I decided to export all the contacts I have in Evolution today and import them into Gmail. I wondered if it would be hard to do (or even possible) and luckily I discovered it was a piece of cake. I’ll call it a 3-step process.

Step 1: Export Evolution Contacts

This step is super-simple. Open terminal and paste the following command:

evolution-addressbook-export --format=csv > evolution.contacts.csv

You now have a .csv file (spreadsheet) with all your contacts in it, located in your home folder.

Step 2: Clean Up Contact List

Open the evolution.contacts.csv file in OpenOffice or whatever spreadsheet program you use. I deleted any rows that I didn’t want to keep, and any columns that weren’t being used. I ended up with just a First Name, Last Name, and Email_1, Email_2 and Email_3 column, but you may choose to keep mailing addresses and phone numbers if you have data in those columns. I also renamed the first name and last name columns from given_name and family_name to First Name and Last Name. Gmail is very flexible about column names so the defaults might work, but I was certain that First Name and Last Name would be recognized by Gmail, so I just went with those. Once you’ve cleaned up the file, save it.

Step 3: Import Into Gmail

In the left sidebar of Gmail, click on Contacts. Once the Contacts page opens, click on Import in the upper right corner. Click the Browse button, choose the file you just saved from your home folder, and click on Import. Gmail will tell you if it deletes any duplicates or merges any together, and will let you know that how many it successfully imported.

That’s it! All done.

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A good friend of mine, who is very computer savvy, recently bought a new computer and installed Ubuntu on it rather than Windows. Now, despite being a very smart guy when it comes to PCs and Windows, he was still a newbie to the world of Ubuntu, so he and I went through a series of questions and answers before, during, and after his Ubuntu install. I’ve turned those into a FAQ for Ubuntu noobs that should answer a fair amount of questions for the first 24 hours of a first-time Ubuntu installation.

Of course, don’t forget to read my previous post on Ubuntu Tips and Tricks as well, for some more ubuntu newbie help!

Ubuntu Pre-Installation Questions

Q: Should I install 32-bit or 64-bit Ubuntu on my new 64-bit machine?

A: The short answer is that most people should install the 64-bit version, even if they don’t see a noticeable (to the naked eye) boost in performance. Some reasons (beyond “just because”) to go with the 64-bit version:

• If your machine has more than 3 GB of RAM, you’ll want the 64-bit version so that it can utilize the extra RAM. The 32-bit version is limited to recognizing and using approximately 3 GB (although there is a workaround you can try, but it’s not a perfect solution).
• If you routinely run processor-intensive apps, such as running whacky MySQL queries against a large database, or heavy-duty Excel number crunching, etc., you’ll want to make use of the extra oomph you’ll get from utilizing your 64-bit power.
• If you simply want to make sure you’re utilizing future-facing technology, and not backward-facing technology, choose the 64-bit OS.

Who should consider installing the 32-bit version on their 64-bit machine? Occasionally, it may be difficult or even impossible to install an app that you need or want because there is no 64-bit version for it, and the 32-bit version refuses to install and/or run on a 64-bit OS. *cough* Adobe products *cough* for example are notorious for causing problems in this area. Luckily, over time, most of these difficulties have been resolved or have decent workarounds. For example, I like to download music from Amazon’s MP3 store. Downloading single songs is not an issue, but for some reason, Amazon insists that you run the Amazon MP3 Downloader application in order to purchase/download an entire album. Unfortunately, that app doesn’t want to be installed on 64-bit Ubuntu, but some searching brings up a nice workaround that works perfectly. Still, the possibility exists that an app that is absolutely essential to you just won’t run unless you are using the 32-bit version. In that case, you’re a candidate for using 32-bit instead of 64-bit Ubuntu on your 64-bit machine. These days, I’d say that’s going to be a rare case.

Once you make a decision, it’s time to download Ubuntu and then burn the ISO image to a CD, so you can install it when ready.

One other note: If you don’t want to make the commitment to partitioning and installing, but want to either try Ubuntu or one-click install it through Windows, then you should be aware of these two options.

• You can run Ubuntu straight from its Live CD without ever installing it. This is a great way to try it out first, but it’s not something you’d want to run all the time.
• You can install Ubuntu via Windows using Wubi. This is more of a one-click solution where you install it like you would any other Windows application and uninstall it just as easily. Great solution for anyone squeamish about dual-boot installations.

