Complete, Concrete, Concise » Entries tagged with "ubuntu"
Ubuntu 13.04 – How to Change the Timout Period for sudo
This tutorial is for Ubuntu 13.04. It is probably the same for other versions of Ubuntu and (probably) most other Linux distributions, but no guarantee is made. Detailed instructions for opening a command line / terminal can be found here. By default, sudo temporarily grants administrative privileges for 15 minutes. This means the first time you run sudo you will be prompted for your password. Then, for the next 15 minutes, you can run sudo <command> without having to re-enter your password. This should be fine for most users because the average user probably rarely drops to a command line to run an administrative command or two. 1) Open a terminal using Ctrl + Alt + T: 2) Enter the following command: sudo visudo 3) Enter your password: Note: when you type your password, nothing will happen on the … Read entire article »
Filed under: Ubuntu 13.04
Understanding the differences between various Linux distro’s
There are many different operating systems (OS) out there. The most commonly known being Microsoft Windows and Mac OS, and then there is that OS called Linux that people keep talking about. It is not always clear what Linux is except that its operating system (sometimes claimed to be better than any other operating system on the planet). When you look it up, you are faced with a bewildering choice of operating systems that all claim to be Linux: Red Hat, Ubuntu, Slackware, Mandrake, Linux mint, PC Linux OS, Pear Linux, OpenSUSE, etc. Summary Fundamentally, all Linux distros are very similar. They are based on the Linux kernel which forms the core of all distros. The difference between distros fundamentally boils down to: ease of installation which GUI (Graphical User Interface) they provide (changeable … Read entire article »
Filed under: Blog
Ubuntu 12.04 – How to Change the Timeout Period for sudo
This tutorial is for Ubuntu 12.04. It should be the same for other versions of Ubuntu and (probably) most other Linux distributions, but no guarantee is made. Detailed instructions for opening a command line / terminal can be found here. By default, sudo temporarily grants administrative privileges for 15 minutes. This means the first time you run sudo you will be prompted for your password. For the next 15 minutes, you can run sudo <command> without having to enter a password. This should be fine for most users because the average user is likely to drop down to a command line to run an administrative command or two rarely. 1) Open a terminal using Ctrl + Alt + T 2) Enter the following command: sudo visudo 3) Enter your password: Note: when you type your password, nothing will happen … Read entire article »
Filed under: Ubuntu 12.04
VirtualBox – How to Access USB Devices
These instructions are for VirtualBox 4.1.18 running on Windows 7 with Service Pack 1 with Ubuntu 12.04 (running the Unity Interface) as the guest OS. I believe the instructions are the same (or very similar) regardless of which host OS and guest OS combination you are running, but I make no guarantee. Sometimes you want to (or need to) directly access a USB device, like a memory stick, or a printer, or camera. Normally, VirtualBox does not provide access to these devices, however, it is possible to allow the guest OS to directly access the USB device. (I needed to allow Linux to directly access a SD card so I could use the dd command to copy a OS image. This turned out to be very slow. I am not sure if this was … Read entire article »
Filed under: VirtualBox
Ubuntu 12.04 – How to get a Command Line, Shell, or Terminal
These instructions are for Ubuntu 12.04 using the Unity interface (although, hints are provided at the bottom of the article for those who have installed a different desktop). Linux (of which Ubuntu is a flavour) and it’s inspiration Unix, have a strong emphasis and tradition of doing everything via typed commands. Often, when searching the Internet for a solution to a problem, you often find terse (possibly cryptic) answers along the lines of: Test if you can reach Google with ping -c 4 google.com or To recursively change your file permissions just: chmod 755 -R /opt/lampp/htdocs In order to run those commands, you have to open a shell or command line or terminal (they are all synonymous, but shell is the preferred term in Linux and Unix circles). There are many different shells, the original Unix shell … Read entire article »
Filed under: Ubuntu 12.04
Ubuntu 11.10 – Installing VirtualBox Guest Additions
These instructions are for Ubuntu 11.10 running under VirtualBox 4.1.8r75467 on Windows 7 with SP1. They should be the same or similar for other version combinations, but I make no guarantee. These instructions are the same or very similar for many other distros of Linux, however, the VirtualBox Guest Additions don’t work with all distros of Linux. For some Linux distros the installation does not happen automatically, you have to manually start it. NOTE: sometimes, after Ubuntu updates have been installed, the Guest Additions will stop working. See the section When Install Guest Additions… Doesn’t Work below on how to manually run the Guest Installation procedure again. Why Install VirtualBox Guest Additions? Installing the VirtualBox Guest Additions better integrates Ubuntu Linux with your system and gives you the following benefits (and more): better mouse pointer integration shared folders … Read entire article »
Filed under: Ubuntu, Ubuntu 11.10, VirtualBox
Why aren’t there Linux Upgrades?
