Going Minty: LinuxMint 14 MATE

I am not an Ubuntu fan. I stand firmly on the RPM side of the fence. Not for any one particular reason. If I could pinpoint it, it could probably be the pain I felt installing Debian for the first time. And the glacial pace of it's development. This from someone who began installing Linux from tgz files. So I shied away from anything deb based.
I also particularly loathe the fact that Ubuntu focused their efforts on the desktop (they were roundly criticized for not contributing to the kernel at one point) and then glorifying themselves as the Linux distro for everyone. They committed what many geeks consider a cardinal sin, put their name above that of Linux itself. In fact, while other distributions were calling themselves Linux-this or Something-Linux, Ubuntu decided that their brand was to be put forth in place of Linux. And that effort has worked. Ask most users who have heard of Linux and most likely they have heard of Ubuntu. In fact, I used to find people who know about Ubuntu and not heard of Linux. Worse off, they knew nothing about other Linuxes other than Ubuntu. "What's RedHat?". And when they started to refer to the kernel as the Ubuntu kernel, I was convinced my position to not support them was right.
But all that changed because of Gnome3. There is no secret how I hate Gnome3 and how it represents the Gnome developers attitude to their community of users. I have a problem because I have been using Mageia, having followed the community there after the split with Mandriva. And they have decided to focus on the KDE desktop while offering Gnome3 as an option. A lot of people think that in the past, Mandriva is a KDE distro but in reality support has been equal for Gnome. In fact, the pervasiveness of the Mandriva/Mageia Control Center makes the decision style choice more than a technology one. I am writing this on XFce on Mageia, which I consider a viable alternative, although at times it feels like a downgrade.

Xperia Mini Pro with Android 4.0

I had read somewhere that Sony were going back on their promise to make Android 4 or Ice Cream Sandwich available on my Xperia model, the Xperia Mini Pro. This is the small phone with the slide-out keyboard. And since I was mainly running Linux, I didn't bothered to install the Windows-based desktop companion software. 
However, the phone running Android 2.3 had been acting strangely, slowing down mid-app and losing sensitivity on the touchscreen when the battery was below 50%, which was quite often. The last straw was when the home screen started crashing. Of all the things I'd expect Sony to put care into was their home screen app. It was their own software. It is the main thing that all top brand Android phone makers have to differentiate between each other. So I booted into Windows, ran Windows Update (which took a long time because I hadn't booted it up for a long while) and removed the old LG desktop companion software. Several reboots later, I plugged the phone in and installed the companion software without a hitch. I thought may be there would be a patch or something for their home screen software. I was surprised to see the Android 4 update available. I reckoned what the heck, I had time to burn.

Contrary to my experiences with the LG P500 Optimus One and it's companion software, the Sony Xperia version  was very easy to use. It was clear that Sony called upon it's decades of consumer appliance experience in designing the interaction process of the software. It was download, plug-in the phone, wait for it to restart and Android 4 booted up on my phone. 

Well, not exactly. There was one hitch. The software installed a driver while it was trying to communicate with the phone or Windows installed a driver just before the software was about to be uploaded to my phone. Windows told me to reboot to activate the driver which I didn't. I went ahead to try upload the new Android OS. Anxious minutes passed and nothing happened. Finally, a window popped up from the Sony companion software asking me why was it taking so long. It assured me it was safe to unplug and replug in the phone. I did so and still nothing happened. Finally, I decided to follow what Microsoft told me to do and rebooted the PC. I went through the process again and it uploaded the new OS and rebooted in less then 30 minutes. Start to finish, it was slightly less than 2 hours, much of that spent on Windows update and rebooting. Which was much better than the two day horror I went through with the LG P500 upgrade from 2.2 to 2.3. That story will have to wait for another time.

That was about 2 weeks ago. What's the verdict?

Kicking the tyres on Ubuntu ZorinOS 6

A friend of mine asked me to install Linux for him. Now, I get that request a lot but this friend of mine isn't your typical PC user. In fact, he had 'graduated' from Windows XP to the Macintosh recently and was facing some other problems on that platform. It wasn't too hard for him, it just required for him to think in a different way.
He wanted me to convert a low-end laptop he bought so that he could try Linux out and eventually send the laptop to his parents. He understood the problems Windows can be but wasn't sure how his parents would deal with a Macintosh. He chose Linux because he has seen me lock down a PC using Linux and was keen on reducing the support calls from his parents. Why not a tablet, which seem more appropriate given their design is to limit the user to one app at a time? His parents understood the PC and would find this slab of glass too futuristic to deal with. Like my parents.
Since my friend was going to do the support himself, I had to choose something that was easy to support and support would be available easily to him. Plus it had to look cool. My go-to distro is Mageia. It's is extremely easy to support but Mageia2 with Gnome3's spectacular dive into utilitarianism, the looking-cool factor is gone. KDE was tempting but I've been down too many rabbit-hole support calls with KDE when the user tries poking around with the settings. I'm sorry but while I love KDE's customability, it's not for the newbie who may be overwhelmed with choice.

