Slashdot Mirror

How's the PulseAudio decision working out so far? I've run into lots of PulseAudio problems in Fedora (which enabled it by default in Fedora 8), so its a little bit surprising that Ubuntu has decided to enable PulseAudio by default. Personally, I don't think PulseAudio is yet ready for mainstream use, so I'm wondering what the justification for this decision was.

I know this is kind of off topic, but we've been working really hard to get our project included in Ubuntu universe, so I thought I would mention it. If you are into Python and Glade you should checkout Gladex. We're even a Featured Project on Launchpad.net! Gladex isn't in the Ubuntu or Debian repositories yet, but we do have a PPA going of an alpha release. Alternatively, you can download the stable packages directly.

Gladex is a Python application which takes a .glade file created in the Glade User Interface Builder and generates code in Perl, Python, or Ruby. The generated code uses libglade to draw a GUI and is not raw pygtk code (support via a plugin is in development). Support for additional languages can be added through the plugin API.

I know this is kind of off topic, but we've been working really hard to get our project included in Ubuntu universe, so I thought I would mention it. If you are into Python and Glade you should checkout Gladex. We're even a Featured Project on Launchpad.net! Gladex isn't in the Ubuntu or Debian repositories yet, but we do have a PPA going of an alpha release. Alternatively, you can download the stable packages directly.

Gladex is a Python application which takes a .glade file created in the Glade User Interface Builder and generates code in Perl, Python, or Ruby. The generated code uses libglade to draw a GUI and is not raw pygtk code (support via a plugin is in development). Support for additional languages can be added through the plugin API.

I know this is kind of off topic, but we've been working really hard to get our project included in Ubuntu universe, so I thought I would mention it. If you are into Python and Glade you should checkout Gladex. We're even a Featured Project on Launchpad.net! Gladex isn't in the Ubuntu or Debian repositories yet, but we do have a PPA going of an alpha release. Alternatively, you can download the stable packages directly.

Gladex is a Python application which takes a .glade file created in the Glade User Interface Builder and generates code in Perl, Python, or Ruby. The generated code uses libglade to draw a GUI and is not raw pygtk code (support via a plugin is in development). Support for additional languages can be added through the plugin API.

I know this is kind of off topic, but we've been working really hard to get our project included in Ubuntu universe, so I thought I would mention it. If you are into Python and Glade you should checkout Gladex. We're even a Featured Project on Launchpad.net! Gladex isn't in the Ubuntu or Debian repositories yet, but we do have a PPA going of an alpha release. Alternatively, you can download the stable packages directly.

Gladex is a Python application which takes a .glade file created in the Glade User Interface Builder and generates code in Perl, Python, or Ruby. The generated code uses libglade to draw a GUI and is not raw pygtk code (support via a plugin is in development). Support for additional languages can be added through the plugin API.

You don't have the Estonian language pack installed, do you??? :-) https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/129749Ubuntu Bug 129749 discusses the issue (although I understand yours is on OSX . . .)

There are a few bug reports I found whilst Googling and also looking in Google Groups. Some IceWeasel Bug ID #400704 commentary points to not having a home page defined; one user said defining the home page to be "about:blank" fixed it. More promisingly (I think) is that under about:config, there is an entry called browser.sessionstore.enabled. Try checking it and turn it on if it's off. http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.support.firefox/browse_thread/thread/4b9ba0eb24229c34/d4a1b0188a9e17ac?hl=en&lnk=st&q=firefox+%22recently+closed+tabs%22+(%22grayed%22+OR+%22greyed%22)#d4a1b0188a9e17ac

Just a guess . . . since I haven't experienced it myself.

By creating a new user (seperate from your existing one) you will rule out personal settings / extensions in your profile entirely as a cause of the problem. Probably best to file a bug report over on bugs.launchpad.net if you want to see whether you can get help fixing this. My personal suspcion is that your issue will linger through updates until the cause is found though.

I only use Linux as a desktop OS. I don't know much about the implications of this particular benchmark, but I care a lot about the current schedule work, for the simple fact that they have been causing me problems for my desktop use.

It is planned for the LTS version in beta now, Hardy Heron. So your wish should get granted :).

Good to see that more than me wants this -> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/knetworkmanager/+bug/133814

It's currently second on the list. =)

I don't think we'd make it into GSoC, but if you are into Python and Glade you should checkout Gladex. We're even a Featured Project on Launchpad.net! Gladex isn't in the Ubuntu or Debian repositories yet, but we do have a PPA going of an alpha release. Alternatively, you can download the stable packages directly.

Gladex is a Python application which takes a .glade file created in the Glade User Interface Builder and generates code in Perl, Python, or Ruby. The generated code uses libglade to draw a GUI and is not raw pygtk code (support via a plugin is in development). Support for additional languages can be added through the plugin API.

I don't think we'd make it into GSoC, but if you are into Python and Glade you should checkout Gladex. We're even a Featured Project on Launchpad.net! Gladex isn't in the Ubuntu or Debian repositories yet, but we do have a PPA going of an alpha release. Alternatively, you can download the stable packages directly.

Gladex is a Python application which takes a .glade file created in the Glade User Interface Builder and generates code in Perl, Python, or Ruby. The generated code uses libglade to draw a GUI and is not raw pygtk code (support via a plugin is in development). Support for additional languages can be added through the plugin API.

I don't think we'd make it into GSoC, but if you are into Python and Glade you should checkout Gladex. We're even a Featured Project on Launchpad.net! Gladex isn't in the Ubuntu or Debian repositories yet, but we do have a PPA going of an alpha release. Alternatively, you can download the stable packages directly.

Gladex is a Python application which takes a .glade file created in the Glade User Interface Builder and generates code in Perl, Python, or Ruby. The generated code uses libglade to draw a GUI and is not raw pygtk code (support via a plugin is in development). Support for additional languages can be added through the plugin API.

I don't think we'd make it into GSoC, but if you are into Python and Glade you should checkout Gladex. We're even a Featured Project on Launchpad.net! Gladex isn't in the Ubuntu or Debian repositories yet, but we do have a PPA going of an alpha release. Alternatively, you can download the stable packages directly.

Gladex is a Python application which takes a .glade file created in the Glade User Interface Builder and generates code in Perl, Python, or Ruby. The generated code uses libglade to draw a GUI and is not raw pygtk code (support via a plugin is in development). Support for additional languages can be added through the plugin API.

You should be able to do this with xrandr. Don't blame X, blame Ubuntu for not making this obvious.

I can confirm that exploit caused 2.6.20.3 kernel on a server that I maintain to become unstable and eventually hang (and before that happened, exploit crashed with segmentation fault but did not run a shell). I have installed a 2.6.24 kernel with patches mentioned in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.22/+bug/190587 , and the problem disappeared, exploit harmlessly exits.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.22/+bug/190587

It's confirmed on some Ubuntu versions, and it works on my Ubuntu Gutsy (7.10) kernel (2.6.22-14).

Anyone have bets as to how long before a significant program of widespread use is broken

Application compatibility, too, improves significantly with SP1. While this area includes consumer-oriented applications, incompatible enterprise applications were the big deployment blockers over the past year. In the past year, Microsoft and its partners have remediated over 150 enterprise application blockers: These are applications that previously prevented one or more corporations from upgrading to Vista.

Beyond that, has there been any actual basis showing that SP1 (of the testers) adds any form of significant performance enhancements?

Quoting https://help.launchpad.net/FAQ#head-34295746b9c12bbe42eee4a9bd5e2656306fd796:

=========
Is Launchpad Free Software/open source? If not, why not?

Like Sourceforge and Google Code Hosting Launchpad is not open source. Unlike those other services, we have committed to making Launchpad Free Software.

Launchpad exists not just to make development easier within projects, but also to encourage collaboration between projects. With Launchpad, distributors and upstream developers can share bug reports, translations, and code. Until there are standards and APIs that let standalone sites send these things to each other, having a single Launchpad instance is the most practical way of maximizing the collaboration that Launchpad is designed to achieve. It also helps in funding Launchpad development in the short term.

We have released the code for [WWW] CSCVS, which Launchpad uses to mirror CVS/Subversion trees to Bazaar. We also make many contributions to other Free Software components we use, including [WWW] Zope, [WWW] Bazaar, [WWW] SQLObject, and [WWW] Twisted.
=========

By the way, they can gladly send you Launchpad source if you sign NDA/non-compete.

