Install Boot-Repair in Ubuntu 11.04 (Reinstalling GRUB in Ubuntu Made Easy!)

The Boot loader is one of the most important aspects/programs of all operating systems. Whether its GNU/Linux, MS Window or Mac OS, etc it must be present!. And it is also a very fragile one as well. That's why having a recovery disk is also very important otherwise, say you're a bit new to all these "stuff", then you might easily end up losing data on your hard disk drive for instance.

Anyhow, there are primarily two main boot loaders can be seen in computers, one type is called the primary boot loader which represents a small piece of code/instructions that lets you computer to boot or load the most primary software contents without problems (that are closely related to the actual hardware, such as sending display signals to the Monitor screen or checking your RAM for errors for instance). This is usually stored in a ROM (read only memory) or EEPROM chip. The best example for such a Boot loader is the BIOS on your computer's motherboard.

Although the functions of a primary boot loader can be quite limited because those ROM chips usually have smaller capacity + since every operating system has a way of its own doing things, it's almost impossible to add all the details into the ROM. Even if we put our OS boot information into it, yet it can be quite hard to update it whenever the OS developers want since updating a BIOS chip has is "risks".

As an answer to all these issues they came up with another kind of boot loaders that run after the BIOS|primary boot loader is executed called secondary boot loaders. They're usually stored in your HDD/USB, etc, a place called MBR (master boot record). Now, these type of boot loaders are OS specific (not always true because they do have the ability to boot into other OS boot loaders. Multi OS boot for instance) and are behind the perfect execution of your operating system into your RAM.

Although there are several types... yet in GNU/Linux there are primarily two main BL can be identified. One is called Lilo and the other is called GRUB. GRUB is the primary one (if I'm not mistaken) these days which is an official part of the GNU project as well.

There can be many occasions a boot loader can be "corrupted"... say due to a virus attack or while trying to install/reinstall a boot loader or can occur after using a disk repair app in GNU/Linux (yes, it's possible) . When it comes to GRUB, in GNU/Linux you can install/reinstall GRUB loader without any GUI, even if your GNU/Linux PC Laptop is un-bootable, as long as you have the Live CD, etc you can use a command called "grub-install".

But then again, when you have an excellent grub installer GUI, why the heck u wanna do that! :). Sorry to drag you along with all these "related" details (just kinda felt like writing em)... if you want to easily control your GRUB boot loader in Ubuntu, then there is an excellent, GTK written GUI called "Boot-Repair".

This "window" is not available for those of us who use the original, official Ubuntu LiveCD... thus once installed and run we should be prompted by the below one instead...

Main features...

*. Recover or Repair your Grub code in MBR when you can't even boot your OS.

*. Repair it within the OS (you know, even if you removed your boot loader, as long as you don't reboot your PC, you're gonna be fine, for a while :P)

*. Reinstall the loader.

*. Change the location of the GRUB installation (you know, installing it into an another HDD, etc).

*. Restore the original boot sector.

You can install the magnificent :D Boot-Repair in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot, 12.04 Precise Pangolin, 10.10 and 10.04 by entering the below command in your Terminal.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install boot-repair

How the heck can I use it if I can't boot into my Ubuntu desktop Gayan!, you... nutcase?

Well my friend, use your Live CD or Live USB... boot into your desktop using those media and simply instal the Boot-Repair using the same command. Or I think you should be able to run it in the "/usr/bin" directory if no internet connection is available. In that sense, we can actually create a Linux recovery disk/LiveCD by using this app that should help to access/recover our data without even losing a single byte! :D. Good luck.

Oh, I should be thankful to this awesome Ubuntu forum thread for this app news as well :).

Update: You can get more information from this official Boot-Repair Ubuntu Help page too. Thanks "Yann" (the developer) for the update :).

