Correcting a Misaligned VGA Image on your Monitor or TV in Xorg, e.g. when you see a black border or frame, the image badly aligned to one side of the screen

When I wanted to connect my TV via VGA out to my netbook, the image displayed started with a black frame on the left side and was missing a part on the right side. It only occurred in FullHD resolution (1920x1080), during boot and in other resolutions it was fine. Just for fun I contacted the TV manufacturer, but of course they didn't know any help but "try to install the newest driver for your graphics card".
Read more »

More about → Correcting a Misaligned VGA Image on your Monitor or TV in Xorg, e.g. when you see a black border or frame, the image badly aligned to one side of the screen

Segfaults in Google Chrome

I've notice several times that despite the elaborate architecture, Google Chrome does reproducibly crash completely sometimes. But this time way really funny, because of the website I was trying to access: linuxfoundation.org.

[23706.661053] chrome[6256]: segfault at 5 ip 087ee261 sp bff2ad80 error 4 in chrome[8048000+2c05000]
[23732.024794] chrome[10876]: segfault at 0 ip (null) sp bff6db4c error 4 in libstdc++.so.6.0.13[3bf0000+ec000]

.

More about → Segfaults in Google Chrome

What to do if asm/errno.h asm/ioctls.h and others are not found anymore in Ubuntu or Debian

It turns out you need to now install gcc-multilib. It's not clear why yet. A bug is already filed, but he maintainers seem to see no problem in suddenly changing this behavior...

Read more »

More about → What to do if asm/errno.h asm/ioctls.h and others are not found anymore in Ubuntu or Debian

Samsung Galaxy Kies Connection and Upgrade Fails with MTP Device Driver Popup

If you can't connect your phone to Kies because there is a constant Windows popup saying that the mtp device is installed again and again or not working correctly, here's a great workaround. It's extremely easy and works perfectly for upgrading to the newest Android version:

Simply Eject the Flash Card. Then connect the phone and it all works fine. Of course this way it can't access the SD card. And there will be a popup saying that the sd card is not inserted, just ignore it! ;)

More about → Samsung Galaxy Kies Connection and Upgrade Fails with MTP Device Driver Popup

Fixing OpenSUSE's 'No Devices Matches MBR Identifier'

Check the file in the subfolder boot/grub/mbrid. Do sudo fdisk -l and check that the ID of your usb stick is the same as the one in the file. If not, change it. Just deleting the file won't work, then the code will assume you want to boot from CD or DVD and fail if it doesn't find one. But you can also try to boot with the kernel parameter nombridcheck. But unfortunately for me nothing worked. It seems OpenSUSE USB boot is pretty broken ...

More about → Fixing OpenSUSE's 'No Devices Matches MBR Identifier'

Clearing the Cache and Data of the Android Facebook App

The Facebook App likes to grow and grow in Android. The reason is that it never cleans cache and data. And you often can't even do it manually in Settings, Applications, Facebook, Clear Cache or Clear Data. But it turns out all you need to do it log out and back in and the cache is gone. Of course if you want a real fix, don't forget to file a bug report inside the app.

More about → Clearing the Cache and Data of the Android Facebook App

Saving 2 W power by Making Sure Laptop_Mode oesn't destroy your HD

Laptop_mode is actually a great thing, as it activates a few powerful power saving modes in Linux, most importantly disk power saving and delayed writes. But if you use it with out of the box settings, there are two major bugs in Laptop Mode Tools, which could cause your disk to crash and are the reason it's normally disabled. Now let me show you how to work around them and easily save 2 W of power:
Read more »

More about → Saving 2 W power by Making Sure Laptop_Mode oesn't destroy your HD

What to do if sshfs / fuse freezes your system?

Two things you can do. If it's generic fuse:

fusermount -u -z (mountpoint, don't tab to get the directory, you have to enter it exactly.)

If it's sshfs, you can reduce the timeout to have your system return from the ice age sooner and automatically next time:

echo ServerAliveInterval 15 >> ~/.ssh/config

And don't bother, this bug is know and has been reported before.

