Content-Type: RST A followup to my `last post `_: my experiences (re)installing Ubuntu on my Dell XPS M1330. My laptop's had numerous hardware problems. It might be my fault, it might be Dell's, but that's not my point now. The point is that my hard drive broke (probably a head crash?) and had to get replaced. I managed to salvage some of my files (the non-corrupt ones) and save them on a portable hard drive... which I seem to have misplaced. At any rate, I had to recover my system completely. The Dell technician - a college student doing his summer job, by appearance - did an awesome job replacing the broken hard drive, with one that had some sort of installer for Windows Vista Home Professional on it. When he left, the installer was starting up. He told me to leave it alone until it asked me for information like my name. After an hour of using my PC while watching my laptop go through what looked like restart seizures, Vista finished setting itself up. The installation came with all the necessary drivers, fully packed with crapware (including a Mac-style dock, oddly enough), and totaled at around 30 GB (what the hell?). Still, even with the drivers, and just like in the previous Vista installs, it refused to acknowledge my touchpad also has scroll capability. If you know me at all, that's about as far as I'd go before losing interest and installing Linux, so I popped in an Ubuntu 9.04 live disk and went from there. The installation was smooth. Well, aside for one bump which was mostly my fault for performing risky partitioning actions: I lost the Windows installation. Oops! .. figure :: http://blog.opensourcenerd.com/upload/oops So Ubuntu installed, and I only did a few things with it: turned it on (Broadcom wireless driver in use! Wireless: no problem), and installed Ventrilo (and Wine), so I could listen and cue in on the hard mode mission in Guild Wars I was doing with my guild. Ventrilo seems to be built using a weird Windows-only codec that I had to download manually from Microsoft's site* and stick into my ``~/.wine/drive_c/windows``. After that, it worked without a hitch. This morning, I picked up my laptop and went to the `Arlington Career Center`_ to work with `Jeff Elkner`_ on some `ReSTful`_ `Sphinx`_ work for his `Python book`_. More on how that went, later. .. _`Arlington Career Center`: http://www.careercenter.arlington.k12.va.us/ .. _`Jeff Elkner`: http://www.elkner.net .. _`ReSTful`: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReStructuredText .. _`Sphinx`: http://sphinx.pocoo.org/ .. _`Python book`: http://openbookproject.net/thinkCSpy/index.xhtml But, first, I had to see how my laptop worked. I connected to the local network, and enabled the multiverse package lists*, which caused the package lists to be updated. I was informed of all the security and other updates necessary, and that there was a non-free nVidia driver available for my card. I installed both of these using the push-button interfaces (ew...) and was instructed to restart my computer. I did so, and upon returning, I was greeted by an already-running Compiz at some reasonable, visually-pleasing settings. Before setting down to ReST, I wanted to listen to Pandora in Firefox. Then I remembered: I installed 64-bit Ubuntu. Adobe has poor flash support for 64-bit Windows machines, and for Linux machines: none. Luckily, I found a nice, 3-step process for installing a wrapper for the 32-bit flash plugin so there is no difference in performance. Install "nspluginwrapper". Download and unarchive the flash plugin. Run "nspluginwrapper -i "\*. Voilà, Flash! Later, I tested microphone inputs (USB, line-in, and built-in) and webcam - both notoriously broken in Linux - and both work flawlessly. Of course, it being me_, I could not bear to stick with the default Human theme. I had to make my own, `prettier look-and-feel`_ \*. .. _me: http://www.tjbash.org/3749 .. _`prettier look-and-feel`: http://blog.opensourcenerd.com/upload/cygnus-pretty So, I have an Ubuntu installation I'm super-happy with, and right now takes up a total of 4 GB. What more do you want? Oh, right, the asterisks. The asterisks are the things a regular "human" user would be afraid to do. Let's take a look at them, and see how they would have affected how my machine would work: - **Enable the multiverse** - Wouldn't really have affected anything of what I did. All the stuff I installed was already in the Ubuntu repositories. The multiverse is also not supported, so if it *does* break your computer (remember, GPL software comes with **NO** warranty), the Ubuntu devs have no way to fix the program. - **Run "nspluginwrapper -i ** - Yeah, the whole installing-flash-player-manually. Hey, look, if I installed the 32-bit Ubuntu it would work just fine with its automatic installer. As for the "human"? They would probably be given the Ubuntu install (or have Ubuntu installed) by a non-human. The assumedly non-sadistic non-human would install 32-bit just to avoid any conflicts like this. Plus, ubuntu.com recommends the 32-bit if you don't know what you're doing. They would have had plenty of time to turn back before now. If not, sorry. Blame it on Adobe, blame it on Ubuntu, but it just doesn't *work*. Though, it's sketchy on Windows too, so that's okay. :) - **...make my own, prettier look-and-feel** - This is a very condensed statement containing an installation of Emerald and CompizConfig, messing around in CompizConfig, then knowing exactly where I can pull the files I needed from. A human couldn't seriously break anything while doing this, but it's still counter-recommended. If they dislike the default orange, there are pre-installed blue, grey, brown (dark), and high-contrast themes they can use. - *ahem* - Ubuntu being free software, it only includes free codecs. Similar to the Ventrilo issue, I will either have to pay for codecs for Ubuntu (yes, they are available, for around $30, along with a neat installer), or use the ones provided by Medibuntu_. This, to be able to read copyrighted DVDs, see AVIs and MPEGs, and write MP3s that don't make non-Linux computers explode. .. _Medibuntu: http://www.medibuntu.org On the whole? Flash would be broken (durr), and I would have to put a little more push to get codecs off the ground, but hey, the cost was free (plus $30, if I take Canonical's codecs). I think the deal was worth it!