Today, I bought a Logitech Harmony 300 universal remote. At about 60$ CAD, it's really a bargain, and despite it's limited feature set compared to other Harmony remotes (I also have the Harmony 670, which has selectable "tasks"), it fits the use I want to make of it.
I had to use Windows. There is just no way this could be done under Linux, due to a variety of factors including lack of support in my favorite project, Concordance, and Logitech's choice to use a SilverLight application to handle configuration and authentication.
I'm pretty sad of the choices made by Logitech on this. Where all they had been doing to support a Linux community around their devices was to keep an old website working (and to this day, it's still working and fine for a large majority of the Harmony devices, usable with Concordance to configure remotes such as the 525, the 700, the 900, etc.), they chose to support this model with the new myharmony.com website which doesn't appear to expose the same level of control, and definitely complicates use in Linux. I don't think keeping the same old methods would have really meant such an investment to them, and I doubt exposing the possibility of downloading the same old EzHex files for programming would have been a cause for concern for intellectual property rights re. other manufacturers and systems designs.
Lack of understanding and basic support of Linux users by large corporations such as Logitech remains, I think, one of the key reasons why Linux has yet to reach and "stick" to a majority of everyday users. I believe that omitting to give alternative options to users who choose to work with a different operating system is not only causing harm to the Linux community, but also causing Logitech (just as an example, other companies are in the same boat) to lose potential customers. After all, wouldn't it be normal for the standard target users for home automation and function aggregation devices to be pretty close to the same group of "early adopters" as currently targetted by the Linux ecosystem?
Please, Logitech, get your act together. I've contacted you on this subject again. I'm sure others have as well. I think we understand you might not want to bother, but at least give us enough information so that we could still send you money through buying your hardware, but do our own support if you don't want to take care of it. The Concordance community will be happy, and I'm certain other groups of users of your hardware will, too. I doubt this always means going as far as sharing system schematics, full hardware specs or whatnot. It just means letting us know what we need to know to use the devices to their full potential.
Logitech and others currently have a great opportunity in doing a stellar job at fostering communities of users based around their products, which would not only serve as to possibly have more users, but also as a great example on how a company can succeed by leveraging not just the buying power of users, but also their willingness to support each other directly. Am I dreaming or at the very least, this could me relatively fewer expenses on support, with very little effort in sharing some information?
As for current solutions to accessing the website, Moonlight could have been a possibility, but under Ubuntu Natty I didn't even have that choice. I think the website bailed out just because I run Firefox 4.
Sunday, 12 December 2010
Tuesday, 12 October 2010
Booting to ISO images from a USB key
I'm pretty sure this has been done before (I recall seeing a blog post about it... if you're the one who posted on Planet Ubuntu with a similar howto, let me know as I want to talk to you, at least to say thanks), but here it is anyway:
A couple of days ago I wrote this quick script to generate a roughly correct grub.cfg from the contents of a directory filled with .iso files. The goal: generate a USB bootable key that runs GRUB and allows you to choose which ISO to boot. It could be Ubuntu desktop, netbook, etc, doesn't matter, as long as you have enough room on the key.
This is done by leveraging the loopback grub command and the isoscan parameter. But first, setting it up...
You'll need (to):
A couple of days ago I wrote this quick script to generate a roughly correct grub.cfg from the contents of a directory filled with .iso files. The goal: generate a USB bootable key that runs GRUB and allows you to choose which ISO to boot. It could be Ubuntu desktop, netbook, etc, doesn't matter, as long as you have enough room on the key.
This is done by leveraging the loopback grub command and the isoscan parameter. But first, setting it up...
You'll need (to):
- one free USB key, formatted to vfat (mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sdX1) the more space the better
- create a directory called "iso" on it
- install grub on it:
grub-install --root-directory=/media/MOUNTPOINT /dev/sdX
- this will create the boot/grub directories and install everything grub needs
- copy iso files to the iso/ directory
- run update-grub.py (available in bzr branch: lp:~mathieu-tl/+junk/bootable-iso-usb) from the key's mountpoint
- Careful: it's only quickly tested, and overwrites boot/grub/grub.cfg from the current working directory.
Sorry for the unimaginative naming of the script.
In short, this script attempts to guess what kind of distribution is in the ISO file. I've tested desktop and alternate with success, both seem to boot and properly get you to an install (or for desktop, "maybe-ubiquity", which means you'll get a prompt for whether you want to run the live session or just ubiquity to install). All this needed was to make use of the iso naming scheme and more importantly of the contents of the ISO files, as read by isoinfo (from the genisoimage package).
Even if it never ends up being of any use, it was at least a fun little thing to write.
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Videotron Huawei E1381 USB 3G dongle
I've been fortunate enough today to be lended a Huawei E1381 3G USB modem. I'm happy to report all I had to do was to plug it in to my Aspire One running Maverick UNE and confirm it was immediately recognized and available in NetworkManager.
What's more, Videotron's new 3G offering is already available from the mobile-broadband-provider-info package, so you can already plug in such a key, create a new 3G connection in NM and select Videotron as the ISP to quickly get online!
Needless to say, this is pretty good news knowing the current developments in 3G offerings in the province of Quebec; so thanks to all those involved to make this available :)
As I side note, I'll be going to UDS-N in October, and I'm very interested to know about your success stories or even failure stories about 3G modems. I can't promise anything, but I *do* think it would be great to get a good grasp of what 3G devices are supported or not. So if you own a 3G USB dongle which still doesn't work in Maverick and you are going to UDS, don't hesitate to ping me on IRC or stop me IRL so we can look into it.
I may write up a wiki page with devices which are known to work (or not to work), so stay tuned for an update on this subject.
What's more, Videotron's new 3G offering is already available from the mobile-broadband-provider-info package, so you can already plug in such a key, create a new 3G connection in NM and select Videotron as the ISP to quickly get online!
Needless to say, this is pretty good news knowing the current developments in 3G offerings in the province of Quebec; so thanks to all those involved to make this available :)
As I side note, I'll be going to UDS-N in October, and I'm very interested to know about your success stories or even failure stories about 3G modems. I can't promise anything, but I *do* think it would be great to get a good grasp of what 3G devices are supported or not. So if you own a 3G USB dongle which still doesn't work in Maverick and you are going to UDS, don't hesitate to ping me on IRC or stop me IRL so we can look into it.
I may write up a wiki page with devices which are known to work (or not to work), so stay tuned for an update on this subject.
Tuesday, 14 September 2010
Looking back over the past few months...
I'm pretty new as a Canonical employee overall, only having been with the company for about 7 months, but I must say I'm really thrilled to be part of a large gang of people so involved in making Ubuntu great; with so much pride in all the work accomplished. If there's one thing that has been constantly motivating me, it has to be the prospect of working every day with the community and with other Canonical employees on making Ubuntu better.
Certifying hardware
In the past seven months, I've been working as a Hardware Certification Engineer in the Montreal office. What does that mean? Well it's pretty simple: testing, testing, testing, automation, testing.
Yup. Testing. The hardware certification team is pretty much the group bringing you your daily Dell deals from behind the scenes, driving the testing efforts to make sure you can get systems available from large manufacturers such as Toshiba, Dell, HP, no matter if they are desktops, laptops or server. Getting the Big Orange Stamp of Approval(tm) on these systems so that you can get them with Ubuntu pre-installed, and truly get support from our excellent Support team (many of them working from Montreal too!).
What this truly meant for me was tons and tons of learning, with lots of experience gained. I've been identifying a lot of kernel bugs, installer issues, etc. I've learned way more about casper than I had ever dreamed :)
There was obviously not just testing involved, as there were some times where I needed to track down the location of systems, deal with manufacturers on how to get a new system from them to our labs, or quickly work with the OEM teams to get new offerings (and for that, new certified systems) out of the door. We've been privileged enough to have lots of systems shipped to us, which has always been one of the most valuable things manufacturers and distributors could do to help the Ubuntu community. I hope we still get so keen support for years to come.
On top of it all was automation of various testing efforts, one of which being maintenance of the amazing piece of work Marc Tardif started with checkbox and the kickstart / preseed systems that make daily testing possible for the many systems in the Canonical certification labs.
When you look for a cool new computer to run Ubuntu on next time, make sure you take a look at the Certification website: webapps.ubuntu.com/certification. You'll undoubtedly be happy you did.
On the side
I haven't only ever been doing certification testing. Part of the real cool things about Canonical is the fact that being involved in a lot of things, being passionate about what we do, is truly encouraged. In fact, it really couldn't be otherwise.
I've done as much as I could to help with the ISO testing efforts whenever there was some free time. This has been truly a lot of fun as well, and certainly of use, since I do have an ESX server accessible for testing Server images (especially JeOS installs), some systems on which to try out Wubi, and a lot of interest in EC2 and cloud computing.
My work day rarely ever stopped when I got out of the office. Part of why I joined Canonical may have been my involvement in the Ubuntu Quebec LoCo team, organizing events and trying to motivate people to contribute to Ubuntu. I'm still as involved in the LoCo team as ever, and I'm always very happy to help people with their issues on IRC as much as on the ubuntu-qc mailing list, or even in person at the various events Ubuntu-Quebec or other Linux user groups have organized in Montreal. I've even started an Ubuntu Hour gathering in Longueuil, though to my chagrin, I've rarely had much company. I'm at least happy to have been able to use that time to get stuff done on other projects and to answer mailing list postings.
I've also been reasonably active in the Debian community, and still working towards becoming an official Debian developer (if you are a DD and would be so kind as to sign my GPG key, please ping me on IRC :). I've been maintaining concordance and congruity, two applications to control and program Logitech Harmony remotes (one CLI, one GUI), the GNU Accounting Utilities (acct), the Ethos libary (a plugin framework), as well as the Emerillon map viewer for GNOME (with the help of the Debian GNOME team. Thanks!).
And now
Those who know me well know how strong I feel about one of my favorite projects: NetworkManager. In order to further my involvement in Ubuntu and help out NetworkManager, but also other projects, and truly help making Ubuntu rock yet even more, I've just started in the Canonical Desktop team. I'm thrilled to join the others who bring you cool new toys and two (and more) awesome desktop environments with every new release.
For the future
My task won't only be to maintain NetworkManager, but also to work on maintaining ConnMan and making sure it's truly usable and useful for Ubuntu users. The rest of the stack underlying these two beasts won't be spared: I look forward to help bringing the hot new features of wpasupplicant, mobile-broadband-provider-info, isc-dhcp (version 4, nothing less!) to Ubuntu, as well as ensuring all of these won't descend in bug hell.
Another aspect of it will be helping out on the maintenance of Firefox and Chromium.
There isn't a whole lot more I can add about this, but I'm very happy I can lend a hand to Chris Coulson and the others from the Canonical Desktop Team but also everyone in the community contributing to and working on the above products. It's truly a daunting task to maintain all of these systems with so many moving parts, but I wake up every day looking forward to what I'll be doing, and certain I'll enjoy every part of it.
Certifying hardware
In the past seven months, I've been working as a Hardware Certification Engineer in the Montreal office. What does that mean? Well it's pretty simple: testing, testing, testing, automation, testing.
Yup. Testing. The hardware certification team is pretty much the group bringing you your daily Dell deals from behind the scenes, driving the testing efforts to make sure you can get systems available from large manufacturers such as Toshiba, Dell, HP, no matter if they are desktops, laptops or server. Getting the Big Orange Stamp of Approval(tm) on these systems so that you can get them with Ubuntu pre-installed, and truly get support from our excellent Support team (many of them working from Montreal too!).
What this truly meant for me was tons and tons of learning, with lots of experience gained. I've been identifying a lot of kernel bugs, installer issues, etc. I've learned way more about casper than I had ever dreamed :)
There was obviously not just testing involved, as there were some times where I needed to track down the location of systems, deal with manufacturers on how to get a new system from them to our labs, or quickly work with the OEM teams to get new offerings (and for that, new certified systems) out of the door. We've been privileged enough to have lots of systems shipped to us, which has always been one of the most valuable things manufacturers and distributors could do to help the Ubuntu community. I hope we still get so keen support for years to come.
On top of it all was automation of various testing efforts, one of which being maintenance of the amazing piece of work Marc Tardif started with checkbox and the kickstart / preseed systems that make daily testing possible for the many systems in the Canonical certification labs.
When you look for a cool new computer to run Ubuntu on next time, make sure you take a look at the Certification website: webapps.ubuntu.com/certification. You'll undoubtedly be happy you did.
On the side
I haven't only ever been doing certification testing. Part of the real cool things about Canonical is the fact that being involved in a lot of things, being passionate about what we do, is truly encouraged. In fact, it really couldn't be otherwise.
I've done as much as I could to help with the ISO testing efforts whenever there was some free time. This has been truly a lot of fun as well, and certainly of use, since I do have an ESX server accessible for testing Server images (especially JeOS installs), some systems on which to try out Wubi, and a lot of interest in EC2 and cloud computing.
My work day rarely ever stopped when I got out of the office. Part of why I joined Canonical may have been my involvement in the Ubuntu Quebec LoCo team, organizing events and trying to motivate people to contribute to Ubuntu. I'm still as involved in the LoCo team as ever, and I'm always very happy to help people with their issues on IRC as much as on the ubuntu-qc mailing list, or even in person at the various events Ubuntu-Quebec or other Linux user groups have organized in Montreal. I've even started an Ubuntu Hour gathering in Longueuil, though to my chagrin, I've rarely had much company. I'm at least happy to have been able to use that time to get stuff done on other projects and to answer mailing list postings.
I've also been reasonably active in the Debian community, and still working towards becoming an official Debian developer (if you are a DD and would be so kind as to sign my GPG key, please ping me on IRC :). I've been maintaining concordance and congruity, two applications to control and program Logitech Harmony remotes (one CLI, one GUI), the GNU Accounting Utilities (acct), the Ethos libary (a plugin framework), as well as the Emerillon map viewer for GNOME (with the help of the Debian GNOME team. Thanks!).
And now
Those who know me well know how strong I feel about one of my favorite projects: NetworkManager. In order to further my involvement in Ubuntu and help out NetworkManager, but also other projects, and truly help making Ubuntu rock yet even more, I've just started in the Canonical Desktop team. I'm thrilled to join the others who bring you cool new toys and two (and more) awesome desktop environments with every new release.
For the future
My task won't only be to maintain NetworkManager, but also to work on maintaining ConnMan and making sure it's truly usable and useful for Ubuntu users. The rest of the stack underlying these two beasts won't be spared: I look forward to help bringing the hot new features of wpasupplicant, mobile-broadband-provider-info, isc-dhcp (version 4, nothing less!) to Ubuntu, as well as ensuring all of these won't descend in bug hell.
Another aspect of it will be helping out on the maintenance of Firefox and Chromium.
There isn't a whole lot more I can add about this, but I'm very happy I can lend a hand to Chris Coulson and the others from the Canonical Desktop Team but also everyone in the community contributing to and working on the above products. It's truly a daunting task to maintain all of these systems with so many moving parts, but I wake up every day looking forward to what I'll be doing, and certain I'll enjoy every part of it.
Friday, 10 September 2010
Broadcom driver now open source
This has been brought to my attention today. I see this as a huge win for Ubuntu, since, let's face it, Broadcom devices are a large part of the WiFi device ecosystem. I'm happy to see Broadcom finally publishing some of their source code, and through this helping out Linux users of all distributions get better working WiFi. I see this as a win for Ubuntu in general because it will always make me happier to see people having fewer issues with wireless devices. This also translates to less wheel-spinning with broken drivers we could not possibly fix (since they are closed source), towards more productive work on other aspects of Ubuntu... or just a better chance of fixing driver issues :)
Of course, this is a work in progress and not all Broadcom devices are currently supported by this driver, but I believe that in due time, Broadcom could become one of the golden examples we can give to hardware manufacturers on how to provide the best kind of support they can to the Linux community.
Read more about this on Slashdot, OSNews, or read the annoucement on the Linux Wireless mailing list.
Thanks Broadcom!
Of course, this is a work in progress and not all Broadcom devices are currently supported by this driver, but I believe that in due time, Broadcom could become one of the golden examples we can give to hardware manufacturers on how to provide the best kind of support they can to the Linux community.
Read more about this on Slashdot, OSNews, or read the annoucement on the Linux Wireless mailing list.
Thanks Broadcom!
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
Ubuntu Global Jam in Montreal: help testing and fixing bugs in Maverick
We're doing it again!
Here in Montreal we're just about ready to start jamming this weekend. Rooms have been confirmed, and we already have a fair amount of interest from what I can see in the LoCo directory event listing! We're also happy to have been sharing ideas and plans with txwikinger who's been organizing the Global Jam event in the Waterloo/Kitchener area in Ontario.
Do you want to help make Ubuntu better?
Do you look forward to meeting some of the people who do testing, triaging and bug fixing on Ubuntu in Montreal, and maybe ask them to look at your own little pet-peeve bugs?
Then come join us at the SupInfo Montréal offices this Saturday, starting from 9am! All you need to bring is a computer and willingness to participate. :)
If you choose to pass by, please let us know by registering for the event on the LoCo Directory... just so we know roughly how many people to expect.
You can get all of the information about our event on the QuebecTeam wiki: QuebecTeam/GlobalJam.
As a side note, we should have a local archive mirror, and copies of maverick and lucid ISO images. I've spent the past weeks preparing it on a portable USB hard drive, after getting some help in starting from Dustin Kirkland. Thanks Dustin!
Here in Montreal we're just about ready to start jamming this weekend. Rooms have been confirmed, and we already have a fair amount of interest from what I can see in the LoCo directory event listing! We're also happy to have been sharing ideas and plans with txwikinger who's been organizing the Global Jam event in the Waterloo/Kitchener area in Ontario.
Do you want to help make Ubuntu better?
Do you look forward to meeting some of the people who do testing, triaging and bug fixing on Ubuntu in Montreal, and maybe ask them to look at your own little pet-peeve bugs?
Then come join us at the SupInfo Montréal offices this Saturday, starting from 9am! All you need to bring is a computer and willingness to participate. :)
| SupInfo Montréal | |
| 752 Rue Sherbrooke Ouest | |
| Montreal | |
| Canada | |
| http://www.supinfo.com/en/News0eaaf665-d9bf-4563-befb-ac97f8b035c2.aspx |
If you choose to pass by, please let us know by registering for the event on the LoCo Directory... just so we know roughly how many people to expect.
You can get all of the information about our event on the QuebecTeam wiki: QuebecTeam/GlobalJam.
As a side note, we should have a local archive mirror, and copies of maverick and lucid ISO images. I've spent the past weeks preparing it on a portable USB hard drive, after getting some help in starting from Dustin Kirkland. Thanks Dustin!
Monday, 28 June 2010
Wubi: installing Ubuntu inside Windows
Do you know about Wubi?
Wubi is a very nice tool if you want to try out Ubuntu for the first time. It allows you to install Ubuntu alongside Windows, without re-partitioning your hard-drive. All this from the CD-ROM if you load it in computer while Windows is running, or downloadable as a standalone app.
The Ubuntu QA team is always looking for help to test installing Ubuntu using Wubi. It's both a great way to try Ubuntu if you really still need to run Windows on your computer and want to help out with testing Ubuntu, or as any kind of first jump into testing and QA. Testing efforts are being tracked on the Ubuntu ISO Tracker. If you want to help, please read the documentation first.
So if you chose to download Wubi's standalone application, double-click on its icon, or load in the Ubuntu CD-ROM you may have just burned (or received from shipit or your LoCo team).
If you're using a CD-ROM, Wubi should start automatically (or in Windows 7, you should see an autorun dialog).
The install application gives you three choices. The first one being to reboot your system and use the CD-ROM directly to demo and install Ubuntu, the third sends you to the Ubuntu website.
For the purpose of this post I will instead walk you through option 2, which is to install Ubuntu alongside Windows, from within Windows.
You will then be presented with all the questions that make sure the installer knows everything it needs to know about the installation of Ubuntu you want to do. Choose your username, password, and where you want to install Ubuntu (which Windows harddrive, C:, D:, or whatever), what language you want to see Ubuntu in, etc.