A: Yes! It uses a driver called NTFS-3G to make this magic happen. In previous versions, the driver had to be installed separately, but these days, it’s included by default, and you should be able to mount your old drive and read/write to it without a second thought.

A: Again, yes! And again, you shouldn’t need to do anything special to make that happen. It just works.

A: You probably should, just in case you need Windows for something, or you decide you don’t like Ubuntu for some reason. Here’s the tutorial I used when I did my install.

A: It’s a good idea, but it makes the initial installation a bit more complicated, as you’ll have to do a manual partition and that can get hairy for non-geekazoids. Still, if you want to have all your documents etc on one partition, here are a few guides to help you through it. Start here, then go here, then here. It’s absolutely not essential though, so just let the install process handle the partitioning automatically for you if you’d like.

A: The very first thing you should do is head on over to the Ubuntu forums, register for a free account, and bookmark the site. You’ll use it often. Having said that, as is the case with many forum software packages, the search function kinda sucks. The better way to search the Ubuntu forums is to search via Google with a search phrase something like this:

ubuntu firefox flash problem site:ubuntuforums.org

(where “firefox flash problem” is replaced with whatever you want to search for)

Keep ubuntu and site:ubuntuforums.org somewhere in the search phrase.

If that’s too much typing or too difficult to remember, you can also use the Google Custom Search Engine I created which will use Google’s search engine to search JUST the ubuntu forums without you having to do anything special. Just search as usual and you’ll only get results from the forums. Here’s the special search engine I created for you:

Search Ubuntu Forums

Almost every question or problem you can imagine has been encountered by someone and probably resolved by someone else. The forums are your friend.

Ubuntu Post-Installation Questions

Q: Ok, I got Ubuntu installed, but I have Nvidia graphics and the drivers didn’t load properly. Now what? (This question could be slightly altered in any number of ways, but the bottom line is that if you are having issues with Nvidia video, it’s a common problem, and yes, there are solutions).

A: Nvidia uses a restricted set of drivers (as in “not open”), so you’ll have to allow Ubuntu to use these restricted drivers. This is where you dive into the world of repositories. And while we are adding the appropriate restricted drivers repository so that you can use the Nvidia drivers, we’ll go ahead and make sure you have a few other repositories added (assuming you want the extra apps and goodies that are available in 3rd-party repositories). (And unless you are a purist freak, you probably do). (j/k on the “freak” comment…sorta).

• What’s a repository? A repository is like a library filled with software applications. There are the official Ubuntu repositories, and there are 3rd-party repositories. Many of the apps you’ll want to install will reside in a 3rd-party repository, so you should add a few of the main ones now.
• How do I add a repository and which ones should I add? Head on over to for detailed instructions. Pay careful attention to these instructions. Don’t skim the article, or you’re likely to encounter an error that freaks you out, without realizing it’s perfectly normal, and there’s instructions to deal with it. There are other repositories you might want to add later, but these will get you off to a great start.
• Now you’re ready to use those restricted Nvidia drivers. If all goes well, you’ll only need to go to System->Administration->Hardware Drivers and check the box to enable the restricted drivers for your NVIDIA card if the option is provided. (Note that it may appear to hang for a while, but try to be patient and give it a few minutes before freaking out). You may also need to reboot when finished. You can now access the Nvidia settings (change resolution, etc.) by going to System > Administration > NVIDIA X Server Settings. If doing all that doesn’t work as expected, go here for detailed instructions. Unfortunately, the graphics issues can be very annoying until you get it all worked out, but I’m willing to bet you WILL get it worked out, and then it’s over and done with, so try to hang in there while troubleshooting.

A: Here comes the fun part. Go to System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager, type in your password when prompted, and welcome to the world of finding new software! At this point, you can either browse or search. Browse around just to get an idea of what’s available. Search if you know what you want.

Let’s go ahead and install one nice little utility right now, so you can see how it works. Type “sysinfo” (without the quotes) into the Quick Search box. You see one or more listings come up, with a checkbox to the left of each. If the checkbox is empty next to the sysinfo listing, you can check it by clicking on it, and choosing Mark for Installation from the resulting drop-down box. This often brings up a box letting you know that in order to install this app, you’ll need to also install a list of other things. Just agree by clicking on the Mark button. Now that you’ve chosen to install sysinfo, click on the big Apply button (with a green check mark in the menu) and when asked if you want to apply the changes, click Apply.

