Ubuntu

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How to Fix Power/Battery Problem with Linux Kernel 3.x on Ubuntu 11.10

November 16, 2011 in GNU/Linux, Ubuntu | 3 comments

I have installed Ubuntu 11.10 on my laptop but I noticed that it drained a lot more of the battery than it should do. Apparently there are a couple of fixes to this:

To add pcie_aspm=force, i915.i915_enable_rc6=1, i915.i915_enable_fbc=1 and i915.lvds_downclock=1 to GRUB, do the following steps:

  1. Open the terminal and run: sudo gedit /etc/default/grub
  2. Add:
    pcie_aspm=force i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 i915.i915_enable_fbc=1 i915.lvds_downclock=1
    to
    GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”",
    so it should look somewhat like:
    GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash pcie_aspm=force i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 i915.i915_enable_fbc=1 i915.lvds_downclock=1″
  3. Close gedit and save the document.
  4. Now run the following line in the terminal to update GRUB:
    sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
  5. After a restart of your computer the new settings should get activated.

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Why Aptitude Is Superior To Apt-Get

May 14, 2011 in GNU/Linux, Ubuntu | 2 comments

Yesterday I was messing around in the terminal and googeling for cool and useful commands. I had seen the command aptitude being mentioned a few times before in forum threads and such, but I had never tried to use it myself. However, yesterday I did try use it didn’t take long time until I realised how superior it’s to apt-get.

Instead of ranting about what it does better than the other myself, I will link to an article from 2007 that describes everything very well:

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Ubunchu! – The Very Best Manga

May 13, 2011 in GNU/Linux, Manga, Ubuntu | No comments

Ubunchu!The other day I found a really great manga when I was searching for an anime character on Google. It’s called Ubunchu! and it’s about, as the name suggest, Ubuntu! :)

The story is about the SysAdmin club on a Japanese school, and it starts out with the club’s three only members deciding what operating system to install on their computer. They agree to try out Ubuntu, and the following chapters are about different Ubuntu and Linux stuff. Like one chapters is about the terminal and how you use commands, and another one is about how you use the forums to get help.

Check it out, it’s really great I must say!

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Black Screen After Installing FGLRX In Linux Mint

May 6, 2011 in GNU/Linux, Hardware, Ubuntu | No comments

I have finally bought a new graphics card to my computer, a Asus Radeon HD 6870 DirectCU. It was a bit longer than my old card, a PowerColor 4870, so it was tough to fit in the computer chassis. But I made it at last. :) The reason why I purchased a new card, was because my old one was half broken and wasn’t able to run with the default clock speeds without getting artifacts everywhere on my monitors.

When I first started Linux Mint with my new card plugged in, I was welcomed by a black screen, which wasn’t very fun. So I booted up Linux Mint in Recovery Mode and tried to install working graphics driver. The driver I had from earlier was ATI/AMD proprietary FGLRX graphics driver from the Additional Drivers window in Linux Mint (and Ubuntu). This graphics driver didn’t work after a clean install of Linux Mint either.

I also found these two guides: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/ATI and http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubuntu_Maverick_Installation_Guide, which describes how to install ATI driver. But the terminal command aticonfig never worked for me, so I didn’t manage to complete the installation.

However, if you simply download the proper driver from AMD’s website, and then run it like a normal program, it works just as it should. So I can’t really see the reason why you would build the graphics driver into packages and install them and so on in 20+ steps. Maybe it’s easier to uninstall the driver in the future. But how often do you change video card or update your graphics driver on Linux?

Anyway, it works great now and I’m happy.

