A few Ubuntu questions

I have a couple questions. I have Ubuntu dual-booted with Vista and I'm quite new to Linux.

1. This site is displayed in Times, and I don't know why. I have my Firefox preferences set to sans-serif, but it didn't change. In Firefox on my Mac and in Vista this site is Arial, so I'm wondering why it shows up as Times in Ubuntu/Firefox. Not a big deal, it's just hard to read.

2. When I open Rhythmbox, it never finds my music until I mount the OS, which I believe is the Vista partition of the hard drive. So, is there a way to have this automatically mount upon startup?

3. I want to import my itunes xml to rhythmbox, so that all of my playlists and ratings are added.

Like this, though I don't know how to actually make this happen. itunes to rhythmbox ratings

Do I need to have all my music on the Ubuntu partition to do this? I'd prefer to leave it where it is, as I only have 60GB for Ubuntu and adding 30GB of music is not something I'd like to do.

If I need to copy all my music over, then forget the third question, though I'd still like my 'OS' to mount on startup if possible.

Thanks.

1. This site is displayed in Times, and I don't know why. I have my Firefox preferences set to sans-serif, but it didn't change. In Firefox on my Mac and in Vista this site is Arial, so I'm wondering why it shows up as Times in Ubuntu/Firefox. Not a big deal, it's just hard to read.

Try going to System > Preferences > Appearance, clicking on the Fonts tab and changing the font preferences from there.

2. When I open Rhythmbox, it never finds my music until I mount the OS, which I believe is the Vista partition of the hard drive. So, is there a way to have this automatically mount upon startup?

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1192745

3. I want to import my itunes xml to rhythmbox, so that all of my playlists and ratings are added.

usage: python transferRatings-x.x.x.py /path/to/itunes/library [/path/to/rhythmbox/library]

From what I understand, the completed script should look something like this:

python transferRatings-0.8.1.py "[Windows partition]/Users/[your username]/Music/iTunes Music Library.xml" [/home/[your username]/.gnome2/rhythmbox/rhythmdb.xml]

Please note that I do not have Vista nor iTunes, so I used Win7 pathnames and assumptions for the source path. Also you may need to run a mount -l to find your Vista partition if you've forgotten what it was; make sure you mount the partition first. When I typed in the "mount -l" command, it gave me this output:

maddawg@maddawg-laptop:~$ mount -l

blah, blah, blah... lots of output...
/dev/sda6 on /media/Windows 7 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,default_permissions,blksize=4096) [Windows 7]

maddawg@maddawg-laptop:~$

As you can see, my Win7 partition is mounted at /media/Windows 7.

Thanks for the reply.

I got the font thing sorted out by overriding font sites with Arial.

The other stuff though...I'm trying to understand it. One thing at a time I guess.

I tried following that forum walk through for mounting the disk. I'm a bit confused.

blkid
/dev/sda1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" LABEL="DellUtility" UUID="07D7-0915" TYPE="vfat" 
/dev/sda2: UUID="220AC4D40AC4A5DF" LABEL="RECOVERY" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sda6: UUID="27b5b412-e613-4ad1-ab25-14e7640101c2" TYPE="swap" 
douglas@douglas-desktop:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x38000000

   Device Boot	  Start		 End	  Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1			   1		   7	   56196   de  Dell Utility
/dev/sda2			   8		1313	10485760	7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3   *		1313	   30770   236614400	7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4		   30771	   38913	65408647+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5		   30771	   38575	62693631   83  Linux
/dev/sda6		   38576	   38913	 2714953+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
douglas@douglas-desktop:~$ gksudo gedit /ect/fstab

So these are my partitions ect.?

I'm confused as to what sda4 is. Could it be my Mac that's on the network? I think sda3 is my Vista partition that I want to mount on start, and 1 and 2 are small Dell and Vista recovery disks or whatever.

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid -o value -s UUID' to print the universally unique identifier
# for a device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name
# devices that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>	   <dump>  <pass>
proc			/proc		   proc	defaults		0	   0
# / was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=2c651431-f9d8-4303-82ac-bedb6a0a5580 /			   ext4	errors=remount-ro 0	   1
# swap was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=27b5b412-e613-4ad1-ab25-14e7640101c2 none			swap	sw			  0	   0
/dev/scd0	   /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0	   0

That's the fstab content after following the walk through. How do I plug my info in?

