Ubuntu 12.04 boot up problems

Ubuntu 12.04 boot up problems on fresh install 

I decided to give ubuntu 12.04 a spin , bought a new laptop recently to try out the power of core i5 , Since ubuntu is one of my most favorite , I decided to dual boot it  like i did with my last one.

Everything went smoothly I installed my games , softwares on the Windows , then went on to install ubuntu with a usb stick , I have no clue what problems Ideapads have with Ubuntu , but the first screen , did not show properly , but having idea of what is there on the boot menu i simply hit enter on the boot menu.


Following this i was greeted by the live cd environment of ubuntu , on which i selected install , so as to install it directly. From this point onwards everything was smooth and fast as usual. Easy selection screens  and the install was complete.

But as soon as i hit restart , the boot loader did not show up , which should have happened automatically. As of writing of this article i have no clue why this happened . This perticular issue did not take place with a full fresh install of ubuntu 12.04 on a desktop done by a friend earlier.

Then i went googling for solution as usual came up with a solution that works , will keep a reference link so you guys can look into that blog post too


This is what i did in steps:

1. Booted the machine using the Live-CD 
2. I checked whether 12.04 got installed , did this with help of Live-CD , booted into live cd and started up disk utility and looked for linux partitions on the HDD 

My disk utility screen showed something like above , Now i needed to know which partition root was mounted on , that i got by clicking the right partition with ext format 

1. From this point on everything was downhill. I
2. Mounted the partition using
   sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mntsudo mount /dev/sda5 /mnt/boot # this step i did not do I think i did not need it since the boot loader files are installed in the /boot folder of root 
3. Then simply installed the Grub loader in the boot sector
   sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda

/dev/sda is the disk address where the boot manager is going to be installed. This is very important since this will write your MBR to get the boot loader working 

Then i simply rebooted the machine to be greeted by the Grub loader at the start. And thus my experience with 12.04 started 

There seems to be a faster and an easier way of doing the same ,and is available here 

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

Used commands referenced here 

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-1340188.html

Display export problems and how to access display

HOST+ Amazing work .

I use this little trick when i need to keep my profile clean i may end up inspiring some one , to do something they are not allowed on their machine :) . ;) 

1. Create an account on your linux machine 

2. Then type xhost+

3. This will allow the new user to run application using the your desktop

4. Now log on to that user and simply start the application you want to work with. 

Illustrations below

Compiz effects

In my previous post earlier today i talked about compiz cool effes now i am going to take some time to show some of them off.

One of these perticular that i like is expo

It allows one to see the bigger picture , it allows you to see all your ope

n windows all at once and which workspace your are running it , No limit of workspaces what ever your linux allows it will work. I use Super + S to do this you can change this shortcut from Compiz manager

The next cool feature on the expo is workspace drag, one can drag windows from a different workspace

The expo tools is also available in 10.04 with effects enabled used the same button super + E

Using expo to move applications from one workspace to another

Techblog: Gnome 3

Techblog: Gnome 3: My last post reflected a lot about compiz , recently i came across Gnome 3 , i am going to post my experiences with Gnome 3 in this latest...

Gnome 3

My last post reflected a lot about compiz , recently i came across Gnome 3 , i am going to post my experiences with Gnome 3 in this latest installment of my techblog post.

1. This shell is amazingly cool in terms of application invocation "Until now we used Gnome-do to do fast application invocation " ,
2. In gnome 3 shell click the super button on the laptop and the screen below gets invoked just type in the program just the way you use gnome do and it will work just liked gnome-do
3. Moving windows with in workspaces is even better than Gnome 3 just tap windows button now just move windows through work spaces

Now for the instructions on how to install it. This is meant for ubuntu natty

• sudo apt-get install gnome-shell
• now if you have intel graphics card then run export GNOME_SHELL_DISABLE_TFP=1
• Then run "gnome-shell --replace"
• Now this by default does not bring in all the things like battery status for which you will have to run sudo apt-get install gnome-power-manager
• You can also enable a dock by installing apt-get install gnome-shell-extensions-dock

This will have your cool Gnome 3 shell up in natty will add lucid later to list .. till then have fun :)

Ubuntu 11.04 Cairo dock problem

Looks like i will have to get rid of my cairo dock , I am facing an unusual problem

as you can see in the image on the left side , my cairo dock is failing to draw the icons outside itself and i can't seem to be able to fix it.This is how it happened

I decided to upgradc banshee so i got the new ppa's in the software sources , then ran the software upgrade after which i have been facing this problem and i have no idea why and whats wrong.

What had happened even previous to that was all my cool gadgets and nice cool ways to moving around the linux desktop was gone.

In one of my effort i enabled something called fake transparency to make this work and suffice it to say it did not :( .

But since dock is the most important thing untill now i hardly cared so much. Now that dock broke i had to do something quick.

I started to read around to find out whats going on , after cruel searching and applying my brains and after many fruitless pursuits i finally seem to have figured it out .

What had happend was my compiz manager was not loaded as window manager at all , That solved the mystery of cool effects lost , but what about dock.

The dock does not require compiz to be around to work. Even then i decided to see why compiz is not running.

compiz --replace

trying to run this command seem to have loaded compiz but crashed instantly . Then i came about the post which called for inderect rendering

compiz --replace --indirect-rendering

this crashed my system to the point where i could not use keyboard at all , So i immidetely swithched my terminal CTRL + ALT + F1

and loggged in there and did

sudo service gdm restart

This basically restarts your gnome desktop manager

I came across the post quoting the following to be installed

sudo apt-get install freeglut3-dev

After which i realised that my opengl was still broken so i downloaded some packages which started with libgl-mesa-dri libgl-mesa-dri-dbg and dev packages

and then did

compiz --replace --indirect-rendering

And wallah my compiz not only got loaded was working fine.But dock was still in ruins i could not fix it.

While the cool effects were back on but my original requirement did not get fulfilled.

Then i realised i had enabled fake transperancy which i promptly disabled which fixed my dock .Yay !!!!!!!!!!1 :) ;)

Webmin

When working with Linux , speacially a linux machine far away from you , you need to use ssh to connect , but i am pretty sure everyone will agree using ssh to work with linux is not everyone's cup of tea , So when i came across a tool called webmin. I started installing two things on nearly all machines i worked with

• Openssh server
• Webmin

Webmin is a lightweight tool to handle almost everything , although i have not explored it completely , I know it allows me a complete control of Apache and any other service running on machine.

Also file upload feature very useful when needing to transfer files to server makes is a peice of cake to work with files not to mention the editor which allows one to add files to the server without any problems

How to install (Ubuntu)
In order to get webmin you will have to add it to your repository

You can add this repo in the software center or simply add these lines in the sources list of apt which is mostly located at /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://download.webmin.com/download/repository sarge contrib

deb http://webmin.mirror.somersettechsolutions.co.uk/repository sarge contrib
Following this one must get the key to be able to install webmin package


Download following file using a browser then add it in authentication panel of software center


http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc


Now wait for ubuntu software center to get updated info and them search webmin in the software center click on install


After this just log on to


https://{server-address-here}:10000