Mergin /home and / in UBUNTU

After install ubuntu on the DELL machine (see last post). I noticed that the home drive was limited to only 8GB, while the root (/) directory had over 400GB size. The solution was to merge them both.

I followed this link (the section after the partitioning is the relevant one).

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Partitioning/Home/Moving

Add UBUNTU 14.04 to windows 8.1 on DELL 7547

Good resource to consider:

http://www.everydaylinuxuser.com/2014/05/install-ubuntu-1404-alongside-windows.html

My problem with it was the requirement to remove secure boot. Indeed this is not necessary these days and could actually cause trouble in the partitioning phase.

 http://askubuntu.com/questions/458947/should-i-create-the-reserved-bios-boot-area-partition


http://askubuntu.com/questions/223177/how-much-space-i-should-use-for-ubuntu-which-partitions

Dells Inspiron 3000 vs an older Inspiron (E1505)

I bought my self a new Dell machine: Dell Inspiron 15, 3000 series. It has a Celeron N2830 processor, 4GB memory, 500 GB hard drive. My old Inspiron E1505 has been in service since 2007, It was a solid machine but with many issues to report:
1- The battery died quite early, and I never felt like spending over 100 dollars to get a new one that might fail as fast.
2- Less than one year into service, it became excruciatingly slow. I even doubled the RAM to 2GB without any avail. It took Windows VISTA over 10 minutes to start! Eventually, I ended up partitioning my 80GB hard drive and using Ubuntu for the next few years, which was more suitable for the machine performance and my line of work/studies. And from there, it was a steep learning curve on how to install and use skype! update the flash for youtube, and then going back to the older version. And ditching MS Office for open source alternatives such as OfficeLibre.All of these were fine replacements to the first order. However, I never viewed my old Inspiron E 1505 as more than a working machine.

The new machine is smaller in dimensions; the new one is almost one inch shorter. It is also   about half an inch thinner than the its older brother. The material seems solid and it is a bit lighter than its counter part. There are few issues with the design:
1- No lights! No Numlk, Wifi, bluetooth, capslk, power on, battery warning, nor that light that flicks like crazy when your machine is busy. These shortcuts might be reasonable for some of there light, but it seems a bit odd and not justified for others. There is no reason to know if your machine is running for instance if the GUI froze for a minute. There is only one light at the front left edge that indicates that the battery is charging.
2- The touch pad lacks the fast scrolling sides. Which were a nice addition to the older machine. Also the physical left and right bottons are a bit hard and noisy compared to the old style.
3- No ethernet port! Simple as that! if you have slow Wifi connection at home or at your office, tough luck, you will be stuck with it unless you will shell off few dollars for a convertor. There is an SD card slot, hidden in a nice place right below the touch pad. and there are only two USB ports on the left. There is an HDMI port on the left also. Also you will have to live without a DVD reader at this machine, which is fair enough since I use one once a year or so, if not less. This is a huge reduction from the E1505 model. Where it had 4 USB ports, ethernet port, 3 types of ports for projectors, and a nice system to read SD cards.
4- The webcam seems to be decent. The fact that it is on the default model shows how times has changed since I bought my first Dell. 

All this might fade when comparing the huge advantage in processing power, and storage for the new machine at the pittance of $250 (my old machine cost me around $700 7 years ago) . Not to mention getting rid of Windows Vista. starting up the machine you soon realize that windows 8.1 and this laptop are designed to be a cell phone rather than a laptop. Apps, Windows account that you have to have to run anything (different than your dell account and you are encouraged to use it instead...). The machine runs smoothly, but this is totally a new culture and environment for me. and it feels much more intimidating than what google is doing with it's own line of products.

Installing new software was painless and straight forward, the machine had only the option to try office 365 for free for a short time (No thank you). OfficeLibre impress is slow even on this 64bit machine! And skype is buggy and nothing close to the smooth experience you expect from windows (also you need to sign in and with your windows account and merge the other account with it!).

The 10hr battery seems to be working fine (so far). And all an all, after some big house cleaning of unused apps and apps that belong to your tablet or smartphone, this laptop should be ok. There are few shortcomings that Dell could have delt without, not substantial, but enough to make me think of partitioning this machine and install Ubuntu. At least next time I plan on buying a new machine, I have this blog entry to make me more informed. 

What to pack when flying

1- Lotion for your skin and your lips. Plane AC is hard on my type of skin, add to that the physical stress associated with flying. You might need to add dandruff shampoo if needed.
2- An empty bottle of water. Make sure to have it among your personal items (and that it is empty to pass TSA). Though flying food and beverages are filled with salt and caffeine, it is hard to get enough water due to the serving size in planes (also you need to keep asking for it) and all the airport fountains that hardly give you a chance to drink more than few sips.
3- Inflatable pillow. This helps if you have sleeping problems on the plain. It can also be very handy if you need to spend the night in an airport due to some emergency. 

X11 not working with UBUNTU

As it happens I ended up deleting my /tmp file. after a reboot the machine failed to get to the graphical display (x11). After some research here is what fixed it:

(move to a shell by ctr+alt+F1 or F2 or ... F6)

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

if that doesn't work you can try something a bit more drastic

sudo apt-get install -- reinstall xserver-xorg

once you get that done try starting the graphic mode:
startx


this made the cursor visible and the wallpaper. But nothing else. The solution was

sudo service gdm restart

This will get you to the password page. You might be surprised that the machine didn't recognize my passport, until you know that /tmp is the place these things are communicated to the system and it has to be writable by everyone:

chmod 777 /tmp

once that is fixed  you should try startx the previous sudo serve command it will work.

Reducing CPU frequency in UBUNTU

Seems that when installing UBUNTU in some machines. The setting for the CPU will be set for maximum performance. This tends to overheat the machine. One fix for this:

$ sudo [gvim or any text editor] /etc/rc.local

This will open the file and accept modifications to it:

#############################################
#!/bin/sh -e
#
# rc.local
#
# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.
# Make sure that the script will “exit 0″ on success or any other
# value on error.
#
# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution
# bits.
#
# By default this script does nothing.
for cpu in /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu?/cpufreq/scaling_governor; do
echo -n powersave > $ cpu
done
exit 0

#############################################

Add the 3 shaded lines and then reboot.

How to avoid typing a password for the default keyring for wireless after booting Ubuntu every time

After booting an Ubuntu machine, you are asked to unlock the default keyring for some wireless connection, the simple solution to avoid this:

1. Edit the wireless connection (Right-click the "Network Manager" icon on the panel at the top-right corner of the screen and click "Edit Connections.", Click the "Wireless" tab at the top of the Network Connections window, Select the wireless connection by clicking its name in the list, Click the "Edit" button)
2. Click the "Available To All Users" checkbox at the bottom of the connection window.

Unfortunately I didn't find an equally effective solution using the shell commpand prompt. 

(This recipe was found in this web-page: http://thanhsiang.org/faqing/node/117#comment-797)