Ubuntu Boot to Blank Screen with Blinking Underscore (Cursor)

Today I was installing the Ubuntu 14.04.02 LTS into a server using a USB thumbdrive. Everything went smooth, as usual the setup asked to remove the USB thumbdrive before continue to Reboot.

After reboot, it hangs on a black screen with blinking underscore / cursor. Waited for 15 mins, nothing happen. If you encounter the same error like I do, it is possibly caused by:

1. a corrupted GRUB
2. the setup simply installed the GRUB onto the USB thumbdrive accidentally. (I suspect it is because I have chosen to umount the thumbdrive during the setup)
3. graphics driver not supported (it sounds a bit weird to me, if the setup could run well in GUI, why should a reboot not?)

For the first two reasons, a simple solution is to repair the GRUB. Here's the complete guide for Ubuntu users. For my case, because I knew the GRUB is in the thumbdrive, so I simply plug it in and choose my HDD as first boot device, it then boot into Ubuntu successfully, then I run the following command in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair && boot-repair

and then follow what is being instructed by the boot-repair. The only steps that caused a confusion is which disk or partition to select as GRUB install location. A rule of thumbs is don't select the partition, select the disk.

For 3rd reason - graphics driver broken. I personally do not try it, but someone from online said it can be fix by inserting the -nomodeset in between ro quiet splash. And I do believe you realize one thing now... if you could see the GRUB and able to insert the -nomodeset, well, then it is most likely your problem is more challenging, good luck hunting it down!

XFCE4 Desktop Not Showing

Sometimes when you login the desktop wallpaper, icons are all missing. It is due to the xfdesktop not loaded properly. To fix it, simple type xfdesktop in terminal, there will have some message appeared but can be safely ignore.

[Fedora] Fix Yum Update crashed at the middle of updat

If the problem you having is duplicates packages, simply refer to the following info to attempt the fix:

sudo yum check all                # tells you of any problems
sudo package-cleanup --problems   # lists all known package problems
sudo package-cleanup --dupes      # lists duplicate packages
sudo package-cleanup --cleandupes # actually cleans up duplicates
sudo yum check all                # run again to check for remaining problems
sudo yum-complete-transaction --cleanup-only

Thanks to https://destefano.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/yum-update-fail/#comment-2714

CIFS failed to allocate memory?

If you are mounting your Windows network shares in your Ubuntu, do not hurry to move your files to this newly added mount point. Most probably you will be regret very soon, as the system may give you error Failed to allocate memory and soon after that your files will gone missing. Yes, all gone! That's what happened to me.

The issues seems to cause by Windows rather than Ubuntu itself. There is a good explanation in this link:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Samba/Troubleshooting

But I will copy & paste some of the content here, in case the link broken in the future.

======== Copy & Paste from archlinux.org, please contact me if remove is required ========

Windows 7 connectivity problems - mount error(12): cannot allocate memory

A known Windows 7 bug that causes "mount error(12): cannot allocate memory" on an otherwise perfect cifs share on the Linux end can be fixed by setting a few registry keys on the Windows box as follows:

• HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\LargeSystemCache (set to 1)
• HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters\Size (set to 3)

Alternatively, start Command Prompt in Admin Mode and execute the following:

reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management" /v "LargeSystemCache" /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters" /v "Size" /t REG_DWORD /d 3 /f

Do one of the following for the settings to take effect:

• Restart Windows
• Restart the Server service via services.msc
• From the Command Prompt run: 'net stop lanmanserver' and 'net start lanmanserver' - The server may automatically restart after stopping it.

Note: Googling will reveal another tweak recommending users to add a key modifying the "IRPStackSize" size. This is incorrect for fixing this issue under Windows 7. Do not attempt it.

How to extend screen to second monitor in Linux / Fedora?

Here's the command that could extend the screen to second monitor, in case Linux does not do the job automatically:

xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1920x1080 --output eDP1 --mode 1366x768 --left-of VGA1

Where you need to replace the screen size manually. By running xrandr in terminal, you could get the screen size range for each display output.

Beside --left-of, there are other options such as --above, --below, --right-of

[Alt] key problem when remote desktop Windows via Remmina

If you are using Xfce 4 and encounter the following problems using [Alt] key inside Microsoft Windows remote desktop session:

• [Alt] key does not work as per expected
• clicking [Alt] + mouse middle button move you away from your remote desktop session

then you should try this simple and straight forward trick before going too technical.

• Go Settings > Settings Manager > Window Manager Tweaks > Accessibility > "Key used to grab and move windows" > set it to "None"

Voila! Now it should works like charm. Otherwise... you might have to Google around and read about re-map key, etc.. Good luck!

Remmina - Unable to connect RDP Server

Have you ever encountered sudden failure to RDP to your Windows desktop using Remmina? There are two known reasons to me:

1. your RDP plugin for Reminna is missing. In Fedora, type sudo yum install remmina-plugins-rdp, or Ubuntu sudo apt-get install remmina-plugin-rdp. You may require to reboot after install in order to load the RDP plugin. Sometimes Import simply won't work.
2. your remote desktop's fingerprint has changed. It is impossible to reset the fingerprint within Remmina's interface. What you can do is fire up terminal, go to ~/.freerdp/ and delete known_hosts.

Now try again and voila! Your remote desktop is back!