10 Things to do after a Fresh Ubuntu Install

Often, there are certain things that people do after a fresh install of their operating. I often install my operating systems once a while (and find such re-installs painfully horrible) because I manage to screw something up with an application or tweaking some setting results in an improperly functioning operating system.

However, I also manage to install Ubuntu (or nubuntu for me) every 6 months because there's always a newer version of it. And it keeps getting better every time, forcing me to upgrade to the latest version. Of course, I could always just upgrade through the software update tool, but I find that a clean install often works out better.

So for my own notes and for everyone else here's what I do (or end up doing) after every fresh Ubuntu install. Sadly, most of these things involve installing proprietary drivers, which seem to be necessary for the functioning of the system.

1. Get some Microsoft fonts. While not necessary, most of the documents I deal with use Microsoft related fonts (and sometimes I end up using these fonts due to document style requirements).

2. Install the Gstreamer plugins - I seem to have a lot of stuff

3. Install Adobe Flash/Moonlight (Silverlight)

4. Tweak my font appearance. Often helpful to make fonts look good, although I must say that the present Ubuntu version (10.04) seems like it doesn't need this tweak.

5. Set-up Email - I seem to be leaning towards Evolution, since it seems to integrate nicely with the OS. Thunderbird is good too.

6. Set-up IM - Empathy plays nice with my MSN passport account, which is good. Although I almost always end up using email over IM.

7. Get the Simple Compiz Config Settings Manager so that I can enable the Scale feature and set active screen corners like on a mac

8. Set-up Xmarks in Firefox - One of the best tools out there for me since it helps me sync all my bookmarks.

9. Install other interesting apps, or apps that I think I might need... this list varies from time to time but may include:

• Chromium
• Thunderbird (with its other extensions)
• CodeBlocks (for C and other such development)
• Bluefish
• Google Earth
• Apache, MySQL and PHP for web development
• Emacs for org mode and its other features
• Other productivity applications...

10. Install Dropbox to make sure I backup any important work I do.

Finally: Check for updates - sometimes by the time the OS is out, there are already some updates for the system. And thankfully, installing those updates through the update manger app is really easy too.

Feel free to share your own way of doing things / the apps you cannot live without in the comments below!

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Efficient Cursor Navigation while Coding

One of the reasons why most people like the trackpoint on those little IBM/lenovo notebooks is probably because you don't have to remove your hand from the "keyboard" area when you are typing something (or perhaps editing something too). Naturally, not having to move your hands from the keyboard area to the trackpad or mouse will save you a few seconds or may be minutes if you tend to sit at your computer for hours together.

However, recently after watching a talk by Richard Stallman about freedom (related to computer software that is) I remember his talk about the Church of Emacs. And finally, I decided to give emacs a try. I had never used it before (didn't really have to write all too much code), but after playing around with it for a several hours or so, I realized something really great: using the key combos to move your cursor around does increase your efficiency.

Here are some key combinations that will make your life a lot easier while using emacs or a mac (note, all of these combinations may not always work on a mac...)

Control + p = previous line
Control + n = next line
Control + f = forward one character
Control + b = back one character
Control + a = front of a line
Control + e = end of a line
Control + d = delete forward (because on most laptops/keyboards the delete button is usually further away from the backspace key)

While some people say that it might induce carpal tunnel syndrome, I for one think that pressing key combinations to move your cursor around, especially when you are coding can greatly improve your speed (until voice recognition becomes mainstream that is).

Try it, you'll be surprised how much you'll what to use these key combos elsewhere. Too bad on Windows some of these combinations are mapped to printing a file (which I don't do that often) or opening a new file.

What's more: These key combinations don't work only in emacs, they also work on macs! So now, whenever I am doing something, and need to go to the previous line or the next line, it just use the key combinations!

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Flickering Monitor in Ubuntu 10.04 for ATI Cards

While Ubuntu 10.04, Lucid Lynx really runs like a Lucid Dream, the one thing that I found problematic is not being able to run dual monitors. While dual monitors worked great in Windows and even Ubuntu 9/8 for some reason whenever I tried to set up the second external monitor, it would always flicker and wiggle.

However, thanks to the great people at the Ubuntu forums, it seems like I have found a fix that works. Special thanks to clhsharky for this tip. You can read the full post here.

But here's the gist of it (I've tried this on an ATI x1400 Video card, and it stops the external monitor from flickering):

Update (August 20, 2010): Seems like the rc7 release is available. You might want to download that instead... (see the comments section for more information)
Update (August 21, 2010): As Ryan suggests in his comment below, the rc6/rc7 candidates may contain a security flaw, so you may want to read that first before proceeding...

Go to http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.34-rc6-lucid/ 
and download the following files and install them in this order (depending on which processor you have)

For Intel (x86/64) based processors download and install (installing as in double click the .deb files after downloading it and click install..) the following in this order:
linux-headers-2.6.34-020634rc6_2.6.34-020634rc6_all.deb
linux-headers-2.6.34-020634rc6-generic_2.6.34-020634rc6_i386.deb
linux-image-2.6.34-020634rc6-generic_2.6.34-020634rc6_i386.deb

For AMD processors download and install the following .deb packages in this order:
linux-headers-2.6.34-020634rc6_2.6.34-020634rc6_all.deb
linux-headers-2.6.34-020634rc6-generic_2.6.34-020634rc6_amd64.deb
linux-image-2.6.34-020634rc6-generic_2.6.34-020634rc6_amd64.deb

Finally, after you restart, you'll be able to choose the rc6 kernel while you boot, which should fix the problems.

