Portable Ubuntu Runs Seamlessly In Windows

I was sitting at one of my my school’s library’s computers, browsing through Portable Apps’ list of portable applications. I came accros their operating systems section, which only contained System 7. Then I got to wondering how great it’d be if there was a portable version of Linux that you could run from within Windows (or any other OS), and right when I got home, there was a post on Lifehacker about just such a thing: Portable Ubuntu.

Running Portable Ubuntu involves extracting an archive and then using the command prompt to run it. Unarchive the folder (which takes awhile) and the next step depends on what version of Windows you’re running. In Windows XP, navigate to the folder and then type run_portable_ubuntu, then hit enter. In Vista or Windows 7, you’ll have to open the command prompt as an aministrator, but that’s the only difference; you just navigate to the folder and type run_portable_ubuntu.

You’re computer will strain for a couple minutes while Linux boots. My old IBM desktop whirred pretty loudly. Just be patient. Eventually, you should see a movable GNOME menubar, and that’s it. You can acces your winows file by navigating to /mnt/C.

The best thing about Portable Ubuntu is that the changes you make to it stay with it, so if you install a new program, you don’t have to install it every time you use Portable Ubuntu.

Portable Ubuntu is free, and it’s a great download if your looking to experiment with Linux without installing anything, or if you just want a portable OS that you can run within Windows.

Screenshots:

Turn The Root Shell Prompt Red in Linux

Linux newbs are usually scared of the terminal, it’s commands are nonsensical to them, and they’re afraid of doing something wrong, especially if they have to work as the root user. Some of them might not even be sure if they’re in the root account or not, which is why this hack is so useful. By adding two lines of code to our /root/.bashrc file, you can easily distinguish which account you’re using. When you’re working as root, the prompt will turn red, and when you’re not, it turns green:

Just add these two lines to the end of the ~/.bashrc file:

PS1=’${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[33[01;31m\]\u@\h\[33[00m\]:\[33[01;34m\]\w\[33[00m\]\$ ‘

And:

PS1=’${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[33[01;32m\]\u@\h\[33[00m\]:\[33[01;34m\]\w\[33[00m\]\$ ‘

[via Lifehacker]

An Accidental Stroke of Brilliance

Today, when I left my newly installed and configured HackBook (running XxX 10.5.6) downstairs for awhile, the display went to sleep. I thought nothing of it of course. I closed the lid and took it upstairs. When I opened the lid, it gave me the boot prompt. “Strange,” I thought, and when I pressed enter to boot it, nothing happened. My keyboard had stopped working. I rebooted and the keyboard still didn’t work. Rebooted again. Nothing. At this point I was cursing. Loudly.

I figured the only way to get it back was to reinstall it. I got the XxX 10.5.6 DVD, popped it in, and waited for the “press any key” prompt. I pressed the spacebar. The prompt was still there. My keyboard still wasn’t working. I started cursing again when the countdown on the prompt reached zero and booted my hard drive. Elation filled me. I was back in business.

As soon as I got to the desktop, I fired up System Preferences. I figured the problem was with my power-saver settings. I went to “Energy Saver”, clicked “Show Details”, and set everything to “Never”. Hopefully that’ll make it so it never happens again.

I rebooted without the DVD, reached the boot prompt and pressed enter. My keyboard was working again. Huzzah!

The lesson here? If this ever happens to you, pop in the DVD and let it boot for you.

AppCleaner: The Free App to Clean Up Useless Crap

AppCleaner is a great program for Mac OS X for uninstalling apps. Most apps can be uninstalled by just dragging them to the trash and emptying it, but there are certain apps that just can’t be entirely deleted this way, and that’s where AppCleaner comes in. When you start it you get this:

When you drop an app, AppCleaner searches your hard drive for any files labeled with that app’s name. It can also uninstall widgets, plugins, and prefpanes. The app makes liberal use of animation, which is really nice. And the best thing about AppCleaner is that it’s free.

You can download it here. Mac OS X only.

New iShuffle an iFail

Today, Apple introduced the new iPod Shuffle, and when I saw it on Apple’s website my first reaction was, “WHERE THE HELL’S THE CLICKWHEEL?!”:

I kept searching, vainly, for any hint of a clickwheel; any sign of a button. But no. There are none.