If you're using the standalone Wubi app, you will need to wait a bit while the Ubuntu CD ISO image is being downloaded. The image is necessary, as the standalone app does not contain the required packages for the install.
Wubi will then proceed to the next part of the installation, which is to copy everything it needs to your hard drive in a ubuntu folder on the hard drive you selected in the preceeding screen.
Once the first part of the installation is over, select what you want to do... my preference is to reboot right away and carry on with the rest of the installation procedure.
Once your computer has booted, you will be presented with a menu. That menu will time out and default to Windows after a few seconds. Choose Ubuntu to continue with the installation.
You are now booting into the real thing: at this point you are in Ubuntu, but the installation isn't quite done yet, so grab a (quick) coffee while the last tidbits get copied and configured.
At the end of the second part of the installation, your computer will reboot again, present you again with the first menu where you will want to choose Ubuntu, and show an additional menu where you can choose to start Ubuntu in recovery mode, should you need to fix a broken installation. From there, you can also go back to Windows.
Voilà, the installation is done. At this point, all that is left to do is click on your username in the lis and enter the password you chose back in Windows during the first phase of the installation to get to the Ubuntu desktop.
Wubi is a very nice tool if you want to try out Ubuntu for the first time. It allows you to install Ubuntu alongside Windows, without re-partitioning your hard-drive. All this from the CD-ROM if you load it in computer while Windows is running, or downloadable as a standalone app.
The Ubuntu QA team is always looking for help to test installing Ubuntu using Wubi. It's both a great way to try Ubuntu if you really still need to run Windows on your computer and want to help out with testing Ubuntu, or as any kind of first jump into testing and QA. Testing efforts are being tracked on the Ubuntu ISO Tracker. If you want to help, please read the documentation first.
So if you chose to download Wubi's standalone application, double-click on its icon, or load in the Ubuntu CD-ROM you may have just burned (or received from shipit or your LoCo team).
If you're using a CD-ROM, Wubi should start automatically (or in Windows 7, you should see an autorun dialog).
The install application gives you three choices. The first one being to reboot your system and use the CD-ROM directly to demo and install Ubuntu, the third sends you to the Ubuntu website.For the purpose of this post I will instead walk you through option 2, which is to install Ubuntu alongside Windows, from within Windows.
You will then be presented with all the questions that make sure the installer knows everything it needs to know about the installation of Ubuntu you want to do. Choose your username, password, and where you want to install Ubuntu (which Windows harddrive, C:, D:, or whatever), what language you want to see Ubuntu in, etc.
If you're using the standalone Wubi app, you will need to wait a bit while the Ubuntu CD ISO image is being downloaded. The image is necessary, as the standalone app does not contain the required packages for the install.
Wubi will then proceed to the next part of the installation, which is to copy everything it needs to your hard drive in a ubuntu folder on the hard drive you selected in the preceeding screen.
Once the first part of the installation is over, select what you want to do... my preference is to reboot right away and carry on with the rest of the installation procedure.
Once your computer has booted, you will be presented with a menu. That menu will time out and default to Windows after a few seconds. Choose Ubuntu to continue with the installation.
You are now booting into the real thing: at this point you are in Ubuntu, but the installation isn't quite done yet, so grab a (quick) coffee while the last tidbits get copied and configured.
At the end of the second part of the installation, your computer will reboot again, present you again with the first menu where you will want to choose Ubuntu, and show an additional menu where you can choose to start Ubuntu in recovery mode, should you need to fix a broken installation. From there, you can also go back to Windows.
Voilà, the installation is done. At this point, all that is left to do is click on your username in the lis and enter the password you chose back in Windows during the first phase of the installation to get to the Ubuntu desktop.
Tuesday, 15 June 2010
HP Mini netbooks mic/headphones adapter
Engineers at HP have been having these wonderful ideas in hope of saving space (I guess). On some of their netbooks, in particular the Mini 1000, there is only one 3.5mm port to be used for both the microphone and headphones.
I needed to tests this system in order to confirm the status of bug #532958. If you're like me and didn't get an adapter with the system, here is how you can make one.
Requirements:
Process:
Note the type of cable I'm using: it is somewhat important. You could of course use any type of cable with at least 3 wires, but you would then have to find a 4-channel 3.5mm plug, which is a little less easy to find. This cable already has it, so just remove the RCA plugs, and skin these ends to reveal the signal wire and ground.
You'll want to then attach the wires to the 3.5mm jacks as shown in the pictures below.
Result:
If the jacks aren't properly grounded or the RCA cable you have used uses a different pinout, you will get no sound, or mono sound, or just very low volume. If so, detach everything and start over, maybe using different color mixes.
Once done correctly, you will retain stereo sound for the headphones, and will be able to use an external microphone, though the internal mic is disabled when this adapter is connected and the setting in Sound Input is at "Microphone". To use the internal microphone instead, you would want to use "Line Input"... but then you probably don't need this adapter and would be better off using standard headphones.
Note: after more research, I found out that an iPhone headset might be the easiest way to go. I however do not own an iPhone, and only found out after finishing up the adapter.