How To Install emesene 2.11.5 in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal?

emesene is a chat client (GUI) that lets you "merge" or use several chat protocols such as Jabber, Facebook, Google Talk, etc under its main GUI. And it's a known fact that emesene (is the Spanish pronunciation of MSN) is a clone of the Microsoft's MSN messenger that's coded using Python and the GUI used to be written using the GTK+ toolkit.

But recently they decided to get rid of GTK+ and use the tool from the "other end", the gorgeous Qt :) (which is still at beta stage). And to be honest, I don't know if the adaptation of Qt4 has anything to do with it, but heck, emesene looking soooo much better!.

Main features...

*. The Qt4 "skin" is disabled by default (still under testing). But lucking you can still forcefully enable it by using the command "-e main:qt4_main".

*. Simple interface which is easy to get used to.

*. Simple text editor.

*. Add emoticons, can't live without them, let me put one here :).

*. Enhanced group chatting.

*. Easily switch between tabs using "Ctr + Tab" keyboard shortcut.

*. More translations supported added.

*. A lot of bug fixes are just a few to mention.

So as I said before, if you use Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal and want to install emesene, then open your Terminal and enter the below command.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:emesene-team/emesene-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install emesene

How To Install Rhythmbox in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal?

Anyone who uses Gnome desktop these days surely have heard about Rhythmbox even if your distribution does not come with it. For instance, in the past it was actually Rhythmbox which used to be the default audio handling application in Ubuntu. But then Banshee came around and impressed Canonical which ultimately replaced Rhythmbox.

Although in the recent past Banshee and Canonical had a little, something going on (in a bad way :) ), I even thought that Ubuntu will completely remove Banshee from their official support... but they've decided to stick to it and as a result Banshee is the default music player in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal.

Rhythmbox is a GTK written GUI which uses the Gstreamer front-end and according to its developers themselves, it tries to "follow" the work of iTunes. Although almost all knows about it and the features... yet let me give you a simple list of its features nonetheless.

*. Music browser which is pretty easy to use and lets you manage a large collection of music libraries with ease.

*. Playlist support (embedded).

*. Plays MP3, AAC, Vorbis, WMA, Flac... basically, anything that Gstreamer multimedia framework supports, Rhythmbox can play.

*. Internet radio support (Last.fm, etc) + live streaming.

*. Few built in audio visualizations.

*. Transfer music to and from iPod, MTP, and USB storage media players.

*. Rip/Play and burn Audio CDs.

*. Podcast downloading.

*. Preview and free download (legal) music files from sources like Jamendo and Magnatune.

These just a few to mention. Since it support plugins, you can expand its features by simply adding plugins as well. If you use Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal and want to know how to install Rhythmbox, then open your Terminal and enter the below command. Enjoy!.

sudo apt-get install rhythmbox

Miro 4 Is Released, How To Install it in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal?

Miro is one of the best open-source media player applications that is available for lots of different types of platforms such as GNU/Linux, MS Windows and Mac OSX. Not just the gorgeous looking GUI but with Miro you can even convert multimedia files with ease as well.

Although I've written about it in the past (when it was at 3.6 version) but according to the developers themselves you should consider upgrading to the latest version (4) since it brigs major improvements/features when considering its predecessors.

Few of the noticeable "enhancements"...

*. Sync multimedia files with Android devices.

*. Android and Amazon MP3 store support.

*. Unity's appindicator integration.

*. Share files in any PC/Laptop that has Miro installed (over the network as well) - DHT support.

*. Shuffle/Repeat playback options.

*. Watched/unwatched "filter" for video feeds.

*. New volume slider (only for Mac OSX).

*. Important media option added.

These are just a few of the main features to mention. So, if you want to install the Miro version 4 in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, then open your Terminal and enter the below command.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pcf/miro-releases
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install miro

Steadyflow 0.1.7 is Released - How To Install it in Ubuntu 11.04?

Well if I'm not mistaken, this is my third post within a month concerning a single (pretty useful as well) application called, Steadyflow. Today, because of the growing demand for the application, the developer has announced availability of the latest version 0.1.7. Although it is a pretty simple app by default and until the 0.1.6 version, it did not show the remaining time while downloading a file (oh for those of you who haven't about it.. it's a download manager for your GNU/Linux PC/Laptop).

For your Chrome/Chromium web browsers... it has a separate extension but by default it integrates with Firefox4/3.6+ nonetheless. Here are few of its main features that you'll get with this latest release.

*. Since we all know that Unity and many other major desktops are "obsessed" (not a judgment :) ) with application indicators, Steadyflow 0.1.7 now includes a better indicator menu through which we can control the downloading files with ease (pause/resume/pause-all, etc) 

*. Newly added "copy URL", for adding a URL/download link easily.

*. Now it has an icon of its own for the Unity's application launcher (drag-n-drop files for star downloading).

*. Start/Pause or Delete multiple file downloading at once.

New "indicator menu"...

*. Added support for password authentications for HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and SMB, etc... are among the main features according to the developer.

You can install Steadyflow 0.1.7 in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal by using the below command in your Terminal window.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sikon/steadyflow

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install steadyflow 

How To Install Firefox5 in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal? (beta)

I don't about how you feel but personally I love the Firefox4. When comparing with the old 3.6+ this new brower... from the redesigned (well they've certainly "inspired" by Chromium) GUI, memory management (still looks great even after adding some addons), stability to enhanced security... FF4 just rocks!.

Although when it was first released few months ago, some even said that this would be the end for Firefox as we know it (ha!). But as it turned out.... it's pretty popular nonetheless. I don't know if this positive feedback from the users, among their reasons but as soon as it was released they announced that, they're working on the upcoming version 5 as well!.

Mozilla has a standard procedure for their web browser release. For instance, for Firefox5 it has to pass there stages...Mozilla-central, experimental, beta and final. It has already passed the first "2 steps" now back in Friday they released the official beta version. If I remember correctly, it's scheduled to be released in June 29th.

This is not the "typical" behavior for Mozilla, but I guess that Google's Chrome release cycle may have something to do with that as well :). They've also introduced few beta channels called Nightly, Aurora and Beta which is again very similar to what Chrome has at the moment.

According to Mozilla themselves this is what these beta channels stand for...

Nightly test builds – Includes features not tested by Mozilla QA

Firefox Beta – Broadly test the stability of new features and improvements in the next version of Firefox

Firefox Final Release – Delivers the polished and stable features in Firefox to hundreds of millions of users

New version brings bug fixes and enhanced memory management and other typical things ... but most importantly, Firefox5 beta brigs dedicated CSS support to their web browser which can be used to create more "cool" looking buttons, etc on web sites which is certainly good news for web developers without a doubt. 

As a GNU/Linux user, you certainly don't have to wait till June to "taste" FF5 to use it on your Linux Laptop/PC... in fact thanks to a launchpad PPA channel... you can easily install the beta version already.

So, if you want to install Firefox5 beta in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal then simply open your Terminal and issue the below command. But remember, this is still at its beta stage... use it at your own risk :).

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-next

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install firefox

sudo apt-get upgrade

Introducing Split-lossless Script (Nautilus) - "Extract" Lossless Audio Files Into Other Formats With Ease

Cue sheet or ".cue" extension is a container format in which it holds various information such as Track numbers, Titles, etc which is commonly seen in Audio CDs. But it's certainly not confined in those but can also be seen in data CDs as well.

Anyhow, if you have a CD or a single file which contains few lossless audio tracks within itself that has to be split or Extracted into mp3 or Flac under Nautilus file manager as easy as right clicking on it... then Split-lossless is a very valuable little tool without a doubt!.

One good thing about Nautilus is that you can easily expand its functionality by using simple commands/codes called Nautilus Scripts. Although, even without learning about programming Java/C++, etc... if you're familiar with bash-commands (you know those standard commands that we put into the Terminal such as "su" or "sudo" for instance), once you get familiar with its coding style... we can easily use these already existing bash-commands together in a single "script" and create a command of your own!.

