Using and Configuring Linux Category

This tutorial covers the process of creating a shared fat32 partition on your USB flash drive. This partition can be used to share files between your Windows Operating System and Linux. By default, flash drives contain a removable media bit (RMB) that tells Windows XP/Vista that the flash drive is removable media. In order for Windows to see more than one partition on the flash drive, we must flip the removable media bit on the flash drive to off. Then the flash drive will be seen by any Windows XP/Vista system as a fixed disk (just like an external USB hard drive).

Read the rest of this entry

The following tutorial covers the process of creating or making your own Mandriva Flash drive. If you already have a USB flash drive, why not put it to use? The MCNLive team has done some outstanding work with their latest Mandriva based MCNLive CD releases. The persistent loop features and USB installer are nearly flawless. The persist boot option allows a user to save "ALL" system changes and settings back to the loop image file. This remastering process is fairly simple, so let's get started.

Read the rest of this entry

The following tutorial covers the process of remotely accessing and controlling a Ubuntu installation from another PC that is using Windows or Ubuntu. This process should also work for other Debian based operating systems (with minimal changes) running either from a local hard disk, CD or portable USB device as long as the system is connected to a network and or has an internet connection established and has Remote Desktop (vino vncviewer) installed.

One major advantage of using Remote Desktop sharing is that once the system is up and running, you do not need a monitor, keyboard or mouse connected to the machine. The box running Ubuntu or a Debian based OS can be controlled directly from another machine that already has these hardware components in place. Another great advantage is that you can remotely access and control or administer your system from another location. Possibly outside of your local network, ie: work, school, friends house etc.

Read the rest of this entry

This tutorial is for those who use Ubuntu, Debian or a derivative of Debian Linux and have downloaded a .deb package that they want to install. Typically you can use synaptic, apt-get or aptitude. However, if the package is not available via the repositories you may need to download and install them yourself.

Read the rest of this entry

One of the drawbacks to installing NVIDIA Proprietary drivers in Linux is that when the kernel is updated, you have to reinstall (recompile) the software to match the new kernel. This tutorial explains how to upgrade Proprietary NVIDIA video card drivers after your Debian Lenny Linux system has been upgraded to a new kernel version. The process is pretty much the same as installing Proprietary video card drivers from scratch with the exception that we assume your already at the shell, unable to boot into X windows due to a kernel upgrade.

Read the rest of this entry

Looking to build your own Debian Linux Mirror? Use your local hard drive or a network drive and share your mirror over a network or even on the internet. Having your our own Debian/Ubuntu Linux Mirror enables you to drastically speed up the process of installing packages or complete netbuilds on your single or networked Linux PC (s).

Using the following tutorial, the same method can be used for building a Ubuntu Mirror if desired.

Read the rest of this entry

The following tutorial covers the process of installing Compiz Fusion on Debian Lenny. Compiz is the original compositing window manager. By using 3D graphics acceleration via OpenGL to render, Compiz provided intense immersing graphical effects on Gnome and KDE desktop environments. The Beryl window manager was a fork of Compiz and had shown great success. Currently, Compiz Fusion is the result of a merge between Beryl composite window manager and Compiz. It exposes the best features of both products.
Read the rest of this entry

The following tutorial covers the process of installing ipw3945 drivers in Debian. Enabling you to get your Intel® PRO Wireless 3945ABG Wireless network card working in Debian. The Intel® PRO Wireless 3945ABG network cards are commonly used in various laptops ranging from HP to Dell. These drivers are in the non-free section and thus are not included with Debian or Debian remixes by default.

Read the rest of this entry

How do I exit a man page when finished viewing? Although the answer to this question is well known, due to how many times I have been asked how to exit a man page or info page once done viewing, I thought I should put up a quick answer. Linux manual pages aka. man pages are provided with almost all software available for Linux and house important documentation about a program and explain how to use it.

