How to Reset password in Ubuntu ??

There are many reasons you might want to reset a password:

• Someone gave you a computer with Ubuntu installed on it but not the password for the user account.
• You just installed Ubuntu and forgot what password you selected during the installation process.
• You have too many passwords in your life and can't keep track of them all.
• Or you might want to hack in your Friends System.

Well, this tutorial will help you reset your Ubuntu user account password, regardless of what reason you have for resetting it.

First, you have to reboot into recovery mode.

If you have a single-boot (Ubuntu is the only operating system on your computer), to get the boot menu to show, you have to hold down the Shift key during bootup.

If you have a dual-boot (Ubuntu is installed next to Windows, another Linux operating system, or Mac OS X; and you choose at boot time which operating system to boot into), the boot menu should appear without the need to hold down the Shift key. 

From the boot menu, select recovery mode, which is usually the second boot option.  

 

After you select recovery mode and wait for all the boot-up processes to finish, you'll be presented with a few options. In this case, you want the Drop to root shell prompt option so press the Down arrow to get to that option, and then press Enter to select it.

The root account is the ultimate administrator and can do anything to the Ubuntu installation (including erase it), so please be careful with what commands you enter in the root terminal.

In recent versions of Ubuntu, the filesystem is mounted as read-only, so you need to enter the follow command to get it to remount as read-write, which will allow you to make changes:

 #mount -o rw,remount /

If you have forgotten your username as well, type  

#ls /home

That's a lowercase L, by the way, not a capital i, in ls. You should then see a list of the users on your Ubuntu installation. In this case, I'm going to reset Susan Brownmiller's password.

To reset the password, type 

#passwd username

where username is the username you want to reset. In this case, I want to reset Susan's password, so I type  

#passwd susan

You'll then be prompted for a new password. When you type the password you will get no visual response acknowledging your typing. Your password is still being accepted. Just type the password and hit Enter when you're done. You'll be prompted to retype the password. Do so and hit Enter again.

Now the password should be reset. Type 

#exit

to return to the recovery menu.  

 After you get back to the recovery menu, select resume normal boot, and use Ubuntu as you normally would—only this time, you actually know the password! 

Note:
Some people get freaked out about having recovery mode logging you in as root. For more information, read Recovery mode makes me root user. Isn't that a security risk?

As The Era Of Windows XP Comes To End

It’s the end of an era. On 8 April 2014, almost 13 years of official support for the much-loved Windows XP will come to an end. Even as the world prepares to bid adieu to the renowned OS, China has already found a 'viable' alternative to it. China's homegrown version of the Linux Ubuntu OS, aka, Ubuntu Kylin OS is making a milestone of sorts in the country.

Kylin has been developed by Canonical in collaboration with the China Software and Integrated Promotions Centre (CSIP), part of the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Chinese National University of Defense Technology. The remarkable part is Kylin OS has been downloaded more than one million times since its launch last year. In terms of actual figures, there were 400,000 downloads of Ubuntu Kylin after its first release in April 2013, that rose to more than 1.3 million 'new' downloads after its second release in October. However, relative to the Chinese population the number is miniscule.

In China, as elsewhere in the world, PC owners prefer to get their OS pre-installed when they buy a device, therefore the figures are impressive in case of Ubuntu Kylin, claims Canonical. The OS comes with a full Chinese user interface, Chinese applications and integration with domestic services. Further, it also comes with Kingsoft WPS, that is one of China's most popular office suites.

Author : Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill

Ubuntu Working To Improve Support For Hi-Res Screens

The changes will eventually make Ubuntu more useable under native resolutions.

A Personal Package Archive has made available a code snapshot of Cairo 1.3 for trial in Ubuntu 14.04. Cairo 1.3 notably supports the scaling and rendering of GTK assets on HiDPI screens, thereby indicating that Ubuntu is now working to improve its support for high pixel density displays.

