Multimedia Problem...

...and thankfully an easy solution.

When you install multimedia support in Ubuntu, it has a default setting of 'don't really work properly' - I suspect this is to make it integrate perfectly with the rest of the system.

I initially tested Divx video in the Totem Movie Player. Totem is nice - it's compact, it fits in with the GUI theme, and therefore it has nice square boundaries. Media players which force you to move around all your other windows to make them fit around their elaborate designs are a real pet hate of mine, so it's great that there's a nice boring alternative to use.

Anyways, the video played, but there were immediate problems with sound. From beginning to end, all sound was out of sync. So I closed Totem and loaded the video in Xine Movie Player. This was a little better - sound was in sync for as long as I watched the movie. Unfortunately that was all of 3 seconds, because it would crash my whole computer when I tried to hide the playback controls.

It was obvious that I was going to have to google again. Luckily I found a solution in a few minutes. By default the desktop uses something called ESD for sound. It sucked. I changed it to use OSS, which sucked less but still had sync problems. I then selected ALSA. Perfect. Now all video has sound which is perfectly in sync!

Now I just have to ask.... why the hell wasn't it set to ALSA by default!

Troubleshooting

Some google searchers are coming to my site for help on PPPoE and intellimouse side buttons. Well, i'm no expert, so i'll just send you to the site that helped me. The first link is to a Ubuntu linux enthusiast forum, which is a goldmine for technical support.

How to enable intellimouse side buttons.

How to install PPPoE for ADSL connections.

Good luck guys.


And in other news, I can report that after enabling multimedia support, my Dell Laptop's multimedia keys now work! It makes sense - the playback controls didn't work because Ubuntu couldn't play anything ;) Looks like things keep getting better for me on the hardware compatibility front.

But, i've got an even better example of my improving relationship with Ubuntu. This morning I checked the weather by starting my laptop and looking at the weather applet. Which is pretty funny, because my house's front door is closer to my bed than this laptop.

Wait. That's scary...

Software Installation

Software installation has been very much a hit and miss affair - much like the Uruguayan national football team's form in penalty shootouts.

The automated installation system made it fairly easy to add multimedia support to Ubuntu. Unfortunately, it required a little technical knowledge to get working, as Ubuntu does not have the correct download repositories enabled by default. However once I had translated the instruction manual from English into Australian, it was a a pretty straight forward process. Admittedly it took a lot longer than planned, but mostly because my mate's kangaroo was giving me the shits.

Once properly configured, apt is a very easy tool to use. I rate this specific experience above adding multimedia support to windows, because all the necessary software is in a single respository, and it isn't littered with 15 different brands of spyware. Where's your EULA now Gator!!!

Unfortunately, things quickly fall apart if the software you want isn't in a repository. I tried installing the Opera browser by downloading it from the official website. Although it was available in the correct package format, Ubuntu didn't want anything to do with it. This link tells the story better than I do, so knock yourself out.

So basically, if software is in the reposititories, you have a good chance of success. Otherwise, you're headed for disappointment. Not quite newbie friendly yet, i'm afraid.

Fancy.

Yep, this GDesklets thingy is cool.



And the totally customisable (Australian spelling, don't chew me out!) toolbars are very cool. I never thought a 15 inch screen could have so much space to play around in. At the moment it's too much space, but we'll see what happens when I finally get around to installing all the multimedia stuff. An MP3 player here, divx player there, it's bound to make things a little cramped.

This Could Take A while...

I marvelled at the sheer customisability of the Gnome Desktop for a few hours today. I thought it didn't get any better than being able to change the size (height and width) of the taskbar.

Then I discovered GDesklets.

I could be playing around with this thing for days.

Little Tidbits

I had an hour to wait before the football was on television, so I had to find a time filler. Out of the two time waster options I had, playing around with linux was by far the more moral option.

In this time I managed to put two demons to rest: the niggling thought that linux is slow, and the niggling nuisance of not having my mouse's side buttons working.

My extremely unscientific speed benchmark of Linux and Windows XP consisted of timing how long they take to start up, and also timing the startup times of Open Office Writer and Mozilla Firefox. I compared similar versions of Open Office, and Firefox 1.5 (as installed myself, with some frustration).

