When you first switch from Windows or OSX to Linux, one of the things you’ll probably first notice (especially if you’re using a laptop) is that it can run considerably hotter than the alternatives. There are a few things you can do to remedy this, however. The following software packages help you keep track [...]]]>

When you first switch from Windows or OSX to Linux, one of the things you’ll probably first notice (especially if you’re using a laptop) is that it can run considerably hotter than the alternatives. There are a few things you can do to remedy this, however. The following software packages help you keep track of and cool down your laptop/netbook, how much will depend per machine but my HP Pavilion dm1 goes from around 60-70degrees without these tools installed to around 50-60degrees and the same goes for my older Acer Travelmate which dropped from 70-80degrees to 60-70degrees. Hopefully this information will help you shave off 10degrees from your laptop, making it cooler, easier to use and hopefully extending its life a little too!

lm-sensors

First thing that you’re going to want to do is be able to see what the temperature readings of the components (that have temperature sensors) inside your computer/laptop. This can be done by installing lm-sensors:

Now you’ll want to run the script which probes all the possible sensors in your laptop:

You’ll be asked if you want to scan for sensors and what not, follow the on-screen instructions, mostly just pressing enter, if YES is written in capitals this is the default answer and it will scan. After several times it’ll ask you if you want to save the changes, make sure you do and then you’re done.

Now you can see the temperature the sensors are reading by using the following command:

cpufreq

cpufreq is a utility which scales the frequency of the CPU, either by monitoring the systems status (if it needs more, it’ll get more) or by user controlled settings. This essentially underclocks the CPU while it isn’t in use, reducing power usage and thus heat.

Installation:

The best choice would be to set cpufreq to on-demand (default) or to power-saving. Alternatively, if you’re using a laptop or netbook let jupiter take care of it for you:

jupiter

Jupiter is a light weight power and hardware control applet for Linux. It is designed to improve battery life of a portable Linux computer by integrating with the operating system and changing parameters of the computer based on battery or powered connection.

Additionally, Jupiter provides quick access to some of the commonly needed hardware controls like screen output and resolution, WIFI, and bluetooth.

If you use Linux on a portable computer, let Jupiter take the effort out of going mobile.

By using this to intelligently control the CPU frequency when on battery and AC along with the tuning to the kernel and hardware, it can make a huge difference to the temperature expelled by your laptop.

Ubuntu 11:10 installation instructions: here

Graphics Card Drivers

If you have a dedicated graphics card in your laptop, you’ll also be better off installing the proprietary graphics drivers provided by the hardware vendor. While the open source ones do an awesome job of getting the card to work, more often than not they don’t include any control over the frequency scaling and keep the card running at max, along with all those other little features the card has, they’ll probably all always be running.

Nvidia : Link
ATI/AMD : Link

http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/

The folders correspond to kernel versions and should also include the ubuntu version, for example I chose to update 11.10 (oneiric) from “3.0.0-14-generic” to “3.1.4″, this was in a directory called “v3.1.4-oneiric/“.

linux-headers-*_all.deb

It’s been a while since I bothered, the reason being it’s always seemed like an un-worthwhile struggle to get it working but either things changed or I was doing something to overcomplicate the process but it’s actually pretty simple to get surround sound up and running on your Linux machine. Now, I’m not going [...]]]>

It’s been a while since I bothered, the reason being it’s always seemed like an un-worthwhile struggle to get it working but either things changed or I was doing something to overcomplicate the process but it’s actually pretty simple to get surround sound up and running on your Linux machine. Now, I’m not going to go in to how to install the drivers for your specific sound card, because there are so many and I don’t have them all and most times on most popular distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, OpenSuse etc) you’re going to notice that the sound card is actually already supported. What I will be doing is showing you how easy it was to get my 5.1′s set up (and the same will be said for 7.1′s).

Step 1:

First off you’re going to want to edit the pulseaudio configuration file to add the number of speakers you’re using, it’s default is set to 2.

Near the bottom of the file, there will be a line which looks like this:

;default-sample-channels = 2

The semi-colon is a comment, so this line isn’t actually doing anything unless you remove that. I would suggest leaving that line alone and adding a new line at the bottom:

default-sample-channels = 6

If you’re using 5.1′s the number of channels will be 6, 7.1′s will be 8 and I think you get where I’m going with this? So in this example, I’m using 5.1′s.

