OpenOffice 3.0 PPA is up a working again

A few entries ago, I posted information on how to upgrade to Open Office 3.0. Then suddenly the repository went off-line and it didn't work anymore. I'm glad to report that as of yesterday, the repository is back online and notified me of updates. The updates worked great on the systems that were updating from Open Office 2.4, but where 3.0 was already installed there were conflicts and a partial upgrade was offered but didn't work. To fix the issue I have to remove Open Office from the computer and then reinstall. After that everything was working perfect. I enabled the repositories again on the other computers and all is well.

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Intrepid Ibex Install & timekpr b5

Toady I had to rebuild one of the systems in my house. It was one that the kids use extensively so of course timekpr is normally installed on that system. I took the opportunity to upgrade that system to Intrepid Ibex after installing a new HDD, and wireless adapter. Enough of the small talk, here's the news.

    I downloaded and installed timekpr b5 and all was well. I then decided to add the Intrepid repository from Even's PPA and to my surprise there were updates for timekpr. I installed the updates and I now have b5+ installed on that system and it's working beautifully.

    I filed a bug report against timekpr today. I found that when you are logged in as an administrator or as an unrestricted user, the timekpr status keeper gives a countdown to log off (midnight). I feel like this shouldn't be the case for any unrestricted users. timekpr should simply report No Restrictions or some such phrase, so a new bug report was filed.

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Timekpr Version 0.2.2 is released!

This program will track and control the computer usage of your user accounts. You can limit their daily usage based on a timed access duration and configure periods of day when they can or cannot log in. With this application, administrators can limit account login time duration or account access hours.

DEVELOPMENT:

• This program is heavily depended on Linux-PAM and its time and access modules.
• Beta 5 has been released, and now supports Ubuntu, Kubuntu & Xbuntu version 8.04 and 8.10 - Special thanks to .nedberg for this much anticipated release.
• If you would like to contribute to the code, join the timekpr-maintainers team on launchpad.
• Current status indicated below:
  - Ubuntu Hardy: Works
  - Ubuntu Intrepid: Works
  - Kubuntu Hardy KDE3: Works
  - Kubuntu Interpid KDE4: Works
  - Xubuntu Hardy: Works

HISTORY & CREDITS:

• This project was born after Charles Jackson's (crjackson) request for a program that time-limits user accounts:
  Ubuntu Forums. You can also find a progression of the history posted at the Bucknasty. blog.

• This is a complete re-write in python and vast improvement from the original timekpr bash script:
  Waggledance.

• Even Nedberg initially began to improve the original bash script from Chris Jackson. Savvas Radević packaged it and soon began co-development.

• Special thanks go to Charles Jackson (crjackson), who has contributed a lot by suggesting, brainstorming useful features, writing the initial blueprint, and
  being the primary tester.

• We would also like to thank all the people posting to that topic in ubuntu forums for their comments.

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Additional Information

Developers Even Nedberg and Savvas Radević (or .nedberg and forger) of the Ubuntu forums have rewritten the package using python as opposed to the bash shell script of it's previous form. timekpr now has a full featured interface with the ability to change and grow as needed. The beta 3 release adds support for both KDE and Xfce versions of Ubuntu 8.04 & 8.10.

I have requested an additional feature of a black-out setting that would let you slice a chunk of time right out of the normally allowable login hours. This would be for designated home work time, or other required activities. Please bookmark this page for future updates.

- Charles

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INSTRUCTIONS

Download the deb file and double click on it to install. Configure your users, click apply and then quit when done. Just remember to check back here to always get the latest version available.

Intrepid Ibex Users should install by adding Even's PPA repository to there software sources list, and then use your package manager to install. This will always give you the latest version and keep your system updated.

Stable repository:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/timekpr-maintainers/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/timekpr-maintainers/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main

Development repository:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/nedberg/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/nedberg/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main

Prior to installation, you must Un-install any previous versions by running the code below in a terminal session.

sudo dpkg --purge timekpr

DOWNLOAD

Screen Shot1 Screen Shot 2 Screen Shot 3

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Install audio and video codecs - Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex

Open up a terminal (applications -> accessories -> terminal) and copy/paste this code:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/intrepid.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list && wget -q http://packages.medibuntu.org/medibuntu-key.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add - && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y ubuntu-restricted-extras non-free-codecs w32codecs totem-mozilla libdvdcss2 libdvdnav4 totem-xine xine-ui libdmx1 libxine1 libxine1-ffmpeg libxinerama1 libdvdread3

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HOW TO: UPGRADE to Open Office to 3.0 on INTREPID IBEX

$ sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Copy to the end of your sources.list

## Openoffice.org
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/openoffice-pkgs/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/openoffice-pkgs/ubuntu intrepid main

Then open a terminal and run:

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

I had to run my update manager afterward to get ALL updates.

Thats it.

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Intrepid 8.10 on my Laptop

Yesterday I installed Intrepid Ibex on my laptop. I'm not thrilled because of the ATI video driver being kind of slow, but it's okay otherwise so far. I guess I'll get used to it for 6 months or so until the Jackrabbit comes out. It's hard to give it a fair test with a cruddy video driver. It's not really Ubuntu's fault that ATI didn't provide full support fot x.org 7.4 but the end result is a less than thrilling experience. At the end of the day, it's working well, it just FEELS less responisive. 3D games play fine however.  I wish OpenOffice 3.0 had been installed by default, I guess I'll have to make that happen myself. I read that it was listed in backports but that just isn't the case. I'll probably add the PPA for openoffice and install from there. I pop back in and let you know what I've decided to do.

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Nasty Windows XP

Today I had the displeasure of re-installing WindowsXP-Pro on my main system. This system has 4 HD's so I keep a copy around for a couple of programs I can't do without (DVDFab5 & Sony Vegas). It took me ALL DAY to get windows installed because of my SATA HD's.  Windows SP3 won't recognize my nVidia Nforce4 SATA controller. Somewhere in the process I messed up the drive and ended up downloading WD's DataLifeguard CD ISO. Using that I was able to prepare the drive and install Windows again. At one point, I thought I had killed the drive. To test it out, I formated ot ext3 and Ubuntu installed with no problems. Only crappy windows couldn't work. What's worse was I even tried Vista and it too was a no go. Well, thanks to the WD tools I got it all sorted out, but it ruined my Sunday.

