Fixing Compiz Fusion on ATI Radeon Mobility 9800 Under Ubuntu Hardy (8.04)

**** OK, this works–but it’s not feasible. I found xserver-xgl to be VERY slow and had screen rendering issues. ****

Take this for what it’s worth–and that does not seem to be much.

When I originally installed Ubuntu Hardy on my HP Pavillion zt3000 laptop Compiz worked perfectly. Much to my dismay, after I re-installed, Compiz Fusion would not re-enable, even though I had the restricted drivers installed and enabled. (Selecting System -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Visual Effects -> Extra returned a “Desktop effects could not be enabled” error.)

I tried running “compiz” from the command line and one line of the output caught my eye:

checking for xgl not present

That gave me enough search terms to search on Google and hit paydirt on UbuntuForums.

The solution was simple: Go to System -> Administration -> Synaptics Package Manager and install “xserver-xgl.”

After I logged back out and back in, I enabled Compiz ( System -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Visual Effects -> Extra) and everything worked.

Total Freedom! Laptop with Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon Linux, Nokia N70 Modem and AIS (One-2-Call) EDGE Wireless

As I post this, I am on my laptop running Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) and connecting the Internet via AIS EDGE wireless internet with my Nokia N70 mobile phone.

One more critical step closer to completely abandoning Windows forever.

The setup was fast and relatively simple once I found Howto connect to the Internet with a Nokia N70 from Ndlovu on UbuntuForums.

For people that have my exact setup (Ubuntu Gutsy, Nokia N70 (connected via the USB cable packaged with the phone), AIS (One-2-Call) in Thailand) I can simplify the process a bit for you.

All I had to do was create the two config files as per the instructions and save them. Then go to the command line and type “pon mobile” and hit enter. Fast and simple–and it worked the first time.

Be warned–there is no feedback; you enter “pon mobile” and you get no “you are connected to the Internet” message–you just are.

If you want to see what happened during the connection process (and to see if you are really connected) try typing “plog” from the command line. Plog is part of the PPPD package (along with “pon” and “poff”) and it shows you the last few lines of /var/log/ppp.log. If that file doesn’t exist, it shows you the last few lines of your /var/log/syslog file, but excluding the lines not generated by pppd. So you can see the status messages that have been written by PPPD about your connection in ppp.log.

A few more notes:

1. PPP is part of the default install for Ubuntu Gutsy–you probably have it installed unless you customized the install to NOT install it.
2. Your user probably belongs to the dialout group already–no need to add. (But it’s not that hard to do, really.)
3. The text he suggests to cut-and-paste all worked exactly as he has it–no need to tweak the settings

It would be nice to have a graphic interface that stepped you through the process, showed you the phone was connected and had a simple little “Connect to Internet Via Mobile” and “Disconnect” buttons–but that’s just me being spoiled by how easy most things are in Ubuntu most of the time.

Ubuntu Gutsy on My Laptop: Not Winning My Heart

I installed Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon on my laptop past week. The Wifi setup is horrible! What a terrible interface. I can’t get it to work, I can’t seem to undo my mistakes. If you can’t make Wifi simple, you are not going to win converts.

It’s ridiculous to ask the user what kind of encryption in on the access point. When I sit down at a coffee house, how do I know what kind of encryption the WAP is using? Hell, 99% of the time if you ask the staff they just give you a blank stare. No other OS vendor I know of requires you give the encryption type… Poor design.

Ubuntu Frustrations

Lots of little oddities as I tried to stretch my Ubuntu wings.

From small things like Flickr’s advanced uploader (Flash based, I gather) not working right to Firefox occasionally locking up when I opened a new Window, using Ubuntu has not been the smooth experience that I was hoping for. Maybe it’s a bad day, maybe Ubuntu is just rougher around the edges than it’s polished exterior leads you to believe.

I am not giving up. I want to give Linux on the desktop a fair shake, but I am seeing clouds on the horizon. Will they build–or dissipate?

Ubuntu Calling…

OK. I have had it with Windows. Really, I have. The annoyances, the arrogance, the in-your-face-f**k-you attitude they have for their users… It’s time for a change.

I would love to buy a Mac or two (An iMac / MacBook Air combo would be nice), but looking at the bank statement, that ain’t gonna happen any time soon.

So I guess I am going to go with Ubuntu. I love Ubuntu, I really do, and it would probably have been my first choice if Adobe apps ran on it, but sadly, there are no Linux versions of Photoshop and Lightroom. (So I guess I will still be running Windows, but only on rare occasions.)

So, let the experiment begin!

I am trying to, wherever I can, switch my apps to open source versions as well.

Let’s see how this goes.

So far, most days, I can seem to run Ubuntu all day and not ever have to switch back to Windows to do anything.

Still looking for some killer replacements for my old-standby Windows apps. I guess I will find them as I need them. I can’t say I have played with many Linux desktop apps outside of server and network tools and the occasional editor; my Linux experiences have mostly been using it as a server, not a desktop. So there is a lot of opportunity to find some cool desktop apps I have not been exposed to before.

Installing PDT / Eclipse Europa on Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon

I had a little hiccup installing Eclipse Europa / PDT on Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon and I thought some other folks might be running into the same problem, so I wanted to post the solution.

When I tried to run Eclipse I kept getting the error:

Error creating the view

org.eclipse.core.runtime.Plugin

I initially installed the GPL version of Java and that was the mistake; you need Sun Java. Period.

So, if this is the problem you are having, go to the Synaptics Package Manager and install sun-java6-bin (and any other Java packages you think you need–but make sure they are the Sun versions!).

This is what I installed: