Mostly smooth installation, I'd even say Ubuntu 10.04 was by far the easiest ever. My machine (a Thinkpad T60) is much faster than before, dual screen works out of the box and I even had sound right from the beginning (can you believe it?). Still, a couple of problems persisted:

1. System beep – Solved

My computer beeps when plugging the a/c in, when unplugging the power, when suspending and when waking up from sleep. What did work

1. The bios settings

What didn't work

1. muting alerts in System → Preferences → Sound
2. blacklisting speaker driver through adding blacklist pcspkr to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist suggested here and elsewhere
3. adding setterm -bfreq 0 to ~/.bashrc (suggested here).

2. Latex – Solved

2.1.: Kile

I downloaded kile 2.0 again and locked it in Synaptic (Package → Force Version).

2.2.: eepic

Error:

Solution: Removed \usepackage{eepic} from preamble

2.3.: Language Support

Error:

Solution: Download »texlive-lang-greek« (search for »LGR« in synaptic)

Also don't forget to install »texlive-lang-<yourlanguagehere>«

3. Trackpoint Scrolling on Thinkpad – Solved

Doesn't get boring, but at least easy thanks to thinkwiki.

4. Auto Lock Screen – Solved

Under System → Preferences → Screensaver disable »Lock screen when screensaver is active«.

5. Restricted Formats

Almost forgot to install the codecs https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats

I have phases in my work cycle, where I want to limit internet access to myself. Thus, I created a »work-user« and in the user's properties I unticked the boxes 

• Connect to internet using a modem
• Connect to wireless and ethernet networks
• Use modems

I thought that should do the trick, yet it didn't restrict internet access to this user. I tried various other things to deny access to network and web and finally found something useful at ubuntuusers.org (German):

create a file in /etc/init.d (filename doesn't matter)

sudo touch /etc/init.d/iptab-filter.sh

Open the file you created:

sudo gedit /etc/init.d/iptab-filter.sh

and paste the following code:

#!/bin/bash iptables -A OUTPUT -m owner --uid-owner USERNAME -j DROP

Replace USERNAME with the desired user's user name, save, close and run

ln -s /etc/init.d/iptab-filter.sh /etc/rc2.d/S99iptab-filter

Done.

Result:

The script that prevents user USERNAME to access the internet runs at start up, so user USERNAME is denied access to the tubez for good. 

I was somewhat flabberghasted when I found out my mobile phone (Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot) was unable to play .mp4, .flv, .avi and what else I tried. It refuses to play all video formats save .3gp.

I was unable to convert to this with avidemux. Google quickly told me that ffmpeg could do the trick. But being unfamiliar with bitrates and stuff I was happy indeed when I found Mobile Media Converter, which is a neat and lean GUI for ffmpeg (Mac, Linux and Win). It even sports convenient batch process via drag & drop. Have fun.

I couldn't resist, I did it again. Everything was working ok until Friday, so I thought I had to change that and went from 8.04LTS to 9.04. Here is my account.

All credit and gratefulness goes to the original posters, I merely repost in brevity in case something happens to the sources.

Home Encryption (Solved)

Something I long wanted to do because I know a few people with a few stolen laptops. Everywhere it says that 9.04 can encrypt your home folder. During install I didn't see an option like that although I went back a couple of times. Even Google only showed me how not to encrypt it until I found a home encryption tutorial. Basically install and

sudo apt-get install ecryptfs-utils

Then boot into recovery and

Hit ctrl+d

Data Encryption (Solved)

I installed truecrypt and just fumbled my way through to encrypting my data partition. Hope I won't forget my very strong password, though.

Scrolling with the track point (Solved)

I used to follow the Thinkwiki guide I once found at the ubuntu forums but now this »solution« solely produced funny behaviour on rebooting. The way to track point scrolling in Jaunty is creating the file mouse-wheel.fdi through

sudo gedit /etc/hal/fdi/policy/mouse-wheel.fdi

and then copying the following content into it:

Save, reboot, enjoy

Musik (Solved)

I am clearly not ready for Amarok 2 yet but there is no alternative. The way to go for me was use the old Amarok 1.4 in Jaunty:

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list.d/amarok.list

Paste

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/bogdanb/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/bogdanb/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

and

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com \ 0x1d7e9dd033e89ba781e32a24b9f1c432ae74ae63

Then

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get remove amarok
sudo apt-get install amarok14

Yakuake (Solved)

Yakuake suddenly was white text on black background, which I don't like. Morfeusz knows that Yakuake gets the background from konsole. So tweak konsole and pick that profile in Yakuake.

Sound (Partially Solved)

Strangely the volume buttons on my Thinkpad T60 and the ones on my external keyboard control two different volumes. So a few grey hairs and some broken items later I pumped up both volumes. In between I followed the sound solution guide. Don't know whether it did good or harm. Skype settings are HDA Intel (in), pulse (out), pulse (ringing)

Still no sound in Gmail, though.

Kile (solved)

Kile 2.1 no dynamic word wrap? Come. On. Switched back to 2.0 following the hints of the Random Thoughts.

Graphics (solved)

3D rendering was practically non existent after upgrading, Desktop effects that previously ran smooth as baby skin no jerked and jumped all over. Also, media software crashed (kaffeine, vlc, totem) when I opened a movie file and had the virtual Desktop set to something larger than 2048px width. Help comes from here:

1. Reverting Jaunty Intel Driver
2. Troubleshooting Intel graphics performance issues
3. Ubuntu 9.04: New Intel Graphics Drivers

Flash (Not Solved)

Some videos are working, some aren't. But I am not alone.

I have an external harddrive. This is where my backup goes. Suddenly it bacame read-only. I had this all-of-a-sudden read only problem once before, so I find it's time to share the solution.

The external drive is FAT 32, because I need access from Linux, Windows and Mac machines, so neither chmod nor chown works. Here is what works:

1. Determine the mount point through

   mount

   mine is /dev/sdf1

2. Unmount the volume
3. sudo fsck /dev/sdf1 -a
4. Remount

Thanks to this, it fixed it for me.

I feared it, but I had to do it. I finally switched from ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) to Hardy Heron (8.04). I was happy enough with the Gibbon, but there were two main reasons for swapping: a) 8.04 is an

• Dual Screen

  Seems much easier now (less uneasy than on 7.10 anyway). With the i810 driver I could just specify the external screen and it worked out of the box. But the i810 doesn't support desktop effects, so I replaced it with the intel Experimental modsetting driver. I had to edit xorg.config

  sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

  and change Virtual 1024 768 to Virtual 2048 768. I also added "2048x768@60" to »Modes« section. Logged off and on again, and it now even detects automatically if there is a second screen plugged in or not. The only thing is that the items on the panels are often a bloody mess when booting after plugging the external screen in or out.

• LaTeX

  funny, but letterspace.sty causes trouble now. When I run it with \usepackage{letterspace} I get

  [LaTeX] finished with exit status 1
  /usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/latex/microtype/letterspace.sty:237:Undefined control sequence.
  
  \MT@ProcessOptionsWithKV{MT}
  
  /usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/latex/microtype/letterspace.sty:237:Missing \begin{document}.
  
  \MT@ProcessOptionsWithKV{MT}
  
  /usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/latex/microtype/letterspace.sty:237:Undefined control sequence.
  
  \MT@ProcessOptionsWithKV{MT}
  
  /usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/latex/microtype/letterspace.sty:237:Undefined control sequence.
  
  \MT@ProcessOptionsWithKV{MT}
  
  /usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/latex/microtype/letterspace.sty:237:Undefined control sequence.
  
  \MT@ProcessOptionsWithKV{MT}

  Other than that: fine

• Evolution

  Beautiful. I used Evolution's backup tool before I erased 7.10 and on opening Evolution for the first time in 8.04 was promted with the question whether I wanted to import settings. I did and everything was good.

• Suspend/Hibernate

  It suspends alright, but it won't wake up from sleeping again. I just see an underscore blinking in the top left corner.

  I tried sasha's suggestions on kalaj.org: 

  sudo gedit /etc/default/acpi-support

  and set

  POST_VIDEO=false
  RADEON_LIGHT=true
  ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE=true

  However, after doing this, my panels were gone and they only came back after reverting to the original settings and rebooting. I'll have another fiddle with it and maybe I'll also try the suspension script at thinkwiki.
  I haven't tried a hibernation yet.

• The Printer

  My old Samsung ML-1410 (same make as ML-1510) worked straight out of the box. No more unified driver hassle.

• Skype

  I had to do the Mic-thing again. The camera image didn't split anymore on the one call I made, but I can only see the buttons when not receiving a video. Hmmm.

• Trash on Data Partition

  As I have dual boot set up, I have a data partition formatted in fat32. When I try to move stuff to the trash from there it said »Cannot move files to trash«.
  Thankfully I was not alone and with noyanc's help I solved it in no time:

  sudo gedit /etc/fstab

  Add
  

  uid=1000,gid=1000

  as options to the partition's fstab entry. Create a directory named ».Trash-1000« in the partition's root. Reboot. Done.

• Sound

  I had some twitches:
  Sometimes Amarok and Kaffeine played, I would hear sound of .mp3, .flv and .vob files in VLC. But then I didn't get the »ping« of a new chat message in Gmail and Skype says there is a sound problem.
  At other times Amarok and Kaffeine hang and then crash. VLC progression indicator is moving forwards but I have no sound. But then I could hear the gmail ping. I couldn't hear sound of .flv in VLC but could hear sound on a random youtube video.
  Thanks to cozmicharly I solved it following the ubuntugeek. I did the flash thing mentioned in the comments and had to set skype to »pulse«. Several TeX-Packages were removed on nspluginwrapper, but so far LaTeX still runs fine. Hm.

Want to install MS true type fonts? Solution first, then rant.

1. Solution:

sudo nautilus

copy fonts to

/home/USER/.fonts

where USER is your username, chmod if necessary, done.

Thank you, ubuntublog.

2. Rant

I needed two Windows fonts for a project I'm currently working on. I had tried

sudo nautilus

and copying them to

fonts:///

They didn't show, so I tried to copy them again. Nautilus said, they were already there. I still couldn't see, let alone use them. I thought it was easiest to boot windows, create the image and go back to ubuntu with the file.

No. Windows chooses to install ALL my fucking peripherals each time I boot: mouse, keyboard, webcam, external harddrive and usb hub. Would not be so bad if they had one window popping up saying something like:

Disovered mouse, keyboard, webcam, external harddrive and usb hub. Want to install them all/none/some?

But it's not called Window, it's calles Windows. So I need at least four clicks in four windows for each item. It sucks. Big time. Hateithateithateit. So, thanks ubuntu, for making almost everything and life easier.

I bought a webcam. I wanted to do the right thing. I checked for compatibility first. I got the »Logitech Quickcam Deluxe for Notebooks«. Alas! Logitech apparently changed something, as my ID does not read »046d:08a9« as stated in the compatibility list but »046d:09c1« instead (Note: I could not determine the ID from the outside of the package. Only when I plugged it in and had a look at the Skype settings I saw it to be different).

It did work out of the box with Skype, but after 10-13 seconds the lower half or lower third of the image froze and went into a loop. Have a look at noobin's screenshot to see what I mean. Luckily I was not the only one with that problem. I followed bschlarman's suggestion and updated the driver following the UVC help page.

I just did everything they say plus reboot (logging out and on again was not enough) and I'm sending a good, complete, steady image now. Thank you.

The only trouble is that now I can either see »Myself view« with a crooked image from the other party or see the other party's image with no »Myself view«.

update

I can see everything just fine now, only I have to redo all above steps each time there is a new skype version.

