Updating Flash Player in Firefox for Ubuntu 8.04 or higher

So this is one pain in the neck if you ask me, normally you would expect a smooth installation by the package manager but it WONT ....
so when I tried installing by downloading the debian package from adobe download page, the installation will fail saying

dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of adobe-flashplugin:
adobe-flashplugin depends on libnspr4-dev; however:
Package libnspr4-dev is not installed.
adobe-flashplugin depends on libnss3-dev; however:
Package libnss3-dev is not installed.
dpkg: error processing adobe-flashplugin (--install):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
adobe-flashplugin

and then when I would try to install the libnspr4-dev libnss3-dev packages it will throw an error :

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
adobe-flashplugin: Depends: libnspr4-dev but it is not going to be installed
libnss3-dev: Depends: libnspr4-dev but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).


So here is a much simpler solution open the downloaded package using archive manager and locate the file libflashplayer.so and simply copy it under you mozillaPath/plugins folder. If there isnt a plugins folder simply create it.

Normally it should be under /home/user/.mozilla/plugins.
Restart the browser and you are good to go.

Recover grub after Installing Windows

So you have installed the necessary evil OS called a windows. I had to... coz the MMORPG I play won't release a linux version. Now Windows will obviously remove grub.

Here is a simple and sure shot way of recovering it:

1. Get a ubuntu live bootable CD and boot from CD. Any version will do.

2. Start console.

3. Create a directory:

$ mkdir /media/tmp

, we will use it to mount the file system.

4. My defalt linux installtion resided on /dev/sda3 which is pretty common.

5. If you don't know which is yours check by the following command

$ grub

The grub prompt will appear

grub> find /boot/grub/stage1

This should output something like (hd0,2) meaning my partition is sda3

6. Mount the drive

$ mnt /dev/sda3 /media/tmp

7. Now reinstall grub by this command

$ sudo grub-install --root-directory=/media/tmp /dev/sda

8. Now simply re start the PC and it should configure your grub automatically and detect windows.

9. If you want to tweak further /boot/grub/menu.lst contains the list of the boot menu options.