Making Songbird work with Ubuntu 8.10 and Nvidia 180 Drivers

So, my friend Chris mentioned that I should check out Songbird for an iTunes alternative.  So, I download it, and a whole bunch of stuff spits out on my screen, and the app doesn’t run.  I see something that looks like:

*** glibc detected *** ././songbird-bin: free(): invalid pointer:
0x00007f203935a8d0 ***

Hrm. after searching around, I find out that the libvisual plugin package is to blame. So, I remove it:

$ sudo apt-get remove libvisual-0.4-plugins

And it works! Just thought I’d pass this along in case someone else runs into this issue.  This is reported as bug 15306 in the Songbird Bugzilla – would be nice if they fix that at some point.

Fixing Xorg with Nvidia Driver ver 180.44

So, in order to fix an issue I was having with the Nvidia driver (weird drawing issue of the titlebars), I decided to upgrade to the latest version of the Nvidia driver.  This turned out to be quite an ordeal, because after upgrading, X didn’t want to start, giving me issues like “Failed to initalize GLX extension” and “Ubuntu is running in low graphics mode”.  After fighting with this for a few hours, I finally found the info I needed.  Here’s what I did to solve the issue:

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Ubuntu Apps

So, I’m getting comfortable with my new Ubuntu installation, and have a lot of apps to find equivelants for that I used in Windows, as well as just configuring things.  Eventually I’ll compile a big list, but here’s what I have so far:

• Pidgin – for IM/chat (supports Gtalk too!)
• Avant Window Navigator – this is a macosx-like dock – still configuring it, but it looks very nice
• Gimp – had to change the background, so fired up the gimp to join two images for the background – it has come a long way!  There’s still some things to get used to, but for the amount of actual image editing I do, I think it will be fine.
• KeePassX – I switched to KeePass for windows, trying out the linux version
• Picasa – was happy to know that my favorite image organizer is available on linux!
• Banshee – supposedly a good iTunes replacement – will see

Setting up Dual Monitors with Nvidia on Ubuntu 8.10

Upon installing Ubuntu, I noticed that my second monitor wasn’t being used.

On the top panel, I noticed that there was an icon that popped up that said that there were no proprietary drivers installed, and that I should install the nvidia driver for best results.  I installed it, and had to reboot the system, which I did.

I figured that that would have solved the issue, and I would have at least been able to change the setting System->Preferences->Screen Resolution.  No go.  I looked online, and found a guide.  This helped me get the rest of the way.  Here’s what to do, in a nutshell:

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Marvin Is Born

I’m currently installing Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop on my main machine, now known as “Marvin” (here’s a hint if you don’t get the reference)  I’ve been running linux boxes as servers for quite a while now, but haven’t run it on the desktop since Linux was new.  I’m going to commit to running it at least 1 month.  I will document what I do, as far as replacing Windows apps with native Linux ones, getting Windows apps to work via crossover, etc.  Who knows?  I might just stick with it, if I can make it do what I need to do.

New Site, New Philosophy

So, I’ve been considering registering a new domain for more of the techinical blogging that I do, so, since edsalisbury.com is taken, I got .net and .org, and this blog was formed.  I also coincidently just had my hard drive crash on my main desktop.   I had lots of data on it, and was able to recover most of it.  Details on how I did that forthcoming.  I’ve also been thinking about installing Linux on my main machine.  This would be a huge change, as I have run Windows for many years now.  I’ll of course be blogging about that.  It’s definitely good blog-fodder.  In any case, things will probably be changing a little bit around here, as things are still new and shiny.  Welcome to the new site!