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But oh, the wasted hours…

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Few months back when I installed Edgy on my Sony laptop, audio wasn’t working right out of the box. I had to spend a few days googling and ubuntu-forumming to find the fix for that. Eventually it worked fine after un-muting some channels in the Volume Control.

Last weekend I upgraded to Feisty. Again the same thing – audio is gone. Once again I found myself googling and ubuntu-forumming to see if people were having the same problem – and they were. So I was convinced that there was something wrong with audio in Feisty.

Until last night, when I accidentally hit the ‘Mute’ button on the laptop! I don’t remember that button working in Edgy! So I guess its a good thing after all :)

But oh, the wasted hours :(

Camino: it’s not the Live Bookmarks…

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I like Camino, but it is not my default browser on the Mac – Firefox is.

So far, I was under the impression that Firefox like Live Bookmarks – or more so the lack of them in Camino – was the show stopper for me. But recently, I have stopped, although not completely, using Live Bookmarks in Firefox.

I was wondering, what changed? Turns out, I was mostly using Live Bookmarks like a feed reader. Once I started using Google Reader, I no longer felt the need to use Live Bookmarks the way I was using them.

Secondly, I had feed that contained all the websites I visit frequently. I Live Bookmark’d that feed to get access to that list from multiple machines. I’ve started using Google Bookmarks – via the Google Toolbar – to maintain a globally accessible repository of my bookmarks.

So it was not exactly Live Bookmarks that I was missing in Camino. What I was missing was the ability to gain access to my bookmarks that I might have updated at work, or on a different machine etc. Now I am going to find out if there is a way to use Google Bookmarks in Camino – other than over the web of course.

More catch-up for Linux

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During a recent trip, I realized – again – that Linux still has a lot of catch-up to play on user experience front. I traveled with a Ubuntu 6.10/XP dual-boot laptop and a lot of times, I had to fall back on XP to get things done.

Wireless connection at Frankfurt airport

Getting a paid wireless connection at Frankfurt airport is easy. Just join one of the available open wireless networks, it takes you to a website where you can pay for the connection and you are all set. I could do this in no time with XP.

Although I first tried this with Ubuntu. The troubles started with the fact that in order to setup a wireless connection I need to know the name of the network to join. I really prefer the windows way where the wireless network setup process starts with a list of available networks. Then at least you are not lost to begin with. I talked with a neighboring traveler who was using a Mac. He did not have trouble getting on to a network – because the Mac connected to an available open network since none of the preferred networks were found. That works too. In any case, I was stuck and ended up using XP to get connected.

Once connected, I tried to find some information on this situation. Turns out that there are packages available via the Package Manager that can help – notably, the wifi-radar and NetworkManager. After getting back from the trip, I tried both. I like NetworkManager and am using it right now. It has made connecting to networks so much easier. I wonder why such a useful package is not installed by default!

Using the modem

Another instance where I had to go back to XP. It’s simple in XP all you need to know is the phone number to dial, a username and a password. Start -> Connect To -> Connection Name – enter the information and you are online. Why can’t it be the case in Linux?

I read a little bit in order to understand what’s missing in my installation and how I could get the modem going. It involved stuff about pppd, using scanModem utility, editing a bunch of root-owned files – things if I told my mother, she’s vow not to use the computer again.

Things gotta be easier than this. I am still trying to find an easier way to get the modem working. If I find something, I’ll update this post.

I am loving Beryl…

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I installed Beryl on my laptop that I just switched to Ubuntu Linux. It’s quite an eye candy! I am loving it so far.

Before I installed Beryl, I was worried how it will run on my computer – not a very powerful machine by today’s standards. It amazes me how well it works.

The installation was also a piece of cake. I followed the instructions on Beryl Wiki command-by-command. Beryl was up and running in less than half an hour.

Just one note. I tried both ways of configuring Beryl mentioned in the Wiki – one by setting up new session that uses startberyl.sh script and the other that uses the Sessions system preference to add Beryl as a startup item in an existing session. I found that the latter was a much better option – at least in my case. With startberyl.sh, I noticed very unpredictable behavior whenever I started a new session or came out of hibernation.

So, let me go back to playing with the stunning visual effects …

Ubuntu 6.10 (the Edgy Eft) on Sony Vaio VGN-T140P

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I mentioned in one of the previous posts that I will reinstall Ubuntu from scratch and document the process in more detail than I did last time. Well, here it is!

