First of all I had to change xorg.conf to make my touchpad works again, I think it is a problem related to the last realease of xorg, not to ubuntu.

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Synaptics Touchpad”
Driver “synaptics”
# Option “AlwaysCore” “on”
Option “SendCoreEvents”
# Option “Device” “/dev/input/touchpad”
Option “Protocol” “auto-dev”
Option “LeftEdge” “10″
Option “RightEdge” “1120″
Option “TopEdge” “10″
Option “BottomEdge” “1050″
Option “FingerLow” “10″
Option “FingerHigh” “20″
Option “MaxTapMove” “220″
Option “MaxTapTime” “180″
Option “MaxDoubleTapTime” “250″
Option “MaxTripleTapTime” “250″
Option “SingleTapTimeout” “150″
Option “VertScrollDelta” “20″
Option “HorizScrollDelta” “50″
Option “VertTwoFingerScroll” “true”
Option “HorizTwoFingerScroll” “true”
Option “FastTaps” “false”
Option “TapButton2″ “3″
Option “TapButton3″ “2″
Option “MinSpeed” “0.1″
Option “MaxSpeed” “0.9″
Option “AccelFactor” “0.3″
Option “SHMConfig” “on”
EndSection

The second problem was orginated by wi-fi card. Obviously I had to recompile madwifi driver for the new kernel, but this time I followed a little different way.

sudo apt-get install build-essential subversion autoconf automake
svn co http://svn.madwifi.org/madwifi/trunk madwifi
cd madwifi
make
sudo make install-modules
echo -e ‘#!/bin/sh\n/sbin/iwpriv ath0 bgscan 0′ | sudo tee -a /etc/acpi/resume.d/99-madwifi-bgscan.sh
sudo chmod 755 /etc/acpi/resume.d/99-madwifi-bgscan.sh

Now I am using kubuntu with kde4 on my mbp and I think it is quite good even if kd4 still suffers of a lot of problems. But it is usable and I always like to try different and innovative things.

Il metodo più comodo per me è questo:

sox -i titolo.mp3 -t wav – | faac -q 75 -o titolo.aac -

sox converte da formato mp3 a wav buttando però l’output invece che in un file sullo standard out (opzione – subito prima del pipe, output che viene raccolto da faac nello stabdard input (opzione – in fondo al comando) e convertito in aac

Se invece volete editare il file, magari tagliarne qualche pezzo, lo potete fare graficamente in audacity, scegliendo poi si esportare utilizzando un programma esterno e immettendo nelle ozioni questa riha di comando:

faac -q 75 -o “%f” -

In questo modo esporterete direttamente in formato aac con qualità 75

To have complete access to your OS X home you need to have the same uid and gid ib both Linux and OS X.

Usually OS X assigns uid starting from 501, while (k)ubuntu assigns uid and gid starting from 1000. OS X gives the group staff (with gid 20) to all users.

Change your uid in OS X is quite simpe, but befor to do any change it is better create a new user with administrative rights, to be sure to be able to log in and administer your mac.

Log in with your normal account and open a shell and give the command:

sudo bash

and give your password at the prompt.

Now open your control panel, click on Users and right click over your login name. Click on advanced options and you will be able to change your uid.

Now if you will not be able to do anything in your shell don’t panic. Log out and login with the alternate user you created before.

Open a shell and type: sudo bash

Your id is changed, but you have to change your gid too. (This is not essential, but i feel better with a group for me instead than staying in the staff group)

So you have to create a new group with the same id of the group you have in Linux. Usually in Linux you have the same uid and gid. For example uid=1000 and gid=1000 and you belong to a group with the same name of your login.

If your login is gandalf and your id is 1000 usually you beolong to a group with name gandalf and gid=1000.

So you have to create a new group in OS X with name gandalf and gid=1000.

Type in the shell:

dseditgroup -o create -i 1000 -n . gandalf

when the group is created you have to add your user to the group

dscl . -append /Groups/gandalf GroupMembership gandalf

now your user has the same id of the linux user and belongs to a group with the same name and id, but your home directory in OS X still belongs to someone with the old id so you have to go to /Users and change the owner of directory. In the shell type:

cd /Users

chown -R gandalf:gandalf gandalf

So your home directory has the right owner.

