Ubuntu Classic (Gnome)

I know my friend Brad isn’t the only person who wants to know this and I’ve seen several confusing and excessive responses to this question, so I’m going to make it plain and simple for you all! And you get multiple options! Woohoo!

Quick Explanation

Ubuntu 11.04 ships with the new Unity interface as the default GUI, but it also comes with other options like “Ubuntu Classic” and “Ubuntu Classic (no effects)”. You can select which one you use from the login screen and/or set a different option as your default. See below for more.

Option 1

Change at the Login Screen (may only be temporary)

One easy way is to simply choose “Ubuntu Classic” from the login screen*.

At the login screen, select the user you wish to login, type the password, but DO NOT press ENTER (or click Login) yet… Look at the bar on the bottom of the screen. See where it says “Unity”? Click that and change it to “Ubuntu Classic” (or use the “no effects” option if you have an older computer and/or video card).

Now you can login and you’re back to using Gnome (aka the “old” Ubuntu GUI). Depending on your system settings this may only be temporary. To ensure this is permanent see the next two sections.

Select Session at Login Screen

*Note: If you have auto-login enabled, you will have to logout first.

Option 2

Set Ubuntu Classic (Gnome) As Your Default GUI

Using the system settings (don’t be scared, it’s not as bad as it sounds) you can set Ubuntu Classic (or it’s “no effects” clone) as your default GUI. This is actually pretty easy.

Step 1: Click the system button located at the far top-right corner.
Step 2: Select “System Settings” (should be the last option) to open the Control Center

System Settings

Step 3: Select “System” on the left side, then “Login Screen” on the right, to open the Login Screen options window.

Ubuntu Control Center

Step 4: Click “Unlock” and enter your password (assuming you have sudo powers).

Login Screen Settings (Locked)

Step 5: Change the “Default Session” to “Ubuntu Classic” (or the vanilla “no effects”). Then close the window.

Login Screen Settings (Unlocked)

Step 6: Either log out and then back in, or restart your computer. Done.

Option 3

Set Ubuntu Classic (Gnome) As Your Default GUI — The (slightly) Faster Way

Step 1: Click the Ubuntu logo in the top-left corner. (This brings up the “Search” overhead/hub)
Step 2: Type: “Login” (no quotes) then click the “Login Screen” launcher.

Accessing Login Screen Settings from the Search Hub

Step 3: Click “Unlock” and enter your password (assuming you have sudo powers).

Login Screen Settings (Locked)

Step 4: Change the “Default Session” to “Ubuntu Classic” (or the vanilla “no effects”). Then close the window.

Login Screen Settings (Unlocked)

Step 5: Either log out and then back in, or restart your computer. Done.

Enjoy!

Jailbreak iPhone 3G

If you are like me and have an iPhone 3G (or perhaps an older iPhone or iPod Touch 2nd Gen or older) you noticed that Apple will no longer be supporting your device. iOS version 4.3 came and went with no love for us folks with older devices. It is reasonable that Apple stop supporting older devices at some point. They are not the only company to do so and they will not be the last… but that still leaves us with limited options now:

1. We can fork over some cash and upgrade now (or perhaps switch to a Droid phone or something)
2. We continue using our old devices and be happy with whatever we can get that’s compatible with 4.2.1 and wait it out until we can afford an upgrade or are forced to buy an upgrade
3. We can jailbreak our devices and get more options!

I don’t have the money for option #1 and I’m not content with option #2, so I opted for option #3!

To Jailbreak or Not to Jailbreak…

Now maybe you’ve heard of “jailbreaking” before, but weren’t really sure what it is or if it’s safe or whatever… I’ll try to put it as simple as possible: Jailbreaking means freeing your iOS device from the restrictions put on it by Apple. By default, you can only install apps from the App Store provided by Apple. They approve apps for distribution based on their own criteria and they make a percentage of the profits (I believe they make 30%, but I could be wrong and I don’t care to look it up right now). When you jailbreak your iOS device you are setting it free! Jailbreaking opens the door to many opportunities… I’ll list a few neat examples of what you can do with a jailbroken iPhone 3G or 2nd Gen iPod Touch that you couldn’t do before:

• enable multitasking
• record video
• have wallpaper on your springboard (the thingy your app icons appear on)
• use custom themes on your device
• hide that annoying Spotlight
• play NES and SNES games
• and much much much more!

