systemd for a quicker booting Ubuntu 12.04

systemd is a different method of booting your Linux box, for me it cut my boot time in half!! I had no problems with it, but BE SURE to have a bootcd/usb handy to ubdo the changes to grub if you run into problems.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pitti/systemd

sudo apt-get install systemd libpam-systemd systemd-gui

sudo ln -fs /proc/self/mounts /etc/mtab

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

You need to add a line in the file.. init=/bin/systemd

control-O control-x    to save and exit...

sudo update-grub

Reboot and enjoy....

VLMC is Cool!! Ubuntu 12.04

Poking around the videolan.org site,  I just discovered a really interesting piece of video editing software called VLMC.. It is kinda rough around the edges, but really neat and pretty easy to use....

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rohityadav/vlmc
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install vlmc

4GB ram on 32-bit Ubuntu (easy & simple)

Just dropped another gig of ram in one of my boxes and needed to use all 4GB RAM iw/my 32bit processor.. It's really to take care of and only takes a minute and a reboot......

sudo sudo apt-get install linux-headers-server linux-image-server linux-server

FFMPEG online command line tool..

This is just too good to not post about... I love FFMPEG, put command lines can quickly get complicated... Here is a great online tool to generate command lines for you based on a few menu selections....

 http://www.rodrigopolo.com/ffmpeg/

Learn to Solder via NASA!!

Soldering is central to the hardware hack/electronics experience... here are a couple resources to get you started.

NASA Learn To Solder Really nice high quality video... your American dollars at work!!
Make Magazine Video Tutorial. Also Downloadable

Adding Skype to the Alt-Tab Switcher in Xubuntu 12.04

Wanted to be able to keyboard my way to Skype quickly.... here is an easy way to add it to the alt-tab menu. Go to a command prompt or a run dialog and paste this in....


echo cycle_minimum=false >> ~/.config/xfce4/xfwm4/xfwm4rc

Logout and back in... try it out.

Logitech ClickSmart 310 and Ubuntu 12.04

Someone gave me an OLD Logitech ClickSmart 310 camera... No drivers for much of anything in the windows world. Quality is a little low by today's standards, but works just fine in 12.04 with the following line... Going to use it to watch the bird feeder outside since I'm not worried too much about it getting damaged.

 modprobe -r gspca_spca500 ; sleep 60s ; sudo modprobe gspca_spca500