I keep forgetting which package to install in Ubuntu to get the DTDs for html, to stop xsltproc from hanging forever. So, for posterity: w3c-sgml-lib. I think it was w3c-dtd-xhtml in Ubuntu 16 and older.
Tag: Ubuntu (Page 1 of 2)
The Ubuntu page for reporting a bug does a good job of hiding the actual launchpad URL for filing a bug. Here is a direct one:
I’ve been needing IE for testing payformystay.com for some time now, but now I’m studying and I need it to work with some interactive Silverlight stuff.
I’ve found some instructions on installing a recent version of VirtualBox and
a number of Internet Explorer versions, all that without requiring a Windows license thanks to a specialized Windows VHD by Microsoft.
My Xen DomU’s that I upgraded to 11.4 no longer booted, because the xen-blkfront module is missing from the initramfs. To fix, do this when you get the initramfs prompt:
modprobe xen-blkfront
exit
Then after it’s booted:
root@ubuntu:~# echo "xen-blkfront" >> /etc/initramfs-tools/modules root@ubuntu:~# update-initramfs -u
Also look at this post.
I’ve encountered this error occasionally when loggin in:
-bash: warning: setlocale: LC_ALL: cannot change locale (nl_NL.UTF-8)
This breaks things like scp or bzr via sftp. To fix it, I followed this advice:
cd /var/lib/locales/supported.d
cat /usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED|grep -i nl > nl
dpkg-reconfigure locales
It’s not really pretty though; it shouldn’t give an error at all when a locale is missing. I mean, this way, I have to generate every possible locale to support logins from all over the world…
The current kernel in Ubuntu Maverick has a problem with shutting down when running as a Xen DomU (guest). When the VM has more than 1 VCPU, it won’t reboot or shutdown.
Just a quick link to my bugreport about this and a report filed against an earlier kernel.
My youngest sister has retired her big-ass (17″) Acer TravelMate (model 7513WSMi 7510) with a more modern offering from Sony. That was last year. Now, she thought it’d be a good idea to donate it to our oldest sister. But since the thing has always “run” like a pig with Windows Vista, her girl-geek instincts thought it better if I’d equip the old monster with Ubuntu Linux instead.
AMD 64bit
I’m also considering upgrading my own laptop to 64 bit. (They’ve told me that, really, the 32 bit age is over.) So, the first thing I’m trying to find out (now that I’m getting on the 64 bit train) is if this thing supports 64 bit. I can’t really think of a quick way to find out, so I’m just going to create a 64bit installation CD and see how that works.
…
Or, I could have just popped open the hood to see the “AMD Turion64x2 Mobile Technology” sticker. 😯
Installation
After changing the boot order, the installation CD (burned from my T61 using “wodim -data ubuntu-10.10-desktop-amd64.iso”) seems to be booting despite the worrying sounds that seem to indicate that the laptop is trying to rip apart and eat the disc.
I’m surprised how good the current installation program looks and that it asks me if I want to “download updates while installing” and “install third-party software”. Nice.
Great idea to ask all the annoying questions (timezone, etc.) during installation instead of after! I’m amused with how much I’m behind the time if I see all the promotional screens for new and improved software which is meant to keep me inspired during the installation process. “OpenOffice.org is fully compatible with Microsoft Office[…]” Am I really that much behind with the times? Nah, I can’t imagine. I must still have some very, very nasty Excel sheet lying around somewhere, gathering dust. If I feed that monster of a thing to OpenOffice, then I’m pretty sure… Yeah, that’s going to be fun. 😈
Post-installation configuration
I had expected to spend at least an hour or two hunting around forums to find solutions for obscure driver-related issues and other nuisances. But no issues popped up. It just worked. Ubuntu is very compatible with the Acer TravelMate 7513WSMi! 😀
So, I spent some of the time saved on setting a user pic and a few other niceties, but I refrained from doing anything fancy, because I’ve figured out a new sister support strategy that I might blog about later. (It involves a four-hour work-week…)
[For my own reference, I started on the first draft of this post on Januari 14.]
The video on my mom’s laptop, A Fujitsu Siemens Esprimo Mobile V5535, had recently gone awry. At the time, the laptop was running Ubuntu 9.04 (I think). Reconfiguring the driver didn’t do much good, so I upgraded the machine to 10.04, hoping that that would fix it. It didn’t.
lspci|grep -i vga 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 771/671 PCIE VGA Display Adapter (rev 10)
I solved the problem by manually installing a replacement driver that I found through a blog post that I found through another blog post that I found through a forum post.
