14 Nov 2009
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Robert B. White
14 Nov 2009 |
These are my notes from installing ubuntu:
Linux is the primary OS for all these machines. Some of the "recipes" following are specific to my machine(s), but most apply generally and even the specifics can be understood as recommendations.
Download the installation CD from: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu
7.10 would not correctly drive the display of the WinBook, and 7.04 would not drive the display of the Fujitsu. See XSERVER for solutions.
Fortunately 8.04 handles both, though the WinBook must be booted from the distribution CD in "Safe graphics mode" until "915resolution" can be installed
Motivation for this experiment was a glowing recommendation of ubuntu by Hank Skawinski of Datawise at the SPAUG meeting 12 September 2007. Additional motivation was the complete failure of SuSE Linux 10.3 to operate the X-Display on the Winbook after installation, and the accumulated failures of Fedora Core 7 to access WinBook hardware.
Booting from the live CD (and I was surprised it was only a CD!) involved an enormous amount of shuffling on the CD, as did installation once started. This was the situation on the ChemBook. Attempting to use the same CD with the WinBook revealed mostly read errors. A freshly downloaded and burned CD worked quickly and flawlessly.
The install process sets up a system administrator (NOT root) account,
for the first user.
Login to the root account is permanently blocked, so one has to use
sudo to perform root functions.
Leave it this way!! See below...
The password for the installation account is sufficient for sudo,
because the first user is by default a system administrator.
While this system is peculiar if you're used to a root login, it works well
and there is a workaround (see "root management" below).
The workaround appeared to not work in 9.04.
I strongly recommend using an initial account name such as the windows style
"Administrator", then set up all "real" users later.
Peculiarly, ubuntu forbids upper case in user names, so "administrator"
will have to do.
In general, perform all system maintenance from the administrator
or equivalent account.
Following installation from CD, for which no software selection is offered, the system requests a reboot, then very quickly finds updates (for 7.04: 119 on the ChemBook, 129 on the WinBook!) and requests to install them. Following updates, a subtle icon near the right end of the top toolbar requests another reboot. Having failed to notice this, I discovered there was a root account and changed its password from the default. I could then not start a terminal, which had been possible when running the "live" system. Then I discovered the reboot request and initiated it. Reboot started OK, then deteriorated into a long sequence of error pop-ups approximating:
An error occurred while loading or saving configuration information for evolution-alarm-notify. Some of your configuration settings may not work properly.
Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash.
(and several lines more...)
Indeed! There was no X-window manager running, and only launcher icons for "Computer" and "Trash" appeared on an otherwise black screen. A right mouse click brought up a short menu which did not include logout or shutdown.
Time to crash the computer and reinstall...
Second try worked correctly! The WinBook also took two tries, since I got part of the disk setup wrong and found no provision to backup and correct.
root management
root login is blocked, and leave it that way!
The "administrator" account acts as a pseudo root.
It does not have root powers.
It gets a more extensive set of menus than ordinary users, and these menus contain
many root capabilities.
Successful attempts to invoke root applications are always through sudo.
I have found at least one task which sudo could not handle and
for which root access was needed.
Enabling a direct root login causes problems (see below)
so I used my favorite old trick of creating an alias to root,
croot, which uses tcsh and allows login.
This solved the problem, which was to use a command chain like:
tar -cf - * | ( cd destination ; tar -xvf - )
to transfer a file system from an external drive to the newly installed one.
NB: while the above works writing to a disk, it may fail writing to a USB memory stick, probably because whatever "formatting" the stick has allows files but not file systems, i.e. directories. I have also, 12 Sep 2009, while writing to a 16GB USB memory stick, encountered an absolute limit to output file size at 4294967295 bytes. Guess what! This is (2^^32) -1, suggesting the stick has in effect an NTFS file system. However, I can write at least 2 such files to the same stick.
/tmp is cleaned on every boot
So DON'T ever put in /tmp anything
you want to keep, such as backup files being prepared to write
to DVD.
Instead put these items in /var/tmp.
Have a look at this MAJOR resource for Linux help: http://www.howtoforge.com/.
Please note that my document is a "what to do" which needs some prior knowledge of how to carry out the actions recommended. A full "how to" for a new first time installer is more than I want to write now!
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During setup for installation ubuntu provides a partitioner step. I used it to over-write the existing Linux partition, leaving DOS or Windows and swap partitions alone. The swap partition was recognized and, I guess, properly handled. The pre-existing "/" partition was reiser, and was left as such.
In order to properly prepare a hard disk for suspend-to-disk on your laptop, you will need to make sure there is enough space free to accommodate an additional hibernation partition. The hibernation partition must be a primary partition (1-4), and the required size will be determined by the amount of physical and video RAM in your laptop. To determine the size you need to make the partition, as root run:
lphdisk --probeonlyUnfortunately ubuntu lacks this utility.
Having created a primary partition of the proper size using a disk partitioning utility, you should set it to type A0 hex (identified by fdisk as "IBM ThinkPad Hibernation" though "Phoenix NoteBIOS Hibernation" would be a more correct label).
lphdisk will then locate, verify, and format this partition for use. At this point you will need to reboot the system so that BIOS can locate and use the new hibernation partition.
Here are my recommendations (remember to add a "primary" partition on a laptop if you want to be able to suspend it):
/home, which is where all user
data lives.
This layout permits changing OS without having to back up all your user data (but you'll back this up anyway as normal practice, right?).
If 2 disks aren't possible, don't worry about it, user data will auto magically appear in the same place in the file system and you can upgrade later.
As a minimum, create 2 primary partitions on the first disk:
swap and / (root), in this order.
If your BIOS requires that the bootable partition fit within
the first 1024 cylinders of the disk, then you may want to
create 3 primary partitions in the order /boot,
swap and / (root).
A /boot partition does not have to be very large,
mine currently uses 44MB, so a 128MB allocation should be plenty.
HOWEVER: a separate /boot partition will fill up
over time as updated kernels are installed.
When it is too full, updates will fail.
I recommend using the Package Manager to remove as needed all
kernels older than the latest two.
If all partitions are "ext3" /boot would
need to be separate only in case of cylinder limits mentioned above.
The installation program will connect all these together correctly.
Be sure to make the / (or /boot if
you use it) partition bootable.
You always want swap near the beginning of the disk to avoid
having to work the heads over the whole radius of the drive.
The file system tries to concentrate data towards the beginning
of each partition.
If you want to run DOS-emu, version 0.98 gives better disk access than more recent ones. This version also allows copy and paste via mouse, and generally works better than running DOS in a VMware emulation. Provide a primary partition, 100MB to 500MB should be plenty. Make this the first partition of you want to boot DOS directly.
Similarly, if you want a dual-boot system with Windows, allocate the first partition as a primary one and specify a windows file type. Install Windows before installing Linux. Linux can use entirely secondary partitions. DOS-emu could then be in the second primary partition. DOS would then not be bootable, but will work fine in DOS-emu.
Recent (October 2008) experience rebuilding the WinBook starting from Ubuntu 7.04 disclosed two new installation problems:
cfdisk.
Use it to mark the bootable partition and write the revised partition table.
ubuntu still makes the "Reiser" file system available,
though it is not the default file system, and has declining support.
Reiser has in my experience been quite robust, and is not subject
to mandatory fsck when you most need a quick boot.
(And yes, it is from "that" Hans Reiser.)
There is no really firm rule for swap partition size. It should be as large as memory, some OS's recommend 1.5 times memory. If your distribution recommends a value or you have a rationale for a value, use it. Otherwise use at least as much as memory size, or up to 1GB if memory is less than this.
Always format, it cleans up whatever cruft is already on the disk.
NOTE: the partitioner may not present an option to format
the swap partition.
If this is the case, it knows what it is doing based on your having selected swap
for either type or mount point and will do the right thing.
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If you're running a private or home ether-net (and you SHOULD be doing this on the LAN side of a hardware firewall even if you have only 1 computer!) set up your home network / DHCP server to use one of the following address ranges:
# Request for Comments: 1918
# Address Allocation for Private Internets
#
# From: http://www.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1918.txt
#
# 3. Private Address Space
#
# The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) has reserved the
# following three blocks of the IP address space for private internets:
#
# 10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255 (10/8 prefix)
# 172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255 (172.16/12 prefix)
# 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255 (192.168/16 prefix)
These are un-routable addresses and will help protect your computers. Normally you use an address in the last range, which is for "Class C" networks. Your hardware firewall should do the necessary Network Address Translation (NAT). If there's an option to do NAT, enable it. If your hardware firewall doesn't do NAT, replace it with one that does.
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Initially no kernel boot parameters appear to be needed for the laptop.
There is no software selection offered for initial installation. Following installation from the distribution CD the system will reboot. Following reboot you need to be connected to the Internet, preferably through a high speed connection. Logon to your initial account and you will see an icon towards the upper right of the gnome desktop advising of additional software to load. Do so.
After this load, which installs the rest of ubuntu, you will see
2 icons: one requesting a reboot and another advising that updates are
available.
Do the reboot first!
Failure to reboot before updating may disable your new installation,
as it did mine when I missed this cue!
After rebooting allow the updates to proceed, after which another
reboot is likely.
After the installed system has booted, there are 2 mechanisms to customize your software:
Be sure to include "gftp", a graphical FTP tool comparable to window's "FileZilla", or you could install "FileZilla" itself. gftp works well with the one web hosting site on which I've tried it. While gftp and FileZilla are very similar, I prefer gftp's scrolling and control of file transfer.
Finding man pages for programming or development was not obvious to me. At Sun I used to be able to use a command line like "man -S3 clear" to read the requested man page. To install this capability for Ubuntu, search in synaptic for "manpage". (So obvious I'd not thought of this inquiry :( ) In particular, search" "manpages-posix". Thanks to randy on http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=10420 for this tip!
If you want to install JAVA documentation, you'll need to get it from java.sun.com. Ubuntu includes packages for this, but they won't install since they are zip files which need either unzip or jar to install and must be done as root from a command line. The documentation will install into the directory you are in when you run the unzip or jar command, regardless of where the .zip file is located. Check your JAVA installation to determine where it expects to find the documentation.
Search for and install gimp and xsane
in preparation for a scanner.
Also search for and install any special drivers your scanner might need.
I have an Epson "Perfection 4490 Photo" scanner which
requires some special treatment.
Epson's web site directs you to http://www.avasys.jp
to obtain drivers for several flavors of Linux.
While this used to work, since about April 2009 attempts to contact this site from
linux based browsers have timed out.
As of 22 Oct 2009 this URL again worked correctly.
An inquiry to Epson's customer help center on their web site brought the following URL:
http://www.avasys.jp/lx-bin2/linux_e/scan/DL1.do
for which thank you very much, Ronald E!
In the following, libltdl3_1.5.22-4_i386.deb will conflict with pulseaudio,
which must be removed.
Removing pulseaudio will remove ubuntu-desktop,
which is a dependency only package and will cause no further havoc (at this time, at least).
Newer versions of the following may be available and should be tried.
With the files in hand, the following installed them with no problems:
This setup worked with UBUNTU 9.04, and gives full control of this Epson scanner by both iscan and xsane, unlike the result with SuSE 10.2 where the driver is not as fully functional as the typical sane scanner driver.
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This was more of a challenge than expected.
I wanted to add, after normal installation and set-up of a
single HD system, a second HD containing the /home
file system from the previous SuSE 10.2 OS.
Adding the entry:
/dev/sdb1 /old_home reiserfs defaults 0 2
to /etc/fstab didn't work.
I had a spare HD which could be added without subjecting existing
user data to experimentation.
Making this disk available required installing and using "Partition Editor".
This gave /etc/fstab a new entry:
/dev/sdb1 /new_home reiserfs nouser,defaults,atime,auto,rw,nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
which worked.
But I could not execute installers for Open Office or VMware
which previously worked perfectly.
After much digging and frustration the culprit was exposed:
noexec, a variation on a parameter I had
long ignored!
Changing this to exec (and correcting nodev,nosuid,nouser
as well) resulted in:
/dev/sdb1 /home reiserfs nouser,defaults,atime,auto,rw,dev,exec,suid 0 0
which works as expected.
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On the WinBook, Ubuntu 7.10 CD did not set up the X-display after booting, the screen remained blank for both default VGA and 1024x768x32 selections. Booting in the "Safe" selection eventually produced a screen full of flashing horizontal streaks, through which a desktop image could be seen, but the display settings are still plainly unusable. As of April 2009 (at least) 7.04 can no longer be updated, so is no longer a starting point for bringing up the WinBook. Why does it matter? I tried installing 9.04, which misbehaves badly, and needed to restore 8.04.
Note to self: USE A SPARE DISK NEXT TIME SO YOU DON'T DESTROY A WORKING INSTALLATION!!
8.04 had to be installed in "Safe Graphics" mode, but would not switch to 1280x768 upon installation of 915resolution. Replacing /etc/X11/xorg.conf with a version which had prevoiusly worked with 8.04 restored the 1280x768 display. This may not be correct for your situation, but I hope it helps!
News flash: 20 Jun 2008 had a bad Xserver start on the Fujitsu laptop! At least the odds appear to be better, this was the first one in a week or two since the countermeasure described below. Keep watching! Have had a few more, I'm guessing a rate of 2 per week. Mildly annoying, but better than before.
On the Fujitsu, Ubuntu 8.04 can operate the screen correctly without extra S/W. CPU load due to the screen driver is much less than in 7.10. But (and you knew there would be one) about 2 times in 3 the screen for the Radeon HD 2600 graphic chip isn't correct and reboot is required. An apparent correction was obtained by installing the package "xorg-driver-fglrx". This raised idling CPU load to about half of what had been observed under ubuntu 7.10. After a few reboots this package was then removed and screen driver startup remains usually correct! Apparently a configuration file somewhere was altered just enough! FWIW, with 8.04 copying the "xorg.conf" file from 7.10 did not work.
On the Fujitsu, basic 7.10 installation could not produce a screen display better than 800x600 on its 1440x900 screen. Some googling produced Alberto Milone's Envy installer for a good solution! After installing from this URL an "Envy" item will appear on one or more menus of (at least) gnome and KDE UI systems. Invoke this item TWICE. The first time downloads and installs the driver, the second time configures the driver for your screen. (The first time I tried this I didn't know to make a second invocation, thus not getting benefit of the driver!)
This ATI driver appears to have a downside, though, it keeps %CPU around
65%, vs 10% to 20% for the WinBook.
Installing and running irqbalance appears not to help.
However, a couple of days later (22 Mar 2008) after having started irqbalance at
boot time by adding to /etc/rc.local:
/etc/init.d/irqbalance start &
CPU load is about the same, but interrupt handling is a lot smoother.
audacity playback is still "jerkey", so not useable.
The Fujitsu's BIOS allows turning off one of the CPU cores.
With this done, audacity playback is vastly worse.
On the Fujitsu using Ubuntu 8.04 audacity runs well enough to successfully play and edit files. As of 10 July 2008 I have not tried recording an LP with audacity, that is on my to-do list!
If your screen needs a resolution not provided by default or by
any of the resolution setting tools,AND your frame
buffer chip is by Intel, install 915resolution.
This auto magically changes the X-display to hardware
resolution on the laptop shortly after installation.
DO THE FOLLOWING AS SOON AS YOU CAN!
ubuntu by default completely disables connections to the X-Server from external machines. The following enables connections to the X-Server:
System-->Administration-->Login Window-->
Security-->Un-check "Deny TCP connections to Xserver"
OOPS! 9.10 stripped this option from System-->Administration-->Login Window-->.
Instead, thanks to
http://swiss.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=8307041,
edit as root /etc/gdm/custom.conf and add the following 2 lines:
[security]
DisallowTCP=false
Uh-oh! "Login Window" disappeared! This appears to have been a result of some choice made up to this time, since it appeared after re-installing 7.10.
There's another gotcha here: "Login Window" is available ONLY if the gdm manager is used. If you select kdm you're out of luck! I suspect inability to do this and the next steps is why a remote dos-emu would not connect. Bummer...
But you can change kdm to gdm, it's defined in
/etc/X11/default-display-manager,
and changing this on the WinBook 9.04 installation allowed the remote dos-emu
session to connect.
Interestingly the correct settings for "Login Window" already existed...??
rlogin remains disabled.
Use instead a command like:
ssh -X -l user_name remote_machine_name
for remote logins.
However, the version of who has changed again, so see the
changes to .cshrc below.
From http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Feisty#Remote_Login_via_XDMCP:
Remote Login via XDMCP
To turn on the XDMCP feature on the host computer:
System-->Administration-->Login Window-->
Remote-->Plain with face browser
Background: un-check Image
Background: check "Do not show image for remote logins"
Background: un-check Color
Behavior: un-check all boxes
Logo: un-check all boxes
Welcome Message: check "Default"
Reboot.
Reboot MAY be necessary.
OOPS! 9.10 also stripped this option from System-->Administration-->Login Window-->.
One solution is offered by
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=75152.
Try googling something like: [ login xdmcp "ubuntu 9.10" ] for other possibilities.
For example, https://bugs.launchpad.net/gdm/+bug/408417
near the bottom suggests installing KDM!
http://www.peppertop.com/blog/?p=690
proposes a solution using GDM.
It's complicated and I have yet to try it, but am hopeful...
Be sure to include in .cshrc or equivalent some instructions
to set DISPLAY, or remote access to the X-Server still
won't work.
Different OS's and OS Versions use different versions of who
with different parameter counts in it's output.
Consequently a version test is required to set parameter count.
There's an efficient way to detect remote logins:
`who -m` returns: (hostname) for a remote login, this can be
detected directly. It will be the last parameter in the return.
I'm currently using in .cshrc the following snippet:
set PCOUNT = 6 # SuSE 9.2
who --version | grep 5.3 >>& /dev/null && set PCOUNT = 5 # SuSE 10.0
who --version | grep 5.93 >>& /dev/null && set PCOUNT = 5 # SuSE 10.1
who --version | grep 5.97 >>& /dev/null && set PCOUNT = 5 # Debian, ubuntu
who --version | grep 6.4 >>& /dev/null && set PCOUNT = 5 # SuSE 10.2
who --version | grep 6.10 >>& /dev/null && set PCOUNT = 5 # ubuntu 8.04
set WMI = `who -m`
if ( $PCOUNT <= $#WMI ) then
# echo $WMI[6]
set DP = `echo $WMI[$PCOUNT] | tr -d '()'`
if ( ':0.0' =~ $DP ) then
## setenv DISPLAY `hostname`:0
## echo "#1 set DISPLAY"
else
setenv REMOTEHOST $DP
set DP = `echo $WMI[$PCOUNT] | tr -d '()'`:0
setenv DISPLAY $DP
## echo "#2 set DISPLAY"
endif
## echo DISPLAY = $DP
else
## actually this is a local login on a tty and is OK.
## echo 'zu kurz'
endif
unset PCOUNT
unset DP
unset WMI
Parameter position in who output varies with version,
so check position if this code doesn't work for you.
An untried alternative to the following is to install the package "console-cyrillic" which advertises "Two fonts for Dosemu.". However, this package wants to convert your console to a Cyrillic layout and coding. Perhaps better not installed. ;(
In my attempt to port MiniLedger to Linux I've discovered
that Code Page 850 is very helpful.
AKA IBM-850 font, this includes the graphic line drawing characters used
for on-screen boxes.
IBM-850 lacks, however, the characters for up and down arrows.
IBM-856 appears to have these characters, but I have not yet found a
font for LInux which has them.
Run such an application in a GNOME Terminal, which can have the font activated
by navigating in the running terminal:
Terminal -> Set Character Encoding -> Western (IBM850).
You'll need the "Add or Remove..." tab to add the font to the
Encoding list.
The vga_cyr8x16 font described next provides all the needed
characters to DOS-emu.
If you want to run DOS-emu (xdos), then (as root) install
the font vga_cyr8x16 as follows:
cp -p vga_cyr8x16.pcf.gz /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc/vga.pcf.gz
cd /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc
chown root vga.pcf.gz
chgrp root vga.pcf.gz
chmod 644 vga.pcf.gz
mkfontdir
so DOS-emu will display correctly. Restart X-Server to make this font effective.
I strongly recommend using DOS-emu version 0.98.1. More recent versions work well and may not need the font file installation mentioned here, but believe the drive is network mounted and so will not allow running defrag and scandisk.
TrueType fonts such as Arial and Verdana may be desireable.
I use Verdana a lot, and Arial is good for compatibility with
Windows applications.
Use Synaptic Package Manager to install msttcorefonts.
This hint is from page 324-325 of "Beginning Ubuntu Linux"
by Keir Thomas, published by Apress.
(FWIW, SuSE offers to do this as part of it's post-install update.)
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As soon as possible after this reboot:
cp -p /usr/share/vim/vimcurrent/gvimrc_example.vim /etc/gvimrc
Then edit the new file and add the line
set guifont=monospace\ 8
for a laptop or 9 for deskside.
before the final endif near the end of the file.
As administrator attempting to invoke at a command line
a command which is not installed frequently results in a command
being generated for you which can be used to install the missing item.
When this happens, copy & paste the generated command into a command prompt
to get the item.
I don't know if these offers are made for non-root users, and suspect it's
a Gnome feature.
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K Menu -> Settings -> Control Center
Desktop -> Panels
Position - where you want the toolbar
Hiding: "Hide automatically"
Desktop -> Window Behavior
Policy: "Focus Follows Mouse"
Titlebar Actions: Titlebar double-click: "Shade"
Advanced: check "Enable hover"
Peripherals -> Keyboard
Numlock on KDE Startup: check "Turn off"
This is crucial for a laptop!,
but you might want "Turn on" for a deskside.
NB: After another install, the following behavior disappeared.
The description remains for reference should you see it.
I suspect the behavior was controlled by some setting buried in
the .kde directory.
I renamed that, logged out, then in again, to let KDE establish a clean
.kde directory.
Fascinating how many problems that cured!
KDE logins always invoke a setup wizard.
It's name is KPersonalizer.
It's local configuration file is
$home/.kde/share/config/kpersonalizerrc.
You'd think there would be a way to disable this after the first login.
There is! An entry: FirstLogin=false.
This misbehavior persists after the 7.10 upgrade, so rename
/usr/bin/kpersonalizer to
/usr/bin/kpersonalizer_disabled.
/etc/X11/app-defaults/XOsview
.Xdefaults as in:
ln -s /etc/X11/app-defaults/XOsview $home/.Xdefaults
To accommodate the longer xosview display, in
/etc/X11/app-defaults/XOsview
change the display's geometry for the Fujitsu to "370x295+1070+20".
Other machines or screen sizes may need other geometries depending on
what xosview displays.
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This moved to:
Edit /etc/X11/app-defaults/XTerm: comment out ScrollBar
Set up network initially on 192.168.2.x, getting x from another system's /etc/hosts. But it looks as if it's still necessary to edit /etc/hosts to install the new machine's IP address. After installation ftp in the complete file from another machine.
As a minimum, the following will be useful to access other machines on the home network to get a copy of /etc/hosts (you use addresses for your network):
192.168.2.1 router.my-home router
192.168.2.12 rel-home.my-home rel-home
192.168.2.16 bob-port.my-home bob-port
192.168.2.20 print-serv.my-home print-serv
Recently two directly networked printers have been added, a Brother HL-5250DN and an Epson Artisan 800 "All-in-One". Ubuntu 8.04 has drivers for the 5250, but not for the Epson Artisan. The 5250 drivers work very well, though duplexing depends on the application driving the printer: Acrobat Reader controls duplexing, but OpenOffice 1.1.5 settings have no effect. For OpenOffice the desired duplexing has to be selected by driver configuration.
Further testing with the Brother HL-5250 suggests that driver problems attributed to Ubuntu 9.04 may actually be from the BR3 driver. There may also be interactions from remnants of drivers which have been tested not being completely removed. In any case, a successful workaround is:
Ubuntu 8.04 has no drivers for the Artisan 800's printer function. It offers a "Stylus 800" driver which prints a blank test page. A better selection is "Epson Stylus Color 800", which at least prints a color test pattern, though the colors are vedry weak- the C-M-Y stripes appear to be un-colored at 20%, and none of the 100% cells are anywhere near saturation.
For what it's worth, Ubuntu 9.04 appears to have a very good driver for the Artisan 800 printer, but that and driving the WinBook screen correctly are about all that works correctly in that distribution.
Google searching beyond that mentioned below appears to have discovered the Artisan 800 driver used in 9.04. http://openprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Epson-Artisan_800 supplies a file, "openprinting-gutenprint_5.2.2-1lsb3.2_i386.deb" which after installation provides a driver for Artisan 800 whose test page looks identical to that produced while testing 9.04.
While this driver from openprinting.org probably makes the TurboPrint one un-necessary, TurboPrint has saner printer controls and is still worth looking at. It does offer a free trial...
Some google searching found an improved driver for the Artisan: Turboprint, a commercial for-pay product from Germany. It's test page for the Artisan is better than the "Epson Stylus Color 800" result, not as good as the Ubuntu 9.04 driver, and still needs some adjusting. Turboprint's adjustments seem saner than those of the "foomatic" drivers. But Turboprint has a peculiarity- it's driver kit overlays the "native" Ubuntu / CUPS drivers, effectively removing the correct 5250 driver. Fortunately Turboprint's driver works well enough.
Google query: ubuntu vmware "usb printer" not working
Problem: VMware recognizes printer is claimed by something in the Ubuntu OS.
It needs to bre released for VMware to present it to the guest OS.
What and how???
Network printer can be set up if it's IP address and queue are supplied: 192.168.2.20 (in my case). This printer should be identified as lp (default) on all machines.
Ubuntu 8.04 added a new wrinkle: in KDE's KMenu are two "Settings" items, one in the group "All Applications", the other in the group "Actions". Use "Settings -> Printer Configuration" in the "All Applications" group if you want your printer to work!
I've experienced problems with color printers. A (refurbished) Epson Stylus Photo R300, for example, printed the gray bars of the YaST / CUPS color test pattern as tan. Prints using the MacBeth color chart (gretagmacbeth_colorchecker-rgb-cmy-dkblks_v1.tif) were not correct. See Color Targets for Digital Imaging. Applying a gamma of 1.6 to the printer helped a bit, but was still not correct. Printing from gimp was much worse, and proved to be unusable for accurate (or even acceptable) color rendition. The Epson printer which preceded this one was VERY good for color until its ink channels dried up and it quit printing.
