Linux offers countless possibilities of customizing how it looks and feels. Ubuntu is no exception and I am sure you will enjoy applying different themes and be amazed by the effects and animations.

As Windows user I always felt limited somehow in terms of watching still the same themes. Surely it is possible to customize Windows and even apply new themes, but the procedure is much more complicated, whereas in Ubuntu it is pure fun. When you get into it, you will be able even to create your very own themes like I did myself. Don’t hesitate and feel free to download and use the Emerald themes I’ve created.

In the video I’m explaining how to change preinstalled themes (also called Metacity themes) and customize panels. Then I move to more advanced customization replacing Ubuntu’s default theming manager with Emerald. You will also need to install CompizConfig Settings Manager (Compiz is Ubuntu’s compositing window managers that uses 3D graphics) to be able to apply new settings and you can play with it and change the effects and animations of windows or desktop.

You can download very nice Ubuntu theme packages from Bisigi Project

Simply enjoy and leave comments!

(The best you’ll enjoy the video in HD.)

It looks like computer manufacturers make the upgrade process more difficult. They employ 3rd party company that takes care about registration and resending Windows 7 upgrade DVDs. You will have to pay for this service from €15 to €30 depending on a brand of computer you have bought. This charge will apply for OEM versions of Windows pre-installed on your computer already, those of you upgrading from box version will be charged less than half the price.

You might say the charge is not that hight, so OK, I’ll pay it and enjoy Windows 7. Well, depends on what you consider a high price and probably also the country you are living in, but for sure that is high price for promise of free process! I myself as a customer would feel cheated, pissed off and the brands involved would have a minus point in my mind for the future.

I am not a fan of upgrades of any kind – especially when it comes to Windows operating systems – and am glad I haven’t bought a computer at the time and adviced everybody not to do so. Just be careful for the future people and better wait until new system comes out!

For a long long time I have known about audio latency (which can be resolved to some extent by ASIO drivers) but a couple of months ago I happened to read something about DPC latency. I didn’t pay attention that much at the time, thinking it was not my problem, although the article reminded me fighting with Line6 UX2 and POD Farm and repeated crackles I heard when playing the guitar. Then Dell released a new BIOS upgrade for my laptop with description “1. Added Win7 support. 2. Fixed DPC Latency”. What? No way! Well, yes way…

What DPC latency is?

DPC stands for Deferred Procedure Call meaning that different hardware drivers on your computer request processing power of computer’s CPU (processor) to deal with particular tasks. CPU then reserves a certain amount of power for these tasks leaving fewer resources to process your recordings. Resulting in crackles, dropouts and glitches in the sound.

Of course not every aforementioned sound problem is caused by DPC. You can experience the same also when you set the buffer size of ASIO driver too low or use too many effects plug-ins or tracks in the project. So be careful and check those first before you blame DPC latency which usually causes sound issues repeating every so often.

DPC latency can affect all computers regardless of how powerful machines they are. Most vulnerable are laptop computers because DPC is mainly related to wireless cards and battery management. And, of course, we are talking mostly about PC platform as Apple guys have – again – much better situation…

DPC diagnosis

But how can you find out for sure that you have DPC problems? Thankfully there is a little program called DPC Latency Checker by SysInternals that you can run without installation. Than just wait for good news in form of green (or occasional yellow) bars or bad ones of red bars.

DPC Latency Checker

Surely, the lower and more consistent flow of the bars the better performance of your system. If the graph displays bars going to red area (more than 2000μs) regularly, then your system is highly prone to audio dropouts.

Cure

The first step you can take when trying to resolve the DPC latency problem is to update all drivers and also BIOS in your computer.

Secondly, make sure you are not overloading your DAW software and your computer with tons of tracks, virtual instruments and plug-ins. Freeze some of the tracks and try to rise the ASIO buffer to acceptable level (during mastering, mixing or any post-recording processing you don’t need as low buffer settings as during recording).

If this hasn’t resolved your audio dropouts problems, third thing you can try is turning off Windows Aero if you are on Vista or Windows 7, set up Sleep mode to “Never”, turn off screen saver, disconnect from network, disable anti-virus and anti-spyware programs.

If that doesn’t resolve the issue, you can also try disabling hardware devices and checking the result. Run Device Manager (can be found in Control Panel) and try to disable (in right click menu) just one device at the time and check for change in DPC Latency Checker graph. However, don’t turn off all of the devices! Hardware that you should try to switch off are: wireless (WLAN) cards, built-in soundcard (if you are also using external, more professional device), some USB and FireWire devices. If there is no change in latency graph, re-enable the device.

