Eureka!

KC wrote an interesting article recently regarding the changes in the newly proposed GPLv3 license agreement. These changes would “slap” a new set of handcuffs on distributors, and could potentially inhibit the distribution of OpenSource software as we know it today, under GPLv2.
I have 2 points of criticism on KC’s post:

1. I would like to see KC’s arguments brought before the FSF (Free Software Foundation).
2. KC is only critical of the points he doesn’t approve of. I would like to see items that he thinks are improvements as well.

KC’s post does have the benefit that it is stirring up alot of discussion regarding this topic, and that in itself is awesome.

Also, as a side-note, some people are wondering if Linspire currently has any licensing agreement with Microsoft. The answer is, yes, they do (in order to support WMA and WMV playback out of the box; http://multimedia.cx/multimedia-api.txt).

• GPLv2
• GPLv3
• GPLv2 vs. GPLv3

I’m assuming this fix will work for most, if not all FX-series cards. Simply follow the steps below to get your Linspire set up on dual monitor view:

1. Open /etc/X11/xorg.conf in a text editor of your choice (I use Kate).
2. Look for a section labeled “Devices”.
3. At the end of this section insert the following 3 lines:

    Option "TwinView" Option "MetaModes" "1280x1024,1024x768" Option "TwinViewOrientation" "LeftOf"

4. Adjust the following to your needs:
   a. The first entry in the MetaModes line is your Monitor1 resolution, the second entry your Monitor2 resolution, regardless of placement on your desk. Monitor1 is usually your main monitor that you have been using so far.
   b. The option in the TwinView Orientation line is the placement of the additional monitor in relation to your main monitor. Known values are “LeftOf” or “RightOf”.
5. If you like to see the nVidia logo while booting up, comment out the line in the same section that reads Option “nologo”.

In summary, your Devices section should now look something similar to this:

Section "Device" Identifier    "Device1" Driver        "nvidia"#    Option    "nologo" BusID        "PCI:2:0:0" Option "TwinView" Option "MetaModes" "1280x1024,1024x768" Option "TwinViewOrientation" "LeftOf"EndSection

If things turn out not to be working right and you end up hanging on reboot, simply do a hard-reboot and load in Rediscover mode.

I know this one may sound a bit mundane. However, it did take me this long to figure out how to get this working, so if you’re wondering how to get Linspire to boot up with your NumLock on, and you happen to be browsing my Blog, then this is for you:

1. Click Launch -> Settings -> Control Center.
2. Selecte Peripherals -> Keyboard.
3. Make sure that “NumLock on KDE Startup” is selected to “Turn On”.
4. Click “OK”.

That’s that! Happy computing!

Ever since I installed Linspire, I couldn’t figure out how to give standard users access to the other (windows) partitions on my computer. However, the admin user had access, but it’s a pain to always log in and out of that account just to copy over a few files, etc.

After some resarching and asking around on the Linspire forums, I was presented with the following answer:

1. Open /etc/fstab with Kate or a similar text editor.
2. Change the partition entries to include ‘umask=0′ in the options column (the 4th column that also has entries like ‘exec,suid,users’, etc.
3. Save the file and to a quick restart.

Now your entries should look something like:

/dev/hda1    /mnt/hda1        ntfs      noatime,user,exec,dev,suid,umask=0  0 0

I would like to thank pvdl-of-afu.com of the Linspire forum, and all the others that made an effort to try to solve this dilemna. Also, I’d like to wish pvdl-of-afu.com all the best with his upcoming book on Linspire: http://afu.com!

Heya folks!

In the past I had problems installing the new and improved 1.0 version of Bluefish (web-dev application for Debian-based Linux) in Linspire. However, I came across a helpful post on the Linspire forums that really helped me out:

1. Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and uncomment the URL paths.
2. Open a console window and enter super-user mode (su -> ENTER -> admin password).
3. Type the following: “apt-get install bluefish”.
4. Apt-Get will now download the latest version of Bluefish, including any missing dependencies, and install everything.
5. To run Bluefish, navigate: L -> Run Programs -> Software Development -> Bluefish Editor.

During this installation I did indeed see some warnings pop up, however, everything seemed to work fine. My guess is that those were configuration settings that the apt-get package was expecting, but don’t exist in Linspire.

Happy coding!