Anyhow, if you don't have time for that sort of a thing :) and simply want to know how to install the Split Lossless into your Nautilus... then start your Terminal window and enter the below command to install it in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal (I think it should work on 10.10 and 10.04).

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cokicd/split-lossless
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install split-lossless

Once installed... simply right-click on your .cue file and from the menu that Lossless Split adds you can choose your codec (flac/mp3). And the cool thing about it is that, all the meta information such as Album name, Artist, Track name, Year, etc are automatically fetched for you!, a huge time saver.

Depending on your needs, you can choose the best possible audio bitrate, a built in progress indicator, a preview before splitting is done, automatic notification when done + you can even tell it to automatically delete the source file as well.

Seriously... it may be a script... but this is one of the impressively useful tool for those of us who deal with audio related "stuff" without a doubt :).

How To Install Gnome Media Player in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal?

To be honest, sometimes I hate Totem. I'd just too simple and useless. For instance, if your audio/video tracks aren't sync without any delays... then before the character speaks... we hear the voice which is the worse scenario for watching a movie. But with Totem (a front-end for libxine multimedia player engine) you simply can't do anything about it/fix.

And sometimes, I don't like the low sensitivity of Totem either. For instance, with other advanced players like MPlayer, when I press the "Pause" button, the player just pause the video. But Totem (maybe it's just with my GNU/Linux Laptop only) has slight "gap" before it pause the file. So after being frustrated with it with these few things and many more or you just want another player for no reason at all :)... then you should try the Gnome Media Player.

This is again a front-end that's capable of using libxine, MPlayer or the Gstreamer multimedia framework according to your preference. This is written in GTK+ tool-kit ... so you won't be seeing a lot of "options" with it either... but most of the time (especially when used with the MPlayer as the engine) I like the "sensitivity" it delivers. And unlike with Totem, with GMP, you can easily switch between player-engines as well.

If you use Ubuntu 11.04 or 10.10 (could work in 10.04), then you can install GMP using the below PPA channel. As usual, open your Terminal and enter the below command.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome-media-player-development/development && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnome-media-player

How To Install Transmission Bittorrent Client in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal?

Although not everyone is fond of the Bittorrent file sharing protocol (especially the ISPs :) ) yet it has become one of the widely used protocols by us users nonetheless. Although the protocol may have few slight disadvantageous such as reliability... only sometimes (because of the lack of "seeds") but when "premium" servers fails to give the users to download files at their full throttle, Bittorrent on the other hand, once started... it can be impressively powerful as well.

If you use KDE as your primary desktop then you can try qBittorrent or Ktorrent for instance. But one of the good things about this utility is, if you want a GUI that can be downloaded in both Qt and GTK+ tool-kits, then Transmission is an elegant application.

Unlike few other "free" applications, Transmission does not come with annoying ads or anything like that in nature. You can manually set uploading/download speeds, downloading folder, enable/disable protocol encryption, Port forwarding, track editing/updating, etc are few of its main features to mention.

If you use Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal (should work for other versions as well), then you can install Transmission 2.31 by entering the below command in your Terminal window.

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:transmissionbt/ppa

    sudo apt-get update

    sudo apt-get install transmission

YeoWorks Ubuntu Solutions - A Cool Utility To Help You with Ubuntu Natty!

YeoWorks Ubuntu Solutions is actually a script for Nautilus which adds itself into the right-click menu by which you can get help to fix few of the annoying things is Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal. For instance, if you want all the multimedia codes installed in Ubuntu then you gotta open the terminal and start entering commands or if you use Gnome 3 with Unity then you'll probably gonna need the tweaking tool pack, etc with minimal of efforts... then YeoWorks is an excellent little solution.

As mentioned before, once you open the application, it displays a list of things that it can do for you via a single click!. For instance...

*. Install Gnome 3 in Ubuntu.

*. Fix few theme related issues (to be honest I have no idea what are the "fixes").