I always found that Synaptic Package Manager's list of available packages for GnomeSword has been a bit short in Ubuntu. Thanks to Eric Fleming I now know how to change the highly selective variety of modules Ubuntu provides:

1. Change the Source
   Open GnomeSword, go to → Edit → Module Manager. Here pick »SWORD«, then »Configure«. Change the source from »local« to »remote« and then click »Refresh«.
2. Install a shitload of Modules
   Still in the Module Manager, under »Modules« pick »Install«. You should now see an extensive, exhaustive list of biblical texts, commentaries, dictionaries, and general books available in GnomeSword. Just tick the ones you want, click »install«, wait, close the module manager and you'll have enough to read for many a cold winter's evening.

[This is merely a reworded and slightly amended version of Fleming's guide at associated content.]

Update 13.3.2008: For reasons irrelevant to this post I was forced to move my laptop into another room. I didn't want to take my external screen with me, so I thought I'd dump the i810-driver for the time I was exiled and go back to the intel driver in order to enjoy desktop effects again. When I went back to ThinkWiki's page on Intel Media Accelerator 950, I was surprised. It seems that something happened to the intel-driver, because now dual screens are mentioned extensively under the intel driver. Here is what I found out:

1. About i810

i810-driver does allow desktop effects, but only as long as you don't connect an external screen.

2. About how to switch drivers

You can GUI-switch between drivers at System → Administration → Screens and Graphics → Graphics card. It took some attempts until it stuck to the intel driver, but once it did, nice things were ahead

3. About how to use dual screen with the intel driver

Both thinkwiki and Intel have pretty straightforward instructions.

I am scared shitless of xorg.conf, so I went for the xrandr variant. I typed

xrandr --output VGA --left-of LVDS

in a terminal and – sure enough – had an error message:

xrandr: screen cannot be larger than 1024x768 (desired size 2048x768)

So I still had to edit xorg.conf. In a terminal type

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Search for Virtual 1024 768 and change it to Virtual 2048 768 (or whatever you need)

Log off and on again, type xrandr --output VGA --left-of LVDS once more and you should be as happy as I am.

The only thing people might consider a disadvantage using the xrandr way is that you have to run xrandr --output VGA --left-of LVDS each time you log on or restart. I consider it as an advantage, because the way I had it before, I sometimes had programmes open on an unconnected external screen (when I forgot to bring it to the library for instance). Also, you can add a custom launcher to a panel and do it with a click.

And there is one thing a bit funny. That's the panels. By default they appear on the external screen. I prefer them on the inbuild one. When I drag them over, sometimes items switch from horizontal to vertical, the window list disappears and the desktop switcher doesn't show which desktop I'm using. I found it helps when you move the panels to the side of the screen and then back to bottom or top of the screen.

Update 26.8.2008: I had quite some fuss a while ago. After experimenting with a different screen I had a strange area, 22px in height, at the top of the screen. All movement of objects that passed through this area left a trace. I got so annoyed that I built a stand for the external monitor to go above the inbuilt one, but I had a sore neck all the time. Today I put it next to the other screen again and later I changed the desktop background. After which the annoying bit is gone. Even after changing it back to the old background.

Update 27.8.2008: Rubbish. It doesn't have to do with the background. It's the panels. I have one at the top and one at the bottom of the screen. I put them both to the top, logged out and on again and toggled dual screen mode. Sure enough, now the funny area had a height of 44px. So to get rid of it, I have to put both panels to the bottom before toggling dual screen mode. Afterwards I can put the panels wherever I want. Quite annoying but at least my shoulders don't get sore.

There's not much to say on Buetooth save: Read this.

If you own a SonyEricsson: Read this. And for a Thinkpad go here.

Should you decide to add a new user, and should you decide that the new user should be able to hear, see and access things, make sure you tick the relevant boxes. Either → System → Administration → Users and Groups → select the user in question → Properties → User Privilieges or

and then select the user in question → Properties → User Privilieges

Thanks to kirtimaan_bkn

You can connect to the internet through Firefox? You can't convince synaptic package manager (ubuntu) or YaST (openSUSE) to update due to a timeout? Maybe you use a DLINK Router? Then probably Wille Faler has something rather helpful to offer when he recommends OpenDNS!

