Ubuntu on the Dell Mini

First Look At Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal Alpha 1

2010-12-04T10:03:00.000-06:00

This Week In Linux, takes a great look at the upcoming Ubuntu release. Enjoy. Have a question or problem that this article doesn't cover? Ask our Ubuntu Mini 9 Google Group for help.

Broadcom Wireless Driver Fix In Maverick

2010-10-15T12:37:00.000-05:00

For yet another release, Ubuntu 's Driver Manager is unable to properly install the Broadcom Wireless driver. When is Ubuntu going to get this right? Some users are getting a SystemError:installArchives () failed message. When trying to install the Broadcom STA wireless driver via Additional Drivers. The Broadcom wireless card that came with the Dell Mini 9/10 or Vostro A90 does work in

Gmail Video Chat Now Available for Linux

2010-08-20T00:37:00.000-05:00

The wait is over, Linux users can now video chat right from Gmail, iGoogle, and orkut. Check out the video to see in action: All you have to do is download the Google Video Chat plugin. Available for Ubuntu/Debian. Have a question or problem that this article doesn't cover? Ask our Ubuntu Mini 9 Google Group for help.

64-Bit Flash Fix

2010-07-11T15:36:00.000-05:00

THIS GUIDE IS NOT FOR MINI 9/10v & VOSTRO A90 Users These machines are 32-bit only and the following is not needed. This guide is for other 64-bit users (my desktop run Ubuntu 9.10 64-bit) who are running into problems playing/clicking YouTube Videos using the nspluginwrapper and 32-bit Flash plugin. In a terminal type: sudo gedit /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/i386/linux/npviewer add the following

Set Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo or ZoHo Mail As Default Mail Application In Ubuntu 10.04

2010-06-29T06:30:00.000-05:00

Evolution is a great full featured email client, but I don't want to use it on my netbook. It's really frustrating clicking on email links and seeing the Evolution configuration wizard pop up. In an earlier post I wrote a guide about setting Gmail/Yahoo! as your default mail client in Firefox, but it only worked in Firefox and the settings were not used system wide. This guide will show you how

Remove Mono From Your Ubuntu Install

2010-06-26T17:08:00.008-05:00

Mono is a free and open source project led by Novell and backed by Microsoft to create an Ecma standard compliant, .NET-compatible set of tools. I have written previously about my opposition of Microsoft's involvement with the free software community.Mono is the Trojan horse Microsoft will use to embrace, extend and extinguish free software. Removing Mono and it components is the first thing I do

Favorite Firefox Addons for Netbooks

2010-04-21T08:00:00.004-05:00

Firefox is a netbook's best friend. This is a collection of my favorite Firefox Add-ons. They help free up screen space; stop ads, flash and scripts; add functionality; and make Firefox a secure browsing experience. Firefox > Chromium.Get Back Your ScreenMore tweaks for freeing up screen space. Unless you like squinting and scrolling.Compact Menu 2This extension adds the CompactMenu icon to the

Move The Window Buttons To The Right

2010-04-20T00:27:00.001-05:00

Is Ubuntu 10.04 left side window button placement driving you crazy? You're not the only one. I'm so used to the buttons being on the right side, I can't make the adjustment. I sick of clicking a blank right menu bar. The fix is simple:To Move The Window Buttons To The RightBring up the Run Application box with Alt + F2mini/vostro users will have to press Fn+Alt+F2(hint: it's the S key)type

The Window Buttons are Now Set in Stone

2010-04-09T21:57:00.007-05:00

As many of you know, the window buttons have moved to the left for the new Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx themes. There was a lot of controversy about the move and the new button order. Users considering leaving the Ubuntu project over the lack of user input in the decision. The controversy is over and the final button order has been decided: close, minimize and maximize. The order makes sense to me

Google Is Back as The Default Search Provider for Ubuntu 10.04

2010-04-09T08:23:00.000-05:00

Search snobs rejoice, Google is back as the default search engine for Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. Google>Yahoo!/Bing. From the the ubuntu-mailing list: Each release we determine the best default web browser and the best default search engine for Ubuntu. When choosing the best default search provider, we consider factors such as user experience, user preferences, and costs and benefits for Ubuntu

Customizing Firefox 3.6 for Netbooks

2010-04-05T17:06:00.011-05:00

Owning a netbook has it advantages, the small 8.9 to 10 inch screen is not one of them. Firefox's default user interface takes up 25% of the vertical space on your netbook. Below is my collection of Firefox 3.6 customizations that will help you reclaim over 20% of your netbook's screen and make Firefox run faster. - Default Firefox 3.6 in Lucid Lynx, notice the wasted space on menus Remove

Broadcom Wireless Driver Fix In Lucid

2010-04-03T02:35:00.002-05:00

For yet another release, Ubuntu 's Driver Manager is unable to properly install the Broadcom Wireless driver.Some users are getting a permission error, telling them that they are not authorized to perform this action:or Ubuntu is just not recognizing the card:The Broadcom wireless card that came with the Dell Mini 9/10 or Vostro A90 does work in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. You just have to manually

Install The Android Font

2010-04-03T01:31:00.002-05:00

Droid is a font family created by Ascender Corporation for use Android phone platform. The fonts are intended for use on the small screens of mobile handsets and were designed by Steve Matteson of Ascender Corporation.The font family consists of Droid Sans, Droid Sans Mono and Droid Serif. Each typeface has an extensive character set including coverage of Western European, Eastern/Central

Black Human GTK Theme

2010-03-02T08:10:00.008-06:00

Black Human is based on the Ubuntu Human-Murrine color scheme by Kenneth Wimer & Conn O'Griofa.- click to enlargeThe theme uses gtk2-engines-murrine and my Carbonate icon theme. It was designed to be a black and dark grey take on the default Ubuntu Human theme.- click to enlargeIf you'd like to install Black Human, you will first need to install some dependencies.In a terminal type:sudo apt-get

Black Human Fixes

2010-03-02T08:00:00.003-06:00

If you have installed my Black Human GTK theme, you'll notice that Firefox input boxes and buttons are dark grey and don't match the rest of the webpage. OpenOffice shares a similar quirk, the document background is dark grey making text hard to read.Firefox 3 FixCreate a userContent.css filegedit /home/red/.mozilla/firefox/*/chrome/userConent.cssCopy this into the newly created userContent.css

Flash Player 10.1 Beta 3 is Released

2010-03-01T16:02:00.002-06:00

Adobe has released Flayer Player 10.1 Beta 3 for 32-bit Linux Machines. If you've been reluctant to install Adobe's previous testing releases, now might be time to switch. The Beta 3 release boosts speed and stability over the Ubuntu repository version of Flash and the 10.1 Beta 2 that was released back in mid-December. Flash is still far from prefect, but it's getting better.To install Flash

Carbonate Icon Theme

2010-02-27T15:42:00.001-06:00

I spent time looking for a good icon theme to match my Darkish Human GTK theme, I couldn't find one so I made my own. - Carbonate + Darkish Human = Crazy Delicious Carbonate is dark grey and blue hack of various Gnome Colors themes. I combined gnome-carbonite with gnome-brave and used a few icons from the standard Gnome icon package. It is a clean mix of blue and dark grey. The theme

Hopefullly Google Is Listening

2010-02-21T14:08:00.001-06:00

The Free Software Foundation has written an open letter to Google to free it's recently required VP8 codec for use on YouTube.Dear Google,With your purchase of On2, you now own both the world's largest video site (YouTube) and all the patents behind a new high performance video codec -- VP8. Just think what you can achieve by releasing the VP8 codec under an irrevocable royalty-free license and

Mark Shuttleworth Interview

2010-02-20T10:20:00.000-06:00

Dell's Cloud Evangelist Barton George interviewed Mark Shuttleworth during his visit to Dell. They discuss Ubuntu's realtionship with Dell, cloud computing, the upcoming Ubuntu 10.4 Lucid Lynx release, netbook remix, Boxee, and the competition. Have a question or problem that this article doesn't cover? Ask our Ubuntu Mini 9 Google Group for help.

Frequently Asked Questions

2010-01-12T15:00:00.006-06:00

What is Ubuntu? Ubuntu is an operating system built by a worldwide team of expert developers. It contains all the applications you need: a web browser, office suite, media apps, instant messaging and much more. Ubuntu is an open-source alternative to Windows and Microsoft Office. Why Ubuntu? There are many different reasons to install Ubuntu, the three main reasons that made me switch are:

Creating a LiveUSB Drive: Installing Ubuntu Without a CD/DVD Drive

2010-01-12T14:04:00.000-06:00

To install Ubuntu without a CD/DVD drive you will need to create LiveUSB drive. A LiveUSB drive is a USB flash drive containing the Ubuntu install .iso. Like the Ubuntu install discs, a LiveUSB drive allows you to try Ubuntu in a "Live" environment before permanently installing it onto your hard drive. To Create a LiveUSB drive you will need: 1. A compatible usb flash drive, over 2GB is

Ubuntu Restricted Extras: Installing Multimedia Support, Adobe Flash, Sun's Java Plugin and Microsoft Fonts

2010-01-12T11:30:00.002-06:00

ubuntu-restricted-extras installs support for MP3 playback and decoding, support for various other audio formats (GStreamer plugins), Microsoft fonts, Java runtime environment, the Adobe Flash plugin, LAME (to create compressed audio files), and DVD playback. This does not install libdvdcss2, and will not let you play encrypted DVDs. To enable encrypted DVD playback see the installing Medibuntu

Medibuntu: Installing Encypted DVD Support & w32codecs

2010-01-12T11:13:00.000-06:00

Medibuntu (Multimedia, Entertainment & Distractions In Ubuntu) is a repository of Debian packages that cannot be included into the Ubuntu distribution for legal reasons like copyright, license or patent restrictions or for geographical variations in legislation. Medibuntu's repository comprises two components: free and non-free. The free component contains Free software, whose source code is

Install Skype

2010-01-10T11:45:00.001-06:00

Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice calls over the Internet. Calls to Skype users and to free-of-charge numbers are free, while calls to other landlines and mobile phones can be made for a fee. Skype also features instant messaging, file transfer and video conferencing.This guide will show you how to add the official Skype repository to your apt-get source list and

Lucidor eBook Reader

2010-01-06T15:00:00.000-06:00

Lucidor is a computer program for reading and handling e-books. Lucidor supports e-books in the EPUB file format, and catalogs in the OPDS format. Lucidor provides functionality to: Read EPUB e-books. Organize a collection of e-books in a local bookcase. Search for and download e-books from the internet Convert web feeds into e-books. Download Lucidor - once installed you can find it under