I got my official HTA Update on my Nexus 5! So, I am now at Android 4.4.3…
I am on the T-Mobile network, so I don’t know if the other carriers are pushing at the same time.
Category: My Hardware
Ubuntu 14.04: Misc Utilities & Settings
This is part of my series on installing Ubuntu 14.04 on my laptop. In the previous post, I configured my hybrid graphics card. In this post, I am walking through various settings and utilities that I like to install to make the final tweaks on my installation.
Ubuntu 14.04: Hybrid Graphics
This is part of my series on installing Ubuntu 14.04 on my laptop. In the previous post, I worked through installing Virtualbox for VMs. In this post, I am working through installing the video drivers for optimal use of the video cards. My laptop has a hybrid graphics card, so I attempted to use Nvidia Prime. When that didn’t work, I dropped back to Bumblebee.
Just so you can see what I have, I looked in lspci. Here’s the Nvidia controller:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK107M [GeForce GT 650M] (rev a1)
Here’s the Intel controller:
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller (rev 09)
Here’s what I did…
Ubuntu 14.04: Media Programs
This is a continuation of my series on installing Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr. My previous post covered installing programming environments and applications. In this post, I’ll go through the different media programs that I installed back onto my laptop. If you would like to see the complete list of posts, check out my Ubuntu 14.04 install page.
Visual
One of the most important programs that I use now is Shutter. It allows me to easily take screenshots of what I am working and edit the screenshots. The shutter package is easily installed from the Software Center. Once installed, I tweaked a few of the settings in Edit > Preferences.
First, I changed the path for the screenshots from the Pictures folder to a new folder that I created called screenshots.
In addition, I checked the first two options on the “Behavior” tab to allow it to start when I boot up the computer.
I installed the following other programs for working with visual media:
- Gimp: for editing photos
- Inkscape: vector-based drawing
- Xournal: has features that allow marking up a PDF
Audio
Videos
These are the programs I use for playing and editing video:
- mplayer – nice general video/music player from the command line
- mplayer-gui
- gnome-mplayer
- vlc – video player
- kdenlive – video editor
- openshot – video editor
- avidemux (GTK+): Great for converting video, for example see Why Can’t the Users Just Rotate Their Screen?
- cheese – nice for testing to make sure the webcam works (already installed)
Codecs
This installed many different things for media. For example, I noticed that it installed True Type fonts. It also installs codecs for playing videos, etc.
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
In addition, I installed the libdvdcss to get the restricted formats. That was simply by installing this package…
sudo apt-get install libdvdread4
Then, I ran the script…
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh
Finally, I determined that I had to use the /dev/sr0 as the device for playing my DVDs. Like this:
Next Steps
If you are following along with the complete install, check out my next post about Virtualbox. Or, you can go to the list of posts in this series (Installing Ubuntu 14.04).
Resources
Ubuntu 14.04: Programming Environments
This is a continuation of my Ubuntu 14.04 Install. In the previous post, I covered all of my notes on installing network/Internet-related configuration. In this post, I’ll cover setting up my programming environments and applications. If you would like to see the list of posts in this series, you can look at the Ubuntu 14.04 Install page.
Ubuntu 14.04: Networking/Internet Setups
This is a continuation of my previous post (restoring files) on my install of Ubuntu 14.04. In this post, I’ll go through configuring and installing things related to networking. You can see the complete lists of posts on Ubuntu 14.04 on my main install page.
Ubuntu 14.04: Restoring Files
This is a continuation of my previous post on my install of Ubuntu 14.04. In this post, I took notes on restoring files from my backup. You can see the complete list of posts on Ubuntu 14.04 on my main install page.
Before installing, I had used Deja-Dup and duplicity to back up my laptop before I installed it. I’ll blog screenshots of backing it up eventually. The first thing after reformatting and installing is to restore my files back onto the laptop. On my last install, I used the command-line to install. This time, I wanted to try a GUI method.
Switch Back to Bumblebee from Prime
When I first installed Ubuntu 13.10, I installed Nvidia Prime. It was easy to install and things seemed to just work at first. Now, I am having second thoughts. Bumblebee sounds like the better route for me now, and these are my notes. Switching back to Bumblebee was no trivial task though.
Ubuntu 13.10: Graphics Programs
This is another article that is part of my Ubuntu 13.10 install. I didn’t have to do anything special for these programs. I just installed them from the Software Center.
Ubuntu 13.10: Programming/Editors
This post is part of my install notes for my Ubuntu 13.10 setup.
These are the steps that I took to set up my programming environment. Since I dabble in a myriad of different little projects, I need a myriad of different tools.