₦airaland Forum

okay oh. i'm gonna try using gparted. if anything happens to my Data or HDD, 4llerbuntu will pay!!!

Hi guys!. I need your help. I recently formatted my Windows partiton. I now have over 100gb of free space which i want to merge to my /home partiton. I however, don't know if this is possible or advisable considering how my drive is partitioned. Below, i attached an image of my partition table from the Disk Utility software on Ubuntu. The 125GB ext4 partition is the now empty former windows partiton and the 27gb ext4 partition is ubuntu's /home. So, for all d gurus out there, is it possible to merge them together without causing harm to d OS or data in d /home? if it is, what is the best way to go about doing so?

All opinions are welcome.

4llerbuntu my man. it seems NL wants you to delete your partition cos they keep deleting my post where i give u a reason not to. anyway sha, u can check it out from my profile.

In other news, there is a new post on the ubuntunigeria site. go check it out. PS: its not written by me. so what r u waiting 4? where is ur own post?

http://ubuntunigeria./2010/08/28/which-buntu-to-pick/#comment-218

new post on the ubuntu nigeria blog. check it out

http://ubuntunigeria./2010/08/24/get-free-ubuntu-cds/

nnamdizobs:
what a great idea just hope it turns out to be true,

I believe that we have to bring it to pass.

someone who identified himself as "DrLuv" stopped by the ubuntunigeria blog and posted a comment which i felt we should all ponder on and discuss feasibility. so here it is

I will like to give kudos to you guys for taking it upon yourselves to start and drive this effort. I’ve been on nairaland for a long time but didn’t stumble upon the Ubuntu thread until today. Unfortunately, I couldn’t participate in the discussion on nairaland because my posting privilege was revoked for reasons best known to the moderator(s).

Having read some of the discussions and comments, I will like to put forward some suggestions that could help in furthering the cause. Linux generally is not a difficult operating system platform to learn. However, change is something everyone is initially resistant to. I observed that a lot of the folks who complain about Linux will readily adopt Mac OS, which incidentally is a Unix variant as well. This makes me believe that the issue is not of complexity but of brand preference. By that I mean, “what is cool”. Most people don’t see Linux as cool. Our selling point therefore should be to make it appear “cool”.

The strategy I’m proposing is for us to identify the cool applications and functionality that Linux provides in every thriving profession in Nigeria and use it for demonstration. For instance, music and movie production is thriving and growing business in Nigeria. There are tons of free open source software in that space that are far better than the commercial proprietary ones most of the studios are currently using. A demonstration of Ubuntu Studio will surely convince most of the skeptics. To achieve this end, we would need someone who knows the lingo of that space to produce the demonstration. In the area of movie rendering, one could build a render farm using a cluster of Linux machines and demonstrate how rendering time can be reduced without paying a steep price for expensive hardware. We could put up a Yearly or Quarterly Linux Exhibition at various locations throughout the country. The first one might be the hardest. I’m sure for subsequent ones, we would get sponsorship from various organizations and bodies.

What do you all think about this promotion concept?

so what do u guys think?

NEW BLOG POST ON THE UBUNTU NIGERIA SITE!!!!!

I have just posted the first blog post written by yours truly on the ubuntu nigeria site. you all can check it out below

http://ubuntunigeria./2010/08/18/monitor-your-data-usage-on-ubuntu-easily-using-ntm/


@misaac i think this post will solve your issues with monitoring of bandwidth.

must read!. make sure you drop a line after reading in the comments.

4llerbuntu:
@ brovar, i tried this, but i ended up with two entries in my menu, but they dont do nada when i click on them. i made all files to be executable tho!!

dunno what may be wrong?
{EDIT}
err dumb me, but i kinda like looked at it all and figured that there is nothing in the scripts which point to the java files i wanna execute.
well in the folders containing the java exec files the scripts run fine. but moving it elsewhere and trying to start it does nothing. . . . sorry i appear to be so dumb but eh, could u run that by me again

incidentally the .sh files contain the following:
#!/bin/sh
exec sudo java -jar freedom.jar

for it to run in any location, you have to use tha absolute path in the script. try something like this instead. Note that you have to check the path to make sure it corresponds on your system

#!/bin/sh
exec sudo java -jar /home/4llerbuntu/freedom/freedom.jar

this should work anywhere.

okay nairaland ubuntites. r u ready for this?

