Docks in Ubuntu

Mac's use a nifty looking dock at the bottom of the screen instead of the bar we Ubuntu users have. I thought it sounded like a novel idea, and figured there was a reason that all of the mac users like it.

Reporting back after trying AWN, Docky, and a few other no name ones: They all suck

They are a little fun at first but none of them are ready for prime time. Here are the major disadvantages I noticed. They didn't all have all of these problems, but they all had some.

• Transparency. Sure it looks nifty to have a "3D" dock, but it eats up resources and compiz needs to be enabled to use it! The only thing I've found pretty that compiz adds as are the drop shadows behind windows and even those piss me off when I have two windows side by side! Transparent window titles is a silly idea, that is where the most important data is that I need to see. I can live without the smooth maximize and minimize. It is nice little bit of gloss, but if I am closing a window it is because I want it out of the way, the faster the better.
• Stacks / Organization / Drawer It is terrible to try and put all of your web browsers in a folder labeled "Web Browsers" with a web browser icon. I just wanted to have access to each of the browsers in one spot. This goes double for the bar that is already there, just don't bother using the Drawer feature, terrible. End Result: Just lay them all out across the top bar, there is plenty of space up there.
• Window Management So I thought window management and program management would be the two main reasons for these docks, to nicely combine the two and look pretty. Wrong-O. They all stink. Docky uses the ugliest transitions to let you know you've clicked on an icon, a different ugly one for when the program loads, heck the dumb thing changes size when you hover over it. All of them had issues combining the icons for the launcher and the windows that were opened. I don't know if it is a "mac-standard" to keep these separate, but it is confusing as hell. You have notepad open and accidentally click on the launcher instead of the window? Well you are going to fire up another copy of notepad. "Slightly annoying" you say? Try doing it with Picassa or Virtual Box, not so funny.
• Themes Dear lord these can be hideous and annoying to "rate". I am sure there are some OK ones out there, and the 4 in AWN that look nearly identical aren't bad, but the majority of them are painful to look at. There is one that is supposed to model ancient china or something; wooden panel, samurai icons that all look the same. Oh yeah, that one made me stop and think about who made that one.

This isn't an in depth review, it is just some advice; "Stick with what Ubuntu has given you, it works better than you think" The one change I have made after all of this is a simple one.

1. Right click on the divider of the Window List on the bottom panel
2. Select Preferences
3. Change "Window Grouping" to Always
4. Hit Close

Best of luck staying organized,

Knoxy

Fresh Lucid Lynx Install? Time to grab some software

The following is a list of software I recommend downloading on your fresh Lucid Lynx install.

1. Run updates (just in case it isn't as fresh as you think!)
• System > Administration > Update Manager
• While we are here let's take a moment to adjust the settings (button is in the lower left hand corner of the Update Manager window)
• I prefer to have Ubuntu check for updates weekly, and to install security updates without confirmation. Choose whatever suits you though. Hit close to save and exit.
2. Open up the Ubuntu Software Center and search for the following:
• Applications > Ubuntu Software Center
1. Ubuntu Restricted Extras
• This gets you set up to play MP3s, Java, Flash, and installs the core fonts used in microsoft (and a lot of websites)
2. VLC
• A simple video/audio player
3. HomeBank
• For personal accounting
4. Advanced Desktop Effects Settings
• This lets you play around with some of the more advanced effects that your computer is capable of. You often have to install this for other effects altering tutorials, so it is nice to just get it installed now.
• Let's finish of DVD playing by unlocking the DVD reader we downloaded. To do this we have to enter some code into Terminal
1. Open up an instance of terminal by going to Applications > Accessories > Terminal
2. Terminal doesn't like keyboard shortcuts, so when you go to paste code you have to right click and select paste. That said.
3. Paste the following code:
   

   sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

3. Now for the software where you have to visit their sites
• This can be a bit confusing, but you are looking for files that end in .deb (instead of .exe) and are built for i386 or 32bit computers. i386 is just a fancy way of saying 32bit. And because there are two ways to say it everybody disagrees about which is correct.
1. Picasa
• A great photo organizer that lets you upload photos to your web albums account, and e-mail them.
• http://picasa.google.com/linux/download.html#picasa30
• Again you want the .deb file for Debian/Ubuntu i386. This is the second option.
• Download, double click, and hit install. If it says there is an error or something is corrupt, then download it again.
2. Skype
• Perfect for online chatting.
• http://www.skype.com/download/skype/linux/choose/
• Lucid Lynx was released in April of 2010 (so it is 10.04), this is above 8.10, and we want the 32-bit release.
• Download, double click, and hit install. If it says there is an error or something is corrupt, then download it again.
4. And last but not least the random ones that sneak through the cracks in the ground.
1. Community Themes, is quite what the title suggests. You don't like the greys and blacks around your windows? Neither did I!
• You can download this one by clicking on community themes there are tougher ways to grab it, but after all the good work you've done today this one is a freebie

I'll keep this post updated with any software I stumble upon.  If there is something you want your computer to do that it isn't doing then browse around the Software Center.

Best of luck
Knoxy

Lorem Ipsum - Greeking Out

Lorem Ipsum is dummy text that you can place when you want to see how something would look. It really comes in handy in layouts for web and any media with blocks of text. It mimics how real words look. Even sentence and paragraph length.

And now it isn't just on lipsum.com
You can download a version built with Python for windows (.exe) or Linux (.deb).

So hop on over to the google code projects page and download that sucker

LAMP Stack / Joomla / WordPress

Linux Apache MySQL PHP (the makings of a common server)

If you are a developer for Wordpress or Joomla you need to setup an environment (local server) to run these programs on your computer so that you can test things without having to be on the internet.

The developers at Ubuntu are a godsend and have made the actual LAMP stack installation heaps easier than in the past. In applications > accessories > terminal :

sudo apt-get install lamp-server^

wow, that is so much easier than having to dual boot with turn-key or going through the old process

Finishing off the details is pretty straight forward. Briefly the steps are listed below, for detailed steps with screenshots, hand holding, and all the superfulous writing you could hope for go to TuxTweaks

phpmyadmin is supposed to make life easier too, so let's install that while the ball is rolling

sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-auth-mysql phpmyadmin

 Select apache2, and dbconfig-common using tab and space bar.

Cool, now we can actually set up where we want to host all of the files
I've decided to go with /webdev/joomla and /webdev/wordpress. Both will be located in my home folder. Again if you need serious hand holding go visit TuxTweaks for this tutorial with screenshots.

cd
mkdir webdev
cd /webdev
mkdir joomla wordpress
cd /etc/apache2/sites-available
sudo cp default joomla
sudo cp default wordpress
sudo gedit joomla

In this gedit window you need to get yours to look like this

ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
ServerName joomla

DocumentRoot /home/yourID/webdev/joomla/
Directory /
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
/Directory

Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride All

Repeat with wordpress instead of joomla in there.

sudo a2ensite joomla wordpress
sudo gedit /etc/hosts

Then enter in:

127.0.0.1 localhost joomla wordpress

And back in terminal

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload

If you get a reload error like me then:

echo "ServerName localhost" | sudo tee /etc/apache2/conf.d/fqdn

And then run the reload script from above. And now we need to change some permissions!

sudo chown -R USERNAME /etc/phpmyadmin

Ok! Now we can download the newest version of Joomla and Wordpress and extract them to their respective folders. We still need to set up a mysql database for each so let's do it (almost seeing the light at the end of the tunnel).
Pull up firefox and navigate to "http://localhost/phpmyadmin/"
Log in with root, and whatever password you created.
Now click on privileges at the top > Add new User, and enter in the following:
Joomla
local> localhost
password>
password>

and then click the radio button for creating a new database as well (middle one), then find go at the bottom and click that.
Repeat for wordpress.

Now when you navigate to http://joomla/ or http://wordpress you get an installation page. It should be pretty straightforward. The mysql database is the what you created earlier(joomla or wordpress), username you just made (joomla or wordpress), you have your password. On Joomla they try and get a little tricky at one part, in the bottom box they want you to type joomla again.

To remove the installation directory for joomla (it will prompt you):

sudo rm -R webdev/joomla/installation/

iPod Support for Songbird 1.4

If you are upgrading to songbird 1.4 it may be tough to find out where to go for iPod support as the old add-on doesn't work and it doesn't point you in the right direction.

