Firefox 4 has been released recently and it is not available via update manager in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx and 10.10 Maverick Meerkat. The Ubuntu Mozilla Daily Build PPA provides it but it always the latest daily build and not the stable version.
For stable version, you can use Firefox Stable PPA. To install the PPA in Lucid or Maverick, just launch Synaptic (System>Administration>Synaptic Package Manager) and then go to Settings>Repositories>Other Software. Now click Add and paste in the following:
ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable
Close the Repositories window and then click reload. When it is done, search for firefox-4.0-gnome-support and mark it for installation. It should mark other required packages. Apply and wait for installation to finish.
I was trying to play a video with Totem in Debian Squeeze Testing and got the following error and only video played.
No packages with the requested plugins found
The requested plugins are:
Windows Media Audio 9 decoder
I have the available codecs installed. I installed Smplayer from the repos but still did not get audio. I even installed vlc player but it didn’t help either. I got the following error with mplayer command line:
MPlayer 1.0rc3-4.4.4 (C) 2000-2009 MPlayer Team
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.
Playing DSC0123.WMV.
ASF file format detected.
[asfheader] Audio stream found, -aid 1
[asfheader] Video stream found, -vid 2
VIDEO: [WMV3] 1280×720 24bpp 1000.000 fps 5000.0 kbps (610.4 kbyte/s)
Clip info:
name:
author:
copyright:
comments:
open: No such file or directory
[MGA] Couldn’t open: /dev/mga_vid
open: No such file or directory
[MGA] Couldn’t open: /dev/mga_vid
[VO_TDFXFB] This driver only supports the 3Dfx Banshee, Voodoo3 and Voodoo 5.
[VO_3DFX] Unable to open /dev/3dfx.
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [dmo] DMO video codecs
Win32 LoadLibrary failed to load: wmv9dmod.dll, /usr/lib/codecs/wmv9dmod.dll, /usr/lib/win32/wmv9dmod.dll, /usr/local/lib/win32/wmv9dmod.dll
IMediaObject ERROR: 0x83e8e2c could not open DMO DLL (0x0 : 0)
Failed to create DMO filter
ERROR: Could not open required DirectShow codec wmv9dmod.dll.
You need to upgrade/install the binary codecs package.
Go to http://www.mplayerhq.hu/dload.html
VDecoder init failed 🙁
Opening video decoder: [dmo] DMO video codecs
Win32 LoadLibrary failed to load: wmvdmod.dll, /usr/lib/codecs/wmvdmod.dll, /usr/lib/win32/wmvdmod.dll, /usr/local/lib/win32/wmvdmod.dll
IMediaObject ERROR: 0x83e8e2c could not open DMO DLL (0x0 : 0)
Failed to create DMO filter
ERROR: Could not open required DirectShow codec wmvdmod.dll.
You need to upgrade/install the binary codecs package.
Go to http://www.mplayerhq.hu/dload.html
VDecoder init failed 🙁
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg’s libavcodec codec family
Selected video codec: [ffwmv3] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg WMV3/WMV9)
==========================================================================
==========================================================================
Opening audio decoder: [dmo] Win32/DMO decoders
Win32 LoadLibrary failed to load: wma9dmod.dll, /usr/lib/codecs/wma9dmod.dll, /usr/lib/win32/wma9dmod.dll, /usr/local/lib/win32/wma9dmod.dll
IMediaObject ERROR: 0x83e8e2c could not open DMO DLL (0x0 : 0)
ERROR: Could not open required DirectShow codec wma9dmod.dll.
ADecoder preinit failed 🙁
ADecoder init failed 🙁
Opening audio decoder: [dmo] Win32/DMO decoders
Win32 LoadLibrary failed to load: wmadmod.dll, /usr/lib/codecs/wmadmod.dll, /usr/lib/win32/wmadmod.dll, /usr/local/lib/win32/wmadmod.dll
IMediaObject ERROR: 0x83e8e2c could not open DMO DLL (0x0 : 0)
ERROR: Could not open required DirectShow codec wmadmod.dll.
ADecoder preinit failed 🙁
ADecoder init failed 🙁
Cannot find codec for audio format 0x162.
Read DOCS/HTML/en/codecs.html!
Audio: no sound
Starting playback…
VDec: vo config request – 1280 x 720 (preferred colorspace: Planar YV12)
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is undefined – no prescaling applied.
