Struggle, I do, using Google Chrome and Google+ Hangouts Chat. My Ubuntu 14.04.2 system simply will not display the integrated webcam, and gives me a black screen instead. Apparently this is a known problem. I was expecting that since both products are from Google, that they would work well together, but this is not the case.
My webcam has always worked. Cheese and GUVcview has always worked from day 1. I recently installed Skype and it worked right from the install. Using Firefox I can go to plus.google.com, login and my webcam works. Strange.
After hitting so many brick walls with Eclipse and Android development I finally gave in and installed Android Studio. No, I do not like being forced by Google to change development environments, but as Google seems to no longer support Eclipse, it was too difficult for me to handle Eclipse, Ubuntu, Android, as well as the lack of support by Google for Eclipse in their developer.Android.com site. There were too many variables that, as a newby, I got stuck too many times.
lacklack
Easy it will not be, for this path I know will be rocky. I tried installing Eclipse and the Android ADT on Windows 7 and got really stuck. Now that I’m on Ubuntu there is so much more help, but the problems are still many, varied and difficult to solve. I’ll chart the course here.
Little Weed’s neighbourhood friend has an Acer Aspire 5742z-4403 that was not functional. It would simply continue to cycle the boot process. He had suspected that his hard disk was bad but did not know how to prove it. I had him bring it to our house. in the end I proved that his hard disk was defective, the machine did boot up with Ubuntu and was fully functional. After connecting to the network with an RJ45, with Firefox we verified the internet worked. Summary: The computer works fine, the hard disk needs replacement.
After installing Lubuntu on an old Dell, i was expecting a similar user experience from full Ubuntu with a Unity desktop environment, where I would need to spend many extra hours tweaking the install. Little did I know. Ubuntu is easier to install and use, by far.
My Lenovo w510 came with Windows 7, which I still want to keep. By adding another disk I could boot to the new Ubuntu disk, and then have a choice to stay in Ubuntu or boot to Windows. A dual boot install was required. There is a lot of help online about installing a dual boot using two disks.
Mistaken I was, in blaming Lubuntu 14.04 for my Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop, for a very dim screen. It was so dim that I could barely see large white windows. I thought it was a Lubuntu 14.04 software problem, so I kept digging for answers, and receiving nothing but frustration and disappointment. Near 6 months later, I figured out that the laptop’s backlight was defective. Once replaced the screen lit up as normal.
There is a whole lot of information on the internet about using the Arduino with Eclipse on Xubuntu 10.04 LTS, much of it out of date. Here I document my experience in the hope that this process becomes more smooth.
I followed documentation from a couple of very key people, which helped a lot. Still, there are certain issues that threw me off. I have added my experiences where I had issues. The Arduino IDE is the standard method to connect to and program the Arduino. It is simple to use. If you want a more rich programming environment you can also use Eclipse, with the Arduino plugin. Either method can be used to program and run the Arduino. Here are the steps:
Old PCs die a terrible death, lonely and forlorn. In the Windows world you need to upgrade your physical PC hardware every 3-4 years as well as buy the newest operating system, wasting money and stressing your budget. As an IT professional I not only do not buy into this propaganda, but rail against it. When the Windows operating systems on old PCs do not receive any upgrades, the PC slows down, often heavily laden with fat, bloated software. Ubuntu, a Linux OS version, and Xubuntu, it’s lighter version, may be the answer to unlocking the innate functionality of your old PC.
