Network Management Disabled

I am surprised I have not mentioned this before. This is a recurrent bug that's been cropping up in KDE 4 since version 4.3 as far as I can tell. (It may have started later, so don't quote me on the exact date, and it might have nothing to do with KDE itself, and might be an Ubuntu thing.)

The symptoms are the computer boots, the desktop environment loads (Gnome, KDE, etc.) and there is no Internet, when there should be. You click on the Network Manager and it tells you "Network Management Disabled." Bug report here. This bug has come and gone for me for a while now.

The problem is an incorrectly configured configuration file. (Basically, this is a bug that should never have happened but it did. Thankfully it's easy to fix.)

Open this file /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.state with Admin privileges, and make the following changes. (If you need help on editing a system text file / configuration file, see this Article for a simple New Users guide.)

NetworkingEnabled=false

to

NetworkingEnabled=true

Save the file and close it. There may be a system service you can restart, but I cannot recall it at this time. Just reboot and your network should return to normally.

Source: I copied this article verbatim from http://www.unixmen.com/linux-distributions/4-ubuntu/1069-ppasearch-a-tool-that-search-and-add-ppa-repository-in-ubuntu-via-command-line

I am only keeping it as a personal backup here in case it moves. All credit goes to them for presenting this great tool.

PPASEARCH is a nice tool that search launchpad PPAs via command line and add them to Ubuntu repositories, it is available for Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx and Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat.

The use of PPAsearch is easy, just open terminal and type ppasearch .

Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx and Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat

Open terminal and enter the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:wrinkliez/ppasearch

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get  install ppasearch

Using PPASEARCH:

For example i want to search for deluge ppa, open terminal and type:

ppasearch deluge

You will got a list of PPAs that contain the package deluge, choose one by typing the number and confirm.

The EULA is sometimes only a one way deal

I just read this post over here: http://jeffhoogland.blogspot.com/2010/08/it-is-windows-world.html

And I knew it was something I just had to pass along here. The story summary is this: The article is about the person who wants to get a refund for the bundled Windows 7 copy that arrived on his computer. He read the manufacturer EULA (End User License Agreement) and it clearly states they will handle refunds for things like the software. So he calls them up and navigates through the phone-center-maze for multiple hours. He even goes as far as contacting the specific store he bought the item from. All say they do not do refunds for the software. He eventually calls the higher supervisors at ASUS back, and they flat out tell him they do not handle this, despite it being clearly written in their EULA that they do.

I like the poster's comment at the end. If we, the user, should break the EULA we can get our asses sued, but if the company decides to mess around with you, we the user are ... sore out of luck?

This is yet another reason why I, for entirely personal experiences and reasons, never buy ASUS products. I keep hearing great experiences from friends involving ASUS, but all of my numerous experiences with them have been various degrees of disaster and frustration. To be clear, I am not saying ASUS is the only company to do this. I know for a fact hundreds, if not thousands, would do the same in an instant. I'm just saying... well, it's ASUS. I don't buy from them.

This is another reason why Linux users should never ever have to buy a copy of Windows. 99% of us already have been forced to pay for some bundled copy of the software we neither want, nor can use, and certainly cannot refuse. I personally have been forced to pay for at least three bundled copies of Windows, and I sure has hell will never use them. It is for this reason I feel pride and triumphant when I use Windows products without paying for them. (Yeah, I do. Just try and sue me). At this point, I have more than paid for every copy of Windows I use.

KDE 4.5 Review: Bugs return!

So I've been using KDE 4.5 since the evening it came out. I don't know what it is about every time the KDE claims "this is a stabilizing release" but it seems to be the opposite of my experience. This is easily the buggiest point release of KDE since their last "stabilizing release" of KDE 4.3.

Now admittedly, the list of bugs is small... but they are hitting my hard and frequently. Very frequently. Usually about 12 to 20 times a day. I am hoping (and I'm pretty certain) these bugs are just for my installation.

Konqueror: I use Konqueror as my file manager, and since the upgrade about twice an hour it has a total lockup/total freeze for a duration of anywhere from 10 to 60 seconds. It's pretty horrendous sometimes. It also won't let me close tabs on occasion. There have been some more minor but less frequent bugs but I lost track.

User management: I cannot add a new user to my system, at least not through the GUIs nicely provided by KDE. I wanted to add a new one so I could check his default Konqueror configuration settings against my own. BUT creating a user is proving problematic, since after I create one and set it's password, I switch sessions to log in with it. However, at the login screen it asks me to change the password (root required) it says. HOWEVER YOU CANNOT TYPE ANYTHING INTO THE BOX. At first I thought it was an error with my wireless USB keyboard, so grumbling I plugged in a wired keyboard, but it actually made it worse (the mouse cursor stopped working when I did that). So I cannot log in with the new user I created. That's.... pretty hilariously bad.

Plasma: Presenting all Windows is slow. I don't know why because everything else seems better. This is a pretty minor bug because it does not really impair functionality, mostly. Sometimes it is so slow the cursor doesn't reach the correct window in time when enter is pressed or the window is clicked

Klipper: It stays open after you select some previous entry. It stays this way unless you click it closed. Perhaps this is a feature?

Kubuntu KDE 4.5 Upgrade Problem and solution

So I just did an dist-upgrade of my Kubuntu 10.04 system running KDE 4.4 to KDE 4.5. Upon a reboot, there was a problem. I had no desktop. Just a blank black screen.

So I began to dig around to see what the problem was.

SOLUTION
The solution was to install the package 'kubuntu-desktop' which triggered a group other packages to be installed (such as kdebase-workspace-bin, for example). This group turned out to have everything I was missing. I have NO idea why these packages were not install during the upgrade, but this has been a weird one. (During the past few days, when checking if I had any updates, I was presented with what looked like have available dist-upgrades to KDE 4.5, which would have resulted in some strange installations AND removals had I applied it. I can only assume this was because the packages in the repositories were being updated over a few days and thus the lists had some old and new mixes that didn't jive quite perfectly until all were updated.)

Also, during the install I failed to update the /etc/kde4/kdm/kdmrc file to the newest version (my fingers slipped on the keyboard, if you can believe it). I don't think this was the cause of my problems, but I did manually upgrade that just to make sure.

Noteably ktorrent is not available in the Kubuntu PPAs because of a version dependency. Strange. Hope they fix that soon.

Synergy configuration example

For a year or more, I have been using the program called Synergy to control multiple computers from a single machine with a single keyboard and mouse. Synergy is available for most Linux distributions, but it is also interesting to note the original program has not been upgraded since 2006.

Synergy+ is a maintenance fork for implementing bug fixes to the original Synergy by Chris Schoeneman, which hasn't any source updates or new releases since 2006 (as of writing this). If you experience any odd problems with your Synergy that are not configuration bugs, try using Synergy+ instead.

My configuration of Synergy is slightly more complex than your average one. The main differences are that the top and bottom 5% of each screen are not shared, so you can safely use the buttons and window-controls in each corner without problems of jumping to adjoining screens. Also, I have a Logitech Revolution MX mouse, which has about 9 buttons. I have added mouse button configuration to make sure I can use Thumb buttons for Forward-History and Back-History. (Without this configuration, my machines were disconnecting from each other.)

In this example, I have two screens. Misty is on the Left, and Jenny is one the Right.

section: screens
Jenny:
Misty:
end
section: links
Jenny:
left(10,90) = Misty
Misty:
right(10,90) = Jenny
end
section: options
mousebutton(6) = keystroke(WWWBack)
mousebutton(7) = keystroke(WWWForward)
mousebutton(4) = ;
mousebutton(5) = ;
end

I hope this example configuration file is helpful to any viewers.

