Penguin Geek

BCM4311 Wireless Firmware in Arch Linux

2011-12-10T09:41:00.001-07:00

I have the BCM4311 wireless card on my Dell Inspiron 1521 latptop, and Arch detects it, but still needs the firmware to use the wireless card. The Arch Wiki has all the info you need, but tracking it down and determining the step-by-step process can be elusive. If you are new to Arch Linux, or just got a laptop with this adapter (or similar model), here are the steps to getting the wireless working.

Download the latest firmware from the AUR

You will be downloading the tarball (.tar.gz file). However you get the file, I put the file in /home/jbess/Downloads/builds on my laptop, but you can put it anywhere you want.
You will need to connect your laptop via ethernet cable and either download the file via a web browser or wget in command line.
You can also download the file(s) from another computer and put them on a USB drive or CD/DVD and transfer them to your laptop. If this is the case, you will also need the actual firmware file too. Download that from http://mirror2.openwrt.org/sources/. Locate the broadcom-wl-{version}_mipsel.tar.bz2, where {version} matches the version number found in the AUR package. At the time of writing this, it is 5.10.56.27.3-2, so you would locate the broadcom-wl-5.10.56.27.3_mipsel.tar.bz2 file. *Note: In ArchBang, I had to also download and install b43-fwcutter, which pulls out the firmware from the openwrt.org file.

Unzip the tarball

Using a console (command line), navigate to the directory you downloaded the tarball, and untar it. Use the command tar -xf b43-firmware.tar.gz. Now run cd b43-firmware to change into the untar'd directory.
If you don't have a network connection and had to separately download the actual firmware from openwrt.org, put that .tar.bz2 file into the b43-firmware directory.

Run makepkg

As a normal user, run makepkg -s. If there are any dependency problems (and network connected) it will try to solve it or will tell you what else you need to install.

Install the b43-firmware package

As root or with sudo, run pacman -U *.xz to install the firmware.

Reboot the system

When you are up and running again, you should be able to follow the directions on the Arch wiki for managing your wireless connection.

The whole process is a lot simpler if you can have ethernet plugged in. Dependencies can easily be resolved, as well as you only have to download the one b43-firmware tarball from AUR.

Arch Linux: A new (to me) distribution

2011-11-28T12:47:00.000-07:00

So I've griped about how slow Mandriva was getting on my laptop, and how I finally settled on Fedora. But I soon found that Fedora had it's own set of annoyances, though I don't remember what they are now. How can I so quickly forget? Because I've installed Arch Linux.

The hardest part of the Arch install on my laptop was installing the BCM4311 drivers for my wireless card. And to tell you the truth, it really wasn't all that hard. I just followed the directions in the ArchWiki.

Well a few weeks after I installed Arch on my laptop, I had a major problem with Mandriva on my desktop. I ran the 2011 upgrade, and it completely botched my system. So I booted to the Arch Netboot CD, copied my documents and other files from the Linux partition to my Windows partition (I could have just as easily moved it to my NFS server), and then installed Arch on my desktop. My desktop seems screaming fast now, and I feel like I have complete control over my OS now.

I installed KDE on both the laptop and desktop. I still have a few apps I need to install, and a couple of services to install and enable (like ntp). But I think I am convert to the Arch way:

Simplicity
Code-correctness over convenience
User-centric
Openness
Freedom

Stop SSH attacks

2011-11-03T12:12:00.000-06:00

If you run a server that has SSH accessible by the public, there are a few things you can do to secure it. Among them, I use a simple script that runs every hour (set up in cron). The script finds the attackers and blocks their IP using hosts.deny.

I don't remember if I created this script or copied it some somewhere. Either way, it's been modified for my purposes. To get this to work, you may have to create the /usr/local/sshd_block directory, and have sshd running under tcpwrapper. Name the script whatever you want, and set it to run as often as you would like in cron.

#!/bin/sh
# Remove old file entries
cd /usr/local/sbin
rm block.txt
rm new_block.txt

# Parse the messages file and extract the sshd lines
grep sshd /var/log/messages | grep Invalid >> block.txt

# Cut only the IP addresses out of that file, except for my network
rev block.txt | cut -d \ -f 1 | sort | uniq | rev | grep -v 10.0.0. >> new_block.txt

# Add the references from new_block.txt to the ssh.blacklist
target=`cat new_block.txt`
for i in $target; do
echo ALL:$i >> /etc/hosts.deny
done

# Remove duplicate entries from ssh.blacklist
cat /etc/hosts.deny | sort | uniq > /etc/hosts.deny.new
mv /etc/hosts.deny.new /etc/hosts.deny

Obviously, change the 10.0.0. line to whatever your network is (ex. 192.168.0.). I've been running this script for a year or so, and my hosts.deny file now has over 700 lines in it.