Again, this may not work for all ATI cards, but it seems to work for mine!

And boy is Ubuntu fast... it loads in ~ 35 seconds on a 4 year old laptop. Impressive... and now I also use dual monitors if I want to!

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Making PHP-mode on Emacs 23 Work Properly

So, recently I've been experimenting with emacs (I'm used the usual old propreitary stuff), and much to my surprise, it seems to be working just great! Except with some problems here and there.

One of the problems I've been having is to get PHP-mode to work properly in Emacs 23. Apparently, it used to work properly in previous versions, but then the usual instructions on the net for installing php mode don't work properly.

As per the usual instructions, you should add the following code to the .emacs file in your home directory:
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/path/to/the/el/file/")
(require 'php-mode)


But turns out that Emacs 23 doesn't like that anymore and gives you an error:

Warning (initialization): An error occurred while loading `~/rishi/.emacs':
error: `c-lang-defconst' must be used in a file
To ensure normal operation, you should investigate and remove the
cause of the error in your initialization file. Start Emacs with
the `--debug-init' option to view a complete error backtrace.


To fix that, you're going to need to follow the instructions on this post.

Which essentially states that instead of putting the (require 'php-mode) line you should put this instead:

(autoload 'php-mode "php-mode" "Major mode for editing php code." t)
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.php$" . php-mode))
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.inc$" . php-mode))

Works for me!

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Installing Ubuntu without a CD drive using USB drive

With the latest release of Ubuntu, I feel that more people will have access to a highly mature, fast and easy to use operating system. But unfortunately, most people I’ve talked all believe that in order to install Linux (GNU/Linux) on your computer, you’re going to have to burn CD’s and it’s going to take a long time.

While this was true in the past, no longer is it necessary to burn a CD (or even have a CD drive, if you’re a netbook user) in order to use an open source operating system (OSOS ?). Here’s now you can install Ubuntu or any other similar flavour of an open source OS, with UNetbootin

How to install Ubuntu with USB Drive

1. Head on over to UNetbootin’s website and download the software (Windows and Linux Versions are Available)
2. Open it up and choose an option to either download the OS of choice from the internet or use your own ISO
3. I personally download my own ISO from the website, and point it’s path to the program like so:
4. 
5. Hit OK and let Unetbootin copy the contents of the CD to your USB drive
6. Now, reboot your computer… (But read these instruction first!)
7. While your computer is booting, at the boot screen press the key to enter the boot setup
• Note: The key to enter the boot setup, and the boot set up varies from computer to computer, but usually there will a be a message on the screen telling you which keys you can press
8. Enter the Setup and go to the Boot Options section of the setup (this section might be named differently depending on the brand of computer/BIOS your computer has)
9. Ensure that the computer is set to: Boot From USB Drive first this will make sure that your computer looks for the Linux files inside the USB before moving on to the operating system you already have installed
10. Then reboot your computer again, and hopefully the computer will recognize the USB drive, the data inside it and proceed to load the Linux files
11. Follow the instructions on the screen to install Linux
12. Install Linux
13. Enjoy using Linux

So, this way you’ll not only enjoy a faster install (somewhat faster, considering the fact that CD drives are often slower than USB drives) but also prevent the wastage of CDs.

Alternatively, you can also perform an Install from the Hard drive, where Unetbootin creates another partition on your hard drive for the Linux files, and deletes the partition after Linux is done installing. However, I never use this option much, since I’d rather give the space taken up by the installation files to Ubuntu too…

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Num Lock and Caps Lock on a Blackberry

While it feels amazing to type away on a blackberry keyboard (even for a person with big fingers like me), one thing that I have recently discovered is how to enable "numlock" and "caps lock" (yes I do sometimes have a reason to use this feature) on a blackberry.


Turns out that the makers did anticipate users to use the number pad (albeit as a secondary function) exclusively without having to press the alt key every time.

Enabling NumLock on a Blackberry

• First press the alt key
• Then press the left shift (the one that says aA) key
• This will enable the numlock and you will see a symbol on the top right corner of the screen displaying 123 indicating this
• You will also be able to use the associated "alt Characters" that appear on the top of each key
• To get rid of the numlock simply press the left shift key again

Enabling Caps Lock on a Blackberry

• To turn on caps lock, press the alt key
• Then press the right shift key (aA on the right side of the keys)
• To remove it, press the right shift key again

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Deleting Multiple e-mail messages on a Blackberry

Another thing that I've recently discovered is how to delete multiple messages from a blackberry. Instead of having 500 emails on my phone, I'd rather just have the most important emails and delete the rest. But until now I was just deleting the e-mails manually, one by one, pressing the delete button in the e-mail list to delete the e-mails. However, it seems like there's a faster way to delete several e-mails together.


Interestingly enough deleting several messages (e-mails or call messages) on the blackberry is the analog of doing so on the computer (where one holds the shift key or ctrl/cmd key to select multiple things). One simply needs to:

• Hold down the Shift Key (the one on the bottom row, to the left most or right most side of the keyboard with the aA symbol)
• Scroll along with your trackball to select messages (hah, take that touch screen phones... let's see you do this! well actually it is quite possible)
• Press the Delete key (the one that says del with the left arrow)
  
• Choose your option (your blackberry will choose Cancel as the default if you do this... instead of automatically going on your preferred option):
• Either delete it from your handset
• Or delete it from the server too
• Enjoy your empty/skimmed down inbox!

And there you have it. No longer will you have to scroll through the spam and facebook messages to reach that important email.

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