The results? Windows XP took 26 seconds to load from the boot menu, Open Office opened in 10 seconds, and Firefox 2 seconds. In comparison, Ubuntu loaded in 53 seconds, with an additional 18 seconds to load the gui after the login page, making a startup time of 1 minute 11 seconds. Open Office opened in 10 seconds, and Firefox 4 seconds. So there we go, Linux isn't slow when you use it, only when you wait to use it.

The slow start up time strikes me as quite important. Time spent waiting is less time spent computing. And even worse for dual booters, it discourages us from loading Linux at all if we can get the job done quicker with windows. Some may argue that the longer startup times for Ubuntu ensure a safer, error free startup. For me however, I have only experienced startup troubles with Ubuntu (having lost my wireless card 3 times now).

Now with that thoroughly unexciting spiel out of the way, onto the mouse buttons.

Windows XP thoroughly trounces Linux in this area. Simply put, it works straight away in Windows. No hassles. In contrast, to get these buttons working in Ubuntu, I had to google for 10 minutes, install software from the internet, edit/create/backup 4 different text files, and reboot my computer. Actually following these instructions was fairly straight forward (yet time consuming), so it makes me wonder - if it's just a matter of editing text files to get the buttons working, why can't it be set that way by default!!

Font Rendering

I thought i'd do a quick comparison of the font rendering in Windows XP and Ubuntu. When I started using ubuntu, I felt that the fonts seemed below par with their windows counterparts. However, after logging back into windows, I saw its fonts with a more critical view.

Click on the thumb for a visual comparison.

My initial view of the small font rendering in Ubuntu was that the fonts appeared too thin and weak. The side by side comparison certainly shows this in my opinion. The font edges in Windows Cleartype appear smoother, and have a stronger contrast with the background. I'd lean towards Windows Cleartype for small font rendering.

However, large font rendering is a different story. Ubuntu's fonts are very smooth on the edges, whereas Windows Cleartype is a little grainy in areas. Ubuntu gets my vote for large font rendering.

On balance, as the vast majority of text I read on the net is small, i'd have to lean towards Windows for overall font rendering quality. Although in reality there's not that much difference between the two.

I'm curious, does everyone else get similar results on their machines?

Hardware Compatibility

Much to my delight, Ubuntu supports most of my Dell Laptop's hardware straight out of the box... erm, cd burner. Wait, I can say that legally with Linux!

Hardware Inventory:

Stuff that Just Works straight after installation:

ATI Radeon X300; my definition of 'working' is that I can select the resolution I need. It does. I'm not sure which driver is installed, but it suits my needs perfectly.

Intel Pro Wireless 2200; as mentioned earlier, wireless configuration was quite a simple experience. The card is automatically installed, all I have to do is connect to my SSID and i'm online. The only problem has not been hardware related - I can't seem to find a way to tell the network connections thingy to connect to my wireless network instead of the neighbour's. I have to manually disconnect from the neighbour's network before I can connected to mine. Ah well.

HP DeskJet 5652 USB Printer; installation was marginally easier than in Windows. I plugged the printer in, powered it on, opened the 'Printers' configuration from the System --> Administration menu, double clicked New Printer, Selected USB Printer, then the make and model from a list, done! I printed a quick test page from Open Office, mostly because I wanted an excuse to use Open Office. When I chose the print option I was only given the choice of printing from 'Generic Printer' but hey, it put text on the page, that's all I need.

USB Camera; I used the bundled USB cord to connect my camera to the USB port, a friendly popup asked my if I wanted to import photos to my computer. Just the way it should work!

Laptop Function Keys; This keyboard has a Function key which, when pressed in conjunction with other designated keys, performs some function. Funnily enough. I had no expectation that it'd work, but it does. So far i've been able to adjust the LCD's brightness settings and sound card's volume, and the pseudo number pad also works. I haven't tested all functions, such as the key with the battery on it, because I don't know what it does :)

Stuff that doesn't work, and has no available configuration utility:

USB Mouse Side Buttons; My Microsoft USB mouse works straight after plugging it in, however I can't get the side buttons to work. One of those perks I really miss. Althgouh Alt+left and right works well, it just isn't the same.