Tux Pumpkin update

2011-10-24T12:19:00.005-06:00

I've noticed that my post from 2005 and my Tux pumpkin has become a popular hit according to Google Analytics. I've also seen that Googling "Tux Pumpkin" results in my 2005 post coming up as #5 result.

I was checking the link for the stencil in that post, and saw it is no longer available from pumpkin lady, at least not free. I located another place with the stencil, and as a service to the internet, and Linux lovers everywhere, I will host the images through this blog.

The site I found the stencils on is http://josh.bressers.name/tux_pumpkin_stencil/index.html. Josh, I hope you don't mind me borrowing these images, yet still giving you credit for originally hosting them. Most importantly Josh has two different types of stencils. This first one, you just cut out like you would any other stencil, remove everything except the black. The second one you actually cut out the black, except shaded grey areas are for skinning the pumpkin so the light shines through, but the pumpkin meat remains in these areas. Send me a message if you are confused by any of this. Without further delays, here are the stencils (Important: click on the image to get the full size, then right-click, and save image).

Can a KDE user change to Gnome?

2011-10-18T19:02:00.000-06:00

I was having issues with XFCE as a window manager locking up after an hour, and other small things not working. So I went searching for something different. I decided to give Fedora 15 a try with Gnome 3.

After installing from DVD, the interface had a generally clean appearance. I had to play with it a few minutes to find how to switch between virtual desktops. I'm sure there was a hot key, but it needs to be available easier by mouse.

The task bar and launcher are combined, and pop up when you move your mouse to the top left of the screen. It was a little awkward to find programs, but there is a search bar you can just start typing to find a program you want.

The most annoying thing was the lack of customization. I couldn't find anything about the interface except the desktop wallpaper that I could change that would make it all personalized.

This is what I miss the most about KDE. I am currently downloading Fedora 15 with KDE. I guess as a hard-core KDE user, you can't change to Gnome with any amount of regret or disappointment.

XFCE Touchpad Edge Scroll

2011-09-24T07:03:00.003-06:00

I installed Fedora 15 with XFCE on my Dell Inspiron 1521. One of the little quirks was having to enable edge scrolling on the touchpad. I have vertical as well as horizontal scrolling on this touchpad, and it wasn't working by default. A few Google searches later, I found what I needed to do.

Open up /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf as root in a text editor (vi, nano, whatever).

Find the section that looks like this:

Section "InputClass"
Identifier "touchpad catchall"
Driver "synaptics"
MatchIsTouchpad "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
EndSection

Add the following lines before the EndSection:

Option "VertEdgeScroll" "1"
Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "1"

Save your file, and either reboot or hit CTL-ALT-BACKSPACE to restart Xserver. You can check out the man page for synclient, and see what other options you can enable, and even test them manually before editing any config file.

The NEW Linux Counter

2011-09-23T19:35:00.000-06:00

There have been some changes within the last month to the Linux Counter Project. Their site has moved to http://linuxcounter.net, and is under new management.

Seriously, it's been this long?

2011-09-23T14:01:00.001-06:00

So apparently it's been over 4 years since I've updated my Linux blog. I am still very active using and supporting Linux. I find now days the only reason I dual boot back to Windows is to watch Netflix. I don't do much gaming anymore, and Guild Wars runs really well in WINE, there is no need to go to Windows much anymore.

I am active as a member, moderator, and part owner of the Google Linux Users Group, which is still going strong. I have Mandriva 2010.2 installed on my desktop and server, and Fedora 15 XFCE on the laptop. I tried running Arch on the laptop when I saw that the latest Mandriva versions were becoming slow on it. I had overall good luck, but I missed some of the install and forget comforts of my popular distros. I decided to try our Fedora with XFCE, and it works great, doing everything I need it to.

I will keep an eye out for things I should be posting on here, and work on providing posts more frequently.

Arrow keys in vi

2007-06-11T07:35:00.000-06:00

I recently installed Mandriva 2007 Spring on a couple of machines. One of the annoyances was the fact I could not use my arrow keys in vi like I used to. To resolve this, type the command:

echo set nocompatible >> ~/.vimrc

That's all there is to it.

My backup scripts

2007-05-09T17:45:00.001-06:00

I wanted to automate my backups of select files. I wanted my backup to do a monthly full backup, and a weekly incremential. I also wanted a rolling backup, so anything over the last 2 months would be overwritten or deleted.