Akkana Peck, author of "Beginning GIMP From Novice to Professional", says that GIMP's printing mechanism causes the color problems I've indicated. The best cure is to NOT print directly from GIMP.
Replacing the Epson R300 with an HP 8250 improved color rendition to acceptable (except from gimp). Printing the MacBeth chart from the printer's native Windows software produced good colors which were matched very well by printing from gwenview in Linux. The CUPS driver for HP 8250 does not have any color adjustment, and does not allow selecting the printer's maximum resolution. Gimp has only 2 HP drivers, 1000 and 1100. These will drive the 8250, but very badly.
The HP 8250 has another problem: printing to it from acroread ALWAYS rotates the page image to landscape, regardless of what combinations of page orientation I've used in acroread, printer setup, and the program which generated the original file. Page orientation on the Brother HL-5140 is always OK.
Printer drivers can be a problem in Linux. See Linux Foundation's Open Printing Web page for what is likely to work and where to get drivers. Thanks to Smart Computing Magazine, July 2007, page 44 for this tip.
This is really slick: it sets your clock on every boot-up.
K Menu -> System -> Time and Date:
Unlock the pop-up, then:
ntp.ubuntu.com will be seleced by default.
Leave it unless you have a reason not to.
You may select any other servers, ones on the same continent are recommended.
You may add any servers, I have used Public NTP servers listed below.
## 20 Sep 2005 revised order to match current responders. rbw
server clock.sjc.he.net # 216.218.254.202 Hurricane Electric, San Jose, California Contact: support@he.net
server zorro.sf-bay.org # 192.83.249.28 Added 20 Sep 2005 because it has been responding. rbw
## 20 Sep 2005 neither time.berkeley.netdot.net nor 216.27.190.202 are found within 30 hops by traceroute
## server time.berkeley.netdot.net # 216.27.190.202 Berkeley, CA Contact: Caleb Haley (chaley@netdot.net)
## 20 Sep 2005 ntp1.sf-bay.org resolves to zorro.sf-bay.org but the IP address is not found in 30 hops (traceroute)
## server ntp1.sf-bay.org # 207.126.97.57 US CA ntp1.sf-bay.org San Jose, CA # Contact: Scott Hazen Mueller (clockmaster@sf-bay.org)
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I haven't tried this as of 23 Oct 2007.
This was needed on the laptop. I haven't yet tried this with ubuntu. The "Firewire" disk works in the "tower" machine using the drive's USB 2 port. This is more convenient because I have a pair of USB extensions on my desk near where the disk can sit. Be sure to plug the disk into a USB 2.0 connector, NOT USB 1! I haven't tried the disk on the "tower" machine with Firewire as of 23 Oct 2007.
The disk should have been powered long enough to start before plugging
the FireWire adapter into it's PCMCIA slot.
5-10 seconds after plug-in the disk it will be automounted as
/media/ieee1394-*
On the deskside with KDE, the Firewire disk starts on being plugged into a USB port. It is automatically recognized as a "Memory Stick" and a Konqueror window opened for it. I have found no provision to unmount it after use. Closing the disk's Konqueror window before disconnecting it seems to be adequate. The drive must then be powered off at it's power button.
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I have found KDE4 far less satisfactory than KDE3.x, thus have switched to GDM as the lesser evil. Ubuntu 9.10 may require, to restore XDMCP, revising that decision.
(in all KDE logins) If Firefox or Thunderbird are installed add their desktop icons. In gnome desktops add these in the upper panel.
Not needed for the gnome desktop, which puts a satisfactory one in the upper right corner.
For a good on-screen clock, try:
xclock -d -update 1 -bg green &
and position it conveniently.
Initiate it from Run Command... right-click desktop
(it's no longer in the "K Menu" menu).
KDE will remember this command and subsequent position for your next login.
Should you inadvertently kill the clock, you'll have to restart it
from the above command.
Possibly one would want to add it to
Utilities -> Desktop in the "K Menu" menu.
If you find the touchpad of a laptop as annoying as I do and would like to get programmatic control of it (PC for disable), add "gnome-mouse-properties" to KMenu. I recommend adding it to "Settings" under " All Applications". Then use it to disable the touchpad. This will work for the current login.
Next problem is how to shut off the touchpad for subsequent logins without
manually running the above GUI for each login.
If you're running a gnome session this will be done auto magically and you need
take no further action.
OOPS! 9.10 reduced touchpad control option so it cannot be shut off,
only "Disable touchpad while typing."
Good luck!
For other sessions, for example KDE, running
gnome-settings-daemon &
appears to do the job.
This needs to be invoked exactly once per login.
The former method of detecting pts/0 was insufficient.
Instead look directly for the daemon.
If we are running kdesktop and not gnome-settings-daemon then start gnome-settings-daemon.
The following fragment in .cshrc will do the job.
For other shells you're on your own.
if ( 1 == `ps alx | grep kdesktop | grep -v grep|wc -l` ) then
if ( 0 == `ps alx | grep gnome-settings-daemon | grep -v grep|wc -l` ) then
gnome-settings-daemon >>& /dev/null &
endif
endif
If you'd like to have a console window appear automagically on your first desktop, try adding, for example, the following entry under "System -> Preferences -> Startup Applications"
Name: Console
Command: xterm -rv +sb -geom 80x36+945+375 -e tcsh
Comment: Initial xterm window
NB: "-rv" and geom will need adjusting.
OK, this is a strange name for a strange phenomenon.
Using a KDE UI in my login, I discovered that in OpenOffice
pastes to multiple cells using Ctrl-V failed.
(There is more detail, but this is a sufficient and unwelcome symptom.)
Using a Gnome UI in the same login Ctrl-V worked
as expected.
I haven't determined exactly what was the cause, but was able to
correct the problem by removing the .kde directory,
logging out, then logging back in.
KDE created a new .kde directory.
All my launcher icons were then neatly aligned towards the left
edge of the desktop and had to be re-positioned, but the
Ctrl-V problem was cured.
.openwin-init.Xresources.xinitrcmv .openwin-init .not.openwin-init.mv .Xresources .not.Xresourcesmv .xinitrc .not.xinitrccp -p /etc/skel/.xinitrc.template .xinitrc
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Here is what I did in Ubuntu 8.04. These steps are probably not exclusive to Ubuntu 8.04, and the information following them may be helpful. I need to try just these on a clean installation to confirm. Experience 18 Aug 2009 with a clean install indicates Kaffeine should be used as described below in connection with installing codecs. Kaffeine's diagnostics and ability to help with the installation made the process work.
After Kaffeine is installed, experiment with VLC and Xine (at least) to determine which players meet your needs. Kino looks like a useful video editor, too.
libdvdcss2 from, for example:
sudo dpkg -i libdvdcss2_1.2.10-0.2_i386.deb
w32codecs from, for example:
sudo dpkg -i w32codecs_20071007-0.1_i386.deb
Using install-css.sh,
(which I found at: /usr/share/doc/kaffeine/install-css.sh)
as suggested in Newton's article below appears to be unnecessary
in this case, and in fact down-revved libdvdcss.
See the article "Post-Install Tips for Ubuntu 7.10"
by Matthew Newton, PC World, dated Friday, October 26, 2007 1:00 AM PDT
for an alternate means of playing DVDs.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,138903-page,1-c,linux/article.html
(Or it may be at:
http://find.pcworld.com/59227)
The following does not appear to be neded in Ubuntu 9.04 if Kaffeine is installed first as described above. The following is retained because one never knows...
ubuntu version is 8.04 Hardy Heron.
From:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=79256
the recommendation to use install-css.sh
appears to have done something fairly sane.
That worked! Totem now auto starts on DVD insertion and plays the DVD,
and xine plays it better.
When setting up xine, beware that installing the xine-mozilla plugin
will start xine on audio streams.
Unfortunately xine didn't know how to do this, crippling all
audio streams through Firefox.
xine does not play DVD's out of the box.
To play a video DVD with xine, start xine from the K-Menu,
then click "DVD".
If xine does not start auto magically on inserting a Video DVD,
first try removing any existing .xine directory,
then start xine from a command line and let it rebuild the
.xine directory.
Also be sure to set:
K-Menu -> Configure Desktop -> KDE Components -> File Associations -> media -> dvdvideo
Use /sbin/hdparm -t to test disk access times on your system.
See also the man page.
hdparm did not report significant improvement to the WinBook laptop.
However, DVD Video motion on the laptop was slightly jerky without
the following command for /dev/hdc, and distinctly smooth with it,
so I added the lines to /etc/init.d/boot.local.
Both of these fail on ubuntu, investigation needed.
