Ubuntu on a Dell Latitude e6320

About a year and a half ago I received a Dell Latitude e6320. Initially it had Windows 7 but I eventually put Ubuntu Linux on it. I've been running Ubuntu on it for over a year now and thought I would share my experience for anyone else looking to pickup this laptop for running Ubuntu as it is appearing on Woot and many other places as refurbished for

around $200.

My system was configured with the Core i5-2520M, 3 cell battery, broadcom wireless, 250GB hard drive and 8 GB of memory. The machine has always performed well and the 8 GB of memory is likely overkill for my day to day needs. Now I have a 6 cell battery and Atheros wireless card, more on that later, and a Samsung 850 SSD.

After first installing Ubuntu on it, which was 13.10 at the time, everything worked out of the box. The graphics is the Intel Sandy Bridge graphics with the i5 and has great Linux support. The touchpad works as expected and defaults to two finger scrolling, the touchpad disable switch worked as did the standby. The sound also worked fine without a hitch, but the audio jack port is the combine microphone/headphone, so you need an adapter for most headsets out there that aren't USB. The wireless card was from Broadcom and it worked out of the box during the install. Speedtests showed the card to perform perfectly fine as expected, but there was a problem as I came to learn later.

I was pleased with how well everything worked because my previous HP DV2 had numerous issues, some of which never got resolved. But after a few weeks, I began to notice an issue. The system sometimes failed to come out of standby. If it was a short period, it would work but not after 6 hours. The machine also would lock up while I used it periodically. I hoped after the upgrade to 14.04 the issue would go away, but it didn't. I thought it might be a overheating issue, but I ruled that out as times when it froze, it wasn't hot and the CPU temps were within normal operating range.

I eventually decided to check if it was the wireless. The laptop has a switch to disable all wireless devices and I found that when that was turned off, the laptop never froze and always came out of standby. I still had the Atheros chipset I bought for my HP DV2 to replace the Broadcom chip in it that performed sporadically so I grabbed it, put it into the Dell praying that the Dell didn't restrict the hardware. The Dell accepted the Atheros card and booted into Ubuntu without a hitch and connected to the wireless. I've not had the system freeze since.

The Dell e6320 has an older chipset compared to what is available now, but it still performs like a champ and works great with Linux. I've found everything works out of the box but if you have a Broadcom ship, be prepared to find an alternative. ThinkPenguin.com has chips that are 100% Linux compatible and its where I bought mine for the HP DV2 that I'm now using in the Dell e6320.

For $200 this laptop is great and once you add some memory if needed and change over to a SSD, the laptop is a great daily Linux driver that will suit the needs of most users. I use this machine now to develop Java applications and browse the web. It isn't flashy but it gets the job done and is a solid built machine.

Ubuntu 13.04 - Worth the Upgrade?

Right on schedule the next release of Ubuntu is here. Looking over the listed changes, there doesn't appear to be too much to get overly excited about, so is it worth the upgrade. In short, yes. The new version adds some very handy features that make is much more enjoyable for everyday use.

So, first lets cover the major visual changes you'll notice. The first is the shutdown process which now brings up a nice looking window that fits more to the Unity style of things. They have also updated several of the system application icons which help improve the appearance. There are also some new wallpapers to choose from.

They have also added some new usability features. Most notably, more options for viewing multiple application windows. The previous way remains the same, but now you can right click on a icon and view the open windows names in that list. You can also scroll on the icon and it will cycle through the open windows. This is proving to be a nice addition to offer more convenience for navigating through open windows.

They have also beefed up the notification area. There is now a indicator for Ubuntu One which is very handy for accessing your Ubuntu One files and settings. They have also modified the Bluetooth menu. On top of that, they brought back the Messages indicator which went missing in Ubuntu 12.10. I am very happy to have it back for use with Pidgin. They have also added better integration in Unity with the social media networks to tie in with Unity. Many people will find updating status from Unity to be a new fun way to find out what there friends are up too.

The biggest change, in my opinion is the improvement to performance in Unity. The interface feels much more smooth and responsive on my laptop and desktop. This is most likely due to the Unity interface being adapted for use in phones and tablets as well. 

Ubuntu has come a long ways with Unity is now shaping to be a very usable and responsive interface. Now that is Steam is available on Linux with a slew of games and many more coming every day, Ubuntu has really become my daily driver and I rarely go into Windows. Even Netflix is available on Linux now with the help of Wine.

I am very pleased with Ubuntu 13.04 and would say it is worth the upgrade for the more responsive interface alone. This surely is shaping out to be the Year of Linux.

Why 2013 is the year of Linux

When compared to Windows, the number of Linux desktop users is very small. This has always been the case and is due to the lack of main application support that users are looking for. This would include programs like Adobe Photoshop or tier one games like Crysis.

Mac has been able to get a few of the major programs over to it which is why it has been able to remain popular for a small set of users. Linux has a great set of open source applications but not enough to convince users to make the move.

Linux has become more and more user friendly over the last several years and has many eye pleasing features. Ubuntu has made it very easy for a normal user to find applications that can do what they are looking for and install them with the click of a button. This is not enough as Linux needs the applications people want and are used too.

Valve is in the process of releasing there Steam platform to Linux. With this they will be porting over all their Source based games starting with Left 4 Dead 2. Steam will no doubt be very popular on Linux and get a slew of indie games that will be available on Linux but it will depend on how well Valve can convince other tier 1 development companies to move over to Linux as well.

All the major tier 1 games I have played that were available on Linux were very cumbersome to install. They required downloading the binaries from the Internet, and coping certain files from the CD in order to install the game. Steam will make the install and update process clean, making it easy on users and developers. There are many gamer's out there who run Windows only because they have too. If the option of Linux was a valid option, they would make the jump.

With Windows 8 out in the wild now, it is clear Microsoft has plans to have there own distribution store that they could force all development companies to start using it. This could drive the companies to Mac and Linux.

Next year has the high potential of bringing the popular games and applications to Linux which will make it a viable option to Windows or Mac. With the shift in the last few years to more Cloud based applications and services, the applications tying people down to Windows is growing smaller and smaller.

I look forward to 2013 with great anticipation. Please let me know your thoughts. Leave me your comments below.

Ubuntu 11.10 - Yay or Nay

I have been running Ubuntu since 5.10 upgrading to the latest each time it is released with 11.10 being no exception. I’ve been a huge fan of Gnome for quite some time. What I like best was its menu setup which was simple and intuitive. KDE always felt too much like Windows and it seemed very bloated. I have not tried it again in several years. I’ve read it is much improved and I’m sure is a solid product.

Ubuntu 11.10 bring many new features and changes, the first big one you see when booting the new system is the login screen. LightDM is now used and it brings to the table a faster loading speed as well as a very clean look.

The second noticeable being Unity. With 11.04 I never tried Unity and immediately changed back to the classic gnome interface. With Gnome 3.0 now in 11.10, I tried this and the old interface is very rugged, doesn’t work right and is nothing like it was with Gnome 2. I was very unhappy with this as I did not want to learn a whole new interface.

Since my preferred interface is now gone with Gnome 3, my only options are Gnome Shell or Unity. I tried Gnome Shell and it gave me nothing but issues on my desktop. It had display issues and I didn’t look into it any further.

I switched back to Unity to give it a try and see if I could learn to use it. I still liked the old Gnome interface for my desktop but I am liking several things about Unity on my laptop. The first is that you have more screen space. This is very nice for my laptop to get extra viewing space. But on my desktop with its high resolution monitor, it is more of a hindrance because it is now harder to switch between running applications. Unity has been stable for me so far. It had its quirks in 11.04 which is another reason I kept my distance but it is clear a lot of work has gone into making it more stable.

As for the rest of Ubuntu, the new software center is very nice. There are a lot of games and applications available now to purchase as well as a nice interface to find applications you may want to try. It provides a nice description of the applications with nice selection of screenshots of the applications to get a feel for what it is.

Other small changes include Thunderbird replacing Evolution, Linux Kernel 3.0, LibreOffice 3.4 and Firefox 7. Ubuntu is also using Deja Dup for doing backups. The new Ubuntu Software Center has replaced Synaptic but you can install it still if you prefer.

I am pleased with the latest updates and am pleased to see Ubuntu making strides to stand out from the other Linux distributions. I will miss the Gnome 2 interface but Unity is working very nicely on my laptop and the future is looking bright.