It took roughly couple of hours to get back to where I was after the last installation. There were the same issues as last time after a clean install, and I knew exactly what to do to fix them. More than week of googling and trying different things helped this install go much faster.

Before I reinstalled 6.10, I gave 7.04 alpha (the Feisty Fawn) a shot. It was good for most part, but had major issues with hibernate and response to power button behavior. I decided to go back to a more stable 6.10.

Output of lspci and lsmod are near the end of this post. And here’s the installation process:

Dual Boot

I wanted to keep Windows XP alongside Ubuntu on this laptop. So I partitioned the hard disc with Symantec Partition Magic 8. Created one Ext3 (approximately 13GB) and one Swap (little above 1GB) partition for Linux install. PM8 has the capabilities to create Ext3 and Linux Swap partitions.

Clean Install

I downloaded Ubuntu 6.10 Live CD image. Restarted the Vaio with the disc in the CD drive. Selected to ‘Run Live CD/Install’. After the desktop was up, I double-clicked on the install icon. That started the installation process. After answering a few easy questions, installation was on its way. Since I was using dual-boot, I had to make sure I am using correct partitions for Linux installation. This process took about 20-30 minutes.

After the installation process was done, I restarted the machine. On restart, I was given the choice to load Linux or Windows – I selected Linux (its all about making the right choice baby ;) ).

Wireless LAN (WPA)

First thing I had to bring up was networking, so that I could install updates and modules I needed to fix other issues. I use WPA for authentication. I created /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf file with following contents:

    ap_scan=2
    network={
      ssid="myssid"
      psk="mypassphrase"
      key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
      proto=WPA
      pairwise=TKIP
    }

Then added following lines to the /etc/network/interfaces file:

    auto eth1
    iface eth1 inet dhcp
    pre-up wpa_supplicant -Bw -Dwext -ieth1 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
    post-down killall -q wpa_supplicant

After I restarted the machine, wireless LAN was up and running. I added the Network Monitor applet to to a panel to monitor the eth1 connection.

Widescreen LCD

The thing that was still bugging me was that widescreen aspect ratio of the screen was not being used. I had to install the 915resolution package to get that right.

I opened the System -> Administration-> Synaptic Package Manager and installed the required module (after the required authentication).

After a restart, widescreen format was automatically detected and configured.

Audio

The computer was silent after the clean install. I found some help on ubuntux.org that helped me resolve my sound related problem.

I opened the Volume Control by double-clicking on the speaker icon in the panel. Un-muted every control in ‘Playback’ and ‘Capture’ and put the slider control somewhere in the middle for every output and input. Then I went to Edit->Preference, checked ‘Headphone Jack Sense’, ‘Line Jack Sense’ and ‘External Amplifier’ boxes. Back in the main window under ‘Switches’, unchecked ‘Headphone Jack Sense’, ‘Line Jack Sense’ and ‘External Amplifier’.

That was all I needed to get the audio working.

Touchpad

I customized Synaptics Touchpad to suit me. I turned OFF right-top and right-bottom corners, they were causing unintentional right-clicks and pastes. This is how my InputDevice section in /etc/X11/xorg.conf looks:

Section "InputDevice"
  Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
  Driver "synaptics"
  Option "SendCoreEvents"    "true"
  Option "Device"            "/dev/psaux"
  Option "Protocol"          "auto-dev"
  Option "HorizScrollDelta"  "0"
  Option "RightEdge"         "950"
  Option "MaxTapTime"        "225"
  Option "MaxTapMove"        "160"
  Option "MaxDoubleTapTime"  "225"
  Option "SingleTapTimeout"  "180"
  Option "MinSpeed"          "0.40"
  Option "MaxSpeed"          "0.90"
  Option "AccelFactor"       "0.0060"
  Option "RTCornerButton"    "0"
  Option "RBCornerButton"    "0"
  Option "SHMConfig"         "on"
EndSection

Applications

Ubuntu 6.10 comes with a few applications that I usually use like, Firefox 2.0 and Gaim. Next, I installed all the applications I need for day to day work and fun. All these are available via Synaptic Package Manager

  • gVim: Available in vim-gname package. I use the GUI version of vim for most of my editing/programming work
  • Banshee: Available in code>banshee package. I found this to be a decent MP3 playback and music library management application
  • Ogle: DVD playback on Linux is a big pain. No single application/plugin plays all my DVDs well. Ogle plays some that I created myself pretty well. But it couldn't play the ones that I bought (encrypted?). Available in the ogle-gui package. I followed more instructions to use xine instead of gstreamer plugin for Totem, to play some DVDa that ogle does not play
  • GNUstep: Framework, more than an application. I am learning Objective-C programming with GNUstep, so all my current fun projects use this. Available in gnustep-*devel* packages.

