About
May 22nd, 2007
Thanks for reading! This is a blog from a Ubuntu user… who is also a cat lover.
You can find my Ubuntu tutorials here
Comments (here!)
I appreciate all the non-spam and non-flame comments I get, even if I don’t respond to them all individually. If you post something I disagree with, that’s okay. If you post something offensive, insulting, or irrelevant, I’ll probably delete whatever you wrote.
Technical Support (not here!)
If you’re a Ubuntu user and you need help with a technical problem, please post a support thread on the Ubuntu Forums. I will not be helping out with technical support through blog comments.
June 18th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
I just googled for this blog and couldn’t find it. I googled for “Psychocat”, which took me to http://www.psychocats.net. Perhaps you should update that page with a link to this wordpress blog?
June 19th, 2007 at 3:45 am
Done. Thanks for the suggestion, Scaine.
June 26th, 2007 at 5:54 am
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/songbird
http://www.songbirdnest.com/ubuntu_installer_script
Much love.
mig
June 26th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
That’s cool, Mig! I’ve never been called a hacker before. In all fairness, that code is just a modified version of code originally written by Ubuntu Forums member nanotube.
I don’t really know how to program. Glad it works for people, though.
June 29th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
THANKS FOR YOUR GREAT SITE(S)!!!!
The amount of work you put into it is obvious. I sure wish I had found this site last week when installing and setting up Ubuntu, but it is still very relevant and informative.
Again, thanks
June 29th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
Glad you’ve found it helpful, Steve.
July 2nd, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Ah, psycho… have you thought about making your blog “free as in freedom” by using cc-by-sa or GFDL? (Ah, it’s decided: tomorrow I move to Ubuntu. Today was backing up day!).
Cheers!
Eugenio
July 2nd, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Is that Creative Commons stuff?
July 3rd, 2007 at 8:09 am
cc-by-sa = Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)
Personally, I use GFDL in my website and in my blog… but sincerely, it’s a somewhat difficult license to use (and I hope the Free Software Foundation will change that GFDL 2 first draft… it’s horrible).
As I say in a post of mine in my blog: use cc-by-sa if you want simplicity but it is very legally too vague. Use GFDL is you want legal accuracy but it is too complicated to use.
Of course, you can keep everything “unfree” (a “proprietary” blog???)… it’s your blog ;-) …I was just wondering why an Ubuntu-related blog wasn’t “free”.
July 3rd, 2007 at 1:44 pm
I’m not definitely opposed to the idea of open sourcing my blog, but I don’t view it as being the same as software. For me, the idea of opening up software is like science: it’s the accumulation of research and the ability to “stand on the shoulders of giants” instead of starting from scratch.
This makes sense for science. It also makes sense for software. Hell, it even makes sense for Ubuntu tutorials (I haven’t officially registered the Psychocats tutorials with a Creative Commons license, but unofficially allowed others to mirror parts of it or translate it). After all, if someone can make a better tutorial with the same screenshots, add different screenshots, or update the language, why not?
But my blog is my thoughts. It isn’t Wikipedia. It isn’t intended to be a collection of knowledge. It is supposed to be my opinions. I think the expression of my opinions should be my own and not a group effort. Does that make sense?
July 4th, 2007 at 10:59 am
It’s an interesting point, what you say… It was just a question.
I agree science should adopt something similar… And also creative literature, because of its social function.
But opinions are something different. And this gives me a good topic for my blog to show differences where “free” culture can be applied and where not.
July 4th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Loving finding folks engaged in no many circles. Most of what is on here, I don’t even recognize as English ;-)
July 13th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
Hello, I screwed up my Ubuntu installation, searched for a solution, and found your very useful site. I cannot log into my Gnome desktop and have lost my username. All services appear to be running and I can ssh into the system:
I have no name!@motx:~$ cat .xsession-errors
/etc/gdm/PreSession/Default: Registering your session with wtmp and utmp
/etc/gdm/PreSession/Default: running: /usr/X11R6/bin/sessreg -a -w /var/log/wtmp -u /var/run/utmp -x “/var/lib/gdm/:0.Xservers” -h “” -l “:0″ “vgoel”
/etc/gdm/Xsession: Beginning session setup…
Could not get password database information for UID of current process: User “???” unknown or no memory to allocate password entry
Failed to start message bus: Memory allocation failure in message bus
EOF in dbus-launch reading address from bus daemon
——-
Please let me know if you have a pointer for me. Thanks.
July 13th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Vimal Goel, that sounds pretty serious. I’m not sure if I can help you with that, but you might be able to get help at the Ubuntu Forums.
July 18th, 2007 at 6:12 am
Great blog, very interesting topics.
Glad to see some life outside of the forums besides CafeLinux or SocialDiscussion.
July 18th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Thanks, Frak. I try to vary it a little (not make everything about Ubuntu).
July 30th, 2007 at 8:21 am
Lost my Ubuntu sudo privileges, but found your page
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/sudo
That’s a great resource, thanks!!
Saved me a lot of worry as a new Ubuntu user.
One point, towards the end of the above page you have the command, “addgroup username admin”, I think that should be an “adduser” command.
Thanks again.
July 30th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Thanks for pointing that out! I’ll fix it right away.
August 4th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
Stumbled upon your site via the Ubuntu Forums. I’ve been tinkering around with Ubuntu linux of the past couple of years, but haven’t been using it all that much until Feisty came out. I love the OS and have it running on two personal laptops and my desktop at work! Great stuff you’ve written here.
August 7th, 2007 at 3:56 am
Great essays! very interesting and thought provoking. keep up the good job!
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:09 am
Hi there,
Been meaning to send a note to you since late last summer, when I took the plunge and booted my first Linux distro. It was Ubuntu, and I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced cheeze! During the fall and winter months, I went through just about every category (Just Beginning, Next Step, etc), as projects to get to know Linux.
I’ve since moved on to Debian, but I still keep your Ubuntu pages bookmarked. Why? It remains, to me at least, one of the most straightforward and easy-to-read collections of tutorials on the web. I still refer to it now and again, and refer it to others, as well.
Thanks for creating and maintaining such a great site, and for all the help you’ve provided!
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:56 pm
That’s great to hear, Allan. Thanks for sharing!
May 30th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
ubuntucat, Thanks for the wonderful site. Here is a suggestion for http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/separatehome
find . -depth -print0 | sudo cpio –null –sparse -pvd /new/
should be
sudo find . -depth -print0 | sudo cpio –null –sparse -pvd /new/
otherwise a normal user may not have the privileges to find all the files in another user’s home directory.
May 30th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
You’d be surprised – the default permissions on /home/username directories allow the directory and its subdirectories to be readable by other users. I might tweak the instructions a bit, though.
June 14th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Thanks for the comment on my blog. I’m a feminist antiracist radical left Ubuntu user too!
