There were many problems with Intel’s graphics drivers in Ubuntu 9.04. My only system using Intel graphics is my Eee PC netbook, which worked fine with 9.04, and is working better than ever with 9.10. Kernel mode setting is enabled by default, which means that the display’s native resolution is set early in the boot process and does not change even when switching to a terminal. Compiz works great, and windows with 3D rendering will no longer have the 3D area render on top of other windows or in the wrong location. Performance is good enough to play Quake Live (with Compiz disabled).

Since Ubuntu started using PulseAudio by default, it has never worked properly for me. On my netbook, the new version of Skype and PulseAudio are working much better than in 9.04. Most of the problems have been on my main system which I have not upgraded yet, but I’m hopeful. The new sound preferences looks great, and finally exposes the application-specific volume controls that PulseAudio supports.

The boot experience has been improved significantly. I rarely reboot my desktop, but my netbook boots fast enough now that I don’t bother with standby mode and am booting and shutting down often. Booting starts with uspash, just as in previous releases, but now with just a simple white Ubuntu logo and no progress bar. If a disk check is needed, its progress is displayed in usplash. X now starts much earlier to display the brand-new xsplash. xsplash features a fancy spinning progress animation. Next, the newly re-written GDM login screen is displayed with a dark theme matching xsplash. After logging in xsplash is displayed again until the desktop is loaded. The plan is that usplash will not be needed when X/xsplash is able to start early and fast enough. My only complaint with the boot experience is that the xsplash animation stutters a lot.

The new Human theme and Humanity icons are still brown, but look fantastic. The Dust theme, as well as a few nice wallpapers are installed by default.

I’ve finally adopted Ubuntu’s netbook remix interface on my netbook. In previous releases, I’ve always used the full desktop. The auto-maximization and compact window switcher work great for me. The netbook launcher is handy and looks great, but is sorely missing a text box for launching apps. Also, in large categories scrolling is too fast, while in categories with few entries scrolling is very slow. I also wish that the netbook remix left out some applications to save disk space because the smaller SSD in my Eee PC is only 4 GB (and who needs a CD burning application on a netbook?).

OMG Ubuntu has a visual tour of some of the new features. If you’ve installed 9.10, here’s a great post with a ton of things you can do next.

If you haven’t already, you’ll need to install the advanced Compiz configuration utility. Install CompizConfig Settings Manager from the package compizconfig-settings-manager (click the link to install), or by running the command below in your terminal:
sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

Start CCSM from System->Preferences->CompizConfig Settings Manager. Under the category General, select General Options. Select the Display Settings tab. De-select the Detect Refresh Rate option. Set the Refresh Rate option to match the vertical refresh rate of your display. (I checked my monitor’s on-screen display to verify that it was running 60 Hz.) Finally, select the Sync To VBlank option.

These settings should take effect immediately. If Compiz is still not completely smooth, it won’t hurt to turn the refresh rate up higher.

In the video the code name for Ubuntu 10.04 is revealed: “Lucid Lynx”. As this release fits into the two year long term support schedule, it will receive the LTS designation. A few details about what this version will entail are given in the video. Ubuntu 10.04 “Lucid Lynx” will focus on GNOME 2 rather than GNOME 3, which will be adopted in subsequent releases. The server edition will focus on cloud computing and support for large scale web infrastructure.

Ubuntu 10.04 should be released in April 2010.

[update] Mark Shuttleworth has formally introduced Lucid Lynx in written form.

rdiff-backup tries to “combine the best features of a mirror and an incremental backup”. It’s a command line utility that not only gives you a plain mirror of your files, but also allows you to retrieve previous versions of your files using the extra difference data it keeps. This means you can quickly copy and paste to restore a file from your most recent backup, or retrieve the contents of files as they were at the time of any previous backup. rdiff-backup has built in support for network backups over SSH and is network-efficient and fast thanks to its incremental nature. It’s also possible to run rdiff-backup on Windows, soon I’ll be investigating whether it will work as a backup solution for the Windows systems on my network.

If you’re looking for an simpler graphical backup tool, check out A Guide to System Backup and Restore in Ubuntu. The rest of this post will go though how I’ve set up rdiff-backup to backup my home directory to a hard drive connected to another Ubuntu system on my network.

