The Howto (and Howto-Not) Corner

1. Dowload the archive from http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html
2. Unpack it to /opt:
   sudo mkdir /opt/flashplayer
   cd /opt/flashplayer/
   sudo tar zxf /some/path/Downloads/libflashplayer-10.0.32.18.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz
3. Use update-alternatives to make it the default flash player:
   for i in firefox iceape iceweasel midbrowser mozilla xulrunner-addons xulrunner
   do
       sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/lib/${i}/plugins/flashplugin-alternative.so \
           ${i}-flashplugin /opt/flashplayer/libflashplayer.so 100
   done
4. Verify that the link really points to /opt/flashplayer:
   ls -l /etc/alternatives/firefox-flashplugin
   # outputs /etc/alternatives/firefox-flashplugin -> /opt/flashplayer/libflashplayer.so
5. Remove the Ubufox Flash player override:
   ls -l /usr/share/ubufox/plugins/
   # npwrapper.libflashplayer.so ->
   # /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so
   sudo rm /usr/share/ubufox/plugins/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so
   sudo ln -s /opt/flashplayer/libflashplayer.so /usr/share/ubufox/plugins/
6. Verify that Firefox is using the plugin:
1. restart Firefox
2. open a new tab and type about:plugins
3. you should see File name: libflashplayer.so under Shockwave Flash
   

So you want to add another alternative to the update-alternatives list in Ubuntu or Debian? Here's an example for Java.

Assumptions: Sun's binary JDK installed to /opt/java/jdk1.6.0_12/.

Add all it's basic tools to the list as follows:

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java /opt/java/jdk1.6.0_12/bin/java 1
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/javac javac /opt/java/jdk1.6.0_12/bin/javac 1
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/javaws javaws /opt/java/jdk1.6.0_12/bin/javaws 1

or even simpler:

for p in java javac javaws
do
 sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/$p $p /opt/java/jdk1.6.0_12/bin/$p 1
done

For a dual-core machine with 2 GB of RAM:

$ cat /etc/mysql/conf.d/performance.cnf
[mysqld]
query_cache_size=32M
max_connections=300
thread_cache_size=80
thread_concurrency=4
key_buffer=128M
sort_buffer_size=1M
read_buffer_size=1M
read_rnd_buffer_size=1M

Especially max_connections is helpful if you have high concurrency and get "Lost connection to server during query" errors.


General:

mysql> show variables like 'character_set_%';
+--------------------------+----------------------------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+--------------------------+----------------------------+
| character_set_client | utf8 |
| character_set_connection | utf8 |
| character_set_database | utf8 |
| character_set_filesystem | binary |
| character_set_results | utf8 |
| character_set_server | utf8 |
| character_set_system | utf8 |
| character_sets_dir | /usr/share/mysql/charsets/ |
+--------------------------+----------------------------+

Particular (existing) database/table etc:

mysql> show create database dbname;
+----------+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Database | Create Database |
+----------+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| crawler | CREATE DATABASE `dbname` /*!40100 DEFAULT CHARACTER SET latin1 */ |
+----------+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

$ cat /etc/mysql/conf.d/charset.cnf
[mysqld]
character-set-server=utf8
collation-server=utf8_general_ci
[mysql]
default-character-set=utf8

1. sudo lshw # for basic information
2. sudo apt-get install i2c-tools lm-sensors
3. sudo modprobe eeprom
4. sudo modprobe i2c-i801
   
5. wget http://www.lm-sensors.org/browser/i2c-tools/trunk/eeprom/decode-dimms.pl?format=raw
6. mv decode-dimms.pl\?format\=raw decode-dimms.pl
7. perl decode-dimms.pl
   

1. reset
2. if that doesn't help, ESC c should supposedly do a full reset (seems not to work for me)
   
3. or enable the xterm menu:
   

   XTerm*vtMenu*softreset*Label:  Do Soft Reset
   XTerm*vtMenu*hardreset*Label:  Do Full Reset

It used to be a matter of dpkg-reconfigure locales to get the locales you want. Not any more. At least in Ubuntu you have to install the relevant language packs.

1. apt-get install language-pack-et language-pack-en # Estonian and English
2. update-locale LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 LANG=en_US.UTF-8 # set default to English
   

xubuntu-desktop-expert:

1. either don't depend on xorg-video-all and xorg-input-all or purge unused modules after install.
2. either don't depend on Eastern fonts or purge unused ones after install.
3. add localepurge, debfoster, deborphan
   

If you want to do it manually from Windows 95/98:

1. mkdir c:\boot; cd boot
2. download http://kent.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/grub4dos/grub_for_dos-0.4.2.zip and unzip to boot
3. download http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/feisty/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/ubuntu-installer/i386/initrd.gz and http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/feisty/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/ubuntu-installer/i386/linux
4. create a menu.lst file. I've chosen to install the minimal server edition, consult http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/feisty/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/ubuntu-installer/i386/pxelinux.cfg/default
   if you want to install the full Gnome Ubuntu edition.
   menu.lst
   title Install Ubuntu Server Edition
   kernel (hd0,0)/boot/linux base-installer/kernel/linux/extra-packages-2.6= tasks=standard pkgsel/language-pack-patterns= pkgsel/install-language-support=false vga=normal --
   initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd.gz
   
5. reboot into plain DOS (press F8 during boot and choose Safe mode command prompt),
   cd boot
   grub (or grub --config-file="c:\boot\menu.lst")
   
6. Ubuntu installation will start.
   

XP installation is similar, just append c:\grldr="Install Ubuntu" to c:\boot.ini.

Possible errors:
It may happen, that the filesystem type is not properly changed if you chose to setup partition table manually. Grub fails to install in that case and grub-install will fail with a confusing message "file ...boot/grub/stage1 not read correctly". Just umount /target, fdisk /dev/hda and fix the partition type + rerun Install grub boot loader from menu.