Update: I don't understand the stuff I did, but I know this: After I followed the instructions at OpenDNS, I had something like »no such device« on

Still, everything worked fine until after a reboot. Then the network manager applet freaked and my wireless connection didn't work any more. I would see the two dots indicating nm trying to connect, but the whooshy thing going round in between the two dots froze before I could even say »huh?«. Also, network-settings took its time before showing. I could see the frame of the window instantly, but the content would only show after maybe five minutes.

1. I removed 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220
2. $ sudo cp /etc/resolv.conf.auto /etc/resolv.conf
3. $ sudo gedit /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf
   
   remove
   
   prepend domain-name-servers 208.67.222.222,208.67.220.220;
4. reboot

You can't imagine how surprised I was, when after that I could not only connect through Firefox etc., but I could also still connect through synaptic. Again, I don't have the faintest idea what I did there, but I won't touch it as long as it works.

A piece of luck came my way, and I invested it into a new notebook. The new notebook shipped with XP preinstalled and as I feared without an XP-Cd.

I had various small issues to solve before I could kick off:

1. Resize Partition:
   The 80 GB were devided into 5GB for something I don't know at the end and 75 for XP at the beginning. You can use Gparted (System -> Administration) on the Ubuntu Live CD to resize the 75 GB. Make sure you either don't boot into XP at all before using Gparted, or if you do, shut it down properly. When I first switched on my machine, I wasn't fast enough with the live CD, so XP started booting and I panicked and pulled the plug. Don't.
2. New partitions
   After resizing XP's lair to 15 GB and having the 5 mysterious GB at the end, I still needed three other partitions: one for ubuntu, one for swap and one for data. No matter what I did to devide the 70 GB up, as soon as I had specified th 4th partition, the remaining space was marked as "unusable".
   Apparently one can only have four primary partitions, so I made my swap a logical one after a glance at the forum.

• Chmod
  I chmodded a little bit too fast. This forum entry prevented me from reinstalling my entire system after I had changed sudoers-permissions to 777 (which one apparently wants to avoid)
  ...and I did it again. This time I set my whole home/user directory to 777. No good. home/user wants to be 755 and ~/.dmrc wants to be 644.
• Fancy (Translucent) Terminal
  Want a terminal that beams down from the top of your screen when you hit a key (and beams up again when you hit the key again)?
  
  $ sudo apt-get install yakuake
  If you want it to be translucent, you'll need compiz fusion. If you have compiz fusion, go to System → Preferences → Advanced Desktop Effects Settings → General Options → Opacity Settings → Add
  For »Opacity Windows« type title=^Yakuake and play around with the degree of transparency.
  The ^ in title=^Yakuake is a regular expression meaning »begins with«. If you use title=Yakuake instead, the opacity settings will apply to every window that has »Yakuake« anywhere in its title, like a browser window after a Google search for »Yakuake« for instance. More general information on compiz settings and more information on window matching  at CompizWiki.
  To start Yakuake on  boot,  System → Preferences → Sessions → Startup Programs → Add → command: yakuake, the rest (name, description) is up to you.

Finally, after one and a half years of hassle, of swearing, cursing, weeping, of begging, pleading and throwing tantrums I succeeded: Ubuntu finally connects to the internet without a wire! Yee-ha!

I tried all sorts of stuff, the breakthrough came from wieman01's HOWTO: RT2500, etc. wireless cards

It worked for both the Belkin Wireless G F5D7010 ver6000uk (I used rt61.inf from the windows cd) and the Dlink DWL-G122 H/W Ver C1 usb dongle (get the driver here, unzip the file and use dr71WU.inf in

/D-Link DWL-G122.B1V2.04 G122.C1V3.10 Build 60719 S0012/Drivers).

I blacklisted all drivers mentioned in the howto, and Feisty does not freeze any more when I insert my belkin card.

