Giving a fresh Ubuntu install more power

Here I am, in a fresh Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) install – and it’s not what I’m used to. Sure, it is a great operating system, but it also needs a lot of tweaking when you first install it.

Here is my list: how I configured this distro and what programs I installed.

Unmountable boot volume

As some of you might know, I run a dual-boot configuration with Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.04, with Ubuntu being my primary operating system. The latter works just fine – all the problems are solved in a few minutes – but Windows? I spend days trying to repair it.

A few days ago I decided to log into Windows, because I needed to use Lightroom. When I chose “Microsoft 7″ in my boot menu (I accidentally renamed it like this, instead of “Windows 7″, and never got round to changing it), it asked me whether I want to start normally or run Startup Repair. I realised that this was due to an improper shutdown a day or two ago, and ignored it.

Usually, this wouldn’t be an issue, but this time, after the loading screen and before the login one, I got the Blue Screen of Death with the following error message: UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME. The same would happen each time I tried to start Windows, so it wasn’t a temporary glitch.

Losing the Pidgin notification icon and getting it back

I was playing around with Ubuntu‘s top panel which I use for menus (to the left) and system tray (to the right) – just like Windows’ taskbar, but without the running programs – when I made a mistake.

One of the icons constantly present in the top panel was the Pidgin notification icon, right next to the separator you use to drag that icon left or right. Since I don’t usually drag it, I decided to remove the separator: right-click, remove from panel, fail.

The Pidgin icon was now gone, too, and there didn’t seem to be a way to make it show up again. In Pidgin’s preferences there is a “Show system tray icon” option, but it said “Always“, so that was not the problem.

Re-Volt in Windows 7

It’s been a while since I’ve played a new game, which led to the intent to play an old one… I somehow managed to bump into Re-Volt, which I had forgotten I even had, and that is a shame.

Re-Volt is a great game which I loved when I was younger (it was published in 1999), and I used to cheat all the time Not that this is of any importance… What is of importance, however, is how to run this game if you have Windows Vista or Windows 7.

I eagerly installed the game on my Windows 7, and was quite disappointed when I discovered it didn’t work. I was able to run the game, and configure everything, but I couldn’t start any race – the game would just display a Can’t flip display buffers error over and over. Luckily, the good people of the Internet had already found the solution, so here it is (thanks to MassiZ from MSFN Forums):

1. First of all (after installing the game), download the following patch: 1.207
2. Copy the contents of the downloaded archive into your Re-Volt folder
3. Create a shortcut to Re-Volt on your desktop
4. Alter the shortcut’s properties by inserting “-sli” into the Destination text box, without the quotation marks (it should look something like “C:\Path to Re-Volt\revolt.exe” -sli)
5. Go to the Compatibility tab and select Windows 98, as well as Run as administrator
6. Finally, simply enjoy the game, it’s a great one
   

“Repairing” the numpad in Ubuntu

I haven’t posted anything for a while, mostly because there was nothing useful to talk about. But now I’ve encountered another “everyday problem” that people need to know about.

If you are an Ubuntu user, and suddenly find out that your numpad is not working (first make sure it’s on by pressing the “Num lock” button – it might work), while it works in other operating systems you have installed (if you have any), the chances are it has to do with accessibility settings.

To make things easier, I will post a quote from Eric Biven, which is where I found the solution:

Go to System -> Preferences -> Assistive Technologies.

When the Assistive Technologies Preferences screen opens, click the Keyboard Accessibility button.

When the Keyboard Preferences screen opens, select the Mouse Keys tab.

Uncheck the box labeled “Pointer can be controlled using the keypad”.

Close out of all dialogs.

I still don’t remember turning this option on, but it doesn’t matter… I just want it to work.

Flash player in Ubuntu 9.10 [64-bit]

Since Adobe Flash player for 64-bit Ubuntu systems is still in alpha, the process of installing is somewhat different.

1. You can download the TAR.GZ file from http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html (the download link is on the bottom of the page)
2. Extract it to your Desktop. You will get a file named libflashplayer.so
3. Open your Home folder. Press Ctrl+H to show hidden files.
4. Open the .mozilla folder
5. Then, open the plugins folder. If it does not exist, then create it (right click/Create Folder)
6. Move libflashplayer.so from your Desktop here.
7. Now restart Firefox, and Flash should work

If this is too gay for you, than you can do all these things in the Terminal:

1. Download the package and extract it to Desktop (step 1 and 2 from above)
2. Start the Terminal
3. Create the .mozilla/plugins folder in your Home directory: mkdir -p .mozilla/plugins
4. Move the extracted file to that folder: mv Desktop/libflashplayer.so .mozilla/plugins
5. Now restart Firefox, and Flash player should work

Removing “Desktop” from the Task Switcher in Windows 7

Since I’ve been a XP user for the past six years, there are some aspects of Windows 7 I can’t get used to. Fortunately, everything can be customised.

I don’t know whether this “feature” is available in Vista, but when you press Alt+Tab in Windows 7, the Task Switcher displays all the programs that are currently running, plus the Desktop. If you don’t need this (because you can use WindowsKey+D to show desktop), there is a way to remove it:

1. Run regedit (registry editor, you can find it by using the search bar)
2. Go to Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
3. In the menu, go to Edit – New – DWORD (32-bit) Value
4. Set the name to AltTabSettings, and the value to 1 (right-click, modify)

No need to restart, the “fix” will start working straight away.

How to setup GRUB after Windows has deleted it

Every now and then I have to reinstall Windows, which is my secondary operating system, but keep Linux alive at the same time (never had the need to reinstall it, because it’s so stable). Doing so does not pose a problem, but something after the installation does…

Asus Eee PC 1101HA

During the last few years, the notebook market has slowly been opening its doors to smaller, lighter and more portable computers. For me, the term notebook has always represented something easy to carry around, something that can be with you at all times, which is why I was never interested in any 16″ or 17″ laptops. People usually buy them when they need a home workstation, but I would always but a “real” desktop computer if those were my necessities.

However, most notebook manufacturers have realised that developing their products in only one direction (i.e. bigger screen) is not a good idea and have also released several smaller models, usually referred to as netbooks or subnotebooks. The name we use for them is not important – its how big, or better to say how small they are, that we should really concentrate our thoughts on.