More about → What to do if sshfs / fuse freezes your system?

Fixing - at least some - Skypephone S2 Battery Issues

My 3 Skypephone S2 at some point started to run out of battery after being on for about 20 hours or less. And this is not because a Java program crashed, which can be a reason, too. It was after a full charge over night and switching it off and on. Eventually it turned out the problem was that I had still activated the USB Modem setting in Connections. Once I turned it back to blue tooth mode and turned off bluetooth after that the problem was gone and the battery lasted a *lot* longer again. Anyways, the battery delivered with the phone seems to be not very good in any case, so you might want to get a new one. The big question is just: where?

Update: It works! The only problem is you need to leave out the battery at least over night afterwards.

If you like this, why not order a Three UK Sim with my agent link (or send the link to friends). You get an extra 5 quid or so AFAIK.

More about → Fixing - at least some - Skypephone S2 Battery Issues

Immediate Fix for Slow Open and Save Dialogs in Ubuntu OpenOffice

I'm using KDE and I think it's somehow related to that. Anyway, you need to execute the following command to fix it:

echo -e 127.0.0.1 \\t $HOSTNAME localhost $HOSTNAME.'(none)' | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts

Hope this helps. Found in the Ubuntu Forums here.

More about → Immediate Fix for Slow Open and Save Dialogs in Ubuntu OpenOffice

Fixing Suspend for the MSI Wind U110 in 2.6.34 and 2.6.35

The MSI Wind U110 suddenly stopped going into suspend more in newer kernels starting at 2.6.34. A kernel developed found where the issue is located. Actually the system did go into suspend mode, but it came right back immediately.

The issue is very easy and quickly solved, though, with a single simple command:
echo LID | sudo tee /proc/acpi/wakeup

Now I can go into suspend again, and the system still comes back from suspend as expected, nice! :)

Unfortunately for some reasons this does still not mean that suspend is working in Ubuntu 10.04 for me. Probably an issue related to the updated Xserver in 10.04. Though I can suspend and resume now, X crashes and restarts after resume.

More about → Fixing Suspend for the MSI Wind U110 in 2.6.34 and 2.6.35

Quick Fix for Your Multimedia Keys

If your multimedia keys give this warning in dmesg:

atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0xf7 on isa0060/serio0).
atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e077 ' to make it known.

then you need to look up the right number in include/linux/input.h e.g.here. E.g.

#define KEY_BRIGHTNESSDOWN 224
#define KEY_BRIGHTNESSUP 225

And use that number with setkeycodes, e.g. for my system:

setkeycodes e077 224 # brightness down
setkeycodes e078 225 # brightness up
setkeycodes 0xee 212 # webcam
setkeycodes 0xe4 240 # touchpad -> unknown
setkeycodes e076 238 # wifi + bluetooth

And now your system (e.g. KDE or Gnome) should immediately recognize the keys. Post the information to your distribution and it should be included in future releases. Just write the commands (without sudo) into /etc/rc.local to make them permanent for now.

If you get stuck, here's a good guide.

More about → Quick Fix for Your Multimedia Keys

Using SMPlayer with hardware video acceleration such as VAAPI - Fixing various crashes etc. with VAAPI

If you've also tried to use VAAPI with SMplayer, you may also have experienced the crash every single time you try to watch anything. These things might also apply to VDPAU and xvmc.

Here's the solution

1. Disable screenshots:

General -> General -> Enable Screenshots [ ] (uncheck)

2. Set to single thread decoding:
Performance -> Performance -> Threads ... [1]

3. Disable subtitles and postprocessing.

Here's what doesn't help:

Upgrading to the current version 0.6.8.

If you want to know how to get VAAPI working SMPlayer in the first place: Select

General -> Video -> Output Driver -> Custom -> "vaapi,xv," and

Advanced -> Options for Mplayer -> Options -> "-va vaapi".

Let me know if it worked for you. Someone should probably inform the author of smplayer and/or mplayer. Excellent programs!

