Installing Ubuntu 7.04: ATI X**** Cards

This was a life-saver for me and getting 7.04 to run on my Inspiron e1705/9400. X failing was my first hurdle with Ubuntu on this hardware, and here is the article that made me happy again.

http://www.mikesplanet.net/2007/04/installing-ubuntu-704-ati-x-cards/

Ubuntu 7.04 — I’m disappointed

Look at my other posts, I love Ubuntu. I go to other Distros to see what they have, I keep coming back to Ubuntu. Primary reason for coming back? Hardware recognition. Plain and simple, Ubuntu in the past saw all of my hardware and offered better support than any other Distro I have tried. Not this time.

A little background — I purchased an Inspiron 6000 3 years ago to take to Vegas with me. I was in Vegas for 4 days, after I got back I installed Ubuntu (see my other posts). I was successful in getting Ubuntu to work (better than Fedora or SuSE). I was happy with Ubuntu on my notebook, which is why I decided to install it on my new notebook. How did I get my new notebook, warranty exchange from Dell. New notebook is an Inspiron e1705/9400.

Run down on hardware:

• Intel Core 2 Duo 1.83GHz
• 2GB DDR 667MHz
• 80GB 5400RPM HDD
• ATI x1400 256MB Video Card
• DVD-RW
• Dell 1390 Wireless

Originally equipped with Windows Media Center 2005, but eligible for a free upgrade to Vista Home Premium, I’ve had both operating systems on the computer. My choice was Windows Media Center. Vista runs well, but in my opinion not meant for the desktop (or at least mine).

With such great success with my Inspiron 6000 and Ubuntu 6.06, I figured I’d give the e1705 and Ubuntu 7.04 a run. FAILURE. How horrible! The live CD wouldn’t even run on the hardware. X failed, braodcom chipset (wireless) failed. What a mess, and what a step back for Ubuntu. As I was able to get 6.10 to load, though I still didn’t have wireless.

So I installed 6.10, then upgraded to 7.04 through Synaptic, and X FAILED!!! I found an article that fixed my problem, so that part was covered. Still no success with my wireless. After searching Ubuntu Forums, and trying a few things, still no success. Until I found the article that I have linked to below. The solution worked so easily it wasn’t even funny. Why it is not integrated into Ubuntu out of the box, I don’t know. Why Ubuntu has not done something similar, I don’t know. But in my opinion a tool like this is needed for greater wireless support, not just the Broadcom chipsets.

It was frustrating, and the first time in a while that I have been very frustrated with Ubuntu. I know the hardware is not really Linux Specific, had I chosen the components for the computer, it would have had an Nvidia video card and an Intel Wireless card in it, but this is how I got the notebook from Dell.

Next problem…On my Shuttle at home, I can run with the Desktop features on, Beryl is not supported on the ATI X1400 video card. Not to say it hasn’t worked, and I haven’t tried a few things, it is just sad to see Ubuntu in this current state of lack of hardware support.

What will I do? Probably sell this e1705/9400 and replace it with either a Power Book from Mac or a notebook from System76. All in time, but here have been my .03 cents on Ubuntu 7.04 on an Inspiron e1705/9400.

HOWTO: Broadcom 43xx based wireless cards the EASY way.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=405990

Well I found the above on UbuntuForums after I decided to install Ubuntu 7.04 on my Dell Inspiron e1705/9400. If you have a broadcom chipset wireless card, following the above link is in my opinion the best way to do it.

MythTV AGAIN!

well last night I gave up on Myth, decided to sell all the hardare that I have purchased and was going to buy a Tivo with a year subscription.

I woke up this morning, with a bit of information via the Ubuntu Forums. I decided ONE more time.

Here is what it is..Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Alternate Install per the Instructions at the Ubuntu Wiki https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MythTV_Dapper_Backend_Frontend

With a little help from http://parker1.co.uk/mythtv_ubuntu.php . Now I say a little, but in reality, my stuff is working because of that with the help from the Wiki. The wiki has you create a user, then lets mythtv-setup create a user called mythtv and you add yourself to that group. I couldn’t get that to work. With the parker how-to, I created a user called mythtv, log in as that user, run everything all is well as far as installation.

Here is where I’m stuck –

• No Remote — Hauppage 45-button silver remote with the 4 colored buttons at the bottom. IRW outputs nothing, but LIRC does start w/o errors. Batteries are good. Steps followed from here https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Install_Lirc_Edgy Again, IRW throws nothing out, I found lircrc.conf, lircd.conf and lircmd.conf all from the LIRC’s remote page. Per the link, the command ‘irrecord’ was used to record the buttons on my remote. Now this was my first attempt, and I missed a few buttons and as I learn Myth more, I may change a few things, but now I am able to navigate the menus, select things, and change channels.
• No Video-out on S-Video. Motherboard has an Nvidia Chipset MX440 with S-Video, upon boot, s-video works, X starts and video is gone. I did follow the instructions found here, but the TV does not display properly. I also have a PVR-350 card, S-video out does not work. Per the Ubuntu wiki https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MythTV_Edgy_hardware_pvr-350_TV-out, all troubleshooting steps are successful to determine that ivtv is installed correctly, but when I go to do the /sbin/rmmod saa7127 and /sbin/modprobe saa7127 test_image=1 Nothing happens on my TV. Here is the great thing about the last line on that wiki “If it’s not working check your cable Connections and then retry the steps. If it’s still not working, google IVTV, or post on a forum.”
• Note Set-Top Box. I have Digital Cable, a Motorola DTC-2244, PVR-350 gets no video period when hooked to the box, run it off of straight cable, and all is well in the world.
• Only local programming. Channels 2 – 15 are viewable, everything else is snow. Running on local programming, I’d hope I could get Channels up to 100 or wherever it goes. Digital cable I have over 500 channels, and I definitely need them or Myth is again worthless to me. This was resolved by ‘Mythtv-setup’ -> General -> Channel Frequency. By Default it was set it us-bcast, I changed it to us-cable and I was able to past local programming.
• USB-UIRT — I wanna be able to control my Motorola DTC-2244 Cable Box. I purchased the USB-UIRT thinking I was going to use Sage when I gave up on Myth a while back. Had I known it wasn’t as well supported as I would have liked in Linux, I wouldn’t have bought it. Reading over on MythTV Talk forums there seems to be a number of people who have been successful getting it to work. Now weeather they’re getting it to just recieve or if they’re able to get it to send that is the question. I was able to plug the USB-UIRT in, and with lirc-0.8.1, run the setup to configure a USB device, specifically a USB-UIRT from the menu. After the setup, I can press buttons on my remote, and I get a light, which means it is getting something. If I do a ‘cat /dev/ttyUSB0′ I get Â
  %-ü
  ^X
  Which makes me believe that it is seeing the buttons being pressed, it just doesn’t know what those buttons are yet. I’m thinking I need to do an irrecord for this device.

O verall, performance between menu screens is slow at best on an AMD XP 2400+ with 512MB of RAM. Video on the monitor is not digital quality, but I’ve seen worse.

I’m happy I’ve made it this far, but I’m not sure if it is all worth it. For the time and the amount of money I have in this box now, I could have had a less stressful life and bought a Tivo. I love linux, I love open source, but some things just don’t work ‘out of the box’ just yet.

I’ll update this post as I knock down the list above trying to get everything resolved. If I don’t have everything resolved by Sunday night before I go to bed, all parts will be on e-bay and a Tivo will be ordered.

UPDATE: 7/11/07 :: 11:54AM MST

Box ran all night, I should have scheduled a recording just to test that. Everything has been running great, no issues with video playback or sound. The picture is a little dark, but it could be my monitor. I still don’t have TV-Out working yet.

MythTV Again

Well Ubuntu 6.10 has MythTV 0.20 supported in the repositories, and installation is definitely much easier than it has ever been.

But I still can’t get Lirc to work Testing it, I can press buttons, and get an output in my terminal, but in Myth, nothing works.

I’ve given up for the time being…maybe in 7.04 it’ll be even better.

Wanted: Open Source CSS Editor

My notebook is running Ubuntu 6.06 LTS and I can’t run the latest version of Dreamweaver, so I went searching to see what was out there. Google gave me this (Google: Open Source CSS Editor). I went here (W3.org : CSS Editors). Based on the W3.org suggestions, I downloaded Bluefish and Amaya.