...and while nobody is going to use its native interface, maybe we can use it to get rid of the Alsa Mess[tm] by burying it under a hopefully less messy stack of 5 userspace modules that may introduce 2 seconds of latency, but provide an emulated /dev/dsp on top! Sure, you have to run the OSS-using app under an obscure wrapper named "padsp", which probably means you'll have to run the whole X session under padsp and hope it doesn't crash too often, but oh well... :-P

The warning to not use alpha releases on production machines is a bit more severe this time. So watch out.

Snipped from the release notes:
Nautilus can behave erratically, especially in trash operations. Refrain from operating on valuable files with this version. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/185756

Well, yeah, I agree that it's marketing. My objection is that it's verging on the dishonest and that seems to permeate much of the enthusiasm behind Ubuntu. For instance their parent company Canonical still has not released the sourcecode to Launchpad! How absolutely hypocritical is that? A company which makes free use (as they should be able to) of FL/OSS software and then sits on top of the one thing which their developers did apparently create on their own. Do Ubuntu developers do anything besides tweak color palettes and write bullshit press releases which fail to give credit to the actual producers of the software which they parasitize? Other stuff not-coded-by-the-Canonical-parasites: NetworkManager, PolicyKit, the kernel, Nautilus, drivers, aptitude ...

The fix on this page works: https://bugs.launchpad.net/xine-lib/+bug/108453

In your config file put:
  engine.decoder_priorities.win32a:5
  engine.decoder_priorities.win32v:5

The Ubuntu folks are very interested in multi-language support, so I figure they would like to fix the bug. Have you let them know about the issue, if possible by including the document? It would be great if you could go to Launchpad and file a bug on evince.

if TV disappeared tomorrow, so would all your torrents.

There's a Firefox 3 repo for Ubuntu here.

PackageKit (slated for Fedora 9 it seems) and codecBuddy are based on the ideas first implemented in Ubuntu under the spec Easy Codec Installation, intended to generalize the idea. Redhat does great work, no doubt. ConsoleKit, Network Manager, etc, and I hope they can fix up Network Manager to have system-wide, user independent connection settings.

But lets not just up and declare that Ubuntu just steals credit. I don't think anyone is saying that Ubuntu wrote codec Buddy, but the features are similar enough.

Interestingly, there's a big debate on just this topic. The blueprint is Hardy-reducing-duplication. There's a strong movement (not including me) to remove Mono, Tomboy, and F-Spot from the Ubuntu default install and use Gnome Sticky Notes and GThumb, which are also included. There really seems to be a big anti-Mono movement out there.

I personally think that most of the fast, interesting work on Gnome apps is happening with Mono, so I don't want to see it removed, but that's just my opinion. Top 10 Improved Ubuntu Applications of 2007 from my blog talks a little about it. While this is officially self-promotion, there are no ads on my blog, so it doesn't make me any money.

I've proposed sandbox security templates:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/156693

Basically an app will announce what sort of template sandbox it would want to be run as, and a user will decide whether it's OK or not. If OK, the OS will enforce the sandbox.

If an app claims to be a "guest game/applet" AND requests that it be run likewise, it won't be able to do much.

Whereas if an app claims to be a "guest game/applet" but actually requests "Full System Privileges" (the OS/GUI should pop up the usual warnings) it should be a lot easier to educate people not to run that sort of stuff. "Fun Screensaver" requests "Full User privileges" e.g. rights to read/write your email, bookmarks, downloads, turn your microphone on, etc.

I think some people are already working on stuff like that. It's not easy to do, but I believe it is possible. Maybe Apple or Microsoft might be able to pull it off. Microsoft might not want to do it badly enough though.

AFAIK, that minimal X is the BulletproofX that Ubuntu was going to have.

In addition to the emulator approach and the LiveCD, someone runs a PPA on Launchpad with Sugar (the OLPC software and API) packages for Ubuntu Gutsy. https://launchpad.net/~jani/+archive And if you run Fedora, i'm pretty sure it would be child's play to get it running, since the OLPC is based on Fedora.

The reason for all this is described in these two bugs: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/88746 https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/85488 Known for more than a year. Nobody cared to fix it yet!

The reason for all this is described in these two bugs: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/88746 https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/85488 Known for more than a year. Nobody cared to fix it yet!

