Tag Archives: Intrepid

howto linux

Webcam, Cheese, GStreamer and UVCVideo problems in Intrepid

2008/10/25 – 8:08 am

I bought a new webcam, a Logitech E 3500 and it works great on Skype. Unfortunately, on my Ubuntu Intrepid box, Cheese and other GStreamer based programs are not able to make the webcam work.

At the beginning, since it was working with Skype and not working with GStreamer, it seemed a GStreamer bug. It is not. It is a bug with the uvcvideo module loaded in the kernel. As soon as you compile the SVN version of uvcvideo the webcam start working with all the programs which can interface with Video4Linux2.

Here a few steps to make it working.
First of all: you need to install some build tools and the kernel headers:
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r` build-essential subversion

Create a folder on which you will work (let’s say it’s in your home, but you can change it):
mkdir ~/uvcvideo
cd ~/uvcvideo

Now download the latest source from the SVN server:
svn checkout svn://svn.berlios.de/linux-uvc/linux-uvc/trunk
cd trunk

and build it:
make

Now you are ready to load the brand-new module, but first unload the old one:
sudo rmmod uvcvideo
sudo insmod ./uvcvideo.ko

Now start Cheese and smile! In my case the resolution selection is still not working, but that’s a minor problem.

Please note that now you are using a module that is hand-loaded. If you want your kernel to load the new uvcvideo module automatically instead of the old one, enter the following commands:
sudo cp ./uvcvideo.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/media/video/uvc/uvcvideo.ko
sudo rmmod uvcvideo
sudo modprobe uvcvideo

This will overwrite the old module. The classic make install won’t work, since it will install the module in a different folder from the default tree of the kernel in Ubuntu Intrepid.

Personally I hope Ubuntu will soon provide a correct patch: even this worked for me, I don’t really like quick&dirty ways

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink | Comments (9)
linux software

Evolution 2.24: The buggiest version ever

2008/10/18 – 10:50 pm

Almost two weeks earlier than the official release (I’m so brave!), I upgraded my Ubuntu Box from Hardy to Intrepid. Everything shines and it is great, except for one: Evolution 2.24.

The new version of famous Gnome PIM Client by Novell (ex Ximian) is absolutely a pain in the ass, buggy and very easy to crash (it seems a software by Microsoft!). Let’s start.

Google Calendar

At the very first beginning it seems this new version eventually works well with Google Calendar. If you add an event on your Evolution, you will see it magically appears online. But at the very second try you will understand it is not working so well. Events in some of the calendar are read only and any time you try to move them or to modify you have two possibilities:

  1. The event doesn’t move: it’s well protected and the cut and copy commands in the context menu are gray.
  2. The event moves, you start singing “hurrah!”, but it actually makes a duplicate creating a new event just beside the previous one.

Of course forget any chance of deleting any event: any changes must be done through the web interface of Google Calendar.

After that you could have the great idea of changing some settings for the calendar which gives you problems. The default settings are “sync every 30 minutes” and “use SSL”. Well, let’s try to make the sync happens every 5 minutes and do you really need SSL for the calendar about your dog poo time?

After changing those settings somethings seems changed, but it’s just an impression: give Evolution a couple of minutes and it will disappoint you again. So you open the settings again and you see that they are back to 30 minutes and SSL is activated again.

Mail

I have to admit: there are not so many problems about the email. Only two.

1. Email notification

I was used to run the Email Notification applet to make an envelop icon appear on my panel any time I have an unread email. I just don’t like the Evolution native notification: it doesn’t behave as I want, and until differently proven this computer belongs to me.

Of course, since you are reading this, the Mail Notification 5.4 doesn’t work well with Evolution 2.24. You could think this is just a matter of configuration. So I tried to configure the Mail Notification but as I try to change any settings inside the Mail Notification Preferences I see Evolution crashing. The big giant defeated by the small dwarf who, by the way, didn’t want to hurt the big giant.

2. Virtual Folders and email count

Evolution 2.24 has some serious problem with calculation. I have some VFolder: one of this is the “Unread Messages” that will collect all the messages tagged as unread. This folder says I have two unread messages but it’s actually empty.

-1 unread, 6 total

-1 unread, 6 total

But there is another VFolder which behaves much funnier. This folder collects all the messages received in the last two days plus all the email tagged as “Important”. This folder says that I have 6 messages total (they are actually 27) and -1 unread messages (yes: minus one). Maybe Evolution thinks I have to write one message to get even.

Evolution 2.24 has been released along with Gnome 2.24. Both are great projects and I’m using them since several years ago (I suppose I started using Gnome in 2000), but they cannot pretend they are good and stable only because they shouted out so. It’s some kind of arrogance that puts out a quality much lower than the one I got used to.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink | Comments (3)
linux software

Epiphany-webkit on Ubuntu updates

2008/10/09 – 8:29 am

Very little left to do.

