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About

Ubuntu is, in my humble opinion the easiest and best way to switch from Windows to a free/open-source operating system. In order to make your transition easier, and to help those that have started using ubuntu, this weblog features a series of articles with tips and tricks.

When I started this blog, I resolved that:
a) I will not regurgitate posts from other websites unless essential.
b) I will not write articles just because I have to write something for the day.

I want the posts on this site to maintain the highest quality and utility. That, in a sentence, has been my goal.

So who am I? I am Carthik, a graduate student, like so many others. I write here when I find something worth remembering or sharing with other other Linux users.

I look forward to trawling mailing list and forum posts (so you don’t have to), and the www to bring you little snippets of helpful information. Some of these tips may also be useful for users of other flavors of Linux, and users of the Gnome desktop.

If you have a news item, or a favourite tip or webpage that you’d like to share, please email me at carthik@ubuntu.com.

Please leave a comment here if you have any suggestions for improvement, or a kind word, or even just a random thought.

I look forward to your support. Someone requested that I put up my wishlist here, and so here it is. I know, nothing’s free… except information. My wishlist mostly has a few books – there are ones that sell for less than a dollar, and the most expensive book costs $65 or so. Any help in feeding my book addiction is welcome 🙂

My Amazon.com Wish List
My Amazon.com Wish List

If you wish to contribute towards my (minimal) expenses, you can send a donation to the email address carthik@ubuntu.com via Paypal. I wish I could add a button here, but since I don’t host this blog, I cannot add the Paypal button’s form here.

Comment Policy:

I reserve the right to remove comments that I find objectionable. This includes comments that are not relevant to the post, and comments that are posted that look like comment spam. Please don’t be offended if I delete your comments, or edit your comment to remove the url(s) in it. After all, it is my blog.

Comments»

1. andreas hery prasetya - April 18, 2006

Im student for Duta Wacana Kristian University indonesia , my name andreas, in Duta Wacana Kristian University i put Informatic teknologi, in this smester i put Linux System, but i don’t have laptop for study this, evry day i go to the WARNET ( Internet Sophing Senter ) end make homework in ther, my father and my mother a theacher a Mount get $200( in indonesia Rp 2.000.000). I am hope get the laptop for my study, im sory my englis is not goot, thaks

2. Nick - April 28, 2006

Greetings,

I’m hoping you can help me with this issue I’m experiencing in Ubuntu 5.10:

in /var/www/testdir I have a file named test.txt. When I right-click that file, goto Permissions, and select the File group drop-down menu, I do not see the group named www-data listed.

However, when I goto System > Administration > Users and Groups and check Show all users and groups, I can see that the www-data group does indeed exist.

My question is: why isn’t the www-data group listed in the filename > permissions > File group drop-down menu? And how do I go about making it appear there?

Thank you for your time,

*Nick*

3. Petter - May 16, 2006

I’ve had your blog in my blogroll for some time now and I just wanted to say Hi.
Keep it real

4. marianne - May 26, 2006

Hi,

I’m receiving tons of this kind of error in my try to update from breezy to dapper….any help would be appreciated.

W: GPG error: http://us.archive.ubuntu.com breezy Release: The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 40976EAF437D05B5

5. ubuntonista - May 26, 2006

Mariaanne, This is not the most appropriate place for support requests and the like, but this time, all you have to do is, open the /etc/apt/sources.list file (sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list) and then remove the “us” from the urls, that is, make it http://archive.ubuntu.com instead of http://us.archive.ubuntu.com. You have to do this for all the urls in that file.

6. Marianne - June 6, 2006

Thank you for your help, will try what you said and let you know how I fare. I’m a newbie, big time and so some of the time I learn things by just falling into them and sometimes you just HAVE to ask Nice People 😉

Thanks again.

7. djezzer - June 16, 2006

Hi, I happen to stumble over your nice blog. Since a few months I have Ubuntu installed on my personal computer and I did an upgrade to 6.06 Dapper Drake. In Linux Format (latest issue) I saw an article mentioning Ubunt 6.06 in relation to Xgl, with verrrry nice 3D graphical effects. Well, it seems like the installation succeeded, but I have no eye candy – no nice 3D effects.

Do you possibly have an idea how to configure things so that its worth the effort? On the Suse and Novell websites as well as on Ubuntu forum is some information, but I think I might just miss a starting point, from a beginners point of view.

Keep up the good blog!

Greetz, dJezzer 8)

8. Mark Aethen - June 21, 2006

good evening! I am Mark Aethen Agana a third year Computer Science student. I want to inquire if you can give free ubuntu installer. I want to procure the said software but it is not available here in locallity of philippines. I want to request a copy of it if it is for free! thanks! I am currently also taking CISCO class for CCNA certification and I need to software for practice intently.

thank you!

