Jamie's Random Musings
Various thoughts and adventures, including but not limited to Video IM, Linux, Windows XP and Widows Vista, and various bits of hardware new and old.
Friday 31 October 2008, 10:47 AM
Ubuntu Linux 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) - Configuration Tips
The following is a list of some of the common setup and configuration changes that I make whenever I install Ubuntu.
- Watch for Updates! When updates are available for Ubuntu, you will see an icon in the top panel, and a pop-up message informing you how many there are. The color and shape of the icon give an indication of the importance of the updates, as well. Click the icon and the Update Manager opens, which will guide you through downloading and installing the updates, and will tell you when it is finished if a reboot is required. There are already a few updates for the 8.10 distribution, so you should see this notification shortly after you boot the installed system.
- Synaptic Package Manager: To find, download and install additional software on Ubuntu, you are most likely to use the Synaptic Package Manager, which you access via the System menu on the top panel, and then Administration. There are literally thousands of packages available, some of which are installed with the Ubuntu distribution. To install additional packages, you click on the box next to the package name, and select "Mark for Installation". It is not necessary to install packages individually, you can mark a number of them to be installed at once. When you have marked all that you want, click the "Apply" button to start the installation.
- Firefox: The base distribution does not include java or Adobe Flash video support, so if you want these you will have to download and install them. They can be found in the Synaptic Package Manager, as mentioned above; look for sun-java6-plugin and flashplugin-nonfree.
- Thunderbird: Ubuntu comes with the Evolution email and calendar manager program installed. It is very good, and a lot of people swear by it. But I still have to move back and forth between Windows and Linux, so I prefer to use the same email program on both. Once again, look for thunderbird in the Synaptic Package Manager. Once it has been installed, you will find it in the Applications panel menu, under Internet.
- Speaking of the Panels, I always set them to auto-hide, to free up the maximum screen space (I do the same with the Taskbar on Windows). To do this, right-click on the Panel, choose Properties, and then select Auto-Hide. You can also easily change what icons are on the Panel, for example removing Evolution by right-clicking on the icon and choose Remove From Panel, and add Thunderbird by going to Applications/Internet, right-click on its icon, and choose Add This Launcher to Panel.
- Desktop Background (Wallpaper): As with Windows, right-click on the desktop background, and choose Change Desktop Background.
- Screen Saver: On the Panel, go to System/Preferences/ScreenSaver to set the type and parameters of the screen saver.
- Power Management: Especially if you are using a laptop computer, but can also be useful for desktops; if you see a battery or power icon in the Panel, right-click on it and choose Preferences. If you don't see the icon, you can get to the same place via the Panel, System/Preferences/Power Management
- Networking: If you have a wired ethernet connection, you can simply plug in the cable and it will just work, assuming your local network is correctly set up for DHCP. If you have a wireless connection, click on the network icon in the Panel, and you will see a list of available network connections. Select the wireless connection you want, and if it requires a key or password, you will be prompted for it. If you have a 3G Wireless Broadband connection, Ubuntu should recognize the adapter when you connect it (usually USB or PCMCIA), and will prompt you to configure it.
- Other Software: One of the first things I always do is install Gizmo5. Go to their download web page, choose Linux, then the Debian Install Package. Once that is downloaded just double-click it to install. After installation it appears in the Panel menu under Applications/Internet. I also download and install the Opera web browser and the Citrix ICA Client.
This is, of course, only a start. You can spend endless time exploring the contents of the Synaptic Package Manager - it is mind-boggling how much software is in there. Likewise, there are many, many more configuration options and possibilities than I have mentioned here. Most of them can be found through the Panel menus under System/Preferences and System/Administration.
jw 31/10/2008
- Watch for Updates! When updates are available for Ubuntu, you will see an icon in the top panel, and a pop-up message informing you how many there are. The color and shape of the icon give an indication of the importance of the updates, as well. Click the icon and the Update Manager opens, which will guide you through downloading and installing the updates, and will tell you when it is finished if a reboot is required. There are already a few updates for the 8.10 distribution, so you should see this notification shortly after you boot the installed system.
