Things I Can’t Do In Ubuntu…yet
Posted by ushimitsudoki on April 17, 2008
Although I’ve been using Ubuntu every day, reading websites and magazines, and even listening to podcasts, there are a few things that have eluded me. These aren’t major obstacles, but I sure would like to figure them out – most of these I’ve posted about or mentioned them in passing.
I’ve resolved to work on at least one a little bit every day, and hope I make a breakthrough. However, here they are for now:
9 Mouse Buttons with Logitech G9
I can’t get the scroll wheel tilt left/right working. I’ve read some instructions, but if I change my mouse driver in xorg.cong to “evdev” (which seems to be a common step in all the places I found), then my graphics card gets goofed up!
I have spent a lot of time on this with little results – the best I have managed is to get the wheel left lean to report the same button as the rear thumb button.
2008.04.22 Edit to Add: See Comments for a half-way workaround I am using.
2008.04.27 Edit to Add: See my updated original blog entry on the Logitech G9 for my final (?) resolution on this – all 11 buttons working in Ubuntu and in ET:QW!
Position windows on a second monitor
I have a transparent terminal set up, but I want to position it on my second monitor. I can’t figure out how to do this with Compiz, but I can get it working as expected on the primary monitor.
Dynamically set up devices
My Logitech Wave USB keyboard maps to a different input device sometimes after a reboot. I need to either force it to map to a given device or dynamically (re)create a symlink to the appropriate device. This is because sometimes I need to trap keyboard input and pass it to a background application.
Fix the system clock
This thing is still running slow – despite the fact that I thought I had fixed it.
Show network machine names
I have a few machines on my LAN, but I can’t figure out how to see the names. I can see the names from my router’s web interface (Linksys WRT300N), but I can’t figure out how to access the machines by name from Ubuntu. Mapping the IP address manually in /etc/hosts doesn’t count, because I am using DHCP.
2008.04.22 – I just gave up on this. I reserved the IP addresses for the machines in the router, and edited the /etc/hosts files. Nothing I tried worked, and I tried everything people suggested as well as everything I read while searching for an answer.
Remote into another Ubuntu box
While I can remote desktop into my wife’s Ubuntu box through VNC, it is far inferior to when I Remote Desktop into my WinXP Laptop. The two big faults:
1. Someone has to be logged in the second Ubuntu already.
2. The graphics don’t always refresh, and the response is very slow. (How much of this is due to VNC, versus how much is due to the fact the second machine is and old 1.7GHz P4?)
Align my desktop icons how I want
Actually, I don’t think this is possible based on a bug report I read for Nautilus? In any case, I want to align my desktop icons along any edge, not just the left edge. Automatically. Positioning them manually does not count, and icons that “pop-up” – like CD or USB drives – need to align how I have it set.
Limulus said
“Fix the system clock This thing is still running slow – despite the fact that I thought I had fixed it.”
Quick question without knowing what you tried to fix this: Do you have the ntp package installed? If so, did you set the Time and Date sys prefs?
ushimitsudoki said
Limulus,
I have ntp and ntpdate installed, I talked a little about what I did in this earlier blog entry:
http://meandubuntu.wordpress.com/2008/01/10/gigabyte-bios-and-the-clock/
I don’t recall exactly what I tried there, and I haven’t revisited this issue yet. I do notice the clock getting about a minute slow sometimes, and every so often when I re-boot I get a message about the last write date being in the future – which I am not sure if it is related.
BTW, I like your blog, I hope you don’t mind if I add it to my blogroll here!
Oli said
Mouse: Use btnx. evdev is dead (in comparison). I use this with my G7 and it’s just perfect. Pretty damned easy to set up too.
Remote desktop: Windows uses the Remove Desktop Protocol (RDP) which is much better than VNC for most applications. Try NoMachine http://www.nomachine.com and an alternative version: http://freenx.berlios.de
JohnMc said
Do check your ntp settings. Make sure you have a valid ntp source listed. Also check in sysv that the ntp daemon is set to ‘auto’ in the runlevel you operate your Ubuntu at. If not change it with checklvl.
The next comment I mean no offense — do you know the difference between remote desktop access and remote desktop sharing? From the way you describe things ‘…must be logged in first’ it sounds like you are attempting to use a screen sharing app for remote desktop access.
If you want to get your hands dirty then a ssh/X11 forward can get you where you want to be. Try this link, its Ubuntu specific — http://www.techthrob.com/tech/ssh101.php It should get you where you want to go. Oh if you go this route be sure you have an account set up on the remote box to work with.
I note with some disdain that the Logitech G9 is only listed as Windows compatible according to their website. Which I would suspect that in order to enable the advanced features of that mouse a Win .dll was loaded at hardware discovery. Which of course means that unless there is a corollary .o/.so/.exe available for Ubuntu/Debian you are hosed to the lowest common denominator.
For the keyboard you might have to do some rc(x) twiddling. But it can be done. But I won’t hazard your solution as if it breaks, it will break hard. I don’t want to hear my ears ringing :)
So far in your post you mention 2 Ubuntu boxes. Are the other machines Linux or Windows on your network? Does not a ‘ping ‘ elicit a response? I guess my second question is what do you want to do when you say “…map”. You want to do shares like Windows? Then you need to set up the client side samba tools. Just want to transport files between boxes and they are all Linux then consider nfs exports with public mount points.
Finally a political statement. Try Kubuntu! I am no noob to Unix/Linux. We are a Windoz free zone at our homestead. But experience has taught me (wife and daughter) that as a transitional GUI KDE comes closest to Win in look and feel. Why Kubuntu plays second sister to Ubuntu/Gnome is baffling. Just my view.
ushimitsudoki said
John,
Thanks for taking the time to comment, and believe me no offense was taken! I’m well aware most of the difficulty is just my inexperience and I am very appreciative to anyone who makes the effort to help in any way!
The thing about the Logitech G9 is that a lot of people say they have got it working, but all the guides I’ve read change the driver in xorg.conf from “mouse” to “evdev”. If I do that, then my graphics get all messed up (I am using the proprietary NVIDIA drivers).
Actually, I’m not sure I do know the difference between remote desktop access and remote desktop sharing. I have 2 Ubuntu dektops and 1 WinXP laptop in my LAN. If I have to use Windows, I just Remote Desktop into the WinXP box, where I can log on and do my business. The interface is quite responsive – and I can “remote in” whether someone is logged in or not (although I think it might kick whoever is logged in off). I use rdesktop for this.
However, when I VNC into the other Ubuntu box, someone must already be logged in (?) and the interface is not so great – parts of the screen don’t redraw automatically and so forth. What this boils down to is if I need to work on that machine, I just get up and go to it because it’s too painful to operate the way I am doing now.
I -think- I might want XDMCP instead of VNC?
I will certainly check the link though! This is something I spent like one day on a while back and haven’t got back into messing about with it. However, I may be adding a 3rd Ubuntu (Mythbuntu) box in the future, and I would like to get these networking/sharing issues all cleared up.
What I mean my “map” I mean I would like to be able to ping and otherwise reference my other machines by NAME – everything is working fine by IP. (I am sharing a Windows drive already, it works quite well).
I know I could change over to static IPs and set up my /etc/hosts – and I may yet do that – but currently I am using DHCP and would like this to “just work”.
Related to this, why don’t the other machines show up under “Network” in “Places”? If I didn’t know they were there, how could I find them? (These are semi-rhetorical, I haven’t yet looked for the answers myself!)
Thanks again for your comments!
Kody said
Howdy,
Have you looked into using Nomachine NX for remote desktop access? It’s supposedly faster than VNC, and does not require someone to be logged in first.
I use it and it works wonderfully. It’s easy to setup and use too. Only drawback that some people seem to have is that it’s not open source (but it’s still free!).
As for the network names, try an installation of Linux Mint. It’s based off of Ubuntu, but things seem to just work better all around. For instance, I click on the “network” link, and bam, there are my networked computers… by name. “Minty”, “Expee”, “Vistacular”, …etc… Not sure if this is what you’re looking for, but it might be. The next version of Linux Mint should be out shortly after Hardy Heron next week. Give’r a shot!
Cheers,
-Kody
Randy said
As for accessing your machines by name — do you have the hostname set uniquely on each of the machines? I notice that you say you can see them by name on the router, so I assume that you do, but thought I’d mention it “just in case”. On my network, all the machines are seen by name via Nautilus without any problem, even my daughter’s laptop, which she named with an ascii-art symbol…
Ryan said
To always have the keyboard map to a device, you’ll want to take a look at writing a udev rule for it:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=168221
As for the mouse, what exactly is it doing to your graphics card? There’s a couple of things that could cause issues when changing from one driver to another.. after you make the change, try running:
$ grep ‘(EE)’ /var/log/Xorg.0.log*
at a terminal, there’s a good chance you’ll see something that might tell you whats wrong :)
For the remote desktop, you’ve got a few options, there’s VNC which is for viewing an existing session, there’s ssh with X11 forwarding, which is for redirecting just the graphical part of an application from one computer to another, there’s XDMCP which is for logging in over a network, and there’s my favorite, which is NoMachine NX, which is is like XDMCP, but faster.
As far as I know, the only way to be able to ping computers directly using names would be to use something like the hosts file, as far as letting them show up in Network, you might want to ensure they’re in the same work group in samba.
JohnMc said
Ok, lets try this from the bottom up.
Network first. Since your router can see the names all the hosts are reporting correctly on the LAN. What you want to do is load nmap. If its not already loaded then do so with ‘apt-get install nmap’. Do a ‘man nmap’ for ideas.
nmap will scan the network and report back host names and active ports for each. ping one of the hosts ‘ping [hostname]‘. Now understand most likely you may have to give the fully qualified host name for ping to work, hostname.lanname.suffix. All depends on how you set up your network. If the ping works, you have the proper connectivity.
Remote Access. Definitely try the X11 tutorial. Its good to get into the guts. Validate you can get a ssh session working first. Then do the same only this time with forwarding options turned on. The next step is to access the X session. XDMCP is the right idea but I believe that Ubuntu uses GDM? Don’t quote me though its been a while.
As to the Network->Places. That’s part and parcel of a SAMBA/SMB network environment. You should be able to see the XP box. But unless you have Samba client software running on the other Ubuntu box it will not show up in the Neighborhood.
Oh and you should not have to swing to static IP’s.
Jeff said
You can use btnx for configuring your mouse buttons. I’ve configured a mx revolution just fine. All those extra buttons just send keyboard commands so it’s simple to set them up with this program.
ushimitsudoki said
I found a workaround for the mouse tilt wheel. It’s a major kludge, but it works easy enough for my purposes.
I downloaded and installed Logitech’s SetPoint software on my laptop (it is Windows-only; I tried it in Wine, but no-go).
Then, I moved the mouse over to the laptop and configured the mouse to send Keystrokes for the tilt left/right rather than act as buttons. (I suspect this feature is why the mouse appears as both a mouse and keyboard when it is plugged in?)
You can save the settings in the mouse’s internal memory. So then you just move it back to Ubuntu and you can get the keystrokes no problem.
Since I mainly wanted to use the buttons to bind to into a game, this works for me. It is certainly not a complete or optimal solution – but I do at least have use of the tilt wheel in the game, and that is better than what I had before!
avra911 said
jeeeee!
how old is this post!?
:)
Matt said
as for remoting into another ubuntu box, I’ve had no problem…you just have to be able to ssh into it first. Once you have a shell on the remote machine, run “vncserver” and a vnc session will be created for you (make sure to note the display number so you know which port to try to connect to i.e. display “:3″ would be port 5903). You can edit ~/.vnc/xstartup on the remote machine to run whatever window manager you like, or whatever startup programs(I personally prefer blackbox for my VNC sessions on my old 30MHz P2 machine, and I like an xterm waiting for me). There are a ton of command line options for vncserver, too, just look at the man page.
Jam said
‘Position windows on a second monitor’
… Have a look at a program called ‘DevilsPie’
:)
workaround said
There is always a million good workarounds to the many bugs/flaws etc. And is workaround exist, people ignore the real problems and advocate workarounds as “fixes”
Take the NTP suggestion for example. NTP is a workaround for a internet connected (and assuming firewalls don’t block NTP traffic) computer. It is NOT a fix.
A fix would be that the clock does not loose time period. I noticed this behaviour on several releases on several different computers.
Usually these machines system clock’s has no problem under other OS’s, but under Ubuntu (more if you let it work a little harder) the system cock looses time.
seth said
freeNX all the way. no messing with X over TCP because of the enormous congestion potential
Qays Poonawala said
Since this is a while later, I’m not sure if you ever solved your remote access issue. As far as the network itself goes, if you don’t get ping replies from a box you’re not logged into, you might want to check your Network Connection preferences and see if the specific profile is “Available to all users.”
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