I’m not an Ubuntu power user, though. I initially started using Linux because it made it easier to do my programming assignments. Ubuntu was the distro that allowed me to use Linux ‘normally’ and not have to boot back to Windows.
Good work with the tutorials. I still haven’t installed Wine, so I’ll be using your tutorial if I feel I need some Windows app.
June 25th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Hi I just wanted to let you know I use your ubuntu tutorials a lot for reference. I was wandering though if you could maybe also add a tutorial for installing KDE 4 as well. Thanks for all your work and Great job on the tutorials!
June 28th, 2008 at 4:05 am
Thanks a lot for your helpful tutorials, they have been a huge boon to this new Ubuntu user.
June 28th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
On your pages:
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu
Almost of the pages I looked at have
“Page updated” at the bottom.
All of those that do have “Page updated 06/28/2008″
even tho it is early morning. Is that really true?
BTW I did not see a link from your blog to the
tutorial pages (I could have missed it, but I did not see it) I also did not see an email address to report things like this that dont need to be public.
Nice site.
Fred
–
Fred H. Olson Minneapolis,MN 55411 USA (near north Mpls) Communications for Justice — Free, superior listserv’s w/o ads:
http://justcomm.org My Link Pg: http://fholson.cohousing.org
612-588-9532 (7am-10pm CST/CDT) Email: fholson at cohousing.org
June 28th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Thanks for bringing that to my attention. Back when I was using static HTML pages, those modified notices made sense. Since I’m using PHP includes now… not so much. I’ll take them out.
June 30th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Thanks for the instructions on installing ubuntu on virtualbox. I got it to work first time! I added a link to my blog and added a few extra little things:
http://randomconsultant.blogspot.com/2008/06/setting-up-ubuntu-on-virtualbox-windows.html
June 30th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Hi,
on psychocats.net the link of security analysis tools is broken.
Thanks.
June 30th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I’ve removed the dead link.
July 2nd, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Does free space in “Use the largest continuous free space” mean unpartitioned space or just unallocated space.
My harddrive has unpartitioned space who WindowsXP can’t use because it’s too large. Can the Ubuntu installation partition the space or do I have to buy partition magic?
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:52 pm
I’m not 100% sure on this, but I think it means the largest continuous free space, whether it is unallocated on an existing partition or completely unpartitioned.
Please test it out and let me know.
July 6th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Excellent and easy to follow instructions at:
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/ies4linux
Thanks,
Bakul
July 7th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
ubuntu can’t i can’t get to back up my home by your tutorial at psychocats.net. Some files are not copied says file permissions dont allow that. How can i fix that ? is there a norton ghost like solution for backing up ubuntu ? i have literally done 10 reinstallations of ubuntu to try to back up but i couldnt get it right. I have done aptoncd package back up but it still isn’t one stop solution for backing up WHOLE system.
July 7th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
minhaaj, sorry things aren’t working out for you. Best thing to do is post a support thread on the Ubuntu Forums.
July 8th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Installed Ubuntu 8.04 a couple of weeks ago, was working great until sudo decided to not grant any user root privileges.
User your guide to fix sudoers, and all is well now. Thanks for the help, much appreciated!
July 10th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Your guide is very good! Congratulations.
Our install guide will be based on it.
BTW… we are a scientific distro based on Ubuntu… called Poseidon Linux
http://sites.google.com/site/poseidonlinux/Home
The citation for your site is in our download section.
Cheers!
Christian
July 16th, 2008 at 5:02 am
Hey UbuntuCat,
Thanks for the Ubuntu guide, it is excellent! I am just beginning to learn Linux, and this guide has made things much, much, much easier. Your approach to things has been very helpful, as some of the official documentation Ive gone to mostly helped me get more confused.
Anyways, thanks again, keep up the good work!
Cheers,
-Cory
PS Hope this was the right place to post a “thanks”
July 31st, 2008 at 3:28 pm
just wanted to say that as a beginning ubuntu user, your guide has helped me way beyond what i expected, it helped me get passed the small learning curve behind ubuntu (or any linux distro for that matter) and get right into using the OS to its full potential…thanks to your website as a learning guide, i managed to catch my friends interest in ubuntu simply by showing them my desktop, and pointing them to your site, im burning them copies as i type :) … anyway, many thanks, and i wish you the best in any future endeavors.. (maybe a new 8.10 guide someday?)
July 31st, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Thank you for that comment, Gabe. I can’t make any promises as to how long this’ll last, but I’m planning to keep updating the Ubuntu guides indefinitely. 8.10 is definitely on my list and may be done by early November or mid-November, depending on how busy I am.
August 1st, 2008 at 2:49 am
thanks dudes awsome easy to understand info>>>
August 4th, 2008 at 3:14 am
In case you want to update your Ubuntu iTunes replacement page, iTunes works quite well on Wine now, including purchases: http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=12953 . Also, you could recommend Amarok as a full iTunes replacement as it has many more features anyways. BTW, the link you provided to the iTunes winehq appdb page is broken now, and has been for some time.
August 4th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Thanks for letting me know, b2609. I’ll work on getting that page updated.
August 4th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
You know what? I still see some missing functionality for iTunes in the Wine app database, so I am not going to recommend that as a solution. I may try to install iTunes myself and see how it’s working, but it doesn’t sound good based on the summary comments.
August 6th, 2008 at 1:15 am
`
Is there a guide for configuring the ubuntu boot menu manually?
I mean, I s’pose it’s a command line thing somewhere… but WHERE?
And what the commands? And syntax?
Thanks,
Ozdimdim
`
August 6th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Yes, you can configure the boot menu manually graphically:
http://psychocats.net/ubuntu/startupmanager
You can also configure it through a text file:
sudo nano -B /boot/grub/menu.lst
August 7th, 2008 at 1:10 am
`
Hullo again,
I used the sudo nano… approach. It worked well, and I learned some very interesting things about the menu in the process, so thank you for pointing me in the right direction.
Now I´ve got another problem… well two actually…
The first is that I´m TRYING to execute the following line:
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-bin sun-java6-fonts sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin
but I always end up with a java licence agreement in the window and I´m supposed to click ¨ok¨ before it will go any further. The trouble is NOTHING I have tried gets a response. The live link seems to have been stripped out of the thing I´m supposed to click. Someone suggested clicking in the window and pressing ENTER but that doesn´t work either. So, do you know a way to say ¨OK¨ to java and make that line finish executing?
The second problem is that I have to hit certain punctuation marks twice to get them to register on the screen. If I don (<- see ¨don´t¨) instead of getting the punctuation mark, the next character I type disappears instead. I am HOPING that when I succeed in solving the first problem, it will then solve the second one for me – but what if it doesn´t?
Thanks again,
Ozdimdim.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:05 am
I think your best bet at this point is to post a thread on the Ubuntu Forums to get help.
August 8th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Guys ,
thank u very much.. i learnt things from u.. thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanks a looooooooooooooooooooooooooot !!!!!!!!
