When I upgraded to Kubuntu Lucid Lynx, they promised:
Firefox now integrates better with KDE, providing native KDE file dialogs as well as respecting your default choices for opening files, as set in KDE.
I was excited, no more having to keep a separate favorite places for Firefox and Dolphin. In reality after I upgraded I saw no such “integration.”
So several months later it bugged me enough to take another look at the problem. Reading the same copy as before I noticed a new sentence that either I missed or wasn’t there before:
Our Kubuntu Firefox Installer makes sure the necessary packages are installed, if you have installed Firefox manually you will need to install kmozillahelper for the integration.
Hmm… since I upgraded and didn’t install from scratch it seems that I needed to install the kmozillahelper package. Once I did and restarted Firefox, it worked. One step closer to an integrated desktop. Now I I could find a way to do this in chrome, openoffice.org, gimp…
Posted by benjamen as Firefox, Kubuntu, Lucid Lynx, linux at 12:56 PM UTC
No Comments »
The main reason I upgraded my Myth boxes was so that I could use Boxee. I first tested it out on my main computer running Kubuntu 10.04 and everything worked pretty well. I expected the to Myth boxes running Xubuntu 10.04 would work just as well. Of course nothing is that easy, I log into Boxee and try to play something from my queue, no sound. I try something else, no sound. The third time was not the charm, so I tried the other Myth box and found the same problem.
I jumped onto Google and had to do a bit of searching before I found this post in the Boxee forums. The culprit seems to be … wait for it … pulseaudio. That would definitely explain why it worked on Kubuntu. Anyway the crux of the fix is as follows:
sudo apt-get remove pulseaudio
sudo apt-get install esound
sudo killall pulseaudio
sudo restart gdm
In the original post he killed pulseaudio before he removed it, but I found that it would just pop up again in a few seconds. Also he said to restart the computer but I found that just restarting X was enough.
Posted by benjamen as Boxee, Kubuntu, Pulseaudio, Xubuntu, linux at 7:19 PM UTC
No Comments »
I was upgrading my mythtv boxes from 8.04 to 10.04 today, which went pretty smoothly until I rebooted. When I got to the login screen I tried to move the pointer but nothing happened. I wasn’t too worried, I figured that the upgrade just changed my xorg.conf file and that I could just replace it.
It turns out somewhere between 8.04 and 10.04 they took keyboard and mouse configuration out of the xorg.conf file. It was easy to figure this out because the install left me a nice message in the xorg.conf saying you don’t do that here anymore. So after searching I found this forum post on Ubuntu forums about getting your old Microsoft serial mouse working with 9.10. The heart of the solution is to use gpm and input attach to tell X11 about the mouse. I ran the following commands to test this:
sudo apt-get install gpm
sudo inputattach –microsoft /dev/ttyS0
It worked exactly like promised, I was now able to mouse the pointer around with my mouse. To make it permanent you need to edit /etc/rc.local to add the inputattach line. (additions are in bold)
sudo vi /etc/rc.local
#!/bin/sh -e
#
# rc.local
#
# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.
# Make sure that the script will “exit 0″ on success or any other
# value on error.
#
# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution
# bits.
#
# By default this script does nothing.
## added serial mouse input ##
inputattach –microsoft /dev/ttyS0
exit 0
Posted by benjamen as Hardy Heron, Lucid Lynx, Ubuntu, linux, mythtv at 7:17 PM UTC
No Comments »
Imagine my surprise when I try to do a simple task like check in some changes I on a website I was working on, when I get this error:
[~/public_html/drupal/sites/default/themes/clean_fixed]# svn commit
bash: svnserve: command not found
svn: Commit failed (details follow):
svn: Connection closed unexpectedly
svn: Your commit message was left in a temporary file:
svn: ’svn-commit.7.tmp’
Crap there goes an hour. I googled the problem and found that apparently this is a common problem for servers in the BlueHost family. For some reason a recent update changed the way SSH looked for applications. It used to be OK if the application was in your path. So now you need a way to tell SSH where to look for svnserve.
I found the answer at the Subversion Community forums. A user there was complaining about the exact same problem. Another user pointed out the site with some Subversion ssh configuration tricks.