• Windows/Linux:
  One Profile to bind them all
  Update: The article doesn't seem to be available any more. Anyway, after setting up a dual boot machine for someone else, I came up with another solution. Just copy the complete profile to a location, which is accessible through both operating systems. Then edit profiles.ini for both operating systems to point to this location. The original one looks like this (where the »bla« in path is some random string):
  

  [General]
  StartWithLastProfile=1

  [Profile0]
  Name=default
  IsRelative=1
  Path=bla.default

  
  Change it to:
  

  [General]
  StartWithLastProfile=1

  [Profile0]
  Name=default
  IsRelative=0
  Path=your/absolute/path/bla.default

  
  This way you don't even have to backup your bookmarks, add-ons, skins, etc. and you only have to setup everything once. And the same technique works for Thunderbird, too.

• Connection speed/accessibility
  Could not access Google and a few other pages at first (the others mostly due to Google Ads or Analytics). Disabling IPv6 in Firefox fixed it:
  Type about:config in the firefox address bar
  Now ipv6 in the filter
  You should be seeing network.dns.disableIPv6
  Change the value false value to true.
  Close down firefox and restart it.

I had a terrible week, first trying to upgrade to ubuntu's Gutsy Gibbon; then trying a clean install twice, then installing openSUSE and finally reinstalling Feisty Fawn (twice). I did not receive much help from the community, neither here nor here, but that is not what I want to say. I want to say this:

For a backup or migration of Evolution, follow the instructions Migrate Evolution to new Computer. I had a bit of trouble at import, so here is what I did:

1. Never start Evolution on the new system
2. Follow the migration instructions carefully
3. Open a terminal:
   
   sudo chmod -R 777 ~/.evolution
   sudo chmod -R 777 ~/.gconf/apps/evolution
   sudo chmod -R 777 ~/.gnome2_private/Evolution
4. Open Evolution for the first time
5. Create an account with correct username and stuff – I didn't see any of my mail and nothing of my folder structure yet
6. Click on »Mail« – I saw my mail, and the folder structure

I had a lot of trouble because without the chmodding evolution would only fire up as sudo.
When I clicked on the desktop clock the panel went berserk and had some of the icons (battery & network for instance) dance a polka, chmodding ended this dance.
Update (27.11.07): Just did it the second time, successfully. This time I also obeyed my own instructions and was happy after step iv.

Troubleshooting

If anything goes wrong and you want to start from scratch, a reinstallation through synaptic won't help. What does help brainwashing Evolution is:

1. In a terminal type
   
   gconftool-2 --shutdown
   evolution --force-shutdown
2. Now delete
   
   • ~/.evolution
   • ~/.gconf/apps/evolution
   • ~/.gnome2_private/Evolution

• texlive I switched to texlive. Packages seem to dwell in /usr/share/texmf/tex/latex. Don't forget
  sudo texhash
  to update the index after changing packages
• Packages
  That took a while. I tried various things. Nothing helped until I found this forum entry.
  Strangely it only works if I keep the complete MiKTeX package repository (.../Programme/TeX/MikTeX/MiKTeX 2.5/tex/latex) in two directories at the same time:
  1. /usr/share/texmf-tetex/tex/latex
  2. HOME/texmf/tex
  I'll fumble with that, because it seems only pgf is causing problems and Kile insisting on having the whole repository twice does appears a bit odd to me.
• teT_EX
  Guide from Cambridge University
• KDE spell check under gnome
  TuXFaTHeR knows how to do it...knew how to do it. Site seems to be offline, recovered the how-to from google's cache. Hope Tuxfather doesn't mind me providing it here for the time being.
• Internationalisation
  Trying to convert my documents from ISO to utf-8 because somebody said this would make the spell check work. Open terminal and type
  iconv --from-code=ISO-8859-1 --to-code=UTF-8 ./filename.xxx > ./newfilename.xxx
  (Command via Kriyayoga Love Blog)

Drivers

I use Samsung's ML-1410 (which apparently is identical to ML-1510 but just got renamed for a Saturn marketing scam). I downloaded the unified drivers from Samsung (they have (or had anyway) a funny flash thing going that covers half the page for me – including the link to the driver.
In case this is happening, the .tar.gz should be accessible through this.
The path is: home → support → download centre → select model → driver (hard to spot due to blue text on grey background) → linux.
I had some problems installing the drivers (I went for the wrong file all the time), the breakthrough came from here. For me it was sufficient to perform steps one to three.