August 11th, 2008 at 9:07 am
Hi. I got the Live CD on Ubuntu 8.04 and started checking it out. I like what I see so far. Thinking about doing an install. Was looking at your guide and really like it. You have so much information and I enjoy reading it. Have been learning a lot by reading your links. They are so interesting to read. I for one greatly appreciate the trouble you have went through setting this up and keeping it updated. I Did a partition check using the live CD and discovered the following:
Partition
File System
Label
Size
Used
Unused
Flags
/dev/sda1
NFTS
Hp Pavilion
224.33 GB
21.91 GB
202.42 GB
Boot
Unallocated
Unallocated
7.84Mlb
…
…
/dev/sda2
Fat32
8.55 GB
8.10 GB
456.02MLB
lba
On the sample pages I have seen in your guides and others plus the videos I have never seen anything like this. I use HP pavilion, Windows XP MEdisa Center edition. I was wondering that if I do an install does it look like there will be any problems. On the Sda2,it is a partition set up by HP for recovery. I had nothing to do with that. Don’t know what the unallocated is. As I mentioned, I haven’t seen anything like this in the examples. They always just show the NFTS none of the other. So, when I saw this I got kind of worried and wanted to check with you on this before attempting an install. I really like what I have seen with Ubuntu. I haven’t tried any thing but Windows since the old DOS days. Even then the DOS was when taking a class. Then I went to Windows 3.0. So, as you can see I’m really a newbie at this and would greatly appreciate your advice. Again, I thank you for your wonderful site!!!!
Thank you in advance for any and all advice you are able to give to me.
Tom
August 11th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
The only thing to worry about is accidentally deleting a partition you might need later (one with important data… or one that is a recovery partition).
Post a thread on the Ubuntu Forums, and there will be lots of people to help you through the process.
August 11th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Thanks for the response. I really appreciate that. So, correct me where I’m wrong in my rambling on installation. I go for the first choice and let Ubuntu come out with the partiton design. If I thinking right, I should see a partition for the NFTS, one for the FAT32 then what Ubuntu wants for itself(swap and other) right? Or will the NFTS and FAT32 be listed as a single partiton as Windows XP and one partition UBuntu? Sorry for the confusion but I’m trying to work this out in my mind as to what to expect when I start the installation process. I guess I’m wondering if Ubuntu will be trying to go into the FAt32 or just set up it’s own partition. Again, I appolize for the questions. I don’t plan on doing any deleting of any partitions that shows up. I want to be able to have an enjoyable experence with Ubuntu and Windows XP dual boot. Have to keep Windows for certain things until I can get those things to work on Ubuntu. So that is why I’m asking these questions and enjoying the answers and responses I get from you.
Again thanks for the website and all of your help.
Tom
August 14th, 2008 at 7:43 am
Thought I might say thanks. Was pulling my hair out over not being able to edit any file I felt like. (obviously new to Linux)
Took a deep breath, found this outstanding explanation on ´gksudo nautilus´ in google. :)
August 18th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Hi. Just wanted to let you know that I installed Ubuntu 8.04 this Saturday night. Went smooth. Gave both sections a little over 100 gigs each.
Had a heck of time with my Thunderbird and Evolution set up but this was due to my transposing the last two letters of SMTP. :( After I had installed and removed and reinstalled Thunderbird serval times I realized my mistake.
Small and stupid mistake but really throws a monkeywrench into things for you. :)
Having fun learning different things now.
Just wanted to say thank you for all of the help and suggestions that you have given me. It is that I was scared to take the step to learning a new O.S. After talking to you, Forrestpixie and Paqman I decided to go ahead and get my feet wet.
Kept my fingers crossed that I didn’t have cement shoes put on. :) But all in all it was a very plesant experience in doing this. I’m constantly learning and you’ll probably see some more posts in the forum from me if I can’t find what I’m looking for.
I have found nothing but great people and wonderful help from everyone. I thank you all. I have been to forums where people were getting slammed. I’ve been very lucky in every forum that I have visited and asked questions in. I’ve been treated with respect and not looked down on when being answered some of the questions that I have asked. People like you and the others make learning a great experience.
Thank you very much.
Tom
August 21st, 2008 at 6:39 am
Hi,
I just found out your website which are very informative and resourceful. Am now a full time ubuntu user at work :) Learning never been so easy.
Btw appreciate if you could recommend me on any version of ubuntu that works with apple ibook G3 non intel processor. I did download some ubuntu iso but it wont work :(
Appreciate any reply from you. Thanks very much.
August 23rd, 2008 at 6:56 am
Just wanna say thanks for your instructions on Firefox on Ubuntu 7.10 & 7.04 – They work like a charm :)
August 29th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
From your site, “Someone can correct me on this if I’m wrong, but I haven’t seen any difference between putting the swap partition in the middle or at the end of the drive. I put it on the end in these examples because that’s what Ubuntu’s default installation does.”
Swap is used if the system memory won’t hold all the programs the user wants to run at the same time. If you need to use swap, you probably have bigger problems, but in the specific case of swap at the end of the disk, the time for the heads to move to the swap slows the system down. Optimally, you would want the swap space dead in the middle of the used area of the hard drive, since that would minimize the head-seek time, but this is an impossible condition to meet.
If I were concerned about swap, I would put the swap partition on a second hard drive. The operating system spends a lot of time loading things from the boot partition (programs) and having swap on a second hard drive, for example a data storage drive, minimizes contention between seeks to the boot partition and seeks to the swap partition. Next best option is to make swap space first, followed by boot, although I’m not sure this is doable in Linux.
My guess is this is just a quibble about microseconds, but you asked, and I put in my two cents worth.
Regards,
Thomas
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:25 am
in kde there is something called system settings in which your supposed to be able to change settings. I went to kde here on ubuntu 108 for the purpose of changing my settings to my nvidia graphics card (gforce fx 5500).
and to my westinghouse monitor flat screen lcd.
However in the graphics card change windo it says you have to click the ADMINISTRATOR BUTTON. I just don’t have any idea where that might be. I would assume i could log in as admin but i don’t seem to be able to do that either.. i was never asked on setup to make an admin account ?? why on that one too ?
thanks,
Nate
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:37 am
Greetings from a fellow non-racist, feminist,but ’secularist/humanist’, Hardy-on-a-barebones-portable-non-eeeeeekpc, who is also a cat lover. I am also enamoured of OS X, but refuse any longer to get lumbered with the machines you have to buy with it.
It’s been on my mind now for more than half a year to come here to register my profound admiration and thanks for your dedication to the community but mostly for your gifted tutorial approach; I have lost count of the number of times that I’ve simply linked to your page on “Editing Files That Belong To Root” for new users and for those moving across from exclusive GUI interaction, both in Windows and OS X. It’s a masterpiece of clarity and information, which users – especially those only used to being admin in Windows – always understand immediately.
sudo is a superb security concept (OS X is a dream to use the UI in) and your tutorial always makes sure that new people get off on the right foot and thus have confidence to continue learning to manage their systems well.
