Ubuntu Linux on Chromebook: Crouton vs ChrUbuntu, or installing over Chrome OS or dual booting.

For the end of the term at the University, I've decided to bring with me my Chromebook (Samsung Series 5). I am on a computer science degree, so I must sometimes act like I am a power user or at least, have access to ssh, plus a X client. Therefore, it seemed obvious that I sometimes needed to have a desktop environment able to run native applications (e.g java), plus the X thing via ssh. Okay, Chrome OS is somehow able to do ssh and some sort of X server-client thing, because it's still a Linux operating system underneath, but it's not brilliant at that. 

Before starting anything, I need to say that I am not responsible for anything that happens to your computer by following what I will say. You are doing everything on your own responsibility. Everything is specifically designed for Samsung Chromebook Series 5. It might apply to other machines, or it might not. Please check the sources carefully before doing anything.

One vs. another.

Just to make everything clear: 

• ChrUbuntu is installed on a removable storage, so it doesn't touch the internal storage or alter it.
• crouton is installed on the internal storage, so it *might* touch the internal storage.

My recommendation is crouton, for a number of reasons I will enumerate in the section designed to it. ChrUbuntu is probably easier to install, and easier to use, but it has some fundamental drawbacks which make it a bit annoying. For crouton, you'll probably need to use the terminal a little bit, but it's really not that much to be afraid of.

However, because ChrUbuntu is installed on a removable storage, all you have to do in order to get rid of it is to format that storage. This is rather easy, and won't affect the existing Chrome OS installation from the internal storage at all. For crouton, there are some commands to run in Chrome OS in order to remove it, because it installed on the internal storage of the Chromebook. This can get risky sometimes, and if something goes wrong, the only way to recover is to get back to the original state of the storage, and that is to wipe everything and set-up as a new Chromebook.

Fortunately, on Samsung Series 5, there is a hardware switch which just turns off developer mode, and so it wipes the internal storage completely. It might be this easy on other Chromebooks also, but I am not sure about this matter. I advise you to search a little more on recovery for your Chromebook before doing anything.

ChrUbuntu.

First off, I tried to install ChrUbuntu. ChrUbuntu is a quite nice thing, it runs, as I have already told, on a USB flash drive or on a SD card, and you basically dual-boot in order to be able to get into Ubuntu. Yes, you need to reboot for that, so you don't have both running on the same time. 

Installation. 

Technically, to get anything working you need to follow everything from (this is the official ChrUbuntu website) (here), except that at point number 4, you MUST replace the command with the one you get from (here), according to your device and according to where you are installing it (USB flash or SD card). That is all.

Note: turning on developer mode will remove everything from the internal storage!

Luckily, it's not a very hard process (even though at first sight is seems so), and it should be easily reversible in most cases. Unfortunately, after a month, my USB drive stopped working (applications were reporting I/O errors when it happened), and after a reboot it failed to boot anymore in ChrUbuntu. I've seen some other people complaining about this, I don't know if it's only the flash drive which has been broken, if it's related to ChrUbuntu, or if something from the operating system got broken. Anyway, Chrome OS was just fine. 

Booting it up.

What I should mention here is how ChrUbuntu is supposed to start. When you first start the Chromebook, you'll get a warning screen with a "scary" face. At this point, you have three options:

• Wait for about 30 seconds and it will beep two times, and boot Chrome OS.
• Hit Ctrl + D -> instantly boot Chrome OS.
• Hit Ctrl + U -> boot Ubuntu.

Nothing that complicated at all. If you hit Ctrl + U and the installation of Ubuntu is not present, than it will beep so that you know that it can't boot.

Good and bad points.

+ Ubuntu runs exactly like on a regular computer.

+ so you can do (almost, look below) anything you would do on any other machine running Ubuntu.

+ the guy who created ChrUbuntu took care of the drivers, everything is working fine (on my machine at least).

+ little or no maintenance to involved, so might be suitable for people not willing to touch the terminal at all.

+ nothing really altered on the internal storage (except when you first turn on developer mode).

