Category: Software

Skype Installation Shows Ubuntu Not Ready for Masses

The horrifically footery and niggly process I’ve just gone through to install Skype is sad proof that Ubuntu, and Linux, is still not ready for prime time. The fact you have to get a bit hacky to get a product as mainstream as Skype working is a sad indictment of the state of the OS.

Step 1: Add the Ubuntu Partner Repository following the instructions from Ubuntu’s wiki.

As my installation was Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) upgraded from 9.10 (Karmic Koala) I had to edit the repository information and change the distribution from ‘karmic’ to ‘lucid’ as for some reason this had not been automatically updated as part of the upgrade.

After doing this, and reloading the package information, the Synaptic Package Manager still didn’t find Skype when I searched, so I had to follow

Step 2: Revert to the terminal and enter

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install skype

This was a command I’d picked up from Googling previously and finding this guide.  I figured it was worth a shot.  This seemed to work, gave me a lot of information and asked me if I wanted to continue. I did.

The terminal did a lot of stuff in the background as I’ve been typing this, eventually telling me:

Setting up skype (2.1.0.81-1ubuntu5) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin ...
ldconfig deferred processing now taking place

and returning me to the command prompt. Umm… ok? Still not sure this had worked I started looking for Skype and guessed (correctly) that it would be under Internet (I’m using Ubuntu Netbook Edition).  I opened it, accepted the Licence Agreement and signed in. Very slowly.

A good 2-3 minutes later I’m signed in.  Unfortunately, I only use Skype for talking to my girlfriend who’s currently studying in Malaysia and as it is currently 5:40 am there, she’s not online for me to test it out properly on a call.  However I don’t need to do that to ask this question:

How many ordinary users are going to go through all that just to install Skype, and how many will give up and go back to Windows?

Android/Facebook/Eclipse – Must Override a Superclass Method

I’m trying to get into developing apps for Android and developing an Android Facebook app seemed like an good place to start with something useful.  However it seems frought with problems that will perplex the beginner.

One early problem I encountered which had a non-0bvious solution was the message:

The method onCancel() of type new Facebook.DialogListener(){} must override a superclass method

This occurred after pasting some example code from the Facebook site into my project.  The problem?  My project was defaulting to JDK 1.5 and the code on the Facebook site requires 1.6!

It’s been a while since I looked at Java but the problem is apparently due to the use of the “@override” syntax. According to one helpful StackOverflow member, in Java 1.6 this can also be used to implement interface methods, but in 1.5 could only be used to override superclass methods.

Solved?: Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun on Windows 7

For some reason, already having downloaded Command and Conquer and the follow-up, C&C: Red Alert [free download], I thought I’d check out on my new laptop if there were any special Christmas freebies from EA this year.  It turns out there weren’t, but that they have subsequently released the third C&C game (Tiberian Sun) as a free download so I went ahead and downloaded it.

Of course once I’d done that and spent hours trying to make it work, I realised the download wasn’t compatible with my shiny new laptop because it’s running Windows 7, and Windows 7 doesn’t like old games or something.  Even when I tried following the instructions, it ran (which was more than I’d managed to get it to do myself) but when the main menu loaded, none of the menus would display properly. Fail!

Enter CnCsector.net, who have packaged the game up into a nice installer package that they assure us works with Windows 7 (including Win7 64-bit!). It took 4-5 hours to download all the files (and there doesn’t seem to be any way to skip this – not good!)… though 99% of that is for the movie files for the cut-scenes, which are optional.

Sadly, the same thing happened again – I never did get it working entirely properly, though I did find a semi-solution.  Firstly I noticed that if I hit the Windows key to go back to Windows, then opened the game again the menu was there on screen.  Actually I noticed this when I tried to find out if the menu showed up if I did a Print Screen (it did), but the menu was there when I came back.

Solution

Some while later I noticed that if I put the mouse cursor over where the menu should be and scrolled (e.g. using the scroll wheel, or the side of the laptop trackpad), it would appear (without exiting to Windows).  It’s not ideal but it’ll do me for now.  Thanks to all the guys at CnC Comm who tried to help.

Eclipse/Android Development Installation Issue

Yes, it’s Christmas as I blog this at 2am, however I got a new laptop for Christmas and am geeking it out to the point where I can use it for fun stuff.  To that end I’ve been trying to install the requisite tools for Android development and hit an issue which could have (but thankfully didn’t) take me hours to sort out.  I’m a complete n00b at this, so don’t treat this as anything like a complete guide!

Having managed to “install” Eclipse (which from what I can tell just means copying the contents of a zip file to somewhere on your hard drive) and the Android SDK, I needed to install the ADT (Android Development Tools) plugin for Eclipse.  However on doing this I was getting an error telling me:

Missing requirement: Android Development Toolkit 0.9.4.v200910220141-17704 (com.android.ide.eclipse.adt 0.9.4.v200910220141-17704) requires ‘bundle org.eclipse.gef 0.0.0’ but it could not be found

This was a pain, and it took a bit of Googling to discover how to rectify that. Apparently the version of Eclipse Google recommend (Classic) doesn’t include the GEF or ‘Graphical Editing Framework’ which the Android ADT plugin requires.  Nice!  So the easy way to install this (thank you to IBM for the pointer on this) is to install it the same way you would the ADT plugin, i.e. open up Eclipse and choose “Install New Software” in the “Help” menu.

When it says work with, instead of using the URL Google give for Android, use the one where GEF lives.  In my case, for version 3.6.x of Eclipse, this is:

Helios – http://download.eclipse.org/releases/helios

(Helios being the codename for Eclipse 3.6).  Once this is done you’ll be advised to restart Eclipse (so I did) and everything seems to be going ok now (touch wood!).

I just hope this helps someone else with the same problem or, more importantly, helps me the next time I come across the same thing and end up scratching my head trying to remember how I fixed it!

HTC Desire Headphone Issues

This is just a random puzzling issue. I recently went to work without my iPod headphones which I’ve been using with my HTC Desire to listen to music during work, so I tried some others I’d picked up over the summer courtesy of Continental Airlines.

For some reason when I put the headphones in the sound went all echoy and when I tried to fix it the tracks would randomly skip forwards, skip backwards and skip through tracks. I also noticed the headphones icon at the top included what looks to be a headset microphone.

Turns out I’m not the only one… users on Android Forums have been reporting the same issue. Very disappointing from a top-of-the-range Smartphone.

SOLVED: No sound after login on Ubuntu Eee PC / Ubuntu Linux

I’ve posted twice recently about my problems following an upgrade of Ubuntu Netbook Remix to Lucid Lynx (10.04).  In short, I upgraded both the BIOS of the netbook (an Asus Eee PC 1008HA) and upgraded Ubuntu from 9.10 (Karmic Koala) to 10.04 (Lucid Lynx).  Once I did this the sound would disappear after the first time I logged in following each boot, and only work properly if I logged out and in again.

One kind commenter (thank you “ThrasherC”) suggested