Here is my monthly backup script, I saved as /etc/cron.monthly/monthly.bu:
#!/bin/sh
# Monthly backup script
# Makes a full backup

# Change the 2 variables below to fit your computer/backup
DIRECTORIES="/root /etc /var/log" # directories to backup
BACKUPDIR=/server/gonzobu # where to store the backups

# You should not have to change anything below here
MO=`date +%b` # Month name e.g. Apr
LOGFILE=$BACKUPDIR/$HOSTNAME.log # Log file
TIMEFILE=$BACKUPDIR/lastbackup # File to remember last backup

# Monthly full backup
tar --totals -cvf $BACKUPDIR/$HOSTNAME-$MO.tar $DIRECTORIES &> $LOGFILE

# Display settings for mailed in report by cron daemon.
echo Monthly full backup completed.
# Show stats and file names backed up, not top level directories
grep -v "not dumped" $LOGFILE | grep -v "/$"
# For stats only, comment line above, and uncomment line below
# grep "Total bytes" $LOGFILE

# Update lastbackup file
touch $TIMEFILE

# Clean up old backups (set to keep the last 2 months of backups)
find $BACKUPDIR -mtime +68 -delete

And here is my weekly backup I saved as /etc/cron.weekly/weekly.bu:
#!/bin/sh
# Weekly backup script
# Makes a incremental backup

# Change the 2 variables below to fit your computer/backup
DIRECTORIES="/root /etc /var/log" # directories to backup
BACKUPDIR=/server/gonzobu # where to store the backups

# You should not have to change anything below here
DM=`date +%d%b` # Date and Month e.g. 27Sep
LOGFILE=$BACKUPDIR/$HOSTNAME.log # Log file
TIMEFILE=$BACKUPDIR/lastbackup # File to remember last backup

# Check if first time run
if [ -f $TIMEFILE ]; then
NEWER="-N $TIMEFILE"
else
NEWER=""
fi

# Weekly incremental backup
tar $NEWER --totals -cvf $BACKUPDIR/$HOSTNAME-$DM.tar $DIRECTORIES &> $LOGFILE

# Display settings for mailed in report by cron daemon
echo Weekly incremental backup completed.
# Show stats and filesnames backed up, not top level directories
grep -v "not dumped" $LOGFILE | grep -v "/$"
# For stats only, comment line above and uncomment line below
# grep "Total bytes" $LOGFILE

# Update lastbackup file
touch $TIMEFILE

To make these work, first you need to create the backup directory in your file system. Then change the variables in each file to match your system (files to backup, and where to put the backups). Be sure to make both scripts executable. That's all there is to it.

To explain why I did the 68 days at the end of the monthly script, it's because I wanted to save a full 2 months. 31 days + 30 days + 1 full week (in case the week ends before the cron job runs).

Use all 5 buttons on your mouse

2007-02-09T18:00:00.001-07:00

I have a Logitech MX400 Laser mouse. It has a tilt scroll wheel, and two side buttons. I have these two side buttons mapped in Guild Wars for targeting. So here is how you get them working.

Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Find the section "InputDevice". Add the bold items below.

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
Option "Buttons" "7"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "false"
Option "ButtonMapping" "1 2 3 6 7"
EndSection

I know it says 7 buttons. That's cause Linux counts the scroll wheel movements as "buttons". However, you notice that the ZAxisMapping is set for buttons 4 and 5 (Up and Down on scroll wheel).

Restart X with a Ctrl-Alt-Backspace. That's it! If anyone has any idea how to get the sideways tilting scrolling to work, please post a comment.

Image a drive with dd

2007-01-27T17:31:00.001-07:00

I ended up removing Linux from the laptop cause I was running out of space on the Windows partition, and wanted to re-install Windows, since I was having problems with it (Windows, not Linux). So I installed XP with SP2. I then patched it up fully, installed Firefox, Zone Alarm, and Clamwin. The used portion of the drive was about 3GB.

To create an image of this setup, I decided to try the dd command from a Linux LiveCD. First step was to move the data to the beginning of the disk. Running Windows defrag a few times is supposedly all you need. From my experience, the visual after the defrag shows some data is left in the middle of the drive. If you have an idea about this, please post a comment.

Next I booted up to Kanotix, (my favorite LiveCD), and ran the commands:
su
mkdir /mnt/smb
mount -t smbfs -o lfs,rw,username=jbess //10.0.0.5/Backups /mnt/smb

lfs is needed because your image may exceed the 2GB default limit. Unless you want to make small chunks of your image, this is what you must use. The 10.0.0.5 is my Mandriva server running Samba and ProFTPd.

Next, mount the drive to be imaged (for me I just clicked on the drive on the desktop that Kanotix automatically put there), and then run df to check the used drive space. I had 3013344KB used, so I rounded to 3100MB, or 3.1GB. After you get the numbers, be sure to unmount the drive, or the next step may have problems.

