While reading some of the comments on a digg.com posting, I ran across a nice new find. I've been using both my laptop and desktop at work for a long while now, and it can get annoying at times to have to switch pointer devices or even keyboards to control each different machine. Synergy answers these pains. This program allows me to use one keyboard and mouse to control virtually any number of computers, each with their own monitor (so unlike a KVM with a shared monitor), and it allows me to do this regardless of OS. My desktop runs Win XP Pro and my laptop is running Gentoo linux.
Synergy was easy to set up and get running. I run the server end of the app on my desktop so I can share the better keyboard and mouse combo with the other computers in my cube.
Here is a link to the article about the sweet computer setup that led me to this find. Now I just need the 30" displays!
While trying to add the gnome-keyboard-applet to my gnome 2.8 panel, (in order to switch to Dvorak), I managed to stumble upon a problem I had a while back. For some reason, adding this applet causes the gnome-panel to crash, and it won't start up successfully again until you either remove it from the panel configuration using gconf or kill it with 'killall gnome-keyboard-applet' which will then prompt you to remove it from the gconf properties.
For more information, take a look at my post on forums.gentoo.org.
Last night, I finally got tethering between my T637 and laptop working. I had the two tethered before, but I could not get signed on to their network to allow me to surf the net using my phone as a modem. All it took was some searching for the proper configuration settings, and it worked fine. Below are the config files for reference.
/etc/ppp/peers/cingular
hide-password
connect "/usr/sbin/chat -v -f /etc/chatscripts/cingular"
debug
/dev/bluetooth/rfcomm/0
115200
defaultroute
noipdefault
noproxyarp
nodeflate
nobsdcomp
user "WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM"
usepeerdns
lcp-echo-failure 0
lcp-echo-interval 600
/etc/chatscripts/cingular
ABORT ERROR
'' AT&F
OK AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","WAP.CINGULAR"
OK ATDT*99#
CONNECT ''
/etc/ppp/pap-secrets
WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM * CINGULAR1
I have been having intermittent problems using Rhythmbox with ESD on my laptop playing MP3's. Every now and then, and not at a regular interval, I would get an error message when rhythmbox would go to switch songs. The error was "Could not open resource for writing", and then another one that said "Could not pause playback". This was quite annoying, as I had to switch over to rhythmbox and start the playback manually, and then sometimes it would repeat the same sequence of errors, again, randomly.
Poking around gentoo's forums site proved to be no help, but I did find a posting through google on a redhat bug listing that had steps to reproduce the problem. The bug noted that turning off the option in gnome-sound-properties to "enable sound server startup" was one of the steps to get this to faithfully reproduce. Well, taking the opposite to be true, I turned this option on for my sound properties and things seem to be working fine so far. It's been a few hours, and no issues as of yet. Even though it was random before, I could pretty reliable a few of those errors every two or so hours.
We'll just have to wait and see if this fixes it.
I finally bit the bullet and just went out and bought a D-Link DBT-120 bluetooth dongle since I was going to pay the same amount, if not more, trying to win one on e-bay, plus I would have to wait for it, what fun is that.
I had played around for a little with John's DBT-120 to make sure it would work, but apparently I didn't go far enough with it. I was able to link my computer to my phone and ping the phone, but I never tried to pull anything off the phone. Guess I should have.
Here is the issue I'm having. As I said before, I am able to link the two devices up, ping the phone using l2ping, and pull all of the relevant information from the phone using hcitool. The problem comes when I try to use obexftp to pull files off the phone. It won't connect. I get this:
obexftp -b xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx -l
Browsing xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx ...
Channel: 7
No custom transport
Connecting...bt: -94
failed: connect
Still trying to connect
Connecting...bt: -94
failed: connect
Still trying to connect
Connecting...bt: -94
failed: connect
Still trying to connect
I even tried upgrading my kernel from 2.6.7 to 2.6.9 and that did not fix it. I have followed the tutorials that I found here and here, and posted a few inquiries on forums.gentoo.org. If anyone has any ideas, let me know.
