Lately i have moved from Ubuntu 32bit to 64bit to make use of the 8G memory, and since I have been struggling to get our juniper vpn connection working, turned out it is not compatible with 64bit binaries of java and firefox.

I found this great tutorial here to have the juniper network VPN working from command line http://mad-scientist.us/juniper.html

the only disadvantage of this is you won’t have a status window to monitor the connection activity.

This has been tested on Ubuntu 10.10 maverick.

Again after upgrading from Ubuntu 9.10 to 10.4, I had some issues getting Java to work with Firefox, after checking the software center, I found that the Java plugin for firefox is not working properly which broke my vpn connection.

To get this fixed, I simply followed the steps :

1- Backup your repositories files.

sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.backup

2- Open your repositories file:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

3- Add the following line then close the sources.list file

deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu maverick partner

4- Uninstall both icedtea6-plugin and openjdk-6-jre.

sudo apt-get remove icedtea6-plugin openjdk-6-jre

5- Install sun-java6-plugin

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-plugin
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/mozilla-javaplugin.so mozilla-javaplugin.so /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so 1

6- Close your firefox and reopen it again, it should be working smoothly.

I have been having issues trying to install Zend Server on Ubuntu 10.04 following the steps here http://files.zend.com/help/Zend-Server-5-Community-Edition/zend-server.htm#deb_installation.htm
the problem was because there is a missing dependency for the “libmysqlclient15off” MySQL client library

to solve this, I had to install “libmysqlclient15off” from here (select the one that matches your architecture)

http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/m/mysql-dfsg-5.0/

Then install it using the command line :

dpkg -i libmysqlclient15off_5.1.30really5.0.83-0ubuntu3_i386.deb

after that running the installation for Zend server from through repositories, will work with no interruptions.

I struggled for a while to get my wireless card work after installing / upgrading Ubuntu on my T400 Thinkpad.

My T400 came with wireless card : Realtek Semiconductor .

To get it working, I followed these steps :

1- Open nautilus

sudo nautilus

2- Browse to /lib/modules/

3- Search for any rtl8192se and remove them

4-Download the drivers from Realtek website (Search for RTL8192SE)
Click to go to Realtek Website

5- Install the drivers

sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-source-2.6.32
tar -xzvf rtl8192se_linux_2.6.0015.0127.2010.tar.gz
cd rtl8192se_linux_2.6.0015.0127.2010
sudo make
sudo su
make install
modprobe r8192se_pci

6- Reboot and it should be working out of the box.

After upgrading from Ubuntu 9.10 to 10.4, I had some issues getting Java to work with Firefox, after checking the software center, I found that the Java plugin has been removed.

To get this fixed, I simply followed the steps in here http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9008918&postcount=32 and it worked well after that.

After updating to Ubuntu 9.10 “Karmic Koala”, i had some problems with Zend Studio GUI, some buttons when clicked appear to be pressed, but no action follows.

After searching for a while i found this fix in Zend support pages, and it solved the issue

here is the link for the fix :
http://kb.zend.com/index.php?View=entry&EntryID=435

Very nice article about Ubuntu 9.04 “Jaunty”, posted by Adam Overa yesterday on tomshardware.com

Click here to read : http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ubuntu-linux-guide,2293.html

Highlights :

• Introduction
• Understanding Partitions
• Partitioning
• Installation
• Booting Ubuntu for the first time
• Ubuntu Desktop
• Updating Ubuntu system & drivers
• How to install software on Ubuntu
• Codecs for multimedia playback on Ubuntu
• Getting help online

Enjoy reading & feel the freedom, Long live Ubuntu

IEEE has organized an open source week in Cairo University, for Engineering Students, i have been happy to be recommended to present the first day.
http://www.ieee-cusb.org/home/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=78:open-source-week

I started with a presentation about Open Source, definitions and different lisences, and what is the whole story about, then a presnentation about Ubuntu and a live Demonstration, then installation session where more than 150 Ubuntu CD was distributed.

The audience was about 200 student, and some graduates also, was a great day, it is such a pleasure to help people kiss the blue screen of death Goodbye

The remote desktop function in ubuntu is a nice handy one, to enable it from terminal
first ssh to the server you wanna remote desktop, then install tightvncserver

sudo apt-get install tightvncserver

then run it

tightvncserver

it will ask you to set a password for using this option and it will return the x desktop id.
Now go to Applications -> Internet ->Remote Desktop Viewer, and enter the address of the machine followed by the x desktop id like this :

servername:1

where 1 is the x server id.

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here is a good comparison between remote desktop apps.