The last solution I heard about is very risky and rather extreme as it suggests disabling Windows’ system driver ACPI.sys. This driver, among other functions, takes care about power management on laptop computers. I haven’t tried to disable it and would recommend to do so just at your own risk as it may take out some other Windows vital functionality. Generally it is easier to disable ACPI.sys on Windows XP machine than on more recent Windows versions.

Final advice

My last words about this issue would be “better do deep research on the computer before buying it than trying to resolve DPC latency problem after you spent the money“. Check many different resources, like manufacturer’s or other forums. Don’t trust the fancy names like “Studio” as most of these laptops are not suitable for music production (oh dear, I wish I knew about DPC earlier – I own Dell Studio laptop…). And read my website to be aware of similar issues!

Wish you all good nerves and a lot of luck fighting DPC and other latencies! ;)

As long term Windows user I felt a temptation to try something new. Surely I wanted to go for Apple computer and operating system but the price made me turn to Linux. Basically because it is free and also I got a feeling it is more similar to Mac OS X than to Windows.

I tried several Linux distributions and some of them really impressed me (like gOS for example) although I choose the most popular one – Ubuntu. The decision was affected by the fact that there is huge community around Ubuntu and if I have a problem, I would have better chances to find a solution.

Alright, but which Ubuntu derivate to choose?

This was a bit of pain. I read all around the net that for Windows user it is easiest to try Kubuntu first… So I went for that and I was impressed with those effects, widgets and panels. I stayed with Kubuntu to the day when I became tired of windows look.

Kubuntu Linux

I wanted it to change (and I heard that Linux is great in customizing, that was one of the reasons why I wanted to try it) but found it more difficult than what I expected. Especially when I looked at some websites showing different beautiful Linux screenshots, I wanted something like that. To my surprise – Kubuntu is not the right way to go in the situation! These days it is probably getting better than when I tried it (a year ago) but I am already under magic spell of classic Ubuntu which is much more customizable. And the difference is in the desktop environment. Kubuntu uses KDE and Ubuntu Gnome, which was the right way to go for me and for anybody who wants highly customizable look.

My customized Ubuntu

To make list of Ubuntu derivates complete, there is also Xubuntu (lightweight derivate which is supposed to run on slower machines – not really usable these days), Ubuntu Netbook Remix (for netbooks of course ;)), school Edubuntu or Ubuntu Studio for multimedia production. Go and try whatever you want. Most of these derivates offer a “Live CD” which is the simplest and non-destructive way of trying one out. You just need to boot the system from this CD. But it is just as simple that you won’t be able to store any changes to the system, nor installing any software…

I want to try Ubuntu with full potential

If you want to try Ubuntu with its full potential, forget about Live CD! What you need is running the system the way that you could install new software, make system updates and saving all your settings including the look. You won’t get this with Live CD simply because the system won’t burn your changes into CD disk. There are several ways of achieving the right results, these are the easiest:

1. Install Ubuntu on USB flashdrive and run it from there (boot the computer to flasdrive)
2. Install Ubuntu on harddrive next to your Windows installation (or onto different partition of harddrive)
3. Final solution is completely new installation of Ubuntu system on your computer

Let me start with the last one as that’s what I started with when I get to Kubuntu. I didn’t know at the time that there was some other solution available and went on with normal installation to my laptop but onto separate drive partition to keep also my Windows and dual-boot with Kubuntu. Bad idea! Linux and Windows uses different system loaders and Linux’s loader overwrote my Vista’s one. It was fine until my Vista crashed completely that I needed to reinstall it (it happens on Windows from time to time ;)). After reinstallation I couldn’t get to Kubuntu as its loader was gone and replaced with Vista’s one again. Bla bla bla, I won’t tell you the whole story. Finally I managed to run both systems again but I told to myself that the nerves I lost during the procedure and possibility of doing it again in the future is not worth that! So I’d say, use the last solution really at last. When you are completely decided to use just Ubuntu, or you can use the solution when you have some spare computer around to sacrifice it as Ubuntu machine.

That’s all for now. In next episodes of this series I will show you how to manage installation with 2 solutions – Ubuntu on flashdrive and Ubuntu using Wubi. I use both.