My next-door neighbour had had no experience with other than a proprietary XP box, for which the network was configured for her by the vendor and her isp, and in which she had never opened the terminal.
When her mainboard died, she built her own new system from components with my advice, and showed such aptitude that I asked her to be a guinea pig with a new Hardy installation using only the new users forum and your site – with her own judgement to guide her on what advice to use.
She had finished a session at my place within 2 hours with a live desktop downloaded, md5ed, and ready to run on her new machine at home – - I purposely asked her to do it without me there to make sure I didn’t give any hints in spite of myself.
She emailed me from her live cd within another hour.
She emailed me from her new Hardy system before the end of the day.
I haven’t been to inspect her networking arrangements, but her confidence that she has a firewalled system with a system monitor to alert her of any activity says to me that she has grasped the basics very well.
The report back was that she had become overloaded with information very quickly with a few guides from the new users forum, hence went to your site to begin anew.
In particular she praised your dual boot install guide because the keys to a single boot install were also very clear within it.
My neighbour is 68 and has recently retired from many years of clerical employment.
I do understand that her case can’t be generalised, but for a literate and careful new user, your effective tutorials can’t be bettered.
My neighbour has quickly progressed to terminal interaction with Hardy and has made room on her hdd for a couple of other systems, Open BSD being one. She is sharing a folder of multimedia with a music player.
She is sure that without a UI as a safe springboard for learning linux, that she would not have felt so comfortable with a new system so quickly.
She would have come here to comment, but she doesn’t think she’s smart enough !!
sincerely, with gratitude but never enough time
NM
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:17 pm
I’m doing the how to on the nvidia drivers. It seems to work but it will not recognize my monitor. Westinghouse L2046NV. I cannot get over 800 X 600 with my intel integrated card and less than that with my nvidia card. It works in window so there is a fix but i have no idea what it is.
Thanks,
Nate
September 5th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Hi,
is it possible to get the Ubuntu clock in Xubuntu? I like the Ubuntu clock the Xubuntu default clock is rubbish.
I hope you can make it possible.
Regards,
kmo
September 5th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
I’m again,
can I uninstall edubuntu like this:
sudo aptitude remove edubuntu-desktop? Do I have still my ubuntu?
My first was Ubuntu, then I installed like your tutorial Xubuntu and I did the same with Edubuntu.
But now I want to remove Edubuntu. It’s look good, but I think, it removed my Desktop-context menu in Xubuntu.
Regards,
kmo
September 10th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Hi Psychocat,
I have found your tutorials very helpful, having only recently decided to try Ubuntu. However, there is just one think missing: you explain how to install software but not how to remove it. Is this something you might have time to add at some stage?
I mention this because I have removed Evolution from my machine for various reasons not important here, but every time I run Update Manager I get a long list of “bits” that need to be downloaded for Evolution.
I would have thought that if Evolution has been removed, Update Manager would cease inviting me to download software updates for it. Presumably there is more to removing software than simply telling Synaptic to remove it.
Regards,
Chris
September 10th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
That should, of course, have been “just one thing missing” not “just one think missing”!
September 10th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
I haven’t included a removal guide because very few people ask how to remove things. Most of the questions from new users are how to install things. And usually if, as you have demonstrated, people learn how to install things, they pretty much get that removal is the opposite of what they just did.
I think the problem is that the word Evolution is used in many of Gnome’s packages and may not always refer to the Evolution email client. That’s the best explanation I can come up with.
If that doesn’t cut it, you should start a thread on the Ubuntu Forums, and some people will help you out.
September 13th, 2008 at 7:48 am
Your excellent guide to installing software on Ubuntu …
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/installingsoftware
… is the first result in a Google search on “.tar.gz ubuntu”. It has a link to …
http://monkeyblog.org/ubuntu/installing/
… but it appears the page has been moved or no longer exists.
September 13th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Yeah, that’s unfortunate. It’s a good guide, but its server has always been up and down. I’ll take down the link.
September 15th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Hey just ran into your tutorial on “Getting back to a pure Gnome” and thought of something that would trim down your list a little.
sudo apt-get –purge remove kubuntu* kde*
this should trim down your list a lot and anything else it misses could be added. But yea just a thought, love your stuff keep on with it.
raphsabb.blogspot.com
September 15th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
I haven’t had time to extensively test that, but thanks for the suggestion. I’ll look into it.
September 15th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
It doesn’t seem to remove a lot of other stuff (arts, a lot of the libs, etc.)
October 4th, 2008 at 8:42 am
I was looking for a way to move the home partition in Ubuntu 8.04 and your blog helped to get thro’. One correction I want you to include is before starting the gparted the disk on which one wish to make partition is to be unmounted.I hope you will include this. Thanks for your nice post.
October 5th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Burning music bought in the iTunes store, and then ripping from the cd has always been a way of removing DRM, and is not breaking the terms of service or user agreement or whatever. There is nothing shady about it, and right now you seem to imply that in your itunes section.
October 5th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
I’m not implying anything. I’m quoting directly from the iTunes Music Store Terms of Service. I’m not saying it’s shady. I’m saying it is breaking the terms of service, and it is.
October 6th, 2008 at 3:39 am
Hi
I have a Nvidia GeForce 5400 PCI card on my machine (I know thats sort of ancient :) ). On ubuntu when i enable the Nvidia drivers for this, the max resolution i am able to get is 800×600. Cant i get higher resolution modes?
October 11th, 2008 at 10:04 am
AY:
I should start off by saying that I am one of many Canadians who read your blog regularly. You get quoted up here surprisingly often!
I wanted to suggest a topic for your blog that I thought you may be interested in tackling, given your political and spiritual perspectives on things.
As you are well aware the world is going though what could be called “an economic crisis” of somewhat epic proportions. Most economists seem to think it will be at least a deep and long-lasting recession. Others are less optimistic, but personally I don’t like to use the “d” word in public for fear of it becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I recently heard some philosophers and pundits on the radio suggest that this “economic situation”, even if it gets quite bad, could have some net benefits to humanity. One that was named is that it may reverse the last 50 years of rampant materialism and influence people to change their values from “buying things” to more along the lines of friendship, helping others and spirituality.
I wondered if you would consider writing something on this subject?
October 12th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
I’m glad there’s a loyal Canadian contingent of readers. Thanks for being part of that. Unfortunately, I don’t really know much about economics, so I can’t contribute anything original or insightful to commentaries on the so-called “economic crisis.” I would if I could.
October 14th, 2008 at 7:54 am
Hi Psychocat,
I am writing regarding your webpage
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/backup.
Thank you for your informative site!
