Command line

To find out which version of java is installed, type

java -version

in a terminal window. This will give something like this:

java version “1.5.0”
gij (GNU libgcj) version 4.2.4 (Ubuntu 4.2.4-1ubuntu3)

Browser

You can also visit www.java.com’s Verify Java Version page. On this page, there is a pleasingly big red button that you can click which will tell you what version of java is installed.

Pressing the pleasingly big red button will tell you something like this:

Your Java version is 1.5.0_22

Of course, if one isn’t running the latest and greatest version, this page tells you to install the most up-to-date version, but I usually prefer to wait until there is an official Ubuntu update.

Well, yet again xmms isn’t working. Oh, life is hard when one loves deprecated software!

Now, to make matters worse, some of xmms’ dependencies have been deprecated as well.

Out of sheer perversity, I decided to install all the old schtuff to see if I could get xmms to work.

(I don’t necessarily recommend doing this in general, mind you – I usually try to avoid installing random deprecated things which may have security holes, conflict with everything else installed or generally cause annoyances. However, it was late and I was in a mood. Since installation, Since installation, I’ve had a closer look and I don’t think that adding these deprecated packages should cause any problems for a clean installation of 10.04, but it is possible that they could cause conflicts with other packages one might choose to install. For me, it is definitely worth the risk!)

Here’s what I did to get xmms working:

Went to:

• https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/hardy/i386/libglib1.2ldbl/1.2.10-19build1

Downloaded and installed:

• libglib1.2ldbl_1.2.10-19build1_i386.deb

Went to:

• https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gtk+1.2/1.2.10-18.1build2/+build/484191

Downloaded and installed (in this order):

• libgtk1.2-common_1.2.10-18.1build2_all.deb
• libgtk1.2_1.2.10-18.1build2_i386.deb

Went to:

• https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/hardy/i386/xmms/1:1.2.10+20070601-1build2

Downloaded and installed:

• xmms_1.2.10+20070601-1build2_i386.deb

Amazingly, this seemed to work!

…Mostly. I’m now getting some terrible moments where the track repeats until I move the mouse. It sounds rather like a CD does when it gets caught on and plays the same hyper short bit of a track over and over again until someone with Fonz power hits it. There was certainly no such bad behaviour a couple days ago when I was happily xmms-ing away on Jaunty.

Just for kicks, I tried Audacity and, interestingly enough, it seems to be plagued with the same skippy repeaty problem.

I don’t think this skipping is a problem with xmms; I think it’s a problem with something else. If this happens, closing and re-opening xmms sometimes works. If other applications are running that involve audio, try closing them. On one occasion, I had to restart the computer, but after that xmms worked fine.

Not sure what’s going on. Audio is a black art. I’m going to bed.

Now that I’ve moved the close button to the right of the maximise and minimise buttons, I want to move all three buttons to the right-hand side of the window.

On the computer I don’t care about messing up, I’m trying ubuntu-tweak which I saw mentioned on the Ubuntu forums.

Here’s what worked for me.

I went to http://ubuntu-tweak.com/ and clicked the big button on the left hand side of the page to download and install the latest version of ubuntu-tweak (version 0.5.4.1). Ubuntu automagically gave me the option to install; it was quite a painless procedure.

Once installed, I could access ubuntu-tweak by navigating to:

Applications -> System Tools -> Ubuntu Tweak.

To move the close/maximise/minimise buttons to the right-hand side of the window in a GNOME desktop environment, find:

Desktop -> Window Manager Settings

on the tree view on the left. Click on:

Window Manager Settings.

There, right at the top, in all its glory, sits

Window Titlebar Button Layout

and the choice of “Place”. Click the radiobutton to select

Right

and viola! Life is a better place in which to live. I feel so much better now.

(This seems to sort out the position of the close button in relation to the maximise/minimise buttons as well, so the previous post is unnecessary.)

Note: I’ve never used ubuntu-tweak before so can’t make any guarantees about its safety, reliability, compatibility, etc. As stated before, I’m trying it out on a computer that I’m happy to mess around with.

Well, I’ve finally started the process of migrating my computers to Ubuntu 10.04. This means several rounds of fixing things. Might as well post it all here as I’ll be doing this at least three more times. >+:Sigh:+< One of the things I wanted to do was put the close button on the right of the maximise and minimise buttons, as they were situated in previous versions of Ubuntu. Note: follow the instructions in the above post to move the buttons to the right hand side of the window and change the order of the buttons so that the close button is on the right of the maximise/minimise buttons. Follow the instructions below to leave the buttons on the left-hand side of the window but to put the close button to the right of the other two.

This site had instructions for changing the order of the buttons:

• Open the configuration editor (press Alt+F2 and type gconf-editor)
• In the left-hand tree, find app -> metacity -> general and double-click on the field called button_layout.
• Change the value field to menu:minimize,maximize,close to move the close button to the right of the minimise and maximise buttons.

Thank you, Codigo Manso!