Most Useful Ubuntu Utilities

8 Most Useful Ubuntu Utilities To Make Your Experience Better

          If you are a beginner in Ubuntu or an expert, it doesn’t matter, what we want is just to enrich your Ubuntu experience by every possible means. Ubuntu has much more to offer than initially it seems. You can refine the look of your Unity desktop, tweak the desktop to perform system maintenance and whatever else you wish to do. There are a huge array of utilities which can customise Ubuntu in a way that it meets all your needs. Here are eight best utilities or apps to make your Ubuntu experience much and much better.

1. Unity Tweak Tool:
       Unity Tweak Tool is the best example of customisation options on Ubuntu as it offers a set of system tweaks for both Ubuntu and Unity desktop. It’s packed with full of switches and control and you can configure Unity as however you wish. You can change the GTK theme and icon set without much hassle, adjust launcher size, add or remove workspaces and more. Unity Tweak Tool is available for free at the Software Center.

2. Disk Utility:
       This is an awesome utility application which allows easy management of any disk drive in the computer. Users can format, partition and erase hard drives easily and also clone, copy and backup from one disk to another one. It’s very helpful for a Ubuntu novice who is not very aware of the formatting and partition requirements in the operating system.

3. Proprietary Drivers:
       You must install proprietary drivers which allow hardware to function in a better way than open source drivers, which come with Ubuntu. It depends on your system’s hardware, if the drivers can be installed or not. The most common types of hardware which have these drivers available are AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards and Broadcom wireless chipsets. The drivers can be found at Software & Updates utility.

4. Graphical Firewall Config Utility:
          Install graphical firewall configuration utility to enable and configure a firewall for your Ubuntu system. Linux is usually immune to viruses but hackers can gain remote access to the systems if there is no firewall which protects network ports. Run the command: sudo apt-get install gufw and configure firewall.

5. WinFF: GUI for FFMPEG:
      It provides graphical user interface or GUI for FFmpeg. It also helps convert a video file to any format and WinFF can convert multiple files in multiple formats at one time. There are also a variety of preset conversion settings for common formats and devices in this package.

6. Unity Privacy Indicator:
           Privacy is a big issue and Privacy Indicator is a useful tool to help you stay informed about which files, folders and services are getting accessed and logged in your Ubuntu desktop. If you click on the ‘eye’ icon, you can enable the privacy settings on your system.

7. System Load Indicator:
       If you want to keep a tab on apps and your hardware status, then it’s an easy job on Linux. There is  no dearth of mediums through which you can monitor CPU usage, network traffic or GPU temperature. System Load Indicator is available from the Ubuntu Software Center which has a host of configuration options.

8. Disk Space Visualiser:
         In this era of hard drives which have huge storage options, we don’t worry much about disk space and all. But if there is smaller SSD and multiple partitions are run and a virtual machine is worked upon with a fixed size virtual disk, then freeing up disk space might become a huge requirement. GNOME Disk Space Visualiser, which comes as default in Ubuntu, is very useful for locating hidden logs, cache files and media files.

Eight Things To Avoid In Ubuntu

          

         Ubuntu is clearly one of the most popular Linux distributions right now! While we know what to do with Ubuntu, many don't know the things to avoid in Ubuntu. Have a look..

1. Don’t use installation scripts – Installation scripts like Ultamatix, Ubuntu Tweak, Ubuntu Sources List Generator or Ubuntuzilla are quite risky as they are third party scripts. Listed below are a few of the most dangerous scripts you must avoid -

a) Ultamatix – This is the most harmful of the lot as it can lead to irreparable damage to your system by uploading all sorts of unstable versions of the application. It uses forced permits which include --assume-yes and –force-yes. The only solution to this problems is reinstalling a new version of Ubuntu.

b) Ubuntu Tweak and Ubuntu Sources List Generator – Using these can lead to addition of many PPA's and third party software. There is no clarity regarding where each one comes from and if there is a verification key.

c) Ubuntuzilla – This can lead to bizarre malfunctions in Firefox as the Ubuntuzilla version of Firefox is "original upstream software" that is not totally adapted to and tested for your Ubuntu version.

