S B's questions

problem is similar to so many other users, but solutions found do not work. Background: Fresh install of 12.04 (completely updated) on a Fit-PC2 (specs). Read in several places that the new 3.X kernel that 12.04 runs on has a new psb_gfx driver which supports the gma500 graphics card (poulsbo chipset). All's pretty much working (there are some glitches which are documented, so I won't raise them here), except for the screen resolution. My native monitor resolution is 1920X1080, but all I get is 1024x768.

Output running xrandr:

xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 1024 x 768, current 1024 x 768, maximum 1024 x 768
default connected 1024x768+0+0 0mm x 0mm
   1024x768        0.0* 

Although I read that Ubuntu does not come with an xorg.conf file anymore, I also tried running sudo X :1 -configure, and here's the end of the output:

Number of created screens does not match number of detected devices.
  Configuration failed.

When I look in the xorg.conf.new file created in my home directory, it seems that for some reason X thinks I have two screens. Don't know what to do with that. Ideas anyone? Thanks for your time.

I have a simple usability problem that I would love to fix. I work quite a bit with gedit as my LaTeX editor (with the excellent LaTeX plugin). I constantly need to work with several files. So, a very common situation for me is to be working on some file (hence gedit is running) when the need to edit another file arises. As Nautilus is easier to navigate than the "Open Dialog" of gedit, I usually open up a new Nautilus window, look for my file, and then double click on it (followed by a "Doh!"). What happens is that a new instance of gedit is started with a single tab of the file I just double clicked on, whereas the expected behavior (from my perspective at least) is that this new file should be opened in a new tab in the already running gedit instance.

So, to my question - is there a way to make it work the way that I prefer?

For all of my official ubuntu updates (main universe multiverse restricted) I use an Israeli mirror of the ubuntu repositories, with one exception: for the security updates I use http://security.ubuntu.com. The Israeli ISOC mirror also provides the security updates.

What are the pros and cons of using a mirror instead of the official repository for security updates?
Are there any real security concerns I should consider by moving my security updated to a mirror instead of the official server?

Following a question I raised a few weeks back, I would like to install tracker and see how it works with natty. The latest stable release of metatracker is 0.10.10, but unfortunately, only version 0.8.17 can be found packaged. Does anyone know how can I install tracker from source, and if anybody has already tried it, please let me know how well does it work with natty.

Thanks.

I was reading today the latest Canonical design blog post where I was kind of surprised that one should be able to right click on the desktop to change the wallpaper. I am running the most updated version of natty and have the latest unity package installed (3.8.10) but right clicking on the desktop brings nothing on my machine. On the other hand, when I right click on any launcher icon I do get a quick list, so I know it's not a problem with my mouse or something. Is this a known bug?

I tried to kill Nautilus as Nathan suggested using Alt+F2 and then killall nautilus. Just to be sure, I then opened a terminal window and typed the same command again. Got the response nautilus: no process found (I figured that my first try to kill nautilus worked then. Just to be on the safe side, I clicked the "Home" icon on my launcher to start Nautilus, and then killed it again (same command). Still nothing happened.

Following some of the comments below, I should specify that I do have ubuntu-desktop installed (and updated version 1.220) and nautilus is indeed installed (Version: 1:2.32.2.1-0ubuntu13). (Used to have nautilus from the elementary PPA, but removed it following the comments below - still no luck).

I was reading another question on ask-ubuntu, where I encountered an apt link. Intrigued, I clicked on it, expecting my browser to launch the software center, only to get a page saying "You don't seem to be running Ubuntu".

Browser: Google Chrome 12.0.742.0 dev

the link I clicked on apt.ubuntu.com/p/hardinfo

Thanks for the help.

I configured evince to be my default application to open pdf files (using Open with... and clicking on always opening pdf files with this application), but when I type gnome-open foo.pdf instead of evince, I have Nautilus that opens up in the correct folder highlighting the file of my choice.

This is especially disturbing since I am using the LaTeX plugin for gedit, and when I try and compile a tex file to pdf, instead of opening up a new window with my compiled pdf file, I just have nautilus pop-up. I know I can edit the scripts of my gedit LaTeX plugin to call on evince (or acroread) with the pdf I want opened, but this is a workaround and not the solution I am looking for.

When working with two displays there is a question of which display is the "primary". In the case of Unity the primary display is the screen on which the launcher appears for instance. This property can be set using xrandr, but the gnome-display-properties utility does not give a GUI way to set this. This bug was also raised upstream, and was apparently solved for Gnome 3.0. With the Gnome 3.0 vs Unity thing going on, I think that a bug like this should be addressed within Unity as well (and cannot be resolved upstream). I wanted to file such a bug in launchpad, but didn't know where to do this. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I am currently running Ubuntu 11.04 beta 2 with unity on a laptop Dell XPS M1330. My Dell M1330 has an Intel chipset and this is the result I get for running the lspci -nn | grep VGA command:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (primary) [8086:2a02] (rev 0c)

I have a 22" display at home, so I like to configure my laptop to have dual displays (with the Monitor preference GUI tool). The way I use it is with an extended screen where each display (my laptop and my other 22" LCD each works with their native resolution). Everything works quite well except for a little annoyance which I was hoping someone can help me figure out. Even though my LCD is configured to be on the left and my laptop on the right (that is how the two are set up on my desk), the launcher and top-right Ubuntu icon that brings up the Dash always appears on my laptop screen, when I would like it to appear on my left screen. I attached a picture to visualize this better.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

BTW, I checked out this question, and it doesn't really cover what I'm asking here.

Thanks.

I understand that tracker is no longer installed by default on the Ubuntu desktop. Nevertheless, I really like having a desktop search tool. (When I used to work with Windows XP I thought that Google Desktop was a killer app!).

I recently upgraded to Natty and reinstalled tracker. I noticed that the most updated version found in Universe (and on the Tracker stable PPA) is of version 0.8.17, yet looking at the Tracker website apparently the most updated version is 0.10, and they are working on 0.11. WOuld love to know if we should expect updates and if work is being done for integration with Unity.

I would also love to know if there are any real alternatives to have a desktop search tool which cleanly integrates with Unity (which has become default with Natty).

Upgraded my notebook to Natty Beta 1 two days ago. All seems to be in order except for a very annoying little thing. I used to have Google Chrome as my default browser, and after the upgrade, this default was changed to Firefox. Note that when I go to the Google Chrome settings and to the Firefox setting it seems that Google Chrome is set as my default browser, but whenever I click on a URL from outside a browser it's Firefox that comes up and not Chrome.

Any help will be much appreciated.

Thanks.

My machine shut down unexpectedly today (laptop battery is crap) and when I rebooted it I lost all sound.

I tried to go to Preferences->Sound but it just opens a little window saying "waiting for sound system to respond" and nothing happens. When my computer rebooted it did warn me of some errors in the filesystem after the unexpected shut down, but I let it correct all errors it found. I understand I may need to reinstall some packages, but I don't know which.

System: Dell XPS m1330 Ubuntu 10.10 64bit

Is there anyone out there who can help me? Thanks in advance!