The GUI way

1. Applications->Add/Remove Applications.
2. Type xine into the search box at the top.
3. Find “Xine extra plugins” in the list and tick it.
4. Find and select “Gstreamer extra codec” and “Sun Java 5.0 Plugin”
5. Press OK.

The Command Line way

This is much quicker as long as you know the names of the packages you want to install.

1. Install codecs etc:

   sudo apt-get install sox vorbis-tools flac lame mpg321 faad faac

2. Install the Xine-backend version of Totem:

   sudo apt-get install totem-xine

Flash v9

The version of Flash in Ubuntu 6.10 is v7 which is quite old. Lots of websites now require version 9, which is easy to install in Firefox:

1. Go to http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/about/
2. Click on the green jigsaw piece icon to install the current version of Flash.

Parts of this are taken from here and here.

1. Install smbfs:

   sudo apt-get install smbfs

2. Create a folder in the /media folder:

   sudo mkdir /media/mp3

3. Mount the share manually to test it:

   sudo smbmount //computer/MP3 /media/mp3 -o username=USER,password=PASSWORD,uid=1000,mask=000

   Note: Change USER to your linux username. The uid=USER,gid=users is important because if you dont use that, only root will have access to write files to the mounted share.

4. Unmount it:

   sudo smbumount /media/mp3

5. Add an entry to /etc/fstab so it is mounted on boot:

   sudo gedit /etc/fstab

   and add this line at the bottom:

   //computer/MP3 /media/mp3   smbfs  auto,credentials=/home/USER/.credentials,uid=1000,umask=000,user   0 0

6. Create the .smbcredentials file in the user’s home directory:

   sudo gedit ~/.smbcredentials

   Add the following lines to the file, but change USER to your SMB username and PASSWORD to your SMB password.

   username=USER
   password=PASSWORD

7. Reload fstab:

sudo mount -a

NOTE: you could have included the username and password in the fstab but this way is more secure.

NOTE: Do not try and mount a folder on a share, it wont work. The source for an SMB mount has to be a share.

NOTE: Do not put a trailing “/” on the share path or the directory path, it will cause it to fail.

SMB Shares with spaces in the names

If you have an SMB share with a space in the path then replace the space with “\040” (This only applies to the entry in /etc/fstab, from the command line you can just enclose the share path in quotes)

The next thing to do is mount the network share so it can be accessed by SlimServer.

In the Ubuntu 6.10 official documentation there seem to be references to a utility in System->Administration->Disks but apparently the Disks utility was removed in v6.10. It’s not difficult to edit the /etc/fstab file as on any other Linux. There are instructions in the Ubuntu documentation and also here

How to mount Windows partitions (NTFS) on boot-up, and allow all users to read only

• Read #General Notes
• Read #How to list partition tables

e.g. Assumed that /dev/hda1 is the location of Windows partition (NTFS)

Local mount folder: /media/windows

sudo mkdir /media/windows
sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab_backup
gksudo gedit /etc/fstab

• Append the following line at the end of file

/dev/hda1    /media/windows ntfs  nls=utf8,umask=0222 0    0

• Save the edited file
• Read #How to remount /etc/fstab without rebooting

To remount without rebooting, type:

sudo mount -a

I’ve just installed Ubuntu 6.10 and I’m going to be recording my experiences here, mostly so I can refer back to it later when I can’t remember how I did things…

The computer I’m installing it on is an old Compaq Celeron 850 with 256MB RAM, a 60GB HDD and a Nvidia FX5200 graphics card. It is currently running Windows XP and is connected to the TV and hi-fi in my lounge for watching movies and browsing the web. I also want to run SlimServer – It’s current running on my main desktop PC and it’s a bit slow.

I’ve tried the Ubuntu 6.10 LiveCD and it seems to support most of the hardware including the wireless network card. Performance is a bit sluggish but I hope this is down to the fact that it’s running in 256MB RAM without a swap file.

The installation from the LiveCD is very easy and I managed to get it installed without problems. I was a bit worried about the partitioning, but it resized the old Windows XP partition and installed Grub on the MBR.

It now seems to be running quite well – it’s much more responsive than the LiveCD was and the dual boot with Windows XP is working properly.

My current todo list is:

• Mount the Windows partition automatically at boot
• Install newest Nvidia driver and configure TV out
• Install SlimServer
• Mount MP3 network share from main Windows PC – this is where all the music for SlimServer is stored.
• Install multimedia software – DivX etc.