I tried several DVDs (DVD+R, DVD-R, different brands, and tried to burn at different speed), with no luck. Also it refuses to read movie DVDs. But it can read the Snow Leopard DVD, so I hope that at least it can read common data DVDs.

I tried to reset the SMC and PRAM/NVRAM, no luck again.

Still remains to try some other burning software.

Reading support forums and searching on google has been a waste of time so far.
I don’t know if this is a side effect of Lion installation, or it is just a coincidence, but since now Apple didn’t ship any update. Only I find it quite suspicious that if you just search for “Lion superdrive” you find many people having problems with those two.

I used my DVD very few times, if it is an hardware problem it means that the claimed superior hardware quality of Apple is just another myth.

Big disappointment by Apple, either if it is a software or hardware problem. Super…drive.

Below I explain how to make it work.

Disable the USB storage

When the USB stick is behaving as USB storage it won't work as 3G modem. The first thing to do is to disable that.

Locate the device assigned to the USB stick:

luigi@hal9000:~$ df
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3            199024992 113153688  75761392  60% /
udev                   2018164       296   2017868   1% /dev
none                   2018164       340   2017824   1% /dev/shm
none                   2018164       324   2017840   1% /var/run
none                   2018164         0   2018164   0% /var/lock
none                   2018164         0   2018164   0% /lib/init/rw
/dev/sr1                 26330     26330         0 100% /media/3Connect

The 3Connect one is the USB stick, so let's unmount it, to be able - later - to unload the usb_storage kernel module.

luigi@hal9000:~$ sudo eject /dev/sr1
[sudo] password for luigi: *****

now let's unload the usb_storage kernel module.

luigi@hal9000:~$ lsmod | grep usb_storage
usb_storage            66016  0
luigi@hal9000:~$ sudo rmmod usb_storage
luigi@hal9000:~$ lsmod | grep usb_storage

The first command (lsmod) checks that usb_storage is loaded, and see if there are other modules depending on it. There aren't, so we can remove the module (rmmod command). Last command (lsmod) is to verify that the module is successfully unloaded; if it doesn't display anything means that the usb_storage module is gone, so it's ok!

Load the usbserial kernel module

Now we can load the usbserial kernel module and we can associate that to the USB stick.

First of all, let's check how the module is loaded:

luigi@hal9000:~$ lsmod | grep usbserial
usbserial              43248  1 option

We see that there's the "option" module depending on the usbserial, so we need to first unload option then usbserial.
Let's do that with rmmod command.

luigi@hal9000:~$ sudo rmmod option usbserial
luigi@hal9000:~$ lsmod | grep usbserial

The lsmod at the end is just to ensure that usbserial is successfully unloaded. This time it should not display anything.

Now we need to know the manufacturer id and the product id of the usb device. Let's do that with lsusb command:

luigi@hal9000:~$ lsusb
Bus 004 Device 003: ID 05ac:8213 Apple, Inc.
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0a5c:4500 Broadcom Corp.
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 05ac:8507 Apple, Inc.
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 05ac:0237 Apple, Inc.
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 05ac:8242 Apple, Inc.
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 006: ID 19d2:0031 ONDA Communication S.p.A.
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Our device is the 19d2:0031 ONDA Communication S.p.A. I found that after some tries, pluggin and unplugging the USB stick and checking the differences printed by lsmod. Notice that if the usb_storage module is active the product id will be different, while the manufacturer id will be the same. The output of lsmod is not very informative and helping to understand the nature of the usb device, unfortunately.

Now we can load the usbserial device specifying the vendor id and product id of the USB stick.

luigi@hal9000:~$ sudo modprobe usbserial vendor=0x19d2 product=0x0031

If there are no error displayed, and the command ends silently, then it means that the module is loaded successfully.

Configuring the 3G connection

Clicking on the NetworkManager we should now be able to see the New Mobile BroadBand (GSM) Connection:

Click on it to configure. It will result in a Wizard dialog that will ask you information to "Set up a Mobile Broadband Connection". In my case I filled following information:
Country: I selected "Britain (UK)" ... I took some time to find it: I was looking for "UK" or "United Kingdom" or "England" or some other name...
Select your provider form a list: 3
Select your plan: Internet
Confirm.

After that, the connection is ready and you should be able to browse the internet. Clicking on the NetworkManager tray icon you'll see that you are now connected through it:

Improving the connection reliability

The connection is quite bad through the 3 network. Sometime you keep being connected but internet stops working. I thought to DNS problem so I set up OpenDNS following these instructions, and now it seems more reliable and usable, but still sometime the connection stops working, and you need to unplug the stick and restart from with the procedure described above.
I don't know why... if somebody knows, please leave a comment.

I'd like to buy a 3G USB Stick or 3G modem; if somebody have some hints on a good supported device, and stable, (easier to set up), please leave a comment.

