Tom Fotherby's Blog » Tech Journal

Default search engine in Ubuntu Firefox

Tom — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:41:31 +0000

Ubuntu will be switching their default search engine from Google to Yahoo in the next release (v10.04) because they have struck a deal where they will get a cut of the money made whenever a user clicks on a advert after doing a search. The only reason that this is interesting is that Yahoo search is powered by Microsofts Bing search engine which brings up some interesting questions: On the positive side, Microsoft will be paying for free software development, but on the negative side, Ubuntu users will be making money for Microsoft.

Tuxradar did a open ballot to gather peoples thoughts on the subject. They discussed it on episode 1 of season 2 of their podcast and they even mentioned me at 35:23. I was making the point that the default search engine of Firefox is moot because many people are switching to Google’s Chrome browser.

Nerd Music

Tom — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:24:05 +0000

I love my nerd pop – here’s some links:

The jQuery theme song by Jonathan Neal – http://jquery.thewikies.com/jquery.mp3 – It’s catchy.
The free software song:
- By Phoenix Imago – http://www.gnu.org/music/freesoft.ogg
- By Fenster – http://audio-video.gnu.org/audio/Fenster-Free-Software-Song.ogg
- By RMS (the orginal) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sJUDx7iEJw
Coder girl by dalechase – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-m6JDYRFvk
Search Engine Rap Battle: GOOGLE vs YAHOO and MSN vs GOOGLE
Kill dash 9 Rap – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fow7iUaKrq4

I’ll try to add more as I come across them… know any good ones?

Reminder to self – report bugs and ideas

Tom — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 11:00:02 +0000

I need to remind myself that there’s no point whining about a shortfalling in a piece of software unless I can be sure the author is aware of it. To that effect, I filed a bug with the Chrome team: #31833. I also submitted a tiny patch for the Jodometer JQuery plugin.

Ubuntu 9.10 on a Sony Vaio VGN-AR51E

Tom — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 20:06:09 +0000

I recommend the new Ubuntu 9.10 release (Karmic Koala), it works well on a Sony VGN-AR51E.

Karmic Goods:

It includes a new piece of software called “Ubuntu One”:
- Ubuntu One currently gives you 2GB of free cloud storage via a folder called “Ubuntu One” in your home directory or via a URL (https://one.ubuntu.com/).
- Ubuntu One allows you to sync your Tomboy notes between PCs – see this setup tutorial: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOne/Tutorials/Notes
- Ubuntu One allows you to sync your Evolution contacts between PCs – seet his setup tutorial: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOne/Tutorials/Contacts
The Desktop icons have been improved and now use a vector format (i.e. svg instead of png). I was able to use my own icons, created in inkscape, very easily.
Updated software. Firefox was updated from version 3.0.11 to 3.5 which is faster, supports the video and audio tags and has a private browsing mode. Geany was updated from version 0.17 to 0.18 which handles long filenames better in the Documents pane. Meld has been updated from version 1.2 to 1.3.0 which has better search functionality and no longer seems to lose it’s scroll synchronisation when the window loses focus. The kernel was updated from 2.6.28 to 2.6.31.
The headphone and microphone sockets now work. So does the DVD eject button on the laptop chassis. Only the 2 user programmable buttons and AV-mode keys still do nothing.

Karmic Bads:

Startup and shutdown seems slower! This is odd seeing as it uses newer startup software called Upstart that is supposed to be faster! I even installed Grub 2 via https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Grub2 but it didn’t help.
- At shutdown I sometimes get an error: “CIFS VFS: server not responding” which hangs the system sometimes for a while. This is because I have mounted Samba shares in /etc/fstab and when using Wireless, Ubuntu tries to unmount Samba shares after shutting down network services. The bug tracking number is #211631.
The webcam (MotionEye – Ricoh USB r5u870) didn’t work after the upgrade: /dev/video0 no longer existed!