- it's only Ubuntu 12.04, not one of the latest versions.

- because it's installed on a USB drive (2.0 is supported only), or on a SD card, it's deadly slow.

- limited to the maximum speed of the medium it's installed on.

- requires a medium of at least 8 GB, about 2 GB will be free after installation.

- has no swap partition, so when you get out RAM...well, Chrome and other applications will eventually crash, or lag being very bad.

Crouton.  

It's a bit more complicated, but the huge advantage is that it runs on top of Chrome OS, and in the same time with Chrome OS. Therefore, it uses the kernel provided by Chrome OS, all the drivers from Chrome OS, and everything else that is provided by Chrome OS, and so everything should be working just fine and it's extremely fast. When I say extremely fast, I mean that it's one of the fastest experiences I've seen to date on a computer running Ubuntu (this is on just 2 GB of RAM and a dual-core Intel Atom processor running at just 1.6GHz!). 

Important here: just don't do the silly thing of installing Xfce instead of Unity. Xfce is just awful. It has the worst interface I've seen, it's not attractive at all, half of the icons are broken etc etc etc. Go for Unity from the beginning. I did the silly thing, and it seems that there are some "traces" from Xfce on my installation of Unity, and it's sometimes annoying, but I can still do whatever I want because I have the terminal available. 

Actually, forget what I said above. Xfce works actually quite well, and it is worth to give it a try. It will be significantly faster than with Unity, but I still think that Unity will give higher productivity. It's really up to you. Please note that you must use "xfce" wherever you see "unity" in this guide, and start it using "sudo startxfce4" after installation.

Installation.

For the installation, follow the first point from ChrUbuntu for your own Chromebook, that is, just to turn on developer mode. I repeat, from (here), follow just the first point!

Then, from (here), download the package provided. 

Afterwards, follow the guide from (here, same as before but at another heading), but for the point 2, type "unity" instead of "xfce". This will install Unity. For point 4), type "sudo startunity", and Unity will start. Everything else is the same.

Note: logging off does not work for me, for some reason. If this is the case for you, to close Unity, just hit Ctrl + Alt + Back to get back to Chrome OS, and then, in the crosh window in which Unity is running, hit Ctrl + C. This is not a very elegant way of closing it, but it should kill it pretty okay.

Starting it up.

Just as with ChrUbuntu, when you power up your Chromebook, you will get the "scary" face warning. But now, you can wait for 30 seconds and Chrome OS will boot automatically, or you can hit Ctrl + D and it will boot Chrome OS at that moment.

When you want to start unity from now on, hit Ctrl + Alt + T. This will open a crosh window on Chrome OS. There, type "shell". Afterwards, type "sudo startunity", just as before, and it should start.

To close it, try to click logoff. If it doesn't work, then go to Chrome OS, and in the crosh window, hit Ctrl + C.

Good points and bad points of this method.

+ it runs on top of Chrome OS, in the same time with it.

+ easily switch between them.

+ everything is guaranteed to work.

+ performance is absolutely astonishing, as everything is optimized for Chrome OS.

+ Unity + my apps apps add up to about 2 GB, leaving around 8 GB of free storage.

+ unified storage, so each OS can easily manage the files.

- it's only Ubuntu 12.04.

- can be a bit too technical for some users.

- in my experience, I had to use the terminal quite a little bit.

- uses internal storage (not excessively much).

- resources are shared, but I could not notice any difference.

Conclusion.

I've seen a lot of people complaining about the Chrome OS not being a complete operating system, about not knowing to do that and that, about being too minimalist and so on. With the possibility of having Linux working on a Chromebook, this completely vanishes. It's definitely not a solution which satisfies anyone, at least not on my machine. I am expecting it to work much better on the Series 5 550, the newer generation of Chromebooks that has the Celeron processor and double the amount of RAM.

However, it transforms the Chromebook into a computer that is capable of handling almost all the tasks a home or a power user would need to perform.


