Krishna Mouse and key repeat speeds are personal to each user, and you may find the default Ubuntu settings not to your taste, particularly if you have a high-resolution mouse such as a gaming model. Fortunately, changing each setting is easy. Configuring Mouse Options Open Applications and in the search bar, type mouse to display the … Read more
Unlike some versions of Linux, Ubuntu doesn’t rely on a centralized configuration software package. Instead, it uses smaller programs to configure hardware. For example, to configure the network, you’ll use the NetworkManager program, and printers are configured using a separate printer configuration program. Because using some of the configuration software involves reconfiguring your entire system, … Read more
The DVD-ROM disc supplied with this book is double-sided. This means it’s like a vinyl LP record. To play Side A, simply insert the disc with the Side A label topmost. To play Side B, insert the disc with the Side B label topmost. Side A contains the release version of Ubuntu on which this … Read more
There is an old, so-far-unfulfilled prophecy about “the Year of the Linux Desktop.” Many have predicted that Linux would eventually replace Windows as the de-facto desktop OS, but so far it hasn’t happened. Might things be changing? Could the long-awaited “Year” finally be here? Linux is not about market share, but just plain sharing. To … Read more
Open source is a concept often associated with Linux and free software. Linux is an open source project, which means that its source code is available for anyone to see. That’s different from, say, Microsoft’s development model, which is closed source. Microsoft’s source code is not widely available, and if you’re granted access to it … Read more
For a Linux newbie, one of the most disorienting aspects is: why are there so many versions? You just want to use Linux, but which one? Linux itself seems to be nowhere—all there are to be found are distributions. That is quite true, but the real question you should be asking yourself is: what do … Read more
But Linux wasn’t a complete OS. It was just a kernel, unable to do anything useful without programs running in top of it. So Linux was in search of programs already available for free that emulated the working environment of a UNIX-like computer… which was exactly what the GNU project was producing. Meanwhile the GNU … Read more
In 1991 Linus Torvalds was a student at the University of Helsinki, Finland, when he purchased an Intel 80386-based IBM PC, which he intended to use as a terminal emulator for remotely connecting to the University’s lab. The main choices at that time for a PC operating system were MS-DOS and MINIX. He was rapidly … Read more
Richard Stallman was not the only one with the idea of making a UNIX-like operating system. In fact, in the 1980s the technical superiority of UNIX was widely recognized, so everyone expected it to become the dominant force in the PC market recently created by IBM and its clones. But that wasn’t happening. Disputes over … Read more
Speaking out against the practice of proprietary and closed software was an MIT Lab programmer called Richard Matthew Stallman, or RMS as he prefers to be called. Working at MIT labs, several episodes warned him about how proprietary and closed software was imposing severe limits to their users’ freedoms. He believed that users should be … Read more