[mi] EQ overflowing. The server is probably stuck in an infinite loop.
...
Backtrace:
...
... /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/intel_drv.so
...


in the :0… logfiles in /var/log/gdm when the problem occurs.

This is, however, not a kernel, XServer or GDM issue, but caused by a problem with the intel-linux driver. The problem is apparently fixed as of version 2:2.11.0-1ubuntu1 of the xserver-xorg-video-intel driver. Since this is not (yet) an update in the official distribution repo, I did the following to solve the issue:

1: Optional: Update to the latest stable kernel

Reason: IMO, upstream Intel drivers are usually build against the latest stable kernel

Goto http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.34-lucid/ and download the headers… _all.deb, headers-generic …..deb and linux-image… .deb for your platform (in most cases, i368). install the generic headers package, then the all headers package, then the image.

A word of warning: If you install this custom kernel you will not receive security updates for it from the automatic distribution updates.

2: Add the X Updates PPA to your sources.list

In a terminal, type:


sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list


And add at the bottom of the file (if not already present):


deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates/ubuntu lucid main #X-Updates PPA
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates/ubuntu lucid main #X-Updates PPA


2.1: Trust the software packages from the x-updates PPA

sudo apt-key adv –recv-keys –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com AF1CDFA9

3: Update the driver


sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade


Reboot – the problem should be solved.

That is, it used to be called that and is still available in Ubuntu under this name (sudo apt-get install qtpfsgui). However, qtpfsgui is discontinued since mid 2009 and has been replaced by the Luminance HDR project.

Since qtpfsgui crashes under ubuntu 9.10 when attempting to save any HDR image, I downloaded the latest luminance version, compiled and installed it like so:

1. Download the luminance source and unpack the folder.
2. Install the dependencies required to compile luminance:
   sudo apt-get install qt4-qmake libexiv2-dev libopenexr-dev fftw3-dev libtiff4-dev libqt4-dev g++ libgsl0-dev
3. Compile luminance (takes a few minues) and install it. Change to the unpacked luminance folder and do:
   qmake
make
sudo make install

That´s it! you now have luminance installed and it should be in your main menu under applications>graphics.

It works perfectly with Karmic.
One of the best things about luminance is that you can play a lot with the algorithms and parameters used to tonemap the HDR into a LDR image. In contrast to many other (commercial) tools, you actually get to know which algorithms are used, who created them and can read a little more on how they work (if you are not to opposed to mathematics) by googling up the corresponding papers.

I myself suffered from the lack of support for recent integrated intel gfx cards in notebooks and thus followed the excellent Intel Linux graphics performance guide using the bleeding-edge configuration, i.e. with the latest (non-stable) builds of the xorg / intel gfx drivers and the most recent kernels. However, this configuration was (not quite unexpected) somewhat unstable and had a lot of issues.

This phase is now over. I am happy to say that after upgrading to Kernel version 2.6.32 and the xserver-xorg-video-intel driver 2:2.9.0-1ubuntu2~xup~3 the graphics support is now fast, reliable and stable. Desktop effects are back working like a charm, also in a multi-monitor setup and with sending the computer to hibernation and so forth.

I am quite optimistic that this state might make it into the upcoming Ubuntu release (Karmic), thus eliminating a lot of frustration laptop users have been experiencing with their intel gfx cards.

Update June 22, 2010

The configuration described below is still valid up to the most recent Ubuntu release (10.04) !

This monday was sweet. I finally had the time to make a fresh install of ubuntu 8.10 on my thinkpad r52, and what can i say, just as all the other releases before, things got better.

I am especially happy about the re-programmed network manager, which works a whole lot better than in hardy.
Except that i didn’t get the PPTP VPN connection to my office to work instantly.

Turns out there is some kind of problem that prevents the network manager from obtaining the configured password, resulting in the error message:


The vpn connection X failed because there were no valid VPN secrets.


Furthermore, point-to-point encryption is not enabled by default any more. Here is how i got it to work:

1: Prerequisites: Install the required packages

If you don’t have pptp VPN support for network manager yet, install it…


sudo apt-get install network-manager-pptp


… and configure your VPN connection using the network manager.

2: Clear the password field in the vpn settings dialog

This should make the manager prompt you for the password.

3: Enable point-to-point encryption on the “Advanced” settings page

This should do! Now the PPTP settings should be about the same they where in hardy.

If you still experience problems, you might want to check the syslog for messages from the network manager, like so:


tail -f /var/log/syslog


Long story short, subclipse requires subversion 1.5, but ubuntu 8.04 provides 1.4.x.
If you still want to use subclipse with ganymede in ubuntu, there are only two ways two achieve this – both of which i cannot recommend because they are hacks or bad compromises.

a.) You could add the the ubuntu package source of the upcoming ubuntu release (i.e. deb http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu intrepid main) and install subversion 1.5 and the package libsvn-java from it. This is a bad idea since it will also install a bunch of transitive dependencies not designed for ubuntu 8.04. It might in fact damage your installation.
b.) You could not use the java hl API but a software connector completely written in JAVA (SVNKit client). This will work at first sight, but will convert your svn repository into 1.5 format. As a consequence, you can no longer use the svn command line client, since it does not support this format.

Subversive as an alternative to subclipse

Facing the above problems, i looked for an alternative and tried subversive. It’s an official and free eclipse plugin. The developers intend to make it the default subversion support plugin for eclipse.
It installed without any problem and worked really well with the javaHL api shipped with ubuntu 8.04. Look and feel of the plugin do not differ much from subclipse – subversive even offers a couple of additional useful options.

Here is how i installed and configured subversive:

1. Follow the installation instructions on the subversive download site.
   Since you will use the native javaHL connector implementation, be sure to choose the javaHL implementation from the update site:
   
2. Install the java HL API on ubuntu: sudo apt-get install libsvn-javahl.
3. Add the library directory where javahl resides to your eclipse.ini (located in the root folder of your eclipse installation). Just add the following line into it:
   -Djava.library.path=/usr/lib/jni.
4. Restart eclipse
5. Verify your setup.
   Goto Window>Preferences>Team>SVN and click the “SVN Connector” tab.
   The native javaHL connector should be selected
   

I’m working with it since about a week, it’s fast, has not failed on my a single time and is easy to use.

Note that his issue affects all debian-based systems, including ubuntu 8.04.

Source: http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/2008/msg00152.html

Seems i’ll have a somewhat busy weekend.

In fact, i believe that the improvements (performance, network support, display and gfx card support, encryption and many more) are just about the same huge step forward that 7.10 was compared to the release 6.
After the automatic update, i had firefox 3 (lovely from the start), improved SSH authentication support (better protection of private key etc.) and finally, my wxga display AND laptop monitor configured perfectly even with my not-so standards conform internal GFX card (Intel 950m, in fact).

What else is there at the first glimpse? Improved language support and a nice little search engine (Conceptual rip of from apple i must admit, but well done!) for all kinds of items on your hard disk, and a really sweet new background image. For the artist in the nerd.

Yes, i’m charmed. I recommend it! Especially since it’s a long term support release…

Read more on ubuntu 8.0.4 in this feature tour.

Update: Alle hier beschriebenen Pakete sind auch in Ubuntu 8.04 unterstützt und funktionieren dort auf die gleiche Weise.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Anforderungen
2. Kurz vorgestellt: Die Tools
   1. Der Editor: Kile
   2. Spell checking für Kile
   3. Inkscape für EPS-Grafiken
   4. Schöne Formeln mit amsmath
   5. Unicode-Unterstützung
3. Installation der Tools
4. Latex-Vorlage

Anforderungen

• Ein intuitiv zu verwendender Editor mit guter Syntaxunterstützung und Spellchecker, aber kein WYSIWYG (was bei Latex wenig Sinn machen würde).
• Einfache Erzeugung gut aussehender PDF-Dokumente
• Einbinden von skalierenden Grafiken (Ich habe Encapsulated Postscript (eps) verwendet)
• UTF-8 als Zeichenkodierung
• Deutsche Sprachunterstützung
• Integration gut lesbarer Formeln mit den latex math – Erweiterungen

Kurz vorgestellt: Die Tools

Nach Ausprobieren diverser Tools und viel Forengesuche habe ich mit der folgenden Konfiguration alle Anforderungen erfüllt:

Der Editor: Kile

Kile bietet alles, was ich wollte: Eine saubere Syntaxunterstützung mit Autocompletion, Erzeugung von ps, dvi und pdf auf Knopdruck,
Spellchecking und eine grosse Menge intuitiv zu verwendender Werkzeuge. Zudem können die Arbeiten in Projekten verwaltet werden. Auch die Logfile und Konsolenansichten überzeugen, wenn es mal hakt.

Spell checking mit Aspell

Der dem KDE-Projekt entstammende Kile benötigt Aspell, um Spellchecking durchzuführen.
Ist Aspell installiert, muss es noch als standard-Spellchecker eingestellt werden. Dazu wird nach der Installation Kcontrol auf der Console mit $ kcontrol gestartet und im Kcontrol-Dialog unter “KDE Components > Spell Checker” Dictionary -> “German”, Encoding -> “UTF-8″ und Client -> “Aspell” ausgewählt. Dann kann der Spellcheck-Dialog von Kile unter “Tools > Spelling…” gestartet werden. Siehe auch Installation der Tools.

Integration von EPS-Grafiken mit Inkscape

EPS-Grafiken können mit dem hervorragenden Zeichentool Inkscape gezeichnet oder umgewandelt werden.
Hat man seine Grafik als Encapsulated Postscript gespeichert, so kann man diese zum Beispiel so in ein Latex-Dokument integrieren:

\\begin{figure}[h]
\\includegraphics[width=0.5\\textwidth]{/path/to/my.eps}
\\caption{Text for my figure}
\\label{label_for_the_figure}
\\end{figure}

Voraussetzung ist, dass das Paket graphics im Latex-Dokument verwendet wird:

\usepackage{graphicx}.

Schöne Formeln

Wer sauber lesbare Formeln haben will, sollte das Paket amsmath verwenden:
\usepackage{amsmath}. Es biete eine Reihe verbesserter Mathematiksymbole an, zum Beispiel \dfrac{Zähler}{Nenner}.

Schöne PDF’s mit Unicode

Um die unicode (bspw. UTF-8) Zeichen sauber zu rendern sollte ein Paket zur unicode-Unterstützung integriert sein.
Am einfachsten ist die Verwendung von \usepackage{ucs}.
Verwendet man EPS-Grafiken lassen sich die PDF’s erzeugen, indem mann zunächst ein Postscript-File (.ps) erzeugt und dieses dann in eine PDF-Datei umwandelt (Die entsprechenden Aktionen erledigt Kile alle per Knopfdruck).

Installation der Tools

Editor (Kile und der von Kile verwendete DVI-Viewer Kdvi):
sudo apt-get install kile kdvi

Dazu das tetex-bin Package, welches diverse Latex-Erweiterungen und Tools enthält, die Kile benötigt, sowie das Paket texlive-lang-german, was für die komplette deutsche Sprachunterstützung (bspw. Silbentrennung) wichtig ist.
sudo apt-get install tetex-bin texlive-lang-german

Aspell als Spellchecker, die deutsche Sprachunterstützung für Aspell, und kcontrol zur Aktivierung des Spellcheckers:

sudo apt-get install aspell aspell-de aspell-en kcontrol

Und Inkscape zum Zeichnen / Umwandeln von Grafiken in das eps-Format:

sudo apt-get install inkscape

Latex-Vorlage

Folgende Vorlage referenziert die beschriebenen Packages ucs und amsmath und verwendet unicode (UTF-8) sowie deutsche Sprachunterstützung:

\\documentclass[a4paper,10pt,twocolumn]{article}
\\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}
\\usepackage{amsmath}
\\usepackage{graphicx}
\\usepackage{hyperref}
\\usepackage{ucs}

\\title{My Title}
\\author{Me}

\\begin{document}
\\maketitle

\\begin{abstract}
My Abstract
\\end{abstract}

\\section{My chapter}

\\end{document}

mvn-Vervollständigung unter Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon)

Unter der ubuntu-Distribution 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) aktiviert man die autocompletion durch Anlegen einer completion-Datei im Verzeichnis /etc/bash_completion.d, beispielsweise mit folgenden Inhalt:

#!/bin/bash

_m2_make_goals()
{
  plugin=$1
  mojos=$2
  for mojo in $mojos
  do
    export goals="$goals $plugin:$mojo"
  done
}

_m2_complete()
{
  local cur goals

  COMPREPLY=()
  cur=${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD]}
  goals='clean compile test install package deploy site'
  goals=$goals _m2_make_goals "eclipse" "eclipse"
  goals=$goals _m2_make_goals "idea" "idea"
  goals=$goals _m2_make_goals "project-info-reports" "dependencies"
  goals=$goals _m2_make_goals "assembly" "assembly"
  goals=$goals _m2_make_goals "plexus" "app bundle-application bundle-runtime descriptor runtime service"
  cur=`echo $cur | sed 's/\\\\//g'`
  COMPREPLY=($(compgen -W "${goals}" ${cur} | sed 's/\\\\//g') )
}

Quelle: Working more productively with bash 2.x/3.x

Wie das ganze für Windows und MAC eingerichtet wird, steht auf willcodeforbeer.