I have an ubuntu/windows XP Pro dual boot with the following partitions:
Windows C:(NTFS)
Windows Data (NTFS)
Linux / (ext3)
Linux swap (ext3)
Linux /home (ext3)
Eventually, I was thinking about getting acronis backup software to backup my entire image, but in the mean time, I just want to backup my NTFS Data and ext3 /home partitions to an external HDD formatted to FAT32.
I was wondering if you could tell me the best way to do this. Thank you for your time, have a nice day, and I look forward to hearing from you at your convenience.
Sincerely,
Ben
November 8th, 2008 at 12:23 am
hey, i have dvd burner…. can i use infrarecorder../??
November 9th, 2008 at 1:54 am
Thank you so much for your website! You helped me get rid of all the bloat that I had installed with Ubuntu and Kubuntu; so now I have all that space available (VERY DESIRED) for my Hardy XFCE machine. I also needed to remove it because when you install some Linux programs (through apt-get or others), sometimes it detects if you have Kubuntu installed, and therefore installs unneeded files when I just need it to install the GTK dependent files, see? So I would obtain even more bloat!
Thank you Thank you THANK YOU!
November 11th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Thanks for the great tutorial!
November 13th, 2008 at 12:42 am
hey man, you seem really good with linux- I hope you don’t mind a direct request for help with a personal problem… I used your tutorial for installing Flash on 8.04+ Ubuntu… but I got the error: wrong architecture ‘i836′… not sure how to fix this problem… if there’s any chance you could help that’d be awesome. Thanks.
November 13th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Sorry, just posted a problem, but meant to say error: wrong architecture ‘i386′, not ‘i836′. Thanks lol
November 16th, 2008 at 4:27 am
OMG! I was trying out XFCE, “sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop”. It messed with the startup and shutdown, and I didn’t like it anyway. I put up a thread in Ubuntu Forums, saying that I wanted to try KDE (fikelfikel is my username on Ubuntu Forums) and I didn’t want KDE anymore. User forestpixie put a link on to one of your sites, http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/index.php. I found how to remove KDE and XFCE, and I really wanted to thank you, so I put this message here. I’m definatly bookmarking that site!
November 17th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Thanks for the NTFS Config write up.
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/mountwindows
November 18th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Hi just wanna say that you might wanna add http://www.kahvi.org to your guide on itunes under http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/itunes
Just a suggestion
Thanks for your very nice ubuntu-guide, it helped me out many times in the beginning, have been using ubuntu since 5.10 Breezy Badger
Kind Regards MikeDK
November 19th, 2008 at 2:08 am
Hello,
i just go through the tutorial of installation ubuntu use the virtualbox. so i’ve download ubuntu 8.10, then i burn into CD (not *.iso).
ok i successful install it. ok, i would like to know, how to make ubuntu be full screen the window… this i meant is install guest addition is never been success. i do not know how to solve this.
November 19th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Hi,
I used your tutorial to set up VirtualBox under XP and then UBUNTU under VirtualBox. It worked great. It would be handy to have similar quality instructions for installing Guest Assistance on the UBUNTU machine. I tried to follow Sun’s instructions several times and do not know enough about Linux to get it right.
Mel
November 20th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
RE:Editing Files that Belong to Root at psychocats.net/ubuntu/permissions
Hey, you are the man!!!!
im ooold man (20 years MS user) tell your friends time has finally come to get into linux (kubuntu) and welcome the windux user. That’s a linux usr with a practical mind (no lindows esquizo).
If I can do it, anybody can!
I almost drowned with kubuntu+xampp instalations but now im almost afloat and getting happy. I am using almost all gui to do things, linux has finally come to age.
Cheers !!!! and Thank You for your intelligent help, i owe you one.
dad
November 25th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Hi. I want to try the kde on ubuntu. But i can’t find the KUbuntu-desktop pack in Sysnaptic. The same goes to Xfce. Could you help me ? I’m pretty new to Linux
November 25th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Hi
tried replying to one of the ubuntu forum threads that helped me alot, but no luck. So I hope its ok to post this here. (delete if not)
Just wanted to *thank you* for your post on
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=368932
edubuntu on top of xubuntu.
Thank you. helped me heaps.
i’ll be checking your blog regularly from now on.
cheers
mark
November 27th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Thank you very much. Your site is very helpful. I wish the best to you…
yobo
November 29th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Thank you for writing the command to remove gnome. Please specify on that page what disadvantage there is to:
sudo apt-get remove gnome-desktop
December 1st, 2008 at 7:41 pm
I just wanted to thank you for all the tutorials. My begiinging questions on the Ubuntu forum have at times resulted in a link to your pages. But I’m learning a lot more just reading around. You’ve done a great job!
Trish
Oxford, England
December 18th, 2008 at 9:02 am
I would like to make a correction on one of your tutorials. ( http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/backup ). You mention you cannot mount the image created by dd_rescue.That’s wrong.Please check http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=711773 .Thnx
December 18th, 2008 at 9:16 am
sorry i just made a mistake. I missread the tutorial. Please erase the message
December 19th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Thanks for your Ubuntu site. For some reason the permissions on my sudoers file changed, and I couldn’t chmod it til I read your suggestions. I was running out of hair to pull out.
December 29th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Thank you for your very excellent Ubuntu tutorials – specifically the pages describing how to (easily) move from Xubuntu – Ubuntu and from Kubuntu, etc.
Very much appreciated!
Greg
January 1st, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Your tutorials have proven to be extremely helpful orienting me in a new, diverse, and unfamiliar environment. Thank you!
January 3rd, 2009 at 12:39 am
I just wanted to say thanks for a great site and all of the time and effort you put into it. I’ve decided to try Ubuntu and thanks in part to your site I’m up and running and have been enjoying it immensely.
Thank you.
January 3rd, 2009 at 6:40 pm
Thanks for the great site, it’s been a lot of help when learning the world of (K)Ubuntu :)
Thank you, a lot.
January 5th, 2009 at 11:26 am
I am trying to learn Ubuntu, and I am really struggling. I had a need to edit some of the system files, and no clue how to gain access to them. Then I found your site, and the simple instructions you posted using Alt+F2 and “gksudo nautilus”. It worked, and was an absolute lifesaver for me. I was able to edit the files and get some hardware working that previously didn’t.
You present information in a simple and straightforward way, which is what is needed for those of us trying to migrate from Windows. Your site is now permanently bookmarked!
Thank you so much!!!!!!! All the best to you in 2009!
January 5th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
Some fool forgot my password and thanks to you I am back in business and installing updates.
January 6th, 2009 at 7:10 am
First, I want to thank you for the lots of tutorials but I find there is one thing missing in the tutorial about “Installing a Dual-Boot with Windows and Ubuntu”, some people are still afraid after reading anything about installing ubuntu, maybe you could mention WUBI witch installs ubuntu without repartitioning, excellent for the people who are afraid
thanks, Sander
January 6th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
I’ve added in a plug for Wubi. Thanks, Sander.