If you have any kind of questions, I will answer them here. I will try to look regularly for this on this particular post. I think that almost anything you would need can be found just by searching on Google, but if you still need help, I am here and I will try to provide it. 

Congratulations to Microsoft for buying Skype. They simply destroyed the compatibility with Linux.

Update: I actually seems to be working now. However, it's not brilliant at all, the quality is unacceptable for any standard, in my opinion. The sound tends to be very unnatural, and it gets stuck for a few times every single second, so you must sometimes guess what the person at the other end is saying. Furthermore, the video gets behind for about 7-10 seconds after just a few minutes of talking. I talked with a lot of  friends from twitter, and they all complain about Skype. I have no idea where Microsoft is heading towards. 

 Who has not heard of Skype? It's probably one of the most known and popular service for voice and video chatting over the web, and it's been a wonderful product a few years ago. The times in which the quality of both sound and video were great have disappeared a long time ago, and all that's left today is a poor service, with quality which is below any acceptable level and disastrous compatibility (given the fact that mobile and Linux usage have significantly increased over the last few years).

Skype's decay has actually started before it getting acquired by Microsoft, but Microsoft only made everything worse. Before the Microsoft story, Skype was somehow working for me. I am using Linux most of the time, because not only I enjoy it the most, but my University courseworks and tasks require me to use Linux for almost every single module I have on my course. So I had to use Skype under Linux, which used to work quite decent, I might say.

However, over the last few months, it's been getting worse and worse, and now it is completely unusable under Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (after being bought by Microsoft, coincidence?) . From the very beginning, video quality was a total mess under Linux, as the colors were completely out of their place and I always had a lot of shadows of different colors going on in the place where my image should have been (my image was still in the background, with all that going on on top of it). But recently, it started to crash frequently, mostly when I was trying to answer a call (calling worked just fine). And it still used to be decent, even like that!

But now, it reached the point when it signs in, and that's virtually all it can do. There are no connections going on at all between me and the other contacts, no matter what device/OS they use. All contacts appear as offline, I appear offline to them, I can't call, they can't call, so it's completely useless, and this has been happening for about a month now.

I gave up any chance that Microsoft will even think about fixing something, the last update they launched has done nothing good (it seems to have broken anything which was working), except bringing compatibility with MSN (which by the way, I heard they are planning to close and use Skype as their main messaging service). I just suppose they are probably trying to close down the compatibility with Linux because their recently-launched Windows 8 seems to be a flop, and Linux seems to be gaining more and more market share (or simply "users", because it doesn't really have market share as it's open source).

Therefore, the only chance of getting a Skype conversation is through Windows, but the situation is not exceptionally good even there, while doing Windows-to-Windows video calls (but this is another story). Microsoft's own software doesn't work good on their own operating system, so there is nothing new here. They simply deserve their Windows 8 to fail so bad that they will be motivated to do much better software, which works exceptionally at least on their own software!

Don't get me wrong, I am not asking for a flawless product from them for Linux. All I want is one which just does its job, on software it used work on.

The best alternative out there: Google hangouts. Unfortunately, its interface is sometimes confusing for some users, but quality and compatibility wise, it is absolutely perfect. Recommended trying.

Chrome 20 might be the most unreliable browser to use on Ubuntu.

I'm a big fan of Google's products, and of course that this includes Chrome, but Google's lightweight browser is not worth being considered as the best one from all the available ones, at least on Linux. Ubuntu (because that's the OS I use most of the time) comes with Firefox for this: even though it is not as fast as Chrome, it is rocket-stable and fully usable (free of bugs). But Chrome has been having bugs since a long time ago and it has some even now. And what's worse, Chrome 20 "features" more bugs than ever.

First of all, there are huge issues with Flash. Most of the content from YouTube still uses Flash (please note that YouTube is also owned by Google), and one of the most used ways make a video start again is to refresh the page. And I have to do this because I simply can't click on anything that's Flash related, for I-don't-know-what reason. Moreover, Samsung's Chromebook computer, which runs on Chrome (there's nothing else to choose) has the same problems with Flash.