Now save and close that file. You’ll need to reboot your system now too, so that these changes will take effect.

Step 2:

So you’re back? Good..

Now you’re going to want to open up the Sound Preferences, usually you can do this by clicking on the little sound icon in your panel, or System > Preference > Sounds from the menu.

From here, you’ll want to click on the Hardware tab. Near the bottom it’ll say Profile: with a drop down box next to it. Here you can select the type of set up you have, as you can see in the screenshot I have an “Analogue Surround 5.1 Output”, yours might be different and that’s cool and if you don’t know feel free to try a few out. Next to that drop down box is a button which says “Test Speakers”, this didn’t work for me so I have to use an online test but give it a try as it might work!

That’s it, you should be done!

During installing the OpenNi kinect drivers, found here: https://github.com/OpenNI/OpenNI, I came across this error:

make[1]: Entering directory `/home/alex/kinect/OpenNI/Platform/Linux-x86/Build/Samples/SimpleViewer.net’ gmcs -out:../../../Bin/Release/SimpleViewer.net.exe -target:winexe -unsafe -o+ -r:OpenNI.net.dll -r:System.Windows.Forms.dll -r:System.Drawing.dll -lib:../../../Bin/Release ../../../../../Samples/SimpleViewer.net/*.cs ../../Res/AssemblyInfo-OpenNI.cs error CS0006: cannot find metadata file `System.Windows.Forms.dll’ Compilation failed: 1 error(s), 0 warnings make[1]: *** [../../../Bin/Release/SimpleViewer.net.exe] Error 1 make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/alex/kinect/OpenNI/Platform/Linux-x86/Build/Samples/SimpleViewer.net’ make: *** [Samples/SimpleViewer.net] [...]]]>

During installing the OpenNi kinect drivers, found here: https://github.com/OpenNI/OpenNI, I came across this error:

make[1]: Entering directory `/home/alex/kinect/OpenNI/Platform/Linux-x86/Build/Samples/SimpleViewer.net’
gmcs -out:../../../Bin/Release/SimpleViewer.net.exe -target:winexe -unsafe -o+ -r:OpenNI.net.dll -r:System.Windows.Forms.dll -r:System.Drawing.dll -lib:../../../Bin/Release ../../../../../Samples/SimpleViewer.net/*.cs ../../Res/AssemblyInfo-OpenNI.cs
error CS0006: cannot find metadata file `System.Windows.Forms.dll’
Compilation failed: 1 error(s), 0 warnings
make[1]: *** [../../../Bin/Release/SimpleViewer.net.exe] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/alex/kinect/OpenNI/Platform/Linux-x86/Build/Samples/SimpleViewer.net’
make: *** [Samples/SimpleViewer.net] Error 2

To fix it, simply install the following package:

Once finished, re-make and make install and everything should be dandy!

If you’re getting a similar error to this while trying to compile java files (.jar) then you’re probably missing the jdk, in ubuntu it’s called “sun-java6-jdk” so just go ahead and install that and all should be good!

make[1]: Entering directory `/home/alex/kinect/OpenNI/Platform/Linux-x86/Build/Wrappers/OpenNI.java’ javac -d Release ../../../../../Wrappers/OpenNI.java/src/org/OpenNI/*.java /bin/sh: javac: not found make[1]: *** [../../../Bin/Release/org.OpenNI.jar] Error [...]]]>

If you’re getting a similar error to this while trying to compile java files (.jar) then you’re probably missing the jdk, in ubuntu it’s called “sun-java6-jdk” so just go ahead and install that and all should be good!

make[1]: Entering directory `/home/alex/kinect/OpenNI/Platform/Linux-x86/Build/Wrappers/OpenNI.java’
javac -d Release ../../../../../Wrappers/OpenNI.java/src/org/OpenNI/*.java
/bin/sh: javac: not found
make[1]: *** [../../../Bin/Release/org.OpenNI.jar] Error 127
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/alex/kinect/OpenNI/Platform/Linux-x86/Build/Wrappers/OpenNI.java’
make: *** [Wrappers/OpenNI.java] Error 2

FIX:

It’s only been a couple of weeks since the first batch of Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) loaded phones were released, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, but already custom ROMs are being updated to allow users of other phones to use ICS.