I looked around and finally, settled on ZorinOS. On paper, it was perfect. Powered by Ubuntu means that a lot of resources are out there (people and webpages). But it also has the cool factor down to a pat. So I downloaded the ISO, loaded it on a USB disk with unetbootin and loaded it up on the MSI CR650 laptop.
Which disto had the first graphical installation tool? I'm not sure but I was using OpenLinux in 1998/9 (before Caldera was bitten and became evil) and it had an graphical installation tool. This means it has been around a long time and that by now, all the major kinks should have been worked out and all we have to look out for are the small stuff, the details. Well, I'm not sure why, but after installing all the files, ZorinOS wanted to install Grub on the USB disk. "No matter," I thought, "I'll just change it so that it'll install it in the right disk." Well, the place where to set that setting was the same screen as setting up a custom partition scheme, way back in the beginning. So I had to set up the custom partition scheme in order for it to install Grub in the right place. I deemed this the lesser evil than dealing with which version of Grub was I looking at and the non-standard device numbering it has.

Mageia2 Upgrade Survival Guide

It's been over a week since I upgraded my netbook to Mageia 2. I'd like to share what I've learned so far and hope it would be of use to someone. Given that my experience is on a netbook, the smaller screen size may have an influence on how well Mageia behaves. But my expectations before I upgraded was high since I had Mageia 1 and had no problems with it. I will update this from time to time as I find out more things and install Mageia on more boxes.

First Things First
Backup. No two ways about it. With the cheap network storage available, it's nuts not to back up. If you don't have 50Gb Box.net account, get an external hard disk. Just back it up somewhere. You don't want to be sorry.

The Upgrade 
If you are doing the software upgrade (as opposed to an upgrade using a DVD/CD), I strongly recommend to set to "download the files first". I once did a software upgrade on a previous version without it and upgrade broke halfway through. I had to do a disk upgrade/install to recover. Once the upgrade is done, it will ask to reboot and you will rebooted into Mageia 2.
If you are doing a disk upgrade, make sure you pay attention to the disk partition information screen. Preferably, do this while you are awake. I had a friend who thought it would be nice to start it in the middle of the night and wake up to a new system. You guessed it, he clicked through not realizing the installer had asked to delete the entire hard disk. In fact, the installer didn't do that by default. He thought he was being smart by checking the partition manually. With one eye closed.

Welcome to Gnome3
If it isn't clear already: Gnome3 is nothing like Gnome2. Here are some of the things to get used to in Gnome3

• Everything changed - accept it and you won't go crazy. In fact, don't even think of this as an upgrade to Gnome2. Gnome2 just melted away.
• Doing the Gnome3 jab. That is the move you do when you move your mouse to the top left hand corner of the screen to do anything: change windows, move between workspaces, run applications. Deeply reminiscent of the move rappers do to pretend scratching a record as they rap. I gave up and got a trackball instead
• Remembering the name of the program you want to use. Because the fastest way to get to an application is to type the name of the application in the search box on the top right corner of the screen.
• Add programs to the favorites bar for quick access. Right click on application icons to add it to favorites bar for easy access.
• Using multiple workspaces needs getting used to. Gnome3 developers claim that workspaces are now unlimited. They are referred to as either "down" or "up" not numbered as they were before. You can move applications to other windows by right-clicking but then they can become nuisance to get to. Do the Gnome3 jab and click on the workspace. Alt-Tab will get you there too but if you are the type that sorts windows according to workspaces, alt-tab will bounce you between workspaces and it can get confusing.
• By the way, Alt-Tab switches between programs. To switch between windows of a program, say between multiple windows of Firefox, use Alt-~ instead. Learn that.
• The top panel can't be hidden. For a system supposed to be tablet friendly and thus limited-screen-space friendly, this is strange. I used to set my top and bottom panels to Auto-hide and thus moving my mouse to the top or bottom to reveal the panel was normal. Which essentially means that the Gnome3 UI designers made the same thing I used to on Gnome2 harder by making my target smaller.
• Access Advanced Settings, the next step up from Systems Setting, like it is a separate application. Strange? Not really because it is a separate application. Go there to set advanced settings such as the size of fonts, what to do when you close the lid of the laptop and putting back maximize window button.
• The over-bearingness of the Gnome3 UI designers. Talk about a nanny-state. Discard the notion of choice (and thus individuality). Nobody wants different screensavers, right? It's too difficult. Gnome3's policy is very clearly: "less choice is good" and "go somewhere else for it". Okay, I'm sorry if I said that Gnome3 removes a person's individuality. They constantly remind you of who you are at the top right corner of the screen. Bizarrely, their stand that "the options are not gone, just hidden" is an invitation to hacking. Which brings me to my next point...

Extensions.gnome.org is you friend. 
Extensions are basically Javascript hacks to give users access to the hidden options in Gnome3. They are not part of Gnome proper so use the same judgement you use for installing browser extensions. Just go to extensions.gnome.org in a browser to install individual extensions. Here are some of the the important gnome3 extensions to install to add back some of the functionality taken away.

• alternative status menu - give me back my hibernate capability. And does anybody know whether Suspend is Sleep or Hibernate. The discussion I read from the Gnome developers clearly indicate that they thought that Suspend was a state that "you could take out your batteries" and recover from that. Clicking Suspend on my machine only put it on Sleep mode. Pull out the battery and it's a reboot. 
• Left/Middle-message-tray - take control of the bottom right corner. You will find yourself fighting with Gnome3 over it because that is were you move the mouse to see the messages bar. The Gnome3 UI guys forgot that's also where the bottom scroll arrow button for maximized applications is. Oh wait, they removed the maximize window button.

Mageia 2 Upgrade Success

I've just completed upgrading my HP Mini1000 Netbook (1GB RAM 60GB HD) using the in-place / seamless upgrade option. Seamless is not the word to describe it. Took a few hours because I chose to download all the files first. I didn't have access to an external DVD drive so this was forced on me. It felt forced because a notification came up saying that there will be no new updates for the current installed distribution (Mageia 1). A bit premature don't you think?