Dell Touchpad; The basic functionality of the touchpad works well. However, the extra scrolling functionality does not. That's okay, I preferred pageup+pagedn anyway.

Multimedia Buttons; sometimes the volume adjustment buttons work, but mostly don't. The other function keys do not.

The hook

When you're a computer newbie, you overreact. To everything. Which is one of those things that makes us incredibly fickle computer users. The computer could do everything perfectly, but if we don't like an icon, a menu, the default wallpaper, then we're off.

It also works the other way.

After all the sheer stress this semi conversion (sorry, windows is staying on this machine in some shape or form, forever) i'm prepared to overlook it all. Why?

Because I have a dictionary on my taskbar. A dictionary. Whoever thought of that is a champ. And not only that, I have a weather report thingy as well - and no, I didn't have to click on some suspect popup window on some random website to install it. It's just there.

I haven't seen anything so brilliant in my life.

Too good to be true

So after playing around with Ubuntu today, it turns out I didn't solve my problem with accessing the windows partition. I can read it but not save to it, so this system is still useless for dual booting. As it turns out, it's just not supported at all by Linux. Well it is in a flimsy 'don't do it' kind of way. After an hour of searching, the best recommendation I can find is to create a Windows partition in the older FAT format (a format Linux can write to), and make it the dedicated 'transfer' partition.

So I installed some software called GParted to resize my windows NTFS drive, so I can create a new partition in the FAT format. Of course as is the theme with everything else so far, it doesn't work. After using the admittedly nice interface of GParted, I resized my NTFS windows partition, and clicked 'apply'.
Wow - something that just works for once, right?












Wrong!

All of my partitions are on the same drive, including Ubuntu's installation partition. So logically the drive is always busy - loading my operating system. No amount of rebooting will change that. Essentially this means that the feature doesn't work at all (unless I get down and dirty on the good old command line).

During my google aided troubleshooting I found this interesting link: 10 things that make ubuntu a neophyte's distribution. Essentially what we have is a group of linux enthusiasts proclaiming Ubuntu as the new convert's distribution. Perhaps they'll be interested to read the thoughts of one of these new converts.

Pretty please?

Maybe it was the bad things I said earlier, or maybe a more technical reason (rather than an emotional reason, and I do know that computers have emotions, because HAL tried throwing every damn human being he could out of the airlock in 2001 Space Odyssey - and that was 5 years ago!), but Ubuntu doesn't want to let me do lots of things.

Most notably, looking at my windows partition. Which is really unfortunate, because if I can't read or save on my windows partition then how exactly am I supposed to swap files between my operating systems easily?

I put a word document together in the (very good) office suite called Open Office. All was good so far. So I went to save the document so I could open it up in MS Word later (a crucial test - if I can't open this stuff in Word then it totally rules out working on university documents in Ubuntu). So I saved the document to my desktop. I then double clicked on the shortcut icon for my windows drive, so I could copy the file over. No can do, it won't let me look at it. So I thought i'll just leave it here, reboot and try and open it from the Linux drive in Windows. No can do. So how the hell do I copy the file over?

I put some ideas up. USB pen drive? No, don't own one. CD? Good god, that'll be annoying and costly. Email the files to my own in box? Great for 1MB files maybe, but what if I need to use a big file in both operating systems?

Nope, my answer, as with most problems i've encountered so far: Google.

So, after about an hour of trying to get my head around these things, I was back on the command line, throwing in some sudos and gedits, copy pasting stuff, learning the finer points of linux partitioning, and eventually I figured out a way to make the computer let me read and write to my windows drives. Why this operating system doesn't let me do it by default is well and truly beyond me.

But after wasting that hour of my life it now works how I want it to. It's a shame it didn't work like that by default, as it thoroughly crippled the dual-boot-ability.

But geez I like Open Office. For the record, it saved my word document very well. I'm tempted to put together the highly-formatted-document-from-hell to test just how good it is at saving in word format. But for my needs it's perfect, and it doesn't cost 500 bucks! Score!

Not Working Networking now working!

Well that stopped sucking fairly quickly.

