Jan
15
Building a Business Network Using Ubuntu – Introduction
January 15, 2010 | By: UbuntuLinuxHelp | 7 Comments
Posted in How To
This post begins the first (an introduction) in a series of several posts, discussing the benefits that Ubuntu Linux provides to business owners. Naturally, by default, I'll be touching on several open source applications and server packages throughout the series. Hopefully I can also dispel some of the myth and uncertainty, for business owners who have never used Ubuntu before.
The idea for this series was borne out of the excessive questions from clients in my work life. Some have made the switch to Ubuntu, many are interested and some don't know enough, because they've never tried working with a Linux based operating system like Ubuntu.
The two Ubuntu versions I used (in my own business as well as suggest to clients) are:
Ubuntu Server Edition.
The server edition is where various business related packages are installed. Such as print servers, web servers, billing systems, firewalls, and so on.
Ubuntu Desktop Edition.
The desktop edition (also used on laptops) is where various applications are installed and used to access the resources on the server.
Note: The newest Ubuntu version "Lucid" 10.04 is scheduled for release in April of 2010 and will be an LTS ("Long Term Support") version. At which time, I'd suggest this as the version to use.
For business owners not familiar with Ubuntu, please check Read more
Dec
15
CIFS VFS Shutdown Error When Using SMBFS
December 15, 2009 | By: UbuntuLinuxHelp | 7 Comments
Posted in How To
I recently installed a fresh copy of Ubuntu Jaunty (9.04) and set up access to (DNS-321) my network shares using smbfs; as in the post "Sharing the Same Files Between Two PC’s". Shortly afterwards, when rebooting, shutting down, etc. I received this error message:
ACPID: Exiting
NM_SYSTEM_SETTING: SCPlugin-Ifupdown: Devices removed (UDI: /org/freedesktop/hal/devices/net_00_30_1B_BE_38_3D)
[601.136038] CIFS VFS: Server not responding
[601.136085] CIFS VFS: No response for CMD 50 mid 166
Then the system would sit for several seconds before doing anything. This never occurred with my Ubuntu 8.04 system (remembering that I installed and configured the network shares the same way).
Side note: For those not familiar, "VFS" refers to "Virtual File System" (node) and "CIFS" is "Common Internet File System). CIFS VFS is a virtual file system / project for Linux to allow access to servers and storage appliances. More from the documentation I found during research, is found on: http://linux-cifs.samba.org/
As near as I can surmise, since network-manager is installed, this is probably and issue where scripting for shutting down network-manager has higher priority than umount scripting and / or a permissions issue? A case in point is that the umount command would not work until I used sudo.
XKCD Comic - Make me a sandwich
Initially there were two ways I could fix this:
1) Various forums and site suggest removing network-manager from the system and configuring the network myself. It's a possibility, but I didn't want to do that.
2) Use terminal to sudo umount //192.168.3.10/sites && sudo umount //192.168.3.10/stock each time I wanted to restart, shutdown, etc. Again that's a possible solution, but annoying to keep having to do.
Strangely, Google was not helpful (for me) as there were only a few mentions of this error in returned search results, and I could not glean much from them.
I played with the idea of using a Read more
Dec
14
Leave the Num Lock On!
December 14, 2009 | By: UbuntuLinuxHelp | 4 Comments
Posted in How To
Leave the Num Lock on!
I recently (finally) upgraded to Ubuntu 9.04 (I've always had issues with x.10 releases for some reason). Until the upgrade I wanted to remain with the LTS track, but (it seems) less developers are supporting it, hence the move. I've performed excessive numbers of installs of Ubuntu and various applications on test boxes, but they (obviously) were not my primary system, it's important to note this, as ordinarily I did not notice a small annoyance regarding Num Lock. On my updated primary system, I noticed this issue immediately, when I tried to log in.
Here's the rant... If I set the BIOS in my hardware, to turn on the Num Lock, then I've done so for a specific reason! For Ubuntu to keep turning it off when I log out, reboot or start up the PC - That's just plain annoying. I did a bit of Googling to try and find if the issue is being addressed (I remember fixing it using numlockx, and will get to that shortly), but only found a few threads where developers were discussing the "how tos" and "maybe" of the issue. While I'm not a developer, by any stretch of the imagination, I do know that other OS's accomplish this feat (of abiding by the BIOS num lock settings). So... Ubuntu, please abide by the BIOS settings (with regards to Num Lock).
However, for those of you who want to ensure the Num Lock is on, we can use the numlockx tool. There's probably a ton of sites listing this and discussing it at great length, but for ease of reference, here are my notes from the last time I had to fix this issue: Read more
Dec
9
Is There Any Good Screencasting in Ubuntu?
December 9, 2009 | By: UbuntuLinuxHelp | 11 Comments
Posted in Applications
One of the things I've personally found frustrating in Linux is the development status of screencasting applications, or lack thereof. Some projects remain in beta, never coming to fruition, and eventually being abandoned. Others have quirks that seem to cause different issues based on what system they're installed on.
Why am I posting about this? It's very difficult (at times) when new Linux (Ubuntu) users ask me how to do something and I cannot show them. Sometimes I'm far away, at other times it's difficult to talk them through the necessary activities on the phone, often I do not have remote access to their systems (so they can watch what I do), and at other times there would be too much to write. Often the person I'm trying to help might not be technically savvy enough to follow my direction, but they do know how to use a web browser.
That's where screencasting comes in!
I think many of us are aware of some of the commonly mentioned packages:
Istanbul - Every time I've tried it, it's broken. Is it even in development anymore? Last news post on the site is in 2007.
Xvidcap - I often encounter problematic output (maybe a codec issue?). Is it in development anymore?
Wink - While Wink does work on the systems I've tried, I find it just looks horrid, especially the note explanation boxes you can add. They look cheap and tacky, not something I would use for a business (or personally). One issue that may effect Open Source enthusiasts, it that the source is closed.
recordMyDesktop - I often get sound problems with it. What is happening with development? It appears the developer bowed out in January 2009, and a new one took the reins in May 2009, but are there any changes, updates or fixes?
ffmpeg - I did try the solution presented by Embrace Ubuntu (where ffmpeg was patched), and while it did work, I found that ffmpeg (in this case) did not provide as stable an output as I expected.
Screenkast - I could not get it to work properly. Is it under development anymore? (Last update was in 2007).
As I mentioned, the above (I think) are the common tools that many of us may already be aware of. I also think the above tools are listed and discussed at length on several other sites, that's why I chose to not go into any detail, discussing them - Been there, done that, we've seen them all before...
Suffice to say, I felt that I was at an impasse, I just wanted something that will work. Something that could save a screencast in FLV format for streaming across a web site. Granted the FLV format is proprietary, I wanted that because it's a current web standard. Also, I did not want to have to manually convert the video file (as an extra step).
There are online tools such as ScreenToaster (which a reader suggested to me), but I prefer to do the work myself because the PCs I use sometimes don't have a web connection. After asking around someone suggested vnc2swf, which I found has since moved on in development to Read more
Dec
8
Some of the Best Linux Videos
December 8, 2009 | By: UbuntuLinuxHelp | 7 Comments
Posted in Editorials
I had some spare time over lunch today, and revisited some of the best Linux video links that have been sent to me.
Some of them are really great (and we've probably seen before), but I just wanted to share them as it's nice to watch cool things from time to time...
Flying Penguins:
Prodigy:
The Web Site is Down:
