Tag: install

How-To: Ubuntu Font Private Beta Testing

With so many people talking about the new Ubuntu Font that’s soon to be released to the public for beta testing, I thought I would take the opportunity to post a quick and easy guide to testing these fonts before everyone else does!

Preview of the new Ubuntu Font in action..

If you’d like to test these fonts, then you need to follow these instructions exactly (since the ppa is “private”). I found other site instructions a bit confusing, so if you follow my directions you should have these installed effortlessly and pain free in no time.

Install

  1. With your LaunchPad.net account, go to the following “Kubuntu Users” link and Join their team:
    https://launchpad.net/~kubuntu-users
  2. Now open a new tab and navigate to the following link. Once there, you should see the PPA listed as “ppa (ppa:ubuntu-font-beta-testing/ppa)” in your list and it may be the only one. There should be a link labeled “View” to the far right of it, click it.
    http://launchpad.net/people/+me/+archivesubscriptions
  3. The link that you just opened when clicking view should list software sources for this PPA that are unique to you. Open your software sources list file and copy these two source lines to the bottom, save and close (using the following command to open the sources).
    sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list
  4. Add the PPA key so the package is authenticated properly when you install:
    sudo apt-key adv –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com –recv-keys 42F834EC
  5. Update your software sources. Your new access to the private PPA may take between 5-15 minutes before its processed, so if you see errors for this software source in the terminal, be patient and try updating again in a few minutes.:
    sudo apt-get update
  6. Install the font:
    sudo apt-get install ubuntu-private-fonts
  7. Now that the fonts are install, apply them by right clicking on your Desktop -> Change Desktop Background -> Fonts (tab):
Applying the new font..

You should now have the new font installed. Good luck and enjoy!

Installing Pidgin in Linux from Source

pidginAs many Linux users know by now, Gaim has been renamed for a second time to Pidgin due to legal issues with AOL over the use of ‘AIM’. Many distros of Linux operating systems still distribute the popular messenger client in older versions that are still under the title Gaim. I’m not the kind of person to use outdated software, so updating to Pidgin was one of the first things that I did when I made the move from Windows Vista to Ubuntu. I found the task to be a bit more lengthy than I had intended.

Most distros have communities that contribute packages that can install applications in a one step process by gathering all dependencies that are needed and installing them with the application. However, the great site that I’ve found for Debian packages seems to have a few packages lagging behind. I can’t have that. Who wants to install an older version of software than what is currently offered on the applications official site? Unfortunately there are no Debian packages available from Pidgin. That is not a problem! First things first:

  • Go to your Add or Remove application and completely remove anything associated with Gaim.
  • Open a terminal and install the following dev packages with the following commands (*The following terminal commands are for APT software package management systems. To use these commands with a different package manager you need to edit the syntax accordingly):
    • sudo apt-get install libglib2.0-dev
    • sudo apt-get install libxml2-dev
    • sudo aptitude install libnss-dev
    • sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev
  • Go to www.Pidgin.im and download the source package.
  • Extract the source package and navigate to the folder that the files were extracted to in a terminal window.
  • You now need to configure and build Pidgin from the source files. Use the following commands in the terminal window to successfully configure Pidgin for your platform:
    • sudo ./configure
    • sudo make
    • sudo make install
  • Pidgin should now be successfully installed on your computer! You can now delete the source files that you downloaded from www.Pidgin.im.

If you experienced any problems while trying to follow this guide, please leave me a comment and I’ll try to help out. Always use Google.com to search for error messages before seeking help from others. Your questions are most likely already answered somewhere!