I am running bluez-utils 2.12, bluez-lib 2.12, bluez-hcidump 1.16 and obexftp 0.10.7.
Now that I have finally got my Sony Ericsson T637 Bluetooth enabled phone, the fun has begun with setting up the bluetooth on my Gentoo laptop. I currently have a couple of bids in on ebay for a D-Link DBT-120 USB bluetooth dongle at the recomendation of John since he is using the same model and a similar phone on his Linux laptop and I know it works. John let me borrow his dongle for a bit to get my configs set up properly and make sure everything works before I actually get my own dongle.
The task was simple and the steps are fairly straight forward. I just had to recompile my kernel with the following options:
Device Drivers --->
Networking support --->
<M> Bluetooth subsystem support --->
--- Bluetooth subsystem support
<M> L2CAP protocol support
<M> SCO links support
<M> RFCOMM protocol support
[*] RFCOMM TTY support
<M> BNEP protocol support
[*] Multicast filter support
[*] Protocol filter support
<M> HIDP protocol support
Bluetooth device drivers --->
<M> HCI USB driver
[*] SCO (voice) support
<M> HCI UART driver
[*] UART (H4) protocol support
[*] BCSP protocol support
[*] Transmit CRC with every BCSP packet
<M> HCI BCM203x USB driver
<M> HCI BlueFRITZ! USB driver
I then rebooted my machine and emerged bluez-hcidump and bluez-tools. These provided the tools to poke and prod at the bluetooth dongle and search for other devices. blues-tools also provided an rc script that would start up all the necessary services on server boot.
I was able to get my phone and laptop talking to each other successfully. Next step will be to get rfcomm working so I can use my phone as a modem.
I'm running the testing flavor of Gentoo on my laptop (and my server for that matter) and noticed that the new version of tar is broken. Of course, this is after I start to pull 600 MB of source and compile it which has now taken over 27 hours (off and on with errors and such).
The error I was getting is pasted below, along with the fix.
In file included from /usr/include/stdio.h:28,
from argp-fmtstream.h:32,
from argp-fs-xinl.c:27:
/usr/include/features.h:265:41: operator '&&' has no right operand
Fix:
emerge tar
cd /var/tmp/portage/tar-1.14.90-r1/work/tar-1.14.90/lib
patch -p1 <
+++ argp-fs-xinl.c 2004-10-29 13:45:26.385342488 +0100
@@ -22,8 +22,9 @@
#endif
#define ARGP_FS_EI
-#undef __OPTIMIZE__
-#define __OPTIMIZE__
+#ifndef __OPTIMIZE__
+#define __OPTIMIZE__ 1
+#endif
#include "argp-fmtstream.h"
#if 0
EOM
ebuild /usr/portage/app-arch/tar/tar-1.14.90-r1.ebuild merge
Thanks to the gentoo forums and this bug report for that one! I'm not churning away at the remaining 96 packages. And to think, I get to do this all over again on the server probably tomorrow.
I finally got 3D support working on my laptop. I have the NVidia GeForce2 card and was able to get the basic nvidia support working before, but never the 3D support. I am running kernel 2.6.7 and nvidia-kernel 1.0.6111. Here are the steps I used to get it working :)
emerge nvidia-kernel
emerge nvidia-glx
opengl-update nvidia
edit /etc/X11/XF86Config
The Driver is nvidia, not nv
Uncomment the following lines:
Load "glx"
Load "dri"
Restart X and things should work. Now if only I can get UT2004 to work. I get "Could not load OpenGL Library" when I attempt to start it. Hmm...
I got my new harddrive yesterday for my laptop, and my machine has been chugging away at source code for the past 24 hours or so. This install of Gentoo is going much smoother than the last time I did it. They seem to have stabilized a bit. The only issue I have run into so far is with gcc and glibc. I used the CD's from last September to install the base OS, and then immediately did an "emerge -ud world" to update everything. After the new compile was installed, nothing else would compile. It turns out that it is just an issue with making such a major jump in versions and I got it all straightened out thanks to the forums.
