How To Hide Kernel Updates in Ubuntu
Feb/100
Ubuntu’s Update Manager is a great utility that keeps all of your software up-to-date. If you’re using the default sources, updates have been tested and should work with no problems.
However, one item that you may not want to upgrade is the Linux kernel that powers your computer. Maybe you’ve customized your kernel, are annoyed with constantly cleaning up your Grub boot menu, or have had issues with video and audio drivers not working after kernel updates.
The following steps will show you how to hide kernel upgrades in Ubuntu while still allowing you to use Update Manager to get other software updates.
APT (Advanced Packaging Tool) is the system that Ubuntu uses to manage all of the software installed on a system. It allows you to “pin” a package to a certain version, so that it won’t be updated when you the Update Manager runs.
To pin your kernel packages, first you must determine what version your kernel is. One way to do this is to open the Synaptic Package Manager in System > Administration.
Type in “linux-generic” in the Quick search text field and hit enter.
Make a note of the number listed in the “Installed Version” column. We’ll use it in the next step.
Next, we need to edit the file /etc/apt/preferences. Open it by pressing Alt+F2 to bring up the Run Application window and entering in:
gksudo gedit /etc/apt/preferences
This will open up a gedit window. Most likely the window will be blank, unless you’ve played around with APT before.
In the window, type in the following, replacing the version number with the version number you found in the Synaptic Package Manager.
Package: linux-generic linux-headers-generic linux-image-generic linux-restricted-modules-generic
Pin: version
Pin-Priority: 1001
Save the file and close gedit. If you open the Update Manager, you should see that the Linux kernel updates are now hidden!
And that’s it!
Note: Make sure that you update your kernel every now and then, as even Linux suffers security issues occasionally.
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How To Hide Kernel Updates in Ubuntu
Troubleshoot Connection Issues with Windows Home Server Toolkit
Feb/100
If you’re experiencing slow connections or none at all to your Windows Home Server, a good way to help diagnose issues is with the Windows Home Server Toolkit. Today we take a look at the toolkit and see how it can help you get your connections back.
Windows Home Server Toolkit Install?
The WHS Toolkit is an easy to use utility that will help you find out what is going wrong if computers aren’t connecting to your home server. Simply download and install the toolkit on any of the machines on your network that aren’t connecting properly.
For this example we installed the toolkit on a Windows 7 machine and after installation you’ll see it listed in the Start menu. The first thing we need to do is publish the add-in over to the Home Server.
After it’s copied over you’ll receive the following message stating that it needs to be installed on the Home Server.
Open up the Home Server Console and click on Add-ins then the Available tab on the right then Install.
You’ll receive a message indicating the installation was successful and that WHS Console will close.
WHS Console closes and you’ll see an error that connectivity has been lost… that is normal just click Ok.
Using Connector Troubleshooter
Now you can use the toolkit to help troubleshoot network issues. Go to Start All Programs Windows Home Server Toolkit then launch the Connector Troubleshooter.
The troubleshooter gathers data and tries to help diagnose connection problems. It doesn’t make changes to any settings on your computer, but does help detect issues and find solutions.
After it’s complete you’ll get a report that opens in your browser and points out any issues it found. It might point you to a driver or software that needs to be installed, a Knowledgebase article, Windows Updates…etc.
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There might be times when you’re asked to send these logs to tech support, copy the logs to the server, or control other options. You can do so from the WHS Console under Home server support tools.
For example here we copied over the log files to the server.
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Advanced mode
While the method above is easy and should help most people who need it, you can also run it in Advanced Mode. This allows you to see the tests that the troubleshooter performs and can give you a better idea of any potential problems. To run it in Advanced Mode go to Start Run type cmd into the search box and hit Enter.
Now in the Command Prompt type in the following…
cd /d “Windows Home ServerToolkit”
Then at the next prompt type in…
ConnectorTroubleshooter.exe – a
The troubleshooter opens in Advanced Mode…click Run All Tests, enter in the server password, then get detailed information on each test that’s been performed.
This can be used to help solve connection problems and for sending error reports to tech support. You’ll need to install the toolkit on each machine that you’re tying to troubleshoot and it runs on XP SP2 and higher. If you’re having problems connecting to your home server, this toolkit can come in very handy for beginners and advanced user alike.
Download Windows Home Server Toolkit 1.1 32-bit
Download Windows Home Server Toolkit 1.1 64-bit
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Troubleshoot Connection Issues with Windows Home Server Toolkit
Install KDE 4.4 RC 2 on Ubuntu 9.10
Feb/100
If you install Ubuntu 9.10 the default desktop manager is Gnome. KDE is another desktop manager that you can use on your Ubuntu distro, and we’ll take a look at it here.
