8thString

With Ubuntu 11.10 Unity requiring lots of resources both in CPU and memory, I embarked on installing a trimmed down version of it using alternate install. This used to be straight forward, follow the text based wizard and you are ready to go. The problem is that after installation, on reboot it shows a blank screen. Just nothing... (except for the blinking cursor). This might be specific to VirtualBox guest machines but I can't verify this. Anyway, it took me a while to figure this one out (of course with the help of Google). The following, from  Ubuntu's bug repository Launchpad, shows the problem: Ubuntu 11.10 Command line only installation fails over and over again http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1873069 grub2 configuration has vt.handoff=7 even when X11 is not installed https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/695658 Command-line Install on Minimal CD tries to boot graphically https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/831752

Linux is moving in such a fast pace that I can't keep up playing around with the latest and greatest. Ubuntu 11.04 was released long time ago (in internet time) but I am keeping installation screen capture here for posterity. Release: Ubuntu 11.04 Code name: Natty Narwhal Kernel: 2.6.38-10 GNOME: 2.32.1 So here goes the screen captures. Figure 1. Select language Figure 2. Preparing to install Ubuntu Figure 3. Allocate drive space Figure 4. Erase disk and install Ubuntu Figure 5. Timezone Figure 6. Keyboard layout Figure 7. Set user Figure 8. Installation complete, reboot Figure 9. Login screen Figure 10. DASH 

This is a log of free anti-virus that I have used that failed to protect Windows computers so far. Do note that non-free "expensive" ones can also fail. I have witnessed this firsthand in the office where a zero day exploit rendered our network almost useless. Anyway, this does not necessarily mean that below are lackluster products, it is just that it did fail me one time or another. List is listed based on chronological order, oldest listed first: 1) AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition - this was my all time favorite but failed me way back in 2010. 2) Microsoft Security Essentials - last week (second week of Nov 2011), one of our home computers was infected by a virus. Got to recover the entire system. Experimenting with the following for now, see if it does protect a Windows XP PC: - Avast Free Anti-virus (Program version: 6.0.1289)

We have a pretty much old, by today's standard, Sony VAIO VGN-N110G running on Windows XP. This machine was hit hard by a virus and MS Security Essentials was not doing its job. Not sure if Security Essentials is a good anti-virus but I am using it anyway (hey it is free). The virus was pretty smart and distructive. Though the data files were not deleted but it did  delete the menu entries in Windows leaving it almost unsable. Initial impression of the virus was that it hides all files making you believe that everything was gone. It even offers a solution, like buy an anti-virus. Anyway, as I mentioned above, I did try to do full scan using MS Security Essentials, it was able to identify several and it did mention that the virus was removed. But the system was still unusable after the anti-virus cleanup exercise. So I tried to fire-up VAIO recovery to no avail. It says it cannot find the restore drive. It was really getting so bad. Rebooting into safe mode does not help. So t

I have been trying to keep a log of the *nix distribution I am using. Mostly I take screen captures and post them as blog post. I have been slacking lately due to personal commitments. Anyway, so here goes Fedora 15 (released May 24, 2011). Boot screen GNOME 3 failed to load on VirtualBox Install to Hard Drive Keyboard selection Type of store device Confirm to wipe disk Set computer hostname Set time zone info Set root account password Storage allocation, use all space Install complete Welcome to Fedora License agreement Create user Set date and time Hardware profile Login screen Class GNOME menu Fedora 15 major software versions kernel: 2.6.40 GNOME: 3.0.1 Firefox: 6.0

I have been using VirtualBox for awhile now but I mostly use Windows as the host machine. I just had setup few Linux boxes as VirtualBox host and found a need to save files in the host as I normally do snapshots and clean 'em up. Mounting a shared folder is easy, what caught me was that I can't change ownership of the folder created under the shared folders. So my regular user account can't create files. I realized that mount actually accepts options as to who would have access to the mounted folder, so to mount with read/write access to a user, do: sudo mount -t vboxsf -o rw,uid=1000 userdat /mnt/userdat Where: uid=1000 is the user ID of the user. For example, I have a user named timus, to get the ID, you can do: timus@ubu1110:~$ cat /etc/passwd | grep timus timus:x: 1000:1000 :timus,,,:/home/timus:/bin/bash As can be seen, timus uid is 1000 and group ID is 1000 as well. userdat is the VirtualBox shared folder name. /mnt/userdat is the mount point Key

First off, I would like to congratulate Ubuntu team for releasing another milestone of a good Linux distribution. It is such a big project which requires great balance between schedule, functionality, level of polish and quality. On the polish, I really like the new theme, it fits well to my taste. Okay, the day it was released I got a little excited. I know/read a lot of horror stories about doing an upgrade. I haven't tried this in ages be it Windows or Linux. And so I tried... The upgrade took longer than fresh install. I normally do vanilla install with minimal change to the configuration. So this is new to me. After the first reboot that's where the fun/pain begins. My first impression with Unity/Dash on Ubuntu 11.10 was unpleasant. Tried to run gedit, nothing happens. Tried to run Firefox, nothing shows up :(. It is good that CTRL+ALT+T works. So I have terminal. Running gedit from terminal works!!! So it must be Unity/Dash that's not working well here. I ha