tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7263421773190670922011-07-08T20:19:17.417-07:00A blog about running Ubuntu lean and mean, without any of the user friendly applications that make the distro just work for beginners. Its about getting under the hood of Ubuntu to see what makes it tick.bytor4232http://www.blogger.com/profile/14478170512016659768noreply@blogger.comBlogger161100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726342177319067092.post-74189442550116286502010-05-06T03:58:00.001-07:002010-05-06T03:58:06.470-07:00

GDM is pretty bulletproof, and is a great way to manage your display and provide autologin services for your desktop. Unfortunately GDM loads Metacity, and unless your running Gnome it can be a hit to your memory cache. For those of us using Xfce4, its not the most efficient way to handle resources.The Xubuntu developers put together a gdm theme that will load xfwm4 instead of Metacity. To

bytor4232http://www.blogger.com/profile/14478170512016659768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726342177319067092.post-48413781294939004142010-05-05T14:38:00.001-07:002010-05-05T14:38:57.709-07:00

I have to admit, I love Xubuntu. They have a really nice community behind it, the developers are super friendly, and the with the last few releases the artwork is superb. Plus, I've used Xubuntu off and on since 7.10, but over the last few releases its gotten a tad bloated. For machines with less than 256 megs or ram, its not the best solution in the world.So I looked into a way to make

bytor4232http://www.blogger.com/profile/14478170512016659768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726342177319067092.post-7470050583841205022010-05-03T05:38:00.001-07:002010-05-03T06:21:12.414-07:00

Ubuntu Lucid came out on the 29th, and with it the first "final" release of Lubuntu. Today I'll be comparing three systems memory usage head to head. The first system is Ubuntu and XFCE4, the second system Xubuntu, and the third system Lubuntu. I'll be displaying the results of the "free" command just after boot and logged into the desktop, using only the used memory to determine the desktops

bytor4232http://www.blogger.com/profile/14478170512016659768noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726342177319067092.post-73982913294373134112010-02-17T11:11:00.001-08:002010-02-17T13:01:38.575-08:00

SLiM is a nice, simple, lightweight display manager thats actuallycoming to Ubuntu Lucid. To install it in Karmic, run the following:sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stemp/xfcesudo apt-get updatesudo apt-get install slimIf you want to enable automatic logins, see /etc/slim.conf and setauto logins to yes and your default user to who you want automaticallylogged in.For those of you who have multiple

bytor4232http://www.blogger.com/profile/14478170512016659768noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726342177319067092.post-5304747166146099562010-02-12T20:48:00.001-08:002010-02-17T10:45:30.463-08:00

Learned tonight that GDM 2 can be adjusted by running:gksu -u gdm dbus-launch gnome-appearance-propertiesYou can set the theme, background, etc just like the appearanceproperties in regular GNOME.UPDATE: Obviously this relies on GNOME being installed. If you don't have GNOME installed, you can use this nifty little trick on Karmic:sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gdm2setup/gdm2setupsudo apt-get

bytor4232http://www.blogger.com/profile/14478170512016659768noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726342177319067092.post-15846004159574830502010-02-11T14:11:00.001-08:002010-02-14T12:06:28.725-08:00

GNOME is often criticized for its overuse of resources, but its not technically GNOME's fault. Ubuntu installs a lot of applications and services that cause its implementation of this venerable desktop environment to gain a reputation as a heavy desktop environment.In a recent experiment, I took the famous Presario 700 with 256 megs of RAM and installed just the core gnome environment. You can

bytor4232http://www.blogger.com/profile/14478170512016659768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726342177319067092.post-53890587250620017542009-09-13T07:15:00.000-07:002009-09-13T07:17:37.220-07:00

Lubuntu is based on Ubuntu 9.10, so the LXDE packages in 9.04 are old. 9.10 is just around the corner in a couple of months, or less, but if you want to try out the latest LXDE, here is the info:First, add the ppa key:sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys F9D8BC54Then add the following to the end of /etc/apt/sources.list-------------------------deb http://

bytor4232http://www.blogger.com/profile/14478170512016659768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726342177319067092.post-29140505046923388142009-09-13T07:00:00.000-07:002009-09-13T07:32:18.889-07:00

