Archive for February, 2009
Ubuntu Hardy sound card configuration
I am running Ubuntu Hardy on my Dell XPS M1530 laptop. I’ve had no major sound issues on the laptop except one. All programs using sound seem to lock each other out from time to time. This was only mildly annoying and I have lived with it for some time.
Today I decided to get sound working on my Virtual Box Vista VM and so I discovered that it worked well, but I was then unable to play sounds through my Ubuntu host. And so I decided to fix the problem once and for all.
Below is the procedure I went through and it seems to have fixed the problem.
1. Install the following additional packages:
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sudo apt-get install libao-pulse libasound2-plugins
2. Edit the /etc/asound.conf file and make sure it looks like the following (create it if it does not exist):
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pcm.pulse {
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type pulse
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}ctl.pulse {
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type pulse
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}
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pcm.!default {
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type pulse
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}
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ctl.!default {
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type pulse
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}
3. Edit the /etc/libao.conf and make sure it looks like the following (create it if it does not exist):
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default_driver=pulse
4. Go to System->Preferences->Sound and set the “PulseAudio Sound Server” for first four options and set the Default mixer to your sound card name. In my case it was “HDA Intel (Alsa mixer)”
5. Install a few more useful audio packages:
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sudo apt-get install libflashsupport padevchooser pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-module-hal
6. Making sure the correct libSDL is installed :
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sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2debian libsdl1.2debian-alsa
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# make sure the following sources are in your /etc/apt/sources.list
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# deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/zman0900/ubuntu hardy main
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# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/zman0900/ubuntu hardy main
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# update apt and install libSDL
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sudo apt-get update
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sudo apt-get upgrade
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sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2debian-pulseaudio
7.Go to Applications->Sound & Video->PulseAudio Device Chooser.
Once the program is running it will show up as a plug in notification area.
Left click the plug icon, click Preferences, and make sure “Start applet on session login” check box is checked.
8.Restart and all should be well.
Hope this works for someone else, it worked well for me.
Twitter… the latest frontier
Twitter… the latest frontier, possibly (in my humble opinion) the best new cloud application in a long time, has become for me a part of my every day communication ritual. I use Tweet-Deck on Linux and Windows, I use Twitter-Berry on my Blackberry Bold. Friendfeed sends my updates to twitter so my GoogleReader shared items, my blog posts (you probably got to this post by clicking on a tweet), linkedin activity, all of it is broadcast via twitter.
Twitter is the first application that brings my online activity together in a simple way. FriendFeed does it as well via RSS but Twitter is dead simple. People who care follow me, and other people should follow me because I am interesting (OK, in my own little universe).
Enough about me, there are also many people on Twitter who I follow. Friends, people with same interests, people I learn from, people who are interesting. There are great dramas and funny stuff that happens on Twitter. Take for example Lily Allen (British singer), she is on twitter. Few days ago her and infamous Perez Hilton trash blogger had a bit of a go at each other. It was entertaining to think immortals of entertainment industry have very public display of “not getting along” just like we mortals do.
Now twitter has a search feature. Initially I thought how useless, but after using it for a while it became apparent how powerful the twitter search is. Instantly I can see other peoples thoughts, conversations and rants about a subject. Lots of tweets have links to other resources online.
Being a software guy, what twitter guys have done is amazing. Such a simple idea, executed in a simple way.Sure enough we all know of issues twitterfolk have had with scalability, but what a great problem to have. They have scalability problems because they have a fantastic product. Keep up the good work.Follow me on twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mainfram