- Synaptic Package Manager: To find, download and install additional software on Ubuntu, you are most likely to use the Synaptic Package Manager, which you access via the System menu on the top panel, and then Administration. There are literally thousands of packages available, some of which are installed with the Ubuntu distribution. To install additional packages, you click on the box next to the package name, and select "Mark for Installation". It is not necessary to install packages individually, you can mark a number of them to be installed at once. When you have marked all that you want, click the "Apply" button to start the installation.
- Firefox: The base distribution does not include java or Adobe Flash video support, so if you want these you will have to download and install them. They can be found in the Synaptic Package Manager, as mentioned above; look for sun-java6-plugin and flashplugin-nonfree.
- Thunderbird: Ubuntu comes with the Evolution email and calendar manager program installed. It is very good, and a lot of people swear by it. But I still have to move back and forth between Windows and Linux, so I prefer to use the same email program on both. Once again, look for thunderbird in the Synaptic Package Manager. Once it has been installed, you will find it in the Applications panel menu, under Internet.
- Speaking of the Panels, I always set them to auto-hide, to free up the maximum screen space (I do the same with the Taskbar on Windows). To do this, right-click on the Panel, choose Properties, and then select Auto-Hide. You can also easily change what icons are on the Panel, for example removing Evolution by right-clicking on the icon and choose Remove From Panel, and add Thunderbird by going to Applications/Internet, right-click on its icon, and choose Add This Launcher to Panel.
- Desktop Background (Wallpaper): As with Windows, right-click on the desktop background, and choose Change Desktop Background.
- Screen Saver: On the Panel, go to System/Preferences/ScreenSaver to set the type and parameters of the screen saver.
- Power Management: Especially if you are using a laptop computer, but can also be useful for desktops; if you see a battery or power icon in the Panel, right-click on it and choose Preferences. If you don't see the icon, you can get to the same place via the Panel, System/Preferences/Power Management
- Networking: If you have a wired ethernet connection, you can simply plug in the cable and it will just work, assuming your local network is correctly set up for DHCP. If you have a wireless connection, click on the network icon in the Panel, and you will see a list of available network connections. Select the wireless connection you want, and if it requires a key or password, you will be prompted for it. If you have a 3G Wireless Broadband connection, Ubuntu should recognize the adapter when you connect it (usually USB or PCMCIA), and will prompt you to configure it.
- Other Software: One of the first things I always do is install Gizmo5. Go to their download web page, choose Linux, then the Debian Install Package. Once that is downloaded just double-click it to install. After installation it appears in the Panel menu under Applications/Internet. I also download and install the Opera web browser and the Citrix ICA Client.
This is, of course, only a start. You can spend endless time exploring the contents of the Synaptic Package Manager - it is mind-boggling how much software is in there. Likewise, there are many, many more configuration options and possibilities than I have mentioned here. Most of them can be found through the Panel menus under System/Preferences and System/Administration.
jw 31/10/2008
Thursday 30 October 2008, 10:38 AM
Go! Ubuntu Linux 8.10, Intrepid Ibex - Installation Tips
Ok, today's the day! Ubuntu 8.10, Intrepid Ibex, will be released. Here are a few tips about downloading and installing it.
- The download is about 700 Mb. With today's broadband internet speeds, that's not gigantic, but it's still non-trivial. There is likely to be a huge demand for it initially, so it would be nice to avoid the kind of problem that OpenOffice.org suffered last week when their new release came out. The simplest and most obvious way to get it is to go to the Ubuntu download page and select the version you need. Be sure to select a location near you to download from! However, if you are able to download via BitTorrent, you could go directly to the Ubuntu BitTorrent download page and pick it up from there.
- Once you have the .ISO file downloaded, you need to burn it to a CD in ISO format. If you have one of the popular CD-burning packages installed - Nero, EasyCD, etc. - you should be able to use that, just make sure that you burn it in ISO format; if not, you can go to the Ubuntu Community Documentation Burning ISO HowTo page for instructions on Windows, MacOS and Ubuntu, including links to free/open source ISO burning software.
- Once you have the ISO CD, there are several ways you can proceed. You can simply boot the CD, and let Ubuntu come all the way up without actually installing it or changing anything on your computer, so that you can see how it looks and works, and then decide to do the full installation from there if you want. If you already know that you want to install it, you can run the installation procedure directly from the CD.