(And by the way viewers, connections with Synergy are not encrypted, meaning not secure. It is open to monitoring, so if you type something critical or secret, it can possibly be viewed. To secure Synergy, you should tunnel it through a secure connection, like SSH for example.)

Ubuntu Logitech diNovo Edge Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard

I use the Logitech diNovo Edge in Ubuntu/Kubuntu and I love it. When I installed Kubuntu 10.04 Lucid, this wireless keyboard failed to work. The bluetooth device manager kept prompting me to connect and pair the device with a PIN but nothing I did ever worked.

UPDATE/EDIT: This problem has been reported in version dating from 10.04 to 11.04. This solution works for those, but there is a slightly different solution for 11.10.

Here is the solution / fix for getting the keyword to work. The source for this information is here.

Edit the file: /lib/udev/rules.d/70-hid2hci.rules

(If you need help editing a file, see bottom section.)

Change this line:

# Logitech devices
KERNEL=="hiddev*", ATTRS{idVendor}=="046d", ATTRS{idProduct}=="c70[345abce]|c71[34bc]", \
RUN+="hid2hci --method=logitech-hid --devpath=%p"

to

KERNEL=="hidraw*", ATTRS{idVendor}=="046d", ATTRS{idProduct}=="c70[345abce]|c71[34bc]", \
RUN+="hid2hci --method=logitech-hid --devpath=%p"

I have made the changed sections BOLD. I also turned bluetooth off from the icon in the system tray.

After making this change, I turned on my wireless keyboard, unplugged it's bluetooth dongle, plugged it back in, paired the keyword with the dongle, and a few seconds later it worked. I did not even have to reboot.

HOW TO EDIT THE FILE (for those who need help with this stage)

New users to Linux may have trouble editing text files at first. I'll try to be simple, and this guide is for people using Gnome or KDE.

The simplest way is using a user friendly program. In Gnome (which is normal Ubuntu), the default text editor is gedit. In KDE (in Kubuntu) it is Kate. Also, this is a protected system file, so you need to use special Administrator privileges before you can edit it. Don't worry. This is simply.

KDE

In KDE, you need to find the "Run Command" option the Application menu. (The App menu is usually in the lower left-hand corner, with a colorful K-button.) In KDE4's new menu style, the "Run Command" is (currently) under the 'Computer' section, near the top of the small list. Find the option and click it.

In the input box that displays, copy/paste the this command into it and press enter:

kdesu kate /lib/udev/rules.d/70-hid2hci.rules

The 'kdesu' program tells the system you want to run the text editor (kate) with Admin access. You will be prompted for your individual user password, which you enter. Then kate should open with a file ready for you. (This is the /lib/udev/rules.d/70-hid2hci.rules file which we told kate to open for us.) If this file does not open, you can open it manually by going to menu File -> Open... and then navigating to the '/' root directory, down to 'lib' and so on until you find the file ' 70-hid2hci.rules'.

Edit the file as directed earlier in this article. Save the file, close the file (menu File -> Close), and then finally exit Kate.

GNOME

In Gnome, first open the Terminal through the Application menu. (The App menu is usually in the upper left-hand corner, labeled as Applications.) On my system, it is under Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal.

In the input command window that displays, copy/paste the this command into it and press enter:

gksu gedit /lib/udev/rules.d/70-hid2hci.rules

The 'gksu' tells the system you want to run the text editor (gedit) with Admin access. You will be prompted for your individual user password, which you enter. Then gedit should open with a file ready for you. (This is the /lib/udev/rules.d/70-hid2hci.rules file which we told gedit to open for us.) If this file does not open, you can open it manually by going to menu File -> Open... and then navigating to the '/' root directory, down to 'lib' and so on until you find the file ' 70-hid2hci.rules'.

Edit the file as directed earlier in this article. Save the file, close the file (menu File -> Close), and then finally exit gedit. You can close the Terminal also.

Hope that helps.