HOWTO have wireless working on an ASUS EEE PC 1001P in Ubuntu

HOWTO have wireless working on an ASUS EEE PC 1001P in Ubuntu

or, alternatively,

HOWTO add AR2427 support to Ubuntu

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UPDATE:

This is the last update I plan to do to this blog post. Ubuntu 10.10 (at this moment only available in it's "Alpha 2" version) already supports this out of the box. Thus, the most recommended procedure is to install Ubuntu 10.10 or later. No other support is being offered regarding this issue.

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It's pretty simple, really. This blog post is being written just because all the "other ways" of doing it I've seen on the web until now were painful in comparison.

1. Open a terminal, and type:
2. wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/daily/2010-06-15-maverick/linux-image-2.6.35-999-generic_2.6.35-999.201006151505_i386.deb
3. sudo dpkg -i linux-image-2.6.33-999-generic_2.6.33-999.201003061003_i386.deb
4. reboot

Oh, how I love free software :-)

Update:
The brightness controls for this laptop are kind of messed up when you install Ubuntu there, and get even more messed up when you update the kernel (what I said you to do before in order to get wireless working). To fix it, you have to do, in a terminal:

• sudo gedit /etc/default/grub
• change the line that says
  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
  to
  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_osi=Linux"
• save the file and quit, and then, in the terminal, type:
• sudo update-grub
• reboot

Update 2: Notice that now the kernel version I'm telling you to download in this blog post is different. This kernel version has a couple of bugs solved that affected 1001P netbooks, so it is recommended that you use this one instead.

Update 3: See the top disclaimer.

Installing Second Life on an EEE PC

I've been playing with an EEE PC lately. This 299€ (in Portugal) GNU/Linux ASUS laptop is awsome, and I'm really happy that ASUS did it. They did some mistakes, like using Xandros Server 2.0 as base for their distro, making me think, for instance, that if I had one of these I would replace their Operating System with something like Debian Eee PC, eeexubuntu or even eeedora. I might write about my thoughts on EEE PC later, but for now, a quick HOWTO (because I think this isn't documented nowhere) on installing Second Life on EEE PC.

HOWTO Install Second Life on an EEE PC:

1. edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf and change DefaultColorDepth 16 to DefaultColorDepth 24
2. restart your X (press control+alt+backspace, for instance)
3. edit your /etc/apt/sources.list file and add this lines:

   
   deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/pub/debian testing main contrib non-free
   deb http://apt.byteme.org.uk/apt/ unstable main
   

4. in a terminal (CTRL+ALT+t) write sudo aptitude update && aptitude install slviewer
5. Remove the added lines on /etc/apt/sources.list and in the terminal run aptitude update to go back to the state you were
6. Your Second Life is now installed. To run it write slviewer in a terminal.

Regarding to using Second Life itself, you'll notice that the windowed view assumes a bigger resolution than the one you have, so I recommend you to start by going to the options, changing the ratio scale and remove the windowed mode. Et voilá, you're on Second Life!

The SSH/SSL vulnerability: what you should know

I wasn't going to post about this, but it seems that, for my own sanity, I must. As you might know by now, a Debian Security Advisory came out, talking about a problem that affected the OpenSSL package, not only for Debian but for its derivatives too, like Ubuntu.

My first two remarks, and probably the most important ones for my thoughts about this issue:

• If what you know about this issue is what you read on Slashdot, YOU'RE WRONG. Even the news itself is wrong, and the comments are clueless, written by people that don't know shit about what are they talking about. Worse than useless, that story on /. is disinformative.
  
• If you think that this issue only affects users of Debian and Debian-derivatives, think twice. Any Linux/Unix/*BSD system is vulnerable that grants access to a key that was generated on an affected Debian or Ubuntu system. Erich has a simple yet good explanation on why.

Now, my stand on the issue: if you really feel the need to mock, criticize or otherwise comment about this issue, make yourself and me a favour, and avoid making a fool of yourself. In other words, find out what really happened, what is this all about and make your own oppinion based on facts, instead of just falling into the absurdity that spreaded over, saying silly stuff like "Debian does not contribute to upstream" (what a joke, did you ever read the Debian Social Contract?), or "Debian shouldn't make security fixes". As a matter of fact, John Goerzen wrote an interesting article about some of those things and why they are wrong.

So, to help you a little, here's a small list of articles you might want to read about the issue:

• Zak


• Daniel


• Erich


• Aigars


• Goerzen


• Zak (again)


• Steve

Yes, it was an unfortunate thing to happen. So, go fix your stuff and leave me alone.

ping

This weekend I saw a curious thing: Ubuntu made the right choice of having the reportbug-ng package in their distribution, but they forgot to change it to check Ubuntu bugs and report to Ubuntu instead of doing that to Debian. So, there's not a bug report against Ubuntu's bugreport-ng [1], even if tagged as "wishlist" (something I don't think is correct, and will try to see changed).

On other issue, IFPI is pressing Europe [2] to adopt some silly stuff like the recent Olivennes disagreement [3], and European politicians seem open to the idea of ISPs policing and interfering with their customers' communications on behalf of rightsholders.