9. Marianne - June 22, 2006

Hi

Just wanted to let you know got updated to dapper with your kind help, still a newbie but learning more and more every day.

Hoping to do the server installation next and connect both my machines and my husbands to the server for a more secure network.

Again, thanks for the help 😉

10. Angel - July 7, 2006

I need help for installing the aMsn. I follow the wiki for breezy but I have Dapper and it’s seems that doesn’t work. Please someone help me

11. Thejesh GN - July 10, 2006

Its a great blog which I visit everyday. Keep writing.

12. Karl Wooldridge - July 12, 2006

In your blog of July 8th you said that you love Opera and would use it as your only browser if only they figured out a way to let you synchronize your bookmarks between different computers. I also had this problem and came across mybookmarks.com (http://www.mybookmarks.com/). Seems to be an almost perfect solution and I am happily using it to access websites using both multiple browsers (Firefox, IE and Konqueror), OSs (Ubuntu, XP and OS-X) and computers.
Hope it is useful to you too.

13. red - October 9, 2006

Thanks for all the advices here. I have just shifted to Dapper, have been a GNU/Linux advocate but never had the chance, til now. I’m into scientific applications in Ubuntu, I’ve installed Google Earth but I believe it lacks a lot of features needed in my job as analyst. Could you provide a tutorial on how to install the WW2D virtual earth system on Dapper? This would be a big help. Thanks in advance.

14. Dave - October 15, 2006

“When I started this blog, I resolved that:
a) I will not regurgitate posts from other websites unless essential.
b) I will not write articles just because I have to write something for the day.”

Thank you SO MUCH! There are countless sites on the web that do exactly that, and it’s pointless. Let me say “thank you” once again for not joining them

15. The OpenSores Review » The Ubuntu Man-In-Charge - November 14, 2006

[…] Ubuntonista over at Ubuntu Blog posted a wonderful link to an interview with Mark Shuttleworth, the man behind Ubuntu. While the overview is cursory and superficial, sometimes you’ll take all you can get. Check it out if you’re so inclined. […]

16. doug rosbury - December 28, 2006

whats to say? itried downloading “ubuntu” however it all went rather strangely and i dont see any evidence of it on my desktop and the message iget is that download was completed!!! but where is it?

17. cybernout - January 11, 2007

Hello, i using Ubuntu (Edgy Eft) since several weeks.
During research for information about Linux and Ubuntu i found your site.
Many helpful information.
Setup my PC with Ubuntu and killed Windows.
Before i found Ubuntu i never think to live without this stuff from Redmond. But all works without problem.

Already add your site to my blogroll at http://cybernout.wordpress.com.

I am a contributor for another site called
http://scribez.wordpress.com

Have a look to waste your time (;-)))

Once again. Good work.

Brgds…Cybernout

18. geand - February 19, 2007

ei,hi….. nice blog,just droppin’ by…

19. Darshan Purandare - March 8, 2007

Hi Carthik,
Nice blog…. I think I have been to your blog quite a few times unknowingly from stumble upon but never knew it was yours. Well, keep the good work going.

20. carthik - March 8, 2007

Thank you, Darshan.

21. Harsh J - March 11, 2007

Carthik, your mail link doesnt point to the place you wish to recieve it! carthik@ubuntu.com would open a message-sender window with ubuntonista@gmail.com

22. carthik - March 11, 2007

Harsh,

Cool – thanks for the heads up – I fixed the link.

23. carthik - April 5, 2007

Hey Chris!

Yeah, I had kept it a closely-guarded secret for a while. 🙂
See you around!

24. David - April 6, 2007

Is your avatar a picture of you? I could swear it was my brother’s twin.

25. carthik - April 6, 2007

Yes, it is me. Do you have a photo of my alleged twin somewhere, David? 🙂

26. Ubuntu's Logo Copied By ReviewIt Mag « Ubuntu Blog - April 12, 2007

[…] About […]

27. trez - April 18, 2007

@carthik

who is that guy in your pic? it really looks like my father…and im not joking man…thas my dad im sure…

28. carthik - April 18, 2007

Trez.

That is me, for sure. Someone else above said I look like someone they know too!

29. trez - April 19, 2007

lol…that’s crazy man! when i’ll found that pic of my father when he was young you’ll see how crazy it is…

30. லோகேஷ் - May 2, 2007

hai, I have lauched a site at http://ubuntustore.co.in to spread ubuntu in India by selling ubuntu CDs and DVDs at a very low cheap cost. I would be very thankful if you write a post about my site in your blog. Thanks in advance.