A few minor hiccups and surprises

• Surprise! The Marvell drivers automatically detected the network when I plugged in the network cable. In the past, required a reboot with the cable plugged in to enable the interface. 
• Hiccup. My on-board Broadcom Wiress NIC failed to work. Had some experience on this before when I first migrated Mageia so I knew what to do. Went into Mageia Control Center (MCC) and tried configuring the wireless card. Came back with response saying it needed the dkms-broadcom packages but was not part of the main distribution. Ignored link to generic Linux firmware and driver. Enabled Non-Free Repositories and re-configured network in MCC. This time it loaded the drives ok. But.. 
• Hiccup. ..still couldn't connect. Entered the right SSID and key and key types. Finally gave up and allowed the Gnome Network Center control over it. It is an option that is off by default below the advanced section. Turned it on, Network Center asked for password. Gave it and it connected ok.
• Hiccup. Mouse clicking is set to off by default. Took me some time to figure that out. Enabled it again on the Settings dialogue.

< rant > Over first impression of Gome 3 is bad. But that is because it reminds me so much of Suse Linux's gnome schema. And that was a huge stumbling block to productivity in a project I was working on a few years back. Back then it was confusing descriptions and duplicate descriptions for 2 different programs. Some free advice to the Gnome UI guys: Forget "Applications". Try "Work", "Play" and "Connect" and sub-divide from there. Put a Mageia Icon to replace the Applications and offer those three choices when it is clicked.

And why keep trying to look like Windows 3.1  Program Manager with the big icons? It was a bad design. Nobody missed it in the move to Windows 95.

The MCC was also hard to find. This is nuts because it is so central when setting up Mageia for the first time. Some Gnome settings apps could not configure the underlying components because MCC denies them access. Case in point: Wireless Network configuration. 

What makes this version worse is the thick window borders. I can see and fit less in a screen. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to open a text editor, set it to "Always on top" and takes notes over another application or webpage. Maybe I can configure the border thickness, I haven't figured it out yet. 

What compounded my frustration is that I installed a Mac yesterday. I know that since Apple sets the hardware, there is no surprise when you first turn it on. I will take that as one end of the scale. But the problems that I face today is less about the wide-range of hardware Linux has to support. It feels like we just are making life harder for us for the sake of making it harder. 

Let me scream this again:  " I HAVE A GREAT SYSTEM. I CUSTOMIZED IT AND IT WORKS FOR ME. WHY DO I HAVE TO KEEP REINSTALLING AND STARTING OVER?"
< /rant >

Mandriva or Mageia?

I've been putting this off long enough. I am a long time Mandriva user from the days of Mandrake. Not exclusive, of course. It's the distro I use at home and on my laptop at work. I promote it to novices and other Linux users alike. I think I use it because it appeals to the lazy part of me. I get things done with little or no hassle. No fireworks. Not too much bling. Not many surprises.
Ever since it was forked into Mageia, I realized that I would soon have to choose. But since there was nothing concrete from the fork, I waited. Then Mageia 1 came out. I waited some more. Now the new Mandriva is out. The updates are getting fewer and father in between for my  Mandriva 2010 Spring. Normally, it is that time when I turn on the backports repo and feed off that while I read the forums about possible show-stoppers. There wasn't much in the last few releases. So I think there shouldn't be much in the way.
I guess the real question is, how do I choose which one. I use Gnome on Mandriva, so there is that Gnome 3 choice also. After see-sawing back and forth I've decided to burn LiveCds of both to kick the tires a bit.  Only Mandriva doesn't have that anymore. And they only support KDE with a new tablet like interface.
The Mandriva upgrade instructions look frightening, largely because the English is confusing.

When you use --download-all option urpmi will download all the packages first and then begins to install all of them. It is strongly recommended option for migration to a new release with urpmi. It is used to provide reliable update, you need to download and update a lot of packages. If you do not use this option and during update process you face Internet connection problems, you will get a very bad situation when only part of system will be updated, that will result in problems with correct system working.

I'm having nightmares about my former Russian  math tutor repeating that to me again and again. Signs of influence from the Russian investors?
Not everything is going against Mandriva. There is no PLF in Mageia, so I'll need to figure out how that works out for me.
This is one of those times I want to shout out, " I HAVE A GREAT SYSTEM. I CUSTOMIZED IT AND IT WORKS FOR ME. WHY DO I HAVE TO KEEP REINSTALLING AND START OVER?" Especially with stuff like wine setups lying around, upgrades means re-configuring those again.
I find it funny complaining about change. Especially from someone who has probed monitor refresh rates  to configure X windows (Look it up kiddies. There is no more spectacular way to make your monitor into a paperweight).  Change is why I don't have to do that anymore. But I think we have reached a plateau. Hopefully my choices won't lead me to cliff at the end of that plateau.

Mandrive 2010 Spring Rocks!

I am purposefully making the title a bit more showy with the hopes that it get ranked better by the search engines. SEO this ain't. But I feel a responsibility to do so because I have been using Mandrake and later Mandriva for so many years. I've lived with it's idiosyncrasies and sometime severe limitations but more recent versions have repaid my faith. But just as the more recent version, Mandriva 2010 Spring came out, I read of the discord amongst it's developers and the desire to fork it. I won't comment on the politics but as a distribution Mandriva 2010 delivers.

I am writing this on a HP Mini which many has been written by others, shouldn't be able to install a standard distribution but is yet running Mandriva 2010.