To compress the image, I used gzip. I typed:
dd if=/dev/hdc bs=1M count=3100 | gzip > /mnt/smb/laptop_SP2.img.gz

Be sure to replace the count with how many megabytes are used on the drive. I ended up with a 1.8GB file on my server. That's about a 42% compression, which is less than what the man page for gzip states. It took 70 minutes at 766KB/s (according to the stats). Quite slow. Too slow actually. I thought it was samba being slow. So I tried ftp.

From the ftp> prompt, I typed:
put "|dd if=/dev/hdc bs=1M count=3100 | gzip" laptop_SP2.img.gz

The | tells ftp to run a shell command, in this case, dd. This was a little better at around 1.6MB/s, more than twice as fast. During both samba and ftp I was monitoring the transfers with KNemo traffic plotter. I noticed there was dips or lulls in traffic being sent every few seconds, and lasted for several seconds. I thought that maybe running it through gzip was slowing the stream down, and with no buffer in place, the data transfered stopped, which increased the time. So I then took out gzip. Wow, I was impressed!

The samba share command was:
dd if=/dev/hdc bs=1M count=3100> /mnt/smb/laptop_SP2.img
Took 15 minutes at 3.5MB/s on average. I tried again with FTP.

With FTP, the command was:
put "|dd if=/dev/hdc bs=1M count=3100" laptop_SP2.img
That finished in 8.5 minutes, with a 6.4MB/s transfer rate.

Curious, I googled and found this article about zip program comparisons:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8051

According to the article rzip give the fastest speed and compression. I checked and rzip is NOT installed on the Kanotix LiveCD, but the next best one was, lzop. I ran my tests again.

smb (samba):
dd if=/dev/hdc bs=1M count=3100 | lzop > /mnt/smb/laptop_SP2.img
Time - 23 Minutes, Rate - 2.3MB/s

ftp:
put "|dd if=/dev/hdc bs=1M count=3100 | lzop" laptop_SP2.img.lzo
Time - 20 Minutes, Rate - 2.7MB/s

Using lzop got me a lower compression, at 33%, but at two-thirds faster speed compared to gzip when using samba, and just under two times faster with FTP. Here are the full comparisons:

SMB - No Compression, 3.5 MB/s
SMB - gzip (42% compression), 766 KB/s
SMB - lzop (33% compression), 2.3 MB/s
FTP - No Compression, 6.4 MB/s
FTP - gzip (42% compression), 1.6 MB/s
FTP - lzop (33% compression), 2.7 MB/s

My conclusions? Faster is better in my situation. I want an image quickly. I can always zip the image later if I need the space. If I do need to zip it, I will use gzip, or install rzip and use that. For my setup, FTP is king in the transfer speed. If you do want to compress the image file, and have a decent transfer speed, I suggest the lzop methods, and obviously FTP is faster. My preferred method: FTP with no compression.

This is the results of my setup. Your numbers will probably vary. Do some testing yourself. Post a comment if you do with your results. I will write a post about restoring an image later on. There are lots of articles already if you google it, but basically you just reverse the commands.

Edit: upon attempting to restore this image, I found some problems, mostly boot record stuff. I am sure this works, just need to play with it some more when I get a chance.

Software RAID

2006-11-25T11:27:00.001-07:00

The primary purpose of my server is a file server. While it has other purposes, that is what it was originally built for. Earlier this year we bought a 250 GB HD from Woot. After filling it more than half way, I got to thinking about backups. With Black Friday just passing, the wife took a trip to Best Buy, where there was a 250 GB HD for $60. A good deal. And at first I was going to to just use rsync to keep the files mirrored, I looked into RAID 1, which accomplishes the same task, but in real time.
Here is my setup:

30GB HD with OS installed on IDE 0, set as Master. (/dev/hda)

(2) 250GB HD for file storage, one on IDE 0 as slave, the other on IDE 1 as Master (dev/hdb & c)

CD-ROM on IDE 1 as slave. (/dev/hdd)

Here is how I set it up:

Install raidtools:

urpmi raidtools

Backup drive data. I was lucky and my wife had just enough space on her HD to be a temporary storage. It took close to 4 hours to transfer the data over a samba connection on a 100MB connection. Backing up the data is a MUST since you will be changing partition tables and re-formating the drives.
Install second hard drive, and make sure BIOS recognizes it. I made sure the two 250 GB drives were on separate IDE channels.
After the backup was verified, I changed the file system type on both drives. Type these commands:

fdisk /dev/hdb
t (to change file system type)
fd (which is Linux Raid Auto)
w (to write the new partition table)

Repeat the same for /dev/hdc
Copy the template raid config files:

cp /usr/share/doc/raidtools/raid1.conf.sample /etc/raidtab

Edit the new raidtab with vi. Make it look like this:
# My raid-1 configuration
raiddev /dev/md0
raid-level 1
nr-raid-disks 2
nr-spare-disks 0
chunk-size 32

device /dev/hdb1
raid-disk 0

device /dev/hdc1
raid-disk 1
Initialize the RAID:

mkraid /dev/md0

Check to make sure it's working:

cat /proc/mdstat
Should see no error messages

Format new RAID partition

mkfs -t ext3 -b 4096 /dev/md0

Now everything should be set, last step is change fstab to mount the new RAID array:

/dev/md0 /server ext3 defaults 1 2

Type mount -a and you now have access to the RAID array.

