Sunday, June 27, 2010

Ubuntu(Part-7)

Installation of everything in Ubuntu including the operating system itself happens with the help of packages.These packages are just like set up files in Windows.Packages are small files that have to be extracted to install anything in Ubuntu.This is mainly done by two software sub systems APT and dpkg.APT stands for Advanced Packaging Tool and dpkg for Debian Package System.dpkg does all the basic hardwork of actually installing and uninstalling packages while APT tracks these changes at a higher level.APT also recognises broken packages and prompts us,if updates are available.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Internet through Airtel with Ubuntu

Today I want to share with you how I generally get to use internet at home with my phone and Ubuntu.My phone is Sony Ericson w200i and I haven't installed any PC suite in my system.I just plug in the data cable and I right click the network icon, and make sure that the checkbox "Enable Mobile broadband" is ticked on.Later on I enable phone mode in my phone and Ubuntu automatically pops me with the required settings in a step by step manner and after configuring, its over and the internet is on.

While when it comes to windows I need to install a PC suite seperately , but here every thing goes very smoothly with out the need of a seperate software

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Ubuntu(Part-6)

Lets play with command line for some time.Well you know how to open it,otherwise go to Applications-->Accessories-->Terminal.Here what you can see first is prompt,which appears like this in my lappie dileepkumar@dileepkumar-laptop:~$.Well the first dileepkumar is the user and the next dileepkumar is the owner of the laptop.Of course both are myself.Before going into the depth let me tweak out certain things for you.

1.System-->Administration-->System Monitor and what you see after clicking processes tab is similar to task manager in Windows.You can use this to force a process to quit.
2.Many of you may have the problem with the battery icon appearing only some times and disappearing most of the time.Go to System-->Preferences-->Power Management and go to General tab and click on the radio button that reads "Always display an icon"
3.Most of you may be experiencing problems with Pidgin Internet Messenger,well here is the permanant solution for that(I'll explain for gmail)
a.When you are creating an account or editing,you will generally see three tabs Basic ,Advanced ,Proxy
b.In the Basic tab---Protocol-XMPP,Username-you gmail username,Domain-gmail.com,Password-Enter your gmail account password,and keep the remaining fields empty.
c.Don't touch the Advanced tab
d.In the Proxy tab Proxy type as 'No Proxy' and click Save.Now you can easily get connected to your pals and friends.

Ohhhhhhh forgot,we started this for terminal na,and I know that you cant insert more matter into your brains.OK no problem lets work with it tommorrow.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Ubuntu(Part-5)

There are some virtual consoles in Ubuntu,a total of 6 in all which you can access at any time.These consoles can be accessed by pressing ctrl+Alt+f1,f2,f3,f4,f5,f6 depending upon which console you want.These let you proceed on ur work in a command line interface and if any time you want to return back to graphical press ctrl+Alt+f7.Now I want to tell you some things about 'Nautilus'.It's a traditional file browsing system specially designed for Ubuntu.When you are browsing any folder,just press ctrl+T,you will see a new tab opened like that of a web browser.Not only that you can even add bookmarks and copy and move the files between the tabbed windows :).One more important thing,you know with unix or Linux there is a problem if you give spaces in between names like rm dileep kumar It gives error telling you that neither dileep nor kumar files are present and they cannot be removed even though there is a file by name dileep kumar.There are two ways in which you can overcome this
1.rm "dileep kumar" (using double quotes)
2.rm dileep\ kumar (Typing a backslash before every space)

Turn on Bash Smart Completion (via Ubuntu Blog)

We normally type half command or name of the file and proceed with tab in Dos and that feature is also present in Ubuntu.To enable it in simple terms:
1.Open Application--->Accessories-->Terminal
2.Entr the command ---------Sudo vi /etc/bash.bashrc
3.You will be prompted for password,enter it and you will see some matter,most of which you wan to under stand.Uncomment the below lines,by removing the # before every line.
if [ -f /etc/bash_completion ] && ! shopt -oq posix; then
. /etc/bash_completion
fi
4.Press Esc-->colon-->wq-->Enter

