Koine (Biblical) Greek in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx

A Tech article with View Comments posted 7 July 2010.
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Greek

I’ve been using Ubuntu for several years with KMFL (Keyboard Mapping for Linux), a project to bring “Keyman-style” keyboard maps to Linux in order to type in Unicode. These are vastly superior to traditional keyboard maps because they allow you to type more naturally.

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Fixing volume control on Inspiron 9400 / E1705 in Ubuntu Karmic

A Tech article with View Comments posted 26 November 2009.
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So there was one other problem aside from the nearly flawless install of Ubuntu Karmic I did a few days ago. Apparently the Dell Inspiron 9400 (also known as the E1705, if you bought it through the Dell Home store instead of Dell Small Business like I did) has the STAC9200 audio chipset, and ALSA doesn’t do a good job of correctly mapping the volume control. Symptoms of this include the volume sliders not doing anything, except at about 10% where there is an abrupt cut between 100% loud and muted. Fortunately, according to these directions given by geopteryx in the Ubuntu Forums, it’s easy to fix.

Instead of restarting the computer afterward as it says in the article, you can just run these commands to restart the sound system.

  1. sudo invoke-rc.d alsa-utils restart
  2. killall pulseaudio
  3. pulse-session

Fixing Broken WiFi on Inspiron 9400 in Ubuntu Karmic

A Church article with View Comments posted 25 November 2009.
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I just got done with a fresh install of Ubuntu Karmic on my big laptop – the 17″ Dell Inspiron 9400. Almost everything installed flawlessly – I continue to be amazed at how much faster and easier it is to install Ubuntu than other operating systems and even Linux distributions. The one problem was with wireless.
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Fixing segmentation fault in apt upgrade

A Tech article with View Comments posted 24 September 2009.
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I was having some problems getting aptitude to install new packages. It might have been caused by a crash on my netbook while installing packages, but in any case, nothing was working. The output looked like this, over and over again for about two dozen packages.

  1. ted@mini:/var/lib/dpkg/info$ sudo dpkg –configure –pending
  2. Setting up synaptic (0.62.5ubuntu3) …
  3. Segmentation fault
  4. dpkg: error processing synaptic (–configure):
  5.  subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 139
  6. Setting up evolution-documentation-en (2.26.1-0ubuntu2) …
  7. Segmentation fault
  8. dpkg: error processing evolution-documentation-en (–configure):
  9.  subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 139

So after some googling, I tried sudo dpkg --configure --pending. That didn’t fix it either, but it gave me an idea. I went poking around in the postinst files for those packages, and found that it was dying on scrollkeeper-update.

You can verify that this is the problem for you like this:

  1. ted@mini:/var/lib/dpkg/info$ sudo scrollkeeper-update
  2. Segmentation fault

The problem is that the scrollkeeper database is corrupt. Run sudo scrollkeeper-rebuilddb to regenerate the corrupt database and fix the nasty problem (this could take several minutes to complete), then sudo aptitude -f install to finish installation of the partially configured packages. Then you can apt like normal again!

Biblical Hebrew in Ubuntu Hardy Heron

A Church article with View Comments posted 10 October 2008.
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Hebrew, Greek, and English living together in OpenOffice.org

Hebrew, Greek, and English living together in OpenOffice.org

Here’s the process for installing Biblical Hebrew input method support for Ubuntu Hardy Heron.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This guide does not work as of Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. Please see my new guide for directions on getting KMFL to work with iBus.

  1. First, go install SCIM as described in my instructions on installing Koine Greek, steps 1-4 (but replace gutsy with hardy).
  2. Download the “Ezra 2.51 source and font release” from the SIL Non-Roman Script Initiative on this page.
  3. Extract the archive and compile the keyboard with kmflcomp EZRAUNI24.KMN
  4. Run scim-setup, click on the KMFL option, click install, then browse to the compiled .kmfl file to install the input method.
  5. Save the settings. You’ll also probably need to log out and log back in for everything to work right.
  6. Browse through the included Ezra SIL Keyboard Chart. Hebrew is not as keyboard-intuitive as Greek.

Special thanks to Sheila Harrison at the Non-Roman Script Initiative for pointing me at the right package to download.

Update: Sheila writes:

Thank you for giving others a chance to work through the process more easily. I appreciate your comment on the web page, but thanks should really go to Lorna Priest, who reminded me that the source was on the download page. I knew it was available somewhere but hadn’t double checked it yet.

Java printing broken in Ubuntu Gutsy

A Tech article with View Comments posted 10 November 2007.
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I use Asaph, a lead-sheet creation program for musicians, and I discovered that since upgrading to Gutsy, printing doesn’t work. Apparently this is a common problem, detailed in this bug on Launchpad.

The (albeit ugly) workaround: in Software Sources, add deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty main as a “Third Party Source.” Then downgrade to cupsys version 1.2.8-0ubuntu8.

Koine Greek in Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon

A Tech article with View Comments posted 9 November 2007.
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IMPORTANT NOTE: This guide does not work as of Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. Please see my new guide for directions on getting KMFL to work with iBus.

Here’s the simple process for installing Koine Greek input method support for Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon:

  1. Make sure you have scim installed
  2. Add this repository to your apt sources: deb http://packages.sil.org/ubuntu gutsy main
  3. sudo aptitude update
  4. sudo aptitude install scim-kmfl-imengine kmflcomp
  5. Download scim-greek-koine.tar.gz, which contains a KMFL engine file I got from somewhere else that I have modified to work.
  6. Extract the tarfile and compile the kmfl file by running kmflcomp GrkPolyComp.KMN
  7. Run scim-setup, click on the new “KMFL” option, click install, browse to the GrkPolyComp.kmfl file you just compiled.

It was a twisty road to get to this point, so if it doesn’t work for you, post in the comments and I’ll try to help you work it out.

Crank up your Ubuntu

A Tech article with View Comments posted 4 May 2007.
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I just read this article on xsol.se and tried out a few of the changes on my Ubuntu Edgy system. The results were impressive! Just changing the boot process to run in parallel (idea #2) improved my time from power-on to a login screen from 40-ish seconds to about 15! I can probably do better if I don’t start my rather large MySQL server (used for development at work) on every boot too.

I also recommend disabling Java from OpenOffice – that alone improved startup time of Writer from 10-ish seconds to about 2 seconds.

Any other creative tips to make Ubuntu even faster?

Edit: – I’d also recommend trying prelink. Prelink links your applications to their runtime libraries in advance so that they start faster. It’s not for everyone – it’s not necessary in Feisty, and it might break your system (but if it breaks, you do get to keep both pieces!) but it has made a tangible improvement in application startup speed for me. This guide has a quick tutorial on enabling prelink.

Edit 2: – If you run a large MySQL database on your desktop / laptop, you might want to check out my post on using ionice to de-prioritize mysqlcheck

NetworkManager problems in Ubuntu Dapper/Edgy

A Tech article with View Comments posted 19 March 2007.
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Both Jennifer and I have had a problem with our laptops for a long time where wireless does not always get reinitialized when our computers come back from standby. On Friday, we ran into this same problem with a work laptop. All three are Dells, but they are very different machines: a 3-year-old Inspiron 5150, a new-ish Inspiron 9400 (my baby), and a brand new Latitude D620. In every case, this little script helps:

#!/bin/bash

# Pick the right kernel module for the hardware here
sudo rmmod ipw3945
sudo modprobe ipw3945 ieee80211
killall nm-applet
nohup nm-applet 2>&1 > /dev/null &

This solves two different problems. First, sometimes the wireless fails to show up as wireless – that’s what removing and reinstalling the kernel module does. Secondly, even when the wireless interface is available, sometimes the NetworkManager applet drops the ball and won’t recognize it. A restart of the applet fixes that problem. Hopefully someone else will find this little script useful too.

Dell Inspiron 9400 with Ubuntu Dapper Drake

A Tech article with View Comments posted 1 October 2006.
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A few weeks ago I bought a new Dell Inspiron 9400 laptop after my three year old Dell died, 37 days out of warranty. I was running Dapper on that laptop, and I wanted to continue that with this new machine.

The good news: everything works. (Intel) Wireless, Bluetooth, CD/DVD burning, suspend, hibernate, touchpad, brightness dimming, all of the special buttons, USB. I haven’t tried the modem, but I don’t really care about it.

I picked the Intel 945 graphics, so I’m running the experimental xserver-xorg-air-core Xserver. That means that all of the shiny wobbly windows and compositing work well too. However, be sure to switch back to metacity (the default GNOME window manager) before attempting the Quit Gnome screen – the screen becomes active, but it doesn’t work with the compositing so you can never see it. Also, if you use the suspend or hibernate buttons with compiz, usually the system won’t come back – again, switch to metacity using compiz-manager before suspending or hibernating.

Graphics-wise, I was worried that I’d have trouble with the WUXGA screen (1920×1200) on this laptop, but that hasn’t been the case – it worked out of the box with Dapper.

The centrino CPU frequency scaling works well. I went for the Core 2 Duo, so I have independant control of frequencies and frequency governors on the two CPU cores. Thermal monitoring works, so I can get neat graphs.

Altogether, I definitely recommend this configuration to anyone who wants a capable Ubuntu laptop.