My Initial Thoughts: I don’t review every single feature, and as the beginning of this line says ‘Initial Thoughts’. I’ll install it, start it, open a CSS file, and then attempt to edit that file. I don’t need it to do anything else for me. I can preview with Swiftfox of Firefox, and I can ftp with gFTP. What I am looking for. I wanted syntax highlighting and auto completion/code hinting. gEdit supports syntax highlighting, but doesn’t do the code hinting, so really I was looking for an editor that has CSS support with code hinting/auto completion.

Bluefish (http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/index.html) :

• Pretty intuitive to use
• Syntax Highlighting
• Did not support code hinting

Amaya (http://www.w3.org/Amaya/):

• Older Interface
• When trying to open file types, you set filters for the file type you’re looking for. Default is *.htm*. To me it was just a pain to change ‘htm’ to ‘css’
• Syntax Highlighting
• Did not support code hinting

Though I could have settled for Blue Fish, I hate to settle and was determined to find either a plugin that offered code hinting or another Open Source solution for a CSS editor that offered code hinting. So I went to the Ubuntu Forums (http://www.ubuntuforums.org) and searched for CSS Editors. I was led to Blue Fish (see above), nvu (http://www.nvu.com), screem (http://www.screem.org), eclipse (http://www.eclipse.org), Aptana (http://www.aptana.com).

Initial Thoughts on the above:

nvu:

• Already Had it — downloaded it a while back to do some simple editing
• WYSIWYG Editor –
• If you like Front Page for Windows, nvu seems most similar to Front Page
• Syntax Highlighting
• No Code Hinting
• Really just not my cup of tea

Screem:

• lightweight
• very similar to nvu
• syntax highlighting
• no code hinting

Aptana:

• When viewing the site, it appeared to be everything I wanted it to be
• Couldn’t get it to install — I’ll be the first to say, I had to clue with the .bin extension
• Never did get it installed, but did find some great how-to information on the Ubuntu Forums
• Does have a plug-in that is fully supported in Eclipse

Eclipse:

• Easy to install
• Seems ‘heavy’
• Doesn’t seem to be directed towards (x)html/css
• Most of the menus and toolbars are worthless/pointless for what I’m doing
• Syntax Highlighting
• Able to Install the Aptana Plug-in

So here’s what I’ve got…Eclipse (http://www.eclipse.org), Configured Eclipse to download the Aptana plug-in (http://www.aptana.com) via these directions from http://aptana.com/docs/index.php/Plugging_Aptana_into_an_existing_Eclipse_configuration :

To plug Aptana into an existing Eclipse configuration:

1. From the Help menu in Eclipse, select Software Updates > Find and Install… to open an Install/Update pop-up window.
2. On the Install/Update pop-up window, choose the Search for new features to install option, and click the Next button.
3. Set up a new remote site to scan for updates.
   1. Click the New Remote Site… button to open a New Update Site pop-up window.
   2. On the New Update Site pop-up window, type “Aptana” in the site Name text box.
   3. In the URL text box, type the URL for the Aptana update site: http://update.aptana.com/update/ and click OK.
   4. Click the Finish button to open an Updates window.
4. On the Updates window, check the Aptana box, and click the Next button.
5. Choose the option to accept the terms of the license agreement, and click the Next button.
6. Click the Finish button.Aptana promps you to enter a username and password.
7. Specify the username and password to access the Aptana web site.Eclipse scans for updates
8. Click the Install All button.

Eclipse installs the Aptana plug-in. To finish the installation process, follow the prompts to shut down and re-start Eclipse.

To access all of Aptana’s features as they are described in the Aptana documentation, you will need to change your Eclipse Perspective to the Aptana perspective. See Changing your Eclipse Perspective for instructions on how to change your Eclipse Perspective.

Final Thoughts:

Does everything I need it to do…Maybe I’ll just install Aptana as Eclipse has a lot of features and such that I do not need. So…tonight — Success.

If anyone has any suggestions for Open Source Editors that Support CSS, have syntax highlighting and code hinting, feel free to post up. I’m always open to new software.

