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.
Ugrading Ruby On Rails to 2.2.2 on Ubuntu Hardy 8.10
I’ve decided to get the latest Ruby on Rails installed on my development laptop.
As usual I first updated the gem system by running:
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sudo gem update –system
This promptly told me there was nothing to update (I had version 1.2.0 installed)
Finally I installed the latest Ruby on Rails framework by running
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sudo gem install rails
Rails installed ok and I even got to create a new application. When I went to start the server by running
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script/server
I got the following error:
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Rails requires RubyGems >= 1.3.1 (you have 1.2.0). Please `gem update –system` and try again.
Now that was the first thing I did and I got told there was nothing to update. Well this is a bug in ruby gems, and to get around it do the following:
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# this downloads the latest gems update package
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sudo gem install rubygems-update
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# this actually performs the update
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sudo update_rubygems
That did it for me, and so am happily running Ruby on Rails 2.2.2
Ubuntu, Sun VirtualBox and bridged networking
I am running VirtualBox on my laptop (host OS is Ubuntu Hardy). Currently I use VirtualBox to run a Windows Vista Ultimate guest OS (for all those times when I need windows).
One annoying thing about VirtualBox is that it does not give you an easy way to setup a network bridge like vmware does. So after digging around the web I found the following script does the job nicely.
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#!/bin/shUSERNAME=user # login name of HOST system
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DHCP=0 # set to 1 to use dynamic ip for bridge
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IP_ADDRESS=192.168.0.4 # static ip address of bridge (only used if DHCP set to 0)
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tunctl -t tap1 -u $USERNAME
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brctl addbr br0
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ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0 promisc
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brctl addif br0 eth0
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if [ DHCP = 1 ]; then
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dhclient br0
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else
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ifconfig br0 $IP_ADDRESS
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fi
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brctl addif br0 tap1
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ifconfig tap1 up
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chmod 0666 /dev/net/tun
This script must be run with elevated privileges (sudo). Since I connect to different networks at home and at work (home uses static IP, work uses DHCP), I created two scripts, one for home and one for work. Within Ubuntu I use wicd as my network manager and it has the ability to run scripts before/after connect, etc… but I can’t seem to get it to execute the above script automatically when I pick a profile, so for now I have to run the script manually.
Dell XPS M1530 running Ubuntu Hardy
A couple of weeks ago I finally got a new laptop a Dell XPS M1530.
I’ve record a screencast showing some of the great interface features that come with Ubuntu linux, mainly the compiz environment. Windows Vista is running using Sun VirtualBox.
Why i love linux
Well today I have to say my love for Linux has deepened just that much further.This morning my Linux box died. The motherboard got fried, I am talking smoke and all. The machine has been up for about 6 months straight and I think the dust finally killed it.Anyway… I’ve been extremely busy over last few weeks and this was the last thing I needed. So I go down to my local computer hardware shop, got myself new motherboard, CPU and RAM. The Linux box has AMD processor and MSI motherboard with everything onboard. The new CPU is Intel based and I got an Asus motherboard, also with everything on board. So I replace the hardware in the case, plug in the old hard drive and my Fedora Core 3 (yeah I know I just downloaded 5, will update in a week or so) Linux just detected all the changes and everything worked like nothing happened.Last time I tried that with Windows I had to reinstall everything, and lost a full day of work.Linux vs Windows… another example where marketing beats quality.
