I just installed Ubuntu 7.10 on another machine. I am disappointed to learn that RAID configuration was not available in the desktop installer. It was available in the earlier releases, specifically 7.04 server. Beyond that, I found this page useful for installing Google Earth and Skype, much easier than this way. I also found wine is easier to install than what I did here. Just got it from universe repository.
Archive for ubuntu
First impression with Ubuntu 7.10
Yesterday, I installed Ubuntu 7.10. This time, I downloaded the desktop image instead of the server version, which I learned from my previous experience. I was a little disappointed that 7.10 didn’t resolve the kernel/acpi issue that I had on a machine that I use. It’s not a big deal, I’ll just need to continue adding acpi=off to the boot parameter as usual. Besides that, the installation went smoothly just as expected from Ubuntu.
After installation, the first thing that I did was to run Synaptic to add more packages. I did notice the new repository interface, which allowed me to choose additional repositories by check off a few boxes instead of finding them on a web site and past in the URLs. This is a nice touch.
Even with the enhancements for Synaptic, I didn’t notice any visual enhancements that people have been raved about. So, I checked the configuration and realized that it wasn’t enabled by default. So, I suspected it was because that I need to install the restricted video driver for this system. So, I found this howto and this forum that helped me to enable the cool effects with CoompizFusion. I also found some widgets .
How Ubuntu 7.10 handles browser plug-in installs such as flash is also nicely done. Just go to a flash enabled web site and that triggers package download and install at the OS level.
I am certainly impressed with Ubuntu and felt a lot easier to work with it at the first glance than another OS. Yes, gnucash works out-of-box. 
Howto install Wine on Ubuntu 7.04
It’s weird that I actually find a need to run a Windows application. So, I found this howto and it worked perfectly for me.
It didn’t occur to me that WINE does not exist in binary form on Ubuntu 7.04 for AMD64. I actually don’t mind compile from source. I wonder why is that?
Ubuntu 7.04 installation/configuration on AMD64
If wasn’t for the online documentation and forums, I would not have complete my installation/configuration as successfully as I did. As a token of appreciation, I am sharing some pointers and notes on my experience. Hope this will be helpful to you too.
Over the weekend, I did a fresh install of Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) Server on AMD64. Why server? I thought that I wanted to take advantage of the “support for hardware facilities that speed up the use of virtual machines“. So I inserted the CD and started the installation. The installation was fairly smooth and fast. I had to spend a bit of time to get used to the new disk partitioning menu interface and re-partition a few times before I get the software RAID configuration I liked. The installer offered the option for the user to select if she/he wants to install LAMP and other server components, which is what was expected out of a server edition of the OS.
What I didn’t realize was that folks at Ubuntu.org was really serious about building a server distribution that only installs what it needs to run as a server, which was the right thing to do. When I rebooted my machine to load the OS, I only saw a text console, no desktop environment was installed. So, I said to my self, “Great, now I’ll have to install that myself!?” This was actually no big deal for me because I am comfortable enough to do that manually with the help from other online HOWTO documentations. This actually reminded me of days when I was installing Gentoo from source. That was a long but rewarding process. I figured out what package I needed or wanted from various guides (for example, this one) and build a list of packages to tell the package management system (apt-get for Ubuntu) to batch install them while I take a break doing something else.
Configure the system after installed the packages became a bit more challenging. For example, GNOME Display Manager (GDM) would complain that Human theme not found. So, I tweaked /etc/X11/xorg.conf to load another theme that I installed already. Next, X would not load because Nvidia driver installation binary added references to font files that didn’t exist and attempted to load a tablet input device driver (wacom). I commented out these references and that did the trick for me.
The next challenge I had was trying to enable Smart Common Input Method (SCIM) to load in GNOME. The first HOWTO didn’t work for me. Fortunately, the second HOWTO got SCIM to load correctly. I also was able to configure 32-bit Flash Player 9 with 64-bit Firefox/Mozilla. I wished the same library wrapping technique would work for Java plug-in. I even tried to run 32-bit Mozilla. Before I get to try the 32-bit plugin, Firefox complained that it can’t find 32-bit SCIM. Until the JVM team/Java community create a 64-bit version of the plug-in, I guess am out of luck and will have to do run 32-bit Mozilla in a VM image to work around the issue. Even VMWare Server 1.02 can’t install without issues. Fortunately, this HOWTO save me for the day.
All-in-all I am happy with my setup for now. Drivers works beautifully. I wish the missing 64-bit software support (Flash Plug-in, Java Plug-in, etc.) and WMA codec support would be less painful or unfriendly on AMD64. If I had known better, I would install the desktop edition rather than server edition for my use. It should be much easier to install sever kernel or VM optimized kernel than setup a desktop environment. I’ve learned my lesson. 
Notes on installing Skype on Ubuntu/AMD64
Here are my notes for installing Skype on Ubuntu/AMD6:
1. Download 32bit version of Skype from http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-deb
2. Download 32bit version of libqt from http://packages.ubuntu.com/
3. Install Skype
sudo dpkg --force-architecture -i skype_debian-1.3.0.53-1_i386.deb
4. Install 32bit libraries and linux32
sudo apt-get install ia32-libs lib32asound2 lib32ncurses5 ia32-libs-sdl ia32-libs-gtk lib32stdc++6 linux32
5. Install 32bit libqt
sudo dpkg --force-architecture -i libqt3-mt_3.3.6-1ubuntu6.1_i386.deb
6. (Optional) Check if skype still miss libraries
ldd /usr/bin/skype
7. Run skype
linux32 skype&
Special thanks to Inigo Montoya’s post on this same topic. I’ve expanded it with my notes.
Switch among *ubuntu desktops
Here is the HowTo I used to switch from Ubuntu deskop to Xubuntu.
Resolution Zoom in XOrg
I noticed that the Control-Alt-”+” or Control-Alt-”-” key sequence for resolution zoom in XOrg no longer work. A search on the net helped me to find an alternative: xvidtune -next or xvidtune -prev
Special thanks to Xanday for the tip.
WebCam on Linux
I was tasked to setup a web cam on Linux. After looking around a bit on NewEgg, I was led to believe by one of the reviewers that Logitech QuickCam Communicate STX would work with Ubuntu 6.10 out-of-box. So, I got the web cam and plugged it in. My system only recognized a USB mic, no web cam. I went on-line searching for an answer. After dealing with various howto docs/forums on spca5xx and pwc drivers unsuccessfully, I came across this driver page, downloaded the driver, extracted the bundle, make, sudo make install, plug-in the web-cam, ran camorama, and it WORKED!
If you already have a web cam or wish to buy a different one, see this list before you attempt to install the driver.
After getting the web cam to work, I set up Ekiga, a SIP/H.323 client, and got a SIP from ekiga.net. You can also get a SIP account from Free World Dialup (FWD), which provides similar service to Skype, with an added ability to connect to other networks. You can use this help page to setup Ekiga. If you would like to try other SIP clients, here are a few: SIP Communicator (Java, appears video is still in progress), FWD Communicator (Windows), NetMeeting (Windows, see here and here), and for more clients, see this list.
(Update) Here is another HowTo on a related topic.
libswt-pi-gtk annoyances (in Eclipse and GWT)
What does Eclipse and Google Web Toolkit have in common? Both uses libswt-pi-gtk library. This library doesn’t work too well with Ubuntu Drapper Drake on AMD64. On Eclipse the following error would display:
libswt-pi-gtk-3235.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
When attempting to use NetBeans 5.5 rc1 with GWT NetBeans plug-in, the following error would display:
libswt-pi-gtk-3139.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
The file actually exists on the path specified by the error output. Here is a file command output:
libswt-pi-gtk-3139.so: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), stripped
A Google search showed this is a known issue for Eclipse. Fortunately, I was able to start Eclipse using root and run NetBeans with GWT on an older 32-bit system.
