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Download and install “Sound Converter” (http://soundconverter.berlios.de/).  I just installed the latest from source and it’s working great!.  Download, Extract the compressed the file.

cd to the directory of the uncompressed files

sudo ./configure

sudo make

sudo make install

If you have default ubuntu configuration you also need to run this command for mp3 encoding action:

sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse

Browse to Applications-> Sound & Video -> Sound Converter

Change your preferences, add a folder of flac files and convert to compressed!

Found this via the old google search which landed me upon the how to geek’s friendly advice:

In Gnome select “System->Prefrences->Sound->System Beep Tab

You’ll see the checkbox.  The link to the site I found this is below.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/disable-the-system-beep-on-ubuntu-edgy/

The Ubuntu website has a good tutorial on chmod.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FilePermissions

I found this url in the endless ubuntuforms.org. These steps worked great for me. In order to get this working correctly you must know your external ip and/or dns name and also have ssh installed with the correct port (22) forwarded to the machine in question.

Start by setting up your repos:
Add the following to /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://www.datakeylive.com/ubuntu gutsy main
deb-src http://www.datakeylive.com/ubuntu gutsy main

This next step failed for myself, but is only the repo apt-key and didn’t cause the install to fail:

wget http://www.datakeylive.com/ubuntu/dists/gutsy/wjeremy.key | sudo apt-key add -

Then run good ol: sudo apt-get update

This next step will install the packages required:

sudo apt-get install expect openssh-server tcl8.4 libxcomp2 libxcompext2 libxcompshad nxlibs nxagent nxproxy nxclient freenx

You can check to make sure it installed correctly by executing:

sudo apt-get -f install

sudo apt-cache show expect openssh-server tcl8.4 libxcomp2 libxcompext2 libxcompshad nxlibs nxagent nxproxy nxclient freenx | grep “Unable”

I needed to add the following to the bottom of /etc/X11/xorg.conf (make sure to back your’s up first!)

Section “Files”

# path to defoma fonts
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1″
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi”
FontPath “/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType”
EndSection

You’ll need to download the following file ( i used my home directory)

nxcupsd-wrapper

You need to set the permissions on that last file downloaded to make it work right:

chmod a+x nxcupsd-wrapper
sudo chmod 755 /usr/lib/cups/backend/ipp

Now you need to add a user that is able to remote in; replace xxxx with username:

sudo nxserver –adduser xxxx

On your remote machine make sure to install the client and you’re good to go!

Finally I found a few instructions which made this configuration easy and smooth.

http://www.chr05210084.com/content/install-compiz-fusion-ubuntu-gutsy-using-ati-video-card

1. Enable fgrlx driver.
Install linux-restricted-modules and restricted-manager provied in the restricted repositories:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install linux-restricted-modules-generic restricted-manager

Open the restricted drivers manager in “System -> Administration -> Restricted Drivers Manager” and select “ATI accelerated graphics driver”.
2. Install xserver-xgl package

sudo apt-get install xserver-xgl

3. Install compiz

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager compiz compiz-core compiz-fusion-plugins-main compiz-fusion-plugins-extra compiz-gnome compiz-plugins libcompizconfig-backend-gconf libcompizconfig0

4. Reboot
5. Log in. 3D effects should be enabled!

Lots is going on this week at VMworld 2007. I watched a video at the AMD booth of a server being upgraded from dual proc dual core to dual proc quad cores featuring their new “Barcelona” F series cpu. The only change required is a bios upgrade which they actually replaced with a new physical bios chip. They stated in the video that no additional power, cooling or hardware is required for the upgrade. The upgrade made a significant change in system performance. FMI for quad core opterons…

I’m seeing a lot more companies adapting a de-duplication technology to their product. Netapp and Data Domain are a couple of vendors that I spoke to about this. Data Domain was interesting to me because they supply you with an entry level HW appliance with redundant disk storage at RAID 6. The cost is about $17k for their entry level appliance. The appliance comes with 2.5 raw tb of space which is the equivalent to 25tb of actual vm files because of the capabilities of de-duplication. Pretty incredible.

Ubuntu is visiting VMworld again. They’ve released a version of ubuntu that’s slimmed down for usage with virtual appliances and virtual machines. The product is called Jeos (pronounced juice).

Tonight is the VMworld 2007 Party…

I stole this from somewhere on the internet…

Setting Linux Time
Programs for working with time and date are:

* clock – This is a soft link to hwclock.
* date(1) – Print or set the system date and time.
* hwclock(8) – Sets the hardware clock based on values entered on the command line.
* setclock(8) – Sets the BIOS hardware clock based on the time and setup of the system clock.
* timeconfig(8) – A program used to configure the system configuration file “/etc/sysconfig/clock” which includes the type of clock and timezone.

An Example:

While logged in as root do the following:

1. Type “date”.
2. You should see some variation of”

“Wed Nov 24, 9:29:17 EST 1999″
3. To change the time type(as an example):

date -s 10:10
4. The system response will be:

“Wed Nov 24, 10:10:02 EST 1999″
5. Then if you want to set the hardware(BIOS) clock so the system will keep the time when it reboots type:

clock -w

or

setclock

The program setclock will set your hardware clock based on your system configuration parameters including whether or not your clock is set to universal time.

The “clock -w” command assumes your hardware clock is set to local time. If it is set for universal time you will want to type “clock -wu” rather than the “clock -w” in the line above. If you use the wrong option the time will be set incorrectly and you will need to do it again.

On a Redhat system, you can use the program “linuxconf” as root and page down to the next to the last line in the menu which is “date & time”. Select it and see if the box named “universal format(GMT)”, next to “Store date in CMOS”, is checked. If is is not, you may save your time by typing “clock -w”. If it is checked use “clock -wu”.

Note: There is a man page for date that you can use to learn more. Type “man date”. You do not want to make any more changes to time and especially to the date than necessary, especially while the system is running, since this can trigger the “cron” daemon to perform various time related system tasks.

An alternate method to set time is.
hwclock set date “2/24/2000″ If you are using local time
hwclock set date “2/24/2000″ -utc If you are using universal time

In the rc.sysinit startup script, this program is used with the options -adjust and -hctosys to adjust the hardware clock for drift, and set the system time to the hardware clock at the time of reboot.

On Redhat systems, there is a configuration program called “timeconfig” which can be used to configure the system configuration file /etc/sysconfig/clock and /etc/localtime. This program will use a graphical interface to let the user set the timezone and whether UTC time is used.