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Configuring GPRS Internet On Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron).

Configuring GPRS internet On Ubuntu via cable.

Many people out there already have a hardlinked broadband internet line, but some of us out there still use gprs.
I use a samsung mobile phone, but it should workd on all most any phone out there with a cable and a gprs modem on your phone.

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron)

1.) Plug your phone to your com using the given cable, Or any 3rd Party cable that works with it. Check the device manager, to check if Ubuntu detected your phone.

2.) Open up the terminal,type:

#$> sudo gedit /etc/wvdial.conf

3.) The wvdial.conf file should open up using ubuntus’ default editor. This is my wvdial file. Yours should look something like it.

[Dialer Defaults]
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Init3 = AT+CGDCONT = 1,”IP”,”internet”,,0,0
Baud = 460800
Stupid Mode = 1
Modem Type = USB Modem
ISDN = 0
Phone = *99***1#
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
Username = a
Password = b

3.) You might have to change the line “internet” on INIT3, this depends on your service provider, u should contact them for this setting.

4.) Save and exit the editor

5.) Open the terminal Type :

#$> sudo wvdial

6.) Open up your browser and start browsing.. ENJOY!!!

P.S Thanks to all the people at www.ubuntuforums.org for helping me out.

Quest 3: The Audacious Review!

Today, scrolling through the aimless and vast number of software present on ubuntu repositories, i came across audacious..Checking out there website, www.audacious-media-player.org ,i came to realize that this project was most likely discontinued. since the most lastest news bulletin on the site was an year ago.

But regardless of all that, i decided to try it out, since it reminded me of the classic winamp 2.x that i used to use and love..Installation went along smoothly, load of audacious was pretty fast, using only 2-5% of cpu resources… No hassle!!

Although it doesn’t have a media library, like exaile,Amarok etc..its simplicity is its greatest asset.

Although audacious comes with a very basic skin just like winamp 2.x did, downloading some skins off

www.winamp.com
www.deviantart.com
www.gnome-look.org

makes audicious quite presentable…

For those who require a simple player, without any playlist management then audacious is it!

* Screenshots of some skins for audacious*

Quest 2 : Exaile Music Player.

After some thought on which music player to check try out. i sat down to check out exaile..
An Older version of exaile was available on the ubuntu repositories. But i figured getting the lastest version would be nicer.
so I downloaded the source from the website and compiled it myself. I ran in to some simple problems during compilation but managed to sort them out.
finally installation of Exaile v0.2.1 was complete.

After running it for the first time, and setting up my playlists and media took some time but thats all a part of the process.
Exaile seems to run fairly well on my system, although it still occasionaly crashes, exaile is the Amarok alternative for gnome.
But i’ve used amarok before and it looks like exaile still has some catching up to do.. But it is getting there.

Searching for songs on your playlist on exaile is a bit laggy. i switched to ubuntu a few months ago, and while on windows i used winamp for my music,
and the “jump to file” function on winamp was one its best, it had a faster search.

Occasionaly crashes do occur on exaile, especially when i try to skip songs rapidly.

About the music quality, The quality seems to be good..

On average i’d give it 6 out of 10.

*Screenshots*

Quest 1 : Banshee

Finding the best music player for me..begins with Banshee.

Banshee is a free audio player for GNU/Linux operating systems, that is built upon Mono and Gtk#. It uses the GStreamer multimedia platform for encoding, and decoding various music formats. Basicly banshee looks like Itunes.. The latest version of banshee 0.99.1, The added the capability to play video files in this. so i thought..oh..maybe this is wat i was looking for.. but sadly enough it was a disappointment..

It lags on start up, searching songs on it takes a tad bit too long, and it still cannot play all the video formats.
It crashed during mid video playback.. i couldn’t get past playing 5 videos, it kept crashing.
I reinstalled the GStreamer codec and reinstalled banshee, but the result was the same.

Lets hope the banshee team patches things up for their next release.

~inzi

The Quest for the Ultimate Music Player For Gnome~

I am a guy who listens to a lot of music. ofcourse ubuntu comes coupled with rhythmbox for your audio and totemfor video.
But i want something that will help me play both video and audio on the same player, like the new winamp.

And So the Quest Continues…

The First Post! – The Ubuntu Experience

I know there are thousands of blogs on ubuntu out there, I’ve read so many, each of them giving the bloggers idea on ubuntu… These are my views and experiences on an OS i’m begining to love.

For those of you who don’t know what ubuntu is : Ubuntu is an African word meaning, “humanity towards others”. Ubuntu is sponsored by Canonical Ltd, owned by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth.
Ubuntu Strives to provide an up-to-date yet stable operating system for the average user and having a strong focus on usability and ease of installation. It is a derivative of Debian.

Well i switched to ubuntu a few months ago, after being recommened to my by my friend from The US… He told me that i could actually download the OS right off the net, i’ve never used a linux OS before, i’ve seen some of friends fiddling with Red Hat Linux. but it wasn’t so much of an eye candy thing for me, so i was never interested in it. Well i put in a free order for the cd, took between 4-6 weeks but it finally got to me.. MY very own Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon).
One of the main reasons for me switching to linux was because of its stability, and invulnerability to most windows based viruses and i couldn’t take the constant reformatting and crashing of my windows pc.

Ubuntu’s website says “You’ll never need to go back”. and they’re actually right. after installing ubuntu,i’ve never needed to go back to windows.. Ofcourse there are certain softwares that still don’t work on linux distros. but those are only a select few..

When hardy Heron, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Long Term Support) was released, i was instantly amazed by the speed, load up was much faster for me.. Although i still havne’t figured out the new PulseAudio. Maybe i will figure things out as time goes by.

~inzi