Ubuntu Heyron: i810 beats intel driver ?

I'm not sure why, but ever since I upgraded my x86-64 installation to Ubuntu 8.04, all applications (but especially Firefox in particular) would spot a dramatical display slowdown, although CPU was not loaded.

Well, ever since switching from the default "intel" video driver to the "i810" driver, things have gone back to normal. This makes me think that the new/official "intel" driver is yet to become
what the old i810 one has still to offer...

Resolving video play issues with Intel video cards in Ubuntu

Yet another hack to take into account when dealing with a laptop having an integrated Intel video card (e.g. Intel 945GM in my case): if you have problems playing video clips with the 3D accelerated desktop (Beryl or Compiz powered), then you may be running with a buggy driver.

There seem to exist a problem (see bug reports here, here and here) with XV support when using AIGLX so all media players using the default "xv" video output will fail or crash (including Totem and VLC). This is a big problem for the Gutsy users since Compiz Fusion is enabled by default.

The easy fix is to change the video driver from "intel" to "i810" — you can do that either manualy changing the "Device" section in /etc/X11/xorg.conf or, in Gutsy, from System / Administration / Screens and Graphics / Graphics Card / Choose driver by name.

Cisco VPN Client on Ubuntu (Gutsy)

I recently have been endowed with a company laptop and as such I was in a hurry to install Ubuntu Gutsy besides the usual suspect (read Windows). Good news is that everything has gone smoothly (or almost); bad news was that I couldn't install Cisco VPN Client, having the same issue as VMware Workstation — kernel module building was breaking due to changes in the latest Linux 2.6.22 kernels.

So after some googling around I found the solution — a neat patch which allows compiling Cisco VPN Client. Thank god the guys at Cisco were kind smart enough to give object/source code for their IPsec kernel module and not binary modules.

Ubuntu usefull non-free packages collection

Here is a easy way to install a big collection of restricted packages (either due to licensing terms or restricted by copyright) in your Ubuntu desktop: install the ubuntu-restricted-extras meta-package (either through Synaptic or from command line, see below).

You will get, among others:

• gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly
• gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse
• msttcorefonts
• flashplugin-nonfree
• sun-java6-plugin

You can use the following command in the terminal:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

Source: Ubuntu docs

VMware Workstation 6 and Ubuntu Gutsy 7.10 / Linux kernel 2.6.22-9

Had a rough time trying to make Workstation 6 work on Ubuntu Gutsy — the vmnet-only kernel module was failing to compile. After trying a few patches flying around VMware VMTN forums, I was finally able to use the vmware-any-any-update113 tarball to fix the problem.

Procedure:

1. Unpack vmware-any-any-update113.tar.gz
   

   $ tar xvfz vmware-any-any-update113.tar.gz


2. Copy over the vmnet.tar file into your VMware lib/modules sources directory
   

   $ cd vmware-any-any-update113
$ cp vmnet.tar /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/


3. Run vmware-configure.pl

Good luck!

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Pidgin 2.0.1 (and Ubuntu repository)

Now that Pidgin 2.0.1 has just been released, the chase was on to grab another .deb for 2.0.1, but was rather enjoyed to find that someone has been thinking about an Ubuntu repository — add the following in /etc/apt/sources.list (for Ubuntu Feisty):

## http://ubuntu.schmidtke-hb.de
# wget ubuntu.schmidtke-hb.de/aptrepository.asc
# sudo apt-key add aptrepository.asc
deb http://apt.schmidtke-hb.de/ feisty main

Source: OShelpdesk.org
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Suggested posture while at the computer desk

Washintonpost.com had published some images with suggested postures while working at the computer.