Forgoing The Commonplace, Hello Ubuntu!

I'm sitting here with Amber Graner, Lyz Krumbach, Andrew from the Ubuntu Pennsylvania LoCo, Jimmy from the Florida LoCo, and a few others. We're in a BoF chatting about how LoCo Teams can reach out. I think Amber will be posting notes later.

Amber led another BoF earlier today called "Why Not You?" about trying to get the folks we recruit involved. She was saying how for years people would talk about Linux and give Linux stuff to her husband Pete, but nobody would ever ask if she wanted to get involved. It wasn't until Pete gave her a CD and told her to have at that she started doing anything. One thing mentioned by Daniel Chen was that after an installfest, give everybody a live cd. They've got their system installed, now they can show it off and pass on the live cd to a friend.

I mentioned how after I'd shown Ubuntu to my mom and wow'd her with "it doesn't need it" being my response to her anti-virus question and "you can figure it out" being my response to her "how do I type stuff?" question, she went off and started telling her friends how fast and easy Linux is and how great it is that it doesn't get viruses. Based on that, I think the very first experience someone has is the most important. If they have any trouble at first, they're not going to want to recommend it. That's why I think things like hardware support are so important for working out of the box. When they can plug in their printer and have it work without needing a driver cd or anything, that'll impress them.

Amber said that when she's got someone who's nervous about showing up to a LUG or a LoCo because they don't think they'll fit in, her recommendation is: bring cookies. If you bring cookies, suddenly you're the most important person in the room, everybody wants to talk to you. It becomes an ice breaker to introduce you to the group.

Earlier today, I was in Starbucks with my boyfriend picking up a bunch of coffee for the event. We started chatting with this guy who said he's heard of Linux from his computer-science-professor wife, but don't people have trouble with it because it's not very good or easy? I told him "there are 400 people in the Hendrix Center." "You got 400 people down to Clemson for Linux?" "This is small because it's the first year. Last year in Ohio they had 1200." He was floored. He came over and was looking around, then he found me and said, "I was expecting a bunch of students, but this here is middle America. Who are all these people?" I said, "well, that's a Red Hat table, they sell support for servers. OpenSUSE is like Novell's SUSE and popular on desktops…" "But what does everyone here do?" "There are students, system administrators, developers, everything. That woman over there's a housewife." (That's when I pointed at Amber). He went and fetched a bag with information about SELF because he didn't have time to stay but wanted a way to be able to find people from here and find out about next year's.

Now one thing that impresses me is the sheer number of women here. Like I said in the last paragraph, there are about 400 people here. OLF had 1200. There have to be 3x the number of women here as were at OLF. I asked how they managed this. I was told they didn't consciously try to get female attendees, but they think the fact that they asked a lot of women to speak early on resulted in those women (even the ones who aren't speaking here) promoting it in their arenas. For example, Rikki Kite was asked to speak. Though she's not here, she promoted it. She's on LinuxChix Live, so plenty of women would've seen her blog about it. OLF is having a "Diversity in Open Source Day" on Sunday, so I really hope we'll be seeing more diversity this year.

Issue: Because I am running wireless the ushare would always fail to load because it was loading to quickly before the wireless had a chance to reconnect with the router.


Solution

Created a simple script with the following lines:

sleep 10
ushare -x -c /sharepath

This makes it so that it waits 10 seconds before running the command. Then make the script executable.

sudo chmod -x scriptname

Add the script to the Startup Applications list:

System >> Preferences >> Startup Applications

create a new entry and point the command to the script you created.

Now reboot and test if it works, if it doesnt you may need to add more time to the sleep command in the script.

First you need to add a new source to your repo's

>open the "Software Sources" GUI



System/Administration/Software Sources

>Then select the tab "Third-Party Software

>Then Add... these two APT lines by clicking on the "Add..." button and cut/past them in. Add them "ONE at a Time"

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-x-swat/xserver-no-backfill/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-x-swat/xserver-no-backfill/ubuntu jaunty main

>Now you just need to enter it's GPG Key

>Fist follow this link

http://keyserver.ubuntu.com:11371/pks/lookup?search=0x643DC6BD56580CEB1AB4A9F63B22AB97AF1CDFA9&op=index

>That "Should" open a new tab, On that tab you will see

pub 1024R/AF1CDFA9 2009-01-20 Launchpad PPA for Ubuntu-X

>Click the "AF1CDFA9" or whatever that # is at the time.

