This article is part of my notes on installing Ubuntu 20.10. Each new version I reinstall from scratch and try to get the perfect setup.
On my previous article, I walked through the base OS installation. It has screenshots of what I selected as I went through the installer. This article will focus on getting my files back and installing essential applications.
For some reason, everytime I search for “PeopleSoft” in Chrome, I get this annoying “Search Time Warner Cable” page that takes me to their DNS Search page. I finally figured out how to get rid of it.
My first step this time around after restoring files was to install the network-related applications. I needed to get back online quickly with being able to talk to people, connect to clients’ VPNs, and hit websites.
Series Navigation:
I found Google Operating System’s post about the Chrome App Launcher. Here’s my experience with getting it to work.
First, I found that I needed to install a “Desktop Web App”. So, I picked up one from the Chrome Web Store. It needed to be one from the “For Your Desktop” Collection. I decided to try out the Pocket app.
Before installing that app, this didn’t work. Afterward, I was able to search for “Chrome App Launcher”.
Here’s what it looked like when it opened:
To get it to stay where I could easily click on it, I right clicked on it’s icon and selected “Lock to Launcher”.
Recently, Microsoft’s Online applications have come to the rescue. I’ve learned that I can edit Word documents on my Linux OS without needing Wine or a Windows VM. I don’t have the full feature set, but it’s close enough for basic editing. One big issue that I have is that I can’t create Styles. I’m not sure that I can adjust tab stops either.
So, when I ran across the Chrome store apps for Office Online, I was excited. Maybe Microsoft is showing Linux, or at least Web-based users a little more attention?
Here are the links to the Apps in the Chrome Web Store:
Unfortunately, these apps didn’t help me much. Anytime I click on one of the apps, it requests my email address. Then, it takes me to an Outlook page. I’m not sure if it is because I am using my company account which is has a Sharepoint corporate account associated.
I was hoping that these apps might help me with some major bugs that I have been experiencing. First, in Word documents, Chrome deletes my selection when I press Ctrl + C. If I try to right click and ask it to copy, I just get a message saying the browser doesn’t have access to the clipboard. Second, in Excel, Chrome seems to get in this mode where it deletes the contents of cells when I navigate to them with the arrows on the keyboard.
Both of those are serious issues, so I have taken to using Firefox for the time being. At least this shows that Chrome is on the radar for supporting the online applications.
OMG Chrome: Microsoft Brings Office Online Apps to Chrome Web Store
This is my second post in setting up my Ubuntu 13.10 install. I am working to reinstall my laptop from scratch, and I have grouped all of my notes for my Internet-related programs in this post: email, browsers, VPN, etc.
A while ago, I ran across the brackets development environment. It looked really awesome, particularly the part about dynamically updating the page as you edit it. When I first heard about it, the Linux version was not quite out yet. Now, they have a package and everything for easy installation. So, here’s a first post about what I found.
I just helped a friend with a “GMail” problem. He couldn’t close the “tasks” window. I found that it might be a somewhat common problem — I found a Google Groups post regarding the problem (Google Groups: Help! Can’t close Tasks).
Here’s what it looks like with the task Window open where you can’t see the close button:
The issue is that the resolution is too small to display the title bar of the tasks. Therefore, you can’t click the close button.
I read that in some cases it was the screen resolution. In my case, it was because the window was zoomed in. That is a feature of the browser rather than GMail itself. In this case, I am using the Google Chrome browser. In the view menu, you’ll see the options.
The “Zoom In” will make things larger so that you can read things better. It might distort the page a little, which is what it is doing here. The “Zoom Out” option shrinks it back so that you can see more on the page. The “Actual Size” resets things back to normal.
I believe most of the different browsers support this feature. You will find the option in different places, but I think they use the same keyboard shortcuts. If you hold the Ctrl key down, the plus ( + ) makes things bigger, and minus ( – ) shrinks it back. Holding the Ctrl key and pressing zero ( 0 ) resets things back to normal.
So, in this case, hitting Ctrl + 0 fixes it so we can see the close button:
Here are some of the other browsers’ documentation for zooming:
This past weekend, I finally got the time to go through installing Ubuntu 13.04 (Raring Ringtail). Here’s to documenting it…
I have been trying to rebuild my laptop with each new version of Ubuntu. This is proving a little more challenging, but this is my first post. This is as much of a story as my other posts, and if you have any suggestions please comment.
The troubles started at the outset for me. The default tool for putting an iso on a USB drive had been crashing, so I have dropped back to UNetbootIn. I had mentioned that on several posts, and this one is no different.
It worked fine at first, but after I went through the install, my wireless wasn’t recognized. Then, I found that my USB ports weren’t working; at least, I couldn’t mount a USB key or external drive. Also, my touchpad wouldn’t work.
I did a little searching around, and I found Husain’s Chronicle. He mentioned that the problem seems to be common with everyone who used UNetbootIn. It seems very strange to me because the problem happens not when you boot off the USB but after booting to an installation made by the USB drive. Still, I went to my other computer that happened to be running Linux Mint, and I used the “USB Image Writer” program:
The only thing that I noticed different was the boot loader was different. The install went exactly the same, but when I booted, I had no trouble with the touchpad, the wireless, or the USB drives.
I tried the option to remove the Ubuntu 12.10 partitions and reinstall, but that didn’t work for me. I have special preferences on where I want my partitions. Yes, I have to be difficult.
I have a solid state drive (apparently /dev/sdb) that I want to use as my root. My thought is that I want all of the binaries and the swap partition on the faster solid state drive. Then, I have a 1TB drive (/dev/sda) that I want to use for my home folder where I will place all of my files, pictures, virtual machines, etc.
I set the large partition to format and to mount on the /home folder:
Next, I removed all of the partitions on my SSD drive and created an 8G swap partition at the end:
Finally, I created my root partition with the rest of the space:
This time I decided to encrypt my home folder to add a little security. This is my first try at this, so I’ll have to see how things work. So far, it doesn’t seem like any complication for the security that it adds.
On the first boot, it prompted me to save my key.
So, I ran ecryptfs-unwrap-passphrase. Note that it says, but I missed it the first time: when it asks for the “Passphrase”, it is asking for the password that you associate with your user account, the one when you login to your computer.
One of the first issues that I notice is that the launcher on the left is full of icons that I don’t necessarily use all of the time. So, I removed most of them to make room for running applications:
Google offers a software repository. Rather than just trying to install chrome by downloading the deb, I installed the repository with:
wget -q -O - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | sudo apt-key add - sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list' sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install google-chrome-beta
I had expected chrome to show up in the Ubuntu Software Center, but it never did. It worked fine to install from the command-line though.
Shutter is one of the first things that I install so that I can document and blog my install. It is an easy install from the Software Center:
For configuration, I don’t like the way the program sticks the screenshots in the Pictures folder. To me, that is for photos rather than screenshots. So, I create my own screenshots folder:
Then, under Edit > Preferences, I set it to use the new folder:
On previous versions, I had to tweak the settings to get it to show by the clock. This install, I didn’t have to do anything, and it shows up!
Since I am always taking screenshots of things, I set it to start automatically. I checked the first two options on the “Behavior” tab:
I copied off all of my important content off to an external USB drive. I installed grsync to make copying easier. Then, I copied the following directories back:
I like to use the “Main Menu” program, or alacarte to update the list of applications for the Applications Dash.
WebUpd8 has a great article for installing Bumblebee. I decided to try the Bumblebee Configurator GUI. Notice that the program name changed from gtk to gui — bumblebee-config-gui.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alessandrofac93/bumblebee-config-gtk-dev sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install bumblebee-config-gui
Issue … I started it with “sudo bumblebee-config”. All I got was this output:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/bumblebee-config", line 17, in <module>
wnd = BumblebeeMainWindow()
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/bumblebee_config/bumblebee_main_window.py", line 53, in __init__
if self.aptHelper.checkBumblebeeInstalled():
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/bumblebee_config/apt_helper.py", line 112, in checkBumblebeeInstalled
if cache['bumblebee'].isInstalled:
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apt/cache.py", line 204, in __getitem__
raise KeyError('The cache has no package named %r' % key)
KeyError: "The cache has no package named 'bumblebee'"
There is a bug opened for this issue. Just as a guess, I tried to add the repositories:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bumblebee/stable sudo apt-get update
After that, it worked fine:
I found that I needed to click on the “Configure Bumblebee” button first to choose the Nvidia driver:
I clicked the “Install Bumblebee” button, and it started installing…
When I ran check status, I got this message:
Bumblebeed status: [ 7161.740177] [INFO]Configured driver: nvidia [ 7161.742547] [INFO]Switching method 'bbswitch' is available and will be used. [ 7161.744668] [ERROR]Module 'nvidia-current' is not found.
Everything still seemed to work fine, though. The nvidia-current package was actually installed. I don’t know why it reports that “not found” message.