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.