Installing LXDE Desktop Environment in Ubuntu

The “Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment” claims to be an  extremely fast-performing and energy-saving desktop environment. It comes with  a beautiful interface , multilanguage support, standard keyboard shortcuts and additional features like tabbed file browsing. LXDE uses less CPU and less RAM comparatively. It is especially designed for cloud computers with low hardware specifications, such as, netbooks, mobile devices  or older computers. LXDE can be installed with distributions like Ubuntu or Debian.  More details can be sought from the LXDE’s official site http://lxde.org/.

INSTALLATION STEPS

Ubuntu 9.04 and higher versions have LXDE in the stable repositories by default.
1. Download and Install LXDE
Download and install by typing out the following command in the Linux terminal

sudo aptitude install lxde

2. Logout

Now logout from the system
System -> Logout

3. Change Session to LXDE

4. Login

After logging in you can see the following beautiful desktop environment.

Now the installation is complete. Have a happy voyage on LXDE

MORE SCREENSHOTS

Sharing files and folders from Ubuntu PC with Windows Network Support

Do you believe that sharing files and folders across your network from your Ubuntu PC is every bit as easy as sharing files in Windows? Well, I dont. It might be because I dont know the appropriate method of sharing files in Ubuntu.

Here is the scenario. All users in the LAN, except me, are using Windows OS. Often, my friends complain that they are not able to access files in my laptop. These frequent complaints prompted me to have a look at the issue. So here is at how I resolved the issue.

1. I found out that we need Samba for Windows network support.
2. Install samba package by typing the following command
   

   sudo apt-get install samba

3. Now edit the smb.conf file by the following command
   

   sudo vim /etc/samba/smb.conf

4. Add the following text to the end of ‘smb.conf’
   

   [fileName] comment = Write something about the file here path =  /media/ browseable = yes read only = yes guest ok = yes

   You will have to set the path to the file you desire to share.( eg. path= /media/disk)

5. Change the security to share levelBy default the security will be set to user level, which will be usually commented :
   

   #security = user

   Remove the #( to make it as uncomment) and Modify it as :

   security = share

6. Now the last step is to restart the network by typing the following comment
   

   sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

The method told above worked fine in my system. If anyone knows a better way, please comment it here.

If you found the method a bit difficult, you can simply download the below file and paste it in /etc/samba. It is adviced that you keep a backup of the original copy of smb.conf.

Download here

My Conclusion

You can share Linux partitions like home, etc. by a mere right click. To share the Windows partitions, one need to add the following line to the global section of smb.conf

usershare owner only = false

A post on Linux| Suggested for Newbies | Suggested reading material before entering into ‘ Linux Study ‘

Hello guys, I had a long thought on what should be my next post on this blog. I thought of writing about ‘Google Wave’ as its beta version is hoped to release on October 1st 2009. But later I was prompted to write about Linux as some of my friends suggested ‘On writing a tutorial about Linux’. This post is actually a kind of post that should be read before starting to learn Linux.So let’s begin

Lets start with UNIX as Linux is defined as an open source version of UNIX.

UNIX

• Originally developed in the year 1969 at AT&T Bell Labs
• Key developers: Dennis Richie and Ken Thompson.
• UNIX stands for UNIplexed Information Computing System (UNICS).When the Unix was first developed in 1970s, it required the data and address buses to be uniplexed, i.e they were not multiplexed, hence it was named so.
• UNIX includes a kernel and a number of small components and utilities built to work with the kernel.

UNIX Family tree(please click on the image to view enlarged version)

Letz, continue with the history of Linux. In about 1979 various commercial vendors began to adopt UNIX under license from AT&T. The number of flavours increased (System V, BSD, HP-UX, Solaris, IRIX, etc.). In 1984 Richard Stallman drove the beginnings of the Open Source movement with the foundation of GNU(GNU stands for “Gnu is Not Unix.”). Later this became the Free Software Foundation. They began introduce open source products to work under UNIX. Of these, the biggest success was building GCC, the C Compiler.In 1991 21 year old Linus Torvalds wanted to buy a UNIX for his own computer but couldn’t afford it. So he began writing a UNIX-like operating system called Linux. He made it Open Source. It was initially a terminal emulator, which Torvalds used to access the large UNIX servers of the university. He wrote the program specifically for the hardware he was using and independent of an operating system because he wanted to use the functions of his new PC with an 80386 processor. Development was done on Minix using the GNU C compiler.

Richard Stallman

Linus Torvalds