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.haeger

.haeger

Click on System > Administration > Software Sources > Third-Party Software > Add the line from this post
Click on Applications > Add/Remove... > vm player
Put a checkmark in VMWare Player

1. Download vmware-package from debian(i386, amd64) and click on downloaded package to install using Gdebi (or use dpkg -i [downloaded file])
2. Download VMware player 2.0.1 (.tar)
3. Open up a terminal window, and type

   make-vmpkg -k -r sudo VMware-player-2.0.1-55017.i386.tar.gz

4. Install the .deb files generated by the above process (install in this order: vmware-lib, vmware-bin, vmware-kernel-modules, vmware-common, vmware-player).

Oh come on, Linux's thermal management isn't that bad, is it?

Actually, it is that bad. Ubuntu suffers from a nasty overheating bug since the 5.04 days which tends to bar a lot of people from doing regular, every day tasks just because they push the system a bit. I've been a loyal kubuntu user since day one (their KDE release cycle is second to none) but I've already saw a laptop go up in smoke thanks to that nasty problem.

So the comparisson with a toaster isn't all that out of order, specially if we are dealing with laptops.

Did you submit a bug on launchpad about that laptop giving the details of what your network card problem was? If not it won't get fixed. Ubuntu is mostly run by volunteers that depends on people like you to submit bug reports.

Also did you check the irc chatroom or forums out for help? I had one guy in the IRC room that couldn't get his webcam working on Ubuntu. After I did a quick search on the forums I found a post on how to get his hardware working and gave him the link. He thanked me and said it was now working.

Maybe not hardware makers, but I have noticed a lot more bug reports coming into launchpad from users with Dell hardware which feels like there is a Dell baby boom happening in the Ubuntu community.

While I agree with you that forking generally isn't good, at times it can possibly be a good thing. Take a look at XFree86/Xorg. Since the fork Xorg has had massive improvements, finally getting X to a modern state. Hopefully this fork will work on improving OOo, specifically in the GUI and speed areas (Novell, please at least copy Lotus Symphony's GUI or MS Office 2004 (OS X) but implement in native controls making use of system settings (it should follow my icon theme and font settings at least)). While I use OOo, it really doesn't seem as if Sun has much of a goal for it. The GUI isn't very intuitive, it still is horribly bloated, and overall it doesn't integrate with the system and looks hideous. Each new release doesn't seem to have any noticeable improvements over the previous. It just feels really stagnant. Hopefully this fork will have some direction and actually have a goal of competing with MS Office.

They really need a goal like this.

That's because of bug #1 unfortunately :)

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1

At the weekend I put out some code for a Series 60 GPS mapping application I've been writing: JohnJohn

Its in python, inspired by maemo-mapper + in its early stages, but already reasonably useful.

By default it uses openstreetmap.org as its source of maps, but you can configure it to use other repositories.

No documentation at all as yet, apart from the code, but hope to get a README out there soon.

Kudos to nokia here, I hope this shows the power of having phones you can write code for. Having python available on series60 is just the icing on the cake.

It's nice to know Blender is good, but on some PCs it doesn't work correctly, including mine: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/blender/+bug/109217
Maybe it's just an ATI driver problem, but I don't understand what kind of interface they are using so that it doesn't work at all while all kinds of 3D games and simple GTK/QT apps work well... :(

Yes, of course, "everyone" knows it is true. I'd like, just once, even one example of this.

Yes and I would like, just once, an example of the common myth that water is wet.

Yet, I am loathe to let you wallow in your ignorance, so I've done a quick search for you. I follow gnome development only from a distance, so I'm sure I've missed a lot here.

