RM Jones’ Adventure

This is a step by step installation for beginners (like me).

I have been “playing” with Linux off an on for the last two or three years. I put it in, have problems, and take it back out. I don’t like Windows Vista so I am a little more determined this time. I believe that Ubuntu / Kubuntu 8.04 “Hardy Heron” is ready for the average person so I am writing this for the complete beginner. Please remember, there are a lot of ways to do what I am doing here. This is my way. I am a beginner and am making this as much as a record of what worked for me as I am to provide you with information. Please remember, this is what I did to set up my HP Pavilion a1140n computer. It may be a little different for you but probably not much. I wrote this step by step as I was doing the procedures on the computer I was setting up. I hope this helps.

1. OK, I have setup Ubuntu 8.04 and am about to run it the first time. So, first things first. We have to log in.
2. Enter your user name and then your password.
3. You will notice that in Ubuntu the menu bar is at the top of the screen. When I tell you I clicked on (or whatever term I use) “System > Preferences > Screen Resolution” I mean that I went to “System” then to “Preferences” then to “Screen Resolution”. This is the shorthand that I usually use to save time and space.
4. If you have your computer connected to the Internet, and I assume you do, just wait a minute or two and you will see a pop up that says that “Software updates available” and it points to a small orange icon. Click on the icon and in the window that opens click on “Install Updates”. If it doesn’t pop up shortly you can go to “System > Administration > Update Manager” and force it to check for updates. Enter your password and then just sit back and wait while it updates your complete system. Isn’t that just to easy! Ubuntu is GREAT as Tony the Tiger used to say . The Ubuntu download site is pretty busy since the new version has just come out and this may take a while. Today, May 8, 2008, there are 59 updates to install. Ubuntu 8.04 hasn’t been out a month yet. You can see that they are continually working to perfect their software. I highly recommend Ubuntu or Kubuntu, which is Ubuntu with the KDE desktop which I prefer. However, I like to install Ubuntu first and then add Kubuntu since there are a few things I like to do in Ubuntu and I find that it easier to find instructions for Ubuntu than it is for Kubuntu. You can use either to set most things up and they will then both work fine.
5. The first thing I like to do is to set the screen resolution so my poor old eyes can see it. “System > Preferences > Screen Resolution” will do that for you. I use “1024 x 768″ to make it easier to read.
6. Next, since I have a LAN (Local Area Network) with couple of Windows computers attached, I want to set up my network so I can transfer files from one to the other. Samba is the program to install for this. However, in Ubuntu 8.04 it takes a little “tweaking” to get it to work correctly on my computer. If you don’t have a LAN you don’t have to complete this step.
   1. Go to “Applications > Add/Remove” and a notification that “The list of available applications is out of date”. Click on “Reload” and then enter your password.
   2. In the “Show:” box select “All available applications” then I the “Search” box enter “samba”. You will now see a number of applications listed. Select “Samba” and when the pop up ask if you want to “Enable the installation of community maintained software” click “Enable”. Now all you have to do is click “Apply Changes” and then “Apply” and when it’s done click “Close”. This will return you to your desktop.
   3. On my computer, if I click on “System > Administration > Samba” I get a “Crash report”. After a lot of searching the Internet and the Ubuntu help files I found a bug report (number 2258705) that says that this is a know problem and provides the following work around. It says “The work around is to create an empty /ect/libuser.conf” . OK here is how I accomplished that.
      1. First I wanted to be able to get around in the super user mode which can’t be seen in the menu as it is set up. Soooooo, “System > Preferences > Main Menu” is the place to go. In the left side of the window click on “System Tools” and then on the right side of the window click “Root Terminal”. You might as well turn on any other menu items you want to use while you are here. I go down the whole list of all the applications. In the System Preferences menu I also move the “Control Center” and the “Main Menu” to the top of that list by dragging them there. Then click “Close”
      2. Due to the fact that I am new to Linux I often do things the hard way until I learn better. This is one of those times. I don’t know how to create an empty document from the terminal mode. Sooooo, I create it on the desktop and move it to the place I want it to be. I know, this is the wrong way. If you know how to create a file from the terminal please leave a comment and tell me how to do it. To create an empty file on the desktop simply right click on the desktop and chose “Create Document > Empty File” and in this case give it the name “libuser.conf” all in small letters. I now have the file I want to move to “/etc”.
