PCLinux OS on Intel 82845 chipset

PCLinux OS is a very user friendly Linux Distribution which I have not tried since long. I am bored with Ubuntu Karmic and most mainstream distributions since the desktop I am using at present has Intel 82845 chipset which has problems with all these distributions because the problem lies with the latest intel driver. When I looked at PCLinux OS it has X.Org X Server 1.4.0.90 built in 2007 and I thought it should work on this machine.

I decided to have a look at their LXDE Live CD and downloaded the iso. I mounted the iso and copied vmlinuz and initrd.gz in pclos folder on the root of sda4 partition (mounted at /media/disk) and livecd.sqfs at root of sda4:
mkdir /tmp/pclos
sudo mkdir /media/pclos
sudo mount pclinuxos-lxde-2009.4.iso -o loop /tmp/pclos
sudo cp /tmp/pclos/isolinux/vmlinuz /media/pclos
sudo cp /tmp/pclos/isolinux/initrd.gz /media/pclos
sudo co /tmp/pclos/livecd.sqfs /media/

Then I wrote the following lines in/etc/grub.d/40_custom:

menuentry "PCLinux OS" {
set root=(hd0,4)
linux /pclos/vmlinuz livecd=livecd root=/dev/rd/3 vga=788 keyb=us splash=silent fstab=rw,auto changes_dev=/dev/hda4
initrd /pclos/initrd.gz
}

and updated grub:
sudo update-grub

If you are having Legacy grub you have to write following lines in /boot/grub/menu.lst:

Title PCLinux OS
root (hd0,4)
kernel /pclos/vmlinuz livecd=livecd root=/dev/rd/3 vga=788 keyb=us splash=silent fstab=rw,auto changes_dev=/dev/hda4
initrd /pclos/initrd.gz

After reboot I could choose "PCLinux OS" on grub menu and get the Login screen. I logged in as guest and I could see the LXDE Desktop but could not do much before it froze. Then I added vesa at the end of linux boot line in grub and I could use the Live CD.

I went to PCLinuxOS Forum and searched for 82845 and read a couple of posts and got a solution in this post. PCLinux OS loads intel driver which does not work for 82845 chipset, however, it also has the old i810 driver which works.

I clicked on Configure your computer icon in the Application Launch Bar entered the root password (root), clicked on Hardware/Set_up_the_graphical_server/Graphic_card_selection (Intel 810 and later) and changed it to Intel 810, accepted the changes and clicked on Ok to logout. Unfortunately, I got blank screen on logout.

On next attempt I booted without vesa driver and followed the above procedure once again. This time I could get Login screen on logout and after re-login the driver was changed to i810.

If you intend to install PCLnuxOS the blank screen on logout should not matter since the change of driver is already saved by the system.

I can say that PCLnux OS 2009 works for Intel 82845 chipset with i810 driver.

Update:
I have added changes_dev=/dev/hda4 to boot options to have persistent Live system. Now when I change the driver to i810 the new configuration is saved for reboot. The default web browser is Midori. I have installed Firefox 3.5.6 using Synaptic package manager and it is available on reboot.

If you are looking for how to use Ubuntu Karmic on Intel 82845 chipset read this post.

Sidux with XFCE.

I had tried KDE version of Sidux earlier in May 09 and wrote about it in this post. I decided to try XFCE version this time and downloaded the latest iso. As before I wanted to boot from iso without burning a CD. Now I have grub2, therefore, I opened /etc/grub.d/40_custom to edit and wrote the following lines in it:

menuentry "sidux 32bit from ISO" {

set root=(hd0,4)

linux /sidux/vmlinuz boot=fll quiet vga=791 fromiso=/sidux/sidux.iso persist tz=Asia/Calcutta

initrd /sidux/initrd.img

}

First I copied the iso to 'sidux' directory at the root of sda4 partition (mounted at /media/disk)

sudo cp sidux-2009-03-momos-xfce-i386-200911110039.iso /media/disk/sidux/sidux.iso

Then I mounted the downloaded iso and copied vmlinuz and initrd.img to 'sidux' directory at the root of sda4 partition (mounted at /media/disk):

mkdir /tmp/sidux

sudo mount sidux-2009-03-momos-xfce-i386-200911110039.iso -o loop /tmp/sidux

cd /tmp/sidux/boot

sudo cp vmlinuz* /media/disk/sidux/vmlinuz

sudo cp initrd.img* /media/disk/sidux/initrd.img

Then I updated grub to get the sidux entry in grub menu:

sudo update-grub

Then I restarted and selected 'sidux 32bit from ISO' entry in Grub menu and I could boot into the XFCE Desktop on latest Sidux.

There was a freeze after some time because of the bug in Xorg for Intel 80845 chip-set.
I had faced same problem on Ubuntu Karmic on this chip-set and forced Xorg to use vesa driver by writing xorg.conf. I copied the file to /fll/cow/etc/X11 on sda4:

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier    "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier    "Default Screen"
    Monitor        "Configured Monitor"
    Device        "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier    "Configured Video Device"
    Driver        "vesa"
EndSection

Google Chrome Browser for Linux

Some Linux users were already running Google Chrome Browser from dev channel. Now Google has announced immediate availability of Google Chrome Browser for Linux. You can download it from here. You can download themes and extensions. See my screenshot. I have installed Similar Pages, Feedly, Aviary screenshot utility, Gmail checker and Xmarks extensions and you can see their icons on right side.

Update on Dec 12
When Google announced Chrome Beta it was version 4.0.249.30 and unstable version was also same, however, the development continues and if you upgrade unstable today it is at version 4.0.266.0. If you installed unstable before beta was announced the version changes if you upgrade, however, those who installed beta the version remains at 4.0.249.30, therefore, if you want to stick to beta remove unstable and install beta or don't upgrade unstable and let it stay at version 4.0.249.30.
Update on Dec 17
Today Chrome Beta also got updated to version 4.0.249.40.

Using Google Chromium OS on Desktop.

After Google announced the availability of source of Chromium OS VMWare and USB images appeared on internet. I downloaded USB image but it exceeded the 2 GB size of my pendrive. Then a smaller USB image (less than 1 GB) was made by a developer and I downloaded it today from this site. I extracted the image and copied it to the pendrive through:
sudo dd if=ChromeOS-Cherry.img of=/dev/sdb bs=4M

I could boot from USB to the login screen but it froze after login then I realized that I was using a desktop which has Intel 82845G chipset. Then I modified xorg.conf on the USB stick to use vesa driver.

I could then get to the Chrome browser. I could browse but noticed following two problems:

1. I was already logged in to my Google account but could not use the Blogger even after I logged out of gmail and tried to login to Blogger. The Blogger complains about cookie functionality.
2. When I type I have to wait a few seconds before the text appears on the browser.

Note: On next boot I was already logged into Blogger. You can ignore point 1.

Xmarks on Google Chrome Browser.

I have been running Google Chrome Browser (unstable) on Ubuntu Linux. Today I discovered that I can run Xmarks for Chrome Alpha, version 0.5.11 on it. I clicked on the download link of Xmarks through Chrome Browser and it installed as an extension.


You need to have an Xmarks account to access the download link and the Google Chrome Browser should be from Development Channel.

Xmarks is working perfectly on Google Chrome from dev channel.

How to change default Operating System on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

Some people use Ubuntu in dual boot with Windows and they prefer to make Windows as default Operating System. Prior to Ubuntu 9.10 this was achieved by changing the default line in /boot/grub/menu.lst file.

Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala has Grub2 which does not have menu.lst file. The configuration file is /boot/grub/grub.cfg which is not supposed to be edited even by root. The primary configuration file for changing menu display settings is /etc/default/grub. The procedure to change the default OS is as follows:


Count the line number in the Grub menu taking first line as 0.
$ gksudo gedit /etc/default/grub

Change 0 in this line to the desired number:
GRUB_DEFAULT=0

Save and close the file

$ sudo update-grub

After running update-grub the default will change in grub.cfg

Running Ubuntu Karmic on Intel 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset

My daughter's Desktop which I use while at Bhubaneswar has this chipset:

$ lspci -nn | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device [8086:2562] (rev 03)

I have installed Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala on this machine and it is having random freezes. I have submitted a bug report but I don't think the bug is going to be resolved very soon. There is another bug resembling mine (my bug may be a duplicate) which has been submitted upstream on freedesktop.org but I don't think that it may be resolved soon.

I decided to change to vesa driver but there was no xorg.conf. I used the following xorg.conf:

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "vesa"
EndSection

There is no freeze using vesa driver.

Update on Jan 1 2010
There is some activity on the bug report. The commit in the Kernel responsible for this bug has been identified and informed upstream. Meanwhile I have found that if I use IceWM instead of gnome there is no freeze with intel driver. If you are comfortable with IceWM you can also use it.

How to boot Ubuntu from Desktop iso.

I have been trying various Linux distributions by copying the contents of Live CD ISO to a spare partition, editing menu.lst file of Grub for suitable entries and booting the operating system. This method saves a CD.

Grub2 is the default boot-loader on Ubuntu 9.10 Karnic for previous distributions you have to install it.

To install Grub2:
$ sudo apt-get install grub-pc
This will install Grub2 but does not replace Grub Legacy and puts an entry in /boot/grub/menu.lst to Chainload and try it. After you find that it is working you need to replace Grub Legacy by Grub2:
$ sudo upgrade-from-grub-legacy

I installed Grub2 recently and discovered that it can directly boot from ISO. I had Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop CD ISO to try. Instead of copying the contents of the ISO I copied the ISO in my-ISO folder on one partition (sda4). Then added following entry in the file /etc/grub.d/40_custom
menuentry "Karmic Live CD (sda4)" {
loopback loop (hd0,4)/my-ISO/ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso
linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/my-ISO/ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso
initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz
}

Then I updated Grub2:
$ sudo update-grub

The update copied the above menu entry from /etc/grub.d/40_custom to /boot/grub/grub.cfg (Please note that you are not supposed to edit grub.cfg directly).

On reboot I selected the new menu entry "Karmic Live CD (sda4)" and could boot from the ISO.

Please note that on Grub2 sda4 is represented by  (hd0,4) and not  (hd0,3) like in Grub Legacy.

How to make manual entry in Grub2 on Ubuntu.

I installed Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala RC today on one partition using Desktop CD. This version of Ubuntu has Grub2 which is under development. The Grub did not detect Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope and I could not boot into it till I studied the problem and resolved it.

As suggested on Ubuntu Wiki I tried the following workaround:

$ sudo apt-get install --reinstall libdebian-installer4
$ sudo os-prober
$ sudo update-grub

The above commands detected the Jaunty installation and updated /boot/grub/grub.cfg file (equivalent of /boot/grub/menu.lst file) but put wrote wrong partition #.

After reading Grub2 documentation on Ubuntu Wiki I made following manual entry in the file /etc/grub.d/40_custom

menuentry "Ubuntu 9.04" {
set root=(hd0,8)
linux /vmlinuz-2.6.28-16-generic root=UUID=5fdb796b-96c0-49f1-80ec-9455e337625c ro xforcevesa quiet splash
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.28-16-generic
}

The partition numbering system has changed on Grub2 and (hd0,8) now means sda8 partition. After writing the above file I had to run:
$ sudo update-grub

to add the entry in grub.cfg file.

How to create Google Chrome theme with your picture.

Since the day I installed Mariah Carry theme on Google Chrome I wanted to create one with my picture. This did not work immediately since the Linux version of Chrome browser could not pack the theme into .crx file. The new version 4.0.222.5 does.

Here is the screenshot of my theme:

This is how I created it:
Create a folder MyTheme and another folder Image inside it. Copy the following text on editor and save it as manifest.json in MyTheme folder.

{
   "name": "name_of_theme",
   "theme": {
      "colors": {
         "bookmark_text": [ 255, 255, 255 ],
         "frame": [ 255, 255, 255 ],
         "ntp_background": [ 45, 42, 41 ],
         "ntp_header": [ 0, 0, 0, 1 ],
         "ntp_link": [ 255, 255, 255 ],
         "ntp_section": [ 68, 68, 68, 0.3 ],
         "ntp_section_link": [ 255, 255, 255 ],
         "ntp_section_text": [ 255, 255, 255 ],
         "ntp_text": [ 255, 255, 255 ],
         "tab_background_text": [ 0, 0, 0 ],
         "tab_text": [ 255, 255, 255 ],
         "toolbar": [ 0, 0, 0 ]
      },
      "images": {
         "theme_frame": "Image/theme_frame.png",
         "theme_ntp_attribution": "Image/theme_ntp_attribution.png",
         "theme_ntp_background": "Image/theme_ntp_background.png",
         "theme_tab_background": "Image/theme_tab_background.png",
         "theme_toolbar": "Image/theme_toolbar.png"
      },
      "properties": {
         "ntp_background_alignment": "bottom",
         "ntp_background_repeat": "no-repeat",
         "ntp_logo_alternate": 1
      },
      "tints": {
         "buttons": [ 1, 1, 1 ]
      }
   },
   "version": "3"
}

Replace "name_of_theme" with the name you want to give to the theme.

Now you require following images in the Image folder:

theme_frame.png

theme_ntp_attribution.png

theme_ntp_background.png (Put your photograph as this image)

theme_tab_background.png









theme_toolbar.png

You can download the images from this page.

Next step is to pack the theme. Type the following in the address bar of the chrome browser:
chrome://extensions/
Click on Pack_extension under Tools.
Click on Browse for Extension_root_directory
Chose MyTheme Folder
Click on Ok.
This will create two files MyTheme.crx and MyTheme.pem.

Now you have to open the .crx file using Chrome browser. You can do this by typing the following in the address bar:
file:///path_to_MyTheme.crx

Save the file and the theme is installed.

Google Chrome Browser on Ubuntu with nice themes.

As per Google the Chrome Browser for Linux is under development. For Ubuntu user it is a fairly developed Browser with Flash working and even themes could be installed from Google Chrome Themes Gallery. Look at the Mariah Carry Theme on my Browser running on Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope:

I have installed Daily Build of Chromium Browser available on following PPA:
http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu
the GPG key can be added from the following command:
sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 4E5E17B5


For some people what I have installed from PPA is Chromium and not Google Chrome, although, both are same browser. If you want to install with the name Chrome here is the link to Chrome .deb package. 

Tux Paint Open Source Drawing Software for Children.

I installed Tux Paint on Ubuntu for my grand daughter but while teaching her how to use it I have fallen in love with it since I can't paint. It has an option called Stamps which can be used to insert images on the canvas like the following images of the Sun, Seagull and 3 types of houses on the following painting:

Talking about my lousy painting I painted this one using GIMP.

Install new Opera 10 on Ubuntu

Opera 10 was released on 1st September and I tried to upgrade since the Opera deb repository was already available on my software sources file. Then I noticed that I had not added the Opera GPG Key. I added the key:

$ wget -O - http://deb.opera.com/archive.key | sudo apt-key add -

and I could upgrade to the new version.

How to talk using Pidgin 2.6.1 on Ubuntu Jaunty.

Pidgin 2.6.0 was released on Aug 19 2009 and brought good news to Linux users that it comes with Voice and Video support.

This is how I installed on Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope.

Removed existing Pidgin:

sudo aptitude purge pidgin pidgin-data libpurple0 libpurple-bin

Add the following repositories to Software sources:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/pidgin-developers/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/pidgin-developers/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Add signing keys:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys A1F196A8

Update and install:

sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install pidgin

For audio/video calls:

Double click the buddy and
Click on Conversation/Media in the new window.

If the buddy does not have audio/video facility the options will be greyed out.

Google Applications for small business owners.

