These instructions are for Ubuntu 13.04 running the Unity Interface.

They may be the same or similar for other versions, but no guarantee is made.

There are a lot of reasons why your wireless / Wi-Fi connection is not working, but the most common is lack of a driver.

While Ubuntu (and other Linux distros, in general) provide good support for a wide variety of hardware devices, there are various reasons a particular device is not supported, but the 3 most common are:

1. the device is newer and support is not provided in the default operating system.
2. the device and the driver for the device is proprietary, in which case it cannot be part of the Linux kernel (Linux licensing requires that all software that is part of it be openly available, so proprietary software (commonly called closed source cannot be part of it. Nothing prevents proprietary software from later being installed, though).
3. the device is proprietary and no driver is provided for it and no documentation exists that would allow someone to write a driver for it (over time, if a device is popular enough, people may reverse engineer it and write a driver for it).

Fortunately, Ubuntu makes it quite easy to install a proprietary device driver – as long as Ubuntu knows about it (so, you might still be out of luck for very new devices).

Getting an Internet Connection

Ironically, to fix the problem, you need an Internet connection.

The easiest way (but not necessarily the most convenient) is to use a wired Ethernet connection:

You connect your computer to your wireless router. There should be a number of Ethernet ports on the back of your router:

Using an Ethernet connection should be a simple case of plug-and-play.

Alternately, you can use a wireless card or USB device that you know works with Ubuntu (assuming you have one):

Using an alternate wireless connection, you will need to go to the settings and connect to the device:

1) Click on the network icon (shaded in yellow) and select your wireless device:

2) Enter your wireless security code:

Once you are connected to the Internet, follow these instructions for installing a hardware driver.

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These instructions are for Ubuntu 13.04 using the Unity Desktop, running under VirtualBox 4.2.12.

They may be the same or similar for other version combinations, but I make no guarantee.

Sometimes, after installing updates, the VirtualBox Guest Additions stop working.

To get them working again, it is necessary to reinstall them.

1) Open the Dash by tapping on the Windows / Super key:

2) Type vboxadditions into the Dash query field:

3) Press Enter to open the VirtualBox Guest Additions Folder:

4) Click the Run Software button:

5) Click on Run:

6) Enter your password and click on Authenticate:

This will then uninstall and then reinstall the VirtualBox Guest Additions.

After rebooting your machine, everything should be working correctly again.

The post Ubuntu 13.04 – VirtualBox Guest Additions Stop Working After Update appeared first on Complete, Concrete, Concise.

This problem does not affect Ubuntu 12.04 running as a guest OS.

When the Problem has been Noticed

• VirtualBox is running on Windows 7 with SP1
• the guest OS is Ubuntu 13.04 (32-bit)
• only a single CPU is configured for the virtual machine
• the underlying hardware is an AMD Quad-Core A6-3400M

Resolving the Problem

In my case, I have been able to solve the problem by configuring the virtual machine to have more than 1 CPU.

Suspicions

Initially, I thought the problem might be the VT-x/AMD-V or Nested Paging settings which are only enabled when multiple CPUs are configured for the virtual machine, but enabling then with a single CPU did not resolve the problem.

My next suspicion is that Ubuntu’s use of LLVM Pipe to provide 3D rendering may be the cause of the problem, but I don’t have time or plans to reinstall Ubuntu 12.10 to test that hypothesis.

If you are running Ubuntu 11.04 or later, you can use this check to see if 3D hardware acceleration is being used.

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This applies to Ubuntu 12.10 running under VirtualBox version 4.1.22 (or earlier), 4.2.0, 4.2.2, and 4.2.4 under Windows 7 with Service Pack 1.

The issue and solution is likely the same for all versions of VirtualBox 4.1.22 and 4.2.x, regardless of which OS they are running on.

Unfortunately, the problem with VirtualBox 4.2.2, and 4.2.4 has no solution at the moment.

The Problem

When you install VirtualBox Guest Additions under Ubuntu 12.10, you find that the video drivers don’t work properly: you get no 3D hardware acceleration and the display resolution is fixed at 1024×768 (or 800×600).

If you are observant, when you install the VirtualBox Guest editions you will notice the notification:

The Cause

This warning occurs because Ubuntu 12.10 and many other Linux distros now use X Server version 1.13.* (or later). Unfortunately, VirtualBox version 4.1.22 (or earlier) only recognizes version 1.12.* or earlier.

The Solution

Upgrade to the latest version of VirtualBox (at least version 4.2 or later).

However, this will not enable 3D hardware acceleration – so Unity will be sluggish and slow. This is a problem with the VirtualBox drivers – it does not fully support X Server 1.13 (it supports it enough to allow running, but not 3D hardware acceleration).