SSH public key authentication
If you want to schedule automatic rdiff-backups over the network you will need to use public keys with SSH so rdiff-backup can log into the remote system without a password. This assumes that both the remote and local systems already have SSH servers installed.

On your local system create new key pair with no passphrase for your user:
ssh-keygen -t rsa

Use the ssh-copy-id tool to give the new public key to the remote backup system:
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub '-p 2222 backups@192.168.1.40'

Finally, test logging in to the remote system without a password:
ssh -p 2222 backups@192.168.1.40

Install rdiff-backup
When operating over the network, rdiff-backup is required to be installed on both systems. Ideally both copies of rdiff-backup will be the exact same version. If your local and remote systems are both running the same version of Ubuntu, you can install it from the repositories. If you’ve got different versions of Ubuntu, there is a PPA available with the latest version of rdiff-backup for every supported version of Ubuntu except dapper. Unfortunately my remote backups server is still running dapper, but I didn’t have any trouble installing the latest version of rdiff-backup from source.

Write your backup script
rdiff-backup’s options are pretty easy to configure. Be sure to read the page of examples as well as the manpage as you write your backup command. Here’s my backup.sh script file for running a backup of my home directory:

#!/bin/shrdiff-backup --print-statistics --remote-schema 'ssh -p 2222 %s rdiff-backup --server' --exclude /home/tom/Virtual\ Machines --exclude /home/tom/Videos --exclude /home/tom/.gvfs --exclude /home/tom/.local/share/Trash /home/tom backups@192.168.1.40::/media/backups/backups/tom-rdiffrdiff-backup --remove-older-than 1M --remote-schema 'ssh -p 2222 %s rdiff-backup --server' backups@192.168.1.40::/media/backups/backups/tom-rdiff

The first command connects to my backups server with ssh on port 2222 and backs up my home directory while excluding some directories with files I won’t mind loosing (be sure to exclude your trash and gvfs folders). The second command removes increments older than one month to save disk space.

Restoring files
rdiff-backup doesn’t require anything special to restore files; just browse to the remote folder and all your files will be there. If you need it, you can use rdiff-backup to recover files from dates in the past. Check the links I posted in the last section for more on how to do this.

Automate it
I’ve scheduled my backup to run every Sunday when I’m not going to be on the computer using cron. Edit your user’s cron file with this command:
crontab -e

Here’s my cron line for backing up. See the Ubuntu documentation page for help with writing your own. I’ve also redirected stdout from the backup script to a log file so I can watch the rdiff-backup statistics.
0 2 * * 0 /home/tom/backup.sh >> backup.log

I’ve just finished setting up this new backup system, so I’ll update this page if I find that I need to make changes. What software are you backing up your Linux systems with? I’d be interested to hear how many of you are using rdiff-backup as well.

• on/off toggles for the wifi and bluetooth radios, the camera, and the SD card reader
• front-side bus performance modes including over and under clocking
• sensor readings for temperature, fan level, and fan RPM
• hotkey setup for extra buttons
• smarter fan control

I would absolutely recommend eee-control to anyone using Linux on an Eee PC. Be sure to turn on the smart fan control feature because with it my system is much quieter and even silent at times. By turning off the wireless radios and using powersave mode I can now push my Eee PC 901 to six hours of battery life.

Installing eee-control on Ubuntu is easy. Download and install the latest deb package provided by the author of eee-control. Reboot so that the eee-control daemon can be started. When you log in you should have a new Eee icon in your desktop’s notification area.

Manually downloading and installing Firefox from Mozilla every time there is a security update is not a great option either. Instead, let’s use Ubuntuzilla, a script that can install and update Mozilla applications outside of Ubuntu’s repository system.

Ubuntuzilla can integrate the new version of Firefox into your system as well as undo its changes if you want to go back. All your extensions, bookmarks, plugins, and settings should transfer over to the new version. The only thing that didn’t transfer was my open tabs from my previous session.

1. Visit the Ubuntuzilla download page to find the latest deb package appropriate for your system (32 or 64-bit). Download and install the package.
2. At this point you should completely close Firefox.
3. You’ll need to use a terminal to let Ubuntuzilla guide you through the installation. Run this command to start:
   ubuntuzilla.py -a install -p firefox

Ubuntuzilla will ask a few questions: confirming that it has found the correct version to install, choosing a localization (14 for en-US), confirming the localization, a sudo prompt, and a prompt for enabling automatic updating.

