Hi everyone, this is just a quick how-to on handling the Ubuntu Maverick/Gnome Login Keyring issue which occurs when you change your user password.

The issue: You’ve decided to change your password for whatever reason and suddenly you’re presented with the following message whenever you launch an application you have instructed to “remember” your password.

Enter password to unlock your login keyring
The password you use to log in to your computer no longer matches that of your login keyring.

This is how you fix it:

Step 1: Go to System >> Preferences >> Passwords and Encryption Keys.
Step 2: If not already open, click on the “Passwords” tab.
Step 3: Right click on: “Passwords: Login“.
Step 4: From the context menu select: “Change Password“.
Step 5: Enter the Current password in the “Old Password” field.
Step 6: Enter the password you would like to change it to in the “Password” field.
Step 7: Enter the password you would like to change to again in the “Confirm” field.
Step 8: Click “OK“.

After this, relaunch the application which uses Gnome Keyring, you may have to re-enter your password, but after that, Gnome Keyring should remember your password for each subsequent launch.

In previous versions of ubuntu which used grub 1, setting up the resolution for tty was done by simply using the vga=??? boot option. In grub 2 however, this is not so easy.

I remember when it first came out. I was somewhat exasperated by the fact that I had _just_ become comfortable f*cking with grub’s menu.lst and now I had to learn how to use grub 2 – which had some new convention for editing menu items let alone setting up the resolution.

Anyway, there’s really nothing to it. I had to do a lot of digging around and some experimentation, but in the end, as with all things linux it was “easy” when I finally found out how.

Step 1: Open up your the grub header file stored in /etc/grub.d/00_header

$ sudo vim /etc/grub.d/00_header


Step 2: Add a command inside the block of string with script that sets the gfxmode. Acceptable Set the gfxpayload parameter to the resolution you want to use for your virtual terminals / TTY.

SO for me, lines 101 – 113 of the 00_header file in /etc/grub.d looks like this

101 cat << EOF
102 if loadfont `make_system_path_relative_to_its_root ${GRUB_FONT_PATH}` ; then
103 set gfxmode=${GRUB_GFXMODE}
104 insmod gfxterm
105 insmod ${GRUB_VIDEO_BACKEND}
106 if terminal_output gfxterm ; then true ; else
107 # For backward compatibility with versions of terminal.mod that don't
108 # understand terminal_output
109 terminal gfxterm
110 fi
111 #set gfx payload - use your own resolution here. I have a 19 inch monitor which natively supports 1440x900
112 set gfxpayload=1440x900x32
113 EOF


Step 3: After you save the file, go back to the terminal and run update-grub2 as root.


$ sudo update-grub2


Your terminal should look like this:

$ sudo update-grub2
Generating grub.cfg ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-23-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-23-generic
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin
done


And that’s it. On your next boot, you should see your console displayed in the resolution you used for setting gfxpayload.

Anyway, to fix this issue, I installed the debian SDL library with X11 graphics and Pulse audio compiled Ubuntu Karmic has available in the repository.
Pulse audio is the default sound system used in Ubuntu Karmic.

Here’s the step by step

Step 1: Install by issuing the following command:

sudo aptitude install libsdl1.2debian-pulseaudio

This will automatically remove libsdl1.2debian-alsa which will trigger a warning presented by dpkg.

Step 2: Kill the existing instance of pulseaudio by issuing the following command:

killall pulseaudio

Step 3: Play Battle for Wesnoth with sound.

I thought great! I’ll plug my headphone into the exteral sound card and I can again block the world out with sound the next time things get rowdy in the development room.

Everything worked great! Sound was channelled nicely out through the external sound card out of the box via pulseaudio. All except flash (flashplugin-nonfree) which has been hardwired to use my internal sound card. I don’t know what the particulars are, and what causes this, but I found that completely disabling the internal sound card was the solution.