See this discussion thread over at VirtualBox.

There is also a bug report filed here.

The post Ubuntu 12.10 – VirtualBox Guest Additions not Working appeared first on Complete, Concrete, Concise.

This is for the GNOME Desktop installed on Ubuntu 12.04

The problem and solution is likely the same for all other Linux distros, but no guarantee is made.

One of the alternative desktops you can install is GNOME (or, more accurately, GNOME 3).

Unfortunately, in some cases, instead of getting the new GNOME desktop:

you get the old GNOME Classic (no effects) desktop:

You can tell it uses no 3D hardware acceleration because the text in the toolbar is white.

In the GNOME Classic interface (which does use 3D hardware acceleration), the text is greyed out:

The Cause

This happens because you do not have 3D hardware acceleration. GNOME is designed for systems having 3D hardware acceleration. From the GNOME website:

GNOME Shell uses relatively primitive 3D capabilities that have been available from essentially all computing devices made in the last four or five years.

Essentially, if your graphics hardware is pre-2007, there is a good chance that you will not have the necessary hardware to run GNOME in 3D.

The Solution

Unfortunately, there may not be a solution, but you can try some of the following:

1. If you are running Ubuntu inside a virtual machine (like VirtualBox) then enable 3D acceleration for the virtual machine (for VirtualBox, this also requires installing the Guest Additions).
2. If you are certain your graphics card has the necessary horsepower to run 3D hardware accelerations, look for an updated driver. Sadly, advance driver support is often lacking in Linux.
3. If you have a desktop computer, you can also replace the current video card with something more powerful (just make sure there are Linux drivers available for it).

If none of those solutions work, then you you have no choice but to run GNOME in Classic mode.

The post Ubuntu 12.04 – GNOME Desktop Not Working – Looks like GNOME Classic appeared first on Complete, Concrete, Concise.

This is for Cinnamon Desktop 1.4 installed on Ubuntu 12.04

The problem and solution is likely the same for all other Linux distros, but no guarantee is made.

One of the alternative desktops you can install is Cinnamon.

Unfortunately, in some cases, instead of getting the Cinnamon desktop:

you get the GNOME Classic (no effects) desktop:

You can tell it uses no 3D hardware acceleration because the text in the toolbar is white. In the GNOME Classic interface (which does use 3D hardware acceleration), the text is greyed out:

The Cause

This happens because you do not have 3D hardware acceleration. GNOME (on which Cinnamon is built) is designed for systems having 3D hardware acceleration. From the GNOME website:

GNOME Shell uses relatively primitive 3D capabilities that have been available from essentially all computing devices made in the last four or five years.

Essentially, if your graphics hardware is pre-2007, there is a good chance that you will not have the necessary hardware to run GNOME in 3D. Consequently, this means you will not be able to run the Cinnamon desktop.

The Solution

Unfortunately, there may not be a solution, but you can try some of the following:

1. If you are running Ubuntu inside a virtual machine (like VirtualBox) then enable 3D acceleration for the virtual machine (for VirtualBox, this also requires installing the Guest Additions).
2. If you are certain your graphics card has the necessary horsepower to run 3D hardware accelerations, look for an updated driver. Sadly, advance driver support is often lacking in Linux.
3. If you have a desktop computer, you can also replace the current video card with something more powerful (just make sure there are Linux drivers available for it).

If none of those solutions work, then you can’t run Cinnamon (at least, not unless Cinnamon decides to release a 2D version of their interface).

The post Ubuntu 12.04 – Cinnamon Desktop Not Working – Looks like GNOME appeared first on Complete, Concrete, Concise.

This tutorial is for Ubuntu 12.04 running the Unity interface. It may be the same for other version combinations but no guarantee is made.

Sometimes, after upgrading to Ubuntu 12.04, the Lock Screen functionality stops working.

The likely problem is that gnome-screensaver has been uninstalled.

Using the Command Line

1) Open a terminal using Ctrl+Alt+L (detailed instructions for opening a terminal can be found here).

2) Enter the following command:

sudo apt-get install gnome-screensaver

Using the Ubuntu Software Center

1) Start the Ubuntu Software Center.

2) Enter gnome-screensaver into the search field:

3) Click on the search result that comes up (it will turn the selection orange).

4) Click on Install.

This solution was originally found here.

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UPDATED 11-May-2012

I have discovered that the problem with Software Updates and Add/Remove Software noted below was caused by VirtualBox Guest Additions not being correctly installed. This happened because

1. the Linux kernel header files are not installed,
2. GCC (a compiler) is not installed,
3. make (a tool for GCC) is not installed.

