Living with Ubuntu

I installed Ubuntu Feisty Fawn on my Thinkpad T20 laptop as part of its rebirth. I also installed it as another boot option on my desktop. So what has it been like using it every day. I should point out I am not completely new to Linux having used various distros over the last few years. Linux has been my default operating system for the last year or two.

Installation went well. It was very simple, after the live cd booted I clicked on the install icon. The laptop installation was straight forward as I used the entire disk. On the desktop I have a spare harddrive and decided to use all of it which also was simple. Maybe too simple. I would prefer the option to select what gets installed and what doesn’t. I know I can do this post installation but why not at install time? Other distros do it.

There were some display issues on the laptop which I covered in the previous post but I was surprised how well most things worked, especially wifi. On the desktop all my hardware was recognised and works. Even the film scanner I have had to set up manually in the past. The graphics tablet works better than it has under any OS.

I like to personalise the desktop on my systems and here I found one of the weaknesses of Gnome. It is less intuitive to change colours etc than KDE. Once I got used to it though I was able to make some changes. I found editing the menus easier under Gnome. The desktop effects don’t work on the Thinkpad (no surprise there) but I use the cube on the Desktop.

I like single click having used it since it first appeared back in the days of Windows 98SE. I found it needed to be set in some programs, eg. Nautlius, although I had previously set it a system preference.

Installing additional software is a breeze, Synaptic is possibly the best tool currently available. I installed KDE and can switch between it and Gnome with ease. I also installed many other applications but that is a subject for a different day. The installation of the codecs needed to access some files, eg. MP3s, is handled well.

System updates are generally handled well. One update which included a new kernal reintroduced the display problems on the laptop and I had to redo the manual set up.

Localisation is an issue for many users and is for me. All systems default to US for English speaking countries and required some attention. During installation I was asked for my location and the time zone etc. was correctly set but I had to alter the language settings manually. There are Australian dictionaries and the local Ubuntu site covers this well. (As an aside Australian English is English UK with local place names etc. added).

I have had problems on the desktop with the USB sound card. Initially only Rhythmnbox would work but after searching various forums I got some system sound working but Firefox and other programs are still silent.

I will probably update to Gutsy Gibbon in the future but am no hurry to do it as I’m happy with the way it is running at the moment.

Overall though it has been a positive experience, Ubuntu is working well for me. It does nearly everything I need to do although I had to install several other programs to get to that point. They will be the subject of a future post.

Gone in a Flash

Call them flash memory, memory cards, whatever but with everyone who owns a digital camera and other devices using them they are now an important part of our lives. Often they hold the only record of important occasions. Too often they are also a source of exasperation and disappointment. So what can be done to make them more reliable?

In some ways I feel a little under-qualified to write this as I have never lost a file off one of these cards. So I don’t really know what it feels like to have try and recover that important photo.

I have one card that has survived in one of my digital cameras for two and half years. It gets used too. It is the camera I drop into my backpack when I’m going out for the day. It is also used regularly to record activity at a worksite. Here is what I do, it’s not rocket science just a little common-sense.

The card stays in the camera, at least as much as possible. I use the USB cable to download files from the camera, not a card reader. Similarly I don’t take it to a photo booth and print from it. Either I print at home or I put the photos I want on a cd and take that to the shop. I bought the largest card available at the time as using a high capacity card will reduce the chance of filling it up and needing to change it.

If it comes out of the camera it goes in its storage box. How often have you seen people pull one of these cards out of their pocket, bag etc. and then wonder why they can’t read from it? These are fragile pieces of kit and should be treated accordingly.

If it does come out of the camera it doesn’t happen in a dusty, damp or dirty environment. Dust or moisture on the contacts or worse in the camera will prevent proper use of the card. Cleaning is difficult and if its in the camera, expensive. Keep the cover closed!

All my cards are formatted regularly. While new cards will sometimes work as soon as they are put in the camera I always format in the camera before using them. Rather than just deleting photos when they are copied off I often do a full format. I have heard advice to the contrary and even been told it causes the camera problems. This is old news, it appears early digital cameras would forget their number sequence when formatted and so old photos could be overwritten (who keeps the name cameras give the images anyway?). This doesn’t happen with newer cameras.

Get those files off there. As soon as I can I transfer the images to the computer. However unless I am going to use the camera immediately I don’t delete the files from the card until I have backed them up at least in one additional place.

So that’s it, a few simple ideas that work for me. Treat your card with respect and it will reward you with long life. Do you have any other ways of keeping the card contents safe? Please share them in the comments.

USB Keyboard

I recently updated my keyboard and for the first time have one that plugs into USB. It works fine, WindowsXP required driver installation but Linux just worked. However I had one problem.

As you may gather this is a multi-boot machine, it has Windows and a couple of versions of Linux. I have a Grub menu at boot up to select the OS to use. That was the problem, the keyboard wouldn’t work until an OS started up. I could only access my default OS. Checking a couple of forums I found a comment that some (most new) bios have an option to activate USB at boot. I checked mine (using an old ps2 keyboard) and the option was already set. Still no luck.

My computer has 2 set of USB ports (3 if you count the ones on the front panel). There are some directly on the motherboard and some on an expansion card. I had plugged the keyboard into the expansion card. As a test I rearranged some of my USB devices plugging the keyboard into one of the ports on the motherboard and rebooted. Problem solved, it worked fine.

As an aside both Linux systems handled the rearrangement without a problem however Windows went into a flap trying to set up all my “new” hardware and insisted on a reboot before it would work. That’s one reason why it isn’t my default OS!