VO: [xv] 1280×720 => 1280×720 Planar YV12
V: 5.5 63/ 63 28% 1% 0.0% 0 0
Exiting… (Quit)
So, I decided to add Medibuntu repo. but it did not list repo for Debian Squeeze in repos page. I found Ubuntu Wiki page on Medibuntu which has instruction on how to install it on Ubuntu, but the instruction does not work for Debian. So, I edited the command to add Lucid Lynx repos. Just run the following command as root and you will be able to add Medibuntu repos:
After adding the repos, just run the following command (again, as root of course) to install win32 binary codecs (works for 32 bit and 64 bit installation):
While you can download the latest version of Eclipse PDT from Eclipse Download Page and install it manually, it is great to setup a repository instead so that you can get updates from it automatically via update manager. Eclipse is available in the official Debian repos but PDT is not. It is available in Yogarine Eclipse PPA in Launchpad. For Debian Squeeze, add the following line to Sources.list (or add it via Software Sources or in Third Party Repositories in Synaptic):
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/yogarine/eclipse/ubuntu lucid main
Then execute the following command as root to add GPG keys:
You may not get the latest version, but the repo is constantly updated and easy to manage than to monitor and re-download the same from Eclipse download page and update.
In Synaptic Package Manager, navigate to Settings>Repositories>Third Party Sources and then add the following:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu lucid main
Open up the terminal and type in the following as root (type in “su”, press ENTER and enter root password to change to root first or enable sudo in Debian and use sudo instead):
I have installed Debian Squeeze Testing replacing Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat and miss some applications only available via Launchpad PPAs. Not that they can’t be compiled from their sources or installed by downloading debs, but it would be great if updates were available from update manager like in Ubuntu. So I decided to add some Ubuntu PPAs and they are working fine. So, I decided to share here with the hope that it would be helpful to my readers.
If you want to install a PPA in Squeeze Testing, make sure that the PPA has an entry for Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. Not that it will never work with Maverick PPAs, but Lucid is a better choice as Debian Squeeze has package versions more similar to Lucid than Maverick or Natty. Thus, it is a better choice to use Lucid PPAs. Instead of using just the PPA name (for example ppa:tiheum/equinox for Equinox theme PPA) use the deb line for Lucid (eg. deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/tiheum/equinox/ubuntu lucid main ) and add it to /etc/apt/sources.list or Software Sources (or Synaptic>Settings>Repositories>Third Party Source). After adding that, copy the PPA signature (available in “Signing Key” section in PPA page), eg. 1024R/4631BBEA for Equinox Theme PPA. Just use the part after “/” (i.e. 4631BBEA for this example) and use the following command in the terminal to get GPG keys for the PPA:
Note: If you are not able to sudo, you may either enable it or use su followed by commands instead.
After that, reload the package list and install the package.
This may not work for every program that there is but it works for many. Hope this helps.
Pastie is a clipboard manager for gnome with best feature set. It is available in Launchpad PPA for Ubuntu Lucid Lynx and Maverick Meerkat. However, it can be installed in Debian Squeeze/Testing from the same PPA.
To install, just open up Synaptic>Settings>Repositories>Third Party Software and click Add. Add the following line (yes Lucid, not Maverick):
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/hel-sheep/pastie/ubuntu lucid main
When added, close the Repositories dialog and close Synaptic. Now, open up the terminal and execute the following commands:
I am using Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat and have been using the default theme for quite some time. I was bored with the default boot screen and decided to change it. If you don’t like the purple color of Ubuntu, you can easily change the Desktop theme and wallpaper, but the Pink/Purple Ubuntu Plymouth boot splash is a little difficult to get rid of. You can install other available boot splash by installing other packages, but I like the default boot screen, and just wanted to change its color. To do that, I just cloned the boot screen and made some changes so that it looks like the following.
Here is how I did it. Fire up the terminal and get ready.
Search for “Window.SetBackgroundTopColor” (without quotes) and change the 2 lines so that they look like the following:
Window.SetBackgroundTopColor (0.85, 0.85, 0.85); # Nice colour on top of the screen fading to
Window.SetBackgroundBottomColor (0.75, 0.75, 0.75); # an equally nice colour on the bottom
I have chosen these colors: #DADADA RGB: 217, 217, 217 and #C0C0C0 RGB: 192,192,192 You can choose any color you like. Find the RGB using gcolor2 (install this if you don’t have it installed) of the desired color and divide the RGB values with 256 to get the values to use. Save the file and exit.