That’s it! Sysinfo will install itself and you’ve just added a new piece of software to your system. Free and easy, eh? Wait, you say, where is this new application? How do I run it? Good question, let’s tackle that next.

A: That depends. The first place to look is in the Applications menu. For example, the Sysinfo app that you just installed is now located in Applications > System Tools > Sysinfo. Click on that and open up your new application! Not every app automatically installs itself into the menu however. In those cases, some digging might be required.

The first thing I’d try to do is run it manually by doing the following: Click Alt-F2 to open the Run Application window. Now start typing in the name of the app you just installed (such as sysinfo). As you type, it will try to find the app you want, and if it does, just hit enter to run it.

A: Right-click on Applications and choose Edit Menus. For more detailed instructions, go here. Just remember that “command” is the most important aspect of the process. That’s the field that contains the actual command that makes the application launch, so that’s the most critical field to get right when you add the information into the new menu. The command is “usually” the same as the program name.

A: Now it’s time to introduce you to the terminal. You may have already used the terminal in any of the previous actions when I sent you off to another link for detailed instructions, but if not, here’s your first foray into the world of command-line control via a terminal window. To start, open a new terminal window from Applications > Accessories > Terminal. Now type in:

whereis sysinfo

replacing sysinfo with the name of whatever application you just installed. You should see a list of directories that contain any bits and pieces of the app. One part of the new app is probably in one of the directories called bin (either /bin or most likely /usr/bin), and this is usually the file that you’d need to run or add to the command field in the menu. This may be getting you in over your head at this point, and I won’t elaborate further, but it would at least be a start at figuring out where it lives, and might help determine what to put into a command field when adding to the menus. You’ll need to dig deeper into the Ubuntu file system and structure if you want more details however. A good place to start is here.

A: Ah yes, permissions. Ubuntu likes to make sure your system stays nice and secure, so it requires that you occasionally jump an extra hoop to accomplish some tasks that might muck everything up. You should read more about sudo, gksudo and root here.

A: There may be lots of answers to this question, some more appropriate than others, but I’m going to start with the short (and most likely) answer. Ubuntu uses something called PulseAudio and it frankly just doesn’t always work right – right out of the box anyway. The quick and dirty method of getting your sound to work is probably by doing this:

Go to System > Preferences > Sound. Change the first 3 dropdowns on the Device tab to ALSA – Advanced Linux Sound Architecture. Does that make it work for you? If so, great. If not, or if you’d just really rather use PulseAudio which is newer and has some features ALSA lacks (such as the ability to change the volume of applications separately), then you’ll need to go down a (probably frustrating) road of research and trial and error. Start here, then read the posts nearer the bottom of this bug report, and good luck.

A: Ok, this is a big one. I’m not going to even TRY to answer it here. Instead, I’m going to send you here. Pretty much any of your questions related to Flash or multimedia will be addressed by following the incredible details in this post. Follow those instructions and you’ll probably end up with a big smile on your face, even if it did take a while to get through it all.

A: Nautilus is Ubuntu’s version of Explorer. Click on Places > Home Folder. That gets you right into your user’s home folder within the Nautilus file browsing window. You can get into nautilus other ways, of course, but that’s enough to know for now.

A: Easy. While in Nautilus, click on View > Show Hidden Files or press Ctrl-H.

A: Those “bars” are called Panels, and it’s very easy to customize them. Just right-click on any empty spot on a panel to see your options. You can add launchers (shortcuts to programs) to any panel, you can move launcher icons around, you can move panels around, etc. It’s all fairly self-explanatory, so I’ll let you just play around with it and investigate your options.

A: You can customize just about everything! A good place to start is System > Preferences > Appearance.

A: What you want is Compiz Fusion composite manager (assuming your video card can handle the advanced graphics, and if your system isn’t very old, it probably can). Check out this video first to get an idea of what it’s all about.

Now to get all that fun eye-candy yourself, you’ll first need to install it from Synaptic Package Manager. Search for simple-ccsm and install it. Then search for compizconfig-settings-manager in Synaptic and install it. Now go to System > Preferences > Appearance, choose the Visual Effects Tab, select Custom. Then go to System > Preferences > Compiz Config Settings Manager, and play with the fancy effects. You’ll want to check the box next to Rotate Cube to get the rotating cube effect obviously. There are so many options with Compiz, that I’ll just send you here and here for all the info.

