Ubuntu 9.0.4 Reinstallation On HP 6120

I've just had to reinstall Ubuntu on my HP 6120 Laptop, due to the graphics messing up - I was using Intel beta graphics drivers, so I guess the latest ones don't like my 915 chipset much. Consequently I was left with unusable graphics. Thankfully, it doesn't take too long to get a fresh Ubuntu installation back to how I want it.

Preperation

Firstly I logged in, in safe-graphics mode and backed up my photos, some downloads, documents and my settings, over ftp to my desktop. I backed up the hidden folders for Firefox, and Pidgin which are ".mozilla" and ".purple". After reinstallation I simply copied these back into the new home directory. I used Evolution's own backup/restore function to get my email sorted. I should also say that you could also use a seperate /home partition but this time I wanted as little detritus from the previous install as possible. Also If you upgrade to a new version of Ubuntu, you may get config problems. If you can't boot into the old install you can copy everything over using the Ubuntu livecd.

Fresh Desktop

After the reinstall i was welcomed by a clean, very brown, Ubuntu desktop. This I just have to change! I reinstalled Clear-Blue theme and Human-Azul icons. I also installed wallpaper-tray, a utility that switches wallpapers at preset times, from Synaptic. I then installed Dropbox and pointed wallpaper-tray to my wallpaper folder in the Dropbox folder. For extra eye-candy I installed the Compiz advanced settings tool, I need my wobbly windows and spinning cube!

Essential Programs and Multimedia

For playing all the usual codecs and for some other stuff not included in the default repositories, the easiest solution is Medibuntu. I added the repository (link is to the howto) and installed 'non-free-codecs', 'libdvdcss2' (for encrypted DVD playing), Skype and Google Earth. Make sure to agree to the Google license agreement, otherwise installation will fail.

I installed Avidemux For video editing and to transcode downloaded youtube FLV videos, and Deluge for torrents (Linux distros mostly). I prefer Deluge to Transmission, the default client in Ubuntu as I find it easier to use. For playing videos and streaming video/audio I use VLC media player, it is one of the best players around. All three are cross-platform, running on Windows, Mac and Linux.

Hardware Monitoring

For keeping an eye on my laptops temperature and performance I always install smartmontools, lm-sensors, xsensors, and xsysinfo and they're corresponding applets which can all be found in the Ubuntu repos. For extra configuration I install Webmin, which is good for remote admin too. Do 'sudo sensors-detect' in a terminal (and press return a few times to answer the questions) to configure lm-sensors then reboot to get it working. Another good admin tool is phpsysinfo which gives a nice run down of your hardware in a webpage, a good alternative to Belarc Advisor on Windows. Of course, not for the command-line-phobic, ssh is the daddy of remote access - 'sudo aptitude install ssh'. I also installed the old Gnome network manager, 'gnome-network-admin' as i prefer it to the new one, especially for static connections.

Also of course, I installed the Facebook Pidgin plugin and Swiftfox, both of which I've blogged about before. And that's about it for the moment, last thing I installed was the Sun java plugin 'sun-java-jre', everything else I'll probably install as I need them.

Update 19/03/11

I have since replaced this laptop with another HP6120, (this time a slight upgrade 1.8Ghz, from 1.6Ghz) and I have been running Ubuntu 10.0.4 for quite awhile and is my favourite of my laptops due to it's nice 15 inch screen and keyboard.

Powered by Ubuntu

My "Powered by Ubuntu" stickers arrived today!

A few weeks back, I sent off for them from the System76 website. You can download them from the Free Software Stickers book and print them yourself, but of course you need the right self-adhesive paper and reasonable printer, so it's easier to get these guys to do it for you for free! They are ideal for replacing those Designed for Windows stickers most PCs/laptops come with. I have put the first sticker on my home-built desktop machine.

Photos:

How Dropbox Works (video)

I find Dropbox very useful for syncing config files, wallpapers and sharing files with friends. You get 2GB of free storage and can get more through referals. I've found I don't use my memory sticks as much for smaller files. I like that it's cross-platform (Linux/Mac/Windows). There are other similar programs like Syncplicity (Windows only) and Foldershare (Windows/Mac, now owned by Microsoft) that aren't completely cross-platform. For Linux, there's also Ubuntu One which I have yet to try, but it is limited to Ubuntu 9.0.4 and above at the moment only. Anyway this video explains how Dropbox works in a nice simple way, ideal for encouraging friends to join up. :D




Update: Having tried Ubuntu One, it's similar to Dropbox, though it would be nice if it had similar icons to show what files are updating etc, and a distinctive Ubuntu One folder icon. Although you can of course add your own emblems (Edit --> Backgrounds and Emblems in Nautilus) I'll let you know how I get on with it, when I've tested it thoroughly. Also of course it would be great if it was not restricted to Ubuntu, though you can upload/download files through the web interface, but it is not as intuitive as Dropbox's.

Update 2: I've been tryomg out Ubuntu One a bit more, it's ok when it works but at the moment all i get is an icon with an ominous 'X' on it, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't, maybe it will improve for upcoming Karmic koala, which is not long now.

