One of sources for China’s netizen entertainment is watching online video streaming. PPStream as one of the largest online video streaming software, all the while only provide streaming for Windows. Finally, there is Linux version. It is for Ubuntu, but you can get it working on other Linux distros as well. You can download it from http://dl.pps.tv/

One of the common errors, even after following the instruction on PPS.tv web page, is that you can’t access the playlist unless you have the administrative rights.

You need to change from

 

./mplayer -playlist playlist.txt

to

 

sudo ./mplayer -playlist playlist.txt

Another more simple method is installing the 4 DEB package into your Totem player.

• totem-pps_0.0.17.13-1_i386.deb [69Kib]
• gst-plugins-pps_0.0.17.15-1_i386.deb [33.63 KiB]
• libppswrapper_0.0.17.9-1_i386.deb [78.91 KiB]
• libpps_0.1.826_i386.deb

Source: forum.ubuntu.org.cn

While, Ubuntu One is still in closed beta, only through invitation to get access to it. I’ve applied it for more than one week, but still haven’t get any response from them. So, people very intuitive will take Ubuntu One and Dropbox for comparison, what so special about Ubuntu One?

Ubuntu One users get 2GB free storage spaces and for $10/month, you are able to get 10GB of spaces! But, with the same amount of money, I would able to get 50GB of spaces from Dropbox! And Dropbox not only run on Linux, but also Mac and Windows.

I think Ubuntu definitely lose its attractiveness compare to Dropbox. So, we will need to wait and see during the official release is there any more features can be provided from Canonical to gain back the attractiveness.

There is a problem on showing purper desktop when using some ATI graphic cards. Here is one of the solutions I can find to solve this.

In the terminal, type the below command line by line to get the the open source ATI driver you needed for the problem.

sudo apt-get install build-essential autoconf automake libtool pkg-config git-core

sudo apt-get install libdrm-dev x11proto-gl-dev mesa-common-dev xutils-dev x11proto-xf86dri-dev x11proto-fonts-dev x11proto-randr-dev x11proto-video-dev x11proto-xext-dev x11proto-xinerama-dev x11proto-render-dev xserver-xorg-dev

git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-ati

cd xf86-video-ati

sudo ./autogen.sh –prefix=/usr –enable-dri

sudo make

sudo make install

I think it is not a problem for many people to find out every time you start your Ubuntu and find out the boot up splash screen is 640 x 480, instead of your preset resolution. But for perfectionist, it is very suffering.

Ok, here is a 3 steps method to solve this.

type “sudo gedit /etc/usplash.conf” in your terminal. After accessing with your root permission. You will see something like

# Usplash configuration file
# These parameters will only apply after running update-initramfs.
xres=640
yres=480

Just change the xres and yres to what your favourite resolution. Maybe 1024 x 768, then xres=1024, yres=768. After that, save it.

The last step, you need to type “sudo update-initramfs –u” to update your initramfs.

Reboot your PC and see whether you have a nice boot up GUI.

Saw this trick on downloadsquad.com, so share this tips here on how to reset your forgotten password.

1. In GRUB message, press the escape key.
2. Select the one with the recovery mode
3. Boot up in shell until you reach the command prompt. Type in "passwd username" where username is your account username. (typing "ls /home" to bring it up)
4. Enter your new password. Confirm your password again.
5. Type "shutdown -r now" to reboot your system.

Ubuntu announced the roadmap for the upcoming OS today. Mark Shuttleworth has mentioned the arrangement for Ubuntu till 11.04 in the year 2011. After Ubuntu 8.04, the upcoming LTS will be 10.04 and will be supported up to year 2015.

Ubuntu 11.04 seems to be very far from now. I’m more expecting Ubuntu 8.10, it was mentioned by Ubuntu developer saying that it will be major appearance changes and great performance on network.

LTS is an abbreviation for “Long Term Support”. Ubuntu team usually release LTS version for every 2 years, and with the LTS, users able to get a 3 year support on Desktop version and 5 years for Server version. However need to take note that in the latest 10.04, the Netbook Edition will not be LTS supported.

In Linux and Unix, users only allow to access files/folders with their permission only. However, under a superuser named root, users are able to have the privileges to all the administration work.

su root

su stands for Switch User. To access other users, just use their username instead of "root".

What Ubuntu different from other Linux distro is it includes sudo command. It will assign users for temporary root-level privileges. So, to execute your command in terminal under root-level privileges is simple, just add "sudo" before your command. Please note that the password require is user password and not the root password.

userA@machineA:~$ sudo vi /etc/testing.conf

"sudo -s" is equivalent to "su"

You do not have to worry when running GUI programs that require for root privileges as it will prompt for a password automatically.

Yeah, Ubuntu 8.04 is coming on the way! What make Ubuntu 8.04 so special? It’s a LTS, which mean it will be given Long Term Support. Ubuntu last version LTS is 6.06.

Ubuntu 8.04 is built on top of Linux kernel 2.6.24-11.22, it compliance with the Completely Fair Scheduler. Besides that, the application software used on Ubuntu are up to date like Gnome is 2.22.0, Firefox 3.0 beta 4, Gimp 2.4.5, Apache httpd 2.2.8 and much more.

Another new thing you can expect on this Buntu version is ufw ( Uncomplicated Firewall ). It significantly improved the currently complicated command iptable firewall.

So, your final question might be, how do I down it? If you are currently using Ubuntu, you just need to type update-manager -d in your terminal.

If you are the only user that is using the desktop and you do not have any sensitive information, you sometimes might find it is troublesome to go through the login windows and key in password after every boot up.

Here is how you enable auto login feature in Ubuntu.
On Taskbar choose System > Administration > Login Window

Then in Login Windows Preferences highlight the Security tab. Just check Enable Automatic Login with your preference user selected and you have get rid with your Login Window already.

Last time I thought I have managed to settle the drives mounting problem on Ubuntu. But later I realized it was not 100 percent.

On /etc/fstab, my setting was

UUID=472C-857B /media/Zzz vfat user,auto,fmask=0777,dmask=0000 0 0

But in the end when I mounted a drive, on Properties of the drive, it was shown as read-only and permission allowed only for root.

On the terminal shown that it was read and write permission enabled.

but on windows Properties:

Is there any explanation for this out there?