Luckily for me, a Samsung Galaxy S (I9000) owner, development for this widely popular [...]]]>

It’s only been a couple of weeks since the first batch of Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) loaded phones were released, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, but already custom ROMs are being updated to allow users of other phones to use ICS.

Luckily for me, a Samsung Galaxy S (I9000) owner, development for this widely popular phone has been going strong for a while. Custom ROMs from Darkys ROM to CyanogenMod allow for quicker Android updates with much better features and a lack of Samsung’s bloat-ware.

So it seems the next version of CyanogenMod (CM9) will be ICS based and keeping up with the SGS development “Teamhacksung” have started porting over the new version which will soon become the latest version CM9. It’s still in its early stages and there are a few known bugs which need to be sorted but they’ve released a ROM for public testing.

After a day or so of testing, everything feels smooth and finished, it seems to be much more user friendly in comparison to previous iterations of Android. It’s kind of like they’ve realised it’s not just linux geeks using Android any more and it actually has a pretty large market share and they had to re-design it to be for everyone.

New Features:

Home Screen:

The home screen hasn’t changed dramatically and still follows the 4×5 grid of icons and widgets.

The biggest and in my opinion most needed change here though is the relocation of the search bar, no longer is the search bar a widget but it now sits directly under the notification bar and remains constant on all home screens. This clears up an extra row for other icons and widgets but doesn’t over crowd the place.

When editing the home screen icons and widgets (long pressing on one of them), the Remove section replaces the static search bar at the top of the screen. Additionally while editing some widgets, such as the Calendar, allow for resizing, by framing the widget with a blue border with dots in the centre of each which can be dragged to change the length or width of the object. It’d be good to see this as a standard across all widgets even if setting limits was also done.

Folders are still here and they are a bit more awesome, to make a folder you simply drag one icon on to another and they bunch up. Clicking on the bunch opens up a pop up with all the icons in.

App Drawer:

The app drawer is now 4×5 screens which can be switched left and right between, still organised alpabetically. Now however going past the last page of apps brings you to a list of widgets which can be held down on to drag to a home screen. The app drawer also has a quick link in the top left to the market place.

It’d be great to see more customisation here, allow for constant flow of apps from left to right rather than in pages or alternatively up and down scrolling.

Multi-tasking:

Multi-tasking is made much simpler in this iteration of Android, holding down the home button brings up a vertical list of running applications. Clicking on one will take you back to the app at its last used screen and also gives you a preview of the screen you’ll be heading back to. Sliding the appliaction left or right however will close it. This is a much simpler way for non-power users to understand what’s going on and might help them control over the occasional lag which can come about when you have too many applications open. It also really makes switching between two applications a breeze.

Settings:

The settings menu have been cleaned up dramatically and now provide a lot of the useful settings at a much easier level. Things are grouped rather than a huge list of things and are generally much easier to understand.

Face Unlock:

One of the biggest new features to this version is the addition of Face-recognition to unlock your phone. unfortunately because the current ROM used to review this doesn’t have a very stable front facing camera driver it wasn’t really working in my tests.

Essentially you hold the camera in front of your face for a few seconds while it calibrates to your data and then when you unlock your screen the camera will start up and it should only take a second to detect your face and unlock, if it fails it has a fail safe which allows you to also enter a pin or pattern to unlock.

Two main issues arise, firstly as pointed out by the setup, the fact that people with similar faces will be able to unlock your screen, so don’t expect that your siblings can’t frape you. Also a picture of your face would also work, since it’s not 3D detection a photograph will also work for unlocking your phone.

Screenshots:

Screenshots are built in to this verison of android (it really made this review easier ;)) Just hold down the Volume Down button and Power button at the same time, a second or so and the screen will flash and it’ll save a screenshot in a folder on your phone.

Browser:

The browser has had a few tweaks including the way tabs are handled.

Overall it’s a nice clean update, I can’t say the difference between honeycomb since I don’t own a tablet but I’m sure this will be a welcome change to both phone and tablet users.

Gallery after the jump..

Gallery

Android 4.0 or Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) finally brings screenshots natively to the mobile platform, to a lot of users of custom ROMs such as CyanogenMod or Darkys ROM it may seem like this has been a feature for a while but that isn’t the case.