It is sad that most reviewers out there take the easy way out and install the Mandriva Live version and use it to pass judgement. Installing Mandriva 2010 from the DVD (officially called Mandriva Free) is a different experience. It does have it's bumps due to it's commitment to go open source all the way, in the way of Flash and Java. However, that can be worked around.

..upgrading finally works.

I think I will have to dedicate the next few entries to how I've installed Mandriva (for the last several versions) with the hope that some one reading this may find it of some use. This is above and beyond my other post on moving or upgrading distributions. I am overjoyed to announce that finally, choosing the 'upgrade the distribution' finally works. Everything transitioned ok from Mandriva 2010 to 2010 spring on all my machines. No loss of shortcut or even non-standard applications (ie. installed from non-Mandriva RPMs or sources not added yet (yes PLF, I am talking about you :) )). I've even tried it from Mandriva 2009 Spring and it works ok. This is a big deal because I tend to loose sooo much time with the transition (backing up, installing fresh, updating and restoring files). Yes, upgrading does take a long time, on the average of 2-3 hours. But that is 2-3 hours of unattended installation

Minding It - Part 2

I am determined to make this work. This meaning Zoneminder (www.zoneminder.com). I had it working, sort of, on my VMWare Server-ed Mandriva 2006. But even though it ran, there were numerous errors about shmget and shared memory. Zoneminder consists of several applications, with some controlling others that do specific tasks and each of them exchanging information. My guess is that some information exchange is happening through shared memory: program A loads up stuff into memory and then passes a pointer to program B that does something to that stuff (although Inter-process communication could be involved too). I can see why the author does it. Multiple instances of program can load the same kind of stuff based on different configurations while program B doesn't care about where the stuff came from... it'll take it and process it. Sorta like program A makes batter and program B cut the batter into square shapes to be made into cookies.
Ok, off the food and onto business. My guess is that I am facing problem with shared memory because I am running it on a VM, VMWare Server Beta to be exact. So the next option would be to run on a real physical memory. (actually, the next option would be to it run on something similar like VMWare Workstation, which I-Will-Do-Soon(R)). After the couple of installs I've done, I think it is safe enough to try it on my main machine at home because I don't use apache or MySQL extensively there and the dependent libraries won't probably mess up my main apps there. I am severely tempted to use an older version of a Zoneminder (zm) rpm to weed out dependencies. This is faster than the 'configure-->find out missing lib file --> find rpm for lib file --> get and install lib file --> configure' treadmill. But I've decided to take the long way just in to find out what libraries are actually needed if I was any other person doing this on any other distribution. Experiencing this as any other guy is important for the overall user experience. I am not even going to install the rpm for the perl serial and x10 stuff which is not even on the usual Mandriva repositories to see whether zm really needs it.
I already know from previous experiences that the latest version 1.22.1 complies fast and less of a hassle from the previous version I was using. Somehow, the mysterious "unable to create executables" error had magically disappeared. And I found the correct manual this time for this version.

Apparently they had already fixed some of my previous rants.

My apologies to developers. No bizarre config program and defaults being set at compile. Thank you.

To cut a long story short, compile went ok and everything went exactly like it did previously.. that is it broke in the same place. Same shared memory problem. A glance through the sources did no good. The forum has someone one with the same problem and it was full of debug messages. Out of desperation, I started trying all sorts of things. Like I always tell people who have problems with computers and don't know what to do: "This is not a nuclear bomb. Push all the buttons." Changing the configuration somehow yielded a better error message. I told it to that the image fed to it were 8-bit grayscale (liar) instead of the other only option 24-bit color. I think the image I was sending was 8/16-bit color. But it had only two options. Now the error message was something like "Image captured was of wrong size, height, width or color". Image captured! It got something. Hey, it may be a Celocanth but it's still a fish. Maybe if I set the camera to 8-bit grayscale, it'll capture it correctly! Great! Problem is.. I can't remember the password for the camera. No time to do a reset and sacrifice a lamb or whatever it is I need to do to reset the password. Got to pay the bills. Later.

Minding it

I am experimenting with Zoneminder . It looks like a promising digital video recorder (DVR) for closed circuit cameras. My interest is primarily for IP based cameras. In theory, this should be easy. IP based cameras usually have a URL that you could pick up frames or even video streams. So building a DVR software should not be that difficult.
I always start with an RPM because I use Mandriva and this helps keeps updates in check. Also I respect the fact that someone invested time in building a package, so why reinvent the wheel. There were RPMs for Mandriva and tried those. I read the instructions in the manual and strangely enough there were instructions on what to do before installing. Wait a minute, isn't an RPM supposed to handle this. That is one of the points of using an RPM. But the request wasn't demanding, just that apache, mysql and php be installed. So I did that. Installing it using urpmi should have resolved dependancies but I wanted to choose which version to be installed anyway and the GUI tool was better at that. When I finally used urpmi to install it, it complained of some missing perl libraries. Great, I thought, a trek to CSPAN to download the libraries and compile them by hand. I later found out that the libraries were for an optional component and not really necessary. But even after the rpm was installed, the instruction asked me to manually edit a file and run a configuration program.. which was broken. Apparently the package author decided to use MySQL-Max and put in code to detect the version of MySQL that was running. At least he made it easier by clearly marking the offending section in the script file with #FIX ME. Finally, I managed to get the components running and configured the program to capture images from my IP camera.
Or so I thought. I couldn't figure out why my settings would not work when I have read the manuals (two of them) and follows almost every instruction there is. I checked the logs and I found out that the program that was picking up the images was crashing. Apparently it requested memory space incorrectly. Wait a minute, this was serious. This is a beta-level error on a 1.2++ version. Problems with memory allocation should have been delt with a long time ago. This only means one thing.. recompile.
I got the latest STABLE sources and tried to compile it. It got worse. The configure command still required parameters passed in.. for the default web directory and location for mysql? If it can't detect that, what is the program actually doing? The more I fed it CLI parameters, the more it asked. In the end there was about 10 odd CLI parameters. And it still wouldn't compile, complaining about the c compiler unable to create executables! What?!
I little more reading led me to a more stable version, a couple of revisions back. No more c compiler complaints. Now it was the normal missing library files that had to be installed, specifically libjpeg.a (libjpeg), libz.a (zlib-devel) and libmysqlclient.a (libmysql-devel). Configure exited and asked to run a configuration program. Which did a lot of what confgure is supposed to do, esp when it came to component detection. It asked a lot of questions, nearly 30 in all. Most of them should have just been set to default. Too late already. Will compile tommorow.
Lessons Learnt.

