…and waited, and waited, and waited a bit more. The installer told me that it was “Preparing libc6″, but it seemed to be doing an awful lot of preparing. I’ve prepared entire meals in less time than it was taking to prepare libc6. So eventually, I clicked on the Terminal dropdown to see what was going on.

The installer was actually waiting for input from me in the terminal window. It had an ncurses window open, and was asking about stopping and restarting certain services. I clicked OK, and OK again on the window that followed. After that the installation was quick and painless. So just a tip if you’re doing an upgrade through Update Manager – click on the Terminal dropdown first and save yourselves a long wait!

That little niggle aside, I’m really liking this new release. Most – if not all – of Unity’s rough edges seem to have been smoothed out. Being a “terminal fiend” as I was recently called (thank you +Sean Campbell, I like that ), I love the new Super key feature (the Windows key on most PCs) – hold it down and an overlay pops up showing keyboard shortcuts.

The HUD is a really interesting addition too. I know this has had a mixed response from some testers, but it works like this: if you press and hold the Alt key in an application, then that application’s menus appear at the top of the screen as expected. If you press and quickly release the Alt key, however, then the HUD is activated. This neat little text box allows you to start typing the command you want to carry out from the menus. For example, stab the Alt key and type p – the HUD will show you the menu commands that match your input (likely File > Print in this example). Just press Enter to select the option – often it’s the default.

The HUD uses fuzzy searching and remembers past searches to try and learn from your input. It’s a really quick way of navigating around applications, and you don’t even have to remove your hands from the keyboard – or navigate a series of nested menus to find what you want. Personally, I love it.

I’m also really liking the new Video lens for the Dash. It searches your local videos, and online sources, which I think is a great way of integrating video searching to the desktop.

Additionally, I’m happy to say that my Wine applications seem to be behaving better than they did on 11.10. The tooltips in Windows applications would often leave an ugly grey box when they deactivated. It was almost as if the drop shadow remained after the tooltip vanished. Anyway, that has now been fixed, so my Wine applications are a lot more visually pleasing.

Did I mention that my Samsung RF511 now starts up in record time? I thought Oneiric was quick, but Precise is like lightning. And there you have it, folks, conclusive proof than a Pangolin is faster than an Ocelot.

I was quite excited about this Ubuntu release. This was the first time I’d been involved with the release as part of the server documentation team, so it’s great to see everything come together. Congratulations to all the developers and teams that put in so much time and effort to make 12.04 LTS such a polished release.

Perhaps more importantly, the Spectrum introduced me to programming and, I think, laid the basis for  my current involvement with Linux. I started with Sinclair BASIC, an interpreted language built in to the machine, and quickly grasped the fundamentals. Fast forward two years to 1984. Margaret Thatcher and the National Union of Mineworkers were engaged in a vicious power struggle, and my father was on strike with the other miners in Britain. No longer able to afford to buy any games for the Spectrum, I saved up every penny and bought the book “Mastering Machine Code on your ZX Spectrum” by Toni Baker. Amazingly by today’s standards – where all programming is done from the boxed-in safety of an IDE – you had to write your own assembler in Sinclair BASIC. Opcodes were firstly written on A4 ruled sheets, and graphics were designed on graph paper from school.

With only 48Kb of RAM (41.5Kb usable) space was at a premium. Programs had to be tight, and no instruction could be wasted in order to get the most out of the 3.5Mhz Zilog Z80 processor. This taught me programming discipline that I still try to use on projects today and, just to put a Linux spin on this post as well, Linus Torvalds (I really don’t need to tell you who he is, do I?) cut his programming teeth on the successor to the ZX Spectrum, the Sinclair QL.

It’s not just misty-eyed nostalgic exaggeration when I say that this humble machine, with less computing power than the weakest smartphone, affected my life more than anything else I’ve ever owned. It taught me fundamentals of computer architecture that are still the same today, and started me on a 30-year journey with computers that I’m still enjoying today. I hope that projects like Raspberry Pi can create a whole new generation of people who get into programming and computer science for the sheer fun of it, just like my generation did back in the 1980′s.

