Archive
Ubuntu / PERL locale errors/warnings
You get this?
perl: warning: Setting locale failed. perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings: LANGUAGE = “en_US.UTF-8″, LC_ALL = “en_US.UTF-8″, LANG = “en_US.UTF-8″ are supported and installed on your system.
Use this!
export LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8 export LANG=en_US.UTF-8 export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 locale-gen en_US.UTF-8 dpkg-reconfigure locales
Worked for me. Of course, replace en_US with w/e your primary language is.
Your T400/T500/T410/T510 not suspending/hibernating under Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat? Fix.
If your trusty Lenovo T[45][01]0 does not want to suspend/hibernate under Ubuntu 10.10, but just seems to do it and then comes back right away, blacklist a bunch of modules editing /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf:
# suggested blacklist to fix lenovo suspend failure. lambertdw
blacklist parport
blacklist parport_pc
blacklist ppdev
blacklist lp
blacklist tpm_tis
Alternatively, just rmmod them for testing purposes (thanks to lambertdw). Offending module for me was tpm_tis, which handles the Trusted Platform Module. I don’t need it anyway. Supposedly this should be fixed in kernels >= 2.6.36.
How to enable Google’s PDF Plugin in Chromium
Google’s PDF Plugin is most excellent for most needs – and for anything else you can actually download the PDF and do whatever you want to do with it (sidenote though: printing would be really nice. Pretty please, Google?). Unfortunately, it only ships with the official Chrome version and is therefore not available in the Chromium editions most distributions ship or make available.
Therefore, to get and enable the plugin on your favorite local Chromium version:
- Download a Google Chrome release that matches your processor architecture (x86/x86_64):
# wget http://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-unstable_current_i386.deb
# wget http://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-unstable_current_amd64.deb - extract the .deb:
# ar vx <previously downloaded .deb> - extract the data payload:
# tar --lzma -xvf data.tar.lzma - copy the plugin to destination folder:
(note:/usr/lib/chromium-browseris valid for my Ubuntu PPA version, might be/opt/chromium-browseror something on other distributions)
# sudo cp opt/google/chrome/libpdf.so /usr/lib/chromium-browser/ - restart any open Chromium processes
- check about:plugins for the
Chrome PDF Viewer, should not need any enabling - Profit!
Switching your default Sans/Sans Serif/Monospace Fonts 2.0
Updated from my original post to replace the default Sans/Sans-Serif/Monospace defaults to something different.
These days I like the new ChromeOS Fonts a lot, so I wanted fontconfig to use them as defaults. In this regard, they are really well suited as Arial/Verdana/Times New Roman/Courier New replacements, too. Killing two birds with one stone? Me likes! 
Replacing those Microsoft fonts with their counterparts therefore comes quite naturally as they aren’t always installed – and actually, I don’t really like them being installed. In case they are indeed installed, I use a match/edit combination here – aliases only work if the original fonts are not installed and fail if they are. Strong binding is used to override any distribution defaults.
ChromeOS/Microsoft font comparison, thanks to http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk
Snippet this into $HOME/.fonts.conf:
<!--?xml version="1.0"?>-->
<!--DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">-->
<!-- ~/.fonts.conf for per-user font configuration -->
<fontconfig>
<!-- Alias commonly used default names -->
<!-- serif, sans-serif, sans and monospace -->
<!-- to the ChromeOS fonts -->
<alias>
<family>serif</family>
<prefer>
<family>Tinos</family>
</prefer>
</alias>
<alias>
<family>sans-serif</family>
<prefer>
<family>Arimo</family>
</prefer>
</alias>
<alias>
<family>sans</family>
<prefer>
<family>Arimo</family>
</prefer>
</alias>
<alias>
<family>monospace</family>
<prefer>
<family>Cousine</family>
</prefer>
</alias>
<!-- Replace Arial, Times New Roman, Verdana and Courier New -->
<!-- with their counterparts. Strong binding used to override -->
<!-- distribution defaults -->
<match target="pattern" name="family" >
<test name="family" qual="any" >
<string>Arial</string>
</test>
<edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="strong">
<string>Arimo</string>
</edit>
</match>
<match target="pattern" name="family" >
<test name="family" qual="any" >
<string>Times New Roman</string>
</test>
<edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="strong">
<string>Tinos</string>
</edit>
</match>
<match target="pattern" name="family" >
<test name="family" qual="any">
<string>Verdana</string>
</test>
<edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="strong">
<string>Arimo</string>
</edit>
</match>
<match target="pattern" name="family" >
<test name="family" qual="any" >
<string>Courier New</string>
</test>
<edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="strong">
<string>Cousine</string>
</edit>
</match>
</fontconfig>
Lotus Notes 8.5.2 + Ubuntu 10.10 = working, out of the box
Wow, they got it all right this time. Everything works without any tinkering – thanks IBM, you made my day. Seriously.
Disclaimer: On x86 that is.
Ubuntu Maverick Looks = …
… awesome. ‘Nuff said. Polished. Fonts=great seriously awesome+1. Theme=great. Overall feel=great+1.
Chrom{e,omium} Radiance Theme
If you are like me and use the Radiance Theme on Ubuntu and the Chromium Browser, do yourself a favor and install the corresponding Chrome/Chromium Theme for it. Really blends in nicely. There is one for Ambiance, too.
Switching your default Sans/Sans Serif/Monospace Fonts
EDIT: Updated post for ChromeOS fonts and Arial/Verdana/Times New Roman/Courier New replacement.
When I recently switched to the totally awesome and space saving Droid Fonts (monospaced version is extremely nice for programming and shell stuff), courtesy of Google, I had to find a way to have my Ubuntu system translate every request for the default Sans/Sans Serif/Monospace fonts to their respective Droid versions. Not wanting to tamper with the system wide configuration files (I think those forward to the Dejavu family of fonts, nice, but not so cool on small screens), I just used the excellent per-user configuration system. Just dump this snippet as .fonts.conf into your $HOME directory.
<!--?xml version="1.0"?>--> <!--DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">--> <!-- ~/.fonts.conf for per-user font configuration --> <fontconfig> <alias> <family>serif</family> <prefer> <family>Droid Serif</family> </prefer> </alias> <alias> <family>sans-serif</family> <prefer> <family>Droid Sans</family> </prefer> </alias> <alias> <family>monospace</family> <prefer> <family>Droid Sans Mono</family> </prefer> </alias> </fontconfig>
Enjoy the difference!
Lotus Notes 8.5 / A gdk Window is being destroyed out of DestroyWindow / Ubuntu 10.4 /
Pretty much works out of the box using the .deb’s. Pretty much, because … well, it’s Notes after all.
If you are experiencing the dreaded “A gdk Window is being destroyed out of DestroyWindow” error when starting Notes in a Terminal (or your basic Mail/Calendar/whatever windows are simply not visible/not appearing), follow this bug report on launchpad.
Cliff Notes:
- Download the four GDK libraries from http://www.freetechie.com/upload/lotus_notes
- Throw them into /opt/ibm/lotus/notes
- …
- Profit!
Don’t forget to change Notes’ default fonts. They suck. Other than that, works beautifully in my environment.
Install Chrome/Chromium on Ubuntu
Easy steps to enable the Chromium Beta PPA Repository – which actually contains the official Google Chrome Betas. Once Google releases a new Beta, it will get updated there.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chromium-daily/beta/ubuntu
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install chromium-browser
For the goodies that are H.264/mov/etc/etc – which you will probably want:
sudo apt-get install chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra
If you are a web developer, you will also want this:
sudo apt-get install chromium-browser-inspector
Ubuntu.addToDefaultInstallation(“ubuntu-tweak”)
While playing around with my new Ubuntu 10.4 installation, I searched for a quick and easy way to setup Compiz’s screen edge features to show me my windows, desktop and workspaces – but that doesn’t seem to be possible in the default installation. One has to install the Compiz Settings Manager and then do it from there. Sure, easy enough – even though that thing is a beast with all its configuration options.
But while poking around the net, I came across Ubuntu Tweak that features a seriously nice, stripped down interface for that – and so much more.
This application should seriously be considered being added to the default installation. “Hide” it somewhere if you need to, name it “Advanced Tweaks” or something, but it’s absolutely helpful to quickly change some more hidden configuration options if you need to.
Kudos to the developer!
Oh, to install it:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tualatrix/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-tweak
Very impressed…
… with the new Ubuntu looks introduced in the 10.4 beta. Absolutely polished and very, very functional. Okay, it is different – but that is not necessarily a bad thing. People will get used to it. And as a Mac user I definitely welcome the move of window buttons from the windows’y right side to the left. They just feel more natural there, anyway.
Another thing that really struck me in the beta is how absolutely gorgeous the default font rendering is (haven’t checked, but I think they now use the Liberation fonts over the DejaVu ones they are the DejaVu fonts). Usually I spend quite some time after installing a new distribution trying to get the fonts right. I don’t know why, but some distributions just can’t get it right – Ubuntu certainly has. You can think of Ubuntu whatever you want, but they know how to get the very, very important “basic” things right (which are really advanced when done right). On the desktop, no joe-average-user needs the absolutely latest and greatest and whatnot in kernel/service/security-land, what they need is an attractive, modern, good looking environment that is stable to work with.
