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.

How To Disable Pidgin’s Annoying Facebook Notifications

By default, Pidgin supports Facebook Chat accounts, but, also by default, it shows desktop notifications whenever someone logs in or out. With Facebook Chat, that happens A LOT. It took me a little online searching to find out how to disable them, so I figured I’d make it easier for you:

1. Open Pidgin plugins and scroll to “Libnotify Popups”
   
2. Disable “Buddy signs on”
   

The plugin isn’t easy to find visually because it doesn’t use the word “notifications” at all.

How To Watch YouTube Videos Full Screen And Still Work

Ever try to watch a YouTube video full screen while working on another monitor and the video keeps shrinking back to normal size? It can be very annoying to deal with when you’re trying to do something else on the other screen. I mean, having a playlist of Battlefield 3 montages up full screen helps us all work better. Nothing like watching news, sports videos, and music videos while working or playing online games or working.

Over at pokerlistings.com, there’s a nice tutorial on how to set a YouTube video to full screen and work elsewhere (like on a second monitor) without the full screen video shrinking back down. Don’t worry, it doesn’t require any addons or extensions. It’s a simple change to the URL of any YouTube video that makes that video take up the whole window. Then, you can maximize that window or make it full screen (usually by pressing F11). I tried it and I really like it. Mostly because it doesn’t require installing any addons or extensions.

Pretty neat! Check it out here: The Greatest YouTube Trick Ever.

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!