Alberto Milone's Homepage

Envy 0.9.5-0ubuntu5 is now available.

Here is the changelog:

* Added: ATI driver 8.38.6
* Removed: ATI driver 8.37.6


Please, remember to remove your previous release of Envy before you install this new release:
sudo apt-get --purge remove envy
sudo rm -R /usr/share/envy

You can get Envy here as usual.

Posted by Alberto Milone | June 26, 2007 9:14 am
Filed under: Envy, Planet
Comments (14) |

Envy 0.9.5-0ubuntu4 is now available. Here is the changelog:

* Fixed: not removing /usr/src/modules/nvidia* or /usr/src/modules/fglrx* could cause
module-assistant to compile the wrong kernel module

You can get it here, as usual.

Posted by Alberto Milone | June 24, 2007 9:12 pm
Filed under: Envy, Planet
Comments (0) |

Yesterday night I managed to get my old ATI card to work with URandR. It needs more testing but I think URandR’s new system is almost complete.

Of course it works only with the randr-1.2 branch of the ATI driver. It’s all in my bazaar branch.

Posted by Alberto Milone | June 23, 2007 10:02 am
Filed under: Debian, Ubuntu
Comments (2) |

Envy 0.9.5-0ubuntu3 is now available. Here is the changelog:

* Added: Nvidia driver 100.14.11
* Removed: Nvidia beta driver 100.14.09
* Fixed: ATI driver 8.36.5 showed up instead of 8.37.6

You can get it here, as usual.

I found out that URandR crashed with ATI’s open source driver (the randr-1.2 branch from GIT) since the system for the detection of resolutions which I was using was way too static. Yesterday night I wrote that part almost from scratch but I couldn’t finish it (since it was 2:00 AM). For this reason the version you will find in my bazaar branch is temporarily broken. I promise I’ll fix it soon. As soon as this problem is solved I’ll focus on adding xinerama support.

I have another exam on July 5 therefore I can’t work full time on URandR yet (and I think I won’t at least until August).

Posted by Alberto Milone | June 22, 2007 1:29 pm
Filed under: Debian, Ubuntu
Comments (13) |

Yesterday I passed the oral English exam (which went great, by the way) and now I’m so stressed that I have decided to take a day off before to start studying for the oral Spanish exam. I messed with my laptop and replaced Fedora 7 with Ubuntu Gutsy, which seems to work great.

A few days ago I discovered that I could solve the problem with RandR 1.2 and the black & white screen on my television. I had to use an S-Video cable and a S-Video to CART adapter (since a S-Video to Composite adapter doesn’t solve the problem). Then I only had to set my TV to the S2 mode (so that it can use an S-Video cable). This method works fine on both Debian Sid and Ubuntu Gutsy however the TV is seen as supporting only a 30Hz refresh rate. Compiling and installing the latest release of RandR from GIT solved the problem (I can use it at 60Hz now). I can also switch between PAL, NTSC, NTSC-J, etc. and, if my TV were a HDTV, I would also be able to choose 720p, 1080p, etc.

Unfortunately the latest version of RandR is not available in Ubuntu Gutsy or in Debian Sid but I hope it will make it to Ubuntu’s stable release. I’ll implement these new features in URandR ASAP.

Enough talk. My adapter looks like the following:

Here are some screenshots of URandR in action (you can save these photos on your hard disk so as to see them in 1024×768):

Here is a photo of URandR on my laptop (in this photo my TV is stuck in
30Hz):

P.S. I would like to thank Keith Packard for taking the time to reply to my emails on RandR.

Posted by Alberto Milone | June 19, 2007 5:55 pm
Filed under: Debian, Ubuntu
Comments (17) |

Envy 0.9.5-0ubuntu2 should fix the nasty API mismatch problem

Please, remember to remove your previous release of Envy before you install this new release:
sudo apt-get --purge remove envy

You can get Envy here as usual.

You might also want to have a look at the instructions for Debian or for Ubuntu

Thanks for you feedback.

P.S. Sorry if I’m not replying to your emails and blog comments but I’m very busy with my exams.

Posted by Alberto Milone | June 17, 2007 10:37 pm
Filed under: Debian, Python, Ubuntu
Comments (0) |

First of all, thanks for the attention you paid to the previous news on my GUI for RandR.

I have chatted to the guys behind the development of Displayconfig and I must admit that they are doing an amazing work which, in my opinion, is the best solution. I have decided that I will continue working on my app (which is much less ambitious since it relies exclusively upon RandR) and I hope to be of help (I’m not trying to duplicate efforts) also to the development of their application. It won’t be easy since my approach to the problem is rather different. As soon as I’m done with the exams I’ll have more time to spend on both projects.

As regards my application I changed its name to “URandR” (which you can pronounce as “you render”). I have created a new project on Launchpad and set up a bazaar branch from which you can get the code (which is still under heavy development).

A Canadian chap, Jean-François Fortin Tam, volunteered to make the GUI of URandR HIG-compliant. I think he did an excellent work (and my previous GUI did really need some love). Thanks to him URandR now uses tabs and no longer needs a scrollbar. The interface he designed in Glade is much cleaner. I connected URandR to his interface and now new tabs spawn up when a new device is detected. He also designed an additional tab that in the next future will enable you to choose between cloning screens and having multiple screens with distinct workspaces (it’s disabled by default since the implementation is not ready).

As I said last time, the requirements to run URandR are the following:

URandR works well on Fedora 7 and Debian Sid. I can connect my laptop to any display and TV I have at home just with a few clicks.

TODO:

SCREENSHOTS:

I took this screenshot on Fedora 7 after connecting my laptop to my TV (as you can see from the 2nd tab):

I took this screenshot on Debian Sid (ok, it’s an idle interface but I promise I’ll show you something better, maybe a screencast):

P.S. I can’t compile RandR 1.2 from GIT (and yes, I made a build-dep of randr), can anyone help me to compile it, please?

Posted by Alberto Milone | June 9, 2007 10:20 pm
Filed under: Debian, Python, Ubuntu
Comments (6) |

Envy 0.9.5 is now marked as stable. I have removed version 0.9.4.

Here is the changelog:

* Fixed: the API mismatch should no longer occur since the nvidia modules in
/lib/modules/`uname -r`/volatile/ are now removed
* Added: Nvidia driver 100.14.09
* Removed: Nvidia beta driver 100.14.03
* Added: ATI driver 8.37.6
* Removed: ATI driver 8.36.5

As you can see, both ATI and the Nvidia driver are up-to-date, moreover the nasty API mismatch problem should no longer be such.

Please, remember to remove your previous release of Envy before you install this new release:
sudo apt-get --purge remove envy

You can get Envy here as usual.

You might also want to have a look at the instructions for Debian or for Ubuntu

Posted by Alberto Milone | 9:31 pm
Filed under: Debian, Python, Ubuntu
Comments (16) |