Tuning

Getting video to work
In kaffeine go to Settings->Xine Engine Parameters. Then select video and xshm from the dropdown list. Same trick should be available in other players as well.

Getting the cdrom to work
Out of the box Feisty will not interact with the cdrom. To fix this do the following:
$ sudo modprobe -v ide-generic
To make sure you don’t always have to modprobe yourself edit your /etc/modules files and append the following line:
ide-generic
You also want DMA access for your drive. Too bad it won’t work. Theoretically it should work like this:
hdparm -d 1 /dev/hda
But that line produces an error on my machine. Seems to have to do with the ICH7 (Intel Chipset). We probably need to wait until this gets fixed in the kernel.

You need to tell the kernel to use libata for atapi. Since Ubuntu uses initrd during boot the following will ensure this (please note, adding this as a kernel boot option will not work):
$ sudo -i
# echo "libata atapi_enabled=1" >> /etc/initramfs-tools/modules
# update-initramfs -u

Now make sure the piix module is loaded on boot:
# echo "piix" >> /etc/modules
# exit

In case you still have “ide-generic” in your /etc/modules it might be a good idea to remove that line.

Now edit your /etc/hdparm.conf file, find the section describing /dev/hda and remove the remarks. It should then say:
/dev/hda {
mult_sect_io = 16
write_cache = off
dma = on
}

Other options are ok as well. Now reboot and things should be working. Test with:
$ hdparm /dev/hda

Install some extra tools to make live easier
ksynaptics: an applet to modify the settings of the touchpad (use gsynaptics if you are on Gnome)
$ sudo aptitude install ksynaptics

arno-iptables-firewall: a very easy to configure firewall script(!). It automatically protects all my network cards (eth1 and eth0), something I haven’t been able to set up with most of the GUI tools out there.

The configuration file can be found in /etc/arno-iptables-firewall/firewall.conf. If you sepcify eth0 and eth1 as external connection cards and don’t specify any internal ones, nothing can go wrong (well, ok, it is a firewall, so yes you can render your machine unusable). Don’t forget to open the ports you want open to the rest of the world.
$ sudo aptitude install arno-iptables-firewall

Start Beryl as a KDM session
Create the following file /usr/bin/startberyl.sh with the following contents:
#!/bin/sh
export KDEWM="/usr/bin/beryl-manager"
exec startkde

Save the file and make it executable:
chmod +x /usr/bin/startberyl.sh

Create the file /usr/share/xsessions/Beryl.desktop with the following contents:
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Beryl
Exec=/usr/bin/startberyl.sh
Icon=
Type=Application

Save the file. Next time kdm is started you will have the possibility to start a “Beryl” session. This way one can switch between a normal KDE session and a beryl session upon login.

Install flash for Firefox (64 bit) and konqueror
This information is from this website. The site describes how to install flash for Firefox using nspluginwrapper. Since everything is described very well there, I am not going to copy it here.

One remark though. The howto instructs the following:
$ cd ~/.mozilla/plugins

That didn’t work for me, I had to execute the following:
$ cd /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins

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