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Permissions problem after fresh install

I recently did a clean install of Ubuntu Hardy 8.04.1 and got all my updates.  All was perfect except somehow my permissions in my home folder got borked.  Well, not really somehow! I figured out how I screwed it all up. I was trying to restore all my saved email (thunderbird) and in doing so (by saving to an NTFS partition) all the settings in my backup files required root permissions.  Well I got all that sorted out but I also messed up the permissions to some hidden files too.  Long story short, it all seems to be working now, but I should have archived the files in a tar.gz file rather than copying them to the NTFS partition. Achariving would have preserved the permissions. In my blinde efforts to fix the problem, I reset permissions on everything in the home folder. It's all working now, but I'm sure some things aren't quite the way they should be. I was going to start from scratch again, but it's not worth it since everything seems to be working well now.

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Timekeepr - Keep control of computer usage

This program will track and control the computer usage of your user accounts. You can limit their daily usage based on a timed access duration and configure periods of day when they can or cannot log in. With this application, administrators can limit account login time duration or account access hours.

DEVELOPMENT:

• This program is heavily depended on Linux-PAM and its time and access modules.
• Beta 5 has been released, and now supports Ubuntu, Kubuntu & Xbuntu version 8.04 and 8.10 - Special thanks to .nedberg for this much anticipated release.
• If you would like to contribute to the code, join the timekpr-maintainers team on launchpad.
• Current status indicated below:
  - Ubuntu Hardy: Works
  - Ubuntu Intrepid: Works
  - Kubuntu Hardy KDE3: Works
  - Kubuntu Interpid KDE4: Works
  - Xubuntu Hardy: Works

HISTORY & CREDITS:

• This project was born after Charles Jackson's (crjackson) request for a program that time-limits user accounts:
  Ubuntu Forums. You can also find a progression of the history posted at the Bucknasty. blog.

• This is a complete re-write in python and vast improvement from the original timekpr bash script:
  Waggledance.

• Even Nedberg initially began to improve the original bash script from Chris Jackson. Savvas Radević packaged it and soon began co-development.

• Special thanks go to Charles Jackson (crjackson), who has contributed a lot by suggesting, brainstorming useful features, writing the initial blueprint, and
  being the primary tester.

• We would also like to thank all the people posting to that topic in ubuntu forums for their comments.

---

Additional Information

Developers Even Nedberg and Savvas Radević (or .nedberg and forger) of the Ubuntu forums have rewritten the package using python as opposed to the bash shell script of it's previous form. timekpr now has a full featured interface with the ability to change and grow as needed. The beta 3 release adds support for both KDE and Xfce versions of Ubuntu 8.04 & 8.10.

I have requested an additional feature of a black-out setting that would let you slice a chunk of time right out of the normally allowable login hours. This would be for designated home work time, or other required activities. Please bookmark this page for future updates.

- Charles

---

INSTRUCTIONS

Download the deb file and double click on it to install. Configure your users, click apply and then quit when done. Just remember to check back here to always get the latest version available.

Intrepid Ibex Users should install by adding Even's PPA repository to there software sources list, and then use your package manager to install. This will always give you the latest version and keep your system updated.

Stable repository:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/timekpr-maintainers/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/timekpr-maintainers/ubuntu intrepid main

Development repository:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/nedberg/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/nedberg/ubuntu intrepid main

Prior to installation, you must Un-install any previous versions by running the code below in a terminal session.

sudo dpkg --purge timekpr

DOWNLOAD

Screen Shot1 Screen Shot 2 Screen Shot 3

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Okay, I,m testing the Flock Browser for my Bolggin Needs

This is a test of the Flock Browser.  If this works out, I'll be removing "ScribeFire" from Firefox 3 and using this.  I haven't have much luck lately with ScribeFire sooo...  I hope this works out.  Well it seems to work very well so far.  Not much choice in font sizes and control, the the blog site itself is limited.  When using ScribeFire I have lots of choices in font contro, the only problem is that the Blog Site doesn't accept them properly and that's been causing problems.  I would prefer to be limited by my blogging application in a manner that reflects the capabilities of the actual posting site.  At least the bolg won't look messed up when some one views it.

I'll be blogging more today about the progress of Timekeeper.  It has come a long way and need a new blog post to reference.  I'll explain more on that later.

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timekpr.sh - Limit Daily Desktop Usage in Ubuntu

NEW GUI VERSION

Here is the install script: install_timekpr.sh - Download the script to your desktop, open up a terminal and paste the following into the terminal. cd Desktop (remember to use a capital 'D') sudo bash install_timekpr.sh

This script will make sure you have the latest version. You still need to edit /etc/rc.local and add /usr/local/bin/timekpr.sh & to make the script run at boot. The GUI should be self explanatory, but here is a short how-to:

Select the user you wish to configure

1. Check "Use limits" if you want to use timed limits
   a) Set the "Every day" limit or
   b) Check "Configure single days" and set different limits for every day of the week
   
   
2. Check "Use boundaries" if you want to control when the user can log in
   a) Set the "Every day" boundaries or
   b) Check "configure single boundaries" and set different boundaries for every day of the week
   
   
3. Click "Apply" if you want to configure another user, OK if you are finished or Cancel to just exit.

To Un-Restrict a user, select the username, uncheck both "Use limits" and "Use boundaries" and click Apply/OK

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How to Limit Daily Desktop Usage in Ubuntu

This is not my script but I'm placing it here for me and my family to reference. It comes from another blog called "Waggle Dance" The link to that bog is posted on the left hand side of this page under "My Links". All credit for the following scripts go to the author of the original timekpr.txt, and to Ubuntu Forums member .nedberg for making the modifications and additional two scripts I requested in this thread.

Here's the original content.

I have been looking for a way to limit the amount of time my kids spend on the computer. After toying with a couple of different things like timeoutd and pam_time, I decided to hack together something to meet my needs:

1. My kids share a PC with their Mom using fast-user-switching, so I needed it to keep track of multiple sessions.


2. I needed different times for different users ( Mom wouldn’t be toothrilled with me forcing her to log off after an hour or two )


3. I wanted everyone to get ample warning so they could save their work and logout cleanly.
   

With those ideas in mind I came up with this:

timekpr - (Modified - this is not the creator's original version)
What timekpr does is watch for instances of the session manager, keep a running tally of the time they are running, and logs kills it when time is up. Several libnotify alerts let the user know when thier time is running out.

It’s pretty rough right now ( just a couple of hours of research and bash hacking ) but it just kicked my son of the PC after his alloted hour and a half, so it’s functional - YMMV - I need to allow for different time limits on the weekends, and it uses a less than elegant method for
shutting down gnome-session, so it’s very much a work in progress.

Lets make sure you have the notifier libs installed so that you can get the nice graphical notifications that your user is about to be kicked to the curb. Open up a terminal and paste this:

sudo apt-get install libnotify-bin

To install it, down load the script, timekpr , and rename it. Copy it someplace useful and make it executable:

mv timekpr.txt timekpr.sh
chmod 755 timekpr.sh
sudo mv timekpr.sh /usr/local/bin

Next make a directory for the time tracking files and limits:

sudo mkdir /var/lib/timekpr

I added a line to /etc/rc.local

/usr/local/bin/timekpr.sh &

to start the script after a re-boot.

To limit someone’s per day usage, just add the number of seconds they will be allowed to a file in /var/lib/timekpr

sudo -i
echo 7200 > /var/lib/timekpr/username
where username is the account you want to time limit.

IMPORTANT UPDATE - NEW VERSION

This is a new version and needs a new config file for each userername located at:

/var/lib/timekpr/username

To use the new script, login to a terminal with root permissions and delete the old script AND all the old user configuration files and REBOOT your system. Then install the new script and create all new username config files. Then paste the settings (as shown below) into the newly created confg files. Reboot your system again, and the script should work it's magic provided you have added it to the: /etc/rc.local file as instructed above. If you don't create a configuration file for any user, they will have unrestricted access.

Each of the username files should have the following format:
limit=( 345 345 345 345 170 345 345 )
from=( 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 )
to=( 22 22 22 22 23 22 22 )

Each of the seven numbers on a line stands for the value of that certain day of week

(SUN--MON--TUE--WED--THR--FRI--SAT)

An unrestricted user does not need this file, so don't make one for yourself.

To start the script without rebooting, open up a terminal session and type:
$ bash /usr/local/bin/timekpr.sh

You need to be sure that libnotify is installed. Type the following code in a terminal session.
$ sudo apt-get install libnotify-bin

Here are the scripts - Notice the 2 extra scripts for added usefulness.

timekpr.txt
This is a modified version of the original. It lets you set additional time controls that prevent the user from being able to login outside of the allowable limits (7 & 22 by default) of 0700 & 2200 hours.

addtime.txt
This is a "rewards" script to give additional time to your well behaved little users. This script (when ran) is only effective for the day you run it. Run this script in the following format:

sudo addtime.sh
This does not expand the login hours regular boundaries of 0700-2200 hours.

extendlimits.txt
This script will allow you to set user privileges to extend beyond the default login boundaries of 0700 to 2200 hours. This is only effective for one session and will reset when the timekpr.sh script is next executed. To run this script, use the following format:

sudo extendlimits.sh

What's ahead?

.nedberg of the Ubuntu Forums is currently working on a GUI frontend for this script. Here is a preview of the work as it stands.

Enemy Territory: Wolfenstein - Complete Install Guide for Hardy

Make sure that the driver to your 3D graphics card is properly installed and working by opening up a terminal and typing:

glxgears

Be sure your sourcelist is correctly set and download the relevant libs to Wolfenstein.

sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude safe-upgrade

sudo aptitude install libc6-i386 libgtk1.2

wget http://www.boundlesssupremacy.com/Cappy/getlibs/getlibs-all.deb

sudo dpkg -i getlibs-all.deb

INSTALLATION:

Open the terminal and type;

cd ~/Desktop

wget -c http://ftp.games.skynet.be/pub/wolfenstein/et-linux-2.60.x86.run

chmod +x et-linux-2.60.x86.run

sudo sh et-linux-2.60.x86.run

NOTE: It's important that you exit the installer window and do not press the installers play button. It will course permission problems for Wolfenstein.

Get any missing dependencies

getlibs /usr/local/games/enemy-territory/et.x86

Build a Launcher in the Games Menu

sudo nano /usr/share/applications/etwolfenstein.desktop

Add the following;

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Enemy Territory: Wolfenstein
Comment=Wolfenstein:
Enemy Territory is an online multi-player game, where the players
interact with each other over a network in two teams (Axis and Allies)
to defend or destroy mission objectives.
Exec=et
Icon=/usr/local/games/enemy-territory/ET.xpm
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Application;Game;

Then save (ctrl)+(o) and exit (ctrl)+(x)

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory - no sound fix

The following is information I found by searching the internet for making the sound work in my WolfET installs. I found this information in 2 seperate forum posts and I take no credit for the accuracy of this information.

I have tried this on 3 different systems of mine, and it works on all 3. I have no idea why the commands in the first group do not match the second (i.e. sudo echo... vs sudo sh -c "echo...")

I personally used the 1st group when I tested and found it to work perfectly. The second group was found when I was looking a permanant fix (holds after reboot). I would guess they both do the exact same thing but use a slightly different command.

Older games like Wolf: Enemy Territory and Quake3 do not support ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture), the older games support OSS (Open Sound System) . The commands below direct the game to use OSS.

