Upgrading to Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) from 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron) on my home desktop (in pictures)

Despite Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) being out for over a month now, I just got around to upgrading today. I use my Linux box for web browsing, watching videos, general web development and other day to day tasks so I couldn't afford for it to be down long if the upgrade went badly. Fortunately, the upgrade worked like a charm. So here is the upgrade process that took a total of 1 hour and 15 minutes in pictures:











At this point something was upgraded that caused the border to not show up in the screen shots. Oh well.










After the upgrade the theme was a little funky. I went into the theme editor and changed the theme a few times and it was back to normal. I did see the new dark theme and I am going to give it a try for a little bit. I don't think it will last long but it does look pretty good at first. I also switched to the default background for a bit too.

Ubuntu Desktop Screenshot of the Day #8 - Election Season Edition

My desktop theme has been the same way too long and I haven't posted a new screen shot in a while so today I decided to tackle both of those things. Seeing as it is election season here in the US where I am, I decided to go with a nice red, white and blue theme. The background is called "another gnome wave (blue on red)" and is one of several with this same design and different colors. I am also trying out CrossOver Chromium a little more since I have been using its Windows counterpart Chrome more seriously for a few days now too. I hope to share more thoughts on Chromium later. In the screen shot you will also notice the Dictionary application. This is the first time I have ever used it because I generally use Google as my online dictionary. One last thing, the website shown is Electoral-Vote.com which tracks daily polling for each state and predicts the outcome of the election if it were to happen today (based on our antiquated electoral college system that allows a President to be elected without a majority of the poplar vote, like in 2000, and focuses campaigning to only a handful of states).

New Update Icons in Ubuntu 8.04

Have you noticed the new update icons in Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron)? The old update icon was an orange box with what looks like a white sun in the middle. It was OK. The new icon is a nine sided star (enneagram) with a white arrow pointing down. I have also noticed a new "Critical Updates" icon that I never saw in Ubuntu 7.10 (Was it there and I just never saw it?). The critical updates icon is a big red down arrow with an exclamation mark in the middle.

I really do like the new icons. They look a lot more defined and get your attention better. I especially like that there is an icon that indicates critical updates now too. I do wish the critical updates icon was more like the regular update icon though. They are so different that it is not obvious at first that they both signify updates are available. Maybe Ubuntu could use the same icon and change the color and/or the little icon inside the icon.

My one other beef with the new update icon is it also looks like the application crash notification icon. I think it is a bad idea to make both of those icons look so similar. Check out the image below to see what I mean.

The new update icons in Ubuntu
(click on the image for the full size version,
PNGs don't resize well!)

So what do you think of the new icons?

Resize and rotate images easily with Gnome in Ubuntu

Today I wanted to post some pictures to a site but to upload them I needed them to be considerably smaller. I know lots of ways to resize images in Linux but I needed an easy way to resize them. In Windows, I am used to using the Image Resizer Power Toy. (Why is that not a default feature?) The image resizer in Windows allows me to just right click on one or more images and resize them to any number of sizes. That is pretty handy and a feature I was looking for in Linux too. Sadly, there is not one already installed by default. I knew I could use the Gimp to do what I wanted but that was overkill. I wanted a simple and fast solution.

That was when I found the nautilus-image-converter package thanks to this and this. You can install it from Synaptic (System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager) like I did or from the command line with apt-get like so (make sure Ubuntu Universe is enabled first under System -> Administration -> Software Sources):

sudo apt-get install nautilus-image-converter

After installing it, you will need to restart Nautilus. The best way to do that would be to log out and log back in. You could also quit and restart Nautilus with the command

nautilus -q; nautilus &

which will quit and then start it back up in the background. Once Nautilus has restarted it will load the new extension and you will be able to resize and rotate images from the right click menu. You can also resize and rotate multiple images if you select multiple images first. Both resizing and rotating allow you to take the action on the current image or make a copy and rename it with .resized or .rotated. The copy option is the default for both actions. See the screen shots below for all the options available.

The new resize and rotate options

The resize image(s) dialog

The rotate image(s) dialog

There you have it. Easy image resize and rotate in Gnome. And want it to be default, vote for the idea below:

Hardy Heron 1 Week In - Update Time!

