next »

[JoeMac]

I've been looking a bit into the 1-2 Mbps issue with Wi-Fi connections.  I think this might be a limitation of the 802.11s mesh networking used when the XO is in it's primary role as an educational tool.  I'm not finding much on wiki.lapto.org.  I'm checking the developer site next.  Anyone else look into this?  If so, what did you find out?

[Telchar]

One question: what do I need to do to get flash videos playing at a decent speed? I believe there's a different video driver needed? Can someone point me toward how to do this on this install? Thanks.

[teapot]

One question: what do I need to do to get flash videos playing at a decent speed? I believe there's a different video driver needed? Can someone point me toward how to do this on this install? Thanks.

Unless you are running Gutsy, video driver is already accelerated. Flash plugin that you can install for Firefox is fast enough to run most flash animations/applications, however it's too slow for videos. To make Youtube work without turning a movie into a slideshow you need latest version of clive -- I am working on making a package.

[teapot]

To get usable Youtube and Google Video support:

1. Install packges:

sudo aptitude install mplayer xclip python python-central python-feedparser python-newt python-urlgrabber

(most of those packages are probably installed already)

2. download:

http://mars.illtel.denver.co.us/~abelits/software/olpc/clive_0.4.11-1ubuntu1_all.deb

http://mars.illtel.denver.co.us/~abelits/software/olpc/tubewtcher-0.1.tar.gz

http://mars.illtel.denver.co.us/~abelits/software/olpc/mplayer-clive-configs.tar.gz

2. Install updated clive package:

sudo dpkg -i clive_0.4.11-1ubuntu1_all.deb

3. Install tubewatcher script:

sudo tar xvzf tubewtcher-0.1.tar.gz -C /

4. Install configuration files for clve and mplayer (in user's home directory):

tar xvzf mplayer-clive-configs.tar.gz

5.  Optionally add a launcher icon to xfce panel for tubewatcher (same entries as in executable tubewatcher, icon /usr/share/pixmaps/tube.png )

6. Optionally (but recommended to save cpu cycles for mplayer) Install flashblock extension in firefox.

7. When on Youtube or Google Video page, or when given a link to those sites, select URL (or  Right click and choose "Copy Link Location"), then run tubewatcher from menu or panel launcher. Video is downloaded to desktop and passed to mplayer, that with those configuration options should play it without skipping.

If mplayer refuses to play some videos, install appropriate codecs.

[JoeMac]

YouTube and Google Video Support - I did this a bit differently.
1.  Go to http://keepvid.com/ and drag "Keep it!" button onto Firefox toolbar.
2.  Install VLC:  aptitude install vlc
3.  Navigate Firefox to YouTube or other site running flash video and select a video to watch.
4.  Before video loads completely into Firefox, click the "Keep it!" button.  You will be redirected to the KeepVid site and will be given the option to download a .flv or .mpeg of the video.  Instead of downloading, right-click the .flv hyperlink and copy the link location.
5.  Start VLC.  Once it's open, type crtl-n to open a new location for streaming video.  Paste the URL from step 4 into the appropriate field.

I tried steps 4 and 5 with both VLC and mplayer.  mplayer seemed very buggy playing streaming flash and would always hang when I tried this.  This seems to work nearly every time with VLC with very smooth video and audio playback.  One problem that I have seen is with flash-media from the Comedy Central web-site.  KeepVid does not seem to be able to find the flash media from there.

[Eddie Owens]

I just tried to get Skype from the Ubuntu repository using Synaptic, but the "Search" function could not find it.  Googling "Skype Ubuntu" I got information that suggested that Skype will not be found in Ubuntu repositories because of licensing issues.

The Ubuntu site I was reading suggested other open source alternatives, or getting Skype from the Skype repository.  Are not people getting Skype from the OLPC repository (yum install Skype) to run under Sugar?

How do most people do VOIP under Xubuntu?

[teapot]

In my tests mplayer was superior to vlc, but only when installed with the right set of codecs. VLC, being an older project, has its own set of codecs while mplayer uses large number of external codecs and interfaces. I use libavcodec1d/libavformat1d packages for this.

To test "youtube-readiness" of some configuration I use <a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/_b7J5k3BNtc" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/_b7J5k3BNtc</a> -- it's a movie of a Zeppelin flying over Tokyo, outside shots of takeoff and landing have typical amount of details and movement for most of the files, however view of the city from the cabin seems to be heaviest on resources and provokes most of cpu-time-spending filter postprocessing if it is left enabled. It's completely unusable in the default configuration of any player on XO, however dumbing down decoding for mplayer is sufficient to keep it from stalling (some frames are still dropped).