I spent a considerable amount of time today working on some of the things i think ubuntu nigeria needs in order to thrive. I do not want to list all those things here as it will constitute a duplication of efforts. I have created a new page on the ubuntu nigeria blog about what exactly i and others have done so head over there now and read through and let me know what you think in the comments. also, for those who said they would want to post on d blog, shoot an email to ubuntunigeria@gmail.com and we will see about making you an editor. tanx.

The URL is http://ubuntunigeria./how-to-contribute/

hi all, i have now become an editor on d ubuntunigeria site thanks to bigbrovar. i am still trying to get the hang of wordpress as i have been a blogger guy for a while now. hopefully, by d end of dis weekend, there will be some noticeable changes on the site. if u are also interested in being an editor (as we all should be), u can send ur email address to me as a PM on nairaland or as a DM on twitter (@muyiscoi) or to bigbrovar (@bigbrovar on twitter). or if you're comfortable with posting ur email address here, u could just post it on the thread. i dont know if i can create new editors yet (still exploring) but even if i cant, bigbrovar can take care of that for us.

at least, we're getting somewhere!

adewaleafolabi:
Almost, heard there was a python conference at your place wish i knew i wud have been there though. By the way am almost thru with skool, how time flies.

yeah. i was there n it was great. got to meet bigbrovar too if only briefly

i dont tink u can assign anything with permanent elevated priviledges in linux. that's d whole point. u can however, like d "pro" said earlier on, tell the OS that said file needs elevated priviledges to run so it will request for ur password before running it. "chmod" always does d job if u're a command line junkie

adewaleafolabi, another veteran. na wah oh! wetin dey happen wey all of una just decide to dey come back to ubuntu thread on NL now? i won know oh. welcome back all d same. cant say dat i missed u since i wasnt even on the thread in ur days.

chxta! the man that started it all here on NL. hope ur back for good and whatever caused u to leave in d first place is over now. it's good to have veterans like u guys around to guide us when we go astray . now if only we could get bigbrovar and d rest of d old crew to come back too,

well, that's quite impressive. we already have 3 guys (4 if u count me). i will try to get in touch with bigbrovar over on twitter so we can see to getting the admin privileges for the site and what not.

Please, lets this not be a periodic thing but a continuous one. so that, in 2 to 3 years time, someone else like me will not have to start it all over again but will continue from where we stopped and keep up what will most likely be by then a very vibrant community. if we for some reason nolonger have d time to commit, i hope we will have the good nature to pass on d torch to someone else. that is the true nature of Open source and collaboration. lets get it started!

@misaac as for linux unpopularity, i think it has to do largely with ignorance. a lot of people, even the so called IT experts dont know that there is anything called linux and those that do, think it is just a black screen with a blinking cursor where u have to cram loads of codes and isnt useful for anyone but hobbyists. this is largely due to d fact that linux is voluteer based and most companies that do linux don't think that they need to advertise (e.g. ubuntu). so, linux spreads by word of mouth and that could be quite slow.

also, alot of people who have had encounter with ubuntu/other flavours of linux and were amazed by all d 3D and stuff still make the mistake of looking at it through the eyes of windows and when they find out that their .exe's dont install n they can't install thier pro and fifa and d likes, they then begin to ask questions like "what then can i use it for?". i have had at least one person who asked me to install ubuntu for him after seeing all d effects n d like and after a few weeks, he asked me to remove it again cos he didnt know what to do with it. ubuntu in my opinion, doesnt help much in this regard. an OS that doesnt come with media codecs and drivers for major graphics cards out of the box is useless to alot of people. i know that thier hands are tied as a result of the proprietary nature of those content but still, if u want to install linux for a new user with minimal support from u, i recommend mint or manhattan or pinguy http://www.webupd8.org/2010/07/pinguy-os-remastered-ubuntu-ubuntu.html but definitely not ubuntu. all dose other oses mentioned are based on ubuntu so u still have d solid base of ubuntu but with a boat load of all d softwares u need so u dont have to go installing things online immediately after a fresh install to get ur machine usable.