My son-in-law launched a company this month and was looking for low cost email, Document Sharing and website solution and I discovered standard edition of Google Applications which is giving more than he asked for and only at the cost of a domain registration.

Printing Mailing Labels using gLabels

When there are weddings you need to send large number of invitations. You need to build postal address database and then print mailing labels. I had prepared address database for my daughter's marriage in 2001 but lost the file due to loss of hard disk on my old desktop from which data could not be recovered.

Another marriage is planned in Nov 2009 and since advance period of rail reservations is 3 months formal letters of invitations are required to be sent by first week of Aug 09.

This time I have prepared the Database in Spreadsheet on Google Docs so that it does not get lost. I have shared the document with others so that addresses could be fed into it quickly.

I bought Mailing Labels from a Stationery shop and the page format is 210x306 mm which looks non-standard. The product is from Oddy and perhaps obsolete (meant for Dot-matrix Printers).

I tried to create the Labels in Open Office but it has selection for Brand of paper and Oddy was missing from the list and no Brand was close enough.

Then I searched for "Printing Labels on Ubuntu" and discovered gLabels and installed it.

gLabel also had many templates but I decided to create one for Oddy for the paper size I had. There is a Template Designer accessible through File Menu. I selected custom size of paper and entered the measured dimensions. Then I entered the dimensions of the Label, no of Labels on the paper (16), horizontal and vertical pitch etc. carefully and saved the template but it was not satisfactory. Then I opened the XML file of the template from ~/.glabels as text file and edited and saved it.

gLabel does not accept spreadsheet data, therefore, I saved it in CSV format and used it through "Merge Properties". For entering text on the label, I created the text objects and inserted the merge fields into them.

I could print the Mailing Labels perfectly on the non-standard stationery. Before printing I went into the printer set up and selected Custom paper size.

Opera Unite provides webserver, chat room, file sharing right from your PC.

Opera Unite was launched on 16th June 09 and I decided to give it a try on first day. When I clicked on the download link on Opera Unite page it was nothing but version 10.00 Beta of Opera browser. I downloaded the .deb package and installed on Ubuntu Jaunty Jaackalope.

When I opened the browser there was Unite icon on side panel. I could use myopera userid and password to setup the system on my PC. Immediately I could start the chatroom on my PC and send the link to my friends and chat with them.

I had developed some content regarding my experience on steam Turbines using Tiddlywiki in 2007. I could immediately setup website on my PC using that content.

For sharing photos and files I don't need to upload them anywhere. My friends could download directly from my PC.

All these things have become so easy for common user.

Uzbl the new usable browser on Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

Uzbl is a new Webkit based browser with minimal graphical interphase. For opening a URL you have to type 'o URL' and it opens. See the screenshot below:

For adding a bookmark you have to type 'B'. For loading a bookmark you have to type 'u' and for loading a URL from history you have to type 'U'.

Actually o, B, u, U etc are keybindings defined in the config file and B, u and U also call the required scripts.

Tabbed browsing is not available but you can open any number of windows for different URLs.

This browser is being developed on Archlinux and easily installable from AUR. The bookmarks and history use the utility dmenu which has been patched for displaying the URLs vertically and available as dmenu-vertical in AUR.

After installation you can start the browser with 'uzbl' command but you get a blank browser window which does nothing since there is no default configuration. You need to create 'uzbl' folder in ~/.config and copy the following two files in it:

cp /usr/share/uzbl/examples/configs/sampleconfig ~/.config/uzbl/config

cp /usr/share/uzbl/examples/configs/cookies ~/.config/uzbl/

For bookmarks you need to create 'uzbl' folder in ~/.local/share and copy the file:

cp /usr/share/uzbl/examples/data/bookmarks ~/.local/share/uzbl/

and create an empty session file:

cd ~/.local/share/uzbl

touch session

You can also create a launcher uzbl.desktop:

[Desktop Entry]

Encoding=UTF-8

Name=Uzbl

GenericName=uzbl

Exec=/usr/bin/uzbl %u

Terminal=false

Type=Application

Categories=Application;Network;

Icon=applications-internet

All the above settings are required even on Archlinux on which it is being developed since the developer is trying to just give a browser with all other things managed from scripts outside the browser, although, thy are giving 'example scripts' and the settings given above configure these example scripts to work in conjunction with the browser.

Now let us come to installation of uzbl on Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope.

For installing the recent version of Webkit Library add the following sources to /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/webkit-team/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main

deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/webkit-team/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main

to import keys

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 0x991e6cf92d9a3c5b

and to install

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install git git-core libwebkit-dev

to compile and install uzbl

git clone git://github.com/Dieterbe/uzbl.git

cd uzbl

make

sudo make install

After installation on Ubuntu you need to create uzbl directory in ~/.config and ~/.local/share and copy/create the files as stated above.

In addition, Ubuntu does not have $XDG_DATA_HOME set to ~/.local/share by default and dmenu-vertical is not available in Debian/Ubuntu repositories. These things are required by the example scripts.

There are various ways to set the environment variable $XDG_DATA_HOME but I simply decided to put the following line in the load_url_from_bookmarks and insert_bookmark scripts for the time being.

XDG_DATA_HOME=~/.local/share

I have downloaded dmenu-4.0 sources from:

wget http://code.suckless.org/dl/tools/dmenu-4.0.tar.gz

and the required patch from:

wget http://evaryont.me/dmenu-vertical-history.patch

and compiled dmenu-vertical:

tar -xvzf dmenu-4.0.tar.gz

cd dmenu-4.0

patch -p1 < ~/path-to/dmenu-vertical-history.patch

make

sudo checkinstall

I used checkinstall to make .deb package of dmenu-vetical.

VOIP to Gtalk, YM, MSN using Gizmo.

I have setup Gizmo on Ubuntu and called couple of friends (Windows users) on their Gtalk and Yahoo Messenger and had voice chat today and surprised them.

Gizmo has not updated its Linux version since Nov 2007 and there is lot of criticism by Linux users on its forum. I had to use OSS to make the audio work.

Once setup and audio checked through free sip call to Echo Test I could easily import the Gtalk and YM buddies and could have text chat with online buddies but voice chat did not work. This was happening because they were setup as user_id@xmpp.chat.gizmoproject.com (Gtalk) user_id@yahoo.chat.gizmoproject.com

Then I added one contact as user_id@gmail.com and called him and had successful voice chat.

Booting sidux from iso with persistent

I wanted to try sidux since long time. I downloaded the KDE lite version and searched on Google for 'sidux boot from iso' and got the page Booting with "fromiso" of sidux manual.

I created sidux folder at the root of an ext3 partition and copied the iso, vmlinuz and initd.img as per instructions and created following entry in /boot/grub/menu.lst

title sidux 32bit from ISO
kernel (hd0,X)/sidux/vmlinuz boot=fll quiet vga=791 fromiso=/sidux/sidux.iso persist
initrd (hd0,X)/sidux/initrd.img

After booting into sidux KDE 3.5.10 desktop I configured static IP through Ceni. Then I added noxorgconf and nonetwork boot parameters so that sidux does not create xorg.conf and reconfigures the network on reboot.

Since I don't like browsing with Konqueror I installed Iceweasel.

After reboot I found my static IP configuration intact and Iceweasel available.

The persist boot parameter creates folder fll at the root of same partition and uses the remaining space on the partition.

Installation of Archlinux from archiso-live-2009-05-24.iso

I had earlier installed Archlinux after downloading Core installer and following Beginners Guide on ArchWiki.

After reading about Archlinux Live CD archiso-live developed by godane on latest issue of Distrowatch Weekly I decided to give it a try and also use the installer.

I was very much impressed with the Live CD with Xfce as default and choice of LXDE, e17, gnome, openbox-session, Fluxbox by pressing F1 key at Slim Login Manager. The normal user login is arch/arch and root login is root/ArchLinux

The choice of applications is also good:
Blender, Comix, GIMP, GPICViewer, Rawstudio, mtPaint in Graphics category
Arista, Asunder, Audacious, Audacity, Avidemux, Elisa, Hydrogen, VLC in Multimedia category
Abiword, Gnumeric, HomeBank in Office category.

