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Ubuntu 13.10 Release Schedule

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Ubuntu 13.10 Release Schedule

Ubuntu 13.04 has been released last month. I hope you are enjoying the new features in Ubuntu 13.04. As Ubuntu releases a new version every six months, Ubuntu 13.10 will be released, traditionally, in October 2013. Ubuntu 13.01 has been named Saucy Salamander and despite the speculation, it is not a rolling release. If you are an enthusiast. you should add the Ubuntu 13.10 release schedule to your calendar.

  • Alpha 1 – June 20th
  • Alpha 2 – July 18th
  • Alpha 3 – August 1st
  • Beta 1- September 5th
  • Final Beta – September 26th
  • Release Candidate – October 10th
  • Final Release – October 17th

One of the changes that you might have noticed is that there is only one beta version in Ubuntu 13.10 release schedule. This is different from the tradition of having two betas before the release.

Must Have Facebook Apps for Business Profile

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If you want to make the most of your Facebook business profile and you might like to check out different Facebook apps for promoting your business. Facebook have some exciting and beneficial apps that can help for marketing your business and I would say you must have them for your Facebook business profile.

Some of the best apps for Facebook business profile are:

My network value:

This app is used to develop a network between your business and personal contacts and provide a considerably positive influence on your professional life. By using this app you can identify the network and use it profitably.

My Office:

By using this app you can collaborate with your colleagues, partners or clients on different projects in a faster and easy way. Various features of this app:

• It consists of a dashboard to show various recent activities for different projects

• Maintain a schedule and response for meetings

• Used for organizing events

• Easy sharing of files in one place

Tag biz pro-business cards:

This app adds your business in name tag biz business directory which consist about 7000 listed businesses and receives a huge numbers of visitors every month. This app can help to make up a network for you and you can expand your business without any hassle.

Slide share:

This app provides you access to the world’s largest community for sharing presentations. Some of the beneficial features of this app are:

• You can share documents and presentations within your network

• You can share resume, conference talks, PDFs college lessons etc.

• Is supports almost every format like ppt, ppptx, odp, pdf, doc, docx, odt, keynote, iWork pages

• you can include YouTube videos in your presentations and audio to make webinar

Static FBML:

This app can be used to add more functionality to your Facebook page. You can perform enhanced page customization by using a box provided by this app.

Flashplay:

By using this app you incorporate any flash file on your profile page which is visible to everyone. You can also access the library of this app which consists of popular games, animations and applications.

PRX builder:

This app is used for enhancing and distributing press releases with new media elements.

Page maps:

This app helps to create and incorporate custom to your business profile. You highlight your business location in your town and provide directions.

These apps can make your Facebook business profile more useful for your business management and marketing, you can also make use of any digital media agency to make it more functional.

Author Bio: Kate Ford is Tech writer from the UK. Catch her @thetechlegend on Twitter

Delete Temp Files With BleachBit: CCleaner of Linux

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Every operating system, Windows, Mac, Linux, create temporary files while running. Software installations and uninstallations also create temp files. These files consume a small part of hard disk space. In addition to this, Google chrome, Mozilla Firefox like web browsers store histories, web caches, cookies etc.. Accumulation of these files also reduces the useful space.

On Windows we have many software to clean these temp files. CCleaner, Tweak Now, Tune-up utilities are of the popular clean up tools in Windows. But what about Linux users, what do they have to delete these temp files?

BleachBit is a clean up application available for all major platforms i.e. Windows, Mac and Linux. Ubuntu provides BleachBit in Software Center:

Once installed, open the application. Fill up the option and go for a clean up. Generally, it takes 5-10 mins to complete the process:

Enjoy a cleaner Ubuntu.

Author Bio: Sibin Xavier is the owner of tech-blog 7 Chip. He is a tech enthusiast and a Linux lover. You can catch him on his .

How to Switch off NVidia Graphics card (Optimus) and save Battery life

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Most of the laptops come with high graphics card such as NVidia these days. These graphics cards are mostly used for gaming purposes. If you are not interested in gaming, these graphics card are just white elephants. If you are using Linux, lets say Ubuntu, you might not be using the graphics card at all. But do you know that despite f that you are still feeding that white elephant your laptop’s batter life? You might also be suffering from overheating of laptop as a side effect of the graphics card. Though there are several ways to improve your laptop’s battery life, in this case of NVidia (Optimus), you can save significant battery life by just turning the graphics card off.