I am also running the unstable tree this time. I'm hoping to get the 3d working since before there was a version mismatch between the kernel I was running and the version of nvidia-kernel. Guess we'll just have to wait and see if it works this time.
Well, my laptop spent the better part of the long weekend busy compiling away at all 500MB + of update sourcecode. Luckily, no major issues at all, just a few minor bugs that I had to work around once everything was done due to config file changes. And, things actually are working better for me now in some cases.
Before I had troubles with the battery applet taking up CPU time for no apparrent reason, but not anymore. They must have fixed that in Gnome 2.6. Yeah!
Another "issue" I ran into was upgrading PostgreSQL. Since I did a "major" upgrade, I had to dump all of my data and recreate my databases from scratch, then import my data. I was hesitant to do this on my server, but now that it's nothing at all from upgrading the copy on my laptop, I will probably be doing the updates on my server soon. Just a matter of running pg_dumpall and then psql -f
I do, however, have at least one program that does not want to work for me, Rhythmbox. Everytime I start it, it crashes. Just throws up a dialog saying that it needs to be restarted. If I leave it go, the music plays fine though, but then again, it's jsut a front to mpg123. Guess I'll go back to just using my old MP3 player.
Can't complain too much about the upgrade, things went a lot smoother than I was expecting.
I found out this morning while doing my usual emerge sync that Gnome 2.6 is now marked as stable for the Gentoo distribution of Linux. I took a look at the output of a pretend update and there are now over 550 MB of source that will need to be fetched and compiled because I have been slacking on my updates until 2.6 was marked stable. Guess my little laptop will be busy this weekend downloading and compiling lots of source code. I just hope after all this time and waiting that everything will still work as it does now for me. I took a few minutes to check the forums for notable bugs with Gnome 2.6, but the only things I saw seemed to be caused by people running the unstable version and not upgrading other libraries/programs as needed. We'll see.
I've had X running beautifully on my Dell Inspiron 8200 for a while now, but noticed that I was unable to switch to a normal text console once I logged into X. I asked my trusty friend John what was going on and he said he had the same problems before. It was my X keyboard mappings that were all screwed up. Very simple fix:
doug@proteus doug $ setxkbmap us
Now I can switch back and forth between X and a normal text console to view my logging console without problems.
Upon a recomendation from Carlos, I am installing Xine and GXine so that I can watch streaming video from MSNBC (even after my disappointment with their site). I started the emerge, and got the following error:
libtool: link: `/usr/lib/libGL.la' is not a valid libtool archive
make[3]: *** [libogl_spectrum.la] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory `[...]/work/xmms-1.2.8/Visualization/opengl_spectrum'
make[2]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/xmms-1.2.8-r4/work/xmms-1.2.8/Visualization'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/xmms-1.2.8-r4/work/xmms-1.2.8'
make: *** [all-recursive-am] Error 2
!!! ERROR: media-sound/xmms-1.2.8-r4 failed.
!!! Function src_compile, Lin"e 138, Exitcode 2
!!! (no error message)
After a bit of research, I found out that it's related to my NVidia card (go figure), and I found this patch. Baisically, it involves editing the libGL.la file like below:
Quote
This is a problem with the libGL.la generated by the nvidia-installer. Please edit /usr/lib/libGL.la, and replace the line:
# Generated by nvidia-installer: 1.0.5
with
# Generated by nvidia-installer: 1.0.5 (for use by libtool)
libtool greps for "^# Generated by .*libtool" before using .la files.
End Quote
I decided to do an "emerge sync" on my Gentoo box and I don't like what I'm seeing. Most of this does not scare me, but I don't really like re-compiling GCC or QT/arts. I had such a good time doing QT/Arts before. Looking at that entry, I guess I still owe a mini HowTo for that. Good thing I have it written down at home :)
I think I will wait until this weekend when I can have the laptop going for a day or so uninterupted. It is going to take a LONG time to compile all these packages.
The output from emerge -pUDv world is below.
Stacey?
[ebuild U ] sys-devel/bison-1.875 [1.35] +nls -static 795 kB
[ebuild N ] sys-libs/db-4.1.25_p1-r3 -doc +java -tcltk 3,008 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-devel/libperl-5.8.2 [5.8.0] +berkdb +gdbm 11,617 kB
[ebuild U ] dev-lang/perl-5.8.2-r1 [5.8.0-r12] +berkdb -doc +gdbm -threads
11,617 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-devel/gcc-3.3.2-r5 [3.2.3-r3] +X -bootstrap -build +java -mu
ltilib +nls -static 23,451 kB
[ebuild N ] sys-kernel/linux-headers-2.4.21 -build 27,864 kB
[ebuild N ] app-crypt/hashalot-0.1.0 72 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-libs/cracklib-2.7-r8 [2.7-r7] 20 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-libs/pam-0.77 [0.75-r11] +berkdb -pwdb -(selinux) 3,551 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-apps/pam-login-3.14 [3.11] +nls -(selinux) 137 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-apps/util-linux-2.12-r4 [2.11z-r8] +crypt +nls +pam -(selinu
x) -static 1,819 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-apps/baselayout-1.8.6.13 [1.8.6.10-r1] -bootstrap -build -li
vecd -(selinux) -static 101 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-apps/man-pages-1.65 [1.64] 1,752 kB
[ebuild U ] x11-base/xfree-4.3.0-r4 [4.3.0-r3] -3dfx -3dnow -cjk -debug -doc
-ipv6 -mmx +nls +pam -sdk -sse -static +truetype +xml2 17,514 kB
[ebuild U ] dev-libs/libxml2-2.6.4 [2.6.3] -ipv6 +python +readline 2,582 kB
[ebuild U ] media-libs/audiofile-0.2.5 [0.2.4] 353 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-apps/tcp-wrappers-7.6-r8 [7.6-r6] -ipv6 -static 18 kB
[ebuild N ] dev-perl/XML-Parser-2.31-r1 249 kB
[ebuild U ] dev-util/intltool-0.30 [0.27.2] 110 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-base/libbonobo-2.4.3 [2.4.2] -doc 1,349 kB
[ebuild U ] net-nds/portmap-5b-r8 [5b-r7] 0 kB
[ebuild U ] app-admin/fam-2.7.0 [2.6.10-r1] 294 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-base/gnome-vfs-2.4.2-r1 [2.4.1] -doc +ssl 1,042 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-base/libbonoboui-2.4.3 [2.4.1] -doc 868 kB
[ebuild U ] dev-libs/libxslt-1.1.2 [1.1.1] +python 1,659 kB
[ebuild U ] app-shells/sash-3.6 [3.4-r5] +readline 49 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-apps/procps-3.1.15 [3.1.12-r1] 260 kB
[ebuild U ] net-www/lynx-2.8.4.1d-r1 [2.8.4.1c] -ipv6 +nls +ssl 4 kB
[ebuild U ] app-text/scrollkeeper-0.3.14 [0.3.12] +nls 663 kB
[ebuild U ] media-libs/lcms-1.12 [1.11] +jpeg +python -tiff +zlib 554 kB
[ebuild U ] x11-libs/qt-3.3.0 [3.2.3-r1] +cups -doc -firebird +gif -icc -ipv
6 -mysql -nas -odbc +opengl +postgres -sqlite +zlib 14,064 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-libs/pwdb-0.62 [0.61-r4] -(selinux) 130 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-apps/psmisc-21.2-r4 [21.2-r3] +nls -(selinux) 252 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-apps/findutils-4.1.20-r1 [4.1.7-r5] -afs -build +nls -(selin
ux) 759 kB
[ebuild U ] media-libs/libvorbis-1.0.1-r2 [1.0.1-r1] 0 kB
[ebuild U ] net-ftp/curl-7.10.8-r1 [7.10.7] -ipv6 -ldap +ssl 995 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-base/eel-2.4.2 [2.4.1] 484 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-base/librsvg-2.4.0-r1 [2.4.0] -doc +zlib 0 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-base/nautilus-2.4.2 [2.4.1-r2] +cups -gstreamer +oggvorbis
5,554 kB
[ebuild U ] net-www/mozilla-1.6 [1.5-r1] +crypt -debug +gnome +gtk2 -ipv6 +j
ava -ldap -mozaccess -mozcalendar -moznocompose -moznoirc -moznomail -moznoxft -
mozxmlterm +ssl 30,710 kB
[ebuild U ] net-www/epiphany-1.0.7 [1.0.6] +gnome 1,787 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-base/gnome-panel-2.4.2 [2.4.1] -doc 2,600 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-base/libgtop-2.0.8 [2.0.7] 894 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-base/gnome-applets-2.4.2 [2.4.1-r2] -acpi +apm -doc -ipv6