I’m pretty happy to use Gnome. However, I thought it would be a good idea to try out KDE 4.4 RC 2 which is the latest beta version of the much awaited KDE 4.4. The following is a step by step guide to install KDE 4.4 RC 2 on Ubuntu 9.10.
Installation
First step in the process is to enable the Kubuntu repositories. In order to do so, bring up a terminal window by hitting ALT+F2 and typing gnome-terminal.
At the terminal, type the following command to add the Kubuntu PPA
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/beta
Enter your password and you should see something like the one below. This suggests that we have added Kubuntu PPA repositories to the software sources.
Now in order to install KDE 4.4 RC on your machine which already has previous versions of KDE, type the following? command at the terminal:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
However, if you don’t have previous versions of? KDE installed, type the following commands at the terminal.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop
This should install KDE 4.4 RC on your Ubuntu machine. All that is left is to log out and login again by choosing KDE under the session option at the login screen.
The following are a couple screenshots of KDE desktop environment.
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KDE has a lot of eye candy, great themes, and wallpaper support. If you are an early adopter and itching to try out the new KDE 4.4 on your Ubuntu machine, this should get you started.
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Install KDE 4.4 RC 2 on Ubuntu 9.10
How To Install and Setup Windows Home Server
Feb/100
Have you ever wanted to be able to access all of your important files, music, photos, and more from all computers in your home from one central server? Today we’ll take a look at Windows Home Server and show you how to install and configure it with other machines on your network.
Windows Home Server (WHS) is meant for your family needs or for use in a home or small office. It allows you to centralize your important documents and digital media files on one box and provides easy access from other machines on your network. It has the ability to backup 10 computers and restore them if needed. It acts as a media server, backup solution, data recovery, document management, and allows you to access what you need from anywhere there is a web connection. Using a personalized website address, it lets you securely download and upload your data files.??????
You can buy server machines that already have WHS installed on it, or you can create your own (which is a lot more geeky and fun). The cool thing is that you can repurpose an older desktop to run Windows Home Server. A machine with a 1GHz Pentium III, 512MB of RAM, and an 80GB Hard Drive will work as the minimum requirements, but as you know minimum and recommended requirements are completely different things. You can check out the minimum and recommended system requirements from Microsoft’s WHS PDF guide (link below).
Start the Installation
Installation is very straight forward and easy to do. Boot from the WHS installation disc and kick off the install wizard.
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Select your region and keyboard settings…
Now choose the drive(s) that are in the machine. In this case there is only one, but if you have multiple drives, make sure they’re listed. If you want to add additional drives at a later time, it’s a simple process that we will cover in a future post.
Select New Installation…
Accept the Microsoft EULA…
Enter in your Windows Home Server Product Key…
Next it’s time to give your new Home Sever a name…
Again verify the hard drives that will be formatted…
It’s going to ask you again to make sure all the data will be deleted from the drives…
Finally it’s time to kick off the installation process. The amount of time it takes to complete will vary between systems. Count on the entire process taking a minimum of one hour and perhaps longer.
There is nothing needed from you while the install takes place. The system will reboot several times and you’ll see different screens displayed while the process completes…
Finish Installation
When you get to the following Welcome screen, you’re almost done.
Type in a password and password hint for the server.
Decide if you want to set up automatic updates or not…
Choose if you want to join the Customer Experience Improvement Program or not…
Choose if you want to turn on automatic Windows Error Reporting…
That’s all there is to it.? You don’t need to leave a keyboard, monitor, or mouse to the server. The only thing you needs to be connected is an Ethernet Cable running to your router (Wireless isn’t supported). You can administer the machine from any computer on your network after installing Windows Home Server Connector on the other machines.
Windows Home Server Console
To connect the computers on your network to the server, you’ll need to install the Windows Home Server Connector which is available as a separate download. You’ll need to install the WHS Connector to every computer on your network that you want to connect with the server. It connects your computers to WHS, allows for automatic nightly backups, monitors computer network health, and enables you to remotely administer the server from your computer.
If you don’t want to waste a CD to install it, you can use a free program like Virtual CloneDrive and mount the ISO and transfer the files to a a flash drive.
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Before installing the connector on XP you’ll be required to install Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 and it’ll guide you through the process if needed.
When you start WHS Connector Setup it will look for the Home Server…
Then it’s just a matter of working through the rest of the wizard.