# 22 Nov 2004 Attempt to set hdparms at boot time since
# '-k1' appeared to not persist over reboot. rbw
/sbin/hdparm -c1 -u1 -d1 -k1 /dev/sda
/sbin/hdparm -u1 -d1 -k1 /dev/scd0
Also add the following to the same file to speed up DVD writing (may not be needed with 10.2, but WAS for 9.0):
# 22 Nov 2004 added per "IDE CD Writer" FAQ on SuSE website. rbw
#
/sbin/modprobe ide-scsi
On the WinBook a Pinnacle "PCTV HD pro stick" can be made to receive NTSC stations. I have not been able to receive ATSC, which appears to require the software which comes with the "stick", and therefore WinDoze Vista. Possibly the direct video inputs will also work- the menus give this choice but I have not tested it.
Install "tvtime" and "sox", then do the following from http://lunapark6.com/usb-hdtv-tuner-stick-for-windows-linux-hauppauge-wintv-hvr-950.html
For Ubuntu Feisty Fawn:
sudo su
apt-get install mercurial linux-headers-$(uname -r) linux-source build-essential
cd /lib/firmware
wget http://konstantin.filtschew.de/v4l-firmware/firmware_v4.tgz
tar xvzf firmware_v4.tgz
hg clone http://mcentral.de/hg/~mrec/v4l-dvb-experimental
cd v4l-dvb-experimental
make
make install
reboot
sudo modprobe em2880-dvb
If on the next reboot, the card stops working the em2880-dvb module is
not being loaded properly in Feisty. To fix this :
cd /etc/modprobe.d
(You can use your favorite editor for the next command...)
sudo gedit dvbstick
then add this line to the new dvbstick file :
install em28xx /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install em28xx; /bin/sleep 2; /sbin/modprobe em2880-dvb
reboot and it should be back up and running.
"tvtime" runs only the video, "sox" is required to get the audio stream. Starting "sox" has to be delayed, however, until the audio stream starts. Timing for this may need some experimentation. I use the following shell script to start the software:
#
sudo chmod 666 /dev/video0
tvtime -d /dev/video0 -f us-broadcast >>&! /dev/null &
sleep 10
sox -r 48000 -w -c 2 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp1 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp >>&! /dev/null &
On the WinBook the preceding worked except for not tuning ATSC signals. On the Fujitsu N6470 the above installation fails with the following error message.
tvtime -d /dev/video0 -f us-broadcast
Running tvtime 1.0.2.
Reading configuration from /etc/tvtime/tvtime.xml
Reading configuration from /home/rbw/.tvtime/tvtime.xml
xvoutput: No XVIDEO port found which supports YUY2 images.
*** tvtime requires hardware YUY2 overlay support from your video card
*** driver. If you are using an older NVIDIA card (TNT2), then
*** this capability is only available with their binary drivers.
*** For some ATI cards, this feature may be found in the experimental
*** GATOS drivers: http://gatos.souceforge.net/
*** If unsure, please check with your distribution to see if your
*** X driver supports hardware overlay surfaces.
The above URL fails, but this gets you where it intended:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/gatos
6 July 2008: attempted installing MythTV and drivers following article in Linux Journal for July 2008, pages 44 .. 48. This was specifically for Ubuntu 7.10, and did not work for 8.04. After installing and rebooting, plugging in the Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick would prevent any keystrokes from getting to any window, even new windows after the stick was unplugged. Furthermore, boot would not complete if the stick were plugged in during boot.
There are alternative installations which I need to try: http://mcentral.de/wiki/index.php/Em2880#Installation
With this one, connecting the "stick" in Step 14 of
"Installation Guide" resulted in the following in dmesg:
[ 206.928000] usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
[ 207.072000] usb 1-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 207.184000] em28xx: Unknown symbol v4l_compat_translate_ioctl
[ 207.184000] em28xx: Unknown symbol v4l2_video_std_construct
[ 207.184000] em28xx: Unknown symbol v4l2_type_names
[ 207.184000] em28xx: Unknown symbol v4l_printk_ioctl
[ 207.184000] em28xx: Unknown symbol video_unregister_device
[ 207.184000] em28xx: Unknown symbol video_device_alloc
[ 207.184000] em28xx: Unknown symbol video_register_device
[ 207.184000] em28xx: Unknown symbol video_usercopy
[ 207.184000] em28xx: Unknown symbol video_device_release
In addition the instruction at Step 4 of "Using Guide" fails with:
FATAL: failed to open '/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0': 2 No such file or directory
But the files in /usr/share/doc/dvb-utils/examples/scan/*
contain no US Domestic stations, so a scan couldn't succeed even had the device
been created (there was no dvb in /dev).
Install "xawtv" and "sox", then follow the instructions here:
http://www.2nrds.com/digital-tv-in-linux-with-em28xx-devices
IMPORTANT: Download the driver file into /lib/firmware, then extract with
sudo tar zxvf filename.tar.gz
This is the same driver as worked on WinBook - 7.04.
Like the much more complicated trial immediately preceding, this does not
work with tvtime.
It works using xawtv, but blanks the entire screen on starting, despite setting
this option off in the configuration file.
One countermeasure, paradoxically, is to force full screen on the starting
command line, then use the keystroke "f" to switch
to a smaller panel.
It does not offer to tune ATSC signals.
Sox is needed to connect to the sound stream, and sound lags video by
a second or two, moderately annoying.
Composite and S-Video input options are offered but not tested yet.
The following shell script starts the software:
#
sudo chmod 666 /dev/video0
xawtv -device /dev/video0 -dspdev /dev/dsp1 -f >>&! /dev/null &
sleep 10
sox -r 48000 -w -c 2 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp1 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp >>&! /dev/null &
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Sound recording has not yet been tried on the WinBook. Under SuSE 10.2 this resulted in a very annoying ringing from transients and high pitched (3KHz to 5KHz?) sounds, for example a piano sounds like a harpsichord. It was essentially unusable.
Sound driver worked correctly "out of the box".
19 July 2008: Solved Ubuntu 8.04 KsCD playing problem!
/dev/audio.
Problem was:
In Ubuntu 8.04 KsCD plays audio CD's, but somehow does not deliver sound to
the speakers.
Googling KsCD ubuntu 8.04 reveals this is a known but unsolved
problem.
Amarok works but it's playlist mechanism is unduly complicated compared to KsCD.
AScd suffers from the same disability as KsCD, but with an EXTREMELY tiny UI.
Cccd suffers from the same disability as KsCD, but with a tiny UI.
Kaffeine works, and is easier to handle than either Amarok or Rhythmbox.
Rhythmbox works, though getting through it's playlist to get a CD to
play is annoying compared to KsCD's simplicity while slightly better than Amarok.
Xfreecd suffers from the same disability as KsCD, but with a tiny UI.
Xmcd suffers from the same disability as KsCD.
Kaffeine looks like the winner.
KsCD (/usr/bin/X11/kscd) plays audio CDs.
In my login this started only as an icon above the system bar.
In a "virgin" login it started as expected with UI displayed.
alsamixergui (/usr/X11R6/bin/alsamixergui) is a good mixer, but
don't use alsamixer.
On the Fujitsu laptop plugging a connector into the Headphone output (the
only audio output connector on the computer) does not
mute the internal speakers.
ALSA Mixer's "Front" channel controls the speakers, so muting this channel
mutes the speakers.
Similarly the "Head" channel controls output to the Headphone output,
but it does not adjust Headphone volume, only mute or enable this output.
3 Feb 2009: Ubuntu installs Audacity 1.3.4-1, a Beta version. The current stable version, 1.2.6-0, can be installed from Audacity's web site. Ubuntu's update management then wants to replace the stable version with the Beta version.
This Beta version on 3 computers: Fujitsu Laptop, WinBook Laptop, and my deskside system, has never produced audio output, and only two of the possible output selections even allow playing a file. The stable version, however, produces audible output. Recording from an input has yet to be tested.
On 28 March 2008 tried the following, some of which may not have been needed, which resulted in audacity playback working through OSS:/dev/dsp.
sudo chmod 666 /dev/dsp
sudo chmod 666 /dev/audio /dev/mixer*
sudo chmod 777 /dev/snd
sudo chmod 666 /dev/snd/*
Noatun and RealPlayer both had played .wav files correctly before
and after making the above changes.
As of 19 March 2008 on the Fujitsu laptop I had not gotten audacity or any other program to record an audio stream. Installing "jackd" allowed audacity to record from a USB turntable on both Fujitsu and deskside. One problem with the Fujitsu is that there is no analog audio input other than Microphone, and only Headphone output! (Which fortunately drives an external amplifier well.) The Fujitsu does an excellent job of outputting audio from Internet, CD, or local file sources.
19 Mar 2008 on the Fujitsu laptop audacity started with Playback
and Recording devices both set to "OSS: /dev/dsp", which for the
first time enabled playing back a previously recorded .wav file.
Unfortunately the playback was frequently interrupted, a phenomenon much
less intrusive on the deskside machine.
Installing "jackd" helped the interrupted playback problem
but didn't eliminate it.
Selecting a .wav file in Konqueror starts RealPlayer, which then
plays the file flawlessly.
VLC Media Player will also play .wav files.
Listen while recording in audacity has not yet worked on the Fujitsu, though it works perfectly on the deskside. On the Fujitsu I can set preferences in audacity which show output on the playback channel's VU meter during recording. I just haven't been able to hear that output!
With "jackd" installed on the deskside recording from the USB turntable worked! Setting audacity's input and output both to the Audio CODEC enabled listen while record. I haven't yet transferred tracks recorded this way to a CD for critical listening on good equipment, but the deskside's USB recording sounds better in the earphones than did the Fujitsu's. A comparison with an "analog" recording (i.e. digitized by the deskside instead of the USB turntable needs to be done.
Unfortunately (again...) recording from USB on the Fujitsu laptop has frequent gaps in the recorded file (yes, even with "jackd" installed), so recording will continue to be done on the deskside machine. On the Fujitsu, violins sounded a bit strident. If this is due to the A / D converter in the turntable recording on the deskside will sound similar.
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I recommend pure-ftpd for the ftp daemon. Secure ftpd allows only anonymous connections with no cd capability. Installing pure-ftp seems to be enough to set it up for start on boot.
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In each user's home directory remove the existing
.xinitrc which forced olvwm and copy in a fresh
version of .xinitrc.template
to enable any window manager to start.
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VMware 5.5.5 would not compile it's modules in ubuntu 7.10, but
VMware 6.0.2 installed successfully.
VMware 6.0.3 needs an adjustment to source code to install:
From http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=770716 27 Apr 2008
I had the same problem. If you are using VM Workstation 6, the following will work. Assuming you are familiar with working in terminal mode on the command line, execute the following series of commands:
- unpack VMware-workstation-6.0.3
- go to vmware-distrib/lib/modules/source
- untar the file vmmon.tar (tar xvf vmmon.tar)
- cd vmmon-only/include
- edit the file vcpuset.h
- go to line 74
- change #include "asm/bitops.h" to #include "linux/bitops.h" (Because there are some changes made to the 2.6.24 kernel, it's not possible to include bitops.h from asm and you will have to include it from the linux directory)
- go back to vmware-distrib/lib/modules/source
- remove the old vmmon.tar file (rm vmmon.tar)
- repack the new vmmon.tar file (tar cvf vmmon.tar vmmon-only)
- remove vmmon-only directory (rm -rf vmmon-only)
Now go to vmware-distrib directory and install vmware as you usually do. It should work without a glitch. Last edited by Rizlaw; 2 Weeks Ago at 03:42 PM
RBW, 13 May 2008: Installation succeeds, and VMware runs correctly.
On 9 May 2007 VMware 6.0 appeared at http://www.vmware.com/ It installs per the instructions given below (6.0.3 REQUIRES the adjustment given above). Unfortunately the toolbars at the top of VMware's window are no longer unpinnable, costing about 0.5" of height. On a deskside machine this makes little difference, but on a laptop it hurts! This VMware version retains the USB connection restored in a recent Kernel patch (to 2.6.18.8-0.3 ). The good news is this version runs Vista. There is still no capability to copy or paste by mouse in a DOS emulation, unlike some of the DOS-emu versions.
VMware: needs kernel sources to install. Updating a kernel requires re-installing VMware, so use the following instructions. An apparently successful sequence is:
cd /usr/src (not needed for first time installation.)
linux*
(which should be all) (not needed for first time installation.)
/usr/src:
linux-headers-2.6.24-18-generic
linux-headers-2.6.24-18
linux-source-2.6.24.tar.bz2
Which had been run through:
bzcat linux-source-2.6.24.tar.bz2 | tar -xf -
linux-source-2.6.24
.rpm packages a
tarball install is required.
cd to the directory containing your VMware tarball and unpack it,
in this case:
tar -xzf VMware-workstation-6.0.2-59824.i386.tar.gz
vmware-distrib.
su to root and cd to this directory.
Do you want networking for your virtual machines? (yes/no/help) [yes] <- yes
. vmnet0 is bridged to eth0
Do you want to be able to use NAT networking in your virtual machines? (yes/no/help) <- yes
Do you want this program to probe for an unused private subnet? (yes/no/help) <- no
What will be the IP address of your host on the private network?
inet addr 172.16.64.1
netmask 255.255.255.0
. vmnet8 is a NAT network on private subnet 172.16.64.0.
Do you wish to configure another NAT network? (yes/no) [no] <- no
Do you want to be able to use host-only networking in your virtual machines? <- yes
Do you want this program to probe for an unused private subnet? (yes/no/help) <- no
What will be the IP address of your host on the private network?
inet addr 192.168.47.1
netmask 255.255.255.0
. vmnet1 is a host-only network on private subnet 192.168.47.0.
Do you wish to configure another host-only network? (yes/no) <- no
You can now run VMware Workstation by invoking the following command:
"/usr/bin/vmware".
Printer connection worked "auto magically" on firing up an existing installation, needing only (as Administrator) to correct the queue on the remote printer server.
Connection to the host file system is through a share, which will need to be set up for each user.
Initially leave the floppy connected. For the CD/DVD select /dev/hdc and legacy emulation. After installation, set both floppy and CD/DVD to disconnect at startup. In some cases leaving the CD/DVD connected invites the Guest OS to check the drive for a new disk about every 4 seconds. These checks briefly hang the Guest OS and are extremely annoying.
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Set up the virtual machine initially with only Bridged Networking. After installing the guest OS (in this case Windows 2000 Professional), get the first update for Internet Explorer. Following the obligatory reboot, defrag the windows disk. Continue alternating updates with defrag until all updates are installed (approximately 60 in May 2005).
Any time after the first IE update, shut down the virtual machine. Edit VM settings to add a second Ethernet adapter for Host-only Network. After restarting the guest OS, it should discover the new adapter and install a driver. Now the host's file system should be available. If you have set up SAMBA access accounts you can test this from "Network Places" or "Windows Explorer".
VMware has for several versions omitted connecting to the host's printer system through "SAMBA Lite". This omission prevents printing from the guest unless the local network has printer(s) on it. If it does, the following settings in Guest OS printer set-up will provide printer access.
192.168.2.20)
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VMware 5.x and later no longer provide "Samba Lite". Fortunately, as noted above, it's not needed. Connection to host file system works by shares.
Kernel 2.6.18.8-0.3, delivered in a patch installed 3 May 2007, restores
/proc/bus/usb.
This directory is empty, but is available as a mount point.
Thus, adding to the end of /etc/fstab the line:
/dev/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb usbfs defaults 0 0
makes USB again accessible to VMware guests.
This solution is from:
http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=489640
Novell has changed USB structure in 10.1 :-( . You have to (under root):
mount -t usbfs /dev/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb
You can also add a line in fstab (to mount usbfs at system reboot)
but add this line after the line containing /proc:
/dev/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb usbfs defaults 0 0
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ubuntu provides by default it's own renamed versions of Firefox and
Thunderbird.
Starting with 8.04, "Firefox" will be Firefox 3, and the older
version will be Firefox-2, whth the executable in
/usr/lib/firefox/firefox-2.
You will need to do some renaming to continue using Firefox 2,
which you may want to do until extensions such as Adblock Plus and
Launchy are updated for Firefox 3.
The following applies to versions obtained directly from mozilla.com, and may be helpful with the ubuntu versions.
In Mozilla and Firefox, use the url about:config
to view and control settings not available from the
Edit -> Preferences menu.
In Linux, Firefox doesn't know how to start Thunderbird for a
mailto:. See "Launchy" below for a workaround.
Firefox from the distribution CD / DVD installs into
/usr/lib/firefox, starts from firefox,
and auto magically knows about Flash.
If you install Firefox from the distribution CD / DVD you will be
forever plagued by pop-up ads unless you install the add-on
"Adblock" or "Adblock Plus".
I STRONGLY recommend "Adblock Plus"!
ubuntu 7.10 upgrade, 24 Oct 2007, removes the "mozilla-"
prefix, but now attempts to run firefox fail with:
/usr/bin/X11/firefox: 184: /usr/bin/X11/run-mozilla.sh: not found
run-mozilla.sh exists, of course, but in
/usr/lib/firefox, so in the launcher remove the path
/usr/bin/X11/ and let the system deal with it.
Following browser installation (Firefox at least, also Mozilla if you use it) several plug-ins need installing: Thunderbird is a mail tool only. I don't know which of these it needs. Thunderbird setups should be similar to the following.
With Ubuntu 8.04 Thunderbird's executable remains
/usr/lib/thunderbird/thunderbird.
Unaccountably it's default directory in each user's space remains
.mozilla-thunderbird, hiding any former mail system
stored in, for example, .thunderbird.
Fortunately, renaming the existing directory seems to retain the working
mail setup.
ubuntu 7.10 upgrade, 24 Oct 2007, removes the "mozilla-"
prefix. Fortunately the renamed executable can still work with
the former .thunderbird mail directory which yesterday
had to be renamed to the oddly constructed
.mozilla-thunderbird.