The menu editor, removed somewhere in the 2.x cycle, not replaced until years later: http://www.linux.com/articles/57088
Sawfish replaced with Metacity, losing tons of features/configurability. http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2002-December/msg00069.html
Galeon 1.2 replaced with Galeon 1.3, losing features, and then later replaced with Epiphany, losing more features.
http://wouterverhelst.livejournal.com/46098.html
xscreensaver replaced with gnome screensaver, which has no options at all https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-screensaver/+bug/22007

And an example where important features are intentionally not implemented for usability reasons:
https://lists.linux-foundation.org/pipermail/desktop_architects/2005-December/001587.html

There are many more, this list was just the product of a quick google search

1. It uses a more modern business model
   free software => free unlimited innovation possible
2. OpenOffice uses ODF which is a multi-platform ISO standard instead of that OOXML crap.
   => you can exchange documents between many different platforms.
3. It runs natively on GNU/Linux, Mac, Solaris, (soon FreeBSD) and many other systems, no need for e.g. Wine.
4. It can generate LaTeX, which is good when you want to make a professional publishing of your text.
5. OO can generate PDF natively even though I rarely use this option as the generated PDF files are too big.
   I use to print to PS and then run ps2pdf instead

There's a blueprint just for what your asking. I agree that you should be able to customize it more than you can now, but I guess that's in conflict with the Gnome philosophy. Personally I think it would be better to have an "off", "on", and "custom". If you set it to custom a bunch of checkboxes appear in the window for you to choose what you do or do not want enabled. Off would obviously be off, and On would be things like the expose emulator, genie minimize effect, graphically showing virtual desktop switches, and other similar simple effects.

My understanding is that userspace applications (like the gsynaptic utility) need the kernel driver to expose an additional api which they didn't for this particular model of touchpad because it wasn't recognized as a synaptics-compatible touchpad. So while a kernel change might not normally be needed to use something like gsynaptic, it was in this case. See this Ubuntu bug.

My laptop runs Ubuntu. I am however, a techie. In contrast with his complaints, I find my own touchpad undersensetive. This supports his assertion that there should be a configuration tool for this setting. If I go to System->Preferences->Mouse, I find three tabs: Buttons, Motion and Touchpad. None are very complicated menus, and almost all work. Even the handedness setting is smart about things, accepting both right and left click as toggle. I can certainly toggle edge scrolling and tap to click with it, which was part of his complaint.

One caveat: I'm currently running Gutsy, and I haven't tested his specific problem out of box. One thing that doesn't work, is the sensetivity setting. It isn't clear to me why this is the case. It's neither reported in xserver-xorg-input-synaptics or in gnome-control-center. I went ahead and filed the bug, but from the sound of it, it'll require a lot more than a two line patch to fix.

Certainly, the initial Dell release sounds rough, and I don't think many people are sitting around looking at every minor detail. Gutsy's an improvement, and hopefully Hardy will do great things to improve the little details. I imagine as a result Dell's going to be sticking an engineer on the task to fix as many Mossberg mentioned as possible. At least two of the bugs he highlighted don't have high-tech workarounds. They have rather simple steps that Dell or Ubuntu could do. Ubuntu chooses not to enable mp3 or dvds as they're committed to free and liberated software. But if Dell's worth its commercial salt they'll grab onto that void between consumer and producer and add in those packages. I do hope Mossburg lives up to his suggestion that he'll continue to watch Ubuntu, as I think it will improve greatly within a short time (as it already has!)

My laptop runs Ubuntu. I am however, a techie. In contrast with his complaints, I find my own touchpad undersensetive. This supports his assertion that there should be a configuration tool for this setting. If I go to System->Preferences->Mouse, I find three tabs: Buttons, Motion and Touchpad. None are very complicated menus, and almost all work. Even the handedness setting is smart about things, accepting both right and left click as toggle. I can certainly toggle edge scrolling and tap to click with it, which was part of his complaint.

One caveat: I'm currently running Gutsy, and I haven't tested his specific problem out of box. One thing that doesn't work, is the sensetivity setting. It isn't clear to me why this is the case. It's neither reported in xserver-xorg-input-synaptics or in gnome-control-center. I went ahead and filed the bug, but from the sound of it, it'll require a lot more than a two line patch to fix.

