Tag Archives: Linux

SketchUp 7 on Linux

Did you ever ask yourself how the 3D buildings in GoogleEarth are made? It’s done with Google’s free tool SketchUp. It’s an easy to use ( all is easy, if you know how it works ;-) ) 3D modeling software. You can learn it in a few hours and design complex buildings. Just leave the Window “Instructor” open (get it with Menu–>Window–>Instructor), and it shows you for every tool how it can be used. This helps enormously. Continue reading →

Getting Started with Skype on Linux

I bought a new webcam few days ago (Tevion MD85872) and had in mind to use it for video conferencing with my family and friends, and this – yes – with Linux. I’ve tried a few messengers, which were told to be able to work with Linux regarding video transmissions. This is the

  • MSN messenger and
  • Yahoo! messanger

ICQ doesn’t support video on Linux, and all other application available, doesn’t talk to the messengers my friends and family is using.
Long story short, I didn’t manage to make MSN or Yahoo! work.
A friend of mine said, I should use Skype, and I’ve tried it also. And surprise surprise, Continue reading →

Pages: 1 2

Google Earth 4.3 (Beta) crashes on Linux (Problem solved by workaround)

Perform these three lines, if it still doesn’t work, read the workaround described below:

cd ~/.googleearth
wget http://mymediasystem.net/wp/2009/01/libGL.so.1.2
googleearth

If it crashes again, you can give it one further try by removing the lock file and myplaces (back them up, if necessary): Continue reading →

Pages: 1 2

Tevion Graphics Tablet (Aiptek, APT-6000U) on Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex)

Finally I’ve got my old USB Tevion graphics tablet working on Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex). It was a hard fight, and I don’t exactly know anymore how I got there, but I’ll try to reconstruct this case as good as I can. Before you go ahead: It’s not working without flaws. There are some ugly bugs, and dirty workarounds in it, but at least I’ve got it working somehow. This seems to be the first HOWTO for APT-6000U on the Internet so far, please consider it may not work for you, since I’ve got no conformations yet, if it’s working for other, too.
Continue reading →

Pages: 1 2

SimCity2000 in a DosBox on Linux for free

Abandonware – a Wikipedia definition:

Abandonware refers to computer software that is no longer sold or supported, or whose copyright ownership may be unclear for various reasons. …

Well – SimCity2000 (SC2000) is told to be abandonware. So I’ve downloaded simcity2000.zip [2.3MB] from the year 1993, and tried to run the INSTALL.EXE with wine. Hehe, good joke. That doesn’t work of course, and I’ve got this: Continue reading →

Linux – AVCHD (H.264) – hardware acceleration

[UPDATE] Read here about the latest development, regarding hardware acceleration on Linux: http://blog.mymediasystem.net/?tag=vdpau

The truth about Linux’ capability of playing back AVCHD content

NEWS! It’s getting tense! Read this post from the NVIDIA Manager Andy Ritger: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2008-November/040279.html

This section is going to be about my experiences with Linux and HD television. It covers topics like VDR und h264 support. Playing back mpeg transport stream (mts/m2ts) footage from camcorders like Canon’s HF100 or Panasonic’s HDC-SD100. Both cams record in the AVCHD format, aka mpeg4/AVC. This page will also describe my progresses playing back this AVCHD footage. No – I’m not there yet ;-) Continue reading →

Pages: 1 2

How to spindown(sleep) a SATA hard disk drive after being idle (Linux)

[UPDATE] If your BIOS supports the AHCI standard,  you may try to turn it on, and try to use the ‘hdparm -S1 /dev/sdn’ command again, or all the variants your distro suggests for powering down your hard disk.

BUT! Read here carefully about possible complications: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Host_Controller_Interface. If you don’t have such an BIOS switch or it doesn’t work for you for other reasons, you may read ahead.[/UPDATE] Continue reading →

Poor man’s workaround for Cheese zero byte problem on Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex)

cheese webcam application

cheese webcam application

I’m checking cyclic if the zero byte problem with the webcam application cheese is gone meanwhile.
So happened today, and no – it’s not. Since I really needed a stream badly today, I’ve looked again for a fix or workaround. But looking on the Internet for this bug reveals that this bug used to happen more often than one time. It’s sad, because I like this little nifty application.
And found only poor man’s workaround. Well, better then nothing. Continue reading →

XBMC installation on Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) x86_64 + short review

[UPDATE] XMBC is now available as binary package for Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex). Add these lines to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc-intrepid/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc-intrepid/ubuntu intrepid main

Perform an ‘apt-get update‘ before you install it via ‘apt-get install xbmc‘. If you intend to install XBMC manually (e.g. for development supporting reasons), go ahead reading. Continue reading →

Pages: 1 2 3