Monday, December 22, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
Sound issues on my Hardy 64bit
Only way I can get the sound to work, is to set everything to OSS.
Now, a few links with hints/guides to follow:
Alsa:
need to have soundcore loaded:
modinfo soundcore
Multiple soundcards:
explicitly assign the default device numbers of our sound card drivers by adding lines at the end of the /etc/modprode.d/alsa-base file like this (These are mine):
options snd_hda_intel index=0
options snd_cmipci index=1
options snd_atiixp index=2
options snd_usb_audio index=3
You can use:
cat /proc/asound/modules
Generic troubleshoot:
to check if the system recognnizes the soundcard:
aplay -l
lspci -v | less
sounds module installed?:
find /lib/modules/`uname -r` | grep snd
The 10,000 Page Guide to Sound Troubleshooting:
Among several tips, this:
Create a new user and login with that: if sound works, it's an issue of user configuration
Another (older) guide on sound problems:
This is a quite comprehensive guide, with a "failure/success" path to follow. Nice.
PulseAudio fixes:
It says libflashsupport should not be installed.
this is confusing, since it's the only way I could find to let Flash produce sounds.
PulseAudio installation (Italian):
Italian guide to PulseAudio installation.
Makes use of most of the previous hints, and summarizes them.
Too simple?
A noticeable difference with the "fixes" page:
Here it uses ladspa without even checking its installation. In "fixes":
Install the required LADSPA plugins and tools:
$ sudo apt-get install swh-plugins ladspa-sdk
Maybe
Also, there is no editing of the /etc/pulse/default.pa and no note on the necessity of changing the
slave.pcm "plughw"
line in ~/.asoundrc (or /etc/asound.conf)
Surround guide (italian):
To be tested yet
---------------------------
Edit:
this might be the real fix: remove pulsaudio....!
Or even better, in the same thread: post 51.
Or still, I can keep my "OSS" settings: not brilliant, but working...!
---------------------------
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Installazione Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 AMD64
Di seguito i vari step seguiti, in forma di nota/promemoria.
CAP 0: mettiamoci in condizione di tornare indietro, se qualcosa va storto....:
Backup Dapper
Disinstallare software inutili
Fare lista sw
dpkg --get-selections > installed-packages.txt
oppure da synaptic (vengono meno voci. Perche?)
Fare lista di storia di installazioni con synaptic (export to txt)
Fare screenshot del menu applicazioni (magari c’e’ un file con l’elenco delle icone: verificare e salvare da qualche parte, cosi’ c’e’ un elenco delle applicazioni installate)
--> copiato i vari file .desktop (in usr/share/applications e in ~/.local/share/applications)
Cancellare roba inutile, anche dal trash
Copiare fstab, menu.lst, part table di fdisk, xorg.conf
Copiare bookmarks, dati thunderbird, dati utenti
Partimage di boot (5min), home (30min) e sistema (30min)
Partimage di partition table (http://www.partimage.org/Partimage-manual_Backup-partition-table)
dd if=/dev/hda of=backup-hda.mbr count=1 bs=512 Now, we will save entries of the extended partitions:
sfdisk -d /dev/hda > backup-hda.sf To restore:
dd if=backup-hda.mbr of=/dev/hda sfdisk /dev/hda < style="">CAP 1: Installazione sistema
Una guida passo-passo
http://www.howtoforge.com/the-perfect-desktop-ubuntu-8.04-lts-hardy-heron
il mio schema di partizioni:
| Device | Mount point | File system | size |
| /dev/hda1 | /home | reiserfs | 30GB |
| /dev/hda2 | /media/music_fat32 | vfat | 30GB |
| /dev/hda3 | /media/shared_fat32 | vfat | 50GB |
| | | | |
| /dev/sda1 | /media/winXP | ntfs | 30GB |
| /dev/sda2 | /boot | ext3 | 100MB |
| /dev/sda3 | / | reiserfs | 50GB |
| /dev/sda5 | /media/myth | ext3 | 50GB |
| /dev/sda6 | /media/distro | ext3 | 8GB |
| /dev/sda7 | swap | swap | 1GB |
| /dev/sda8 | /media/video_fat32 | vfat | 100GB |
L'installazione dal liveCD AMD64 va liscissima.
Mi ha cambiato i nomi delle partizioni (chissa' perche') e ora vede il disco IDE hda come sdb. A parte questo tutto tranquillo.
Ho mantenuto la mia home, sperando di tenere tutti i dati e i settaggi.
In ~35min ho la Hardy installata e pronta all'uso, con dati e settaggi conservati!
Cap 2: Personalizzazioni
Step1 - Ritocchi al sistema base:
Nautilus: enable delete
Font: pref/appearance --> subpixel smoothing
pref/appearance/advanced --> 96dpi
Services: admin/services --> rimuovere gli inutili (--> bluetooth)
Startup: pref/sessions --> disabilitare roba inutile
Uninstall: togliere programmi inutili (--> nessun programma tolto)
Update: ricaricare e fare update del sistema
Reboot
Al termine dello step1 (~15min), ho 47.3GB free (49.2GB dichiarati da system monitor) → usati circa 2GB in /
Proseguiamo con le installazioni dei software necessari a rendere usabile (ai miei scopi) la essenzialissima Ubuntu.
Installo tutto da Synaptic, per poter avere un log di tutte le dipendenze installate di volta in volta, in modo da poterle eliminare insieme al programma in caso di malfunzionamento
Step2 - I fondamentali:
Fonts: msttcorefonts
Compilare: build-essential
Posta: Thunderbird
Sistema: partimage, checkinstall, language-support-it
Java: gcjwebplugin (non funziona!) oppure icedtea: jre e plugin (ok)
Flash: flashplugin-nonfree, libflashsupport
(http://www.ubuntu1501.com/2008/06/play-video-audio-while-playing-flash.html)
padevchooser → fotte tutto!!! pare che ne' alsa ne' pulseaudio funzionino: devo usare OSS in pref/sound
pulseaudio fallisce cosi': audiotestsrc wave=sine freq=512 ! audioconvert ! audioresample ! gconfaudiosink: Failed to connect stream: Invalid argument
idem alsa e CS46xx (scheda Hercules Game Theater XP)
Ntfs: ntfs-config per abilitare/disabilitare scrittura su ntfs
Multimedia: vlc, DVD95, gthumb (da usare al posto di fspot), doppio click su un .mp3 e installazione gstreamer ffmpeg e extra plugins
Compiz: pref/appearance/visual effect à per abilitare effetti (compizconfig-settings-manager)
Repo: aggiungere medibuntu
Codecs: w64codecs, libdvdcss2
Internet: aMule
update e reboot
2ore circa, 46.7GB free
Step2b: Partimage di installazione base (root, boot). Root ~2.8GB
Step3 - Utili:
Software complessi o con molte dipendenze, che potrebbero appesantire il sistema o renderlo instabile.
Li installo uno per volta.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=766683
Exaile (al posto di amarok) (c’e’ bisogno anche di python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 per abilitare lyrics e guitar tablature)
Dvd::rip
EasyTag (o exfalso)
WinFF (e’ 32 bit! Richiede ia32-libs) (converte video da un formato a un altro)
cd ~/Desktop && sudo dpkg --force-architecture -i winff.deb
HandbrakeCLI (http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=5410459&postcount=54)
Step3b - Utili, II parte :http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=766683
Multimedia, codecs, falsh e Java
sudo apt-get remove gnash gnash-common libflash-mozplugin libflashsupport mozilla-plugin-gnash swfdec-mozilla && sudo apt-get install alsa-oss faac faad flashplugin-nonfree faad gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse ia32-libs icedtea-java7-jre icedtea-java7-plugin liblame0 non-free-codecs unrar
Ancora flash audio non funziona!!! --> http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=5465376&postcount=13
Download libflashsupport.so compilato con
http://ubuntuforums.org/attachment.p...6&d=1210377383
sudo apt-get install alsa-oss
sudo apt-get remove libflashsupport
cd ~/Desktop; gunzip libflashsupport.so.gz; sudo mv libflashsupport.so /usr/lib
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libflashsupport.so /usr/lib/firefox/plugins
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libflashsupport.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libflashsupport.so /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins
If you're running x86_64:
sudo cp /usr/lib/libflashsupport.so /usr/lib32/
ora flash funziona!!!!