Certainly, the initial Dell release sounds rough, and I don't think many people are sitting around looking at every minor detail. Gutsy's an improvement, and hopefully Hardy will do great things to improve the little details. I imagine as a result Dell's going to be sticking an engineer on the task to fix as many Mossberg mentioned as possible. At least two of the bugs he highlighted don't have high-tech workarounds. They have rather simple steps that Dell or Ubuntu could do. Ubuntu chooses not to enable mp3 or dvds as they're committed to free and liberated software. But if Dell's worth its commercial salt they'll grab onto that void between consumer and producer and add in those packages. I do hope Mossburg lives up to his suggestion that he'll continue to watch Ubuntu, as I think it will improve greatly within a short time (as it already has!)

It has been known for a while. I saw in one post that it was slated to be included in a kernel upgrade, but someone accidentally overwrote it, or something to that effect.

C'est la vie.

That was the only problem. Everything else worked out of the box, with much better performance than Vista. Vista tended to reboot spontaneously, and its graphical effects were a real drag on the system. Or at least I imagine they were, it was pretty sluggish in general. That little dialog box asking for permission to do things very quickly overstayed its welcome.

What version of iTunes? Maybe it was iTunes 7 that broke DAAP sharing.

• Lupin, the loop-installer, handles everything that happens after you reboot
• Wubi, the Windows front-end, handles everything that happens before you reboot
• Lubi, the Linux front-end, does basically the same thing as Wubi
• lvpm, Loopmounted Virtual Partition Manager, handles the migration of virtual disks to real partitions

• Lupin, the loop-installer, handles everything that happens after you reboot
• Wubi, the Windows front-end, handles everything that happens before you reboot
• Lubi, the Linux front-end, does basically the same thing as Wubi
• lvpm, Loopmounted Virtual Partition Manager, handles the migration of virtual disks to real partitions

• Lupin, the loop-installer, handles everything that happens after you reboot
• Wubi, the Windows front-end, handles everything that happens before you reboot
• Lubi, the Linux front-end, does basically the same thing as Wubi
• lvpm, Loopmounted Virtual Partition Manager, handles the migration of virtual disks to real partitions

• Lupin, the loop-installer, handles everything that happens after you reboot
• Wubi, the Windows front-end, handles everything that happens before you reboot
• Lubi, the Linux front-end, does basically the same thing as Wubi
• lvpm, Loopmounted Virtual Partition Manager, handles the migration of virtual disks to real partitions

Yeah, xorg 7.3 / nvidia driver issue should be resolved soon... so opengl won't crash x with compiz.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-restricted-modules-2.6.22/+bug/130325

I bought an Intel 965 based motherboard for my new computer because Intel have open source drivers but I've been disappointed at the lack of progress with them.

Given that 3d multimedia desktops are the new sexy which all distros seem to be getting into I'm surprised that there doesn't seem to be much progress on getting it fixed on what is (as far as I am aware) the only open-driver supported 3d hardware available (at least until AMD release their 3d specs).

https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/96084

Oops! Your new IDE chipset doesn't have drivers in the kernel we made, so we're not able to mount the CD-ROM that you booted from! But just to make things more fun, you'll get an error message that gives you no clue to the problem!

Not to mention all the fun trying to get Ubuntu working properly with the D830's trackpad and not having random clicks from just scooting around the screen. I have never been impressed with GUIs under Linux... they always work fine on the hardware that the developers use, but need not just command-line fixes, but command-line + hours-of-googling fixes on the hardware that _I_ try to use.

FYI the D830 was for work, and I normally use OS X. It's bullshit like this (and that damn X-windows 3-button copy/paste) that keeps me on OS X. When I do use Linux, I stick to the command line. Only recently have I considered moving up from Slackware to Debian, and that's because I got hooked on apt-get in Fink.

Really? Graphics is the failure 100% of the time? Compared to my installation history across many systems, that is amazing.

