Yesterday was a big day for Ubuntu community since three main desktop releases reached their End Of Life. For Hardy Heron (8.04) servers it’s urgent to upgrade to Lucid Lynx (10.04 LTS) -at least- to benefit of other two more years of updates.
Category Archives: Ubuntu
how-to launch applications that need root/admin privileges on Ubuntu when on a remote session
Did you ever find yourself at work with a remote session on your Ubuntu server (or workstation) invoked by ssh -X command and needed to launch users-admin or some similar graphical application that need a sudo (or root) authentication to work?
Did you ever got frustrated of not having the possibility to enter or see accepted your password ?
Well, here’s how to resolve this! All you need to do is invoking this command:
sudo ck-launch-session $command &
For example, when I needed users-admin (to graphically add a new user, modify or delete an old one) giving the aforementioned command, after having inserted my sudo password, I got this window:
P.S. = if you can help me with a shorter or clearer post title I’ll be grateful (remember english isn’t my native language !!!)
P.S. #2 = sometimes you just DON’T have to put the ‘&‘ at the end of the line so you can insert the administrative password needed for the command (i.e. Synaptic) execution…
how to use users-admin remotely on Ubuntu
Lately I had the necessity to create an account and modify another one on an Ubuntu box at work. I’ve regularly logged on via a ssh -X shell and gave the command
sudo users-admin
resulting in a “blocked” window … I mean one on which I wasn’t able to unlock the command via an administrative password input.
After a little diggin’ on the web I found that the solution is in giving this command:
sudo ck-launch-session users-admin &
which will ask you the administrative password and make the commands on the appearing window
Canonical certifies Ubuntu 9.04 Server Edition on latest HP ProLiant servers
Bio-Linux: Ubuntu and bioinformatics
Hi!
Today I’d like to spend some words on a particular Open Source project which aims to make know, test and finally use the available tools for molecolar biology, bio-technologies and bio-informatics in general.
This world is overwhelmed by a number of “tools” divided in an ocean of productors, licences, repositories and kind of package (rpm, deb, Z, tar.gz, plain code…).
Enter Bio-Linux.
The Bio-Linux project starts from a branch of UK’s NERC (National Environment Research Council) dealing with biology.
This NEBC proudly has took in hand this shattered cosmo of open source software for bioinformatics under his own “umbrella” and then has gone further … has created a full GNU/Linux distribution, building over the solid core of Ubuntu (on it’s Long Term Support 8.04 release).
Today Bio-Linux 5 is:
- a LiveCD operating system;
- a fully functional operating system running on desktop and servers alike;
- a bioinformatics repository for Ubuntu
and all this is fully supported and given the news on the NEBC and NERC there’s money to guarrantee that for the expectable future.
Personally at work I’ve had chance to appreciate this distro in all the flavours listed above and also as a VMware’s appliance.
If you’ve already running an Ubuntu 8.04 box in this wiki page you’ll find how-to add the biolinux repository to your sources.list. There it’s also stated that there’s some kind of compatibility with Debian and also with the latest 9.04 release, even if for a couple of software there are occasional bugs.
But, on the workplace, expecially when the user has to USE his desktop and not work to make it run, Ubuntu 8.04 (with an updated copy of OpenOffice and a couple of backports) it THE way go, at least for me.
As a personal, final note, I must regret on the strickt control of the repository … I’ve witnessed a similar Biolinux project, focused on the RPM world being abandoned in 2007 supporting ancient distros like Fedora6 and RedHat 9 … I’d prefer a strong team in the Ubuntu (or $distro) community claiming “we will take care of all things bioinformatics, like it’s done for Compitz or other focused projects in the past.
A change of menthality is needed so, when the Public Administration (or a private) invests on an open source technology the RoI must be seen in the product itself (and/or on how it facilitates works or makes you make more money increasing the productivity) and not in a self-owned fancy site claiming “I MADE IT, I AM BIG, GIMME MORE MONEY”.
Don’t you think so?
which version of Ubuntu are you running ?
Ever wondered how to know by command line which version of Ubuntu are you running ?
The answer is simple:
kOoLiNuS@linuxbox:$ cat /etc/lsb-release DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu DISTRIB_RELEASE=8.04 DISTRIB_CODENAME=hardy DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 8.04.3 LTS"
Enjoy your Open Source operating system 
The Ubuntu team is proud to announce the release of Ubuntu 8.04.3 LTS, the 3rd maintenance update to Ubuntu’s 8.04 LTS release. This release includes updated server, desktop, and alternate installation CDs for thei386 and amd64 architectures.
In all, 80 updates have been integrated, and updated installation media has been provided so that fewer updates will need to be downloaded after installation. These include security updates and corrections for other high-impact bugs, with a focus on maintaining stability and compatibility with Ubuntu 8.04 LTS.
– via lists.ubuntu.com
Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Desktop Edition reaches end-of-life on July 14, 2009 … the warning came to my mailbox today from lists.ubuntu.com
Update! Update! Update!
Ubuntu hints to Dell initiative
Yesterday I was making a visit to the http://www.ubuntu.com homepage to get some infos aboun the Ship-It initiative when my eyes fell over the modified logo that I’ve put down here.
On the t-shirt of the asian guy was placed in mild colours the Dell’s computer company logo, subtle hinting at it’s offer of preinstalled Ubuntu OS on their machines (technical details).
A nice touch of discrete advertising, in my opinion.
So – as 
