Central Iowa Linux User's Group

Elected Officers

• President – Dave Weis
• Vice President – Kevin Smith
• Sgt. at Arms – Ken Ristau
• Treasurer – Barry Von Ahsen
• Secretary – Tim Wilson

Software Freedom Day

No information known at this time.

Ubuntu Edgy Presentation

Ken Ristau gave a presentation about his Ubuntu Edgy (6.10) AMD64 on an HP Pavillion dv2210 laptop. For information on the laptop, you can find it on Amazon here.

• The volume control worked. More info on the suspend/sleep/hibernate keys in the e-mail updates below.
• Some screen resolution issues, including having problems displaying to the internal display with an external display connected.
• The hotkeys to change brightness crashed X. Some nVidia configurations might fix the problems.
• Loaded wireless network via ndiswrapper. The version of ndiswrapper that came with v6.10 of Ubuntu was too old. Had to get a newer version and recompile it.
• Not sure if LightScribe+ will work in Linux.
• Runs Beryl on the laptop, although much of the eye-candy is turned off.
• Some of the buttons on the included remote also work under Linux.

-- Updates from e-mail:

LCD brightness adjustment keys crashing X:

Kevin C. Smith pointed me in the right direction on this one (thanks!). It seems to affect multiple brands and models of laptops under Ubuntu (and probably other distros). If you blacklist the video module (this is done in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist), then the crash doesn't happen any more. The keys to adjust brightness still don't work for me, but at least it doesn't crash. I did find a couple of work-arounds, though. Before the OS loads (during Grub or CMOS/BIOS splash), you can adjust the brightness with the function keys. After the OS has loaded, you can use nvidia-settings utility to adjust brightness. Not as convenient, but better than the alternative!

SecondLife linux client:

The SL linux client doesn't support 64-bit right out of the box, but the fix was pretty easy. I implemented the following and it worked for me, minus sound:

"The Second Life client is a 32 bit application. Due to the nature how libraries work, you must provide 32 
bit libraries for 32 bit applications and 64 bit libraries for 64 bit applications. On 64 bit linux systems 
you need to install the 32 bit compatibility versions of all the libraries Second Life needs."

$ cd /path_to_secondlife/lib
$ sudo wget http://romanoblog.free.fr/telechargements/libuuid.so.1

Click here for more.

Virtual Consoles:

I had mentioned that VC's weren't working very well. It seems Ubuntu loads some funky console fonts on boot up which were not working well with my video card. I tracked down the init script that makes these changes, disabled it and now not only do the VC's work but hibernate and sleep work great, too! The offending init script was /etc/init.d/console-setup. Right now I have it set to ask me what resolution I want ('vga=ask' added to the kernel boot options in grub), but I will probably set this to 80x50 eventually.

Suspend/Hibernate:

The sleep function and lock function buttons work just fine, I discovered. I like having a lock hot key to call the screen saver in locked mode.

Battery Life:

I've not properly tested the battery life yet, but now that I've got the screen dimming function working I will try to do that soon. Still, I've been averaging a little over two hours with the screen at full bright.

Express Card:

Express card slot is still not tested. I have the hardware to test it (a card reader) but I've just not been motivated to try it out since the on-board card reader works just fine.

Realplayer/FlashPlayer:

RealPlayer and Flash Player don't work. I got RealPlayer to install, but it doesn't put out any audio. Flash Player complains that there is no 64-bit linux edition when I launch the installer.

LCD Brightness:

I found out how to automagically change LCD brightness when connecting/disconnecting power:

"If you open gconf-editor, under apps -> gnome-power-manager, there you should have: AC_brightness, and 
battery_brightness.  Change the values and it should be fine."

Click here for more.

Of course, this means you need to run gnome-power-manager if you aren't already.

Dual Boot with Vista:

It looks like you can have a dual boot with Vista after all. You mentioned you couldn't resize the partition with Partition Magic. It turns out Vista has a resize option built in. Here's a link: http://vistarewired.com/2007/02/16/how-to-resize-a-partition-in-windows-vista/