Earlier distros of Linux does not have the automount daemon (autofs). Users would have to mount USB drives themselves. Mounting the ‘drive’ actually means mounting the File System contained within the drive. Here’s how to go about :
First, make a directory in /mnt/ where the USB drive can be mounted to. This can be done by
mkdir /mnt/usb1
Next, make sure the USB drive is plugged in and mount it using :
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb1
PS : If the system throws a privilege error, perpend sudo to the above commands.
If you did not partition the existing windows hard drive for Ubuntu and disconnected the one with Windows installed during the installation and installed ubuntu on a separate hard disk, you will run into this boot problem of XP not showing up in the Linux boot loader (GRUB) and will have to add the Windows XP boot information manually. The solution is simply adding this to /boot/grub/menu.lst
title Windows XP Professional
root (hd1,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
map (hd1,0),(hd0) (hd1) and (hd1) (hd0) depends on where your Windows partition is, which can be found out by typing:
sudo fdisk -l
at the terminal. In the above example, Windows is assumed to be on hd1 and Ubuntu on hd0. Please modify it accordingly using the fdisk command.
Source : Ubuntu Documantation
GCC stands for GNU compiler collection. There are precompiled versions / binaries of the GCC for windows available here.
Gcc for Windows (gcw) is yet another attempt to port gcc to Win32 platform. The major difference from MinGw and Cygwin is maximum possible acceptance of Microsoft Visual C++ source code and intended binary compatibility with Microsoft Visual C++.
Get GCC for Windows [GCW] 16 KB
Also check out : GCC for Microsoft Windows:
Found this simple Vi tutorial for the Vim text editor [Ubuntu/Linux] quite useful..
It covers everything from the basics like inserting text for noobs to advanced file manipulations using vi and customizations. You could also check out the developer, Bram Moolenaar’s vim home page, where you can also find a lot of other vim sites and resources.
http://www.apmaths.uwo.ca/~xli/vim/vim_tutorial.html [ Vi tutorial ]
GNOME 2.20 is the latest version of the GNOME Desktop: a popular, multi-platform desktop environment. GNOME’s focus is ease of use, stability, and first class internationalization and accessibility support.
Based on Free and Open Source Software, GNOME provides all of the common tools computer users expect of a modern computing environment, as well as a flexible and powerful platform for software developers.

The improvements in GNOME 2.20 include:
- Improved support for right-to-left languages;
- Desktop search integrated into the file chooser dialog;
- Convenient new features in the Evolution email and calendar client;
- Enhanced browsing of image collections;
- Simplified system preferences;
- Efficient power management
- Incredibly accurate laptop battery monitoring.
Download GNOME 2.20 now! The GNOME Desktop is released every six months with many new features, improvements, “bug” fixes and translations
Conduit allows the user to take their emails, files, bookmarks, and any other type of personal information and synchronize that data with another computer, an online service, or even another electronic device.

Conduit manages the synchronization and conversion of data into other formats. For example, conduit allows you to;
- Synchronize your tomboy notes to a file on a remote computer
- Synchronize your emails to your mobile phone
- Synchronize your bookmarks to delicious, gmail, or even your own webserver
Download Conduit