Speeding Up Software Rebuilds with CCache

Software developers who routinely rebuild large projects would love ccache. Ccache is a compiler cache. It speeds up software rebuilds by caching the result of previous compilations and detecting when the same compilation is being done again.

I use ccache when compiling Linux kernel, Debian/Ubuntu packages, GNOME applications, Mozilla Firefox, FirefoxOS and Android operating system. You could enable ccache by prefixing ccache to your compilation command or update your system path to include ccache.

# Add the following line to your ~/.bashrc file 
export PATH=/usr/lib/ccache:${PATH}

Alternatively you could create symlinks in ~/bin directory. GNOME 3 jhbuild documentation provides a bash script for this purpose.

cd ~/bin
for cmd in cc gcc c++ g++; do
  ln -s /usr/bin/ccache $cmd
done

To take advantage of ccache while building Mozilla Firefox, append the following line to your .mozconfig.

ac_add_options --with-ccache

If you are compiling Android(ASOP), CyanogenMod or Firefox OS. Android build system includes the ccache program, set the USE_CCACHE environment variable to enable ccache.

$ export USE_CCACHE=1

Further more in-depth information, read the ccache manual page. Please do comment and share your experiences using CCache.

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Samsung Galaxy S2 Accessories For Presentations

In this post we'll explore some effective presentations techniques using Samsung Galaxy S2 accessories. Use the Droid@Screen (See this blog post) program to display the mobile phone screen on my computer during my presentations. This program works by taking a continues series of screenshots of the phone screen. There are some problems with this design, there is noticeable delay during application interaction and the video performance is not great on my Lenovo X120e Ubuntu computer.

You can not demonstrate audio and video capabilities of the mobile phone using such software. Planning to give a talk about using Firefox Mobile with Android 4 screen-reader and existing solutions doesn't work for me.

Samsung Galaxy S2 HDTV Adapter

This adapter allow you to plug in your phone directly into HDMI large displays and digital projectors. The mobile phone AC charger powers the adapter and no additional audio cable is needed. The Samsung HDMI adapters are available for Samsung Galaxy phones and tablet models.

This works really great if you are planning to setup large screen display in a exhibition booth. Connect the phone to large screen display with HDMI cable and play your video demo in a loop.

Samsung Galaxy S2 Power Pack

The Samsung Power Pack comes handy when phone runs out of battery in the middle of the presentation. It does extend the battery life of the phone during the presentation or an extending application testing session.

Few caveats using these accessories. The HDMI adapter will not work when the phone is attached to the power pack .

This power pack has some issue with power sensing, sometimes it starts and stops charging with annoying beeps every 10 seconds. And you need to press locking mechanism tight to get the phone to charge. Hope someone at Samsung fixes this problem.

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Unset Google Chrome as default browser on Ubuntu

Update: After further investigation, I found is the problem is in google-chrome application not in Chromium-browser. My Mistake!

Dietrich Ayala brought this problem to my attention. For some reason google-chrome browser constantly makes itself the default browser on Ubuntu 10.10 and later versions. This is annoying when you are testing Firefox Nightly Ubuntu builds. You can choose to remove the google-chrome, but that is not a solution.

First, I tried to reproduce this problem on multiple Ubuntu machines. To reproduce this problem, installed Firefox nightly using Firefox Nightly PPA. Remove any other browsers expect google-chrome.

It took very long time to find the solution to this problem. The chromium-browser package adds /usr/local/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache which supersedes the default system application settings. The solution is edit this file and make it read-only using chattr command.

$ sudo nano /usr/local/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache 
[MIME Cache]
application/earthviewer=google-earth.desktop;
application/keyhole=google-earth.desktop;
application/vnd.google-earth.kml+xml=google-earth.desktop;
application/vnd.google-earth.kmz=google-earth.desktop;
application/xhtml_xml=google-chrome.desktop;
text/html=google-chrome.desktop;
text/xml=google-chrome.desktop;
x-scheme-handler/ftp=google-chrome.desktop;
x-scheme-handler/http=google-chrome.desktop;
x-scheme-handler/https=google-chrome.desktop;

#Remove all the google-chrome entries, like this.
[MIME Cache]
application/earthviewer=google-earth.desktop;
application/keyhole=google-earth.desktop;
application/vnd.google-earth.kml+xml=google-earth.desktop;
application/vnd.google-earth.kmz=google-earth.desktop;

# Make it read-only even for super-user
sudo chattr +i /usr/local/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache

After making these changes. Open Firefox Nightly and make it the default browser. Now this system setting will remain unchanged.

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Getting Started with Arduino in Hanoi

Spent the weekend learning basic electronics with Arudino open source prototyping platform. La 4uatrieme creative lab organized a two day Arduino workshop in Hanoi.

Designer and teacher Eoin Kinsella delivered a very interactive workshop. We learnt basic electronics, Arduino hardware and software environment by tinkering examples from the popular Getting Started with Arduino book. We spent the day building simple prototypes with sensors, switches and LED's on solderless breadboard and programed it using Arduino development environment.

The Arduino IDE on Linux is not well tested. During the workshop I found a minor bug in Arduino package in Ubuntu and fixed it right away.

The inexpensive Arudino hardware makes it easy to build interaction design and physical computing prototypes. With 3D printing services such as Shapeways you can now bring your ideas to life much faster than ever.

You can buy Arduino hardware in Vietnam from Soatec (www.sotatec.com) in Ho Chi Minh city.

Watch Arduino The Documentary (2010)

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Building Boot2Gecko(B2G) on Ubuntu

You heard about Mozilla Boot2Gecko(B2G) mobile operating system. Boot2Gecko's Gaia user interface is developed entirely using HTML, CSS and Javascript web technologies. If you are an experienced web developer you can contribute to Gaia UI and develop new Boot2Gecko applications with ease. In this post I'll explain how to setup the Boot2Gecko (B2G) development environment on your personal computer.

You can run Boot2Gecko(B2G) inside an emulator or inside a Firefox web browser. Using Boot2Gecko(B2G) with QEMU emulator is very resource intensive, so we will focus on the later in this post. I'll assume you are comfortable with Mozilla build environment. So, get that pot of coffee brewing and prepare for a long night of hacking.

Building Boot2Gecko(B2G) Firefox App

Before you start, let us make sure that you have all the prerequisites for building Firefox on your computer. Please have a look at the build prerequisites for your Linux, Window and OSX operating system.

# Let get the source code 
# Download mozilla-central repository 

$ hg clone http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central mozilla-central

# Download the Gaia source code 

$ git clone https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia gaia

# Change directory and create our profile 

$ cd gaia 

$ make profile 


# Change directory into your mozilla-central directory

$ cd mozilla-central


# Create a .mozconfig file inside your mozilla-central directory: 

$ nano .mozconfig 
mk_add_options MOZ_OBJDIR=../b2g-build
mk_add_options MOZ_MAKE_FLAGS="-j9 -s"
ac_add_options --enable-application=b2g
ac_add_options --disable-libjpeg-turbo
ac_add_options --enable-b2g-ril
ac_add_options --with-ccache=/usr/bin/ccache 

# Build the Firefox B2G app and wait for the build to finish 

$ make -f client.mk build 


# Create a simple b2g bash script to launch B2G app; change paths you suit your environment
# Note: Have to use to -safe-mode option due to bug on my Ubuntu box 
 
#!/bin/sh 
export B2G_HOMESCREEN=http://homescreen.gaiamobile.org/
/home/arky/src/b2g-build/dist/bin/b2g -profile /home/arky/src/gaia/profile

If everything goes well. You should have boot2gecko running inside a firefox now.

Customizing Firefox B2G App

For better Boot2Gecko (B2G) experience, we will customize Firefox features offline cache and touch events using a custom Firefox profile.

Create a Custom Firefox Profile

You can use dist/bin/b2g -ProfileManager option to launch Firefox Profile Manager. Create a new profile called 'b2g'. Now we can add customizations to this new profile.

On Linux computers, the profile is created under ~/.mozilla/b2g/ directory. You can find the information about location of firefox profiles for your operating system here.

You launch B2G with your new custom profile using the '-P' option. Modify your B2G bash script and add the custom profile option. dist/bin/b2g -P b2g

Disable offline cache

Create a user.js file inside your custom 'b2g' firefox profile directory. Add the following line to disable offline cache.

user_pref('browser.cache.offline.enable', false);

Enabling Touch events

Add the following line in your user.js file inside your custom 'b2g' Firefox profile directory to enable touch events.

 user_pref('dom.w3c_touch_events.enabled', true);

That's it. You now have a Boot2Gecko(B2G) running inside Firefox on your computer. Happy Hacking!

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Setup RubyGems path in ubuntu

Building Virtual Machines (VM) using Vagrant this week. Unfortunately the Ubuntu Natty does not add Ruby Gems directory to system path variable. Using Ruby Gems on command line is tedious if you have to type the full path prefix everytime. For example I have to type /var/lib/gems/1.8/bin/vagrant .

Instead I used the solution suggested in libgems-ruby bug #145267 .

sudo echo "PATH=/var/lib/gems/1.8/bin:$PATH" > /etc/profile.d/rubygems1.8.sh 

Perhaps someone could add this to Vagrant Ubuntu installation documentation.

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Mytop MySQL Monitoring Tool

If you are a developer or systems administrator who know the MySQL server performance in real time. MyTop tool is just for you. Designed like the traditional 'top' unix program Mytop displays MySQL server information, current mysql processes. It also lets you view complete query information and allows you to kill any MySQL processes. You can get mytop program using systems package installer or download it from mytop project website.

Usage:

You can launch the mytop in the system terminal using the following command line options.

$ mytop -u username -p password -d database

Press f to view full description of selected MySQL query and k to kill the the MySQL process.

You press ? anytime to view more keyboard commands.

 $  mytop -u username -p password -d database

MySQL on localhost (5.1.54-1ubuntu4)                    up 0+06:01:44 [16:26:50]
 Queries: 91.0    qps:    0 Slow:     0.0         Se/In/Up/De(%):    21/00/00/00
              qps now:    0 Slow qps: 0.0  Threads:    4 (   2/   0) 00/00/00/00
 Cache Hits: 17.0  Hits/s:  0.0 Hits now:   0.0  Ratio: 89.5% Ratio now:  0.0%
 Key Efficiency: 100.0%  Bps in/out:   0.2/ 19.0   Now in/out:   8.3/ 2.1k

        Id      User         Host/IP         DB      Time    Cmd Query or State 
        --      ----         -------         --      ----    --- -------------- 
        50      root       localhost      narro         0  Query show full proce
        53     narro       localhost      narro        24  Sleep                
        54     narro       localhost      narro        24  Query SELECT DISTINCT
        45      root       localhost                  543  Sleep                

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Make FLOSS Software Speak Your Language, BarCamp Yangon 2011

I gave a talk entitled "Make FLOSS Software Speak Your Language" at BarCamp Yangon 2011. The talk covered web-based localization tools Launchpad Translations and Narro that are used to translate Ubuntu Linux and Mozilla applications. The translators can use these tools to contribute translations in a wiki-like collaboration.

This talk was designed as a hands-on session beginning with a short talk that introduced the software localization concepts in a simple non technical language, followed by a practical session where the workshop participants logged on and started translations guided by experienced members of the local translation community.

Make FLOSS Speak Your Language

Ahkeno, a Joomla! localization contributor from Myanmar translated the talk and explained some of the concepts in the Burmese language. She also shared her experience with the Joomla! localization project.