Next on my agenda is to give Desura, a digital distribution for gamers that supports Linux, a try to see if this could be the next big for Linux.

How to setup Mumble Server on Ubuntu

This guide was created to assist in the setting up of Murmur on Ubuntu 7.10. Murmur is the server for the program Mumble. Mumble is an open source, low-latency, high quality voice chat software primarily intended for use while gaming.

This guide has no warranty and is not guaranteed to work in all situations, it just gives the basic on how to get Murmur up and running.

Get and Install Murmur (A.K.A. Mumble Server):

---

So, first off, you must get Murmur installed. Currently in Ubuntu 7.10, Murmur is not in the repository but a Debian package is given so we will use that. The version at the time of writing this is 1.1.3. To download the most recent click here. Otherwise, follow these steps to download 1.1.3.

 cd /tmp
 wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/mumble/mumble-server_1.1.3-0ubuntu1_i386.deb?modtime=1203796511&big_mirror=0
 dpkg -i mumble-server_1.1.3-0ubuntu1_i386.deb

Configuring Murmur:

---

The server configuration is done through the murmur.ini file. Go to the Mumble homepage to view the example file.

To change any of the default settings you must edit the mumble-server.ini file. This file is well documented and fairly self-explanatory.

 gedit /etc/mumble-server.ini

The default port for murmur is 64738. You will need to open this port, or whichever port you changed this too, in the firewall. If you are running a GUI you can install firestarter to open the necessary ports.

 sudo apt-get install firestarter

Note: If you aren't running the GUI then you'll have to manually edit the iptables to open the port.

Create the Database and Users:

---

Our first step is to setup the database and create the password for the mumble-superuser ( "SuperUser" ). Running this command will create the database in the current directory and create the superuser user in the database.

 sudo mkdir /etc/murmur
 cd /etc/murmur
 murmurd -supw %password%

Now that the database is created and the super user is created, we can start adding more users. To do this go to Mumble website to download the needed script.

 firefox
 navigate to http://mumble.sourceforge.net/Running_Murmur
 copy the script
 cd /etc/murmur
 gedit config.sh
 paste script
 save and close

This script must be ran from the same directory that the database is in. So make sure to save it where ever that may be.

Once the script is in the same directory as the database, then you're ready to add some users. To add users, it requires 4 things. The first is the name, then password followed by the server number and the email address.

This is very simple. Just run this command replacing the content with your own:

 cd /etc/murmur
 ./config.sh adduser bob test1234 1 bob@gmail.com

To get a listing of all the usable command do:

 ./config.sh --help

You can add users, delete users, change there passwords and change email addresses.

Running Murmur:

---

We have now successfully setup Murmur and are ready to run it. Murmur can take a couple of parameters. One we already used earlier to create the superuser and database. You can also specify the ini file that you want to use as well as run the program in the foreground. To get a complete listing read it in the man pages.

Here is the command to start Murmur using the ini file /etc/mumble-server.ini:

 cd /etc/murmur
 murmurd -ini /etc/mumble-server.ini

This will start the Murmur as a background process.

Congratulations, you now have have a Mumble Server up and running. Enjoy chatting will all of your friends.

Further Reading:

---

There are more options to Murmur than what I've covered here. If you want further information on what options there are then visit the Mumble homepage and read into the documentation for how to setup these features.

Ubuntu 7.10 - Gutsy Gibbon

The latest version of Ubuntu was released but I didn't jump on the wagon right away to upgrade. I felt that nothing in the newer version had anything new I needed and that it wouldn't make a difference for me. Well, much to my surprise I was wrong. The new version doesn't have any major changes, just a lot of little ones.

So, the new version adds in all the latest programs like Firefox 2.0, Pidgin 2.2.1, OpenOffice 2.3 and Gnome 2.2 containing all of its goodness. In the new Gnome many enhancements were made to improve performance, features and usability.

