Nvidia Proprietary Drivers need nvidia-settings to set screen resolution and change other settings. In previous versions of Ubuntu and in other distros to make them permanent (used in every session) you click the “Save to X configuration file”. From Karmic on there is no xorg.conf by default!

As a result, nvidia-settings is not able to save the settings and every time I logged in I had  to change the resolution (Phew!!!). Then Sathya helped me. He gave me a link from Ubuntu Forums{#aptureLink_MZsWFB9Cv4}. Then I did the following to fix the problem:

It’s been a while since I last used Ubuntu – I have generally shunned away from Ubuntu since Fiesty – for the main reason that I’m more of KDE guy, I never really liked Gnome, and my experience with Fiesty was rather unsavoury. You might say ‘hey you want KDE try Kubuntu’ –  Kubuntu – well I won’t get started on that. I’ve been using Sabayon and was pretty darn impressed with that. With Jaunty being due for release soon, I decided to check Jaunty, even more so after Manish{#aptureLink_LdqSI5xV6h} kept raving about Jaunty’s performance{#aptureLink_LyArR3kODf}.

I was very curious about Intrepid’s release. I just could not wait! I even pre-ordered the CD but downloaded the DVD without patience. I have not-so-fast a connection when it comes to downloading a DVD. In spite of it, I just downloaded. I even allocated HD and swap space for that and was just waiting to install it.

And what horrors!

Installing Linux software through repositories is the safe bet. In respect with Ubuntu, there are many software in Intrepid Ibex which I feel is crap. For eg: the “Hardware Drivers” does not have drivers for older kernels. On the other hand, there are many software (like Brasero, Transmission,Totem,VLC etc.) in Hardy that needs update, which the Hardy repositories have not provided till now. To bridge these gaps, I would like to provide you all with the repositories of Hardy and Intrepid.

NOTE: Please think twice before installing software from other Ubuntu version repositories. It may screw up your installation

HARDY HERON REPOSITORIES:

I have provided the older ones and two updates, just in case for those people who will want to install the older versions of software.

Bang of the release schedule, the next version of Ubuntu, Ubuntu 8.10 dubbed the Intrepid Ibex was released on October 30th.

Ubuntu Intrepix Ibex brings in some new features like

Many of us may feel screen resolution as the biggest pest in any OS. If we don’t get the screen resolution we want we get real fed up with the UI (dont we?). Personally, I very much hate if screen resolution gets screwed up and also have faced a lot of problems on that.

So I thought I would make a post on the common problems I faced in ubuntu and I hope it would be useful for other distros too.

At the recently held Linux Plumbers’ Conference, 2 Linux developers,  Arjan van de Ven and Auke Kok, demonstrated a Linux system booting in five seconds flat. To demonstrate this, they used an Asus EEE PC using a modified Fedora and modified Moblin. In-fact the bootup was so fast that the they actually had to hold the EEE PC, as the bootup was completed well before the projector could warm up and sync.

To achieve this, they had to look up and identify what was slowing down the system, for this they used a tool, Bootchart, by Ziga Mahkovec, which displays the order of the booting sequence, which modules are taking how much time amongst other details. 

Admin’s Note: This is a guest post by Aditya. Though this post was drafted on 1st July, my work commitments and rather bad memory prevented this post being published. Due apologies.

I know that a title is a bit harsh but I am afraid it is true.

First lets get into some technical stuff.

Dream Linux is a Debian based distro(like Ubuntu) . It has both Xfce and Gnome interface. I’m reviewing the Gnome version.

The Installation

The first screen you get after booting into the CD ask you to choose the interface(Gnome or Xfce)

It also has memtest for testing memory but the CD cant be checked for defects, which is a very important feature, since the disk has to be free of defects as it is an operating system.

I choose the Gnome interface and booted. Here’s where I faced my first nightmare. The whole thing is pretty slow. Even after booting completely. I do know that a live CD is slow as it is limited by the optical drive but this was way slower than other live C.D’s.