About Hardy. The webkit-team PPA has Epiphany 2.22.3 with webkit enabled.

Instead Intrepid has webkit enabled Epiphany in universe, so my work is not necessary. You can still use the webkit-team PPA if you want to use a more recent version of the webkit engine. I will probably upload a more updated version of Epiphany as well if neighter intrepid-proposed nor intrepid-backports will be able to provide it.

So long and thanks for all the fish!

Tags , , , , , , , | Permalink | Comment (0)
linux software

New F-Spot 0.5.0 – Build for Ubuntu

2008/09/21 – 8:10 pm

F-Spot developers released a new version of their photo management software. Here you can read the release note. I made a package for Ubuntu Hardy and Ubuntu Intrepid. Both are available on my PPA on Launchpad. Note that there could be some issues with this build: please refer any problem you find. It is sufficient writing a comment on this blog.

Quick instructions for Hardy

If you are using Hardy, add the following repositories to your sources (you can either use Synaptic or edit your /etc/apt/sources.list):

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/michelinux/ubuntu hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/michelinux/ubuntu hardy main

On Hardy you will also need a more updated version of GTK-Sharp, which you will find in the same repository. So if you are using the standard apt way there are no problems, but if you prefer to download the single deb file remember to download the GTK-Sharp deb file as well.

Quick instructions for Intrepid

f you are using Intrepid, add the following repositories to your sources:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/michelinux/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/michelinux/ubuntu intrepid main

It is not necessary add the deb-src repository: add it only if you are planning to play with sources.

Know Issues

This package won’t compile on amd64. Still investigating. This is the build log, if you have any idea or suggestion please let me know (just leave a comment to this post). Also, if you have a 64bit machine (Intel or AMD it’s pretty much the same) youi could try to download the upstream source of F-Spot and trying to compile it on your Ubuntu box.

This has been solved with the new upstream version 0.5.0.1. Please upgrade your installation by running

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink | Comments (17)
software

Firefox: Eula o non Eula, questo è il problema!

2008/09/15 – 12:16 pm

Mozilla ha scritto a Canonical, la ditta che materialmente mette insieme Ubuntu, che la smettano di distribuire Firefox senza che gli utenti prendano atto e accettino le condizioni della licenza d’uso (EULA – End User License Agreement). Canonical ha ricevuto e ha messo al primo avvio del browser l’accettazione della licenza, manco fossimo su Windows.

La polemica infuria e molti vorrebbero che IceWeasel (o ABrowser, o quant’altro) o al limite Epiphany ne prendessero il posto come browser principale. Secondo me bene fa Shuttleworth ad accettare le condizioni imposte da Mozilla (in pratica è solo una questione di marchio) per una serie di motivi:

  • Firefox è un prodotto che molti già conoscono. È usato dal 20% degli utenti (almeno di quelli che navigano) mentre Ubuntu si perde tra le cifre decimali;
  • È giusto tutelare i marchi. Ubuntu è un marchio registrato, Canonical è un marchio registrato e perfino Linux è un marchio registrato. Ciò non toglie che le maniere di Mozilla siano quanto meno discutibili.

Sarebbe però una mossa estremamente gradita da parte di Mozilla (il sasso l’hanno buttato loro) trovare un accordo con Canonical piuttosto che chiedere ad ogni utente di sottomettersi alle regole del mercato. Oppure, meglio, semplicemente smetterla con questa storia e trovare un’altra maniera per tutelare il proprio marchio e fare in modo che il browser sia effettivamente e completamente open. Insomma gli altri brand non chiedono accettazioni di licenze o sottomissioni varie: ci mancherebbe altro che per usare Linux dovessimo inventarci qualcosa del tipo IcePenguin.

Se proprio ‘sta cosa ce la dobbiamo sorbire, allora tanto vale trovare un modo educato per proporla all’utente: l’ultima build che ho provato mostra la EULA in una scheda e la cosa non turba più di tanto, anche se mi piacerebbe sapere se per Mozilla è sufficiente.

Un’altra maniera potrebbe essere quella di mettere l’EULA di Firefox all’interno della licenza di Ubuntu mostrata durante l’installazione (così è sicuro che nessuno la legga). C’è però da considerare che Ubuntu non mostra una licenza di utilizzo (capito Mozilla? Ecco come si fa!), o almeno non me l’ha mostrata quando ho provato ad installare quella che tra un meze e mezzo sarà la 8.10 Intrepid Ibex. Inoltre questa soluzione non è applicabile alla versione live… Insomma teniamocela in una scheda e che si veda una volta sola e mai più1 .

In definitiva nonostante tutto io voto per Firefox®, anche se ho un debole per Epiphany, specialmente se accoppiato con WebKit2 .

  1. magari solo dopo gli aggiornamenti [↩]
  2. sto preparando una nuova build di Epiphany con WebKit… Restate sintonizzati [↩]
Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink | Comment (0)