Installing Xubuntu 9.04 on an emachines E625-5192

Received my new laptop today - I need it for the fall, and got it a little early due to a sale.

What went well: I created a set of Restore DVDs (in case I want Windows back), then removed windows and installed Xubuntu 9.04 full-disk. Copied over my old /home directory, and installed all my favorite apps. E-mail, web, games, .bashrc, most dektop settings, etc. transferred without a hiccup. Recreated my crontab. Wireless networking and video work great. Built-in card reader reads all cards from my cameras and phone. Machine is noticeably faster. FN-key brightness control works. FN-key multimedia controls work.

Solved Problems:

Sound was tinny and a bit faint. Headphone jack works, not tinny, but low volume. Solution: Adding the following lines to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
somwhat improved speakers and fixed the headphone jack.

# Added by me on <date> while troubleshooting audio
options snd-hda-intel model=6stack

The Volume-FN keys didn't work. Solution: Mapped FN-audio up, down, and mute keys by mapping them to aumix using these instructions.

The suspend FN-key didn't work. Solution: Enabled it in the gnome-power-manager preferences. It was set up to work out-of-the-box, but disabled by default.

DVD: DVDs play only after changing CDROM permissions after each disc insertion. Workaround: Created an alias in .bashrc as the 'fixcd' command

TomTom GPS automatic update doesn't work on Linux - Win and OSX only. Department of Defense forms and other applications are Windows-specific. Workaround: Installed a Virtual Machine (VM) to host an occasional-use XP instance.

Phone-made .3g2 video files play with weird audio - need a way to convert them. Computer .wma songs don't play on phone - need a lossless storage format, and a way to convert them to .mp3. Workaround: Upload videos to YouTube instead of the local hard drive.

Need password to restore from suspend (Xubuntu issue, not hardware-related). Workaround: Remove the screensaver package.

Unsolved Problems: No built-in webcam. Keyboard is different, and will take time to get used to - many typos in the meantime.

Sharing Music Files Using Avahi

Success! I successfully shared my Linux (Ubuntu 7.10) music files to the Mac using Avahi on a wireless network. Now, if the Mac and Linux boxes are on the same network, the Mac can see and play any of the Linux songs.

How I set it up (surprisingly easy):

1. Install package mt-daapd for the service, and package avahi-discover as a diagnostic tool.
2. Open a web browser to localhost:3689, Username: (blank), Password: mt-daapd. The project is called Firefly Server.
3. On the Configuration tab, put in the directory to music files. On the Server Status tab, click Start Scan.
4. Open the Mac and launch iTunes. Look in the Shared section for the Firefly Server, and test play a file.

No mucking about with .config files, no command line work, no ports or services to modify.

We'll see if it works after a reboot. Still need to figure out how to share iTunes music with Rhythmbox, and how to share both wth the OLPC. Still need to figure out how to share video files, and other non-media files.

Fixed Toshiba Sound!

Since the reinstall, there's been no sound in Linux. Xubuntu has output no sound. Found the following solution on the Ubuntu Forums.

Edit the alsa config file: sudo mousepad /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base

Added the following lines at the bottom of the file:

# Fix for Toshiba sound. From Ubuntu Forums
options snd-hda-intel model=auto

We'll see how it works at the next reboot.

Reinstallation fallout

<p>So far, only three problems with the reinstallation.</p>
<ol>
  <li>Some data from my shared partition was lost - my backup wasn't as thorough as I thought. I also had to reenter all my e-mail accounts to Evolution (backup copy on the Mac, whew). Nothing critical, just minor annoyances...and a couple Doctor Who episodes.</li>
  <li>The trackpad was fine for the first day, then suddenly became jumpy and unusable today. Looking through various forums, it seems I'm not alone. May or may not be related to the reinstall. On Windows, it was intermittent. On Xubuntu, it's always bad.</li>
  <li>Sound works great on Windows, no sound at all in Xubuntu.  Well, I kind of expected it...</li>
</ol