3,962 kB
[ebuild U ] app-arch/file-roller-2.4.4-r2 [2.4.1.1] 925 kB
[ebuild U ] app-text/ggv-2.4.1 [2.4.0.2] 1,103 kB
[ebuild U ] app-text/gpdf-0.112 [0.111] 821 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-extra/acme-2.4.2-r1 [2.4.2] 0 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-extra/gnome-games-2.4.2 [2.4.1.1] -guile 7,236 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-devel/gdb-6.0 [5.3] +nls 11,684 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-extra/bug-buddy-2.4.2 [2.4.1] 550 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-base/gnome-session-2.4.2 [2.4.1] -ipv6 890 kB
[ebuild U ] media-libs/libexif-0.5.12-r1 [0.5.12] +nls 0 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-extra/zenity-1.8 [1.6] 430 kB
[ebuild U ] gnome-base/gnome-2.4.2 [2.4.1] -accessibility -cdr -doc -dvdr -s
amba [empty/missing/bad digest]
[ebuild U ] sys-apps/kbd-1.08-r5 [1.08-r4] +nls 0 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-kernel/genkernel-3.0.1_beta11 [3.0.1_beta6] 3,176 kB
[ebuild N ] kde-base/arts-1.2.0 +alsa -artswrappersuid +esd +mad +oggvorbis
970 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-apps/pcmcia-cs-3.2.5-r1 [3.2.4] +apm -build -nocardbus -pnp
-trusted 1,244 kB
[ebuild U ] app-portage/gentoolkit-0.2.0_pre6 [0.1.38] 56 kB
Total size of downloads: 204,674 kB
For my benefit and Stacey's, here are the steps I use to successfully update my gentoo box.
emerge sync
emerge -UDp --world
emerge -UD --world (make sure everything looks fine from the last step)
revdep-rebuild (this will rebuild everything that is now broken due to a dependency issue. This is in the gentoolkit ebuild)
ldconfig
Everythign should work fine for you now. But I don't guarantee anything :)
It's been a while since I've posted about my adventures in installing Gentoo Linux on my laptop. I now have things working fairlly well, with a few exceptions. (go figure). I got the nVidia drivers to install properly and give me my optimum resolution of 1400x1050, much better than the 1024x768 I was working with for a while. I also now have ACPI working, at least the battery charge applet and other tools like that, but I haven't played around with the software suspend yet.
I also successfully installed Oracle 9i client. This was a surprise to me since I couldn't even install it that easily on Red Hat, which is Oracle certified! I had absolutely no problems and everything is working well. Now, if I wanted to run the DB on my laptop, that would be a different story according to the Gentoo forums. But I don't need the DB, only the client :)
The only thing that I am having issues with is the ARTS library for KDE. Seems that WINE and TOra both want this library, and can't get that to compile. I have searched the forums for the error that I am getting and they all basically say that the GLibC patch that just came out breaks a lot of stuff. The solution, re-emerge GCC. What fun. So I am waiting around for that to finish compiling now. I also found other steps that need to be taken because of my nVidia card but once I get this installed successfully, I'll post a mini HOWTO on that.
I found something very disturbing yesterday when I went to attempt to get my wireless card working. I discovered that the company that acutally produces the cards for LinkSys, refuses to create a driver for linux or even release the specs so someone else can produce a driver!!! WTF? Well, after much disappointment and searching on the internet (thanks to Google), I was able to find out that you can use the windows driver and wrap them using a program called ndiswrapper.
