Reviewer who hated Ubuntu 8.04 changes his mind about Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx
Farhad Manjoo, two years ago, reviewed Ubuntu 8.04, and heartily disliked it. However, he just reviewed Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx, and liked it a great deal. This is not in the least bit surprising, as 10.04 is a tremendous improvement over 8.04, or indeed, any of the preceding Ubuntu releases.
I thought this point was interesting:
To me, it’s the perfect way to give an aging Windows PC new life. Many of us have an old computer sitting around that, theoretically, is perfectly usable—you’ve just given up on it because it’s too slow and too broken down. Perhaps the machine doesn’t run modern programs. Or maybe it’s become bloated by software you should never have installed, or colonized by spyware that sneaked by your defenses. Or perhaps the machine is just old—over time, computers, like people, pick up all kinds of annoying affectations, and eventually they begin to drive you insane. But unlike people, a computer can be completely remade. All you need to do is reinstall its operating system, wiping it clean of every tic it’s picked up in its life. More often than not, this relatively simple step will make the machine as good as new.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve used Ubuntu 10.04 several times to get additional usability out of aging Windows XP machines.
One last note: the comment thread for both articles is hilarious, as various Linux fanatics argue that their favored distro is the One True Path of desktop computing. Linux, like Christianity, faces its biggest obstacle to adoption in the off-putting nature of its more fanatical devotees.
-JM
Dell Not Dropping Ubuntu, confirmed
Apparently, Dell is indeed sticking with Ubuntu machines, at least for now.
-JM
Install Dropbox on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx
Dropbox is a useful file-sharing and syncing service that lets you sync files between different machines over the Internet for free. A Dropbox client that integrates with the Nautilus file manager is available for Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx, and it’s quite simple to install. Here’s how to do it.
First, go to the Dropbox download page here:
http://www.dropbox.com/downloading?os=lnx
If you have 32-bit Ubuntu, selected the x86 version of the client, and if you have 64-bit Ubuntu, choose the x86_64 version of the client. Once the installer has finished downloading, double-click on it to launch. Enter your password to authenticate, follow the default prompts, and the installer file will install the Dropbox Nautilus client for you.
Near the end of the first stage installation, the installer will need to restart Nautilus to finish. Click on the Restart Nautilus button to do so. After Nautilus has restarted, the installer will ask to download the Dropbox daemon. Give it permission to do so, and the download will begin.
Once the download has finished and the Dropbox daemon has installed, you can start using Dropbox. Either create a new Dropbox account, or log in using your Dropbox information.
-JM
Dell Doesn’t Drop Ubuntu?
Apparently, Dell may not be dropping Ubuntu from its offerings, as previously reported. You can get a Studio XPS 7100 desktop tower with Ubuntu 10.04 preinstalled for $459.99. It’s not a bad mid-range system either: quad-core AMD processor, 3 gigs of RAM, 500 gigabyte hard drive.
Perhaps the Internet outcry over the loss of Ubuntu was enough to make Dell reconsider. Or (more likely) a company with the management problems of Dell (see recent lawsuits) probably doesn’t let its right hand know what its left is doing.
-JM
Install Avidemux Video Editor On Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx
Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx does not, unfortunately, come with any software for editing videos (though, in my opinion, the lack of a built-in chess game is a much more egregious oversight.) Fortunately, though, this lack is easily corrected. The free Avidemux video editor will let you edit videos on your Ubuntu system, and it’s quite simple to install.
First, though, you’ll want to install the ubuntu-restricted-extras package so Avidemux can talk to most video formats. Directions on how to do so can be found here.
Next, to install Avidemux, go to a Terminal window and issue this command:
sudo apt-get install avidemux
Enter your password to authenticate, and apt-get will download and install Avidemux for you. After the installation is complete, you can launch Avidemux by going to the Applications menu, to Sound & Video, and clicking on the Avidemux icon.
-JM
Apple iPad Owners Are Selfish Jerks, Claims Sketchy Scientists
Or so claims this flamebait-esque Wired article, citing a study that claims:
Consumer research firm MyType conducted the study, in which opinions of 20,000 people were analyzed between March and May. The firm’s conclusion was that iPad owners tend to be wealthy, sophisticated, highly educated and disproportionately interested in business and finance, while they scored terribly in the areas of altruism and kindness. In other words, “selfish elites.”
