Ubuntu Preliminaries

I've had Ubuntu Fiesty 7.04 installed for about 1 week now, and before I completely forget everything that I've read up to this point I am writing this blog entry, as a memory commit, and also as external storage with Blogger for when my computer eventually bites it.

First thing: This was for a install on a dual boot machine with XP. I am running a Dell Inspiron B120. This is the 3rd or 4th time that I've installed Ubuntu on thi machine, and this is a pretty fast method.

1) Fix the Display! The B120 uses a 1280x800 display that is for some reason janky in Ubuntu. The fix is simple

sudo aptitude install 915resolution

Don't mess with /etc/X11/xorg.conf, just CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE to restart the window manager. It should be working fine now.

2) Next big thing: Get wireless working. I followed instructions from a website, the main thing that you need are the Broadcom drivers.

This command makes sure the Broadcom PCI device is there. On the B120, it is.
lspci | grep Broadcom\ Corporation

Download bcm4318.all.tar.gz ( From http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=197102 )

Change to local Desktop:

cd ~/Desktop

Extract the tarball:

tar -xf bcm4318.all.tar.gz

Run the setup script

sudo ./ndiswrapper_setup

That's really it. HOWEVER: I ran into all sorts of problems with the wireless not connecting. One of the two things was the problem: 1) I removed the WPA password from the wireless router. After a restart and ensuring that the wireless power was enabled ( Fn-F2 ), it worked. In future reboots, the wireless would fail to connect: simply ell it to connect, and while it hangs
at 11% or whatever, do the Fn key combo twice to cycle the wireless status and it should complete the connection. Also, sometimes the connection works although the taskbar notification icon says that it is not connected.

Install YAKUAKE, the F-12 dropdown terminal

sudo aptitude install yakuake

yakuake

Install firefox

sudo aptitude install firefox

HOW TO AUTOSTART PROGRAMS IN KDE:

cd ~/
cd /home/law/.kde/Autostart/

Create a new text file in this directory with nano or other text editor

nano -w yakuake

Add the following lines:
#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/yakuake

Add executable permission to the bash script

chmod +x yakuake


INSTALL win32 codecs and media applications and fonts and other nonfree shit
wget -q http://packages.medibuntu.org/medibuntu-key.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update
sudo aptitude install w32codecs

sudo aptitude install libxine-extracodecs gstreamer0.10-plugins-good gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-pitfdll
wget http://medibuntu.sos-sts.com/repo/pool/feisty/free/i386/libdvdcss2_1.2.9-2medibuntu2+build1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i libdvdcss2_1.2.9-2medibuntu2+build1_i386.deb
sudo aptitude install libxine-extracodecs xine-ui mplayer mplayer-skins vlc vlc-plugin-* mozilla-plugin-vlc
sudo aptitude install flashplugin-nonfree ¨

sudo aptitude install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin sun-java6-fonts
sudo aptitude install msttcorefonts


OTHER COMMANDS I'VE LEARNED ABOUT:

text editors:
vi
joe
nano
pico
kate (KDE)

dump text file at command line:

more text_file
or
less text_file

USE PIPES
The | character dumps command output into another command
The > character dumps into a file
The >> character appends into a file

Useful stream commands

type every line in text_file that contains thisword
more text_file | grep thisword
output number of lines in text_file that contain thisword
more text_file | grep -c thisword

Locate an executable:

whereis azureus

Install MPG123
sudo aptitude install mpg123
mpg123 ./Radiohead/Radiohead\ -\ In\ Rainbows/*

A super duper and time consuming window manager

sudo apt-get install fluxbox

Some user identifying commands:
whoami
userid
users
logname
id
group
finger
finger Jesse

Get disk usage stats
df

List processes
ps
ps -aux

Kill a program ( in this case adept package manager)
ps -aux | grep adept
kill 7493

Find user processes
ps -U law

Find a file:
find -name lilo*

This one has plenty of options, and I never used it much


Get command line history
history

Adjust bash console default settings
Add aliases for confirmation in ~/.bashrc
pico .bashrc
Add these lines:
alias cp='cp -v -i'
alias mv='mv -i'
alias rm='rm -i'

Reload the bash settings without restarting
source .bashrc


whatis pico

cal
cal 2007
free

useradd -D
man useradd

man at

history | grep ntfs

sudo aptitude install ntfs-3g
sudo aptitude install azureus

nano ~/.fluxbox/menu
nano /etc/X11/fluxbox/fluxbox-menu
nano ~/.fluxbox/keys

whereis yakuake
whereis -b yakuake

nano ~/.fluxbox/startup
sed
awk
history > blog_ubuntusetup
cut -c 8-200 blog_ubuntusetup > blog_ubuntusetup