Category Archives: Linux

Recent Tech Links: Unmaintainable Code, XKCD on The Cloud and More

Posted on June 18, 2011 by Kelson

Posted in Comics, Computers/Internet, Linux, Web Design | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

I just watched TRON: Legacy. All the talk of free software, free systems, etc. made me realize: the plot of the original (1982) movie can be summarized as “Information wants to be free.”

Posted on January 1, 2011 by Kelson | 2 Comments

Setting up a Wireless Network on Linux: Ralink 3062 and Network Manager

Posted on August 28, 2010 by Kelson

Ah, memories! These days, setting up hardware on Linux is often easier than it is in Windows. Lots of drivers are built-in and auto-detected, and many are provided through a distribution channel that makes it almost as easy.

Wireless networking, however, is a bit of a throwback to the old days. Half the hardware doesn’t have Linux drivers, and half of the devices that do require you to hunt for the driver — based on the chipset, of course, not on the name or model number on the box — and compile it yourself. (At least these days, you can sometimes run a tool to adapt the Windows drivers if there’s no native Linux option.)

The steps I actually needed to take to set up wifi on my Fedora 13 desktop probably only amounted to about 10 minutes. Unfortunately it took a lot of false starts to get there. I had installed a Zonet ZEW1642 PCI card, which my initial research suggested would be supported by the built-in rt2860 drivers. As it turned out, it wasn’t that simple. Continue reading →

Posted in Linux, Troubleshooting | Tagged , , , , | 17 Comments

Mac OS X Finder Deleting Files on a Linux Share (Solved)

Posted on June 20, 2010 by Kelson

Last week I connected to my Linux desktop from my Mac laptop, and Finder wouldn’t let me copy files over to the Linux box. Even stranger, it would delete the original file on the share after stating that it didn’t have permission to access it!

The error message it kept popping up was:

The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have permission to access some of the items.

So it didn’t have permission to access or save the items, but it had permission to delete them? Clearly the error message wasn’t telling the whole story!

Even stranger: if I opened a file with an application like TextWrangler or NeoOffice, they had no problem saving it! It was only Finder that had the problem!

Now, I’ve successfully transferred files back and forth between these computers many times before, but I had changed two things recently:

  • Upgraded the Linux box to Fedora 13.
  • Installed the Mac OS X 10.6.4 update to Snow Leopard.

I didn’t have much luck searching online, maybe because I was looking for the wrong terms. The closest I came up with were discussions like this one, but they all involved a server using netatalk or other AFP file sharing implementations. I’ve been using samba (Windows-Style SMB shares) on the Linux box ever since I had some problems with Netatalk and decided that since the Mac would connect via Samba, I wouldn’t worry about it.

I idly posted the problem on Twitter. My brother replied that he’d run into the same problem (on Ubuntu, IIRC), and suggested turning off Unix extensions in Samba. That meant opening up /etc/samba/smb.conf on the Linux box and adding the following line to the “Filesystem Options” section:

unix extensions = no

I restarted Samba on the Linux box, and that was it. The Mac was able to copy files over without any errors!

I hope this post helps someone else solve the same problem.

Posted in Apple, Linux, Troubleshooting | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Nepomuk

Posted on March 18, 2010 by Kelson

I think I finally fixed it.

This stupid “OMG Nepomuk is not running!” error has been dogging me every time I launch KMail, ever since Fedora upgraded KDE. I followed all the directions on fixing Akonadi, and nothing worked. Finally, it turned out that there was a config file telling it to load the old-style “redland” database — which doesn’t exist in current versions of Nepomuk — instead of the new “virtuoso” database.

The file was in ~.kde/share/config/nepomukserverrc and the item in question is “Used Soprano Backend.” I changed it from “redland” to “virtuosobackend” as described here and now it actually starts Nepomuk, and KMail doesn’t complain when I start it!

Someone at KDE decided to massively overcomplicate things!

*grumble*

Posted in Linux, Troubleshooting | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Dissonance

Posted on November 28, 2009 by Kelson
  • Contrast in the waiting room at the car dealer’s service department: A sad death scene in the movie on TV vs. polka-sounding video game music from a few chairs over. #
  • *sigh* I upgraded my Linux box to Fedora 12 in hopes that it would fix sound. Instead it broke suspend/resume – which I’d rather have on this system if I could only choose one. #

Posted in Linux, Strange World | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Wednesday Bits and Bytes

Posted on November 25, 2009 by Kelson
  • I finally uninstalled I Tweet. Twidroid Pro does enough that I don’t need two Twitter clients on my phone anymore. #
  • Grr. Since the last patch day, my USB keyboard randomly stops working 2–3 times/day. System Restore would be nice…if it actually worked. #
  • I’m trying to remember when the BOFH attitude prevalent on antispam mailing lists didn’t bother me. #
  • It’s weird how suddenly reporting spam turns into a bad thing because someone (else) might make money with that knowledge. #
  • How to fix Adobe AIR in Fedora 12. #

Posted in Computers/Internet, Linux | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hear me!

Posted on November 13, 2009 by Kelson

Vertical Horizon: Burning the DaysA few minutes ago I was trying to fix sound on my Linux box. Nothing would play, until Katie heard it beep to notify me of a new Twitter message. I closed Twhirl and suddenly my music player worked. The song lined up? Vertical Horizon’s “All is Said and Done.” The first line of the song? “I need you to hear me.” That gave us both a good laugh.

I thought a major point of PulseAudio was to let applications share the sound card cleanly. *grumble* Sound worked fine before Fedora switched. I can’t even blame it on a bleeding-edge distribution, since from what I hear, Ubuntu has similar problems.

At least now I know (sort of) why it stopped again after applying the Complete guide to fix PulseAudio and video/audio VLC Media Player issues.

Posted in Annoyances, Linux, Music | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Cold Stone Fedora

Posted on June 30, 2009 by Kelson
  • Smell of waffle cones from Cold Stone makes me wish I could eat there. Ice cream vs allergies. #
  • Ran into one snafu w/Fedora11: xkb error popups every time I wake the computer from suspend. Resetting keyboard worked. #

Posted in Food, Linux | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Impressed by Smooth Fedora 11 Upgrade

Posted on June 25, 2009 by Kelson

Fedora LogoA few days ago, my Linux desktop at work popped up a message saying that Fedora 11 was available, and asking whether I wanted to upgrade automatically. Well, I didn’t have time to deal with it then, and in the past when I’ve upgraded Fedora (either from a CD or from a downloaded image), it’s been a big production, what with running the installer, rebooting, installing updates, updating third-party repositories, and finally rebooting again after all the updates are installed.

So I put it off for a few days.

Today I decided to try it.

The automatic upgrade program is called preupgrade, presumably because it downloads everything you need in order to prepare for the upgrade. It downloads everything while your system is up and running, then sets it up so that when you reboot, it will launch the installer. It installs everything, makes the changes, then reboots into the newly upgraded system.

And then it’s done.

It’s network aware, and works through yum, so it will actually take into account both third-party repositories and anything that’s been updated since the new release. It actually went out to livna.org RPM Fusion and picked up the appropriate NVIDIA display drivers.

Download while you work. Reboot. Wait. Done.

The only snafu I ran into was that it removed my copy of the Flash plugin, but I think I was using the experimental 64-bit one anyway, so it’s not terribly surprising.

I get the impression that Ubuntu has had a similarly smooth upgrade process for a while. And after my experiences moving from Fedora 9 to Fedora 10, I was seriously considering jumping ship. (Hazards of living on the bleeding edge.) But it looks like I won’t have to.

Now I just have to find time to play around and see what’s new!

Posted in Linux | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments