Never sign up VPS from this company

Recently I have sign up a VPS from a company call WideVPS, and it is really the worst hosting company that I have ever encounter. For those of you who like an affordable hosting, please be careful with the company:

1. The VPS is activated after a few hours of waiting. (they claimed it is instant activation)
2. Support ticket tooks 4 hours to response. (they claimed 1-hour response)
3. Ticket was closed even the issue has not been resolved. I created a Windows VPS for testing before moving to linux, during the sign up I have key-in a password for the VPS. When it is finally up after 4-hours, the password I entered is not working!! I then open a ticket and email, it tooks 2 days and never resolved! All I get is.... I will send you the info in next email. Then? I receive no email at all.
4. Submitted a PayPal dispute, but they never response to the dispute. (so you can see they are not serious in the business at all)

And this morning I receive their invoice asking me to renew the hosting, but until today I'm not able to use the VPS at all!

Guys and Gals, be careful. I'm glad if you have good experience with them. But if you are still considering, just make sure you contact them before sign up and then judge yourself. I hope you will then not wasting money like I did.

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.