How-To: Tutorials and Walkthroughs
One of the big problems with Google Chrome is the lack of inline PDF support on most platforms. Google has added preliminary support for PDF to Chromium but so far it has not come to Linux. It may come tomorrow, but until then, users who would like to avoid using acroread may use the following hack, at least on Ubuntu Lucid. As always, your mileage may vary.
If you install nvidia-glx-195 drivers from Nvidia Vdpau Team PPA then you may have trouble removing them later due to packaging failure ;) Actually, the problem will crop up when you try to reinstall nvidia-glx-185. I had to do this because my GT 240 is unsupported under all versions of the driver, and while it works it locks up hard on anything later than -185.
As a veteran owner of used vehicles, I am more than a little used to encountering automotive problems. When my Ford's charging system idiot light began to flash at low RPMs, I knew I had a serious problem coming my way. When it picked up to doing it on a regular basis, I realized that the problem had arrived, and unless I wanted to be buying a pair of deep-cycle batteries, I should find a solution, probably in the form of an alternator replacement. After doing a little research, I decided to install a later-model Ford alternator.
I have often heard from a broad variety of pundits about how Linux is not a mature, enterprise-class Unix. All discussion over how "Linux is a kernel" aside, today I have encountered the first piece of evidence that suggests to me that this is true. It seems that no Linux distribution has a simple "repair permissions" tool. This was a standard feature of package managers of UNIX systems before Linux was even dreamt of, for example in Solaris.
This article details the process of building the stock firmware for the SMCWAPS-G from the sources on Ubuntu Hardy (8.04.1.) The SMC SMCWAPS-G is on one hand an 802.11g access point with two USB2 ports and a 2.5" form factor ATA/IDE connector, and on the other a small and extremely low power consumption x86-compatible linux-based server with the same. While the included GPL compliance CD is relatively worthless to the casual user, the company does make the same content available in a more useful form for free download via their web site. This article explains how I built the sources; Read my review of the SMCWAPS-G for more information on the device in general.
SimCity is one of the most popular and well-known video games of all time. This game was ported to Unix in the 1990s and the source code has since been released under the GPL version 3. Micropolis is the resulting program (as well as the original working title of the game.) Making this game work correctly is easy enough once you know the recipe.
Ubuntu is a wonderful Linux distribution based (as are so many others) on Debian, perhaps the most stable and certainly one of the (if not the...) "freest" of all Linux distributions. While Debian's focus is stability and freedom, Ubuntu's is completeness and convenience. Both, however, use the same package management system, apt. Without getting into the issue of why apt is better than the alternatives (for the most part, anyway) let me just launch right into the subject of where packages from from: repositories.
Not too long ago, I switched entirely to Ubuntu for my Linux needs. Long-disenchanted with RedHat, I eventually skipped out on gentoo because I am lazy, and meanwhile I never found a compelling reason to run SuSe. I had begun using Debian Linux for servers and was very happy (in general) with the dpkg system, and along came Debian-based Ubuntu with unparalleled hardware support. I like to run Linux from a single vendor if possible since it simplifies things considerably, so now everything is based on some flavor of Ubuntu. In looking for a firewall GUI configurator which would run on and configure my laptop-based firewall system, I settled on fwbuilder.
I recently visited a garage sale and purchased an old clip art/stock image collection from "Hemera" called The Big Box of Art. While the (windows) software itself provides an index and a browser, I was only interested in using the images and none of the software. Unfortunately, the image files were in a passel of zip files and included two formats I was not sure how to handle; Windows Metafile (*.wmf) and "HPI" files.
If you want a road sign font, you can pay $800 (for the full set) or you can make your own. You also have several other options like Blue Highway or the roadgeek fonts, although the latter is often criticized for being poorly put together (badly authored.) The creator of that set simply traced the existing fonts. I have no idea why, because you can download the "Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices" which contains all the outlines.
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