Google Chrome Browser for Linux

Some Linux users were already running Google Chrome Browser from dev channel. Now Google has announced immediate availability of Google Chrome Browser for Linux. You can download it from here. You can download themes and extensions. See my screenshot. I have installed Similar Pages, Feedly, Aviary screenshot utility, Gmail checker and Xmarks extensions and you can see their icons on right side.

Using Google Chromium OS on Desktop.

After Google announced the availability of source of Chromium OS VMWare and USB images appeared on internet. I downloaded USB image but it exceeded the 2 GB size of my pendrive. Then a smaller USB image (less than 1 GB) was made by a developer and I downloaded it today from this site. I extracted the image and copied it to the pendrive through:
sudo dd if=ChromeOS-Cherry.img of=/dev/sdb bs=4M

I could boot from USB to the login screen but it froze after login then I realized that I was using a desktop which has Intel 82845G chipset. Then I modified xorg.conf on the USB stick to use vesa driver.

I could then get to the Chrome browser. I could browse but noticed following two problems:

1. I was already logged in to my Google account but could not use the Blogger even after I logged out of gmail and tried to login to Blogger. The Blogger complains about cookie functionality.
2. When I type I have to wait a few seconds before the text appears on the browser.

Note: On next boot I was already logged into Blogger. You can ignore point 1.

Xmarks on Google Chrome Browser.

I have been running Google Chrome Browser (unstable) on Ubuntu Linux. Today I discovered that I can run Xmarks for Chrome Alpha, version 0.5.11 on it. I clicked on the download link of Xmarks through Chrome Browser and it installed as an extension.


You need to have an Xmarks account to access the download link and the Google Chrome Browser should be from Development Channel.

Xmarks is working perfectly on Google Chrome from dev channel.

How to change default Operating System on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

Some people use Ubuntu in dual boot with Windows and they prefer to make Windows as default Operating System. Prior to Ubuntu 9.10 this was achieved by changing the default line in /boot/grub/menu.lst file.

Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala has Grub2 which does not have menu.lst file. The configuration file is /boot/grub/grub.cfg which is not supposed to be edited even by root. The primary configuration file for changing menu display settings is /etc/default/grub. The procedure to change the default OS is as follows:


Count the line number in the Grub menu taking first line as 0.
$ gksudo gedit /etc/default/grub

Change 0 in this line to the desired number:
GRUB_DEFAULT=0

Save and close the file

$ sudo update-grub

After running update-grub the default will change in grub.cfg

Running Ubuntu Karmic on Intel 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset

My daughter's Desktop which I use while at Bhubaneswar has this chipset:

$ lspci -nn | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device [8086:2562] (rev 03)

I have installed Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala on this machine and it is having random freezes. I have submitted a bug report but I don't think the bug is going to be resolved very soon. There is another bug resembling mine (my bug may be a duplicate) which has been submitted upstream on freedesktop.org but I don't think that it may be resolved soon.

I decided to change to vesa driver but there was no xorg.conf. I used the following xorg.conf:

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "vesa"
EndSection

I hope there won't be any freezes using this driver.

How to boot Ubuntu from Desktop iso.

I have been trying various Linux distributions by copying the contents of Live CD ISO to a spare partition, editing menu.lst file of Grub for suitable entries and booting the operating system. This method saves a CD.

Grub2 is the default boot-loader on Ubuntu 9.10 Karnic for previous distributions you have to install it.

To install Grub2:
$ sudo apt-get install grub-pc
This will install Grub2 but does not replace Grub Legacy and puts an entry in /boot/grub/menu.lst to Chainload and try it. After you find that it is working you need to replace Grub Legacy by Grub2:
$ sudo upgrade-from-grub-legacy

I installed Grub2 recently and discovered that it can directly boot from ISO. I had Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop CD ISO to try. Instead of copying the contents of the ISO I copied the ISO in my-ISO folder on one partition (sda4). Then added following entry in the file /etc/grub.d/40_custom
menuentry "Karmic Live CD (sda4)" {
loopback loop (hd0,4)/my-ISO/ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso
linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/my-ISO/ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso
initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz
}

Then I updated Grub2:
$ sudo update-grub

The update copied the above menu entry from /etc/grub.d/40_custom to /boot/grub/grub.cfg (Please note that you are not supposed to edit grub.cfg directly).

On reboot I selected the new menu entry "Karmic Live CD (sda4)" and could boot from the ISO.

Please note that on Grub2 sda4 is represented by  (hd0,4) and not  (hd0,3) like in Grub Legacy.

How to make manual entry in Grub2 on Ubuntu.

I installed Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala RC today on one partition using Desktop CD. This version of Ubuntu has Grub2 which is under development. The Grub did not detect Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope and I could not boot into it till I studied the problem and resolved it.

As suggested on Ubuntu Wiki I tried the following workaround:

$ sudo apt-get install --reinstall libdebian-installer4
$ sudo os-prober
$ sudo update-grub

The above commands detected the Jaunty installation and updated /boot/grub/grub.cfg file (equivalent of /boot/grub/menu.lst file) but put wrote wrong partition #.

After reading Grub2 documentation on Ubuntu Wiki I made following manual entry in the file /etc/grub.d/40_custom

menuentry "Ubuntu 9.04" {
set root=(hd0,8)
linux /vmlinuz-2.6.28-16-generic root=UUID=5fdb796b-96c0-49f1-80ec-9455e337625c ro xforcevesa quiet splash
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.28-16-generic
}

The partition numbering system has changed on Grub2 and (hd0,8) now means sda8 partition. After writing the above file I had to run:
$ sudo update-grub

to add the entry in grub.cfg file.