For WolfET
As root user (sudo -i) type:
sudo echo "et.x86 0 0 direct" > /proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/oss

For Quake3
As root user (sudo -i) type:
sudo echo "quake3.x86 0 0 direct" > /proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/oss

The commands I posted only effect the games. After I'm done with the game everything else works good like Gaim and Rhythmbox. The commands I posted are only good for that session, after a reboot, I have to re-enter commands.
Try type this on terminal

sudo sh -c "echo 'et.x86 0 0 direct' > /proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/oss"

sudo sh -c "echo 'et.x86 0 0 disable' > /proc/asound/card0/pcm0c/oss"

Then test the game. If sound works, you can apply this fix permanetly by typing in terminal:

sudo gedit /etc/rc.local

and add these lines end of file

echo 'et.x86 0 0 direct' > /proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/oss
echo 'et.x86 0 0 disable' > /proc/asound/card0/pcm0c/oss
exit 0

What is the equivalent of Ctrl-Alt-Del in Ubuntu

Press the Alt+PrntScrn(SysRq) keys and hold them down while you type each of the following keys in order: R-E-I-S-U-B

R switch the keyboard mode
E send all processes the SIGTERM singal
I sends all processes the SIGKILL signal
S Sync filesystem
U Unmount all devices
B reboots the system (typing O instead will turn the computer Off)

Theoretically you could just do Alt+SysRq+B to do an old school, Win 95 style Ctrl+Alt+Del reboot, but it’s just as bad as hitting that power button. Your best bet is to run the whole sequence to ensure that the system shuts down in the way it would normally shut down when you issue a reboot command.

And it’s almost guaranteed to work even on a completely locked up system. That is, if it’s enabled on your system. If you are not sure, do a really quick test right now:

cat /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq

If you see a 1, you are in good shape.
If you see a 0 (zero), you can enable the SysRq keys by doing:

sudo echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq

How to add the source of Ubuntu Tweak

No matter your Ubuntu is Feisty, Gutsy or Hardy, open your terminal, type the command to run gedit(or other editor in your opinion) to modify the sources.list:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

And put the two line into it:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/tualatrix/ubuntu hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/tualatrix/ubuntu hardy main

Then update the source and install or upgrade Ubuntu Tweak:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-tweak

if you have installed, just type:

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Randy - To Fix your refresh rate try this

Okay, I was able to fix this problem by doing this:
Open up a terminal session and paste sudo displayconfig-gtk

then set the screen model to your exact monitor. After doing that, you should be able to change your refresh rate using the System->Preferences->Screen Resolution program.

Also have a look at the ATI links posted in the "My Links" section to the left of this page.

Reconfigure your ATI Driver - Instructions for Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy)

Enable accelerated the accelerated ATI graphics driver in the restricted-manager, then open a terminal and past the following code:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh linux-restricted-modules-`uname -r` && sudo insmod /lib/modules/`uname -r`/volatile/fglrx.ko

Log out and log in.

Version Locking Packages and Kernel

COMMAND LINE METHOD:
Locking the version on a package prevents it from being upgraded. I'll show you two ways to do this. The first is to open a terminal and type: sudo aptitude hold linux-image-`uname -r` Those ` are backticks, usually located to the left of the 1/! key.


SYNAPTIC PACKAGE MANAGER METHOD:
For those who prefer to use GUIs, open Synaptic and scroll down to where the packages named linux-image- and then some numbers are. Find the one you are using (probably the highest number), and click Package > Lock Version. Both of these will prevent the kernel from upgrading at all.

OK, now you need to release those holds.
Synaptic, that's no problem. Just un-check it, do the upgrade, then make sure you lock version on the new one. For the command line one do sudo aptitude unhold linux-image-`uname -r`. Redo all your tweaks of course, and you're good to go.

Bonus Check

Today I got a bonus check from my employer, a plaque, a service ribbon, and a letter of commendation. You might say it's been eventful. I'm very appreciative towards my boss for recognition because I've definitely been loyal and a producer of results. It's all about the bottom line, and I'm good at that.

As a result of the bonus check, I'll be taking some time off from work (just a day) and visiting my son who just moved into his new house with my Daughter-in-law and my grand baby Audrey. I can't wait to see them.

I'll also be traveling a route that allows me to visit my parents and siblings, and that will also be great.

That's all I've got for the day. I can't wait for some more great Ubuntu updates and/or bug fixes. Goodnight...

RaLink RT2500 rev 01 speed tweak...

If you have this wireless card and it won't connect at a good speed (mine only connected at 1M) then you will love this tweak. First you have this card. In a terminal session issue the "lspci" command and look for this:

"01:09.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2500 802.11g Cardbus/mini-PCI (rev 01)"

Next, Check you speed (right click on the connection and choose Connection information). If it says anything less than 54Mb/s, open up /etc/rc.local (as root) and add the following lines:

Code:

ifconfig wlan0 up
iwconfig wlan0 rate 54M

Replace wlan0 with you interface name. Worked for me.

To put in to effect immeadiately, open up a terminl and run:
sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

Install audio and video codecs in ubuntu

Open up a terminal (applications -> accessories -> terminal) and copy/paste this code:

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/hardy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list && wget -q http://packages.medibuntu.org/medibuntu-key.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add - && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y ubuntu-restricted-extras non-free-codecs w32codecs totem-mozilla libdvdcss2 libdvdnav4 gxine totem-xine xine-ui libdmx1 libxine1 libxine1-ffmpeg libxinerama1 libdvdread3

That’s it.

(if you use 64bit, replace w32codecs with w64codecs)

————–

If you are looking for a better audio player, I suggest either exaile or bmpx.

You now have 99% of the codecs in the world installed on your system.

2 Kittens Adopted - 3 to go

Last night at work I got a call from my wife Joy. She told me that lots of people have been calling her after listing the kittens for adoption on craigs list. As it turns out, 2 of the white kittens got adopted by some very nice people while I was at work. I'm glad I wasn't home when it all took place. I'm kind of sad about the whole thing.