One of the changes in Gnome is its interface. They have updated the themes a little bit and the way you select the theme. Now, you have all the theme related stuff (theme, background, font, interface, visual effects) in one place separated by tabs. The standard themes are nice (I like the new Clearlooks in dark blue) but you can always download or customize your own. There has been a change to the visual effects part. In Ubuntu 7.04 they added the ability to turn on and off special effects (compiz) by opening the "special effects" application. Now this has been moved into this new tabbed interface. For the special effects, there are three options. You can have no special effects, some effects (transparency and such) or full blown effects (wobbly windows).

One new application is the "Screens & Graphics" program in Ubuntu. This program allows you to easily setup your video card driver and monitors through a simple GUI interface. Now, I tried and tried, but I couldn't get this interface to get things setup for me. I have a unique monitor though that doesn't get properly detected so I'm not surprised to see an issue here so I manually went and setup my monitor the old fashioned way.

They have also upgraded Gaim where it is now the new Pidgin (the replacement for Gaim). The new interface was adapted nicely to the Ubuntu theme. I didn't like the new Pidgin at first when I used it in Windows but they have made several changes to its Linux counterpart and I must say, it fits in very nicely. Its default settings are very light and don't consume unneeded space.

For networking there has also been a big improvement. Ubuntu now has a nice GUI interface that easily lets you allow which network you want to connect to. It now integrates with wpa_supplicant so you just plug into the GUI interface the information (passcode, type and such) and it will then connect. It worked very nicely, though its nowhere near perfect yet but it is a step in the right direction.

Those are the major enhancements. Most of the other changes are small but nice. One major thing I noticed in the upgrade was the performance. My installation of Ubuntu on my computer was actually Ubuntu 5.10. I have upgraded the distribution 5 times now. I'm not sure at what point Firefox started performing slowly for me, but I had noticed recently that Google Docs and flash videos sometimes slowed down the system and if I tried to multi-task with one of these open and running the whole system would come to a halt. I found though, once I upgraded to the new Ubuntu 7.10 I was flying along in Firefox. It performs now like I upgraded my computer or something. I'm interested now to boot up the previous version and see if was just a bad upgrade or if it is the version of Firefox. Ultimately, it doesn't matter, all that matters is the new version with Firefox is fast and reliable.

All in all, the new version of Ubuntu is very usable, and they have added a few new utilities that will make it easier for the average user, but there is still some work to be done.

KeePassX - A Linux Password Manager

So, I decided I needed something to keep track of my many passwords. A buddy at work introduced a program named Keepass to me. I really like the program and wanted something similar to it for my computer at home in Linux.

I found a program in the Ubuntu repository named Password Manager but I just didn't like the interface as much as Keepass. I looked at the Keepass site and found they had a port to Linux named KeepassX. This made me quite excited. I installed it and wholla, I was up and running.

Now, I have all my passwords for all my Internet accounts located in one simple database that is encrypted by passcode and key file.

If you're like me, and are having issues when you come to a site you haven't been to in over a year and can't even remember your username, then this is the program for you. It will securely keep track of that information with ease.

Links:

KeePassX - Linux version

KeePass - Windows version

Ubuntu - ATI - Dual Monitors in Gnome

So, once I got my second LCD, it wasn't long until I was looking into how to get it setup in Linux.

It didn't take me long to get to a good walk through. The issue was I couldn't get the walk through to work. I was copying and pasting the commands in the guide, but nothing seemed to be changing in the xorg.conf file. As it turns out, the dashes in the guide, don't paste as the correct dashes into the gnome terminal. So, I just typed the command myself and it then worked fine.

So, I got it setup and the login screen would work fine with the extended desktop mode but as soon as I logged into Gnome it would cut into cloning mode. It took me a while to find out what the issue was, but with a refined search into Google I finally found the answer. I had to delete an entry from the Gnome configuration which was setting the resolution every time I logged in.

Once this was taken care of then all was working properly with Gnome and its extended desktop. Now, Gnome doesn't have a nice configuration utility that allows you to easily turn off extended desktop and such. But, in Ubuntu, when I go to the screen resolution program, I see that the resolution I'm running when in extended desktop is 2048x1536. So, if I just bump this down to 1280x1024, then it switches to cloning.

So, I'm enjoying the extra screen space in Linux and am quite impressed with how well it handles the dual screen setup.

Here are some useful links that will helped me get my setup running.

