There are two versions of Virtual Box:
- OSE (Open Source Edition) which is in the repos
- Closed Source Edition, or Standard, or just plain “Virtual Box”
OSE does not have USB support. There are a few other features from the closed source version that aren’t included in OSE, you can see the list here. So, if you want to have USB support in VirtualBox, you need to install closed source edition and make a change to /etc/fstab. Here are the steps:
1. Remove OSE
$ sudo apt-get autoremove virtualbox-ose
2. Add the VirtualBox repo for Intrepid Ibex. Click System > Administration > Software Sources. Click the ‘Third Party Software’ tab. Click ‘Add’ and enter:
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian intrepid non-free
Save the VirtualBox GPG key from here, then import it into Synaptic by clicking the ‘Authentication’ tab and then ‘Import Key File’.
Click the ‘Reload’ button in Synaptic to reload the repositories.
3. Install the latest virtualbox package (as of this writing it is virtualbox-2.2) by selecting it in Synaptic, or running this command from a terminal:
$ sudo apt-get install virtualbox-2.2
4. Add yourself to the vboxusers group:
$ sudo gpasswd -a YOURUSERNAME vboxusers
5. Find the devgid for ‘vboxusers’:
$ grep vboxusers /etc/group
It will return something like:
vboxusers:x:125:username
Add this line to the bottom of /etc/fstab, replace the devgid number with your devgid:
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=125,devmode=664 0 0
After you reboot you should now have USB support in VirtualBox.
Last tested on Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope.
The command
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 240, current 1440 x 900, maximum 1440 x 900
default connected 1440x900+0+0 0mm x 0mm
1440x900 50.0*
1360x768 51.0 52.0
1152x864 53.0
1024x768 54.0
960x600 55.0
960x540 56.0
840x525 57.0 58.0
800x600 59.0 60.0
800x512 61.0
720x450 62.0
700x525 63.0
680x384 64.0 65.0
640x512 66.0
640x480 67.0 68.0
576x432 69.0
512x384 70.0
400x300 71.0
320x240 72.0xrandr -s 1024x768
sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config
Select “Autohinter”, “Always” and “No” when prompted.
sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig
Add the following to ~/.Xdefaults (create the file if it doesn’t exist):
Xft.antialias: true
Xft.hinting: true
Xft.hintstyle: hintfull
Xft.rgba: rgb
Xft.dpi: 96xrdb -merge ~/.Xdefaults
Restart X.
****EDIT****
These instructions are no longer needed for me. I don’t need to install Gsynaptics to disable my touchpad. I can now simply click System > Preferences > Mouse, click the “Touchpad” tab and uncheck “Enable Touchpad. The touchpad stays disabled, even through reboots. I’m leaving the original post here in case this doesn’t work on your system.
**** Original Post ****
In order to disable your Synaptics touchpad on previous releases of Ubuntu, you would set “SHMConfig” to “true” in xorg.conf and then install the program gsynaptics to disable/enable the touchpad.
The xorg.conf file is different in Intrepid Ibex, there is no section for the touchpad anymore. Now to enable SHMConfig you have to do it via HAL:
Edit this file:
/usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/20thirdparty/11-x11-synaptics.fdi
Find the section that starts with:
<match key="info.product" contains="Synaptics TouchPad">
And add this line to that section before :
<merge key="input.x11_options.SHMConfig" type="string">On</merge>
The file should end up looking something like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
<device>
<match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.touchpad">
<match key="info.product" contains="Synaptics TouchPad">
<merge key="input.x11_driver" type="string">synaptics</merge>
<!-- Arbitrary options can be passed to the driver using
the input.x11_options property since xorg-server-1.5. -->
<!-- EXAMPLE:
<merge key="input.x11_options.LeftEdge" type="string">120</merge>
-->
<merge key="input.x11_options.SHMConfig" type="string">On</merge>
</match>
<match key="info.product" contains="AlpsPS/2 ALPS">
<merge key="input.x11_driver" type="string">synaptics</merge>
</match>
<match key="info.product" contains="appletouch">
<merge key="input.x11_driver" type="string">synaptics</merge>
</match>
<match key="info.product" contains="bcm5974">
<merge key="input.x11_driver" type="string">synaptics</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.LeftEdge" type="string">0</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.RightEdge" type="string">1280</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.TopEdge" type="string">0</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.BottomEdge" type="string">800</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.ClickFinger1" type="string">1</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.ClickFinger2" type="string">3</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.ClickFinger3" type="string">2</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.HorizEdgeScroll" type="string">0</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.VertEdgeScroll" type="string">0</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.VertTwoFingerScroll" type="string">1</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.HorizTwoFingerScroll" type="string">1</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.HorizScrollDelta" type="string">0</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.VertScrollDelta" type="string">40</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.PressureMotionMinZ" type="string">10</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.FingerLow" type="string">16</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.FingerHigh" type="string">80</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.FingerPress" type="string">256</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.PalmDetect" type="string">0</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.PalmMinWidth" type="string">10</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.PalmMinZ" type="string">200</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.MinSpeed" type="string">0.8</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.MaxSpeed" type="string">1.2</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.AccelFactor" type="string">0.10</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.MaxTapMove" type="string">25</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.MaxTapTime" type="string">223</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.MaxDoubleTapTime" type="string">200</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton1" type="string">0</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton2" type="string">0</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton3" type="string">0</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.RTCornerButton" type="string">0</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.RBCornerButton" type="string">0</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.LTCornerButton" type="string">0</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.LBCornerButton" type="string">0</merge>
</match>
</match>
</device>
</deviceinfo>Reboot, and you should now be able to disable the touchpad with gsynaptics.