- If you run the installation procedure on a computer which has Windows already installed, you will have the choice of either reducing the Windows disk partition to make room to install Ubuntu, or overwriting the entire disk with the Ubuntu installation. If you're installing Ubuntu for the first time, you would be well advised to keep your Windows installation. However, the Ubuntu installation script offers to reduce the Windows partition to just about the absolute minimum that is actually in use, and that doesn't leave you much room to work if you want to keep using Windows after the Ubuntu installation. In my experience, choosing the "Guided" option and specifying a Windows partition size that is about 20% larger than the currently used space is a better choice.
- The Ubuntu installation will take about 20-30 minutes. When it is complete, it will tell you to shut down, remove the CD and reboot. If you chose to keep your Windows partition, it will actually boot to a Grub bootloader menu that will give you a choice between booting Ubuntu or Windows, but the default will be Ubuntu and there is a 10-second timeout, so if you don't respond within that time, it will boot Ubuntu automatically. You can select Windows (and stop the timeout from running) by pressing the up/down arrow keys.
There you have it! Now you can run Ubuntu, and Windows if you chose to keep that intact. I'll post again later, when the distribution is actually available, and I'll include some tips on setup and configuration that I hope will help make it more comfortable for new Ubuntu users.
jw 30/10/2008
Update: The 8.10 distribution is now available, at 15:00 CET. You can go to Ubuntu Download to get it via http/ftp, or the Complete mirror list to get it by BitTorrent.
- The download is about 700 Mb. With today's broadband internet speeds, that's not gigantic, but it's still non-trivial. There is likely to be a huge demand for it initially, so it would be nice to avoid the kind of problem that OpenOffice.org suffered last week when their new release came out. The simplest and most obvious way to get it is to go to the Ubuntu download page and select the version you need. Be sure to select a location near you to download from! However, if you are able to download via BitTorrent, you could go directly to the Ubuntu BitTorrent download page and pick it up from there.
- Once you have the .ISO file downloaded, you need to burn it to a CD in ISO format. If you have one of the popular CD-burning packages installed - Nero, EasyCD, etc. - you should be able to use that, just make sure that you burn it in ISO format; if not, you can go to the Ubuntu Community Documentation Burning ISO HowTo page for instructions on Windows, MacOS and Ubuntu, including links to free/open source ISO burning software.
- Once you have the ISO CD, there are several ways you can proceed. You can simply boot the CD, and let Ubuntu come all the way up without actually installing it or changing anything on your computer, so that you can see how it looks and works, and then decide to do the full installation from there if you want. If you already know that you want to install it, you can run the installation procedure directly from the CD.
- If you run the installation procedure on a computer which has Windows already installed, you will have the choice of either reducing the Windows disk partition to make room to install Ubuntu, or overwriting the entire disk with the Ubuntu installation. If you're installing Ubuntu for the first time, you would be well advised to keep your Windows installation. However, the Ubuntu installation script offers to reduce the Windows partition to just about the absolute minimum that is actually in use, and that doesn't leave you much room to work if you want to keep using Windows after the Ubuntu installation. In my experience, choosing the "Guided" option and specifying a Windows partition size that is about 20% larger than the currently used space is a better choice.
- The Ubuntu installation will take about 20-30 minutes. When it is complete, it will tell you to shut down, remove the CD and reboot. If you chose to keep your Windows partition, it will actually boot to a Grub bootloader menu that will give you a choice between booting Ubuntu or Windows, but the default will be Ubuntu and there is a 10-second timeout, so if you don't respond within that time, it will boot Ubuntu automatically. You can select Windows (and stop the timeout from running) by pressing the up/down arrow keys.
There you have it! Now you can run Ubuntu, and Windows if you chose to keep that intact. I'll post again later, when the distribution is actually available, and I'll include some tips on setup and configuration that I hope will help make it more comfortable for new Ubuntu users.
jw 30/10/2008
Update: The 8.10 distribution is now available, at 15:00 CET. You can go to Ubuntu Download to get it via http/ftp, or the Complete mirror list to get it by BitTorrent.
