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Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake) installation with Thai Language

Mon, 2007-10-08 14:20 — ittichote

My Window XP crashed a few days ago that required me to reinstalled the window. Finally, I thought this would be a good time to try a new thing. I always wanted to repartition the harddisk and install Linux (Ubuntu) as the second operating system. But I didn't know how would I do it in a safe way. A year before, when I tried to repartion a harddisk with program Partition Magic, I ended up with a harddisk that could not boot up and finally a friend had to came and rescued.

Here are the following steps I used to install my Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake) - with Thai Language support:


Ubuntu Installation

This time, I found an article Creating a Dual-Boot Windows XP and Ubuntu Laptop by Kevin Farnham. I followed the instruction to repartition and install Ubuntu without any problems.

Setup wireless device

Ubuntu doesn't have device driver for my Broadcom BCM4306 wireless device. I googled and found David Watson's Blog: Broadcom BCM4306 on Ubuntu Feisty Fawn

With this setting, Ubuntu can detect my network device, but my wireless device is not connected at start up. When I tried to run command iwconfig, it displays:

eth0 IEEE 802.11b/g ESSID:"Chuckpaiwong" Nickname:"Broadcom 4306"
Mode:Managed Frequency=2.437 GHz Access Point: Invalid
Bit Rate=11 Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm

To fix this, I can run a command:

$ sudo iwconfig eth1 ap any
$ sudo dhclient eth0

These commands have to be run every time Ubuntu is booted.

Setup proxy

Now I need to configure proxy server with authentication (username and password) for my work network. I can setup proxy for Firefox through its GUI without a problem. But I can't setup in the same way for Synaptic. I found a way to do it on Google: Add the following lines to the file /etc/apt/apt.conf

Acquire::http::Proxy "http://[username]:[password]@[address]:[port]";

I still cannot figure out what is the proxy setting at System/Preferences/Network Proxy is for? Can anyone tell me?

Install Thai language

To add Thai languages in Ubuntu, goto System/Adminstration/Language Support.Check box "Thai" for Supported Languages and choose "English (US)" for Default Language. This should download and install common packages for Thai language.

To add Thai Keyboard Layout, goto System/Preferences/Keyboard, under Layout tab. In this setting, you can also set which key that you would like to use to switch groups on your keyboard. Choose the key you want to use in the Layout Options tab, under Group Shift/Lock behavior.

To add Keyboard Indicator (used to show the active keyboard group) to a panel, right-click on the panel, then choose Add to Panel. Select Keyboard Indicator in the Add to the panel dialog, then click ADD. (For more information, search for "keyboard indicator manual" in Help)

Setup Thai language for OpenOffice

Setting up Thai language allows the program to recognize Thai words and be able to provide useful features (like spelling check, word wrap, etc.). In the OpenOffice's menu Tools/Options/Language Settings/Languages, select "Thai" for CTL.

Fix Thai font display for Ubuntu

Ubuntu displays Thai fonts poorly out of the box. To fix this we have to choose different fonts, refer to the instruction at this link. I create the file ~/.fonts.conf with the following texts per the instruction. This works okay for me, but the font is still not quite pretty, especially in the terminal.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<!-- /etc/fonts/fonts.conf file to configure system font access -->
<fontconfig>
<alias>
<family>serif</family>
<prefer>
<family>Loma</family>
</prefer>
</alias>
<alias>
<family>sans-serif</family>
<prefer>
<family>Loma</family>
</prefer>
</alias>
<alias>
<family>monospace</family>
<prefer>
<family>Loma</family>
</prefer>
</alias>
</fontconfig>

Set Write permission on shared FAT32 partition with Window XP

I have a fixed FAT32 partition that I want to share it with Window XP. Default Ubuntu installation assigned the owner of this partition to be root, which make me unable to make any changes to this partition. I changed the owner for this partition by editing the file /etc/fstab as follows

/dev/hda2 /media/hda2 vfat defaults,utf8,umask=007,uid=1000,gid=100 0 1

Config Ubuntu to play DVD and other multimedia files

To play DVD and most other common multimedia formats, refer to Ubuntu's help page on Restricted Formats. The following command line works well for me:

$ sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-pitfdll gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse gxine libxine-main1 libxine-extracodecs ogle ogle-gui

To play most DVDs and some media player files, I had to install libdvdcss2 package. This package is available using Medibuntu (not supported by Canonical). I installed by using the following command lines (for Ubuntu 6.06 - Dapper Drake):

$ sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/dapper.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list
$ sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2

Setup HP LaserJet 3055 through network

HP LaserJet 3055 is an all-in-one printer (network scanner/fax/printer). The printer shipped with driver for only Window and Mac. However, HP provides excellent supports to most of their printer products on Linux at HP Linux Imaging and Printing (HPLIP) website. I used automatic installation from this link. It works like magic (both network scanner and printer functions). I am very impressed with HP for their excellent contribution to the open source community.