Fixing the webcam:

The Sony VGN-AR51E laptop comes with a integrated Ricoh webcam. The webcam model number is 05ca:1839 as seen via:

> lsusb
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 05ca:1839 Ricoh Co., Ltd Visual Communication Camera VGP-VCC6 [R5U870]

Current kernel info:

> uname -a
Linux psyduck 2.6.31-16-generic #53-Ubuntu SMP Tue Dec 8 04:02:15 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Useful commands and logs that give info about the problem:

> dmesg | less  (or less /var/log/kern.log)
[   19.367070] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device  (05ca:1839)
[   19.367573] uvcvideo: UVC non compliance - GET_DEF(PROBE) not supported. Enabling workaround.
[   19.367786] uvcvideo: Failed to query (129) UVC probe control : -32 (exp. 26).
[   19.367789] uvcvideo: Failed to initialize the device (-5).
[   19.367824] usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo
[   19.367828] USB Video Class driver (v0.1.0)

The problem seems to be that the webcam drivers were not packaged for Ubuntu 9.10. In the previous version (Ubuntu 9.04) the webcam used the r5u870 V4L2 driver but it was deprecated and replaced in Karmic by a kernel module called R5U87x. R5U87x should be better because it is a set of userland tools that loads the firmware for all UVC compliant devices and makes them work with a more standard uvcvideo driver. Unfortunately, the R5U87x tools were not packaged in time for Karmic because the firmware images contained in the package didn’t have a suitable license to allow redistribution. i.e. the original working r5u870 driver was not packaged but nor was the newer R5U87x driver! This is all documented in Bug 120434.

Current (Dec/09) fix:

David Jarenkas has created r5u87x-loader (which doesn’t contain any non-free pieces) to load the webcam drivers. Add the following Personal Package Archives (PPA) to your sources list:
```
sudo emacs -nw /etc/apt/sources.list
add:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/r5u87x-loader/ppa/ubuntu karmic main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/r5u87x-loader/ppa/ubuntu karmic main
```

Add necessary encryption keys needed for software download:

gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv 9711AB5F
gpg --export --armor 9711AB5F | sudo apt-key add -

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install r5u87x

Now run the script that will download the necessary webcam firmware:

sudo /usr/share/r5u87x/r5u87x-download-firmware.sh

Test with a application such as Cheese (or gstreamer-properties or xawtv or skype).

In Skype, audio works but video still doesn’t until you add yourself to the “video” group (the file permissions of /dev/video* is group read and writtable for the “video” group):

sudo usermod -a -G video tom

Other tweaks:

The Ubuntu splash screen is nice but I prefer to see what the computer is doing. To turn off the splash screen do:

sudo emacs -nw /etc/default/grub

and change

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
to
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=""

Update grub:
```
sudo update-grub2
```

Making Linux friendly

Tom — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:00:19 +0000

We gave Fred (my father-in-law) a hand-me-down computer because his one is suffering from Windows rot and is unbearably slow. Our one comes with a catch… It has Ubuntu instead of Windows.

How do you make a Ubuntu computer easy to use?

Turn on Auto login
Remove all icons on the desktop, then add back “Internet” and links to “My Documents”, “My Pictures”, etc
Make sure there is only 1 Workspace
Music and Video player –> VLC. But change icon to something that makes more sense than a traffic cone!
Ipod software –> Banshee. But change icon to a ipod image
Trim unneeded software from the Applications menu (by uninstalling them)

Finished First “for-pay” website

Tom — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 07:00:37 +0000

Our first site as freelancers is more-or-less finished. It should hopefully look clean and simple?

Stop websites turning off the “remember password” browser feature

Tom — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:36:29 +0000

I’m currently in the process of incorporating a company and http://www.businesslink.gov.uk is my friend, especially the “Business start-up organiser” which is the ultimate “to do” list of things that need to be done. However, I found the site was annoying in that it kept logging me out if I went away for 5 minutes and the login procedure is frustrating because it asks you for a long number and doesn’t remember it. To force Firefox to remember the login details you need to edit a settings file, nsLoginManager.js:

Edit the settings file. e.g. in Ubuntu: sudo emacs -nw /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.0.11/components/nsLoginManager.js
Find the “_isAutocompleteDisabled” function and change it so it always returns false
Save the file and restart Firefox

I’m going to add this to the list of “Essential things to do immediately after installing an Operating system” as it saves so much time.

Building a MythTV Box

Tom — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 07:00:05 +0000

We have quite a good Freeview box which does scheduled recordings including series-record but it could be better because it is missing a HD output, DVD playback and Video streaming.

We decided to build our own HTPC in order to take control of our viewing options once and for all.

