tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9121072553063774042012-01-01T23:05:57.538+02:00spicifernoreply@blogger.comBlogger171100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912107255306377404.post-74133086147897979112009-12-27T14:02:00.002+02:002009-12-27T14:18:29.449+02:00

Just to quickly update on the developments regarding the Sansa Fuze in the last year. Most importantly, the problems with video have been pretty much solved (at least for me) with video4fuze. Secondly, new firmware update has improved id tag handling significantly, among other things. There is even newer firmware available, but it's buggy and offers no real improvements, so I'm skipping it.

spicifernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912107255306377404.post-47637643270595123782008-12-26T21:23:00.007+02:002008-12-28T02:51:20.777+02:00

Sansa Fuze MP3 player only supports a very specific version of the AVI file format for it's video output. This format is not documented anywhere and can only be, as far as I know, produced with Sansa Media Converter (SMC) Windows program. I have spent some time familiarising myself with the video files produced by SMC. This blog post was written to document some of the aspects I have learnt so

spicifernoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912107255306377404.post-32198566448538850402008-12-06T13:40:00.005+02:002008-12-06T18:56:33.873+02:00

A few notes on two devices I tried today.The printer, HP LaserJet 1020, was a bit odd. Once I plugged it in, Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) seemed to recognize it and installed drivers. But when I sent a test page it was never printed. There were no error messages or anything, though. This thread on Ubuntu Forums helped. The relevant part:sudo apt-get install hplip-guiDelete earlier printer setup in

spicifernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912107255306377404.post-30317000882611199372008-10-11T22:44:00.004+03:002008-10-11T23:01:05.631+03:00

There is a new firmware update available for Sansa Fuze. It updates the firmware to version 01.01.15. Most notable improvement, long awaited one even, is support for ogg and flac files. The first ogg file I tried froze up my player and I had to reboot it, but after that I haven't encountered problems. Not yet at least.Firmware update on Linux was easy following the instructions provided and

spicifernoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912107255306377404.post-15019025222271426102008-10-11T12:43:00.002+03:002008-10-18T17:46:32.540+03:00

I had some extra time so I decided to upgrade my Ubuntu 8.04 to Ubuntu 8.10 Beta (codenamed Intrepid Ibex, would you believe it). My earlier pursuits with Ubuntu and my Acer 2920Z are detailed here for 7.10 and here for 8.04.My first try to upgrade failed miserably. The reason was probably that I had selected a country specific server from program sources. I switched to the main server and tried

spicifernoreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912107255306377404.post-61505337457792919942008-08-02T18:21:00.005+03:002008-08-02T20:30:05.838+03:00

I recently wrote a post about my SanDisk Sansa Fuze mp3 player, especially on getting it to work on Linux. This post is about a specific issue with it, namely video. (Executive summary: it doesn't work.)The ProblemGetting video working on the Sansa is ridiculously difficult if you are not able to use their archaic Sansa Media Converter Windows software, regardless of your own OS. The Sansa Fuze

spicifernoreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912107255306377404.post-79774063581722427092008-08-01T18:19:00.008+03:002008-11-26T14:14:59.693+02:00

(Update: see also my posts about the video problems and about the new firmware with Ogg Vorbis support.)I've recently purchased a SanDisk Sansa Fuze MP3 player. My old player has served me well for a very long time, but it's age is showing and I thought it was finally time to retire it. These are my notes on getting the Sansa Fuze working with my Acer laptop and Ubuntu Linux.I selected SanDisk

spicifernoreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912107255306377404.post-3272248869615456652008-05-03T15:04:00.004+03:002008-10-11T13:21:56.290+03:00

To recap: Acer 2920Z has Atheros AR2425 (AR5007EG) wireless chipset:$ lspci | grep Wireless04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)Support for this chipset with the official Madwifi-drivers is incomplete. So, you have two choices: either you use Windows drivers with Ndiswrapper or you try the Madwifi-drivers anyway. I have

spicifernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912107255306377404.post-31611072462554605872008-05-02T14:33:00.001+03:002008-05-02T14:34:32.106+03:00