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been playing with various Linux distros – focussing on Ubuntu based distros. After a while, you start to see how similar they all are. In fact, they are just custom tailored versions of Ubuntu (which itself is a custom version of Debian). They come with a customized GUI, have their own look and feel (and pretty background picture), but ultimately rely on the Ubuntu Software Center and Software Updates to keep running. One I tried out, Elementary OS, even prompted me to upgrade to Ubuntu 11.04. Two days ago, Linux Mint, released version 12 of its OS. I thought that was a bad idea. Not because I think there is anything wrong with Linux Mint – it’s a fine distro, just like many other Linux distros. I … Read entire article »
Filed under: Blog
Ubuntu 11.10 – How to get a Command Line, Shell, or Terminal
This article was updated for Ubuntu 12.04. The new article can be found here. These instructions are for Ubuntu 11.10 using the Unity interface. Linux (of which Ubuntu is a flavour) and it’s inspiration Unix, have a strong emphasis and tradition of doing everything via typed commands. Often, when searching the Internet for a solution to a problem, you often find terse (possibly cryptic) answers along the lines of: Test if you can reach Google with ping -c 4 google.com or To recursively change your file permissions just: chmod 755 -R /opt/lampp/htdocs In order to run those commands, you have to open a shell or command line or terminal (they are all synonymous, but shell is the preferred term in Linux and Unix circles). There are many different shells, the original Unix shell is called the Bourne Shell … Read entire article »
Filed under: Ubuntu, Ubuntu 11.10
Wubi – First Impression – Fail
A visitor (who was kind enough to leave a comment) brought Wubi to my attention. Wubi allows you to dual-boot your system between Windows and Ubuntu without having to repartition your hard disk. It does this by creating a large file on your Windows system that it uses as if it was its own personal hard disk. Thinking this sounded cool and would allow me to try out Ubuntu on real hardware rather than in a VirtualBox virtual machine, I downloaded it. According to the Ubuntu documentation all I need to do is: Run Wubi, insert a password for the new account, adjust other settings such as the disk space, and click “install”. The whole Wubi experience fell apart as soon as I ran wubi.exe – it kept throwing up these errors: I’m not sure how many … Read entire article »
Filed under: Blog
Ubuntu 11.10 – How to Completely Remove a Package
This tutorial shows how to completely remove or uninstall a package in Ubuntu 11.10. These instructions should work for other versions of Ubuntu, it’s derivatives (Edubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu) and other Debian based Linux distributions – but no guarantee is made. This tutorial assumes you are comfortable with lower level operations in Ubuntu and know how to use apt-get. A brief introduction to apt-get can be found here. NOTE: this introduction only covers the install aspect of apt-get. In this tutorial, we will see other apt-get commands: remove, autoremove, and --auto-remove WARNING ! ! ! There is a small but real risk of data loss or making other programs or Ubuntu unusable. Ensure you have a backup before proceeding The Problem A package is installed using either Ubuntu Software Center or apt-get. Later it is uninstalled, but … Read entire article »
Filed under: Ubuntu, Ubuntu 11.10
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