SBackup doesn’t do it.

I got around to trying SBackup (again!) with hopes of finally solving that backup issue that has be botherning me for a while now. I decided to stick a usb-drive in the dock at work and then try to have the backups directed there.

Didn’t work.

What did work was the first few rounds of backups. It ran at the designated tiime and it placed tha backups in the right spot (which was /media/disk-1). The problem was that when I was out of the office the backup still ran, quietly. Still backing up to /media/disk-1 which in those cases didn’t have anything mounted. Disk became full, and I had loads of problems with it, so I disabled it again. When I have time I will try to find a solution to this, but even if there is one, this feels like something that isn’t easy enough for the average Joe and such an important function should be.

Getting rid of PulseAudio

Found an excellent guide (in Swedish) to remove PulseAudio. Basically do this:

alsamixer
Check that your system uses Pulseaudio (it says clearly by Card and Chip) in the top left corner.

sudo rm /etc/X11/Xsession.d/70pulseaudio
killall pulseaudio
sudo apt-get remove pulseaudio
sudo apt-get install esound

Then run:
alsamixer
And check that it is not using PulseAudio any longer.

I will report after thorough testing if it works fine.

XBMC yes, as long as you get rid of PulseAudio

As I wrote in my earlier post about PulseAudio it doesn’t work to well with XBMC Media Center.

I have now been using XBMC quite a lot for a full week and have no problems what so ever, as long as PulseAudio is closed first.

sudo killall pulseaudio

As soon as I have a little more time I will investigate how a uninstall of PulseAudio could affect the system…

Taming the Intrepid Ibex with Ubuntu-tweak

Downloaded Ubuntu-tweak to give it a try, and found some interesting settings. The only thing used for now is:

“Startup” – “Autostart”
Disabled Bluetooth Manager and Visual Assistance since I don’t used them

“Applications” – “Third Party Sources” -
Added the Google Linux repository

“Applications” – “Add/Remove”
Added VLC Media Player (which I have been missing). Noticed that “Ubuntu Restricted Extras” (which I wrote about here was easily availble from here, same thing with XBMC)

Ubuntu_restriced_extras.

Is probably one of the easiest fixes to get Ubuntu a lot more useful in one single step. It adds MS Fonts, Flash-plugin, Java RE, DVD Playback and MP3 support. Just get it.

Dropbox tinyurls trick

Just stumbled across this post on ubuntu-tutorials.com which has a rather nice tip for those using public links in dropbox which I wrote about eariler

YES! Xbox Media Center, now in a repository for Intrepid

Xbox Media Center, for those of you unaware, is simply the most amazing media-playing-center-thingy around. I’ve been using it on modded Xboxes for ages, and been running it and its cousin Plex on Mac for a while, and, on my previous installation of Ubuntu on my laptop.

Since I’ve read about problems with running the Hardy-version on Intrepid I’ve been waiting for it to turn up for Intrepid which it has today (or maybe some other day, I haven’t really checked on a daily basis.).

Go “System” – “Administration” – “Software Sources” and hit the “Third-Party Software”. Hit “Add” twice and enter the following lines, separated with a “Add Source” button press:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc-intrepid/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc-intrepid/ubuntu intrepid main

(Here I wonder if both really are needed, it feels like one could be for compiled stuff and the other for sources, and I won’t really use any of the sources so I don’t know if I need both, someone?)

Close and reload and wander over to “System” – “Administration” – “synaptic package manager”. Hit the button “Origin” (down in the left corner) and choose “ppa.launchpad.net/main” above and all the interesting packages will show up. I started out with the xbmc package and xbmc-scripts-supported. Hit apply and wait.

Problems? This page is the first in a long thread which deals with the Intrepid installation

My troubles are frightening me, when starting XBMC I get an error I had on this laptop when running Compiz (which I don’t for the moment). The error is that the latitudes fan is spinning up faster and faster until the computer shuts of with a click. This error made Dell travel out to me and change the motherboard so I thought it was fixed. Wonder if there could be a Nvidia / Dell / Latitude bug with intensive graphic load. On the other hand, how intensive could it be to show the first page of XBMC. It took me some hours to get back on track, but now I will have a go again as soon as I have published this.

Pidgin unstable in 8.10

I’ve noticed on several occasions that Pidgin exists without my prior approval. No idea why, could it be a conflict with the screen-saver (where I’m using the default “Blank Screen”) or could it be some plug-in in Pidgin (where the only one I use is Facebook) or could it be that the current version of Pidgin is just unstable? To many closing downs in a row, where everything else in the computer is untouched, to be a pure coincidence though. I wonder, am I alone?

Backing up Ubuntu

I need to solve this. I’ve tried numerous times to get a solution in place (not for 8.10 though) for getting a dependable backup running which really is a area to improve on Ubuntu (and other linuxes as well) we need a simple and dependable solution.

What is easy and dependable then?
- Backing up to USB-drive is ideal (cheap, large storage available everywhere)
- Backing up everything without any questions
- Saving all versions for a configurable time
- Excluding by file patterns (for example *.mp3 *.avi)
- Easily restoring single files
- Restoring the latest version to a new disk easily (ideally by booting from the USB-drive)

This is pretty much Apples approach in Time Machine I guess, but I’m not running a Macintosh so I can’t install that and test. Let the search for a solution begin.

Getting the Synaptics touchpad to run smoothly

is something that requires some hacks in Ubuntu 8.10, and most of the information out there seems to be for earlier versions and will not help in getting gsynaptics up and running on Intrepid. This does work, tested by yours truly.

Start “Add/Remove applications and search after Touchpad. Install it.

Then fire up a command prompt and write:

gksudo gedit /etc/hal/fdi/policy/shmconfig.fdi

and enter the following:

True

Save, reboot and try out touchpad under System – Preferences – Touchpad

More stuff and conf stolen from here. You really should read that page since it contains a lot more information regarding security and other possible configurations.