Then, there is the Blogger platform. You can write everything you want (just like I do now), but you can't put a title in the article (note: the article is going to have a title put on Firefox, just because Chrome can't do it for a reason or another). And here we are talking about two Google products. Blogger, a Google product, can't be properly used on Chrome, Google's browser. I am sorry, but this is something incredible, and Google should have taken action long time ago on this subject.

And there are other, not so serious, but still annoying bugs. On 9gag, portions of the bar from the top of the screen spread across the entire screen while scrolling. On YouTube, the same thing happens with the bar located just below the videos. And more that this, while watching something, you can't see what you type when you search for something else (on YouTube), it just displays what was searched before (it still searches, if you write something and tap enter you'll see it will return what you wanted, but it's annoying).

Of course that these aren't the only bugs, but with these I have to deal day by day. My girlfriend complains that she can't enter full screen while watching some TV series on the internet (don't know whether it's Flash or not), but there clearly are some issues Google have to take care about.

I can't simply give up using Chrome because, as I've told, I'm a big fan of Google's products, and I have more computers, so I need sync across all of them (bookmarks and stuff). Owning a Galaxy Nexus is also a strong reason for using Google's products. And I don't even want to give up using them, because they make the life a lot easier (Gmail, Picasa, Drive, Contacts, Calendar, Maps etc), I use them a lot and they help me everyday, but the idea is that some of the bugs really have to be fixed sooner or later.

I don't know if they are present only on Linux, because I rarely use Windows, and when I do it, I don't usually have a lot of time to spend on YouTube, 9gag or such websites. 

Ubuntu 10.10 is live, there aren't any huge changes.

Ubuntu, the most popular Linux distribution, got today to a new version, 10.10 Maverick Meerkat. This new version brings some changes, but they are small so the experience is pretty close to Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. The themes (Radiance and Ambiances) were slightly polished, making Ubuntu a quite good-looking alternative for Windows or Mac.

One of the most notable difference is represented by the fonts. They look now much prettier than before. Below is an example:

The Ubuntu Software Center has also been changed, bringing you new features, such as "What's new", "Where is it", the ability of handling .deb files or paid applications. Actually, there's only one paid application now, but it is just for testing purposes, more are expected to come with Ubuntu 11.04. 

The installation process has been completely redesigned. Andrew (from webupd8) shot a video of it:

Ouch, I was about to forget about it. There's also a new wallpaper into Ubuntu 10.10 by default. The old one, which has been a little redesigned compared to the one present in 10.04, created a real scandal and was changed after some users reported even a bug into it. So, it now looks something like this:

Other changes are represented only by under the hood improvements and updates to most applications, changes that are seen rarely or aren't at all for the end user. 

Ubuntu is available for download from here.

Beautiful "Day of Ubuntu" Live wallpaper changes the look of your phone depending on the outside time.

"Day of Ubuntu" Live wallpaper is definitely one of the best live wallpapers available for the Android-powered devices. This is its secret. It changes by itself, depending on the time the device has. For example, the below photo was taken at 10:30 P.M., and the time which was represented on the wallpaper corresponds to the time which was outside at that time.

This type of live wallpaper isn't something new, there are few more wallpapers like this one on the Market, but I think that this is the best of them. It takes only 800 kb, it doesn't create any kind of lag on a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor, it looks great on Nexus One's high-resolution screen (480 x 800 pixels), and it seems that the battery drainage is extremely reduced. Your device must support Live Wallpapers, otherwise it won't work. 

Search it in the Android Market: "Day of Ubuntu". 

P.S.: I'm not using the native Launcher, that's why my dock looks like that. 

Ubuntu 10.10 Alpha changes its look, I hope you like orange....

Ubuntu 10.10 gets, while still in Alpha 3, a quite big change at its interface. The default wallpaper has been updated a little (this isn't that big change), but there were new, much cooler wallpapers added from which to choose. Its theme has also been updated, and even if the older one was changing with every update, it has been removed and newer Ambiance and Radiance themes were added.