During the process you’ll need to enter in the password you created for the server.
Decide if you want your computer to wake up if it’s in sleep mode to back it up…
When configuration is complete, we’re shown our settings — wake up the computer for backup between 12:00 and 6:00 AM. Also in this instance, we’re getting a message that one of the drives in the PC won’t be backed up. This is because it’s formatted as a FAT 32 volume and it will only backup drives formatted as NTFS.
The Home Server Console icon sits in the system tray and you can control some of it’s settings by right-clicking the icon.
It will display your network’s health and show security warnings (this feature can be easily turned off). In this instance we can see one of the machines on the network has its firewall turned off.
When you open up WHS Console, you’re prompted to log into the server. There are a few other features here to like having the password remembered, password hint, and resetting the console.
Once you’re signed in, you can configure and administer the server and its different functions. We’ll be taking a closer look at the WHS Console in future articles.
If you need to make more detailed changes to your server, another good option is to use Remote Desktop, which is easier than hooking up a monitor, keyboard, and mouse to it.
Download Updates
Now that installation is complete we need to add all the of the latest updates from Microsoft. Click on Start All Programs then Windows Updates. This will provide you with the latest server security updates and Power Pack updates as well. Power Packs are updates that add new features and provide fixes to known issues for Windows Home Server.
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Conclusion
This guide should get you started using your new Home Server. It comes in handy in a lot of cool ways if you want to centralize your digital entertainment and access it from any machine running XP or above. Or if you have a home or small office and want to be able to access your work from anywhere there is a web connection. There are several good reasons to have your own server at home, if you’re a power user. Over the next year we will be bringing you more detailed tutorials on how to set up and use your Home Server. If you happen to have an extra desktop you’re not using and can dedicate as a server, they offer a free 30 Day trial so you can try it out for yourself. If you like it, you can purchase a full license and I have seen it around the web for around $99 or a little cheaper depending on where you look.?
Download Windows Home Server 30 Day Trial
Download Windows Home Server Connector Software CD
Windows Home Server Getting Started Guide (PDF)
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Here is the original:
How To Install and Setup Windows Home Server
How To Setup a USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 7
Jan/100
If you have a netbook and would like to upgrade it to Windows 7, you may be wondering how to do it without a clunky external DVD Drive. Today we show you how to install Windows 7 from a USB flash drive.
Installing Windows 7 from a flash drive is essentially the same as installing it from a DVD. Most of the work is setting up your flash drive so it becomes a bootable device with the OS on it. Here we will take a look at a couple of utilities that will allow you to easily create a bootable USB drive and copy Windows 7 to it.?
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Note: You’ll need a minimum of a 4GB flash drive to dedicate to the installation files.
Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool
If you have an ISO image of Windows 7, using Microsoft’s free utility is a quick and easy option to get the image on your USB flash drive. It requires XP SP2 or higher and if you’re using an XP machine you’ll need .NET Framework 2.0, and Microsoft Image Mastering API V2…both of which can be downloaded from the link below. It seemed to work best if I formatted the flash drive as NTFS before using the download tool. But that could be because of the flash drive I used…your mileage may vary.
It’s a pretty straight forward process, first browse to the location of your Windows 7 ISO file and click Next.
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Select USB device…this also helps you burn the ISO to DVD as well if you need that option.
Choose your flash drive and click Begin copying.
Now just wait for the process to complete. The drive will be formatted and files copied to the flash drive.
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When the process is finished you will be able to see the files on the flash drive as you would if you opened the installation disc. Now you can start the installation on any computer that allows you to boot from a USB drive.
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WinToFlash
If you want to transfer a Windows 7 installation disc to USB…another super easy utility to use is WinToFlash. Just follow through the straight forward wizard, and you’ll be ready to install Windows 7 from your flash drive in no time.
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The neat thing about this utility is it also offers different advanced features and tasks for other versions of Windows too.
It’s as easy as choosing the location of the Windows installation disc and the USB drive. Where in this example the DVD is drive (E:) and the flash drive is (F:). They recommend to turn off your Antivirus to increase the process speed, but we had MSE running on our machine and it didn’t seem to affect performance at all.
Next, you’ll need to agree to the Windows 7 EULA and hit continue.
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Now just wait until the drive is formatted and the files are transferred over to the USB drive. The amount of time it takes will vary between systems. In our test it took around 10 minutes to complete over to an 8GB flash drive.
That’s it! Now the drive is ready so you can install Windows 7 on your netbook or any other computer that supports booting from a USB drive.
