How To Successfully Install Wine PPA In Linux Mint 14

After installing Linux Mint 14, I attempted to install Wine by adding the Wine PPA to my software sources. However, when I tried updating I got this error:

Err http://ppa.launchpad.net nadia/main Sources
404 Not Found

Notice that the word after the PPA location is “nadia”. This is the codename for Linux Mint 14, not the codename for the version of Ubuntu that it is based off of, which is what needs to go there.

To fix this, you just need to manually edit your /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu-wine-ppa-nadia.list file. My command-line editor of choice for quick edits is nano:

Replace the two “nadia” words with “quantal” (Linux Mint 14 “nadia” is based off of Ubuntu 12.10, and the codename for Ubuntu 12.10 is “quantal”).

Save and try updating again (“sudo apt-get update”) and it should update fine. You should now be able to install Wine fine.

Simple explanation of why this happens:
Normally, when adding a PPA to an Ubuntu or Ubuntu-based Linux distribution, aptitude adds the codename of the system to the line it adds in the sources.list entry so that the packages are pulled from the correct repositories (i.e. “quantal”, “precise”, etc.). It seems that the creators of Linux Mint decided to rebrand every aspect of the Ubuntu operating system to match the Linux Mint details, and in doing so changed the internal Ubuntu-based codename of the distribution to the Linux Mint codename. For this reason, aptitude tries to use the Linux Mint codename rather than the Ubuntu one and then aptitude fails when searching the Ubuntu repositories for the Linux Mint codename.

This is the first I’ve seen this problem, but I imagine its fairly common among Mint users installing packages via PPAs added via software sources.

WineHQ – Installing the latest Wine on Ubuntu.

Raspberry Pi announces a camera module

This is a big deal. There will soon be a $25 HD camera module available for purchase that works with the Raspberry Pi unit. So many awesome projects come to mind, not the least of which is a complete day-to-day, webcam-equipped linux system that plugs into any HDMI-capable TV, a front door camera/peephole system, a party photo booth, and a self-contained, stand-alone video conference system for friends and relatives. With this new camera module, the possibilities of ways to use a $35 Raspberry Pi are endless! Also, the new A Model will be out soon, which is only $25. So you could have a fully working computer system with webcam for $50!

Raspberry Pi camera module sneak peek, and Model A unboxing | Raspberry Pi.

How to install Google Chrome in Ubuntu 10.04

I recently made the switch from Firefox to Chrome, and decided to install it on all my machines. I had some problems getting it installed for Ubuntu 10.04 at first, but then I found this post that spelled it all out.

Here’s the steps in simple, copy/paste format:

wget -q -O - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | sudo apt-key add -
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list'
sudo apt-get update -y
sudo apt-get install -y google-chrome-stable

Or if you’d like one long line:

wget -q -O - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | sudo apt-key add - && sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list' && sudo apt-get update -y && sudo apt-get install -y google-chrome-stable

That should work.

Again, thanks to UbuntuUpdates for original post: UbuntuUpdates – PPA: Google Chrome
Check them out for more PPA sources and install tutorials!

How to increase the size of a VirtualBox hard drive

These are the steps to increase the virtual hard drive size of a VirtualBox machine. These worked for me in Ubuntu linux, but the command should work for Windows as well I believe.

EDIT: Reader recuperar arquivos confirms that this also works in Windows.

Snapshots aren’t supported so first you’ll need to clone the current snapshot into a new machine. Once that’s done, open up a terminal window and type this:

vboxmanage modifyhd “/file/location/of/virtual/harddrive.vdi” –resize 40960

(that “resize” flag needs a double-hyphen in front of it, not just one)

40960 MB = 40 GB

If you want to resize to say, 100GB, you’d use 102400 at the end.

Any questions feel free to leave a comment!

How to: Ubuntu Firefox Backspace button fix

When using Firefox in Windows, pressing the Backspace button goes back a page in history, as if you clicked the “Back” button. However, when using Firefox in Ubuntu, by default the Backspace button does nothing.

Here’s how to make the Backspace button go back a page when using Firefox for Ubuntu:

1. Go to about:config in Firefox
2. Search for “Backspace”
3. Change ‘browser.backspace_action’ to 0 (zero).

Chad added a useful note in the comments below: “set it to 2 and you won’t get sent back a page while typing on the web, it’s annoying to lose all your info after hours of work because of a shortcut key” – Thanks Chad!
UPDATE: According to user blameitonthesatelite, “This seems to have stopped working as of v 27.0 (although 0 works)”