Ubuntu Wiki

There is a life beside the command line...

This is a place for for the passenger freshly disembarked from Redmond to Ubuntu airport, there are tared roads around the jungle here... Whatever you are seeking, you use to get help from nice guys, who answer with a couple of Linux commands and let you fail and sometimes screw up your system to death.

You have been seeking for help, been told to enter a command line in Swahili and got stuck at the first error message, or you have been successful in getting what you need right from the GUI? This is a place to share experience.

Please, please this is not the place to discuss the superiority of the GUI over the CLI or vice versa. This is not even a place reserved for the GUI way to do things: if you think it *must* be the console, go for it, but please explain every step in a way that the passenger from Redmond can understand...

Thanks and let this page be a vivid.

Michel

My first contrib: My (almost) intuitive way to get 1440x1050 real estate on Ubuntu... A Google search about 1400x1050 or intel 82855 and Linux gives a lot of matches, most of them being some kind of Swahili for the beginner. A lot of them lead to RPM files, which are not really the good way to start with Ubuntu...

Here is how I got it my way to get full resolution out of your notebook with Intel graphics and 1400x1050 LCD panels (Dell, Fujitsu, ...). (Yes you can get it over the console, but here's my way...)

First of all, if you have *a less capable* second monitor connected to your laptop, disconnect it, since XOrg will not give you more than the less capable connected monitor can.

1)From the K Menu (Start) choose System --> Adept package manager.

2) If you see a package named "915resolution" go to 4)

3) You have to get the "universe" repository first: Go to Adept --> manage repositories. The line http://**.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy universe is greyed, right-click on it, choose enable. Fetch updates.

4) Click on "915resolution" select "request install" then "apply changes".

5) From System Settings --> Monitor and Display select your 1440x1050 resolution, Apply.

6) Log out --> End current Session from the Login screen, select the icon at the left and choose "Restart X Server" (you may have restarted the full OS as well, this way is however faster)

Michel

My second contrib:

Rookies, if you have asked for help using Ubuntu and have been told to fetch a .TAR and begin to tweak with the console, don't blindly follow that advice, ask first if there is an Adept package that will do! You are accustomed to installers, why should you do things other way, if there is an "installer" available?

You can do quite a lot with Adept. 1)From the K Menu (Start) choose System --> Adept package manager. Out of the Box, for legal and "political" reasons, adept will give you only Open-source Packages. You may however very easily enable the "universe" and the "main restricted universe multiverse" repositories:

2) Go to Adept --> manage repositories. The lines with these repositories are greyed, right-click on it, choose enable. Fetch updates, you got it!

3) Click on "Fetch updates" and enjoy about 20.000 installers that do work to a good extend "out of the box.

Michel