They are six times more likely to be “wealthy, well-educated, power-hungry, over-achieving, sophisticated, unkind and non-altruistic 30-50 year olds,” MyType’s Tim Koelkebeck told Wired.com.
I’m rather dubious. This reminds me of those studies you see every presidential election, the ones that claim to prove that conservatives or liberals or whatever are actually mental defectives, but are quite clearly partisan dreck masquerading as actual science.
On the other hand, you do see a lot of people who are very smug about their Apple purchases. Of course, I’ve been critical of the iPad in the past, so let’s see what the study has to say about us critical types:
“…bashing the iPad is, in a way, an identity statement for independent geeks,” wrote Koelbeck.
“As a mainstream, closed-platform device whose major claim to fame is ease of use and sex appeal, the iPad is everything that they are not.”
Uh-oh. Still, writing about Linux is not, generally speaking, an optimal strategy for impressing the ladies.
-JM
Apple Releases Updated Mac Pros, Cinema Displays
Apple updated its Mac Pro line today, first time in 18 months. Apparently you can now get a 12-core Xeon for $4999.
I’m not getting one, as like all Apple products, it’s ridiculously overpriced. But I want one anyway. Granted, I’d basically use it to write, which is like building a nuclear reactor to heat one’s tea. Using a 12-core Xeon to write would be overkill.
But it would be so cool.
-JM
Starcraft 2 Wings of Liberty released today…
…and, lo, did 5 million Koreans raise their voices in celebration.
Will I get it? I don’t know – I never even played the original Starcraft. But I really liked Warcraft III (I always thought it a shame that Blizzard converted the Warcraft world into an MMORPG, since I rather liked the Warcraft setting, but I don’t like MMORPGs. I guess I’ll wait to see how the reviews turns out. Or maybe I’ll pick up the original Starcraft Battle Pack. It’s fairly cheap nowadays, and then I can develop an informed opinion about the game.
-JM
Useful Samba Utilities On Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx
Lately I’ve heard quite a few reports of people having difficulty with Samba in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx installations. To help with the troubleshooting process, here are a few useful command-line utilities that come packaged with Samba:
testparm
The testparm command does a quick check of your Samba configuration files, checking them for any syntax errors or typographical errors. Of course, with Samba half the time the trouble is figuring out what the syntax is supposed to be, but the testparm tool can help you avoid simple errors.
smbstatus
This shows the status of any connections to any of your system’s Samba shares, and what those connections are doing.
smbpasswd
This lets you reset the Samba password of any Samba user. For instance, if you wanted to reset the Samba password of the user caina:
sudo smbpasswd caina
Enter a new password twice, and you’ll change the user’s Samba password.
pdbedit
This highly useful and versatile command lets you manipulate the users of a Samba system. For instance, to view all the users with Samba accounts:
sudo pdbedit -L
To add a Samba user account for the caina account, use this command:
sudo pdbedit -a caina
(Note that the user account must already exist in the system for pdbedit to create a Samba account for it.)
The pdbedit command has many options; simply entering the command at the prompt without any switches will list all of them.
Finally, if command-line administration of Samba seems daunting, you can use the graphical Samba Web Administration Tool. Directions on how to install it can be found here.
-JM
Install Office 2003 on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx with Wine
Ubuntu 10.04 comes with OpenOffice.org 3.2, which should be more than adequate for all your office needs; it even reads Microsoft’s new OpenXML format. However, if you absolutely must have Microsoft Office, it’s possible to install Office 2003 on your Ubuntu system using the Wine compatibility layer. Even better, it’s really quite simple to do. Here’s how to do it.
(Note that depending upon your system configuration and edition of Office, these directions might not actually work.)
First, you’ll need to install Wine itself to your Ubuntu system. Read this post for directions and a quick introduction to Wine.
Next, navigate to the location of your Office 2003 installation files. Odds are they’re probably on a CD. Open up a Terminal window, navigate to the root directory of the CD (the CD will be in the /media directory, if you can’t find it), and run this command:
wine ./SETUP.EXE
The Setup program for Office 2003 will then run. Follow the default prompts, and Office 2003 should install without crashing. After the installation is complete, you can run any of the Office apps by going to Applications, to Wine, to Programs, to Microsoft Office, and clicking on the icon of the appropriate Office application.
-JM