Update: For gutsy (ubuntu 7.10) also do

• Lack of Automatisation
  Neither Automatix nor Easy Ubuntu are working, so I have to load everything manually. I use this list.
  Don't forget the w32-section (when it's legal in your country). Get:
  
  1. w32codecs
  2. libdvdcss2
  3. libdvdnav4
  4. libdvdread3
• commandline dvd-backup:
dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -o /media/backup_path -M
Options are as follows:

-i device    where device is your dvd device
-v X	     where X is the amount of verbosity
-I           for information about the DVD
-o directory where directory is your backup target
-n name      (optional) set the title (useful if 
	     autodetect fails)
-M           backup the whole DVD
-F           backup the main feature of the DVD
-T X         backup title set X
-t X         backup title X
-s X         backup from chapter X
-e X         backup to chapter X
-a 0         to get aspect ratio 4:3 instead of
	     16:9 if both are present
-r {a,b,m}   select read error handling:
	     a=abort (default), b=skip block, 
	     m=skip multiple blocks
-h           print a brief usage message
-?           print a brief usage message

-i is mandatory
-o is mandatory except if you use -I
-a is option to the -F switch and has no effect 
 on other options
-s and -e should preferably be used together 
 with -t

(type dvdbackup to view them in the terminal)

• Mic:
  I could hear people, they couldn't hear me. Chances are good you find »Fixing the Errant Microphone« helpful. Credit apparently goes to Keneth P. Turvey.
• SMS:
  Skype development for Linux is unfortunately quite far behind compared to Mac and Windows. As of version 1.4 it is still not possible to send text messages from the GUI, but there is a way to do so nonetheless – which is quite handy if your mobile provider (O2) choose to charge texts to China with a ridiculous £ -.50 but at the same time choose to not deliver.
  A bloke called Vincent Oberle (who actually works for Skype) wrote a bit of Python script, so it is really easy, too (at least it was for me). Here is what to do:
  1. Download Skype for Linux >1.4 (works only with ubuntu 7.04 feisty, don't know about other Linux distributions; repository here)
  2. Download SkyTools0.3 from Mr. Oberle
  3. Unpack the skytools pack into a convenient directory. ~/skytools might be right.
  4. Open Skype
  5. Open a terminal and maneuver into the skytools directory (for me: cd ~/skytools)
  6. Type ./sk_send_sms.py PHONENUMBER Hello world
  7. Voilà.
  8. If it does not work, try again
  9. If it still does not work, try again.
  10. And again. 
  Works for me.

• I use scim for CJK input. It comes with the distribution, so it is already in place. However, setting it up is not quite self-explanatory. These two sites were specifically helpful: 1. help.ubuntu and 2. mrbass.

• Settings
  The fonts always look a bit odd, I find that for me the best setting is probably this:
  System > Preferences > Font > Details
  - Resolution: 83 dpi
  - Smoothing: greyscale
  - Hinting: slight
  - Subpixel order: RGB
• Smooth them
  There is a technique to make the fonts look much better. It is being described at  howtogeek.com and goes like this:
  
  gedit ~/.fonts.conf
  Paste in
  
  <?xml version="1.0″ ?>
  <!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
  <fontconfig>
  <match target="font">
  <edit name="autohint" mode="assign">
  <bool>true</bool>
  </edit>
  </match>
  </fontconfig>
  The problem with ubuntu 6.10 (edgy) was that after I did that, the fonts indeed looked a lot better, however, all the üs lacked their two dots, thus looking like us. Thus this doesn't seem like a real option for a German.
  
  ubuntuguide.org offers a similar solution. Only the text to be pasted is slightly different:
  
  <fontconfig>
  <match target=”font” >
  <edit name=”autohint” mode=”assign”>
  <bool>true</bool>
  </edit>
  </match>
  </fontconfig>
  
  
  I tried the second version (with the above settings) for 7.04 (feisty) and can't see the slightest difference. All Umlaute were still there, though.