Installing gcc and make was not a problem. Installing the Linux kernel header files was. For some reason, kernel-devel-3.1.0-7.fc16.i686.PAE is not available (I am sure if I hunt around some more, I will find it, but that is beside the point, I am interested in install, test, use not install and fiddle around until I get some semblance of a usable system.

Notwithstanding the problems it has with VirtualBox Guest Additions, I still find it hard to like or recommend Fedora 16:

(1) The Software and Add/Remove Software applications are very slow. Clearly, it is getting info off the network, but I found it to be even slower than Ubuntu Software Center

(2) It has a borderless white menu scheme, which looks nice on a dark background:

but gets completely washed out when overlaying a white themed application (like the terminal):

(3) It insists on popping up unnecessary warnings to users. This is from the Add/Remove Software application when you click on Package Collections:

A better solution would be to either (1) refresh the cache without notifying the user, or (2) display a Yes / No dialog with the question: “The cache is invalid, would you like to refresh it?” (even that is too much information to the user). It should be option (1) and after 2 or 3 failures, then it should notify the user that something is wrong.

This is from the Add/Remove Software application when trying to install gcc (a compiler collection):

This is too much geek information for the average user. I think that software packages managed by Fedora should be automatically instead of asking the user if they trust it.

Background

I’ve played with Linux for almost 20 years. My first experience was trying to compile it, in the early 90s, from sources (gotten off a CUG CD?), but Turbo C wasn’t able to compile it.

By the mid-90s, I was playing with compiled distributables. While they were interesting and often had some neat features, I never considered them ready for the desktop.

Ubuntu 11.04 was the first Linux distro I thought just worked out-of-the-box and could be deemed ready for the desktop. When Ubuntu 11.10 seemed to take a step backwards I began trying out other Linux distros (to their credit, Ubuntu did quickly recover their mistep).

When I tried Fedora 15 in November 2011, it was a complete failure – it would not even install. It would go through the whole installation procedure only to lock up at the end.

Fedora 16 did install.

The Setup

I installed Fedora in a VirtualBox (4.1.12r77218) system. The virtual machine was configured to have 1 cpu, 1024Mb memory, 128Mb video memory (3D acceleration enabled), 8Gb hard drive.

I installed the VirtualBox Guest Additions.

Installation

Unlike Fedora 15, Fedora 16 did install, although the initial messages displayed when booting off the install DVD were not encouraging:

Installation was quick. This is probably because I downloaded the 3.7GB DVD image and it installed off the DVD without downloading files from the Internet.

While the installation procedure is not too complicated, it is certainly not as simple as Ubuntu’s or Linux Mint’s.

I chose the basic install (although I was tempted to install development tools as well).

First Boot

After installation, I rebooted the machine and was delighted to see it boot up with no problems.

The default background image is an underwater scene that is strongly reminiscent of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (one of my favourite books):

Problems

While it did boot up and various applications I tried worked, there are at least two applications that don’t work: Software Updates and Add/Remove Software.

This effectively means I can’t apply software updates (including security updates) to the system, nor can I install new software packages – effectively rendering the system useless.

When launched, both applications display the following warning:

Not the most user friendly message, but at least it suggest (to me) a course of action. I opened up a terminal and ran yum-complete-transaction as root:

It tells me there is one transaction that needs to finish:

As it runs, it displays page after page of warnings and errors:

Trying the recommended suggestion to run with the flag --skip-broken doesn’t help either.

Finally, I get the following notification (not consistently, when logging in):

Conclusion

From my experience, Fedora Linux is an extremely big disappointment because it just doesn’t work out of the box.

What makes it more disappointing is that it is based on the venerable Red Hat Linux – a distro I played around with in the 1990’s.

Of course, nowadays, Red Hat makes its money selling service and support to enterprises, not by giving away free copies of its Linux distribution.

Of all the Linux distros I’ve tried since 2011, Fedora Linux is the only one that doesn’t work. Period.

Other distros may have issues (not recognizing my WiFi adapter being most common), but at least they work.

The post Fedora 16 – First Impressions – Not Positive appeared first on Complete, Concrete, Concise.

These instructions are for Ubuntu 12.04, with the Unity interface, running under VirtualBox 4.1.12_77218. They should be the same or similar for other version combinations, but no guarantee is made.

Sometimes, when Ubuntu updates are applied to your system, the VirtualBox Guest Additions stop working. Symptoms may include: (1) screen resolution reverts back to the default setting, (2) shared folders no longer work.

Trying to fix it by selecting Install Guest Additions… does nothing (and it won’t because Guest Additions are already installed).

The fix is to rerun the Guest Additions installation program. There are three ways to do this.

