Ubuntu 10.4 (Lucid Lynx) launched today and I figured it was time to do an install from scratch onto my Dell D830 Latitude laptop. Everything went quite smoothly but when it started up I noticed two issues:

Problem 1: No wireless

I know the Broadcom card inside the laptop isn’t the greatest, but the last two Ubuntu releases it has worked out of the box. The following command enabled the card after a reboot:

sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source

Problem 2: Really slow DNS lookups (because of IPV6)

As documented on Launchpad, there still doesn’t seem to be an official fix. Strangely disabling IPV6 in /etc/sysctl.conf didn’t solve anything, however disabling it in Firefox at least fixes the issue in the browser. Just type about:config in the address bar, and set network.dns.disableIPv6 to false.

Problem 1: No wireless

I know the Broadcom card inside the laptop isn’t the greatest, but the last two Ubuntu releases it has worked out of the box. The following command enabled the card after a reboot:

sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source

Problem 2: Really slow DNS lookups (because of IPV6)

As documented on Launchpad, there still doesn’t seem to be an official fix. Strangely disabling IPV6 in /etc/sysctl.conf didn’t solve anything, however disabling it in Firefox at least fixes the issue in the browser. Just type about:config in the address bar, and set network.dns.disableIPv6 to false.

Otherwise things seem to be working well, although I don’t understand why they stick with a color scheme that looks like mud.

Press Alt+F2 and enter gconf-config. This will open up Gnome’s registry editor.

Set the following two values:
Key: /apps/metacity/general/focus_new_windows Value: smart
Key: /apps/compiz/plugins/place/screen0/options/mode Value: 1

Now your applications should start up nice and centered

1) Type about:config in the address bar. Search for ‘general.useragent.extra.firefox’. Double click “Shiretoko/3.5″ replace it with “Firefox/3.5″

2) Use the User Agent Switcher plugin. This I prefer this option as it also lets me set IE user agents so I can use a few sites that think they require IE, and also set iPhone header’s for development.

If you have full root or sudo access and you would like the font to be shared with all users of the system, you may want to put the files in /usr/local/share/fonts/truetype. An easy way to navigate to that location with root privileges is to press Alt+F2 and type:

gksudo nautilus /usr/local/share/fonts/truetype

You can then create a new directory and place your fonts into it.

Alternatively you may place the fonts in a directory inside your home folder. The files get placed in a hidden directory called .fonts. You may have to create this directory. Only you will be able to access these fonts.

mkdir ~/.fonts

Whichever you choose, you will need to reset the font cache . You can reset the cache with the following command:

sudo fc-cache -f -v

And for anyone interested, here are a nice set of free MacOS font alternatives to use in Windows or Linux

Mac-Fonts – this includes AppleGaramond, Aquabase, LITHOGRL, Lucida Grande, Lucida Mac, Lucon, MacGrand. I downloaded these from this site, however you need to go through multiple pages of referral sign-ups to access the file.

Monaco Linux – This is the font I use in vim, it looks great.

Inconsolata – This is a variation of Luc(as) de Groot’s Consolas font, which is another nice mono-spaced programming font featured in Windows Vista. Read more about it at the authors webpage.

You may also want to install the Miscrosoft Web Fonts(msttcorefonts):

sudo aptitude install msttcorefonts