I've been using Debian for a while now as the base OS for this website (and a bunch of others as well). Why go through the hassle of migrating to Ubuntu? Well, partly because I'm more familiar with it, working with it on a daily basis, but also because it's supported for 5 years, has a predictable upgrade/release cycle, is more current in terms of the software it's running than Debian Stable, but gives me the same sense of confidence in the supportability as that does.

So welcome to hardy har har...

The instructions are very complicated. It says on the instructions "to enjoy all the features of this keyboard and mouse, you must install software". Not on Ubuntu Feisty, mate. plugged in and everything works as expected. No configuration required.

For anyone interested it's the Cordless Desktop EX 110. 

And I have to say, I've quite enjoyed the experience. E17 is a very well put together desktop environment. Things I love:

1. The amount of control you get over your windows (it can optionally remember which virtual desktop, size, postition, etc. you want an application in, as well as conveniently being able to start it at login and/or pin it to the desktop). Very nice, as Borat would say.
2. Low resource usage for nice bling - and not so much bling as polish really. Try it and you'll see what I mean. It's a good looking desktop, no doubt.
   
3. I like middle click on the desktop and you get a list of open windows. Switching to other windows is remarkably easy after a while.

Things I prefer about Gnome:

1. Transparency with compiz/beryl
2. Expose like feature of compiz/beryl
3. Integration of Gnome apps such as rhythmbox, etc. E17 still doesn't have a systray - I use trayer to get around it, but it's not ideal. It's a blight on an otherwise great desktop for E17.
4. Avant Window Navigator. Cover album integration is too nice.
   

I have to say, at this stage I'm not sure whether I'm going to stick with E17 or Gnome. Stay tuned....

Granted about 4 of that was waiting for the updates to come down the (what turns out is a pretty slow) pipe. I had a few issues, but nothing major given distro upgrade to a pre-beta release.

1. Removed know troublesome packages (beryl, for instance)
2. Removed all non-ubuntu sources from /etc/apt/sources.list and ran sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude dist-upgrade (while still in edgy)
3. Changed /etc/apt/sources.list - s/edgy/feisty/g
4. sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude dist-upgrade
5. Ran into first gotcha - tor seemed to have issues which halted the upgrade - ran it again and it continued fine (tor still giving me issues now though)
6. Continued running dist-upgrade  until no more issues
7. Some issues
1. Compiz seems to load up without window decorators - turn it off and on again and it's fine.
2. Changed to using the shiny new bcm43xx wireless driver for my broadcom wireless card - was in edgy but a little flaky (seems better so far)
3. tor package still broken, as is cups (most likely these will be fixed it due course)
4. Listen froze up on me once - trying rhythmbox now since I like the avant-window-manager cover art plugin

I'll post if there are any other issues I come across, but all in all, I like it so far!

2007-03-19: Suspend to RAM not working. Have filed a bug (or at least, commented on a relevant bug report) and will see where that takes me. 

In the end, the setup wasn't too bad, but it did take quite a bit of getting used to. Not the most intuitive process.

Basically, get yourself set up with Ekiga, which on Ubuntu Edgy is available in the Ubuntu repos, and then once you've signed up for an Ekiga account (which you can use for PC-to-PC calls) you can also sign up for a PC-to-Phone account. I chose to use the one that's built into Ekiga (with Diamondcard ), as I figured it would work better, but also that there might be some kick back to the Ekiga project from Diamondcard, so that supporting it would be a good thing. Not sure if I'll stick with them once I'm all set up - will depend mostly on call quality and rates.

In any case, the big gotcha for me was that I was getting "Security check failed" even after I'd verified that I had everything set up correctly (which I could do by going through the configuration wizard, and then calling the "echo test" (which just repeats back to you whatever you say to it to show it's hearing and to verify you can hear that) at "sip:500@ekiga.net". I put in a support request to Diamondcard, and got a return reasonably promptly telling me that I didn't need to include the first "00" for my call. So, for instance, to call a number in the UK such as 0207 123 4567 you would call "sip:442071234567" not "sip:00442071234567", as I'd seen in some of the online docs.