9.10 is just around the corner in a couple of months, or less, but if you want to try out the latest LXDE, here is the info:First, add the ppa key:sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys F9D8BC54Then add the following to the end of /etc/apt/sources.list-------------------------deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/shiki/lxde/ubuntu jaunty maindeb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/shiki/

bytor4232http://www.blogger.com/profile/14478170512016659768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726342177319067092.post-20216834056164891532009-08-16T13:14:00.001-07:002009-08-16T13:14:58.819-07:00

For those of you who have laptops and have that annoying problem of accidentially hitting the touchpad while working, I stumbled across this little blog post while surfing the #ubuntu hashtag on Twitter:http://david.wonderly.com/archives/29basically its about syndaemon, which can monitor for keyboard activity, and disable the touchpad while until your done typing.Good bye annoying accidential

bytor4232http://www.blogger.com/profile/14478170512016659768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726342177319067092.post-6971671679733063072009-08-12T07:06:00.001-07:002009-08-12T07:06:39.448-07:00

Chromium has gotten pretty useful now. Here's how I installed it from the Ubuntu PPA:================================vim /etc/apt/sources.list----- add -----deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu jaunty maindeb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main----- add -----sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 4E5E17B5sudo apt-get

bytor4232http://www.blogger.com/profile/14478170512016659768noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726342177319067092.post-53485837661954435582009-06-27T09:56:00.001-07:002009-06-27T17:20:35.862-07:00

There is a HUGE debate going on in the lxde community as to which desktop uses less resources. The following is a test that I conducted for the following thread:http://dreamlinuxforums.org/index.php/topic,2004.0.htmlTheir claims was that lxde uses 1/3 the memory of XFCE4. I didn't believe it, so I conducted my own set of tests to debunk this myth.Here is a test I conducted just now. Using my

bytor4232http://www.blogger.com/profile/14478170512016659768noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726342177319067092.post-33294105698755273752009-05-21T17:00:00.000-07:002009-05-21T17:02:05.122-07:00

Modern machines are nothing without a decent web browser. Firefox is nice, however it uses a lot of resources and can be a bit bloated, especially on systems with around 200 megs of ram. There are a few very good alternatives out there, mainly:Seamonkey - Uses less resources but shares a lot of code with Firefox, so it has a familiar feelEpiphany - Very light weight, however requires a lot of

bytor4232http://www.blogger.com/profile/14478170512016659768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726342177319067092.post-65834958369286947812009-05-08T11:29:00.000-07:002009-05-08T11:30:43.903-07:00

After installing and getting your network up, we need to install a graphical environment. The key here is that we are trying to "go lean" so to speak. Normally the desktops of the various official flavors of Ubuntu are handled by a metapackage:ubuntu-desktop == Ubuntu. Simple enough.xubuntu-desktop == Xubuntu. Installs Xubuntukubuntu-desktop == Kubuntu. This installs, you guessed it,

bytor4232http://www.blogger.com/profile/14478170512016659768noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726342177319067092.post-56376284870012495462009-04-15T10:26:00.001-07:002009-04-15T10:26:29.225-07:00

The first steps after the installer is to get logged into your machine.  The console login might look a tad bit alien to you, but it operates much in the same way that the display managers do.  Simply enter the username you picked for yourself in the installer, and you will have a command line from which to work from. To get networking up and running, first run:ifconfigThis should show you what

bytor4232http://www.blogger.com/profile/14478170512016659768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726342177319067092.post-68192789843791991832009-04-15T09:54:00.001-07:002009-04-15T10:17:20.931-07:00

The first step in getting a Lean Ubuntu installation, is to install a command line only system. There is a couple of different ways to preform this task, you can download the Alternate Installer, or you can use the Netboot/Mini installer. For this example, we will use the Netboot/Mini installer, since we don't need most of the packages on the Alternate ISO. First, download the mini.iso here:

bytor4232http://www.blogger.com/profile/14478170512016659768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726342177319067092.post-85779228847963456152009-04-10T05:27:00.000-07:002009-04-10T06:13:00.553-07:00

A lot of us out there love Ubuntu. Its stable, has regular releases, and is maintained by an army of volunteers. Its probably the most popular distribution out there. I've been using it since late 2007, and have been quite happy with it. I'm currently running many servers off Ubuntu at my work ( AbleTeam.com, HardDriveHotel.com ), in fact if a customer asks for Linux on their server, it gets

bytor4232http://www.blogger.com/profile/14478170512016659768noreply@blogger.com2