Myanmar based Mozilla Firefox localization community member Steven Zaw Htut talked about the Burmese language package for Firefox 3.6. He explained how to install the package and change the default language of the Firefox Web browser. You can visit the http://www.wordpress-my.tk/ website to download this package.

There was a good turnout for the talk. The audience was mostly young college students who were excited about participating in localization projects. The presence of active contributors from the Myanmar localization community offered them a chance to meet and join these localization efforts. I finished the talk with a few key points about working in teams, asking new contributors not to be afraid of criticism and focusing on quality translations.

Unfortunately we did not have the Burmese (my-MM) locale enabled on Launchpad Translation and Narro. It was therefore not possible to do the practical exercises without the locale and the slow internet connection would have made it difficult for many people to sign up and work on translations. This event nevertheless helped me develop the framework to begin developing material, both printed and online for the future localization workshops. The overall response to the workshop was positive. It showed me that there is definitely a need for these types of exchanges not only in Myanmar but in many different Asian countries.

Stay tuned. More about this event to come!

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How to install adobe AIR on ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat"

Adobe AIR is actively supported on Linux. Few weeks ago I decided to try to install Mockups software, it is developed with Adobe AIR. I found Adobe AIR installation easy but very inconvenient.

1. Install Adobe AIR: http://get.adobe.com/
   air/



2. Choose Adobe AIR Installer for
   Linux and select software to download as .deb



3. Download and install the .deb package with Ubuntu Software Center or using dpkg -i command



4. The Adobe AIR is installed to /opt/Adobe AIR/Versions/1.0/ directory. You can install .air Adobe application on command line or select from Applications > Accessories > Adobe AIR Application Installer.
   
   

   
   
   cd /opt/Adobe AIR/Versions/1.0/
    sudo ./Adobe\ AIR\ Application\ Installer  
   
   

   
   
   



5. You can also associate .air to open by default with Adobe AIR Application Installer. Select .air application and right click to get properies, then change the open with custom command with path '/opt/Adobe AIR/Versions/1.0/Adobe AIR Application Installer'.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

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HOW TO: Copy a CD-ROM in Ubuntu

Here is a quick tip on how to make a copy of CD/DVD when the standard CD/DVD burning software is not available. We can use the 'dd' command to copy the CD/DVD as an ISO image file on your harddrive.

 dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/tmp/cdimage.iso

1313832+0 records in
1313832+0 records out
672681984 bytes (673 MB) copied, 127.532 s, 5.3 MB/s

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Snapstick, watch internet content on TV

Just stumbled across Snapstick on Mozilla-based applications page on Mozilla.org .

Snapstick combines the ease of discovering content on your laptop, tablet, or smartphone with the viewing pleasure of a big screen TV.

Now that sounds really cool. But it still doesn't explain what's the technology behind all this. Digging through the Snapstick.com site, I found the Engadget.com Snapstick review that explained the full details. Perhaps someone at Snapstick is listening, you need to put up relevant content where we geeks can find it easily.


BTW did I mention that this product is powered by Ubuntu. :)

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Firefox 4 Daily builds on Ubuntu 10.10

Last evening I met Firefox Hacker Dietrich Ayala in Hanoi. He was surprised that I don't use firefox 4 yet. So here what I did to get the daily builds of firefox 4 onto my Ubuntu 10.10 machine.

# Add the mozilla daily builds PPA 
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install firefox-4.0

# Make Firefox 4 as default browser
sudo update-alternatives --config x-www-browser
There are 3 choices for the alternative x-www-browser (providing /usr/bin/x-www-browser).

  Selection    Path                       Priority   Status
------------------------------------------------------------
* 0            /usr/bin/chromium-browser   40        auto mode
  1            /usr/bin/chromium-browser   40        manual mode
  2            /usr/bin/firefox            40        manual mode
  3            /usr/bin/firefox-4.0        40        manual mode

Press enter to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number: 3
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/firefox-4.0 to provide /usr/bin/x-www-browser (x-www-browser) in manual mode.