This is pretty confusing right now and I seriously don't know what pretty much any of this code means. It kind of makes me miss the good old days of DOS. c:/im/confused

I tried following that forum walk through for mounting the disk. I'm a bit confused.

blkid
/dev/sda1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" LABEL="DellUtility" UUID="07D7-0915" TYPE="vfat" 
/dev/sda2: UUID="220AC4D40AC4A5DF" LABEL="RECOVERY" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sda6: UUID="27b5b412-e613-4ad1-ab25-14e7640101c2" TYPE="swap" 
douglas@douglas-desktop:~$ sudo fdisk -l

omitted output...

   Device Boot	  Start		 End	  Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1			   1		   7	   56196   de  Dell Utility
/dev/sda2			   8		1313	10485760	7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3   *		1313	   30770   236614400	7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4		   30771	   38913	65408647+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5		   30771	   38575	62693631   83  Linux
/dev/sda6		   38576	   38913	 2714953+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
douglas@douglas-desktop:~$ gksudo gedit /ect/fstab

So these are my partitions ect.?

I'm confused as to what sda4 is. Could it be my Mac that's on the network? I think sda3 is my Vista partition that I want to mount on start, and 1 and 2 are small Dell and Vista recovery disks or whatever.

/dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2 are indeed the Dell partitions. /dev/sda3 is the boot partition, so I'm assuming it's Vista. /dev/sda4 is an simply a container partition for /dev/sda5 and /dev/sda6.

More info on partition types here: http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/file/structPartitions-c.html

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid -o value -s UUID' to print the universally unique identifier
# for a device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name
# devices that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>	   <dump>  <pass>
proc			/proc		   proc	defaults		0	   0
# / was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=2c651431-f9d8-4303-82ac-bedb6a0a5580 /			   ext4	errors=remount-ro 0	   1
# swap was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=27b5b412-e613-4ad1-ab25-14e7640101c2 none			swap	sw			  0	   0
/dev/scd0	   /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0	   0

That's the fstab content after following the walk through. How do I plug my info in?

This is pretty confusing right now and I seriously don't know what pretty much any of this code means. It kind of makes me miss the good old days of DOS. c:/im/confused

Alright, we need the UUID of /dev/sda3 before we can proceed. Unfortunately, it should have showed up when you typed "blkid". I've just found that you can also find the UUID from GParted. GParted is not installed by default, so you'll have to type sudo apt-get install gparted in the terminal. Once it's installed, open it, right-click on your Vista partition, and click on Information. You should see the UUID in the window that pops up.

Now, I'm not entirely sure how to edit fstab, but I would just put the following line at the very bottom:

UUID="[UUID of Vista partition]" /media/[partition name]		  ntfs	relatime		0	   2

Afterwards, reboot and see if it worked.

Edited by MadDawg, 06 February 2010 - 02:37 AM.

It worked, the disk mounts on startup! Good job. Thanks!

I'm really trying to understand this before I ask more questions, but I'm once again stuck. Here's what I came up with:

python transferRatings-0.8.1.py "/media/OS/Users/DougEfresh/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml" [/home/douglas/.local/share/rhythmbox/rhythmdb.xml]

It took me a while to figure out I had hidden folders as not showing, but those are indeed the correct paths to both .xml files.

douglas@douglas-desktop:~$ python transferRatings-0.8.1.py /media/OS/Users/DougEfresh/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml /home/douglas/.local/share/rhythmbox/rhythmdb.xml
python: can't open file 'transferRatings-0.8.1.py': [Errno 2] No such file or directory
douglas@douglas-desktop:~$ python transferRatings-0.8.1.py /media/OS/Users/DougEfresh/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml [/home/douglas/.local/share/rhythmbox/rhythmdb.xml]
python: can't open file 'transferRatings-0.8.1.py': [Errno 2] No such file or directory
douglas@douglas-desktop:~$

Am I leaving the quotes and brackets? I've also added the xml(/rhythmdb.xml and /iTunes Music Library.xml) after the last folder, so I hope that's correct. Just curious, but where did you get the [0.8.1.py] part from?

