O’Reilly (Yah Reilly) has the ebook version of VMWare Cookbook, written by my good freinds Ryan Troy and Matthew Helmke from the Ubuntu Forums, on sale for $9.99. It is a must for any VMWare admin.
@oreillymedia: #Ebook Deal of the Day: VMware Cookbook – Only $9.99. Use code DDVMC http://oreil.ly/9Uw59z
Ubuntu 10.04 is the best version of Ubuntu Linux so far, but I have a couple problems on my Dell Studio XPS 1340 that could not be resolved before the Ubuntu 10.04 was released.
My laptop has a Intel Wireless WiFi 5100 half height card. I had a problem with it losing connection with a wireless access point using 802.11n. This problem is a known issue with the iwlagn driver, and the best workaround is to disable 802.11n on the card. To disable 802.11n on this card create/edit your /etc/modprobe.d/options.conf file
sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/options.conf
And add the following to it.
options iwlagn 11n_disable=1 11n_disable50=1
I was also have trouble in the timing between the nvidia driver and GDM loading at boot on my laptop. LP #532436. I have to have cron relaunch GDM at boot for a rough workaround for this problem.
1. sudo vim /etc/crontab and add this line to the end:
@reboot root /root/gdmstart
2. Create the shell script to relaunch GDM
sudo vim /root/gdmstart
with this contents:
#!/bin/bash
sleep 6
/usr/sbin/service gdm start
3. Make script executable.
sudo chmod u+x /root/gdmstart
One other problem I had with this laptop with any version of Linux is not being able to burn CD/DVDs with Linux. The fix was to downgrade the firmware for the HLDS HLDS GS20N 9.5mm Slotload SATA DVD-RW drive to version A108.
What workarounds did you have to tweek to get Ubuntu working on your hardware? Post them here, and be sure to file a bug on your problem if you have not already.
One of the common questions I get for my Ubuntu User column is what is my desktop or what is a good desktop for Ubuntu Linux. A few weeks ago I got a Dell Inspiron 560 on sale at Best Buy. It was a great deal, and ended up being a near perfect Ubuntu desktop.
Specs.
Everything on this computer works out of the box with Ubuntu. I thought the Dell 1525N wireless card was a Broadcom device and was planning a night of sacrificing chickens to the dark wireless gods to get it working under Linux. I was pleased that the card used the ath9k driver and works great in Ubuntu.
With 8GB of ram, I installed the amd64 version of Ubuntu Lucid RC, and I’m amazed how far the 64bit version has come since the last time I tried it. If you have delay switching over to 64 bit for PC with more than 3GB of memory, now is the time to switch. I found the user experience between using the 32bit vs 64bit nearly identical.
The only issue I had with this machine was that the installer ran very very slow, about 10 minutes for the first screen to appear. I’m looking to see if there is an existing bug that matches this problem, if not I will be running ubuntu-bug ubiquity tonight.
If you are looking for a desktop that works great with Ubuntu, I strongly recommend the Dell Inspiron 560.
I keep hearing how Mac like the new theme for Ubuntu 10.04 is. I prefer to view it as less Windows like than more Mac like 
.
Love or hate it, Skype is very popular program for many computer users. While not open source, I do appreciate Skype making client for Linux users. Skype had two common problems under some Linux distros.
1. Skype did not work with Pulse Audio: This was fixed with the first Skype 2.1 beta1 (2.1.0.47).
2. Skype does not work well with dark themes in Gnome: This is fix in the Skype 2.1 beta 2 (2.1.0.81)
Now, I’m a big fan of dark themes, the following is a quick guide to installing under Ubuntu with a dark Gnome theme:
1. Uninstall previous version of Skype from Medibuntu.
2. Download Skype from http://www.skype.com/download/skype/linux/choose (don’t worry about the Ubuntu 8.10 version, works with Ubuntu 8.10 thru Ubuntu 9.10)
3. Install the deb file
sudo dpkg -i skype-ubuntu-intrepid_2.1.0.81-1_i386.deb
4. Run Skype and goto Options.
5. Under the General tab, set Choose style to Desktop Settings or GTK+.
6. Restart Skype.
For more disucssion on Skype and Open Source, I suggest listening to the Shot of Jaq podcast episode: Has Skype Won the War?
Ubuntu Tutorials also has a great write-up on the new Skype.
I want ONE MILLION UBUNTU FORUMS MEMBERS!!
Thanks to the Ubuntu users and developers for making the Ubuntu Forums such a great place community based support, and thanks to Canonical for supporting this project.
Many thanks to Joe Barker for catching this event in screenshots.
The Ubuntu Forums will be down for hardware maintenance on Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 14:00:00 UTC. We estimate 1 hour downtime for this work to be carried out.
I will be here for a few hours on Saturday sharing some Ubuntu cheer. Please stop by if you would like to learn more about Linux or are interested in helping.
As the holiday season comes upon us, many think about those who are a bit less fortunate than us. I am no different in this category and feel like I would like to do something to help those who need a hand. This year, I plan to help the Electroregeneration Society
(http://electroregeneration.org/) by heading down there for our inaugural “ERGS/UTOS Holiday Linux Installfest”. I hope this might interest a few of you as well. And if so, please consider coming down anytime and donating your time. Here’s the
details:Location:
Electroregeneration Society Warehouse
555 S 400 W, Salt Lake City, UT)
Map
Date and Time:
December 19, 2009 @ 9am-5pm (MST -7) Installfest starts at 10am.What can I bring?
We’ll be setting up the equipment at 9am. ERGS has power strips, etherrnet switches, computers and monitors. If you have Ubuntu, Fedora or openSUSE install media (CD or DVDs are what we need), bring them with you. Please also bring your laptops so we can look up
settings and the like if needed. I’ll be bringing my laptop with a tethered phone too, just in case we’re overwhelming the internets there.Please come on down and donate your time, here’s a bit of a spiel from Dave Turnbull, one of the many volunteers at ERGS:
The Electroregeneration Society enriches lives through affordable access to technology by repurposing electronics, supporting technology education, and developing community partnerships.
We primarily serve two groups — charities and low-income families or individuals. We provide computers to 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations without regard to mission — all nonprofits qualify. For individuals and families, we have a service-for-equipment program, where they provide 15 hours of service to ERGS in exchange for a desktop computer.The Utah Open Source Foundation’s goals align with the Electroregeneration Society’s goals because we’ll be installing Linux on machines that will be repurposed. Sometimes, the machines are a bit older, Linux is the only simple way these machines will be able to be repurposed.
If you have a few hours on Saturday, December 19, consider coming down and donating a bit of your time for a good cause and help us install Linux on as many machines as possible. I will be there with my family. I sure hope you can come as well. It’s going to be a blast
while helping the community get connected to the worldClint Savage
Utah Open Source Foundation
The Ubuntu Utah Loco will be having a release party for Ubuntu 9.10 this weekend. We will have Ubuntu CDs for people who need them and lots of knowledgeable people to help you with any Ubuntu questions you have. Please join us for good friends, good fun, and yummy lamb quesadillas.
I would also like to invite our OpenSUSE and Fedora friends in the area to celebrate their upcoming releases with us.
Date & Time:
Saturday November 7, 2009 – 6:00 PM till 9:00 PM (MST)
Location:
MacCool’s Public House
Salt Lake City – Foothill Village
1400 South Foothill Blvd, #166
Salt Lake City, Utah 84108
801.582.3111
Map
I just got an e-mail about a very cool Ubuntu related project that is happening in central Utah in Mid November. Kudos to the Snow College Open Source Software Club, Ubuntu Utah will definitely help if possible.
Something wonderful happened at Snow College down in Ephraim, UT, this semester: a few energetic students formed the Snow College Open Source Software Club.
To be chartered at Snow, a club needs to provide a service to the community.
On Saturday, November 14th, 2009, from 10:00am to 6:00pm the Open Source Club is going to bring 100 DEAD COMPUTERS BACK TO LIFE! This will all be happening in Humanities 122 on the Snow College campus. 150 E. College Ave. (Turn East at our traffic signal.)
You folks on this list know exactly how this is going to happen. People in the community will bring in their five to ten year old systems (or even older?) and we are going to restore these system with Ubuntu (or Xubuntu as necessary) and introduce John Q. Public to the over 20,000 free applications available to us in the Synaptic Package Manager. (People will be instructed to have cleaned off any files they hope to keep.) The miracle of Ubuntu and Open Source Software is about to reach Sanpete County in what we hope is a significant manner.
The members of this club are all relatively new to Ubuntu and the world of Open Source. We do not have skills with terminal commands, but we sure can pop in a Live CDs and bring systems up. The Install CDs seem to do all the heavy lifting.
It might be nice to have some assistance on this day from more experienced Ubuntu enthusiasts and so we would like to invite members of the Utah Ubuntu Team to come on down. The club should have a budget for food and the hopefully there will be live music. We’re hoping for an all day party featuring Ubuntu and hopefully the end result will be that a lot of people walk home with their older system restored to Ubuntu — or short of that, they will leave with the live CD and the phone number of a club member who can walk them through restoration of their computer. (In the spirit of Open Source, we are doing all of this free of charge, of course.)
Please come on down Saturday, November 14th, 2009, from 10:00am to 6:00pm and be a part of what we hope will be a real push toward educating the public about Open Source Software. We’d like to meet you and your expertise will likely be needed.
Thanks,
Chris
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