How to remove Linux Mint modified Google search from Chromium

As we know all browsers installed on Linux Mint come patched to use Linux Mint modified Google search if you search directly from the address bar. I prefer the original Google search interface to the Mint's customization of the page (Mint's variant won't show the current time, short info from Wikipedia on the right side, etc; after all I just dislike how the customized search results page looks).

If you use Chromium's / Chrome's synchronization option, then you have the Linux Mint Google search page across your machines on which you used Chromium / Chrome and signed in to the synchronization service. This is quite annoying (you would actually see the Linux Mint search on a Windows machine as well) if you don't like how the search results are presented on the customized page or if you don't use / like Mint.

So here is how to make Chromium use the default Google search for searches from the address bar:

Sign in to your Google account (if not already signed in) - open Chromium / Chrome settings - go to the Settings tab - section Search - Manage search engines (or just type chrome://settings/searchEngines in the Chromium's address bar to go directly to the step we need) - locate the string www.google.com/cse**** - remove it. Linux Mint's search results page is now gone.

Set the search engine you want.

This is the default Google search for me - {google:baseURL}search?q=%s&{google:RLZ}{google:acceptedSuggestion}{google:originalQueryForSuggestion}{google:assistedQueryStats}{google:searchFieldtrialParameter}{google:searchClient}{google:sourceId}{google:instantExtendedEnabledParameter}ie={inputEncoding}

Show desktop shortcut in XFCE

The default shortcut in XFCF to minimize all open windows and show the desktop is (at least this worked for Xubuntu / Mint):

ctrl + alt + d

There must be ways to change it, but the default combination is fine for so I won't dig beyond this limit.

How to view which network interface is connected to the network / Linux

If you have several network cards on your Linux-powered computer / server and need to determine which one is connected to the network, i.e. into which one the cable is plugged, command line, here is a simple command to find it out (this is something you might need when setting up your remote server):

$ ip link show

If it says NO-CARRIER, that means the cable is not connected to this network interface. In my case,  it's eth1:

eth1: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP>

How to connect to remote server via SSH using Dolphin

I hate viewing logs in terminal with nano - it's just extremely inconvenient. There is an easy way to browse through a remote server's files if you have SSH access to the server in a GUI way using KDE's file manager Dolphin:

ctrl + L - to type the location manually, then:

fish://user_name@xxx.xxx.xx.xxx/directory

fish - istead of ssh to connect to the server;
user_name - the user on the server, e.g. root;
xxx.xxx.xx.xxx - the server's IP address;
/directory - the directory you want to connect to; if you don't specify the directory, you'll just connect to the user's folder (root - if you connect as root) after which you'll be able to navigate further.

How to install ionCube loader on Ubuntu 12.04

Some CMS (content management systems) may require IonCube Loader which is a PHP extension to encode PHP files.

The extension is not in the Ubuntu repos, so you'll have to grab it from the developer's website. (http://www.ioncube.com/loaders.php).

Here is how to install IonCube Loader on Ubuntu 12.04 (and other releases and editions of Ubuntu as well).

If your Ubuntu system / server is 32-bit:

cd /usr/local
sudo wget http://downloads2.ioncube.com/loader_downloads/ioncube_loaders_lin_x86.tar.gz sudo tar xzf ioncube_loaders_lin_x86.tar.gz

If your Ubuntu system / server is 64-bit:

cd /usr/local sudo wget http://downloads2.ioncube.com/loader_downloads/ioncube_loaders_lin_x86-64.tar.gz sudo tar xzf ioncube_loaders_lin_x86-64.tar.gz

Next step is to check if PHP loads the extension:

echo "zend_extension=/usr/local/ioncube/ioncube_loader_lin_5.4.so" | sudo tee /etc/php5/conf.d/ioncube.ini

Then restart the webserver:

sudo service apache2 restart

That's it.

How to install skype on Ubuntu / Kubuntu / Xubuntu 12.04 / 12.10

Installing Skype on Ubuntu / Kubuntu 12.04 / 12.10 and other flavors of Ubuntu is easy, even though it's not in the official repos.

Head to the official Skype website - skype.com -> Get skype -> Skype for Linux -> Download -> select the package for Ubuntu that suits your architecture - there are packages for (K/X)Ubuntu 32-bit and (K/X)Ubuntu 64-bit.

 

In short, here is the link to get Skype for linux - http://www.skype.com/intl/en/get-skype/on-your-computer/linux/ (there are packages for some other distros, as well).

Download the package, double-click -> install. The package manager will pull down all the dependencies and will install Skype on your Ubuntu system.

How to change splash screen resolution after installing proprietary Nvidia drivers on Ubuntu

Since Maverick Meerkat or so, after you install the proprietary Nvidia driver on Ubuntu and its flavors and derivatives (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Linux Mint, etc.), the splash screen resolution gets too small, and you stop seeing the nice splash screen that worked with open drivers, and see some broken text instead while the system is loading. This is not critical, of course, the system normally boots anyway, and after it's loaded, the resolution is the one that has to be. However, having an ugly splash screen is bad, and here is how to fix this.

1) Determine the resolution Grub can support. It's not necessarily the optimal one for you system (for example, my optimal resolution is 1440x900, but I found out Grub didn't support it). 

To do so, reboot, on reboot press "c" key on your keyboard to enter grub console.

In the grub console type:

vbeinfo

The command will list all the resolutions supported by Grub.

Note the closest (to your native one) supported resolution from the list (for my 1440x900 screen, the closest one was 1280x1024x32 - yes, it suggests it's longer but it's what I used and was happy with the result; x32 stays for color depth).

2) Next step is to edit the following file

/etc/default/grub

(Run kdesu kate /etc/default/grub or gksu gedit /etc/default/grub to edit the file with the necessary superuser permissions; change kate/gedit with the text editor you prefer, and kdesu/gksu are for KDE and Gnome/Unity/Xfce, respectively).

In the file, locate the string #GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480. Yes, it's commented (#). Leave it so. Put the following line after #GRUB_GFXMODE: 
GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=1280x1024x32 // << the resolution may differ! (see step 1)

Then run:

echo FRAMEBUFFER=y | sudo tee /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/splash
sudo update-grub2
sudo update-initramfs -u

Reboot. Check the splash screen - it should be nice now.