You basically download the windows driver and point this program to the .sys and .inf files and it allows you to use a windows driver to support any 802.11g wireless card. Thank goodness for the resourcefulness of the *nix community!
After a few more issues trying to get my module loader to get everything working the way it is supposed to do, I am posting this from my laptop via the wireless card :)
Well, I finally got the 2.6 kernel compiled on my laptop and booted. Everything comes up fine, with the exception of my sound drivers. I'm getting an error that the module for the intel ALSA sound driver is already inserted into the kernel. Problem is, I'm following the steps someone else posted when they installed Gentoo on the same machine. So I emailed him asking for his help and I'm currently waiting for a response on that.
I am also having an problem getting PSI to build. I tried to emerge it and it built QT 3.x also. Fine, it needs it. But now it complains that the build environment isn't set up properly for QT. WTF? Here is the output that I get when I try to build PSI:
proteus root # emerge psi
Calculating dependencies ...done!
>>> emerge (1 of 1) net-im/psi-0.9-r1 to /
>>> md5 src_uri ;-) psi-0.9.tar.bz2
>>> md5 src_uri ;-) qssl-2.0.tar.bz2
>>> Unpacking source...
>>> Unpacking psi-0.9.tar.bz2 to /var/tmp/portage/psi-0.9-r1/work
>>> Unpacking qssl-2.0.tar.bz2 to /var/tmp/portage/psi-0.9-r1/work
* Applying psi_gpg_fix... [ ok ]
>>> Source unpacked.
Configuring Psi ...
There was an error compiling qconf. Be sure you have a proper
Qt 3.x build environment set up.
!!! ERROR: net-im/psi-0.9-r1 failed.
!!! Function src_compile, Line 32, Exitcode 1
!!! (no error message)
I posted a message on the PSI support forum and again, I'm waiting for a response. When I get these two issues resolved, I should have a functioning laptop with most of what I want on it.
After a long time compiling, I was finally ready to see if X would start for me this morning when I got to work. Well, what fun would this whole process be if it worked :) It didn't. So I poked around the XF86Config file and changed a few things. Then I tried to restart X. At least this time I got some semblance of X starting, although it was all kinds of squigly lines. So after an hour of poking around on the net, I finally found an article on NVidia's website that points me to a new driver that I had to download and install. Well, everything is up and running now, except it's all scrunched in the middle of my screen. There is a large black area surrounding it. I do remember seeing somethign about using the zoom feature to fill the screen. I'll have to do further research on that. But for now, it's back to work :(
The install of Gentoo on my laptop is going rather smoothly, just really slow! I am now in my third day of installing/building and it is currently chugging away on gnome. I had it do X while I was sleeping last night and when I woke up, it was done.
I was able to find a very helpful website that detailed exactly what I am trying to do. I was able to get the sound card recognized as well as the on-board NIC and other such hardware. Now I just need to figure out what driver my 802.11g NIC needs. :)
After many fights with my laptop and Window$ 2000, I finally decided to scrap it and put a useable OS on the thing. I installed Gentoo on my new server and rather liked the install and it's maintainability so I decided to go with that. After finding a place to store my 2+ GB of MP3's and other data, I finally started the install last night while watching TV. The base install went off without a hitch, but then I made a mistake. I decided to update the system and bring it current. Well, there are 33 packages that need updated, just for the base OS as it is installed from Stage 3. Not too bad you think? It's been compiling since about 10:00 last night and it's now 9:00 AM!! I'm not sure what is going on since it's running on a P4 with 384M of Ram and 512M swap. We'll see.
The main reasons that it took me so long to make this decision is that I use 2 pieces of software at work that I was unable to find a decent port/replacement for. For all of our DB work with Oracle, we use TOAD, and I use Outlook for email and it's decent calendar and contacts features. Well, I did some searching thanks to google and was able to find TOra to replace TOAD and found Ximian to replace Outlook.
So now my adventure begins. Keep checking back as I'm sure I will be posting little glitches I find and their solutions, etc.