Elementary OS Tips and Tricks

1. Install Elementary OS on non-pae laptops (e.g. IBM Thinkpad x40)
   http://cloudofnines.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/how-to-install-elementary-os-on-non-pae.html
   - Install Ubuntu server edition
   - Run installation and choose "base system install" option
   - After installing the server and logging in, run $sudo apt-get update to make sure pkgs are updated.
   - $sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:elementary-os/stable
   - $sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:elementary-os/os-patches
   - $sudo apt-get update
   - $sudo apt-get install -y elementary-desktop
   - $sudo reboot

Ubuntu Default Sound Card Select

Change the default sound card in Ubuntu Karmic

Posted on April 20, 2010 by Robert Beal

I’ve got a pc with two sound cards, the onboard sound, and a Sound Blaster Live Value I’ve had for a while. I use the Sound Blaster as I’ve never been able to get the onboard sound working in Ubuntu. For some reason or other, I managed to mess up the default sound card on my install of Ubuntu Karmic. Sound would work for most apps, but wouldn’t work for Flash (such as Youtube). Most of the apps were going through PulseAudio, and working fine. Flash however was still using Alsa directly and was using the wrong sound card by default, hence no sound.

So, I set about trying to fix the issue, but it quickly became apparent that it wasn’t an easy fix. There used to be an app called “asound” which would let you configure this sort of thing. But since Karmic it has been dropped from the repo’s! So I found a different way of fixing the issue.

You’ll need a terminal window open.

1. Find out what your default sound card is. You can simply do this by firing up alsamixer. The card that shows upon opening it is your default sound card for Alsa.
2. sudo alsamixer
3. Next list the names of your sound cards. It should show two cards, and their “index”. The one with index 0 is your default one. In my case it was “snd_hda_intel”
4. cat /proc/asound/modules
5. Take note of the name of the card you don’t want to be the default. As mentioned mine was “snd_hda_intel”. You then need to open up the Alsa base configuration file.
6. sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
7. Look for the line “# Prevent abnormal drivers from grabbing index 0″, then above it you want to put the following…
8. options snd_hda_intel index=1
9. In the above line I’ve set the currently default card (the one I don’t want as the default) to an index of 1. This will force the other card to become index 0 and hence the default.
10. Reboot, and all should be fixed. To check you can “sudo alsamixer” and see which card comes up.

Blogger nice settings

Hide Labels

(if options is missing)

Delete this portion

         
         
            ,
         
       

 

Remove "Subscribed to Post (Atom)"

1. Go to dashboard/ template/ edit HTML
2. Click the 'Expand Widgets Templates' box
3. Find:

Remove this line:

That should remove Posts (Atom).

IBM Thinkpad X40 Lubuntu wireless problem

Connecting IBM X40 with Lubuntu live disk
To make it work, edit the connection (make sure you can connect first):
- device mac address: blank, mode: infrastructure
- ipv4 setting: automatic (DHCP)

(you would expect these are standard. But not...)

Chromium won't start in Lubuntu

when run from terminal:
ERROR:process_singleton_linux.cc(443)] readlink failed: Input/output error

Solution
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1623261

The trick is to remove (or just move, just in case) the ~/.config/chromium folder and let it recreate itself when chromium-browser starts

also maybe:

sudo chown -R username:usergroup -R ~/.config/chromium

Selecting sound card in Lubuntu

sudo alsamixer

F6 (select sound card)

F5 (see all)

Mounting Windows Shared Drive

First install smbfs

then create file e.g. connect.sh and make it executable

============================================================

#!/bin/bash

sudo mkdir /home/ubuntu/drive_p

# unmount previously-mounted drive

sudo umount /home/ubuntu/drive_p

sudo smbmount "//192.168.1.11/wdtv_data" /home/ubuntu/drive_p -o username=default,password=default,uid=999,gid=999

============================================================

uid can be found using 'id' command.

Restore missing Task Panel / Task Bar in Ubuntu

Open Terminal (Alt-F2)
then type "gnome-terminal"
also, you can run "firefox"

Then run these commands:

gconftool-2 --shutdown
gconftool --recursive-unset /apps/panel
rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel
pkill gnome-panel

The task panel should appear just after you execute the last line.

iPad won't charge

Since you know the charger itself works, reboot your iPad and try to charge again.

Hold both the power and home buttons at the same time for at least 10 seconds (keep holding past the swipe to shut down if it appears) until the Apple logo appears then let go and your iPad will restart.

Installing Sopcast

http://www.webupd8.org/2010/05/install-linux-sopcast-player-040-in.html

1. You must download libstdc++ manually because this package is not included in the Ubuntu repositories. Don't worry, you can use these .deb files:

• 32-bit
• 64-bit

2. Add the SopCast Player PPA and install SopCast Player:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ferramroberto/extra && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sopcast-player sp-auth

And that's it, now go to Applications > Sound & Video > SopCast Player.