Ubuntu 8.04 has been out for almost a week now and I have seen a lot of mixed feelings on different blogs and forums. I would say most users love it but there is the occasional user with some strange and annoying problem. I've had my share of strange and annoying problems too. I've found a way around most of them though. But many of these problems may now be fixed. A bunch of updates have already started rolling out. These are not just security patches either, they are also lots of bug fixes. So be sure to pull down the latest greatest updates. I installed 29 of them today.

Ubuntu Desktop Screenshot of the Day #7 - ATI Big Desktop

Why in the world have I waited so long to play with Big Desktop?? I can't live without multiple monitors these days but in Linux I have dealt with a limited setup for a while. I've had my system setup with dual monitors but with dual X sessions too. This has kept me from being able to drag icons and windows between monitors. Fortunately things like Cut/Copy/Paste worked but it was less than desirable. I also could not open the same application in both windows so if I wanted a browser in each window one was Firefox and the other Epiphany.

Tonight I decided to just mess with the aticonfig program that helps you setup your xorg.conf for ATI cards. I followed the Ubuntu forums thread on Big Desktop (but only part of the way) and now look what I have:

Click for the full size 3200x1200 desktop image

Isn't that sweet? One interesting note is the screen is not really that large. The monitor on the right is a smaller resolution than on the left so really the gedit window is almost to the borders of the right monitor. I wonder what other tweaks I can get working. I only messed a little with this to get to this point. It is just so tedious fooling with my xorg.conf file!

I see a lot of others have had success too (some more easily than others, lucky nvidia owners):

• Ubuntu 8.04, ATI, & Big Desktop
• Dual Head and Compiz Fusion (user not stuck with ATI like me)
• My first look at Ubuntu 8.04 LTS as a Desktop and Server (another nvidia user)
• Ubuntu 8.04 : Hardy Heron (I envy nvidia owners more now!)
• Configuring Dual Monitor on Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon (ati how-to)
  

Also, better background support would be nice here. The background I have now works well tiled. All the other single images I tried didn't work well split across screens. Vote for the brainstorm to have that fixed. Fortunately it may come sooner rather than later as Google Summer of Code has sponsored the GNOME project Individual Workspace Wallpapers which might help some.




And for my future reference (and yours) and backup, here is my new /etc/X11/xorg.conf for my Big Desktop setup of an ATI Technologies Inc RV370 5B60 [Radeon X300 (PCIE)] on Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron (I have a Logitech MX1000 mouse in there too).

#Section "InputDevice"
# Identifier "Configured Mouse"
# Driver  "mouse"
# Option  "CorePointer"
# Option  "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
# Option  "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
# Option  "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
# Option  "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
#EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"

 # Uncomment if you have a wacom tablet
 # InputDevice     "stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
 # InputDevice     "cursor" "SendCoreEvents"
 # InputDevice     "eraser" "SendCoreEvents"
# Inputdevice "Configured Mouse"
 Identifier     "Default Layout"
 Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]" 0 0
 InputDevice    "Generic Keyboard"
 InputDevice    "Logitech MX1000"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "Module"
 Load  "glx"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
 Identifier  "Generic Keyboard"
 Driver      "kbd"
 Option     "CoreKeyboard"
 Option     "XkbRules" "xorg"
 Option     "XkbModel" "pc105"
 Option     "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
 Identifier  "Logitech MX1000"
 Driver      "evdev"
 Option     "Name" "Logitech USB Receiver"
 Option     "HWHEELRelativeAxisButtons" "7 6"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
 Identifier  "stylus"
 Driver      "wacom"
 Option     "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
 Option     "Type" "stylus"
 Option     "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"# Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
 Identifier  "eraser"
 Driver      "wacom"
 Option     "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
 Option     "Type" "eraser"
 Option     "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"# Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
 Identifier  "cursor"
 Driver      "wacom"
 Option     "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
 Option     "Type" "cursor"
 Option     "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"# Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
 Identifier   "Generic Monitor"
 HorizSync    30.0 - 70.0
 VertRefresh  50.0 - 160.0
 Option     "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
 Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[0]"
 Option     "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
 Option     "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
 Option     "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
 Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[1]"
 Option     "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
 Option     "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
 Option     "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
 Identifier  "ATI Technologies Inc RV370 5B60 [Radeon X300 (PCIE)]"
 Driver      "fglrx"
 Option     "DesktopSetup" "horizontal"
 Option     "Capabilities" "0x00000800"
 Option     "PairModes" "0x0+0x0"
 Option     "EnableMonitor" "crt1,tmds1"
 BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
 Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]"
 Driver      "fglrx"
 BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
 Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[1]"
 Driver      "fglrx"
 BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
 Screen      1
EndSection

