ALL2EZ

The install went smoothly and all the basics are working great out of the box. Just for fun, I enabled the advanced desktop effects, which look great. More importantly, the wired network is on and I can connect to the server on my network where the shared files are accessible. Surfing in Firefox is no problem, and a browsing to YouTube prompts me to install the Flash plugin which works well. Although this laptop isn’t very loud, the sound is working fine for me, even though the Ubuntu community wiki reports some people need to put in some work to get it going. Now for the real fun, it’s time to follow the wiki and setup everything else I need.

The first thing I install on every computer I work with, is Synergy. Synergy allows me to share a single keyboard and mouse between multiple computers. Another great feature is the shared clipboard which allows me to copy and past text (like the code below) seamlessly from one computer to another. More information about Synergy can be found at the official website. This excellent program is available in the default repositories, so I was able to install it quickly by running the following command in a Terminal:

$ sudo apt-get install synergy

Now that I’m a bit more comfortable with a real keyboard and mouse controlling the laptop (in addition to the server, and the ThinkPad that I’m using to write this and look up my reference pages), setting everything else up should be a breeze (although I don’t have time today to get it all done).

Browsing to the Slipknot web page to test my sound with the new track Psychosocial from their forthcoming album All Hope is Gone, reveals that the headphone jack to my external speakers isn’t working (boo). Fortunately the aforementioned wiki page offers a solution:

There may be no output from the headphone jack out of the box on a 2nd gen (C2D) MacBook in Hardy bug #201957. For a workaround, right-click on the volume applet, choose “Open Volume Control”, choose “Edit > Preferences”, check “Surround” to make the channel visible, and close Preferences. Now, unmute “Surround”, and you’re done.

The solution works like a charm and Slipknot’s Pulse of the Maggots is now bumping through my speakers (sorry, neighbor, but it’s still early and I love this song). As an added bonus, enabling the surround makes the laptop’s internal speakers sound better.

To get the laptop keyboard’s volume controls working the way that I’m accustomed to, I went ahead and ran some other commands from the wiki:

$ gconftool-2 --type list --list-type string --set /desktop/gnome/sound/default_mixer_tracks [PCM]
$ gconftool-2 --type string --set /apps/panel/applets/mixer_screen0/prefs/active-track PCM

Well, my gf’s getting off work soon and I said I would have some dishes done in the kitchen, so I better go get that done real fast.