Testing Firefox Babies

Firefox is my most commonly used application, coming next only to terminal and Emacs text editor. Perhaps I would able to isolate and report more problem in the coming months. Accessibility and UI issue are at the top my list right now.

Have a look at the presentation of how you can help to make firefox better.

Testing Baby Foxes

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How to install Sun JDK on Ubuntu 10.10 “Maverick meerkat”?

Surprised to find that Sun Java packages were missing in Ubuntu Maverick (10.10). The new Ubuntu release uses OpenJDK by default. I needed sun-java6-jdk package to use a eclipse IDE development Android ADT plugin.

Found the solution in this StackOverFlow thread
How to install Sun JDK on Ubuntu 10.10 “Maverick meerkat”?

# Add this line to your /etc/apt/sources.list file
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu maverick partner

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk 

# Get rid of OpenJDK 
sudo apt-get remove openjdk-6-jdk openjdk-6-jre openjdk-6-jre-headless openjdk-6-jre-lib 

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Managing Creative ZEN Mozaic with mtp-tools

Using the Creative Zen Mozaic in Ubuntu 10.10 is a nuisance. The ubuntu standard Rhythmbox Music Player has problems with this MTP portable player. In previous version of Ubuntu Gnomad2 was used to manage these devices, but it is no longer available in latest verion.

My solution is to use the mtp-tools on command line. You can install the package by typing the following line on the terminal or use Ubuntu software center program.


sudo apt-get install mtp-tools

Next get rid of the Gnome Gphoto2 VFS program that will try to automount the device as a camera.

killall gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor

Now you are all set. Connect the device and lets see if we can detect the player with mpt-detect command.

$ mtp-detect
libmtp version: 1.0.3

Listing raw device(s)
Device 0 (VID=041e and PID=4161) is a Creative ZEN Mozaic.
   Found 1 device(s):
   Creative: ZEN Mozaic (041e:4161) @ bus 1, dev 6
Attempting to connect device(s)
USB low-level info:
   Using kernel interface "usbfs"
   bcdUSB: 512
   bDeviceClass: 255
   bDeviceSubClass: 0
   bDeviceProtocol: 0
   idVendor: 041e
   idProduct: 4161
   IN endpoint maxpacket: 512 bytes
   OUT endpoint maxpacket: 512 bytes
   Raw device info:
      Bus location: 1
      Device number: 6
      Device entry info:
         Vendor: Creative
         Vendor id: 0x041e
         Product: ZEN Mozaic
         Vendor id: 0x4161
         Device flags: 0x00000001

Now to get the list of folders on the device, use mtp-folders command.

To deleting a folder, type mtp-delfile -n <id> .

Lets create a new folder and copy all the mp3 files from the current folder to the device.




mtp-newfolder Classic_Hits Music 0


find -name *mp3 -exec mtp-sendfile {} <folderid> \;




If you have a similar MTP portable player, hope this short tutorial will get you started.

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Change Samba Password Expiry Setting with pdbedit

We have a Zentyal (Formerly EBox) Linux Small Business Server running as our office file/print server. Its runs smoothly hardly needs any maintenance. Except for this one issue, every few weeks I hear complains from staff that they can't logon to file server.

Quick peek at the Samba server logs reveals that 'password expired'. So there is password aging setting in force here.

 
[2010/12/05 17:33:45, 1] auth/auth_sam.c:sam_account_ok(179) sam_account_ok: Account for user 'tom' password expired!.
[2010/12/05 17:33:45, 1] auth/auth_sam.c:sam_account_ok(180) sam_account_ok: Password expired at 'Sat, 04 Dec 2010 15:20:57 SST' (1291515657) unix time. 

Lets remedy that using Samba pdbedit tool. We are gonna reset the 'Password must change' policy to all the users on the server.

