linux_mike - Debian discovered

MythTV, take 2

Mon, 12 May 2008 15:16:40 GMT

After a long hiatus, I've got a mythtv box running again. Due to a lack of hardware, I was dual-booting my old MythTV box with Windows, which my girlfriend was using increasing frequency. I should have just rebuilt one of the several boxes lying around, but nothing was going to be fast, and I'm a big fan of ideal solutions. Especially considering how my girlfriend's happiness has an inverse relationship with computer-related issues.

So we succumbed to watching television like normal people. *shudder*

At work, I recently discovered the joy of virtualization, which provided a welcome solution to the problem. I would let her run a Windows machine, which contains a Virtual Machine running Ubuntu, on top of which I will install a MythTV frontend. Don't you just love nesting?

I downgraded my main Linux server (an ancient Debian install whose graphical interface has long since died) to a business-class Pentium-3 I bought from a surplus auction at work (just $35!). The hardware that was running on (Pentium-4 I bought myself when I got accepted to Rutgers University) is now the MythTV Master Backend. It got a 1GB memory upgrade and will need more disk space and a gigabit NIC in the next few weeks). The old Myth box will become the front-end, retaining its original hardware and but getting VMWare Server and that Ubuntu Virtual Machine.

I also discovered that there is a Windows-based MythTV front-end called MythTV Player. For more details, see the official MythTV Wiki.

The system is finally recording after:
* locating my Schedules Direct login information and a scare that it had expired based on the crappy emails they have sent.
* fixing some issues I believe are related to the Ubuntu configuration, in which it's not enough to be a user in the MythTV group. I had to set some permissions (especially on the recording directory itself)
* some snow/static issues where I only got the first 13 channels (had to change to setting from US-BCST to US-CABLE)
* network configuration
* setup of the Windows based front-end (need to get the Ubuntu VM working so I have the pretty front-end)
* firewall installation and setup on the myth backend (not taking chances with this- no streaming to outside the LAN and the MythWeb interface is strong-password-protected, so hackproof even if the router is compromised)
* lots of crawling around, rerunning and labeling cables, cursing and head smacking.

Now if only I could figure out why MythBackend is reporting my CPU temperature at 269 degrees Celsius (that 514 Farenheit). I'm pretty sure that's not right.

Fixing apt-get - part I

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 19:47:11 GMT

My apt broke.

It's been far too long since I've upgraded this box, once my desktop, and now primarily a file/application server. There are hundreds of packages to upgrade. I was really scared.

And for good reason.

After running an upgrade, I got the following when it broke:

Need to get 0B/834MB of archives.
After unpacking 172MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
Extracting templates from packages: 100%
Preconfiguring packages ...
(Reading database ... 243033 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace guile-g-wrap 1.9.6-3.1 (using .../guile-g-wrap_1.9.9-1_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement guile-g-wrap ...
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/guile-g-wrap_1.9.9-1_i386.deb (--unpack):
trying to overwrite `/usr/share/guile/site/g-wrap/gw-glib.scm', which is also in package g-wrap
dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Errors were encountered while processing:
/var/cache/apt/archives/guile-g-wrap_1.9.9-1_i386.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

After much Googling, I found this page: http://biostat.mc.vanderbilt.edu/twiki/bin/view/Main/DependFixDebian

Following its advice, I issued a slightly different line:

# dpkg -i --force overwrite guile-g-wrap_1.9.9-1_i386.deb

That did the trick. I got this back:

(Reading database ... 243033 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace guile-g-wrap 1.9.6-3.1 (using guile-g-wrap_1.9.9-1_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement guile-g-wrap ...
dpkg - warning, overriding problem because --force enabled:
trying to overwrite `/usr/share/guile/site/g-wrap/gw-glib.scm', which is also in package g-wrap
dpkg - warning, overriding problem because --force enabled:
trying to overwrite `/usr/share/guile/site/g-wrap/gw-wct.scm', which is also in package g-wrap
Setting up guile-g-wrap (1.9.9-1) ...
#

I'm not happy about it- packaging systems should first of all not require such fixing, and should it not work flawlessly, it should provide a far better recovery system. I don't want to have to search for half an hour to fix a problem. If the only solution is a forced change, at least inform me how I can perform it. I'm a desktop user, and part-time administrator- I don't have the time for learning this sort of thing, or the experience to remember it.

Ex Falso, Quod Libet

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 16:14:53 GMT

Today I was looking for a way to take a whole bunch of tracks that I downloaded off my iPod to my laptop, lacking a connection to my home LAN and vast music library. Have you ever looked at the iPod file system? It's a bloody mess, and makes me wonder if they did that on purpose. All files are renamed something nasty, and they are split info folders which seem to carry no sense of organizational utility.

Taking a look at my applications menu, I noticed a few applications I had previously installed but never tested. One application, "Quod Libet" called to me, declaring itself a tagging application (I hovered over it with the mouse cursor- what a terrific feature!). So I started with on of the many iPod folders, and selected all the tracks. I then used the "edit tags" feature, and clicked on the "rename files" tab. For starters, I used the one of the provided naming schemes (adding the absolute path of "~/My Music/"). A click on the preview button made me smile and click on the save button. My files were all better.

The authors provided the following, so I'll not butcher the Latin language myself:

Quodlibet or Quod libet is Latin for "whatever you please" or "whatever you want"...
(Source: http://www.sacredchao.net/quodlibet/wiki/FAQ )

This is a great name, since the application is great when it comes to customization. I've never seen anyone sort files, especially music, the way I do, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let someone else force me to change. I had completely stopped creating music files, now I'll get back to it. The authors made it very easy to set filenames, using a technique I've seen only once before (a Windows application called AudioGrabber, I believe)

There are actually two applications here. Ex Falso is a pure mp3-tagging application, where Quod Libet adds a music player. You're free to use either- I'll probably play with Quod Libet and if I'm not happy, stick with Xmms until I find a music player I like. They are available in both the Debian and Ubuntu repositories, Gentoo users are said to sometimes have a tough time with the required libraries (one more reason for me not to try Gentoo...).

Fedora, partitioning, and other wastes of time

Mon, 13 Mar 2006 22:15:45 GMT

These pretzels are making me thirsty!

And so are Fedora, the plethora of filesystems, and naturally Windows' lack of support of them and creation of a proprietary one which gets installed by default on most every computer built.

I hate that I have a 30GB NTFS partition on a 40GB drive. It limits my flexibility to reallocate my space for whatever my current purpose is at the time. I've got a computer at work that I'm not at liberty to tinker with too much. It requires Windows to use all the wacky Exchange features my boss needs. These, naturally aren't standards-based, hence aren't supported by Linux clients. And we're way too cheap to buy Crossover Office of course, just in case you were going to suggest that.

It used to take the entire drive, but I resized it to give me 10GB to play with. I do embedded stuff, so I don't need too much space. Until I start compiling the kernel, that is, which leads to today's frustrations. And I was going to use Debian, which was supposed to need a minimal amount of OS-dedicated space, but I was forced to use this Fedora thing instead.

Fedora's "Yum extender" isn't bad. But it takes forever to load, and it's not Synaptic and it's not apt-get, so I don't know it, and don't really care to learn it. I know- I should learn it since I have the opportunity. But if I follow that logic, I should also go out and install Suse, and learn about it's package management, and after I've mastered every command-line argument on that, I should learn how BSD does it. And then I have to download Linux From Scratch, which I've been hearing way too much about from a person who just won't get that I don't care about it, and build a system with that. And I've got way too much stuff to do with my life to be learning how to do something that's already been done, and which I have no good enough reason to do.

That's enough for now. I'll try posting something positive soon. There's a few exciting things I'm about to work on, so watch for a few big posts coming around June-July (or perhaps sooner if classes go well).

Ancient floppies under Linux

Tue, 13 Sep 2005 20:57:41 GMT

I'm not sure why the "auto" mount type didn't get this right, but I managed to successfully access a 720KB floppy of "Death Track" by Activision (I'm a sucker for classics) manually.

This did the trick:
mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /floppy
(make sure you have a /floppy )
For next time, since I want to keep the autodetection on the /floppy directory, I created an additional one at /mnt/floppy_vfat , which I can use to try mounting it that way quickly.

So I added this line into my /etc/fstab:
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy_vfat vfat user,noauto 0 0

Until next time...

Edna, I love thee

Fri, 01 Jul 2005 16:40:31 GMT

I'd like to introduce you all to my new love, Edna.
Edna rocks my world, quite literally. Her voice is simply music to my ears, makes my spirit fly, and once in a while can even make me break out in song.
And Edna is my newest Linux application, which I would love to share with the world.

Edna is a music server. I'm not sure if it does streaming, or if you need a smart application for it. Either way, it provides a nice-looking web application which lets you walk through your Mp3 library (even if it is spread across multiple folders, as mine is). I'm currently using WinAmp on my work computer (yeah, my job forces me to use a Windows box, but I code for Palm Pilots, so I don't feel too dirty after leaving work). I'm listening to "The Philosopher's Stone," which is being broadcast (live) over the internet, from my desktop at home.

Installation is easy, though not apt-get easy just yet. Download the tarball, unzip and untar it, perform very minor changes to the edna.conf file (read the online documentation), and run it using python. It mentions that support for Ogg Vorbis is available if you install a certain python module. I'm going to try that later, as I have a few ogg albums (does anyone have a good, preferably fast, mp3-to-ogg batch converter?)

I've got one problem, which most likely has to do with my filenames. It looks like either spaces or apostrophes (or both) aren't supported very well. Maybe I'll take this opportunity to finally learn Python.

Download her, and let her rock your world too at: http://edna.sourceforge.net/

Now I'm off to start working on building a better mp3/ogg library.

apt-get autoclean

Sun, 06 Mar 2005 08:08:45 GMT

I just saved 2.6 GB on my auto insurance...
...or rather on my hard drive.

I've been spending too much time running ls -lSr /var/cache/apt/archives and then deleting the older versions of packages.

So I'm here at work (yes, it's actually 3am), and I ssh-ed into my box to download the new Apple lossless decoder*, and df -k showed me 100% used. I got pissed and decided to spend a few minutes looking for an automatic process.

Turns out apt has one built-in, as I had expected:
apt-get autoclean

Now I just have to put that in my cron.daily script, to keep my box in squeaky-clean condition :-)

* See Slashdot article: http://apple.slashdot.org/apple/05/03/05/1857220.shtml?tid=141&tid=3

Dynamic DNS auto-updates

Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:51:13 GMT

In a moment of inspiration, gleaned from the periodic email DynDNS.org send me about the looming expiration of my Dynamic DNS hostname, I decided to finally get that fixed.

I tried previously once before, using a built-in feature in my beloved Netgear MR814, but it screwed up and I got locked out of both router and PC, when I wanted to use them at a LUG meeting. And no- I'm not smart enough to record my dynamic IP address in my Palm-Pilot, though I could probably get that rigged using Plucker (note to self: "start using Plucker")

So I went to the "Clients" section* on http://DynDns.org . The most highly rated one was "RunDNS", but it didn't appear in an apt-cache search, so I didn't try it. The second was a Java-client, so I ignored it. The third highest- "ddclient", I didn't get it working quickly enough, so I dropped it. Then I found ipcheck, which seemed simple enough, and nearly frustration-free.

Running a simple "ipcheck" shows you the most common kinds of commands you'd want to use. I needed the third one, which polls the DynDNS web server to get your NAT's external IP address.

Using my fresh knowledge of the Cron daemon (I should write about that sometime), I created a new script in my cron.daily directory (/etc/cron.daily/ipcheck).

You have to use the --makedat option once - I just ran it so it was created in /usr/sbin , next to the python script).

I needed just a single modification to the default example (aside from putting my dyndns username/password/hostname), which was the -f argument. You may have guessed it- this forces an update, so that one will actually be performed every day. (otherwise, DynDNS will think I'm idle and will keep sending warning letters)

The following is the contents of the ipcheck cron script, minus personal info:

#!/bin/sh
# /etc/cron.daily/ipcheck
#
# Cron script for IPCheck - a DynDNS.org update client
# Written by Michael Kazin
# Last updated: Feb. 2, 05

cd /usr/sbin
ipcheck -f -l -r checkip.dyndns.org:8245 [username] [password] [myddns name].dyndns.org

Hope it helped,

Mike

* For the list of DDNS clients... http://www.dyndns.org/services/dyndns/clients.html

My printer finally works!!!

