Erin

Erin — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:28:18 +0000

Dave.

Thanks for the reminder. Being in the storage and backup industry (for more years than I care to admit), I’ve come across countless people who, regrettably, start backing up their critical data AFTER an unfortunate accident. I can’t stress enough the importance of having a proactive solution in place. Kudos to you for covering this topic.

Another backup solution to consider is a storage device that includes both online and offline backup - like one from my company, Fabrik. Let alone does its SimpleTech Pro Drives and Signature Mini external drives come with simple local backup software, it includes http://www.FabrikUltimateBackup.com for online protection. That way, no matter what happens to your system - a spilled drink, curious toddler, theft, etc - your content is protected, safely online and offsite. For less than $5 per month for unlimited capacity & uploads, you can’t go wrong.

Thanks again for spreading the word.

Cheers,

Erin Hartin
Fabrik Inc.

Comment on Ok, Here’s the Plan… by Billy

Billy — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 01:49:58 +0000

Dave,

Really enjoy your articles, thanks for sharing your knowledge. I particularly enjoyed the “6 things to do after you’ve installed Ubuntu” article. SO helpful on several levels. (I’m a blank beginner and don’t know sudo from a hole in the ground.)

So many other articles are aimed at medium-to-expert so it’s hard to get started when you know nothing. Any “baby-steps” posts you’d like to write would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for the good work,

billy

Comment on How to setup Internet Connections in Ubuntu by david_steinlage

david_steinlage — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 23:05:08 +0000

By the way, chances are the reason you didn’t have a problem with your windows PC is that the DNS address may have been cached, and reused when you tested it on the bridge.

Comment on How to setup Internet Connections in Ubuntu by david_steinlage

david_steinlage — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 23:03:12 +0000

First, this problem sounds like your WET54G isn’t assigning your Ubuntu machine the correct DNS address, or is not configured correctly (you are not the only one who has had this specific problem with the WET54G bridge). From what I’ve seen online so far about this bridge, it does not support functioning as a DHCP server, which explains why it is not assigning you an address when you attempt to place your eth0 into DHCP.

You should set your address to be static, and you should also manually set a DNS resolve address in Ubuntu by doing the following in Applications>Accessories>Terminal:

sudo gedit /etc/resolv.conf

This will open the resolv.conf file in Gnome Text Editor with root privlages. On the line “name server xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx” replace the x with the IP of your name server (obtain this DNS address from your router, or your Windows PC attached to it by throwing a ipconfig /all at it). Then save the config file with the new name server address. After that, you can restart your network components by typing:

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

Also keep in mind that if you assign a static IP address to a computer that it has to be within the same network “broadcast domain/subnet” as the rest of the network you’re wanting to communicate with. Simply look at the IP address that is being assigned to the bridge (may have to see it’s config, or look at the routers “attached devices” status to see what it’s getting). If the bridge is being assigned 192.168.1.226, you should assign your computer an ip address of 192.168.1.227, with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, and a default gateway… try the IP address of the bridge first, and that should do the trick.

Good luck!

Comment on How to setup Internet Connections in Ubuntu by matt fleming

matt fleming — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 20:08:25 +0000

I am trying to get Ubuntu working to access the internet. I have a window’s XP machine connected to a 2Wire combination dsl modem/rounter. I have the Ubuntu machine connected to a Linksys WET54G wireless ethernet bridge. The link is fine. If I connect the window’s machine to the bridge, I can access the internet. On the Ubuntu machine, I can see the WET54 AND the 2Wire gateway if I set the ethernet to a fixed IP address. However, when I try to access the internet, I cannot see any sites that are not explicit IP addresses. When I switch the Ubuntu machine to dhcp, I cannot see either the bridge or gateway or the internet either. I did connect the Umbuntu box directly to the rounter and it did work OK for the internet when set to DCHP. So… What is different when I connect the Umbuntu machine to the WET54? I’m lost and neither AT&T or Linksys tech support will talk to me when I mention Linux is part of my system.

Thanks!

Comment on Installing Popular Windows Software in Ubuntu by Dave’s Tech Blog » Blog Archive » Sorry, I’ve been busy playing Portal on Ubuntu

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 16:26:13 +0000

[...] on digg that talked about a very simple utility called Play on Linux. It’s kind of like WINE-Doors, in that it allows you to install a select number of Windows based applications, mostly games in [...]