graeme.blog

Tag: ubuntu

  • Using Brightside in Ubuntu

    A simple little app today, Brightside. What this does is to allow you to traverse your desktops in Ubuntu Edgy by mouse, so that you can use the mouse to scroll from one virtual desktop to the next. A colleague introduced me to this years ago on a Linux install, and I couldn’t find it on any others since, until today. I’m now back to the setup I had then, where I have 4 desktops in a square shape, and move around them by mouse. It also allows you to define custom actions for moving the mouse into corners of the screen, so now if I move the mouse to the top left the screensaver starts, if I move it to bottom left it mutes what is playing. Very nice features. Simple install:

    sudo apt-get install brightside

    Once it is installed, go to System > Preferences > Screen Actions to set up as you wish.

  • Dealing with no display in Ubuntu

    I thought I’d managed to kill Ubuntu today, reinstalled a sound driver that wasn’t working, rebooted and found that I could only boot to a command line. After a short and sensible period of panic, I booted into Windows and searched for a solution. The suggestion that worked was as follows:

    startkde had no effect once logged in (still in the command line only). startx launched, but I only got a cursor and a greyish screen, nothing else happened. So I reinstalled the desktop with:

    sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

    and strictly speaking you want a reboot, but I didn’t need it, startx worked fine for me from there.

  • Print Screen in Ubuntu Edgy

    Quick little tip, found this today when CTRL + Print Screen didn’t work for me. In Ubuntu, Print Screen will capture your whole desktop, whereas ALT + Print Screen will capture the live window. The latter being just what I needed.

  • 0 Uses for a dead iPod

    I was looking at my old big fat iPod last night, and was mulling over just what to do with it. Under Ubuntu, I can actually charge it, and then get to listen to the disk drive failing loudly. So it is definitely gone. I was hoping against hope I could maybe use it as a large portable drive, but it is too flaky for even that.

    So what do I do with it? Should I bin it? Find a way to recycle it? Use it for a form of art? I’m lost for ideas, so any suggestions would be gratefully received.

  • Sync your podcasts to your iPod under Ubuntu

    This is a big deal for me, not so much getting it working, more that it is one of the few things I’ve been booting back into Windows for. I am hoping fairly soon to remove the Windows partition from the hard drive, and reclaim it all for Ubuntu.

    Anyway, the setup is this:

    1) Dock the ipod with Ubuntu open. This should place the iPod using the name you’ve give it previously on your desktop. Find the location it has mounted the iPod at using right-click and properties, and make note of this.

    2) If you don’t have it installed, sudo apt-get install amarok.

    3) Go to System > Preferences > Removable Drives and Media, and on the Multimedia tab, change the command for portable music players to /usr/bin/amarok (or whatever your location is for amarok)

    4) In Amarok, go to settings > Configure Amarok > media devices. Add device, choose the Apple iPod Media Device, and enter the name you gave the iPod, and its mount point.

    5) That is the main part done, now you need in playlists to add any URLs of podcast feeds, and configure each feed so that it automatically scans for updates, downloads when available, and adds to the media device transfer queue (just check each option when configuring the podcast.

    6) When you connect the iPod, it should now launch Amarok, and queue any new shows to transfer to the iPod. At the moment I just highlight the shows and transfer them, but I am sure I can find a command to do this automatically.

    So that is a bit of work to get sorted, but worth it to keep Ubuntu open! If you try this yourself, let me know how you get on.