Installing Kubuntu 12.04 LTS Mac.iso on a Macbook Pro

Just a quick guide to how i installed Kubuntu 12.04 Mac.iso on my Macbook Pro 5.1

If you are looking to install Kubuntu 12.04 on your mac, good luck. it depends alot on what Mac hardware you own, but anyway, if you download the Mac specific .iso,  DONT even try to burn it in OS X, IT WILL FAIL also when trying to mount the ISO .. use Windows or Linux instead,
It seems Canonical dont even think that Mac users would be downloading and burnng their Mac disc image, er, on their Mac .. go figure..

Get the Kubuntu Mac ISO here ... wget is your friend..

wget http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/12.04/release/kubuntu-12.04-alternate-amd64+mac.iso

Both 12.04 versions (Mac/generic) do install, but not without passing "nomodeset" to the kernel at boot time., once you've got enough spare room on the hard drive alongside OSX - download and install the boot manager 'Refit' so install the refit.dmg  as you would any normal Mac program.
Get rEFIt here..

 http://refit.sourceforge.net/

reboot TWICE

TWICE because there's a bit of a bug in rEFIt which only makes the boot menu show up second time around, usually...... i know.. dont ask me.
Then you boot the Kubuntu disc as usual.. hold the C key down as soon as your Macbook chimes and install Kubuntu. Some folks said install with the installers defaults,
I did, and it worked as expected.

 - Remember to add "momodeset" into the grub config to reflect this as soon as you boot off the HD, you shouldn't really have to, but you do, well i did, your mileage may vary.  (apologies for any possible errors, i am doing most of this from memory)
make a backup of the  current Grub config first:

sudo cp /etc/default/grub /etc/default/grub-backup

then edit grub's config file, (yes, its changed again..)

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

it looks a little bit like this:
 

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

You need to add  nomodeset  at the end of the 6th line as shown below:

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

Then that should reliably boot 12.04. and as soon as you are in, add the Mactel repo,
plug in your wired ethernet in case it doesn't find your wireless card ..
(its like 2008 all over again)  add the PPA, instructions on this site

https://launchpad.net/~mactel-support/+archive/ppa

then search for (and install) install: all the pommed macfanctl and laptop detect or laptop mode tools (do a search) read this, do the fan thing ..  either way, read this
howto carefully and do the fan tweaks.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookPro

Note: keep the laptop cool, watch the temps, WHATEVER LAPTOP YOU HAVE
You might want to kick Pulseaudio out too, its a piece of shit, and always has been.

sudo apt-get remove --purge pulseaudio

maybe also slim down Apt-Get's appetite a little too...

// Recommends are as of now still abused in many packages

APT::Install-Recommends "0";

APT::Install-Suggests "0";

check out more goodies * help installing stuff in 12.04:

http://howtoubuntu.org/things-to-do-after-installing-ubuntu-12-04-precise-pangolin/

If you're rolling your eyes at how easy that all was and need more fun stuff to do, you can have a read here.. 

An enhanced version of Simple MacBook Pro Fan Daemon for Linux

 

http://task3.cc/923/an-enhanced-version-of-simple-macbook-pro-fan-daemon-for-linux/

/end of basic install

*************************************************************************************

Kubuntu 12.04 LTS.iso on my Macbook, & is every OS going tablet ?

I've been using Linux since 1997 .. and most of that was using KDE. I like KDE.
i liked KDE 3.5.x more than 4.xx, but KDE3 did have some quirks and needed a bit of an overhaul. KDE4.X is heavier, glossier, compositited and much more modern,
and as its mid 2012 as i write this, KDE looks bang up to date. QT4 is nice.

Last few years i've been using Kubuntu on the laptops, the hardware support was better than most linux i found, and (strangely) i found Linux Mint broke
a little too easily, but they too are more Gnome oriented. Yuk.
but man, am i falling out with Canonical.. and this ridiculous move to the dumbed down touchpad type interface we're sadly seeing everyhere ..

We're not all frustrated wannabe Ipad users, and the present desktop metaphor still holds more or less, good, thanks in no small measure to the Incredible work Alan Kay and the folks at Xerox in Palo Alto started many years ago.

