Ulujain.org v6.0

These are assorted tips and tricks I've picked up in the dozen plus years I've been tinkering with Linux. They're here mainly for the benefit of yours truly, but I hope they help you too!

Question: Can't do things as root? Get authentication failure errors when you use su in a terminal?

Solution: do sudo passwd in a terminal and set a password there. Problem solved.

Question: How do you play MIDI files in Linux?

Solution: Actually, a very good question. I've no idea why MIDI isn't supported out of the box. I read on a Ubuntu mailing-list post once that MIDI support was "too niche". Really? It's supported out of the box on both Windows and Mac and has been for years. Hardly "too niche" if 95% of the computing base out there supports it out of the box, is it? Well getting MIDI support in Linux isn't too hard. This guide was written using Ubuntu 10.4, but it should work with any distro. Firstly, read and review the following two sites: this one and this one.


Grab the Merlin soundfont from the second site while you are there. I play MIDI's inside of an app called Audacious. You need to point it at the correct plug-in. Bring this screen up then click preferences



Preferences brings this screen up. Make sure the Fluidsynth back-end is selected. Enjoy your MIDIs! Grab some from here if you like!