Ubuntu 10.10 on HP Pavilion dm4-1160 - erratic pointer solved

Finally, I solved the erratic pointer with these parameters added at the end of the line of parameters passed to the kernel: i8042.nomux=1 et i8042.reset=1

From the Ubuntu 10.10 livecd, when the cd starts booting, press F1 to display the menu and F6 Other Options, press esc to remove the options box, and at the end of the line, add the options above:

Boot Options: file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.lz quiet splash-- i8042.nomux=1 i8042.reset=1

synclient MinSpeed=0.1
synclient MaxSpeed=1
synclient AccelFactor=1
synclient JumpyCursorThreshold=60
r

I discovered the solution below doesn't work, but I found an alternative solution with synclient (it will be described in my next post)

If Ubuntu is already installed, edit the menu /boot/grub/menu.lst and add the options i8042.nomux=1 i8042.reset=1 at the end of the line kernel /boot/vmlinuz ... quiet splash !!!Doesn't correct the problem

Ubuntu 10.10 problems on HP Pavilion dm4-1160

I just received today my little 14'' notebook HP pavilion dm4-1160. $700 after rebate for an Intel i5 - M450 at 2.4GHz, 4GB DDR3 SDRAM, 500GB at 7200 rpm; it's a good deal regarding the performances. The only regret is the chip Intel HD Graphic and the screen resolution 1366x768 pixels.

Of course, Windows 7 Home edition 64bits is preinstalled and it's not possible to refuse it (just to get an extra discount). To finish with M$, the DVD of the OS is not provided. The Microsoft totalitarianism...

Anyway, I decided to try the new Ubuntu 10.10 in Live CD; I changed the boot sequence to boot first on the DVD rom, I placed my CD with Ubuntu 10.10 and turned on the computer. The CD started to boot, the first line indicating the kernel version appeared briefly (isolinux 4.01....) and nothing else! The screen returned to black while the DVD drive worked.

I tried Ubuntu 10.10 64bits and 32bits, Ubuntu 10.04 32bits, all of them loaded without any success and then I dicovered the backlight was turned off automatically during the initialization. The solution is to press the key 'f3' when the screen turns black to switch on the backlight, and then Ubuntu 10.10 works almost perfectly. The wireless is painless. The only problem is the touchpad which is erratic when 2 fingers are on the pad. The solution is to keep just one finger. The touchpad freezes sometimes for a while and restarts. The best solution is to use an external mouse connected to the usb port.

Funny thing: I discovered that in accessibility mode, the touchpad works almost correctly!

I tried Fedora 11, the graphic card worked correctly and the backlight did not turn off. I had a big problem with the touchpad too, so I plugged a simple mouse on the usb port and then almost everything worked perfectly. In fact, the main problem is the wireless connection. Fedora 11 is pretty old; I will try Fedora 13 the next week and I will post my results. Check my post of Nov. 5, I tested Fedora 14 Livecd.

Release CiWiki 1.7.0.1 alias Didiwiki

It is now possible to serve images and compressed files that are stored on the server. In the wiki page, image and compressed files have to be between two square brackets, images are in the folder 'images' [images/ciwiki.png] and files are in the folder 'files' [files/texlexan.lzma]

http://freshmeat.net/projects/ciwiki

CiWiki 1.6 alias DidiWiki adds a basic Diff

The command: Changes -> Diff or Changes->Comp displays the differences between the current page and the previous page. It is not very fancy but it is okay to have a quick idea of the changes.

Changes -> Diff shows only the differences.
Changes->Comp shows the previous page and the differences are printed in bold characters.

CiWiki 1.5.0, toc, entry and new login page

I modified the login page; now the creation of a new account and the login are separated. I added the possibility to change the password and to log off too.
I included in the package a small bash script to automatize the mailing of the access code.

There are new tags:
{{toc}} creates a list of contents.
{{entry}} {{data}} {{save}} {{delete}} create a form with an entry, a button 'add' and the buttons 'save' and 'delete'.

The code is always on sourceforge (and I will be happy to read your comments, positive :-) or negative :-( http://sourceforge.net/projects/ciwiki/

CiWiki 1.3.1 alias DidiWiki new feature!

I added 4 new features to CiWiki / DidiWiki:

* Expand tags {{expand}} the text {{-expand}}

* Collapse tags {{collapse}} the text {{-collapse}}

(expand and collapse can be nested)

* Quote mark 'a quotation.

* External links in new tab {{wwwlink=new_tag}} or current tag {{wwwlink=current_tag}}

The code is available here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ciwiki/

The program is still very compact (use 80Ko of ram), fast (C) and includes its own tiny server.

Academic Wiki

Academic Wiki could be the name of a new educational wiki. I am working on the project of a wiki especially designed for the education. So, it will include some special features such as the list of contributions done by one student during a period of time. This feature is important to be able to evaluate and to grade the work of each student. Another important feature is the page rating; the difficulty of the topic, the style of the text, the accuracy of the information, the bibliography are evaluated by the instructors and the results are displayed graphical on the page. Finally, a resource wiki is the companion of the Academic Wiki. It provides templates, pictures, drawings, short texts and snippets. Some other important features are a good permissions manager, the possibility to include quiz, flash animation and video.
One particularity of Academic Wiki is the name of the authors and reviewers are always displayed.

You can discover the ideas that will govern this new wiki here:
http://learnexperiment.wikidot.com/start