My First taste of Linux! - My personal experience with a number of Linux distros and my quest to rid myself of proprietary software!

So I got my Linksys broadband router and it seems to work with my other WIFI enabled devices but not my MSI Laptop! Darn!

Here's what I'm doing so far...

1. I install the wifi tools for ubuntu

sudo apt-get install wireless-tools

2. Tried identifying what card I have

lspci

and got

04:09.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2561/RT61 rev B 802.11g

3. I tried checking with the wifi tools

iwconfig

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

ra1 RT61 Wireless ESSID:"DeatoWIFI" Nickname:""
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:1E:E5:48:47:77
Bit Rate=54 Mb/s
RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Link Quality=100/100 Signal level:-38 dBm Noise level:-79 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

ppp0 no wireless extensions.

I learned two things...

- That the wireless card on my laptop is using RT61 chipset driver
- That it is detecting the AP but I just need to make sure that the driver is properly installed.

Will play around with the config and will let you guys know what happens... :)

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Got myself a Linksys WRT54G broadband router... installed it and followed the directions and got it to work with the two SE P990i phones at home and the PSP but when I tried using it with my MSI Laptop running Ubuntu... it was detected but I can't seem to connect to it! Waaaaaaaaaaaah! Ok I'm over reacting again! I'll just do some research and hopefully I get to make it work. :)

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I got myself a Canon iP1800 and I must say I was really excited to use it. I know for a fact that Canon printers are not fully supported in Ubuntu but hey I got it for free from my credit card's rewards points so I had to make the most out of it.

I had to search the web and got a link where I downloaded the drivers for the printer. I'll post the website when I get home... I'm in the office now just blogging away! Hahaha! Anyway if you need the drivers just let me know and I'll email it to you. It's kinda big... 1.8 MB

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I'm posting this just in case I forget what I did to make my 3D effects work in Ubuntu 7.10 and Linux Mint with ATI Radeon Express 200M as my video card.

1. Make sure that the 3rd party driver for the video card is being used.
2. Go to /etc/X11 folder and run sudo gedit xorg.conf in the terminal
3. Make sure to change composit to enable from 0 as shown below:

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "enabled"
EndSection

from

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "0"
EndSection

4. Go to synaptic package manager and search for and install it
5. Also in synaptic package manager search and install compiz setting manager
6. Restart the computer
7. Lastly choose custom to enable the 3D effects under Appearance Preferences > Visual Effects

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I just replaced my Ubuntu with Linux Mint. It's also based on the Ubuntu Kernel so everything is almost the same but more elegant... as their tagline says: "From Freedom came Elegance"

Here's how it looks like...

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I've been wondering why Ubuntu's default CD extractor can't extract my music in mp3 format. I remembered... hey Ubuntu is a free software and mp3 is in a way a proprietary format just like AAC and WMV etc. Ok too techie for you? These are the common file extensions that Windows, Mac and other softwares use in labeling music files.

OGG a free music format is readily available but not all player are using it YET!

The thing to do at this point is to go to add/remove and choose all available applications and then look for Ubuntu Restricted Extras. This will enable Ubuntu to use mp3 and other formats not native to it. This option is not checked by default so you might wanna give it a try,

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I've been working on this issue for I think a month now and the problem is very intermittent. I even thought of changing my OS to Linux Mint 4.0 just to check if it will resolve my issue. I found numerous suggestions online and tried them.

The last thing that I did try, I think solved the problem but I'm still not sure.

What to do:

1. Go to the Administration > Software Sorces then choose Update and make sure that unsupported updates (gutsy) is checked.
2. Then open a terminal and type sudo apt-get install linux-backports-module-generic

I think the reason is because after doing this Ubuntu will download the necessary third party driver for the sound card which in my case is a sound blaster.

Will monitor my computer first for a few weeks and if the problem doesn't come back then I would assume it solved it!

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I went online today and checked if there are other users who are having the same concern. Here's what I got.

Check this out: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2252946

It says that I have to edit the Grub re bios sounds I guess.

Here's how to edit Grub: http://boff.wordpress.com/2007/01/17/editing-bootgrubmenulst-to-change-the-grub-boot-menu/

I will check it out when I get home and see if it resolves my problem.

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Here's a sample of what Ubuntu 7.10 can do with Compiz installed.
You can see how the video streaming directly from the internet still keeps on playing even with the animation / effects I'm running.

Let's see Windows Vista do that!

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I couldn't find much on the commands in Ubuntu for compiz, so I went searching.
Here is what I found and hope it helps others.