>Then it should take you to a page with the GPG/PGP key and looks like this

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: SKS 1.0.10

mI0ESXVCiwEEANKBDbiSLOJOouub/S97iDifYCVW1b0KONg7XkFYiFos+bMBzzZyGGo90k1h
hCxcseLvqCKPL7dG0RzPRKMo7mvM68yyqi2ljw0ZYC9cVf0YzgKRTohVhihelpwZ+sBRGNYk
OCu+u0Dr+EdVI3u5RNOxAELrbd4vYaS+2cCOfzmLABEBAAG0GkxhdW5jaHBhZCBQUEEgZm9y
IFVidW50dS1YiLYEEwECACAFAkl1QosCGwMGCwkIBwMCBBUCCAMEFgIDAQIeAQIXgAAKCRA7
IquXrxzfqY4HBACIQEFhl59ZkuIhTD3pmCQgfkhpcg0RVdB6Xwhu3QDJvmlWmrs+cofNMzyA
7SwdjD9ARvhGbqHwub+T7oGiHlmFyodGypUZ4i/fdHsZYpsf34MwgYxhyNyOPY/jNImUE/yw
kSI+kV5esWURH4j0jYfkaergFqCpDnsSkxuIvdjH2Q==
=bkAa
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

>Now open up gedit or any text editor you like and Cut+Past in the whole key. Then save the file with any name, like NewRepoKey_1

>Back in the "Software Sources" GUI click on the "Authentication" Tab

>Then click on the "Import Key File..." button and navigate to the key you saved and click OK.

>Now click "close"

>Now take a brake and have a smoke.

>Now you can upgrade you system through any of the multitudes of GUI's Ubuntu preinstalls

Or just

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

First, download Forlong's compiz-check

You can use this command to download it to your home directory:


wget http://blogage.de/files/9124/download -O compiz-check

Afterwards, you have to make it executable:

chmod +x compiz-check

And finally run it like this:

./compiz-check

If they output shows that Your intel graphic card is in the blacklist, this is the perfect solution for you.

Edit the compiz script file

sudo gedit /usr/bin/compiz

Then go down and look for blacklist, then add the # to take your intel graphic out of the blacklist.

Then the script should look like this

# blacklist based on the pci ids
# See http://wiki.compiz-fusion.org/Hardware/Blacklist for details
#T=" 1002:5954 1002:5854 1002:5955" # ati rs480
#T="$T 1002:4153" # ATI Rv350
#T="$T 8086:2982 8086:2992 8086:29a2 8086:2a02 8086:2a12" # intel 965
#T="$T 8086:2a02 " # Intel GM965
#T="$T 8086:3577 8086:2562 " # Intel 830MG, 845G (LP: #259385)
BLACKLIST_PCIIDS="$T"
unset T

Save, then restart

After reboot, go to System > Preferences > Appearance >Visual Effects
then tick on the middle or the last option.

Now your compiz should work back as normal.

This how-to will explain exactly how to add these icons to your desktop, in a completely graphical way.

1. You're going to follow this path in the Ubuntu panel:
Applications --> System Tools --> Configuration Editor.

2. If the above path existed, skip this step.

Sometimes System Tools isn't in the menu by default. It's simple to change by simply hovering your mouse over the taskbar, and Right-click --> Edit Menus. However, it is much easier to press
ALT + F2, and in the dialog box, copy/pasting

gconf-editor

3. On the left side of the configuration editor, follow this path:
Apps --> Nautilus --> Desktop.

4. Now, on the right side, select the checkboxes for "computer_icon_visible", "home_icon_visible", "trash_icon_visible", and whatever else applies to your wants/needs.

The latest open source git drivers seem to have a lot of this fixed. While I'm sure you can wait until the next release when we get newer drivers, here is how to do this in Jaunty and get your system fixed now. Worst case scenario of doing this is that on your particular card all the cleanup hasn't been done yet, but on my x1200 this worked wonderfully.

Open up a terminal and run the following commands

sudo apt-get install build-essential autoconf automake libtool pkg-config git-core

sudo apt-get install libdrm-dev x11proto-gl-dev mesa-common-dev xutils-dev x11proto-xf86dri-dev x11proto-fonts-dev x11proto-randr-dev x11proto-video-dev x11proto-xext-dev x11proto-xinerama-dev x11proto-render-dev xserver-xorg-dev

git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-ati

cd xf86-video-ati

sudo ./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr --enable-dri

sudo make

sudo make install

Now restart your machine and you're using the new drivers. Try bumping up your visual effects to max and see what happens. If you're lucky like me, everything will work flawlessly. If not, then you may want to wait a couple weeks and try it again, but you're no worse off then you were before.

If you happen to have a clear fan with a blue led light, here is a helpful tip. Dust particles can build up on the intake of these fans and you will never be able to see it. I only discovered it because rising heat issues caused me to remove the side panel in order to use an exterior fan.