*. Flash-issues in 64-bit version (for some reason, the 64-bit of Unity seems to be a bit troublesome).

*. Change the window manager from Compiz to Metacity...

*. Uninstall Gnome3.

*. Install complete codec pack (with a GUI front-end for Compiz, etc).

These are just a few to mention. And to be honest, this little app will come in handy for most of us without a doubt. If you want to install it, then first get the zipped package from here and extract tho content, say... on your desktop.

Then open that folder in Nautilus and look for a file called "yeoworks_ubuntu_solutions_installer.sh" and simply double click on it and "run" it. That's it.

Once installed, you can run it by, right clicking on Nautilus and from the already notoriously not-useful menu chose : "Scripts" -> "yeoworks ubuntu solutions.sh" which should bring you something similar to the shown above. Good luck.

GUnity: An Interesting Power-tool to Customize Ubuntu Unity-Shell!

One of the things that Unity-Shell lacks at the moment is its ability to let users easily customize the shell itself. Although some settings can be configured Gconf-editor but it's certainly not the user friendly nor easy either. So if you're caught up in the middle of all this and end up with frustration, well then I think the French is about to save "some" of you! :P.

This window lets you do: *&$^#@#@ :P

It's called GUnity and since we all know that French has an amazingly beautiful language (especially when women use it, not so good for men, kinda destroys the "man" in you, a bit ;-) ) and don't care for anything other than their language (a compliment actually), the apparent difficulty at hand is currently it's only available in French language only!.

So it can be a bit hard to understand what the buttons and other settings actually mean. If you have an iPhone you could try Word Lens by taking a screenshot of the GUnity and try to "translate" the image, but still if you use a bit of an intuition, you can get your head around it ;-).

You can install GUnity in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal by entering the below command.

wget http://blog.ckdevelop.org/data/documents/shell/gunity-11.05.11_g2s2.2.3beta5ckd.tar.bz2

tar xjvf gunity-11.05_g2s2.2.3beta5ckd.tar.bz2

cd gunity/

chmod +x gunity.sh

./gunity.sh

You might want to read the developer's site as well.

After countless hours of thinking, I came up with the perfect answer!...

Find a French girlfriend! ;-).

Install the Evolution Indicator in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal!

Developed by Novel... Evolution is one of the most widely used e-mail clients in GNU/Linux (can also be used in MS Windows as well). Ubuntu also uses Evolution as their own default e-mail client as well. But the problem with Evolution (currently, might change in the future) is that, whenever you receive new e-mails, although it notifies us via the MeMenu "interface" but the apparent problem that we have currently is that, it automatically opens up the Evolution mail client's window.

It takes space of your desktop and can be quite irritating as well. With the help of the Ubuntu's Unity indicator support, someone has written a libappindicator compatible plug-in which for Evolution which notifies whenever you receive new mails without distracting. The indicator is called Evolution Indicator. 

If you use Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, then you can install Evolution Indicator by using the below command.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:goehle/goehle-ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install evolution-indicator

Translate-Me: A Simple Text Translator for Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal

First you may ask, why the heck do I need such an app when we have a lot of free online (web-based) word/HTML... translators!. Well, to be honest, I don't have an answer for that. But every time you want to translate a text file, if you want to avoid the "pleasure" of opening your Web browser and manually entering the URL, etc and go to the translator service page...

...and would like to have a very small, easy to use application that can be launched by a click of your mouse, then seriously, Translate Me is pretty awesome. It supports a lot of languages + you can use more than one "Translate me" windows at the same time by using your keyboard (Control + Enter, for switching between many) as well.

Ohh, now I understand your language pal :)...

