Linux

I’m trying to set up cron to run jobs for me. I have to go look up the weird syntax but OK. Found it. Everything looks fine but the jobs don’t work. Go on vacation. Come back and try again. Syntax is OK. Everything looks fine but the jobs don’t work. Dig, dig, dig. Find this Unix Crontab - setting up cron jobs using crontab You can execute crontab if your name appears in the file /usr/lib/cron/cron.allow. If that file does not exist, you can use crontab if your name does not appear in the file /usr/lib/cron/cron.deny. If only cron.deny exists and is empty, all users can use crontab. If neither file exists, only the root user can use crontab. ...

Haven’t implemented all of the things here but this looked promising on speeding up Ubuntu: Feisty Performance - “Fly Like A Butterfly

Found this article on HowTo Mount NTFS Filesystem Partition Read Write Access very helpful as I continue to dig out from under the Feisty Fawn -> Gutsy Gibbon explosion … er, upgrade. The key thing here is the ability to mount the files so that they’re readable and writeable by an ordinary user. I am in the process of moving photos and music off my second NTFS-formatted drive. I may reformat it as ext3 or I may not but I want to know that I’ve got copies on my first NTFS-formatted drive (which is split with an ext3 partition) and my SimpleShare NFS NAS. ...

I found printing to a PDF file useful occasionally useful under Windows. Neat to have a way to do it in Ubuntu: 5 steps to create a PDF printer (print to PDF) in Ubuntu

This is one of the things I meant to investigate. I know I have a password and can use sudo to do almost anything … but what’s root’s password? How to change the root password on Ubuntu was one of those “duh” moments but I’m glad to have this as a prompt to change the password. You should, too.

As much as I love Thunderbird with IMAP, I’m finding that I’m making mistakes because of using Linux and Google Reader more and more. I use vim and both it and Google Reader use the vi-style commands of the j key for down, k key for up, etc. I can’t find a way to re-map the keys in Thunderbird to do the same under Linux. Also, using Thunderbird means keeping two addressbooks instead of one. ...

I’ve been waiting for people to start getting and reviewing their Dell machines with Ubuntu before ordering mine. There’s a nice article on the Ubuntu Forums:Review of Dell XPS 410n with Ubuntu Feisty preinstalled. Also good coverage of the Dell E1505n laptop. I’m not ready to convert my 4-year-old Inspiron laptop over to Ubuntu because of suspend/hibernate and wireless issues but it sounds better with more modern machines. Maybe if Dell or HP or Lenovo comes out with a backlit LED screen like Apple’s I’ll be ready to switch. Also liked the tips on wireless with Ubuntu here.

Another article on how to Convert Physical Windows Systems Into Virtual Machines To Be Run On A Linux Desktop

I’m still trying to figure out whether I’m going to try and keep running XP on my laptop or try to run XP under Ubuntu. Big problem with running Ubuntu is that hibernate does not work and I’ve spent several hours on it. Enough time that I’m not willing to spend more without confidence that the time will be well-spent. I may just wait for Dell or someone else to come out with Ubuntu on their machines officially and then buy one of those. Hopefully WiFi and hibernate will work without the kind of work I’m having to do. ...

This article lists some of the things I can do in Linux that I can’t do on Windows. Nice article.