2. Don’t use cleaning applications – As per sites.google.com, cleaning applications like Computer Janitor or Bleachbit can damage more than you desire. They are not reliable as without you getting any clue about it they will end up removing a lot thereby damaging the system.

3. Avoid using PPAs – The software that is sourced from PPA's (third-party repositories) are not tested in your Ubuntu version. These can cause harm and destabilize your system. Also, it leads you becoming dependent on the sole- owner of the PPA who is not going to be checked.

4. Be careful of using .deb files - The files that have extension .deb are separate installers similar to .exe installers for Windows. They can be downloaded from certain websites by double clicking on them. You will be asked to enter your password and these will be automatically installed in your system. These files are not checked and not verified. They might damage your system as they may have n malware which include spyware etc.

5. Don’t trust Firefox and Chromium/Chrome extensions – You cannot trust these extensions blindly as the more the number of extensions are installed by you the slower Firefox and Chromium/Chrome become. Further, a few add-ons can cause malfunctions with other add-ons or in the browser itself.

6. Avoid mixing desktop environments – Installing Unity/Gnome and complete KDE desktop will convert your PC computer into a mess affecting performance and causing instability and malfunctions. To ensure your operating system’s efficiency install either Ubuntu (Gnome/Unity) or Kubuntu (KDE).

7. Don’t Remove Any Default Application of Ubuntu – The reason being that the default installation is a linked system that depends on shared supporting files accounting for the smooth running of the operating system.

8. Don’t Use Your Production Machine for Experiments – Only experiment on play boxes or dedicated testing machines as it might result in you landing up with an unusable computer. The best thing to do is to only upload LTS versions of Ubuntu on production machines as they are much better and reliable. You can divide your computer chores into three -

- Work horses - Install LTS versions;

- Play boxes - Install newest version of Ubuntu every six months;

- Testing machines – Carry out experiments and bug hunting.

Top Things To Do After Installing Ubuntu 14.04/13.10/13.04/12.10

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and  its official flavours have been released a couple of days before. In this brief how-to, let us discuss how we can enhance Ubuntu 14.04 and other older versions further for day to day activities. This post we will share some interesting insights and ideas about what you can and should do after a successful installation of Ubuntu.

1. Update System

    Before proceeding to upgrade, the first and important thing to do is update/upgrade software repositories and make sure your systems contains latest versions of all software.

sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get upgrade

2. Configure And Tweak Ubuntu

2.1 Disable Unity Dash Online Search feature

       Whenever, you start typing in Unity Dash to search for an application or a file in your computer, your search terms will be automatically sent to third parties such as Amazon, and the third parties will display the relevant results (mostly ads) depending upon your search terms. If you don’t like this feature and feel this is really annoying to you, you can disable it.

2.2 Ubuntu Tweak

      Ubuntu Tweak is a must have application for Ubuntu and it’s derivatives. It is an application to configure Ubuntu easier for everyone. It provides many useful desktop and system options that the default desktop environment doesn’t provide. Using Ubuntu Tweak you can install all needed applications with a simple click, you can change the window buttons from Left to right…etc.

2.3 Ubuntu After Install

        Like Ubuntu Tweak, there is an another similar tool called “Ubuntu After install” available. Ubuntu After Install is a tool that can be used to install some of the best and essential software after installing the Ubuntu desktop. It has a bunch of useful applications, and will automate the installation process on a newly installed machine to get near perfect desktop. I would not say a complete desktop for all users, but a near perfect desktop. This tool saves your time and effort, and installs all latest versions of softwares by automatically adding the respective PPA’s to keep the installed softwares up to date on your Ubuntu system.

       The above two tools are enough to get a near perfect Ubuntu desktop for daily usage. These tools will help you to install every essential applications and tweak your system as per your needs for daily usage. You can omit all other things given below. Still you want to continue, go on and check them.

3. Desktop Environments

3.1 Cinnamon

     Cinnamon is a GNOME 3 fork that allow you to have a panel at the bottom with a classic Menu, this is useful for people that want to use Ubuntu with a classic Bottom Menu.