I bought a shiny new wireless router for my modem. After a few F's and a couple of C's my wireless network was up and running.

I loaded up Ubuntu and had a crack at connecting to my wireless network. Selected networking from a menu, selected wireless network, changed a few properties, clicked 'activate' and wham! That was cool.

Getting my standard ADSL running in Ubuntu was a disgrace. Getting the wireless network up and running was, as we say in Australia, 'too easy!!!'

Slight problem though: it's totally unsecure. I managed to surf the net across the street without entering a password, so I guess any old person can do that as well.

This is probably going to end in tears, but it's all fun at the moment!

Notworking

I never imagined getting a working internet connection could be such a pain in the proverbial.

I outwardly stated at the beginning that as a newbie user I didn't want to waste my time with manuals. However, if I were to continue in that vain then i'd never get a working internet connection on Ubuntu, and this blog would be effectively over a day after it started. No fun.

So, a damn long while of searching through google eventually gave me an idea of why I can't connect to the internet. As an isp help page explains, some adsl modems have the ability to have my isp user name/password inserted into them. Mine doesn't, but instead needs a programme on the operating system to transmit this to/through? the modem.

Windows XP has this sort of programme, hence why I have a working ADSL connection in 3 seconds.

Ubuntu, the linux for human beings, has a different approach.

My google trek revealed these instructions:

How to install Broadband ADSL/PPPoE Client (RP-PPPoE)?

Read general_notes

Read start#how_to_install_basic_compilers_(build-essential)]]

Type

wget -c http://frankandjacq.com/ubuntuguide/
rp-pppoe-3.6.tar.gz
sudo tar zxvf rp-pppoe-3.6.tar.gz -C /opt/

sudo chown -R root:root /opt/rp-pppoe-3.6/
sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/RP-PPPoE.desktop

Insert the following lines into the new file

[Desktop Entry]
Name=RP-PPPoE
Comment=RP-PPPoE
Exec=gksudo /opt/rp-pppoe-3.6/go-gui
Icon=
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Application;Network;

Save the edited file (sample)

Read how_to_refresh_gnome_panel

Applications → Internet → RP-PPPoE

Ah, you see? All I have to do is type a few sudos zxvfgnhs, learn how to "compile" copy a few text files around, you know the easy stuff.

Interestingly enough I found out about a programme named 'roaring penguin' that gives me the exact functionality I need. It's a 3.7 MB file. Had it been included in Ubuntu i'd be on my way. But it's not, so i'm up the creek. Why would a newbie bother with jumping through so many hoops to get an internet connecction working? I will not type out all that crap above there, and I shouldn't be expected to either.

It appears I now won't be able to use the internet until I get my new wireless modem. Apparently those can be configured through a web browser, which sounds a whole lot better than learning the finer points of compiling software.

Installation

The installation process was fairly painless. Good news: I managed to get through it by myself. It also appears all of my hardware was detected, but i'll do a full inventory later. It wasn't all smooth sailing however. Below is a brief account of my newbie related difficulties:

Networking

I was unable to properly configure my ADSL internet connection during the installation. The network configuration gave me no choice (for what I saw) of specifying an ADSL connection. As a result, it tried in vain to connect to my 'network' which, in actuality, is just a network card connected to my ADSL modem. Given the choice of repeating the fruitless search for a non existen network, or skipping the step and configuring it later, I chose the latter.

Partitioning

Partitioning my hard drive gave me a good deal of grief. From what I could gather it was a bit like where I have to choose the installation drive in the windows xp setup. Except when I went to create a partition it gave me a list of filesystem types I had never heard of.

I chose the filesystem by using a process of elimination. I imagined that the names were being read to me by The Movie Theater Preview Guy. The coolest sounding name would win. Names like swap space didn't do it for me so they were first off the list. It ended up being a contest between Ext3 and ReiserFS.

Ext3 presents itself as an acronymn to myself, hence I pronounce it 'ee, ex, tee, three.' This gives it a significant advantage to ReiserFS, because the added emphasis of sharp syllables really endear themselves to the rugged qualities of the Movie Theater Preview Guy's voice. ReiserFS sounded limp by comparison. I'm sure there's a far more professional method of choosing filesystems, but i'm a newbie so what do I care? It's all hard drive to me.

As a newbie i've got two immediate questions about the partitioning process:

1) Why was I given the choice in the first place? I know nothing of the nuances of linux filesystems (but i'm sure it's a riveting story). I just want to use one that works. If they all work, what's the harm in offering one?

2) If there's a compelling reason why I must choose my own filesystem, can I at least have a couple of sentences on the screen explaining in really simple terms what it is i'm choosing?

If an operating system presents itself as the human alternative, it will have to do a little better to hide the partitioning process from newbies such as myself. It was especially ironic that I was given the option of entering 'expert' mode, as if to say the feature I was presently using was the dumbed down newbie version. That was not newbie friendly.

Video

The video configuration process produced interesting results, to say the least. I selected the native resolution for my laptop's LCD. There were no options to configure my multi monitor setup, but that's fair enough, i'd probably just configure it in the GUI like in Windows.

The fun started when I restarted the computer. Upon booting into Ubuntu, The LCD switched off, my secondary monitor flickered on and displayed the login screen in widescreen resolution. Well that's odd - I would've thought Ubuntu would treat my laptop's LCD as the default monitor, considering it's actually part of my laptop. Okay, no big deal. I would change the multi monitor settings in the GUI after logging in.

Not so fast mate! A frustrating search revealed no obvious menu entry related to changing multi monitor settings. Until I can sort this out i'm left with three choices: CRT, LCD (not both), or both CRT and LCD in windows.

For the time being i've returned to windows. I've had enough linux for today.

But I shall return...

Welcome to a social experiment

Hello, i'm Christopher, and I hate computers.

Which is why I thought a blog about my experimental switch to linux would be of interest to many. What happens when you mix an admitted newbie with a computer enthusiast's operating system? You're about to find out.

My Credentials

Allow me to qualify my self imposed rank of newbie. I've used Windows for about 10 years. Extensively. However I wouldn't have a damned clue about how it actually works. My method of computer conflict resolution is a two step process:

1) Press the reset button. If error persists...

2) Backup to CD, blast everything and reinstall.

This will turn in the guts of many an accomplished computer enthusiast, but the reality is this is how just about everybody operates a computer. I'm fairly content with how I operate my computer, but i've always had the nagging guilt that throughout all my relationships with computers i've never really gotten to know them. That's probably why they hate me.

Brief Details on my Methodology

My approach to using linux will be as follows:

• I desperately want an excuse to return to my comfort zone - Windows.
• I don't want to waste my time with manuals. I never have to in Windows!
  
• If it doesn't work it doesn't work. I'm not interested in who is at blame, what i'm interested in is being able to use a feature.
• If I can't make something work by selecting it in a menu or a pretty icon, then it doesn't work.

This may sound extraordinarily unfair, but it's a reality with newbie users. This is how we use computers. We want to think about our task at hand, not the computer itself. To us, good interface design is all about reducing our brain use. If we're not convinced an OS conversion will cut the brain tax, we'll return to Old Reliable.

The Specs

My Linux version of choice is called Ubuntu 5.1. I chose it because all the other Linux I saw was sprawled across 7 cds or something ridiculous like that. It's also billed as 'Linux For Human Beings,' which is a really good match because i'm one of those.

My Computer specifications are as follows:

Dell Inspiron 6000 lappy. It is so shiny.

I'm reading the rest directly off the invoice:

1.73 Pentium M, 512MB of RAM, Intel Wireless, ATI video with hyper memory, a DVD drive and 60 gig harddrive (it's so freaking slow) and some other stuff. If a presently unidentified hardware component does not work, i'll let you know.

I also have a 22 inch monitor which I plug into the back of this machine, when i'm at this desk. I like having two screens. However not enough to keep it plugged in when i'm on the road, because the monitor is pretty heavy and requires a wall outlet.

Parting Words

I'm not too fussed if this foray into Linux doesn't work. My hope is that I satisfy my geeky curiosity and at the same time maybe help some linux people out there - afterall you can only make things newbie friendly by asking the newbies! I start this blog with good intentions, however i'll be as honest as I need. If that means annoying people, my sincere apologies in advance.

Comments are most welcome!