Cursor jump to other location while typing on Ubuntu

Disable mouse clicks with touchpad

I am using Ubuntu 9.04 for my Dell Vostro 1400 laptop, and faced a very annoying problem where the cursor jump to other location - probably to the location of mouse arrow - while I am typing.

How do I solve this problem?

What I do is, I disable the "Enable mouse click with touchpad" in the "Mouse Preferences" dialog box.

To bring up the "Mouse Preferences" dialog, click on System > Preferences > Mouse.

How to install Adobe Flash Player plugin on Ubuntu

To install Adobe Flash Player plugin

sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree

To check the current version, if installed using Aptitude (the method above)

sudo aptitude show flashplugin-nonfree

Convert RPM package to deb package format on Ubuntu

How to convert RPM package to deb package format on Ubuntu, and install it with dpkg?

Step 1: Install the required packages

sudo apt-get install alien dpkg-dev debhelper build-essential

Step 2: Convert the RPM file

Run

sudo alien thepackagename.rpm

or

fakeroot alien thepackagename.rpm

and a .deb file called thepackagename.deb will be generated.

Step 3: Use dpkg to install the package

sudo dpkg -i thepackagename.deb

How to download YouTube video on Ubuntu

You can download YouTube video with youtube-dl.

Install youtube-dl

sudo apt-get install youtube-dl

Download the video

youtube-dl http://the-youtube-video-uri

Convert into MPEG format

ffmpeg -i source.flv output.mpg

How to install Java on Ubuntu 9.04

To install Java support on Ubuntu, run this command in a Terminal:

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin

You can also click here to test whether the JVM is working fine in your browser.

How to enable Apache public_html for user on Ubuntu

Suppose that you want each user to have their own public_html in their home directory.

For example, user with username ahmad, can have his own Web site at

http://localhost/~ahmad

Enable mod_userdir

To achieve that, first, what you need to do is to enable mod_userdir, which is installed by default with Apache2.

sudo a2enmod userdir

Create public_html directory

Second, the user need to create public_html directory in their home directory.

mkdir public_html

Restart Apache

Finall, you should restart Apache.

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Convert CHM to PDF on Ubuntu

By default, you cannot view CHM file in Ubuntu. To view the CHM file, you can use GnoCHM. However, I found that GnoCHM is not so stable and crash a lot. Hence, another option is to convert it to PDF. What you need is the chm2pdf and python-beautifulsoup packages.

Install the packages

sudo apt-get install chm2pdf python-beautifulsoup

Convert the CHM file to PDF

chm2pdf --webpage --beautifulsoup filename.chm

You can even change colour, font, and margin of the generated PDF file. For more information on how to do so, please invoke

man chm2pdf

command on the terminal.

Determine CPU temperature on Ubuntu

Most PCs these days use ACPI. The ACPI shows information such as battery status or thermal information. Hence, to determine the CPU temperature on Ubuntu, you can use the acpi package.

Install the acpi package

sudo apt-get install acpi

Display the temperature

acpi options:

-b, --battery battery information
-B, --without-battery suppress battery information
-i, --capacity show battery capacity information if available
-a, --ac-adapter ac adapter information
-A, --without-ac-adapter suppress ac-adapter information
-t, --thermal thermal information
-T, --without-thermal suppress thermal information
-c, --cooling cooling information
-C, --without-cooling suppress cooling information
-V, --everything show every device, overrides above options
-s, --show-empty show non-operational devices
-S, --hide-empty hide non-operational devices
-f, --fahrenheit use fahrenheit as the temperature unit
-k, --kelvin use kelvin as the temperature unit

For example, to display information for every device, use the -V option.

$ acpi -V
Battery 0: Full, 100%
Battery 0: design capacity 7800 mAh, last full capacity 7791 mAh = 99%
AC Adapter 0: on-line
Thermal 0: ok, 36.5 degrees C
Cooling 0: LCD 0 of 7
Cooling 1: Processor 0 of 10
Cooling 2: Processor 0 of 10

View CHM file on Ubuntu

Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) is a common format for e-book and online documentation.

To view CHM file in Ubuntu, you need to have a CHM viewer installed. GnoCHM is one of the CHM file viewer, designed to integrate nicely with Gnome, using PyCHM.

GnoCHM CHM Viewer

GnoCHM can be installed by pasting the following command in the terminal.

sudo apt-get install gnochm

The shortcut will appear in Applications > Accessories menu as "CHM Viewer".

Access GnoCHM from the menu

This article discuss a simple way to view CHM file. If you know a better CHM viewer other than GnoCHM, please leave a comment.

Command lines to install or remove packages in Ubuntu

To install a package

sudo apt-get install the-package-name

To remove a package

sudo apt-get remove the-package-name

Remove automatically installed packages that are no longer required inUbuntu

Installing and removing packages in Ubuntu will leave unneeded packages.

To remove those packages, use this command:

sudo apt-get autoremove

Using keyboard shortcut to switch between workspace in Ubuntu

You can switch or move active application between workspace using these keyboard shortcuts:

1. Ctrl + Alt + left/right arrow will switch to the next or previous workspace.


2. Windows Key + E will show all the workspace. Use left or right arrow to move between workspace.


3. Shift + Ctrl + Alt + left/right arrow will move the active application to the next adjacent workspace.

Enable Ubuntu public_html user directory for Apache

The steps to make http://localhost/~username works in Ubuntu.

1. Create public_html directory in home directory
   mkdir ~/public_html
2. Enable the user directory
   cd /etc/apache2/mods-enabled
   sudo ln -s ../mods-available/userdir.conf userdir.conf
   sudo ln -s ../mods-available/userdir.load userdir.load
3. Restart Apache
   sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Set Ubuntu Time Zone

To set Ubuntu time zone,

1. Click on System > Administration > Time & Date.
2. Click on Unlock. Enter the password.
3. Click on Time zone. Use the map or Selection to select your country.
4. Click Close when your are done.

How to install IDLE in Linux

IDLE is the default editor for Python. However, despite the fact that Python is installed by default in most Linux system, the user should install IDLE manually. These are the commands for installing IDLE.

Debian/Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install idle

Fedora/Red Hat

yum install python-tools

Adobe Reader 9 for Linux

Adobe Reader (Acroread) 9.3-1 for Linux. Note that version 9.0 was skipped.


Download links:

AdbeRdr9.3-1_i386linux_enu.deb (60.5Mb)

Last update: Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Ubuntu: Make Pidgin run at startup

We can have Pidgin to run at startup in Ubuntu using the Sessions Preferences tool.

Click System > Preferences > Sessions.

Under the "Startup Programs" tab, click Add.


Type Pidgin in the Name text box, and pidgin in the Command text box.

From now on, Pidgin will start automatically.