Cinnamon latest version for Ubuntu 14.04 is not yet ported to the stable PPA, however we can install it using nightly builds which is not recommended for the production system.

If you want to install the most recent version of cinnamon, then follow the steps below.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gwendal-lebihan-dev/cinnamon-nightly sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install cinnamon

       Logout from the current session and select Cinnamon as your desktop session at the user login prompt. Now you’ll able to get the Cinnamon Desktop Environment.

3.2 Gnome

             To install GNOME 3 in Ubuntu 14.04, enter the following command:

sudo apt-get install gnome-shell ubuntu-gnome-desktop

During installation, the installer will ask you to select the login manager of your choice (LightDM is the default Unity manager and GDM is the GNOME default — Both will work).

4. Configure Online Accounts

One of the top things you need to do is to setup your online accounts (Facebook, twitter…). To do that click on the gear button on the top right corner and select System Settings.

 

Then, select Online Accounts (see below).

Now setup your online accounts and get notifications in Ubuntu. For example, if you want to add your Facebook account, click on the Facebook icon.

Enter your facebook username and password, and click Log in to authorize.

5. System Monitoring Eye Candy Tools

5.1 Conky

           Conky is a free, light-weight system monitor for X, that displays any information on your desktop. There are many nice themes available for conky that can display clock, CPU usage, RAM usage, swap, disk, net and more.

5.2 Don’t like the default icons, Wanna try some cool icons?

Try the following cool Icon collections.

Want to change the default icons to something that match your taste? Check this nice collection of icons for Ubuntu (PPA included).

6. Multimedia

6.1 VLC Media Player

         VLC is the best media player for Linux it play almost everything, it has many features that you can not find in any other media player, read this post if you want to know what VLC can do: 25 things you can do with VLC Media player!

You can install VLC from Ubuntu Software Center or via terminal by using the following command:

sudo apt-get install vlc

Or install the most recent version 2.1.1 using the following PPA.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:videolan/stable-daily 
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install vlc

6.2 XMBC

     XBMC is an award-winning free and open source (GPL) software media player and entertainment hub for digital media. XBMC is available for Linux, OS X, Windows, and the original Xbox. While XBMC functions very well as a standard media player application for your computer, it has been designed to be the perfect companion for your HTPC. Supporting an almost endless range of remote controls, and combined with its beautiful interface and powerful skinning engine, XBMC feels very natural to use from the couch and is the ideal solution for your home theater.

Open terminal and copy the following commands:

sudo apt-get install xbmc

6.3 Openshot video editor

        My favorite Video editor is Openshot, the best existing actually for Linux. You can install Openshot from Ubuntu Software Center, but if you want to install the latest release, you can do that by adding the following repositories:

Note: PPA is not yet working in 13.10 at the time of writing this article. Hope it will be updated soon.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openshot.developers/ppa sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install openshot openshot-doc

7. Install Common Codecs And Enable DVD playback

          Perhaps, installing a few common codecs might give you better playback for your media files.

sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly libxine1-ffmpeg gxine mencoder libdvdread4 totem-mozilla icedax tagtool easytag id3tool lame nautilus-script-audio-convert libmad0 mpg321 gstreamer1.0-libav

To play encrypted DVDs, the libdvdcss2 package is essential. libdvdcss is a simple library designed for accessing DVDs like a block device without having to bother about the decryption.

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/./install-css.sh

7.1 Enable Flash Support On Browsers

      For Ubuntu 32 bit & 64 bit: To be able to watch some videos and see flash website in your browser (Firefox/Chrome), you need to install flash plugin, go to Ubuntu Software Center and search word “flash” and install it.

Alternatively enter the following command to install flash plugins.

sudo apt-get install flashplugin-installer

8. Torrent Softwares

8.1 uTorrent

       uTorrent is a lightweight and efficient BitTorrent client for Linux, Windows OS and Mac OS. The installation of uTorrent in Linux is different from Windows and Mac OS. In Linux, uTorrent runs as a web server. You will access uTorrent from your browser. You should start the uTorrent server in order to access it from your browser.