The developer has added few new features to this latest version which is now 0.3.9.4 such as text deleting button, etc. If you use Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, then you can install Translate my by issuing the below command.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/atareao

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install translate-me

Udev-notify: A UserFriendly USB Device Detect Notifier for Ubuntu 11.04

Whenever we connect a USB device in Ubuntu 11.04 or Ubuntu in general, the operating system just start the device. If it was a pen drive and Nautilus opens it, then we know it has been detected. But what after plugged in, if your device is not detected or if you want to get an automated notifier that notify you information whenever you plug a USB device in Ubuntu, if so, then you might be interested in the Udev-Notify.

This is a simple script that uses the "udev" device manager which interacts with the GNU/Linux Kernel and Udev-notify just extract those information that "udev" comes up with and "show" them in a GUI. Not always, but most of the time the practical benefits of udev-notify can be quite a lot nonetheless.

If you want to install it, then you can easily do it by downloading the .deb package from here and simply double click on it. That should do it!.

Wanna Change the Location of Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal's Dock/Launcher?

Note: Guys... I think I made a mistake :). This won't work because... what this option enables is, the corner that you have to bring your mouse pointer (left or right) to make the launcher "show" not the app launcher location. So, sorry about all this. :) (pretty embarrassing).

Previously I posted something very similar but forgot (it didn't hit me at that time :D) to mention a very important step. Again don't get your hopes up so high because... I still can't confirm if this works. Reason for that is my buggy ATI GPU, so thanks to Compiz... even without doing any tweaks, most of the time I can't get a fully working unity-shell.

So I'm not sure if this works, but if you're really angry at Canonical because they wouldn't give you the ability to change the location of that launcher (most call it "dock") other than the "left", then why not give this a try.

First things first...

Guys and gals, with all the due respect, please don't blame me if this method breaks your OS (it may not but who knows, shi* happens).

Anyhow, before moving any further, let's take few precautions which should keep your primary data secure (again there are no guarantees)

First, make sure that after booting you're prompted at the log-in screen rather than automatic login. To make sure the "automatic login is disabled" (it is disabled by default).

1. Open your Terminal and issue the below command.

gdmsetup

Now, this should bring a window similar to the below one, once opened, unlock the screen by clicking on the "unlock" button and when asked give your administer password.

After that, make sure you've "checked/chosen" the below two main options.

"show list of users"

"show the screen for choosing who will login"

If the "login as" is enabled, disable it by click on the "show the screen for choosing who will login" option.

Now close the window.

Let's create a new temporary user account for this "experiment", if anything bad happens, we can simply delete it later. For that...

2. Again open your Terminal and enter the below command.

users-admin

From the left side, click on the "add" button and give a user name (let's call him "gates" and a password when prompted.


3. Now log off your current desktop and login using the newly created user account, "gates" ;-). Once your unity desktop loads again open your Terminal and enter the below command.

gconf-editor

Now you should get a similar window as shown below.

From that window, from your left side go to:

"apps" -> "compizconfig-1" -> "profiles" -> "default" -> "plugins" -> "unityshell" -> "screen0" -> "options". 

Once you're inside of "options" you'll see a screen similar to the below one.

To your right side, you'll see an entry (highlighted in the screenshot) called "launcher_reveal_edge" and its default value is "Left" aha! ;-).

Now just click on that "Left" value or right click on it and choose "edit key" and change the value to "Right" and click "OK". Now close the window and again open the "gconf-editor" and make sure the value is set as "Right".

Now all you gotta do is log off from the temporary user account and when at login window again choose the same user name ("gates" :P) and, this is important:

After entering the password and before you hit the enter key, from the session type (right below your "password/user name field") chose "User defined session".

Now just click login and if this works ... then you should be greeted with the usual Unity desktop but the launcher to your right rather than left!.

As I said before, I'm having some real troubles while logging into the unity-shell interface and after doing this my panel and launcher got disappeared (this is normal even with the "default" settings) and the screenshots are from the Gnome desktop rather than Unity-Shell.

However, when I moved my mouse around right corner after logging in with these changes, and once I got my mouse closer to the right side of the screen, something did come to the front ... but couldn't say what it was (again I'm really struggling with the unity-shell).

