It's been awhile since I've written anything for blogspot. Over the past few weeks I've been very busy with non-computer related issues. I'm very glad to report that I now have my Microsoft MN-720 wireless adapter working with SuSE 9.2 without any crashes during the module load, or when I shut down my system.
The key is NOT using the Microsoft mn720-50.inf driver, but a homebrew driver created by the good folks at Ankhcraft, a web development business. The driver is located at: http://ankhcraft.com/drivers/mn720-ankh.zip.
Now if you've never installed the MN-720 before under SuSE you'll need to download/install the ndiswrapper software package. It is a part of SuSE 9.2, so you don't need to go to sourceforge to download it.
Once ndiswrapper is installed you need to unzip the driver I mentioned above. Note: it's zipped, not tarred, so you need to unzip it. Then run as root the command:
ndiswrapper -i mn720-ankh.inf
There are two other steps I decided to do: create a wireless profile which had normal eth0 wired routing removed and load the ndiswrapper driver on startup.
For creating profiles see the SuSE documentation, it's a topic that's a bit lengthly to go into here.
To load ndiswrapper on startup load YaST --> Systerm --> /etc/sysconfig Editor. Then click from the Tree view on the left System --> Kernel --> MODULES_LOADED_ON_STARTUP. In the empty space on the right top enter ndiswrapper.
Since using the Ankhcraft drivers I've had no problems with freezing, the CD-based Microsoft drivers were to fault because they require a really big stack!
Monday, February 28, 2005
Friday, February 11, 2005
Debian Sarge - sweeet!
I just finished installing Debian GNU/Linux Sarge on a box at The Working Centre, and I must say that I'm impressed with the art included in the typical install. While the bootsplash is still lacking, something which can be edited, the default Gnome screen was nice and simple.
I did a little rooting around and found an even more impressive Gnome theme, pictured below:
I did a little rooting around and found an even more impressive Gnome theme, pictured below:
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Fresh install, fresh perspective
I like to tinker with my Linux boxes, just as I have everything working perfectly I have to do something to make life more interesting. Last night, after backing up all my ripped cd's/mp3s, I decided to reinstall everything. Here's roughly what I now have on my system:
/dev/hda1 Windows XP
/dev/hda2 Ubuntu
/dev/hda3 swap for ubuntu
/dev/hda4 Logical volume
/dev/hda5 SuSE 9.2 Professional
/dev/hda6 swap for suse
/dev/hda7 vfat data drive for exchanging between windows and linux
Amazingly, this setup worked the first time I installed, or almost... I had to do a bit of grub tweaking in SuSE, but it was because of my lack of familiarity with grub (I'm more familiar with lilo), and a misplaced character.
I installed the system by installing Windows XP first, Ububtu second, and SuSE last. Windows XP froze during the hardware detection phase and required a reboot, but it worked after the reboot. I had to pay special attention to the Ubuntu install because I did NOT want to put Ubuntu's grub on the boot loader. The SuSE install was a new install for me as well because I did a minimal install without KDE and GNOME, this lead to some interesting results, including discovering a major flaw in the novell implementation of fvwm2. Apparently novell forgot to secure fvwm2, because I can launch any of the yast2 modules without using the root password. Novell has done a great job of toughening up KDE, but it looks like their minimal install got left by the wayside. Any local user who uses fvwm2 can practically do anything with the system without the root password.
Other than that major boo-boo, everything runs beautifully. I've moved all my music and radio shows back on to the hard drive, unfortunately, at 30GB I really don't have space to make sure all my files are accessible by all partitions, but that's what my desktop machine is for.
/dev/hda1 Windows XP
/dev/hda2 Ubuntu
/dev/hda3 swap for ubuntu
/dev/hda4 Logical volume
/dev/hda5 SuSE 9.2 Professional
/dev/hda6 swap for suse
/dev/hda7 vfat data drive for exchanging between windows and linux
Amazingly, this setup worked the first time I installed, or almost... I had to do a bit of grub tweaking in SuSE, but it was because of my lack of familiarity with grub (I'm more familiar with lilo), and a misplaced character.
I installed the system by installing Windows XP first, Ububtu second, and SuSE last. Windows XP froze during the hardware detection phase and required a reboot, but it worked after the reboot. I had to pay special attention to the Ubuntu install because I did NOT want to put Ubuntu's grub on the boot loader. The SuSE install was a new install for me as well because I did a minimal install without KDE and GNOME, this lead to some interesting results, including discovering a major flaw in the novell implementation of fvwm2. Apparently novell forgot to secure fvwm2, because I can launch any of the yast2 modules without using the root password. Novell has done a great job of toughening up KDE, but it looks like their minimal install got left by the wayside. Any local user who uses fvwm2 can practically do anything with the system without the root password.
Other than that major boo-boo, everything runs beautifully. I've moved all my music and radio shows back on to the hard drive, unfortunately, at 30GB I really don't have space to make sure all my files are accessible by all partitions, but that's what my desktop machine is for.
