Quails home away from the nest

Since the last Debian testing kernel (2.6.32.5) update, I have rebooted and found myself being in what seems to be a kernel issue, where by a module “nouveau” by default seized control of the graphics card which prevents the nVidia driver from loading and would not allow me to compile and install the nVidia proprietary driver either. I also didn’t not have “xserver-xorg-video-nouveau” installed.

Here is the work around I used to resolve the problem.

If you use grub2 then edit

/etc/default/grub

then add

nouveau.modeset=0

to the end of the line that reads

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet”

(“quiet” seems a typical default option), so that that line now reads

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet nouveau.modeset=0″

run

update-grub2

and reboot.

Now go through and install you nVidia drivers as per normal.

Adelaide’s Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) Release Party
Location: Hacker Space/Format – 15 Peel St, Adelaide
Time: Thursday 29th April, 5:30pm – 9:30pm
Come along and help us celebrate another Ubuntu Release with Bill the Penguin.

BYO Everything. (Drinks, Nibbles etc available from Convenience Stores, located conveniently in all directions.)

This is also an opportunity to meet people involved in the Hackerspace, and if you are a Hackerspace regular, feel free to bring along your projects and treat this like a regular Hackerspace meeting.

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This is a rework of the script from Internet Usage Monitoring – conky style! But the only problem I found is that it not wanted to work with my NodeMobile account. So here is my rewrite of parts of the script to use the other Internode Usage API url.

One thing you need to find out for this script to work is the service number for the account you want to get the usage for. That can be easily obtained by pointing your web browser to https://customer-webtools-api.internode.on.net/api/v1.5/ and logging in.

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DISCLAIMER:
You might still have to pay royalty fees to the G.729 patent holders for using their algorithm

With Asterisk when you place a call or receive a call you’ll get a warning about translation from ulaw to g729.
For example:

[Dec 16 09:48:56] WARNING[1143]: channel.c:2811 set_format: Unable to find a codec translation path from ulaw to g729

With little googling I found out this is rather easy problem to fix.

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Prerequisites:
Lots of caffeine
Long finger nails (they will be short by the end)
Needing a hair cut (might be bald by the end)

Note: I am just joking about the prerequisites, I found it hard to get stuff right cause a lot of howtos out there are bit vague and cryptic. So here is my attempt to make it a bit easier for others to setup Asterisk and connect to a VoIP provider.

What is Asterisk:

Asterisk is software that turns an ordinary computer into a voice communications server. Asterisk is the world’s most powerful and popular telephony development tool-kit. It is used by small businesses, large businesses, call centers, carriers and governments worldwide. Asterisk is open source and is available free to all under the terms of the GPL.

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This is a little poem that was in the local town newsletter. Origin of this poem is unknown, But enjoy

Every single evening, As I’m lying here in bed,
This tiny little Prayer, Keeps running through my head
God bless all my family, Wherever they may be,
Keep them warm and safe from harm
For they’re so close to me.
And God, there is one more thing
I wish that you could do;
Hope you don’t mind mind me asking,
Please bless my computer, too.

Now I know that it’s unusual, To bless a motherboard,
But listen just a second, While I explain it to you, Lord.
You see, that little metal box, Holds more than odds and ends;
Inside those small compartments, Rest so many of my friends.
I know so much about them, By the kindness that they give,
And this little scrap of metal takes me in to where they live.
By faith is how I know them, Much the same as you.
We share in what life brings us, And from that our friendships grew.

Please take an extra minute, From your duties up above,
To bless those in my address book, That’s filled with so much love.
Wherever else this prayer may reach,
To each and every friend;
Bless each e-mail inbox, And each person who hits ’send’
When you update your heavenly list,
On your own great CD-ROM,
Bless everyone who says this prayer
Send up to GOD. com

Amen

I have GREAT news for the 4810T owners the 2.30 BIOS[1], we now have backlight control keys working

There is a catch after you upgrade[2] to the 2.30 BIOS you will get a freeze type effect on the desktop (well I did). Also I noticed that my WiFi went funny to and I could not ping anything even tho Net. Mgr. was say I was connected to AP.

So DON’T play with backlight key till done the below changes.

You have to change from

xrandr –output LVDS –set BACKLIGHT_CONTROL native

to

xrandr –output LVDS –set BACKLIGHT_CONTROL kernel

or

xrandr –output LVDS –set BACKLIGHT_CONTROL combination

References:
[1] http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/downloads_gd.html
[2] Howto BIOS Update

This is just a quick how to to setup NTP to update from a GPS

Installing software needed for the GPS:

# apt-get install gpsd

If you already not done so connect the GPS to your computer you are wanting to run it on and confirm it is connected with lsusb

$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 067b:2303 Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2303 Serial Port

My GPS is a USGlobalSat BU 353

Now to configure gpsd:

# dpkg-reconfigure gpsd

There just a few questions to answer.
First question asks you if you like to have gpsd to start at boot, I answered YES
Second question ask you to were tthe GPS is connected, in my case it was /dev/ttyUSB0
The last 2 questions I just left them as is.

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UNetbootin allows you to create bootable Live USB drives for a variety of Linux distributions from Windows or Linux, without requiring you to burn a CD. You can either let it download one of the many distributions supported out-of-the-box for you, or supply your own Linux .iso file if you’ve already downloaded one or your preferred distribution isn’t on the list.

I found this UNetbootin very useful to put FreeDOS on my USB flash drive to use to update the BIOS on my laptop. UNetbootin is also in the Debian repository too.

References:
UNetbootin
Debian Repository
Howto BIOS Update

First we need to install a couple packages:

# apt-get install ppp wvdial

Now to create the most vital configuration file for the connection:

$ nano ~/.wvdial.conf

Copy and paste the config below and change the username and password to yours supplied to you by Internode.

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