Kubuntu

Contents 1 Dapper General 1.1 Apt-Get and SonicWALL 1.2 ALSA and VMware 2 Breezy Upgrades 3 Hardware Specific Issues 4 Troubleshooting

Dapper General

Apt-Get and SonicWALL

If we get 403 Forbidden errors on apt-get, and we're behind a SonicWALL...

Comment out proxy line in /etc/apt/apt.conf

// Acquire::http::Proxy "false";

Create a file /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/80http containing:

Acquire::http::Pipeline-Depth "0";

Whee.

ALSA and VMware

Sound performance under VMware Workstation is spotty, especially for GUI apps. Try the following for /etc/asound.conf:

pcm.!default {
   type plug
   slave.pcm "dmixer"
}

pcm.dsp0 {
    type plug
    slave.pcm "dmixer"
}

pcm.dmixer  {
    type dmix
    ipc_key 1024
    slave {
        pcm "hw:0,0"
        period_time 0
        period_size 1024
        buffer_size 16384
        #periods 128
        rate 44100
    }
    bindings {
        0 0
        1 1
    }
}

ctl.mixer0 {
    type hw
    card 0
}

Early tests are encouraging, if not definitive, at the time of this update. (Update: GUI players still suck. MusicPD, however, is rocking some socks.)

Breezy Upgrades

For the latest Amarok (with MusicBrainz MP3 support!) and KDE, the lines for /etc/apt/sources.list are:

# KDE 3.5
deb http://kubuntu.org/packages/kde352 breezy main
# amaroK update
deb http://kubuntu.org/packages/amarok-1.3.8 breezy main
# MusicBrainz for MP3 for amaroK
deb http://archive.czessi.net/ubuntu/ breezy main

To get that MusicBrainz MP3 support...

apt-get install libtunepimp2c2 libtunepimp2-dev

Hardware Specific Issues

On the Dell Inspiron 8000, the screen looks like a mess. Using the Fn-F7 combo can clear it up temporarily but there's a better way. The following is from this Ubuntu Forums post.

Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf and add the following lines to 'Section "Monitor"':

HorizSync 31-82
VertRefresh 40-110

Do you have an ATI Mobility M4? If you do, you'll experience crashes when switching to a terminal or starting/stopping X. The problem is related to the Fn-F7 key. In the past the only way I could get it not to crash was to keep the screen unscaled, but this can be fixed by changing some settings:

Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf again, and add these lines to 'Section "Device"':*

Option "AGPMode" "4"
Option "AGPSize" "32"
Option "EnablePageFlip" "true"
Option "Display" "BIOS"
Option "SWCursor" "true"
Option "CCEusecTimeout" "20000"

Edit your grub config at /boot/grub/menu.lst, find the defoptions line, and add this part in red:

# defoptions=quiet splash vga=0x311 scheduler=cfq

Changing the scheduler to CFQ worked wonders on this laptop, you may want to change that setting too. Now, update grub's config:

sudo update-grub

Changes should take effect when you reboot your system.

Note that some of these tweaks are performance enhancements. Page flipping, for example, increases my glxgears score to ~714fps, and the CCEusecTimeout is a workaround to a nasty CCE idle bug in the r128 driver that can cause some games to crash badly. It's solved problems for several apps, but not for others (increasing the timeout may help). Changing AGPSize to 32 enables me to play some games where textures would be missing otherwise; in neverball, for example.

Troubleshooting

The gam_server process, for some reason, eats memory (and then swap!) like crazy under certain conditions on Breezy. The Dapper gamin code fixes this for good, but in the meantime a "kill -HUP" to the gam_server process frees the memory.