Mimor

I installed Ubuntu Server 8.04 inside a VirtualBox (v 2.4.1_OSE) virtual machine.
The installation went smooth, but when I wanted to boot into my Ubuntu Server, it returned the following error right after GRUB:

This kernel requires the following features not present on the cpu: 0:6
Unable to boot – please use a kernel appropriate for your CPU

Screenshot or it didn’t happen?

How to solve:

This can be easily resolved by enabling the PAE/NX option in the virtual machine’s settings.
This will expose the PAE of your CPU to the virtual machine.

Just:

1. go to the homescreen of Virtualbox
2. select your virtual machine
3. click the ‘settings’ button on top of the screen
4. click the tab ‘Advanced’
5. check the box next to ‘PAE/NX’

Like in this screenshot:

Now, you can fire up your virtual machine again, and it will start up without this error.

While browsing the internet for the past years, I’ve encountered quite a lot of websites around cats.
Some are even single service sites, such as icanhascheezburger,lolcats, etc…
So cats are, according to me, more popular than any other animal within the internet community. Even if google disagrees.

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As you may know, Belgium has 3 native languages: French, German and Dutch.
Lately, people tend to make a big fuzz about this.
Political party’s started creating diversity based on these languages to use this in their own advantage (votes).
The media has added its share to this too.

I personally don’t mind all these easy and low ways of getting attention.
But now the discussion has appeared as a burden inside our Ubuntu-be LUG as well.

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Lots of hardcore hackers use Gentoo as their favourite distribution.
Mind to interpret hackers in the correct way!
This results in the a very strong technical support base, lots of nice tweaks and awesome hacks.
Sometimes the hacks they release are quite nuts.

What did you think of using the RAM on your Graphics card as swap space or RAM disk?
I wonder how this guy got this idea.
I cant think of a decent purpose for this.
Doesn’t matter… this hack is awesome!

Due to inactivity the last month on the Ubuntu-be mailing list, I had some catching up to do on the huge list of unread mails.
Amongst them I found this mail from  Pierre Buyle:

Hi,

for those requesting a Forum for Ubuntu-be, there is an alternative
solution (which has already been discussed in the past). Gmane
provides two web interfaces for our mailing list. A blog-like one at
http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.linux.ubuntu.region.belgium and a threaded
one at http://news.gmane.org/gmane.linux.ubuntu.region.belgium.

In addition, I registered the mailing list for archiving on Nabble
which also provides an forum like web interface at
http://n2.nabble.com/Ubuntu-be-f3354669.html

These three interface allow one to follow activities on the mailing
list without dealing with it as a bunch of mail. Both Gmane and Nabble
allow posting to the list through the Web interface (only for
subscribed user registered there).

So, if you’re interested in following the Ubuntu-be mailing list, you can easily do so without the ‘hassle’ of subscribing to it.
It’s also a perfect way to check it out for a while, as you don’t receive all these mails in your mailbox.

I have to say, it’s the first time I’ve seen the integrated nabble forum in action, and have to agree that it’s awesome.
Also the blog-styled layout of gmane is making the mailing list (more) enjoyable to read.

Of course, you can also just send a mail to the ubuntu-be mailing list.
Warning: This is a public medium! If you want to send messages to this list you’ll have to register first through https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-be. Keep into consideration that every message posted will be visible in the public archives!

The new LFS 6.5 is released.
Although I never tried it, it’s intriguing me (a lot).
Not just because it’s a geeky thing to do, but because it’s the best way to understand how linux works.
To erase all confusion here,LFS is not a distribution, it’s a guide.
A 314 pages (and counting) book written by Gerard Beekmans.

I tried a number of distributions and could not decide on any one. They were great systems in their own right. It
wasn’t a matter of right and wrong anymore. It had become a matter of personal taste. With all that choice available,
it became apparent that there would not be a single system that would be perfect for me. So I set out to create my
own Linux system that would fully conform to my personal preferences.
To truly make it my own system, I resolved to compile everything from source code instead of using pre-compiled binary packages.

Whenever I have some spare time…
But for now, I’m quite happy with my Ubuntu.

GRUB is one of the most common used bootloader on linux.
So, when using linux, and you’re a bit interesting in ‘what’s under the hood’,  it’s the first thing you want to learn about.

When you turn on your computer, the bios will start the bootstrap procedure from the primary boot-device.
(If you’re planning to run a LiveCD, you might make that your CD/DVD-rom drive)
A bootstrap is in fact nothing else than having a small program, so that this can load a bigger one.
That’s the thing GRUB does, in short!
What you should remember, is that it’s important, and you would not like to break it.
If you do, you’ll render your hardisk unbootable.

So the first thing you want to do, is back up your MBR!
Why not just GRUB?
The MBR is a 512-byte segment, the first sector, on your harddisk.
GRUB takes 446 bytes, the partition table takes 66 bytes
and the 2 remaining bytes are for a signature.
You might want to keep these 3 intact.

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I was recently reading a discussion on the release of Windows 7.
The article went into detail when it came to the different versions that will be sold. There will be 7.
In the comment-section, I noted quite a lot of people arguing that this is too much to choose from for home users.
Well then, let’s take those people’s vision and apply it to the world of Linux.

Let’s go on a journey with someone eager to start using Linux (without a live cd).

Let’s say this is one of the wonderfull people informing themselves before they actually start doing something.
Then this user would trigger a search query on his favorite search engine for the value Linux.
Linux.org is probably the first link that will be hit, as the first result has a 42% chance of getting selected.

On Linux.org he/she’ll be learning a little on the principles of linux and the GNU licence.
After a bit of reading, she’ll know how wonderful linux is and appreciate the idea of openness.

As our imaginary person has a simple old spare computer that can be used to testdrive linux, he/she is convinced and ready to download her own copy.
But there is the first problem: Which linux distribution?

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After I installed Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty) I noted that my keypad didn’t work anymore.
I never searched to fix this bug as I’m not using it that often. (The top-row number are far more efficient to use)
My first laptop (dell latitude d820) made me learn how to work without the numeric part. Afterwards, this was not such a bad thing. Typing without using the keypad makes typing much quicker. You should give it a try some day!

But now my girlfriend wanted to use my computer to do some internet banking, which uses quite a lot of numeric digits to get authorized, and thus I have to fix it.
It seems like this is a problem in X.org.
This bug has already been registered on Launchpad with the number #197589.
The quick work around is disabling the “Pointer can be controlled using the keypad”-option in your keyboard settings.
Or just disable it by hitting “Ctrl + Alt + Num Lock”
There, that solved the problem… not that hard, but handy to know

Are you used to hit print-screen, save the image and start an image editor whenever you want to have a screenshot of a window?
Well, then from now on you can just try to set the desired window as active and hit ALT+Prt Scrn.