Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) beta on T61

Canonical released the Ubuntu 8.10 beta candidate last week. As an avid Ubuntu user, I decided to give it a try on my T61 laptop. I’m generally hesitant to upgrade to betas with Ubuntu–I’ve really never managed to have a flawless upgrade process. I was determined, however, that today would be different! So I fired up the Update Manager so I could update from 8.04 and prayed.

The first thing that I realized with this upgrade was that it was going to take a long time. I had to download and upgrade 1800+ packages. I started the process at about 9 in the morning. By 12:30, all of my packages had downloaded and installed. I was ready to reboot and give it a try!

Fixing a Kubuntu Login Screen and Gnome not being default

One major problem I always seem to run into was that, at some point in my past, I installed KDE4 to try it out and, in doing so, it took over my system. Now anytime I get a system update I have to reinstall the official Ubuntu bootup screen and tell GDM to boot into Gnome, not KDE, for my system. This is how to fix the bootup screen.

System -> Administration -> StartUp-Manager -> "Appearance" Tab

Change "Usplash Theme" to 'usplash-theme-ubuntu'

To fix the Gnome problem, simply select Gnome from the “Options -> Session” menu on your login page.

Make the Trackpoint work again!

Another problem I was having is that my Trackpoint would not right click or scroll with the middle button. Seeing as that ‘clit mouse‘ that is the only thing I use, it was absolutely killing me. After a small amount of googling, however, I found this post which gave me the solution:

Edit: /etc/hal/fdi/policy/mouse-wheel.fdi and add

<match key="info.product" string="TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint">
 <merge key="input.x11_options.EmulateWheel" type="string">true</merge>
 <merge key="input.x11_options.EmulateWheelButton" type="string">2</merge>
 <merge key="input.x11_options.XAxisMapping" type="string">6 7</merge>
 <merge key="input.x11_options.YAxisMapping" type="string">4 5</merge>
 <merge key="input.x11_options.ZAxsisMapping" type="string">4 5</merge>
 <merge key="input.x11_options.Emulate3Buttons" type="string">true</merge>
</match>

This should let you use your Trackpoint. That’s a great thing.

Make Compiz the default Window Manager!

For whatever reason, I’ve never had compiz as the default window manager. I wanted this so I found this solution. Edit the file “~/.gnomerc” and add:

export WINDOW_MANAGER=/usr/bin/compiz

From there you can reboot and compiz should be the default Window Manager!

Fix keyboard problems

For whatever reason, upgrading borked my keyboard. Volume controls no longer worked, arrow keys turned into the PrintScreen button, etc. This is, obviously, a pain. The program “thinkpad-keys” works for me to fix these keys. To add it to run every time, do the following:

System -> Preferences -> Sessions -> Add

Name: "Thinkpad Keys"

Command: "thinkpad-keys"

Add it and close.

Now your keys are fixed!

Those are all of the fixes I have right now, but I’ll post if I find them.

Tags: 8.10, beta, Intrepid Ibex, Thinkpad, Ubuntu

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Linux, Tip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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