one thing that alot of people who complain about missing drivers on ubuntu don't understand is that, the case is arguably worse on windows. it has gotten much better with 7 but xp and vista were just terrible when it came to driver issues. the reason why an end user doesnt notice all these most of the time is that the OS is preinstalled by the OEM who makes up for all d drivers not available on the "vanilla" installation before shipping. people installing linux on thier systems dont get this treatment and so when the have some obscure hardware by backward companies (broadcomm wireless!!?) that doesnt immediately work on ubuntu, they cry foul and say d OS is incomplete.

admittedly, linux still has ways to go but in several ways, it is already ahead of the bunch. for e.g
i have not had to install any printer on ubuntu since i started using it. same can be said for most other distros
i have not had to format my system as a result of a virus attack. most of the time, when i format, it is due to my incessant tinkering or when i want to upgrade
i have not had to wait endless minutes for my system to boot only for it to tell me it has updates to install, install them and then restart again
i have not had my system give up on me for no apparent reason etc.

all these are things that windows users have to experience on a daily basis and they just take it as part of the overall experience of using a computer cos they havnt seen the light.

i guess i have digressed alot from the initial topic but i hope u see ur answer somewhere in this writing mass

thought d discussion was dead. nice to see u guys still like d idea. have been quite busy d past few days but i think we can give it a go now. maybe, we could just continue using ubuntunigeria on wordpress if we can get the admin details for it. @[n3rve] could u help us out with that?. we'll have to have at least 3 guys committed to posting stuff at least intermittently. u can also post links to interesting sites, e.t.c. do i hear someone say i commit?

yeah. mine didnt used to hibernate till like 9.10. it doesnt sleep yet though

nazzyon:
Gained a reasonable 5 min 'cos of Jupiter.

That is not very encouraging

that is a major issue for most people. power management on linux is to be perfectly honest, lacking behind other OSes. there are tools however and i came across one not too long ago called jupiter. it was made to optimize netbook power usage but should work just fine for laptops too n it should be a breeze to in stall (provided ur using GNOME). i havnt actually tested it so i dont know how good it is but here is d link to a blog post on it with install instructions. maybe u can let us know if it helps after installation

http://www.webupd8.org/2010/07/jupiter-ubuntu-ppa-hardware-and-power.html

well i think OLPC (one laptop per child) has a custom linux disto which they preinstall on their XO machines called Sugar OS. it is linux (redhat/fedora) based and uses a custom window manager/UI which is specifically geared for children. it also has some features which i think can only be enjoyed if ur using the XO laptop but i think u can still use that UI for children effectively. i can't really categorize it effectively under the criterion you listed but since it is linux based, i believe it has inherited its advantages which will give it a plus in security, cost, and UI (in this case, Sugar). as for Interaction and Assessibility, i believe that is subjective

an alternative which i am more familiar with is , you guessed it, Ubuntu. or more specifically, ubuntu netbook edition. the huge colorful buttons will be inviting to a child and will encourage him/her to explore the system.

you however, might also consider introducing the child to windows especially if u envisage a future in IT for that child cos to be realistic, windows is what he/she will encounter alot in school while growing up and an introduction to it earlier on will be a plus.

so in essence, i dont think i have helped u much cos i havnt actually answered d question at all

@4llerbuntu yes u can get free hosting but it will be . which doesnt feel very professional to me IMO. we can always start from somewhere though. so, what's d consensus? plus, did anyone check out d link for d other site? here it is again in case u didnt http://ubuntunigeria./.

as for konboot, its not for accessing windows partition. its for logging into windows without knowing the password. u can check d site for a better explanation but from d way i grab it, it acts as a bootloader for windows which does some voodoo to d windows kernel while it is booting thereby not requiring u to enter a password. so if all goes well, u slot d CD into ur drive n it boots up windows for u up to d desktop without needing to enter password.

I should point out here that i've never actually used it b4 myself. might try it out now though.

