Adjusting for Western Australian (Perth) Daylight Saving Timezone

Following the sudden introduction of a three year trial of summer Daylight Saving in Western Australia it is necessary to adjust the timezone information for Australia/Perth and Australia/West. This can be done by following the instructions in this useful posting.

Sun JDK1.3.1

I needed to install Sun's Java SDK v1.3.1, so I downloaded and installed j2sdk-1_3_1_18-linux-i586. However, when attempting to run it the following error was produced.

$ /opt/jdk1.3.1_18/bin/java
/opt/jdk1.3.1_18/bin/i386/native_threads/java: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++-libc6.1-1.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

To workaround this I installed the GNU stdc++ library (libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2) using Synaptic. This creates the file /usr/lib/libstdc++-3-libc6.2-2-2.10.0.so which I then symlinked to libstdc++-libc6.1-1.so.2 as follows:

$ cd /usr/lib
$ sudo ln -s libstdc++-3-libc6.2-2-2.10.0.so libstdc++-libc6.1-1.so.2

USB disconnect when downloading images from Canon PowerShot S50

I have been attempting to download photos from my Canon PowerShot S50. When I connect the camera it is correctly detected. However, when I attempt to download (a large number of) photos it fails after some time, and I see the following in the kernel ring buffer:

$ dmesg | tail
[17203180.356000] usb 2-1: USB disconnect, address 2
[17203648.852000] usb 2-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
[17203953.496000] usb 2-1: usbfs: USBDEVFS_CONTROL failed cmd gthumb rqt 64 rq 4 len 118 ret -71
[17203953.544000] usb 2-1: USB disconnect, address 3

vpnc drops connection after apparent inactivity

I have been successfully using vpnc to provide a VPN connectivity on Ubuntu Dapper Drake. However, it seemed to drop the connection more frequently than I was used to when using the Cisco client vpn-client.

This tended to coincide with periods of inactivity so I tried running a periodic ping

ping -i ip-host

and the problem appears to have been solved.

vpnc - Cisco VPN Client

I needed a client to access work's Cisco VPN client. Apparently, the official client from Cisco (version 4.8 or later) can be built to run on Dapper Drake. However, there is an open source alternative vpnc, for which there is an apt package.

I installed the vpnc package and it ran (sudo) without any problems. As an added bonus (unlike the official client) vpnc doesn't disable LAN traffic, is not a kernel module and doesn't require recompilation with each kernel upgrade.

Installing Sun's Java - Problem Solved

A recent problem I had installing Sun's Java5 package for Ubuntu turned out to be due to me having misconfigured Synaptic's repositories; I hadn't properly referenced the multiverse repository. Once I had corrected this as described in this guide, I was able to install the sun-java5 packages using Synaptic.

After installation I ran sudo update-alternatives --config java and selected /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun/jre/bin/java as the default java.

2.6.15-25 kernel upgrade

The update manager installed the latest kernel image - 2.6.15-25. Unfortunately, the 386 kernel was installed as the default, so I manually had to install the kernel-2.6.15-25-686 image to get SMP support. This in turn required me to install the restricted modules linux-restricted-modules-2.6.15-25-686 so I could use the nVidia graphics drivers.

Installing Sun's Java

[ Update: problem solved ]

It appears that at one time Sun's Java 5 was available for installation via apt-get/Synaptic (sun-java5-* packages). This no longer appears to be the case and I suspect it's related to recent problems with the terms of Sun's Java license.

Therefore, to install the JRE/JDK one must resort to the standard download and installation process from Sun's web-site. For example, to install the Sun's Java runtime environment (JRE 5.0 Update 7) do the following:

1. download the self-extracting bin file
2. make executable
   chmod +x jre-1_5_0_07-linux-i586.bin
   
3. run the executable (requires acceptance of the terms of the license)
   sudo ./jre-1_5_0_07-linux-i586.bin
   
4. move the extracted file-tree to a suitable location
   sudo mv jre1.5.0_07/ /opt
   
5. configure the browser plug-in, e.g. for Firefox:
   cd /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/
   sudo ln -s /opt/jre1.5.0_07/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so
6. set your JAVA_HOME environment variable and put it into your PATH variable e.g. in $HOME/.bash_profile add
   JAVA_HOME=/opt/jre1.5.0_07
   PATH="${PATH}:${JAVA_HOME}/bin"
   
7. To run the Control Panel
   ControlPanel
   

Perl CPAN depends on make and libc6-dev packages

I tried running a Perl script I'd written and found that while Perl is installed, a couple of modules, namely HTML::Entities and Text::CSV, are not.

I ran CPAN (using sudo cpan and automatic config) but it failed to build any modules because make is not installed and nor are many C header files. The fix is to make sure the make and libc6-dev packages are installed.