January 6th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
Hello,
I just used your tutorial to install Ubuntu on VirtualBox. Thanks a ton! The installation was a breeze.
I was contemplating VirtualPC or VirtualBox..and after couple of days of deliberation I decided to go ahead with VirtualBox. Your tutorial was very helpful.
Thanks again!
Regards
Anu
January 7th, 2009 at 5:43 am
Hi and Thanks for one of the best Ubuntu tutorials. It seems like whether I have a new problem, or just need to remember the basics, a search always lands me back in one of your tutorials.
That being said, and to that very point, I just found this site, http://www.thonisite.co.cc/2008/11/partitioning-windows-and-ubuntu.html , with your tutorial cut and pasted in it’s entirety, but with no visible attribution. I may be incorrect in my assessment, and I don’t see for sure whether you are “certified” in your use of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License, but I thought it to be in poor form/bad taste to plagiarize blatantly what was given free with nothing more than a request to be named as author. I don’t know what good it will bring to raise this issue to you. I don’t see any efficient course of action to get the material removed, and judging by the quality of the content at the bottom of the page, an e-mail request will probably go unanswered. Sigh. I suppose imitation is the highest form of flattery though. Right under payment…
-Thanks. Aaron.
January 8th, 2009 at 12:40 am
Yeah, I’m actually okay with people mirroring my tutorials. You’re right, though. A little attribution wouldn’t hurt.
January 10th, 2009 at 8:17 am
read your article: Editing Files that Belong to Root. It was crystal clear and wonderful. Thank you.
January 10th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
HEllo,
How can I use your barebones install to add:
1. mythtv
2. asterix+freePBX OR trixbox
3. Server packages…
thank you.
newbie
January 11th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Awesome. Though only the last step worked for me. Thanks 5 stars.
January 19th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
I need help with IceWM, as there is a black window which is unclosable, and it happened when I used the thinblack2 theme. Change of theme does not remove it. It also prevent log off. Please help!
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:39 am
Being a linux noob but Windows veteran, I was ready to install Ubuntu the first time on a Win XP system, and stopped at the installation stage where I had to determine the HD partition allocations. Trying to make the right choice, I googled and reached to your site. Great stuff – help to clarify a lot of things required during the install decision-making process. Thanks.
If I may provide a suggestion, I would like to see the pro and con of the major choices required during the installation – for example, in talking about Wubi in “Installing a dual-boot with Windows without partitioning” you indicate the benefits of that approach, but not the drawbacks. Consequently, I need to look for additional info on that before proceeding with the installation.
Again, thank you for a great and very informative site!
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Thanks for the feedback, Kob. I guess right now there isn’t a drawback to Wubi. I thought one of the drawbacks was difficulty in moving from a Wubi dual-boot to a single-boot Ubuntu (without Windows), but people on the Ubuntu Forums assure me it’s easy (never done it myself).
At this point, I’d recommend Wubi for anyone wanting to undertake a dual-boot.
January 26th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
Just wanted to say thank you so very much for your detailed instructions. It was a life saver… OK, I’m a little dramatic, my life wasn’t in actual danger, but if it were, you would have saved it with your excellent detail. Thanks alot!!! I’ll be sure to check out your other tutorials soon
MJ
February 4th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Hi, well i just forgot how did i get here, but i’m extremely happy to have found this blog/site. Im a new user of Ubuntu and having some difficulties installing and using it.. but i’ve managed so far to overcome the problems thanks to you! :) After googling and searching for 3 days, finally i’ve found real help. Im going to keep reading the ubuntu page. Theres a lot of things useful to me.
Once again thanks for all the work you had making this site, i can say that its really useful and well done. oh and im so a cat lover! So now i know that you are a really great guy.. :) All the best for you!
February 10th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Thanks for help running ubunto into windows xp…i just wana know to change desplay from 16bit to 32bit bcoz always when i boot ubunto it give msg regarding 16bit to 32bit changing desplay plz help
February 19th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
I just read and used your “Getting Back to a Pure Gnome on Ubuntu” – tutorial and it worked GREAT! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU VERY MUCH! Its people like you that make Linux work.
February 20th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
“In Gnome’s file manager called Nautilus, you can also rename files by doing two spaced-out single-clicks on the name. Gnome’s renaming will focus on the name of the file and not the file extension. ”
Hey, your tutorial pages are terrific!
One note about the above, I believe this no longer works in the latest version of Gnome, at least on Ubuntu 8.10x
February 21st, 2009 at 1:29 am
I just tried it, and it appears to still work.
February 25th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Hey I am having trouble installing flash player on my Ubuntu 8.1. The error occurs during package installer,
Status: Error: Wrong Architecture ‘i386′
Do you know what I can do to fix that?
February 25th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
The IES4LINUX script doesn’t seem to work on Intrepid.
Python throws an error and nothing happens, no icons, no IE.
(Not a request for tech support, just FYI that it’s broken)
February 25th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
@Sai
If you need help, the best place to get it is the Ubuntu Forums.
@Han
Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I’ve added a little note with a link to a forums thread with a workaround.
February 26th, 2009 at 4:02 am
In your tutorial on the Terminal password thingy, the reason the terminal password comes blank is a security feature that has been around since the original DOS. By not having any sort of visual cue, it prevents an over-the-shoulder eavesdropper or camera to view the number of characters in a password.
We have it at my school’s Student File lookup (for administration).
February 26th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
TodesEngel, I think that’s a bogus reason, and I explained that pretty thoroughly both in my terminal password page and in the thread I linked to from it.
First of all, anyone around can listen for how many taps of the keys to find out how many characters are in your password (let alone look at the keyboard).
Secondly, my main beef is that it’s an inconsistency in the interface. If it’s really a security issue, then there shouldn’t be any dots in the graphical interface password dialogues either… but there are!
So basically if it is a security issue (and it is not, for the reasons I stated), then the graphical password dialogues (which use the same password, by the way) are insecure by your logic.
February 27th, 2009 at 6:19 am
Hi, thanks for the helpful pages. I broke Intrepid sudo.Partly through updating, then my own ineptitude.
Gives syntax error and parse error line 1
I’ve tried your commands:
sudo cp /etc/sudoers /etc/sudoers.backup
sudo nano /etc/sudoers
All I get is the /etc/group file.
sudo visduo gives me nothing either.
At my wits end to fix sudo, but don’t know how.
Would be grateful for help.
Thanks,
February 27th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
@Terry
You’ll be able to best find technical support on the Ubuntu Forums.
February 28th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Hello Ubuntucat,
I have read so far 3 of your Ubuntu tutorials (on partitioning, dual-booting). They are useful. Tomorrow, I have to install Ubuntu 8.10 in a friend’s PC.