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Conclusion
WinToFlash is still in Beta and doesn’t require installation to use. Microsoft’s tool apparently became Open Sourced recently, requires installation, and a few other requirements like .NET Framework. Both of these tools are free and each one works a bit differently, so you’ll need to decide which will work best in your situation.? If you don’t want to manually create a bootable flash drive and copy the install files over, then you might want to check out these extremely simple to use utilities.
Download Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool
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How To Setup a USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 7
[MINI HOW-TO] Windows 7 Welcome Screen Taking Forever? Here’s the Fix (Maybe)
Jan/100
According to this Microsoft knowledge base article, if you’ve set your desktop to use a solid color background instead of a wallpaper, your system will hang for 30 seconds during the logon process.
Here’s what I’m talking about… the gray screen of death =)
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The fix, of course, is to use a great desktop wallpaper instead! Luckily we’ve got you covered with a whole variety of them:
- Friday Fun: Retro Nintendo Wallpapers
- Totally Awesome Lego Wallpapers for Your Desktop
- Awesome Desktop Wallpapers: Guitar Edition
- Desktop Fun: Winter Theme Wallpapers
- Awesome Desktop Wallpapers: Abstract Art Edition
- Awesome Desktop Wallpapers: Windows 7 Edition
- Fun Wallpapers: The Linux Desktop Edition
- Amazing Desktop Wallpapers: Castle Theme Edition
The other fix noted in the KB article, if you really want a solid color background image, is to make sure you’ve disabled the Desktop Window Manager (dwm) service, although you’ll lose all the great Aero effects. You might as well use Linux at that point.
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[MINI HOW-TO] Windows 7 Welcome Screen Taking Forever? Here’s the Fix (Maybe)
Desktop Fun: Winter Theme Wallpapers
Jan/100
If you have been looking for some pretty winter scenery to brighten up your desktop then you will definitely want to take a look at the winter theme wallpapers collection that we have for you today.
Note: Click on the picture to see the full-size image—these wallpapers vary in size so you may need to crop, stretch, or place them on a colored background in order to best match them to your screen’s resolution.
If you are looking for more great wallpapers be sure to look at our other terrific collections.
How-To Geek Wallpaper Collections
- Totally Awesome Lego Wallpapers for Your Desktop
- Awesome Desktop Wallpapers: Guitar Edition
- Awesome Desktop Wallpapers: Abstract Art Edition
- Awesome Desktop Wallpapers: Windows 7 Edition
- Fun Wallpapers: The Linux Desktop Edition
- Amazing Desktop Wallpapers: Castle Theme Edition
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Desktop Fun: Winter Theme Wallpapers
Dual Boot Your Pre-Installed Windows 7 Computer with Ubuntu
Jan/100
You have a new computer that came with Windows 7 pre-installed on it, and you want to create a dual boot system so you can run Ubuntu Linux as well. Here we take you through the process to install Ubuntu on your pre-installed Windows 7 machine.
For this demonstration we’re using Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit) and Ubuntu 9.10 (32-bit)
Install Ubuntu
Here we will set up a basic dual boot system with the Ubuntu 9.10 disc that will create GRUB as your boot loader. On the Window 7 machine pop in the Ubuntu disc and boot from it.
If you experience a problem with the graphics with Ubuntu not displaying correctly, go back to the start screen, hit F4 and select Safe graphics mode.
Continue through the installation steps by selecting your language, time zone, and keyboard layout. When you get to the following screen (step 4 of 6), the easiest method for beginners is to select the first option– Install them side by side, choosing between them each startup. On the first bar you’ll see is the entire Windows 7 partition. Then on the second bar, you can slide it up or down to specify the amount of hard drive space you want for Ubuntu.
The green area represents the amount of space we’re leaving for Windows 7, and the brown is the space we’re allocating for Ubuntu.In this example we’re sliding it down to 10GB and leaving the rest for Windows.
Click continue to the verification dialog box.
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In the next step create your user name, password, and configure log in options.
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If everything looks good, go ahead and click Install. If you need to make any changes you can still go back and make them at this point.
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The installation will start showing a progress bar and display new features in Ubuntu 9.10.
The amount of time it takes to install will vary from system to system, and once it’s complete, go ahead and restart the machine.
When the machine reboots you’ll see the GRUB loader where you can boot to Ubuntu or Windows 7.
One thing to point out in my experience with this method is when you first boot into Windows 7, Check Disk runs, then reboots and you need to choose the Windows 7 option again from the bootloader.
