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.

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.

Read more…

I have noted that this GPS unit has a prob when been powered off for ~72+ hours. The problem is that it resets itself back to binary mode, the quick way to tell this is there is no LED activity on the side of the unit. This unit optimally needs to be run in NMEA mode. To get this unit in to running in NMEA mode is very easy, while the unit is plugged into your computer you just have to issue it a command.

The command string to issue to it is:

$ gpsctl -n -s 4800 -t SiRF binary /dev/ttyUSB0

After running the above command you’ll notice that the LED on the side has come alive and will be steadily flashing. Now you’ll beable to use your GPS unit to its full potential.

For further info and help:

$ man gpsctl

$ lspci
….
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
….

This is just a workaround at the moment so the Backlight can be manually be adjusted with xbacklight

Installing xbacklight

# apt-get install xbacklight

Now we need to set BACKLIGHT_CONTROL

$ xrandr –output LVDS –set BACKLIGHT_CONTROL native

Now we can adjust backlight like this for example

$ xbacklight -set 100

$ lspci
….
02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless WiFi Link 5100
….

Add the Debian Backports repository to /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://www.backports.org/debian lenny-backports main contrib non-free

Update the list of available packages and install the debian-backports-keyring package.

# apt-get update
# apt-get -t lenny-backports install debian-backports-keyring

As your system does not yet have the GnuPG archive key of the backports.org repository installed, you will be asked to confirm installation of a package from an untrusted repository. Enter Yes when prompted.

Install a 2.6.30 kernel image appropriate for your system, along with the firmware-iwlwifi and wireless-tools packages.

# apt-get update

# apt-get -t lenny-backports install linux-image-2.6.30-bpo.1-$(uname -r | sed 's,.*-,,g') firmware-iwlwifi wireless-tools

Restart your system and boot with the newly installed kernel, and the necessary kernel module should be automatically loaded.

As the new kernel was booting I noticed it made mention to that the microcode was out of date. To fix this problem simply download the new microcode from Intel Wireless WiFi Link Drivers for Linux.

wget -c http://intellinuxwireless.org/iwlwifi/downloads/iwlwifi-5000-ucode-8.24.2.12.tgz

Uncompress the microcode

tar xvf iwlwifi-5000-ucode-8.24.2.12.tgz

Now all we need to do is to change into the directory of where the microcode is and then copy it to /lib/firmware

# cd iwlwifi-5000-ucode-8.24.2.12/
# cp iwlwifi-5000-2.ucode /lib/firmware/

Restart your system and the newly added microcode will be loaded and used.

Last week I bought a new laptop and found the Ethernet does not work. Here is how I got it to work.

$ lspci
…..
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Attansic Technology Corp. Device 1063 (rev c0)
…..

First off we need to install compiling tools and the kernel headers

# apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r`

Now to download the AR81Family Linux Driver for the Ethernet card.

Change directories to were you downloaded the drivers too
Example:

$ cd ~/Desktop/atheros/

I found the driver package was compressed funny and had to do

$ gunzip AR81Family-linux-v1.0.0.10.tar.gz

and then

$ tar xvf AR81Family-linux-v1.0.0.10.tar

to get the drivers uncompressed.
Read more…

Couple weeks ago I upgraded my mothers computer from Microsoft XP to Linux Debian Lenny (testing). Everything is working except sound with pogo.com java games. After couple weeks searching for a fix and reading ALSA documention and tinkering around.

the problematic soundcard is

$ lspci
...
00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 70)
...

This is what I ended up with to get the sound to work with the pogo.com java games. First I created the ~/.asoundrc file, and this what I added to the ~/.asoundrc file.

!defaults.pcm.card 0
defaults.ctl.card 0
defaults.pcm.device 0
defaults.pcm.subdevice -1
defaults.pcm.dmix.device defaults.pcm.device
defaults.pcm.dsnoop.device defaults.pcm.device

After saving the file we have to restart ALSA

# /etc/init.d/alsa-utils restart
Shutting down ALSA…done.
Setting up ALSA…done.

Note: this fix may not work for everyone.

I use a bluetooth headset with VLC when I am using my laptop to listen to music or video streams etc. The headset works when I add alsadev=bluetooth in ~/.vlc/vlcrc

Under the section ‘# ALSA Device Name (string)’ change it

From:

# ALSA Device Name (string)
# alsadev=default

To:

# ALSA Device Name (string)
# alsadev=default
alsadev=bluetooth

Refer to this blog post for setting up bluetooth headset here

Notes:
Problems I have come across is when you change the Audio device back to ‘default’ through Settings => Preferences => Audio => Output modules => ALSA, you have to do the above method again when you like to use bluetooth headset again.

This is a quick how to setting up bluetooth audio under Debian.

First off we need to install a couple packages:

# apt-get install bluez-utils bluez-gnome bluez-audio

Now we need to run ‘hcitool scan‘ to get the address of the bluetooth device. For example,

$ hcitool scan
Scanning ...
	00:00:00:00:00:00	Nokia BH-501

Now to get the audio part to work:

Modify or create your ~/.asoundrc to contain

pcm.bluetooth {
    type plug
    slave {
       	pcm "bluetooth_hw"
    }
}

pcm.bluetooth_hw {
         type bluetooth
         device 00:11:22:33:44:55
         profile "auto"
}

Where 00:11:22:33:44:55 is the bluetooth address of your headset that you got from ‘hcitool scan‘ output

Now to test the bluetooth headset audio is working with ‘arecord‘ and ‘aplay‘ for example,

$ arecord -Dplug:bluetooth -f S16_LE | aplay -Dplug:bluetooth -f S16_LE
Recording WAVE 'stdin' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate 8000 Hz, Mono
Playing WAVE 'stdin' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate 8000 Hz, Mono
Aborted by signal Interrupt...
Aborted by signal Interrupt...

Finally configure your audio applications to use the alsa device ‘bluetooth’.

Example fro setting up Skype to use the bluetooth headset:
Right click on the Skype icon on the gnome-panel and go Options => Sound Devices and change the ‘Sound In’ and ‘Sound Out’ to ‘bluetooth’ and click apply.

And for other applications have a read here