Category: Ubuntu

Fixed SNMP Security Flaw using a Print Server

I kept receiving a highly critical security message about SNMP on the security reports.  Been seeing it for a long time but I couldn’t figure out how to solve it.  It seems like Windows 7 would not print unless SMNP was enabled.  No matter what setting I changed it wouldn’t print.

I read about setting up a print server.  I had set one up before but never used it.  What I did was I enabled CUPS in the Ubuntu 12.04 server and setup the print server using CUPS.  My problem in the past seems to have been that I didn’t know how to use the print server.  I found these great instructions and it seems so simple now.

Basically you have to add the printer that is located on the print server.  You added by the IP address.  For example it could be \\192.168.1.100\konica if “konica” is the name of the print queue and “192.168.1.100” is the print server IP address.

With that all fixed I now have no SNMP issues!

Very Small Text using Nvidia Drivers in Lubuntu 14.04

I have very small text using nvidia drivers in my new Lubuntu 14.04 install. So small in fact that I couldn’t read anything!

I found an old thread from 2012 that helped point me in the right direction.

Click on Menu then Preferences and then “Customize Look and Feel”

Under the widget tab I changed the default font to a size of 24. After clicking apply it fixed the text in the windows but not the icon text.

I then clicked the font tab and changed the sub-pixel geometry from RGB to BGR. After saving it I have a nice looking screen again.

The problem is I haven’t figured out to keep the saved settings!

Here is that original thread that seemed to be the same issue yet no one was able to give an answer.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1903400&page=2

Issues with Video Display on Ubuntu 13.10

I wrote a post a month or so ago about getting a black screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left corner.  While that specific situation has occurred at least once since it is happens to all be tied together.

Currently I have a working display in Ubuntu 13.10 but with a default profile.  I have no idea what happened to my old profile.  I must have deleted it or it was corrupted.  I don’t know the answer.  I do know that I have wasted a lot of time on video driver issues.

I have tried so many things that I can’t even begin to tell you what I have or have not tried.  Basically my video system on my ubuntu 13.10 server became hosed after a regular update by Ubuntu.  Since then it seems to work but not all the time.  All I can do is hope that the new 14.04 or whatever the latest LTS release is can fix my issues.  I don’t want to start from scratch again.

Black Screen with a blinking cursor in Upper Left in Ubuntu 13.10

I found myself with a black screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left corner in my Ubuntu 13.10 yesterday.  I know what caused it.  There was a distribution upgrade or something similar and I clicked something about configuration for my video drivers.  After a reboot I was just getting the “You are running in low graphics mode”.  I think I wasted 2 hours on this.

First I want to tell everyone what worked for me.  Well, I would tell everyone if I remembered my exact steps.  There were lots and lots of answers on the Internet but they didn’t work for me – sans the last hit I got.  I had to uninstall the Nvidia video drivers ( sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia*).  Deleted the config files in /etc/X11/ and then created a new xorg file with this command: sudo X -configure.  I rebooted and then it worked.

I tried switching from LightDM to GDM, I tried different Nvidia drivers.  I used the recovery in GRUB.  Actually, I tried just about every option in Grub.  I tried lots of stuff.  I also had some trouble getting into terminal to run these commands.  I was clicking through the low graphics mode window and then nothing would work!  I didn’t know I was suppose to hit Ctrl-Alt-F1 right at that screen to get the login screen.

I’m glad I got it up and running again but that was a 2 hr time frame on a Sunday that I would have preferred to have done something else.

Lastly, things like this can’t be fixed by a normal computer user.  This was a rock-steady Ubuntu install and I got this awful issue with an automatic update.  The flashing cursor would freak a normal user out.  Plus, do you really want an average user using the command line?  I don’t.  Unless the computer user has a person like me on call or has an IT department to fix things like this I would be worried about selling  a Linux computer without a support contract for the user.