Basically what the fix amounts to is directly pointing to the application in the command section of the ssh key in the authorized_keys file. So on my SVN server I inserted this text in front of every key used for accession SVN.
command=”$HOME/local/system/bin/svnserve -t ” ssh-dss AAAAB3N…
After the fix I now get the familiar:
[~/public_html/drupal/sites/default/themes/clean_fixed]# svn commit
Sending block.css
Sending style.css
Transmitting file data ..
Committed revision 548.
Posted by benjamen as SSH, SVN, linux at 7:03 PM UTC
No Comments »
You want to do something as simple as moving the directory Chromium uses for cache and you wind up learning more about the XDG Base Directory Specification than you wanted. I wanted to move Chromium’s cache so that I didn’t back up these unimportant and constantly changing files during my hourly backups. Backing up all these files not only takes up extra space, but it also annoyingly slows down the backup.
I needed to figure out where the cache directory was located and how to move it. Moving the cache directory in Firefox is simple, you just goto about:config and change the value of browser.cache.disk.parent_directory. Heading over to the Chromium Project I found a page that described where the cache was located for Linux:
~/.config/chromium/Default
It turns out that Chromium follows the XDG Base Directory specs. Applications that follow these specs will store config, data and cache directories in the locations specified by their corresponding environment variables. The thought behind this structure is to clean up the user directories and make the different desktop managers play nicely with each other. From the specification:
$XDG_DATA_HOME defines the base directory relative to which user specific data files should be stored. If $XDG_DATA_HOME is either not set or empty, a default equal to $HOME/.local/share should be used.
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME defines the base directory relative to which user specific configuration files should be stored. If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is either not set or empty, a default equal to $HOME/.config should be used.
$XDG_DATA_DIRS defines the preference-ordered set of base directories to search for data files in addition to the $XDG_DATA_HOME base directory. The directories in $XDG_DATA_DIRS should be seperated with a colon ‘:’. If $XDG_DATA_DIRS is either not set or empty, a value equal to /usr/local/share/:/usr/share/ should be used.
$XDG_CONFIG_DIRS defines the preference-ordered set of base directories to search for configuration files in addition to the $XDG_CONFIG_HOME base directory. The directories in $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS should be seperated with a colon ‘:’ If $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS is either not set or empty, a value equal to /etc/xdg should be used.
$XDG_CACHE_HOME defines the base directory relative to which user specific non-essential data files should be stored. If $XDG_CACHE_HOME is either not set or empty, a default equal to $HOME/.cache should be used.
Bingo! $XDG_CACHE_HOME sets the location of the cache files and if it isn’t present it defaults to where the Chromium project says the cache files are stored.
The final piece of the puzzle is figuring out where to put the environment variable so that next time you log into your desktop it actually gets set. This is where the Ubuntu Community Documentation saved me. It turns out that there is a file in each individuals home directory called:
~/.pam_environment
It may or may not be present. If it isn’t just create it. This file is specifically for setting environment variables. It’s not a script file like .profile, so stick to variable assignments.
So I set:
$XDG_CACHE_HOME=/tmp/benjamen/.cache
and deleted the default .cache directory in my home directory. Now when I back up my home directory I don’t waste time and space backing up the cache files.
References:
User Data Directory [The Chromium Project]
XDG Base Directory Specification [freedesktop.org]
Environment Variables [Ubuntu Community Documentation]
Posted by benjamen as Chromium, Ubuntu, freedesktop.org, linux at 2:08 PM UTC
No Comments »
For a while my computer has had the annoying habit of rebooting whenever I tell it to shutdown. That doesn’t sound so bad does it? What it means is that I need to be present at the machine if I want to turn it off. I can’t tell it to turn off after midnight or after a hour of being idle (and forget suspend, that’s never worked right).
On and off for the past few weeks I’ve been crawling through the system logs and BIOS trying to find an ACPI error or other warning that would explain why the kernel feels like it needs to reboot. Then on a whim I turned off Wake On LAN.
I had turned on WOL because I thought it would be cool if I could turn on my computer from another computer, netbook, or mobile device before I go downstairs to use it. It turns out that WOL on this particular motherboard doesn’t work the same as other computers. Usually you need to send a magic packet to wake a computer up, but for some reason my computer wakes up with a simple ping or any other traffic sent to it’s address.
