Tag: ubuntu

Speed Up Gnome for Old Computers

Turn off the following in System->Preferences->Startup Applications:
Bluetooth Manager (unless your old computer has bluetooth… which i doubt)
Evolution Alarm Notifier
Remote Desktop
Visual Assistance (unless you need it)

open gconf from the terminal:
gconf-editor
/apps/metacity/general and check on reduced_resources
/apps/panel/global and uncheck enable_animations
/desktop/gnome/interface and check off the box for accessibility

Select Themes that are lighter and more responsive. You can go with something like:
Controls:Simple, Window Border:Simple, Icons:Gnome, Pointer:Default Pointer
Controls:Raleigh, Window Border:Bright

Visual Effects: None

Installing Mythtv on Ubuntu with a Pinnacle PCTV

I have installed mythtv before, but I could never really get it to work properly with my Pinnacle PCTV TV card. I couldn’t record the sound from the tv shows because I had an old card. I finally found a post by someone named tcj that pointed me in the right direction. Basically since this is an old card I would need to use a jumper cable to catpure the sound from line in.

From: http://www.mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/2003-July/008852.html
“Pinnacle PCTV Pro. Video capture works using the bttv kernel driver. Audio
requires using a jumper to a sound card; btaudio does NOT work.” Note that btaudio is nolonger used as it was for OSS and OSS is now considered obsolete. ALSA is what you will need with snd_bt87x. Ubuntu 9.04 will automatically load the required modules: bttv and snd_bt87x.

Details on setting up the jumper settings for sounds here: http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-7.html.

You will first need to properly setup alsa. Do so with the following commands:
$ amixer set Master,0 100%,100% unmute
$ amixer set PCM,0 100%,100% unmute
$ amixer set Line,0 75%,75% mute captur
$ amixer set Capture,0 100%,100% captur
$ su
# alsactl store
# exit
$

Next, on the backend mythtv server set the audio capture device to /dev/dsp.

Change the output sound device in mythfrontend->setup->Audio from /dev/dsp to ALSA:default.

If it is still not working try this command to manually unmute your tv capture card:
v4lctl -c /dev/video0 setattr mute off

Enabling Thinkpad Trackpoint Scrolling in Ubuntu 8.04 LTS

This information was from thinkwiki.
Add the following to your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file

   Option          "EmulateWheel"          "on"
   Option          "EmulateWheelButton"    "2"
   Option          "YAxisMapping"          "4 5"
   Option          "XAxisMapping"          "6 7"

Here is my xorg.conf


# xorg.conf (X.Org X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
#   sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section "InputDevice"
 Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
 Driver  "kbd"
 Option  "XkbRules" "xorg"
 Option  "XkbModel" "pc105"
 Option  "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
 Identifier "Configured Mouse"
 Driver  "mouse"
 Option  "CorePointer"
 Option  "EmulateWheel"          "on"
 Option  "EmulateWheelButton"    "2"
 Option "YAxisMapping" "4 5"
 Option "XAxisMapping" "6 7"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
 Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
 Driver  "synaptics"
 Option  "SendCoreEvents" "true"
 Option  "Device" "/dev/psaux"
 Option  "Protocol" "auto-dev"
 Option  "HorizEdgeScroll" "1"
EndSection

Section "Device"
 Identifier "Configured Video Device"
 Driver  "fglrx"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
 Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
 Identifier "Default Screen"
 Monitor  "Configured Monitor"
 Device  "Configured Video Device"
 Defaultdepth 24
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
 Identifier "Default Layout"
  screen "Default Screen"
 Inputdevice "Synaptics Touchpad"
EndSection
Section "Module"
 Load  "glx"
EndSection

Add new user on Ubuntu server

sudo useradd -d /home/testuser -m testuser admin
sudo passwd testuser

the admin at the end makes testuser part of hte admin group. you do not need to add it to the end. you can also just edit the /etc/group file and manually add testuser to the admin group.

info from here: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/add-a-user-on-ubuntu-server/
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=201468
http://linuxservertutorials.blogspot.com/2008/11/ubuntu-create-group.html