MANhunt

Using the Command Line Interface (CLI) on Ubuntu can be a pretty effective way of getting stuff done, but it does require some commitment to master the multitude of commands and their options. One way of finding out how commands work is to use the man pages that come pre-installed as part of the Ubuntu OS (indeed, man pages are installed in almost all Unix based systems). For instance, if you wanted information on the chmod command, you simply open a terminal and type:

man chmod

The output appears in the terminal window.



You can use the Page Dn, Page Up, or arrow keys to move through the document (to exit the man page, hit the "q" key).

However, whilst it's a very useful feature, I also find reading the man pages in the terminal window a little clumsy so I was surprised and delighted, therefore, to find that the complete set of man pages for every release of Ubuntu are available online. The html format is much easier to read and each web page (or man page) has links that are much easier to follow than scrolling through a document in the terminal. There's also a search bar to speed up access to each man page rather than using the file hierarchy.

One thing that is missing is an apropos type search, but I suppose you can't have everything!

SWAT

The swat web interface is a useful way of viewing information about samba: you can access it by typing http://localhost:901 into the address bar of your chosen browser.



However, in order to ensure that you can amend the samba configuration files, access shares, and add resources, you must make sure that you are a member of the administration group and that the group has the necessary permissions. If, when you log in to the swat web page, you only see four boxes (Home, Status, View, and Password), you must change the permissions on the smb.conf file.

Open a terminal and type:

sudo chmod g+w /etc/samba/smb.conf

This command changes the files "mode bits" to execute permission for the group.

sudo chgrp adm /etc/samba/smb.conf

And this command changes the group to Admin.

Now, when you type your user name and password into the login box, you should have full access to samba from the web page. You might even try simply refreshing your browser to see if the changes have taken effect. If you find that your user name still doesn't work, try logging in using root as your user name.

Useful Resources:

• Ubuntu Documentation - Swat
• Ubuntu Manuals - chmod

You've Got Mail

Now that I've restored the desktop version of Karmic to the DELL Inspiron, I've also added Thunderbird as my mail client and finally set up my email accounts on my laptop.

One of the nagging problems that I've experienced since opening a Gmail account is that I've only been able to download Google mail to one device. Of course, this hasn't been a problem with my laptop (as I've not been using it to download mail until today) but it has been with my iPAQ. If I download Gmail when I'm on the move, it doesn't subsequently download to my PC so I'm constantly switching between devices (or logging on to my online account) to find messages. Setting up the mail client on the laptop prompted me to explore this problem to see if there was a solution. As usual, it was only a problem because I didn't know what I was doing and it transpires that the solution is quite simple!

Google has a recent mode for its POP3 mail.

In your POP client settings, replace 'username@gmail.com' in the 'Username' or 'Email' field with 'recent:username@gmail.com'.

Once you enable recent mode, please be sure to configure your POP client to leave messages on the server...

You can follow the instructions at Google's support page if you're having the same problem.

Of course, I could have also set up the laptop as an IMAP client and achieved the same result! However, I've also learned that my personal email account (IMAP) can be forced to sync a certain amount of days worth of email (rather than the whole account which is several hundred messages and attachments) - amazing what you learn when you indulge your curiosity, isn't it?

Back to the Future

Sadly, the grand experiment is over (for now): Ubuntu Notebook Remix was just too temperamental for my taste and I couldn't find a way to adjust the panel. The problems with the interface and power applet continued to plague the setup and I just couldn't be bothered to try and resolve the issues.

So, despite loving the look of UNR, I have restored the DELL Inspiron to the desktop version of Karmic, but I may just start looking at other open source OS to try out on my Christmas present......

Bizarre

Ubuntu Netbook Remix is demonstrating some bizarre behaviour!

The gnome-power-manager, fragile at the best of times in the desktop version, has a life all of its own in UNR: on battery power, the brightness is randomly adjusted without warning and my phantom power-cord crash seems to have returned.

The GUI is also a little peculiar! Earlier, I couldn't scroll to the bottom of the Administration tab in the System Menu and the last three icons were truncated.



When I removed the Language Support icon (to makes some screen real estate available), everything returned to normal!

I love the look of this OS but, twenty-four hours in and it's starting to look a little too temperamental!

Playtime - Ubuntu Netbook Remix

Banging on about experimenting with my new laptop is all very well, but installing the desktop version of Ubuntu Karmic is not that adventurous, is it? So, for no better reason than I had a couple of hours to kill, I decided to see how Ubuntu's Netbook Remix would look on the DELL Inspiron 1501.

It's been an interesting couple of hours! Firstly, my initial install disk was corrupted (almost certainly my fault, the burn speed was probably too high) and I couldn't run the live CD. However, burning a second disk did the trick and I confess that I liked the look & feel of the GUI so much that I decided to install it immediately.

I was anticipating a problem with my WIFI card, so I had a wired connection on the first boot. A simple update via the terminal made sure that the driver for the wireless card was available:

sudo apt-get update

Then all I had to do to get the NIC working was to activate the b43-fwcutter driver and reboot - easy when you know how!



However, I was not expecting problems with my graphics! I'd purposely avoided the latest version of the netbook OS thinking that I should be safe with the tried and tested, Karmic. However, turning on the enhanced graphics features turned out to be a disaster: all my active windows disappeared and I was forced to revert to the "none" option in Visual Effects (Appearance), which is easier said than done when you can't see the dialog box!



Actually, I'm not sure that I ever turned on the Extra graphics option when I installed the desktop version and, to be honest, I'm not sure that I miss them that much on the laptop. I certainly have no intention of upgrading the graphics on the 1501, so I'll just leave the eye candy turned off for the time being.

The good news is that all the network shares are all available, but I have yet to turn on the firewall, so I anticipate some modifications to the /etc/default/ufw configuration file, but that is straightforward enough.

It'll take a while for me to decide whether I like UNR or not, so I anticipate a few more posts on the subject. But, for now, it's 03:00 (am) and time for bed!

Fixing Firefox (Again)

OK, this isn't really a fix, more of a tweak!

My recent struggle to find and install an English UK dictionary/thesaurus in Open Office prompted me to pay more attention to the spell checker in Firefox. I have noticed when completing dialog (yes, I know that the English spell dialog as "dialogue" but this relates to computer dialogs!) boxes (or drafting blog posts) that Firefox checks my spelling for me: unfortunately, it checks my spelling in American English and not British English. Not to worry though, it's easy to fix this:

• Nip off to the Firefox Dictionaries and Language Packs Add-Ons page and navigate to the English (British) Dictionary file link
• Click Install Dictionary
• Restart Firefox when prompted
• In any dialog box, right-click and select Languages and check the English/United Kingdom option

You can also do this from a dialog box! Right-click anywhere in the dialog box and select Languages and then Add Dictionaries.... Then follow the above instructions to install and load your default language.