Ubuntu 9.10 RC Released!

Ubuntu 9.10 Release Candidate is Out. This will be the only RC before the final hit here in a few days. The RC is stable but I am waiting for the final hits before I give it a full install.

http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/ubuntu-releases/9.10/ubuntu-9.10-rc-desktop-i386.iso

Sorry for the slow updates!

Hey guys! sorry for the slow updates, I have been real busy these days job hunting, got laid off so I am keeping busy but I will still be posting so check back. Karmic almost here so watch for my review when it hits! Thanks!!

OpenOffice 3.2 Coming in December 2009

Release date: December 14, 2009

The following is a list of upcoming feature from the openoffice site.

"Features planned for OOo 3.2 (December 2009)

release motto "Performance"

• QA tracked

• Performance improvements
  • OpenOffice.org startup performance improvements
  • OpenOffice.org ODF load/save performance improvements

• Overall
  • Accessibility improvements
  • Implementation of ODF 1.2 Metadata
  • Support for Opentype/CFF fonts
  • Begin of support for Graphite Smart fonts
  • XHTML export filter update
  • Support for Quicklook on OS X
• Writer
  • Stemming and morphological capabilities for Thesaurus
  • Better OOXML import / begin of .docx export
• Calc
  • Bubble chart implementation for charting module
  • Improvements in Autofilter, DataPilot, Conditional formatting, ODFFormula
  • Allow to insert/delete into/from the middle of merged cells
• Base
  • Search and replace capabilities to SQL-Editor

"

Personas for FireFox

Check out this plugin for firefox http://getpersonas.com check out the gallery or themes (personas) or even make your own!

+1 for Ubuntu Wireless

That's right, I have a positive comment on Ubuntu Wireless. I just move last week and previously I connected to the internet via a wired connection to the router. At my new place the router is in my room-mates room so I have to use a wireless connection, except for the fact that I do not have a wireless card in my desktop computer. After unpacking I discovered that I had a old Linksys Compact USB wireless adapter. I have heard that it is very difficult to get working in Ubuntu, plus it being a 4 year old adapter had me wondering if it would work at all. I plugged it into my USB port and almost instantly, there where a list of wireless networks available. So +1 for a working wireless connection in Ubuntu.

Change your Ubuntu Colors

Change the colors in Ubuntu with the GNOME Color Chooser

open terminal

sudo apt-get install gnome-color-chooser

The you will find it in System>Preferences

Flash in Google Chromium

Flash in working in the Google Chromium Browser, pretty easy to get it working, I ran the following line in the terminal.

cd /usr/lib/chromium-browser/plugins
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/flashplugin-alternative.so

after that I was only getting sound but to video on youtube.com videos so I went to the System-->Administration-->Update Manager and there was a update sitting there for the Chromium browser. I ran that and it works now.

Twitter Clients for Ubuntu/Linux

Twitux




sudo apt-get install twitux
gTwitter

sudo apt-get install gtwitter

Another simple GTK+ Twitter Client that looks like Twitux

Spaz

Spaz is Adobe Air Twitter Client that sport Multiple Themes and a built in URL shorten-er.



Download Spaz http://funkatron.com/apps/spaz/AIR/SpazAIR.air
Twhirl

Twhirl is a popular Twitter app for Adobe Air, check out my past post on installing Adobe Air in Ubuntu and the installing Twhirl is simple as http://www.twhirl.org/files/twhirl-0.9.air and opening it um to run the installer.



TweetDeck

An Adobe Air Twitter Client

Download then run the file to install

http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/TweetDeck_0_22.air

AlertThingy

"AlertThingy brings the very latest updates from your favourite social networks direct to your desktop. Send Tweets, update your Facebook status, upload photos to Flickr, post to Tumblr and more. For business users we have Yammer, Basecamp and Huddle integrations. So you can mix work and play."



Download: http://www.alertthingy.com/v2/AlertThingy.air

Dropbox in Ubuntu

1. go to http://www.getdropbox.com/downloading and download the appropriate .deb

2. double click the .deb and the package manger will open it up and click install.

3. Applications -->Internet-->Dropbox

4. First time running, will download Dropbox and run you through setup

5. Drop Files you want to back up in to the Dropbox folder and it will automatically sync.

Thats It!

You can also log into any computer and go to www.getdropbox.com and download your files that you have uploaded and lots more.

Ubuntu One (Beta)

I received my invite to use Ubuntu One (Beta) today. As for the install it, went pretty easy and they have a good installation guide on the website, http://ubuntuone.com. Just follow there install instruction and the quick installation is done. The only problem that I notice is the icon for the Ubuntu One that is supposed to be in the top panel is not there, but I am am not worried about that.

Uploading and downloading is simple and easy to do.

Ubuntu One give you 2GB of storage for free and 10GB for US $10 a month. Currently I use SpiderOak for my online backup storage. SpiderOak has 2GB free and they have plans that start at US $10 a month for 100GB of space. SpiderOak is cross platform compared to UbuntuOne that only work in Ubuntu. I like the features that SpiderOak offers I will continue to them as my primary online backup. But I will play with Ubuntu One and see what happenes after It comes out of Beta into a final version.

Fixing Firefox crash when fullscreen YouTube

After I had installed Firefox 3.5 I went to the YouTube site was watching some random videos. But every time I would click on the fullscreen button the browser would crash. UbuntuForums to the rescue. The following guide for the fix was not written by me. It was written by a member on the UbuntuForums website (Vcoolio). I feel that it is important to show it here for those that used my guide to install Firefox 3.5 and came across this problem.

