After installing the latest version of Gnome-Do a few days ago I found that I had to enable compositing to be able to use the latest themes.  Here how I did it.

Press Alt-F2 to open the “Run Application” box.

Type “gconf-editor” and press Enter.

Navigate to apps  >> metacity >> general

Select the checkbox next to “compositing_manager”

Thats it!

One way to make your use of Vim more efficient is to make use of viewports (splits).  This article from linux.com explains just about everything about how to used the viewports in vim.  However there is one thing it does not mention, and this is how to changed the width of a vertical viewport.  Here’s how.

Ctrl+w > widens the viewport  (Press Ctrl+w and then “>”)

Ctrl+w < narrows the viewport (Press Ctrl+w and then “<”)

As usual with vim you can also use modfiered to chage how much you widen/narrow the view port.  For example, to widen it by a 10 instead of 1:

Ctrl+w 10> widens viewport by 10

The number can be replaced with any value and also applies to the narrow viewport command.

Today I had a situation where I needed to combine two PDF files into one.  PDF Split and Merge is a free excellent program for both splitting and merging PDF files.  This program allows you to split a PDF files according to a large number of criteria (see screen shot for all options) , as well as merge several PDF files into a single file.

PDF Split and Merge is available for download here.   For use on Linux systems download the Zip archive.  Though this post focuses on the Linux version, PDF Split and Merge is also available for windows and mac as well.

Once you’ve downloaded the program extract the contents of the zip file, by double clicking the Zip file and selecting “Extract.”

Once the files have been extracted there are two different ways to run the program.  The first is to right click the pdfsam-1.1.0.jar file and select “Open with Sun Java 6 Runtime.”  If you do not have that option in your right-click menu follow the steps below.

Open a terminal and change to the directory containing the extracted files and run:

java -jar pdfsam-1.1.0.jar

The program will open and you will be ready to split/merge your PDFs!

Some integrated Intel graphics cards are having a hard time with the new Ubuntu 8.10 release.  The symtom is that after the install you can’t get past the login screen.  It accepts your login but instead of loading the desktop all you see is a black or tan screen (sometimes my mouse would move and other times it wouldn’t).  This happens because the graphics card cannot handle the compiz special effects. To fix the problem you need to remove compiz.  Here’s how:

1. From the Grub boot menu slect the “recovery mode” option.

2. Select “root       Drop to root shell prompt”

Type the following at the prompt:

3. sudo apt-get remove compiz

4. sudo apt-get remove compiz-core

5. exit

6. Select “resume      Resume normal boot”

You should now be up and running!  If you want to try to use compiz later install it through the Synaptic Package Manager.

To give a user the ability to use the “sudo” command you must add them to the “sudoers” file.  Here’s how.

Thanks to ubuntucat (see comment below) for the following suggestion!  The easiest way to allow a user to sudo is to simply run the following command from the Terminal:

To open the Terminal:

Applications >> Accessories >> Terminal

Once the Terminal is open type:

sudo adduser username admin

This must be done from an account that already has sudo abilities or else from the root account.

If for some reason you have to manually edit the “sudoers” file keep reading!

Open the file “sudoers” located at /etc/sudoers using your favorite text editor.  You must have root permissions to be able to edit this file so you will want to open your editor from the command line.

To use gedit you would do the following:

Open the Terminal and type:

sudo gedit /etc/sudoers

If you want to use vim you can simply enter the following into the Terminal:

sudo visudo

Once you have the sudoers file open, scroll down to the line:

root   ALL = (ALL)    ALL

Add the folling line below the root line (replacing “user” with the name of the account you wish to give sudo access to)

user   ALL = (ALL)    ALL

Save and close the file.  The new user has now been added to the “sudoers” file and can use the “sudo” command.

I have had this problem twice after first installing SP3 for Windows XP and then installing IE7 through Windows Update.  Windows Upadate breaks, it will download the updates but it fails when it tries to install them.  Here is how I fixed the problem.

1)  I created a folder called  “WUAGENT” on my C drive.  The address is C:\WUAGENT  This name is irrelevant,  you can call it whatever you want.

2) Download “WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86.exe” to the folder you just created. Click here to download it.

3) Open a command prompt (Start >> Run and type “cmd”).  Run the following command to force run the exe file you just downloaded.

C:\WUAGENT\WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86.exe /wuforce

Windows Updater should now work again!

Here is a nice reference sheet I found for the linux command line.  Click the link to download the PDF.

Ubuntu Reference Sheet

Simply run this command from the terminal:

sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree

Restart Firefox.

Here is how to add a .ttf font in Ubuntu.

Open a terminal and change to the directory that contains the font:

Example: cd /home/username/Desktop

Copy the file to /usr/share/fonts and rebuild your font cache:

     cp font_name.ttf /usr/shar/fonts/font_name.ttf

     sudo fc-cache -f -v

The font should now be installed and available in your applications.

Here is how I got the Canon Pixma MP460 Printer/Scanner to work on Ubuntu Gutsy.

If you have tried to install the printer previously, start by going to the print manager and removing it. (System >> Administration >> Printing)

Canon does not have any Linux drivers for the MP460 so we will use the drivers for the MP160 instead.

First, download the following files from here:

For the Printer:

cnijfilter-mp160-2.70-1.i386.rpm

Now make sure that you have alien installed (sudo apt-get install alien)Now use alien to create .dep packages from the .rpm files you just downloaded.

Make sure that you are in the same directory as the file. (Example cd /home/username/Desktop)

To convert:

Note: The long dash before “scripts” is actually two small dashes

sudo alien cnijfilter-mp160-2.70-1.i386.rpm –scripts

To install:

sudo dpkg -i cnijfilter-mp160-2.70-1.i386.deb

Now install libpng3:

sudo apt-get install libpng3

Next link libtiff3:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libtiff.so.4 /usr/lib/libtiff.so.3

Restart cups daemon:

sudo /etc/init.d/cupsys restart

Install libxml1:

sudo apt-get install libxml1

Reinstall the printer using the print manager (System >> Administration >> Printing) if the printer is turned on the manager should find it (it looked something like “Canon MP460 USB #1″ for me). Follow the prompts to complete the installation. When it asks for drivers select “Canon” and then “MP160 Ver.2.70″.

The printer should now be working.

Scanning worked automatically for me without any problems.