Just dont screw with the standardised desktop model, modernise it, yes, but not at the risk of breaking it and having the very same users
they say they care about, have to then throw away all their existing desktop driving skills and start afresh, what a huge FAIL distromakers - if its not broken, then dont fix it,
an old meme, but very, er, apt.

All that knowledge being thrown away for ""tabletmania"" i understand tablet computers are 'cool'
and humans like little shiny chinese computer boxes they can carry around and show off easily, and i agree
the tablet interface is okay, and it works well on that hardware,
The key thing designers need to get is a 'hardware appropriate interface'

I'm sure some quarters may look and see the PC or laptop as 'Olde Worlde' with its archaic mouse, keyboard, buttons and ports,
and it all works, and this interface works well on this hardware too, we're not all dumb users, confused with options..  i mean, some of us can even find our way to the Kebab shop without GPS.. but i digress.

On my Laptop, Kubuntu 10.04 worked well, the laptop is an early 2009 Macbook Pro, so its not 100% plug n play with Linux,
but for 95% of the install its plain sailing, yes its slightly esoteric hardware perhaps, compared to generic plastic Windows type, but there's loads of howto's for those.
I downloaded the Mac-64.iso version that Canonical makes for Apple computers.

Users of Mac LION may have partitioning problems as Mac LION makes its own recovery partition (delete it) and I never use a swapfile on LINUX anyway, so this fact pretty much got 'round the weirdness during partitioning. Its hard to see what difference there are between the Kubuntu ISOs, and information is scant, though i saw Grub-EFI mentioned, 

EFI-boot issues relating to Grub2 not long ago were still giving issues, i expected less problems with partitioning alongside LION. I deleted LIONs recovery partition. lets keep this simple shall we ?

All this rush forward in OS's seems a little odd perhaps, compared to the fact that the BIOS is still the main legacy we're dragging 'round, i mean EFI *will* be the default someday soon, because it'll hold the platform back at some stage otherwise. I dont mean the secure Microsoft led ""Windows 8"" boot time certification shenanigans, instead, the Intel introduced EFI .. which was originally introduced for their IA64 Itanium, but it didn't work out as they'd hoped.

I'm not a huge MacOS X fan, as its not free software, but I am an OS geek, so i'm quite proficient with almost any mainstream OS and i like my OS a certain way, MacOS X is wayyy too closed and proprietry, and its getting worse with every iteration. I shall graft KDE or some other UNIX type DE onto the Mac at some stage soon i imagine, but i'm not that bored just yet,

i dislike the Mac UI, Aqua, well, mainly the dock, and the desktop is going all 'touchscreeny', so i think Mac OSX is not going to be a OS i'm going to want to upgrade in the future, Mountain Lion ? NO
 But at present its got far more polish and attention to detail than Linux (or windows) has and, as long as the computer does the jobs (sic) i bought it for, and as computers are just tools, i'm using the correct OS i deem best for the job.

Linux is 99% on all PCs here, both laptops run Linux, though not going to be any *buntu much longer, maybe i'll re do my personal Susestudio distro. hmmm.  the desktop PC can boot into Windows if i need to use anything like that, or even DOS if i need to program a radio. its also got PC BSD on, which i like a lot, but not played with enough just yet. so i need to get some more quality BSD time in i think.

So WHY do the *buntu MAC ISO's fail when being written on Macs ? - come to that ALL the later *buntu .ISOs fail to mount on Mac (that i have tested)  but Its ok of course, i know its only Mac OS X thats failing to mount or use them, the ISO's are OK, its just Canonical tweaked the CD filing system, and Mac doesn't understand it.

Why does Ubuntu ship with Firefox, but not Kubuntu ?
Why still no base only system, something just like a KDE minimal ?
no office, games, nepomuk or akonadi crap. (You listening KDE?) and Linux vendors.. STOP putting bloody pulseaudio in the distro's its shit, flaky, unintuitive, messes audio quality up and uses confusing terminology.
And for what gain ? i mean to the average desktop user ? networked audio ? really ?
do me a favour.

KDE3 had facilities for X to do this, but no one used it back then even, and now, with even more portable audio gear about, its gonna get used even less, maybe even never.

