I keep hearing how Ubuntu has finally nailed the dual head hassles of the past, and now you can just plug in an external monitor and go. Alas I've never had that experience, either with this Dell Vostro 1400 or either of the two IBM Thinkpads I've run Ubuntu on.The IBMs were both 1024×768 resolution, as is my external monitor. The Dell is a less standard 1280×800 resolution. I also, on occasion plug it into my LCD TV, but that's another story.
Linux
Ubuntu Touchpad toggle tweak
I've been getting irritated with the touchpad on this new Dell Vostro 1400. I type for a while, and then my palm touches the touchpad, sending the pointer skimming into the line above, or clicking on buttons I don't want to click on. So, I looked around and figured out a solution. Over the past two years, I've had to update this post for every single new version of Ubuntu, which has been a pain, so look for the heading below which corresponds to your version of Ubuntu.
Ubuntu Hardy 8.04
First of all, you need to edit your /etc/xorg.conf file, for which you'll need root privileges – use sudo.You just need to add one line in the input device section, which is the one in bold below. (Intrepid 8.10, see below)
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "0"
Option "SHMConfig"
EndSection
Getting Wireless to work on a Dell Vostro 1400
Having spent hours tinkering with getting Ubuntu's wireless to work on at least three previous Thinkpads, before I bought this Vostro I did some research around the internet. I found a bunch of happy Vostro 1400 Ubuntu 8.04 users, and the fact that Dell was releasing Ubuntu on some of its other machines. Good signs. However it seems that the hardware specs between Vostro 1400s vary depending on where and when they're manufactured, so I think that research might have been misleading.
Anyway, I've been trying to get wireless working on and off for the last 3 or 4 weeks, and I'm almost there, so I thought I'd share my experiences.
Audio Ping Feedback.
Step back a few years … I've often thought when I'm under a desk somewhere jiggling wires, is that some kind of audio feedback on ping would be useful: your server isn't responding, but when you re-seat the ethernet connector it comes back online; you have a messy, unlabeled switch to work through, so you unplug wires until the audio feedback stops, and you've located your machine. That kind of thing.
I've occasionally looked around the internet for such a tool and uncovered a couple of scripts and tools which don't quite work. I've even thought of writing my own script, but never quite got around to it.
All Change. Mandriva 2008 to Ubuntu 8.04
As I noted in a previous post I was recently the victim of a Random Kernel Upgrade Hell (RKUH). Maybe I should trademark that acronym, although its not particularly prounounceable like SNAFU, or PEBCAK. Anyway … the fact was that I was spending several hours trying to fix various problems with wifi drivers, VMware server, truecrypt and the sound in Skype, when it suddenly occured to me that a re-install was probably quicker. The double edged sword of Linux: quick to reinstall, but then again why should you need to do it so often? Well I guess in my case I push the OS pretty hard with some esoteric applications, but even so …