Section "Screen"
 Identifier "Default Screen"
 Device     "ATI Technologies Inc RV370 5B60 [Radeon X300 (PCIE)]"
 Monitor    "Generic Monitor"
 DefaultDepth     24
EndSection

Section "Screen"
 Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]"
 Device     "aticonfig-Device[0]"
 Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[0]"
 DefaultDepth     24
 SubSection "Display"
  Viewport   0 0
  Depth     24
 EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
 Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[1]"
 Device     "aticonfig-Device[1]"
 Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[1]"
 DefaultDepth     24
 SubSection "Display"
  Viewport   0 0
  Depth     24
 EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
 Option     "Composite" "0"
EndSection

View XPS (XML Paper Specification) files on Linux

A few days ago I was looking at the page for Windows XP SP3 and noticed some documentation at the bottom in a file format I had never heard of before. In addition to a PDF, there was an XPS (XML Paper Specification) available.

XPS is a new competitor to PDF. It was developed by Microsoft and included in Vista and Office 2007 (no wonder I have never heard of it before). They have submitted to the ECMA for standardization but I don't have much hope in them using the ISO Standard stamp as much more than a selling point. Microsoft has not shown they intend to play nice with standards. Remember their HTML extensions and ActiveX? And the latest crap with OOXML? They like to "Embrace, extend and extinguish"

Either way, if you are running Linux and need to view one of these files, I've only found one program so far that does it. The Gnome viewer Evince doesn't yet but the KDE4 viewer Okular does. To install it on Ubuntu just use Synaptic. There is a lot to install since you have to have the KDE base libraries but other than that it is fairly simple.

Logitech MX1000 Mouse on Ubuntu 8.04 Linux (Hardy Heron)

I upgraded to Ubuntu 8.04 tonight but when I did, my mouse didn't work at all anymore! I just had a dead pointer. I was able to get it working previously under Ubuntu 7.10 (Getting my Logitech MX1000 Mouse to Work, Fully, on Ubuntu 7.10) but those settings no longer worked. After playing with the settings some more, removing "CorePointer" from the InputDevice line did it for me. So, I am going to write up a new, improved and simpler how-to for the Logitech MX1000 Mouse on Ubuntu 8.04 Linux (Hardy Heron). This may also work for other multiple button mice but I don't have any other multi button mice to find out.

The very first thing to do is BACKUP your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. Want a command for that? This will copy it to your home directory as xorg.conf.backup.

cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf ~/xorg.conf.backup

If ever you need to go back to your working config, just login to the terminal failsafe mode and switch the destination and source for the command below (plus add sudo to the front). Like so:

sudo cp ~/xorg.conf.backup /etc/X11/xorg.conf


Now then, first thing to do is install or make sure you have evdev installed. evdev is a generic input driver for keyboards and mice. (Read the man page I linked to for more detailed configuration options. Look most at the Absolute Axis Configuration section.) I think evdev is installed by default but run the line below to install it either way. If it is already installed it will just say so and not change anything.

sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-evdev

Next you will want to edit your xorg.conf file. You must edit it with super privileges or you will not be able to save it. To edit it in gedit, issue this command:

gksu gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Add a new MX1000 InputDevice section and comment out the old mouse InputDevice section. I first thought you didn't have to comment out the old mouse section but if you don't then your buttons will get mapped to 3 and 2 instead of 9 and 8 and they will not work for forward and back.