Ambiance looks really good, nice finished, not like the older one, which seemed so unfinished. Regarding to the new Radiance, it looks so...white. It isn't currently very pleasant for the eyes (it's 9:30 P.M. right now and it's completely dark outside, maybe because of that), and, most probably, changing the brightness of the monitor to a (much) lower value would make it pleasant (or trying it while there's sunny outside).

Anyway, you will feel with these new themes like you are returning a little bit in the past. They are bringing back some of that orange I liked very much at Ubuntu, but now it is much more vibrant than before. Window buttons, which are still on the left side (and I hope they'll remain there), look quite strange now. They are a little bigger than before, but they are interesting.

I can't take screenshots (I don't know why, Ubuntu simply doesn't want to take them), and that's why I am sending you to my friend from WebUpd8, which has made a few screenshots of everything which is new in Ubuntu 10.10 Beta.

I want to remember you that on September 2nd the Beta version of Ubuntu 10.10 is going to be released, the Release Candidate comes on September 30th (it represents around 95% of the final product), and the Final Release is expected on October 10th.

Fixing "SD card damaged. You may have to reformat it" issues on HTC Nexus One/Desire.

I've got today this issue after I transfered a file from my computer (Ubuntu) to my Nexus One (which runs the stock Android 2.2). After I clicked "Safe Remove Hardware" in Ubuntu, I got the following error on my Nexus One: "SD card damaged. You may have to reformat it". I've searched for more hours on many forums, and it seems that this is more a regular problem for HTC Desire, rather than for the Nexus One (only a few Nexus One users reported this problem).

To be more exactly, this problems seems to be caused by a poor quality of the microSD with which these devices come. I've tried fixing this by rebooting the phone with/without the microSD card inserted, or with apps from the Market, but neither of them worked. I was not at home and I didn't have a (external) card reader with me, so I got stuck there for the moment.

After I got home, it took me some tens of minutes after I got this fixed, so here is what I recommend you doing. Insert the microSD into a card reader, because in this case you have access to what's inside it. Copy all the files on your computer (for backup), and then, using a utility application which can deal with storage drives and partitions, try to completely format the microSD using FAT file system. 

I've done it using "Disk Utility",  a program which comes preinstalled with Ubuntu. I'm not sure, but the default Windows partitioner should be able to do do the same. I've also tried formatting the microSD directly from the phone but it didn't work.

After you finish formatting the microSD, copy back all your data to it (do not delete your data from the computer yet! keep that for backup), insert it in your phone, power it up, and wait. If everything is fine, the device will start, slowly, to display all data you copied back to the microSD. Music and pictures are going, for example, to be displayed gradually (it may take a few minutes to display all music and pictures). If this happens, you may now delete the data kept for backup in your computer. The only problem is that I don't have anymore all apps I had installed on the microSD. Excepting this, everything is back and working.

If you still have problems or you need help with formatting your microSD, don't hesitate to request help via a comment.

Syncing Palm handhelds (running PalmOS) with Ubuntu 10.04/10.10.

If you have an Ubuntu 10.04 or 10.10 and a (older) Palm handheld, you probably want to synchronize them, especially to install programs on your device (I have a Zire71, which doesn't have WiFi, so the only way of installing applications is via a computer). We'll be using "gnome-pilot" in this purpose. So, go to Synaptic Package Manager (System | Administration | Synaptic Package Manager), search for "gnome pilot", and install it. 

After you installed gnome-pilot, go to Start | Preferences | PalmOS Devices, and click Add. Now make sure that the port/hub in which the handheld is connected is working, and your device has enough battery. If you had your device synced before, click on "Get from PDA" button, and tap on the sync button on the dock. If that doesn't work or it's the first time you sync your device, give it an owner name, and an ID (it doesn't matter what  ID, I put 1000), click "send to PDA" and tap the sync button on the dock.

If that succeeded, close that window, and on the "Conduits" tab, enable all settings you want. Make sure that conduit "File" is enabled. When you're ready, right-click on panel (the bar with Applications, Places, System, etc) and click "Add to Panel". There, select "Pilot Applet" and click Add. A black-and-white icon should appear on the panel (if you can't find it, ask for help). 