Note: /proc/mdstat is your key to the status of your RAID array. Check it if you suspect any problems later on.

USB mouse on laptop

2006-01-10T16:38:00.001-07:00

I noticed that if I boot up to Linux on my laptop, and then plug in the mouse, I never got it to work. That's because the X server needed to be tweaked.

First thing is to make sure you have the hotplug service running. Next, add these lines to /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier "USBMouse"
    Driver "mouse"
    Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"<     Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
    Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Then at the bottom in the ServerLayout section, change it to look similar:

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier "layout1"
    InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice "USBMouse" "SendCoreEvents"
    InputDevice "Touchpad" "AlwaysCore"
    Screen "screen1"
EndSection

The touchpad is always present, and thus, has the setting AlwaysCore. The USB mouse will be sent the core events, and thus enabling it to be used if it is plugged in. Once you have made these changes, save the xorg.conf, and restart X with Ctrl-Alt-Backspace. That's all!

Automatic updates for free

2005-12-03T11:24:00.001-07:00

That's right. Mandriva charges you for updating your computer automatically, much like Windows updater. But you can do it for free, with a quick edit of one file.

I like to work from the command line, so I will explain it from there. It's not all that hard.

Open a Konsole window, and su to root

Open up your favorite command-line editor, I like vi. I typed vi /etc/cron.daily/update

Hit i to insert text. Enter these lines:

#!/bin/bash
urpmi ––auto ––update ––auto-select --auto-update

Hit Esc, then type :wq
Back at the command line, type chmod +x /etc/cron.daily/update

That's it. Line 1 in the file states which shell to run the script in. Line 2 says grab a list of updated packages and for any files that need to be updated that are installed on this computer, do it, and include any dependent packages as well.

Syncing files

2005-11-23T23:00:00.001-07:00

Ok fellow geeks. With the Dell laptop running Mandriva 2005, I wanted to sync up my firefox profile from my desktop running Mandriva 2006. Sure I could manually mount a drive, copy the files over, select overwrite all, but what is the fun in that? Enter rsync.

It took me a few hours to run through the different websites that came up in Google. But I got it to work quite well. Here's the steps:

Install SSH server on the desktop

Using the package manager, I searched for openssh-server. Installed it. Done
Nothing else needed to be configured here, except I needed to get sshd running. In the Control Center, make sure sshd is running in the services, and starts at boot.
Open ssh on the firewall.

Configure rsync

Modify the following to match in /etc/xinetd.d/rsync:
disable = no
Use Vi or whatever, and create /etc/rsyncd.conf. Add these lines (visit http://rsync.samba.org/documentation.html for info on these):

motd file = /etc/rsync/rsyncd.motd
log file = /var/log/rsyncd.log
pid file = /var/run/rsyncd.pid
lock file = /var/run/rsync.lock
uid = nobody
gid = nobody
read only = no
list = yes
hosts allow = 10.0.0.0/16
hosts deny = *
[firefox]
path = /home/jbess/.mozilla/firefox
comment = Sync up Firefox profile
auth users = jbess

Everything below the [firefox] describes that module. The reason why I installed SSH server is that is sends the files encrypted, rather than clear text. I would suggest the same if you have firefox store usernames and passwords.

From the laptop, I typed at the konsole:

rsync --verbose --progress --stats --compress --rsh=/usr/bin/ssh --recursive --times --perms --links 10.0.0.2:/home/jbess/.mozilla/ /home/jbess/.mozilla/

Tux Pumpkin

2005-10-30T19:24:00.002-07:00

My wife put me and the twins in charge of carving the pumpkin. The boys are just about 18 months now, so they can't help much. I decided to carve Tux on the pumpkin.

EDIT: The stencil link in the below paragraph is out of date. See this blog post for an update (http://penguingeek.blogspot.com/2011/10/tux-pumpkin-update.html).

This is my first Halloween doing anything like this to a pumpkin. I am used to just cutting out eyes and a goofy-toothed mouth with my sheetrock saw. I found a nice pattern here. The printed size was a little too big, so I reduced the print to 70%. I probably could have gotten away with 75%, but oh well. So after a few hours of work, this is what I came up with:

Happy Halloween!

