Tag: Ubuntu

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Geeky/Programming

Reset your "Lost" Password in Ubuntu

I have a few VM’s setup at home. One is Ubuntu. I haven’t been on it for a while. Figured I knew what the password was when I set it up months ago, but for some reason it wasn’t work. So how to change?

1. Reboot into “recovery mode”

Reboot, hold down shift and the boot menu will come up, choose the option with (recovery) at the end.

2. Mount as root

Once through that, choose the option to mount as root.

3. Reset Password

#passwd username (username is the username you want to reset)..

enter the password twice, and then

#reboot now

Bonus: If you get “Authentication token manipulation error” as I did, you need to remount your file system as read/write at the root prompt.

#mount -rw -o remount /

Bonus 2: Once you actually get into the system, it is going to probably complain about your keyrings password not matching. Goto your home folder (make sure you have all folders shown) and goto .gnome2/keyrings and delete and files and reboot.

Overall not that bad, but yeah, don’t lose your passwords. Keep them in a password manager! (I didn’t with this one of course, didn’t keep it in my head either!)

Categories
Geeky/Programming Life

Cool Things I Have Been Doing On the Computer Lately

In the past couple of months, weeks, whatever (time flies) I have been doing some pretty cool things on the computer, in a wide range of areas. Just want to get them down on paper (you know what I mean)…

1. Yammer – working hard on growing Yammer community, external networks, just getting engagement and showing the benefits. It’s fun.

2. Kinect – did some Kinect hacking. On my own then with the group, got some cool stuff to show. It is crazy how easy it is to get something up and running with Kinect and the SDK. I see this stuff taking off in the coming months/years.

3. Azure – dorking around with Azure, looking at what it can and can’t do, what it could do well, how it would fit in with everything.

4. SQL 2012/Power View – been playing around with SQL 2012 since “Denali”, but now its got an official launch date (March 7th) and things are getting real. Power View demos online, trying to figure out how SQL 2012 is going to fit into our infrastructure and just learning as much as I can about it.

5. Ruby – been getting into Ruby and Ruby on Rails on my Mac, git, sqlite3, heroku, etc. Trying to learn more things that just the .NET ecosystem.

6. Ubuntu – same here, set up a VM, been trying to use it consistently, trying to get the other viewpoints from Windows and Mac and where things are at. Keep up with the joneses so to speak.

7. Android – I picked up a Samsung Galaxy (Verizon 4G) a few weeks ago and have been using it. I still love my iPhone, but getting more into Android. Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) is a pretty good OS, there are still quirks, but its better. Verizon sucks around where I live btw.

8. Google+/Picasa Web Albums – been getting this into my photo workflow, for sharing and backup. Liking it so far.

9. SharePoint 2010/FAST – been researching and reading FAST server like crazy trying to see how it will fit in with a potential project. I think it could be amazing. more to come.

10. SMS – been playing around with different frameworks, and seeing how they compare, trying things out. Using Voice and SMS is all the rage these days. (Hall and Oates thing anyone?)

Bonus: Nothing with computers, but I have been really getting into brewing beer/homebrewing. I think we have made 5 batches now, and the ones I have tasted so far are really good. It is a fun hobby and breaks up the constant technology I am involved in. More to come here too.

And much much more. Time is limited, time to post is limited. Getting out there and doing cool things is fun, and sharing them is fun too. Gotta find the right balance. I hope everyone is having a cool 2012 so far.

Categories
Geeky/Programming

Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron – Second Chance, Wireless Works and was Easy!

So, last night I decided to give Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron another try. I blogged previously about setting it up and getting wireless to work, and what a nightmare it was

What I did this time was this. First off, I have computers everywhere, a MacBook, MacBook Pro, Dell Desktop and Dell Laptop. I have Vista on the desktop, and the Dell laptop I wasn’t doing much with, so I decided to load up Ubuntu on it. After installing, I connected it to a wired connection, downloaded the OS updates and let is sit for a while. After a few minutes it popped up with an alert telling my that there were updated drivers for the BroadCom wireless nic card. Wha?!? I open the alert, hit enable, and it downloads new drivers and fwcutter and lo and behold, wireless starts working with no hassles. I am on Ubuntu right now dinking around. So what is the first thing I do? Well make it look like a Mac of course.

So now I have Mac OS 10.5, Vista, and Ubuntu 8.04 all running on different machines. I would say right now though I do like the Mac the best. I use Vista for anything that really needs Windows. I will probably setup VMWare Fusion again on the MBP, but a smaller partition. I moved all my music there (80+ GB) and had to free up some space, my Vista partition was 60 GB.

Categories
Geeky/Programming Ramblings

Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron – Linux is Cool, Linux Wireless is Not – 10 Step Program

Gah. I have a love hate relationship with Linux. It is pretty cool, can do pretty much everything. But.. But.. wireless support is just a joke. Same issues with Yellow Dog Linux on the PS3.

Wireless should JUST WORK.

I downloaded the 8.04 iso, and burnt it to cd. Installed it in windows, which is cool, a 10 GB partition. rebooted and the windows boot manager lets you choose , Vista or Ubuntu.

After getting set up, logged in, I tried to get on wireless. Doesn’t work. The thing is with Linux, is if you start configuring stuff here and there, it can get WAY out of hand, and then its just wacked. That happened, so I reboot to Vista, uninstall Linux, reinstall.

Now, lets search the forums, blogs and what not to get wireless to work. These are the steps I took to get it to work. My laptop is Inspiron E1705 with Broadcom wireless..

Fire up terminal..

1) sudo apt-get install build-essential

2) wget http://bu3sch.de/b43/fwcutter/b43-fwcutter-011.tar.bz2

3) tar xjf b43-fwcutter-011.tar.bz2

4) cd b43-fwcutter-011

5) make

6) cd..

7) wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2

8) tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2

9) cd broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0/kmod

10) sudo ../../b43-fwcutter-011/b43-fwcutter -w “/lib/firmware� wl_apsta.o

Now, reboot a few times, and then maybe.. just maybe your wireless will connect and work. Once it latches on, it seems to be fine. I am on Ubuntu right now, writing this post.

Only 10 steps to get wifi working, all manual, and just a PITA. Granted it took me about an hour to patch together 18 different ways to get it to work..

Now I know why people use Mac and Windows. There is now way regular users are going to put up with that. Its like having to turn a crank to get your engine in your car to start. Just ain’t going to happen. Maybe in version 9 🙂