The Bash shell has this sweet feature where you can use the TAB key to auto-complete certain things. For example, when I am in my home directory, the following command: $cd Do[TAB-key] will automatically yield: $cd Documents If you are an absolute novice, like I was, not so long ago, discovering tab completion in the terminal can make you go "Wow!". Wait till you hear the rest now :) Though you can use the TAB key to complete the names of files a … Read More

via Ubuntu Blog

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Ubuntu(Part-4)

Just only some simple facts for today.In windows what we call as taskbars, we call them panels in Ubuntu.And we have 4 virtual desktops generally present in Ubuntu,we can increase them to 256.Just right click over the bottom right corner where you see 4 workspaces and click on preferences.There by changing row number and column number, you can check the difference.Donno about any previous versions of Ubuntu, but in the latest version if you want to clean up your system from all left out and not used packages and other stuff, go to System-->Administration-->Computer Janitor.It will automatically show you,what can be removed from your system.By clicking "Do selected tasks", you can clean up your system.

Ubuntu(Part-3)

The latest version of Ubuntu is called Lucid Lynx and it is version 10.04 .The reason behind this version numbers is simple.The second part stands for the month(04) and the first part before dot ,stands for the year(10) of its release. Hence Lucid Lynx was released in April ,2010. So by seeing the version number of Ubuntu ,you can tell its month and year of release. For every 6 months there is a release of new version of Ubuntu and it will be supported for atleast 18 months by the Cannonical Ltd.,(The principle company behind the development of Ubuntu).

I went to a distant relatives house one week ago and there I saw a beautiful girl in their neighbours house. She once came to our relatives home for some work ,and I asked my cousin who is 8 years old to know her name slowly. He went to her and asked her name and came and told me.After that she went away and never came to my relatives house. There are two reasons for this :
1. The worst part that happened in this is that my cousin pointed his finger towards me and asked her that I want to know her name.
2. After knowing her name he came near me and I expected him to tell her name to me in ear. Instead he shouted her name so that everyone in the house could hear it.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Ubuntu(Part-2)

Coming into the second problem, which I faced was downloading applications directly from internet and trying to install them, just like I do in windows.But that created a lot of problems ,and I need to follow a lot of steps from terminal also to install the required application.Here where I came to understand the power of Ubuntu Software Center which lets you choose and install thousands of free applications directly from the internet with out the need for you to follow any steps .But sometimes, even with proper authentication I could not install certain applications telling me that there is some authentication failure. I cleared this problem with going to System-->Administration-->Synaptic Packet Manager and installing the required software from there.All the software that can be seen in Ubuntu Software Centre is also available there .

Monday, June 7, 2010

Ubuntu (Part-1)

I have installed and uninstalled ubuntu a number of times during my last year at NIT.Firstly for the sake of curiosity and secondly "Life is a race............(3 idiots)",but never sticked to it.I haven't used it for a week in a row continuously until my junior introduced me to it again in the middle of march this year.I installed it this time and using it to this day and also made the people around me get inspired through me for using it.(By mistake I formatted my friends system completely installing ubuntu once :P).In the next few posts on Ubuntu I will list on the few problems I faced with Ubuntu and how I overcame them.

The first problem was with dual booting.I want to install Ubuntu along side my Windows partition so that I can choose between them during boot up process.These are some of the tips and tweaks for it :

1.If you format your entire system and install ubuntu first and windows later, then you are going to lose Ubuntu completely since firstly you cannot dual boot ,but enter directly into windows partition and the hard disk portion in which you installed Ubuntu will get completely disappeared.

2.Now if there is already Windows in your system and you install Ubuntu with out any change to the drive in which windows partition is present ,then you will get to dual boot,but the portion of hard disk which you gave for installing Ubuntu will get disappeared here also.This problem is still faced by me ,but since I gave only 12 GB of my 250 GB harddisk for Ubuntu ,I am not facing much difficulty with the disappearance of that space.

3.If you want to just install Ubuntu like a set up file and uninstall it like any other file through control panel in windows use Wubi installer .But you will get to use it with reduced performance and hibernating option will be absent in this.