Edit the Ubuntu Logo and other images: Install Gimp if you haven’t already done so and run the following:
The white logo may not look good with the background above. You may change the color however you like. For my selection of background color, black would look great, so I just inverted colors (Colors>Invert). Once done editing the image, save the file and quit Gimp. Now, change the progress dots:
I just changed the mode to RGB (Image>Mode>RGB) and desaturated the image (Colors>Desaturate) and got nice gray dot for progress_dot_on. I made no changes to progress_dot_off.
Install the theme: The theme is ready and can be installed using the following command:
The above command lists all the installed themes as shown:
There are 2 choices for the alternative default.plymouth (providing /lib/plymouth/themes/default.plymouth).
Selection Path Priority Status
------------------------------------------------------------
0 /lib/plymouth/themes/ubuntu-logo-nonpink/ubuntu-logo.plymouth 100 manual mode
* 1 /lib/plymouth/themes/ubuntu-logo/ubuntu-logo.plymouth 100 manual mode
Press enter to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number:
Enter the number corresponding to the theme you want to use. In my case, it is “0”. So I entered 0 and pressed ENTER. In your case, it may be different.
Update Initial Boot Image Now, you will need to run one more command to update the boot images and you are done.
A lot of Ubuntu 10.10 users have been complaining about Maverick being too slow, typing becoming laggy and video performance being choppy. Here are few things you can try to make it fast again. These have been collected from the user experience discussed in this post in Ubuntu forums.
Update your kernel to latest Mainline kernel
Ubuntu Maverick Meerkat uses version 2.6.35 of Linux Kernel. A lot of users have solved their problems by upgrading to version 2.6.36. You can do so by downloading the deb files and installing them from the Ubuntu Kernel Mainline PPA: http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/ Open the latest version that is available (rc8 is the latest in the time of writing this, however only 64bit is available, if you have 32-bit, use rc7) and download the following files:
linux-headers-VERSION_all.deb
linux-headers-VERSION-generic_VERSION_amd64.deb
linux-image-VERSION-generic_VERSION_amd64.deb
If you have 32bit, choose the ones that contain i386 instead of amd64 in the name.
Install them one by one in the same order as listed above and reboot.
Note that if that does not help and if you want to switch back to 2.6.35 kernel again, you can always remove 2.6.36 kernel from Synaptic Package Manager (Alt+F2>gksu synaptic). Also note that you will not get updates to 2.6.36 even if newer versions are out, so you should update manually later if you find newer versions of 2.6.36 kernels.
Clean install
If upgrading the kernel doesn’t help you, you may want to clean install in case you have upgraded from previous versions. That may not help most of you, but still might. If you have installed 64-bit version, you may even want to switch to 32bit version as many users have reported to have no problems with 32bit version. If you install 32-bit version and have 4GB or more RAM, you should install linux-generic-pae kernel from Synaptic Package Manager so that your system can make use of all of your RAM. Some users have also mentioned going to LinuxMint has solved their problems. Or if all elese fails, go back to Lucid (10.04) and wait for Natty Narwhal (11.04) to be released.
I have been using gnote for quite some time now instead of Tomboy notes in my Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat. Gnote currently does not disable add-ins permanently. However someone may find the Note of the Day add-in useful, it annoys me and I tried to disable it in Preferences>Add-ins, even in the latest stable version 7.2. However, that did not work. So, to disable it, I decided to move the plugin file where gnote would not load from.
To do that, you can use the following commands. It should work for any version that you have.
UPDATE: See the comments below for additional help regarding the issue.
I created a bootable USB pen drive with Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat Alpha Daily Build on it using Startup Disk Creator (usb-creator-gtk) in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. This gave the following message during startup:
SYSLINUX 3.63 Debian-2008-07-15 EBIOS Copyright (c) 1994-2008 H. Peter Anvin Unknown keyword in configuration file boot:
It seemed the version of syslinux in Lucid has a bug. I removed syslinux via Synaptic (which also removes usb-creator-gtk and usb-creator-common) and downloaded the deb files for the latest version of syslinux and syslinux-common from here and installed them. Then I installed usb-creator-gtk and then built the Live USB again. Then, it booted fine without problems.
