The Flow of Consciousness

Olli Salonen, author of btnx, has released new versions of btnx and btnx-config, along with debs for Ubuntu 64-bit. While they’ve been officially tested on Gutsy, I’m using them on Hardy without a problem. Now, Olli or someone just needs to get these into a PPA on Launchpad or get them added to the repos for 8.04.1.

Se vi parolas esperantan linvgon, bonvolu helpas traduki btnx-on ĉe Launchpad! Iru kaj traduku btnx-config! Mi komencis traduki, sed ĝi estas granda projekto por unu persono.

I originally posted instructions on how to compile from source in the article HOWTO Install btnx for better mouse control in Ubuntu Hardy. If you want to continue to compile it yourself, simply switch to the newest tag using subversion and recompile.

cd btnx-0.4.9
svn sw http://svn.ollisalonen.com/btnx/tags/btnx-0.4.10/
./configure && make && sudo make install
cd ../btnx-config-0.4.8
svn sw http://svn.ollisalonen.com/btnx-config/tags/btnx-config-0.4.9/
./configure && make && sudo make install

Now might be a good time to rename those directories, dropping the version numbers, or check out the source to a different directory.

Astronomy Picture of the Day is a really neat page which is generated daily by NASA. It shows a single picture captured by some NASA-affiliated person and some text to describe it.

These pictures are perfect for desktop backgrounds. There’s a program to automatically set it as the background for Windows, but we Linux, or more specifically, GNOME, users can do it in a simple script.

Drop this script somewhere on your system and create a cron schedule with crontab -e for it. The cron lines are in the script. I’d recommend the four hour intervals if you don’t keep your computer on all the time, or the twelve or once-a-day intervals if you do.

Oh, and you might need to install cron. Gutsy doesn’t have it by default, so you can do it through Synaptic or using sudo apt-get install cron at a command line.

#!/bin/bash
#Filename: apodwallpaper
#Location: ${HOME}/.bin
#Purposes: Downloads NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day and displays it as the
#          GNOME background 
#Author(s): acvwJosh of Ubuntu Forums, modified by Colin Dean <http://cad.cx>

#add the following line to your crontab if you want to run this hourly
#10   *  *   *   *     apodwallpaper

#add this line if you want to run it every four hours
#10 0,4,8,12,16,20 * * * apodwallpaper

#add this line if you want to run it every twelve hours
#10 0,12 * * * apodwallpaper

#add this line if you want to run it daily 
#10 0 * * * apodwallpaper

#don't forget to put this script in your $PATH.
#I usually add ${HOME}/.bin to my path in .bash_profile and put my scripts there

#change this if you want the image to be in a different directory
FILENAME=apodwallpaper
APODWALLPAPER=${HOME}/.${FILENAME}

mkdir -p ${APODWALLPAPER} && cd ${APODWALLPAPER}

# download image from apod site
wget -A.jpg -R.txt -r -l1 --no-parent -nH http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

# move image from obscure folder to main folder, rename image
find ./apod -name "*.jpg" | while read line ; do
mv "$line" "${FILENAME}.jpg"
done

# set image to wallpaper
gconftool-2 -t string -s /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename "blank.jpg"
gconftool-2 -t string -s /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename \
                         "${APODWALLPAPER}/${FILENAME}.jpg"
gconftool-2 -t string -s /desktop/gnome/background/picture_options "zoom"

#get rid of cruft
rm -rf apod robots.txt

There’s a thread about this functionality at Ubuntu Forums entitled, APOD? anyone.

I know Hardy is due out in less than a month’s time, but I got a Creative Sound Blaster X-fi XtremeGamer on super rebate a few weeks ago and, dammit, I want sound on Linux!

Unfortunately, Creative only recently released specifications to OSS and ALSA. OSS has a driver already in its newest release, but OSS and Ubuntu have never played well together. Most of Ubuntu’s applications prefer ALSA or ESD. Creative did release an ALSA driver a while ago, but only for 64-bit distros.

Fortunately, I’m running Ubuntu Gutsy amd64, so I can use the driver. Fear not, though, one user on Ubuntu Forums has tried it on 32-bit and reported success. He’s refining the process, though, and figuring out how exactly he did it.

NullHead, wolfc, and some others on Ubuntu Forums refined a process by which folks can install the Creative X-fi driver. Unfortunately for Gutsy-using folks, the process requires a kernel recompile because the Gutsy kernel uses SLUB instead of SLAB.

However, the process does work. After compiling the kernel, there’s a a few simple steps and a single patch which customizes the source for Ubuntu users.

Read the thread at Ubuntu Forums entitled [HOW-TO] X-fi beta driver.

It’s really nice to have sound in Ubuntu after not having it for approximately two weeks. I’ve been hopping onto another computer when I need it and using that other computer as my jukebox.

PulseAudio is the new default sound server in Ubuntu Hardy (8.04 for those readers who are out-of-the-loop), but it retains its compatibility with ALSA, OSS, ESD, and various other sound servers in Linux. Hopefully, ALSA will have a driver out soon.

Apparently, a company called Auzentech is working on higher-quality drivers for Windows for its licensing of Creative’s X-Fi technology. It’s also working on Linux drivers, but the ETA isn’t until Q4 2008. If Auzentech can pull it off, you bet your sweet bippie I’ll trade my XtremeGamer for one of its cards. I like to support those who support Linux