Image upload does not work on my Ubuntu 7.10 laptop and WordPress 2.5. I’ll check using my Vista box. I’ll also setup a new scratch blog and see if it’s some setting or plugin I’m using. The 1.5 development version of Simple Tags seems to work with 2.5 now.
Tag: Ubuntu (page 2 of 3)
Today it’s President’s Day, it’s raining, and the kids are off this week. So naturally I am goofing around with my PC. I’ll head to the basement soon to play with the kids but first I want to setup something on my workstation.
My main workstation is a Dell 700 720 with a Core 2 Duo and a pair of nvidia GeForce 7900’s.
It’s a great machine and I am currently playing Call of Duty 4, Crysis, and a couple of others. But I really enjoy working in Ubuntu. I just don’t want to give up the games.
I installed Virtual PC 2007 on my workstation and enabled hardware-assisted Virtualization. I captured an Ubuntu 7.10 iso on my disk and began running the installation. I created a disk for the virtual PC and began the installation.
I knew that once the live CD booted up I would have problems with the X11 driver. So I ctrl-alt-F1 and ran “sudo vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf”. I replaced the “Depth 24” with “Depth 16”, saved the file, did alt-F7 to switch back to the X11 screen and then alt-backspace to restart the X11 server.
The mouse still did not work. Google is my friend and I learned that when I boot the CD press F6 and append the following to the kernel boot parameters ” i8042.noloop”. The article suggested running the Virtual PC in safe graphics mode but that went very low resolution on me.
Wash, rinse, repeat the “Depth 16” portion. I’m now installing on my Virtual PC 2007 Ubuntu with a color depth of 16 and a working mouse. My system has only 2 GB of RAM but since I upgraded to the XPS 720 motherboard I can go nuts with the 800 Mhz stuff.
Vista 64 with 8 GBs of RAM, that sounds like a good upgrade.
After the install I modified the /boot/grub/menu.lst to add to the kopt line i8042.noloop as well as to the end of the kernel line. That’s probably not the place to put it but it works for now and I’m going to continue working on it. I’ve just got the networking going and I’m putting on 187 updates since the iso image was created.
Last night ran the command ‘sudo update-manager -c’ and after a few prompts left the laptop running the distribution upgrade to Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon. This morning I rebooted it at the prompt and poof I’m upgraded.
I usually don’t think that Linux has a real chance on the desktop; it’s just not the consumers choice. But seamless upgrades and making it so easy to use keeps me wondering. No way a Microsoft upgrade is this easy.
Fixing the MBR on Vista 64 bit or how to remove GRUB from Vista. Keep this link handy, it saved me a lot of time.
Well running Ubuntu 7.10 beta did not work as well as I planned.
The 2 GB USB memory stick I had laying around was too small. This caused the installer to just stop and die around 70% or so. I printed out the coupons of the day and took them with me to BestBuy. I purchased a PNY 8 GB OPTIMA Pro Attache USB stick. It’s as no-frills as you can get and does not come with any software.
This time the installer ran, copied all the files, etc. It also installed GRUB into the MBR of my first hard drive.
Remember I thought that Vista would not play well with other operating systems? Oh, yeah that. My system could not boot off of the hard disk anymore.
This is how you can uninstall GRUB from a Vista partition:
I went to http://www.cpuguard.net/nedlasting/mbrfix.htm and read the whole page. I then downloaded and extracted MBRFIX.ZIP onto another USB stick. This stick was FAT32 formated and I put the contents into the directory called SAVED.
I booted off of my Vista 64 install DVD, ran the command prompt located the directory on that USB stick and ran
MbrFix64.exe /drive 0 fixmbr /vista
And all was right in the world. XP comes with FIXMBR but I could not find Microsoft’s equivalent for Vista 64.
After I booted up Vista a few times, I went back to the Ubuntu install CD. I mounted the 8 GB USB memory stick (it mounted it on /media/disk from /dev/sdc1) and ran
grub-install –recheck –root-directory=/media/disk –no-floppy /dev/sdc
On my system this put the root as (hd2,0) which just plain won’t work. While I was still on the live system I ran from a terminal window
sudo vi /media/disk/boot/grub/menu.lst
and located the entries I needed. All (hd2,0) had to be switched to (hd0,0) because in my BIOS when I select “Boot from USB device” that USB device gets treated like the first hard disk. I also removed the Vista section just because it makes sense.
I’m running that installation right now and doing a software update. On the 8 GB stick I have 4.4 GB free. Once I have it up to date the fun can really begin. Wonder if Compiz will like my setup?
Update 6/3/2009: Follow the instructions here at PenDriveLinux.com for Ubuntu 9.04, it works with the Dell XPS 720 very well. The only odd thing is that I have to re-enable the NVidia drivers between reboots. When you do enable it, don’t reboot. Just log out and let the auto login go and you can use the full Compiz effects.
I run Vista 64 bit on my XPS 700 720. Looking at how it boots up, I am not sure that Microsoft will work with another operating system. And I do use this computer for work-ish *cough* games *cough* reasons.
I’ve just downloaded the 64 bit iso image for Ubuntu 7.10 beta and burnt it to CD. I’m installing the software but not on my hard drives, I’m installing it onto a 2 GB USB memory stick I have lying around.
This should let me install what I want to play with without me having to take the plunge exactly on this computer. I just have to remember to hit F12 when I boot up so the BIOS presents me with a boot menu.
As the install image booted up it played with my monitor settings and set it for 1680×1050. That’s not bad; last time it insisted on 1024×768. The sound card was not installed for the live session but that’s probably fine for now.
It’s installing right now as I enter this; I’m using Firefox in the live session. It’s going slow and I’m tailing /var/log/messages in another window to see if the drive suddenly dies.