You're not lucky, after all.

Yeah, yeah... if you pull the quotes off the string then the search results you're talking about are returned. Sorry, I followed instructions, and searched for "Ubuntu destroys laptops"; not Ubuntu destroys laptops. Maybe if your instructions were more clear?

Besides, it's not an Ubuntu issue, or at least that's not what I got from the stuff you threw back at me. As a matter of fact, the first one looks a lot like user error ("I tried to install Ubuntu and it wiped my Windows partition, this linux stuff sucks"). Uhm... you repartitioned your drive, and you're mad that it blew away Windows?
Sucks to be you; Reading comprehension ftw.

The second link appears to be about some sort of hardware issue caused by hardware manufacturers or laptop BIOS creators.

On the other hand... It turns out that your kneejerk reaction may have been somewhat on-target. The issue described in the bug report in your second link (the "better description") seems to be a non-PEBKAC issue. Upon further research, I found this page (linked to by your second link, and actually the thread your second link is a part of - a much better source of information, I might add) has a lot of info on Ubuntu's aggressive power management settings causing laptop drives to load/unload every couple of minutes. That's a serious bug, and could theoretically reduce a laptop hard drive's life expectancy to less than 6 months. Looks like there are some workarounds and/or fixes available, but the out-of-the-box experience could be catastrophic. Guess I'll have to either recommend against Ubuntu on laptops in the future, or point people to the fix.

Ah, well... nothing is perfect. I'll be honest, here, I was all set to blast back with the "truth" about the situation, and blame the BIOS/hard drive manufacturers (based on your second link), but after reading the actual bug reports, it seems like this is, at the very least, an Ubuntu-fixable issue.

On the *other* other hand, it appears to only affects the machine if laptop mode is enabled and/or the machine can't determine if it's running on batteries, so I'm still going to use Ubuntu on my desktops. I just love it, it's so *shiny*.

In addition, the three items we've mentioned here appear, at first glance, to be 3 separate issues... although your second link is a part of the thread I linked to above, it is a poorly-informed response, with misleading information - unless you have the context it was ripped from.

Update (aka, thank you, preview button):
Upon checking my links (and getting pulled back into the thread on the bug report), I'll use your method of pulling one specific post out to illustrate my point, and cheer mightily for Ubuntu. Check out this post in the same thread.
Vista does it too! So there, nyaaah.

--
Disclaimer: I am a Windows(tm) technician and linux hobbyist. My employer has no connection to my linux rantings. My employer and our customers use Microsoft operating systems and office software. Any and/or all of my post(s) should be treated as suspect information without further verification.</tinfoilhat>

You're not lucky, after all.

Yeah, yeah... if you pull the quotes off the string then the search results you're talking about are returned. Sorry, I followed instructions, and searched for "Ubuntu destroys laptops"; not Ubuntu destroys laptops. Maybe if your instructions were more clear?

Besides, it's not an Ubuntu issue, or at least that's not what I got from the stuff you threw back at me. As a matter of fact, the first one looks a lot like user error ("I tried to install Ubuntu and it wiped my Windows partition, this linux stuff sucks"). Uhm... you repartitioned your drive, and you're mad that it blew away Windows?
Sucks to be you; Reading comprehension ftw.

The second link appears to be about some sort of hardware issue caused by hardware manufacturers or laptop BIOS creators.

On the other hand... It turns out that your kneejerk reaction may have been somewhat on-target. The issue described in the bug report in your second link (the "better description") seems to be a non-PEBKAC issue. Upon further research, I found this page (linked to by your second link, and actually the thread your second link is a part of - a much better source of information, I might add) has a lot of info on Ubuntu's aggressive power management settings causing laptop drives to load/unload every couple of minutes. That's a serious bug, and could theoretically reduce a laptop hard drive's life expectancy to less than 6 months. Looks like there are some workarounds and/or fixes available, but the out-of-the-box experience could be catastrophic. Guess I'll have to either recommend against Ubuntu on laptops in the future, or point people to the fix.

Ah, well... nothing is perfect. I'll be honest, here, I was all set to blast back with the "truth" about the situation, and blame the BIOS/hard drive manufacturers (based on your second link), but after reading the actual bug reports, it seems like this is, at the very least, an Ubuntu-fixable issue.