I needed to tests this system in order to confirm the status of bug #532958. If you're like me and didn't get an adapter with the system, here is how you can make one.
Requirements:
- 1 cable: 3 RCA plugs to one 4-channel 3.5mm plug - costs about 2$ to 10$
- 2 1/8 (3.5mm) female jack, of the type you prefer (I used chassis) - cost less than a dollar each
Process:
Note the type of cable I'm using: it is somewhat important. You could of course use any type of cable with at least 3 wires, but you would then have to find a 4-channel 3.5mm plug, which is a little less easy to find. This cable already has it, so just remove the RCA plugs, and skin these ends to reveal the signal wire and ground.
You'll want to then attach the wires to the 3.5mm jacks as shown in the pictures below.
- Headphone end: use the yellow and red RCA wires. Attach the colored wires to the ring and tip (the name for the metal tabs that carry actual signal when everything is connected, at the bottom of the jack), then attach both ground wires to the ground tab (the tab sticking out to the side).
- Microphone end: use the white RCA wire, attach to either the ring or tip, then ground it.
Result:
If the jacks aren't properly grounded or the RCA cable you have used uses a different pinout, you will get no sound, or mono sound, or just very low volume. If so, detach everything and start over, maybe using different color mixes.
Once done correctly, you will retain stereo sound for the headphones, and will be able to use an external microphone, though the internal mic is disabled when this adapter is connected and the setting in Sound Input is at "Microphone". To use the internal microphone instead, you would want to use "Line Input"... but then you probably don't need this adapter and would be better off using standard headphones.Note: after more research, I found out that an iPhone headset might be the easiest way to go. I however do not own an iPhone, and only found out after finishing up the adapter.
Tuesday, 18 May 2010
If you're filing bugs: please don't be selfish!
<rant>
If you're filing bugs, I understand that you feel strongly about the issues you're seeing, and that you feel like your problem is important and deserves immediate attention. I also want "my" bugs to be dealt with as soon as possible, and as a Ubuntu contributor I also want *your* bugs to be fixed in a timely manner. However, you usually should not just add information to an existing bug because the symptoms are vaguely similar.
My point is, if you're seeing that something is wrong with your hardware (because this type of issue is quite frequent with hardware-related bugs), please don't hesitate to open a new bug. Developers will often be quite pleased that you did, and will be happy to mark something as a duplicate of another bug for you. Other bug reporters will also be happier, because it allows their own, often unrelated issue to be dealt with rapidly. Your own bug will also likely be fixed earlier, since developers need to sift through less information related to a specific issue: they then need to decide whether a specific attachment or comment is relevant in far fewer cases.
It just helps making the experience more enjoyable to everyone.
Also, if you're suggesting in a bug report against a specific package to use another package, you're not being helpful. Sure, you help the reporter by fixing their immediate problem, but you're not helping the underlying issues being resolved. What we want is to have all projects improve and squash their bugs, which cannot be done if you, say, suggest using Wicd in a bug against NetworkManager for a broken wifi driver.
I like both of these projects, I want both to succeed equally, which means that bugs need to be reported and respected so that we can fix the issues that arise and deliver a better user experience to everyone; while allowing all projects to grow and improve. This is what suggesting that project X is a failure (that's usually not the words used, but you get the idea), and that project Y is better (because it doesn't have that specific issue), will never achieve.
It all boils down to being nice to others. Nice to other bug reporters, because everyone has the same chance of getting their bugs fixed, and nice to other projects because they all get their share of bugs and success stories.
</rant>
If you're filing bugs, I understand that you feel strongly about the issues you're seeing, and that you feel like your problem is important and deserves immediate attention. I also want "my" bugs to be dealt with as soon as possible, and as a Ubuntu contributor I also want *your* bugs to be fixed in a timely manner. However, you usually should not just add information to an existing bug because the symptoms are vaguely similar.
My point is, if you're seeing that something is wrong with your hardware (because this type of issue is quite frequent with hardware-related bugs), please don't hesitate to open a new bug. Developers will often be quite pleased that you did, and will be happy to mark something as a duplicate of another bug for you. Other bug reporters will also be happier, because it allows their own, often unrelated issue to be dealt with rapidly. Your own bug will also likely be fixed earlier, since developers need to sift through less information related to a specific issue: they then need to decide whether a specific attachment or comment is relevant in far fewer cases.
It just helps making the experience more enjoyable to everyone.
Also, if you're suggesting in a bug report against a specific package to use another package, you're not being helpful. Sure, you help the reporter by fixing their immediate problem, but you're not helping the underlying issues being resolved. What we want is to have all projects improve and squash their bugs, which cannot be done if you, say, suggest using Wicd in a bug against NetworkManager for a broken wifi driver.
I like both of these projects, I want both to succeed equally, which means that bugs need to be reported and respected so that we can fix the issues that arise and deliver a better user experience to everyone; while allowing all projects to grow and improve. This is what suggesting that project X is a failure (that's usually not the words used, but you get the idea), and that project Y is better (because it doesn't have that specific issue), will never achieve.
It all boils down to being nice to others. Nice to other bug reporters, because everyone has the same chance of getting their bugs fixed, and nice to other projects because they all get their share of bugs and success stories.
