10 Things to do after a Fresh Ubuntu Install

Often, there are certain things that people do after a fresh install of their operating. I often install my operating systems once a while (and find such re-installs painfully horrible) because I manage to screw something up with an application or tweaking some setting results in an improperly functioning operating system.

Flickering Monitor in Ubuntu 10.04 for ATI Cards

While Ubuntu 10.04, Lucid Lynx really runs like a Lucid Dream, the one thing that I found problematic is not being able to run dual monitors. While dual monitors worked great in Windows and even Ubuntu 9/8 for some reason whenever I tried to set up the second external monitor, it would always flicker and wiggle.

However, thanks to the great people at the Ubuntu forums, it seems like I have found a fix that works. Special thanks to clhsharky for this tip. You can read the full post here.

But here's the gist of it (I've tried this on an ATI x1400 Video card, and it stops the external monitor from flickering):

Update (August 20, 2010): Seems like the rc7 release is available. You might want to download that instead... (see the comments section for more information)
Update (August 21, 2010): As Ryan suggests in his comment below, the rc6/rc7 candidates may contain a security flaw, so you may want to read that first before proceeding...

Go to http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.34-rc6-lucid/ 
and download the following files and install them in this order (depending on which processor you have)

For Intel (x86/64) based processors download and install (installing as in double click the .deb files after downloading it and click install..) the following in this order:
linux-headers-2.6.34-020634rc6_2.6.34-020634rc6_all.deb
linux-headers-2.6.34-020634rc6-generic_2.6.34-020634rc6_i386.deb
linux-image-2.6.34-020634rc6-generic_2.6.34-020634rc6_i386.deb

For AMD processors download and install the following .deb packages in this order:
linux-headers-2.6.34-020634rc6_2.6.34-020634rc6_all.deb
linux-headers-2.6.34-020634rc6-generic_2.6.34-020634rc6_amd64.deb
linux-image-2.6.34-020634rc6-generic_2.6.34-020634rc6_amd64.deb

Finally, after you restart, you'll be able to choose the rc6 kernel while you boot, which should fix the problems.

Again, this may not work for all ATI cards, but it seems to work for mine!

And boy is Ubuntu fast... it loads in ~ 35 seconds on a 4 year old laptop. Impressive... and now I also use dual monitors if I want to!

Installing Ubuntu without a CD drive using USB drive

With the latest release of Ubuntu, I feel that more people will have access to a highly mature, fast and easy to use operating system. But unfortunately, most people I’ve talked all believe that in order to install Linux (GNU/Linux) on your computer, you’re going to have to burn CD’s and it’s going to take a long time.

While this was true in the past, no longer is it necessary to burn a CD (or even have a CD drive, if you’re a netbook user) in order to use an open source operating system (OSOS ?). Here’s now you can install Ubuntu or any other similar flavour of an open source OS, with UNetbootin

RogersHelp.com is a suspicious website

Interestingly enough, I was browsing the Internet today and came across an interesting phenomenon related to my Internet Service provider. Turns out, Norton actually blocks Rogers' forum websites and shows the big red X beside any Rogers website in Google search results.

(k)Ubuntu with compiz has lines on screen after rebooting from hibernation or suspending

Interestingly enough, I ran into another problem while using Ubuntu yesterday. I was using my laptop for a while, without the power cord, and I got a message from Ubuntu saying that my battery was about to die out. So, I promptly decided to hibernate my computer for the night and then plug it back into the power cord once I found it in the morning.

Finally, I woke up today morning, found the power cord, plugged it in and started Ubuntu. Sure enough, everything worked great. Ubuntu read the 'waking up the computer' message while it was booting and once if finished booting, it asked me for my password (although I have automatic login turned on, I guess it doesn't apply to login after wake up from hibernation or suspension) and after typing it in ... Ubuntu opened my desktop, just as I had left it the night earlier.

However, the first thing I noticed after booting in was the lines or I suppose you can call them artifacts that appeared around the screen where the "compiz reflections" were supposed to be. So even when I opened a tool tip, all I'd get were lines. As shown below:

click picture to enlarge it and see the lines around the windows, desktop and tooltip.