8.2 Deluge

         The Deluge application was designed to be a full-featured torrent client. Deluge uses libtorrent in its back-end and PyGTK for its user interface and is currently usable on POSIX-compliant operating systems. It is intended to bring a native, full-featured client to GTK desktop environments such as GNOME and Xfce. An official Windows port is also available.

Open terminal and type the following commands:

sudo apt-get install deluge

9. Messengers

       Here is the list of recommended Messengers for your system. Don’t install everything. Install one by one and pick up the right one for your requirement and delete the rest.

9.1 Pidgin

     The best messenger client and 30 plugins, you can do voice and video chat with friends.

To install Pidgin, enter the following command:

$ sudo apt-get install pidgin

9.2 aMSN

     aMSN is a free windows Live Messenger clone. aMSN attempts to emulate the look and feel of Windows Live Messenger, and supports many of its features.

aMSN has many features which are not present in Windows Live Messenger. Users can set alarms, are able to see others who have removed them from their contact list, and are able to open many profiles at once. It is also very customizable, with extensions and themes available at the main site.

To install aMsn, enter the following command in your terminal.

$ sudo apt-get install amsn

9.3 Jitsi

      Jitsi is an open source and multi platform audio/video Internet phone and instant messenger written in Java. It supports some of the most popular instant messaging and telephony protocols such as SIP, Jabber/XMPP (and hence Facebook and Google Talk), AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo! Messenger.

For details about Jitsi please check our previous article in the following link.

10. Gaming & Emulators

10.1 Steam

       As you may know, Steam is an ultimate gaming platform developed by Valve corporation. Steam is available for GNU Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. Recently, Valve has developed and released SteamOS, a Linux based distribution built around Steam client. You can either download and install SteamOS on your system, or just download and install the steam client to play games on your existing operating system.

To install Steam On Ubuntu 14.04, enter the following command:

sudo apt-get install steam

Click Ok to continue.

Accept the License agreement.

Now, the steam will be installed on your system. Launch it either from Dash or Menu.

At the first launch, Steam will check for updates and download and install them if updates available.

 

After updating Steam, you can enter into steam and start playing games.

 

If you don’t have an account, create it using the CREATE NEW ACCOUNT link.

This is how my Steam dashboard looks.

10.2 Gaming made easy with Playdeb

     If you are a grate fan of gaming so is important to add PlayDeb repositories to your Lucid Lynx. PlayDeb is a gaming repository for Ubuntu aimed to provide titles already available on getdeb.net in an easier to install and update format. You can install many games by a simple click.

• Click to install PlayDeb repositories

10.3 Wine

       Wine enables Linux, Mac, FreeBSD, and Solaris users to run Windows applications without a copy of Microsoft Windows. Wine is free software under constant development. Other platforms may benefit as well.

sudo apt-get install wine

11. Sharing Files/Folders

11.1 Samba

      In order to share folders in Raring Ringtail with other Linux and windows machines in your network, you will need to install and configure Samba

11.2 Gigola

       Gigola is an another option to share files between Linux and Windows systems. Unlike Samba, we can use Gigola to send files between Linux-to-Linux and Linux-to-Windows systems.

12. Extras & Miscellaneous

12.1 Install Archive Management Apps

       Install the following packages will allow you to deal with almost all and any zip formated files.

sudo apt-get install unace unrar zip unzip p7zip-full p7zip-rar sharutils rar uudeview mpack arj cabextract file-roller

12.2 Y PPA Manager

     Y PPA Manager is a GUI tool to easily add PPAs, search a package in all Launchpad PPAs, remove duplicate PPAs (only works with separate .list files), backup PPAs and other PPA-related tasks. Check out the Launchpad page for a complete features list.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/y-ppa-manager 

sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install y-ppa-manager

Y-PPA-Manager can be launched either from Dash or Menu.

12.3 Install Java 7

      Java is fast, secure, and reliable programming and computing platform. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. To install java simply run the following command from your terminal.

sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jdk

If you want to try oracle-java 7, try the following steps.

