Make Openoffice3 default in ubuntu removing Openoffice2.4

I am one of those who like to use latest version of the software which keeps me experimenting with new things every now and then.

So openoffice3 was released some time back and I wanted to make it as default for my kubuntu install. Here are the steps which I followed for the doing the same.

1. Download the .deb installer from open office.
2. Remove the previous version of openoffice. Open up synaptic, search for openoffice and then remove the one starting with openoffice. This will remove the existing 2.4 version from your computer.
3. Now, extract the tar file which you downloaded from openoffice.
4. Go to the DEBS folder and run the following command

sudo dpkg -i *.deb.

This will install everything... basically kitchen, sink everything.

5. You will still not get the menus in the office section of your applications. So, you go to desktop integration folder in the DEBS folder and again run the above command

sudo dpkg -i *.deb.

And you are all set. You may have to choose for open office for the file associated for open with for some time.

Till the backport repository has the openoffice3, this is the only way I can think of using openoffice3 as default.

Thanks to this post which helped me in setting up the things.

Error with Compiz Fusion Not Working

Well, compiz is one of the coolest thing which linux has got. It was working flawlessly on my lenovo t60 and suddenly one fine day everything went bonkers... I started recieving these dreaded messages.

libGL error: drmMap of framebuffer failed (Invalid argument)
libGL error: reverting to (slow) indirect rendering
compiz (core) - Fatal: No GLXFBConfig for default depth, this isn't going to work.
compiz (core) - Error: Failed to manage screen: 0
compiz (core) - Fatal: No manageable screens found on display :0

when I used to run compiz --replace command. I searched the net for some time and then gave up. I thought what updates came through which screwed this up.  I figured out I had only kde-core package and to upgrade to hardy I had to install kubuntu-desktop which inturn brings tons of other junk in xserver-xorg-video. So, I opened synaptic and remove all the chipset drivers. Do not remove fbdev else it will remove everything in xserver and your system will be in bonkers...

After doing that I just rebooted and yup.. my hunch was right... it was the other video drivers which were creating problem. Now, I am again running the compiz on my kde... and am loving it...

Boot Speed Ubuntu

I tried different tweaks from here. However, my boot speed was still slow, it was taking 2 minutes or so to go to gdm login. So, I was thinking how to increase it further.

I did the concurrency=Shell as mentioned in the post above. Still the boot speed was slow. I saw that there was a culprit which used to print "Reading files for boot" for close to 45 seconds during the boot, before it proceeded further. I was sure that it was one of the services which was creating problem. I was not able to locate which one though... so I left it at that suffering with 2 minutes for booting up.

Then one fine day, I saw my cpu usage remaining 100%, so I checked top and saw apport running on top. Now, what was this apport... some googling and got to the information that it is error reporting service ... I thought I will disable it. I disabled it and also avahi daemon (I frankly do not know what purpose it serves). I connect to my serves manually as I know about them. So, disabled that too. And next boot no line of "Reading files for boot" and my boot time went from 2 minutes to 45 seconds... that was great!!!! Nice find... thought would publish it.

Concurrency=Shell error fix in Gutsy 7.10 Ubuntu

Well, I was trying to get my ubuntu gutsy to boot up with concurrency=shell... well for those of you who are not aware, when you boot up there are lot of init script which run. By default they run serially so if you have more than one processor only one thread runs during init i.e. boot. Concurrency=shell will create new shell and these scripts are run in parallel.

So, how you do it? Well change the /etc/init.d/rc and change concurrency=none to concurrency=shell.

Now, when you do it, there would be a problem with HAL. This happens as dbus and hal has same script order and hence creates a problem.

to fix this issue,

rename the file in /etc/rc2.d/S12hal to etc/rc2.d/S13hal
rename the file in /etc/rc3.d/S12hal to etc/rc2.d/S13hal

And that it... you are all set... reboot and you will definitely see change in the boot up time.. Give it a try.

If things do not workout then just change the concurrency=shell to concurrency=none.

High CPU AIGLX Watching Video Full Screen

I have T60 laptop with ATI X1400. I recently upgraded my driver to 7.12 latest release on 18-Jan-2008 from ATI. I noticed that when I was viewing videos in full screen the CPU was touching 100% or closer to that. I googled and found out that I had selected X11 as the output instead I selected xv or xvideo extension which is accelerated graphics and it worked. Now, no more 100% CPU when watching full screen videos. Credit goes to the original poster.. sorry I do not have the link with me.

Just in case you are facing the same problem then you can use this, hopefully it should help.