Samsung R780 with Ubuntu 10.10
I wanted to replace my desktop computer by a laptop for quite a while now and as it started to randomly freeze - no matter which OS it ran - I decided the right time has come now. I did some online research and then picked a Samsung R780 Helix (link in German). The bare technical facts:
"googlecl" RPM for Fedora
Recently Google released a command line tool to manage it’s many different services: googlecl. This might be handy for those who want to script some operations.
Lucid desktop install with lvm2
As I recently “reorganized” the partitioning scheme on my desktop system to gain some space for my flac music files I also changed the linux partitions to further run from logical volumes. To install Ubuntu on logical volumes you need to run the alternate installer - which in my case pretty much failed. I don’t know why, but half the way of copying the new system the installer insisted on putting in the CD medium (which of course was still in the drive) and no matter what option I chose - “Continue” or “Cancel” - the request wouldn’t go away. This was the first time an Ubuntu installer didn’t work out for me. Still wanting to install Ubuntu’s latest release I came across a post in Linux Mint’s (another Ubuntu offspring) forum, describing how to install Linux Mint with lvm2. See the original post by piratesmack (thanks!) here. I more or less followed this howto.
WLAN with Asus Eeepc 1000H and Lucid Lynx
Ubuntu’s latest release “Lucid Lynx” is out for a while now so I decided that this would be the right choice for my netbook “Asus Eeepc 1000H”. I went for the default i386 desktop release as I don’t like the netbook editions. With the help of “UNetbootin” it’s quite easy to create a bootable USB stick from the downloaded iso file. The installation was a peace of cake and if you previously installed Ubuntu somewhere (and even if you didn’t) it should not be a problem. I recommend keeping a wired network connection during installation (and as it shows, you will need it).
Ubuntu's Ambiance/Radiance gtk themes for Debian
(EDIT Sep, 2010: now with updated packages, see below!)
Running Debian Lenny on my Acer Aspire 5572 notebook I wanted a more “up-to-date” look for it’s Gnome desktop. As I recently came across some screenshots of Ubuntu’s upcoming release “Lucid Lynx” with it’s new GTK theme I decided to give it a try (you have to get used to the buttons being on the left side of the windows, though - see screenshot below). Of course, the new Ubuntu Mono iconset goes very well with this theme, so I needed that, too.