Category: Ubuntu (Page 15 of 24)

CCleaner for Ubuntu?

Until the time of this writing Piriform hasn’t made it’s software available for Ubuntu. But there are other tools you can use to clean and optimize your computer.


One of these tools is Ubuntu Tweak. A suit of tools that is used to tweak and optimize Ubuntu and control some aspects that aren’t usually easily available.

About Ubuntu Tweak

To install Ubuntu Tweak click this link and download it to your computer then install it as you would do normally.

From the main menu navigate to janitor and click the stuff that need cleaning.

Ubuntu tweak Janitor

There are several categorizes: Apps, Personal and system.

You have to be careful when cleaning. If you don’t know what to do I suggest you avoid the system category.

Once checked press clean and enter your password to clean up the system as you see in the image!

It’s a good way of tracking disk space and keeping an eye on your system.

Please note that cleaning up the APT cache will delete the software installations you downloaded from the software center, and you should copy them first for backup and re installation if anything happens!

Top 3 common issues faced when dualbooting

Dual booting can bring many perks if done properly. It’s like having two computers working together. And a really good idea in case one of the systems fails, you will have a configured running system and your work flow won’t be affected by the fail. As I had to fresh install Windows 10 from scratch (because the rollback failed).

There are some minor disturbances to take care of first. And those are mostly caused by Windows.

1. Ruins the dual boot.

I have a complete post about this topic! No matter what you do. Installing Windows will erase any grub boot data and you won’t be able to access your other system (in my case it was Xubuntu) I made a whole post dedicated to this as a part of the dual boot saga. So please checkout the post for the fix.

2. Time is always wrong

As you use Windows you will notice your time settings are forgotten every time you shutdown.

  • This is quite easy to fix as you just need to edit a registry key to set the time once and for all. From run open regedit.exe and navigate to :
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>SYSTEM>CurrentControlSet>Control>TimeZoneInformation
  • Create a dword32 key and name it “RealTimeIsUniversal” And set the value to 1 by double clicking on it.
  • Lastly reboot to Ubuntu and then to Windows and your issue will be fixed.

3. Error mounting drives

3. I couldn’t mount the data drive because Windows is still not totally shutdown, the drives are being used to “fast boot” in order to be able to use the drive without error, we need to disable fast boot. The screenshot shows an error caused by fast boot on Windows.

Error mounting drive in Ubuntu
Since it’s caused by Windows, we go and disable it from Windows.
Go to Start menu and type: Power Options and click on the choice.
Type in power options in the search bar
From there click on choose what the power buttons do.
Click change settings that are currently unavailable to unlock the greyed options.
change settings that are currently unavailable
Then uncheck turn on fast startup. And close the window.
Uncheck turn on fast startup
Once the fast boot is disabled you will be able to access all the drives from Ubuntu without a problem.
Here I tried to list my experience on dual booting to help with these three bugs I faced twice. I hope you find it useful 🙂

Updating to Windows 8.1 from the store (Dual Boot Saga)

Those were really busy days. But this step comes as the final step. Finally I can upgrade to Windows 8.1 from the store to get this over with. I’ll have the latest update in both Linux and Windows. If you followed the saga you would know that none of this came easily!!

 For those who just joined us. I decided to install Windows 8 pro on my computer side by side with Xubuntu 14.04.

I installed Windows 8 and activated it. Then repaired the boot issue where Xubuntu was overlooked in favor of Windows 8 pro, then it was a true odyssey trying to transfer the license to my computer.
Now we come to the finally step, installing 8.1

 

Downloading Windows 8.1

Microsoft provided the 8.1 upgrade for 8.0 users via the Windows store. You can upgrade your system for free (not sure if there is a time constrain).

I decided to make use of that offer that our ISP provided (free download from 2 AM till 10 AM for a few months) to download Windows 8.1 and install it.

t took me two days to download 3GB from the Windows store! (The download was resume-able). And after the download was complete the installation began!

Important note:  You need to update Windows 8 before installing Windows 8.1 The update size is over 1.2 GB, and that includes optional updates as well!!

Installing Windows 8.1

It was really easy and didn’t take much time either! In a few moments I had the system up and running with no problem at all! You can see the tutorial Microsoft provided from here and for the more visual oriented readers here is a video:

 

What happens to Windows 8 after the update?

Some of the files remain in a Windows.old folder, it will be deleted within 28 days or you can delete it through disk clean up (I just clicked it and pressed Shift + Delete!!)

feel free to read more about Windows.old from here

This concludes the Dual Boot Saga. Please note that every computer is different and that you need to backup either way! Consult your local IT personnel or your OEM provider, this might void warranty so be careful!

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