ubuntu – Page 2 – Paul Maunders

How to disable touchpad tapping (clicking) with Ubuntu

Update

My original post described how to install the qsynaptic utility to fix this problem, but it turns out that the settings are lost every time you restart your computer, so I have found a much quicker fix to disable touchpad tapping. Just add this line to your /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

Option "TapButton1" "0"

If I get some time I will re-visit this issue to see why the other method doesn’t save.

Broken Method – Doesn’t Save Settings!

One thing that always frustrates me when I install Ubuntu on a laptop, is that the default behaviour for the touchpad is to allow “tapping” as a left button click. Perhaps it’s just me with my fat fingers, but I am constantly clicking by accident. However, thankfully it is easy to fix with 4 simple steps.

Simply edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf, find the labelled “Synaptics Touchpad” and add the following line to the end of that section:
```
Option "SHMConfig" "on"
```
Install the qsnaptics utility with
```
sudo apt-get install qsynaptics
```
Now you need to load these new settings by rebooting x windows. To do this press CTRL + ALT + BACKSPACE simultaneously.
Finally, when you have logged back in, press ALT + F2 to bring up the run window. In this type qsynaptics and then click run. This will load qsynaptics where you can disable tapping on the tapping tab.

PHP Syntax highlighting on Ubuntu Vim

If you find that syntax highlighting doesn’t work on Vim on Ubuntu, then I found the easiest way to fix it was simple to install the vim-full package with:

sudo apt-get install vim-full

It was as easy as that!

You may also need to uncomment a line in your /etc/vimrc file

syntax on

Ubuntu PXE (network) install with Fiesty Fawn (7.04)

1) First of all, setup tftpd on the server where you want to host the network boot files:

sudo bash
apt-get install tftp-hpa tftpd-hpa xinetd
vim /etc/xinetd.d/tftpd

2) Paste in the following:

---- BEGIN CUT ----

service tftp
{
        disable = no
        socket_type = dgram
        protocol = udp
        wait = yes
        user = root
        server = /usr/sbin/in.tftpd
        server_args = -s /tftpboot
}

---- END CUT ----

3) Make the tftp user account:

useradd -d /tftpboot tftp

4) Download the latest ubuntu "netboot" files:

lftp -c "open http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/feisty/main/installer-i386/current/images/; mirror netboot/"
mv netboot/ /tftpboot/ubuntu7.04

5) Setup your DHCP client to give out the following file via BOOTP

ubuntu7.04/pxelinux.0

How to fix the backspace key in screen

I’m running Ubuntu 7.04 on my home server, and for some reason today the backspace key stopped working correctly in screen. Whenever I pressed it, it would give a ‘Wuff Wuff’ error! It turns out that screen was treating it like the delete key instead, and so since there were no characters in front of the cursor, it was giving an error. To fix this however, is relatively straightforward:

First edit your .bashrc file and add an alias for screen:

$ vim ~/.bashrc
alias screen='TERM=screen screen'

Then run:

$ source ~/.bashrc

And that's it!

Mac Mini + Ubuntu + Quagga join LINX

We had a dilemma at work last week. We were joining the London INternet eXchange, and had to find some suitable BGP routers to install in their racks, but since power is somewhat limited in London data centres at the moment, we had to find something that used less than 150W of power draw.

The solution? A pair of Mac Minis running Ubuntu and Quagga with two 24 port HP gigabit switches.