First the good news: My laptop finally has access to a working internet connection so the lack of connectivity is no longer a problem with me installing Ubuntu. Now, after last time’s slightly rocky start, I decided to take things slow and devote more time to my second shot with Ubuntu. The biggest difference was [...]
- Author: Jack Wallen
- Published: Apr 26th, 2009
- Comments: 28
Five reasons you should switch to Linux right now
Over the last few years I have seen the general public go from a general ignorance of the existence of Linux to a general knowledge of it being an option on their computers. Over those same years I have seen the momentum building to this point…this point being the perfect time to make the switch [...]
- Author: Jack Wallen
- Published: Apr 22nd, 2009
- Comments: 15
What’s in store for Ubuntu 9.04?
The latest greatest version of Ubuntu is about ready to drop (The predicted date for release is April 23). With this new release there is plenty to get excited about. But with all of these new features will come a good deal of new issues. As most who have followed Ubuntu know, the .04 releases [...]
My First Tryst with Ubuntu: Things Worked. Mostly.
In my last post, I mentioned wanting to try out Linux, specifically Ubuntu. After much consideration and with the help of the Ghacks readers, I decided to try the Ubuntu LiveCD before actually installing it. However, I first had to bump up my laptop’s RAM, which took a while. It’s tough to get compatible DDR [...]
- Author: Jack Wallen
- Published: Apr 15th, 2009
- Comments: 3
How to add proprietary drivers in Ubuntu
Over the last few years most of my video cards have had NVidia chipsets. And with these chipsets, open source drivers are iffy at times. Because of that I have often employed the use of proprietary drivers. It used to be a challenge to get these to work. Many times you had to recompile a [...]
- Author: Jack Wallen
- Published: Apr 6th, 2009
- Comments: None
Keep logged in users informed with motd
If you have users that log into a server, or a desktop (for whatever reason) you might want to take advantage of the Linux Message Of The Day file. This file resides in the /etc directory and, when a user logs in, the contents of that file are displayed every time a user logs into [...]
- Author: Jack Wallen
- Published: Apr 3rd, 2009
- Comments: 1
Simple GNOME Note Taking with Tomboy
Tomboy is one of those applications that, once you start using, will quickly become one of the tools you are dependent upon. It allows you to keep your notes both organized and quickly accessible. But don’t think Tomboy is just a place where you jot down quick reminders. Although it does make for simple jotting, [...]