First you need to remove OpenJDK for this run the following command from your terminal:

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-installer

To remove Java 7, run this in terminal:

sudo apt-get remove oracle-java7-installer

12.4 FileZilla

     Filezilla is one of the best ftp client for Linux.

Install it via command line:

sudo apt-get install filezilla

12.5 Dropbox

     Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring all your photos, docs, and videos anywhere. This means that any file you save to your Dropbox will automatically save to all your computers, phones and even the Dropbox website. Dropbox also makes it super easy to share with others, whether you’re a student or professional, parent or grandparent.

Download the Dropbox package

12.6 Oracle VirtualBox

If you want to run another OS in a virtual machine, install Virtualbox.

12.7 Cheese: Web Cam Software

       Cheese uses your webcam to take photos and videos, applies fancy special effects and lets you share the fun with others. To install cheese on your Ubuntu desktop, enter the following command:

sudo apt-get install cheese

12.8 digikam

     digiKam is an advanced digital photo management application for Linux, Windows, and Mac-OSX. It can be used by Photographers to view, manage, edit, enhance, organize, tag, and share photographs under Linux systems.

You can easily install it using command:

sudo apt-get install digikam

12.9 Gimp

      Regardless of whether you need to edit images daily on a professional level or just a hobbyist, GIMP is an essential tool for all.

sudo apt-get install gimp gimp-data gimp-plugin-registry gimp-data-extras

12.10 Install Compiz

      To install Compiz use the following command:

sudo apt-get install compiz compizconfig-settings-manager compiz-plugins

13. Desktop Effects

Want to spice-up your desktop with awesome wallpapers, well you can use the following two programs to change your desktop wallpapers in a particular interval.

13.1 Variety

      Variety is a wallpaper changer for Ubuntu which is feature-full, yet slim and very easy to use. It can automatically download wallpapers from various online sources such as Flickr, Wallbase.cc, World sunlight map (a live wallpaper that changes as the day progresses), Wallpapers.net, NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day, Desktoppr.co etc. It allows rotating them on a regular interval or on demand, and provides easy to use ways to separate the great images from the junk.

13.2 Wallch

    Wallch is an application that can be used to change your Ubuntu (Ubuntu derivatives) desktop wallpapers automatically at a particular period of time. It supports Gnome and Unity. It also let you to stop/start wallch, change to next/previous wallpaper. You can adjust/change the wallpaper changing interval. Wallch supports live Earth wallpapers which updates automatically every half an hour, therefore you can set the live Earth wallpapers as your desktop background.

14. Other worth trying applications

14.1 App Grid

      App Grid is a light weight alternative for Ubuntu Software Center. It allows you to filter applications by installed, pending, categories, name and rating. It is released under proprietary license and is available for Ubuntu 12.04, 12.10, 13.04 and 13.10.

14.2 Boot UP Manager(BUM)

     Boot-Up Manager is a Perl-Gtk2 application to manage runlevels configuration of any Ubuntu/Debian derivative systems. Using this program we can easily start and stop boot-up scripts, without the necessity to handle through complex symbolic links and permissions.

14.3 TLP: Improve Battery performance

    TLP is an advanced power management tool for Linux that gives the settings and tweaks to enhance your existing power management automatically without the need to know every technical details. It is purely a command-line tool and doesn’t have a GUI. It should work on almost all laptops.

14.4 BleachBit: Clean up your system

     BleachBit deletes the unnecessary files, free up cache, delete cookies, clear internet history, shred temporary files, delete logs, and discard junk you didn’t know was there. This tool can be used in both Windows OS and Linux systems. And it will support the following applications such as Firefox, Internet Explorer, Adobe Flash, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari and more. It not only deletes the files, but it includes some advanced features such as shredding files to prevent recovery, wiping free disk space to hide traces of files deleted by other applications, and vacuuming Firefox to make it faster.

14.5 Timeshift

      Timeshift a application that provides functionality similar to the System Restore feature in Windows and the Time Machine tool in Mac OS. TimeShift protects your system by taking incremental snapshots of the file system at regular intervals. These snapshots can be restored later to bring your system to the exact state it was in at the time when the snapshot was taken.

14.5 TypeCatcher

       TypeCatcher is an Open Source application developed by Andrew Starr-Bochicchio. It allows you to easily download and install Google webfonts for off-line use.

14.6 Apt-fast

       Apt-fast is a “shell script wrapper” for apt-get and aptitude that can drastically improve APT download times by downloading packages with multiple connections per package. apt-fast uses aria2c or axel download managers to speed up the APT download time. Just like the traditional apt-get package manager, apt-fast supports almost all apt-get functions such as install, remove, update, upgrade, dist-upgrade etc. And one more notable feature is it supports proxy too.

14.7 Apt-proz & ProZilla

        apt-proz is a shell script similar to apt-fast that increases the download speed of apt-get and aptitude by many times (at least for the developer!). While apt-fast uses Axel or aria2c download manager, apt-proz uses ProZilla download accelerator instead.

ProZilla is a full featured command line download accelerator for Linux operating systems. It downloads a files by splitting into multiple pieces and downloads them simultaneously form multiple connections. It supports pause/resume, http/ftp protocols.

Also install the following useful software’s if you like.

• Opera – The fastest browser on Earth is even faster. But that is not all. Use Opera Turbo to double your page-download speed on slow connections.

• Google Chrome – Web browser from Google

• Google Earth – Travel to cities across the globe, dive into the depths of the ocean, explore remote islands or even fly to faraway galaxies.

Now you’ve reached the end of the article. At this stage, you’ll have a perfect and full fledged Ubuntu 14.04 Desktop.

How to Dual Boot Ubuntu on Your Android Device

         Canonical has been developing Ubuntu for Devices for a while. Unfortunately, it hasn't exactly been easy to play around with it. However, if you've wanted to try it (and own a recent Nexus device), it's never been easier to dual boot.

Recently, Canonical announced an update to its Ubuntu Dual Boot app—which allows you to run Ubuntu and Android side by side—that makes it easier to update Ubuntu for Devices (the name for the phone and tablet version of Ubuntu) directly on your device itself. This means that not only can you try out Ubuntu without ruining your phone, but you can see all the sweet new changes as they happen without much fuss. Sounds like a win-win for tinkerers.

Disclaimers: Ubuntu for Devices is still in a Developer Preview right now. As such, it is probably not feature complete enough to be your daily driver. Hence why we're dual-booting. Naturally, you should expect some bumps in the road. Additionally, Ubuntu uses HTML5 for its apps, but many "apps" on the platform are actually just the regular mobile sites. Even some of the included ones (like Twitter). At the time of this writing, some "apps" prompt you to install an Android app when you first run them. Don't do this. Ubuntu is not built on Android and Android apps won't run on it. Attempting to install them—or even opening a link to the app—can break things.

 

What You'll Need

To get started installing Ubuntu Dual Boot (and subsequently Ubuntu itself), here's what you'll need:

• A Nexus 4, Nexus 7 (2013), or Nexus 10: These three are currently the only officially and actively supported Android devices. If you don't have one of these phones or tablets, you can check out the list of unofficially supported devices in the user-ported section here. Our guide, however, will focus on these three. They must also be running Android 4.4.2, so if you haven't updated yet, now's a good time.
• Root access: Before you install Ubuntu, you'll need to make sure your phone or tablet already has root. Fortunately, the three Nexuses we're looking at can all use the fastboot oem unlock method. If you're not rooted first, take care of that and come back.
• An Ubuntu installation (Not a Live CD): In order to install Ubuntu Dual Boot, you'll need desktop Ubuntu installed on your computer. Unfortunately, the Live CD version won't allow you to install the necessary components. However, if you have around 25GB of free on a spare drive, you can install it relatively painlessly.
• ADB: You're going to need ADB installed to set up dual boot (and to root your device, if you haven't yet). Fortunately, in most modern Linux distros, you can do so with a simple command. In Ubuntu, open up a terminal and enter the following: sudo apt-get install android-tools-adb
• Around 2.7GB of free space on your device: Ubuntu for Devices is going to need about 2.7GB of space for the OS and related files. If you're low on space, clear some out before you begin.

