Thursday, July 28, 2011

Getting Broadcom wireless drivers working in Ubuntu 11.04

Installing the default Broadcom driver didn't work. (System > Administration > Additional Drivers)

Solution found here:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/38327/broadcom-bcm4311-wireless-not-working
  • Open Synaptic Package Manager and uninstall bcm-kernel-source
  • Install b43-fwcutter
  • Then install firmware-b43-installer (this one didn't show up for me until b43-fwcutter had been installed)
In Terminal do:
cat /etc/modprobe.d/* | egrep '8180|acx|at76|ath|b43|bcm|CX|eth|ipw|irmware|isl|lbtf|orinoco|ndiswrapper|NPE|p54|prism|rtl|rt2|rt3|rt6|rt7|witch|wl'
See if the term blacklist bcm43xx is there. If it is, it needs to be commented out.

Edit the file:
sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
Put a # in front of the line: blacklist bcm43xx:
# blacklist bcm43xx
  • Save the file
  • Reboot

Install NVIDIA drivers in Ubuntu 11.04

This is the easiest method I've found...

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current nvidia-current-modaliases nvidia-settings

Reboot.

See this link for more detailed information including supported video cards.
http://www.webupd8.org/2010/06/how-to-install-nvidia-25635-display.html

What's my Ubuntu version and name?

Open Terminal and type:

cat /etc/lsb-release
Output:
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=11.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=natty
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 11.04"

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Volume slider missing from panel in Ubuntu 10.04

This will restore the top panel to defaults...

Delete the following folder:
rm -r ~/.gconf/apps/panel
Or rename the folder instead if you want a backup copy just in case:
mv ~/.gconf/apps/panel ~/.gconf/apps/panel-bak
Log out and back in.

Monday, July 4, 2011

VLC - Automatic Deinterlace

It gets old to manually select deinterlace options for videos, so I enable it by default.

Click Tools > Preferences
Under Show Settings (lower left) select All.
In the left column, expand Video (click the + beside it)
Select Filters (not expand).
In the right column under Video filter module (first section) check the Deinterlacing video filter option.
Expand the the Filters section in the left column. (click the + beside it)
Select Deinterlacing.
In the right column select the preferred modes. I like X.
Save settings.

VLC - Audio/Video Syncronization

After upgrading to VLC 1.1.10, audio was out of sync with all videos.

Click Tools > Preferences
Under Show Settings (lower left) select All.
In the left column, select Audio
Change the Audio desynchronization compensation value.

During playback, synchronization can be changed using J and K. Any changes will be discarded when VLC is closed.

VLC - Video Effects > Crop

Sometimes a widescreen DVD or other video has black bars on the top/bottom. The actual video image is 16:9, but it has been formatted at 4:3 putting black bars on the top and bottom. You end up watching a shrunk 16:9 video on the widescreen monitor. Annoying.

Go to Tools > Effects & Filters
Video Effects tab
Crop tab
Change the Top/Bottom values to crop the video.

You can also use keyboard shortcuts to crop the video:
Crop one pixel from the top: Alt+r
Bottom: Alt+c
Right: Alt+f
Left: Alt+d

This crop method worked back in Ubuntu 8.04 and was very handy, but now Top/Bottom crop doesn't work. No cropping actually takes place, and the image stretches sideways. I haven't been able to figure it out. Right/Left crop both crop the right side. I upgraded to VLC 1.1.10, and the Top/Bottom crop worked. After trying a few videos, it was back to the no-crop-only-stretch. Even after deleting preferences it still didn't work. Well, I guess I'll have to resort to auto crop for now.

VLC - Automatic crop

Sometimes a widescreen DVD or other video has black bars on the top/bottom. The actual video image is 16:9, but it has been formatted at 4:3 putting black bars on the top and bottom. You end up watching a shrunk 16:9 video on the widescreen monitor. Annoying.

In previous versions of Ubuntu & VLC, I would manually go to Tools > Effects & Filters, Video Effects tab, Crop tab, and change the Top/Bottom values to crop the video. In all VLC versions I've used in Ubuntu 10.04, Top/Bottom crop don't work they way they used to, no cropping actually takes place, and the image stretches sideways. I haven't been able to figure it out. Right/Left crop both crop the right side.

After some looking through the settings, I found a setting for automatic cropping that works.
  1. Click Tools > Preferences 
  2. Under Show Settings (lower left) select All.
  3. In the left column, expand Video (click the + beside it)
  4. Select Filters (not expand). 
  5. In the right column under Video output filter module (second section) check the Crop video filter option. 
  6. Expand the the Filters section in the left column. (click the + beside it)
  7. Select Crop
  8. In the right column check Automatic cropping.
  9. I also like to change the Number of images for change setting. By default it is 25, which equals about 1 second. So if there is a change in the black border for 1 second, the screen will flicker and change. This makes some videos change much more frequently than is necessary, and the flicker can get annoying. I changed it to over 500 so it would take at least 20 seconds (25fps * 20sec = 500) of difference before changing the crop. 
  10. Click Save button. 
  11. Restart VLC.
Keep in mind that if you changed the Number of images for change setting to something higher, the crop won't take place right when you start playing the video. In my case I'll have to wait 20+ seconds for the crop to change.