Tried out Ubuntu’s latest version (8.10 - The Intrepid Ibex) over the weekend on a laptop and a old Dell desktop, both of them works without any problem. The big improvement for my laptop (Toshiba Tecra-S1) that I noticed is the xorg settings in gnome for external monitors. I didn’t need to go and change the xorg.conf manually this time, I only need to set it from the GUI, restart and everything works. It even works on a 22″ HD ready monitor (LG 22LS4D) displaying the correct resoluation (1920×1080) which didn’t work with Ubuntu 7.10 nor 8.04. I would recommend trying this version if xorg hasn’t been working properly for you in previous version.
Another additional feature that I found interesting is that it allow auto login, so you no longer have to type in your username and password on startup. The default timeout for this auto login is 10 seconds, which I can see is quite handy if you are using it solely at home as a desktop but obvious the draw back is that the system is less secure if auto login used. Haven’t found any problem with it yet, another great release, thanks to everyone who worked on this!
Tags: computer, gnome, laptop, Linux, Toshiba Tecra S1, Ubuntu, xorg
Categories: Linux, Ubuntu
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For some reason I didn’t keep up to date this time, I only found out about the new Ubuntu 7.10 Gusty release being told by a friend. I think my demand for my home PC is dropping, mainly using it for surfing the internet really! Surprisingly the new release doesn’t work for me!
So no luck for me with Ubuntu this time because firstly the upgrade manager (7.04 to 7.10) wouldn’t work… so I did a fresh install (keeping my /home directory). After that everything seems to work but it wouldn’t display correctly on the external montior (Xerox XA7), I tried almost all the settings I can think of including manually editing the xorg.conf and using the auto-config tools, just wouldn’t go above 800×600! Imagine a 19″ monitor on 800×600 resolution! I can stand a lot of the features not working, but working on a proper resolution is one of the min. requirements.
As much as I like Ubuntu, I have decided that I will try something different, may be something very simple, something very fast and stable, doesn’t have to look good but run very fast on my laptop (Toshiba Tecra-S1), and of course supporting 1280×1024. Decided to try out FreeBSD and may be with gnome 2 since the main upgrade in Ubuntu 7.10 is the support of the new gnome, but I know that it’s very possible that it’s gnome 2 which is not compatible with my monitor and or my ATI graphics card! Will see how that goes, but conclusion is, simple is good…
On a side note, about simplicity, I have come to like a very old text editor (VI) very much. It must be one of the oldest text editor that comes with Linux, it’s great because it’s so simple, don’t even need the mouse to operate it, your hand can stand on the keyboard all the time while performing search, replace, etc… There are Windows version (e.g. VIM) which people have developed. Also I’m using a web browser called Epiphany is great too, very simple and fast, but less feature as compare to FireFox. Something that’s worth trying out.
Tags: 7.04 Feisty Fawn, ati, computer, freebsd, gnome, laptop, Linux, Toshiba Tecra S1, Ubuntu, vi, Weblog, xorg
Categories: Weblog, Linux, Ubuntu
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September 7, 2007 7:01 pm
Last week, I decided to install VMware to run Linux (Ubuntu) and Vista on the computer at work. The process was quite simple, installed VMWARE Workstation, configure the Virtual Machines that I want to create, load it up and start installing. After everything installed, I put the VM images on to my USB harddisk and took them home.
Everything ran ok with the VMware player under Windows which is quite impressive. I can still remember the time when I first formatted my computer to install Linux. But running Ubuntu on Linux is not what I really want, it make more sense to have Linux has the host since that’s the OS I use at home. However when I tried to play the images with the VMware player in Ubunt, it says that the version I’m using is older than the images :(. Still haven’t sort that out… but here is a screenshots in XP (with Vista theme)
I’m also quite impress with the computer at work, not top of the range, but it’s a dual core Athlon 3600+ with 2GB RAM, it can run Ubuntu on VMware faster than my laptop running it direct. When I tried to run both Vista and Ubuntu at the same time on my laptop under XP, I think it took at least 10mins to load up Vista! Just can’t handle it. When I did the screenshot, I had the Ubuntu displayed on my Laptop screen (1024×768) and Windows on the main monitor (1280×1024). Will be the other way round when I get the VMW player working under Linux. Would recommend VMware if you want to try Linux but can’t escape from Windows :D, but I think a dual core processor + 2GB RAM is the min requirement to have it running smoothly.
– Update –
Found out that the VMware player that is installed by aptitude is version 1, that means the installation will have to be done manually. Downloaded the latest version 2.0 from the VMware website, installed it following a few steps and got the VM Vista running on Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn. Since the problem is solved, I used the workstation to install a XP. Did a update on Ubuntu, not very clever since that upgraded the Kernel to 2.6.20-16! Restarted and VMware player wouldn’t work anymore. If you have the same problem, just uninstall it by:
sudo ./vmware-uninstall.pl
and do the recompile/installation again since the kernel has been upgraded. However it didn’t went that smoothly for me, it gave me an error when I try to uninstall vmware:
Virtual ethernet failed
In my case, I need to disable the VMware Virtual Networking Driver with the Restricted Driver Manager, restart my comp and then run the installation or the reconfiguration tool:
sudo /usr/bin/vmware-config.pl
After that everything works fine :). XP is running a lot faster on my laptop than vista.
