[K]ubuntu USB errors->Slow boot

I’ve installed Kubuntu 8.10 64 bit on my new computer. This new computer has a Asus P6T motherboard.

What started to happen was that boot became quite slow due to some USB errors… For example:

usb 5-1: device descriptor read/all, error -71 and usb 5-1: device descriptor read/all, error -110

This slowed down booting for 30s to one minute as the console was outputing these errors… After a while, boot progressed, and the KDE logon screen appeared. No issue was found accessing any connecting USB device.

First I thought of my WD Elements 400GB external drive was the reason for the issue. But fully disconnecting it didn’t do the trick. I also thought it might be an issue with the motherboard, the new Asus P6T, but it looks like it was more a Linux kernel module issue.

At least this for me worked:

rmmod uhci_hcd

rmmod  ehci_hcd

rmmod usbcore

and then change the module loading order:

modprobe usbcore

modprobe ehci_hcd

modprobe uhci_hcd

Rebooted, and problem solved.

Kubuntu and Firefox looks: It looks bad

As I’m fully installing my new computer from scratch with Kubuntu 8.10 64bit, some things aren’t quite right.

One of the most annoying is that Firefox on Kunbuntu doesn’t look very good…

The radio buttons for example look belong to a different complete theme than Firefox. Not good.

The solution?

sudo apt-get install gtk2-engines-qtcurve gtk-chtheme

Then goto System Settings, select Apearance and then GTK Styles and Fonts. On GTK styles choose to use another style. On the dropdown box you should have now QT4, QTCurve and Raleigh.

Choose QTCurve.

Restart Firefox, and pronto/listo/voilá!

ASUS P6T (i920) and lm_sensors

To make more or less the temperature sensors to work on this motherboard combo Asus P6T and an I7 920 processor, I’ve followed this instructions.

http://guide.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1056681

It kind of works… It’s better than nothing.

[K]Ubuntu: Grub and XP NTLDR missing

My scenario: I have three internal hardisks: 1TB WD (sda) and on 640GB (sdb) WD disks.  sdb is my boot disk, so I have an Windows XP 32bit, and Kubuntu 8.10 ( ) 64 bit. I also have an old 160GB ide disk (sdc). I’m running in AHCI mode.

After installing Kubuntu, Grub created entries for Kubuntu and Windows XP.

After reboot I can boot into Kubuntu but booting into Windows XP, it stoped with the dreaded NTLDR is missing…

Kubuntu install created this for booting windows:

# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sdb1
title           Microsoft Windows XP Professional
root            (hd1,0)
savedefault
map            (hd0) (hd1)
map            (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader     +1
Which doesn’t work. At boot it gives the above error: NTLDR is missing.

The solution? In my case all it took was to change to this:

# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sdb1
title           Microsoft Windows XP Professional
root            (hd1,0)
savedefault
chainloader     +1

Now it boots without any problem

Digikam and Kubuntu 8.10

Instructions for instaling the latest version of Digikam on Kubuntu 8.10 are located here http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=Digikam+Compilation+on+Kubuntu+Intrepid

On Kubuntu 8.10 64bits, so far good. I had to lauch it twice so at the second time all the Kipi plugins where detected.

Kubuntu 8.10 64 bit install

I’ve replaced my aging P4 1.8Ghz computer with a brand new I7 920 one… The old machine couldn’t even ran Kubuntu very well do to the Nvidia G400mx graphic board/driver issues. It just locked up the keyboard and mouse when using the restricted driver and had to do an hard reset to get out. So because my portable PC is an ATI graphic chip, Ive choosen for the new rig an ati 4870

So, I7 920 running on an Asus P6T with 6GB of RAM. This means 64 bit OS.The graphics board is an Gainward 4870.

Installation: Could only do it by using safe mode for graphics. Just after choosing the install language, press F4 to choose Safe mode, and you’re ready to go. If you do no choose the safe mode, after boot the screen just stays blank.

I  boot to the live CD and press on the Install icon on the desktop. This way allows me to surf the web during the installation …

I’ve created three partitions: one for / (root), other for /boot another one for swap. So far so good. At the end before beginning installation I choose advanced and move the Grub boot loader to disk (hd1). hd0 is not my boot disk. The order of boot is definied in Bios. Just make sure that it makes sense on your installation.

The installation detected everything on my Asus P6T. This means that sound is working, ethernet is working and usb is working.

After sucessufull installation and one reboot, two things must be done:Install the ATI drivers, and upgrade all packages to the current releases.

1st) Upgrade. Just follow the ballon that will appear on the right low side of the screen and upgrade to the latest package releases.

2nd) Upgrade to KDE 4.2.2. Follow the instructions on http://www.kubuntu.org/news/kde-4.2.2. At the end of step 3, just press CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE or logout, so that Adept can show you the new updates for KDE. Upgrade KDE and then logout and login again.

3rd) Install the 64 bit ATI drivers. Just follow the instructions. Download, make sure that the driver is executable (chmod +x ati-driver-installer-9-3-x86.x86_64.run in my case) and run it with sudo: sudo ati-driver-installer-9-3-x86.x86_64.run. At the end just make again CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE so that the X server reloads.

Execute the comand fglrxinfo to make sure that the driver is loaded:

fglrxinfo
display: :0.0  screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
OpenGL version string: 2.1.8543 Release

The Ati control Panel can be acessed by the  amdcccle command located on /usr/share/ati
Now you can install your favorite software. In my case the first thing that I’ve installed was firefox and the Adobe Flash player plugin. Then I’ve moved my profile from my old system to the new system.

You can after this upgrade the Open Office 2.4 to the latest version by adding the Ooo repository: Just check this: http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-To-Install-OpenOffice-org-3-0-in-Ubuntu-8-10-96449.shtml

For starters, that’s it. You can now follow the Perfect desktop installs from howtoforge.