the empty quarter

Steps to install Oracle Express Edition (XE) database 10g on Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric). Download the Oracle XE deb package (free registration is required). Double click the downloaded file and select to install it. In terminal run sudo /etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure. You will be prompted to enter the following parameters: HTTP port number, database listener port number, [...]

If you use TrueCrypt under Ubuntu 11.04 Natty you would have noticed an annoying behaviour. Under previous versions an icon is present in the system tray which remains there whilst a volume is mounted even if the TrueCrypt window is closed. Under Unity the tray icon is not shown. If you accidentally close the window [...]

After finally getting some time to fully read up on Mono (especially on the excellent The Source) I have decided it is best to remove it from my system. The Open Sourcerer has a nicely written up set of instructions for 10.04 Lucid Lynx and 10.10 Maverick Meerkat.

Changing the port number of SSH daemon is a quick way of reducing the number of SSH brute force attacks your server might face (check the file /var/log/auth.log to see if there are many failed SSH login attempts). Just to be on the safe side, create a backup copy of the SSH daemon config file. [...]

Here’s how to disable the annoying Update Manager pop-up (technically a “pop-under”) and instead have the update icon displayed in the notification area. Hit Alt-F2 to open the “Run Application” dialog. Type in gconf-editor to run the GNOME Configuration Editor. Navigate to Apps > Update Notifier. Untick the auto_launch checkbox.

This post is an update on integrating Thunderbird with Ubuntu’s notification system. For Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx it supersedes my earlier post on the topic which was applicable previous versions of Ubuntu (Jaunty and Karmic). The big difference in Lucid Lynx is the Indicator Applet and the “Me Menu”, both of these incorporating features related [...]

As always after a kernel update, VMware Player 2.5.xx asks to be recompiled after upgrading to Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid). However during the compilation I got errors about virtual network device, even after trying to recompile several times including from command line. After struggling for some time, I thought I would check on the VMware website [...]

UPDATE: The issue has been fixed in a subsequent Ubuntu system update, so there should be no reason to go through the steps below if your system is up-to-date. After a recent system update in Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic) I started getting an error message in Thunderbird starting with “Could not initialize the browser’s security component”. [...]

VMware Player experiences mouse capture problems when run under Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic host. Inside the guest window, the mouse pointer works fine in a top-left rectangle of the window (640×480 pixels?) but outside of this area the mouse pointer switches its focus to the host. Add the following line to the file /etc/vmware/bootstrap to fix [...]

In a previous post I described to how to enable the Ctrl-Alt-Backspace key combination to restart the X server. However, those steps were applicable to Ubuntu 9.04 only and have no effect in Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala). The necessary changes to enable Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to restart X in Karmic are below. Open Preferences > Keyboard and [...]