Even today, I still own the 48K, rubber-keyed ZX Spectrum (well, two now actually, along with a 128K Spectrum+2 and a 48K Spectrum+), such is the affection that I have for the little machine. So before I do descend into misty-eyed nostalgia, I’ll finish by saying a huge thank you to Sir Clive Sinclair and the world-changing ZX Spectrum. Happy 30th anniversary.

EDIT: and a tip of the hat to Google for the doodle at www.google.co.uk today screenshot is here in case it’s gone by the time you read this.

Some Spectrum links:

comp.sys.sinclair
World of Spectrum
ZX Spectrum on Wikipedia
My CSSCGC 2006 pages
My Spectrum Firefox Personas here and here

This blog normally trundles along, receiving between 500 to 1,000 views per day, but the “Linux is alive” article spiked at twenty times that on the first day! I don’t want to thrash this subject to death, and I’m neither apologising nor backtracking on my views, but I want to address just a few of the points that were raised.

1. “He is a typical Linux apologist, who treats problems with the operating system as if they don’t exist”

Well, since an apologist is someone who argues in defense or justification of something, then I don’t mind being that! Yes, I use Ubuntu out of choice on my laptop, my media centre, my servers, and my wife’s netbook; however in my work, I also support Windows, and Mac environments. I am not saying Microsoft/Apple/Google/You (delete as applicable) are evil, but after frustrating times with every version of Windows up to 7, I’m very happy using Linux.

I don’t deny that there are issues with the operating system. I just find the attitude that people have towards Linux quite surprising and, I suppose, a little hypocritical. If your new iThing doesn’t work with Windows, then that’s Apple’s fault. If it doesn’t work with Linux, then that’s because Linux is not geared for the desktop. Huh? Feel free to point out Microsoft’s dominant market share here (more on that later), but I think that user outrage needs to be pointed in the right direction. In other words, if some vendors were more supportive, this would lead to a smoother Linux experience with their products. A few years ago, however, while my company was negotiating the Irish distributorship of the now-defunct HP OpenMail-based Samsung Contact, I saw how the large, established software companies viewed enterprise Linux – and experienced some of their strong arm tactics myself.

Every time I read something about “Linux must do this because Windows does”, I get this image of Linux as a cringing, doe-eyed puppy, nipping the heels of Windows users and promising to leap backwards through flaming hoops for them if they’ll just please stop kicking me. We don’t need to have this “forgotten child” syndrome. Linux is a mature platform, with great support. We don’t need to apologise for that.

2. My personal favourite – “The article was just for page-views – he probably made a fortune from the advertising.”

The advertising on this site makes just about enough to cover the cost of hosting (about €40 per year). The “Donate” button has been clicked three times since its inception. Over the period of time in question, I made €2.63 from the Google Ads, €0.10 from the Project Wonderful ad, and zero from the Amazon ad or “Donate” button.

At exactly 1,200 words, I reckon I made the princely sum of €0.002 per word from the article. You’re all too smart to click on adverts, you see!

3. Various ad hominem arguments.

After mentioning the “calm and elegance” of my Ubuntu installation, there was an animated little discussion saying that I probably use the ugliest theme. Yes- fine, but it doesn’t matter if I use a lurid, pink, 1970′s Barbie-in-spandex theme, because I’m not talking about appearance. I’m talking about the continual pop-up nags that still appear on Windows – even though they’re now aggregated behind an equally irritating speech bubble. I was talking about the ease with which my software is updated through the repositories, and the general speed and lack of fuss with which Linux does its job.

I maintain that if an operating system does its job properly, then you don’t notice it. My wife never gives thought to what operating system she’s using…she just trusts it to do what she wants.

I was also accused of hypocrisy because my comment about the success of Linux not being about the size of its market segment, was twisted together with a sentence in the post that said that Linux on the desktop has millions of users.

