My Little Ubuntu Guide

The first Beta Custom CD for the Dell 6400 is now available for download. You can get the Gutsy CD here:
DOWNLOAD DELL 6400 GUTSY CD

You can get the MD5 file here:
DOWNLOAD MATCHING MD5 FILE

Be sure to report your errors and successes!

Remember, this version will allow you to do Wireless out of the box, ATI is installed out of the box, and Compiz-Fusion works out of the box. However, Suspend and Hibernate do not work in this version. I’m still working on that issue and Ubuntu may get ATI to fix the fglrx binary before I get a work around, so my bet is things will be working soon anyway.

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Ok folks, I’m uploading the first custom CD for Gutsy. It will only be in English, so if you need another language request it here.

This CD will include the binary fglrx drivers, xgl, and the advanced Compiz-Fusion settings manager for customizing your experience. It will also have the BCM43xx Wireless driver installed and the firmware already installed.

After you install your system from this CD, there is no need to enable the Restricted Drivers for the BCM43xx wireless to work. The ATI will show enabled and the BCM will show disabled (unchecked) but ignore that for now. It works.

You can even use wireless in live CD session, just click the network monitor icon and select/connect to your wifi.

The ISO will be finished uploading in 1 hour or less, so about 2:45 PM EST. I’ll announce it’s location at that time. Thanks!

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The problem with Suspend and Hibernate in Gutsy is that Gutsy is using CONFIG_SLUB=y in it’s kernel instead of CONFIG_SLAB=y, which Feisty used in it’s kernel. This is a problem with the fglrx driver, which worked fine in Feisty. Anyway, you can read more about this bug at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-restricted-modules-2.6.22/+bug/121653.

For now, here’s a fix, but it comes at a cost. Temporarily anyway. As I said, the FGLRX driver (i.e. xorg-driver-fglrx) doesn’t work right with the new kernel, BUT the ATI driver from www.amd.com does. The trade off is your Compiz-Fusion.

I’m going to try to get Compiz working with the official ATI driver as I get more time to work on it. But for now if you want Suspend/Hibernate you need to be running the official ATI driver.

So what you do is:

Preparation
Install Build Tools:

sudo apt-get install module-assistant build-essential debhelper debconf dh-make fakeroot libstdc++5 linux-headers-generic


Installation

Build Ubuntu packages from the installer by opening a terminal, entering the directory that you saved the installer to, and running:

bash ./ati-driver-installer-.run –buildpkg Ubuntu/gutsy


where is the version number of the driver you downloaded. This will take a short time. After finishing, the installer will create several debs. Use the command “dpkg -i ” to install the debs:

sudo dpkg -i *.deb


After installing the kernel source and xorg driver, you will now need to compile the fglrx kernel module in order to get 3-d rendering. Do so with the following commands:

sudo m-a prepare,update
sudo m-a build,install fglrx-kernel
sudo depmod
sudo rm -f /usr/src/fglrx-kernel*.deb


Configuration

Now open “System -> Administration -> Restricted Drivers Manager” and select the enable box for “ATI accelerated graphics driver” and hit apply. Reboot now.

At next boot, Ubuntu will load an old version of fglrx, so you have to blacklist it by changing the following file as so:

sudo gedit /etc/default/linux-restricted-modules-common

Now change it to say:
DISABLED_MODULES=”fglrx”

You’re finished! Now Reboot Again.

You are now running the ATI official driver with Direct Rendering working. I’ll figure out how to get Compiz to work with this soon.

After any kernel updates

After every update of the kernel (linux-image-), you will need to recompile the kernel module (make sure to get the latest linux-headers too) as explained under the installation section. After you recompile the module, you can regain direct rendering by logging into a console (ctrl+alt+f1) and typing:

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop (kdm if you use Kubuntu)
sudo rmmod fglrx (even if this command fails, go on)
sudo modprobe fglrx
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start (again, Kubuntu users type kdm)


That’s it. Should work to get your Suspend/Hibernate working for now in Gutsy. As I said, I’ll update when I find a fix for all with the compiz working too.

Later!

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Ok, I’ve installed and as said in the previous post, things look good. however they are not perfect. Let me outline some issues I’ve found:

1. Graphics
The ATI restricted driver is detected during install, however you must install it by clicking “Enable” in the Restricted Drivers manager. When you do this three packages are installed: xorg-driver-fglrx, libstdc++5, and gcc-3.3-base. These three do not make the built in Compiz Fusion work however. They only enable your default resolution.

To get Compiz Fusion working you have to additionally install xserver-xgl. This will then allow you to boot into XGL and use the built in effects. I’m not sure yet if you need to write a custom startup XGL script or not. I don’t think so and will test this shortly.

2. Wireless
The Broadcom wifi issue has been fairly well addressed in this release. Again, it’s a driver that is restricted and must be enabled in the Restricted Drivers manager. During the process you’ll be prompted to either provide the location of your firmware or download it…choose to download them and it will complete fine.

3. Power Management
I’m a little annoyed by the constant dimming of my screen while running on batteries. Even when I brighten it manually, it dims after a while and when I move the pointer only brightens it a little. I’m sure there’s a way around this, just haven’t found it yet.

The other more serious issues are that Suspend and Hibernate no longer work. I’ll find out what’s going on with this and if it’s fixable in the current Kernel. But for now, just avoid attempting to do Hibernate and Suspend as it just locks up the system.

What About The Custom CD?

Now about the new Custom CD…I’m going to make it have the XGL, ATI, and WiFi drivers all installed already so you won’t need to go downloading them. I’ll also try to make it boot up into the XGL session the first time without need of enabling the drivers. That to me would be paramount.

Secondly, I’m going to find out what the hell is going on with these power issues and address them immediately.

If any of you figure that out first, let me know.

That’s it for now!

John Westbrook

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Downloaded, burned and booted without a hitch. I installed the new Gutsy and it loaded, without the ATI driver of course, but with GUI working!

I simply enabled the ATI and WiFi drivers from the Restricted Drivers link in System > Administration and … It works great.

Not perfect of course. Enabling their new built in Effects didn’t work until I installed XGL server and booted into it. However, got a message saying that from now on I need to boot into the default normal session and XGL will auto start…interesting. I may not have needed to create a custom start script afterall. We’ll see.

Right now I’m creating a custom boot disk that will have the ATI and WiFi drivers pre-installed. We’ll be testing a lot of these and I’ll make it available for download when it works.

Later…

PS: If it didn’t boot into the GUI before for you, I suggest downloading a fresh copy, it may be they made updates after you tried.

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I’m downloading the Gutsy release now. Sounds like the issues you all are having are identical to the previous release. This is good and should make it easy to fix.

The problem is the ATI driver. If ATI would be easier to work with this wouldn’t be an issue. Oh well, I’ll just continue fixing things for them!!!

I’ll keep you all posted. Just started downloading and it should be down in about 9 minutes, then I’ll burn and boot.

I’ll do a post tonight to update everyone.

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I don’t know how many of you have read up on the latest release of Ubuntu: 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon). You can read about it HERE. This is a step in Linux history that will change everything! On the 18th I’ll be downloading the official CD and doing a fresh install. If anything is needed to make it work smoothly I’ll create a custom CD and announce it here within a day of that date.

See you there!

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Yes Rhona, even your husband is devoting a blog post to you on your birthday!

Ok, so here’s the deal for those of you who don’t know Rhona. She’s my wife, duh, and she is totally awesome. I’m not just saying that because she’ll be reading this, I mean it. And today is a very special birthday for her. It’s her last birthday in the 20s.

Yeah, sorry hun, I’m STILL younger than you!

Now let me share some more cool things about my wife that many of you may not realize. Rhona Westbrook is a very accomplished author. She’s published much of her work and is currently working on a major book. Although I have not read the book, seeing it’s more words than I’ve probably spoken in my lifetime, I hear (from her and others) that it’s awesome.

I’m so proud of all that she’s accomplished in the past 2 years on this. She has gone from being into reading and interested in writing to becoming a legend of sorts over on LiveJournal.com! Check out her blog at rhonawestbrook.livejournal.com. You’ll love it!

Rhona is funny, intelligent, sexy, an amazing mom and a literary genius. Let me just sum it up to say that I’m very proud and honored to be Rhona Westbrook’s husband.

Happy Birthday baby! You’re the best!

-John

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Hey everyone,

Sorry for my absense. It has been very busy lately. To all of you who have made offers on the laptop, thank you. Fortunately, I was able to keep it and no longer need it sold. Sorry if you wanted it!

Our new puppy that we got for our daughter is so awesome. It’s a little Sheltie, very intelligent and very cute. I’ll put some pics up later.

As for linux, I haven’t had much time to do anything with it lately, so I’ll update when I have. I still need to read through all the comments…I’ll get to it!

Talk later!

John

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