Step 1

Go to "Applications"->"Wine"->"Wine Configure" and go to the "Audio" tab, it takes a moment to load up. The settings that I found worked well for me was as follows:

Uncheck "ALSA Driver" box
Check "EsounD Driver" box

Hit Apply, OK and then "Test Sound" and if you can hear the sound clearly try running Spotify again and see if that fixes your sound problems, worked great for me haven't had any problems since.

Note: If that didn't work for you can try the Spotify suggested configuration here.

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Step 1
Open up your Terminal under Application->Accessories menu and run the following command:

gksudo nautilus /usr/share/applications

This will basically open up your file manager as root so you can edit the Home Folder executable.

Step 2
Scroll down the list until you find the Home Folder icon and name. Right click on it and go to Properties and under Command change the line to the following:

nautilus --no-desktop --browser . <-- Note: Fullstop not a typo!

Note: After the word browser there is a space and then a fullstop, this is deliberate, make sure you do this!

Simple click close and exit the file manager, Terminal and now if you use Gnome Do to open up your home folder it should work!

Note: You may need to logout and log back in in order for this to take affect.

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I happen to be victim to both of these currently, the way I got around video tearing was by changing my video output as I outlined in my previous tutorial, Howto:Fix ATI Video Playback. As for the performance issues I've finally found the answer! It turns out that it's got something to do with backfill we don't need to know what it is or what it does, all you need to know is getting rid of it fixes performance issues such as slow maximizing windows and also should fix video tearing!

Caution: I'd like to warn you in advance that doing anything with xserver could make your system unstable and crash you desktop interface. So do this at your own risk!

Step 1

Go to System->Administration->Software Sources, navigate to the Other Software tab and click Add... and paste in this text:

ppa:launchpad-weyland/xserver-nobackfill

Click Add Source and then Close and it will update your package list.

Note: This is a Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala tutorial if you are using older version add the appropriate source from here

Step 2

Now go to System->Administration->Update Manager and you should see two new updates for xserver-common and xserver-xorg-core if not Check for updates. Then install said updates.

Once done give your PC a quick restart and you should see it has now fixed your problem.

Note: You can also do this from the Terminal by running:

sudo apt-get update && upgrade

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I'm not really sure why it's can't resolve the host, but the easiest way to fix this little problem is to simple uninstall the ttf-mscorefonts-installer, but now you're thinking well maybe I want the Microsoft fonts for cross-platform compatibility reason, well I've got my own little script that does that for you too.

Step 1

Open up your Terminal under Applications -> Accessories ->Terminal and run:

sudo apt-get remove ttf-mscorefonts-installer

Step 2

Download my script here (you'll have to unzip it to get to the bash script), by default it's not an executable, which we will amend in a second. In order to run my script open a Terminal and navigate to the directory the file is in (i recommend putting it on the Desktop) as shown in my example:

cd ~/Desktop/

Now run the following command to make the file executable:

sudo chmod +x msfonts

Note: You may need to install cabextract, as it's one of the programs I use in my script. In your Terminal run:

sudo apt-get install cabextract

Step 3

In the same terminal windows run the script:
./msfonts

Note: My script is pretty basic as you can see and may take sometimes to download all the files depending on your connection. It basically get's the .exe's that hold the fonts extracts, renames and copies the fonts into the appropriate directory on your system, which is /usr/share/fonts/truetype/mscorefonts/ and now you can see the fonts when you open up Open Office Writer.

Let's hope the package managers notice this problem soon, because I have no doubt in my mind that is is going to really annoy a lot of people!

Note: My fix works most of the time, but I've got a few emails saying it didn't so I've directed them to follow this post

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Edit: Made a quick correction in Step 2 making the file an executable, thanks FXB for pointing that out.
Edit: Made a note in Step 3 to make sure you have cabextract, otherwise my script wont work.
Edit: Just so people know you can read/do what my script actually does manually...Basically go download the .exe extract the font, rename it and then move it too the correct place. It's that simple.