Jigsaw Boys » Ubuntu

Ubuntu Virtual Machine

Jamsi — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:39:17 +0000

One of the biggest problems I faced when I made the switch to Ubuntu was my workplace. You see, I’m often assigned to projects that require me to work on websites and online systems using ASP.NET and C#. It’s these projects that require me to have access to Visual Studio 2005 and mSQL on my laptop. So the problem? These are all Windows applications. At first I was going to setup a dual boot system on my laptop, but first I told myself I’d give Sun’s VirtualBox a whirl, and I’m sure glad I did.

If you’re an Ubuntu user who needs access to Windows applications for work or university like myself, VirtualBox is certainty the way to go and I’ll briefly tell you why.

It’s free
It’s fast
I can store files on my Ubuntu system and access them from Windows
Once the VirtualBox tools addon had been installed within Windows, it made switching between Windows and Ubuntu a dream.
VirtualBox’s networking features are superb. Setup a virtual interface to allow your Virtualbox to be its own networking device, or use the inbuilt Network Address Translation (NAT) feature to streamline network connectivity to your VirtualBox OS.
Because VirtualBoxes are stored in a single .VDI file, its never been easier to backup your entire virtual operating system. Simply burn the VDI file to disc and in case of an emergency you can simply restore your entire Virtualbox operating system.

So How Do you Go About Installing VirtualBox?

Lucky for you, its dead simple.

Simply download the .DEB package that suits your Ubuntu operating system (depending on whether you have Hardy, Gusty or Drapper) and install.

Download VirtualBox .DEB Packages here

Once downloaded, use

dpkg -i VirtualBox_1.3.8_Ubuntu_yourubuntuversion.deb

You may get asked a question telling you to accept the terms and conditions so simply select yes. Once installed, you should see VirtualBox under Accessories > System Tools > Sun xVM VirtualBox.

Enjoy!

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Meebo Crashes Firefox on Ubuntu

Jamsi — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:37:13 +0000

So I felt like some instant messaging action and my favorite IM client at the moment is web based Meebo, which allows you to log into multiple IM networks using the one sexy, Ajax client otherwise known as Meebo. But BAM, Firefox closed without a hint of what the problem was. So I tried again, typed in http://www.meebo.com and BAM again – Firefox closed again. Hmm.

So I did a bit of Googling and it seems that I’m not the only problem that has this Meebo crashing firefox bug. Some people have stated that it only crashes whenever they visit the secure version of meebo (https://).

I managed to fix the problem simply by doing the first thing that came to my head; and that was to clear the private data (aka session cache etc). In Firefox 3 you can do this by holding ctrl + shift + delete. I’m not sure why this fixed the problem but if it works for you, then I’ve done my job . If you found a different solution to fix this issue, use the comment section below to share your solution.

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How To Install Twhirl on Ubuntu

Jamsi — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 07:17:13 +0000

Whoa. I didn’t think this was possible.. BUT If you’re a twitter addict, there there’s no better client like Twhirl. Twhirl uses the Adobe Air platform which is currently supported on Windows and Mac, and I found out today that there is an Alpha version which runs on Linux!

My man Seth Yates has a wicked guide on how to get it working, here’s the basic steps. (slighly modified to make it easier)

cd ~/Desktop

wget http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/air/linux/adobeair_linux_a1_033108.bin

wget http://www.twhirl.org/files/twhirl-0.8.air

chmod +x adobeair_linux_a1_033108.bin

sudo ./adobeair_linux_a1_033108.bin

/opt/Adobe\ AIR/Versions/1.0/airappinstaller (when prompted, browse to your desktop and select the twhirl-0.8.air package)

And that was in! You should now see a Twhirl icon on your desktop!
Ubuntu > Windows.

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Resize Photos with ease in Ubuntu

Jamsi — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 08:51:47 +0000

Okay I just stumbled upon the coolest Unbuntu feature (gnome..) yet. Nautilus image resizer allows you to quickly “highlight” multiple image files, right click, select Image Resize and wham – all your images get resized in a batch process. It’s the quickest and easiest way to resize your photos.

To install, type the following from a terminal prompt.

sudo aptitude install nautilus-image-converter

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Installing Google Chrome on Ubuntu Hardy

Jamsi — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 10:11:35 +0000

With the release of Google Chrome last week, it was interesting to see all the articles that popped up with Linux users installing Google Chrome (Which is a windows product at present) on Linux. The biggest problem I found was that you need the latest version of WINE to get this working, and no amount of “apt-get update | apt-get install wine” will work.

Updating WINE

The first step is to update your WINE version to 1.1.4.

wget -q http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/387EE263.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

sudo wget http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/sources.list.d/hardy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq.list

sudo apt-get update

Installing prerequisites

There’s a few software packages you need in order to get Chrome up and running. Winetricks is a script which allows you to quickly download necessary windows components.

Note: The last command below will install FIREFOX in WINE, you’ll see why in a second.

wget http://www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks

mv winetricks /usr/sbin/

winetricks riched20 riched30 flash msxml3 corefonts firefox

Installing Chrome

During the above process, you’ll be prompted to install FireFox 3. Proceed with the WINE installation of Firefox.
Note: Yes I know you can get around this step by not installing FireFox, but this way seems to the be the easiest way to do it.

Once Firefox is installed in Wine, RUN Firefox in WINE and visit

http://www.google.com/chrome/

Download Chrome and run the Chrome setup. It will proceed to download and install the Google Chrome browser. Once it’s complete, use the following command to run Chrome.

Running Google Chrome

wine “$HOME/.wine/drive_c/windows/profiles/$USER/Local Settings/Application Data/Google/Chrome/Application/chrome.exe” –no-sandbox –new-http

And there you have it. A fairly simple way to get Chrome up and running on Ubuntu Hardy.

Sources: Ubuntu Forums

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