All that you have to do now is to download applications for your PDA, and to drag and drop them over that icon. When you tap on the sync button on your device, it should be automatically installed on your device. I know, it isn't intuitive, but you can't say that it's difficult. 

If you have any problems, don't hesitate to leave a comment and I'll be happy to assist you.

Yahoo! Messenger login issues?

Since this morning, I've been experiencing important problems when logging in into Yahoo! Messenger. In the morning, I started my desktop PC on which I got the following message several times when I tried to connect from Ubuntu, with Pidgin

Account locked: You have been logging in too frequently.  Wait a few minutes before trying to connect again.  Logging into the Yahoo! website may help.

followed by

Received invalid data.

After all these messages, it simply connected by itself. I thought that it was a problem with the way Pidgin was authenticating on Yahoo!'s servers, but in the after-noon, I tried to login from a Window-based laptop, on Yahoo! Messenger 10, and surprise. It said that my password was wrong. OK, I gave it another try. And then another one. And I continued like this five more times.

In an end, I got an error which said that the messenger can't communicate normally to its servers (actually, my password wasn't wrong). After I got this, I successfully logged in at the following try.


I have no idea which is the problem, but I hope that Pidgin was wrong. I mean, I don't login frequently on Yahoo! and, anyway, I think that it was referring that somebody tries again and again to login from my account so it was locked because of this (exactly, I'm afraid that somebody tries to hack it).

If you have this problem please don't hesitate to leave a comment telling us also when your problem started!

Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat Alpha 2 is available.

I don't know which are your feelings about Ubuntu 10.04, but I have the impression that it was just released. And I have to tell you, that on the 3rd of June, the development for the following version of Ubuntu was officially starting, with the launch of Alpha 1. Today, we already have the Alpha 2, which has been released on the 1st of July. 

You're probably curious to know the changes now. So, they aren't really important....interface was a little redesigned, a change that is even hard to see at a first look, boot time seems to be improved a little...and some bugs related to the sound and booting procedure. The rest is the same.

The schedule has been changed this time. We have 3 Alphas, a Beta, the Release Candidate and the Final Release. So here's the schedule:

• 3rd of June - Alpha 1
• 1st of July- Alpha 2
• 5th of August - Alpha 3
• 2nd of September - Beta
• 30th of September - Release Candidate
• 10th of October - Final release

You can download the current build (Alpha 2) from here.

Google Chrome Beta has at least one serious bug.

I observed this bug several times over the last few days, and I decided to tell you about it. It happens randomly (I haven't observed to occur regularly on a certain website) when you're trying to maximize a window while being unmaximized. The page simply remains unmaximized, even if the window is in full screen. I took a screenshot to get an idea about how something like this looks like.

If you get here, what you have to do is to copy the link and open it in another tab. Unmaximizing and maximizing the window or refreshing the page does not work.

This happens on Ubuntu, with the latest Beta version of Chrome installed (5.0.375.86).

Fixing "connection refused" problem in Pidgin (Ubuntu).

"Connection refused" error is a problem which is known by many Linux users. It is usually occurred (sometimes) on most IM clients, especially when trying to connect to Yahoo!. This is a very annoying problem, and almost nobody knows exactly how to fix it (and if they fixed it, what they really did). Certain is that this usually occurs when the guys from Yahoo! are changing the way users are authenticating on their servers. So their servers are probably misconfigured (for Linux users), and they are simply refusing all clients who are coming from other clients, different than their own client (application).

There are some ways of fixing this on the internet. It has been reported that if you continue trying to connect, you could be in a final connected or redirected to a server which allows authentication in the old way. However, theoretically spoken, this solution is only temporary. If you disconnect, you'll probably have again problems connecting. Other users reported that changing the server on which the application is logging on may resolve the problem. I've tried changing it between scsa.msg.yahoo.com, cn.scs.msg.yahoo.com, scs.msg.yahoo.com and other addresses like these. I tried to change the address even with server's IP address directly (thinking that it could be an address resolving problem), everything with no luck.