However, with that said even the changes that Cairo brings along will not be completely 'out of the ordinary'! For instance, in the case of GNOME, applications making heavy use of bitmap assets will eventually mean that the odd spot of pixelation still persists. Further by 2019, until when Ubuntu 14.04 LTS will be supported, HiDPI screens will be everywhere, therefore giving up on scaling might just be for the better.

Furthermore, Canonical is trying to address a really important issue in Ubuntu 14.04. The inclusion of Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) Secure Boot system security in Microsoft's Windows 8 made booting of Linux based distributions a challenge in the Win8 machines. It happens because UEFI Secure Boot security allows booting of an operating system only after verification of authentication key.

Author : Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill

Popular Linux Games To Run Natively On Mir!

SDL now has the support for Ubuntu’s Mir display server. 

In a recent development, some of Linux's most popular games will now run natively on Ubuntu's Mir display server. This has been made possible after Simple Direct Media layer (SDL) gained support for Mir. It must be noted that SDL is a part of many high-profile games and the number keeps rising with each day.

SDL is a cross-platform development library that provides game developers with a simplified way to access audio and input devices through OpenGL. With the versatility and simplicity it brings to the table, SDL is currently being used in more than 700 games. So much so that the list also includes the Linux ports of popular titles available on Valve’s Steam client and via the Humble Bundle. With Mir and SDL together, games using it will run natively under Unity 8 on Mir. SDL also supports Wayland in a similar way.

SDL officially supports Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, iOS, and Android. Meanwhile, support for other platforms may be found in the source code. SDL works natively with C++, while C# and Python are supported via bindings. A few games that use SDL include: The Walking Dead, Dominions, Frozen Bubble among others. Meanwhile, games which use SDL for the Linux version only include: Civilization: Call to Power, DEFCON, Heroes of Might and Magic III and others.

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Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill 

10 Useful Ubuntu Tips For Linux Users!

Linux users can make their experience with Ubuntu much more enjoyable by following these tips.


 Linux users can look forward to finding some useful tips in the article below. If you are fond of using Linux, you must try your hands on these and make the most of your open source distro.
1. Getting very fast and clever at the command line -

Keyboard shortcuts and other command line tricks can be used for entering commands in an easy and fast way. Here are some keyboard shortcuts you can make use of within the terminal:
Ctrl-a Move to the start of the line.
Ctrl-e Move to the end of the line.
Alt-] x Moves the cursor forward to the next occurrence of x.
Alt-Ctrl-] x Moves the cursor backwards to the previous occurrence of x.
Ctrl-u Delete from the cursor to the beginning of the line.
Ctrl-k Delete from the cursor to the end of the line.
Ctrl-w Delete from the cursor to the start of the word.
Ctrl-y Pastes text from the clipboard.
Ctrl-l Clear the screen leaving the current line at the top of the screen.
Ctrl-x Ctrl-u Undo the last changes. Ctrl-_
Alt-r Undo all changes to the line.
Alt-Ctrl-e Expand command line.
Ctrl-r Incremental reverse search of history.
Alt-p Non-incremental reverse search of history.
!! Execute last command in history
!abc Execute last command in history beginning with abc
!n Execute nth command in history
^abc^xyz Replace first occurrence of abc with xyz in last command and execute it

2. Launching Ubuntu Linux Applications with keyboard -

There are two ways to do this:
• Using applications like Launchy or Gnome-Do which make it easier to launch applications by typing a few characters of the application’s name.
• You can summon gconf editor (Alt+F2 then type gconf-editor and hit enter), and navigate to apps > metacity > global_keybindings, double clicking on any of the run_command_N and typing in the keyboard shortcut you want to assign to an application then make a mental note of the number N. Then go to apps > metacity > keybinding_commands and double clicking on command_N (N being the number you used above) and type in the command you want to run. As an example if you want to run Firefox you need to simply type in Firefox.

3. Starting from wherever you left off -

You can have Ubuntu remember the applications that were open when you last logged out. This will permit you to log in and find all those applications running from where you left off. You can attain this by going to System > Preferences > Startup Applications, then go to the options tab and check "Automatically remember running applications when logging out"

4. Creating a Separate Ubuntu Linux Home Partition -

Latest versions of Ubuntu are coming every 6 months. Even though you can upgrade to the latest version through the update manager, at times the upgrade doesn’t function as expected so certain users like to do a fresh clean install. The drawback of this is that you will lose data that was there in the home directory. For overcoming this, you can make a separate Home partition while you are installing Ubuntu, size it according to your needs and then when you decide to install Ubuntu subsequently, simply specify this partition as the Home partition (by choosing /home as the mount point).

5. Updating and Installing Ubuntu Linux Software Minus Internet Connection –

There are several ways of doing this. The easiest way is to use APTonCD. APTonCD permits you to make CDs and DVD’s that contain all the packages you want. You can use it to install software on computers minus an Internet connection.

6. Installing new fonts, Microsoft fonts and improving font rendering –

There are not many choices to opt from in Ubuntu. But you can readily install new fonts including those from Microsoft like Arial, Verdana, impact and a lot more. You can utilize varied sites for searching the kind of font you are looking for.

7. Using PPAs, Installing latest versions of software -

There are several steps that a software has to undergo before it becomes part of Ubuntu or becomes available through the Ubuntu repositories. As all those steps offer additional stability, it generally implies you don’t get the latest versions of all the software as soon as they are released. For getting cutting edge, you can search for Personal Package Archives for your favorite software on Launchpad and adding those to your installation’s software sources.

8. Be the root -

The root account is disabled by default on Ubuntu installations primarily to stop you from doing something you had not intended to do. But if you are careful you can enable root account as follows:

1. Type sudo passwd root and provide a root password.
2. Then head on over to System > Administration > Login Window, go to the Security tab and check "Enable local system administrator login"

You should now be able to login as root from the Login prompt. Alternatively you can use "sudo su" for providing your password and get root prompt.

9. Shortening booting time with profiling -

Ubuntu Linux developers have done a fantastic job with the boot time. Jaunty is quick and Karmic even quicker. But there is a bit more you can do by profiling your boot. Profiling allows Ubuntu to create a list of all the files that are accessed during bootup, it then sorts the files based on how they are stored on your hard disk. This will allow your system to get booted and the files read quicker the next time you boot.

For profiling boot you should follow these steps

* At the grub menu highlight the kernel you boot most often.
* Press e for edit.
* Select the line starting with kernel and press e again. Now add the word profile to the end of this line. Hit Enter and then press b to boot

10. Trying out various Ubuntu Linux Desktop Environments and Desktop Managers –

If you are on the lookout for something different than the default Gnome interface, you can check out other desktop managers you can utilize. In case of a complete Desktop Environment you may want, KDE4 has come a long way and is usable and fun. You can do a "sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop" to get KDE. 

Will Ubuntu Smartphone Succeed? Yes!

Will Ubuntu Smartphones have what it takes to take on the might of Android and iOS? Well, sure they do!                                                                                                      

Even as the world awaits the arrival of the first Ubuntu-powered smartphone with baited breath, the question is will the have enough fire power to give a nail biting competition to the likes of Google's Android and Apple's iOS? Canonical recently cooled expectations for a major Ubuntu Touch phone launch this year, saying a large OEM probably won't release a handset running the open-source OS this year. However, this year we should see the first Ubuntu smartphone launched with demo devices most at Mobile World Congress.


Ubuntu Phones

Here are three reasons why Ubuntu smartphone(s) will change the game for good:

1. One device to rule them all

A complete office experience is what we are talking about! A high-end Ubuntu smartphone should be able to get you through the day with ease, so just forget about that chunky laptop. A desktop-like experience can be achieved by getting of those pico projectors.

2. App support

The popular Linux distro already has a thriving eco-system. All it needs to do is optimizing these apps for a small screen experience. Many of the popular mobile apps have been already announced for Ubuntu Touch.

3. Great hardware

In its crowd funding campaign, Canonical was trying to build a top-notch smartphone with best specs possible, since Ubuntu is a solid platform that requires solid hardware. If Ubuntu smartphones use quad-core chips to ensure great user experience, clearly we won't be surprised at all!