I'm guessing that this is a video card problem or a compiz coding problem. It might also happen after you wake up your computer after suspending it. Although I realise that suspend might not be the same as hibernate, and even after repeatedly trying to reproduce the problem, it might occur after suspension. Nevertheless, I'm going to include the possibility and mention it in this post, in case someone else out there is experiencing the same problem.

Anyway, fixing the problem is simple. Restart compiz. Once you restart compiz, your screen will flutter for a second and then fix the lines that occur without changing anything else on your computer.

How to restart Compiz

Update/Tip: Turns out you can also do this by pressing Alt + F2 and typing in compiz. Then just click run and compiz should restart...

1. Press Alt + F2
2. Type in: gnome-terminal
3. Type in compiz in terminal
4. Wait for a second and let compiz restart
5. Quit terminal

Once you restart compiz, you can then go back to playing with the wobbly windows without the weird lines.

Video Player Quickly Closes, Crashes or flickers for video in Ubuntu?

After a fresh install of Ubuntu on my laptop (it's a 3 year old Dell Inspiron 6400 w/ ATI Mobility Radeon x1400 video card), I tried opening a video of Freedom Fry after downloading it to my desktop. To my surprise, and this is definitely the first time it has happened to me as I recall, the player quit!

I tried double clicking on the video again! Movie Player opened for a couple of seconds, opened and then quit again. I repeated the processes a couple of times, in vain of course. Then I remembered that I might have missed some codec (well, the Stephen Fry's video was in .ogv format, that was supposed to be supported right out of the box) so I added Gstreamer codec packs onto Ubuntu.

In case someone out there is curious this is how you Add GStreamer Codecs to play MP3s and MPEG and MOV files on Ubuntu's default Movie Player... First click on Applications > Add or Remove > Search for GStreamer > Check the checkbox beside the plugins you think you might need > Click the Apply Changes button below > Follow instructions.

However, doing so didn't fix the problem. So I repeated the same process above to go to the Add or Remove window and download VLC. VLC is one player that can play virtually ALL video files out there. Then I double clicked on the video.......... VLC opens..... closes in 0.5 seconds! Still no luck.

Then, I remembered that I had come across a similar problem a while ago, except the problem lead to the video fluttering and flickering when it was played. The solution was to use the X11 form of video output in VLC. And I came across this helpful post in the Ubuntu forums as well where the video player immediately crashed for some other people as well.

So in case you don't know how to change the output format to X11 in VLC, here's how you can do so. Of course, you'll need to get VLC first. Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible to change the output format in the default movie player in Ubuntu, but if someone else knows about how one can do so, please post in comments below.

Changing output format in VLC to prevent it from crashing or flickering when opening video

1. Go to Applications > Sound & Video > VLC media player
   
2. Click Tools > Preferences
3. Choose Video from the left hand 'pile-on list'
4. Beside output choose 'X11 video output' like so:

Then just click Save and try opening the file again.

Everything should work flawlessly now!

Why does this problem occur?

The flickering problem in my opinion is some by-product of bad ATI drivers and Compiz code. Some times, if you turn off all compiz effects and switch you appearance settings to minimal, you can get rid of the rapid flickering. I doubt it has anything to do with the codecs or the player as there is no degradation in the audio.

As for the video automatically closing/crashing the player problem, its most likely the graphics card driver. Since the drivers for graphic cards are proprietary (especially if you're using Compiz, you have to switch to the ATI proprietary drivers...) it's likely that there is some 'broken telephone' going on between the OS and the drivers and the hardware causing the problem.

Ubuntu Audio Does Not Work - Static Sound Instead

Have you ever experienced the static sound on Ubuntu when you should have been hearing something (perhaps the start up sound or something) from your speakers? Well, you might think that your sound card has stopped working or something, but as it turns out.. there's a quick way to get your audio back to normal.

It's not that your sound isn't working... it's just "muted" (although I wonder why it makes the static sound instead of being completely quiet...).

To get your sound back here's what you need to do:

1. Double click on the speaker icon in the menubar
2. Alternatively, you can press Alt+F2 and type in: gnome-volume-control and click 'Run'
   
   

Then on the volume control window, choose the appropriate device where it says "Device:" and just turn your "PCM" volume all the way up... if this slider is all the way at the bottom you'll just get static from the speakers instead of sound.


Hope this helps others out there who experience the same audio "stuttering" problem.