Updated for Watchtower Library 2008

Install latest wine.

sudo apt-get install wine

As of this writing, I’m using Wine version 1.0.1

1. Pop in the CDROM and double click on Setup.exe icon when the Nautilus window pops up.

2. Run the install as normal. When finished, there should be two icons on your desktop. You can delete the ugly Watchtower Library XXXX.lnk icon. Keep the colorful one.

Your done!

Updated for Watchtower Library 2007

Install latest wine.

sudo apt-get install wine

As of this writing, I’m using Wine version 0.9.46

1. start from scratch (remove ~/.wine directory)

2. run winecfg. Chose “Windwows XP” as windows version. Close app.

3. Pop in the CDROM and double click on Setup.exe icon when the Nautilus window pops up.

4. Run the install as normal. When finished, there should be two icons on your desktop. You can delete the ugly Watchtower Library XXXX.lnk icon. Keep the colorful one.

At this point you could just launch Watchtower Library and it will work. However, if you want the tooltips to work (the floating yellow boxes) you will need to tell wine to use a version of comctl32.dll from an existing Windows installation. Keep going if you want the tooltip functionality, otherwise your done!

5. Copy comctl32.dll from a Windows XP (license is needed for this)
(Note: The comctl32.dll from Windows 2000 works even better.)

cp comctl32.dll ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32/

Newer versions of wine include a file called ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/winsxs/manifests/x86_microsoft.windows.
common-controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.0.0_none_deadbeef.manifest. This file prevents the comctl32.dll that you just copied from loading. I just rename the file to something else like this:

mv ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/winsxs/manifests/x86_microsoft.windows.common-controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.0.0_none_deadbeef.manifest ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/winsxs/manifests/x86_microsoft.windows.common-controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.0.0_none_deadbeef.manifest.bad

6. Run winecfg again.

7. On the “Applications” tab Click “Add Application” and browse to “Program Files\Watchtower\Watchtower Library XXXX\E” and double click on WTLibrary.exe.

8. With WTLibrary.exe highlighted on the “Applications” tab, click on the “Libraries” tab. In the “New Override for Library” box select “comctl32″. In the “Existing Overrides” box select “comctl32″ and click on the edit button. Select “Native then builtin”. Press “OK” until the winecfg box goes away.

9. The “M” and “*” marginal reference special characters do not display in the tooltips. To get this functionality you need to copy these files to the ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/fonts directory. These are fonts released under the GPL (see font information in the ttfs; the fontforge originals are found in the sources subdirectory).

10. Launch Watchtower Library. Everything should be working except that some of the icons will now have a black background. This is an issue with the comctl32.dll. Experiment with other comctl32.dll files from other versions of Windows. If you find one that works better let me know.

NOTE: The following information comes from http://freepbx.org/news/2009-03-19/restricting-outbound-calls-in-freepbx-whitelist. It’s being copied here in the event the original post becomes unavailable. Please refer to the above web site for current information.
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Simply add this to /etc/sysctl.conf:

# Unlock the CDROM eject button
dev.cdrom.lock=0

You have to restart for it to take effect.

To enable the finger print reader on a Dell XPS M1530 in Ubuntu 8.10 follow these steps:

After installing from the normal repositories coming with Ubuntu 8.10, you would have to press enter after sweeping finger. (This bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thinkfinger/+bug/256429) Therefore Jon Oberheide made an update that can be found here: https://launchpad.net/~jon-oberheide/+archive

Add the PPA repositories to your source.list (/etc/apt/source.list):

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/jon-oberheide/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/jon-oberheide/ubuntu intrepid main

Update installer:

$ sudo apt-get update

And install:

$ sudo apt-get install thinkfinger-tools

Now the driver is installed and should be working. You can try it with

tf-tool --acquire
tf-tool --verify

This will ask you to swipe your finger three times and save the fingerprint to ~/.thinkfinger.bir

Now we need to configure PAM to use finger print reader to authenticate.
Open /etc/pam.d/common-auth:

sudo /etc/pam.d/common-auth

On Ubuntu 8.10 - Intrepid Ibex you should just edit the section of the file that contains the pam_unix.so line so it looks like this:

....
# here are the per-package modules (the "Primary" block)
auth	sufficient	pam_thinkfinger.so
auth	[success=1 default=ignore]	pam_unix.so try_first_pass nullok_secure
# here's the fallback if no module succeeds
....

Save the file and reboot. You should now see the option to “Swipe your finger” at login and when issuing sudo commands.

Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex

New Xserver in Ubuntu 8.10 requires changing settings via HAL instead of xorg.conf file. To change touchpad’s settings in HAL you have to create new .fdi file:

gksudo gedit /etc/hal/fdi/policy/xps-touchpad.fdi

and fill it with:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
 <device>
  <match key="input.x11_driver" string="synaptics">
   <merge key="input.x11_options.LeftEdge" type="string">120</merge>
   <merge key="input.x11_options.RightEdge" type="string">830</merge>
   <merge key="input.x11_options.TopEdge" type="string">120</merge>
   <merge key="input.x11_options.BottomEdge" type="string">650</merge>
   <merge key="input.x11_options.FingerLow" type="string">14</merge>
   <merge key="input.x11_options.FingerHigh" type="string">15</merge>
   <merge key="input.x11_options.MaxTapTime" type="string">180</merge>
   <merge key="input.x11_options.MaxTapMove" type="string">110</merge>
   <merge key="input.x11_options.ClickTime" type="string">0</merge>
   <merge key="input.x11_options.EmulateMidButtonTime" type="string">75</merge>
   <merge key="input.x11_options.VertScrollDelta" type="string">10</merge>
   <merge key="input.x11_options.HorizScrollDelta" type="string">0</merge>
   <merge key="input.x11_options.MinSpeed" type="string">0.45</merge>
   <merge key="input.x11_options.MaxSpeed" type="string">0.95</merge>
   <merge key="input.x11_options.AccelFactor" type="string">0.06</merge>
   <merge key="input.x11_options.EdgeMotionMinSpeed" type="string">200</merge>
   <merge key="input.x11_options.EdgeMotionMaxSpeed" type="string">200</merge>
   <merge key="input.x11_options.UpDownScrolling" type="string">1</merge>
   <merge key="input.x11_options.CircularScrolling" type="string">0</merge>
   <merge key="input.x11_options.SHMConfig" type="string">true</merge>
  </match>
 </device>
</deviceinfo>

then:

sudo /etc/init.d/hal restart

and restart Xserver (Ctrl+Alt+Backspace)

via Installing Ubuntu on a Dell XPS M1530 - Ubuntu Wiki.