Or something like that. Who cares? The point is that I’m uploading the files I found here so that I don’t have to jump through MegaUpload hoops again (and sit through MedaAnnoying ads):
Installing the binary driver wasn’t too difficult. (I just always cringe when something happens outside of package management.) 🙁
mkdir sis; sis wget http://blog.bigsmoke.us/uploads/2011/01/xorg-driver-sis671-0.9.1-fixed-build.zip unzip *zip sudo cp sis671_drv.* /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers #Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf and set `Driver "sis671"` on the "Device" Section [ -z $EDITOR ] && EDITOR=/usr/bin/vim $EDITOR /etc/x11/xorg.conf
Restarting the X server after that was a bit difficult, since the upgrade to 10.04 also fucked up the console (that damn framebuffer) and because Ctrl-Alt-Backspace is disabled by default. I had to reboot. (Ok, I hate to admit: it’s not that it’s difficult, it’s just wrong.)
Anyway, after the system restart, it worked just fine again. The X log agrees:
(II) SIS: driver for SiS chipsets: SIS5597/5598, SIS530/620,
SIS6326/AGP/DVD, SIS300/305, SIS630/730, SIS540, SIS315, SIS315H,
SIS315PRO/E, SIS550, SIS650/M650/651/740, SIS330(Xabre),
SIS[M]661[F|M]X/[M]741[GX]/[M]760[GX]/[M]761[GX]/662, SIS340,
[M]670/[M]770[GX], [M]671/[M]771[GX]
(II) SIS: driver for XGI chipsets: Volari Z7 (XG20),
Volari V3XT/V5/V8/Duo (XG40/XG42)
(II) Primary Device is: PCI 01@00:00:0
(WW) Falling back to old probe method for sis671
(--) Assigning device section with no busID to primary device
(--) Chipset [M]671/[M]771[GX] found
(II) SIS(0): SiS driver (2006/10/17-1, compiled for X.org 1.7.4.0)
(II) SIS(0): Copyright (C) 2001-2005 Thomas Winischhofer and others
(II) SIS(0): *** See http://www.winischhofer.at/linuxsisvga.shtml
(II) SIS(0): *** for documentation, updates and a Premium Version.
(II) SIS(0): RandR rotation support not available in this version.
(II) SIS(0): Dynamic modelist support not available in this version.
(II) SIS(0): Screen growing support not available in this version.
(II) SIS(0): Advanced Xv video blitter not available in this version.
(II) SIS(0): Advanced MergedFB support not available in this version.
(--) SIS(0): sisfb not found
(--) SIS(0): Relocated I/O registers at 0x9000
Then, to also fix the console:
grep vga16fb /etc/modprobe.d/* || sudo sh -c "echo blacklist vga16fb >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer.conf" sudo update-initramfs -u sudo reboot # pray
I had two other issues that popped up after the upgrade the 10.04. I was inclined to blame the first on the new video driver, but I solved it by disabling “Hardware Acceleration” in the Flash plugin preferences. [source]
Another problem that confused my mother was that the volume control icon had gone. [solution]
Edit: This doesn’t work anymore I don’t think, because more modern versions check for SMTP conflicts and don’t allow this.
When you’re installing zimbra in an Ubuntu or Debian machine, it seems it installs the MTA in such a way that command line tools like mail and such don’t work. But when you install exim, it conflicts with the postfix in Zimbra.
To fix it, you can install exim4, but configure this line in /etc/default/exim4:
QUEUERUNNER='queueonly'
Because Arnold Pilon is migrating his workplace to Apple, I could get his old PC and peripherals for free. Among its peripherals was an old HP LaserJet 6P, still perfectly working.
My sister didn’t have a printer yet. I was surprised that installing it on her Ubuntu machine was simply a matter of selecting the printer type from a list. I wonder: is this thanks to CUPS? Can I expect this to work in all distros that include CUPS these days?
Anyway, the printer works and the scanner too (of which I forgot to jot down the type). The scanner was supported by Xane without requiring any configuration. When it comes to hardware configuration, open source operating systems often beat those from Redmond.
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