The Bigisi Project - High-quailty Themes for Ubuntu

Just discovered a website called the Bigisi Project, which provides some really high-quality themes for Gnome/Ubuntu. Check it out.

ubuntu-restricted-extras

After mucking around with Amarok for about half an hour, I remembered that by default, Ubuntu doesn't include support for "non-free" codecs like mp3 or dvd playback. You have to install the ubuntu-restricted-extras package to enable these abilities. Full terminal command is:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

It's easy enough to do, but annoying that this isn't included by default. Still, it's a small price to pay to use free (as in speech) software. Especially when it's also free (as in beer).

Ubuntu Keyboard Shortcuts

Found this article with a list of Ten useful Ubuntu keyboard shortcuts. This article has even more! Nice.

Installing XBMC in Ubuntu

Got XBMC installed in Ubuntu Jaunty NBR (inside VirtualBox). Instructions from the XMBC folks are here.

Performance inside VirtualBox is horrible. Hopefully it'll be much improved on the actual nettop. (It can't arrive soon enough).

Installing Ubuntu 9.04 NBR in VirtualBox 3.0

In preparation for setting up our soon-to-arrive (hopefully) new nettop as a home theater PC, I'm experimenting with different media center programs and Linux/Ubuntu variations. I think I've settled on using Ubuntu Netbook Remix (NBR) as the base OS. The large-icon interface seems like it would work well on a TV when viewed from a distance. On top of this I'll install XBMC (or maybe Boxee) and the Linux version of the Hulu Desktop. I started with installing the fresh-out-of-the-oven Ubuntu 9.10 NBR, but found out that XBMC doesn't currently support Karmic (they will when they release their next full version). So for now I'm stuck with Jaunty if I want XBMC.

The first challenge was finding the 9.04 downloads, since 9.10 just came out. I eventually googled my way to this page which contains (at the bottom) links to all variety of 9.04 versions. I grabbed the torrent file for the 9.04 Netbook Remix and queued it up in Transmission, Ubuntu's default BitTorrent client.

The next challenge was being able to mount the downloaded .img file. Why oh why didn't Canonical release an .iso? I first tried converting the .img to a .iso using the ccd2iso console command (didn't work). Then I found this blog post, which explains how to convert a .img to a VirtualBox hard drive file (.vdi) and mount the file as a second hard drive in VirtualBox. The console command to convert is:

VBoxManage convertfromraw -format VDI [filename].img [filename].vdi

This worked like a charm. I've now got a Jaunty NBR install in VirtualBox. Next step is to install XBMC and Hulu Desktop to see how they play together.

ClipX - Windows Clipboard History Manager

ClipX is a handy little tool I've been using for a while now. It's a clipboard history manager for Windows XP, which in laymen's terms means it remembers the last few things you've copied to the clipboard and allows you to re-use any of them. A customizable keyboard shortcut (I use Ctrl-Shift-V) pops up a small list of your clipboard history, and you just select the one you want to paste. You're no longer limited to keeping one thing on the clipboard at a time.

For example, let's say you're filling out an address form on a webpage, and you're copying fields like street address, city, state, and zip from a document. ClipX allows you to stash all four items on the clipboard and separately paste each one into the appropriate field in the webpage. No constantly jumping back and forth.

Or, as I find even more useful, let's say you're copying some text to a couple different places. You finish up, and grab the next bit of text you need to copy with a quick Ctrl-X and paste it to it's destination. But then you realize you missed one last location for the first value you copied. With the regular Windows clipboard, you've lost that first value and will have to go find and copy it again. But with ClipX you just put the cursor where you want to paste, tap the keyboard shortcut to bring up the ClipX clipboard history, and select your value from the list.

I can't emphasize enough how essential this little utility has become. It sounds like a small thing until you start using it every day. Now I can't imagine living without it!

Xmarks - Multi-Browser Bookmark Sync and Backup

Since it will take a while to migrate over to an "All Ubuntu All the Time" (well, almost) setup, I needed a way to keep things available no matter which OS I'm currently logged into: old WinXP, new WinXP, or Ubuntu. I've been using Google Docs to record notes and research that I want available across platforms, but I also wanted a way to keep my Firefox bookmarks in sync. Especially important was syncing Firefox 3's bookmark tags, since I don't even bother sorting my bookmarks anymore. I just tag them and leave them in the 'Unsorted Bookmarks' folder.