A lot of you out there must’ve read Linux Hater’s Blog, a blog with (some valid) rants about what’s wrong about Linux. John M Anderson ponders over what made him shift from Windows to Linux and here’s some of his choice quotes

You just bought built a brand new computer and want to install the brand spankin’ new Windows Vista Ultimate, you plop down $300, and away you go! What does $300 get you? A bare minimum operating system with nothing but MS Paint and Media Player.

In my previous post, I’d mentioned about Virtualization – what it is, how useful it is to test new softwares, distros etc. Now while working in your virtual machine, you’d obviously save some data – do some wordprocessing, or compatibility testing of your programs, just to name some, all this would mean that the data would be stored in the virtual machine.

Now you would like to have this data on your physical machine. Or alternatively you may want to transfer data from your physical machine to your VM. Of course, you could always go about using the concept of shared folders, but this would require installation of guest-additions. On a linux-based guest, this would require running scripts, and these scripts most likely require kernel-header or kernel source files. Going by my past experience, in most default installations, the header files would not be installed, or simply be missing in all of Live-CD based distributions, requiring downloading of the packages from the Internet. Is there a simpler way of going about this? Yes! Lets see how.

Quite a lot of people have been waiting for the latest release of Ubuntu, version 8.04 dubbed the “Hardy Heron” – primarily because it’s a LTS release. So how does the Hardy Heron stack up? I decided to jump into the Hardy Heron brigade and have a look. Is it worth the upgrade?

Read on to find out more!

System Specifications

I used my beloved Dell Inspiron 1520(Intel Core2Duo T5250 @ 1.5 Ghz, 2 GB DDR2 667 RAM, nVidia 8600m GT, Intel 3945 Pro/Wireless) for testing out the Hardy Heron.

I had a pretty bad time with Gutsy – no sound despite the sound card being detected, LCD brightness varying as if its possessed etc – these resulted with me removing Gutsy and going back to openSUSE 10.3.

Also, generally I’ve always tested the 32-bit versions of most distros. This time I decided to break the tradition and go with the 64-bit version.

Last week,  the openSUSE team announced the first Beta release of openSUSE 11.0! Some of the many  enhancements and features in the new release include  the incredibly fast package management (libzypp), KDE 3.5.9 and 4.0.3, GNOME 2.22.1, a beautiful new installer, live CDs and much more.

What’s New

Almost everyone would be knowing about ASUS eeePC by now. For the uninitiated, The ASUS eee PC is a subnotebook. The eeePC is powered by a 900 MHz Intel Celeron-M ULV 353 processor, features 512MB of DDR2 RAM and uses Xandros as it’s OS and has an Integrated Intel GMA 900 as its graphics processor. The GMA 900 means that technically the eeePC is capable of running Compiz Fusion. So has anyone done this?

Yes! Someone has! Fred Welland, who received an ASUS eeePC for his birthday according to his blog, has gone ahead and installed Fedora 8 on his eeePC and has mentioned that Compiz and Compiz Fusion are running well on the eeePC.

Here are some excerpts from his Blog:

I got a eeePC for my birthday, in mid-November 2007. It is a wonderfull little machine, that is a nice compliment to my Dell Latitude D820 and various and sundry desktops. The top of this page will be devoted to how I installed Fedora 8 on my eeePC. The bottom part of the page relates my experience with eeePC in general.

Fedora 8 Install Goals

Being a Linux user can be really funny. You just go =)) reading few ignorant Windows users’ comments on How Linux is crap bla bla bla. Today’s source for making me laugh comes by way of Christopher Dawson’s article on ZDNet on Why Linux Will Not Displace Windows(a rather nicely written article, though). The best thing about such articles are the comments written by, let’s saw, rather “well informed” users.

Let’s take a couple of examples.

