it’s me… henry

Just upgraded to Kubuntu 8.10.  KDE 4 is very different from KDE 3.5.  So, I’ve been getting used to it and the “plasma”.  Two things that must be installed is powerdevil (for power management) and quicklauncher.

For powerdevil (http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php/PowerDevil?content=85078): sudo apt-get install powerdevil

Reboot so the service is started, and you can modify your settings in System Settings > Advanced > Power Management

For quicklauncher, you need to compile it yourself (which needs kdebase-workspace-dev).  You can get the source from http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php/QuickLauncher+Applet?content=78061.

Basically one day, my keyboard stopped working.  I could use the mouse, but the keyboard doesn’t work.  Even if I put a USB keyboard on it.  So… after some debugging… I found this:

- Keyboard works while booting up
- Works during login
- When KDE starts, the keyboard disappears (I did this by pushing the caps lock key to see the light come on)
- Even the virtual keyboard didn’t work
- Somehow I managed to log into console (non-X) and the keyboard worked.  Checked dmesg and /var/log/Xorg.0.log, but everything looked good.

So… I searched online, and found this post: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=458036

Basically… yes, that was my problem.  I turned on accessibility “slow keys”.  From what I remember, it was before class, and I was playing a flash game.  Holding down a key, the popup came up and asked something about accessibility.  I just randomly clicked something and that is when it started to get “weird”.

After turning off “slow keys”, everything is good…

When I use GVIM to edit files, I like to have console font and have automatic syntax highlighting.  So, here is my ~/.vimrc

<File ~/.vimrc>
set gfn=Console
syntax on
</File>

I’ve searched and since I’m using the 64-bit version of linux, it doesn’t have the i8k module yet.  So, I searched some more, and found that I need to install dellfand to have the fans work.

Oh… and I found a KDE applet that will show me the speed of the CPUs.  Its called Kima (Kicker monitoring applet).  Very useful to verify what speed the CPUs are on.

So, after I installed cpufreq, I somehow installed cpufreqd.  This caused my cpu to always be max no matter what cpu policy I select.  After trying everything and endless searching on google, I was getting nowhere and about to give up.  But I remember seeing this one post about setting the min and max of cpufreq.  I tried to set the min, and it worked.  Did some more digging around, and I finally can get cpu scaling.  Then I thought it was just a misconfiguration, and now I fixed it.  I rebooted the computer to make sure the settings stayed.

Fingers crossed, and nope, back to the same thing.  So, trying to figure out what was going on, I remembered I installed cpufreq and not cpufreqd on my other laptop.  So I removed cpufreqd, rebooted and everything is back to normal.

Now that I think of it, it must be because cpufreqd takes priority, so even though I set the policy in KPowerManager, cpufreqd checks its rules and says, nope, I’m this policy.

I guess I’m more of a control freak, so I want to control my CPUs and not having a daemon do it for me.

Finally got my new laptop.  A Dell M1330.

Removed Windows.

Had to boot into a live CD to remove hidden partition which is for MediaDirect.  The button which looks a “Home” button next to the power button.  Zero-ed out the whole drive…

$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1024& pid=$!

To check status use:

$ sudo kill -USR1 $pid

After a few hours, we’re ready to install.

I like KDE, so I’m using Kubuntu.

After installing, and first boot into Kubuntu, I want to mount the iso image so I always have the discs. First install smbfs.

$ sudo apt-get install smbfs

Append fstab to mount network drive

//ip/sharename /path/to/mount smbfs username=xxx,password=xxx,rw,user,noauto,exec 0 0

Create the mount paths and change the ownership to myself so I don’t have to always do sudo.

sudo chown xxx.xxx /path/to/mount

Mount the path and transfer iso images.

Edit fstab to always mount iso images

/path/to/filename.iso /path/to/mount iso9660 ro,loop,auto,user 0 0

Add the mounted isos to apt source.  Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and add

deb file:///path/to/mount/ hardy main restricted

Only one user, so auto login

Go to “System Settings”, then “Advanced”, then “Login Manager”.  Click “Administrator Mode” and enter password.  Go to “Convenience” and check “Enable Auto-Login”.

This is specfic to M1330.  We must blacklist the driver video, this fixes with brightness being issued more than once when pushed.  Edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

Change the video drivers to use “intel”.  It’s currently as “vesa”, but I want “intel”.  We don’t need to install 915resolution.  But when changing the drivers, we must select the specific monitor and say it is widescreen.

Go to “System Settings”, then “Monitor and Display”.  Click on “Administrator Mode” and type password.  Click on “Hardware” and push “Configure” for “Graphic card: VESA”.  Choose “intel” from the “driver” section.  Then click on “Configure” for “Monitor”.  Select “LCD panel 1280×800″ from “Generic” and make sure the “Image Format” is widescreen.

I like the console font for Konsole.  So lets install the console bitmap font.

$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config
$ fc-cache -f -v ~/.fonts

After all this… reboot the laptop to take changes.

 I like gkrellm, so install it.

$ sudo apt-get install gkrellm

A new way of setting up the fan

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=4069092&postcount=6

 For some reason, the sound didn’t work… or it was muted.  So, go into right click on KMix, and select “Select Master Channel”, then select “PCM”.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=5407780&postcount=8

Basically, since using my laptop more and more, I’ve noticed that it has been getting hot. The fan should be turning on, but it hasn’t. So after digging around… I fixed the problem.

First, I’m not sure if turning off apmd made a difference or not, but I did it because another forum told me to do it. But after the results were not successful, I kept it off. acpi is newer than apm, so I left apm off.

In this thread, it basically tells you to install the i8k packages. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=74578

In this thread, it basically tells you how to configure the i8k package. http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=1325507&postcount=128

By doing both, I got my fans working.

This is my customization of Ubuntu 7.10. Since I’m forgetful, this will be my cheatsheet in the future. The laptop is for a Dell 700m.

*Note: this is not a how to install Ubuntu, this is after the installation.

*I like to keep the ISO on local cause if I install anything new, I don’t have to get the CD/DVD

Create ISO from CD/DVD
$ dd if=/dev/dvd of=/path/to/file.iso

Auto-mount ISO (edit /etc/fstab) and add the following line
/path/to/image.iso /mnt/path/to/ubuntu iso9660 ro,loop,auto,user 0 0

Edit /etc/apt/sources.list to include ISO, and disable CD/DVD version
Put this line before cdrom and comment out (#) CD/DVD
deb file:///mnt/path/to/ubuntu/ gutsy main restricted

*I like KDE more than the default Gnome.

Install Kubuntu
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

Some problems with logging out, shutdown, rebooting
Change “intel” to “i810″ for device
$ sudo apt-get install 915resolution
If the xserver-xorg-video-intel get better, than we can use the intel drivers

Install console font for konsole
$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config
$ fc-cache -f -v ~/.fonts
Reboot

Install MS fonts
$ sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts

*Since there is just one user (me), I don’t need a login screen

Auto login for KDE
$ sudo gdmsetup
Select the Security Tab,
Flag the “Enable Automatic Login”,
Select your name from the drop down menu,
Select Close.

*I like printing to PDF than to actual printers.  It saves paper and I can archive it better

Install PDF printer
Make sure the package is installed
$ sudo apt-get install cups-pdf
Make sure permissions are correct
$ sudo chmod 4755 /usr/lib/cups/backend/cups-pdf
Go to System -> Administration -> Printing
Add new printer.
Select the Generic, Postscript Color Printer
*Cannot print test page, it prints as root, print using app

*Since my laptop has speedstep, I want to add speedstep control

Add CPU freq utils (for speedstep)
$ sudo apt-get install cpufrequtils

Install firefox mplayer and remove totem
$ sudo apt-get install mozilla-mplayer
$ sudo rm /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/libtotem*

Install firewall
$ sudo apt-get install guarddog

Configure firewall
Start guarddog, then allow “DNS-Domain Name Server” for “Internet”