Note, System > Preferences > Mouse also has a section for touchpad, so disable it there as well.
To see what repository a package was installed via in Ubuntu using apt, use this command:
$ apt-cache policy packagename
Example:
$ apt-cache policy firefox
firefox:
Installed: 3.0.3+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1
Candidate: 3.0.3+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1
Version table:
*** 3.0.3+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1 0
500 http://security.ubuntu.com hardy-security/main Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
3.0.2+build6+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1 0
500 http://archive.ubuntu.com hardy-updates/main Packages
3.0~b5+nobinonly-0ubuntu3 0
500 http://archive.ubuntu.com hardy/main PackagesThese instructions will configure Firefox to use Gmail or your Google Apps hosting account to handle mailto links:
First, type
Then, log into GMail or your Google Apps mail URL, paste this line of JavaScript into your address bar, and hit enter:
For Gmail:
javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler("mailto","https://mail.google.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s","GMail")
For Google Apps:
javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler("mailto","https://mail.google.com/a/example.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s","GMail")
Replace “example.com” with your domain.
After you hit enter, Firefox should ask permission to add Gmail as the default mailto handler.
To undo this, click Edit Preferences > Applications. Search for mailto. Choose Application Details from dropdown under Actions. Highlight Gmail and click Remove.
I used these instructions on Firefox 3.0.1 on Ubuntu 8.10. This post was compiled from info found in this article and its comments at lifehacker.com.
I have just finished writing my first Wordpress plugin – a widget to display a status update via Ping.fm:
Ping.fm is a simple service that makes updating your social networks a snap. You can use AIM, GTalk, iGoogle, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, WAP, iPhone/iPod Touch, SMS or E-mail to let Ping.fm relay your message to a multitude of social networking sites. This plugin lets you use Ping.fm to add your status to your Wordpress Blog’s sidebar via Ping.fm’s “Custom URL” integration.
== Installation ==
* Extract archive
* Upload entire ‘pingfm_status’ directory to ‘wordpress/wp-content/plugins’
— do not remove files from directory, upload the directory with all files in it
* At http://ping.fm create a Custom URL to update the following address:
http://url_to_your_wordpress_installation/wp-content/plugins/pingfm_status/pingfm_post.php
* Enable the plugin in your Wordpress admin section
* Add pingfm widget to your sidebar, set the Title
== Notes ==
If you notice that the timezone is incorrect on the timestamps that appear in your updates,
you can change it in ‘/wp-content/plugins/pingfm_status/pingfm_post.php’. I have included
some notes in that file.
Here is a link to the plugin in the Wordpress Plugin Directory.
Here is video of my 6 year old son Collin popping wheelies on his bicycle. I edited the video in Kino and Avidemux.
Video of Murphy, my 9 month old Boxer, chasing a flashlight:
When my kids use the internet, I set up Firefox so that they can only access a list of approved sites. Here’s how I do it (thanks to DrBacchus and skippy for the assist):
Install squid (Squid is a caching proxy for the Web):
$ sudo apt-get install squid
Modify squid.conf:
$ sudo vi /etc/squid/squid.conf
Set “visible_hostname” to the hostname of the machine:
visible_hostname yourmachinename
Replace “yourmachinename” with the name of your machine
Set “http_access” to allow access only to the domains specified in your whitelist (I store my whitelist at /opt/squid/allowed_domains):
acl allowed_dstdomains dstdomain "/opt/squid/allowed_domains"
http_access allow allowed_dstdomains$ sudo vi /opt/squid/allowed_domains
.tamatown.com
.tamagotchi.com
.webkinz.com$ sudo /etc/init.d/squid restart
Then, set your child’s Firefox settings to use your squid instance as their proxy server. In Firefox, Edit > Preferences > Advanced > Network > Connection Settings > Manual Proxy Configuration:
Hostname: yourmachinehostname (or localhost)
Port: 3128 (this is the default port for squid)
Use this proxy server for all protocols.
Drawbacks: You must manually add any address you want your child to be allowed to access into your allowed_domains file (hence “whitelist” instead of “blacklist”). Also, if your child is savvy enough to know how to disable the Firefox proxy settings, then they can bypass this.
I created a shell script to automatically append a domain to my “allowed_domains” file and then restart the squid service:
#!/bin/sh
if [ "$#" != "1" ] ; then
echo "usage is $0 [domain] "
exit
fi
echo $1 | sudo tee -a /opt/squid/allowed_domains
sudo /etc/init.d/squid restartReplace “/opt/squid/allowed_domains” with the location and name of your allowed domains list
Example usage would be:
./squid_add .wikipedia.org