      3. Now you are ready to do a little “tweaking” as I call it. Go to “Applications > System Tools > Root Terminal”. You may have to enter your password. You should see a flashing cursor after a “#” that means you are ready to start “tweaking”. Enter “cd /etc”. Don’t forget the space after the “cd”. This will put you in the “/etc” folder. To move the empty file from your home folder you will have to use your own user name instead of “robert” in the following. Also make sure you have a space after “mv” and after “conf” and the “.” has to be there. It tells where to move the file to and in this case the “.” means to the current folder. Enter “mv /home/robert/Desktop/libuser.conf .”. To make sure that the file has been moved you can enter “dir” which will give you a list of all the folders and files in the folder. Check for “libuser.conf”. It should be there and gone from the desktop when you close the terminal which you do by enter entering “exit”.
      4. Now that you are back to the desktop you can go to “System > Administration > Samba” and it should work fine.
      5. It’s now time to seup Samba. I use a different name for my LAN than what Windows normally sets up so I want Samba to know about that. Click on “Preferences > Server Settings” in under the “Basic” tab enter your LAN (workgroup) name in the “Workgroup” box. Then click on the “Security” tab and in the Guest Account select your user name and click “OK”. Now I’m going back to “Preferences > Samba Users” and setting the password I want to use to access this computer from my other computers. To do this simply enter the password in the text blocks and click “OK”.
      6. Close the “Samba Server Configuration” window and restart your computer. I find that you MUST reboot your computer for the Samba setup to take effect.
      7. The next step is easy. We just have to set up the folders we want the other computers to be able to access. I’m not going to list all the ones I add. I’ll just tell you the procedures to add the “Desktop” and the rest are the same.
      8. However, before we do that we have to do a little more “tweaking” because in Ubuntu 8.04 the “Shared Folders” icon doesn’t get set up during installation. I had to figure out how to make it accessible. Here is what we do. I have already done the research and searched for it and here is what I have found. The file we want is called “shares-admin” and it was installed just no icon set up. It is located at “/usr/bin”. What we have to do is create an icon to that file. To do that I went to “System > Preferences > Main Menu”. On the left side select the menu where you want the icon. I chose “System > Administration”. Now click on “New Item” and enter the name “Shared Folders”. In the “Comment” box you can put what you want, I used “Configure which folders are available for your network neighborhood” which was what was used on other version of Ubuntu. Now click on “Browse” which is to the right of the “Command” text block. On the left side click on “File System” > “usr” > “bin” > “shares-admin” and click “Open”. Now all you have to do is click on “OK” and the icon is where you told it to be put. Before you leave the Main Menu make sure there is a check mark in frount of “Shared Folders”.
      9. Now let’s set up the shared folders. Go to “System > Administration > Shared Folders” and when the window opens click on “Unlock”. You will have to enter your password. I like to go to the “General Properties” tab first and make sure that my “Domain / Workgroup” name is correct. Now back to the “Shard Folders” tab and click “Add”. In the “Path” block find the folder you want to share, in this case I will go to “Desktop” and then I’ll enter a “Comment”. In my case I used “Robert’s Desktop on Penguin” That’s the name of this computer. Cute isn’t it . Now make sure that the “Read only” block is NOT CHECKED if you want to be able to write to it from the other computers on your LAN and click “Share”. Set up the rest of the folders you want to share and then click “Close”.
      10. Time to check if it works. Start up one of the computers on your LAN that are using Windows and log on to your network. Look for the computer you just set up and log in using the name and password you used when setting up Samba. Now try to create a folder on the desktop and see if it works. Mine does so should yours. I created this Blog entry step by step as I set up my computer and the LAN.
7. Now that I have my LAN setup, and that is the hardest thing to do as far as I’m concerned, it’s time to check out the sound. Sometimes I have had a little problem here. To do that go to “System > Preferences > Sound” and click the “Test” buttons. Mine work. Great. Nothing else to do here so I close the window.

That should be enough for the day. I’ll continue on later and create additional post on adding Kubuntu, setting up more of the settings, and as I go along I’ll try to remember to create post on other Linux related items and software that I use. I’ll try to review what I use and get back to you. I am into Geocaching, as you may know from my previous post so I will be looking for software for my GPS which is a Garmin. I’ll let you know what I find. Stop back and see what I’m doing. For now, Thanks for stopping by.

Bob Jones