Here’s how I disabled my internal sound card and forced all sound to use the usb sound card:

1. Blacklist snd_intel8x0 by editing the file /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-oss.conf and adding “blacklist snd_inten8x0″as the last line blacklist snd_inten8x0
2. Next, edit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf and replace: “install sound-slot-0 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-0″
   with: “install sound-slot-0 /sbin/modprobe snd_usb_audio”
   Your edited file should look like:
   
install sound-slot-0 /sbin/modprobe snd_usb_audio
#install sound-slot-0 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-0
3. Comment out options snd-intel8x0m index=-2, options snd-usb-audio and options snd-usb-usx2y so that the options portion of the alsa-base.conf looks like:# Prevent abnormal drivers from grabbing index 0
options bt87x index=-2
options cx88_alsa index=-2
options saa7134-alsa index=-2
options snd-atiixp-modem index=-2
#options snd-intel8x0m index=-2
options snd-via82xx-modem index=-2
#options snd-usb-audio index=-2
options snd-usb-us122l index=-2
#options snd-usb-usx2y index=-2
options snd-usb-caiaq index=-2
# Ubuntu #62691, enable MPU for snd-cmipci
options snd-cmipci mpu_port=0x330 fm_port=0x388
# Keep snd-pcsp from being loaded as first soundcard
options snd-pcsp index=-2
# Power down HDA controllers after 10 idle seconds
options snd-hda-intel power_save=10

Can’t get it to work? leave a comment, we’ll sort it out together.

How do you fix this?

To fix this, I did the following steps:

1. Right click on the blank toolbar – this will bring up the toolbar selection context menu.
2. Click on “Customize” – this will load the toolbar “Customize Toolbar” screen.
3. Click on the “Restore Defaults” button located on the bottom of the “Customize Toolbar” screen.

By now you should have your Web Development toolbar icons appear where they should be (on the Web Development toolbar!)

“FAIL! That didn’t work!”

Failing the above, you could try the following:

1. Load up the “Customize Toolbar” screen by following steps 1 and 2 above.
2. Using your scrollbar, locate a few of the Web Development toolbar Elements and drag it to the blank Web Development toolbar.
3. Click on the button called “Restore Defaults” on the bottom of the “Customize Toolbar” screen – this should restore your web development icons.

“FAIL AGAIN!! That _STILL_ did not work!”

Failing the two methods above, you should look to see if you have the popular tab enhancement add-on called tab mix plus. If you have this installed, you will not be able to see the icons for Web Developer when you open the “Customize Toolbar” screen. With me not wanting to spend more time on delving into why TMP gets in the way of the Web Developer tool bar, I decided to disable the Tab Mix Plus add-on in favour of my toolbar.

So if the two suggested fixes don’t work, try the following:

1. Load up the Add-ons menu and disable TMP
2. Right click on the blank toolbar and click on “Customize”.
3. You should now again be able to see your Web Developer Toolbar icons.
4. Locate a few of the Web Development Toolbar Elements by using your scroll bar then drag a web developer toolbar icon to the empty toolbar.
5. Click on the Restore Defaults button.

One of the above mentioned workarounds should work, but if your firefox Web Developer toolbar doesn’t work on Ubunutu, or any Linux distro, leave a comment. We’ll figure it out together.

While browsing for a solution for Firefox’s slow connection “bug”, I found a more “global” solution in Ubuntu. In short, the global solution is to blacklist IPV6.

You can do this simply by adding the following to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist:

blacklist ipv6

As with everything that’s Linux, the argument from one eyed linux fans is that linux distros are not the ones to blame and have actually configured the default install correctly by enabling support for IPV6… Instead of blaming the distros, they say that you should be blaming the developers of applications that have this “bug” or “misconfiguration” in them.

1. I rediscovered my love for the Windows OS – I really don’t know what Microsoft haters are bitchin’ about, Vista runs very nicely and I was surprised at the great interface (which of course Microsoft haters bitched about). I was so impressed with Vista, that I decided to not reformat the Hard drive and actally dual boot.
2. I can now run Ubuntu instead of Xubuntu while I liked Xubuntu, it lacked the polish and completeness a desktop environment like GNOME brings to the table. Especially coming from investigating the sh*tloads of issues I had with setting up Ubuntu due to driver issues and other sh*t – this is not specifically a Ubuntu issue, more a linux one. but anyway… I eventually managed to get my wireless working on Ubuntu, I’ll give you the step by step in later posts

Needless to say, installing Ubuntu on the LG S900-U.CPS1A Notebook was very painful would you believe that the built in ethernet did not work?! FFS!

