Ubuntu (Karmic) : Wireless Works Once

Managed to change tarriffs on my phone to have unlimited text and web.... Just so long as I don't view any Videos I'll be fine under the "Fair Use Policy" of 500mb.

Found out connecting to "Mobile Broadband" / "Wireless Networking" only worked once. Then when I tried to reconnect, that nice network-manager icon span really fast blinking green and grey, and to stop that I had to click on it and then disconnect to something that I have connected to yet!!

Resolution
Make a script to restart the "networking" and "network-manager". Run this script everytime you disconnect.

1) Create a file called "3gfix" in your home folder.
2) Edit the file with your fav text editor.
3) Add the following lines

#!/bin/bash
sudo service networking restart
sudo service network-manager restart

4) Save it
5) Change the permissions on that file to be executable

Now to run it
1) Click Applications->Accessories->Terminal
2) Type the following and then press enter :)

./3gfix

OR you can

1) press "ALT+F2"
2) Type "./3gfix"
3) Tick "run in terminal"
4) Press Enter or click "Run"

Final Thoughts
Give the Ubuntu Community time to resolve this minor networking issue, patience is a virtue :)

Ubuntu Upgrade : 9.04 to 9.10

Soon Karmic came out, I was a bit heasitant to pressing the "Upgrade Distro" button and decided to wait for 3 months. It felt very smooth ^^. Here is my experience during the upgrade.

During the Upgrade

• Asked if I wanted to keep my original configs for [Networks and vsftpd]

Issues I had

• Services menu item is missing from "System->Administration".
• My apache2 virtual hosts went missing yet again.

Resolutions

• Found an alternative way to managing my Services.
• Had to edit my "/etc/hosts" file to have my Apache2 Virtualhost names back in :)

Ubuntu : Karmic 9.10 : Service Handling

After a fairly smooth upgrade from Ubuntu 9.04 to Ubuntu 9.10. I found System->Administration->Services .... The "Services" GUI is missing in the menu, so I couldn't help but look to see if there is another way and turns out there is :)

The "service" Command Way
A nice clean way of seeing services in action.

service --status-all

Example of seeing a service status

sudo service vsftpd status

The Other Way?
Shows the various services

ls /etc/init.d/

Example of seeing a service status

/etc/init.d/vsftpd status

Final Thoughts
I actually Like the "service" command as it seems more cleaner to look at.

Think I'll check the "Menu Editor" to see if it hasn't accidently been de-activiated. [moments later] Heh, it is missing.

Enabling SLI Technology in Ubuntu 9.04

Getting SLI technology working with Ubuntu 9.04 is a bit wierd to know, yet hopefully in later versions we shouldn't have to keep doing this :) ANYWAY follow these seteps.

You have tried typing "startx" and that didn't work, and you still at command prompt and wondering what to do now... Try this :)

Enabling SLI

0) Backup your old Video configuration just for convience

cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /home/youraccount/xorg.conf-bk

So if that worked before you can restore it back.

1) Find the BusID address to the first PRIMARY card

lspci

An output of the above commad is

04:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G70 [GeForce 7600 GS] (rev a1)
06:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G70 [GeForce 7600 GS] (rev a1)

2) make note of BusID of primary (first) graphics card

e.g. 04:00:00 (last 0 might not be shown but need it anyway)

3) Generate a new Video configuration file

sudo nvidia-xconfig
enter password

You will be brought back to a new prompt.

4) Edit the Video configuration file to enable SLI technolgoy

sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

go to EndSection of Devices section
press Enter
press up arrow once
Type BusID "04:00:00"
Press Enter
Type Option "SLI" "Auto"
press ctrl o to save
press ctrl x to exit

The section should look something like this (Red is the new two lines added)

Section "Device"
Identifier     "Device0"
Driver         "nvidia"
VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BusID          "04:00:00"
    Option         "SLI" "Auto"
EndSection

5) Verify the configuration works

startx

Then open up a terminal window and then type

nvidia-settings

Click on the "screen0"section, it should saying in the "GPUs" section something like

GeForce 7600 GS (GPU 0),
GeForce 7600 GS (GPU 1)

Enjoy :)

Addtional
You may try a different option in the device section of the video configuration file.

Off : As in OFF, don't use the SLI technology.
Auto : auto-select rendering option
SFR : Split Frame Rendering
AFR : Alternate Frame Rendering
AA : Anti Aliasing.
AFRofAA : Alternate Frame Rendering of Anti Aliasing (!?!? not sure of this one haven't tried it)

Personal Note: I believe "auto" maybe better as the device would then pick which RENDER is best for any current situation.

Further Reading
Wikipedia
Ubuntu Forums

Yahoo Pulls Plug On Geocities

A line quoted from a news article made me wanted to document my first baby steps onto the Internet.

"I think GeoCities was the first proof that you could have something really popular and still not make any money on the internet.

"It was a fascinating experiment in the pre-industrial era of the internet."

My first Baby Steps
I was in my teens and discovered the Internet via Netscape for the first time. Then I kept asking a next door neighour at a computer, "How did you do that?". "How is this possible?"... I learnt about this file transfering software called WS-FTP, a free online storage facility called Geocities, a graphics package called PaintShop Pro, the interrupter language called HTML and how it all pieces together.

Thankfully he kept showing me and after a week or so of playing around, I managed to make some mad looking site. Unfortunately I have no picture of my very first site. Yet I will describe it as like a hobby show off site, documenting my favourite toon show ("The Simpsons") and my newly played fav game "Hexen".

It took me an age to get used to using "Paint Shop Pro", I am still amazed I have not turned pro into graphics. Yet I have managed to learn the basics, slicing, making nice effects, feather touching, simple smudging techniques, even made an animation clip of a film credit from scratch (Took me a while).

Whilst taking up a GNVQ course in Intermediate in IT at Henley College and with no qualifications under my belt, only armed with a Geocities site... At the age of 14 I landed my first part-time Web Designer job at Uxbridge college and helped them create their first site ever.


Sounds amazing doesn't it? Really my father was the "IT manager" for Uxbridge College at the time, and after my father initially starting up the web server technologies on their campuses, he was wondering who to give the 'Web Designer' job to, at the time he only knew me who had the skills to create websites, so it saved him having to look for long and concentrate on other important priorities.

After a year of working with them, Uxbridge College, took control and I got made redundant :( They thought they could save money by having some lecturer who only just recently learnt HTML and thought they be able to save some money....The site got shut down for a very long period as it was too complex to look after.

Why was it complex? The Website boasted off it's latest prospectus and it had a multi-tier arrangement as at the time, computers could not handle much rendering (3 Frames worth of pages was stretching it) so I was asked to create a setup system to make the site look even more basic with the user wished it to speed up the browsing. Yes you can safely say I used JavaScript programming langauge in which to create the system.

The screen-shot of the the desktop showed I used Windows95 and never knew of this so called software Open source at the time and only saw and heard of meir hints of Unix [/me blushes]

Further Reading
BBC : Yahoo Pulls Plug on Geocities
Google Finance : YHOO

I Feel Sick Everytime I see windows7 Advert

Having been mainly using Ubuntu and dual boot into XP once in a while just to play games for a while now (Since Ubuntu's first launch) and over time I have seen Ubuntu mature to a point where I can see the founder's vision coming true. Yet just recently I have been feeling wierd :/

Every time I see an advert about Windows7 I get this weird feeling of sick. I am thinking it is because of the following reasons...

Reasons

• Witnessed IE8 banned Ad Video
• Seen Windows7 launch party video
• Digusted reading miss-education about Linux training to "Best Buy" employers
• Been told about the price about Windows7 being £149 (Home Premium Edition) which was interesting seeing the price cut for "Office 2007 Student Edition
• Read the hardware requirements then compared it to Ubuntu's
• Witnessed Microsoft's attempt at making their own Open Source movement
• Saw the boot up speed differences between Ubuntu and Windows7
• Recently saw how this guy's face just beemed jolly as I said "What do you think of Windows7" and how clueless he looked after asking, "What is your thoughts on Ubuntu"....And this is at a Computer Recycling plant, installing XP and Microsoft Office that cost them!?! And they don't even dual boot them!?
  

I felt sick on and off whilst writing this article!? A while back having heard, Windows7 is a major improvement from Vista and that Microsoft improved their way of developing...Having seen all these bizzare movements by Microsoft, it gets to me now :(

Thanks a bunch Microsoft :/

After Posting to Reddit
Reddit link

To answer the first comment... People and family and friends are amazed how I loath Microsoft so much, I can get that annoying to them too :/ Think it maybe because I am too "open source dependant".

After reading a comment mentioning their hardware is more good, I felt kinda better would you believe, yet reminded about the [cough] erm...

I will try and make an effort to try and ignore the annoying bits about Microsoft and try and see their better side, their "hardware sector"... Maybe I should actually see Windows7 in action and that may lift off a bit of this... Yet I'm in no hurry as it seems to be the touch screen as the big thing, seen it on the iphone though so it's nothing new :/ I will still say it is a major improvement from Vista yes. Also during my timeout from the Internet, I kinda also thought I shouldn't of seen that 'banned IE8 ad' either. I hope to also provide the computer recycling plant some assistance for dual booting and providing alternative 'friendly User Ubuntu documentation'.

Thank you Redditors for responding :) Yet I still probably haven't figured of a good way to counter-act this feeling... Well I have helped some friends get Ubuntu installed on their computers and I have only just started to providing a network solution for small organizations and charities. Knowing that kinda helps but it isn't enough :( hmmm

Heh, this made me laugh after googling "Ubunto"...Now... I wonder what this "Ubunto" is :P Oh and felt relieved after reading this comment. :)

Further Reading that has Helped me :)
Guardian :Microsoft Aging Giant.
PC Wiz Kid's First Look at Windows7
BBC : 24hrs with Ubuntu
BBC : Ubuntu Readies Karmic Koala
BBC : Windows7 Pros and Cons

Installing BBC iplayer on Ubuntu 9.10 64bit

Follow this link and follow the instructions exactly, also please note the warning below :) Enjoy :)

Use "Computer Janitor" With Caution
Don't Remove/Fix the following files

adobeair1.0 (.deb package)
bbciplayerdesktop.39453645783645bla (.deb package)
getlibs (.deb package)

Or you could corrupt the installation and when you attempt to fix, you will get messages from Adobe Air Installation like:

"An error occurred while installing Adobe AIR. Installation may not be allowed by your administrator. Please contact your administrator."

Resolution
If you have done by mistake...Like me and others :P You have to delete the cert files.

sudo dpkg --purge adobe-certs

Also you shouldn't have to worry about switching off the web browser either when you reinstall Adobe-air either.

Further Reading
Ubuntu Forums

MS Funnies : Microsoft Miseducates Linux

If this is true...

MS sending miss-leading information on Linux to "Best Buy" Staff.. then I feel gob smacked at how low they willing to go.

Further Reading
Cnet

MS Funnies : MSN Live Messenger Size

Looks like MSN Live Messenger isn't designed for 800x600 any more
Not that I'm bothered, I can just make out the OK button.

Wifi and Linux

I knew I had to some research on finding the best WIFI pci card, I was bemused about the question....

Just warning this article babbles about me moaning about the various Linux hardware compatibly pages scattered about the Internet.

How I found a good WIFI card
There is so many out there even trying to surf the latest "Hardware compatibility List" was a little tormenting. Browsing Ubuntu Community WiFI Hardware List didn't help show the makes properly that was good. Well it was nice to see what worked and what didn't I guess. I eventually found one via a site that done some home work for me already.

Linux Emporium : Done homework already and have supposedly found the official BEST tested wifi hardware. See below for link

I have seen sites where you could see if a device was fully implemented or shows how much of of a driver has been implemented more friendlier than that. Yet you had to know the "Kernel Driver Module Name" to begin with.

I Eventually bought a
"EDiMAX Wireless 802.11b/g Turbo Mode PCI Adapter"
Once plugged in, it worked with Ubuntu.

What is also cool is that I can buy an antenna (EA-IO5D or EA-ID6D) that can increase wireless coverage later :)


When I typed, "lspci" in a Terminal it shows
Network controller: RaLink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI
So it was wierd seeing "RaLink" instead of "EDiMAX" yet I was happy I was able to see wireless networks atleast :) Most probably the name of the chip really which is very understandable :)

Final Thoughts
I guess I am crying for a better managed view of Kernel drivers and easily browseable via hardware names in some way rather than having to do the complex kernel compiling just to see or even browse a list.... I know the HCL is there yet it be nice to see that more easily visible and bigger letters and not too techi looking (Not that I'm a noob in Linux).

The kernel's offical site should show their work more nicely someday yet I know their priority is to just get hardware working and worry about the fancy looks later. Touch wood Ubuntu Community may pick this up somehow.... hmmm

I know Linux is designed to you shouldn't have to worry about hardware yet I know it could you need to see how things are getting on when you want to try new hardware.

Merge all them hardware compatiability sites together into one somehow ... Us Linux users WE ALL USE THE SAME LATEST LINUX right!? right!?... I know I know I just google the question and figure out it out.

Don't get me wrong, I luv Linux. Patience is a virtue and things that been in the planning and still being thought out, will eventually break through.

Further Reading
Linux Emporium : Linux Compatible Wireless Devices

Kindle (For reading E-Books) : What a rip off

This is my opinon on the Kindle....

Don't even think of buying the Amazon Kindle. They not colourful, they don't have expansion slots, they don't even have wifi support. For $499 dollars?!

Get yourself a laptop, where you have unlimited reading and colourful moving images etc, with WIFI support so you can easily browse the Internet at ease. You can even enlarge the text of your browser just pressing a key combination of "Shift and +" and "Shift and -".

If they provided those extra features of colorful, expandable memory slots, with wifi support, I just may like it then. Yet I still probably wouldn't buy it for other various reasons.

Further Reading
Guardian : Kindle UK Launch

Linux : Enabling Marvell Sata Drive

Recently got a Sata Drive for a thankyou for helping my parents.

My motherboard is a M2V and has the SATA2 (aka 300gig per second). It is on the Marvel chip 88SE61xx. Yet the only problem I initially couldn't see it :/ Yet I managed to figure it out :)

Symptoms
You cannot see the sata drive by either using the following command

df -h

OR

sudo fdisk -l

Enabling the Driver

Ubuntu 9.04

1) Start a super user edit of the Grub menu settings

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

2) Add "ahci.marvell_enable=1" (excluding double quotes) to a line at the end "kopt",
For example :

# kopt=root=/dev/mapper/vg0-root ro ahci.marvell_enable=1

3) Finalize the changes

sudo update-grub

4) Reboot the machine and your drive should now be visible :)

Further Reading
Enabling the Marvell Sata on an Asus M2V
Full credit to this person's blog!!!! As older posts via forums, wikis etc got miss leading.


Ubuntu : Remote Control Experience

I can now remote control my machine from my phone !!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111111111111111 :)

Initial Setup
You must Attach your machine to know that your phone always exists (Do 1st step here).

HOW!?
Easiest Remote Control Setup is with Ubuntu 9.04 (jaunty)

Remote Control Machine Guide here.
Download Remote Application Configuration files here.

Technical Issues I bumped into
Think during the time of experimenting with VirtualBox(Download n installing SP3 for XP), I bumped into a bluetooth conflict or something and hate some bizzare issue.

Restarting the machine once which resolved my bluetooth conflict. Seems to be fine with my virtualBox still running.

Wammu : Getting Bluetooth to Work

Wammu will not work until you have set up Ubuntu Bluetooth device first, so this is a two part solution.

Check List

• You have Ubuntu (The instructions has been made with version9.04 and hopefully work for older).
  
• Your mobile bluetooh is visible and shows name.
• You have a bluetooth USB dongle or your computer has it's bluetooth feature on.
  

1st Setup Ubuntu
1) First install your bluetooth USB dongle into the back of your machine or whereever.
2) System -> Preferences -> Bluetooth
3) Change Friendly Name to something nice :) I did "BURD.BURDEN"
4) Click "+" button and then click "forward" button after
5) Select your device and then make sure you have fixed.

7) Do the test with your phone
6) Hopefully it should be successful.

2nd Setup Wammu

1) Get your bluetooh phone address by running an ubuntu terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal)

hcitool scan

Mine is "00:16:B8:22:89:48" which also has an additional "w810i" description on the end.
Remember this value for later :)

2) Start "Wammu"

3) Click Wammu->Phone Wizard

4) Click "next" and then select "Guided Configuration" then next again.

5) Select "Bluetooth" then click "next"
6) Select your phone mobile (Mine is Sony Ericsson phone) then click "next"
7) Select "AT based" then click "next" (Yet your phone may be different for other)
8)Select "AT over bluetooth" then click next
9)Type in "00:16:B8:22:89:48" (see step1 of this 2nd part) then click next

Give it a a moment to test and it should say something like this.

10)Leave it as it's default name it suggests or change it then click "Finish".

FINALLY : Try it out
You should now be able to connect to the phone via "Bluetooth" on Wammu
Just click "Phone->Connect"

Thew

WOOOO YAAA!
Enjoy
"Wammu Usage Notes" can be found at the bottom of this.

Ubuntu Upgrade : 8.10 to 9.04

Please bare in mind I have upgraded from 8.04 to 8.10, and after years of waiting for 9.04 to mature, I Forced open the" distribution update button" to allow the major upgrade from 8 to 9.

I believe ideally you should have a clean install between major version releases. Well I thought I'd just keep pressing that nice "Distribution Update" button and see how things go. Here is my findings :)

Oh the Issues also include things after reseting my user account to have fresh configs

During the Upgrade
I allowed it to remove all the software it requested and upgraded all configs.

Issues I had
Kate (KDE Text Editor) - Got uninstalled
Konqueror Settings - Go changed
Apache2 - Got uninstalled
PHP5 and PHP5 modules - Was uninstalled.
CheckGmail - Got uninstalled
VLC - Turned wierd on me (It had an alpha version or something)
Bluetooth - Stopped working (Fresh new account issue)

Resolutions
Using "Synaptic Pacakge Manager" I did the following:

First I had install the missing software.

To get bluetooth working properly again, I re-installed "bluetooth" and "bluez" packages.

Free Up Space
Thanks to a new feature of Ubuntu 9.04, "Computer Janitor" is a cool program which I can gambled everything and saved up 1gig of space :)

VLC
Had to start using "ppa" system. Instructions and updating is here.
Still have problems with it (Hopefully they will get fixed again)
For now I have Installed Totem Movie Player (powered by xine).

Konqueror
I had to update the extension handling for ".html" to have "kate" as the primary application.
Verified and corrected my Konqueror settings.

Apache2
To get PHP5 working yet again, I had to run in a terminal

sudo a2enmod php5

Ubuntu (Linux): Getting Slow Old Machines to Boot

Some tips about making a slow old machine boot. I hope to expand on this more as I experience more situations.

Hardware
Getting hardware to work can is getting more easier as more manufacturers of devices and supporting Linux more. Yet you will bump into some issues on and off, here are a few things to help installation go smoothly.

Old Hardware (Different name on kernel supports)
I have known the odd monitor setting to be differently named for third party use. Acer, Dell and Compaq have known to use crypt set ups in the past. Another is "ROCK" that sells laptops but they don't make them, some company in Asia creates them and hires or makes another company to sell them more friendly.

Support Or Not?
Always google around to look for hardware supported yet in the Kernel.

Partitions
If the motherboards is really old, make sure the "Boot/" partition is first. Believe there is a guide on standard size for the various partitions.

Basic Setup
/boot - 512 Mb as ext2(Important that)
/swap - double the size of your physical memory as swap.
/ (Rest of the hd space) - REST of the space as ext3 (For fast performance).

Believe it could be lower on the /boot partition. May need to verify that myself.

Booting
Various boot issues may come in the way. Here is mine I bumped into.

Move the Boot Partition
Some distros of Linux, forget to make the /boot partition at the beginning of the harddrive. See above for more info.

Kernel Boot Parameters
Read the first two paragraphs and then look for your known issues in "Known Kernel Parameters"

Manually Change (temporary)
When you get to the load up screen of "GRUB" you may need to press "e" key a few times to edit parameters.

Make changes Permanent
You will then need to modify the "/boot/grub/menu.lst" file and then finally run "sudo grub-update" to permantly keep the changes.

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
sudo update-grub

Known Kernel Parameters

• Slow Reading of Harddrives rootdelay=90
• Provide Auto Power Down acpi=force

Further Reading
Grub Howto By Ubuntu Community
Setting Kernel Parameters By Ubuntu Community1

Xubuntu : 8.10 to 9.04 Upgrade - No Sound

I successfully installed Xubuntu 8.10 on a slow end machine and fulled updated all the software. I then couldn't help myself and click that nice button saying, "Upgrade to the latest distribution 9.04". Which I did.

I found the sound gone, came back and then gone again after creating a new account. I am not sure if this is for "Xubuntu" or for all the them, well here is my solution.

Major upgrades have known to require some little fine tuning so this normal really :) Yet I have sneaky suspicions of user error from time to time. ANYWAY!!!! Read on

Exceptions
I chose to not let it change the "menu.lst", I modified the boot parameter of the kernels to have "rootdelay=90" and "acpi=force" at the end to aid the old machine boot up to really boot up and shut down efficiently. I will explain in another blog entry soon about my boot parameters [INSERT LINK HERE].

Issues Found
Sound disappeared on me.

Resolution
One of the volume controls has been muted. To Unmute you need to reveal some volume controls, by default Xubuntu hides them (Not exactly sure why, yet I have a funny feeling it is to make you aware you can just show the controls you only need to see).

1. Click "Applications->Multimedia->Mixer".
2. You will see a window pop up with a pulldown showing the various modes which could be OSS and/or ALSA based at the end. Go through the first two and show all your volumes.
3. Once you click ok you will see various volumes in various tabs. It is probably the first first you should worry about. Look out for "MASTER" and "PCM-??" controls and also the mute button which is showing red "X" next to a speaker or on top of it.
4. Play a CD track or something that requires sound, and fiddle with the MASTER and PCM. Hopefully you should be able to hear your sound again.

End of Line. (Getting into the mood for the new Tron film :P)

EDIT: TO BE REALLY REALLY SURE:
run "alsamixer" in a terminal, (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It is just like the GUI only in text form.

There has been odd bizzare reports where the sounds is more properly saved using that command, oh and then press "ESC" to save :) If you view both the GUI volume control in GUI and TEXT form, you will notice they both are synched together.

Wammu and Finding USB Ports

Wammu Bluetooth setup is here, you may now carry on reading :)

Wammu is a nice tool I found to keep my mobile data in sync. It provides a nice wizard to start synching and backup mobile phone data, however I had issues trying to find this, USB port address.

I must admit, no regular new user would of figured it out, yet I am sure there is documentation online some where. Yet I didn't have the internet on me at the time, so here is how I did it. Think it is pretty standard for most usb mobile connections, but here is how this piece of information out.

You will Need "hwinfo"
FORGET THE "lsusb" command :P That just brings up interesting numbers that I have already tried in my past attempts lol.

Make sure you can run "hwinfo" command, if you have not got that command, get one!

hwinfo is a "Hardware identification system", pretty cool nifty dump. Comes standard with Ubuntu, not sure about the rest.... ANYWAY!....

How to find the USB Port Address for a Mobile Phone
1) Connect the phone to the USB and let it go in file transfer mode. So the phone is mounted to Linux.

2) Bring up a console or terminal and type

hwinfo > myhardwareinfo.txt

This will save all your hardware information.

3) Search the file for the make of your phone, it should show something like

usb.vendor_id = 7531 (0x1d6b)
usb.is_self_powered = true
usb.product_id = 1 (0x1)
usb.can_wake_up = true
usb.vendor = 'Linux Foundation'
usb.bus_number = 1 (0x1)
usb.product = 'USB Communications Interface'
usb.interface.number = 7 (0x7)
linux.sysfs_path = '/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:10.0/usb1/1-1/1-1:3.7'
info.parent = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_1d6b_1_0000_00_10_0'
usb.interface.class = 2 (0x2)
usb.interface.subclass = 9 (0x9)
usb.interface.protocol = 1 (0x1)
usb.interface.description = 'Sony Ericsson Device 039 USB WMC Device Management'

6: udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_1d6b_1_0000_00_10_0_if1_serial_unknown_0'
linux.sysfs_path = '/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:10.0/usb1/1-1/1-1:3.1/tty/ttyACM0'
info.subsystem = 'tty'
info.parent = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_1d6b_1_0000_00_10_0_if1'
info.category = 'serial'

4) This is the tricky bit, look for the line beginning with "Linux.sysfs_path". Mine is

/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:10.0/usb1/1-1/1-1:3.1/tty/ttyACM0

To find the port for the USB, turns out it was just a small bit at the end and not that long address I've learnt something here...

It is not "/tty/ttyACM0" , is it in fact

Change "tty" to "/dev/" and dump the rest....

BEHOLD THE CORRECT USB PORT ADDRESS TO TYPE INTO WAMMU

/dev/ttyACM0

It may be different if you using more than one USB port on your machine.

Final Thoughts
I tried to figure this one on more than one occassion and it is my 3rd time that I figured it out. Funnily enough I must have entered all kinds of addresses.

Apparently tty is a standard input thingy. I'm a little older and wiser and happy I can sync my phone. we're trying to communicate to the device. I am sure there is some logic I am mis understanding as to why it is /dev/.

THEY should improve the "lsusb" to show this? Or can't that be possible?

Wammu Usage Notes
Just some things to realize as you use this software.

• Don't have the phone in File Transfer Mode
• Keep it in regular phone mode
• You may get a error with synching empty things like, you have not used the "TODO" on your phone.
  