Beyond the atypical odd-ball hardware which is reasonable, I typically have fundamental installation problems. I'm not the only one either.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/+bugs?field.search text=ubiquity&search=Search+Bug+Reports&field.scop e=all&field.scope.target=

Well, I'm not sure what the GP's printer is, but many of the Brother laser printers are Postscript printers. The problem isn't the printer, or CUPS, it is the way that printing is setup in Ubuntu. The config tools just don't setup the printer profiles correctly. I've found that if I bypass the printer config tool and just use the CUPS web-based tool, the printer works perfectly. Meanwhile, the last time I was playing around with Fedora, their printer config tool worked perfectly. This is really just an Ubuntu problem, although I'm not sure what exactly the problem is because I'm using the same Postscript driver with the same PPD for my printer no matter what.

I know a new printer config tool is in the works, but as far as I can tell it has been delayed through the last two releases, and it doesn't look like it will make it into Gutsy either. It seems there have been some hangups.

Hardy's doesn't have features listed yet. From TFA: "Everyone is welcome to think of and develop ideas for features that could be present in the Hardy Heron release." So it'll be a while before there is even a wishlist.

Gutsy's seem to be at the launchpad here. I see:
- free-flash
- mobile-kernel, mobile-app-framework and related packages, apparently for developing and using the same apps on mobile devices and desktop
-xorg7.3
-composite-by-default: Compositing window manager, (but still at drafting stage?)
- bullet-proof-x
- displayconfig-gtk: "We have got a configuration backend that is currently used in Kubuntu. The GTK frontend supports the basic functionality."
- restricted-manager-improvements:" should be able to detect hardware for which the required package is either not installed, or not enabled by default [...] with the above, should be able to offer facilities to help enable the hardware, for example detecting broadcom windows drivers installed alongside or placed on media somewhere, and cutting the firmware out of them"
- Virtual machine on CD: "Make it possible to run Ubuntu in a virtual machine when booting the desktop CD under Windows."
- write-support-for-ntfs

I don't see much that can't be done in Feisty, but I haven't been using it for long, so I might be missing something. The virtual machine on cd stuff looks very nice for showing people without even a reboot. It looks like improved hardware support, more facilities for the user (screen configuration, etc), some nice defaults (ntfs3g, beryl, etc) and so on.

If someone finds a better description, let me know.

Introducing the Hardy Heron
August 29th, 2007

I am delighted to have the pleasure of announcing the Hardy Heron (Ubuntu 8.04), the next version of Ubuntu that will succeed Gutsy Gibbon (Ubuntu 7.10, due for release in October 2007). Not only will the Ubuntu community continue to do what it does best, produce an easy-to-use, reliable, free software platform, but this release will proudly wear the badge of Long Term Support (LTS) and be supported with security updates for five years on the server and three years on the desktop. We look forward to releasing the Hardy Heron in April 2008.

With the opening of each new release cycle of Ubuntu, we have more and more opportunity at our fingertips. Not only are our friends in the upstream world constantly innovating and extending their applications and software, but the Ubuntu community continues to see incredible growth in its diverse range of areas such as packaging, development, documentation, quality assurance, translations, LoCo teams and more. Each new release gives us all an opportunity to shine, irrespective of which bricks in the project we are laying, and this is at the heart of our belief - working together to produce an Operating System that will empower its users and shape the IT industry, putting free software at the corner-stone of our direction.

Most people only ever see the end-user view of Ubuntu, running it on their desktops, servers and mobile devices around the world. For these users, Ubuntu provides a simple, convenient means to do what they want to do easily, effectively and without unnecessary complexity. For many of us though, we want to open up the hood and understand how the system works and how to extend and grow it. Thousands of us get out of bed every day, united behind Ubuntu, ready to make a difference, working together to make our vision happen.

Importantly, our ethos of collaboration and freedom extends to the development process as well as the end product. As such, the Ubuntu development process is a very open, transparent one, and anyone is welcome to get involved. It works like this:

        * Everyone is welcome to think of and develop ideas for features that could be present in the Hardy Heron release. These ideas are written as specifications (detailed documents outlining how the idea would work and be implemented). You are welcome to add your specifications to https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu.
        * In October 2007, we will hold the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and generate a schedule of sessions to discuss these specifications. The sessions provide a means for interested parties to help scope out the proposed feature and determine methods and plans to implement it. The Ubuntu Developer Summit is a semi-virtual event in which those who cannot attend can dial in with VoIP and use IRC and collaborative editing with Gobby to take part in the summit.