The Linux Counter

2005-10-01T09:38:00.001-06:00

Ever wonder how many people are really using Linux? Guesses can be made from downloads of the different distribution ISOs, but downloading doesn't mean people liked it, and are using it. So the Norwegians came up with a way to get a more reliable number. How? They asked Linux users to register.

Check it out: http://counter.li.org

First time there, register for an account. Once you have the account, you will create records of any machines you have that run Linux. They ask for some details on your machine, and this helps with the statistics they run.

If you don't know some of the info they ask for, use the Hardware section in the Control Center. If you change anything like your distribution, or upgrade your hardware, you can come back and update your records. It's really easy. In fact, they did one step beyond that, and made a script that monitors for these kinds of changes, and will automatically send the data in. All the information is on the website. Take a look at the stats, as they show some interesting trends.

Once you are registered, display your user number and a link to the Linux counter proudly in email signatures or websites/blogs you own. As for me, I am registered as user #387675.

Wireless networking

2005-09-10T15:00:00.001-06:00

I recently bought and installed a wireless NIC in our laptop. I knew it would work in XP, cause I saw websites stating so. But the websites I read about for linux, stated that I had to install a driver for the chipset on the card. I was expecting to get some error when I booted into linux. I was surprised when it not only didn't give me an error, but it was already detecting my wireless access point.

Here is the steps I went through to finish the job.

If you don't have it running already, start up the NetApplet. This will make configuration easier.

Right click the icon in your taskbar, and choose "Configure Network".

Choose your wireless device (assuming it was detected on bootup).

Some of these settings will differ depending on yuor network setup. For the TCP/IP tab, I set DHCP.

DHCP tab, I unchecked the "Assign host name from DHCP address" since I like to specify my computer name to make sure it is correct. In the text box "DHCP host name" I put in my name I wanted.

On the Wireless tab, put in only the info you know. I new my Network name, and Encryption key.

For the Options tab, I made sure the "Start at boot" was selected.

That was about it. It only took half a minute or so for linux to make the changes and connect to my home network. A few other points:

Most home devices are on channel 6 (cordless phones and such). Set your wireless access point/router to either channel 1 or 11, as they are the farthest away from 6. I was having weak connection issues, and a google search helped me figure this out.
The wireless configurations can also be done in the "Configure your Computer">Network>Wireless. It is self explanatory.

Enjoy your new-found freedom!

Installing Firefox

2005-09-10T09:19:00.001-06:00

I Love love love love love love love love Firefox.
I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate IE.
Mandriva 2005 comes with Firefox 1.0.2, but I want the latest and greatest. Here is how to install it. And if you are running a distro that doesn't have it, this will help you too.

1. Go to http://getfirefox.com, and d/l the latest firefox version. The website should detect you are in linux from your browser headers, and display the correct choice for you. If not, just find it in the downloads.
2. I located where my current version of firefox was installed. I typed “locate firefox” and found it was in /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox-1.0.2/. I think /usr/lib is a good place to install the new version, but I am gonna rename the directory to firefox-version number.
3. Next, open a console window, and change to root by typing “su -”. The “-” will load the root enviroment settings, which may be important for installing.
4. I created a directory in roots home called “to-install” where I can unzip and work with the files. I then moved the downloaded gzip file there.
5. Moving to the "to-install" directory, I first unzipped with the command “tar -zxvf file-name”. -z runs gzip first, then x will extract, v is verbose, and shows you what is happening, and finally f specifies the file name will come next.
6. Cd into the "firefox-installer" directory, and run “./firefox-installer”. If you don't have all the proper libraries, it will tell you which ones are missing. I was missing the libstdc++.so.5. All I did was go into the GUI packaging software, and installed them. You can also type “rpmdrake” from the command line, and the GUI will come up for you. Click the “Maximum information” radio button, and put in the search box the file you are missing. Then look in the file list for each result that comes up, to make sure the missing file is there. There is nothing worse than installing a bunch of un-needed libraries. Select the proper package to install, and install it. Repeat the process for any other packages you are missing. For a complete list of libraries needed, look at the System Requirements link on the same page you downloaded firefox. Be sure to read my blog entry about updating linux.
7. You will have to create a shortcut to “/usr/lib/firefox-version/firefox”. Or use the “Menudrake” program.

That's it. Enjoy Firefox, the greatest browser on Earth.

Updating Mandriva

2005-09-10T09:13:00.001-06:00

So you got your linux system up and running. So how do you stay up-to-date with new software and get the latest? URPMI. In Mandriva, you have a package tool called RPM Drake, that uses URPMI. And with it, you can update your software, or add new programs and libraries. But where does it get the info? Easy URPMI website. I'll show you how.

