Friday, May 21, 2010

Installing Sun/Oracle Java 6 Update 20 in Lucid...

Since Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala), Canonical has dropped support of Sun Java on Ubuntu. However, I noticed that Canonical has slowly reintroduced Sun Java to Ubuntu by placing the .deb installers into the Ubuntu 'partner' repository. To install, type in the following:

sudo add-apt-repository “deb http://archive.canonical.com/ lucid partner”

This will add the associated Ubuntu repository to your Ubuntu. Next, you'll want to install Java 6 Update 20, this can be done by:

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin sun-java6-fonts

You will now have a proper version of Java in your Ubuntu setup.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Upgraded my laptop to Lucid Lynx...

I finally upgraded my laptop from Karmic -> Lucid today. If you've read my last post here about my initial reservations on upgrading to Lucid and how I checked if my laptop was affected by booting up the Lucid live CD, I am happy to report that I successfully upgraded to Lucid. The only problem I had after the upgrade was Plymouth not showing me the startup animation.

First thing I did was install the ppa-purge utility (see my blog post here). I then systematically checked the entries in /etc/apt/source.list and all the .list files in /etc/apt/source.list.d and purged all the PPA (Personal Package Archives) I was using and replacing them with official Karmic versions from the Ubuntu repository.

I then downloaded the ubuntu-10.04-alternate-i386.iso file from one of Ubuntu's mirror sites and following the instructions here, upgraded my setup to Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx).

I rebooted the computer and did another update (since there are updates to some of the packages since the release on 29-Apr-2010) in a terminal shell by typing:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y

Everything worked correctly as expected except by Plymouth. A quick Google search landed me here and my setup works exactly as expected.

I am now a happy lemming lynx. :)

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Upgrading problems for Intel Graphic owners to Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx...

I am usually one of the first few people to upgrade my Ubuntu installation every time Canonical releases a new build of Ubuntu. However, I had noticed a few users having problems with their upgrades and decided to "wait and see".

There are now quite a few users reporting that Intel Graphic owners have problems with the KMS (Kernel Mode Switch) with the new kernels. I strongly suggest owners to wait until this problem is resolved and stick with Karmic Koala until then. You can find out more about this issue at the ubuntuforums.org site with a Google query here.

I've read some websites saying that there is a quick fix to the problem where the kernel switches off KMS on known problematic graphic chipsets. Though this makes it easier to move from Karmic to Lucid, I'm personally going to wait until the problem is fixed (fixed with functionality, not fixed by switching the function off on problem machines). You can read about this workaround here.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Upgrading from Karmic Koala to Lucid Lynx...

Now that Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) is out, I am sure most users will want to upgrade their Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) to the new and improved. My advise to new users or those unfamiliar with the terminal bash shell to wait for other more experienced users to upgrade and see if they encounter any problems. If they have a similar setup or hardware as you have, then read or wait till the problem is solved. You can quickly check how by using Google and doing a query like this.

For the power users and those familiar with the workings of Ubuntu, you most probably also use a lot of PPAs (Personal Package Archives) either from Launchpad or some other repository. In case you didn't know, upgrading your Karmic to Lucid will result in:
  1. The upgrade will disable all non-Ubuntu repositories from your source.list file or source.list.d folder.
  2. The applications/packages that you have already installed may not work correctly, break, and/or damage your setup after the upgrade due to architecture differences or dependencies.
The easiest way for a Karmic user to ensure that their upgrade to Lynx is successful, is to first make a backup copy of their source.list file and sources.list.d folder. Then remove all software installed by the PPA and reinstall the same software from the Ubuntu repositories.

This used to be quite a laborious task as this was usually done manually. Now, you can use a program called ppa-purge which you can get for Karmic only here. Once you have installed this, simply type:

ppa-purge ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa

Replace "ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa" with the PPAs that you use. This will remove the installed applications from the said repository, remove the repository reference from Ubuntu and then reinstall the official supported version of the same application from Ubuntu's repository.

Once you have cleaned up all your PPAs, you can safely upgrade to Lucid Lynx. Once there, you can simply enable your favorite PPAs from your source.list and source.list.d folder and replace the keyword karmic with lucid. Before doing so, I strongly suggest you visit each developer's PPA page to see if they have a better version of the same software that the Ubuntu repositories has before upgrading to the PPA version.

I am not giving detailed steps for this post as this post is meant for power users who should know what I am talking about.

Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx is now available...

Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) LTS (Long Term Support) is now available. I know I may seem to be two days late with this news, but on the eve of release, a critical bug (bug #570765) was found in the final build. This resulted in the Ubuntu team having to fix the bug, re-test and rebuild the ISO images.

Anyway, the bug has been fixed and 10.04 is now ready for the masses. Go get your copy here. If you have a very slow internet connection or need to install/upgrade Ubuntu at a location that is without internet access, you can order a copy of 10.04 disc (it's free) from here.