For whatever reason I happen to hold the the panel up in the air at a certain angle to the light and saw dust build up which looked in appearance to be similar to dryer lint which is removed from a clothes dryer. A few shots of compressed air to the inside of the fan to blow the buildup away from the intake does the trick. My 120mm fan is now happy again.

These are my after temps:
temp1: +29.0°C (low = +127.0°C, high = +127.0°C) sensor = thermistor
temp2: +16.0°C (low = +127.0°C, high = +127.0°C) sensor = thermal diode
temp3: -2.0°C (low = +127.0°C, high = +127.0°C) sensor = thermistor
cpu0_vid: +2.050 V

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 0: +34.0°C (high = +78.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

coretemp-isa-0001
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 1: +34.0°C (high = +78.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

Prior to cleaning my temps were 8-10 degrees higher across the board.

In the tradition of the FAQs I did the last few releases...

1. Where can I get the Jaunty torrent?
   • Ubuntu Tutorials has compiled a list of all of them together.
2. Why should I use a torrent?
   • It takes a load off of the servers so you'll get your ISO faster
3. Anything Kubuntu users should know?
   • If you upgrade or use the DVD, you'll get PulseAudio. Don't worry, just sudo aptitude purge pulseaudio if you don't want it. I use it with Kubuntu because I've got Ubuntu too, and PulseAudio can do neat things, but anyway…
   • Quassel is the new default IRC client
   • Amarok 2 doesn't do CDs, iPod Touch, or iPhone
4. I don't like these new black bubbles. How do I get rid of them?
   • Install sudo aptitude install gnome-stracciatella-session (or click on the package name). Log out, and on GDM, open the Options menu and go to Session (menu names may vary by theme) choose the Stracciatella option instead of just choosing GNOME. Log back in.
5. What happened to the little orange update notifier icon?
   • The update manager window will open on its own within a day of when security updates become available. As for regular updates, the update manager will open a week after the last time you updated.
   • If you want the old way back, run this: gconftool -s --type bool /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch false
6. How do I re-enable Ctrl+Alt+Backspace?
   • Check out Alberto Milone's instructions
7. Anything I can experiment with?
   • If you've got Intel graphics, there's a disabled-by-default acceleration method called UXA that uses DRI2. I think this means it's supposed to be all whiz-bang like higher-end graphics cards. It certainly gives me smoother animations. Warning: it's disabled by default because there are some graphics cards that misbehave horribly when it's enabled. For example, with i965, X will crash if you suspend while compositing is enabled and you're using UXA. The workaround would be to drop out of Compiz to Metacity or disabled Kwin's compositing before suspending. Instructions and card-specific warnings are on the wiki. By the way, if you have a totally blank xorg.conf and can't figure out how to fill it out, run sudo dexconf -o /etc/X11/xorg.conf
8. What changed in PulseAudio?
   • It's now using autospawn, which means that if it crashes at some point, you're not left with silence. It'll start back up next time you try to play music or listen to a podcast or whatever it is you're doing that requires sound.
9. How do I get rid of PulseAudio?
   • This has changed, since it's using autospawn. You need to disable that by editing /etc/pulse/client.conf and changing "autospawn = yes" on line 26 to "autospawn = no". Additionally, if this is a clean install, not an upgrade, you'll need to add your user to the audio group with sudo adduser USER audio replacing USER with your username.
10. Where are the release notes?
    • Glad you asked! Release notes are right here This blog post is just the highlights of things I see asked a lot.

I can't think of anything else. If you've got another question to add, post it in the comments.

I'm also pleased to say that the Intel 965 wireless and graphics are working extremely well in Jaunty. Yay! My computer's happy. X doesn't lock, VT switching works, no more kernel panics (I attribute the panics I had to Intel 965 wireless since my brother and I have matching laptops, except for that wireless card, and his doesn't crash, and mine did). So, thank you to the people who work on making Intel drivers be lovely.

Valerie Aurora over at Red Hat has just posted on her blog about ext3 and ext4 and fsync() issues we've all heard so much about. As she says there, rename in ext4 now implies fsync() so that issue should calm down.

However, 2.6.30 is defaulting to data=writeback, which means it only writes the metadata to the journal—not the actual data. This is how XFS, ReiserFS, and a few others work, and it's much faster than ext3's default data=ordered. It's also somewhat less awesome at ensuring your data doesn't get lost. She's asking that people test patches (linked from her blog) for a new journal mode called "guarded" (created by Chris Mason) which she says will be faster than "ordered" but still have its data consistency guarantees.

