Sparse Random Thoughts

As I look up tips and information on things in Ubuntu I would notice some people using apt-get to install things and some using aptitude. I was also noticing that when apt-get was used that there were occasionally comments stating that they should have used aptitude instead. So, I became curious to what the difference was. A quick search and I found a great article that outlined the differences and convinced me that aptitude should be the tool used.

Aptitude vs Apt-Get

Certain programs you want to have the screen saver disabled when using, so you go about changing your settings. But sometimes you forget and it turns on or more likely you forget to enable it when you’re done. Well, luckily I found out someone a bit more skilled than me had this problem and came up with a handy solution. A nice little python script that watches for programs you specify and disables the Gnome screen saver and power management while those programs are active. Check it out:

HOWTO disable screensaver and powermanager while mplayer or other apps are running

I recently wiped my Ubuntu install so that I could start fresh with 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon). The reason being is that I had used Automatix and didn’t realize I needed to use it again to uninstall before upgrading Ubuntu to have things in proper working order. This time around I avoided using any scripts (such as Automatix or EasyUbuntu) and did things myself, which wasn’t that hard.

Some of the tweaks made:

• Enabling NumLock during startup and before login
• Playing Restricted Formats
• Set Gmail as Default Mail Client
• Set up a keyboard shortcut to bring up a terminal window.
  • First go to to System/Preferences/Keyboard Shortcuts
  • Then under Desktop change the shortcut for Run a terminal (I used ctrl-alt-t).
• Ctrl-Alt-Del to bring up gnome-system-monitor
  • First go to to System/Preferences/Keyboard Shortcuts
  • Then under Desktop change the shortcut for Log out (I used ctrl-alt-end).
  • Then input the following two commands in the terminal.
    • gconftool-2 -t str --set /apps/metacity/global_keybindings/run_command_9 "Delete"
    • gconftool-2 -t str --set /apps/metacity/keybinding_commands/command_9 "gnome-system-monitor"

If you too use Ubuntu and have something that made life easier for you please share it with me, as I hope to continue doing.

New users of Linux or Unix can often find the shell intimidating, so it’s useful to have some of the basic commands all together in one place. FreeEnginer.org has such a cheat sheet up at http://freeengineer.org/learnUNIXin10minutes.html

While it won’t make you an instant guru, it will help you get around and preform some basic actions.

Well, I'm on my 4th week of this quarter and I guess I'm staying afloat. I'm sad to say that my Linux efforts fell short and I reinstalled XP, but put pro on this time instead of home. With school I was spending more time on the laptop, which I don't really like working with as much as the desktop. And I'd often have things open on both, which was pain to my family who were just looking for a computer not in use.

I'm taking three courses this quarter, two is a full load at Capella, and don't think I'll be doing it again. Two of the courses are fine and I usually get them done fairly promptly, but the third I spend the majority of my time on and always feel behind. Where I might spend eight hours on a normal class, this third class I'm spending 20+ on, which for the amount of assignments/discussions that I'm doing seems way off. Oh, well if I loose it, you'll all know why.