I decided to give the installer a try. Initially, the installer produced some errors after partitioning stage while copying files. I googled for the errors and decided to logout and login as root.

The installer worked this time and copied all the files successfully and failed at Bootloader stage (which I did not want to use anyway).

I found the installation in order except /etc/fstab (which was meant for Live CD) and some tweaks needed in /etc/rc.conf file DAEMONS line. I used the Beginners Guide to build /etc/fstab and also corrected the DAEMONS line.

I made an entry in present /boot/grub/menu.lst as suggested in Beginners Guide and I could boot into the installed Archlinux.

I found that the installer did not delete the Live CD user "arch", therefore, I logged in as arch password arch and everything is working fine.

I updated the system through pacman and found upgrades to clamav, docbook, pidgin, xchm and openvpn which I applied.

Ulx 9.04 Ubuntu based LXDE Live CD with all applications.

Today I am putting new iso of Ulx 9.04 on Linuxtracker.org which has Ubuntu 9.04 minus Gnome (replaced by LXDE), gnome-panel (replaced by lxpanel), Nautilus (replaced by PCManFM), gnome-terminal (replaced by LXTermina), gedit (replaced by Leafpad) but all other applications on LXDE Desktop. I have removed things which refer to Ubuntu like usplash (replaced by LXDE splashy), Ubuntu Docs, Ubuntu themes and wallpapers, Ubufox etc, GDM Ubuntu Themes. COMPIZ is also removed (replaced by Openbox).

It has gnome-games, Brasero, Movie Player (xine based), Rhythmbox, Pulse-audio, F-spot, GIMP, GPICViewer, XSane, Network Manager, Add/Remove, Computer Janitor, Language Support, Network Tools, Synaptic, System Monitor, Update Manager, Ekiga, Evolution, Firefox, Pidgin, Transmission, Open Office (minus Dictionery, language support). In short everything Ubuntu 9.04 has.

Some people may say it is as heavy as Ubuntu itself, may be. I have not tried to make it lighter by removing applications but I am sure the distrolet is lighter than Xubuntu.

In addition, I have written a small utility "mykeyboard" which helps in adding a Keyboard Layout to the default US Layout and added fbxkb to toggle.

Please download from torrent, seed it for some time, try it and post your comments here.

Ulx -- Ubuntu 9.04 distrolet with LXDE.

Today I made Ubuntu 9.04 LXDE Live CD and uploaded the iso on LinuxTracker. This is an experimental effort to get user feedback. At present it has Firefox 3.0.10 OpenOffice 3.0.1 gnome-games Leafpad only.

I am going to add multimedia applications and upload another iso image shortly.

Users are requested to write their feedback about Ulx 9.04 under comments on this blog post.

xserver crash on restart taught me optimised use of memory.

I have a machine which originally arrived with 128 MB RAM and Linux Distributions with 2.4 series kernels (Mandrakelinux 9.1) worked well with this memory. Even Ubuntu 5.04 with 2.6 series kernel worked vey well.

Subsequently I added 256 MB RAM to the machine making it 384 MB to use Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake properly.

I soon learnt to use lightweight Window Managers to have good speed with later versions of Ubuntu and also tried Debian and Arch Linux to further optimise thye memory usage.

The video setting in the BIOS was on "Auto" and 72 MB RAM was getting allocated towards the video leaving 312 MB for the OS.

Although Ubuntu says that its Live CD works with 256 MB RAM it is very slow and even 312 MB is less for effective use.

Recently I downloaded Ubuntu 9.04 Beta Live CD and in order to use it effectively changed the video setting in the BIOS to minimum (8 MB). The memory available for the Live CD was 360 MB (instead of 312 MB) and it worked very well.

Subsequently I forgot to restore the BIOS setting and continued using Linuxes installed on the hard disk (Ubuntu Hardy, Archlinux and antiX). They were working very well till I decided to change the Window Manager on Ubuntu Hardy and logged out of GDM to change session. To my surprise, the xserver crashed. I checked restart of xserver on Archlinux and antiX and it crashed on those distributions as well.

I googled for "xserver crash on restart" and read many bug reports and tried some remedies. Ultimetly I discovered the BIOS video setting and changed it to "Auto" once again.

Then I remembered that I had tested "logout" on Ubuntu 9.04 Beta Live CD and xserver did not crash.

I changed the BIOS video seiing to 16 MB and found that Archlinux (with xserver 1.5) did not crash on restart but Ubuntu Hardy Heron (which has xserver 1.4) required 32 MB setting in the BIOS.

Today I upgraded to xserver 1.6.0 on Archlinux and it is not crashing on restart with minimum (8 MB) video setting in the BIOS (like Ubuntu 9.04 Beta). With this setting the available memory for the OS has jumped from 312 MB to 367 MB.

Debian Live LXDE persistent mode

I was very happy that Debian Lenny had Live LXDE Desktop CD. I had tried it briefly earlier. Today I decided to use the persistent mode i.e. changes saved in live-rw file and used on reboot.

As always I copied the contents of Debian Live LXDE iso to a 1 GB partition and edited /boot/grub/menu.lst to make following entries:

title Debian Live LXDE
root (hd0,7)
kernel /live/vmlinuz1 boot=live union=aufs ip=frommedia swapon timezone=Asia/Kolkata persistent noprompt
initrd /live/initrd1.img

Explanation of boot parameters:
boot=live union=aufs This is copied from live.cfg file in isolinux directory
ip=frommedia This tells the system to read configuration from /etc/network/interfaces saved from earlier boots.
persistent This tells the system to look for live-rw home-rw partitions or files on the hard disk
noprompt This tells the system not to wait for removing Live CD on shutdown/restart

For persistent media I created live-rw on one partition (mounted at /media/disk) as follows:

$ dd if=/dev/null of=live-rw bs=512M seek=1
$ /sbin/mkfs.ext2 -F live-rw
$ sudo mv live-rw /media/disk

Just to check that persistent includes the installed .debs I installed ttf-indic-fonts:

$ sudo apt-get install ttf-devanagari-fonts

and the fonts are available on reboot.

All my personal settings are available, although, I did not create separate home-rw because live-rw includes changes to /home/user

Couple of steps on Zenwalk 6.0

Finally I have made Zenwalk 6.0 usable to my liking.

Setting static IP through Ethernet
Remove Wicd from Startup services:

Start Control_Panel (zenpanel}
Click on Startup_Services
Uncheck Wicd
Click OK.
Click on Session_and_Startup in XFCE Settings Manager.
Click on Application_Autostart
Uncheck on Wicd.
Close

Reboot.

Set up through netconfig (Just enter the required information):

$ su
Password:
# netconfig

Restart network (if you know how) or reboot.

Gmail Display problem
This is how Slackware site looked on Iceweasel on Zenwalk 6.0.

Similar problem was happening in Gmail. After reading on Zenwalk Forum I added the following lines in Device section of xorg.conf and it worked.

Option "AccelMethod" "XAA"
Option "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps" "on"

Zenwalk 6.0

I decided to try the new Zenwalk 6.0. As usual I copied the contents of the iso to a partition and found nice article on Zenwalk Wiki. Accordingly I edited the existing /boot/grub/menu.lst:

title Zenwalk 6.0 install
root (hd0,X)
kernel /kernels/ata/bzImage
initrd /isolinux/initrd.img

As per instructions I selected "Exit setup" and got root shell where I mounted the extracted iso:

cd /
mkdir zeniso
mount /dev/sda(X+1) /zeniso
setup

and started the installation. When it asked for source selection I selected "Install from a pre-mounted directory" and when asked for the directory where the installation files are:

/zeniso

and continued the install. I did not install the bootloader and edited the /boot/grub/menu.lst once again to make an entry for Zenwalk:

title Zenwalk 6.0 (on /dev/hda6)
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28.7 root=/dev/sda6 ro
initrd /boot/initrd.splash

Next step was to connect to internet on newly installed Zenwalk 6.0 but I had to struggle because Wicd 1.5.9 does not detect the wired ethernet connections properly. I had to setup as follows:

$ su
Password:
# ifconfig eth0 down
# ifconfig eth1 192.168.1.3 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
# route add default gw 192.168.1.1
# exit

I am yet to find out a way to save the above configuration.

