Big list of Kernels in your grub menu Bro!!

Just returned back from vacation. Really had a great time, a wonderful trip. Really could not find any time for my machines. While on the way for my trip to “Ashtavinayak”, I got a call from my roomie , “Bro !! wanna urgently use your lappy”. The obvious answer was, “Take it Bro!! “.

My roomie was really pissed off, looking at the long list of selections of kernel in my Grub Menu, He being a Windows user and never had a dual boot system, looking at the grub, first thing which came out of his mouth was “What the f***?”. He called me back “Dude !! WT* was that? keep it clean, keep it simple. Your system looks like alien to me”.

That made me give a bath to my GRUB Menu, so that my roomies don’t get the stinking smell. Follow the steps below to do the same bro! 🙂

For checking which kernel you are using currenlty, run the terminal command

$ uname -r

You can find all the installed Kernel images in

/boot

You can list all the kernels installed, by using the terminal command

$ ls vmlinuz*

This will list all the installed kernel images peresent in /boot folder, It will be somewhat like

vmlinuz-2.6.38-1-generic
vmlinuz-2.6.36-1-generic
…….
…….
…….

From the above list identify the kernel you wanna remove and for this run the terminal command

$ sudo apt-get remove linux-image-2.6.36-1-generic linux-image-2.6.36-1-generic … … … …

Once this is done, you will have to update grub to display the new list

$ sudo update-grub

Restart the system to see the new list.
Bro!!, hope this makes ur life easier ….

Grub 2 and high resolution background …

GRUB 2 like GNOME 3 is completely written from scratch with improved flexibility and performance. GRUB 2 is version 1.98 or higher, the latest available version AFAIK is 1.99~RC.

You can check the version of your GRUB using the terminal command

grub-install -v

Though its mentioned that GRUB 2, is shipped along with Natty Narwhal, somehow it was not installed on my system on upgrading to Natty. I had to separately install it.

Major features of GRUB 2 are listed below

• Scripting support including conditional statements and
• functions
• Dynamic module loading
• Rescue mode
• Custom Menus
• Themes
• Graphical boot menu support and improved splash capability
• Boot LiveCD ISO images directly from hard drive
• New configuration file structure
• Non-x86 platform support (such as PowerPC)
• Universal support for UUIDs (not just Ubuntu)

Some of the differences you will see in GRUB 2 are listed below

• On New installation with no other installed OS for dual boot GRUB 2 Menu will not been displayed and will jump directly to the desktop, and for you to display Menu, hold down the “SHIFT” key
• /boot/grub/menu.lst is replaced by /boot/grub/grub.cfg, this file has no write permission even for root and is overwritten anytime there is an update, a kernel is added/removed, or the user runs update-grub.
• Running update-grub updates the list of accesible Kernels from the directory of files in /boot.
• Now the question is how can we customise the entries If /boot/grub/grub.cfg can’t be edited ? No worries, one can use a custom file, /etc/grub.d/40_custom, in which the user can place his own entries. This file will not be overwritten.
• The primary configuration file for changing menu display settings is /etc/default/grub and there are multiple files for configuring the menu – all the files in the /etc/grub.d/ directory.
• Partition numbering has changed. The first partition is now 1 rather than 0. The first device is still hd0 by default (no change), although this can be changed in /boot/grub/device.map.
• One more major difference is , no hassles for making the entries of you Windows OS or any other OSs,GRUB 2 provides automated searches for other OS whenever update-grub is executed..
• Support for high resolution background and in a very easy steps, definitely like how humans do 🙂

How to install GRUB 2 ?

sudo apt-get install grub-pc

Follow the interactive Menu for Installation and reboot, Select

chainload into GRUB2

Check if everything is working fine, and after confirmation, use the terminal command

sudo upgrade-from-grub-legacy

You GRUB 2 is ready for use.

How to have a high resolution image background for my GRUB 2 ?
Simple ,
Copy any image (jpg, png or tga) to the /boot/grub folder and run the terminal command.

“sudo update-grub”.

GRUB 2 follows the below priority for searching the background

• GRUB_BACKGROUND= setting in /etc/default/grub
• First image found in /boot/grub in this order: jpg, JPG, jpeg, JPEG, png, PNG, tga, TGA and multiple images of same extension will be taken in alphanumeric order
• Wallpaper designated in /usr/share/desktop-base/grub_backgorund.sh (if desktop-base installed)
• /usr/share/images/desktop-base/desktop-grub.png (if desktop-base is installed)
• Default theme

You can also do font/color/background settings but all that in next session, signing off for now.