Now you should be able to logout and login with your normal user and everything should work right.

Restart and boot in Linux, you should be able to read and write in your OS X home directory as in your Linux home.

The following trick could be potentially danegerous, expecially if your mac partition is journaled.

I did this in my mac and till now it works fine, but be careful.

I used OS X for some months before installing Linux so I have a lot of email saved in Thunderbird in OS X and a lot of bookmarks and saved password in Firefox, and overall I want to be able to switch between Linux and OS X and continue using Thunderbird and Firefox with all my downloaded emails etc.

Open a shell and go in your home directory. Type:

ln -s /media/mac/Users/gandalf/Library/Thunderbird/ .mozilla-thunderbird

cd .mozilla

ln -s /media/mac/Users/gandalf/Library/Application\ Support/Firefox/ firefox

 

Mounting your OS X HD

First of all you have to find wich is the right HD parttion, for example using tools like QTParted. In my case the mac partition (HFS+) is sda2

Then you have to create a m ount point, for example /media/mac or everything else you want to use.

Now it’s time to try if you can mount the partition giving this command in your shell:

mount -t hfsplus -w /dev/sda2 /media/mac/

Now you should be able to access the OS X partition.

If you want to have the partition mounted at boot time you have to modify your fstab.

Find the uuid of your partition typing as root:

vol_id -u /dev/sda2

Then edit /et/fstab (as root) adding a line like this:

UUID=12345 /media/mac hfsplus defaults,rw,force 0 0

(Don’t type 12345 but the UUID you get from vol_id)

Now you can access your mac partition in read write mode.

Some easy steps to install kubuntu (ubuntu) on Mac

(This is a not complete tutorial, only a track of what I did to put LInux on my mac)

First of all I didn’t invent anything, I simply followed some good tutorials I found on the net, but i want to put all together here.

Step 0) Do a complete backup before to proceed, because you could loose all your data, now that you are advised… go on

Step 1) Partitioning HD

This is a god tutorial if you want to understand more (http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/Triple_Boot_via_BootCamp)

It explains how to partition your HD for trple boot (Mac Os X, Linux and Windows), but… why someone should want a Windows partition?

For some strange reason I don’t understand, you can’t obtain more than 4 partitions with OS X’s tools, and the first partition is used from Mac, the second from OS X, so if you want Linux AND Windows you can’t have a swap partition. (There are some tricks for this anyway).

I don’t need Windows so the partion tool of OS X is good enought for me.

Boot in OS X, open a terminal (you can find it in Applications/Utility) and type

diskutil list

Yous should obtain smething like this:

/dev/disk0
   #:                   type name               	size      	identifier
   0:  GUID_partition_scheme                    *233.8 GB 	 disk0
   1:                    EFI                    	   200.0 MB  	    disk0s1
   2:              Apple_HFS Macintosh HD     233.4 GB  	disk0s2

The Mac OS X partition is in this case the partition labelled as disk0s2, this is the partition you need to resize.

Decide how much space you want to assign to OS X, to Linux an d to the swap partition then type:

sudo diskutil resizeVolume disk0s2 80G “Linux” “Linux” 60G “Linux” “Swap” 2G

In this example you have 80 GB for OS X, 60 for Linux and 2 for Swap. Obviously you must decide depending on your HD size, these values are only by example.

Now you could reboot and OS X should work normally.

Step 2) Insert your Ubuntu|Kubuntu CD-ROM|DVD-ROM and reboot.

If you are using the 64 bit version (it should be better, because Core 2 Duo is 64 bit) remember to change boot parameters, deleting “splash” and “quiet” options.

Without this simple trick I didn’t see anything on my screen that remains complitely black.

When Linux will be up click on the installer icon and go on with installation, when you will be prompted to choos how to partition HD select manual partitioning and choose the partitions you made for root (/) and for swap.

When installation will be completed you will have to reboot.

Step 3) rEFIT

After rebooting you will find yourself in Mac OS X again, it is ok.

