Since having google start to spy on the website I’ve noticed a trend with viewers.  I’m going to assume that the #2 spot of firefox users on Windows are people who’ve hosed their systems in some manner and are looking for help.

First tip with X-Windows or X for short is to remember to make a backup of your original /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.

sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.orig.bak

That way if there is any time that you end up at the command prompt and cant get X up you dont have to reboot into Windows or jump on the other machine to see what went wrong.

Once you have copied the original back to /etc/X11/xorg.conf issue the following commands to restart X.

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart

or for KDE users

sudo /etc/init.d/kdm restart

You should see a bit of flashing screen and then be welcomed back by a graphical login prompt!

What if that does not work?

Lets consider you just added a new video card.

If the first was a ATI card and the new one is a Nvidia card you have to do two things.

ATI cards typically use the Driver    “radeon” setting in the xorg.conf file under Section     “Device”.  You will have to edit the file.

After backing up your original of course!

sudo vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf

hit the backslash / key

type in the string you wish to find in this case radeon and hit enter

you should get to a uncommented line that looks like this

Driver   “Radeon”

hit escape move to the R in radeon and hit the x key until radeon is gone and you have “” left.

hit the right key to put the cursor under the second ” and then type i for insert then type in nv so it looks like

Driver     “nv”

once that’s done hit escape again.  then type a colon : and then type wq for write quit.

If you screw up just type q! after hitting escape and then colon to quit without saving.  Vi is a bit scary at first but recovery is easy if you remember to save a copy before and also to save only when satisified with your changes.  q! will be your best friend!

Once that’s done follow the above instructions for restarting GDM or KDM and hopefully you’ll be greeted with your X login screen again.

If you’re going the other way from Nvidia to ATI (I really pity you since driver support is still pretty crappy) just reverse the driver strings.

Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

All Versions, X.Org | No Comments »

If you’re like me and use your computer a lot it’s important that the clock be accurate.  My PC clock was 10 minutes slow excuse does not really cut it at school and work.

So what do you do?

Easy!

Right click on the clock and click “Adjust Date & Time” enter your password and you get the “Time and Date Settings”  window.  From there make sure the “Periodically synchronize click with Internet servers” box is marked and then if you want to use a specific server click “Select Servers” otherwise you can click OK.  The default server is is ntp.ubuntu.com and 127.127.1.0.  If you do not have ntp support installed it will ask to install it when you click the checkbox installed above.  Once it finishes installing you can close the time and date settings and reopen it.  It will now be checked and running.

Once that is all completed you can verify that ntpd (The process that handles Network Time Protocol) is running by opening a terminal window and doing

ps -ef | grep ntp

Now that you have this accurate clock it may be time to go around the house and get everything adjusted!

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Here’s a more simple tip to an command line version I saw earlier today. Had to get home to verify the setting existed somewhere in the GUI.

Goto: System > Preferences > Font

When the window opens there are 4 options for font rendering. The one on the lower right for LCD’s is the font smoothing that most people will want. You’re free to experiment though.

All Versions, X.Org | No Comments »

The default Ubuntu shell is Bash and today I dug up a good list of those commands here.

Dapper, Edgy, Shell | No Comments »

If your camera supports an RAW image format you can do a lot more to make the image better than going with the camera’s save as jpeg options.  Once an image is saved to jpeg the camera throws away the information used to build the image.  RAW is basically the raw information taken from the CCD in the digital camera with little or no post processing.

In Ubuntu adding RAW support to gimp is easy.

Just do:  sudo apt-get install gimp-ufraw

Restart the gimp if you’re using it and then open a raw image and you get to adjust it before it’s placed into the Gimp.

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Sorry been out sick all last week.

Lots to come though if you’re interested in digital photography!

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If there’s a tip you’re looking for or a tip you’d like to see listed here for others then feel free to email us at tips @ ubuntutips.org

Also if you’re interested in writing tips let us know at the same email and we’ll see about adding new authors.

Thanks! (more…)

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