Tag Archives: Ubuntu

Mark Shuttleworth nominated to the new SABC Board

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I just read that Mark has been nominated to the SABC board.  Although I think that the SABC needs somebody like Mark on their board and that he would do a stirling job, I doubt whether Mark would accept a nomination like this with all the things he is involved in.  Being on the SABC board is probably almost a full time job these days with the mess that the SABC is in and I cannot see Mark leaving some of his duties at Canonical and Ubuntu to join the SABC board.

I might be totally wrong here and who knows, maybe Mark has allready agreed to this.  Would love to hear his comments about it.

Other notable names is Max du Preez, Mimi Coertze, Cliff Saunders and World Cup CEO Danny Jordaan.

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Wat was jou eerste rekenaar?

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Na aanleiding van ‘n inskrywing van Jo-Ann waar sy praat oor haar eerste rekenaar, het ek dit goed gedink om bietjie te skryf oor myne.  En hier gaan ek sekerlik my ouderdom weggee en die jonklomp van vandag gaan nie ‘n “clue” hê waaroor ek praat nie.

My eerste rekenaar het ek aangeskaf in, ek dink 1978.  Dit was nog die dae voor PC’s.  Dit was ‘n Apple II wat min of meer so gelyk het.

Daai skerm wat julle daar sien was groen gewees en dit het een of ander vorm van Basic gehad.  Die floppy drives was, ek dink, 128KB en ek het net een gehad.  Ek kan nog onthou dat ek ‘n huis finansies program geskryf het en ‘n hele 3 kopers gehad vir die ding.

My volgende rekenaar het ek in 1981 aangeskaf en die was ‘n IBM PC wat in Suid Afrika gemaak is met die naam Psion.  Dink hulle bestaan lank nie meer nie.  Hierdie rekenaar met 2 floppy drives and 640KB geheue het my seker naby die R8000 uit die sak gejaag wat baie geld in daai dae was — geen hardeskyf nie.

Vandag staan hier 3 rekenaars, waarvan een ‘n laptop is, in my huis.  En alles is genetwerk en met die druk van ‘n knopiie kan mens basies enigiets in die hande kry. 

Die beste ding wat verander het vanaf 1980, toe daai PC, DOS op gehad het en later Windows, is dat daar geen Microsoft/Windows op enig van my rekenaars is nie en dat alles wettig is en my nie ‘n sent gekos het nie.  Ja ek gebruik net Linux (Ubuntu), by die huis en by die werk.

Laat hoor van julle wat julle eerste rekenaar was en wat julle vandag gebruik.

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Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty – muted sound on login solved.

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I have a fresh install of Ubuntu 9.04, Jaunty on a Lenovo T60 and since the beginning sound was muted after login.  The drum roll happen at the GDM login screen but no login sound.  Yesterday I eventually found a solution for it.

The solution was comment out line 372 in /etc/init.d/alsa-utils.  The line in question was ‘mute_and_zero_levels “$TARGET_CARD” || EXITSTATUS=1’. Just this small change has solved the issue for me. 

Now to be honest, I have no idea what the purpose of this line is and whether any other issues might crop up by commenting out this line.  Well, sofar I have found no regressions by commenting out the line.

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Installing original (Gold) Windows XP on new PCI/PCI-e based motherboard

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I was asked to install Windows XP on a new PCI/PCI-e based machine.  I tried to convince the person to install Ubuntu but since this person is a photographer, she wanted Photoshop. Yes I did explain that GIMP can do everything Photoshop can do.

I only had an original (Gold) Windows XP and when trying to install this on a new PCI/PCI-e machine, the dreaded BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) happens.

Here is how to solve:

  • Ideal solution – convince the person to install Linux (Ubuntu).
  • Easy solution – find a Windows XP install disk that includes either Service Pack 2 or Service Pack 3.
  • If you do not have that then you will have to make your own Service Pack slipstreamed Windows XP install disk.  I had a copy of Service Pack 3 lying around and this is what I had to do:
    Follow the instructions at http://www.theeldergeek.com/slipstreamed_xpsp3_cd.htm to create the install disk.  Be sure to follow the instructions to the T, particularly the one that say something about Emulating a Floppy in Nero when you burn the CD.  If you leave that default, the CD will not Boot.

This slipstreamed CD should boot fine and the Windows install should now go through without BSOD.  It still boggles my mind that the original Windows XP (even with SP 1) did not know anything about PCI interfaces.

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From 2 Windows XP machines to 3 Ubuntu machines

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Around September last year I got a new work laptop – Lenovo T60.  IBM, for whom I work, gives one the choice of what OS to run on the desktop ie Windows or some Linux flavor. Oh and some people actually do run Macs also.  The Linux is either Red Hat, Fedora, OpenSuse or Ubuntu.  My choice was Ubuntu.

Getting Ubuntu installed and running with all I need to get my job done within IBM took about 40 minutes.  Inside IBM we have our own APT repositories with various layer packages that install the appropriate packages and applications to get everything up and going.

Now about 5 months later I have no regrets.  Having a working machine in about 30 seconds after boot is just great.  No more BSOD’s, viruses and/or trojans to really worry about and just a more stable and productive envirionment.

At home I also had Windows XP on some very old hardware that ran very slow.  Since my laptop experience was so good, I decided, what the hell, lets totally get rid of Windows.  Now my machine at home is also running Ubuntu and it is doing it so much faster than before.  In the mean time I got another desktop and this is runing Kubuntu. 

To be honest, I have not gotten used to Kubuntu so I do not know how long my second machine is going to run Kubuntu.  I just prefer Ubuntu and finding my way around it, is just so much easier.  And the fact that Dropbox does not work on Kubuntu is a real pain.  Oh and not being able to share my floders on Kubuntu with my Ubuntu machine is not great either.  To be honest I did not really try to find a solution for this yet so it is probaly only something stupid I did or did not do.

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Lotus Notes 8.5 sync with Google Calendar on Ubuntu

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I am looking for a solution to Sync Lotus Notes 8.5 on Ubuntu with Google Calendar.  It only needs to be an one way sync from Notes to Google Calendar.

I have searched the Interwebs but have not found a suitable solution.  Have found some stuff for Windows but not for Ubuntu or even Linux in general.

Advice will be much appreciated.

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Ubuntu: Upgrading Eclipse+PDT to latest (Eclipse 3.4 + PDT 2.0)

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I am running Ubuntu Hardy (8.04) together with Eclipse 3.3.1 and PDT 1.0.3 and wanted to upgrade to the latest Eclipse and PDT — that is Eclipse 3.4 and PDT 2.0.  The easiest way I have found after lots of struggling is as follows:

That is it.  You should now have the latest Eclipse and PDT.

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RSS update – 27 October 2007

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Tidbits from my RSS reader:

Table mountain