Read the rest of this entry

Installing Compiz in Debian is a relatively simple process. What is Compiz? Compiz is an advanced compositing window manager that uses 3D Graphics acceleration to produce neat graphical desktop effects. Originally succeeded by Beryl (a fork of Compiz), Berl has since merged back with Compiz and both efforts are now one. If you have a decent video card and a 3D Linux graphics hardware driver enabled, there is good reason to install and take full advantage of Compiz.

Read the rest of this entry

The following tutorial covers the process of installing the Proprietary NVIDIA video card drivers from the Nvidia Website into your Debian Lenny Linux system. We have known a lot of people who have had some issues trying to get the NVIDIA drivers to install and work with Lenny, so we decided to write this tutorial to offer up some tips and help. This tutorial should have you up and running video hardware accelerated in just a few minutes.

Read the rest of this entry

At some point in time, almost every Linux user will have updated their kernel image. After you've used Linux with the new kernel image for a while and your content everything is working properly, you might want to remove the old Linux image or images that still reside on your system and appear as grub boot options. The following process explains how to entirely remove the old Linux image which in turn also unclutters your grub menu.

Read the rest of this entry

In Linux, if your mouse pointer disappears after switching users or after logging out and then back in, the problem is most likely caused by a bug with your video card driver. In most cases the mouse will still continue to work even though the mouse pointer is hidden or has disappeared completely from screen view. The fix is actually quite simple and only involves adding a single options line to the xorg.conf file.

I've personally seen this problem occur in various Linux distributions including Debian, Ubuntu and Pendrivelinux.
Read the rest of this entry

The following tutorial is for Debian or Ubuntu users who are looking to install proprietary drivers for their ATI or Nvidia video card. Installation of proprietary ATI or Nvidia video card drivers will allow you to take full advantage of all the 3d capabilities your Video card may have to offer. In this tutorial, we will be using a script called "envy" created by Alberto Milone.

Read the rest of this entry

The following tutorial covers the process of changing the default Debian Menu Icon to a custom Icon and in addition change the Debian Menu name. This is for those of us that prefer to use a pure Debian Linux Operating environment or a remix that is based on Debian. This process was tested using a clean install of Debian Etch. Other Debian releases may vary.

Read the rest of this entry

The following tutorial covers the process of changing or replacing the Gnome start menu panel icon with your own custom gnome panel icon. Enabling you to customize the look of your Ubuntu. The process was tested using Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon but should work with previous versions just as well.

Notes: We assume your using the default Human theme icon set and that your panel is 24 pixels. If your theme icon set is different and does not include a 22×22 directory, copy the 22×22 directory from the Human theme to your theme directory. I.E. usr/share/icons/youricontheme/22×22/ and replace Human in the instructions below with your theme directory name.

Read the rest of this entry

The following tutorial explains how to fix the Compiz Ubuntu Desktop Effects missing titlebar problem. If you've been toying around with Ubuntu 7.04 and have enabled Desktop Effects "Compiz", you might notice that the titlebar or window decorations have disappeared. This is a fairly common problem amongst systems using ATI or Nvidia video cards and commonly occurs after switching to a higher resolution. The fix is fairly simple.

Read the rest of this entry

How to remove the Ubuntu eject CD prompt. The following tutorial covers the process of removing the "Please remove the disk, close the tray (if any) and press ENTER to continue" prompt entirely from your USB Ubuntu installation. The process is fairly simple and will allow your system to shutdown or restart without prompting you to remove the CD. Those of us booting from a USB stick, will surely be glad to get rid of the remove CD annoyance.

Read the rest of this entry

This tutorial explains how to fix the Boot to Ram or "toram" feature that is currently broken in Ubuntu 7.04. Boot to Ram will enable a user to copy the entire Ubuntu live environment to system ram and run the Ubuntu Operating System entirely from there. You can then remove the CD or USB device and continue to do your work from system memory. BootToRam is also commonly referred to as CopyToRam.

Read the rest of this entry

A lot of the downloadable Linux or Unix files found on the internet are compressed using a tar or tar.gz compression format. So, knowing how to open or untar these compressed files becomes very important. In the following examples, we will explain how to untar both popular formats and how to extract the contents to a different directory.