Sunday, February 06, 2005
The Satanic Beast that is Microsoft
I am constantly amazed how little the general public knows about Microsoft and their business practices. While most people have a general feeling that Microsoft is "evil," and some even have their own Microsoft horror-stories to share, it's amazing the lengths gone to in order to cater to Microsoft.
The Bush administration caved like a wet baby and put in place judges who all but patted Microsoft on the back after Judge Jackson ruled Microsoft a monopoly and ordered Microsoft to be broken up into two divisions. Bush's administration is to blame, if the Clinton administration continued in power I have no doubt Microsoft would be two companies today.
Speaking of conquering and dividing, many, many moons ago, Lotus corporation had more revenue coming in from Lotus 1-2-3 than Microsoft did from all of its divisions; the reason why, Lotus concentrated on the PC platform while Microsoft was attempting to cater to many platforms. How did Microsoft defeat Lotus? One tactic was to insert code into Microsoft DOS that caused Lotus 1-2-3 to break down; this is documented evidence in the book Hard Drive. Microsoft has also in the past created undocumented API's which it used to gain a speed advantage over competitors like Lotus on the Windows platform. And who can forget Microsoft inserting code into versions of Windows which sent back information about people's systems to Microsoft; it might not seem like much, but what happens when Microsoft starts sending back your banking information, or information about your latest business transactions?
What amazes me the most is that Microsoft has been completely forgiven for stealing Apple's ideas and technology. A lot of people are under the mistaken impression that Microsoft got their idea for Microsoft Windows from Xerox; that impression simply is not true, even if Microsoft now repeats that it is. Years ago Microsoft was one of the many Apple architecture developers. Microsoft had ported parts of its Office product to Apple systems. As a big developer Microsoft had access to early model Apple machines, and when Microsoft first saw the Macintosh they were blown away, and started working on Windows based on ideas from the Macintosh. Now, many of the ideas Microsoft implemented in Windows 1.0 were different from the Macintosh, but Windows was still a derivitive product of Apple's operating system, a fact Microsoft even acknowledged in an agreement they signed with Apple. Apple was cornered, sales of Apple computers were sluggish, and Microsoft was threatening to pull its product line from the Macintosh if Apple continued to push its lawsuit. The agreement basically said Microsoft would continue developing its products for the Macintosh, and acknowledged that Windows was based on Apple ideas, and in turn Apple dropped their lawsuit and would give Microsoft unfettered access to their technology at that point. A lot of Apple employees were extremely ticked off that Apple caved so easily.
That's the monster that is Microsoft, sly, unforgiving, and a partner who will rob you blind.
The Bush administration caved like a wet baby and put in place judges who all but patted Microsoft on the back after Judge Jackson ruled Microsoft a monopoly and ordered Microsoft to be broken up into two divisions. Bush's administration is to blame, if the Clinton administration continued in power I have no doubt Microsoft would be two companies today.
Speaking of conquering and dividing, many, many moons ago, Lotus corporation had more revenue coming in from Lotus 1-2-3 than Microsoft did from all of its divisions; the reason why, Lotus concentrated on the PC platform while Microsoft was attempting to cater to many platforms. How did Microsoft defeat Lotus? One tactic was to insert code into Microsoft DOS that caused Lotus 1-2-3 to break down; this is documented evidence in the book Hard Drive. Microsoft has also in the past created undocumented API's which it used to gain a speed advantage over competitors like Lotus on the Windows platform. And who can forget Microsoft inserting code into versions of Windows which sent back information about people's systems to Microsoft; it might not seem like much, but what happens when Microsoft starts sending back your banking information, or information about your latest business transactions?
What amazes me the most is that Microsoft has been completely forgiven for stealing Apple's ideas and technology. A lot of people are under the mistaken impression that Microsoft got their idea for Microsoft Windows from Xerox; that impression simply is not true, even if Microsoft now repeats that it is. Years ago Microsoft was one of the many Apple architecture developers. Microsoft had ported parts of its Office product to Apple systems. As a big developer Microsoft had access to early model Apple machines, and when Microsoft first saw the Macintosh they were blown away, and started working on Windows based on ideas from the Macintosh. Now, many of the ideas Microsoft implemented in Windows 1.0 were different from the Macintosh, but Windows was still a derivitive product of Apple's operating system, a fact Microsoft even acknowledged in an agreement they signed with Apple. Apple was cornered, sales of Apple computers were sluggish, and Microsoft was threatening to pull its product line from the Macintosh if Apple continued to push its lawsuit. The agreement basically said Microsoft would continue developing its products for the Macintosh, and acknowledged that Windows was based on Apple ideas, and in turn Apple dropped their lawsuit and would give Microsoft unfettered access to their technology at that point. A lot of Apple employees were extremely ticked off that Apple caved so easily.
That's the monster that is Microsoft, sly, unforgiving, and a partner who will rob you blind.
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Ongoing saga of the SGI Indigo game machine hack.
The ongoing saga of my gaming box continues with mixed results. On a positive note, removing the internals of my SGI Indigo was very easy. But when it came time to do some metal cutting with the dremmel I was stopped cold. It all came down to the fact that the dremmel I have sucks more than a category 5 tornado.
