Rhythmbox has had the option to use crossfading for a few releases now, but it had always just crashed. Well good job to the Rhythmbox authors, because it’s smooth and stable in Rhythmbox 0.12.0 in Ubuntu 9.04. I’ve set it to 0.3 seconds and it’s been quite elegant.

I just updated to the 2.6.28-13 kernel in Ubuntu 9.04 and sound was just playing static. The solution was to raise the volume on the PCM slider, for some reason it was down to 0.

Some of the new Dell Inspiron laptops (the 1420n, 1520, and 1525 are the ones I know of) come with a digital microphone array above the screen, but a fresh install of Ubuntu 8.04 will not have the array enabled by default.

Fortunately, it wasn’t too difficult to enable, and now I can use Audacity, Skype, etc., without any peripherals.

Although Hardy’s usage of the new Pulseaudio system is causing problems with many audio applications, the problem in this case seemed to be alsa-based

1. Right-click the volume applet in the top-right of your screen and click Open Volume Control.
2. Click File > Change Device and change the device to the alsa device.
3. Now click Edit > Preferences and select both Digital and Digital Input Source.
4. In the Recording tab, make sure the digital device’s volume is all the way up and that the device is not muted.
5. In the Options tab, change Digital Input Source: to Digital Mic 1.

Google Trends got some updates so I was playing with it. Some funny correlations:
New Years Resolutions
The changing seasons

The 2200BG and 2915ABG cards use the ipw2200 driver, which is able to control the wifi indicator LED which most laptops will use.

To enable, run the following as root or with sudo privileges:
echo "options ipw2200 led=1" >> /etc/modprobe.d/ipw2200.modprobe
modprobe -r ipw2200 ; modprobe ipw2200
Note that these steps were used with a Dell Inspiron 6000 and Ubuntu 7.10. Certain chipsets may instead use the acerhk module, or need to add the “options ipw2200 led=1″ to a different location.

To get my dual-screen setup working, I first used Xinerama, which worked, but had a (blocker, for me) bug that would distort the cursor.

I then tried MergedFB using the Radeon driver, and it was good. I could play games with the 3D accelerated screen, and the mouse was quite usable.

In the latest xserver release (1.3) MergedFB functionality has been deprecated by the robust RandR 1.2 (X-Windows Resize and Rotate). With this release, the X Server supports hotplugging, meaning a monitor will be automatically detected when plugging it in, and can be enabled without restarting the X session.

When I tried this, xrandr set up both monitors at their native resolutions, 1280×800 and 1680×1050, but mirrored the display instead of extending it. How did it mirror by using different resolutions, you ask? it overlayed the 1280×800 screen in the top-left corner of the 1680×1050 display. Funny, but not what I wanted

The solution ended up being to disable the S-video out port on the video card explicitly, using xrandr --output S-video --off and then xrandr --output VGA-0 --right-of LVDS to extend the desktop onto the second monitor instead of mirror it.

It was also necessary to increase the size of the Virtual screen. So the only xorg.conf modification I made ended up being this:
Section "Screen"
...
SubSection "Display"
Virtual 2960 1050
EndSubsection
EndSection
Of course, other resolutions will vary in their required Virtual screen size.

A good reference is Intel’s xrandr 1.2 dual-head page here. Although it deals with the Intel graphics driver, the basic idea is the same for the radeon drivers.

update: The radeon driver no longer uses mergedfb, but randr for multiscreening.

Xinerama was quite a suboptimal solution for my setup. What advantages does MergedFB provide?

1. 3-D Accelerated Dual Screens
2. Ability to use HW Cursor
3. Allows dual monitor setup without using proprietary fglrx driver
4. easy setup

My setup:

I’m running an ATI Mobility Radeon X300, with my primary monitor (laptop screen) at 1280×800 and my secondary monitor (Samsung Syncmaster 206BW) at 1680×800 (on the VGA port unfortunately, it’s all the laptop has)

/etc/X11/xorg.conf modifications:

After installing Ubuntu, I had the radeon driver running the primary display at native resolution. To add the secondary monitor, I had to add a small (compared to Xinerama) amount to my xorg.conf, and then ctrl-alt-backspace to restart the X server.

In the device section, I added the following:
Option "MergedFB" "true" #Enables MergedFB
Option "MonitorLayout" "LVDS (TMDS), CRT" #Interfaces I used
Option "CRT2Hsync" "30-81"
Option "CRT2VRefresh" "56-75"
Option "OverlayOnCRTC2" "true" #think this might be deprecated
Option "CRT2Position" "RightOf"
Option "MetaModes" "1280x800-1680x1050" #individual monitor modes
Option "MergedNonRectangular" "True" #screens do not form a rectangle when next to each other


In the monitor section, I added the refresh info about the secondary monitor:
Horizsync 30-81
Vertrefresh 56-75


The final modification I made was to overcome a bug I was running up against. Reading the X log at /var/log/X.0.log it appeared that MergedFB was failing to set the secondary screen larger then 1280×800. So I changed the Modes line in the “Screen” section from “1280×800″ to “1200×800″. Now both screens in my MergedFB metamodes were larger than the screen size, and it worked properly

There are a few disadvantages:

1. Random cursor corruption (rarely, not as annoying as Xinerama)
2. X server must be restarted to switch between dual- and single-monitor setups (frequent with my laptop)

If you are trying to add a second monitor to your laptop running an ATI video card, the following should help you.

In my example, I’m using an ATI Mobility Radeon x300 on a laptop. The laptop’s display is the primary display, and will be running at 1280×800 resolution as the left screen. The secondary display is a CRT which will be running at 1280×1024 as the right screen.

Be sure to have fglrx running, as far as I know, the free Radeon drivers do not support xinerama yet.

In /etc/X11/xorg.conf my “Device” section looks like this:
Section "Device"
Identifier "Generic Video Card"
Driver "fglrx"
Screen 0
Option "MonitorLayout" "CRT, CRT+LFP"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Option "SWCursor" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Card1"
Driver "fglrx"
Screen 1
Option "MonitorLayout" "CRT, CRT+LFP"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Option "SWCursor" "true"
EndSection

Note that “SWCursor” is enabled. ATI’s fglrx driver has a bug which corrupts the cursor on the second monitor, if the monitor is a different resolution from the first monitor. The solution is to use SWCursor, which uses software rendering rather than hardware rendering to draw the cursor. This is a temporary solution, however, since SWCursor leaves artifacts on the screen when scrolling or dragging, and the rendering is generally slower than hardware cursor rendering.

Next we have the “Monitor” section. Be sure to find the correct refresh values for your monitor, a quick search can save your monitor from damage.

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Generic Monitor"
Option "DPMS"
HorizSync 30-70
VertRefresh 50-160
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "MonExt"
Option "DPMS"
HorizSync 30.0-95.0
VertRefresh 50.0-160.0
EndSection

Next is the “Screen” section, the only thing here is to be sure that the “Device” and “Monitor” fields are correct for each screen, and then just set your desired depth and resolution.

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "Generic Video Card"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1200x800"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device "Card1"
Monitor "MonExt"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Finally, edit the “ServerLayout” section to tie everything together and enable xinerama.

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "DualHead"
Screen "Default Screen" LeftOf "Screen1"
Screen "Screen1"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
InputDevice "stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "cursor" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "eraser" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "Synaptics Touchpad"
Option "Xinerama" "on"
EndSection