A: True. You can install Wine from Synaptic Package Manager just like any other app. Once installed, you can then install some Windows programs just like you would if you were doing it on Windows. In other words, you can just double-click on the .exe install file, and it will install it just like it would on Windows. Yes, you’ll even see some “fake” C:\Program Files and other similar Windows type directories being created. (Sort of, like I said, it’s kind of fake, but it works). You can read more about Wine here, and see a list of apps that are known to work well here.

P.S. If you want, you can read the post I wrote not long after I first installed Ubuntu and was still a newbie. Well, I’m still a noob in some ways, but I’ve come a long way in the last 9 months. You will too, now that you’re armed with a guide for your first 24 hours as an Ubuntu noob!

*There are incredibly bright and generous people who have already written detailed documentation and guides to all of these issues, and I simply link to them in many places rather than reinventing the wheel. I’ve done some of the leg work in finding these resources for you. This way, you don’t have to waste time hunting for them yourself!

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When presented with a bare Ubuntu desktop, a new user is often not sure what to do next. Here are a few things I would suggest:

Enable Universe and Multiverse Repositories
It’s almost a given that you’re going to want to download some cool program from one of these repositories. (Repositories are just collections of programs that you can download). The Universe repository contains thousands of programs maintained by the Ubuntu community, are generally safe, but come with no guarantee. Multiverse contains programs that are not “free”, meaning they have licensing issues that don’t meet Ubuntu’s requirements, so take that into consideration. To learn more about the various repositories, go here. To enable these repositories, simply go to System > Administration > Software Sources. Check the boxes labeled “Community-maintained Open Source software (universe)” and “Software restricted by copyright or legal issues (multiverse)”, and then click the Close button. When prompted to reload, just click the Reload button.

Investigate Synaptic
Go to System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager. Here’s where you get to see all the applications that you can download any time you want. Once you find an app you want to download, click the box next to it, select Mark for Installation, and then click on the Mark button if prompted to also install additional items that the program needs. When ready to download, just click the Apply button on the top menu and all the apps you chose will be downloaded and installed for you. Try installing a game or two for fun. One of my favorites is FloboPuyo. You can click the Search button and type that in to go right to it.

Add Applets and Launchers to Panel
The panels are like toolbars for the desktop. You can add things to the panels to make it easy to launch applications. Right-click on any empty space on the panel. Click Add To Panel. Now you have 3 choices:

1) Choose one of the pre-configured applets such as Clipboard Manager, Force
Quit, System Monitor, Volume Control, and Weather Report and click the Add button.

2) Application Launcher – Lets you copy one of the already configured programs located in the Applications menu onto the panel. For instance, I added Synaptic and Terminal to my panel for quick, easy access.

3) Custom Application Launcher – If an application isn’t already in the Applications menu, this is how you add it to the panel. It’s a little more complex, so I’ll skip it for now, but basically, you’ll need to know the command needed to run the app in order to make this work.

You can also add more panels to your desktop (bottom, sides…). Simply right-click the panel, and choose New Panel. A new one will be created. You can then right-click the new panel, choose Properties and redefine where it should be placed or make other adjustments to it. Then just add items to it just like you did above.

Run through the System menu items
The System menu (Preferences and Administration) holds tons of useful information. Just take a look at everything there so you are familiar with it. Next time you need to do something like configure power management, you might remember where to find it because you saw it during this run-through.

Check out Tomboy in Applications / Accessories
Tomboy is an awesome little notes application that helps me remember all kinds of things (including Ubuntu tips). Some people have issues with Tomboy because they don’t like the fact that it is historically connected to Microsoft, but I don’t let that kind of thing get in the way of enjoying a cool program.

Install Sysinfo
Go to Applications > Add/Remove, choose Show All Available Applications, and search for Sysinfo. When it is listed, place a checkmark in the box next to it, and then click on Apply Changes to install it. Once installed, it will show up in Applications > System Tools and will show you lots of juicy details about your system configuration. Of course, there are other ways to get the information from the command line, but this is the nice, graphical solution for beginners.

Google Anything You Don’t Understand
The fastest way to get an answer to a question is to Google it! I usually just type the word “ubuntu” in front of whatever I’m wondering how to do in the Google search bar, and my answer is usually found really quickly that way.

Those are just a few things to get you started on your journey. Have fun!

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In KDE’s Kicker (panel), you have the option of adding a System Menu Applet, which looks like this (although yours may be slightly different).

