Eclipse on Karmic

Couldn't figure out why an install of Eclipse SDK 3.5.1 onto my now Karmic-enabled laptop wasn't running correctly, and then a few minutes of googling led me to this very useful tip.

Banishing the Drifting Pointer

A well-known problem with Dell Latitude laptops such as the D800 concerns the mouse pointer, which can start drifting across the screen of its own accord, for no apparent reason.

The cause of the problem is the small thumbstick embedded in the keyboard. Under Windows XP, I had applied the simple fix of disabling the stick in the mouse preferences dialog, but when I upgraded my D800 to Ubuntu 9.10 the other day, the problem reappeared - and there was no handy option in System Preferences to correct the issue.

Some blogs advocate the drastic step of cutting cables inside the machine, but fortunately I came across a less scary solution in the comment to another blog entry.

Adapting this to my own system, I ended up creating a file /etc/hal/fdi/preprobe/disable.fdi containing the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
  <device>
    <match key="input.product" string="DualPoint Stick">
      <merge key="info.ignore" type="bool">true</merge>
    </match>
  </device>
</deviceinfo>

God Bless The Pretty Things

My signed copy of Boo Hewerdine's new album arrived in the post today, and it's a corker - his best since Anon, I think.

Watershed

I've used Linux at home for many years now, starting with SuSE 5-point-something and moving eventually to Ubuntu at around the time of the 'Gutsy' release. I've tended to upgrade every 12-18 months, and each time I've installed from scratch. The install experience has improved gradually with time, each successive upgrade causing fewer problems, but this weekend was something of a watershed: my first completely problem-free Linux install. Everything just worked - even sound, traditionally the thing that has always caused me grief in the past.

A new beginning

Managing a blog on my own server was becoming a chore for various reasons, so I've decided to experiment with an externally-hosted solution. This is also an opportunity to try out a different service (Blogger rather than Wordpress). So far so good...