Canon Cameras are known for their great quality and performance, but they can also be a bit of a pain to keep up with the latest updates. If you’re looking to dual boot your camera with Ubuntu or another Linux distribution, there are a few things you need to take into account. First, make sure that your Canon camera is compatible with dual booting. If not, you’ll need to find an alternative camera that is compatible with Ubuntu or another Linux distribution. Second, be sure to upgrade your Canon camera’s firmware if it’s not currently running on an older version of Ubuntu or another Linux distribution. Third, make sure that your Canon camera has a keyboard and mouse connected in order to use it as a primary device. Finally, be sure to clean any dust and debris off of the camera’s internals before starting dual booting so that the new Ubuntu or other Linux distribution can start up smoothly.

Every week we dip into our tips bag to share some handy reader tips with you. This week we’re looking at tips to help you share folders between Linux and Windows installs, upgrading your Canon’s firmware, a simple way to clean your keyboard.

Fodaro writes in with his experience dual booting Windows and Fedora:

Thanks for writing in Fodaro; we’re sure other readers have found themselves in a similar situation and will benefit from your tip.

First, I set the Windows partition to auto-mount when I booted up, for which I used the ntfs-config package from the Software Centre.

Then I tried modifying .config/user-dirs.dirs as you showed in your article, but it didn’t work for some reason, so instead I deleted some of the folders in my home directory and replaced them with symbolic links. For example, after deleting the Documents folder (after checking that it was empty, of course), I launched terminal in my home directory and typed:

ln -sf “/media/OS/Users/Fodaro/Documents” Documents

This created a link to my Windows documents folder in place of the Documents folder in my home directory. So if a program tries to save or open a file at ~/Documents/hello.txt, it will still work, but Linux will direct it to /media/OS/Users/Fodaro/Documents/hello.txt instead. I repeated this process for some other folders in my home directory, like Pictures, Music, Videos etc., so that all of my data can be kept in one place.

Upgrading Your Canon Camera’s Firmware

Bill writes in with a great tip for Canon camera users:

The CHDK is one of the more compelling reasons to opt for a Canon camera over other DSLR brands. If you have a Canon camera that you’d like to squeeze a little more life/better features out of, we can’t recommend hitting up the CHDK wiki enough. It’s amazing what some third-party firmware can do.

Easy Keyboard Cleaning

Last week we shared a Tips Box submission regarding software you could use to lock your keyboard down. Leon wrote in with his simple no-software-needed solution:

We’ve used the Win+L trick before, but be forewarned that if you’re vigorously wiping down your keyboard with an alcohol wipe or some such thing it is possible to mash the right combination of keys to reboot your computer. Not that we’ve, uh, done that before. Looking for a more in depth cleaning session? Check out our guide here.

Have a tip you’re dying to share? Shoot us an email at tips@howtogeek.com and you might just see it on the front page.