Feb
24
Can We Talk Here?
February 24, 2008 | By: UbuntuLinuxHelp | Leave a Comment
Posted in Editorials
I was surfing today and came across this cryptic post:
"Ubuntu joke
Actually I think it's a pretty funny one, not intending to be disrespectful against anyone.
Wonder what this is all about? Read more."
The above post is found here: http://blog.eikke.com/index.php/ikke/2007/03/29/ubuntu_joke
Naturally I followed the "read more" link to find this:
"Within the Ubuntu community we have the Code of Conduct to define acceptable behaviour, and – in my opinion – the community is better for it. Recently there was a ‘joke’ posted to the Ubuntu-UK mailing list, which one member responded to describing it as breaching the Code of Conduct. Unfortunately Caroline did not explain her reasoning, but nonetheless a minor flame war heated discussion was triggered."
The above is here: http://schwuk.com/articles/2007/3/29/anonymous-cowards
Curious as to what the offensive joke was, I clicked to read this:
"A man was riding his motorcycle along a beach when suddenly the sky clouded above his head and, in a booming voice, the Lord said: 'Because you have TRIED to be faithful to me in all ways, I will grant you one wish.'
The biker pulled over and said: 'Build a bridge to Hawaii so I can ride over any time I want.'
The Lord said, 'Your request is materialistic, think of the enormous challenges for that kind of undertaking; the supports required to reach the bottom of the Pacific and the concrete and steel it would take!
'It will nearly exhaust several natural resources. I can do it, but it is hard for me to justify your desire for worldly things. Take a little more time and think of something that could possibly help mankind.'
The biker thought about it for a long time. Finally, he said, 'Lord, I wish that I and all men could understand women; I want to know how she feels inside, what she's thinking when she gives me the silent treatment, why she cries, what she means when she says nothing's wrong, and how I can make a woman truly happy.' The Lord replied: 'You want two lanes or four on that bridge?' "
at this link: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-uk/2007-March/003698.html
I told this joke to a couple of the women here (even though it's not a very good joke) and they found it funny. One even said, while chuckling "...and don't you forget it! If men are too stupid to figure that out, go for a drive. Hee hee hee..."
I don't see the problem because the punch line says to me:
"Relationship problems are very complex, and if you cannot take the time and understand the woman you love, you cannot possibly expect an outsider to give you personal advice."
I read one of the responses from "Caroline" saying:
"I'll happily leave the planet. If you cannot see the difference between blog posts and sexist jokes on public mailing lists then more fool you."
Found here: http://secretlondon.livejournal.com/158846.html?thread=269438#t269438
So really, I don't understand how this "Caroline" person could think this was negative. It actually was a good lesson, telling people they have to work at understanding others and work at understand what makes the people in their lives most happy; that it's not handed to them on a platter. Besides, as to the joke being described in that post as "...sexist...", who says God is a man? What makes people think this is true? For all we know God may be a woman!
There are about as many different perspectives as there are people. While I don't know many of the details of the issue above, I fail to see how one individual's silly responses could be construed to reflect on an entire Ubuntu related community. Especially when the perspective seemed (to me at least) to be a little misguided. In my opinion "Caroline" should rejoin.
I think one positive component of the Ubuntu community is that we are all able to work together despite our differences in religion, politics, language, race... Do I need to go one listing them? I wish the leaders of all our countries could work as well together as this community. We really are "Ubuntu", "Humanity to others" or "I am what I am because of who we all are."
Feb
24
How to: Easy Remote Access Connection to Ubuntu
February 24, 2008 | By: UbuntuLinuxHelp | 3 Comments
Posted in How To
A friend of mine (who's a recent Linux convert), needed help with some tweaking of his Ubuntu based PC. He phoned me this morning, but it became evident that I actually had to "see" the system. It's sometimes very hard to advise someone when you cannot actually see what they are doing. And it's hard to follow instructions (sometimes) when you have to try and find what people are telling you to look for. I'll bet many of us have been in that position before.
Finally, he got so frustrated and asked "Can't you just come over here and show me?". As I'm sure everyone reading this post can appreciate, sometimes it's not possible to travel to the PC, to fix or tweak a (relatively) simple issue. I suggested a remote connection. Fortunately, I had already anticipated a remote connection (to several friends), so that it would be easier to help them in future. Before establishing remote connections to Ubuntu (in fact to any operating system), you'll need to have a couple things in place.
1) You need to know the IP address of the PC you're connecting to.
2) You need to have the router at the receiving end configured to accept connections.
Here's what I did for this friend (let's call him "Bob"). Several weeks ago I sat with Bob during his Ubuntu install (He was a Windows user, worried about making mistakes during the install). After the install, we configured "Port Forwarding" on his router. In essence, we told the router...
"Any connection that comes in through external (WAN) port #xxxxxx, should be allowed and sent to internal (LAN) port #xxxxxx".
(We also configured the router to limit the connection between the hours of 10:00 - 14:00. And we did configure a couple other security related settings).
In this case, the router was already set up, so all I needed was an IP address. Bob is not familiar with ifconfig or any other network configuration issues. Besides, we need his external (WAN) gateway IP, not his PC desktop (LAN) IP. Easy fix... In his case I told him to visit this page and see the info below:
(These addresses are not logged by the script that displays the IP addess above, it simply finds the variable "REMOTE_ADDR").
Now that Bob could see his external IP address, he was able to tell me which IP address to connect to. In this case we're using VNC to connect. I should point out that to do this in a secure manner, you must use encrypted SSH, the way I am describing this is insecure (because the connection is not encrypted). To keep this post a reasonable length, I'm skipping the "SSH" part and simply describing how to connect.
