I was kinda forced to upgrade to 14.10, in part curiosity and the other part others asking me how to fix common upgrade issues; especially when running on obscure laptops and different hardware configs.
In this case, I used my trusty Acer E1 from 2012 to upgrade from LTS 14.04, so what did I need to do to fix my post upgrade blues, and a few other tips if you are new to Ubuntu..
Screen Brightness Controls No Longer Works
Firstly the screen brightness always seems to fail on many upgrades so here is what you can do to fix it.
Edit GRUB:
sudo nano /etc/default/grub
change GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT to
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_osi=Linux acpi_backlight=vendor"
then:
sudo update-grub
Reboot.
Controls are working.
USB Network Drivers (EW-7811Un)
Step 1: Install the new driver
Go to the download folder and open the terminal for the folder “RTL8192CU_8188CUS_8188CE-VAU_linux_v3.1.2590.20110922″.
Then run:
sudo bash install.sh
(note 1: it will ask for your user’s password – as will any command which is using the sudo = super user do prefix)
(note 2: in order to paste in the terminal, use ctrl+shift+v instead of just ctrl+v as is in the GUI and other editors)
Step 2: blacklist the old driver
Next, we want to
edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
Getting there using the GUI wouldn’t work, because ubuntu wouldn’t let us save the changes we will make. Instead, just open the terminal and type:
sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
Go to the end of the file and add the line:
blacklist rtl8192cu
Step 3: remove and re-insert the network USB (and reboot)
Once done – I was finally able to see and connect to my home Internet network.
Compiz Settings Manager / Minimize on Click
Minimize on click has landed in Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic/14.04 Trusty and it is disabled by default.
You can enable it from Compiz settings manager. To install CCSM enter following command in Terminal:
sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager
Go to Dash and Search "CCSM" > Then go to Unity plugin > Tick 'Minimize Single Window Applications' feature
Disable Overlay Scrollbars
Personally I cant stand the overlay for scroll bars that's used in Ubuntu, so to switch to good old regular scrollbars use command.
gsettings set com.canonical.desktop.interface scrollbar-mode normal
gsettings reset com.canonical.desktop.interface scrollbar-mode
Show User Name on Panel
By default current logged-in username doesn't show on panel, so you can enable it easily.
To switch it on
gsettings set com.canonical.indicator.session show-real-name-on-panel true
Change the true to false to turn it back off again.
(I'll add other tips along the way)
Ubuntu Tweak now 14.04 Compatible
The PPA for Ubuntu Tweak is ready, you can update Ubuntu Tweak from terminal:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tualatrix/ppasudo apt-get updatesudo apt-get install ubuntu-tweakGlobal Menu Changes
The Global Menu can be optionally switched in favour of Local Integrated Menus (LIM) - aka - more traditional window based menus.
The reason for this additional ability is ostensibly due to the increasing prevalence of high-resolution displays and as such the perceived mouse-travel from application to the global-menu would be relatively large.
To toggle the global menu off or on can be achieved via the appearance control-panel applet:
The above can be achieved using the terminal command:
gsettings set com.canonical.Unity integrated-menus true
Integrated menus can be disabled (i.e. switch global menu back on)
gsettings set com.canonical.Unity integrated-menus falseGrive (Google Drive Plug-in)
- Add the Grive Tools PPA to your software sources and install Grive Tools. Open a terminal window and enter:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:thefanclub/grive-tools
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install grive-tools
- Search Ubuntu Dash for Grive Setup and start the application.
- Follow the on-screen instructions
Do not install the indicator until the first sync has completed.
Limitations:
- Auto Sync only detects changes in your local Google Drive files and folders.
- Symbolic links are not supported
- Downloading Google Documents is not yet possible.
- Very long file-names can cause sync problems.
Install Oracle Java on Ubuntu
sudo apt-get purge openjdk*Now you can install Java 7 by adding the following repository:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install oracle-java7-installerBackup Your Repo PPA List
What you can do is to backup your home directory and save a list of all packages that you have installed. To save the list of installed software use following command:
sudo dpkg --get-selections > package_list
This will create a file with a list of all pakcages/softwares that are installed on this system. You will need to backup this file to somewhere safe.
Then when you reinstall ubuntu on your machine you can use the following command to install all these software
sudo dpkg --set-selections < packages_list
This command WILL NOT install anything. It will just mark the packages for install. To install them, run the following command:
sudo apt-get -u dselect-upgrade
This will take time to complete as your system will download and install all the packages. After this command is complete replace your current home directory with the one you backedup previously.
Brightness Controls in Unity Bar
You can set your screen brightness by using the indicator menu or the scroll wheel of your mouse over the indicator icon. Also it supports to control screen brightness with custom keyboard shortcuts.
To install the indicator, hit Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal, copy and paste following commands and run one by one (Supports for Ubuntu 13.04 Raring, 12.10 Quantal, 12.04 Precise, 11.10 Oneiric):
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:indicator-brightness/ppasudo apt-get updatesudo apt-get install indicator-brightness