I have recently been playing with audacious skins and came up with a skin for Fedora. It is based on an old skin, BlubuntuBlue.
To use these skins, save the following zip files to ~/.local/share/audacious/Skins/ .
You do NOT need to unzip the files =)
Ubuntu 12.04 has been officially released and, with minor adjustments, the intel gma500 video card is working out of the box. See the last part of this post for suggestions on getting suspend working.
The “trick” is to use a few boot codes. Personally I use flash drives. Once I “install” Ubuntu to a flash drive, simply edit “syslinux.cfg” and add the following boot options.
quiet splash console=tty1 acpi_backlight=vendor acpi_osi=Linux acer_wmi.blacklist=yes mem=1920mb
Without the first option, console=tty1 the desktop (X) starts distorted, the desktop flickers and is partly displayed on the top of the screen. I could not get a screen shot of this. If you forget this option, simply run sudo service lightdm restart .
If you are getting a black screen, try disabling the boot splash (plymouth) by removing splash from the boot options.
quiet console=tty1 acpi_backlight=vendor acpi_osi=Linux acer_wmi.blacklist=yes mem=1920mb
Or if that fails, disable Plymouth altogether:
sudo mv /etc/init/plymouth.conf /etc/init/plymouth.conf.disabled
The next three options acpi_backlight=vendor acpi_osi=Linux acer_wmi.blacklist=yes enable the brightness buttons on the keyboard.
The acer_wmi module is both Acer specific and specific to my model (AO751h). If you do not have an AcerOne 751h, do not use it.
The acpi_backlight=vendor acpi_osi=Linux options are a bit more generic, but are also hardware dependent. Do not use them if your backlight works without these options (they have the potential to disable your backlight as was pointed out in the comments).
The last option, mem=1920mb allows more memory for the available for the gma500 and (slightly) improves performance. If you have 1 gb of ram, use mem=896mb
After installing, first restart X. ctrl-alt-f1 to get to a console, then
sudo service lightdm restart
Log in , then, using any editor, open /etc/default/grub
Change the line – GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" to
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash console=tty1 acpi_backlight=vendor acpi_osi=Linux acer_wmi.blacklist=yes mem=1920mb"
Or, if you are having a problem with a black screen, a more generic set of options would be
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet console=tty1 acpi_backlight=vendor acpi_osi=Linux mem=896mb"
And then update grub
sudo update-grub
And finally reboot.
From form dfrossar on the Ubuntu forums you can try 915resolution
Using any editor, create a file /etc/grub.d/01_915resolution , add in lines
echo insmod 915resolution
echo 915resolution 58 1366 768 32
Make the file executable
sudo chmod a+x /etc/grub.d/01_915resolution
Next, edit /etc/default/grub, assign value 1366x768x32 to variables GRUB_GFXMODE and GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX (be sure to change “1366×768″ to your desired resolution):
GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=1366x768x32Then update grub.
sudo update-grub
and reboot.
From “unziberla” in the comments below:
Guys, i fixed suspend on my AO751h with 12.04 starting from old patch for 11.10 from which i removed one quirk.
Open a terminal and use the following commands:
gksu gedit /etc/pm/config.d/gma500
Add in one of the following codes and save the file (apparently one “-” works for some and others need two “--” in front of “quirk-vbemode-restore”):
ADD_PARAMETERS='-quirk-vbemode-restore'
ADD_PARAMETERS='--quirk-vbemode-restore'
As a part of the continuing saga with my netbook (gma500) I took the Fedora 17 Alpha release for a test drive with gnome shell. I was quite pleased with the result.
The good – The intel gma500 (poulsbo) graphics card, my wireless card, and most interestingly gnome-shell were all working out of the box. Wow, gnome is looking great !!!
The bad – Performance was a little slow (running from a flash drive), there was some occasional blanking out of the screen, and the netbook seemed to be running a bit hot.
Screen shots (click thumbnails for larger image):
Good news for people with an Intel GMA500 (Poulsbo) graphics card, support is now in the mainline Linux kernel.
In the Linux 3.3-rc1 (mainline) kernel the driver has moved out of staging and re-named.
It is now located under
Device Drivers ->
Graphics support ->
DRM (Direct Rendering Manager) ->
Intel GMA5/600 KMS Framebuffer
and is now called “gma500_gfx”.
Once the kernel team with your distribution of choice makes the adjustment, the GMA500 should work “out of the box” on any Linux Distribution using kernel 3.3 or higher.
In follow up to this post I have remastered a daily build of Ubuntu 12.04, Precise Pangolin.
I have made a copy publicly available for those with one of these graphics cards. Please keep in mind it is an alpha release of 12.04
The gma500 should be working out of the box and works well live, and you can use a persistent home directory to preserve user data across boots.
Make a file in the root directory of any partition or your flash drive (after making a live flash drive from the iso)
# this will make a 1 Gb file for storage, increase / decrease the count as needed
dd if=/dev/zero of=./home-rw bs=1M count=1000
Make a file system on the file
mkfs.ext4 home-rw
mke2fs 1.41.14 (22-Dec-2010)
home-rw is not a block special device.
# Answer ‘yes’ here
Proceed anyway? (y,n) y
Remove the reserved blocks
tune2fs -m 0 -L home-rw home-rw
If you select the persistent option at the boot menu, the file system will then automatically be mounted at /home by the casper scripts.
If you install it, however, you would need to make some (minor) modifications.
using any editor, open /etc/default/grub
Change the line – GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash” to
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="poulsbo.blacklist=yes console=tty1"
And then update grub
sudo update-grub
The iso and md5sum are here:
Acer Aspire One AO751
I have been one of the frustrated owners of an Intel GMA 500 card – see how kick your friends face gma500 for details.
Support for this card in Linux has historically been poor, at best, and X typically fails when you boot most distros. For example, the GMA 500 is excluded from Fedora Intel Test Days .
Many people have resorted to attempting to reverse engineer various closed source (PSB and IEGD) and more recently the EMGD driver with mixed results. Support has been best for Ubuntu, and spotty at best for other distros.
In February of this year , Alan Cox started working on a driver gma500: Intel GMA500 staging driver and I have been using this driver on Gentoo for the past few months.
The advantage of the psb-gfx driver is that it is in the Linux kernel and performance is quite acceptable. The driver is 2D, No 3D, Xv, Hardware Accelerated Video.
With some minor changes to the kernel configuration, the psb-gfx driver should soon be working, at native resolution, out of the box, without any end user configuration in both Fedora and Ubuntu.
Note: When starting the live CD/Flash drive, X is distorted when it starts. You need to re-start X (log out an the log in screen is fine, ctrl-alt-backspace in Fedora). Once you install, it helps to disable the boot splash.
Thank you to Alan Cox for developing the psb-gfx driver and to the Fedora and Ubuntu teams for making the adjustments to the default distribution kernel.
Screen shots – click on the images for a larger picture.
I have used gentoo on my netbook mainly to test the gma500 staging driver with a custom kernel. I have used gentoo-hardened sources with LUKS and LVM as well as fbcondecor.
In order to get the system to boot I have written a custom initramfs. In case it helps others I am posting some information on the contents.
The files included are listed here:
biraries in /bin or /sbin are either static, or libs identified with ldd are included in /lib
The init script is sort of adapted from several sources and is as follows
#!/bin/busybox ash
# Modified from http://lunaryorn.de/articles/initramfs_gentoo.html
# Report errors / print messages
err () { echo "ERROR: $@"; }
msg () { [ "${quiet}" != 'y' ] && echo $@; }
# Global variables
export ROOT="/dev/mapper/lotus-root"
export PATH="/bin:/sbin"
export CRYPTROOT="/dev/sda10"
export CRYPTNAME="gentoo"
export CONSOLEFONT="ter-v16n"
# Mount proc and sys
mount -t proc none /proc
mount -t sysfs none /sys
# Silence kernel messages
msg "Silencing procfs …"
echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/printk
# Read kernel command line options
read CMDLINE </proc/cmdline
export CMDLINE
for x in ${CMDLINE}
do
case "${x}" in
quiet)
quiet='y'
export quiet
;;
esac
done
# Create devices
echo "/sbin/modprobe" > /proc/sys/kernel/modprobe
msg "Creating device nodes …"
echo /sbin/mdev > /proc/sys/kernel/hotplug
mdev -s
# set keymap
#kbd_mode -u /dev/tty1
printf "\033%%G" >> /dev/console
msg "Loading keymap …"
loadkmap < /etc/kmap-us
# set console font
msg "Setting font …"
setfont /usr/share/consolefonts/${CONSOLEFONT}.psf.gz -C /dev/tty
printf "\033(K" >> /dev/console
# Open LUKS Crypt
msg "Open LUKS Crypt …"
while ! cryptsetup luksOpen -T 3 $CRYPTROOT $CRYPTNAME >/dev/null ; do
sleep 2;
done
# setup splash screen
. /etc/initrd.splash
msg "Setting up splashscreen …"
splash init
# LVM
lvm vgscan --ignorelockingfailure > /dev/null
lvm vgchange --ignorelockingfailure -ay >/dev/null
# Mount root fs ro for fsck
mount -o ro /dev/mapper/lotus-root /newroot
# Clean up and exit to rootfs
umount /sys
umount /proc
exec switch_root /newroot /sbin/init ${CMDLINE}
The only problem is that the boot splash does not display any area to enter the LUKS password. Hit alt-F1 and enter the password on the console.
The only other thing I think I need to address is running fsck, but I will leave that for another day.
I am going to try to offer a few sessions in Fedora Classroom starting next week with iptables.
I hope to cover “the basics” of iptables in #fedora-classroom on September 15th , 21:00 (UTC)
The session is planned to last an hour, with 30 minutes for questions. Target audience – users new to iptables.
The goal is to cover iptables syntax and configuration. To get the most out of the session it will help if you understand the basics of networking TCP/IP protocols and to that end I posted an outline at IPTables.odt.
The session will start with the filtering table and I can cover NAT as time allows.
Selinux has been suggested as a topic for future sessions.
The Ubuntu Forums Council is pleased to continue the availability of Ubuntu Membership in recognition of Forums participation.
Benefits of Ubuntu membership include:
See The Ubuntu Wiki Membership page for details regarding the benefits of Ubuntu Membership.
In addition, we will almost certainly be selecting future forums staff from among Ubuntu Members active on the forums.
How to petition for membership:
There is a “sticky” note in those forums Applying For Ubuntu Membership via Ubuntu Forums Contributions with a template for applications as well as some general advice on how to apply.
For additional information see Ubuntu Membership via Forums participation .
Current members are listed on Launchpad at: Ubuntu Forums Members .
If you are currently an Ubuntu member and would like to be added to the Launchpad team or if you need recognition on the forums feel free to send me a PM on the Ubuntu Forums with a link to your launchpad page.
We are moving to a system of open enrollment and we are accepting applications as they come in. Please keep in mind the FC is a volunteer staff thus the review process may take a few weeks.
Once one is approved and Ubuntu email is automatic (takes a few days), but many of the other benefits require a request from the approved individual to the proper team / location as outlined on the The Ubuntu Wiki Membership page.
The post is in follow up to my post on installing the kmod-nvidia . I am a fanboi of the nouveau driver and the only reason I use the nvidia driver is when the nouveau driver fails.
This means removing kmod-nvidia and testing the nouveau driver with each new kernel. Typically I will do this when I have the time to work through the process and re-install kmod-nvidia if the nouveau driver fails (my wife hates it when X fails >_< ).
Unfortunately if you simply remove kmod-nvidia and reboot, gnome 3 then starts in fallback mode.
The easiest way to (for me) restore the nouveau driver is to boot to an older kernel, remove kmod-nvidia, and re-install the new kernel. Perhaps there is an easier method, but this seems fairly fool proof =)
1. Start by re-booting your computer and selecting an older kernel. Optionally you can boot to runlevel 3 but it is not necessary.
2. Remove the kmod-nvidia and akmod-nvidia.
yum erase --remove-leaves kmod-nvidia akmod-nvidia
3. Make sure nouveau is not black listed.
Using any editor, open /boot/grub/grub.conf and make sure the kernel line does NOT contain the following 2 options:
rdblacklist=nouveau nouveau.modeset=0
4. Move your xorg.conf.
mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.nvidia
5. Re-install the new kernel.
yum reinstall kernel
You will get a message about “Skipping the running kernel”, which is why we booted to an old kernel, but the new kernel should be re-installed.
6. Reboot. You should get a plymouth boot splash and the nouveau driver is should be working.
Personally, nouveau seems to be working on my nvidia card as of kernel 2.6.40-4.fc15 ( w00t !!! ).