So here you go
http://developer.songbirdnest.com/builds/Songbird1.4/latest/addons/
go there and click on:
"ipod-3.0.15.1438-linux-i686.xpi"

if you have 64bit linux then click on the one below that.

That is it.

Office Computer

Since we are dual booting I thought I'd keep track of all of the other tweaks on the office computer

Start up Manager

sudo apt-get install startupmanager

Handbrake
-for ripping DVDs
Virtualbox
-for running windows

It seems like it was only yesterday (Jaunty)

So you just popped in a disc for Jaunty 9.04 , let's get to it.

We want DVDs to work perfectly so let's get this out of the way
terminal:

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/jaunty.list --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install gnome-mplayer

sudo apt-get install medibuntu-keyring

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install w32codecs libdvdcss2

sudo apt-get install mozilla-mplayer

All the goodies

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

then repeat from previous posts.
Most notably I would go for:

• Songbird
• Picassa
• Vuze
  
• 7zip
  
• Gmail hack for firefox

Sun in Terminal

Java is part of the ubuntu restricted extras

When Sun installs java on your ubuntu computer (terminal) and you need to hit
Hit tab and you'll see the Ok highlight, then hit enter.

Same trick for the next screen

Giving Open Office Some Skin

No you can't actually change too many of the skins in OO.O, atleast not the way you want to. So what do we do? We tell the company what we want (surprised?), they aren't MicroSoft, so don't treat them that way.

http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=18829

Sign up for an account and then go to that website and hit "vote" The most votes you can add to the thread are 2. So toss them up there along with a comment, and we may actually see this in the next iteration.

Intrepid Ibex! Let's customize

Cool, the newest version of Ubuntu is out.

Here is a record of how I am changing/adding to my version of Ubuntu. or What to do now that you've installed Intrepid Ibex. This is more than a tutorial to get software, this is an instruction book to get things done. I am going to let you know what you are doing, because most of this is basic type stuff that you should be mildly familiar with.

Plug in the Internet, and grab any updates

*ok, just to get this out of the way; This walk-through is pretty thorough, but if a window pops up “Package Installer” and it has a button that says “Install Package?” then click that button. When it is done installing (and it will say it is done), click close (it will usually be the only button you can press). You see what I'm saying? I'm going to hold your hand, but I won't change your diaper. I describe what each piece of software is for, if you think you might not need it don't download it. Oky dokey, let's hit the ground running.

Add Some Software
Applications > Add/Remove Programs
Change “Show” to “All available applications” at the top of this window

You can go through most of the higher starred software/codecs, but here is what I would recommend atleast:

• K3B - for all of my cd/dvd burning needs

To be able to burn mp3 to audio cd visit apt://libk3b3-extracodecs
(Thanks to ubuntu-unleashed)

• VLC Player -because it is the best media player out there

• Skype -Let's you use your computer like a telephone to call ppl!

• Advanced Desktop Effects- Compiz Graphical Userface -for making your computer do pretty visual things (don't worry, we'll edit this later so that your windows don't wiggle)

• 7zip -This is necessary to uncompress certain files, it is better to just install it now than worry about it later

• Gstreamer -Install all of these that you can find, they let you watch DVDs and play MP3s, they are not open source formats, and that is Ubuntu's excuse for not having them preinstalled

• Microsoft Core Fonts -it is dumb, but needed

• Pidgin -like AIM and Google Chat all rolled into one

• Sun Java 6.0 Plugin

• Sun Java 6 runtime

Software to uninstall
I may have missed a few because of poor note-keeping, so I will update this later, these uninstallations are done in Synaptic Manager as well

• Brasero Disc Burning We are using K3B instead

• Ekiga Softphone We are using Skype instead

• Transmission We are using Vuze instead, you may like this more than Vuze, but whatever it sucks in my book

Sucky installs
And now the software that is a bit more trouble to get a hold of:

• Crossover Office -codeweavers.com and look for the Debian / Ubuntu install package (32bit) This will let us run Office, and Photoshop
  

• Crossover Games -codeweavers.com and look for the Debian / Ubuntu install package (32bit) For games like the awesome Counter Strike: Source
  

• Picasa 3 for Linux http://picasa.google.com/linux/ On the next page look for the link that ends in “i386.deb” this is for you to click on ;-)