31. Don - May 13, 2007

I read your blog’s feed. I’m glad you are using Ubuntu and writing about it. I too began the switch to Ubuntu a couple of years ago and the switch to Linux as a primary desktop at home at least about four years ago. I too think Ubuntu is the easiest desktop Linux and it’s become better and better in a short period of time. From 6.06 on it’s been a viable competition to XP and with the advent of 7.04 I really don’t think you could compare the two when you consider all that comes with the distribution. I’ve been burning CDs and handing it to all my customers and friends. I’ve also been installing it when and where practical for customers and friends. The support base is better than Fedora in my opinion.

32. tigerplug - June 13, 2007

Hi, great blog!

I would LOVE if you could do an article on installing VMWARE tools on ubuntu?

So, that would be a box running linux with a vmware machine that has Ubuntu installed. I just seem to be having no luck at all!

Any help greatly appreciated!

Please feel free to drop me an email about it at:

shane(dot)killian(at)gmail(dot)com

33. Bianca Scotti - August 25, 2007

Hola como les vá? Mi nombre es Bianca y estoy interesada en su blog, me parece realmente muy bueno, les cuento que yo también tengo un blog con un amigo sobre la misma temática, y me gustaría hacer un intercambio de enláces para poder atraer más visitantes, si ustedes quieren me pueden escribir a mi mail que es bianca.scotti@hotmail.com, les agradezco su paciencia! 🙂

Saludos!

Bianca

34. Artem Nosulchik - September 28, 2007

Hi Carthik,

I’d like to say thank you for your great blog! I found plenty of useful information here!

As Ubuntu user I would like to share some more information regarding this wonderful OS tat my blog Linux Screw.

Good luck!

35. Ramani Venkateswaran - October 14, 2007

Hi Carthik
I am an entrant to Ubuntu, having been introduced to it in May 2007. I find this page interesting and would like to be returning to it often.
Can you help me in finding users who use Ubuntu for programming in Python, GTK, PyGtk available along with the Official Ubuntu book.
Here I may mention that I am a retired person seeking to keep myself engaged in learning about this operating system and writing programs in Python and PyGame.
Thanks.
Ramani.

36. Todd Johnson - December 27, 2007

Hi Carthik, very nice wordpress blog. I am trying to build my own wordpress blog using the free wordpress services, and I think this is a great example site to get ideas. Very nice site!

37. ks.raju - January 16, 2008

i want a laptop please donate me.i have nomoney to buy that.

38. Local DNS Caching | The ramblings of Steven Macintyre - July 22, 2008

[…] up dnsmasq, the first time took 238ms to do lookup, thereafter, 0ms – very nice and pasting what carthik says; You can run a DNS cache on your computer. This will speed up the process of looking up domain […]

39. Lance - August 1, 2008

Thank you for this website. I’ve appreciated Ubuntu more. More power!

40. cesar - September 4, 2008

1. i just installed 8.04 in my acer laptop. am no longer using windows. but my problem is my media player cant play any dvds,

2. whenever i try to connect wireless to the net, the computer (or the program??) cant seem to detect wireless connection. My friend who sat beside me, using another laptop that uses windows, got connected.

what am i to do?

41. wladicus - September 14, 2008

I recently got interested in Linux and downloaded Kibuntu using the Wubi installation method. After finding and reading your article on setting up Kubuntu with all your favourite programs, I did the same, and am enjoying the experience.
There were 2 things that I wanted to change. I succeeded with the first one which was to have the number lock come on and the indicator light to show that it was on. Before it did not work and ticking the box in system setup for keyboard did nothing. This was finally fixed by editting the /etc/kde3/kdm/kdmrc parameter file. Just below the code [X-*-Greeter] the code line NumLock=On was added and now it works great! I found the solution to my number lock problem in Kubuntu at the following URL:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p…ht=number+lock
Now the second thing I want fixed has been plaguing me for over a month now. How to turn off the touchpad which gives all sorts of problem during typing on my laptop when a stray thumb accidently touches or taps on the touchpad. I have visited several forums, made many posts, tried all the proposed solutions, but none of them work in this Kubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron) version. I thought that since you are quite familiar with this version, maybe you have found a solution for turning off the touchpad. I have downloaded qsynaptics but it does not work. When I run it the GUI screen pops up with only the ‘Cancel’ button enabled and two lines of info saying “Please enable X shared memory config in FX86Config which this Kubuntu does not have, it has xorg.conf instead – and – “Please install synaptics touchpad driver!” which is of course installed and the “SHMConfig” = “on” code line has been in xorg.conf for quite a while now. Also when I enter synclient TouchPadOff=1 an error message is returned saying “Can’t access shared memory area. SHMConfig disabled?
Can you help in any way falko?
Thank you for your time,
walt

