Some More Bytes

I have been a Debian user for a long long time, but lately, I decided to install Ubuntu due to some little annoying problems in my favorite branch (Sid) with KDE 3.

This post is a summary of the few tweaks I did on my Aspire 5920G to install the last release of Ubuntu (Jaunty). This distro, has surprised me in a lot of ways. I was used to tweak the system in some hard ways to have it working “my way”. I tried several times to install Ubuntu, but I always happened to not like something, and these little details made me to return to Debian again and again.

But this time something is different. Not only the system works out-of-the-box, but it  works even better than I expected. (Better that “My Way” Debian, but I’m trying to forget this part).

Continue reading for this little guide about Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty on the Acer 5920G.

As I said, few tweaks are required.  Here some details that maybe could help someone.

SOUND

The last ALSA changelog, says they have introduced a new ID (and config) specifically for the ACER 5920G. And it works.

With previous releases of ALSA, I used to set the parameter model=lenovo-ms7195-dig using modconf, or creating a file /etc/modprobe.d/options, and adding the line

options snd-hda-intel model=lenovo-ms7195-dig

However, in this Ubuntu release, there’s some kind of problem  and some applications (read skype) can’t access the microphone through the alsa mixer. Only works through the (default installed) pulseaudio server, adding an annoying (unusable) delay.

After playing with the alsa config a little bit, I ended up setting up the default configuration. This default settings will give you less control over the sound card (like 3d audio, channels, etc…) but at least it works fine with the alsa mixer when needed (for the mic). Once reached this point, you should be able to record  (Preferences>Sound) with PulseAudio (with a little delay) and with at least one Alsa dev, and with the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture option. If this does not work for you, maybe you need to install some other alsa package. Personally I installed the alsa-oss emulation that never hurts.

WEBCAM

The webcam alsa works fine OOB with the uvcvideo driver. The driver in the Jaunty repos is not the last one though. If you’re bored, you can compile the last version from the source and install it with those easy steps.

• Install with your preferred tool the packages subversion, build-essential, and the kernel headers.


$>sudo aptitude install subversion build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)


• Download the last tarball (or from svn) with the source from here.

• Untar, compile with make install with sudo make install and update modules dependencies with sudo depmod -ae $(uname -r)

• If you want to test that the webcam works, and still haven’t installed skype, try installing cheese from the official Ubuntu repos.

For more information see: http://linux-uvc.berlios.de/ and http://developer.berlios.de/projects/linux-uvc and http://linuxtv.org/hg/~pinchartl/uvcvideo/

VIDEO

The NVIDIA 8600M GT works oob too, but you will probably want to activate the private device drivers in order to use the nvidia closed source driver for performance reasons. You can do this from the System menu, Hardware Controllers.

If it does not come installed by default (I’m not sure) you should install the nvidia-settings package, which will provide you with a GUI to configure some video parameters. Trick: Start the nvidia-settings app once installed using gksudo, so it can have modify access to the Xorg file. This will allow you save some changes in case you have more than one screen, for example.

REPOS AND APPLICATIONS

These are not tweaks, but a list of some interesting repos and applications that I installed using Ubuntu designed repos. (Instead of download a thousand packages…).

• The medibuntu repo has some comon apps. Add the repo to the sources list, and its key with:


$>sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/jaunty.list --output-document /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

$>sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get update


• Now you can install some common apps like codecs, or skype, or whatever with:


$>sudo apt-get install w32codecs skype ubuntu-restricted-extras compizconfig-settings-manager vlc wine mplayer

-Change w32codecs for w64codecs if you’re performing a 64bits install.

-The ubuntu-restricted-extras-package  will provide java, more codecs, and more common stuff that you most probably want in a user computer.

-The compizconfig-settings-manager will install the compiz control panel to tweak the graphical effects.

POWER MANAGEMENT

The power management that Ubuntu does is quite good, but installing and running powertop you can improve tour battery duration. There’s a problem though. Those changes are only per session, so you will loose them after any reboot.

For a more advanced power management, you can use laptop-mode. I’m not going to write here how to do so, because it’s explained quite clear HERE (post #7).

BLUETOOTH

Bluetooth works perfect without any user tweak. Just turn it on, and you’ll see the bluetooth applet come to life in the gnome/kde system tray.

In earlier Ubuntu versions, using a bluetooth headset was a bit painful. This time, it is pretty straightforward. Pair your headset in the bluetooth applet. Then, in the app that you want to use the headset with, select headset instead of pulse as input. That’s one (of the few) advantages of using pulseaudio along the whole distribution.

And that’s all. Ubuntu 9.04 up & running.

NOTE: The only thing I can’t seem to deal with, is the multimedia keys. If you’re reading this, and you were able to do it, please give me more info about.