Once I have it working off the USB drive entirely then I’ll mess with the drivers to see if I can get sound and Compiz working at 1920×1200 with full acceleration.
After 5 years or so my IBM T40 laptop gave up the ghost. Dead hardrive. Given how cheap laptops are today I’ll probably go to Costco and pick up an HP laptop.
The old laptop ran Ubuntu 7.04. I’ll probably leave the new one running Vista. I personally like running Ubuntu but other people use that laptop and the experience was a pain to them.
In order to run Vista Premium you need 2 GB of RAM (at least). I have 2 GB on my workstation and it sometimes struggles. If I shell out more bucks I can get a more powerful laptop.
Or I can install Ubuntu on top of the new laptop. Hrm. I’ll see how I like the experience and make up my mind after playing with the new one.
Update: The laptop came back to life. I installed Ubuntu 7.04 with no problems. Rats, no new laptop for me.
I’m running the beta of Feisty Fawn (Ubuntu 7.04) with no problem at all. Everything is working fine and I’m keeping it on the T40.
So far so good. I have tried the following with my Ubuntu installation:
- Tried to get Compiz running on my laptop
- Updated Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy to 7.04 Fiesty Fawn
- Get Steam working on my laptop running Ubuntu
Compiz works badly. I think it’s the xserver I am using. I’ve un-installed it already; my laptop probably just lacks the horse power to drive the effects.
Ubuntu 7.04 will likely be better. But I fat fingered something and ended up putting back on 6.10 Edgy.
Steam works so far. In the past I purchased Transgaming’s Cedega cause I really like what they’re doing. But this time I’ve installed wine using
sudo apt-get install wine
Steam now installs via a .msi file. So to get it installed I downloaded SteamInstall.msi from http://www.steampowered.com/ and Googled to locate tahoma.ttf font file.
I moved the tahoma.ttf file to ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/fonts/ and ran
msiexec /a SteamInstall.msi
The mouse worked but I could not get the keyboard focused on the installer. Everything I typed ended up in the terminal I used to run wine. I ended up running winecfg and unchecking the “Allow window manager to control the windows” which was enough to get it installed.
Later on I put that option back and ran wine again with this on the command line:
WINEDEBUG="fixme-all" wine "C:Program FilesSteamsteam.exe"
This was lifted from a Ubuntuforums.org page. BTW I just pasted the snippet from the web page into the WordPress TinyMCE window. All formatting was taken care of, very cool. All I did was use the Code tab to adjust the width of the box.
The installation of a Steam game created a link on my desktop complete with icon. Later on I just double-clicked that link and the Steam app is installing my copy of Condition Zero.
The only problem I have is that the Steam window stays on top all the time. I will see if I can get that fixed.
Update: Well the keyconfig extension no longer works despite hacking the install.rdf in the file. I had to follow the instructions located at this website.
On my Ubuntu laptop I did the following at a bash shell prompt:
cd /usr/share/firefox/chrome/browser/content/browser sudo vi browser.xul
Did a search for “mainKeyset” and right after the line
<keyset id=”mainKeyset”>
I added the following two lines:
<key id=”goBackKb” keycode=”VK_F19″ command=”Browser:Back” />
<key id=”goForwardKb” keycode=”VK_F20″ command=”Browser:Forward” />
I then saved the file and the two IBM keys worked fine. This requires the lines in ~/.Xmodmap below. I’m not pleased with this solution because I have to update the main firefox package files. I will have to figure out how to do this in my home directory.
– – – – – – – – – – – – –
That was way too easy.
I installed Ubuntu 6.06 from the Live/Install CD I had and ran the updater to get all the patches. I played with it for an hour or two and then ran
sudo “update-manager -c -d”
in a terminal window. This permitted me to upgrade the laptop to Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy. I added some more software using Synaptic and was good to go.
Everything worked except in Firefox the keyboard navigation keys for previous/next page did not get recognized. So I added ~/.Xmodmap and put in the following two lines
keycode 234 = F19
keycode 233 = F20
I was all set to do the keyboard macro dance of death when I located and downloaded the keyconfig firefox extension. This extension lets you remap or assign functions to keys in Firefox. That’s very cool since I only was interested in making the keys work in Firefox.
I ran “xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap” and used the extension to map Back as F19 and Forward as F20.
If you download animation or watch video clips, get and install Automatix2. All my vids work due to getting the correct codecs. I’m finding Totem to be a good player.
The real test of if this will work is Lily. She has used the laptop once or twice for browsing and I have even used this laptop to connect to my work’s remote desktop in a browser solution. It’s all working fine.
If she has no issues I’m leaving Ubuntu on this laptop.
For about a week my IBM T40 laptop has been acting bizarre.
It boots, complains about different problems, and none of the network connections work at all. Using the few tools I have for XP, I can’t get the thing to work.
It’s gotten to the point where I have to dig out the IBM CD’s and re-install XP and the utilities from the CD. I don’t think it’s a virus but the laptop has ticked me off to the point where I’m “Let’s just buy a new one!”
Without slip-streaming an updated copy of XP, that means I have to do the factory re-install and download a few hundred megabytes of patches. It’ll take hours to do.
X-<
As a rule I don’t keep anything important on my laptop. I have a USB key fob and keep copies of the important docs on my servers. Since all I plan to do is use the laptop for browsing and ssh’ing to my boxes, I am installing Ubuntu.
As I am typing this on another virtual desktop, I’m currently installing Ubuntu 6.06 from a live CD. That’s just not an option when installing XP.
This should be good, I will see how long I keep it.
Cool logo found on www.linuxextremist.com.
