Re: Proposal: DNS cache by default for ubuntu-desktop
Hi Kurt, I've been using dnsmasq (a lightweight alternative) on my computers to do the job and it works great. By default, dnsmasq only replies to 127.0.0.1:53 request, so this wouldn't introduce security weakness. Besides having a DNS cache (like dnsmasq) installed by default, the dhclient add 127.0.0.1 as the first name server in /etc/resolv.conf. openSUSE is the only Linux distribution that has a DNS cache out of the box. They just provide the nscd package installed by default. This is a pretty easy, simple, powerful feature. I strongly recommend it to be implemented. How can I truly submit this proposal? My blueprint has been untouched and unread for the last yo years. I would like to add my support for this idea. I (and I assume several others) have problems with slow DNS lookups on my Ubuntu installations when compared to Windows; see bug #94940 [1]. Perhaps a DNS caching server such as dnsmasq would alleviate the symptoms of that bug. However, if dnsmasq were to be integrated into the default installation (and the package was pre-configured as per the dnsmasq wiki's instructions [2]), there would be a conflict with NetworkManager. As you can see from the community instructions, you need to edit your /etc/resolv.conf and add the local machine's address (127.0.0.1) as your first nameserver. This is a problem because any changes to this file will be overwritten by NetworkManager each time it initializes a new connection (which is warned in the commented section of the file). The only solution that I am aware of, is to edit your active network connection in NetworkManager's applet, change the setting from Automatic (DHCP) to Automatic (DHCP) addresses only, and then manually input your DNS servers like so: 127.0.0.1, your regular DNS server 1, your regular DNS server 1. If we are going to integrate dnsmasq into the default installation it may serve us better to investigate the possibility of adding some kind of autodetection of the presence of dnsmasq to NetworkManager itself. We cannot expect users to manually edit their network connections for each new installation (or indeed, each new wireless network profile they create). Let me also mention that dnsmasq has the capability of providing ICS (internet connection sharing) [3]. This would be an excellent feature to add to NetworkManager's graphical interface, which is yet another feature that competing operating systems provide by default. Thanks, Conn [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nss-mdns/+bug/94940 [2] https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Dnsmasq [3] https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Internet/ConnectionSharing -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Including a system-wide pulseaudio equalizer
On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 7:21 AM, Daniel Chen seven.st...@gmail.com wrote: Two thoughts: This would entail switching to the master (or trunk) branch of upstream git, correct? Maverick currently tracks the stable-queue branch. No, my equalizer is merely a wrapper script that takes advantage of PulseAudio's module-ladspa-sink module (which has been included by PulseAudio for quite some time, but only stable since the 0.9.19 series) with an EQ LADSPA plugin. The script works by removing/(re)inserting the aforementioned module with the equalization parameters on a running server via pacmd, and optionally saving such configuration to the users's ~/.pulse/default.pa configuration file. Although Chandru linked to the source, there are also packages available (for Lucid and Karmic) if anybody is interested. See here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1308838 Directly link to my PPA: https://launchpad.net/~psyke83/+archive/ppa It was also included in Fedora 12's repository (though I am not the maintainer). Also, this should be packaged and submitted for inclusion into the Ubuntu repositories following procedure (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDevelopment/NewPackages). I replied directly to Chandru on this issue without awareness of this thread, so let me now copy paste to the list (and I'd be interested to know if there's still any demand for the submission): --- Hi, Getting pulseaudio-equalizer included into Lucid would have been ideal, but due to lack of time and problems with my development machine, I didn't get to make the submission before the freeze deadline. Moving forward, I'm not so sure that the equalizer has a long future in its current incarnation; the latest PulseAudio upstream code (non-stable branch) includes a native equalizer [1] which offers better quality than what can be provided through my equalizer (which uses a LADSPA plugin). So, for Lucid+1, perhaps there is potential to take the GUI part of my pulseaudio-equalizer code and adapt it to be used by the native PulseAudio equalizer. My GUI is GTK-based, whereas the native equalizer only has a QT-based interface available (pqaeq). There's nothing wrong with QT, but GTK-based applications would be preferred for the regular Ubuntu (i.e., GNOME-based) desktop flavour. Let's wait and see what happens. Thanks, Conn [1] This branch may be obsolete now that the equalizer is included upstream by default - I haven't followed developments recently. Here it is: http://gitorious.org/pulseaudio-equalizer -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
