Nigel Smith

I have made the decision to go completely mobile with my computer, I no longer see the point in having a desktop machine that takes up a mahoosive amount of space when I can quite easily do everything I need with a good laptop.

I have opted for the amazingly well reviewed and recommended Dell XPS M1330, I have to say it really is a damn nice lappy, needless to say the default bungled install of MicroShite Vista lasted approximately the same amount of time it took for me to find my Ubuntu 8.10 cd.

The install all went perfectly well as you would expect with Ubuntu, but since I have never had it just work out of the box I was waiting to discover all the little niggles that would need fixing.

Here’s the list so far.

• Fingerprint Reader
• Built-in Webcam doesn’t work in Cheese
• Sound levels are extraordinarily low
• Built-in Microphone doesn’t work

Actually they’re all remarkably simple, straightforward, easy fixes. Here’s how to fix them all, without buggering up other stuff and without the need to install random other software and compromise stability/security.

Fingerprint Reader

Why would you want to?, this is very insecure and easy to defeat. If you really still insist on using it, just use the guidelines below.

Actually, you’ll have to take my word for it, it’s not good. I may very well look at it again when I have a little more time, but for now I don’t like the insecurities it places on the system.

Built-in Webcam doesn’t work in Cheese

Actually it does, the reason you’re not seeing anything it because the resolution is set too high, I don’t know why Cheese can’t deal with the higher resolutions, but until they properly fix the programming the only reasonable way to make use of it is to suffer a lower resolution. Anything below 320×240 should be fine.

To change the resolution, just head into Cheese and edit preferences. If you find this alone doesn’t work, just issue the following to reload the driver.

#!> sudo modprobe -r uvcvideo
#!> sudo modprobe uvcvideo

done!

Sound level/volume is very quiet/low

This one is about as easy as it gets to remedy, I have absolutely no idea why Ubuntu mutes or disables anything, but it does.

Double click the speaker icon in the top bar to bring up the Alsa mixer GUI, now go ahead and hit the preferences button at the bottom, select absolutely everything and click close, now make sure everything is not muted and raise the levels to the top.

If you try and play a sample file you should definately hear a difference, now you should also be able to properly adjust the volume up/down 0-100% rather than just the original 0-50%

Built-in Microphone doesn’t work

Staying in the Alsa Mixer Gui, hit the Options tab and change Digital Input Source to Digital Mic 1, everything else should be set as Mic.

That’s it, your’re done, full fat audio goodness, ENJOY!!