1. Go to http://easyurpmi.zarb.org. There you will find categories to specify where Mandriva should go to get updates. I chose “Main” and “Updates”. Check the boxes that you want.
2. In the drop-down boxes, choose a server that is closest to your phsyical location. For me, it was Texas.
3. Click the “Proceed to Step 3” button.
4. In the text box below that, there will be commands to copy and paste to your console window.
5. Open a console window, and “su” to root.
6. The site reccommends typing “urpmi.removemedia -a” first, in order to reinitialize urpmi's setup. Paste the commands (all of them. The last command pasted, you will have to hit the “Enter” key to start that process. All others will happen automatically.)
7. Go do something else while Mandriva downloads the list of files on each server.
8. When the last one is compelted, you are ready to update using any of the packaging tools under the “Menu>System>Configuration>Packaging” menu.

Kernel Compiling

2005-04-20T22:54:00.001-06:00

Just the word "compile" causes most non-programmers to
shift in their seat, and rub the back of their neck in
discomfort. It does to me too. I hate programming, and
the thought of compiling the latest Linux kernel
(2.6.11.7) seemed like a task WAY over my head. But I
decided to tackle it. What's the worst that could
happen? I have to go back to my perfectly functioning
previous kernel (2.6.8.1-24)?

So why did I upgrade and go through the hassle? 1) to
learn how to do it, 2) keeping an updated kernel is a
good security practice.

So with my trusty O'Reilly "Running Linux" book in
hand, I began my research. The book does a great job
at describing the why's of each step. However, I felt
some steps were missing, and became confused. Doing a
quick Google search of 'kernel compile', gave me a few
good sources to use as reference. One I list here is:

Digital Hermit

This one gave the best description of the steps, and
didn't seem to miss anything. Here are a few things I
learned that were not mentioned there.

1) Most kernels now are stored in bzip2 format, and
requires bunzip2 to decompress. I've never used it
before, so I looked at the man pages prior to
unzipping.

2) Mandrake 10.1 does NOT initially support 'make
xconfig', as I wished it would. I even tried
installing a few extra packages and programs, trying
to get it to work, but in the end, just settled for
'make menuconfig'. It really is very simple.

3) If there is an option during the kernel
configuration you are not sure of, you can bring up a
description of that item. Menuconfig required a '?'.
This was great, cause I didn't want to search the web
on all these strange new things to discover what it
did, and if I really need it.

4) Mandrake, and I am sure other distros uses
soft-links for many configuration files when it comes
to the kernel. An example: "/usr/src/linux" pointed to
"/usr/src/linux-2.6.8.1-24mdk", my old kernel source
files. I had to change this soft-link and others to do
some work later on.

5) ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS leave a copy of your old
kernel in your lilo or grub boot menu. On my first
compile attempt, I missed something, and had a "Kernel
Panic"! Not the best thing to see, unless you have a
spare kernel ready to boot to, which I did. Always,
always always. Did I mention always?

6) Certain drivers themselves, may need to be
recompiled to work with your new kernel (if you are
upgrading). Best example is my NVidia driver. It was
simple enough to run 'nvidia-installer --uninstall'.
Then I unzipped my copy of the driver (or you can d/l
the latest), and re-install.

Some problems came up that I didn't intend on. The
first one was a pretty simple fix, but finding the fix
was a bear. The program cdrecord, used to burn discs
both in the GUI and command-line, didn't like to burn
anymore. It threw me a "Cannot allocate memory. Cannot
get SCSI I/O buffer" error. The fix was to take the
'Set UID' bit off two files: cdrecord and cdrdao. The
command is this (as root):

chmod -s /usr/bin/cdrecord
chmod -s /usr/bin/cdrdao

The next problem I had and still have is my audio. I
have read about a million posts with people that have
the same problem. They recompile, and sound stops
working. By default after a recompile, all sound is
muted. And the common fix is to unmute the sound and
set the levels with "alsamixer". Then run as root,
"alsactl store". Well for me, it doesn't work. When I
reboot, sound it muted again. I've tried an alternate
driver (default is snd-via82xx, alt is
via82cxxx_audio), with no luck. I've plum ran out of
ideas. If anyone reads this and knows of a fix, PLEASE
email me. It's ALSA version 1.0.8. And if I find a
fix, I'll post it.

Installing NVidia driver properly

2005-04-11T20:31:00.001-06:00

Having a great graphics card is wonderful, as long as it works right. And in any OS, the secret to things working right, is dependent on the drivers.

