Spotify the free music application for Windows and Mac has finally been officially ported to Linux, while this is only a preview build and currently unsupported it’s at least a step in the right direction and no more running the Windows version through Wine and all the trouble I had with that.

The main differences in this version is the lack of local music and that it’s only available to Premium subscribers while they are looking in to ways of “reliably” displaying ads for Free and Open users of it’s services.

With simple installation instructions for Ubuntu 10.04 and Debian Squeeze other Linux distribution users may be out in the cold for a while but I’m sure hacks and development with come quickly. Below are the instrutions given on Spotifys secret labs page:

More information can be found on their blog and secret labs pages.

:~$ gimp
gimp: fatal error: Failed to register GObject with DBusConnection

(script-fu:3100): LibGimpBase-WARNING **: script-fu: gimp_wire_read(): error

I fixed this error by removing opening Synaptic Package Manager and searching for appmenu-gtk, right click and mark for removal, once this has been done it should begin to work again.

There is a pretty quick fix for not being able to click flash on websites such as YouTube, just simply add the line below into the following file and restart your web browser and all should be fine:

sudo gedit /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/i386/linux/npviewer

Add in the line (above the last line):

export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1

BURG if you didn’t notice is GRUB backwards and actually stands for “Brand-new Universal loadeR from GRUB” which was probably decided a while after picking the letters.. Basically though it’s a much nicer looking alternative to the very dated looking GRUB bootloader.

Installation

Until only recently it’s seemed far too much hassle of installing something which only gets displayed for a couple of seconds at boot and isn’t seen again unless something goes wrong, but now that a PPA has been created for it (for Lucid anyway) it seems like its worth the very little bother.

First add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bean123ch/burg

Now type the following to install the loader, emulator and some themes:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install burg-pc burg-themes burg-emu

You’ll be prompted to do some configuration settings in order for it to install, for these I just hit enter for each with the default to options however make sure to double check!

Now that’s done try rebooting and you should now see a slightly different screen? If so you can get on to tweaking it to get it to look even nicer

Tweaking

Themes:

When on the new shiny bootloader hit the ‘T’ button to load a new popup menu which allows you to toggle between themes without the need to restart so pick a favourite (mine are Radiance and Sora Clean.)

Clean Up The Boot List:

If you’re like me and have a bunch of old kernels still cramming up your boot screen you might want to get rid of them, it’s easy enough just make sure to note down your current version and the older versions which you can see on the loader (the newest version will have the highest number). My versions were 2.6.32-22 and 2.6.32-21, so I wanted to remove the later and here’s how to do that:

Open Synaptic Package Manager (System-> Administration->Synaptic Package Manager)

search for the version you want to remove (eg mine was 2.6.32-21) right click on the checked ones and “Mark for Complete Removal”, if you are at all unsure about which version to remove it’s probably best you just leave it or ask someone to check.

Now in order to update BURG to notify changes have been made, run:

sudo update-burg

Set the BURG Screen Resolution:

Very simple to do, note down your screen resolution (you should be able to find that under System->Preferences->Monitors under Resolution) now you want to edit the following file and change the default size to the one that matches your screens.

sudo gedit /boot/burg/burg.cfg

Find the following line and replace the 640×480 with your resolution (for example I had to change mine to 1440×900)

set gfxmode=640×480

Save and close this file and you should be done.

If you want to try customising BURG more or if you’re having some problems you should check out their very useful help page:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Burg

Update:
Over at OMG! Ubuntu! they have found an even nice looking theme, so make sure to check that out: link

BURG if you didn’t notice is GRUB backwards and actually stands for “Brand-new Universal loadeR from GRUB” which was probably decided a while after picking the letters.. Basically though it’s a much nicer looking alternative to the very dated looking GRUB bootloader.
Installation
Until only recently it’s seemed far too much hassle of installing something which only gets displayed for a couple of seconds at boot and isn’t seen again unless something goes wrong, but now that a PPA has been created for it (for Lucid anyway) it seems like its worth the very little bother.
First add the PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bean123ch/burg
Now type the following to install the loader, emulator and some themes:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install burg-pc burg-themes burg-emu
You’ll be prompted to do some configuration settings in order for it to install, for these I just hit enter for each with the default to options however make sure to double check!