I don’t think the two are mutually incompatible, and the comments were taken out of context. Linux on the desktop will live as long as millions of people use it. It doesn’t depend on a large market segment, because it’s not a commercial project. Equally the fact that the majority can be sincerely and deeply wrong is a lesson we still don’t appear to have learned from history.

The only reason I address these is that I think it’s easy to miss the point – and ad hominem attacks just add to the FUD that’s out there. Like ants crawling on the surface of the Mona Lisa, they can see every tiny imperfection, but miss the beautiful big picture.

4. “You shouldn’t criticise a new user’s opinion”

I agree with this…to a point. I wasn’t trying to criticise Mr Bradley’s experience with Ubuntu. In fact, his 30 Days with Ubuntu Linux article finished quite positively. I like to think I’m sympathetic to any problems that a new user has, but I took issue with his follow-up article. In this, his stance seemed to have hardened against Linux on the desktop, and he quoted his 9-month old data as proof.

Things move fast in the Linux world – and IT in general. Unity has also matured a lot – my 12.04 beta install has proved very robust so far. Additionally, my iPhone syncs with Rhythmbox and updates over the air, so some of the issues he raised 9 months ago are no longer valid. Ubuntu 11.10 was released since his original test, and 12.04 is about to be. Just because Windows Vista might have been woeful, it doesn’t mean that Windows 7 isn’t desktop-ready.

Having said that, I’ve also learned that it’s easy to get your fingers burned when handling a subject as hot as Linux on the desktop vs Windows! So, in summary:

• Use whatever operating system makes you happy, and don’t stress about it; however the “my distro is better than yours” arguments don’t help. Instead they fragment the community and alienate potential new users.
• If you’re going to say that Linux/Windows/Mac OS/Whatever (delete as appropriate) isn’t ready for the desktop, then at least base your comments on the most recent version.
• I welcome discussion about this, but please try to leave emotion at the door. It just adds to the FUD that’s already out there.

I don’t often use this blog to take exception to things I read (otherwise it’s probably all I’d ever do), but in this case, I felt that I had to respond.

Firstly my own experience of Linux on the desktop has been overwhelmingly positive. All of my hardware works out of the box, and within a few short weeks of having Ubuntu installed, I happily deleted my Windows partition and I’ve never looked back. That’s over 5 years ago. Now, it could be argued that as an IT professional, Linux would be more accessible to me; however I’ve also installed Ubuntu on my wife’s netbook. She downloads music, browses the web, sends emails, uses productivity packages, prints documents, watches videos, and makes video calls – and has absolutely no problem with the operating system whatsoever.

So, what were Mr Bradley’s main issues? I read through the entire 30-days article, and the five things he hated most about his Ubuntu trial were:

1. Inability to sync and update his iPhone

To me this is a weak dislike. This is not Ubuntu’s or Linux’s fault. Plus the ability to update iOS over the air has now all but removed the need for me to connect my iPhone to my computer.

2. A dislike of the Banshee music player

There are many more music players in the sea, and writing off an operating system as “dead on the desktop” because you don’t like one application is really grasping at straws. If my reasons for giving up Windows were that I didn’t like Windows Media Player, then that would be a really petty argument.

3. Difficulties with Wine

Wine can be tricky, I admit; however installing any compatibility layer to run code that’s native to another operating system is going to be error-prone. Wine does a very good job at providing access to some Windows-only applications, but in my opinion it’s better to find a Linux alternative, and only go down the Wine route if you absolutely can’t live without a certain Windows program.

4. The feeling of “swimming upstream”.

I really did take issue with this one. As someone who has struggled with (and blogged about) certain vagaries of Microsoft programs and operating systems, this rankled. Ubuntu’s job is not to be a Linux-based Windows look-alike. Many things are, in fact, easier with Ubuntu – setting up and publishing websites for one. If there’s a problem, then a huge community is instantly accessible to provide help.

When you are using a different operating system it is only to be expected that certain things don’t operate the way you would immediately expect. “I really hate my new Ford because it doesn’t look like my old Toyota” would be a foolish comment, but not when it comes to computer operating systems it seems.

