Hello dear people,

You have noticed that your close, minimize and maximize buttons are on the left side of a title bar. Well a lot of you probably dislike this concept and would like to have it back on the right side. There is a solution for this! Follow this mini tutorial.



Step 1.

Press ALT+F2

type: gconf-editor


Hit Run.

Step 2.

New windows will appear and you need to follow the path:

apps>>metacity>>general>>button_layout










Step 3.

In this step you need to do very simple thing.

Instead of minimize, maximize,close: you need to input following:

menu:minimize,maximize,close


After this you only need to hit enter and you will see instantaneous change!

Pay attention that sign : should not be at the end when you are changing buttons side.

And that is it!

Enjoy,

Hello people,

There is less than one day until new Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx will be released. We are all biting nails and on tomorrow we will have it! :) Most of us will make clean install on our machines. I know that upgrade is easier thing to do but upgrade can often make other complications.



I know that lot of you, like myself, use CD/DVD to install your new Ubuntu. Pay attention that CD/DVD should be new and good quality. Try to avoid old CD/DVD and also RW which you were using quite often. Do not save money on quality disk because bad disk and bad copy can create you problems for which you will hate Ubuntu and still it is not Ubuntu's fault.

Hello dear people worldwide,

I hope you are all OK today. I will tell you a short story about batteries and Ubuntu/Kubuntu. In this tutorial i will tell some little secrets and truths from my personal experience and from other people's experiences. This is strictly about how to spare resources and extend you battery power between to charges.





So lets begin.

First thing i want to tell you is that Windows has better battery manager than Ubuntu/Kubuntu. I can not tell you the reason but in my experience, and according to other people, battery always lasts longer on Windows. Some people say that the reason for this is because Ubuntu is more desktop oriented rather than laptop. And that is quite possible. So if you see in Windows that your battery can last for four hours do not be surprised  if in Ubuntu you see three hours. At the moment it is just like that.

For me there are four important thing that influence battery power - screen brightness, HDD usage, wireless and processor activity.

Screen brightness

Each and every laptop has options for screen brightness adjusting. In order to extend battery power lower your screen brightness to what is acceptable for you. In Kubuntu for example you have three power profiles in battery mode - powersave, aggressive powersave and extreme powersave. For each of them you have defined brightness level.

Conclusion: Keep your brightness on visually reasonable level. It is stupid to save to much if you can not see anything :)

HDD usage

HDD is one of the biggest battery consumers. Probably you have noticed that normally you HDD lamp is not blinking that often except when you are running programs for the first time, listening music or watching videos... That is because after you start program for the first time it is in your RAM memory. In order to save battery power it is good to have bigger RAM memory. Normally laptops with eg 512MB of RAM will consume more energy because of constant loading new contents in RAM memory. So if you have some extra money put it on RAM memory. :)

Conclusion: Try not to start new programs all the time, try to avoid watching videos and playing music. Try not to cut and copy big files from one place to another.

Wireless

I will not explain this to much since it is pretty self-explanatory. I can confirm that without wireless my battery lasted 10-15% longer.

Conclusion: Since you are using laptop i would be very stupid to say turn off your wireless and use cable for internet :) But in the case that you do not need wireless or you just do not have access to any AP turn it off and your battery will last longer.

Processor activity

Processor is also a big consumer. If you want battery juice to last longer be sure not to use processes which are to demanding. Also notice that Flash and Java applications are very CPU demanding. That means do not exaggerate with youtube videos :) and online video games. Be aware that if you talk via skype, camera also pushing processor up. I believe that you know that video editing, animation or picture rendering and some demanding processes in photo editing may be CPU consuming.

Conclusion: Avoid Flash and Java applications, online videos, picture or animation rendering, video editing and huge and complex operations in photo editing. 


I read somewhere that 64bit systems are using more RAM memory and less CPU than 32bit systems. If this is true then 64bit are better than 32bit for laptop users. I can not give you explanation why but like i said i read it somewhere and it is not necessary to be absolute truth. :)

Well i hope this will help someone. This is just my response to one of the question i got on my chat.

Generally this might be useful for Windows users as well but they should exclude the part about processor and java and flash applications.

More tips about laptop batteries you can find you click here. you will see very useful instructions about how to prolong healthy period of your battery and how to use the most of it.

