Half a Page of Scribbled Linux

I’ve been creating DVD’s from my DSLR video for a few months. The most effective method has been to convert the videos from HD to DVD with FFMPEG:
ffmpeg -i video.MOV -target ntsc-dvd video.mpeg
then import them into DeVeDe and let it create the DVD disk structure and menus. If I let DeVeDe convert the videos, the quality is horrible.
The last time I did this, however, when DeVeDe was creating the directory structure, complained it couldn’t and suggested I check if there was enough disk space. There was. The problem was that although I had told DeVeDe that each video was already in DVD format, I had left off the -target ntsc-dvd from the FFMPEG command line for one of the videos. Re-converting it with the proper flag fixed the problem.

The Canon Pixma Linux blog recommends a printer driver from Canon Asia. The debian package wouldn’t install, so I built from source. The top level directory has a Make file that, while not working itself, listed the subdirectories to be built. In each subdirectory, there was an INSTALL file that listed how each was to be built.
Then I restarted the printer service
service cups restart
and ran System > Administration > Printing, clicked Add, selected Network Printer and chose AppSocket/HP JetDirect. I entered the IP of the printer and left the port at its default of 9100. The IP can be found on the printer’s menu under Settings > Device Settings > LAN Settings > Display LAN Settings.

Unfortunately, the Pixma MP970 wasn’t listed. The closest model number was the MP830.

Another search turned up a newer driver, so I tried that by following the instructions in the README file. After the installation, I ran System > Administration > Printing, clicked Add, then the + next to Network Printer and then Find Network Printer and the Canon showed up. I selected it (it already had the URI) and clicked Forward. It searched for drivers, then had me choose a driver, but still no MP970. The MP150 will print greyscale supposedly (I got grey, magenta and yellow).

To enable on-screen display of the volume, mute and screen brightness buttons, edit /etc/rc.local and add
echo enable,0x00ffffff > /proc/acpi/ibm/hotkey

The TrackPoint on a ThinkPad can scroll pages without pointing to the scrollbar. If enabled, with the mouse pointer in the window you want to scroll, hold the middle mouse button and move the trackpoint in the direction you want to scroll. In Ubuntu 10.04, it’s not enabled by default. You need to download sysfsutils, configure-trackpoint and gpointing-device-settings (called “Pointing devices” in the Ubuntu Software Center) and do a little set-up.

This is a ThinkPad T60 with Windows XP in the default configuration, 150GB WinXP partition and 5GB recovery partition.
Initially using GParted failed to shrink the Windows partition. I ran the disk check and defragment from the C: > Properties > Tools tab. After this GParted was able to shrink the Windows partition. There was 40GB in use. I shrank it to 50 and created an ext3 partition for Linux of 50 GB.
For the installation, some care must be exercised to prevent disabling the ThinkVantage button. This means not installing GRUB on the MBR, but the new / partition instead. Use the manual partitioning option and don’t forget to add a swap partition twice the size of your RAM.

Note: In the steps below, /dev/sda1 is Windows and /dev/sda3 is Ubuntu root.

• Boot with Ubuntu install disk
• Select Rescue a Broken System
• Select new Ubuntu installation / as root and chose “execute a shell” on that file system.

The following is adapted from Matthew J. Miller’s HOWTOs: Dual Booting Ubuntu Linux and Windows XP

• cd /mnt
• mkdir windows
• mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows
• dd if=/dev/sda3 of=/mnt/windows/ubuntu.bin bs=512 count=1
• Reboot into windows: “exit”, then choose Reboot
• Edit the Windows bootloader to point to GRUB by adding C:\ubuntu.bin="Ubuntu Linux" at the end of the file.

You’ll now reboot into the Windows boot loader with an option to load either Windows or Linux.