Credit: Website taken from.
Some commands to get you started, rember you can edit a lot through the gconf-editor.

o Switch windows = Alt+Tab
o Arrange and view all windows = Moving the pointer to the top right screen corner turns on or off; clicking a window will zoom it to the front
o Switch desktops on cube = Ctrl+Alt+Left/Right Arrow (or moving your mouse to the edge of your screen and rolling your mouse wheel)
o Switch desktops on cube with the active window following = Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Left/Right Arrow
o Rotate cube manually = Ctrl+Alt+Left-click and grab an empty desktop space.
o Make window translucent/opaque = Either with the “transset” utility or Alt+Mouse wheel (or right clicking on a window’s title bar, and selecting the settings from ‘Appearance’)
o Zoom in once = Super-key+Right-click
o Zoom in manually = Super-key+Mouse wheel up
o Zoom out manually = Super-key+Mouse wheel down
o Move window = Alt+Left-click
o Snap move window (will stick to borders) = Ctrl+Shift+Left-click
o Resize window = Alt+Right-click
o Bring up the window below the top window = Alt+Middle-click
o Slow-motion = Shift+F10
o Water = Hold Ctrl+Super key, and move mouse
o Rain = Shift-F9

Known Bug - Shift+Backspace equals logout
When you press shift and backspace, XGL will be terminated and you will be logged out, a temporary fix for this problem is entering the following in a terminal.

# xmodmap /usr/share/xmodmap/xmodmap.us (or your country code)

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I just upgraded to Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) from Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn). Ok so I was a little apprehensive upgrading to the newest version of Ubuntu because the last time I tried I had trouble with the sound driver. I just went online and tried to ugrade it last night... can't sleep... blame it to my crazy schedule. Anyway I did upgrade it and got the same problem but after restarting and changing the sound option to ALC883 Analog and disabling ESD I restarted and the problem went away. I'm still gonna monitor the system if there's any changes in a few more days. Hopefully everything works well.

I can't wait for the next LTS (Long Term Support) version 8.0 (Hardy Heron) due for release April 2008.

Btw to those who are not Ubuntu users and might be wondering what's the deal with these upgrades and what's an LTS. Let's just say that the upgrades are like service packs for your WIndows OS like in XP and Vista and the LTS is like when Microsoft or Mac introduced a totally different OS like Windows XP to Vista or Mac 9 to Mac OS X. Usually it takes 3 years for Ubuntu to release it's next LTS. The last one was Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake), was released on June 1, 2006.

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It's been three weeks now since I installed Ubuntu on my system. Everything seems to be working fine except when I tried upgrading it to 7.10 which I will discuss in detail in my next blog.

Anyway I downgraded it back to 7.04 and decided to just wait for the next LTS release schedule for April next year before upgrading again. Right now what I want to do is to install an IM software that will allow me to use my web camera when chatting. Sure GAIM and PIDGIN are both great especially if you have a lot of IM accounts like Yahoo, MSN, Google Talk, etc but they don't support web cam.

I stumbled upon this site that says this software called GYACHI supports web cam. Downloaded it and will try to install it when I get the chance to. Will let you guys know what happens after. :)

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I now have DSL connection at home via Bayan DSL... Yipeee! The tech who came over my place had a little hard time installing the DSL connection though. Having an old Mac G3 and my new MSI laptop running with Ubuntu, I can tell he was clueless. I guess he doesn't get that much installation requests on computers running Mac OS X and Ubuntu. The problem started when he asked me where the settings for PPPOE connection is. How the hell should I know? He's the expert right? Well after a few clicks here and there I was able to find the PPPOE connection settings on my Mac but can't find it on my Ubuntu.

I felt sorry for the tech since he really said he doesn't know anything about Ubuntu so I just said i'll try to figure it out myself. Anyway my internet is up on the Mac. So I went online and saw the command and I was surprised how easy it was. Apparently PPPOE is not automatically setup in Ubuntu. The steps are very easy... see for yourself.

Open up a terminal and type:

sudo pppoeconf

This will open a window that will guide you in setting up the connection. Make sure the cable is connected so it would be detected by your system.

One more thing...

If you want the connection to start at boot you will need to select that option when it is presented by "pppoeconf". If that doesn't work you will also need to

sudo gedit /etc/init.d/bootmisc.sh

before the final

: exit 0

Add the line

pon dsl-provider

Now, I ask you, what could possibly be more newb-friendly than that?

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I just bought a laptop a few days back and decided that I didn't want to spend money on software, particularly on my OS, especially now that there are alot of options out there. I then decided to try out Ubuntu. My friend Gerard suggested that I give it a try since it's free and available. He even told me that he got his copy by requesting thru their website http://www.ubuntu.com/ and got his CD after 3 weeks.

I went online and requested for a copy even though I wasn't sure if I will be using it or not. Sure enough I got the cds within 3 weeks and paid a Php50.00 for shipping. After a month... completely forgetting about the CD I went to the mall with Lucien and decided to buy a laptop (MSI) out of the blue.

I installed Ubuntu and I was surprised that it took me more time taking the computer out of the box that installing the OS. Sure Ubuntu looked plain and boring at first when I installed it but things are starting to look better now that I've been using it for 3 weeks or so.

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Followers

Archieve Blog

Ubuntu Support Sites

WIFI Problem

WIFI

Installing Canon iP1800 in Ubuntu

Composite extension not available

Linux Mint 4.0

Sound Juicer can't extract my CD in MP3 Format!

Looping sound in Ubuntu follow up

Solution to sound Issue with Ubuntu

Ubuntu 7.10 with compiz

XGL/Compiz commands

Upgrading to 7.10

Yahoo Web Cam in Ubuntu

Installing PPPOE in Ubuntu

Why blog about Ubuntu?

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