Read the rest of this entry

The following tutorial covers the process of making Totem Media Player play encrypted DVD's. This tutorial assumes that your using Debian Linux or a distro based purely on Debian. It will allow you to have your own Debian DVD portable media center. If your getting error messages like the following, this tutorial is for you:

Totem could not play 'dvd:/ There is no plugin to handle this movie.

An error occurred: The source seems encrypted, and can't be read. Are you trying to play an encrypted DVD without libdvdcss?

Read the rest of this entry

How do I upgrade from Debian Etch to Lenny? The other day, one of our subscribers had asked us just that. Upgrading to a newer version of Debian is actually relatively simple and for the most part, can be done in very short time with just a few quick steps. So if you have Debian Linux installed on your PC and are eager to try out Lenny, go grab yourself a Soda and read on.

Please note that this tutorial assumes that your upgrading from a local hard drive installation of Debian Etch (This wont work on a compressed file-system)

Read the rest of this entry

How to add a user to the sudoers list? Beleive it or not, this is a fairly common question and in all reality the answer is quite simple. Adding a user to the sudoers list on a fully installed Linux system such as Debian is only possible via the command visudo. Users in the sudoers list are allowed the privileges to run commands and open files as the root user. In the following quick tutorial, we will show you how adding a new sudoer is quickly done.

Read the rest of this entry

The following tutorial explains how to add a context menu item that enables a Linux user to open files as the root user when browsing their file system using nautilus. This script feature allows the user to navigate their file system and open or edit any file or directory as the root user of the system. It's a perfect solution for those that are not completely comfortable using terminal commands.

Read the rest of this entry

Making a casper persistent Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon): With the coming release of Ubuntu 7.10 code named "Gutsy Gibbon", most of the portable linux community is likely going to want to run Ubuntu Gutsy from CD, USB or emulated using Qemu. So it only makes sense that, at the very least, we should be able to save and restore settings changes via a persistent partition or img (image).

The live-initramfs that has recently replaced casper works fine as a read/write option when using a "home-rw" partition. But ultimately breaks when you try and utilize a "live-rw" partition. So, if your content with saving and restoring changes using your user home directory, a "home-rw" partition or img (image) works fine using live-initramfs and you do not need to use this tutorial. The only reason to revert back to casper is because the live-initramfs live-rw is currently broken and only the home directory is available for read/write.

Note: In the following tutorial, we simply re-enable the old casper system. This is how the Ubuntu 7.04 casper persistent feature was fixed as well.

Update 7/10/07: It appears that the persistent feature in Gutsy Gibbon has been fixed in the latest release candidate. So this tutorial is left in place only for reference!

Read the rest of this entry

How to access a Linux ext2 or ext3 partition from Windows. Do you have files on your Linux system you would like to share with Windows? This is especially useful if you dual boot Windows and Linux on your machine. Maybe you have some mp3's, Video's, Favorites, e-Mail and more you would like to have access to from both operating environments? You no longer have to shut down Windows and boot Linux!

Accessing a Linux partition from Windows is relatively easy to accomplish and can be done via the download of a Free utility called Explore2fs.

Read the rest of this entry

How can I access my Windows XP NTFS partition from Linux? The following tutorial explains how to gain access to a Windows NTFS partition using Linux. Reading or accessing NTFS partitions in Linux is important for many reasons. Some users repair Windows Operating environments using Linux, while others use a dual boot operating environment and would like to have access to their Windows File system.

The good news is that this is not a complicated task to accomplish. As a matter of fact, for those using a Linux version derived from Debian, (I.E. Ubuntu, Knoppix, and Debian, etc..) the process can be accomplished in a matter of seconds.

Read the rest of this entry

Help! I'm getting a Grub 1.5 Error 21 after a Ubuntu USB hard drive install: We received this email the other day from someone who was trying to do a full Ubuntu Linux install to an external USB hard drive. This person already had Debian Linux installed on their local hard drive and was attempting to do an install of Ubuntu to an external USB hard drive.

