3rd time not quite a charm: Upgrading to Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon)

The other night, sort of kind of on a whim, but not really, I upgraded my main machine from Ubuntu 7.04 to 7.10. There were some problems, but in the end, not very serious. No need for panic.
I'd upgraded my laptop when 7.10 was released, and that went fine. The plan for my [...]

New Dirs in Gutsy: Documents, Music, Pictures, Blah, Blah

photo by mrmanc
I had mentioned my encounter with some new directories in Ubuntu 7.10, the Gutsy Gibbon:

Documents
Music
Pictures
Public
Templates
Videos

These showed up on an upgrade from 7.04 Feisty Fawn and on a fresh install of 7.10. On installs of previous versions, there has been the Desktop folder, and I've kept that around as a special dir that [...]

Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon Swings In

photo by guppiecat
I've been running a dual boot on my laptop with Windows 2000 and Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft). I recently upgraded to 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) so that I'd be ready to try out 7.10 when it came out. I don't use the laptop much, so it's good for experimentation. I don't [...]

A Silly Post Brought to You by the Letters E and F

My daughter has a set of Sea & Learn Bath Shapes that are very entertaining for her and me and the wife alike. (The wife might not want to admit that. But for me I can say that they engage my brain more than a typical work-related meeting.)

I happened to notice that the [...]

HOWTO: Installing and Running WordPress on Ubuntu GNU/Linux

Step right this way for instructions on setting up your own instance of WordPress using Apache 2 (with mod_rewrite), PHP5, and MySQL. I'm using Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft), but I suspect this will apply to 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) also.
You may already know that WordPress is free blogging software, Apache is a free web server, PHP [...]

GNU/Linux Graphics Programs in Ubuntu

My graphics/image manipulation needs are relatively simple. I've gotten by pretty well with MS Paint and IrfanView in Windows.

In the past several months I've started using the GNU Image Manipulation Program (the GIMP!) for Windows and have learned how to fix red eye and make downgraded transparent PNG files that display properly in Internet [...]

HOWTO: Remote Desktop with VNC in Ubuntu Edgy/Feisty

Updated, 4 May 2007: Warren helpfully pointed out in the comments a possible fix for the problem with the latest vnc4server. It worked for me in Edgy, and I hope it works with these instructions for Feisty Fawn also.
See below for info about the -extension XFIXES option, and for another necessary setting in 7.04/Feisty [...]

Don't remove the ‘super’ from sudo, like I did in Ubuntu

There’s a fine line between empowerment and impotence in Unix. Is that why it sounds like eunuchs?
I accidentally revoked my power to run the sudo command. Yeah, it was a dumb thing to do. With godlike power comes great responsibility, and there I was like some half-wit sticking a fork in an electrical [...]

Ubuntu/Xubuntu Live CDs

I mentioned that I tried running Xubuntu GNU/Linux from a CD (a Live CD, I guess you call this kind of thing). I had been seeing these CDs of the various Ubuntu systems and the exhortation to try them without having to install anything. I was skeptical about how well that would work.
Well, [...]

Ubuntu for Web Surfing and Spreadsheets

Originally published in Free Software Magazine as Moving to freedom, one step at a time.

Time to get on with the move. Giving up Windows is like kicking a drug habit. It's easier to take the path of least resistance and keep using. If quitting proprietary software was a twelve step program--although let's [...]