Wednesday 29 October 2008, 11:08 AM
Get Set... (Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex)
As Peter Judge has pointed out in his blog, tomorrow's Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) release is certainly not focused exclusively on improvements for mobile computing. However, that is where I use it the most, so these are the changes and improvements I have seen the most. Here are a few of the highlights:
- Support for Mobile Broadband connection (3G cellular modems). This is something I had said was crucial for my use, so I am glad to see them getting it going. As of the Release Candidate it is still not perfect, and it has some significant restrictions, but it certainly does work.
- Continuing improvement in WiFi wireless networking support. The overall implementation and use are now very smooth, and don't require any of the "fiddling under the hood" that many users had come to expect from Linux. When you are in range of one or more wireless networks, the Network Manager will inform you; you can connect to a wireless network very easily, whether it is unprotected or has WEP, WPA or WPA2 security, both on Wireless-G and Wireless-N connections.
- Combine these two improvements with Ubuntu's extremely solid wired networking connection, and you have a really good, seamless internet connection for a mobile computer. I frequently use my laptops on wireless-N connections at home, switch to my Sierra Wireless AirCard 880 during my commute via bus and train, and then to a wired connection in my office. Very nice.
- Improved video/graphic display support, particularly in the area of multiple displays on laptops with docking stations. This is, of course, dependent on the specific display adapter in a notebook, and the device driver available for it. But with my Lifebook S6510, which has an Intel Mobile 965GM display adapter, I am able to use an external display on the laptop port replicator, and I can choose whether I want the screens to be "mirrored", in which case I simply close the laptop lid and use only the external display, or separated, in which case my effective desktop space is nearly doubled, and I can work on both displays independently.
- Power Management is working very well. First, it is accessible through the battery icon in the status panel, which is nice and easy. It has separate preferences for display control and automatic sleep activation when running on batteries or external power, and common ones for such things as pressing power and sleep buttons. Suspend/Hibernate/Resume all work just fine, of course.
The bottom line is that I am now able to use my laptops with Ubuntu pretty much anywhere and anytime that I want. That is very nice, and it certainly beats having to boot Windows for my commute twice a day! Canonical have done an excellent job with this new release.
jw 29/10/2008
- Support for Mobile Broadband connection (3G cellular modems). This is something I had said was crucial for my use, so I am glad to see them getting it going. As of the Release Candidate it is still not perfect, and it has some significant restrictions, but it certainly does work.
- Continuing improvement in WiFi wireless networking support. The overall implementation and use are now very smooth, and don't require any of the "fiddling under the hood" that many users had come to expect from Linux. When you are in range of one or more wireless networks, the Network Manager will inform you; you can connect to a wireless network very easily, whether it is unprotected or has WEP, WPA or WPA2 security, both on Wireless-G and Wireless-N connections.
- Combine these two improvements with Ubuntu's extremely solid wired networking connection, and you have a really good, seamless internet connection for a mobile computer. I frequently use my laptops on wireless-N connections at home, switch to my Sierra Wireless AirCard 880 during my commute via bus and train, and then to a wired connection in my office. Very nice.
- Improved video/graphic display support, particularly in the area of multiple displays on laptops with docking stations. This is, of course, dependent on the specific display adapter in a notebook, and the device driver available for it. But with my Lifebook S6510, which has an Intel Mobile 965GM display adapter, I am able to use an external display on the laptop port replicator, and I can choose whether I want the screens to be "mirrored", in which case I simply close the laptop lid and use only the external display, or separated, in which case my effective desktop space is nearly doubled, and I can work on both displays independently.
- Power Management is working very well. First, it is accessible through the battery icon in the status panel, which is nice and easy. It has separate preferences for display control and automatic sleep activation when running on batteries or external power, and common ones for such things as pressing power and sleep buttons. Suspend/Hibernate/Resume all work just fine, of course.
The bottom line is that I am now able to use my laptops with Ubuntu pretty much anywhere and anytime that I want. That is very nice, and it certainly beats having to boot Windows for my commute twice a day! Canonical have done an excellent job with this new release.
jw 29/10/2008
Wednesday 29 October 2008, 7:30 AM
SightSpeed Acquired By Logitech
What an interesting piece of news to wake up to this morning! SightSpeed is to be acquired by Logitech! Not a lot of information available yet, but Peter Csathy, SightSpeed CEO, who has posted comments to my blog here on ZDNet U.K. several times, said that the deal will give SightSpeed the resources to move into new areas of video communications. Considering the resourcefulness and quality of the people at SightSpeed, that could prove to be very interesting.
