Thursday, February 25, 2010

OpenOffice Sinhala: Interface Issue on Kubuntu => Workaround

I installed the Sinhala pack for OpenOffice 3.2 on Kubuntu 9.10 and switch my interface to Sinhala. But I found that it is not rendering Sinhala properly. Looks like in some places it just uses the system default font instead of the Sinhala font.
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=107252



There is a font replacement feature available in OpenOffice which can be used as a workaround until developers fix the issue.
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=109067

Go to Tools(මෙවලම්)=>Options(විකල්ප) and select Fonts(අකුරු) under OpenOffice.org.



Enable "Apply replacement table (ප්‍රතිස්ථාපන වගුව ඇතුළත් කරන්න)", select your system font under "Font (අකුරු)" and select LKLUG or your preferred Sinhala font as the "Replace with (සමග ප්‍රතිස්ථාපනය)" font. Then select "Always (සැමවිටම)". Now click OK (හරි) and you should get the OpenOffice Sinhala interface beautifully rendered.



You can find your system font from System Setting panel.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

BandLuxe C120 on Kubuntu 9.10

Getting multi-mode usb modems working on Linux is still a challenge. After reading many articles in the internet, I manage to get BandLuxe C120 HSDPA modem working on Kubuntu 9.10. This should work on Ubuntu as well.

This blog entry actually provide me with all the information.
http://my.opera.com/CrazyTerabyte/blog/2008/12/28/bandluxe-c120-3g-modem-from-oi-velox-plug

The installer for Linux is available at;
http://www.bandrich.com/Download_C120-3a.html

Use the Eee PC driver not the Linux driver.

However, I couldn't use the option.ko in the package since the kernel version is different. I tried with the options.ko which comes with Kubuntu 9.10 and it did work for me :).

Here is the modified installation script which you can use, such that the installer will not override the original option.ko driver. So we only use the udev rules which will stop mounting this device a storage device and only use it as a usb modem.

############################################################################
#!/bin/sh


MODDIR=/lib/modules/`uname -r`

echo "Backup file modules.alias"
cp -v ${MODDIR}/modules.alias ./modules-original.alias
echo "Patching file modules.alias"
sed -f vidpid.sed ./modules-original.alias > ${MODDIR}/modules.alias


echo "Unload the kernel module"
/sbin/rmmod option

echo "Rules for auto switch from CDROM to Modem"
cp -vf 10-bandluxe.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/10-bandluxe.rules

mkdir -p /usr/share/hal/fdi/preprobe/20thirdparty/
cp -vf bandluxe.fdi /usr/share/hal/fdi/preprobe/20thirdparty/bandluxe.fdi

##########################################################################

Good luck!

Friday, January 22, 2010

Government service delivery with ICT

An example of how information and communication technology can be used to deliver efficient government services.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Kubuntu - Dolphin Search

If you want to get search feature in Dolphin working you need to have the desktop search enabled in Kubuntu. Dolphin is the file manager comes with Kubuntu. However, if you try the search without the desktop search feature enable, you will simply get an error message which doesn't give you any clue as to what went wrong. I have file a bug highlighting this.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kdebase/+bug/505754

Until the developers fix this, I thought of educating others as to how to get it working, hence the blog. Go to system settings, click the advanced tab and then you will find the desktop search feature there. Please see the below image.



Go in to desktop search and enable Nepomuk Semantic Desktop and Strigi Desktop File Indexer.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Kubuntu 9.10 released

http://www.kubuntu.org/news/9.10-release

Just upgraded my home PC and must admit, this is really cool now. Great job, Kubuntu developers!!!

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Power of openoffice impress

I did this using openoffice impress and with some help from GIMP to fix up the images.

Monday, September 28, 2009

How GIMP has made me an artist :)



You also can be; http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/The_Basics/