One of CHIP-India’s forum members, Sujith Poojari had posted a link to 25 Top 3D games for Linux. Some of them I’ve already played like Armagetron Advanced, BZFlag, Sauerbraten, Scorched 3D, TORCS while some others unknown to me, such as Racer(been playing it recently, good graphics! controls need refinement though), PlaneShift etc. So enjoy these games and have a blast!

Armagetron Advanced

Armagetron is a multiplayer game in 3d that attempts to emulate and expand on the lightcycle sequence from the movie Tron. It’s an old school arcade game slung into the 21st century. Highlights include a customizable playing arena, HUD, unique graphics, and AI bots. For the more advanced player there are new game modes and a wide variety of physics settings to tweak as well.

In my previous post, I’d explained on how to install Compiz Fusion on Ubuntu Fiesty. This post will outline the simple steps for installing Compiz Fusion on openSUSE 10.3. This article is written from an nVidia user’s point of view.

First, you’ll have to download nVidia’s drivers. You can get it, via the 1-click install(for Legacy cards, click here). I’d recommend downloading the latest drivers from nvidia’s site and doing a manual install of the drivers.

Manual install of nVidia drivers

Pre-requisites:

• compiler gcc,
• program make and
• package kernel-source

Ubuntu Gutsy has been receiving a huge amount of hype and fan fare recently, and I’ve been following Gutsy closely, from Ubuntu Fridge’s 10 Rocking Features in 10 Days to fellow bloggers and Linux users posts on Gutsy. Naturally after their Feisty launch, expectations were high(from my side). Now I’m not Ubuntu’s biggest fan(I’m a SuSE fellow, Novell haters, meh!), but I appreciate what Ubuntu has been doing for newbie Linux users in general.

I was patiently waiting for the December issue of CHIP magazine and picked it up immediately when it hit the stands, ripped apart the packaging and took out the DVD(yup, that’s right CHIP this month had a bootable DVD of Ubuntu Gutsy :D ) and started about installing it. Launching into the live environment took a good 2 minutes, uncharacteristic of Ubuntu.

Though it’s been a while since Gutsy was released, I couldn’t try out for various reasons. But finally I got my hands on Gutsy DVD edition, and I sat about installing it on my Dell Inspiron. I noticed first signs of trouble when Gutsy was taking unsually long to boot up. Switching to verbose mode, I knew something wrong when I saw

hda_intel: azx_get_response timeout

Initially I thought it was a problem with the live environment, however when install was done, my fears were confirmed. Indeed, Ubuntu wasn’t able to play any sound. This was a bit surprising since openSUSE 10.3 detected all of my hardware flawlessly(even more weirder was that Kubuntu Feisty had no problems with the sound!)

A bit of Googling and I found there are few solutions to this problem, which is because of ALSA. Apparently version lower than 1.0.15 has bugs and problems especially with Intel HDA codecs. So let’s see some solutions:

Laptop Review:

As few might be knowing I’ve purchased a Dell Inspiron 1520. Here’s a short review on it.

Laptop Specifications:

• Processor: Intel Core2Duo T5250 @ 1.5 GHz, 2 MB L2 Cache
• Main memory: 2x1GB DDR2 667 MHz Dual Channel mode
• HDD: Fujitsu MHW2160BH 160GB SATA
• DVD-RW: TSSTcorp DVD+/-RW TS-L632H 8X
• Sound Card: Intel HDA ICH8(82801)
• Graphics Card: nvidia 8600m GT with 256MB RAM
• NIC: BroadCom BCM4401 100
• WiFi: Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG
• Bluetooth: BroadCom BCM2045
• System Chipset: Intel GM965
• Expansion & Misc ports: 4xUSB, 1xIEEE1394, 1xRJ-45, 1xRJ-11, 1xVGA Out, 2xExpressCard 54, 1xHeadphone out, 1xMicrophone In, 1xMedia Card reader(SD/MMC/MS Pro).