• Google Desktop - http://desktop.google.com/en/linux/download.html You'll be going with “for Debian/Ubuntu x86” When you download this just open, do not save. It will go straight to package installer for you. If it doesn't then you didn't get a good download, just go back and do it again.
  Once it is done go to Applications > Google Desktop > Google Desktop Preferences. Help improve their service (check the box! Do it!) and agree.
  Firefox will fire up, click on the “Gmail” tab click the Index box, and enter your info. Click on the “Display” tab and change the default search type to “Desktop”, tell it you want 10 results, search by default, 50 results per page in browser, change the hotkey to your super key (windows icon button, it's between alt and ctrl usually... nobody uses it, don't lie to yourself. It's more useless than the Insert key). Save that bad boy and let's keep rolling.

• flash -This is gonna let you view pretty videos on youtube http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/
  

The following two are tricky and thus get their own posts so as not to eat up too much space over here
Songbird (links to other blog post) This is a music player that runs like iTunes (miss it?) and plays nice with your iPod
Vuze (link to other blog post) This is a kickbutt bittorrent downloader (torrents are the files pirates use to share music/movies/anything)

Software Tweaks: See if you would like these and click on over to the blog post
Changing the default saving of Open Office to the Microsoft Office standards, everyone can read doc So let's do it.

Changing Compiz to the most useful settings in the world, or how I got rid of all the overkill and still left Ubuntu looking pretty.

Firefox: Fire up the fox, Tools > Add-Ons > Get Add-Ons
Must Haves (most require reboots and will ask questions after):

• Adblock Plus -blocks all the advertisements that pop up on pages, you can always allow ads by clicking on the stop sign at the top of the page. Or you can block things by right clicking on them and telling adblock to block. Add whatever the top/recommended list is for your area.
• Customize Google -take some time going through this, but for gods sake get rid of ads
• Stealther

I Like:

• StumbleUpon: for finding and sharing websites
• Delicious Bookmarks: If you need to access your bookmarks from multiple sites this is a great tool.

Reboot like it asks you (don't worry it will restore your tabs, and thus this page).



and finally send a self addressed and stamped envelope to the following address to get a nifty "powered by Ubuntu" sticker.
System76, Inc. (Free Sticker)
1582 S. Parker Rd. Ste. 310
Denver, Colorado 80231

Installing Vuze

**or you can now do it the easy way and click on Intrepid (8.10) and 32bit here http://www.detector-pro.com/2008/10/how-to-install-vuze-azureus-40-on.html**

Vuze -To download like a champ. Ok so you got that install of Songbird down pat? Cause we got another to do now :P Since it is the same run of commands there is slightly less detail as to what we are doing. If you did the other install everything will look quite familiar.


Go here and dload that sucka: http://www.vuze.com/app
Move it from your desktop to your home folder
Then fire up Terminal (Applications>Accessories>Terminal) and move that file to the /opt folder

sudo mv Vuze_Installer.tar.bz2 /opt

Change to the directory we just moved our file to

cd /opt/

Uncompress that bad boy (j is for .tar.bz2)

sudo tar jxvf Vuze_Installer.tar.bz2

Type the following to change ownership of the file and replace username with your username

sudo chown -R username:username vuze

Make sure it runs

cd /opt/vuze

./vuze

If it fires up alright, then File > Close vuze and close the Terminal

Right click on Applications
Select “Edit Menus”
A window will pop up, in the left pane select Applications > Sound & Video
Click on “New Item” on the right side of the window
Enter in fields as such
Name: Vuze
Command: /opt/vuze/vuze
Comment: torrentclient
It should find a nice picture of a frog to use as an icon for you :)

Hit OK, and OK, and Close

woot, celebrate by downloading content you didn't pay for!
and then stop celebrating and continue tweaking

Installing Songbird 1

Songbird v 1.0 -It looks like iTunes, and plays nice with the iPod. Strap on a pair, this is the hardest install (shout out to ubuntu geek for doing a lot of the work)

