Karmic FAQ

(Planet people: sorry if this pops up >1 time...when I add another question, Blogger thinks it has to bump it up in the RSS feed)

Following tradition, here's my Karmic FAQ:

1. How should I download?
   • Torrents, to keep the strain off the servers. There are IPv6 torrent files available as well, as a test so Canonical can see how many Ubuntu users are on IPv6 and thus how much support to give it. They don't list KTorrent as one of the clients that can do the IPv6 torrents, but I'm using it right now.
   • Or if you have a Beta or RC .iso sitting around zsync to the final
2. I have a netbook. What are my options?
   • Ubuntu Netbook Remix is still around, but it's now joined by Kubuntu Netbook Edition
3. How's audio?
   • Well, it's working fine for me, but Daniel has a "caveats" blog post (updated link). There is now a linux-backports-modules-alsa-karmic-generic package so you can get ALSA updates
4. Where'd Add/Remove go?
   • It has been replaced by the new Ubuntu Software Center
5. Does Ubuntu Software Center sell proprietary software? I heard it did.
   • Not yet. There are plans in about a year to allow those commercial developers who are willing to support Linux to sell apps through it.
6. Can I use Ubuntu One with Kubuntu?
   • Yes, just install the ubuntu-one-client-gnome package.
7. Why Empathy? I like Pidgin!
   • You're welcome to keep using Pidgin, but here are a few things Empathy has going for it:
     • It's the GNOME default
     • It can do audio/video chat
     • The Telepathy framework lets it integrate better into the rest of the desktop
     • As Jono mentioned you can do desktop sharing through it
8. What happened to GDM theming?
   • The new GDM uses the GTK theme for the gdm user. To change it, you'll need to run gksudo -u gdm gnome-appearance-properties and select a new theme
9. Wasn't Gwibber supposed to be included?
   • Gwibber 2.0 was not ready in time. It is available in Universe.
10. New theme yet?
    • Yes! Softer icons, chocolate highlights, and orange wallpaper
11. Can Amarok play CDs yet?
    • Yes
12. Do Intel graphics not-suck this time?
    • Yes, they're very nice actually! Thanks to KMS, Intel graphics users can expect instantaneous resume from suspend!
13. How's Kubuntu's network manager?
    • It works this time
14. I upgraded from Jaunty and now have no sound. What do I do?
    • Run uname -r. Does it say "2.6.31-14-generic"? If it still says 2.6.28-16-generic, you're not running Karmic's kernel. Some people are having trouble with GRUB not showing new kernels. Try running sudo update-grub and then rebooting.

Additionally, I wrote an overview of Ubuntu and Kubuntu for another blog, if you'd like to check that out.

PS: Let me know in the comments if there's anything you think I should add!

Care Bears

Americans between ages 20 and 30 probably remember the Care Bears, a TV show where the Care Bears (which look like teddy bears), who are from Care-a-Lot fight off mean characters with the power of caring. Their attack is called the Care Bear Stare and their tummies have little icons that light up and shoot whatever their power is at the enemy. I'm not sure why, but one was Grumpy Bear. There was also Funshine Bear, Friend Bear, and a few others, including Cheer Bear. Cheer Bear's motto was "when in doubt, SMILE!" and had the power to make others happy.

Where am I going with this? Yesterday, Amber commented that Daniel Holbach* has a contagious smile, and somehow I immediately thought of Cheer Bear. James Westby agreed that putting the two together kinda made sense. So, I did:

It does make sense, right? I mean, you just can't hang around the guy without getting at least 1 hug (more likely: a half dozen) and a huge grin.

Yeah yeah, off topic for this blog (again), but Jorge Castro said I had to blog the picture of his Care Bear coworker.

* To those who don't follow Ubuntu development and thus going "uh…who's Daniel Holbach?" He's one of Ubuntu's Community Council members, and a developer, and…ya know the list's too long.

HowTo: Gather Full Mail Headers

Say you want to find out where an email came from. Maybe it was threatening or phishing or spam. How do you gather evidence of what servers passed it to you to give to the authorities? You need the full headers. They contain all the routing information. Keep in mind, though, that it is possible the sender was making use of an open relay instead of their own mailserver.

• KMail: View -> Headers -> All Headers
• Evolution: View -> Message Source (or Ctrl+U)
• Thunderbird: View -> Headers -> All
• GMail: Hit the down arrow next to "Reply" on the message, then choose "Show Original"

Now just copy and paste this into a file and hand over to whomever is dealing with the sender.

Attention Folks

TRIGGER WARNING: Victims of violence or sexual assault may want to stop reading.

With all the discussion of sexism in FOSS this year, a certain individual calling himself MikeeUSA is back. I realize many people are not aware of this individual. He is notorious in certain circles for very good reasons. 2005 is the earliest record I know of him harassing women involved with Debian and LinuxChix. And last year, he sent death threats to many women involved in Debian development.

He's back, pasting the same comment to many blogs repeatedly. Not everyone has removed the disgusting comment, so I'm sure you can find it if you want. But, here's a summary of his beliefs:

1. Hans Reiser was justified in murdering his ex-wife since she divorced him; the only down-side is that he can't code while in prison
2. Men have the right to rape women, and rape laws are stealing that right
3. Pretty much all laws that require treating women as well as you treat your dog require stealing men's rights
4. etc.

I hope you can see where this is going. Obviously nowhere good.

My advice? Do not engage; he is not receptive. Delete with impunity. Note also that he uses Tor, so an IP address block on your blog comments won't work; email address block should work for a while. Also, warn the others, and tell women you know involved in Free Software that if this guy comes after them in any way, they NEED to speak up.

Yes, I know, this blog has been very offtopic for a while now. I'm sorry. The software I'm most impressed by at the moment isn't packaged in Ubuntu though! I know, I need to go file a FFe to get it synced from Debian so I can write about it.

I am a Technical Woman

This video was released at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing on Thursday. It's very simple, made up of footage from last year's event. Also very cool. Have a look.

Some day, I will get myself to Tuscon to attend this event.

OLF Follow-up

Ohio LinuxFest was fun as usual. Others have already written about it on their blogs, so I'll save some of the repetition. Three of the guys from Southeast LinuxFest approached me about talking there next year. ZaReason had a table showing off their Terra A20 netbook and a couple machines that are not yet available for sale (yay! previews!). Earl asked me about an audio problem they were having with one of the preview machines, so I got out a Karmic UNR stick and booted from it. Turns out it works fine in Karmic. Go ALSA people!

I've got photos from the wedding, pre-party, event, and after-party on my Flickr. There are three videos of Greg Grossmeier dancing like Carlton from Fresh Prince. I've also got a video of a MacBook failing to properly detect a projector when we (the speakers) were testing our laptops with the projectors on Friday. For the record, xrandr --output VGA1 --same-as LVDS1 --mode 1024x768 ; xrandr --output LVDS1 --mode 1024x768 was all I needed (note: too lazy to learn to use the GUI).

I told everybody I'd post my slides on my blog so here's the Slideshare link.