Canonical, or Ubuntu's recent decision to drop KDE and go with Gnome / XFCE seems about as misguided as i can imagine, KDE - especially series 3 was known to be more comfortable for users coming from Windows, the general desktop layout and configurabilty and the like even Mark Shuttleworth himself was a KDE dev and famously our Man Linus Torvalds was a famous KDE user, so which desktop shall we ship? Yes, it was crappy old Gnome 2d (i call it) plain, dull, lack of configuration, it even has a windows-like registry, god help us, and the layout is all completely different for these 'new users' and, oh, it was brown. the colour of shit. and to compound the failure they added pulseaudio, no, no no no NO !

Gnome was jealous of Mac, and always wanted to be Mac's Aqua interface so bad that as soon as Mac OSX changes to look more IOS like, Gnome copies it immediately, fails, and as Windows announces the Fisher Price interface of Windos 8....

WTF ?

Gnome 3 Fisher Price uses more RAM than KDE4, the icons are 600% too big, ugly and messy, with features hidden from users and a real couple of steps backwards. i mean, which newbie knows the actual linux filename to type in and start a program ?

WTF ?

Is Gnome 3 a newbie DE ? features hidden ? now thats dumb, the hidden 'un-features' most of us would like also seem to have been copied from Mac OS X, Lion which really started hiding stuff from users,
in its Steve Jobs inspired quest for ZEN minimalism.
Not much in the way of customisation either, in OS X, it IS possible, and there are a couple of extremely startlingly nice UI makeovers for OSX, The CrystalClear Interfaces is amazing, but there's not enough customisation choices, not to the point i wish it was, by a long way, i'd prefer the KDE window manager, wmaker, e17 or some Linux/Unix wm on the Mac instead of Aqua, yes it can be done.

Ok, i understand the Zen of desktop minimalism, in Leopard and Snow Leopard the UI is quite clean already, for the most part,but then to add the Mac's messy dock that looks like items on a second-hand-shop shelf messies the whole thing up.

Some pundits think Apple want to drop OS X and make IOS their PC operating system..
-- and dont tell me Mac's aren't PCs - or i'll have to shout at you again -- they ARE personal computers
and can even run the same operating systems. End of debate Apple fanbois?Gurlz

Why not open source OSx ? they never will of course, but the XNU kernel is pretty good, just a shame they didn't give much back, but hey.. BSD license. I'm not sure whether OSX will be dropped, not for a while yet, anyway, if so,
there'll have to a transition period, strange, as they will have just recently dropped Rosetta too, starting with Lion, but i doubt i'll be using OS x by the time keyboards and mice are not used in the OS anyway.We'll be seeing the one button mouse soon too, i expect.

For me, I'll just install another Linux or BSD on the PCs, but Linux is STILL flaky on some laptops, power management and cooling particularly so, battery life, thermal problems and proprietary hardware support still can kill the Linux experience,

You need luck and to STILL be more choosy when buying hardware, even though Linux is my main, preferred OS, Mac and Windows still work better and fully support all the hardware you're ever likely to see. Installing Slackware last year on my old laptop (AMD Turion x64 dual core) - the processor thermal management got so bad that the laptop overheated during the install, it died. It
refused to power back up until well cooled of course, and it wouldn't switch on properly until it was discovered a RAM slot was so hot it became BROKEN. This was after i did research on buggy BIOS's and thermal management in the Linux kernel.. i used to, a few years before, regularly compile my own kernels to enable wait states and tweaks and stuff to control the extra heat Linux generated on my older laptops.
who do i send the bill to ?

Ubuntu is on losing ground already, the decisions it has taken lately have created a need for a real beginner friendly distro, with Linux Mint stepping up as the default newbie distro.  I think the best 'newbie' distros was Mepis, but its such a big job for even a superman like Warren Woodford who i admire greatly and interestingly was known to use Mac hardware to Work on his MEPIS LINUX and the amazing Texstar and the Guys over at PCLinuxOS, who's attention to detail was nothing short of amazing, and supported every bit of hardware we threw at it
I prefer debian based LINUX and the apt-get package management, but they are mainly KDE based distros, so it was mostly academic whether they were RPM or DEB based they  are superb distro's, and i may go back to them again.

