Tag Archives: Linux

Laptop Ubuntued and the Quest for Desktop Searching

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After my lengthy post on the issues of installing Ubuntu on my Toshiba Satellite 2410 laptop, I am pleased with the results. I managed to fix the suspend issue that plagued me with this post. So I am almost ready to “give back” the laptop to my brother.

After hearing yesterday about the Google XXS exploits in Gmail, Picasa and other stuff, I decided to distance myself from Google software. I love the Google search, the amount of space in Gmail, and appreciate all the work Google does with the open source community. However, Google’s desktop applications are still closed source and are prone to the slow security fixes that all closed source programs are prone to. So I decided to uninstall Picasa which I used once or twice. Also I decided to find an open source desktop search utility to replace Google Desktop Search.

I decided against Beagle, for technical and philosophical reasons. I tried Strigi, but the interface is lacking. Also there seems to be a bug with the indexing and searching functions in Strigi (version 0.5.5 from feisty-backports). So it just eats up my CPU and disk space. A rather useless search function if you ask me.

So, now with all that said, I continue my quest for a decent desktop search.

The Penguin and the Rusty Wrench

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Day 2 of installing Ubuntu Linux 7.04 on my brother’s Toshiba Satellite 2410 laptop. I have done this before, but boy is this irritating. I mistakingly took the wrong approach of installing all the applications that he would need/want before doing a thorough hardware check.

So after I ran into the infamous “poltergeist” problem of starting X, and I then trashed the install with a poor reinstall of the nvidia-glx/nvidia kernel. I did the same thing to my main machine by accident, but I don’t have the luxury of a reinstall so I am running that on the open source, non-3d accelerated nv driver. Better this then nothing (no more Quake 4 until I fix this). Boy, I am getting rusty on with my installs and configuration. (I used to run Gentoo and be better at this stuff.)

Getting back to the laptop, I did a reinstall and re-enabled the proprietary nvidia drivers. And got the poltergeisty blinking LCD screen. In the old days, a simple Option IgnoreEDID fixed this problem. Well nVidia, kindly updated their drivers to ignore this option. So now the problem needs to be fixed in a proper hacker way.

Fortunately this post in the Ubuntu forums helps: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=536526&highlight=geforce+420
along with this:
http://www.edwiget.name/content/view/144/26/
Note that this solution is hardly user-friendly. But then again configuring a Linux install, is the equivalent work of what an OEM or a highly-paid system administrator does. Here are the steps for the desperate:

  1. Open up /etc/X11/xorg.conf with your favorite command-line text editor. I chose my weapon of choice: vi.
  2. Add the line Option “UseDisplayDevice” “DFP-0” to the Device section.
  3. Save the file.
  4. Run sudo /etc/init.d/kdm restart (or gdm depending on your GUI login manager). This will restart X, at 800×600 resolution. This we will fix soon too.
  5. Login into your account under X.
  6. You will need a hexeditor also: I use khexeditor. So install that if you need to: sudo aptitude install khexeditor
  7. Run nvidia-settings. Now we follow the steps in the second link.
  8. Click on DFP-0 and Aquire EDID.
  9. Save the resulting edid.bin file.
  10. Exit nvidia-settings, and open up the edid.bin file in your hex editor.
  11. Edit the file as such: change the value in row 4, column 9 from c9 to 00. And change the value in row 4, column 11 from 31 to 41. (Refer to the second link for clarification.)
  12. Save the file under a different name. I called mine: edid-fixed.bin
  13. Now copy this file somewhere it can not be touched by an ordinary user. I copied mine to /.
  14. Now open up /etc/X11/xorg.conf and add the line: Option “CustomEDID” “DFP-0:/edid-fixed.bin” to the Device section. Just replace the path to whatever you saved the fixed edid file.
  15. Restart kdm as before. Enjoy your fixed, 3d accelerated desktop.

Now with that done, all I needed to do was configure my wireless card to connect to my wireless network. A simple point-and-click wizard thanks to NetworkManager. So there you have it, a working install of Ubuntu Linux 7.04 on a Toshiba Satellite 2410.

Penguin Redux

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This week swept by at a crazy pace. Did not get much headway in my long term project, because I had to deal with too many urgent issues. Hopefully thats over.

Before I left for Europe, I wanted to install Linux on my brother’s laptop (Toshiba Satellite 2410). But I ran out of time then. Since I have to manage and administrate both computers at home, I decided to make my life easy. Linux on the laptop (which was I used before I gave the laptop to my brother) does in fact run. Call it lucky or a well-researched buy, I used Linux since 2001 on that machine. Only the Bluetooth, WinModem and iRda components refuse to work. But I never used them, so I feel no loss.

Right now I am backing up my brother’s Windows XP. Tomorrow, I plan on nuking Windows for the last time on that machine. Linux (Ubuntu) once again will call the laptop home.

Attack of the Lettuce Monster, and the Return of Work

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After disappearing for a few months, I went back to the justCheckers website again. Much to my horror I discovered a group of spammers decided to “borrow” my forums. Now I have to engage in anti-spamming. The forums are cleaned of NSFW content, and I began the process of deleting and banning users. Joy. I think that sailors feel the same way, when cleaning barnacles off their ships. Spammers are just as pesky, and I don’t have the online equivalent of a high-pressure water hose.

Even my brother is not as pesky. Even when he turns into the dreaded Lettuce Monster, and begins eating all the lettuce leaves before I can finish the salad, my brother is not as pesky. Nor obnoxious as a earn-a-quick-buck spammer. Bad comparison, but my brother wanted to be mentioned as the Lettuce Monster in my blog.

In other news, I need to tie up a bunch of loose ends before I leave for Europe. After a few summers of work or school, I decided that I need a vacation. But I need to finish off my work and plan for the trip. I am still figuring out the itinerary. I wonder when should I start looking for a job too. So many decisions.