Wed, 26 Jan 2005 05:22:39 GMT

So, yeah. I finally got my super-awesome HP LaserJet 1012 working with my Linux box. One less reason to keep Windows installed on that other computer (which I have even kept offline, booting once in a while to use for games/printing - so I guess it's "one less reason to fire up the old Gates-thing...").

As usual, it wasn't easy, took about half an hour of work, a dozen websites, one downloaded file* I didn't need in the end and far more stress than I need, the night before the student involvement fair I haven't started preparing for yet...

I started using the following instructions, but quickly left them, in favor of a more promising-looking page (HP's page, appearing soon):
http://linuxprinting.org/cups-doc.html

Later, I tried going into printer management in Gnome, found KDE's control manager instead. Selected CUPS as the print manager and got nowhere. Some strange error about it being 'bad' or something. Sorry I don't have the error anymore.

So, I take a guess and fire up synaptic. Search for packages with "cups" in them and select about half of them - anything that sounds interesting: CUPS itself (I wouldn't have guessed that it wasn't even installed *rolls eyes*), PDF support, Gnome support, the works...

So CUPS is working, but it wasn't enough. Hewlett Packard, who I will forever support, in support of their support** for Linux ( :-D ), give a long page of instructions you should loosely follow:
http://hpinkjet.sourceforge.net/install_hpijs.php (note that this is for the "hpijs" driver- make sure you check which one you need, based on your printer model)

So I run a modified version of steps 1 & 2:
> apt-get install hpijs
> hpijs -h

Very cool. Nearly the essence of coolness. But not quite.

CUPS provides you with a web-based administration system. Point your browser, and log-in with your root account to:
http://localhost:631/

There, I could add a printer. Configure it. Reconfigure it. Add another. Configure and reconfigure. And not get anything to print. I was getting kind of disappointed and discourages because I was sending test-page after test-page to the printer, and they were disappering off the queue as if being printed. But my printer was just making that clicking noise it does, to let me know it's idle, and wasting electricity.

While playing around with the configuration, I noticed that the "Device" combo-box that was selected said "Virtual Printer (PDF Printer)". "That's not cool," I told my computer/web-interface or whatever. So I set it to a more intuitive setting: "USB Printer #1". And guess what.... It stopped removing those test-pages from the queue! Now they were accumulating in there and plotting something nasty for me...

Then I noticed the following:

Description:
Location: Right here
Printer State: processing, accepting jobs.
"Unable to open USB device "usb:/dev/usb/lp0": No such device"
Device URI: usb:/dev/usb/lp0

Well, that made me run a simple check:
> ls -l /dev/usb/lp*

And of course, the USB deviced-files were all there. 0 through 15.

A bunch of other websites later confirmed it- this was a kernel issue. I was missing the "printer" module (another big "duh..."):
http://lists.golum.org/pipermail/golum/2004-July/020177.html

Naturally, doing what I found there, i.e. typing "modprobe printer" didn't work. Nor could I find a module titled "printer" anywhere in "modconf", not under printers, serial devices or USB.

Then I found this one:
http://sysadminforum.com/t92717.html

Turns out they changed it. It's "usblp" now. In case you're wondering, you can save time by simply searching this single folder: /kernel/drivers/usb/class . You're welcome!

See you next time!

* Supposedly, that file was supposed to do all the configuration on it's own. It didn't though :-/ . I downloaded the "PPD" file, after selecting my printer model here:
http://linuxprinting.org/show_driver.cgi?driver=hpijs&fromprinter=HP-LaserJet_1012
** HP's Printer driver website: http://hpinkjet.sourceforge.net/

Skype - my new long-distance provider

Mon, 10 Jan 2005 20:58:49 GMT

Hi again,

Got into using Skype a week or so ago. Nobody's on my contact list just yet, but that'll change when classes start again, I guess. If you want to give a call, use "mjkazin" to get me.

So far, I've called overseas three times. I got some complaints about echos from the people I've talk to. I gotta figure out if that's my fault somehow.

More importantly for the purpose of the blog, I found out how to update it using apt-get, thanks to PeterPotamus on the Skype forums.

You'll need the "alien" package installed, so first:
apt-get install alien

Then, just follow these simple steps, and you should be uptodate:

wget http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-fc2
alien -d skype*rpm
dpkg -i skype*deb

Thanks Peter!