This post is probably going to be of no interest whatsoever to most of the dear visitors at the Brasserie. However, some might find it helpful and it will be useful to me.

Some two weeks ago I did a clean install of ubuntu Feisty Fawn (the upgrade feature in Edgy Eft never worked). No problems at all &ndash; until yesterday.

It started with a strange message while booting. It read somewhat like this:
last write time in future - fixed

And then the real problem started: After logging on, my screen completely froze. Sometimes immediately after logging on, sometimes after a minute. The only button still working was the power switch when held down for five seconds. When I start in recovery mode, the critical part reads:

I googled for this, found several bug files, a handful of other people with the same problem, and finally came home with two suggestion. None of them worked.

1. System time/local time bug
   I didn't really understand the problem but people were saying that system time should be set to UTC in bios. There was no option "UTC", so I just googled for UTC and found it was actually an hour behind my local time. Tried it nonetheless, as expected without results.
2. fsck issues
   First suggestion: as root fsck -y in terminal. Got a scary warning so I aborted the mission
   Second suggestion:
   sudo gedit /etc/default/rcS
   then change FSCKFIX=no to FSCKFIX=yes.

After 11 am I did another boot and everything just worked fine. I followed the second suggestion from the fsck slot and changed FSCKFIX=no to FSCKFIX=yes. Worked until 4pm without a freeze. Did a reboot at around 6.30 pm without any problems. I noticed that the result of FSCKFIX=yes seems to be that my strange message now changed. Lines 1-3 are as above. Line 4 reads:

I am not 100% sure on the beginning of line 5, but it now does not simply end saying FIXED but

I thought that meant progress, but alas! when I booted this morning I was back to freezing. Only this time ubuntu allows me to work for five to fifteen minutes and then completely dies. On one occasion I shut down properly and after rebooting did not have the last write time in future-thing and thought maybe the power-button-business was not much appreciated and caused the problem. But shortly after logging on: Freeze!

However, while shutting down I briefly spotted two messages. Everything was very fast, so it is just what I remembered when I managed to grab pen and paper:

1. bogl init failed
2. screen ini failed

Now, I did more googeling and found several people with the same problem. The post »Finally Fixed My Feisty Freezes« seemed promising, but he solved through downgrading to Edgy Eft again.

Grumpymole has similar problems. There are two links to ubuntu forum threads in the comments.

• http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=412125
• http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=75281

Update: Grumpymole solved his problem by replacing his leaking motherboard. I do hope I have a different problem.

I browsed through a million forum posts following the above two links. All similar problems but still varying to a significant degree. One person fixed the problem by simply removing the wifi card. Did that, too. Problem solved for now. And thinking about it, I have indeed spotted some error messages concerning network manager on shutdown occasionally. I'll try running like this for a while and then, when the problem does not reoccur, I might (or might not) reinsert the card and see if I can reproduce the error. Hope this is fixed.

My checklist

Backup:

• run bckp.bash: This should take care of pretty much everything
• Home: Not much there except Skytools
• Evolution: already included in bckp.bash. Consider »File → Backup Settings« though
  Anything one could possibly want to know about Evolution (and Warren Buffet), Evolution's own backup tool, how to backup, backup script
  
• LaTeX: Packages (/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex)

Programmes to Fetch

• Opera
• scim (helpful: help.ubuntu and mrbass)
• Skype
• sound converter
• sound juicer
• svn
• texlive
• VLC
• Xampp
• Yakuake (for settings, see here)

Programmes I used to Fetch