Ubuntu Freenet installation

Step 1: INSTALL JAVA JRE

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-install-java-runtime-environment-jre-in-ubuntu-10-10-maverick-using-ppa.html

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sun-java-community-team/sun-java6

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install sun-java6*

SoundBlaster Live and Ubuntu

In old Ubuntu versions asoundconf is used:

sudo asoundconf list
Live
V8237
...
...
sudo asoundconf set-default-card Live
then Reboot

But now, simply select from System > Preference > Sound

Ubuntu 11 classic menu

How to change back to classic menu. The new menu is horrible:

http://ricochen.wordpress.com/2011/05/13/how-to-swith-back-to-classic-menu-in-ubuntu-11-04/

1) Click on the Ubuntu icon on the top left corner, type “login screen” and click on the “Login Screen” application

2) Click unlock, enter password and the window should become the following, choose “Ubuntu Classic” from the dropdown menu, click Close then REBOOT.

If Live CD / USB boot is used, then it will prompt username/pw after reboot. The default username/pw is 'ubuntu' and blank password

Mount/map Windows share permanently

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MountWindowsSharesPermanently
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=255872&highlight=mounting+shares

sudo apt-get install smbfs

in /etc/fstab :
sudo gedit /etc/fstab

smbmount //servername/sharename /mountdirectory -o username=mywindowsusername,password=mywindowspassword

if un/pw not needed, use 'defaults'

smbmount //192.168.1.11/WDTV_DATA /wdtv -o username=defaults,password=defaults


===
Note, apparently the above does not work with live/usb boot? Manually:

sudo mkdir /media/wdtv
sudo smbmount //192.168.1.11/WDTV_DATA /media/wdtv -o username=defaults,password=defaults

ls /media/wdtv
df -l
fdisk -l

Shell Script:
===
#!/bin/bash
sudo mkdir /media/wdtv
sudo smbmount //192.168.1.11/WDTV_DATA /media/wdtv -o username=defaults,password=defaults

USB Boot

Disable floppy from BIOS to avoid boot issue "can't open dev sr0"
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1345125

Installing Flash Player Plugin on Firefox Portable or Google Chrome Portable (win)

Download Flash Player .xpi version from the official Macromedia flash site.

http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/xpi/current/flashplayer-win.xpi

download using IE or google chrome so Firefox would not install it.

Rename the resulting flashplayer-win.xpi file as flashplayer-win.zip and extract it using your favorite compression software like WinZip or 7Zip etc.

Copy the resulting flashplayer.xpt and NPSWF32.dll files into the folder plugins folder.
(see below note)

Restart your Firefox Portable/ Portable Chrome browser to enjoy the flash plugin in it. You can check if the flash is installed by going typing about:plugins in the URL bar

NOTES:

GOOGLE CHROME PORTABLE's plugin folder is GoogleChromePortable\App\Chrome-bin\plugins - you will have to create it if not found.Then copy flashplayer.xpt and NPSWF32.dll

FIREFOX PORTABLE plugin folder is \Data\plugins\

How to install .bin in Ubuntu

i.e. for google earth:

sudo aptitude install googleearth

Using WINE to run Windows applications

From Applications > Add/Remove > type 'WINE' in search box. On the list Tick 'Wine Windows Emulator' then 'OK' to install.

To run an applications, copy the Windows application to the desktop. Then go to Applications > Accessories > Terminal

Then type in 'wine '. For example 'wine Desktop/setup.exe'.

If it looks for a .dll, you can download it from dlldump.com and copy it to the application folder before running wine.

Applications run so far:
===============
IrfanView
ABC123 (kid's game)
uTorrent

Still trying:
=======
MYOB - during installation it's looking for IE 5.5 (duh)
Cisco VTII Camera - still trying to 'make' a development driver

Ubuntu is better than XP!

My first Linux installation (Ubuntu) and on my IBM T23 notebook :

Ubuntu
=====
Video: no need to install driver, screen type detected automatically
Sound: no need to install driver
Trackpoint: no need to install driver
Office application: Already there (OpenOffice)
Printer Canon S100SP: USB plugged in, and immediately recognised
Camera Canon S30: USB plugged in, and immediately usable

Windows XP
========
Video: required driver from IBM
Sound: required driver from IBM
Trackpoint: required driver from IBM
Office application: required program (MS Office)
Printer Canon S100SP: required driver from Canon
Camera Canon S30: required driver from Canon

Current score: Ubuntu:6, Windows XP:0