Zentyal uses LDAP to manage the passwords, so we use '-b' option to point to the LDAP backend. And we change the default policy to passwords never expire.

pdbedit -b ldapsam:ldapi://var/run/slapd/ldapi  -P 'maximum password age' -C -1

account policy "maximum password age" description: Maximum password age, in seconds (default: -1 => never expire passwords)
account policy "maximum password age" value was: 0
account policy "maximum password age" value is now: 4294967295

# Defaults Before reset 
Unix username:        tom
NT username:          tom
Account Flags:        [U          ]
User SID:             S-1-5-21-3818554400-921237426-3143208535-5056
Primary Group SID:    S-1-5-21-3818554400-921237426-3143208535-513
Full Name:            Tom Thumb
Home Directory:       \\filesrvr\homes\tom
HomeDir Drive:        H:
Logon Script:         logon.bat
Profile Path:         
Domain:               SRV
Account desc:         Thumb Sucker
Workstations:         
Munged dial:          
Logon time:           0
Logoff time:          never
Kickoff time:         never
Password last set:    Sun, 05 Dec 2010 17:46:51 SST
Password can change:  Sun, 05 Dec 2010 17:46:51 SST
Password must change: Sat, 05 Mar 2011 17:46:51 SST
Last bad password   : 0
Bad password count  : 0
Logon hours         : FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
init_sam_from_ldap: Failed to get password history for user director

# After reset

Unix username:        tom
NT username:          tom
Account Flags:        [U          ]
User SID:             S-1-5-21-3818554400-921237426-3143208535-5056
Primary Group SID:    S-1-5-21-3818554400-921237426-3143208535-513
Full Name:            Tom Thumb
Home Directory:       \\filesrvr\homes\tom
HomeDir Drive:        H:
Logon Script:         logon.bat
Profile Path:         
Domain:               SRV
Account desc:         Thumb Sucker
Workstations:         
Munged dial:          
Logon time:           0
Logoff time:          never
Kickoff time:         never
Password last set:    Sun, 05 Dec 2010 17:46:51 SST
Password can change:  Sun, 05 Dec 2010 17:46:51 SST
Password must change: never
Last bad password   : 0
Bad password count  : 0
Logon hours         : FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

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Ubuntu On ARM : Changing Game Plan

My friend Tim Denny believes that ARM powered devices will drive the future of netbook and tablet computer technology. I agree with him, ARM delivers great performance and its low power usage makes it ideal. Perhaps the lightweight Ubuntu Netbook desktop would be a choice distribution for ARM powered devices.

The new release of Ubuntu 10.10 has all the right ingredients. There is better support for ARM, the Ubuntu netbook desktop is lightweight and Unity bring fresh design thinking for small screens. And now there is multi touch support as well. Here are some of the stories that that deal with this trend.

Ubuntu Gives Maverick a shot in the ARM

Excuse the dodgy pun but Ubuntu 10.10 is going to be a fantastic release for many reasons, not least of which is improved ARM architecture support.

Toshiba AC100 hacked to run Ubuntu 10.10 RC

The Toshiba AC100 is one of the first netbook-style devices to ship with Google Android installed. The operating system is typically installed on smartphones or tablets with touchscreen devices — not computers with keyboards and touchpads. The Toshiba AC100, on the other hand, looks like a netbook, with a 10 inch. 1024 x 600 pixel display, a keyboard and touchpad, and no touchscreen.

Marvell Armada 510 running Ubuntu 10.04

Is not it amazing when you see these power-sipping ARM processors running a powerful operating system so smooth? Here is an ARM processor, the Marvell Armada 510 running Ubuntu 10.04 Netbook Edition.

Unity and uTouch

One of the most exciting things about the Ubuntu 10.10 release has been the delivery of the Unity ‘shell’ in Ubuntu Netbook Edition. For the uninitiated, this delivers a very different user experience to that in the main desktop edition.