1. Good practise for building packages is to seperate the core and optional components.
2. When building a package make sure all dependancies are included.
3. Set up DEFAULTS!!

Oh, I am tired.

Linux Mobile: Running wirelessly

I got the Mandrake-powered notebook to work over the wireless network with AP at home. But no luck at office. This vexed me more than normal because I had a hand in setting up the office wireless AP and was pretty sure of what the settings were. Normally when you build two things that are like, you'd get better the second time, not worse. But since the first time worked flawlessly, I learned nothing from the experience. That is why I don't see problems as obstacles. They are opportunities to learn.
Basically my problem boiled down to the fact my notebook's wireless card can't connect to the office AP using WEP encryption. Without it, no problem. But the kicker was that I was using WEP at home AP and it worked out-of-the-box. No option I tried could get it done. This is the time to take a step back. The thing to do at a time like this is to not go through the things I got wrong. But rather the things I thought I got right. What was it that I did differently at the office than at home?
And there the solution was. The wireless card needed the WEP key to be in hex. It would not use the ASCII key. That I found that out at home but it was fixed easily because the home AP showed the ASCII key I entered as hex and vice versa when I switched between ASCII and hex input. The office AP didn't have that feature. You either entered it in ASCII or Hex and switching between both just blanks out any key previously entered. So I used an ASCII to hex converter at the command line. Apparently these things are case-sensitive. No wonder it wouldn't work. It was just the wrong key! I found that out because I finally decided to change the WEP key at the office AP. I just entered it in hex and did the same on the notebook. It worked straight away. I didn't do this earlier because other people were also using the AP. After changing back the key and more fiddling around I learned that the office AP apparently automatically makes the ASCII key entered into UPPER CASE before converting it to hex value and then using it . The AP vendor committed one of Great Sins of Equipment Manufacturers: Not telling the user of the assumption you made for them (and in a way, about them). I was thankful though they didn't do something boneheaded like configuring the AP to use two keys for every ASCII key entered (that is convert the ASCII key into both upper and lower case and converting each into hex and using them both). It would have made my setup work immediately but it would be Not The Right Way.

Linux Mobile: An out-of-the-box experience

Recap on the installation

• LAN network card: ok. Didn't expect any problems but who knows.

• Graphics display = Vesa only. It bombed using the i910 drivers for XFree. I heard Intel is posting it's driver. Will try that. But not really bad Vesa.
• Power Management = ACPI ok, APIC crashes the system for some reason.
  

I mucked up the NTFS XP partition. It went from ok to just gone. I have backup for the XP but not since the major updates. I think the partition was corrupted as I trying to resize the ext partitions. However, using a Resuce CD, I managed to repair it using parted. Or Parted managed to repair it. All I did was made sure it showed up and pressed a few key. It is amazing what is autoamted nowadays. My wireless network card loaded ok but it still required the ipw2200 firmware package. It only detected it after a urpmi makeover. I made sure all of the other repositiories were visible before I tried again. After the nail biting wait for the dependancy resolution and downloading and installing, it worked like a charm.

Linux Mobile: Introduction

Finally, I got a new notebook at work. I was a bit apprehensive about what distro to put. SuSe Pro is a big pull. Ubuntu even crossed my mind. But realising that this was a notebook that would not have all the pieces working with Linux, I needed most of my experience to make it up and running. And an unfamiliar distribution would make me grope in the dark. Mandrake/Mandriva it was.
In the next course of blogs, I try to document as much as possible what I did right and what I did wrong with the hope it'll help someone out there.
First things first, the notebook is a MSI Megabook, rebranded as a local brand here. Centrino chips, 512MB RAM, DVD-CDRW, 40GB HDD, 3 USB, 1 Firewire, 1 VGA, 1 PCMCIA with integrated card reader (Ricoh), built in Wifi, network and modem. All in a nice 1.8 kg package costing slightly under 1k dollars.
The good news is that I am writing this on the notebook

Moving On Part 2

The last time, I was apprehensive about upgrading. In the past when I've done it, there were several things I didn't like happen.

1. Old settings were carried over literally. There was no way to use the new settings if you use the previous home directories. This happened during an upgrade. I am quit surprised that the newer version of the software, especially for something as important as GNOME, did not notice that the config file was from a previous version and at least offered to replace it with a new version. I understand the concern to keep all the user's settings but should there be an updater program for that.
2. Certain software that were there previously, were not replaced but simply disappeared. This happens especially for software that is not in the vogue or part of the core distribution. I understand that leaving the program there is risking a certain incompatibility but at least if it was there before and there is no replacement during the upgrade, please offer me to leave it there. It happened to Nagios, a network monitoring software I use. It just disappeared. I had to reinstall and reconfigure it every time I upgraded. It is only on the contrib section.

