Fixing Ubuntu with kernel 5.11

I previously mentioned the kernel 5.11 image was completely unusable. Well, these 2 were definitely missing and I need to install manually:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-5.11.0-36-generic
sudo apt-get install linux-modules-extra-5.11.0-36-generic

The above took care of the networking unavailable issue for me. 

Now to get the display working with proper resolutions (no 640x480 please!)

sudo apt purge nvidia* libnvidia*

This removed my previously manually installed Nvidia display driver and after reboot it shows clearly it uses the X.Org open source driver instead of "Continue using a manually uninstalled driver" 

I hope this becomes stable for another few months. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Credits go to: Nvidia's official website (the post for fixing nvidia-smi >> Failed to initialize NVML: Driver/library version mismatch) 

This seems useful for installing Nvidia driver but I did not need to follow it. 

Ubuntu and GRUB default image

My Manjaro experiment has kinda failed because it would hang from time to time. Well, with Linux you always have workarounds, in this case, use the most "mainstream" distro: Ubuntu. I actually use a less resource intensive variant of Ubuntu called Ubuntu Mate. However, one of the updates must have broken compatibility with some existing drivers (e.g. NVIDIA Driver Version: 390.138) and I ended up always going back to the oldest kernel image which I choose manually from the Boot menu of GRUB. This is the guide to change the default so no more manual intervention is needed! (BTW, I was so worried that the Wifi driver is broken for some reason even in that image. It turns out the Wifi-disabled issue went away after hitting the "hardware" Wifi button on my machine a few times. Whew!)

Back to Ubuntu 14.04

I have been experimenting with different OS on this old Toshiba Core i5 15" laptop since its HD with the original Win7 image became unstable last year. I started with Ubuntu 14.04 (installed via a bootable USB flash drive) Then moved on to Ubuntu Kylin 14.10, which targets Chinese but has quite a bit of errors/crashes for some unknown reasons (the pop-up dialog became annoying!) The Chinese functionality doesn't seem too useful anyway. So I decided to wipe it clean. Ubuntu offers 14.04.3 LTS (The Long Term Support version comes with five years of security and maintenance updates, guaranteed) It's basically usable out-of-the-box but of course I need to install Flash separately: WatchESPN links to Adobe which links to Ubuntu Software Center which cannot find the plugin. Command line is still the way to do (follow these steps)

Resuming Ubuntu from sleep makes thick black borders around windows to appear

This is an annoying bug of Ubuntu 14.04 but I found the workaround here:
1. Press the "Ctrl+Alt+F2" key combination (Warning: you will be sent to a text console where you won't be able to read this).
2. Press "Ctrl+Alt+F7".

Tech of the day: Mounting Windows shared drive on Ubuntu

As I mentioned in my previous post, Ubuntu 9.10 didn't work on my Toshiba Satellite P505 "out-of-the-box" but there are fixes available. I've tried it and it worked like a charm. All ACPI related functions, battery indicator, suspend, even the volume buttons, are working!

Even though I'm using too many Windows-only application too often, I do still boot into Ubuntu from time to time (for burning CDs, ripping DVD, for example) It will be useful to mount my shared drive from my Windows server. I thought my prior (2 year old) knowledge of using SMBFS/Samba would be applicable. Wrong! The latest technology for this is CIFS. And the synaptic package that contains CIFS is actually "smbfs"! (containing both SMBFS and CIFS) However, I still needed additional component (winbind) and followed these steps so that CIFS could resolve my Windows hostname. Again, it's not that hard to figure out but I still felt I have better use of my time.