More about → Using SMPlayer with hardware video acceleration such as VAAPI - Fixing various crashes etc. with VAAPI

X Video finally works - Poulsbo and Linux on the MSI Wind U110 - Fix for BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference at 00000000

If you tried to get poulsbo to run on your system and you get a message like this, you should try the fix posted below.

"kernel BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at 00000000" (2.6.28)

"kernel BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at (null)" (2.6.31)

Thanks to a post on Ubuntu's bugzilla, the poulsbo video module now finally works on my MSI Wind U110 (full review & installation guide). Download the psb-kernel-source module You only have to comment out the two lines in intel_lvds.c starting with

if (edid)
....

e.g.
/* if (edid)
drm_add_edid_modes(output, edid); */

Then reconfigure the package and it should be recompiled. The next time you start it, it should work instead of creating kernel BUG

Update:

Xvideo actually works better than in Directx video in Windows XP, where I often see blocky video scaling. The CPU usage is not too high, either. Currently it's only working under Ubuntu 9.04 for me. Though I had managed to compile the module with kernel 2.6.30 before, I don't remember how I did that... And I haven't gotten actual video acceleration to work yet.

Of course I'll keep you updated and I'll post a little howto once it's all working. But feel free to ask, anyway. And thanks so much to the person from the Ubuntu bugzilla who helped me to finally get it all working!!!

Update2: Keep checking the page. I will post a link to an archive with a script that will manage the compilation in Ubuntu 9.10. If someone could help me figure out how to, I'd love to create, upload and post a .deb for dkms so it all works automatically... Or ultimately, we could modify the driver to check for the MSI's signature and then skip the edid check.

I've created a package for Karmic that you can use to manually install the driver with the fix already applied: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BB23R7K2. Extract it and execute the script make_psb.sh, then reboot and try to modprobe psb. Let me know when the 10 downloads run out and it it works for you.

Update3: Here is a step by step howto. It explains setting up X and then VAAPI (hardware video decoding) in Kubuntu 9.10.

My script for making the psb module out of the package:

KERNEL=/lib/modules/`uname -r`/

make KERNELRELEASE="$(uname -r)" LINUXDIR="/lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build" DRM_MODULES=psb || exit 1;

sudo cp drm.ko $KERNEL/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm/drm.ko

sudo mkdir -p $KERNEL/updates/dkms

sudo cp psb.ko $KERNEL/updates/dkms/psb.ko

ls -l $KERNEL/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm/drm.ko $KERNEL/updates/dkms/psb.ko

sudo depmod -a

More about → X Video finally works - Poulsbo and Linux on the MSI Wind U110 - Fix for BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference at 00000000

Intel Graphics Users: Don't Upgrade Your Ubuntu

As phoronix points out, the intel driver woes in the newest Ubuntu version 9.04 are so bad, you should probably skip this distribution upgrade... and wait for 9.10.

Update: Here is some advice if it's already too late for you. Check the H for more information.

More about → Intel Graphics Users: Don't Upgrade Your Ubuntu

DoS in Linux Server with Boinc

For kernels earlier than 2.6.29 tasks with SCHED_IDLEPRIO creating children such as boinc can freeze the entire system. The bug seems to be in the Linux scheduler: a process with idle priority can block the entire system (with *really* bad latency). It seems to me that if you use ionice, that will make it almost impossible for other tasks to do io (e.g. access the hard drive).

The workaround for boinc is not to use schedtool's SCHED_IDLEPRIO:
Edit /etc/default/boinc-client and set to SCHEDULE="0". E.g.

echo SCHEDULE="0"|sudo tee /etc/default/boinc-client

You can also deinstall schedtool and ionice for now, though that won't fix the security issue. Affected Systems include Ubuntu Server 8.04 with all updates. But many other systems are likely affected if the fix has not yet been backported (fixed in 2.6.29).

More about → DoS in Linux Server with Boinc

Fixing XRANDR Caused High Latency with KDE4 - Display Flickering - Freezing Videos

If you're using KDE4 you might be disappointed by a bug that causes high latencies and or a flickering (second) display. Here's a really easy explanation how to permanently fix that right now.

Go to System Settings, Advanced, System Services.


Then in the bottom uncheck "Detecting RANDR (monitor) changes", then press Stop on the bottom right. The problem disappears immediately now.

You may read more about the bug here and here. Thanks to Electricroo for the fix. By the way, you know you have this bug, if DDC EDID probes ("(II) intel(0): Printing DDC gathered Modelines, (II) intel(0): EDID vendor") keep showing up in tail -f /var/log/Xorg.0.log and you know it's fixed once they disappear. If you don't have that message in your X log, your most likely don't have this issue.

Note that this will stop KDE from automatically detecting when you plug in an external monitor. But as the configuration doesn't yet work well anyway I think there's no detriment. And of course there will be other causes for latency, but this one was the only real problem for me.

Update:
Unfortunately it seems like the fix does not (currently) work for KDE 4.2. If you don't find the service in the list in KDE 4.1.x, this might be a good sign and show that it's already disabled. If you still find the messages in Xorg.0.log, the please post a comment and let's try to find a way around it. If there's no way to disable it, all you can do is file a bug for your distribution and refer to the here mentioned information.

The bug has already been reported for KDE 4.1 at the kde bugzilla. Please participate there if you see this problem in KDE 4.2. You might also help to get a fix by voting for it. Until that time you can probably use my previously posted dirty hack that works around the kde session management service (ksmserver) by starting the KDE4 environment manually - please let me know if this works for KDE 4.2 as well.

You can also try to manually disable all outputs you don't need in Xorg, but the instructions vary significantly between different graphics cards, setups, distributions etc. And of course that won't help you if you're using a dual screen setup. If you find instructions on how to do that, please let me know in the comments.

Update2:
For KDE 4.2, check your config file:

grep polling ~/.local/screen-configurations.xml

If it says polling false and after upgrading KDE to 4.2 you suddenly get the messages described above in Xorg.log, especially if the fix above worked for you before, then there's a bug somewhere in KDE. If you get polling true, you can try to reconfigure KDE to make it stop polling. (You can just edit the file and change true to false.)

Related: Automatically switch to connected External Display on Boot with XRandR shows you how to automatically set up your displays without just a single screen, so that you can disable xrandr.

More about → Fixing XRANDR Caused High Latency with KDE4 - Display Flickering - Freezing Videos

Hotkeys in KDE4.1 are broken

If you wondered why it doesn't work for you... it doesn't work for anyone. ;-)
They hope to have it fixed in KDE 4.2, says someone in a forum.

If you need a fix, try out installing xbindkeys-config and save the settings to the default config file and press apply for immediate changes. Works nicely for me.

More about → Hotkeys in KDE4.1 are broken

Fixing Wake On LAN in Ubuntu 8.10

I've already spent a few hours to finally get this working again. There are several problems in Ubuntu 8.10 considering Wake on LAN:

1. The network cards' drivers are unloaded during suspend.

This often deactivates your card's wake on lan feature and completely powers it off.
You have to add your network cards driver module to the MODULES_WHITELIST in /etc/default/acpi-support. Also add the network card's interface(e.g. eth0) to SKIP_INTERFACES.

2. The network is not (properly) restarted after resume.

a. NetworkManager overrides settings in /etc/network/interfaces.

The easy way is to simply remove networkmanager: sudo aptitude remove network-manager.

b. The network setup script is not restarted after resume.

You can add the script (networking) to STOP_SERVICES in /etc/default/acpi-support.

3. Wake on Lan is not enabled by default

You need to issue e.g. sudo ethtool -s eth0 wol g. You can do that in an init script and you will likely have to do it again after resume. (I've put it a script to do that into both /etc/acpi/suspend.d/54-wol.sh and /etc/acpi/resume.d/99-wol.sh )

More about → Fixing Wake On LAN in Ubuntu 8.10

List of Ubuntu Intrepid Bugs

There's a nice list of issues in Intrepid after upgrading. And there's more from other users in the comments. So read this post before considering the upgrade to Ubuntu 8.10 unless you've got some time on your hands.

More about → List of Ubuntu Intrepid Bugs