Ubuntu, the good and the bad

I just experience another episode of the good and the bad, in this case for Ubuntu but not restricted to Ubuntu, in principle it applies to the whole Linux world. Let's start with the bad, I've upgraded my Laptop from Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS to 12.10. Unfortunately, the upgrade procedure breaks in the middle of the upgrade with an error message like a package has two versions is blocking itself.

The result was a half upgraded system already announcing itself as fully upgraded. Some hours of investigation later I figured out that an old install of skype mixing up x64 und i386 packages caused the problems. Ok, my fault, installing Microsoft Software on a Linux system might not be the smartest idea.   Nevertheless, the situation was fixed and I had to deal with it. Simply re-installing the system was not an option because I use an encrypted home drive and I didn't write down the master key (ok, I know, my fault as well).

So I need to fix the system. Fortunately, and now we enter the good, Linux has a central package system giving you the ability to check, remove, re-install the whole system without messing up the configuration. The first action was to remove the blocking package. The next step was to remove all remaining i386 packages (they are only used for a small amount of packages) resulting in a system that wasn't even able to boot. So the next step was to boot the system from a rescue CD, chroot to the original system and re-install all removed i386 packages as amd64 packages again. This took some time and need some rework on the network settings but in the end, I was able to boot my system again. Now I had to finish the upgrade manually, fix some corrupted packages and ... tattata ... my system was back again and upgraded.

To summarize the action, the bad thing is that Linux can also get corrupted, the good thing is, nearly every corrupted status could be transformed into a good working state again with tools available for free at the internet.

XBMC Eden Live on Zotac Zbox ID41 Plus

Several months ago, I started a private project getting a cheap and open source media box up and running. The hardware decision was a Zotac Zbox ID 41 Plus because most of the comments about the box were quite positive and compared with other boxes, the Zbox was quite cheap.

The next, much more interesting thing, was the software decision. The first attempt was based on OpenELEC.This one is a media distribution, stripped down to the necessary elements and focused on the ION2 box. If you are seeking for something small and fast where interaction with the underlaying operating system is outside the scope, you will be definitely on the right track. But, this isn't what I'm seeking for. So my second attempt was the XBMC Live distribution. This one was closer to my needs but still requires a lot of work to get a media box which fit my needs. So my last attempt till now is the XMBCbuntu Beta3.

The sound configuration didn't work out-of-the-box. I need to customize it:
Settings --> System --> Audio-Hardware
Output --> Optical/Coaxial
Speaker --> 5.1
AC3 --> deselect
DTS --> deselect
Audio Output --> Custom --> plug:both
Digital Audio Output --> Custom --> plug:both

I don't have a clue why DTS-HD is only working with setting optical/coaxial instead of HDMI what is in the end used for audio transport to the TV, but this is the setting that is in the end working for me.

The other customizations I've done are more or less cosmetic changes which I will describe in later postings.

Gnome 3 vs. Unity

After upgrading to Ubuntu 11.04 I did my first steps with unity. I nice approach but it feels unready in terms of graphic, layout and some other things. So I've installed Gnome 3 to see how this one feels. The result, it look and feel incredible, very clean, very nice, definitely the right direction. Unfortunately it is not yet complete from my point of view, things like global menu should be incorporated to Gnome 3 as well. But when this is done it is the actual coolest and nicest desktop I know of.