Back.to.blogging?

Its been more than two years since my last blog, and I probably have lost most of my avid readers in the process. But no worries, it has been a busy two years for me as well, formed my own startup company, being a father for the 3rd time, moving to a new house, a lifestyle change, and quite recently distance running. I aim to rekindle my love for blogging and with the changes happening lately I might be able to write more, and hopefully make even the mundane interesting. That said, I'll be tackling broader topics this time. I will definitely be writing about my passion for running, while still keeping the geeky stuff we all love. I'll be posting articles on Django/Python development as well as this have been my favorite things to tinker with lately. Ubuntu will definitely be discussed specially since the new LTS version is out and I'm convinced that this might be the best version yet (noticed that I didn't post Ubuntu related stuff after Karmic...because nothing much has changed!). Blogger has been pretty busy as well, so I'm taking the time to try the templates out, trash the old ones and loving the new UI enhancements. Stay tuned guys, this will be fun!

Karmic.on.the.HP.mini.110

My friend Jon bought a brand new HP mini 110 last week and asked me to install Ubuntu 9.10 on it (Karmic Koala). I suggested we install the remix edition instead as it designed exactly for netbooks (eeePC, Wind, HP mini,etc). The HP mini come with Windows XP installed and is actually pretty snappy for a netbook. I also liked its keyboard and it comes as no surprise that Jon chose it because he is a journalist and will actually be using the mini primarily for writing. After playing with it for a while, I prepared an Ubuntu 9.10 remix installer on a usb drive, stuck it on the mini, rebooted, and installed it. The installation was a breeze and after a few minutes or so I got the familiar orange-brown scheme and the remix interface. So I did the usual checks and was happy to found out that all of the mini's hardware work (at least that's what I thought at that point).

Now Jon is a Skype user and since Skype is not installed by default I promptly downloaded the Skype package from their site, installed and configured it. Audio and web cam worked fine but that's when I discovered that the internal mic does not work. As usual the first thing to do to is to install back ported drivers and hope that it might fix the situation. For the mini this is what I did.

sudo linux-backports-modules-alsa-karmic-generic

You can also use the Synaptic Package Manager, search for the package and installed it.

I installed the generic meta package so that all supporting packages are installed and should ensure that upgrades work correctly. I reconfigured Skype again and this time the internal mic worked. And just to make sure the package is loaded correctly I did a reboot. One of the stellar improvements in this Ubuntu version is its fast boot loading, I was up in running again in a few seconds. The back ported alsa driver definitely fixed the internal mic but somehow broke the mini's wireless connectivity. Sensing a driver conflict, I attempted to use ndiswrapper and loaded the windows drivers instead. The procedure failed but it reminded me to just use Ubuntu's Hardware Drivers app. This app allows users to load proprietary drivers to hardware that either don't have a Linux driver or have an untested implementation of a Linux driver. Their are two choices for Broadcom (the mini's wireless card) but for the mini you need to choose the STA drivers. Activate the driver and just do a reboot to be sure. Everything worked well in my case and I hope you'd be able to do the same for yours! :)

the.koala.arrives

I've just installed Ubuntu's latest release nicknamed Karmic Koala (9.10) and I still can't wipe the smile off my face. Once again Ubuntu/Canonical has release a shinier more polished version of the popular Linux distro. My main gear is an MSI PR-200 laptop and virtually all of my devices worked without a single tweak (the TV-card might need work). Gnome-do now sports a dock interface and it comes with the latest release of Firefox (so far no Flash issues). If this is an indication of Canonical's dedication to making Ubuntu the best Linux distro then I think they're on the right track. Minor design changes actually enhanced the whole experience. Kudos to Canonical and the Ubuntu community! :)