Then... (copied from the forum)

install a package called uswsusp

sudo apt-get install uswsusp

the package carries two nice tools: s2ram and s2disk

First of all make sure they work launching

sudo s2ram --force

to suspend to ram or

sudo s2disk

to hibernate.

I personally don't care too much about hibernation. Nice thing about s2ram, though, is that it goes to sleep maintaining somehow the proper wifi settings so that when you open up the lid again the machine is immediately connected to the internet, exactly as it happens in OSX¹. The resume takes about 5 seconds and you are ready to go.

By default gnome prompts you with the password after resume. If you don't like this behaviour, you can change it running

gconftool -s /apps/gnome-power-manager/lock/suspend -t bool false

you can of course use s2ram and s2disk as default tools. to do so, you need to replace two of the existing scripts.

sudo cp /usr/lib/hal/scripts/linux/hal-system-power-hibernate-linux /usr/lib/hal/scripts/linux/hal-system-power-hibernate-linux.bak
sudo cp /usr/lib/hal/scripts/linux/hal-system-power-suspend-linux /usr/lib/hal/scripts/linux/hal-system-power-suspend-linux.bak

and then

 sudo gedit /usr/lib/hal/scripts/linux/hal-system-power-hibernate-linux

replace what you find with:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
/usr/sbin/s2disk

 sudo gedit /usr/lib/hal/scripts/linux/hal-system-power-suspend-linux

replace what you find with:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
/usr/sbin/s2ram --force

Credits for this post: crocowhile

Luigi's notes on above post
¹: this doesn't happen to me, it seems that, before suspending the wifi connection is brought down, then it needs to be restarted on resume. There is an option in the Gnome Configuration Editor apps/gnome-power-manager/general/network_sleep which is described as "Whether NetworkManager should disconnect before suspending or hibernating and connect on resume". By default this is disabled, which I think should mean to not disconnect/reconnect. I played a little bit with it; but it seems that is not taking any effect, and every time I resume the NetworkManager reconnects to the WIFI. Suspending with the command line, this doesn't happen, and the WIFI is immediately available; I need further investigations on this. I suspect the pm-utils is playing some quirk, and I cannot find a configuration variable for pm-utils to specify to avoid this.

UPDATE: NetworkManager is fixed!

I just found that the cause of the NetworkManager to disconnect/reconnect on suspend/resume was actually the pm-utils. So I modified the script located at /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/55NetworkManager to not manage the NetworkManager. I've commented the two lines in bold:

luigi@hal9000:~$ cat /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/55NetworkManager
#!/bin/sh
# If we are running NetworkManager, tell it we are going to sleep.
# TODO: Make NetworkManager smarter about how to handle sleep/resume
#       If we are asleep for less time than it takes for TCP to reset a
#       connection, and we are assigned the same IP on resume, we should
#       not break established connections.  Apple can do this, and it is
#       rather nifty.

. "${PM_FUNCTIONS}"

suspend_nm()
{
	# Tell NetworkManager to shut down networking
	dbus_send --print-reply --system                         \
		--dest=org.freedesktop.NetworkManager  \
		/org/freedesktop/NetworkManager        \
		org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.sleep 2>&1 > /dev/null
}

resume_nm()
{
	# Wake up NetworkManager and make it do a new connection
	dbus_send --print-reply --system                        \
		--dest=org.freedesktop.NetworkManager \
		/org/freedesktop/NetworkManager       \
		org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.wake 2>&1 > /dev/null
}

case "$1" in
	hibernate|suspend)
		# suspend_nm
		;;
	thaw|resume)
		# resume_nm
		;;
	*) exit $NA
		;;
esac

With this change now, from the time I open the laptop lid, it takes 2-3 seconds to wake up and be online. Wow!

UPDATE: Suspend-after-resume bug

During the resume it could happen that the mac goes back into a suspend (see gnome-power-manager bug #425411). This is resolved by the following:

1. Run gconf-editor
2. Go to apps -> gnome-power-manager -> actions
3. Uncheck the box next to event_when_closed_battery.

To fix the Suspend/Resume, I modified /boot/grub/menu.lst to add the kernel option acpi=noirq

Example:

title		Ubuntu 9.10, kernel 2.6.31-14-generic
uuid		5daec709-2655-4d7c-9968-969143e31fbd
kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic root=UUID=5daec709-2655-4d7c-9968-969143e31fbd ro quiet splash acpi=noirq
initrd		/boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-14-generic
quiet

Other problem I found during the distro upgrade:

• sound is now working without needing to compile a patched alsa driver. But it made me crazy to make headphone work. The audio settings are now simplified, and that is a good thing, but they are hiding options needed to make things work. Hint: install gnome-alsamixer and unmute headphones.
• infrared remote control stopped working. I have to investigate further on this.

