Archive for the 'Software' Category

Upgrade Ubuntu Feisty Fawn, plus ATI and Compiz

I decided to upgrade from Ubuntu Edgy Eft to Feisty Fawn. First impression is good. I had only to reconfigure VMware Server. There’s also some disturbing property in Gaim 2.0beta6; it’s still downloading old Gmail friends list. But new feature, mail notification, is very cool, so no harm done :-).

To upgrade your Ubuntu distribution type (in terminal):

sudo update-manager -c -d

Click here and there, wait a bit of time (mine upgrade took about 2h, with downloading). Important thing is to answer some questions whether to keep or overwrite configuration files of some services. Usually it is better to keep your old confs. And thats it! How do you like your new operating system? :-)

With ATI/Compiz it took me some time to get it all working. First I followed some tutorials. But it only messed with my xorg.conf. So I loaded oldest conf (from first installation I think) and started from scratch.

Step-by-step (or better cmd-after-cmd :-)):

Just in case:

sudo modprobe -r fglrx

Then:

sudo apt-get remove xorg-driver-fglrx

You probably already have it, but:

sudo apt-get install libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri

OK, now edit your xorg.conf:

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Find Section “Device”, and edit, so it look like this:

Section "Device"
Identifier "ATI Technologies, Inc. RV350 AS [Radeon 9600]"
Driver "radeon"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps"
Option "AGPMode" "4"
Option "AGPFastWrite" "true"
Option "DisableGLXRootClipping" "true"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "true"
Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"
Option "EnablePageFlip" "true"
EndSection

Yeah, I know I mentioned in other post that I have 9550 but I’ve done some kinky tweaks on my graphic card and it’s now 9600 (rv350), even PRO :-).

In Section “Screen” I’ve left only one resolution, It’s good choice for me, because I never change it. My LCD gives best view on max resolution, wich is 1280×1024.

There are two more things to do. In Section “ServerLayout” add this line:

Option "AIGLX" "true"

From what I know it has to be on top of other entries in this section.

And the last step is to add two more sections:

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

Instead of Enable you can put 1 (one).To make the changes take effect, you have to restart your X server. Do this by rebooting your computer or simply by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Backspace.

Voila!

Now you should go to System->Preferences->Desktop Effects and enable Composite manager (Compiz by default). You can try and play with more feature-based Beryl, but I do, really, not recommend it. It’s highly unstable. Maybe with Nvidia cards it works better, but if you have ATI – stay away.

Optionally add some compiz packages through Synaptic.

TIP! I encountered a very annoying problem after first enabling Compiz. I’ve lost my left mouse button functinality, LOL! It was really funny when I tried to click something and all I could get was another screenshot#.png file on my desktop. It wasn’t hard to google answer. It is reported on launchpad.net under Bug #90918. Quick how-to:
Open gconf-editor, and navigate to apps/compiz/plugins/screenshot/allscreens/options. Disable initiate_button.

Uff. Have a nice day.

Ping… ping… ping…

I’ve found first version of the Ping program. Originally written by Mike Muuse in one night. Complete source is available below. It’s codded up in really ancient style (but it’s still C), so I had some troubles in understanding couple of lines. What’s interesting it does not compile on my ubuntu box.

Continue reading ‘Ping… ping… ping…’

Haha from Microsofts OneCare

This is really ONE care :-). Users are reporting that virus scanner deletes main Outlook file: OUTLOOK.PST. This happens if you receive infected email. OneCare just deletes whole PST file without noticing that is just a container for every information stored in Outlook. More fun is that both, Outlook and OneCare, are by Microsoft…

Source: BetaNews

Composite managers

After some attempts trying to run Beryl or Compiz I gave up. They are so unstable that I had to restart X server many time during one session.
I tried both fglrx and open drivers. Xgl was slowing down system with 100% CPU usage when BMP was playing (!). And so on.

I’ve followed many step-by-step guides and nothing work to at least call it fine. Well, I wish good luck to the dev teams. They surely need it.

First Open Source Professional Virtualization Tool

Wow, what a greate news! VirtualBox is the first real professional tool available with source codes. It’s licensed under GNU GPL, and can be downloaded here, through SVN. Build instructions available.

———-

Co za wspaniała wiadomość! VirtualBox to pierwsze profesjonalne narzędzie do wirtualizacji dostępne z kodem źródłowym. Udostępnione jest na zasadach licencji GNU GPL. Można pobrać źródła przez SVN stąd. Dostępna jest także instrukcja kompilacji.

VMware under ubuntu linux

Installer is really simple. More difficult can be obtaining archive :-). First of all register to get your free serial number(s). Go to the VMware download server page; click on download; accept EULA, and choose VMware Server for Linux archive. Save to disk; untar (replace * with version and build number, eg.: VMware-server-1.0.1-29996.tar.gz):

tar xvzf VMware-server*.tar.gz

then

cd vmware-server-distrib/

and

sudo ./vmware-install.pl

Answer lots of questions and you’re done. Same goes for the VMware player.

What interesting is that VMware works faster hosting Windows XP Professional  that WXPPRO hosting Ubuntu.

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Inster jest bardzo prosty. Trudniejsze wydaje się zdobycie paczki. Najpierw zarejestruje się żeby dostać darmowy numer seryjny produktu. Przejdź do strony pobierania serwera VMware; kliknij na download; zaakceptuj umowę, i wybierz archiwum VMware Server for Linux. Zapisz na dysk; rozpakuje (zamień * wersją i numerem kompilacji, np.: VMware-server-1.0.1-29996.tar.gz):

tar xvzf VMware-server*.tar.gz

potem

cd vmware-server-distrib/

i

sudo ./vmware-install.pl

Odpowiedz na dużą liczbę pytań instalera i po wszystkim. Taka sama procedura dotyczy VMware playera.

Co ciekawe, to że VMware szybciej działa pod ubuntu hostując Windows XP Professional niż WXPPRO hostujący Ubuntu.

Speex

While working on a project for my digital signal processing class I run into very interesting project: Speex. It’s a codec designed for speech compression, with Internet in mind. That’s why it’s great solution for VoIP services. API is easy in use and it gives a lot of signal configuration options. Moreover Speex is free, open and has a future. It surely won’t be handy when it comes to music compression, because it’s to lossy.

For those interested in communication technologies i recommend codec comparison and some samples to listen to. For programmers: Speex manual and Speex API Reference.

———-

Podczas pracy nad projektem na zajęcia z cyfrowego przetwarzania sygnałów natknąłem się na bardzo ciekawy projekt: Speex. To kodek zaprojektowany do kompresji mowy, z uwzględnieniem potrzeb internetu. Dlatego jest to świetne rozwiązanie dla uslug typu VoIP. API jest proste w użyciu i daje duże możliwości konfiguracji parametrów sygnału. Do tego Speex jest darmowy, otwarty i ma przyszłość. Na pewno nie nada się do kompresji muzyki, bo najprościej w świecie jest zbyt stratny.

Osoby zainteresowane rozwojem technologii komunikacyjnych zachęcam do przejrzenia zestawienia kodeków oraz posłuchania próbek. A programistom polecę: Speex manual i Speex API Reference.