Now that’s done try rebooting and you should now see a slightly different screen? If so you can get on to tweaking it to get it to look even nicer
Tweaking
Themes:
When on the new shiny bootloader hit the ‘T’ button to load a new popup menu which allows you to toggle between themes without the need to restart so pick a favourite (mine are Radiance and Sora Clean.)
Clean Up The Boot List:
If you’re like me and have a bunch of old kernels still cramming up your boot screen you might want to get rid of them, it’s easy enough just make sure to note down your current version and the older versions which you can see on the loader (the newest version will have the highest number). My versions were 2.6.32-22 and 2.6.32-21, so I wanted to remove the later and here’s how to do that:
Open Synaptic Package Manager (System-> Administration->Synaptic Package Manager)
search for the version you want to remove (eg mine was 2.6.32-21) right click on the checked ones and “Mark for Complete Removal”, if you are at all unsure about which version to remove it’s probably best you just leave it or ask someone to check.
Now in order to update BURG to notify changes have been made, run:
sudo update-burg
Set the BURG Screen Resolution:
Very simple to do, note down your screen resolution (you should be able to find that under System->Preferences->Monitors under Resolution) now you want to edit the following file and change the default size to the one that matches your screens.
sudo gedit /boot/burg/burg.cfg
Find the following line and replace the 640×480 with your resolution (for example I had to change mine to 1440×900)
set gfxmode=640×480
Save and close this file and you should be done.
If you want to try customising BURG more or if you’re having some problems you should check out their very useful help page:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Burg

To run a JAR file from the command line in ubuntu using the following command:

java -jar filename.jar

Otherwise it is also possible to enable double clicking to run jar files too by the following simple steps:

1. Find the .jar file in the File Browser (a.k.a Nautilus)
2. Right click the .jar file > Properties
3. Click on the “Open With” tab along the top
4. Change the bullet to be Sun Java 6 Runtime
5. Click Close and you’re done.

Now you should be able to just double click the file and it will run just like most other files!

At University I am running Spotify through a proxy (and wine) which seems to result in lost of connections with 4 different error codes (shown below). What’s strange is I can usually get around 15/20 tracks at the start of the day without loosing connection and then it becomes gradually more frequent until I can’t even play an entire song.

If anyone else is experiencing these issues and have any ideas on how to workaround it or fix it please leave a comment and I’ll make sure to update this post if I get anywhere with the issue.

Connection lost. Reconnecting (error code:101)
Connection lost. Reconnecting (error code:107)
Connection lost. Reconnecting (error code:9)
Connection lost. Reconnecting (error code:114)

Quite a few times I have encountered this problem, which I think is caused when the soundcard was recently used by another program and might still be busy but it means Spotify can’t play music, so a quick fix for this is to load winecfg and test your sound card which seems to force wine into tacking control of the it.

1. Close Spotify
2. In terminal type winecfg
3. Click on the Audio tab (should be in the top middle)
4. Click “Test Audio” and if you hear a sound this should work..
5. Re-open Spotify and check a track, if it’s playing it’s worked otherwise you may have a different issue..

At work I can’t afford to have my Ubuntu system update and possibly wipe out some important libraries I need, and I get pretty tired of closing the Update Manager every time it decides I need to update so here’s how to stop it:

1. System > Administration > Update Manager
2. Open Settings (in the bottom left corner)
3. Under Automatic Updates
4. Uncheck “Check for updates: “
5. Hit Close and the settings should be saved.

After updating my Ubuntu Karmic (9.10) to Lucid (10.04) I was browsing the new features, one of which I couldn’t seem to find. The “Me Menu” which has been talked about quite a lot recently and referred to on the feature page of Lucid: “New in 10.04. Read and update your social networks instantly. Ubuntu’s new Me Menu lets you access your Facebook and Twitter accounts (and more) straight away. Connect to your chat channels and make updates through a single window. Being sociable has never been so easy.”
After a little searching on the applets under add to panel (right click on a panel and it should be the top option) I found it, it’s not called the “Me Menu” at all in fact it’s called the “Indicator Applet” and “Indicator Applet Session”. So if you happen to be asking yourself “Where is the me menu in ubuntu 10.04″” or “what is the ubuntu me menu called?” and find yourself to my site, there is your answer. Why they didn’t actually call it the Me Menu and save me a bunch of hassle I have no idea.