• To get gkrellm and other goodies:

  # <span style="text-decoration: underline;">rpm -Uhv http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el5/en/i386/rpmforge/RPMS/rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.el5.rf.i386.rpm</span>
  

  That's for Centos 5.x (RHEL 5)... there may be updated instructions on Dag's site.

• On a 64-bit system, once you add rpmforge you may have problems like this, when you go to do an update:

  Transaction Check Error:
    file /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/psvn.el from install of subversion-1.5.4-0.1.el5.rf conflicts with file from package subversion-1.4.2-2.el5
  ...
  

  That's because rpmforge has only the 64-bit subversion, which conflicts with the old 32-bit installed version. You probably have both installed, which is normal. Verify this with:

  # <span style="text-decoration: underline;">rpm -q --qf '%{NAME} %{ARCH}n' subversion</span>
  subversion x86_64
  subversion i386
  

  The most logical way to resolve this conflict between repositories is to uninstall (erase, with the -e switch to rpm) the package and re-install it:

  # <span style="text-decoration: underline;">rpm -e --allmatches subversion</span>
  # <span style="text-decoration: underline;">yum install subversion</span>  
  

So today when I tried to start my XP machine, I'm greeted with VMware 2 telling me that it has expired.

Frustration: Why should I use a program that's going to decide to quit working for no reason? I'm moving off this as soon as I can find a viable alternative. I wouldn't use it at all but Quicken contains my business data for the past 10+ years and transitioning that to something else would be a pain. Why I can't buy Quicken Linux for Business is incredibly frustrating.

Anyway, next frustration:

yum upgrade vmware

does nothing. Indeed, yum doesn't know there is a package called "vmware" installed though of course it's running. After much hair-pulling, this command works and tells us what's really going on:

rpm -qa | grep -i vmware VMware-server-2.0.0-110949 #

Aaaagh... it's mixed-case, then a dash, then "server" -- but don't give yum anything past the second dash or it will get all confused again. Just as brain-damaged as 'man' telling you:

SEE ALSO apropos(1), whatis(1), less(1), groff(1), man.config(5).

but when you try to ask for one of those pages you are greeted with the obnoxious:

$ man less(1) bash: syntax error near unexpected token `('

and you actually would have to type:

$ man 1 less

which is NOT what the manpage told you at all. It should have said: See also: 1 man, 1 less, ...etc...

Anyway back to the issue... after downloading the new .rpm, do an rpm -Uvh on it... then

/etc/rc.d/init.d/vmware stop /usr/bin/vmware-config.pl /etc/rc.d/init.d/vmware stop

Yes, you must reconfigure the vmware server... things may have changed, let it do its magic.

Finally as to the problem of arrow keys not working: see this post: VMWare and the fubar keyboard effect

Basically, vmware gets confused by trying to remap the X keyboard. In your /etc/vmware/config, add the line:

xkeymap.nokeycodeMap = true

and that should restore the arrow keys. If not, you can always turn NumLock off and use the arrow keys on the numeric pad. (A bit of a pain when using accounting software!)

Additional Repositories

We are going to add the Ubuntu Partner and Medibuntu repositories which contain a number of apps.

From a terminal window, edit /etc/apt/sources.list...

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

... and enable the intrepid partner repository:

[...]
## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Canonical's
## 'partner' repository. This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is
## offered by Canonical and the respective vendors as a service to Ubuntu
## users.
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu intrepid partner
deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu intrepid partner
[...]

Then save the file.

To enable the Medibuntu repository, please do the following:

Import the repository:

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/intrepid.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

Import the gpg-key and update your package-list:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get update

Install software

Yes this all goes on one big long line --

sudo apt-get install amarok flashplugin-nonfree audacity azureus 
banshee bluefish dvdrip filezilla msttcorefonts gnucash gstreamer* gtkpod-aac 
sun-java6-bin sun-java6-javadb sun-java6-jdk sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin 
k3b kino mplayer mozilla-mplayer quanta kompozer scribus xchat-gnome 
bittornado bittornado-gui sound-juicer helix-player mozilla-helix-player 
googleearth acroread mozilla-acroread non-free-codecs ubuntu-restricted-extras 
libdvdcss2 opera xine-ui xine-plugin xmms2 xmms2tray xmms2-plugin-airplay 
xmms2-plugin-alsa xmms2-plugin-ao xmms2-plugin-asf xmms2-plugin-asx 
xmms2-plugin-avcodec xmms2-plugin-cdda xmms2-plugin-cue 
xmms2-plugin-curl xmms2-plugin-daap xmms2-plugin-faad xmms2-plugin-flac 
xmms2-plugin-gme xmms2-plugin-gvfs xmms2-plugin-ices 
xmms2-plugin-icymetaint xmms2-plugin-id3v2 xmms2-plugin-jack 
xmms2-plugin-karaoke xmms2-plugin-lastfm xmms2-plugin-m3u 
xmms2-plugin-mad xmms2-plugin-mms xmms2-plugin-modplug 
xmms2-plugin-mp4 xmms2-plugin-musepack xmms2-plugin-normalize 
xmms2-plugin-ofa xmms2-plugin-oss xmms2-plugin-pls xmms2-plugin-pulse 
xmms2-plugin-rss xmms2-plugin-sid xmms2-plugin-smb xmms2-plugin-speex 
xmms2-plugin-vocoder xmms2-plugin-vorbis xmms2-plugin-wma 
xmms2-plugin-xml xmms2-plugin-xspf vlc vlc-data vlc-dbg vlc-nox 
vlc-plugin-arts vlc-plugin-esd vlc-plugin-ggi vlc-plugin-jack vlc-plugin-pulse 
vlc-plugin-sdl vlc-plugin-svgalib thunderbird skype

You could also include

amule

A more detailed explanation is on HowtoForge.

If you have an NFS mount called /home on host 192.168.1.100 -- first make the directory /mnt and then, as root:

mount -o -P 192.168.1.100:/home /mnt

Top 7 Ubuntu GUI tips on OpenView360

• Improve font appearance

• Configure boot parameters

• Enable backports (new software releases even on older installs)

• Add a clipboard manager

• Control startup applications