4. Near the end of the process you should see The new Firefox version 3.5 has been installed successfully.

You can now use your normal Firefox item in the menu to start Firefox 3.5, or by running the command firefox. Check out Ubuntuzilla’s website for the simple removal instructions as well as what do do when you are notified there is a Firefox update available.

[update] Mozilla has released Firefox 3.5.1. I followed the instructions on Ubuntuzilla’s page to update to this new version.

I’ve come across two bugs so far in Firefox 3.5: clicking the middle mouse button anywhere on a page tries to load a URL from the clipboard (fixed using workaround), and fullscreen Flash video crashes Firefox (waiting for a fix or better workaround).

[update 2] Fixed some links.

One great advantage of using Linux (Ubuntu) is the fact that you don’t really have to worry about security and hence viruses. However, this does not mean that you should not use an anti-virus on your Ubuntu machine. Especially when you can get a good anit-virus for free. BitDefender for Unices is one such anti-virus solution for Linux and you can get it for free. Let’s see how to get a free license of BitDefender anti-virus for your Ubuntu machine and how to install it on your Ubuntu machine.

BitDefender Antivirus Scanner for Unices is a versatile on-demand scanner built for Linux and FreeBSD systems. It provides antivirus and antispyware scanning for both UNIX-based and Windows-based partitions.

BitDefender Antivirus Scanner for Unices is highly customizable and capable of script and extension-based integration with various applications such as file managers and mail clients.

Get a free home license for BitDefender
Before we download and install BitDefender on Ubuntu, let’s first get a free license copy of BitDefender. Please remember that the free copy of BitDefender is only for non-commercial home usage. In case you want to use it for business purpose please get a valid license. In order to request a free license go to the following page:
http://www.bitdefender.com/site/Products/ScannerLicense/

Fill in the information and accept the license agreement to get the license key to your email.

Download Free BitDefender Antivirus for Linux

1. On the following page, click download, enter your details to download the free BitDefender antivirus:
   http://www.bitdefender.com/PRODUCT-80-en–BitDefender-Antivirus-Scanner-for-Unices.html
2. Once you have filled the information the download link will be sent to your email address.
3. Click the download link that you received in your email and click BitDefender Antivirus scanner for Unices (Linux, FreeBSD).
4. On the next page click Download.
5. Click EN_FR_BR_RO/ and click Linux on the following page.
6. You’ll see many links on the page. Depending on the version of Linux and your OS (32 or 64 bit), you can download the files. In our case we’ll download the following file:
   BitDefender-Antivirus-Scanner-7.6-4.linux-gcc4x.i586.deb.run

Install the downloaded BitDefender anti-virus

1. Hit Alt+F2 to bring up the run prompt. Type “gnome-terminal” to open a terminal window.
2. Go to the directory where you download the file (In my case it is MyDownloads).
   cd MyDownloads
3. Type the following command
   sudo sh BitDefender-Antivirus-Scanner-7.6-4.linux-gcc4x.i586.deb.run
4. You’ll be prompted with the end user licence agreement. At the end of the license type “accept” (without quotes). This will begin the installation of BitDefender antivirus on your machine.

Running Bitdefender

1. After you have successfully installed the anti-virus go to Applications->System Tools->BitDefender Scanner to see the anti-virus in action.
2. Enter the free key that you requested and received in your email to get the free 1 year license.



3. All that is left is to update your anti-virus and to run a scan.

We hope this will make your Ubuntu installation better secured.

If you want more tutorials and technology articles like this one, you can subscribe to the LinuxHub RSS Feed.

Ubuntu will not be upgrading the default Firefox package to 3.5 until Ubuntu 9.10. However, the universe repository in Ubuntu 9.04 includes a special firefox-3.5 package. At the time of writing this package contains an old beta release. It should be updated soon, but here’s a workaround if you can’t wait any longer.

Update: I’m now recommending installing Firefox 3.5 using Ubuntuzilla rather than the methods described in this post.