But I continued trying, and after tens of forums and blogs, I found on brainstorms.in a user who reported that changing the server to scsd.msg.yahoo.com works. And it really works. So, if you have this problem, click on Accounts -> (on your account) Edit Accounts -> Advanced, and on the first row (Pager server), put "scsd.msg.yahoo.com".

Please leave a comment to know if this fixed your problem or not.

Running Android 1.6 on your PC (+video).

Android is the operating system for mobile devices which is getting more and more popularity everyday (about 60-100 000 devices with Android OS are activated every day, and it's coming fast behind iPhone OS). By knowing this fact, users of iPhone and Windows Mobile devices are trying to port Android to their devices. But what I am going to show is how you can get Android running on your PC. OK, not natively, but with the help of a virtual machine.

Note: this works on any platform (Windows, Linux, and Mac). None of your data from your computer is going to be affected.

What you have to is to download VirtualBox from here, and the Android 1.6 that will run on VirtualBox from here (scroll down to "StableRelease" and click "view" on the first file, named "android -x86-1.6-r2.iso" to start downloading). These two downloads are not large so the download should finish fast. Do not burn on CD Android OS after downloading, just let the image somewhere where you know about it. Then install VirtualBox like a normal application.

When you finish installing VirtualBox, do the following (if your know what VirtualBox is and how to configure it, all you must know is that Operating System and Version must be selected as "Other", and respectively as "Other/Unknown"; otherwise follow these steps):

• Select "New", give it a name, and at Operating System select "Other" and "Other/Unknown" at Version.
• Give it a quantity of RAM (doesn't matter how much, but make sure to have free on your system that amount you're giving to it).
• Let the settings like they are (Boot Hard Disk and Create new hard disk)
• Then, on the window that appears, click Next, then Next, and because 2.0 GBs are just enough, click again Next, then Finish and again Finish.
• Now, your new Guest OS appeared on the left column of VirtualBox, with the name you gave it. Click Start.
• On the window that appears, click Next.
• Now, where it says "Media Source", click on that folder sign on the right part of the window.
• Click Add, and browse to where the image it located and click Open. Make sure it is highlighted and then click Select.
• Click Next and then Finish

Congratulations. You have now successfully configured your Virtual Machine and Android 1.6 is being booted automatically. I haven't installed it, I only ran it like a "Live CD". If you want to install it, you can try, but I don't know if it is difficult or not. I recommend you selecting "Live CD" just to see how it's look like.

You can now try and explore the functionalities of Android 1.6 on your PC (except calling and SMS because there isn't any carrier available). Below is a video which demonstrates you that this really works (even if I tried it on Mac, it runs also on Windows or Linux hosts).

Get a Mac OS X-like dock for Ubuntu.

The dock from Mac OS X is one of the most beautiful docks for PCs. Unfortunately, you have to buy a MacBook/iMac in order to get that dock in front of your eyes (the process of installing a Mac OS X on a regular, non-Apple platform is very complicated). But if you have Ubuntu on a computer, you can get a dock that looks something like that one from Mac OS X on that computer.

It is called Avant Windows Navigator (or simpler, AWN), it can be found on Ubuntu Software Center, and it looks something like this:

The dock is not that simple to use as that one from Mac OS X, but after a few minutes you should already know how it works and be able to configure it without problems. But, this dock is even better than that one found on Mac OS X, because you can add many other widgets on it directly from its menu (like real-time statistics about computer or weather). You can put it on any part of the screen, even on the top, and this is something that you can't do with Mac's default dock.

Get it from the Ubuntu Software Center by searching "AWN".

Ubuntu One - note facilities only- is down (15:00 GMT Time, Saturday, 15 May).

Today I needed to look over a note I had made a few weeks ago, but after logging in, when I wanted to view my notes, I had a surprise. I got a screen like this.