There are 3 kittens left. One is solid white, one is an orange/white tiger striped kitty, the last (the runt) is my favorite. She is orange, white, and black. I don't know if I can let that one go... Stay tuned...

4th of July - BORING...

The 4th of July has come and gone for 2008 and it was really boring. It's been raining all day and screwed up my plans to finish the repairs on my stairway to the back porch. I finally have the constructed and they look nice. The problem is that I haven't figured out a good way to attach them to the porch. My back porch is in tested condition and not really constructed by a professional (it was built by the previous owner I suppose).

It's looking like I'm going to have to find a way to improve the porch it's self before I can safely attach the stairs. Bummer! This should have been a 1 day job, but this is my 2nd weekend working on this monstrosity.

I was thinking of upgrading my Ubuntu installs on the 2 machines used by the kids (They're still running 7.10) but I decided not to fix it since it's not broke.

So back to my original title... BORING...

I guess that's it for now...

Lots of things...

Wow! Ubuntu 8.04.1 was released today. I may do a fresh install on my desktop just to see if it fixes a problem I'm having with Firefox 3.0

I installed a Mac Leopard theme and it looks great. Really liking the look and feel of things.
Joy got a new HP laptop with Vista (Yuk), but the Laptop is great. Very fast. Heck, it has 3GB of ram. That's more than my desktop.

Joy is warming up to Ubuntu a little. She prefers to do her school assignments using Ubuntu.

Father's Day...

It's been a while since I last checked in. Ubuntu has hundreds of new updates and fixes. I've ordered a new Intel MiniPCI wireless card for my eMachines laptop (better supported in Linux). My niece had a baby boy 2 weeks ago. His name is Ashton Jace...

AND it's Fathers day. We went out to eat last night but the grill is fired up today and the beer is cold.

I got a new pressure washer for Fathers day, I've been playing with that and all I can say is wow! Those things are awesome. I can't believe how well it has cleaned the sidewalk and the brick on my house. It will have lots of use down the road. Everyone wants to play with it. It's my present to myself, but I don't mind everyone else doing the work..

Runnin Good... Hardy Loves eMachines Lappy

Well the install was pretty uneventful. Setting up wireless was different. I no longer needed the windows driver or ndiswrapper. The ristricted driver saw my hardware and with a reboot I had wireless. My only complaint is that it's a 1 MB/S connection. Now, that doesn't really seem to make any practical difference as it downloads and streams video/music just as fast as always. I would however like it to show a faster connection.

All my usual apps. installed without a hitch and I moved my data from the old home folder to the new one. The machine seems to be a little faster but nothing to blow your socks off. However Firefox 3 is much faster and nicer to use.

Under Gutsy, I always had an annoying issued with sound playback. It would skip at about a 3-5 second interval and continue until playback was stopped. This would happen on nearly every media player except that I had NO PROBLEMS with exaile music player and MPlayer Movie Player. Any thing else and it was an issue...

With Hardy 8.04 installed, I have no more sound issues on this machine.

It seems that something was improved with ALSA or perhaps that now it's running PULSE AUDIO that was the fix. I don't know, but I'm loving it so far...

MUFFY UPDATE: Muffy delivered 7 healthy kittens 3 days ago.... Anyone want a Kitten?

eMachines m6809 - Hardy x86 Install

I'm backing up my personal laptop right not using Acronis TrueImage. When I'm done, I plan to move my home folder to a save place and then I'm going to wipe the Gutsy partition in preparation for a clean install of Hardy. My current setup runs so well that I've been putting this off, but I can't resist anymore. If it runs like crap or something, I can just restore my disk image and the laptop will never know it was violated. I hope... I'll report back after the install.

Checking in... Muffy escaped...

I'm just checking in because I haven't posted in a while. Hardy is running well on my desktop but I sure wish a couple of bug fixes would come through. The Pulse Audio vs. Flash Audio bug is a little annoying. The bug where I can't launch my media player is very annoying too. I didn't think the media keyboard button meant so much to me until I didn't have it. Isn't that the way with everything though? I guess I'll just have to wait.

Muffy escaped...

Our cat Muffy is VERY pregnant so we are keeping her in the house that she and kittens will be safe when the birthing day comes. Tonight my daughter left the back door open for a few minutes and she escaped... The great cat hunt was on. Luckily she comes running when the wife calls. After spending about 30 minutes searching the house and the yard, Joy started calling for her. We looked over the back privacy fence and there she was... Too fat to jump back over the fence. My daughter Ericka climbed over the fence and lifted her across. She's back in the house none the worse for the adventure.

That's about it for now. I'll blog more when something good... Oh Wait!!! I forgot. Joy passed her final exams and is finally done with Chemistry and Biology. That was a great thing. She did very good and I'm VERY proud of her achievements. I love you honey...

Hardy Updates

Well, I'm really liking Hardy Heron aside from some already mentioned bugs. I learned today that unlike previous versions of Ubuntu it really is best to leave the "Proposed Updates" tab unselected in the software sources repositories. The proposed updates that I installed today broke my gnome panel and it wouldn't boot properly either. Luckily I always keep a recent disk image of my latest working system. It only took me about 10 minutes to revert back to a clean working system. Then I removed the proposed updates from my repository list. I had such great luck with the proposed updates under Gutsy Gibbon that I'm a little disappointed.

I also filed a bug report today on "Glipper" clipboard manager/buffer. I kept crashing on reboot and I would have to delete it from the panel and reinstall the applet to make it work again. After reverting to an earlier install of Hardy without the proposed updates however, I'm not having any more problems from it. I'm not sure if Glipper is a problem or if it was the updates that caused the problem. I have had troubles with Glipper before so I think the bug report is in order.

ScribeFire is once again installed on my main system. I'm using it right now to make this blog entry. Since it seems to check and hook into the blog every time the browser is launched I'll disable the extension when not in use. Having it active all the time slows down page loading even when it's not in use.

I'm been experimenting with changing my usplash themes using startup manager. It's really interesting but having problems with Hardy. My Gutsy install on the laptop is looking really good. On Hardy I had to revert to the default to get things working properly.

nVidia 169.12 Splash Screen disabled finally!

Well, I finally got the nVidia splash screen disabled. It was a matter of adding the option "NoLogo" to the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file as follows:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce 7900 GT/GTO"
Option "NoLogo"
EndSection

That did the trick and I'm no longer annoyed by the big green splash screen. No thanks to people who posted here to help me. I got the answer in a plea for help from the Ubuntu Forums
Well that's it for now. Just updating the BLOG to keep my notes on tap.

RealPlayer 11 Gold

Today I installed RealPlayer 11 Gold. The 1st time I installed it I didn't use "sudo" so the binary didn't have proper write permissions and it installed in the home directory. The final result is that it didn't work properly. It would launch but only if I dug through the binary directory installed in my home folder and told it to execute manually. The menu icon/launcher didn't work at all. It gave me some kind of "child process error". So I deleted everything from my hard drive relating to RealPlayer and started over.

This time, I went to the terminal and changed the desktop directory and typed "sudo ./Real" and hit enter. The next thing I know is the install process completed secussfully, and it works as it's supposed to.

Amazon MP3 Downloader for Hardy

I just downloaded and installed the Amazon MP3 Downloader for Gutsy. There is no Hardy version so far. The good news is that it installed without any problems on Hardy 32-bit. I purchased a song just to make sure it works correctly and it does.

Also, I'm using Scribefire to write this entry on my Gutsy powered laptop. I ordered a new power supply / battery charger for the laptop from eBay for $16. I've been running this laptop with 1% charge on my battery for a long time. I purchased a new battery because it seemed the old battery wouldn't hold a charge. No Dice! Now I had 2 batteries with the same problem. Finally I decided it must be the charger (fingers crossed motherboard wasn't bad) and bought one. It charged my battery to 100% so fast it made my head spin. The laptop is working so slick now that I'm hesitant to start a new OS install of Hardy. I can wait....

Hardy Is Nice...

Well, I've installed the 32-bit version of Hardy on one of my machines. I LIKE IT! It's net perfect but it's getting closer. FireFox 3 is fast and clean. Man this is so much better than FF 2. Another BIG improvement is in Open Office. It too is much faster. In fact, everything is more responsive. Part of this is due to the indexing services being turned off by default now. Smart move Canonical! I always turn it off from the get go. When I'm searching for files on my HD I use Krusader's search feature. If you want to install Krusader from the command line it's: sudo apt-get install krusader.

Now for the only bug I've ran into so far... PULSE AUDIO vs. FLASH PLAYER. Now Pulse Audio is a good addition but it has issues because Flash Player isn't Pulse aware. The bug simply does this. Flash can't share audio output with any other application so if you are watching a flash video, don't plan to listen to a music player. You will only get sound from the first one that is launched.

I've recently read that 64-bit Hardy doesn't have this bug, but I haven't tested the 64-bit version yet so I don't know for sure. Also there are a couple of work arounds for bug for use with 32 bit, but the most common solutions (adding a special sound lib) seems to cause more problems than it fixes. Personally, I just won't listen to Flash files while trying to use other audio applications (until the developers fix the bug properly).

7 Days To Go...

There are seven more days to go before the new Ubuntu version is released. I've been reading the development forum and I've got to say, some of the complaints of bugs makes me wonder if it will be a good release in that time frame. I did try the earlier beta and it was all good for me, but it sounds like there are more problems now, then there were then.

Most of the problems I've read about really aren't Ubuntu's but rather Firefox 3 and Adobe Flash. None the less however since these are the packages you will be using once you install Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. No doubt these issues will be worked out in a month or so, but still I wonder if it wouldn't be wiser to wait until these issues are fixed.

My system of upgrades is pretty flawless though, so if it is a problem, it will take me about 3 minutes to restore my working disk image of v. 7.10 anyway. I'm just really hoping that the next 7 days prove to be really productive and these issues are ironed out. My fingers are crossed...

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS - BETA

I installed the beta of 8.04 a few days ago. I only test drove it for a day. From what I saw it's very impressive. I would have left it on and just kept updating until the final release were it not for being able to properly install AmazonMP3 Downloader. It was an i386 deb file that requires a force install on my x86-64 system. It works fine under Gutsy (7.10) but not under Hardy (8.04).

Anyway, I've decided to do a clean install with all the updates and then image the drive so that I can fine tune 1 piece at a time. All this will wait until the final release in a few days. That will eliminate pulling in so many updates and revisions.

Firefox 3 is awesome as is Thunderbird with the Lightening extension. It's faster and operates more logically with things like sorting the bookmarks and how the buttons work. The Lightening extension is vastly improved in it's layout and feature set. I just can't even go into detail because there is so much to brag about.

Gnome is faster and smoother too. I was going to do my regular tweaks of the system by starting with disabling indexing but I can't find the tool anymore. I'm thinking indexing is not included by default anymore but I could be wrong. I'll have to wait for the final release and start asking questions on this one.

Open Office 2.4 is much improved. It opens faster and that was my biggest complaint with this application.

I found no regressions in hardware support so far. Everything on my main system was detected and supported out of the box. I'll have to wait and see how it all goes on my laptops and other wireless systems.

The new wallpaper is an improvement but I still don't like it much. I wish they would make a couple of different themes to actually choose from during the install. I would prefer a blue theme to an orange and brown one any day.

That's it for now, gotta run...

Pioneer DVR-112L Died

Monday I downloaded the new Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Beta. I tried to burn the ISO and it failed at 80% with a drive communication error. I figured it was a bad download so I deleted it and downloaded a new copy. The burn failed twice more, then I tried on my other burner and bang! it worked. I did some testing and found that it won't burn CD's any longer but does just fine with DVD's. This isn't acceptable... So I orderd a new Pioneer DVR-115D from newegg.com for $23 bucks (or should I say bucknastys).

Today the new burner arrived. I installed the drive and updated the firmware, and ran a few tests before going to work. It seems to be working fine so far. I'll have to rip & burn a few movies before I give it the 2 thumbs up.

More ScribeFire Stuff...

It seems that ScribeFire slows down my browser when opening an new page. I tried to combat the effect last week by various tweaks to Firefox and disabling of IPV6. All the tweaks seemed to help a little bit, but still I had sluggish loading of web pages. Finally I turned off the ScribeFire add-on and my browsing speed was back to normal.

Today I decided to blog and turned the extension back on again. I was notified of updates for ScribeFire so I've just now installed the update. Instantly I have noticed that now the spell checker seems to work properly. It worked before but it was buggy in that when a menu was activated you couldn't select the properly suggested word unless you moved the mouse cursor off the menu and sneaked up on the correct / suggested word from the side. It sounds crazy I know, but that's what it required. Now it works perfect.

I'll be leaving the extension enable for a while to see if the browsing speed is once again reduced or not. I'll update this entry once I've made a determination of the results.

Well that didn't take long to determine. Speed is much reduced with this add-on enabled. I will only enable this add-on when I plan to make blog entries. Too sad...

Exciting evening to wrap up easter

Today was eventful. I have a new neighbor who is preparing to move in across the street. He has spent the past 2 weeks really fixing up the house and cleaning out the mess of a yard the previous dweller left. It turns out that the mess wasn't caused by the previous dweller but rather their next door neighbor Tim.

Tim is kind of a crazy, alcoholic, pill popping crack head. He has been throwing garbage and debris in the yard of the "soon to be" neighbor. Well the new guy has been cleaning out the property for about 12 hours today, and even cleaned up crack-head's property line too. Then he knocked off from the task about 5:30 PM and left for the day.

At about 7:20 PM I was standing in my kitchen and looked out the window. I saw crack-head had returned home in his usual drunken and altered state of mind. I watched him as he stomped around in his yard waiving his arms about and pointing at the cleaned property line. The next thing I saw was crack-head got into his red Ford F-150 and plowed across the property line, ramming the neighbors wood pile (freshly purchased lumber for a new privacy fence) and smashing it to bits, before ripping and spinning the tires across the property and departing. Then I noticed that the new neighbor's front door was no longer there. It seems that the crack-head kicked in the front door and damaged the inside walls as well.

I contacted the new neighbor by telephone and got him and the police out there. I gave a statement to the police and now we're just waiting to see what drama will unfold next.

HAPPY EASTER...

Easter Weekend

This has been a busy but productive weekend. We finally cleaned up the leaves from the front yard. 90 bags worth. I got my hair cut. I bought my wife a new bicycle at Wal-Mart. I made some custom shelving for the bathroom (the one in the master bedroom). Everything there is now painted bright white and looks really nice. Joy's very happy and now I get to rest. That's about it for now. We are planing to have a baked ham tomorrow by the way.

Cat Gone Missing!!! She's BACK!!!

Our cat took off for a couple of days and everyone has been looking for her. I was starting to get really worried. Phew! then "Muffin" just showed up on her own tonight thank God. I'll probably get a good nights sleep after all.

FireFox Tweaks

My web browsing has been running slow lately due to some changes made by Roadrunner in their page redirection and filtering service. Probably some other settings too but I don't know off hand unless it's related to IPV6 implementation....

Anywho.... I did some tweaks to the Firefox settings using the ABOUT:CONFIG process. I found the tweaks here at Ubuntu Geek so far it seems to have made my pages load a little faster and snap onto the screen rather than slowly filling the page. Check out the tweaks, especially disabling the IPV6. I think this is the one that put the pep back into my browser.

ScribeFire

Okay, I've installed ScribeFire (a Firefox Browser Extension) and I'm testing for my Blogging needs. It looks pretty sophisticated and I like it so far.

Now I've installed ScribeFire (a Firefox Browser Extension) and I'm testing for my Blogging needs. It looks pretty sophisticated and I like it so far.

WOW! This thing is the BOMB!!! I've found my Blogging tool. I'm done for now and unless I have some problems of some kind, ScribeFire gets 2 Thumbs Up!!!

Blogger Tool Update

It looks like there is no really exceptional tool for posting directly to Blogger.com. I tried a tool called BloGTK that LOOKED exactly like what I wanted. The only problem is that it doesn't connect to the blogsite. It asks for the URL and I input http://www.blogger.com but it won't connect. After trying several times with different settings the application won't even launch anymore. Reinstalling it does no good either. Only after I search the entire HD to find every mention of BloGTK and delete it, will a fresh install cause the application to launch again.

My only complaint about the current tool I'm using is that entering text into the Title section does not enter it into the actual Blog entry title. Instead it's just some text heading of the same size as the regular text. For that reason alone, I'm forced to actually log into the website and move the text into the blog editor section marked Title. Then the font is much larger and a different color. It also them becomes a hyperlink to the actual HTML page where the entry is stored.

Mother-In-Law

UPDATE: 12:25 AM

Joy and Daniel are home now so they had a safe trip. I talked to Joy's sister Janet and brought her up to speed with the situation. All that can be done for the day is done, and we're turning in for the night. Sleep? We'll see, but it probably won't be a restful night in this family.

UPDATE: 9:03 PM

Joy called again. She's on her way home. She advises that her mother (Betty) is resting and will have an MRI in the morning. Joy has a lab test in the morning and doesn't want to miss that. We plan to go back to Raleigh next weekend to check on her.

UPDATE: 8:30 PM

Joy just called me and said her mother is out of danger for now and resting in the hospital. The medical staff thinks she had a seizure instead of a stroke. That's good news for the moment, but testing has to be performed to determine the cause.

BAD NEWS:

Joy (My wife) got a call from her Step-Father today and she is headed out of town right now. It seems that her mother is en route to the hospital ER due to probable stroke. She left in a hurry and I'm worried about the situation right now. I couldn't go with her due to work but she took one of the boys with her. I'm hoping to hear from her soon.

