halfdecent.net » linux

Latex on Karmic Koala

Matt — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:10:27 +0000

I needed latex this morning. My quick tip for installing it on Ubuntu Karmic Koala is to install Texmaker via the “Ubuntu Software Centre” (which you should be able to find at the bottom of the Applications menu) and then install the

texlive-fonts-recommended
texlive-fonts-extra

packages on the command line with aptitude. This sorted me out very quickly, and the interface for the new texmaker version in karmic seems excellent – attractive and intuitive.

Eclipse + Ubuntu + Groovy pain

Matt — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:17:06 +0000

A couple of days ago the v2 Groovy Eclipse plugin was released, but sadly I’m still not able to use it on my Ubuntu desktop because of a fairly convoluted set of configuration problems.

The first is that the linux download of eclipse doesnt work very well in the latest version of Ubuntu (Karmic Koala). A work around is described here with further links to Ubuntu’s issuelist. But actually the work around is only a partial fix because Eclipse sometimes starts a copy of itself and, when it does, it ignores the work around. This affects me as I’m currently trying to develop plugins.

One alternative approach that has worked for me so far is to use the version of eclipse that’s in the Ubuntu repositories. However, this version wasn’t taken from the final release of the eclipse codebase and the groovy plugin install, which patches the JDT (Java Development Toolkit) just wont install in this version.

So to use the groovy plugin it looks as though I’ll have to wait for Eclipse 3.5.2 (which is due on February 29th).

Xinerama

Matt — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 10:53:48 +0000

I configured my docked Ubuntu laptop with an external screen to have an extended desktop using Xinerama. It works (almost) nicely. I have a wide desktop that I can drag screens around on now, but unfortunately the pointer isnt rendering properly on the external screen – instead of a clean pointer I have a 2cmx2cm square on the external monitor. Even with a clumsy mouse pointer, this is an improvement on my previous dual monitor setup which used aticonfig’s bigdesktop setting. I found that bigdesktop configured two separate desktops which meant that I was unable to run firefox/thunderbird on both desktops, or drag windows from one screen to another.

These two references were useful: