Ubuntu Automount failure

This is a new discovery that i made the hard way. This happened because i use the same set of plugins for Firefox between Windows and Ubuntu. The reason i do this is coz very frequently i switch between the two OS's for various reasons. I have posted here how to do this. However, as it is clear it needs that your C: in windows is automounted in Ubuntu on startup. This is pretty simple and for those of you who like to use the GUI more than the commandline i suggest use of pysdm. You can find more info regarding this here.

However, the problem that happened was that for some reason i had hibernated the Windows partition when during last session. When i opened the Ubuntu partition later i find that the automouting of C: failed and this led to my firefox failing to load because the symlink was now broken. This happens, because when windows hibernates the drive is in a dirty state and this makes the Ubuntu NOT mount the drive. This is true for NTFS & i am not sure if the same is applicable for fat32. More info is available here.

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How Jaunty fooled me

One of the telebrands show has a caption which goes something like " Choose wisely, Live well". This Saturday what i did just shows that i should have paid more heed to the statement.

I saw that the new Ubuntu (Jaunty) is available. Immediately i hit www.ubuntu.com and downloaded the latest version. The download manager was able to download the CD in two sessions of 1 hour each ( Which i did in the free bandwidth timeslot using BSNL Connection :-)). I quickly mounted the ISO as a Cd using the mount command and then i tried to install using the gksu "sh /cdrom/cdromupdate" command.

While my eyes gleamed in anticipation......

Alas, nothing happened.

The Reason i later learnt the hard way is that for an upgrade, one needs to use the Alternate  install CD rather than the Desktop CD. The whole operation and 2 sessions worth of downloading had just gone down the drain. First it was anger that the website did not mention it explicitly and later it was self-realization that it was me who had chosen to ignore reading the instructions for an upgrade. There are different versions of a release some aimed at a upgrade and others for a fresh install.
You can find more information here

Finally, i decided ( or resorted!!) that i will not do this upgrade for sometime to come. I have a good system with Ubuntu running fine. I have all the needed apps. Who bothers about uprgrading :-). Please dont cry "Grapes are Sour!!".

Google talk in Firefox

 If you are a google talk fan, and also are not able to download the software and install it on your pc then this might interest you.

I did not like the google chat feature available in gmail because it somehow doesn't feel good like a real chat client. At the same time due to restrictions on the computer i had i was not allowed to install gtalk also. Here is something that I found out on the net to get the same effect as gtalk with firefox. Here are the steps to do this with your firefox installation.

1. go to this link using firefox and bookmark it. http://talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/client
2. After bookmarking it , it will apprear under the Bookmarks menu in firefox.
3. Right click on the bookmarked link and choose properties.
4. Use the checkbox which says Load bookmark in sidebar.
5. Close the window. Again go to bookmarks and click on the bookmark.
6. You should be able to see the google talk like interface load in the side bar.....

One more reason to use firefox :-). This will work on Ubuntu as well.

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