An upgrade is an upgrade, not re-installation and certainly not a fresh installation. Distribution packagers should respect that or loose their user base.

Surviving Mandrake (and NVidia Drivers)

One of the most easiest thing to do on Mandrake is updates. Even kernel updates. But as my previous experience has shown kernel updates with Nvidia drivers are not to be taken lightly. So the first step is to plan.

Do not enter a room without knowing how to get out.

Or something like that.. DeNiro's character in the movie Ronin said at the beginning of the movie. I have to do something similar. In order to compile Nvidia drivers, you need the kernel source. So, if you update the kernel, you need the related kernel-source at the same time. Problem is, if you update with urpmi or Mandrake update, you lose the kernel source.
What we want to avoid.
We update the kernel and the kernel source. Then either we fail to complie the nvidia driver or the nvidia driver fails to work. Need to undo. Mandrake has kept the previous version of the kernel but not the source. If you failed to complie the nvidia driver, then the old one is probably there. But if the driver was a dud, you have to recompile. If you don't have the previous version of the kernel source, you are screwed because most sites don't keep older versions of the kernel source. Or you can use the non-Nvidia nvidia drivers (just change the XF86Config or equivalent file). Yep, drive your Ferrari only in the first gear.
Moral of story. Download the kernel-source rpm and then install it by hand after you have updated the kernel but before you recompile the Nvidia driver.
Before I get feedbacks on "how stupid it is for the need to recompile in this day and age" or "Run for the hills! Recompilin's here!", let me point out that the Nvidia driver recompile process is menu driven. Push button.
I am so anxious I haven't updated my kernel for so long. But I need to. Sigh. Wish me luck.

Surviving Mandrake 2 - Post-installation blues

I have a lot to bitch about: An OpenOffice bug keeps me from saving my files correctly. Firefox still not 1.0 in repositories. And from the comments in the forums, it won't be for sometime. I downloaded the latest version and it had me install itself within the user's directories structure. All the shortcuts would use to old version still but instead created one on the desktop and used that instead.

Surviving Mandrake 1 - After the install..

After running out of excuses, I upgraded my home PC to Mandrake 10.1. I took advantage of the fact that my memory burnt out and needed to be replaced. I took out the 80GB hard disk that was gathering dust and plugged it in. I had bought it a couple of weeks ago with the intention of using it is as an excuse to upgrade. Well, good intentions don't always pan out. It wasn't that I was afraid of Mandrake 10.1. I have been using it on the office PC for some time now and have worked out most of the kinks out. But at home, it had grown so comfortable that I felt no great need to move up. It was doing what I wanted it to do. And it was doing it well. The agony of using Linux. Once things work, they just keep working.
But what can you do? You have to move up. For whatever reason. Mine was that eventually most of the new stuff will require libraries no longer compiled for Mandrake 10. Ok, not entirely true. I still could hunt down those libraries but Mandrake Update has been spoilling me silly. If they don't have it, I usualy don't get it. Bizzarely, this could be the great conundrums of Linux on the desktop. While shelf life or stability or longevity or whatever it is that makes it great for building systems and locking them down for use in the server room is great for the server room, it isn't so for the desktop. Desktop or end-user software moves much faster and change more often on the desktop. So the distributions have to keep up.

But can it do so at the expense of the stability needed in the server rooms?

Now there is an argument for desktop-centric distributions. New or stable? Do you want to drive the latest or the one with the best mileage? Or do you have both?

Back to the story.

The installation was Mandrake-standard: quick, simple and clean. At the end of 20 minutes, I had a newly installed Mandrake 10.1 system, all ready to go and be productive. But of course, it was still a long way to. A couple of pointers.

• Don't worry if the system doesn't detect the Internet during installation. It has never done that for my broadband setup. And I have plain vanilla ADSL (PPPoE to be exact). Just configure it and it'll get it after a reboot.

• Long ago, actually a few distributions ago, I would restart the system immediatly after it started Linux after the installation. Just to make sure everything will come or or come up just like after a normal startup. Nowadays, it no longer is needed. When Mandrake comes up after installation, it really starts afresh, not just continuing from the installation session
• If you do have the time, when partitioning the hard disk, go into expert mode and have it run the extended test on the hard disk. It checks the hard disk thouroughly for bad sectors and the like. You'd think that we'd have left that behind by now. It is optional but if you have the time, might as well find the errors now rather than finding them while you are working. Linux does a fairly good job of this but on the off chance that it could be fatal, it doesn't hurt. Especially if you are not the type that makes back ups.
  
• Don't run update immediately during installation. Run after you boot up the first time, once it has run all those post-installation and run-once-on-first-time scripts. Those scripts might not get updated during the the update or will fail to work with the updated packages. Besides, most of the time, you can't get the Internet up anyway.
  

Mandrake has this policy of including only things that won't get them sued on their respositories. So first stop is EasyUrpmi. Add the plf repositories (both of them) and the contrib repository. I like not swapping CDs from the dive so I add the main repository. Then go to System --> Configuration --> Packaging --> Software Media Manager and uncheck the Installation CDs to avoid swapping them in when you need packages from the CD. From now on, it'll just download them.

