Keep Resolution upon reboot when using NVIDIA binary driver

3 05 2010

Recent versions of gnome – at least the one shipped with Ubuntu 9.10 and 10.04 – use resolution settings specific for each user. The resolution is set in /home/username/.config/monitors.xml which is loaded upon login.

The tool provided along with NVIDIA driver changes your resolution in /etc/X11/xorg.conf but not in monitors.xml as gnome’s “Monitors” tool does. As a consequence you need to edit /home/username/.config/monitors.xml manually:

<monitors version="1">
 <configuration>
 <clone>no</clone>
 <output name="default">
 <vendor>???</vendor>
 <product>0x0000</product>
 <serial>0x00000000</serial>
 <width>1920</width>
 <height>1080</height>
 <rate>0</rate>
 <x>0</x>
 <y>0</y>
 <rotation>normal</rotation>
 <reflect_x>no</reflect_x>
 <reflect_y>no</reflect_y>
 <primary>no</primary>
 </output>
 </configuration>
</monitors>




Get sound playing and recording to work in Skype

21 06 2009

I installed Skype in Ubuntu jaunty 9.04 from medibuntu repository, which have a packaged version available. With default settings no sound could be played nor recorded.

Work around:

in skype’s options -> Sound Devices set the following:

Sound In: hw0
Sound out: pulse
Ringing: pulse





Correct $HOME/.dmrc permissions

21 06 2009

Something modified the permissions of my $HOME/.dmrc file. Consequently an annoying error display at login:

User’s $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored. This prevents the default language and session from being saved. File should be owned by user and have 644 permissions. User $HOME directory must be owned by user and not writeable by other users.

to fix the permissions:

$ sudo chown -R $USERNAME: $HOME
$ chmod 755 $HOME
$ chmod 644 $HOME/.dmrc





Alternative way to handle hard drives & partitions in Ubuntu

21 06 2009

Just got Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04 installed. I like the following behaviour to be applied to my hard drive partitions and mass storage devices – pen drives, USB disks:

  • Automount all partitions of internal hard disk – without using fstab:

In /etc/hal/fdi/policy/preferences.fdi

<merge key="storage.automount_enabled_hint" type="bool">false</merge>

false -> true

  • No hard drive icons displayed on desktop:

In gconf-editor – Alt+F2 to launch it, go to:

apps -> nautilus -> desktop

uncheck volumes_visible