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ubuntu in the mail

noel — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 10:39:21 +0000

i got my free ubuntu cds from canonical the other day. yey!

and stickers too! four of them.

thanks to shipit.

the strange thing is that the mail came from the netherlands. i was expecting to get it from the philippines or at the least — asia. i guess canonical doesn’t have partners here yet.

i can be. (hint hint)

old computers + ubuntu 7.10

noel — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 13:32:03 +0000

i have a generic computer which will be used as an ubuntu desktop test bed. it used to be an xp pro machine — it still has the sticker — but this time we’ll be using it as part of an experiment. we want to see if end users with simple needs will use it.

the specs are: an ecs p4vmm2 motherboard with a 1.7 ghz pentium 4, 512 meg ram, 40 gig hard disk. it has almost everything built-in — video (s3 savag4, 32 meg shared memory), audio (ac’ 97 audio codec) and lan (10baset/100basetx). there is no floppy installed (do we still need these things?)

i had a “fun” time installing ubuntu 7.10 with this old computer. the desktop cd install didn’t work. i tried several times with different vga configurations and it just wouldn’t install properly. so, like the laptop, i resorted to install 7.10 using the alternate install cd and it worked.

what i learned from this installation exercise is that “modern” operating systems will be better off in a unit with more than 256 meg of memory. this applies to both xp and linux. get the most memory you can afford.

i get the impression that the ubuntu desktop install cd will work properly with newer computers. but i do feel that support for older computers should also be important as they are one of the more likely candidates where linux would be used.

borked xorg

noel — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 13:49:52 +0000

i messed with the video settings of ubuntu, shutdown and then went off to a client. i open up the computer and i get a console and a note that some settings doesn’t work and that the xserver has to be shutdown.

grrrr… sorry about that bam. really.

i found out that i had to re-autodetect the video card using:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

and i got the gui back after a reboot.

it may be a good idea to have a “safe” xorg configuration file for use at a later time when things go bork again:

sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.safe

so if x decides to take a little vacation just copy back the “safe” config.

azureus on ubuntu

noel — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 10:25:01 +0000

problem: when starting up azureus, it pauses for a few seconds and then disappears

cause: i don’t know the real cause but i have observed that it happens when azureus doesn’t make a clean exit. this happens sometimes when i double-click on a torrent and az suddenly disappears and the next time i start up the program it just pauses and then goes. maybe because i just have 256 meg ram installed.

workaround: on a terminal (applications – accessories – terminal) issue the following commands:

rm .azureus/.lock rm .azureus/logs/*.log rm .azureus/logs/save/*

and az should start normally.

i found this tidbit over at ubuntuforums.org.

price of popularity

noel — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 03:34:32 +0000

i guess it happens when someone or something becomes popular.

today, ubuntu will/is releasing gutsy gibbon — ubuntu 7.10 — and it seems the ubuntu website is flooded with requests. i don’t think the ubuntu guys were expecting that much requests.

try again in a couple of days…

note: i tried again after a few minutes and the site was back up but with the older version of the page.