I found that there was actually two issues going on at the same time.  The first one was permissions.  I noticed that when Thunar (file manager) was opened as root there was no speed issue but as a normal user it was very slow.  To rectify this I set the ‘group’ permission to read/write and voila it did speed up.  The speed was still a bit slow for my liking so I kept on digging.

The main culprit turned out to be two packages called gvfs-fuse and gvfs-backend.  Gvfs is a userspace virtual filesystem which as it turns out makes Thunar run really slowly.  Remove these two packages and watch your files and folders open significantly faster.

Hope this helps someone with a similar problem.

About the Author

Hi I am Chris Wakefield the owner of ComTech IT Support. I provide Windows and Linux based IT Support, laptop repairs and computer repairs to both business and personal clients in and around Stirling.

For a list of what I can offer you why not visit my website www.comtech247.net where you will find a list of my services, testimonials, blog and much more.

On your Ubuntu system press the windows key to get the HUD and then type startup.  You should see the Startup Applications program as shown below.  Click this.

You should now get the Startup Applications Preferences box.  This will allow you to specify which programs you would like to start at login.  Click Add.

You will need to enter the following information:

Name – a name which identifies the program you are going to start (e.g Virtualbox VM Startup)

Command – type VBoxManage startvm “ENTER YOUR VM NAME HERE” (e.g VBoxManage startvm “Untangle Firewall”)

Comment – give the program a description so you know what it is doing

And that is it.  Reboot the system and your virtual machine will start once you login.

About the Author

Hi I am Chris Wakefield the owner of ComTech IT Support. I provide Windows and Linux based IT Support, laptop repairs and computer repairs to both business and personal clients in and around Stirling.

For a list of what I can offer you why not visit my website www.comtech247.net where you will find a list of my services, testimonials, blog and much more.

If you want the default Gnome 2 desktop then type:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

For Xfce type:

sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop

If you fancy KDE instead then type:

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

And for something very lightweight (LXDE – one of my favourites) then type:

sudo apt-get install lubuntu-desktop

All the above commands install all the desktop addons like Evolution, Libreoffice etc so if you would rather not have them then add  –without-recommends.  So for example the default Gnome 2 command will become:

sudo apt-get install –without-recommends ubuntu-desktop

About the Author

Hi I am Chris Wakefield the owner of ComTech IT Support. I provide Windows and Linux based IT Support, laptop repairs and computer repairs to both business and personal clients in and around Stirling.

For a list of what I can offer you why not visit my website www.comtech247.net where you will find a list of my services, testimonials, blog and much more.

First thing is to install the packages we need – Samba and smbfs. So open up a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install samba

Type your root password when prompted.  Then install smbfs by typing:

sudo apt-get install smbfs

and then type your root password again.

We now have to configure the smb.conf file which contains all the samba settings. In a terminal type:

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

Locate the line WORKROUP = WORKGROUP and change it to the name of your network.  So for instance mine would be changed to WORKGROUP = Ubuntu_home.

Save the file and exit.

We now need to restart the samba service so in a terminal type:

sudo service smbd restart

Now we have to check the configuration so far.  In a terminal type:

testparm

If everything is configured correctly then you shouldn’t receive any error messages and your server is ready to go.

Linux Clients

Install samba and smbfs either using the package manager or the terminal.  We need to edit the Workgroup field in smb.conf to the name of your network (e.g Ubuntu_home). Restart the samba service and install your printer.

Windows Clients

We have to change the workgroup to Ubuntu_home and then add your printer.

About the Author

Hi I am Chris Wakefield the owner of ComTech IT Support. I provide Windows and Linux based IT Support, laptop repairs and computer repairs to both business and personal clients in and around Stirling.

For a list of what I can offer you why not visit my website www.comtech247.net where you will find a list of my services, testimonials, blog and much more.

The first thing to do is to install the software we need, in this case we need the bind9 package. Open up a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install bind9

Once installed it is time for some configuring. The first file we need to configure is named.conf.local. So in the terminal type:

sudo nano /etc/bind/named.conf.local

I have used nano to open up the file but use whichever text editor you are happy with. Insert the following code into the file:

# This is the zone definition. replace example.com with your domain name
zone “comtech.com” {
type master;
file “/etc/bind/zones/comtech.com.db”;
};

# This is the zone definition for reverse DNS. replace 0.168.192 with your network address in reverse notation – e.g my network address is 192.168.0
zone “1.168.192.in-addr.arpa” {
type master;
file “/etc/bind/zones/rev.0.168.192.in-addr.arpa”;
};

Replace comtech.com with the name of your DNS domain (this is not the same as an active directory domain but rather a name for your DNS zone).

Next up is the options file. In the terminal type:

sudo nano /etc/bind/named.conf.options

Within this file we need to modify the forwarder with the address of your ISP’s DNS servers. So modify the file adding the following:

forwarders {

194.72.0.114;
194.74.65.69;
};

Replace the addresses above with the addresses of your ISP’s DNS servers.

Now we need to add the zones file:

sudo mkdir /etc/bind/zones

And then configure it:

sudo nano /etc/bind/zones/comtech.com.db (replace comtech.com with your DNS domain).

Add the following code to the file:

// replace example.com with your domain name. do not forget the . after the domain name!
// Also, replace ns1 with the name of your DNS server
comtech.com. IN SOA chris-server.comtech.com.
// Do not modify the following lines!
2006081401
28800
3600
604800
38400
)

// Replace the following line as necessary:
// ns1 = DNS Server name
// mta = mail server name
// example.com = domain name
comtech.com. IN NS chris-server.comtech.com.
comtech.com. IN MX 10 mta.example.com.

// Replace the IP address with the right IP addresses.
www IN A 192.168.1.4
mta IN A 192.168.0.3
chris-server IN A 192.168.1.4

In the above code replace the following:

comtech.com with your DNS domain name,

192.168.1.4 with your static DNS server address,

chris-server.comtech.com with your computers hostname.dns-domain,

mta is your mail server (if you have one). If you do modify the IP address to show this.

Next we have to create the reverse DNS zone file:

sudo nano /etc/bind/zones/rev.1.168.192.in-addr.arpa

Add the following code:

//replace example.com with your domain name, ns1 with your DNS server name.
// The number before IN PTR example.com is the machine address of the DNS server
@ IN SOA chris-server.comtech.com admin.comtech.com. (
2006081401;
28800;
604800;
604800;
86400
)

IN NS chris-server.comtech.com.
1 IN PTR comtech.com

All that is left to do is restart bind:

sudo service bind9 restart

Don’t forget to test the new configuration:

dig comtech.com

NOTE:

If you are unable to restart the bind9 service run the command named -g 53 which will give you a list of any configuration errors.

About the Author

Hi I am Chris Wakefield the owner of ComTech IT Support. I provide Windows and Linux based IT Support, laptop repairs and computer repairs to both business and personal clients in and around Stirling.

For a list of what I can offer you why not visit my website www.comtech247.net where you will find a list of my services, testimonials, blog and much more.