</rant>
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
You're invited: Montreal Lucid Lynx release party!
The Ubuntu-Quebec team is having a party here in Montreal (and in other cities too!!!) once more, this time to celebrate the release of Lucid Lynx. This will once again be held at the Bar Le Saint-Sulpice:
Bar Le Saint-Sulpice
1680, Saint-Denis,
Montréal, Québec,
H2X3K6,
514 844-9458
Everyone's invited to join us there this Thursday, April 29th.
Lots of people have already either RSVP'd using the wonderful LoCo Directory event pages, and many others have confirmed their presence already...
There's going to be a couple of other parties going on this time in the province: another one in Montreal on May 20th, Dummondville and Quebec city on the 5th and 6th of May; if you want to know more, don't hesitate to visit our wiki page for the Lucid release parties organized by Ubuntu-Quebec: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QuebecTeam/LucidParty
Join us and have a chance to meet other Ubuntu enthusiasts like you :)
Bar Le Saint-Sulpice
1680, Saint-Denis,
Montréal, Québec,
H2X3K6,
514 844-9458
Everyone's invited to join us there this Thursday, April 29th.
Lots of people have already either RSVP'd using the wonderful LoCo Directory event pages, and many others have confirmed their presence already...
There's going to be a couple of other parties going on this time in the province: another one in Montreal on May 20th, Dummondville and Quebec city on the 5th and 6th of May; if you want to know more, don't hesitate to visit our wiki page for the Lucid release parties organized by Ubuntu-Quebec: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QuebecTeam/LucidParty
Join us and have a chance to meet other Ubuntu enthusiasts like you :)
Wednesday, 7 April 2010
In retrospect: the good and the bad about the Global Jam event in Montreal
Well, it's better late than never. The bad is obviously how it has taken me more than a week to get to writing this blog post about how well our Global Jam event went :)
Seriously though, I did notice there were slightly fewer people this time around, but this can be inputed to a number of variables, so I really have no reason to complain, we had a great time, found a great number of bugs that were reported (and/or triaged), and it's essentially a clear success. Thanks to all those who participated in making this a great event.
If you want to look at the pictures for our event, you can see them here. There was also a live video made by r2mxr, but I can't find the link to it anymore... I promise I will update about it soon.
Thanks to Fabian Rodriguez and David Bensimon who joined in and helped out a lot in finding bugs, testing, reproducing, and confirming bugs.
Thanks to Philippe Gauthier who did a terrific job at a number of things, including setting, at least in my eyes, the record for the quickest testing process ever. Wine with a Windows app, as well as other Linux applications installed in record time :)
Obviously, thanks to the presenters for a great time: Ronan Jouchet, Michael Faille, Jeff Fortin... You did great, and I learned a lot. I'm sure a lot of others did as well.
Thanks to the SUPInfo students for visiting, you boosted our numbers and gave us a new and different outlook on various issues, which was a clear benefit.
Thanks to ETS, and in particular to Oleg Litvinsky for doing an awesome job at the logistics. I've never seen a room get set up so fast, I felt useless :)
Finally, thanks to those who came in to join us to see presentations or help out with bugs, it was great to see you all and meet new people, or others who we discuss with on the mailing list but rarely have a chance to talk to, face-to-face.
Seriously though, I did notice there were slightly fewer people this time around, but this can be inputed to a number of variables, so I really have no reason to complain, we had a great time, found a great number of bugs that were reported (and/or triaged), and it's essentially a clear success. Thanks to all those who participated in making this a great event.
If you want to look at the pictures for our event, you can see them here. There was also a live video made by r2mxr, but I can't find the link to it anymore... I promise I will update about it soon.
Thanks to Fabian Rodriguez and David Bensimon who joined in and helped out a lot in finding bugs, testing, reproducing, and confirming bugs.
Thanks to Philippe Gauthier who did a terrific job at a number of things, including setting, at least in my eyes, the record for the quickest testing process ever. Wine with a Windows app, as well as other Linux applications installed in record time :)
Obviously, thanks to the presenters for a great time: Ronan Jouchet, Michael Faille, Jeff Fortin... You did great, and I learned a lot. I'm sure a lot of others did as well.
Thanks to the SUPInfo students for visiting, you boosted our numbers and gave us a new and different outlook on various issues, which was a clear benefit.
Thanks to ETS, and in particular to Oleg Litvinsky for doing an awesome job at the logistics. I've never seen a room get set up so fast, I felt useless :)
Finally, thanks to those who came in to join us to see presentations or help out with bugs, it was great to see you all and meet new people, or others who we discuss with on the mailing list but rarely have a chance to talk to, face-to-face.
Monday, 22 March 2010
News about the Global Jam in Montreal
I'm amazed by the amount of interest we're gathering here in Montreal for the Global Jam and the new version Ubuntu in general. I'm very eager to put in lots of work on triaging and helping people understand how to create packages or prepare patches to packages, but I've been contacted by a few people and thought it would be good to share on the awesome presentations and presenters we'll be able to see here this weekend:
- A presentation MythTV and video capture, by Marc-André Gingras
- Club Capra / a robotics project that was migrated from Windows to Ubuntu, and how that was done, by Michael Faille
- An overview of PiTiVi and video edition, by Jeff Fortin (surely along with a bug jam blitz on PiTiVi?)