Method 1

1) Locate the VBOXADDITIONS disk icon (it is probably the only disk icon) located near the bottom of the Launcher (it is most likely just above the trash can icon) . Click on the disk icon:

2) Click on Open Autorun Prompt:

This will uninstall the Guest Additions and then reinstall them. The rest of the procedure is exactly the same as for installing VirtualBox Guest Additions.

Method 2

1) Open Dash by tapping the Super key (usually, this will be the Windows key on your machine). Alternately, you can click on the Dash icon at the top of the Launcher.

2) Type vbox into the dash query field. This will bring up the VBOXGUESTADDITION… folder:

3) Press the Enter key. This will open the VBOXGUESTADDITIONS… folder. Alternately, you can select the folder by either using your mouse or navigating to it using the arrow keys:

4) Double-click the VBOXADDITIONS icon:

5) Click on Open Autorun Prompt:

This will uninstall the Guest Additions and then reinstall them. The rest of the procedure is exactly the same as for installing VirtualBox Guest Additions.

Method 3

1) Click the Folder icon on the launcher:

2) Click on File System, then double-click on the media folder:

3) Double-click the VBOXADDITIONS icon:

4) Click on Open Autorun Prompt:

This will uninstall the Guest Additions and then reinstall them. The rest of the procedure is exactly the same as for installing VirtualBox Guest Additions.

The post Ubuntu 12.04 – Virtualbox Guest Additions Stop Working after Update appeared first on Complete, Concrete, Concise.

These instructions are for Ubuntu 11.10, with the Unity interface, running under VirtualBox 4.1.8. They should be the same or similar for other version combinations, but no guarantee is made.

Sometimes, when Ubuntu updates are applied to your system, the VirtualBox Guest Additions stop working. Symptoms may include: (1) screen resolution reverts back to the default setting, (2) shared folders no longer work.

Trying to fix it by selecting Install Guest Additions… does nothing (and it won’t because Guest Additions are already installed).

The fix is to rerun the Guest Additions installation program. There are two ways to do this.

Method 1

1) Locate the VBOXADDITIONS disk icon (it is probably the only disk icon) located near the bottom of the Unity ribbon (it is most likely just above the trash can icon) . Click on the disk icon:

2) Click on Open Autorun Prompt:

This will uninstall the Guest Additions and then reinstall them. The rest of the procedure is exactly the same as for installing VirtualBox Guest Additions.

Method 2

1) Click the Folder icon on the Unity ribbon:

2) Click on File System, then double-click on the media folder:

3) Double-click the VBOXADDITIONS icon:

4) Click on Open Autorun Prompt:

This will uninstall the Guest Additions and then reinstall them. The rest of the procedure is exactly the same as for installing VirtualBox Guest Additions.

The post Ubuntu 11.10 – Virtualbox Guest Additions Stop Working After Update appeared first on Complete, Concrete, Concise.

Here’s Site Stats as seen in IE 8 (click for larger image):

Problems are:

1. it looks ugly, nice tables and formatting are all missing
2. the bar graph at the top doesn’t display
3. the Yesterday tabs do not work – clicking them does nothing
4. while the weekly tab does work, again the formatting is ugly and broken
5. IE 8 reports Errors on Page

It renders and functions fine in FireFox. The formatting is nice, the graphs show up, and the Yesterday tabs work. This is Site Stats as seen in FF (click for larger image):

The post WordPress – Jetpack 1.2 Broken on IE 8 and IE 9 appeared first on Complete, Concrete, Concise.

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 times the message came up. I was estimating 30-40 times (because I didn’t count). However, I got the same error message when I uninstalled Wubi (and I counted): the message popped up 94 + 24 times (they came in two separate batches).

After the error messages ended, I got to the install screen and it looked like the one on the Wubi page. I filled in the information and it proceeded to download Ubuntu 11.10 (AMD64 version). So far, so good everything appeared normal. Well … except for the funky colour scheme on the install dialog. I’m not sure what sort of font anti-aliasing technique they were using, but the text in the box looked awful:

It is more evident in this cropped and zoomed in image:

After the install, I actually had an \ubuntu directory and a number of folders and files in it totalling about 8GB.

After restarting my computer, I didn’t get the expected OS booting options – I booted straight into XP. The same when I shut down my computer, then started it up.

I ran the uninstaller and it gave me the same Windows - No Disk message I got on startup.

Despite the errors, it did remove the \ubuntu directory.

Thinking it might be my system (Windows XP with Service Pack 3), I checked Ubuntu’s site and:

Windows 7, Vista, XP, and 2000 are known to work with Wubi. Windows 98 should also work, but has not been thoroughly tested. Windows ME is not supported.

All I can say is: the latest version of Wubi does not work with Windows XP + Service Pack 3.

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