No More Windows: my Ubuntu Desktop setup

Yes, Microsoft released a patch which detected my Windows7 crack. No, I'm not going to try and find a new crack. No I'm not going to buy Windows7 after having to work for over 10 years with crappy Windows workstations. It's going to be Ubuntu!

It has a learning curve for me cause I'm familiar with Fedora and RedHat. Wanted to get out of the confortzone. So here are my experiences (Work In Progress):

Ubuntu 10.10 beta

[18-09-2010] I have serious Wireless LAN problems. I'm now going to use 10.4.1 to see if this is this an issue…

Ubuntu 10.4

Automatically start WIFI

Remove the password for the default keyring.

• Go to: Applications > Accessoires > Passwords and Encryption Keys
• Right click on Passwords Default
• Enter current password and leave next two fields empty

Setup the proxy server

Synaptic
Open up your Synaptic package manager (usually as root), go to Settings-> Preference -> Network. Enter your proxy server details like : username:password@proxyserver.net, and put the proxy server port (usually 8080).

Command-line apt-get
Edit your /etc/bash.bashrc file as root.
Put these line at the end of your /etc/bash.bashrc file :

export http_proxy=http://username:password@proxyserver.net:port/
export ftp_proxy=http://username:password@proxyserver.net:port/

You can omit the username:password, if your proxy server has no password.

Amarok (MP3 player)

Install Amarok via Applications > Ubuntu Software Center (search for  Amarok)
To be able to create collections also install MySQL server and client.

MP3 and more formats support for Amarok:

sudo apt-get install libxine1-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-restricted-extras

MP3 decoders for Ubuntu's default Rhythmbox Music Player
apt-get install gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
apt-get install gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly

Video

I installed VLC Media Player via the Ubuntu Software Centrer, VLC is handier when you use subtitles.
apt-get install gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg

Video Editing

Instead of Windows Movie Maker Live I use kdenlive. Installationprocedure for Ubuntu can be found here. And Oh My God, it's much better then Windows Movie Maker Live 🙂 You got more tracks to play with and so much more options and it's still easy to use.

Zimbra

Installed the zdesktop client and now using zimbranotify (more here) to alert me of new email. Had to execute these commands:

sudo apt-get install libsexy-dev sudo perl -MCPAN -e 'install ExtUtils::Depends' sudo perl -MCPAN -e 'install ExtUtils::PkgConfig' sudo perl -MCPAN -e 'install Gtk2::Sexy' sudo perl -MCPAN -e 'install Crypt::Simple' sudo apt-get install libgtk2-trayicon-perl libxml-simple-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl sudo apt-get install mpg123  Command to run when new mail arrives: mpg123 /home/roderick/Music/Windows_Notify.wav 

Zimdicator:

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sect2k/zimdicator
• sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install zimdicator

Configure by invoking the command: zimdicator-config.py

Shutdown in one click

(Really a nice feauture in W7) Right click on a control panel and select "add..". In the Command edit box, enter one of the following five commands, depending on which launcher you are currently creating.

• telinit 0 (shutdown)
• telinit 6 (reboot)
• /etc/acpi/hibernate.sh (hibernate)
• /etc/acpi/sleepbtn.sh (sleep)
• gnome-session-save –force-logout (log off)

Icons:
Add icon /usr/share/icons/Humanity/actions/32/application-exit.svg
Add icon /usr/share/icons/Humanity/actions/32/gnome-log-out.svg

Add to sudo config (visudo):

roderick ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: /sbin/telinit, /sbin/reboot, /sbin/shutdown 

VirtualBox

Installed VirtualBox and the VirtualBox GUI via the Ubuntu Sotware Center. I now run Windows 7 in a Virtual Machine. Yes I know… but I need it for my work to setup a remote session. The damn company don't care about Linux.
As a heavy VMware user I can say that VirtualBox is working great uptill now. Wohoo!

Connect to Windows/Samba Shares

$ sudo apt-get install smbf winbind $ sudo mkdir /mnt/music_please $ sudo vi /etc/nsswitch.conf      hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] wins dns mdns4  $ sudo /sbin/mount.cifs //freenas02/music_please /mnt/music_please  If you don't want that just root has read/write access then do this:  $ sudo id roderick uid=1000(roderick) gid=1000(roderick) groups=1000(roderick......  $ sudo vi /etc/fstab     //freenas02/music_please /mnt/music_please      cifs    defaults,uid=1000,gid=1000,credentials=/home/roderick/.smbcredentials   0 0  ~$ cat /home/roderick/.smbcredentials username=roderick password=pass