Read the rest of this entry

After having tooled around with a USB Linux version using your multi partitioned flash pen drive, you might find it necessary to revert it back to a single fat partition (restore the flash pen drive to it's original state) that can again be read by all computers. For those working from Linux this task can easily be accomplished via the following tutorial. Windows users can simply Download and use the SP27608 HP-USB Format tool.

WARNING: This process will delete any information that is currently stored on the USB key. Proceed with caution!

Read the rest of this entry

Creating your own custom Live Linux CD or USB distribution is not complicated. However, there are many different approaches depending mainly on which Linux base you decide to use. Many popular Linux distro's such as Knoppix, Ubuntu and DSL are based on Debian so for the following tutorial, we are going to focus on the simple creation of a Live Linux CD using Debian Linux as our base.

Read the rest of this entry

A simple way to set your screen resolution and color depth for most Live Linux distro's is via the use of the vga=parameter boot option. For example at boot you might type: Live vga=795. This would set your system to boot using the Live label with a screen resolution to 24bit 1280X1024. Here are some more examples of common vga boot values.

Read the rest of this entry

Clearing typed commands from terminal history: By default, up to the last 500 command lines a user types in the terminal window are saved into a hidden .bash_history file. The previously typed commands can be readily accessed by using the up and down arrow keys. This makes it easy to retrieve and reuse your recently used commands. However, maybe you want to clear the terminal command history list and start fresh?

This simple tutorial explains the process of viewing and then optionally clearing the terminal history.

Read the rest of this entry

Setting the default root password: Some Live Linux distributions are created without a root password by default (the root account is inactive). This is particularly true with Debian based distributions like Ubuntu. Setting a root password enables us to access some essential tools such as the synaptic installer. In most cases, having no root password is fine when your running from a Live CD and don't need to do administration tasks, make changes or install additional packages. But for those of us who do want to make administrative changes and save them back to a USB device or local storage device on for example a properly created "casper-rw" partition. Setting the root password might then be necessary.

Read the rest of this entry

Checking your Linux Kernel Version: Once your up and running with your favorite Linux distribution, you might find the need to install additional software packages or drivers. Some of these software applications or drivers can be specific to a Linux Kernel version in which case you will need to find this information. Finding the Kernel Version, Release information and Operating System from a running system is fairly straight forward and can be done directly from a terminal.

Read the rest of this entry

This step by step tutorial explains how a user can install Beryl on Ubuntu Edgy. Beryl is a fork of the Compiz desktop window manager. It is an openGL accelerated desktop that allows the Linux user to attain awesome breathtaking special 3D effects with their personal desktop environment. The desktop effects are reminiscent to that of Windows Vista but were established long before Vista's arrival. Beryl uses a graphical user interface and is easy to navigate.

Read the rest of this entry

Once you have migrated from Windows to Linux you may notice that the file system is not what your accustomed to. Of the first things the average user needs to understand is the inner workings of the root file system and Linux core directory structure. To help you understand this structure, we have listed each directory explaining what it is commonly used for.

Read the rest of this entry

The following is a quick reference list of some useful Ubuntu shell commands along with a short description of common usage. There are more, but this basic list was created to help familiarize the newly introduced Ubuntu user who might be migrating from a Windows operating environment.

Read the rest of this entry

This tutorial covers how to easily install proprietary drivers for your Nvidia or ATI video card using envy. These are the drivers that are listed in the download section of the ATI and NVIDIA Websites. Advantage to installing these drivers over the nvidia-glx or xorg-driver-fglrx are that you get a nice GUI control panel and advanced features to work with.

We will be using a script called "envy" created by Alberto Milone.

Read the rest of this entry

Ubuntu does not ship with NVIDIA 3D acceleration enabled. Getting the NVIDIA Geforce video card working to it's full potential requires the installation of an additional glx driver package. The nvidia-glx driver will allow us to make better use of the Geforce type video card. The process is simple, however many tutorials make it more complex than need be.

Read the rest of this entry