After installing Ubuntu on a USB stick with the Ubuntu USB Startup Disk Creator (usb-creator-gtk) you might encounter an error such as the following:

This is actually a bug with the software and isn’t anything you’ve done wrong. It [...]]]>

After installing Ubuntu on a USB stick with the Ubuntu USB Startup Disk Creator (usb-creator-gtk) you might encounter an error such as the following:

This is actually a bug with the software and isn’t anything you’ve done wrong. It seems to be a bug that’s effecting users running Karmic, Lucid, Maverick and Natty so it’s a pretty wide spread issue.

The best way I have found to get around this issue is to install and run unetbootin to create live USBs. If you’re using linux it should be found in the usual place you can install things.

Installation:

Ubuntu/LinuxMint/Debian:

Fedora/OpenSuse:

Create a live USB:

To install a distro it’s pretty simple, either select it from the “Distribution” option and pick a distribution and version, UNetbootin will then actually download it and install it for you. Alternatively you can pick an Diskimage and browse for the ISO file you download (and would usually burn to a CD/DVD) and install from that. Select the USB Drive at the bottom and hit ok and it’ll install a bootloader, the system and you’ll be up and running in no time.

Persistence File:

If you wanted a persistence install which allows you to save files, settings and installed programs you’ll have to do a little manual work as it currently doesn’t support that option.

Go to http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/diskimg/ and download one of the files (128mb.zip, 256mb.zip, or 512mb.zip) corresponding to the amount of persistent space you want (make sure the size of the persistent disk image is smaller than the free space you have on your USB drive).

You’ll then need to edit the syslinux.cfg file that was created by UNetbootin in the root of the directory (just open it with a text editor) you should see something similar to the following:

label unetbootindefault
menu label Default
kernel /ubnkern
append initrd=/ubninit file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper quiet splash –

So on the line that starts “appen initrd=” you’ll want to add the option of “persistent”, it should then look like the following:

NOTE: WordPress changes my double dash at the end of the last line to a single long dash, this won’t work. It’s easiest just to add the final word before the double dash in the file, do not copy and paste this in to your file. If you do, you will get more errors.

label unetbootindefault
menu label Default
kernel /ubnkern
append initrd=/ubninit file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper quiet splash persistent –

I added this line to all that used the “file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed” option, since that’s the image that’s being opened and it should then change all options on the bootloader that will load the ubuntu install.

The mediaplayer widget found on github, created by eonpatapon – (https://github.com/eonpatapon/gnome-shell-extensions-mediaplayer).

I’ve been searching for a while for a good, solid widget style thing that’ll sit in the top of the gnome-shell panel which can control the music that’s playing in banshee, rhythmbox or whatever else you want to use to play your tunes.

– http://rpmfusion.org/Configuration

Get enhanced audio and video support in applications that rely on GStreamer:

Get enhanced audio and video support in applications that rely on xine backend:

– [...]]]>

Install RPM Fusion

– http://rpmfusion.org/Configuration

Enable unsupported video and audio codecs

Get enhanced audio and video support in applications that rely on GStreamer:

Get enhanced audio and video support in applications that rely on xine backend:

– http://rpmfusion.org/FAQ

Install Chromium Browser

Make a file called “fedora-chromium-stable.repo” in /etc/yum.repos.d/ and open:

Paste in the following, save and exit:

– http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Chromium

Install Flash

Download the YUM for Linux version from the adobe site – http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Run the following in the folder you downloaded the file to:

Import the GPG key:

In 32bit run:

on 64bit run:

If you’re using Firefox, that should be all done but if you’re using Chromium you’ll need to open Firefox and play a video then close it and run the following:

32bit:

64bit:

Close and re-open Chromium and head to YouTube to check that it’s working.

– http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Flash

Install Dropbox

Download and install the correct rpm for 32 or 64 bit from the Dropbox website – http://www.dropbox.com/downloading.

Follow this guide to remove the YUM errors you may encounter once the package is installed – http://alexsleat.co.uk/2011/05/24/how-to-fix-error-cannot-retrieve-repository-metadata-repomd-xml-for-repository-dropbox-please-verify-its-path-and-try-again/ .

Install VLC