Best Comment on Ubuntu1501

@Drew Martell
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Please stop sharing your stupidity here! Running an anti-virus in Win is the only way to go and even that is not guaranteed protection. It's not about knowing what you are doing (and you've already proved you don't) it's just you have been lucky all this time. If you just plug your pen drive on an infected system with Windows it'll pass the virus to your pen drive. And YES, your Win WILL autorun the virus when you plug your pen drive in it, doesn't matter what options you have selected on it. Fact, Windows is full of holes for viruses.
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As for running as root to use VirtualBox. no comments there, this blog itself explains how to use VB as normal user.
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Stop posting man, you're just too f** stupid.

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Quick & Dirty Samba Guide

This is my very inelegant Samaba guide. For over a year I've been struggling to get Samba working properly. This is the best configuration I have found so far. I don't need to share a printer, I just need to get my laptop and desktop to share a couple of folders. This guide does just that, it allows you simple access to folders on different computers. If you guys have any suggestions or a better understanding of Samba please share them.

Step 1: Setup
Install Samba
sudo apt-get install samba

Stop Samba services
sudo /etc/init.d/samba stop

Backup your old samba.config
sudo mv /etc/samba/smb.conf /etc/samba/smb.conf.template

Create a blank samba.conf file
sudo touch /etc/samba/smb.conf
Start samba services
sudo /etc/init.d/samba start

Add a user
sudo smbpasswd -L -a (username you want to add)

Enable user
sudo smbpasswd -L -e (username you want to add)

Step 2: Create a name for your network:
Go to System>Administration>Shared Folders


You should see this, In the General Properties Tab:


Enter a Network Name, if networking with a Windows or Mac make sure you have the same network name entered for all your computers.

Step 3: Share a folder
To share a folder right click the folder you want to share, select the share folder option.


A box will pop up asking you how you want to share the folder and, if you want to make it read only. (These are my default settings)


To browse a network, go to Places>Networks

edited by pHreaksYcle

Installing Wine in Gutsy Gibbon

Wine is a software application which aims to allow Unix-like computer operating systems on the x86 architecture to execute programs that were originally written for Microsoft Windows.

There are two methods to installing Wine in Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon

1. Install Wine from Ubuntu's own repository, older but offically supported version.
In a terminal type:
sudo apt-get install wine

2. Add Wine's own repository and download the lastest bleeding edge version.
In a terminal type:
sudo wget http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/sources.list.d/gutsy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq.list

Add Wine's repository key.
Ina terminal type:
wget -q http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/387EE263.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Update your sources.
In a terminal type:
sudo apt-get update

Download Wine
In a terminal type:
sudo apt-get install wine

Once installed (either method) you can configure Wine by running:
winecfg

Ken pointed out, that you can change the wine color scheme to match Ubuntu.

Ina terminal type:
gedit ~/.wine/user.reg

Replace the [Control Panel\\Colors] section with

[Control Panel\\Colors] 1176981676
"ActiveBorder"="239 235 231"
"ActiveTitle"="203 133 61"
"AppWorkSpace"="198 198 191"
"Background"="93 77 52"
"ButtonAlternativeFace"="200 0 0"
"ButtonDkShadow"="85 85 82"
"ButtonFace"="239 235 231"
"ButtonHilight"="255 255 255"
"ButtonLight"="255 255 255"
"ButtonShadow"="198 198 191"
"ButtonText"="0 0 0"
"GradientActiveTitle"="239 235 231"
"GradientInactiveTitle"="239 235 231"
"GrayText"="198 198 191"
"Hilight"="246 200 129"
"HilightText"="0 0 0"
"InactiveBorder"="239 235 231"
"InactiveTitle"="239 235 231"
"InactiveTitleText"="255 255 255"
"InfoText"="0 0 0"
"InfoWindow"="255 255 166"
"Menu"="239 235 231"
"MenuBar"="239 235 231"
"MenuHilight"="246 200 129"
"MenuText"="0 0 0"
"Scrollbar"="239 235 231"
"TitleText"="255 255 255"
"Window"="255 255 255"
"WindowFrame"="0 0 0"
"WindowText"="0 0 0"

A Microsoft Case Study

First a rant: it isn't Windoze or M$, it's simply Microsoft Windows. Windows isn't a horrible operating system, it works just as well as many Linux distros. Each operating system has it strengths and weaknesses, it's just Windows isn't for me. I do not like having to pay for software that I have no rights to. If I spend money on your product, please do not tell me I don't own it. I paid for it, it's in my house, how is this product not mine? Why can't I look at the code, or modify it? In the same vein I hate DRM. I paid for the song or movie, it's mine. If I want to put it on a backup CD for my car, put it on my iPod, or stream it across the net to buddy so he can hear how cool it is; don't tell me no or restrict my ability. In Ubuntu, I can customize everything, the desktop enviroment, package handler, themes, skins, code and etc. The most important reason I use Linux is that I love my FREEDOM. So don't say M$ Windoze sux, both Windows and Linux get the job done and have some really great programs. Tell people you love free, as in freedom.

Now that the rant is over, back to the story. All this stuff doesn't mean a thing to my kid sister. She wants to surf the web, use iTunes and do her work in Microsoft Office. She would trade her freedom for compatibility and usability and that's okay because it's her choice. So I setup Windows XP on her new Dell Inspiron 1501 this week. Wow, the difference between installing Ubuntu and Windows is night and day. Below is a picture of all the drivers I had to install to get her Dell 1501 to work.



The Ethernet, audio, smbus, ricoh card reader, touchpad, graphic and wireless drivers had to be installed. Basically nothing worked. During installation of the drivers I had to reboot 6 times. Then I still had to install flash, Microsoft Office and VLC to get the media codecs that Windows didn't come with.

In Ubuntu all you need is an Ethernet cable and a LiveCD. You don't even need to install the Ubuntu on your Dell 1501 to have a pretty functional computer. You can use the Ethernet connection and the LiveCD session to surf the net,listen to audio, use the card reader and touchpads advanced features.

An Ubuntu install isn't perfect, but it's still much easier than Windows. The only drivers you need to install are the wireless and graphic card. Wireless card issue is being worked on and future kernel updates should have support built in and Ubuntu's Restricted Driver Manager helps you install the ATI driver with 3 clicks. An office suite comes installed and media codecs and flash also take three clicks of a mouse button.

Overall I find the Ubuntu install to take half the time and half the headaches.

edited by pHreaksYcle

Customizing Firefox

This works for anyone running Firefox, not just for Ubuntu users.

Access FireFox's Configuration File
type about:config into the url

The red box is the url, where you type about:config
The Blue box is the filter box, it allows you to search through the about:config file and is where you type the blue text commands

Now let's get Firefox to run faster:
Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"
Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"
Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to 15.
Right-click anywhereinside the firefox winodw and select New-> Integer.
Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0″.

Firefox downloads webpages from links it thinks you may click. This may make the "experience" seem faster but really it just bogs down Firefox and you PC.
Set "network.prefetch-next" to false

Remove some annoying Firefox features:
Turn off chrome tooltips, this causes little pop up winodws to tell you what your mouse is hovering over. If you been using Firefox for as long or longer than I have (before 1.0) you really don't need to be told what the back button does. It also hinders dragging a bookmark into the bookmark toolbar folder, the tool tip gets in the way and prevents the drop from working.
Set "browser.chrome.toolbar_tip" to false

Customize backspace button, the Ubuntu default is set to scroll up when hit. I prefer it to work like it did in Windows and go back in my page history.
Set "browser.backspace_action" to either 0 or 1
0 - Pressing backspace button will go back a page in the session history
1 - Pressing backspace button will scroll up a page in the current document and
[Shift]+[Backspace] will scroll down.

Remove URL GO button. No one over the age of 4 and under the ago of 50 uses it.
Set " browser.urlbar.hideGoButton" to true

Some of my favorite plugins:
Tab Mix Plus
Tab Mix Plus enhances Firefox's tab browsing capabilities. It includes such features as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, plus much more. It also includes a full-featured session manager with crash recovery that can save and restore combinations of opened tabs and windows.

Foxmarks Bookmarks
If you use Firefox on more than one computer, you'll want Foxmarks. Install Foxmarks on each computer, and it will work silently in the background to keep your bookmarks synchronized. As a bonus, log in to my.foxmarks.com from any computer anywhere to access your bookmarks.

Mouse Gestures
Allows you to execute common commands (like page forward/backward, close tab, new tab) by mouse gestures drawn over the current webpage, without reaching for the toolbar or the keyboard.
You can also use click-only "rocker" gestures which are even faster than drawn gestures.

Flashblock
Flashblock is an extension for the Mozilla, Firefox, and Netscape browsers that takes a pessimistic approach to dealing with Macromedia Flash content on a webpage and blocks ALL Flash content from loading. It then leaves placeholders on the webpage that allow you to click to download and then view the Flash content.

Adblock Plus
Right-click on a banner and choose "Adblock" from the context menu - the banner won't be downloaded again. Maybe even replace parts of the banner address with star symbols to block similar banners as well. Or you select a filter subscription when Adblock Plus starts up the first time, then even this simple task will usually be unnecessary: the filter subscription will block most advertisements fully automatically.

Adblock Filterset.G Updater
This is a companion extension to Adblock or Adblock Plus and should be used in conjunction with it. This extension automatically downloads the latest version of Filterset.G every 4-7 days. Filterset.G is an excellent set of filters maintained by G for Adblock that blocks most ads on the internet. In addition, this extension allows you to define your own set of filters that you can add along with Filterset.G during an update. To report missed ads or problems with the extension visit the support forums http://forum.pierceive.com/.

Winestripe Theme
This is the classic Firefox 1.5 theme for Firefox 2.0. I can't stand the default theme for Firefox 2.0, so I'm glad Florian Schmitz made this.

To enable autoscrolling & smooth scrolling go to Edit->Preferences and click Advanced. It allows you to middle click/touch pad scroll smoothly left, right, up and down web pages. It's enabled in Windows but not in Ubuntu.

edited by pHreaksYcle

Installing Wine on Your Dell 1501 [Feisty]

This works for anyone running Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn, not just for Dell Inspiron 1501 users.

Wine is a translation layer (a program loader) capable of running Windows applications on Linux. Windows programs running in Wine act as native programs would, running without the performance or memory usage penalties of an emulator, with a similar look and feel to other applications on your desktop. From the Wine Website

Remember kids, Wine Is Not an Emulator

Add Wine's repositories to your source list:
sudo wget http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/sources.list.d/feisty.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq.list

Add the repository key:
wget -q http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/387EE263.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Update apt-get:
sudo apt-get update

Install Wine:
sudo apt-get install wine

Once installed you have to configure it:
winecfg

edited by pHreaksYcle

Dual Booting Your Dell 1501

Lauren wrote:
this is great, I've been reading the posts and I haven't seen any about dual booting yet, I was just wondering if it's easy to get my laptop (dell 1501) to dual boot and if so how. I've read about the whole partitioning with gparted and all. is that all I need to do? just make the swaps and install feisty fawn or am I missing something? thanks alot


The reason you haven't read anything about dual booting is because I don't on my Dell Inspiron 1501. But it really is that simple. The only thing you have to do is place the disc in the drive and Ubuntu does the rest. Best way to do it is to do a complete reinstall of Windows Vista or XP. The 1501 ships with some weird partitions so reformatting your drive as one large partition at first is best. Plus it gets rid of all that trail software your PC comes with. Then Ubuntu will create another partition for itself. Install Windows first then Ubuntu.



Only one thing to worry about is if you dual boot with Vista, the operating selection screen will list it as Windows XP. It really is Vista. You can change it but I wouldn't bother. Maybe another reader can help out with instructions.

edited by pHreaksYcle

How To Bittorrent

EDIT: SEE THE BOTTOM FOR NEW WAY TO FORWARD PORTS EASIER!
This article is not operating system specific. Bittorrenting works the same on Windows, Mac or Linux. It's for my buddy Luke. Sorry it took a couple of days.

I work and go to school so I never have time to watch some of my favorite shows. The good thing is there are nice people who record my favorite shows and upload them to the internet for everyone. Usually a couple of hours after the show airs, it's waiting online. It is surprisingly simple to "bittorrent".

WHAT IS BITTORRENT
BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer (P2P) file distribution protocol. It is capable of preparing, requesting, and transmitting any type of computer file over a network, using the protocol. A person first creates a "torrent." This is a small file which contains metadata about the files to be shared, and about the tracker, the computer that coordinates the file distribution. Peers that want to download the file first obtain a torrent file for it, and connect to the specified tracker which tells them from which other peers to download the pieces of the file. So, in a nutshell, it's a set of guidelines various programs use to share data large and small with others.

HOW TO GET BITTORRENT
Now the first thing we need is a bittorrent “client.” A disclaimer here: you should NEVER pay for a client or torrent. Sites that charge you are fakes and probably want to install junk on your PC. A client is a program that allows us to use the bittorrent protocol. The Offical Bittorrent Client is a great start, it works, it is easy to understand and is compatible across all operating systems. Azureus is another cross platform client that offers a ton of features and options that makes it the best option for those who have a newer computer and a extra RAM. The final program is uTorrent, it's a Windows only program that has been getting a ton of buzz in the bittorrenting community. It runs fast, has lots of options, and doesn't take up a lot of computer resources. Hence the name micro torrent. Remember, if you are an Ubuntu user, the official bittorrent client is already installed and you can get Azureus through Synaptic package manager. Remember that you have to have Java installed for any operating system to use Azureus.

Once you pick a client and have downloaded, installed and configured it, the hardest things to get right are Port Forwarding and NAT. These are the only two issues that you need to remedy if you you are using a firewall or router to get the fastest download speeds. I won't get into them because both wikis I linked to do a much better job then I ever could. Port forwarding can also be done by following the guides (including pictures!) for your specific router on www.portforward.com. Now you are ready to download some tv shows, music, movies, comic books, ebooks, audio books, programs, games and everything else under the sun.

WHERE TO FIND TORRENTS
To download files you need to find torrents. These are the small files that tell you who has what and how to redistribute it. There are tons of sites out there but these are some of the best:
The Pirate Bay
Mininova
iso Hunt
Scrape Torrent Searches the above sites.

Once you're on a torrent site, you just type what you are looking for in a search box and download your torrent. Once you open it with the appropriate bittorrent program, you're all set and your torrent should begin to download.

A COUPLE OF TIPS
- Download SMART, not everyone who creates a torrent is a nice person. (especially if you're using Windows)
- It is illegal to bittorrent something that is copyrighted, especially when you don't have the creators authorization.
- There are plenty of legal torrents out there so not all bittorrentors are pirates, some are ninjas.
- If you want to download video/audio your file should end in the extension .avi, .dixv, .mpg, .mp4, .mov, .mp3, .wav, .aac, or .flac NOT .exe. This .exe is an executable and you'll end up with junk (or worse) installed on your PC.
- Never trust any torrented program. You don't know what's inside of it. You take a risk to the security of your PC when you install stolen programs from unknown sources.