Debian Lenny on a Compaq N400C

Distro Problems and Decisions

I've been using my Compaq N400C for a while with Ubuntu 8.0.4 and it ran OK, up until just recently. Ever since a recent update, it kept running ok for a while then freezing up, two LEDs would flash and that would be it. I'd have to hold the power button down to force shutdown. I even tried to reinstall with Ubuntu 8.0.4 and 9.0.4, but got a kernel panic during install. I checked RAM and replaced the hard drive (swapped the original 20GB for a 30GB), but still received the same problem. To install anything on this laptop really requires the docking station that has the CD drive (and two extra HDD bays too) that I don't have. I use the minimal install discs with a USB DVD writer, as I never had any luck with a full OS disc, i'd always get errors. So then I thought about a different distro. I didn't fancy having to get used to an RPM based distro again, like Mandriva or Fedora (which I have had bad experiences with) or even Suse which I'd never consider now they are sleeping with Microsoft, besides I'm not keen on YAST. Nope, it'd have to be Debian based or indeed be Debian - so, onto the install:


Installation and Configuration

I used the smallest of the minimal install discs, the business card ISO, and installed it from my Plextor USB/Firewire DVD writer using USB. I chose to just install the commandline only install at first so I could check it booted ok afterwards. All was fine so far, so I rebooted. removed the DVD drive, then installed the Gnome desktop with "aptitude install gnome" as root. I also installed ssh and deluge-torrent, then I rebooted again to be greated by the nice Debian GDM screen. I did notice all the sound mixer faders were all muted for some reason, and discovered the ESS Allegro/Maestro3 soundcard wasn't found. I Googled around and found this post on the the Debian User Forum. What solved it for me I think was installing the firmware (untar then compile it with "./configure", "make" then "make install") then running, as root in the terminal: "rmmod snd_maestro3" and then "modprobe snd_maestro3" and after a reboot it was fine upon unmuting the mixers. Now the volume buttons on the front of the laptop do actually work the master volume.


Making Debian More Palatable For The Desktop

The first thing I needed to do was get my Edimax EW-7108PCg PCMCIA wireless card working, as I used Ethernet during install. For the wireless I needed the Ralink firmware which you can download here or directly from here. Annoyingly, double-clicking a Deb package opens it with 'Archive Manager' and even when I open it with GDebi Package Manager it doesn't work, just crapping out after opening. So to install Deb packages I have to resort to "dpk -i nameofpackage.deb" in a terminal. Upon reboot, my wireless worked, and I connected to my WPA encrypted network.

Next up I just had to replace Iceweasel, which has to be the worse software name ever, with a proper version of Firefox. I did consider installing Firefox manually using the tar.gz package but it's not exactly conveniant, so I installed Swiftfox instead. Swiftfox is an optimised version of Firefox, with versions for Intel and AMD 32bit and 64bit. At the moment it is based on Firefox 3.5.2.1 which is almost the latest version. I then installed Pidgin messenger from the Debian repository and the Facebook plugin.

For playing all the required codecs I added the Debian Multimedia repository by adding "deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org stable main" to the software sources. I've installed w32codecs, flash-player-mozilla and libdvdcss for now. I also transfered my Swiftfox settings from my other laptop by copying the .mozilla folder (in /home/username/). Since I use Dropbox for syncing files I installed that too. This required adding the Dropbox Ubuntu Gutsy repository, as a Debian one isn't provided.

This was a slightly unorthodox install compared to a standard install due to the hardware involved, and is a little bit more fuss than an Ubuntu install, but I'm fairly happy with it, it's a solid stable distro, and feels a bit lighter than Ubuntu which is handy on an 850Mhz laptop with 256MB of RAM!

Update: Swiftfox has now been updated to the latest version, 3.5.3.

Update 2: Found a nice short tutorial on installing the latest Adobe Flash plugin in Debian.
Update 3 14/02/10: I have since gone back to Ubuntu 8.0.4, since various updates seem to have solved the problems I was having.

Update 4 (02/06/10): The hard drive out of this is now in my Toughbook CF-27 and this now has a 40GB drive with Lubuntu 10.0.4 LTS which is running fine, using Chrome for browsing and it also boots extremely quickly.

Sometimes you do get what you wish for...

I used to be a KDE man through and through, until i had some serious stability issues in Kubuntu, and then of course there is KDE 4.x but I'll leave that for now. One of the main reasons I stuck with KDE for a long time was Konqueror. It's such a versatile file manager (and web browser) with it's little Kioslaves and it's split pane file mode. When I switched to Gnome on Ubuntu (Hardy/8.0.4 at the time) I still occasionally used konqueror for that very feature, until now.

Anyway, I have just discovered you can now get dual-pane mode in nautilus! It's essentially a beta version of Nautilus which you install via a PPA (software repository), it is only available for Ubuntu 9.0.4 at the moment. There is an article on how to install it here. I havn't encountered any problems with it so far, and i like the way it removes the background of the pane you are not using, you press F3 to go dual-pane, it works really well.

This really does sum up the RIAA so well

From http://cosmo7.com - click for original image

Firefox Spotted On Electronic Billboard

On a recent trip to Stamford, I spotted this electronic billboard in the entrance of Newark (Nottinghamshire) station. On closer inspection I noticed it was actually using Firefox (instead of IE, for once) unable to find the URL for it's advert. I reckon they used Firefox because of it's fullscreen mode is better than IE's, in that it actually auto-hides the main toolbars at the top, so all you see is the page itself, plus maybe because it's also more secure and standards compliant. You can tell by the 'Try Again' button that it is running on Windows, which always seems to be a bit of a waste of resources to me, using a full blown desktop OS for an application more suited to a slim Linux installation.