Category Archives: Ubuntu

Solve audio troubleshooting on Ubuntu and start planning to migrate to another Linux OS

It was just a simple system update which dropped off audio on my Ubuntu 12.04. It was really strange to admit that I had experienced a crash (better: an audio crash) on a Linux but the 12.04 Ubuntu actually caused similar problems to a numerous bunch of long-term aficionados around the world.

The real problem with the last Ubuntu versions is that this OS is not supporting properly “old” hardware as it did previously during so many years. Reading some other bug reports on the web I discovered that these audio troubleshooting crashes happen principally to “old” IBM ThinkPad and Dell. I hope Ubuntu developers will consider to solve immediately these kind of issues or many users certainly migrate to other Linux version.

In any case the best and complete guide to solve audio troubleshooting has been developed by Ubuntu itself. The guide is very detailed but, if you want to definitively solve this bug, you have to spend more or less 40 (forty…. sic!) minutes and follow all the 17 (seventeen… sic!) steps.

In my case the audio was back after the first step and I decided not to follow the other instructions but the audio troubleshooting comes back, more or less, every two months. Just to you if you want to spend 40 minutes only one time or a couple of minutes every two/three months.

When I consider all the problems I had with Ubuntu on “old” hardware starting from the 12.04 version, my advice is to start thinking about a migration to another Linux OS. I am testing some Ubuntu alternatives and in the next weeks I will post something about the tests I’m doing on old laptops. Stay connected!

The good third choice: MATE desktop environment. The traditional but rock solid solution for the Unity unhappy users (when also Gnome fails)…

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My first Linux OS was a Knoppix but I had so many problems with the hardware drivers, the LAN configuration and the monitor settings that I was really discouraged. After many tests I decided that Ubuntu was the right OS for my notebooks and I continued to use it without any particularly matters till Unity.

Unity is nice to see, intuitive but if you use your OS in a stressful way (I mean doing three or four different tasks all together: reading emails, talking with Skype and writing on LibreOffice), you spend too much time looking for the icon you need to launch the right program. The vertical monitor space has not enough room to visually show all the icons related to programs I use everyday. Surely this is my personal matter but I actually prefer the “old” graphic interface. For this reason I decided to install Gnome 3 but my vetust IBM Thinkpad crashed a couple of time in a week.

To my surprise also the Gnome Classic option encountered some crashes due to the amount and diversity of the software I installed on my laptop during the last years.

As usual, after some web searches I found a solution: MATE. This particular desktop environment is a fork of Gnome 2 and it really looks very intuitive and easy to use. If some software conflicts with the MATE environment, a pop-up message will appear on your sceeen and, if you have the patience to read the Details contained in it, you will able to solve your problems. In my particular case (don’t ask me why) it helped me to focus my attention on Conduit which caused the crashes on Gnome.

To easily install MATE, on almost every Linux distribution, you can read its wiki dedicated page or directly follow the below instruction if you use Ubuntu 12.04.

– open Terminal and type these command lines:

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://repo.mate-desktop.org/ubuntu oneiric main"

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-getinstall mate-archive-keyring

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install mate-core

sudo apt-get install mate-desktop-environment

When the Terminal finishes all the upgrade stuff, reboot your Ubuntu 12.04 and select MATE on the login screen (click on the upper right “gear” and choose MATE).

That’s all! Have a good week!

How to launch Pogoplug online services (as local disk) on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

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I confess that I use Pogoplug as cloud server for my external hard disks because it is really simple to configure and trustful. Unfortunately the Linux version of the Pogoplug management software is not so simple to configure and has fewer features than the Windows and MAC versions.

Running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS I can manually mount the drives I connected to my Pogoplug device, following the path Network –> Windows –> etc.., but sometimes this way is not so fast and moreover I cannot access to Pogoplug Cloud.

Waiting for an updated software from the producer I decided to use the current version to automatize the process and mount the drives connected to the Pogoplug and its cloud as if they were physically attached to my Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

After a “classic” Google search on this topics I found different suggestions. Unfortunately I also had more than few problems to configure the software provided by Pogoplug because some tips were not so clear or easy as I desired.

By my experience, the fastest and reliable way to configure Pogoplug drives on Ubuntu 12.04 is the following:

– open Terminal and type sudo apt-get install fuse-utils

– open Synaptic Package Manager and be double sure you have yet installed these packages: fusesmb, fusedav, fuseext2, fusefat

– download the Linux software provided into the Downloads section of Plogoplug website, unzip it and save the file in your Home folder

– open Terminal and type: sudo usermod -a -G fuse $(id -u -n)

– log out and then log in again on your Ubuntu account to be sure that Fuse is correctly running

– open Terminal again and create a directory (in Media) to be used as mount point: sudo mkdir /media/pogoplug

– then type: sudo chown root:fuse /media/pogoplug

– and: sudo chmod 0775 /media/pogoplug

– in Terminal launch this command:

/home/yourusernameonubuntu/pogoplugfs --password yourpassword 
--mountpoint /media/pogoplug --user yourusername

where:

1. yourusernameonubuntu means you have to insert the name of User profile you use when you log in Ubuntu on your computer

2. yourusername and yourpassword are the username and password you use on the Plogoplug Website

Now, after some seconds an many automatic text lines, an icon named Pogoplug will appear on your desktop and you will be able to manage the online Pogoplug features as a local disk.