• Everytime you run Wammu, it starts off with a clean slate, unless you open up your backups.
• It will come up with errors when you try to backup things that don't exist yet.
• Be aware of duplicate data (Some are on Sim and some are on memory).

Backup

1. Connect to phone (click Phone->Connect)
2. Retrieve everything you use. Click "Retrieve"-> everyone of these items (excluding the ones you don't use ie "todo")
3. Click Backups->"Save" and "save messages"

Restore
Been a while since I restored... Either you connect last or connect first before doing this 1 step.

1) Something tells me you have to connect to phone first then click
Backups->Import
Backups->Import Messages

Moving Mobile Numbers

I needed to change my mobile number to another network and I searched around online, finding people just being lazy about it or saying it very fussy. I decided to go ahead and see what the whole process is like anyway. Also I didn't want to spend around £20 just to unlock my phone from some backstreet store.

Phones are are locked with your first provider and new phone for good reasons. To give you reassurnance that your BRAND NEW may be retraceable,assured if required.

I did the following in this order to change my mobile number and unlock my phone, I hope it helps you see the process.

Oh I managed it by the way :) I will not say the provider's names I changed as I like them both really. Just family and factors of life that make us have to change for fair price at the time.

IMPORTANT
MUST HAVE MOBILE PHONE WITH YOU ALL TIMES, and NOTE your mobile number in hand just incase.

Get Permission to transfer number to New Provider
1) Call up old mobile provider TEAM for PAC (Porting Authorisation Code) number. It be valid for 30 days then expire.

2) Visit the new "NEW mobile provider's" website and search around for moving, "Moving mobile Numbers". They normally provide a form to fill with the PAC number requirement too.
They then email you in a day or so, saying the will start the transfers in 2 to 3 workings roughly. During the process of transfering, you not be able to use any services on the mobile other than the features of the phone software (calendar, notes, games, etc).

Unlocking the Phone to be usuable by any provider
If you do this with a new phone, you may be charged, however if you had the phone over 12 months then it will be free. Understandable there.

1) Call "old mobile provider team" and ask for unlock code to phone. You will need to confirm some security questions in order to an unlock code, as well as give them your "model and make" of mobile phone.

2) Give the operator your EMEI number which is located on the back of the phone, under the battery. Normally begins with the two numbers, "35".

Some times you may call at an awkard time where they are updating their server details, which means you have to wait a couple of hours, and then call them back. Move onto step 3.

3) Once the operator knows your; model, make and EMEI number of phone, the operator will guide you through the process of the unlocking.

For a Sony Erricson k800i, I had to do the following the steps, and stayed with operator till done.

3.1. Take out sim card

3.2. Switch on phone

3.3. push joystick left

3.5. type **

3.6. push joystick left again, once sucessful you'll see a couple of screen flashes, then the display will show "network unlock"

3.7. select Network Unlock

3.8. type in the NCK number that the operator of the old network will give you. (Be nice to them)

If sucessful the screen should display network unlocked, othwise stay with the operator as the phone is locked in their service any how.

3.9 If successfull, destroy old sim card to "old mobile operator".

Final Conclusions
Scary on and off but achieveable, if you remain paitent and can take around roughly 3 days.

My Ubuntu 8.04 to 8.10 Experience

Took a leap of faith with my Ubuntu lol

I managed to successfully upgrade my Ubuntu from 8.04 to 8.10 :) Took some guts having not done a proper full backup, I did above half of copying my data. Anyway this is what I done.

Unlocked upgrades to "Short term" releases and then clicked for updates and finally clicked "Upgrade to the latest Ubuntu release".


Changed all configs to the latest one(Accidently kept one old one).
Rebooted.
Had issues with X, but eventually it knows.

Anoying issue for me was, had to recompile VMWare :/ and fix my Compiz configs caps.

I'm happy anyway :)

Firewall in Linux

Firewall, determines what applications and services, ports, ips are allowed in and out of your machine.

Best one is to use the recommended software. As of 8.10 Ubuntu, they recommend "ufw", which is command based "terminal".

Strong Advice, you don't need a GUI, use the commands "ufw"
See the offical Wiki entry here.

Also don't need a GUI frontend to ufw because it already is a frontend to some else already complicated.

What really governs all the Rules?
Firewall management on Linux/Ubuntu is managed by "iptables" and setting those up are complicated at times. "ufw" and "firestarter" are frontends to "iptables". Use either one or the other.

