The Blog becomes officially defunct

For quite some time now, the trials of a Linux Newbie have ceased and the blog has therefore ceased. After much time (and pleasure) getting the system working, I started a new project with m Partner – the Celtic Myth Podshow. Now whilst it’s true that many podcasts are produced on the Linux platform, it is also true that the most rofessiona software is proprietary and I have had to return to Windows.

So it is with some sadness that this blog has reached the end of its useful life but I shall leave it here so that others may start their own experiments. I will continue to monitor and approve comments so that you guys can respond to each other and what I have said in the hope that it can still grow to be useful considering that Ubuntu has gone through several generational changes since I wrote the blog.

I did have a minor flirtation setting up Ubuntu as a Media Centre using XBMC and Boxee with some success only to find that when I transferred the machine to my analog television Ubuntu would not display a picture – so that was that. Back to XP 😦

With thanks and respect to those who continue the project…

Celtic Myth Podshow

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Installing Netbeans in Ubuntu

Following on from an earlier post, it has become even easier to install Netbeans.

1.      Open a root terminal and type: apt-get install netbeans5.5

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Getting extra codecs to work in Ubuntu 7.10

Adding Repositories

The extra codecs that you might need for some media files are found in a repository containing a mixture of free and non-free software, i.e. software that has no available source code.

Open a Terminal and type:

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/gutsy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

Then:

wget -q http://packages.medibuntu.org/medibuntu-key.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add – && sudo apt-get update

Then:

sudo apt-get install w32codecs

Non-Native Media Formats

More detail can be found here.

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Installing my Epson D78 in Ubuntu Gutsy

Download the Driver

After googling, I found a driver here that’s supposed to work. I downloaded the package but noticed that it is an RPM and not a DEB. So I’m going to have to learn how to convert it.

Converting the RPM

1.      Open a Terminal and type: sudo apt-get install alien

2.      Convert with: sudo alien –scripts gutenprint-5.0.1-1lsb3.1.i486.rpm

3.      This leaves the following file: gutenprint_5.0.1-2_i386.deb

Install the Driver

1.      dpkg -i gutenprint_5.0.1-2_i386.deb. This tells me that it installs well and has restarted cups.

Ubuntu install

1.      Go to System>Administration>printing.

2.      Click on New Printer

3.      Click on Windows Printer via Samba (my printer is connected to a Windows box).

4.      Then I click the Browse button to hunt for the printer. Once I have navigated to the printer and clicked OK, then I click on Forward.

5.      Mmm – I can’t find gutenprint, wonder where it’s gone to?

6.      OK, so I went to the normal list of printers under Select Printer from Database I choose the Epson D68 (being the model under mine, I assume) and when I go forward …  there is Gutenprint. Choose a driver and print a test page – piece of cake.

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