Now you have to download rEFIT. I used the dmg version (Mac disk image) Install it, then open a shell and type:

cd /efi/refit

./enable.sh

Now if you will reboot again you will see the rEFIT graphic menu to choose the operating system to boot.

(If booting GNU/Linux you can’t see anything on your screen, before starting to beat your head against the wall you can try this thing: boot using the live cd, mount the hd and edit boot/grub/menu.lst and delete “splash” and “quiet” options)

Step 4) Tuning your system.

Now your system is up and working but there are still some things to do to have a completely functional system.

X.org

Edit your /etc/X11/Xorg.conf and add/edit these lines to enable the touchpad to add right click (using two fingers) and middle click (using three fingers) and modify the keyboard to have the right apple key to behave like Alt-gr (look here for more complete explanations)

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
        Driver "synaptics"
        Option "AlwaysCore"
        Option "Device" "/dev/input/touchpad"
        Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
#       Option "LeftEdge" "100"
        Option "RightEdge" "1120"
#       Option "TopEdge" "50"
        Option "BottomEdge" "1050"
        Option "FingerLow" "0"
        Option "FingerHigh" "1"
        Option "MaxTapMove" "30"
        Option "MaxTapTime" "100"
        Option "MaxDoubleTapTime" "250"
        Option "MaxTripleTapTime" "250"
        Option "SingleTapTimeout" "150"
        Option "VertScrollDelta" "20"
        Option "HorizScrollDelta" "350"
        Option "VertTwoFingerScroll" "true"
        Option "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "true"
        Option "FastTaps" "false"
        Option "TapButton2" "3"
        Option "TapButton3" "2"
        Option "MinSpeed" "0.1"
        Option "MaxSpeed" "0.9"
        Option "AccelFactor" "0.3"
        Option "SHMConfig"  "on"
EndSection

 Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier     "Generic Keyboard"
        Driver         "kbd"
        Option         "CoreKeyboard"
        Option         "XkbRules" "xorg"
        Option         "XkbModel" "macintosh"
        Option         "XkbLayout" "en"
        Option         "XkbOptions" "lv3:rwin_switch"
EndSection

If you are italian (and your keyboard is italian too) put his line in the keyboard section:

Option “XkbModel” “pc105″

instead then “machintosh” otherwise you will have a qzerty keyboard.

Audio

Audio works out of the box, but not internal speakers. You have to put this line:

options snd_hda_intel model=mbp3

in /etc/modprobe.d/options

Wireless

You have to install the right driver to obtain a working wireless.

First of all you have to install build-essential:

sudo apt-get install build-essential

then you need madwifi driver, to download them use subversion (if you don’t have it: sudo apt-get install subversion)

svn checkout http://svn.madwifi.org/madwifi/trunk/ madwifi

cd madwifi

make

sudo make install

sudo modprobe ath_pci

Now the driver is installed, you need to scan for the network and connecet to the right cell.

This tutorial is very good and complete.

These are two commands to scan the network:

wlanconfig ath0 list scan

iwlist ath0 scan

The second one gives more details.

My network is a WPA encrypted network so I need to encrypt the password and store it in a file.

Give this comand in a shell:

wpa_passphrase “Network name”

then digit the password at the prompt. (Network name is obviously the name of the network you want to connect)

You will see an output like this:

network={
ssid=”Newtork name”
#psk=”secret password”
psk=a88e47d7445844838dc65179772b8866de6be6b478d5f47444e18ee709ee2016
}

Copy this in the file /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf (creare it if it dosen’t exist) and add these lines before ending }:

key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
proto=WPA

Now you have to config your network usign these commands:

sudo iwconfig ath0 essid “Network name”
sudo wpa_supplicant -B -Dmadwifi -iath0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
sudo dhclient ath0

Don’t delete the directory where you downloaded the driver, you could need to re-compile it after some upgrade. (in this case do: “make clean” then re-compile)

Now your Mac is a perfect penguin. Ehmmm not really perfect, but good enought.

Are you happy now? What do you need more? Ahhhhh if I only could have zfs and DTrace…