If you don’t yet have it on your kicker, but you want to add it, simply right-click the kicker, and choose Add Applet to Panel and then scroll down to System Menu and choose it. While I like having it handy, I kept wishing I could add a few items to it, but there didn’t seem to be any way to do so. In fact there is, but it’s definitely not straight-forward. I wanted to be able to essentially add shortcuts to my most frequently used folders such as Pictures, Music, and Downloads, and as you can see from the screenshot below, I was able to successfully add them.

Here are detailed instructions to help you add shortcuts (or bookmarks) to your favorite folders into the System Menu Applet.

1. Open Dolphin File Manager (Home)
2. Choose View / Show Hidden Files
3. Open .kde
4. Open share
5. Open apps
6. Unless you see a folder named systemview, you’ll need to create it. To do so, right-click in any empty space and choose Create New > Folder
7. Name it systemview
8. Open systemview
9. Right-click in empty space and choose Create New > Text File.
10. Name it Something.desktop (where Something is whatever descriptive word you want to use to describe your new System Menu item). If you have a folder called Pictures, for example, and you want to add that folder to the System Menu, it would make sense to name this text file Pictures.desktop
11. Edit this text file using Kate or whatever text editor you wish. Just right-click the Something.desktop icon and choose Open With > Editors > Kate for example.
12. Type the following into the editor.

    [Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Icon=camera
Name=Pictures
OnlyShowIn=KDE;
Type=Directory
URL=/home/yourusername/Pictures

    Note: You’ll want to change 3 things in this file to match whichever folder you are adding.

    >> change the icon name so it uses something that makes sense. Not sure which icon to use or what its name would be? Here’s one way to find an icon and determine the name of it… Open Dolphin File Manager, right-click any folder icon, and choose Properties. Now left click on the actual icon on the General tab that is located just to the left of the name of the folder (and just above the word Type:). Here is where you can choose from lots of icons in various categories (Actions, Applications, File Systems, and Devices are the ones I use the most). Once you find one you like, just make a note of what its name is, which is listed just below the icon, and type that name in the Desktop Entry you’ve just created on the Icon= line.

    >> change the Name= from Pictures to whatever descriptive word or phrase you want to appear on the System Menu

    >> change the URL= to the correct path to the folder you want added to the System Menu. This is the part that had me confused for a bit, because I kept getting the path wrong. The structure I used above should work for you in most cases.

13. Last step. Open a terminal window. Type the following to reset the System Menu and show your newly added item:

    dcop kicker kicker restart

That’s it! You’ve successfully added an item to the KDE System Menu. If you want to add more items, repeat steps 9 – 13 for each.

Props to both this post and this thread – Although neither gave me the instructions in the clearest or most detailed manner for me to understand and follow, together they got me started on the right path to making this happen.

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Show Hidden Files (.filename) in User Home

* Places / Home
* Press Ctrl + H

How To Edit php.ini if You’ve Installed PHP5
In a terminal window, type:
sudo gedit /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

How To Restart Apache
In a terminal window, type:
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

(Do this when you’ve made changes to php.ini that you want the site to recognize)

Copy/Paste
Copy/Paste is much easier in Linux than it is in Windows. Once you highlight some text in one application, and go to another app, all you have to do is press the mouse wheel down to paste. You don’t have to right-click on the text to choose Copy, and you don’t have to right-click in the app to choose Paste. Highlight text in one app, press mouse wheel in the other app. Bam! Quick and easy.

Shut Down Via Keyboard Only (KDE/Kubuntu)
Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete and then press Alt-T (T stands for Turn off).

This comes in handy when power goes out and/or monitor screen goes black, but your UPS keeps your system alive long enough to be able to power down gracefully.

Looking For A Program?
In a terminal window, type:
whereis program_name

So, if you were wondering where the various Firefox files were located, for example, you’d type:
whereis firefox

Backing Up Home Directory
If you back up home, you’ve backed up all your data, settings, etc. – basically anything you wouldn’t want to lose. To do so:

1. Open terminal and become root: sudo su
2. Go to root folder: cd /
3. Type following command and wait for a while (maybe 15 mins. or more):

tar cvpfz homebak.tgz /home

This will compress (zip) your home folder into a file called homebak.tgz, which you’ll now find in the root folder ( / ). Store that elsewhere in case you need it some day. To restore:

1. Open terminal and become root: sudo su
2. Go to root folder: cd /
3. Type: tar xvpfz homebak.tgz -C

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