UPDATE:

In Regards to the Post for Quanta…Nice Interface, has syntax highlighting, but did not see any means to enable code hinting. Also, I didn’t play around much with settings, but the syntax highlighting seemed to be 2 or 3 colors — dark colors at that.

Personally I just want something that works out of the box, and Eclipse with Aptana gives me that better than anyone else.

Enjoyed installing Quanta and using it, just not what I was looking for.

GoboLinux 012

What is it:

GoboLinux is a Linux distribution that breaks away from the historical UNIX directory hierarchy. Basically, this means that there are no directories such as /usr and /etc. The main idea of the alternative hierarchy is to store all files belonging to an application in its own separate subtree; therefore we have directories such as /Programs/GCC/2.95.3/lib. To allow the system to find these files, they are logically grouped in directories such as /System/Links/Executables, which, you guessed it, contains symbolic links to all executable files inside the Programs hierarchy. To maintain backwards compatibility with traditional Unix/Linux apps, there are symbolic links that mimic the Unix tree, such as “/usr/bin -> /System/Links/Executables”, and “/sbin -> /System/Links/Executables” (this example shows that arbitrary differentiations between files of the same category were also removed). http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=gobo
Where you can get it:

http://www.gobolinux.org/

Where can I get support:

http://www.gobolinux.org/forum

Why am I trying it:

I’ll leave this section to give an idea of why I have chosen to try this distro over all of the others available in the world. For GoboLinux, it is the file system structure. It is intuitive, personally for as long as I have been using/playing with linux, I still get lost looking for applications, config files, etc. when trying to support an application. Open up the file system in GoboLinux and it’s pretty straight forward in regards to what you’re looking for. As great as this idea is, I don’t see it being adopted by the larger distributions as I see it as a major undertaking and for those with a lot of experience, to be a pain in the butt.
My System Specs:

• Dell Inspiron 6000
• PENTIUM M DOTHAN, 1.6GHZ, 533FSB
• 1GB RAM
• 60GB 7200 RPM HDD
• Intel 2200 b/g Wifi
• ATI Mobile Radeon 300
• 15.4″ WUXGA+ Display

From the beginning:

Popped CD in drive, set notebook to boot to CD/DVD Drive. Only thing that I was prompted with, was what language, and keyboard type. Once configured, I could type ’startx’ and boot. Upon boot, I recieved an error message:

‘Sound Server Informational Message: Error While initializing the sound driver: /device/dev/dsp/ can’t be opened (No Such File or Directory). The sound Server will continue using the null output device.’

I’d hope the sound would work out of the box, and that is basically what I’m looking for, is something that just works out of the box. If I really wanted to, I could probably figure out why it doesn’t work.

Desktop environment is KDE 3.4. Going through the list of software, that just caught my eye/stood out:

• Open Office 1.1.4
• Firefox 1.0.4
• KsIRC
• Kopete (I seem to like Kopete over GAIM or the other available clients)
• K3b (CD burning software — a necessity)

My initial Impressions:

KDE has always looked nice, and this was no different from any other experience. There is an icon on the desktop for QtParted, and an icon to install GoboLinux. System is fairly responsive, I don’t expect blazing performance on my notebook. Open Office took ~25 seconds to start, Firefox was a little quicker.

Firefox is very quick to surf around the internet. Definitely quicker than my Ubuntu Install on this notebook. Wish I could get my Ubuntu box to surf quicker

Default Resolution is 1024×768. My display will support 1900×1200. This isn’t even an option, and honestly the 1024×768 ain’t so bad.

What doesn’t work:

• Wifi — Doesn’t even recognize it
• Touch Pad — It’s very sensitive, often times mistaking the fact that I’m just navigating for clicking on something. Also the touchpad has a scroll ‘wheel’ at the bottom and right side of the pad — these don’t work.
• The Sound — see error above
• Front Control Panel — Mute, Volume Down, Volume Up, Next/Previous, Play/Pause, Stop
• KDE’s Control Center — Seemed to cache the page. Basically when I would click on one, then click to another, then on to something else, I’d pull up the properties for something else. It was a PITA when trying to get around.

My Final Thoughts:

It’s not for me. Using Ubuntu for a while now, I like Gnome too much. I can’t really see anything REALLY bad with it, that would not make me recommend it to someone who was looking for a distro to try (you should always give as many a test drive as possible). I realize that notebook support is lacking in the *nix market, but ya know what….Ubuntu works w/o issues, so it is what I’m basing it off of. I’m currently making this post while using GoboLinux, and I’m seeing some quirky behavior in Firefox with WordPress. I’m not entirely sure what it is is Firefox, WordPress or something related to the OS.

I know now that my notebook is not the best means for a review (though I’ll continue to review Live CD’s with it in the future). I may fire up one of my old Athlon 1.4Ghz t-birds and see how they work. I’d like to test CD-Burning out of the box as well as applications related to my Canon SD-200 Digital Camera. And I think the hardware in my Athlon box could be a little more forgiving in regards to what works and doesn’t work.

This has been my first review in a while related to Live CD’s and I expect this process to change a little. If there is something I didn’t review, or something you’d like to know, feel free to post up. I’d be more than happy to throw the disc back in and fire it up.

Dapper Install — From Scratch

So browsing the forums over at Ubuntu (http://ubuntuforums.org) I’ve seen a lot of people have problems with the install. After I was needing to get rid of FC5 I decided to install from a CD to see if I encountered the same problems.

I loaded the CD up into a ‘live’ mode and then clicked on the install. Opted to delete all partions and start blank. Installation took about 30-45 minutes and I restarted. Everything worked! I was up on my wifi, configured the connection. Did an apt-get update to see if there was anything I was missing. Done. I’m gonna get BUMPS for it, and keep it on there until something else comes up that peaks my interest.

Just had to share that I had no problems doing an install from scratch. If you read below you see that I had started at a Beta and just installed updates as they came down until I was at the full version.

Fedora Core 5 — we’re not missing out on anything

I’m gonna give it a whack and see how it compares to Ubuntu Dapper

Will report back shortly with updates

6/15/2006 — UPDATE

Well I installed it and then removed it quicker than it went on.

Here is where I sat. I have always liked the installer, not as good as SUSE’s installer (I don’t think anyones is yet) but it is definitely ahead of Ubuntu or any other text-based installer.

Finding all my hardware was where it lacked, and for me is what I base my primary like or dislike for a distro — I did the whole edit files till your eyes are red and fingers are blue trying to get stuff to work, but now, things should just work.

Start from the beginning:

• Had to manually select a ‘monitor’ for my notebook 1620×1200 was as good as it got, not my usual 1900×1200
• Under Network devices it saw my built-in wifi card, but I could not configure it — was only able to configure my ethernet port.
• Never did recognize my modem — not that I use it, but hey…why can’t it be seen?

What I did like:

• Atleast they’re not not that damn blue-wave trip RH started with 8.0. I hated it. Interface was very similar to Ubuntu so made things easy to find, function was really no different.
• Like I said, I like the installer, better than Ubuntu.

Hard for me to say otherwise what I liked and disliked as I did not spend a lot of time with it. I guess I’ve grown old. I want my stuff to just work like it does in Ubuntu. So it was back to Dapper w/o issue in less than 45 minutes.

MythTV — Coming SOON!!!

Well my PVR-350 card showed up today, and I had an Ubuntu Breezy box laying around (PIII ~800mhz, 256MB and an entirely way too small HDD). Popped the card in, and started following a few online tutorials before I had to go to work. I’m at work now.

I got stuck in the ivtv stuff, but believe I might have figured it out right before I left (need to verify when I get home). I’m working a 12 hour shift today, so it’ll be a long one, probably won’t look at the box until Saturday.

Stay tuned for updates, reading the tutorials, Myth seems enitrely way too complicated for a ‘newbie’ (even though I may not be one, I can see why it might not be as wide spread as it could be).

5/26/2006

Well I got Myth going…After a few hiccups and a couple of errors on my part — the card is recognizeable, I’m able to schedule programming and life is well. I’m sure there is still a fair amount to do, but one step closer. I’m gonna be working all weekend so I probably won’t touch the box until later next week.