The trick to MandrakeUpdate is to find a site that not only has a fast line but not that many users. It is the equivalent of gazing into a crystal ball. Short of those you who actually have the statistics for the usage of these sites and their bandwidth usage, it is trial and error. If the site you choose is too slow, just go back to the Software Media Manage and remove the update_souce repository. The next time you start MandrakeUpdate it'll give a list and you can choose another one.

Other stuff you have to install.

• Flash player - because the internet would be less pretty without it. Get here.
• Java - It's getting prettier and more useful. The best part is that developers are finally understanding that you can use it just in the background. Get it here.
• mplayer - because kaffeine is great but the audio it a bit too soft. Get it on plf.
• decss - hmmm? like above
  

Later

Turning back the clock

I like to use Linux with the mindset of a user. I am very wary when I realise that I am using my 10 odd years of using Linux on and off to solve problems that may be faced by a user. This is a line that I clearly mark.
I am saying this because as Linux goes mainstream, this has to become more important. I believe it is the responsibility of entities that are making money out of Linux to put in the effort to ensure that it can be used by the intended users without having to resort to constant professional help. This is even more so for Linux distribution companies like RedHat and Novell. When more users can use the final distribution, it creates more sales opportunity for them. Let's not put aside the fact that the ease of configuration in Windows is what made it most attractive to businesses. You can shoot yourself in the foot with it (misconfigure till you loose data) but at least you did it with ease and style.
Which brings me to my tale this time. Updating (and all it's ills) are handled with relative ease in Linux. With Mandrake, running Mandrake Update and several clicks later will update the system. Emphasis on backwards compatibility and ensuring inter-dependancy is always maintained usually makes regular updates painless. The most crucial part of regular updates is kernel updates. If you are a business user and you use an enterprise version of Linux chances are you're running with the dinosaurs, kernel-wise. For most of us using the Fedora or Mandrake, kernel updates are not that often but still regular. Most experienced users will point out that there is no race to use the latest kernel. Most of the time they are fixes and security updates, rather than additional functionality. You can skip an update releaste or two but stray not too far.

having a broadband connection is a blessing

Mandrake recently released an updated called kernel 2.6.3-15. I was using kernel 2.6.3-13. I've updated many times before without a hitch. I have an Nvidia card and it is tied to a specific kernel. So after a kernel update, I need to generate a new driver. This means I need the updated kernel sources, too. So after updating the kernel, I downloaded the kernel sources. Having a broadband connection is a blessing.
The Nvidia installer uses the kernel sources to generate a driver. However, the Nvidia installer complained that my sources were not clean. It suggested I do something with mproper. I followed the instructions without success. Since I was using the new kernel, I switched back to the old one to get to my graphical interface. This was easy because Mandrake keeps a link during boot-up (using lilo) to older versions of the kernel. Very thoughtful. After following suggestions from the web, the problem was not solved, I couldn't generate the Nvidia driver and I was still stuck using the older kernel. So I decided to make a permanent switch back to the older kernel. Now, this was not common but it was very easy and over in a few minutes.
Later I wanted to try VMware. This is a cop-out, I'll admit, but sites that use Windows Media Player tend to let me have the multimedia stuff much faster and I wanted to user Yahoo Launch. What these sites do is possible with linux-friendly players like Real Player but the developers tend to layer it with so many pages and Real Player 10 for Linux (based on helix) still balks regularly at sites that play ads before showing the good stuff. Yes, I have heard of Crossover and that is next on my list.
VMWare says during the installation process that it need to recompile something using the kernel sources. However, I had installed the kernel source for kernel 2.6.3-15 but I was using kernel 2.6.3.-13. As part of it's installation, the newer kernel source package removed files from the older kernel source. "So, I'll just remove this version of the kernel source and install the old one," I thought. But after an hour of searching the Internet, I could find only a single source for the kernel source package, a server in South Africa. Apparently, as the new kernel source is updated on mirrors worldwide, the old one is simple lost and never archived. And this site was horrendously slow. Fearing that some other program might need the sources, I hunkered down for a long download and waited. Two rpm commands later, one to remove the kernel source package and another to install the newly downloaded kernel source, I was back in business.

rolling back was not too hard

To be frank, the problen with the newest kernel-source could have been fixed fast enough if I was familiar with building a kernel and the associated processses. But then it probably would have taken more time and crossed the line between the Linux user and the Linux professional.
The good thing about Linux is that eveything is exact. How parts interacts with each other are very regulated by convention or by viture of creating packages or packaging against a specific distribution. Although it took some time, rolling back from a semi-faulty package was not too hard, even for something as complex as a kernel update.

The Pleasant Surprise

I am determined that my children learn the benefits of choice. Especially computing choices. Already at school kids are learning to use computers and more often than not, the computers are MSWindows PCs. If you think MSWindow's dominance in the business world is strong, is even more in the education sector. While Apple is still there and a good choice for the classroom, Apple are pricing themselves out of the classrooms. Apple computers are easy to use and don't exhibit the problems with the interface like MSWindows computers do. When it came to Apple Macs, you just used them. Instead of struggling with the MSWindows GUI and praying it doesn't hang. I have taught kids and I have taught people how to use computers. It is hard enough with adults having to deal with hung PCs while teaching. Add to that the cries for help of helpless children that only distracts them from the lesson being taught. Compounding that is the other childern who are distracted by the cries. Headache Central.

So I decided that since I am using Linux at home, the children will do too. The first main obstacle is quality educational software for kids on Linux. With due respect to all the efforts on the Internet, the quality is not even close to that of software written 5 years ago. Like it or not, I had to run MSWindows program on Linux. The problem was that the majority of the software I looked at were developed using Shockwave or Director. I have yet to find a native solution although everything from Wine, CrossOver Office, VmWare to Bochs has crossed my mind.