Once you've got everything set up, you're ready for the main event.

How to Install Ubuntu Dual Boot :-

Canonical has created a (relatively) simple script to install the requisite dual boot app on your Android device. Once you've covered all your bases in the last section, fire up Ubuntu and perform the following:

Enable USB Debugging

First, you'll need to enable USB debugging on your phone or tablet, if it's not already. Here's how to do so:

1. On your tablet, open the Settings app and select "About tablet."
2. Tap "Build number" seven times to enable developer mode.
3. Go back to the main Settings menu.
4. Tap the newly-accessible Developer options.
5. Enable USB debugging.

Once that's complete, connect your tablet to your computer with a micro USB cable.

Install the Ubuntu Dual Boot App

Next, download the Ubuntu Dual Boot installer script from here to your home directory. Then follow these instructions:

1. Open a Terminal window (Ctrl+Alt+T).
2. Run the following command to make the script executable: chmod +x dualboot.sh
3. Execute the script by running this command: ./dualboot.sh

Note: In my tests with a Nexus 7 on a clean Ubuntu install, the script got caught in a loop attempting to execute a curl command (as seen below). If this happens to you, close the Terminal window, open a new one, and run the following command to install the package: sudo apt-get install curl This will install the necessary component. Once that's done, run the dual boot installation script again

Download and Install Ubuntu for Devices

The script will run automatically and reset your device several times. Once it's done, your phone or tablet should boot back up to the Android home screen. From there, open the new Ubuntu Dual Boot app from your app drawer. Then:

1. Tap "Choose channel to install."
2. Select a download channel (Canonical recommends "utopic").
3. Tap "Grant" when asked for superuser access.
4. Once Ubuntu is finished downloading and installing, tap Reboot to Ubuntu.

Congratulations! You now have Ubuntu running on your phone or tablet. Now you just need to access it.

How to Switch Between Android and Ubuntu

Unlike many other dual boot solutions, you don't choose which operating system you want at startup. Instead, once you've booted into Android, open the Ubuntu Dual Boot app and tap "Reboot to Ubuntu". Your device will then restart into Ubuntu. No matter which OS you're in, however, a hard reset will always boot to Android. This is usually performed by holding down the power button for about ten seconds. There's also a Dual Boot app in Ubuntu for switching back to Android if you prefer.

You can also update Ubuntu from either the Ubuntu Dual Boot app in Android, or from the system settings in Ubuntu. However, both methods require you to be in Android to actually install the update, so it's probably best to just boot into Android first when it's time to update anyway.

How To Install Firefox 29 in Ubuntu

How To Install Firefox 29 In Ubuntu-

 

It is very easy to install Firefox 29 in Ubuntu, just open a new terminal (CTRL+ALT+T) and run the following commands shown in each step.

Step 1. Add the Official PPA provided by Mozilla Security Team

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-security/ppa

Step 2. Update The Repository

sudo apt-get update

Step 3. Then Upgrade.

sudo apt-get upgrade

How To Install Firefox 29 In Your Linux Distribution-

 

Step 1: Download Firefox 29.

Step 2: Extract firefox-16.0.2.tar.bz2 using following command.

tar -xjf firefox-16.0.2.tar.bz2 -C ~/Desktop

Step 3: Remove previously installed Firefox if any, using following command

sudo rm -r /opt/firefox

Step 4: Move the extracted Firefox directory from Desktop to /opt directory.

sudo mv ~/Desktop/firefox /opt/firefox

Step 5: Create Symbolic link.

Backup your old Firefox launcher.

sudo mv /usr/bin/firefox /usr/bin/firefox-old

Create symbolic link for new Firefox

sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox

Step 6: Launch newly installed Firefox using following command

firefox

Once the installation of the Mozilla Firefox web browser has finished you can go to Applications, Internet and then Mozilla Firefox or if you are using the Unity desktop environment launch it from the Dashboard.

   After the Firefox web browser is opened you will be presented with a simple tour that will show you what is new in this version of Firefox like shown in the following screenshots.

Then you will see a redesigned, intuitive menu.