Ubuntu » My Thoughts! - by Prakash G.R.

Jan 28

Ubuntu Titbits …

These are small items, which do not belong to a separate blog entry. I’ll be adding more to this entry whenever I see one. If you have any such items, feel free to add in the comments.

Activating Windows Key:

This was an annoying thing to me. I work both in Windows and Linux everyday. Whenever I need to go to the menu, I need to remember which OS I’m working on and press the Windows ke/Alt F1 accordingly. Until I found a way to map the Windows key in Linux!

Open Keyboard Configuration (which is under System->Preferences)

In the table, you can find ‘Show the panel menu’ action under ‘Desktop’. Select the shortcut and assign Windows key. Now you can access the menu with Windows key, no matter which OS you are using

Full Screen Mode:

There are times when you want your application to be run in Full Screen mode. Firefox/Image Viewer by default support it. But not all applications, such as Text Editor/Eclipse. If you want to execute them in Full Screen here is the trick.

Open Keyboard Configuration (which is under System->Preferences)

In the table, you can find ‘Toggle fullscreen mode’ action under ‘Window Management’. Select the shortcut and assign your fav key (I’ve assigned F11). Press ‘Close’. Now no matter which application you are using you can press F11 and make it Full Screen. As you rightly guessed, pressing F11 again will bring it back to the normal mode. Now try Full Screen mode for Calculator and see the results

My Computer @ Desktop:

Having a My Computer icon in the desktop is really useful for a guy like me. If you are used to drag and drop your files in the Desktopto delete them, you would surely miss the Recycle Bin errrr Trash Can also. So here is how you can bring them to your Ubuntu Desktop.

Open Configuration Editor (which is under Applications->System Tools) In the tree, navigate to /apps/nautilus/desktop. Int the right hand side, you can see some check boxes with user-friendly (!!!) text like ‘computer_name_visible’ and ‘trash_icon_visible’. Check whichever items you would need in your Desktop. If you really want the same text as windows like ‘My Computer’ and ‘Recycle Bin’, you can change it there (’computer_icon_name’ and ‘trash_icon_name’). You need to change the type from Integer to String before you type in the new name. Remember, you can give Remember, unlike Windows, you can neither right click ‘My Computer’ and click ‘Properties’ to get the properties of your computer nor right click ‘My Computer’ and do ‘Manage’.

written by Prakash G.R.

Jan 04

I’ve been running Weblogic on Ubuntu and had no problems. But somehow Eclipse was really slow. After a few minutes of Googling, I found that the root cause is the JRE shipped with Ubuntu. Its not the Sun’s JRE, but GNU’s. Its much slower than the Sun’s. Installing a Sun’s JRE and running Eclipse on it, made it faster. I’ve already blogged here about how the licensing terms of Sun blocks the vendors to ship the JRE. Now that Sun has open sourced Java under LGPL, probably the future versions of Ubuntu (or any other Linux distro) should ship with this better and faster JRE

written by Prakash G.R.

Dec 21

Putty in Ubuntu

Ubuntu 5 Comments »

Yesterday I wanted to connect to the Source Forge servers. With windows, I’ve always used Putty. So I started googling for a port of Putty for Ubuntu. Then I realized the fact!

hee hee hee. Every great person makes silly mistakes. So now that I’ve made one, I too can be listed in the “great persons” list

written by Prakash G.R.

Nov 14

Weblogic on Ubuntu

Techie, Ubuntu 3 Comments »

Officially Weblogic is supported on Suse and RedHat only. Not on Ubuntu. But installing it on Ubuntu (Edgy) was smooth. Just downloaded the Weblogic Server 9.2 Redhat x86 installer and executed it. Installation went fine without any problem. After installing I was searching for the menu item for the config wizard. Its not added. So have to manually add it. Same for the menu item for starting generated domain servers. Otherwise the I thought its going to be a painful experience, but overall it was smooth!

written by Prakash G.R.