So without a clickwheel, how are you supposed to control this thing? Apple’s solution is to put all the controls on the earphones:

This (to me) seems like an incredibly stupid decision from Apple. I would hate having to reach for my earphones every time I wanted to skip a song when I could just hold the iPod in my hand and change songs instantly. And it pretty much forces the listener to use Apple’s painfully circular default earphones, or their $80 rubber-tipped ones, at least until third parties release their own accessories for the new Shuffle. It’s also a learning curve, though admittedly a small one. The controls work like this:

Plus and Minus buttons: Volume control.

Middle Button, single click: Plays and Pauses the music.

Middle Button, double click: Skips songs.

Middle Button, hold: Activates VoiceOver.

Middle Button, hold longer: Activates VoiceOver for playlists.

Middle Button, after previous: Selects playlists.

And that’s not all the controls. For a complete list of the complicated clicking needed to do the advanced controls, click on the image:

VoiceOver, as its name suggests, is a new feature that dims the music and announces the track currently playing.

Another gripe is that the new design only allows for 10 hours of battery life, down from the previous generation’s 12.

The new shuffle costs $80, comes in silver and black, holds 4GB or 1,000 songs, and I wouldn’t fork over $80 for it.

[Apple]

Finally! Firefox Eclipses IE 6

It’s about time. Firefox now has more market-share than Internet Explorer 6. The latest numbers from StatCounter show that Firefox 3 has 24 percent of the market while IE 6 has 22.6. IE 7 meanwhile still holds about 40 percent (these are worldwide stats, by the way).

Via electronista.

Safari 4’s Hidden Preferences

When Apple release the public beta of Safari 4 last week, not everyone was thrilled with it. Some complained about the tabs (which I’m still uncertain about) and others complained about the new toolbar. Thankfully, Apple included some hidden preferences to get rid of these features.

To trigger these hidden preferences, type these codes into a terminal (note: this only works on a Mac):

Disable the New Tabbar

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop -bool NO

Disable the New Toolbar

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeToolbarRedesign -bool NO

Re-enable the Old Blue Progress Bar

Note: this requires the previous tweak.

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4LoadProgressStyle -bool NO

Disable the New URL Autocompletion

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeFancyURLCompletionList -bool NO

Disable the New Google Suggest Menu

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeGoogleSuggest -bool NO

Disables CoverFlow in Bookmarks

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeFlowViewInBookmarksView -bool NO

Disable the New Dimming Animation in Top Sites

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TopSitesZoomToPageAnimationDimsSnapshot -bool NO

Disable Top Sites Completely

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeTopSites -bool NO

Undoing these Changes

Tabbar: defaults delete com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop

Toolbar: defaults delete com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeToolbarRedesign

Blue Progress Bar: defaults delete com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4LoadProgressStyle

URL Autocompletion: defaults delete com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeFancyURLCompletionList

Google Suggest Menu: defaults delete com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeGoogleSuggest

CoverFlow in Bookmarks: defaults delete com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeFlowViewInBookmarksView

Dimming Animation: defaults delete com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TopSitesZoomToPageAnimationDimsSnapshot

Top Sites: defaults delete com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeTopSites

Make Apt-Get Run as Root Always

The command-line tips site, Command-line Fu, has a quick and simple way to make apt-get always run as root, so you don’t have to always type ’sudo’ or work as root with ’su’. It’s a simple alias function:

alias apt-get=’sudo apt-get’

To make this happen across all sessions, you can add this to your ~/.bashrc file.

OmniWeb And Other Apps Now Free

The Omni Group has made several of it’s Mac-only shareware apps free. Included apps are OmniWeb (web browser), OmniDazzle (screen effects), OmniDiskSweeper (space saving), and OmniObjectMeter (memory optimization).

Cuba Uses Linux, Says No to Microsoft

Cuba, who only a year ago banned the sale of computers, has started ousting Windows and created their own Linux distribution called Nova. Since Miscrosoft is a U.S.-based company, the government of Cuba is distrustful because, they say, U.S. securtity agencies have access to Microsoft’s source code (apparently they haven’t realized that they could have Linux’s source code as well, being that it’s open source). Another reason is the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba, which makes it pretty hard to get a legal copy of Windows. 20% of Cuba’s computer users already run Linux, which is amazing considering that only about 1% of U.S. users do, and Cuba expects that %50 of it’s computers will run Linux within the next five years.

I can’t say what this will mean for the popularity of Linux in the US. I can just imagine people calling Linux users communists.