On the *other* other hand, it appears to only affects the machine if laptop mode is enabled and/or the machine can't determine if it's running on batteries, so I'm still going to use Ubuntu on my desktops. I just love it, it's so *shiny*.

In addition, the three items we've mentioned here appear, at first glance, to be 3 separate issues... although your second link is a part of the thread I linked to above, it is a poorly-informed response, with misleading information - unless you have the context it was ripped from.

Update (aka, thank you, preview button):
Upon checking my links (and getting pulled back into the thread on the bug report), I'll use your method of pulling one specific post out to illustrate my point, and cheer mightily for Ubuntu. Check out this post in the same thread.
Vista does it too! So there, nyaaah.

--
Disclaimer: I am a Windows(tm) technician and linux hobbyist. My employer has no connection to my linux rantings. My employer and our customers use Microsoft operating systems and office software. Any and/or all of my post(s) should be treated as suspect information without further verification.</tinfoilhat>

There are already good hash functions out there that don't share the basic design of SHA. I've been using whirlpool for applications where security is important. (Good old md5 is fine for applications that don't involve security.) The problem is getting these newer hash functions widely implemented. For instance, here is my request to get the perl Digest::Whirlpool module packaged for debian/ubuntu. Until better hashes are conveniently packaged, authors of applications actually have a disincentive to move to more secure hash functions.

Hear hear. I'd particularly like the regressions addressed - the latest upgrade broke my installation of Eclipse so I can't run Ant inside it

Yes, the workaround is to either download/install Eclipse manually or run Ant from the command-line, but it is annoying to see a basic feature still broken for weeks when it worked perfectly fine before.

I'm a big fan of Ubuntu. I don't want to see Ubuntu hurt because it's not Ubuntu who is setting these aggressive power management defaults.

Some background of the problem :

If your harddrive spins down and spins up again your Load_Cycle_Count increases by one. If your harddrive head parks and unparks again your Load_Cycle_Count increases by one.

You don't want your Load_Cycle_Count to increase too fast.

Harddrive manufacturers seem to claim most harddrives can handle at least 600.000 Load_Cycles but this is probably an average under ideal circumstances. My harddrive started to die slowly when at a Load_Cycle_Count of 200.000.

Ubuntu is NOT causing aggressive power management.

The following things might instead cause aggressive power management settings :

* your (laptop) harddrive firmware might have aggressive power management defaults (operating system independent)
* your (laptop) BIOS might set your harddrive to use aggressive power management (operating system independent)
* you might have enabled laptop-mode in /etc/default/acpi-support (disabled by default) which will set your harddrive to use aggressive power management

These aggressive power management settings are set by your BIOS or harddrive firmware. Windows and/or Mac OS X might be overriding these settings which might make Ubuntu look bad if Ubuntu doesn't override these settings.

Read here what Matthew Garret an experienced and well known Ubuntu Developer has said about this problem :
http://www.advogato.org/person/mjg59/diary/82.html

for more information see :
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/acpi-support/+bug/59695
http://ubuntudemon.wordpress.com/2007/10/30/ubuntu-is-not-causing-aggressive-power-management

Bug #1 in Ubuntu: Microsoft has a majority market share.

UAC is a primitive and crap security model after so many years and billions of dollars. All UAC does is allow Microsoft to shift more blame to the user, without actually helping the user.

With UAC, Joe Average has to do something similar to solving the halting problem. Sure you might be able to guess correctly in most cases, but why should you have to rely on guessing?

I am trying to get the Desktop and OS people to implement the following:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/156693

It's not what I call advanced, but I believe it could actually help people get things done more safely.

.haeger

The great thing about open source is that if you do a search such as "The greeter application" in a forum you'll get a quick answer on how to resolve issues you have.

Here are a few links I found for your problem.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=585899 - This guy suggests re-configuring X server.. since no one responded I assumed it worked
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gdm/+bug/48936 - There is a bug report about this here and lots of suggestions on how to fix it.

It has been exactly 6 days since Gutsy was released and it's great to see people working hard to fix your problem.

If that was a problem with Vista it would be an issue that wouldn't get fixed because it's an upgrade issue and you would most likely be forced to completely re-install your OS. That's why you should use Linux. Of course the choice is up to you. :)

.haeger

.haeger

.haeger

.haeger