IPV6 is an Internet protocol. Currently most applications use IPV4 and this can cause conflicts which slow down your system.
Complete the following to disable it.
sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/bad_list
and type this in:
alias net-pf-10 off
Then save the file.
This work by James House is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
From the Philippines: journalist, Chin Wong, writes about using Ubuntu instead of Windows…
Ubuntu, a user-friendly version of Linux, has been running so nicely on my home personal computer that I decided to do an experiment. I wrote down a list of tasks I normally do with Windows XP and decided to see how many of them I could do on Linux.
Here’s what my list looked like:
Of all these, the first was the easiest. Ubuntu comes with OpenOffice.org 2.0, an excellent personal productivity suite that works much like Microsoft Office, with its own word processor, spreadsheet, database and presentation programs. It reads and writes files in MS Word, RTF and a variety of other formats, so sharing your files with colleagues who use Windows or Mac PCs won’t be a problem. Unlike earlier versions, too, the program seems to load and run much faster.
Browsing was just as easy. Ubuntu lets you take your pick from several Web browsers, including Firefox. I experienced some glitches initially with YouTube—the videos were playing without sound—but that worked itself out after I rebooted the system.
For Windows users, downloading and installing new software on Linux can be rather daunting. Where’s the .EXE file? What do you do with the downloaded file (called a package, in Linux)? What file do you run? Fortunately, Ubuntu takes care of most of these problems for you. A program called Synaptic Package Manager takes care of finding new programs and installing them for you. These are sorted by program types, but the sheer number may be overwhelming. When I ran Synaptic Package Manager, it happily reported that there were more than 18,808 programs available, only 1,221 of which I had installed.
Downloading music and videos? Check. My favorite BitTorrent client, uTorrent, isn’t available on Linux but KTorrent, which works much the same way, already comes with Ubuntu. I put the program through its paces and found it held up quite nicely against my trusted file-sharing utility.
To play music and videos, Ubuntu comes with a number of multimedia players. For MP3 files, I like XMMS, which looks like WinAmp. Downloaded AVI files won’t play properly on the default Movie Player, but installing VLC Media Player (using Synaptic) will take care of that.
Burning CDs proved to be trickier.
Ubuntu is smart enough to detect a blank CD when it’s inserted and will ask if you’d like to burn a data or an audio CD. If you choose data, it will open a window into which you can drag files you’d like burned. Burning a data CD in this manner is simplicity itself, but it might be a bit too simple. The program, Nautilus, doesn’t even tell you how much disc space you’re using.
If you choose to burn an audio CD, Ubuntu will start a program called Serpentine, which enables you to add audio files to an audio CD compilation. The puzzling thing is, Serpentine will not accept MP3 files by default! All is not lost, however. You need to install the LAME encoder for the Gstreamer package (gstreamer0.8-lame), again using Synaptic. Once you’ve done that, Serpentine will burn your MP3 files into an audio CD without a hitch.
Burning a VCD from AVI files is even trickier. In very broad strokes, you’ll need to install K3b, a CD burning program, and a package called VCDimager, and tell K3b where it’s located. You’ll also need a command-line program called FFmpeg to convert AVI files to MPG, which is the format that K3b uses. Sounds complicated? It is, but it’s doable.
Finally, I wanted to print documents on my Epson Stylus C50 inkjet printer. Simple as it sounds, this last task almost stumped me. Even though Ubuntu detected my printer and said it was using the correct printer driver from a program called Gimp-print, my C50 kept spewing out garbled, unreadable text. Hours of online research about Gimp-print only confused me further with what seemed to be gobbledygook. Many sheets of wasted paper later, I remembered a snippet of information from a mailing list. It was written before the C50 driver was available and suggested that the driver for an earlier Epson model, the C44UX might work. I went to Ubuntu’s printer setup utility and told it to use that driver and—voila!—I was finally able to print. Frustration faded away and a sense of satisfaction set in. I had survived the weekend without Windows.
Column archives and blog at: www.chinwong.com
After you’ve installed Ubuntu, you may want to tweak your system further, such as improving how Ubuntu connects to the Internet, and therefore speed up your web surfing.
To accomplish this, we’re going to configure IPv6 and the TCP Window Size. Please remember to back up any critical files or data you may need as well as keep records of the settings you change. Doing so will help you recover in the event of a disaster. Keep in mind that you perform these configuration “tweaks” at your own risk.
These configuration tweaks are completed by entering commands into your “Terminal”. We will use Gedit although you can use Vi, nano, etc.
As a side note, if you do not want to enter “sudo” for each command, just begining your terminal session with this command:
sudo su
IPV6 is an Internet protocol. Currently most applications use IPV4 and this can cause conflicts which slow down your system.
Complete the following to disable it.
sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/bad_list
and type this in:
alias net-pf-10 off
Then save the file.
Speed up Broadband Internet by editing the appropriate configuration file and adding the following information. - Or, you can use a tool called PowerTweak from here: sourceforge.net/projects/powertweak
sudo gedit /etc/sysctl.conf
The first four line deal with window size and you need to enter numbers that are best for you (because these ones may be too high). Here is what I mean by this:
Computers communicate by sending packets of data back and forth. When they connect with each other to send these packets they use the TCP (Transmission Control Protocol).
