Okay, today I've come to the decision that I'm going to start really learning some server side code. Noodles is doing great on android but desperately needs a backup/sync option, and I have a few other app ideas that would greatly benefit from some server-side syncage. So hopefully tonight I will embark on my journey into the world of Google App Engine and python.

But first, I need to buy some fucking groceries.

After installing Ubuntu Lucid Lynx on my new Toshiba I noticed pretty much everything worked except the headphone jack output and the microphone input, so of course I defaulted to google-searching for answers. Unfortunately the computer is a fairly new model and Google didn't help much, so I'm going to post the solution I have here in hopes that people find it useful once google indexes it. All you have to do is follow this simple and concise guide to updating to the latest ALSA by downloading and compiling the source yourself. It may sound daunting, but you literally just copy/paste the exact code provided line-for-line (and wait) and it works perfectly. The downloading and compiling takes a while, so be sure you have a decent chunk of time ahead of you (I'd say 30 minutes if you have a fast internet connection). Otherwise just bookmark the site and pick up where you left off before. 

Now when I say "everything works" I of course mean everything I've tried so far, here are things I have yet to test as of this writing:

• Line-in audio
• HDMI video/audio
• SD card slot
• e-SATA

For those who are curious here are some other minor hardware issues I've noticed with Lucid Lynx on this lappy:

• Horizontal trackpad movement seems to be a bit faster than the vertical, but I don't really mind it, and it's actually kind of nice considering the extra wide aspect ratio
• The lid open/close sensor doesn't appear to be working. I set the power settings to suspend on lid close and it wouldn't register. No big deal for me though, I just press the power button.
• I turned off the proprietary ATI drivers so I get new seamless native resolution boot splash with Plymouth. For some reason this doesn't work with proprietary drivers. I believe turning off the drivers disables hardware accelerated 3D graphics so some compiz effects are slower (but still enabled!). Again no big deal for me, I just turned off 3D Cube since it was mostly just eye-candy anyway. I'll do almost anything to avoid the ugly large stretched text and images during boot.