Props to Linux Mint for LMDE as its moving away from Canonical's base, Good ..
but where's Mint's KDE editions ?
Add to this the recent (summer 2012) QT/Nokia news and i'm leaving Canonical but still want KDE, but may have to find a better base... only time will tell. it wont be Gnome and it seems KDE is missing some serious issues too, though, not having gone to a 'Tablet Interface' yet, and i hope they dont, they are still shipping KDE making it tricky to slim it down to just a window manager,
i know i know, but Nepomuk, Akonadi .. please NOOO ...

I guess its distro hopping time again ...
enjoy the summer / rain / both  ...

Fitting FM to a Yaesu FT 101 ZD Mk III or Sommerkamp FT 277 ZD

I much prefer SSB to AM or FM for radio, AM is fun for a change, but SSB is where its at ..
I like the sound of it too..  but my mate Paul and i often chat on 10m FM in the mornings while he is en route to work .. (using his Motorola handheld) and so after sending my FT 920 away and waving a fond (but not tearful) goodbye to my FT 817 -  i was left FM less. and, the only remaining HF set then was the backup set, a Yaesu FT-101 ZD MK III  that i picked up of local Yaesu guru Harry, G3LLL a few months previous, a Sommerkamp FT 277 ZD ctually and it had no AM, no FM. No problem.

After half-heartedly searching on Ebay one evening while bored, a FM board, (sorry) a PB 2219 popped up out of the screen at me, there are several revisions i believe, and not sure of differences, but i think the end result comes down to either you end up with hum loops, off frequency on TX, no audio or such like, nice, because they're quite rare nowadays, you cant afford to sit and wait, and i dont know anyone apart from Harry himself who would know the differences either)  but i wanted one, I had seen them go for silly prices, one for over £120, I doubt anyone bought this, as the whole HF set is'nt really worth that much more, but if you even contemplate selling something like this for such a ridiculous amount - Shame on You,
I'm constantly irritated by people's greed on Ebay in particular, - if you're one of those folks,  you suck, and just wait till you need your stuff repairing, then you'll be moaning,
but i dont want to get off on a rant here..
Well, time moved on and i am now £36 lighter (still a little too high a price) and one sunny morning the FM board arrived dropped through the letterbox.. well almost, it was extremely well packaged,  it appeared in a box the size of a toaster !

its only a small board of course,, it only needs to be, so i opened the ZD up and pondered..

The ZD manual is helpful enough, up to a point, so i unscrewed the 2 short screws out of the IF unit ready for the 2 long 'post screws'  and tried not to lose them..  you remove the screws here shown below .. this is where you mount the two standoff screws, that i didn't have....

if you're buying FM/AM board for a ZD, devise some way of mounting the board, its a little ingenuity or a junk box test really, old computer motherboard type bits were found and

so another root 'round one of the junk boxes revealed some hexagonal pillars with threaded tips, but they weren't quite long enough though.. metal ones are fine, if you can stack then, you're pretty much there, but a few grey plastic hexagonal stand-offs jumped out of the junk box at me,as did PC motherboard standoffs, threaded both ends, so i used these, as they were luckily the correct thread to go into the ZD, i've also seen the grey plastic kind of things before, not sure where they are from, or what they are for, you may know after seeing them, so they were both brought together unholy matrimony.. metal motherboard standoffs at the bottom, familiar grey plastic threaded bar on top.. you only need the board to  be just over an inch and something abobe the main ZD PCB below, so 2 or 3 long screws that go into the ZD's chassis, same number of spacers to put the board on and then you're set.

this are the dual threaded end PC motherboard mounting posts

and  with the 2 standoffs together, or long screws and spacers, or whatever way you do it,  , as you see, the grey plastic hex has been screwed onto one side of the brass stand off here.. obviously this will have an effect (or not) on possible earth loops later on, and it may be a good thing to insulate or not. I'm not sure, the default way, and looking at the underside of where the screw holes on the FM PCB are suggest it wants to be earthed. but I didn't have the right bits, so i fitted it and worried about hum later.

so a couple of self-tappers into the top of these pillars and we were in business. I did try what seemed a more elegant solution with long threaded screws (cut to length) through slightly wider and metal tubes to support the board, but i didn't have 2 or 3 proper length screws and spacers.. junk box fail !

