Share a small trick of Firefox. Sometimes on Firefox, we could not visit a page, it apparently will show an error page. It is normal to us.

But some of you might prefer an alert pop up than an error page. So, just in your firefox config (type about:config on the address bar and enter). Search for browser.xul.error_pages.enabled set it False for a pop up.

The reason of popup is because it is much faster and lesser memory consumption for a page rendering. However, it will become annoying if there are plenty alert boxes pop up at the same time.

For Linux newbies, if you find those commands hard to remember. Guys at FOSSwire has created a very useful cheat sheet for Linux users. Although now many Linux users have used to beautiful desktop GUI.

Few days ago, I was having problem call the task manager out to terminate some running applications. However, you can still use the Terminal to carry the work by using this command.

ps aux

This command will display all the running processes. Below is a list to give you guys an idea how it will look like.

USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
nom 3026 0.0 0.3 2476 772 ? S 23:15 0:00 gnome-pty-helpe
root 3102 0.0 0.4 3712 1068 pts/1 Ss+ 23:23 0:00 /bin/su ko
nom 2321 0.2 3.2 14920 8364 ? Ss 23:44 0:01 mousepad


So you now can through the command to find which is the one causing problem. For my example, it is the gnome-pty-helpe that is giving me problem. So I just type in the command

kill 3026

Just in case the command cannot kill the nasty process, use this.

kill -9 3026

While I am away to China for a few weeks. My girlfriend laptop has spoilt and she will using my Linux desktop to complete her daily task, let see what is her feedback for Linux.

Here are some comments from her:

• “How to open *.mht files?”

Only years ago, I first time came across this file type. It is weird that how come my girlfriend uses this file type? However, I googled it and the solution is that  she can install an extension from Firefox and open it with Firefox.

• “Only have Skype? I want to use MSN Messenger.”

I have Pidgin installed on my desktop, or she can access it through web based instant messenger such as Meebo.

• “Where is Words, Excel and the rest Office Tools?”

I have OpenOffice installed on my desktop, but I bet she didn’t click them yet.

Sometimes it is just very annoying, the system does not allow you to name your partition volume label yourself, it just assigned them as Disk, Disk1, Disk2. Why can’t they make it as friendly as Windows?

So, overcome this. I do searching, below is what I have learned today.

First create a desire folder name in media folder. For example “NewDriveA“

mkdir /media/NewDriveA

You need the UUID of your drive to proceed the next step. Just in case you don’t know how use this command to get the partition.

ls /dev/disk/by-uuid -alh

You might want to ask how I know which one is the corresponding one, since you have so many hard disks. There are more than one way to find it either through GParted or using fdisk.

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How Rename Your Partition Volume Label

When there is failure, there is something to learn. Earlier, when I started my desktop, all I got was just a basic color of my desktop. Without any taskbar or desktop icon or wallpaper! So, what I did was using Ctrl +Alt + F1 to go to the console to get the things fix.

TIPS: For newbies out there, you can swap in between 6 virtual terminal from F1 to F6 using Alt + F<terminal number> when you in the terminal. Or if you on gnome, then you need to use Alt + Ctrl + F<terminal number>.

In the end, I found that it was due to some gnome related files I had removed earlier. So getting it back just by using sudo apt-get install will make it. However, I discovered 2 cool commands.

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Learn something new

Today, I faced a problem on setting up Compiz for my company Ubuntu Gibbon Gutsy desktop. At the System > Preferences > Appearance > Visual Effects tab, no matter what I choose, normal or advanced. In just 10 seconds, a dialog box pop up saying that “Desktop effects could not be enabled”.

After some troubleshoot, by running “compiz” in the terminal, I finally got myself a reason why I could not run it.

Checking for Xgl: not present.
Blacklisted PCIID ‘8086:2a02′ found
aborting and using fallback: /usr/bin/metacity

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Compiz blacklisted Graphic Cards

Most of the Ubuntu user should already get the news that Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon is around the corner. Just in 11 more days for the official release.

Actually you now already available to download the beta version. From what I know download the iso mirror image from their web site and burn to your CD. Then upgrade would be the best way.

But you could still download directly by just change your Ubuntu Feisty Fawn repository.

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How to upgrade Ubuntu Feisty to Gutsy in 3 Steps?

You might think is crazy, but through VirtualBox, it is possible. Good video tips.

For most of the Windows user, the DOS command interface looks like a black hole to them. Their first thoughts are possibly - how can someone can stand of only dull text environment? On Linux, it is very usual to see users customize or compile application in the terminal.

To have a desktop terminal not necessary just to hide the terminal away from Windows users but actually a very convenient method to pin the terminal on to your desktop.

Here I want to share a way to embed the terminal to your desktop by using a software called Devil’s Pie. Devil’s Pie is a simple software to change the interfaces and behaviors of some of the rules you have made to certain applications.

Step 1 Download and install the software:

sudo apt-get install devilspie

Step 2 create configuration file for the specific terminal:

mkdir ~/.devilspie
gedit ~/.devilspie/DesktopConsole.ds

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Desktop Terminal