Remove Kubuntu splash screen
After installing the KDE Desktop I realised the default Ubuntu splash screen has been changed to Kubuntu which is quite annoying.
There seems to be a common way of reverting the Ubuntu splash screen but it did not work for me. Basically there is a line of code that is used to change the splash screen but after doing so and rebooted, the same Kubuntu splash was displayed.
In the end I decided to uninstall the Kubuntu splash screen altogether which then reverts back to the Ubuntu splash screen.
sudo apt-get remove kubuntu-artwork-usplash
KDE 4.2
I took a day off today as I really had trouble sleeping last night. My stomach was giving me problems and I was up until 4am. Anyway, despite all that I managed to install KDE 4 on my Ubuntu machine and after playing around with it I’m starting to like it a lot! It seems to be a huge improvement since version 3 in 2005.
Auto start wireless
For sometime I had to manually configure the wireless connection on my Sony VAIO laptop everytime I started the computer. Apparently, this is a bug and it can be quite annoying so I decided to fix it for good. I followed the second post on the link below and now it automatically connects me to my home wireless network everytime I start the computer.
Source: HOWTO: Wireless Security – WPA1, WPA2, LEAP, etc.
Shutting down Ubuntu properly on laptops
Source: Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) on the Asus Eee PC
I was experiencing problems when shutting down Ubuntu on two laptops. The display shuts down completely however the machine still seems to be running with the green power light on. This can only be resolved with manual shutdown by holding the power button for 5 seconds.
The symptom first appeared on my Asus Eee PC after installing Ubuntu but later on my Sony VAIO laptop did exactly the same thing.
I came across the following link which had a section about how to properly shutdown the operating system on the Asus Eee PC. This worked for the Asus Eee PC as well as the Sony VAIO laptop.
Ubuntu 7.10 on Asus Eee PC 701 4GB
For the last couple of days, I’ve successfully installed Ubuntu 7.10 on an Asus Eee PC via USB flash drive. The default Xandros OS was a little beyond unusable. It turns out Ubuntu runs surprisingly good with compiz desktop effects. I’ve also managed to get the wireless working. For all the installation instructions I’ve followed a couple of main sources which are listed below.
- Ubuntu on the Asus Eee PC: Part 1 (or How to run a functional Ubuntu install off a USB drive)
- Ubuntu on the Asus Eee PC: Part 2 (or How to install Ubuntu on the Eee’s internal drive)
- Installing Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) on an Eee PC 701 4G
The third link is particularly useful to get the wireless card working.
Transparency in menus
Some of the following information are taken from here.
The following is a set of instructions to turn on transparency for menus in Ubuntu.
- Alt+F2 to bring up the Run Application dialog.
- Type ccsm and enter to bring up the CompizConfig Settings Manager.
- Click on General Options.
- Click on Opacity Settings tab.
- Under Window opacities click New.
- Type Tooltip | Menu | PopupMenu | DropdownMenu in Opacity windows.
- Set the appropriate Opacity window values. Usually 90 is safe.
- Close all dialog boxes and you should see transparency when you bring up menus.
Turn off transparency in title bar
Some of the following information are taken from here.
By default, the unfocused window title bar is rendered semi-transparent. This is particular annoying and bad for some of the low-end systems. Here is a simple way to turn the transparency off.
- Open the run dialog (Alt+F2) and bring up the gconf-editor.
- Browse to /apps/gwd/ and set metacity_theme_opacity to 1. By default it’s set to 0.75.
How to manually mount USB drives
Some of the following information are taken from here.
1. Insert USB drive.
2. Run the following command to determine if USB drive is detected.
lsusb
3. If the USB is detected, you can then list the device.
fdisk -l
4. You will be able to see something like “/dev/sdf1″ under “Device”. Remember this.
5. Edit the file /etc/fstab and add the following line with the disk information you obtained in step 3. I created a directory (/media/usb) for my USB drive. You can use whatever you want really, but you must use that when you mount the drive.
/dev/sdf1 /media/usb auto noauto,rw,users 0 0
6. Once you completed all steps above, you can mount and access the USB drive.
mount /media/usb
7. To unmount
umount /media/usb
Installing fonts for system wide usage
1. Create a directory called .fonts in home directory (eg. /home/username/.fonts):
2. Copy the fonts into the .fonts directory.
3. May need to restart but otherwise the fonts should be available in all applications.
Pidgin: Stop SPAM
Some of the information below are taken from here.
For those who don’t know, I use Pidgin (formerly Gaim) for instant messenging on both Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux. It supports MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk, ICQ and various other protocols. Recently I’ve been receiving a lot of SPAM through the Yahoo Messenger network. So I found a plugin called Bot Sentry which prevents contacts who are not on your contact list to message you. And you have the option to challenge unknown contacts by throwing them a question. If they answer the question correctly, then they are allowed to message you. Installation of the plugin for Windows is fairly straight-forward. Below are instructions for Ubuntu users.
Ubuntu users
1. Make sure you have the following packages:
sudo aptitude install build-essential pidgin-dev checkinstall
2. Download and extract the file “bot-sentry-1.1.0.tar.bz2″ from the link above and run the following code inside the directory:
./configure
make
sudo checkinstall
3. For some users, you need to copy the plugin over in order for it to work:
sudo cp /usr/local/lib/bot-sentry.* /usr/lib/purple-2/.
4. Restart Pidgin and go to Tools>Plugins, you should now see Bot Sentry listed.