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Logitech MX1000"
Driver  "evdev"
Option  "Name"  "Logitech USB Receiver"
Option  "HWHEELRelativeAxisButtons" "7 6"
EndSection

#Section "InputDevice"
# Identifier "Configured Mouse"
# Driver  "mouse"
# Option  "CorePointer"
# Option  "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
# Option  "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
# Option  "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
# Option  "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
#EndSection

The "Name" option must match the device name exactly. It is case sensitive. To determine your device name, run:

cat /proc/bus/input/devices

You will get output (along with other devices) that looks something like this:

I: Bus=0003 Vendor=046d Product=c50e Version=2500
N: Name="Logitech USB Receiver"
P: Phys=usb-0000:00:1d.3-2/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/virtual/input/input5
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=kbd mouse1 event5
B: EV=7
B: KEY=1f0000 0 100 38 c0000000 c0000 0 0 0
B: REL=103

The Name listed there is the same name that must match in your InputDevice section. Next, add the new Logitech InputDevice that you created in the ServerLayout section and comment out the old mouse. Do it this way so if you messed something up, you can comment out the new Logitech mouse and uncomment the old mouse to switch back.

#    Inputdevice    "Configured Mouse"
Inputdevice    "Logitech MX1000"

Now just logout and log back in. Logging out seems to restart the XServer, a necessary step, but if that doesn't work you can use Ctrl + Alt + Backspace. Use caution as that will kill your X session immediately and all open programs will just get killed.

If you have any problems with this, you might want to try my previous write up from when I was running Ubuntu 7.10. I upgraded from 7.10 -> 8.04 so I may have missed some necessary steps because I'd already done them previously. I don't think I did though.

And for reference, my full /etc/X11/xorg.conf after I was done:

Section "ServerLayout"

# Uncomment if you have a wacom tablet
# InputDevice     "stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
# InputDevice     "cursor" "SendCoreEvents"
# InputDevice     "eraser" "SendCoreEvents"
Identifier "Default Layout"
screen 0 "aticonfig-Screen[0]" 0 0
screen "aticonfig-Screen[1]" rightof "aticonfig-Screen[0]"
Inputdevice "Generic Keyboard"
# Inputdevice "Configured Mouse"
Inputdevice "Logitech MX1000"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load  "glx"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver  "kbd"
Option  "CoreKeyboard"
Option  "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option  "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option  "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Logitech MX1000"
Driver  "evdev"
Option  "Name"  "Logitech USB Receiver"
Option  "HWHEELRelativeAxisButtons" "7 6"
EndSection

#Section "InputDevice"
# Identifier "Configured Mouse"
# Driver  "mouse"
# Option  "CorePointer"
# Option  "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
# Option  "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
# Option  "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
# Option  "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
#EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "stylus"
Driver  "wacom"
Option  "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option  "Type" "stylus"
Option  "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"# Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "eraser"
Driver  "wacom"
Option  "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option  "Type" "eraser"
Option  "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"# Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "cursor"
Driver  "wacom"
Option  "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option  "Type" "cursor"
Option  "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"# Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Generic Monitor"
Horizsync 30.0 - 70.0
Vertrefresh 50.0 - 160.0
Option  "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "aticonfig-Monitor[0]"
Option  "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
Option  "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
Option  "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "aticonfig-Monitor[1]"
Option  "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
Option  "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
Option  "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "ATI Technologies Inc RV370 5B60 [Radeon X300 (PCIE)]"
Driver  "fglrx"
Busid  "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "aticonfig-Device[0]"
Driver  "fglrx"
Busid  "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "aticonfig-Device[1]"
Driver  "fglrx"
Busid  "PCI:1:0:0"
Screen 1
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device  "ATI Technologies Inc RV370 5B60 [Radeon X300 (PCIE)]"
Monitor  "Generic Monitor"
Defaultdepth 24
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]"
Device  "aticonfig-Device[0]"
Monitor  "aticonfig-Monitor[0]"
Defaultdepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[1]"
Device  "aticonfig-Device[1]"
Monitor  "aticonfig-Monitor[1]"
Defaultdepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
Option  "Composite" "0"
EndSection

And one more thing, a good program to test out your mouse buttons to figure out what is what is xev. The forward and back buttons should show as 9 and 8. Your left button is 1, right is 3 and pressing the scroll wheel is 2.