Nov 08

Auto login in Ubuntu

Ubuntu 15 Comments »

I know that I’m the only user in my system and no one else will have access to it. I don’t see a point to have a login screen. With Windows, I know we can set to auto login using a userid. I was searching for similar thing in Ubuntu. Found one

Go to terminal and type “sudo gdmsetup”. You will get login window preferences. Select Security tab; check “Enable automatic Login” and select the user. You are done! Simple ha? But why there is no shortcut in the Preferences/Administration/Applications menu?

written by Prakash G.R.

Oct 17

Blog editors for Linux

Ubuntu 2 Comments »

Windows Live writer is one software which I’m definitely missing in Linux. Its a simple and cute tool to use. You can format your text in the editor; immediately switch to see a web preview; if it needs further tweaking, switch to the html mode and continue editing, etc. All this you can do it offline. This is especially helpful when are at home and there is a power cut. Can’t connect to net, but still can write blogs offline in my laptop. I’m currently evaluating few blog editors for Linux, none of them seems to be fine. I’ll post reviews of each editor and a final verdict on them later.

written by Prakash G.R.

Oct 16

Screen Resolution struck in Ubuntu

Ubuntu No Comments »

I installed Ubuntu 6.06 from a live CD. After I configured internet, lots of packages got updated. Not sure which one corrupted the settings, but my screen resolution changed to 640×480. I tried System->Preferences->Screen Resolution. But no higher resolution was listed there. I remember using xconfig or something similar in past. But no such commands were available. Google gave me the answer. We need to manually edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.

Earlier the Screen section had

SubSection “Display”
Depth 24
Modes “1024×768″ “800×600″ “640×480″
EndSubSection

I changed it to:

SubSection “Display”
Depth 24
Modes “1024×768″
~~ViewPort 0 0~~
EndSubSection

Having only one resolution mode and only one Depth, makes it the default one. ~~Additionaly I’ve to add the ViewPort (not sure why it was needed)~~. Now the screen is back to normal resolution

[Update 8-Nov-06] The ViewPort is not needed. Resolution is fine without it. But after upgrading to Edgy, the resolution went back to 640×480. Either simply adding an empty line at the end of the xorg.conf file or executing a “sudo touch /etc/X11/xorg.conf” and then restarting X (Ctrl+Alt+Backspace), will bring the resolution back to normal. Quirky Linux

written by Prakash G.R.

Oct 16

Configuring DSL with Ubuntu

Ubuntu 4 Comments »

I’ve been using Ubuntu for a while. So far its good. As I’ve a laptop loaded with Windows XP, Ubuntu has not been my primary OS. Since my last date with the present company is this Thrusday & I’ll be returning my laptop, I’ve to make Ubuntu my primary (and only) OS. I’ll pen down my experiences here.

The first thing I needed to configure was my DSL Connection. I searched for any utilities, but I couldn’t find anything (at least not under System->Preferences or System->Adminstration. After a little bit of Googling, I was able to configure. Here are the steps:

First configure your IP address. Select System->Adminstration->Networking
In the window, selec the ethernet adapter to which you have connected your DSL modem(mostly you will have only one adapter listed)
Select the properties of the adater.
If your ISP supports DHCP, select it, if not key in the static IP address that your ISP gave you
Go back to the Network settings window and key in the ISP’s DNS server IP addresses
Now that you have configured your TCP/IP settings, we need to configure the PPPoE settings.
Open a terminal window and run “pppoeconf” (you need root permission). The wizard should help you configure the settings.
Now if you have not configured to connect at system start up, use the commands - “pon dsl-provider” to connect; “poff” to disconnect and “plog” to view the current status

How good it would be, if there exists a wizard that will guide you thru all the above steps. Hmmmm. Long way to go for Linux to become a common man’s OS.

written by Prakash G.R.

My Thoughts! - by Prakash G.R.

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Ubuntu Titbits …

Eclipse on Ubuntu

Putty in Ubuntu

Weblogic on Ubuntu

Auto login in Ubuntu

Blog editors for Linux

Screen Resolution struck in Ubuntu

Configuring DSL with Ubuntu

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