Konboot is magical!!! and d best part of it is dat its so small, it takes like 1 second to burn to a CD.

most of d time, i forget to report about things like this when i find out about them and only after someone else posts it dat i remember and chip in so, i'm chipping in

u can find it @ http://www.piotrbania.com/all/kon-boot/ enjoy.

on a different note, i've been thinking about us creating a blog for nglug. it could be hosted on blogger (or wordpress) and have a redirect to a URL like www.nglug.com.ng or something like that but we'll have to figure out who will pay d hosting fees . anyway, we all that post here on a regular basis could be admins on d site and we get to post tutorials that will be useful to beginners and even advanced users on linux and other FOSS software. we would then direct anyone seeking info to those places. it could also serve as a way to connect pple to d closest linux geek to their vicinity for personal assistance. it could also be used to distribute free CDs, aggregate useful links we have collected on d net over d years and arrange them under relevant headings etc. the posibilities are endless. . something similar to what i describe exists (or existed) but it seems to nolonger be actively revised (i think it actually sprang out of this same thread). u can check it out here http://ubuntunigeria./ last post was sometime last year. oh and just as a disclaimer, if we actually do this, there'll have to be some boundaries , like no post on how to setup Y-F (dont want my post deleted hence d hyphen) on ubuntu or something like that. what do y'all think about this? can we get guys to commit/ fork out cash for a URL / post useful things / spread d word / etc.?

i was also thinking of using something like a planet http://www.planetplanet.org/ http://planet.ubuntu.com/ that'll aggregate blog posts related to linux from our personal blogs but i reasoned that i dont tink most of us keep personal blogs at least not one linux/ubuntu centric (i know i don't) so i fell back on d blog idea. just brainstorming here so guys, let me know what u tink, fail or brilliant or impracticable etc. lets here it!

This has happened to me a lot in d past in different forms but it happened again 2day n i decided to post about it.

so, where i work, i get to deal with a lot of computer noobs or below average users on a daily basis. today, user A comes in and after doing his business, tells a colleague of mine that his flash is "virusticated" and asked if there was a system with an update antivirus software he could use to scan it. my colleague handed his laptop to him which has an updated version of AVG. after d scan, AVG found 26 infections but couldn't heal them. there was a button to delete infected files but he wasn't sure if he should click it or not as it could delete his files. he called my attention n i helped him click the button  

after AVG had done its voodoo, checking d flash on windows explorer revealed that those files had been "deleted". the guy was extremely sad. he started lamenting about how he will have to type all his work all over again, bla bla bla.

Enter Ubuntu to d rescue.
while he was lamenting to that same colleague of mine who gave him the laptop to use (i wasnt in d office at d time , maybe i mighta lost my head or something  ), my colleague told him to wait for me to return that something might still be possible with **Ubuntu**.

On my return, i was handed the flash drive. i plugged it into ubuntu and nautilus just popped open with all the guys files intact as if nothing had happened. it turns out that d virus does not corrupt d main files but instead, hides them and create a duplicate as an executable which when double clicked, runs d virus. a couple of those dodgy .exe files were still on d flash n after searching for them using ".exe" in d search box for nautilus, i dispatched them swiftly with shift>delete>enter.

after this, i plugged in d flash to a win xp system n some more of d files were showing but those word docs d guy was so particular about weren't. even though i could view them just fine on ubuntu. at this point, d guy began losing hope of recovering his files. i then plugged in d flash back to my system, copied out all d guys files n used the disk utility to format d flash. i then used cd -r to copy d guys files back into his flash (cos nautilus didnt want to copy them as a result of a corrupted folder). after doing this, i ejected d flash n he checked it on win xp n all his precious word docs were back to where they belong. i humbly extracted myself from dat location for a few minutes. leaving them to awe at d power of Linux.  

@nazzyon the channel is #nglug on irc.freenode.net.

and as 4 GNOME 3, i think its a good move especially in d light of all d issues with clutter these days

oga abeg no vex oh. where i work, the cheap asses won't install internet for us plus , my torchlight phone no go let me browse so i only browse in d evenings.

needless to say, i dont tink i have sufficient answer to ur question. u cld always right-click d player and click on "play with Movie Player" so now it plays with a "stand alone application". just did that now n it works. didnt even know i cld stream radio from cool FM. we learn everyday. plus it rarely breaks even on my connection. anyway sha, try what i said. except its not satisfactory then we can talk more/explore more.

for d MacOsx desktop, i was slightly fooled until i saw d panel. it looks really nice though n compared to Vista transformation pack i used when i was using XP which i had to install in safe mode, and uninstalling it, left my system a mess, there is no comparism. UBUNTU/GNU Linux Rocks (added d last part so some folks wont chew my brains out with "linux political correctness".

i will try to see if i can log on to d irc channel whenever i am online from now on. for those that have forgotten, its #nglug on irc.freenode.net. u can use xchat software to connect. (sudo apt-get install xchat)