unrar
htop
lm-sensors
(Tovid) Devede, avidemux
Google Earth
Dizionario Ita-Eng: vocabulary.aioe.org in Applicazioni -> Accessori -> Dizionario
Ubuntustudio-video (--> openmovieeditor, kino, jack, imagemagik)
Mplayer (installato come dipendenza di openmovieeditor)
Monday, October 1, 2007
TV-out su Radeon Mobility M7 (7500)
Nel passato, con Mepis (e XFree86) funzionava (male) con atitvout.
Qui con xorg non sembra funzionare.
Ho trovato queste istruzioni, pero'.
E anche queste.
Ci devo provare.
c'e' poi un tipo sul forum di pclinuxos che ha fatto cosi':
Ran XFdrake:
Selected "ATI Radeon (fglrx)"
Answered YES to "proprietary" driver prompt
Took defaults for the card options / startup:
Graphic card options ____________________
|*| 3D hardware acceleration
| | Enable Translucency (Composite extension)
Graphical interface at startup ____________________
|*| Automatically start the graphical interface (Xorg) upon booting
Selected generic monitor 800x600 @ 60 Hz 24bpp.
Ran startx
The desktop came up on the TV, monitor went black.
Opened up a Konsole session and everything locked up.
I then booted back into text mode and ran XFdrake again and unchecked the "3D hardware acceleration" and rebooted.
The display came up on the TV and everything seems to work ok (no lockups so far).
I also ran the "/usr/X11R6/bin/fireglcontrolpanel" and selected clone mode for the 2 displays. After restarting X, both the
TV & the monitor were active.
When I get time I'll experiment some more and try to load MythTV, but right now I'm pretty impressed with GBPVR.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Recently tested distro
Sidux Gaia
Debian Sid, KDE, very recent Kernel, nice tools for TV and nice scripts and customization scripts.
Menu is confused, too many applications.
Nice way to approach a "pure" debian.
Also 64bit.
Klikit alpha
Very nice look, needs at least 192MB RAM in the virtualbox and it's still slow.
Kubuntu Feisty based, KDE, one-clik install, kooldock, to be tested deeper, but it's very promising and user friendly.
Too much "Ubuntu", though.
Still I prefer PCLOS, which is very easy to use for the beginner but also powerful and complete.
I'll keep a close eye on it.
SAM
PCLinuxOS, XFCE with Beryl, nice, cool, light and complete.
Wolvix 1.1.0
Slackware, XFCE, very light but complete.
Very nice for a light vitual linux.
64Studio
Gnome, very, very good distro for music. It introduced me to Rosegarden and Jack.
Yet it's pretty simple (as a distribution, software is tough!). Much better than the other distros I've tried in this field (ubuntu studio, dynabolic. musix still to test) and its pure 64bit. A i686 version is available too.
Dreamlinux and Vectorlinux
Only opened in VMware (which is too slow on my pc) thanks to bagside and his appliances.
Not liked much. Nothing distinctive at my quick look.
LinuxMint Cassandra
Ubuntu Feisty, Gnome, very nice look (much much better than Ubuntu).
Ready to use and simple. Most of the missing things in Ubuntu are readily available here. Not only the proprietary/closed source stuff (maybe philosophically not acceptable, but often very useful) but also amarok, among others.
Should I reinstall an Ubuntu-like gnome distro I might really consider to install Mint instead of the "original" Ubuntu.
Even more appealing is the KDE version, which I'll test soon.
With PCLOS (and klikit), Mint is to me the "best" distro for beginners or ex-windows users.
My Preferred Distro
Still, so far, my top distro depending on the environment:
KDE: PCLinuxOS 2007
Gnome: LinuxMint Cassandra
XFCE: Wolvix and SAM
USB drive: DamnSmallLinux, Puppy 2.15, Slax Killbill (depending on available size)
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
USB speakers
I think it might be a missing feature in KDE, more than a pclos issue.
The USB speakers are recognized as a different sound card.
In Gnome there's a nice setting were you just declare which soundcard is your default.
