Feedback on Ubutu after 2 weeks

[Joaquin Cuenca Abela]

On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 09:45:15 -0500, nocturn <ulist at gs1.ubuntuforums.org> wrote:
> 
> Joaquin Cuenca Abela Wrote:
> >
> > Restarted rythmbox, tried to play a mp3 file, no sound. Fiddled a bit
> > with alsa configuration, and to make a long history short, it didn't
> > work. Unplugged the USB hub (with the headset/webcam), restarted, and
> > now sound works. Is this headset supported at all? Any help debugging
> > this problem?
> >
> 
> Did you check if your headset was supported in Linux?  try google with
> the brand and type.  If it is, then it might be related to
> Debian/Ubuntu.

I did it when I installed Fedora Core 2. Didn't find much specific to
these headsets, but I found a comment in alsa sources about a change
to support plantronics dsp400 (almost the same).

I've redone the search following your comment, and found this:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?s=&threadid=161724&goto=nextoldest

It seems the kernel should be compiled with usb-audio. Do you know if
ubuntu's kernel is compiled with this option on?

Even if the kernel doesn't have usb-audio support, I consider it a bug
to not switch to the sound card by default (specially if you are not
able to play anything on the other devices!)

> > USB Mass storage devices appear automatically on the desktop when
> > plugged, but have several problems using an iBead mp3 player. Even if
> > df reports ~120 M free on that unit, a cp fails saying that there is
> > not enough free space. In fact, I can only copy files to the iBead if
> > I delete some previous contents. It seems that it only sees as free
> > the space that has been deleted after the last mount. Anyone else with
> > this problems? Agains which module should I report it?
> >
> 
> Are there any messages regarding this in /var/log/messages?
> If so, please post them.

Will take a look this evening and report my findings

> If not, what is the total capacity of the player? 

256M

> Which fat system does it use?

FAT16, but I'm not 100% sure

> Maybe try to reformat the unit.
> 
> >
> > Using a usb hard disk, the transfer throughput was less than half the
> > theoretical throughput of USB1 (ie, it was a pita to copy something).
> >
> 
> How fast were the transfers?
> Where there any other USB devices working at that moment.

Nope. I can't reproduce it as I don't have anymore the USB disk, so I
can't give many details.

To copy 600M was on the order of 1/2 hour. I calculated how much it
copied after 20 seconds, without having any other heavy process and
without using any other usb device, and it was less than half the
limit of USB1, but I don't remember the exact figures.

I can't report anything more specific concerning this problem.

> > Tried to use the printer. Added my printer to the gnome-cups-manager,
> > send something to print with openwriter. The printer prints rubbish
> > (random ascii characters). Cancelled printing operations, stopped and
> > restarted the printer. Keeps printing rubbish. Stop cups (the printer
> > icon on the gnome-cups-manager disappears, nice touch!), restart cups
> > (the gnome-cups-manager segfaults), restart the printer... keeps
> > printing rubbish.
> >
> 
> Ok, the reason it does not stop printing is because there is buffered
> data somewhere (either in the printer memory or in the 'parallel'
> backend process left running by cups).
> I actually have had this error with cups on FreeBSD, Mandrake and
> Gentoo.  It has something to do with your driver and driver settings
> (resolution and color/greyscale).
> What driver are you using?

don't know if cups touches anything from the old lp* stuff, but I
checked that there was nothing in the lp queue, tried to lprm but it
said that there was nothing in the queue, gnome-cups-manager showed no
pending works, and I restarted the printer.

There was surely buffered data somewhere, but I wonder where it was...
I did my best to remove anything sent to the printer.

I think the driver was stc680p, but I should check it to be sure. The
print was greyscale, and I don't remember the selected resolution
(720dpi I guess, I usually don't use 1400), but will try again writing
down all these options.

> > Created two extra users, and changed the default language to
> > fr_FR at UTF-8 on one of them (called "adel"). When "adel" tries to do
> > anything that involves gsudo, nothing happens (ie, when you click on
> > the menu "run as another user", or click on something that needs root
> > rights, as synaptic).
> >
> 
> That is because only the first user created is in the sudoers file
> (this is documented).
> You can add additional users with root access by editing
> /etc/sudoers.conf.

My fault, thank you for the clue.
In an ideal world, these items would not exist for users that are not
sudoers, but I'm nitpicking :-)

Thank you for your help!

Cheers,

-- 
Joaquin Cuenca Abela