Author Archives: Linerd

Command Line Basics: echo

I’m starting a new feature called Command Line Basics. In this first installment I’m going to cover the echo command.

The echo command is used for sending text to the standard output. In most cases, the standard output is your terminal. For example, to print the word “echo” to your terminal output, enter the command Continue reading

Install the Firefox 3.5 Beta in Linux

The beta version of Mozilla Firefox 3.5 is out and available for download. The process I’m going to show is to install the beta without removing your current installation. This is just a basic testing setup. If you want to do a true full install, follow the directions in the Ubuntu documentation.

First off, download the appropriate version from Mozilla.

Backup your Firefox profile. Open a terminal window and enter: Continue reading

Create a Bootable USB Drive with Ubuntu and FreeDOS

Sometimes you just need a DOS boot disk. Many motherboard manufacturers and computer companies only provide DOS based BIOS update utilities. A further challenge is that many computers no longer have floppy disk drives. The solution is to create a bootable USB drive that boots to FreeDOS. The beauty of this method is that you can create a DOS boot drive using only free software. Continue reading

Revert the Update Behavior in Jaunty to the Old Way

If you’ve recently updated your Ubuntu installation to version 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope), then you’ve probably noticed that the update manager starts up automatically when there are updates available. The old behavior was to provide a notification icon in the system tray. If you prefer the new behavior, great. Leave things alone. If you would like Ubuntu to behave like it used to, then read on. Continue reading