As promised, here are my notes on upgrading my Laptop to Ubuntu 8.04 LTS.The download and installation took some four hours over my "broadband" connection. The installation asked a few questions about replacing old files. As it provided diffs, it was possible to see the changes and whether it was necessary to overwrite the files or not. The only file that I was unsure about was alsa-base, which I

spicifernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912107255306377404.post-34008651358324205702008-04-26T14:04:00.002+03:002008-04-26T14:12:39.132+03:00

Oh, joy!As Linux enthusiasts may already know, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (code name Hardy Heron) was released this week. I've already earlier installed the development version on several normal desktop machines without any major issues. Now that it has been released officially, I'll also be upgrading my Acer 2920Z laptop shortly. I'll write about the results here later.

spicifernoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912107255306377404.post-48210361469246914852008-02-13T17:35:00.008+02:002008-02-13T21:24:52.782+02:00

Since my last post I've had a chance to test a couple of pieces of hardware with my Acer 2920Z laptop and Ubuntu 7.10. Here are my notes.First of all, the Nokia 9500 Communicator, which I tried connecting with the Nokia USB cable. Nothing happened. I also tried Wammu and KMobiletools, which did not recognise the phone. The phone shows up on lsusb listing, though. Apparently some have had better

spicifernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912107255306377404.post-17384543248639107312007-12-30T15:31:00.003+02:002008-05-02T14:37:04.742+03:00

In an earlier post I wrote about the problems I had with sound in Ubuntu on my laptop. Well, "Henning" commented on it and suggested installing latest development snapshot of Alsa drivers, which I did. I then modified the option line I had added earlier to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base to "options snd-hda-intel model=acer". Now jack sensing and recording via the microphone jack work fine! No luck

spicifernoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912107255306377404.post-70804886715640415082007-12-19T21:03:00.000+02:002007-12-19T21:30:44.418+02:00

I just installed an official kernel security update vie Ubuntu update feature, rebooted and when my system was back up I had no sound. Nice.This may have been due to the fact that I have manually installed newer Alsa to get the sound working. Well, I recompiled the drivers and rebooted. Now I have sound again. I know it isn't easy to support hardware, especially when it's new or you have to

spicifernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912107255306377404.post-58824274103683591462007-12-13T23:22:00.000+02:002007-12-13T23:30:06.523+02:00

The next Ubuntu edition, codenamed "Hardy Heron" is coming out next spring. It is a so called Long Term Support edition. From my point of view, when I evaluate my experiences with my new Acer laptop, this is what I'm hoping to see. This is mainly stuff that isn't up to the developers of Ubuntu but to the developers upstream who make the drivers and such. I'm just hoping new versions make it to

spicifernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912107255306377404.post-6016732801672386352007-12-11T17:15:00.000+02:002007-12-11T21:28:38.224+02:00

Some time ago there was a post on Slashdot suggesting that there might be an issue with the way some laptop HD's handle power management. There is a page on Ubuntu wiki explaining this issue. I'm not sure if this is something to be worried about or not. I did however notice my HD making this constant clicking sound when the machine was idle. Something is probably trying to access the drive every

spicifernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912107255306377404.post-47548897176848793952007-12-10T21:32:00.010+02:002008-10-11T13:16:23.587+03:00

This is an informal case study of installing Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy on my new Acer Aspire 2920Z notebook. The computer came with pre-installed Vista. I found this to be enough of a push to give Linux a try. I suspect a lot of what is written here applies also to Aspire 2920 and 2420, which are quite similar to 2920Z.As my Linux skills are far from perfect, this is not really a how-to but a document of

spicifernoreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-912107255306377404.post-49607898356967460992007-12-08T11:53:00.000+02:002007-12-08T12:19:59.910+02:00

Erm, hello.A week ago I bought a laptop. I then installed Linux on it. That didn't go completely smoothly, which was not surprising considering that the model was quite new. I decided to write down some notes on the installation in the hope that they may benefit others who own the same laptop.These notes had to be published somewhere and I came to the conclusion that a blog might be the best

spicifernoreply@blogger.com1