How to fix Ubuntu Splashy problem

I've seen reports all over the web of people saying that the new "splashy artwork manager" for Ubuntu 8.04 doesn't work on their computer. I had the same problem so I thought I would post up how I fixed it.

First you need to open up a terminal and type in:

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer

Once you are there you will see a list of different drivers, look for the one that says "vesafb" (this is what worked for me) and put a # in front of it to comment it out. Save that file and then in the terminal again type:

sudo nano /etc/initramfs-tools/modules

This will bring up a list that contains these two lines at the end:

# raid1
# sd_mod

Below those two lines put:

fbcon
vesafb

Save that file and then in the terminal again, type:

sudo update-initramfs -u -k all

Once that's done, type:

sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst

Find the line towards the bottom/middle of that starts with "Kernel" and then has a bunch of stuff after it, it should look something like this:

kernel        /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic root=UUID=763f09b5-cf76-42a1-8dd2-123a2739b3ab ro quiet splash

Once you find that (it will be the first one you come across most likely), you will need to add a line that says "vga=xxx" where "xxx" is a numer that you will find in the table I've linked to here (It's the table right at the top of the page). You'll probably want the number for your resolution that is in the 16M line since most monitors can handle 16M colors now. But if you're resolution is not there, pick the closest one (for example, mine is 1280x800, so I picked 1024x768 since 1280x1024 would have been to large in one dimension).Then you will save the menu.lst file. Type in:

sudo update-initramfs -u -k all

Then when that has completed reboot your machine and splashy should work now with the proper image coming up.

Good luck

How To: Dual boot and use only one Mozilla Thunderbird inbox

Ok, so I have been dual booting Windows XP and Ubuntu for some time now, as many of you already know. I have also been using Mozilla Thunderbird now for a few years as well on both platforms. However, until today, the idea of merging both installations of Thunderbird into one unified profile had not crossed my mind. But today I was reading around on the web and noticed someone asking about it, so I thought I would see if I could figure out how to set up Thuderbird in Ubuntu so that it would share the same profile as my Thunderbird installation in Windows, that way I wouldn't have to worry about keeping both inboxes syncronized and having duplicates of all my emails in two separate places. The following will be the instructions you need to setup your Ubuntu Thunderbird installation to use your Windows XP Thunderbird installation's profile. (These instructions are assuming that you have already started up Thunderbird at least one time so that it has generated a profile directory and a profile.ini file.)

First thing you need to do is open up a terminal, then copy and paste this, editing where necessary:

cd /home/Your_home_dir/mozilla-thunderbird && mv xxxxxxx.default xxxxxxx.default.bak && ln -s /location_of_windows_partition/"Documents and Settings/your_windows_username/Application Data"/Thunderbird/Profiles/xxxxxxx.default ~/.mozilla-thunderbird/xxxxxxx.default (where xxxxxxx is the name of the profile directory and you need to change anything that is italicized to fit your configuration)

Once you have done that, all you need to do is open up Thunderbird and you should see immediately that you have all the messages and contacts and EVERYTHING from your windows installation of Thunderbird on your Ubuntu installation, easy right!?