Tags: Linux, software, Technology, Ubuntu, vista, vmware, windows, xp
Categories: Technology, Linux, Ubuntu
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Managed to solve the problem with getting a blank screen while loading gdm after upgrading a desktop from 6.10 Edgy to 7.04 Fesity Fawn. The desktop has a ATI 9600 graphics card and works fine on 6.10 Edgy, however after the upgrade to 7.04, it starts having this problem. I knew it’s something wrong with the Xorg like many others, after trying a few changes in the xorg.conf without success, I ran the autoconfig for Xorg and that fix the problem, the command is:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
What that basically did for me to finding the HorizSync and VertRefresh, most importantly it changes the driver from “ati” to “vesa“! Initially I thought the problem was just that it doesn’t have a correct sync value, however when I changed the driver back to ati it gave me a blank screen again. So will have to use the vesa driver for a while until the problem with Xorg is fixed. Anyway, after configuring your xorg.conf or ran the command above, restart gdm by:
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart
everything should be running :).
Tags: 6.10 Edgy, 7.04 Feisty Fawn, ati, Linux, Technology, Ubuntu, upgrade, xorg
Categories: Weblog, Technology, Linux, Ubuntu
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The new Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn is released today! I’m very impressed by Ubuntu for having a new release every 6 months. I have been using the beta version for a while so I can’t test the upgrade function, which I had problem with before when I upgraded 6.10 to 7.04 beta but that problem should be solved with this final release. Although I can’t try it on mine, I will try it on other laptops later when I get a chance.
My experience with 7.04 has been good and the new feature of supporting music sharing should quite attractive to many people. If you are interested in finding out more about my experience with Feisty or Ubuntu in general, these are some of my previous posts:
– Update 20/04/07 –
Just downloaded a CD for upgrade, ran it on a desktop (AMD) with Ubuntu 6.10 installed. Everything ran smoothly until the restart, it loads up to the point where it try to initiate Xorg but it returns a blank screen. Still not sure where the problem lays, will work it out when I have time…
– Update 22/04/07 –
Managed to solve the problem with getting a blank screen while loading gdm, view this post for details.
Tags: 6.10 Edgy, 7.04 Feisty Fawn, Linux, Ubuntu, upgrade, Weblog, xorg
Categories: Weblog, Linux, Ubuntu
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System info of Toshiba Tecra S1:
- BIOS: Version 2.50
- system-version:PT831T-11Q4L
- Ubuntu Version - Currently using Feisty 7.04, previously worked on 6.10 Edgy and 6.04 as well
- Kernel - currently using 2.6.20-15-generic, had problem with 2.6.20-14 but 2.6.20-13 works
|
Hardware Components
|
Status
|
Notes
|
| Pentium M 1.5GHz |
Works |
No special procedure |
| 15″ XGA TFT Screen |
Works |
Default settings works |
| External VGA - 19″ Xerox XA7 |
Works |
See this post for xorg settings |
| ATI Radeon 9000 Mobility |
Works |
Read this post for 3D support |
| 1280MB RAM (1.2G DDR-266) |
Works |
No special procedure |
| 40GB HDD 5400 RPM |
Works |
No special procedure |
| DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive |
Works |
No special procedure |
| WLAN (Intel PRO/Wireless 802.11B) |
Works |
No special procedure |
| LAN |
Works |
No special procedure |
| 56k Modem |
Untested |
No special procedure |
| SD Card reader |
Untested |
No special procedure |
| Lithium-Ion Battery |
Works |
No special procedure |
| Sound Card |
Works |
No special procedure |
| SD Card reader |
Works |
No special procedure |
| USB 2 |
Works |
Plug and Play works for external harddisks including k800i |
Basic Installation of Ubuntu:
- Very simple to install with graphics interface, can test if everything works first before installation with the live CD.
- Ubuntu is a free distribution, can download from the Official Website
- A very useful online guide (wiki) for Ubuntu
- Post-Install modifications/tweaks - there are many tutorials online, here is one that I wrote for my laptop
Setting up additional features for Ubuntu
Unresolved issues
- Couldn’t get Direct 3D to work on external monitor at 1280×1024 resolution, therefore Beryl can only work on 1024×768.
Configuration Files
- Sources.list - /etc/apt/sources.list - follow this guide to add extra repositories
- Menu.lst - /boot/grub/menu.lst - Startup menu for choosing which OS to enter
- Xorg.conf - /etc/X11/xorg.conf - Some changes to get 1280×1024 resolution to work on 19″ Xerox XA7
Section “Monitor”
Identifier “Xerox XA7″
Option “DPMS”
HorizSync 31-82
VertRefresh 60-75
EndSection
Some useful commands
- sudo - wherever you want admin access
- sudo aptitude search <application name> - search for a application that you can download and install
- sudo aptitude install <application name> - download and install a application
- sudo gedit <file name> - use gedit to edit a file, can use sudo nano <file> in recovery mode
- sudo fdisk -l - list all the hard disks available
- ifconfig - same as ipconfig in windows
- ctrl + z - stop a running command in terminal
- ctrl + alt + backspace - restart Xorg
- mount myiso.iso /mnt/iso/ -o loop - mount an iso image
Some Applications that I found useful - not installed by default
Contact Information
Links
Tags: 7.04 Feisty Fawn, ati, Linux, Technology, Toshiba Tecra S1, Ubuntu, upgrade, Weblog, xorg
Categories: Weblog, Technology, Linux, Ubuntu
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