Your computer could begin the connection with a small package size, then the other computer might respond with a larger one. In turn your computer will reduce (scale down) the size of the package (to a bit more that your original package size). The other computer again responds with a larger packet size. This cycle continues until your computer or the responding computer meets their maximum package size.
If you choose a windows packet size that is too big, you will notice slower broadband performance (524288 works for me). If you notice a slow down, then reduce your window size.
The largest size you can use is 65536, however these are the three settings that seem to work best:
524288
262144
131072
Which are all multiples of 1024 (or 1K).
Now add the following to the end of the file:
net.core.rmem_default = 524288
net.core.rmem_max = 524288
net.core.wmem_default = 524288
net.core.wmem_max = 524288
net.ipv4.tcp_wmem = 4096 87380 524288
net.ipv4.tcp_rmem = 4096 87380 524288
net.ipv4.tcp_mem = 524288 524288 524288
net.ipv4.tcp_rfc1337 = 1
net.ipv4.ip_no_pmtu_disc = 0
net.ipv4.tcp_sack = 1
net.ipv4.tcp_fack = 1
net.ipv4.tcp_window_scaling = 1
net.ipv4.tcp_timestamps = 1
net.ipv4.tcp_ecn = 0
net.ipv4.route.flush = 1
After adding these line you do not need to reboot, instead just reset the file by issuing this command:
sudo sysctl -p
After completing this, you should notice improved web surfing speed. If not, remember to go back and adjust your TCP window size and try again.
Part 2 of this article, which contains more technical information, can be found here: ubuntulinuxhelp.com/speed-up-your-internet-connection-in-ubuntu-linux-part-2/
Now that you’ve installed Ubuntu, what can you do with your old Windows Start Menu key? Use it for the same thing of course!
Here’s a cool trick!
As you can see, Ubuntu has a drop down menu starting from the toolbar at the top of the screen, so… if your desktop used Gnome (which it probably does) let’s put that Windows Start key back to work.
To configure it do the following:
Go to System –> Preferences –> Keyboard Shortcuts
In the window that pops-up look for the entry that says “Show the panel menu” (See the image below where it is currently set to the default of “Alt+F1″. Click in that shortcut area (”Alt +F1″ and the words will change to “New accelerator”. Now just press the Windows key on your keyboard and click the close button.
Voilà! You’re done. Now whenever you press your Windows key, your application menu will pop-up the same way in Ubuntu as it did in Windows.
This work by James House is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
After switching to a Linux based system (Ubuntu in this case), I thought there were a lot of options (applications like Amarok or commands like apt-get) unavailable to Windows users. In many respects it was an eye opener and I wanted my friends to at least try switching. Here’s what people contemplating a switch need to know.
Some people will think you and Linux are too technical and difficult. Some people might thing it a funny. But, keep in mind that many people are resistant to change. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s that much of a change, really. It’s just that people often have preconceptions and many are easily swayed by the much of the media into believing that anything other that purchased proprietary software is either too difficult to use, install or configure. To be rather blunt, that is totally false and misleading.
Realistically, do expect a learning curve (but it’s not too difficult) in terms of where to click or where to look on your desktop. There will also be many new things you can enjoy and do with your computer. And you are still able to use your Windows based applications if you wish. (I’ll blog about how to use your Windows application software (on Ubuntu) in another post).
The first thing I noticed was how helpful the Open Source community is. When I did not know how to do something or had a question, all I had to do was Google it and get quality answers. Some of my bookmarked resources are:
Ubuntu Forums - ubuntuforums.org
Answers to just about anything. If you need help, chances are someone has already found a solution. Lots of step-by-step solutions and help.
Linux Forums - linuxforums.org/forum/ubuntu-help
The posts can get a little technical for some of us, so I’d suggest a little more experience in the “lingo” first.
Ubuntu Guide - ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Feisty
Literally a “How to” for just about anything!
My productivity improved greatly. I found that linux made more efficient use of my hardware and the system seemed to run faster. You will also find out that there are a slew of great software packages that are easy to install and use. You may find that the transition to your new system is a lot easier that you had imagined – At least that’s what I realized.
I found I spent less money, than when I was using Windows. Ubuntu is free to obtain and install (See how to get a copy here: How to Install the Perfect Ubuntu Based Computer – Introduction).
I never have to reboot! Well, more accurately, reboots are rare. After updating, upgrading or installing software I can keep working right away without a reboot. Also (because of the increased stability) I can better use suspend and hibernate features. This is great when working on a project and you want to continue were you left off at a later time. (Unfortunately with Windows, I did have trouble with this).
Drivers might be a problem. Sometimes a vendor won’t ship a driver for their hardware, a current common issue I read about ATI video cards not working as expected. Currently however Ubuntu has better hardware support out of the box than the other two mainstream Os’s (Windows and OSx), primarily because of incredible community support! (And the ATI video card driver issues are being solved as I write).
For those of you who are experiencing ATI driver issues, here’s a good resource: “Ubuntu ATI proprietary display driver installation through APT”
Don’t spend hours searching for a solution, fix or tweak. I found it’s much faster and effective to log into a forum and ask. I wish I had realized this from the start, it would have saved me a lot of time. I think that’s one of the most important things I learned. How to find information and when to ask.
This work by James House is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
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