Archive for March, 2008

HOWTO: Remove desktop mounted volume icons in Ubuntu

I got tired with having the cool desktop images that Webidler digs up for me being hidden behind a sea of icons on my desktop and had a clearup. However I couldn’t remove the icons for mounted volumes without unmounting them so dug up this command:

gconftool-2 --type boolean --set /apps/nautilus/desktop/volumes_visible false

HOWTO: Install Ruby on Rails on Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon

1. Enable the universe repository
sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list
Find and uncomment the following lines
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper universe main restricted universe
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security universe

2. Install ruby
sudo apt-get install ruby ri rdoc

3. Install rubygems
sudo apt-get install rubygems

4. Install Rails
sudo gem install rails
NOTE: If you get, as I did, an error at this point:

uninitialized constant Gem::GemRunner

then the fix is:
sudo vi /usr/bin/gem
After the line require ‘rubygems’ add the line:
require 'rubygems/gem_runner'

5. Test installation
cd
rails testapp
cd testapp
./server start

Open a browser to http://localhost:3000 and you should see the rails welcome page.

You can remove the testapp with:
cd
rm -fr testapp

HOWTO: Triple Boot Dell XPS M1330 with Vista/Ubuntu and Media Direct

[Edit] Sometime after I originally wrote this HOWTO: I came to my senses and realised that the M1330 is far too cool for school and hence should not be disabled by running any version of Windoze.  I have since reformatted my M1330 and it now only runs Ubuntu.   If you have any kind of choice in the matter then I would heartily recommend you do the same!  If you really need a dual or triple boot then hopefully this guide and the comments should help.[/Edit]

So - got a shiny new Dell XPS M1330? Good choice, you’re obviously smarter then the average bear - but now do you want to lose the Dell bloatware and see how it runs with a grown up OS? Perhaps you need to keep Vista on though for some reason, and that media direct button for quick playing DVDs is nice too… plus it would be nice to be able to share your Mozilla Firefox bookmarks and Thunderbird profiles between the 2 OSs. The solution for you my friend is a funky triple boot installation.

What we start with: A shiny new Dell XPS M1330 just out of the box with Vista + ton of OEM crap preinstalled.

What we end up with: An XPS capable of triple booting into either Ubuntu, Vista or Media Direct from the MD button and the ability to share files between the two OSs.

What we will need: Vista install disk, Ubuntu live cd, Dell drivers and utilities disk, Dell media direct cd.

Continue reading ‘HOWTO: Triple Boot Dell XPS M1330 with Vista/Ubuntu and Media Direct’




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