Filed under: Ubuntu
Another tip I found – this one allows you to ping hunt for a Windows box from Ubuntu without having to change the hosts file to manually create the IP lookups.
- Install smbfs/cifs:
apt-get install smbfs
- Edit your nsswitch file
sudo nano /etc/nsswitch.conf
Search through the file and look for the line that looks something like:
hosts: files dns
and add “wins” to the end of the line so it looks something like this:
hosts: files wins dns
NB: “wins” MUST come before “dns” if you are using the openDNS service. - Install winbind
apt-get install winbind
Done. 
Ping away!
Another sweet find! Synergy is a virtual KVM. Basically, what this means is that you can control more than one machine…very useful when you have two machines side by side with separate monitors. The uber-sweet nature of the sweetness is that it is open source and multi platform, so I can jump between my Windows laptop and Ubuntu server with ease! Sweeeeet!
To do this, download the synergy source from the link above and follow the instructions on the page. I have it set so my laptop (primary machine) is the server, so I followed the simply Windows instructions to get that working. For the Ubuntu clients, the tricky bit was to get it so that synergy automatically starts at the login screen. To do this:
- Add the following to
/etc/gdm/Init/Defaultbeforesysmodmap=/etc/X11/Xmodmap:#Start the Synergy client for KVM switching SYNERGYC=`gdmwhich synergyc` if [ x$SYNERGYC != x ] ; then $SYNERGYC servername fi
- Add the same to PreSession/Default before the setting of the background color.
That pretty much does it I think. NB: Hardy Heron seems to have some performance issues and you may need to manually run it as root instead.
