Open Age Of Empires in Ubuntu

1. Open PlayOnLinux
2. Click Configure - the wheel symbol
3. Go to 'Wine' tab
4. Open the task manager
5. In the 'Applications' tab, browse to the age of empires exe

[Solved] Android to Ubuntu file transfer over bluetooth shows "Connection failure" error

I got this error while I was trying to transfer the files from my Android phone to my laptop, which have Ubuntu installed. I had the devices paired, but still the file transfer from my phone to laptop would not happen. I have done the following to configure Ubuntu to accept files from bluetooth devices that solved the problem.

Open the Personal File Sharing in the dash and check both the checkboxes under "Recieve Files over Bluetooth" section.

Ubuntu - Google Hangout/Chat : A plugin is needed to display this content

Error
Chrome - No Plug-in available to display this content
Firefox - A plugin is needed to display this content
Got the error when trying to set the webcam settings in google chat. I got the error in Chrome and Firefox browsers in Ubuntu 12.04. I solved it by installing the icedtea plugin. sudo apt-get install icedtea-7-plugin

Always open google chrome in incognito mode in Ubuntu

In Ubuntu, we can modify the google-chrome.desktop file to make google chrome always open in incognito mode. Here is how we can do it

1. Take a backup of the google-chrome.desktop file. Use the following command in terminal
   sudo cp /usr/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop /usr/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop.backup
2. Open the google-chrome.desktop file for editing. Use the following command in terminal
   sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop
3. Find the line(line 108 for me)Exec=/usr/bin/google-chrome-stable %UReplace it with Exec=/usr/bin/google-chrome-stable --incognito %U

Note: If the chrome shortcut is locked in the launcher, you may need to unlock it and restart chrome, before locking it back to the launcher, next time the launcher icon of chrome is clicked, chrome opens in incognito mode.

Setup Hot corners in Ubuntu 12.04

Use the following steps to setup hot corners in Ubuntu 12.04

1. Install 'CompizConfig Settings Manager' from 'Ubuntu Software Center'
2. Go to Category > General > General Options > Key bindings > Show Desktop > Click on 'Disabled' button
3. Select the corner that need to be enabled

Note: In some cases, the hot corner that is set will be forgotten after restarting the machine. In that case, do the following to fix this issue.

1. Install gconf-editor (type gconf-editor in terminal, the command to install will be shown if it is not installed already)
2. After setting the hot corners using CompizConfigSetting Manager, open terminal and type gconf-editor
3. In the Configuration Editor, go to apps > compiz-1 > general > screen0 > options
4. Double click on active_plugins
5. In the Edit Key dialog, move 'scale' to the end of the list, move 'expo' to second last in the list

Setup Firefox in Ubuntu 12.04

It was surprising to know that there is no direct way to install firefox in Ubuntu. No worries, I'm not a Windows user!
After I installed Ubuntu 12.04, I have installed firefox, in a not so direct way(double click a .deb, I meant). I'm listing below the steps to get the latest build of firefox setup.

1. Download firefox from www.mozilla.org
2. Extract the firefox-_____.tar.bz2 to a directory firefox
3. Run the following command in terminal, to move the directory into /opt/
   sudo mv firefox /opt/firefox
4. Using the following command, take a backup of the default firefox symbolic link in /usr/bin/ directory
   sudo mv /usr/bin/firefox /usr/bin/firefox_backup
5. Create a symbolic link in the /usr/bin/ directory that points to the newly downloaded firefox binary. Use the following command
   sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox

The firefox browser is installed on the machine now. We need to do the sync setup, plugins setup for the firefox to be fully functional.

1. Open Tools > Setup Sync and follow instructions to complete the sync setup
2. Install Adobe Flash Player plugin. This is needed to play video files in youtube. Use the following command to install
   sudo apt-get install flashplugin-installer
3. After that install Adobe Flash Player, visit the url www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/ to ensure that the plugin is installed

Install gnome 3 themes on Ubuntu 12.04

Recently I upgraded my laptop to Ubuntu 12.04. Its better that the best. :-)
While browsing the net for something I stumbled on a very pleasing UI theme for Ubuntu 12.04. I read along following all the links in the page and got to know much about GNOME 3. The themes collection available for GNOME3 was plenty and beautiful. I installed GNOME3 shell on my Ubuntu and then imported some very nice themes, icons from gnome-look.org.
GNOME 3
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell
Download themes
Follow instructions in the theme package about installation, usually the themes are copied to ~/.themes folder, icons are copied to ~/.icons and custom fonts needs to be copied to ~/.fonts.

GNOME tweak tool
This is a tool used to set the themes for UI. Very useful.
sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool

Note:~/ refers to home directory. i.e., '/home/username/'

Ubuntu 12.04 - Brasero will not copy a DVD to ISO

After installing Ubuntu 12.04, I wanted to copy a DVD I had. The Select disk to copy list will be blank, no matter how many times I selected the DVD. I had to read through many forums to finally figure out, it is something to do with a bug in Brasero. But, I figured out a workaround.

1. Insert the disk into the DVD drive
2. Open Brasero, and select Copy CD/DVD
3. If the Select disk to copy list is having a value, you may not need to go further reading the post. You are good to go. Proceed to next step if the Select disk to copy is empty. Note:Don't close the Copy CD/DVD dialog.
4. Right click on the DVD drive that is mounted, and select Eject
5. Insert the DVD back in the drive
6. The DVD should be listed in the Select disk to copy list

Note:You may need to install the restricted extras. Please refer my earlier post on how to install these libraries.

Install restricted extras in Ubuntu 12.04

After installing Ubuntu 12.04 on my laptop, to unleash some advanced libraries, I installed the restricted extras.
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh
I got much of the information from the Ubuntu community help portal at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/PlayingDVDs
Note:There will be a Configuring ttf-mscorefonts-installer screen that appears, use the TAB key to navigate to the ok button and press ENTER key.

Login as root in Ubuntu

To open the folders in ROOT user privilege, type the following command in terminal.
sudo nautilus

Play age of empires in Ubuntu

Install Age of empires from setup.exe, using playonlinux. Target can be a usb drive locate by /media//AOEA

After install do the following:

1. Open PlayOnLinux
2. Click Configure - the wheel symbol
3. Go to 'Wine' tab
4. Open the task manager
5. In the 'Applications' tab, browse to the age of empires exe

Tip on how to find video card details is available in the url:http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/howto-find-linux-vga-video-card-ram/

Tweaks can be done:

• The config file is ~/.PlayOnLinux/shortcuts/Age Of Empires II : The Conquerors
• In this file, the working directory will be the directory in the cd command.
• POL_Wine <the exe name> -nostartup "$@" is the next line

PlayOnLinux will expect the exe and the installed folder to be the working directory.

Batch processing using Gimp for Ubuntu

DBP (David's Batch Processor), is a very useful tool to do batch tasks using Gimp. The repository is available in the url. For the source to compile g++ is required. To install, g++ : Open a terminal, and run the following: sudo apt-get install libgimp2.0-dev gcc cpp g++ Enter 'y' for all the prompts. Download dbpSrc-1-1-9.tgz to desktop untar (or unzip) the tgz file using the following command sudo tar -xvzf /home/[username]/Desktop/dbpSrc-1-1-9.tgz cd dbp-1.1.9 To build, run the following command sudo make To install, run the following command make install After installing, open gimp tool. The newly installed batch processes can be found in menu Filters > Batch Process...

[Solved]: Ubuntu 11.10 wireless very slow in Dell XPS M1530

In one of my previous posts about slow internet connection experienced in Ubuntu 11.04, I could not solve the problem and finally I had to downgrade my laptop to Ubuntu 10.10.

Today's post is about slow wireless connection experienced in my Dell XPS M1530 laptop after installing Ubuntu 11.10 and how this problem was solved.

In my laptop I have installed Ubuntu on dual boot, along with Vista SP2. The wireless speed from Vista SP2 was fairly fast (after I manage to open a browser and try to download in Windows after long wait to boot and finally another long wait after double clicking on the browser application). So I concluded, the slow wireless speed in Ubuntu is something to do with the driver of the wireless adapter that is installed. From the information I got from lspci command, I searched for Linux driver for my wireless adapter, but I couldn't find any. Finally I got information about an utility in Ubuntu that allows installation of drivers which are released by the manufacturers for Windows OS. That is brilliant. I gave it a shot and got excellent speed in my WiFi connection.

I am listing below the steps that I followed to fix the wireless problem and get the WiFi connection to full speed on my laptop.

1. Downloaded the drivers (.exe files) from dell.com for Windows OS. These driver packages (.exe files) are self extracting zip files, which can be opened and extracted using Archive Manager in Ubuntu
2. Extract the downloaded drivers
3. Using 'Package Manager', search for 'ndisgtk' and install ndisgtk
4. Open 'Wireless Network Drivers', and click 'Install New Driver'
5. Locate the .inf file from the extracted location above and click 'Install'
6. In the 'Wireless Network Drivers' the driver will be listed with status Hardware Present: Yes

Hope this helps. :-)

An error occured in avast! engine: Invalid argument

I recently installed Avast4Workstation in my laptop running Ubuntu 10.10. The avast engine was able to do a complete scan of my system. After that I decided to fetch latest updates for avast and clicked 'Update database' in the GUI. After the update happened, the avast will not open, but shows the error message

An error occurred in avast! engine: Invalid argument

Solved:
In older kernels the maximum size of SHM block was limited to a certain number of bytes, that is being exceeded by the database. We need to increase the size of the SHM block to accommodate the large database
The command to be executed in the terminal is as follows. When executing the command it will ask for the root password.
sudo sysctl -w kernel.shmmax=128000000
The above command provided me with a temporary solution to the problem I was facing. After I restarted my machine, if I wanted to open avast, I had to type the command again. To get away with this, there is another way.

Add the line kernel.shmmax = 128000000 to the bottom of the sysctl.conf text file.
How to update the sysctl.conf file:

1. Go to 'etc' folder, select sysctl.conf file
2. With the sysctl.conf file selected, press Alt + F2. This will open the 'Run application' dialog
1. Type gksu gedit
2. Add kernel.shmmax = 128000000 to the file and save

Ubuntu 11.04 - Slower like Windows

I have been using Ubuntu 10.10 for a while and literally never logged into the other OS installed on my laptop(windows Vista) for quite some time. Ubuntu 10.10 was very pleasing in terms of speed, stability and UI.

When the beta release of Ubuntu 11.04 was available I could not stop myself from upgrading. I had to downgrade the OS within a few days to Ubuntu 10.10 because of the performance problems in WiFi connection. I am looking forward for the Ubuntu 11.04 to be stable and faster, to upgrade the OS on my laptop.

The UI changes in the latest release is a very good improvement from the previous version. That is the feature I liked the most in Ubuntu 11.04.