On boot it tries that card, if not present it falls back to the other card.
This works nicely with the USB speakers, just declearing those as the default card.
There are some annoyances when switching the speakers on and off, but it generally works.
Same feature is in Rhythmbox, if I'm not mistaken.
No way to find this in KDE or Amarok, though.
I've found an interesting post for Kubuntu, but should work on pclos as well.
Re: switching between USB speakers and PCI sound card
open a shell and type
asoundconf list |
In my case, I have
CK8S
UART
Headset
Since I know that CK8S is my on-board sound card and the headset is - A HEADSET, then I can create switches for each:
First new text file, write:
#! /bin/sh -f
sudo asoundconf set-default-card (your main soundcard - no brackets)
so mine looks like this:
#! /bin/sh -f sudo asoundconf set-default-card CK8S |
Congrats, now you have two cool looking icons (Ubuntu Dapper) that do
nothing whatsoever! Just kidding, go ahead and right click on each of
them. Goto properties and then permissions. Under owner, check off the
Execute option. Then click the close button at the bottom.
OK, are you ready? Click on the one for your headset - boom, it will
ask you how you wish to run this. Choose "in the terminal" and then
enter the password - you just changed the default sound card without
needing to hack the .conf file manually.
From here on out, just click as you wish to toggle between the two. You
may not have to enter the password each time, it's a timed sort of
deal.
If using to toggle media in a browser, you will need to close the
browser with each new toggle. With on the desktop media files however,
you will need to close whatever program you were using for the same
affect.
In addition, this also seems to clean up sound issues that are assigned
in Skype. In short, once assigned the settings in Skype are not staying
set.
__________________
Last edited by ctsdownloads : January 3rd, 2007 at 09:27 AM.
Monday, July 9, 2007
PCLinuxOS 2007 installation
jul 09, 2007
tot install time ~20min
tot personalization so far <2h00
The notebook:
IBM ThinkPad T40
CPU intel pentium M 1300MHz
RAM 512MB
HF fujitsu 100GB
Sound max integrated digital audio from Analog Devices
video: ATI mobility radeon 7500 (32MB shared memory)
modem: agere system AC'97
infrared, LAN, 2 USB 1.1, docking station
BASE INSTALL
partitioning scheme:
hda1 (/winXP not automounted, ntfs) (85GB)
hda2 /boot ext3 (100MB)
hda3 /media/scambio fat32 (2GB)
hda5 /media/important ext3 (1GB)
hda6 / ext3 (11GB)
hda5 swap (1GB)
Keyboard: UK
Time zone: Europe/Rome
after base install: ~2.5GB used space
TV card Dazzle not recognized, wireless PCMCIA Belkin Mimo not recognized
kernel: 2.6.18-8 (i586)
Feeling after first install:
It's very nice and very fast, compared to all other distros I've tested (including different flavours of Ubuntu, Sabayon, Mandriva...). I like the way of organizing the start menu, very clean and essential, even though it might be tricky to find something such as the Beryl manager which is very well hidden in the hyerarchy...
I've loved the search area seen firstly in Sabayon, also present now in Ubuntu, Mint and some others. I'd like to see it here as well. I'll install Kerry, maybe there's some option there to add it in the start menu.
mp3 audio works out of the box.
ntfs can be read with no hassle and fat32 partition can be written --> no need to play around with fstab, first time in my decade-long linux experience.
a very useful menu in ubuntu is the places menu, with all the mounted partitions immediately visible. I prefer this way then going through the places/storage group. the menu way is faster and cleaner. I'd like to see tha same in pclos.
Beryl doesn't start immediatly or doesn't ask to start. that's a pity, for a new user might not know that beryl/compiz does exist and will be left with the impression that pclos does not support all the beautiful desktop effects.
the way sabayon manages this is very nice: at the first boot (also in the live CD) the user is prompt with the question of wich (if any) acceleration is preferred: AIGLX, XGL, nothing. pclos can do the same and ask for beryl, compiz or nothing and suggest where to find the beryl manager application in the menus.