Example of how complex "iptables" comared to "ufw" is:
ufw: sudo ufw deny from 10.100.0.5
iptables : sudo iptables -A INPUT -s 10.100.0.5 -j REJECT

But if you want a GUI
Think you can install it from "Applications->Add/Remove" and search for "Firestarter", just don't bother with "ufw".

Other Frontends
gufw : Frontend to ufw, even though ufw is a frontend to iptables. Seems silly
lokkit and Guarddog : Frontend to iptables, these I feel seem a bit complicated but it's what ever you feel comfortable with in the end.





Pipe Viewing

Found an article that seems to help show the progress of piping things from place to another in nix.

Example 1 (From Article)
To know the progress of this pipe command: compress this log

$ gzip -c access.log > access.log.gz

You Run

$ pv access.log | gzip > access.log.gz
611MB 0:00:11 [58.3MB/s] [=>      ] 15% ETA 0:00:59

Example 2 (From Article)
If you wish to see more details

$ pv -cN source access.log | gzip | pv -cN gzip > access.log.gz
source:  760MB 0:00:15 [37.4MB/s] [=>     ] 19% ETA 0:01:02
gzip: 34.5MB 0:00:15 [1.74MB/s] [  <=>  ]

How to get It?
Course to have that nice command, make sure you either get the latest tar ball or run some installing utility like this.

$ sudo aptitude install pv

Made by Andrew Wood

Wireless Broadband With Opensource

[PENDING]
Not sure of the wireless network I will be using but I know they use
BT Wireless.

Get Wireless to Work
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WifiDocs/WirelessTroubleShootingGuide?action=show&redirect=WirelessTroubleshootingGuide

http://www.linux.com/feature/56946

Use Windows Drivers in Linux?
http://www.net4nowtforum.co.uk/showthread.php?p=291060

Here are a few links to help.
Talks about getting a certain BT Broadband hardware working

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=153612&highlight=british+telecom+usb

Working hard to help save Us Money?
http://www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/review-949-ubuntu-site.html

Start Gnome Screensaver

I have disabled mine, as Dosbox has issues with it :/ But if I wish to see my fav screensaver, run the command in a launcher

gnome-screensaver-command --activate

Linux Terminal Firewall Controls

iptables can be a fiddle, instead use the command "ufw", it's a terminal/console front end command to iptables.

ufw disable : Switches off firewall and from boot startup also.

Example of commands allows FTP protocol from anywhere.

# ufw allow 21/tcp

# ufw allow 20/tcp
Rule added

# ufw status

Firewall loaded

Linux Compile Guides

These are rough guides to compile straight from source applications into Linux distros
Whiles do "./configure" and any additional options first before accepting the guide's opinion.

If you get peeved at that amount of development headers you have to install, there is place called getdeb.net

Ubuntu
Pidgin OR getDeb

Fanboi : Not good, stay open!

Or u may regret it, as I did on and off. Have to remind myself to never be a fanboi to any one thing. Everything has their good purposes in the end. Also not everyone wishes to know how a computer works.

MS/Apple/Linux!?
Something tells me, I may find some good uses to tell about Windows7. Well I am glad there are a lot of proffessionals who know Vista is a flop. And I must admit, XP is still MS's best work. As OSX is Apple's.

What is nice is Microsoft is providing Windows7 beta free for download.

I will stay support of Linux as it is an alternative for people who cannot afford much. I've still to make my own cut down version for myself someday and there are many many other flavours I've still to try such as: Gentoo and Slackware

Business?!
It's really a user friendly term for saying, civil competition amongst others to encourage competition. Lets face it, if there was no Apple or MS, what is there!? ibm :P

Yet I still wish it wasn't so hefty fighting amongst each of them. Guess thats my hippy nature side of me.

Dumbing Us Too Much?
Since the software industry is always involving at a fast rate, some people cannot keep up. But I believe the young generation does not need this, if they strive to constantly learn new things, then they can think outside the box.

CrunchGear : Mentions about some Inquirer Article saying, "Windows7 will kill Linux"
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/01/15/windows-7-will-kill-desktop-linux/

I don't think so.

So Need to do this : Linux on a USB

USB Stick OS
Ever expanding space on USB sticks, we can soon place our operating systems on them with everything set up.

Make me feel more better about getting my work environment set up at any place, far more quicker. Yet there is a level of not certain about whether the USB stick speed is fast enough for constant read/write.

Read article here.

Linux from Scratch
I'd also like to go to a level of making my own linux distro from scratch to compact the size more by reading the book here.