ubuntu

    BSNL EVDO (EV-DO) and Ubuntu Gutsy

    BSNL EVDO

    BSNL launched EV-DO card last year here in India. It connects to the Internet providing close to broadband speeds. Their infrastructure has been improving gradually here and the news is that it would support speeds upto 2mbps by the end of this month.

    ffmpeg on Ubuntu

    [:http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffmpeg/|ffmpeg] is a very useful tool for conversion between various video encodings.
    If you build it with all the supported libraries, you can convert almost all kinds of video files to the desired encoding.

    Recently a video that we recorded was handed over to me in VCD format (!). Feisty doesn't seem to like VCDs much:

    Opening audio decoder: [libdv] Raw DV Audio Decoder
    Unknown/missing audio format -> no sound
    ADecoder init failed
    Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
    Cannot find codec 'dvaudio' in libavcodec...
    ADecoder init failed
    ADecoder init failed

    The option left was to rip the VCD:

    vcdxrip --cdrom-device=/dev/hdb --rip

    Openoffice woes

    Nothing new in Openoffice crashing on your Linux installation. It does, most of the times :P

    But for the users who rely on SCIM (Stanadard Chinese Input Method) for Input in their regional language, Openoffice is completely unusable as of now on Ubuntu. It never takes off from the splash screen that appears. Turns out that Openoffice.org doesn't like the GTK_IM_MODULE set to scim.

    There is a work around, though. But not so convenient one. Setting
    GTK_IM_MODULE=xim
    on terminal before launching the application,

    OR

    adding as below on /usr/bin/ooffice:

    #!/bin/sh
    GTK_IM_MODULE=xim
    export OOO_EXTRA_ARG=''
    /usr/lib/openoffice/program/ooqstart "$@"

    worked for me, and I've also been able to use SCIM keymaps.

    Re-write with Apache2 - one trivial stuff that Apache 1.x users might usually tend to overlook

    I've had to remind myself this every time I upgrade the distributions on my Workstations and notebook.

    Upgrade to Feisty Fawn

    Upgraded Ubuntu on my laptop to the latest - 7.04, Feisty Fawn. The upgrade was smooth and easy.

    For me, upgrading to a newer version is to just have the latest of applications, especially GNOME and Evolution. Looks like there is a bunch of [:http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/704tour|very nice features] on 7.04.

    If your Firefox rendering of Indic characters (especially Kannada characters) go bonkers yet again, add your default locale back again on /usr/bin/firefox.