    * AR5007E Does not work (Ndiswrapper)
    * Ethernet does not seem to work. (Hmmm)
    * Brown background on logon (Change /etc/gdm/PreSession/Default
    * Gamma reverting on screen saver: Don't use gamma setting in nvidia-settings, instead set in Monitor section of xorg.conf
    * Slow on Emerald - So I decided to use the standard gtk-window-decorator.
    * Brightness being reverted to 100%
          o System >> Power Management
          o Set brightness in "On AC Power" tab. (I've set mine to 60%).
    * Easy way to toggle touchpad on and off
          o qsynaptics
    * add to authorized_keys for passwordless sshing

Well, there’s a bunch of issues I resolved there – like I said in not so many words, I’ll elaborate more on the finer points later in time

$ sudo aptitude update
password:
$ sudo aptitude dist-upgrade

At least once a day. Having read about shell scripts, I thought I’d try my hand at putting this into a shell script which, if you don’t already know, is linux’ more powerful answer to the Windows batch file.

So that’s what I did, and here’s how I did it.

Get organised – I created a shell-scripts directory in my home directory. All my other shell scripts will reside in this directory should I find another need for a shell script. -> mkdir ~/shell-scripts [enter]

Create the empty text file – I created an empty file and called it update-xubuntu.sh -> vim ~/shell-scripts/update-xubuntu.sh [enter]

Start scripting! – Every shell script needs to start with a specific declaration in the first line of where to find the executable to run the commands you are going to type in below it – the generic for ubuntu is “/bin/sh “-> #!/bin/sh [... new line and continue script]

Make it executable – After I finished my script, I had to make it executable so that it can be run straight from command line without needing to feed it as a parameter to the sh program. -> chmod a+x ~/shell-scripts/update-xubuntu.sh (alternatively, I could have done chmod 0755 ~/shell-scripts/update-xubuntu.sh – basically, what a+x means that the everyone (all) should have the permission to eXecute the file).

Run it! – You’d think it’s straight forward, but to run my newly made executable shell script in the directory I’m currently in, I will need to type in the path of the file eg if I am inside the shell-scripts directory, I will need to execute the shell script by preceding the filename with a dot slash (./) this actually tells the shell that the current directory is where the shell script is and helps the shell resolve the location of your script. -> ./update-xubuntu.sh [enter]

Gosh, hope that made sense, whatever, just keep in mind dot slash (./) means “current directory” and if you are running a shell script, you need to include it! (unless of course you add your directory to your PATH environment variable…. but that’s outside the scope of this commentary).

The Shell Script: update-xubuntu.sh

#!/bin/sh # shell scripts need to start with this line. I'm sick of trying to explain this, so I won't.
sudo aptitude update # use aptitude to update your sources
sudo aptitude dist-upgrade # run a dist-upgrade.

The Terminal

rvdavid@desktop:~$ mkdir shell-scripts # get organised
rvdavid@desktop:~$ vim shell-scripts/update-xubuntu.sh # create empty text file + Start Scripting
rvdavid@desktop:~$ chmod a+x shell-scripts/update-xubuntu.sh # Make it executable
rvdavid@desktop:~$ cd shell-scripts/ # I didn't really need to do this, but I thought I'd do it just to make an example of dot slash in the next line.
rvdavid@desktop:~/shell-scripts$ ./update-xubuntu.sh
[sudo] password for rvdavid:
Get:1 http://archive.canonical.com gutsy Release.gpg [191B]
Ign http://archive.canonical.com gutsy/partner Translation-en_AU
Get:2 http://archive.ubuntu.com gutsy Release.gpg [191B]
Ign http://archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/main Translation-en_AU
Hit http://archive.canonical.com gutsy Release
Ign http://archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/restricted Translation-en_AU
Ign http://archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/universe Translation-en_AU
Ign http://archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/multiverse Translation-en_AU
...

Once I shifted over to Ubuntu, this shortcut was missing from a default installation. If you want to replicate how the Firefox web browser on Windows has mapped the backspace key to go back a page on linux based systems, do the following:

• Open up firefox
• In the address bar, type about:config *this should give you a payload of preferences going down the page*
• Once this happens, enter the word “backspace” in the filter field, this should narrow your entry to one that says browser.backspace_action.
• Double click on the entry and change the value to 0 instead of 1.

The change should be immediate, so if you now press the [Backspace] key, it functions as a back button. I must have done this a several times when I was installing and reinstalling distributions as I messed around with my installations, but kept forgetting how to do it.

So this is more a quick note than any ground breaking hack.

It drove me “up the wall” (as we’d say here in colloquial Australia), but I was determined to get my system working and so I did.

Check out these posts for more information – I’ve broken it up so that you aren’t flooded with a big essay on completely different, but somewhat related subject matter:

- Linux RT818X driver crashes 2.6.20.x kernel
- How I got my Belkin f5d6001 wireless card running on Feisty Fawn