Harry G3LLL writes  with regards to earth-loops and hum:

" Yaesu removed an earth connection from the rigs internal wiring loom to the vol / RF gain control, but later cut a slot on the underside of the FM board to isolate the mic input from the rest of the board and reconnected it back to the vol / RF gain control.
if you fit an FM board without the slot to a ZD with an earth wired to the vol / RF gain control, you will get hum on TX and possibly RX as well, so you'd have to remove the correct lead, - there are three lead screens wired to the 'earthy' end of the vol control, so use trial and error to see which one, when removed, cures the hum.  conversely, an FM board with the cutout to a rig that does not have the earth lead connected you will find a unmodulated carrier about 100Khz off your receive frequency, in which case, find the screen that's not attached and solder it back with the other two." - (in Practical Wireless: March 2009)


Thank You Harry ..  i had reports of audio hum on the mic on TX, so i spent a hour or so carefully swapping out the screen of the 3 coax's leads going to the Vol / RF gain control, cured, but easily overlooked.. depending on *which* rev of the FM board you end up buying ..

So, lets plug it in, and try to keep the magic smoke in the ZD if you can, for it is the magic which makes this makes all electric boxes work. There are 2 white, 3-pin connectors, P19 and P23, they are easy do do, P23 comes up the right hand side (with the rig front facing you) of the IF board and it plugs to the left hand pins ..

J2503, the other 3 pin (P19) from the rig goes to the only other 3 pin connector on the FM board, J2504. P19 probably wont actually stretch over to the wrong pins so, this is pretty foolproof. well, usually. the multi-way P20  plugs to J2506 on the FM board.

Now the coax-links. these are yellow and very pretty.
Unplug the yellow coax from J101 on the RF unit, and pop it onto J101 on the FM board.
and connect the yellow shielded cable to J101. This is the RF unit AFTER the  board is fitted:

on the RF unit, unplug P11 - (the red shielded cable) into J102
so the fitted FM board looks a bit like this

and the pretty yellow coax, fitted :

and that should do it. i had to tidy this up too. you wont have to i bet.. looks like the ZD had a new tranny in once over ,,,

dont forget this : noisy round metal thing

and i see i have room for the other filter. maybe i'll pop up and look on Ebay one day. mind you, the standard Yaesu filter is more than good enough really, the MK III ZD's IF notch filter can be reversed into a notch 'pass' mode too, which is quite handy for CW or beacon monitoring, so dont need CW narrow. maybe I'll fit a fixed channel crystal for our local 28.495..

Hmmm.. all you need now is to keep below 100mA on TX and wait for some voices ...
now .. a switchable 100kc downshift would be handy on TX ..

Next time on 'Why is my rig broke'  I investigate the frequency stability of the FT 101 ZD and try to learn how to fix the appropriate relay/dry joint/cap etc *not* using servisol ... but i promise it will have more low res pictures for us to enjoy.

PC World - a different story every time you phone ..

1) buy laptop

2) delete windows

3) 9 months later, keyboard gGooes ffffaullltttyyyy.....

4) laptop gets picked up, 1 week later, i phone, it returns unfixed.

5) decide i wont fix it, because its still under warranty, though its only a hour long job. on a good day.

6) laptop gets picked up again, a week passes, phoned, they cant find it, returns unfixed, day after.

7) hospital, (nothing to do with PC World)

8) I'm back home, keyboard still needs hospital though, and so the laptop gets picked up, 1 week glides by, i phone, try next week.

9) I phoned Tech Guys (OK,stop laughing) & was told its going to be written off. phone next week, of course. do you see a pattern emerging ?

10) phoned next week, told it WAS written off, expect voucher in post, asked for written confirmation, told no. smelled a rat.

11) waited for vouchers (week) got 12 month guarantee reminder came though.

12) phoned, asked where vouchers were, told 'we don't do vouchers' i slammed the phone down this time.

13) rang trading standards sought legal advice. took advice.

14) got angrier, composed letter to manager of store. 12 month warranty ran out. letter said i could continue quality care, they wanted £7 a month.