You can go further, and do re-encoding of the movies before playing them, and get better quality (you can enable cleanup filters and use less resource-consuming codecs for playback), however that takes large amount of time and space.

[teapot]

I just tried to get Skype from the Ubuntu repository using Synaptic, but the "Search" function could not find it.  Googling "Skype Ubuntu" I got information that suggested that Skype will not be found in Ubuntu repositories because of licensing issues.

The Ubuntu site I was reading suggested other open source alternatives, or getting Skype from the Skype repository.  Are not people getting Skype from the OLPC repository (yum install Skype) to run under Sugar?

Skype can be installed from medibuntu repository, or directly from skype binaries.

How do most people do VOIP under Xubuntu?

When I think VoIP, I usually associate it with things like SIP and IAX2. I think, Ekiga can be coerced into using XO camera in the same way it was done for Skype, however voice should work without any tweaking.

[JoeMac]

Does anyone know of a package that provides a GUI for managing users and groups?  I was thinking there must be something since I've seen references to a "system - users and groups" application in descriptions of Xubuntu-Hardy.  In Fedora/xfce there's a package called "system-config-users" but I didn't see anything like that in Synaptic.

[amilcarodonte]

Thanks to teapot for packaging xubuntu and providing such clear instructions. It works great in my laptop and I'm even surprised it's responsive.

I was wondering if anybody can weight in to answer these questions about how to use xfce more efficiently in the xo configuration, especially to allow power management on xfce:

1) What are the advantages of using Xubuntu over running XFCE on Fedora?

2) If Xubuntu is better, how can I install it on the main memory disk?

3) Would any of these methods provide power management (suspend)?

Thanks a lot for all the useful tips to install xubuntu!

[teapot]

1) What are the advantages of using Xubuntu over running XFCE on Fedora?

Better package management system, more and better maintained packages (Ubuntu-specific packages plus everything ported from Debian), frequent but safe updates, distribution with more configuration done specifically for desktops/laptops, and overall more effort being put in development and maintenance of distribution by both Canonical and various outside participants. Compared to this, Red Hat's handling of Fedora and its status of "perpetual beta" leave me much less impressed.

2) If Xubuntu is better, how can I install it on the main memory disk?

I actually never tried that, seeing that even in slimmed down configuration it's very large. SD card provides more space and has about the same reading speed as main flash, so this is what I used (along with USB drives). I guess, I can try to make a smaller version of it, suitable for installing on built-in flash.

3) Would any of these methods provide power management (suspend)?

I have never tried to install it on main flash, so I keep suspend disabled. I hope, either me (I am a kernel developer, I just can't work on everything at once) or someone else will fix SD driver, so suspend will work properly. Then I expect to have  the same power management features as recent builds -- kernel is the same, and ohm power manager should work on any distribution.

[teapot]

Does anyone know of a package that provides a GUI for managing users and groups?  I was thinking there must be something since I've seen references to a "system - users and groups" application in descriptions of Xubuntu-Hardy.  In Fedora/xfce there's a package called "system-config-users" but I didn't see anything like that in Synaptic.

There probably is something, but I never used GUI for that, I always did that from command line (adduser/addgroup/deluser/delgroup/passwd/vipw/...)

[JoeMac]

teapot - I just stumbed on the full-screen-view key that you mapped (top row, 2nd from left).  That was a nice touch - works great reading e-book pdfs in a 90-degree rotated screen.  That feature alone had me loading up a bunch of e-books to read on vacation this summer.  Thanks   Have you tried mapping the far left "border" key to anything?  I was thinking "switch workspace" to get something like the Mac OS X F11 "show desktop" function.

[Keith]

Eddie,
Perfect!!  THANKS

I don't know if I did it "right" or not, but when Synaptic would not let me in "...unable to copy user's Xauthorization file" and "Failed to run /usr/sbin/synaptic as user root", I opened a terminal and typed "sudo synaptic" <enter>, was given a password: prompt, to which I responded "olpcolpc" <enter>, and lo-and-behold, Synaptic opened.

[Eddie Owens]

Keith: 

 It is an improvement that that you can run synaptic from the terminal.  The problem I was having was that while Synaptic Package Manager appeared in the System Menu, clicking on it did nothing, so I was obviously missing something somewhere.

Teapot spotted the problem and suggested running "gdm" which is GNOME Display Manager. If your problem is the same that I was having, I suggest starting Synaptic from the terminal ("sudo synaptic"),  Use the search function in Synaptic to locate "gdm", mark it as an upgrade, then click on "Apply" to install it.

You might want to give this a try.  It also adds a new screen for user sign in and password, if I remember correctly.