I am not talking about going to some sites and test your internet speed, but rather an in-house speedometer, so to speak. In Ubuntu (or Gnome) it's easy, just install Netspeed applet in your Gnome Panel.

Right click your panel > Add to Panel > Network Monitor, like this :

And you'll have something like this :

0 B/s, I know, sad.

Right click the applet to customize it appearance.

If netspeed is not listed already in your applets list, you have to install it via Synaptic Package Manager, "netspeed".

UPDATE : December 13, 2010 - 2.6.35 kernel somehow breaks ad-hoc internet sharing from Ubuntu 10.04 to Windows 7 machine.

The default kernel for Ubuntu 10.04 is 2.6.32 while 2.6.35 is Ubuntu 10.10's. If you are like me, who want to stick with the Long Term Support (LTS) version of Ubuntu, but want the 2.6.35 kernel, you can upgrade the kernel relatively safe via synaptic package manager. Still not interested? Maybe this will change your mind, the 2.6.35 brings these updates :

Linux 2.6.35 includes support for transparent spreading of incoming network load across CPUs, Direct-IO support for Btrfs, an new experimental journal mode for XFS, the KDB debugger UI based on top of KGDB, improvements to ‘perf’, H.264  and VC1 video acceleration in Intel G45+ chips, support for the future Intel Cougarpoint graphic chip, power management for AMD Radeon chips, a memory defragmentation mechanism, support for the Tunneling Protocol version 3 (RFC 3931), support for multiple multicast route tables, support for the CAIF protocol used by ST-Ericsson products, support for the ACPI Platform Error Interface, and many new drivers and small improvements. (read more).

 

Want one? Just checkmark pre-released updates (lucid-proposed) in Synaptic Package Manager via Setting > Repository > Updates Tab and then reload, you'll notice kernel 2.6.35 is available for download.

If you have Broadcom 43xx wireless cards, like I do with HP 540 Notebook, you'll need to update these two files :

• bcmwl-kernel-source
• bcmwl-modaliases

To 5.60.48.36+bdcom-0ubuntu5 version, since Ubuntu 10.04 uses 5.60.48.36+bdcom-0ubuntu3 version. You can download them here . Or to save you time, here's the link :

• bcmwl-kernel-source_5.60.48.36+bdcom-0ubuntu5_i386.deb (874.8 KiB)
• bcmwl-modaliases_5.60.48.36+bdcom-0ubuntu5_i386.deb (10.2 KiB)

Happy upgrading.

As usual, apply on your own risk.

What I got :

• MuchTV Cardbus
• Ubuntu 10.10
• Toshiba Satellite M40

What I want : to be able to watch my tv cable and playing PS2 in Ubuntu screen, the sound from my TV decoder and PS2 goes straight to active speaker. I don't really care about broadcast TV and sound from my tv card.

What I did :

• with lspci (read link 2 below), I know my tv card use :
  

  07:00.0 Multimedia controller: Philips Semiconductors SAA7134/SAA7135HL Video Broadcast Decoder (rev 01)

• and dmesg reveals (the actual list is longer, I edited it to make it simple);
  
  

  [17208393.372000] saa7134:   card=79 -> Sedna/MuchTV PC TV Cardbus TV/Radio (ITO

• from information above + link 1 below I made a file named SAA7134 in /etc/modprobe.d that contains :
  
  

  options saa7134 card=79 tuner=44

• installed tvtime via Ubuntu Software Center
• restarted Ubuntu,
• started TV TIME,
• because I use video composite, I choose composite1 as video input. Don't forget to change TV standard accordingly(e.g.: NTSC, PAL, etc)

 Voila, God Of War II in Ubuntu, sort of.

 

Links list :

1. How to install ATI TV Wonder 200 : modify the file with your tv card chip number, read below to know how,
2. How To Know Your TV Card Chip ; lspci and dmesg are your friend here,
3. to know which card are supported visit TV TIME.

Have fun :)