Problem: Ubuntu was being upgraded to a new distribution using do-release-upgrade over SSH and the connection lost, and the backup SSH session could not be reached.

Solution: Run sudo screen -x

Problem description: For a brief moment after typing, the mouse on a laptop using a trackpad is suddenly disabled.
Hardware affected: Most notably Synaptics mouses (using Synaptics drivers and software)
Operating systems: Both Windows and Linux

Cause: Synaptics mouse software has a featured called “Palm Check” which, in order to help the user avoid accidentally clicking on things while typing, disables the mouse while you are typing and for about a second after you stop typing. While this feature may be useful in an office environment, a user who is gaming or switching back and forth between applications frequently may find this incredibly frustrating.

Solution:
Easy (all software changes, no changes to hardware).
In Windows, press Start and type “Mouse” to find the mouse control program (or go to Control Panel> Hardware and Sound> and click “Mouse” under Devices and Printers.)

Click the last tab titled “Device Settings” from within the mouse configuration window. Select the device (Usually “Synaptics Touchpad”) and click “Settings”.

From here, it varies from various versions of the Synaptics driver and software versions. Search around for options related to “Palm Check” (usually under Pointing> Sensitivity> “Palm Check”).

While you cannot fully disable Palm Check, you can set it to its minimum setting which is sufficient for most users. You can also simply lower the value, as it is a useful feature to have with a touchpad (though it infringes on productivity at its default settings).

In Linux (Specifically Ubuntu), “go to [1] System > Preferences > Mouse > Touchpad and uncheck “Disable Touchpad while Typing”” (from here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SynapticsTouchpad)
[1] You should also be able to hit the Super Key and search for “Mouse”.
Different Synaptics drivers in Linux may yield different results.

If this helped you, please comment and let us know (and let us know if it didn’t as well!)

Problem: WiFi in Fedora 15 is not working very well or with limited functionality with a Broadcom BCM4311 wireless device, or a Dell E1505 laptop (which uses a BCM4311 wireless card).The wireless may work for a period of time, but eventually cuts out and refuses to connect until you either restart the computer, or disable and re-enable the wireless card.

Cause: Fedora selects the wrong driver for this particular card automatically.

Solution: Install the alternative driver.

Tip: To make this process faster, make sure Fedora is up-to-date BEFORE following these instructions.

To begin: Make sure you have access to a wired connection (ethernet connection). Partly through the process of changing the driver, you will not be able to use WiFi and it will become completely inaccessible.

First, double-check that your card is in-fact BCM4311. Open a new terminal window, and run the command

lspci

(You may need to be root to run this command).

The results should include something that looks like this:
0b:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01)
^^This first series of numbers may be different on your computer.

If you have a BCM4311, proceed. If this is not your card, do not follow these directions.

Make sure you are connected to the Internet.
Open a new terminal window, and run:

su
yum install akmod-wl

This will install the akmod-w1 driver. After the installation finishes, reboot your computer.
Once you have logged in again, you will have lost access to your wireless. This is because akmod-w1 installs a kernel that breaks wireless on Dell systems. We need to update the kernel in order to access wireless again.

Open the Software Update utility in Fedora. (Press the Windows/Super key and type “Software Update” to access this program).

The update for the kernel should appear. Install the update, and restart again.

The WiFi should now work.

For more information, check out this forum post:
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?p=1487122
This post contains other drivers you can also try.

Related articles

• Ubuntu 11.04 BETA I Functionality on Dell E1505 (winfix.zylblog.com)
• Ubuntu 11.04 BETA I fails to use Broadcom wireless card (winfix.zylblog.com)

Problem: After using the keyboard (by typing) or after changing the volume using a button on your laptop, the track mouse becomes unavailable for a few seconds.Problem is present on Ubuntu 11.04 (or Linux using a Synaptics touchpad mouse driver).
This problem is likely present on other distributions.

Cause: Ubuntu 11.04 changed some of your mouse settings, upon doing so it enabled a feature titled “Disable Touchpad While Typing”

Solution:
(Ease: Easy. Time: Under a minute)
This solution will likely work on other distributions, but the menus may be in different locations.

Enter your system settings
* Gnome3/Unity: Press the Windows Key and type “Mouse”, select “Mouse and Touchpad”
* Gnome2/Failback: Click your username in the upper right-hand corner, and go to “System Settings” and locate “Mouse and Touchpad”

Go to the “Touchpad” tab.

Uncheck the box next to “Disable Touchpad While Typing”

Close the window, and test that it resolved the issue.

Did this work for you? Please comment and let everyone know.

More information about this is available here:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SynatestingpticsTouchpad

EDIT: 06/22/11. Ubuntu 11.04 has been released and these issues have, for the most part, been fixed.

The Dell E1505 can run Ubuntu 11.04 BETA I, but not out of the box.

Users with Broadcom wifi cards are likely to have problems as well as users with nVidia GeForce Go 7300 graphics cards.

Fixes are available for both likely problems.

The problems:
A WiFi device will not be detected
Unity 3D will simply freeze up after login.

Description: Ubuntu 11.04 BETA I seems to not detect or acknowledge the presence of any wifi card, wifi is not listed on the wireless menu, and ifconfig/iwconfig do not list a wlan device. Commands such as   rfkill list  show the device, but as blocked.
WiFi light will not turn on with key command, either.

Problem: Once again, the Ubuntu team has provided incorrect default drivers for Broadcom devices. These directions will only help you to  gain some functionality from your wifi device. The wifi may not work to its full potential.

Solution: Navigate to Additional Drivers. To get here from Ubuntu 11.04, click on the power button on the desktop in the upper right hand corner, and click “System Settings”. Locate “Additional Drivers” under the Hardware category.

Remove/deactivate the Broadcom STA Wireless driver. Restart the computer.

Log in, and open a terminal. Then run:

sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer

Restart the computer again.

You should notice that your WiFi light has turned on.Wireless can not be enabled and disabled from the Network menu (next to the system clock).

A note: Usability of the card may be poor due to having “sketchy” drivers installed. The particular driver installed will work for most Broadcom cards, but may not offer the full features your card may typically have.

Please comment and share how well this worked for you (if at all) and any other solutions you may come across.

Details: Ubuntu 11.04 BETA I fails to allow use of Unity Desktop when a nVidia GeForce Go 7300 is used.

Problem: The new nVidia driver introduced with Ubuntu 11.04 is not actually compatible with said card.

Solution: Simple.
First, to get into some kind of desktop, get back to the Ubuntu login screen (you can NOT get the desktop to un-freeze, you may have to force shutdown or do some other complicated things).
At the bottom of the login screen, select a different desktop to use. The drop-down box is set to Ubuntu as default. Instead, select “Ubuntu Classic (no effects)” and log in.

Your desktop should now load with the traditional Gnome interface. Don’t walk away just yet, as full functionality is just a moment away:

Open (under System) “Additional Drivers”, find whichever nVidia driver is installed and remove/deactivate it. Restart your computer.

Login and open Additional Drivers again, and install/activate the driver named “Expiremental 3d Support for  nVidia cards”. Restart your computer, and change the desktop in the login-screen drop-down box back to Ubuntu.

Ubuntu 11.04 with the Unity desktop should load successfully.

Please comment if this post worked for you, as well as other solutions you may have found.

If you can not use the EA Download Manager or are unable (or unwilling) to install the incremental updates manually, there are “super” patches available officially from EA which will update you to the newest version from any version of the game.

These patches are listed on the Sims3 online forum, located here:

http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/175477.page

The “super” patches are about 400MB.

The manual incremental patches are available here:

http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/188505.page

For the purpose of archiving, at the date of December 19th, 2010 the following “super” patches were available at these links:

(region instructions further down)

Region 1
http://akamai.cdn.ea.com/eadownloads/u/f/sims/sims…s/TS3_1.18.9.009001_Update.exe
Region 2
http://akamai.cdn.ea.com/eadownloads/u/f/sims/sims…s/TS3_1.18.9.009002_Update.exe
Region 3
http://akamai.cdn.ea.com/eadownloads/u/f/sims/sims…s/TS3_1.18.9.009003_Update.exe
Region 5
http://akamai.cdn.ea.com/eadownloads/u/f/sims/sims…s/TS3_1.18.9.009005_Update.exe
Region 7
http://akamai.cdn.ea.com/eadownloads/u/f/sims/sims…s/TS3_1.18.9.009017_Update.exe

Find out your region by navigating to C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin and open “Skuversion.txt”
Do NOT change anything in this file. The last number in “Game Version” indicates your region. For example:
GameVersion = 1.12.70.006001
This game version would be region 1.

Target: This article applies to both users running The Sims 3 (all or no EP’s) on either Windows, or WINE (or PlayOnLinux).

This article covers the description of the problem, causes, how to clear the Sims 3 Cache, and how to resolve the problem completely.

Problem description: Objects, Sims (especially clothing) and all or parts of lots are turning black. (Anything with texture).

Further: … Sometimes only newly placed objects have these issues occur. Some Sims may still have correct clothing while others do not. Certain categories of objects (such as only floors, only walls, only tables) seem to have this problem.
Cause: The cause is not certain, but it has been narrowed down to a few things:

Your Graphics Card does not support Vertex Shading. Try disabling “Advanced Rendering” in the Sims 3 options window. Try clearing the cache (see below for instructions)

DirectX may be out of date (Windows) or not all components of DirectX are working properly (WINE + Linux)

Problem Solution:

1. First, please try simply clearing the Sims 3 cache. To do this, Navigate to where your Sims files are saved. This should be located under your My Documents folder (or the Home Folder, in Linux) and under the sub folder, Electronic Arts > The Sims 3

Delete every file (not folder) that contains the word Cache. These should be:

CASPartCache.package

compositorCache.package

scriptCache.package

simCompositorCache.package

Also delete all files in the “Thumbnails” folder.

(“What is a Cache?” see note 1)

After you have deleted the cache, start the game again and see if this resolves the problem.

If it does fix the problem, restart the game to make sure that the solution lasts.

If this does not fix the problem, continue:

2. Disable “advanced rendering” in the game’s graphics options menu.

Delete the cache again (step 1).

Start the game. If this does fix the problem, restart the game to make sure that the solution lasts.

3. If the problem is still occurring, lower the texture detail in the game to its’ lowest setting.

Delete the cache again (step 1)

Start the game. If this does fix the problem, restart the game the game to make sure that the solution lasts.

4. If the problem is still occurring, lower all other graphics settings to their lowest setting.

Delete the cache again (step 1)

You can either leave these settings on low, or try upping them until you get the problem again and narrow them down to a setting that works.

If this helped you solve the problem, please comment below and let people know what you tried and what was or wasn’t helpful, as well as any other solutions you may have found.

Note 1:

“What is a Cache?”

A cache is a place where a program or operating system stores information to be used again. Caches often contain old information that is no longer needed. Caches can also be used to conserve space in the RAM of your computer by storing less used information on the hard drive. A cache often contains instruction sets that the computer has performed in the past, so that the computer will not have to recalculate certain things in the future.

Or, as Wikipedia says:

In computer science, a cache is a component that improves performance by transparently storing data such that future requests for that data can be served faster. …

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache