Help! VMware Workstation stole my keys!

Sometimes when I use VMware Workstation I suddenly might find that my CTRL, shift and capslock keys do not work when I am back in Xorg. I have yet to find out exactly what happens but running setxkbmap from a terminal (without any arguments) fixes the problem. (This workaround was found in the VMware Community forums) Weird....

February 4, 2008 · 1 min · alj

Running VMware Workstation on Ubuntu Hardy Herron

Update 21-03-2008 Please see my updated instructions for VMware Workstation 6.0.3 – It will also work for 6.0.2 When running vmware-config.pl for VMware Workstation 6.0.2 (build 59824) one is presented with this error: Unknown VMware Workstation 6.0.2 build 59824 detected. Building for Workstation 6.0.0. Using 2.6.x kernel build system. make: Entering directory `/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only' make -C /lib/modules/2.6.24-4-generic/build/include/.. SUBDIRS=$PWD SRCROOT=$PWD/. modules make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.24-4-generic' CC [M] /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.o CC [M] /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driverLog....

January 17, 2008 · 1 min · alj

Java woes in Ubuntu Hardy Heron

After upgrading to Hardy Herron some pretty critical Java applications stopped working – they all crashed with this error: java: xcb_xlib.c:82: xcb_xlib_unlock: Assertion `c->xlib.lock' failed. This particular application uses IBM JRE but the error is the same in Sun Java 6. Apparently it’s a known problem in Java and the initial response is that it should be fixed in Java 7. A workaround is to add the following line to ~/....

January 15, 2008 · 1 min · alj

Enabling Desktop Effects on Intel X3100

In it’s default configuration Desktop Effects are disabled for various graphics chips including Intel X3100 (GM965/GL960) which is what’s in my Lenovo T61. There is an easy way of disabling the blacklist – locate this line in /usr/bin/compiz: T="$T 8086:2982 8086:2992 8086:29a2 8086:2a02 8086:2a12" # intel 965 Note: Intel 965 has been removed from the blacklist in Hardy. On the other hand compiz started crashing on me after upgrading to Hardy so YMMV....

January 15, 2008 · 1 min · alj

Installing AT&T Global Network Client on Ubuntu

Also have a look at the updated article AT&T now have a version of their Global Network Client for Linux (if you don’t what it is then you don’t need it). Unfortunately they only released it for RPM based distributions. There are some limitations in the Linux version; most noticeably it only supports SSL. Various persons have reported that converting the packages using alien does not work. Not to worry, a kind soul has taken the time create a script that converts the RPMs to a working Debian package....

January 15, 2008 · 1 min · alj

Setting the correct locale

This one has caused my some head aches; I wanted to use ISO-8859-1(5) but no matter what I did, GNOME Terminal would select ANSI_X3.4-1968 as character encoding (screwing up everything related to danish characters). The solution: Create or edit the file /var/lib/locales/supported.d/local with the content en_DK ISO-8859-15 Regenerate locales: $ sudo locale-gen --purge Generating locales... en_AU.UTF-8... done en_BW.UTF-8... done en_CA.UTF-8... done en_DK.ISO-8859-15... done en_DK.UTF-8... done en_GB.UTF-8... done en_HK.UTF-8... done en_IE....

January 15, 2008 · 1 min · alj

Fixing hibernation in Ubuntu

The default method of hibernation provided by powermanagement-interface seems to be flaky at best (it does not work on either my T41 or my T61). Luckily µswsusp works out of the box After installing the uswsusp package you need to make sure to “remove” ACPI hibernation as this is the first choice of hibernation selected by the HAL scripts called from GNOME. You must also make sure that no other hibernation packages are installed....

January 15, 2008 · 1 min · alj

VMware Certified Professional

After taking my time to get around to it I took the exam today and passed. I am now a VMware Certified Professional...

December 1, 2005 · 1 min · alj