As you can see in the picture, there is a problem with the notes. It says that "Something has gone wrong", with the error 500. This is really strange, because the files are available, only the notes are failing. And this was a moment when I really needed a note.

I hope that this problem won't take much time, and that my notes will be back again.

Update: 10:30 A.M, 16 May, notes are available again. All notes are in their place. No one has been lost.

Pre-order your free Ubuntu CD today!

Canonical has opened ShipIt service starting from yesterday, offering anybody who wants free Ubuntu CDs (now they are only pre-orders, but from 29th all pre-orders are going to be sent to shipping company and ordinary orders available).

Please consider that you can download the image (from here) and burn it yourself on a CD, instead of ordering a CD, when there are others who actually really need it. However, if you really want a free CD, I advice you to order one as soon as possible, as I think that because of high demands orders are going to be stopped sometimes.

Get your free Ubuntu CD from here: https://shipit.ubuntu.com/

Kubuntu ShipIt also available here: https://shipit.kubuntu.org/

Impressive. Ubuntu 10.04 supports most mobile broadband USB sticks out-of-the-box.

Ubuntu shows again how an excellent operating system behave in normal activities. I have a HSUPA mobile broadband modem from a carrier from Romania (I don't mention its name), and I wanted to connect it to my Ubuntu-based computer, just to see if it works and if there are any additional steps that need to be done in order to get it working.

So I connected it, and after about 10 seconds (after the modem has been initialized), I was really surprised to see that Ubuntu supports out-of-the-box this kind broadband modems. As Ubuntu documentation says (here), the operating system supports most 3G sticks and even phones with HSPA/UMTS/GPRS data connections. I was asked to answer a few things only (country and data plan, where I selected "default") after I connected it for the first time.

I mention that I use Ubuntu 10.04 Beta 2, with Network Manger 0.8 and the USB stick is a Huawei MF110.

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx) pre-orders will be soon available. Stay tuned!

Ubuntu's website now says that Ubuntu 10.04 is available for ShipIt. Normally, if you want a free CD, you have to log in and to confirm your shipping data. At this moment, after logging in, the website says that "ShipIt is currently closed", and "We'll be back in a few days, shipping Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx) CDs".

As they updated the website, I think that the ShipIt will be soon up and ready for requests. Stay tuned. I will update the article as soon as pre-orders will be available.

https://shipit.ubuntu.com/

Ubuntu: the change is coming - April 29th.

The new version of Ubuntu, 10.04, is almost near the corner. On April 22nd the last step before the final release in coming, the Release Candidate. This represents usually about 90-95% of the final release, and soon after, on 29th, the final release is going to be available.

This is a LTS update, or Long Term Support. This means that this version will be supported for 3 years on Desktop version, and it is launched every two years (while normal releases are supported for 18 months and are launched every 6 months). Thousands of updates are coming daily for those who are using Beta 2 at this moment, so this is an evidence that the community is seriously working for 10.04 LTS.

This is a list of the most important updates that Ubuntu 10.04 has so far and what is supposed to come in the final release:

• Much better hardware support
• Improved speed
• 2 new default themes
• By default, Ubuntu has windows buttons on the left
• Splash and login screens are now modified
• Gwibber is installed by default (social client - Twitter is included)
• Boot time under 10 seconds (for the final release)

Regarding the themes, an article can be found by clicking here. However, articles about Ubuntu can be found on the entire blog. You must only find them by typing "Ubuntu" in the search box.

Ubuntu is still under full development, so the many applications and even the system can get serious errors, so if you need a stable system it is not recommended to update yet.

The stable version (9.10) and 10.04 beta 2 are both available from the official site: http://www.ubuntu.com/ .

Opera 10.51 for Ubuntu is available.

Opera claims to be the fastest browser on the earth, so do you want to know if this is true or not? You can now test this by yourself if you are using Linux, because an official build of Opera 10.51 is available for download. Please note that this is not a final release (on the official website only 10.10 is available for Linux), but it works pretty good.

More details can be found on WebUpd8, by clicking here, and the official download link is here.