Installing VMware Tools in an Ubuntu virtual machine

Here is how.

Ubuntu blogs

Here is a list of blogs for Ubuntu users.

Upgrading to Ubuntu 14.04

After trying on VMs and old machines, I finally replaced Mint 14 with Ubuntu 14.04 on my workstation. It works well so far: Unity seems to become less annoying, no need to trim my SSD manually, and, the best of all, my USB wireless adapter is working much more smoothly than before, thanks to the new kernel. I agree with some of the recent reviews that Ubuntu 14.04 is a very mature, stable, and a bit boring workstation OS. But being boring is exactly what a workstation OS needs.

Are We Witnessing the Decline of Ubuntu?

A thoughtful post here.

Lubuntu

I played with Lubuntu for a while and really liked its minimalist and yet elegant design. I think it should be my main desktop OS.

Linux Mint pulls ahead of Ubuntu

This should not be a surprise, especially since I myself have made the transition from Ubuntu to Mint Debian.

Linux Mint pulls ahead of Ubuntu

This should not be a surprise, especially since I myself have made the transition from Ubuntu to Mint Debian.

How to repair the swap partition in Ubuntu

The post may be useful when one needs to reset the swap partition.

Mint Debian vs. Mint Ubuntu

Comparing software selection between the Debian-based and Ubuntu-based Mint distros is interesting. On the one hand, the Debian-based distro has the up-to-date packages for Emacs, SBCL, GCC, etc., but outdated version for Firefox, Thunderbird, etc., while the Ubuntu-based distro has updated Firefox, Thunderbird but outdated Emacs, SBCL, etc.

Linux partition guid

Here is a short but useful guide showing how to partition a hard drive for a new Linux installation.

Ubuntu 11.04

Looks like Ubuntu 11.04 will bring some significant changes: new GCC, new Gnome, and new file system.

Harddisk partition guide

Here is a detailed guide to hard drive partitioning for Ubuntu.

LD_LIBRARY_PATH and alternative

I compiled and installed the most recent version of Armadillo library, and tested a sample program here. Both compilation and build went well, but when I tried to run the resulted program, I got an error message saying that the library files were not found. I followed the suggestions found here and created a new file " /etc/ld.so.conf.d/local.conf" which has only one line of contents:

/usr/local/lib64

Which seems to do the trick and,from my understanding, is better than have a line in my .bashrc for "LD_LIBRARY_PATH".

==================== EDITED SEPT. 24, 2010 ==============================

Now I realized that every time a new library is installed, I need to run "sudo sudo ldconfig". 

Xubuntu 10.04

I finally decided to upgrade my 4-year old Sony SZ laptop from Ubuntu 9.04 to Xubuntu 10.04. The main reason was that it is getting more and more difficult to keep up with some of the software I use on daily basis on a distro that is almost two years old.

The new system is snappy, and this xfce-based distro works really on this old laptop.

The equinox theme is getting better and better

I especially like the new equinox evolution them and the equinox evolution squared window border. I am very pleased about my computer UI now.

OpenOffice quick-starter caused Ubuntu unable to shutdown?

According to this post, the shutdown problem on Ubuntu 10.04 was caused by the Openoffice quick-starter program. Once the program is closed, the problem goes away. So strange.

Problem with the proprietary Nvidia driver

The reason why my ubuntu 10.04 box cannot shutdown is the proprietary nvidia driver. I learned this the hard way: I backed up all my data and wiped out my existing installation and installed a fresh new copy, and experimented step by step. I was able to replicate the problem when I enabled the proprietary driver, and the problem when away when I disabled it.

Although I cannot enable the desktop effects, at least I have a stable and efficient computational environment now.

-------------------------------- May 8 ----------------------------------------------

This is not true. The problem with shutdown is caused by OpenOffice quick starter program, not the proprietary Nvidia driver. After enabling the driver, 1) boot-up time increased from 20s to 25s, 2) Emacs fonts increased several fold.

Ubuntu 10.04 ACPI

This is very useful.

Making Ubuntu boot in 19 seconds

Some serious Ubuntu optimization tips here.

Tweaking ubuntu

Here is some good information.