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My Firefox keeps crashing for some reason. I’m running version 2 on my Xubuntu Gutsy machine at work, and it will hang for a long time. So I tried using the xkill command to get rid of it. You can run xkill by typing it in a terminal or in the “run program” dialog (hit Alt-F2 to get the “run program” dialog box.) Xkill will turn your mouse cursor into a skull and crossbones. Then you just click on the window that you want to kill. Just make sure the window you want to kill is on top, as you won’t be able to Alt+Tab once xkill is running.
Anyway, the last time it happened, Firefox was so hung up that the entire window disappeared all except for the title bar. When I ran xkill, I wasn’t sure what I should click on, so I tried clicking on the Firefox button that shows up in my task list applet in the panel. Well, that killed the panel.
I wasn’t sure what to do from there. I couldn’t remember how to reboot using the terminal (which I already had open). But I did remember that I could open Firefox again just by running the firefox command in the terminal (you can also run it using Alt+F2). Once I got Firefox back up, I ran a Google search to try to find the command to restart the panel. So here it is, in case you too make the fatal mistake of killing your panel. Hit Alt+F2 to get the run dialog and then the command xfce4-panel. Your panel should pop right back up.
Next time, I’ll be sure to click on the little strip of title bar on my hung Firefox window when I want to xkill it.
I installed Xubuntu on a HP Pavilion dv9000 laptop and have enjoyed it so far. I didn’t run into any trouble with the install. I also installed the ubuntu-desktop and kubuntu-desktop packages on it to try and get a feel for the Gnome and KDE environments, although I keep gravitating back to Xfce.
My main concern, though, was that I couldn’t get the wireless to connect — not in any of the window managers. After a little research I realized that Broadcom (the makers of my onboard wireless card) don’t play nice with Linux (those bastards). I tried installing drivers and ended up getting the b43 driver, though I’m not even sure if that’s the one I needed for my wireless.
Eventually I hit on the fancy little package called wicd (Wireless Interface Connection Daemon, pronounced “wicked”). After installing it (using a wired connection, of course) I was able to open the Wicd Manager in the Xubuntu menu (Applications -> Network -> Wicd) and set up both my wired and wireless connections. It found my wireless signal immediately and now I’m free from wires on my laptop.
A word of warning: wicd will disable your wired connection when you first install it, but you just have to open wicd and set up the wired connection to get back up and running.
For more info on wicd visit this article on Linux.com.
A few months back, my friend Chad inspired me with a post describing his foray into the world of open source. I’ve been a fan of open source for a while. I dabbled in OpenOffice.org, an open source office suite with applications that give MS Office a run for its money — partly by not even charging any money. I have even administered and used a lot of applications that run on LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP). I blog in on a WordPress.com platform, administer a SMF forum and a MediaWiki field guide, and developed a blog for a friend using WordPress.org. In all that, though, I never learned anything about Linux itself since all that fun stuff happened in the background on whatever served provider I used.
So when I saw Chad’s blog and that he had actually installed and used (at times, exclusively) Linux as an operating system for his day-to-day computing needs, it excited me. As much as I appreciated the freedom of not having to pay money for great software, the thought of getting away with not even having to pay for Windows as an operating system blew my mind. Could I find complete freedom from the chains of the corporate computing world?
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