Still not convinced? Well there is also a way to increase your virtual memory and even overclock your processor so that your device will behave more like a 3rd Gen device… an iPhone 3G working more like a 3GS?! yeah, that would be sweet! (note: I haven’t gotten there yet, but when I do, I’ll tell you about it!).

Is it safe? Yeah, I know that is a question in a lot of people’s minds… But really, is anything safe? Sure there is some added security with the default setup because Apple has total control over what is allowed onto your phone and what isn’t, but there are still other vulnerabilities and risks… if someone really wants to get access to your stuff, they will find a way… As far as the safety of a jailbroken device goes, it really boils down to common sense… If you use some, it will go along ways… Change your root and user passwords, only install apps from trusted repositories, and etc…

Is it Legal? According to the US Court System and DMCA Law: Yes! According to Apple: No. Read here for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_jailbreaking#United_States_legal_issues

On with the show!

At first I tried following this nice guide provided by Lifehacker: The Always Up-To-Date Guide To Jailbreaking Your iOS Device, which recommended using GreenPois0n to jailbreak your 4.2.1 iOS Device, but I tried it 4 or 5 times (on Mac and Windows) and it never worked for me. Apparently I could not get my phone into DFU mode… at least not the way that GreenPois0n wanted… So I decided to go with RedSn0w and it worked like a charm! I found a nice guide here (Mac) and here (Windows).

It was very exciting, but didn’t otherwise seem any different at first… the only noticeable difference at first was the “Cydia” app that was now present… but once I started browsing the repositories, it became very clear just how right of a decision this was!

I will be posting a few things this week about my experience now with my newly jailbroken iPhone. Here are a few things I plan to write about so you can follow along if you are interested:

• What apps to install first
• Multitasking
• How to fix MobileTerminal (I found a way to get it to work!)
• How to fix Cycorder (Haven’t found a solution yet, but it wont be long)
• Increasing your Virtual Memory (Sorry, it seems this is no longer possible)
• Overclocking the CPU (Sorry, it seems this is no longer possible either)

Do you have an iOS device? Have you jailbroken it yet? Why or why not? If you care to share, please comment below. Thanks.

So I spent the past couple days helping my brother-in-law try to figure out why he was having issues booting not one, but two Ubuntu installations…

They were both Ubuntu 9.04, one being a single OS machine and the other a dual boot with some flavor of Windows (I never asked as I didn’t think it relevant, and it wasn’t). All of our correspondence was done via email and facebook.

I’m going to post a very ugly overview of the situation below (for anyone desperate, bored, or just curious), but it’s going to be ugly (at least for now) as I have little to no time to format it or include relevant commands and other details.

I have asked him to compile his experience into something useful/readable, but he’s very busy… I’m not sure who is more busy, he or I… So we’ll see…

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The single boot machine… The problem was that when he booted the machine up, instead of loading the GRUB menu, it dropped to the GRUB prompt.The cause was an issue (probably an update gone-wrong and/or that was interrupted) where his menu.lst was truncated and lacked significant boot settings/options as well as menu items. The solution was to recreate his menu.lst which I did with help from some output he sent me, and he had to modify because I goofed on the hd’s as I put (hd0,1) when it should have been (hd0,0)  and then replacing the old truncated menu.lst with the correct one.

The dual boot machine… The problem was that Ubuntu would not boot up at all and he was unable to access the files (even with a Live CD). The cause was actually fairly easy to determine. On this machine he used Wubi to install Ubuntu inside Windows. This meant that not only does (Wubi) Ubuntu rely on the Windows MBR to boot, but the file system for Ubuntu is stored inside the Windows partition as a virtual disk! Windows is notoriously bad at managing file systems (hence why you need to defragment the hard drive/partitions at frequent intervals). Windows caused an error that essentially moved his Ubuntu virtual disks and renamed them as something like “found.000″ (or something like that). Anyway, you can find more about that here: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/wubi-install-ubuntu-in-windows-partition/ and here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide#Cannot%20boot%20into%20Ubuntu