Ubuntu 10.10 Multi-touch

As many are aware, we released our maverick Maverick a few days ago. Part of what comes with Ubuntu 10.10 is the new uTouch stack.

Multitouch And Qt

Until recently, there has been no Multitouch stack for Linux. The great news is that the folks at Qt are very interested in getting Qt to work with uTouch.

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Installing Python on Android

Had left the Openmoko Linux phone and aging Nokia N70 back in India. Now I travel with a basic model phone, do miss hacking phone.

This morning I decided to change all that. Checking out Python Scripting Layer For Android using the Android SDK. My Nokia also ran Python S60 until the project lost wind. Getting the android environment on Ubuntu was easy thanks to Eric's tutorial

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Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) UI on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid LTS

Transformed my standard Ubuntu Lucid Desktop into Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) this morning. This interface allows netbook users to make better use of screen space and few great interface enhancements.

The Ubuntu UNR wiki page gives all the information about the packages and the required steps to convert your standard ubuntu desktop to UNR interface. Don't forget to report bugs to
Canonical Desktop Experience Team.

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Nortec SurfBoard Running Ubuntu 10.04

Just heard that Lekan got the SurfBoard running ubuntu 10.4. The video shows Google Chrome running Youtube videos. The video perform flawlessly in fullscreen mode.

The SurfBoard is an ultra low-cost, energy efficient computer keyboard selling for only $119.95. Ideal for classrooms, thin clients, hotels, banks and anywhere else where an energy efficient, silent, low cost computer can be used.

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Orca Caps Lock Issue

Caps Lock key doesn't work is the most common complaint from Orca screen readers users. On Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx I found that Caps Lock is reset mysteriously. Here is workaround you can use until we find the culprit responsible for this.

Debugging with xmodmap

You find the present keymaps setting with xmodmap command. You can see that the line starting 'lock' is empty. We can set it properly with xmodmap -e "add Lock = Caps_Lock".

$ xmodmap 
xmodmap:  up to 4 keys per modifier, (keycodes in parentheses):

shift       Shift_L (0x32),  Shift_R (0x3e)
lock      
control     Control_L (0x25),  Control_R (0x69)
mod1        Alt_L (0x40),  Alt_R (0x6c),  Meta_L (0xcd)
mod2        Num_Lock (0x4d)
mod3      
mod4        Super_L (0x85),  Super_R (0x86),  Super_L (0xce),  Hyper_L (0xcf)
mod5        ISO_Level3_Shift (0x5c),  Mode_switch (0xcb)

# Set the Caps_Lock with xmodmap 
$ xmodmap -e "add Lock = Caps_Lock"

# Now caps lock works properly
$ xmodmap 
xmodmap:  up to 4 keys per modifier, (keycodes in parentheses):

shift       Shift_L (0x32),  Shift_R (0x3e)
lock        Caps_Lock (0x42)
control     Control_L (0x25),  Control_R (0x69)
mod1        Alt_L (0x40),  Alt_R (0x6c),  Meta_L (0xcd)
mod2        Num_Lock (0x4d)
mod3      
mod4        Super_L (0x85),  Super_R (0x86),  Super_L (0xce),  Hyper_L (0xcf)
mod5        ISO_Level3_Shift (0x5c),  Mode_switch (0xcb)



 Bash Autostart script for setting Caps lock

 Now we know that this can be fixed so I used a bash script to call the modmap script everytime we boot. Somehow '.Xmodmap' settings are not getting loaded so I am using an alternative script '.xmodmaprc' and call it from .bashrc file manually.  

# .xmodmaprc
xmodmap -e "add Lock = Caps_Lock"

# .bashrc
if [ -f ~/.xmodmaprc ]; then
    . ~/.xmodmaprc
fi

Reboot the computer and enable the modmap file to be loaded at boot time.





PS: Kudos to dotslashblog for the xmodmaprc solution

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