Before you update, consider backing up your Firefox profile if you may want to go back to Firefox 3 after trying 3.5. Running the command below will backup your Firefox profile to firefox_profile_backup in your home directory. To restore from the backup, replace your .mozilla/firefox folder with the backup.
cp -r ~/.mozilla/firefox/ ~/firefox_profile_backup

Update: The firefox-3.5 package in Ubuntu 9.04 has now been updated, so it’s no longer necessary to use the Mozilla Security Team PPA.

Open the Synaptic package manager and select Settings->Repositories. Select the Third-Party Software tab and add the APT line for the Mozilla Security Team PPA, which has Firefox packages which are undergoing testing prior to wider release:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-security/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Return to the main Synaptic window and click the Reload button to download the repository listings. Find the firefox-3.5 package and mark it for installation. Click Apply to install.

After Synaptic is done working, you can remove or disable the Mozilla Security Team PPA if you don’t want to get any more untested updates.

Unfortunately, this package is still branded as Shiretoko (the codename for this Firefox release). Start Firefox 3.5 from Applications->Internet->Shiretoko Web Browser.

As always, the latest version of Ubuntu, 9.04, was released on time. It offers faster boot time, ext4 support, and many other minor updates and tweaks that makes the system better. Unfortunately, in addition to the updates, there’s a fairly serious (aka, annoying) bug in Ubuntu 9.04 that causes a certain combination of buttons–most commonly, the Fn+UP/DOWN and volume buttons—to render the keyboard completely dead, as well as the system menus and the right-click menu that appears when using the mouse. This bug appears in many different ways, as evidenced by the varying bug reports, but it always has the same symptoms.

While there’s no reported cause for the bug—only acknowledgement that it exists—users are forced to hard reset their system to correct the problem; restarting the X server is impossible, due to the lack of keyboard, and the system menus disappear, preventing a simple log in/log out fix.

Because a hard rest is not a viable option when using the system for work (or at all, for that matter), it would seem those plagued with this bug are forced to install 8.04 or temporarily abandon their system for a different one. Luckily, if you’re willing to stick it out for awhile until the coveted bug fix is released, there is a simple solution to unlocking the keyboard that does not involve a hard reset:

CTRL + ALT + F3

Or any other key F1-F12. The screen will temporarily turn black, and a system beep might occur, and then the keyboard and menus will continue working as normal. The buttons that trigger the bug will continue to act poorly, however.

If you’re experiencing their bug with your system, be sure to report it so that a solution can be found as quickly as possible.

With previous releases it has been necessary to install a customized Linux kernel to add support for wireless networking, Ethernet, and more. In Ubuntu 9.04, everything is supported by default with the exception of some of the keyboard function keys.

The system feels much more responsive than it was with Ubuntu 8.04. Booting from bootloader to the login screen takes 20 seconds (35 seconds in 8.10). Battery life is approximately 4.5 hours (same as 8.10).

Installation is pretty straightforward, but here’s how I installed Ubuntu 9.04 on my Eee PC 901:

1. Unless you have an external CD drive, you will have to run the Ubuntu installer from a USB drive (or SD card). The easiest way to create a live USB system is using Ubuntu’s USB Startup Disk Creator tool. If you don’t have another Ubuntu system, or the tool doesn’t work for you, UNetbootin is another option.
2. To boot from a USB drive, press escape after starting your Eee PC to open the boot menu. Select the USB option and press enter.
3. You can run Ubuntu’s installer normally, but pay attention to the partitioning step. The Eee PC has two solid states drives: a faster 4 GB drive, and a slightly slower 16 GB drive. Select the manual partitioning option and put your root (/) on the smaller drive and home (/home) on the larger. I also chose the Ext4 filesystem to get more performance out of the SSDs. You’ll be warned if you don’t create a swap partition, but I’d recommend not using swap to avoid shortening the life of the SSDs.
4. Boot into the newly installed system and everything should be working. If Ubuntu doesn’t see the Bluetooth radio or webcam, these may be disabled in the BIOS. Install Cheese to take advantage of the webcam. If you’d like to be able to control the CPU scaling like in the default Xandros distribution, add the CPU scaling applet to your GNOME panel.

You may also be interested in my article on tweaking Ubuntu for SSD drives, although I haven’t felt the need to apply these tweaks myself yet because the system seems so much more responsive.