Side note: VNC should also be enabled on the remote computer:
Go to: System -> Preferences -> Remote Desktop to set this up. What are the settings?
Sharing
Allow other users to view your desktop (Check it on)
Allow other users to control your desktop (Check it on)
and...
Security
Ask you for confirmation (Un-Check so it's turned off)
Require the user to enter this password: (Check it on)
Password: Type the password that will be used
Back to connecting... Bob told me that his IP address (from the little window above) said "72.138.xx.xx". So here is what I enter (in a terminal) to connect from my PC to his PC:
vncviewer -fullscreen 72.138.xx.xx
And I was able to see his PC. This is the basic, it's not difficult to do. Just make sure that the router at the remote location permits access (and that VNC is also enabled remotely).
If you are looking for more information, there's a great guide here: http://www.debianadmin.com/remotely-manage-machines-using-vnc.html (Googling will find even more!) It's Debian based, but the principles are pretty much the same in Ubuntu.
So... try enabling VNC connections. It's a lot simpler, less stressful and you'll be everyone's friend! ;)
Feb
23
Massive List of Laptops That Work With Ubuntu
February 23, 2008 | By: UbuntuLinuxHelp | 6 Comments
Posted in Editorials
I've been in the market for some time, looking for a quality laptop that I can install Ubuntu on (in other words Linux Ubuntu compatible) and tweak as I need. Unfortunately, I don't find much information that shows me which makes and models work... and nobody has offered me a test model that I can write a review about, yet.
System76.com comes to mind as a premier provider. However, (for me) there are a couple of drawbacks:
The biggest issue is that they don't seem to offer 17" laptops. (I really don't know why because 17" units have been out for at least 3-4 years now?). At the time I emailed them, asking when they might have 17" models, the sales representative who responded didn't seem very interested and simply indicated they don't have them, nor expect them in the near future. Bummer... too bad for me.
At least LinuxCertified has a 17" incher: http://www.linuxcertified.com/linux-laptop-lc2520dc.html
(But the hard drive is too small - 80GB - With no option, that I could read, to increase the size. The CPU was a little slow as I also want to use some heavier graphic applications among other things).
The second issue was the price. After exaustive research, some individuals had posted information about who the manufacturers of the laptops were. At which point I found out I could purchase them cheaper (shipping was cheaper too) from the manufacturer (but I need to find a dealer that will sell one without Windows on it - Because I'm not a business that can purchase units direct from a manufacturer).
Don't get me wrong other than the two points above, I think System76 are tops.
After a little more googling, I found a page for the Ubuntu Laptop Testing Team. This resource is incredible because it provides Make and Models of laptops and then tells you which Ubuntu releases have been tested on them, and the results. There's a section for "Canonical Supplied Laptops Tests", "Community Supplied Laptop Tests", an "Unmaintained" list (that requests more testing). At the bottom of the page is a massive list of Laptops, click the link, get taken to the info.
This (for me at least) makes the buying process much simpler. Interested in a specific model? Now all I have to do is visit the link! And... before I forget to copy & paste the URL, here it is: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LaptopTestingTeam
Also, if your laptop works with Ubuntu, you can report that here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LaptopTesting
Update 1: This link was sent, http://webapps.ubuntu.com/certification/list/?category=Laptop
Update 2: Here's another really good one: http://www.linux-laptop.net/
Feb
23
How to Enable Font Smoothing in Ubuntu – The fast way
February 23, 2008 | By: UbuntuLinuxHelp | 4 Comments
Posted in How To
I received a message this morning from someone who installed Ubuntu as a new user. I sent him the download link a long time ago and he's finally installed Dapper (on an older PC). He emailed me because his fonts looked fuzzy. He seemed a bit frazzled, but this fix worked for him so it might for you.
Some versions of Ubuntu do not have font smoothing enabled (Edgy, Dapper, etc... - I've not tried Hardy yet). To enable font smoothing, you need to edit (or create) the .fonts.conf file (which is in the home directory of your login account).
Because we're in the GUI, just surf to your home folder and enable the viewing of hidden files. If you see .fonts.conf, open it for editing (or create it). I originally found this solution (because I had the same problem) on one of the Ubuntu Forums posts here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=4456. It's been in my bookmarks for some time now, so I don't remember how far down the post was, sorry - But it's a great read if you want to learn more! ...you'll find a ton of font smoothing tweaks there including TTF tweaks. If you're looking to install TTF related fonts, try the following:
How to Install TTF and CTF Fonts in Ubuntu.
CrunchBang's (CrunchBang.org): 465 Free Fonts for Ubuntu
Edit the file to look like this:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<match target="font">
<edit name="autohint" mode="assign">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
</fontconfig>
Log out and then back in and you should be good to go!
Feb
22
How to Setup a Wireless Ubuntu Router
February 22, 2008 | By: UbuntuLinuxHelp | 16 Comments
Posted in Applications, Hands On, How To
This morning I was moving some stuff around and my router fell, smashing to pieces. Oh no! I need a wireless connection today. The router was a noisy (the fan drives you crazy), older (but faithful) boat anchor. I was in a pinch, with no time to buy a new one (it's a long drive). So, I thought a quicker (and for me "fun"), fix would be to set up a temporary router on an old PC.
Here's how to do that; I hope this helps others and gives hobbyists a fun project.
Here's the hardware used:
Celeron based PC (755MHz)
512MB RAM
10GB ATA HDD
Realtek 10/100 NIC (2 of them)
There is an integrated NIC on the motherboard, but I couldn't find any drivers that worked.
AtlantisLand I-Fly A02WP54G (which I borrowed from another PC).
A Basic Server Install:
First thing you'll need to complete is Read more