(for reference, this is his post: http://forum.skype.com/viewtopic.php?t=11131&highlight=debian)

P.S. I'd stay away from the mentioned .deb repository. It's horribly out of date.

One more small thing- you need a headset to use Skype, of course. Or you could get away with a microphone and headphones (but don't use your regular speakers cause you'll get feedback loops)

I went out and got the Plantronics Audio .90 ( http://www.plantronics.com/skype ). You might call it a mid-range set (priced at around $30), but it got very good reviews wherever I looked and I'll probably be using it foor a long time, so I "invested" in it.

OpenOffice.org - faster than ever!

Mon, 10 Jan 2005 20:35:56 GMT

Just found this by accident on http://www.desktop-linux.net/favappz.htm (following a link located near the bottom) :

"In OO Configure the Memory by going to:

Tools - Options - Memory

I have 512Mb of memory on my pc so I up'd the graphics cache to 30 MB for Use for OpenOffice.org

and

2.0 MB for Memory Per Object

This cuts down the initial load times and will usually load OO between 4-8 seconds on my pc depending on the existing memory and system load."

Well, I had 2.4 set per object, so I left that, but I did up my cache thingy to 30 and it does seem to load faster now. Sweeet!

USB key, MEPIS

Fri, 07 Jan 2005 03:49:19 GMT

Been a while since I wrote something here. I've been busy I guess. Anyway, there's two items on the agenda today, as you could tell from the subject line...

After two years of wishing, I finally own a USB key again. The old 16MB one I got from the guys at work as a going-away gift croaked about that long ago. The new one, a 128MB was FREE (w00t!!!), a gift from Morgan Stanley who were handing them out at the career fair on campus. I love that company.

To get it to work wasn't too difficult (but wasn't as easy as it should be, hence this posting...)

A friendly, no-nonsense site (also the page returned by Googling "usb key mount" with the lucky Firefox toolbar): http://www.unc.edu/~aperrin/tips/src/usbkey.html

A few important comments on the given steps:
1) Step #1, where you have to ensure you have certain modules loaded into your kernel: I added "usb-storage", "sg", and all of the "usb-[o,u,e]-hci" modules, to my previously loaded "usbcore" and "scsi_mod"

To do this, run modconf (as root, of course). You'll find the above modules in the following locations:
sg - /kernel/drivers/scsi/
usbcore - /kernel/drivers/usb/core/
[eou]hci-hcd - /kernel/drivers/usb/host/
usb-storage - /kernel/drivers/usb/storage/

2) Step #2 explains how SCSI devices are assigned letters. If you have SCSI devices, just use the next one in line. I assume that you may get conflicts if you connect multiple devices, so you may need to look for a way to statically allocate SCSI identifications to your various devices. I didn't need to today, so my example just uses sda

3) Step #4 worked, as is, from the command-line (after changing the mount directory to my /mnt/usb-key/) , but I had to fiddle around with /etc/fstab/ get the device registered there for easy mounting. This is my current line in /etc/fstab/ :

/dev/sda1 /mnt/usb-key auto user,noauto 0 0

Finally, since I'm a GNOME fan, I added an awesome applet to one of my panels. It's called the "Disk Mounter," and it lets me, at the touch of a button, mount and unmount the USB key. Just remember to update the "mount directory" in the preferences (and change the icon to the super-cool "USB Stick" icon.

That's it for that.

The other thing was shorter- just a mention that my girl, Trisha, after having her box fall apart on her, finally decided to switch cold-turkey and install Linux. After giving her muchos prop-os (ugh, that was lame...), we tried a few things, without success. Debian was being its usual finicky self, not helping me with XFree86 (I really wish someone would finally put some modern technology on the ISOs...), so we finally caved and installed MEPIS. It's pretty cool, and much simpler to install than Debian. Oh, and it's Debian-based, of course, so she's loving apt-get now.

Hope to write again soon,

Mike

The Creed

Tue, 14 Sep 2004 21:11:06 GMT

This is my kernel. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

My kernel is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.

My kernel, without me, is useless. Without my kernel, I am useless. I must configure my kernel true. I must compile straighter than my enemy who is trying to outhack me. I must /kick him before he /kick's me. I WILL...

My kernel and myself know that what counts in this war is not the packets we fire, the noise of our keyboards, nor the smoke our overclocked CPUs make. We know that it is the uptime that count. WE WILL REMAIN UP...

My kernel is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its warning messages, its optimizations, its modules, its arguments, its files and its tree. I will ever guard it against the ravages of current spikes and viruses as I will ever guard my legs, my arms, my eyes and my heart against damage. I will keep my kernel build-directory clean and ready. We will become part of each other. WE WILL...

Before Tux, I swear this creed. My kernel and myself are the defenders of my Internet domain. We are the masters of our enemy. WE ARE THE SAVIORS OF MY LIFE.

So be it, until victory is Linux's and there is no enemy, but peace!

Kernel building, take 2

Mon, 13 Sep 2004 16:10:59 GMT

Just to keep you up to date....

So I'm working on getting my kernel "fixed" again. "Fixed", not in the "neutered" sense, but in the "improved" and "repaired" sense.

So far, it's looking pretty good. I got some awesome directions for Debian newbies, as well as a few newsgroup links and an ICQ chat log for problems I've had. I will be posting these if I ever finish this.

I've already got my next "to-do". It seems that my current box can't handle something so simple that even Windows 2000 has it: multiple sound outputs. In other words, I want to listen to music, while playing "The Ur-Quan Masters" (I'm a h-u-g-e fan - can you win the battle with the Sa-Matra using a single Pkunk Fury?)

For the sake of Google-searchability....

mkazin@wayreth:~$ uqm
The Ur-Quan Masters v0.3 (compiled Mar 7 2004 08:14:53)
This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details see the included 'COPYING' file.

Saved games are kept in /home/mkazin/.uqm/save/.
Initializing SDL (pure).
SDL driver used: x11
SDL initialized.
Initializing Screen.
Set the resolution to: 640x480x16
Initializing SDL audio subsystem.
SDL audio subsystem initialized.
Initializing MixSDL mixer.
MixSDL using driver 'SDL_audio'
Unable to open audio: a101, No available audio device
Sound driver initialization failed.
This may happen when a soundcard is not present or not available.
NOTICE: Try running UQM with '--sound=none' option
mkazin@wayreth:~$

My first kernel building experience :-)

Sun, 15 Aug 2004 14:47:54 GMT

8/15/04 - 10:46
So, like I was saying last night - I need a more modern kernel. I will be staying away from the latest 2.4.27 for two reasons- I don't need it (I only need 2.4.19 for my new drive) and it looks like Debian didn't put it into "stable" just yet.

"make config" pisses me off. There's way to much crap I don't care about and I can't just skip over things. menuconfig won't work because I'm lacking Ncurses, which I can't seem to apt-get (I already have ncurses-base installed). Thanks to whoever wrote "xconfig". Just start it up and click "Save and exit"

My first attempt was really bad. I somehow ended up trying to build a 2.4.7 kernel, even after telling myself to pay attention. I guess I shouldn't be building a kernel for the first time at one in the morning.

After downloading and extracting the right file, I got an error really quickly in "make dep", so I had to create a soft link /usr/src/linux pointing to /usr/src/linux-2.4.26

Hey, the bzImage is done! Cross your fingers.

11:29am
.... back using 2.4.18 ....

Well, it worked well enough - lilo didn't give me any trouble and it booted into my own kernel. Problems started when I noticed a message about no eth0 and such. Well, turns out there's nothing in modconf at all. Where are my kernel modules? Has anyone seen my kernel modules?

Ugh... Back to Google I go ....

New 160GB drive. Not as simple as one would like

Sat, 14 Aug 2004 20:44:11 GMT

I installed my new 160GB drive - a Maxtor drive whose specs are on the box, but themodel number is totally inconspicious, so www.maxtor.com isn't much help.

Trouble is that it is detected well, but as a 137GB drive. Googling led me to two interesting posts. The first being a German Debian forum, where I learned that I may need to upgrade to at least kernel version 2.4.19

I just learned an important new command - "uname"
wayreth:/root# uname --all
Linux wayreth 2.4.18-bf2.4 #1 Son Apr 14 09:53:28 CEST 2002 i686 GNU/Linux

So it looks like I need a new kernel. Well, I suppose it's time I learned that lesson. I'll resume this post after that's done and I've rebooted into a new kernel (please cross your fingers for me...)