Real and Windows media playback

In addition to restricted video formats such as MPEG, playback of other non-free formats such as Real media and Windows media, also requires manual installation. This comprehensive guide provides details. In my case I installed totem-xine (and its firefox-plugin), RealPlayer 10 and the win32 codecs.

MPEG/MPG movie player

By default Ubuntu Dapper Drake supports various free video formats (ogg vorbis/theora) but not restricted formats such as MPEG. Therefore, following this informative guide, it is necessary to install the gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly (and optionally mpg321 & vorbis-tools) package in order to view MPEGs in the Totem movie player. These packages are available from the "Universe" and "Multiverse" repositories.

WiFi requires restricted modules

As a side-effect of installing the latest nVidia graphics drivers I installed the restricted modules package linux-restricted-modules-2.6.15-23-686. It turns out this was all that was needed to get WiFi working with the 686 kernel.

I already had it working with my non-SMP 386 kernel because the linux-restricted-modules-2.6.15-23-386 was already installed.

Install latest nVidia GeForce drivers

The Dell Inspiron 9400 I have comes with the nVidia GeForce Go 7900 GS graphics card. There are "restricted" (closed source) drivers for this card with superior support for hardware graphics acceleration compared with the default open-source "nv" drivers.

To install the nvidia drivers I used "Method 1" from this excellent guide

1. installed the nvidia-glx and linux-restricted-modules-2.6.15-23-686 packages
2. enabled the driver using sudo nvidia-xconfig
   
3. added the nvidia-settings dialog to the Application > System menu
4. Restarted xserver (Ctrl-Alt-Backspace)
   

It worked flawlessly.

WiFi Only Works with 386 Kernel

First problem: the wireless network card only appears to work when Ubuntu is booted using the 386 kernel. When booting with the 686 kernel (needed for SMP support of the Core Duo) WiFi support is not available.

Update: all that's need to get WiFi working with the 686 kernel is installation of the "restricted" modules.

Install linux-kernel-2.6.15-23-686 for SMP support

The Inspiron 9400 has an Intel Core Duo processor. However, the default Ubuntu Dapper Drake 6.06 installs the 386 kernel for which there is no multiprocessor (SMP) support.

Therefore, I had to install the 686 kernel, specifically linux-image-2.6.15-23-686 (use either sudo apt-get install linux-686 or the graphical Synaptic Package Manager).

After installing this package and rebooting I was able to see both processors in the System Monitor tool, and both were listed in /proc/cpuinfo.

Superuser (root) password and sudo

If, like me, you're coming to Ubuntu from a different distribution (Red Hat v9 in my case) then you might stumble in attempting to gain superuser privileges.

You don't need them; when prompted for the superuser password (by sudo or a graphical administration tool) simply provide the password of the user account created during the installation process.

Detailed information.

First boot and update

The first boot proceeded without incident.

After logging in the Software Updates tool notified me that three updates were available:

1. GNOME Application Installer (data files) - app-install-data: new version 0.1.33
2. GNOME Application Installer - gnome-app-install: new version 0.1.33
3. PCMCIA Card Services - pcmcia-cs: new version 3.2.8-5.2ubuntu6

These installed without incident.

Dapper Drake 6.06 First Installation

Ran the graphical installer from the Dapper Drake LiveCD.

Several basic settings questions (keyboard, language, timezone, hostname) are asked.

I added a single user account when prompted.

I created the following partitions:

• /boot (94MB; ext3)
  
• /swap (2GB; linux-swap)
• / (16GB; ext3)
  
• /home (31GB; ext3)
  

The installation itself ran in only a few minutes without any problems.

Upon reboot, I selected Windows XP to ensure that it was unaffected. It ran a chkdsk and after an automatic reboot it ran as normal.

I then booted Ubuntu for the first time...

Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake)

Downloaded the Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake ISO and burned it to CD-ROM.

Ran the memory test and checked the CD for defects. Both passed.

Ubuntu boots without any problems in LiveCD mode.

Dell Inspiron 9400 Specifications

Received my Dell Inspiron 9400 - it has the following technical specifications:

• Intel 945 Chipset Family
• Intel Core Duo Processor T2600 2.16 GHz, 2MB Cache, 667 MHz FSB
• 17" UltraSharp Wide Screen UXGA Display with Truelife: 1920x1200
• 1024MB (1 X 1024MB) DDR2 SDRAM
• 256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS
• 100GB SATA 7200RPM Performance Hard Drive
• Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Combination Drive with dual layer write capabilities
• Integrated 10/100 Fast Ethernet
• Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 Dual Band 802.11a/g 54Mbps Wireless Mini Card
• Internal 56K Modem
• ExpressCard Slot
• Windows XP Professional SP2 Edition (English)