New ATI Video Driver

So ATI finally came out with an updated video driver for all my ATI cards. I downloaded the Envy installer program and updated my Ubuntu 7.10 systems to the new 8.3 driver.

Now I have desktop effects and everything is just great. It doesn't slow the system at all when desktop effects are running. I get the same FPS in glxgears weather it's turned on or not. I'm really starting to like my ATI video cards again.

Amazon MP3 Downloader / nVidia Driver Update

Today my laptop is sporting some new software and music. I contacted Amazon.com and requested a Ubuntu Linux version of their MP3 downloader software. A couple of days later a 32-bit deb was in my email. I did a force architecture install on my 64-bit Ubuntu powered laptop. I used getlibs and grabbed some missing 32-bit libraries and the program launched without a hitch. Next I purchased a few MP3's and let the new software do it's magic. I was presently surprised. It worked perfectly. No issues at all. I expect they will soon have a 64-bit deb file ready, but it doesn't really matter. Just grab the 32-bit and you're set.

A week has gone by since installing the newest nVidia graphics driver. I have to say it works very nicely, but I'd love to get rid of that login splash screen.

If anyone knows how to kill the splash screen (Logo Screen) on the new 169.09 nVidia driver, please let me know. The old xorg.conf entry isn't working on the new driver.

nVidia 169.09 / Envy install

Today I reinstalled the 169.09 driver again using Envy. I first installed Envy and then disabled the Ubuntu restricted driver. Next (using the Envy software) I removed the current nVidia driver.

After doing all this, a reboot was required. Then I used Envy to install the new driver and rebooted the machine again. All seems good so far...

Then I tested to see that 3D was working by launching glxgears and some 3D games. All was still well. Then I tried to enable desktop effects, and it told me I must turn on the restricted driver again. I can't understand why the 3D GL games are working and the desktop effects don't unless enabling the restricted stuff. It would seem that the restricted driver was already being used, but Ubuntu doesn't recognize it as so unless you go the the restricted driver manager and "Tick" the enabled check box.

Well, I went ahead and enabled it and all seems to work okay. Man, I did find out that turning on the desktop effects, SERIOUSLY slows down the FPS reported by glxgears. What's up with that? Anyway, I don't use the desktop effects unless I'm showing off or something.

The other strange thing about this driver is that when I use nvidia-settings applet to set my refresh rate to 85Hz (where I usually keep it), the Ubuntu resolution applet reports 121Hz. nvidia-settings reports it correctly, the xorg.conf shows it set the 85Hz, but the darn Ubuntu applet still shows 121Hz. No one in the Ubuntu Forums wants to help out as usual for me lately.

I'm still waiting for some help with the Remote Desktop usage.

Remote Desktop Connection? How?

Today I've been trying to figure out how to set up a remote desktop connection. So far I've tried entering "rdesktop ip.address.to.remote" and had no luck at all. I was told that I need to open up my Firestarter (firewall UI) and open up port 3389 on the host. So I did that (sort of), I don't know if that policy is for the outbound, or inbound traffic. I assumed inbound and it did nothing.

Next, I just turned off the firewall on the remote system all together to see if that would do the trick... Nothing...

Next, I noticed that on the Remote Desktop connection GUI from the system menu, there was a vpn command and it told me to use that. I entered that into a terminal screen and once again nothing happened.

Now I've turned to the Ubuntu Forums for help again. This time I requested an exact step by step procedure but so far no help.

I sure wish someone would notice my blog, and offer some help. I'll post back with the solution once I figure out what that is...

nVidia driver 169.09 installed

Well, today I learned how to stop the X server with this command:

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop

then I ran the installer with:

sudo sh nvidia-file-name.run

then to restart X:

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start

By the way, gdm stands for "graphical display mamanger" which on my system is the "X" windows manager.

The installer went without a hitch and I now have the 169.09 driver installed, and Compiz-Fusion running just fine. I found no problems with video playback or resolution issues after letting the installer update my xorg.conf file.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

nVidia driver - UPDATE

I rebooted my machine today and was greeted with low graphics mode. I tried everything under the sun to correct the problem (short of reinstalling the 169.09 driver) and nothing I could do worked. I can only guess that I should have removed the older driver versions and disabled the restricted driver from the manager prior to install. If anyone knows the proper way to go about this, then let me know.

Prior to installing the newer drivers, I made a full backup (disk image) using Acronis True Image WS 7.1. The final fix for my driver issue was to restore the disk which had the repository installed restricted driver. Well it seems is back to normal now, but I'd really like to have the newest driver working properly.

I plan to do a clean install and install the new driver before any of the others and see if this cures any issues. If it does, then I'll slowly build my OS (Tweaks / Apps) back to the current state. As this will probably be a long process, I'll only work on it every few days, back it up with Acronis, the restore my current working OS until the new one is fully cooked.

Sony Vaio VGN-S460B woes...

This morning I've been fighting with my wife's laptop. It's a Sony Vaio VGN-S460B craptop. It dual boots Windows XP Pro and Ubuntu 7.10. The thing is that once you turn off the computer it won't boot again. It either won't give a BIOS screen or halts at a keyboard error. It locks at this point and the only thing that seems to work (but not consistently) is to remove all power sources, hit the power button a few times the reconnect everything. After doing this a few times (like 25) it will finally boot.

It's had new memory installed (1.2GB), keyboard cleaned, battery replaced, power supply replaced. I hate this thing.

Now, to make matters worse, my wife really only likes using windows and the wireless works less that 10% of the time.

Using Ubuntu 7.10 the wireless is rock solid, but I can't get my wife to adjust. One big problem with Ubuntu is that it won't shut down properly most of the time. When the shutdown process is started, the screen will begin to fade and the screen will go corrupt then finally it will go black. The computer just sits there still powered on. You have to press and hold the power button to finally shut the computer off.

If I could fix the shut down issue with Ubuntu, I think I MIGHT get her to use it more. It sure is less problematic than windows on this Craptop. Perhaps the next Ubuntu release will cure the issue.