Anyway, all set up and looking forward to using it, being able to track call history, and seeing what other benefits IP telephony can bring! 

I've installed it on my laptop only so far, as I don't have a true "media center PC" (yet - MythTV has made me realise I need one), but I've got the DVD import,video manager and music features installed and working and I can see it's the future of my home entertainment needs!

Ubuntu makes it nice and easy to install as well with the 0.20 packages available in Edgy, And it means I can use Ubuntu as the base for the media center when I get around to it, and it can then double as anything else I want (I'm thinking centralised backup server for all computers at home, as well as a bunch of other things).

 If you haven't already checked it out, give it a try.

Why, I hear you cry? Because I love the way the multimedia keys plugin integrates with Gnome so that I can simply define Play, Pause, Stop, Next Track and Previous Track within my Keyboard shortcuts, and then just use the Fn+<apt_key> as defined on my laptop's keyboard to skip away with all my music !!

Great. 

Turns out it means the dependencies of the package have changed, and so other packages need to be installed. Can be resolved with a simple "apt-get install <package-name>". 

Easy when you know how! 

This isn't so much an install guide as a device support list, cos I haven't done a clean install for a few releases now - I think the last time I did an install was Breezy Badger. Since then I've just "apt-get dist-update"d .

The specs are:

 AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3200+ 2.0 GHz
54g Integrated 802.11b/g Wireless LAN
15.4 WXGA+ High Definition BrightView Widescreen Display
80GB Hard Drive (4200 RPM)
nVIDIA GeForce4 440 Go 64MB
512MB RAM (2 Dimms?)
DVD/CD-RW
5 in 1 Digital Reader

Support? Broadcom wireless now supported with the bcm43xx wireless driver so that NetworkManager works a treat! Mousepad works great, with the right portion being a substitute scroll wheel (didn't have to do anything in particular - this just worked since Dapper).Obviously the 3D is working fine (Quake 3 is about as good as it gets on this laptop for gaming as I'm not much of a gamer - unless you count my Spectrum emulator) and at the moment I'm trying out of the BETA Nvidia Drivers with support for compositing directly in the driver. Seems a little slower with Beryl than it was in Dapper with Compiz/XGL, but I'm sure it'll get there soon enough.

What else is there? Oh, the widescreen is supported fine (1280x800). USB Devices behave themselves - automount as necessary. Haven't tested TV-out or Dual Head for a while. Will have to do that.

Downsides: have never got the Media Card Reader working. And still no suspend because I'm using the proprietary Nvidia modules. Overall: 95% there. 

Update: 2006-10-14 - Holy Cow! Thanks to this , I now have suspend to ram working like a charm. I close the laptop lid and it suspends, I power on and I'm right back where I started in about 5 seconds. Even resumes playing in Banshee where it left off. Love it, love it, love it. I thought this just wasn't possible with proprietary Nvidia drivers - I'm just amazed and very impressed! 

Update: 2006-10-18 - And there's more... Tested out the on-the-fly TwinView capabilities of the new Nvidia Betadrivers. Works a treat, except that my TV doesn't have a good enough resolution to make it useful for working off - fine for watching videos, though. Seems to only work with Metacity, and also have to reboot afterwards as the windows mysteriously disappear... Hoping for more improvements in the upcoming Nvidia drivers.

I'd been having some ongoing problems with Ubuntu since upgrading to Dapper Drake, but the main one was that my wireless no longer seemed to work.

After trawling the forums and filing a number of bugs (one for ndiswrapper and one for bcm43xx, neither of which was working for me), I discovered that I just had to press the "wireless button" on my laptop for it to work. Dammit. I didn't even know it was a button.

 I've also reverted back to vanilla X from XGL because my video/DVD playback was slower, and there were some things I didn't go wild about with XGL:

• I didn't like some of the features of XGL that I couldn't figure out how to turn off. Specifically the way all non-selected windows fade to grey.
  
• Could never get Gkrellm to show in all virtual desktops consistently and in the same place