Tag: Samsung

Categories
Android Hardware Solutions

Galaxy Ace – Gingerbread Update – Notes

Image representing Android as depicted in Crun...
Image via CrunchBase

There are many good tutorials on the web about installing Gingerbread on the Ace (like this one).

Once you have Gingerbread installed what can you expect from your new system?
Other than the already present updates to Android, here are a few notes I made:

  • The Default language at the start is not English. To change, go to Settings -> Locale and Text (recognizable by the keyboard key A as the logo) -> Select Language (Option no. 1 in the list) -> English (or any other language)
  • The battery lasts longer and is estimated more accurately. – The battery info is more detailed too.
  • The Wifi bug that caused the “black screen of death” problem is fixed. Expect more stability while using Wifi
  • The UI is faster and more responsive
  • Fonts are crispier and look great
  • The notification bar is smaller and that really helps screen real estate.
  • Internal memory usage has improved leaps and bounds, expect lesser problems in that area

All in all the upgrade to Gingerbread has been perfect so far.

Note: The version I have installed is XXKPH

Categories
Android Apps

Using Phone LED As FlashLight: Android

One of the most attractive features of my Galaxy Ace is its LED Flash. This bright light can be used as a torch when needed, unfortunately there is no default app available to make it work.

Whats worse? I could only discover a single app that made this operation possible.  The app goes by the name “Tiny Flashlight + LED” and is available in the Android Market.


The app also provides a handy widget that allows you to turn on the torch right from the home screen


The creators of the app say that it works with these phones:
Samsung Epic 4G Galaxy S II S2 SII GS2 GSII Tab 7.0 8.9 10.1 Ace Cooper Fascinate Moment Acclaim Transform Mesmerize Charge Behold 7500 Moment, LG G-Slate Ally Apex GW620 KH5200 EVE Shine Plus Optimus 2x G2x Speed, Motorola XOOM Atrix 4G Droid Bionic X 2 i1 Pro R2D2 Backflip Cliq XT Milestone Defy, Nexus, N1, Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 X3 Neo Pro Play Arc, HTC Incredible G2 Desire HD HD2 EVO Shift 3D myTouch Slide Wildfire Legend Thunderbolt Inspire Sensation Merge, Bright Flashlight, Dell Streak 2.1, Sharp IS01 JN-DK01 SH-10B Lynx IS03 SBM003SH SBM005SH, Pantech Vega SKY X, Sanyo Zio, Toshiba Regza T-01C, bright flashlight, bright led, Garmin Asus A10, Huawei Ideos X5 U8800, Archos Coby Kyros 7015 LED, Acer Iconia A500.

Download:
[qr]https://market.android.com/details?id=com.devuni.flashlight&feature=search_result[/qr]



Categories
Device Hardware Laptop Linux Solutions Ubuntu

Getting the Latest Ubuntu Graphics Drivers on Samsung NC20

Official Ubuntu circle with wordmark. Replace ...
Image via Wikipedia

To get the best graphics performance out of your Samsung NC20, you will need to install the latest graphics drivers.  These drivers unfortunatey are not easy to find on the web, so here is a step-by-step installation instructions for driver installation on Ubuntu 10.10.  Special thanks to the wonderful folks at Ubuntu Forums(Wonderful source, thumbs up to the contributors).
{adinserter 2}
The steps explained below were taken from post #542 from this Ubuntu Forums page.

  1. Download this zip file via_chrome9_drv_u1010_v2.zip and unzip it
  2. Open a terminal window and change into that directory (“cd ~” for home dir)
  3. Install the “dkms” package from Ubuntu package repository
    $ sudo apt-get install dkms
  4. Install the kernel driver:
    $ sudo dpkg -i chrome9-drm_87a.55689-maverick1_all.deb
  5. Install the X.org driver:
    $ sudo dpkg -i --force-confmiss --force-confnew xserver-xorg-video-chrome9_87a.55729-maverick1_i386.deb
  6. Update /etc/X11/xorg.conf file
  7. Copy the provided xorg.conf.nc20 file to xorg.conf
    $ sudo mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup
    $ sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf.nc20 /etc/X11/xorg.conf
  8. Reboot Ubuntu
  9. Check if it’s working: Open /var/log/Xorg.0.log in a text editor. If you see several lines containing “VIA(0)”, then the new driver is being used.

Also note:

  • The sample xorg.conf.nc20 is only installed if you add the “–force-confmiss –force-confnew” options to dpkg.
  • Although VIA marks the source code this hacked driver is based on as stable, I cannot guarantee it to be bug-free. Use with caution.
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