Spreading Ubuntu

You know, after 2 years of heavily using this rock-solid operating system, I thought, "Why not?" It's the least I could do for all the hard work put into it.

After seeing someone post a link to this site, and after finding this eye-catcher, I decided to explore just how easy it would be to get it printed, and maybe posted in a few places around GSU (Georgia Southern University). I burnt it to a CD, went to the campus print shop (since there's no color printing in campus computer labs). I got about 20 11x17 prints on regular laser paper, and bought the hanging supplies. All this totaled to around $10, which was cheaper than I expected.

Then, on my way to my classes today, I kept an eye out for poster boards. When I saw one, I made an attempt to hang my poster up. Sometimes the boards were crowded, and I had to remove some old posters to make room. I did run into boards that required items to be approved before hanging. It wasn't troublesome finding the person in charge, and having them look over my poster. Actually, I kind of enjoyed giving a quick explanation of Ubuntu to the faculty who were curious.


Sadly, I didn't see anyone recognize the big logo on my poster. That was expected, though, because this campus of about 15,000 students -- located in southern, rural Georgia -- has almost zero linux awareness from what I can tell. You might say it's a big Windows box (excepting, I think, their web servers).

Tickling the Ibex

It's been a long time since my last post.

Ubuntu 8.10 is out! To celebrate my flawless install and configuration on my beast, I made my first-ever Ubuntu show-off video:


And when I say it installed flawlessly, I mean it! Even Flash and Java (my 2 biggest problems in the past). And this is a newer computer (P35, Intel Dual Core 3.0Ghz, Gefore8800gt...).

Great Job Ubuntu Community!

Java in Ubuntu & Annoying Sound Problem Fixed

After several days of my first free-time (but payed!) coding venture on Ubuntu, in Java with Swing through Netbeans IDE, I've created my first GUI from scratch, and my first program (which edits XML files). Overall, Java with Netbeans is amazingly simple for a newbie to understand -- and the support on the web (tutorials, etc) are amazing. And it works in Ubuntu just as it does on Windows, which makes me happy =)

Tomorrow I start officially at work (not from home), and it will hopefully be filled with more of these ventures.

Annoying Sound Problem

So after enduring a month or so of not being able to have multiple programs play sound (firefox, rhythmbox, vlc, pidgin) at one time, I've somehow managed to get it to dissappear. The source is probably Ubuntu updates, but I can't tell you for sure because I made multiple, random changes before restarting my computer to find it was gone! But, probably, it was the Ubuntu updates. So, keep downloading your updates, people.

The problem was the switch from ALSA to PulseAudio between Gutsy and Hardy. Some programs lingered that wanted to use ALSA (flash player), and ALSA and PulseAudio can't be playing sound simultaneously.

This forum post explained my issue, and provided workarounds (not sure if they work) for many programs.

Ubuntu Usenet NZB Client & Happy Mothers Day

Ever wonder why you can't find a good Ubuntu NZB Client with a GUI? It's because someone gave it the super creative name of "NZB".

sudo apt-get install nzb


It seems to be lacking some features that I've found useful in command-line programs like Hellanzb — like autounrar and autopar — but it gets the job done.

I'm definitely interested in hearing about any other Ubuntu NZB GUI clients out there, if anyone can give a recommendation.

Happy Mothers Day
To all you people who came from a womb, make sure to give thanks to the holder of the vagina you came out of!

Baseball Practice & Slow Updates

You know what's awesome? Not having to wait forever for your Ubuntu updates. It's times like this I grow to appreciate living on a campus that is an official mirror for Ubuntu updates, and, while living there, all your updates download with the snap of a finger.

Baseball Practice
Man, I miss being a kid. When the best thing that could happen was a cool activity, or a friend to play with appearing. I took my 5-year-old cousin to baseball practice today. It started to sprinkle and they canceled it before it began, but we were there already. So, we threw the ball around for awhile and played on the playgrounds (kids have AMAZING playgrounds these days) until supper time grew close. I was amazed at how thrilled he was with doing simple things, and I kind of let some of that seep into me, and enjoyed myself immensely. While we drove around, he kept making me play the rock-and-roll music real loud with the windows down. This kid is going places.

It's almost the end of the week. Mother's day is this weekend, and I have a project for work due next Tuesday. Expect blogging to slow down =\

Desktop Cube & Netbeans Install

If you have Ubuntu, there's one thing you MUST do, and that's sit in the front row of a boring lecture with your laptop open and make it a point of using applications on ALL four faces of your Ubuntu cube. This way, you'll reach optimum distraction levels with the people sitting behind you.

They changed it up on me in Hardy Heron. Used to, to get your cube working, you'd install "compiz-config-settings-manager," but now it's called "ccsm."

There's also a new settings manager, simple-ccsm, but I still like the thoroughness of the fully featured one.

The Cube in Action

Netbeans in Ubuntu
With Hardy Heron, Sun has ported Netbeans into the official Ubuntu repository! As luck would have it, I just got a project that requires viewing some mock-ups inside it, so this means my Ubuntu relationship is meant to be.

Woops, a fishy error occurred while I tried to run it for the first time, saying something about specifying the JDKHome:
However, it says something about specifying the --jdkhome option, so I looked it up my openjdk's path in the Synaptic Package Manager and started it with that path specified, and voila! So to get past this, make sure you run netbeans like so:

netbeans --jdkhome /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk

Note: your jdk might be in a different directory. If so, do what I did to find it, just open synaptic package manager in System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager, and look for a package with jdk in the name. More than likely it will be installed already - just look at its properties (right click) and look under the installed files tab for something ending in "/lib/tools.jar," and then you know that directory before lib is the 'home' you want.

My New Ubuntu Dock

For anyone who prefers a dock over the boring default panel at the bottom of your screen, let me introduce the Avant Window Navigator (AWN):


Install: sudo apt-get install avant-window-navigator

To check it out after you install it, hit Alt-F2 and type in 'avant-window-navigator'.

Auto-run
You can set AWN to run automatically on login, just go to System > Preferences > Sessions. And then click 'Add,' and type in the command that runs your program (i.e. 'avant-window-navigator'), as shown below:

Get Rid of Bottom Panel
Like it? Want to get rid of the default Ubuntu panel at the bottom? Just Right Click > Delete This Panel.

Note: If you ever want to reset your gnome panels:

1. rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel
2. Log out, and log back in.