Hardware List:

Case: Lian Li PC-C37B Muse HTPC Chassis – Black. This case didn’t come with a PSU so we bought a Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK).
Motherboard: ASUS P5N7A-VM – micro ATX – GF 9300 / nForce 730i – LGA775 Socket – UDMA133, Serial ATA-300 (RAID), eSATA – Gigabit Ethernet – video – High Definition Audio (8-channel)
CPU: Intel E8400 Core 2 Duo Processor – 3.00 GHz, 6MB L2 Cache, 1333MHz FSB, Socket LGA775, 45 nm
RAM: 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 SDRAM, PC2-6400
Hard Disk: Samsung SpinPoint HD103UJ F1 Series – 1 TB – 32 MB – SATA
DVD burner: Samsung SH-S223QBEBN 22x DVD�RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Black)
TV-Tuner card: Hauppauge Nova-T 500 twin TV-tuner card.

This list was based on the suggestions from page 56 of issue 117 of Linux Format Magazine. One thing to note is that the Nova-T 500 comes with a full-height backing plate so it wouldn’t fit into the case until Hauppauge, apon request, mailed us a half-height backing plate. The case fits in our Ikea Besta Burs TV Bench (albeit with a little jigsaw butchery to the thin plywood back panel). The case is missing a IR port but the TV-Card comes with a external IR receiver which is perhaps more useful because it means the PC can be out of sight with only the little IR receiver poking out.

Software

Install and configure Arch using “The Beginners Guide”: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners_Guide. Then install MythTV using the great Arch wiki: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MythTV_HOWTO

Issues

Sound over HDMI – HDMI video worked out of the box but sound didn’t – To get sound through HDMI to the TV: Upgrade your version of ALSA, then in alsamixer, unmute all IEC958 channels (i.e. IEC958, IEC958-D, IEC958-1). Then:

For Xine – Go to the audio tab and change the “audio-driver to use” to “alsa” and the “device used for stereo-output” to “pcm.hw:0,3″.
For Mplayer – Right click->Preferences->Audio. Select alsa from the Available drivers. Then click “Configure driver” and enter “hw=0,3″
For MythTV – Go to Utilities/Setup->Setup->General->”Next” until you get to the Audio section. In “Audio output device:” enter “ALSA:hw:0,3″. For MythTV DVD playback – Go to “Utilites/Setup”->Setup->”Media Settings”->”Video Settings”->”Player Settings”-> and add “-ao alsa:device=hw=0.3″ to the mplayer options in the the “Default Video Player” field.
For Flash – Create (or edit) a file called ~/.asoundrc and add the following:
defaults.pcm.device.3

so that flash uses the correct Audio output device.

mythtv-setup keeps crashing when tuning the channels – The solution is to run mythtv-setup using only one CPU core: taskset -c 0 /usr/bin/mythtv-setup

Tuning issues – The Nova-T 500 does not pick up a signal as well as normal stand-alone Freeview boxes or TVs. I had quite a few problems.

Nova-TD-500 Tuning issues

Tom — Mon, 11 May 2009 09:55:09 +0000

I wanted to watch freeview on my PC so I bought a brand new Hauppauge Nova-TD-500 card. Unfortunately I found the picture quality to be exceptionally low – There were significant image artefacts and glitches where everything is fine if I plug the same cable into a normal TV. I tried a whole load of things but the solution was to buy an attenuator. Without the attenuator the card was useless.

For reference, this was my “why isn’t my nova-t 500 card working” checklist:

Is there a problem with the co-axial cable? No – because if I plug it directly into TV (i.e. not via PC) I get a good picture.
Is the signal too weak? No – because I tried a antennae signal booster -> No luck.
The Nova-t 500 has two inputs, am I using the right one? Yes, I tried pugging the co-axial cable into socket 1 then socket 2 then socket 1 and 2 at the same time using a cable splitter – I get different results depending on what socket I plug the coaxial cable into but nothing solves the issue. For reference, If I plug it into the bottom input (the one closest to the IR port) I seem to get a slightly better signal on one tuner but ZERO-SIGNAL on the other but if I plug it into the top input I get equally poor signal on both tuners.
Is it just a problem with the software / application rather than the hardware? No, I tried DVB in different applications (I tried Kaffeine and Xine as well a MythTV) -> All give bad TV image.
Is my computer configured okay? I looked at whether DMA is on -> Yes, I’m using a SATA HDD. I checked that we’ve got the latest card firmware (/lib/firmware/dvb-usb-dib0700-1.20.fw). I experimented with the “force_lna_activation” and “buggy_sfn_workaround” module options -> No luck.
Is my computer fast enough? I compiled MythTV with VDPAU and checked CPU usage with “top” -> CPU usage is <5% so no performance bottleneck. VDPAU is only useful for HD content anyway??
Is there a problem with my card? No – I took it back to the shop and bought a 2nd one but got the same results. (opps!)
Is there a problem with electrical interference? I tried using electrical insulation tape in all places where the metal in the PCI card might be touching the metal of the PC case. Yes – This actually did help a bit which means that perhaps there’s some kind of EM interference inside the PC? Doesn’t this indicate a poor design by Hauppauge?
Is the signal too strong? Yes – because I tried a attenuator and it fixes the problem. I guess the Nova-T card was being swamped and couldn’t pick out the digital signal from the analogue signal and other “noise”? With a variable attenuator you can gradually reduce the signal intensity – I think the idea is to find the correct intensity where the signal noise has dropped below the threshold that the Nova-T digital tuner can “see”. I don’t know why my cable has so much noise? Perhaps because it’s at least 20m long and runs parallel to the mains electrical circuit?

Additional actions you can take to get this fiddly Nova-TD-500 card working (relevant to UK Freeview television using a roof mounted aerial and coaxial cables).

Minimise the number of connections between the Nova-T card and the aerial. Each connection reduces the signal strength. I prioritise the Nova-T over other TVs because the other TVs don’t seem so fragile:
- Path to Nova-TD-500 card: Aerial → cable → 2-way-splitter → cable → Nova-T card
- Path to downstairs TV – Aerial → cable → 2-way-splitter → cable → 2-way-splitter → cable → wall socket → cable → Dreamcast splitter → Megadrive splitter → TV
- Path to upstairs TV – Aerial → cable → 2-way-splitter → cable → 2-way-splitter → cable → wall socket → cable → TV
Use high quality cables, e.g. “WF100″ coaxial cable. If possible, use as short a length of cable and avoid electrical wiring when fixing the cable. I bought some pre-made soldered cables from www.satcure.co.uk.
Improve the cable splitter. 2-way splitters pass approximately 40% of the signal to each output. In order to split the signal without incurring losses you need to use a powered amplifier. If you use a amplifier you need to do it at the aerial end rather than near the end-device, otherwise the amplifier also boosts the noise that has been picked up in the cable length and cable-joins. Unfortunately, I have no power sockets in my cellar so this isn’t an option for me .

Ubuntu 9.04 on a Sony VGN-AR51E

Tom — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:00:53 +0000

A jackalope?

I highly recommend the new Ubuntu 9.04 release (Jaunty Jackalope), it has A+ compatibility on a Sony VGN-AR51E. I also recommend upgrading from previous Ubuntu versions. Apart from the pretty new style system notifications the other thing well worth upgrading for is the promise of better boot performance.

Boot speed: Obviously, when I turn on my laptop I would like it to be ready ASAP but in the last few years each release has seemed to take longer to boot than the last. In order to minimise boot time I installed the 64bit version and partitioned with the new ext4 filesystem. After installing, doing an update and rebooting, I installed bootchart (sudo apt-get install bootchart) and rebooted again. The chart generated in /var/log/bootchart says boot time was 23 seconds. Pretty good.

Jaunty Goods:

Better boot time.
Pretty system notifications.
The new login screen is nice (not that I often see it because I have auto-login enabled).
My Laptop Webcam now works out of the box (sudo apt-get install cheese)
UK English dictionary available in firefox without need to download an extension.
Setting up my printer (HP Photosmart-3200) was the easiest it’s ever been. It was auto-discovered and literally done in 3 clicks.

Jaunty Bads:

The new wallpaper isn’t as nice as Intrepid (where’s the abstract jackalope?)
The automatic updates aren’t as good as Intrepid because they now seem to nag you.
I suffered from a complete system freeze related to the nvidia drivers. I couldn’t even boot the machine – took an hour to recover. Only happened the once though.