Upgrading to Gnome3 PPA on Natty resolved

Upgrading to Gnome3 PPA on Ubuntu 11.04 had a very unstable behaviour ( Screen flickerings, Nautilus without theme icons etc ..). This occured cause upgrading to Gnome 3 on Natty breaks the default theming used by Ubuntu Classic & the new Unity desktop environments by setting the icon-theme to gnome and the gtk-theme to Adwaita.

Gnome 3 ignores the previous gconf interface settings and only reads the dconf ones.
You can set it right by editing the dconf file using dconf-editor or try the steps below.

Few things as workaround that can be done before GNOME 3 gets a permanent fix, the below steps worked for me hope it helps you too.

1. Remove gnome-accessibility-themes and install gnome-themes-standard
sudo apt-get remove gnome-accessibility-themes
sudo apt-get install gnome-themes-standard

2. Edit /usr/share/xsessions/gnome.desktop
change the line Exec=gnome-session –session=ubuntu to
Exec=gnome-session –session=gnome

below are the content of gnome.desktop file

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Ubuntu
Comment=This session logs you into Ubuntu
Exec=gnome-session –session=gnome
TryExec=gnome-session
Icon=
Type=Application
X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=gnome-session-2.0
~

3. Install gnome-tweak-tool
go to interface tab, set gnome theme to “ADWAITA” and
icon theme to “unity-icon-theme” and reboot

bug # 734563

GNOME 3 on Ubuntu 11.04

Installed GNOME 3 PPA on Ubuntu 11.04 ..

Command line Instructions

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell

Alternatively you can use Ubuntu Software Center and add

ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3

You will have to select “gnome-shell” and install.
Once done logout and comin back in GNOME3 shell

If you didn’t like the environment, you can remove it following the below mentioned steps.
This steps will revert back to your packages, alternatively you can do this using Software center.

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge
sudo ppa-purge ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3

if aptitude gives the following output, in this process

Leave the following dependencies unresolved:
gnome-control-center-data recommends gnome-control-center (<< 2.91) […]

Then type this when it asks you to enter yes/no:

– gnome-control-center-data

, dont miss hyphen(-) at the beginning
This will show any packages under Leave the following dependencies unresolved. Type “y” to continue downgrading.

Check out the Packages available for GNOME 3 at:https://launchpad.net/~gnome3-team/+archive/gnome3

NOTE :

Purging wont bring back your UNITY-shell , it will get downgraded to GNOME 2.32, You will have to install UNITY separately if you want …You can easily install it searching in the software center..

There are lots of changes I can see in GNOME3 on Ubuntu 11.04 and the one I used in 10.04.. Well few bugs nautilus task bar icons blurred and flickered, Menus not visible on the taskbar, too much of flickering, lemme try if I can tweak it somehow ..

It didnot worked for me, was really unstable, purged back and installed UNITY …
Will have to wait for 4 more days, GNOME 3.0.1 stable release will be available on 27th this month

What the hell can’t keep both UNITY and GNOME side-by-side

Finally have my Ubuntu 11.04 up …

Finally after long hours of download, my Ubuntu 11.04 is up. Sad to see that Ubuntu have removed GNOME support and come up with UNITY. Have a look of “UNITY” shell, I liked some of its features and would suggest improvements for some.

ALT + F2 will show you the whole new look, though cant take the screenshot, snapshot tool not working in this view I specially liked this view.The new improved and hassle free navigation, the ALT+F2 view along with run command shows the installed application category wise and available applications for download and look n feel is awesome, a flashy transparent look . One thing I would like to improve on this is a little description on mouse over instead of directly opening software center.

One more thing which I liked is the vertical scrollbar which appears outside the window as an when required. Saves a lots of viewable screen space.

Despite of all the flashy look its very fast unlike windows :). The kernel I am having now is 2.6.38, planning to build 2.6.39-rc4 this evening if I get time.

Being used to GNOME since I have started using Linux, I don’t wanna let it go, will keep GNOME 3 as my primary shell.

Gwibber client is much more faster with 11.04,Firefox 4.0, Thunderbird 3.1 , Anjuta and Mono DE (no need to move to windows for .Net AD) included in the primary distro.

