Ubuntu 12.04 — Precise Pangolin

Precise Pangolin has arrived. I updated my home machine yesterday, no problems at all. I also updated another machine, went like a charm. Some of the tips below are from here.

Some minor issues
Last time I installed xscreensaver and removed gnome-screensaver. However, this time locking the screen didn’t work. So I put back gnome-screensaver: “sudo apt-get install gnome-screensaver“. Note that when you press CTRL+ALT+L, the following file will be called: /usr/bin/gnome-screensaver-command.

On ubuntu.com, it’s still the 32-bit version that is recommended :( Here is a discussion about it.

When I wanted to upgrade, the installer complained about the skype and acroread packages, so I removed them. After the upgrade I couldn’t put them back on one of my machines. I have a 64 bit system and these packages are 32 bit, so they require some 32 bit libraries. However, one of them had a conflict with its 64 bit equivalent. I hope this issue will be resolved.

I also had problems on one of my laptops (a Dell Latitude D410). The live CD stopped booting. It turned out it was because of the b43 wifi card. Read more about it here.

I’ve found another great tweaking tool called unsettings. Read more about it here. In 12.04 the Launcher is always visible on the left side. With unsettings you can easily change that. Also, you can disable the global menu and overlay scrollbars with a click. You can also change the activation trigger of the Launcher from the left edge to the top left corner.

You can add a weather indicator too to the top panel: “sudo apt-get install indicator-weather“. Launch indicator-weather and add it to your startup applications.

Some autostart items don’t show up in the Startup Applications dialog. To get all of them to show up, use the following command (tip from here):

sudo sed -i 's/NoDisplay=true/NoDisplay=false/g' /etc/xdg/autostart/*.desktop

Update (20120915)
If you hate the Global Menu (File, Edit, etc.) appearing on the top bar instead of the application bar, you can remove it like this:

sudo apt-get remove appmenu-gtk3 appmenu-gtk appmenu-qt

Then log out and log back in. This tip is from here.

Update several machines

As the release date of the new Ubuntu is approaching, it’s time to revise how to update several machines without downloading the packages on each machine. There is a simple solution for this:

• Upgrade the first machine normally.
• Then copy the .deb packages from /var/cache/apt/archives to the other machine.

Careful, don’t run apt-get clean on the first machine before copying the packages because clean will delete these files. Of course, after copying the .deb files you can run the clean command.

Update script

For updating my Ubuntu, I use the following script:

#!/usr/bin/bash

# good_shape.sh

sudo dpkg --configure -a\
&& sudo apt-get -f install\
&& sudo apt-get --fix-missing install\
&& sudo apt-get clean\
&& sudo apt-get update\
&& sudo apt-get upgrade\
&& sudo apt-get dist-upgrade\
&& sudo apt-get clean\
&& sudo apt-get autoremove

As it calls apt-get clean, it’ll remove the previously downloaded .deb packages which is usually no problem. If you don’t want that, here is a modified version of the same same script without apt-get clean:

#!/usr/bin/bash

# good_shape_safe.sh

sudo dpkg --configure -a\
&& sudo apt-get -f install\
&& sudo apt-get --fix-missing install\
&& sudo apt-get update\
&& sudo apt-get upgrade\
&& sudo apt-get dist-upgrade\
&& sudo apt-get autoremove

I execute this script every day if I don’t forget that.