After choosing the timezone the clock did not indicate my time. I discovered that Zenwalk was assuming that the hardware clock was set to localtime (which is actually UTC). After struggling a little I found the file /etc/hardwareclock and changed the word 'localtime' to 'UTC' and it worked.

I also installed ttf-indic fonts and flash-plugin using Netpkg.

Zenwalk 6.0 has XFCE 4.6 which I had briefly used on Arch Linux the day it was released and now trying it on Zenwalk.

I am going to love antiX

I tested two Live CDs today. The first one was Debian LXDE Live downloaded from cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/release/current-live/i386/iso-cd/ It booted into nice LXDE Desktop with GIMP and OO apart from usual LXDE software. But there was no Network Manager and since my present router is not connected to NIC I had to manually configure the USB router by editing /etc/network/interfaces and /etc/resolv.conf But it is a good Live CD for machines having as low as 64 MB RAM. The Live CD does not have an installer and you can only have frugal type of install on hard disk.

The next Live CD was antiX-M8 'Intifada!' with IceWM as default Window Manager but believe me no distribution has such lovely IceWM fully configured:


I had Debian Lenny installed on one partition since Sep 08 which was not updated and the updates were huge. I decided to replace Debian Lenny with antiX since it is based on Debian Lenny with 2.6.27 Kernel.

Flash MPEG everything just works out of the box.

I am going to love antiX.

Enjoying the latest software on Arch Linux

I had installed Arch Linux on one of the partition in Sep 2008 but did not use it much since I was forced to use vesa driver because ati driver had a bug and it did not work on secondary monitor. Although Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron had the same bug I could update the driver through Debian Sid in June 2008 after the bug was removed.

Arch Linux is a rolling distribution and latest packages are periodically transferred from testing to main repositories and you need to just upgrade the packages through pacman.

Xorg 7.4 was moved to extra repository on 30th Nov 2008 and I was eager to use it to test the driver. I upgraded Xorg and on reboot found that although the ati driver worked for the secondary monitor the touchpad did not work. After exploring I found that this version of Xorg had input hotplugging enabled by defaut. After reading on this page I added the following packages:
xf86-input-evdev xf86-input-vmmouse xf86-input-synaptics

and it worked.

Then I did the system wide upgrade and now I have:
Linux Kernel 2.6.28
Xorg 7.4 (xserver 1.5.3) working without xorg.conf
Gnome 2.24
Open Office 3.0.1
GIMP 2.6.4
All latest packages on LXDE

Upgrading to Open Office 3.0 on Ubuntu

Open Office 3.0 has been released but it is not available on Ubuntu 8.04 or 8.10. Fortunately it is available on Launchpad repository. Add the following repository to your software sources:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/openoffice-pkgs/ppa/ubuntu hardy main

Replace hardy with intrepid if you are running Ubuntu 8.10.

Get the PGP Key from the following URL:
http://keyserver.ubuntu.com:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x60D11217247D1CFF

Save the PGP Key to a text file and add it through Authentication tab and click Import Key File… on Software sources.

If you already have Open Office 2.4 you can do:
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade

otherwise you can install the entire office suite through:
$ sudo apt-get install openoffice.org

Making custom Ubuntu Live CD using Remastersys

I use LXDE desktop on Ubuntu and wanted to make a Live CD from the hard disk installation. It was so easy using Remastersys.

I added Remastersys repositories to the sources:
deb http://www.remastersys.klikit-linux.com/repository remastersys/

Then installed Remastersys:
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install remastersys

There was a menu entry "Remastersys backup" which I clicked, selected "Dist" and clicked on ok.

After some time "customdist.iso" was created in /home/remastersys/remastersys

I burned the iso to a CD and it works.

My custom distribution is Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron on LXDE with all updates, gnome-games, Brasero, Mplayer, GPIC Viewer, xpdf, Synaptic, Firefox 3.0.5 (with Adobe Flash Player), Pidgin, Transmission, OpenOffice.org 3.0.1, PCManFM, Leafpad, Xarchiver. The size of the iso is 686.5 MB

My review of KDE 4.2

I am not a fan of KDE or Gnome since both have become too heavy for the kind of machines I use but I try when something new comes up. I had tried KDE 4.0 last year and wrote about the Desktop Widgets.

Since KDE 4.2 is having many new features i decided to install it. I have Ubuntu 8.04 on this machine but KDE 4.2 is not available for this version. I decided to install Kubuntu 8.10 for a change. After installation I applied all the updates. Then added the following repository:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-experimental/ubuntu intrepid main

and the package signing key through the command:
gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 493B3065 && gpg --export -a 493B3065 | sudo apt-key add -

Then updated through Adept Updater tool in the system tray.

After reboot it was KDE 4.2.

Some people don't like the application launcher of KDE 4 for them the old launcher has been added as a widget called traditional menu based launcher. There are many widgets and I have added Analog clock, CPU Temperature, weather, Twitter and Calculator and you can see them on the screenshot below:


In addition the KDE Window Manager has Desktop effects like COMPIZ and you can see the cube below:

My review of KNOPPIX 6.0

I am long time user of various Linux distributions and also love Live CD distributions. I had never tried KNOPPIX before. I downloaded KNOPPIX 6.0 yesterday and burnt a CD. I never burn a CD to try new distributions but I had to for KNOPPIX (that story for some other day).

KNOPPIX 6.0 comes with LXDE (which I love) as default but it also uses COMPIZ as default (this I did not know till the desktop appeared).

My review: I have fallen in love with default COMPIZ settings on KNOPPIX 6.0. See the screen shots below:

Cube with glxgears rotating inside



and this is what happens when you close an application;

Live CD has following applications:
GnomeMplayer with multimedia codecs (I tried wma and mp3)
GIMP ImageViewer xpdf
CCSM LXRandR
gconf-editor NM_Applet(0.70) PCManFM Synaptic Wavelan Xsceernsaver
elinks Icedove Iceweasel Pidgin Java6_Web_start
Open_Office_3.0.1
Leafpad LXTerminal Orca File_search_utility XArchiver

on LXDE/COMPIZ
with Linux 2.6.28 and Xorg 7.3 (xserver 1.4.2)

Putting small Linux Distros on one CD.

Every Linux lover often carries many linux distributions each on one CD or DVD. In addition you need some utilities like Super Grub disk etc. There is a cool script through which you can combine small distributions The latest version can be used to combine:
-customized-
Debian Live binary.iso
-compilation-
Ultimate Boot CD ubcd.iso
-very small-
DSL dsl.iso
Puppy puppy.iso
Feather feather.iso
SliTaz slitaz.iso
-rather small-
Slax slax.iso
Slax modules *.lzm
DeLi Linux deli.iso
TinyMe timyme.iso
anitX antix.iso
Wolvix wolvix.iso
-partitoning and specialized-
RIPLinuX riplinux.iso
SystemRescueCd sysrcd.iso
Trinity Rescue Kit trk.iso
Parted Magic pmagic.iso
GParted Live gparted.iso (can't be on same CD as Debian Live)
Offline NT Password & Registry Editor ntpasswd.iso
EASEUS Disk Copy diskcopy.iso
Clonezilla clonezilla.iso
PING ping.iso
-installers-
NetbootCD netbootcd.iso
Ubuntu (hardy or intrepid) mini.iso ubuntu-mini.iso
Debian (etch, lenny or sid) mini.iso debian-mini.iso
Fedora 9 netinst fedora-boot.iso
openSUSE NET iso opensuse.iso
Mandriva boot.iso mandriva-boot.iso
Arch Linux FTP or CORE arch.iso
FreeDOS base or full CD fdbasecd.iso/fdfullcd.iso
-utilities-
Any floppy disk image *.img or *.imz (could be Super Grub Disk, MS-DOS, etc.)
Any floppy disk image games/*.img or games/*.imz (for bootable DOS disk images with games, like this one)
GRUB4DOS grub.exe grub.exe
DBAN iso image dban.iso
Balder (FreeDOS) automatic
Memtest86+ automatic

The site is at Tuxfamily.