The second useful command I learned was actually just an argument of fdisk, thanks to the posters at:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/history/209798

wayreth:/root# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/hdd: 137.4 GB, 137438952960 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 266305 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

Disk /dev/hdd doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 5169 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 1318 9964048+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 4031 5169 8610840 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 1319 1447 975240 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda4 1448 4030 19527480 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Be back later with an update....

Online java buses?

Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:38:58 GMT

Sweeet. I can see the buses now. All of them. Running around, all over the place. On all three different maps, no less.

I'm talking about www.whereismybus.com (obviously...) - the site we Rutgersians log onto to see where our buses are, which up till now didn't work very well for me.

At first, it would tell me to upgrade to a modern version of Netscape (funny, I thought I had upgraded it to the very latest in Netscape technology just this morning via a single apt-get command...)

Anyway, I needed Java as well, and the good folks at Debian didn't help me with that one. A quick search on Google gave me a site titled "Java on Debian - Confluence", which gave me the perfect step-by-step instruction list, which worked flawlessly.

http://wiki.osuosl.org/display/DEV/Java+on+Debian
(let me know if that page ever goes down, I downloaded a copy, including the script)

So, yeah. The buses are running now and I can actually spot them as they pass by my house (I need a life...). Now that I think about it, that page makes a good test-case to see if your browser's Java plugin is working ok. Many thanks to the folks at OSUOSL for the info.

Well, all this talk about coffee makes me wana to go get some breakfast. Pancakes, anyone?

PDF documents in firefox

Thu, 29 Jul 2004 14:32:53 GMT

I miss not having the embedded Acrobat Reader in Firefox. I really do.

To make matters worse, I was having trouble with the "gv" ("a PostScript and PDF previewer") application, which Firefox defaulted to - it gave me an error message saying the PDF documents I was viewing were corrupt, or some such nonsense.

So I finally got tired of it, viewing my professor's website (half the pages are in PDF). So I looked up kpdf, using 'which kpdf' (I still have much to learn about the Linux directory structure, to know where I can find a file I'm looking for), and told Firefox to try using that to show me PDF's. It worked, and now I'm happy.

Next on my list is finding myself a LaTeX editor. Comments are welcome.

apt-get install zip unzip

Sat, 24 Jul 2004 10:29:02 GMT

Two little command-line utils I installed so I could unzip files that come from Windows boxes (I get plenty of these)

Also installs a little thing called "units" while demonstrating the coolness of apt-get to my little sister. Useful little thing, though hardly intuitive to use.

K3b & a new issue

Wed, 21 Jul 2004 17:03:32 GMT

Just a short note to say I installed the K3b CD-burning application this morning. On running, it told me there was a problem or two (detecting my drive, permissions...)

I fixed the problems by runninng k3bsteup (from the prompt) and installing the required package (I don't recall what it was- read the message given by the application for its name)

Having some trouble with Firefox, which may be related to free space on my /home partition. I'll keep you advised about this one.

A scare and an easier-than-expected hack

Mon, 12 Jul 2004 02:40:51 GMT

I've been getting really tired of GNOME this weekend. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the applications hanging from the top of the screen, the lack of applications (including applications not being added into the menu after an apt-get), the screen-savers or just the frustration from playing with an eMac for five hours yesterday. Call me weird (most people do), but I'm back in KDE now. Good-old familiar Windows-like, (though far superior) KDE.

The scare was that I actually booted my machine and had a really mean-looking message tell me that hda4 was a mess. And not in the same way it did the previous time, when I added a new partition to the drive. That time it just ran fsck, fixed whatever needed it and left me to go on my way. Now, it was telling me I had to run fsck "MANUALLY" (yeah, they used caps to say it)

Now, when Windows does it, they just throw you into scandisk. Granted, you're sure it's just another Blue-Screen-Of-Death, but you know it's probably not going to find anything and let Windows keep booting. When an OS tells me it's having trouble booting, I start to freak. Especially when the partition in question is my /home/ partition. "That's just not cool", to quote my friend, Girlie.

