Ubuntu

Below are some recommended steps to customizing Ubuntu to function at maximum efficiency, generally, and at Virginia Tech.

Use Local Mirrors

Virginia Tech has several local mirrors of Linux and other Free and Open Source Software. Using Virginia Tech's mirrors has the main advantage of being fast.

You will need to alter your /etc/apt/sources.list file. First of all, make a backup of your original. Open a terminal emulator (Applications → Accessories → Terminal) and enter the command:

$ sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.original

Next, copy the commands below into a shell script. You can use a text editor like gedit; Applications → Accessories → Text Editor. Select the mirror you wish to remove by uncommenting (removing the beginning # character from) one of the two lines with MIRROR=. Save it in your home directory as vtmirror.sh:

#!/bin/sh
## Uncomment one of the two MIRROR lines below to choose your mirror
##
## VT Campus Computing mirror
#MIRROR="mirror.cc.vt.edu/pub/ubuntu"
## VBI Mirror (which also hosts PowerPC and SPARC repositories)
#MIRROR="mirrors.vbi.vt.edu/mirrors/linux/ubuntu"

sed "s,\(us\.\)\?archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu,$MIRROR," /etc/apt/sources.list.original |\
sed s,security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu,$MIRROR, > \
/etc/apt/sources.list.new
mv /etc/apt/sources.list.new /etc/apt/sources.list

IMPORTANT: make sure that you have uncommented one of the MIRROR= lines. Next, in your terminal window, change the permissions on this file to make it executable:

$ chmod u+x vtmirror.sh

Finally, run the script from the terminal with

$ sudo ./vtmirror.sh

Next, update your package information. You can do this in the terminal with

$ sudo apt-get update

You can also do this with the Update Manager in System → Administration → Update Manager. You will now be downloading all standard Ubuntu packages from your local VT mirror.

Setup VT-Wireless

Follow the instructions in the VT-Wireless article to get your wireless connection setup to automatically and securely connect to the campus wireless network. You'll either need to use OpenSSL from a terminal window to convert the certificate you obtain from CNS or switch from NetworkManager to Wicd, but the VT-Wireless article discusses the details of both options pretty thoroughly.

Setup Email

See the email article for instructions on setting up your preferred email client to download and send email (including for reliable off-campus sending), and how to add the LDAP faculty address book.

Customize Your Desktop

While not necessary, the desktop customization guide may improve your desktop experience.

Set Up Xilinx Utilities

This tutorial was created and tested with Xubuntu 9.10 running on a VMware player virtual machine. Note that some utilities such as 'impact' are capable of using the libusb driver, while others such as 'xmd' must use the libusb-driver driver. libusb-0.1.4 is installed generally by default in *ubuntu distributions and should be available (but the udev magic still has to happen for the cable to work). In this install, we specify use of the libusb-driver by adding some lines in /opt/Xilinx/11.1/settings32.sh

1) Install Xubuntu virtual machine
2) Update OS
3) Reboot (to load latest kernel)
3) Re-Install VMware tools:

  sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r` psmisc

 (Install VMWare tools through host menu)
 Unzip tarball from /mnt/cdrom (or cdrom1) to local dir (such as ~/)

  cd ~/vmware-tools-distrib
  sudo ./vmware-install.pl

     -Select all default options, allow the program to launch vmware-toolbox

4) Add the following to /etc/rc.local (then sudo chmod +x /etc/rc.local)

  /usr/bin/vmware-user &

5) Add the following to /etc/fstab:

  .host:/       /mnt/hgfs       vmhgfs  user,defaults   0 0

6) Reboot (Verify any shared folders are now mounted on /mnt/hgfs) (Verify vmware-user is running with: ps ax | grep vmware ) 6) Verify install of libusb:

  
  sudo apt-get install libusb-0.1-4

7) Install fxload:

  sudo apt-get install fxload

8) Install Xilinx ISE Webpack (Do NOT install cable drivers or XilinxUpdate) 9) Run the following commands:

  sudo sed /opt/Xilinx/11.1/ISE/bin/lin/xusbdfwu.rules -e 's:TEMPNODE:tempnode:g' > /etc/udev/rules.d/xusbdfwu.rules

  sudo cp /opt/Xilinx/11.1/ISE/bin/lin/xusb*.hex /usr/share/

  sudo restart udev

• • Note, for the first command you may receive a permissions error. Try the command "sudo su" to get a root shell then run the same command sans 'sudo'

10) Plug in the Spartan 3E board. Apply power and attach the USB cable between the board and computer. If everything has been done successfully, a greed LED will illuminate next to the USB receptacle on the boad. If unsuccessful, the red LED will be dimly lit.

11) Install the Xilinx EDK (SDK and Chipscope if required)
12) Install the libusb-driver

• Install libusb-dev and git

                sudo apt-get install libusb-dev git-core

• Download libusb-driver sources

                cd ~/
                git clone git://git.zerfleddert.de/usb-driver

• Compile and install libusb driver

                cd usb-driver/
                make
                make lib32
                sudo cp libusb-drive.so /usr/local/lib/

13) Create a script in /etc/profile.d/ with the following contents:

  #!/bin/bash
  export PATH="$PATH/opt/Xilinx/EDK/bin/lin:/opt/Xilinx/11.1/EDK/gnu/microblaze/lin/bin/:/opt/Xilinx/11.1/SDK/bin/lin:/opt/Xilinx/11.1/ISE/bin/lin"

14) Make the script executable:

  sudo chmod +x /etc/profile.d/xlilnx-settings.sh

15) Add the following lines to /opt/Xilinx/11.1/settings32.sh just after list=""

  export XIL_IMPACT_USE_LIBUSB=0
  export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/local/lib/libusb-driver.so

16) Prior to launching a Xilinx tool (such as xmd), you must type the following command:

  source /opt/Xilinx/11.1/settings32.sh

Sources and Other Contributors:
Via (vtluug member)
[1] forums.xilinx.com
[2] wiki.archlinux.org