I have a Best Force brand GeForce FX 5200 NVidia card, with 128MB of ram. I bought it for my windows games, and since moving to Linux, I wanted the same performance. Google searching for the driver and installation how-to got me most of the way. The graphics driver worked the way it was supposed to, until I rebooted. But there is one key step they almost ALL forgot to add, loading the module on boot. So here are the complete steps I used on my computer:

1. Download the latest drivers from NVidias' website: http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux.html
I am pretty sure I got the IA32 Graphics driver.

2. Open a terminal window and "su" to root. Type "init 3". This will stop the X server, and bring you to a login prmpt at the command line. Log in as root, then move to the download directory (where you saved the driver package). Type "./" to start the install. Here is where problems can come up.

2.1 The first thing that came up was that I did not have the kernel headers installed. The driver install program will use them to create the right module. If they don't exist, it can't move on. If it comes up with an error about no kernel headers, and stops the install, here is what you do. Get back to the command line, and type "init 5". This will bring you back to the GUI. Start up Mandrake Software Installer, and search for "kernel source", and install those. Then try again from step 2

3. After a successful install, we need to reconfigure the "xorg.conf" file to tell the X server what driver to use. To do that, we will use vi, a text editor. If you don't know how to use it, now is NOT the time to attempt it. Google up a vi tutorial. Learn the basics... it should only take 10 minutes tops. As root still, type "vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf" Mandrake makes this xorg.conf a softlink to XF86Config. Other distros just use XF86Config. Whatever works. Change these in the file:
- In Module section, comment out any line with "GLCore" and "dri" by adding a "#" in front.
- In Module section, make sure there is a line that says ' Load "glx" ' (everything inside the single quotes).
- In Device section for video card, change "Driver" name from "nv" to "nvidia".
- Save file and exit.

4. That is where most of the other how-tos stop. Here is where some extra research paid off. The above steps will get it working fine, until you reboot. After that, you would have to load the nvidia module manually each time you rebooted by typing "modprobe nvidia". Here is one way to get it loaded automatically on boot up. Open up vi again with "vi /etc/modprobe.preloa d". Add "nvidia" to a new line, and save the file and exit. There are other ways to add a driver on start-up, this is just one.

5. There are two ways to find out if it all worked. For both, start off by rebooting. The first way, is when you reboot, you should be brought into a GUI, preceded by the NVidia splash screen. Second way is to open up a terminal window, "su" to root, and type "lsmod | grep nvidia". You should see the "nvidia" driver listed.

6. To verify you are getting good performance, type glxgears. There will be three rotating gears, spinning quickly in a seperate window in your GUI. The terminal window you started will show the Frames Per Second (FPS). Click and drag one of the corners of the gear window, and increase the size. Watch the FPS change. If you still get a good FPS at almost full screen size, the card and driver are working perfectly.

Remember, these steps are for Mandrake 10.1, on a GeForce FX 5200. Yours may vary a bit, but the steps are similar.

Happy Gaming!

Introduction

2005-04-11T20:28:00.001-06:00

Hello!

Welcome to my first Blog site. I've had the idea to start one for a while. The idea came when I would continuously search on how-to (insert project here) on my Linux box, sometimes things I've already fixed, and tried to fix again! Most the time, I just forgot one step, and it caused alot of headache and frustration. This blog will serve as a reminder for me, and a reference for all my Linux friends in the world.

As a basis for this blog, I submit for you, the stats on my computers:

Computer name - Scooter (Desktop):
- MSI Mach Speed K8M8MSr2 AMD Motherboard
- AMD Athlon64 1.8 GHz CPU
- 1 GB DDR266 RAM
- Best Force brand GeForce FX 5200 NVidia Graphics card with 128 MB RAM
- 80 GB Western Digital HD (Windows)
- 40 GB IBM DeskStar HD (Linux)
- DVD R/RW with Litescribe
- Memorex MX5200 keyboard
- Logitech MX400 Laser mouse
- Windows XP Pro SP1
- Mandriva 2007 Free

Computer name - Gonzo (Server):
- ASRock K7VT2 AMD Motherboard
- 1.5 Ghz CPU
- 512 MB DDR266 RAM
- 1.44 MB Floppy Drive (For what? I don't know)
- 52x CDROM Drive
- 30 GB Quantum Fireball HD (Linux)
- (2) 250 GB HDs in RAID 1 (file server storage)
- Mandriva 2005 Free

Computer name - Sweetums (Laptop):
- Dell Inspiron 1150 Laptop
- Intel Celeron 2.4 GhZ CPU
- 768 MB RAM
- 40 GB HD
- CD-RW/DVD ROM
- MSI MP54G4 802.11b/g mini-pci wireless card (works great in Linux)
- Mandriva 2007 Free

With all that being said, let the bloggin' begin!

And feel free to email me any time