Tag: ubuntu

Ubuntu Panel Missing!
When I logged into the machine today, I was shocked to see no panel appearing on the ubuntu desktop. I thought the computer has hung. But when I right clicked the desktop, I got the regular pop-up menu and was able to change desktop wallpapers.

Here is what I did to get the panel back. With the desktop without the panel and not remembering any of the shortcuts, it was quiet difficult.

First, I created a launcher for Terminal. Right Click on any area on the desktop and then choose ‘Create Launcher’. Choose any name and then in the command text box, type in
```
terminal
```
This should create a terminal launcher. That done, double click to open a terminal session. Enter the following command,
```
killall gnome-panel
```
Then right click on the desktop to create another launcher. This time in the command text box, type in
```
gnome-panel
```
This creates a gnome-panel launcher. Double click and viola! you have the Panel.
June 11, 2009
Rake Migrate – Aborted!
Trying out a sample application using rails, I faced a problem, getting the database tables created (migrated) using ‘rake’. Running the command
```
rake migrate
```
threw the following error
```
(in /home/rajesh/Programming/rails/todolist)
rake aborted!
Don't know how to build task 'migrate'

(See full trace by running task with --trace)
```
The search on internet forums only said that ‘rake migrate’ should do the job, but to no avail.

The actual command to get the tables created is
```
rake db:migrate
```
Hope this helps!
April 28, 2009
Installing LAMP in Ubuntu
Following are the steps to get Apache, MySQL and PHP installed on a Ubuntu system.

Installing Apache:

In the terminal window issue the following command
```
sudo apt-get install apache2
```
To test if Apache has installed successfully, open a browser and browse to http://localhost. A message “It works” will be displayed.

Installing PHP

In the terminal window issue the following command
```
sudo apt-get install php5 libapache2-mod-php5
```
Once the installation is complete, to get php working, restart apache server by issuing the following command
```
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
```
To test that PHP has been successfully installed, quickly create a test PHP script
```
sudo gedit /var/www/test.php
```
In the gedit window, type a script and save the file

Open up a browser window and open the test.php file created. The PHP application environment information will be displayed.

Installing MySQL

In the terminal, run the following command
```
sudo apt-get install mysql-server
```
That should get mysql installed. You will be prompted for a ‘root’ db user password. Enter it.
To test mysql, in the terminal issue,
```
mysql -u root -p
```
Enter the root user password for mysql server. You will be launched into the mysql prompt.

Installing phpMyAdmin

To install phpMyAdmin, issue the following command at the terminal
```
sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-auth-mysql php5-mysql phpmyadmin
```
To test phpmyadmin, open a browser and navigate to http://localhost/phpmyadmin.
Thats it!
April 27, 2009
Configuring ThunderBird 2.0 for Gmail App Account

After fiddling around for half an hour, here is how I got to configure Thunderbird as client for Gmail App Account.

1. Enable IMAP in Gmail App Mail Settings.

2. In Thunderbird, select Tools -> Account Settings.

3. Select Add New Account.

4. In the New Account Setup dialog, Select Email Account. Click on Next.

5. Set Your Name and Email Address in the Next Step. Click on Next.

6. In the Server Information, Select the type of incoming server as IMAP.

7. Enter the incoming server name as imap.googlemail.com (for outside US and imap.gmail.com for US).

8. Enter the outgoing server name as smtp.googlemail.com (for outside US and smtp.gmail.com for US). Click on Next.

9. Enter the Incoming User name as your email address (user@domain). I used raasukutty@raasukutty.com.

10. Enter the Outgoing User name as your email address. (e.g. raasukutty@raasukutty.com).

11. In the Account Settings Window displayed (Tools -> Account Settings), for the Server Settings, verify that the port number is 993.

12. In the Outgoing Server, set Port Number as 587, and for Use Secure connection, set TLS.

13. Now click on the Inbox. You will be asked for the password. And that completes it.

March 13, 2009
How to open, extract and use RAR files in Ubuntu
Archive Manager in Gnome does not support .rar files by default.

To use .rar files in Ubuntu/Debian, type the following lines in the terminal.
```
sudo apt-get install rar
sudo ln -fs /usr/bin/rar /usr/bin/unrar
```
Then use the Archive Manager to compress and uncompress RAR files.
December 7, 2008
Dual booting Ubuntu and XP

Starting out on the Open Source fever, I installed Mandriva, Suse and finally have settled with Ubuntu after two days of fighting over which distribution to go with. But Ubuntu doesn’t ask a lot of questions during install, about what to install and where to install grub etc.

After installing Ubuntu, I saw that it had not even install gcc libraries but had installed the gcc compiler. Also, the default operating system to boot into was ‘Ubuntu’ instead of Windows XP. As I and my friends use the same machine and they have no liking to Linux, I needed Windows to boot first. During the installation, I was not provided the option to choose.

I wanted to change the default boot option in grub. I had to edit the ‘menu.lst’ file located in /boot/grub manually. It does not allow to edit as the permissions for the only user was denied. The concept of ‘root’ user was not there, as I was not requested for the creation of a root user. I just created a user, and ubuntu assigns super user privilege to this user.

To switch users, the ‘sudo’ command was to be used instead of ‘su’.

Finally, all set and working. Still to install ruby, mysql, python, vlc.

October 3, 2008