ATI Dual Monitor Setup - Don't copy & paste the commands from this article

Beryl Project

Ubuntu Forums - fix Gnome so it supports the dual-view

My Linux History

I was first introduced to Linux 4 years ago as I was starting my freshman year at Lake Superior State University. My roommate was quite into it. Later that year I got my first computer and I then made two partitions, one for Windows and one for Linux.

My roommate used RedHat 7.3, so that's what I tried. At the time, RedHat 8 had just come out, but I didn't have the CD'S for that install. So, I tried using RedHat, but it was more of a mess around for a few minutes, then boot back into Windows to play games and stuff. I tried to use RedHat but it was just to hard for me to get everything to work. Mainly the sound. For whatever reason my integrated sound would not get recognized.

I didn't use RedHat a whole lot. I did however get Xemacs setup, and wrote several of my class programs in there. We were learning C++ so it was quite nice using Linux for writing projects. Many of my classmates went out and bought the IDE that the professor was using where I used Linux and the free Xemacs which actually got the job done better.

That wasn't enough to keep me away though. Sometime the following spring, they released RedHat 9. I downloaded and installed it. It was much cleaner looking than 7.3 and detected my sound card without a problem. The problem came when I tried to play my mp3's. This was after the time when the distribution had to stop shipping with thecodecs . I eventually got the sound working, but it wasn't the most reliable thing. The system would lockup often. It wasn't to long before I stopped booting into RedHat and just used Windows again.

The following year, I tried a distribution name ALT Linux. It was recommended to me by my brother. I tried it and it worked very well for me. I was using KDE and I was able to figure out most things on my own to get what I needed done. I had been already using Gaim and OpenOffice in Windows so I was very familiar with them already. ALT Linux, like most other distribution came with Mozilla web browser. This was my web browser of choice in Linux. (in Windows I did used Opera) The first semester I had a Java class so I did most of the programming in Windows, though I did mess around with compiling some of the projects in Linux. The following semester I had a C++ class as well as a class that used Borland Delphi to connect to a database. I then used Windows to do all of my programming. I did occasionally boot into Linux, just because it felt cool to use it.

The following summer I got a laptop from my Grandma. Initially I put Windows 98 on it, then I got Windows 2000. Once school started my programming class was with Perl. We had to telnet into a UNIX machine. Working in Unix got me wanting to try Linux again. So I installed ALT Linux on my laptop. It didn't go well. The sound didn't work and the mouse did quirky things. So, off I went to find another distribution that might suite my needs. I instantly found Mandrake 10.0 and gave it a try. It worked great and it even detected my mouse pads scroll section. It, however, still didn't work with the sound card off installation (though I did eventually get it working) but it ran very stable, and everything else worked great. I enjoyed Mandrake very much and using telnet in the console of Mandrake was much easier than using it in Windows.

I continued to use Mandrake heavily all year. The spring semester I worked a lot with C++ and had to use ssh a lot. Linux was very handy for this. That following summer though, I got tired of KDE. It was to bloated for my laptop. Eventually I settled down on IceWM. It was very light, easy to configure, was in Mandrake's package manager and could be setup how I wanted. Now my laptop ran loaded much faster and ran better.

Now I was to the point where I used Linux more than Windows. I would do everything on my Laptop that I could. The only time I used my desktop was when I wanted to play games.

Now came my Senior year. I was using and loving Mandrake. I made friends with some freshman and they were excited about the new release of Ubuntu. Now, I'd been using Linux for a while, but I'd never done much looking at what the other distributions had. I was pretty much just looking and keeping updated with, what at this point was Mandriva. So, they installed Ubuntu and showed me all of its simplicity. After seeing it, and Gnome, I wanted it. I like its package manager way better than Mandriva's and its hardware detection was supposed to also be very good.

So, I eventually made the switch from Mandriva 2006 to Ubuntu 5.10. It was a complete success. I loved it. Gnome ran just as well as IceWM on my laptop, but looked and felt so much better. I've now been using Ubuntu for over a year and its hard for me to even think about trying another distributions.Ubuntu has such a large user base that there are so many applications that are easily accessible without having to worry about dependencies.

Currently I'm running Ubuntu 6.06 on my desktop and laptop and my server (the server has Ubuntu Server Edition) and am loving every minute of it.