But if you have a working unity-desktop (good for you ;-) ) then who knows this might help you to change the location of launcher/dock in your Ubuntu Natty Narwhal!.

If anything goes wrong and this doesn't work, simply log out of your desktop. If your desktop does not show anything and seems like stuck, then you'll have to reset your PC using the "reset button" or you can try this method first.

After rebooting and once you're prompted at the log-in screen, choose your usual user account and once logged in, simply delete the temprorary user account that we created.

Note - Please use this at your Own risk...

Popper, Another E-Mail "Reader" for Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal

If you hate to always log-in to your e-mail account to check if you've got new mails and stuff ;-) and want a POP3/IMAP protocol supported e-mail "notifier", then Popper might come in handy for you. But remember, if you use G-mail this will work, no problems but...

...although I'm not sure about all the free e-mail web based facilities such as Yahoo, AOL, MSN... but some, like Yahoo will not let you read you mails by using the POP/IMAP protocols (unless you have a paid yahoo-mail account).

But for all of you who have personal e-mail accounts (rather then web based e-mails service providers) and G-mail (they support it, I know because I've done it :) ), etc Popper will come in handy.

Remember, I haven't used it so cannot go into all the details... but if you want to give it a try then you can install Popper in Ubuntu 11.04 by using its PPA channel. Open your Terminal and enter the below command.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ralf.hersel/rhersel-ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install popper

By default it'll start itself automatically while your desktop loads (it should!) and for some reason if it does not, then you can manually add it to your startup apps with ease. But before using, you must make sure to set-up your POP/IMAP protocols. I also humbly advice you to read the developers page before start using it (if you're new to POP and IMAP that is).

For G-Mail users, POP protocol related information can be found in here and IMAP in here. 

Quicklist Editor, Manage Your Application Launcher in Ubuntu Natty Narwhal Easily!

I was wondering, like few days ago, after the Natty's release, who was it "invented" the application dock idea first. Some say it's Apple but older GNU/Linux users say it was actually GNU/Linux who invented it first. Anyhow, the launcher is one of the main "parts"/features of Natty Narwhal.

So I'm pretty sure most of you guys and gals already use it quite heavily. In that sense, the ability to easily add/remove or manage application in launcher in general can be pretty useful. Quicklist Editor is actually at beta stage and I don't use the 2D version of Unity-Shell but it seemed not to work under 2D version. But for 3D Unity shell (the default natty desktop GUI) users, this should work.

To install Quicklist editor in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Nalwhal, open your Terminal and issue the below command.

sudo apt-get install bzr
bzr branch lp:unity-launcher-editor
cd unity-launcher-editor
chmod +x unity-launcher-editor
./unity-launcher-editor

It's developed by Laudeci Oliveira, nice work Oliveira.  

Could This Be Used to Change the Application Launcher/Dock Location in Ubuntu Unity?

Now, before you get your hopes up high, the method I'm going to tell you did not work for me :(. But I thought since there are like thousands of others who knows GNU/Linux really well, who knows, maybe I missed something. In that sense by doing a slight bit of a change, what if we were able to change the application launcher or the dock location from left to the right, etc in Ubuntu 11.04!.

Another thing, I'm pretty sure most have come across this setting, so surely I'm not the only one who saw this without a doubt either.

A little "something" about unity-shell...

The UI (user interface) of Ubuntu Unity desktop is called the "unity-shell". Like with Gnome-shell or the Gnome3, Unity also uses the OpenGL rendering to achieve those fancy 3D graphical effects.

Although Gnome developers decided to create a OpenGL composition manager of their own, Canonical on the other hand decided to use Compiz which has been there for a long time in comparison with Gnome3's OpenGL window manager (as far as I know anyway).

The main reason for Canonical to go for the already existing Compiz is because it's already been there for a long time already thus it has proven its stability and usability. Anyhow, as a result, the default UI in Unity desktop called the "unity-Shell" is actually a plugin that runs on top of Compiz.