Oracle OpenOffice replaced by Libre Office 3, much improved USC. More updates as I explore it more. Signing off for now.

Ubuntu 11.04 is already released …

Maverick Meerkat is already released, these updates are keeping me busy on my birthday …….

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/natty/+specs

Lucid Lynx (Ubuntu 10.04) to Maverick Meerkat (Ubuntu 10.10) – step by step

In the process of upgrading Lucid to Maverick , those who are new to GNOME 3 like me will miss the system->administrator menu here.

Jotting down the steps involved in upgrade process, might be of help to someone new to the environment.

Note: This is absolutely not for the expert geeks 🙂

1. Open the terminal and type

update-manager -d

2. Upgrade Manager will open showing the latest available release
Note:- If Normal Release option is not selected in settings the upgrade manager will only show the LTS releases available and 10.10 is not a LTS release.

3. Click on upgrade button and on confirmation the upgrade process will start.

This is where the system will prepare for the upgrade, set up a channel for download, fetch the packages and install it. The fetching of packages might take time depending on your internet speed.

After installation your system will reboot and Ubuntu 10.10 is ready for your service.

Now the terminal way of doing the same steps

sudo aptitude install update-manager-core

sudo do-release-upgrade -d

Well thats from my store signing off and waiting for my packges to download till then cyao.

Got gnome 3 today …

Long weekend made me give some time to my Ubuntu system … was still on 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) while 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) is about to release in few days (28th April 2011- planned release date) and 11.10 already got its name announced (Oneiric Ocelot). Was really in stone age….

Thursday night was the day :), started the upgrade manager. saw it showing me only 9.04 , wonder why I can’t directly jump from 8.10 to 10.X using the upgrade manager (I know I can do a direct download and install the newer version). Dissapointment, had no patience and a slow internet connection with only 120 kbps download speed…

Got upgraded to “Jaunty Jackalope” after 5 hours of download, the first thing after reboot I did was, opened up the upgrade manager and started heading towards “Karmic Koala” again 5-6 hours digital journey, fluctuating download speed pissed me off…..no patience at all… Next morning got up early ( 12 noon, thats very early for me during holidays ), started the upgrade again this time 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx). Started the upgrade @ friday night and got up in the morning to see the Lucid Linx.

Now before going for”Maverick Meerkat”, thought of having a look at GNOME 3 , specially wanted to have a feel of the new way to navigate the system, the all new look an feel.

started the terminal and typed in to download the package

sudo apt-get install gnome-shell

once done replace your existing shell

gnome-shell –replace

logout your system and login back … done you will see the all new GNOME 3 UI .. didnt find time to eexplore it though but being in beta obvious to be a lil buggy.. Well could not open terminal, some issue.. need to check.

Natty Narwhal excluded GNOME 3 (:() in its release and coming up with UNITY … 5 more days to go as per plan, before I get Natty, heading towards Maverick Meerkat today …

Check out my GNOME 3 environment on Lucid Lynx

How can I forget su pwd ?

Not very often I forget my passwords, but was little apart from my Ubuntu system for sometime now and it went off my mind. How can I forget my root password ?

Luckily it was quite easy to reset it though.
1. Reboot the system in recovery mode.
2. Select “Drop to root shell promt”
3. Type command
passwd root
(Woooo!! it didnt ask me the old password)
4. Type in the new password
5. There is no success message but the password is reset
6. Type “Exit”
7. Return to recovery menu and select “Resume normal boot”

I felt relieved ………. all set to forget it again 🙂

Ohh man I actually set the root password, this would have worked for me

sudo passwd root

Flickering BaaN Client on Linux Machine – Wine not a culprit ..

Clients running Baan Clients on Linux M/C often had a complaint of flickering of BaaN screen and concluding wine a culprit. But “Wine” has nothing to do with it.

The flickering problem is not due to wine, its probably because of your display drivers or display adapter.

Try a small test to confirm the same.

Run ‘xrandr’ from a console, If you get a black screen for a moment then this might not be a Wine bug , but a problem is with the video card driver.

There is a workaround to this issue:

1. Start Wine’s Registry Editor
2. Navigate to “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\X11 Driver”. You
may need to create X11 Driver.
3. Create a new key called “UseXRandR” and set it to “N”.

That should prevent Wine from using XRandR stop flickering.

More details on the bug
http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15214

permanent Baanboard link