Turning off WOL did the trick, the computer actually shuts down when I tell it to shutdown. So, either there is some traffic from the network directed at my machine or the same flaw that makes the motherboard wakeup without a magic packet keeps it from powering down.
Posted by benjamen as Karmic Koala, Kubuntu, computer, linux, network at 9:30 AM UTC
No Comments »
I installed DOSBox on a Kubuntu Karmic machine to play The Incredible Machine, but I couldn’t get the sound working. I read a ton of forum posts about trying to get DOSBox working with Pulseaudio to no avail. Then I discovered that my Pulseaudio wasn’t working anyway.
I needed a way to tell the SDL (Simple Direct Media Layer) that DosBox should just use my soundcard like KDE was doing. One of the steps that kept coming up in the PulseAudio “fixes” was to type the line:
export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=pulse
or
export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=esd
before running DOSBox. I wondered if there was another setting for soundblaster or intel. So I googled SDL_AUDIODRIVER and found that there was a dsp option. So I typed:
export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=dsp
before starting DOSBox and viola I have sound.
*I’m not entirely sure it was necessary but in the process of trying to get Pulseaudio working I installed libsdl1.2debian-all.
Posted by benjamen as DOSBox, Karmic Koala, Kubuntu, Pulseaudio, linux at 12:56 PM UTC
No Comments »
First let me just let me say that Amarok 2 blows! Why they screwed up such a great program is beyond me. You can always install Amarok 1.4, but why go backwards when players like Songbird are moving forward.
Unfortunately Songbird doesn’t seem to work out of the box with Kubuntu, the correct GStreamer packages don’t seem to be installed — even when you use a debian package! Maybe it’s just me but I’ve tried it on a Jaunty machine and a Karmic machine and I couldn’t get music to play back on either. It would just give me some cryptic error about alsasink and auotaudiosink. So here’s my short tutorial on how I got Songbird working.
- First I removed all GStreamer packages. This step may or may not have been necessary, but I mucked about for long time before I decided to start from scratch. It has the side effect of removing openoffice.org too, but you can just reinstall it when you’ve got songbird running.
- Reinstall GStreamer with this command:
sudo apt-get install libgstreamer0.10-0 gstreamer0.10-x gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gstreamer0.10-plugins-base gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-dev libgstreamer0.10-dev gstreamer0.10-plugins-good gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly
- Install the correct songbird package from Skyzim
sudo dpkg -i <package name>
- If you are using NVidia drivers remove the libvisual plugins.
sudo apt-get remove libvisual-0.4-plugins
That did it for me.
References:
Installing Songbird [Ubuntu Documentation]
GStreamer Setup [SongBird Wiki]
NVidia Driver Issue [edsalisbury.net]
Songbird Installer [Skyzim]
Posted by benjamen as Jaunty Jackalope, Karmic Koala, Kubuntu, Songbird at 9:05 AM UTC
No Comments »
Does it annoy you that the print preview window has been neutered in Firefox for Ubuntu? You may have this problem in other Linux distributions or operating systems too. Here is what it looks like:
Thanks to a little help from Only Ubuntu Linux I fixed the problem on my system by setting “print.whileInPrintPreview” to true.
Now my Print Preview window looks like it should:
HOW TO Enable Additional Print Preview Buttons in Firefox
Posted by benjamen as Firefox, Ubuntu, linux, printing at 2:04 PM UTC
No Comments »
When you are ready to export your edited video, Kino includes a number of canned scripts for transcoding it into a variety of formats such as flash video. Unfortunately when using the scripts you have little control over the encoding options. If you want more control, you either need to write your own script or better yet modify one of the included scripts.
To get started you can start by reading the Kino User Guide, specifically the Export/Other section. In this section you find out that the scripts are located in $prefix/share/kino/scripts/export/ — $prefix is just a variable name that is specified at compile time. To save you some time for Kubuntu the location of the scripts is /usr/share/kino/scripts/exports.
Copy the script you are interested in modifying and ffmpeg_utils.sh to $HOME/kino/exports/ ($HOME of course is your home directory). You’ll probably have to create both the kino and export directories. Then modify the script to tweak the encoding options — make sure you change the title and profile names so you can tell it from the origianl script, save it, and restart Kino. Your new script should be one of the drop down options for Tools.
Posted by benjamen as Kino, linux, video at 12:43 PM UTC
No Comments »