"
Solved: load the flash plugin before firefox or swiftfox. It's a NVidia driver issue. (edit: not only... ATI users seem to benefit from this too).
Easiest fix: modify the startup script of your browser, e.g. in case of Minefield (firefox-3.6):

gksudo gedit /usr/lib/firefox-3.6a1pre/firefox.sh

Find your browser script in the same area, somewhere in /usr/lib/yourbrowser; (edit: other possible locations are like /usr/local/lib/firefox-3.5/firefox or /opt/firefox/firefox);
then add as 2nd (NOT 1st) line:

Code:

export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libGL.so.1

I'm not sure if this will keep working after an update of the browser (then do it again).

If this doesn't work or you don't like this solution try the following:
I couldn't get it done in a launcher command but I used the script option (copypaste in gedit and save):

Code:

#!/bin/sh
## replace firefox-3.6 with what you use, e.g. firefox, firefox-3.5, swiftfox
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libGL.so.1 firefox-3.6

or when you run from an extracted tarball:

Code:

#!/bin/sh
export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libGL.so.1
/path/to/firefox

Now to run your browser make a launcher with as a command:
sh /path/to/script

"

How to install Chromium (Google Chrome) in Ubuntu

1. Start Terminal Applications -->Accessories -->Terminal

and then use the following command to download the .deb package

wget http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/chromium/cxchromium_0.9.0-1_i386.deb

2. Now install the package using the following command

sudo dpkg -i cxchromium_0.9.0-1_i386.deb

Now it get a bit tricky for new users to Ubuntu and Linux but follow along and you should do fine. We need to Use the Ubuntu PPA (Personal Package Archives)

3. While still in Terminal use the following command

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

This will bring up a document and you need to add the following line to the bottom of the source list.

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Then Save and Exit the Document

4. Now enter the following command

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 0xfbef0d696de1c72ba5a835fe5a9bf3bb4e5e17b5

5. Update your source list with the following.
sudo apt-get update

6. Install the Chromium Browser

sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

7. Thats it go to Applications->CrossOver Chromium->Chromium to enjoy!



* Please note that there are currently no stable releases of the Chromium Browser. This is simply a current UnStable Version I will update the blog when a stable version is release.

Installing Firefox 3.5 in Ubuntu (Probably the better way )

1. Add the following line to /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

2. Identification key for this repository (Applications -->Accessories --> Terminal)

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 247510BE

3. Refresh your system cache:

sudo apt-get update

4. Setup this package, latex-xft-fonts and also firefox-3.5-gnome-support

sudo apt-get install firefox-3.5 firefox-3.5-gnome-support latex-xft-fonts

5.

sudo su

cd /usr/bin

ls -l firefox*


The ls -l is the command for listing in long and detailed format the files and directories


6. after the last line is entered the follow will appear in the terminal

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 2009-07-04 16:22 firefox -> firefox-3.5
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 2009-06-27 21:08 firefox-3.0 -> ../lib/firefox-3.0.11/firefox.sh
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 34 2009-07-04 16:19 firefox-3.5 -> ../lib/firefox-3.5.1pre/firefox.sh

7. Time to enjoy Firefox 3.5

Firefox will now be updated through the Ubuntu Package Manager from now on.

Installing Firefox 3.5 in Ubuntu

There are already lots of blogs out there with tutorials on how to install Firefox 3.5. But I found a lot of the to be outdated, and some that simply did not work. What I did was quite simple and it worked for me.

1. Download the current Firefox 3.5 Linux Tarbell at http://en-us.www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/upgrade.html

2. Right clicked on the download file. Then clicked Extract Here.

3. I keep the apps that I download in /home/username/apps/ so I simple dragged the extracted firefox folder into my apps file.

4. close any current firefox browser windows

5. double click the firefox file in the the firefox folder that is a shell script. A box will appear and click run in terminal.

or better yet

right click on the desktop and select create launcher and use the following in the command line
/home/username/pathtoyourfirefoxfolder/firefox/./firefox

then change the icon with one provides in firefox/icons

As far as I know there is not a .deb for the final version, just for the Release Canidate 2. But this will get you going on Firefox 3.5 / Keep checking the blog and I will add update posts when the 3.5 .deb is out.

Setting Up Evolution Mail with Gmail

1. Log into Gmail from your Internet Browser

2. Click on the Settings tab, then click on the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab

3. Click to Enable POP and IMAP



4. Open up Evolution Mail

5. Follow the Wizard through the process. When it is at the Receiving email section use the following settings

Server Type: POP
Configuration
Server: pop.gmail.com
Username: enter your Gmail username



6. Continue on through the Wizard until you get to the Sending Mail section

Use the following settings:

# I forgot to take a screenshot, the following settings are self explanatory.

Server type: SMTP
Server: smtp.gmail.com
Security: SSL
Username: yourusername@gmail.com (enter full email address)

Continue your way through the Wizard and click Send/Receive and that it!

Installing Adobe AIR and TweetDeck in Ubuntu

Installing Adobe Air

1. Go to http://get.adobe.com/air/ and download Adobe Air for Linux

2. Now the downloaded file should be called AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

3. Move the file AdobeAIRInstaller.bin to your /Home folder

4. Right click on the file AdobeAIRInstaller.bin and select properties then click on the permissions tab and check the Allow executing file as program.

5. Open up Terminal and type the following commands

chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

then

sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

The Installer will now open and complete install.

Install TweetDeck
















Go to http://tweetdeck.com/beta/ and download the TweetDeck for Linux

When you click to download the TweetDeck file, it will open up a window and just open with AdobeAIR Application Installer or just save the file and double click it.

















There are many Adobe AIR apps available and they install the same way. Now that you have Adobe AIR installed, Have Fun!