Newsdump: Netinstall Ubuntu, Opera repo bound & fix that ugly bootscreen

We get sent so many great ideas, awesome tutorials and see applications updates fire out updates quicker than a plasma canon hooked up to the national grid that even we can’t manage to keep up and/or squeeze it all in. 

When we get a back-log of things we half-wrote, didn’t write or plain forgot to notice at all we put them all in one post and call it a newsdump. So grab a shovel and dig through this… 

Netinstalling Ubuntu
Gonçalo Fernandes has made a fantastic easy-to-follow guide on installing Ubuntu from a network card. Yep you read that right!

Why would you need – or want – to use a netinstall? Fernandes points out: -

a) It’s the only way if you have a broken CD-ROM drive and your computer can’t boot from a USB key.
b) You don’t have to use additional media.

Sound like your idea of fun? You can read his full tutorial over @  http://my.opera.com/ilogico/blog/how-to-netboot-and-netinstall-ubuntu

Opera 10.53 Beta for Linux, Final heading to a repo near you
Opera for Linux finally strays from the (well-worn) Alpha path and heads out on the road to final release-ville with this first Beta release for Linux. It’s fast, shiny and the QT-less interface has shaped up nicely. Sadly it still has plenty of bugs to stop you using it as your default, but take it out for a whirl anyway.

In other Opera related news a change to the EULA (End user license agreement) that aims to make it easier for Linux distributions to include Opera
in their online repositories. A move that will help Opera gain more users and maybe even become the default browser on one or two distributions.

Ugly bootscreen fix
If you’re a user of either the propriety Nvidia or ATi graphics driver then you’ve likely made friends with a very low resolution bootscreen. Softpedia pillaged published a tutorial on fixing it up so it looks as it should.

If you intend to follow it please make relevant backups to any related files if it all goes Donky Kong 3 ..

Auto-start Empathy
Want Empathy to start-up when you log in? Add ‘empathy -h‘ to Startup Applications under the System > Preferences menu.


And finally…
The Maverick repo opened for business but don’t expect anything exciting in it for a little while yet…

Related posts:

  1. Linux Newsdump: 21st January
Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.
  • notbad

    the bootscreen solution does not work for me.
    thanks for the empathy ;)

  • notbad

    the bootscreen solution does not work for me.
    thanks for the empathy ;)

  • CruelAngel

    thanks for the emapthy tip, it was just what I was looking for

  • CruelAngel

    thanks for the emapthy tip, it was just what I was looking for

  • http://devolute.net devolute

    Gah! .debs now please Opera people! It looks great.

  • http://devolute.net devolute

    Gah! .debs now please Opera people! It looks great.

  • Anonymous

    did the bootscreen thing a long time ago…for my intel laptop (i have a HD screen, so 800×600 didn’t cut it)…

  • Anonymous

    there is a better and faster way than the netinstall if you dont have cd or usb

    just download the .ISO and use unetbootin to install without burning:
    http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

    if you have any problems, use this
    http://jaredforsyth.com/blog/2009/nov/1/unetbootin-failed-unmount-cdrom/

  • http://encephalosponge.com/ Jonathan Blackhall

    Sorry, but long ago I gave up performing technical fixes such as the one described for the boot screen. It should be fixed as an update, or I’m not going to get it. There’s no reason I should have to screw around with a bunch of terminal commands to get my boot screen working. To think that that’s acceptable for anyone to have to do is complete crap.

    • http://twitter.com/chuche17 Jesus Galvan

      I couldn’t agree more with you Jonathan. I, too, gave up fixing these things simply because they should be fixed at least on an update. What’s worse is that most of the time the user is the one having to search blogs like this for fixes that should at least be posted up on the main site or somewhere relevant, such as the Ubuntu Forums.

  • http://sinlugareneltiempo.blogspot.com/ Rubenmv

    Opera’s KDE theming has improved a lot since alpha version. Anyway, there’s still a long way to go.

  • http://launchpad.net/lampmenu Wala

    wanna give this link :
    one-click broadcom installation for some laptop like mine [ dell inspiron 1300 ] which i tired to get wireless before.

    http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=9121502#post9121502

  • Jean

    About the boot screen issue I actually fixed it by pure chance :
    When using BURG as boot manager, with your native screen resolution configured in /etc/default/burg, the boot screen appears to use the same resolution.
    At least it works for me using the nvidia drivers. My 1920×1200 boot screen looks good :)

  • Anonymous

    I’d love to see it installed by default in some distros..or at the very least just a bit easier to find and install without downloading the deb each time.

    Also, I’ve been meaning to setup Empathy to start automatically on login, but I’ve been too lazy…now I have no excuse..hopefully I will tackle the boot screen as well….and the new Conky theme…I have so much to do this weekend. :D

  • bhm

    For anyone getting weird squared bushes in Opera wherever.
    Shift+F12 and replace OpenSymbol one with any other font ( much loved here Droid seems working awesome in here)

    • bhm

      Scratch that!
      Ctrl+F12, Advanced>Fonts(duh!)

  • Jimbo

    GETTING A POPUP TELLING ME ABOUT A HYPER LINK IS USELESS AND ANNOYING.

    When I dissed the new widgets on this website you promised a bunch of really cool features would be added soon enough. If making me have to click twice to follow your hyperlinks is one of these amazing features then I was right to diss this stuff as being useless crap.

    Seriously D0od, you have this fetish for adding pointless widgets to your website. Clean web design is where its at. You remind me of when I first set up a Geocities website and I would add loads of javascript stuff that did ‘neat stuff’, but really it was just annoying crap that got old quickly.

    How many of the worlds most popular tech news sites give you popup previews of hyper links? None, because they recognise that is annoying and lame and made of fail.

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      They are there to be contextual rather than directional; they tell you enough information -from- the linked site in a small on-screen window so that you don’t have to leave the site to find out what i’m waffling about; hence ‘normal’ hyperlinks, where you might want to actually go somewhere without leaving to the site, do take you in one click. The majority of people were fed up of having to open a million links in extra tabs just to get some background on an issue – now they can do that on the article itself and carry on reading, informed.

  • http://cldx.blogspot.com/ Joern Konopka

    This is a reaction to all the “Useless Minor Posts” Whining it seems. Love it.

  • Anonymous

    woooooh – some good nuggets of info there. Cheers D0od.

  • Anonymous

    Doesn’t Opera have horrible font rendering?

    • http://sinlugareneltiempo.blogspot.com/ Rubenmv

      It does, font rendering still sucks, there are several comments on the blog about it:
      http://saf.li/b8SSI

      I hope they fix it soon.

    • http://wakoopa.com/xfact XFACT

      Sourly agree!

  • http://wakoopa.com/xfact XFACT

    Great help! The boot screen fix up worked nicely! Ben and D0od you guys ROCK!

  • Sonny
  • Dean Wallace

    I dont see much point in fixing boot screen as I see it for like 2seconds.

  • http://twitter.com/rinoshea Ryan O’Shea

    About the bootscreen fix, is there a tutorial on how to fix it under GRUB legacy? I’m forced to downgrade because Win7 overwrites GRUB2 whenever I boot into Windows.

    Also, I seems the existing proprietary graphics drivers (from nVidia’s website) aren’t compatible with Lucid. I prefer to use them because they give much better performance than the ones in the Hardware Drivers application. Do you know of anyone who has the same problem?