My Linux Way

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.

While I have been away for quite a long time, there were many software upgrades we commonly used on Linux. So, it is time to upgrade your outdated software.

Releasing of Ubuntu 8.04.1 – http://releases.ubuntu.com/8.04.1/. 8.04.1 was based on LTS 8.04 and make great amendment.

Opera 9.51 – http://www.opera.com/download/. Although more preferable browser on Linux is of course Firefox! But if Opera also open source, I would say it is not a bad choice either. The loading speed and light weight has been great improvement since the last update. However, I still very not use to their widget things on browser.

Pidgin 2.4.3 -  http://www.pidgin.im/download/. While waiting Digsby to come onto Linux, Pidgin has come out a release. But I really hope Pidgin can have social network and email notification feature like what Digsby have.

Wine 1.0 – http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/wine/wine-1.0.tar.bz2. After long wait, we have Wine1.0 final release. Trust me, you need it if you rely on MS Windows a lot in your life.

Songbird 0.6 – download. I still think it is buggy, however they claimed the memory reduction of 15~20%.

I thought Pidgin can be heading towards more user friendly wise to gain on the IM market shares. But years already, I still didn’t see very aggressive GUI improvement from Pidgin.

One of the problems, I’m still facing is I want to minimize the buddy list during start up. In Pidgin default setting or the command line, you could not any of this. But here is a way how to get it done in just 3 simple steps.

Step 1. Install pidgin-extprefs from Synaptic

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Minimize Pidgin during Startup

Often normal PC user think Linux is too greeky and the command prompt terminal is too dull to be a working environment. While cool desktop only can be found on Mac and Vista OS. But you are wrong!

Below the 10 pretty Linux desktop recommended on Digg, if I didn’t tell you, you might not even notice it is running on Linux! Especially, with the effect of Compiz Fusion, you now can achieve more amazing visual effects than Vista and Mac OS X!

• gnome：2，3，9
• e17：4，6
• pekwm：5
• fluxbox：8
• Not sure: 1, 7, 10

So, which one you prefer the most?

1.

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Top 10 Pretty Linux Desktop

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.

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.

For those used to Windows system, you might find Linux folder system is totally a confusion for you. Folders name such as /bin, /etc, /media really didn’t clear indicate the purpose. And most of the time you don’t know how to get back to the original path.

Here is a picture clearly illustrate how Linux folder system really works. Hope this really give you a clear picture. Basically, I normally mess around in /mnt, /etc, /dev and /home.

Previously I have solved my problem with Miro, now it comes another new issue. The problem occurred because Ubuntu has updated the libxine to 1.1.10-1, but Miro depends on libxine1 earlier than 1.1.8 to run!

So, in the end, either you can install Miro 1.2 with libxine1 1.1.7 or Miro 1.1.2 with libxine1 1.1.10 on Hardy Heron or latest gutsy.

Hope Miro can solve this problem as soon as possible.

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.