Anyway, I got the prompt, ran fcsk with no arguments, as told to. It ran, asked me half a zillion times if I wanted it to repair something or other. Well, let me think about that for a while, Mr. fsck. Hmmmm... Damn straight I want you to fix it, you tool! (god-awful pun intended)

So it did and it delicately dropped me off to the prompt. I mounted the errant filesystem, checked a file to see if it was alright (which it was) and typed 'exit', to let the system continue booting. I love it! Even when the system is trashed, you can fix it without needing a reboot.

Next in line was getting KDE up and running. I came across a forum on the web talking about switching from KDE to GNOME. Gnome wasn't helping me switch back (thanks again, guys). I editted one file called "default_display_manager" (I think), knowingly doing a bad on it. The system told me I suck (in a somewhat more polite manner, but I knew what it was thinking)

The fix was rather easy. Log in as root, run xinit (or was it gdm ?). Select KDE as the one I wanted to load. It told me I lacked permissions on ~/.ICEauthority . A quick chmod fixed that, I retried logging-in and here I am.

On other news, I've downloaded and installed Lphoto and Lsongs - two applications I understand Linspire stole from Apple and released under the GPL. I wish my sound was working, but I'll have to leave that for another time and an important and actually useful entry in this journal.

Have a good night y'all.

apt-get install logjam

Fri, 09 Jul 2004 15:54:33 GMT

For LiveJournal, I'm using the "LogJam" utility, which appears on LiveJournal.com .

There's not very much to say about it. I got to work with it immediately after setting up this journal, played around a little and saw the very-cool "edit last entry" option. Sweeet.

It's got all the features I think I need, without creating crowded and confusing menus. Not much on the "help" menu, but I don't know that there's much need for it.

It may not be the prettiest thing out there, but I'm just using a textbox, so I don't care. As far as I'm concerned, it's very intuitive, which more than makes up for that flaw.

Many thanks to Evan Martin and friends on this one - you did a great job.

Two things I could suggest:
1) When editting the last entry, the "delete" button is a bit too close to the "save changes" button, especially since no confirmation is requested. It does delete the entry though...
2) The spell checker doesn't seem to work when I just click the checkbox; When does it activate the checker? On sending the message? Also, the in-dialog note about instability isn't helping much. How about a test to see if it's working, or some information on what I should do to fix it?

apt-get install netselect-apt

Fri, 09 Jul 2004 15:47:14 GMT

Here's a great one for Debian-based users to start off with, which from now on, the first package I will ever install on a fresh new system is this little charm.

The original netselect is a compact utility which lets you "choose the fastest server automatically" (stolen from its man page). If you have a bunch of servers to choose from, it'll tell you which would be the fastest to work with.

netselect-apt uses this to create a 'sources.list' file for apt-get (the file containing the list of Debian servers (also called "mirrors") it downloads new packages from for you). Since it uses netselect, the created mirror file is custom-made just for you. Mine really cut down my downloading time (Rutgers' servers, while just across the.river and on huge trunks were very slow...)

Among its options, you can supply which version of Debin you use (stable, testing, unstable and even experimental)

This one definitely deserves a thumbs up.

Welcome!

Fri, 09 Jul 2004 15:29:35 GMT

Holy cow, there's a lot of 'moods' on this thing....

Well, I finally gave in and decided to use someone else's services to host a little journal. From the title, had I set it properly beforehand, you could have been able to guess what this thing is all about - me and linux.

To make a very long story not as long, I consider myself a newbie to Linux, mainly because I have only recently started using it as my primary operating system. This despite being a linux and open-source advocate for about two years (talk about hypocrisy) and a 4-year veteran (literally) on AIX machines (IBM's flavor of Unix, running on those cool RS/6000 beasts).

Attempting to side-step flames, I'll mention that I currently am a quite pleased user of Debian. "Quite" because it's working now - four or five false starts had me thinking about dropping it, but the kind folks in my LUG (more on it later) got me all patched up and into the graphical interface (a rant on that topic will appear in a much later post).

The main purpose of this journal is to provide a place for fellow newbies to come and learn with me. I hope to save a bunch of people some trouble, by learning as I learn. Hopefully, someone will send a few ideas my way too.

Enjoy your visit, and please feel free to comment and email me.

Michael Kazin

PS. I was originally thinking about giving this post the following title:
LJAccount *linux_mike = new LJAccount("Michael Kazin");
How geeky is that? I almost got it wrong too.

PS. 2 - This re-editted by 'jam