Meneer Jansen
July 15th, 2010, 08:10 PM
I'd like to share my experiences on installing the newest version of Ubuntu at the time of writing: ver. 10.04 "The Lucid Lynx". As you will know there are some teething probs. like there is with every thing that is new. (topic (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1469475)).
Old Nvidia card & Compiz
Out of the box it don't work. I removed as much Nividia nad Nouveau stuff as possible with Synaptic. I then installed only the Nvidia 96 driver. Simple.
To get Compiz and Xorg working optimally I added an "/etc/X11/xorg.conf" file. Xorg is said to work without one, but that is not true for old and exotic cards.
Section "ServerFlags"
Option "AllowMouseOpenFail"
EndSection
Section "Module"
Load "glx"
Load "dbe"
Load "v4l"
Load "freetype"
Load "type1"
Load "extmod"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Driver "kbd"
Identifier "Keyboard[0]"
Option "Protocol" "Standard"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Driver "mouse"
Identifier "Mouse[1]"
Option "Buttons" "7"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Name" "ImExPS/2 Logitech Explorer Mouse"
Option "Protocol" "explorerps/2"
Option "Vendor" "Sysp"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor[0]"
ModelName "Generic Monitor"
Option "DPMS"
HorizSync 30-70
VertRefresh 50-160
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen[0]"
Device "Device[0]"
Monitor "Monitor[0]"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "800x600" "1280x960" "1280x1024" "1280x800" "1152x864" "1280x768" "1024x768" "768x576" "640x480"
Virtual 1280 960
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "800x600" "1280x960" "1280x1024" "1280x800" "1152x864" "1280x768" "1024x768" "768x576" "640x480"
#Virtual screensize. Beware: physical screen size cannot be larger!
Virtual 1280 960
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Device[0]"
Option "NoLogo" "True"
BoardName "GeForce2 MX/MX 400"
BusID "1:0:0"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "CIOverlay"
Option "usevnc" "no"
Option "TVStandard" "PAL"
Option "TVOutFormat" "PAL"
#Option "NvAGP" "2"
#Option "NvAGP" "0"
#Option "NvAGP" "3"
#Option "NvAGP" "1"
Screen 0
VendorName "NVidia"
# For Compiz-Fusion? Shoud this be in another Section?
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
Option "DisableGLXRootClipping" "True"
EndSection
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout[all]"
InputDevice "Keyboard[0]" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse[1]" "CorePointer"
Option "Clone" "off"
Option "Xinerama" "off"
Screen "Screen[0]"
EndSection
Section "DRI"
Group "video"
Mode 0660
EndSection
Section "Extensions"
#For Compiz?
Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection
The options that do magic for Compiz are:
Section "Device"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
Option "DisableGLXRootClipping" "True"
EndSection
Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection
You may also want to remove your videocard from the black list.
TV card
My TV card is based on an saa7134 chip and works fine out of the box in Lucid. However, audio via the PCI bus so it can be captured by Alsa is broken. The saa7134 will not load. (I filed a bug (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/603536)). I can listen to TV via the jack output.
Sunbird/Lightning
I wanted a calendar/schedule in Thunderbird. The "official" pluging on Mozilla's site is supposed to work with Lucids Thunderb. version, but it don't. Luckily our beloved forum had the solution (topic (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1463762&highlight=lightning+lucid&page=2) and download link (http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/calendar/lightning/releases/1.0b1/linux-i686/)).
GDM2Setup and Ubuntutweak
These two apps are important if you want to change the way Lucid boots. See this site (http://myubuntublog.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/things-to-do-after-installing-lucid-lynx-10-04/) on how to install them. You can edit the loginscreen (GDM) with them too.
Bloody Plymouth, bootsplash, Grub etc.
Enough had been said about the all new but not improved way Lucid (and probably other Linuxes) boots. First there is Grub that does not show itself unless it is forced (http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/ubuntu-63/no-boot-splash-with-ubuntu-lucid-10-04-lts-805171/) to by editing "/etc/default/grub". Then there is Plymouth that takes over the booting process by loading Linux and showing a splash screen that can be turned into a screen in which you see all the important messages fly by. On my computer the screen says black w/ a blinking cursor for quite some time before a graphic bootsplash takes over. Some people have that sort of problem too and a popular solution (http://reformedmusings.wordpress.com/2010/05/01/corrupt-bootsplash-fix-in-ubuntu-lucid-10-04-lts/) that did not work for me is:
sudo su
echo FRAMEBUFFER=y > /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/splash
update-initramfs -u
exit
There are not many nice themes available yet and the ones that do have some color in them do not display well on my PC because they seem to need 24 bit colors, and they do not seem to be available on my PC at boot time (weird!). So I chose "simply line" (a growing progress indicator). I used The Gimp to edit the two pictures it uses to draw the progress indicator. It looks a bit niver now.
Switch Plymouth theme:
sudo update-alternatives --config default.plymouth
Then:
sudo update-initramfs -u
After Plymouth, GDM takes over. That one is of new version too so my themes and tweks didn't work anymore. Use above mentioned GDM2Setup and UbuntuTweak to alter GDM's login screen to your liking.
Turning KMS (kernel mode seting) off
If your vid.crd. gives you trouble then turning KMS offmay help (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CharlieKravetz/TipsAndNotes#Turning KMS off):
# ATI Radeon:
echo options radeon modeset=0 > /etc/modprobe.d/radeon-kms.conf
# Intel:
echo options i915 modeset=0 > /etc/modprobe.d/i915-kms.conf
# Nvidia (this should revert you to using -nv or -vesa):
echo options nouveau modeset=0 > /etc/modprobe.d/nouveau-kms.conf
update-initramfs -u
Gdesklets
If you want to use them instead of Cairo-docks screenlets then do the following to fix the bug (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1524976) in it: edit the file "/usr/lib/gdesklets/utils/ErrorFormatter.py"
# 09/08/09:per article=http://forums.opensuse.org/applications/409465-fix-gdesklets.html
#def _new_imp(name, globs = {}, locls = {}, fromlist = []):
def _new_imp(name, globs = {}, locls = {}, fromlist = [], test = []):
GTK1 apps better look
I still use some antique GTK1 apps like xmms, Turboprint 1.96 and Xdialog (= graphic dialog boxes via a shell script). But GTK1 look ugly! The Industrial engine and theme from way bach when make it look much, much better!
I used the following trick: I installed the gtk-engines from Ubuntu ver. 6 'Dapper' (download from the Ubuntu site whil its still there!!). It needs two dependencies from that repo. Libglib1.2 and libgtk1.2. I could install Turboprint 1.96 from a "source" tarball. I compiled the gtk-theme-switcher from source code to use the command "switch" to switch GTK1 theme to Industrial. If the fonts of the Industrial theme are too large then i use the following trick:
1. Copy, as root, the file /etc/gtk/gtkrc.iso-8859-13 to "/etc/gtk/gtkrc.iso-8859-1". Notice that this file does not exist and the omission of the "3".
2. Open it and change all references to "13" into "1" (just like you did to for the filenname).
3. Open a GTK1 app (like XMMS, XMGrace etc.) and check. It works!
4., If that still don't work try: set LC_CTYPE and LC_NUMERIC locales to something reasonable in .bashrc ("export LC_CTYPE=C" for example).
Old Nvidia card & Compiz
Out of the box it don't work. I removed as much Nividia nad Nouveau stuff as possible with Synaptic. I then installed only the Nvidia 96 driver. Simple.
To get Compiz and Xorg working optimally I added an "/etc/X11/xorg.conf" file. Xorg is said to work without one, but that is not true for old and exotic cards.
Section "ServerFlags"
Option "AllowMouseOpenFail"
EndSection
Section "Module"
Load "glx"
Load "dbe"
Load "v4l"
Load "freetype"
Load "type1"
Load "extmod"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Driver "kbd"
Identifier "Keyboard[0]"
Option "Protocol" "Standard"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Driver "mouse"
Identifier "Mouse[1]"
Option "Buttons" "7"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Name" "ImExPS/2 Logitech Explorer Mouse"
Option "Protocol" "explorerps/2"
Option "Vendor" "Sysp"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor[0]"
ModelName "Generic Monitor"
Option "DPMS"
HorizSync 30-70
VertRefresh 50-160
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen[0]"
Device "Device[0]"
Monitor "Monitor[0]"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "800x600" "1280x960" "1280x1024" "1280x800" "1152x864" "1280x768" "1024x768" "768x576" "640x480"
Virtual 1280 960
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "800x600" "1280x960" "1280x1024" "1280x800" "1152x864" "1280x768" "1024x768" "768x576" "640x480"
#Virtual screensize. Beware: physical screen size cannot be larger!
Virtual 1280 960
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Device[0]"
Option "NoLogo" "True"
BoardName "GeForce2 MX/MX 400"
BusID "1:0:0"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "CIOverlay"
Option "usevnc" "no"
Option "TVStandard" "PAL"
Option "TVOutFormat" "PAL"
#Option "NvAGP" "2"
#Option "NvAGP" "0"
#Option "NvAGP" "3"
#Option "NvAGP" "1"
Screen 0
VendorName "NVidia"
# For Compiz-Fusion? Shoud this be in another Section?
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
Option "DisableGLXRootClipping" "True"
EndSection
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout[all]"
InputDevice "Keyboard[0]" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse[1]" "CorePointer"
Option "Clone" "off"
Option "Xinerama" "off"
Screen "Screen[0]"
EndSection
Section "DRI"
Group "video"
Mode 0660
EndSection
Section "Extensions"
#For Compiz?
Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection
The options that do magic for Compiz are:
Section "Device"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
Option "DisableGLXRootClipping" "True"
EndSection
Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection
You may also want to remove your videocard from the black list.
TV card
My TV card is based on an saa7134 chip and works fine out of the box in Lucid. However, audio via the PCI bus so it can be captured by Alsa is broken. The saa7134 will not load. (I filed a bug (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/603536)). I can listen to TV via the jack output.
Sunbird/Lightning
I wanted a calendar/schedule in Thunderbird. The "official" pluging on Mozilla's site is supposed to work with Lucids Thunderb. version, but it don't. Luckily our beloved forum had the solution (topic (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1463762&highlight=lightning+lucid&page=2) and download link (http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/calendar/lightning/releases/1.0b1/linux-i686/)).
GDM2Setup and Ubuntutweak
These two apps are important if you want to change the way Lucid boots. See this site (http://myubuntublog.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/things-to-do-after-installing-lucid-lynx-10-04/) on how to install them. You can edit the loginscreen (GDM) with them too.
Bloody Plymouth, bootsplash, Grub etc.
Enough had been said about the all new but not improved way Lucid (and probably other Linuxes) boots. First there is Grub that does not show itself unless it is forced (http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/ubuntu-63/no-boot-splash-with-ubuntu-lucid-10-04-lts-805171/) to by editing "/etc/default/grub". Then there is Plymouth that takes over the booting process by loading Linux and showing a splash screen that can be turned into a screen in which you see all the important messages fly by. On my computer the screen says black w/ a blinking cursor for quite some time before a graphic bootsplash takes over. Some people have that sort of problem too and a popular solution (http://reformedmusings.wordpress.com/2010/05/01/corrupt-bootsplash-fix-in-ubuntu-lucid-10-04-lts/) that did not work for me is:
sudo su
echo FRAMEBUFFER=y > /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/splash
update-initramfs -u
exit
There are not many nice themes available yet and the ones that do have some color in them do not display well on my PC because they seem to need 24 bit colors, and they do not seem to be available on my PC at boot time (weird!). So I chose "simply line" (a growing progress indicator). I used The Gimp to edit the two pictures it uses to draw the progress indicator. It looks a bit niver now.
Switch Plymouth theme:
sudo update-alternatives --config default.plymouth
Then:
sudo update-initramfs -u
After Plymouth, GDM takes over. That one is of new version too so my themes and tweks didn't work anymore. Use above mentioned GDM2Setup and UbuntuTweak to alter GDM's login screen to your liking.
Turning KMS (kernel mode seting) off
If your vid.crd. gives you trouble then turning KMS offmay help (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CharlieKravetz/TipsAndNotes#Turning KMS off):
# ATI Radeon:
echo options radeon modeset=0 > /etc/modprobe.d/radeon-kms.conf
# Intel:
echo options i915 modeset=0 > /etc/modprobe.d/i915-kms.conf
# Nvidia (this should revert you to using -nv or -vesa):
echo options nouveau modeset=0 > /etc/modprobe.d/nouveau-kms.conf
update-initramfs -u
Gdesklets
If you want to use them instead of Cairo-docks screenlets then do the following to fix the bug (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1524976) in it: edit the file "/usr/lib/gdesklets/utils/ErrorFormatter.py"
# 09/08/09:per article=http://forums.opensuse.org/applications/409465-fix-gdesklets.html
#def _new_imp(name, globs = {}, locls = {}, fromlist = []):
def _new_imp(name, globs = {}, locls = {}, fromlist = [], test = []):
GTK1 apps better look
I still use some antique GTK1 apps like xmms, Turboprint 1.96 and Xdialog (= graphic dialog boxes via a shell script). But GTK1 look ugly! The Industrial engine and theme from way bach when make it look much, much better!
I used the following trick: I installed the gtk-engines from Ubuntu ver. 6 'Dapper' (download from the Ubuntu site whil its still there!!). It needs two dependencies from that repo. Libglib1.2 and libgtk1.2. I could install Turboprint 1.96 from a "source" tarball. I compiled the gtk-theme-switcher from source code to use the command "switch" to switch GTK1 theme to Industrial. If the fonts of the Industrial theme are too large then i use the following trick:
1. Copy, as root, the file /etc/gtk/gtkrc.iso-8859-13 to "/etc/gtk/gtkrc.iso-8859-1". Notice that this file does not exist and the omission of the "3".
2. Open it and change all references to "13" into "1" (just like you did to for the filenname).
3. Open a GTK1 app (like XMMS, XMGrace etc.) and check. It works!
4., If that still don't work try: set LC_CTYPE and LC_NUMERIC locales to something reasonable in .bashrc ("export LC_CTYPE=C" for example).