Ubuntu provides Bluetooth support for both serial connections and BlueZ protocol supported devices. Bluetooth is a wireless connection method for locally connected devices such as keyboards, mice, printers, and even PDAs and Bluetooth-capable cell phones. You can think of it as a small local network dedicated to your peripheral devices, eliminating the need for wires. Bluetooth devices can be directly connected through your computer’s serial ports or through specialized Bluetooth cards connected to USB ports or inserted in a PCI slot.

BlueZ is the official Linux Bluetooth protocol and has been integrated into the Linux kernel since version 2.4.6. The BlueZ protocol was developed originally by Qualcomm and is now an open source project located at http://bluez.sourceforge.net. It is included with Ubuntu in the bluez-utils and bluez-libs packages, among others. Check the BlueZ site for a complete list of supported hardware, including adapters, PCMCIA cards, and serial connectors.

To configure Bluetooth on Ubuntu, choose System Preferences Bluetooth Preferences to open the Bluetooth Preferences window with two tabs, Services and General. The Services pane has entries for Input Service, Audio Service, Network Service, and Serial Service. Use the check boxes to start or stop a service. Input...

Various file systems can be accessed easily on Ubuntu. Any additional internal hard drive partitions on your system—both Linux and Windows NTFS—will be automatically detected and can be automatically mounted, providing immediate and direct access from your desktop. In addition, you can access remote Windows shared folders and make your own shared folders accessible.


Access Linux File Systems on Internal Drives
Other Linux file systems on internal hard drives will be detect by Ubuntu automatically. Icons for these systems will be displayed on the Computer window (choose Places Computer). Initially, they will not be mounted. You will first have to validate your authorization before you can mount a disk. To mount a file system for the first time, double-click its icon. A PolicyKit authorization window will appear. You then enter your user password. The option to Remember Authorization is checked, keeping the authorization indefinitely. Whenever you start up your system again, the file system will be mounted for you automatically.

Once your file system is mounted, it displays its icon both in the Computer window and on the desktop. The file system will be mounted under the /media directory in a folder named with the...

Your display will be detected automatically, and Ubuntu will configure both your graphics card and monitor. Normally you should not need to perform any configuration manually. However, with some hardware, your display or graphics card may not be correctly detected. Also, you may want to configure an additional screen(s) for multi display output. All configuration tools and drivers will generate an X Window System configuration file called /etc/X11/xorg.conf. This is the file the X Window System uses to start up. Whenever you change your settings, your current configuration is saved to /etc/X11/xorg.backup.conf. Should you need to restore your old settings manually, you can just replace your current xorg.conf file with the backup file. You are advised to make your own backup of an xorg. conf file that works. Should your display configuration become unrecoverable, you can always resort to the reliable backup. The following code creates a backup file called xorgmybackup.conf:

sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg-mybackup.conf

If you are using a vendor’s graphics driver (restricted hardware) such as the Nvidia or
ATI graphics driver, the respective vendor configuration tools will be installed for you. You can access these by choosing Applications System Tools. The Nvidia configuration tool will...

To change the login window, use the Login Screen Setup window accessible by choosing System Administration Login Window. This configures the GNOME Display Manager (GDM), which runs your login process. Here you can set the background image, icons to be displayed, the theme to use, users to list, and even the welcome message. You can also set up an automatic login for a particular user, skipping the GDM login screen on startup. Login screens can be configured for local or remote users. You can choose between a plain screen, a plain screen with face browser, or a themed screen. The Local tab lets you select what screen to use for local logins, and you can browse among available themes. From the Remote tab, you can select Plain, select Plain With Browser, or use the same configuration used for your local logins.

On the Users tab, you can select which users you want displayed when using a face browser. On the Local tab, you can choose from a number of themes. The Ubuntu theme is selected by default. You can also opt to have the theme randomly selected. On the Security tab, you can set up an automatic...

So what do you do if, for example, you want to be able to type Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Thai, or Nepali while still in your usual English environment? What if you want to be able to type all of those languages in the same document? Can you do it? You bet. There are actually several ways of going about this, but the one of the most straightforward to use is Smart Common Input Method (SCIM), the base for which comes preinstalled in Ubuntu. SCIM supports most Asian languages, including Chinese, Japanese and Korean, and it provides a number of input methods for many of these.


Downloading and Installing SCIM Input Method Modules
Despite coming preinstalled on Ubuntu, SCIM will not be able to do anything for you right out of the box. In order to enable SCIM so you can input CJK and other similar types of characters, you will need to install a package called im-switch. Then you will need to install the appropriate input modules for the language you wish to type in. The easiest and least problematic way of getting these packages is via the Language Support utility. Just go to the System menu,...

The GUI for your desktop display is implemented by the X Window System. The version used on Ubuntu is X.org You can use either vendor-supplied drivers or X.org generic drivers for your graphics card. Ubuntu packages the vendor drivers as restricted graphics software packages, which are designed for compatible installation on Ubuntu and are available on the Ubuntu restricted repository. You can find out more about X.org at www.x.org.

When you first install your system, the X.org generic drives are used. Should your graphics card be supported by a vendor (or proprietary) driver, such as ATI or Nvidia drivers, a notification icon for restricted software will appear on the Ubuntu’s top panel with a message. For many recent graphics cards from Nvidia or ATI, the vendor driver is recommended. The vendor driver will often support 3-D effects much better that the corresponding generic X.org drivers. Because vendor driver software is not open source and consists of hidden proprietary code, it is considered restricted. Since the code is private, it cannot be guaranteed to work—though, in most cases, the Nvidia and ATI drives have proven reliable. To install the hardware driver, click the notification icon on the panel to open...