Everyone is welcome to participate, everyone is welcome to get involved, and everyone is welcome to help shape the form of the Hardy Heron. Let's work together to shake things up, make things happen and make the most compelling Ubuntu release yet. Start your engines...

According to this ubuntu bug report the ABI changed along with the schedules direct change, so you do need to update everything, not just one module. At least that's how I read it - I may be wrong.

On the first (a cheap Acer laptop) it complained about the wireless chip. No real options for the user, other than to get a new laptop. But it did work.

I'd like to see CUPS actually work printing to my IPP network printer.

I have one of those cards and actually found that Mandriva a fix for it when I went to GUADEC and was given a free Mandriva-loaded USB stick (I was so pleased I wrote this on the GNOME Love Wall http://flickr.com/photos/pvillavi/899547399/ ). I've filed a bug on Ubuntu here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/restrict ed-manager/+bug/130025 which should contain the options you need to put into xorg.conf on whatever distro you're on (most of them are probably redundant, but I don't have to time to go through disabling each line to see what is needed and what isn't). Wow, tech support on /., who woulda thunk it?

Why this information is not presented in the install itself

OEM installs are on the rise. Drivers are a problem, but not as big a problem as you make them out to be. Many drivers are available. They can just be hard to install without certain knowledge.

You're right about the kernel. And though I do think games are lacking, I think that problem would solve itself if everything else was right. And the UI? I'll get to that below...

I have tried linux about once a year for the last 5 or 6 years, and every time I do, I run into a problem -- it could be a driver problem, it could be an application -- that I spend several days trying to solve. Eventually I think "well, I could be doing something productive right now" and then I give up and go back to windows.

Now obviously this means I'm not an expert, and I don't claim to be. But I do have some credentials. I am familiar with software and hardware concepts, and I do read and follow instructions. I know most shell commands. My preferred unix text editor is vi. I know how to compile and install a linux program from source, and I have successfully recompiled a linux kernel. I've installed and configured a web server with apache, PHP, and mysql multiple times using just their configuration files. I'm certified by Digium in the installation and configuration of the Asterisk PBX and I've never used that on any platform but Linux and BSD. I can fix just about any problem on a Windows machine. And yet, the problems I run into on a linux desktop have always been just beyond my ability to fix in a reasonable amount of time.

This has always indicated to me that Linux is not ready for widespread desktop use.

At least, until recently. I can vouch for the fact that it really is getting better. On friday night I got fed up with Vista's slow file copying problems and performed my annual Linux installation ritual. I installed Ubuntu, which I'm using now. And I should note that this is the second time I've tried Ubuntu. I think I'm actually going to stick with it this time. I put that in bold to emphasize it because it means the number and severity of challenging problems I encountered this time is less than ever before. But the obstacles I did encounter were significant:

-> When I had my EIDE hard drive attached, linux would not boot. Even though I had been installing it on the same drive on which Windows was running, it just would not recognize that an operating system had been installed. And yes, my BIOS was configured to boot from the correct drive. I had to completely disconnect the old drive in my computer. I wasn't planning to use it anyway, but Linux gave no warnings that this might happen and no helpful errors; I had to figure it out on my own.

-> This bug prevented me from installing ATI's video drivers... at least until I found that page. Note that the driver does exist and is provided by the hardware manufacturer. I lacked the knowledge of which logs I should be looking at to find the errors I was getting. Eventually, I found them, googled the error message, found that thread, and blacklisted the modules it labeled as the culprits. But not until after I tried everything on at least a handful of other troubleshooting guides and rebooted dozens of times. As I said I'm not an expert, but there is no way an ordinary desktop user would have figured this problem out.

