new to ubuntu, having some problems


Recommended Posts

i'm having some trouble setting things up. i'm running 9.10 with kde-minimal on top.

1. bluetooth mouse. i downloaded the bluez package, and when i typed 'sudo hidd --connect <bta>' in the console, i got an error: 'sudo: hidd: command not found'. how can i automatically connect the mouse?

2. how do i get flash working in arora? i downloaded the libflashplayer.so file and put it in ~/.mozilla/plugins, but that didn't work.

3. i'm looking for a lightweight qt-based music player. something small and fast like foobar2000. i tried qmmp, but it keeps refreshing the playlist on start, which makes it slow.

4. where can i find a minimal theme for kde windows and how can i install them?

thanks!

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/841228-new-to-ubuntu-having-some-problems/
Share on other sites

i'm having some trouble setting things up. i'm running 9.10 with kde-minimal on top.

1. bluetooth mouse. i downloaded the bluez package, and when i typed 'sudo hidd --connect <bta>' in the console, i got an error: 'sudo: hidd: command not found'. how can i automatically connect the mouse?

2. how do i get flash working in arora? i downloaded the libflashplayer.so file and put it in ~/.mozilla/plugins, but that didn't work.

3. i'm looking for a lightweight qt-based music player. something small and fast like foobar2000. i tried qmmp, but it keeps refreshing the playlist on start, which makes it slow.

4. where can i find a minimal theme for kde windows and how can i install them?

thanks!

2. Nah, that wouldn't work. Just install the flash plugin with "sudo apt-get install adobe-flashplugin", while you are at it also install the ubuntu-restricted-extras package.

Flash working in arora (slick minimal browser BTW):

eu1ulk.jpg

3. Would go for Amarok. If you want to go a bit more simplistic, go with Amarok 1.4 .

4. Here.

The native window decorations for KDE are coded in C++, those can be found in apt. Just do a search, something like "apt-cache search kwin-style" will show a few.

Themes for decorator and aurorae are based on pixmaps and can be installed manually.

Foobar runs on wine. It works perfect as long as you're not crazy about customizing the look of it. I use it mostly for the dsp plugins and stuff. It leaks memory like crazy when I switched to columnsui.

There should be a bluetooth icon on the gnome-panel to connect to stuff.

thanks for the comments.

i've checked out those music players, but they're either too bulky or they lag when they open (loading files).

2. Nah, that wouldn't work. Just install the flash plugin with "sudo apt-get install adobe-flashplugin", while you are at it also install the ubuntu-restricted-extras package.

actually, i decided to go with konqueror with the webkit backend (ran into some issues with aurora and rekonq). putting the plugin file in the directory worked perfectly. i have flash in konqueror.

the only problem i have with 64-bit flash is that playback is choppy. not sure what to do about that.

The native window decorations for KDE are coded in C++, those can be found in apt. Just do a search, something like "apt-cache search kwin-style" will show a few.

Themes for decorator and aurorae are based on pixmaps and can be installed manually.

i'm guessing aurorae is some theming program i have to download. how do you install themes? do you just put them in a specific folder?

i think i might go with foobar2000 on wine. i can't find any suitable replacements. i might try miranda on wine, too.

also, i'm using kde, so there's no gnome panel for bluetooth.

XMMS 1.2 is like WinAmp but in even lighter. It is not Qt based, but start in less than a second and have tens of plugins aound. It is quite old and packages are getting harder to find, but it is **** fast. The best Qt Audio player is amarok, it is flexible and powerfull, but not light at all. VLC is Qt4 and can handle music playlists, but it is better as a video player.

The aurorae theme engine is great, when you anable it in the config, you will see a "get more theme" button. Just click on it, it is a package manager (select, download, manage). It is included by default in KDE 4.4, but you have to manually install it in 4.3

thanks for the comments.

i've checked out those music players, but they're either too bulky or they lag when they open (loading files).

actually, i decided to go with konqueror with the webkit backend (ran into some issues with aurora and rekonq). putting the plugin file in the directory worked perfectly. i have flash in konqueror.

the only problem i have with 64-bit flash is that playback is choppy. not sure what to do about that.

i'm guessing aurorae is some theming program i have to download. how do you install themes? do you just put them in a specific folder?

i think i might go with foobar2000 on wine. i can't find any suitable replacements. i might try miranda on wine, too.

also, i'm using kde, so there's no gnome panel for bluetooth.

OK, glad you've figured out how to get flash working on konqueror. But copying the flash lib file to your home directory is really not the best way to do it. If you do it that way (outside your package manager) it will not update itself, and you might end up running an outdated and unpatched version of Adobe flash. With all the security problems that Adobe software seems to be having, it's not really a good idea to be doing this. Again, if you want an advice on this matter, use your package manager to install the flash plugin.

Elv13 has already replied to some of your other questions. BTW for the window decoration part, some minimalist ones are already included with Kwin, have you tried those already?

For the bluetooth part you just have to run "kbluetooth".

thanks for the info. i have some more questions.

1. is aurorae the best (simplest, most convenient, least disruptive, etc.) way to customize kde?

2. does the command noted above install the 64-bit version of flash?

3. when you say 'kbluetooth', do you mean 'kdebluetooth'? i've noticed that it's fairly large, which is why i wanted to do everything manually. all i want to do is connect my mouse, not a phone, etc. can i ignore certain packages?

4. how can i completely remove a package? i use the 'sudo aptitude purge' command, but files remain (e.g., configs, cache, etc.).

5. i want to use the latest version of rekonq (0.2.90), but the latest version in the ubuntu repository is 0.2. can i just download the package separately?

6. what maintenance procedures should i perform? clear cache? temp files? chkdsk?

7. are there any tweaks that you suggest for ubuntu/kde? it's pretty fast already, but i figured i could always try to slim it down some more.

1. aurorae is a theme engine for KWin (window manager). It allows ease of creation for KWin themes (window decorations), which can be based on images (SVG). Themers instead of having to code a window decoration in C++, just design the window decoration in an SVG editor.

2. Oh you wanted the 64bit version. It does not I believe, it will install the 32bit version. If it's working now just keep it as it is, but remember that you have to manually update it if some serious security flaw comes out for flash. It won't update itself automatically.

3. Yes, the package is named "kdebluetooth" on Ubuntu, but the command to launch it is "kbluetooth". The package alone seems to take 930KB, but should have some other dependencies. Running "sudo apt-get install kdebluetooth" will install it and all the necessary dependencies. I don't own a bluetooth mouse, can't provide much help to you there.

4. "purge" will eliminate all traces of the package including its configuration files.

5. A package of rekonq 0.2.90 for Ubuntu doesn't seem to be available yet. You could get the source, compile it and make a deb package from that.

6. You could browse into "/var/log" or "/var/tmp" once a while and clear some logs. There's a few GUI programs that can do those tasks. But a Linux system is pretty low maintenance and takes care of itself. chkdsk to the root filesystem is done automatically when needed.

7. A few. To KDE itself I only change desktop, default file manager (using konqueror instead of dolphin), disabled some services that I do not need, changed session manager settings (to start with a clean session), some default file associations, (...). Depends on everyones needs. For example kubuntu starts up "printer-applet" and "update-notifier-kde" scripts on session start, those can be disabled if you don't have any use for them.

For Ubuntu, there are a few tricks that can be done to it. To have faster boot for instance I've just learned about this site that has a guide explaining how to get faster boot times in Karmic. Some unneeded startup services can also be disabled in "/etc/init.d". It's a matter of tweaking it to fit your needs.

Hope some of this was helpful.

thanks, lechio! almost everything is set up now. aurorae is quite nice and i managed to get the latest version of rekonq by adding a ppa.

i've been using 'sudo apt-get clean' to clear out the cache.

and thanks for the tips. i'll keep doing some research to see how i can slim things down and speed things up (not that i really need to, though).

i'm still looking into bluetooth. apt-get wanted to install about 100mb of packages. that seems like a lot just to get bluetooth.

i'm still looking into bluetooth. apt-get wanted to install about 100mb of packages. that seems like a lot just to get bluetooth.

I suspect kbluetooth needs a lot of KDE dependencies to operate, hence the huge download size. I'm always surprised by the things that are pulled in as dependencies.

I'm always surprised by the things that are pulled in as dependencies.

There's an option in synaptic that defaults to pulling suggested packages as if they were dependencies. I guess you could reduce the cruft by unchecking that.

Then again you might also lose some functionality (that you might or might not want).

Anyway, one of the hardest steps when going from gentoo to ubuntu was getting used to the idea that I could no longer leave dependencies out of my system by selecting only the functionality I intended to use :pinch:

Glad you've managed to figure out how to setup things. Sorry for forgetting to mention clearing the apt cache, that will free a lot of MB.

Now it's me who will ask you for a tip. :D Could you share the URL for the PPA with the latest version of rekonq? I've searched with no luck, still on version 0.2.0. :/

For the mouse part, good news. kbluetooth doesn't seem to even be necessary when installing a bluetooth mouse. A quick search showed this tutorial: http://www.ubuntugeek.com/howto-setup-blue...-in-ubuntu.html

Again, I don't own a bluetooth mouse won't be of much assistance on this. Hope you can get it working.

i'm using kpackagekit, and i don't see an option to disable the installation of suggested packages. also, it looks like the packages are real dependencies, not suggested packages, at least according to my terminal output.

lechio, i got it from here: http://f4l3.net/?q=node/1429

0.2.91 is much better, but still a little buggy. definitely check it out.

as for the mouse, that page is from 2007, so it might not be updated. in particular, i noticed that the new version of bluez doesn't include hidd. i've read that some people use bluez-compat with some success, but that's a transitional package. i'm wondering if it's possible to get bluetooth working with the most recent bluez package.

The restricted-extras package is a meta package, you can install packages that compose it individually. I believe minirok (as well as other KDE applications) uses the Xine frontend for media playback. If that's so, you should at least install libxine1-ffmpeg, libxine1-plugins, (...).

Yeah, minirok is actually a python script and doesn't follow the KDE ways for media playback, it indeed uses Gstreamer. From the README file:

Requirements

============

Minirok is written in Python, version 2.5 or later is required. If it's

available from your distribution, I recommend you install that package,

since it'll take care of installing everything necessary. For Debian and

derivatives, you should be able to install directly with apt-get, and

you can check if there's a more recent version here:

http://chistera.yi.org/~adeodato/code/minirok/packages

For installing from source, here's a list of the *required* libraries

for the program to run:

* PyQt and PyKDE (version 4)

Debian and Ubuntu: python-qt4, python-kde4

Source: http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/pyqt/download.php

http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/pykde/download.php

* Mutagen (audio metadata library)

Debian and Ubuntu: python-mutagen

Source: http://www.sacredchao.net/quodlibet/wiki/Development/Mutagen

* The json or simplejson modules (shipped with Python 2.6 already)

Debian and Ubuntu: python-simplejson | python (>= 2.6)

Source: http://undefined.org/python/#simplejson

* The GStreamer media framework, in particular:

+ The GStreamer Python bindings

Debian and Ubuntu: python-gst0.10

+ Plugins, in all the flavours needed to cover your audio formats:

- MP3: gst-plugins-ugly *and* gst-plugins-good

- Ogg Vorbis: gst-plugins-base

- FLAC: gst-plugins-good

- Musepack (MPC): gst-plugins-bad

Debian and Ubuntu: gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly, gstreamer0.10-plugins-base,

gstreamer0.10-plugins-good, gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad

+ A suitable audiosink, for example ALSA.

Debian and Ubuntu: gstreamer0.10-alsa

Source: http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org

Install all of those and it should work. It's working on my system right now.

amazing! it was the last one, gstreamer0.10-alsa. now it works. thank you, lechio! :D

now, i find that it works even if i don't have some of the other packages. which ones can i safely remove?

No idea. Probably none, if those are dependencies. Something may stop working if some is removed.

You have a small HDD?

my root partition is 10gb. it's not a bad size, but i don't like clutter. also, my system felt a little sluggish.

i ended up formatting and installing foobar2000 in wine. so far, so good.

also, i grabbed kdebluetooth and my mouse works perfectly. now i'm just trying to tweak and customize my system. :)

my root partition is 10gb. it's not a bad size, but i don't like clutter. also, my system felt a little sluggish.

i ended up formatting and installing foobar2000 in wine. so far, so good.

also, i grabbed kdebluetooth and my mouse works perfectly. now i'm just trying to tweak and customize my system. :)

So it's all working now... :)

Ubuntu doesn't really seem to be the distro for you. Ever thought about installing a bare bones distro? You could do a custom install of Debian (only requires a minimal CD or 2 floppies) and choose what packages you wish to install right from the installer by choosing custom install. It's an advanced solution, but it just might be what you are looking for. Ubuntu is Debian based, so you can easily find support if you go with pure Debian.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • 1. Define "better". 2. It's still more expensive than equivalent PCs so... And there is not one Windows platform. This is the mistake ALL Apple oriented people make. Apple is one OEM. You could reasonably compare them to one PC OEM, say Dell or HP. But you can't compare them to ALL PC OEMs. Case in point, Apple has NO touch screen MacBooks. No tablet Macs. There are no rugged Macs. The variety of PC OEM design is insane. With Apple, you have... Apple. The problem is that you're starting with Apple as the definition of "good" then filtering out anything that isn't close to an existing Apple product, then trying to homogenise all of those left into a fictional product line and then ignore any innovations to create a minimal feature subset so you can say "See! Apple better!" PS: I was an Apple dev for 17 years and helped develop MacInTalk and disability solutions for Apple, and worked on Microsoft Office for MacOS - and I have several Macs and MacBooks - so tread very carefully.
    • Major Xbox layoffs may claim South of Midnight developer Compulsion entirely by Pulasthi Ariyasinghe Microsoft has been making major changes in its gaming wing Xbox for a few months now, including the appointment of a new CEO, a large number of leadership changes, and strategy shifts. However, the company is seemingly also looking at initiating a major layoffs wave at Xbox and perhaps even a studio closure. The new report lands from Kotaku, Xbox first-party developer Compulsion Games is being shuttered soon by Microsoft. For those unfamiliar with the studio, it's the team behind Contrast (2013), We Happy Few (2018), and South of Midnight (2025). Its latest game was quite well received, even winning a Peabody Award for its writing. It even received a 9/10 in Neowin's own review, highlighting its engaging storyline, gorgeous world, and curious characters. The studio joined Xbox Game Studios in 2018, just as Microsoft announced it is acquiring Playground Games, Undead Labs, and Ninja Theory. Despite recent listings for new staff roles, according to the new report, Compulsion Games is being closed entirely, with over 90 staff being let go. Kotaku also added that the studio's leadership is in negotiations with Microsoft about this decision, but no official details have been revealed yet. The report lands just as two senior managers of Xbox leave their posts at Microsoft Gaming. Head of Xbox Game Studios Craig Duncan and chief of staff Louise O'Connor originally began their journey in Rare and have been a part of Xbox for over two decades. Dunkan has been responsible for games like Kinect Sports and Sea of Thieves, while O'Connor was primarily working on Rare's Everwild project before its cancelation. If this report about the studio shutdown is accurate, this may just be the start of a major new layoffs wave at Xbox Game Studios. There are also rumors of Arkane Studios being heavily affected. As always, take all these reports with a grain of salt until something official materializes from Microsoft or the studios.
    • The flaw with this analysis is that this laptop has a cellphone CPU in it. In the Intel world, that would be an N150 and those are everywhere, even in low end laptops. You can get an N150 based NUC with 16GB RAM and 256GB-512GB SSD... NOT soldered in... for < $500 Canadian (around US$360). The problem is two fold: tech bloggers/writers on most tech site (like this one, ironically) overvalue Apple and apparently aren't in the same earnings class as most regular people. As a result, we get breathless articles about how everyone needs a folding phone when most people just cannot afford one... or really need one. And we get Apple used as the baseline metric regardless of whether that comparison makes any sense. If Dell or HP released a retail laptop with a cellphone motherboard, you'd be all over them for doing that - but Apple does it and it's genius. I see articles suggesting what Samsung - a company that basically started the foldable phone market and has built them for eight years - needs to do to compete with Apple's unreleased, unspecced and unseen folding phone. Sorry, no - if the Neo (really creative name there BTW - still, better than the Go, the other "creative" product name everyone's using) encourages PC makers to make cellphone laptops using lower end ARM processors, we all lose. It's a step backwards and a capitulation to the fact that semiconductor makers and computer OEMs (and tech bloggers) have totally lost the plot.
    • Everyone should install this extension and ignore games that use AI. https://chromewebstore.google....nnigaaeelfkeomjcngmnh?pli=1 https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ai-warning-for-steam/
  • Recent Achievements

    • One Year In
      ThatGuyOnline earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Week One Done
      Jeroen Wilms earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Week One Done
      rolfus earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Leroy Jethro Gibbs earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Conversation Starter
      flexorcist earned a badge
      Conversation Starter
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      505
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      198
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      127
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      82
    5. 5
      ATLien_0
      74
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!