So, since Compiz is the one who's behind "drawing" that application launcher which Canonical refused to allow the users to change its location other than the default left, by using Compiz and changing its options, we should be able to change its location. But how can we do that?.

Now, as I've said before, you can actually use the Gconf-editor which is somewhat similar to Microsoft windows registry where users can set individual or global settings per applications or to the desktop itself, to customize Compiz settings in Ubuntu natty.

So let's try this and see this works for you!. Open your Terminal and issue the below command.

gconf-editor

gconf-editor main window...

From the left side go to: "apps" -> "compizconfig-1" -> "profiles" -> "default" -> "plugins" -> "unityshell" -> "screen0" -> "options". Once you're inside of "options" you'll see a screen similar to the below one.

From the right side find that which says "launcher_reveal_edge" (aaaaah :P). Now you can see the default value set by Ubuntu is "Left", which is the side that dock comes in default.

Now when I saw this for the first time my heart rate went crazy ... I though, all right, all I gotta do is just change the value from "Left" to "Right" then the dock will be at the right side.

So out of my enthusiasm, I did so but nothing happened :(. But since you have nothing to lose, why don't you give it a try. Just change that value from "Left" to "Right" and log-in to Unity.

I suppose this will not work for you either. Anyway, as a final guess, if we could copy the a dove mentioned unityshell (with all its keys and options as in the above screen-shot) and paste it at another location= "apps" -> "compizconfig-1" -> "profiles" -> "default" -> "unity" -> "plugins" ....

...where it only includes a key called "gnomecompact" currently, so if we can just copy the previously mentioned unityshell including all of its keys and values and paste it within the "plugin" folder icon, it might actually do it!.

For that, you have to use a tool called "gconftool-2" but to be honest I don't know how to add values/folders in the left side, haven't used it that much :(.

Do you know how to do it??... anyone?? (this might not work too but... heck it's well worth a try!)

Introducing the Unity Fox!: Get Thumbnail Previews of Firefox Downloads in Unity's Launcher

I'm pretty sure Google's Chrome is an excellent web browser. But still there are a lot of other GNU/Linux users (including Microsoft users as well) who just love the new Firefox4!. Now, since with Ubuntu 11.04, Canonical puts a lot of emphasis on the app launcher, when properly used, a well designed application launcher is actually something very useful.

Unity Fox!........

Previously I discussed about the Pidgin-libnotify plugin which automatically "notifies" your when new messages arrive by using a dedicated icon written for the Unity's launcher, just like that, would you like to see a live preview (as in the above screenshot) of the files that you downloading via the Firefox4 web browser directly in your app launcher in Ubuntu 11.04 (even when the web browser is closed or minimized!).

If so, then you should install the plugin called UnityFox. This is actually a Firefox add-on! which again shows the power of the (not sure if Unity comes with a fully compatible GNU license, there are few issues) open-source application standards and how easy it is to integrate new features into them.

Anyhow, if you want to use this, then make sure you you're using Ubuntu 11.04 and download the add-on from here.

How To Install The Official Adobe PDF Reader in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal?

Ubuntu or Gnome in general comes with a built in PDF reader of their own. It loads fast, inherits notoriously simplified "options", but still most of the time I'd still prefer that PDF reader over the official Adobe PDF reader because it's horribly slow (may be it's because of my super old PC ;-) ).

But then again, when comparing its features and the customizations that it lets you do, it's way superior to the PDF reader that Natty comes with.

The Adobe reader also installs a plug-in for your Firefox web browser as well. Other than Zoom-in/out, select text, search for certain text/words, save, print, edit header information (title, author, etc where possible), add passwords... just have a look at the below screenshot of its main "options" window and tell me you aren't impressed ;-).

Anyhow, whatever your reasons are, if all you want is to know how to install Adobe PDF reader in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, then this is how you do it!. 

Open your Terminal and enter the below command.

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.canonical.com/ natty partner"  && sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install acroread

That should do it.