If all else fails…
Two problems have come my way that were resolved by removing configuration files and going again. Both affected Linux installations that I have. The Ubuntu installation on my main PC is working well but I ran into trouble starting up NetBeans 6.8. No GUI would ever appear but taking away the .netbeans folder from my [...]
Solving an upgrade hitch en route to Ubuntu 10.04
After waiting until after a weekend in the Isle of Man, I got to upgrading my main home PC to Ubuntu 10.04. Before the weekend away, I had been updating a 10.04 installation on an old spare PC and that worked fine so the prospects were good for a similar changeover on the main box. [...]
A bigger screen?
A recent bit of thinking has caused me to cast my mind back over all the screens that have sat in front of me while working with computers over the years. Well, things have come a long way from the spare television that I used with a Commodore 64 that I occasionally got to exploring the [...]
HardwareSecuring MySQL in Fedora
Ubuntu users must be spoilt because any MySQL installation asks you for a root password, a very good thing in my opinion. With Fedora, it just pops the thing on there with you needing to set up a service and setting the root password yourself; if I remember correctly, I think that openSUSE does the same [...]
Command Line Software Management
One of the nice things about a Debian-based Linux distribution is that it is easy to pull a piece of software onto your system from a repository using either apt-get or aptitude. Some may prefer to have a GUI but I find that the command line offers certain extra transparency that stops the “what’s it [...]
You always can install things yourself…
With Linux distributions offering you everything on a plate, there is a temptation to stick with what they offer rather than taking things into your own hands. For example, Debian’s infrequent stable releases and the fact that they don’t seem to change software versions throughout the lifetime of such a release means that things such as [...]