Upgrading to Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron) from 7.10 on my home desktop

Ubuntu 8.04 has been out for a day and a half now so I figured it was time to upgrade. I've documented my previous attempts at upgrading to 8.04 Alpha 4 on my laptop but that did not go so well. The upgrade failed and once I finally was able to get the upgrade to work, things like my lame Broadcom wireless card no longer worked. I've since installed a Beta and upgraded to the final on my laptop and it is working better than ever. Compiz now works on it and the wireless that used to have problems when connecting to WPA access points now works as expected.

So I had high hopes for my desktop. It already worked pretty well. My only 2 issues with it are no Compiz (but I can live without that) and my dual monitors are setup as 2 separate sessions instead of "Big Desktop". That means I can't move windows between them and if some application like Firefox is running in one window it can not run in the other. I imagine I could fix that with enough work though.

So here is how the upgrade went.

First, to start the upgrade you just have to run the update manger with the -d option (update-manager -d). Last time I tried this I ran it from a terminal window but since then I have learned about Alt + F2 to open the GNOME "Run Application" box. (Screen shot below taken after the fact.)


My first attempt resulted in my not having enough disk space.


After deleting/moving a bunch of files, I was off again.


It took about 1 hour and 45 minutes to download the 1,333 packages to upgrade, 40 minutes to install them all and another 3 minutes to cleanup. There were a few dialogs along the way. I had to decide what to do with my Samba "smb.conf" file (I kept the old one) and what to do with my Grub config file "menu.lst" (I overwrote it). I then was asked if I wanted to remove the 57 obsolete packages and I decided sure.


When I rebooted though, my mouse did not work. It looks like I am going to have to figure out how to make my MX1000 work in Linux again. Fortunately I had just commented out the old config so I switched my comments and wala, I have a mostly working mouse. The video was also super slow (but Compiz was enabled). I opened up the restricted drivers manager and the proprietary ATI drivers were enabled but not in use. Strange.


This is where everything went downhill fast. I disabled the driver (it was uninstalled) and then re-enabled it (it was reinstalled) and restarted. It has been so many configuration changes and restarts now, I don't even remember what didn't work. I think the first time it worked as before the upgrade except I didn't have window borders. Booting in safe mode sort of worked. I tried some other settings that failed and got a message that I needed to install "get-edid" but after a quick sudo apt-get install read-edid all I fixed was there was no error listed in the same exact screen as before. At some point too, I installed the xserver-xgl but that just caused other problems so I removed it. My favorite problem of them all though was when I got it sort of working, the screen saver would lock up the primary screen and nothing but a Ctrl + Alt + Delete would fix it.

So now I have a semi working setup, I think, based on my old config. Here is is for when I screw things up again, I will have a backup online:

/etc/X11/xorg.conf with Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron and an ATI Radeon X300

# xorg.conf (xorg X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
#   sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section "ServerLayout"

# Uncomment if you have a wacom tablet
# InputDevice     "stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
# InputDevice     "cursor" "SendCoreEvents"
# InputDevice     "eraser" "SendCoreEvents"
Identifier "Default Layout"
screen 0 "aticonfig-Screen[0]" 0 0
screen "aticonfig-Screen[1]" rightof "aticonfig-Screen[0]"
Inputdevice "Generic Keyboard"
Inputdevice "Configured Mouse"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load  "glx"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver  "kbd"
Option  "CoreKeyboard"
Option  "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option  "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option  "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver  "mouse"
Option  "CorePointer"
Option  "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option  "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option  "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option  "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "stylus"
Driver  "wacom"
Option  "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option  "Type" "stylus"
Option  "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"# Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "eraser"
Driver  "wacom"
Option  "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option  "Type" "eraser"
Option  "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"# Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "cursor"
Driver  "wacom"
Option  "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option  "Type" "cursor"
Option  "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"# Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Generic Monitor"
Horizsync 30.0 - 70.0
Vertrefresh 50.0 - 160.0
Option  "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "aticonfig-Monitor[0]"
Option  "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
Option  "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
Option  "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "aticonfig-Monitor[1]"
Option  "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
Option  "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
Option  "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "ATI Technologies Inc RV370 5B60 [Radeon X300 (PCIE)]"
Driver  "fglrx"
Busid  "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "aticonfig-Device[0]"
Driver  "fglrx"
Busid  "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "aticonfig-Device[1]"
Driver  "fglrx"
Busid  "PCI:1:0:0"
Screen 1
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device  "ATI Technologies Inc RV370 5B60 [Radeon X300 (PCIE)]"
Monitor  "Generic Monitor"
Defaultdepth 24
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]"
Device  "aticonfig-Device[0]"
Monitor  "aticonfig-Monitor[0]"
Defaultdepth 24
SubSection "Display"
 Viewport 0 0
 Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[1]"
Device  "aticonfig-Device[1]"
Monitor  "aticonfig-Monitor[1]"
Defaultdepth 24
SubSection "Display"
 Viewport 0 0
 Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
Option  "Composite" "0"
EndSection