Enjoy,

Hello people,

Probably many times you wondered where how you can customize your GNOME or KDE working environment. Well the good thing is that there are two very special websites with a whole bunch of great eyecandies for your Ubuntu or Kubuntu. Visually they are quite similar but each of them are specialized for KDE or GNOME only. On this websites you can find wallpapers, various themes, window decorations, icons, cliparts, screensavers etc. You want to add to your desktop environment some spice you absolutely need to see www.kde-look.org and www.gnome-look.org

Hello people,

Hello again,

In this post i will try to explain how in a very simple way you can install your nVidia graphic driver. Even i am quite aware that a lot of newbies are shaking when they need to install something using Terminal or Konsole i will give you perfect tutorial on how you can do that in a few simple steps. It is important to say that this tutorial is for both Ubuntu and Kubuntu with a difference that in Ubuntu you are using Terminal and in Kubuntu you will use Konsole.



It is also important to know that you can install graphic driver with you Hardware Drivers program where you will mostly just pick recommended driver which will be installed automatically and only thing you have to do is to reboot your system.

Naturally you will wonder why do we install nVidia driver with Terminal and Konsole if we have GUI for that. The answer is simple, because in the repositories you can get only the drivers which Ubuntu supports and that driver is usually older then the one on the nVidia offical website.

It is also important to know that it is not compulsory to have latest drivers but if you want that little extra then you need them.

Step 1.

Download newest nVidia driver from here. You will do that by picking your model and version of your Linux OS (32bit or 64bit). Download your file on your Desktop.

Step 2.

Hit CTRL+ALT+F2 and your desktop will disappear and you will see new black screen with bottom line blinking in expectation that you will type your username and just after that your password.

Step 3.

In order not to let down blinking bottom line, type username, hit ENTER and then type your password and hit ENTER again. If you wonder why your password does not appear i will just say that it should be like that. Just type it correctly and do not worry.

Step 4.

Now you are logged in and since you are also logged in on other desktop we will need to stop all activities from there so we could successful driver installation.

If you use Ubuntu type following line:

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop

If you use Kubuntu type following line:

sudo /etc/init.d/kdm stop


Step 5.

In previous step we have stopped all graphical activities on your system and now we need to uninstall old nVidia driver. In the case that you are installing nVidia graphic driver for the first time skip to next step.


Type:

sudo nvidia-uninstall 


When you have done that type:


sudo reboot

This will reboot your system which once upon the reboot will show you black screen again (terminal) where you again need to type username and password like i explained in the step 3.


Step 6. 


Now you are logged in again and we have just one final step to install nVidia video driver. I presume that you have downloaded your driver on Desktop as i suggested.


Pay attention to big and small letters since Terminal is case sensitive. Type exactly what i am saying! :)


Type:


cd Desktop


Type:

ls

This command will list you all files and folders on your desktop where you will see your driver file which always begins with NVIDIA-Linux-...

Type:

sudo sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-195.136.15-pkg2.run


*Notice that version might be newer than this one so type file name of the driver you have downloaded. Little trick is when you start typing NVIDIA hit tab button on your keyboard and Terminal will automatically finish the name of your file! :)

Step 7.

Now your have started installation process and you should see some blue screen where nVidia is asking if your agree with it's policy. Hit Accept because Do Not Accept will kick you out of installation. :)

Then another blue screen will be prompted and it will ask you:

Install NVIDIA's 32-bit compatibility openGL libraries?


Hit Yes.


This will prompt another blue screen with the following very long question:

Would you like to run nvidia-xconfig.....

Hit Yes.


When process is finished hit ok and you will be returned to Terminal (black screen).

Step 8.

Type:

sudo reboot


After reboot you will be sent to your log in screen and you will see significant difference. :)

That is it. Simple as 1,2,3...

Thank you for reading this post.

Hello again,

Probably many times you have heard about GNOME, KDE and XFCE terms. On the beginning i was quite confused thinking that there is some super difference in each of these. Well since there are all GUI for Linux there is only visual and organizational difference. It is also good to know that some Linux distributions rather prefer to KDE over GNOME and opposite and usually most of them have both GUIs.


In order to understand me better read following lines.

GNOME

GNOME 2.28 on Ubuntu desktop 9.10

GNOME is an acronym of GNU Network Object Model Environment which is composed entirely on open-source software. Gnome was built in 1997. like independent project which should compete KDE and its dependency on QT. Main characteristic of GNOME are two system panels - one on the bottom and the other one on the top. In the line on the top there is a menu from which on you are starting your programs, acquiring system menu and accessing various partitions. In the too left corner you will find network icon, volume slider, bluetooth icon, date and time and power button. On the other side, in the bottom line you will see programs that you are running, desktop icon, desktop changer icon and trash can icon. It is important to add that you can modified this panels so you can put the top one on the bottom and opposite in order to please your test.