So I've settled on Web based educational sites that are normally running Flash. I created an account for each of them and put their faces as the KDM icon. Next, I created shortcuts on the desktop for Mozilla that opens each of the sites. The sites I find that attracts my kids attention the most are PBSKids, Sesame Street and Playhouse Disney Channel. Ok, so my kids are not that old yet. The more the reason to get them to know Linux. Now, I had to repeat this for the younger sibling on his Desktop.

(Which brought me thinking that this type of setting up user enviroments in Linux is not explored throughroughly yet. Think of Novell's ZenWorks for Desktop for Linux or ZenWorks for Linux Desktop.)

Next problem was that I had set the screen resolution to be 1024x768. Not this is ok for me but the sites above came up quite small. And when the Flash activities came on, it became even smaller. My mind was racing at the thought of setting up individual X config files for each of them. I haven't tweaked X config files in ages. Being the lazy type, I began mucking around and lo behold, you could setup individual screen resolutions in GNOME 2.4. What a pleasant surprise! I thought I had gone over GNOME setups over and over again. And yet I never found this. So like my kids, I was learning something new every day. Maybe I should rename this blog into 'The Linux Adventure'.

I don't know why that config option affected me so much. One one level, I felt that someone had read my mind and made that feature. On another level, I felt beholden to the person who decided to put in that feature. I felt so grateful to the people who put their own time an effort into making Linux and free software great. I guess I can honor them by making sure the next generation starts using Linux and making choices.

Splitting Linux

Before those of you who know better howl at me, let me get this straight: I understand that a Linux distribution is not Linux.

But the reality is that people tend to think of it that way, that Linux is a Linux distribution. For a long time people never understood why I wasn't using RedHat, like everybody else. I wasn't using it because I understood that I could go to any Linux distribution and switch back later as long as I was on the Intel platform. For a time RedHat was Linux. I still think that some business that they get is simply just because the users don't know about the other distributions or haven't bothered to take a look. For now onwards, the term Linux will largely mean Linux distributions.

Today I installed Fedora Core 2 (FC2). Now, I use Mandrake on my desktops and a mix of other distributions on the servers. My RH8 servers were looking long in the tooth and I figured out I needed to refresh them. So I got the set of FC2 disks that came with this month's Linux Format and burned disk 3 and 4 from the Internet. As I was configuring them, I became acutely aware of how different it was to configure Linux under FC2 than under Mandrake. As with all of my machines, I install Webmin to help me administer them. That me got me fiddling with the package managers and demonstrating how different the approaches of Mandrake and FC2 was when it came to package management resources. Basically, I was finding it hard to find any of the programs that helped me to configure some of the stuff, mot of the time the programs I was used to on Mandrake but not entirely. Some programs that I assumed were part of KDE were also missing or quite hard to find..

It then dawned to me not only that I was just using a different distribution but a distribution meant for someone else. I was so used to Mandrake, a distribution clearly gunning for the desktop, that I was upset with Fedora for not doing enough to have it as easily configurable as Mandrake. It was ok with me finally because I realized that RedHat/Fedora were really about servers. Both distributions were catering to their consituency and their unique requirements and environment. For example, with a server, configuration is a once off thing and the people using them were expected to know what they were doing. On a desktop, the configuration can change quite often as USB devices are plugged and pulled. Plus, most of the time people don't know or care what they are doing to the computer as long as they can use it.

It is important that Linux distributions become adjusted for the environment that it will live in. This leverages on it's nature to be flexible through the choices of the programs it includes as part of the distribution which includes configuration tools. By adapting to the environment, Linux addresses the unique environment that it will function in be it a server or desktop of today or the embedded device of tomorrow. It is very much a version of tolerance within the space of Linux technology.

Planning as part of life

I'm switching over the ISP connection to a higher bandwidth which also means that I'll be switching IP addresses. This also means the slightly tricky business of moving the DNS server. I'm hosting my own DNS for some strange reason and I have to inform the NIC involved that my domain's DNS server has changed IP addresses. The tricky part comes in because I have only one DNS server but I have to move it and keep the older DNS setting alive for a while. Thanks goodness Linux is so 'not demanding'.
Took out an old Celeron PC with 32MB of RAM(!). Installed Linux on it and installed the bind package. Within a hour or so I have another server ready to do some light work. I configured it so that the Celeron DNS would host slave zones to the main DNS server for a while. Essentially it gets the settings and information about the zone from the main DNS server. After a while, I converted the slave zones to a normal or master zone. I configured the Celeron PC so that it took over the IP address off the main DNS server. The main DNS server was then transferred to use the newer IPs. Finally, I informed the NIC and they'll update their records accordingly.
What surprised me was not that I was able to set up another DNS server in record time but I spent more time planning than actually doing the job.

That is something I credit using Linux for, the tendency to plan stuff out ahead. Linux is extremely powerful and offers 1001 variations of everything. So choosing what to do is very important. It's not enough to decide to do something and just do it it. Ensuring that minimal disruption occurs and detected by the users is as important as achieving what I set out to achieve . Making sure that things can be undone if the goals achieved are not actually what they seem to be is also very important.
The overall concern shifts from whether "Can it be done and what tools do I need to buy to do them?" to "How can I do it using what I have or have to download from somewhere? How can I do it quietly without people feeling a thing." That may not be a paradigm shift but it sure is a shift for the better.