Remove ATI's proprietary drivers

I've installed Ubuntu 9.04 on my beefed-up Compaq Deskpro EN. I have a Hauppauge TV card in it, and also a ATI card to connect a monitor. My LCD-TV has a monitor connection, so I can use a standard cable to connect it to the TV.

After installing Ubuntu 9.04, everything worked fine (of course, it's Linux after all!). Knowing that I have the ATI card, I thought I would try to configure it. I messed around and I think I also installed some ATI-stuff from the Add/Remove-menu.

Anyways - when restaring the computer the next day, it froze when X started. In order to solve this, I used the recovery/safe-boot option, and booted into a root command line session.

Being logged in as root, I didn't have to use "sudo". So, I just removed the ATI driver like this:

aptitude remove xorg-driver-fglrx

Aptitude suggested a solution, and I went for it (fingers crossed).

Rebooting resurrected my X-session and all is now well.

Lesson learned!

Some notes on SSH

I finally got SSH to work on my home network. Not too difficult - it is just that I have not gotten around to it before.

I have fixed the IP-addresses on my home computers in my router. That makes it easer for me. Then I made sure that both PCs had SSH installed:

sudo aptitude install openssh-client openssh-server

In the terminal, I could log into one machine (here 192.168.0.187) from the other

ssh adder1972@192.168.0.187

I just answered yes to any questions that popped up. When logged in through SSH, it is just like using the terminal window on the other computer. Note that the other computer only needs to be on. There is no need to log into it on the machine itself.

SSH through Nautlius:

A neat trick is to use Nautilus to browse your files. Just enter:

sftp://adder1972@192.168.0.187/home/adder1972/

in the location bar. You will need to authenticate with your password. You can even make a shortcut to your remote machine in Nautilus. Very nice.

Scrolling on the Thinkpad X60 in Ubuntu 8.10

Ubuntu 8.10 needs modifications in it's HAL-settings instead of in the xorg.conf as we used to do. Now you need to create a new file called /etc/hal/fdi/policy/mouse-wheel.fdi with the following contents.

The link brings you to the great blog by Phil Sung. Be sure to check out the rest of Phil's blog as well.

Finding duplicates and cleaning out

I have many, many copies of some files in a unstructured and messy hierarchy. Today, I found my solution to the challenge of cleaning out duplicates; FSlint!

sudo aptitude install fslint

gives you the package.

It has a nice GUI;

fslint-gui

Enjoy!

VirtualBox: Screen Resolution

I've tested Ubuntu 8.10 in Virtualbox 2.0.2 on my Ubuntu 8.04-system.

I have always had issues with the screen resolution for my guest OS when using Virtualbox.

Solution: After installing the guest OS, Run "Guest additions" under "Devices" in the Virtualbox window. This will mount a CD-image in your guest. Run the appropriate file on that CD as root.

I also had to edit my xorg.conf

gksu gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

And ad a line:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver  "vboxvideo"
EndSection

(Italic line added).

Restart and everything worked great.

This is a good link for more info