One thing that annoys me a lot in all your tutorials is the fact that you use “pt” units for defining font-size and that makes the whole webpage text non-resizable in Internet Explorer. And the font-size you use is small: so even if I use Firefox, I have to resize the text size anyway. Reading small text can be very frustrating (furthermore if the topic/subject is not a familiar topic/subject); rigid, frozen, non-resizable font-size is very much anti-user-friendly and frustrating.
regards, Gérard Talbot
March 6th, 2009 at 2:09 am
For installing Flash (http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/flash) how do I get it so Firefox uses the Adobe Flash player and not Gnash or Totem which seems to override Adobe in Intrepid and Jaunty?
There are two ways of doing so using the command line, One is to remove or make a symbolic link of a shared object and the other is a program thAt lists the installed flash players and you get to choose which one you want, although I forget how to invoke it.
Can you help me? Possibly by adding this to your tutorial?
March 6th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
I think your best bet for technical support in the Ubuntu Forums. I’m there often, but so are a lot of very knowledgeable Ubuntu users.
March 15th, 2009 at 2:34 am
Hello Ubuntucat,
You wrote:
”
Why would you want to install the Mozilla version of Firefox?
There’s usually no reason anyone would have to install the Mozilla version of Firefox. The Ubuntu repositories version receives security updates and is integrated with the filesystem.
”
2 reasons. The default Mozilla version included in the Ubuntu install CD is in English: the natural tongue of the new Linux user may not be English. Also, in the Ubuntu 8.10 install CD, the Mozilla version is not the latest.
I see that you removed the “pt” unit … and it makes the text resizable in IE and other browsers. The default font size now fits, meets perfectly the preferred font-size of visitors/readers of your Linux tutorials webpages. Excellent!
regards, Gérard Talbot
March 15th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Thanks for sharing your knowledge. I had forgotten my sign-in to Ubuntu and your tutorial saved the day.
Kudos
Bruce
March 18th, 2009 at 7:11 am
You have a very deceptive matter-of-fact sense to your explanations, which is not always the case with Linux users. I had a hard time ‘visualing’ my environment as an Ubuntu user, until a desire to install a theme\icon pack made be stumble over your site, courtesy of Google.
I have only had to read what you’ve made available once, I guess that’s a compliment.
March 18th, 2009 at 9:15 am
There’s a few tipsy typos in my first post, apologies..
March 22nd, 2009 at 11:16 am
Hi – appreciated your tutorial on moving home directory
(http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/separatehome).
However, wouldn’t most people want the ‘m’ option to cpio so that all file creation times are preserved?
Also, I am not sure about this, but before running this, wouldn’t you want to ‘cd /old’, not ‘cd /old/home’? That way ‘home’ itself gets created.
So, to perform the copy, I would have it as:
cd /old
(find home -depth -print0 | cpio –null –sparse -pvdm /new/
Wondering also, why not just use “cp -rp” instead of the find/cpio combo. ?
Thanks.
David
March 23rd, 2009 at 2:47 am
Thanks for your helpful site ubuntucat.
With reference to your tutorial ‘Modest Spec or Barebones Installation of Ubuntu’. There is one additional options screen that I encountered during using the Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid Ibex” Minimal CD which is not shown in your tutorial. It is the screen that asks you to choose which type of installation you want i.e, server, LAMP, desktop, MID, mobile, etc. I unselected everything thinking it would do a ‘minimal’ install. Instead the installer decided to do a desktop install when all the options were unselected. I read elsewhere on the internet that the ’server’ install is the equivalent of a ‘minimal’ install. Perhaps you could update your tutorial to add this screen and clarify this point.
Regards,
Ashiq.
March 23rd, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Thanks for the heads-up. I thought I’d updated it with the Intrepid CD, but maybe I still have the old Hardy screenshots. In any case, since you’re the first person to mention this, I think I’m going to leave it as is until Jaunty comes out next month. Then I’ll update it.
March 25th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
I have been reading your ubuntu and ubuntucat sections and their articles are simply great.
Sorry if I am comunicating this through the wrong channel. could not find another link/email for this.
March 25th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
sorry part 2. Did not specify. Articles about ubuntu and linux. Perfect for linux newbies like me. Now I am trying to find time to read all you sections!
March 27th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
I came across your tutorial on mounting windows in Ubuntu. It’s a great tutorial. I just realized, though, that the latest version of Ubuntu (Intrepid Ibex) does automatically mount the windows partition. Well, I had to enter my user password to access it, but there it was sitting in the left side-bar in Nautilus. How cool!
March 29th, 2009 at 10:35 am
I’ve been using your “Create a separate home partition in Ubuntu” page.(http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/separatehome) Under the sentence that starts, “Now we’re going to back up the home directory…” are four commands. Should the fourth command there be moved up to be the first of those commands?
Thanks for all your great tutorials. They’ve helped me allot.
March 29th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
No, it shouldn’t be moved. Glad you’ve found the tutorials helpful.
March 31st, 2009 at 3:08 am
Only one comment:
Please add a donate link to Paypal.
March 31st, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Mark, thanks for your suggestion. Right now, I do get a little bit of revenue (for operating costs) from the ads on my Ubuntu tutorials.
If you really want to donate to something, I would suggest donating directly to Ubuntu instead of donating to me:
http://www.ubuntu.com/community/donations
March 31st, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Just wanted to say thanks for the Ubuntu download/burn page. I’m not actually installing Ubuntu, but I was looking for a nice free utility to burn disc images – InfraRecorder hit the spot!
April 3rd, 2009 at 7:24 am
Hi there. Just been reading through your tutorials, it’s excellent stuff, really nicely put together and accessible. Regarding your iTunes on Ubuntu tutorial, it’s now becoming a lot easier to set up a virtual machine running windows over ubuntu. I set one up a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve written a guide to the process, see what you think:
http://www.silverknife.co.uk/tech/2009/03/how-to-run-itunes-and-manage-your-ipod.html
April 3rd, 2009 at 12:56 pm
That’s great that you’ve set up that tutorial.
Frankly, though, I want to discourage people from running a virtual Windows session just for iTunes. I like iTunes as much as the next person, but I believe the ultimate solution to Windows applications dependence is a migration to native Linux applications.
April 3rd, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Partimage. So neat, in a live-environment I can now backup my ubuntu, while surfing the net under 5 mins.
who needs norton ghost?
thanks!!!
Michael
April 17th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Another reason for gksudo is that it allow you to enter the password in “gui-input”, as opposed to entring it in command line.
April 17th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Great site, thanks for the help.
April 17th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
I have the iso burned on a dvd is that ok? It says that an invalid cd detected wtf?
April 24th, 2009 at 12:50 am
Thanks for your great tutorials. In particular,
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/sudo
just saved my day after upgrading to Jaunty.
April 30th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Dear Psychocats,
I am referencing http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/partimage in trying to use part image to backup my system.
I’m using the live CD for ubuntu 9.04, but when I go to type in “sudo apt-get install partimage”, I get the message:
Package partimage is not available, but is referred to by another package. This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or is only available from another source.
E: package partimage has no installation candidate.
I checked synaptic and it’s not there.
How do you get around this?
Thank you for your time, your great website, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely,
Ben
May 8th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Thanks a lot for your tutorial on how to mount windows partitions on ubuntu! It was very useful to me… :)
May 11th, 2009 at 1:24 am
Hello Ubuntucat,
Several suggestions for your Ubuntu tutorials. Most of them refer to handling appropriately to HTML code.
1- Make all of your abbreviations, acronyms and definitions available to HTML elements like <dfn>, <abbr title=”…”>. That would help. Example given:
<dfn>GRand Unified Boot loader (GRUB)</dfn> for the first occurence in the document and then afterwards <abbr title=”GRand Unified Boot loader”>GRUB</abbr> for the 2 following occurences. That way, you make a webpage superior and more usable (tooltip info on hovering cursor over) than a printed page.
2- Create a webpage defining all the often encountered abbreviations. You can later <link> it [1] in the <head> part. Eg: GNOME, GParted, MBR, apt, sda, BIOS, etc. This can help a lot understanding and learning.
[1] <link rel=”glossary” href=”[path/url of glossary webpage]” title=”Glossary”>; the people with a site navigation toolbar will be able to consult such page. You can add a link to the glossary into the your webpage footer.
3- Make your webpages use a conformant doctype declaration declaring a strict DTD. And then, of course, validate (http://validator.w3.org/) the HTML markup code of your webpage. Maybe this will be difficult for you. You may need assistance to make your web tutorials conformant, using valid markup code.
Fixing markup errors is very important and necessary.
E.g. at http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/installing , you most likely have an improperly coded or unclosed link because we can notice a strange :hover effect when hovering a paragraph. [Addendum: got it! <a name="notes"><h3>Notes</h3><a> : unclosed link and misnested anchor: an inline element can not wrap a block-level element]
4- Absolutely try to avoid link texts that are general, not specific, vague when taken out of context.
Bad: this, here, click here, this one, these instructions, etc.
Good: PCLinuxOS, order a live CD, configure your BIOS, more info on using restricted formats
W3C QA tips for webmasters: Don’t use “click here” as link text
http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/noClickHere
These are suggestions as to how to improve your tutorials.
regards, Gérard
May 11th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Thanks for the suggestions.
If it’s not awkward, I do try to incorporate links into a proper sentence, but every now and then it is easier to just use the click here, and I at least try to make sure people know what clicking there is for.
I learned HTML years ago, and since I’m not a webmaster by trade, I haven’t really kept up with all the new-fangled W3C standards. In fact, my webpage is pretty crap code (but at least it makes sense to me, and it seems to render okay in the major browsers) and includes tables instead of CSS. Your suggestions are probably good ones to follow, but they rank pretty low on my priority list right now, so don’t hold your breath on my implementing them.
Thanks for taking the time to make them, though.
May 12th, 2009 at 1:00 am
Hello again (Today, I’m using Kubuntu 9.04 and Linux for the first time!!),
<dfn>, <abbr> and <link> are HTML elements which were defined in HTML 4.01 in 1999; <link> has been defined in 1995 in HTML 2 and was in fact used for Site Navigation toolbar purposes.
Fixing markup errors would also fix the ones which have layout repercussions like improperly closed <a> elements and misnested elements which do have various and impredictable rendering in standards compliant browsers.
Validation explanations
Truth & Consequences in Web Design: Validation
A <link>-ed glossary would help; abbr and dfn would help the readers/visitors of your tutorials and that’s easy and simple to do.
I agree that you may have only 4 or 5 general link texts. As for replacing tables by CSS columnar layout templates, that would take you more time and learning, I suppose.
regards, Gérard
May 12th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Thank you for your tutorial on “Mounting Windows partition in Ubuntu”.
itis really cooooool, easy to follow with clearcut info.
It is one of the needed contribution to ubuntu-mswindows-linux community
all the best
May 12th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
I just installed Jaunty Jackalope. I’ve been away playing with Fedora 10 and decided to come back. I had been with Hardy working with Oracle and PeopleSoft FSCM and decided to give the free version of Redhat a try, Solaris 10, Open Solaris. Hardy was the first time that I tried linux and I am back to Ubuntu. Thank You for the directions to fix sudoers. Strange, I don’t remember having to fix sudoers in Hardy. Maybe now I will take some formal training. I am so thankful to the Linux and dba community. Thank You, Cliff
May 15th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Hey, I want to thank you for your Tutorial site of Ubuntu. It’s really helpfull to me !
Thanks
Dries
May 22nd, 2009 at 10:36 pm
In reference to your web-page “KDE and Gnome Comparison” (http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/kdegnome): near the bottom of the page you talk about Panel Options and ask “What does screen edge mean as a setting?”
I wondered that, myself, until I happened to hover my cursor over it and found that it (the cursor) changed to the four-headed arrow. Experimenting bravely, I held down the Ctrl-key and dragged that four-headed arrow over to the side of the screen and, lo and behold, the panel suddenly popped in place over there! Turns out, it’s the very thing I was looking for to move the panel to a different location.
Apparently it’s limited to one of the four screen edges–you can’t float it, as you can some toolbars–so that’s probably why it has that ill-fitting name. Screen edge! Who’d a’ thunk?
May 24th, 2009 at 3:49 am
hello,
its a good thing i stumbled into your very informative site. thank you very much for all the information. i am now beginning to see the light in ubuntu.
i decided to use edubuntu for our school, here in the philippines.
as i am very new to linux, your site is very helpful to me.
you are very informative about ubuntu. but can you please point me to some site which gives information about openoffice?
someone who gives information and tutorial as easy and breezy as you do, it seem so effortless. yes, that’s how good you are in tutoring people like me.
i will always be visiting your site, as it makes ubuntu a lot easier for me to use. you made my migration a lot easier.
thanks!
mervin m. pascual
June 20th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
I read your article “Using Partimage in Ubuntu”. My “LiveCD”, Ubuntu 9.04 does not open the Partimage, but I used it from ” System Rescue CD “. However, the program copies around 14 % of the archives and informs that the target partition is full, what it is not true. Is it possible to repair that?
Thanks
June 28th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
your site is very helpful to me. thankyouuuuu
June 28th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
This message is about the layout and look and feel of your site and not the content. I like the way your site looks. What software are you using for the blog and this page?
Thanks in advance for the info
June 30th, 2009 at 2:53 am
Hi ubuntucat,
Thanks for all your great posts (non-linux) on life, etc. They are always thought-provoking. I have a question though – Would you mind shooting me a list (either here or by email) about some books you might have find enlightening about homosexuality and Christianity?
Thanks.
J.
June 30th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
I think a good book to start with is The Good Book by Peter Gomes. You may also want to check out the documentary film For the Bible Tells Me So