How to Set Ubuntu Default Time Zone?

pramono — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 07:35:45 +0000

One day, I’ve just realized that my hardware clock in ubuntu works properly but the clock applet show false time. And then I do some google search and I knew that I’ve done one or two mistake in Ubuntu Installation. Anyway, If you get curious on how to get hardware clock time, do this.

sudo hwclock
The above code will return BIOS time which is generated by separated clock hardware than your processor. Get back to the point about setting up default Ubuntu Time Zone. Run the following code.
tzselect
and you will be guided with many question to set up your ubuntu Default Time Zone. Thank you.

Howto Adjust Screen Brightness in Ubuntu Forcefully (when all methods fail)

pramono — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 05:39:03 +0000

Sometime all methods to adjust screen brightness failed to change the screen brightness properly, and the too bright screen may be very irritating. But don’t worry, even though your distro has failed to adjust your screen brightness, but you can do some hacking method to adjust the screen brightness yourself. Before we continue, it will be very good to understand some concepts about the relationship between linux and distro such as Ubuntu, Fedora. From now on, I will refer Distro like Ubuntu, Kubuntu or Fedora as Distro only.

Linux is the foundation in your computer, your computer won’t run properly without Linux. Linux take care of everything just like what brain does. Linux manage the voltage power, electricity current, process scheduling, fan speed and even screen brightness. To set everything clear, let me say this, your computer won’t run without linux, but your computer will still run without distro, but of course you won’t have much fun as what you get in your distro. What distros do is providing you with interface to interact with kernel. So you will interact with a more humanized computer. But you have never realized that to get your job done, you have called many Linux functions that the number is more than you can imagine all the time. This is what Distro does, simplify the linux, make the computer more human.

Now let’s get back to the topic. Simply talking, there are 2 main problems that may cause you not able to change your screen brightness. The first problem is your Linux has not recognized your graphic card yet, this is a very rare problem, but if this is your case then you’d better to update your Linux. The second problem is your Distro problem, this second problem is the problem that most people have. But how do you know what is the problem in your computer, keep reading because I will reveal the methods on how to know what is the illness in your computer.

Answer this question that will lead you to find out what is the problem that cause you failed adjusting your screen brightness,

Are you using Nvidia or ATI as your graphic card?
- if yes, then you must download the driver for your graphic card in the vendor website. Because your Linux is not recognize your hardware.
- after you install the driver, you may want to read this article about How to Adjust Screen Brightness.
Are you using Open Source graphic card like Intel?
- if yes, then bless you, your problem is not Linux problem. Keep reading.
- Your solution is you must change your distro or keep reading this article.:D

From this reading section, you must realize that you are playing with Linux, NOT your Distro which mean you are dealing with your hardware directly, so please do it VERY carefully and at your own risk.

This article will only explain about how to adjust screen brightness forcefully, just adjusting screen brightness, please try to catch up with any step I explained. Before we go to the main section, let me explain some concept about Linux. Linux represent everything, every hardware in file. So that we can access, send bit to the hardware very easily. Keep this in mind, every bit that we send to the representative file will be transmitted to the hardware, and every bit we fetch from the representative file is also the bit sent by hardware.

Just to know, Graphics Card uses PCI slot, so that type in terminal,

cd /sys/devices/pcixxxx:xx

change the xxxx:xx with the folder name of pci, I am sure that the number will vary in different computers. In my case, the directory name is

cd /sys/devices/pci0000:00

Or you can press [TAB] several times after you type pci to get the list of file and folders whose name contain ‘pci’.
And now, to get the list of folders contained in pcixxxx:xx, you can use this code

ls

and you will see several directories like 0000:00:02:1 or something like that. That is the number of your hardware. The problem is you have no idea which directory contain the file that is the representative of your graphic card. Relax, I have a way to know whether the representative file that is able to change your screen brightness is in one of those directories. Type this code in terminal.

ls * | grep graph

Do you get any return value from the code above, if yes then VERY GOOD. The next thing to do is you have to check those directories one by one manually to find which directory contain a file named ‘graphics’. This may be tiring, but it worth a try. Once you find it, remember it, because the path will stay the same.

The last part will be Injecting bit to hardware directly. This is the most risky part. After you find the directory that contain a file named ‘graphics’, go to that folder by using command ‘cd’ in terminal. and access the hexadecimal of the file using hexedit. If you don’t have one, you have to install it first, don’t ask me how to install it, grrr!

sudo hexedit config

And you will see screen like this, click this image if it is not big enough for you.

Adjusting screen Brightness with Hexedit

Do you see where my cursor at in the picture? That is the bits that manage my screen brightness, and my screen brightness was 22. Your bit may be different with mine. Try to find a cluster that resemble your screen brightness, like 100 or 80. and change that value into something you wish, 20 or 30. And then last but in the list, press F2. The F2 button will flush the change into your graphic card hardware and if everything go right, your screen brightness will change like what happen in my computer. But if your screen brightness stay the same, don’t give up, change the value into what it was and try to change different cluster value. Remember to always set the value to the value before you make a change to prevent any hardware damage.

In conclusion, never give up, as long as you try, you will be able to do it. If Distro method to adjust screen brightness, there are still tons of methods left to do it. Never give up.

Pick other interesting articles in this Technology Blog

World Fastest Processor 2010

pramono — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 07:02:05 +0000

Processor is the most crucial part of our computer, processor handle most jobs of computer. Processor coordinate all the components of the computer to work together for the sake of users. Somehow as a computer maniac, we want the best for our computer. We want the fastest processor to work inside our computer. But what is the fastest processor right now?

Intel® Core™ i7-980X processor Extreme Edition
Intel claim their product to be the fastest processor in this planet. Intel present Intel Core i7 as the fastest processor in this planet. with Specifications as follow

3.33GHz core Speed

Up to 3.6 GHz Turbo Boost

6 Cores!! with 12 processing threads

Hoot mon! with this so called fastest processor, our processing will finish in no time. Cool?

Fastest Processor

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How to Set Ubuntu Default Time Zone?

Howto Adjust Screen Brightness in Ubuntu Forcefully (when all methods fail)

World Fastest Processor 2010