15) phoned, told it was waiting to be assessed for write off, try next week.


16) got angrier

17) phoned, told it had new motherboard, cpu, fan, keyboard & case ordered. phone cut off. got angry again.

18) phoned 1 hour later, told its not written off, bring to it into store, said 'i cant, you have it' spoke to manager,
he told me, quote ref number, ask for him in person, when laptop returns.

19) wished i hadn't quit smoking

20) day after, laptop returns, working beautifully, thoroughly inspect & soak-test, lovely. remove Windows.

20) phoned store before i actually go for replacement, to confirm this is not a total waste of time. speak to manager, different manager.

22) was told 'cant replace it' as previous (?) manager thought it was only weeks old. got angrier.

23) found out it was a total waste of time.

24) forgot all about PC World. decide to keep my fixed, as new, nice, laptop.

25) played radio for days, went for walks in the park, Curry, Beer..

26) yesterday morning rudely awoken by pleasant woman phoning from Curry's saying it was OK to take my laptop in and get a new replacement

27) went back to sleep.

More PulseAudio and Skype stuff

So, here we are a few months after Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04 LTS appeared,
the new OS - Kubuntu 10.04 LTS - (LTS means Long term support) will be
supported for the next year or two with updates and fixes. good.
of course Pulseaudio is in the Ubuntu (Gnome) distro,
but not Kubuntu. I Understand that Skype is proprietry, and hope they would
fix thhe bugs a little quicker,Ubuntu are going as quick as they can i guess.

Question is Ubuntu, Why dont you include the (almost always needed) padevchooser?
come to that, why doesn't every distro ? ok. so i dislike GNOME, i mean its not
the early 90's is it ? so i use the splendid KDE Desktop Environment. and
Pulseaudio is'nt a included component of KDE usually, mostly just in Gnome distro's.

So I was looking forward to seeing Skype working nicely on Kubuntu 10.04..
No. After tweaking, restarting, recompiling ALSA and my Realtek ALC 272
audio system all over again, there was still breakage.

I Know the Kubuntu dev team are busy, but it seems more and more that
the bigger and busier Ubuntu get, the less and less inclined they are listen
to single voices. An example was, as i am a launchpad member, basically told to
create a PPA to fix the OS then ignored, after being insulted and pulled-up for
my formatting of a bug report, you know, length of lines, paragraphs etc etc.
my eyesight is very poor, expect no help from me or bug reports from now on Launchpad.

I believe the problem is with Skype itself, but i hope the upstream devs may take
notice my bug reports and to help fix this audio issue, by including Pulse
(and Padevchooser) or explain why NOT. unless of course i'm the only one having this problem,

Everyone who wants to use Kubuntu should get a working Skype without pissing around,
something like firstly deciding to Google for the problem,
then find my little post, understand what i'm saying and then add the PPA... that,
or just installing the OS and the app, and expecting it to actually work.
or - maybe i'm just getting old and grumpy.or maybe i missed someting in the
last 12 years of using Linux and free software.
So .. still so many more people are using pulseaudio, so i relented and did a

sudo apt-get install pulseaudio then
sudo apt-get install padevchooser

and tried Sykye again... of course the audio devices, (after a reboot)
were all set to pulseaudio. ok. as i went round and set all my audio apps
outputs to pulse. had to then use padevchooser to set the mic vol up about 3/4
then i tried Skype, and after a crackly reply and a bit less mic gain, a working
Skype test call was received !!! then a day later, a Skype update came down.
i was sure this would break it again, it didn't. crumbs. so thats the secret ?
install and use pulseauduio system-wide on the distro which ships without it,
because the one app (Skype) needs it.

So, if you use KDE 4 and Pulseaudio is NOT installed as an option in
the Phonon config.. do as above and you should be good.

So why, now 10.04 LTS is here, why dont they dont install padevchooser on Ubuntu
or pulseaudio in KUBUNTU. i dont care for pulseaudio still, but seeing as
most Linux's are using it, either install it fully, or not at all. dammit,
i just want working audio...

PulseAudio Fail

2009 / 2010 - Linux Audio Fail

Are Ubuntu going to use Pulseaudio in the LTS / next version ?
I hope not. i think Pulseaudio is harming desktop Linux.


