In this tutorial I will teach you how to install LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP, Python or Perl) server over your Ubuntu desktop in 3 easy steps. This is handy if you’re only planning to use it for testing web applications because you already have the graphical user interface provided by the Ubuntu desktop environment.

Step 1: First we need to install the complete LAMP server package. There are other ways to do this, but this is my favorite. Open your Terminal by going to Applications → Accessories then type:

$ sudo apt-get install lamp-server^

NOTE: See the caret (^) symbol at the end of the command line? This is not a typo. It is required to make the command work.

The entire process is very straightforward and self-explanatory so I’m sure you will get the hang of it.

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This is one cool plymouth theme that I just learned this morning. It’s called Space-Sunrise, originally created by some guy named Andre “Osku” Schmidt. Installation is pretty straightforward and the next time you start your computer, you will notice a different and more lively look in your plymouth splash screen.

To install the amazing Space-Sunrise theme, simply run the following commands in your Terminal (one line at a time):

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:inameiname/stable
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install plymouth-theme-space-sunrise

After you finished the installation, type in your Terminal:

$ sudo update-alternatives --config default.plymouth

… and then select the number that corresponds with your newly installed plymouth theme.

To make sure all changes will be applied right away. Type in your terminal:

$ sudo update-initramfs -u

Are you excited to see the Space-Sunrise in action? Simply reboot your computer and see the difference.

For more information and other installation instructions for Space-Sunrise theme, click here.

To see Space-Sunrise in action, see this YouTube video.

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Are you getting tired with the look of your GRUB window’s default setting? Well, your boring days is over. Sit back and relax because we’re about to give ‘life’ to your GRUB’s boring look. On this very easy tutorial, we are going to edit two configuration files and prepare one PNG image that we will use as your GRUB2 background.

Prepare And Add the Background Image

First prepare the image you are going to use as background for GRUB, preferably a PNG image (in my experience JPEG images, for some reason, did not work for this setup).

Then open your Terminal by going to Applications → Accessories and type:

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Well, I must admit, I’m a proud console guy. And one of the so many things that I love to do at the command-line is sending simple email messages using sSMTP with my free Gmail account.

sSMTP, or Secure Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, is a simple program that effectively gets mail off the system to your mail hub. It does not contain any suid-binaries, or other dangerous stuff – no mail spool to poke around in, and no daemons running in the background. Mail is simply send to the configured mail host.

To start sending simple email messages via sSMTP, first we need to install it by opening Terminal and running this command:

$ sudo apt-get install ssmtp mailutils

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Whatever your reason is why you’re reading this page, one thing is for sure — you wanted change. I myself too have my own reason why I switched from the default Ubuntu office suite, which is OpenOffice.org, to LibreOffice. OpenOffice has been with Ubuntu for quite a while now and no doubt it has served us well. But for the sake of change, I would like to try a different blend, LibreOffice 3, the default office suite for Ubuntu 11.04.

Completely Uninstall OpenOffice.org

OK so much for talk! Before we can install LibreOffice 3 in either Ubuntu Lucid or Maverick, we need to completely uninstall OpenOffice from our system.

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Warning: Please note that even the slightest error in your fstab configuration can cause your system from booting up properly.

By default, mounting of Windows partition in Linux is done manually. But if you want your Windows partition to mount automatically at startup, simply follow these simple steps:

1. First, mount the Windows partition that later you would like to mount automatically. Once mounted, open your Terminal, then type and run df -Th. In my test machine, the command resulted into something like this:

username@host:~$ df -Th
Filesystem    Type    Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2     ext4     40G  6.5G   32G  18% /
none      devtmpfs    1.5G  304K  1.5G   1% /dev
none         tmpfs    1.5G  1.3M  1.5G   1% /dev/shm
none         tmpfs    1.5G  320K  1.5G   1% /var/run
none         tmpfs    1.5G     0  1.5G   0% /var/lock
none         tmpfs    1.5G     0  1.5G   0% /lib/init/rw
/dev/sda3     ext4     32G   14G   16G  48% /home
/dev/sda1  fuseblk    100G   25G   76G  25% /media/WinDrive

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As most of us may have noticed, the default desktop icon size in Ubuntu looks just a little bigger than usual. At least for me. There are many ways to change the size of the icons in your desktop though, and the most straightforward way to do it is perhaps to right-click the icons itself one by one and hit Compress. This way you can sort-of manually and directly resize the icons to your desired size. But then, after you have resized them all, you might notice the awkwardness of each of the icon sizes you’ve changed.

To change the default icon size in Ubuntu and still make the sizes uniform and good looking, go to Places in your launcher bar and click Computer.

This will launch Nautilus, which is the default file browser in Ubuntu; now click Edit → Preferences. On the File Management Preferences window, change both Icon View Defaults and Compact View Defaults to either 50 to 66%, or whichever size you may want to apply. Click Close.

Now go back and check your desktop icons. You should see now your desktop icon size has been changed nicely.

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To those who are looking for ways to upgrade their Mozilla Firefox browser in Ubuntu, this might be the solution you are looking for. By following the simple steps below, you will be able to upgrade your Firefox browser to the latest stable version via PPA. Here’s how:

1. Go to Applications → Software Center

2. Then click Edit → Software Sources…
Here you might be asked to enter your admin password

3. Click Other Software tab and then click Add

4. Now, for the Apt line field, type in this text:  ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable
and then click Add Source

5. Then go to the Ubuntu Software Center main page and search for “firefox”
and install it

6. Finally, go to System → Administration → Update Manager. You should see
updates for your Mozilla Firefox browser. Install all the updates and your Firefox
browser should get upgraded to the latest stable version.

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