This is a very interesting blog post that descibes how to simulate snow cover using the GDAL command 'gdaldem color-relief'. This command is to generate a color relief map from an elevation raster. You can set a color value for a list of elevations.

Snow Cover Hillshade Maps: Winter in Afghanistan

gdal - gdaldem

This is a great tutorial for installing LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) development system in Linux.

Installing Apache Mysql and PHP on Ubuntu 8.10 by Mark Sanborn (February 11, 2009)

LAMP can also be installed using this simple single line:

sudo apt-get install lamp-server^

After a few different attempts at installing VMware-player in Ubuntu ( ), I finally found a one-line recipe.

First, download the bundle from the VMware website.
http://www.vmware.com/download/player/

Then enter the following line with the correct path and the wmware version.

sudo sh '/path/VMware-Player-2.5.2-version_number.i386.bundle'

for example:

sudo sh '/home/jauntyjackalope/Desktop/VMware-Player-2.5.2-156735.i386.bundle'

Note:
It is also possible to install the rpm file by converting it to a deb file.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RPM/AlienHowto

First, you need to install Alien. Then convert the rpm file and finally, install the debian package.

sudo apt-get install alien

sudo alien -i package_file.rpm

sudo alien package_file.rpm

sudo dpkg -i package_file.deb

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When I install Ubuntu 8.10 on a USB HD, it messes up my MBR. You can fix this directly from the Ubuntu terminal. You do not need to use the live CD if your Ubuntu system starts.

You need to install a little program called ms-sys. It will rewrite your Master boot record (http://ms-sys.sourceforge.net/). The ms-sys package you get directly from their site does not install on newer version of Ubuntu (apt-get install ms-sys). You will need to use the debian package http://packages.debian.org/etch/ms-sys

Once ms-sys is installed, you need to figure out on which partition is located Windows

sudo fdisk-l

this will list the hard drives installed. You are looking for a line with NTFS as system. Something like:

/dev/sda1 1 9327 74919096 83 NTFS

You need to replace /dev/sda in the following command line with your device Boot (without the number)

sudo ms-sys -m /dev/sda

that's it! You can refer to the following page for more information:
http://www.arsgeek.com/2008/01/15/how-to-fix-your-windows-mbr-with-an-ubuntu-livecd/