The Bumblebee Project is a set of tools developed by people aiming to provide Optimus support under Linux (legacy nVidia hybrid graphics is supported too) while waiting for kernel and drivers to support these notebook.

How to Install Bumblebee on Ubuntu?

For Installation you need to download 90-100 MB in total. Open your terminal and enter these commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bumblebee/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia

Enter your password when it asks for it.

Restart your computer once the installation finishes. Bumblebee doesn’t have any visible icons, but in my laptop Graphics card light was turned off:

The battery life of my laptop increased drastically from 1:30 Hrs to 2:30-3 Hrs.

Do give it a try and see if it improves the battery life of your laptop as well. Feel free to comment if you have any questions, I will be happy to help you.

Author Bio: Sibin Xavier is the owner of tech-blog 7 Chip. He is a tech enthusiast and a Linux lover. You can catch him on his .

File/Directory System in Ubuntu

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File/Directory System in Ubuntu : In Ubuntu all filesystems are contained within one directory hierarchy. The root directory is the top level directory, and all its sub directories make up the directory hierarchy. This Directory differs to other operating systems such as MS-Windows or may be even Mac which applies a separate hierarchy for each device and partition. So lets Try to understand what are all the important Directories and File systems which you might get by default.This Directory is actually very important to know because if we know them , we can certainly be the quickest among our colleagues.

The Most Important Directories are as follows :

/lib : This Directory has the Libraries , These are the system libraries similar to Program Files commonly we call them libraries.
/bin : This Directory has the binary executable files what we usually call as binaries.
/boot : This Directory has the files required to boot such as the kernel etc.
/dev : This Directory has devices everything from drives to displays like Disc drivers.
/etc : This Directory has configuration files for your system.
/home : This Directory has locally stored user files and folders.

The usual Directories for Daily use are as follows :

/lost+found : This Directory has lost and found for lost files.
/media : This Directory has mounted or loaded devices such as cdroms, digital cameras, etc.
/mnt : This Directory has mounted file systems.
/opt : This Directory has location for “optionally” installed programs.
/proc : This Directory has dynamic directory including information about and listing of processes.
/root : This Directory has the “home” folder for the root user
/sbin : This Directory has system-only binaries.
/sys : This Directory contains information about the system
/tmp : This Directory has temporary files
/usr : This Directory has applications mainly for regular users.
/var : This Directory has mainly logs, databases, etc.

Some Important Files are as follows  :

/etc/profile.d : This Directory contains scripts that are run by /etc/profile upon login.You can put the scripts here which can be run at every startup.
/etc/rc.d : This Directory has contains a number of shell scripts that are run on boot up at different run levels. There is also typically an rc.inet1 script to set up networking , an rc.modules script to load modular device drivers, and an rc.local script that can be edited to run commands desired by the administrator, along the lines of autoexec.bat in DOS.Normally we have all the scripts which we want to run on the boot time like we want to run a health checkup scripts in our production servers just at the log in.
/etc/rc.d/init.d : This Directory contains most of the initialization scripts themselves on an rpm-based system.
/etc/rc.d/rc*.d : Now where “*” is a number corresponding to the default run level. Contains files for services to be started and stopped at that run level. On rpm-based systems, these files are symbolic links to the initialization scripts themselves, which are in /etc/rc.d/init.d.
/etc/skel : This Directory directory containing several example or skeleton initialization shells. Often contains sub directories and files used to populate a new user’s home directory.
/etc/X11 : This Directory configuration files for the X Window system
/usr/local/bin : This Directory the place to put your own programs. They will not be overwritten with upgrades.
/usr/share/doc : This Directory has all the documentation.

Enjoy Playing with Files and directories.

Tired of Ubuntu? 5 Best Alternatives of Ubuntu

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Without exaggeration, Ubuntu is definitely the king of all Linux distributions. Perfect for beginners, apt for learners and powerful enough for advanced users, it has almost all the qualities. But satisfaction is not the virtue of a normal human being and thus there comes a point when you get bored of Ubuntu (Yeah, right. Now don’t kill me for this). Looking for some worthy competitors of Ubuntu I have shortlisted 5 Linux Distributions that are capable enough to take the place of Ubuntu. Please bear in mind that the list doesn’t contain any other member of Ubuntu family such as Lbuntu, Kbuntu etc.

Fedora:

Fedora is the Linux distribution for experts. Avoid it if you are a beginner but do give it a try if you have experience with other Linux distros. According to DistroWatch Fedora is the third most popular Linux distribution, after Ubuntu and Linux Mint and it is also well supported by the community. You will miss “apt” here, if you are a long time Ubuntu user.

