The ending, redefined.

If you like a nice stable Linux and prefer to stay on the Long Term Support versions of Ubuntu, then you should be on the latest version, 10.04 ‘Lucid Lynx’. Chances are that you are running Firefox 3.6 and you will be waiting a long time for a major upgrade. The latest version of Ubuntu, 11.04 ‘Natty Narwhal’ has version 4 and I think will upgrade to version 5.

I highly recommend upgrading to Firefox 5, and it is easy to do. I would suggest that you do not go to www.getfirefox.net and download the tarball. Instead, go to System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager. Then go to the Settings -> Repositories menu and add the following ‘APT line’ under the Other Software tab.

ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-security/ppa

Now update your system using Update Manager, Ubuntu Software Centre or Synaptic. Nice one!

Oh Ubuntu with your inherent defence against crippling and annoying viruses like ‘Windows Disk’. How you keep on running without me having a pay an annual fee to an online protection racket and ‘updating my virus definition file’ or whatever.

And then, a new printer and scanner device arrives in the house. I’m sure they’ll be some open source drivers that mostly work to print, but no chance on the scanner. How wrong I was! I discovered that HP make open source drivers for loads of Linux distributions. Printing works a treat and scanning is simple. Well done HP! Curiously, the drivers are written in Python. Not C. Python. How about that?

When installing an automated upgrade on Ubuntu to kernel version 2.6.29, I found that the Netgear WG511 (made in Taiwan) wireless network card no longer works. Damn!

It appears that the p54 wireless network driver has been updated, requiring a change to the isl3886pci firmware. The updated firmware files can be found here.

I’m not really sure what it all means, but updating the firmware file makes the internet worky work and the little lights flashy flashy again.