TinyCoreLinux

TinyCoreLinux the wonderful 10 MB Linux Distribution on which you can add applications and run.

You can see icons of aterm, panel, applications_browser, emelfm, Leafpad, Firefox and GIMP on Wbar.

I have downloaded the wallpaper and added Tinycore logo using GIMP.



Here is the wallpaper image without Wbar for you.


and here is the original image:

Rediscovering SLAX .

I had checked SLAX in Feb 2008. Today I decided to download version 6.0.7 and try it. As before I mounted the iso and copied it to a spare partition and edited grub to add the following entry:
title SLAX 6.0.7
root (hd0,X)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram ramdisk_size=6666 rw changes=/dev/hdd(X+1) autoexec=xconf;telinit~4
initrd /boot/initrd.gz
boot

As before I opened KDE Control Center, clicked on Regional and accessibilty, Keyboard Layouts and removed all Keyboards except US English and added India. I also added ttf-indic fonts.through System Administration, Font Installer.

Then I searched for Firefox 3 Slax module and downloaded it with following dependencies:
SQlite 3.6.6.2
libgconf2-4
libgnomevfs2.0
liborbit2
Gecko-Seamonkey-Proof-Of-Concept 1.0.0

As before I copied the modules to /mnt/hddX/slax/modules and activated them through System/Slax Module manager.

Tiny Core Linux -- New arrival on small Linux Distributions.

As per the Welcome page on Tiny Core Linux:

Tiny Core Linux is a very small (10 MB) minimal Linux Desktop. It is based on Linux 2.6 kernel, Busybox, Tiny X, Fltk, and Jwm. The core runs entirely in ram and boots very quickly.

It is not a complete desktop nor is all hardware completely supported. It represents only the core needed to boot into a very minimal X desktop typically with wired internet access.

The user has complete control over which applications and/or additional hardware to have supported, be it for a desktop, a nettop, an appliance, or server, selectable from our online repository.

I came to know about it on Ubuntuforums and downloaded it immediately. Generally I don't burn a CD for trying Linux distributions but mount the iso on a directory on /tmp and copy the contents to a spare partition. This time I did not copy even to the spare partition since it is 10 MB only and copied it to /tinycore on Ubuntu. I added following entry to /boot/grub/menu.lst:

title Tinycore

root (hd0,X)

kernel /tinycore/boot/bzImage

initrd /tinycore/boot/tinycore.gz

It booted within seconds to JWM Desktop using Xvesa. Since my BIOS is quirky the desktop was showing funny colours on Xvesa with 1024x768 resolution. I changed the resolution in .xsession file to 640x480x16 and the colours were normal.

Since the resolution was not acceptable I installed Xorg but it failed with fatal xserver errors. I posted on TinyCoreLinuxForums and got prompt replies. There is a bug in xserver 1.5.1 for intel driver and I had to manually add the modules agpgart, intel-agp and drm before startx command. I was also advised to add the modules to /opt/bootlocal.sh so that they are loaded before start of X server.

I installed Opera and posting this from Opera running on TinyCoreLinux, Xorg 7.4.

Kazehakase 0.5.4.2 on Ubuntu Hardy Heron

Kazehakase version 0.5.2 is available on Ubuntu Hardy Heron which has bugs. When you click on preferences it crashes with segmentation fault. I decided to install the version 0.5.4.2 available in Debian Lenny and downloaded the .deb and tried to install. The package complained for following dependencies to be installed:
libgcrypt11
libgnutls26
libxcbrender-util0

I downloaded .deb packages for the above libraries from Debian Lenny and installed and could install kazehakase .deb package.

Kazehakase is much lighter than Firefox and has all the features.

Ubuntu Hardy Heron Cube.

This machine specs:
description: Desktop Computer
product: EXPO-LD
vendor: HCL Infosystems Limited
version: 1.XX
description: CPU
product: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.66GHz
-memory
description: System Memory
size: 256MiB
display UNCLAIMED
description: VGA compatible controller
product: 82915G/GV/910GL Integrated Graphics Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation

Trying Fedora 10 Live CD.

Today, I have downloaded Fedora-10-i686-Live.iso and burned a CD. sha1sum was ok. CD integrity was ok. CD was working well on Laptop.

On Desktop it was not going beyond liveuser login screen and I think that the system was failing to detect the hardware.

I posted on Fedora Forum then searched bugzilla and found bug for the intel chipset of the desktop.

Meanwhile my forum post was replied and I was advised to boot in run level 3 and copy the following xorg.conf:

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "single head configuration"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105+inet"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "vesa"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

After copying the above file I could boot with startx command into gnome.

Updating the distribution which is not running.

Many people like me have more than one Linux distributions on different hard disk partitions but only their current favourite is in use. How to update the other distribution which is not in use?

I am using Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex and would like to update/upgrade Arch Linux which is on the other partition. I am double clicking the partition and it gets mounted at /media/disk then I am using the following commands in the terminal:

$ sudo chroot /media/disk
bash: /dev/null: Permission denied
# pacman -Syu

I just ignore the error message and type the pacman -Syu command.

Arch Linux gets updated and upgraded without running it.

ZTE MG880 CDMA USB Modem on Puppy Linux

Reliance India provides ZTE MG880 CDMA USB Modem and one friend of my son-in-law arrived yesterday with a Laptop on which Windows partition was reformatted recently and he had no driver CD for the Modem. In addition sound was not working on the Windows desktop.

I popped in Puppy Linux 4.0 CD into his Laptop and showed him how to mount his Windows NTFS partitions and started playing one MP3 file from D:/ drive. Then I opened one .doc file into Abiword. He was very much impressed. Then he gave me the USB modem and asked me how to connect.

Puppy Linux could detect the modem but could not load the module. I googled and found the solution which was working on Ubuntu.

# modprobe usbserial vendor=0x19d2 product=0xfffd

and to use the following /etc/wvdial.conf file:

[Dialer zte]
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Modem Type = Analog Modem
Phone = #777
Username = 93XXXXXXXX
Password = 93XXXXXXXX
ISDN = 0
SetVolume = 0
FlowControl = Hardware (CRTSCTS)
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Dial Command = ATDT
Baud = 460800
Stupid Mode = 1

The above configuration did not work on Puppy. Then I found that Puppy was linking the modem to /dev/USB/ttyUSB0, accordingly, I changed the Modem= line to:
Modem=/dev/USB/ttyUSB0

After changing the line I got following error:

PPP daemon dies (exit code =2).

On checking /var/log/messages following errors were found:

(none) daemon.err pppd[6304]: Can't open options file /etc/ppp/peers/wvdial: No such file or directory
(none) daemon.err pppd[6317]: Can't open options file /etc/ppp/peers/wvdial: No such file or directory
(none) daemon.err pppd[6352]: Can't open options file /etc/ppp/peers/wvdial: No such file or directory

I copied the file /etc/ppp/wvdial into /etc/ppp/peers directory and finally, I could connect to internet.

He wished that there was Skype on Puppy. I got the link for .pet for Skype on Puppy Linux Forums and installed.

I think I have added one user in the Puppy Linux community.

Standalone Compiz Fusion on March Linux.

As written on this post I had installed March Linux 2.0 on hard drive. I added Standalone Compiz Fusion to the installation


and discovered that like other Window Managers Compiz Fusion could be installed without any particular desktop environment.

PCManFM is already there to provide the wallpaper and File Manager. There are two LXPanels like Gnome on March Linux 2.0. What else you need?

March Linux 2.0 installation on hard drive.

March Linux 2.0 is based on Arch Linux with openbox, pcmanfm, lxpanel, lxappearance etc. The developer has built a Live CD using Linux Live scripts and SLAX kernel. Beta1 iso of the Live CD is available here for testing.

I tried the Live CD and liked it. Although, installation is not possible directly from Live CD, the developer started writing a procedure on its wiki.

I tried to install but it failed at Kernel installation stage at Step 6. The developer advised to use this procedure on ArchWiki. I had to create /proc /sys /dev directories before starting the ArchWiki procedure, which was required only for kernel installation. All the packages were already available on the hard disc through Step 4 (Unsquashing modules) of March Linux wiki page.

Grub could not be installed properly but I could boot the system after adding following lines to existing /boot/grub/menu.lst

title Marchlinux (on /dev/sda3)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda3 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26.img

title Marchlinux (on /dev/sda3) fallback
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda3 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img

Before booting I created /etc/fstab and configured /etc/rc.conf file.

I could run the installed system on the hard drive. I created a user before starting X.

Since it is based on Arch Linux I could upgrade to the latest packages on Arch through pacman. There was an error during upgrade and I had to remove a symlink /usr/lib/klibc/include/asm

I am very happy to use this variant of Arch.

Restore Grub

I am using Linux for more than 4 years but never used Grub command line to restore grub. I have used Puppy Linux Live CD GUI to restore Grub. Today I decided to use Grub command line.

$ sudo grub
[ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For
the first word, TAB lists possible command
completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the possible
completions of a device/filename. ]

grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
(hd0,2)
(hd0,5)

grub>
root (hd0,5)

grub> setup (hd0)
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)"... 16 sectors are embedded.
succeeded
Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0) (hd0)1+16 p (hd0,5)/boot/grub/stage2
/boot/grub/menu.lst"... succeeded
Done.

grub> quit
$

There is Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex installed on (hd0,5) and I installed OzOS (Ubuntu variant using E17 Desktop) on (hd0,2) which overwrote the MBR. Now I want to format (hd0,2) but if I do it without setting up the Grub's MBR pointing to (hd0,5) my system would become un-bootable.

By the command root (hd0,5) I have told Grub to use the menu.lst of (hd0,5) while setting up.

Simple, isn't it, only three commands:

grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
grub> root (hd0,X)
grub> setup (hd0)

Now suppose I want to boot OzOS installed on (hd0,2) I can edit menu.lst on (hd0,5) and make an entry to boot it but I decided to use some other way which is not commonly used to boot Linux.

$ sudo grub
grub> root (hd0,2)
grub> setup (hd0,2)
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0,2)"... failed (this is not fatal)
Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0,2)"... failed (this is not fatal)
Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0,5) /boot/grub/stage2 p /boot/grub/menu
.lst "... succeeded
Done.

grub> chainloader +1
grub> boot

I have setup grub of (hd0,2) on the partition itself instead of MBR and edited menu.lst as follows:

title OzOS
root (hd0,2)
chainloader +1

When I select OzOS on grub installed on MBR it "chainloads" the bootloader installed on (hd0,2) which opens another boot menu (listing menu.lst of hda3).

Wireless Networking using Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG, Netgear WG111v3 802.11g Adapter [realtek RTL8187B]

As written in this post I had set up Wireless network at my daughter's home. We had a guest who wanted to use the router to check his mail. I went into the router configuration, disabled MAC Filter temporarily so that he could connect and I could get the MAC address of his Laptop in the router. I added the MAC address to the filter and enabled it again.

Later on I requested him to give his Laptop to me for a few minutes.I inserted Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex Live CD in the machine and started Live session. I wanted to set up the wireless access through the Network Manager. The network card was Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG which was detected and configured as wlan0, but the Network was not available. I followed the following procedure to make it work:
Right click on Network Manager Icon
Click on Edit Connections
Click on Wireless Tab
Click on Add button
Enter SSID: Default
Put checkmark on System settings
Click on OK.

The Network Manager will say:
Connection Established

The guest was also carrying an old Laptop and Netgear WG111v3 802.11g Adapter [realtek RTL8187B] (USB). I decided to check it on the Desktop which had wired network. The adoptor was also detected and set up as wlan0 upon insertion in the USB slot. I had to apply the same procedure to make it work.

This was my first experience of setting up wireless on Ubuntu.

Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex experience.

I am at Bhubaneswar and using my daughter's old desktop. This can be called old because it arrived with 128 MB RAM and another 512 MB was added 3 years ego on my advice. This desktop is not used by my daughter but my granddaughter who will be 3 years old next month. I have installed Ubuntu in dual boot with XP on it starting with version 5.04. In fact two partitions are dedicated to Ubuntu on this machine.

It already had Ubuntu Hardy Heron and Dapper Drake. I decided to remove Dapper and install Intrepid Ibex and downloaded RC because I may be leaving this place after Diwali.

Generally I don't burn any CD for installing Ubuntu (or any other distribution unless essential). I copied the Live CD to a spare partition and edited grub to boot.

Normal Live session produced blank screen. I added "xforcevesa" to the kernel line in grub and could boot into Live session and tried to install.

Ubiquity failed to detect the hard disk partitions which I promptly reported on Ubuntuforums. Then I found a new option "Create a USB startup disk" in System/Administration. I used it and it copied the Live CD to the USB stick.

After setting BIOS to boot from "USB-HDD" I could boot into another Live session after selecting "Safe Graphics Mode" on boot menu. Ubiquity failed to detect the hard disk once again. Meanwhile, there was a reply to my post on Ubuntuforums that in case I was booting from hard disk partition, it gets mounted at /cdrom and hard disk partitions (of that disk) are not detected by Ubiquity..

Since I had not deleted Live CD from the hard disk partition, it was getting mounted at /cdrom although, I was booting from USB stick (Funny Linux). I reformatted the partition and rebooted and this time Ubiquity detected all hard disk partitions.

I installed Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex replacing Dapper Drake.

But I was not happy with vesa driver. I replaced it with intel in xorg.conf. I could get up to GDM login screen and system hangs with blank screen. I had to do hard reset.
I booted into the Hardy Desktop and looked at /var/log/Xorg.0.log (of Intrepid) and found many lines with this error at the tail:
[mi] EQ overflowing. The server is probably stuck in an infinite loop.

I added openbox and found that I could login to openbox session with intel driver without any problem and concluded that I should disable visual effects on Gnome. I posted once again on Ubuntuforums and was advised to remove compiz and compiz-core.

I went into single user mode and removed compiz and compiz-core which removed many other packages related to compiz.

Now I could boot into Gnome with intel driver.

NB: While using vesa driver I did update and upgrade before removing compiz. It can be concluded that compiz is not working on intel driver as on updates till now.

Setting up Home Network on SIEMENS SL2_141 Wireless Router.

Today I have set up Home Network consisting of two Laptops and one Desktop on SIEMENS SL2_141 Wireless Router at my daughter's residence in Bhubaneswar.

The Router arrived with default settings in Bridge Mode. In Bridge Mode ISP userid and password is supposed to be given from the computer, therefore, only one machine could be connected to internet. I tested the internet connection through one Laptop and then used it to configure the router to alter the WAN settings from Bridge Mode to PPPoE. After changing the mode and rebooting the router it logged into ISP account and surfing could be done from the two Laptops and the Desktop connected through NIC to the router.

The next step was to prevent the neighbor from surfing the net on his Laptop using our router. The router was showing the MAC addresses of the two connected Laptops. I entered the MAC numbers in the MAC Filter and enabled the filter allowing access only to these machines.

I also changed the Admin password of the router, otherwise, a smart neighbor could easily disable the Mac filter of the router and surf from his Laptop.

I feel I have secured the Home network.

Listening to musicindiaonline streams on Linux

Musicindiaonline is a nice site having music collection in most Indian Languages. The site requires you to have Real Player installed but the problem does not end there. The browser you are using should have the necessary plugins to run embeded Real Player. Most people use Firefox on Linux, therefore, I will take the example of Firefox to proceed futher.

So you have installed Real Player if not go to Real.com/linux and download the latest real Player 11 binary. You can install in /opt directory (which is default) or in your /home directory.

After installation see whether plugins are installed in Firefox by typing about:plugins in the address bar. Look for the plugin listed as:

Helix DNA Plugin: RealPlayer G2 Plug-In Compatible

File name: nphelix.so

If you don't find it you need to copy the following files from /opt/real/RealPlayer/mozilla directory to /mozilla/plugins directory:
nphelix.so nphelix.xpt

In default Firefox installation this directory is /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins. If you are runnimg Iceweasel on Debian it is /usr/lib/iceweasel/plugins

After copying the files check once again by typing about:plugins in the address bar.

If you have totem installed you need to remove the following totem plugin files which may conflict with running Real Player on this site:
libtotem-complex-plugin.so libtotem-complex-plugin.xpt libtotem-gmp-plugin.so libtotem-gmp-plugin.xpt

Now go to Musicindiaonline and play your favorite song.

Some songs use the dnet codec which is not present in Real Player 11 due to licensing restrictions. You can search for follwing files on Google:
ddnt.so.6.0 dnet.so.6.0

Copy these files in /opt/real/RealPlayer/codecs and create the following symlink:
ln -s dnet.so.6.0 dnet.so

Enjoy.

Archlinux has least memory usage compared to Debian and Ubuntu.

I install any Linux distribution after copying the contents of ISO to a spare partition on the hard disc. For Archlinux I found this page. As suggested I downloaded FTP USB variant of the ISO from this page. I copied the contents of the ISO as suggested using dd command. The document suggest to chain load the installation boot menu. It did not work for me, therefore, I made following entries in /boot/grub/menu.lst to boot the installer.

title ArchLinux Installation System
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 lang=en locale=en_US.UTF-8 ramdisk_size=75%
initrd /boot/archlive.img

I use the USB port of my router but the installer, although, detecting it as eth1 did not work, therefore, I connected it through NIC. The installer downloaded and installed the base system. The Grub of Archlinux does not detect other operating systems on the hard disc, therefore, I did not install it to MBR.

After rebooting I made necessary entry for new Archlinux installation in existing Grub

title Arch Linux
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/72e737f9-5faf-4103-bfe2-84f9a01c4dab ro
initrd /boot/kernel26.img

and rebooted again into Archlinux base install.

On the other PC I had opened the very elborate Beginners Guide on Archwiki. I followed it step by step to install xorg and LXDE desktop environment.

The screen of my Laptop is broken and I use it as desktop through external monitor. The ati driver of Xorg 7.3 has a bug and as expected I got blank monitor on startx command.

In order to generate xorg.conf for xvesa I used the following method:

# pacman -S hwd
# hwd -u
# hwd -x

The last command generated xorg.conf files for vesa and ati driver. I copied the vesa file to /etc/X11/xorg.conf and could boot into LXDE desktop.

I find the LXDE desktop on Archlinux having less memory usage compared to Ubuntu Cli and Debian Cli.
On LXDE+LXTerminal (Debian uses 104 against 67 by Arch)

$ free -m
  Total used free shared buffer cache
Mem:  312 67 244 0 5 32
-/+buffers/cache  29 282

My tryst with computers.

Some people from my ET batch were taken to manage IT in BHEL Hardwar in 1974, therefore, as such "Computers" had already arrived when I began my career.


I have seen those stupid cards on which Data was being punched and fed into mainframes but was not personally involved.


During 1983 to 87 I was responsible for accepting the 200 MW Steam Turbines of NTPC and was getting fed up with manual calculations with Calculators and learned to write small programs in BASIC. I asked my brother-in-law to bring a calculator from USA which had P1, P2 etc programmable keys in BASIC worth $80 (I think $ may be around Rs 30). I had put even Steam Table Formulations in those keys apart from mass flow calculations.


IBM PC arrived in USA in Aug 1981 and also in India soon thereafter but I could use only in late eighties since I was transferred to NTPC project in 1987. I have used 386 and 486 in DOS for dbase and lotus. I use to get data on floppies from Mainframe in print file format and had developed program to extract it into dbase.


Windows arrived in 1990 but I could use it only in 1996 when I came to Delhi. I made a complete Tender Proposal in Excel linking many sheets and even files wuth macros. Soon I became an expert to remove viruses from Word and Excel files.

I bought my home desktop in 1997 with genuine Windows 98 and was using Star Office and free software only.

I bought personal Laptop in 2004 which came with Mandrakellinux 9.0 CDs and my tryst with linux began.

How to post your top 10 used terminal commands.

You need to use terminal on Linux often. Recently one Ubuntuforum member posted this code to know the top 10 terminal command used by you.

history | sed -e 's/  / /g' | cut -d " " -f3 | sort | uniq -c | sort -n | tail | sort -nr

You can copy the code and paste in the terminal and know the results.

Yamaha opl3sa2 sound card configuration through alsaconf on Debian Lenny.

I have mentioned about my old desktop Intel Pentium 200 Mhz MMX 32 MB RAM many times on this blog. This PC has a legacy ISA sound card Yamaha opl3sa2. Puppy Linux has the utility alsaconf which detects and configures this card correctly. I have 256 MB swap partition and Puppy Linux uses it, therefore, it is possible to take out the Puppy Linux CD and play an audio CD.

I have recently installed Debian Lenny on this desktop and wanted to configure the sound card. I installed alsa-utils package which contains alsaconf. Following are the steps:
$ su
Enter root password
# apt-get install alsa-utils

After installations I got alsaconf in Debian menu. I clicked on it and had to enter the root password once again.

The first screen read:
No supported PnP or PCI card found. Would you like to probe legacy ISA cards/chips
yes

Next screen:
Probing legacy ISA cards might make your system unstable. Are you sure to proceed.
yes

Next screen:
Probing legacy ISA cards. Please select the drivers to probe.
[*] opl3sa2 Yamaha OPL3SA2+

I deselected other drivers.

Next screen:
Shall I try all possible DMA and IRQ combinations? With this option, some unconventional configurations might be found, but it will take much longer time.
yes

Next screen:
Configuring opl3sa2. Do you want to modify /etc/modprobe.conf
yes

Next screen:
OK. Sound driver configured. ALSA mixer used to raise volume. You can change the volume later.
ok

Next screen:
The mixer is set up now for playing. Shall I try to play sound sample now?
yes

After sound card configuration I downloaded the command line CD player cdcd (it was dcd on earlier versions of Debian).

# apt-get install cdcd

Now I am happily playing an audio CD and surfing through Kazehakase (or elinks) on Debian Lenny IceWM desktop on 32 MB RAM.

How to password protect a file on Linux?

This question is being asked by many Linux users on various forums. Today I searched on Google and found this solution on Linuxforums.org.

You can password protect a zip file. Proceed as follows:

Create a directory for this experiment, and name it test.Copy a few files and paste them into this directory so it isn't empty.Now open a terminal and enter:$ zip -e -r test test
Enter password:Verify password:Delete the directory test.

Now you have a file test.zip which is password protected.
zip with -e option encrypts the contents of the zip archive using a password. This encrypts with standard pkzip encryption which is considered weak.

However, the job of protecting the file is done, because even the root user needs the password or should be a hacker to decrypt.

I also recommend the method suggested in the comments.
If the filename is test,
$ gpg --symmetric test
It will ask the password and create a file test.gpg
Delete the file test.

Use the following command to open the file:
$ gpg test.gpg
It will ask the password and create the test file.