Shared Wire Connection in Ubuntu

In today’s increasingly connected world, sharing an internet connection has made the jump from helpful to imperative in many situations. Luckily, sharing a wired connection within Ubuntu can be done with minimal hassle by creating an ad-hoc wireless network.

To successfully share your connection you’ll need to set up the ad-hoc wireless network from scratch. Besides an active wired internet connection at the time of setup, here’s what you’ll need:

Network Manager 0.7 or later release
dnsmasq-base installed; a DNS proxy and DHCP/TFTP server

NetworkManager comes pre-installed with all Ubuntu releases since 8.10 so the only installation requirement should be that of dnsmasq-base; you can install easily by using this command:

sudo aptitude install dnsmasq-base

Once you’ve confirmed installation of both Network Manager and the dnsmasq-base package you’re ready to move on. Access the network management screen by clicking on the Network Manager icon and select “Create New Wireless Network” to begin setting up your ad-hoc wireless network. Enter the network name and choose the wireless security level when prompted to complete the network creation. Once you finalize the settings you should see a new available SSID, enabling you to share your connection with no further customization or network settings needed.

Back In Time : System Restore on Ubuntu

One of the most treasured features by novice computer users running Windows is the ability to easily roll back their system when trouble arises by using the built-in System Restore GUI. Ubuntu offers the same services to take snapshots of your computer when changes are made and the Back in Time application for Linux is a great tool to achieve the same easy-to-use GUI. The program utilizes existing services including rsync for creating and applying restore snapshots and diff for monitoring system changes. Back in Time allows you to backup all folders and restore any folders with write access in the event of a problem following a system change.

The first thing you’ll need to do is edit your /etc/apt/source.list file; use the following command to open the file in the editor:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add this line before saving and exiting the editor:

deb http://le-web.org/repository stable main

Next you’ll need to add the necessary GPG key information. Use this command to retrieve the key:

wget http://le-web.org/repository/le-web.key

And then use this command to add the information:

sudo apt-key add le-web.key

Once this is complete you’ll just need to update your source list; use this command:

sudo apt-get update

That’s it for system changes – now onto the installation of Back in Time:

sudo apt-get install backintime-common backintime-gnome

Once the installation completes you can access Back in Time under Applications -> System Tools -> Back in Time. You can now use the GUI to select folders to backup and schedule the backups to suit your timetable

Ubuntu Dropbox

File synching between machines with different operating systems is rarely an easy task but one program has made it much easier. Dropbox allows for file synching between systems but was designed with compatibility with GNOME at the forefront, potentially leaving KDE users in the cold. Follow these steps to get Dropbox setup on your KDE system with minimal hassle:

Download the Dropbox Linux client that suits your machine (either 32-bit or 64-bit)
Extract the contents of the downloaded archive to your home folder for easy access
Create a Dropbox account if you don’t already have one

To install Dropbox simply navigate to the extracted archive contents and run ~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd to get rolling. The initial run of the program will take you through the configuration wizard to help you choose your options and link your Dropbox account to your machine. Enter your account details to complete the installation.

Being such a useful application, you may want Dropbox to start automagically when you power on your machine. You can achieve this easily by creating a symlink from your home folder to your autostart directory using the command below:

ln -s ~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd ~/.kde4/Autostart/

Now you can enjoy ease-of-use when synching files from machine to machine, no matter the operating systems!

Change Ubuntu Login Screen

One of the joys of using Ubuntu is the ability to easily customize even the most obscure features of the operating system and the login screen included with the default GDM theme is no exception. As with most light Linux tweaks, this one is quite straight-forward.

There is a utility included with Ubuntu that allows quick and easy customization of options within the GDM theme titled gdmsetup; you can run this utility directly from the main menu by looking under System -> Admin -> Login Window.

You’ll need to enter your admin password to gain access, then click on the tab labeled “Local” to see theme options. Under the section labelled “Style” you can select one of three main presets: Plain, Themed or Face Browser. Select “Themed” to gain the ability to select any graphic you like from the provided list along with several other default GNOME themes that may suit your fancy – customization is always great but you have to admit that the default GDM theme is a pretty attractive piece!

Ubuntu 9.10 RC Release

The Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala Release Candidate has been released and is available for download. In addition to the GNOME version of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, and Mythbuntu versions have also been released. Anticipation continues to build for next weeks’ release of the Ubuntu 9.10 stable version which will provide significant improvements and updates to the popular Ubuntu Linux desktop.

View the Ubuntu Release Announcement
Download Ubuntu
Buy Ubuntu on CD
Buy Ubuntu USB Drive

Here are some Ubuntu 9.10 tutorials published at BeginLinux recently.

• Ubuntu 9.10 Software Store
• Installer Screenshots of Ubuntu 9.10
• Ubuntu 9.10 UFW Firewall
• Ubuntu 9.10 FTP Connections
• Ubuntu 9.10: Chroot Jail for FTP