When setting up Thunderbird, or Mozilla's mailtool, observe the following cautions:
Edit -> Account Settings -> Server Settings
(Thunderbird)Edit -> Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings ->
Server Settings (Mozilla)prefs.js for Thunderbird or Mozilla mail tool ensure a line like:
user_pref("mail.server.server1.login_at_startup", true);
prefs.js for Thunderbird or Mozilla mail tool ensure lines like:
user_pref("mail.server.server1.directory", "/home/<user>/.mozilla/<path_to>/Mail/<name_of_mail_server>");
user_pref("mail.server.server1.directory-rel", "[ProfD]Mail/<name_of_mail_server>");
This is the easiest. Your distribution should have both runtime and development versions. Install at least runtime package (JRE) java-1_4_2-sun or later, install j2sdk for development.
Get updates from http://java.sun.com/
Do the following as root:
Following installation run "updatedb".
Then cd to each browser's plugin directory, for example:
cd `locate /firefox | grep '/plugins$'` ; pwd
cd `locate /mozilla | grep '/plugins$'` ; pwd
If these commands return more than one response, you get to figure out which one
to use.
In each directory run the command:
ln -s `locate libjavaplugin_oji.so | grep /java | grep -v gcc`
Starting October 2005 I've noticed many annoying pop-up ads could not be blocked by Firefox. These ads were presented by Shockwave / Macromedia Flash. You may wish to NOT INSTALL FLASH to prevent these ads from appearing. Recent versions of the add-in Adblock seem to be able to block most flash pop-ups. Alternate control is to not install flash.
If you install Mozilla or Firefox from the distribution media instead
of by download from mozilla.org, Flash will be found "auto magically"
without the following installation steps.
Renaming libflashplayer.so and flashplayer.xpt
does NOT hide them!
Fortunately, moving these files to a different directory does hide them.
In November 2007 Adobe changed the version of
install_flash_player_9_linux.tar.gz from 9.0.48.0.2
to 9.0.115.0.
Unfortunately as of 7 Dec 2007 flashplugin-nonfree
doesn't know about this.
Installation by synaptic package manager silently fails because the
md5sum of the new tarball is not the expected one.
One workaround: completely remove flashplugin-nonfree.
Then install:
kubuntu-restricted-extras
or
ubuntu-restricted-extras
A Firefox browser request to install for a user succeeds.
So that all users on the computer can have flash without
each having to have their own file set,
copy the resulting files to other browsers as outlined below.
Last chance is to try downloading and installing from Adobe's web site: http://www.adobe.com/ OR copy an older version if you can find it. This, followed by un-tarring and copying files as outlined below worked for Firefox but not for mozilla. Remember to NOT run the flash installer, just copy files.
Since that failed for mozilla, try copying the working tarball and
install from that.
/var/cache/flashplugin-nonfree/install_flash_player_9_linux.tar.gz.
would be the file to look for on an installation made
before 2007-11-20.
My working one contains files dated 2007-06-19 17:31 and is
2608602 bytes.
The new version contains files dated 2007-11-20 15:24 and is
3036127 bytes.
The older version works with mozilla after installing per the following.
Check each browser with "about:plugins". If "flash-player" is installed but not recognized by a browser, then do the following as root:
Following installation run "updatedb".
If the cd command in any of the following
returns an error "ambiguous", then you have multiple
directories to which to copy.
Execute the locate portion of the command to
get the list of directories.
Then cd to each browser's plugin directory, for example:
cd `locate /firefox | grep '/plugins$'` ; pwd
cd `locate /mozilla | grep '/plugins$'` ; pwd
If these commands return more than one response, you get to
figure out which one(s) to use.
In each directory run the command:
ls -lt `locate libflashplayer.so`
Copy the resulting file into the plugins directory.
NOTE: the 2007-11-20 version of flash does not include flashplayer.xpt.
Then cd to each browser's components directory, for example:
cd `locate /firefox | grep '/components$' | grep -v extensions` ; pwd
cd `locate /mozilla | grep '/components$' | grep -v extensions` ; pwd
and run the command:
ls -lt `locate flashplayer.xpt`
Copy the resulting file into the components directory.
This is an extension which can enable Firefox to launch Thunderbird for a
mailto:.
Unfortunately, Mozilla cannot be similarly started because of conflicts
in it's start-up script (it wants to run mozilla-bin from the Firefox
directory).
Possibly some creative environment setups for MOZILLA_HOME and
MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME can correct this failure.
As of 23 Oct 2007 Launchy 4.2.0 can be configured to work with
Firefox 2.0.0.8 at least.
When it does work, the following should install it.
You will need to install launchy, then provide instructions to start Thunderbird.
Tools -> Add-ons -> Get Extensions
launchy.xml
file to tell launchy how to start Thunderbird.
You will need to know exactly how you start Thunderbird.
Use the .xml file builder provided by Launchy:
Tools -> Extensions
launchy.xml
file for your needs.
chrome directory used by Firefox.
Identify the directory by looking for a current copy of
prefs.js.
launchy.xml belongs in the chrome
sub-directory of this directory.
/home/rbw/.mozilla/firefox/kjm49usk.rbw/chrome,
not the
/home/rbw/.mozilla/rbw/z05h6qxg.slt/chrome
expected from the instructions on the launchy home page.
mailto: in a web page
displayed by Firefox, right-click the link instead of left-clicking it.
This will bring up Launchy's menu with an option to start a
Thunderbird compose window.
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OpenOffice appears to have updated to 2.4.1 in late June or early July 2008.
It cannot discover or be convinced of a Java Runtime Environment (JRE).
A possible workaround for this is from
Ubuntu Forums.
which identifies /etc/jvm as the file which controls
"default system JVM search order".
Editing this file to a path which includes a known jre did not correct this
inability, so likely something else is wrong.
Fortunately having a jre appears to be optional.
Other responses to googling jre "open office" indicate
something broken with jre, so there could be a more internal problem.
OO_2X (as of OOo_2.1.0_LinuxIntel_install_en-US.tar.gz) has no apparent means to specify web browser, email tool, etc. as did OOo_1.1.5_LinuxIntel_install.tar.gz. Konqueror becomes the default, and therefore only, web browser.
Furthermore, while the mail merge function can deliver it's output into a single file, each "envelope" is 2 pages. The second page was hidden and not deleteable, but would print to a .pdf file.
Additional fun attempting to run OpenOffice 2.4 in Ubuntu 8.04:
[Java framework]sunjavaplugin.so could not load Java runtime library: file:///usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.03/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm.so.
The path for libjvm.so is:
/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.06/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm.so.
OpenOffice could not be persuaded to accept this path to a JRE.
Yet another reason to prefer OpenOffice 1.5...
(This is from SuSE experience, but left here as a caution.)
Web browser startup from hyperlinks in spreadsheets became corrupted
after installing the FamilySearch Indexer,
which uses Java WebStart.
Don't know what is the connection here, except that attempting to use
a hyperlink now starts javaws. There may be a connection through
konqueror, which for unknown reason(s) is the browser used by OO 2
if WebStart can be disabled. The best result I could get was for
OO 2 to start konqueror with a pop-up to specify the application,
and then specify konqueror with the parameter %f.
Based on the above malfunctions, time to restore OO 1.5.x...
Versions starting with 2.0 have rpm packages which are thinly disguised installer file sets. At least installation (and removal!) are more convenient. 2.0 makes the Open Document file formats available. Shifting to these is a one-way trip. Saving to 1.x file formats is (currently) an option. 1.5 is the last 1.x version. Downloaded versions of this have installers instead of an .rpm package. The version in the SuSE distribution is packaged.
When replacing the distro copy with one from openoffice.org, first un-install the distro's package(s). Contrary to information given with 2.0, running this version before completely removing all configuration files and directories from 1.x resulted in hanging OO (as I remember). If using an installer, use the command:
./setup -net
Install it to
/opt/OpenOffice.org<version number>, then link
/opt/OpenOffice to this directory.
Set all .alias and .*menu* references to OpenOffice to use this link instead of the specific version.
I found it necessary to remove the existing directory
OpenOffice.org1.1.5, then let OpenOffice rebuild its
configuration with the command:
/opt/OpenOffice/setup
OpenOffice appears to be working normally after this.
I also added some of the OO components to KDE's "K Menu".
After installation AND each user has started the new version for the first time:
cd /home/<user_dir>/.kde/share/applnk
and remove older directories with names in the form of:
'OpenOffice.org <version_number>'
and YES, that IS a SPACE in the middle of the directory name, hence the single quotes.
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ubuntu uses xpdf, kghostview or
evince to display Acrobat / .pdf documents.
These programs do not correctly render some fonts
produced by Legacy 6.0 (Genealogy S/W for Windoze),
acroread identifies these as "Arial"
and "Times New Roman" but I think these identification err.