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Install Gens/GS (Megadrive Emulator) On 64-bit Ubuntu

May 1, 2011 in Applications, Games, GNU/Linux, Ubuntu | 5 comments

Sometimes I download and listen to Retroresan, which is a Swedish podcast about retro games. Recently they talked about the game Disney’s Aladdin to Megadrive, and it sounded pretty fun. So I searched and found a emulator called Gens/OS that seems to work great on Ubuntu 11.04 64-bit. However, it isn’t made for 64-bit OS:es, but it runs fine if you force install it. Here are the steps you have to take:

  1. Visit http://segaretro.org/Gens/GS, scroll to the bottom of the page and download the most recent version to Ubuntu.
  2. Make sure you have ia32-libs installed by typing these commands in the terminal: 
    sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ia32-libs
  3. Then navigate to your downloads folder in the terminal, and type this line to install Gens/GS: 
    sudo dpkg --force-architecture -i gens_2.XXX_i386.deb
  4. Now the emulator should pop up under your Games category.

Here follows some links:

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Ubuntu Unity Keyboard Shortcuts Wallpapers

April 28, 2011 in GNU/Linux, Ubuntu | No comments

The other day I saw two useful wallpapers on webupd8.org that lists many useful keyboard shortcuts in Ubuntu 11.04 with Unity. Here are two links where you can find out more:

Unity Wallpaper

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How to add a launcher to the Unity launcher bar

April 28, 2011 in GNU/Linux, Ubuntu | 3 comments

Here is the steps you have to take to add a custom launcher to the Unity panel:

  1. Right click on your desktop and create a launcher.
  2. Customize the launcher until you are happy.
  3. Navigate to /home/[username]/.local/share/applications in Nautilus. (Press Ctrl + H to show hidden folders (.local).)
  4. Drag and drop your launcher to this folder from the desktop.
  5. Now, drag and drop your launcher from the applications folder that you have opened, to the Unity launcher bar.
  6. If the launcher is still on the desktop you can delete it.
  7. Done!

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Ubuntu Shell Script to Enable and Disable Secondary Monitor

April 22, 2011 in GNU/Linux, Ubuntu | 4 comments

I wrote a short, simple shell script to easily enable and disable my secondary monitor in Ubuntu. I have saved it as monitor.sh in my home folder, and here is the source code:

#!/bin/sh
echo "Turn on: 1\nTurn off: 2"
read option
if [ $option = 1 ];
then xrandr --output DFP2 --auto --left-of DFP1
elif [ $option = 2 ];
then xrandr --output DFP2 --off
fi

To run it, just open a terminal window (Ctrl + Alt + T) and type sh monitor.sh. If you are really lazy, you can add an alias for the command in the file .bashrc in your home folder. I named my alias m. :)

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Disable “click selects all” in Firefox for Ubuntu

April 22, 2011 in Applications, Firefox, GNU/Linux, Ubuntu | No comments

Anime Girl FirefoxIn Firefox for Windows, you are able to double click a segment of the URL in the address field to select it. By default, this isn’t possible in Firefox for Ubuntu, instead selects a single click the whole address. Luckily, this is easy to change, which you can do by following these steps:

  1. Open a new tab.
  2. Type about:config in the address bar.
  3. Press the I’will be careful, I promise! button.
  4. Type selects in the filter field.
  5. Change the browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll entry to false by double clicking on the row.
  6. Do the same as above with the browser.urlbar.doubleClickSelectsAll, and make sure both are false.
  7. Done!

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Ubuntu Unity Video Tutorials

April 21, 2011 in Film, GNU/Linux, Ubuntu | No comments

On ubuntuforms.org I saw a post by the user castrojo to two Unity video tutorials made by him. I think that they work as a good introduction to Ubuntu’s new user interface. However, Ubuntu 11.04 hasn’t been released yet, and Canonical says that they will do many changes until then. But I suppose that the basics will be the same, and that they only will add more functionality. Links to the two videos:

When I started Ubuntu 11.04 Beta 2 for my first time, I was really sceptical to Unity, so I changed fast to Ubuntu Classic. But then I gave Unity a second chance and I must say that it actually isn’t that terrible. I miss some stuff, like better support for dual monitor setups, the ability to right click the panels, and the ability add applets to the top panel. But I hope this will be fixed to the release of Ubuntu 11.04.

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