Like many blog posts helped me during my Linux installation, I hope someone finds this post helpful.

Output of lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 02)
00:00.1 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 02)
00:00.3 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 02)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 02)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 83)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 03)
02:04.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI7420 CardBus Controller
02:04.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCI7x20 1394a-2000 OHCI Two-Port PHY/Link-Layer Controller
02:04.3 Mass storage controller: &lt:pci_lookup_name: buffer too small>
02:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB PRO/100 VE (MOB) Ethernet Controller (rev 83)
02:0b.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection (rev 05)

Output of lsmod:

Now, that's a long list. I am sure there are some modules that I don't use at all. How do I find out which ones? How do I stop them from loading?

Module                  Size  Used by
battery                11652  0 
ac                      6788  0 
thermal                15624  0 
fan                     6020  0 
button                  7952  0 
ipw2200               115652  0 
ieee80211              35272  1 ipw2200
e100                   38020  0 
mii                     6912  1 e100
isofs                  38076  0 
udf                    89348  0 
ipv6                  272288  8 
binfmt_misc            13448  1 
rfcomm                 42260  0 
l2cap                  27136  5 rfcomm
sonypi                 24252  0 
i915                   21632  2 
drm                    74644  3 i915
speedstep_centrino      9760  1 
cpufreq_userspace       5408  0 
cpufreq_stats           7744  0 
freq_table              6048  2 speedstep_centrino,cpufreq_stats
cpufreq_powersave       2944  0 
cpufreq_ondemand        8876  1 
cpufreq_conservative     8712  0 
video                  17540  0 
tc1100_wmi              8324  0 
sony_acpi               6412  0 
sbs                    16804  0 
pcc_acpi               14080  0 
i2c_ec                  6272  1 sbs
i2c_core               23424  1 i2c_ec
hotkey                 11556  0 
dev_acpi               12292  0 
container               5632  0 
asus_acpi              17688  0 
michael_mic             3712  4 
arc4                    3200  4 
ieee80211_crypt_tkip    12416  2 
nls_utf8                3200  1 
ntfs                  112116  1 
sbp2                   24584  0 
scsi_mod              144648  1 sbp2
parport_pc             37796  0 
lp                     12964  0 
parport                39496  2 parport_pc,lp
af_packet              24584  6 
pcmcia                 40380  0 
joydev                 11200  0 
ieee80211_crypt         7552  2 ieee80211,ieee80211_crypt_tkip
yenta_socket           28812  1 
rsrc_nonstatic         15360  1 yenta_socket
pcmcia_core            43924  3 pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic
snd_intel8x0           34844  1 
snd_ac97_codec         97696  1 snd_intel8x0
snd_ac97_bus            3456  1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm_oss            47360  0 
snd_mixer_oss          19584  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm                84612  3 snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer              25348  1 snd_pcm
tsdev                   9152  0 
hci_usb                18068  0 
bluetooth              53476  5 rfcomm,l2cap,hci_usb
psmouse                41352  0 
snd                    58372  8 snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore              11232  1 snd
evdev                  11392  2 
serio_raw               8452  0 
snd_page_alloc         11400  2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm
shpchp                 42144  0 
pci_hotplug            32828  1 shpchp
intel_agp              26012  1 
agpgart                34888  3 drm,intel_agp
ext3                  142728  1 
jbd                    62228  1 ext3
ohci1394               37040  0 
ieee1394              306104  2 sbp2,ohci1394
ehci_hcd               34696  0 
uhci_hcd               24968  0 
usbcore               134912  4 hci_usb,ehci_hcd,uhci_hcd
ide_generic             2432  0 
ide_cd                 33696  0 
cdrom                  38944  1 ide_cd
ide_disk               18560  4 
piix                   11780  1 
generic                 6276  0 
processor              31560  2 thermal,speedstep_centrino
fbcon                  41504  0 
tileblit                3840  1 fbcon
font                    9344  1 fbcon
bitblit                 7168  1 fbcon
softcursor              3328  1 bitblit
vesafb                  9244  0 
capability              5896  0 
commoncap               8704  1 capability

Ubuntu 6.10 on Sony VAIO VGN-T140P

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UPDATE: Please refer to a more detailed account of this installation for more information

I recently installed Ubuntu 6.10 (The Edgy Eft) on my Sony VAIO VGN-T140P laptop. It dual boots with Windows XP Professional. This installation was the best Linux installation experiences I have had. But it was not as smooth as I had expected – as compared to Mac OS X or Windows – in that basic things should work out of the box. If I am trying to get a specialty video card or a TV tuner card to work, I can expect some experimenting and googling. I was expecting that with the standard hardware that is on this laptop, the installation would be a breeze – it wasn’t so.