Phoronix reports that NVIDIA’s 169.04 driver brings out a lot of improvements over its predecessor. This X.Org driver contained a number of GeForce 8 fixes, initial support for the GeForce 8800GT graphics card, monitoring of PowerMizer state information, and other changes. 

What Phoronix had not tested, however, at that time was a performance comparison of the new driver and the previous 100.14.23 driver. The undocumented fact we have found is that this 169.04 Beta driver does deliver performance improvements for the GeForce 8 series on Linux.

I found this blog giving a step-by-step tutorial on how to get Direct 9.0c installed on your Linux box. Worthy of a look I say!

Excerpts:

About DirectX

Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectSound, and so forth. DirectX, then, was the generic term for all of these Direct-something APIs, and that term became the name of the collection. Over the intervening years, some of these APIs have been deprecated and replaced, so that this naming convention is no longer absolute. In fact, the X has caught on to the point that it has replaced Direct as the common part in the names of new DirectX technologies, including XAct, XInput, and so forth.

NVIDIA has released new BETA drivers for x86 and x64 (AMD64/EM64T). This new driver is now off of their latest 169 code line and will possibly net some performance benefit on top of the long release highlights list:

• Added support for GeForce 8800 GT.
• Improved modesetting support on Quadro/GeForce 8 series GPUs.
• Fixed stability problems with some GeForce 8 series GPUs.
• Fixed stability problems with some GeForce 6200/7200/7300 GPUs multi-core/SMP systems.
• Improved hotkey switching support for some Lenovo notebooks.

First up, if you haven’t read my previous post, go read it!

Now, after you’ve read the post, you people can get an idea as to how pissed off and frustrated I was. The following day, ie, Tuesday, I was determined to finish off the work come no matter what! So armed with my Cheque book, 2 pens(yeah, 2, just in case any one ran out of ink!). Left my Office at 5.45pm this day, as I’d decided to goto the Adyar branch. First up had to goto ATM as I had absolutely no cash. Thankfully, ICICI ATM is just opposite to the bus stop. After collecting the cash, I was wondering if I’d be as lucky as the previous day(well, in terms of gettings Share autos, you know!) and just as I was thinking about it a share auto comes along, but it was empty! Nevertheless I stop the auto, and tell him him “Adyar-ICICI Bank”.

Hakan Bayindir at Phoronix writes about ATI’s new drivers, their performance(Non-performance, should I say ?).

It’s been nearly seven months since I wrote my first article about ATI drivers and how they literally crippled my computer and my daily life. Last month, ATI had finally released their latest drivers which contains the new OpenGL component and AIGLX support (AMD 8.42 Linux Display Driver). Was this release worth the amount of hype and did it solve everyone’s problems? For me, simply, no. After seven months of waiting, updating, and struggling, things are not good for me, in every possible feature of the ATI Linux driver I use.

ATI released six drivers since the first article I wrote at Phoronix and I have installed and used all of them. While some of the drivers showed some improvements over my problems, nothing has fully recovered. I am still having some problems, which can be grouped as follows:

· Hardware issues
· 2D acceleration & video playback issues
· 3D acceleration & AIGLX issues

Mega Post ahead: You have been warned!

There’s something called fate. Answers.com defines it as

“fate (fät) pronunciation

n.

1. The supposed force, principle, or power that predetermines events.

2. The inevitable events predestined by this force.

3. A final result or consequence; an outcome.

4. Unfavorable destiny; doom.”

The past few days have convinced me that Fate has it that I should NOT get my laptop, as early as possible. Why so? Read what’s happened in the past few days and you’ll agree.

This is the first BETA release of Linux Mint 4.0, codename Daryna, based on Celena and compatible with Ubuntu Gutsy and its repositories.

Daryna is using Gutsy’s package base (kernel 2.6.22, Gnome 2.20, OpenOffice 2.3, Thunderbird 2.0…etc).