Sometimes you will accidently add an applet to the bottom where your windows you go to when you minimize, or you may accidentlly delete the applet that displays the windows. This can be a major problem because, other than being extremely annoying it will cause you to not be able to maximize a window and have to reopen the application everytime you minimize it. Even worse it can casue you to lose your work if you are working in a program such as Open Office or GIMP.


First open up a terminal window: Applications > Accessories > Terminal

Enter the following command

killall gnome-panel

If there was an applet blocking your windows list that should have resolved the problem. If not read on.

Now Right click on the bottom panel and click "Add to Panel"

Scroll down to the bottom and click "Window List" then click add and click close.

Your windows should appear now.

This tutorial will explain How to Install Microsoft Office 2007 on Ubuntu Intrepid

Install Wine 1.16 from the old .deb archive

Open terminal and type the following command

winecfg

in a terminal and make sure the Windows version is set to XP

Run your Office setup in wine.

Using the command line, cd to the directory where your Office setup files are and run:

wine setup.exe

Using the GUI: Navigate to your Office setup files, right click on the setup.exe file and choose open with "wine windows program loader."

Click customize in the setup window and disable any features you do not want, and change any settings (name, organization, etc.), then click install.

Once the installation is complete close the window, and navigate to /home/username/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Microsoft\ Office/Office12 and run any office programs to test (WINWORD.EXE, EXCEL.EXE, POWERPNT.EXE, MSPUB.EXE, etc.).

Re-enable the wine repository (steps to install repository here: http://www.winehq.org/download/deb), and update wine to the latest version.

Now just create links to these executables for easy access. Type this in the command box when making links to wine programs

wine "/pathtoexecutable/"

(replace "pathtoexecutable" with a valid file path).

This tutorial will explain you how to Install Hercules Classic Silver Webcam in Ubuntu.This how-to assumes that you have not previously tried to load the gspca from source. If you have, you will need to clean up all the drivers that were installed previously.

For starters, you will know you have this webcam if, when you run the command:

$lsusb | grep 06f8:3004

You get:

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 06f8:3004 Guillemot Corp.

Since we will be build from source, we need to make sure we have all the tools:

$ sudo aptitude install build-essential

First we need to have a place to download and keep the source code. In this case we create a directory /opt/src for this, but you can just as easily use another location

$ sudo mkdir /opt/src

$ sudo chmod 777 /opt/src

$ cd /opt/src

The gspca source lives in the v4l-dvb project. This project uses Mercurial to allow for easy updating of source. So let's install Mercurial


$ sudo aptitude install mercurial

Using mercurial, download the most recent version of v4l-dvb:

$ hg clone http://linuxtv.org/hg/v4l-dvb

This will actively pull all the most recent source code for this project into a newly created directory called v4l-dvb. If you ever need to update the source just go to that directory and type

$ hg pull -u http://linuxtv.org/hg/v4l-dvb

Before we compile, we need to clean up any gspca stuff already on the system from the original install of 8.10. The drivers live in the specific folders for your kernel under /lib/modules. You can identify your kernel by

$ uname -r

and locate the /kernel/drivers/media/video/gspca folder. Or, you can use the below command to quickly remove them

$ sudo rm -r /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/media/video/gspca

There are some modules we need to make sure are not loaded as well before compiling

$ sudo rmmod videodev

Check to see if any gspca modules are currently loaded

$ lsmod | grep gspca

If any are found, remove them by name:

$ sudo rmmod (name of mod here)

Now we are ready to compile. Go into the v4l-dvb directory

$ cd v4l-dvb

And compile:

$ make

This will take about 10 mins or so and will compile all the v4l drivers including TV capture card drivers and other stuff. I'm sure there's a way to only compile what we need, but I'm not smart enough to figure it out.

Once it's done compiling, install it with

$ sudo make install

Restart your system using the following command

$ sudo reboot

Once it reboots, your camera should be recognized. Run:

$ dmesg

and look for something like:

gspca: main v2.4.0 registered
gspca: probing 06f8:3004
sonixj: Sonix chip id: 11
spca: probe ok
gspca: probing 06f8:3004
gspca: probing 06f8:3004
usbcore: registered new interface driver sonixj
sonixj: registered

If you tried to use Skype, You may got very colorful static instead of a picture of Yours Truly. Starting Skype with:

$ LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype

fixed it.

A way to start Skype from the menu instead of command line using the following procedure

$ sudo gedit /usr/local/bin/skype

and paste the following two lines into the new file

#!/bin/bash
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so /usr/bin/skype

save, then make it executable

$ sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/skype

That's it!