For now I notice that Nvidia GPU temperature looks lower now, but I still use mfc-daemon to automatically adapt fan speed to CPU temperature; but sometime it stops working and if you are not at the computer it may be risky (today I almost burned it while watching a video running in novell moonlight, which turns your laptop in a oven)

Sound works much better, it seems that the problem of the applications locking the sound resource exclusively is gone, or reduced. So now running vlc and a youtube video works fine. In the sound preferences now you can see the applications that are using the audio device:

Finally!

The keyboard layout looks like this one:

As far as I know the "USA Macintosh" is the one that fits better, but still you have the §± and `~ keys inverted. To fix this I've added to Gnome Session Startup this script:

#!/bin/bash

# fix keyboard layout switching §± and `~
xmodmap -e "keycode 49 = section plusminus section plusminus section plusminus"
xmodmap -e "keycode 94 = grave asciitilde grave asciitilde dead_grave dead_horn"

It doesn't replace that on the tty consoles, but works perfect in Xorg.

UPDATE: ~/.xmodmaprc

Another alternative is to create a file in your home folder: ~/.xmodmaprc with following content:

$ cat .xmodmaprc
keycode 94 = grave asciitilde grave asciitilde dead_grave dead_horn
keycode 49 = section plusminus section plusminus section plusminus

I don't like very much having ~/.files so I put those files under ~/etc folder and use symbolic links:

$ ls -lad .* | grep "\\->"
lrwxrwxrwx  1 luigi luigi     18 2009-07-29 23:45 .manpath -> etc/manpath.config
lrwxrwxrwx  1 luigi luigi     13 2009-11-20 16:52 .xmodmaprc -> etc/xmodmaprc

I think it's an easier way to manage local configurations, even though I don't move every ~/.file to a link under ~/etc I still prefere to keep a more visible and explicit and "visible" configuration under a local etc folder. Under my home folder I also have folders bin,opt,src,tmp,var,etc...

Noticeable good things: the trackball, the easiness to setup the Bluetooth connectivity. The rest, is totally crap. Also, I read of people complaining that after a while the trackball gets dirty and stops working. And it's very hard to clean up and restore it working. Uhm...

One thing to add, just to relief those thinking that I'm getting an anti-apple guy¹: I also don't like the "paste" function binded to the middle-mouse click on Linux. I often get accidental pastes in source code for that "feature". And, of course, there's not an easy way to disable it: as far as I understood the only way is to trick on Xorg configuration. But... the good thing is that Linux evolves, and this will probably be fixed before or later (and it should be the time!!!); it seems to me that OSX is bound to legacy usability errors that they call "features", and they never go forward on those points. Think different: I'm trying but thinking wrong is not pleasant.
I cannot see the time when Ubuntu will be working fine on new MacBooks hardware.

¹ Apple's hardware is cool, it's the software that sucks!

My splendid HTC3300 with Windows Mobile doesn’t provide the feature to filter phone calls. Probably it’s a feature too intelligent for the engineers that designed Windows Mobile.
But there is a way to make every mobile phone to support call filtering: using a silent ring tone associated to contacts. Or better, if your mobile can associate a ring tone to a contact group – Windows Mobile can’t, of course! – you can create a contact group called “black listed” and associate that to a silent ring tone, and put all your unwanted contacts in that group. So that your phone will ring silently and hopefully the callers will get tired soon to wait for an answer that will never came.

I think that a filtering feature should be available in any modern mobile phone. At last I came out with this idea: the silent ring tone. And now it is.

For anyone that could need my silent ring tone, you can download it from here:
silence.mp3 or
silence.aac

It is just 1 second of silence. Generated by Audacity and converted to aac with Nokia Music Manager.

I have an HTC3300 with Windows Mobile 5.0, and as a phone, my Nokia 3210 was much better. Also my Palm Tungsten T2 was much better to handle contacts, TODO lists, calendar, notes, etc. Actually I continue using the Tungsten T2 as PIM, because of how stupid Windows Mobile is. At the beginning I thought that it was me that was not still accustomed with the new software. But now it’s one year that I try to use it and I still get puzzled by the stupid Windows Mobile.

Some things that almost all the phones can do and Windows Mobile can’t:

• Assign more than one mobile phone number to a contact
• Send an SMS to a phone number that is not classified as “mobile phone number” in the address book
• Assign a ring tone to a Contact Group
• Assign a tone to SMS notification

Moreover, the feature to add and edit contacts has been probably designed by someone escaped from a mental hygienic institute: you have to scroll up and down to search the few fields you need to fill, and the controls to cancel or confirm your changes are almost hidden.
Other applications are bad as well. For example the graffiti help doesn’t give you the correct information on how to write most of special characters (like $, €, etc)

Most of latest Palm smart phones are using Windows Mobile. That’s a real pity. Palm already did a bad choice when they moved from Graffiti 1 to Graffiti 2. Fortunately I found the way to use Graffiti 1 on the Tungsten T2.

I’ll never buy another Windows Mobile handy or PIM, I hope that device producers will find a better OS to install on their products. Windows Mobile must die.