PERSONALIZATION
WiFi: setup through control center/wireless/ndiswrapper.
inf file used: netani.inf from netgear wpnt511 driver
--> network working very fine and fast (WEP-WPA not tested)
No connection status icon found --> added to panel by adding the network applet.
This in turn has started the usual monitor with the link strength and net switch possibility.
In the preferences of this monitor I've selected "start on startup".
Installed through synaptics (in different sessions):
note: no need to change or add respositories, everything works as it is.
1. gramps, kerry, libdvdcss2
2. aspell-it, locales-it, mozilla-firefox-it, mozilla-thunderbird-it, myspell-it_IT, myspell-thes-it_IT, openoffice.org-l10n-it (with OOo upgrade to 2.2.1-1)
3. timidity++, easytag, gcompris, gcompris-sounds-it, rosegarden
4. googleearth, kdegames-suite, ksudoku, skype, wesnoth
5. mercurial
6. lib-dvb
Fonts:
msttcorefonts is not in the repository.
peering through the pclos control panel, I found an "install fonts" application, which includes an "import windows fonts" button. this retrievs the fonts from the existing windows installation (should be mounted). in 10min I have a full set of true type fonts to increase compatibility with microsoft applications.
btw, starting OOo (writer, in my test) takes some time, but not too long. the second time it starts, though, it's really fast, much faster than I've seen in other distributions. I don't know what made the trick, maybe that package openoffice.org-ooqstart that I've seen during the upgrade of OOo
Beryl:
started through the Beryl manager icon hidden in the menus.
beryl works very fine, fast and really really smooth.
I've switched to compiz, but this has some small imperfections, such as the top border of the window is completely transparent.
also, there was no way to switch from compiz to anything else (beryl or kde).
I had to restart the X server (CTRL+backspace) to exit compiz.
porbably the switching among window managers should be more carefully checked by the developers/testers.
another plus for pclos: I've been used to switch off beryl when trying to watch a video or even sometimes when opening OOo document. instead pclos lets me watch video (or dvd) and open documents without switching off beryl and with no apparent performance loss.
DVD play:
with the libdvdcss installed, dvd plays well with the default player, though mplayer gives better results as for rendering and smoothness. mplayer should be the default for DVD play.
I haven't checked, but I believe DMA is automatically enabled on the DVD, for it spins fast and the video is smooth.
TV tuner "Dazzle TV Hybrid Stick":
followed the french howto at http://doc.ubuntu-fr.org/pctv_hybrid_pro_stick.
"build-essentials" and "linux-headers" are not present in the repositories.
Nevermind, though: I've seen that gcc is already installed and also the headers. (note: this is very unusual but very welcome. most of the users do not need to compile anything, but it's always annoying that headers and compilers are not installed as default).
I had to install mercurial with synaptics.
dvb-utils and libxine-extracodecs are also not present.
don't know what dvb-utils does, so I've installed lib-dvb, hoping it's the same with a different name. xine codecs seem to be already installed as well.
(note: sudo does not work, I had to use su instead. I'll need to check how to enable sudo).
I've used firmware_v3.
the directory "/lib/firmware/`uname -r` " does not exist in pclos. I've unpacked the file in /lib/firmware/ instead.
after restarting the machine, the modprobe commands did succeed but em2880-dvb. don't know why.
dmesg did show the correct info.
still need to add the modules to modprobe.preload (not to /etc/modules): I want to understand the em2880-dvb first.
TV tuner testing:
the hardware installer in the control panel still did not found anything (maybe I need a reboot with automatic load of the modules at boot?).
tvtime also didn't show anything (but I don't know this software, first-time user...).
kaffeine instead not only did find the TV stick, but also completed the channel scan, found loads of channels and played very well, fast and smooth the dvb channels. (so, what does the -dvb module do?).
to me seems faster and better than the original pinnacle software for winxp bundled to the stick.
overall, it took much lower effort and gave better results the installation on pclos than on winXP (need to get the XP2...).
I didn't succed with sabayon on the same task. I haven't tested ubuntu with the stick, anyway, I was delighted with the results on pclos.
next:
I need to test most of the SW I've installed so far, especially gcompris, rosegarden, wesnoth, skype and OOo/win compatibility.
openwengo is not available in the rep. need to find it.
