Ubuntu 12.04: Sound

Sound has been a problem for me in the past.  I found that the sound seems to work slightly better on Fedora than on Ubuntu.  Ubuntu 12.04 has worked better for me, but I think things are still a little more flakey than I would like.  Some of my problems might come from a USB docking station that has a sound plugin and some of the problems definitely come from Skype.

Anyhow, these are the tools that I am currently using:

  • Audacity
  • Sound Settings — switching between devices
  • MuseScore

Checking Files with md5sum or sha1sum

When you download files or copy them between locations, there is always a chance that something won’t copy correctly.  The larger the file, the larger the chance of something getting messed up.  Creating a check sum on the file is a great way to check to make sure that everything adds up before and after the copy.

This post will explore the two tools, and give you a quick little intro on how to use them.

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Ubuntu 12.04: Office and Play on Linux

One the requirements for my laptop is to be able to edit Microsoft Office documents.  LibreOffice works quite well and was installed by default, but when exchanging complex documents with other Office users, Microsoft Office has no substitute.

So, my solution is to run Office using wine.  I have used winetricks in the past to install Linux, but that didn’t work this time.  This time a project called Play on Linux came through for me.

Here’s what I did…

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