Mr Bradley’s comment that “if Ubuntu Linux was a microwave–I would have to first research obscure types of food uniquely crafted to work with the Ubuntu Linux microwave, then press the magic button enabling the food to be cooked, and search through forums and online help to find the specific way to rewire my microwave to work with that particular food” is just plain wrong. This is based on his attempts to get his VPN connection working. I don’t think that it’s counter-intuitive to type “VPN” in to the Ubuntu Software Center if you’re looking for…ummm…a VPN client!

As a 100% Linux user, who occasionally has to use Windows on another PC, I now find the Windows way of doing things to be counter-intuitive, unhelpful, nagging, and awkward. When fixing a friend’s Windows 7 installation recently, I couldn’t wait to get away from the busy, irritating, pop-up dialog boxes and back to the calm and elegance of my Linux installation.

5. Linux flamers

True, there are some. Mr Bradley describes them as “arrogant, self-righteous jerks”, and there certainly are many of them out there – in support of whatever operating system or gadget you want to choose. Critically, though, I think many were taking exception to his desire for Ubuntu to be an identical-looking slot-in replacement for Windows. This is never going to be the case – and shouldn’t be, either.

A further factual inaccuracy in the 30-days article had to do with the comparative file-sizes of ODT vs DOCX files. Mr Bradley states that his ODT file was 500% larger than the DOCX. That may be true for small files, but as the file size increases, the ODT format becomes much more economical. A 764k DOCX file would be only 438k as an ODT, for example. The article states that for an organization with thousands upon thousands of files, those KBs will add up, and no organization wants to have to purchase or maintain five times more storage capacity for the exact same data”. True, but not true – since the overhead only seems to be an issue with small files.

I suppose I’m really wondering why the follow-up article was written. The original 30-day test was performed with Ubuntu 11.04 in June of last year. This article was written on March 24th of this year, and didn’t really seem to add anything to the debate. The headline, though, is certainly attention-grabbing enough and guarantees a few page-views.

While he acknowledges Ubuntu’s wonderful and knowledgeable users, he also says that “it’s often difficult to find them through the sea of self-righteous flamers who berate you for not knowing what you’re doing”. That’s not true or fair at all – the Ubuntu Forums are a treasure trove of genuinely helpful folks. These people give their time and expertise for free to help out other users, so occasionally an element of frustration can creep in when a user wants a Windows clone, and acts like you owe them something because they decided to try Linux.

For those of us who get on perfectly happily with Ubuntu “it doesn’t change the fact that you’re part of a negligible market segment”. I don’t recall making any decision in life based on belonging to the biggest market segment. History has proved time and again that the majority can be very sincerely wrong. Also, since Linux is not a commercial project, it doesn’t actually need a large market share to succeed.

In the end, I just feel frustrated, because I don’t consider these type of articles to be helpful at all. It seems to be Linux-bashing for the sake of readership figures. I’m not saying that Ubuntu is better than Windows, but I do feel that, after giving Ubuntu a 30 day trial and only being able to come up with five fairly weak reasons for disliking it, Mr Bradley is drastically exaggerating when he proclaim’s Ubuntu’s desktop death. The death or life of an operating system depends on those who use it – and with tens (possibly hundreds) of millions of desktop users, I think that indicates that Linux on the desktop is very much alive.

I got myself set up again with a nice, Ubuntu-happy laptop, which I’ll tell you about in another post. I removed the hard drive from the old Dell and put it in a 2.5″ external USB enclosure to try to try and mount my /home partition for data recovery, which is when I got the dreaded “Bad superblock on /dev/sdb3″ error.

Interestingly fsck is happy to tell you that you have a bad superblock, but it doesn’t tell you either what a superblock is, or how to fix the problem. So, first things first, the superblock is a record of the filesystem details, such as its size, block size, the used and unused blocks, the size and location of the inode tables, and so on. Any time you access a file, the superblock is read.

So, how can you recover a bad superblock? Fortunately for us, backup copies of the superblock are kept at certain offsets on the disk. To find out where the superblock backups are, open a terminal window and type:

sudo mke2fs -n /dev/????

