Category Archives: Linux

PPTP on Lubuntu with PureVPN

I was having problems getting PPTP to work with PureVPN on a Lubuntu VM. I followed PureVPN’s directions, but only one of the four VPNs I created actually worked. The configuration appeared to be identical, based on what the user … Continue reading

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Removing Open VM Tools and VirtualBox Components from Lubuntu (Linux) Guest

After moving a Lubuntu virtual machine from VirtualBox to VMware Workstation and installing VMware Tools, I needed to clean out an old installation of Open-VM-Tools (OVT) and VirtualBox Guest Additions. Here are the steps I followed: List installed dkms packages: … Continue reading

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Fixing Broken VMware Shared Folders in Kubuntu/Ubuntu (f_dentry and d_alias errors)

I recently installed Kubuntu 14.04 LTS (3.19.0-25) 64-bit in a VMware virtual machine. After doing an apt- get upgrade, Shared Folders stopped working. When attempting to build and install VMware Tools, I saw compilation errors relating to f_dentry and d_alias. … Continue reading

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Convert FLAC to MP3 on Linux

This is the script I use to convert FLAC files to MP3. After converting, it moves all the FLAC files into a subdirectory named .flac: #!/bin/bash #—————————————————————————— # Converts all FLAC files in the current folder to high-quality VBR MP3s. … Continue reading

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Biostar TF7050-M2 Gigabit Ethernet under Ubuntu

After several years of not bothering, I finally got Gigabit ethernet working on my old Linux server, which has a Biostar TF8050-M2 motherboard. The motherboard has a Realtek 8111B PCI-E LAN controller, which is supposed to be 10/100/1000 (Ethernet, Fast … Continue reading

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How Do I Know What Ubuntu Version Number I Have?

lsb_release -a

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Things That Suck: Ubuntu Unity

I just upgraded my virtual machine to Unity. All the negatives I’d read rang true. The interface really does seem like a poor copy of OS X, for tablets. Complaints are often dismissed with a curt suggestion to switch distributions. … Continue reading

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Ubuntu: Keyboard Reverts to German After Reboot

Every time I rebooted or logged out of my Ubuntu virtual machine, my keyboard layout would switch to “Germany Eliminate dead keys” (“Deu”). Removing the offending layout from the keyboard manager seemed to work, but the problem would reappear the … Continue reading

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SSH Tunneling Windows RDC

This article explains how to securely port-forward Windows Remote Desktop (Terminal Services) over SSH, using standard SSH command line syntax. If you prefer to use GUI SSH tools, such as PuTTY, there are other guides for that. Terminology Notes My … Continue reading

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Tearing on MythTV with VLC

After updating to Ubuntu 8.10, I started to get tearing artifacts. This crop up especially badly during scenes that involve panning. The MythTV Wiki explains the fix for tearing: echo 1024 > /proc/sys/dev/hpet/max-user-freq Well, it works for me, anyway. I … Continue reading

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