-> Once I had that working, I wanted to install Beryl because, as you say, Linux is not lacking in UI slickness, and Beryl is the package that makes it every bit as good as (if not better than) Vista and OSX. I did eventually get it installed and working, but in order to do so I had to disable my "universe" repository because the latest versions of Beryl in that repository are simply incompatible with fglrx. Now if I enable it again, it tells me they need to be updated, but if I let that happen, beryl stops working. Why? Who accepted this? Is there no way to at least have testing before th

I have an Atheros chipset wireless card which requires binary drivers to work. It does not work with VMware.

This is the Ubuntu bug report (note the length and number of duplicates) which actually breaks apt on installation, but it's not Ubuntu specific; you can't configure it manually with this wireless card either. The only solution is to disable networking virtualization, which means I can't even have VMware use my wired connection unless I disable the wireless card entirely or physically remove it from my system.

Was I seriously modded down for that? Mods, what the hell?

http://weblog.timaltman.com/node/834

Like the blogger says, there's basically no way to file a bug report with Microsoft short of using snail mail or paying for support. I've never been anything but impressed with the people I've met at Microsoft, but their customer service and QA staff must be completely out of their little minds. I went through the same hoops described in the blog post above when pointing out that Always On Top windows behaved in a glitchy manner when running a full-screen RDP session on multiple monitors - Got my bug report bounced back to me no less than 5 times through 5 different forms before I gave up and started using radmin.

Lord forbid they, like every sane and reasonable company out there, set up a real bug reporting page.

Here's a few with their installer:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubiquity [launchpad.net]

No. I mean *these* bugs:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-installer/+pack agebugs-search?field.distribution=ubuntu&field.sou rcepackagename=ubiquity&search=Search [launchpad.net]

This distro isn't ready for production equipment like Debian. Ubuntu is like AOL way back in the day. It's usefulness is limited and it's easy to out-grow. Try Debian if you get frustrated with AOL/Ubuntu.

Here's a few with their installer:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubiquity [launchpad.net]

No. I mean *these* bugs:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-installer/+pack agebugs-search?field.distribution=ubuntu&field.sou rcepackagename=ubiquity&search=Search [launchpad.net]

This distro isn't ready for production equipment like Debian. Ubuntu is like AOL way back in the day. It's usefulness is limited and it's easy to out-grow. Try Debian if you get frustrated with AOL/Ubuntu.

Ubuntu will accept your value, then it will begin the lengthy install process, and you'll be unable to boot. I couldn't get back into Ubuntu or Windows.

I'm sure that you have reported this in launchpad? By the way, what you are describing can maybe happen in the Alternate install CD, while most new users will use the Desktop install CD.

These fine 64bit computers use a 32bit version of Ubuntu. Why dont they use the 64bit version? Is it possible that the 64bit version of Ubuntu doesnt "Just Work" on the hardware it is designed to run on? With a way to fix Bug #1 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1) finally in their grasp, maybe the Ubuntu developers should shift focus onto the 64bit version and give a clear reason to choose Ubuntu over windows.

Since you've got quite the hefty list of complaints, would you please report them to the relevant website? Some of these issues may be known, and others might not be, so it would be very helpful for you to report them all. Thanks!

This is the dream. The reality is that upstream never uses launchpad. So all this beatiful integration is *just another bug racker*.

Check this out: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gramps/+ bug/120569
It will stay open forever, until upstream of gtkspell decides to fix it.

Is google down or what? https://launchpad.net/+about

I am waiting to see rosetta component (software translation tool) opensourced. There is a 'most wanted' feature that I guess will be implemented quickly as soon as rosetta code gets released:

Rosetta Bug #44,
"Translations should be searchable"
first reported on 2005-01-10

Today it completes exactly 2,5 years of waiting and nothing!

https://bugs.launchpad.net/rosetta/+bug/44

"Red Hat will, IMO, eventually make a deal with Microsoft, as will Canonical."

Not sure about Canonical doing this, look at bug #1 in their buglist:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1