Enter Xmarks! Xmarks used to be called Foxmarks, and was initially just available as an add-on for Firefox. But it's expanded to include all four major browsers: Firefox, IE, Safari, and Chrome. Right now I'm just using the Firefox plug-in, but I'm planning to test out the cross-browser sync capabilities as well, since I occasionally use IE or Chrome.

Anyway, installing and setting it up was a snap. I started with my new Ubuntu installation, and installed the Firefox add-on directly from Mozilla. After restarting Firefox, I was asked whether I already had an account with Xmarks. I said no and was prompted to create an account, after which my bookmarks were synced to the Xmarks server.

I then booted back into my old WinXP install, where all my bookmarks were still stored. After installing the add-on, I provided Xmarks with the login credentials I'd just created. At this point, Xmarks offered to merge my local bookmarks with the ones already synced to their server (from my Ubuntu install). Nice and easy.

Now I have my bookmarks synced across all my OS installs, and I have a constant backup to the cloud in case I lose my system for any reason.

Installing VirtualBox 3.0 in Ubuntu 9.10

I had a whole post outlined with all the steps I went through to manually install VirtualBox 3.0 in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty, but decided to wait a couple days until 9.10 Karmic came out before finalizing my system setup. As I hoped, it was a piece of cake in Karmic since VirtualBox 3.0 is now listed in the new Ubuntu Software Center!

I just launched the "Ubuntu Software Center" from the Applications menu. When the Software Center opened, I typed "virtualbox" in the search bar in the upper-right corner. "VirtualBox OSE" was listed. (For reference, I later found it under the Accessories category in the Software Center.) I double-clicked on it to get more info, and confirmed that it's a 3.0+ package (3.0.8 specifically), and clicked the Install button. After entering my password, the Software Center downloaded and installed it without a hitch. Now I can just run Applications -> Accessories -> VirtualBox OSE to launch.

No adding new repositories. No terminal required. It's almost too easy! Good job, Cannonical.

Installing Dual-Boot WinXP/Ubuntu - Partitioning Problems

I recently received my new 1TB hard drive (more storage than I've ever had!). I'm hoping to switch to Ubuntu as my main day-to-day OS, but I still want to keep an XP install around for games and other needs, so a dual-boot setup was in order. I've set this up before on other machines, but it's been a while and I'd obviously forgotten a few things. This post is an attempt to capture the process for future reference, so I won't repeat this yet again in the future.

The first step was to partition my new 1TB hard drive. I used the partition manager on a slipstream WinXP cd to create the following partitions:

• 2GB NTFS for Windows virtual memory file
• 2GB Linux Swap
• 50GB NTFS for Windows System
• 350GB Ext4 for Ubuntu
• 100GB NTFS for Windows program installs
• 450GB NTFS for shared media

Obviously I only sized the two Linux partitions here since XP doesn't know about Linux Swap or Ext4. After installing Windows to the 50GB NTFS partition, I booted into Windows to be sure everything was working. It was. Next I popped in the fresh and shiny burned Ubuntu 9.10 disc and installed to the 350GB partition. Install went fine, and after rebooting I was presented with a Grub prompt asking which system I'd like to load. I chose Ubuntu, and it loaded fine. I then rebooted, chose Windows XP at the Grub prompt, and was presented with the following error:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: <Windows root>\system\hal.dll

I started to get this vague feeling like I'd been here before... After a bit of googling (booting back into Ubuntu), I remembered that WinXP needs to be installed on a primary partition. Check here for a primer in primary, extended, and logical partitions. Apparently, the XP install disk's partition manager creates the first new partition as a primary, and any partitions created after that are added as logical partitions on a single extended partition. So my partition table looked like this:

• [primary] 2GB NTFS for Windows virtual memory file
• [extended]
• [logical] 2GB Linux Swap
• [logical] 50GB NTFS for Windows System
• [logical] 350GB Ext4 for Ubuntu
• [logical] 100GB NTFS for Windows program installs
• [logical] 450GB NTFS for shared media

Obviously the Windows System partition wasn't primary. So somehow, before installing Ubuntu, Windows was able to load from the 50GB logical partition, but this was broken by some change made during the Ubuntu install (Grub?).

Anyway, I decided to rework my partitions as follows:

• [primary] 50GB NTFS for Windows System
• [extended]
• [logical] 2GB Linux Swap
• [logical] 350GB Ext4 for Ubuntu
• [logical] 100GB NTFS for Windows program installs
• [logical] 450GB NTFS for shared media

I used the WinXP slipstream disk to wipe out my partition table and recreate it using these partitions. After installing XP and Ubuntu, I'm now able to boot into either OS without a problem. Phew!