My friend and fellow justCheckers admin, Chris Bellini recently switched over to Ubuntu from Windows. And he nuked his Windows too. Wow. Even I am not quite prepared to leave my Windows yoke complete due to some of the PC games I bought. But 2007 really seems like the mythical year of the Linux desktop, with all the talk of switching away from Windows. But I think we still need more commercial game studios to start making Linux clients, before we see a more dramatic exodus.

My First (Ubuntu) Linux Convert

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On Monday, I converted my friend Robert into a Linux fan.Without getting into details, Robert needed to access the Internet and Windows XP just would not cut it. So he proposed, that I should install Ubuntu Linux on his desktop. I agreed to help him out, since I had considerable installing and configuring different Linux distros.

The main challenge we faced was the dual booting. His computer contained a single NTFS partition and I did not want to nuke his Windows. First I used the partition manager, inside Ubiquity, to resize and move back his NTFS partition. I was afraid that GRUB needed a small /boot partition on the front, to work properly. Later on, I realized that GRUB only needed the first few sectors on the harddisk to move.

The next three hours consisted of attempting to move the NTFS partition. First with qtparted, and then a commercial product, but the partition refused to move. Qtparted actually could resize the partiton, while the closed source program coughed, choked and spluttered. Robert decided to backup some of his stuff, just in case we need to nuke Windows XP from “high orbit”. After the backups finished, we decided to install Ubuntu.

I opted for the default install. In half an hour and one reboot, Robert had a fresh working install of Kubuntu 7.04 and an intact Windows XP. After a few minutes, Robert said, “Screw Windows. I will be using Ubuntu from now on.”

Two days later, Robert is still using Ubuntu. I guided him in the task of mounting his Windows XP partition and installing the MP3 codecs for Amarok (My thanks go out to the Medibuntu team). And my first Linux convert enjoyed Ubuntu so much, he rebooted into Windows once. Just to see if it still worked.

The Compressed Life

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I can finally confirm, that there is a life after university. And a compressed one at that too. I could go through the details, but I feel too tired to remember all the details. And too lazy to write them all down today.

Last weekend, I went to Montreal for the Taizé event. Got to experience life in a predominately francophone city. Experienced a desire to get closer to God and people. Sang my vocal chords to extreme soreness. Meet a few folks from the Polish youth group. And a few Filipanas from St. Kevins. And now I found an excuse to learn French.

The rest of the week consisted of hosting my Polish godfather and his wife. Became an impromptu tour guide of Downtown Toronto. (Now if only I could find the entertainment district. 🙁 ) And when I did not have to travel, or work at home, I attempted reinstalling Windows XP for a client. The gremlins came out to play, and turned a simple recovery and reinstall into a few days exercise in futility. Now, I remember why I enjoyed Linux and Ubuntu Linux especially.

Yesterday I met up with Robert and his roommate. We hoped to tour Toronto, but Rob’s car broke instead. So we caught up on old times. And “invented” a new cocktail, the LimJim, since thats what guys do when bored. Also looks like I might end up installing kUbuntu on his system too.

And I discovered Facebook and I am hooked. Now if I can find time to write.

Defcon Linux Beta Released

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Introversion, the UK indie game developer of Darwinia and Uplink, just released the public beta of the Linux port of their global thermonuclear warfare sim, Defcon. The names come straight from Introversion’s forums here.

You can get the demo from links in this post.

I tried the demo on my Ubuntu 6.10 desktop. Runs without a hitch and below is the proof:

Defcon 1.4.2 Beta 2 menu screen:


…and chaos unleashed in the rolling demo:


Related Links:

Running Audacity under Ubuntu 6.10 Linux

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As a “budding” radio journalist (self-styled freelancer), I quickly realized the need to practice and learn the art of audio documentaries. So I decided to upon keep radio diaries.

For recording, I am using Audacity, an open source sound editing program. Running Audacity under Ubuntu Linux 6.10 proved a bit problematic. After a bit of poking around the Ubuntu forums, and Launchpad, I finally figured out a solution.

At first running audacity refused to work with my soundcard. Having installed alsa-oss already, I ran:

> aoss audacity

The minute I started recording, audacity crashed. This time a problem with the esd mixer many Gnome applications use. I need to turn off esd, by running Gnome instead of KDE.
I then ran System > Preferences > Sound and unchecked the esd mixer option. ESD problem fixed.

But the recording still did not come through. Turns out the volume was turned down to mute. Duh. I ran alsamixer:


After some experimentation, I found I needed to unmute the Line In, and change the Input So option to Front Mic. To turn up the volume, I pressed Tab and increased the Capture volume.


With audacity worked flawlessly, and I can record myself.

Links:
Audacity – an open source (and free) sound editor
Ubuntu Forums – excellent community with support for Ubuntu problems.
Launchpad – Canonical’s bug and developer network, and used heavily for Ubuntu development.

Running Quake 4 Demo on Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy)

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I felt the urge to do some violent gaming. So I grabbed the Linux demo of id’s Quake 4. The installation ran smoothly, but I ran into the infamous sound problem.

Turns out that the demo fails to use the right sound driver. The result doubled delayed sound that sounds like crap. The solution:

> quake4-demo +set s_driver oss

But then my Alsa and Arts mixers clash, and the game reports that it cannot use the /dev/dsp device (soundcard). Since I use Ubuntu (kUbuntu 6.10 GNU/Linx to be exact), I needed to install alsa-oss.

> sudo aptitude install alsa-oss

This gave the useful aoss command. So to run Quake 4 in all gory glory:

> aoss quake4-demo +set s_driver oss

Supposedly the +ss_driver oss argument, should be remembered but I run it this way just in case.