Many GNOME fans will say that the GNOME is more stable, faster, smoother and of course more functional. There is a lot of programs for GNOME GUI and you can recognize some of them by their names which start with the letter g. GNOME is a default GUI for Ubuntu distribution.


KDE

KDE 4.4.2. on Kubuntu 9.10

KDE is acronym which stands for K Desktop Environment and is another GUI for Linux OSs but you can also install it on Windows, Mac and Solaris. It is invented a year before GNOME in 1996. Main difference between these two is in the first place in default panels position. KDE has only one on the bottom and looks more on Windows in spite of GNOME where you have two of them. In KDE you can also modify this by adding another panels. The biggest difference is in the general feeling. 


KDE is giving a lot on appearance and most of it's fans will tell you that it is much more prettier then GNOME, more user friendly, that it has better programs etc. If you ask me i would definitely agree. Latest KDE updates are confirming the direction to where KDE is headed. 


There are many programs natively made for KDE and community works all the time on new ones. Most of this programs you can recognize by letter K in the name of it. KDE is default GUI for Kubuntu distribution. 


 XFCE

XFCE 4.4

XFCE stands for XForms Common Environment and is a third most popular GUI for Linux OSs. It aims to be lightweight and fast and is generally used like GUI for older machines since it is not that CPU, Video and RAM demanding. So if you were thinking about throwing your old PC think once again because Linux with XFCE will make it young again. Xubuntu is Canonical's product based on XFCE GUI but it is not typical because desktop looks like GNOME and native XFCE is more like KDE arranged.


That is it generally. I know that somebody will say that this is to simplified but generally that is the difference if we exclude some technicalities. It is also very important to mention that all of these GUIs are highly customizable. That means you can adjust it in the way that suits you best.

Thank you for reading this article.

Hello people,

In this post i will try to share with you some basic things about Ubuntu and Kubuntu. Also i will explain difference between Linux and Ubuntu/Kubuntu and i will give explanation of word distribution.

So first things first. If we exclude a fact that lot of people have never heard for Linux, there are a lot of you who know that Linux exists and that Linux is somewhere around us but are to afraid to try it. There is also common opinion that Linux is actually bad substitution for Windows and that Linux users are some geeks that stare in the black screen and type something all the time. Well all of these things are just a prejudice. 

At the moment there are three major Operating Systems (OS) – Windows, Mac OS X and Linux based OSs. Well Windows and Mac are widely spread and they have biggest user base since a long time ago. Reason is simple, Windows is similar with what we have today for a last 15 years and Mac is extremely user friendly, beautiful and very reliable OS for a last decade. Well they have graphic user interface (GUI), the thing that you see on your screen and where you are clicking with your mouse, and they are commercial products. There are also other reasons for their popularity but we are here to see where the Linux is in this story.

In order to tell you this part i will explain word – distribution. Imagine that you have three producers of car engines with the names Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Mac and Windows use only their engines but Linux engine use a lot of different car producers. Some of the most famous are Ubuntu, Mandriva, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Debian etc. These are various distributions of Linux OS. So you have a OS core which is Linux but you have various factories that produces final product – distributions.

Linux OSs

The reason why i have permanently changed Windows for Ubuntu is because 4 years ago Windows abandoned me in very critical moment. The only solution was to reinstall it and i didn’t have a time to do that. Somehow in that period i have seen Ubuntu v 6.06 and his magic and i started with checking internet about it. Then i have realized that this is the OS i would like to have. Well, a lot of people had a whole bunch of trouble with it but somehow i was determined to succeed.

I had some old but operational Asus laptop in which i have inserted Kubuntu Live CD. After a few minutes a had fully operational OS working directly from my CD. I was astonished and just several minutes later I decided to install Kubuntu for the first time on my laptop. The most beautiful thing was the feeling that almost nothing can harm your system and that all the time you are perfectly safe. I liked that and i still do.

What is the difference between Ubuntu and Kubuntu?

Many people asked me this! Simplest answer is that the only big difference is in GUI (Graphic User Interface). There are three major GUIs for Linux - GNOME, KDE and XFCE. More about them you can read in my separate post if you click here.

Beside GUI there is also certain number of programs that work only on Ubuntu or Kubuntu. It is also important to say that Ubuntu is main distribution and that Kubuntu is its derivate. For me Kubuntu is much more visually appealing but some Ubuntu  fans says that Ubuntu is more stable. If you ask me i think that Kubuntu has better programs. My recommendation for you is to try both of them and see which one better meets your needs.

I hope that i have make some things clearer.

If you have some questions put it in the comment.

Thank you for being guest on my blog.