2010 May | Scott LaPlant

5.1 surround sound does not work

By Scott LaPlant Filed in Ubuntu May 29th, 2010 @ 10:25 am

It seems 5.1 surround sound on Ubuntu 9.10 either does work or it doesn’t end of story. Mine doesn’t! I have trawled the universe for help and nothing works. I have an external usb 5.1 sound card made by Trust (thats what it says in the base speaker) I have no other info on this. So far I have followed some instructions and changed a command in somewhere to read default-sample-channels =6. Then rebooted and met with silence when I tried to do a speaker test. My 9.10 doesn’t have the screen many instructions refer to. When I left click on the speaker at the top of the screen I get a thin volume slide bar, if I right click on the speaker I get a small box offering me Mute or sound Preferences. This and its sub screens just don’t match the instructions. I don’t seem to have a Volume Manager or Volume Control screen.I think this external sound card is possibly pants but I cant be sure.

Any help most welcome.

5.1 surround sound does not work from Ubuntu Linux

Canonical unveils new ‘Unity’ desktop environment at Ubuntu Developer Summit

By Scott LaPlant Filed in Ubuntu May 28th, 2010 @ 8:30 am

Canonical unveils new ‘Unity’ desktop environment at Ubuntu Developer
Summit

Previews ‘Ubuntu Light:’ an
implementation of Unity Targeted
at OEMs for ‘instant-on’ computing

Ubuntu Developer
Summit, La Hulpe, Belgium, May 10, 2010:
Canonical today unveiled a new desktop environment called ‘Unity’ at
the Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) in
Belgium. Unity will be the desktop environment for Ubuntu 10.10
Netbook Edition, released in October 2010, and is available today to
developers building applications for the netbook environment.

Canonical unveils new ‘Unity’ desktop environment at Ubuntu Developer Summit from Ubuntu – news, usn

Network conflicts

By Scott LaPlant Filed in Ubuntu May 26th, 2010 @ 9:00 am

What are the various network managers that can be present on ubuntu? I think that I have more than one that is conflicting with the other.

The problem
I can set my eth0 card to have a fixed IP address with nm-connection-manager, yet when I use the applet NetworkManager to connect to eth0, it gets an address from DHCP, and doesn’t use the fixed IP address that I gave it. I did have wicd installed at one point, but used synaptic to remove it with the “complete removal” setting. Any idea as to where this conflict is arising?

Network conflicts from Ubuntu Linux

Put Your Servers in the Cloud with Amazon EC2 and Ubuntu

By Scott LaPlant Filed in Linux May 23rd, 2010 @ 1:00 pm

Cloud services are all the rage today, although some of my fellow Linux Journal staffers may scoff when they hear me say that. Cloud services is a nebulous term that can mean anything from completely hosted services (like Gmail) to virtualized, leased servers, such as those provided by Amazon’s EC2 service. And, the latter is the subject of this article. more>>

Put Your Servers in the Cloud with Amazon EC2 and Ubuntu from Linux Journal – The Original Magazine of the Linux Community

Snaptic Sponsors Moving Android Contest

By Scott LaPlant Filed in Linux May 20th, 2010 @ 12:00 pm

If you know a thing or two about Android, and a free trip to the next TED conference is your kind of thing, then the app developers at Snaptic may have just the contest that you’ve been looking for. more>>

Snaptic Sponsors Moving Android Contest from Linux Journal – The Original Magazine of the Linux Community

Stupid Television Executives

By Scott LaPlant Filed in Linux May 17th, 2010 @ 9:00 am

The guys who run Hulu, on the other hand, are smart. You’ll see why in a bit.

I don’t even watch network TV, as it turns out. Nor cable. Canceled my DISH subscription a year ago. I get all of my content off of the intertubes. But regardless, let’s start with American network television to spotlight some foolishness there. Let’s begin with NBC.com.
more>>

Stupid Television Executives from Linux Journal – The Original Magazine of the Linux Community

Last Day For LinuxCon Early Birds

By Scott LaPlant Filed in Linux May 16th, 2010 @ 2:00 pm

If you’ve been sitting on the fence, trying to decide whether this year’s LinuxCon is a trip you want to take, today is a good day to take the plunge — a plunge that will save you $100. more>>

Last Day For LinuxCon Early Birds from Linux Journal – The Original Magazine of the Linux Community

How-to Become a Linux Gamer

By Scott LaPlant Filed in Linux May 14th, 2010 @ 4:00 pm

There are several resources out there to assist you in being a Linux gamer. The WINE project (www.winehq.org) is a great, free example of this as it allows you to run Windows programs (and games) on Linux. more>>

How-to Become a Linux Gamer from Linux Journal – The Original Magazine of the Linux Community

Penguicon, Here I Come!

By Scott LaPlant Filed in Linux May 12th, 2010 @ 1:20 pm

Tomorrow (Friday) starts my annual trek down state to the Detroit area for Penguicon! It’s possible the combination of Linux and Science Fiction wouldn’t appeal to most people, but it absolutely appeals to me. I think perhaps adding a vintage video game track and calling it “Super Penguicon” would make it the trifecta of awesome. more>>

Penguicon, Here I Come! from Linux Journal – The Original Magazine of the Linux Community

Interview with Cory Fields of XBMC

By Scott LaPlant Filed in Linux May 8th, 2010 @ 10:37 am

I recently had the honor of spending time with Cory Fields, the Public / Business Relations Manger for XBMC. XBMC is the premier free and open source, cross-platform home entertainment system. XBMC was originally created for the first-generation Xbox, but has evolved to now be primarily available for Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows. more>>