Archive for the “Uncategorized” Category

After fixing the OS X Terminal’s keyboard shortcuts, I wanted to conquer the annoying functionality that keeps Terminal open after the last terminal tab is closed. I normally exit a shell by typing the command “exit”. However, you can also exit a shell by closing the Terminal tab using Cocoa methods (red close button, CMD+w). Between these two methods, things happen in a different order. (Using “exit” causes the user to logout and exit the shell, but the actual tab or window stays open until the processes end. On the other hand, using one of the window closing methods closes the window before the user logout and the processes end).

The general approach is to first watch for the EXIT signal to be sent to a shell (this happens regardless which way the Terminal is closed), then do some handling to determine if the user is exiting the last Terminal tab. However, this got rather cumbersome because of the behavior outlined above. (Sometimes when the final EXIT signal is caught there is still a tab open, other times there is no tab open when the final EXIT signal is caught). So anyway, this is how I did it.

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It was recently announced that ath9k, the newest of the open Atheros Linux drivers, is now available. This is great news for Mac folks, as a majority of the MacBook and MacBook Pros out there have one of the newer 802.11n cards that is not really supported with madwifi, but this new driver supports.

Of course, it is Ubuntuforums user, volanin, to the rescue again who took it upon himself to backport the wireless-testing portion of the kernel to the 2.6.24-19 (and -20) kernel currently used in Ubuntu Hardy Heron and packaged this ath9k driver into a nice little deb file so that Ubuntu-On-Mac users will have easy access to use it on their machines without having to go through the trouble of compiling a custom kernel. Of course, this is not limited only to Mac users, but rather, any user with an up-to-date install of Hardy Heron will have the benefit of using this driver. A link to the download and full instructions can be found at the following thread. Enjoy!

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=5545069&postcount=5

Now, if only Broadcom could realize that they need to release an open driver driver just to keep up…

Culprit:

Lovelace Services

Summary:

1. They cancel appointments and do not call to let you know until the end of the day.
2. They do not call you to let you know intentions even when they have already said they would.
3. They rarely answer the phone (the only means of contact that I could find).

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We get the question or comment quite a bit that people are planning to purchase a Mac and want to run Ubuntu (or some other variant of Linux) on it exclusively. Now, this can be done, and you might end up with exactly what you want in the end, but I have to say, “Why in the world would you do that?”

Don’t get me wrong, I like my iMac, and I am even getting a Macbook Pro soon for work. I also like running Ubuntu on my iMac, but buying a Mac just to use Linux just doesn’t make any sense to me. There are so many other options out there for a linux-specifc application. With Dell now offering machines made specifically with Linux compatibility in mind in addition to the several linux-compatilible hardware vendors out there, it is way too easy to obtain hardware that can coexist with linux peacefully.

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This is something that is quite simple to do, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of good How-Tos out there for it.

If you go the the skype webpage and look at the available downloads, you will notice that there is no 64bit version available for linux. There is a deb available for install on Ubuntu > 7.04 that is a normal 32bit, i386 package though. I am using the latest release of Ubuntu (8.04 Hardy Heron).

There are a couple of things that skype requires before it will install. Fortunately, it is quite easy to install them since they are available in the Ubuntu repos.

sudo apt-get install libqt4-gui

This will install the libqt4-core libraries, and the libqt3-gui package. After that is done, we can install the skype deb. If you just double-click on it, gdebi will complain that the package is for the wrong architecture. Fortunately, since we are working on an Open Source OS, there are many other tools available to us, including those that allow us to force the install.

sudo dpkg --force-architecture -i skype-debian_2.0.0.68-1_i386.deb

The ‘force-architecture’ switch allows the dpkg command to ignore any architecture related errors and install skype. Be sure to use the appropriate filename for the deb package that you download. Skype should now be available from the “Internet” category under the “Applications” menu.

Apple must really be trying to get rid of the Airport Extreme technology:

The Apple Store (U.S.) – AirPort & Wireless (20080209)

Here is a screenshot in case it gets changed

Apple Airport Extreme Cards Must Sell!

Via Popular Mechanics:

Computer operating systems loaded with stuff I don’t want and will never use.

 

In the tech world this phenomenon is known as “software bloat” or “feature bloat.” It’s a well-documented problem and a frequent complaint about Windows OSs—Vista in particular. In addition to being buggy, the extra features tend to bog down your system by demanding more processing power and memory. Computer-makers: Don’t load up operating systems with features and then make us sweat to figure out how to get rid of the fat.

 

Most features can be set up as options. Why not start with a computer loaded with basic stuff that works 100 percent of the time? Then, give us the option of adding the bells and whistles. There’s another solution available to consumers: Switch to a Linux-based OS such as Ubuntu. Since most Linux OSs are free, there’s no business reason to bloat up the system with feature frills.

 

And high-tech companies—stop messing with us on your treadmill of upgrades while making the old stuff obsolete. It may be that any software company that didn’t routinely upgrade its product would go out of business. But what if the rest of the world worked this way? Oh, I lost a sock. I need to get a whole new wardrobe because the replacement sock is version 2.0.1, and the stores now only sell version 2.0.3.

This question gets asked a lot, especially since people are having non-functioning keyboards in Linux Bootloaders (Windows too). If you make room on your Intel Mac to boot Windows and Linux, most distros will now detect windows and add an entry to grub and/or lilo, and install the bootloader to the MBR (Master Boot Record) of your disk. This is ok on most PCs, as there is not normally any other way to choose which OS you want when booting up. However, most Mactel multibooters are using rEFIt to select the OS, and there is no need to use grub for anything but Linux (and hopefully, a EFI native bootloader will be available someday to replace that).

The way to get around this annoyance is to install your Linux bootloader to the root partition (or your /boot partition if you have one), and leave the normal Windows bootloader in the MBR. I use Ubuntu and Grub, and will focus there, but these general instructions should work for any system.

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Ok, since ATI’s new drivers have a lot of weird things preventing install on Gutsy in 64 bit, I am posting this here as help for those that want to try it out.

P.S. Compiz works without XGL!

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