Ubuntu 11.10 issues with Wifi.

In July / August this year I installed Ubuntu 10.10 on my Thinkpad, I noticed when I logged in that the wireless wasn't working.  After some research I discovered that my Thinkpad is running a Broadcom BCM43224 wireless network card and that there were a number of known issues with the Broadcom drivers.  Luckily for me there was a patch available that would solve all my problems automagically, took a few hours and a ethernet connection but I managed it.

I recently upgraded Ubuntu to 11.10 and haven't had much of a chance to play around on it.  I did notice on Sunday night that the wifi wasn't working, ethernet was working fine which is why I hadn't noticed the issue earlier.

Deja Vu much?  After the hoops I had to jump through to get wireless working on Ubuntu 10.10 I couldn't believe I was having the same issues in Ubuntu 11.10...  

This time there is no patch sitting waiting to be downloaded that will automagically fix the wifi for me.  After some research I found a few "work arounds" (could someone explain to me please why we have to find work arounds for known issues?) 

The work arounds suggested deleting modules and installing other ones, although the work arounds had been well received I don't entirely feel comfortable jumping in and deleting modules and bits left, right and centre unless I know what it is that they do.  I initiated a game of 20 questions with Mr. O.G.

Problem:
Thinkpad running Broadcom BCM43224 wireless addapter, Ubuntu detects the wireless network card but proceeds to install the wrong drivers.

Solution:
Add bcma to the blacklist file created by bcmwl-kernel-source's postinst script.

• Edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf to include bcma

This will enable the wl module to run properly.

For full information feel free to have a look at the Ubuntu bug report raised ~8weeks ago & suggested bcmwl-kernel-source patch information.

What bothers me most is that this bug effects a multitude of people and has been reported several times.  I could understand that it could be considered a low priority issue and that valuable resources are being allocated to more pressing matters, but seriously accompanying this bug reported 8weeks ago was a patch to fix it... It would take very little to review, approve and make said patch available... my mind boggles!

EUREKA! Desktop Chaos Cured!

Finally some time to play around on Ubuntu 11.10.  Wasn't all fun and games, solved an annoying "issue" I'd been having created a few weeks ago.

For a reason unbeknownst to me, all folders in the home directory were displaying on my desktop.  The desktop folder was empty so I could not for the life of me work out what was going on...

I did note that the mysterious appearance of folders on my desktop commenced after changing all the folder names from capital letters to lower case letters.

Google is my friend!  Had a quick look at ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs

Shall we play a game of spot the difference?

<<

This is what my file looked like... oops!

>>

This is how it looks now... yay!

So it turns out that, when I renamed my folders using "mv" the user-dirs.dirs wasn't happy and automatically selected my desktop as it's default directory path for everything!  Most annoying.

Very simple solution, for a very simple mistake.

"Why are my folders appearing on my desktop - Ubuntu"

Weekend Geekery & a Lesson in "Bar Speak"

Alas not much weekend geekery this weekend.  Did update Ubuntu Natty (11.04) to Oscelot (11.10) !  I've always wanted my own Oscelot... annnnywaaaaay, haven't had a chance to play yet, did notice the login screen has had a facelift so I'm expecting it will be prettier.

Had zero luck with the 2hrs of LCA2012 badge hacking on Friday night but I was tired so I wasn't expecting much.  The rest of the weekend was spent working!  Killer deadlines this week.

Voted for the submissions for DrupalDownUnder2012 and purchased my Early Bird Ticket.  Really looking forward to seeing the schedule!

Sunday afternoon I did receive a lesson in "Bar Speak".  Two very important lessons in fact:

1. Apparently "there's one in the tap" translates to I've already paid for your next beer and it just needs to be poured.  
2. The more important lesson is you want the beer to stop flowing (i.e your pot magically being refilled every time you finish your beer) you need to lay your pot on it's side.  Laying your glass on it's side is an indication to the bar tender you done.  

I really wish they had of told me rule 2 that after the FIRST beer!  I said I only wanted 1 beer, 3 beers later.  :-(  My company found this incredibly amusing, I didn't zero productivity Sunday afternoon.