Ubuntu Linux makes it prime time TV debut on the popular TV show The Big Bang Theory. Sure its a show about geeks but hey, its a start.
Archive for the ‘Linux’ Category
How to: Install Evolution 2.30 on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx
For some reason unbeknown to me, the developers of Ubuntu 10.04 updated Gnome desktop environment to version to 2.30 but left the Evolution version as 2.28. I think that this version of Evolution is really buggy and the decision was a very bad idea. In this article I will show you how to upgrade your Evolution version to 2.30 and install the Evolution-mapi client so that you can connect to a Microsoft Exchange 2007 server.
To do this we will be using unofficial Ubuntu packages created and maintained by Jacob Zimmerman. The packages are located on his PPA page.
Step 1:
Install Jacob’s PPA package repository on your system. Open up a terminal session and type the following:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jacob/evo230
This will install Jacob’s PPA repository for Evolution 2.30. It will also import the security key.
Step 2:
Update your computer’s repository information.
In the same terminal windows type:
sudo apt-get update
Step 3:
Next type to upgrade Evolution from 2.28 to 2.30:
sudo apt-get install evolution
apt will respond by telling you that there are several packages that need installed, upgrade, and removed. Hit the “Y” key to continue.
Now sit back and relax as apt upgrades to Evolution 2.30.
Extra:
If you are in a corporate/school environment that uses Microsoft Exchange 2007 for its email server you can install the evolution-mapi package to allow Evolution to communicate with the server. Remember this is still a very experimental package, however I have found that it is far better in version 2.30 than it ever was is 2.28.
Type this to install evolution-mapi
apt-get install evolution-mapi
This will also need you to hit “Y” to install becuase there are several new packages that get installed to support Evolution-mapi
You should now be able to fire up Evolution and configure it for you email environment.
Note about mapi-plugin:
Here is the response from the evo230 maintainer about the evolution-mapi plug-in
Hi Terry
I’m sorry that I had to remove the mapi package from the PPA for the moment. The latest version doesn’t build properly on lucid, and besides many people experienced problems with that package that could only be solved by upgrading openchange to version 0.10, which is also not possible for dependency reasons. Hope you understand.
Kind regards
Jacob
I will keep you posted if anything changes
Note:
The first time that I open Evolution after upgrading I just got a gray screen. To fix this all I did was reboot.
Arch Linux developer passes away
Jan Mette, aka fuckyou, passed away last Friday of unknown causes. Jan was the creator of the widely used KDEmod and Charkra project, a well regarded developer of the Arch Linux distribution and was prominent figure in the Arch Linux community.
Hello Phil,
my name is Daniela, the girlfriend from Jan and have to inform you that Jan
died this morning sleeping at home. Yesterday he was still fine and there
were no signs for that. Also the police will check whats happen to him. If
there should be an interest I’ll inform you all from Chakra about the
inhumation in his home town Luedenscheid middle/end next week.
Regards,
Daniela
The Linux Boot Process
When a system is first booted, or is reset, the processor executes code at a well-known location. In a personal computer (PC), this location is in the basic input/output system (BIOS), which is stored in flash memory on the motherboard. The central processing unit (CPU) in an embedded system invokes the reset vector to start a program at a known address in flash/ROM. In either case, the result is the same. Because PCs offer so much flexibility, the BIOS must determine which devices are candidates for boot. We’ll look at this in more detail later.
When a boot device is found, the first-stage boot loader is loaded into RAM and executed. This boot loader is less than 512 bytes in length (a single sector), and its job is to load the second-stage boot loader.
When the second-stage boot loader is in RAM and executing, a splash screen is commonly displayed, and Linux and an optional initial RAM disk (temporary root file system) are loaded into memory. When the images are loaded, the second-stage boot loader passes control to the kernel image and the kernel is decompressed and initialized. At this stage, the second-stage boot loader checks the system hardware, enumerates the attached hardware devices, mounts the root device, and then loads the necessary kernel modules. When complete, the first user-space program (
init) starts, and high-level system initialization is performed.
That is a quick overview of the Linux boot process. Dive in to greater detail here.
Fix Minimize/Maximize/Close Button Order in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx
For some unknown reason the developers of Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx swapped the order of the minimize and maximize buttons. Here is how to change it back to normal order.
In Gnome hit Alt-F2 to open up the run box. Once opened type gconf-editor
Once gconf-editor is open navigate to the apps -> metacity -> general and change
button_layout to :minimize,maximize,close
That’s it.
Update: (2010-05-12)
Even easier way and cooler because its done on the command line is to open up a terminal and while logged in as your user account
Type this:
gconftool-2 --type string --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout ":minimize,maximize,close"
Update: Thanks to the comment from LMB you can use this command to add the menu icon on the left side of the menu bar.
gconftool-2 --type string --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout "menu:minimize,maximize,close"
Recover Data From a Formatted Hard Drive
Testdisk
great piece of software recover data from a bad hard drive or a hard drive that has been accidentally formatted.
I discovered this software when I accidentally formatted my work laptop which was running Gentoo Linux. Its a long story as to how I formatted the hard drive but I didn’t have a backup of my data so I was basically screwed, or so I thought. I did some Google searches and came across Testdisk. Once I figured out how to use it I managed to restore my system back to the original Dell Windows XP installation. Yes that is correct it restored and booted. I realised that I restore to wrong data and thought that I was now really screwed but I fired up the software again and was able to total restore my Linux system. If memory serves me I had to reconfigure Grub but my system was restored and my data was safe. Needless to say I was very very happy. Sorry I don’t have many details on what I did to recover my data but it was over 3 years ago that I did this.
I am basically writing this post for two reason; 1) to let you know how awesome this software is and 2) I always forget the name of this software and it takes me 20-30 minutes to find it when I need it to recover data, so I am using this as a bookmark.
Here is a guide from Linux.com that gives you a run down on restoring data when you wipe your drive.
If you do use this software and are able to recover data please let me know, I like hearing the success stories.