For several years Linux has enabled to run a command by name with a little "Run Command" application, often accessed by pressing Alt-F2.

This is my favorite way to launch applications since it can be done with the keyboard by just remembering the name of the application.

In Ubuntu Gutsy, this little tool has become more useful.

No longer do I need to remember that the program run by OpenOffice is called 'oowriter'.

Now I can just start typing "OpenOffice", and it will show me the icon and name for "OpenOffice Writer" as an option.

If I type "Mail", it shows me the options for the "Thunderbird" and "Evolution" e-mail programs. Great!

Sound was generally working fine on my Mandriva 2007 workstation, but sound in the Flash plugin was not. Here's how I debugged the problem and fixed it.

First, running Firefox from a terminal provided a great clue. To launch Firefox this way it may work to use Alt-F2 to have the run box appear, and then type "mozilla-firefox" and make sure "Run in terminal" is selected".

This should lots of ALSA-related errors, including "device not found".

By launching the Mandriva Control Center (Alt-F2 then 'mcc'), I was able to review the sound drivers in use. I navigated to "Hardware : Look and Configure Hardware" and then selected my soundcard below the "Soundcard" option. My soundcard was listed as "82801EB AC'97 Audio". From there, I could select "Run Config Tool", which provided a list of driver options. Only one of them was listed as "ALSA", so I switched the driver to that.

Restricting freedoms in the name of safety and security can go too far.

Take this recent tech support call from a family member. She hadn't been able to get on the internet for days. She called Comcast, which provides her cable modem. Things looked fine on their side, they said. They suggested something on her computer wasn't working right. Using Firefox instead of Internet Explorer as the web browser might be the problem, they offered.

Having used this Windows XP computer myself, I'm familar with all the popups that the ZoneAlarm security utility generates. "Someone is trying to attack your computer on Port 80. Do you want to allow it? [YES] [NO]".

!!!ATTENTION THIS POST IS REALLY TECHNICAL!!! I'm posting all of this info becuase I'm sure there are many of you use this non-free driver in you Linux (and other free desktop systems) this is a huge flaw that isn't usually the kind of problem that you find in Linux...

At about 6:30 UTC, the flaw in the MadWifi driver has been patched for Ubuntu Feisty. Here is why this is important:

This patch fixes susceptibility to remote abuse of Channel Switch
Announcement Information Elements by injection of Beacon Frame
packets and improves the reliability of channel switch procedure under

I was looking through the KDE Apps site to today and came across this,
and wish that it was for Ubuntu:

K Menu Gnome (Fedora Core Package)
Description:
K Menu with Gnome folder and extra icons for KDE 3.2 or later.

If you install both KDE and Gnome then K Menu will become a mess with
overpopulated submenus. Some distributions try to solve this by hiding
many Gnome apps in KDE and most KDE apps in Gnome. I do not like that.
I want to access Gnome apps in KDE and KDE apps in Gnome. So this is
my attempt to both maintain desktop interoperability and unmess the
menus.

Why should one install both KDE and Gnome at all? You might share your

Checking E-mail can be a big distraction when I'm involved in a task and just want to send an email and move on. Sometimes if I have new e-mail, I just don't even want to know.

Sure, I could close my eyes while the Inbox opens and I press "Control-N" for the new message window, but I've found a method for opening just the "Compose Message" window without first opening the Inbox.

I tested this with Thunderbird on Linux, but I suspect that at least the Mac can suppor something like this as well.

The "trick" is open the program as if an email address had been clicked on a web page. Many e-mail programs support this kind of integration. With Thunderbird, the following can be entered in the "Run Box" on Linux, usually invoked with "Alt-F2"

I was disappointed that Realplayer 10 wouldn't play this RealAudio stream I made several years ago, using official Real-branded tools as I recall. Instead, the message returned is:

The content you are trying to play uses an audio codec that is obsolete and no longer supported. Please contact the content provider about using a supported codec.

It appears Real quit supporting their own format. However, the open source totem player had no problem with it.

Here are some easy tips to make your Linux desktop run even faster.

• Give up the wallpaper Try right clicking on the desktop and selecting the "Configure Desktop" to find an option to use a plain color instead of a photo wall paper. Ubuntuclips.org has a video walk through of this task.
• Disable File Previews UbuntuClips shows you how to do this for Ubuntu.
• Avoid OpenOffice OpenOffice is powerful and easy to use. It's also a memory hog. Consider Abiword for basic word processing and Gnumeric for spreadsheets. You could still install OpenOffice, but only launch it if you need it. In Ubuntu, the abiword-plugins package adds support for more file formats, making it easier to work with Word and OpenOffice files.
  

The Richmond Linux User's Group has a new website at Richmondlug.googlepages.com.
This is the third home for the website, and we intend to stay here until Google dies. I chose Google Pages because of the generous support that Google gives to the Open Source community.