Installing nVidia Drivers in Ubuntu 11.10 - Then Reverting...

Everything after the horizontal rule went okay until I realized my nVidia card was so freakin' old that I had to use the oldest batch of legacy drivers (and couldn't get them to work).

Anyway, went back to my Matrox card that I *knew* worked... But the Unity desktop wouldn't display! I simply got a desktop with a Nautilus menu bar at the top.

After trying every tip I could find, I boiled the fix down to this:

sudo apt-get purge compiz unity ubuntu-desktop
sudo apt-get install compiz unity ubuntu-desktop

Finally, the good ol' Unity launcher is back!

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Got everything I needed from this page:
http://www.moonlitdog.com/nvidia_ubuntu

But, I liked the "nomodeset" option from that page to boot into the GUI with basic video when necessary:

1. At the Grub screen, hit 'e' to edit one of the lines
2. Add 'nomodeset' to the end of the 'linux' line, ex:
   linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-15-generic root=UUID=... ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7 nomodeset

That's it!

Thanks for the quick, concise instructions, moonlitdog!

An Alternative to rsync

Just wanted to post a quick note before I forget how to do this. I recently came across lftp as a better alternative to rsync in some cases. It's full of options, but I used to quickly mirror several large directories between two remote sites.

I'll put some details in here at some point, but I wanted to jot this down before I forgot about it.

Ubuntu 11.10 Install with LVM

Having some problems with Fedora 16 that I didn't feel like dealing with, so I downloaded the Ubuntu

11.10 LiveCD. Booted up my netbook with the USB CDROM just fine and started the install.... Crap! It's not finding my LVMs! Well, it turns out, lvm2 isn't loaded on the regular LiveCD, I'd have to download the alternate CD, which means I'd have to burn a new CD and I'm cheap and don't want to do that... Here's how I got it to install:

1. Fortunately, wifi works perfectly, so I configured it to connect to my router (the installer guided me through this part)
2. Enter a terminal:
   

   sudo apt-get install lvm2
   modprobe dm-mod
   vgchange -a y

3. Choose to do a custom partition install, and boom! all my lv's where there! Fortunately, I left a Fedora 14 root lv so I could boot into Fedora 14 and use system-config-lvm to make an Ubuntu root lv... Don't use the lvm cli enough to remember what to do... ;)
4. The instructions I was using said: DO NOT PRESS Restart Now... But I didn't read that far ahead... Instead, I restarted and realized Ubuntu could not access my LVMs since lvm2 was not installed... Boot back into the LiveCD again, do step #2 above, then continue.
5. Mount the new root:
   

   sudo mkdir /mnt/root
   sudo mount /dev/mapper/vg_kelvin-lv_ubuntu_root /mnt/root
   sudo mount /dev/sda5 /dev/root/boot # assuming /dev/sda5 is your boot partition
   sudo chroot /mnt/root

6. Next, install lvm2 on your new root partition:
   

   apt-get -y install lvm2

7. Hopefully you'll see some info about it updating your initrd.img, which means lvm2 is being added to it.
8. Now reboot and hope for the best!

Stopping the Click

Finally I stopped an annoying clicking sound on my mountain bike. It only happened when I pedaled under load. Here's what I did to stop it (using http://www.jimlangley.net/wrench/keepitquiet.htm):

• Removed the water bottle cage and all other bolts in the frame and greased them up.
• Re-greased the seat post and seat post bolt
• Loosened the front derailleur clamp and greased it up
• Put a dab of chain lube on each part of the frame that the shifter cables run through
• Bought new pedals (Candy 2s :)
• Bought a new bottom bracket (noticed mine had some slight side-to-side play in it)
• Used teflon tape on the threads of the new BB
• Removed each chain ring bolt and applied some loc-tite
• Removed the crank arms and greased them (octa-link... never do this to square taper!)
• Finally, I sprayed silicon lube on the right crank arm where it is in contact with the large chain ring. That did the trick!

Virgin Mobile Customer Service Sucks!

Never, NEVER, call 1-888-322-1122. The people there suck and have no clue. Call 1-855-250-5271. It's some escalation number that the sucky, non-English-speaking people at the first number will never tell you. They will claim they are the only customer service available.

The person I spoke with at the 855 number was extremely helpful and knowledgeable. If you call the 888 number, swear at them, but be kind to the people at the other number.

As a side note... I used Virgin Mobile's only form to send a message (complaining about their customer service). They ask for my name, phone number, and personal pin. I received a "message received" email back from them. The email included BOTH my phone number AND personal pin! That's the information I use to log into their webiste!!! That isn't very secure for many reason.....

By the way, I got the phone number from this blog:

http://www.screenwerk.com/2011/02/20/virginmobiles-bad-customer-service-im-starting-to-rank/

Windows CMD .bashrc equivilant

This is the best thing ever! I could never find a way to automatically source a file no matter where/how I started "cmd" from Windows.

But here it is:

http://mindinthewater.blogspot.com/2010/11/bashrc-for-windows-cmdexe-shell.html

Bottom line:

1. Create some file like: C:\Windows\cmdauto.cmd
2. Add some stuff, like: doskey cp=copy $*
3. Add a String Value "AutoRun" to this key:
   [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor]
   
4. Put "C:\Windows\cmdauto.cmd" as the value.

Now, no matter where you start cmd, it will execute "cmdauto.cmd" first.

Dare you to look at this site...

http://www.penisland.net

(probably not what you think)