One has to wonder what this says about Skype. There was obviously a very large cooperation arrangement made between Logitech and Skype about a year ago, when Skype brought out their vastly over-hyped "High Quality Video" which was tied exclusively to three specific Logitech cameras (and still is, as far as I know). I heard unofficially that Logitech even sent an engineer to Estonia for quite some time, to help Skype work out the HQ VIdeo code. Logitech started a fairly large promotional effort for their cameras with Skype. However, I noticed that promotion was changed to include MS Live Messenger about six months ago, and I wondered then if Logitech was falling out of love with Skype... Now this comes along, and I would be reasonably sure that Logitech looked pretty hard at Skype, and from all that has been said recently I'm equally sure that eBay would love to unload Skype. But as I have said before, their problem is going to be finding someone foolish enough to buy Skype from them.
There is one other potentially interesting side effect of this deal. Until now, in the Logitech User Forums, anyone who posted about a video IM problem was basically told, if the camera works with the Logitech QuickCam software, it's not our problem, go talk to the IM software provider. I suppose that becomes a lot more difficult to say, in the case where they actually own the IM provider as well. Of course, now that I think about it, I can't recall anyone ever posting there about a problem with SightSpeed, virtually all of the problems are with Skype or MS Live.
In any case, I am pleased for the people at SightSpeed, and I hope that this will lead to even better things from them in the future.
jw 29/10/2008
One has to wonder what this says about Skype. There was obviously a very large cooperation arrangement made between Logitech and Skype about a year ago, when Skype brought out their vastly over-hyped "High Quality Video" which was tied exclusively to three specific Logitech cameras (and still is, as far as I know). I heard unofficially that Logitech even sent an engineer to Estonia for quite some time, to help Skype work out the HQ VIdeo code. Logitech started a fairly large promotional effort for their cameras with Skype. However, I noticed that promotion was changed to include MS Live Messenger about six months ago, and I wondered then if Logitech was falling out of love with Skype... Now this comes along, and I would be reasonably sure that Logitech looked pretty hard at Skype, and from all that has been said recently I'm equally sure that eBay would love to unload Skype. But as I have said before, their problem is going to be finding someone foolish enough to buy Skype from them.
There is one other potentially interesting side effect of this deal. Until now, in the Logitech User Forums, anyone who posted about a video IM problem was basically told, if the camera works with the Logitech QuickCam software, it's not our problem, go talk to the IM software provider. I suppose that becomes a lot more difficult to say, in the case where they actually own the IM provider as well. Of course, now that I think about it, I can't recall anyone ever posting there about a problem with SightSpeed, virtually all of the problems are with Skype or MS Live.
In any case, I am pleased for the people at SightSpeed, and I hope that this will lead to even better things from them in the future.
jw 29/10/2008
Tuesday 28 October 2008, 8:35 AM
On Your Mark... (Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex)
Ubuntu Linux 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) is due to be released on Thursday, 30 October. As they have hit every scheduled release data for Alpha, Beta and Release Candidates in this cycle, I'm quite sure that they will hit this one as well. I have been running it since the Alpha-4 release, first as a temporary installation in an extra partition, only for testing and problem reporting, and then since Alpha-6 as my only Ubuntu installation.
As with every new Ubuntu release (and Mandriva release, of course), it is obvious that a lot of hard work has gone into it, and it is a significant improvement over the previous (already excellent) release. The focus this time has been on mobile features, which fits very well with my using it primarily on my laptop computers. Tomorrow I will describe some of the major improvements in mobile support that I have seen on my laptops. Then, Thursday is the release day! It's going to be a good week.
jw 28/10/2008
As with every new Ubuntu release (and Mandriva release, of course), it is obvious that a lot of hard work has gone into it, and it is a significant improvement over the previous (already excellent) release. The focus this time has been on mobile features, which fits very well with my using it primarily on my laptop computers. Tomorrow I will describe some of the major improvements in mobile support that I have seen on my laptops. Then, Thursday is the release day! It's going to be a good week.
jw 28/10/2008
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