- A presentation on UbuntuStudio, JACK, and Ardour; by Ronan Jouchet
To get all the juicy details, check out https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QuebecTeam/GlobalJam10.03
I seriously can't wait until Friday!
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
A Global Jam event in Montreal again
It's always nice to see the amount of interest that just a simple table at say, Geekfest Montreal can generate. We gave out a couple of CDs, showed off 10.04, and generally got a very nice amount of support and interest for the Ubuntu-QC LoCo and our Global Jam event.
And about this event?
Well, preparations are going quite well. With the location secured (thanks ETS!!!) (and thus the audio-video equipment, since our rooms are already fitted with a project in one real nicely done table), we'll be ready to host a few presentations. Already one of the confirmed ones will be a student of ETS presenting a robot his team built, and how it's OS was migrated from Windows to Ubuntu.
What's left to decide is much of the little organizational details. For presentations, when will we have them? How do we deal with the fact that WiFi will probably fail? How about the relatively few power sockets available? Do we split the weekend into sessions on different tasks or subjects, and if so, how?
We've had great support from LAN-ETS last October when they helped us out immensely by lending us power bars and wicked cool ethernet cable bundles and a switch. I hope they will agree to help us out once again.
We're also in discussion to get two additional presentations going: MythTV on Ubuntu and PiTiVi. Like last time, I may give a quick crash-course on patching applications and preparing packages.
Of course, we're not just going to focus on showing stuff -- we do plan on getting much more involved than last time in triaging and patching bugs. With our success in October, I'm very confident that the Ubuntu-Quebec team will rock at the UGJ! PiTiVi is already one aspect we will most likely be looking at in detail, and I do hope there will be more: I will obviously be very happy to help out poeple (and have people help me) with giving some love to NetworkManager. I can already think of usb-creator as another pet project that will likely receive some attention.
With the responses we got from the quick installfest we set up last time, the idea of an upgrade Jam is another that seems to be a big hit for the people here. Lucid is sure to be a great release, and we're very eager to give it another big round of testing with all the cool toys people could bring to our Montreal event!
One of the big challenges this time around will be gathering more people from farther around the province. It would be great if people from Quebec city could join us, or even from Chicoutimi or elsewhere. It's also one of the reasons why we try to have as many things going around at the same time as possible, so trips to Montreal would be easier to schedule.
If you're in the Quebec province and more specifically in the Montreal region during the March 26-28 weekend, don't hesitate to come join us!
Sunday, 7 March 2010
Global Jam à Montréal: on récidive!
Il me fait plaisir d'annoncer que la participation des utilisateurs Ubuntu montréalais au Ubuntu Global Jam se fera encore une fois, un peu avant la sortie officielle de Lucid Lynx (la version 10.04, présentement en développement), à l'École de Technologie Supérieure!
Les locaux ont été officialisés: du 26 au 28 mars, nous pourrons passer la fin de semaine dans les locaux de l'ETS, soit les salles de classe A-1300 et A-1238 (en haut des escaliers de l'entrée principale, puis à gauche). N'hésitez pas à consulter la page wiki QuebecTeam/GlobalJam pour l'horaire exact ainsi que les directions pour s'y rendre!
Un gros merci à l'administration de l'ETS pour bien vouloir supporter l'événement (et donc Ubuntu!), et à Clod Patry et Oleg Litvinski pour leur aide avec les détails administratifs.
Vous êtes donc invités à participer à des efforts d'identification, de tri et de "patchage" de bogues avec nous, ainsi qu'à venir poser des questions, essayer la nouvelle version "live" ou l'installer, ou même simplement essayer Ubuntu pour une première fois sur votre ordinateur, dans un environnement convivial où vous pourrez vous sentir bien à l'aise de demander de l'aide si vous en avez besoin... Où simplement venir rencontrez d'autres utilisateurs pour discuter de tout et de rien!
Quelques présentations devraient être planifiées d'ici fin mars. Entre autres, un élève de l'ETS, Michael Faille, nous fera la présentation d'un projet robotique réalisé pas un groupe de l'ETS et roulant sur Ubuntu (depuis sa migration de Windows!). On prévoit certainement encore présenter de façon survolée l'entrée de bogues dans Launchpad, ou alors le tri de ceux-ci si vous voulez aider les développeurs.
Cette fois-ci, beaucoup d'emphase sera mise sur le travail direct en équipe sur les différents bugs qui pourront avoir été soulevés. Il reste à déterminer la formule exacte, mais le but sera de démontrer l'intérêt de notre équipe dans la qualité de la distribution :)
D'ici là, il reste un tas de choses à planifier. Si vous voulez aider dans la réalisation de l'événement ou vous avez des idées, n'hésitez pas à en faire part sur la liste de distribution Ubuntu-QC ou sur notre canal sur Freenode: #ubuntu-qc.
L'École de Technologie Supérieure (ETS) est située au 100 rue Notre-Dame Ouest, soit à deux minutes du métro Bonaventure, au coin Notre-Dame et Peel.
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