Where ???? is the partition you want to check, which in my case was sdb3. This produces output, like the following:

Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872


These are block numbers, signifying the location of the superblock backups.

To replace the superblock with one from a backup, type the following:

sudo e2fsck -y -b block_location /dev/????

Replace block_location with one of the above numbers and, again, ???? is the partition, so in my case it was sdb3.

There was significant corruption on my hard drive, but supplying the -y switch stopped fsck asking for confirmation every time it encountered a bad block.

After running this, I was able to mount the partition and recover my data.

It’s been a while since we last saw the Sherlock Holmes deerstalker hat around here! For all new visitors – that’s a deerstalker hat. It’s the one that Sherlock Holmes famously wore. It is not an armoured tortoise, or a 1950′s UFO movie prop. It’s my special icon reserved for when I’m feeling a little bit smug and happy that an annoying problem is now solved (or – in this case – worked around!).

My Dell Studio 17 is getting a little long in the tooth now. It happily accepts any and all updates that I throw at it, but each one adds a new brand of strangeness to the brew – not to mention the fact that the screen hinge is now held together with chicken wire and insulating tape! Anyway, a weird little problem started happening where, shortly after login, the touchpad would stop working.

I tried checking dmesg, and tailing syslog, but no error messages were reported, and everything seemed to be working as normal. Stranger still, the problem only happens about one out of five logins. If I Ctrl+Alt+Del, logout and back in, the problem may recur, or the touchpad may work properly.

I’ve searched for different solutions to this – and tried them all. Some suggested trying to reload Unity, others suggested downloading new Synaptics drivers. I tried all of these, and the problem persists.

Anyway, eventually, opening a terminal window and typing:

synclient TouchpadOff = 0

Seemed to get everything working again. A great command, but I knew that there was no way I’d remember that command. So, I put it into a script, put the script in my home folder and now, whenever the problem happens, I just Ctrl+Alt+T to open a terminal window and type ./tpon.sh. Hey presto! Touchpad works!

The script is here if you want to do the same yourself. Place it in your home folder, and then run:

chmod +x ~/tpon.sh

To make it executable. If the same problem happens, just Ctrl+Alt+T to open the terminal window, and then type ./tpon.sh to get your touchpad back.

That being said, if you want to change the login sound, it’s very easy to do (I seem to say this a lot, don’t I? )

Firstly the file must be in .ogg format.

The files are located in: /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo

The “jungle” login sound is desktop-login.ogg, and the GNOME “drums” sound is “system-ready.ogg”.

Once you have created your new desktop-login.ogg, open a terminal window and type the following:

mkdir ~/sound_backup
sudo mv /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/desktop-login.ogg ~/sound_backup

This makes a backup of the old desktop-login.ogg file in case you want it back.

Then (assuming that the new desktop-login.ogg file is in your home directory), type:

sudo cp ~/desktop-login.ogg /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo

You can do the same for the system-ready.ogg file if you want. Make a backup first, and then copy the new one to /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo

So, what causes this seemingly nonsensical error, and how can you recover? Fortunately, the fix is quite easy.

Many of the ways to recover, advise running

sudo apt-get update

But this may return a long list of errors including one like the following:

BADSIG 40976EAF437D05B5 Ubuntu Archive Automatic Signing Key

It seems like we’re getting nowhere fast. Although it looks like the Software Center and apt-get errors are unrelated, they are linked to the same problem, which is that the apt list files have become corrupted.

To re-generate them, and fix the problem, try opening a terminal window and running the following:

sudo apt-get clean
sudo rm -r /var/lib/apt/lists
sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/apt/lists/partial
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get update

This deletes the old and corrupted lists files, recreates the directory structure, and then the apt-get commands regenerate the lists.

After running these, apt-get and the Software Center should work again.

I’m really happy about this, because I want to help out more in the Ubuntu community and membership seemed a good place to start.

If you’re interested in contributing to the growth, development and support of Ubuntu, then you can read about the requirements and benefits of membership here.

I promise to use my new superpowers for good, not evil!