We all know that Amazon is generally "cool", but they have some bad stuff too. Cory Doctorow decided to talk about it [4].

Finally... I'm a sucker for these things, it's not the first time and I doubt it will be the last that I see some piece of unmaintained software going offline and I having to taking over it. This time it was Crystal [5], a text-based MUD client that has support for both telnet and telnet-SSL. A new version was released, I have already plans on how to attack the "TODO" and I even made a Debian Package, that I'll try to make official [6].

Which reminds me to ask: any DD out there wanting to sign my GPG key? ;-)

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[1] - http://smallr.net/ubuntu-bug-175508
[2] - http://smallr.net/IFPI-vs-Europe
[3] - http://smallr.net/olivennes
[4] - http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/dec/11/amazon
[5] - http://talkerspt.no-ip.org/~mbooster/crystal/
[6] - http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=455759

On Ubuntu

First of all, congratulations to all those involved in the new release of Ubuntu (yes, including Debian folks): it seems to me that this is being one of the most mediatic GNU/Linux distro releases, and every comparison between Ubuntu/Mac OS/Windows I've read so far tells me that this new Ubuntu release is doing well.

Still, here are some critics...

I'm a fan of Debian, not really a fan of Ubuntu. Probably my biggest pet peeve with Ubuntu is what is somewhat described in this image:

click on image to see it full size

The image explains both Debian and Ubuntu's release cycle. As you can see, Ubuntu does not contribute to upstream and doesn't have a controlled development and testing environment as Debian has. The result is easilly seen in matters of stability and security, when comparing both distros.

Some people don't understand why do I consider the fact that in Debian each package has a maintainer a good thing, compared to Ubuntu's anarchy. Here's a patch that I just saw and that explains one of the things that might happen in result of such lack of control: In this first pach to geneweb [1], we see Ubuntu forking Debian's package. In other words: Ubuntu folks used Geneweb's Debian package, but there was something they wanted to change, so instead of reporting a bug to that package, they just fork'ed it and created an Ubuntu version of the package. Now let's see what is that change about: reading the patch you'll easilly understand (even if you don't know nothing about code) that this patch is made to avoid a bug in pkgstriptranslations, a package and software created and maintained by Ubuntu. Now, why the hell are Ubuntu folks writting workarounds in other software instead of fixing their own bugs?

And there's the "you should keep your mouth closed" Gobuntu issue. So, Mark Shuttleworth announced that Ubuntu “Gutsy Gibbon” would be available in a super-strict, 100% open source flavor (now called “Gobuntu”). Well, that's nice and all but... Gobuntu has non-free contents [2]! If you don't have the guts to go without non-free (and yes, it is a question of guts since the issue involves pissing off Mozzila Corporation), why bothering creating Gobuntu? After all there's already gNewSense [3]...

Finally, I'm still pissed off with Canonical because they're failing their yet another long-time-ago promise: to "fix" the "mistake" of forgeting to give credits where credit is due, namedly on the fact that Ubuntu can't live without Debian. Yet, they keep forgetting [4]...

Now, don't take me wrong, I'm glad that Ubuntu exists, they pushed the boundaries and forced the whole bunch of GNU/Linux distros to evolve. Their bug #1 is something I want to see fixed [5] (specially when phoning to several laptop vendors like ASUS and LG Electronics just to get a reply "no, you can't but one of our laptops without Microsoft Windows"). Ubuntu has a lot of cool stuff: I'm still waiting to see Debian LiveCD [6] promoted as an excellence way of testing and installing Debian as Ubuntu's LiveCD is, for instance... But there are lot's of important issues to be addressed, more important (in my oppinion) than just "going bleeding edge and work on the hype".

[1] - http://tinyurl.com/2fkwwc
[2] - http://tinyurl.com/373vhk
[3] - http://www.gnewsense.org/
[4] - http://www.lucas-nussbaum.net/blog/?p=257
[5] - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1
[6] - http://live.debian.net/

Suggestions for maintaining Debian

Since many people ask me about these, here's a quick post about some Debian stuff:

apt-get vs. aptitude - aptitude is, IMHO, more flexible, even if you don't want to use the interective client (aptitude update && aptitude upgrade also work). If you use apt-get and aptitude now tells you that you have some unused packages, you can fix that by making an aptitude install to those packages.

apt.conf - you can configure your debian box behaviour in a really flexible way. For instance, in this box I have this:

# cat /etc/apt/apt.conf
APT::Default-Release "stable";
APT::Cache-Limit 20000000;
Apt::Get::Purge;
Aptitude::Recommends-Important "true";
Aptitude::Suggests-Important "true";

The first line says that I prefer stable packages. That means that if I have stable and testing repositories, he tryis stable first. To force testing, for instance, do a {apt-get|aptitude} -t testing install package .
The two last lines tell you that I want aptitude to install recommended and suggested packages by default.

wajig - This tool is most commonly used for:

Common JIG commands:

 update         Update the list of down-loadable packages

 new            List packages that became available since last update
 newupgrades    List packages newly available for upgrading

 install        Install (or upgrade) one or more packages or .deb files
 remove         Remove one or more packages (see also purge)

 toupgrade      List packages with newer versions available for upgrading
 upgrade        Upgrade all of the installed packages or just those listed

 listfiles      List the files that are supplied by the named package
 listnames      List all known packages or those containing supplied string
 whatis         For each package named obtain a one line description
 whichpkg       Find the package that supplies the given command or file

But what I think it's most important in wajig is:
$ wajig installrs package - Install package, including recommended and suggested others
$ wajig list-orphans - List installed libs not required by any installed package
$ wajig purge-depend package - Purge package and libs that would get orphan with the removal
$ wajig purge-orphans - Purge orphaned libraries

Links for today

Links for today:

• Barcamp Portugal is back, this year it will be at the 1st and 2nd of September. Wanna come?
• Starting today, the fantastic OpenMoko can be bought. Only downside is that it doesn't have UMTS. Still, feel free to offer me one ;-)
• One of the things I love on Debian is how easy is to report and keep track of bugs. The task now is even easier.
• Perl 5.9 is full of cool new stuff. BTW, Module::Pluggable rocks.
• Dell os happy with their laptops with Ubuntu experience, and are going to expand the effort outside USA.
• This link won't probably show you nothing, but yesterday had a web client for Second Life. I hope it comes back, the idea is good.
• GNUnet 0.7.2a, a bugfix release, is out.
• BluRay and HD DVD will have a new DRM system. I wonder how long will it survive before it gets cracked.
• Finaly, Steve Wozniak talking about DRM.

Note that today I didn't read any of my feeds, so maybe there's a war out there and I'm just giving you old news...

Mark Shuttleworth speaks about DRM

Mark Shuttleworth, the guy behind Ubuntu, wrote in his blog a piece about DRM. He starts by talking by the latest news on Hard Disks manufacturing, CSS (not cascading stylesheets but the DVD's CSS), DVD regions, DRM, the evolution of the marketplace, the business models around DRM, and why is DRM funcamentally wrong.

Highly recommended reading.

Microsoft Windows Vienna

I'm not sure why, maybe it was because this will make people stop talking about how bad Windows Vista is. Microsoft filled a patent application, obviously describing what are they planning to release as the next version of Windows, formerly known as Blackcomb, now named as Windows Vienna, and scheduled to be released between 2009 and 2012.

I read it yesterday and almost choke on my dinner, and probably my humor got affected by it in the Lisbon.pm social meeting that happened after it.

What's all this fuss about it?

Imagine a world where you have a really limited choice of hardware to buy. The brand and manufacturer doesn't really matter, so you'll ignore those. You'll just have the "bad motherboard", the "good motherboard" and the "awsome motherboard". And they're expensive - more than now. After buying your computer (and by computer I mean - for the desktop market - a black box, a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse), you'll have to buy the operating system. No, listen to me, you have to pay for it: your hardware won't run anything else but this Operating System. Right. Now, you bought it (well, probably it came bundled with the machine you just bought as well), go home and turn it on. WELCOME TO MICROSOFT WINDOWS VIENNA! And there are those... err... four big buttons: "Install Software", "Install Hardware", "Suspend" and "Shutdown". They can even do something like the actual Nintendo Wii interface: you have a square for one of those things and free space for some more. Now, you want to buy a word processor, because you bought this computer to write some documents, and you want to do it online because you don't want to get out of home. So, you connect your USB modem on your computer and you're notified "ILLEGAL SOFTWARE DETECTION - THAT MODEM ISN'T VIENNA CERTIFIED". Yup, welcome to the Trusted Computer Era. So, you call to your retailer and ask for certidied Vienna modems, you reserve one and the next day you go to the store to buy it.

Now, I could continue this story (I have better things to do, sorry) for a big load of time, to show you how desparetedly bad this is. If hardware manufacturers want to sell hardware where Windows runs, they'll have to pay - a lot - to Microsoft. If a user wants one functionality - any functionality (yes, including minesweeper) - will have to pay - a lot - to Microsoft. This is valid to any 3rd-party software: it will only work on Windows if Microsoft DRM system accepts it: pay. It will limit your hardware usage: if you want to have high bandwith you'll have to start paying twice: still to your ISP and now to Microsoft so they unblocks your hardware and let's it use another well-defined bandwith. It will even act on your harddrive space and speed, your processor, your motherboard, your life. Every site you visit must be "trusted" - by them. Maybe this will stop the worries of Google and Yahoo! on censorship: Microsoft will do it for them. Of course that, in this scenario, both Google and Yahoo! are useless... but I digress.

If you think that this dystopian view is way to exagerated, please read about this issue from some people that are better explaining the issue than me, or from those that are good in giving your a legal interpretation of the patent.

I have to start to agree with Paula about all this thing going around the "social web" - services instead of products and the lack of privacy and ultimately freedom that comes with it. Microsoft is aiming it fiercily - maybe it's time to really act and actively do something to fix Ubuntu's bug #1... Before 2009.