Ubuntu Proprietary Goodies

If you want to install all the goodies that don't come with Ubuntu, such as multimedia codecs, etc, do this at the command line:

> sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras


For encrypted DVDs, do this:

sudo apt-get install mplayer
sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/$(lsb_release -cs).list --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

sudo apt-get -q update

sudo apt-get --yes -q --allow-unauthenticated install medibuntu-keyring

sudo apt-get -q update

sudo apt-get --yes install app-install-data-medibuntu apport-hooks-medibuntu

sudo apt-get install w64codecs libdvdcss2


Applicable to 11.04 (Natty Narwhal)

Solar Power

I found an interesting table in a 2002 NREL report on solar power technologies (so it is in 2002 dollars), showing the price per kWh for various technologies:

So even in 2002, Parabolic Troughs and Power Towers were looking pretty promising! These technologies, when employing thermal storage, have now been developed (as of 2011) to a maturity level where they can achieve price-parity with conventional (fossil) fuels, at least in the Southwest United States.