If you've never seen a SGI Indigo, there's a photograph below. Originally this box would have served as a graphics visualization workstation, ahem, thousands of dollars, *cough*, *cough*, but it cost me $5CDN, though it was mostly gutted.
The back of this machine is equally interesting. Note the SCSI port. SGI builds visually interresting boxes, and they're easy to disassemble compared to some PC's. This picture also shows the graphics board. Note how it has a 13w3 graphics out and the standard SVGA out - I wonder if it would work with my Sun 13w3 monitor?
First the good stuff. Removing the metal internals from the plastic SGI Indigo case was easy, all I had to do was flip the case upside down and apply a little pressure to the open metal tabs (see photograph), and the case slid out nicely. I decided that it was a good idea to stick with the original metal casing instead of trying to fit a new housing inside. The old SGI metal casing has sliders that can hold hard drives, and while I'll have to retro-fit the drives, I'll be simpler than trying to get metal shaped just the right size from scratch. I took the cover off an old floppy drive. The cover is going to be welded inside to hold up the power supply, which I'm mounting vertically. I may have to do some slight cutting of the plastic case, but the sucky dremmel seems okay with plastic, so I should be able to buff things up.
I ran into another snag because the motherboard plus expansion cards is too big to fit mounted within the metal. By removing the metal brackets from all the cards I was able to cut down the card size and make them fit better, but not enough to accommodate the larger cards like the sound blaster awe 64. If I can cut the top portion of the metal within the case I'll be fine.
The gutted plastic of the indy:
I did manage to cut some metal off the back of the metal case after removing the electronic backplane, but I had to use a hack saw to cut the case, and the saw I used was not very good. I removed a small square off the back of the case. At some point I'm going to need someone to clean up the back of this thing. I could have solved some of my problems by going with an ATX board with onboard video, sound, etc., but the point was to use parts lying around, and I wanted to use the ATI Rage II+DVD card which has TV out and SVideo ports on it.
On the software side, I installed a base installation of Debian via NFS. After the base install was finished and I tried to install further packages I ran into a bump, the new machine, dubbed cougar, doesn't want to nfs mount the partition on my notebook.
I know the connection is working because I can ping the notebook, and the firewall has been yanked. The problem, courgar reports, has something to do with rpc timing out. I can see lights flashing on the notebook hard drive, so I know from time to time it's trying to do something. The problem seems to be on cougar's (desktop/gaming box) end. After doing the base install I think some of the NFS instruction got left off. I may have to hook up a CD-ROM to complete this, but I'll probably try ftp first.
If you've never seen a SGI Indigo, there's a photograph below. Originally this box would have served as a graphics visualization workstation, ahem, thousands of dollars, *cough*, *cough*, but it cost me $5CDN, though it was mostly gutted.
The back of this machine is equally interesting. Note the SCSI port. SGI builds visually interresting boxes, and they're easy to disassemble compared to some PC's. This picture also shows the graphics board. Note how it has a 13w3 graphics out and the standard SVGA out - I wonder if it would work with my Sun 13w3 monitor?
First the good stuff. Removing the metal internals from the plastic SGI Indigo case was easy, all I had to do was flip the case upside down and apply a little pressure to the open metal tabs (see photograph), and the case slid out nicely. I decided that it was a good idea to stick with the original metal casing instead of trying to fit a new housing inside. The old SGI metal casing has sliders that can hold hard drives, and while I'll have to retro-fit the drives, I'll be simpler than trying to get metal shaped just the right size from scratch. I took the cover off an old floppy drive. The cover is going to be welded inside to hold up the power supply, which I'm mounting vertically. I may have to do some slight cutting of the plastic case, but the sucky dremmel seems okay with plastic, so I should be able to buff things up.
I ran into another snag because the motherboard plus expansion cards is too big to fit mounted within the metal. By removing the metal brackets from all the cards I was able to cut down the card size and make them fit better, but not enough to accommodate the larger cards like the sound blaster awe 64. If I can cut the top portion of the metal within the case I'll be fine.
The gutted plastic of the indy:
I did manage to cut some metal off the back of the metal case after removing the electronic backplane, but I had to use a hack saw to cut the case, and the saw I used was not very good. I removed a small square off the back of the case. At some point I'm going to need someone to clean up the back of this thing. I could have solved some of my problems by going with an ATX board with onboard video, sound, etc., but the point was to use parts lying around, and I wanted to use the ATI Rage II+DVD card which has TV out and SVideo ports on it.
On the software side, I installed a base installation of Debian via NFS. After the base install was finished and I tried to install further packages I ran into a bump, the new machine, dubbed cougar, doesn't want to nfs mount the partition on my notebook.
I know the connection is working because I can ping the notebook, and the firewall has been yanked. The problem, courgar reports, has something to do with rpc timing out. I can see lights flashing on the notebook hard drive, so I know from time to time it's trying to do something. The problem seems to be on cougar's (desktop/gaming box) end. After doing the base install I think some of the NFS instruction got left off. I may have to hook up a CD-ROM to complete this, but I'll probably try ftp first.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)