Installing TrueType fonts as described elsewhere does not
correct the situation.
Legacy and Acroread 7.0.x on Windoze display these fonts correctly.
As of 18 October 2007 Adobe Reader for Linux is at
version 8.1.1-1.
I have installed an .rpm version using alien and
it's working.
(I don't know why I did that! I had a .deb file from Adobe
waiting on my other computer!!!)
On first invocation, acroread complained of
not finding libgtkembedmoz.
A search through "Synaptic Package Manager" suggested
libgtk-mozembed-ruby might satisfy this need.
It appears to have done so.
acroread 8.x displays correctly the
fonts described above.
To make it PRINT the fonts correctly do the following
in acroread's toolbar:
Edit -> Preferences -> Page Display :
UN-CHECK "Use local fonts"
Then click "OK".
Adobe Reader version 7.0.9-1 does
print correctly as well as displaying, but installation needs some
help. Install as root with the command:
alien -ic AdobeReader_enu-7.0.9-1.i386.rpm
(Here I DID need alien, no .deb package nearby.)
This will fail, leaving a .deb file which may be removed.
Most of the installation actually works, only the following appears
to be needed at a command line as root:
cd /usr/local/Adobe/Acrobat7.0/Reader/intellinux/lib
ln -s /usr/lib/libldap.so.2 libldap.so
ln -s /usr/lib/liblber.so.2 liblber.so
ln -s /usr/lib/libORBit-2.so.0 libORBit-2.so
ln -s /usr/lib/libbonobo-2.so.0 libbonobo-2.so
ln -s /usr/lib/libbonobo-activation.so.4 libbonobo-activation.so
acroread now works correctly.
Better is:
dpkg -i AdobeReader_enu-8.1.2-1.i386.deb
This is not installed by default.
Download a copy of RealPlayer11GOLD.deb from
http://www.real.com/linux/
then do the following as root:
RealPlayer11GOLD.deb
dpkg -i RealPlayer11GOLD.deb
Following this my favorite internet radio station, WMNR, and BBC Radio3 both worked perfectly in Firefox.
xv is a quick and moderately capable image viewer
written over a decade ago by John Bradley.
It's available in source form at:
ftp://ftp.cis.upenn.edu/pub/xv/
I installed a binary I already had, which required the following as root
after copying the binary to /usr/local/bin:
cd /usr/local/bin
chown root xv
chgrp root xv
chmod 755 xv
cd /usr/lib
ln -s libtiff.so.4 libtiff.so.3
With Ubuntu 8.04 xv no longer compiles, so I recommend creating an alias
to use kview:
alias xv 'kview \!* &'
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ubuntu does not by default install rup (remote uptime)
and the companion rstatd which responds to rup requests.
Consequently the local network can not be readily probed to determine which
computers are up.
Search for and install rstatd and rstat-client to
get these capabilities.
If ubuntu doesn't offer a means to start rstatd, add to following
to /etc/xinetd.d/rstatd or equivalent:
# default: off
# description: The rpc.statd server implements the NSM (Network Status Monitor)
# RPC protocol..
service rstatd
{
rpc_version = 1-5
socket_type = dgram
protocol = udp
wait = yes
user = root
group = root
server = /usr/sbin/rpc.rstatd
type = RPC
flags = IPv4
}
Which may produce an entry in /etc/inetd.conf like:
rstatd/1-5 dgram rpc/udp wait nobody /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/sbin/rpc.rstatd
That didn't work, so I cheated by adding the following line
to /etc/rc.local:
/usr/sbin/rpc.rstatd &
which DOES work.
With one machine the following appears to have been necessary AFTER inserting
the above into /etc/rc.local:
update-inetd --enable rstatd &
But that wasn't the answer, either.
Re-installing rstatd and rstat-client appears
to have corrected the problem, which was not starting rstatd on boot-up.
On a second installation of Ubuntu 7.04 and upgrade to 7.10
neither of the above was needed.
xinetd appears to start rstatd without this help.
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Unfortunately in ubuntu 9.04 (and it may have been 8.10) qps abends.
This has been identified as a buffer overflow, e.g. at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/qps/+bug/389936
but the correction has not arrived in a .deb package as of 25 Jun 2009.
I have tried compiling sources for versions 1.9.18 and 1.10.8, but both are
so riddled with errors or omissions they do not compile.
Substitute an alias to run top in a terminal window until qps
is restored.
ubuntu does not install by default qps, a visual
process manager, but it is available in the distribution.
This utility is a more powerful version of top, and allows
sorting the display by any column head, for example PID, %CPU, or CMDLINE;
or ordering by process tree starting with PID 1, init.
QPS can also send signals such as STOP, KILL, etc. to a process.
Search for and install qps.
ubuntu does not install by default pure-ftpd,
a very convenient ftp server for local networks,
but it is available in the distribution.
Search for and install pure-ftpd.
Why should you care about this?
gxditview is the on-screen PostScript viewer for
groff.
Without it groff is broken for
all output to screen.
The alternatives xditview and gv
do not accept piped input.
ghostview is also not supplied in SuSE 10.1.
Instead use the similar kghostview.
Starting with ubuntu 9.04 (at least) the user defaults file,
.gv for gv became incompatible.
Curiously, the putative source for this file, /usr/share/gv/gv_user.ad,
which is supplied with the gv package, is also unacceptable.
Therefore you may want to set up one or more aliases to invoke gv with
appropriate command line parameters.
Use either info gv or view the file directly with
gview /usr/share/info/gv.info.gz to discover what you need.
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olvwm does not exist.
While this window manager is getting old, it allows mapping the desktop
to a virtual window several times larger than the screen, stretching
windows to fill any position and area in the virtual desktop.
Most usefully it lets the user COMPLETELY customize
workspace menus, specifying any tree structure, pinning any menu to the
desktop (comparable to a "tear-off" menu), executing any
arbitrary command from a menu button, and specifying a default
commend for each sub-menu (which can be executed just by dragging to
the menu).
It can also automatically construct a menu from all files in a directory,
which is both convenient and allows dynamic menu changes.
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This isn't exactly broken...
Remember, if you use groff and friends to edit
/etc/papersize and change it to the papersize you
want to use.
Starting with SuSE 10.0 enscript, contrary to its man page, does NOT default to character set ISO-8859-1. enscript command lines must now explicitly specify the font, as in:
alias enscript '/usr/bin/enscript -X 88591 '
which you might want to insert into .aliases or
.cshrc or .tcshrc if you use csh or tcsh,
or an equivalent file for other shells.
enscript will then print German special characters correctly.
Unfortunately specifying the character set does not eliminate
"artifacts" which enscript appends to some characters,
apparently starting with SuSE 10.2.
These "artifacts" appear not to come
from enscript since a .pdf file which does not display them in
acroread will display them when printed.
The answer to this problem is the PPD File for the printer,
see the next item.
PPD file selection for Brother HL-5140 defaults to
Brother HL-5140 Foomatic/hl1250[recommended]
which delivered a blank page when tested.
Brother HL-5140 Foomatic/lj5gray performed as badly.
Try:
Brother HL-5140 Foomatic/pxlmono
which worked, but curiously, the "Normal" quality setting
produced a better output than "High Quality"
Printing from Firefox is agonizingly slow! A sample printout of "San Francisco" from Google Maps on ubuntu took 7 minutes 24 seconds before the paper started to move, vs. 27 seconds on the SuSE 10.2 system. Printouts of a sample page from OpenOffice were much quicker- 25 seconds to done on ubuntu vs. 16 seconds on the SuSE system. Replacing the ubuntu default Firefox with the one from mozilla.com did not significantly improve the situation. Indeed, attempting to remove ubuntu's Firefox threatens to remove Ubuntu-desktop and several other critical sounding packages, so it was not done.
Finally, I deleted and re-installed the printer, this time
using the Brother HL-5140 Foomatic/hl1250[recommended]
driver which had previously failed.
This time it worked, and printing time from Firefox dropped to
27 seconds, same as the SuSE system.
So the message is don't use pxlmono, use hl1250 driver.
Remind appears to be OK, but editing tool TkRemind persistently
disconnects entries viewed in its month window from the text in the
data file.
A workaround is to use a text editor or grep command like:
grep "REM TAG" .reminders > new.reminders
as a selective file copy to retain only lines which start with:
"REM TAG"
The resulting file continues to work with remind, and TkRemind will
display it correctly.
TkRemind does not allow manipulating any of these lines.
However, TkRemind can invoke an editor (emacs by default, but you can
set your favorite) which can do whatever editing you need.
Remember to force the month to re-draw after saving from editing
so you can see the changes.
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Ensure after replacing a DVD or CD drive that the audio cable goes to the CD / DVD connector on the sound card and isn't hiding on some other connector!
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In April 2007 while testing software for the SPAUG CD I discovered a MAJOR resource for Linux help: http://www.howtoforge.com/. This site helps with 7 major Linux distributions and indexes 15 general topics, etc. Definitely try it!
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