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Conclusion
This should help get you started in enjoying a Windows 7 / Ubuntu Linux dual boot configuration. There are definitely other ways to get a Windows / Linux dual boot system, but if you want a quick method, so you can try out Ubuntu, this method works well.
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Dual Boot Your Pre-Installed Windows 7 Computer with Ubuntu
How To Change XSplash Themes in Ubuntu 9.10
Jan/100
With every new release of Ubuntu, there’s a new XSplash theme that comes in. Today we show you how to change it and also show you some cool themes you might want to add to your machine.
XSplash
XSplash is a software project in the Ubuntu community that uses the X Window System to replace the scrolling-text screens that appear while booting a Linux-based computer with a graphical splash screen.
Previous versions of Ubuntu, (before Karmic Koala) used USplash which now is history.? The default XSplash screen in Karmic Koala looks something like the one below…which is actually not too bad.
However, you don’t have to live with the default XSplash if you don’t like it. You can always change your XSplash screen to make it look better, and customize it to your Ubuntu overall theme. The following is the XSplash screen that I am currently using.
Change Themes
In order to change the XSplash screen in Ubuntu Karmic Koala follow these steps:
1. Open nautilus as root by typing ‘gksu nautilus’ at the run prompt (Alt + F2).
2. Download the XSplash archive that you want to use and move the content of the archive to /usr/share/images/xsplash folder.
Note: Make sure that you take the back up of your current XSplash, by copying the default files to some safe location before copying the new XSplash theme files.
Once you have installed the new XSplash theme you can check how it looks by typing the following command at the terminal.
sudo xsplash
Cool XSplash Themes
Now that you know how to change it, let’s take a look at some of the different themes. Here is a list of cool themes we’ve found.
Fusion-GX-v00
![Fusion-GX-v00 [200911-21]_1](http://semibeta.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/f09331c44e21_11.jpg.jpg)
![Fusion-GX-v00 [200911-21]_2](http://semibeta.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/ed1b7b63221-21_2.jpg.jpg)
![Fusion-GX-v00 [200911-21]_3](http://semibeta.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/2d389af8bf1-21_3.jpg.jpg)
Xsplash – Crunchy Branch
Download? Xsplash Crunchy Branch
Ubuntu clean xsplash
Mesh Grill
XSplash-CF-GX
PackoXsplash HD
Xsplash (for netbook)
Download Xsplash (for netbook)
Xsplash-Engranes-GX-01a
Download Xsplash-Engranes-GX-01a
Chromiu-GX
This will allow you to customize your Ubuntu installation a bit more…especially if you match it with your overall unique Ubuntu theme. Have Fun!
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How To Change XSplash Themes in Ubuntu 9.10
Advert
Edit Webpage Text Areas in Your Favorite Text Editor
Jan/100
Are you frustrated with webpage text areas that are limited in size and display/use small text? Now you can make entering text much more pleasant (and easier on your eyes) with the It’s All Text! extension for Firefox.
Editor Note: At the time of this post, It’s All Text! hasn’t yet been updated for Firefox 3.6
Before
For our example we chose to use the comment text area for a How-To Geek article. At the moment whatever could be typed is limited (in size, etc.) to the text area itself.
After
As soon as you have installed the extension you will need to go into the options first where you can browse for and select your favorite text editor. Then it is a matter of making any small changes or modifications that you desire such as preferred “Character Set”, “Edit Button” location, or creating a “Hotkey Combination”.
After selecting Editra for our example, we did change the “Edit Button” location and the “Duration of button fade” options.
Now back to the original comment text area. As you can see an “Edit Button” is now visible with a drop-down menu (access with a right click). Clicking directly on the “Edit Button” will open up the text editor that you chose in the options.
You may also use/access the “Right-Click Menu” in the text area itself. Notice that the “Edit Button” is still visible at the moment even though the “Right-Click Menu” is still being accessed. In our test we preferred the “Edit Button” for ease of use…
Once your favorite text editor has been opened and you have finished typing, how do you get the text into the comment area? Simply click on the appropriate “Save Button” for your text editor to transfer the text.
The text will appear in the comment area with a temporary yellow background color (fades very quickly) to signal a successful transfer.
Afterwards you can close your text editor and click the appropriate “Submit Button” to finish up.
Conclusion
If you have felt frustrated with the limited area and smaller text size of comment areas at different websites, then the It’s All Text! extension will be a pleasant change and make commenting and entering text much easier on your eyes.
Links
Download the It’s All Text! extension (Mozilla Add-ons)
Download the It’s All Text! extension (Extension Homepage)
Originally posted here:
Edit Webpage Text Areas in Your Favorite Text Editor