For years i've been happy with audio on Linux.
even since 1998 when i first built the drivers for my winmodem
( remember those? ) - the audio worked, yes, even on Redhat Linux 5.0, maybe it was lucky having the right 'out of the box -almost' hardware back then, but it worked. 12 years ago. okay, there was no VOIP back then, but now there is, and it must work, and it must work well, or even work better than it does on Win, Linux networking is vastly superior than anything MS can cobble together / steal / or buy off a student, so why the sudden screw-up of  Linux audio,
why now ?


Pulseaudio hell is not just limited to the Ubuntu family though, in fact, in my tests its been broken in some way on every distro i've tried this year. one of the Pulseaudio dev's even expresses Ubuntu's nasty implementation of pulse.
http://0pointer.de/blog
If it sounds like i'm going to go into a diatribe about the where's and why's of how Linux audio was broken, i'm not. i have few answers. hack it, or dont use it.


i know we dont need pulse audio yet.
i know most of us want reliability now
i know most of us just dont want to have to dick around with the damn thing.
i know Pulse is the default audio, on most Linux distro's
i know it hasn't performed well enough on any distro i have tried in the last year
i know ALSA was'nt perfect, but why jump out of the frying pan,


- And what the hell was the big problem with ALSA / DMIX anyway ?
why in Ubuntu Jaunty do i have to remove Pulseaudio like Tux says here ?
remove pulseaudio in Jaunty
how do they release this without testing it a little more ? are Karmic etc all beta ?
Karmic KDE 9.10 messes up with phonon errors,  it brain farts and says something like


"KDE has detected that one ore more internal sound devices have been removed. Do you want KDE to forget about those devices? "


Dammit No !!  and so it falls back to HDMI audio output, it does this at seemingly  random boot-ups, which means, er, no sound really. this is a KDE Phonon bug, NOT a Ubuntu one. i much prefer KDE 4.x but its still buggy.


As for all my distro hopping lately, its been caused by wanting a solid multimedia distro,  but more modern than our old friend KDE 3.5.x i have to admit that MEPIS 8.01 is the most solid and least buggy Linux distro still current that i have found. i'm not including Slack Gentoo or Arch .. which are great distro's, but i think very old-fashioned  and time-consuming to set up and use.
with Mepis 8 and ALSA - it does my DVB (kaffeine) Skype, Amarok etc all at the same time. dmix.
nice work Warren, don't rush to 4.x mate.
download Mepis


Gnome is much less buggy than KDE 4.x, but it should be, its far older, and is a much more dumbed-down interface, you've much less control over the system and GNOME is so damn 'fugly' too, like some flat old 1990's OS. and it is.


Since Ubuntu is supposedly aimed at new users, maybe shipping with a working audio subsystem is a necessity ? or how are you possibly going to keep those people you've so publicly looked to recruit ? maybe a revert to ALSA ?


 And Pulseaudio,..  why ? - its not ready, maybe never will be, so why ship it ?
- some 'notional' network audio and routing capabilities that most of us are never really going to use ? and cross platform ? why ?
lets just worry about our platform for now.
In my tests pulseaudio cant reliably get audio from the mic and speakers in the same damn box, certainly not over a network, and its damn poor it does.
FAIL.


Ubuntu for newbies ? - but comes with the most unreliable, quirky, fiddly complicated buggy sound system... hmm.. whose idea was that then ?


No. i think you see the problem.
Issues like ditching Gimp are, in comparison, mostly irrelevant, the first thing newbies will probably want to do is to keep / junk / install their applications. and on any OS, Gimp is just one of these apps. but this is a side issue. lets move on.take damn Office out of the distro's too. i dont live in a office. .God NO !


I agree with Pat Davilla from the 'Linux Linc Tech Show' (radio show / podcast) about pulseaudio, that JACK for example, would be a much better candidate than pulseaudio.. and it has been used in a distro already. thanks Pat,
hear    Linux Link Tech Show     episode 333
have a listen to the show and if you're not subscribing to the podcast, whats' wrong with you ?!


Comments welcome, flames are directed to /dev/null !!