Don’t forget that you have to use keys -control+c- in Terminal if you want to disconnect from Pogoplug.

At this point the work is done but you might create a launcher icon in your (e.g.) Applications menu following this instructions:

– go to: System Tools –> Preferences –> Main Menu and click on the group (menu) where you want to create your new launcher (in my case simply was Applications)

New Item –> Create Launcher

Then fill the required fields with:

Type = Application in Terminal

Name = Pogoplug

Command =

/home/yourusernameonubuntu/pogoplugfs --password yourpassword 
--mountpoint /media/pogoplug --user yourusername

(as for the example above)

If you want to personalize the button you can also choose your favorite icon clicking on the picture on the left high corner.

On my side I also preferred to automatize the launch of Pogoplug command at each boot up in this way:

– go to: System Tools –> Preferences –> Startup Applications
– click on Add

– fill the fields:

Name = Pogoplug

Command = Same command line you used to start Pogoplug drive:

/home/yourusernameonubuntu/pogoplugfs --password yourpassword 
--mountpoint /media/pogoplug --user yourusername

(as for the example above)

So, starting now, you will have your Pogoplug drive connected each time you boot Ubuntu. You will not have any annoying Terminal lines.

Security Warnings: don’t forget that the data you move to and back Pogoplug, are directed through the web. This means that they could potentially be intercepted (and read) by third parties but it’s also necessary to specify that, if you configure it on the website Settings area, Pogoplug uses SSL (HTTPS) to encrypt the connection with its servers.

Anyway, don’t forget that the data you store into Pogoplug are not encrypted. If you want to join a better level of security you can encrypt previously your data or your disks using different softwares as TrueCrypt or the command dm-crypt (for more details on this topic also visit http://archlinuxarm.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1761&p=9723).

How to install and manage Screenlets on Ubuntu

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Screenlets are small applications to represent things such as sticky notes, clocks, calendars around on your Ubuntu desktop. You can launch a pre-installed screenlet from Screenlet Manager, or install a new one into the Manager for launching it. Here are the steps for installing and launching a screenlet, for example, WaterMark System Information.
– Install Screenlets Manager if it has not been added.
– Go to Applications (or Main Menu) > Ubuntu Software Center.
– Enter screenlets in the Search Box.
– Select Screenlets, click the “Install” button.
– Download the screenlet e.g. “WaterMark System Information” to a folder.
– Go to Applications (or Main Menu) > Accessories > Screenlets.
– Click Install, select Install Screenlet and click OK.
– Browse to the folder, select the file downloaded and click “Open” to install the screenlet into the Screenlets Manager.
– Select the screenlet “WaterMark” and click “Launch/Add”. (Tips: you can add more than one WaterMark screenlet and set it to display other system information.)
More screenlets are available for installation from screenlets.org.

How to permanently remove files in Ubuntu/linux and make them unrecoverable by NickMcDTV

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How to shred (permanently delete) files from your Hard Disks on Ubuntu Linux

Recovering deleted files from USB disks on Ubuntu

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Everyday we use USB keys to transfer data without transmitting them through the t. The USB keys and portable disks are small, light and their data capacity allow us to move in privacy huge files. This idyll sometimes is broken by a fatal mistake: we unintentionally delete an important file. Normally, if we are smart we recover the erased file in the Trash but in other situations when we realize the mistake we had made is too late.

In this circumstances is very import to stop to use our USB key or portable disk till we are able to use a good software for data recovering. On Ubuntu you have a wise number of dedicated software that can do this job for you, the most powerful run on Terminal as testdisk, foremost, and scalpel but you can also use a “minimal GUI” software as PhotoRec.

PhotoRec is very intuitive to use and it is able to recover many data formats from jpeg to db. After you install it using Synaptic Package Manager or the Software Center you can launch it in Terminal with:

sudo photorec

Immediately a GUI Terminal interface appears and you have just to follow the instruct ions you visualize on your monitor.

Using the arrows and the Enter keys you have to:

1 – Choose the USB device from where you want to recover the data

2 – Select the partition table (usually Intel)

3 – Specify the partition table

4 – Select the right filesystem where the data were stored

5 – Decide if you want to try the data recovering from all the free space

6 – select the directory where you want to store the recovered data. IMPORTANT: do not store the recovered data on the same USB key you are scanning for recovering

7 – Wait till PhotoRec finishes the recover operations.

PhotoRec is fast and, during our tests, we were able to recover almost the 100% of data. Not bad!!!

galigio.org: 2011 in review

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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 150,000 times in 2011. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 6 days for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.