Woohoo! I got it to work! I followed this guide and used the linked perl script(whatever that is). Awesome. My playlists weren't transferred, but I don't even care. It's the ratings that make the playlists.

Linux is fun because I feel like a genius when I do something like this. Ha.

The next thing I need to figure out is why my screen settings keep changing every time I restart. The screen is calibrated for my Mac as a second monitor, so I don't want to touch any of the switches on the monitor. When I startup the screen is super bright with no contrast. If I open the Nvidia X Server Settings it instantly goes back to my calibrated settings for Ubuntu. I literally open Nvidia, my screen changes back, and I quit. No tweaking at all, it just changes.

How can I get this to happen upon starting up without having to open Nvidia every time?

I don't have an Nvidia card, so I've never experienced this issue. I did find something on the Ubuntu Forums, though:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1065846

I searched thread after thread, and I just can't seem to get it sorted out the "right" way.

I ended up just adding Nvidia X Server to my list of startup programs. It opens and I just quit out and my screen settings are correct.

Thanks for all the help. I think I'm good to go... for now.

Edited by Doug E Fresh, 07 February 2010 - 12:07 AM.

Alright, I'm glad I could help and congrats on getting your ratings.

Are you at all familiar with the Global Menu Bar for GNOME?

I'm trying to install it and I'm kind of stuck. I followed this guide and everything seems to have gone OK. I did sudo apt-get install gnome-globalmenu and it looked like it installed OK, but nothing happened.

In Terminal it basically said fetched, unpacking, setting up, ldconfig deferred processing now taking place. ect. (I saved the text if that helps) But nothing happened. No global menu.

I'm probably overlooking something silly, but I can't figure out what. Any ideas?

EDIT: I also reset the computer afterwards, but still nothing.

Edited by Doug E Fresh, 07 February 2010 - 06:02 PM.

Right-click on the panel you want the Global Menu Bar to be and click Add to Panel.... Scroll down (or search) until you see Global Menu Panel Applet. Click on it, then click Add (Or just double-click on it).

Is this what you needed?

*sigh* Yeah, that was it. Unbelievably easy. You'd think someone would have mentioned that in one of the 6 or 7 tutorials I read.

I suppose that would've been the common sense thing to do, though I didn't even realize that panel could be customized like that. Thanks again.

Can you recommend any other helpful things to add? I was considering adding a dock, or the 3D desktop thing. Both are probably a waste of resources, but I'm not really doing too much on this computer that it'd matter.

I have the 3D cube and it seems light on resources. I think it uses the GPU exclusively, because I used it with the System Monitor and there was no change in the CPU graph. You can get the desktop cube by installing CompizConfig Settings Manager. Just type "ccsm" in the Software Center and click on Advanced Desktop Effects Settings. Also, make sure to set your Visual Effects to Extra from the System > Preferences > Appearance window after installing ccsm.

As useful as a dock would be, I was personally never interested in installing one. However, these links may interest you:

http://lifehacker.com/5145499/gnome-dos-sm...o-another-level
http://do.davebsd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Dock

Nice! Thank you.

I really like the CompizConfig settings manager. It's like Apple's Exposé, which I find really useful. This also has a 3D desktop feature, which is cool looking. I'm not really a fan of using multiple desktops, so I'll probably just disable it once the novelty has worn off. It looks like I can program some mouse and keyboard functions, which will replace Logitech Setpoint as well.

This is a really nice OS, and if only Adobe would add support I'd kick MS to the curb for good. Although, I haven't tried running any games yet, so that's something else for me to consider if that day ever comes.

What's the story with viruses on Linux? Should I have an anti-virus going?

Antivirus programs are not necessary unless you plan on moving files from Linux to Windows. I've installed clamtk, but I've only used it twice, and both times were because I knew I had gotten some malware from a different computer.

Edited by MadDawg, 08 February 2010 - 03:53 PM.