Go to this website (http://getsongbird.com/download/) and click on the giant download button for linux i686
When the box pops up click “save”
Important: Firefox will probably save this to the desktop (check your desktop and see)
Click “places” in your toolbar then “Home Folder”
When this opens up drag and drop the newly downloaded file into your home folder(from your desktop).
Open terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal)
Type the following to move the file to the opt folder (this folder has security in place so we access it from terminal):

sudo mv Songbird_1.0.0-860_linux-i686.tar.gz /opt

Enter your password if it asks you (duh!)
Type the following (hit enter after each line, and caps DO matter, copy and paste via right click):
Change over to the directory we just moved this bad boy to

cd /opt

Uncompress this with the tar command (z indicates our filetype .tar.gz, x means extraxt, v means verbose or display what is happening in terminal which is useful if something doesn't run right, f means filename to follow)

sudo tar xzvf Songbird_1.0.0-860_linux-i686.tar.gz

Type the following to change ownership of the file and replace username with (drum roll) your username (note: the second one is actually group... but you don't really need to know that)

sudo chown -R username:username Songbird

Change directory

cd /opt/Songbird

Start the program and make sure it works (close it when you are done)

./songbird

Voila (keep reading)! Run through their little menus and your program is up and running!
Well, almost Voila. Since you probably do not want to use terminal to start the program, let's install a shortcut with a pretty picture. You can either follow along with the steps below or you can go to this website (http://mat-u.deviantart.com/art/Songbird-Icons-30962307) and download what I think is a much nicer icon image and then try to follow along (you'll have to save to desktop, double click open, drag and drop the .png file you like into the home folder... starting to feel like a familiar action?)

Kill terminal and reopen (this will close songbird)
Open terminal
Okay we will now change the directory we are in

cd /opt/Songbird/chrome/icons/default

Now we are going to rename the icon file using the move command

mv default.xpm songbird.xpm

Now we are going to copy the icon to a folder where all the icons live ,)

sudo cp songbird.xpm /usr/share/pixmaps

Okay we are done with terminal, so close that bad boy
Right click on Applications
Select “Edit Menus”
A window will pop up, in the left pane select Applications > Sound & Video
Click on “New Item” on the right side of the window
Enter in fields as such
Name: Songbird
Command: /opt/Songbird/songbird
Comment: musicplayer
Now click on the choose icon, and click on “browse” of the window that pops up.
Navigate to usr > share >pixmaps and hit enter
Now you can scroll down to songbird (it looks like an egg)
Hit OK, and OK, and Close

Way to kick butt! You are all done, fire up Songbird (Applications > Sound & Video > Songbird) and let's listen to some music as we continue.

Open Office .org : Defaulting to .doc

Sick of odf (open document format) being the standard format? me too, let's change it

1. Open up your Open Office program of choice
2. Go to Tools
3. Go to Options (you will have to click the little + sign to expand the options there)
4. Click on General
5. At the bottom you'll see something labeled Default File Format (hazaa the holy grail)
6. Make sure that Text Document is selected under the Document type heading
7. Under the Always save as heading scroll up to Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP
   Now let's rock this a bit further and address file format's for Excel and PowerPoint
8. Select Spreadsheet under the Document type heading and scroll to Microsoft Excel 97/2000/XP
9. Select Presentation under the Document type heading and scroll to Microsoft PowerPoint 97/2000/XP **make sure not to click on the one that ends in template**

woo-hoo it feels good to be feel free from the tirrany of open/free software and back in the safe haven of a money mongering conglomerate! (err... wait)

CrossOver

CrossOver is available for free (both their pro version and games version)
http://down.codeweavers.com/

Also I found this nifty site that gives you 50gigs of free storage and no upload-size limit. Sounds down right awesome. Upload is a bit slow, but that is probably because of my internet connection.
ADrive.com

New Ubuntu!

Woo, looks like ubuntu will be releasing a new version of their operating system on the 30th of October 2008. Super excited, and (dare I say) intrepid.



Intro
Windows, and Macintosh are examples of an Operating System (OS). When windows released Vista it was an upgrade from XP. Ubuntu is a free OS, and it is releasing an upgrade as well.
*I use the term upgrade lightly because there are often big changes

Ubuntu releases by Y.MM and Adjective-Animal (the names are given through alpha order, like hurricanes). So to give you some background:
6.10: Edgy Eft
7.04: Feisty Fawn
7.10: Gutsy Gibbon
8.04: Hardy Heron
and now
8.10: Intrepid Ibex

When I install I'll post up notes of instructions on setting up network sharing, watching dvds and all the programs I stumble into and find important. (I'm doing a fresh install, it leaves a nice new car smell on my computer).