Ubuntu 7.04/ 7.10 / 8.04/ 8.10 - After Installation Tips.

Discuss various technical topics not related to Mozilla.
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Eyes-Only
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Post by Eyes-Only »

Frank? If a person runs a LiveCD of Ubuntu and sudo's, are they permitted to write to the hard drive? I ask this because I know that some LiveCDs, take ZenWalk for instance, even if in root, it won't allow you to write/make changes to the hard drive as a means of protecting the drive, see?

However, let's say that a person in Ubuntu didn't make a backup of their Xorg.conf and they've totally muffed it up so as to be in blackscreen: Could the person simply load their Ubuntu LiveCD, go into "/etc/X11" after getting root in Nautilus, and thereby copying over that working Xorg.conf file the corresponding hard drive install of Ubuntu allowing it to overwrite the borked configure file there?

You can do such a thing in Puppy and I had to way back when I first started out in this adventure of mine, hence why I ask, and this is a rather easy way to get your Xorg.conf back, see? If one could do likewise in Ubuntu... their problem could be very quickly solved.

Just a thought anyway.

Amicalement,

Eyes-Only
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steviex
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Post by steviex »

I think you can sudo it in Terminal,I don't think Nautilus would have the necessary permission (unless you launch it with sudo) but I think you would need to change the ownership of the file back to what it should be, once you have inserted it. otherwise the system might not be able to read and write to it correctly.(I think this what I did, when I wrecked mine :) )

I take it, you want to end up with something like the Stickies that Vectorspace and I created, Frank. I can do surgery on the thread if you need it carrying out.
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Frank Lion
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Post by Frank Lion »

steviex wrote:I take it, you want to end up with something like the Stickies that Vectorspace and I created, Frank.

Not really, I would like to see it continue, just as it is, with tips, suggestions, links and even the odd support question being posted here. Any suggestion, however minor, so long as they are accurate, I reckon has a place here. Not just serious stuff either, but also ideas about games, Compiz Fusion, Beryl, Superkaramba, themes, anything apart from "ppl shud use Linux coz it rocks!" type stuff, haha.

In addition, I'd also welcome suggestions as to what should be included in the opening post, i.e. if a new user of Ubuntu/Kubuntu read nothing other than the OP of this thread, what do we, the community here, think are the top 12 or so most essential things they should know, right from the start.

Then, when a clear picture emerges, I'll just edit the stuff into the OP. :)
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke (attrib.)
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steviex
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Post by steviex »

No worries, just making the suggestion, this is evolving quite nicely... :)
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. -Albert Einstein

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old Ol Grumpy
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Post by old Ol Grumpy »

You could try putting the LiveCD in the drive and on boot up type rescue in with the argument.
Also if you were using Grub as your bootloader you could hit escape to make the menu show at boot without the LiveCD and then hit the recovery listing. Best to edit grub or lilo config so you can read them at boot and the options show in the list for recovery along with the kernel and if dual booting, other operating systems.

A quick look around and the recovery methods didn't seems as evident in Feisty Help as in previous versions. May be due to the added recovery protections internally or my lack of patience.

OG went a looking:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/
type "recovery" in the search block. There were several items.
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hhh
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Post by hhh »

I can't believe that Frank's amazing Wubi discovery hasn't been mentioned yet...
http://wubi-installer.org/

Defrag once, then install and uninstall / repeat till you figure out the right install sequence for you (when uninstalling, keep the iso option and drop the other).

Reinstall in under 2 hours w/ a fast connection. It solves many problems.

And please, System>Preferences>Theme>Mist, and you can take it from there.

(PS: Yes to sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg, and also Options "HWCursor" "off" in xorg for my cursor disappearing during boot [sudo nautilus > file system/etc/x11, right click on xorg and open in text editor])
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hhh
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Post by hhh »

Painless Beryl Install on Feisty...

http://www.ridinglinux.org/2007/05/27/3 ... tu-feisty/
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Post by old FatJohn »

Ubuntu - After Installation Tips :)

http://fullcirclemagazine.org/
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Frank Lion
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Post by Frank Lion »

hhh wrote:I can't believe that Frank's amazing Wubi discovery hasn't been mentioned yet...
http://wubi-installer.org/

Defrag once,...

...and I discovered it from our very own RaiseMachine. :)

Little tip for Wubi users. Once installed, exclude the wubi disks from your normal Windows defragging routine. They don't need it and it really slows down Windows defragging. Not to mention, leaving very puzzled looks on the faces of your Windows Defraggers of choice, In my case, these are Diskeeper Lite and O&O Defrag, just in case yours doesn't have an exclude files facility.
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hhh
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Post by hhh »

OK, I'm going out on a limb here...

Semi-easy Compiz Fusion install w/ Wubi Ubuntu on WIn XP...