Ubuntu Desktop Screenshot of the Day #6 - Hello Hardy Heron!

Just a quick post before I go to bed. I finally got an Ubuntu 8.04 beta installed on my laptop with the proprietary video drivers installed and most importantly with wireless access working! For the wireless, all I really needed to do was install the b43-fwcutter package which actually downloaded and installed the firmware as part of the package installation. How nice is that! Using the wifi card with WPA seems to be pretty solid now. It was almost never usable before and I would always a have to connect to good old linksys to get online. Shhh...

I still do not think kindly of the Broadcom 4306 wireless card I have thanks to the lack of openness. I will be doing a lot more hardware research on future computer purchases!

The last time I tried to upgrade to 8.04 it was a disaster. Today I started fresh with the daily DVD image from 4/5/08. I have to get a DVD because the drive in my laptop no longer reads CDs. Installing the DVD went fairly smoothly but then I realized I was just running 7.10 that pointed to the Hardy repositories so I had to preform an upgrade. ~600MB of packages downloaded later... The install/upgrade went well except Mono (the Linux .NET implementation) didn't work so a few applications like F-Spot and Tomboy likely do not work either (I haven't tried them yet).

Anyway, I need some sleep so here it is. Click on the image for the full resolution image.



Ugh, the sun will be here way too soon. Thanks for the info there new world time clock applet.

Upgrade to Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron Alpha 4

After reading the Ars Technica review of Ubuntu 8.04 alpha 4, I decided it was time I gave it a spin. There is some cool new stuff (and also stuff from alpha3, alpha2 and alpha1 releases). My first serious introduction (ie - not running it from the Live CD) to Ubuntu was starting with one of the Beta releases of 7.10 so I don't think I'll have any problem running this alpha. I am only running it on my laptop which I don't use for any serious work anyway. By the way, the one issue I did have with the 7.10 beta didn't get fixed for the release as I recall.

I opted for upgrading online instead of via the CD image. The main reason for that is because my disc drive on my laptop doesn't read CDs anymore, only DVDs. I initially installed 7.10 from DVD. Also, installing online is a lot easier than downloading a 700MB file, burning it to CD and then installing it.

So to kick off the install, just run the command: update-manager -d

And then about an hour and 25 minutes later...
And about an hour into the install I get an error.
It all went down hill from there. I ignored that error but a few packages later got a dialog to restart "ntpd". After that failed, the install failed completely. (No screen shots because that didn't work anymore either.) I then restarted and the file system had errors. fsck fixed them, eventually, and I was able to boot. The install didn't work at this point either. I just got stuck on the brown Ubuntu background. Restarting into failsafe Gnome worked but my wireless didn't. After lots of other little work arounds and hooking up to my wired lan, I got the install completed and working.

After all of this, my stupid bcm43xx wireless card which requires "restricted drivers" didn't work, rendering my laptop useless as a laptop. Argh. I guess I am not ready for the Ubuntu 8.04 alpha, at least on my laptop. I'll likely give it a go when we get to a beta stage. The final will be out in 2 - 3 months anyway.

I'm using the screwing up my system as an excuse to try out Fedora 8. I haven't installed Fedora since release 5 and never installed it on my laptop. Fingers crossed the wireless works! If not I guess back to Ubuntu 7.10 I will go or maybe I will try a differnt distro.