Here’s what is working and what is not:

Widescreen
The laptop has a 1280×768 widescreen. Beginning with the Live CD Ubuntu did not auto detect it. I thought it would detect it when installation is done – it did not. The widescreen mode was not even in the options for me to set manually. I had to install 915resolution package to get it working. I used Synaptic Package Manager to install the package. After a restart, the widescreen was detected and properly set.
Wireless LAN
This was the sweetest surprise. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve had more than my share of trouble getting Wireless LAN working in the past. This time it was almost a breeze. Earlier I was using WEP shared Key authentication. I just had to do a little googling to learn that Shared Key does not work all that well. So I ended up using Open System. But later I switched to WPA-PSK TKIP authentication. I installed wpa_supplicant and edited the wpa_supplicant.conf to read:

ap_scan=2
  network={
  ssid="my_ssid"
  psk="my_passphrase"
  key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
  proto=WPA
  pairwise=TKIP
}

Wireless is working like charm since.

Audio
This was an unexpected hiccup. I always took audio for granted. I had never had to spend such a long time figuring this out. It turns out, the audio is muted by default! I had to start ‘/usr/bin/alsamixer’ and unmute the Headphone audio. Then in Volume Control preferences, make enough tracks visible so that headphone switch is displayed then check it. The audio works well now
DVD, MP3 Playback
Another shocker. I’d expect this to work out of the box. I had to try out Totem, Mplayer, gXine… install plugins I don’t even remember, to be able to play DVDs. Even MP3 playback wasn’t working out of the box. After unsuccessfully trying out plugins for Totem, Mplayer, Noatun, Rythmbox – I ended up installing xmms to get MP3 playback
Touch Pad
I customized Synaptics Touchpad to suit me. I turned OFF right-top and right-bottom corners, they were causing unintentional right-clicks and pastes. This is how my InputDevice section in /etc/X11/xorg.conf looks:

Section "InputDevice"
  Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
  Driver "synaptics"
  Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
  Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
  Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
  Option "HorizScrollDelta" "0"
  Option "RightEdge" "950"
  Option "MaxTapTime" "225"
  Option "MaxTapMove" "160"
  Option "MaxDoubleTapTime" "225"
  Option "SingleTapTimeout" "180"
  Option "MinSpeed" "0.40"
  Option "MaxSpeed" "0.90"
  Option "AccelFactor" "0.0060"
  Option "RTCornerButton" "0"
  Option "RBCornerButton" "0"
  Option "SHMConfig" "on"
EndSection
Volume/Multimedia buttons
This is something that is still broken. What makes it worse is that I have no clue how to solve this. All the volume and multimedia buttons trigger an event with same keycode. There is no way of distinguishing between volume-up and volume-down buttons. Or any of DVD play/stop/Forward/Backward buttons.

I think I am going to redo the installation so that I can document the problems and solutions in greater detail. May be that will help someone who's facing similar problems!

State of Installation

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I installed Ubuntu 6.10 on my Sony VAIO laptop about two weeks ago. Since then, I have installed umpteen modules/packages to get some functionality or the other working. Right from detecting the widescreen to being able to play MP3 files.

In the excitement of getting things to work, I did it in kind of an urgency. As a result, I don’t really remember which modules got working which functionality. The mode of operation was to google for the problem I had, then try out all the remedies various people suggested until one worked. I am pretty sure there are certain things I did that were not really needed. I want to start clean again and document the process. But looking back at it, it looks like a mammoth task.

So far I have used Synaptic Package Manager to install/remove all the packages. I wish there was something in the Package Manager that would tell me which packages I added since the initial install. Even better, it could export a list of packages that exist in my Ubuntu installation. Then I could import this file after a fresh install and get back to the state I am now. Similar could be done for .conf files that were added or modified.

Now, this may be wishful thinking or it may as well already in there somewhere. If it’s wishful thinking I think its a useful feature. If its already in there, I just haven’t found it yet. If you know something that does this, drop in a comment.