1) Update your driver of choice via Envy using Step 1 of this...
http://kevin.vanzonneveld.net/techblog/ ... tu_feisty/

2) Install Compiz Fusion using the steps here (all steps are done via Terminal [Applications>Accessories>Terminal]), and don't use the AMD64 repository, as it doesn't exist yet)...
http://www.compiz.org/Compiz_and_Copmiz ... Repository

3) If you get an error after doing sudo apt-get update in the above step, redo the key and update steps again (or twice more, in my case).

4) Ignore any software update notifications during the install, they will disappear by the end.

5) Run sudo apt-get upgrade after the installation.

6) Hit Alt-F2 and type in and enter compiz --replace to activate Compiz (that's two dashes}.

7) See if it works.

8) Open Synaptic Package Manager (System>Administration>Synaptic) and install Emerald Themes (and the required packages).

9) Hit Alt-F2 and type in emerald --replace and enter it.

10) Make sure it works (System>Preferences>Emerald Theme Manager)

11) If all is well, go to System>Preferences>Sessions and add Compiz [TAB] compiz --replace, OK and, again, Emerald [TAB] emerald --replace, OK and quit.

Linux <del>sux</del> can be quite frustrating, because <del>everything</del> a lot of what I read is rife with conflicting info, obscure info, or plain old misinformation.

Let me know if I've added to that here.

Image
Last edited by hhh on September 1st, 2007, 7:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
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hhh
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Post by hhh »

Oh my my, I finally have the wallpaper plugin working. I can't believe it...

Image
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Mike
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Post by Mike »

How'd you manage that, hhh?
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hhh
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Post by hhh »

^Well, for me, I first used the steps from 3 posts up to install Compiz Fusion and it's plugins, then made sure jpg images were enabled in System>Preferences>CompizConfig Settings Manager>Image Loading (I'm guessing it will work with png images if you enable those too, or convert your wallpapers to jpg with Gimp or something similar), then resized my wallpapers to my screen resolution size (1152x864 is what it defaulted to for me after enabling my video driver with Envy).

Next, if you haven't, move the images to your /home/[username]/ folder (easiest that way, or make note of the file path). Then add the images to CompizConfig>Utility>Wallpaper using this file path: file///home/[username]/[imagename].jpg:100 as described here...
http://forum.compiz-fusion.org/showthre ... per+plugin >second post (or change the file path as appropriate, but keep file///... :100 as in the above link). Of course, enable the Wallpaper plugin while you're at it.

Next, go to Applications>Add/Remove>System Tools and enable Configuration Editor. Then, Applications>System Tools>Configuration Editor>apps>nautilus>preferences and uncheck show_desktop, and close the Editor. You will lose any desktop icons you have when you restart Gnome, but that is supposed to be fixed in Ubuntu Grumpy Groundhog (the next Ubuntu version to be released, though then the steps to enable the Wallpaper plugin will change, I'm sure). If you decide you hate not having icons, disable the Wallpaper plugin and re-enable Nautilus desktop.

Finally, I used Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to restart Gnome, and presto, done.

I think I remembered everything just now, but please post if it works for you so I can be sure, though I'm sure this is already the most comprehensive How-To for this you will find on the internet. I can't wait to find the time to grab a panoramic image at an appropriate resolution so I can have one huge image across 4 desktops, but till then...
Image

PS: Since the Nautilus desktop is disabled, you can only see files downloaded to your desktop via Places>Desktop (or something similar). I think there's a workaround, but maybe only for KDE, and I can't be bothered since I download to my /home/hhh/ folder anyway.

You would not believe how many idiotic posts I had to wade through to finally figure this out. Thankfully, whenever some misinformation stopped Ubuntu from working entirely, I could fairly quickly remove and reinstall Ubuntu via Wubi (except for the damn Ubuntu updates which take forever to install, all 100+ of them).

Oh, and I found the wallpapers at nice large resolutions here...
http://www.desktoppimper.com/

Cheers.
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Mike
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Post by Mike »

Alright, that's the same method I used to get it working a few weeks back. I was hoping you had figured out a better way somehow.

I decided to revert after trying it out, since I was unable to set opacity settings for it (enjoy the transparent cube), and it wasn't playing well with certain other plugins, such as snow (snow texture disappears when rotating to another viewport, although not a huge deal since I rarely use it and don't really need it) and 3D Windows (a problem for me, especially after just testing it and seeing these problems persist after the latest update from Trevino's repo appear to have finally fixed the plugin).

Also, xwinwrap (An awesome command-line program for setting videos and/or screensavers to play on your desktop, much like VLC is capable of) was locking up almost everytime I rotated the cube.

This is something I will wait to try out again in Gutsy
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hhh
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Post by hhh »

Opacity doesn't work, I didn't know that. Snow? Whatever. <del>3D WFM</del>, <del>nope, you're right, broken now</del>, nope, does WFM but some settings are wonky or unresponsive. Oh well. xwinwrap, I'll get back to you, after I post a bitchin' Expo shot in AD. (edit-done in next post, and damn, I said bichin', how 80's).
Last edited by hhh on September 2nd, 2007, 9:36 am, edited 2 times in total.
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