If you mess up your display...

In messing with my display settings, I killed everything. I found two actions helpful in getting it back to normal:
First, I had a screen with no command prompt. To get one, press Ctrl+Alt+F1
Second, to get the interactive display setup, type: sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

Grip Settings

I've recently switched to Grip after having problems with Sound Juicer. I encode to mp3 using lame and VBR settings. To use Grip, download "grip" and "lame" using synaptic. For the settings, I referenced the following pages: Grip Configurations (which list switches used below), Lame switches, a HOWTO from the ubuntu forums (be sure to read the whole thing for the full story), and Musicbrainz FreeDBGateway instructions. With this information, I set up Grip in the following way:
1. Go to the Grip config tab
2. Under the Rip settings, I only changed where the ripped filed were stored. Therefore, I changed the default to: ~/rip/%A/%d/%n.wav
3. Under the Encode settings, I first changed the Encoder to "lame." I then changed the Encoder command-line to: -V 1 --vbr-new %w %m
The first part (-V 1 --vbr-new) contains lame switches which are described in the lame page listed above. Note that the "1" can be changed to whatever you like between 0 and 9. The differences are descirbed here. The second part (%w %m) are grip switches and, according to the HOWTO listed above, should not be changed.
4. I next changed the "Encode file format" line to: ~/music/%A/%d/%t - %A - %d - %n.%x
The first part (~/music), like in the Rip settings, tells it where to store the encoded mp3's. Everything after describes the sub-directories within ~/music and the sonn to be encoded mp3 file name. A description of what these mean can be found by looking at the switches section of the Grip page listed above.
5. Then under the options sub-tab of Encoder settings, I unchecked all references to m3u's as I don't use them.
6. Next, under the ID3 tab, I checked the "Add ID3 tags" box.
7. Next, under the DiscDB tab, I made the default "freedb.freedb.org" my secondary server by simply copy and pasting it from the DBServer line in primary server tab to the same in the secondary server tab. I then changed the DBServer line in the primary server tab to "freedb.musicbrainz.org" All else stayed the same. This is so it checks the Musicbrainz database first. The DBServer line to use was found on the Musicbrainz site listed above.
8. Finally, in the Misc tab, I checked "Do not lowercase filenames" and "Do not change spaces to underscores" This was done for obvious reasons.

Restricted Formats on Feisty

The best thing that I've found about Feisty so far is the grouping of the restricted formats into one file. To get the them, simply download and install the "ubuntu-restricted-extras" packages using synaptic. This will cover the gstreamer plugins, flash, jre, and msttcorefonts. You will still need to get libdvdread3, libdvdcss2, and libxine1-ffmpeg separately for dvd's and mp3's. libdvdcss2 comes from the medibuntu repository. See the instructions here regarding medibuntu. There is a link on the right to the key and the new apt line for feisty is:
deb http://medibuntu.sos-sts.com/repo/ feisty free non-free

Getting Rid of Default Keyring/nm-applet Message

I kept getting a message requesting me to type in my default keyring password for nm-applet whenever I logged into Feisty. To get rid of it, do the following which will log in the keyring password automatically:
1. Make sure the default keyring manager password is the same as the root password. If not, delete default.keyring from you home/.gnome2/keyrings/ directory. When you log into Feisty again, it will prompt you to make a new one. When it does, make it the same as your root login.
2. Download and install libpam-keyring using synaptic.
3. Bring up an editor for /etc/pam.d/gdm. For example, type the following into a terminal: sudo gedit /etc/pam.d/gdm
4. Add the following to the end of the file: @include common-pamkeyring
5. Save the gdm file and exit the editor.

Feisty Guide

Feisty has been released. Therefore, I have updated the Ubuntu Guide link on the side. The Ubuntu Guide site links to previous versions if you need them.

Ubuntu Magazine

Check out the new Ubuntu Magazine (articles listed at the bottom of the wiki page). It's sure to be a useful site for instructions.

DVD Burning Apps

So far, I have been using k9copy for shrinking and ripping and brasero (previously bonfire) for straight ripping, however, there are many others. Plus, k9copy is native to KDE even though it will run on gnome. Therefore, check Assente's list of the "10 Best" linux DVD ripping applications.

Deleting Themes

Here's a good post on how to delete themes. (See the post referring to the "how to install anything" page on how to install themes) Basically, to uninstall a theme such as Mist, run the following command:
sudo rm -R /usr/share/themes/Mist

However, some themes are in your home folder in the .themes directory. So change that in the command above.

Another way is to start nautilus under root by running the following command:
sudo nautilus
Then go to the .themes directory in your home folder or /usr/share/themes/ and delete the appropriate theme folder from there.

Connecting to a Network Drive on Startup

This post is mostly drawn from the Ubuntu Starter Guide directions with some modifications and assumes you already have Samba set up (see previous post on file sharing). You also want to set a mount point on your local computer for the shared directory. To do this, pick a name for the folder (I'll choose Storage) and type this into a terminal:
sudo mkdir /media/Storage

Then you want to edit /etc/fstab by adding a line for the network folder as shown below. The formula should be:
(network location) (mount point) (filesystem) (options) (0) (0)

So assuming my shared folder is named Bob and is on my desktop named Ugly, and assuming that the mount point on my local computer is at /media/Storage, then the fstab entry would be as follows:
//ugly-desktop/Bob /media/Storage smbfs defaults,users,dmask=777,fmask=777 0 0

Just some Dilbert

Thanks to the Ubuntu Blog for linking to the linux toons page.








Ubuntu Blog ping

Installing Stuff on Ubuntu

Simon Gray has posted an excellent tutorial on "How to install ANYTHING in Ubuntu." It covers everything from synaptic, to the terminal, to compiling and installing a package with source code.

PLF Update

At some point, the PLF site moved so you will need to update the repository location and the key.

The new site (Medibuntu) is located here. So you will need to delete the APT line and key for the old PLF repository and add the new one. The new apt line is:

deb http://medibuntu.sos-sts.com/repo/ edgy free non-free

There are instruction on how to add this new repository on the medibuntu site under Repository Howto, but to add this line for synaptic the non-command line way, go to:
System-->Administration-->Synaptic-->Settings-->Repositories-->Third Party Tab-->Click on Add-->Paste in the apt line from above.

For the key, you can use the instructions on the Medibuntu site or do it my way by right clicking on the site below and choose save link location:
Medibuntu key
Then go System-->Administration-->Synaptic-->Settings-->Repositories-->Authentication Tab-->Click on Import Key File-->Choose the file that you just downloaded.

UPDATE FOR FEISTY: The above is still true for feisty, however, the new apt line is:
deb http://medibuntu.sos-sts.com/repo/ feisty free non-free

Ports

Some random port information:

For your bittorrent client (I like bittornado) and emule client, use a private port between 49152 and 65535. See this wikipedia article. Emule clients like amule typically use 4662 (TCP) and 4673 (UDP) and bittorrent typically uses 6881 as the default but these may be blocked by your ISP. Amule suggests setting your TCP and then assigning the UDP by TCP+3.

Also, when syncing your palm over your home network, you may have to open a port. The port used by palm network sync is 14238.