keyboard shortcut to switch desktops on ubuntu

Been frustrated with this for a while but today I figured it out...by complete fluke, so, here's the solution:

ctrl+alt and the left and right cursor keys

1 comments - Posted by mark at 9:18 PM - Categories: Linux

ubuntu 8.04 up and running

That's me just completed the installation of eclipse, cfeclipse and flex builder which brings my laptop back up to "code ready". I had been running Ubuntu 7.10 but being the new software slut that I am, I had been falling over myself to perform the upgrade to 8.04. Common sense has always told me to run linux distros a versions old to ensure they're stable but for some reason with Ubuntu I seem to be keen to throw caution to the wind!

So eager was I to do this, yesterday I rushed into work to take advantage of the super rapid connection before anyone else turned up...only thing being, i'd forgotten my power lead....arse....so the upgrade was rescheduled for today.

Rolled into work before 8am and got the upgrade underway, if you were following my twitter feed, you'll know what I thought of that process....a clean install it was then. Backed up my data while downloading the iso and then 40 mintes after running the disk I had a fresh install of Ubuntu...no driver problems, no issues at all...went to connect to the wireless network and yep...typed in the network key and away i went...piece of piss, try doing that on windows.

today's valuable lesson?....sack the upgrade unless you have a lot of time to burn, just back up your data, remember what you need to reinstall and perform a clean install of Ubuntu.

2 comments - Posted by mark at 11:15 PM - Categories: Linux | Eclipse | Coldfusion | Flex

navigating directories in the linux terminal

This is posted mainly for my own reference although I doubt I'm the only one constantly forgetting these most basic of linux terminal commands, so for you and me...here they are.

cd - change directory command, typing only this puts you into the root directory

cd ~ - gets you into your home directory

cd /route/to/directory - standard method of navigating directories

cd .. - takes you back up a directory (i ALWAYS forget this for some reason)

ls - list the contents of a directory

right...now i've got no excuse!

here is a good tutorial relating to all of this

0 comments - Posted by mark at 9:39 PM - Categories: Linux

slicehost vps is lovely

After a couple of months looking for a VPS that was relatively cheap, reliable and gave me all the access I needed. I settled on slicehost, I couldn't find the normal trail of horror stories that goes hand in hand with many cheap hosting solutions and after narrowing my choices down to a few, I decided that slicehost just had the edge, I am pleased with my decision so far. The most important thing for me was to have full root access, some kind of "get out of jail free card" if it all went horribly wrong and a selection of distro's so I can swap things around if I need to...after all, this is to be my self learning area for setting up several things I've wanted to do for a while and I wasn't exactly sure which was the best way forward...so...bull by the horns time and over to the slicehost site to make my purchase. This happened one week ago today and i'm pleased to say that all has gone well. I bought my "slice" last Friday evening and got to work, unfortunately I was also drinking beer so at about 3am I required to use my afore mentioned "get out of jail free card", re-built the slice and went to bed all the wiser! To be continued...

Read more...

0 comments - Posted by mark at 8:52 AM - Categories: Linux

all good for linux today

Those that know of my move to Ubuntu linux will probably be all to aware of my grumbling and ranting that there was still no Air environment for Linux... today I popped open my feed reader and saw, to my great delight, that adobe have today, released Adobe Air for Linux Alpha....not only that, they've also released the next alpha release (3) of Flex Builder for Linux too....

no more ranting from me on this subject....I am now happy.

0 comments - Posted by mark at 8:43 AM - Categories: Linux | Flex | Tools