A first look at Ubuntu Gutsy

I've been trying out Ubuntu's latest alpha-release: Gutsy Gibbon (7.10). You can find screenshots and a log of my experiences with Gutsy on my website.

Ubuntu Edgy

Ubuntu Edgy is now out. Release highlights include:

• Firefox 2.0... which isn't really a huge improvement over 1.5.
• a splash screen that doesn't work (at least for me)
• Xorg 7.1
  
• ATI drivers that are too old to work with Xorg 7.1 properly
  
• a compile of MPlayer that complains about its compilation options every time your run it
• more shades of brown and orange
• etc.
  

It also has up to date software, like Edgy isn't bad though, worth upgrading if you don't mind a few hours of hassle. It fixes a few pesky bugs in Dapper, like not being able to change the frequency of my CPU's second core through the GUI. And having the latest things is always nice.

Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper) on my Inspiron 6400

Ubuntu Dapper Drake is working very nicely on my new laptop. I had to install the ATI proprietary drivers manually as the ones in the repositories are too old to support my Radeon X1300. I have written some brief notes on how to setup Ubuntu on a Inspiron 6400. Now I can finally break my code on a true SMP machine :).

Freeview on Linux (v4l-dvb)

Up-to-date instructions for using a Freecom DVB-T USB stick on linux are now on my website.

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I recently ordered a Freecom DVB-T (freeview) USB2 stick. Getting it working on Windows XP was fairly easy but Ubuntu was a different matter. These instructions also allow you to install v4l-dvb on Ubuntu if you have a different adaptor (but then you'll need to find the right firmware yourself).

(These instructions are for the UK only and are followed at your own risk.)

Plug in the USB stick then enter these commands to the terminal:

sudo apt-get install dvb-utils mercurial build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)
hg clone http://linuxtv.org/hg/v4l-dvb
cd v4l-dvb
hg update -C 4501
make
sudo make install

# if you aren't using the same adaptor as me, omit the next 2 lines
wget http://thadathil.net:8000/dvb/fw/dvb-usb/dvb-usb-wt220u-fc03.fw
sudo cp dvb-usb-wt220u-fc03.fw /lib/firmware/$(uname -r)/

sudo reboot

Note: the hg update -C ensures that you use a version of v4l-dvb that I know works (some later revisions do not work for me). At your own peril, omit it and so use the latest version.
Your USB stick's LED should be amber upon restart meaning it's working but not tuned in. I'm using Kaffeine as my player - open it now.

kaffeine

It should detect you have DVB and copy some files into your home directory. Now close Kaffeine.
Then you need to find the name of the transmitter nearest to you using WolfBane. I'll assume you are closest to Rowridge.

cd ~/.kde/share/apps/kaffeine/dvb-t/
cp uk-Rowridge uk-OriginalRowridge
nano uk-Rowridge

Round the frequency to 3 significant figures, e.g.

# Rowridge, Isle of Wight
# T freq bw fec_hi fec_lo mod transmission-mode guard-interval hierarchy
T 490000000 8MHz 3/4 NONE QAM16 2k 1/32 NONE

Now start kaffeine again, select uk-Rowridge (if that's your transmitter) and tell it to scan for channels. Add the channels it finds, close the scanning window and pick a channel. Your USB stick's LED should be green.

And that's all there is to it.

Apt-proxy

I discovered apt-proxy today. Like a standard HTTP proxy, it caches files (packages) requested, but as it understands that what it's downloading is for apt, it can intelligently delete out of date packages. Since I've got Dapper installed on 3 PCs now, this should save me a fair bit of time and bandwidth. Apt-proxy is running well on my old 500 MHz server (which has Ubuntu Breezy on it).