42. wladicus - September 14, 2008

I recently got interested in Linux and downloaded Kubuntu using the Wubi installation method.
There were 2 things that I wanted to change. I succeeded with the first one which was to have the number lock come on and the indicator light to show that it was on. Before it did not work and ticking the box in system setup for keyboard did nothing. This was finally fixed by editting the /etc/kde3/kdm/kdmrc parameter file. Just below the code [X-*-Greeter] the code line NumLock=On was added and now it works great! I found the solution to my number lock problem in Kubuntu at the following URL:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p…ht=number+lock
Now the second thing I want fixed has been plaguing me for over a month now. How to turn off the touchpad which gives all sorts of problem during typing on my laptop when a stray thumb accidently touches or taps on the touchpad. I have visited several forums, made many posts, tried all the proposed solutions, but none of them work in this Kubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron) version. I thought that since you are quite familiar with this version, maybe you have found a solution for turning off the touchpad. I have downloaded qsynaptics but it does not work. When I run it the GUI screen pops up with only the ‘Cancel’ button enabled and two lines of info saying “Please enable X shared memory config in FX86Config which this Kubuntu does not have, it has xorg.conf instead – and – “Please install synaptics touchpad driver!” which is of course installed and the “SHMConfig” = “on” code line has been in xorg.conf for quite a while now. Also when I enter synclient TouchPadOff=1 an error message is returned saying “Can’t access shared memory area. SHMConfig disabled?
Can anyone help in any way ?
Thank you for your time,
walt

43. wladicus - September 16, 2008

* SOLVED * FINALLY * Re: Deactivating Touchpad in Kubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron)
from a terminal enter the following commands –
——————————————————————
Code to disable touchpad:
——————————
sudo rmmod psmouse
——————————
Code to re-enable a disabled touchpad:
———————————-
sudo modprobe psmouse
———————————-
I suppose this can be automated in a file somehow or even attached to a function key probably if someone has the knowhow.
I received this solution from the following link:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php…9&postcount=1
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
walt
St. Thomas, Ontario = 42.77°N, 81.11°W =
RASC: Royal Astronomical Society of Canada

44. wladicus - September 20, 2008

Item 46 above was finally set to work with one shortcut key.
See the last post in the following link:
http://forums.techguy.org/unix-linux/746623-solved-deactivating-touchpad-kibuntu.html
/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
walt
St. Thomas, Ontario = 42.77°N, 81.11°W =
RASC: Royal Astronomical Society of Canada

45. Eric - September 29, 2008

the new version of you ubuntu sucks and very frustrating. some commands line yum, service NetworkManager start, system-config-network does not work on the commandline and if you to go network application you interface is not even there. but on commandline it tells you ur ip and and is connected and if you install wireshark it cannot even pickup the interface and is really terrible and frustrating. note and also in the network tool it show just lo interface and if you choose the interface that shows up on commandline let eth2 and you click configure it tells you can’t detect it what a shame.

46. gentoopebble - October 27, 2008

Great blog, adding you to my blogroll if you don’t mind!

47. Mocha Fudge - October 28, 2008

Helllo I really love your blog and I want to ask some question regarding WIFI and UBUNTU…

i notice that you don’t have post about this.. and can i ask if you can make some post about this on how to connect ubuntu on wifi?

48. Ahmad Sulhi Chotib - October 28, 2008

Hai Carthik, Can’t You help me to guide how to install Cpanel on Ubuntu Server? I don’t believe that Cpanel can not installed on ubuntu, it’s true?

Thx

49. Busby Test - November 12, 2008

Hi Carthik, really love using UBUNTU..

Ubuntu rocks!!!

50. dalcovocioria - December 27, 2008

hello it is test. WinRAR provides the full RAR and ZIP file support, can decompress CAB, GZIP, ACE and other archive formats.
zizgptwamsqttartspnwypglhckqhwbbfguhello

51. Teuku Farhan - November 23, 2009

Hi Carthik,

Im Farhan from Indonesia. Im using Ubuntu in my Learning Center, thanks for this blog, very helpful 🙂

52. sohel - June 21, 2010

Hi Carthik,
I found one strange issue with ubuntu, do you know if its a bug or as designed?
If I have two nameservers in my resolv.conf, ubuntu only checks the first (and receives a ‘not found’ reply from there) and never goes to the next two nameservers. This behaviour is very different from windows or other linux systems.

Thank you and Regards,
Sohel

53. Aleksej - July 11, 2010

Thank you for your nice blog. I have also opened a web blog, dedicated to all Ubuntu users… It’s called UbuntuWeb

54. Ahmed - July 21, 2010

Dear All,

Please note i am new to Ubuntu and have an issue and the below said error appear on trying to install applications on it.

Could not initialize the package information

An unresolvable problem occurred while initializing the package information.

Please report this bug against the ‘update-manager’ package and include the following error message:

‘E:Type ‘http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu’ is not known on line 49 in source list /etc/apt/sources.list, E:The list of sources could not be read.’
REgards
Ahmed

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