Fedora-16-Screenshot

:

Linux Mint is distant cousin of Ubuntu. Built on Ubuntu itself, it has the capability to run “out of the box”, mostly. If you find Ubuntu complicated to use Linux Mint is your silver line of hope in Linux sky. When the world was divide over Unity and Gnome 3 and missing the features of Gnome 2, Mint gave a wonderful gift to the community, Cinnamon. A great desktop environment which has best of both Gnome 2 and Gnome 3. Experienced users might find Mint too easy to use which might not go down well with some people.

Linux-Mint-12-Screenshot

Slackware:

Slackware is one of the oldest Linux distributions and it is often termed as the “original Linux” for its closeness with a true “Unix Like” system. The closeness to Unix system makes it difficult to use. Beginner Linux users should stay away from Slackware, as it is user friendly only with selective friends not everyone. But if you are an experienced one, a command line warrior, then Slackware is your arena.

Slackware

ArchLinux:

Another Linux distribution for advanced users. It could be termed as a distant cousin of Slackware as it too believes in the philosophy of least modification from the original distribution. One of the best thing about Arch is that it is very light on hardware requirement. It follows rolling release cycle which means it is continuously under development without any specific release date, so your system is always up-to-date. Best suited for sys-admin users.

Arch Linux

OpenSUSE:

This one is for beginners. No other distribution uses KDE desktop environment as beautifully as OpenSUSE. Gnome 3 and Unity haters can find solace in the KDE environment of OpenSUSE although Gnome 3 is also an option here. Package management is RPM (similar to Fedora and Red Hat). Ease of use gives it an edge over its cousin Fedora and provides a full fledged desktop experience.

OpenSUSE-12

There are several other distribution that did not make the list. I would like to know readers’ view on what they think can replace their Linux distribution. What you say?

Image Source: Wikipedia and flicker/tuxstorm

How to show Bookmarks toolbar in Firefox in Ubuntu 12.04 [Quick Tip]

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When you install Ubuntu and try to surf internet using the default browser Firefox, you will notice one thing missing and that is the bookmarks toolbar on the top. I had a little trouble looking for the option in the Preferences and that is the reason why I am writing this post. Here is how to enable the bookmark toolbar in Firefox in Ubuntu12.04.

Go to top menu and look for view, In view go to Toolbars and here you can see the option of Bookmarks Toolbar. The pic below will come as handy:

How to Solve: Ubuntu Update Error “Failed to fetch cdrom”

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Problem:

While trying to update Ubuntu using the command sudo apt-get update in terminal results in the following error:

W : Failed to fetch cdrom://Ubuntu 11.10 _Oneiric Ocelot_ – Release amd64 (20111012)/dists/oneiric/main/binary-i386/Packages Please use apt-cdrom to make this CD-ROM recognized by APT. apt-get update cannot be used to add new CD-ROMs
E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

Reason:

As you can see in the error, it tries to get some information from the CD-ROM. For some reason, CD-ROM is listed in the list of software sources from where it tries to update.

Solution:

  1. Open Dash, and type Software Sources.
  2. Click on “Software Sources” icon, “Software Sources” window will appear.
  3. Click on ‘Ubuntu Software’ tab.
  4. Tick OFF against an item: “cdrom:[Ubuntu 11.10 _Oneiric Ocelot_ – Release amd64 (20111012)]/dists/oneiric/main/binary-i386/”.
  5. Click on ‘Close‘ button.
  6. Open up Terminal, and try again sudo apt-get update.

I hope it helped you. Questions and suggestion along with a word of thanks is always welcomed. Cheers :)

Source: Ubuntu Forums

How to solve: vesamenu.c32: Not a COM32R image error in Live USB Boot

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Problem:

I was bored with Ubuntu 12.04 beta version and decided to try my hands on Linux Mint (controversially) the most popular Linux distribution. I downloaded the image file and used the default Start Up Disk Creator program in Ubuntu to make a bootable USB disk to install Linux Mint replacing Ubuntu. When I tried booting from USB, I got this message in the boot up:

vesamenu.c32: Not a COM32R image error

It seems frozen then. Entering will do nothing but the same message keeps popping.

Fix:

Here is what you need to do to avoid this problem and boot from the USB. At the boot up when the mentioned message comes, do the following things:

  • Press the Tab key
  • Type Live
  • Press Enter key

Now it should boot normally. Hope it helped you. Don’t hesitate to ask questions if still facing problems. Cheers :)

Source: Linux Mint Forum

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